Resolved: That that that be that.

January 1, 2011


Happy New Year!!!


In celebration, I’ve decided to return to a tradition begun two years ago, and continued last year–that of the New Year’s Un-Resolution, otherwise known as stating the obvious. 🙂

In review: this year I did not become addicted to Facebook applications. I still dance around my kitchen on a regular basis, but I try not to crash into the refrigerator. I did read the Twilight books, but still make fun of them. I drank no more or less coffee than I drank this year. Computers…no comment, Linus. Random comments–check. I do not own rubber rain boots. Artistic talent? ha, but I’ve added painting glass vases with fabric paint. Griping about shoes–infrequently. Another post like last year’s? You’re reading it, aren’t you?

Well, in that light, I guess I’m obliged. Unless I’m not.

Timpaniroll, please… *\. /*^*\……./**^**

Un-Resolution number ONE

I will not eat my decomposing gingerbread house that has been sitting out for a month.

Un-Resolution number TWO

I will probably in all likelihood with a >1 probability continue to back up my computer files in at least three locations and yet still manage to lose a few by the end of the year.

Un-Resolution number THREE

I will stay strong in my ongoing and bloody battle with all stairs on earth. Stairs on Mercury might be safer. Lower gravity and burning up before you hit the ground and all.

Un-Resolution number FOUR

I will continue to never think about David Lynch’s film Inland Empire ever again.

Un-Resolution number FIVE

When I write I will always remember that ridiculously long sentences are challenging for readers to follow because they incorporate so many different elements that the ones with which the sentence began get lost in the ensuing chaos that flows from divergent modes of thought about abstract concepts like the value of utilitarianism or the precise literary interpretation of the scene in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when the flowerpot chases a white rabbit down a fireplace and eats all the cookies that were meant for Santa.

Un-Resolution number SIX

I will justify the hours I spend on Facebook by dividing that number by the total cups of coffee I consume per week and labeling the whole problem an irrational number symbolized by a Greek word that will be mistaken for a sorority name.

Un-Resolution number SEVEN

I will not spend unnecessary hours in my study carrel. Except in utter desperation.

Un-Resolution number EIGHT

I will not, at the precise moment it is needed, remember where I put the document that I have previously sworn never to need again.

Un-Resolution number NINE

I will not try unsuccessfully to stop smiling in the midst of a good waltz.

Un-Resolution number TEN

I might un-resolve to un-resolve to resolve to fulfill a resolution by failing to fulfill a single resolution I resolved to un-resolve to resolve. Have fun with that one!

Another timpaniroll, just for kicks, and…

Good to meet you 2011!!!

Driving Christmas…Somewhere

A few nights ago, I drove around town with a friend to look at all the Christmas lights.

Lots of elegant white lights, some half-lit reindeer, wreaths galore, get-the-party-started multicolored lights, Santa on a motorcycle, baby light-up geese beneath a light-up palm tree, and party-foul excessive neon blue lights later, I’d say it was a success.

Today, I took a drive in the country. Sometimes I forget the culture shift that happens a few miles outside of the town limits.

For example…

A store called “Gobble and Grunt.”

An in-house shop called “Vestal Sock Outlet.”

And my favorite, “Take Two Movies and Tanning.”

The name pretty much says it all…

Grass Two-Con: productivity starts now

Just when you thought computer filters had jumped the shark, made like a flip phone, and gone the way of the penny gumball, a new development in Internet Addiction Management proves they’re still in it to win it.

Announcing the unveiling of Grass Two-Con, the revolutionary new version of Parental Controls developed uniquely for graduate students.

Fully customizable on a variety of levels, the GTC maneuvers users along a continuum of access based on school calendar, proximity of project due dates, and stress level (as measured by a new super-sensitive keyboard that records fingertip perspiration and pulse).

Websites can be unconditionally blocked, placed on a time limit, or limited to a set number of visits per hour.

Academic job outlook sites are strictly off-limits.

The lowest level of security is the Iwoc level (initial week of classes–not to be confused with ewok). Most websites are permitted, but a time limit is applied to the Facebook pages of new classmates.

The middle range places increasing restrictions on sites including but not limited to:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Etsy
LiveJournal
Blogger
WordPress
ICanHasCheezburger
IMDB
PhD Comics
____________ (fully customizable)

Auditory sensors can also be added to filter out babies, cute animals, or wedding photos that elicit an “awww” response in the upper register of the voice.

Discipline-specific filters may permit additional access to news media for students in communication studies and political science. English grads have the option to add a time-sensitive neon flashing pop-up instructing them to “Go Read a Book Already!” if they linger on one page for longer than 30 seconds.

At the upper end of the spectrum is the Osafsotiabohaw Level (one step away from shutting off the Internet and banging one’s head against walls). In this mode, Internet access is restricted to the library’s website, peer-reviewed databases, and mental health care provider sites.

All other sites are

[GTC Error Message: We’re sorry. This page has been added to the proprietor’s list of restricted sites. Limited access will be restored after finals week is over.]

Refrain of the Week

This week, I’m thinking about taking a page from Melville’s book and adopting a new refrain from Bartleby the Scrivener.

Thesis prospectus? I would prefer not to.

Please notify the department of your final thesis committee: I would prefer not to.

Final papers? I would prefer not to.

Off-month budgeting? I would prefer not to.

Planning for next year? I would prefer not to.

Making decisions? I would prefer not to.

It worked for Bartleby, right?

Well…

Epic Thanksgiving in Two Parts

Thanksgiving is like a giant “Don’t Panic” sign in the midst of a galaxy full of exam- and school-related Vogons.

Thanksgiving in the South, I might add, is a cultural experience unlike any other.

You Might Be at a Southern Potluck If…

…you ask, “was that pimento cheese in my corn casserole?”
…walking by another woman carrying the same dessert is a travesty akin to seeing another woman in the same Dior dress.
…to keep the peace, you must take a spoonful of each homemade applesauce. The respective owners will have a running tally of whose dish is emptier, and it might come to blows.
…watching what you eat means you forgo thirds and skip straight to dessert.
…the vegetarian option is to eat around the ham in the green bean casserole.
…normal laws of fractions don’t apply when you eat “just a sliver” of multiple kinds of pie.
…cooking, eating, hospitality, and complimenting the cook are 100% still art forms.

Beyond the Bounty

(…the quilted quicker picker-upper)

Thanksgiving is definitely about more than the food, however. This year, I’ve managed to renew my fear and utter, complete, total, infinite loathing of the sound of styrofoam squeaking against itself. It brings back memories of easing frosted china figurines out of a thick shell of styrofoam for the family snow village. Fingernails on a chalkboard x 10 to the power of 10. Shiver.

What being the resident English grad student means is that I can’t escape the Shakespeare recitation after Thanksgiving dinner, with its panicked mid-Julius Caesar memory check to make sure there are no sexual innuendos in the piece I’ve started declaiming.

There’s also the glorious experience of sitting in Denny’s and drinking enormous whipped-cream topped coffees with my sis and brother-to-be because nothing else is open on Thanksgiving evening. Let’s not forget the small child in the restroom who looks through the crack in the stall door and asks “Who’s that?”

On the way home, there’s that magical moment of turning on Christmas music for the drive and singing along, loudly. With it comes the overnight multiplication of bundled up Christmas trees on other cars’ roof racks. And knowing that I’m enjoying the warmth of bed while the madness of Black Friday shopping goes on without me.

The Don’t Panic sign starts to blink feebly on Friday, and by Saturday, it’s needing new batteries desperately. But after all, panic is the best motivation, and I can always justify the time off from schoolwork by saying confidently, “Imagine the time I’ll save on eating during finals week because I’m still stuffed from Thanksgiving dinner(s)!”

Not Just Me Anymore

Well, it’s happened. After twenty-plus years of questions about “anyone special?”, I’ve finally found myself in a relationship.**

Sad to say, it’s not been a healthy one. In fact, it’s decidedly problematic.

But at least I’ve reached the point when I can finally admit it.

I, Jen, am in a very unhealthy relationship with this fellow called Time. You could call it co-dependent. Obsessive wouldn’t be off the mark. Over-protective? Yep. Controlling? Oh yes.

See, My Time is not only the name of a racehorse in Walter Farley’s Black Stallion series; it’s also the most common way in which I approach time. As a result, I’ve developed a rather irritating refrain this year: I don’t have time. I need more time.

This semester, in the midst of reading British novels like Jane Eyre and Frankenstein, I’ve noticed that one of the motifs I pick out is what I usually notate as “the tyranny of time.” The characters in these novels structure their stories within a framework of time: they apologize for the passage of time unmarked; they initiate and conclude events by referencing the time of day; their subjectivity is closely linked to their appropriation of time.

If these literary characters are subject to the tyranny of time, I haven’t got a prayer. Busy-ness is part of the contract in graduate school, and in one respect, it’s non-negotiable. But I’m starting to think that there’s a difference between treating time as something to be wrung, manipulated, fractured, and hoarded; and as something to be mindful of and to preserve wisely in order to be generous with.

When I’m sitting in my tiny metal cubicle at 3 a.m., I think about these things. But it’s one thing to wax poetic about the tyranny of time and yet another to translate thought into action. How to make that distinction in a day-to-day life that flees past me from job to job and assignment to procrastination technique (i.e. blogging) is another matter all together.

…

…

Well, call me a geek, but what would it look like if, “All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you”?

Given to, not owned by. Maybe that’s a starting point.

Switching off the Internet might not be a bad idea either.

**Made you look. 😉

Time is leaving us behind

The magic of Standard Time is that my body doesn’t know about it.

Ergo, although it takes a little more effort to stay up at night, I’m now waking up (thank you internal alarm clock) a full hour earlier!

P-R-O-D-U-C-T-I-V-I-T-Y!!!

(theoretically, that is.)