Meta

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Kate

Do you have a blog? I know a lot of you do, but a lot of you out there don’t. For a while, back when I first started blogging years ago, there was a brief, glorious period of time when almost all of my friends had blogs of their own. Most of those blogs have slowly died or sit languishing in internet limbo these days, still up but without any new posts in the last couple of years. I loved it back then, though: seeing another side of my friends, getting to look at their lives in writing and photography and sharing stories online. It didn’t matter if these were friends I worked with, went to school with, talked with on the phone, or went out to the bar with every week — I still loved following their lives online.

I wish everyone still had blogs, man. I miss all that. Of course most of us are on Twitter. Facebook, for my purposes, does NOT count. I believe the adage is true: Facebook is where you learn to hate the people you know; Twitter is where you learn to love the people you’ve never met.

I also have all of my online friends that I’ve met through various outlets (blogging, Twitter, Flickr, DailyMile, and so on) whom I correspond with in writing, pictures, training updates, and 140-character witticisms all day long. I LOVE that. Just love it. We get to know each other through the pieces of our lives we share online, whether it’s personal narratives, recipes, workouts, or anything else. Friendships grow out of that.

What’s funny is that if all my in-person friends had blogs, I would be OBSESSIVELY reading them. If I met someone new and we became friends and I found out the person had a blog? You had better bet I would begin archive stalking post haste. You could simply not stop me from devouring each and every post. People writing about their lives is one of my very, very favorite things to read and one of my favorite ways to get to know someone.

If you’re here reading this blog, you probably feel the same way. You probably read plenty of blogs and enjoy following them on the regular. Cheers to you, like-minded person on the internet!

But here’s something I wonder about — a few things, really:

Do you have friends in person who know about your blog but don’t read it? Or, do you have in-person friends whose blogs you don’t read?

Do your in-person friends bring up things they read on your blog when they talk to you, or is it like what happens on the blog stays there? Do you assume your friends read your blog, or not?

I am curious about how these things work in other people’s lives — I have a few friends who will call me up and we’ll get to talking and they’ll say, “Oh, I read about X on your blog, what’s happening with that?” and then we’ll have a chat about it. And then I have other friends who are like, “Hey, is it cool if I ask you about that Y thing on your blog?” which of course it is, so we have a chat about that. And then there are those who are all, “Hey, what ever happened with Z?” and I’m all, “DID YOU NOT READ MY BLOG HELLOOOO,” just like Barney Stinson, and they get all awkward like, “Um, no, I have better things to do, PLEASE.”

So it’s a mixed bag over here. What do you think? How does blogging (or other social media) intersect with, you know, your “real” life?

Sprints of Various Types

Posted on May 22, 2011 by Kate

My weekend has been so busy (in a completely lovely way) that I thought for sure I wouldn’t have time to do all the domestic things I wanted to do: clean the house top to bottom, take recycling to the center, do laundry. And I was right; I didn’t have enough time. However, I just came home from a friend’s house, put on a good album (Adele), and cleaned the house sprint style for about 30 minutes.

It is amazing what a huge difference just a half hour can make. I completely picked up my living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. All of the accumulated clutter, discarded shoes, mail, and random items? Gone. I took out all of the trash, cleaned the cat box, wiped down the counters in the kitchen and bathroom, vacuumed, dusted, and Febreezed. Oh yes, I did. Granted, the vaccuuming and dusting were pretty cursory and I didn’t touch the tub/shower or kitchen floor. STILL. I feel incredibly better about the state of my home after only 30 minutes of concentrated effort.

I got the sprint idea from Jane Espenson, whom I follow on Twitter. If you don’t know her, you must not be a fan of Buffy, Gilmore Girls, Battlestar Galactica, Caprica, Dollhouse, or any of the other amazing shows she has written/produced. Jane Espenson is awesome. Anyway, on Twitter, she will occasionally announce a writing sprint, where she asks people to join her in 30 minutes or so of concentrated, distraction-free effort on whatever project (writing or not) that they have been putting off. I LOVE the concept. Of course, you don’t have to wait for Jane to announce a sprint — I do sprints with paper-grading really often, and occasionally with cleaning, responding to emails, paperwork, or other such tasks. Oddly, I don’t use this as much with writing, but that’s probably because with writing I like to linger over things for longer periods.

I just thought I’d share the concept with you in case you can use it. It really is incredibly effective. I went from getting home at 4:30 feeling that I had used up all the time I had for domestic stuff to sitting here just after 5:00 having markedly improved my home situation. BAM. DONE.

Anyway, the second week of classes is about to start and I have a feeling that sprinting is going to become a big part of my life this summer. Sure, I’ll be putting in plenty of speed workouts at the track, but I’ll also be busy enough to need today’s kind of sprint, too.

So what was I so busy with all weekend? Well, I shall show and tell you. Friday morning before work was the first official swim of the triathlon training season. I was worried I’d be tempted to blow it off (swimming is not my favorite; I swear, it feels like one long session with the neti pot if you ask me), but I tweeted a promise to go to the pool and then I felt all accountable and shit, so I went. I tweeted this when I got there, just for proof:

Friday afternoon/evening I spent some MORE time at the pool, but in this case I was with my friend B., relaxing, getting some sun (don’t worry, I was sporting SPF 70; I am Nordic after all), dangling our feet in the pool, and chatting.

Saturday morning we went on a four-mile run and then that evening I attended an engagement party for my friend S. It was a blast, even though I didn’t know most of the folks there. Her fiancé’s family are super fun and were great hosts. They made us feel welcome, like we’d been friends forever, and even had plenty of vegan-friendly food on hand.

Today I was supposed to have a group bike ride, but it turned into a solo ride as my bike friends bailed. I wound up doing 20 miles even though I only planned to do 15 — when I wound up home at about mile 17, I just figured, why not make it an even 20? It’s only three more miles! I felt great the whole time. I am just loving the bike this summer, I gotta tell you.

This afternoon: hanging with the gals, looking at S’s wedding dress, drinking champagne just because, and checking out her AWESOME new dance game on X-Box Kinect. I’ve never been a fan of video games, but that looked super fun. I think we are all going to try it out together soon.

And that brings us to the cleaning sprint and this here blog post. Whew. That is what a weekend looks like when you are trying to work, hold together a social life, and train for a triathlon at the same time. Busy but really good. Your laundry might not get done. Life is still good, though. How about you?

Summer Plans

Posted on May 18, 2011 by Kate

Good day, friends! It is the last day before classes start for the summer, a.k.a. my last day of “freedom” before I am overwhelmed again. I stopped by my office to copy syllabi this morning, but now the rest of the day is mine. MINE I TELL YOU!

Whew. I had better enjoy it. My plans for the summer are busy indeed. I will be teaching in the special program for incoming freshmen again — a four week course that preps them for college writing — plus I’ll be teaching one five-week intensive literature course and one ten-week literature course. The three courses overlap in potentially confusing ways, so I have set up my google calendar to sync to both of my computers and to my phone and I have entered everything in and color coded it and all. Just hoping I can hold it together and not walk into my little freshmen’s class and try to teach them world lit 2 or something. Yikes. The best defense is good preparation, I think.

And that’s just teaching! I will also be moving into a new apartment at the end of July. It’s narrowed down to two choices: the preferred one that may not have a spot for me and the less preferred but still nice one that definitely has a spot. I’ll be happy in either place, and mostly very happy to be leaving my current place behind. I don’t want to gripe about it too much, so I’ll just say: ongoing plumbing issues, generally poor quality, and a population of neighbors that has been steadily trending downward in recent years. Anyway! New horizons (and washers/dryers) await.

On the sporting front, I have decided to train for at least one triathlon this summer, and I’ve just registered for a women’s sprint tri on August 7th. Bring on the swimming, biking, and running! There are a couple of other ones taking place in September that I might also add to the schedule — at least one, anyway — but we’ll see. I’m also aiming for a half marathon in the fall. Maybe Montgomery in October or Savannah in November. Maybe both!

So things are looking to get really good and busy up in here any moment now. But for today, I am taking my time, walking everywhere I need to go (just to enjoy the gorgeous weather), and I am currently sitting in the coffee/book shop, drinking a latte, and writing this post. Tomorrow the chaos begins, but for today, there is this:

Gorgeous day on campus. So glad I didn't drive!

So what’s on your plate this summer?

String Theory

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Kate

“The hardest knot is but a meandering string; tough to the finger nails, but really a matter of lazy and graceful loopings. The eye undoes it, while clumsy fingers bleed. He (the dying man) was that knot, and he would be untied at once, if he could manage to see and follow the thread. And not only himself, everything would be unravelled, — everything that he might imagine in our childish terms of space and time, both being riddles invented by man as riddles, and thus coming back at us: the boomerangs of nonsense… Now he had caught something real, which had nothing to do with any of the thoughts or feelings, or experiences he might have had in the kindergarten of life….”

– Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

“It is as if the space between [them] were time: an irrevocable quality. It is as though time, no longer running straight before [them] in a diminishing line, now runs parallel between [them] like a looping string, the distance being the doubling accretion of the thread and not the interval between.”

– William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“If you could just ravel out into time. That would be nice. It would be nice if you could just ravel out into time.”

– William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“The spiral is a spiritualized circle. In the spiral form, the circle, uncoiled, unwound, has ceased to be vicious; it has been set free. I thought this up when I was a schoolboy, and I also discovered that Hegel’s triadic series (so popular in old Russia) expressed merely the essential spirality of all things in their relation to time. Twirl follows twirl, and every synthesis is the thesis of the next series. If we consider the simple spiral, three stages may be distinguished in it, corresponding to those of the triad: We can call ‘thetic’ the small curve or arc that initiates the convolution centrally; ‘antithetic’ the larger arc that faces the first in the process of continuing it; and ‘synthetic’ the still ampler arc that continues the second while following the first along the outer side. And so on.”

– Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory

From the Oxford English Dictionary:

thread, n. 7. A thread in various mythological or legendary tales (esp. that of Theseus in the Cretan Labyrinth) is mentioned as the means of finding the way through a labyrinth or maze: hence in many figurative applications: That which guides through a maze, perplexity, difficulty, or intricate investigation. See clew, n.

thread, n. 8. That which connects the successive points in anything, esp. a narrative, train of thought, or the like; the sequence of events or ideas continuing through the whole course of anything; train. Esp. in phr. to pick (or take) up the thread(s) (of) , to continue (with) after an interruption or separation; spec. to resume an interrupted friendship; to lose the thread , to cease to follow the sense of what is being said.

clew, n. 7.b. With the literal sense obscured: An indication to follow, a slight direction, a ‘key’. See clue n., the prevalent spelling.

clue, n. 2.b. With the literal sense obscured: That which points the way, indicates a solution, or puts one on the track of a discovery; a key. Esp. a piece of evidence useful in the detection of a crime.

clue, n. 3. Any figurative ‘thread’: 3.a. the thread of a discourse, of thought, of history, tendency, etc.

denouement, n. A Romanic formation: Latin dis- + nodāre to knot, nodus knot. Unravelling; spec. the final unravelling of the complications of a plot in a drama, novel, etc.; the catastrophe; transf. the final solution or issue of a complication, difficulty, or mystery.

Catching Up

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Kate

I feel quite certain I had a thousand things to catch you all up on, readers, but — having been gone so long — I can now barely remember what they all were. Let’s settle for talking about the highlights, if that’s okay with you.

The Decemberists, one of my all-time favorite bands, had the bad timing to come play in Atlanta during our finals week and on the day of my friend Clarabella’s prespectus defense. Did we let this timing issue stop us from seeing them live and in concert? Of course not. Don’t be silly. Although we both would have preferred a leisurely few days in Atlanta to hang sound, shop, eat, and celebrate our good news (my work thing — more soon — and her having passed the defense), we had to make it the quickest trip ever. The show was wonderful, though, and well worth making the effort to be there.

We were in a huge concert hall in the city with seats up in the nosebleed section — quite different from the smaller, more dive-like venue where we saw them on their amazing Hazards of Love tour (that album is still my favorite of theirs, hands down). It was odd seeing them in such a formal venue and to spend the whole time on our butts in our balcony seats, but they sounded amazing and I was able to get some decent photographs with a 55-200mm lens I borrowed from Brunbec. Love this band.

After the end of final exams and grading at school, I skipped town for a few days of fun visiting Clarabella & Family in Mississippi. We needed some time to actually hang out, after all! We had big plans that included watching her four-year-old son play T-ball, lounging around, sipping adult beverages, and — oh yeah! — finally getting the literary tattoos of our dreams. You’ll have to wait to hear more about that because it deserves its own post.

At any rate, here are some of the best photographs of the weekend:

More to come soon on the tattoo, and more probably later this summer on the work developments. For now, I am going to sit back in this coffee shop with this latte and enjoy one of the last free afternoons I’ll have for a while. School starts for summer term on Thursday (can you believe it?!) and it will be back to work for me once more.

Effing the Ineffable

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Monthly Archives: May 2011

Meta

Sprints of Various Types

Summer Plans

String Theory

Catching Up