Machines need rest, too: an animistic theory of the universe

Just to clarify: I don't really believe that there's a mystic connection between machines and human beings, since (sorry, Tracy Kidder) machines don't have souls.

But it sure helps to act as if they do, doesn't it? Do you stand there in front of a class and mutter "come on, come on" when a particularly balky overhead projector or computer is creaking slowly through its deliberate startup routine?

Do you maybe think to yourself, "Right, then--if you want to be that way about it" when about 1 time in every 10 it won't work at all for no apparent reason? If I weren't in front of a class when that happened, I'd go through the startup routine until I figured out the problem by eliminating variables, but for some reason students seem to find this a less-than-gripping entertainment when they're ready to talk about literature, so I don't do that any more.

Do you ever feel a mixture of bracing yourself up for battle and a willingness to accept defeat when you're trying to use media at a conference, since whatever machine has been set up might take a dislike to your USB drive or your computer and refuse to show anything but a blue screen?

Have you ever had a machine that just stopped working, and you put it in the garage or just left it turned off for a few months or a year, and then you plug it in and it works again? I've had that happen too many times to count and have simply concluded that machines need rest, too.

Or, closer to home, all of a sudden Firefox stopped showing up for work this week. I don't know whether it was tired of browser duty or what, but I'd click on it, and I'd see it in the "running processes" list, but it never actually opened. After several days of this, I interpreted the theory to mean "sometimes browsers need rest, too" and uninstalled it. I'll reinstall it in a week or so, after it has had its Florida vacation or whatever it needed to recover from its fatigue.

Has any of this happened to you?

Random bullets of the season

• Getting a reprieve of two weeks on that piece of writing--now that's the holiday spirit. Thanks, editor!
• Yes, there are still some recommendation letters to be written. Aren't there always?
• Presents sent to the relatives--check. Cookies made and sent to relatives--check.
  
• I'm not going to the Big Conference this year, since I went to the other Big Conference in my discipline earlier this fall. To everyone who's going--enjoy MLA!
  
• Signs that the new semester may be approaching: a dream in which I show up at two different committee meetings, only to be told "you're not on this committee." Whew, I think--and then realize that it's time to meet my students for a new course, the one I haven't prepped at all.
  
• I read the MLA's new and grim report about the future of jobs but am not going to link to it, since everyone else has, but I will link to this spoof on the 10 Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time (h/t Old is the New New).
  

Happy holidays, everyone!

Off-topic: stop mangling the language, please

Today I had to go to the Literary Post Office, so I thought I would go when it opened rather than waiting for late in the afternoon when the lines are long. Since Chain Supermarket is on the way, I stopped by there as well since except for tomatoes from the garden and some hummus, I'm pretty much out of food.

The guy ahead of me bought one thing--gum, maybe--and got some cash back. "Have a nice day!" the cashier called after him.

Then she turned to me. I had a few things, not much, but I had the reusable, eco-friendly cloth bags I always use with me. The cashiers at Chain Supermarket hate reusable bags, even the branded ones from Chain Supermarket. They don't give you anything back for using them, of course, and they seem to figure that if they can't put your groceries in plastic bags, for an average of 2 items per bag and 10 bags per order, you're wasting their time. Those cloth bags marked me as a troublemaker, right then and there.

I swiped my card and put in to get some cash back. The cashier looked in her drawer, sighed heavily, and realized that she didn't have enough $20 bills to make up the $40 I'd requested. She counted out some $5 bills and turned to me. "For your ease and convenience, ma'am, there's an ATM in the corner." She was clearly annoyed.

Not thinking I'd get a lecture with my groceries, I asked, "But doesn't the ATM charge you a fee?"

"I have no idea. I never use it," she snapped, turning away.

I was too stunned by the rudeness to say anything, because Northern Clime is generally a pretty friendly and non-rude place. What I should have said was "No, my 'ease and convenience' is best served by getting cash back on the groceries. What you're talking about is your 'ease and convenience.'"

But all I could think of is that she was talking in the language of the shopping cart return corrals. Because some highly-paid consultant apparently thought Chain Supermarket should give a reason for returning the shopping carts, and because "Return Carts Here" apparently seemed too rude and abrupt, the signs now say "For your safety and convenience, return carts here" or some such thing.

And none of it is about our safety, ease, or convenience, so why not stop mangling the language and say what you really mean?

[2013: Updated to add: I did tell the store manager, and he said he'd talk to her. She didn't get fired or anything, which is good, but I've never gone through her line again--life's too short. And I've cut down on shopping there by about 85%]

This week

School is back in session. I've been assigned some new things to do in addition to teaching, which means that, with the learning curve and all, I've been too tired to blog. A couple of observations:

• I really like talking to students. I know--that's a duh! moment--but why does it feel more revealing to say that than to say something like "I really like being on sabbatical"? Sabbaticals are nice, and I could use one about now, but liking being on sabbatical is a no-brainer. Liking talking to students--well, to read the Chronicle blogs, it's not as much of a no-brainer.
• "No-brainer" or maybe "no brain" would be a good word for my state after work this week.
• It's a little like having a new baby, as I remember it. When you have a new baby, as Ianqui and K8grrl and AAOYR and others have mentioned, you barely have time to shower because you're so busy, yet if someone asked you to give an account of what you did during the day, it would be hard to say what exactly happened. People wonder how it could be so hard to find the time to shower, but it just is. The time just goes. So it has been this week.
  
• The book I've been dragging around? The book that I'm supposed to be reading in those spare moments? I could save the weight and leave it home for all the workout it has had this week. The only workout has been in my arm muscles.

OT: The no-fail garden

The Bittersweet Girl said that she would like to hear more about my garden, and, since I'm avoiding all thoughts academic right now, I thought I would describe it. It's in an 8' by 8' plot bounded by wooden garden rails or whatever they're called. Some vegetables and fruits are foolproof, and that's the kind I grow.

Tomatoes are pretty foolproof, so I grow a lot of them. Most of the garden usually consists of various kinds of tomatoes, with some heirloom ones like Brandywines and a few hybrid varieties like Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes. Guess which ones yield great tomatoes all summer long and which ones I end up pulling up, with green unripe tomatoes on them, in October after the heavy frosts begin?

Also foolproof: strawberries (picture). They stay there year after year, braving the freezing winter temperatures even if they're not covered by snow. There are no better strawberries than the ones you pluck and eat while they're still warm after brushing off the dirt.

In the foolproof but sneaky category: zucchini and lettuce. Zucchini will grow to the size of a very thick baseball bat if you don't discover it in time. If you let lettuce go, it will grow into a 3' tower. I didn't plant any zucchini this year, and all the lettuce got away from me except for a few bunches. I grew some peas this year, mostly because I found some seeds in the garage from about 10 years ago and thought I'd put them in the ground and see what happened. They grew really well.

Also foolproof: herbs and greens for salad. Right now I have burnet, sorrel, thyme, chives, parsley, a basil plant, cilantro, and lots of mint (picture). You have to put basil in every year, but the others are all perennials or self-sowing, so you don't have to do anything with them. I could have made a lot of salads just out of the garden (and have in years past) if the lettuce towers hadn't taken over when I wasn't looking. At various points in my life I've grown lots more herbs (borage, etc.), but that was back when I baked bread every week and kept a sourdough crock going, too, something that's not going to happen with school starting soon.

In short, if you're in the mood to have a garden but think you can't--well, you can't go wrong with these vegetables.

Back

I'm back from the land of no internets and thought you might like a picture of where I was for some of the time. A few thoughts:

• It is much, much more peaceful living without newspapers, NPR, internet, and television. (Actually, there was a television that got two whole channels, one of which was in English, but it was hardly used.)
• It felt like culture shock to go to a conference, as though I was traveling from the 19th century into the 21st, although I had my computer to anchor me to the present day.
• On the other hand, it is pleasant not to have to go on Spider Patrol before going to sleep at night. I know that Arachnids Are Our Friends when it comes to keeping down the bug population and that spiders are inevitable if you're by the water, but after a couple of nasty bites, you stop preaching peaceful coexistence if the spiders are near where you sleep.
• I tried one more Panera run before returning, but the experience of getting online there was even more disorienting than before--not Panera's fault, but the fault of the culture shock. You know how when you open the oven door when something is baking and you feel a blast of hot air? It really felt like that, although there weren't even any stressful emails.
• Those books I insisted on lugging with me and paying the extra money for another suitcase? I used maybe 1/5 of them.

It's good to be back.

RBOC (still here)

I will write a more substantial post soon, but for now, RBOC--now new and improved, with whining added!

Like the rest of the northern half of the country, I am ready to be finished with snow, snow, bad roads, worse roads, and generally awful weather. I'm a northern person from way back, but come on!

With the shovel, kitty litter, rug, rope, and other accouterments of northern living cluttering up the back of my car, a state trooper from around here would know I'm just ready to dig myself out of a snowbank and not preparing to bury a body. A state trooper from the south would think I'm another Crazy Astronaut Lady, minus the duct tape and diapers.

Classes are going well, and I got another piece of writing out the door this week.

Finished, done, gone, and out the door!

I've just sent the long article, so all told, that's three things sent this week (if you count proposals, and I certainly do count them). That leaves just work for class and a couple more things to get done before Tuesday.

In the meantime, I am lining up the possibilities for non-Superbowl-related amusements:

Shoveling the driveway again. Because like everywhere else in the northern half of the U.S. we've been getting record amounts of snow here in Northern Clime, this has become a daily (or sometimes twice daily) meditation-and-exercise regimen.

Knocking down the deathcicles that are hanging from my eaves. Seriously, one of the icicles is at least three feet long and tilted at an angle that would stab the unwary visitor to death if it were to fall off. There ought to be a murder mystery in which the weapon is an icicle, which would melt away and leave no trace.

Mediating the Cat Deathmatch that keeps erupting because Older Cat has decided to take Younger Cat's place on top of the filing cabinet in the room where I work. Younger Cat considers me her possession and will usually not tolerate any other cats within 5 feet of me, so my concentration keeps getting broken by hisses and yowls.

Clearing the decks for the next set of projects. By the time I've finished writing something, it's as though I'm a bird in the midst of a nest of papers and you can't see the floor anymore. Putting the previous project's copies, drafts, books, and general detritus away somehow gets my brain ready for the next batch.

Discoveries

If you're reading and your attention is wandering, a cup of tea will revive you even better than a square of Dove chocolate. Sadly, this is true.

If the tea doesn't work, a walk does, even if it's 20 degrees and the sun is just a faint white memory behind the bank of dense clouds that's passing for a sky these days.

Snow at this temperature looks and crumbles like pie crust, if you're walking in the road. You feel that you are walking on the edge of a pie.

A reward for the day: trying to catch one of the classic Twilight Zone episodes on the SciFi marathon, a New Year's tradition.

I have books! And now I have books in order!

I keep most of the books I use all the time in the place where I do most of my work (home office, 3 1/2 bookcases), but after a while they multiply and start to double up on the shelves. I have other bookcases in other rooms, but so far they have defied any sense of order.

My attempts to organize them would go like this. I would pick up a book, or several, and then realize that I had Big Decisions to make:
1. Shelve British and American and other lit works together?
2. Shelve criticism with the books or by itself?
3. Shelve books according to interest and taste or alphabetically? For example, do I group about ten of them together because they are in the category "obscure women's autobiographies that I really, really want to read some day" and I will otherwise forget about/lose them if they're in the alphabetical section?

You can guess the next step: I pull a book off a shelf, and, while pondering the imponderable, I sit on the floor and start leafing through it, leaving heaps of strewn books that I'll eventually shove into any old shelf just to get them off the floor.

But today, faced with the prospect of Thanksgiving company, I worked on putting books on shelves where I might have a chance of finding them again. There are still lots of them in heaps on the floor, but hey, the night is young and the people coming for Thanksgiving won't be here for another couple of days.

The downside to Daylight Savings Time

There are two, actually:

1. Waking up at 4:01 a.m. and not being able to go back to sleep.
2. Knowing that with the day's schedule you won't even be home until after 9:30 p.m (10:30 p.m. body time)

And that's why it is called Labor Day

. . . because that's the day when grad students start bombarding you with chapters, introductions, lists, and other things they've been working on all summer. I know how they feel: "There! That's off my desk now, and I can relax!" I also know how I feel: pleased that they've worked so hard, but a little . . . ambivalent about getting this stuff on the day that's an official day of rest. (I know: it's my fault for opening e-mail.)

. . . because the department chair is apparently having some really productive brainstorming sessions today about all the things we can do, meetings we can have, etc. this semester and is e-mailing us about them. Again: not her fault, but mine for opening the e-mail.

. . . because this is the day to wash, rinse, and wax (or non-wax, whatever the stuff is called) the floors in the house before the real beginning of the semester. I wonder if anyone else thinks this the whole way through such a process: "I'll bet that Famous Critic X never has to wash the floors."

. . . because the letters I didn't get written on Friday didn't write themselves over the weekend, and they have to go out tomorrow.

But it's also a day of fun: a six-mile walk (instead of the usual four miles), picking some strawberries and cherry tomatoes out of the garden, and some work that I've been wanting to do for a while.

OT: Slow food for slow days

I think that it's called the "slow food movement" because it's opposed to fast food and wants to promote family dining and local merchandise.

However, I suspect that it's called the slow food movement because every item you put in your shopping basket becomes an exercise in moral dithering: Raised nearby conventional produce or two-states-away organic produce? I know "conventional close by" produce should win, but what if it's something like carrots or potatoes, where you can really taste a difference? Also, what about the people who don't have the luxury of paying extra for the local/organic save-the-planet option?

Fortunately, the area around Northern Clime has a lot of organic farms, some going back generations and some (to judge the age of the proprietors) dating back the early 1970s when people moved here and decided not to (or forgot to) leave. It also has farms with a lot of beans and wheat. At the farmer's market on Saturday, I could purchase the following--all organic, all local--without any dithering at all: several varieties of goat cheese (served at local restaurants for much fancier prices), tomatoes, round green squash, tomatoes, corn, crookneck squash, basil, English peas, small potatoes (purple, red, gold), raspberries, cherries, and, yes, beef for other members of the family. And the best part is that all the vendors had those WIC/Senior Citizens signs to accept food stamps or whatever.

And one more stop on the slow food tour: picking up a metal (ceramic inside) Sigg water bottle so that I can carry water from the Brita pitcher at home instead of buying plastic bottles of the stuff.

These are small steps, but at least they're something.

Morning walk

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Morning walk
Originally uploaded by undines

I have become addicted to my morning walk. The route isn't that special or remote, though I hope to branch out, and it's only about 4 miles total, but it's the first exercise I have actually looked forward to for a long time. When I go to sleep at night, I'm actually excited about getting up early to walk; I don't even have to set the alarm. (Having a cat who thinks that only slackers sleep past 5 a.m. helps, of course.) Hearing and seeing the pheasants (squawk-AWK!) and quail is a nice side benefit, too.

I hope to progress to running and thus to get in shape for some bike rides on the hills around here. They don't look like much, until you're on them.

Just wanted to share something that is so much fun.

Day for Night

In Diary of a Mad Housewife, the heroine reads Proust when she is sick. I had a colleague once who said that she didn't mind being sick because then she caught up on all her theory reading--Foucault, Derrida, and all that.

Theory reading and Proust.. Are they kidding?

The weightiest material I've been able to manage this week is the New York Times online and some blogs. Even that reading fails, though, when you're up and feverish at night. At those moments, television is your best friend.

Since I am usually asleep within seconds, I did not know what insomniacs must have known for years about television in the middle of the night: that dreams of perfection and wealth can be yours if only you follow the instructions of those who have shows at 2:30 a.m. Here is some of what I learned:

People have become rich! rich! rich! (which apparently involves lying around on boats with a cool drink) in real estate with no money down. You can't lose!

A kindly man will show you how to turn on your computer and open up Word if only you get his series of DVDs.

You can buy your own tiny plastic helicopter that really flies and send it careering around your house via remote control, to the probable consternation of your cats and definite danger to the eyes of anyone in its path.

Extremely buff people get that way by using a series of increasingly bizarre contraptions and videotapes at home. This is especially true for a blonde woman who due to cosmetic surgery can no longer move any muscles in her face.

I don't take Nyquil unless I'm desperate because it inspires Hunter S. Thompson-esque dreams and leaves me exhausted the next day, but I'm beginning to wonder if lying there and watching tv when you have a fever doesn't have much the same effect.

Glad it is the weekend? You bet.

This is the kind of day it's been: I called Business X to fight with them (or really to inquire politely) about an error they'd made. I got voicemail and decided to leave a phone message with my phone number.

"Hello, this is Undine Lastname, and I'm calling about Y problem. You can call me at . . . at . . . "

Yes, dear readers, I could not remember my phone number. The number I have had for several years--eleven, to be exact.

I think I'll quit while I'm ahead.

Does any of this count?

As I sat down to work today, I was reminded of the recent conversation between Horace and Tenured Radical about what things count in terms of academic service, citizenship, or what have you. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you my day:

Work-related stuff

Wrote recommendation letter for student who graduated several years ago.

Finished and sent report on a short book proposal.

Read and return proofs for a short article.

Wrote e-mail responses to various people I've never met, answering questions about an author, about copyright, and about other issues. Most of these were of the "here's where you could find the answer to that" kind of replies. In my more self-deluding moments I see this as service to the community at large.

Wrote a gentle response to a grad student (not one of mine) who couldn't figure out where to find a book. I looked it up, pasted in the information, and then suggested that WorldCat could work the same magic for her. (Okay, I didn't use that level of snark in the message.)

Made plane and hotel reservations for upcoming conferences. This always takes about twice as long as I think it will.

Called about a journal subscription.

Home stuff

Shredded and shredded and shredded the usual junk mail and credit card offers, since we're assured that meth addicts are ready to steal our identities if we don't do this. I don't know how so much of this gets sent, since I've opted out of all the mailing lists I could.

Wrote out bills, made online payments, etc.

Walked to the Literary Post Office to mail the bills. This is what passed for exercise today, since I ran as well as walked.

None of the home stuff counts, of course, but that's why I included it: none of the work stuff really counts, either. And yet neither space could continue to function if the tasks on this list and others like it didn't get done.

Snapshots

Most absorbing pastime of the last few days: trying to make the hypothetical fax modem in my computer act like a fax machine. Most frustrating pastime: failing to make it work.

Most common pastime of the past few days. Driving in fog. Driving in fog. Driving in rain. Driving in fog at night. Driving in rain and fog at night. Being grateful that I don't live in a place that can get 10' of snow but gets fog and rain instead.

Other pastimes: Writing award recommendation letters for students. Preparing and teaching class. Reading. Meeting with grad students.

Least common (but pleasant) activities: Walking in the fog (I like the cool mist). Seeing the sun (10 whole minutes the other day!).

Books on the iPod: Simon Schama's Rough Crossings; Gore Vidal's Point to Point Navigation; Simon Winchester's A Crack in the Edge of the World. If you listen to the last one, be forewarned: you'll be 3 hours into it before you get beyond the Paleolithic era.

[Updated to add]
Professor Zero says in the comments that the fax modems in computers never work, and I think that's true. This one is a true diva: it declines to send faxes but is eager to answer my phone and greet callers with a piercing fax whistle. I finally unplugged it.

TGIF

It's been a long week, and, Friday being the traditional night to cut loose and enjoy yourself, I didn't hold back, as you'll see from the following wild activities.

I spent some time playing the piano (at which I am completely terrible. I read music by spelling it out, like a 5-year-old reads words, although I can hear a melody once and at least pick it out on the keyboard).

I watched a movie I'd seen before and fast-forwarded through the dull parts to my favorite parts instead of dutifully watching the whole thing.

We got Chinese takeout food from the good Chinese restaurant rather than the one that's closer to us. For some reason, getting takeout food or going out to eat gives me all kinds of energy to work in the evening, whereas if I cook (even similar dishes), I'm ready to call it quits pretty early. This is a sign that I should get to eat out all the time, don't you think?