WordFlix

Health Matters | Skin Cancer

It's no joke.

I've been diagnosed with malignant melanoma, but so far it's localized, hasn't metastized, and I'm on a three-month watch list for the rest of my life.

An older sister was just diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma. Less serious but still a threat. Fortunately, hers is localized as well.

Get yourselves checked. For all kinds of cancers. Because there are a damn lot of different kinds out there, and as you age (and depending on your family history), they're likely to creep up on you.

I'm the youngest of four siblings and the only one to have had to have a colonoscopy twice in six months. So far, everyone else has been totally clear, and even my own polyps have been benign. Again, so far.

You don't know what's coming down the pike. Live every day to the fullest. 

Ivory Tower | An M.A. Student Gets Her Degree

She was a borderline case, but she wrote me the nicest email after hearing the good news:

I did it!...WE did it! I don't think I can express enough how thankful and grateful I am for all of your help. I learned so much throughout my time in this program about theory,feminism, film and even myself because of you. You challenged me as a student, a thinker and as a person. When I first started this graduate program, I felt like a fish out of water and the only thing I really knew was that I wanted to study film. But after taking courses with you, I began to find a niche. You instilled in me to get past the sweeping generalizations and dig deeper, which is a piece of advice I still carry with me. These past two semesters were indeed challenging ones, but I'm glad I was able to have you as my adviser and mentor throughout them. I promise you I'm not a mushy person at all - quite the contrary, but I just wanted to express my gratitude to you for all your help and time. My level of gratitude and appreciation could be equated to giving you my first born, but I'll just sign off with a simple, Thank you.  ;) 

Enjoy your sabbatical, your time in LA and finishing your book!

Health Matters | Colonoscopy #2

After 36 hours of no food but lots of liquids, I had the second colonoscopy of my life (the first one was just six months ago). A second was called for because, in addition to discovering some rather advanced (but benign) polyps, the MD didn't have a particularly good view of my innards the first time around.  Translation? They had a hard time cleaning me out.

So this time, my gastroenterologist prescribed a stronger solution to wash me out as well as pills. I also began the prep 9 hours ahead of the time called for, and late in the day, I added 6 ExLax pills and one Ducolax suppository. Hey, a chick's got to do what a chick's got to do.  

The last thing I wanted was to have to have a third colonoscopy in the next six months. The procedure just isn't that traumatic, but the prep is a bitch, and um, the procedure itself is expensive.  My copay alone today was well over $400, and that doesn't take into account any of the follow-up labwork. 

Ouch. I can pay it, but I can't afford it, and it's bad timing, coming so close before my Baltic Sea cruise. I hadn't thought the timing through. My bad.  

That said, of course I realize at every turn  that I'm lucky to have health insurance -- and as health insurance goes in this country, mine is pretty good.  (Vision? Not so much -- but there's some. Ditto with dental.)  Even if I didn't like my job (and I do), it's worth it for that alone. On my own? I'd never qualify for private health care. Ever. Too many oreexisting conditions. Obama Care offers some hope for those without insurance and with preexisting conditions, but I'm glad I don't have to depend on the vicissitudes of Congress and who's president to take care of my health.

Really, the state of American health care is freaking appalling. 

After the colonoscopy was over, my husband and I went out for an early lunch. I was craving a burger and ordered a decadent bacon-avocado-cheeseburger with fries.  I ate three fries, divested the burger of its bun, and made my way through it. Let's just say that while it was delicious, it didn't stay down once we got home.  No doubt it was too rich after my 36 hours of abstinence.  

After a nap, I did much better with a protein shake and some chicken noodle soup. 

When will I learn to be moderate? 

Hearth and Home | Grading, Prepping, and Planning

YES! Yesterday was my last formal day on campus, where I was ensconsed in M.A. defenses for the morning (all the students for whom I was responsible did well ... phew!).

Today I'm home grading.  I met my daily quota of term papers about half an hour ago, so I'm going to stop there for the day. Otherwise my brain gets too fried, and I can't give later papers a fair shake.  I expect to be done with all my grading by end of day on Friday -- which is still a couple of days ahead of my original self-imposed deadline -- and then I can concentrate fully on my upcoming Baltic Sea trip and complete any planning I may need to do.

Today is also -- wait for it! -- bowel prep day for tomorrow's conoloscopy. Delightful, eh? The official instructions were for me to start the prep tonight, but I'm sorry: that didn't work so well last time (i.e., I was insufficiently flushed out to get a good, clear view), so I started at 9 a.m. this morning. This time around they've prescribed a stronger solution to swallow as well as pills, and they do seem to be working, Ahem. To be fair, this solution is somehow less disgusting than the first one I had, so that's good. And they prescribed pills as well.  The pharmacist called it overkill. I say bring it on ... only I'd better keep myself hydrated for the next 16 hours or so until they scope me. Once I finish this cup of coffee, I may move on to apple juice (also approved).

Am I hungry? Yes. In theory I can have jello, but hey, I don't like jello. So I'm just drinking clear liquids, coffee (it's allowed -- black, though), and fantasizing about things like bacon avocado cheeseburgers. Ah well, a day of fasting won't kill me.  

On the Baltic trip front, I think I've figured out clothes for the trip and am ready to go on that front, but I'm still looking for the perfect carry-on bag -- which I may try ordering through Amazon Prime. In my previous post, I wrote about snagging a good travel handbag that will stand me in good stead in assorted cities, but that's something different.




These should be the most difficult decisions I have to make, eh? 

And finally? Packing cubes. I've never used them, but I'm going to try them on this trip.

Travel Bug | Travel Handbag

Not chic, but useful for travel to/from Europe and in ports of call.

It should also be big enough -- just -- to hold my MacBook Air.

 I'll back a clutch for use on board ship, but this should do for getting me from city to city. 

You can check it out here.

Travel Bug | Countdown to the Baltic

11 days until i step on the plane to Amsterdam with the purpose of boarding Holland America's Baltic-bound MS Amdsterdam in Rotterdam the next day.

I'm beginning to get excited. :) But I have a lot to do between now and then.

By end of day tomorrow I get hit with 40+ 13-page term papers to grade and, in another class, 11 final presentations.  The latter consist of 60-second films which I can grade as they're shown in class, but the term papers will take a while.  

My goal is to be done with the papers by end of day on Friday -- which wouldn't be a  problem, except that on Tuesday I'll be in graduate thesis and exam defenses for most of the day and on Thursday I have a colonoscopy scheduled (my second in six months, as they didn't get a clear view the first time and had to remove a couple of benign but complicated polyps).  I don't think the latter will take me out for all of Thursday, though: I should be able to get some work done.  However, Wednesday and Friday will have to be the days in which I power through those papers.  I've already seen and commented on rough drafts of the paper, so there won't be a lot to add in comments on the final product, I think. Let's put it this way: I don't intend to write a lot of comments, because I've been commenting all semester.

On the trip preparation front? The tunics and dress I ordered a few weeks ago arrived and are great:  they're pretty, comfortable, and very packable, and they'll work well on my trip. Same goes for the London Fog raincoat I ordered (new) through eBay: sleek, stylish, leightweight, and in one of the few shades of red that I can actually wear.  

Because the first order from Pyramid Collection was so successful (source of tunics and dress), I ordered another three items which have also arrived, and I'm keeping two of them. One is a tunic-length colorful vest that's extremely thin and packable and can be used to accessorize assorted outfits, and the other is a jumper dress in black with steampunk-style red floral inserts.

The third item was a long red dress with cut-out shoulders, and it just didn't suit me when I tried on, so I'm sending it back.

I've decided that I'm packing nothing but shades of back, grey, and red so that all can be mixed and matched. Black scoop-neck tops, black leggings, black crop pants in case it gets hot, black tights.  

There are supposedly four formal nights aboard ship, but that just means dressy, so again, I have some sleek black evening pants and a couple of tops (grey sequins, black sparkles) that can be teamed with a very packable flowing jacket.  Toss in a few colorful scarves and some jewelry to change the looks of things, and I should be fine.  Not interesting, necessarily, but presentable.

Shoes are always an issue for me because I like them so much. I guess I'm taking my knee-length heeled boots, my Mary-Jane style walking shoes that I bought in Boston last year, and my ankle-high steampunk boots with a low heel. The boots will be for the ship. The walking shoes will be for ports of call. All black of course.

Yeah, so as you can see, I'm making lists. I'm also doing things like ordering appropriate text and data plans for my phone so that I can stay in touch with Facebook and my husband while I'm away (calls, however, will be far too pricey). I need to look into electrical currents and chargers aboard ship (Holland America's prices are calculated in U.S. dollars so I hope its electrical system is U.S.-compatible as well, but one should never assume). 

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that I'm trying to get organized now so that when I have only a day or two before my trip after grading is over, I don't have to run around like the proverbial headless chicken.

 

Hearth and Home | The Simple Woman's Daybook 5/4/13

FOR TODAY

Outside my window a warm wind is blowing. It's heating up in California, and the southern half of the state is burning down. (C is okay, though he says he can smell and breathe the smoke from where he is, an hour away.)

I am thinking about how I kind of wasted the day today. I'd decided to give myself the day off from work, but I'm too Type A and goal-oriented to do nothing. I should have thought about it more in advance and come up with a plan for what I wanted to do instead of work. I didn't, and so the day just sort of slipped through my fingers. Hate that.

I am thankful for the approaching end of the semester, the school year, you name it. I need a break, and I'm about to get it: first my cruise, then summer, and then my fall sabbatical. True, summer and fall will both be work-focused, as I need to revise and write parts of my book by December 31. But I'll have that time in which to work on it exclusively.

 

In the kitchen is a whole heck of a lot of barbecued meat (brisket, ribs, and pulled pork), along with some sides, that I picked up from The Smoking Pig. Great place. Nummy food.

I am wearing a white v-necked "It Gets Better" t-shirt and grey lounging pants. Very comfy.

I am creating a plan for the final phase of my research in Los Angeles. My friend and fomer dissertation chair J needs a house/cat-sitter while she goes to Europe for three weeks in June-July -- and I'm it. Fortuitous! A free place to stay while I make final inroads into necessary film archives. Of course, this means I'll be away from my husband for two weeks as I go on my cruise to the Baltic, then home for a week, and then away again for three more weeks.  But he says he's okay with it. Let's face it: he pretty much has to be, as he's retired and doesn't budge from the house these days, except for guitar lessons and occasional meals out. I'm the primary breadwinner at this point (I'm okay with that), I'm the one who's growing her career, and there are prices to pay. He can always come and visit me while I'm away -- though he won't. Because -- all together now -- he rarely leaves the house.

I am going to go to the gym tomorrow. I'm happy that I decided on this particular chain, as it also has locations near where I'll be staying in Los Angeles.  I haven't been paying regular visits yet ... but I'm working on it.

I am wondering whom to see while I'm in Los Angeles. It's likely to be pretty isolating: gym, archives, writing at my friend J's apartment. But that will be good for me and for my work, and there are some friends in the area whom I haven't been able to see on my surgical strike visits to L.A. this past spring.  I'll probably also pay a visit to Santa Barbara to see friends there as well. It will all work out. And while I'll miss my husband and kitties, I'll be able to bond with J's own cat (plural? I don't even know), so that will be much nicer than staying in a hotel!

I am reading Harlequin romances again after a couple of months' break from them. Seriously, I've been too busy this semester to read anything, even recreationally!

I am hoping for a good outcome for my (second) colonoscopy in a week and a half.

I am looking forward to my trip to the Baltic.

I am learning ... um, I don't feel as if I'm learning a lot right now. I'm coasting.

Around the house are the usual assortment of kitties, and my husband is watching TV in the living room. It will be time to join him in a moment.

I am pondering... how best to use my time tomorrow.

A few plans for the rest of the week: gettng through it as best I can. I'm just counting down the days until my trip (19, if you must know!).

Check out the original Simple Woman's Daybook.

Travel Bug | 23 Days Until Amsterdam and Ports North!

Girl Stuff | New Clothes, Part 2

London Fog Carolne Double-Breasted Trench Coast -- deep discount on eBay.  Of course, I think it's going to be too small, but I can send it back for a refund.  

But I hope it works. I need it for my upcoming trip. This jacket, plus a black velvet cloche hat, and an umbrella would do it.

Girl Stuff | New Clothes

I can hear the ticking of the clock, counting off the hours, days, and weeks until the end of the semester and my Baltic cruise.  This evening our university celebrated Honors Convocation, my favorite end-of-the-academic-year event that focuses on Dean's and President's List scholars.  Our program doesn't have a lot of them, but we had a relatively good showing this year, and I enjoyed being there for the students. 

Anyway, it's now less than a month until I can consider myself DONE with the semester (I'm figuring May 20 will be my official last day of the semester, the date on which I file grades). I leave on my cruise three days later. I'm only just now beginning to actively look forward to my trip: I haven't had time to do so before, even though I taught summer school last year on top of my regular teaching schedule in order to be able to pay for the cruise.

I kind of felt like celebrating tonight, and this resulted in my buying some clothing online that I cannot afford but that, yes, I *can* actually pay for.  In other words? I shouldn't have spent the  money -- I should have put it toward spending money for the trip itself, perhaps, or paying down some bills -- but I didn't. Whatever.

So these are the items that should be coming in the mail shortly. 

The first two are tunics and the third is a dress. I figure I'll wear all of them with black or grey leggings and knee-high boots. Not exactly summer fare for California, maybe, but temps will be cooler where I'll be traveling in northern Europe (in fact, I think I need to mail-order a rain jacket in the next few days: I don't have one, and my memory of the northern U.K., at least, in late May includes a lot of rain). I don't like to wear standard-issue American tourist jeans, tops, and running shoes when I travel abroad.

In fact, in general, I'm more comfortable both at home and overseas in something a little more offbeat, a little more stylish and eclectic, and these items seemed to fit the bill.  A touch postmodern in the mix of materials and patterns, a little borderline steampunk.  I'll pack my crushable black velvet cloche hat that recalls the 1920s and  I figure, along with other clothes I already have, I'll be good to go. When I return to university life in January 2014, I can wear these clothes to teach in as well -- so it's not as if I bought them exclusively for the trip.

(And yes, I'd rather obsess on and indulge myself in these trivial issues than deal with the realities of work and end-of-semester stress. I always experience guilt around retail therapy after years of enduring abject poverty, but as my oldest sister observes, "Guilt is cheap." Which is to say, it doesn't stop me. Only financial realities do that.)

Health Matters | Incest

So this morning I was interviewed for a documentary film about incest -- specifically, about one young woman's story of survival.

The filmmakers are former students of mine, and they wanted an older incest survivor's perspective and input. I don't know the young woman whose story they're telling. Each story is different.

I have no idea how much, or how little, of the interview they'll use in the final film. Perhaps nothing.  Whatever their choice, though, I will be fine with it.

Given that most of my healing took place between the ages of 26 and 35 and that I'm now 52, I thought I'd be pretty unaffected by my choice to participate. And, for the most I was -- at least during the on-camera interview. I did tear up in responding to the question, "What would you want to tell you 30-year old self now?" -- for whatever reason. But that was okay.

The difficult part came a few hours later. Historically, I survive stress in the moment very well (I am, after all, a survivor).  My emotional reaction usually comes later. Today was no exception. It wasn't until 4-5 hours after the interview that I had an intense but mercifully brief PTSD response to this morning: hyperventilation, vomiting, crying, and a feeling of intense anxiety and impending doom.  It was pretty awful while it lasted -- but here's the thing: it lasted only for an hour.  An hour, folks. A single hour.

Not several hours. Not a day. Or multiple days. Or a week. A month. A year. Years. (My life between the ages of 26 and 35 were one long PTSD attack.) 

But today? One hour only.

I'd call that a win. 

And I'm glad I participated. 

P.S. C responded at 12:40 a.m. to a text I'd sent him earlier in the day about this "win" -- with a text of his own.Texting etiquette is odd and inconsistent: I assume folks have audio alerts attached to their texts (because I do) and thus I wouldn't text or respond to texts in the wee hours, lest I disturb someone. But others may arrange their own texts differently. Whatever. In the final analysis, I appreciated the response, as C is the only person in my life who would fully understand what my participation in the documentary  (and my ensuing brief reaction to it) was likely to mean to me.

Hearth and Home | The Simple Woman's Daybook: 4/6/13

FOR TODAY

Outside my window is a cool spring evening slowly fading to night.

I am thinking about tomorrow and what I need to do in my classes.  (I think I'm kinda gonna wing it a bit.)

I am thankful for my husband, our kitties, my career, my upcoming cruise, my sabbatical ... basically for all the second chances and good fortune that presented themselves to me so that I could work hard and reinvent my life. (It's not easy but it can be done.)

In the kitchen is a roasted chicken from Safeway and some potato salad. (I didn't feel like cooking, and I don't have the time to do so these days).

I am wearing a black turtleneck, a grey-and-black sweater jacket, jeans, and some extremely cool ankle-length steampunk boots.

I am creating a working plan for my 8 months off from teaching.

I am going to the gym again. I reupped my membership a couple of weeks ago and am giving myself until mid-June to experiment with a routine that will result in a regular 4x/week cardio/weights/core training schedule to see me through summer and my fall sabbatical.  Gym sessions in mid-morning or early afternoon will be my writing breaks during those months.

I am wondering if C and I will manage to be friends going forward. We face a lot of challenges, shared and separate. Don't even know if he and I are on the same page about how and why we want to be friends.  In fact, I'm almost sure we're not.

I am reading nothing at the moment. Too much to do. Mostly I'm watching Downton Abbey.

I am hoping for solace and healing for Boston.

I am looking forward to the end of the school year.

I am learning how to use iMovie.

Around the house is a lot of dirt. When am I going to hire housecleaners on a regular basis?  Probably at the same time I hire a gardener: sometime in the summer.

I am pondering... marriage and competing relationships.  Life is complicated.  You may quote me.

A few plans for the rest of the week: lecturing, grading, meetings with a colleague and with grad students, participating in a documentary on incest (eek).

Check out the original Simple Woman's Daybook.

Health Matters | Asperber's/ASD and external stimuli

This is my husband's response today to distant ambient sound in the neighborhood: birdsong, wind, the occasional barking dog, a passing car ...

Noise-canceling headphones. 

For me? These sounds were unnoticable, unless someone drew mhy attention to them.

For him? They were so stimulating as to be viscerally distressing.

Asperger's patients are hard-wired differently from neurotypical (NT) people, and never am I so clearly reminded of this as when I encounter my husband in an unexpected moment such as this one, when he was trying to relax in our rather overgrown back yard.

Other stimuli -- visual, gustatory, sexual, you-name-it -- are challenging as well. Not always unpleasant, but still different for him than for NT people.

Trippy. :) Even after 13 years. I'm never sure what the larger impications are for our relationship, nor how to deal with those implications.

Hearth and Home | I Love Three Men

Don't color me a romantic.  

Despite my fondness for 1940s weepies and woman's films, as well as Romantic and Victorian novels that end in marriage, I'm something of a cynic. The degree to which I seek romance in genre fiction is the degree to which I believe we all seek and construct (as opposed to find) romantic love (however it's configured) in our real lives. Is that cynical? Ah well, the dividing line between a romantic and a cynic is very, very faint in real life. Six of one and a half dozen of the other, in some ways.

The truth of the matter is, I am a woman whose heart is split among three men -- and that's been true for 13 years now.  One of them goes back to when I was 14, another to when I was 26, and the third to when I was 39. So, for the last 13 years, I've loved all three of them -- deeply, truly, and very differently. And each of them loves me as well and is hugely important in my life, as I know I am in theirs.

I am married (and committed to) one of them, and to him I have been faithful since the day we met.  Fidelity is not the issue: I believe in it within marriage or any committed relationship, if that's what both people want (and we do). I don't anticipate that changing.

No, what's at stake for me now are the vagaries of the human heart. Is any of these men my "soul mate"? (I had a dream once in my late 20s or early 30s in which I met my so-called soul mate, and he told me that we would miss each other in this lifetime ... indeed, he was much younger than I, obviously not age-appropriate, and it was clear in the dream that we would not find each other.)  

I've never forgotten that dream. In fact, I based part of my real-life wedding ceremony many years later on a part of that dream, in which once of my nieces played the violin as I walked down the aisle to be married.

Of course, it was only a dream. I don't believe in multiple lifetimes except as a form of curse or wishful thinking (depending on your point of view), and it's not as if I believe in the concept of "soul mate," either.

Or at least, not a single soul mate. 

But more than one? Perhaps. If we're lucky and if we can tolerate multiplicity and complexity, even as we also maintain clarity, honesty, and boundaries.

Complicated geography, to say the least. Here's to my navigational skills and principles, and to those of the men I love.

Hearth and Home | Simple Woman's Daybook 4/7/13

FOR TODAY

Outside my window are three feral kitties who live in our back yard and have done so for a few years now.

I am thinking about the approaching work week.

I am thankful for my health, my career, my husband, and our family of kitties.

In the kitchen lie the remains of my beef burrito. I had half at 4  p.m. as a late lunch, and I'll have the remaining half for a late dinner.

I am wearing grey exercise pants with a hot pink stripe and a white v-necked "It Gets Better" t-shirt.

I am creating a more centered, peaceful, empowered self.

I am going to try to get myself to go to the gym before work tomorrow.

I am wondering how to improve communication in my marriage to an Asperger's patient. (Yes, communication is a two-way street, even though I'm the neurotypical partner in this marriage. I've let myself shut down on this front a bit because I regard him as the problem, not me. But that's counter-productive.)

I am reading Alone Together: Making an Asperger Marriage Work (meh).

I am hoping to connect with my husband differently in the future than in the past and to continue to connect with C as well.

I am looking forward to the end of the semester and to my fall sabbatical.

I am learning humility.

Around the house is laundry to be put away. <Sigh.>

I am pondering marriage, soul mates, connection, the variety of relationships we have in our lives ...

One of my favorite things is feeling in control of my food, my activity, and my physical well-being (which I rarely do). I need to take more responsibility for these things.

A few plans for the rest of the week: work, exercise, tracking food, and watching the rest of Season 2 of Downton Abbey.

Hearth and Home | Weekend

Five more weeks of classes. Just saying.

I've had a kind of hard reentry from my trip to Los Angeles during spring break, despite the shorter work week last week.

Connecting ... reconnecting ... redefining connections with assorted friends there was followed by my sense of a disconnect at home. Processing all of that, figuring out what's real, what's not, what's me, what's him, what's hormonal, what's biochemical, and so on.  Argh!

Yesterday was a weepy day -- and I don't cry much at this point in my life, so that felt weird. Today seems better, however.

(Re)focusing (again) on healthier eating and exercise, however, in an effort to do what I can for myself and my well-being. Later today I may check out a new local gym to see if I want to join it or rejoin my old gym.  I have my food planned out for the day so as to stay centered and intentional.

And I have some work tasks to do today that will keep me moving forward.

Onward. 

Hearth and Home | Happy Easter!

What a week!

Spring break has been anything but, with a research trip to Los Angeles, but I managed to have intermittent periods of fun there with my friend K amid the work and to connect with a few other friends into the mix, so it was a mostly positive experience.  (No stolen wallets this time, for one thing!)

Among the highlights was reconnecting with my friend A after 12 years. He has a fabulous stand-alone store in an historic building in downtown L.A.  as well as 100 other branded areas in larger stores around the country. K and I visited the downtown L.A. location (fabulous) and then met him and his partner at Perch at A's invitation.  Great rooftop space, lovely night views of the city, and delicious food. A total plus.

I took a day off from research and showed K around old Hollywood a little because she'd never really done the tourist thing in L.A.: we did the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the Roosevelt Hotel (love that place -- wonderful, dimly lit lobby and a great bar), the Formosa Cafe (another favorite, though its food continues not to be great, but who cares, because its ambience is terrific and they do good drinks), and so on.

In the course of our stay we also managed to work in a visit to the Stanley Kubrick exhibit at LACMA, eat delicious food at Canter's, and generally enjoy ourselves.

I also saw my friend E and my former therapist and friend C. There's still a lot of unresolved energy in and around and from the latter, who's going through a very difficult time right now, and mostly I just have to let that be whatever it is (you got me), and not worry about it too much.  

Plans for this day?  I'm meeting a couple of former grad students of mine for a glass of whine this afternoon, very briefly, and I'm prepping a simple dinner of ham, scalloped potatoes, and spinach salad for my DH and me for dinner.  That's about it.  

One more day of spring break left after today because my university has Cesar Chavez day as a holiday, and then it's back to the salt mines for six more weeks of classes and another week or so of grading.

I can make it ...

Travel Bug | Spring Break!

Okay, technically spring break doesn't start until end of day tomorrow (Friday), but I finished my teaching week last night, have no meetings scheduled for today or tomorrow, and so I'm calling it now: my spring break has begun.

Oof! And I need it. I'm just crawling to the finish line of spring semester this year. Maybe it's because I know that I'll have the next almost eight months off from teaching after this semester ends and am suffering from what my friend K calles "lame duck" syndrome. That's probably a lot of it. Whatever the reason, I'm grateful for next week's break.

Mind you, it's a working break: from Sunday, May 24 through Friday, May 29, I'll be in Los Angeles for another research trip for my book (ooooh, how I hope it's my last, although I think I may need to make a third trip in June, but we'll see). This time, however, K is driving down with me and will be staying with me for the first part of the week, so there will be fun mixed in as well -- at least in the evenings after I finish my work.

I'm hoping that being with K will ground me in the present. I don't enjoy visiting Los Angeles because inevitably it flashes me back to a much more troubled period of my life (not an all-bad period, but still an extraordinarily difficult one), and so I'm hoping that having someone with me from my present-day life will cut down on that. Plus I just like being with K anyway. We have fun together.

K and I will be having dinner with my friend Angelo, whom I haven't seen in years, and that should be enjoyable. And C called me and he and I are seeing each other later in the week as well. Beyond that, I don't know: I'll have to see what I find in the archives first to know if I'll be able to build in some additional play time with other friends.

Between now and Sunday's departure, my cousin M will be visiting overnight tonight (the same cousin with whom I went to Amsterdam last summer), and I'll be driving her down to Santa Cruz tomorrow so that she can meet up with her family.  And tomorrow afternoon I'll be having an early drink with my friend J, with whom I'm going on a two-week Scandinavian/Baltic/Russian cruise come late May (wow, that trip is only a couple of months off now)!  She wants to coordinate flights and hotel room in Amsterdam prior to the beginning of the cruise, I think, which sets sail out of Rotterdam, about an hour away.

I'm too tired at the moment to feel excited by any of this travel -- but that will change! 

Girl Stuff | Bra-vo Breezy Back-Smoothing Underwire

From Spanx.  It's $72. Without doubt it is far and away the most expensive bra I've ever bought.

And it's totally worth it. I just bought another one.

I have a broad back (40) and, by contrast, not huge breasts (C or D -- which is not large-breasted when you consider how wide my back is ... my mother was built the same way and struggled with bras fitting correctly all her life). I also have sloping, narrow shoulders. And I've lost a great deal of weight, and so I'm left with extra flesh on my body which tends to ooze unattractively if it's not corraled decently.

Enter: Spanx products. Specifically, this particular bra.

The combination of (comfortable) underwire, a plunging neckline, and a broad mesh back means that a) my breasts are well supported (let's face it, inadequately bolstered boobs, large or small, are not cute once one reaches middle age); b) my straps (thin, not grandma style) do not slip down my narrow shoulders, causing me to dive unattractively down my sleeves to haul them back up again; c) and my loose back skin does not ooze over straps, causing discomfort and a bad look.

A SMOOTH, CLEAN, COMFORTABLE, WELL-SUPPORTED APPEARANCE! Quite seriously, for the first time in my 52 years!

I would do an ad for this product. I realize it's a shitload of money. And I paid it, because I have never had a bra that fit me well. Ever. Ever. Until now. 

Ivory Tower | A Rare Monday Post

Oh man, I'm looking at this week's calendar (I would be completely lost without my iCalendar app -- and a few other productivity apps that I've downloaded), and it's not a pretty sight.  Many  meetings, events, and must-do's in addition to the usual teaching and admin tasks, with a few social obligations thrown in there for good measure. None of them can be triaged. If I make it through Saturday intact, I shall be amazed.

This morning, for the first time, I counted the number of weeks left in the semester after spring break (six) and thought, "Okay, I can do this." Because waiting for me at the end of all this is a fabulous two-week Holland America cruise to the Baltic, Sandinavia, and Russia, and after that is a summer and then a fall sabbatical -- which means that I will be able to focus exclusively on book research and revision for seven months.

Seven freaked-out months -- but seven months nonetheless.

This mother-puppy is burned out -- probably because I see that there is, a finish line and can afford to look forward to it and feel some of the fatigue. Since 2006 I've been focused on getting a tenure-track job, getting tenure, advancing my career, and taking it to the next level. That's seven years of pretty hard-core focus and work without much of a break (though academics should never really complain about lack of breaks, because while we generally work very hard and take our jobs home with us so that there's no such thing as a built-in end to a work day, we do have flex time and can arrange it to suit ourselves more than the average worker in other careers).

Finally I will be getting a respite -- although the sabbatical is specifically not a vacation but time off from other aspects of my career to focus on getting my book manuscript out the door, so it will come with its own obligations and pressures.

I'm already drafting the auto-response I'll be putting on my work email address at the end of May, basically saying "I'm outta here for seven months, go bug someone else."

Planning ahead. That's me. 

Hearth and Home | Girls' Night

Sometimes you simply have to take a night off … spending the evening and night at my friend K's house in Monterey. 

Drinks, burgers, coffee, home for more drinks.  This is a week I'm not sorry to see the end of!

Ivory Tower | Bite Me

I'm so done with being exploited by my department because I'm a Smart, Organized Woman. Now that I have tenure, I'm not going to let that happen any longer. Not me.

Today my department chairman knocked on my office door, and when I didn't answer (because it wasn't my office hours and I was working on my own research), he let himself into my office with a key (not okay). No apology was forthcoming once he found me, just, "Oh, you are here ..."

Then he proceded to chew me out for declining to write personnel reviews for all my program's visiting lecturers in three days' time (three days? Seriously? That's all the advance warning he wanted to give me on this?) on the grounds that 1) I'm already overcommitted; 2) I wrote the reviews for my own and another program last year when I was an administrator, so I've put in my time; 3) there are others within my program that he can tap to do that work, if he really feels it's not his job to do (which, by the way, it is: it is the chair's obligation to do annual performance evaluations).

He was pissed. And so was I. He raised his voice to me. I raised my voice to him -- which I commented on and apologized for, but I did not back down from my position. Which is, quite simply, that this is not my job, it's not appropriate to ask me to do this task, there's not enough time, I'm already overcommitted, and I'm not going to do it.

Period.

This is the first time that I've stood up to an authority figure and said no at my university, and it wasn't very pleasant. But it was also totally justified, and I don't regret it for a minute. 

As I said, there are other people that he can ask to do this job, if he feels it shouldn't fall to him (he's wrong), and they're free to accept or decline. I declined.  

So that's pretty much how this day unfolded.  Not pretty.  Argh. 

Ivory Tower | Feeling the Burn(out)

It's Week 6 of a 15-week semester, and it's official: I'm temporarily burned out. I'm grateful for my job, I like it, and I'm lucky to have it (jobs are scarce these days, and tenure-line faculty positions are even scarcer) -- but my teaching this term is uninspired, and on Monday I think I managed to bore both myself and my students. 

It's not their fault.  I'm distracted and tired, and it shows.

If teaching were the only thing I needed to focus on at the moment, I think I'd be having less of a problem. However, I'm feeling a lot of pressure around my book and the research for its revisions, and what I really want to be doing is focusing 100% on them -- not dividing my attention between my book and teaching.

Come June, that kind of focus will be possible: I'm not teaching summer school this year, and I have a sabbatical in the fall so that I can focus on the book in the way that I want and need to. But this multi-tasking approach to teaching, administrative work, research, and writing in the meantime? It's exhausting. My days are long, I'm tired (I said that already), and I feel the stress of juggling competing obligations.

I'm not complaining, mind you. Everyone juggles, and if I were feeling more secure about the book and where I'm at with it, it wouldn't feel like a big deal. But being stressed about it is precisely what's sapping me of energy at the moment, and if I could devote more time to that work now, I could relieve some of the stress because I'd be making progress more rapidly.

But I'm not, and so I simply feel spread a little too thin. And it's showing in the classroom, and that's unfortunate.

Oh well. 10 more weeks to go, with a week of spring break (and a second research trip to Los Angeles) at the end of this month, and then a fabulous trip at the end of May for two weeks (which I'm too distracted to think much about until it draws nearer).

I'll make it. And so will my students. But I'd like to make the time as rewarding as possible for them, and I'm just not sure how to accomplish that this semester -- or if I can.

Hearth and Home | Mélange o' Topics

As I sit here contemplating my oozing face (I exaggerate: I have only one [rather large] seeping spot from where a potential squamous carcinoma was blasted off my forehead yesterday morning), I'm having a fit of vanity.

I don't like the spot, and if it turns out to be cancerous and they have to remove it, I will a) be grateful that they can, if they can; b) opt for a plastic surgeon to do the cutting. Doctors take no prisoners when they're cutting out cancer and striving for clean margins, and I don't want a hack job done on my face if it comes to that.

But really, I've been having a vanity fit since I returned from Los Angeles a week ago, before yesterday's appointment with the dermatologist/oncologist.

Not sure what that's about, other than having been in southern California where folks comment on how I looked and/or on how people looked in general. Let's face it, Los Angeles is an image-conscious kind of place. It's one of the reasons I'm glad I don't live there any longer.

For example, my friend J was very complimentary about how "fashionable" I seemed when I saw here there (I did?! I was wearing boots, leggings, a tunic, and a [lovely] scarf when I saw her, all because they were comfortable, not fashionable!).

My friend C went off on a tear about women's clothes, fashion, and what he does and doesn't like when I spent some time with him (huh? I couldn't tell where I fell in that whole paradigm that he sketched out, but I think that riff had everything to do with him, his girlfriend, and where they're at (somewhat rocky territory, it seems to me) and exactly zero to do with me, so I let that all soar past me ...).  Still, it was a good thing I was wearing heels that day (apparently he doesn't like women in flats ... um, really? Has he tried wearing heels?! Ah well, we all have our preferences regarding looks and our objects of desire, and he's entitled to his.)

Anyway, in the last week I have bought a form-fitting knee-length black dress, suitable for the office and/or a dinner out somewhere, a pair of leopard-print pumps, and today a couple of Spanx undergarments with which to corrale unruly flesh that might otherwise jiggle a tad too much when in aforementioned dress. Really? These are not my usual kinds of sartorial purchases. 

I guess i want the option to feel attractive and/or sexy when I choose, and I tend not to go for that most of the time. Mostly I dress to be presentable, professional, and feel comfortable, but every now and then I want to look -- more than that. And I guess it's a testament to my improved sense of myself that I feel that I can be attractive -- can attract --  although it usually requires more effort than I care to expend.

Of course, my husband feels most comfortable with me when I'm in sweats and slippers, so it'll be lost on him! But ultimately, that's a good thing, because that's exactly what I'm dressed in right now. :) 

Health Matters | Skin Check-Up

I admit it. I blew off my check-up three months ago when I got stuck in traffic, knew I'd never make the scheduled appointment time, and canceled. And I never called back to reschedule.

But as one with a history of malignant melanoma, I have to have full body checks every three months to make sure any suspicious growths -- of which I seem to have several every visit -- are caught and killed early.  

One's skin is considered an organ. Once you have malignant melanoma of the skin, it's far more likely to recur than not. Early on, it's very treatable. But if it spreads to other organs?  Well, let's just say the prognosis is not good. So you don't want it to spread. You want to catch it and cut it out ASAP. About 5% of people diagnosed with skin cancer have melanoma. So far I've been lucky, though: mine wasn't deep and hadn't metasticized to other organs.

However, noting that some changes to my skin were happening on my face and on my back in the last month, I did finally made another appointment recently, which was today. (My bad: six months is not often enough. I won't make that mistake again.) They flagged and photographed some areas on my back, froze some patches on my face and arms, and they are now watching me for squamous cell carcinoma ("these marks are a little worrisome" -- argh).

Going with my gut here, I'm actually not worried about the marks on my face.  But I know my skin, and I don't have a good feeling about what's happening on my back shoulder. It's funkier, more aligned with melanoma, and I'm going to watch it like a hawk over the next three months.

You gotta do what you gotta do.

Hearth and Home | Mental Health

Hmm.  I navigated assorted emotional challenges well this past week in Los Angeles, but today I'm having a sort of delayed reaction to the stress of having been there, worked hard, negotiated an anxiety attack, and dealt with C.

The nature of that reaction? I'm turning over all events in my head rather compulsively and blaming myself for having had any emotional reaction to anything that went down in L.A:

1. I don't want to feel anxious in Los Angels because I'll have to go there again (this time for longer periods in March and June) 
2. I don't want to get distracted by work and make myself vulnerable to, say, another theft
3. I don't want to obsess over C's issues, own them, assume responsibility for them, or lose faith in myself and my own impressions of what's happening (oooh, can you say loss of boundaries?), even if that impression is not something that I'm clear about myself yet

Basically I just want to be done with this trip because it's over, but because I'm going back to Los Angeles a month from now and will face all these issues again, I can't dismiss them from my mind. 

So I guess I have to give myself permission to have the emotional reactions I'm having -- without judging them -- and to let them pass through me. No short cuts through the woods here.  

In the meantime, dwelling on them today is pretty pointless because I'm not really working anything through ... I'm simply obsessing in my OCD way.  So it's a good thing that my husband and I are going out shortly to run errands and have lunch. It's a good thing that the Oscars are on tonight. It's a good thing that I have a busy week on campus coming up (as usual) because I think all of these things will help ground me in the present ... which is where I live, work, and exist now.  

My L.A. days are behind me. They were a painful period in my past, but they are past, even if I have to return now and then, and even if I choose to carry forward some relationships from that era. I have choice, a greater degree of control, and options now in ways that I did not then.

Hearth and Home | Rest and Recovery

Home again, home again, jiggitty-jig -- and so glad to be here, too!

My surgical strke research trip to Los Angeles was productive, despite a total of only a day and half in the Herrick library: I was able to move through the files I'd had pulled in advance relatively quickly and to arrange to have photocopied (or to have photocopied myself) a whole selection of materials that I didn't have time to read carefully but that looked promising. That's all to the good, and so the trip was worth it right there. Everybody at the library was incredibly helpful, and the next time I go back there, I will see familiar faces, which will be pleasant.

What was less pleasant was having my wallet stolen at the library, which precipitated my early departure from Los Angeles (fortunately, I'd finished going through the files by that point and was pretty much done with what I'd gone down to Los Angeles to do). It was my own fault: I left my wallet on a table, and when I went back to get it ten minutes later, it was gone.  

That triggered my first full-fledged anxiety attack in a number of years, complete with tears, panic, hyperventilation, sweating ... the whole nine yards. Not in front of the Academy library folks, I'm glad to say, but when I was alone in the rental car and on the phone with my husband. The theft flashed me back to all the old angst of being in Los Angeles in the old neighborhood in which I had lived, without any money or way to get out (how was I going to pay for gas to drive home?) ... feelings of helplessness and entrapment.  God, yuck!

I'd deliberately kept a low social profile during my trip, seeing only J (my former dissertation chair) and C (my former therapist) -- but my husband suggested that I call J -- and when I did, she picked up, understood the situation immediately, and rode to my rescue with cash in hand.  Thank god. She's been a good friend to me since I got my Ph.D.

What I'm happy about. however, is that the panic attack lasted only as long as it took to hear J's voice at the other end of the phone -- maybe a total of five minutes on the phone with my husband -- and when a solution was at hand, I instantly calmed down. No valium necessary. In other words, with my husband's help, I was able to think of a solution for the situation, and I found my way back to an unpanicked state without the aid of meds.  Twenty years ago?  That would not have been possible for me, for so many reasons that I can't even go into here. I was able to check out of my hotel and leave Los Angeles two and a half hours later, and that was such a relief.

And while the theft of my wallet was a drag, the happier news is that the library called me about two hours into my drive home to tell me that it had located my wallet, and it would be FedExing it to me for arrival by Monday. They reported that the contents seemed undisturbed (though I didn't ask specifically about the cash -- some $250 or so, I think).  Yay!  I mean, I'm assuming the cash is gone and I've cancelled my credit cards, but this way I won't have to do all the other draggy tasks like replace my driver license and other items. Like the wallet itself, which I bought in Venice a couple of years ago and love. Double yay!

It was kind of a surreal end to a fast trip that had already gotten a little weird during the kind of intense two and a half hours that C and I spent together. After eight years or doing therapy with him and 17 years intervening between then and now, we're still in touch and now actively negotiating a friendship. Neither of us has many platonic straight emotionally close friends of the opposite sex, and any maybe that's pretty typical of straight men and women -- I don't know (I have very good, emotionally close, gay male friends, but then, that automatically removes any possibility of sexual dynamics, and perhaps that's why we can be such good friends to each other). What I don't know about straight men would fill volumes, actually, so this is new territory for me.  And it sounds like new territory for him as well.  Who knows if it will be possible, but so far we each seem to be committed to it, so we shall see.  I was both glad to see C and tweaked, and we'll just take it step by step. We agreed to see ach other again when I'm down in Los Angeles at the end of next month, and if that works out, great. If not, that's okay, too.

After all of that, though? I'm very glad to be home again! I'm also very glad that I decided to prep this upcoming week's lectures last weekend so that I don't have to do much class prep this weekend. I'm going to spend a little time organizing the research materials I brought back from Los Angeles ... that will feel good.

And now it's time for another cup of coffee.  (When is it not?) 

Travel Bug | Countdown to Los Angeles

I'm L.A.-bound from Northern California on Monday morning to do some preliminary research for my academic book at the  Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science's Margaret Herrick Library.

The library is closed this Monday for Presidents Day (my bad -- I should have picked another week, but I didn't, and now I'm locked into this one), and it's habitually closed on Wednesdays and weekends. Bummer.

That means I'll really have only two days there because I need to drive back on Friday (and Friday I have a three-hour conference call that will eat up my morning before I head home). I expect to be at the library from opening to closing time on Tuesday and Thursday, but that's really very  little time when you're assessing historical documents. So, rather than freak myself out with how much work I have to do there, I've decided to reframe this trip as an exploratory one: I'm going to use those two days to get the lay of the land, suss out the files I've requested in advance, and strategize how to move through them efficiently on two later trips I'll take (in late March and mid-June). 

Because I sure as hell won't be able to read and/or copy everything I need this time around -- that much I know.

I worked for about nine hours today, prepping lectures for the week after next so that I won't have to do that next weekend upon my return because I suspect I'll be tired and possibly overwhelmed by book-related data as well as angst.

Tomorrow will mostly be an errands-running/getting-organized kind of day. I'm taking a tiny suitcase and two briefcases, which pretty much tells you where my priorities lie for this quick trip.

As for non-work activities? Well, there are a few. I may meet my former dissertation chair for dinner on Monday night. On Wednesday, when the library is closed, I'm going to check out my friend Angelo's brick-and-mortar store in downtown L.A. for the first ime, see a WLS friend I haven't seen in years, possibly check out Fred Astaire's grave site (don't ask --  it's a long story), and then meet up with my former therapist-turned-friend in the late-afternoon/evening. And on Friday around noon, after my conference call is over, I have a ticket to the Stanley Kubrick exhibit at the L.A County Museum.

My hotel has wifi in its rooms, and it's near Canter's, so I'm looking forward to visiting that former hangout and getting a fix of good Jewish food in the evenings.  

That's pretty much it, though. I want to stay focused on what I need to get done, so I'm not planning on doing a lot of socializing while I'm in Los Angeles this time, and most of my friends in the area are just going to need to understand that.  Or they won't and they'll feel hurt or offended. I hope not, but I'm going to have to take that risk.

Yup, it's definitely countdown time!

Hearth and Home | Happy Valentine's Day

What's happening here in honor of the occasion? 

Nothing major, I assure you -- but I still like Valentine's Day. For me it's an opportunity for hearts, the color red (two of my favorite things), and a general sense of love and affection for friends and family. It's not a day on which to get depressed if one is single.

Hell, I spent most of my adult life single, and I would have been miserable if I'd allowed that kind of silly hype to get to me.

A student gave me a valentine yesterday after one of my classes. That was unexpected but sweet, particularly since I've known this crop of students for only a few weeks. This morning my husband and I exchanged cards and then, a little later, we went out for an ordinary lunch. That's it.  And that's as much as I wanted.

Let's face it: going out to dinner on Valentine's Day can be a bit of a nightmare, what with people jockeying for reservations.  I don't need to eat a box of chocolates. And while a dozen roses is nice, I've still got a bouquet of flowers holding up well from my birthday.

So tonight I'm a contented woman. I may read a romance novel. Or watch Persuasion (see an earlier post). But it's been a good day, just as it stands, right now, in this moment.

Health Matters | Stomach Bug

Ugh! Some days you just have to throw in the towel and concede that the microbes win.

I woke up yesterday morning feeling nauseated, gaggy, and shaky, and the feeling persisted throughout the day. It wasn't the flu -- I had no fever -- but it was unpleasant all the same. It was made more so by the fact that Monday is my longest day on campus. Given that I've canceled classes for next week while I go to Los Angeles to do research for my book, I can't cancel classes this week (I teach three once-a-week courses, as well as one that meets twice a week, and that would rob too much time from each). My options were limited.

So I persisted and hung in there, but only because I'm going to be gone next week. I was definitely not at my finest: distracted, losing my train of thought while I lectured and led discussion ...

My poor students.

Last night after I got home I dozed through the evening, went to bed early, and woke up in the middle of the night, still feeling nauseated. I got up, nibbled on some crystalized ginger (which helped), worked for a couple of hours, and went back to bed. Before I did so, I'd made up my mind to stay home today, no matter what. I have only a supervisory class today, and my friend K is covering for me. Tomorrow is another long day that I cannot miss, so it's best to be strategic about it.

Happily, the nausea has disappeared, and this afternoon I'm just feeling zonked. I can tell my brain is functioning normally again, though, and I'm able to move efficiently through work here at home. 

There's definitely a bug going around, but at least I seem to have escaped nastier ones that are also circulating.  So far ... 

Ex Libris | Captain Wentworth to Jane Elliot - Oh YES!!!!!

In honor of Valentine's Day, I give you Captain Wentworth's written declaration of love to Anne Elliot in Jane Austen's Persuasion (1816). 

If there's anything sexier in literature, I do not know it: 

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in

F. W."

Okay, so, *** fanning self *** --> that's what does it for me!  I don't care about ripped abs or spectacular bods.  Give me a man who can use words. Swoon.

And the 1995 film with Amanda Root and Ciarán Hinds, pictured above? It's really good. I own it. I may need to watch it this week, just to honor Valentine's Day. ;)

Ivory Tower | This Week's Good News: Sabbatical!

Remember the application I filed last summer for a Fall 2013 sabbatical? The news came yesterday that I got it! 

What does that mean?  

It means I have next fall semester off, with pay, in order to finish revising my academic book manuscript for the publisher.  In other words? I have seven full months to myself, starting in June and running through December, for the express purpose of focusing exclusively on writing, revising, editing, and finishing my book.

Phew.

Of course, I'm still going to be a nervous wreck about making that deadline as the clock ticks down because I'm a slow writer. (Slow but good, I remind myself.) It's a good thing I got the sabbatical:  If I hadn't, I'm pretty sure I would have had to renegotiate my due date with the publishing house. And given that it's my first book, that would have looked bad.

But so far, so good: a year ago (January) I received the course release from the College that houses my department .... in order to write a book proposal (February) and go to a professional conference where I pitched my proposal (March) ... to get the publishing contract (August) ... to include with my application for a sabbatical (September) ... to revise my manuscript (February-December this year).  

This is a very typical kind of progression for any academic, but there are no guarantees along the way: I could have been denied a course release, or not finished the proposal, or not gotten a contract, or not been granted a sabbatical.

Um, now all I have to do is the actual project itself. Gulp.

Within six weeks of returning from a sabbatical, one has to file a report with the university about what it led to or resulted in. That, plus the signed contract, pretty much guarantees that I will be sufficiently motivated to follow through. My not-so-secret fear is that I will somehow go down in flames and not have a book at the end of all of this, despite contracts and sabbaticals.

Like a lot of women in particular, I suffer from imposter syndrome, in which I always think I won't be able to live up to X or Y and that I will be revealed as a fraud at whatever it is I attempt. I engage in less of that kind of thinking than I used to when I was younger, but when I take on a major new project, this fear always comes roaring back for a while.

Argh. 

Health Matters | Weight loss surgery and weight maintenance

As my regular readers know, I had a form of weight loss surgery called the duodenal switch in 2005, which was the best choice I ever made for my health, aside from going on anti-depressants in 1997.  It wasn't without its own side effects and ramifications, but it was the best choice for me at the time.

Initially I lost too much weight (130 pounds) and was told by doctors to regain some for a cushion in case I got sick.

So, happily, I did, and now I'm back in the medically "overweight" category (which still beats "morbidly obese"). But I've maintained about an 80-pound loss over the last seven years, and sometimes I forget that that's still meaningful and real.

Yesterday a friend saw a photo of me from 2000 and shook her head. "You were a big girl!" she said. "It's funny, but I don't even remember you looking like this anymore."

"Do I look that different now?" I asked.  "Because, really, to me I look pretty much the same as I did 2000 except now I look a lot older!"

She stared at me as if I'd lost my mind. "Um, yeah, you do look a lot different. But none of us can see ourselves accurately, so I understand."

Sometimes I feel as if I've gained all my weight back -- so that was a nice reality check for me and a needed boost!

Writer's Journey | Literary Agents

I'm sloooowly beginning to investigate agents and agencies who are open to new writers in romance.

I'm a multi-published author in peer-reviewed journals and soon to have a book published by a major New York house -- but not in romance, so I'm the proverbial neophyte. 

However, since I won't be ready to pitch to an agent until i have one MS completed, and since I don't plan to have that done until January 2014, I figure I have time to do my homework. 

Daunting. But I have well-represented friends, so I'll be coached along the way. 

Writer's Journey | Writing Classes and Webinars

Thanks to a number of writers blogs I subscribe to and professional memberships, it's pretty easy for me to take some kind of a worthwhile writing-related class or symposium on a fairly regular basis. Also thanks to my memberships, some of them are offered at little to no cost.

So I decided, after taking Mary Buckham's "Mastering the Query Letter" last weekend (which did cost something and which was totally worth it), that I'm going to do at least one such class or seminar a month. Last month I did two, and this month I have done (will do) two more.  It's a good way of signaling my commitment to myself to writing genre fiction and to learning that craft -- similar only to the most distant of points to writing scholarly nonfiction!

In fact, the only similar skill set I share with both kinds of writing is an ability to string words together well.  But that alone does not a good writer make in either category.

Now I'm casting about for classes for March and entertaining various possibilities.   

Ivory Tower | An Open Book

A senior colleague from another department in upper level administration whom I know casually but not well -- we've probably spent a total of 4-5 hours together in the space of six months -- pegged me today.

After being very complimentary about all manner of things -- everything from my research, my skills, and my communication style to my so-called appeal generally and what I have to offer (um, he's almost 20 years old than I, and I don't think he was flirting, but he may have been ... and probably the fact that I think he may have been means that he was, as I rarely assume a man is flirting with me), he commented on my organization.

"Yes, I'm organized," I replied, ruefully. "I'm a little OCD."

To which he responded, instantly, "You certainly are."

I didn't think it was that obvious -- but it turns out he's a former clinical psychologist who practiced for 15 years, and so he has a good eye. "So how can you tell?" I asked. "I mean, I no longer do things like count the number of threads in every tassle on a rug, for instance." And it's not as if this man really knows me ...

"No, it probably works for you at this point in your life.  But now that you've said you're OCD, there are dead giveaways, even in how you talk. You're very orderly, even in your speech. You categorize and compartmentalize. But you also juggle multiple strands in a single conversation and go back and forth among them with no difficulty. I have no problem keeping up with that, but I bet some people have a hard time with it.  And when you start getting excited, you talk more and more quickly, almost as if you're visiting New York ..."

Huh? That last bit seemed like a non sequitur -- and okay, now that I read this over, the guy was definitely flirting a little -- but the rest of it I found spot-on. 

It's one thing to know I'm OCD and to choose to self-disclose. It feels distinctly unnerving to have someone whom I don't know well not miss a beat in affirming it to me and then listing off characteristics of my very speech that are giveaways.

Humph. No one likes the feeling of being pigeon-holed! As with most folks, probably, I like to think I'm unique, as opposed to typical of X or Y.

Yeah, well, whatever. Welcome to reality! 

Writer's Journey | Mary Buckham's Webinar "Mastering the Query Letter"

On Saturday I took Mary Buckhan's online seminar "Mastering the Query Letter" as part of the package she offers on writing synopses and query letters to pitch your work to agents and/or editors. 

The webinar about synopses took place last weekend, and Mary gave me great feedback on the sample synopsis I wrote and submitted for her critique. While I'm not ready to pitch my fiction yet (I hope to start doing that in 2014), I figure it's never to early to start learning so that I'll be set when the time comes. 

Less involved than her webinar about synopses, the query letter class was nevertheless as valuable in its own way, and I'm very glad I took it. Partly because I'm a major note-taker anyway and partly because the information was so useful, I took four pages of single-spaced notes on Mary's lecture, which was accompanied by useful slides.

I won't be querying any agents or editors until 2014, but it's never too early to start the learning process!  Mary is willing to review sample query letters from those of us who took the webinar for the next couple of weeks, so I'll make sure to write one up and get some feedback.

Hearth and Home | Super Bowl Weekend

I warn you now. This post has nothing to do with football. I barely know a touchdown from a home run. I will not be watching the Super Bowl, and even though I teach media at a university, I will not even be watching the ads.

Just thought I'd get that all out there.

Everywhere I turn today, however, I see folks saying "Go, Niners!" (well, hey, I live only 50 minutes south of San Francisco), and clearly there are a lot of people out there who are prepping today for a big party tomorrow, regardless of the game's outcome.

Rock on with your football-loving selves.

Me? I'm simply enjoying the end of a pretty satisfying Saturday. I wrote two lectures for my once-weekly classes next week, and I devoted some time to investigating query letters (more on that in a later post). I got some other writing done, a couple of errands, and now I'm contemplating the evening ahead.

It's going to consist of dinner (spaghetti, garlic bread, and mixed steamed veggies), a later snack of popcorn (yes, I'm still/always tracking my food ...), and a romp with a romance novel -- Maisey Yates' Heir to a Desert Legacy, forthcoming in March.

Yes, I'll review it here when I'm done. I like Yates' romances quite a bit, and she's a hoot on Twitter. 

All in all, a good start to the weekend.

Writer's Journey | Writing Action Plan

I'm finding Kelly Stone's online "Time to Write" course very useful, as it results in concrete ways of making time to write even when one has a busy schedule.

For her, it's all about planning -- which is what it's all about for me, too. Well, that and psyching myself up and convincing myself that I can do it.

Here's my latest piece of homework for the class. It already makes me feel better about the upcoming revision process. 

Writing Action Plan
Academic Book
Phase 1

I. Long-Term Goal: I will finish revising my 80,000-word academic monograph by December 31, 2013.

1. Mini-objective 1: Beginning February 1, I will review my notes on the Margaret Herrick Library's PCA files related to the films I am discussing and finalize my list of materials to review during my research trip to Los Angeles (February 17-22). Target date for completion: one week (February 8)
2. Mini-objective 2: Beginning February 9, go through external reader reports from publisher for first two chapters and proposal, noting  issues to look for that may surface in PCA files in L.A. Target date for completion: one week (February 15).
3. Mini-objective 3: Beginning February 18, reread manuscript from start to finish in evenings and off-hours while I am on research trip in Los Angeles, making notes for revisions. Target date for completion: 5 days (February 22). 
4. Mini-objective 4: Beginning February 26, make new Writing Action Plan for Phase 2. Target date for completion: one day (February 26). 

Writer's Journey | Good news, bad news

Because I took part in Mary Buckham's "Writing the Short Synopsis" webinar last weekend, I was entitled to submit a sample synopsis to her for her feedback within a week of taking the class.  

Despite the fact that a) I hadn't yet worked with Mary's templates to develop that synopsis, and b) have only two chapters drafted of a 12-chapter novel, I decided to go ahead and submit something, if only for the learning experience.

I'm so glad I did!

Mary's feedback was direct, to the point, and spot-on, and it boils down to this:

Here is your short synopsis back. Good news - it did exactly what a short synopsis is meant to do - make it clear to cold reader if there's a consistent, clear conflict keeping these two apart and together :-)  Bad news - there's not.  Instead you're using a lot of issues, throwing one in here and another one in there but neither protagonist really has to overcome anything to get together.

She's so right!  

This was not the extent of her feedback by any means, but it's the core issue of her critique. What makes me happy about it is that I realized as I was writing the synopsis that this was an issue at exactly the point where that becomes obvious. In fact, I commented to a friend as I was writing it that I felt as if I were just moving chess pieces around rather indiscriminantly and that nothing after a certain point was really motivated:  things just ... happen. Ho-hum.

I guess the good news is, my synopsis as a synopsis fit the bill. The problem lies in the novel itself, and since I'm only very early into it, it can be fixed sooner rather than later.

Mary had some useful suggestions, most of which I shall try to incorporate, and before I write any more of the novel, I'm going to spend some time working with her template sheets for Protagonist and Antagonist so that I can nail down exactly what it is that makes them tick and what the source of their conflict is.

Even when you're writing genre fiction (in this case, romance) -- maybe especially then -- you have to have a convincing source of conflict that keeps your couple forced apart even as they're coming together.  So far I just have formulaic combinations.

Something to work on this afternoon. It's the last day of January, and tomorrow I need to turn back to academic writing during my designated writing times, Today, however, I can still work on fiction.

Writer's Journey | Mary Buckham's Webinar "Mastering the Short Synopsis"

On Saturday I took Mary Buckham's webinar "Mastering the Short Synopsis," and from the moment that I was given a link to the course materials a few days before the actual event, I knew my money would be well-spent. Commercial fiction writers, take note -- particularly if you're a beginner.

Included in the price of the class is an interesting 90-minute live talk by Mary, on which I took two pages of typed single-spaced notes. The webinar slides she used were easy to follow and, along with the packet of materials that one could download in advance, explained the ins and outs of synosis writing, its do's and don't's.  

Mary provides clearly thought-through examples and templates to help you construct your own synopsis when time comes to look for an agent or editor and shop your work around. Furthermore, if you email Mary a 250-500-word synosis within a week after the class, she'll critique it. 

Definitely money well spent. Highly recommended -- glitchy webcasting system notwithstanding and beyond Mary's control.  I'm taking her webinar about writing query letters this coming Saturday, and I'm looking forward to it. (She promises that she's switching to a different webcasting system!)

Writer's Journey | A Week of Fiction

I'm excited for this week because, thanks to finishing my POTO article revisions yesterday and resubmitting it for consideration last night -- i.e., about four days ahead of when I'd anticipated -- I can spend my scheduled writing time this week on my novel.

Did you like how I slipped that in there, that bit about finishing my article?

I did. I finished it. Such a relief: I really viewed it as a gift to myself to spend my birthday, finalizing revisions and officially sending the piece on to the next phase of its journey.

There are absolutely no guarantees that the journal to which I submitted it originally will accept it now, but they did invite me to revise and resubmit, and god knows I've done that. Based on the submission of my original draft, I'm guessing it's  going to take about six weeks for the editors to get back to me.

I really hope they take it.

At any rate, because I did resubmit the article before my goal of January 31, I have a few days in which to work on my category romance WIP this week. I think that will make a good change of pace before I seque to taking on the project of my book research and revisions, come February 1.  I've missed my fiction writing, and I've missed my hero and heroine. 

Hearth and Home | Happy Birthday to Me ;)

It's a quiet Sunday morning, and my plans for my birthday are very modest: I'm writing today, and my husband is taking me out for a lovely steak-and-shrimp meal later.   

In my book these days? That's a perfect birthday. Writing has become so important to me -- as something I do, something I enjoy, and something that results in finished results of which I feel proud. 

Writing is a great way to spend this day, and I'm grateful to be able to do so.

Ivory Tower | Spring Semester: Week 1

It's only Thursday -- but I'm exhausted. And it wasn't even a full week of classes!

The entire campus had a day of mandatory meetings on Tuesday, and classes started on Wednesday. This semester I teach on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10:30 - 11:45, have meetings, hold office hours from 1:30 - 2:30, and teach again from 3 - 5:45 p.m.  

So Mondays and Wednesdays are long, particularly when you factor in my scheduled writing time from 5 - 7 a.m. on those days. As painful as I find it to wake up at 4:45 a.m. to make sure I can make coffee and park my butt in at my desk to write for a couple of hours, it's been great -- just in this past week! I get my writing done first thing, which is appropriate, as it's my priority, and I'm energized for the rest of the (long) work day ahead of me.

However, It's taking a fair amount of discipline to stick to a schedule that I've actually entered in my electronic calendar. It includes exercise dates, writing dates with myself and others, and even specific times to  check my email  (2-3 times a day, tops ... because email is a huge time-sink for me).

I've limited my time on social media. That helps as well.

TV isn't much of temptation for me, as watching it feels like work to me (I'm a film studies professor who also teaches media, and I snap into analytic work mode when I watch television), so I don't have to limit that.

My reading rate has suffered since I began emphasizing my own writing at the start of the new year. Now that the semester has started, I really have a very limited amount of free time, and at this point in my career, mostly I'm finding it more rewarding to write rather than read, if forced to choose between the two.

I'd rather read and write, of course, but sometimes there aren't enough hours in the day, particularly when exhaustion sets in. Like, well, tonight.

Tech Tales | Loving my new blog design

Tiffany at Tiffany Kuehl Designs did a terrific job in coming up with a cool retro-yet-hip writing theme, I think -- it's exactly what I wanted.

And she was a delight to work with. Check her out ... she does all manner of blog design and branding work. 

Writer's Journey | Revise and rewrite

Yup, that's the stage I'm at with my revision of The Phantom of the Opera article.

Which I've told myself I must finish and resubmit by January 31. Because, like, I have to get cracking on revising and rewriting my book manuscript that's due on Decenber 31, 2013.

One thing at a time.

I know I made significant progress today, conceptually and even in terms of parts rewritten and reformulated, but if my article were a patient, it'd still be on the operating table, in critical condition. 

I made myself stop today at 6 p.m. so that I can start with a clear head tomorrow. 

Once my brain chills out, I may read -- or write -- a little romance later this evening. Read, I think ... the latter requires too much thought (though if I'm lucky, I'll get a second wind later and maybe get in an hour's writing of fiction ... that would feel good). 

If not? That's okay, too. 

Writer's Journey | Such a good Saturday!

I love it when I have a good writing-related day. As a writer who bounces back and forth among productive and non-productive days, it's always good to remind myself that a real lackluster day -- such as the one I describe in my last post -- is almost always followed by a better one.

That's been my pattern throughout my life. You'd think I'd get used to it.

I went to a meeting of my local chapter of RWA this morning -- which I have to say is a good chapter, both in terms of meeting some great up-and-coming authors (some of whom have become real friends) as well as the access to knowledgable guest speakers, agents, and publishers it gives its members.  This was my first meeting in well over a year, because I chose to give up my membership while I was working in departmental administration last year. It felt good to see some familiar faces of both friends and folks I knew less well who nevertheless remembered me or knew me from online groups. 

At the meeting there was a great talk by a junior agent from a prestigious publishing house in New York, who's building up her own list of clients. I'm half-tempted to query her via email, though I'm just not quite at that point yet (seriously, I need to pace myself and focus on the acdemic book for now, while generating a first draft of one of three romance novels ... but I am thinking about it). She took pitches today after her talk, and she would have been totally approachable, I have to say.  

It did make me think that in the second half of this year, I intend to start pitching for practice. It might make fall hectic, but I believe I might be able to juggle finishing my academic manuscript during a sabbatical and starting the ball rolling on my fiction career at the same time.  An exciting prospect to think about, anyway.

When I got home in the early afternoon, I reread my notes from the morning's meeting and then moved on to academic research and writing. I read a difficult but useful theoretical article that eventually led to an epiphany about how to reframe some of my arguments about POTO, and so that ultimately felt exciting, too, and worthwhile.

And yesterday I managed to read an article, peer-review it, and and submit the review, all in one day. That went faster than I thought.

So? Today's message is -- never lose heart where writing and publising is concerned. Have a bad day? That's okay. Just lather, rinse, repeat, and keep going.

I've figured I've earned the right to work a little on my novel this evening. Saturday night, nerd-style. What can I say? It makes me happy. 

I've also just signed up for three different writiing-related seminars and series in January and February, all geared toward fiction.  Yippee!

Oh, and on a completely different front? My friend J may accompany me on my cruise to the Baltic, Scandinavia, and St. Petersburg in May/June.  Details have yet to be determined or worked out, but it's a distinct possibility. I think we'd make good traveling companions, and while I fully intend to enjoy myself whether I travel solo or with someone, she and I would get along well, I think.  

Finally? My blog redesign is under way. Yay!

All in all?  A good past 24 hours. 

Writer's Journey | Write no matter what

Today is one of those days when, despite my best intentions and best-laid plans, writing is not coming easily. So what I'm telling myself is ... write anyway.

I've finally begun my revision process for my POTO article. That's the good news. Still, because I'm almost two weeks behind schedule with that, according to my own time frame, because  school starts next week, and because I have another end-of-the-month writing deadline (in addition to the self-imposed POTO deadline), I'm feeling a little tense.

The tension does not help with the revision process.

Well, that's probably not entirely true, as I can feel  my brain going into that weird warping zone where, even as I'm not at all sure what I'm doing, I'm processing and turning over options in my head.  But let's just say that it doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel smart or insightful or strategic or anything except hard.

So I forced myself to revise a little anyway today, and I found three library souces I need to examine for the piece which I'll pick up tomorrow when I'm on campus. Then I  decided that if I'm not making great headway on that piece today, I can at least write here just to keep words flowing.

The important thing is to write, even when it feels as if there's nothing to say or I don't know how to say it.

As the start of the semester approaches (January 22), I'm feeling very particular about how, where, and with whom and what I spend my time.  Writing and revision take precedence this year over pretty much everything else, given my deadlines.

I'm  making a conscious effort to restrict time I spend online using social media, unless it relates to writing or research.  I'm cutting back on email.

I'm picking and choosing where I spend my energy.

I'm favoring writing-centered forums and activities and relationships over others, and all of that feels like necessary self-protection and self-care.  

And on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays I'll be walking regularly again according to a regular  schedule -- mostly to get myself ready for all the walking I'll do in Scandinavia and Russia in May but also for just for good health and inner balance.

So yeah. I'm busy and I'm about to become overcomitted. Yesterday the writing went well, today not so much. But it's all good -- because I like the classes that I'm about to start teaching next week, I'm a professor and writer by training and preference, and I'm luckier than about 99.9999% of the world's population.

As long as I write no matter what.

Hearth and Home | Loving me some weekend

Phew. It's been an intense work week and I'm glad the weekend has arrived.

I've already chronicled last week's on- and offline course preparation. Intense. Productive. To the extent that even lil old Type A personality me is taking off  today to putter and do exactly as I wish. Come January 22, my schedule will heat up immensely, and I might as well practice  more of a zen attitude of breathe-observe-release and focus on staying in the present.

Which somehow also makes me want to observe the following ...   

To be fair to myself, I need to honor the fact that not all of my single-mindedness and focus is pathologogical. Which is to say, those qualities don't exist in me simply because I  have clinical OCD (now mostly in remission), and I'm a Type A kind of neurotic person. Though both things are certainly true, I need to give myself credit for being more than the sum of what used to be called neuroses. What I often pathologize as symptoms or conditions, others would read as virtues, or at least, postive attributes. She's hard-working. She's focused. She's motivated. She's ambitious. She has a lot of interests.

Well ... yeah! I am and I do.  Moreover, I like  and admire those characteristics  in others, so why won't I allow myself to like and admire them in myself? Instead, I tend to dismiss or minimize them, often by pathologizing them.

Memo to self: stop that.

On a related note , I started a 4-week online course on time management and writing this week, and while I'm not learning anything new -- it's more of a coaching seminar than a true class, I think -- it has prompted me to take a few basic actions, like schedule inviolate blocks of writing time into each work day.

By which I mean, I've literally written them into my electronic calendar through May (i.e., the end of the semester), color-coded them as work, and will not allow competing demands (such as requests for appointments or meetings) interfere with them.

On the two days a week that I teach, I'm writing  from 5 to 7 a.m. Then and only then will I begin my  morning ritual of looking at email, checking Facebook and Twitter, and participating in a couple of online communities which I've been a part of for years.

On the three days a week  that I don't teach, I've entered into separate agreements with my friends K and T to write with them in 2-hour sessions.  

That's 10 hours of dedicated writing time a week, which is 25% of a standard work week.  Given that I have a 100% career as a college professor right now, that's pretty good. (Of course, some of that writing time will be linked to my academic career because -- gulp -- I have a book contract.)

I do think I'll dedicate one of those  writing days on which I teach to my novel. Two hours a week. Given my 2-3 year plan and my priorities, that's about right. If I have the time and want to, I can make additional time for it on the weekends.  At that pace, I still think I'll be able to finish Draft 1 of my novel by year's end.  Right now I'm wrapping up Chapter Three of 12 chapters.

As I grow older, I notice that I'm becoming more goal-oriented rather than less.

Part of it has to do with discovering over the past 25 years that setting goals really helps me achieve what I want and what has helped me to live a more fulfilling, satisfying life -- everything from becoming able to support myself first through gainful work, then through a career, to marrying and creating a family . (This was in distinct contrast to the first half of my life in which I set very few goals because I kept expecting to die -- first at the hands of my father and then by suicide.)

But another part has to do with my sense of the passage of time. I'll be 52 on January 27. My time on this earth is dimininishing (as is all of ours, of course, but an awareness of one's mortality and finitude increases with age), and I no longer feel as if I'll have all the time in the world to do, go, and accomplish all I want. I won't. But I can pick some of the things I want to do, some of the places I want to go, and actively work in tangible ways at doing those things, going to those places.

Ivory Tower | What a week!

It's Friday morning, I'm looking back at this past week, and I confess that I've surprised even myself with how much I've accomplished.

The creation of college courses takes a really long time. If you haven't done it yourself, then you don't know. You can appreciate and imagine, but you can't know. Then, if you have to master a new online learning management system, get that organized, and load your materials into it, that's a whole 'nuther ballgame.

I've done all that with three coures this week, working pretty much nonstop except for sleep and a couple of unavoidable errands (new tires, anyone?).

Tasks still remain to be done. I have to spend some time on campus, generating .pdf files of hard copy readings to upload into courses.  I have to create some additional online content that makes the coures warm and fuzzy for the students and the sites easier to navigate.

And none of these classes is a fully online course, by the way. They're hybrid coures which I teach in person, face to face.

But more and more I'm parking content, resources, and tasks (such as test-taking and peer review of work) online to preserve limited classroom time. Students are simply going to have to learn to navigate online systems better and to show up on time and in person for class.  Come prepared to work, or leave my classroom.

Anyway, although more work remains to be done to prep for classes, I'm feeling comfortable enough with where I'm at to meet my friend T for an afternoon work session at a café today.  Finally I will begin work on my Phantom of the Opera revisions and the reading I need to do to make those revisions.  I'd wanted to start on that by January 1 but I delayed it so that I could continue to get my novel up and running. And as I said, this past weel has been all about course preparation. Now, however, I can begin. Let's see if I can hit my personal deadline of finishing that by January 31.

Last night I reupped my membership in the national and local chapters of Romance Writers of America and RSVP'd in the affirmative that I'd be going to this month's gather on January 19.

And this morning? I'm doing something totally frivolous and getting my nails done. :)