RWP + a T on a saturday

READING: for novels, i'm working on jeffrey eugenides' the virgin suicides, which is quietly interesting to me, but isn't exactly dragging me along for a superfun ride. also reading geoff ryman's the child garden, which is alternately interesting and boring to me. i've been working on it for awhile--it's long and somewhat dense. the narrative contains very little by way of "stock" plots, so i have no idea where it's going, and sometimes i have no idea where it's been. i also just picked up kaushik sunder rajan's biocapital: the constitution of postgenomic life and started reading that at the pub yesterday, while waiting for my friends to show up and baring my teeth at other pub denizens who wanted to steal my chairs. i have a pile of novels to start after i'm done with the two aforementioned, including kazuo ishiguro's never let me go, which might end up being useful for my dissertation; and paul auster's oracle night, which was recommended to me by glaucon. here's how that recommendation went down: i was at half price books with a gift card that i wanted to use up, and i needed one more book to accomplish that, so i told glaucon that i would buy whatever novel he picked out for me, no questions asked. after browsing around for a bit, he handed me the auster and i bought it as promised, no questions asked. i'm looking forward to reading it. i also think i might want to play this game with him again. :-)

WEARING: at the moment...black sweatpants, black t-shirt, wool hiking socks, and a green/aqua/purple/gold printed patagonia zip fleece that i bought in 1994.

PLANNING: not much for today. i have to clean and organize my bedroom. i have made strides toward that goal...i bought myself a swift and wool winder last week and wound a bunch of my yarn into more easily storable yarn "cakes." i need to buy a better storage container and some moth repellent stuff--no, not moth balls (yuk!), but rather some kind of lavender/cedar sachet thing. [some of the wool yarn i own is permanently moth-proofed by the manufacturer; but i also have a bunch that is still moth-vulnerable. i found some moth damage to one of my wool sweaters last winter, and i would be very sad if those little fuckers got into my yarn stash, so i really need to take protective measures.] one cool side-effect of winding all this wool: i got some inspiring new ideas about what to do with some of the yarn in my stash, stuff i bought just because i loved it, but without a clear project in mind. i am so glad i took up knitting again, and that i got so obsessed with it. it's a rewarding hobby, and the obsession is cooling down into something more manageable. oh, i might go on a shopping trip today with my roommate--a joint venture to the container store at the u-village, and to the fish store on roosevelt.

THINKING ABOUT: life, the universe, and everything. i'm feeling generally more positive about life lately--it feels good to have two teaching gigs for next quarter, one of which might translate into steady teaching work for next year. i am realizing that i really need to have some kind of socially interactive work to accompany my very solitary research/writing work. i need both, and it's ideal for me if they complement each other in some way. i love the open-endedness of teaching, the messiness, the give and take, and the unexpectedness of it. i never know what my students will bring to the classroom, what skills i'll have to draw on to answer their questions and respond to their reading and writing. i love that it often challenges my own thinking in some way, pushing me to reconsider, refine, and revise my ideas and opinions. i'm looking forward to it...though i know i'll be a bit bogged down with paper reading and commenting...i just have to make a plan for staying on top of all of that work, and stick to it.