But I’m taking today off. I got home around 1:00 a.m. But let’s start at the beginning. I arrived and got registered in time to attend a 10:15 session, “Rhetoric, Composition, Writing: Affinities, Tragectories, Discontinuities” with Cheryl Glenn and Kathleen Yancey. Doug Hesse was supposed to be there as well, but instead Kathy read his paper. In Doug’s paper, he started with a story about receiving an email from his daughter’s Alma Mater. As Kathy read the email, I recognized it. It was the email that sent people to this, a flash presentation created by one of my students during the summer program I direct. I consider myself semi-quoted.

During that session my phone rang. (Actually, my phone wasn’t the only phone to ring.) I turned it off and then at the end of the session, I checked my messages. It was from Lilian. After an unsuccessful attempt to call back, we finally connected and grabbed a bite to eat at Reading Terminal Market. Lilian ran off to a session. I was wandering the halls, trying to figure out what I was going to do next. On the bridge between the hotel and the convention center, I spotted a friend from grad school. We stopped and chatted for a while. We caught up on where everyone had ended up. Turns out he’s been living not that far away from me. But he’s looking to move on (as many people I ran into were. More on that later.)

After leaving my friend, I decided to wander the exhibits. I stopped by the Inside Higher Ed booth and said hi to Scott and Doug. I picked up a few free books. Yay! I had to meet someone at 2:30, so decided not to attend a 1:15 session (this is a trend I continued). I found a place to sit down. Somewhere during that time or maybe before that, I got email from Collin, inviting me to meet him and his gang at the cocktail thing at 5:15 and then perhaps join them for dinner afterwards. I had tentatively had plans with a friend who lives in the city, but she had not gotten in touch with me, so I decided to take Collin up on his invite.

After my 2:30 meeting, it was about 3:15. I scoured the program and decided there was nothing I wanted to attend. (Told you it was a trend.) So I wandered to the email room, checked my email, looked up some phone numbers and then found a place to sit. I swear I walked 10 miles, so sitting was utterly important. I called another grad school friend at her hotel, thinking she wouldn’t be there and I’d just leave a message. She was there. Unfortunately, she was in the middle of an interview. Boy, did I feel dumb.

After sitting for a while, I decided it wasn’t too early for a drink, so I wandered down to the lobby bar. There were no seats to be had and really I was more interested in sitting than drinking, so I found a spot at the other bar, which wasn’t open yet. Thirty minutes later, it opened and since I was sitting there anyway I decided to have a drink. By the time I finished, it was time for the cocktail party. Very conveniently, I had left my coat on a coat rack right outside the room where the cocktail party was being held. Drinking ensued again as did chatting with some very nice people and meeting up with Collin and crew.

Eventually, we headed off to dinner at BookBinders, which was totally awesome. Really, there’s no other word for it. Our waiter will tell you so. But it was really good. And, then we split into 3 cabs with Collin and I headed off to the blogger meetup, written about here and here. Collin and I were late and apparently we missed Dr. B. Oh well. I’m thinking I have plans to attend the 8:30 session tomorrow. We’ll see. It’s sooo early. I’m also thinking I’m going to need a nap later. When I left the blogger meetup to catch a train, I was thinking there’d be one around 11:30, but I hadn’t checked the schedule and there wasn’t a train until 12:10. I probably should have gone back and chatted a little more, but I didn’t. I listened to a guy talk on his cell phone to his girlfriend about how he needs to get his own life together before their relationship goes any further. It was actually kind of interesting.

So, it turned out not to be so bad. I feel slightly guilty for not attending anything, especially since I’ve seen some blogger writeups of sessions that looked interesting. It’s such a huge program. I think I’m over my fear of the MLA. Not sure if I’ll ever go again, but if I do, I will no longer fear it.

I’m headed to the MLA today. Don’t ask why. It’s complicated. I feel like the girl who couldn’t get a date to the prom and goes anyway, only to hang out in the corner, hoping someone will ask her to dance. Only no one does. I don’t really do well at these big conferences. I’m a regional/specialist kind of conference goer. I’m debating going to the blogger meetup tonight because I’ll feel like I’m an interloper. Sure I blog, but I’m not a lit person. I’m a fence straddler. I’ve got one foot in each court and I’m not sure I’m happy with either. I’m dreading the badge glance. You know, the look to see if you’re an appropriately prestigious school. I’m dreading people casually asking what I do and upon finding out I’m not in the professoriate or potential professoriate will end the conversation quickly by saying they have a thing. Little insecure, are we?

Yes, the insecurity is part of it. But it’s also that this is a life I left behind almost six years ago, a life I semi returned to when I decided to complete the Ph.D., but one I’m not sure I want to return to. There’s a lot about academia I enjoy. I like discussing intellectual topics, thinking about things that no one else really thinks about. But I don’t like the way that talk sometimes gets so far beyond the practical that it’s laughable. I don’t like the hierarchy crap, the way one’s school determines where one sits on the great chain of being. Maybe I’m being too hard on the institution. Maybe it’s just me.

We’re in the slump between Christmas and New Year’s when we mostly lie around and play with our new Christmas gifts. I’m planning to hop over to the MLA. Geeky Boy has a birthday party today. We have a New Year’s party to attend and then it will be back to work and school.

I definitely enjoy the lack of schedule but I’m so not used to it. My life has be a relentless schedule for the past 3 months. Last night was the first night I slept well. I’d toss and turn, thinking about stuff I needed to do, worrying about the kids. I just haven’t been able to wind down, plus I’ve had the virus which seems to be going away now. It was the kind of virus that sapped the energy out of me, but not quite enough to be incapacitating. I’d get up in the morning and by noon, I’d feel like I needed a nap.

I think one of my resolutions for the new year is going to be to relax a little. Do less. Enjoy more.

I left the salt out of the biscuits. The ice cream pie was a total mess but really, really tasty. All in all a great success! Wishing you all a peaceful evening.

We have our big holiday meal on Christmas Eve so today is a day to get ready. I’ll be doing a little rushing around, all in preparation for relaxing and doing nothing for a couple of days. The menu for the meal is:

• roast
• baked asparagus with cheese
• glazed carrots
• sweet potato biscuits
• hot fudge brownie pie

So, I’m going to make a few things ahead of time and then be ready for a delicious meal and a relaxing evening. Here’s what I need to do:

• buy a roast (I bought a cheap one and have decided it won’t do for Xmas Eve so I’m going to get a better one. I’ll use the other one later.)
• buy champagne
• make Christmas cookies with Geeky Kids (we’ve made two batches of cookies already, one is already gone)
• make the hot fudge brownie pie
• maybe make some other chocolate thing. I have leftover chocolate.
• watch marathon of Christmas specials

It will be busy, but fun. I hope everyone else has a wonderful weekend and holiday.

The winter solstice ritual was called Lenaea, the Festival of the Wild Women. In very ancient times, a man representing the harvest god Dionysos was torn to pieces and eaten by a gang of women on this day. Later in the ritual, Dionysos would be reborn as a baby. By classical times, the human sacrifice had been replaced by the killing of a goat. The women’s role had changed to that of funeral mourners and observers of the birth.

Winter solstice celebrations of Christianity, Judaism, Neopaganism, etc

Now that’s my kind of festival, except the human sacrifice part.

I do own a holiday sweater, but I doubt I’ll wear it this year. Worse, I own a holiday vest which depicts the 12 days of Christmas. Growing up, we never had holiday wear. Socks maybe. My mother never sported a bright red sweater with Rudolph on it. My dad might have had a Christmas tie, likely a gift. When I began spending Christmases with Mr. Geeky’s family, the holiday sweater became de rigeur. Mr. Geeky’s mom worked at an elementary school so she had shirts and sweaters and dresses and socks for every holiday. So did many of the other women in Mr. Geeky’s family. I wanted to fit in and I kind of liked wearing something to celebrate the holidays, so I wore sweaters. And then I was given a couple and next thing you know I had a whole collection. But I think the days of the holiday sweaters (for me, anyway) are over.

I could join the ugly sweater bar crawl, which I think would be the perfect use for my old sweaters. I prefer holiday jammies myself. Only I know how festive I am.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve become more aware of this particular kind of man who eats lunch out or does business with “clients” in coffee shops. I find them very annoying and yet fascinating. These guys are well-dressed, generally in suits or in hip business casual attire. They often have those bluetooth earpieces, making them look a little like a Ohura, but it’s cool among their kind. They have product in their hair, which is generally slicked back away from their face in a stylish, non-greaser-looking way. If conducting business, they have gadgets: laptops, Blackberries. They like to talk about money. I’ve overheard conversations about millon-dollar homes and business plans. There’s an intensity about them that is a bit scary. They’re focused, mostly on themselves. They seem to own the room, or at least the corner they’ve occupied for the moment. If they’re with other alpha males, there is lots of jockeying for position. Depending on their age, this is done via jokes and references to popular culture or via talk about their possessions like their new car or plasma screen tv. You get the sense that either a) they know they own and run the world or b) they know they don’t and this is the cover up. Do you know this species?

As seen in The Clutter Museum, post the first sentence of the first post for each month.

January: This is the first new year’s eve in a while where I’ve overindulged.

February: I didn’t listen to the SOTU, but I read summaries and listened to the coverage of it on NPR this morning.

March: Both Elizabeth and Laura have posts about the Newsweek article (which I haven’t read) on the European system of offering parents lots of time off and part-time job opportunities.

April: Just returned from a kick-off event at Mt. Holyoke for a Women’s Public Voices grant.

May: I spend part of every Sunday watching This Week and Reliable Sources.

June: 1. Do you use an alarm clock to wake up? Yes

July: One thing blogging does for me is help to sort out all the crazy thoughts in my head.

August: I’m still sorting all this out, but I thought I’d give it a stab.

September: It’s been a long week. I’ve attempted to start working on those resolutions I’ve made.

October: I originally started this as a comment, but thought it deserved a place in the sun.

November: Why does it always seem that everything has to be done at once?

December: I’m about a third of the way done with this chapter.

In summary: I started the year hungover and spent the rest of it commenting on things I haven’t read and trying to sort out various things in my life. Sounds about right.

• The presents have been bought and wrapped and shipped. Can we just have Christmas tomorrow and be done with it? Personally, being the atheist I am, I’d rather celebrate the solstice on Thursday. Let’s have a Saturnalia celebration or something.
• I’m kind of bummed that the kids aren’t out of school yet. We could be making cookies, going to movies and playing games, but no, they’re trotting off to school every day, doing homework. Bah. Humbug.
• I can’t quite seem to unwind yet. There just seem to be loose ends I know I have to tie up or come back to in the new year. (Like grades.)
• I have a cool plan in the new year for fun stuff on the blog. Maybe more fun for me that you, but hey it’s all about me, right.
• Our minivan is on its last legs. It’s gonna need serious work. Merry Christmas.
• There’s nothing dumber than 24 hour news. What a monster we created.
• Maybe I’ll produce something more thoughtful at some point. Maybe.