Barbies

Does owning four Barbies make me a freaky collector? I have Wonder Woman, the Wicked Witch of the West, Aviator Barbie, and A "graduation" Barbie from 1998, so she's technically "Master's Degree" Barbie. I really want I Dream of Jeannie and Samantha from Bewitched Barbie too. They will all eventually make their way onto my bookshelves in the permanent office I hope to someday have on a college campus near you.... (or near me). So I'll be weirdo Dr. Wells who has a thing for Barbies. I'd love a Virgin of Guadalupe Barbie too-- maybe I have to get that custom made. Ah, I can see strange heights of collectible mania spreading my way. It's a like a rash, I think.

introductory chapter

Well, in case you're wondering, the writing has gone really really well the last two weeks. I have a lot of work done on my introductory chapter, my proposal is ALMOST ready to send to my committee, and the Buffy chapter is up to the mid-twenties in page length and I haven't even talked about Willow yet. So writing at Starbuck's has gone well, except for one day when this chatty guy wouldn't take a polite hint and kept talking and talking (and talking) to me. I kept trying to "scratch my nose" with my wedding-ringed left hand, in the hopes that he would realize "hey, this chick is married and so my flirting is doing no good" but maybe he either didn't get such a subtle hint or didn't care. He was definitely flirting, but maybe some guys don't realize that not every woman flirts back just because she isn't outright rude. I dunno. For a long time it wasn't an issue; when I was chubby, no guys really even noticed (a sad truth that women who are "older" or over a certain body weight are invisible in our culture!!)

Anyway, I'm going to the gym in a few minutes, and later next week will be going to Florida for my niece's wedding and then to Alabama to do a "just write it" week at my "retreat" in Birmingham. :) I have no idea if anyone other than the "retreat hostess" ever even reads this thing, but I thought I'd update just in case.

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stop complaining about writing

So on another note, in the "private life, stop complaining about writing" world, Tituba went to the vet this morning. She's been scratching her ears a lot lately, and holding them down like she's annoyed (makes her look a little like a black Yoda). So I knew there was something. She has an ear infection, poor little thing. She really hated the whole process of people poking her & getting blood drawn and all. But I feel a little better, although terribly guilty that I didn't do something about it sooner. The gunk that came out of her ears when the vet stuck a q-tip (kids don't try this at home) in there! Bleah!!!

I also finished up a series of "fun books" this morning. I'm going to review them for the website's next update, I think. Storm Constantine's Wraethuthu books are pretty fab. I got them based in part on Neil Gaiman's blurb on the latest one (since I love his work, I figured I'd like the stuff he liked-- a generally good rule, and the principle behind those "other author" blurbs on books, I reckon). If you can't wait till my rave review in the January issue of the zine, read for yourself: the first series and then there's the one out in hardback most recent addition to the series which I liked even more than the first trilogy. Probably because the fourth book deals much more with the feminine side of the "Har". Good stuff!! It's rich, in that way that makes you long for more when you're done reading it.

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"pit of despair"

So in the last week, I've gone from the previous "pit of despair" area on my dissertation to feeling pretty darn good. Sunday (ish) I came up, in my sleep, with some ideas. Monday & Tuesday I wrote a BUNCH, on both the proposal/intro chapter & the Buffy chapter. I haven't revised that writing yet, but when I do, I expect it to give me something like 30 pages of writing. Yesterday & today were/are lazy days, and then tomorrow & the weekend I plan to do a bunch of writing again. It feels really good, and for the first time in a couple of weeks, I feel as though this is actually do-able again.

One of the things that helped a lot was going over to Keval's condo to write. It's all empty, and very feng shui with a water fountain gushing in the courtyard & no distractions. I also hung out at the Starbuck's down the street, which, unlike the one near my house, seemed quieter & more conducive to work. I will try the closer one again this weekend, and if it is, as has been the case in the past, too noisy & distracting, I'll go to the 281 & Bitters one (like that makes sense to ANYONE but me.!) :) I want to get a trickly fountain for my house, now, though. It has to be big enough to make a good amount of noise.... the one my mom got me a few years ago didn't do much.

It's all good!!

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What I wish I knew is this:

What I wish I knew is this: Is it some kind of computer program/virus thing that generates the headings for all the stupid spam that one gets every day? Because sometimes I get four or five of exactly the same email with totally different "re" lines. "Glad to see you" and "that info you asked about" and "increase your penis size rdosrss33" and other vauge, but very (sometimes) creative things in/on them. I, of course, delete them, diligently add them to the "spam filter" (and I'm quite sure most of those spammers never use the same email address again, so the step is somewhat pointless). Maybe I don't really wish I knew it, maybe by asking the question here in a somewhat public place I'm asking for trouble. Maybe someone will now explain in exruciating detail how spam works, and I will wish for the days when all I had to do was throw out complaints from high school students that I don't do enough to allow them to plagiarize my website. ::sigh::

I keep getting rather intriguing emails about being able to get your university degree (including PhD's) with no coursework and very little hassle. All strictly confidential. And there's a phone number you have to call. Is this some sort of ploy by academia, and if you call, you can promise to never get a tenure-track job? They're monitoring us slackers who think about easy outs from writing dissertations and taking classes? (I have to say, in retrospect, that coursework is/was my favorite part of college-- I miss it terribly because there were deadlines, and constant talks about interesting topics that I had made myself read, in a timely fashion. Now college is all one big giant guilt trip-- but I digress). Or are there, as we speak/write, college professors out there we're calling Dr. So-in-so who have their degrees from this secret university, and perhaps they're even on our hiring committees chortling away at our endless collegiate fumbling towards eternity while they merely wrote a check and filled out some form? It's a mystery of the universe, I think.

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More dissertation Breakthrough

Okay, for anyone keeping up..... I have reached a good spot after all my complaining about my dissertation the other day. My friend who lurks this blog called & we made plans to do a "group work" session really soon. But really, what helped even more than that was that I started talking about my frustration. Isn't that always the way it goes? You get depressed, keep it to yourself, and it just gets worse. So I talked to Andrew about it, he got me to outline more what I was doing with the Buffy chapter (and the whole dissertation, really) and, since the other day, I've come to a "breakthrough" in thinking (at least) about that chapter. I think I know now where I need to go with it. Monday I'm going to sit down and try to really crank out some ideas-- Andrew will be gone all day and I won't touch anything other than dissertation writing, darn it!

But this is good-- I woke up this morning with it kind of worked out-- (I have to admit it felt better during the night when I thought it over-- sort of like a dream that fades a bit when you don't write it down right away.) But I don't think I lost more than just a minor bit of "flow" that I can rework in there eventually.

In other news

So yesterday we had a nice fourth of July thing. People came to our house for a while, ate, and then we caravanned over to Randolph AFB for a big fireworks show. We had sort of "factioned" from another friend's party, who was just planning on setting off their own store-bought stuff. I felt bad about that because it did cause a smaller group to go to their place-- but there wasn't any reason why they HAD to put off their own stuff last night-- they could have done their party tonight and we wouldn't have had to choose between the two events. But it was fun. Debbie of bellydance instruction came, and other "new friends" like Jamie & her husband Leonard, and Vicki brought a nice date (Carl). Then it was just the regular gang (Aaron, Nissa, Steve, Keval, Jeffrey). Some of the folks didn't go to fireworks with us. I did get stuck in icky traffic on the way back, and everyone else managed to avoid it and get home 20 minutes sooner (considering we live only 15 minutes from base that tells you a lot of the traffic we were stuck in).

Anyway, that's the news... the weather is a little rainy. :)

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Crabby Doubts

I'm feeling depressed, cranky, etc today about my potential to finish my dissertation. Up until recently, even though I hadn't been doing a ton of writing, I still felt that I could get it done, if I just sit down at the computer and apply myself. This last couple of days, however, I've begun to entertain the idea of writer's block. I KNOW that it is a pathetic term, and one that is cliched and overused to stand in for lazy, or uninspired, or something. But I'm thinking that's maybe what's wrong with me. I sit down to try to write, something that's always been very easy for me, and what I write sounds like such crap I write a few pages and quit. Or I just stare at what I've already written, loathing it, contemplating life as an aerobics instructor or medical receptionist (it's a growing field, you know, according to all the TV commercials).

So what so what so what. Maybe I should go back & get my teacher certification so I can teach high school. Or ask Dr. B if I can have a full load of classes and if there is any way I can be hired as more than a temporary person. Heavy disheartened sigh.