Me
July 16, 2008
The Sign Outside My House
Recently a sign appeared outside my house. It looks like this:
Of course this sign was preceded by an earlier sign, one that said "For Sale." The fact that the first sign was up for a mere month before the "Sold" sign was posted made me REALLY happy.
The fact that there has been this signage outside my house helps explain, I hope, why I haven't been as prolific a blogger recently as I've at other times in my life--OK, I've posted a lot of entries, but they've been short. Because, you see, there's been painting going on. And regrouting. And selling furniture. And lots and lots of cleaning. And getting the hell out of the house so complete strangers can walk through it and look at my stuff.
But that is all over, and I'm moving--soon. Which means posting may be even more sporadic until I get where I'm going and get settled.
Wish me luck!
Posted by Holly at 7:54 AM | Comments (6)
February 12, 2008
Nightmare on My Street
I don’t feel I need to offer an excuse when I don’t blog for a while, because A) I didn’t sign no freakin’ contract to blog according to any schedule and B) I am an adult and can do what I want and C) I don’t think my failure to blog for a few days or weeks really causes anyone any suffering--I’m not vain enough to imagine I’ve attracted that kind of fandom and it’s a good thing because I don’t want that kind of responsibility.
But sometimes I want to reveal, just for the heck of it, what I’ve been doing instead of blogging, or why I didn’t quite feel like blogging. So here it is: I’ve been traveling, and while on my travels, I had a nightmare--not a nightmarish travel experience like the one involving the two little girls in the back of the minivan; this trip actually went pretty smoothly, transportation-wise--but an actual nightmare that left me confused, perplexed, and, dare I say it, ashamed.
It might have had something to do with the martinis I downed while out with my friend C the first night of my visit, or it might not.... I’d rather blame it on the martinis, frankly, than imagine that this dream really expressed something going on in my own head. So here’s what happened.
I was in some TV show with Tori Spelling, and my role required me to jump off some really tall structure onto one of those bouncy castle things you can rent for your kid’s birthday party. Tori and I were supposed to stand an equal distance from the edge so that we both had plenty of room to bounce on the inflated thing that would break our fall, but she was a space and a glory hog and insisted on jumping off right in the middle, which meant that I was forced far to the side. The fall hurt me; I was cut and bruised. (I don’t know how a bouncy castle thing could inflict cuts, but that’s the logic of dreams for you.) I was sad, sore and angry, so I called my boyfriend.
Who turned out to be George W. Bush.
I was mildly horrified when he showed up, and couldn’t figure out how I had started dating him. I was even more horrified when he turned out to be a decent boyfriend--not all that interesting, granted, but solicitous of my well-being and nice enough while he was around. We never discussed politics or our personal lives, which meant that we never acknowledged that he was married and the president of the United States, or that I despise him. The only indications that he was president, in fact, were the body guards waiting out in the street by his limo while he was in the house with me, and the huge delivery of groceries and other goods that arrived at my home immediately after his departure.
So that’s why I have been silent: I’ve been on planes and trains and in hotels, and I’ve been trying to purge myself of the disgust I felt upon realizing that my mind, even when aided by plenty of vodka, could actually concoct a scenario in which I’m dating George Bush. I don’t know if sharing this dream will increase or mitigate the shame. We'll see.
Posted by Holly at 11:29 AM | Comments (5)
December 30, 2007
Strangers with Pleasant Personalities
It has taken me a very long time to recognize certain things about the way I was raised to view certain social interactions, a view rooted in the "mind your own goddamn business" ethos of the southwest. It was made clear to me, from a very early age and by most of the adults whose examples I witnessed, that when you had to talk to strangers, the conversations should be as neutral and as brief as possible. You shouldn't be flat-out rude, but you also shouldn't make chit-chat with the guy who takes your order at some bakery/bagel/sandwich chain, because he might then feel it appropriate to tell you, with genuine kindness and your best interest at heart, that the sandwich you just ordered has more calories than any other item on the menu. You shouldn't act like you're actually interested in the thoughts and opinions of the person helping you find a book at some bookstore, because then they might stick around and continue to talk to you when you just want to find your book, buy it, and get the hell out of the store. The only exceptions to this rule are if you are trying to spread the gospel; in that case, you should use these mini-moments of niceness as an opportunity to ask the other person what they know about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and invite them to church.
Actually maybe that's another reason I used to try to keep conversations with strangers to a minimum: I didn't want to do anything that might invite them to proselytize me. (One more way my religious upbringing screwed up my ability to play well with others.)
But my friend C has no such problem. I have known her for about a year and a half, and hanging out with her has been a revelation, largely because she is so charming, friendly and open: I continue to be astonished at easily she enters into conversations with complete strangers, conversations that, although often very brief, are nonetheless enjoyable to all who participate in and hear them--up to a point.
C used to tend bar. (I so prefer the locution "tend bar" to "be a bartender." It just sounds cooler.) She learned certain things about how to be pleasant enough to people that they wanted to tip her, but not so pleasant that they figured she'd be going home with them at the end of the night. I don't want to make it sound calculated: she has developed a genuine habit of being cheerful, friendly, and polite when she meets people. Which is why the guy at the sandwich shop told her, "That sandwich you just ordered, it's my favorite. I used to eat one almost every day. But then I decided to look it up and see, like, how many calories it has and stuff, and it turns out it's got 1100 calories. It's got more calories than anything else we sell. They're really not good for you."
"I'm so glad you told me that," she said, smiling. "Because even though I don't look it, I'm actually morbidly obese. So it's good to know that sandwich is not helping my problem."
I'm probably not doing the scene justice; it was actually very funny. And she managed not to make the guy feel bad for what was kind of a faux pas. I was really impressed that she made this kid feel so at ease that he would tell her something like that, and then even more impressed that she didn't say anything that embarrassed him, even though he'd said something that was in some small way a reproach to her.
Occasionally--not often, but occasionally--people don't realize when the small, pleasant interaction has come to an end, and that's when I get annoyed, especially because I'm the slightly-more-standoffish friend of the really gregarious girl everyone wants to talk to. My annoyance does not stem from jealousy, however, but from boredom. It's not all that often that these brief conversations with strangers as interesting as the conversation C and I could have on our own, and my old "mind your own goddamn business" training comes back and makes me wish these people would realize that just because C is being really nice to them, it doesn't mean they're interesting.
Among the worst people for this are bartenders and waiters on slow nights. Now, I'm not saying all bartenders or waiters are boring; C and I had a favorite bar and one reason we loved it was that we loved the bartender--she was such a lovely person, and she'd talk to us without hovering. The same went for the wait staff. I loved pretty much everyone at that restaurant. The food was good, but the service was fantastic.
But there were also a couple of bars we had to stop going to because the bartenders were SO BORING and didn't know when to go away, leave us alone and wash glasses.
Saturday night we had an experience at a bar with another of those truly lovely bartenders, a really friendly, good-natured person who is good at his job because he likes it and vice versa. He made good drinks and good conversation. We stayed at the bar much longer than we planned to, and the main reason was the bartender.
Now, in my standard fashion, I have not yet arrived at what is for me the ultimate point I want to make, the reason I started this entry, but my preamble has become extremely long. So I will end here and pick this thread up again in a day (or a week) or two.
Posted by Holly at 7:40 PM | Comments (3)
December 16, 2007
My New Action Figure
Today is the birthday of my two favorite writers: Jane Austen and... ME!
You may well roll your eyes and think I'm arrogant for announcing that I'm my own favorite writer, but one of the many reasons I love Saviour Onassis is for the way he taught me to value my own talents. Someday I will tell the story of how Saviour Onassis convinced me that I should always say I am my own favorite artist, but in the meantime I will tell you the story of one of the coolest presents I have received this birthday, namely, this:
That's right, it's a Jane Austen action figure! I have wanted one ever since I read an entry on Robyn's blog about how she got one from her father. My dad usually leaves gift buying to my mother, so I knew not to expect anything from that quarter, but mercifully one of my sisters obliged me.... (Actually my siblings have been really good to me this year--I got all kinds of stuff! But that's going to be another post, I hope--I have so many things I've been meaning to blog about.) You can see the box in front of some flowers a friend sent me--I love getting flowers but it's just not something most people send. (Including me, now that I think about it.) You can also see my cat checking out a bit of the greenery--there's something about these particular bits of foliage that freak her out.
Here's Jane out of the box and not quite in action, in front of my (alphabetized) copies of her work:
I had a very early Barbie as a little girl, one that had I never played with it or taken it out of the box, would be worth thousands today. But I was four or so when I got it--of course I took it out of the box and played with it, though I never did intentionally destructive things like draw on it or cut its hair. It occurred to me after I ripped the box of this action figure open that maybe I was supposed to just leave it in its box, but I wanted to handle the figure.
Turns out this version of Jane is wielding a quill like a weapon.
She's also kind of hot... I don't know if the real Jane was this curvy, but I do know Regency fabric didn't drape on the body the way this doll is depicted.
Anyway. What I would like from you is a birthday greeting, whenever you happen to read this message. I don't care if it's a week or two or three from now, please say hi! In fact, I will accept birthday wishes on this message up until December 15, 2008.
Cheers!
Posted by Holly at 11:59 AM | Comments (13)
August 4, 2007
Dream Interpretation Manual
The other morning I woke to find a barely legible note I’d written to myself on my desk in my office. Seems I’d awakened from a dream and thought it was interesting enough that I should write it down.... I stared at the note and could vaguely remember getting up to write up, but the dream was pretty foggy, though as I contemplated the matter, a few details did start to return to me....
I dreamed I was at a hamburger making competition. A bunch of guys were trying to produce the very best burgers, as quickly as possible, and they had to make them to order for the audience. It was in some big tent on some lovely summer day and everyone was in good spirits, laughing, shouting, chatting, and the tent was therefore extremely noisy. Because I hate raw tomatoes (they’re vile, you know?), I kept shouting, “No tomatoes! Hold the tomatoes!” to the guy making my burger.
But he absolutely couldn’t understand me. No matter how I shouted, no matter how I varied what I was saying, I couldn’t make myself intelligible.
Finally, however, some light seemed to dawn; he nodded to himself, and started looking under some counter for something. And then, with evident satisfaction, he pulled out a book on interpreting dreams, because he knew it would help him make sense of what was going on.
And that’s when I woke up, and that’s what I thought was worth writing down.
So not only do I often know I’m dreaming inside my dreams, but the OTHER people in my dreams know it too.
Posted by Holly at 12:53 PM | Comments (2)
June 16, 2007
An Old "Tell Us All About Yourself" Quiz
I am in the process of reading through and deleting or transferring all the files on my very old computer (I bought it in 1994) so I can recycle it. (Yeah, I know, I should have recycled it long ago. But it was a good, reliable computer and I wrote my dissertation on it, and it has had sentimental value. But I'm planning to get a laptop, and the really old thing has to go.) Anyway, I found this quiz from 1999, and it made me want to party, and then answer the questions. I've updated answers that were no longer accurate, but if the old answer is still true and/or amusing, I left it.
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF OUIJA BOARDS: They creep me out.
FAVORITE TV SHOW: After Buffy, my favorite show is "The Blank Screen." It's the only show I watch regularly.
WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSEPAD: a mouse
FAVORITE BOARD GAME: Twister
FAVORITE MAGAZINE: Anything with writing by me inside it.
FAVORITE SMELLS: jasmine, hyacinth, orange blossoms, lilac, bergamot, rosemary, sandalwood, the desert after a thunder storm
WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD: Believing that God hates me, that there is a hell, and that God is going to send me there
BEST FEELING IN THE WORLD: When I first took this quiz, I wrote that I was going through a period of feeling happy a lot of the time, which I defined as "an awareness that I feel healthy, capable and content on a fairly consistent basis." I claimed to like it a lot. I can see why I would enjoy that feeling.
FAVORITE SOUNDTRACK: I love show tunes. I couldn't pick a favorite.
WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING? It's almost always one of two things: 1) Must pee, or 2) Why the fuck is my cat yowling like that and how can I get her to stop?
DO YOU GET MOTION SICKNESS: I used to get it on my mission when I was lying absolutely still. It sucked.
ROLLER COASTERS--SCARY OR EXCITING: I'm not particularly fond of roller coasters, but from what I understand, isn't the scare part of the excitement?
PEN OR PENCIL: pens for writing, pencils for underlining in books
HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE: however many it takes for me to get to the phone, unless my caller id reveals that it's someone I don't want to talk to.
FAVORITE NAMES FOR ACTUAL OR FUTURE DAUGHTERS: I don't plan on having any daughters, but if I did have one, I would name her Grace. It's my favorite name in the world: it's a beautiful word, just in how it sounds, and it means something beautiful too.
FAVORITE NAMES FOR ACTUAL OR FUTURE SONS: I don't plan on having any sons.
FAVORITE FOODS: Chocolate in just about any form (especially dark chocolate), rum cordials, marzipan, mangos, raspberries, avocado milkshakes (I drink them all the time), fresh squeezed orange juice, a good mocha, hard cheeses, whipped cream, and of course, a red chili burro enchilada style with guacamole and sour cream from El Charro in Safford, Arizona.
DO YOU GET ALONG WITH YOUR PARENTS? At times. These days I find my mother easier to get along with than my father, a reversal of my earlier life.
CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? chocolate.
FAVORITE ICE CREAM: Ben and Jerry's
DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE: I'd rather be driven.
DO YOU SLEEP WITH STUFFED ANIMALS? No, just furry mammals who drool all over my pillows and insist on curling up right next to me so that I can't roll over in the night--and when they're not around, I have my cat.
STORMS: COOL OR SCARY? scary storms are cool--that's why there cool--I've always liked the aesthetic of the sublime.
WHAT WAS THE FIRST CAR YOU DROVE? I learned to drive in a 1972 green Chevy pick up that had been owned by our next door neighbor, who was a hog farmer. When he retired, my parents bought it. They still own it. For many years when I went home for Christmas, if I wanted to get around, I still had to drive that truck.
IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON, DEAD OR ALIVE, WHO WOULD IT BE? God
WHAT IS YOUR ZODIAC SIGN? Sag sun, Sag moon, libra rising
WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE POET? Me
DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI? No.
GUYS--IF A GIRL ASKED FOR THE SHIRT OFF OF YOUR BACK, WOULD YOU GIVE IT TO HER:
GIRLS--WOULD YOU EVER ASK A GUY FOR HIS SHIRT? I once took my dress off in "the biggest damn bar in the Big 10" so that I could put on a shirt that some guy had offered me because it was too hot and I was sweating too much in the dress I was wearing. It was a very ugly shirt. It had geese and hunters and hunting dogs all over it. I gave it back eventually.
IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB YOU WANTED WHAT WOULD IT BE? On the old quiz, I wrote, "guru, faith healer, or mystic." Today the answer is, "writer."
IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR WHAT WOULD IT BE? I can dye my hair any color. I HAVE dyed my hair any color. Duh.
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE? Yeah. I've also had my heart broken.
WHAT IS ON YOUR WALLS IN YOUR ROOM? hats, photos of people I care about and/or am related to, mirrors, needlework by each of my three sisters
IS THE GLASS HALF-EMPTY OR HALF-FULL? Is the question trite or banal?
FAVORITE SNAPPLE? The ones in the bottles
FAVORITE MOVIES? check the movie archives or this post about my taste in movies.
ARE YOU A LEFTY, RIGHTY, OR AMBIDEXTROUS: Right
DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS? Yes, and I do it really quickly and accurately.
IF YOU COULD BE A GARDENING TOOL WHAT WOULD YOU BE? If I could be a gardening tool, I'd have amazing prodigious powers and would elect to be something better than a gardening tool. Nonetheless, I really love a good shovel. I like to dig.
WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED? Not a damn thing. All the feng shui books say this is very important if you are going to sleep well. For a while I had a couple of bowls of salt under my bed because I read that salt absorbs negative energy and that it was a good way to suck an ex-lover's energy out of your bed, so that you wouldn't continue to dream about them. But now there's nothing.
FAVORITE NUMBER? a lot
WHAT'S YOUR DREAM CAR? anything that gets me where I want to go in ease and comfort, requires little to no maintenance, and uses as little fuel as possible. In other words, I have enough of a personality that I don't need to fantasize about an automobile that would help me express it.
FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH? The Olympics. When they're on is really the only time I watch sports.
SAY ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU [because when I answered it, it was an email--you can write, "say one nice thing about who ever tagged you"]. Saviour Onassis sent me this--how can I only say ONE nice thing? He's my favorite artist, after myself, and he is who taught me that all artists need to be their own favorite artists. He's a muse and he's amusing. He teaches me things. I love him very much.
I tag everyone who feels like answering these questions.
Posted by Holly at 12:02 PM | Comments (2)
December 21, 2006
Two Milestones, One Invitation and Six Weird Things
Way, way back in early December, Janet tagged me for a "six weird things about me" meme. I am finally getting to it.
But first, I want to announce two milestones.
1: This is currently my 301st post. I say "currently" because occasionally, I review old posts and if there's a news item I've summarized and it's either no longer news or the links don't work anymore, I delete it. Anyway, I'm sure there are people who've managed to rack up more than 301 posts in the 17 months they have been blogging, but still, I find my efforts respectable.
2: I finished all my grading and submitted my last set of grades yesterday at 3 p.m., so I'm DONE for the semester.
And I also want to mention that I'll soon by flying to Arizona, where I'll spend time in both Tucson and the Phoenix metropolitan area. I know I have readers in both places.... If you are one such reader and you have any desire to meet me, leave me a comment saying "Hey, I'd like to hang out while you're in the state." And I'll email you and we'll set something up.
OK. On to the six weird things.
1. I don't actually think there's anything "weird" about me. OK, I recognize that I have certain habits and ideas other people consider "eccentric." But the logic behind them is too clear and reasonable in my mind for me to consider them "weird," because I am not capricious--I am logical and methodical and that is not weird. Nonetheless, I can admit that other people find the following things about me strange:
2. I am bothered by the fact that if you enter "100" on a microwave touch pad, you get 60 seconds' worth of cooking, same as if you enter "60," whereas if you enter "99" on a microwave touch pad, you get 99 seconds' worth of cooking--39 seconds more than if you entered "100". So I never microwave anything for one minute, but I often microwave things for 60 seconds or 99 seconds.
3. I really do sort of like ironing.
4. I am a touch obsessive-compulsive and I have to check my locks a number of times to make sure that they are, in fact, locked.
5. I sort of like doing my taxes. I am not really a numbers person, but in small doses I find adding up sums and figuring totals very rewarding, and I like working out, on my own, how to get as much money back from the federal government as possible.
6. I am a stickler for the use of proper terminology when discussing female genitalia. It makes me nuts when people refer to all of female genitalia as "a vagina," because, as I have noted before, the vagina is only one part of the female genitals. And I am always astonished that people who are quite willing to discuss body parts like the taint, and balls, and scrotums, and so forth, balk and recoil at hearing the word "vulva," as if it's a hex as powerful as "ni" seems to be in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
I tag anyone who shares any of my six weird traits.
Posted by Holly at 9:17 AM | Comments (4)
October 23, 2006
What I Did on My Brief Hiatus
Several people have written to inquire about how I am, seeing as how I typically posted several times a week but now almost two weeks have elapsed since my last posting--and the few right before the hiatus weren't all that original. For those of you who didn't email, merely wondered, and even for those of you who did: I've been OK. Not great, not awful (well, occasionally awful) but mostly just OK. And I'm happy enough with OK, because OK is sometimes hard to achieve when you're what I've been for the majority of this semester, which is really, really busy.
Busy, by the way, is not my favorite state of being. Or rather, I adore self-created busy-ness, where I have four books to read and a blog entry to do every day and a few poems to write each week and a book of my own that needs revising, as well as three sewing projects begging for attention and lots of gardening to be done as well as a sweater to knit when I get tired of all that literary stuff. But busy because I have to grade papers in every single one of my classes, and prepare a big-ass tenure report, and meet with students and administrators over a grade dispute, and welcome some visiting writer to campus.... that kind of busy I don't like so well.
But I survived it; I got everything turned in and returned on time; people were met and met with; and I probably won't (at least, I sincerely hope I won't) have another nasty stretch of days this semester to equal the first 19 days of October.
And having survived, I had sort of a meltdown over the weekend; Friday I sat on my couch and waited for some guy to come service my furnace (that's not a metaphor for anything, by the way; there really was a guy coming to make sure that my house's heating system would keep me, my cat and my plants from freezing to death this winter) and watched about seven hours of television and tried to find the right gauge for this scarf I want to knit out of this very chunky brown and gray wool.... I didn't even leave my house. I opened the door a time or two, to allow the furnace dude entrance or egress, but I didn't go outside. I didn't answer any email. I read some, but I didn't respond. I was as anti-social as I wanted to be, and that Helped.
So there should be stuff here, at least for the next little while. Sorry I disappeared so abruptly.... and thanks for having me back.
Posted by Holly at 10:26 AM | Comments (5)
September 28, 2006
And Now For Something Completely Different
I actually have more I want to say, about recent topics here, both movies and religion, together. But cleaning out a bunch of old notebooks the other day, I found this strange little thing, and just had to share. It's my attempt at an exercise I devised for my creative writing students several years ago. I gave them a list of common items and made them A) choose a specific example of that general class of thing and B) describe it in detail, and then if possible, C) explain how and why that thing was a metaphor for them. I did the exercise as well, and here are my answers. If anyone else wants to adopt this as a meme, I'd be flattered.
1. Dessert. Ice cream. Wait-- fudge upside down cake? No. Homemade ice cream from Aunt Hazel and Uncle Walter's freezer, like we would always have at family reunions. You can eat so much of it. (Well, I can eat so much of it.) Labor intensive. Rich. Both decadent and homey--after all, it's made by old Mormons and uses stuff you have on a farm. But it's rich and cold and again, labor intensive-- used to be seasonal-- How am I a big bowl of ice cream?
Or maybe hot Dr Pepper-- Eccentric-- goofy-- way too sugary-- bad for you-- not at all dignified. But I'm used to it
2. Article of clothing. A skirt-- no, a dress-- no, a skirt. I'm most comfortable in a dress or skirt--I like the freedom of movement-- plus pants never fit me. It doesn't have to be a girly girl skirt, but it can be-- but mostly I don't feel as comfortable in pants. I like how dressed float and flow
3. Kitchen implement. Knife. No--a dish. Why is a dish a metaphor or term for an attractive woman? Because she serves? Because you want to eat her up? Think more on this.
The dish ran away with the spoon.
4. TV character. Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Nerdy-- over-extended-- too accommodating-- in some ways bad at my job but in other ways really good at it. TIRED. Over-qualified.
5. Fruit. Pineapple--all prickly. Robust. A sign of hospitality. Expensive. Always a bit moldy at the stem-- how is that relevant? A small sign of rot? You have to squeeze it to see if it's ripe but you can never be sure. It has a crown. You can't eat one all by yourself but you have to peel it all at once-- well, that's not relevant; it takes longer than that to get to know me. SO ACIDIC! It will burn your mouth. And yet it's also very sweet.
6. Fairy tale character. Sleeping Beauty--except I'm like Insomnia Beauty. Someday a handsome prince will come along and make it OK to fall asleep. I'll prick my finger--or not--and fall into a deep, contented sleep that lasts eight hours-- practically forever. And then when I wake he'll be at my side and he'll make it OK to be awake and the process will repeat itself over and over and I will be the Sleeping Beauty from then on out.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (1)
May 15, 2006
I Am Suddenly So Freakin' Productive
As I've mentioned, the semester ended Friday, May 5. To celebrate I wore a really great outfit (maybe some of my lurking colleagues will attest to the fact that my shirt, which I bought a few days prior, was indeed very cool, and my skirt, which I made last fall, was indeed very pretty) and went out for margaritas (it being Cinco de Mayo and all) with friends/colleagues. I even got a ride so I could get rip-roaring drunk, but I was stymied in that endeavor by A) the lack of tequila in the margaritas and B) the surplus of icky green margarita mix in said beverage (just makes ‘em harder to suck down) and C) a pissy attitude that kept me from ever really having fun.
The next day I felt like crap though I wasn't even hungover. And I'd gone out with such good intentions! It really added insult to a lack of injury. I was...depleted, mostly. Exhausted by some teaching-related ickiness I might blog about if I work up the nerve.... Anyway, the weather was lovely but I was having none of it. I wore ugly old sweats and sat on my couch and watched television I didn't enjoy: four hours of Grey's Anatomy, one of those shows about doctors* that can't be bothered to include genuinely sick people. The show has people who are dying of cancer in some part of their digestive system and still weigh close to 200 pounds, despite the fact that when your digestive system stops working, you tend to lose both your appetite and weight, because even the few things you manage to put in your stomach don't get broken down properly. Or people who, only hours after having their chests sawed open, are sitting up, talking coherently, groggy from neither pain nor general anesthesia.
Sunday I at least left my house, though I didn't leave my yard: I managed to go out in the evening and do a little gardening. But I was still sulky and pissy.
But last week I somehow managed to become oh so productive! Before the semester ended but when the end was in sight, I had a moment of clarity during which I Planned Ahead: I made a bunch of appointments, so that last week I was plugged into a schedule. I took my windshield to the chip repair place. I took my cat to the vet. I took my teeth to the dentist. I took my hair to the salon. (This week I'm taking my body to the doctor--annual check-up and all that, but as I mentioned, I really distrust doctors.*) I went to graduation. (God, that was boring.) I had coffee with a friend I haven't talked to in months. I finished up some school-related business. I did some research for the Buffy paper I've got to write and ordered books for another project. I made a skirt. (It's adorable--believe me.) I took some pictures with the digital camera I got for Christmas and haven't really mastered using. (One of these days, when I'm not quite so overwhelmed, I'm actually going to plug the camera into my computer and download pictures of my cat Dinah, who is very, very cute.) When I wanted a break from all that structured productiveness, I put in a movie and watched it while I ironed all my recently washed laundry, or I worked in my garden.
I like being this productive, but I seriously dislike that I HAVE to be this productive. I have all this shit I MUST do before May 25. Didn't I just get done with some big lousy deadline? Oh yeah, I did: and dealing with it made me catatonic for 48 hours and pissy for a lot more.
Oh well. This too shall pass.
*Doctors are one of the few groups of people I've dealt with in my life that I trust less than Republican politicians and Mormon priesthood holders. They can hurt and screw you over in ways few other people can. Dishonest mechanic? Well, being stuck with a huge bill for unnecessary services does indeed suck, but it sucks even more when any unnecessary procedure is done to you. "Do no harm," the Hippocratic oath** enjoins, but I've never met a doctor who truly upheld it.
**I just discovered, when I looked up the Hippocratic oath, that the old one, which begins with an appeal to Apollo, prohibits abortion and assisted suicide. The modern one states, "I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick."
Posted by Holly at 10:07 AM | Comments (6)
May 11, 2006
I Start Sentences with the First Person
This is another meme that half the bloggers in the blogosphere have already done. As I generally do with memes, I added some extra entries, just because I can.
I am a blogger.
I have a room of my own.
I want some generous benefactrix to grant me an annuity of the current equivalent of whatever 500 pounds was worth in 1928.
I wish I had been blessed with better teeth.
I hate the selfish, lazy, evil fuckwits who dump their grass cuttings and yard waste at the entrance to this wooded park not far from my house. Good grief, the city picks that stuff up for free if you just put it in a trash can and set it by the curb--is that really so hard to do?
For that matter, I hate anyone who engages in illegal dumping. The world is not your toilet.
I love chocolate, the desert, acupuncture, 80s new wave and clean sheets, among other things.
I miss certain things about being 24. Others I don't miss at all.
I fear leaving my keys in my car while the engine is running. I've never done it, but I want never to do it. So I take all these preventive steps that other people find silly, like rolling my windows down, even if it's raining, if I ever get out of the car while the ignition is on.
I hear pretty well and find myself easily distracted by noise. I am very fond of silence.
I wonder when the hell I'll finally publish a book.
I regret wearing these sandals that were not as broken in as I thought they were on a long walk the other day.
I resent this paper I have to write on bad sex in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but that's what I get for submitting a proposal to a conference.
I eat a lot of organic spinach. Without question, it's the vegetable I buy most often. It's versatile and yummy and good for you.
I drink vodka generally if I'm ordering mixed drinks, unless I'm having margaritas which as we all know are HEAVENLY when made properly but REALLY LOUSY when made with that awful pre-mixed green stuff. I also like the occasional amaretto sour.
I am not allergic to shellfish or nuts, but I am allergic to penicillin.
I dance a lot less than I used to. I love to dance and I'm pretty good at it. I've taken all kinds of lessons.
I sing whenever someone mentions a song. In class one day we were discussing patriotism and a student said, "We should sing ‘God Bless America' or something now" and I immediately launched right into it. I knew all the words, too.
I cry more than a lot of people. I am rather easily moved. A few days ago I started crying in the car when "Right Here, Right Now" by Jesus Jones came on the radio (and I sang along to it too). It was such a hopeful song.... The world can indeed change in the blink of an eye, but that's not necessarily a good thing.
I am not always afflicted by insomnia, but when I am, it's bad.
I make with my hands all kinds of things involving textiles. I especially like making my own clothes.
I can't catch, hit or throw a ball very well.
I need to do some home repairs this summer, but it just doesn't sound fun.
I should put more money in savings.
I start projects I know are going to take a long time, then become obsessive about finishing them right away: piecing a quilt or knitting a sweater or writing a paper or whatever: it seems important to get it done right now, so I stay up until 4 in the morning working on it.
I finish most everything on my plate. My mother trained me well.
I tag anyone who can't think of something to write on your own.
Posted by Holly at 12:01 AM | Comments (7)
May 5, 2006
What I've Learned about Myself from Taking Online Multiple Choice Tests
| Your Quirk Factor: 79% |
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| You Have Low Self Esteem 0% of the Time |
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Here's another assessment of myself these tests help provide, but there's no cool graphic for it:
You disdain online tests that purport to tell you who you are--they are generally silly, transparent and written by people who can't plan adequately for complexity--but sometimes you take them anyway, just so you can feel superior.
Posted by Holly at 9:39 AM | Comments (9)
May 2, 2006
ABC Meme
What the hell--because who doesn't love a good meme?
Accent: Standard American.
Booze: Yes, please. As I detail in this post, I prefer beer (especially dark beers) to wine, vodka to gin, tequila to whiskey. I'm especially fond of margaritas.
Chore I Hate: Dusting. I LOATHE dusting.
Dog or Cat: Cat.
Essential Electronics: I could be happy with just stereo and a typewriter, to be honest. But I have a computer and a television and cell phone and all that stuff, and I like them well enough.
Favorite Cologne(s): My very favorite is Chanel No. 5. I also really like Hot Couture by the Fragrance Shop, especially because it's just essential oils, so it doesn't have to be used up in six months or so. When I was dating Jim a decade or so ago, he invented a perfume for me: it was heavy on the vanilla, and I liked it a lot. I was big into aroma therapy for a while and still sometimes mix up my own scents.
Gold or Silver: Silver, and lots of it. I wear a lot of jewelry.
Hometown: Thatcher, Arizona.
Insomnia: Dear god, it's the bane of my existence. I have a sleeping pill hangover even as I write this.
Job Title: Assistant Professor.
Kids: None of my own, but I have 15 nieces and nephews.
Living arrangements: I own a small gray house in a city somewhere in the rust belt. I live alone and don't really like to share space.
Most admirable trait: The trait people most often tell me they admire is my honesty. Honesty is supposedly a trait of my sun sign, Sagittarius (see below). Personally, I admire my attention to detail: If I find a typo in a blog entry, I always A) experience a moment of profound mortification, then B) correct the damn typo. (Some people might call that a compulsion--see below.)
Number of sexual partners: Um, see this post for the reason why I'm not going to make that information available on the web.
Overnight hospital stays: Several, beginning when I had my tonsils out at age four. The worst was when I had exploratory abdominal surgery when I was 14.... I don't like that story and don't want to get into it now. But I haven't had a single such overnight stay since that horrible surgery.
Phobias: I don't think I have any phobias, just obsessions and compulsions. I check my locks a lot.
Quote: I collect quotations--I use them as signatures for my email messages, or as epigraphs for my writing--but one of my favorites it this:
I do not sleep though I sometimes doze off a little. If I am up I am talked to and in my efforts to answer cause pain. The fact is I think I am a verb instead of a personal pronoun. A verb is anything that signifies to be; to do; to suffer. I signify all three. --Ulysses S. Grant
I also like this, from a freakin' old Christmas carol:
The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown,
Of all the trees that are in the woods,
The holly bears the crown.
And in the end of On Becoming a Novelist, John Gardner talks about what was going on when he wrote the end of Grendel (one of my very favorite books EVER), and he uses the phrase "the moral ugliness that is God." I think about that a lot. (I'll try to find the exact wording and a page citation, so check back later if you're interested.)
Religion: My standard, careful answer is, "I grew up Mormon."
Siblings: Three sisters, one brother.
Time I wake up: Around 8 a.m. I don't set an alarm.
Unusual talent or skill: My memory is preternaturally detailed, accurate and extensive. Matthew? Jim? Are you reading? Want to back me up on this?
Vegetable I refuse to eat: Pickled bamboo. VILE.
Worst habit: Sheesh, I can only pick ONE? High on the list is: letting myself get sucked into arguments I know I should walk (run) away from. I list other bad habits here and here (you have to scroll down a ways to find them).
X-rays: Lots and lots, for my teeth, for broken bones and sprains, for horrible gastro-intestinal disorders. The very worst set of x-rays I ever had involved a barium enema. You just can't imagine how awful that is unless you've gone through it yourself. Luckily, it's been a while since I've had any.... I'm pretty healthy these days.
Yummy foods I make: See my various recipe archives. I especially recommend the chocolate stuff.
Zodiac sign: Sagittarius sun and moon, with Libra rising. (Yeah, I've had my charts done a couple of times.) A recent article in the Guardian UK summarized my sign this way:
Generous and friendly, Sagittarians are so open that the world often knows what they are up to. Good sense of intuition and very honest, they can also be big spenders. Compatible with Arians and Leos.Typical: Frank Sinatra
Atypical: Winston Churchill
That's the end of the alphabet, folks!
Posted by Holly at 9:28 AM | Comments (17)
April 12, 2006
Random Question Meme
A silly meme I've seen around the blogosphere and decided to answer myself.
1) Who is the last person you high-fived?
My colleague, Dr. Sweet Baby Jesus, a few weeks ago, by the copy machine.
2) If you were drafted into a war, would you survive?
No. And then I'd be reincarnated as an English professor who is obsessed with war literature.
3) Do you sleep with the TV on?
I don't do much of anything with the TV on. And I don't like any noise while I sleep.
4) Have you ever drunk milk straight out of the carton?
Who hasn't?
5) Have you ever won a spelling bee?
No, but I came close. And the trauma I suffered in losing is probably one reason I became an English professor and dedicated a large portion of my life to marking misspelled words in the writing of young adults.
6) Have you ever been stung by a bee?
Not that I remember.
7) How fast can you type?
80 or 90 words a minute.
8) Are you afraid of the dark?
Nope. I dig it.
9) What color are your eyes?
Blue, about the shade of broken-in Levi's.
10) Have you ever made out at a drive-in?
Nope.
11) When is the last time you chose a bath over a shower?
Last night.
12) Do you knock on wood?
Not generally.
13) Do you floss daily?
Every night.
15) Can you hula hoop?
No, but I can hula. I had real hula lessons, in Hawaii. I can belly dance too. My hips are one of the most impressive parts of me.
16) Are you good at keeping secrets?
I'll never tell.
17) What do you want for Christmas?
Cash.
18) Do you know the Muffin Man?
No, but I am intimately acquainted with the Cookie Monster.
19) Do you talk in your sleep?
No.
20) Who wrote the book of love?
Oh! I know this one! I know it thanks to Robyn Hitchcock and the song "Freeze" off the totally awesome album Queen Elvis:
I know who wrote the book of love!
It was an idiot!
It was a fool!
It was a slobbering fool with a speak defect and a shaking hand.
And he wrote my name
Next to yours
But it should have been David Byrne or somebody
21) Have you ever flown a kite?
Yes, but not well.
22) Do you wish on your fallen lashes?
No.
23) Do you consider yourself successful?
I guess. Just not as successful as I want to be.
24) How many people are on your contact list of your cell?
What's a contact list?
25) Have you ever asked for a pony?
Good god, no. My grandfather was a cowboy and I regularly rode horses when we visited him. I knew how much horses ate and pooped, and how easily they could step on you. Why would I want a pony?
26) Plans for tomorrow?
Wash my hair. Do some laundry. Pick up a visiting writer at the airport. Attend his reading. Go to dinner. Think about how much I wish I didn't have to teach on Friday.
27) Can you juggle?
No.
28) Missing someone now?
I've traveled around so much and left so many places behind that I don't very often miss anyone, even people I love very, very much.
29) When was the last time you told someone I Love You?
Sunday.
30) And truly meant it?
Sunday.
31) How often do you drink?
Depends on what's going on.
32) How are you feeling today?
Not so great. I was awakened from a sound sleep by a phone call at 2:30 a.m. and it was of course a wrong number. I hate when that happens! Then I couldn't go back to sleep until I had a antihistamine and a shot of vodka. I got six more hours of sleep after that, but I feel a bit hungover, as you'd expect. Plus the weather is all gray today. However, I am cheered by my plans to wear these really cool dark green, men's wear Oxfords today with striped knee socks and a skirt.
33) What do you say too much?
I've been told I say, "I don't know" too much, but I think it's good to admit one's basic ignorance.
34) Have you ever been suspended or expelled from school?
No.
35) What are you looking forward to?
The end of the semester.
36) Have you ever crawled through a window?
I doub it.
37) Have you ever eaten dog food?
No.
38) Can you handle the truth?
I can handle the truth much better than being lied to.
39) Do you like green eggs and ham?
This reminds me of moldy leftovers I found in my mother's refrigerator.... No. I do not like green eggs and ham.
40) Any cool scars?
I have a totally cool scar: the incision at the bottom of my abdomen from exploratory surgery done when I was 14. I'm very fond of the scar, for some reason, even though I resent the surgery, which was totally unnecessary. But I like the way the thin, straight scar complicates the landscape of my body.
Posted by Holly at 9:34 AM | Comments (6)
March 18, 2006
Holly's Week in Review
I am pained to admit that despite my earlier expectation that I had an easy week before me because I was so productive over spring break, this week has been exceptionally busy. Thursday and Friday were REALLY hairy. The duties I had that day weren't especially onerous--I had to help entertain a visiting writer on Thursday, and on Friday I spent a couple of hours being interviewed for a documentary on memoirs that turn out to be fabricated, focusing on one specific memoir that is particularly suspect.... I won't share details, because it's not my project. Anyway, it was exhausting to sit there with a spotlight shining directly into my face for two hours (it reduces unflattering shadows, I'm told) but at least the guy making the documentary was really interesting and took me to dinner afterwards, so I felt well compensated for time. But the upshot of dealing with these claims on my time was that a lot of things I thought I'd accomplish handily didn't get done, and they have to get done by tomorrow night.
In other news, for lunch today I made the taco recipe I posted earlier, but used (as promised) some veggie protein weirdness in place of the premium ground Angus beef I typically use. The vegetarian version was OK, I guess, it just wasn't totally yummy, you know? It occurred to me that one problem might be the particular meat substitute I used (Smart Ground, I think it was called), that no doubt some are better than others.... Anyone have experience with vegetarian ground beef substitutes, and want to recommend one as superior to others?
Posted by Holly at 6:32 PM | Comments (4)
March 13, 2006
What I Did on My Spring Break
Last Tuesday I was talking to Wayne about what I'd done so far with my few days off and what I hoped to accomplish with those that remained. "I had to run some errands and take care of some stuff on campus today," I said, "and I've been trying to get through these batches of papers I collected last Friday, but I'm not done yet. I've got all this reading to do and I need to start working on my syllabi for next semester. And I really should do my taxes--if I don't do them this week, I don't know when I will. I was thinking I'd do some cooking, too, so I have some stuff in the freezer for later, but...."
"Good god, Holly!" Wayne finally erupted. "Do you ever think about the serious side of life? No, it's all fun and frivolity with you, all the time! ‘Grade some papers! Do my taxes!'" he mimicked, his voice becoming clipped and shrill. "I wish I could be so carefree! Holly, will you never acquire some sense of duty and obligation?"
It was a good point, but frankly I was too busy this week dealing with shit I had to do to devote much time to character-building exercises like acquiring a sense of duty. Maybe I can work on that this summer....
Anyway, today is the first day back in the salt mines after a nine-day long hiatus. The pathetic fallacy is working for me right now, in that there's a nasty gray sky spitting angry rain down on a sodden, sullen earth--ain't nothing glad about going back to work today. I really would love another few days off, but at least I accomplished a few of my primary goals. Here's what I got done:
*Graded all the papers in two classes, by Wednesday, so that I didn't have to think about grading once during the last half of spring break! Not only that, but I don't collect work in these classes for another week and a half, so that crap is off my plate for a good long while!
*Figured my federal taxes, including itemizing my deductions. I always sort of like doing my taxes, once I can bring myself to start the task. I'm definitely more of a word nerd than a number nerd, but I still kind of like adding things up. I'm getting a respectable refund this year, which always makes the math more fun.
*Whipped up a new tiered skirt in a print of red and orange paisley on a dark brown background.
*Took my car in for an oil change.
*Stocked my refrigerator and freezer with tasty, nutritious, vegetable-laden food.
*Made no-bake cookies.
*Read four of the books I'm teaching over the next six weeks: The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat (I know she's all the rage but this just didn't work for me), Borrowed Finery by Paula Fox (I quite liked this one, a memoir by Courtney Love's grandmother, and she's written a sequel, entitled The Coldest Winter, that I really want to read as well), Waterland by Graham Swift (I absolutely loved this the first two times I read it in the early 90s, but this time I didn't like it so much), Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee by Meera Syal (lively and fun and ideal for a class on women's literature).
*Discovered two new Ben & Jerry's flavors (I hope they're new, not "limited edition"--B&J has a nasty habit of retiring my favorite flavors): Neopolitan Dynamite, which is Cherry Garcia and Chocolate Fudge Brownie side by side; and Vermonty Python, which is coffee liqueur ice cream with a chocolate cookie crumb swirl and fudge cows. Yum!
*Hung out with real live friends in actual social situations.
*Devoted many hours of quality time to bonding with my new television significant other, Miss Veronica Mars. I love this show! There are ways in which I think it's even better than Buffy.
*Had a chiropractic adjustment, a massage and an acupuncture treatment.
What I didn't get done:
*Failed to answer all my email (my apologies to my correspondents).
*Didn't send any work out to journals, but I will do that this week.
*Didn't figure my state or local taxes, but I always wait until the federal stuff has been submitted before I work on that.
*Didn't transcribe my notes from season II of Buffy for the paper I'm working on.
*Didn't scrub down my refrigerator (except for the vegetable drawers, which couldn't be ignored), even though the whole thing has started to smell a bit funky.
*Didn't attend to a few minor tasks I might not attend to this week either.
*Didn't exercise every day (weather was too crappy).
*Didn't write the backlog of blog entries, on topics ranging from niceness to sex, I keep meaning to write.
All in all I'm still reasonably happy with what I got done. And there are only eight more weeks in the semester, so I am confident I can survive it comfortably, especially since I am smart and frontload the work every semester. I find both I and the students are much happier if things get easier rather than harder as the semester progresses.
Posted by Holly at 10:21 AM | Comments (7)
March 3, 2006
My To-Do List
Yesterday I finished my spring cleaning. It is, admittedly, a bit early for that kind of thing. I had originally planned to do it over my spring break, which begins today at 3 p.m. (Good god, I can hardly wait!) But there came a moment last weekend when I simply couldn't endure it any more; I had to vacuum my basement stairs and scrub my toilets right that second. Unfortunately, that second hit when I had lots of other things to do as well, so while I managed to attend to the basement stairs and the toilets, I had to postpone for a few days tasks like polishing the toaster, or sweeping and mopping under the beds.
But at 3:59 yesterday afternoon, it was all done: every last dish was clean, the ones I'd washed most recently drying in a newly scrubbed dish drainer; all the clothes but the ones I had on were laundered and neatly put away; and except for fur clinging to the exact spot where my cat was sleeping, every bit of cat hair in the house had been vacuumed up. (She's a smart kitty and retreated to the basement where she was out of my way.) It felt good. And even though I took care of one major task a bit early, my spring break to-do list is still going to keep me well and truly busy--but at least I'll be working in a thoroughly clean house.
I love to-do lists, and I feel strongly that the more detailed the list, the better. There are two reasons for this: 1) The more detailed you make it, the less likely you are to forget some important task. 2) The more detailed you make it, the more things you get to cross off, and most of the pleasure of a to-do list comes in crossing items off.
For instance, when I cleaned my house, I didn't just write "Clean house" on my list. No, I wrote:
Clean house
dust
scrub bathroom
scrub kitchen
sweep floors
mop floors
vacuum carpets
That way I still got to feel I was making progress even if all I did one day was the dusting. (I hate dusting. It's my least favorite housekeeping chore. I'd rather take out the trash than dust. I hate that you don't have to do anything except breathe in order to need to dust, because skin cells you've shed constitute a significant part of what mucks up your furniture. I hate picking up tchotchkes and putting them back in exactly the same spot, except without any dust underneath them. If I could get some magic fairy to relieve me of one particular chore, it would be dusting.)
I was going to post my to-do list, but somehow, that seemed more personal and revealing than anything else I've written. I guess it's not surprising, given that the list references all in one place my most quotidian tasks, my professional obligations, my artistic aspirations and even a few social engagements. Instead I'll tell you that high on my to-do list is attending to some blog entries I've been meaning to write for weeks but have postponed because they seemed involved and difficult. Hopefully I will get to them early in the week.
If I don't, I'll end up providing you with accounts of how I polished all my shoes.
Enjoy your weekend, everyone! I intend to enjoy mine.
Posted by Holly at 9:42 AM | Comments (4)
February 22, 2006
Self-Portrait in Brief
As promised yesterday, here are some of the things I have said about myself in my Friendster profile.
I actually have several affiliations, but at this moment I feel pretty damn unaffiliated. If I lived in a different time and place, I'd grab my begging bowl and hit the road.
As an insomniac, I find sleep pretty interesting, and many of my hobbies involve efforts to help me fall and stay asleep: yoga, acupuncture, lying prone in a dark room and thinking about my toes.
When I'm awake and want to stay that way, my hobbies and interests include dancing, paisley, calligraphy, learning to knit sweaters that fit me after they've been washed, radical Mormon feminism (yes, there is such a thing), men in mascara (saves me the trouble of wearing it), proper dental hygiene, good beer, writing, and those spaces on maps where cartographers used to write "here be dragons."
I love the simple, transient pleasure of cleanliness, as in crisp, freshly laundered sheets; hair washed so recently it's still damp; the minty freshness of just-brushed teeth. I especially love going to sleep in a clean bed with just-washed hair and well-maintained teeth.
I keep detailed records of my dreams, but rarely take them literally: for instance, when I dreamed my mother told me she was an alien from a galaxy populated by giant, electric-blue dancing elephants, I didn't believe it meant that my mother really was an alien--or that a galaxy populated by giant, electric-blue dancing elephants existed anywhere in the universe. (Note: since I started blogging, I've stopped doing this. I used to get up, sit down at my computer, and write down my dreams; now I get up, sit down at my computer, and post a blog entry.)
An ideal job for me would be continuity person for a long-running television show, because I have a very precise memory and like keeping track of details. The job I really have is nothing like that.
I love to dance and I'm pretty good at it--years of hula and belly dancing lessons mean that I can do some fairly phenomenal things with my hips--but these days I can't find anyone who shares my enthusiasm for dancing, so my best option is to put something fast on the stereo (I favor 80s new wave), turn the volume up, and dance around my living room.
I studied French for a long time but never got all that good at it, and Mandarin for not so long but became fluent because of the strange circumstances under which I learned it (read: mission to Taiwan). In grad school I took two semesters of German (under duress) so I could learn to do rudimentary translations, which left me with a horror of the German system of article declension and the ability to say "was ist mit Madonna?" with reasonable conviction.
I love chocolate and ice cream and garlic and coffee and dark beer, but not all at the same time. I like eating grilled cheese sandwiches made with extra sharp white cheddar for breakfast. More favorite breakfast foods: a whole array of chocolate desserts I make from time to time, just because I can.
My favorite color is green.
My favorite deity is Shiva, Lord of the Dance and inventor of yoga.
I am old enough that I know exactly where I was when Kennedy was shot: in the womb.
I tend to call a spade a "fucking shovel." I prefer to pay the fiddler before I dance all night.
I often think and write about things other people find unseemly, i.e., God, religious despair, really gross medical procedures, broken bones, diarrhea, menstruation, the exceptional weird nasty meanness of one particular ex-boyfriend. Trust me, though: these things might be unseemly, but they're still really interesting.
OK, I know I wrote all that about myself, but the fact remains, I read these bits of description and I can't help thinking that the person being described sound downright fascinating. If I didn't already know her, I'd really want to learn more.
Posted by Holly at 9:09 AM | Comments (2)
February 21, 2006
My Pre-Blogging Addiction
About two years ago, my buddy John at Mind on Fire sent me an invitation to join Friendster. It seemed kind of silly, and I was suspicious of anything that required me to upload a photo (especially since I didn't know how to do it) but I figured what the hell, and I joined.
And that was that, for a good long while. But seven or eight months later I met someone who was all about Friendster--oh, he'd met so many cool people through it! It made it so easy to keep track of people! I should definitely make more use of it. And it wasn't all that hard to scan and upload a photo; he'd show me how.
So I posted a few photos. And I set about crafting a profile I thought people might find interesting. And then I set about refining it--I only had 2000 characters, so I had to stay focused, had to keep things concise! And then I realized that I LOVED writing sharp, incisive portraits of myself in two or three quick sentences. As far as I was concerned, it was the perfect literary form.
I looked at my profile almost every day. I didn't care whether or not anyone wanted to be my friend--in fact, I got kind of snotty when people with boring or incomplete profiles sent me messages that weren't worthy of my hard work. I would leave a paragraph up for a week or two, then I'd try to write something better. Bits I really liked I transferred to a word processing file, so I wouldn't forget them.
I was addicted.
But it wasn't enough. I outgrew the fix. I wanted more, and I wanted it more often.
And then someone told me to check out his blog on Blogger, and I saw that button reading "Get Your Own Blog," and I knew my search was over.
I haven't abandoned Friendster entirely; my profile is still there. OK, I hardly ever go there, for reasons that I'll explain soon. But I still like my profile, so I'm going to post some of the highlights here--check back tomorrow!
Posted by Holly at 8:31 AM | Comments (5)
February 17, 2006
Sunday 24 Feb 02 8:30 p.m.
Having posted something about why I keep a journal, I thought I'd post an entry from my journal. This one seemed like a good choice because it was written during the previous Winter Olympic Games. I've fixed a bit of idiocyncratic punctuation and clarified a few obscure references, but this is pretty much a typical journal entry. A bit of context: I was living in Arizona near my parents, marginally employed, trying to finish my book, and hunting for a job. I was downright miserable.
I am watching the closing ceremonies of the Salt Lake Winter Olympics. I have found them really interesting and moving--there are all these great human dramas, like when Venetta Flowers, one of the bobsledders, became the first African American ever to win a gold medal at the winter games. And all kinds of drama and intrigue with figure skating.... It's been fun but after 17 days I am kind of Olympicked out. There was a pretty funny Saturday Night Live skit about the SLC games: this skier is racing down a hill, and two missionaries come up on either side of her and say, "Would you like a Book of Mormon?" But apparently the Mormons managed not to be complete jerks during the Olympics.
Friday I cried most of the day, discouraged by my prospects, upset about the way Mom is responding to my attempts to find a job, hurt by an insensitive email from a friend. And then there was Friday night--OK, this is a very old house, and I have gotten used to the idea that I will have to deal with mice, which are bad enough, but while I was watching the Olympics on Friday, I heard a trap snap but after that, a struggle ensued. Normally, mice are pretty thoroughly dead once a trap shuts on them. But here came this big rodent trailing blood across my carpet. I thought, "What is that? Is that a hamster? Because it's not a rat," and then I realized it was a gopher, a pissed-off, bleeding gopher. It ran behind this wicker trunk where I store fabric scraps, and my cat just sat there watching. I had to move all this stuff to get it out in the open, and I found so many droppings back behind the trunk that clearly the gopher had been in my house for a while. I had to sweep it out of the house--and it did not want to go--and I was just going to leave it alone to die in peace, and then I thought about all the damage gophers have done to my mulberry tree, and I fetched a shovel and beat it to death and buried it.
And that was just about the last straw as far as Friday was concerned.
So I went for a walk and saw a UFO and somehow that made me feel a little bit better.
I read a completely amazing book, Woman's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth and Society in Early Times by Elizabeth Wayland Barber, and it was one of the most intriguing and provocative books I have ever read. It never occurred to me that someone had to invent string, had to figure out that if you twisted shorter, weaker filaments together, plying in new strands as needed, you'd end up with a longer, stronger length of cord. Apparently 17,000-year-old string has been found imbedded in the walls of ancient caves dwellings in southern France. The theory is that some Paleolithic Ariadne figured out that by running a cord from cave to cave, the inhabitants could make their way from room to room.
And as is so often the case with insights, they seem mundane when you relate them later. But as I read Barber's discussion of practices of weaving and sewing among peasant cultures of Europe, it occurred to me that the US, having worked to eradicate most of its indigenous culture and having pushed assimilation as a virtue, has no peasant culture, just people who live in poverty. That seemed really important to me. Anyway, the book was one of the most interesting works of history I have ever read, because it focused so thoroughly on the mundane and it revealed really innovative approaches to research.
P.S. I eventually figured out how the gopher got in my house: it was something the cat dragged in. I learned this one night when I saw my cat emerge through her cat door with something in her mouth. As soon as she was in the living room, she let it go. It was a bat, and it ended up in the same corner as the gopher: wounded, cowering, and damn difficult to chase outside.
Posted by Holly at 8:08 AM | Comments (4)
February 13, 2006
Significant Seven
Amazon.com has a list of seven "significant" questions that it likes to ask its favorite authors. Saviour Onassis asked Bored Dominatrix (my leather-wearing alter-ego--she's still me, just sassier) these questions over on Genius to Spare, and I thought I'd answer them here as well. (Because I'm still her, just more discreet.)
Q: What book has had the most significant impact on your life?
A: Probably Winnie the Pooh, since it's the first book I liked enough to want to read it myself. (It's also the book that explained my father's psychological state to me: he's Eeyore.) Tied for second place is, I don't know, maybe Pride and Prejudice, because it made me want to write, and A History of God by Karen Armstrong, since it reassured me that I'm by no means the only one to figure out that the bearded old white guy in the sky is one mean son of a bitch.
Q: You are stranded on a desert island with only one book, one CD, and one DVD--what are they?
A: I'm stranded on a desert island equipped with a functioning CD player, a DVD player and a TV? COOL! I hope there's a decent shower with plenty of hot water too....
Q: Ahem. Suspend your disbelief. Play along. Answer the freakin' question.
A: Book: An empty notebook. CD: Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. It's not my favorite album in the world, but it expresses what would probably be my main sentiment. DVD: How to Build a Boat out of Coconut Trees and Escape from a Desert Island.
Q: What is the worst lie you've ever told?
A: The Mormon Church is true. (See Mission archives.)
Q: Describe the perfect writing environment.
A: A great big room with wood floors and lots of windows. There's a computer AND a typewriter, and a couple of well-stocked bookshelves. There is not, however, a phone. (Note: I wrote my dissertation in a room just like this. That's how I know what I'm talking about.)
Q: If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?
A: Here lies Holly, by golly.
Q: Who is the one person living or dead that you would like to have dinner with?
A: God, Jehovah, the Ancient of Days--whatever you want to call the old bastard. That MF has some SERIOUS ‘splaining to do. I wouldn't back off, either, like Job did, when God started in on his "where were you when I did this and this" routine. AND I'd expect him to pick up the tab.
Q: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
A: Telepathy. And the mind I'd most want to read would be God's. Who wouldn't want to know the mind of God?
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (5)
February 3, 2006
Five Things Meme
Yes, this is my very first meme (what the hell is the origin of that word, anyway?). Thanks to Frankengirl for tagging me.
Instructions: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.
1. Kiss My Mike
2. Ultimate Writer
3. Golgotha_Tramp
4. FrankenGirl
5. Holly at Self-Portrait as
Next select five people to tag:
1. Major Steel at Out of the Mist
2. Jana at Pilgrimgirl
3. Heo Cwaeth
4. John at Mind on Fire.
5. Bored Dominatrix (yeah, OK, so that's just one of my personas--but she's got different answers--better answers, actually--and she's going to tag people who might not tag anyone else)
6. Mary Ellen at Rio Grande Valley Girl (Yes, I know, I'm cheating TWICE now, but I found out a day after tagging the first five bloggers that Mary Ellen has started a blog, and I want to support her)
What were you doing 20 years ago?
Riding a bike around Kaohsiung, the nasty port city in the south of Taiwan, trying to convert Buddhists to Christianity
What were you doing 10 years ago?
Finishing up my third year of course work in a PhD program in English lit
What were you doing 1 year ago?
Pretty much the same things I'm doing now
Five snacks you enjoy:
1. chocolate chocolate chip cookies
2. a bunch of Ben & Jerry's limited edition flavors that no longer exist, but every so often I check the frozen food section of my favorite grocery store, just in case
3. Carr's Ginger Lemon Creme English tea cookies
4. chips and salsa
5. extra sharp white cheddar
Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:
1. "My Favorite Things" (and every other song from The Sound of Music, as well as most of the Rodgers and Hammerstein oeuvre)
2. "There is a Light That Never Goes Out" from The Queen is Dead by (of course) the Smiths
3. The Soundtrack to "Once More With Feeling," the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (all right, I know MOST of the lyrics)
4. "Young Americans" from Young Americans by David Bowie
5. When I was in high school, someone at church taught us to sing all the books of the Old Testament, in order, to the tune of "Praise to the Man Who Communed with Jehovah" (i.e. Joseph Smith). I can still sing it, and I find it really useful when I want to remember if Psalms is before or after Proverbs.
Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
1. buy a house in Tucson
2. pay off all my debt
3. quit my day job and devote myself to writing
4. start doing yoga again regularly and become certified as a yoga instructor
5. give money more often and more generously to causes I support
Five bad habits:
1. not exercising as much as I should
2. buying candy almost every time I go to the grocery store
3. becoming so lost in my thoughts as I go for a walk that I start gesturing to myself, so that strangers sometimes ask me who I'm talking to
4. buying clothes I don't need when I already have more clothes than I can wear
5. not being more aggressive about submitting my work for publication
Five--no, six--things you like doing:
1. writing
2. reading
3. hanging out with old friends
4. meeting new people
5. visiting exotic places
6. staying home
Five things you would never wear again:
1. turtlenecks
2. a button-down shirt (not that I've worn many in my life--the preppy thing never worked for me)
3. anything with a sports mascot on it
4. Um, for over a decade, I almost never wore a bra, but then I got a job teaching high school, and it just seemed like a good idea to wear one some days
5. I don't really find jeans comfortable (denim is such a heavy fabric--who wants something made of it surrounding one's nether parts?) but it would be unrealistic to say I'll never wear them again
Five things that scare you: (yeah, I added this one)
1. Republicans (including my family)
2. religious extremism
3. environmental degradation, including but not limited to global warming, pollution, and destruction of rain forests
4. never being famous
5. deep water
Five favorite toys:
1. my own body. This is not an allusion to sex. This is mostly about the fact that I like yoga and dancing. I like lying in bed and listening to my toes. I like noticing sensations in my knees and my neck. I like having acupuncture and feeling energy gather and release. I like paying attention to what it feels like to be me, as I move through the world.
2. my cell phone
3. my computer
4. my sewing machine
5. the great ineffable mystery of the universe? I don't know. I just like to think about things. I want to get smarter as I age.
Posted by Holly at 8:44 AM | Comments (7)
December 16, 2005
Holly's Day in Mid December
Long about 1969, my parents gave me a book called Alphabet of Girls. I still have it--I am truly a book keeper. The book contains poems about the first names of girls, arranged by the alphabet: R, for instance, discusses Roseanna, Rosella, Rosedith, Rosetta and Rose, and the fact that not one of them is rose-like; C is devoted to Carol, Carla, Charlotte, Carrie and Cora, all of whom are indisposed; X describes the plight of a poor girl named Xenobia. H goes like this:
Hilda's birthday comes, we know,
Wrapped in January's snow.
Harriet's birthday comes on wings
Of March's windy wandering.
Hope can celebrate her day
With sun-etched greenery, in May.
For Heather's birthday, all the birds,
In August, sing their summer words.
Hazel's natal day will hold
October's scarlet and its gold.
Holly's day in mid December,
Is the easiest to remember.
My birthday is indeed the very middle day of December--today. I share my birthday with Jane Austen, Ludwig van Beethoven, Arthur C. Clarke, Noel Coward, Philip K. Dick, Margaret Mead, George Santayana, Liv Ullmann and Brett Weston. December 16 is in the sun sign of Sagittarius, sign of the archer--supposedly what he's hunting is the truth. Not only my sun but my moon sign is in Sagittarius; my rising sign is Libra.
There are ways in which my birthday isn't ideal, especially for someone in academia: it usually falls during finals week, and I can't count the number of times I have either given or taken an exam on my birthday, though I NEVER grade anything on my birthday--that's one gift I can give myself. Also lamentable is the fact that my friends and colleagues often take off for the winter break on or before my birthday, which can make it hard to celebrate properly. And then there's the way some people do that lame thing of giving me just one gift for both Christmas and my birthday, because the two events are so close together. I realize this is a bit bitchy, but I have to say: if you really like me, and if you want me to remember YOUR birthday, you'll buy me two presents, OK?
But despite all that, I have always liked my birthday. I like the general festive spirit of the season. I have always liked long cold nights (though long cold nights in Arizona are of a different character than long cold nights in Iowa or Pennsylvania) and I like celebrating my birthday with hot chocolate and a roaring fire. I also like my birthday because its proximity to Christmas is the reason for my name, which I love.
I like names that mean things, quickly and obviously: I've always said that if I ever had a daughter, I would want to name her Grace, because it's a beautiful word with a beautiful meaning. My sisters are Sharon, Katie and Lisa, and I like those names, but you have to look them up in one of those dictionaries of names to find out what they mean. I like that my name is both a noun and a proper noun. I like that my name is iconic. I like that I can point to something and say, "That's what I'm named for." One reason I bought the house I live in now is the fact that there were large, healthy holly bushes on either side of the front door. They seemed like a good sign, and so far, they have been.
My name is really quite pagan: a good old celtic fertility symbol that has subsequently been co-opted by Christianity and is now one of the most recognizable symbols of Christmas. I am glad that my parents decided to name me Holly instead of any of the other Christmas-y names: Carol, or Merry, or Noel. They are lovely names, but they don't fit me, and Holly does.
At the time I got my name, it was extremely uncommon: I could never find trinkets (necklaces, mugs, key chains) with my name printed on them, and it used to bum me out, though I make up for it now by collecting any number of things (salt and pepper shakers, vases, teapots, coffee mugs, serving platters, candy dishes, complete place settings for eight) with sprigs of holly on it. There was only one famous Holly around when I was little: Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's, and in her case Holly was actually short for Holiday, and neither was her real name: her real name was Lula Mae. There aren't many famous Hollys my age: Holly Hunter is one of the few. But the name has become quite popular, and there are plenty of little Hollys out there, which I am ambivalent about: yeah, I'm glad other people like my name well enough to bestow it on their daughters, but I also like not having to share it very often. I was the only person named Holly in my entire school, and that was more than fine with me.
In any event, I'm 42 years old today and I plan on having a lovely day. If you want to wish me Happy Birthday, I'd be thrilled to hear from you.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (14)