This winter I have not had ‘flu, which I attribute both to my willingness to pay for the vaccination (which takes care, I assume, of one strain) and good luck more generally. I have, however, had sinusitis, two bouts of gastro-enteritis (one at the same time as the sinusitis) and two colds, the second of which is engaging my immune system in a forceful battle right now. Indeed, I have been ill so frequently that when a new ailment strikes, the previous one is still fresh enough in memory that I can locate where I put all the over-the-counter drugs with which I treated it.
This suffering is minor enough that my chief energy is expended in complaining, rather than recovering, but I welcome nonetheless any sympathetic expense of comforting energy any fair readers might wish to give. It has the side effect, however, of focusing my mind on the congestion at hand (or, more accurately, at head) and not worrying about all those peripheral matters that usually engage my mind when I’m not in the classroom.
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Around here, keeping a blog is as much about style as it is substantial. This is why, I think, I will never be a blogger in the sense of a commentator on what is contemporary or political: I cannot subordinate the selfish pleasure of constructing the prose to the necessary requirement of getting blocks of text so swiftly up here, were I to have words on the matters of the day.
This is thought I need to hold in mind when I feel weary at the thought of recording the minutiae of my day-to-day, which have stabilised considerably since the (comparatively) bad dysthymic days of my later twenties. If style’s the thing, then why not set my mind to constructing confections about whatever trivia hold my attention? It’s a safe way to eat a cake made entirely of icing, and you won’t as readers get sick, I hope. Esoterica, hurrah!
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I enjoy my job, but it consumes most of my waking hours, at least in terms of mental energy. This semester’s early teaching starts mean early nights (I have become as jealous a protector of my sleep as a dam of her pups) and the space between finishing work and retiring is usually spent in listless bouts of housework or in the company of Señor Mojito. As a companion he can’t be faulted—we have cooked some delicious meals, drunk some good wine and followed the whole season of Rock of Love with its multiple personifications of feminine competitiveness and expressive flipping of the bird—but the lack of idle moments in my life at present leave little time for journal-keeping. I’m aware too that these pages developed as a counterpoint to the early days of my job, a way of keeping the self I cherished from being absorbed by the testing conformities demanded by professional life. Now that there has been a shift, both in me and in the requirements of my job, I no longer need to write in order to stop myself from disappearing. This is a good thing for me, but not so much for those who would like to read more here, more regularly.
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H-bro is playing Canaan Downs this new year. His artist’s bio has tunes and pics (do click on the link for the former in particular), and suggests you can’t take Sockburn out of the boy:
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Posterous
The border to another country
26 August, 2008
in commentatrix,teaching & learning,the social round,we are family,writing & research
This winter I have not had ‘flu, which I attribute both to my willingness to pay for the vaccination (which takes care, I assume, of one strain) and good luck more generally. I have, however, had sinusitis, two bouts of gastro-enteritis (one at the same time as the sinusitis) and two colds, the second of which is engaging my immune system in a forceful battle right now. Indeed, I have been ill so frequently that when a new ailment strikes, the previous one is still fresh enough in memory that I can locate where I put all the over-the-counter drugs with which I treated it.
This suffering is minor enough that my chief energy is expended in complaining, rather than recovering, but I welcome nonetheless any sympathetic expense of comforting energy any fair readers might wish to give. It has the side effect, however, of focusing my mind on the congestion at hand (or, more accurately, at head) and not worrying about all those peripheral matters that usually engage my mind when I’m not in the classroom.
[click to continue…]
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