New Kid on the Hallway

Go away!

Okay, so remember my recent phone call? The phone just rang, and the caller ID showed "private caller" again. I didn't pick up, but this time, there was a message left on my machine:

Hello, ladies, this is me again. I called you back because I said I needed some milk, and I'm poor, cuz I don't have no more milk left in my titties for my child. So will you please call me back? Bye!

Let me say it again - I REALLY hate crank calls.

(C'mon, can you imagine any actual poor mother saying this?)

Doing my best to ensure the decline of important blogging

I was so pleased with my productivity today, that I went out shopping for a break. I wrote 1,264 words this morning, e-mailed my chair about some stuff I needed to do, emptied the trash, and graded 5 of the short papers awaiting my red pen. So I decided that I would head over to the local Macy's to get a new battery in my watch, and maybe treat myself by buying some Origins Body Souffle (the BEST lotion I've ever tried), or trying on some jeans.

I left with 6 t-shirts and 3 pairs of pants.

In my defense, they were all really cheap to start with, and 25% off on top of that. They're all really basic - plain old crewneck tees, but I liked the shape, and my policy is that when I find a t-shirt I like, I buy it in as many colors as I can. So now I have new ones in black, white, dark pink, chocolate brown, aqua, and teal. (You can never have too many t-shirts, especially living where it's so hot much of time.) The pants are mocha linen wide-legs, and then stone and olive cropped twills. The mocha ones are slightly dressy, the others very casual (though I could teach in them in hot weather with a more formal top).

Of course, as soon as I bought them, I walked throughout the rest of the store, saw other items, and instantly started thinking, Should I have bought these? They're cheap, but does that mean they're crappy and I'll regret it? Isn't it better to buy one or two really good things rather than a bunch of junk? They're basics, but are they so basic that they're boring? I like to think I look classic, but do I look like a suburban matron? Blah blah blah. Perfectionism - it's not just for academic work! Whenever I buy anything, I start agonizing over whether it's the "right" purchase or not - "right" being something that will go with everything I already own, be appropriate in every situation, make me look the perfect combination of sexy and professional (not to mention thin), and, of course, be comfortable and not require ironing or dry-cleaning. Yeah. Unrealistic much? Well, if I change my mind, I can always take them back.

PS - I forgot to add that I have been seized with the desire to dye my hair red. It's kind of streaky caramel/brown at the moment (the caramel parts are fake, in case you were wondering), and I'd been thinking about going back to my natural dark brown, maybe with an auburn tint. But suddenly I really want to go RED. Maybe not quite Carrot Top red, but I'm kind of inspired by Shaun White, Olympic snowboarder, AKA the Tomato.

My latest phone call

<ring, ring>

Me: Hello?

Voice: I want some milk.

Me: Excuse me?

Voice: I want some milk.

Me: Who are you trying to reach?

Voice: Huh?

Me: Who. are. you. trying. to. reach.

Voice: You. I want some milk, I'm poor.

Me: Too bad!

<click>

Even though you're doubtless sick to death of the subject

You knew I had to do it... it's a meme! about pseudonymity! (from jo(e))

Is your blogging persona more serious than your real life persona? I don't know. Real life professional persona, or personal persona? I consider my blog relatively serious, but I've had people call it funny, too. I'm often boringly serious in real life (in the classroom, students frequently have to tell me when they're joking). My blog persona certainly isn't any more formal than my real life persona - I think of my blog as very casual, unlike the careful prose I write for academic publication. It's pretty much like the me sitting around debating the meaning of life with my friends.

Do you think the only safe way an academic can write publicly is to write anonymously? No. It completely depends on what you're trying to accomplish with your blog. If you're writing in a purely professional vein, about areas connected to your research, names are great. Or even if you're not, and you want to write under your name, that's great. I think there are things that one can write under their own name that could be detrimental to one's career, but that doesn't mean that writing under your own name will necessarily hurt your career. There are LOTS of ways you can tank a career, if you try hard enough!

Do you think that your blog could ruin your career? I don't know; I feel like that's outside my control, and depends on the reactions of other people. At the moment, yes, my career success does depend on how others see me (and, of course, what I do to shape that, though I'm not convinced that what I do always matches up exactly with how others see me), and who knows whether someone might be offended by something I've written? I try not to write a blog that could ruin my career! I try to write something that I can be proud of. If something I'm proud of actually did ruin my career, it's probably not a career I want. More pragmatically, I try to avoid writing things that could reasonably piss off my department and college. So I'd be surprised if this blog could ruin my career; but I was surprised when a good friend of mine got fired for her blog, too!

Do you use a pseudonym out of fear? I don't think of it as fear - I think of it as a desire for boundaries, and control over what gets associated with my professional persona. Face it, I talk a great deal about academia here, and if I wrote under my real name, it would be legitimate for these musings to be associated with my professional persona. But while I stand behind what I say here, again, I don't consider this a formal academic document that I want chalked up to my tenure review. I consider this shooting the breeze with friends/colleagues. Because so many of my friends are academics, and because academia is the kind of job that permeates your whole life, it's something I talk about a lot. But I don't think a transcript of me sitting in a bar talking about my job should be part of my tenure package. Nor do I want my posts on shoes to be part of my tenure package! But I want to be able to talk about shoes if I feel like it. And yes, I'm sure some people will see my desire to separate these things as a  result of fear. Like I said, I'd call it a desire to control my professional image. And maybe caution - a caution which, I'd argue, younger women faculty have every reason to feel.

What is the biggest drawback to writing pseudonymously? Well, when I say things that people do speak approvingly of, the "real" me wants credit! There are some things I write here that I think would be very appropriately considered as part of my professional service. But oh well, I can't have it both ways. I guess the only other problem is that because I don't openly identify where I live, for instance, I might miss out on some potential blogger meet-ups. (Oh, and the fact that there are some people who seem convinced that writing pseudonymously is less valid than writing under a name because I'm not willing to stand behind what I say, or something. Whatever. I'm not usually moving in those online circles, so it's not a big deal.)

Has anyone stumbled on your blog and found it accidentally? Not that I'm aware of. I did see some hits from my college's server recently that I was pretty confident weren't me, but they don't seem to have reappeared. I don't think it would be hard to recognize me, since most people who know me know I have a long-distance marriage and three cats!

Have you outed yourself to any other bloggers? Yes, I tend to out myself pretty readily if I have any e-mail correspondence with someone. I feel like if I'm going to deal with someone one-on-one, it's probably polite to let them know who I am. (Though this mostly applies if I contact them, rather than the other way around!)

Has your blog allowed you to experiment with writing? The form of my writing isn't in the least experimental. Blogging has provided me an opportunity to write in a non-academic way, which I used to do a lot, so I appreciate that. The closest I've come to "experimenting" here is very occasionally I write something I'd call creative non-fiction. I enjoy writing those posts and wouldn't get the chance to do so otherwise. So I guess I'm experimenting, for me, but what I produce isn't experimental in the grand scheme of writing.

Why do you use a pseudonym?  See above, under whether I use a pseudonym out of fear. I will agree with people who've mentioned it as a convention of this particular blogging community; I wanted to join in that community, and since everyone else was using a pseudonym (at this point it was Dr. Crazy, profgrrrrl, Bitch Ph.D., Mel at In Favor of Thinking, and Anbruch in his former incarnation at the Cul-de-Sac), I think part of me felt it would be jarring to just bust into that group under my real name. But some of the very first discussions I read were about using pseudonyms, and the practice made sense to me.

And I like jo(e)'s final point about this so much, I'm going to reproduce it here:

I think that is the main thing that writing pseudonymously does – it limits my audience to other bloggers. Students, family, colleagues, or real life friends cannot find my blog by searching for my name. Bloggers come to my blog via a blogroll or a comment I’ve left on a blog. That way, my readers are bloggers who understand the conventions of blogging. They understand that posts are written quickly, often rough drafts and unfinished thoughts. For the most part, they know the blogs that I link to, and can see what I write as part of a larger conversation in a blogging community. I don’t have to explain what a meme is, or explain why I might post a photo of a cat on a Friday. Pseudonymous bloggers write for other bloggers. That seems to piss off people outside the blogging community. I think they are jealous.

I will add that I certainly don't expect my blog to be limited to a set group of people or that I don't welcome anyone here who's interested. This isn't a private space - it's out on the big wide internets, and I fully recognize that. But it does help to be speaking within the conventions of a community (even one that's incredibly diverse and by no means willing to agree with everything I say!).

Finally, jo(e), being ever gracious, didn't tag people. And this isn't really a taggable meme - anyone who's interested should, as always, participate. But since I mentioned a group of bloggers above who were around when I started and got me interested in this whole thing: I'd love to see what Dr. Crazy, profgrrrrl, Bitch Ph.D., Mel, and Anbruch have to say on the subject.

Postscript: You may be sick of this subject by now, but guess what? This post is a HUGE improvement on the woe-is-me-a-long-distance-marriage-sucks post that I was toying with last night. So be grateful that I find pseudonymity fascinating!

Because consumerism is always a good foil to metablogging

Since my last post on shoes, much shopping and ordering has ensued Chez New Kid. In fact, I currently have EIGHT pairs of new shoes sitting in two Zappo's boxes in my living room! (Don't worry, at least six pairs will be returned.) The results? There are just a few still in the running:

These are REALLY cute on. They're a tiny bit long, however, and the tab at the back of the heel is a little stiff, so it has potential to shred my achilles heel. But I'm considering whether I might be able to break them in sufficiently before traveling.

These are INCREDIBLY comfortable. But I can't decide if they're so dorky that they're cute, or if they're just plain dorky. They come in less cutesy colors, of course, but I'm interested in lighter colored shoes (everything I own is either black or brown). I can't decide if they work or they make me look like an old lady/nurse. (Partly the white sole is throwing me.)

These are definitely a possibility - they are SO comfortable. And quite airy, too. And they don't look that terrible. Sure, they're big and clunky and sneaker-y, yes, they make my feet look huge. But it's kind of a cute, athletic huge.

I LOVE these - love, love LOVE them. They're incredibly comfortable, and they look really cute (obviously in a casual way, not a fuck-me pump or power boot kind of way). The color isn't too dark, it isn't too light, it isn't too bright - it's really pretty neutral, but at the same time, it's green, so for ONCE I have shoes that aren't black or brown. Hmm, I think the present tense of "have" suggests I want to keep these! The one drawback is that they're slides, and y'all were right to point out that slides are harder to walk in all day. But they're really, really comfy slides, that don't slide around too much. They'd probably be great for walking around museums all day. Something like the pair just before these would then work well for tramping around archaeological sites. Although I'm not sure if two pairs of green Keens is really necessary... hmmmm....

Time to get serious

Yeah, I know, I had to go with a cheesy post title. In any case, I feel I've been sucked deep into the morass of a blog debate, and I want to say a little more about it, to clarify my position and perhaps moderate the tone of my previous post on the subject. The debate, of course, is over Jeff Rice's IHE piece on "serious" blogging. As I reread my own post, I realize that in fact its tone isn't that bad; my biggest gripe is with the people who commented on the post, really, more than what Rice had to say. (Though I disagreed with some of his points, obviously.) I think my tone certainly invited certain less-than-scholarly comments, for which I take full responsibility. The debate has continued over at Dr. Crazy's, and I was perhaps less restrained in my comments there.

In any case.

To clarify: my main problem with the article is that I think it mischaracterizes pseudonymous blogging. All well and good. My problem with the debate that's arisen in the wake of the article is that it seems to me to boil down to pseudonymous bloggers saying, Hey, we don't like what you say about anonymity! We don't agree!, and Rice/those who agreed with the article saying, That's not the point! The point was about playfulness, and why are you all hung up on the anonymity comment? That's not a big deal!

What's funny is that I think that at heart, pseudonymous bloggers and the Rice camp aren't really disagreeing with what he considers his main point - that blogging has a lot of potential to open up areas of exploration into new media and genres and all sorts of cool stuff. Nor do people who generally agree with the article (my example here is Collin Brooke) necessarily agree with the specific point about pseudonymity. Even Brooke, who's defending the article, characterizes Rice's comments about the fear behind pseudonymity as a mistake. Where we seem to disagree is over the weight that should be given to the comments about anonymity. Rice and his proponents, I think, want to argue that the pseudonymity comments are perhaps tangential to the main point of the argument - that is, even if you disagree with them, that doesn't undermine his article as a whole.

Unsurprisingly, anonymous bloggers see this differently. And I just want to comment here to defend our different interpretation. While I don't in any way see Rice agreeing with Tribble, by writing in the wake of the Tribble affair, he's entering a very specific context. Perhaps he didn't realize quite how strongly pseudonymous bloggers (as well as named ones) reacted to Tribble's posts. In any case, I don't think that Rice-the-author can control his readers' responses. If anonymous bloggers see the comments about anonymity in his piece as torpedoing the rest of his argument, I don't think it's a valid response to dismiss that reaction by saying, That's not what I meant. Obviously, not all responses to a piece of writing are equally valid, but I think this is a consistent thread in pseudonymous responses to the piece, and one that needs to be taken more seriously. (And here I think the responses at IHE to his article are telling - it became an opportunity for a number of commenters, people who clearly don't blog anonymously, to say, Yeah, doesn't that anonymous blogging suck? So I don't think it's just anonymous bloggers being paranoid to react to this part of the article.)

Which is not to say that Rice isn't making other reasonable points; it's simply to say that there's a group of readers out here for whom those points are less relevant than the anonymity comments.

I'd also argue that Rice's characterization of anonymity online isn't quite accurate. Something that seems to recur in some of his blog posts is the idea that certain ideas are more valid because they have a name behind them. In some contexts, yes, absolutely. I disagree that the blogosphere is necessarily one of those contexts. My alter ego, New Kid, has been around for a little while now, and she/I has developed a reputation (whether good or bad) in certain blogging circles, and I'd argue even a degree of cultural capital. It is NOT AT ALL the same kind of cultural capital that my "real" persona, assistant professor of medieval history at college X, has developed (it's probably greater!), nor is it cultural capital that's interchangeable with that of my "real" persona. But I don't believe that just because I post under a pseudonym that I can just say whatever I want and other people be damned. There are consequences to what I write here. No, they're not the same as the consequences that Rice faces by writing under his real name, but I'd argue that I'm still constrained. (Here I also really like Brooke's point that it's not only pseudonymous bloggers who self-censor and create online personae.)

Something that occurred to me last night as some of this was whirling around my brain is that there may end up being a difference between people who see blogging as a means to an end, and those who see it as an end in and of itself. I have the impression (this may be wrong) that Rice sees blogging as an end - that the blog itself is a product, like a miscellany or a commonplace book, that deserves credit for its existence and analysis like any other kind of genre. Myself, I would argue that blogging is a means to an end - it's a way for me to connect with an extremely valuable community and to get some welcome responses to my ideas. It can also be a means for me to play around with writing in a way that I don't get to in my day job. I suspect there are people for whom blogging falls somewhere between these two extremes. In any case, it probably is unfair for someone who sees blogging as a means to criticize someone who sees blogging as an end (but again, I think to define blogging only as an end does come across as criticizing those who do it differently.)

Finally, I want to repeat something I said over at Dr. Crazy's: I made a comment there about the fact that one of the blogs that Rice cited as a model of blogging was that of his girlfriend, Jenny Edbauer. I called that "cheesy," perhaps not my finest professional moment. But I want to apologize again for any implication that I believed Rice was citing Edbauer just because she'd slept with him (her phrase, not mine) - that is, for any implication that Edbauer's blog isn't worthy of being cited in such a context. I knew/still know nothing about her blog; it only struck me that bringing it up as an example is a conflict of interest. Obviously if someone is partnered with someone in the same field and sub-field, the issue of how to deal with citing each others' work is going to come up, and I didn't quite think that through. But I guess I will say that I responded to the citation in the same light as a book review: most journals that I'm aware of have a policy against having spouses/partners review each others' books, for example. It was in that light that I made the comment about the citation of Edbauer's blog, and it wasn't meant as a slight of her own work. So for the sexist interpretation that my comment left open, I apologize.

I also hope that this post can be taken in the light of Rice's stated desire to respond to posts that engage the content of his article, rather than his personality. All comments welcome, although I realize people may well be ready to move on from this tempest in a teapot!

Ah, more experts on blogging

No time to do this justice at all, but is it just me, or is this post on blogging over at IHE somewhat annoying? The author, Jeff Rice, argues for greater "playfulness" in blogging and that being too "serious" about blogging robs bloggers of the opportunity to experiment with a new genre. Well enough. I had a little bit of difficulty following the logic throughout the whole article, but sure, it's an argument.

But.

Yet again there are slams at the anonymous/pseudonymous bloggers, who, apparently, are way too "serious" about our blogging. Where I missed the logic, I guess, is what anonymity and seriousness really have to do with each other. Anyone want to explain? A quote:

Lost in this seriousness [of anonymous bloggers] are a number of quite amazing things blogging has provided writers: ability to create discourse in widely accessed, public venues, ease of online publishing, ability to write daily to a networked space, ability to archive one’s writing, ability to interlink writing spaces, ability to respond to other writers quickly, etc.

Ummm...okay. I kind of thought that was in fact what I and lots of other anonymous bloggers were doing. Guess I was wrong (I'm not academic enough).

But what bother me more are the comments (always the cherry on top of any IHE post). What do we get? More snarky comments about bloggers who talk about politics, or movies, or, you know, life. Because after all, why would you want to do that? when you can be talking about Big Ideas?

Some examples:

I differ with you on whether people should be seen as human or not. Being seen as human seriously runs the risk of alienating people. For instance, some people like sports. While many Americans consider sports to be some sort of “lowest common denominator,” I think that anyone that talks about sports in public to strangers isn’t serious about their work (and I will not hire them.)

Also, in encouraging anonymous blogs, those who do so are indirectly adding to the wealth of horrible material on the Internet. It’s surely not a good idea to whine about co-workers on a public website, but the anonymous blogs are filled with such whining. and talk about relationships and favorite albums and whatnot. If they’d post under their own names, the blogs might be more interesting.

Instead, if a blogger sets an example for other people (students, professors, and outsiders) of being continuously aware of all the scholarship, and its implications in a field, there is no reason to call him unprofessional. Ironically, it seems that people in “practice” in various fields (lawyers, engineers, accountants, etc.) seem to have a much easier time of staying on topic.... But, for some odd reason, too many academics feel compelled to talk about politics, their grandchildren, and movies.

Thankfully, Jonathan Dresner offers a great response (quoted at length):

The chief virtue of blogging is easier communication; the chief characteristic of academic blogging is.... diversity!

Historians and Asian Studies scholars, my own fields, tend to a more textual, source-oriented and straightforward presentation. My blogs are visually simple, but nonetheless communicative and (dare I say it?) fun, at least for me. Why should I be mucking around with styles that don’t appeal to ME, just to satisfy someone else’s Bakhtinian judgements?

The caution of anonymous/pseudonymous bloggers is not, the author says, the point, but he spends an awful lot of time on it. Academia is a society as well as a business, a set of disciplines, an educational endeavor; anonymity is a perfectly reasonable response to that social dynamic, and gives bloggers a chance to be much more free and experimental, not to mention honest.

Pleating “Blog like me” is no more convincing than the Ivan Tribble “don’t blog” whine. If we take public writing seriously (and if blogging is anything, it is public), its because it’s public: there’s no shame in being serious about the face we present to the world.

Anyway. No time for any cogent conclusions; I have to run back to campus. And survive the next two days of work!

Very Important shoe post

So, I'm going on this spiffy trip in June, to various parts of the eastern end of the Mediterranean. I will be the archetypal tourist, tramping around city streets and museums and archaeological sites and so on. And it will be pretty hot, I'm imagining.

So, the burning question: what kinds of shoes should I wear?

Any summer tromping-around shoes that I have are pretty shot at this point, so I'm really going to need to buy new ones. (Plus, what fun is travel if you can't buy yourself new things to wear?) And you can never start planning too early for such things. Thus, courtesy of Zappo's, I give you a line-up of potential candidates:

Any votes?

Life like a grownup, for a change

Last night LDH and I had a lovely thirteenth-anniversary celebration. We had evening plans, and headed out for dinner beforehand. We were just going to get burgers, but we had to walk past a spiffy downtown steakhouse, and it suddenly sounded good, so we went there instead. I had a lovely roast chicken and the best shoestring potatos I've ever eaten; LDH had filet mignon. It certainly isn't necessary to spend that much money to have a yummy meal around here, but it was fun to make it a special occasion on the spur of the moment.

Our evening plans: we went to a boxing match! It was the first time I'd been to one, live. I enjoyed the fights we saw, but I enjoyed watching the people there even more. Decorative young women with processed hair, tight clothes, and very high heels. An off-the-shoulder shirt strategically placed to show off a butterfly tattoo. Very large men with gold in their teeth and diamonds in their ears, clasping hands and half-hugging. The guy in front of us - who looked like a businessman, very soberly dressed - leaping up and jumping up and down to get the ring girls' attention as they tossed T-shirts to the crowd (he got one). Later, on the phone with someone, he kept waving his arm as the camera stared our way, asking, "Do you see me? Do you see me? I'm waving. Do you see me?" There were more utter redneck southern accents than I've heard since I moved here. Everytime the ring girls climbed between the ropes (holding onto their incredibly tiny skirts), the guys behind us yelled "wohhhhhhhhh OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ohhhhhhh" (and by the end they were tapping LDH on the shoulder, trying to get him to join in: "Hey, man, SHE [meaning me] won't mind!"). Almost worse than the woh-OH-ohs was that fact that the ring girls were trained to simper and smile like these catcalls were a compliment. One boxer's wife or girlfriend in the stands right near us, keeping up a constant rhythm: "That's right, baby! Give him the jab, the jab, work the body, c'mon, baby, work him! Up the middle, up the middle, up the middle! That's right, sweetheart, give it to him, give it to him!" And on and on. Very different from the woh-OH-oh guys who kept yelling, "Make him pay! Make him miss and make him pay! Make him miss and make him pay!", no matter what was happening in the fight. Or the guys yelling, "Get out of the way, ref!" any time the ref actually did his job. And the people yelling, "Hit him back!" What, do they think he's not trying to?

What was really funny is that what I like about boxing is precisely that it's NOT about two guys trying to beat the shit out of each other (or sheee-yit, if you're the woh-OH-oh guys). I mean, it is, but they're doing it within some very strict parameters - rules that they've voluntarily agreed to, and their skill is measured not by blunt force but by their ability to employ that force only in very specific ways. In that respect, it's all about control, not blind passion or simply whaling on each other.

But being there, I realized that I was in a crowd of people who are all excited to see some guys beat the shit out of each other. And that at heart, really, that's what I was doing, too.

In a similar vein, now I'm watching the US-Slovakia ice hockey game. Go, Slovakia! Go, guys whose names are full of Zs and end with Ks! Go, my people!

(And it's 20 degrees F here right now, in the middle of the day. That's almost like legitimate winter - what's up with THAT?)

Random thoughts zipping around my brain

Is it just me, or is snowboard cross the most boring sport ever invented? I'm sure it's fun to do, but it's really boring to watch. Even the commentators sound bored. Granted, I'm not a huge snowboard fan to begin with, but I can enjoy people zipping up and down the halfpipe twirling and flipping and whatever else. But snowboard cross - it makes me want to poke myself in the eye with a teaspoon (instead of using it to eat Nutella, which is what I'm currently using it for and which is a much nobler purpose. It's fitting, I think, to eat Italian-born Nutella while watching the Olympics in Italy). Plus, the commentator just referred to snowboard cross's "impactful" debut. Shoot me.

On a brighter note, today I have:

• graded 18 papers
• graded about 3/4 of 20+ quizzes
• created one PowerPoint (not my greatest effort, but it wasn't a very visual topic)
• taught two classes (not necessarily brilliantly, but tolerably)
• had lunch with a writing group on campus
• met with a student about a research paper
• cleaned the bathroom counter
• cleaned the kitchen counter
• emptied and refilled the dishwasher, cleaning out the sink along the way
• vacuumed the apartment
• swept the bathroom and kitchen floors

That actually looks like a pretty respectable list of accomplishments, so we'll overlook the fact that I haven't done anything on my research since Monday (and that I'm eating Nutella straight from the jar).

The one nice thing about having a long-distance husband is that it gives me a framework for housework - when LDH is coming home, I try to clean up SOMETHING. Even that little bit helps keep things under control. Or relatively so, at least.

Anyway, I guess that's about all that's going on this evening. More student meetings tomorrow. More grading. But I do intend to get back to my research, at least to remind me what it is I'm working on. I haven't been keeping up on my word count in the margin here, but I have been writing; I've been working on sections of two different chapters, and I've basically been freewriting, relatively formal stuff (that is, I'm aiming for actual sentences and paragraphs), but with no pressure and no very concrete plan for where everything is going to go or what purpose it's serving. I'm following my patented approach: I may not know everything that I want to say, but I know I want to talk about X. So I write about X until I don't have anything more to say about it, although invariably, going through the process brings up points Y and Z as well. At some point I will stop and type up everything, print it out, and figure out what's there. I'm not sure that I'm producing as much as I can as fast as I can, but it's a pace I can sustain. (That is, when I'm not grading, meeting with students, or eating Nutella.)

I'm kind of excited by some of the stuff I've been working on recently - basically, my book describes a phenomenon that I believe exists and that hasn't been discussed before. However, in the last few weeks I had something of a "duh!" moment, in which it dawned on me that if I'm describing this phenomenon, it might make sense (especially given that I'm a historian, and we're big on this whole change-over-time thing) to describe this phenomenon's origins. Despite being a historian, I've tended much more to describe a snapshot in time than to address where things start, where they go, and how they end. The parameters of my project are such that I won't be talking about the end of this phenomenon, but like I said, I suddently went, "Duh! I should talk about when/how this phenomenon starts!" What triggered this, though (I think), was the fact that I had come up with an argument precisely for when and why this phenomenon develops. I'm really proud of this argument - everything seems to fit together so tightly, so sweetly. I'm sure I'll be able to come up with objections and criticisms later, but for the moment the pleasure of this argument is sustaining me. Right now, writing feels like fun, and discovery; I'm a little bit worried about what's going to happen when it starts to feel like work (or drudgery) again, but we'll ignore that and maybe it won't happen.

Okay, there's a thunderstorm here (I find lightning in February rather odd, but then, it was nearly 70 degrees today), and Middle Cat has growled at the thunder a couple of times. I hope she's not exhibiting animal super senses and predicting a coming tornado! (She's the only one of the three who's smart enough.) Maybe I'll go see what she's up to...