I wish I had time to blog , sigh

But I don't right now. I'm teaching an overload and trying to spend time with a certain handsome boyfriend. I'm also taking time to do things like clean my shed (Saturday) hook up my desktop (this morning), and continue ridding myself of old clothes by ferreting out things I no longer wear with a vengeance -- a vengeance I tell you!!!!
So if anyone's still out there, please give a shout out and tell me how you are -- just as busy as I am, I suspect.
Cheers,
PS: Missy goes to the vet on Sept. 11. Briana and I are convinced she has cataracts. I hope we're wrong.
More Later, I Hope

LOST in LOST

I shouldn't admit it but I'll be spending a ridiculous amount of my spare time rewatching LOST, which I watched when I had the two ruptured discs last fall. Apparently I missed an awful lot of what happened since I would fall asleep and then think I'd watched more of an episode than I had.

Don't think that this endeavor will get in the way of my dedication to my career -- oh no. I'll still be grading those papers, prepping for class, all that stuff. Maybe my creative writing class should be based on watching LOST and writing creative non fiction about it. Surely there have been MLA panels on the show. Anyway, gotta go -- season 1, episode 4.

Okay, I'm writing on the blog

but really I got nothin'. I start work today for reals, meaning the "with students" kind of work. I'm pretty excited. The first week is always fun and exhausting.

Yesterday I watched Missy trying to eat tomatoes off the vine in my backyard. So for those of you who have known me long enough to remember me saying that deer always get my tomatoes, I'm rethinking that one. Sometimes Missy goes out in the backyard at night and stays there for a while, so now, after all these years, I'm putting two and two together -- genius, huh?

For those of you who call and then tell me you like the opposable thumbs part of my phone message, don't you agree that really she doesn't need them after all? As long as I grow things that she can pilfer once I turn my back on her, she ought to be happy.

I guess I'll post my first day of work song so you can have an insider view of what's going on in my head this first day of the semester:

Overture, curtains, lights,
This is it, the night of nights
No more rehearsing and nursing a part
We know every part by heart
Overture, curtains, lights
This is it, you'll hit the heights
And oh what heights we'll hit
On with the show this is it

Tonight what heights we'll hit
On with the show this is it

And if you want to look at it like I just did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpnbyDT9-qA

That's all folks!

Well, what did I expect?

If ya don't post on your blog people stop reading it. So, new goal (added to a list of many goals that are part of Pat reformation) = post more. Too bad I'm so boring, but here's a little tidbit that's had me tingling (just a little) since my roommate told me about it:
The National are coming to Hamilton College!
I can't verify when on their website, but even if it turns out not to be true just the thought is exciting.
Other news: CCK restaurant in Albany still has a-kickin' food, but the crispy duck on taro wasn't as good as usual. Oh well, anybody can have an off night. D learned about a bakery on Lark Street, so yours truly has a nutella croissant waking for later. I found the perfect shoes at DSW, but I'm trying to beat the price on the Internet.
Oh yeah, and I start teaching tomorrow, so it's back to my version of professional dress. I will feel itchy and constrained in clothes that approximate professional attire. Well, that's life and there are worse things a person could have to do.

One last tidbit. Missy, at her advanced age, has revived a heinous behavior from the past and peed on B's (new roomie's) bed the other night. Super! I thought we were over that. She probably wanted to pee on my bed but the door to upstairs was closed. Abandonment issues suck! Lord knows what she'll do when I go back to work for reals tomorrow. She seems unsettled all the time and extra needy. Perhaps I can get her in a creative writing class and she can work out some issues. Maybe she'll become some canine Sylvia Plath. And, btw, she farts all the time lately; I mean more than usual.

What's been new with you?

Back to Work

Well, it's that time of year again, when summer ends and academicians everywhere drag their sorry butts back to work. I'm getting pretty excited about going back to work, even though our rainy weather makes me still feel cheated out of summer. I'm teaching an overload, so I'll be inundated with freshpeople. My other class is creative writing, something I always look forward to warily. After all, I've never actually taken a creative writing class myself, so it's the area of writing I have the least pedagogical training in. Oh well, I have some great essays for my students to read, including the entire Me Talk Pretty One Day. It was a toss up between that and The Glass Castle, a book that is ultimately uplifting but too sad and disturbing for my fragile little psyche right now.

I'll give a bronchitis update -- I'm doing better but last night I made the poor decision to forego cough medicine. I had to take it at 5:00 in the a.m. -- live and learn.

Today D and I are going to Albany. You might think wow that must mean your syllabi are done, and you'd be partially correct. I'm suffering from feast not famine in the form of so many good essays for my prose non fiction class. Well, it's better than the alternative.

I always start my creative writing classes with "The Learning Curve" which Sedaris begins with the following:
"A year after my graduation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a terrible mistake was made and I was offered a position teaching a writing workshop."

I am like Sedaris, well intentioned but without a pedagogy. Thank goodness I have the imagination to come up with oddball writing exercises to get students engaged and started. And thank goodness for folks who share their stuff by putting it on the Internet.

So whether you're going back to work or you never left it, how, my friends, are you spending this weekend? I'll be throwing in a little (joke if you've seen my lawn) lawn mowing tomorrow just for shits and giggles.

Here's the first shout out for house painting. I'd like to try to get the painting crew together for the weekend after Labor Day. Here's the deal--I supply the paint and brushes (duh!) and the pizza, beer, soda, wine (or other food that I'll prepare if people tell me what they want). I also supply the house with the new roof (yay!) that badly needs painting. We paint until everybody realizes that they don't really like me that much and can't imagine why they volunteered in the first place. Sounds like a good deal, doesn't it?

P.S. new goal for self: get back to blogging more often.
Happy Weekend!
Murf

Home Again, Home Again

Well, I put a few thousand miles on Ruby and had a great time with Big and Pin, but it's good to be home again. Here's my brief and limited feedback:
Northampton MA -- cool enough but a bit touristy and a lot of reeking with money
Portland ME -- very cool, easy to walk
Brattleboro VT -- is what it is, quaint and all
NJ -- of course is what it is, but has the advantages of family and Victor's pizza
Providence RI -- way cool and nicely put together
That's it for now.
Whatchu all been up to?

Pink Pills

I don't usually blog about anything too serious, but I've talked to quite a few friends in the last several weeks who have suffered from depression and are hesitant to take antidepressants. We've all heard the stories about people who have to try so many different things before they find the right medication, and of course nobody wants to put shit in his/her body that might have only god knows what side effects. But, I gotta say that there are things that can help -- family, friends, and sometimes medications when the latter two and all their love and good wishes aren't enough. So don't be scared. That's all -- off my soapbox.

I wonder if anybody still reads this thing

Yeah, I brought it on myself by not blogging when I was, well we'll call it depressed for lack of a better word. Now that I'm feeling better, I thought I'd give an update about what's going on in Pat's little world.
1) I have a cold. Big got sick from the plane and now I have it, wha!!!!!!
2) I am determined that said cold will not ruin today's blueberry picking fun, which btw is only fun to D and Big. I will be sitting in a lawn chair.
3) I have a sunburn, slight one, from going to Slyvan Beach yesterday. It makes me feel like I'm not fish belly white (I made that one up) even though I know I still am.
4) Roof work should be starting today. I'm getting a green steel roof that should look pretty cool. Then house painting (also green) can commence.
5) This one's exciting. My new roommate has moved in and she's just as cool as I thought she'd be.
6) I'm taking Big to see her gp's in NJ. That'll be good for all of us.
7) After having a rough patch of nervousness, Missy is starting to calm down. She likes my new roommate (yay!!!!!)
8) The only little downer (and it is little I'm aware) is that I'd like to mow the lawn today before I leave, but I feel crappy, wha again.
9) Oh, I almost forgot one: the other day while Big was "renovating" a closet for my new roommate's arrival I took my handsaw and clippers and went to town on the shrubs in front of my house. One will likely not come back, but I'm going to cover it for winter and see what happens. But the other two look so much better. I kept the one by the living room window tall (about 12') because I like to see Robins eat the berries on them. I felt pretty accomplished after doing it. I've never been much of a horticulturist. I also felt sore enough to want to curl up in a ball and cry the next day, but I got over that after I curled up in a ball and cried for awhile.

Well that's all the boring middle class shit I can think of. How are you guys doing?