Sunday reading...

8 August 2021: "Middlemarch demands that we enter into the perspective of the other struggling, erring humans--and recognize that we, too, will sometimes be struggling, and may sometimes be erring, even when we are at our most arrogant and confident. And this is why every time I go back to the novel I feel that--while I might live in a century without knowing as much as just a handful of its pages suggest--I may hope to be enlarged by each revisiting. Only a child believes a grown-up has stopped growing." --Rebecca Mead, The Road to Middlemarch

Lots of time for eclectic reading today: three issues of Entertainment Weekly, today's Washington Post, a big chunk of Her Body and Other Parties, and another big chunk of The Road to Middlemarch. I think Mead's book is the text that has soothed me most on a kind of anxious day. And what she says above sums up what makes me love the novel, too.  

Some of these vibes...

29 July 2021: 

Channeled a bit of these BabyCat vibes today (after mowing the lawn). Didn't snooze, but took a long bath and then worked from home most of the day. Headed to campus around 3:00 and worked there until Hannah got off work. Then we went to the new ice-cream place in town (very good!) and hung out for a couple hours. 

And that SSAWW paper? I did another round of revision and editing and practiced it. It's good enough to set aside for now. I can't believe it's done before the end of July. My original plan was to write it in August. So I am way ahead and ready to hit the next thing on my crazy summer work list. Whew.

Good summer vibes...

A complete draft...

28 July 2021: A mixed bag of a day emotion/thought-wise, but I have a complete draft of my SSAWW paper about In the Dream House and that feels pretty good. Will do a round or two of revising tomorrow and maybe time it. Then I think I might set it aside for a while. The presentation isn't until November, which seems years away.

"There's nothing I can do except tell the story..."

15 July 2021: With the book proposal in, I am turning my attention back to my paper about In the Dream House (for this year's SSAWW). Today I came across this really great interview with Machado. It's honest, vulnerable, funny, fascinating, and brave. Love it. 

In the Dream House

5 August 2020: "You wondered, when she came along, if this was what most people got to experience in their lives: a straight line from want to satisfaction; desire manifested and satisfied in reasonable succession. This had never been the case before; it had always been fraught. How many times had you said, 'If I just looked a little different, I'd be drowning in love'? Now you got to drown without needing to change a single cell. Lucky you." --Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

Started this book yesterday and I am so into it. (I kind of wish I related less at times, but I am riveted.) Going into it, I knew it was a memoir about an abusive relationship (not a part I relate to, thankfully). I am still in the "happy" part of the relationship, but since we know it will turn bad, everything is tinged with darkness and dread. 

It's one of those books (have I written about this before? I need a phrase for it...) where I feel like if I am in the other room, I almost have an itching urge to go get it and keep reading. Like, I'll be sitting downstairs and I've this vague sense always of a kind of invisible string leading to it upstairs, tugging at me a bit. (Mixed metaphors, I know...)