Distraction Machine

28 September 2023: Spent most of today working from home, mostly toiling away on my Lydia Sigourney entry. I made a lot of progress (though not as much as I wanted to). 

Jo, thrilled to have me here, still doesn't quite get that stealing pens, pencils, and paperclips, chomping on papers, splaying out over books and papers, and trying to knock over beverage glasses doesn't actually help me get work done. 

I gathered up a bunch of toys (including her favorite, crumpled up balls of paper) and kept them next to me, throwing one after the other to distract her into the kitchen. It didn't work that well. Before I went out at 11:00 or so to mow the lawn, I snapped this picture of the debris field.

Here she is when I got back to work after the lawn and a shower. Still her usual, cute, distacting self. She wants to knock that glass over so bad. 

BabyCat lives here, too, of course, and has always been an ideal work-from-home pet. Calming and pleasing to look at, never too far away, and never intrusive. 

(Also spent the last two evenings on campus for events connected to Ann Pancake's Writer-in-Residence week. She is quite simply a treasure of a person.)

"...throw crude matter at the head of the public"

26 September 2023: Long, busy day and I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything on my lists these next few weeks (months, year). But I did chuckle a bit when I came across this bit from Lydia Sigourney's memoir, where she makes clear the value--the courtesy--of revision and editing: "Still, I always corrected, and rewrote more than once, these extemporaneous effusions, not considering it decorous to throw crude matter at the head of the public" (300). I am always delighted when these nineteenth-century folks share enduring truths about writing. 

Work Cited

Sigourney, Lydia. Lydia Sigourney: Selected Poetry and Prose, edited by Gary Kelly, Broadview Editions, 2008.