Open letter to my depletion.

Dear My Depletion,

Did you happen to know that I lost my agenda when we got back from Idaho? --by "agenda", I mean my actual, physical calendar, but now that you mention it, the word could refer to the figurative thing as well.

This past week was crowded: with dinners and breakfasts and lunches, LMS trainings, focus group meeting, writing group, date nights and family Harry Potter, shopping and movies. All of these appointments and their various delights I kept in the agenda of my brain, because the actual calendar was gone. Often, My Depletion, the calendar and its busy agenda are harbinger, the very symbol of you. This week, however, you hummed in the background of all these events and reminded me:

you are not writing

summer is almost over

you are not writing

something is so very wrong with you

I literally hate your song, My Depletion. But I have not been able to come up with a substitute.

I have notes on slips of paper, that say things like "Monday: house stuff! film." or "T: write 500 words." And who knows? Maybe Monday or Tuesday--maybe Monday and Tuesday--will be the days I hop out of bed and take Bruiser for a walk when the morning is still cool, and say pish to the internet, whip out my sewing machine or catalog my film clips or even write 500 words! I can see, theoretically, that this is possible. Saying so, maybe, makes it more likely to be so.

But nothing like this will occur unless--it must be said, My Depletion--you stop humming that goddamned song. It is getting on my last nerve.

Sincerely,

htms

I ♥ the movies.

Recent conversation:

Me: Maybe we should buy season tickets to the theater.

Historian: We'd get a great discount.

Me: . . . and maybe we could go to a weeknight showing, so we wouldn't miss the movies?

Historian: Sure.

I love the movies so much. Mostly, we go to the movies every Friday and Saturday nights. Sometimes, we see two movies in a day. Or sometimes just I do--I'll go to something with one of my kids, then the Historian and I will see another in the evening. A weekend without two movies makes me feel like something is missing. Like maybe a lung or something. I ♥ the movies, but I also need the movies.

Another instance: we go to this jazz concert series every year. We buy season tickets. The concerts are on Monday evenings, except this year, the first concert is on a Saturday. SATURDAY. I ask you. That is movie night.

Another recent conversation:

Dr. Write: You should have come to the Red Iguana on Friday night. How come you didn't come?

Me: It was movie night.

Dr. Write: (uncomprehending this explanation, wherein movie automatically trumps dinner at the Red Iguana with a bunch of collegial friends)

Me: . . . (scrambling) and, but, okay, but it was movie night!

In my own defense, it was a work-ish dinner, not quite an obligation . . . but there was Mexican food. And my friends.

Okay, I get it. It's a little sick. I would honestly rather see a movie twice--if it was a movie I liked the first time--than do most other things, when it's movie night. More than going to a play. More than going to a concert. Even if the play or concert is good, and the movie is not all that good.

Some movies I would probably go see rather than going to the theater or a concert:

The Other Guys

The Switch

That new Bruce Willis/Helen Mirren vehicle

Well, there you are. As I like to say to people who don't go to the movies, "The movies are the great popular art of our time!" Which may or may not be true. But I cannot really identify many things that give me more unadulterated pleasure than choosing a seat on the side, settling in with or without popcorn, and, when the lights dim, watching preview after preview until the storytelling in the dark begins.

Give me a G! Give me an R! Give me another R!

What's that spell? Grrrrr . . . . ading.

I like to have a method for everything, the people, and I know you like me to have a method too, so I can blog about it. Here's this semester's method:

1. Make a grid, with the students' names, the various categories for which there are possible points, a column for total points and a column for the grade. This is what's known as a "gradebook." They make them in both print and electronic versions. I like to make my own.

2. Put points in the grid that I should have been tracking all along, but why? when I can do it now?

3. Lie to myself in a grandiose, extravagant, and not-remotely-attached-to-reality fashion about how long it will take me, viz., "Oh yes! It will be done by Friday" (posted on Tuesday).

4. Buy a Christmas tree. Decorate it.

5. Add many new blogs to my Google Reader. My old blogs were getting a little sparse, a little threadbare (yes I'm talking to you if you don't post very much I hate you Facebook).

6. Define milestones. For instance, grade a whole set of this. Then rest. Then grade a whole set of that. Then go to a movie. Why rush? There's no need to rush. Christmas is, like, next week. That's days and days away.

7. Check the Facebook updates of people who are finished grading. Curse them. And love them, but: curse them!

8. Have a small crisis of self-worth. It goes like this: why did they (the students) do (pick your disappointing student behavior--fail to turn in X, scatter their group project documents hither and yon, fail to complete crucial, culminating project Y, etc.)? I am a terrible teacher. Their failings are my fault.

9. Regroup. Strategies for regrouping: toast. Cookies. Mid-grading blogging. Repeat step 8/step 9 sequence as necessary until all milestones (see step 6) are completed.

And yet, having completed a milestone, I am feeling rawther cheerful about the grading. Hello, I must be going to a movie. More grading later. Ta ta.

Researching is a recursive activity.

I find myself increasingly fascinated by the history of Dublin and Ireland, now that we've already gone and now that we're back. Before we left, of course, I was too busy getting my manuscript ready to learn about the place we were going. But onward, as there is plenty of time for self-recrimination later: for instance, we found out that Dublin was founded at the confluence of the Liffey and the River Poddle. The Poddle made settlement at the Dublin location possible--the Liffey is a freshwater river at its source, but in Dublin, it's tidal and therefore salty. The Poddle was a freshwater river; the confluence created a pool which gave Dublin its name (Dubh Linn = black pool).

But these days, the Poddle has gone, for the most part, underground. How does a river go underground? I asked myself, whilst in Dublin. Well, it turns out that this can happen a number of ways, including naturally, but it's also true that rivers can be diverted and culverted and even built over, which is what happened to the Poddle. (Also, the historian told me that he read an article by a guy who is interested in all the waterways in the Salt Lake Valley that have disappeared, gone underground, etc., and London has many streams and rivers, tributaries of the Thames, that have had a similar fate.)

Anyhow, there's a guy who's not only curious but kind of obsessed about this question regarding the Poddle. I am working on getting ready to think about writing a poem about a river going underground, maybe, but in the meanwhile, I'm looking at stuff like this:



(It's a little long, but that's the way it is with obsessions.)