b l o g o s

hot food/hot films

I've moved on to Atlanta, where, thanks to Elizabeth and Chad, the cuisine-of-the-world tour (Georgia edition) continues. Last night's Ethiopian rivaled that in NYC, and on tap for tonight is Belgian food over in Decatur. (It's probably good that we're getting out of town a little, given the big, ahem, event over at the Georgia Dome tonight.)

This afternoon, we have a critical choice to make regarding movies. It's come down to this at the big cineplex across town or this at the art theatre right next to the cafe where the three of us are currently rocking out on grading and reading. We are at a loss because both films seem to us to be of the utmost quality and promise to radically alter our respective worldviews (and we definitely need our worlds rocked). The titles are nearly identical in form, and the acting in both is no doubt Oscar-worthy. So even though the trailers probably do little to help you distinguish between these two films, if you have time or are able to discern important differences that we are not, we'd love to hear about it.

Athens, 20 years hence

In the fall of 1987, after one of my high school games, I was transported (I probably shouldn't blog about the means by which I was transported) to Athens, Georgia for a recruitment visit. To a senior in high school, Athens was a very big deal; and to this senior in high school, it was even a little overwhelming. By now my recollections of that visit are rather dim, but they're tinged in red, black, and the greyish-white of a bulldog. That was a loud visit. There was the noise of the marching band--it was one of those choice, busy weekends late in fall where the football and basketball seasons overlap--and so the UGA fight song merges in my memories with the shrieks of the coach Andy Landers in the dressing room, yelling at his players, ridiculing, really. I stood off to the side imagining myself looking him in the eyes and taking it. (I didn't think I could.) Afterward, one of the players who did look him in the eyes and take it took me to hear live music of the non-marching-band variety. I'm pretty sure that marked my first time seeing music performed in a venue that wasn't a big arena, a church, or a stage in either my high school gym or at the county fair.

And even though I returned to Athens twice more in the next four years to step on the court as an arch-rival, I only remember two things: the inside of the hotel, and the inside of the arena. Both were unremarkable.

In fact, it would be twenty more years until I would be able to really inhabit and fully appreciate Athens. My visit this time included a nice stretch of morning time with Cara at Walker's, a brick-and-tile cafe/pub that throws up a garage door every morning, probably to keep its hipness from combusting; a lovely, hospitable hour in which I got to share my work with the Speech Communication dept (currently ranked the number one rhetoric program in the country); a retrospective/prospective convo over yummy indian food with the good people from my days at Penn State; a sprawly afternoon of shopping and beer tasting with my cousin Jim, who is in his first year of law school at UGA; a lively, warm, and chatty happy hour at 283, and a knockout dinner at Farm 255. (Apparently the number of hip places in Athens are quickly approaching 300, and why bother naming them when numbers will do?)

I have seen more exposed brick and, counting the middle-eastern lunch the next day at The Grit with CF and JM, enjoyed a wider range of cuisines than I did last week in NYC. Also, augmenting the joy of seeing old friends was the pleasure of meeting people I really, really should have met before now--they know who they are. And no one--not one person!--came close to yelling or ridiculing. For that I had to go to Jim's tort law class on product liability, and even there the ridiculing was gentle and good-humored: total kid gloves. (But exceedingly witty kid gloves.)

Add in the waggy cuddly pets in my host home, and it was, in all, a perfect visit. The Platonic ideal of visits. Thanks to everyone involved, most especially John Murphy. Athens rules.

packing and unpacking (or v.v.)

You would think that after 6 or 7 trips in 2 or 3 months I would be a pro at packing--that I wouldn't even need to think, I'd be so machinic about it. But this morning, as I emptied my suitcase of the detritus from the trip to New York and tried to focus on what I need for a trip to Georgia (Athens and Atlanta), the combination of the season change and the mixing of business and pleasure presented a debilitating challenge. Oh, and so did having to stop what I was doing, come to campus, and teach a class.

But you know what? I get to see some awesome people, including my cousin Jim, a law student at UGA; Cara and John--not that John, the other John! the one associated with UGA and, well, Cara--;and Elizabeth, whose blog makes me laugh so much that I don't care what I pack. It will in fact be her blog's fault when I arrive in Atlanta with no socks and shoes that don't match each other. The pet conversations are my new favorite genre.

an envelope filled with calm

Is the best available description of an item I pulled from my mailbox today on returning from a rather harried "break": a letter from the board of trustees (aka: BOT) approving my sabbatical application.

Now if you don't mind, I think I'll dedicate a little song to the occasion. It's a Flaming Lips number called "Free Radicals," and I like it on its own, but it's also handy because the word sabbatical substitutes nicely for the word fanatical to yield lyrics that John and I improvised some time ago when I was working on the application. Sing it with me, then: "you think you're radical/ but you're not so radical/In fact you're on sabbatical!!! Sabbatical!!!"

 

With apologies to Wayne Coyne, and to anyone who tries to find me next spring.

 

a certain someone is glad we're home

(another certain someone is happy for the opportunity to lick that certain someone's head.)

heaven, i'm in heaven.

OK, I'm actually in New York. But damn, after a trip to Whole Foods and a delicious Ethiopian dinner, the difference seems negligable.

tired of your workout routine? try this!

getting our spring break on*

*hat tip to Flavia (my favorite blogger), and of course David Rees (everyone's favorite war comic)

last night I had the strangest dream

Today I'm giving an exam in my Rhetorical Tradition class, and get this: last night I had an anxiety dream about it. In the dream, my students revolted. The chaos began slowly. One student who in waking life is usually my 'go-to' student was talking on his cell phone to a family member at the time I was handing out the exam, and when I asked him to get off the phone he held up his index finger! At me!

Flustered by the index finger, I returned to the table in front of the room where I had apparently moved all kinds of unecessary files and piles from my office and so wasn't able to locate the exam books. When I did locate them and handed them out, they turned out to be exam books from a previous semester's literary theory class: iow, already written in. And that's when the revolt happened.

Women in the class started yelling at me; men rolled their eyes, and I think someone threw something. Someone was shouting something about Ramus and Erasmus and how their names are so close that what was the point anyway. One sympathetic student started helping me look for the new exam books and even she got frustrated with the mess. A student from my freshman class showed up and was using his cell phone to project a You-Tube video on the screen, something illicit.

I'm pretty sure this dream was worse than any dream I ever had about taking exams.

(btw: I used to LOVE the song alluded to in the title, but maybe that's because when it was out Matthew Wilder and I had the same badass 80s haircut.)

checking in: 5ive days

So does anyone remember back when I was reflecting on teaching 5ive days a week and had the attitude of, "how bad could it be?"

Answer: I am prepping class at a bar.

But it is, of course, more complicated than that. While I definitely wouldn't recommend 5ive during a travel-heavy semester, I still feel like I have a nice little breather between the two classes and that as a result my teaching is a little better. Just a smidge better--more focused. I do less of the astonished "gosh, my one class is incredibly X, but my other class is so completely and utterly Y," because by the time I get to another class I've worked out, eaten, slept, and had coffee.

I also have lots of time to schedule graduate students and lunches with colleagues and still not put in 10 hour days like I do when my teaching and meetings and lunches all get crammed into my on-campus days. Also as predicted, workouts are easy and even.

Other areas are rather neglected. For example, my office at home, usually a lovely buttery-yellow writing haven, has become the center for packing and unpacking. Plastic bags for toting gels and liquids onto planes are strewn about. Tillie occasionally walks over to the drycleaning pile--sweaters and suits that appear to be oozing out of the wall itself-- gives it a bored sniff or two, and then walks away. Jada, however, the whippet harboring a deep fear of falling things, stays clear of the room altogether. And sadly, mostly, so do I, unless I'm searching for a liquid or gel or pair of wrinkly pants.

I would say that spring break might help matters, but we'll be in NY for Cs. Eh, at least I won't have to cancel class.