20150713.0710

Yesterday's work on the smoker went well. The brisket came out of the contraption with a lovely dark bark and broad smoke ring, cooked thoroughly and so tender that it needed no knife to separate its slices into wonderfully tasty bites. I am pleased with the effort and enheartened by it, as some of my previous attempts to smoke brisket did not go as well as could be hoped. (Pork, oddly, has never presented a problem for me. I guess there is something to be said for an Iowan heritage.) It will be a while before I run the smoker as a smoker again. I have some grilling to do before I can fire up that particular setup next, but I am looking forward to doing it. Donations of meat will be welcome.

While I ran the smoker, I read for my freelance work. Since that reading is done, today will be taken up with the ordered write-up of the book I read. I already have said write-up stubbed out, which has taken up some four hundred of the five thousand words ordered. I also have ideas about how I am going to proceed with the less concrete portions of the write-up. Some parts of the task--the character list and chapter summaries, in particular--are simple enough to compile. Others--the book review, plot analysis, and setting discussion--are less straightforward, perhaps, but not difficult. Far more abstract are discussions of symbol, motif, and theme. I am asked to provide them, and I am paid for it, so I do--but doing so means I must read with such things in mind. I am trained for it, although the "average" reader is not, and so I do, on occasion, run into problems of disagreement. One of the few customer complaints relayed by my freelance client is that I neglected a particular symbolic significance, discussing another instead. That I favored another approach does not mean I did not note the one the customer wanted; it simply means I thought another more important. But the subjectivity involved in identifying and explicating symbolism necessarily admits of disagreement, and I know not all will be pleased with each word I write.

Next week, I will begin work on the summer bridge program I noted earlier. Soon after it is completed, my fall duties will begin. I am surprised that the weeks have passed by so quickly as they have; I feel that I always am. They have been productive; I have gotten much freelance work done, and I have set myself up for a few other things admirably and well. Still, I wish I had been more productive, more assiduous about getting things done. I try to give the lie to the conceit that those who teach are lazy, enjoying months of "time off," and while I may not have been in the classroom these past weeks, I have been working, indeed. But I think I have not been working hard enough or well enough or both; there is still so much I need to get done, and all too little time in which to do it.