20190321.0430

Spring has sprung at last in my part of the world, and it seems the local flora and fauna are rising to greet it. They have been for a while, in fact, with the motion of the world through the local cosmos making little impression upon the buck that, in the words of the old song, farts while a cuckoo makes its own melodies. The wildflowers have begun to bloom, bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes joining others in pushing through the many greens of the spreading grasses to dye the roadsides and pastures in brilliant colors that match the goldening sunrise skies and the reddening sunsets. The days are lengthening noticeably, and I feel the call to be outside more, both while I am at work and in the hours after, when I am at home and the sky is still light.
It is strange that, indoorsman that I am, I would long to spend each night sitting beside a fire under the darkening sky. I have worked hard to make my inside spaces comfortable for me, familiar and easy. I have succeeded in it, for the most part; I would like fancier chairs than I have, chairs that might admit of me leaning back in them with a bit more support for my head and neck than those I have at present do. But my places fit around me--and I in them--through long work to make them do so, and I am comfortable in them. For the most part, anyway.
That "most part" seems to apply less now, though. I am not so old as not to feel the call of spring upon me. I am not so withered inwardly as to have no sap rise to meet the regreening of the part of the world I call home. And if I am mired in the mud, that does not mean I cannot look around me with appreciation. I do so, even if that appreciation becomes tinged with longing for what I know well I am not fit to have. Because I am an indoorsman, and I do not have the skills or experience that allow me to understand what I see and value it as it ought to be valued, save only feebly and in sufficient quantity as to let me know that there is much I am missing. At this point, I would be ashamed to go out and flail about ineptly.
Such shame dogs me in many pursuits; there is much I do not venture to do because I know that I would do it badly, and that I would likely do it badly no matter the amount of practice I might put in. I know, too, that I cannot give it the practice it deserves or demands, since I have other concerns to which I must attend each day. So, rather than venture where I know I am inept, I remain in place, where I am less frequently inept, if more annoyingly when I am. But I do like how it looks when I look outside.

20151218.0723

It should be obvious that I slept in again. I am annoyed by the repeated occurrence (it turns out that one of the days was a result of my having silenced my phone--which I use as an alarm clock, among others--despite having set the alarm), although obviously not enough to actually do anything about it. I begin to wonder if fighting the tendency to do so is futile, if I ought simply to allow myself to have the sleep and benefit from it. But I also know that I continue to have things to do, and I have not often been smart enough to cut my losses; I doubt I will cease to inveigh against my oversleeping, whether or not I do anything in the near term to prevent myself from doing so (and I know that I likely will not do so). Complaining about things is an eminently popular occupation, after all, while fixing them is decidedly not; I think I will be in good company.

Irrespective of my sleeping habits, the weather around Sherwood Cottage has offered up a taste of winter (and talking about the weather seems another popular way to pass time). Yesterday saw snowfall. None accumulated, although the ground was wet by it (and I have an idea for a riddle: From an old father to an old mother, white came down, moistening; from what is left, life can emerge in the months to come). Temperatures dropped to suit, although forecasts indicated that they will rise again in coming days. It is not winter yet, to be sure, but it is clear that the Stark words in Martin's books hold true: Winter is coming. But I doubt the winter we will face is that against which the Wall stands, and that seems to me to be a good thing. I have no Valyrian steel or obsidian ready to hand, and my fire-making is not as good as it ought perhaps to be. I am an indoorsman, after all.

That I am a nerd should be obvious, not only from the paragraph above. I have not tried to hide it in a long, long time, if I ever actually made the attempt. If I did, I know it was not successful. Spending as much time reading as I have in my life, and reading the things I read (aside from ongoing freelance work, which treats mainstream materials that may be read without concern for nerdiness in most cases) mark me clearly as such a person, and I have suffered for it at times. (I am sensitive about the issue, as I think I have shown on at least two occasions.) I suffer for it less now than in the past, to be sure, but I have to wonder how much I continue to be hindered by my particular brand of nerdiness, and I wonder how I might work to keep Ms. 8 from making the same mistakes her father did and continues to do.

20140401.0726

It is April Fool's Day. I am not doing anything to celebrate it, really. The world is foolish enough without adding to it on purpose.

Work continues as it ever does, both the actions that earn me (not enough) money and those that are the real work, the work on The Work. The students still show up to classes and turn in papers and quizzes (although not enough), so I must make ready lessons and spend time in grading. And I work on other projects, as well, sending out pieces in the hopes that they will make me a bit of money now and again. I have been fortunate enough to have some luck in that regard, and more recently than in the past. It is a tendency I hope to see continue.

It is not the only such tendency. Another is displayed by Ms. 8. She continues to grow stronger and more alert by the day. Yesterday, I saw her picking up her head and rolling up onto her side--entirely unassisted. She also does a fair pantomime of crawling; once she actually figures out how to get traction, she will be off like a shot, I think. I do not know whether or not I look forward to it; I am of course happy to see my daughter grow, but I know that she, being curious, will get into a number of things. Some of them will hurt her; my books, being full of knowledge, are heavy, and heavy things fall with great force onto the heads of babies who pull upon them. (If any of you who read this have good plans for building bookcase fronts, I would be happy to see them. If any of you are willing to come to Sherwood Cottage and help me build such fronts--or new bookcases entirely--I would be happy to see you.)

Appreciated also is the tendency towards warmer weather that has been evidenced around Sherwood Cottage. Not every day is warmer than the last; today is supposed to be about twenty degrees cooler. Even so, it is far warmer than it has been, such that even I, indoorsman as I proudly am, am happy to be out in the weather. Spring has managed to slip in around here, and I am glad to see it. If nothing else, the verdure makes the wintry gray the more intense by contrast--but I like many of the things that spring brings. (Flowers, for instance, although not in themselves but because they lead to honey--and honey leads to other things I like.) I like not having to spend so much money to heat my house; it is not cheap to do it here. (Indeed, it seems like I pay more to do it here than I did in The City, where everything is supposed to be more expensive.) I like also getting to use the natural light; it strikes the eye differently, and that difference--as with many differences--is quite useful.

20151113.0624

Work continues, as ever it must. I am still working on grading, as should be no surprise; the end of the semester is coming, which means assignments are coming due and coming in, and each of them must be assessed. The process thereof is often unfortunately slow; reasons for the dragging on vary from simple fatigue to undesirability of the activity itself to attending to needs of family (for Ms. 8 still has her cold, and so she still needs the attention to get over it, which includes much snuggling on the dad-lap; it is evidently warm and cozy). It is in progress, though, which is to the good, and I did get several things done yesterday. Some job applications went out, which helps, and I did update the Fedwren Project a bit. (I also have interlibrary loan requests out for more materials to add to the work.) How much more I can get done today, I am unsure, but I will be working on things to try to push forward; there is still much, much to do. (I did not get the Tales after Tolkien Society piece done--or even well begun--and there remains the freelance writing to do.)

As the work continues, it does so amid increasingly cool weather. Temperatures around Sherwood Cottage continue to demonstrate that it is, in fact, autumn; there has been frost on windows, although it has not frozen here yet, and the highs do not reach "regular" room temperature. (The kind of normative assumptions that go into asserting what temperature a regular room ought to be had not occurred to me until just now, but there is a certain set of assumptions about comfort and propriety that seem to inform "room temperature," isn't there? Why 72 degrees Fahrenheit? Do I and others find it comfortable because it is or because we have been taught that it is? And for those who think it can only be the former: How much time do you spend naked, despite your natural state being in the nude? Unless your mother had a clothing store inside her uterus--which would make for a number of entirely impolitic jokes...) It is good weather for working; it does not distract so much with promises of outdoor splendor, particularly for such an indoorsman as I am.

The Mrs. and I have yet to turn on the furnace for the season, although we are using electric space heaters in our room and in Ms. 8's. We have yet to seal the windows (as much as the cats and Ms. 8's questing hands allow); the afternoons are cool, but opening the house to them is still worth doing. There will be months in which we cannot do such a thing, when we cannot freshen the air inside Sherwood Cottage, and so we are doing what we can to do so while we have it to do. That, too, is good for working, and since there is still so much of it to do, any aid in the doing suggests itself as welcome.

20140217.0627

Despite being a great indoorsman, I am happy to see that the weather is warming around Sherwood Cottage.  I am happy to see the sun up and out for longer; it gives me better light by which to do my work on The Work, which has not proceeded as I would have it do for the past few days.  (Other matters have intervened--worthwhile matters, certainly, but not what I most want to be doing.)  It also puts me in a better frame of mind to attend to the needs of those in my charges personal and professional.

The winter cold and darkness does not affect me so much as it does others, I think.  Something in my nature does well in such circumstances; they tend to promote quiet and introspection, and I find both congenial.  Still, I cannot say that the change from it is unwelcome; unlike many who work in the ivory tower and who dwell within it, unlike many of my fellow successors of Chaucer's Clerk, I recognize the need to have acts upon which to reflect and deeds to contemplate in the long, dark, cold days and nights when Boreas speaks loudest of his brethren.

(I realize such descriptions are geographically biased; not all places feel the cold, and among those that do, some see winter blown by the South Wind and not the North.  But I can only write what I know, and while I have known the lands where winter seldom comes, I have never known those where winter is July--so I apologize that my Australian friends and South African are excluded, but I cannot adjust to suit the apology.)

I am pleased, therefore, to see that the many-throated call which I joined seems to have been in part answered.  (The weather is pleasantly spring-like, but the temperatures look like they will drop again, if perhaps not so far; I have not packed away my thermal underwear quite yet).  And I look with some pity enhanced by greater sympathy for those who have yet to see the hint of summer; here, it is icumen in (lhude sing, cuccu!), but this is far from true in some places.  Jack Frost's middle name begins with A, perhaps, and ends in S, and it only has three letters (there is probably a poem in there somewhere); he remains in his accustomed places.

As the weather warms, I wonder if I will thaw, as well, and work more on The Work than I have done.  I wonder if the backlog of work that I have let accumulate will be carried out on currents spawned from the breakup of cold crystal clots in such vessels as are given to me.  I certainly hope so, for pressure is building up behind, and what is useful in a controlled stream is destructive and wasted if a single wave from a burst barrier batters the surrounding lands.  The winter quiet has been good, indeed, but I am far from unhappy to see the sun again.

20150320.0808

I would first bring attention to this post on the Tales after Tolkien Society blog. We can use more submissions (and I say "we" because I am chairing the session/s). If you or someone you know is interested in giving a paper in Nashville and has something to say about Old or Middle English...

So, today is a new moon, an eclipse, and the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere/autumnal equinox in the Southern. (There are people in the Southern Hemisphere. They ought not to be excluded.) At Sherwood Cottage, none are particularly relevant. We do not track lunar cycles, except perhaps as trivia for discussion. The eclipse will not really be visible from here, either. Spring has been present for a week or two, now, so the realignment of the world passes without notice. It is not as if there is a sudden re-greening today; it has been ongoing, and the front yard is awash in clover blooms. It is quite pretty, although it reminds me that I need to have my lawnmower serviced.

The backyard is less good. Last year, we had to have some plumbing work done, since not being able to use toilets, bathtubs, or sinks is a problem when there is no outhouse available and not enough plant cover to make an outhouse unneeded. (The weather also factored into the problem.) Much of the backyard was dug up in the work, and while various bits of green are now poking through the disturbed soil, parts of the yard have not been dry in months, and roots and debris emerge oddly from the ground. Tending to it does not look to be an enjoyable task, although it will need to be done, and it will likely need to be done soon. We have gotten rain this past week, and we look to get more before too long, if I recall correctly the forecasts I saw today.

I am not complaining of the rain. We need it, and badly; the rivers are low, and the things we eat and the things that what we eat eat need the water. Too, rain makes for better writing weather, and I have needed all the help with writing that I can get. (I am taking a bit of a break, though, given the need to prepare for the job interviews I have in the next few days.) But is also makes for yardwork, and, indoorsman that I am, I am not entirely thrilled at the prospect--even if the smell of freshly cut grass is a pleasure and an evenly cropped yard has other benefits to offer (among which is discouraging snakes from approaching the house too closely--and I have found snakes in the yard when I have not mown it as I ought).

20160208.0607

Work continues, as ever it must. I was not diligent over the weekend, so that while I did some few things (of which one appears here and another here), I did not do the grading that I was supposed to do. It remains in need of my attention, therefore, and it has found some company. I will be giving a private tutorial tomorrow, for which I need to prepare some materials, and I have finally gotten another freelance order in. Both will yield some additional funds, which those who dwell at Sherwood Cottage can certainly use, but both will demand more time, and that is always a problem. I suppose it is for the best, though; I do not do well without set tasks in front of me, and that is not the case at present. And, again, the money will be appreciated.

It is perhaps worth mentioning that I did not watch the game last night. A snippet of verse aside, I had no real engagement with it. I do not have television service, for one thing, and I do not frequent bars--I might go to one once in a month. Might. And I have never been "into" football--or any sport, really. It is part of being the great indoorsman that I am that I do not register such things as important, and I suppose it is part of why I do not do well out in public. Being an academic is not the problem, of course; many of my colleagues watched the game and are passionate about various sports fandoms. I want to think their careers are in better shape than mine, as well, and I have to wonder about causality. It is not the sport itself that does it, I know, but what the sport represents: immersion in the standards of popular cultural discourse. Community building. And because I do not really watch sports, because I cannot talk about them with any kind of authority, I am marked as being outside the community that values them--and many of the people I care about are inside it. Many of the people I might find useful are, as well, but I am closed off from them just a little bit more because I do not watch. And I might talk about correcting that problem, but I know I will not. I cannot take the time or expend the effort to do so. Work continues, after all.

More and more, I recognize myself as isolated. Part of me is bothered by this, although it ought not to be; I have spent enough of my life hiding away from things that I ought to be used to it by now. And part of me is not, both because of the aforementioned familiarity and because I recognize that it is likely for the best that I am as I am. It might help my family to have me go out and "live life" or "have fun," but it might well not; there is no guarantee that I would make a useful connection out in the world, and there is a damned good chance that I would spend money I cannot afford to or do something I ought not to do. I am and always have been risk-averse; I cannot move ahead with such odds in place. And, again, work continues; it is, at least, a relatively certain thing.

20150314.0800

I am on Spring Break, although, as I have noted, it will not be much of a break. Today, for example, I will be putting together several thousand words for pay, and during the week, I expect to have more such words to write, as well as some job applications left to send out and interviews for which to prepare. (Fortunately, I will be treating much the same materials in the interviews, so I will be able to prepare a short version and a long version of a single lesson for my teaching demonstrations.) I probably ought to get a paper or two written, as well, although I will admit that that will take a bit more doing, happening alongside the other things I need to do. (That said, I do need to get the papers written. If I am going to be moving along to a tenure-line job, or if I am going to continue to seek it, I need to have more publications out--and not the kind that the freelance work earns me.)

The weather around Sherwood Cottage seems to suit the spring celebration, though. Temperatures are largely comfortable, neither too warm nor too cool, and the recent rain has lent a freshness to the outside air that even I, indoorsman that I am, find agreeable. Birds have begun to sing again, and the trees that bloom are beginning to do so. This means, of course, that allergies are beginning to act up, and I think Ms. 8 has one or more of them with which to contend. I know the Mrs. does, as do I. The oak is yet to spread its seed through the air, but that firm and gnarled wood will soon do so, and that moneyshot scene is not one in which I wish to star, certainly not as the receiver.

I am always able to find the cloud behind the silver lining, after all.

That does not mean, though, that I do not recognize the silver. It will be good to have a bit narrower a focus for a time and perhaps to get a bit ahead on the work that is mine to do. It will be good also to rely less on artificial sources for the comfort of my personal climate and open the house to the world for a time. It is cheaper, for one, and it helps to blow out the stink that a winter largely sequestered and with the windows filmed over against the draft and in the hope of creating just a little bit more insulation inevitably provokes. I expect to do both in the week before I must away for job interviews and the few days after until I return once again to the work of teaching. Hopefully, the students and I will all be refreshed therefrom.

20190102.0430

I have still not decided upon an answer to the question of yesterday, of whether or not I will press ahead in this webspace as I have since 18 October 2017 and make a daily post in it. That I post today does not mean I am certain I will post tomorrow. I am inclined toward it, to be sure, since it is a developed habit at this point, and I am very much a creature of habit. It does not always work to my advantage to be so; I am still pre-Bilbo Bagginsian, and while there are advantages to reliability, to predictability, there are also drawbacks to being so. Some of them have been pointed out to me recently, and rather emphatically, by people for whom I care deeply. I do not know how to avoid the disadvantages while retaining the advantages; I do not know how to reap the benefit without paying the cost. I do not know yet that I can afford to keep paying it, so I do not know that I will maintain the habit of this webspace yet.
There are other habits I'd like to develop, though, or redevelop. I suppose they move in the direction of resolutions, though I announce them later than I ought, and I am not so committed to them as resolutions typically present themselves as demanding. In any event, they include me giving more time to practicing my horn; I have been working to that end recently, and I have been hearing better playing from myself as I have done so. I'll never make a living as a musician, I know, and I'll likely not do much to pull in extra money for my family that way, either, but I do enjoy having the horn in my hand again, and that enjoyment seems to be helping me enjoy other things, to be helping me to be a better person and therefore to be a better husband and father. I think I can continue to give it time and attention.
Another habit I'd like to redevelop is reading. Time was, I was rarely found without a book in hand. Anymore, I read a fair bit online--which is still reading, but in a medium that promotes a different kind of attention than reading from a printed page develops. I have found it harder to keep my attention on a single thing for an extended period, which was not the case for me earlier in my life. I miss being able to focus on things in such ways, and I know that being able to do so was a result of my spending so much time with my nose in a book as I did. Too, Ms. 8 will benefit from having the studious model to follow, and I am certainly interested in offering my daughter good models to follow. Oughtn't I to be? So there's that.
And, as part of offering better models for behavior for my daughter, who still does things she sees her parents do in a loving child's attempt to be like those she esteems, I need to be in the habit of getting out more. Yesterday, for example, my wife, Ms. 8, and I went to one of the local parks, where Ms. 8 got to ride on a bike she got in the past couple of weeks. Ms. 8's parents walked along behind, and while it was a bit chilly, it was also quite nice to do so. I, at least, felt better for the exercise, and I know that my wife valued the time together. Much of my time is spent inside and at a single station, and it tells on me; I think it always has, and I've noted being an indoorsman more than once. I don't think I'll ever be outdoorsy; I think I am too much embedded in things to change in such a way. But I can still make sure I get out and do things regularly with my family, making doing so a habit from which I think they and I will derive some benefit. And that, I definitely think good.

20151003.0641

With the new month, there is a new tendency in the weather around Sherwood Cottage. It has cooled dramatically; yesterday ranged only into the 70s Fahrenheit, and it was in the 50s when I walked to work. The cool was invigorating, and my teaching persona was significantly more...emphatic as I conducted my classes and sat for my office hours. (In the latter, I worked on my book chapter and on a report, which I finished yesterday evening.) The Mrs. and I had the house open for most of the day, letting the outside air flow through where the air conditioner had long been running and refreshing much of the inside of Sherwood Cottage, which is to the good. Today seems poised to be much the same, which I appreciate, not only because it lowers my bills, but also because there is something nice about having an actual autumn--even for a dedicated indoorsman like me.

I'll not be able to enjoy as much of it as might otherwise be the case, of course, because work continues. (See how I slipped it in there?) I managed to get through the teaching week decently enough, and I spent time working on other projects--which is to the good. But a freelance piece is waiting for me, and although I have scaled back the freelancing to some degree (my client and I are okay with my working on one each week while the semester is on), I cannot let it lapse entirely. I have a novel to read today and a write-up to begin (and, it is to be hoped, to finish tomorrow; I should be able to make it work). Afterward, I have more writing to do, and students submitted papers yesterday; I will need to assess them before too long. (I did tell them I would not be rushing to plow through them, though, so I have a bit of time available to me for that task.)

Among that "more writing to do," aside from a book chapter, job applications, and an email I really need to send out to panelists of mine, is a response to a call for submissions. An email reached me that notes an agency is in search of age-appropriate verse and short prose passages for use in testing--and the pay-out for each accepted submission is more than adequate. It is a thing I need to answer, certainly, even if the idea of me writing "age-appropriate" materials for use on standardized assessments is somewhat...odd. I have long noted prioritizing my family over even my own personal ethics; working to support my wife and daughter takes precedence over other matters for me. I can do work for employers I find...questionable for such a reason. And I am aware that in saying such a thing, I put myself at the top of a slippery slope, indeed; I hope my stance remains steady as I stand here.

20150914.0614

The freelance piece I noted yesterday got done. The client who ordered it accepted it and paid, both for the work and for the book from which I did the work. Another order has yet to come for me, but I am confident that one will, along with its promise of a payout. Until one does, though, I am free to pursue other work--for although I did a fair bit yesterday, and I am pleased with having been thusly productive, there is more to do. There is always more to do, of course, because the work continues. (I have to get that in there somewhere. It seemed a good enough place to put it.)

While I did not fire up the grill yesterday--the Mrs. made spaghetti, with her from-scratch sauce of excellence, and nothing I do on the grill proper is so good as that--I did get the front yard mowed and trimmed. The back, amply shaded and still recovering from plumbing work the owner of Sherwood Cottage had done, did not need it. Pushing the mower and swinging the trimmer (is that the right verb?) in the cool sunlight and gentle breeze was decent exercise, and the yard looks good, so I am happy with the efforts. Indoorsman though I am, I am happy to know that I can still do a few things under the open sky, and do them well.

As I type now, Ms. 8 is in my lap, watching intently as words form, deform, and reform on the screen (not everything I type remains in place--which is a strange thought, given some of what gets to stick around), pixels forming characters in response to the clicking and pressing of fingers on little plastic buttons. I wonder what it is that she sees in them; I wonder what she thinks, having few words and no letters, so far as I can tell. She nestles against me comfortably, so I am sure she is at ease, and I am gratified that I can put her at ease, but I do wonder what it is my daughter thinks of me. I am sure that every parent does at some point--before the kids say it. What Ms. 8 will say when she finally does tell me what she thinks of me, I am unsure. I worry about it.

I do what I can to make it a good thing. She will not be able to say with honesty that I did not work long and much to provide for her and her mother. (That does not mean she will not say it.) My earlier conceit against letting people see me work has long since fallen away, particularly for those who live with me at Sherwood Cottage or who stay for more than a few hours at a time; I am seen at work more often and for more hours than I am not. That will doubtlessly cause a problem in time to come, but if it does and when, it will do so for people with full stomachs, clothed backs, and a roof above, and if there is to be a problem, it is better to have one in such circumstances than other.

20190627.0430

I have posted to this webspace five times in previous years on this date, in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. The first two are prose pieces detailing then-current circumstances; the latter three are poems of not much quality, though perhaps some cleverness of rhyme and meter when they are metrical and rhymed. In none, though, do I see myself as having been particularly inspired. In none do I see some spark of something that promotes more reading, some promise of better things to come, even if I happen to think I did better writing afterward (though a way off; not immediately).
It is possible that this date has been an off day in most of the last few years. Nature tends towards the cyclical, and I am still part of nature in some way or another, indoorsman though I am. I operate on daily and weekly cycles; why would I not have arrived at an annual cycle, as well? I have become more and more regular in my writing here over that time, as a survey of my posts will point out; I have been better about making a daily post, even if there are occasional gaps in the timing of those posts within days. (I still feel poorly about my failure earlier in the week.) So there is some thought that I might, indeed, have a recurring off day.
Such a thought presupposes that I normally have on days, and I am not at all sure that such is the case. I've noted more than once in the past few posts that I am struggling to get written here what I feel I ought to get written, and I know that some of the recent posts have been a bit short of my average or my objective. Word count is not itself a determiner of quality, but it is harder to get ideas across decently in fewer words than more, and there is something to be said for being able to sustain an idea for a longer time. I've not been able to do so in the ways I would like to recently, and I have to wonder if I am losing access to some skill or another that I have had and do not have as much of any longer. It is not a comforting thing, as I am sure others can attest better than I.
It is not only in the insufficient length that I find concern, though. Looking back over the date's posts across the years, I find the quality of writing...lacking. Were I to look over my personal journals at the same date, where I have not flagged due to inattention, distraction, and laziness, I would likely find the same thing. But in a personal journal, at least, there is not an expectation of quality; in writing that faces a public, however small the public might be that my blog posts here reach, there is a demand for more. I write here to practice addressing such a public, but I have been practicing poorly, and I hear in my mind an old professor of mine making a comment about perfect practice and the habituation of error. Another voice from a life I have left behind continues to haunt me; it is far from alone, as seems inevitable when writing about past writing.
All too often, I am my own ghosts.