Juice Suck

Many consumption problems would be lessened if one just pulled the plug. If, for example, you decided to live in a solar-powered house, you would probably not have a large tv or computer monitor, or be able to leave your stuff plugged in all day long (I'm thinking, for example, of two power strips currently sucking juice for no good reason at home: Ipod dock, printer, dvd player, two computers, etc.). You would probably not run the laundry at night. You would most likely become more in sync with circadian rhythms, and go to bed earlier. Your kids would not be able to zone out with video games (so easily). I kind of like these rules. They appeal to the Scottish puritan in me.

I'm of course locating this idea in a rural context. We will be living in the woods someday, where there is no easy broadband, or cable, and some neighbors are easier to get to on foot than by car. It is very quiet there, except when the chainsaws are running.

Our neighbors down the road in Santa Cruz built a totally solar house. He's an acupuncturist/Chinese medicine guy who's called (really) "Doc Mitchell." He's about ten years older than us, no kids. I like him and his wife a lot, and look forward to being their neighbors in a few years. Their house is large, airy, and extremely quiet. It's more like a temple than a place where people store the things they can't keep from buying.

And then there are the people across the road from us, who live in a series of connected...domes.

This is Northern California, after all.

On another note, I made my new sanity guide today.

On yet another, the day after I noticed that our young olive tree seems to be thinking about producing fruit for the first time, I found an old 2-gallon pickle jar at a thrift store. Check back in October, when I hope to cure my first batch in a direct imitation of the picholines at Whole Foods. I will have to consult my friend Lauren, the culinary sage, beforehand.

A friend of the family gave my mother two young staghorn ferns, which she then gave to me. One didn't look like it would make it, so I sent it across the street for rehab at Mary's. The other I attached with the requisite moss, to the outside of a wire basket. After placing a few banana peels (internet tip) over the corms, it perked way up. Now I have to deal with a very one-side-heavy wire basket which is right now upside down on my porch. Hmm.

This is the kind of problem I don't mind having. Happy deep spring!

More Evidence of My OCD

I used to keep a calendar titled "Sanity Guide," which consisted of one long, horizontal line. On this line I recorded major events/accomplishments. I began the line in 2003, when I had come to a kind of career crossroads: the line was meant to track my attempt to cross back into academia after settling into a lucrative administrative job at a university writing center. Over time, the line grew, and the events piled up: the lectureship in California, the first article published, the first grant, etc. At some point, life-outside-work events were added: the wedding, the fertility battles, the birth of our daughters....

Somewhere along the line, I misplaced my sanity guide...this sounds funny to write! At one glance, I used to be able to see what can only be described as the big picture. Not only did this calendar let me see how far I/we have come, it also helped me weigh new decisions in a "past-is-prologue" way. I liked it when events of similar weight happened with some consistency, if that makes any sense. Building our house in Santa Cruz will definitely happen sooner, I truly believe, if I keep track of its progress.

I realize today that I need to dig that important piece of history out of wherever I put it, and staple another page to it. Life must go on!

Pre-Grading Procrastination

If I had a week to live:

Would I shirk work?
Would I intoxicate myself?
Would I reduce or increase my consumption?
Would I disrupt anyone else's life?
Would I avoid the written word?
Would I move my body?
How much would I sleep?
Would I go somewhere else?
What would I leave behind?

All in the Name of Due Diligence

A colleague of mine is going through an 11th-hour tenure decision reversal (we think), and it's making the rest of us on the probationary track uneasy. Believe me, you don't want to go through six years of hard work--during a major recession, no less--only to find that what seemed like a sure thing has crumbled.

My poor colleague has started going to the school shrink for help. He has three kids and a stay at home wife, and is underwater in his mortgage. It is awful witnessing this. It can destroy your soul.

I'm starting to build my armor, as almost everyone gets hazed as they go through the final probationary years, whether they are worthy or not. For some reason, the committees can't seem to resist poking any bruise, no matter how small. I know I'm going to get whacked for abandoning some projects that seemed futile or boring to me, but hopefully, the committees will acknowledge that overall, I've done a hell of a lot of work for the school on a lot of different fronts. And I've done most of it pretty well.

Hopefully, things will hold for the next four semesters!

Sprezza-What?!

I feel muddled. Addled. Cloudy. Opaque. Usually, things settle by the time I get to work, and when they're shaken up again at the end of the day, I can collect myself in the car on the way home. But not today. I'm floating through my day, thanking god left and right that some context cue reminds me that I have a meeting in five minutes, or a class.

Scratch the surface, and it's chaos.

The Italians call the ability to pretend like everything's cool in the face of insanity "sprezzatura." I used to have this act nailed; today, with children and less $$$, it just isn't happening.

Perhaps it's a matter of upping the Paxil? Perhaps it's a matter of not caring so much.

Jeff had to stay home with Sophie today, who has a cold or flu. He fell asleep with her, then woke up in a panic because he'd left the bedroom door open. She was just sitting there, playing, but for all he knew, she was down the block hitching a ride to Rite-Aid. These are the little merciful moments that go our way. Luck.

I'm just going to keep repeating "Luck" until everything gets easier.

Surf Colorado

Jeff and I spent two days sleeping, eating leisurely at restaurants, and talking. We didn't get any work done whatsoever. It reminded me of the time (seems like ancient history now) when we spent an entire summer watching every episode of "Six Feet Under" in order. We'd eat french bread and butter, and jam and coffee with the blinds drawn, in the summer heat, with the fan on and the volume on loud. At the end of every hour, we would turn to each other and say, "Ok, just one more." This would go on for five or six episodes at a time. Then, maybe if there were light left, we would walk down Lakeshore Avenue and play tennis at the community park.

It came back with a pang. We are so far from that now!

Meanwhile, the girls and my mom got on famously up in Santa Cruz. And during one three-hour conversation in bed in midafternoon, Jeff and I decided to cut our little vacation short and zoom down there. Ostensibly, it was to try to talk some sense into my mom about money matters, but I think it was really because we missed the girls.

And very quickly, that life absorbed us again, the one where we get little sleep and are constantly redirecting little babies. Of course, they were extra adorable at the table on Easter Sunday. They almost but not quite understood the whole egg thing. And too soon we returned to Napa, to a clean house thanks to Adrienne, and got ready to dive into the work week.

Jeff and I were both up at 5:30 this morning: me because I had procrastinated until REALLY the last possible minute and was up making a presentation handout, and Jeff because Sophie decided to get up when she did. He made some coffee and put on some old Sesame Street video, and we sat in the living room while S. ate her Cheerios. For once, I was not totally exhausted, and Jeff seemed not too tired himself. I wondered if it were possible to ever become a morning person because the atmosphere seemed almost holy, and then quickly came to the conclusion: no.