On Lying in Bed

G.K. Chesterton, sometimes you just get it right.

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. This, however, is not generally a part of the domestic apparatus on the premises. [...]

Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up the night before. A man's minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, creative; the things that should be unchangeable are his principles, his ideals. But with us the reverse is true; our views change constantly; but our lunch does not change. Now, I should like men to have strong and rooted conceptions, but as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes in the garden, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in the top of a tree. Let them argue from the same first principles, but let them do it in a bed, or a boat, or a balloon. [...]

For those who study the great art of lying in bed there is one emphatic caution to be added. Even for those who can do their work in bed (like journalists), still more for those whose work cannot be done in bed (as, for example, the professional harpooners of whales), it is obvious that the indulgence must be very occasional. But that is not the caution I mean. The caution is this: if you do lie in bed, be sure you do it without any reason or justification at all. I do not speak, of course, of the seriously sick. But if a healthy man lies in bed, let him do it without a rag of excuse; then he will get up a healthy man. If he does it for some secondary hygienic reason, if he has some scientific explanation, he may get up a hypochondriac.

--"On Lying in Bed"

Movie Preview, 2012

So many good movies to anticipate! Ahhh!

-The Hobbit, part 1
-Les Miserables
-Life of Pi
-Wuthering Heights
-Anna Karenina
-The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Making autumn soup while I work (one of the perks of working from home).

Dream a Little Dream of Me

The mental health experts would have a field day with this one... 

Scenario: The dear cat of the house encounters the crazy about 5:30 a.m. and begins running suicides across the house, ending each one by slamming against my bedroom door.

Subsequently, I have a vivid, memorable dream that I am attempting to recoup, among other things, a dozen or more loaves of sliced white bread, and I am being attacked by a gang of middle school boys brandishing sticks.

I win.

Look out, ALN.  :)

All in the Rhetoric

Last night, I watched Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention, and I was frankly captivated. What a compelling speaker she is. My next thought was that I would love to use her speech as an example for rhetorical devices and oratory in general.

The more I dig in to curriculum writing, and the more time I spend getting fired up about speeches, politics, tutoring, and even marketing, the more I wonder if I might not find my passion better met in Rhetoric and Composition. Not this year, but maybe down the road...

I'm getting back a little of my fire back, y'all. And it feels great.

This is August, Y'all

So...the beach photos? They like to drag their feet. Walking in sand, you know, is very slow going.

However, this happened:



Then I had a brief love affair with a bag of potato chips. Or several. (The relationship may have been polygamous.)



Returning, I became an at-home professional in a new "office":



The world ended.

Just kidding. It's August, y'all. I'm not in school. This is weird.

That's all.

This is August

I'm back.
This is me.

(This is also an open letter of apology to any human being who encounters me today.)

My beverage of the morning is a venti dark roast from Starbucks. Black.

Kindly ignore the fact that I haven't shaved my legs. I moved yesterday.

My nose is blue, and I'm not a Smurf, nor am I being abused. I play Ultimate Frisbee. The sequence of a committed, if unsuccessful, dive is this: knees, hips, elbows, nose. My injuries correspond.

I spent the evening listening to Bon Iver and alphabetizing my books. That's how I unwind. (English major.)

So buy wine from me today. The wine will be excellent. My ability to form a cohesive sentence about it may not be. Have pity.

Thank you.

Beach photos to follow.

Today's Quote

Briefly back, and currently loving this poem by St. Augustine. Pretty smart dude.

I praise the dance, 
for it frees people from the heaviness of matter 
and binds the isolated to community. 

I praise the dance, 
which demands everything: 
health and a clear spirit and a buoyant soul. 

Dance is a transformation of space, of time, of people, 
who are in constant danger of becoming all brain, 
will, or feeling. 

Dancing demands a whole person, 
one who is firmly anchored in the center of his life, 
who is not obsessed by lust for people and things 
and the demon of isolation in his own ego. 

Dancing demands a freed person, 
one who vibrates with the equipoise of all his powers. 

I praise the dance. 
O man, learn to dance, 
or else the angels in heaven will not know 
what to do with you.

Regular posting to return in August. Probably.  :)

Blogging Hiatus

Apologies, blogging friends, for the recent dearth of posts. In all likelihood, I will return to the blogging world in August, full of random ruminations on the raucous risibility of all things beach-related.

Until then, I leave you with this reminiscent sonnet by dear W.S.

--Adieu

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked elipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand. (Sonnet LX)

Happy 4th!

Now read Who Sings the Nation State? by Gayatri Spivak and Judith Butler...

In Shakespeare’s Company

I’m sitting in a narrow hallway outside a coffee shop and bookstore called Shakespeare & Company. The door of this coffee/beer/wine/book/cooking supply shop has not one but five Christmas jingle bells hanging from the knob, to be certain the proprietors don’t miss a guest’s approach. (The bells’ effectiveness is undermined somewhat by the fact that the other half of the double doors is propped open.) They needn't have worried.

This endearing spot is located in Kernersville, North Carolina, in a delightfully confusing building that once housed the Hooker Furniture Factory. The outside of the complex (so named in a most literal sense) is rustic, variegated brickwork with cast iron balconies, climbing vines, and a selection of succulent bushes lining the base. A fountain, surrounded by white rose bushes, trickles over moss-covered stone in the center of a small courtyard paved in meandering circular patterns.

The inside combines industrial brick and heavy steel supports with renovated woodwork and matte cast iron. Vague signs direct you to one boutique shop after another, with descriptive names like Not Just Teapots, Splurges, and Paper Sassy. Sadly, for every occupied storefront there are four empty ones: some actively under construction and giving off a powerful odor of sawdust and hot drill bits, others dark and quiet.

But for the music playing in the eerily empty halls, I would expect to see Scooby Doo and the gang sneaking around a corner in pursuit of a masked villain. The scene before me has the same muted palate of colors that characterized the old-school version of the cartoons I watched as a child. The low-ceilinged hallways and odd assortment of levels, staircases, and exits only adds to the air of mystery about the place.

In the time that I’ve been sitting here, I have seen perhaps three or four people pass by, each with the same wondering look in their eyes. Like me, they are explorers venturing into the unknown: somewhat baffled in the absence of a map, oddly reverent of the echoing corridors, and generally uncertain what they will find around the next corner.

Granted, it is 1:30 on a Wednesday afternoon. Not everyone has the freedom to carry her job with her. Besides, this isn’t really a place for laptops and power cords, WiFi hotspots and Bluetooth. Here, there should be nothing but battered paperbacks, poetry recitations, craft classes, and farmers’ markets.

I sit back and take another sip of my Midsummer’s Frap (caramel, hazelnut, and cinnamon)* as I turn to page seventy-five of Metalogicon, John of Salisbury’s twelfth-century treatise on logic. He’s quoting Vergil now, from the Georgics: “Happiness comes from understanding the causes of things, / And nonchalantly treading under foot all fears”. Treading under foot all fears. I like the sound of that.

The more I think about it, the more the combination seems appropriate. Shakespeare’s formal education, what there was of it, would likely have been informed by John’s ideas about classical learning, Latin, and logic. As the saying goes, it’s all connected.

After a brief and self-satisfied pause in honor of my own epiphany, I wander downstairs to a dimly lit wine shop affiliated with a local North Carolina winery. While I sample Semillon and Malbec, the manager and I chat for an hour about viticulture, wine judging, economics, the job market, age discrimination, retail service, grape varieties, merchandizing politics, education, and health care. We don’t resolve any of the world’s problems, but when I leave I feel the sense of pensive well being that only comes from establishing a genuine connection with another human being.

All in all, a productive afternoon? Perhaps not. A soul-satisfying one? Without a doubt.

---

*The cinnamon must be Puck’s doing; the first sip of reddish powder sends me into a coughing fit from which it takes a good ten minutes to recover.