On Writing a Thesis

Sometimes writing a thesis is going down a slide,
or eating a pan of brownies,
or watching every episode of Little Dorrit in one night,
or a conversation with the person you love love love,
or driving through the canyon in the fall,
or taking pictures of the pigeons and lampposts in Venice,
or reading Harry Potter late into the night, back when Sorceror's Stone first came out:

You get sucked in and don't ever want to get pulled out.

Sometimes it's pulling teeth.

...

I wanna go find that man with a cane.

Debate-Weary (aka: If I Were in Charge of the Debates)

So I watched the debates. And I get that Obama doesn't understand Romney's financial plan. I get that Romney has a five point attack strategy for any question thrown his way. I get that Obama has talked to individual people all over the country who has an emotional story about the car industry, losing jobs, or the education system.

But I gathered all that in the first thirty minutes of the debate. The FIRST debate. The one three weeks ago. Since then, everything's been variations on a theme. Sometimes not even variations.

You wanna know what would have really spiced up this last debate? You wanna know what would have secured maybe a few more of those proverbial (and probably fictional) "undecided" voters?

How bout a recorder solo from Obama to express his views about trade relations with China?
How bout if Romney spontaneously broke out in French and then apologized--"I'm so sorry, sometimes I do that."
Or what about a necktie-tying contest?
A round of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?
A debate-off between Romney's grandchild and Obama's daughter?

And you know what would have really taken the cake?
A closing statement delivered entirely in rhymed couplets.

(Either that or a question where the two candidates had to work together to come up with the best solution for the country--one where they were forced to cooperate. That may be the most telling interrogation of all.)

music monday {a special post}

Last night, I went home for Sunday dinner. Let me tell you what that entailed: four younger sisters, a brother and his beautiful wife, my parents and my sweet sweet grandma, a roast, potatoes and carrots, homemade rolls and homemade jam, lively dinner discussion, picking apples off the apple tree in the back, playing 500 in the yard while the sun went down, playing Rummikub on the carpet once it finally had, pumpkin autumn cream-cheese frosted cake with mini-leaf sprinkles, hugging, warmness, love.

And best of all, Sunday night included discussion of Thanksgiving break...meaning what pies we're going to make and more wonderful still, how we were going to decorate our gingerbread houses.

Which meant we also may have sung a few Christmas songs while we were picking those apples out back.

Now, I've been listening to Christmas music since July. (Last year I started in August, which means by the time I'm in my thirties and have children, they will be listening to Christmas music starting in January. Consider yourself warned, future husband.) I just figure that Jesus Christ's birth is something that we can celebrate all year round. Why not! And also, I have found that I appreciate Christmas music more--I feel the wonder of it more--if I'm listening to it in July, or October, reminiscing about past Christmases, anticipating (like a little kid again) the joys of the holiday season.

I started Music Mondays to share the songs I've been listening to during the week--the great finds, the favorites, the ones I can't get out of my head. So I've gotta be honest here: I have no non-Christmas songs to share this week because all I've been listening to is how there's no place like home for the holidays. Lots of fa-la-laing around here.

But hold up, all those of you who have a no-carols-before-Thanksgiving-let-alone-Halloween rule: Before you tune out, just give it a little chance. Do you like Christmas? Do you like presents? Candy canes? Snowflakes? How bout happiness? I promise that these are not your typical Christmas songs. They won't ruin the season for you. They won't jinx you. They will only and completely make you happy.

So, in part one* of this week's music post, I present 3 songs from one of my favorite artists. They are technically Christmas songs, but I think they should be enjoyed any day of the year (especially on October 22nds).

1. "I Saw Three Ships" (Sufjan Stevens)
2. "The Friendly Beasts" (Sufjan Stevens)
3. "Once in Royal David's City" (Sufjan Stevens)





*And yes, I am plotting a part two to this little post, and part two will ask you to do something important and wonderful, so clear your schedules and get ready! (Just kidding about clearing your schedules--it will require minimal but delightful effort on your part.)

Cane

I saw a man with a cane at the grocery store. I used to see him quite regularly, but that was before the summer, before he used a cane. And now I can't quite place where it was that I always saw him. But I remember the suede jacket, and I remember he was always alone. I don't remember the swoop of hair brooding over his left eyebrow.

He looked so tired.

I wanted to go with him, tell him I'd push the cart at least.

He looked like an entire universe in one body,
an entire universe of sorrow.

But of course I didn't push the cart,
of course I just said, "Excuse me" and squeezed behind him looking through the spices
(what was he looking for?)

I wonder sometimes why I play by these rules I play by.
I wonder sometimes why I can't say,
"I can never find the cardamom..."
(They're alphabetized, you know.)
"Let's be friends.
I'll push your cart.
What happened to your leg?"

Thisbe

("Stormy Landscape with Pyramus and Thisbe" by Nicolas Poussin, via)

She drew back shuddering,
...like the sea
that is ruffled when a slight breeze skims across its surface.
But after a pause when she had recognized her love,
she struck her blameless arms with a loud blow,
tore at her hair, embraced the body that she loved,
filled his wounds with tears and mixed her weeping
with his blood.

(from "Pyramus and Thisbe"  
in Ovid's Metamorphoses
trans. D.E. Hill)

[Addendum: You know you're doing what you love when, four hours ago, you told yourself you could stop working at 8pm, but now it's 8:30 and you have no intention of stopping.
Thesis. Library. Books. Latin. Love. Love. Love.]

A Sandbag Room

My bedroom this year is bottom heavy. Everything that comes in sinks to the ground with curious familiarity, with curious magnetism, as if the air is quicksand. Clothes congregate in stolid piles on the chair, on the carpet, on the accordion cases in the corner. A soldier-row of books lines the west baseboard perimeter. Papers fall like dead birds from my hands or my bags or my bed straight to the ground. The blinds resist me so much that even my body weight does little to move their stubborn, parallel little pieces. Even my body feels the effects of the floor's pull: my bed is only two feet off the ground and my cold and train-wrecked limbs are sand-heavy every morning.

Here, everything sinks to the bottom and settles.

I feel like Alice: so big in this tiny dwarf room where everything ends up on the floor, so nestled in this mountainous room where books and papers and sweaters become walls of warmth and familiarity.

In a way, it's kind of like scuba diving. In a way, it's realizing the person you like is actually the person you love.

Tonight I found Gandalf in my family tree.

You may be wondering about his curiously long life (700-1579).
This is obviously because wizards live longer than humans.

And curious that there is no death date or place...

This find does a lot to explain why I feel compelled to do things like this.

Other notable finds of the evening:

• Earl Malcolm II MacHeth of Moray, who lived in the Orkney Islands (yeah Orkney!) and was killed trying to regain the Scots throne.
• St. Margaret Queen of Scotland, who died in Edinburgh Castle (been there!)
• Duncan I King of Scotland who (and I quote) was "killed by Macbeth in Bothganowan, Elgin in 1040"
• Vivill "the Snow-King" from Ringrike, Norway
• Charlemagne Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Emperor. (Love how they say Emperor twice. Like, "Charlemagne...as in the Emperor-of-the-Holy-Roman-Empire Emperor.)

In other words, check out Family Search if you want to have a rockin time.