Childcare

Willow and I are each teaching two courses this semester, she on MWF, and me on TR. And we decided that instead of putting Junebug in daycare at 11 weeks, we'd share childcare at home this year.

It's only the third day of classes, but it's clear that this semester will be different from previous ones. So far today, instead of writing, reading, lesson planning, grading, or corrsponding with students, I've taken the twins to daycamp (they start Kindergarten on Tuesday), fed Junebug, rolled around on the floor with him during for some tummy time, gave him a bottle, rocked him to sleep, did some dishes, and folded some laundry.

It's not that I resent doing the work itself--certainly these tasks were in the short term more satisfying to have experienced and accomplished than revising a page or so of a chapter first drafted six years ago--but I am getting paid to work the equivalent of a full-time job, and I wonder about my ability to actually do that job this year. Willow has the same worries, too. the novel she's 200 pages into hasn't gotten much attention since Junebug was born, nor have the short stories she's been pecking away at in the interim.

There's a real push-and-pull here, one no doubt experienced by most dual income households, the negotiation of free time, tiny resentments that might develop over this hourlong span or that, or forgetting that the adults in the house need to spend time with each other, too.

Junebug is napping at the moment, and with some chores done, I've taken a moment to blog, and not to fix the pagination on the collection manuscript, not to prep tomorrow's classes (William Blake followed by Susan Glaspell), not to peck away at that chapter...But what I really want to be doing right now? Napping right alongside the boy.

Anticipation and its absence

For many years running (like maybe 30), I have looked at the week before school starts in much the same way as kids look at Christmas eve, like the good stuff is just about to begin. That, and I generally hate August, when the heat has worn out its welcome, and the allure of lawn work and summer jobs that dominated May seems unfathomable now.

But it was a cool, wet summer, our lawn at the new house is much smaller and flatter than the old one, and I have just spent the last two months enjoying a new baby, briefly trying to get some momentum on my writing, and then giving in entirely to the quotidian joys of domestic stupor.

So for the first time in as long as I can remember, not only am I not overjoyed and and overprepared for the wave of students moving into town, and the services I shall soon render them, I am approaching next week's new semester with, if not dread, then at least apathy.

Of course, in addition to this lovely summer I've just spent (really, the nicest summer I can remember) there are other reasons to feel less excited: I'm teaching two preps at the 200 level, both of which I've taught several times before, here and elsewhere. And while I'm mixing them up a bit to keep from falling ton too much of a rut, I'm not doing anything really innovative to get the juices flowing. And with a drop off in expected service responsibilities (how did THAT happen?!?), I don't have a truckload of material to sink my novelty-loving teeth into just now.

I couple with this a felicitous confluence of events--some publications coming out, some acceptances falling into place, a really good year of course evaluations, and the successful completion of some really significant service work--all in a department with very humane expectations. And so, hubristic though this may sound, I've stopped worrying about tenure a year before my critical year begins.

So the excitement and anxiety and anticipation and butterflies that usually make the coming weekend one of my favorites of any given year are absent, which wouldn't you know it, makes me a bit sad. Because if I get bored with thing that I do here on this campus, I will stop being any good at it. and being both bored and mediocre at my job is about the worst thing I can imagine for myself.

Saying No

let it be here acknowledged that I am terrible at saying no. I am so flattered by the idea of having a say that I have been loathe to say no to ANYTHING, particularly when my own voice might be considered useful to the discussion at hand.

This has occasionally bitten me in terms of service, but I am realizing that it has the potential to become a problem for my research as well.

Over the past few years, I've been solicited to do a few things--talks, reviews, etc.--that have in and of themselves been productive (like the plenary I gave last spring, or the talk for Nels Highberg's series this spring). I could argue that in both of these cases, the single project led to work that might have momentous effects on my future research agenda. I can hardly say i'd rather not have done them.

But the book review on a playwright I'd just discovered, and who is only tangentially related to my work? maybe less so. And that kept me from working on the book for two weeks.

I've just gotten a request to write a response essay for an article. The article is written by someone with whom I've had some small contact, very positive, and who could potentially be an external reviewer for my tenure file. The play she writes about appears in my book, and she directly references the article that was pulled from that manuscript. All of this says, "Go ahead! Do it!"

But...the turnaround is quick, even for only 4000 words, and the journal is a small European publication that I've never heard of. The publication is only a drop in the bucket for my tenure case or my annual review file (minor point, I know). And here's the kicker. Those 4000 words for the response essay are 4000 words not written for the book. And with a bit om momentum generated towards getting back on that horse, I think this just might be precisely the wrong way to be spending my writing time...

So I'm thinking of declining the invitation. What do you think? Am I crazy?

Smaller

There are conceivably so many things to post about: Race in America is on everyone's lips; the semester is a month away with a new president at our university; our nation's president has hit a few speedbumps in his love affair with America; the economy's still bad, but might be getting better; I'm entering my last full year before I put in my tenure file; I received the best course evaluations this year that I've earned in my entire career; even the professional inertia I reported earlier this week has lifted some.

But with all of those big things to write about, I'm finding myself almost constantly focused on a smaller, more focused life these days: sleeping, eating, spending time with my children, with Willow, with our friends who have visited us and our new baby.

Over the past weeks, I've felt a nagging urge to be more productive, to get more done, to accomplish more. But for the most part, I've spent my time in the kitchen, in the back yard, on the sofa: hardly places where one's career is made, where systems of tyranny are dismantled, where change happens.

As a younger man, I really did want to be a Big Deal, and among my worst fears was not to be known, or remembered, or something. I regarded it a failure to be just one of the billions. How silly. The countermanding understanding that our lives are small things in the grand scheme, and that we make of them what we can in the time we have is one that remains hard to swallow at times, but on days like this, it's some consolation indeed.

Inertia

I knew at the outset that the summer would not be nearly as productive as I might have otherwise hoped. With the move in May, and Junebug's arrival in June, much of my energy was already spoken for.

I hoped though, that once July got rolling, I'd have time enough and some energy to return to the pursuits that typically mark my summer labors: particularly reading and writing. I have gotten some reading done: a few plays here and there (I was pleased, for example, to be introduced to the work of Irish playwright Marina Carr), and Terry Galloway's memoir, which will end up informing one of the chapters I'm working on soon.

But the writing has stopped altogether. I got that article out at the end of May, to a positive response, and since then, nothing...I've rehashed the first three sentences of chapter 1 a few times, but I haven't even been able to bring myself to read it. And it MUST. BE. REVISED. by the time classes start in a month.

But you know, trips to the grocery, walks with the baby, naps with the baby, Top Chef Masters on TV, convivial visitors, and more naps with the baby have all kept me firmly ensconced in the family room or the bedroom, or some other room than this one, where my computer is kept.

I need a spark to get going, and honestly, I'm not sure where I shall find one...

Farmer's Market

We've got a little Saturday routine going here that we could only take full advantage of because we are now within walking distance of the downtown area. But it's made Saturday mornings, which could get a little hairy around here what with the overflowing kinderenergy clashing with the baby haze...

But here's what a good Saturday looks like...

We leave the house around 8 or 8:15 (ideally, but rarely), Junebug in the stroller, and Rambo and Imp each with their respective canvas bags. a couple of blocks on our way, we run by Craftsman Bakery (not its real name, but named for the adorable little historical home in which it is situated). There, I pick up a cup of coffee, and we grab a few biscotti (for Rambo), a muffin (for Imp), and a loaf of Ciabatta and something else fun (their spinach -feta bread is to die for). after we leave there, we walk across the bridge, and try to get to the market at its 8:30 opening, or soon thereafter.

We're just getting into peak market season here, and so take a gander at today's haul...

Two kinds of lettuce, fennel, beets, green onions, two kinds of cucumbers, fava beans, purple cauliflower, golden raspberries and black raspberries. Not to mention the pound of handcured-and-smoked bacon that costs the same as a pound of grocery bacon...

There we'll see colleagues from campus, kids from school, dozens of local dogs on leashes (usually) and sometimes in backpacks and bags, even some fellow bloggers. Imperia likes to buy a pair of honey sticks, and Rambunctious likes to pick up fudge or sugar cookies from the shepherd lady who also sells home-spun wool items.

My colleague N'awlins Hippie and her guitarist from the sociology department are often busking, and always have an extra set of spoons or maracas for the kids to tap along with them. I keep threatening to join them, but haven't had the time to practice yet...

After we've made our way around the market, we'll often run right across the street to the library. Last trip we picked up audiobooks of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, and an armload full of picture books.

If I'm lucky, especially if we didn't stop for coffee on the way in, we'll stop at the coffee shop named for one of my favorite children's books (I knew I was destined for this place when I was taken there during my on-campus).

We roll back in around 10:30 or 11, and the kids play in the backyard while Willow and I take in our produce, feed the Junebug, whatever. We've lived here for about 10 weeks now, and we've missed the market only twice. I have a feeling we won't miss it to many more times than that this summer.

On the Schedule

Just heard from the press today on the collection I'm co-editing...Full manuscript is in hand, with production on the schedule for November 2009. So it will really happen!