Year: 2010

Monday Night in Winston-Salem

A note to my very sweet (but slightly overachieving) neighbors:

Please note that the assorted crabgrass and weeds have now been trimmed to a more manageable height. I realize the yard isn’t likely to impress you–or hell, even to placate you–but I hope you at least appreciate the gesture on my part. I even swept some of my trimmings off the street and disposed of that pile of leaves by the garage.

That said, please don’t look on this as a sign that I will be spending the rest of my weekends this spring and summer vacuuming the grass and steam-cleaning the driveway, as you apparently do, nor do I need a suggestion about which specific Disney animators you hire to make sure you have only the most attractive birds in your trees. Priorities, you know? I’m not a yard person, and this is the best I can am willing to do.

Thank you,
David

Tenure-track

As of yesterday (actually, as of last week, but I was sworn to secrecy pending the announcement), I have a nifty new job. It’s actually very much like the nifty old job I got several months ago, but it’s not fixed-term, it is tenure-track, and it pays considerably more. So I like it much better. Which is saying something, because I really liked it before, too.

It’s a happy feeling at age forty-five to be able–finally–to say that you love your job.

More later. I’m at work now.

A New Effort

So I’ve pretty much been absent from the site, all forms of social media, and certain aspects of life in general for the past few months. It’s like that when you get a new job at pretty much the same time your husband moves back in with you. Publishing online moves really far down the priority list.

But I’m gonna try. Not necessarily because I think anyone particularly cares anymore, but because it does me some good. And because it serves as part of the “official record” of my life. And because I do occasionally still like to express my opinions on various issues. And because I’ve been doing it so damned long that I’m afraid to stop.

Thus, I’m really going to try to make with the posts again soon. Here. Not on that social networking site, where my primary motivation has always been to keep up with other people (and I’m not even doing much of that lately).

Despite turning over this new leaf and all, though, I don’t have time to say much more today. There’s metadata to write and grants to research and letters from 1895 to scan. And houses to sell. And a boy who deserves all the attention I can give him.

But I’m trying. Really.

Videolog: Sesame’s Treet

Smart E’s
Sesame’s Treet (1992)

In honor of the fact that I’m currently reading this…

I’m also thinking of my cross-country trip in 1992 (when I moved to San Francisco and this song was playing in all four time zones at the time) on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of my return trip (when I moved back from San Francisco and this song wasn’t playing anywhere). But more on that later in a non-videolog post. Maybe…