Friday Morning, Early

What can I say? It’s been a hard hard week, and I expect another hard one coming up.

Yesterday, did go to downtown Palo Alto and did see The Painted Veil again, and did get myself a small cup of Belgian Dark Chocolate and Pineapple Sorbet at Gelato Classico, across the street from the movie theatre, and did cry buckets at the end again, and did wonder whether to tell my mother to see the movie because of the beautiful piano music, played by Lang Lang.

I’d barely gotten home when I heard a noise in the side yard, looked out the window, and saw hubby.

It was just a little after five.

So first I thought, OK, he’s been laid off. Which has happened many many times, and just like this. He’ll go to the office in the morning, dragging his feet, and then he’ll come home early, sometimes as early as mid-day, and he’ll say he’s been laid off.

This time, I didn’t have that panicky feeling, more of just a twinge.

When hubby finally walked in the door, I remarked, as nonchalantly as I could, “Youre home early!”

And he launched into what a bad day it had been, he hadn’t even had time to eat lunch, he had to lay off one of his engineers today.

Now this is a first: that instead of hubby being laid off, he’s had to lay someone else off.

I asked who it was, and hubby said it was a young guy from Singapore.

What, I exclaimed, you couldn’t get an American citizen to do the job?

And he said the guy was living in Singapore but had a green card; he’d e-mailed his resume to apply for the job.

I asked how long the young man had been working for the company, and hubby said, “Since November.” So the company didn’t even give him a chance to show what he could do.

And, by the way, that dinner party boss was planning to give on Feb. 4? Cancelled. Felt the mood in the company was not conducive, what with the many lay-offs.

Well, because hubby was not laid off, I can still post today (If he were laid off, blogging would just seem so, so frivolous. Or maybe it would save my life so I would blog more. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.)

Anyway, last night, hubby seemed to be in a watching mode. I don’t know if it was because he got home early or what, but I had a feeling he was looking over my shoulder at my blog. And just when I would be typing most furiously, he would make a remark about a television show (Such as, last night, while watching CSI: “Look, there’s Kepler!” And I did look, and it was Liev Schreiber, and I said, What’s he doing there, and hubby said he was the new Grissom. What, did William Peterson quit??? Too shocking. Hubby said perhaps. But probably he’s just on a temporary hiatus and will come back. Liev very stolid in the role, I don’t know what to make of him.)

So, what else happened yesterday? Garbage men finally picked up the Christmas tree, which had shed practically all of its needles on our front lawn, since it had been exposed to the elements for at least three weeks. A few days ago, went across the street to ask a neighbor if she had a saw I could borrow. Hubby has a tiny one, and it didn’t even make a dent on the tree’s trunk. Neighbor said she’d send her husband over with the saw when he came home, but husband failed to show, leading to all sorts of paranoid thoughts in my head. Finally, two days ago, approached another neighbor, and she said she too would have to ask her husband when he came home, since he kept his toolbox locked up. But, just as I was beginning to trudge away, I heard her calling me, and when I turned around she was waving a huge and rusty old saw, which she said she’d just found lying in the garage.

She and I proceeded to the tree, and this (in case you were wondering) is how we were dressed: She was in a dark tweed suit and pumps; I was in a tailored black and red dress (xxxxx community college colors, one of my fellow teachers told me yesterday, aaaargh!!!), and we both got on our knees in front of messy tree, and she pulled one end of the saw and I pulled the other, and back and forth like that we sawed through the trunk, and then I put the two sawed pieces side by side (grimly reminded of body of Black Dahlia in a book I read in my uncle’s house in Bacolod last summer, but never mind) so that garbage men could see I followed directions for disposal, and then I waited in suspense all yesterday morning, and heard at least two garbage trucks rumble by, and when I went to the front to check (still in my nightgown, but didn’t expect any of the neighbors to be peeking out their windows at 6:30 AM, at least I hoped not), tree was still there.

Which truly set me off. So I called the garbage company and some time yesterday afternoon a lone truck came trundling slowly down our street, and a man grabbed the two halves of the tree and gave them a mighty shove into the back of a truck, and now all that’s left on our front lawn are innumerable brown pine needles.

So! Holidays officially over. Next week have to deal with Princess of Los Altos and also lame Women’s Lit class. But in the meantime, it’s the weekend, and hubby’s birthday, and we’re going to Half Moon Bay, and he hasn’t been laid off so we can enjoy it.

NYTBR Jan. 14, 2007

Books I Am Interested in Reading (After Perusing the Jan. 14, 2007 Issue of the New York Times Book Review):

(1) After reading Caroline Elkins’ review of Rachel Holmes‘ African Queen: The Real Life of the Hottentot Venus:

Rachel Holmes’ African Queen: The Real Life of the Hottentot Venus

(2) After reading William T. Vollmann’s review of Anthony Swofford’s novel, Exit A:

Anthony Swofford’s first book, the memoir Jarhead

(3) After reading Maggie Galehouse’s review of Isabel Allende‘s new novel, Ines of My Soul:

Isabel Allende’s Ines of My Soul

(4) After reading Jacob Heilbrunn’s review of Marvin Kitman’s The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O’Reilly and Bill O’Reilly’s Culture Warrior:

Marvin Kitman’s The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O’Reilly

(5) After reading Marilyn Stasio’s Crime column:

Michael Connelly‘s Echo Park
Joseph Wambaugh’s Hollywood Station

Another Quote of the Day — Jan. 25, 2007

It must be my lucky day because a) I woke up this morning and my neck didn’t hurt; b) I checked my e-mail just before going to bed last night, and there was no e-mail (yet) from either the Princess of Los Altos

Quote of the Day — Jan. 25, 2007

She did not care for children’s books in which the children grew up, as what “growing up” entailed (in life as in books) was a swift and inexplicable dwindling of character; out of a clear blue sky the heroes and heroines abandoned their adventures for some dull sweetheart, got married and had families, and generally started acting like a bunch of cows.

—- from the Donna Tartt novel, The Little Friend

Another Insomnia Post

Just past midnight. Restless. About a fifth of the way through Donna Tartt’s 530-page novel, The Little Friend.

Finally starting to appreciate it.

For one thing, Tartt has a tremendous gift for description.

Here is her narrative of how the Antarctic explorer, Robet Falcon Stott, spent his last moments:

It seems a pity, Scott had written with his stiffening hand, as the white closed in softly from the white immensities, and the faint pencil letters grew fainter on the white paper, but I do not think I can write anymore.

What caught my eye: her mention of the white closing in softly from the white immensities.

Then, two pages on:

It was a fast, fresh airy day. Low clouds raced across the sky. The grass — which needed cutting, it was a tragedy how Charlotte had let the place go — was sprinkled with violets, wild oxalis, dandelions gone to seed, and the wind rippled through it in erratic currents and eddies like wind on the sea. Wisteria tendrils undulated from the screen porch, delicate as seaweed. It hung so thick over the back of the house that you could hardly see the porch anymore; it was pretty enough when the flowers were in bloom but the rest of the time it was a shaggy mess and besides, the weight of it was liable to pull the porch down — wisteria was a parasite, it weakened the structure of a house if you let it crawl all over the place — but some people had to learn everything the hard way.

What caught my eye: “fast, fresh”; the enumeration of “violets, wild oxalis, dandelions gone to seed”; the wind rippling through in “erratic currents and eddies like wind on the sea”; wisteria tendrils “as delicate as seaweed”; “shaggy mess”. Also, did not know wisteria was a parasite, have a small one growing at the base of a trellis in front of our house, but it hasn’t bloomed in over five years and is a scrawny, runty thing. Every year I think it is dead, but then it surprises me by putting out new green shoots, which nevertheless do not grow far enough to entwine around the trellis. It’s a tease, then, like someone I know.

Also like “some people had to learn everything the hard way” (See: self, self, self)

There are a lot of other gorgeous descriptions, I’m thinking of a horrific/appalling/funny scene, on p. 118. The heroine, a young girl, tries to free a blackbird trapped in a puddle of tar and ends up wrenching its wing off. The wing lies on the tar, “grotesquely elongated, a bone glistening blue out the torn end.”

Since I taught Andrea Barrett‘s writing process this morning (30 drafts per book, she claims), I’m wondering how many drafts Tartt did before she was able to get her language to this level of lush intensity 🙂

Today’s Horoscope: “Differing Expectations at Work Are An Enormous Source of Frustration” Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!

I’m going to see The Painted Veil again tomorrow! Because I want to cry buckets over Edward Norton‘s emaciated visage, it is such an exercise in catharsis.

I made this decision while nursing a beer after a very very very hard day at xxxxx community college.

Quite my own fault, I pre-ambled a discussion with Princess-from-Los Altos-Accepted-to-USC and only taking my class to “prepare” (when there are so many better teachers at xxxxx community college!) with, “You might be a little upset at your grade…”

Which of course led her to be doubly upset, and then five minutes later I had to launch into three-hour class, and found myself going around in circles, and the class, whose members had behaved like perfect angels for the last three weeks, decided to go on a rampage — conversations bubbling up in corners, heads nodding off for a nap, you name it.

The topic was Andrea Barrett and an interview with her by the inimitable Sarah Anne Johnson. Ms. Barrett maintains writing is “a messy process.” She claims her novels go through 30 drafts. I told students that they should all take heart at this news, was terribly confused when they seemed peevish. Decided I MUST NOT TALK ANYMORE today, and asked for “volunteers” to help me lead the next class, on fave author Yi-Fu Tuan. About 20 students raised their hand, at which near-riot ensued because I said I only needed two.

Oh, well, but I’m home now (What’s this? Hubby is yelling from bedroom over another exorbitant bill. Guess I can’t relax even here, will just have to grab another beer from the fridge.) Tomorrow, I tell myself, I’m not going to check my e-mail, because the last thing I need is irate e-mail from Princess of Los Altos or, God forbid, the DEAN, who always wants us to change the grade — upwards. (Lousy students, take note: this school is for you!)

Apparently, Princess-from-Los-Altos has addled me more than I thought because, just now, threw cup of salt into the rice cooker, instead of water—! Hmmm, let’s see, will be quite a trick sifting the salt from the rice — is such a thing even possible? At the very least, seems likely to be a complicated operation. Should I just give up and start anew, throw out the whole pot of rice? But, such a shame, rice is expensive Jasmine Rice from Whole Foods. But won’t hubby object to taste of extremely salty rice? And didn’t his yell not too long ago indicate that he’s not in the best of moods?

Why does my mind work in such circuitous fashion? THINK, woman! FO-CUS! Now, I think, would be an extremely propitious time to encounter Sage Master Shih-Cheng Yen . . .

Second Gorgeous Day (So Far) This Month

The weather today was gorgeous, wasn’t it?

I bought a key lime pie from Whole Foods.

I even bought a mandolin, by Zyliss, a Swiss company, whose tools are so marvelous to look at that I hesitate to actually use them. Box itself is an intricate contraption of interlocking flaps and snug folds so that I still haven’t managed to open it. Tried prying apart one of the flaps but obviously task requires someone with real engineering skills, achieved nothing more than a chipped fingernail. Mandolin is still in box on kitchen counter, I’m waiting for a day when I have several hours free to devote to extracting machine from its nest and reading the manual.

Hubby came home early and we watched the State of the Union address together, though I can’t honestly say I found anything Prez said particularly memorable. I was just thinking to myself that I would hate to be a politician, because I would have to smile and look interested during everyone else’s boring speeches. I mean, I have been on panels and some of them have been pretty entertaining, but sometimes I get seized with restlessness and it’s difficult to sit still until it’s my turn. I bite my lip or start to fidget in my chair and pretty soon lines start forming on my forehead and on either side of my mouth and before you know it, in 45 minutes I’ve turned into an old woman.

Son called because an RA meeting was cancelled and he had some time on his hands. Said it was “RA Appreciation Day” so someone left flowers for the RAs at the reception desk of his dorm.

I tried to figure out what to do about my Women’s Lit class. Thought of e-mailing everyone to throw out the syllabus I handed out yesterday; I’d draw up a completely new one, with the intention of making the class more of a “fun” thing, with less reading and more discussion and more tying in with things that are happening in the world, in the Bay Area. Maybe I’ll require them to see a play written by a woman, we could all go together as a class.

Awoke at 5:30. Was busily engaged in writing something when announcement came that Oscar nominations were to be broadcast momentarily. Naturally, sat back and watched. And there was Salma Hayek in a billowy dress that made her look pregnant, and an old guy who kept saying “Babylon” instead of “Babel.” Was glad to hear of nominations of Leo Di Caprio and Djimon Hounsou for Blood Diamond, but thought it was a terrible shame that Naomi Watts was not nominated for The Painted Veil. Borat was nominated for best screenplay adaptation — what book did that movie come from??? Confused because I thought everything was unscripted, extemporaneous. At least, that’s what the publicists keep saying.

Let’s see, what other nominations was I happy about? Mark Wahlberg’s, for The Departed (he was terrific); Penelope Cruz, for Volver. I don’t know that Little Miss Sunshine or The Queen deserved their Best Picture nominations. Happy about Alan Arkin nomination, felt Gong Li should have been nominated for Curse of the Golden Flower.

Found out Ellen DeGeneres was hosting Awards Show, yay for women.

And oh, hey, what about that Paul Greenglass? I nearly whooped for joy when they announced he’d been nominated as Best Director for United 93, which I saw by myself in a darkened theatre full of senior citizens (mid-week, mid-day), and left completely shattered. See my review on Hyphen magazine blog of Sept. 16,2006.

On Oscar Night, I’ll be glued to the TV, unless I get completely bored by the speeches 🙂

Teaching Women’s Lit/ “Rome”, the Latest

On paper, there were 12 names, but only eight students showed up to my first Women’s Lit class of the semester, last night. A young man in a knit cap was lurking in the hallway and said he was interested in adding, but he didn’t step inside and later, when I peeked out at the hallway, he had slunk away.

Eight students: seven women, all of whom looked very weary; and one man, who looked befuddled.

I have had quite an assortment of characters taking this class, and for some reason the men are always characters. Last year, I had one gentleman who would pass me notes from time to time: I hate this class. I wondered why he was IN it; to annoy me?

Two years ago, a young man stormed out when I gave him a B+ on his first paper. Later, during the break, I walked to the faculty mailboxes to check my mail, and saw the student in the Assistant Dean’s Office, who (just my luck!) was working late, and he was tremendously upset and waving his paper around. As he told me, “I am married and get along very well with my wife! I know women!” (Well, apparently, he didn’t know me, so felt like telling him he has to widen his circle of feminine acquaintances.)

There was also this person who reminded me of the Julia Sweeney character on Saturday Night Live— I could never figure out whether to refer to him as a “she” or a “he”, because at first he looked like a man, then at the next class he would look like a woman.

Apparently, might have scared them all off last night because I started quoting from Virginia Woolf, then got into graphic detail about how Mary Wollstonecraft developed puerperal fever (from an incompetent doctor who delivered her daughter, Mary Shelley, with unclean hands), then told them since the class was so small I would expect them to do a lot of writing.

Hmmm, haven’t managed to check class roster this morning, but am sure several have already decided to drop.

First of all, it’s on a Monday night. And I gave them a course schedule and they have to write two papers, in addition to a midterm and final. AND they have to keep a reflection journal, which I will collect from time to time. And the book, which I fondly refer to as NALW (The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women) is huge and weighs 10 lbs., and last night, I had to climb four flights of stairs to get to the classroom, which is located at the very top of a steep hill, and I honestly thought I wouldn’t make it. Inside my roller bag — rollers do not help at all on stairs, I belatedly discovered — were all kinds of journals and magazines: Calyx, Kalliope, the Journal of Feminist Studies , an anthology of Women on War, and Luisa Igloria’s ravishing Trill & Mordent.

I asked the students to say why they had decided to enroll in this class, and most of them said, “I don’t know any women writers (!!!), my favorite writers are men (!!@@##) and I’m only taking this class because my advisor told me to.” (Ouch, ouch, ouch!)

This is the fourth time I’ve taught this class. You’d think the word would have gotten out about my stellar teaching abilities 🙂

The lone male — I haven’t figured him out yet, but he said he was a Philosophy major, and he immediately signed up to do an oral report on Charlotte Bronte. One of the students said she’d already had to study Jane Eyre last semester, with Prof. Wolterbeek, the English Department Chair, and she didn’t see why she had to read it again this semester.

I wanted to answer: Because this time, it’s being taught by a woman. Instead, I said, “Because this book is a miracle. How it came to be, in that era, in that age.”

Could not manage to shake students out of their lethargy, and it’s only the first class. Great, they probably already think I’m a kook. Trundling my load of books back to the car late at night, felt very glum indeed.

Thankfully, after getting home, was able to catch replay of Rome, which I only watched half of on Sunday because I fell asleep (!!##). Has anyone noticed that Mark Antony is a hottie? That Octavian’s sister’s favorite expression seems to be “Merciful Juno!” ? That Cleopatra looks amazingly like Julia Louis-Dreyfus of Seinfeld fame? That three different characters uttered the line, “Now, kiss me” ?

Wonderful scene with Lucius Varinus smashing wooden effigy against pillar and declaring himself a “Son of Hades.” Oh, and his attachment to severed head quite touching, as witness his pained expression when Mark Antony heaves aforementioned head out the window.

(To be continued …)

The Most Gorgeous Day (So Far) in 2007

Was not yesterday a most glorious day, loyal blog readers?

First of all, the temperature was something like in the 60s, and given that for the past week I’d been glumly trudging all over the place in hooded down parka as if I lived in New York when I really lived in friggin’ California, yesterday was a godsend.

I ventured into the backyard and — liberally peppered though it was with piles of ka-ka from darling critters — I managed to do quick plant inspection. The following I have determined to be dead: fuschia, big camellia with pink flowers, anthurium, and maybe most of the geraniums. (Aaargh, Bella scrabbling at back door again; must get up, but back in a moment —)

As I was saying before so rudely interrupted, geraniums if not dead then expiring. BUT, hallelujah, spied two green buds on clematis Henryii, and iberis sempervirens is blooming (Three years ago I knew zip about plants; now, suddenly, for benefit of loyal blog readers, feel tremendous urge to spout botanical names…!)

Also, yesterday, I heard from my editor at SF Chronicle. All he said was: Got your review. But it threw me into paroxysms of joy and I immediately decided to see a movie. Checked, and Rocky Balboa was no longer showing. But Curse of the Golden Flower and Babel were, and because Babel was 2 and a half hours long and Curse just under two hours, I elected to forego Brad Pitt’s Oscar-worthy acting and go for Gong Li‘s fulsome form. And may I just say that I turned out to be wrong about Curse of the Golden Flower. It is highly, highly enjoyable (must research whether Chinese noblewomen really walked around with their breasts hanging out and all; also, whether Chinese women really do generally have those enormous breasts, as I don’t remember seeing such a collection of heaving fulsomeness since, well, since watching Volver …), except for the ending, which was completely stupid and made me long with a passion for the return of Ran or Kagemusha.

Anyway, yesterday I also went to Trader Joe’s and fell into a near-mob scene over the uncured bacon. Why? Women so tight-lipped, so angry, like the feminists in the Borat movie, some even with children in their carts (coughing away copiously, I might add), acting like the next minute would mean the difference between life or death, no polite “Excuse me, you’re in the way of the smoked sausage” (!!!). Since no one ever seems to see me in such situations, decided to stand a little apart and observe until I spied a narrow opening, squeezed myself in, and grabbed the first available item which was Chicken and Apple Sausage. Scooted away quickly with the prize in my cart, and last night served it up for dinner with pasta. Excellent.

Quote of the Day – Jan.18.07

This is from an article in an old issue of the New Yorker. It was written by Tad Friend. The article’s title was Jumpers: The Fatal Grandeur of the Golden Gate Bridge

The bridge comes into the lives of all Bay Area residents sooner or later, and it often stays. Dr. Jerome Motto, who has been part of two failed suicide-barrier coalitions, is now retired and living in San Mateo. When I visited him there, we spent three hours talking about the bridge. Motto had a patient who committed suicide from the Golden Gate in 1963, but the jump that affected him most occurred in the seventies. “I went to this guy’s apartment afterward with the assistant medical examiner,” he told me. “The guy was in his thirties, lived alone, pretty bare apartment. He’d written a note and left it on his bureau. It said: ‘I’m going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.’ “