Friday Nights

So here's the new Friday night routine: A. works late (until 10:30 or so) on Fridays. So I'm on my own. And while I'd rather be spending Friday nights with A, I'm kinda enjoying just having time to myself, time to get caught up, time to work on crafts and projects, time to watch DIY and HGTV. But here's the best part about Friday nights with myself. I can get in bed early, and read and write and watch TV (at the moment Nancy Grace is catching me up with the latest on Anna Nicole). I can blog, journal, and read Elizabeth George. Have I mentioned Elizabeth George? As Dolce Carina knows, George is my current favorite mystery writer. To be honest, she's rather a new find for me. And I just started the second of her Inspector Lynley mysteries. She's a good writer, and Lynley is this fascinating character, which is what I look for in a good murder mystery. But the point is that Friday nights are all mine. And I can get in bed early and relax and have the remote to myself and simply do what relaxes and nourishes me. At the moment, I have a cup of adagio.com's Valentines tea. And I'm using my mint green Royal Albert Old Country Roses cup and saucer. And it all feels perfect, like what Friday nights and weekends and time at home should feel like: cozy, secure, warm, nurturing. It's like I simply feel so blessed to have a favorite tea and a favorite cup and a good novel and the internet to be connected to the world. (Have I mentioned that I'm blogging from my bed??? This is so perfect!) I know that I tend to go on and on; it's just that I feel so content with this moment. And tomorrow may be wonderful or may be crappy (either way it'll be my birthday!) but it's almost like tomorrow doesn't matter (or doesn't bear worrying about) because for right now, I'm happy.

Oh, and look forward to posts about the following: Elizabeth George, the Real Housewives of Orange County, Maguire's Wicked (have a conference paper to work up!), Lewis's Narnia, and the apricot tea from Adagio (it'll be new to me--should arrive on Tuesday--I have DC to thank for this, as for so much else!)

"Wardrobe Malfunction"

I nearly had one of those infamous wardrobe malfunctions today. I wore this cute black wrap-around dress and black tights and boots to work. But once I arrived, I realized that the elastic waistband in my tights was really worn out. Seriously. But once you're already there, what can you do? So I tried to ignore it and go about work as ususal. But in the middle of my Intro to Lit class, I realized that my tights were slowly, slowly (but surely) creeping down. Soon, I knew, the crotch of my tights would be to my knees. And how embarrassing would that be? I tried to stand very, very still, to not get overly excited about Gerard Manly Hopkins and hope that my tights wouldn't fall any lower. I was successful. I'm not sure how graceful I was about the whole thing, but at least my tights didn't fall off completely. I mean, how would a person even begin to explain that?

I've finally "arrived"

So I feel as thought my life has reached some sort of pinnacle of my existence. Because I'm finally, actually blogging from bed. Which may not sound like that big of a deal to most of you. But it's what I've dreamed of for so long. Many of you know I'm a "pajamas person," AKA Pajama Dren. But also, I love doing everything in bed: reading, writing, watching movies, even eating popcorn. And now here I am, all bloggy-blog in bed on a Sunday afternoon, and I can't think of anything that would possibly be more relaxing. I've even got this cool in bed, breakfast-tray, lap desk thingy that A. gave me as an early birthday present. And it's all just perfect, like being on vacation or something. And he's at work, writing away. And here I am, all happy and safe. And while blogging in bed may sound ridiculous to the rest of you, something about it feels wonderfully luxurious; maybe it's the sheer ridiculousness of it that makes it luxurious. I'm not sure. But it's great.

It's been a cold, snowy, wintery weekend in VT. We had unseasonably warm temps mid week (close to 60!--that's Ferinheit. Oh, I can't spell that, and of course, I should look it up, but I'm not going to). And then Friday was cold and snowy again. And I'd guess that we've gotten about a foot of snow, all told. And I'm starting to wonder if spring will ever, ever come. Meanwhile back at the ranch, some of you are up into the 80s, I know. Don't rub it in.

I'm coming to my thirty-second birthday at the end of the week. I want to spend time this week reflecting on what I want this next year, the thirty-third of my life to be. Thirty three years seems somehow like a magical number. 33. I keep thinking of Schoolhouse Rock and "Three is a magic number. . . " Completing my thirty second year and moving towards the thirty third seems magical, so full of promise. And so, I want to blog about all of that, I think, over the coming days.

A final quick note: last night A. and I watched the first half or so of the movie Flushed Away. Very funny.

Enter Jeeves

So Ive been reading Wodehouse lately. And it's so great. On Thursday, I was reading while my class was taking a midterm, and it was so funny that I actually had to get up and leave the room, because I was so giggly. I mean, it's gotta take some real talent to write such great comedy. And it's that British comedy, you know? And I remember why Hugh Laurie is my favourite, favourite actor. And Wodehouse is a comic genius. Seriously. And Wodehouse writes in the first person in Bertie's voice. And it's great. And I hear Hugh Laurie. Normally, I don't like it when my reading experience is informed and even controlled by film and TV, but here, it all seems so perfect. So get a load of this:

"I'm not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it's Shakespeare--or, if not, some equally brainy lad--who says that it's always just when a chappie is feeling particularly top-hole and more than usually braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with the bit of lead piping"

OK, so that's so Bertie. And it's too funny. I mean, there's something so wonderful about putting it all that way. And it's the opening to a story. And I have to say that Fate's "bit of lead piping" isn't anything so horrifying in this case. I mean, it's Bertie Wooster, not Oedipus, for Pete's sake. And that's part of the brilliance of Wodehouse's work, you know? I just think we should all be reading things that make us laugh, because we need more of that. I need more Wodehouse and Laurie. And oh, have I mentioned that my new thing is Charlie and Lola. But that's another post.

Anyhow, just now, Jeeves is working is magic, not just on Bertie, but on me.

I've Gone Wireless

OK, so after over an hour on the phone with Verizon's tech support, I'm now all wireless and shit. (Sorry mom, for the use of "shit," only that's how it feels just now. It was all very draining somehow. And, although it may be soap-opera-predictable, I did have to call Stampy-Stamp for help getting all set up. And, you know, for him it's all like this interesting logic problem to try to figure out how to make this whole wi-fi thingy work for me, configuring modems and what-have-you. It's like the rest of us feel about Sudoku. But the point is that here I am. And right now, I'm blogging while watching a repeat of the Real Housewives of the OC. Which I really hope, hope, hope will be back for a third season, because it's my favorite guilty pleasure. Well, the Housewives (I want to be "wife-a-licious" one day!) and Elizabeth George are my favorite guilty pleasures just now. And I wish I were all smart like Dolce Carina blogging about smart, intellectual things. Oh, so today I realized that I say all these entertaining, witty things but mostly only to myself. It's like I think all the really smart things when there's no one around, or maybe just the dogs around, to say them to. So of course, I just say them to myself. But sometimes, I feel like I'm depriving all the rest of you of my wisdom/wit/insight. So here's a good rule of thumb for us literary-researcher types:

For every two pages of literary theory I read and really understand, I reward myself with something really fun, like a murder mystery; only one and a half pages if it's Kristeva.

Ok, so I have this whole thing for Kristeva lately. It's like I want to understand Kristeva, but I'm afraid of Kristeva, but I also want to be Kristeva, and I'm convinced that Kristeva is the only one who *really* understands me, except for maybe my old buddy Virginia W. I know this all sounds really neurotic. But just admitting it is better somehow, right?

OK, so the Housewives are over, and Grease, You're The One That I Want is on. And I'm not all into it, although I do watch bits and pieces here and there. And I'm all for Max.

OK, and I've been reading Wodehouse's Jeeves stories. And they are super great; more about that later. Because Jeeves and Hugh Laurie deserve their own posts, not connected to Kristeva and the Housewives. And really, what does Kristeva have to say about the Housewives?

It's past my bedtime, so I'm going to stop now. But now that I'm all wireless and portable and shit, I promise, promise, at least to myself, that I'm going to post more often, because it's somehow important and somehow helps me get through the day.

Wandering Uterus

This is more a follow-up to "The Yellow Wallpaper."

In class yesterday, we discussed "The Yellow Wallpaper," and the narrator there is accused of being hysterical. So I thought it necessary to explain to the class that years ago, hysteria (which comes from the same root as "hysterectomy," right?) was thought to occur because a woman's womb floated around in the body and somehow caused these emotional outbursts. It's the whole wandering uterus theory. And my students actually laughed. They didn't seem to believe that anyone actually believed such a thing. And of course, the implication is that only women become hysterical. I keep having this weird / funny mental image of my uterus getting somehow lodged in the wrong place, like behind my sternum, and that, of course, explains my anxiety.

Peeps and a Pup

In anticipation of spring (which will have to come some day, right?), I offer the following.

Oh, I could sing, "One of these things is not like the others. . . "

Or I could just ask, what does Guinnie have in common with sugar-coated, marshmallow goodness?

"The Yellow Wallpaper"

I just finished Charlotte Perkins Gillman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," and I am reminded that I can never quite decide what I think about this story. So here I am, maddly prepping for this afternoon's class, thinking obsessively about the story, scanning critical stuff. And I'm realizing, not for the first time, that maybe my problem is that, like the narrator seems to be here, I allow myself to become trapped within my own mind, my own emotional problems. I can say this because I just finished a particularly anxiety-ridden weekend. (Was that the right word? "Ridden"?) And I know that, at least in part, my anxiety comes from thinking obsessively about my own mental and emotional state. And if only I'd do something outside myself, something creative, as the narrator in Gillman's story desires initially, I'd get away from that anxiety. Only, it's so hard to do. For me, anxiety becomes so overwhelming that I really believe, in the moment, that I can't break away from it, that I can't actually focus on and do anything else. And so, like our narrator, I attempt to strip away the prison of anxiety that binds me, only to find that I'm simply emprisioning my self more tightly.

Ok, so I know that this isn't some super smart response. It's just that I needed a space to work through this story, at least a little. And you know, women and sickness and hysteria and emobdiment--all these things seem important to me lately.

Ok, for those who are interested, here's an update. This morning, I finally left the house; I'm no longer snowed in. And I'm really kinda relieved to be back to work. I seriously am just not very good at being a New Englander, although just this morning, mom told me that given my personality, I'm possibly better suited to New England than to California. I guess I can see what she means. And it's not that I dislike New England. There are many wonderful, wonderful things about living in Vermont. I actually like having real seasons, although the bitter cold is getting to me. I guess it's that New England just doesn't feel like home; Bakersfield is still home. I know that many people think Bakerspatch is really icky. And it certainly has its faults. But for me, that hot, dry, dusty central California valley is home. And it's like I feel this whole love-hate thing for So Cal. When I see L.A. on TV, I feel oddly nostalgic, not that I actually want to live there. My deep, dark secret is that I have this longing to live in Orange County. I can hardly believe that I'm admitting that. But south county is appealing to me lately. Maybe all this snow is just getting to me. There are 100,000 problems with California, but it just feels like home.

It's cold; I'm cold. And, I don't know, for like the past 10 days, the highs have been only in the teens, maybe the 20s. And I'm not sure that I can even remember what warm feels like. And late tonight through early tomorrow, we're supposed to get a foot of snow. I miss California. I'm not cut out for all this cold nonsense. I'm just tired of it. I guess it's not so bad if I can just stay at home and not have to actually get in the car and go anywhere. But it's still just cold. Everyone says I'll appreciate spring more, when it FINALLY arrives, and I'm sure that's true. But right now, I'm just miserable, cold and dry and miserable.

Hey, I Made the MLA

OK, I know this is kinda silly. But I just looked myself up in the MLA database. And there I was! Well, there my diss was, anyway. It all seemed pretty exciting. I feel like a real professional now, not like I'm just masquerading. "I'm not a real professor; I just play one on TV." Well, that's how I feel sometimes, like I'm standing in front of all these 20 year olds, playing the part of Dr. Drennan. But seeing my name, the title of my diss there on the database makes it more real somehow.

The Perfect Tea

I do want to say that I've discovered, or rather Dolce Carina discovered, what I believe could quite possibly be the perfect tea. It's Adagio's (see www.adagio.com) Valentine's Tea, and it's my new favorite smell. It's wonderful. They advertise it as chocolate strawberry. I'm not sure that I really taste the strawberry, but I just love it. It's not too sweet and is delicate and perfect. Hey, remember the TV commercial with "I'd like to buy the world a Coke?" Well, I'd like to buy the world a cup of tea.

A Note on My Title

Recently, someone suggested that "Drennan's Adventures Underground" is not an apt title for this blog. I completely disagree. And I feel that maybe an explanation / justification would be in order. So here goes:

First, in titling my blog "Drennan's Adventures Underground," I was thinking of Alice's Adventures Underground, the original title of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This, for me, created all kinds of interesting comparisons. In part, I so often feel like Alice, learning to navigate through a world, or maybe several worlds that seem to make no sense, that feel like nonsense. And like Alice, I so often feel isolated, lost, unsure of myself, as though I can't quite latch onto my own sense of identity.

Second, some months ago, I moved my blog. It was at this point that I chose the title "Drennan's Adventures Underground." Basically, I wanted to go "underground" with this blog in the sense that I was avoiding Crazy-Guy-From-Arizona, who had started reading my blog obsessively. He also e-mailed me obsessively; it began to feel like harrassment.

So now, here I am, having adventures "underground," if Small College, Vermont can be called "underground."

And really, isn't blogging about tea and books just as valid as anything else?

The Little Things

This is no big revelation. But today, I'm reminded that it's the little things each day that bring me satisfaction. It's not money or professional success; it's companionship and good books and a cup of tea. Today, I received from adagio.com, my favorite tea vendor, their special Valentine tea, a tea that D.C. introducted to me. And it's this great chocolate-dipped-strawberry-with-a-hit-of-rose flavor, and it's just perfect. And my mom called as she was brewing herself a pot of Adagio's cream tea, and D.C. IMd me while sipping her own cup of cream tea. And maybe I can believe that in spite of all the pain and grief and loss, maybe the world can still be OK because we're all sipping Adagio tea, even though nearly everyone I love is in California, while I'm stuck in the Great White North. Maybe because these connections, these shared experiences--tea and Lot 49 and prayer and love and loss and the BBC and bad "reality" TV--because they exist, maybe meaningful relationships are still possible. So I'm headed back upstairs for one more cup of tea and maybe some Top Chef or The Real Housewives of Orange County before bed. It is the little things: tea and movies and books and friends and family and dogs.

Procrastination

I'm really, really good at finding creative ways to procrastinate. I'm not so much a procrastinator by nature. However, when I want to, I can think up all kinds of things I "have" to do in order to avoid, say, typing up a syllabus. For example, I spend nearly an hour this morning dowloading Gwen Stephani ring tones onto my new cell phone. BTW, about a month ago, I got a new RAZR phone in metallic pink; eat your hear out Cheri! So now when you call, the phone plays "If I Were a Rich Girl," except for when A. calls and then it's "Wind It Up." This is very funny, if somewhat adolescent. Gwen Stefani kicks ass, by the way. After finding cool, hip ringtones, I spent quite a lot of time reorganizing my files. I'm still working on it. Come to think of it, I'm really big on reorganizing things that I've already organized like five times. Maybe it's an anxiety thing. I mean, sometimes I find myself unable to sleep until I reorganize my socks or my sweaters or whatever. In a minute I'll procrastinate further by picking up all the random books lying around my office. For some reason, I'm a great one for having piles and piles of books (all organized piles) lying about. And it must look like a mess to everyone else, but it all somehow makes this organic, whole sort of sense to me. I don't pretend to be able to explain it, but it all works for me. And yet, my Intro to Lit syllabus still isn't getting done. I've read in some self help book that we procrastinate out of fear. I wonder what it is about writing up a syllabus that I'm fearing. Maybe my fear is that the class is WAY overenrolled. This cannot be a good thing. Ahh. . . well, back to creative procrastination.

Hello Blogosphere

I know, I know. It's been a month since I last posted. And have you been wondering where I've been? I rather hope someone's wondering what's happened to me, because that would show that my existence somehow matters. I suppose I could say that, really, I've been up to a whole lot of nothing. I mean, I've been doing this and that, but none of it is especially interesting to tell about. I think that I'll hit some of the random highlights (or lowlights) as they occur to me. Blah, blah, blah. I don't have all that much to say; only I do want to start posting again regularly.

Ok, so I was in CA for 10 days over the holidays. I had a wonderful time with my family. My neices E. and L. and perfect and beautiful and wonderful. If I ever have children, I hope they are just like E. and L. I also spent time with my two bestest, favorite friends, Cort and Carina, in CA. And, I don't know, on reflection, being with both of them seems somehow emotionally nourishing. It seems that's how friends should be. In talking with both of them recently, I've come to realize that many of us are facing similar difficulties. I tend to think that anxiety and perfectionism and depression are this whole epidemic, package deal among intelligent, motivated women of my generation. I'm convinced that it is, in part, the fallout of feminism. And while it makes me sad to know that people I love hurt sometimes, it's also somehow reassuring to know that I'm not the only one. So here's to sisterhood and girl power and all that.

I've been consuming Iris Murdoch novels with great zest. How is it that I've never read Murdoch until now. Her writing is wonderful--modern and thought provoking and engrossing all at the same time. So here I am, facing British modernism yet again. It's like this refrain that I almost accidentally keep returning to. On that note, I continue to believe that V Woolf will somehow see me through.

I'll spare all of you the details, but my other bit of big "news" is that I'm dating A. and am suddenly happier than I've been in a long while. It's been like this big epiphany, like I suddenly what's been wrong with every other (failed) relationship I've had. It's like this whole gestalt kind of thing. There are 10,000 things that I appreciate about him. I could gush and gush about the whole thing, but I know that no one really wants to hear all that.

I'll keep posting. Look forward to more on Iris Murdoch. But for now, I really, really need to get my office organized before it gets too out of hand!

A New Therapist

Ok, I'm posting today as part of my renewed committment to post more regularly. I think that I really do have something to say most days, although it may not be anything especially profound. But I think there's value in writing regularly, and I do keep a journal, but this seems like it's helpful too. I tend to think of blogging and journaling as a way to sort of communicate my hopes and dreams and frustrations and joys to the universe. And so to that end, here's the story of my visit to a new therapist:

Yesterday, I saw a new therapist for the first time. It didn't go especially well, and I feel not very optimistic about the whole thing. D.C. says that I should have asked her if she knew Virginia Woolf. And maybe that's a good way to go. Maybe the therapist that understands Woolf will understand me. Now that I've typed that, the full ramifications of that statement are starting to hit me. I mean, we all know what kind of end VW met. And still, I have to admit that reading VW is somehow satisfying on this intimate level; it's the sense that here's someone who really understands how it feels to be me. (Hey, do we all remember the Tom Petty song about "You don't know how it feels to be me"?) But in all seriousness, this new therapist didn't seem to get me. And at the end of the session, she told me that she wasn't sure she really understood what was going on with me and, thus, wasn't sure she could help me. This is pretty discouraging.

But the best (or at least the funniest) part of this whole thing was when she suggested the possibility that Attention Deficit Disorder is at the root of all my emotional problems. Seriously, I think I have whatever is the opposite of ADD. And as I replay this scene, which becomes increasinly like a bad SNL skit with each successive replay, I see her saying "Maybe you have ADD." And then I say something like, "Yeah, right. That's why I finished my dissertation. That's why I have a PhD. That's why I'm the resident expert on young adult fantasy. It's because I have ADD and can't concentrate. Right. People with ADD finish PhDs" I should add that I don't take the whole I'm-a-PhD thing very seriously. As is evidenced by the neon pink name plate on my desk that reads "Drennan, PhD," but it's bright pink, which says a lot about me. And my mom sent it to me, which says that she "gets" me, even if new therapist doesn't. Carina says I should trade in the new therapist for a new model. I think I should just take enough pills that I feel better. OK, that was tongue-in-cheek, but only kinda.

Hey, I'm listening to Johnny Cash. And it strikes me that he's rather like VW. I mean, I love the song "Sunday Morning Coming Down." There's something so true about it, so authentic. And I totally think that VW would understand about Johnny Cash. And hey, wouldn't they both be brilliant at dinner parties? When Cort and I were in college, we used to play the Desert Island game, but can't the Dinner Party game be a grown up version of the same thing? I mean, instead of "Would you rather be stuck on a desert island with Mike Piazza or Eric Karros?" it's now about "Who would you invite to the perfect dinner party?" And clearly, I want Cash and Woolf. Which probably just means that I'm looking for people I can sit around and be all melancholy with. Oh, and I'd throw Salman Rushdie in for good measure. Now I've completely diverged from the stated focus of this post. But really, planning fantasy dinner parties is much more interested than incompetent therapists.

Journals

I'm suddenly, oddly obsessed with decorating journals. I suppose that part of the neurosis is that I'm oddly obsessed with having about 5 different journals going at once. And I feel like I need to carry them all with me at all times. They're all categorized, and I know that Carina is thinking that I sound like what's-her-name in The Golden Notebook, and I know that she's right. Not that I've actually read The Golden Notebook. But I wanted to show you the cute, fun journals that I've been decorating.

Since I'm posting pics anyway, here's one of my backyard, as seen from the dining area:

Guinnie and the Stove

It's been pretty darn cold since Wednesday or so. And poor Guinnie can't seem to get warm enough. She spends most of the day parked in front of the stove. There's a little ledge where, as you can see, she rests her front paws in order to be as close to the flame as possible. Sometimes she growls when Polly gets too close!