The Commitmentphobe Buys a House

At first, T.J. didn't appreciate it too much when I told him buying a house was the biggest commitment I'd ever made. Sure, marriage is a big commitment, but a marriage doesn't necessarily tie you physically and financially to one spot on the planet. Some marriages might, if you marry someone averse to travel or being away from his family or who is tied to a career in a specific location, but thankfully my husband isn't like that. (And, honestly, I wouldn't have married anyone who was.)

It isn't that I never thought we'd buy a house. Owning a home is part of the American dream. But when our realtor Lisa called to say our offer on our near-dream home was accepted, I suddenly realized what a BFD home-buying is, and I turned a little green. 

After T.J. moved from Tennessee to Pennsylvania, his house sat on the market for nearly three years before finally selling at a loss. That's 36 months of mortgage payments, utility bills, hired lawn care, all gone. So what that experience taught me, perhaps erroneously, is that buying a house means you are stuck in a place or, if you try to leave when the market is unfavorable, you're going to be financially drained by it. My wanderlust kicked into overdrive at the very thought of homeownership. 

Still, the rental market in the Huntsville area was pathetic, so we didn't have many options. We'd outgrown apartment living and could find no reasonably priced houses or duplexes for rent in decent condition. Buying looked like the only good option. 

On our very first full day back in Alabama (February 1), we spent the day with realtor Lisa, a friend of T.J.'s family, touring 10+ houses in southeast Huntsville. I'd combed Trulia, Zillow, and Realtor.com, looked through hundreds of listings and countless pictures, to narrow our list down to houses of a certain size, in a certain area, in a certain price range. We saw some contenders, but nothing we were in love with, nothing that said this is our home. I grew up in the country and didn't realize how much that had affected me until I started looking at houses with tiny backyards, or with five sets of neighbors staring into the backyard. We quickly learned how much superficial things like chain-link fences and above-ground utilities bothered us. And although we wanted a house in a more established neighborhood (with trees!), we wanted one that didn't require a ton of updating and remodeling. But the only two houses with private backyards (backing a green belt) needed at least $50,000-$100,000 worth of work just to be livable. We toured only one house we could honestly see ourselves in (and even it had a tiny backyard surrounded by neighbors), and when we decided to drive by it the very next day, found a "SOLD ANOTHER ONE" sign in the front yard! We couldn't believe our (rotten) luck. Just the previous weekend, we'd found a house that we thought was the one (with a lovely backyard of willow trees, a stone's throw from T.J.'s parents), and it sold before we could tour it--after sitting on the market for 6+ months.

While Lisa worked with some visiting out-of-town clients that weekend, we drove neighborhoods looking for "for sale" signs. We drove all over the northeast side of town, over the mountain in Hampton Cove, in Owens Cross Roads. We looked at older, established areas on the south side of town and brand-new developments of cookie-cutter houses, like something out of the Truman Show (so said T.J.). We were feeling more and more down about the loss of the other two houses that had sold just after we discovered them. We drove past the rest of the houses on the list we'd given to Lisa and ruled them out because of the neighborhoods, the neighbors, the steepness of the driveways, the school districts. After three days of full-time house searching, we were tired and dejected. We decided to take the night off to go to a movie, but we ended up house searching on our computers anyway.

Finally, we decided to look at houses in Madison, the neighboring city to Huntsville. T.J.'s commute would be about the same either way and some of the school districts were just as good as those in SE Huntsville, so we decided to give it a shot. We narrowed our list down to five or six houses and went out around dusk just to drive by them. One in particular we loved practically on first sight. We loved the neighborhood. We loved the curb appeal. We loved that the house had a huge backyard and backed up to a relatively quiet road, so the yard felt private. 

We sent our list of Madison contenders to Lisa, and the next day we drove out to see them. We ruled out several almost immediately. And then we toured the house we'd loved on sight. And we loved the inside even more. It just felt like home. So sunny, warm, with a good flow and lots of functional space. It had almost everything on our wishlist: four bedrooms, a study for me, a playroom for future kids, 2.5 baths, plenty of garage/storage space. We took T.J.'s parents and sister back the next day to see it, and that night we wrote up our offer. Less than 24 hours later, the homeowners had countered and we had accepted. We were going to be homeowners.

We are going to be homeowners. At 4:00 today, we will sign the papers that will officially make this house ours:

I'm excited. I'm nervous. I'm more than a little overwhelmed and intimidated. But I'm so ready to call this house our home. 

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Moving to Madison

By now this post is less an announcement than an acknowledgement that T.J. and I have moved back to Alabama. If you'd told me six months ago (or even two months ago) we'd be back here, I wouldn't have believed you. But fate has a funny way of backing you into the least expected (yet somehow inevitable) corners.

You might have noticed that the blog went silent during the last third of 2012, in part because right after I said on Aug. 27 that we were hoping to make a permanent move soon, we decided to throw caution to the wind and he turned in his sixty-day notice to the university. In some fields, sixty days is probably plenty of time to find a new job and relocate, but the world of higher education moves much more slowly, so although he spent the next two months applying to more than forty jobs all around the country, we heard very little during that time. Even though we knew we couldn't move until after the semester ended and I was finished teaching, it started looking less and less like he would have a new position by the start of the spring semester. Then, right before Thanksgiving, he started getting daily calls for phone interviews. In a two-week span, he did around 15+ phone interviews with schools from around the country, from private colleges in Boston to prestigious public universities in California. Then, right before Christmas break, the calls for on-campus interviews started coming in. I have no idea why hiring committees wait until the end of the semester--by all accounts one of the most stress times of the academic year--to start moving on these searches and interviewing and bringing candidates on campus, but we were just thankful that there was finally some movement, some hope, that he would have a job soon.

He did three on-campus interviews in the two weeks immediately before Christmas, and he received his first offer when we were in New York for our anniversary. It was a tempting offer in a fantastic metropolitan area, a place where the cost of living wasn't outrageous and we'd have access to museums, live music, parks and festivals, organic grocery stores, international cuisine. But the job wasn't a good fit for him and we worried that taking it would mean another move in a couple of years. We'd agreed that this next move should be good for both of us, should be an opportunity to settle down for at least five years or so while we started our family and he got his doctorate. It was a tough decision, but he turned the job down, trusting that something else would come through.

In January, we returned to Pennsylvania after a couple of weeks in Alabama visiting friends and family, and the position we were in suddenly got very scary. We had to be out of our house by the end of January, and we still had no idea where we were moving. We knew he had two more on-campus interviews in the coming weeks but had no idea if he would receive an offer from either place.

Thankfully, both interviews went extremely well, and when he was at the second interview he actually got an offer from the first place. Because of the nature of these searches, the second place still had another week of interviews before they would be able to make a decision, so even though he was told he was in the top two candidates for that position, he had to accept the first position before hearing the results of the second. Which is how we came to be back in Alabama.

If we'd had another week to give an answer, who knows, we might be living in Washington State right now.

When we started the job search, he applied to jobs around the country, but we specifically targeted the West Coast and Boston area. In the South, we targeted Florida. I believe he applied to around seven schools in Florida. None even called for a phone interview. He applied to two in Alabama and got on-campus interviews at both. How bizarre is that?

So that's how after a nationwide search we came to find ourselves back in our home state, and not even just our home state, but T.J.'s hometown. A part of me will always wonder, what if? What if we'd moved to the West Coast, to Washington, to that beautiful little city on the Puget Sound, just minutes from the Canadian border? It's about as far from Alabama (physically and philosophically) as you can get and still be in the continental U.S. And I know I would have been happy there, would have felt like I belonged in a way that I've never felt in Alabama.

But another part of me is just happy to be back in civilization, minutes from shopping, dining, stadium-seating movie theaters (surprisingly difficult to find in central PA). And the OCD over-planner in me is just happy that at least some uncertainties are coming to an end. After all these months, it feels good that T.J. is now back at work, that I'm working on my dissertation again, that some normalcy is returning to our lives.

No kidding, we got this fortune two days after moving back to Alabama! 

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Deconstructing Death: Victoria Schwab's The Archived

Due to, perhaps, snow and icy roads and other nonsense things with which I'm currently living, UPS didn't deliver my pre-ordered copy of Victoria Schwab's The Archived until late yesterday, but it was certainly worth the wait! This has been a great month for new releases (Shades of Earth, Through the Ever Night, The Madman's Daughter, etc.), but so far Victoria's is my favorite. Here's the GoodReads description for those of you unfamiliar with the plot:

Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.

Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.

Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was, a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often-violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.

Being a Keeper isn't just dangerous-it's a constant reminder of those Mac has lost. Da's death was hard enough, but now her little brother is gone too. Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself might crumble and fall.

In this haunting, richly imagined novel, Victoria Schwab reveals the thin lines between past and present, love and pain, trust and deceit, unbearable loss and hard-won redemption.

***A digression: Normally I refer to authors by their last names in reviews, but I had the privilege of meeting Victoria a couple of years ago at the Auburn Writers Conference, where I enrolled in two of her workshops--the two best workshops I've ever attended at a conference, BTW. Victoria is just such a lovely person--kind, generous, professional, prepared (it's amazing how often that doesn't seem to be the case in writing workshops), and hard-working. The kind of person you want to cheer for and who you hope receives every accolade she deserves. So that's why she's Victoria here, and not "Schwab." End digression.***

The Archived is Victoria's second novel, and I'm not going to lie--I enjoyed her first, The Near Witch, but I didn't love it. Still, I could see her potential to become not just a good writer, but a great one. If I'm remembering correctly, in one of her workshops Victoria mentioned that she originally wanted to be a poet, and you could see that in The Near Witch, in her elegant prose and precise word choice. But in The Archived, Victoria elevates her poetic language to another level. I'm not exaggerating when I say it is one of the most beautifully written YA books I've read in quite some time. Every sentence is carefully crafted. Her verbs sings. Her metaphors are original and interesting. (At one point she describes a storm dragging "its stomach over the city," and I thought Yes. Wow. And, of course, Why didn't I think of that?) It's always delightful to find an author who values language as much as plot, dialogue, and character, but the good news is, Victoria also values all of those things!

Although it takes a little while for the plot to really get moving (Victoria has a lot of world-building to do first, since her settings and concept are so original), once it does, the mystery and danger of the Narrows is thrilling. Many of the images conjured are haunting (but not too frightening), and the world she has built lingers long after the book is over. (Although I just finished the entire book, I read the first hundred pages on NetGalley back in the fall, and I was surprised that I still remembered so many of her descriptions months and dozens of books later.) Some of the revelations along the way seem a little obvious, but most are surprising, which is difficult to accomplish these days, when astute readers have learned to expect the unexpected.

Victoria's characters are also well-constructed. MC Mackenzie and her family have recently suffered the loss of her little brother, Ben, and their grief and denial is handled with such empathy, compassion, and clarity. I'm not much of a crier when it comes to books (something to do with the fact that Florence + the Machine doesn't accompany them), but I teared up twice when reading The Archived. Here's the first one, when Mac is thinking back to the morning Ben died:

I walked with him, all the way to the corner of Lincoln and Smith like always, and he drew a stick-figure Ben on my hand like always and I drew a stick-figure Mac on his like always and he told me it didn't even look like a human being and I told him it wasn't and he told me I was weird and I told him he was late for school.

I can see the black scribble on the back of his hand through the white sheet.

Seriously? Oh my God. The tears. Ben isn't even alive when the book begins, yet he lives on every page. He is one of the most fully realized characters in the book. I can see him even more clearly than Mackenzie, perhaps because children just tend to be easier to see and understand than adults and teenagers, and also because Mackenzie is still a little bit of a mystery to me, despite spending 300+ pages in her head. I think that's intentional, though. Mackenzie is a bit more difficult to see clearly because I think she has a hard time seeing herself. (Deep, I know.) Sometimes she does things that seem strange or that are frustrating, but I think they are only strange and frustrating to us because Mac doesn't acknowledge why she does these things. (Although we can figure it out based on how other characters respond.) She doesn't think as much about reasons and consequences as we might because it's hard enough for her to keep her entire world from crumbling (sometimes literally) without adding in guilt and repercussions. Oh, and there's also a boy, Wesley Ayers, who reminds me of a nicer, goth version of Mara Dyer's Noah, so that always complicates things (in the best way possible).

In the end, The Archived is a paranormal thriller, it's a fantasy, it's a mystery. But more importantly, it's a beautifully written story about how people, young and old, deal with death and loss, and how those we lose never really leave us. I'll be waiting (impatiently) for the sequel.

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Reading Challenge 2013

One of my New Year's Resolutions (of which I have many) is to complete the GoodReads Reading Challenge this year, which I failed last year. The failure was no one's fault but my own because, well, I set the reading goal myself. Last year my goal was 52 fun books, or one per week, which should have been pretty manageable. But each time I got deep into a dissertation chapter I pretty much gave up fun reading altogether, which meant that after each chapter I was left with a stack like this one...

The stack of mostly new releases waiting for me when I finished writing Chapter 2. I only made it through four of these by year's end.

...and only about a week of free reading time before I had to begin the next dissertation chapter. Towards the end of the year, I found myself mid-way through three or four different books, none of which were finished before January 1, which means that none of them counted toward the 2012 Reading Challenge, but together they set me up well for 2013. I already finished one of them this morning, so I have high hopes that I WILL complete the Challenge this year.

In all, I finished 44 books for fun last year. My list was YA heavy, and some of the titles aren't really books (more like singles or companion pieces), and a few of the books were more for teaching purposes than for entertainment. The list also feels incomplete because there were so many books for which I downloaded the samples onto my Kindle but never read the whole books or that I started and didn't finished or that I bought and didn't find time to read. So my reading and writing life was informed by so many other titles, many of which I hope to complete in the future, but for now, here are the books that I finished in 2012:

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart (fourth time)

Atwood, Margaret. I’m Starved for You

Atwood, Margaret. In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination

Baggott, Julianna. Pure (Pure #1)

Bergman, Megan Mayhew. Birds of a Lesser Paradise

Clare, Cassandra. City of Bones (Mortal Instruments #1)

Clare, Cassandra. City of Ashes (Mortal Instruments #2)

Clare, Cassandra. City of Glass (Mortal Instruments #3)

Clare, Cassandra. City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments #4)

Clare, Cassandra. City of Lost Souls (Mortal Instruments #5)

Clare, Cassandra. Clockwork Angel (Infernal Devices #1)

Clare, Cassandra. Clockwork Prince (Infernal Devices #2)

Condie, Ally. Reached

Dermont, Amber. The Starboard Sea

Eugenides, Jeffrey. The Virgin Suicides

Fuller, Alexandra. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood

Green, John. The Fault in Our Stars

Harris, Charlaine. Dead Reckoning (Sookie Stackhouse #11)

Hawkins, Rachel. Spell Bound (Hex Hall #3)

Hodkin, Michelle. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer #1)

Hodkin, Michelle. The Evolution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer #2)

Hubbard, Kirsten. Wanderlove

Ilibagiza, Immaculee. Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust

Keire, Vicki. Worlds Burn Through (The Chronicles of Nowhere #1)

Kirby, Jessi. In Honor

Meyer, Marissa. Cinder (Lunar Chronicles #1)

Morton, Kate. The Secret Keeper

Munro, Alice. Too Much Happiness

Oliver, Lauren. Hana (Delirium #1.5)

Oliver, Lauren. Pandemonium (Delirium #2)

Revis, Beth. A Million Suns

Reger, Rob. Piece of Mind (Emily the Strange, #4)

Riggs, Ransom. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine #1)

Roth, Veronica. Divergent (Divergent #1)

Roth, Veronica. Free Four: Tobias Tells the Story (Divergent #1.5)

Roth, Veronica. Insurgent (Divergent #2)

Rowling, J.K. The Casual Vacancy

Russell, Karen. Swamplandia!

Schwab, Victoria. The Ash-born Boy (The Near Witch #0)

Spillman, Rob, ed. Gods and Soldiers: The Penguin Anthology of Contemporary African Writing

Taylor, Laini. Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Daughter of Smoke and Bone #1)

Taylor, Laini. Days of Blood and Starlight (Daughter of Smoke and Bone #2)

Taylor, Laini. Lips Touch: Three Times

Walker, Karen Thompson. The Age of Miracles

There are lots of series on this list (because I like to live in the same worlds and with the same characters as long as possible) and lots of books by the same authors (because once you hook me, I'm yours), but I was reading many of these authors for the first time. 

I will always remember 2012 as the year in which I read Laini Taylor's gorgeous prose for the first time and became a forever fan. Her Daughter of Smoke and Bone goes down as my Favorite YA Fantasy of the Year (even though it was published in 2011).

In a year in which my reading list was dominated by dystopian titles (as it often is), Julianna Baggott's Pure wins for Best World Building, Veronica Roth's Divergent books win for Most Addicting Dystopian Series, and Beth Revis's A Million Suns wins Best Dystopian Sequel. 

I'd give the award for Best Contemporary YA to Kirsten Hubbard's Wanderlove (although it just barely nudged out Jessi Kirby's In Honor). 

Because I devoured SEVEN Cassandra Clare books, I had to create a special category just for her, so the Cassandra Clare Award for Best Cassandra Clare Book goes to Clockwork Prince, which was by far the most heart-wrenching of her works.

2012 will also be remembered as the year in which Kate Morton reminded me of why I'm so in love with her prose, her structure, and her storytelling. The Secret Keeper was absolutely one of my favorite reads of the year, and it wins for Best Literary Fiction and Best Historical Novel (even though I didn't read a lot of historical fiction).

2012 is also the year in which I was first introduced to Karen Thompson Walker, whose The Age of Miracles gets my award for Best Debut of the Year (and also Best Coming-of-Age, Best Literary Sci-Fi, and Least Bleak Semi-Apocalyptic Book of the Year).

The coming year promises to be just as exciting, as many of my favorite series are wrapping up, a few by favorite authors are just beginning, and I'm sure there were will be plenty of surprises and discoveries along the way. 

If you have any 2013 releases you are really looking forward to (or a book of your own to promote), please leave the titles in the comments and I'll try to add them to my TBR pile!

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Saying Good-Bye/Good Riddance to 2012

Happy New Year! It's 2013, which means the 21st century is officially a teenager! Hard to believe, isn't it? Most days, I feel like the 90s just happened, and here we are well into the second decade after them. Thinking about it that way makes me feel really old, so let's move on, shall we?

2013! Can you tell I'm excited about the New Year? I'm always excited when a New Year is approaching because a New Year means a new beginning, and a new beginning means a clean slate, endless opportunities, a chance to put the problems of the past year behind me and start anew. But I'm particularly excited about this New Year because, well, 2012 sort of sucked and I'm really glad it's behind me. That's not to say some really wonderful things didn't happen in 2012, because they did, but it was also a year of uncertainty and heartache and illness and uncertainty and isolation and more uncertainty, uncertainty that will unfortunately continue into 2013. But because I cannot control any of the uncertainties in my life, I'm not going to let them consume me the way they have the past several months. I'm going to spend these next few weeks focusing on the things I CAN control, at least somewhat--my work, my eating habits, how I spend my time. And, as is the tradition, I'm going to start the year by saying good-bye to the last one by recalling all my favorite memories, so here they are:

1. Honeymooning in Hawai'i with my wonderful husband, including
• Taking a helicopter tour of the Na Pali Coast of Kauai
• Roadtripping all over the major islands, including south, east, and north Oahu; the northern coast of Maui; Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island; and all over Kauai
• Seeing the sunrise at Haleakala and biking 26 miles down the volcano afterward
• Sampling local cookies, chocolates, macadamia nuts, shaved ice, and ice cream on the different islands
• Watching the sunset on Ke'e Beach on the North Shore of Kauai
• Enjoying a Dole Whip at the Dole Plantation on Oahu 
2. Taking an epic two-week vacation last summer to Disney World and LA/Disneyland, including
• Visiting the National Portrait Gallery in DC on our first day and discovering a painting that became the subject for a story cycle I'm planning
• Spending an afternoon just sitting in the sand at Huntington Beach
• Exploring the rock formations at El Matador Beach in Malibu
• Learning about the concept of gesamtkunstwerk (the total work of art) at the "Gustav Klimt: Magic of Line" exhibit at the Getty, one of the most inspiring exhibits I've been to in recent memory
• Appreciating the beauty of the "work-vacation," writing, reading, and editing in the California sunshine on the lanai of our hotel room
• Returning to Narcoossee's and the Grand Floridian a little more than six months after getting married there
• Watching the 4th of July fireworks at the Magic Kingdom, which were spectacular and moving even after an hour rain delay
• Hanging out with my little brother and enjoying all the treats he left in our room at Animal Kingdom Lodge almost every night
• Going on a "snack tour" of the different parks, trying to get the most out of dining plan snack credits (highlights included the carrot cake cookie at the Writer's Stop and 4th of July cupcake at Pizza Planet in Hollywood Studios, cream-cheese pretzel and of course Dole Whip in Magic Kingdom, and white chocolate elephant cupcake in Animal Kingdom)
• Riding Toy Story Mania over and over again with my husband, at both Hollywood Studios and California Adventure. I lost all but one time, but I still had fun because he's the one person I can stand losing to.
• Partying at the delightfully whimsical, surreal Mad T Party in DCA
• Exploring the new Cars Land (even though Radiator Springs Racers was broken when we were there) and seeing it all lit up in neon lights at night, riding Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, shopping for Cars-themed gifts for the nephews, and eating at Flo's V8 Cafe
• Sketching Piglet at Hollywood Studios and the Cheshire Cat at DCA after discovering the animation classes, which might be one of my favorite things to do at Disney  
• And ending my visit standing in the mists of World of Color, one of my favorite moments of the year
3. Spending my first anniversary in New York with my husband
• Visiting the Guggenheim for the first time for the incredibly inspiring "Picasso: Black and White" exhibit
• Exploring in a more relaxed way, stopping to eat, linger in restaurants, and window-shop along the way
• Taking in all the holiday display windows on Fifth Avenue, Madison, and at Macy's
• Seeing Rockefeller Center all lit up at night and watching the ice skaters there and at Bryant Park
• Celebrating our "paper" anniversary with a Newsies matinee and dinner at the Algonquin Round Table, where Dorothy Parker and other legendary writers and critics used to gather
• Reading adaptations of 1001 Nights, African folk tales, and Hindu myths in the storybook section of FAO Schwartz
• Collecting postcards in the "Charles Dickens: Key to Character" and "Lunch Hour NYC" exhibits at the New York Public Library
• Discovering 92Y and their amazing literary programs, including attending a reading by Junot Diaz and Julie Otsuka, and getting to meet Julie Otsuka and have her sign her book afterward
• Remembering why I love the city so much and always have

Of course, there were many other great memories made in 2012 and great achievements as well (such as finishing the introduction and first two chapters of my dissertation), but these moments were the ones that will stay with me longest, the ones I will try hardest to hold on to. These are the ones I will wrap around me as I move into 2013, that will continue to inspire me and remind me of how grateful I should be for the opportunities I've had, and for all that are to come. 

Relaxing in the peaceful central courtyard of the National Portrait Gallery.

T.J. recreating some of the bridal portraits Jason Angelini shot of me in the Grand Floridian's Basin White shop.

Sharing a milkshake at 50s Prime Time Cafe at Hollywood Studios.

One of the many giraffes that decided to get up-close-and-personal with us during the best Kilamanjaro Safari I've ever been on at Animal Kingdom.

Hanging out with Tigger at the Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Breakfast at 1900 Park Fare, where we also met Pooh, Mary Poppins, Alice, and the Mad Hatter.

Making friends with the birds at El Matador Beach, Malibu.

Exploring the sunken gardens at the Getty.

Standing on the steps of the Dolby Theater (formerly Kodak Theater), where the Oscars are held.

As close to Radiator Springs Racers as we got that day.

My Cheshire Cat from the "Animation Academy" at DCA.

Step into the Mad T Party.

Alice is "Just a Girl" after all.

Dee and Dum, the coolest/scariest bouncers ever.

An entire arcade of Alice-themed games? Yes, please.

Rocking out with the White Rabbit DJ.

Neon lights of Radiator Springs, Cars Land, DCA.

Bellagio fountains on crack=World of Color

Good-bye, California!

And good-bye, 2012!

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Highs and Lows

I love that feeling I get when I send a finished piece of writing off into the ether, those few moments when I am officially, finally done and have a second to breathe before diving into the next project. Today I submitted my revised dissertation Introduction and Chapter 1 to my committee. Although my dissertation director has already read and provided feedback on both, this will be the first time my committee members are seeing anything, so I'm a little nervous. For now, though, I know I can relax, because I'm sure it will take them a little while to get through the 81 pages I sent them today. Tonight I can read guilt-free, and tomorrow I will be focusing on class prep and my first day of teaching African Literature and Culture. Wednesday I will be back to work on Chapter 2.

This past Saturday I taught my first four-hour comp class, and it went surprisingly well. I have a small class of adult students, which I love. I didn't even mind the early wake-up (too much) and 1.25 hour drive each way. The class is in State College, which is a lovely town that reminds me of Auburn. When T.J. and I went last weekend and were driving around, I kept saying, "Atherton reminds me of College Street," and "Valley Vista Drive is just like that stretch of University between Winn Dixies." These descriptions won't make any sense unless you've been to Auburn or State College, but if you have been to one of them, I bet you have a pretty clear idea of what the other one looks like now! It's the only town in PA where I've truly felt comfortable, and it's eerie how easily I can find my way around just based on how similar it is to Auburn. Basically, the campus, downtown strip, Wal-Mart, certain fast food restaurants--they are all in pretty much the same places. The drive to State College is along a beautiful stretch of interstate that runs through the mountains and above valleys, so I don't think I'm going to mind these State College Saturdays too much.

Although things are going fairly well with me right now, my poor husband has been having a really tough time at work the last nine days, which has been rough on both of us. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say this has probably been the worst week of his life, work wise and health wise, and it just seems like everything is hitting all at once. So although things are okay with me, I am extremely worried about him and really wishing we could just get away from this place soon (permanently, not on one of our trips). It looks like the house in Tennessee might have sold (only been on the market 2.5 years!), so that would be a step in the right direction. Fingers crossed for us, please!

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The End Is the Beginning Is the End

That title sounds an awful lot like my last one (which also references a song), but today's title comes from a Smashing Pumpkins song I've been listening to on repeat the last few days. 

It's a song I loved in high school and then somehow forgot about until it started playing on the Nine Inch Nails station on Pandora. Normally Pandora is locked on something pleasantly indie like Arcade Fire or Laura Veirs, so the fact that I've been listening to the NIN station all week (which plays mostly NIN, Marilyn Manson, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, and Tool) is a screaming indicator that I'm stressed and more than a little angsty. In moments of crisis, I regress to my fifteen-year-old self.

The music of my youth. How bizarre is it that Paul Ryan claims Rage as his favorite band? 

Whenever Marilyn comes on Pandora, I imagine myself in some sort of CSI lab montage, solving crimes and kicking ass nerd-style. I'm not sure why this is, but whenever it happens, I Get Sh*@ Done. 

That "crisis," of course, is the end of summer. Where did the month go?! It feels like we just got back from vacation, the second half of summer stretching ahead, and now I'm two days away from starting fall semester. That's right. I start teaching in two days. On a Saturday. This semester I'm only teaching two classes, African Literature and Culture here at SFU (traditional TR class) and English Comp at a satellite campus in State College. The comp class is for adult students in an accelerated business program, and it meets for seven weeks, Saturday mornings from 8-12. While I'm not excited about getting up at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday to drive over an hour to State College (especially during football season--State College is the home of Penn State), I am excited that the class will be over by mid-October.

I've spent my last week of summer listening to loud, angry rock music (the benefit of working from home) and planning for my two courses: writing syllabi, assignment sheets, grading rubrics; setting up my Blackboard sites; selecting and scanning readings; and previewing short films for my lit class. Essentially, I had to build two courses from scratch, and I underestimated how much time it would take. My African lit class is going to be a lot of fun, I think, and everyday will be jam-packed with interesting essays, short stories or novel excerpts, short films, and presentations by students, but it's going to be a lot of work, for the students and me both. I'm ready for the challenge, though, and I hope they will be as well. The comp class should have been a bit easier to plan because I've taught comp many times before (though not in recent years), but teaching in such a strange, abbreviated format forced me to rethink the entire structure of the composition class and how to teach writing. I just finished my syllabus and assignments about an hour ago, and I'm satisfied with them at the moment, but I can see myself changing up the syllabus in the coming weeks as I learn more about what it means to teach once a week for four straight hours.

Needless to say, I've failed at every one of my goals for August. I haven't even completed revisions on Chapter 1 for my committee (due next Monday) because I spent this whole week prepping for the semester and the two weeks before that binge reading. I hadn't finished a book in two months before that because I was so focused on my dissertation, plus I just couldn't get motivated to finish A Game of Thrones and I hate starting new books before I finish the one I'm reading. I know it's like sacrilege or something to say that about George R.R. Martin's series, but while I love the show, I just Can. Not. Finish the first book. Finally, a couple of weeks ago I said screw it, picked another book off my growing TBR pile, and didn't stop reading until eight books later. My husband can attest to this. All too often during those two weeks he would go to sleep, leave for work in the morning, and come home in the evening, and I would be in the exact same spot, happily immersed in another world. I read the entire Mortal Instruments series (five books), Immaculee Ilibagiza's Left to Tell (for work), Karen Thompson Walker's The Age of Miracles (loved!), and Karen Russell's Swamplandia! All that fiction was exactly what I needed to deprogram my analytical, dissertation-writing brain and allow me to start thinking creatively again. I didn't get as much writing done on the novel as I would have liked, but I got a lot of plotting done and thought through some serious road blocks in the narrative. The story and characters are much stronger now. The only problem is that September is just a week away, and then I will have to put away my fiction to work on my dissertation.

At times like this I have to remind myself, just one more year. One more year, Novel, and this whole dissertation thing will be behind us, and we can finally, truly be together.

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Every new beginning is some other beginning's end

It's that time again! You know, the time when I crawl out of the hole where I've been hiding these past couple of months and overwhelm you with information and pictures in an attempt to catch you up to speed. So let's begin, shall we?

It's been a BIG couple of months here. On June 29th, my full-time job at SFU ended and I officially joined the ranks of the unemployed. Well, at least until the new semester begins on August 25th and then I will be teaching a couple of classes. But still, full-time administrative work ended, and full-time dissertation writing began! (Or it did after a lovely two-week vacation.) Other than the whole no-paycheck thing, I vastly prefer my new situation. My husband comes home and gives me these sad, worried looks because he thinks I'm probably getting bored or depressed or lonely, shut up in the house all day by myself, so I have to keep reminding him, dude, I am living the dream. I think it's hard for non-writers to understand (and even some writers, who prefer to work in coffee shops), but I was built for this.

A friend posted this on Pinterest, and I thought, yup, I may not be the biggest Franzen groupie, but he gets it.

If I had my druthers, I would never work outside my house again. Sometimes I go days without even leaving the house (which sounds rather pathetic, I admit), but I honestly don't even notice. I'm sure I'd get out a bit more if I lived...well, anywhere else, but since I live in a tiny mountain top "town" (calling it a town is an insult to towns everywhere, but I don't have another word), and about the only excursions within a ten minute distance are to the post office or the university where I worked this past year, I'm pretty content just staying home, working in my kickass office. (One day, when it's clean, I'll post pictures.)

So that's where I've been the last three weeks, working in my office at home. The day after my job ended, T.J. and I headed to D.C. to begin our sixteen-day vacation, which included a day in D.C., nearly a week at Walt Disney World, and eight days in California. We had an amazing time, and after this blog my next few posts will be a series on our trip. (I promise they won't be as long as my Hawai'i posts, though.) When we got back, I began life as a full-time writer, and in 2.5 weeks I wrote forty-five pages on my dissertation. Forty-five pages! For those of you keeping track (i.e. no one), that's more than I wrote the entire previous year combined. So, yeah, the Single System that I've been preaching? WORKS. My critique partner Jamie and I text each other every morning to set an agenda (what we hope to accomplish that day), and then the next day we check in to see how we did and set a new agenda. Every couple of weeks, we exchange our writing and give feedback. On August 1, I had a sixty-page chapter to submit to my director, right on schedule, and we spent Friday emailing back and forth as she was reading it. I have some small revisions to make and some research she wants me to add, but nothing major. I can probably knock everything out in less than two days, and then I get to forward it on to my other committee members at the end of the month! So yeah, progress. The light is now clearly at the end of the tunnel, whereas before I was afraid I was going to be lost in the dark forever.

My next chapter isn't due until Nov. 1, so the pressure is off for a little while. Even though I'm still going to be researching and reading this next month (and revising Chapter 1), I'm not going to start writing Chapter 2 until September because I'm participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this month. For those of you who don't know, the folks behind NaNoWriMo run two similar programs in the summer months, during the months of June and August. As I've mentioned before, I usually attempt NaNoWriMo only to give up after a week or two. November is a hellish month for teachers, AND it only has thirty days (and a major holiday), so it just never works out for me. But the stars aligned this August and I said, if I'm ever going to finish a NaNoWriMo, now is the time! I've got 31 days to work with this time around (1613 words a day instead of 1667--trust me, it makes a difference), school doesn't start until the 25th, and we don't have any trips planned. I'm starting a bit behind because T.J.'s parents were here visiting since Thursday and we went away for the weekend, but I'm confident I can make up that time in the next few weeks.

Because no post of mine would be complete without a ton of travel pics, I'm going to conclude my post today with a few from this weekend, when we hit up the Harrisburg/Hershey/Lancaster area:

We had lunch at Hershey Pantry Saturday, which was muy delicioso.  Everything we tried was nom-worthy. (I had the turkey and cranberry sandwich with Swiss on cinnamon bread. Seriously, every sandwich I eat from now on must be on cinnamon bread.) The main decorations in the little cafe are ceramic coffee tumblers, which you can purchase. This one grabbed my attention because, even though it's about breast cancer, the message resonated all the more in light of recent chicken-related events. (And that's all I'm going to say on that topic.)

After lunch we had a surprise for T.J.'s dad--a visit to the Antique Automobile Club of America Museum, one of the biggest and best collections of antique cars in the country. I'm not a car person, by any means, and even I enjoyed the museum thoroughly. Very cool cars throughout, and I was snapping away at some I thought I might use in historical stories. 

One of the first Corvettes, parked at the drive-in, natch. I can just see James Dean in it now.

'75 Chevy Caprice, which had a starring role in one of my short stories from my undergrad thesis.

Our next stop was Hershey's Chocolate World, where sadly I took few pictures. It was  a nasty, rainy day, so Chocolate World was super crowded with people taking refuge. That may have been partially why we were disappointed in the place; there were just too many people and it was a bit disorganized. We did the "factory" ride, the tasting class (basically just the pre-wrapped Hershey's chocolates anyone can buy at the store), and the make-your-own candy bar station. Here is my white chocolate base being filled with yummy inclusions.

And now proceeding to the chocolate coating station.

Done!

Now on to the giant cooler.

At the end, you get to design your own label and the bars are nicely  packaged. I was pretty proud of mine, and the bar inside was surprisingly yummy! I included butterscotch and butter toffee in mine, so I was a bit worried how it would turn out, but I needn't have worried.

Chocolate World and the Make-Your-Own Candy Station weren't quite what we were expecting (everything was assembled on a factory line and behind glass, even though we had to wear hairnets, aprons, and gloves), but I still had fun. Once the rains cleared, we headed to our hotel in downtown Harrisburg for the night and ate at a wonderful little Irish pub, McGrath's, a couple of blocks away. If you're ever in the area, check out the Shepherd's Pie. Definitely the best I've ever eaten!

Obviously not a picture of Shepherd's Pie, but the trees outside our hotel which were FULL of black birds. They were screeching so loudly I was sure I was in a scene from The Birds and was about to be Tippi Hedroned.

The next day, it was back to Hershey to tour Hershey Gardens...

Inside the butterfly house.

The butterfly house wasn't the best I've visited, but it had lots of unusual butterflies I hadn't seen before (like the zebra swallowtail), and the coolest thing was this case of cocoons, where you could actually see butterflies being "born" (breaking out of their cocoons). These are two new butterflies.

Then we drove over to Lancaster to tour the Amish House and Farm and take the bus tour around the Amish countryside...

Back of Amish House, built in the early nineteenth-century (1805, I think)

Amish schoolhouse

One of the many covered bridges in the area. We saw this one on our bus tour, which we all agreed was the highlight of the weekend. We learned so much about the Amish community and culture, and since it was a Sunday, we saw dozens of young Amish couples out in their "courting" buggies, kids on their scooters, Amish teens playing volleyball, and families out visiting. No pictures of any of that though, of course, out of respect for their beliefs.

All in all, it was a great weekend! But it's good to be back and working again today. I'm excited about the progress I've made and about all the projects I have left to complete, so it's a good life right now. :-)

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