The sun makes everything extra cold

Yesterday on the bus there were two little wee kiddos behind me eating ice cream cones, and the not-quite-as-little one was wisely explaining to the very-very-little one that ice cream is a good thing to eat right now, because during the winter the sun makes everything extra cold. The very-very-little one, evidently tired of his Mr. Know-It-All big brother, just said "I know that already."

Right now I am trying to decide whether or not to apply for a job as a composition teacher next year and my mind is going in circles! As such, I will do the ol' pro/con approach...

Prose
I would have my verrrry own class to teach! Composition class is for undergrad students who flunk the English Comprehension Test and need to improve their writing skills before they can go on... so it's basically ESL taught by grad students... I would get a list of thirty students and just run with it! Make my own syllabus, design my own assignments, make up fun holidays like Semicolon Tuesday and Comma Splice Friday. And if I find myself kicked out the door of Concordia at the end of this MA stint with nothing but God's accusing finger and disembodied movie-trailer voice saying, "Thou shalt go forth and get a job!" - well, I'll be qualified up the wazoo to teach ESL somewhere. And, of course, a nice side benefit to the whole thing is that I'll make some serious bling!

Connnn(stantines?)
I won't be a TA anymore! I'll be teaching grammar instead of literature - and that seems very blah-y to me, except that I can see the importance of it, especially after marking essays by students who got the green light on the comp test and are supposedly a-okay in the grammar/essay-writing department. (Disclaimer: in case any of my students read this, you are all awesome, and I blame shoddy high school instruction for any grammar mishaps) ... Oh yes, and the marking - I will have tons and tons and tons. Not to mention the amount of time it would take to just set up the course in the first place. My friend V is teaching it this semester... her class is every Thursday night... so basically, from Wednesday morning to 9pm Thursday, we all know better than to ask if she wants to "just hang out." So I would be signing up for a serious time commitment. After this year is over I'll still have two academic classes to take (and my thesis to write), but I'm thinking that maybe I can take one (or possibly even two!) academics over the summer, which would free up next year for workshops and writing. Which means it might be conceivable to teach a class like Comp. But then again, I'm hoping to keep on as an RA, hopefully with Manish... AND I always have this feeling that I'm constantly trying to get extraneous work out of the way, all the reading/writing/thinking for my academic classes and the TA and RA jobs, so that I can get down to what I'm really here for: the writing! It's like running underwater, or running through snow drifts, or just plain running with shoes that are ten sizes too big. Clumsy and slow! So I'd rather not have a "clumsy and slow" year next year. I want it to be a graceful and productive year! Teaching a Comp class could make me feel productive and empowered and experienced, but it could also make me feel overwhelmed and frustrated and exhausted. I guess, realistically, it would probably make me feel all of those things all at once in a big, alcoholic cocktail of contradictory feelings.

But I LOVE contradictory feelings! They have shaped me into the girl I am today.

SO, in conclusion... I don't know what to do! Of course, the decision isn't all mine. I'd have to apply and actually get hired! So maybe all of this grinding brain activity is for naught, since I think there's tough competition for those positions... plus, if I did teach that class, I'd have to curb my use of the ellipsis, and I just don't know if I'm ready for that kind of sacrifice...

Other things on my mind: finding a job for the summer, and finding a new apartment, and finding a way to read these millions of books that I want to read, and and and... but I think this is pretty much everybody's situation right now, more of less. I'm not complaining, just ... ruminating!

Which is why tonight Tycho and I are going to make a pizza, rent some movies, and chill the heck out. Last night was Elise's big birthday shindig, and the night before that was Thursday Fun at mad hatter's, and this Monday night is the CAMERA OBSCURA concert (whoooeee!!!), so - this is the weekend of deep breaths, lots of work, and - hopefully - long sleeps.

THAT'S ALL!

Tycho waits for dinner:

Nothing Deleuze!

"A great book is always the inverse of another book that could only be written in the soul, with silence and blood."
-Gilles Deleuze, Essays Critical and Clinical

Well, I'm officially buried up to my patootie in Deleuze-related books for my RA job, and I'm starting to figure out the subtle in's and out's of the little caché of Deleuzian scholars - there are about a dozen of them travelling in a pack, always appearing on each other's acknowledgements page with words like "wonderful" and "inspiring" and "truly great." It's like starting at a new high school and having to figure out who belongs to the the in-crowd. I wonder if these guys all hang out together? I wonder what their cocktail conversations are like?
"This is such a great event! Are you having fun?"
"I prefer to think of it as a demystifying encounter. And by 'you' do you mean my desubjectified self with a multiplicity of self-others hovering around me in a cloud? I can never be sure."
"Hey guys, is this wine transcendental or what!!"

In other news, my Derrida/Alistair MacLeod abstract got accepted for the McGill Grad Conference, so I'll be presenting my paper in March! No doubt they were curious about that odd combo of names. Truth is, I'm curious too! I hope I can figure out exactly what I was talking about before I am forced to answer questions on the subject... yeeps... I'm afraid Deleuze and Derrida are getting all sloshed together in my head, like one of those overtly disgusting slushies at the 7/11. The truth is I don't think those guys liked each other very much. In fact, I think Deleuze refuted everything Derrida said, point by point. Why do they seem so interchangeable in my brain? Proof, I guess, that I can talk the talk, but can't think the think. Yet!

On a completely unrelated (but just as important) note...

Right now, Tycho is doing this:


Which makes me think of this:

It is important to laugh (and look at a cat) at least once a day! Certain studies say so.

Brought to you by the letter P

Pig in a blanket:

Pug in a pig!

"I've been reading many books on tape"

I have a new post in my head, and soon it will be a new post IN MY BLOG! thank you loyal readers for sticking by - think of it this way: every day that goes by without a new post is worth three pages of brilliant fiction in my new novel! Which would you rather have, half-wit blog or full-wit manuscript? If you want a big, meaty Megan-novel then you might have to accept a wee bit of blogger absenteeism. If you are really upset by this, at least prepare yourself a decent meal before breaking down!

The project is slowly coming... I should add, incidentally, that my definition of "slowly" has evolved from "things which aren't as fast as window shopping on a sunny day with nothing to do" to "things which aren't as fast as continental drift." This is partly because of the sort of week I just had, which has buoyed me up to incalculable degrees, but has also floated me away (to keep with the marine metaphor) from work I might possibly have been doing. Not that I'm complaining! This week I saw a play (Macbeth at McGill! It was McCreepy!), saw a movie (Clive in "Children of Men," obviously), saw an art show and a new part of my neighbourhood as a consequence, saw my old CHRW friend Khoa who was in town for a day, and saw the bottom of several pitchers of ale after workshop... my eyes are all sawed out!

Tycho would like to step in at this point and post a brief photo essay he put together today, entitled "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cardboard."





Back to Megan!
Another thing I saw was the end of this week was Last House of Ulster by Charles Foran for my Irish Lit class, which I just finished today in great anticipation of Charles' visit to our seminar on Monday! This is an added bonus (about #429) of school in Montreal: people actually pass through town and want to talk! Famous people! Writerly people!
Anyway, the book itself was a pretty grim, though not dispassionate view of Belfast's 20th C. history. I'm worried about writing more because I've already had one experience of an author googling himself and finding my blog - maybe I'll have more thoughts about it after Monday's class! BUT one of the things that occurred to me as I was sifting through my mental pile of possible New Years' commitments was that it would be neat to actually keep track of all the books I read this year. I always start out trying to do that, but usually taper off sometime around March. By the time August comes around I can't even remember what I read two weeks prior. My friend Vicky gave me a neat little writer's notebook for Christmas, so I have started using that to this end. BUT I will also begin my commitment here, in a public space, as a sign of true dedication!
So far this year, besides the Foran novel, I have read...

Rotten Kids, an unpublished manuscript by my friend and fellow Concordian Marko Sijan (who is reading tomorrow night at Blizzart's on St. Laurent, so if you're in Montreal and it's not tomorrow night yet, you should come!)

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (which I've already spent much time talking about in here, I think)

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, which everyone should read. I got it for Christmas from the lovely double-I's of grey county and Linnea (who puts the L in DUNDALK), and it is just a beautiful novel, with so many of those moments where the book kind of drops into your lap while you stare out the bus window for a moment, just trying to come to terms with all the emotions you hadn't expected to be feeling so early in the day.

In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway, about which I will only say "it's for the class I'm teaching!" and leave it at that because who knows how many of my students have googled me and are reading this right now. Don't read my blog! Read the course texts!!!

The Scarlett Letter by Hawthorne (ditto) (okay, I've actually only started this one, but it will be done in the next few days!!!)

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata, for my cross-genre workshop. A deeply meditative, lyrical novel set in the Japanese countryside, which is apparently one of the snowiest places on earth! It's not long, I read it last Sunday all smooshed up with Tycho on the couch while it snowed like mad outside the window, a very surreal experience!

Novel of Breathtaking Beauty and Unprecedented Genius, by Megan Findlay. Destined to be a bestseller, need I say more?

And, of course, there is the on-going project of Les Miserables, which has been somewhat stalled because of the whole "reading for school arrggg arggg" thing, but I go back to it for a page or two in bed each night, and hopefully I will start getting bigger chunks of time for that sort of devouring as the semester goes on and I figure out a good rhythm!

Oy I just checked an have a new email from Jen, in which she laments the fact that she has promised to read NO MORE BOOKS unless they have titles like "Biology For Doctors" or "Phantastic Physics" until MCATS are over! Ack, Jen, I admire your discipline and have complete faith in your MCAT skills. In the meantime, though, I am mailing you the Javier Marias book because how else will you spend your time on the subway to & from work? A girl needs daily rewards to keep her mind sharp and thirsty!!!

A good way to start the morning...

... is with a picture like this!


Especially if you're Jen, because then you have two people gazing lovingly at you... or maybe about to tickle you... where is that hand going, Mark???

Just had one of "those" nights, where Tycho was spinning with boundless energy and I was thrashing about in the sheets with many miles of emotional head-roads to travel before sleep. Neither of us slept for long before the other woke him up. This is bad news not only because the head-roads are still there and I'm feeling the wobbling effects, but moreover (English word) because I have to read like a maniac today (since yesterday was lost to writing a "perfect paragraph," as I have not yet mastered the very very useful art of what Anne Lamott calls "shitty first drafts").... and reading is difficult if I'm the least bit distracted or tired. This is where it's helpful to know there are 25 students waiting to grill me on the details of a text and I'd better know it or else risk the total loss of an authority I cherish so much! It's a fragile line already, I cannot risk it.

must go begin.

How I feel while writing...

I'm alternating between feelings of extreme excitement to extreme concentration to extreme dizziness on a minute-by-minute cycle as I begin the oh-so-tentative early stages of writing my thesis. Anne Lamott is kind of a prop for me right now, because this book is really, really good and is making me feel just the slightest bit less crazy for wanting to spend all my time chasing after a novel, road-runner-and-coyote style. Also she says this about creative writing workshops, which I find despairingly accurate - although, as a side note, I've been pretty lucky with writing groups in my short career thus far, at Western and Humber and now Concordia, because there have always been a few people who prop them up. Still, I think she's got it mostly right:

At best, they will say that the story would work better if you rewrote it in the past tense, unless it is already in the past tense, in which case they will suggest the present, or that you should try writing in the first person or, if it is in the first person, in the third. At worst, they will suggest that you have no visible talent whatsoever and should not bother writing anything ever again, even your name.

She's also got it right when she talks about the fact that when you're writing, "You feel not only totally alone but also that everyone else is at a party." This is the REAL reason why writing groups are essential: not so much for actual criticism and editorial support, but more for basic, old-fashioned MENTAL HEALTH. Example: I am able to work well today and (hopefully) tomorrow because I'm going to a party tomorrow night which I happen to know will be frequented by many writers attempting the very same thing as me. We will drink our beer and ask each other how it's going, delicately and in an undercover-spy sort of way. And we will all feel relieved that, at least for the moment, no one will be expecting us to be at our desks churning out page after page of sparkling prose for next week's workshop.

Anyway, I happen to be feeling quite good about it all today, and Tycho is a giant help because he has spent all morning sleeping first on the radiator here beside me, which warms him up to t0asty degrees, then on my lap, which warms ME up to toasty degrees. As a muse, he is quite perfect. I think perhaps he will be chiefly recognized in my acknowledgements.
"And, most especially, thanks to Tycho - who kept me company, kept me warm, and kept me awake at three a.m., when my best ideas struck."

Is that a MOUNTAIN in your city?

Went up the mountain again! This time it was on a full belly of Chez Cora chocolate crepes (thanks Jordan!) and with a full troupe of MTL lovelies, and something about seeing the city from above was, as always, a deeply sublime experience, especially when laughing so hard that I very nearly toppled over the edge. Four of us (the princess posse) went up and came back down older, wiser, and slightly achy in the joints... but ready for the first day of school! Which was today!


SO I have this little bottle of "blemish cream" (sounds lovely, I know) which I didn't know I had until a desperate search through my things-that-won't-fit-in-the-bathroom-cabinet shoebox - a search motivated by the unexplained phenomena of blemishes (I prefer to call them "spots," sounds less disease-ridden and reminds me of cute little puppies which makes me smile and forget about said "spots") AND also motivated by my swiss-cheese brain which let me forget my "usual" stuff in Ontario. ANYWAY this morning I get out that little wee bottle and am grimly uncapping the vile stuff for its daily application when, without apparent cause, the whole bottle jumps from my hands, takes an unlikely course through the air (is there a wind current in my bathroom? I never noticed) and lands neatly in the toilet! Then it totally slips from sight, right into the bowels (ha) of the plumbing! What does that mean?! Was God like, "pffft, enough of this crap! Yoink!" ...because that's what it seemed like! Anyway I am happy to be rid of the stuff, it was the early cause of a vicious skin-battle cycle, I could tell. Better to be free of such concerns. Until, at least, I manage to recover what I left in Ontario...

Other news of the world:
1. Jordan & Erin are back safe & sound from their flying/hiking/gambling adventure in the USofA
2. Edmonton-Mark is once again Edmonton-Mark-in-Vancouver (world order restored)
3. Someone who may or may not be my sister may or may not be going to South Africa this summer... but you didn't hear that here

OH ALSO, I bought tickets to see Camera Obscura on Jan 29th, with the dogged hope that I will find someone suitable to come with me! Criteria: must be full of beans, must love the live shows, must know where the Sala Rossa is (because I sure don't!).
Now accepting resumes!

My So-Called Adventure, Take 2

"Your aunt's a very lucky woman, Angelica, because she has two lives; she has the life she's leading, and also the book she's writing. This makes her very fortunate indeed."
-Vanessa Bell talking about Vigrinia Woolf in The Hours

I'm back in the Montreal machine! I hope this thing works...