After a little heckling...

Woof, it's been a while, hasn't it. I have to stop doing this to myself.

Here's some news: No PhD for Meg next year. I'm trotting off into the world to see what I'm made of in a non-academic context. Last night I was at a party celebrating the recent graduation of two fellow MAers who are facing their first autumn without school in twenty straight years, and we all felt a little queasy about the prospect of kicking off these comforting blankets and groping for something new. (Wait, how did that bed metaphor sneak in there? I must be tired...) I don't know what next year will be, or where it will be, or what I'll do when I get there. Perhaps I'll have more time for blogging! Oh my! Also I may have to pawn all of my furniture to keep Tycho and I fed, but I'll be "living" - so they say, air quotes and all - so I hope it'll be worth the anxiety I'm feeling about it now. Another thing is that I can't bring myself to apply for any doctoral scholarships right now. I can't deny that this factor has played a major part in this quasi-decision. I'm going to apply for travel visas now, instead of for SSHRC grants!

Here's some other news: the latest lecture I've been putting together for my RA job is about the potato famine in nineteenth-Century Ireland, and while poking around for resources on the net I came across this disturbing little site. I mean... seriously? Cartoony perspectives of the famine narrated by a smiling, bouncy rubber ball? "Hey kids! Guess how many people died during the potato famine? Almost a million! Now let's play!" Ahhh!!! I don't even know where to begin! Then again, after a day of putting this presentation together, I was feeling a little .. well... overwhelmed by tragedy, and this site made me laugh sardonically - which still counts as laughing, right? But still... a bouncy rubber ball?? Really?

I am now two hundred pages into Ulysses! Only eight hundred more to go!!! And the best part is that I think I am more or less understanding more or less some of it... though as I read I have two reference books open around me. One is for Tycho to sleep on (wisdom by osmosis), the other is for consultation about every other sentence or so. I wish Jian Ghomeshi of CBC was still doing his Ulysses reading challenge on the air, but I've missed that by about a year. Now he's on to doing popstar interviews, INCLUDING interviews with famous-people-I-used-to-know. Well, there's only been one of those so far, but it was a good one - you can still download the podcast if you want to hear it! Just go here! her live performances are amazing. I knew Basia during my time at Western, though never well - she was a regular at CHRW while Jen and I were DJing there, and a fellow English student, and a generally adorable and friendly person who I would see at parties, though I can't really claim any connection to her now ... especially since she's become a sought-after musician! Go, Basia! I do remember once sitting on the ratty old couch in the CHRW office and talking to her about her plans to take the summer off and just focus on songwriting. That was maybe three years ago... and look what happened! Explosion! I hope she is the type to google herself so that she finds this (although by now she probably has staff to do that for her. Say hi to Basia for me, Staff!)

Speaking of great people, and also of Jen, guess who I talked to today from Africa! it was great to have some real-time Jen, all the way from the other side of the world. She's still busy saving people's vision and chasing the odd freakishly-large spider from her bed, but soon we'll have her back!

And finally, before I crash, an update on everyone's favourite little orange dude: Tycho has been patiently putting up with a serious diet plan these days. Same food, but a lot less of it. As long as I feed him at the same time every day - and it's impossible not to, because he starts campaigning well before the designated time - he doesn't seem to mind how MUCH I feed him. I've noticed that his middle section doesn't sway quite so much when he walks, so maybe it's having an effect. Look out for some tabloid-worthy Before and Afters soon. I've also been getting more and more courageous about letting him outside. When I first moved here, he was only allowed out on his leash. Then no leash, but me standing right next to him. Now? I open the kitchen door and let him scamper out while I do the dishes or something! Sometimes he pokes his head in and gives a little chirp, like, Are you coming? And whenever I go out, he runs up to me like he has some very important secret to tell me and he'll burst if he doesn't get to tell it in the next five seconds. The neighbours are amused. I noticed that they've asked what his name is - twice - without every having asked for mine. And I think it's wonderful!

Need some bloggin fiber, to keep me regular

Life has been exciting for the T lately, if not always comfortable. By now I've told this story to nearly all who will listen, in some cases twice... but the short version is that my little orange man got some sort of swelling in his mouth which might have been a bug bite, might have been an infected cut, and might have been my hypochondriactive imagination - but the vet ruled out that last option, based on what little she could see of Tycho's mouth while he was thrashing and spitting and howling upon the exam table. He's going back on Tuesday to be tranquilized and examined more closely, and in the meantime I've been poking little white pills down his throat twice a day, which seem to be doing the trick. The swelling is gone and he's eating again... but I'm still going to take him in for the "tranks" on Tuesday, since the vet recommended he get a teeth cleaning while he's under, and experience has shown that I'm a sucker when it comes to vets telling me to spend money on stuff. I hate the thought of trundling him off again to that place that he seems to hate so vehemently (strange, considering he was entirely indifferent to the vet's office in London). The whole excursion is made almost worse by the fact that Tycho actually likes snoozing in his carry box, so that I feel intensely deceitful when I sneak up on him while he's in there snoring away and shut the little cage door and carry him away to what {for him} must feel like indefinite doom and despair. Luckily for both of us, this Tuesday he will be knocked right out for most of the day and I will be absorbed in a rigorous itinerary of back-to-schoolness, so hopefully the day will pass quickly for both of us and we will soon be back in the apartment, making our peace with each other and rolling the change that still remains in the Tycho Fix-Me Fund jar. Send prayers!

This morning Tycho and I were lolling about the back alley, a regular custom as long as the days stay nice, when all of a sudden he went into stalker pose - tail puffed, stomach to the ground, low growl in the throat - because Lo, another cat that approacheth! I feared a hissy fit and bundled up my little guy, which was not easy (I think he felt insulted in that "don't embarrass me in front of the cool kids, mom!" kind of way), and managed to get him inside. The other cat came up onto the stoop and I watched her from the window (I dunno, looked like a "her" to me)... she was all skin and bones, kind of matted and sad-looking, and she sat down next to my planter and sort of looked around with the cat version of bewilderment. At that moment the radio was playing this mournful Wailin Jennies song, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I got a little weepy, standing there looking out at that presumably homeless, hungry cat while my own pampered little cream puff snuffled around his food dish inside. The scene inspired deep thoughts about the state of the world and such. I wonder how Tycho would feel about a new sibling... to be honest, I think I would adopt another cat in a heartbeat, except that I know I can't afford a second set of vet bills, especially vet bills for an off-the-street cat.

BUT reliable sources (thanks Jenn!) have recently confirmed that there is a pug puppy for sale at the Atwater pet store... I am trying to resist but every cell in my body is reaching out...


So, school. Year two of being a grad student. Last night at a bar I had the weird experience of running into a student I taught last semester, only now he's about to start his MA in my program, so we may very well become actual classmates this year. Grad school certainly does blur some student/teacher lines in interesting ways, and that's just one example... I remember being told that once you bump from undergrad to graduate school, relationships with profs tend to become less authoritative and more collegial, and sometimes downright friendly. I was pretty good friends with a handful of profs at Western (Blackmore being the ultimate shining example), but I do notice a difference now, mostly in the way I am suddenly trusted with important tasks... so far this summer I've helped one former prof to find an apartment in Montreal, and another to find a babysitter, as just two examples. And in turn they've helped me kick up decent funds for my trip to Belgium. We're all winners in grad school!

NON-SEQUITOR


To be filed under "random trivia," here's the chicken coop at my uncle's farm, from which I may or may not have pushed my cousin when we eight years old and playing "Darkwing Duck" (ie. shouting "Let's Get Dangerous" and jumping from the roof). Family folklore says I pushed her, but I maintain that I was on the ground when she jumped and somehow landed head-first on the ground. Looking back, her dive was probably quite acrobatic, had either of us been in a position to admire such things. Instead, though, we both stared with part fascination and part horror at her snapped arm, and then she went screaming off to hide in the drive shed and I went screaming off to get an adult. After that I was crazy with envy, because she got to wear a cast. In fact part of me still feels a little short-changed that I managed to slip through childhood without every getting to wear a cast and enjoying the subsequent attention and sympathy, not to mention the notoriety of having survived some sort of adventure. Instead I am just the cousin who may or may not have pushed the other cousin off the roof. Perhaps no one will ever know for sure what happened... no one except God, and some chickens!