Open

Today I decided that my mid-semester slump is supplemented by tennis fan depression. This is the worst time of year to be a tennis fan. No grand slams. Everyone is injured. And Andre Agassi used meth?

Oscar has been taking a break from literary studies. He's currently helping Billy with a paper about the costs of incorporating security into a corporate network versus the costs of recovering from information breach due to a lack of adequate network security. Once Billy finishes this paper, all he will have left to do before his graduate education is complete is take a final exam.

Seeing Oscar at work on his PC reminds me that we have twice as many computers in this house as we have humans. Welcome to the 21st century.

Tonight we are off to our final softball game in what has become a never ending season. We have lost 3 games in a row, so hopefully we can end on a high note. Happy weekend, everybody!

(Open is Andre Agassi's forthcoming autobiography, in which he evidently admits to hating tennis, wearing fake hair, and taking crystal meth. Maybe not what a tennis fan wants to read in the off season, but I probably will anyway.)

Everything That Rises Must Converge

On Monday, I turned in my final "mid-term" paper. It wasn't my best work, but it was the best I could do before that due date. This meant that on Tuesday, I could return more seriously to trying to write the Cather paper that will be used as my PhD writing sample. This paper has been coming together in my head for about 7 months, and now all I have to do is some concluding research before I can sit down to write it. I am ready to be done with it already, but I am excited to see how it will turn out. I have put a lot of thinking into it, and even if it doesn't get me into the PhD program, I will be glad that I spent time trying to produce the best paper I'm capable of writing.

Also on Tuesday, I received a letter from Willa Cather. It wasn't written to me, obviously (it was the Mencken letter I wrote of earlier), but it felt like it might as well have been. She describes what she was trying to do with One of Ours, and this complements the arguments I'm trying to make. There is also an unusual excitement that people like me get from seeing these "authentic," personal thoughts written by novelists we greatly admire. Literary critics will argue back and forth about whether a text has an "aura" or not, but when I sit down with a photo copy of a letter Cather wrote in 1922, or read the notes that Katherine Anne Porter wrote in the books she read for pleasure, it is an exciting feeling. With the Porter books, it almost feels like the notes have been written to me, because some of them were written after she had agreed to donate her books to UMd. Sometimes it feels like she writes things that she was hoping someone who is interested in her MIGHT find somewhere down the road. With Cather, it is quite the opposite, because she was so protective about her personal thoughts. It's exciting to be reading them, but it also feels kind of wrong, because I know she would object to this invasion of her "privacy."

Every time, I find that eventually the different things I'm working on come together. Some of the ideas I've been researching fall away and the ones that are most important rise to the top. I'm really excited about writing this paper, which is helping to get me through the mountains of other work I have piling up as we speak. I took on a lot this semester, and with about 6 weeks left, I'm already ready for it to be over. But Mrs. Murray, my 10th Grade English teacher, once told me that "the only way out is through." I can't remember how this came up, or what book it might have related to, but I've carried it with me. There's no way to get around all this work I have to do-- all I can do is to accomplish, every day, as much as I can. Eventually, I'll be through to the other side.

(Everything that Rises Must Converge is Flannery O'Connor's final short story collection. In the title story, a young man struggles with relating to his mother. The title is also a reference to the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and it is furthermore the name of an artistic installation created by Sarah Sze.)

Go, Dog. Go!

Lately, my friends have all posted photos on their blogs of the exciting things they have going on in their lives. Josh and Clara both attended pumpkin patches. Josh says "hot" in reference to candles, and Clara's latest video makes it look like she will start sprinting as soon as she figures out how to walk without holding her mom's hands. Anne-Marie is painting the walls and getting her husband to hang light fixtures in the new townhome they just purchased.

I have been reading and writing. Billy has been working on his midterm. These aren't really Kodak moments.

However, I present to you: Oscar takes an interest in the paper I'm writing.


I took this photo with the camera that's just above the screen on my macbook. I wish he could share his feedback with me, because he seems to be giving the ideas some serious consideration. He's not even licking the screen, as he has been known to do.

In fact, Oscar is quite interested in literary studies. He sits on my lap when I read. If I'm trying to type with the laptop resting on a pillow on my lap, he insists upon crawling onto my lap, under the pillow and the laptop. If I sit on the couch in front of the window, where he likes to perch on the back of the seat cushion to absorb the sun, he rests his chin on my shoulder as if he is reading over it. He walks on books, lays on books, sniffs books, licks books.

In other Oscar news: Billy told me the other day that, in the middle of some commercial, a girl says "silly" with the same inflection I use when I yell his name to get his attention. (We live in a 3 story townhome, where apparently this happens more regularly than I realized.) The other day he was working on his midterm, and he thought he heard me yell his name, but then realized it was coming from the TV. He played it back for me on the DVR, and I agreed, it sort of sounds like me. However, Oscar provides the best confirmation. Each time he hears that line, he picks up his head or cocks it to the side and perks his ears. The commercial has come on a couple times, and each time, we re-play that line several times. Each time, he responds. One time he even did it when he seemed to be sleeping under a blanket. He is one smart dog. It must be all the reading he does.

(Go, Dog. Go! is a children's book by P.D. Eastman. I grew up on it, and I'm sure my children will, too.)

Menckenia: A Schimflexikon

Since we got back from Michigan, Billy and I haven't been up to much. He has been sick, and I have been reading. Our softball game was cancelled again (what does the weather have against our softball team?), we joined the gym, and my Nike+ sensor continues to be broken. I'm not hassling with a new one; the new Nano is built for working out. It has the Nike+ equipment all built into it, so I will no longer have to wear the sensor clipped to my shoe, and it has an FM tuner, so I will be able to tune in the sound for the TVs in the gym. It is really only a matter of time before I buy one, but until then, my mini will be complaining that I she hasn't had a workout. I am getting close to the 500 mile mark for the year, which is pretty unbelievable.

The only thing of interest that happened to me last week regards my PhD writing project. I'm looking at Willa Cather's novel, The Professor's House, as a sort of re-writing of her "war" novel, One of Ours. Instrumental to this project are two H.L. Mencken artifacts, so I can prove, essentially, that Mencken read the book incorrectly.

Prior to the publication of OoO, Cather wrote a letter to H.L. Mencken explaining what she was trying to do with the novel and asking him to review it. I have read several different summaries of this letter, but her will prevents all scholars from directly quoting her personal correspondence (this runs out in 2012- can't wait!). One of the summaries says that she wrote something to suggest that "it is not a sentimental novel." I must read this myself so that I can see what she actually said and because I might be able to re-paraphrase it to support my argument. Most of her letters are at the University of Nebraska, and they have never reproduced them, so you can't see them on microfilm or anything. However, through my research, I discovered that this letter is one that Mencken kept, so it is in the H.L. Mencken collection at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in... Baltimore!! I called the curator with hopes of visiting the H.L. Mencken room and seeing the letter for myself, but the Mencken room is never actually open, so he is going to send me a photocopy. I am half expecting to get a call back from him telling me that he realized he is not actually allowed to do this, but hopefully I will receive the photocopy before that phone call.

The other thing I need to see firsthand is the review Mencken wrote. I've read a few quotations from it, and it seems to me a particularly sexist review, because he says it fails because it's not as good as Dos Passos's Three Soldiers, and that it reads like a story for "Ladies Home Journal." The review was published in a 1922 issue of "The Smart Set," which much to my dismay, is not available online anywhere. The Philadelphia Public Library has the whole run of the magazine available on Microfilm, but I didn't see anything on their website about how to request a photocopy of a microfilm. I enlisted the help of the English research librarians, who discovered that there is an available copy of the precise issue I need on my VERY OWN CAMPUS! One of the previous presidents of the Mencken Society donated his random collection of Mencken materials to UMd and it includes the issue of The Smart Set that is supposed to contain the Cather review. I'm going to look at it this afternoon.

I have geeked out considerably about the discovery that I will actually be able to see these two documents myself. This reinforces my feeling that the PhD is the right path for me; a PhD in English is, quite simply, a research degree. As an undergraduate student, I tried to avoid research at all costs, but now, the thrill of the hunt is part of the fun. Now I just have to figure out how to inject the sense of this thrill into my personal statement!

(Menckeniana: A Schimpflexikon is a volume released by Mencken in 1928. In it, he presents a selection of articles and quotations, written by others, that criticized him in print. I believe his intention was to poke fun at these individuals, whereas my criticism of him will be, of course, wholly legitimate. : ))

Clara Caterpillar

Please forgive the indulgence. I cannot get over how adorable this baby is.

Evidently, there is a children's book called Clara Caterpillar. I'm sure Clara Hoffmann already owns it. In the book, Clara's mother butterfly tells her, "Grow up to be courageous and contented, Clara." If only we could all heed this advice.

The Sun Also Rises

I'm finding my way back to making progress.

I'm on the verge of having something brilliant to say about Willa Cather, if I can just find the time to put my thoughts together.

I went for a run today for the first time in over a week. I need it. I shouldn't wait that long.

The sun is shining, and it's warm outside. This might be the last day like this for quite some time, so I'm thankful that it came on my day away from the office.

My friend Erin got a good guidance counselor job at a good high school, even in October, even in "this economy." And she'll have fewer students, so she might actually get a chance to give them "guidance."

My dad's angiogram went well.

I have an approved paper topic for the paper I have due a week from Thursday.

My dog returned from the vet with "What a sweetheart!" written on his "report card."

I'm not sick with the Swine Flu or a cold or anything else that's going around.

And while running this morning, I was asking myself: Do I really want to keep doing this for four more years? And the answer is still yes. This graduate school thing is hard, and it's hectic, but it's never boring or routine. Some days, I even get to sleep in until 7:30.

(The Sun Also Rises is a novel by Ernest Hemingway about a man coping with life in a post-war world and the feeling that the thing he wants most is unattainable.)

Make Lemonade

The number of people at Pop's viewing was overwhelming. You realize how far and wide a single person's influence can spread when the ladies who checked him out at the Giant grocery store find out about his death and come to pay their respects. His funeral service, which was put together by his daughters, was a really nice tribute to his life and his memory.

Thursday morning, Billy, Patti, Chuck, Brian and I got in the car to head up to Michigan for Hernie and Crystal's wedding. Before the wedding, Billy and I got a chance to meet up with my college roommate, Jolene, and her almost 3 year old son, Mason. I had never met him before, and it was fun to catch up with Jo, but it was even better to see that she is happy and healthy in her life as a mom. Watching a little kid dancing around inside the Applebee's has a way of reminding you that life goes on.

Hernie and Crystal's wedding was nice. I was glad we were able to make it up there to celebrate the occasion with them. Billy and I were happy to see our college friend, Nick, and his new wife, Amber. We had a great time at their wedding in July, and it was fun to have a chance to spend some time with them at this wedding. Seeing old friends and picking up where you left off also has a way of reminding you that life goes on.

Returning home meant coming to terms with how far I had fallen behind in the past week. Usually, realizing that there is no possible way to complete everything I planned to accomplish leaves me in a frenzy. But today, I've decided that it's not worth it. I enjoyed the time I spent with Billy's family this past week. Today, instead of reading aesthetic theory, I worked on getting caught up by reading Willa Cather. Because it's true-- literature is where I go. But I don't wish I had spent more time this week preparing for tomorrow night's class. I need to remind myself more often that grad school is not my life, but is only a part of my life. This week, it was the least important part. This week, my Maryland family and I needed to help each other make lemonade together.

(The book referenced in the title is Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff, a young adult novel about the things a teenage girl learns about life while trying to earn enough money to go to college.)

One of Ours

Billy's grandfather, who we all call Pop, passed away on Saturday. He has been battling serious health problems for about two years now, and although the family members were all aware that this day was not far off, I don't think you can really prepare for losing a loved one.I feel terrible for Billy, who was really close to his grandfather. I've always loved hearing stories about the goofy things Pop did when Billy was growing up. It's awful to know that your husband is hurting, but there isn't anything you can do to help.

I can't imagine how hard this is for Patti, who has done everything she can for her dad her whole life, but especially these past two years. I know Pop was very appreciative of all the ways she and Chuck took care of him on a daily basis since he has needed medical attention. I hope that once her heartache is not so raw, Patti will be able to recognize that she helped keep her dad alive these past two years, which gave him the chance to see his great-grandson and enjoy several "extra" family gatherings.

My heart breaks for MomMom. She and Pop had been married 54 years. She has a large, supportive family, and I hope that in time she will find strength in them. But it must have been almost impossible to wake up this morning and know she had to face the first day without her partner.

As for me, I'll miss my friend. A few weeks after I moved out here, the family went to the Maryland State Fair. Everyone was walking quickly from place to place, and I felt bad leaving Pop behind, so I was walking in the back with him. From that point on, he was my buddy. At the large family gatherings that overwhelmed me for years, I always felt better if I could find a seat near Pop, because he would make jokes to me that nobody else could hear. He made me feel like part of the family right from the beginning. When I showed him the engagement ring Billy gave me, he said "I taught him right." One time we were talking about weddings, and Pop said he said he always knew Billy was going to marry me, and when I jokingly asked him if that was good news or bad news, he said he knew I was the right girl as soon as he met me. When he came to visit our house the first time, he asked me if he could move in. When Oscar was a puppy, and demonstrated his worst behavior whenever we had visitors, Pop always said "He's a good dog, Will." As it turns out, he was right. One time I was driving Pop to the store, and he decided that we should take a trip to Florida instead of driving back to the house. I said MomMom and Billy would probably miss us, and he said "They'd live." He always knew just what to say to get me to crack up laughing. Even when he was in the hospital he was always joking and laughing with the nurses and telling me if they'd given him pretty ones or not.

Life simply won't be the same without him around. Last night, Patti said something that I think sums it up best, when she said "Part of him is in each of you."

Although I wasn't in much of a competitive mood, I still decided to run the Army Ten Miler this morning. Billy was kind enough to come along and cheer me on. I crossed the finish line 11669th out of 21289 finishers, which was good enough to place 3801st out of 9566 women. I didn't set a personal record, and was about 3 minutes slower than my goal time, but I still enjoyed being out there with 30,000 people to support military families. I was thinking about my own favorite military family, the Hoffmanns (recently photographed here). It was cool to see people in shirts with pictures and names of the deployed friends and family members they were running for. A few groups of women were in matching outfits, with what must have been their husbands' names on the back. Several soldiers that had been wounded in action participated in the race, too. My husband managed to get a picture of me as I ran by him, smiling because I was halfway done and excited that I had found him in the crowd.


Whether it's the death of a loved one, or budget cuts, or unexpected hills at mile 9, I'm always thankful that I've found a man who makes the tough moments in life more managable. Popular music would have you believe that love is a battlefield, but with Billy, love means having a soft place to land. He's named after Pop, and I know that in many ways, he is his grandfather's grandson. I hope I get to keep my partner for 50+ years.

(The book referenced in the title is One of Ours by Willa Cather, a novel about life in the midwest, military service, and the loss of a family member.)

I can't go on, I'll go on

... writes Samuel Beckett in The Unnameable.

The main narrative of this week has been about budget cuts. A succession of emails from our Director of Graduate Studies warned that they were dramatically cutting the budget for the English Graduate Program. Speculation ran all the way from admitting no PhD candidates to the program for 2010 to admitting only current MA students to the PhD program.

In the year I was admitted, I believe there were between 300 and 400 applications for both programs. I began with about 30 other MA students and between 12-15 PhD students. This year, they admitted only 6 PhD students, and there are around 15 MA students starting out in the program. The final decision going forward is that they will admit 6 PhDs and 6 MAs for 2010 and 2011. This means that my chances of being admitted as a PhD student are even slimmer than I thought, and that if I am accepted, I will have a much smaller selection of course offerings to choose from as a PhD student.

To compound the problem, more than six of my MA classmates are applying for the PhD. Some of them I like and respect very much. It's hard enough to know that I'm competing with hundreds of people for only a few spots, but it is especially difficult to be in such fierce competition with people whose ideas have helped foster my own.

I know there are real problems in the world, and that whether I get the opportunity to become a PhD student is not one of them. But I have already put so much time and effort into preparing myself to apply that I first felt like throwing up my hands and throwing in the towel. To say that it will be nearly impossible to get in is not really an overstatement. My DGS offered this suggestion: "I urge you all to cast your nets widely in terms of looking for fellowship support and/or applying to PhD programs." But I don't have a net. I have a basket, and all my eggs are in it.

The only thing I ever quit because it was too hard was calculus. But this isn't calculus, and it would be a lot easier to live with not getting in than not even trying. So I have no choice but to do what I planned to do from the beginning: Assemble the best application I can, submit it, and hope for the best. If I'm going to put all my eggs in one basket, I have to make it the best basket I can. Must get back to get weaving.