insider

after a beautifully sunny day yesterday which melted away all the snow, april 26th has dawned grey and with the promise of rain. i am going to fill my day with coffee, grades & a singing lesson, in the attempt to distract myself from the fact that i am now 29. sigh. on another note entirely, i dreamt about my grandparents' boat last night and it occurs to me now, as i think about it, that i miss my grandad. i'm sure he would have had something entertaining to say about my birthday.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 1:04 PM

saturday night: the snow is coming down outside as if it were christmas, and i'm listening to ed harcourt whose rather soulful voice reminds me of home. i have spent the whole day here... i lounged around in my pjs until late in the afternoon, and i'm sure the exam grading was the better for it. not sure what my students would think if they knew...
despite my generally whiny attitude towards this insane weather, i'm actually secretly enjoying it. after all, when it's scorching outside it's hard to find excuses to stay inside wearing thick socks and drinking hot chocolate all day. and i think i am the hibernating type.
other news: watched a bizarre japanese food film with jl tonight. entertaining but surreal. still, you always feel more cultured after anything with subtitles. speaking of which, my absolute favourite film of last year, les choristes, is coming to the michigan theater, and i am forcing kf to take me on tuesday (for reasons which i shall not go into here).

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 3:43 AM

it's cold again in ann arbor - spring has escaped us temporarily, and temperatures have dropped. perhaps it's this european style weather, perhaps not ... but i am feeling restless and exiled and in need of home. also in need of a piano. listening to: keren ann.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 5:53 AM

early morning and i am sitting at my desk waiting for the sun to come up. in the distance, over the tops of the buildings on campus, i can see flashes of lightning breaking into the sky. it is strange to wake up to thunder and the promise of darker skies, but i've been told that we need the rain and secretly i love storms. yesterday was the last day of classes and despite the unusual weather - or perhaps because of it - there is a sense of adventure in the air. the day is all mine...

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 11:51 AM

about the big decision: i am going to come back in the fall, for one more semester. after a week of feeling stressed about it all, it seems to make perfect sense to me and i'm even looking forward to it.

on another note - a very small note - i can't write today. i gave a copy of my - not very good - chapter one [draft, oh so draft] to k and after reading all the very thoughtful notes that now decorate it i cannot write. can't even think. i've spent 2 hours looking at OED online and hoping for inspiration. when you're looking into dictionaries for inspiration, things are not good. the problem is simply having confirmed the deep-seated but rarely spoken conviction that you are not clever, your writing is not complex, and your thinking processes are about as clear as those of a small cat.

listening to benjamin biolay, a master's class in population studies [at the table in front of me] and jazz in the background, courtesy of erc.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 3:00 PM

back in erc, for another early morning - only partially focused, obviously - writing session. listening to phoenix's great "love for granted" and loving the fact that the sun is shining outside. today i have to make a big decision about where to be next year. more on this later...

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 2:03 PM

stupid things i did yesterday:
sent an email all the way to india asking if they had any news about darcy (the bag of my dreams) which - as i so eloquently managed to put it - has not yet been hipped to me. yes - sometimes it is hard to believe i'm writing a thesis. i know...

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 2:49 PM

ERC on State - making the most of my new toy and the joys of wireless internet. The guy at the table in front of me has just taken his laptop to the bathroom with him. One hopes this is because the rest of us look like a particularly suspicious bunch, and not for any other reason.

It smells like Spring outside today - all is well in A2.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 2:08 PM

guy on the bus this morning (to the bus driver) "... well i have a girlfriend, so all my free time gets sucked up by her..." sigh.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 7:53 PM

proof that i am incapable of getting to bed at a sensible hour, even if i have been most graciously walked to my door well before midnight. i've been reading through old blogs and feeling melancholy for no reason at all. only it's strange to see so many years summed up in a few pages and to see the word lonely occur from one year to the next.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 5:11 AM

apparently jl is looking for my blog, though thankfully it turns out it's much harder than he thought to track it down. not that he'd be overwhelmed by any of this, i'm sure.

today has been a good day. this afternoon i went for a run round the arb and along the river with k, who is a much better runner than me. still, i kept up for nearly an hour before suffering my usual knee crisis. i feel old. no doubt i shall be unable to walk tomorrow, but this afternoon i felt pretty self-congratulatory. in addition to which, the sun was out, the sky was blue and there was a lovely spring breeze in the air, which made it the perfect day for a run.

this evening we saw melinda & melinda (vintage woody allen) which was funnier than i'd expected, and had dinner at madras masala. i've decided that i should always go out on sunday nights - it really numbs the sense of impending doom that usually hits you when you realize that monday is on its way. i love talking to this guy, though i wasn't sure what to say when he asked why i was hanging out with him. i genuinely enjoy his company, but i do wonder what kind of a friendship we will be able to have or sustain. inevitably i find myself coming back to the big question of when harry met sally - can men and women just be friends without it getting complicated? i think they can on a certain level, but as soon as you find yourself really connecting with someone, or preferring their company to that of other friends, you begin to wonder whether it could be something more. sometimes love becomes a distraction though. i often feel that the intense conversations wane when the friendship becomes a relationship. i wish i knew why that was. it would be so good to be able to sustain something of that passion and excitement at sharing ideas, once the structure of the friendship has changed.

something jen and i were talking about on the phone today: the desire to be with someone, not because you feel incomplete when single, but from a desire simply to love someone. if we are made to interact intimately with other people, and to love one another, then it would be natural to feel the need to do that - to give to someone. it's a strange feeling, but although i am comfortable and complete being single - happy in fact - i can't help but feel i'm made to care for someone deeply, to give, to love, to prize. it's a strange thing - the longing for that in the absence of a recipient.

still listening to: john legend.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 4:16 AM

my music collection has put on some weight this weekend, with the arrival of 3 new cds with which to while away the hours. my favourite by a long way has to be a mix of borderline maudlin tracks from one of my students (i love that possessive sometimes ... to what extent is he really mine, i wonder...). highlights include "homme" by Brazilian Girls, "happy" by The Wrens, the very cool "gone for good" by The Shins, and "suzanne" by Leonard Cohen. Plus a whole lot of other things which have been today's soundtrack to chapter 3. how do i email my student and tell him his taste in music rocks without sounding like i'm pursuing an undergraduate? hopefully the obviousness of the fact that he is way too hip for the likes me will keep him from any delusion about my intentions. which are entirely admirable, of course.

speaking of admirable, i wrote the first 2 pages of my chapter today. the sh***y first draft, as anne lamott would say. thank goodness for ways around perfectionism.

my other 2 cds? john legend, courtesy of jl which - i have to eat my words now - is actually growing on me. not that i love all his lyrics ... not really convinced by "you can't say i don't love you just because i cheat on you" [something along the lines of "hmm, actually i think i can..." springs to mind] but there are some very cool gospel influences - sound rather than content - which makes it very nice to listen to. cd no. 3 is david berkely, all the way from dr gc in boston. i found it sitting quietly outside my door just after a particularly stressful disagreement with my vintage vacuum cleaner, which was perfect timing.

have just remembered the clocks go forward tonight. i hope my chauffeur, the lovely ba remembers too ...

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 5:43 AM

just back from our girls night out at cafe felix down on main. good food, a nice glass of shiraz, and live jazz in the background. what more could a girl ask for? all in all it's been a good day, especially given how melancholy i was feeling this morning. coffee with miss mm helped, as did my brisk walk home through kerrytown, in the company of k. sometimes - despite the ease with which i surrender to feelings of complete panic over my inability to write chapter 4 - it feels so good to be reminded just how far life extends beyond the boundaries of work. talking with k this afternoon i realised how much more important everything else is. not that i don't love my work, but when i remember it's not the sum of my existence, it's easier to think about facing it again in the morning. and for that i am really grateful ... my revelation of the day.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 5:48 AM

decisions, decisions. this one is tough. more german bleakness, in the form of downfall, or american frivolity courtesy of woody allen? tough. still, sunday night is still distant enough. perhaps the weather will dictate ...

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 3:11 PM