The Lesser Works, Series I

Or, making a crappy, blurry photograph of a pigeon look artsy and deep with digital chicanery. Or, the death of photographic craftsmanship.

Now they make you stop going

Woot! I’m a Ph.D., it’s official. Had a great time in Chicago with friends and family and we really lucked-out on the weather with rain and wind the day before and the day after the ceremony, but beautiful blue sky and sun on the day of. I wasn’t expecting to be so affected by the ceremony, but I have to admit I was pretty darn proud to be there. Thanks everybody who was there and helped coordinate family and events during a very busy weekend.

 

Lobelia in the Garden

Watcha’ doin’ raccoon?

We found our local raccoon assiduously removing the rocks and shells from one of our neighbors’ planter pots late last night. This was the scene this morning.

Oh Figs!

 

We discovered this afternoon that our scraggly little fig tree has apparently decided to bear this year. Little more than a weed when we moved in almost two years ago, with some judicious (although largely clueless) pruning, our little tree has become quite the young man now. He’s providing excellent shade in our little back patch and perhaps even some tasty figs by summer’s end. These may not be edible this year, but it’s going to be fun to watch them grow. I’m already making all sorts of fig recipe plans, but as Anne rightfully wonders, “what has figs in it?”

It’s Been Real?

Update 5/10/09: I realized that this original post was the result of an imbalanced life — mostly due to dissertation-finishing stress. I’m back to blogging here again, and I’ve transformed it a bit into more of a “hey, this is our life and this is what we’re doing” blog for our friends and family to keep up with us. It’ll be updated as the need arises, so y’all should check in periodically.

Actually, no, it hasn’t, and that’s part of why this is my last post. I’ve posted here about my, er, “fondness” for the internet. Or rather, the narcissistic search for fulfillment through various vicarious internet outlets. Blogs, photo sharing, etc., it’s all a way to seek self-importance, a way to affirm existence. And the more I think about it, the more false it seems. I spend way more time making posts, checking comments, making comments, etc. than I do actually doing things worth posting about or commenting about.

So here’s the thing, Internet, I think we should see other people. We can absolutely still be friends, but I just don’t think this whole “exclusive” thing is working out. I don’t like how dependent on you I’ve become. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I just think we spend too much time together. It’s not that I find you unpleasant — quite the contrary — I just feel like I’m missing out on a lot of other great things.

So this blog is going away, along with a few other “droppings” I’ve left around the Internet. I’m tired of the incessant demands on my time — real or imagined — and I’ve decided to live less of my life (much, much less) behind a keyboard and a computer screen. The other day, I added it all up, and I literally spent an hour and a half of otherwise-productive time just messing around online. I’m sure this is much less than a lot of people, but to me it’s unacceptable to lose time like that for no good reason.

If you read this blog for updates about what’s going on with me (I think there are a couple of you), just drop me an email every once in a while, and I promise I’ll do the same. I’ll leave this blog up for a little while, just so everyone gets the message, then down it comes, and this little patch of Interwebs reverts to its wild, uncultivated state. Thanks for reading, folks, and if I may, please use the time you would have spent reading my posts to do something enriching, productive, and worthwhile.

Stack o’ Papers

Well, here it is. This is my dissertation. 440 pages. Second photo is the stack of three that were mailed off today to my committee.

Phoo. Also found out today that I had an article accepted to a journal I submitted to back in November. It’s quite a good journal, a nice step up from what I’ve already been published in, and a good stepping stone to the next tier. Annnd, probably the most exciting news is that we bought a new bed today. A real growd-up bed with a frame and box spring and everything. It was quite necessary, since our former bed was literally hurting us. Badly. Very badly. I can’t even tell you how excited I am to go to bed tonight. And then to get up and NOT work on my dissertation! It’s like a whole new lease on life. You think I’m kidding, but…

March

Early Spring

I debated whether or not those of you still in the icy throes of winter would appreciate this, or whether it would upset you too much. This is our first nasturtium of the season–a volunteer growth left over from last year’s(?) crop, which suddenly started taking over our planter (and our plant trash bin) a few weeks ago. I also tried to snap a photo of the leaf buds opening on our little fig tree, but they didn’t turn out. I’ll try again another time. Take heart, those of you still in winter, spring is coming to you, too (just in another month or so).

Hillary Clinton Said What?

According to CNN, regarding Clinton’s meeting in China:

“Human rights cannot interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises,” Clinton said.

I’m not going to get all political here, but what? I’m waiting for Clinton to reach behind her ear, pull off the elaborate latex mask she’s wearing and reveal herself as Donald Rumsfeld. It’s all human rights, people!