Sunday, August 19, 2007

Random bullets of weekend

I feel much better than I did at midweek...much better. In fact, I feel somewhat embarrassed for so publicly - if anonymously - having a meltdown. After all, when I can get a grip, I see that in fact, things are going very well. I don't have much to complain about! So, sorry about that. My capacities for a) hysterical worry, and b) expecting far too much of myself, are my big downfalls.

So, the weekend?

- As I do religiously every Saturday, I attended the farmer's market yesterday. And now am completely overwhelmed by fruit and vegetables. I get a bit delirious over fresh things (hence the line up there at the top of my blog) but good god, I really do seem to have lost my mind! I don't know how I'm going to get through the stores I've accumulated...what was I thinking? That I have an eight-person family to feed, obviously.

- Also at the market, I am a huge fan of this Chinese vegetarian food vendor...They make these little sweet and sour crispy/chewy soy things that are like little morsels of chicken skin that have been fried for a week and doused in delicious sauce. Though I've been a vegetarian for 17 years, I still loves me the meaty textures. These things are my new favourite treat. Every time I open the fridge, I Must Eat Some.

- In yesterday's Globe and Mail, there was this article by Jian Ghomeshi on Prince that was positively hagiographic. It was ridiculous - and not because I have anything against Prince. On the contrary, I like him very much. Aaaanyway, Ghomeshi talked about Prince's stellar performance at the Super Bowl halftime show in February. Which was apparently some famously amazing phenomenon. (How did I miss hearing about it? I didn't think I was that disconnected from the world!) So I went and looked up videos of it online, and that was one fine performance, it's true. I was surprisingly heartened by it, actually. As an example of somebody's sheer energy and creativity and brilliance cutting through a dead corporate spectacle. (I know, I know, this is very old news...what can I say? This is my weekend, here in CwP.)

- Last night I went to a party. I really dragged my feet getting there - I am not particularly comfortable at big parties, especially where I know almost nobody. But I'd been invited and said I'd go, so I thought I ought not be rude. The first while was excruciating, but it ended up okay. A woman came and talked to me - she's a bit of a well known academic, actually, and had been one of the few non-committee members at my job talk, and had asked me a question that totally threw me, in part because of who she was. So I've always been worried that I looked like a complete airhead around her. But she was wonderfully welcoming, introduced me to her partner, said that R and I should come over for dinner when R's in town so she can see that there are other queers here!, and overall felt like a good new person (and neighbour - lives about three minutes' walk from me) to have around me. Also, she asked me what I was working on and when I gave her a one-sentence description, she told me that she's the editor of a relevant series at a university press and that if I wanted to submit a book proposal to her, she'd love to see it. OMG!

- Today, work. But that's feeling less daunting now - audacious article is coming together (I think) and I finally have some successful SSHRC apps to look at, so that helps a lot.

2 comments:

heu mihi said...

I am living vicariously through your grocery shopping, here in the Grocery Desert that is Field Town. (Plastic-wrapped broccoli! Ugh!) Enjoy your fresh foods!

(Oddly enough, I too have been a vegetarian for 17 years. Seventeen years this November, anyway.)

Great news about the new colleague! She sounds like a nice person and an excellent connection.

Hilaire said...

Oh! For some reason I would have thought that you'd be enjoying nature's bounty. You know, fields...I guess they're the wrong kinds of fields, though...My deep condolences on the plastic-wrapped produce.

That's funny on the 17-year-veggie thing! I don't know about you, but I feel as if my conviction around this has strengthened in the last couple of years...