south of the loop

When you’re running late… you’re an hour away, no matter how you slice it.

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Other tidbits:

- to Dan, whose comment I only just saw thanks to an overzealous spam filter: do not be filled with jealousy over my 334 page style manual, as it includes many corollaries such as “generally follow the Chicago Manual of Style in these circumstances, except when you don’t think you should,” and “Webster’s spelling preferences should be followed in these circumstances, except when they shouldn’t be.”

- MY NEPHEW IS CRAWLING! He’s apparently been crawling, somewhat unenthusiastically, since Monday, but this was not immediately brought to Aunt Laura’s attention. Ahem. Video footage forthcoming.

- Cancer Man (not the X-Files character) has disappeared from his little spot of concrete on Randolph Street between Intelligentsia Coffee and Ann Taylor Loft. I saw him there every morning with a dirty bit of cardboard that said, “Cancer Starved Please Help.” He just sat there, slouching, knees up, head hanging down. He never said anything. I feel like a terrible human being for daring to worry about him, since all I’ve ever done is walk by him. Levinas says this is an ethical conflict I’m not dealing with, but I blame it on the combination of my protective parents (“NEVER talk to strangers and ESPECIALLY never get your wallet out in public”) and my Catholic upbringing (GUILT).

- phone conversation with Nephew’s mamma this afternoon:

me, somewhat surprised and proudly: I have more pictures in my office of Emmit than I do of my cats!

her: Well I should hope so. BECAUSE HE’S A PERSON. [lowering voice to refer to the cat pictures] People will think you’re crazy. Has the guy from Canasta been by your office yet?

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current book: finished The Logic of a Rose on the bus this morning and started Sweet Thursday on the way home tonight. It was recommended by Advisor after I told him I hated Steinbeck, but 22 pages into and I’m not convinced this will change my mind. Except for this lovely (and possibly redemptive) passage, in which a two men tell stories of their old grocer:

They volleyed Lee Chong back and forth, and their memories built virtues that would have surprised him, and cleverness and beauty too. While one told a fine tale of that mercantile Chinaman the other waited impatiently to top the story. Out of their memories there emerged a being scarcely human, a dragon of goodness and an angel of guile. In such a way are gods created.

current music: I haven’t been listening to a very wide variety of tunes lately. Feel free to send me mix CDs.

current socks: gray with blue and white polka dots. With my Keens, of course, so the polka dots peek through.

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I was at my computer this afternoon and turned around to find this:

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Not for the faint of stomach:

Okay, so I was maybe exaggerating about the six inches part, but it really is quite long. Probably about four inches. (She looks mad in this picture, but it's just the camera angle.) The scar is hardly slowing her down at all! She just brought her catnip-filled dog into my bedroom and is busy getting high.

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- I picked Clarabelle up from the vet today, and she's doing great. Her incision is a good six inches long, and she is now the seven-nippled wonder.

- Monte is thrilled to see his girl, although he's having a tough time understanding why she can't roughhouse. It doesn't matter that she's missing a nipple. She's still all woman to him. They napped all afternoon with their paws touching.

- The vet remains astounded at her pus-filled boob, which apparently gave no outward indication of being filled with pus. Even after removing it, it was very firm and lumpy. But when she cut it in half, "it was like a pancake!," she said.

- Alas… they send both halves to pathology, so I can't see the sticky yellow goo.

- I received my diploma in the mail today. Yay! I sort of expected that the paper would be thicker. Not that I'm complaining. I'm just sayin'.

- It appears that Clompy McClomperton, our monster-footed upstairs neighbor, is MOVING OUT! Yay!

- I get to eat grilled asparagus on Monday night. Couldn't be more excited. Perhaps it will keep the kitties from following me into the bathroom.

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me: I have good news!

friend: Yes?

me: The vet just called, and she said that Clarabelle's boob… was filled with pus!

friend: So not cancerous?

me: Probably not. The vet said that the tumor felt really firm, but that it came off very cleanly and wasn't attached to the muscle underneath. Which is good. But apparently they have to cut it in half before sending it to pathology. And when she cut it in half? It deflated. And all this yellow goo came out. The vet was clearly astounded and launched into this really detailed description of the goo.

friend: That's so good!

me: I wonder if they saved the other half. I totally want to see it.

friend, sighing: Of course you do.

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A quick update:

I took Clarabelle to the vet this morning for a chest x-ray. I saw a different vet today–the one I don't really like–and he said, "You know what? If the x-ray's clear, I'm just gonna take it out." Um, uh… okay? He thinks there's only a very small chance that it's malignant. Keep those fingers (and paws) crossed that he's right.

I sat by a bearded woman on the bus ride home. 

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In winter quarter, Advisor and one of my non-fiction peers–both native South Siders–were discussing Chicago writer Billy Lombardo, who had recently published a book of short stories called The Logic of a Rose. The are loosely based on Lombardo's own experiences growing up in Bridgeport, the South Side neighborhood that is home to the Daleys and the World Champion White Sox.

One of them described the stories as being "too saccharine," but admitted that Lombardo's observations of the blue-collar neighborhood were sensitive and sharp. In one story, Lombardo says that you can never tell when a storm is coming in Bridgeport. "No one could smell a storm before it clocked him in the eye." Both native South Siders agreed as though they had just realized Lombardo was right.

Despite the warnings of it being over-sweetened, I was intrigued, and I bought the book. I haven't had time to read it yet, and I only just recently skimmed the table of contents to see what awaited me. I immediately turned to page 61, where the story "The Hills of Laura" began. It's exactly what you're thinking:

"And there they were, Petey, Laura's breasts. In these very hands. They were perfect," he said. "They were…" And Matty closed his eyes. He needed to put Laura's breasts into words that I would believe. He closed his eyes, and he held out his hands, palms facing me, as if he couldn't find the words in his head to compare to breasts, but maybe he could find them with his hands.

"Little hills, they were, Petey. The hills of Laura," he said, and he opened his eyes, and he looked at me to see if I understood, but I guess he could tell that I didn't.

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I took both kitties to the vet today. They both needed shots, and Clarabelle had a swollen "hill" that needed to be looked at. The vet noticed it when she had her late-term abortion last month, but thought it might be hormonal and might go away post-abortion. It hasn't. And, in the vet's words today, "it doesn't feel good." We won't know for sure if it's cancerous until a chest x-ray and lumpectomy, but some quick internet research shows that mammary tumors in cats are almost aways malignant (like– 85-90%), and that the morbidity rate is fairly high. Right now, I'm simply not dealing with it. I lost my two childhood pets in October, and I'm unprepared to lose another pet, even though she's only been in my life since Easter.

Please keep your fingers crossed for the hills of Clarabelle, and for Monte, who has found the love of his life.

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For those of you who are just here for the cute cat pictures, here’s some candy for you:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn1Qna-Ni3o]

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I am in the midst of paper-writing hell. As though I haven’t already suffered enough? In some ways it’s a lesser circle of hell than my thesis was, because I don’t feel the same kind of pressure, but these are critical papers, and, as Advisor made clear, critical thinking is not exactly my forte (yes, there is a pity pool in hell, and I reserve the right to splash in it as needed, at least for a little bit longer). I am trying to answer this question for my first paper:

In his discussion of “The Central Region,” P. Adams Sitney argues that–despite the autonomy the film grants the image–Snow’s film is, ultimately, a metaphor for consciousness. Making use of Ricoeur’s account of the fundamental aporia between cosmic time and phenomenological time (the time of consciousness), discuss the plausibility of Sitney’s claim. In what way(s) is the specificity of film implicated here?

Michael Snow’s “The Central Region” is 190 minutes–that’s over THREE HOURS, folks–of a pre-programmed camera sweeping over the bare landscape of Quebec’s La Region Centrale. The camera motions are choreographed with excruciating, baroque motions: it begins with the camera pointed straight at the ground, wherein it begins a slow spiral (and I mean SLOW–it takes a full 33 minutes) into the horizon. This is only one of about sixteen different “dances,” all of which are equally painful to watch. The film is accompanied only by a series of beeps that sounds a bit like a phone ringing in the distance, and which made me quite anxious. After about the first hour I stopped anticipating a narrative–really, any narrative would have sufficed–and just surrendered to the pain.

Second paper topic:

Compare Heidegger’s notion about the entanglement between art, artist and artwork with Adorno’s later essay about the art and the arts, which answers Heidegger.

I actually really enjoy Heidegger’s essay “The Origin of the Work of Art,” which describes that entanglement, but I’m much less confident about Adorno. And my ego’s pretty bruised and doesn’t really want to tackle any more essays about art. As sad as I’ve been about the end of grad school, that light at the end of the tunnel is looking better and better.

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current book: see above
current music: I made a little mix that I kind of love. It starts with DJ Shadow’s “Building Steam With a Grain of Salt” and ends with Calexico’s cover of “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” and includes two gems by the recently-discovered (by me) Isabelle Antena. I normally never put the same artist twice on the same mix, but she’s worth it.
current socks: now that it’s officially flip-flop weather, I’m not sure what to fill this space with. any suggestions?

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current book: I should really take the opportunity to thank jaq for making me read Art Spiegelman’s Maus last year, because we just read it for my Time & Narrative class. And by “we,” I of course mean, “not me, because I was working my ass off on my thesis.” But I managed to muddle through the class because I had already read it. And… wait for it… wait for it… I actually made a comment during class. Out loud.
current music: the sound of my thesis-soaked thoughts
current socks: this post, such as it is, was really just a lame excuse to tell you about the socks I wore today. Black with bright yellow toes and heels and bright yellow DUMP TRUCKS all over them! Thanks, Julie, for thinking of me when you were at the Oil Sands Discovery Center in Alberta, Canada! These are almost better than the crabby socks for turning my mood around. They are that amazing.

Filed under: clarabelle, monte by admin2
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