Hengemyr

I'm working on three different knitting projects, and right now none of them are fun. The stole for my friend's birthday is taking forever (just started on the sixth and final ball of yarn), the Easter eggs are surprisingly slow, and the Islender is demoralizing because each time I finish a part of it and hold it up to KE to measure it, I discover I'm at least 5 cm. short of where it should be. Add to that the fact that the last two sweaters I knit are disasters and don't fit, and I'm on a really negative roll here. I kind of long to start a new project, but that would just add yet another unfinished project, and unfinished projects always make me nervous.

I have started trying to rework my Erlend Loe article, which has been accepted for publication pending major revisions. It was pretty disheartening to read the anonymous reviewer's comments, but I'm trying to keep my chin up, knowing that ultimately they will make it a better analysis. But sometimes reviewers can just be plain petty and mean. The reviews of my Norwave article were probably equally critical, but both of them made sure to give positive feedback too. It was simply a joy to revise based on their comments, while this Loe project had me hogtied with some pretty severe writer's block on Thursday when I started looking at it. I kind of gritted my teeth and put my head down on my desk a couple of times, and started ripping my work apart on a macro level. I'm just going to have to get a proof reader to deal with all the grammatical and spelling problems later, once I've got the major theoretical and analytical problems worked out (I wrote it in Norwegian, but was in too much of a hurry to get it proofread. Hubris!).

The good thing is, this rewrite is making me work a lot harder at understanding the philosophy of Gianni Vattimo, which I had referenced in passing in the earlier version of the article. Vattimo writes about the end of modernity, and comes out of a philosophical tradition stemming from Nietzsche and Heidegger. I have to say, the more I read the more I like. I have always avoided philosophy because so much of it seemed so fundamentally wrong to me. It is really refreshing to read about a philosopher who rejects so many of the same fundamentals of western philosophy that I do. I say read about rather than just read, because so far I find his writing inaccessible. I'm still working my way up to it through survey articles and introductions. Reading philosophy is like reading a foreign language. You have to get the basic vocabulary and grammar down before you can start to understand, plus you need the right (cultural or intellectual) context in order to be able to interpret what you're reading. I've got a long way to go, and a relatively short deadline for the revision, so it will be a bit dicey.

Meanwhile, it's Easter week, which is usually my favorite holiday, since my family always celebrated it in a relaxed and fun way with other non-religious families by having a huge brunch and egg hunt in a wonderful (and now non-existent) meadow. But here in Norway there's still a foot of snow everywhere, and even though it's melting there is barely any green to be seen, and certainly no flowers yet that I can find. I'm going to try to pull together a brunch for immediate family (who will think it's weird, but that's okay), but I so wish it was actually springy outside...