Beslektet

I don't think I've yet mentioned that I'm taking another English course this term. I was super lucky to squeeze into a course on Multicultural American Literature. I totally love it, but what I really want to write about is just one book, Octavia E. Butler's Kindred from 1979. Although it's written for young adults (apparently) is is utterly gripping for adults too. It is the story of a contemporary African American woman who gets transported back and forth in time and space between the present (1976) in California and the past   (1819 and onward) on a slave plantation in Maryland where her ancestors lived.

If you haven't read it, you really should, especially (I have to add) if you're an American. I've never seen anything that does a better job of expressing the complexities and horror of our collective history regarding race and slavery. Wow. Just wow.

Family is on my mind right now for another reason: we're starting to plan a trip back to the US to visit family there. It will either be in April or June. Still working out the details. Can't wait!

The Placed Cable Aran pullover is finished blocking, and I wore it to work yesterday (and am wearing it again right now...).

 (Sorry for the distorted snapshot - I was leaning forward when the picture took itself...) I love it! I added at least six inches  to the length of the body. I also used the mattress stitch for the side seams and arm seams, which worked fabulously. I'm a convert to that technique. The end result is so tidy!

Now I'm at loose ends knitting-wise, finishing up a pair of socks for E while I wait for inspiration to hit. I have three four WIPs I could be working on, none of which is very appealing. What I really want to do is go out and buy new yarn, but I can't really do that.

Hektisk

This week felt so incredibly... "full," for lack of a better word. I felt like I was in high gear the whole time at work. It was a little unsettling and I'm not sure how long I can maintain this level of intensity.  I did feel that I did a good job where it mattered (feedback on contributor submissions for an article collection, lecture and discussion class, advising sessions, helping out colleagues), though I am having trouble getting the finishing touches on the Peer Gynt book completely finished. I really need to get that finished up on Monday. There's just too many other projects I need to turn my attention to.

This morning I spent a little bit of time working out my To-Do list for the spring semester. I realized that I was kind of floundering in relation to my research agenda. I typically have three documents tacked up on my bulletin board above my desk: 1) a list of my specific research/writing goals for the current term, 2) an outline of the book I'm working on long term (with page/word count goals and tallies), and 3) a cumulative list of all projects. On that list I  track the submission venue, when it's been submitted, when it's been revised, and when it's been published (right now there's an article on there that was originally drafted in 2003 that is still "forthcoming"!).

I find it super helpful to have these lists in view. It keeps me focused and realistic, and helps me plan my weeks. With luck, now that I have a new semester To-Do list and a new book-in-project outline I'll feel less frenetic. It was at least heartening that the book chapters I'll be writing contain lots of material that I've been working on in other contexts. It will be interesting to try to integrate all that disparate material into cohesive chapters.

With all this work frenzy, it feels like I've barely been at home, even though I have. I'm looking forward to a very slow weekend!

Operasjon støvletter

Let's talk about shoes, shall we? I have had a life long love/hate relationship with shoes. My Grannie trained me early to be very aware of stylish shoes (and purses, and wallets...). Some time in college I realized that I was fighting a losing battle with style, and opted out of the whole shoe fetish culture in favor of comfortable, practical shoes. At a certain point, fashionable and so-called "sexy" shoes just stopped looking appealing to me, and instead I was just perplexed over why people continued to wear them.

But that doesn't mean that I went over to the dark side of Footform shoes and Birkenstocks. I actually can't wear Birkenstocks because their insole doesn't even come close to matching the contours of my feet, which always shocks people. Here in Norway shoes, particularly in winter, are even more important. I can no longer just wear various Dansko styles throughout the year like I did back in the Pacific Northwest.

I have made do with some profoundly ugly Merrell winter boots for the past two years. One of my first days at work a Danish colleague took a look at them lying on the floor in my office (I change to indoor shoes at work during the winter) and exclaimed "Sikke børnesko!" (basically "look at these kiddie shoes!" in the mocking tone that Danes use for everything). I was mortified, and ever since I've carried out a low level but intense search for "grown up" winter boots that I can wear on the streets of hipster Oslo without too much embarrassment.

My search has been hampered not only by my problematically atypical feet, but also, it turns out, by my robust calves. It turns out that my calves are about 5cm larger in diameter than the standard for women's boots. I am not a particularly large person, but I am admittedly curvy. But still, if you look at my legs, I'm pretty sure I don't look like Popeye.

This week, I think I finally found the perfect winter boots at the best shoe store in Oslo, Lille vinkel sko.

They're called Albertville, and are made in elegant Italy but designed in Sweden for "Nordic conditions" as they say. They have a natural rubber sole, which is supposed to be good on ice and snow. They are real leather, and what's more lined with real leather, so they stretch and give and breath. And to facilitate the process of squeezing them over my meaty calves, I was given a magic leather relaxer spray, which seems to be helping.

I'm thrilled! Now I can finally wear skirts again, plus I can stop feeling so damned dumpy all winter long...

I farta

My department had its annual Christmas party this weekend. I love it that we wait until after Christmas. It was so much fun this year. I met my friend L a couple of hours beforehand to start things off on a good note at the Blue Note Café, and then we showed up at Oslo Military Academy for a very formal dinner and hilariously fun dancing afterward. It started at six and I didn't leave until after midnight. The food was only so-so, but the dancing was the most fun I've had in a long time. First one of the guys in administration led a salsa lesson (which was, as they say in Norway, "ufrivillig morsomt" -- unintentionally funny), and then the DJ took over and just played very silly retro dance music. I didn't stop dancing the whole time. I need to do that more often!

I was very groggy and out of it all day yesterday as a result of one beer + one glass of champagne + one glass of white wine combined with staying up way past my normal bedtime. I tried at one point to start knitting one of my WIPs, but I just couldn't focus, so instead I did what I've been wanting to do for a long time, namely get started on using the New Zealand wool my Mom sent me for Christmas:

This is the finished back of the Placed Cable Aran from the Fall 2007 Interweave Knits magazine. It's a worsted weight wool (love the undyed gray-brown color) on 5mm needles, so it went really fast. Now I'm just about to cast on for the front. Since I don't know exactly how much yarn I have, I'm a wee bit apprehensive about having enough. I checked around and this yarn can still be ordered, so it won't really be a problem if I run out, only a hassle.

Deprimerende

Almost first thing after waking up yesterday morning I learned of the shooting episode in Tucson, Arizona. Being an expat makes things like that especially weird, and I obsessed over it all day yesterday, and again this morning, combing US and Norwegian news sources and online discussion forums I participate in for information and interpretation. Since I no longer live in the US, I miss out on the daily give and take and the many small positives about living there. Events like this shooting thus hit me especially hard, and I really mourn for what my country has turned into.

I thought this analysis from National Public Radio about the violent political rhetoric in the US gives a pretty good overview of what's going on. One of the factoids I find most disturbing about the whole story was the following passage from the article:

Giffords narrowly won a third term in November against Jesse Kelly, a Republican backed by the Tea Party. Last June, Kelly held an event promoted with the message: "Get on Target for Victory in November… Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office… Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly."

"They're jumping to this conclusion that it has to do with [Giffords'] hotly contested Congressional race," Allyson Miller, a founder of Pima County Tea Party Patriots, told the website TalkingPointsMemo. "Well, apparently, from what I've seen so far ... it's looking like that's not the case."

Miller and other Tea Party leaders said they won't change their aggressive tactics in the wake of the shootings.

Now Miller is in fact correct that there's absolutely no evidence that the shooter was in any way influenced by Tea Party rhetoric, and I have been really disturbed by people on the left automatically making that link. But I am equally, if not more, disturbed that someone in Miller's (or Kelly's!) position just doesn't see how horrifying the linking of politics and violence that her movement propounds is. Kelly was literally putting a loaded automatic weapon in the hands of his supporters at the same time he was telling them to "remove" her from office! What ever happened to "Vote her out"? Why are we now talking in terms of "removing" candidates, in some kind of vaguely threatening, conspiratorial code?

The other day I watched a snippet of a British documentary on the Tea Party movement. I heard one of the oft repeated phrases "If you don't like this country, then go somewhere else" or something to that effect. Again, speaking as an expat, it is pretty painful to hear something like that. On the one hand, I have indeed chosen to live somewhere else because I felt it would be a better place to raise my son. Norway is my land of opportunity, I suppose. But on the other hand, I will never stop being an American. I have no intention of giving up my US citizenship, and I continue to have to file tax returns every year, and exercise my right to vote in national elections. There are many wonderful things about the US, and it pains me so much to see the Tea Party tearing down so much of that. Actually, the Tea Party is only the latest stage in a long process. Here's my personal path to political disillusion:

1. There's a part of me that thinks it was the 2000 election that broke my faith in America as a collective project. There were just too many things about the campaign, the election, and the way the outcome was determined that went against what I had always believed America to be about. I left the Democratic party  (after the election, I hasten to add) and joined the Greens.

2. Soon after, the way that George W. Bush managed to turn the entire world against him, after the enormous outpouring of support that we received from nearly the entire world upon the tragedy of 9-11-2001. Looking back, that seems like the second major step in the wrong direction.

3. Third, and probably more even more important, was the entirely misguided decision to invade Iraq in 2003. I have yet to see a single valid justification for this invasion. Protesting against the war while living in Phoenix, Arizona was one of the most demoralizing experiences I have ever had. And seeing all those brand new SUVs with yellow "support our troops" ribbons and American flags racing around at 80 miles an hour on the highways of Phoenix was depressing, to say the least.

4. Fourth, was the concomitant war developments such as the Patriot Act (and attendant stripping of civil rights in the US), the torture at Abu Ghraib, and the whole "enemy non-combatant" fiasco at Guantanamo. It became really clear that Bush had absolutely no regard for the law. I firmly believe that his administration was actively moving the US in the direction of anti-democratic totalitarianism, ironically all in the name of "freedom" and "democracy."

5. Fifth was of course the re-election of George W. Bush. I lured KE to America with the assurance that he would never be re-elected. Boy was I wrong.

6. So the Tea Party movement/Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin storm that came into being only after Obama took the oath of office in 2009 actually only comes in as number six in a long line of really disturbing political developments. It makes perfect sense as an extension of what came before.

So sad to see such a great country so distorted and demoralized...

Lune dager

We have been having a surprisingly mellow spell these past few days. On Thursday we were invited along with E to visit one of his class mates and have dinner. They're a really charming and intelligent couple, and E plays really well with their son, after a bit of a rough start when they first were getting acquainted. I really wasn't aware how much fun it is to just sit around and B.S. with adults while the kids hang out together. My parents did that all the time when I was growing up, but somehow we haven't yet worked out routines for it. It looks like it's starting to happen slowly but surely.

Yesterday I stayed home to work on my book, and had a productive day. E was invited to another friend's house. They picked him up from school and he was having such a good time that KE didn't pick him up until 8pm. It was a little weird not to have E around all evening!

Today we've just been hanging out in our p.j.s. We took down the tree and packed away all the ornaments, which was a smaller task than feared and a big relief. Then KE and I watched both Petter Northug (cross country) and Aksel Lund Svindal (downhill) win their respective races on tv. It reconfirmed my sense that cross country is by far the more exciting sport to watch. The tactical aspect of the sport is fantastic. I'm a huge fan of Northug, despite his "bad boy" behavior, simply because he is such an incredibly good tactical skier. Sure he pouts and fumes when his equipment or his body lets him down, but when he's got everything in place he is just such an amazingly smart skier.

We had a bit of a sock crisis. Over the summer I knit two new pairs of wool socks for E to use this winter, and both pairs have disappeared. That's four entire hand-knitted socks that have vanished. Grr. The only solution was to sit down on Friday and start knitting yet another really boring pair of socks. Here's the first of the pair, finished this afternoon:

It's identical to the ones I knit before. The yarn is Zitron Trekking, and the pattern is the Classic Sock Pattern from Nancy Bush's Folk Socks. It's practically the only sock pattern I ever use. I have loads of this yarn left, so I imagine I'll be knitting dark blue socks for E well into his high school years!

Since I wanted to photograph the sock, I figured I'd take a quick snap of my finished Plain & Simple Pullover too:

I didn't feel like getting dressed for a modeled picture, and the light is too low for one anyway, so I just threw it on the coffee table. It's a good fit, but I'm still skeptical of wearing a short sleeved wool sweater in the winter. I'm such a wuss when it comes to cold. I even feel the chill when I wear my black sweater with 3/4 sleeves. We'll see. I'm also not totally crazy about the buttons, but I couldn't find anything that really appealed at the one store I had time to go to this week.

So that's it for now. We're just going to make some pizzas and I'm going to keep going on that second sock.

ETA: Pizza's in the oven, and it's a weird one. I almost always have yellow onions in the house, but this week I ran out, so I'm trying leeks instead. We also forgot to buy things like mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes. Spacey.

EATA: I also conveniently was in denial about my final goal today, which is folding a week's worth of air-dried laundry:

Gulp. That's not pretty. I'm saving it for a trashy television show later tonight. In the meantime, it seems to grow larger and larger as the day progresses. I'm guessing I'm not the only person in the world with a nasty corner like this, though...

Standhaftighet

I'm not usually one for making "resolutions"and "intentions," but this year I actually am feeling the need to be more conscious about maintaining my focus, not getting overwhelmed, and not giving up hope. I've reached the halfway point in my postdoctoral fellowship and when it's done my academic career may very well be at an end. While perusing another blog (I forget which) the writer listed "tenacity" as her intention for the year and it resonated with me immediately, so I'm claiming it as my own for this year.

There are a bunch of areas of my life that require a lot of tenacity this year. On the home front, I need to work on being more consistent and present with E; I need to keep working on communication with KE; I need to let go of savings (for our garage) and be vigilant about building it up again.

(Can you believe these two piggy banks? The skinny one on the left was my Mom's when she was an obviously deprived fourth child, the one on the right belonged to my apparently over-indulged Dad when he was an only. Now I'm the last person to criticize only children for being spoiled in general, but my Dad was pretty darned catered to... I've always loved having the two of these next to each other on my shelf, and this year I'll use them as a reminder to save.)

In terms of work, I need to be on top of the manuscript submission process for the Peer Gynt book; and I really, really need to buckle down and start writing the cabin book. My main work goal for this year is putting together a complete manuscript by December. Surely if I can write 2/3s of a book between September and January, I can write a whole one in a calendar year? I'm going to aim for 80,000 words. It's a big and complicated project, but I know I can do it if I just exhibit a little ... tenacity!

I finished my Plain & Simple Pullover this week, but I probably won't be able to photograph it until the weekend. I'm very curious as to whether I'll actually wear a short-sleeved wool sweater. To celebrate getting that done, I cast on for an Eleanor cowl with more of the alpaca yarn from the frogged fair isle sweater from last year:

Wheee, look at me, I'm knitting lace. Only a little bit, though. I also bought a used copy of the legendary Fall 2007 issue of Interweave Knits. It has at least three sweaters I want to knit right away, so there's no danger of me not having a bunch of knitting goals for 2011!