Asides

Lauralea and I went for a short, hilly run this morning — net change in elevation of 350 feet, repeated several times over 2.5 miles — and then went to Lost River State Park for a hike up Big Ridge (elevation 3200-3300 feet) on White Oak Trail. On the way, we passed groves of trees that looked almost exactly the way I imagine the edges of (nerd alert) Lothlórien looking.

I’m typing this on the deck of a log cabin deep in the woods of the Blue Ridge Mountains of West Virginia, somewhere near the town of Mathias and Lost River State Park, 15 miles from the nearest store or filling station, further from any cell phone coverage, and even further from any work obligations for the next two weeks or so. My companion and I set out from New York yesterday morning, cats and bags and groceries in the back, traveling south and west first by interstate and then by state and local route and finally by dirt road, until we got here, somewhere around

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I returned from CCCC in San Francisco on the redeye Sunday morning, tired not only from the flight but from that sustained intellectual engagement, my mind happily worn out and smooshed and pushed by all the presentations I went to. It was an odd conference for me: I saw some good panels, about which I’ll post my notes soon, and some bad ones, about which I won’t, except to say that Spencer and I both stayed at one just to see how amazing it would get. What was odd, though, was the number of young-but-getting-established scholars whose reputation and work I know and admire who seemed to be reiterating somewhat old and accepted claims, and the number of new scholars who seemed unaware of the recent body of scholarship on emerging topics: in both cases, I found myself frequently feeling a strong sense of academic d

So it’s four o’clock in the morning and I just got back from the absolute best piece of theater I’ve ever seen in my life. Tonight was the penultimate night of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Black Watch at St. Ann’s in Brooklyn, and my date and I were amazed. Brilliant, far more physical than any other play I’ve seen, and an amazing combination of soldier humor, startling violence, and pathos. Parts of it were shocking, and parts of it made my eyes tear up a bit, and by the end, hearing that bagpipe-and-drum tattoo made something tighten in my chest. Reader, if you haven’t seen it, hope for an encore tour. See it, see it, see it.

Part of the reason it caught my attention was the intersection of matters military with my family’s Scottish heritage, which is a distant link, certainly (and one roundly mocked in the play), but there was also the memory of being very, very young and having the vinyl “Black Watch War Pipe and Plaid” as one of my parents’ albums that I loved the most, with — again — that bagpipe-and-drum tattoo. It stirs the blood.

And after the play ended, as snowy and cold as the Brooklyn weather was, I was lucky to have such an extraordinarily pretty woman on my arm. It was a good date.

I love Highland Falls on Halloween. I love the little kids with their parents who come early, while it’s still light out, including the absolute tiniest witch I’ve ever seen, with her even littler brother the spider.

(Halloween etiquette question, perhaps related to an implicit writing-teacher-etiquette question for those who work in computer labs: when you distribute candy and talk to the shorter kids, do you stoop, squat, or neither?)

And I love the big families and groups who come later, after the parade, sometimes with not-quite-finished or uncertain costumes, and how watchful and careful they are of their family members and friends, and how friendly. How connected.

And I love the last few after-eight waves of various diehards (including the no-costume dad who always asks for candy too, but I was a little worried that he was drunk this year: not cool) and teenage goths.

But this year’s absolute best, and most mystifying: at about 6:50, a skinny eight- or nine-year old boy, all in black, with a black felt western-style hat (think Stetson), black domino, and a big scythe.

Huh?

You win, kid. I didn’t even have the presence of mind to ask.

Started coughing September 19. Saw the doc September 24: tentative diagnosis of pneumonia. Chest x-ray confirmed it September 26. Medicated, slept, sick leave. Back to work October 6. Out of breath, easily winded. I’m moving like John McCain. Can’t take stairs. Saw the doc again today: second x-ray October 8 showed the gunk in my left lung had shrunk from the size of a fist to the size of a walnut.

So all this week, people at work have been saying, “Wow, Mike. You look like you lost 20 pounds.” Sure, I say to myself: I know my eyes and cheeks are a little sunken, but I’ve been eating. Soup and fruit, mostly, but hearty stuff too. Eating regularly, three a day. So I get on the scale.

Yeah. Holy shit. I’m down 22 pounds in two weeks.

Those anxieties I mentioned a week ago are still around, but the sickness has compounded into a full-blown case of pneumonia.

I’ve been sick the past few days, with what feels like the bronchitis my office mate had for the past two weeks: joint and bone and muscle aches, a rasp in the chest that’s blossoming into a productive cough, digestive yuckiness, and a pervasive droopy-lidded tiredness. So in between fits of grading, I’ve been drinking lots of juice and water, and trying to sleep as much as I can.

But that sleep’s been punctuated by whatever various symptoms waking me up, and also the bizarre half-asleep dreams about work: I’ve been absolutely certain that when I park down by the Hudson and walk up to my office, policy mandates that I investigate whether there are any fresh seafood vendors (on the Hudson?) at the Army’s South Dock, and if so, that I purchase and bring up an assortment for the Department and fill out a slip to be reimbursed. Or that rather than using the web and email to assist classroom instruction, I need to make myself a part of the growing circulating pool of cell phones in use by cadets for one-to-one communication with teachers, and that in order to do so effectively, I’ll have to set aside a significant portion of my monthly budget to add my own set of circulating cell phones to the pool. Or that I’ll mention the Kairos special issue I’m co-guest-editing to my cadets, and offer an example of the types of webtexts we’re looking for, and the cadets will communicate that to the Department, who will take said example as a promise of scholarship to be accomplished within the coming year, so I’ll set aside several hours to write a quick-and-dirty Disputatio piece, and Cheryl will like it so much (my anxieties, unfortunately, aren’t modest) that she’ll insist I write several such pieces for each issue.

Which would all be funny in their ridiculousness — fish, cell phones, mandatory Disputatio — except that for five or six hazy half-awake muddled minutes, I’ll be quite sure that I need to figure out a plan to address these tasks before I go to work the next day, and I’ll fall asleep trying to figure out which buildings the seafood vendors are hiding behind.