Asides

Left to unpack: five boxes of clothes. Thirty-six boxes of books. Four tall boxes of kitchen stuff. Office files. Various components of the scholarly apparatus.

Either missing or still packed in some mis-labeled box by those puckishly humorous movers: my drill, which is a surprisingly inconvenient thing to be without when one moves. Two lampshades. Various cables (USB, power, Firewire, CAT-5) for the computer.

Right now, all my efforts at home are wholly and hugely material, moving boxes around and unpacking them and such. None of my books are up on shelves, and my desk isn’t yet in a workable arrangement: right now, it feels like there’s very little of the life of the mind for me in my off-the-clock time. By contrast, all my activity at The Job (which is a genuinely 8-to-4 experience) is on the intellectual side, aside from the odd helicopter ride or five-hour hike around the Revolutionary War era campus fortifications.

It’s not a split I particularly like. So: today, it’s kitchen stuff and books and the scholarly apparatus, grocery shopping, laundry, and if I’m good and work hard and well, my reward will be that I get to take my stereo out of boxes and put it together. My location — blocked from the north by Storm King mountain and NYC too far to the south — makes it so that the heavy pop rotation MTV affiliate radio station is the only one I can receive clearly, and I so totally miss NPR.

Tonight’s my last night in the old Massachusetts apartment, into which I moved as half of a couple five years ago. My attorney dropped by this evening to spend some time with Tink and Zeugma, muttering dire imprecations and something about separation anxiety. Tomorrow morning I’ll take down the cat tree, scrub and vacuum, pack up the last few household items and the girls, and head four hours south.

And all of this still feels more like an ending than a beginning. I suppose that’s partly because I haven’t yet closed on the new house and I haven’t yet started the fall semester, and so this is a process of finishing things and closing things off, without that emotional sense of the opening-up of possibility.

Last things to put in the car tomorrow? The philodendron. The birdfeeder. And the girls in their cat-carriers.

And so flew we did.

Do I love my job?

O yes I love my job.

(Explanatory addendum: a portion of my work day today consisted of a military helicopter overflight of the West Point campus and ranges and surrounding areas. Our point of departure was that helipad on the Hudson, and — as the cockpit view might indicate — we enjoyed some sharp banked turns and low flying, as well. And yes, I don’t think I could have asked for a better bunch of new colleagues.)

Everything that could go wrong went wrong, in spectacular fashion.

The floor guys neglected to tell the contractor that they decided to go with slow-drying polyurethane varnish rather than fast-drying water-based varnish on account of the fact that the floors are pine, which changed our timeline from today to next week. That, coupled with the knowledge that the movers were coming today with my stuff, was cause for panic, as was the phone call from the bank that they wouldn’t clear to close on account of them not liking what they saw in an old inspection, which the attorney should never have forwarded to them anyway. The refrigerator is broken and the part that I’m supposed to fix it didn’t arrive today, so I’ve got rotten chicken triple-bagged in the rollaway trash can and still stinking up the back yard, with trash day not until Tuesday. And to top it all off, five o’clock rolled around and my household goods never showed up, and since the Army’s civilian offices don’t work weekends, it’ll be Monday until I find out where they are.

Fortunately, I think I’ve got the bank problem resolved — I had my inspector send them an email saying the place is fine.

And, in a weird way, having the stuff in limbo with the movers is sort of a good thing, since it gives the floor guys more time to finish.

But yeah. I was on the phone all day today, frustrated and angry. And the back yard stinks.

O internets how I have missed you.

There have been some, er, unanticipated connectivity difficulties in my ongoing move from Williamsburg, Massachusetts to Highland Falls, New York. Today, I was happily able to remedy some of those difficulties, and put the internets in a cardboard box.

That would be my DSL modem and my wireless base station and accompanying cables in the midst of my contractor’s sheetrock work. A good bit of sheetrock taping got done today, but not as much as I’d like.

It’s looking like a neck-and-neck race between the contractor getting the sheetrock up and taped and sanded and painted and the movers arriving with my household goods. The finish line is around noon on Friday.

The contractor showed me this weekend that he can hustle when he needs to. Which is a good thing, because Friday’s going to be one charlie foxtrot of a day if he doesn’t. And he knows it.

And that little slice of yellow wallpaper through the doorway is where I’m camping with my air mattress through all this. My 12 x 12 kitchen, complete with clock radio, laptop, and clothes hung in the pantry.

C’mon Friday.

It was hot and humid in the Hudson Valley this afternoon, but despite the haze, the view was worth the picture.

The building where my office is, Lincoln Hall, is circled. (Click on the picture for a bigger, non-circled version.) For scalar clarification: the building is five stories high.

Those buildings off at the very far right edge are the library and, a little lower down, you can just see the edge of some of the cadet barracks. They include a dining hall that seats 4,400.

Today was a big day for the Edwards boys.

David finally had his parole hearing in front of the hearing examiner this afternoon, who will report to the parole commissioner, who will put his findings before the parole board. I was naïve in thinking there’d be some news today — no such luck. Still, it sounds as if the parole commissioner has taken an active interest, and that’s a good sign.

So I’m keeping my fingers crossed for him. He began his time in prison about when I began my time in grad school, and I hope he’s close to finishing it.

Which brings me to my other news.

I was totally nervous at first, in giving that introductory 10-minute statement, and I know it showed. It didn’t help that it was hot in the room, and that I was in suit and tie: if you’re going to do it, I figured, might as well do it right. Cuff links, even, for the reason that they were the ones that my dad’s father, M. R., wore at his college graduation. He was the first one in his family to go to college, and Aunt Ida, the only one in his family to come and see him graduate, gave him those cuff links.

And I bet M. R. wasn’t ever as flushed or shaky as I was.

But I got through that 10-minute intro, and — in what I felt was a moment of glory — managed to work in a reference to Gilligan’s Island. After that, the rhythm took some getting used to, me finding my footing with my outside reader first, who was a generous questioner, and who at the same time made me question some vital connections I hadn’t considered. Her questions weren’t easy, but in the way she both made me re-state some of the arguments I was making and made me extend them, she got me to pin down, out loud, concrete points of reference for the defense, and in so doing opened up directions of investigation.

After that initial moment, I felt like I found my rhythm, made the connections, followed through on trains of thought. And felt secure enough, in several instances, to say, “I don’t know how I would do that,” or, “I don’t know how I might predict that.” Because I do know this stuff — this topic of my dissertation — better than anybody else, which also means that I know the bounds and limits of my knowledge. And I had those bounds and limits pressed at and tested today.

And I passed.

And to everybody who showed up or offered their support, at the defense or in the halls or on the blog or elsewhere, thank you. Y’all so rock.

The Doctor, as they say, Is In.

Furniture.

After two days in a house without any, save for an air mattress, one really develops an appreciation for things that can be sat upon. Or tabled upon. And such.

The contractor and his workers have come, and they are tearing out ugly wood paneling and ugly cardboard tiled ceilings and the bad plaster and lath beneath. The phone technician has come and gone, and — after asking me, “You Army?” and smiling and nodding at my answer — has done some kindnesses, including installing the DSL jack in precisely the right place.

And last night, I climbed out the bathroom window and watched the fireworks for the Highland Falls 100th Centennial celebration (established 1906) from the roof of the house that will soon be both my most significant investment ever and the place where I live.

Which is a fifteen-minute walk from my new office at that 204-year-old home of The Long Gray Line.

Friday cat blogging:

Night. In my work area, Tink knows where to recline: atop 222 pages of committee-submitted dissertation. She’s idly pawing at the thumb drive that holds my backup copy.

Day. The other side of the office. Again, Tink’s got the paw out. Zeugma grooms herself between my empty reading rack, my full to-do file, and some photocopied essays on class, along with Benkler’s “Coase’s Penguin” and Gibson-Graham’s A Postcapitalist Politics.

Rumor has it that congratulations are in order: apparently, there were some nuptials in Atlanta today. Here’s to Clancy and Jonathan: congratulations!