Thursday, December 28, 2006

New house reading adventures

I had a very low-stress move last weekend, thanks to my seven-person amazing moving crew, to whom I am eternally grateful, and I've set up the place a bit (I'd show you pictures, but then I'd have to kill you). Mira seems happy and so do the plants. The only member of my family who is less than happy is Ol' Squeaky, who does not like being left out all night in the cold, but I certainly don't want to carry it up and down the back stairs when it's not actively precipitating. So Ol' Squeaky is staying outside for the meantime.

In the new place, it's easy to go into hibernation mode. I've been sleeping a lot, and taking baths, and eating rice noodles, and reading.* My recent sojourn at the Nokomis Library reminded me how excellent their teen collection is. I got Saving Francesca, which I had heard about but never read, and which is excellent, and The Adventures of Michael MacInnes, and a book about SAD, and a book about saying no, and a book called If the Buddha Dated, which my therapist recommended. Oh, and also a Gene Wolfe book I've always meant to read. I've been cuddling with Mira, thinking about trimming the Norfolk pine, occasionally putting things on the walls. I'm also catsitting for two members of the moving team, who also have a Norfolk pine, which looks great now that they've trimmed and repotted it. Repotting my Norfolk pine, however, would require several people and a pot the size of Lake Hiawatha.

I have not done any dissertation writing at all. I told my writing group I would finish revising chapter 3 by our next meeting, Jan 11, and I still plan on doing that, but I think I deserve a bit of time off. My motivation comes and goes, and right now it's gone. How can I get it back? I had an idea that when I had my own space, I would immediately and magically start writing among the boxes, and that has not happened at all. However, I just bought a programmable coffee maker, so at least I can start waking up in the mornings again. Maybe that will help; I've found that mornings are my most productive.

I am at the coffee shop right now, so I will buy some coffee. It felt slightly pathetic to have the coffeemaker but no coffee. One can buy a machine at the Minnesota-based retailer I don't want to namecheck, but one with a conscience cannot buy coffee there.

Maybe we will have snow, or the sun will come out. Then I'll be able to write.


*I've also been mourning the closing of the Roosevelt Library (about which more tomorrow, on its official closing day)

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