.more

This time from Jitterbug Perfume

• “Pointing out that their breathing, bathing, dining, and screwing brought Alobar and Kundra much physical pleasure, and that an organism steeped in pleasure is an organism disposed to continue, he has said that the will to live cannot be overestimated as a stimulant to longevity. … Persons who lack curiosity about life, who find minimal joy in existence, are all too willing, subconsciously, to cooperate with  — and attract — disease, accident, and violence” (176)

 

.this is not a promise

School is over, and I am taking the time to read and digest.
Tripping across quotes that I want to hold on to but do not know where to save them.This seems like a good space.

from By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

• “Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows” (39)
• “The heart decides, and what it decides is all that really matters” (viii).
• “You have to take risks, he said. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen” (8)

from Herzog

• “Each man has his own batch of poems” (69).
• “It was the middle-class female solidarity, defending a nice girl from charges of calculation and viciousness. Nice girls marry for love. But should they fall out of love, they must be free to love another. No decent husband will oppose the heart. This is orthodox. Not utterly bad. But a new orthodoxy” (91).
• “He wondered, even, why he should have wanted to survive. Others in his generation wore themselves out, died of strokes, of cancer, willed their own deaths, conceivably. But he, despite all blunders, fucky-knuckles that he was, he must be cunning, tough” (103).

 

. jersey girl

As I mentioned in my last post, we moved to New Jersey and bought a car.

In order to register the car in NJ, I had to drive over to the building where they make you wait in long lines and fill out multiple forms to declare state residency. At the end of this long process, some guy behind a big counter snapped my picture and printed out a new New Jersey license with my name and information on it.

Then, chuckling to himself, he handed me my license and said “You are now officially a Jersey Girl.” The people around me chuckled as well.

I almost started crying.

As happy as I am at this very moment that I have a great job, a beautiful house, and an amazing husband,
when the license guy called me a “Jersey Girl” I suddenly realized that this was my life — I live in New Jersey. When I am 48, I’ll be living in New Jersey. When I am 97, I’ll be living in New Jersey. If I have kids, they will be Jersey kids in a Jersey school system with Jersey friends.

Now, I do not have any fundamental problems with New Jersey as a state. It is quite lovely. But, I don’t know anything about its history or quirks. I can’t even name the state flower or insect. Everything that I pride myself in knowing about Kansas doesn’t apply to my life here anymore, which makes me sad.

I’ve been sharing this story with Dave’s family as a “ha-ha aren’t I silly?” story, but something about the whole “You are now a Jersey Girl” really set me off kilter. I’m sure I’ll get over it, as soon as I study up on New Jersey history.

 

.change change chaaaange

Within the last 15 month I married Dave, graduated with a Ph.D., bought a house, moved to New Jersey, interviewed at multiple colleges, celebrated our anniversary, bought a blue hatchback, explained to multiple insurance places why we haven’t owned a car in three years, got a full-time job as a professor in New York City, bought new boots with my new paycheck, and neglected to write much on this blog.

As you can see, I have a lot of catching up to do and a lot of revamping of this space to do. Especially since I am no longer living in a tiny, Brooklyn apartment. Here I am on the other side of that picture of the Holland Tunnel in my banner. Hello suburbia!

 

my students’ class blog

http://mechascribe.wordpress.com

Enjoy!