Not quite ten hours ago, I returned from my twenty-third conference presentation. Moments thereafter I added the line to my CV. It will take me about a week to unpack my luggage, a small, non-hipster messenger-type carry-on.
Call it superstition, but I do not list presentations on my CV until I have actually presented or moderated—I [...]
Archive for June, 2009
29 Jun
Done
23 Jun
Banned from the blog cocktail:
Bacardi products.
Yesterday I blogged about my hypothetical blog cocktail: a cucumber-and-vodka concoction by Kingsley Amis that I would probably never drink, and a mint- and citrus-enhanced version by Martha Stewart that I’m quite less unlikely to drink. The comments revealed a unanimous preference for gin, a preference I of course share.
I wanted to clarify, however, [...]
22 Jun
It’s 7 in the morning. Do you know where your Stoli is?
Today is the second anniversary of this blog. Its namesake is perhaps obvious: Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim, arguably the ur campus novel. It is also a novel awash in booze. These two details are not a coincidence. They even coincide in a drink, the recipe for which I am sharing with you today.
As Britain’s poet [...]
20 Jun
Sharper than a serpent’s tooth
Earlier this week, as I was contemplating how to celebrate my freedom from debt and whistling while I worked on my off-contract summer service, I was hit with an emergency: I had to shop for a Father’s Day card.
Ordinarily, I would have sent one from my copious greeting card stash, of which I am perhaps [...]
15 Jun
Guess what?
I’m debt free. This fact quite pleases me. Thought I’d let you know. Toodles!
* * *
Just kidding. What I really want to do is shout from the rooftops that I paid off $47,508.63 in forty-four months, having even overcome an eleventh-hour fit of profligate spending on gifts and coffee in April. In fact, I owed [...]
12 Jun
Repeat after me:
I do not hate this.
I do not hate this.
I do not hate this.
I do not hate this.
I do not HATE this.
I do not HATE THIS.
I do not
I do.
9 Jun
Envy
Once upon a time, I was just beginning my teaching adventures. The course, of course, was composition. For some reason, such as unoriginality, a great clump of us teaching neophytes had assigned an “advertisement analysis.” The students’ task was to find an advertisement, to figure out some question about the appeals made, and then to [...]
4 Jun
Eeeeeeeuuuuuwww!
Like virtually all of my colleagues, I have tried to personalize my Soviet-issue office. This task is no small one, when you consider that the furniture is Soviet-issue, too. Well, no, I exaggerate: it came right out of Dilbert. The environs are an ironic challenge for humanists, who like to think of ourselves as being, [...]
