waves away

It's the year of the monkey, swinging through the branches of many trees. The year of extra space to fill with reading, writing, geography tonic, general wellness. It starts in Austin at my third annual MLA convention. I could have used a warmer jacket, but otherwise I brought everything I needed and nothing more; I did not arrive late, did not get sick, did not see everything and did not mind. The Texas sky was dark when I first saw it. Our flight from Seattle, which sucked up the ripest part of the Wednesday, finished by circling awhile over a carpet of spectacularly blushing sunset clouds. On the ground it was a drizzly night. Through the fissure where the plane met the gangway came enough air to let my nose know that we were in a happy place: it was southern air. Lots of people probably want me to call Texas "west" -- sorry, I'm not going to be able to call it anything but "south". Not Dixie south, but distinctly below 35° N latitude. That Aus...

It's been in the neighborhood of 80 degrees for months and months and months. Even when it has begun to cool down at night, and when the widget weather says 71⁰, by the time you get into the exposed car in the afternoon it's well over 80. Rain is a stranger. Whether there was ever a spring I don't recall. So let's have a little winter story. Let's put on a black turtleneck, black pants, thick striped knee socks, black boots. Pack a four-day duffel the night before, because the valet arrives in the first blue feathers of dawn; the train leaves for Vancouver at 8am. Don't forget your passport. Second week of January means time for the MLA conference, hosted this year in the northern city called Vancouver . Jessica and I will take our act international as I drag her down my Canadian memory lane. The weather will be milder than it was in Chicago last year, I will not drink red wine, I will not get violently ill, I will get serious and go to fascinating litera...

On the morning of July 24th, it was raining, and I was happy. Our ten-years-together anniversary weekend would be cocooned in a cozy drizzle, just like the late-summer months of our courtship had been -- after the initial caution of wondering-is-this-the-one broke with the heat wave, when we floated among the Bumbershoot crowds, a private island, kissing under the shelter of every dripping tree. As it was then, the parched world was now drinking deeply. A lunch-time Bremerton ferry brought us to Seabeck just as the sun shot through the clouds, spotlighting our little beach-front retreat with its overturned row boats, fishing rods, and oyster shells scattered across the bulwark; its tree house and porch swing; a bottle of wine and garden bouquet left with a "happy anniversary" card on the breakfast table by the owner. She shortly came down from the main house we were nestled under to point out all the amenities, apologizing for the burn ban that kept her from providing her fa...

I was feeling bad about the long absence, little blog. I was going to say it was such a terribly busy academic year that I found not a minute to spare for hobby writing. That there was no inspiring travel in my life between September and June, no sufficient inspiration to create or commemorate anything non-academic anywhere. There are measures of truth, and of sloth, in all that, but moreover, who cares? Just now I feel finished with excuses, archival pressure, creative guilt. I feel confident in que sera, set to glide through the swaying dandelions of the long summer reaching ahead of me, all the way through a short-stacked, sabbatical-subsidized year into two Septembers from now, and maybe even further. It begins in Seaside . My oldest friend, Kriste, is an excursion junkie (hence her appearance elsewhere on this site). Last fall she said, Let's start next summer with a long weekend by the sea. Astoria , Oregon is halfway between us. 30 years after we followed the Goonies t...

Young Phil dreamed of being a pilot, but neither the requisite monetary nor military sponsorship came through, so he became simply a plane devotee. He basks in their history, crafting, community, music, and above all aims to know their magnificent action by freezing it in photographs. Among the key items on his checklist of revelry are the National Air Races in Reno . He made it there for the first time in 2012 and was sold; the annual pilgrimage became a priority. Cancer interfered the very next year, but his new friends in Section 3 sent the spirit of the races right to our living room with love and artifacts. Once it was clear he'd be able to go back in 2014, I wanted to go, too. Far more than the flying, which I only care about by proxy, I care about getting away with my husband -- as the patchy blog shows, our opportunities to do so are precious few. And escaping to places where gambling and going to the pool are the main activities? Sign me up every time. I had been to R...