gone, but not not writing

Music: Bat for Lashes: Two Suns (2009)

Returning from the university I stopped off at my neighborhood grocery store. My experience there was worthy of a post titled "The Agonies of Randall's: Four Years Later" (the original agony here). We've all had the experience: you have three items to buy and head for the "express" lane, with three people in front of you. There is only one other lane open, and it has two buggy-full patrons waiting. Then, they open up three more lanes, but all the people behind you in line rush to them, and so you're stuck behind (a) the couple who have never used the credit swipe machine before and do not speak English; (b) the food stamp family whose card will not work; and (c) the elderly woman who haggles over an expired coupon and insists on writing a check (and who does not have the foresight to fill out said check while waiting for [a] and [b]). Of course, these folks reflect the neighborhood I chose to live in, and I prefer it over a Starbucks strewn yuppieland. Even so, after a long day it's hard to muster the patience (three items, forty minutes?). Well, I know this is a common experience for my ilk, but when you're in it---learning that Tipper and Al are splitting, Jolie is going to break Brad's heart, and that there are ten steps to losing the belly fat first---you have a ten minute self-pity party standing in the line.

Then you come home to pick up cat poop, since the foster cat doesn't want to use the litter box.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that my existential moments tend to occur in grocery store check-out lines. I cannot find the original blog post---dunno where it went, must've got lost in the server shift---but I recall one of my more pensive posts was about standing in line at Albertson's off of Government Street in Baton Rouge, being reminded of Elvis Costello's "Allison," and thinking the chain might make off quite well with a rewrite of the song . . . .

Well yes, dear readers, I have not been writing much on the blog. One can always tell how busy I am in relation to blogarrhea. Actually, that's not quite true; rather, one can tell how much I'm not in front of the computer when the blog is not posty. Generally, when I'm being productive writing I tend to blog a lot too---it tends to get the words moving.

But, if I'm not writing here, it does not mean I'm not writing in some form somewhere. These past few weeks I've been writing with food---I think that cooking is a form of writing. The genre? Korean and then comfort food. I have mastered all things kimchi and chicken fried steak and mac and cheese in the past few weeks. And I've been writing with "light," taking a lot of photographs during travels and hosting beloved guests. The photo on the left is what the scene looks like now (sans me, cause I'm taking the picture)---the patio at night, with a cigar and my computer. This is often the scene for nighttime blogging, and if I have an evening to myself I'm often perched out there (or here, since that's where I'm at typing this).

So, what have I been up to? Well, it's documented in a number of photo galleries. I headed up to Minneapolis the week before last for a nice touch with home base (the location of your graduate work is, lets face it, always home base for an academic). I had a lovely visit with one of my best friends, Mirko, and his partner Tim (whose favorite color is orange, by the way). Mirko attended a RSA preconference with me, which was orchestrated by another best friend, David Beard. It was a great time interacting with smart folks (most of whom were graduate students from the U of MN) and thinking about the intersection of institutional constraint and scholarship. Then, after the marvelous preconference I got to hook up with more best friends, Angela Ray and my doctoral advisor, Robert Scott. We dined at the delicious Spoon River, next to the Guthrie Theatre, along with RL's daughter Janet and renowned argumentation scholar Jim Klumpp.

The Rhetoric Society of America conference proper was the next day, and there was Christopher Swift, another best friend. Can you tell I was practically in heaven with all these beloved peeps around? Minneapolis is "home base" for a reason, I tell ya. Unlike other RSA conferences, though, this one was a bit strange because it was home base; I felt torn between professional duties and wanting to spend time with good friends in our "old stomping ground." I got to spend a good bit of time with many, but not all, and I confess I would have liked more time. We're getting older together, as I mused in my last post, and there's something both comforting and sad about it all. RSA was an odd conference emotionally, but also invigorating and certainly refreshing. Here's a gallery of photos---when I remembered I had a camera.

I returned home (with sadness) with a day to recover, then more beloved friends dropped in for a visit: the soon-to-be-married Amanda and Roger! I'll be officiating their nuptials, so we dined and discussed what should transpire in a couple of weeks (what to say about "God" in services is always a touchy subject, so we worked that out, among other things). They both live in Waco now, so we don't see each other as often as we would like to.

After Rogmanda's departure, school started again and so I found myself knee-deep in prep. Then, glory of all glories, Stace Treat and his buddy Wayne dropped in for Pride weekend in Aus-Vegas! To say we had something of a debauched weekend is . . . er . . . an understatement. Stace introduced us to Patrice Pike, who effin' rocked and is now my favorite righteous babe (sorry Ani, Patrice is better). We caught Patrice's show for the official Pride thingie at the Long Center, then headed over to Charlies and ended the evening at Oil Can Harry's (which, er, is a little blurry to me at this point). [Note to friends: I do not put money in the underwear of strangers---you can try to get me to do this all you want, but no matter how hot he or she is, I am not going to do it, even after three drinks!] We also managed to overeat at the Salt Lick (no surprise there), tried to see the bats (they never came out), then capped off the evening at the Driskill and Lovejoy's. My weekend with all the young dudes was simply a blast, and I was sad to see Stace and Wayne head south to San Antonio for a conference on Sunday.

So, that's where I've been. I'm still writing, see? Just not necessarily in front of a computer. I've been back to grading graduate seminar papers and prepping class---and writing a bit of the public speaking textbook.

My head is all about "informative speaking" at the moment. I'm looking for a good student speech that's a little quirky to include in the chapter I'm working on. I had a speech lined up on "civic coffee," apparently a much prized beverage made from coffee beans pooped out of cats. But that student is stonewalling me---so the quest continues: can you recommend a good student-authored, informative speech that's not about making a peanut butter and jelly sannich?

All of this said, I won't be traveling for over a month, so I hope I'll be able to post a bit more on the blog in the coming weeks. Occupying my head at the moment is the hard-to-believe oil disaster in the gulf; the rhetorical effects of School House Rock; and the ways in which The Passion of the Christ is pornographic (I have to pump out an essay before Claire Sisco King scoops me in her no doubt awesome, forthcoming book!).