Where the hell have I been?

I have no idea. What a semester! After doing MLA interviews over the winter break, I never really caught up enough to get in control of the spring term. Staying on top of this semester reminded me of being a five year old atop my shetland pony who would go along with the whole "ponyride" thing until abruptly spinning around and galloping for the barn but not before taking us through the apple orchard where numerous low branches would thrash me senseless and leave me lying in the grass dazed and windless.

Here are the big doin's:

1. I taught a new course this semester and a grad course, both of which ate up my life and spit out the gristle.

2. I've been appointed co-coordinator of the Women's Studies Program. Power! Fame! Glory!

3. My mother was hospitalized in April in acute congestive heart failure so I made a flying trip up there right at the end of the term. She's back home now and doing moderately well for someone in heart failure with high blood pressure, COPD, and edema.

4. I ran the Charlottesville marathon (4:07) and the Frederick, MD marathon (3:58) within two weeks of each other. Yay me! Ask me about my marathons! I'm headed to MI in June to run the North Country Trail relay with Team Playmakers. Can't wait!

5. I finished a week-long workshop to learn how to teach my summer course online. Can I just say that right now the whole thing seems like a virtual cluster-fuck (the course is a forty-student section of discussion-based instruction) but I'm getting paid a lot to do it!

6. I joined match.com, which, let me tell you, is worth the price of admission for the entertainment factor alone.

7. I met with a realtor this weekend to start shopping for a home to buy. I told the guy my price range and informed him that I'm not interested in townhomes. He said, "Yeah. Well. You'll have to get over that."

8. I finally got a settlement from my car accident last fall. Apparently my "aggravation" is worth just under $1000. How 'bout that.

9. The book project I'm working on with a grad school buddy got a "nibble" from an interested press, so we're at work on the introduction and gathering the contributors' essays.

That's about it. I'm currently reading a 19th century autobiography by a free black woman, Eliza Potter's _A Hairdresser's Adventures in High Life_. After that there's a novel a student recommended. I saw _After the Wedding_ last night and thought it was great. Today I'm seeing _The Namesake_ which I read last break--should be good. I'm also excited that _Away from Her_ is coming to town; the screenplay is based on one of my favorite Alice Munro short stories, "The Bear Came Back Over the Mountain."

H'burg aroma cast: agricultural.