West of the Moon

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historical work.

The annual meeting of the AHA was, as I’d suspected it might be, much more pleasant for me this year than previous years.  I spent a lot of time in the book room, saw a lot of grad school friends (most of whom had interviews! hooray!), and got some grading done.  (Most of the grading [...]

wee subway people.

2008: everything changed.

I had a dream last night that Berkeley finally got around to giving me my course schedule for the spring semester, and that I was irritated that they’d put it off until practically the last minute.  I mean, really, if the semester starts in two or three weeks, this isn’t enough time to pull together [...]

a new york scene.

We’re sitting around in the living room, talking, when suddenly D. jumps a little in his seat.
“Did you hear that?  It sounded like someone crying.”
I’d heard it, but it had barely registered.  “It’s probably just street noise. There’s always someone crying.”
As the words leave my mouth, I feel like a jerk.  Isn’t that a bad [...]

not quite in the home stretch yet.

There’s a deeply unfair thing that happens in the packing process.  As you get towards the end, when you’re more tired and starting to stress about lack of time, it turns out that everything you have left to deal with is annoying.  Odd-sized or over-sized objects that don’t pack well in boxes, large or awkward [...]

Monday.

At lunch today, I ran into a friend from graduate school.  We haven’t seen each other in more than a year, but as it turns out, we’re both going to be teaching at private high schools next year.  It’s a nice coincidence, and maybe not that surprising, given how much we’ve always agreed about what [...]

Pedro!

I’ve said before that this is a mixed household, split between a Mets fan and a Red Sox fan.  We can make common cause in our mutual dislike of the Yankees, though, and also in our love for Pedro Martinez.

the end of days.

What were you doing five years ago?
Five years ago this summer, I had just finished my qualifying exams, and was starting the first stage of my dissertation research. At the beginning of the summer, I drove out to Boston, and spent the summer at archives up and down the east coast. A lot [...]

sense memory.

that feminism stuff.