Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Allow me to introduce...

Hi sister,

Keeping with the picture theme...Meet Moxie! The kitten, not the soft drink (complete with captions, of course).

First day we brought her home. Just crawling on me, checking things out. 

Playing some stellar defense. (Notice the new air hockey table. You're jealous, admit it.)

Snuggling on the couch. 



She's pretty cute, it's true. But, the pictures are slightly biased. Mostly because generally she is moving too quickly to take a picture of her, so the only pictures are from the rare calm moments. For instance, five seconds after the above snuggling picture, she was gnawing on my arm without ever changing her general body positon. Other not-so-cute-unpictured-moments: chewing through my head phones, knocking water off my bedside table and straight onto my ipod (it's drying out, I'll keep you posted), punches to the eyeball while we sleep (she takes after me, apparently), deciding that the roommate is for snuggling while I am for biting/wrestling...

I started out trying to lure you to come visit, but I feel as though I may have just shot myself in the foot. Hm. She is super cute, I swear. And FYI, hair things are basically the best toy thing ever.

(Oh, also FYI, when I told PecanMama that "Moxie is a nut" she responded with, "We'll have to go shopping for some cat toys for her." So, you know, not for nothing, but I do have cat toys for her, the crayfishes tank is plenty big, he is making his water dirty, the water isn't makin ghim dirty, and when we have kids, she's gonna be alllll over us "helping." So, basically, you go ahread and have the first one or two so she gets it out of her system.)

All right then, one last thing. Where can I get rainbow knee socks? 

love,
your air-hockey-champion (at least in our apartment) sister





Wednesday, October 20, 2010

the fires of fall

Hi sister,

The "little summer" has passed and fall is here for good. (Well, not for good -- for now. Until winter comes, I mean.) I meant to post this a while ago but, as seems to be our pattern, things got away from me. But since you've decided to post more frequently, I guess I can try to also. Just know that sometimes my posts will be more of pictures than words. They will, however, always be labeled. 'Cause that's how I roll.

fires from the past

fires of the present

fires for the future
Love,
your sister

Sunday, October 10, 2010

"I've been busy"

Dear Sister,

So, I've been meaning to post, but...err...I've been busy...

Okay, now, I'm sure you've realized before that the "I've been busy" excuse is pretty much my biggest pet peeve. Why you ask? It's not because I don't believe that people are busy. Or even that they are so busy that they simply just don't have time to get everything done. Believe you me, do I know that is absoutely possible. The thing is this-- no matter how busy you are, no matter how little sleep you are getting, it's just all about prioritizing. So yeah, I work every single freaking day, and often get off work at 130am and have to get up for the other job six hours later, but have I really not had time to go grocery shopping? No, I could have after work one day. It just was not high on my priority list. Speaking of lists-- here is the most current:

Ella's list of prioritizes
Work ($$)
Sleep (zzz)
Run (ahhh)

So, basically, what I really mean, and what I think everyone really means when they say "I'm busy" or "I've been busy" or some variation thereof, is "It wasn't on the top of my priority list." Now, don't get me wrong, that's totally understandable. Especially if someone is working ridiculous hours or has a lot of super important life stuff going on. It is very reasonable for some things, like communication with the people you love, to fall a little bit down on the priority list. But the thing is, in the world of communication we live in these days, "I was too busy" just doesn't fly. Texting takes approximately 20 seconds (unless, of course, we're talking about the parentals, in which case its probably more like one minute 20 seconds...). Writing a post takes a little bit longer, granted, but I'll be honest: I could have posted instead of watching Law and Order one night. 

So what I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry writing to you has fallen down on my priority list some. You'll notice, though, that eating is also not on that list. Because I forgot to put it on there, and then I realize that's sort of accurate, since eating has become a bit of an after thought. I'm eating, don't worry, it just isn't very thought through. It's more like, oh, hey! I have to be at work in ten minutes, better inhale this bowl of cereal real quick. 

The other reason, though, for the lack of posts is that I really wanted to show you some pictures of my apartment but it's hard to get good angles that show what it actually looks like. So then I realized I could take a video and post that! But then I realized that I wanted to clean the apartment first, but I was really tired, and the kitten (oh, yeah, we got a kitten...more on that later) was running around like a nut and well, instead I napped and went to work. 

So here is my promise to you: I will revise my priority list. 

Ella's *new and improved* priority list:
Work ($$$)
Sleep (zzzzzz)
Run (ahhh)
Eat (numanumanum)
Post (eeeeeee!)
Stick to *new and improved* priority list

Video of the apartment to come soon. Just as soon as I clean. And sleep. And...err...you get the idea. 

love,
your reprioritizing sister 


Sunday, October 3, 2010

lists, lists, lists

Dear sister,

You're busy. I'm busy. Instead of a post in the style of a column (Op-Ed, gossip, advice), this will be a post in the form of a column. As in, a vertical list of words in short rows.

I like lists. You like lists. Here are some lists I've made lately.

The grad-school list of "Words I Really Should Know By Heart"
1. epistemological (relating to the theory of knowledge)
2. ontological (based on existence)
3. tautological (needless repetition of a word or idea)
4. hermeneutical (relating to the study of interpretation or methodology)

The ever-popular grad school list of "Words Made Up By the Field of Religious Studies" (We made a bingo card for lectures.)
1. problematize
2. liminality
3. performative
4. preunderstandings
5. situatedness
6. literacies
7. ultimacy
8. solutionatize (Ok, we made this one up after we got tired of having to "problematize" everything.)


There's the list of books I have to read for fun:

(I had a $200 gift certificate to a used bookstore, which is a long story, and also an awesome gift.)

The list of books I have to read that are less-fun-because-I-have-to-show-teenagers-why-these-should-be-more-fun:
Selected short stories from the textbook
Of Mice and Men
Antigone
Ordinary People
Romeo and Juliet
(Confession: I don't think I've ever read this play all the way through. We studied it in 9th grade, but all I remember is watching the movie. And this was before the Claire Danes/Leonardo diCaprio one was made, mind you.)
(Major Confession: Okay. I can't actually think of any play I've read all the way through, unless I was working it or teaching it. Don't tell the theater police, ok?)

And finally, the reason for this post, the list of "Five Songs I Will Learn on the Guitar Before I See the Once-and-Future Boyfriend Again"
1. Froggie Went A Courtin'
2. Oh, Susannah
3. that Irish folk song the Once-and-Future tried to teach me before
4. "The Rainbow Connection" (as done by Kermit the Frog)
5.

Well, look at that. The Once-and-Future is arriving in about 10 days, but since I had no idea when we'd see each other again, I thought I'd have more time to learn 5 songs. I'm cheating a bit by including a song I sort-of knew before. But, help! What should my 5th song be? It needs to fit in with others. Read: not too fast, not too complicated, not too "unknown by me."

Got any song suggestions? Or, a list of words that YOUR field of study has made (and no, bio major, Latin names of body parts does not count)? And perhaps your to-do list for the Fall? That will entice me to make mine. I'll give you a hint: it involves a lot of variations on "don't throw the high school children out the window."

Love,
your swore-she'd-never-return-to-her-old-high-school-and-guess-where-she's-now-teaching sister