I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together

My typist firmly believes that the saddest moment in all of literature, the passage she cannot ever read without instantly tearing up, is the ending of A. A. Milne's The House At Pooh Corner.

Christopher Robin is about to start school. Knowing that his childhood life of play is coming to an end, he takes his beloved bear to an enchanted place in the forest and asks him to promise never to forget him and the delights of the time they have spent together. Pooh promises to remember, even if Christopher Robin lives to be a hundred and he lives to be ninety-nine. The vow made, the serious mood lifts and the two run off to nowhere in particular for a final romp. And then, the finest book in children's literature concludes with the following words:

So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.

My poor typist. She hates working with tears running down her cheeks.

Are you with me, darlings? Close readers that you are, have you figured out what I am trying to say?

It's time, my pretties. After six and a half years and 761 posts, it's time to bring the active phase of this happy experiment in social media to an end. To put it simply, I've been dead for nearly three years. I think it's high time I retired, don't you?

Thank you. Thanks to every single one of you for being a part of this quirky, (un)real place, which the middle-aged broad who brought it into being has always thought of as at least a little bit enchanted -- because of you. Thank you for reading, for caring, for keeping the spirit of play alive in your own selves and in the world. That spirit will never die, because the world and all its critters need it, desperately. If you live to be a hundred, don't ever lose sight of that truth.

As of now, the blogging here will end, but the blog will go on in the sense of being here, always, for you, like some loyal companion animal of Very Little Brain whose love you need and whose insights might suggest that brains are overrated. As of now, Roxie's World is an archive of what we have thought and felt and how we have endured the past six and a half years. Come back from time to time. No one but me will know you've been here, and I will love knowing you stopped by.

Now, put down your hankies, kids, and listen up. I've got some good news, too. Are you ready?

Moose has launched a brand new blog. It's up. It's going. You are invited to head over there. As soon as you finish reading this.

A brand new blog? Yep! I thought she should call it Moose, Unleashed, but for some baffling reason she has opted to call it The Madwoman with a Laptop instead. (Could the name have something to do with the little essay she contributed to this collection? Who knows?) What's the new blog going to be and do? Well, one never quite knows with blogs, but the inaugural post makes it sound as if fans of this here blog will feel right at home with the Madwoman, who promises to offer "commentary on a similar, eclectic mix of subjects from a familiar perspective: queer, feminist, critter-affirming, with a tone that moves between and among irreverence, optimism, and righteous indignation, with occasional unapologetic lapses into sentimentality. I’ll write about higher education, middle age, new media, politics, queer stuff, books I read or teach, the stuff I watch on TV. I will rail about Excellence Without Money (which is still ™RW Enterprises LLC) and wax rhapsodic on college women’s basketball. I’ll offer glimpses of life with my new companion terrier, Ruby, and my companion human of 28+ years, the woman known on Roxie’s World as Goose. There’ll be jokes, recipes, pictures I take. Maybe even pictures I draw."

Pictures I draw? See caricature above. Which proves that there may well be some Madness in the Woman who has launched this new venture. Girl, put the stylus down and step away from the iPad before someone gets hurt!

Anyhoo, kids, speaking of the woman known in these precincts as Goose, we realize there may be some identity challenges ahead for some of this blog's readers as we negotiate the transition to The Madwoman with a Laptop. You'll be pleased to know that the Office of Persona Management will remain open should you need assistance in figuring out who to be. Mark Twain is standing by, Candy Man, and is ready to hand out advice on all matters comical and ontological. Some things never change, I swear.

But some things do change, my darlings, and that isn't necessarily bad. Our ability to adapt to change is a measure of our strength and resilience. Roxie's World has always been a celebration of resilience, hasn't it? Of picking up and carrying on, in every sense of the term.

So, carry on:

• Subscribers: Add The Madwoman to your feed readers. Now. Moose's fragile self-esteem won't survive a crash in readership.
• Blog pals: Put The Madwoman in your blog rolls. Immediately. Please? Looking at you, cowgirl, and you, Crazy. And I know you're on vacay, TR, but hop to, will ya?
• Everybody: Show some love. Leave a comment here and there to let us know we're still a pack and always will be. Pretty please with kibble on top?

My typist has gone through half a box of Kleenex working on this post and still is reluctant to bring it to a close. As I said before, though, it's time. I know in my large and long still heart that it is time. Even my typist is ready, but she's too choked up to speak right now, so we'll let comic genius Carol Burnett have the last word. Seems we just get started and before you know it, comes the time we have to say -- 

Oh, you know the rest. Peace out, my pretties. Thanks for running with us.

Smith Mountain Breakdown

I know, I know. You're sick to death of blog silence or "posts" comprised of little more than iPhone snaps cheaply gussied up through CameraBag or Instagram, accompanied by sheepish apologies and promises to do more and better blogging soon.

But, hey, this $hit is still free, right, and what if the pictures are really, REALLY cute? Or boozy? You like that, don't you? Deal with it, peeps. We love you, but you'll just have to take what we've got to give these days. For now, that means a couple of pics that say, "Welcome, Summer 2012!" The Moms and Ms. Ruby spent Memorial Day weekend at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia, enjoying the hospitality of the Carolina Moosians. The fun included boat rides and Moose's pathetic attempts to balance herself on assorted objects being dragged through water at high rates of speed. (Why do people do that, I wonder? There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the lord did not intend for humans to get around that way. Exhibit A: The bruises and pulled muscles Moose always gets when she tries to ski. Exhibit B: Sea legs. Still.)

Ruby enjoyed boating as much as I did when I visited SML in the fall of 2003. (That's where Moose snapped the noble profile shot of me that still graces the top of this blog's right sidebar.) Unlike me, the new embodied dog of Roxie's World also likes to get in the water. She took a couple of spirited dips in the lake, which Goose captured on video. By the way, Ruby didn't actually wear the cobalt blue goggles featured in the photo below, but Moose couldn't resist putting them on her. It's a look, kiddo. Work it.

Goose concocted the festive beverages pictured below, which Moose named the Smith Mountain Breakdown (in honor of this glorious Earl Scruggs tune). They were the bestest cocktails ever, or, you know, the bestest cocktails since the ones Goose had whipped up the night before. It was a weekend for blender drinks. This one included fresh peaches, a banana, and unknown quantities of vodka, peach schnapps, and lime juice. Add ice and blend the fucke outte of itte, as our good friend PhysioProf might say. Deelish, the crowd declared!

(Photo Credits: Moose, Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia, 5/26//12 and 5/27/12.)

Gotta run, kids. The Moms head out again early tomorrow morning for a conference and a few days of visiting with various and sundry Goosians in the Lone Star State. Who knows? Maybe we'll post a margarita pic or three over the next few days. Stay tuned, dammit, and rest assured we adore you. Mean it! Peace out.

Feel the Burn(out)

If Jane Fonda were an academic blogger, she'd be feeling the burn(out) right now. The signs of it are everywhere -- and here, in this little blog, which has sounded a lot like this lately:

 
am crickets 03 hpx

The few proffie types who are blogging are blogging about how hard it is to blog right now, and comment threads are exploding with confessions and doubts and explanations and exhortations -- all signs of a veritable virtual existential crisis. Who are we? Why are we doing this? Why don't we stop? How can we keep going? Is it a seasonal affective disorder that temporarily has us in a funk? The school year is winding down, after all, and we are all overwhelmed with the madness of the academic spring. Or is something deeper going on? Are we coming to a fork in a road or -- perish the thought -- to the end of some line we've all been riding -- writing -- individually and collectively? Sorry to go all blog-apocalyptic on you, but you know something serious is going on when you see our dear (though unmet) friend Historiann casually declaring in a comment over at Undine's that she is "out of ideas."

Srsly, girlfriend? You? Matron saint of academic blog sass and savvy? Who for nearly five years has posted so regularly that we figured you were knocking back some secret blogger's equivalent of Metamucil out there in the high desert? Out of ideas? Cowgirl, that's like saying the ocean has run out of water. Or, to choose a metaphor more appropriate to your style and sensibility, that's like saying there ain't no ponies left in the corral worth saddling up and riding out. There's plenty of fine ponies left, Historiann, and we bet you'll get your giddyup back just as soon as the dust settles on the semester and  you have a chance to take a good look at the corral again.

For the record, here's part of what I had to say over at Undine's on the subject of whatever kind of crisis might be going on in the blogging community of which we are a part:

I think blogs (and bloggers) go through energy crises as well as identity crises. My blog has wrestled some with identity issues ever since I complicated our narrative set up by dying. (Hey, I say to my typist, you think it sucks for YOU? Being dead is no fun for me, ya know!) Recently, the energy crisis has been more relevant. My typist has had an insanely busy academic year. Her commitment to Lifestyle Adjustment also means that she's less willing to sit in a chair trolling the interwebs for pretty pictures or stuff to get pissed off about. If forced to choose -- and she often is these days -- she'll sometimes choose to go for a run rather than work on a post. As a result, posts at my place have gotten shorter and less frequent in recent months. 

Like Crazy, we're not thinking of shutting down, though the thought has crossed our minds. Still, our small but devoted band of readers sticks with us and we enjoy their company. We'll keep keeping on, one way or another.

We have noted before that blogs have life cycles. They come and go as bloggers' lives and interests change. We try not to get too caught up in the temptation to make Grand Proclamations about Technology, Communication, and the Future of Civilization every time some new social media toy comes along that is so much cooler, funner, faster, and easier than blogging. The question for us remains what it has always been: What is the best tool for any particular communicative/strategic goal? How can we say what needs saying and maybe throw in some eye candy and a joke or two?

Still, if we were prone to speculate, we might say that academic blogging that is not strictly speaking academic -- i.e., not directly related to developing or promoting a scholar's research -- may be under unusual pressure these days from at least two sources. One is the stress all workers in higher education feel from the labor conditions endemic to the regime of Excellence Without Money (™RW Enterprises LLC): stagnating or declining wages, increased work loads, rising insecurity due to the erosion of tenure. A lot of academic blogging that isn't strictly speaking academic arose in response to such conditions. It has served as a valuable means of sharing knowledge and building alliances across institutions, but those who produce it must do so during their incredible shrinking "leisure" time. We began blogging because it was fun and fascinating -- and when I say "we" I mean my typist, who has tenure in a Research 1 school and has been splitting her time between teaching and directing a small (i.e., resource-starved), interdisciplinary program for the past ten years. As mobile technologies have blurred the lines between work and leisure time and administrative demands proliferate in the age of No Dean Life Behind, few academics ever feel that they are not in some sense at work. How do you blog when the tool you would use to do it also holds all those reports you ought to be writing, all those e-mails someone thinks you should be answering?

Another source of pressure on bloggers arises from the fact that even as academic standards are slowly shifting to acknowledge the realities of a post-print culture that is producing "new venues for research, communication, and the creation of networked academic communities" (yay, MLA!), blogging is still devalued as a non-serious product of the non-peer reviewed internets. Bloggers aren't "builders" and so rank low on the hierarchy of values Stephen Ramsay constructed for the field of digital humanities early in 2011. Stanley Fish is so contemptuous of blogging that he makes a public spectacle of his resistance to acknowledging he himself is doing it, even from the lofty perch of The New York Times rather than down here with the riffraff of Wordpress and -- horrors! -- Blogger:

This is a blog. There, I’ve said it. I have been resisting saying it — I have always referred to this space as a “column” — not only because “blog” is an ugly word (as are clog, smog and slog), but because blogs are provisional, ephemeral, interactive, communal, available to challenge, interruption and interpolation, and not meant to last; whereas in a professional life now going into its 50th year I have been building arguments that are intended to be decisive, comprehensive, monumental, definitive and, most important, all mine.

Oh, it sucks to be you, doesn't it, Mr. Fish? Denied monumentality, stuck in this icky, ephemeral, interactive space filled with ugly words and pajama-clad wiseacres with the audacity to disagree with you. Yeah, you're just one low-rent cat video away from realizing that you, too, are free to go yet immobile in the realm of the provisional. Deal with it, Stan.

Everybody hates blogging, it would appear. Fish hates it for lacking "authority" and "disciplinary power." Ramsay turns up his nose because blogging isn't "making anything." Really? "Build, therefore, your own world," Emerson urges in Nature. Moose says that's what she set out to do in establishing this quirky little outpost in the blogosphere. Haters gonna hate, of course, but she still thinks it's one of the coolest things she's ever built, and she doesn't much care if it fits into anybody's system of rewards.

Burned out? Maybe a little. Fading away? Never, darlings. We're here for you, in bits and pieces and in the moments we manage to steal away from all the things we are supposed to be doing. How deep is our love? It's 12:57 on a Tuesday morning, and we are about to press "Publish." For you, my pretties. Because we belong to you and me, don't we? Of course we do. Peace out.

New Tools, Old Rules

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Moose's new iPad, which she got today, not because she camped out for three days but because she quite uncharacteristically planned ahead. She even got the taxpayers of Maryland to buy it for her as an early birthday present. Yep, no money for raises, but plenty for toys essential research tools. We'll let you know soon what she really thinks of it, though so far she's pretty impressed. She's been fiddling around while watching hoops this evening during the Night of a Thousand Upsets. (Poor Duke. Not!)

The Moms head over to the Comcastle early in the a.m. to catch the red hot Lady Terps in first-round action against Navy in the women's tournament. Maybe we'll do some b-ball posting over the weekend, on a machine that's really built for blogging. (Full disclosure: This post was drafted on the iPad but finished on the computer, because Moose couldn't figure out how to embed links or upload photos to Blogger on her fancy new toy tool.) Meantime, here's a sample of what the highly touted camera on the new iPad can do, even in crummy light:

(Photo Credit: Moose, 3/16/12)

Not bad for a stale shamrock cookie from the co-op, eh? Remember, Goose is only half Irish-ish, so we don't really celebrate. If you do, we hope you have a swell, safe time. Peace out, my little leprechauns, and don't cry if your brackets are busted. Everybody's are, but all that matters is Duke is out (of the non-lady tournament), which means all is half-right in the world. We'll see what happens to the Blue Devils in the women's tournament, though we have a hard time seeing them get past Stanford in the Elite 8. Just remember House Rule #1 of Roxie's World, sports fans: We hate Duke so much that if Duke were playing the Taliban, we would root for the Taliban. Therefore, any team playing Duke is known as the Taliban, and we sit on the couch screaming, "Go, Taliban, go!"

Got it? Go forth and cheer.

Now We Are Six

Moose had that book over there on the left when she was a kid struggling to understand why she had not been born in Paris, France, as the lord had clearly intended her to be. She didn't love Milne's collection of children's verses in the way she loved his more well known works of prose, but there was almost nothing she loved as much as she loved the stories of Christopher Robin and his beloved Bear of Very Little Brain. As read aloud to her every night by an adored father whose silky smooth voice was ideal for storybook reading.

We'll pause here while my typist recalls the sound of that long silenced voice, which made her delight in words like Heffalump and Expotition and helped her to believe in an enchanted place on the top of the Forest where love and play would last forever. Ah, yes.

Now we are six -- and by "we" I mean this blog and its readers, this quirky little possibly enchanted world that we have built together word by word, link by link, post by post when we should have been doing other far less pleasurable things. Thank you for being here and for making us feel that, whatever it is we are doing here, it's fun enough to go right on doing it, if not forever, at least for the next little while. We are sure of you, as Piglet was sure of Pooh, and that, by golly, is good enough for us. Happy blogiversary, darlings. See you again soon.

* * *

We'd be remiss if we failed to mention here that Moose and Goose happily celebrated the twenty-eighth anniversary of their unlicensed love on International Women's Day, March 8. The occasion was thoroughly celebrated on Facebook and out in the real world with a decadent feast in a neighborhood joint where everybody knows your name. Thanks for all the good wishes, friends. And if you're feeling bummed that we didn't get up a proper anniversary post called Twenty-Eight Years of Queer Delight, well, go read Twenty-Seven Years of Queer Delight, Twenty-Six Years of Queer Delight, Twenty-Five Years of Queer Delight, and Twenty-Four Years of Queer Delight. That's a heaping helping of queer delight. We're hoping that will hold you till next year! Peace out.

Today in My Typist Is STILL Too Busy to Blog

Now With Tiny Violins!

Srsly. More than a week of radio silence around here, and my typist still insists she doesn't have time for a proper post. Dammit, Moose, we gotta give 'em something! I don't want to become known as the Grover Norquist of East Blogistan, starving the beast of my vast readership because you're having a hard time keeping up with yourself these days. Fine, Moose grumbled as she struggled to stuff all the balls she'd been juggling into her book bag before heading off to campus. Here, Rox. Throw 'em a bone. Let 'em watch the adorable vid I shot of the Norwood School orchestra earnestly sawing away on "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Sunday's game against Duke. It's cute, even if I didn't get the whole song, very nearly as cute as a damn cat video, and it proves that our national anthem is very nearly as hard to play as it is to sing. Throw in a Whitney Houston tie-in, and we're good to go.

Desperate times, desperate measures, people. Sometimes you go with the post you got, not with the post you want. These kids really are cute, and the Lady Terps snatched victory away from the Blue Devils with brilliant play in the final minute. The hearty "woohoooooo" you hear as the little fiddlers finish off the anthem is of course Moose, beside herself with excitement as tipoff approaches. She was so psyched for the big game that she even indulged in a bit of face-painting -- and learned by halftime that the reason face-painting is for kids and not for grownups is that grownups get stressed out when their team falls behind by 12 points early in the game, rub their faces, and turn a pretty red "M" into a big schmear that starts at the cheek and runs all the way up the forehead. Oops.

In any case, here, for your mid-week pleasure, are the little fiddlers of the Norwood School, forcing us to wonder, yet again, why we have marching bands but not marching orchestras. Don't say we never gave you nothin', people. Peace out.

 

Contact -- and Non-Contact

This kicks off Monday at QTU, which partly explains the radio silence around here lately.

(Image Credit: Mira Azarm, Assistant Director for Client Publications, QTU)

Moose has also been a bit preoccupied by the action on marriage equality in Annapolis and by preparations for this big gay fundraiser (which you should totes support/attend if you happen to be in the 'hood on Feb. 23), which she is co-hosting in her capacity as big gay member of the Board of Directors of this organization.

Also, we've been having our hearts broken by both Lady and Non-Lady Terps. Oh, basketball, you can be a cruel mistress.

It's not that we don't love you, darlings. We do. Indeed, we will allllllllllllllllllways love youuuuuuuuuu. (Whitney? Girl? Are you freaking kidding me?)

We're just ridiculously busy. Don't hate us. We shall return. Swear to dog.

Outlook: Hazy

(Photo Credit: Moose, 1/23/12)

Moose snapped this moody shot on her way off campus this evening. (No, it only looks like she was the last person to leave the joint.) Campus was enveloped in a thick mist all day today, which deepened the quiet of the still largely student-free zone. Spring classes begin on Wednesday. (Yes, that's ridiculously late. You won't hate us so much when we're wrapping up the semester around, you know, the Fourth of July.) There is still a lot to do because Moose has got a lot going on this term and still hasn't finished tweaking her syllabus for the third iteration of her blogging class.

Which means, darlings, that we don't have time to linger here with you right now, much as we'd like to. Forgive us, will you? You know we love you and will return as soon as we can. In the meantime, click on over to Arcade and read Natalia Cecire's thoughtful piece on academic blogging, which kindly  invokes Moose's riff on pseudonymity in The Journal of Women's History roundtable on academic feminist blogging. Or, speaking of Tenured Radical (who edited that JWH roundtable), go read her latest post on her midlife transition to a new job. Show her some love, kids, and, if you see her wandering aimlessly in a hallway near you, show her her classroom, too, will ya? Or, if you still read books but prefer books with colorful pictures, pick up Brooke Gladstone's The Influencing Machine. Moose just read it as part of her work for the Committee to Assure That All Incoming Students Read At Least One Fracking Book in Their First Year of College and enjoyed it immensely. It's smart and witty, but it also brings an impressive historical perspective to bear on questions about media and technology that are far too often discussed in completely presentist (and often alarmist) terms. And did we mention that it has lots and lots of pictures?

Off you go, my pretties. It's a great big interweb. Somebody out there is saying something terribly clever right now. Click away or you'll miss it!

2011: A Brief, Backward Glance

Want a proper End of Year List? Go elsewhere, darlings. A humble dog blog cannot be expected to wrap its paws around a year as epic in scale as 2011 turned out to be. Our focus this year has been largely personal and our productivity has been significantly lower than in years past. (This is just our 89th post of the year, making 2011 our lightest year of blogging since RW's barbaric yawp was first heard in 2006. We would apologize for slacking, but, hey, you get this stuff for free, so, you know, deal with it. We love you, but we gotta pay the bills somehow.)

Anyhoo, here, in no particular order, is an unabashedly partial and idiosyncratic list of some of what mattered to us this year. We invite you to share your highlights and lowlights in comments as a way of preparing for the transition into 2012. Retrospection is good for the soul, especially as we move into the unpredictability and intensity of a Year of the Dragon.

Number of the Year:

 -- That's the number of pounds Moose lost on the Lifestyle Adjustment Program she began in January. Which just goes to show you that sometimes New Year's resolutions work. Also: You can teach old dogs new tricks. Oh: And self-improvement arises not from self-loathing but from compassion. Just saying. Finally: It's possible to eat well and lose weight. Go here and here  for recipes and inspiration.

Happiest Day of the Year: March 6 -- That's the day Ms. Ruby arrived in Roxie's World to assume the role of Embodied Dog. It was a cold, dark, rainy day that became sunny and bright the moment the good people of American Fox Terrier Rescue brought the sweetest critter on dog's earth across the threshold.

Photo of the Year: Pepper-Spraying Cop -- The image that launched one of the best memes ever and, more importantly, briefly focused attention not only on funding crisis in higher education but on the overly zealous policing of nonviolent student protest on campuses throughout the country. One of our major hopes for 2012 is that "Occupy Education" becomes a sustained and viable challenge to the way of doing business in higher ed.

Best Art We Saw: The Steins Collect, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Thrilling.

Best TV We Saw: The Good Wife, but that may only be because we missed Homeland. We started watching it on the penultimate day of 2011 and are impressed. Good lord, Claire Danes can act!

Most Hyper-Inflated Ticket Price We Didn't Mind Paying: For The Book of Mormon on Broadway in September. Oh, sweet-voiced boys in short-sleeved shirts, you truly had us at "Hello!"

Most Culinary Fun We Had in the DC Area This Year: The several times we dined at José Andrés' delightful pop-up restaurant, America Eats. We blogged about this rollicking good tour through the culinary history of the United States after Moose first visited it in July. It has held up well through several repeat visits. Go. Now. Before it disappears!

Losses That Stung/Struck Us: Death, as usual, had a banner year in 2011. Of the biggies, the death of Apple CEO Steve Jobs in October particularly struck us, but we were more personally touched by the deaths of Texas music impresario Joe Gracey, poet Ruth Stone, and retired teacher Ida Pinkney, our next-door neighbor for 17 years who literally died laughing on the day before Thanksgiving. Ida was talking on the phone with a dear friend and suffered a massive heart attack. The Moms were terribly sad to lose someone who taught them so much of what it meant to be a good neighbor -- the exchange of pleasantries across the driveways, the check-in phone calls during snowstorms and other local dramas -- but they also kind of love the idea that a woman with Ida's gift for friendship and immense joie de vivre left the world laughing. Some endings, though sad, are fitting. Dogspeed, Ida.

Best Posts We Managed to Get Up in This Not Especially Bloggy Year: We'll choose two, one in the category of Meditations on Social Media and the other in the category of Inter-Species Romance. For the first, we'll award our post-MLA post, "The Great Untweeted," which set records in Roxie's World for volume of traffic and number of comments. We're proud of that one and thinks its reflections on what does and does not get tweeted at academic conferences hold up pretty well. For the second category, we are willing to pat ourselves on the back for "The Day I Became a Dog," the September post in which readers heard Ms. Ruby's voice for the first time. We agonized over that one for ages and were pleased that readers seemed to enjoy it so much when we finally pressed publish.

Thanks to all of you for hanging out with us for another wacky year in the blogosphere. We promise to try to be a little more prolific in 2012, as the presidential campaign heats up and the Republican ship of fools sails on. In the meantime, we wish you all a safe and happy new year. Peace out, my pretties, and may none of your dear acquaintances ever be forgot.

Cocktails and Queries

Oh, Googles, what would we do without you? Especially at the tail end of an exhausting teaching week, when brains are so scrambled you begin to worry that someone will mistake you for the latest entrant into the Republican presidential field. The Moms gave up on coherent thought early in the evening and headed over to a favorite local eatery for drinks and dinner. (That's Goose's extra dry martini in the photo on the left and Moose's kicky combo of champagne, St. Germain, and other cute ingredients on the right). Now they're vegetating in front of the World Series. My typist is cruising the interwebs in a desultory way and starts poking around in the keyword data on this blog's hit counter. Yeah, she finally says with a yawn, let's steal a page out of Nicole and Maggie's play book and do a Google Q&A post. I think I have enough brain power left to manage that. Boy, searchers are strange, but let's take a stab at answering some of the actual queries that have recently led readers to Roxie's World.

Q: how long does it take to get roxys out of your system

A: Oh, sweet pea, we don't know, but we don't think you should mess around with that $hit at all. You might consult this guy for advice. Or, if you are convinced Roxie's World is where you want to be, you might do a search here on the phrase "lifestyle adjustment" to get sensible but not obnoxious advice about healthy eating and nice things you can do to and with your body. Hint: Abusing Roxicodone is not on the list.

Q: which side of the army uniform does the name type go

A: Not sure, but I'll go out on a limb and say it's either the right or the left. (OK, it's right, but I bet the gayz will change that, don't you?)

Q: Picture of a white person hugging a asian tranny

A: Incredibly, somehow in the nearly 6-year history of this humble dog blog devoted to politics, pop culture, and basketball, we have failed to publish a single photograph of a white person hugging an Asian tranny. We apologize for the oversight and wish to assure readers that our crack team of interweb image trollers will seek to rectify the situation as quickly as possible. But, you know, it may not be easy. Please bear with us. 

Q: refrigerator eats socks

A: Of course it does, darling, and our microwave belches occasionally. You worry about a refrigerator if and only if something smells or there's a puddle of water on the floor. Otherwise, close the door and walk away.

Q: yes we can parody

A: Yes, you can -- and you should. Parody makes life better.

Q: gay stupid album covers

A: Oh, so many to choose from, but start here.

Q: expression of people being kind

A: Not quite sure what you're getting at here, but I've always thought this guy's face had just about the kindest expression I've ever seen. Kindness, compassion, and a playfulness that always makes my typist smile. Even if he isn't what you were searching for, you probably won't mind stumbling across him in the overcrowded emptiness of cyberspace.

Sweet dreams, my pretties. Game 6 is finally over, so it's time for bed. Peace out.

On the Death of Steve Jobs

When news broke the other evening that computer overlord Apple visionary Steve Jobs had died, Moose quickly posted to Facebook:

RIP Steve Jobs. I think we should all go out on our porches and hold our iPhones up to the sky.

Thus, she was pleased to stumble across this photo on the New York Times website:

(Photo Credit: Tomohiro Ohsumi, Bloomberg News, via.)

She was also for some reason deeply moved to read that among the memorial tributes being left to Jobs outside his Palo Alto, CA home were a pile of apples with one strategically removed bite. Sometimes, only metonymy will do. (At least we think that's what the gesture is, rhetorically speaking. That part of our brains is a little rusty, but our highly capable research assistant Wik E. Pedia seems to agree with us on this point.) Bonus bit of poignancy: Jobs died at the height of apple season. There's a lot of apple eating going on. Every crunchy bite is, by a postmodern logic of transubstantiation through branding, a way of remembering Him.

Please note: We're not being sacrilegious or snarky, kids. This post is being typed on a MacBook Pro. This humble blog is full of images snapped on an iPhone 3G that will soon be replaced by an iPhone 4S that Moose has decided to buy as a way of saying, "Apple, we still believe. Also, dammit, we want to have a voice assistant and a video camera in our back pockets at all times."

My typist suspects she might never have become a blogger had Apple products not totally transformed her relationship to technology. The computer was nothing more than a glorified and often baffling typewriter until the day Goose brought a new Mac home from school and gave Moose permission to play with it while she went off to take a shower. Twenty minutes later, Moose had made her first iPhoto slideshow. That was the day she became a Mac person, having experienced for herself what folks meant when they rhapsodized about how intuitive the machines were and how perfect they were for working with images. In less than twenty minutes, she got it and has never looked back.

Our good friend Cathy Davidson offers a marvelous tribute to Jobs that also acknowledges the dark side of the company he built: the shut-down nature of its products, its dependence on sweatshop labor to produce all those shiny, happy toys. It's important to acknowledge that dark side, even as we celebrate the creativity and connectivity Jobs both embodied and enabled. Davidson ends her post with a quotation from Jobs' famous Stanford commencement address. There's a reason the 2005 speech is famous, and we can't think of a better way to conclude these too brief remarks on a guy who transformed the world and left it far too soon:

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

You are already naked: Indeed, you are, my pretties, and time is short. Carpe diem -- and, for dog's sake, have an Apple today.

Monday Night Link-O-Rama

Quote of the Day: "Being an English major prepares you for impersonating authority" -- Garrison Keillor. Yes, it was that kind of day.

Latest Indication That Our Children Is Not Learning: SAT reading scores reach record low. Is kids to blame? Um, no.

Funnest Thing the Teacher Has Picked Up So Far in This Semester's Trans Lit Course: CISSEXUAL Prince Harry plans to be the first Royal to boldly go into space -- and even wants to enter NASA training. Trannies do too have a sense of humor!

Oh, So That's Why All Our Pals in the Midwest Are Switching to G-Mail: Proposed e-mail policy at U of Illinois gets knickers in wad.

Latest Proof That Eating Conscientiously Does Not Mean Giving Up Comfort Food: Cooking Light's makeover of Mac & Cheese -- with butternut squash. It's the meal you will make every time the forecast calls for snow this winter. It's the reason you will tune into the weather every evening praying there will be snow in the forecast. It's the reason you will soon regret every meal you ever ate that did not include butternut squash. And, you know, moderate amounts of gruyère, pecorino, and parmesan cheese.

Most Amusing Search Phrase That Led More Than One Reader to This Blog Recently: "what to wear in new york during summer for a wedding in city hall same sex." I know, I know, darlings: Social change is discombobulating. Aim for comfort and style. Even the dykes have gone snazzy now that we've all figured out we could end up hosting the Emmys. You will just have to cope.

That's all for now, kids. Both moms are already howling about what a crazy week it is, and the teaching part of it hasn't even started yet. Wevs. No matter how busy you are, don't forget to raise a paw to the long overdue demise of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which officially lapses at midnight tonight. Let us know if you run out and join the Army, will ya? We love a girl -- or guy! -- in uniform. Peace out, y'all, and, you know, Semper Fi.

Here's a shot of that yummy casserole to help ease the pain of your work week.

(Photo Credit: Moose, 9/18/11)

The Day I Became a Dog

Our big question: When will Ruby speak? Stay tuned.
--Tenured Radical, 8/28/11

Roxiom 1: Dogs, like people, are different from each other. Even dogs of the same breed, who share many of the same physical characteristics and behavioral tendencies, may be so different from one another as to seem like all but different species.

With dogs as with people, therefore, one who would enter into significant relationship -- who would, in short, fall in love -- must assume nothing in advance about what the beloved critter will prove to be or do in any given circumstance. Past relationships with similar critters will be of limited value and can in fact be detrimental to forming an understanding of a new dog if one is forever comparing the one to the other. Every sentence that begins, But [our last dog] [loved this] [hated that] [always did this] [never did that] -- , is an insult to the unique and perfect incarnation of doggedness standing before you, ready and eager to love and be loved for and as itself.

Dogs are different from each other. The differences may arise from that vague yet powerful place known as temperament. Some dogs are alpha, others simply are not. Some are willful and aggressive, others are inclined to be docile. Some love water, others fear it when they fear nothing else on earth. Some are territorial and lunge at the UPS guy every day of their lives even if he is the sweetest fellow ever to drive a truck. Others yawn through his incursions with apparent indifference. Some bark lustily and often. Some . . . rarely make a peep. Same breed, different critters.

Dogs are different from each other. Some differences arise from experience or environment. (Yes, my clever darlings -- It's a nature/nurture conundrum we are probing here.) A dog raised from birth in a stable, stimulating, critter-affirming home is bound to be different from one who spends the first three years of her life in, say, a Missouri puppy mill, neglected, confined, unsocialized, unloved. That the latter critter could emerge from such deprivation eager to bond with humans and prepared to adapt to a radically different set of circumstances is testament to an admirable resilience. Nonetheless, such a critter will need time to adjust and to figure who and how she will be, now that she has the luxury of being able to make choices in such matters. My yard? you imagine her marveling. What can you possibly mean? Mine? And I should go play in it? What is this thing you call "play?"

All of this hemming and hawing over difference may seem to avoid the question at the top of this post, a question put to us by this blog's dear, though as yet unmet, friend, Tenured Radical, from her lofty new perch over at the Chronicle of Higher Education (which has apparently become a hotbed of lesbian blogging -- Who knew? Yo, Chron, my typist is a raging Sapphist! We await your call!).

Anyhoo, TR has been nagging us quietly persisting with the question of when the new embodied dog of Roxie's World will begin holding forth in this space. It is, as she says, a big question, one that preoccupied the creative team for much of the long, hot, whacky summer of 2011. When the Moms weren't gallivanting from here to there to the other place, Moose spent long hours huddled with Mark Twain, director of the Office of Persona Management for Roxie's World, considering if, when, and how the adorable Ms. Ruby would make her debut as more than just a pretty face around here. Though Moose and Mark often disagree on matters creative and political, they both felt strongly that such a delicate issue had to be handled with the utmost care, especially in light of its potentially blog-transforming significance.

Over drinks at Ishmael's, the seedy yet cozy bar around the corner from the global headquarters of RW Enterprises, LLC, Twain argued forcefully that if Ruby spoke she should not disparage his home state of Missouri, despite her unhappy experiences there, but he thought it would be OK if she cussed. "You know, Moose, this place could use some healthy swearing -- and not just in comments from your pal PhysioProf. There ought to be a room in every house to swear in. It's dangerous to have to repress an emotion like that." Moose was dubious about the swearing, healthy as she finds it to be in her own off-blog communications life. She thought Ruby might offer uplifting advice to people and critters struggling to overcome adversity. "She could become the voice of the glass half full, on account of she got a rough start in life, but she never lost hope and things have turned out pretty well for her." Twain rolled his eyes and ordered bartender Peter Coffin to put a shot of vodka in Moose's next smoothie.

It went on like this for weeks, with Moose and Mark going back and forth and round and round, raising possibilities and shooting them down, until finally one evening, as happy hour was winding down, a scratchy little voice from a pallet beside Moose's seat at the bar said,

I could tell them about the deer.

Moose and Mark looked down at the floor and then at each other in amazement, for Ruby is not in the habit of interrupting their barstool colloquies. "What?" they said, in unison.

I could tell them about the deer.

"Go on, Ruby," Moose said gently. "What about the deer?"

I could tell them about that night, last week, after the earthquake and the hurricane and the start of school, when the deer was out in the yard, chowing down on the hostas again. I was in the house with you, Tall Lady -- the one Roxie called Moose. The Other Lady -- the one Roxie called Goose -- was out in the yard, frustrated because she couldn't get the deer to leave. You and I saw what was happening and you decided to let me out, thinking I would probably ignore the deer because I'm not much of a hunter but I might manage to startle her anyway and get her to leave the yard. To your surprise, though, in that moment I came into full possession of my mighty terrier heritage. I found my voice, my speed, and my powerful instinct to give chase. I pursued that deer up and down the ridiculously large backyard, barking louder than you had ever heard, determined to make her leave. You and the Other Lady were impressed but worried, concerned that the deer in her panic would attack me. (Such things happen.) She didn't, though. I chased and I chased, and finally, in one delicate movement of her whole body, she leapt the fence and was gone. You and the Other Lady beamed happily at me and gave me a rub behind the ears. "Well, well," you said, "looks like somebody figured out she's a terrier!" I was so excited that I promptly went and took a big poo in a remote corner of the yard, which, you know, I rarely do, preferring to take care of my business on walks around the block.

"That's right, Ruby-doo," Moose said with a doting smile. "That's a wonderful story, and I agree it's one our readers should hear. What would you want them to take away from it?"

How the heck should I know? I did not spend the first three years of my life curled up on the floor of an English prof's study, taking in queer theory and Emily Dickinson by osmosis. Your readers are pretty smart critters. They'll figure out that this is a story about how, six months into my new life with you and the Other Lady, I recognized and acted upon something important about what it means to be a Dog With Humans. You are my people, your yard is my yard. I will love and protect you, as you have loved and cared for me. You will show me a world I never knew existed, a rich, vast, varied world of groomers and grandmothers and pretty boys and feisty girls and beautiful trails and bodies of water that seem to go on forever. In return, I will chase deer from the yard and put my head on the keyboard of your laptop when it's time to stop typing and snuggle. Stuff like that. As I said, though, readers will figure out why the story matters -- You don't have to tell them everything.

Mark Twain looked at Moose and said, "She has a point, you know. Like most stories on Roxie's World, Ruby's charming tale of her encounter with the deer is of the humorous type, and the humorous story may be spun out to great length, and may wander around as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular."

"Of course," Moose replied. "That's our stock in trade. So Ruby fits right in to our rambling style and our admittedly loose preexisting structure. We don't have to change a thing, and we don't have to explain anything!"

"Good lord, no!" Twain thundered. "Explanations are for comic stories, not humorous ones, and involve such tedious things as exclamation points and parentheses. All of which is very depressing, and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a better life."

"And lord knows there'll be no renouncing of joking around here, eh, Mark? I'll raise my smoothie to that, with an exclamation point!"

Twain raised his whiskey and clinked Moose's glass. They both laughed heartily and with evident relief. From the pallet on the floor, the new dog sighed and laid her head on Moose's foot. My human. My world. My still, small voice.

* * *

With thanks to Tenured Radical, for asking the question and helping us to shake off the lethargy of summer. Paws up to you, pal.

(Photo Credits: All photos by Moose. The top one is Roxie at Smith Mountain Lake in October, 2003. The middle one is Ruby on a Sunday morning in March, 2011. The bottom one is Ruby soaking wet from Hurricane Irene on August 27, 2011.)

Celebrating Our Sister Bloggers

If my typist had the tech skill required to create speech balloons, there'd be one above this photo that said,

Having a swell time in Northampton -- Wish you were here!

(Photo Credit: Willa Cather Archive [Image Gallery]; Louise Pound and Willa Cather at the University of Nebraska, 1890s.)

Pardon the radio silence, kids. The moms have been away at Cather Camp for the past several days, making their debut as co-authors and collaborators with a paradigm-shifting (that's academic-speak for, No one in the audience audibly snored) plenary address called "Cather, Dickinson, and Sexuality." The conference was focused on novelist Willa Cather's roots in and connections to the nineteenth century (she was born in 1873), so Moose seized the opportunity to get Goose to pay her back for delivering a paper at last year's Emily Dickinson shindig in Oxford. They did indeed have a swell time hanging out with old and new friends on the bucolic campus of Smith College, which is as crawling with fiercely adorable young dykes as their fevered, middle-aged imaginations had hoped it would be. Moose used the photo above of Cather and her college crush Louise Pound to illustrate a point about how different literary history would look if women's affective and creative relationships were brought into the picture. (Goose had a similar Dickinson image, but we are not at liberty to show that to you yet -- Stay tuned!)

Anyhoo, while Roxie's World was as deserted as the executive suite at Gingrich campaign headquarters, some of our very favorite blog pals were hard at work, making news and waves and paradigm-shifting announcements of their own. We'll toot their horns as a way of getting back to regular programming. Go read 'em, and tell 'em Roxie sent ya.

• Tenured Radical announced on Wednesday that she's pulling up her virtual stakes and moving to the big stage of The Chronicle of Higher Education. We couldn't be happier for TR and look forward to seeing her wise-cracking, professionally savvy self shaking up and queering up the sometimes stodgy Chron. We are also crossing paws, fingers, and a variety of other appendages in hopes that her great and powerful blogroll will migrate with her, on account of we totally heart the hits we get by way of her influential sidebar. Love you, TR. Need you. Mean it.
• Meanwhile, in today's New York Times, our favorite queer legal eagle Katherine Franke, who runs the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia (and its blog) has an op-ed bravely arguing that marriage will be a mixed blessing for same-sex couples if it means losing some of the rights that have been gained for unmarried domestic partners and effectively forcing "people to marry — whether they be gay or straight — to have their committed relationships recognized and valued." It's a great piece and a timely one, as New York seems poised to become the sixth state in the nation to offer civil marriage to same-sex couples. Of course, as we learned in Maryland recently, there is a world of political difference and distance between being poised to become and actually being a state that offers complete marriage equality. We look forward to seeing what happens in Albany, but in the meantime we recommend reading Franke's op-ed as a way of saying, again, Be careful what you wish for, darlings. I mean, yes, equality is swell -- but compulsory marriage? Uh, not so swell, if you ask us. And you should.
• Finally, speaking of surprising news of a queer sort, our beloved blog buddy Historiann, who recently publicly confessed to being a breeder, has now announced that she has gone gay! We are delighted, of course, to welcome her to the fold and the team. We even offered to declare her male husband an honorary lesbian so she could continue to keep company with him while pursuing her new lifestyle choice sense of queer alliance and comradeship. We always knew, girlfriend, and we are here to help. Now, tuck in that flannel shirt before we slide your pisco sour across the bar. We're running a classy joint here, you know! (Srsly, kids, go read that gone gay post. It's hilarious, but it and the comment thread that follows raise some great questions about identity and conversation online.)

Paws up to all of our wonderful sister bloggers and to you, our loyal readers, who have been so patient with our sporadic attention lately. It has been and will continue to be a busy summer, but we will do our best to keep you up to date on how the view looks from the ridiculously large backyard of Roxie's World. Peace out, and a sweet summer weekend to you and yours.

Truth in Blogging

For some reason I feel compelled to remind you today that I am not really a dead dog. You get that, don't you, intelligent reader that you are, but you click back in here regularly, perhaps because you are bored senseless in your cubicle and find some mild amusement in our quirky mix of commentary, sophomoric humor, and randomly appropriated images? You understand, though, that the "I" who speaks here is a Dickinsonian "supposed person" -- er, dead dog -- and not an actual one, right? (We will save for another day -- or blog -- the vexing question of whether any and every speaker is not in some sense a supposed rather than an actual person. That conundrum is way beyond my pay grade.)

Anyhoo, kids, just wanted to clear that up. Truths are being announced or exposed all over the blogosphere this week, and we didn't want anyone to think we were trying to pull the wool over anybody's eyes. We take seriously our blogger's oath to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, with stretchers occasionally thrown in when the truth is insufficiently entertaining. We also have strong opinions on the matter of pseudonymity in blogging (enunciated here), and we don't blame readers for getting ticked off when some a$$hat abuses the venerable tradition of writing under a fake name, even if he thinks his cause justifies it. My typist taught Riverbend's Baghdad Burning, the book based on a pseudonymous blog produced in occupied Iraq, in her blogging class, as a way of exploring with students both the power and the ethical complexity of pseudonymity in online worlds. Bloggers and other users of social media are risking their (real) lives to tell the (true) story of events in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. For them, pseudonymity is an essential tool aimed at assuring their survival. It's disheartening, to say the least, to see some white straight American guy undermine all that brave work by deciding to pose as a gay Syrian woman as a way to bring attention to issues he felt strongly about. Oh, dude, you so went about it in the wrong way. And you so don't get the difference between an apology and a mansplanation.

So, anyway, as I was saying: I am not a dead dog -- or the living mother of a living child or a gay girl in Damascus. I am just a -- Oh, never mind, my darlings. That is all for now. Carry on.

I, Too, Miss Blogging

Kathleen Fitzpatrick misses blogging because her means of getting immediate gratification through a regular writing practice has shifted in the past couple of years from blogs to Twitter.

I miss blogging because, well, I am dead and my typist is ridiculously busy teaching about blogging -- and falling in love with a new dog and building a more comfortable middle-aged body and tending to this, that, and a million other things. Oh, spring, you lovely, obnoxious season.

Go read Fitzpatrick's post, and be sure to check out the stream of marvelously thoughtful comments it elicited. She and her readers have smart things to say about different modes of online writing and relating and about responses distributed across a range of social-media platforms. We've had some experience of the latter around here, as we have noted patterns of commenting on the blog as compared to Facebook. Moose pimps posts on both Facebook and Twitter but rarely gets into extended conversations with the Twitterati, though they are a friendly bunch of folks. She often finds herself managing dual response streams, though, here on the blog and on Facebook. Are there differences between the two? Hmmm. Predictably, perhaps, Facebook responses tend to be more personal in nature, because they come from Real Life friends. Here in Roxie's World, though many commenters are also some of our nearest and dearest Real Life pals, responses tend to feel a little more public and, if you will, persona-fied, in keeping, I suppose, with this blog's dreadful habit of playing fast and loose with identity. Interestingly, last week's post, "On Broads," elicited about the same number of comments here and on Facebook, and the streams were very similar, as readers entered with gusto into the debate over whether "broad" was a term that could be reclaimed from its sexist origins and deployed as a way of honoring a strong, self-possessed woman. The consensus? Hells to the yeah, my beloved feminazis!

Funny, this question of who we are and how we engage with and present ourselves to others in different corners of the virtual universe seems to be getting a lot of attention right now. What a small, queer world it is, don't you think? Hope to "see" you in it again soon, darlings. April and all its professional cruelties can't last forever, after all. Just remember: No matter where we go and what we are doing, we would almost always rather be right here blogging with you. Peace out.

Now We Are Five

Er, I mean, this here little blog is five -- Yep, count 'em, five years old today! -- and in blog years that's, like, ancient. But, you know, the Forever Young'uns of Roxie's World have decided to honor the occasion by reconnecting with the happy spirit of this bright-eyed West Texas girl, who celebrated her fifth birthday a long, l-l-l-l-long time ago out where the deer and the antelope play:

(Photo Credit: Most likely, the Mother of the Goosians, 5/14/??)

Thanks for coming to the party, kids. And thanks for all the love and fun and righteous anger, not to mention the clicks and the links and the laughs and the determination to keep the glasses at least half full. Thanks, in short, for all you do to inspire us to keep on blogging, come hell, high water, hard times, and happy ones. We couldn't do it without you. Or, well, we could, but why the heck would we bother? You are the most wonderful critters on dog's beautiful if messed up earth, and we love having the chance to hang out with you. Thanks, above all else, for stopping by.

Every party needs a song. Here, not surprisingly, is ours for today. May your hearts always be joyful, darlings, even after, you know, they've stopped beating. Peace out.



(Previous blogiversary posts: fourth, third, second, first.)

Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Bloggery

A Note from Moose to a Sister in Pseudonymity

Dear Dr. Crazy,

Could I borrow your pseudonym for awhile? I mean, I like mine just fine, despite the obvious challenges of trying to be taken seriously while impersonating a dead dog. Still, I'm not complaining. The old sweater really does feel pretty comfy, if you know what I mean -- and I know you do. Anyhoo, I was hoping we could come up with some kind of barter arrangement whereby I might borrow your moniker from time to time in exchange for, well, maybe delicious low-fat recipes, since I have followed your fine example and embraced a healthy new Lifestyle Adjustment Program. (It's going great, thanks, but do you think there is any correlation between blogging and the need for such adjustments? I have found myself wondering about that a lot recently, while pedaling away on the stationary bike in the basement and not blogging.)

Here's the thing, Dr. C.: Life feels pretty fricking Crazy right now, which is why I'm thinking your pseudonym might be right at home here in our quirky little corner of the blogosphere. If we can't have your name, maybe we'll just borrow a mode you use from time to time of ticking off a list of things you have to do. Your lists both impress and exhaust us, but I'm realizing that my own calendar lately has been jam-packed with meetings, tasks, and Super-Important Things to Do. For instance, in the last week, I have:

• Attended a meeting of the Committee That, Despite Its Best Intentions, Will Probably Not Resist the Temptation to Micro-Manage Syllabi in the Process of Restructuring the University's General Education Program.
• Attended a meeting of the Committee to Assure That All Incoming Students Read At Least One Fracking Book in Their First Year of College.
• Met with two fundraisers to talk about a range of things I did not learn about in grad school.
• Met with dean to discuss ways to make my program more better and excellenter, despite recent news of still more budget cuts.
• Planned for upcoming meeting with new super high-level administrator on campus, whose positions on Excellence Without Money (™RW Enterprises, LLC) and diversity have yet to be ascertained.

This is all in addition to the usual spring tasks of teaching, gearing up for the (fabulous!) lecture series and symposium my program annually organizes, and watching basketball. Lots and lots of basketball. Hey, a girl can't work all the time, and there's stuff worth watching in the Comcastle these days.

It's the Crazy-ness of spring, I guess, exacerbated in my case by bio-familial matters that are currently absorbing a certain amount of time and a great deal of emotional energy. For now, I am finding it impossible to blog about those matters, even from behind the protective shield of my -- or your! -- pseudonym. You might have noticed that I held back in the. recent. conversation. about. pseudonymity in the academic blogosphere, sparked, in part, by the Journal of Women's History roundtable on feminist blogging to which I and the real people behind Tenured Radical and Historiann contributed. I stayed out of the fray in part because I felt I had addressed the matter in the piece I contributed to the roundtable, "The Madwoman With a Laptop: Notes Toward a Literary Prehistory of Academic Fem Blogging." In explaining the significance of my title's allusion to Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's monumental reassessment of 19th-century women's literature, I argued for the enduring attraction of pseudonymity, even for those of us who have published books under our real names: 

[T]he Madwoman With a Laptop has discovered the lure of publishing outside the usual channels as someone other than her (public, official, professional) self. Her words are, by design, un-authorized, disowned, but it is from this self imposed otherness, this cultivated marginality that they derive their subversive force. Her speech echoes the ravings of the hidden hysteric, the whispers of the churchwomen after the service, the gossip of friends from girlhood, the raunchy wisdom of middle-aged women talking sex, pleasure, menopause. There is a lot of Emily Dickinson in this postmodern Madwoman, playing fast and loose with identity, reveling in the space opened up by declaring oneself a delighted “Nobody” rather than a dreary “Somebody.”

Here is my bottom line on the matters of trust and truth that always seem to come up in these discussions of pseudonymity: A liar will lie even if his real name is attached to the words he speaks. (See, for example, Reagan, Ronald W., who once accidentally declared that "Facts are stupid things," the only true thing he ever said.) A truth-teller, on the other hand, will tell you the truth no matter what he calls himself. (See, for example, the searingly honest books published under the fake name of Mark Twain.) When it comes to evaluating the veracity of what you read in the blogosphere, you'd be well advised, as D. H. Lawrence might have said if he had lived to surf the Interwebs, to trust the blog, not the blogger. ("Never trust the artist, trust the tale," Lawrence wrote in Studies in Classic American Literature. "The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.") Truth is more than mere facts, and a slanted telling of the truth may be the most effective means of conveying it. What's in a name? A lot, but nothing close to the whole truth.

And yet: The comfort of my assumed name is not enough to permit me to speak freely of those bio-familial matters to which I alluded earlier. Not yet anyway, not even here in a world called into being nearly five years ago by love and the threat of loss.  Bear with me, darlings. I don't mean to be cryptic or coy. I am trying to explain why posting has been light around here lately. I am edging my way forward on what feels like new terrain, trying to figure out how much I can or should reveal in this space of public/private intimacy. It isn't easy. In fact, it's a little Crazy-making.

For now, I will let a picture stand in for all the words I am not prepared to write. It's borrowed from a 2007 piece called  "The Impossibility of February," from artist Maira Kalman's gorgeous illustrated blog on the New York Times website. I offer it with love for a woman who, alas, does not have a little dog to be her faithful companion in illness. We got your back, Mom. I swear to dog.

Yours sincerely,
Moose