remain ragged

The constant struggle: "... I’ve found that working with words all day — whether at home or in a proper office — doesn’t afford me the time or headspace for the writing I really want to do."

And that final deadline: "Just two weeks before she died, Maggie [Estep] wrote about her own tendency to procrastinate. As if there were time for that. I’m now quite certain there isn’t."

Sari Botton on the Billfold: An Elegy for the “Non-Creepy” Realtor, aka Maggie Estep

I am nowhere near a place in my career where I can even laughingly call myself safe and I think about these things all of the time.

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 How to Write a Personal Essay by Leslie Jamison

"I’m interested in essays that follow the infinitude of a private life toward the infinitude of public experience. I’m wary of seeking this resonance by extracting some easy moral from the grit and complication of personal particularity: love hurts, time heals, always look on the bright side. Instead, I’m drawn to essays that allow the messy threads of grief or incomprehension to remain ragged, to direct our gazes outward."

<<<

As my father's illness progresses, I have to travel more and more out of town to care for him. We are still looking for a foster/adopter for out lovely foster dog, Dottie. She has been a great joy to us, but we have to focus on my dad and working for the time being.

Please pass on her info!

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"I will listen to my goddamn body. I will close my eyes when I am tired I will sit when I need rest I will eat when I am hungry and I will not, I cannot be the woman I was, the woman I have always been. I need to surrender her. I need to give her up because she is gone."

The Hell of the First Trimester by Sara Finnerty over at Mutha Magazine is about pregnancy but it might as well be about what is going on with me right now. All the fear, the resignation, the weirdness and the desire to do the right thing this time is there, and written fiercely.

Dottie rides

Dottie is still looking for her forever home. Help her out by spreading the word. She is looking for a home with no cats and no kids. Sound like you? Here is her listing at the rescue: Dottie!

Dottie!

Meet Dottie!

Dottie is a 3 year-old, petite pit mix with an unusual spotted coat and beautiful golden eyes. At 48 lbs., she's a great size for any home. She loves toys, going to the dog park, playing ball, car trips and exploring. She also loves learning tricks and will delight you with how quick she learns!

She is a little shy at first, but once she warms up, she is a loyal, loving friend. Give her your time--she is worth it!

She is wary of small children and cats, though, and should go to a home without them.

Dottie is housetrained, crate-trained, spayed, and up-to-date on her vaccinations.

Check her out at Sugar Mutts Rescue: sugarmutts.com or call 646-732-3795.

Dottie the foster dog!

After the nightmare of medical Switzerland, I decided that it might be nice to foster a dog again.  Luckily I discovered that a bunch of the dogs in the ACC have videos made for them that you can access through Urgent Pets on Death Row and Facebook. I am a sucker for spotted ears, and after seeing this girl's love of playing ball, I had to see if she was still available.

Meet Dottie! Dottie is a 3 year-old pit mix with an unusual spotted coat and beautiful golden eyes. At 51 lbs., she's a great size. She loves toys, playing ball, sniffing and exploring. She likes to be near us at all times, but not right on top of us, unlike our last foster. She doesn't seem to have any separation anxiety either, which is great for those that don't work at home.

Right now she has mild kennel cough, so she can't meet 'n' greet other doggie friends, but she seems interested.

Here is her listing on Sugar Mutts, the rescue that pulled her from the ACC for us.

Here is the video that won my heart.

Still loving The Hearing Trumpet. I will be finished soon and was ruffled by the fact that unless I want to spend tens of dollars to buy a copy of her older work, my only other options for reading more Leonora Carrington is one copy of one book of hers in the BPL. Will somebody please, please reprint her other works?

While researching my reading options for Carrington, I looked more into the catalog of Exact Change, the publisher of the copy of The Hearing Trumpet that I am reading. They publish a ton of stuff that I am interested in, including the recent indie craze, Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet. I am thinking of picking up that and The Death & Letters of Alice James: Selected Correspondence by Alice James and The Heresiarch & Co. by Guillaume Apollinaire. If anybody has any suggestions, let me know.

***

A few nights ago, B came home very late. He went to his computer and, through my sleepy haze, I heard the sound of files being transferred at a rapid pace. What could he possibly be doing after a long night of sport and jazz?

Turns out, he was blogging.

***
Oberlin College has a 97-item online mail art collection. I was very excited about this until I actually looked at the collection. What is really available on the internet is basically a catalog record, with uninteresting and barely helpful object metadata exposed and only a thumbnail image available. Some entries have links to biographies of the artists and postal data, but the tiny representations of the pieces make it useless for anyone not able to make it to Oberlin to check out the physical collection. (But do check out the very good collection overview to learn about and see more mail art).

I am spending a lot of time thinking about digital collections right now for school. Mostly I've been thinking about what putting a collection on the open web means. How much do we need to take into account the needs of the remote, and possibly casual, use when thinking about displaying metadata, offering quality representations of works and driving users to physical locations? This is a frustrating question for me. I believe that researchers should be doing the research, but I also think access is vastly improved the more data about an object is attached and available. And if your objects are visual, you've gotta have good representations--otherwise I really don't see the point of putting more than an excellent finding aid on the open web.

What do you think?
(via Letter Writers' Alliance)