coldhearted scientist وداد

I

Another of my New Year’s resolutions is to join The Paper Chase in Reading for Pleasure Wednesdays. I voraciously read news, magazines, commentary, and book reviews for pleasure, but not nearly enough whole books or fiction since these are so closely associated with, and so easily construable as work. Having a book one is in the process of reading, not for school but for fun, is nevertheless a great expander of pleasure. It is my plan this year to have one such book all of the time.

Over Christmas break I read: Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (wild and excellent, recommended), Mary Austin, Land of Little Rain (beautiful, recommended), and Graham Greene, The Human Factor (mildly interesting). I read all of these quickly, superficially and lazily. That is as much attention as the Graham Greene novel deserved, but I want to reread the Austin slowly and study the Wilde outright.

Now I am reading Mary Crow Dog’s Lakota Woman and it is epoch making. I have not gotten to the part about the siege at Wounded Knee yet. I could say a great deal about it but I am supposed to be writing a paper. And people believe that the United States is a virtuous and free country, but they are very poorly informed.

II

My new favorite blog is The Fashionable Academic, also by the Chaser. And it is bright and sunny here but really cold. The wind blows through the cracks in my walls and no amount of central heat keeps the house warm enough to think in. There was still ice in the garden at noon. I picked all the oranges because I am too lazy to cover them at night and I suspect that what they really need is a smudge fire. With oil at $100 a barrel there is no heat on campus, either. They have even turned off a lot of the lights, so it is quite dismal.

I have been trying to work all day and failing because my head is frozen. More than one layer of Andean wool and my brain stays frozen, for when it is cold in Louisiana, it is very, very cold. In addition I am short, and multiple layers of thick clothes make me fat. This is a problem because I must look elegant to do academic work. And yes, that is a fetish, and the good thing about fetishes is, they work every time.

Now at mid afternoon I have added to my indoor costume the Parisian fleece cape I bought at an amazing sale in San Francisco. It makes me look like Jackie Kennedy. Having recovered my identity – an elegant one – I can think straight again. The cape also seems to make me warm enough at last. I did not imagine that it would solve an indoor problem.

Axé.