Still on Course

During the previous year, I posted a lot about simplifying. I haven't abandoned my quest for simplicity, even if I haven't been writing much about it. I have been moving forward, but only in stages.

I tried several strategies at first, and they really helped. But then work or life would interfere, and although I'd keep trying to do those things (with varying levels of success), I'd sort of hang there for a while. Then, I guess the muse would visit or the spirit would move, and I'd clean out another closet or implement some new practice on the path to simplicity. Two steps forward, one step back.

One of the main things I've been trying to do is to get rid of stuff. It's amazing how many possessions one person can accumulate, and sometimes it's hard to let go of even things I don't really like or hardly ever use. (But it was a gift! But I might use it one day! yada yada yada) But those extra things just weigh me down and stress me out. A lot.

But I've been on a roll again lately, and some advice in an article by Martha Beck titled "The Joy Dividend" has been very helpful to me. She offers this advice as a way to help you decide whether or not to purchase things. But it's also really great for helping decide which things to keep as you purge your possessions. Here's her plan, with my addition in parentheses:

1. Top Dollar Items: "I really NEED it, and I really LOVE it." (Definitely keep it)

2. Bottom Dollar Items: "I really NEED it, but I don't really LOVE it." (Keep it, but no multiples)

3. Remaining Dollar Items: "I don't really NEED it, but I really LOVE it." (Keep it)

4. No Dollar Items: "I don't really NEED it, and I don't really LOVE it." (Toss it)

Beck explains that she uses capital letters for need and love to push the definitions further than we usually take them. If I stay true to her heightened definition of the word, more and more items will end up in category 4, and I buy or keep only things that have true value for me.

I like this system. It certainly makes shopping easier, and I've found it especially helpful in streamlining my closet. It helps me get rid of everything I don't really love wearing--those gifts that don't fit well, those things that I don't really feel comfortable in but hang onto because I remember exactly how much I paid for them, those articles that hang there season after season but I never seem to get around to wearing.

I'm moving ahead. Progress, not perfection.

Smart Women II

Top Ten

According to Newsweek, here's Netflix's top ten movie rentals:

1. 'Crash' (2005)
2. 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' (2008)
3. 'The Bucket List' (2007)
4. 'The Departed' (2006)
5. 'Iron Man' (2008)
6. 'No Country for Old Men' (2007)
7. 'The Pursuit of Happyness' (2006)
8. 'The Proposal' (2009)
9. 'Gran Torino' (2008)
10. 'Casino Royale' (2006)

Movie Day Book Club

This past Tuesday was the monthly meeting of the Movie Day Book Club. Last month, we read Home by Marilynne Robinson, and we both really enjoyed it. Robinson's writing is just beautiful, and she explores complicated human issues with both wisdom and respect for the intricate relationship between reality and mystery. But as much as I enjoyed Home, it didn't come near the beauty of her previous book Gilead. Now that book is on my short-list of best novels of all time.

We weren't as pleased with our movie choice this time. It was okay, I guess, but not one I'd really recommend. Here's the synopsis:

ONDINE is a lyrical modern fairy tale that tells the story of Syracuse (Colin Farrell), an Irish fisherman whose life is transformed when he catches a beautiful and mysterious woman (Alicja Bachleda) in his nets. She says her name is Ondine, which means "she came from the sea". His daughter Annie (Alison Barry) comes to believe that the woman is a selkie, a magical seal/woman creature, while Syracuse falls helplessly in love. In the Celtic myth, a selkie is able to become human by taking off her seal coat, and can return to seal form by putting it back on. However, like all fairy tales, enchantment and darkness go hand in hand. Annie hopes that Ondine has come to live on land for 7 years and that she can use her selkie wish to cure Annie's kidney failure. Whenever Ondine is onboard Syracuse's fishing boat, she sings a siren song, and his nets and lobster pots are full of fish and seafood in tremendous numbers hard to believe. However, being Irish, Syracuse (or "Circus" the nickname he is trying to outlive, one he has earned for his previous hard drinking ways) is mistrustful of good luck, with it comes bad. Is Ondine really a selkie, will she stay, can love be trusted? What is Ondine's real secret? And who is the menacing man lurking around town spying on her? Is he her selkie husband come to claim her back to the sea?

Sounds like a beautiful story, right? And it is, in a way. The scenery is breathtaking, and the story, at least in the first half-or-so, is magical. But Farrell's Irish accent is almost impossible to understand, which makes it very difficult to follow the story, and the film has an abrupt change in tone. The end just doesn't seem to go with the beginning.

Another Anniversary

One year ago today, I defended my dissertation and became Dr. Eddleman. I don't think I've quite recovered yet.

Happy Anniversary!

Today is the second anniversary of Pointed Meanderings. In keeping with a tradition begun last year, I'm re-running the inaugural post.

Just a glimpse

Last year, I took a class in Writing Creative Nonfiction at Ole Miss. One of our first assignments was to write a memoir; one limited in scope, of course, but covering an event of obvious significance in our lives.

When it comes to writing, I'm not usually a procrastinator. Maybe that comes from being a non-traditional undergrad student who was too afraid that if she put off writing a paper until the day before it was due, one or all of her children would wake up with projectile vomiting and uncontrollable diahhrea, or maybe I just realized that my brain works better if I allow myself time to let ideas take root and grow. Either way, I was always the student who started writing the day after the paper was assigned. (You can probably already tell I have control issues.)

I've written many critical analysis papers, even some fiction and poetry. But the thought of putting my life on paper for others to see left me reluctant even to turn on my laptop, much less to begin trying to find words and shape sentences that would lay myself bare to a classroom full of critics and a demanding professor. Then finally, after producing what I thought was a no-holds barred expose', the most often-repeated response to my memoir was, "You left out what we most want to know!"

This is not a new problem for me. I've started multiple diaries and journals only to either abandon them because the introspection required was too painful (you have to be honest with yourself when you are your only audience) or because I was afraid that someone would find my words and actually read them. Yet, all my life the words that others were brave enough to write have given me great joy. I have no illustions that my words here will illuminate anyone's life or bring joy to the multitudes. I simply want to gain the courage to speak, to reveal myself, but I must admit, at first it will probably be only in small glimpses. That's enough for me now.

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Deadline

I've spent a lot of my time this summer reading for pleasure, and it's been fun. However, all good things must come to an end. Last Fall, I sent off a proposal for the 2010 JASNA general meeting, and it was accepted. Now I've got to write the paper. By August 1. Sigh.

The conference isn't until October, but if I hope to have them publish it I have to submit it for consideration early, and why do the work and not attempt to have it published?

Here's my proposal:

Henry Tilney: Austen’s Feminized Hero?

In Northanger Abbey, Austen praises the novel form as she satirizes elements of the gothic novel, particularly the female gothic: the castle; the atmosphere of mystery and suspense; the inexplicable events; the powerful, tyrannical male; the woman in distress. Jane Spencer and other critics have noted an additional element: the weak hero. These critics claim that, in the eighteenth-century female gothic novel, the heroine triumphs over male authoritarianism by marriage to a “feminized hero,” achieving a union “where womanly virtue and patriarchal authority are no longer in conflict” (Rise of the Woman Novelist, 207).

This paper will explore the character of Henry Tilney as Austen’s clever acknowledgement and rebuttal of this feminization of the hero. Austen does “feminize” Henry. He is well aware of accepted female behaviors—“their delightful habit of journalizing,” for instance—and is eloquently able to describe the contents of the perfect feminine journal entry (NA 27). He “understands muslins . . . particularly well” and has often been entrusted with the choice of his sister’s gowns (28). He’s an avid reader of novels, although Catherine assumes that women read novels while “gentlemen read better books” (106). Yet Austen, in her other novels, discourages even hints of effeminacy and champions virtuous masculinity. So, how should readers view Henry’s “feminization”? Austen’s other heroines triumph, not by acquiring weak, feminized husbands, but by securing one who is both manly and virtuous. Is this true for Catherine also?

It's time to put up or shut up, I guess.

Booking It--Discussion

Do you have friends and family to share books with? Discuss them with? Does it matter to you?

It does matter to me.

My oldest son is the only other reader in the family, and we do talk about books, but we are not often reading the same one. So, earlier this year a friend and I decided to choose one book a month to read. On a certain day each month, we drive to Little Rock to have a nice lunch and discuss the novel. Afterwards, we go to Market Street and see a film. Then, we discuss the film on the drive back.

It's a great system. We used to say, "We need to go see a movie sometime" or "We ought to have a book club," but it never happened Having a particular day set aside for it causes us to put it on our calenders and take it seriously. We're discussing our third novel this week--Home, by Marilynne Robinson.

Smart Women I