What I'm Reading Now

Heilbrun, author, humanities professor, and one of our most astute feminist thinkers, shows how throughout the centuries, those who write about women's lives have suppressed the truth of the female experience in order to make the 'written life' conform to society's expectations of what life should be. Drawing on the experiences of celebrated women, from George Sand and Virginia Woolf to Dorothy Sayers and Adrienne Rich, Heilbrun examines the struggle these writers undertook when their drives made it impossible for them to follow the traditional "male" script of a woman's life. Heilbrun also examines literature's silence on such vital subjects as friendship between women, the female physical experience, and the richness that often imbues a woman's later years.

"Accessible, engaging and compelling."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Writing A Woman's Life, a wide-ranging study both personal and feminist, asserts that patriarchal culture has not only defined the limits of women's lives, it has determined what stories about women will be told...If it moves readers to write the full truth about female lives or live lives that are not scripted by others (male or female), its effect will be indisputably emendatory."
--San Francisco Chronicle

Bringin' Home the Bacon

It's official. The school year has begun. English Department meetings today. University-wide meetings tomorrow. Classes start Monday. My fervent hope is that I can maintain balance in my life, just like the Enjoli woman.

It's called sarcasm. Get it?

Shabbat

The religious tradition in which I was raised does not practice any type of liturgical prayer, so I was not exposed to the beauty of it while growing up. But in my readings over the last few years, I've run across references to and quotes from different liturgical prayers or written prayers that are simply beautiful. So, as I usually do, I've been following the book trails. When I read a quote from a prayer that moves me, I track down the work it came from and do my best to acquire it.

When I was reading Barbara Brown Taylor's An Altar in the World, she quoted a line from a prayer that came from a book called Gates of Prayer: for Shabbat and Weekdays, a Jewish prayer book. I've been reading it lately, and came across this beautiful prayer (the italicized portion is the responsive part of the reading):

There are days

when we seek material things,

and measure failure by what we do not own.

On Shabbat we wish not to acquire but to share.

There are days

when we exploit nature with reckless greed.

On Shabbat we stand in wonder before the mystery of creation.

There are days

when we think only of ourselves.

On Shabbat

we open our hearts to the needs of others.

Therefore we welcome Shabbat--

day of rest, day of joy, day of peace.

Booking It--Worst Recent

What's the worst book you've read recently? This should be a lot easier than the worst book ever, because you don't have to think back too far.

I hate to say it, and its certainly not the worst book ever for me, but the worst book I've read recently is The Moviegoer by Walker Percy.

I know, I know, it's a classic, but it just never "hooked" me. I simply didn't care about any of the characters, and I had no curiosity about what was going to happen next. I had to force myself to finish the book.

I don't know, maybe it's that I'm still really tired from the last three intense years and have been looking only for entertainment and escapism from my reading lately.

Maybe I should wait a while and give it another try.

Sunday Funnies

Saturday for the Soul

Here's what I'm doing today:

Saturday for the Soul:

Making Peace with Time, Making Time for Peace

A gathering for women who want to develop healthier ways of living in Time and connecting with Eternity. We will hear stories from each other and see what Scripture says about Time. Through sharing, prayer, journaling, and meditation, our goal is to leave with down-to-earth understandings of how to bring more peace into daily life.

I'm really excited about having a "Saturday for the Soul." I know I need it. A friend of mine teaches this workshop, and she said that she invited a few friends whom she thought would really benefit from the day. Their reply? "I'd love to, but I don't have time." She laughed when she told me about it. "They're stressed out about time, but they don't have time to learn how to manage their time."

I'm always stressed about time. And I definitely need more peace in my life. I'll keep you posted.

Academic Fashion

I was thinking of ordering this and wearing it periodically throughout the semester. Whatcha think?

The Dreaded Syllabi

I'm very excited to start teaching again in a couple of weeks. What I'm not excited about is writing the syllabi for my classes. Planning a whole semester's worth of work at one time can be overwhelming. I'm teaching two new classes this Fall--British Lit I and Honors Critical Thinking and Speaking, and I'm teaching two sections of Comp I, which I've taught many times before. But, for some unknown reason back in the Spring, I decided that it would be good to adopt a new textbook instead of just keeping the one I'd been using. What in the world was I thinking?

So, now I have three syllabi to design. Being the on-top-of-things type of person I am, I went in to the office the other day to get started. I'll just do the one for Comp I, I thought, and get it out of the way. After all, that should be the easy one. I worked on it a little while, left to meet my husband for lunch, and came back to a computer that refused to boot up because, it kindly informed me, there were important files missing.

So, I just called tech support and went to Little Rock instead. The best laid plans of mice and men . . .

The Benefits of Being a Reader

There are many benefits to being a reader--you're never bored; you have a great vocabulary; you do well on the SATs . . . But the main one is all the important stuff you learn.

For example, just yesterday I was reading the latest issue of Prevention magazine and encountered this life changing fact:

72% of women having a good hair day have more spring in their step.

Good job, Prevention editors. I feel both smarter and healthier now that I know that.

Don't you?

Food Fight

The other day my husband walked in the door and yelled, "Come here and look at our mail."

Well, that's kinda scary. I figured either we'd won the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes or we'd gotten in a bill we'd never be able to pay. So I walked into the kitchen where he stood, smiling. "Just flip through it," he said.

I did, and I noticed something odd. There were pink blotches all over every piece.

"Keep going," he instructed. (There was a lot of junk mail that day.)

Finally, I saw what he was grinning about. Attached to a now-pink-and-white envelope was this sticky note:

I'm not joking. Truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction.

Maybe jello needs to come with a warning label.