Tuesday was the Long Day ™, so I cut myself some slack, especially since the LOLCAT went over so well. Classes were fine, blah-blah-blah.
(While I was teaching late, Otis and Kris-10 were carving jacks-o-lantern. Here's Otis's; nice design, eh?)
Wednesday was filled with lots of teaching ‘n’ stuff, except for the evening, which Otis and I spent supping with Nat-dog and Tom-tom, two new sterling pals. Nat is a new colleague, fresh to Washington from the Shallow South, and Tom-tom is her sidekick. We had a great dinner at Taste of India (after some triangulation challenges getting there) and then a nice long evening of conversation over tea back at the house. Look forward to new faces at the next ‘do!
Thursday played itself out to a cancelled faculty meeting – the best kind! – allowing Otis and I to head down to Tacoma fairly early in an (ultimately futile) attempt to beat the rush hour. We were helping out Putnam Mater (in her role as president of the Western Literature Association) as she coordinated the annual conference; to wit, we were ticket-takers at the Sherman Alexie award ceremony/speech. The crowd was easily manageable (although I did wish I had some orange cones, just for old time’s sake) and then we got to attend the event. Dr. Putnam did a heckuva job with her welcome and introduction, with just the right mix of personal, professional, and academic tone. Native American singers and dancers performed, and Alexie’s mentor gave an introduction, and then Alexie spoke. The essence of his speech can be summed up in this paraphrase from about two-thirds in: “So in receiving this award, I am touched and appreciate your love and respect and the honor, and at the same time, part of me just wants to say ‘fuck you!’.” He was talking about creating and controlling his own identity, as a writer and as a person, and not wanting to be categorized or defined by anyone or anything else. Throughout the evening, he was personally warm and gracious and funny, and constantly intellectually challenging. I thought it was great speech.
I came home eventually but Otis is still in Tacoma, helping out with the conference; I expect she’ll be home sometime tonight. House and cats and all survived the Great First Storm of ’07 intact, and I went into campus today to get some work done and watch the torrential rain and hail.
On the way home, I stopped for a minor errand. Remember the Entirely Too Expensive Glasses I got about a year ago? Well, while we were over in the Spoke, they deteriorated from pretty-beat-up-and-I-should-get-them-adjusted to just plain broken. (One of the nosepieces broke off.) So, I stopped into the See Center to look for replacements. I had a $150 benefit to “spend” and it turned out the best value was to take the current lenses and have them put in a new chassis, similar to the old one; that cost me only $80. I had wanted to change frames, but since I would have needed new lenses to go with them, it would have cost something like $200 to do that. At least I can see now.
I rounded off my day with a surprise visit from Yojimbo (although I should start expecting it come Fridays). We had a nice chat while he killed time before the boat.
Now, I think The Thunderbolt Kid is waiting for me...
1 comment:
I'm a big Alexie fan. He was my graduation speaker at Evergreen and I realized when I saw him speak that day that he was a genius and a hell of a statesman.
I make sure to promote his 2nd movie whenever possible. Do see The Business of Fancy Dancing as soon as possible. It features (in an incredible feat of avoiding hokiness) a lot of Alexie's poetry. When people read poetry it's often hard not to feel slightly embarrassed at their sentimentality, self-disclosure, etc. But when Alexie waxes poetic, it's just amazing.
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