Golublog: An Anthropology Blog

I spent three hours last night writing my paper for the upcoming Interdisciplinary Christianities Workshop. Then I cranked up the John Adams and Elliot Smith and pulled two hours worth of AHATPOLS out of my soul. I went to bed at two exhausted and – due to the music – feeling simultaneously both exhausted and minimalistic. Going to sleep after writing two hours of Jedi Fan Fiction set in nineteenth-century central asia leads to strange dreams indeed. Last night the words ‘spin’ and ‘master’ circled each other warily in my head, grappling occasionally to produce images of our president landing on an aircraft carrier and an elderly man pulling a fine thread from a spinning wheel.

The next morning I felt as if I was, if not over the hump, at least carefully balanced atop it. The paper is in place, AHATPOLS is set to wrap up with only a little more work, and my thee month long slog of job applications, dissertation writing, and paper giving is finally winding up. I still have a little way to go, but now I can not only see the light at the end of the tunnel, I can feel the breeze from the other side blowing on my face.

My morning was made, of course, by Mimi Smartypants taking issue – as I knew, inevitably, someone would the minute that guy went there and I thought ‘oops, it’s bad enough that he’s wearing that tie with that haircut but now he’s dwelling on menstruation’ – with Mr. Bucknell about the intimate details of fictional female characters. I mean, I just finished a novel written from the point of view of a sixteen year old girl. Am I going to go there? Hells no! I thought it was brave of me just to talk about her hair and what she thought about boys. Because, you know, these are really places that I’ve never have been and I’m not about to pretend like I have.

Then I asked the internet what the word ‘ginchiest’ meant. On the one hand, I’ve never really been compared to an Olive Oil look alike who attracts homeless black men. On the other hand, given the fact that the other possible definition includes “pussy. typically nasty biker pussy” or “an unsightly chick, good only for getting head from” I’m not sure I mind so much. I’ll take it as read she meant the kindest definition of ginchy out there. I’m just pleased to be noticed. :)

In other news, the number of books that I plan to read continues to jump in leaps and bounds, which wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that I seem to keep on buying them. If God has mercy he’ll allow me to resist this inexplicable urge to purchase French Modern – or at least let me just check it out of the library. I also have a strong desire to listen to Abby Road.

Finally, I’m now part of a brand new all-link blog project called, simply, “List” – sort of what you’d get if you crossed Leuschke.org and Boingboing.net and then gave the resulting URLs to a fascistic web designer obsessed with minimalism. That is to say, it looks and feels a bit like Robot Wisdom. I’m trying to get Naz to be less brutal with the simplicity of the layout, but I can understand his desire to cut through all ‘the trackback crap’ (as he put it) and get back to basics. It’s been slow taking off (i.e. over eight hours – we’re talking web time here folks), but some of the links that have been posted today have been really great. Now if only we could sort by author, or even get some idea who posted what.

That’s me lately. Next AHATPOLS in the PM, and the final one tomorrow.