Study shop

The study, in middle-class Victorian homes, was meant to serve as a masculine retreat from the femininity of the domestic domain. Lined with books and piled with documents, the study was dampened from the din of a bustling home and marked a calm center amid a perceived chaos. Virginia Woolf remembers her father's study as a sacred place at the top of their home on Hyde Park Gate that served as the seat of paternal intellect: "Downstairs there was pure convention: upstairs pure intellect." The study defined itself on the absence of physical labor. It was a space of scholarly pursuits, where the mind rather than the body worked. In contrast to the space outside -- at the height of the Industrial Revolution -- where the laboring body kept the Empire running, the study offered a fantasy image of man as pure mind.

Now that we're all through with manufacturing and physical labor in the work place, tied to a desk pushing papers -- or that's what they tell me at least -- it is the shop rather than the study that fulfills a masculine fantasy. To work with one's hands and create an object from scratch seems to shut out domestic noise as efficiently as books and paper and offers a different kind of retreat from a different kind of laboring world. In an economy in which what is exchanged is no longer money for labor but money for debt -- or debt for debt, something like that -- the specter-ized body finds a home in the home, or in the factory inside the home.

All of which is said not to dissuade *anybody* from entering his/her shop. But just to put some noted malaise into a context -- my context of choice.

Tennis, Playgroups, French.

It's US Open season, and I'm tennis'ed out. The internet is providing me with free coverage, all day long. Bonkers.
In between matches, I grade papers, play trains, knit, feel allergic to stuff, think.
I've been going to a new playgroup with Desmond. A woman who used to live across the street from me moved a couple of blocks away and has a son about Desmond's age. She kept inviting us over, but I was hesitant. Her son signs -- "all the kids sign." And, since Desmond is more of a pointer than a signer, I wasn't sure if he'd be accepted. Of course I mean if I'd be accepted -- but since I'm not the one playing or signing who the fuck cares, frankly? So we went, and Desmond loves it. Calder (the boy's house) has tons of things with wheels. And since they're not his own toys, Desmond spends hours wheeling around the backyard, not minding me a bit.
And I met a fellow dissertation mommy. From Missouri, no less! She is/was working on her PhD from the Sorbonne in French Lit, with Cixous's daughter as her diss advisor. And she's writing on space. Me too! But she's writing her's in French. No thanks. I'll just have a baguette, please, sans diss-written-in-French.
Desmond here is playing with wooden clogs at a friend's family's cabin in the Ozarks. Like most summer days in Missouri, it was very humid that day -- in fact, we just got caught in a thunderstorm.

Some Summer Thoughts in Sacramento

I want to open a bookstore. I have no idea how to run a business or start a business. But I do love, on my walks with Desmond, letting my mind wander thinking about what the store will look like, the kinds of books we'd sell, how I'd offer ESL classes in the back, and host monthly lectures for a "Free University" series. It'd be called "Watershed Books" and we'd sell books on "art, culture and politics" A hipster kind of bookstore, with fancy art books, and pompous cultural studies books, and some poetry and fiction. But, more than a store that sells books -- cause who needs to buy books at a store? -- it'd be a kind of community space to meet like-minded people and see what they're reading. Dave said some sort of web format is imperative, which is a frightening but practical idea.

I'm also not thinking about the last chapter of my dissertation. Worrisome.

But I do think about all the babies my friends are having or are about to have. About how sadly far away they are. Once friends have babies it should be mandatory -- a federal law -- that they all move within a 50 mile radius of one another. Why isn't that a law yet?

Six Months Later . . .

The washer is running.
NPR is informing.
Curious George is oo-oo-ah-ahing.
I am typing.
Mad Men is downloading.
The electricity is working.

Year One

We had a birthday party for Desmond, because he turned one!
If I were to guess how old he was based on how many years I've aged since he was born or how many pounds I've lost I'd guess he's anywhere between ten years to two weeks old. But, in fact, he's one year old. So my parents and brother flew out from St. Louis and we threw a party at my sister-in-law's.
I think I may never host a one-year-old birthday party again, to preface. If Desmond were to ever have a sibling, s/he's already doomed. Or saved -- because it didn't seem like Desmond was having the best time of his life (that would be the day Dave flailed around the living room pretending to be a gorilla).
But I'd been planning this for months: a simple-to-make but hearty lunch menu of bbq brisket and baked beans (actually, the brisket wasn't that easy and was SUPER expensive. but also very delicious); a guest list that was generous but realistic; a cute photo-postcard invitation, specifying NO PRESENTS (Dave has a fear of plastic overload), but secretly knowing they would come; and, most importantly, the completion of a dissertation chapter to allow for a greater ease of socializing.
And it all turned out fine -- not everyone showed, which was a relief, but enough to make it seem like a party. Desmond, apparently, isn't fond of the limelight. But he was offered several supervised "be-alone" trips outside to calm his fragile nerves. And my mother likes to put things under my nose to look at when I already have quite enough under there to keep my attention. And my dad likes to do things slowly when things, for some reason I've concocted, must be done faster. Honestly, I was a perspiring, nervously-smiling, frosting-smeared mess by the end of the three hours.
But . . . I'm glad I did it . . . ? No, I am. It was fun and I got to see folks I haven't in a while, and come out as the mess I really am.

She's Alive!

I went to two -- TWO -- social events last week. After months of solitary confinement, I left my apartment after sunset and chatted with people over food and drinks.
Event #1
The Stroller Strides Christmas Party.
I've been attending this work out group for several months now -- not that you'd be able to tell, because I think I've lost exactly no pounds since giving birth. Nor have I really gotten to know any of the ladies. I get shy (*awww*). And also, it takes me a while to remember what people outside of university campuses talk about for fun. These work-out-mommies are all really nice. And I could care less if they've never heard of Lacan or chuckled over Tristram Shandy. But they don't watch Mad Men!?! And they don't think Liz Lemon is hilarious. I don't get it. So -- I've been keeping the chit-chat limited to the subject of how cute Desmond is. And he gives us so much to talk about, cause he's so darned cute. See? But the Christmas Party was real swell. I was a little anxious about it, and I'm never brave enough not to feel shy. But there was some good chatting going on -- mostly about babies. But also about other things. Check plus!

Event #2
Christmas Party hosted by a geologist at David's work
Dave was waffling on this one, he being 100X shyer than myself. But the host of the party had been really supportive of David and pushed for him to get a promotion. And I have a suspicion that Dave was getting a little sick of being the hermit-father, though I'm sure he'd deny it. So, at the last moment, Dave asked his dad if he wouldn't mind watching Desmond. And we used that free night to hang out with 50-year old, frizzy-haired state geologists. But it was nice. I talked with a young mother of three, the wife of an engineer. And Dave met people in his department. It wasn't a barn-burner -- and I slept like poop that night -- but it was nice.

How to Decorate a Dining Room

We moved baby Desmond to his own room a couple of weeks ago. Rather than putting him down to sleep in the dining room area -- which lies between the front living room and the hallway leading to the kitchen and back bedroom -- we housed his crib and new dresser in the back. This gave us the nighttime freedom to make noisy kitchen sounds and move from watching TV to grabbing an unneeded snack with ease.

The problem is -- Desmond is not a sound sleeper, and he's an early and exuberant riser. The back bedroom shares a wall with our very friendly neighbors who appreciate our concern but, I'm sure, would much prefer a full night's sleep (wouldn't we all). We've tried our best to sound-proof the room. I spent $60 at Joann's fabrics to make padded fabric wall panels, and Dave draped the room in blankets. But sounds still echo.

I don't think Desmond is sleeping any worse back there. But we are. Every little peep gets me out of bed to readjust and pacify for fear that louder noises are afoot, liable to wake the neighbors. And rather than letting him babble and moan when he wakes up at 5AM so that he'll learn to get up at the proper and just plain reasonable 6AM, I rush in to grab him and bring him to bed with us. This, apparently, is a delight to him -- but doesn't give us that much-needed extra hour.

The whole move has been the cause of early morning arguments. I want us all to just get used to the new arrangements for the sake of dinner as well as domestic aesthetics -- it just looks weird having a crib to creep by in the middle of the apartment. Dave wants it back the way it was for the sake of everyone's sanity. We can't (or I can't -- he's a pretty sound sleeper) keep popping up at every noise. And Desmond needs the vocal freedom to cry and moan and babble without all the parental fussing. He's right, damn him.

So tonight it goes back to the old, ugly arrangement.
My only consolation is that we only have three and a half more months on our lease. Two-bedroom house, here we come! Eventually.