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Now, don't you wish you lived in such a cosmopolitan locale.

Sunset, as Winter finally arrives in Michigan . . .

(more)

Oh, God. . .

can't sleep can't sleep can't sleep. ugh. got an important meeting in the morning . . . need to prepare for it . . . but wanted to sleep first . . . can't sleep can't sleep can't sleep

. . .


Might as well look at my tarot reading from the other day. I discovered an online spot where you can get free readings on the Rider-Waite deck. This is a Celtic Cross spread. Typically, you enter the practice of a reading with a question in mind. In case you think I'm some crazy California hippie girl all of a sudden, since I'm talking about tarot, I should probably explain that I don't take tarot to be a source of literal psychic reading of the future, but rather a beneficial analytic tool for thinking metaphorically about one's life and journey in a broader sense. That said, though, I don't dismiss its mysticism entirely. I have to say, this reading resonated in quite compelling ways with what I was wondering about.

The Significator The Significator represents you and your current state of being.
	The King of Wands Passionate, a spry body and mind, honesty and friendliness.
The Crossing Card The Crossing Card denotes that which opposes or influences you.
	Seven of Cups Deception, an overactive imagination, and the illusion of success. Strengths are not consolidated to work as one.
The Foundation card The Foundation card addresses the origin of your question.
	Five of Pentacles Poverty and unemployment are possible. Possessions may be lost. A troubled soul is likely.
The Recent Past The Recent Past represents past events and concerns.
	The Hanged Man Reversed The card of false prophecy and time wasted. The reversed Hanged Man represents a preoccupation with the worldly and wasted energy.
The Crown The Crown addresses issues that are significant in the present or may come to pass in the future. This card foretells future events which you may or may not occur, depending upon how you respond to the present situation.
	The Six of Wands Reversed Success may be delayed. Be wary of accomplished enemies.
The Future The Future depicts that which lies ahead.
	Knight of Cups Reversed Scrutinize all ventures and deals carefully. Lies, laziness and underhandedness are possible.
Emotions Emotions card signifies the current state of your emotional self.
	Nine of Cups Reversed Unfulfilled wishes, bad health and deprivation are possible.
External Forces represents the influence of others in your life as well as trends in your relationships with others.
	Eight of Pentacles Reversed Possible failure. Vanity and underhandedness must be watched for. Skills may be misused.
Hopes and Desires Hopes and Desires stands for the hopes and desires you have for the outcome of your question.
	Seven of Swords Plans may fail. Distrust and dishonesty are possible. Success will not be complete.
The Outcome The Outcome the ultimate outcome your question. Remember the future is not predetermined. Interpret this card in the context of the entire reading and as an indicator of the path you are currently on, but not bound to. reading.
	The Lovers The drawing of two forces together, choices, temptations. The fight between the sacred and the secular. Accord of the inner and worldly self.

It's so silly! I absolutely LOVE to write! So why does it take me such an amazingly bloody fucking long time to get down to the business of actually doing it?

It was absolute torture getting started on my first Qualitative Methods paper. Absolute torture!! I was hiding under the desk, getting ready to scream, going around the house dusting while calling all my friends. But then, finally, finally, I picked up Ben Highmore's Everyday Life and Cultural Theory, a book I've had sitting on my shelf for-fucking-ever, and I read a bit, and it started the rusty wheels of thought. There was an interesting confluence in Highmore's using Sherlock Holmes as an example, since I'd just heard the editor of the recently published volume of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's correspondence talking on Diane Rehm a few days ago. And then Highmore led me to Weber, with some interesting thoughts about Marx and Kafka along the way, and Weber got me all excited about the stahlhartes Gehäuse and the subtleties of the new translation. And then she's off!

(from my Qual Methods paper)

In a particularly famous moment of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber asserts that capitalism has fundamentally transformed the nature and degree of human autonomy. Eschewing previous translations referring to our 'iron cages', Peter Baehr and Gordon Wells render his words thus:

Today's capitalist economic order is a monstrous cosmos, into which the individual is born and which in practice is for him, at least as an individual, simply a given, an immutable shell, in which he is obliged to live. It forces on the individual, to the extent that he is caught up in the relationships of the 'market,' the norms of its economic activity. The manufacturer who consistently defies these norms will just as surely be forced out of business as the worker who cannot or will not conform will be thrown out of work" (Weber 2002 [1905]: 13).

Weber continues, . . .

"Puritans wanted to be men of the calling—we, on the other hand, must be. For when asceticism moved out of the monastic cells into working life, and began to dominate innerworldly morality, it helped to build that mighty cosmos of the modern economic order (which is bound to the technical and economic conditions of mechanical and machine production). Today this mighty cosmos determines, with overwhelming coercion, the style of life not only of those directly involved in business but of every individual who is born into this mechanism, and may well continue to do so until the day that the last ton of fossil fuel has been consumed.

"In Baxter's view, concern for outward possessions should sit lightly on the shoulders of his saints 'like a thin cloak which can be thrown off at any time' [312]. But fate decreed that the cloak should become a shell as hard as steel [stahlhartes Gehäuse]. As asceticism began to change the world and endeavored to exercise its influence over it, the outward goods of this world gained increasing and finally inescapable power over men, as never before in history. Today its spirit has fled from this shell—whether for all time, who knows?" (Weber 2002 [1905]:120-121) In a dystopic vision of a possible future, Weber suggests that, in the absence of "new prophets" or "powerful old ideas and ideals. . . reborn at the end of this monstrous development," we might become "specialists without spirit, hedonists without heart, . . . nonentities [who] imagine they have attained a stage of humankind [Menschentum] never before reached" (121).

I lapse into this lengthy quotation from the new translation of Weber because I find his metaphor to be highly relevant and useful for understanding many of the issues Ms. Grad Student Colleague raises about her experience as a graduate student being socialized into one or more professions. Weber suggests that the social structure of capitalism has created the expectation that we must embody our calling to the extent that it transforms our way of being. As the translators note on the change in language in this edition, "a shell has an organic quality and symbolizes something that has not just been externally imposed but that has become integral to human existence. Whereas a cage confines human agents but leaves their powers otherwise intact, a shell suggests that modern capitalism has created a new kind of being" (lxxi).

. . . And then, on to Crotty, and Giordano & Boscoboinik (who not only edited a volume on anthropological understandings of risk, but also coauthored a paper on Romani identity in Bulgaria, weirdly and coincidentally enough), and from there to Tom Wengraf to talk about BNIM. A few more linkages, a conclusion, and the integration of the material I have that I want to use from my interview and my colleagues' written memos, and maybe a word or two about Nagarjuna, and I'll be done. From start to finish is so easy. It's just getting to the starting line that could possibly kill me . . . .

Well, anyway, for now it's time for a bath and bed. What'll it be tonight, hmm? Lavender and orange again? Maybe some chamomile? Oh, I love aromatherapy. Liles, I can never thank you enough for introducing me to the practice.

And now, the functionalist tour. (Huh, this gives me interesting ideas for field notes.)

Morning! (You know, in the *broad* sense.) Time for coffee.


I keep the good stuff in that vintage coffee can on the bottom shelf, whole bean Abianno espresso from Sweetwaters. I grind it up fresh, very fine.

I knock yesterday's grounds into my compost canister beside the sink. (When it fills, I'll bring it to the compost heap across the way on the garden plot.)

Then I rinse off my Moka, pouring out setting aside the leftovers of yesterday's coffee, maybe for a chocolate cake.

And then I put the fresh coffee on to percolate in the Moka. (This Moka was actually a parting gift from Suzi when I moved out to the country. She bought it in Paris when she was living there. I had used it nearly every day when we were living together in Ann Arbor, since my own had gotten lost in the move from Austin. Suzi, I'm eternally grateful!)

I grab some whole organic milk from the fridge, and warm it on the other burner.

I'm enjoying my sunflowers while the coffee is brewing.

When the coffee has percolated, I whisk the milk until it's all foamy, pour it into a mug (I've had that silly hippie mug with the heart-shaped strawberries and and psychedelic snails since Santa Cruz). First cup is half milk, half coffee. I top it with freshly ground nutmeg. The nutmeg grinder is old enough that it actually says Made in W.-Germany on it.

A glance out the kitchen window: a beautiful day here! (Hanging in the window, there's the evil eye Seda gave me as a housewarming gift in Austin when I moved into my cottage there by the University of Texas campus.)

On other days, we might go into the living room to bask in the bright gorgeous sunlight . . .

(Ba and Marta & Liles might remember that photo of us and Ross from Otis Street on my college graduation day, which I keep framed in my living room to remind me of times when I was surrounded with friends . . .)

And we might sit on the expansive couch there. . .

Or maybe settle in at the table overlooking the water. . . (yeah, never mind that table cloth hiding on the floor. I use it to cover my TV set sometimes, when I'm not overactively using my DVD player and hiding out on the loveseat in the corner there watching romantic comedies.)




But, instead, today, I take one quick detour to my bedroom to open up the vertical blinds to let in the light . . .







(Oh, look, Mom, there's the Wheel of Life thangka I bought in Himachal Pradesh!)

(And here's the vanity table I was telling you about. . .)


Yeah, yeah, okay. So the light is streaming in, and we're finishing the daytime tour, and now it's time for me to settle down in the office, with coffee cup number two, to do some writing.

So, then, um, where *are* those papers from Qualitative Methods, anyway? I took the course only about a year and a half ago. . . .



Not here; this is where I sort junk like jars of foreign change. . .



Obviously, not here -- this is my laundry corner. I'm closing up that folding door now to hide the stacked units.


Apparently, not here, though I keep lots of old papers from past courses in this little corner of drawer-style bins, and I see some files from classes from that same semester. . .


Yes, yes, I remember -- these are all my deadlines and projects that need my attention . . .


Oh, apparently they were in the very first spot I looked, all squeezed into that brown & white floral IKEA box, now unpacked and sitting on my desk in piles, ready to be read and digested . . . So, I'd better get started with that! You can see that my office, too, is wonderfully flooded with light.

A tour of my little house

To answer another one of Mom's requests, we're taking a tour of the inside of my cottage.

So, we enter through the kitchen, taking off our shoes to keep the water and mud from the gravel road and pathway to getting tracked throughout the cottage!

You can see here the style the owners used in renovating the kitchen, which I think is really sweet. The terra cotta with my blue Fiestaware remind me of the colors in my flat in Budapest. (I found that cobalt blue teapot at a yard sale in Ann Arbor this summer.) You can also see the beautiful stainless steel appliances they put in the kitchen -- Bosch dishwasher and gas range . . . swoon!

Over there on the counter you may notice my own electric appliances: I am still using that toaster oven I got in San Francisco, Mom's old breadmaker, and I've got a new rice maker I bought in an Asian shop here in Ann Arbor that makes me very happy. Behind it is hiding the vintage bean pot I was telling you about, Mom, as well as an old pottery bowl I bought at a garage sale back in Santa Cruz.

And then beyond, a CD tower I finally broke down and bought at IKEA to house my dozens of Eastern European CDs. Up top, I've still got that old fragment of an Indian screen that I bought years ago at the flea market in San Francisco. I'm still tempted to paint those blue walls a warm gold color, but I won't have the time to do it anytime soon, if I ever do.



And quickly we make our way in the open floorplan through to the living room. Here, you may recognize my old Salvador Dali lithographs Mom, Dad, and I bought at Price Costco so many years ago . . . that old antique buffet table you gave me when I moved to San Francisco, Mom, and that tiny marble-topped table you must have bought sometime after the Fire. You can also see my fireplace, the Firelight Glass lamps I have lit there on top of the buffet table, some houseplants I picked up at IKEA.

And there on the floor are the red and blue Turkish wool rugs I bought for my cottage in Austin when the floors were so cold and uninsulated I thought I'd freeze my feet if I didn't get some coverings on my floor. I bought those funny pale blue & rose vintage rugs for the same reason, at the same time -- and now they make a nice soft layer to sit on in front of the fire, much warmer than the concrete in front of the fireplace. I do love this hanging lantern-style light the owners have in the kitchen . . .


Taking a step down into the dining room and television corner, we look back up toward the living room from our spot beside the vintage Formica & chrome table. . . There's my cookbook collection, with those two pillar-style lamps I've had since Santa Cruz, and my much-beloved new red sectional couch. At the far end is the front door through which we entered the cottage.



Here, you can spy my grandfather's old accordion atop some funky vintage stacking tables I found at a garage sale. And the custom-made pine bookcase with an antique stained glass window for a door that I bought through craigslist. I keep my fiction books in there. And above it is the Elgin sunburst clock Mom got me at the senior's center in Minnesota this summer. Beside the bookcase is my old secretary desk with my poetry collection there, and beneath it I'm sure you'll notice the sewing machine you got me in Minnesota, Mom. Behind it is a funky old vintage suitcase I keep old photos and correspondence in.


Here, we turn the corner into my bedroom, where you can see that antique mirror I bought for $5 at a garage sale in Dexter, my vintage vanity table and glass lamps I bought from that sweet older couple on Huron River Drive, and the reproduction Depression glass candlesticks I've been carting around since I left my San Francisco studio in the TenderNob (I had bought them around the corner there at the Christian charity shop.) You might also recognize the vintage-style reproduction mirror from IKEA we'd admired together, Mom, and which in the end, I couldn't resist. Same goes for the bed frame.

And, because it used to be an old screened-in porch there, you step down into the section of the bedroom that I sleep in, which I curtain off for total coziness while I'm sleeping. On the floor you'll notice my meditation cushions atop the carpet I bought from the Kashmiri merchant in McLeod Ganj and shipped all the way from India. And, there's that old armoire Mom used to keep in the garage in Oakland.


We can stop for a moment at the bath, which is nothing special, but it's simple, functional, and all mine!


Go through that other little doorway, and you make your way into my office, and you can see just a couple of my many bookshelves . . .


And here is my workspace. This in and of itself could make the drive out to the boonies worthwhile, even if it weren't for the quiet and the beauty and the deep breaths of soul-regenerating fresh air. . .



The end! Come and visit the real thing soon! :)