friday night frenzy: the reorg finale
July 18th, 2008 | Uncategorized
Ahhhh. A Friday night in July. Are you down at the bandstand taking in a concert? Taking your kayak off the roof rack? Grilling salmon and sipping chardonnay? Attending a screening of “The Dark Knight?” Probably not. Based on our comprehensive web analytics, you’re most likely reading this blog to avoid work on your dissertation.
Whatever. I just had to tell you that I finished the deep cleansing of my office. Look!
One bag of trash.
One milk crate (thirty pounds) of stuff to be shredded.
One carton to take to the library’s used book sale:
One half-carload of recycling:
And six cartons and three large bins for the Sophia Smith Archives!
Look at the results. A tidy office, a content pet, and a smoothly gliding file drawer with room to spare!
What a job. It took me all week, but now I feel sanctified! Kinda like I’ve gone to confession, gotten a high colonic, and successfully weathered an IRS audit all at once. At supper I read my free will astrology horoscope in Seven Days, the local alt weekly.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Dear Rob ‘Fat-Burner’ Brezsny: I used the Sweet and Sassy Toner video and lost only two pounds in five weeks. I tried the No More Love Handles program and actually gained weight. The only thing that really worked was your column. Reading your horoscopes has, I’m convinced, been responsible for bringing me much closer to having my dream body. You’ve helped me jettison a ton of psychic fat, not to mention a wad of guilt, a load of concern about what other people think of me, and a mass of remorse about the past. I never realized how much of my extra weight had to do with psychological burdens I was carrying. This is the lightest I’ve ever been! Grateful Virgo.” Dear Grateful: Give yourself credit, too. It has been courageous of you to get rid of your unnecessary buffers. By the way, this week will be the climax of the shedding process. Celebrate your success by emptying out even more.
It was a valiant effort. Letting go of old DTWOF files. Figuring out what to do with the joint checking account statements from my 13 year relationship that ended two years ago. Running across my beloved old cat’s vet bills—the final one listing “euthanasia, $135.”
I just felt completely paralyzed by all this stuff. Even though at the same time, I’ve been haunted by Ellen O’s recent warning. “Just don’t turn clearing out your files into a substitute for creative work on your next book.”
I also happened to take a look at my horoscope in the daily paper, and here’s what it said:
Sometimes being focused on small things hangs you up. But now the opposite is true. The attention you give to detail will free you and help you better appreciate the work at hand.
So, even though I haven’t done any actual work on my book all week, I’ve created a file drawer in which to organize my heap of notes for it. That feels like a huge accomplishment.
I was so busy, I hardly had time to look at the Advanced Reading Copy of The Essential DTWOF which arrived this afternoon. Interesting timing…25 years of work in one tidy package.
A couple of sundry notes:
• I haven’t sent original artwork and Daily Distresses, as promised, to Ellen, Elaine, Anna, Michael, and Kassie because I have to do all this hand-lettering and inking-in of black spaces on the art. Since I cheated and did all that stuff on the computer the first time around. But I’ll get to it, I swear!
• Ariel Schrag has some cool quasi-animations of her cartoons up at Our Chart. She’s the wunderkind who drew like a 3,000 page brilliant graphic novel about her high school years, then went on to write for The L Word.
• Eric Orner, the creator of The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green, is apparently working on a new strip called Castronomy. You can vote for it to run in the SF Chronicle here.
• Remember my description of hell, in my recent Entertainment Weekly cartoon?
I received an interesting email the other day from one John Herman.
Hi, Alison. If you ever fleetingly wonder if the author of the Win98 manual would see your cartoon, why yes. Yes he did. I’ve taken great delight in sharing with my co-workers how–with the entire spectrum of things printed since the days of Guttenberg from which to choose–you chose something I wrote as an example of reading material in hell.
A career highlight for me, to be sure, but my mother will never be seeing this.
That was rather sweet, I thought.
68 Responses to “friday night frenzy: the reorg finale”
Jeez, maybe you really ARE down at the bandstand! This post has been up half an hour, with no comments whatsoever.
I’m going to bed.
YAY!!
Now if i can just get my girlfriend into the mood to clear things out…humm. i am sorry that the last thing about your late kitty was a euthinasia bill. what a sad day. peace to you, and yay to the reorg finale! go virgo!
how long will your rug stay neat? our kitties would skid around and rummple the rug in a heartbeat, not to mention all the toys that would be under it :).
Peace.
oh, and yeah, i am putting off my dissertation, too 🙂
Was the Win98 manual as amusing as John Herman’s letter? If so, he should have gotten a Pulizer for it.
well at 31 minutes post posting, I’m still chuckling rather loudly (the cat is staring at me quizzically) – at the email from the author of Win98.
Congrats on clearing out all the clutter. Any tips? Clearly, taking a week off and committing to nothing else may be key. Honestly? I am in awe.
I am totally inspired. I wasn’t at the bandstand… but tomorrow I’ll be at the Philadelphia premier of the movie Lesploitation. I’ll let all y’all know how it goes.
Just got my Daily Distress today – fun. I’m all the more psyched for the complete compendium. And tx for all the fun links above. Killer astrology column from your local rag (must be the Sparrow in you that looks…). As for the clutter – bravo – you are hereby a clutter maven no more. Love the John Herman email!
I am so amazed. I’ve been sitting inside this cluttered office since I wrote my dissertation ten years ago. (Well, I have ventured out a few times.) And now you go and paint, purge, and organize your whole workspace in a week. I guess this is why you are where you are–you actually do the things you mean to do. Mere mortals gaze in awe.
I was at the Lake Harriet Bandstand here in Mpls. listening to the Sinfonia (our wonderful non-profit orchestra). What a gorgeous night! How did you know?
Fantastic post – your amazing transformation of your space, some Rob Brezny and that hilarious email from the Win98 guy – sometimes those books… well, you wonder if a human being wrote them….. and there he was… reading entertainment magazines… or with pals who read entertainment magazines… an hilarious start to a rainy london Saturday morning:-) thanks.
Whoa. I’m hugely impressed that you made so much progress in so little time. Such focus! Such drive! I merely nibble away at the edges of my piles, which, like Prometheus’ liver, grow back over night.
Excuse me… I have some papers to sort, file, recycle, and shred now.
you are an inspiration to me. My Love and I are set to move into our first home together and my studio reeks of disarray…as she bulldozes through removing wallpaper and redoing the bathroom in the new place….I shudder in fear of packing things…(that means looking at stuff and determining what stays and what goes) Im not good at that.
She’s so diligent she once layed out all of my stacked bills and client stuff and filed them nicely in 4 hours…all i did was nod at what stayed and shredded what didn’t.
I guess thats why I will be wrapping and packing dishes today *sigh*
I’m very glad you’re donating your archives to Smith. I’m a Smithie, and I can promise you that they’ll be lovingly tended, and well used.
OK I’m inspired, I have five weeks off from teaching and five rooms to clear /sort/ shuffle if you count the garden. Checking back in on August 24th.
What an awesome accomplishment… I love how TIDY the boxes are.
Now, off to work on my dissertation.
A high colonic! Exactly. Precisely what I was thinking last night, around 10:30 p.m. Central Time, as I finished The Closet. (No, it hasn’t taken me the entire week, I skipped working on it a few days. Hey, it was nice outside.) But oh, the purge. Three huge garbage bags of clothes to take to the thrift store, and all my winter stuff neatly packed in these nifty storage bags that you squish all the air out of – this collapses the clothes and greatly increases available space.
Best part? When my mother comes to visit on Sunday, I won’t have to listen to her nag about The Closet. Sweeeeet. But now I have to tackle some home improvement projects before fall, projects I’ve put off for three years. *deep sigh and hand to forehead as I collapse onto the couch* It never ends.
And that email from John Herman – hilarious. That’s class.
I was at The Dark Knight…but of course you knew I would be…or at least I bet Dr. E knew I would be. It does indeed pass the test. There are two named women in the film (one plays a minor but important role and then there is Rachael Dawes) that at least once talk about something other than men. So you should all go see it…see it a couple of times and you will kill off about 6 hours worth of dissertation time…:)
Can you please correct link to vote for Eric? The current link is to ourchart.com …
Try this:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/g/a/2008/07/12/DDCOMICS12.DTL&o=0
Thank you, Anonymous and Eeth fan! I fixed the link in the post.
Hm. Last night (Friday, that is) I was in the student union building to use its wireless access so I could post a new blog entry. I’m pretty sure I must have looked in here, but it must have been before you posted this. And I was trying to hurry so I could go back home and finish reading Raymond Williams’s “The Politics of Modernism,” then watch an Ozu movie on DVD. I didn’t get to the Ozu movie. Around midnight I walked downtown to hang out and people-watch with my Mexican friend who sells pizza by the slice outside Rockit Pizza. Backhome at about 1 a.m. So, as you can see, I have no life, at least not before midnight, but I still missed this post.
Hey, well done on the de-cluttering! I always find it ultimately energising however traumatic the process may have been. I always start major projects with a de-clutter, it sets the scene for working and usually allows the upcoming project to start to drift through my mind, allowing me to think about it in a slightly less pressurised way than sitting in front of a blank screen or piece of paper. Actually I love a de-clutter and find it quite addictive, I have overdone at times and later regretted re-cycling or given away something but it never lasts long, and if you give things away to people you know you can always borrow it back. I have permanent collections residing with various friends… finding a institution to do it for you was a masterstroke!
I was just thinking about Eric Orner lately, wondering if we’d ever see Ethan and Peter again! I guess not…
BTW, your writing about finding the old euthanasia bill made me feel sad when I read it. I’ve been down that road 3 times from 2002 through summer 2006.
Thank heavens we have that option for pets though-so they don’t have to needlessly suffer.
Congrats on your new state of organization. “Dissertation distraction? HOW DID YOU KNOW?!?!?”
Thanks for directing us to Ariel Schrag’s new stuff- Since she set aside -Likewise- for _The L Word-, I have been patiently waiting for her to finish the series of books, some day. Then on the other hand, I am sort of dreading it, because I hate her soul-murdering manipulative straight-girlfriend SO MUCH. She is the spitting image of my sister’s first girlfriend, also a manipulative, straight faux-lesbo who totally put her through the wringer, and every time I read _Likewise_ I just want to kill her all over again. Funny that Schrag went on to write for _The L Word_, since previous comments seem to indicate that this is how a lot of the people on this blog feel about the show- like you just take the drama way too personally. 🙂
Can I just say how cool it is that with all that you cleared out how there’s only one bag of actual trash.
I think that’s pretty cool too. Something to aspire to when I reorganize.
I think its so sweet that you are planning to fill in the blanks on the cartoons you’re sending out.
I was out of town for two weeks – one plane ticket and a hybrid car rental got me to Maine, NYC, DC, and Manassas. So, my post-unpacking plus 15 days of cat hair house has me pondering when will I ever get energy to clean up that mess. (At least I read the mail I got – but I still need to file/shred/recycle it.)
Sigh.
I think I’ll go out instead.
I laughed out loud when I read “Based on our comprehensive web analytics, you’re most likely reading this blog to avoid work on your dissertation” because just yesterday I finished my MS thesis!
I was actually catching up on all the reading that I had avoided because I needed to finish my thesis! 😀
I’m a long-time subscriber to a mailing list of computer-book publishing professionals, and have found them as a group to be unusually funny and self-aware. They know their work has limited uses and will be obsolete soon: There are no illusions about its impact. At the same time they give it the care it deserves: For those who need it in the here and now, it’s important to *get it right*.
I like to think the comment about blog-reading-for-dissertation-avoidance is specifically about me. The thing about writing is not only that one ends up reading blogs for more hours than is strictly necessary, but also that one’s only social communication happens on the internet. thus, vague shout outs start to sound personal. sigh, how sad.
beautiful organized office! maybe I should clean mine right now…
Hmm. . . I was also going to say, “The dissertation-avoidance comment was right on. How did you know?” Apparently, Allison, among us dissenting dissertators, you’re the number one choice out of a myriad million of possible procrastinations. Who’d’a thunk it?
Giving Asterix and the Normans to the library? I hope it’s a duplicate copy — surely a talented graphic artist such as yourself must have a complete collection of Goscinny and Uderzo (despite their occasional misogyny)!
I love Asterix! Me and my brothers and sisters used to have all of them I think, including one in Italian and one in French as well as the English versions of those particular ones. We used to argue about how the names were pronounced and I remember one time when one of my brothers was ill, me and one of my sisters tried to make a tape of ourselves reading it so when we were at school he could lie in bed listening to it with the book.
Vast sections of my historical knowledge are still (worryingly) uncorrected from what I gleaned from Asterix. Driving from my Mum’s house to London takes me past Stonehenge if I wish and it always makes me think of Obelix and his menhirs. Realising why I was so fascinated with Fulliautomatix’s wife and Cleopatra in Asterix and Cleopatra (my favourite one) was revelatory too…
Good on ya having your papers archived at the Sophia Smith Archives. I wrote a paper about them when I was in Library school. Your papers will get the best care and many eyeballs on them. You are a very responsible person of letters. I will be sure to send interested parties that way. In fact, maybe I’ll go myself!
Thanks Alison!
“avoid work on your dissertation”
How very true. I got my dissertation topic twenty years ago, almost to the day (I think it was the last week of July 1988).
So that’s something at which I’m a real expert.
On the other hand, I have scheduled for the last two weeks of August both a major cleaning up of our flat and packing all my office’s contents since at the beginning of septembr we are moving to new premises. Scary. I’m so impressed at how fast you were.
Hey, off topic except not really because it’s about lesbian comic-strip artists: I’m currently attending the Netroots Nation conference in Austin (where it is this morning being accounced that I have been added to the writing staff of Group News Blog, wahoo). Yesterday I was at a workshop titled “Don’t Think of Violence (Framing the Discourse)”, where Jeffrey Feldman, Michael Shaw, Andrea Batista Schlesinger and Dave Neiwert spoke, when a questioner stood and made a great, articulate point about the hate speech of the eliminationist nativist Right who is gearing up for violence against immigrants being virtually identical to the eliminationist woman-hating Right who advocates violence against those who exercise reproductive choice. This questioner turned out to be Nancy Goldstein with the ACLU’s Reproductive Rights program on Long Island, a dynamic around-50 dyke who made a beeline for me afterward. She thrilled me to BITS by announcing she’d been reading my work long before it was online (i.e., in women’s literary journals back in the day). As we chatted, she mentioned her partner was Joan Hilty — who draws BITTER GIRL! When I instantly recognized and raved about Bitter Girl, it was her turn to be thrilled. So I thought I would plug it here.
I wonder if Netroots Nation will appear in the strip? The speakers yesterday were Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore, and Lawrence Lessig; today it’s Gavin Newsom. And there’s been a LOT of talk about The New Yorker cover. All fodder for blog posts and/or comic strips…
Mistress Librarian – was library school Indiana University, by any chance? They have a big library science program, and that’s where I got my masters degree (in geology, down the street).
Now, I’m in Oz, so let me just say, All Hail Alison, Queen of Office Reorganization! And, btw, I’ve been spending my time since A.B. started this blog concerned with my car’s timing belt. Turns out they need a new one after 15 years.
this was in the Boston Sunday Globe today. 15$/month gets you 50 pages scanned and stored (and either shredded or returned to you). I have no connection to the company, but could stand some scanning and shredding done by someone besides me.
see http://www.pixily.com/
Everybody should support the comic writer Eric Orner by voting for his strip to get published at the link that Alison posted. I used to read his old strip The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green, and it was funny and thoughtful.
Kate L,
Timing belts need replaced at different times depending on the make, etc. of your vehicle. The most pressing are Honda and Toyota where they are actually chains, not belts, so if they break they cause major damage. Those need changed about every 100,000 miles, which most folks hit well before 15 years. You should check your manual.
Man, you had me pegged– I was indeed out seeing The Dark Knight on Friday night. I admit that it was largely Heath Ledger fascination that got me there, and on that front I was not disappointed. But otherwise– such a dark and twisty movie! No character transformations, except from good to eeeevil! It left me feeling hollow. What did other people think?
1. Why yes, I _am_ reading this blog to avoid working on my dissertation! It was startling to read that (“Hey you, over there, procrastinating writing your dissertation!”)(Confidential to C – I worked on it yesterday and will work on it tomorrow, I promise!) But I’m glad to hear I’m in good company.
2. Congrats on the office!
3. This weekend I cleaned off my (utterly and horrifyingly clogged) dance floor and in the process found 2 very important pieces of mail and my groove. It’s back! Decluttering is a key anti-depression maneuver
Alison–
Do you have any more copies of the Daily Distress?
If so, should I just use the Contact link on the right to request a copy from you?
If not, will the publisher send me a copy if I request one?
Is the Daily Distress available online, by any chance, such as in a .pdf?
Thanks, and mazel tov on your office reorganization!
I have a comment/piece of news held up by “Awaiting moderation” several comments above. While we’re waiting…
I had a chance to spend a lot of time this weekend at Netroots Nation with Michael Shaw of BAGnewsNotes, and I want to say here regarding the Michelle/Barack Obama cover of The New Yorker, Michael’s analysis is the best I’ve seen. Check it out here.
I’m been completely inspired. My room/office is currently a heap of papers, photos and clothes which I am actually sorting.
I even bought a shredder…
and 10 minutes into the job it just broke. Obviously it saw what was coming.
Another update: M. LeBlanc at Bitch Ph.D has written a post invoking the Bechdel Rule for The Dark Knight. She gives in EPIC FAIL.
Hey, Straight Ally.
If you want a Daily Distress, send a 9×12 self-addressed, stamped envelope to me at PO Box 215, Jonesville, VT 05466!
Alison–
Thanks for the Daily Distress ordering info.! I’ll probably procrastinate, but not, I hope, until all the copies are gone.
I’ll be sure to check out the Smith archives when I’m at school next fall! Thanks for donating!
Avoiding dissertations by reading blogs? Creative space re-org for new book? Thank god I’m not the only one. My small apartment is gonna get a re-org like you wouldn’t believe, now that I need to be job hunting 🙁
The only thing better than cleaning for job hunting avoidance lately has been cataloging my giant library. God I love my books! Why can’t anyone pay me a salary for reading?
If anyone needs anything read, let me know. I come cheap.
Hmm…Friday evening? I was putting people with traumatic brain injuries to bed. Ah, well. Salaries must be earned, and mortgages and college tuitions must be paid. 🙂
Surely there’s a masters thesis to be made from those old checks?
I can beat you all. I wasn’t avoiding a dissertation or thesis. However, I was procrastinating from writing my own blog, while procrastinating from working on the granny afghan which is the project I took up to procrastinate from my own declutter, re-org and clearout!
Why I’m prud of this I’m not exactly sure …
Edit: proud lol.
I’d thought I was the only Virgo who lived in clutter! I will take inspiration from your quick-toss of dross and be brutal in my own de-clutter. Um, soon. Very soon…
My bad, I totally forgot rule #2..somehow my brain replaced that rule with “the women have to be named”…Bitch PhD is right, they never talk to each other.
my goal is to have my dissertation read by enough people to rank in hell’s book club…..
Um I actually totally am reading this to avoid my dissertation. My defense is right now 5 days away.
I’m back at a computer, first time in a while. Do my psych ward, rape, hospitalisation, and women’s shelter experiences trump all your dissertational bloghaunting avoidance? (let’s play oppression olympics, shall we? Sorry, I’m a bit sad and bitter at the moment and am just lashing the fuck out. Carry on. And hug your kitties, even though they’ll hate you for it, because you just never know when you might lose them. Thank all the good powers, mine are all right, perhaps doing better than I am even.)
Hey, notmyusualhandle — thanks for writing. Yeah, some of us who come here are dealing with living hell, and you just have to wade through all the complaining about having to use the regular silver because the good stuff is in the vault kind of sharing. If you need to connect more concretely, I for one can be tracked down via my blog. If that’s your cuppa, of course.
Glad you made it. Glad your kitties are all right. Keep taking care.
Doing just that. I feel shitty coming here and ranting on AB’s space, didn’t stop me from doing it anyway. My local support system has whittled down to very little. My two remaining peeps have given me the “I can’t handle much more of this” talk and my siblings are in deeeenial about our parents ever having abused us. I’m the oldest. I remember seeing what they did to them.
So, yeah, connection is a bit lacking right now, and I’m trying to focus on compassion for my “friends” who are reacting in the classic “ew, abused woman cooties” fashion. x10 because I’m supposedly this big strong radical feminist dyke and I should’ve known better than to “let” this happen to me. I might take you up on your offer.
Farce is here, too: I just hobbled to the store to buy some carbonated badness (gonna be a long night and I need my Dew, damn it). Perambulatory agitation occurred, but I’m a dumbass and now a carbonated-ass as well: ask me how it feels when you open your soda and it geysers all over your lap and you just sit there in an attempt to let your old bluejeans absorb the worst so the ant-attraction factor later is minimized. Fizzy!
I’m’a go shower now. And ponder corporate-sponsored sexual practices for my next relationship; Coke’s parent corporation has gotta own at least one of the Vagisil lines or something, right? For when your carbonated lovin’ gets you a one way ticket to a yeast infection?
One of those nights, folks. One of those nights. Weeks. Months. Lives.
And, as I have permission to do so, I will say:
Hi there, world. I blame you. I blame you for not listening to me, for overlooking me, dismissing me, being uncomfortable and embarrassed when my uneducated self dared to speak up in gatherings of academic feminists, having no word of support or even acknowledgment for me when I was suicidal, out of work, prostituting myself, homeless, raving, drunk, any and all of it. You’ve been through psych 101, haven’t you? Fucking bystanders, all of you. Kitty Genovese died because of you. Thousands, millions of women die because of you. I’m still alive but how many of you will look me in the eye and treat me like I’m a human being, not a Battered Woman, object of pity, too stupid for her own good, too trusting, not trusting enough, someone else will take care of it so why involve myself in the ugliness.
When will you wake up and realize. Anything you do to me, you do to yourself, to all of us. I’m trying like hell to forgive and understand but goddamn it. Forgiving and understanding and excusing over and over and over is what got me where I am. I’m just about through. I want to be Armida flying off in her dragon chariot setting her betrayers on fire. I will not. To stay human, I must choose mercy, not revenge. Count yourselves lucky so far.
Just because folks are jokingly referring to avoiding writing their dissertations doesn’t mean their lives are all rosy and gay. Some dissertation avoiders could share your experiences of rape, hospitalization, alienation by the lesbian or feminist community or even the academic community. They could have been abused as children or could have spent time living in a homeless shelter or a battered women’s shelter. They may simply choose not to discuss those aspects of their lives right here and now on Alison Bechdel’s blog.
You would likely prefer to be seen as an individual and not a stereotype… so too would the folks who just happen to be avoiding writing dissertations by reading this blog.
I was raised in a working class family and went to lousy city schools where I got a mediocre, at best, education. I went to a state college for undergrad because I had absolutely no choice in the matter. I did get to go to a private school that Mags may think of as a place for the elite for my graduate program. But, because I was poor, I went, virtually, for free.
So, again, just cause folks are keeping their serious troubles on the downlow and having a light moment poking fun at themselves here doesn’t mean they fret over their silver… or lack thereof. and it doesn’t mean that they don’t have larger issues or that they don’t have compassion for folks who are suffering.
This is Alison’s blog afterall and she’s funny… as in, ha ha, laughter is good for you? Let’s not let ourselves become like those stereotypes of dykes from the 70’s… right? where we couldn’t ever laugh… at ourselves or anything else… because life was just too rife with strife. remember those old light bulb jokes…?
How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
That’s not funny!
oh, yeah, how soon I forget, you know, like MO!
Soozie: like so, f’rexample?
Wrote my lil’ rant with AB’s permission to do so, and of course it’s as delete-able and ignore-able as you like.
nmuh,
That link won’t work for me : (
if’n you could post again I’ll check it out…
is it our Mo??
Crikey. Well, you know, public computer labs plus personal incompetence all rolled up in one. ‘Tain’t Mo, alas, it’s just me on the night in question, revealing not only my current rage but also my current sense of humour, quite intact.
See also my typoes from comments at the end of, um, AB entry entitled “what th'” of July 15. I’m not going to test the HTML gods or Katie’s patience by trying to code two links in one post.
In case we’re counting, I too am reading this to avoid working on my dissertation.