Do I wake or sleep?

Remember to keep free Mardi Gras, which is coming up (March 8, a week from Tuesday).

I may be co-hosting it with my friend Charles this year. Further details as we hammer them out. But try to keep it free--sorry for the lateness.

I woke up this morning and as I was washing my face--the tooth was suddenly loose again.

So now I'm...stressing. Trying to figure out exactly what to do--I'm at work but can barely talk. The evening will be difficult. I'm going to try to get another emergency appointment at the same dentist (and if they're not available, another one in the plan), but would rather not have to make those phone calls while people can hear me. "Oooh, what's the MATTER? Oh, a CROWN fell out? How TERRIBLE." Nope, don't want to go there.

Needless to say, this complicates the weekend as well.

Naturally my appointment Monday with my regular dentist isn't until the afternoon--AFTER my class.

Geez, this is so stressful. I'm really hating my life right now.

So instead of going to the out-of-plan dentist yesterday, I went to an in-plan one (not my regular dentist) this morning. Waited around for awhile then they took an x-ray and finally called me in. Here's the deal:

It's not just the crown that fell off--the post inside also broke off. This complicates things enormously for two reasons:

1) It's more difficult to glue temporarily, because all that's holding the crown on is the glue. There's no post to help the glue. She glued it on but told me I cannot do ANYTHING to that tooth. No pressure of any kind. I'm afraid to talk, which naturally makes things difficult at work and school.

2) When my regular dentist does start to repair it, she'll have to drill *again* within the tooth itself in order to remove the old post and put in a new one. This is not without risk--once a tooth undergoes root canal, it becomes more brittle--hence, the tooth may shear off. If that happens, I'll have to get rid of the tooth entirely and get an implant or something. Which means MONEY.

So I'm taking it one day at a time until Monday when I am in my regular dentist's office FIRST thing. Every day the glue holds is a victory.

This too shall pass...

On the bright side, I should be losing some weight since I'll be on a completely liquid diet until Monday! And if I have to stay home all weekend if the glue doesn't hold, then I ll just get that much more studying done. I did start my first paper for my current class last night, which always makes me feel good.

I proudly present the debut of my new history blog--Cliopolitan. I concentrate on history but I bring in a lot of other humanities and arts (poetry, theater, etc.) Check it out, read it, "follow" it, comment and experience the transit gloria mundi!

I conceived of this idea last summer--the main purpose of this is as part of a larger effort to stack the deck for my grad school applications as much as possible. But I've also noticed another great side effect--it's forcing me to write a mini-essay every week and getting me back in the habit of focused, tight, purposeful writing.

Some of the entries on history I've written here will reappear there--cleaned up, tighter, with more multi-media. My LJ is more of an emotional dumping ground and and a "this is what's happening with me" and I don't really edit that much what I write here--it's not for a huge audience. But my history blog will be different.

So we've had our first few rehearsals for Macbeth, which I'm dramaturging/AD-ing for Andrew. (I frankly attach more importance to the former title than the latter--he told me I could do anything I wanted, I chose dramaturg, and later he added the AD function.) Rehearsal for this week has been all readthroughs and table work and hence at Christine's apartment down in Chelsea. I got there after 7 each time, since I get out of work after rehearsal starts so I didn't really get a chance to meet the cast per se but just sort of jumped in. Most of them are terrific--I especially like our Macbeth, Ross, Malcolm, Banquo and Porter. The first night I introduced myself after the readthrough had ended, and tallked about the various themes in the play and said "this is my favorite Shakespeare tragedy, not least because I'm related to the actual Macbeth." I looked at the guy playing him. "So don't fuck it up." (I said this humorously.)

I told them about Shakespeare's Advice to the Players and talked a little bit about the techniques discussed therein, and handed out some pages also discussing caesurae, scansion, etc. Andrew talked a little bit about my schedule--basically, very busy--mentioning that I was "going for her master's in history" and the guy playing Macbeth was asking me about that. I had to clarify--"yes, I'm going for it but I'm not actually in grad school right now, I'm in a program, at Columbia called the Post-Baccalaureate Studies Program. I'm trying to build a third major."

Last night (I can't do rehearsal on Sunday or Tuesday nights because of class) we had our second night of table work and I was on fiyuh. I really am Hermione in these situations--I have to force myself not to dominate the conversation too much. I talked about themes some more--time telescoping into itself as the plays approaches its climax (with the corollary that the witches are outside of time) was one. But I guess it was well-received--the two guys playing Malcolm and Ross were literally following me around during the breaks, and the Ross said to me "I love you--I want to squeeze every bit of knowledge out of your head!" I think I won him over when he asked me about a line in the beginning of the Lady Macduff scene--he wanted to elide two syllables to make it scan and wanted to know if that was okay. I whipped out my copy of the First Folio and said "that's the way it is First Folio so ask yourself this--why did Shakespeare add the extra syllable? Can you find an emotional reason for that? Maybe Ross is more nervous than he's letting on to Lady Macduff--he's stumbling over his words." He gave me this amazed look.

During Macbeth's Act V scene when he's struggling to put on his armor, I also talked a bit about clothing metaphors and how important clothing was as social/class signifier to the medieval/Renaissance mindset, how you could only wear certain materials/colors. There are a lot of clothing images throughout the play--I also talked about the body politic: the state of the nation is reflected in the body of the king--and this plays into the idea of Man is a micro-universe (the microcosm), which then leads to the blood imagery which saturates the play. (As I put it, "the blood in this play is like the elevator sequence in The Shining.") The complete disarray of the macrocosm, the body politic, is symbolized by the life's blood of the microcosm--the king whom Macbeth murders.

When we discussed the Act V battle, I brought up the fact that we see little of it--mostly we see Macbeth fighting one person after another. The Porter said something about a typically medieval mounted pitched battle and I said "that is actually less typically medieval than you'd think--it depends on the time period of course, and already for this production we're talking about three time periods--the mid-11th century, when the actual Macbeth lived; the early 17th century, when the play was written; and the 1930s, when this production is set. But there were a lot more sieges and raiding in certain periods than dramatically pitched battles." After rehearsal Banquo was asking me about medieval battle tactics and I launched into a discourse about the The Battle of the Golden Spurs, the ascent of the infantry in the 14th century, and how military tactics never really change or evolve, name-checking the Battle of Hoth at the end.

Last night Christine, our producer for Macbeth, had a fundraiser/benefit for the show at the Irish Rogue. I had such a great time--to start off, Duncan gave me an AMAZING (late) birthday present...a bottle of pumpkin-infused VODKA!!! That he'd made himself! I was absolutely thrilled--can't wait to try to make Pumpkin Alexanders or something else equally amazing with that! Seriously, one of the best presents I've ever gotten. I'm always so impressed with good gift-givers--Rachel is another good gift-giver, she has exquisite taste for one thing. Intimidatingly good taste. My friend Ashley is another.

Anyway, so that made me very happy. The entertainment was a series of acts, mostly musical except the first was a VERY strange conceptual comedy act that did not go over at all. I felt kind of bad for the girl--I think something like that plays better in a dedicated environment (like a comedy club or a nightclub), rather than a long room in a bar with people crossing back and forth, talking, playing pool, etc. Anyway, Duncan also performed, and I read a poem ("Death of a Naturalist," by Seamus Heaney). I actually wasn't too thrilled with my reading of it--I'm not sure what didn't quite work, just that I felt like I was yelling or something--but I got several compliments so as long as someone liked it, it's all good. One performing duo was also a little off--our sound designer and his wife performed a couple of songs in...some kind of costume. He was dressed as a pimp but I'm not sure what she was, and they sang some kind of song about being a "criminal." Hmm. But there was another duo who sang Lionel Richie's "Hello" as a tribute to Glee and their harmony was great!

But best of all--they had a raffle, and guess who's the proud owner of a NEW COACH SCARF? ME, that's who! I'd bought several tickets and had missed the 3-day membership at Chelsea Sports by just one digit. Then when they started to read off the winning number for the Coach scarf I crossed my fingers and everything else, and Duncan pointed to me and said "if I win this, you're getting it." AND THEN THEY READ MY NUMBER!!!!!! I literally squealed aloud and danced up to Christine--it was like winning Miss America!

Who's the proud owner of a brand new cashmere Coach scarf?

ME, that's who!

Then to top it off, one of the performers had been involved with the Planet Connections Festival and pulled me aside and said some very nice things indeed about my performance as Puck. Terribly sweet--she said she'd "voted for [me] and everything." I love delayed compliments.

I have to say, I'm really liking Christine. She's the producer and she's also playing Lady M. So far I've been very happy with her leadership and she's such a non-diva--we taped the voiceovers for the apparition and she voiced Apparition #3 (the one about "til Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane"). Andrew asked if I had any feedback, and I talked to her about the stuff in Shakespeare's Advice to the Players. She LOVED it, really welcomed the feedback and then later on texted me for the name of the book. It's such a great book, so helpful.

Really, the only disappointing thing about the evening was that I never got to play any pool!

Come on, guys. An angry statement directed at the President--on a GUN? What the FUCK? Have thes eguys learned nothing from what just happened?

I see this all ending badly.

Oh God. SO sick today. My body aches and I can't seem to get warm enough.

Going home in a bit. I'm going to crawl into bed and cover myself with blankets and sleep.

You Are Princeton

You are a very well rounded person. While you have been academically successful, it doesn't define you. You do take academics seriously, and it's important to you to learn from the best minds in the world. You are very culturally aware and sociable. No one would accuse you of being a nerd. You don't just want to go to school - you want an experience to remember. And Princeton would give you just that!

My grandfather, class of '34 (and a member of Tiger Inn!), would be proud :) And if I lived anywhere close to there, I *would* be there!

So we had our history final the Tuesday before Christmas--it was modified open book in that we were allowed to have in hand the last text we studied, Le Livre de la Cité des Dames by Christine de Pizan, and we could even have notes in it, but we were not allowed any other text. (And yet, we were expected to be able to cite and reference those texts.) So, a little different from the exams for Roman History. Naturally of course I studied like crazy for it--I went through the book with a color-coded system, highlighting 8 different themes we'd discussed throughout the semester, like the use of the vernacular, contemporary women's writings' treatment of the body, that sort of thing. This turned out to be VERY useful--once I saw what the essay questions were, I had the quotations and references immediately at hand, I just had to flip through the book, looking for the color-code for that particular theme.

However we also had to reference Roman de la Rose--from memory. Luckily I'd pulled several quotations dealing with most of the course's themes, and as soon as we received the exam I turned it over and wrote down my memorized Roman quotations. This took some time, as did my outline for my essay, so by the time I actually started writing, it was almost 45 minutes gone. But write I did, for the next two hours in a blue book. (Mom asked me if we still wrote in blue books--I said yes indeed, and I always wanted to sneak one ouot as a souvenir. But then through my proctoring I found out that's a common means of cheating--people will take them, write out the answers (presumably to advance essay questions), and then sneak them back in. So now they stamp the blue books with stamps specific to that exam period--it was a red star this past time. I still can't get over how the exams are all proctored--at Sweet Briar and, I'm pretty sure, at Mount Holyoke, all exams were on the honor system with no proctors. Sweet Briar took the honor system VERY seriously--we were required to memorize the pledge (What do you want, it's Virginia!). I still remember the final sentence--I will report myself, and ask others to report themselves, for any infraction of this pledge.) ANYWAY, I think I did okay on the exam; we still haven't gotten them back. He told us that our final papers were in his outbox so after I turned in my exam, I went over to his office and snaked it out of the box--A. Whew!

I did love the Dante, found it fascinating to write about--my topic examined circle imagery in his Paradiso.

Initially Dante’s choice of imagery seems self-explanatory—medieval pre-Copernican cosmology was rife with spheres, with Earth at the center of the universe surrounded by concentric rings wherein the planets dwelled, ultimately topped by the fixed stars, the Primum Mobile and the Empyrean. But a closer examination reveals Dante’s clever and imaginative exploration of this conceit, one which ultimately proves as simultaneously crystalline, musical and absolute as Dante’s vision of the heavens themselves.

Sooooo much to explore there--music (dance and the music's circular tonality--paging my BA in music!), Commedia's rhyme scheme (which is terza rime (ABA BCB CDC)--each triplet is a circle that sets the ground for the second line), even that the term comedy originally meant song. Against that I contrasted the idea of light imagery:

[Dante] is only a visitor to this blessed realm; he cannot wheel endlessly around the heavens basking blissfully in affirmation, he must progress as far as possible until his journey has ended. And so Dante uses light imagery to contrast with his circular musical metaphors—light for music, sight for sound, the challenging for the affirmative, an open-ended straight trajectory for that which is curvilinear and cyclical. Light of course cannot bend, and light as a metaphor for unbending truth and a vehicle by which to ascend suffuses every canto, nearly every stanza of Commedia.

And then held them up against each other:

The inherent push-pull tension between the two constructs of circle/line, music/light (“when each clock-art both drives and draws,” 91, line 142) is brilliantly illustrated by the poetic structure of the poem, those tight little aba, bcb, cdc tercets—one rhyme anticipating the next, a chain mail of circles that advance little by little, forming a rosary of epiphany and transcendence.

When I wrote the paper in early December this was all going swimmingly and I was basically in the clear, just had to write the conclusion--and then I saw that I'd missed something. The professor's notes for the paper specifically said we had to bring in at least one other contemporary writer. I PALED. I was going through all the other mid-late writers--"Who do I know? Can't write about Bacon, I've already done him [I wrote about Bacon in my previous paper]--ORESME, I know Oresme." Seriously, I was pretty much panicking. I was able to get out a few paragraphs, about a page, on Oresme and circles, then got back to Dante and squeezed out a conclusion. So, nice to know that worked out.

After the final, I could just relax and enjoy the holidays but naturally I've been anxiously checking the SSOL (Student Services Online) to see if grades have been posted. Finally, two days ago, they had--an A for the semester, yeehaw! Now, on to Laws of War (and a byGod TIMELINE) in the Middle Ages!