One down, one to go.

Hey everybody,

Alas, another acedemic update. I finished my first summer session - Issues in Literary and Cultural Theory - and just stared my second summer session today. I'm taking a Restoration/18th Cent. Brit. Lit. class with Dr. Candace Ward. We're reading some crazy texts (a woman claiming to give birth to rabbits, a "feminized male traveler," Dryden's great praises for the London fire of 1665, and stuff like Baubard's polemic poem against the slave). I'm also teaching a section of ENC1101. I have 17 freshmen in computer-equipped classroom. Ah, it's good to be back in technoland ...

I enjoyed doing a lot of reading, documentary viewing (like Scorsese's No Direction Home) and spending quality time with Katie last week. She's thinking very hard about coming with for Jesse's wedding on the 8th if she can finish some big projects and stay afloat with comprehensive exam studying. She's doing very well under the pressure, I'm proud of her.

Yes, so I will be up in VA on and around the 8th. Sadly, you all will be in NYC at that time from what I've heard - is this true?? Shakespeare in the park?

Okay, I need to look for some lane tickets for an August trip ...

Love to all.

Man for/of/in (choose your prep) Seasons

Last night, Brooks came and made dinner for us Royal St ladies. He used one of Dana's favorite recipes and servied us Peach Ginger Chicken. After dinner, Em left for care group and then the three of us folded, glued, be-ribboned wedding invititions. The process got a bit complex when Brooks and Dana started added the last touch--a golden seal over the ribbon. The wax was first too hot and so melted the ribbon. Dana suggested poring it out of a spoon. This improvision worked and they spent the rest of the night dripping gold wax out of a teaspoon. The spoon-made invitations turned out beautifully.

When I went to Memphis

• I sat by a man who didn't respect the invisible barrier created by the arm rest. He wore short sleeves. He had a hairy arm. And his elbow was in seat 13A. This would have been alright if the rest of him hadn't been sitting in 13B.
• I got to drive a little red Cobalt around with a Texas License plate reading "The Lone Star State." I felt patriotic.
  
• For a little paranoid excitement, I pushed all the furniture in my hotel room, that was movable, against the door.
  
• A black guy asked me how I was and when I replied that I was fine he said, "Uh, huh, I knows you fine!!" (hope that isn't racist).
  
• I met more parents-of-PHCers at the homeschool conference. They were unsurprisingly Pillars-of-the-Homeschool-Movement.
  
• On the flight back I sat by a girl whose Aunt(ie) saw her off (parenthesis mine). While waiting to board my last flight of the day, I heard them talking. From their chatting it seemed that family visits were infrequent and this one almost a coincidence. But it had left them feeling very benevolent because it had been a good visit. Her aunt said, "I am just so proud of you. There are not many young people like you now days. And you are just going to have a wonderful life." The girl deflected this praise and then said, "Aunt Joan, can I hug you?" (After snickering at this exchange like a cynic) I decided, as I looked at her sleeping beside me, that she did look particularly innocent and sweet. Her face full of unfinished lines (no plucked eyebrows, no charcoal liners, no equiline features) and her hair a soft mess.
  
• I had a good little adventure and have decided that R. L. Stevenson is right, "the great affair is to move."
  

Oklahoma City

Ah, last week at this time Katie and I were tramping around Oklahoma City with our dear friends Josh and Suzanna. (Sorry all I could come up with for Josh was the crash "shop" link, alas).

I have to admit. Trent was always right. Oklahoma City is a swell place. Many of the neighborhoods have these cute little German houses with squat pillars on the porches. Josh and Susanna have an artist's paradise of a place - lots of books, music, instruments, paintinings on the walls, a recording studio, every room painted a different color (lime green in the kitchen), and chic furnishings. Beautiful.

Katie and I survived the 18 hr. drive to get there from Tallahassee and spent the night in Huntsville, AL with Katie's great aunt and uncle. (They gave Katie's mum and grandmum a glowing report about me *grin, blush.*) My car's AC was working on half capacity, and I have no CD player, so we talked, talked, and talked to keep us going. We each began working on a list of our own top 100 songs. It's hard, and a bit frustrating. Oklahoma City had more culture than I expected. Josh and Susanna took us downtown, where we saw the Murrow bldg. memorial (I thought of my students, since we have a chapter about memorials in my curriculum), and an Asian Arts festival in the Myriad Gardens. I got some crazy tapioca. We saw X-Men III (and empowering popular culture moment on the big screen! I love this stuff) and went to a great pub in Bricktown. We went to a party later and met many people from Josh and Susanna's church. They meet on Sundays and have a house church system, which sounds fruitful and much-needed. Sunday was a very peaceful day. Lots of reflection. Since it was a holiday weekend, their church didn't meet. So we had a bible study in the morning, then Katie and I took a nice walk through the heat to the local park - with a long arroyo bed. We all went to an amazing bookstore and did some reading, then grabbed some great Italian. We baked chocolate chip cookies and watched a curious documentary on Radiohead (oh, so artsy). Josh wanted me to see it for my hipster class - he's writing a big essay on "the cool" right now. He traded some ideas. After a great night of sleep Katie and I made the 18 hr. drive back to Tallahassee in one day ... God blessed us with cloud cover most of the way - so the 1/2 AC was bearable. And blessed us with amazing conversations. We had a close call with gas when driving through Mississippi. I forgot that many exits still have absolutely nothing because of hurricane damage. But we lucked out and found some gas. Off one exit, every building was leveled, many of the trees bent over, lots of sign-skeletons, and debris all over. Anyhow, we got back to Tallahassee a bit after 2am. I put close to 3,000 miles on my car. But, boy, did I need the break - I had to write a paper the next day and Katie is finishing her M.S. thesis this weekend.

I have a few more weeks of the first summer session left, then teach a class and am taking a Restoration Lit. class (Darcy, Andrew will be proud of me) in Session C. Hopefully, I'll be flying "home" to San Diego for a week in August.

Who's still in VA?

Love to all.

Travis