A year ago the idea of leaving Australia again was really difficult—this year it’s not as hard. Which is not to say that this hasn’t been a wonderful trip home, or that it hasn’t reinforced once again for me just how Australian I am. I guess I feel like I have made something like a family for myself in DC, and I plan to enjoy this last six or so months there, since I probably won’t live there again. The fact that I will go from calling it home to being just a visitor—it’s a strange feeling. I haven’t quite got my head around it all yet.

So—Friday I fly out again. I’ve talked my friend B into picking me up (very little talking-into involved… he’s very kind) and then the weekend—and then—class on Monday. Is that all?

Being home is such a shock. It’s lovely to be with my family—but I’m a little bit shell-shocked with the idea of catching up with people.

I feel like this is going to be a good year. Something in the sky.

I went through old files the other day—throwing some things out (I’m going to try to throw out when I get back to DC too…) and was amazed to find a lot of old essays and drafts I had been working on. Filed carefully. That I was determined to apprentice myself that way, so seriously.


*

On a frivolous—not to mention shamefaced—note, I’ve become addicted to a bad television show. I used to occasionally watch it when I left the television on after watching something that was… marginally better. And its contrivances drove me crazy. And now, I find the contrivances, the blandnesses, the banter that’s not funny oddly endearing. Oh, the show is NCIS. There, I’ve outed myself.

I think it might be a little bit less of a blog-fueled year. I’ve been discovering the pleasures of pen(cil) and paper again. But I’m going to try to stop in when I can.

So, flying today. Have apparently misplaced my paper ticket. Yes, that’s right. There are still people who ISSUE paper tickets. Rang United, who it was all booked with. Their response? “We have no record of you.” They said—you’ve lost your ticket? Well you’ll have to buy a new one and fill out an application. Then if there are no problems we’ll reimburse you. Seriously? So I rang Lufthansa, and they were great. Confirmed that, yes, as far as airlines are concerned I exist. Also, that with a handy six digit reference code I could go to a ticket counter and they would sort me out. And no mention of “oh, and buy your ticket all over again.” I hope I never have reason to call United again.

*

Rant over, I can’t believe I lost the ticket. It was all together, and I have the folder it was in. I remember the ticket, and am sure that when I pulled it out to give my ticket number to my travel agent to confirm my final flights that I would have put it back in the folder. Apparently not. Demonstrating once more that I apparently will be the sort of person who ends up keeping her tax information in the fruit bowl. Though I suppose if it’s all in the same fruit bowl that won’t be too much of a problem.

*

I anticipate a week of reading—being in places where I don’t know the language always leads to deep reading—and, hopefully, a little writing. Though I find writing hard during the period I am actually on the hoof. Notebook writing.

*

Reading Sontag’s diaries. Reading other bits. Books in the bag for over the break? Desnos. Darwish. Carson (of course). Perhaps I should add John Clare. A few novels. Am going to read Kafka’s diaries when I get home—they’re calling to me.

Weekend report:

I finally made it to West Virginia—K and I went to Harper’s Ferry today. We took her family’s truck, and she has a GPS that her mum called Molly. As we were starting to head back I realised I was living the dream: I was finally truckin’ with Molly in America. Now, if only I could do that for a few months without feeling constantly guilty about the environmental impact, then I could write the books I’ve always wanted to write…

So, Harper’s Ferry. It started pouring with rain about 20 miles out, so it wasn’t the best day for a trip, but it was still pretty. We both took a good number of photographs—mine were with my old school Pentax, so it’ll be some time till I see them. I don’t expect great things as the light wasn’t very good, but… it was nice to have the camera out. We wandered across the bridge by the railway and climbed over a few things to get to an abandoned building. Always fun. Oh, and we were most impressed by the number of churches for such a small population.

K also gave me a cultural experience on the way there: my first stop at a Waffle House. It was very classy. We stopped in Urbana, and I took a few photos first (the roadside diner thing fascinates me) and when we were in the staff immediately asked me where I was from. They don’t see many Australians in Urbana, so they fussed over us, and, for some reason, gave us paper Waffle House hats, which of course K and I wore through our meal. K also scored a Waffle House mug to take back to her dad.

Beyond that, I got a feel for how much I’ll treasure weekends for the next few weeks, while my fulltime teaching continues. I’ve still got some student work to comment on today, and hopefully I’ll get through some tomorrow afternoon as well.

Things keep running away from me—well, time does. Things keep getting done, and then I find suddenly it’s several days down the track, and I’ve read a few books, written a few scraps, thought some things that later it may have been useful to have thought… I’ve been making notes and underlining things and making little connections in my mind. It’s been a nice week.

Though I didn’t make it to Philadelphia—devestation! There was some talk last night of driving to West Virginia today, too, but that was talk over whiskey and crème brulee. So. It could just be that my potential-intrepid-co-traveller hasn’t awaken as yet. Or she could just be disappointer that the town of Intercourse that she proposed we visit (because of its Amish population) is in Pennsylvania and not West Virginia. Either way, I’m guessing that there’s no getting out of DC today—but I hold out hope. Maybe tomorrow?

I asked a friend to recommend me some readings in poetics and poetic criticism—just to have a bit of roving reading through the summer before I settle into a more directed reading list. So last week I read James Longenbach’s The Resistance to Poetry, which I loved. I haven’t managed to sit down and write much this week—no poem or article, just Independence Day Project entries—the Independence Days come thick and fast at this time of the year—but I’ve got some ideas.

My housemate was fasting a week and a half ago—though she was drinking a concoction of water, maple syrup and lemon juice, so it wasn’t a complete fast. Anyway, I believe she went for five days. This reminded me that I’ve had a fascination with fasting ever since I read a book by Sharman Apt Russell entitled Hunger: An Unnatural History. It makes me want try it for a week, just to see what it’s like. (And then, of course, have the opportunity to write about it.) I do find the history of fasting and the religious and political uses of it fascinating. And now there are apparently secular fasting clinics in California… go for three weeks and eat nothing under supervision. There’s something beguiling about the idea, though I’m not entirely sure why. (And I don’t expect everyone to be beguiled as I am.)

Last week I was interviewed on 3RRR in Melbourne. I forgot to tell my friends, and yet they seem to have caught it by chance anyway—even a guy from my primary school who emailed me a “did you happen to be on the radio...?” note a few days later. Apparently I spoke in complete sentences, which is nice to know.

I do feel like my life is turning into commenting on student writing and reading books at the moment. Which is not at all a complaint—there’s a glorious slowness to it all. I occasionally think—maybe I’ll go look at some art. Or—maybe I’ll go watch a film. But by and large the days are mine.

I still don’t have enough enrolments for the class I’m meant to be teaching—I’ve got to admit I’m sad about this. I both wanted the teaching experience, and the money that accompanied the experience. I don’t expect to find myself entirely destitute, but—. The work I’m doing with Professor Bradford’s liberal studies class on the Renaissance is really rewarding, though, and I may get a chance to lead a segment on Renaissance music. I’ll have to cast my mind back to those motets…

And of course there’s online Scrabble. A very important part of my life. Trying to find seven letter words does keep me up nights…

“Should I bounce on a rock off his head?”
“Respect your father dear. —What kind of rock?”

—from The Bank Dick

Yes, there have been a few more films—All That Heaven Allows and The Bank Dick. Having now seen the former I can see just how much Todd Haynes’s wonderful Far From Heaven owes to this film. Also, I can see why Rock Hudson was such a sex symbol—in the Doris Day films it always seemed obvious to me that he was gay, but as the Walden-esque self-sufficient nature man, with his house in the woods, his hunting, trees and—terribly important—his flannel shirts I can definitely see why anyone would fall for him.

The Bank Dick is W. C. Fields’s best-known films—at least these days. (I don’t know how it stacked up at the time it came out…) I’m so glad I’ve finally seen one of his films—though Louise Brooks wrote that his films don’t capture the genius of his stage performances. The film certainly did well enough—his stage performances must have been something!

On top of this I’ve been catching up with friends, working in the Writing Center, begun working with a Liberal Studies summer class, planning the syllabus for the class I’m (hopefully) teaching in a few weeks (enrolments are still low—fingers crossed the numbers arrive), writing and attending performances, reading things and thinking about the thesis I’ll be writing this coming academic year. As my mother always says, “No rest for the wicked.”

I went to another free performance at the Kennedy Center last night—a dance performance by the NORD/NOBA Center for Dance, which is a community partnership between the New Orleans Recreation Department and the New Orleans Ballet Association. For a number of the pieces the dancers were accompanied by Rising Appalachia, a musical duo of sisters Leah and Chloe Smith—they were pretty fabulous. I’m hoping to track down their CDs soon. The dancers were great—again making me wish I had the knowledge and experience to write about dance (particularly contemporary dance) effectively.

The writing center and writing consultant work has started up pretty much as if I never left off. It still feels strange to me that I’m reasonably good at giving advice on all the writing that comes through the door. I’m used to knowing my way around a poem, but I feel like it’s taken me so long to get the hang of academic writing—and I’m still getting the hang of American academic writing—that I can’t quite trust my own advice a lot of the time! On the other hand, I think the struggles I’ve had, and really learning to think about it in terms of academic conventions has probably helped me relate to writers and helped them understand the very things that troubled me. It does make me wish there had been an explicit pedagogical strategy in my undergraduate degree to assist with writing—my writing fluency has always been considered a strength, but I really feel like I had to begin to find my own way through the labyrinth. In a way I think it has made me a better writer—because I’ve got idiosyncrasies that I wouldn’t otherwise have—but sometimes the weird individuality that creeps into my academic work does raise eyebrows. Of course, finding my own solution is, I think, the best way to have come out of the thing (even if it did take me an inordinately long time to do so!) but at the same time, the lack of focus on the pedagogy meant I was incredibly shy of asking for guidance to improve my writing for a long time. Slowly these things come together…

And now I’m trying to get the nuts and bolts of this syllabus together as I contemplate not just tutoring but actually teaching writing. I was reluctant to even apply for the teaching position as I didn’t feel qualified. As it’s like to be high school students or “rising seniors” I wanted to choose something familiar that they could begin to think critically about, and so the theme for the course is representations of America, specifically American youth, looking at television, print-media, film and short stories. I’m planning to use an episode of The West Wing (probably the last of season one; Charlie is reluctant to join the conversation because he feels his inexperience; Zoe, the priviledged presidential daughter, feels no qualms and doesn’t fully understand his reluctance; the president cites the report Charlie eventually gives him on youth attitudes to politics; the shooters are themselves young white-extremists… there’s a narrative about privilege versus lack of privilege, and about education versus ignorance in youth underlying what seems to be a whole adult focussed drama I’d like them to see) and an episode of My So-Called Life—probably the substitute teacher episode, which raises a lot of questions about youth investment in a cause and youth apathy, when censorship becomes an issue. I was thinking about using the film Pleasantville—which I haven’t seen in years—to try to think about adult nostalgia and youth culture… and perhaps—because, let’s face it, I’m a dork—the king of teen representation John Hughes’s Pretty in Pink. (I suppose Clueless would also work—I like Pretty in Pink because of the class representations and classic teen “types” staples of teen films that are clear but also not so explicit as The Breakfast Club… though The Breakfast Club works better in some other ways, acknowledging the near-impossibility of crossing into other social spaces…)

And of course I want to look at election coverage and the commentary on the youth vote.

I feel like it’s evolving day to day.

I may be heading to Philadelphia tomorrow—if I do it will be my first time in Pennsylvania (another state!)—with Kacee, a girl I met in Costa Rica who’s in DC all summer before moving to Philadelphia for law school. She’s looking at places and areas to live, and hopefully I’ll be along for the ride. If there can be a stop by some major sight and a Philly cheesesteak then I will consider it a good first foray into the city. And I’ll be back. We were also talking last night about going on a crazy five day road trip up to Boston—and maybe going further on right up to Canada and New Brunswick—in the next week or two. I’ve got my fingers crossed. She has access to a car, so I hope it happens. She seems ready to get out of DC, having, like me, been back for under two weeks! Girl after my own heart… Nothing like someone who understands nomadism.

Tonight I’m having a cultural experience of a different kind: I’m going to my first baseball match. Not just any baseball match, though—it’s the “Stitch’n’Pitch,” which means that the game at the DC stadium will have a contingent (I do not know how large) of knitters in the stands, knitting and purling away as the innings pass by… Yes, I’m taking some knitting with me. Yes, I think it is strange—but how could I pass up such an invitation?

Back in the land of… well, a friend tells me the United States is the land where it is possible to claim the moral high ground, no matter what. I think it only works if you’re American. I beat him at Scrabble (sadly not as common occurrence as I would like) and while I celebrated victory, he assured me he got to celebrate the moral high ground. I asked him the nature of this moral high ground, but he was really quite vague.

So, I’ve just spent three weeks in Panama and Costa Rica, discovering, among other things, that I’m not a beach person (give me an occasional surf beach in Australia, and as many boat trips as you like), I am a volcano person, and I’m in love with the Panama Canal.

The day before leaving, though there were a lot of things I didn’t do (I feel like I move very slowly when I travel—I’m not someone who likes to dash around as much as possible, but instead I like to stay a place for a week or so and feel it out… so I was moving around a lot for me!) I feel like I did the things I most wanted to: I saw the Panama canal at both ends, I saw lava flow from an active volcano, I visited a 3000 year old archeological site, I saw contemporary art and pre-Columbian artefacts, I swam in the Caribbean, I met some truly excellent people, I visited a church with a magical relic, and I wrote some things.

I also took a lot of notes: my journal is in fact almost entirely in note form. So, to make up for the relative lack of communication on my part, notes it must be… Not all of them (that would take you days to read…) but a substantial amount.

The walls of hostels all resemble one another, only with newer or older paint. Bathroom so depressing, compelled to buy flip-flops for the shower.

All shoe stores in Panama City are air-conditioned.

The only man arriving in Panama City already wearing a Panama Hat: camel-coloured pants, white blazer, thick rimmed glasses—resembling the millionaire you assume is a patsy until it turns out Marilyn’s character really does love him.

Watching Indiana Jones in Panama City.

Man passing in a van, saying in a deep growl, “I love you.”

Indecision about where to go. My pleasure at just sitting on a bus, watching things pass.

Not sure if I have set my watch to the right time—could be walking at a different hour.

Hydrography—the cartography of water.

Watching the “Japan Sea,” the “Venice Bridge” and the “Torm Mary” pass through the Gatun locks of the Panama Canal.

Colón—yes a slum. Dangerous? Possibly. More surprised than anything to see me walking around.

Panama Viejo—ruins open among the poor suburb.

A stone from the remains of the oldest American Pacific settlement.

Reading Herodotus outside the Artisans’ Market.

Taxi to Albrook terminal: car falling apart, Mike holding his surfboard on the roof the whole way, no suspension.

Bocas del Toro. Sandal nation.

Rained out and playing cards in Boquete. “Claire’s game.”

Hurricane Alma and endless rain. The water off in David when I arrived.

The Interamericana closed between Panamanian border and San José. Diverted to the coast, a traffic jam just past Quepos. One way bridges taking the bulk of Costa Rica’s traffic. 14 hours instead of 7.

I love San José. A weird mix of familiarity and grit, plastic and fading glory, occasional splendour.

Reading Pico Iyer’s Global Souls as wandering around the everywhere-city that, under the surface (how far under the surface?) is really individual.

Meeting a negative Englishman who spent a long time in Australia—returned recently and “frankly” found it “boring.” Doesn’t like San José. He liked Panama City better, but never saw the canal.

While sugar packets are different everywhere, “Equal” and “Splenda” packets are always the same.

Reading about the Mallee Scrub in the tropics—the dirt road to San José all stirred up.

Enamel cups stringed from the rafters as decorations. Made in China.

Jade museum, sign telling me that: the pre-Columbian society used to make “winged hungers” in jade, “representing that way a cult to the brat.”

Kelly and Chritina—two girls from Canada, travelling Belize and Costa Rica. The expensive ends.

A gushing girl from America talking about travel “opening up opportunities” and “being on her journey.” Invited to go fire dance in Africa but instead going to become a yoga teacher. The interesting mixed with platitudes. Refused to believe that people drinking too much bottled water having a detrimental effect on dental health.

The odd blankness of the archaeological site.Heavy rain walking 3 kilometres down a pot-holed road. Three hours till next bus. Being taken in by a very kind lady—Maria?—to wait. She showed me her parrot, puppy and chickens. Spoke no English, but showed me her husband’s certificate in English. Communicating in little bits.

Meeting Crispian and Christy, Canadians. Crispian a game warden in South Africa for seventeen years, now taking a job in Vietnam, setting up marine national parks. Driving down from Canada since Christmas.

Man from Suriname, wife from the Netherlands, both of Indian ancestry, touring Costa Rica.

Lava lighting up as darkness fell.

Planning days back in DC—saving money, going to galleries, borrowing books from the library.

Jenny from Sweden—afraid of San José, shocked by prostitutes (I saw maybe four in a week), planning to go home and waitress. Wants to open an organic soup restaurant one day. Just soup.

Seeing the city from the hill where the old jail, now the Children’s Museum and National Gallery (and now done up to look like a jumping castle)—back turned. Hardly any signs or brand names evident.

Sign: Hotel English Spoken.

Bar: Nashville South. Saloon doors.

Farmacia Catedral. Cathedral nowhere in sight.

Lottery ticket sellers everywhere.

Mis-writing: coffee shop for culture shock. I wonder what’s on my mind?

*

I’m glad to be “home”. I feel really re-energised—I needed a break, and, indeed, a bit of “culture shock.” Ready to start working for the summer—finish some poems, read some poetics, read books of my own choosing, think some more about Henry James, tutor and teach… As well, of course, as the galleries and shows and movies I want to see, and getting to nearby places like Philadelphia and Baltimore and Harper’s Ferry.

San Jose in Costa Rica is really interesting. Apparently most travelers hate it, but I'm a fan. A weird mix of everywhere and occasional uniqueness - apparently a third of Costa Ricans live here. This is, again, to promise the full update after 12 June when I have my own computer.

This time tomorrow I will be in Panama. I don't have much left to do, but am still a little bit crazy! For some reason my flight is via Newark, where I have a 5 hour wait. Special!

This is all to say that this is where things will get sparse for a few weeks.

Miss Kate Underground: Gone Adventuring.

I haven’t figured out the dates, but I am definitely going somewhere when I hand in my final paper. I also haven’t figured out the place. In fact, nothing is figured, but that I have itchy feet, and want to throw myself into someplace different before I come back to Georgetown for the teaching I’ll be doing in July. I won’t have all the time up til July free, because I’ll need to be in DC to develop the syllabus and I should be working in the writing center in the summer too (assuming it does open again this summer… it all feels a little un-pinned down.) Also, my friend Helen needs to leave the US to come back in on a tourist visa now when her studies at Georgetown finish, in order do a Melbourne University art history class in New York, which may mean a joint trip. Though I think, after a particular place in Mexico’s San Luis Potosi that she wants to go to, she’s more interested in desert islands than deserts.

Candidates? Well:

-Fly into Costa Rica and then go down to Panama.

-Fly in Mexico or Guatemala (a cheaper flight) and then go in search of a surrealist park that Helen wants to see.

-Fly into El Paso and then enter Mexico via Ciudad Juarez, and maybe head down to the Copper Canyon region.

-Live the dream I dreamt for Spring Break—a bit of Texas (desert-y Texas), New Mexico, Utah, and maybe some Arizona and Colorado too.

Going up to areas of Canada I don’t already know is also a cheap-ish possibility.

They’re my primary interests right now. I’ll probably have about three weeks I can afford to be away. How strange! Tomorrow I should stop by the health service and find out what shots cost, in case Panama wins the day. (Yellow Fever shot… also precautionary anti-Malarial medication.)

In the mean time: studies. It all continues.

I’ll find time later to write a few words about a poetry reading I attended Sunday night, but at the moment my mind is firmly ensconced in: Anne Carson, Carolyn Forché, George Eliot and Milton. I read Book X of Paradise Lost earlier today and I’m thinking my way through the short paper I’ll write on it for tomorrow, about the sounds associated with the punishment both of the denizens of hell (I just like the word denizens) and of Adam and Eve.

I spoke to Professor Ragussis yesterday, and he’s very happy for me to work on the epigraphs in George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda—I’m so glad. I remember being fascinated by the epigraphs in Middlemarch—and the opening epigraph of Daniel Deronda is a doozy—and Eliot-authored. (It reminds me in its quite sweeping address of the opening paragraph of Middlemarch, and due to its length it almost seems like more of a first paragraph and an epigraph.) So, I have to read Bakhtin and some other bits and pieces, find embedded quotations within chapters, and see how the dialogue between these and the epigraphs works. As Cher in Clueless would say with a squeak, “Ooh! Project!” Yes, I realise that I really do know how to bring the tone down again. It’s not all lofty heights in my mind…

I’m excited by a new anthology from Graywolf Press, New European Poets. (Also, incidentally, the press publishing Monica Youn, who I saw read at the Library of Congress a while ago.) The book has an amazing array of poets, and covers (I think) all the countries of Europe except those tiny enclaves San Marino, Andorra and Monaco. (I don’t entirely know what’s going to happen when I get to these places in the Independence Day Project. I don’t want to admit defeat!) The only thing that I do find a little depressing is its design. The cover looks like a green “European Poetry for Dummies” or a computer manual. I’m going to solve this for my own copy by covering it in plain brown paper and then decorating. (I wonder if I have tape in this apartment?)

I’m in love, recently, with the art project 20 x 200. Limited edition prints (beautiful quality) of arts of work for $20. Well, $28.50 once you add in the postage etc. Which, though it increases the price by almost 50 percent, doesn’t make it less of a bargain.

Early this afternoon, along with Paradise Lost, I read a book about deserts—another desolate landscape, so I suppose I could connect the two by more than their happening to dovetail in my reading. Terry Tempest Williams. I’ve long wanted to read more of her work. Perhaps in the summer. Though I was thinking, when I go away, I may just take something ancient with me. I’m thinking of following Kapuściński’s example and going with Herodotus. How very English Patient of me.

Oh, and some good news from home. I’ll have a couple of poems coming out in ALR soon. Lovely.

It’s been a week of just barely keeping up (or, in a few cases, catching up) but it’s been a good week.

Tuesday was another Lannan reading—E Ethelbert Miller and Ilya Kaminsky. Both the seminar and the reading were great. I’m so glad that I have the combination of my poetry class with David Gewanter and a lot of readings that I can go to this semester. I’m feeling words as very tactile objects right now—it’s a beautiful experience. I’m still finding it difficult to find time to write myself (and when I do, I feel like I’m not quite reaching the place I want to go) but at the same time, it’s been a really fruitful time for editing work that had been in the unfinished pile for a long time.

The theme for the latest Lannan reading was “Ancestors,” which proved an interesting starting point. Miller talked about poets that he has known personally whose work he tries to keep alive: he likes to include a few poems by these poets when he does a reading, and this was no exception, with work from, among others, June Jordon and Charles Bukowski included in his reading. I always find this a generous act on the part of poets: I suppose it is so rare that you have an audience for your own poems, that to use some of that time promoting the work of others is a lovely thing. He read a series of poems on Iraq that were particularly moving—I’d like to see these in print.

Miller also gave me an odd moment that pierced what I thought was relative anonymity—upon entering the seminar (early, as usual) he greeted me with “Ah! The blogger!” and gave me a hug. He wouldn’t tell me how he found this little blog, nor how long he has been reading it, but it was a lovely moment to realise that there are occasional readers beyond the audience I was aware of. I have a copy of his most recent book—How We Sleep on the Nights We Don’t Make Love—that I’ll be reading soon—and it looks like a (face-to-face!) interview will materialise, in between the juggling of everything I find myself doing.

Ilya Kaminsky was equally wonderful. I’m already a fan of his book (once again, Dancing in Odessa. If you haven’t read it, do.) In the seminar I was particularly fascinated—and delighted—by the approach he took to ancestors, which was so text-based. In particular, the way he looked at the continental European poets that I love so much—Zbigniew Herbert for instance. (I have to say it once again: I love the Polish poets so much. There is so much at work in their poems.) He traced the movement of ideas and forms from a poem by one poet into a poem by another: unfurling genealogies that he had obviously thought deeply about.

His reading was also a treat: eccentric and musical. Kaminsky speaks with a Russian accent, and this is particularly strong when he is reading his poems. Aware of this, he distributed copies of his book for the audience to follow as he read. I had brought my own copy with me, but I laid it aside—I already knew the poems, and while I didn’t catch everything, I wanted to listen to the rhythms that came out in his reading, that I felt in my own reading, but not quite as strongly. This is, I suppose, because I had the meaning-making foremost in my mind—and because I didn’t read most of the poems aloud. Hearing him read, it was rhythm that I wanted to think about the most, and it came out beautifully.

On Wednesday, I put on my academic hat again, and headed to Charlottesville for a conference at UVA—“Things Matter.” Last year I wrote a paper on Samuel Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, and the notion of a mental cabinet of curiosities. I had rewritten this paper to include Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines, thinking through aspects of travel writing as an experiential “thing” that acts as both journey and souvenir for the reader. I wasn’t sure if I had spiralled into abstractions until I presented it, but I got a good reaction.

What I saw of Charlottesville was lovely, but as it was really all about the conference, I have to go back sometime for a more leisurely visit. And I have to get to Monticello.

Attending the panel following mine, I met four girls who are doing interesting work in nineteenth century literature—Emily Madsen (her paper was on the image of the black doll that appears in three illustrations in Dickens’ Bleak House), K. Irene Rieger (she was looking at nineteenth and twentieth century texts and nostalgia—she had a lot of fascinating information about hair jewellery that made me want to look into the phenomenon) Christen Mucher (a paper about the “ginger nut” in Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, that unfolded into an investigation of the relationship between the Caribbean and the US) and Eugenia Gonzalez (writing on “the doll” in Vernon Lee’s story of the same name). It was a really rich experience—both to see what graduate conferences are like in the US, and also to meet people. The standard was really very high.

Rewriting my paper, it made me interested in doing some more work on travel literature—particularly some early travel texts from Australia. Another little island of material to connect with my work at some time.

The other exciting aspect of the conference was that the keynote speaker was (the almost impossibly hip) Bill Brown from the University of Chicago, who edited the issue of Critical Inquiry entitled Things, and a few years ago also published the book A Sense of Objects. Working on Henry James and systems of collecting, his work was particularly inspiring. Similarly, I found the collection of essays on “Things” just as I was starting to get really interested in the subject.

In his keynote he talked about the art of Brian Jungen—I wasn’t familiar with the artist before, but I was fascinated. I have to read more. The masks he made using deconstructed sneakers are beautiful. Last week (gosh! only last week?) I was making collages, and looking at art again made me want to get right back into making things. I started thinking about the number of things I could recycle, transform. Brown talked about the desire of materials to be transformed—I felt myself responding.

He also mentioned that in the book that this writing is going to be a part of, he has written on Walter de Maria. I asked him if he is also writing on other earthworks artists, Robert Smithson in particular. I’m always excited when I get a chance to talk about—think about—Smithson in any way. I feel like an interrogation of Smithson, and the way he uses entropy as a subject for his work, is such a fruitful area to look into. And it reminded me again (travel being on my mind) of my determination to get to the site of the Spiral Jetty in Utah. One day.

I had a paper accepted for a conference at University of Virginia - UVA is a great university, so I feel like this is a great opportunity. The conference is on 13-14 March, so I'd better get cracking and write a new version of this paper soon - most likely that'll happen over Spring Break. The paper is, broadly, on intersections between "thing theory" and travel theory. (Yes, I think the first has a preposterous enough title to warrant the would-be air-quotes-on-the-page.) I wrote about Samuel Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland at the end of last year - for this paper I'll be cutting that in half, and adding a little comparison to how Samuel Johnson's traveller compares to Bruce Chatwin's in The Songlines. Yes, I realise that sounds a little crazy, but I have ideas...

Speaking of Spring Break, I was having a Spring Break breakdown over the weekend - trying to decide where on earth to go. I was dreaming of New Mexico and El Paso, Texas, but it's just not going to happen. It's too extravagant - and there are two conferences I'm going to in March, so I'll need to save a little to get to both of these. Instead it looks like it will be West Virginia: Harper's Ferry, which is very pretty. I'm thinking however of hiring a car for a few days, and driving around West Virginia a little bit - I found a list of ghost towns in the state, and thought that could be interesting. Hopefully a plan will crystallise in the next few days...

It's been a New York weekend - or, as I billed it recently, it was my reunion with New York: I went up for the weekend, and stayed at the same hostel I stayed at in 2003. I came by bus on Friday morning - quite a cramped affair, with free wi-fi that worked some of the time. I got up to New York and it was raining (as it was in DC... I nearly fell down the steps of the local bus that took me to Dupont to catch the New York bus). I'm sure all this would have been fine, but I woke up Friday morning to find I had a cold - sore throat, exhaustion, aches... usual, miserable affair. I thanked god for the dissolvable aspirins that mum had mailed over last year. (They don't have dissolvable aspirin here. But I thought they have everything? I hear you ask. You heard it here first.) So for the last 48 hours I've been dosing myself, and sleeping as much as possible (on one of those super-skinny, squeaky hostel dorm beds...) and, during those moments in between, I caught up with Ivy Alvarez, wandered around the city, and crashed into the AWP conference.

I came up specifically for Ivy: it's been a few years since we have seen each other, and she's definitely gone on to bigger and better things with the publication of her first full-length book, Mortal. It's that book that brought her to New York, from Cardiff where she's been living for the past few years. Her publisher, Red Morning Press, participated in the AWP conference, and so Ivy came to town to support her publisher, promote her book and give a reading. I got the invitation to the reading a few months ago and determined that, since I hadn't previously made it to New York since I've been in DC (nor anywhere else, except Tennessee - and yes, that counts as somewhere) I would absolutely make it up to see the reading. Last time I was in New York, I saw Richard Howard and Maxine Kumin read as part of a series by the Dia Center for the Arts.

This was not that. This reading was East Village post-grunge at the 11th Street Bar. Yes, all the poets reading had published books - but not many of them should have them, based on the poems they read last night. Seriously - there are only so many sensitive, bearded, converse-wearing, thick-rimmed glasses spokesmen and their female counterparts (complete with batwing eyeliner) I can take. Ivy was great - she was succinct, well-presented and she chose work that both makes an impact in a single reading, and invites rereading. There were one or two other moments that I was pleased with, but somehow the whole evening had the feeling of an open-mike night. I may just have become a curmudgeonly old lady right then and there. Oh well. I suppose it was going to happen some time.

There was one author, Nickole Brown, who I've been thinking about a bit since the reading - I have a feeling her book Sister would be worth a proper look - and maybe sometime, in amidst the pile of other things I've got going on - I'll find some time to give her work some proper attention.

The AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference was something else. I really didn't have much idea about it (this is where being an Australian writer, not an American one, gives me perhaps a little reason for my ignorance...) but it was huge. Publishers and writing programs had tables, and as I was rushing through during their last few hours, a lot of people had reduced book prices even further than the already-discounted AWP prices. There ended up being a few things I couldn't say no to (an anthology of Polish poems, Ilya Kaminsky's book Dancing in Odessa) and a few more things I ended up getting free, so I came back to DC with a small stash of things to keep me busy, when classes aren't already threatening to take over my life. I'm hoping that reviews and other bits and pieces - including a small interview with Ivy will be forthcoming soon. Stay tuned.

Speaking of classes, the flu wiped out a lot of my planned study for the weekend, so now that I'm home I have a lot of Sydney Owenson's The Wild Irish Girl to read. I've promised myself a treat if I can get through three quarters of it in four hours. On your marks. Get set. Etc.

First things first - I haven't written anything here in an age, but as I'm heading back overseas, I thought I'd better get into the habit of writing again. This is at the very least a good way of keeping track of this trip for myself. So, we'll see how it all goes, eh?

Georgetown: I feel like I should have memorised its history and read up on its founder, but in truth, I know very little. I'm still in a state of denial about going, though I've recently started thinking of it more as a trip a la the trek of 2003 than as moving. The only snag there is that on my trip I got to book into hostels online, and didn't have to worry about finding a permanent place to live, with the followup concerns of buying a bed and bedding, and wondering if I'll need to find myself some other furniture along the way. Nor did I feel particularly tempted by amazing pairs of shoes (when did I start channeling Carrie Bradshaw?) as I knew anything with a heel would be a waste when I was on the hoof carrying a backpack. So, "travel" or "move", this is a little different from anything I've done before.

The Party: I know that I'm not going to catch up with everyone before I go, and that I will wake up in Washington one day and think - "I wonder what x is up to!?" If x is you, I'm sorry. And it's less than a week now until the going away party, and 12 days till I'm on a plane, wishing UA served halfway decent food. I have to admit that whenever I think about it, I freak out - but I'm not going to have time to freak out when I get there, because I'll be throwing myself in the deep end.

Washington: I've heard the good and the bad. I'm still excited.