Just to give due credit, the title is stolen from one of my favorite Blackadder episodes, which is about the birth of the English dictionary and how it was brought about by Blackadder's useless servant Baldric. Great episode, highly recommend it.
So I am really sorry I've been so slow getting back to this. Blogging regularly seems to require a kind of evenness of temper that I just can't maintain when I'm in a new environment (where I know pretty much no one) and still not working yet. I have good days, usually when the sun's out, when I feel like I should immediately rent a car, climb a few mountains, apply for several teaching jobs, and go to a barn-raising (and just for a little perspective, the first two I could probably do in a day here; the last two, probably not). But in between sunspells, the gray days here can be pretty thick and hazy. On those days-- well, almost every day I do at least this-- I make the half-hour walk into town sometime between 9:30 and 11am, spend an hour or two reading in a coffee shop, window-shop a little while perusing bulletin boards in town for job openings, roommate requests, and community events, walk back, eat something, and settle in for an evening of more reading, crosswords, and netflix movies. (On semi-good days, evenings also involve phone calls, or skating, or the actual cinema in town, which is really cheap, just doesn't usually have very good movies.) Fortunately I'm staying at a B&B with monthly rates, so it's kind of like an old-fashioned boarding-house, so this doesn't all happen in complete isolation. Otherwise I would probably be completely bonkers by now.
So! That's life right now. I had another interview today, for a job I don't think I'm going to get, though I couldn't really tell you why. I dressed appropriately, I showed up slightly early, I was polite, I had all the necessary experience, and I asked decent questions. But the best word I can think of for the reception this person gave me is 'cold.' She was just cold to me. The woman who runs my B&B claims this woman has a tendency to be that way, that she's cliquey and kind of unpredictable. In which case, I'm probably better off not working for her anyway. Even if I am getting a teensy bit hungry.
In the meantime, I've been reading Jane Austen, Rilke, David Abram, and Persia Woolley. The last one has been a pleasant surprise. I picked up the second one in the trilogy ("Queen of the Summer Stars") at the library last month for a dollar, expecting a slightly silly Arthurian story full of flattish archetypal characters. But that's not at all what it's like! It's Arthurian, definitely, but the author, who I guess is a historian first, is first of all amazing at portraying English landscapes (especially some gorgeous descriptions of the Lakes), and making those landscapes really feel like a part of the characters somehow, who have grown up there and think of the world in terms of them. Which is cool in itself, and I don't think enough modern authors see their characters (or the natural world) in this way. It makes the worlds they create feel flat, and unalive, and... cold. Word of the day. Anyway, these books are surprisingly good, and very inhabitable. Some interesting glimpses of post-Roman, pre-medieval Britain in terms of landscape, culture, religion, and language. And a decent gender balance, too. If "The Once and Future King" is a little slanted towards the men's perspective, and "The Mists of Avalon" chiefly interested in the priestesses at Avalon, this one is refreshingly non-gendered. The men are just as believable as the women, just as sympathetic, just as complex. I'm on the first one in the series now, "Child of the Northern Spring," and fifty pages along I already suspect I'm going to like this one better. Gwenivere is a lot younger, more mischievous, and it takes place in (approximately) Keswick.
All of that said, I think there's also a lot to be said for not expecting much from a book, and preferably getting hold of a copy for free or almost free. Almost everything in life seems easier to enjoy that way.
But I think I'm done for the day, off to make some pasta. Stay tuned for the David Abram update; I'm trying to get my head around the chapter on Shapeshifting right now.
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