The Further Adventures of Deluzy

It's almost here

Fall, that is.  Officially.

Ever since I was a child, I've associated the beginning of school with autumn, even if that date doesn't correspond to the actual calendar date of fall.  I've spent more time than the average bear in university settings or affiliated with university schedules (I still think I may hold the record for longest time to the Ph.D. of anyone I know, not that it matters much anymore). I teach at a university that's on the semester system, and the fall term begins in August -- so, for me, so does fall itself.

But now my internal calendar and the rest of the country's calendar are almost aligned, and on Sunday fall will officially arrive.  This makes me happy.

So, too, does the sudden coolness -- crispness, even -- of the air in the past several days and, suddenly, a few drops of rain just now.  The skies are heavy with real rain clouds, and while I don't think they'll produce much more precipitation in our neck of the woods, they look pretty.

I figure the approach of Real Fall and the rain clouds are my signals to get out the few fall decorations I usually put around the house at this time of year.  They make me happy, too.

And I already have Holiday Lights going on my computer desktop, with an assortment of pumpkins on vines and autumn leaves flickering along the top of my screen.  More happiness. As soon as October comes, I can  activate jack-o'-lantern bulbs and ghosts and witches.

(Look, when you spend as much time in front of a computer as I do, it's the little things that make you happy!)

Today was a day of low-level administrative tasks, rather than hard-core work, but I've gotten through a lot of student- and colleague-related emails, scheduled my calendar for next week, and am about to start a new to-do list to match.

After that, it's just a little life-maintenance paperwork, and then I'll call it a day and settle down with a book.  More Sebastian Faulks, having finished Engleby (which was very good): I'm moving on to On Green Dolphin Street now.

Definitely a shoe whore!

No question about it now -- it's official.  I was in Santa Cruz today where I met a friend for breakfast, and I spent an hour or so walking the main street, just checking out the stores and enjoying the day.  Okay, I should have been home dealing with the mammoth amounts of work I have, but there's no way I can get it all done (well) anyway, so I took the time to chill out, keep my sanity, get a little exercise, and ...

Buy shoes. 

I found  a pair of brown ankle boots that I'd been searching for last week (pictured, left) but had no luck in finding at that time.  The brand is La Canadienne, the model is Talar, and they're chocolate-brown suede.  They're also not cheap --  but I did get them on sale for 40% off, and they'll activate the whole earth-toned side of my extremely small wardrobe (when you lose 120 pounds in just over a year, clothing is expensive to replace, even when you're being circumspect). Fortunately, these look beautiful and trim on the foot, they're incredibly comfortable, and they're waterproof.  A shoe trifecta -- I grabbed them!  (I particularly like the vaguely Victorian heel.)

While I was in Santa Cruz, I swung past Urban Outfitters and found a little something that the store billed as a Kimono Decal Table (pictured, left, below) for $29. Made out of metal, no less. I've put in my newly refurbished study next to my sofa. It's very small, doesn't take up much room there, and yet it's a funky/eclectic/postmodern touch that mixes well with other things  in the room, both antique and contemporary. I just needed a small surface on which I could place a coffee cup as I sit on the sofa (as opposed to, say, at my computer) and read or grade.

On the weight front I'm at a new low: 160.4, which puts me about six and a half pounds away from my goal of 154.  Kind of unbelievable, I have to say.  My guess is that it will take a while for me to get there, and perhaps it won't even happen until after I have my hernia repaired this summer (no, I haven't done anything concrete about that yet, other than decide to do it) -- but get there I definitely will.

And on other fronts I'm working through the ideas and tasks in Chapter 1 of Julia Cameron's Walking in the World: The Practical Art of Creativity (you can click on its image on the lefthand sidebar under "Currently Reading for Pleasure" and find out more about it). Her own writing style is not that great, in my view, but her practical advice about writing Morning Pages, keeping Artist's Dates, and walking (all of which she apparently covers in The Artist's Way, a huge hit from several years ago) is pretty sound and rewarding so far.

All in all, a good day.

Nesting

I must have a thing for curtains these days because, in addition to hanging some wonderful vintage drapes my sister gave me in my study a couple of weeks ago, I've just hung a beautiful set of curtains in our bedroom upstairs.

The bedroom curtains are new -- I bought them today at Bed, Bath and Beyond, and they have a lovely light golden tapestry pattern (hmm, that swatch to the left doesn't remotely capture it) with a hint of deep rose or red  that's done in in the same general palette as my study drapes.  Our bedroom walls are pale yellow, and we have a variety of woods going on in terms of furniture: cherry, gold oak, most of it old. I'm aiming for traditional warmth and comfort, though not formality, and I think it's working. 

Tomorrow my husband and I are making a trip to the local Ikea (I'm not sure why -- he wants to go more than I), and I'll look for some new bedding there because once in a while Ikea does have patterns I like for much less money than BB&B.  On the other hand, while I really like individual items from Ikea, most of its textiles are generally too modern for my taste, so if I don't find anything there, I'll probably spring for a new comforter cover or bedspread at BB&B later this weekend.

Between reading hundreds of pages, prepping for teaching, responding to work- and professional-related emails, and all the rest of it, of course.

Have I mentioned lately that I'm anemic and exhausted?  I'M ANEMIC AND EXHAUSTED!

Er, scrawny neck

Okay, I'm posting this photo (despite the fact that I took it  myself just now with the camera at arm's length, that the light is  bouncing off my broad forehead, and that my wispy bangs are not cooperating in covering said forehead) to prove to myself that there is a difference in the way I look between now (at 162) and the photo at the top of my blog (which is me at about 198).

Now, actually, I think I looked better at 198. Healthier, anyway (and presumably I was a little less anemic).  Here my neck and face look a tad scrawny -- you can click on the photo to enlarge it, and you'll see what I mean. That's going to be an ongoing problem in the sense that I'm pear-shaped. We can't always choose where we lose weight, and I don't really need to lose any more from neck, face, or chest.  In fact, I'm going to have the same issue my mother had, which is that when she lost weight (not that she ever needed to), the top of her looked gaunt way before the rest of her did.  I don't know about you, but I'm not into Gaunt as a Look, particularly not as women age.

Of course, it might help not to be anemic. I might look a tad healthier once my ferritin is upped!

Not stressing, just scrutinizing. Not trolling for compliments or criticism, either, so no comments are necessary. :)

By the way, the curtains in the background?  They're the vintage drapes my sister gave me that I've just hung in the doorway of my study closet.  Very shabby chic, very retro.  Of course, if you're not into vintage cabbage roses or the cottage look as an aesthetic, they might make you barf. I'm including a second photo that my husband just took that kind of/sort of shows the curtain rod but not really. Sigh. Neither of us is photographically gifted! Or perhaps even basically competent.  And yes, I have a Ph.D. in film -- but not in production!

(I just tried taking a third photograph that incorporated the new floor-to-almost-ceiling bookshelves.  It sucked.  I frickin' give up. Trust me, the study looks very pulled-together, homey, and peaceful!)

Study make-over

One of the things I wanted for Christmas from my husband was his help in redoing the shelves and closet in my home study. It's a small bedroom, really, that overlooks the unkempt back yard (but there's also a beautiful pomegranate tree directly outside the room's window). In the room at the moment are a large beautiful maple desk that my husband gave me for Christmas a few years ago (it's contemporary and designed to house a desktop computer, but it's also really pretty), a love seat/fold-out bed (only there's not enough room to pull it out, so it's never used as a bed), some homemade shelves out of scrap wood, a little alcove where my TV and VCR/DVD player are, an altar, and that's about it. We removed the sliding doors to the closet to open up the space a bit so that forms another alcove of sorts, and in it are more shelves, a filing cabinet, and just -- STUFF.  Oh, and there's my elliptical machine, too -- we need to find a new spot for that because both my husband and I want to use it now, and it's taking up too much space in this small room.

So yesterday we went shopping and my husband bought me two beautiful unfinished birch bookcases that reach from floor-to-(almost) ceiling:  one's a double case and one's a single, and he's going to finish them for me.  I'm going to rearrange things from the closet to those bookshelves, reorganize the closet, and then it suddenly struck me that I have the perfect thing for the open closet doorway:  several years ago my sister gave me a set of beautiful vintage drapes from the 1940s, and I've never known exactly what to do with them -- but they'll look wonderful there (once I've figured out how to hang them), open or shut, pooling on the floor  All of this will transform this small space into a really cozy workspace, and I'm excited about it.  The room's color scheme will probably look a lot like this blog's color scheme, too, I realized:  creams, light yellows, dashes of red/deep rose, and a hint of blue here and there.

I'm really looking forward to this!  It'll be the one room in the house that is exactly the way I want it (in all other rooms I've compromised a little or a lot, mostly because of my husband's desire to emphasize practicality over aesthetics, or because of cost).  My own little private nook ... yay!

(Gee, can you tell I lived alone most of my adult life and married only in my 40s?  I really got used to being able to have things look exactly the way I wanted them, at least within my own budget [even if that budget was non-existent]. My favorite home is still the 1927 studio apartment I had in the mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles as a grad student.  On the other hand, it's been good for me in some ways to live with others since then, first with a couple of friends, and now with my husband, in that I've become more flexible generally, and as a control-freak type, that's a positive thing.)