(continued) Nor was I nice to others when doing a lot of creative writing. In retrospect it seems I treated other people as if they were in the way of me and the world I wanted to write about. In sum: a moralizing tone seemed unavoidable and unpalatable; a second-order way of treating the world led to frustration and impedance of experience; bad practices of relating to other people. Obviously, the problem was with me not with writing, but since writing brought it out, I decided to avoid writing until I can figure out how to deal with the problem.

I finished Little House in the Big Woods last night, and I was struck by its presentation of time. The novel opens by setting up a temporal distance between the reader and the action of the novel ("Once upon a time, sixty years ago"), and then it closes with Laura thinking about the ever-presentness of "now." The novel itself follows the course of a year, and during that time many people tell stories from when they were young. In one little book there's historical time, narrative time, childhood time, seasonal time, and the time of oral tradition or family stories.

On my trip to and from Fayetteville over the past two days I listed to Rufus Wainwright's new album and some Cole Porter recordings. I bought Wainright's CD after hearing an interview with him on public radio; he sounded like a real sweety, and genuine, too. I think the first two songs on the album are the best ones; the second is the "I'm so tired of America" song, Wainwright's mourning song for America, and I find it apt these days. Listening to Porter was a pleasure! In Porter's world loving is a matter of wit and aesthetics, stylization of self.

July is a reality check. In June the summer seems endlessly capacious, capable of containing all number of dreams and hopes. In July the summer becomes finite, the days (literally) numbered. Each June I try to be realistic about what I can accomplish in the summer, but every year it seems that in my plans I overestimated by half! This summer I must finish the Apollonius King of Tyre commentary, since I'll be teaching it in the fall, and I realized that in order to finish I need to make a schedule that has me doing substantial work each day.

I finished Little House on the Prairie this morning. In a way the books were done a disservice by the television series from the 70s. Although I think the adapters for the show were trying to be faithful in a number of ways, the abiding image that people have of Little House is of little girls in bonnets. And yet the books are so very much not "little girls in bonnets." Little House on the Prairie has some thoroughly lyrical moments and, near its end, some downright harrowing ones, both of which would have been difficult to convey on television.

I participated in a swap in which I had to send a list of the things growing in our garden: roses, raspberries, buttercups, tomatoes, ivy, a purple shamrock, blueberries, a miniature orange tree, green onions and larger shallots, a grape vine (no grapes yet), blackberries, showy evening primrose, strawberries, basil, lavender, coreopsis, day lilies, mint, pepper plants, and a single sunflower. It sounds like quite a bit, yes? But there's only a little bit of each thing, and--truth be told--most of it is Chris' handiwork. The roses have been mostly my doing, but they're not universally thriving, alas.

The state of my office and mind. My commentary schedule had me working on the weekends. I couldn't do it today; I worked on an art project that has been going on too long and costing too much money. I'm satisfied (yet not thrilled) with the result--but at least there's a result! My office is not conducive to art and academics. It used to be a tidy office when I was only doing research, but now it can't house two different occupations. I need to find a quick way to convert my office from one use to the other.

I realized that I must be having some trouble thinking of myself as having accomplished things--because this year I have set myself so many projects that have built into them an idea of completeness or completedness. I'm trying to read or watch or listen to all of Shakespeare's plays in 2007. I set myself the task of translating all of Ovid's Metamorphoses during the winter. I read whichever Brontė novels I hadn't, and re-read some of the ones I had. Now Chris and I are reading all of the Little House books. There's definitely a trend here, no, yes?

Cleaning up my room today, I realize how many projects I haven't completed--hence how understandable my various projects-of-completion this year are. There's the Trollope website to proofread, update, and add the Palliser novels to. There's the Myrrha essay to send out. There's the long-languishing Perpetua essay--in fact, it's been languishing so long that I wonder if it's worth writing it. And my Sappho translation project! I sometimes like that I have so many projects going--a sign that I'm intellectually engaged by a number of ideas. But I'm feeling the need for closure for some of these things.

Feeling the effects of insomnia two nights ago, and perhaps a cold coming on. It couldn't be worse timing! I am now seriously behind on my commentary, and it's not the kind of work that can be rushed. Nor is it the kind of work that I should do when sleepy, groggy, or otherwise ailing. I'm even too tired to be seriously worried about the looming deadline! On the plus side, my room is much tidier now, which allows my mind to feel a bit clearer, and that will be welcome when next I return to commentary-writing. Hopefully this evening?

Restless, very restless. Yet also feeling the need to complete things. Not a good combination, since the former very much interferes with the latter. A day of more or less resting yesterday seems to have staved off the oncoming cold, and I managed to get to sleep last night around one, which counts as some sort of success. Last year this time I was getting ready to go to England; I might even have been on my way. This year we're getting ready to go on our Little House trip, but there seems so much to do before and after.

Even writing for 100 words and doing projects for craft swaps are part of my current mania for completion! I thought that writing 100 words a day would help me gain confidence through low-risk writing and teach me that writing can be a finite activity (I think I dwell on it as an infinite one too often). And swaps give me lots of deadlines to meet. The hope is that something from these mini-tasks carries over and helps me with completing my larger tasks. That hope, I think, has yet to be borne out, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

I bought a book of "positive quotations." I am ambivalent about it. I saw it in the store earlier this year and thought it was an interesting--but also possibly hackneyed--project. Yesterday I was in need of some positive perspective so I went and bought it. This morning I'm siding more with the "hackneyed" view of such a volume. How is it that when we're trying to say something truthful and helpful we run the greatest risk of saying something trite? I should be thankful that some people run the risk. Surely silence on such things isn't the answer?

A day of pieces, and melancholy cast over much of them. We checked on a healthy but feisty beehive in the morning, and luckily the morning was cooler than usual. Finished These Happy Golden Years in the afternoon, followed by work on the commentary and some email. Dinner and a drive with Chris, west over the Arkansas river. Saw strange passion flowers with their maypops--I had my camera. Also took pictures of the bridge at Toad Suck. Back home only briefly, then out on my own to walk at the track. Then home to finish The First Four Years.

Chris gave me an old book that's nearly falling apart, and I'll rebind it this evening so that it's readable. I'm excited: I haven't done any book-binding in quite some time. I'm mostly maxed out on what I can teach myself about book-binding without lessons and a bunch of specialized equipment. Plus it felt a odd to be binding blank books that I didn't need. This way I get to put my binding knowledge to action in a more practical way--yay! And soon it will be time to start binding recycled paper into notebooks for the start of school!

Instead of having a typical presidential election in 2008, let's have a huge game of presidential poker! The stakes will be high; every candidate will have to bring several million dollars to the table. The game will be televised. The winner will become president, and all the money won or lost will go for social programs. I think this would work in many ways. Lots of people would watch, probably more than actually vote. The money that goes into presidential campaigns could go to people and programs who need it. And we all would be spared months of campaign madness.

Descriptions of food are a fairly prominent part of the Little House books. I finished all the other books but I had skipped Farmer Boy (because it focused on Almanzo rather than Laura), so I am now going back to read it and I am struck by how plentiful and various Almanzo's food is as a child compared to Laura's. By Laura's telling, her diet contains a lot of salt pork and corn meal in various forms. But Almanzo has doughnuts, pies, a variety of fruits and vegetables, and always more of everything than one could imagine a child eating!

Today is a day of many tasks! A doctor's appointment this morning, and then errands to run before heading out of town. I especially need to buy a good camera bag; I've been fairly cavalier with my camera so far. I also need to get some film for the fisheye and cybersampler! Plus I should tidy up the house. It seems odd to clean before going away, but then it will be neat when I return, and I love that feeling. It is such a relief to be home, and then a further relief to be at a clean home....

Getting ready to go on the road. I don't know if I'll be able to write a hundred words a day while on the trip or not. I suppose nothing is stopping me from writing on notebook paper and then posting later. It's just that I'm such a creature of habit, and that's not the habit I've fallen into. I decided not to take the commentary on the trip. On the one hand, that's realistic; it's vacation, and otherwise not an ideal set-up for that kind of work. On the other hand, I'm slowly creating a crazy August for myself.

We left Little Rock yesterday before lunchtime and flew to Minneapolis via St. Louis. The flight went smoothly, but picking up the rental car took what seemed like a long time. Then we drove to Marshall, Minnesota, stopping on the way to take pictures of things that caught our fancy: an abandoned homesteading house, the water tower for Bird Land, a weathervane. We also stopped to walk around the site of the Battle of Birch Coulee from the US-Dakota war of 1862. In the morning we visited Walnut Grove, where Laura Ingalls lived during On the Banks of Plum Creek.

At Walnut Grove we toured the Wilder Museum, a strange mix of things (history, homage, personal, social, kitsch, etc.) and then went to the site of the Ingalls dugout on Plum Creek. The dugout has collapsed, but the location is marked, and I stood in the very spot, something I've wanted to do since I was young. We also walked to the tablelands mentioned in the book, and then we went wading in Plum Creek. After that we drove to Fort Ridgeley and in the evening went to the Walnut Grove Wilder Pageant--which was itself a mix of things.

Yesterday we went to the Jeffers Petroglyphs, something that we had not planned to do during our trip but which ended up being amazing. I had no idea that there were spots where so many petroglyphs were in one place. It was fun to go with Chris and puzzle out the shapes with him. After walking through the petroglyphs we drove to Brookings, South Dakota, which seems like a great small city. We spent time going down the large water slide in our hotel! In the morning we drove to De Smet, which has more Wilder-related sites than anywhere else.

In De Smet we visited the Surveyor's House (I could see how it would've seemed a luxurious, almost magical house to the Ingalls girls). We also saw a model of the Brewster school and the relocated, partially restored De Smet schoolhouse. We took a tour of the Ingalls house in town, which Pa built after Laura had married. We drove down to the Ingalls homestead; some of Pa's cottonwoods still stand there. Then we headed north, past the Wilder homestead to Spirit Lake; we tried to find the Willow Lake Cemetery (to visit Cap Garland's grave), but couldn't locate it.

Returning to De Smet after our attempt to find Willow Lake, we drove around town and then out to the cemetery. All of the Ingalls family (except Laura) are buried there, as well as other folks mentioned in the books. I was especially sad to see Ellie Boast's grave. In the evening we went to the Wilder Pageant, and Chris took more candid photos of young girls in bonnets. We stayed the night in Brookings and then went back to Minnesota the next morning. We hiked at Blue Mounds, along the rock alignment. The rocks were purple-red, striking Sioux quarzite.

After Blue Mounds we went to Lake Shetek and saw the memorial for people killed there during the US-Dakota war of 1862; we saw some of their cabin sites, too. Then we drove to Slaughter Slough and took a walk to the marker for the massacre there. Beautiful prairie land now, but a desperate and terrible site then. We decided to stay the night in New Ulm, a departure from the original plan, but a good change. We visited Hermann Heights, with a huge statue of Arminius overlooking the town and surrounding area! I lost a roll of fisheye pictures.

In New Ulm we had Schell beer, of a kind (Chris said) that was being brewed back in 1862. The next morning we went to the Brown County Museum in New Ulm, walked along the main streets, saw the Glockenspiel perform at noon, and re-visited the Hermann monument. On the way to Red Wing we passed through Fairbault and we stopped to photograph an interesting bridge, a kind of recompense for the pictures I had ruined. We stayed at the St. James Hotel in Red Wing; our room had a view of the Mississippi. We strolled quietly in the evening.

Our last day was full! We drove to Pepin, Wisconsin, along beautiful Lake Pepin and saw the museum in town and the reconstructed cabin on the former Ingalls property. Then we drove to Minneapolis and went to the Walker Art Center, which had an exhibit on Picasso's influence on American artistis. Our hotel was near the Mall of America, so we visited that in the evening: the best part was the underground aquarium with sharks and glowing jellyfish. A regret: we didn't get to hike the bluffs at Red Wing because it was too hot. Yesterday we travelled back home.

Today: low spirits. Paging through issues of the Chronicle of Higher Education makes me wonder if academics should actually be allowed to teach; I'm not sure we're so admirable or responsible (at least as we're reflected in the mirror of the Chronicle). I'm also exhausted by our trip; it seems odd to have to come home to rest up from vacation, but that's the state I'm in. I feel like I should be getting to work on my commentary, but my energy is too flagging, my spirits too sagging, to look at it with the excitement and freshness it deserves.

I'm afraid that it's going to be another day of low spirits. It must be a combination of coming back from the trip and knowing that school starts again soon. As I mentioned yesterday, the trip was more tiring than I thought, and my energy is low. The trip was also a mission of sorts, a project with clear goals, and so the contrast between such a focused, streamlined mission and everyday life is disorienting. And going back to school is frightening, after the peace and breathing room that sabbatical and summer provided. I'm afraid I'll revert to old ways.

I don't know what stances--ideological, moral, philosophical, spiritual, whatever-you-want-to-call-them--are viable these days. Everything seems rife with contradictions, and everything seems too large to change. Satire is available, but--ahh--how quickly satire becomes self-hatred, and how long can anyone live, really, in that way? A crusading mentality can run amock, as did the Crusades themselves, though without that kind of mission-mentality I'm not sure how anyone would have the heart to forge ahead. Looking to higher powers seems like an easy out. I'm left with a kind of nihilism, and it feels like a breed of intellectual decadence.

In some senses yesterday was the last day of summer. Although school doesn't start for nearly a month, most of August should be spent getting prepared for the fall semester's classes. And I have a meeting tomorrow about the commentary, so I need to spend today proofreading the parts that are done. I'm going to try to treat August weekdays like workdays, spending a good portion of them in my home office or at school. I haven't been in my school office in a substantial way since December! I feel a mixture of fear and excitement about returning to it.