rainy day blues

i suppose it's inevitable that after the exciting week and a half i've had i would feel a little blue about returning to the world of the normal and every day. admittedly, the weather isn't helping. as i sat out on the bay this morning in a coach boat with shani in the pouring rain, inwardly cursing my leaky integrity suit and waiting to time 4.5K trials that ultimately ended up being cancelled, i mumbled something about how days like today just work to confirm my belief that a lot of the time life sucks. i know, i know ... dour, dark thoughts on life! but you just try and be cheerful when you have rain cascading off the brim of your baseball cap, shoes filled with water and a leaky all-weather suit that leaks primarily in one place: your crotch. following practice, as i clomped and squished my way around the boathouse, complaining that the integrity of my integrity suit had been compromised, i dreaded coming home and sitting down to work. there was nothing in me that wanted to either a) prepare my course description for the course i'm teaching next winter in england, or b) work on my dissertation. i momentarily thought about having scotch for breakfast.

days like today make me insufferably nostalgic for a time when books weren't "texts", underwear was dry, and mom kept the cupboard stocked full of lucky charms. thankfully, some of what i'm working on right now helps me to feed that nostalgia a little. rather than drown my sorrows in single malt, after enjoying a long, hot shower, and putting on some dry underwear (you'd be surprised how much dry, cotton knickers can suddenly make the world a much friendlier place!), i've spent the morning devouring tales from the hardy boys children's series, some of which will appear on the syllabus for my upcoming course. on one level, i'm excited by the possibilities these texts present for my course due to the way in which they appropriate Victorian discourses of detection, policing and masculinity, and on another level, i've just been laughing myself silly over some of the advice fenton hardy dispenses to his sons frank and joe:

"The trouble is, so often when a young man joins a group of hoodlums or racketeers, he's blackmailed for the rest of his life, even though he tries to go straight." The detective smiled. "The best way to avoid such a situation is never to get into it!" (Fenton to Frank and Joe in The House on the Cliff)

a timely warning, fenton, as just this morning, i was considering a career in hoodlumming and racketeering, to be taken up after my potent liquid breakfast!

the rain has stopped (at least for the moment), frank and joe are about to rescue fenton from the clutches of the evil, thin-lipped and cruel bayport smuggler, felix snattman, and i have a lovely, thick grilled cheese sandwich browning on the stove. the barometer in shannon-land is slowly starting to rise. as long as i can avoid another soaking, i think i'll be a happy girl.