Greetings from Chicago

It's only going to get more busy, so while there is still time, a little update:

1. The weather is clear and gorgeous and almost warm. We had a spectacular view flying down over Chicago at night with the city's grid landscape all light up.

2. It took me as long to get from O'Hare to the hotel downtown as it did for the plane to fly from Greensboro to Chicago.

3. The hotel staff calls me "Miss." (In Greensboro it would be "Ma'am.")

4. The hotel is a maze. I've gotten lost twice already, and I am a veteran of much girl scouting with a good sense of direction.

5. I went in search of food and found pappardelle with vegetables and some kind of fancy-shmancy parmesan. I almost ordered room service but it was the same food, only pricier, and it's already bad enough. So I suffered through the noisy half-closed hotel restaurant. Question: WHY do semi-chichi places feel they have to blast rock music through their eateries and lounges? You can't heard yourself think. With this statement, I am officially an Old Fart.

6. I have run into several friends and colleagues already. The conference officially begins Saturday but there are a gazillion pre-conference meetings. There are relatively few of us around, though. Tomorrow night and Saturday it will get truly crazy.

7. I left my name badge and other registration stuff at home because the study at my new house is only half set up and I was rushing to leave after my 4 p.m. class and changing cat-sitter plans. Stupid, stupid. For once I had registered early and had all my paperwork. I even rescued it carefully when the house thing happened and put the AAR registration materials envelope with my folders of Very Important Stuff That I Moved By Hand. It's not an enormous big deal, since the registration people will have me in their computer, but it does mean I will have to stand in line. And I might not have as pretty a nametag. Big crises I can deal with -- it's the little stuff that gets me.

8. I also left the eat-at-the-airport yogurt at home in its cute little pot with the plastic spoon I had carefully put with it, hence my need to rustle up dinner when I arrived here. Oh well.

9. There is construction on Wabash under the El. There is always construction somewhere in downtown Chicago. Wait, I haven't been here in 15 years, this generalization won't work.

10. I ran into Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim (who are married to each other) and had a lovely chat with them. They invited me to the Religion and Ecology Luncheon tomorrow. They've been at Yale for three years and are happy there. We knew each other in Berkeley. They are also leading an afternoon session with this description:
This session will feature the new film Heart of the Universe with Brian Swimme. This is the first film to offer a comprehensive narrative of the evolution of the universe and the earth. The film draws on the best of current science blended with a poetic sensibility that evokes awe and wonder. This symposium will be led by Brian Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker, who together wrote the script and the accompanying book.

I know this will be wonderful and groovy, but I think I will just go to the lunch. Tomorrow is for the Art Institute and working on my paper and also for remedying my registration materials problems, and then at 4 p.m. is the annual meeting of the Feminist Liberation Theologians Network (FLTN, this is the land of acronyms, as are most professional organizations or clusters of organizations) and we're off and running.

In case I don't write again for a while: Saturday morning (another pre-conference meeting) is the Society for the Study of Anglicanism (SSA). Topic: "Christ and Culture: Post-Lambeth Perspectives." (I just added a whole paragraph here and decided to delete it for reasons of diplomacy. What I will say is that I'm not sure I want to spend an entire morning on Lambeth postmortems right now.)

At the same time are a forum on religion and violence, a panel on "Presidential Politics and Religious Rhetoric", a meeting of the Society for Buddhist/Christian Studies with a focus on Merton this year (boy, that one is tempting), and the Presidential Address at the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality (Mary Frohlich, Catholic Theological Union, Chicago on "Under the Sign of Jonah: Studying Spirituality in a Time of Ecosystemic Crisis") , a Global Ethics and Religion Forum on "The Role of Religion in a Just and Sustainable World" with six panelists from different fields, and numerous other sessions. And that's before the official beginning of the AAR.

All for today. Peace out.


Photo of a little something from "Iconic Chicago Chocolate Maker Fannie May" (dixit a local business rag), whose newish store I (in the airport van) passed on Wabash.

A day late but not too late: No on 8

P.S. Missed the blogswarm yesterday, since it was my 8 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. work day, but dear Californians, please vote no on 8. Let people love each other, for goodness' sake.

And preserve their human and civil rights.

Here's a link to Fran's post and another to Paul's.

Second City bound

Remember last November? The American Academy of Religion (AAR), just before its split from the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) (rumor has it the two Annual Meetings are going to get back together, but I digress), was at the two societies' joint conference, just before Thanksgiving, in San Diego. I was a little wacked out from jet lag and culture shock, having just returned from another conference in Belgium with a side trip to Paris, or maybe Belgium was the side trip and Paris was the main course; they were both wonderful.

At the San Diego meeting my colleague Eric and I were interviewing candidates, sixteen of them as I recall, for the soon to be vacant position in our department (and eventually, in the spring, hired Parveen, our new colleague who arrived two and a half months ago) and the conference was half consumed with that work. It was tiring. I also was a respondent to a paper and attended a few other sessions besides the one at which I was a respondent. It's like going to school for three days, except that last year I couldn't do as much learning as usual due to our being "in a search," as they say in academe. I did manage to have a meal or two with friends.

This fall the two professional societies are meeting separately and at different times in November, and I am only going to one of those conferences, the AAR one, which is in Chicago this year. It begins this weekend. I head for Chicago later today, after my late afternoon class, because I have a pre-conference meeting tomorrow and also because I want to make sure I get to the Art Institute, which is very close to the hotel. Girl with no social life and a big culture deficit finally gets a break.

It's especially nice to see some of my friends and colleagues from the West Coast. I'll be seeing some from California and Oregon this year, and also some folks from the U.K. and a colleague from Mexico I haven't seen in years.

My publisher is throwing me a little party Sunday night in honor of the book's release; Chicago folks or people with Chicago peeps (ahoy Dennis) write me at widsauthor at earthlink dot net, and I can have Amanda The Publicist contact them with the info.

Monday morning I am presenting a paper (my first one at the AAR, I have only given responses to other people's papers thus far, the competition can be stiff to get a paper accepted) in the morning. Have I finished writing it yet? Of course not. The title of the paper is pretty sexy, but if I write it here MadPriest will mock me (he had a field day with this last year) so perhaps I'll just write it in the Comments section below.

In the afternoon I am presiding at a session where other people are giving papers. It's not as glamorous as it sounds: I get to be the timekeeper and hold up little signs saying "TWO MINUTES" and I facilitate the discussion after everyone has presented.

Then I fly back to Greensboro, and Godde and the airlines willing, get in not too late, get a good night's sleep, and get up Election Day and volunteer for the Obama campaign until it's time to teach my afternoon class. Yes we can.

5 days.

Brought to you by your daily ¡Sí, se puede!

Activated till the polls close on November 4.


Photo: Camel and Rider, Tang dynasty (618-907 C.E.), China, 1st half of 8th century. Permanent Collection, Art Institute, Chicago.

It's here!

Thanks to a staff person who will remain nameless, a copy of the brand spankin' new edition of the paperback of When in Doubt, Sing made its way by overnight UPS to the door of my house, where I went and fetched it after lunch and between worky engagements. Good thing I live near my place of employ. The book is beautiful and I love holding it in my hot little hands.

I presented it to Miss Maya Pavlova as soon as I took it out of the wrapping and placed it on the floor. She showed no interest because she was showing me her belly, which she does whenever I walk in the door. (Drop to floor, roll on back, show off fuzzy tummy, roll around on back for a while.) Then she came up to it and sniffed it (it smells brand new and definitely not like cat food), placed two paws on it in blessing, and returned to her feline pursuits.

I took a couple of photos of her with the book later on but she was really not interested in posing, because she was washing her paws, and in the land of cats, this takes precedence over literature. Cats already have great literature in their heads.

But I think Her Grace, the Feline Bishop Extraordinaire, will allow herself to be photographed again with a different attitude toward the book. Give her a little time. For now, I am back at the office after a Division Meeting (that's the Humanities Division, of which the Religious Studies Department is a member) at which we discussed the current humongous budget cuts at the college. Not cheery. I am teaching tonight, but not till 8 p.m., so it's possible I will go home for a bit of chicken soup (a new batch). +Maya Pavlova will be interested in that.

This bears repeating: yes, we can.

An oldish video by now (over a million hits on YouTube), but it's a good day for a replay.

Here.

Thanks to my friend Paul, the Byzigenous Buddhapalian, for the reminder, and for being a man who does not shy away from tears.


6 days.

Brought to you by your daily ¡Sí, se puede!

Activated till the polls close on November 4.