carefully considering the circumstances, nene and i decided to head south to spend a few days at mom's home in santa cruz. nene likes mom's place because she can climb up to the shelving unit high above the refrigerator and safely scheme and sleep all day and all night.
i like the place because it's two blocks away from the mighty pacific ocean, which always reminds me of home.
this summer most of my academic attention is focused on my tenure packet which is due in september. for the last week and throughout my stay in santa cruz, i have focused on my research narrative, tracing my ideas and writings and projects from an undergraduate majoring in english at UCLA to an assistant professor of media studies at USF, with a few stops in between.
my writing process has been as follows: i walk and think for hours and days and then suddenly - splat! - an outline hurls itself out of me. once the outline exists, the sentences are self-evident and my pen records them on paper. then i place my paper journal next to my plastic laptop and tip tap type the words into a document. finally, i save it to a folder on my desktop labeled "tenure."
