Oh the Mountain's Wind and Snow

Not much to report. Jonas left this morning. I am now thoroughly alone. There is an odd sense of dominance about the situation-lo, behold! This is my domain! Lo, therein all the food of the kitchen is mine to eat, and all space of the hallway is mine to walk! A sad state of affairs, I suppose, but we take pride in what we can.

Barbara the German invited me up to Esja, and we went with a group (I think it was an Inspired by Iceland trip?) which meant we got a tour guide and his dog-which is always lovely and has grounded my very positive image of the Icelandic guide and his dog-as well as hot chocolate afterwards. And I have been invited by Barbara and my new acquaintance Sara the New Zealander to hit the climbing wall tomorrow evening. I'm excited.

So there are copious things, it seems, removing me from my hole. My writing schedule might suffer a bit. But I've finished all the nine chapters I wanted of my novel to complete before I gave it off to people to read, and it just remains to edit it for skipped sections, discontinuity, and other glaring errors; then all the people who agreed to read it shall, and those few (if any) who might enjoy shall likewise. It's officially longer than my undergrad thesis, and about a third the length of the wretched novel that I wrote in highschool. I'm nervous about the inconsistencies, the inevitable sections wherein I was inspired and the many more wherein I simply drug myself through, and whether any sense of wholeness or style will shine through. But we'll see. Hopefully I've gathered myself a large enough body of readers (And thanks a lot, to all of you, I really appreciate it) that I will get a clear sense of what needs to be done, and where to go for what will hopefully be many hundreds more pages.

Enough of that. Pictures.

 The largest forest in Iceland. . .and all Norwegian trees. Planted

to see if they'll grow in the climate, because some trees on

the mountain would make Reykjavik less than absurdly windy.

 Barbara and Sara, showing their exhaustion.

All Icelandic guides have voraciously energetic dogs,

and red parkas. ALL of them.

 Off in the gray distance straight ahead is Reykjavik, also gray.

'Cause, you know, camouflage.

 Sledded down this on nothing but my jeans and my

will to slide. Awesomeness.

Not really sure what he was doing. Just part of the show,

I suppose. But that's the owner of the restaurant at the bottom

of Esja, and he came back down to bang on the walls on

windows of his restaurant with a big ass stick. Some kind

of tradition in Icelandic Christmas. They make strong

windows in Iceland.

And soon I will be alone. . .

At last Christmas approaches. Advent is long past, and the days of proper Yuletide are upon us. The snow is melting, because it's actually winter now, so things are warming up: weather goods look down upon a white Christmas with scorn. One more final, Old Norse: perhaps the most difficult, in that the most can go wrong, the most can be forgotten, but also the easiest in the relative amount of work involved-one can only go over the paradigms so many times before the brain is no longer being helped.

So I'm working on my novel, in between studying, which is a grand relief and pleasure at the same time as being a whole new kind of stresser on the brain. I am, at least, thankful that fiction writing requires no footnotes, or citations. When I steal from people, I don't actually have to mention it. A lovely thing. I'm going back through the Lord of the Rings again, as well. I think this is number five? Or possibly the sixth time through. But there's always something new to learn. I've started to realize the last time, and further this time, the ways that he improves upon his sources. I got a little teary eyed this time when Frodo accepts the ring at the Council of Elrond, and Elrond himself praises his glory: Frodo will sit, for his courage alone, among the best elves of old, the storied heroes and even their forebears. It's the classic Vita scene of saintly nobility and reward, but with a thousand times better set-up and written than any writer of hagiography could have managed. It's an interesting aspect of Tolkien: when C.S. Lewis' Christianity comes out in force, it's annoying and distracting; but when Tolkien's Christianity comes out it fits so perfectly, so flawlessly, so much better than any truly didactic or allegorical author could manage. All the sensibilities of the religion make some much more sense in his world than in they ever could in the real one-which, I suppose, is the point.

Everyone leaves on the sixteenth. And then two weeks of sweet, sweet freedom. Solitude. I'm so excited about it, it makes me fidgety just thinking about it. Barbara and Bahb will be around for some good company, when I need it (I already promised the former some games of chess, which will be a delightfully nerdy and Icelandic Christmas celebration), but for the most part it will be all novel writing and thesis translations and cleaning this greasetrap of an apartment. I will be losing my workout partner, but maybe I can convince her to send me disparaging emails about my midsection to keep me motivated. Maybe I will even stop spending money for awhile, deprived of James the Enabler, and catch up with where my bank account ought to be.

A few pictures, of ice, that it might come again.

Phallocentric Finals and Icicle Fountains

The final days of November have passed in frozen and not-quite-frozen hours of dark incredulity at the utter lack of hobbies a man is allowed to have in graduate school. I barely pick up my mandolin. My tuner ran out of batteries and it took me a week to notice. I'm officially spending all my money on sandwiches, because only warm piles of bread and cheese can fuel the brain and comfort the soul with equal efficiency. Running out of tea is an ever approaching doom that seems narrowly avoided with every shopping trip.

But on the bright side of things, having seen my first Aurora in October, I've now walked on my first frozen lake (or very large pond, depending on your taste and geography). Contrary to my usual grace in new things, I didn't fall through. The winter seems to be the best season here-though the Minnesotans never cease to complain of its mildness. The snow here maintains an absurd powdery lightness, and it's great for snowball fighting. On frozen lakes. Or outside of schools. Or behind the apartment at two in the morning. Even the slush on the highway seems to hold its texture.

My desk has a nigh-professional quality of book-stacks interlaced with papers, the stained tea-cup and its adjacent rings, gloves and wallet and coins. I'm very proud of the whole arrangement. There are books in three languages, and I've read at least a sentence out of each of them. I have my print-out of my notes for the big Literary Corpus test tomorrow, and a first draft of the adjacent paper ready to be edited and turned in tonight. I have three massive collections of runology articles for the paper due on Friday.

And then the Old Norse exam on the fifteenth. And then sweet freedom: Over a week of utter solitude to work on my novel and my thesis in peace and vitamin-D deprived inspiration. No roommates and no sunlight. Perhaps I will start seeing the hidden people. Or the Christmas lads creeping around behind the doors in the empty rooms.

In the meantime, snow and dismembered penises. Iceland truly is the center of diehard feminism.

 Sperm whale.

 She's not uncomfortable. She's just trying to be creepy for

her family, who will see the picture.

 Killer whale.

 Less dehydrated killer whale.

Seals.

 More sperm whale. Just cause, you know, it's impressive.

 The totality of our masculinity,

in spongy cross-section.

Postcard throw-back.

Bulls. Tom Waits wasn't lying.

Art. These scrotum lamps were on sale

at the gift shop. James and I were sore tempted.

That's mankind, down at the far right.

This is James being, in fact, uncomfortable.

 Mythology, at its most elemental. Loki and the goat,

trying to make the ski-goddess laugh. 'Cause this is

what Scandinavian women like.

Elf-penis.

It's for the kids, you know?

The rodent and other small critters collection.

 What new philosophy is this?

 HUMAN! If you're not uncomfortable yet, this post

has failed. But this guy's ego, trust me, was far larger

than that lump on the left.

Reindeer.