Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit

I have no name
I am but two days old . . .

But the Freudian Petticoat is actually three years old, as of yesterday. I can't believe how much space I've filled with (to bend Sidney), this pixel-wasting toy of mine. And how much my outlook has changed. Well, changed in some ways, strengthened in others.

Like many blogs, this one was born out of change. I started it because I needed a space to deal with my move from Montreal to the South, my change in status from postdoc to tenure-track professor. And though my status and location have not changed in almost three years, I'm happily surprised by how much adaptation, growth and change is actually documented here.

It's enlightening to reread my first few posts about moving to the South- my anxiety over Southern Slowness and conservative football games, my delight at Southern quirkiness. Each of which, I suppose, has reversed or dissipated. As an academic, I hardly find life here slow- instead, I'm desperately trying to catch up on work, friends and obligations. And campaigning for Obama and turning the state "blue" this year really opened my eyes to the wonderful collective liberal spirit awakening here. But the cutesy, quirky charm I once saw has become saccharine and ordinary.

I guess I'm most amazed at how my voice has changed over the past three years. I just sound so much more innocent in the beginning. I'm not at all sad that I'm less so- I mean, I was frightfully innocent when I was younger. And I yearned for wryness, irony, and sagesse. (Probably yearning for it in itself is pretty innocent). Have I attained that darkened level of wit and perception I so craved? OMG I so hope so!!! . . . Or maybe it's like Blake's Songs (one from Innocence is pictured above): we can only talk about innocence from a position of experience, and experience is always haunted by innocence.

Over the course of three years, I've blogged about attending five conferences, throwing four parties, and obliquely charted the courses of two romantic relationships. Somehow the numbers seem so small, compared to the amount of text and emotional, intellectual output.

{Four parties? Is that all? For someone who professes to like entertaining, I haven't thrown a dinner party in almost two years. We all have our tastes, but the blog tells a different story.}

Here are my 5 favorite posts in the history of this blog, from earliest to most recent:

1. "Strindberg in the Kiddie Room": Ikea Trip
2. Jew in the South = Hispanic? Indian?
3. The Grammatology of Anthropologie I, II, III
4. My best conference liveblog (SAA 2008)
5. "A Bracelet of Bright Hair"

Bonne Anniversaire, blog.