is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.

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Irony, Inverse Time Machine, then Cleveland.

Irony, Inverse Time Machine, then Cleveland.

Today in the car, Evany had me on the grill about what is and is not ironic. The thing is, so many people say that so many different things are ironic, whereas I am that killjoy who loves to point out, �no, that is not ironic, it is merely a coincidence� or �no, that is just a bummer, no irony in the house.� So I�m the opposite of the person who finds irony everywhere. I am very particular about where I find it. So we narrowed irony down in some ways: there is internal irony, where the speaker of the ironic statement knows she�s being ironic, as in when I say �nice pants� to someone wearing dorky pants. And there is external irony, where the speaker doesn�t know he�s involved in an irony but the audience does, like when Oedipus declares that whoever killed King Laius must be killed or exiled, but he doesn�t yet know he�s talking about himself. So irony sometimes means saying the opposite of what you mean, and other times it�s more like reversal: your result is far from what you intended. But both of those blur into other things. For instance, sometimes reversal is just comic rather than ironic or tragic or what have you. Reversal is the stuff of a whole class of jokes. Etc.

But Evany had me on the grill, and we didn�t come to a final definition, because there isn�t one. People disagree about what irony is because people disagree about what is funny and what is meaningful. Still. Sometimes people really are wrong when they say something is ironic. Take for instance Alanis Morrisette.

A few hours after this particular conversation, I got a call from an old family friend who lives in Cleveland, someone who was the babysitter for my sister and I when we were kids, whose own kids were some of my best friends, etc. She was calling from Amherst to see if I wanted to have brunch tomorrow, because she and her husband were in town, and I had to say to her, �ha, but I�m in Cleveland right now.� Is that ironic? I�m in Cleveland and she�s in Amherst.

Today Evany and I traveled the least amount of miles but it took the most hours. Why? Neither of us is sure. We dawdled in Chicago. There was traffic. We drove slowly through some Amish country. But it is unclear how it took us 10 hours to get from Chicago to Cleveland, when usually that drive takes between 4 and 5 hours. We seem to have encountered some sort of inverse time machine effect, which resulted in time stretching out such that things we�ve been doing daily since the journey began somehow all took longer than they ever had before. Anyway, here we are, in Cleveland. Ten hours later. We drove into town and went to Holiday Inn Express on Euclid Ave near Public Square, where the concierge told us she was sold out and that many local hotels were sold out because of some huge thing happening. Streets were blocked off and music was happening in outdoor places. Concierge-lady related to me how she had spent some time earlier in the evening finding rooms for people overflowing from her hotel so she gave us phone numbers for the only two hotels she knew of that still had blocks of rooms. And that is how we ended up at a REALLY NICE hotel, the Renaissance, right on Public Square. We got a pretty good rate, given that it is a REALLY NICE hotel, and so we promptly ordered overpriced room service, opened up some beers, and oh how lovely it is to stay in a REALLY NICE hotel.

I have a weakness in general for REALLY NICE hotels. Some people don�t know this about me and many don�t suspect it. One of my professors once apologized to me when she stayed at a really nice hotel when attending a conference, and it made me laugh inwardly to think that she might be thinking I was subjecting her to some sort of Marxist or other social criticism. But I love a really nice hotel. And I LOVE room service. And I love the fitness room and sauna and the mini-bar full of liquor and candy bars.

So, yeah, we spent 10 hours in the car. Plus it is Day Ten of the trip. We are exhausted, and tired of driving. But we�re still having a good time. In fact today in the car was a very silly funny day, full of bad bad jokes that we laughed at way too hard, etc. Plus, the extra day in Chicago was a good reward for the two previous days of drive-drive-driving.

Plus we keep only listening to the radio. We still have the Ipod and the CD player. I listened to the Blake Babies on the way into Chicago. But for some reason we have let the classic rock radio dominate. Today we heard Tom Sawyer by Rush. Twice. The car speaker is still deciding what songs to play for us, but the stereo is working most of the time. Today we added 80s radio music to the mix in Indiana and Ohio. We heard a shitstorm of songs including Sunglasses at Night, a song which makes less sense the more you hear it. Evany did some acapella pirate smash-up mixing by singing similar songs along with whatever was playing. We heard Dress You Up by Madonna for the second time and We Belong by Pat Benatar for the third time of our trip. And then we heard Africa by Toto. Which reminded me that Mr. Perrone�s roommate, who plays drums in a punk band, recently admitted to me that he loves that song, when he was stuck in a car with Mr. Perrone and I for awhile. I didn�t know what to do at the moment of the admission. I think I looked at him, all full of incredulity, and said I didn�t know what to do with that particular piece of information. Of course I had already told the story to Evany, about the cute punk drummer boy who loves Africa by Toto and says so. So we listened to the whole song, sang along with feeling and interpretive arm movements, and attempted to harmonize to it as well. You are glad you weren�t there.

We could probably get to New York by tomorrow night, but we might decide to split the driving left into two days. Then I�ll just drop Evany off in NYC on Sunday and keep on going up to Amherst. Monday I�ll go to the faculty meeting that is happening on LABOR DAY, go figure. Tuesday my boxes will arrive. Wednesday I�ll teach my first class. Then I�m free until the following Monday. Except for the whole preparing more lectures thing, and unpacking boxes, and beginning to write articles and books that must be written. Oh, and getting ready to present a paper at a conference September 17. Nonetheless, I�m going to try to get down to NYC that weekend for Emma�s Ph.D. celebration party on the 10th. She just successfully defended her dissertation and is having a big party at David and Josie�s place in Brooklyn. And those three know how to have an interesting party.

So you�ll either hear from us from somewhere in Pennsylvania, or we�ll be in New York, or I�ll be in Amherst, and who knows what will happen. I don�t have a phone yet, nor have I begun to figure out what has to be done to get one.

ps-- it's true, I could have stayed with my uncle Ken while in Cleveland, of whom I am fond. plus his wife Sandy is a great cook and they have three fluffy cats. but it felt too rude to show up at 10 pm and leave the next morning. next time.....

stats:

chicago to cleveland

miles: 370

lodging: $150

12:40 a.m. - September 04, 2004

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