Jane Haddam

So, you know, here I am, dispirited already before the term has even gotten started.  I gave a quiz today.  It was a ten-answer definitional thing, you took the term, you define it.  All the terms and all their proper definitions were posted on Blackboard last week. And I still got six people with zeros…

Is whether or not the backspace and delete are going to work on t his keyboard the first I wake up this morning, and they did.  Of course, I haven’t had any caffeine yet, so I can’t actually see, but that’s another issue. And, I’ll admit, today is the parking problem–I have a schedule that…

I’m dead tired, and it’s late, but I wanted to ask a question:  what is it about me that makes machines lose their minds? And it’s all machines, not just the computer.  I managed to break not one but four copy machines in the space of about two hours one day, and neither I nor…

Well, I made it to Saturday. This feels like some kind of miracle that I should celebrate, but instead I’m worried about my mother–yesterday, she was in the hospital all day for a blood transfusion; last night she was back in her nursing home–and I’m intent on drinking this enormous cup of tea. I want…

It’s a weird day on a lot of levels.  Trust me. But there are points. The first is that I don’t think people like Chambers were interested in workers’ pensions or unemployment insurance. When I said this was a book about a religious conversion, I meant it.  What Chambers was looking for was salvation, a…

It’s Thursday, and it’s obvious to me that Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be the days I hate the most this term.  It’s not the classes or the students, it’s the elongated schedule.  And I actually asked for the schedule, so go figure. But… In terms of the Chambers book, we’re talking about Communists…

Well, here I am–yesterday, the computer worked perfectly, without a hitch, all day. Today, it’s been a constant struggle. I’ve begun to wonder if the issue might be heat and humidy, since we still don’t have an air conditioner down here yet.  And the night before last it was REALLY cold, but last night it…

I am starting today’s post in a spirit of cautious optimism.  A day and a half ago, this computer started doing the oddest things, including suddenly freezing solid for no reason any can tell. Of course, computers do that, but this time it would do it over and over again and have to be rebooted…

Okay.  The title is only there because I love the word–and I can’t stop myself from thinking of it as an adjective, although the one place I know where it’s used (in McBeth’s speech after he’s killed Duncan), it’s used as a verb. Incarnadine.  When you incarnadine something, you make it read. But it’s Sunday…

I figured it was better to say that than to say “interlude” for the fortieth time.  So there’s your title. I found this on Arts and Letters Daily this morning: http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/print It’s from a magazine I generally dislike, and with reason.  All the partisan magazines and web sites and news outlets and books misrepresent and…