All By Myself

It is very quiet here today. Tim has gone to the office and Marjorie has taken Istra on a jaunt across the city to visit Anne with the intention of giving me some time to work on my essays. Well, one essay down and one to go (though I'm only talking about first drafts here, and this essay I'm writing on proposal scenes in Jane Austen's novels is a long one which will need much revision). Friday, Rachel is coming again to watch Istra for a few hours so I can work on a presentation I have to give on Monday. It's only a "this is where I am with my essay" presentation, so I'm not too worried about it; I have been working hard at this essay since it is a sort of bizarre topic--womb imagery in Spenser's The Faerie Queene--and I need to make a good impression to sell the idea to my professor.

I've had to do a lot of research into the medical understanding of female anatomy in the renaissance, which has actually been very interesting. Of course it was very taboo to go looking at women's body parts back then, never mind cutting them up, so the main figure working at a better understanding of anatomy--Vesalius, that is--became largely a bodysnatcher; and when they came after him he resorted to cutting the bodies into little bits so they were no longer identifiable--which is why the understanding of female anatomy didn't really get better very quickly.

Anyway, I must get back to work. I leave you all with a cute picture of the fruit of my womb getting ready for a swim with Rachel a couple weeks ago. Tim may provide a link to more pictures later.