14 years ago
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Spring Cleaning 2007 - a Question
Ok, so it's 8 PM. I'm on a roll. I've got this idea that I might continue with the weeding out of crap in my study, but if I were to do that I think the whole experience might be improved by drinking some wine as I do so. What are your thoughts on drinking and organizing? Good idea? Not so good idea? Any advice you could give within the next hour would be greatly appreciated (though advice after that will still be taken under advisement for future cleaning enterprises).
Spring Cleaning 2007
My name is Dr. Crazy, and I am a filthy pig. Well, not really, but nothing like spring cleaning to train one's gaze on the stuff to which one normally turns a blind eye. The sad thing is that on Day 2 of Spring Cleaning 2007 I am approximately a day and a half behind. Clearly, I lack motivation. Part of the problem is that not only am I cleaning but also I'm weeding crap out and organizing crap. Paper crap, crap my mother brings into this house on every visit (like BOX-LOADs of things like kitchen towels and such), crap I buy and then forget I bought and so then rebuy it or decide I should buy a slightly different version (razor blades, toothpaste, hair products....).
If I can successfully deal with the bathroom and get started on my bedroom closet today, I shall be pleased. Of course, it's 3:26, so this is not at all a sure thing.
In other news, I've decided not to work out today, even though my aim was to work out every day this week, because I effectively worked out twice yesterday, what with the Walk to the Keyless Car. This should be good for cleaning, but I still feel irritated by this change in plans. Maybe I'll go for a walk in the evening once I'm done-ish with cleaning?
Ok, back to work!
If I can successfully deal with the bathroom and get started on my bedroom closet today, I shall be pleased. Of course, it's 3:26, so this is not at all a sure thing.
In other news, I've decided not to work out today, even though my aim was to work out every day this week, because I effectively worked out twice yesterday, what with the Walk to the Keyless Car. This should be good for cleaning, but I still feel irritated by this change in plans. Maybe I'll go for a walk in the evening once I'm done-ish with cleaning?
Ok, back to work!
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Keys? Who Needs Keys?
Ok, so this afternoon I went and got a haircut (just a trim - we're perfecting the style), I went to the gym, while at the gym I skimmed that article I'm reviewing and then the plan was to go to the grocery store for supplies and then home to clean my bathroom. It was going to be great. I went to the grocery store. I loaded up my cart. I went through the line and paid.
Then I looked for my keys. No dice.
I believe (though I have not yet confirmed this) that my keys are locked in the trunk of my car. If this is not true, then I apparently put them on a shelf at the grocery store or something. Ultimately, I called my office at my apt. complex and somebody came to get me with a key so I could get into my apt. They didn't have time to drive me back to the car, though.
So now (because I've not been able to get a hold of any of my peeps on the phone) I'm going to walk the 2 miles to the grocery store in the 85-degree humid and exhaust-ridden rush hour.
I should note that this is by no means the first time I've locked my keys in my car. In college once I locked my keys in the car WITH THE ENGINE RUNNING. I'd estimate that I've locked my keys in the car approximately 7 times since I began driving at 16, or, on average, every 2-3 years. I was also chronically locked out of my house as a teenager because I would forget my keys places.
Update: The keys were not in the trunk of my car. I had, in fact, left them on a shelf while I was shopping. Who does that? Sometimes I'm astonished that I manage to masquerade as a fully functioning adult. Astonished.
Then I looked for my keys. No dice.
I believe (though I have not yet confirmed this) that my keys are locked in the trunk of my car. If this is not true, then I apparently put them on a shelf at the grocery store or something. Ultimately, I called my office at my apt. complex and somebody came to get me with a key so I could get into my apt. They didn't have time to drive me back to the car, though.
So now (because I've not been able to get a hold of any of my peeps on the phone) I'm going to walk the 2 miles to the grocery store in the 85-degree humid and exhaust-ridden rush hour.
I should note that this is by no means the first time I've locked my keys in my car. In college once I locked my keys in the car WITH THE ENGINE RUNNING. I'd estimate that I've locked my keys in the car approximately 7 times since I began driving at 16, or, on average, every 2-3 years. I was also chronically locked out of my house as a teenager because I would forget my keys places.
Update: The keys were not in the trunk of my car. I had, in fact, left them on a shelf while I was shopping. Who does that? Sometimes I'm astonished that I manage to masquerade as a fully functioning adult. Astonished.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Not Tonight, Honey, I Can't Articulate
So last night I hung out with BFF and C. and C.'s husband G. and the Tasmanian Devil (who is 3, and who loves me with a love that is pure and true, a love which I return vigorously) and Wee Little Chill Baby, and it was fabulous. It's easy to forget, given the current configuration of my life, what it's like to hang out like normal people - in actual person - in a group of cool people just chilling - hanging with the kids, making dinner, talking into the night. That's because, in the current configuration of my life, many of the people with whom I spend the most time I do not actually "see" in person. Indeed, I have all of these relationships conducted over the phone.
This is not all bad. On the one hand, one might argue, it's actually quite great, especially for a person in this profession, which forces us to pull up stakes with such frequency. Rather than falling out of friendships based on distance, just dropping the occasional note or having the occasional timed phone call, it is now possible to stay in very good touch with one's nearest and dearest, to maintain those social networks across vast distances and competing schedules, etc. Between email, the phone, and IM, one really need never be out of touch with people, and one may even meet new people whom one has never actually "met" but with whom one gets along just swimmingly, to create new virtual social networks. All of this is good.
But I've been thinking a lot about what it means to conduct relationships only in language, without the benefit of face-to-face signals. Yes, we are all always already in discourse in all of our interactions, but what if discourse is all there is without more ephemeral physical cues and gestures? What is the effect of that? And what happens when you just don't have anything to say?
Now, this not having anything to say thing is rarely a problem for me, I must admit. I'm chatty. It's the fun of me. And my very best long-distance friends, with whom I talk pretty much daily, well, they are a chatty sort as well. Even when we've got nothing to say, we make up stuff to say. Even with BFF, who lives here, I spend hours on the phone. So the issue isn't that I'm not a phone-talker. I love talking on the phone (for I do love it, in the way of 14-year-old girls across these great United States), but really what I love is talking - it's just the phone is a convenient way to talk as much as I need to when people aren't actually around to whom to talk. And if nobody is available telephonically, well, then email will suffice, because as much as I love talking, I also really enjoy the sending of emails. And in a pinch (esp. with friends in England), IM will suffice as well. Conversations, in whatever medium, are fabulous, no?
But here's the thing. Sometimes one or the other person or even both people are all talked out. If one is in person, this is less of an issue. If you're in person, talking isn't necessarily the point. And as much as I love talking, I often think that talking can really fuck things up between people. Because this is the thing with talking (or emails, or whatever): with the talking comes the analysis. The thing here is that at a certain point all of this talk talk talk devolves into solipsism. It becomes all about one's self, and not at all about the other person. The person on the other end of the telephone line, the other end of the internet, becomes merely a projection of the speaker. One doesn't really need to deal with the other person as that person but rather one constructs that person for oneself depending on one's own needs.
Now, one might argue that this is an issue in in-person interactions as well. But I suppose I think that this tendency is intensified in these long-distance interactions. Yes, it is somewhat lessened if one has a solid real-life foundation on which to base one's telephonic and written correspondences, but even then, at a certain point the "real-life" fades into the background. At what point does not having seen someone more than once a year for a few hours at a pop overcome the years that one had been friends before-hand? At what point does the discourse overwhelm the memory of the physical person?
And what of these people whom one meets through all of this technology - with whom one has never had a real-life foundation? At a certain point, all of this talk becomes the real-life interaction with these people, and that's, frankly, bizarre. And in these interactions, at least for me, I feel like it's a lot more common to find myself having a difficult time making conversation, or to feel like the dumb conversation that I'd normally make is, well, dumb. I also notice that the people on the other end can seem to have the same problem. And so there are strange ebbs and flows, periods of intense presence and periods of total absence, that form.* I'm not sure how to bridge those gaps, those absences. I'm not sure whether one is meant to do so.
Is this a problem of articulation? I'm not sure. But it reminds me of one of my favorite ever lines from The Real World.** Once upon a time, Crazy had broken up with a guy (after Crazy saw him OUT ON A DATE WITH SOMEBODY ELSE ON THE VERY SAME DAY THAT HE HAD SUGGESTED SHE LEAVE A TOOTHBRUSH AT HIS HOUSE BECAUSE SHE WAS SLEEPING OVER SO OFTEN!) and so she and Medusa and their friend Ambiva hunkered down to a Real World Seattle Marathon and eating of Easter Candy. Or wait. Maybe this particular RW marathon happened the day after Halloween and it was with Halloween candy and has nothing to do with the aforementioned break-up? Maybe they did marathons on both occasions? It is hard to know. There was definitely candy. Of that I am certain. At any rate, it was the Real World Seattle. One of the "cast members" that season was this guy Brown-Eye/Green-Eye from Boston, and in one of his interviews, struggling to describe something, he said, "I can't articulate wit' words." Now, this is hilarious, as the definition of "articulate" distinctly depends on the use of words. But I suppose what I'm wondering now is whether that Brown-Eye/Green-Eye was stupidly on to something. Maybe the problem is that sometimes one needs to articulate without words?***
*Or perhaps what I'm really talking about is the present absence, Lacan's objet petit a? Perhaps these people are always both present and absent?
**Another favorite moment from the same season comes from an interview with (I think it was) Steven-the-Guy-Who-Slapped-Lyme-Disease-Girl. He was on the phone with a friend, talking about how he hated his roommates, and the friend suggested he "Kill them with kindness." His response? "What was that again? Let me write that down!" As if it was this brilliant and unbelievable phrase that he had never encountered. Oh, those Real Worlders. They may be pretty but they sure are dumb.
***Don't think that the irony of my writing about this all on a blog is lost on me. I find this particular irony immensely entertaining.
This is not all bad. On the one hand, one might argue, it's actually quite great, especially for a person in this profession, which forces us to pull up stakes with such frequency. Rather than falling out of friendships based on distance, just dropping the occasional note or having the occasional timed phone call, it is now possible to stay in very good touch with one's nearest and dearest, to maintain those social networks across vast distances and competing schedules, etc. Between email, the phone, and IM, one really need never be out of touch with people, and one may even meet new people whom one has never actually "met" but with whom one gets along just swimmingly, to create new virtual social networks. All of this is good.
But I've been thinking a lot about what it means to conduct relationships only in language, without the benefit of face-to-face signals. Yes, we are all always already in discourse in all of our interactions, but what if discourse is all there is without more ephemeral physical cues and gestures? What is the effect of that? And what happens when you just don't have anything to say?
Now, this not having anything to say thing is rarely a problem for me, I must admit. I'm chatty. It's the fun of me. And my very best long-distance friends, with whom I talk pretty much daily, well, they are a chatty sort as well. Even when we've got nothing to say, we make up stuff to say. Even with BFF, who lives here, I spend hours on the phone. So the issue isn't that I'm not a phone-talker. I love talking on the phone (for I do love it, in the way of 14-year-old girls across these great United States), but really what I love is talking - it's just the phone is a convenient way to talk as much as I need to when people aren't actually around to whom to talk. And if nobody is available telephonically, well, then email will suffice, because as much as I love talking, I also really enjoy the sending of emails. And in a pinch (esp. with friends in England), IM will suffice as well. Conversations, in whatever medium, are fabulous, no?
But here's the thing. Sometimes one or the other person or even both people are all talked out. If one is in person, this is less of an issue. If you're in person, talking isn't necessarily the point. And as much as I love talking, I often think that talking can really fuck things up between people. Because this is the thing with talking (or emails, or whatever): with the talking comes the analysis. The thing here is that at a certain point all of this talk talk talk devolves into solipsism. It becomes all about one's self, and not at all about the other person. The person on the other end of the telephone line, the other end of the internet, becomes merely a projection of the speaker. One doesn't really need to deal with the other person as that person but rather one constructs that person for oneself depending on one's own needs.
Now, one might argue that this is an issue in in-person interactions as well. But I suppose I think that this tendency is intensified in these long-distance interactions. Yes, it is somewhat lessened if one has a solid real-life foundation on which to base one's telephonic and written correspondences, but even then, at a certain point the "real-life" fades into the background. At what point does not having seen someone more than once a year for a few hours at a pop overcome the years that one had been friends before-hand? At what point does the discourse overwhelm the memory of the physical person?
And what of these people whom one meets through all of this technology - with whom one has never had a real-life foundation? At a certain point, all of this talk becomes the real-life interaction with these people, and that's, frankly, bizarre. And in these interactions, at least for me, I feel like it's a lot more common to find myself having a difficult time making conversation, or to feel like the dumb conversation that I'd normally make is, well, dumb. I also notice that the people on the other end can seem to have the same problem. And so there are strange ebbs and flows, periods of intense presence and periods of total absence, that form.* I'm not sure how to bridge those gaps, those absences. I'm not sure whether one is meant to do so.
Is this a problem of articulation? I'm not sure. But it reminds me of one of my favorite ever lines from The Real World.** Once upon a time, Crazy had broken up with a guy (after Crazy saw him OUT ON A DATE WITH SOMEBODY ELSE ON THE VERY SAME DAY THAT HE HAD SUGGESTED SHE LEAVE A TOOTHBRUSH AT HIS HOUSE BECAUSE SHE WAS SLEEPING OVER SO OFTEN!) and so she and Medusa and their friend Ambiva hunkered down to a Real World Seattle Marathon and eating of Easter Candy. Or wait. Maybe this particular RW marathon happened the day after Halloween and it was with Halloween candy and has nothing to do with the aforementioned break-up? Maybe they did marathons on both occasions? It is hard to know. There was definitely candy. Of that I am certain. At any rate, it was the Real World Seattle. One of the "cast members" that season was this guy Brown-Eye/Green-Eye from Boston, and in one of his interviews, struggling to describe something, he said, "I can't articulate wit' words." Now, this is hilarious, as the definition of "articulate" distinctly depends on the use of words. But I suppose what I'm wondering now is whether that Brown-Eye/Green-Eye was stupidly on to something. Maybe the problem is that sometimes one needs to articulate without words?***
*Or perhaps what I'm really talking about is the present absence, Lacan's objet petit a? Perhaps these people are always both present and absent?
**Another favorite moment from the same season comes from an interview with (I think it was) Steven-the-Guy-Who-Slapped-Lyme-Disease-Girl. He was on the phone with a friend, talking about how he hated his roommates, and the friend suggested he "Kill them with kindness." His response? "What was that again? Let me write that down!" As if it was this brilliant and unbelievable phrase that he had never encountered. Oh, those Real Worlders. They may be pretty but they sure are dumb.
***Don't think that the irony of my writing about this all on a blog is lost on me. I find this particular irony immensely entertaining.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Ok, Enough of This Lazing about
So it's Sunday. With a few brief interruptions related to tying up of loose ends at school, I have done n-o-t-h-i-n-g for about a week. The time for this doing of n-o-t-h-i-n-g is now over. It has to be over. And so, today I shall make my list of things to do in the coming week. (Making the list promises to be exhausting, and so that's the only thing I'm forcing myself to do today.) I will also hang out over at BFF's. Other than that, the week's social agenda includes going out with Naomi on Wednesday (we bailed on each other last night, for we are lame), and I feel like I have some other kind of plans for next weekend but I don't remember what they are. So yes, there will be fun. But there will also be massive spring cleaning and beginning reading a novel I'm apparently presenting a paper on this summer. Then there will be my usual phone-talking activities, and going to the gym daily (which I've really got to start doing, as I'm really out of the groove with working out). So this is a Sunday of forward-looking. It will also be, aside from the list-making and the hanging with BFF and others, the last day of laziness for a while. I am resolved not to stay lazy until June. I firmly, firmly resolve.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Friday Night
So, I started this post abortively before because I woke up my cat with my singing along to Sinead O'Connor's song "No Man's Woman," but then I deleted what I'd written because it just wasn't what I wanted to be writing. At any rate, that Sinead - she kicks ass.
But so, I finished the Great Packing of Crazy's Office, which included throwing a TON of shit in the recycling bin, along with packing 3 boxes with paper that I couldn't face going through and filing. At the time, it seemed like it would be best to go through it at the end of the summer. It seemed that way because I hate filing. I have a feeling that these boxes will stay in boxes for a long, long time, until I ultimately toss them into the recycling bin in a similar institutionally inspired purge.
So, now that all this is done, I'm pretty much free until Monday. I don't necessarily need to accomplish anything between now and Monday at approximately 8AM, when I'll need to throw something together for a 10 AM meeting. This is good, right?
In other news, I talked to my itinerant friend Naomi tonight, and I think we're going out or hanging out or something tomorrow night! Hurrah! I've known Naomi since I was 14, and while we're not all-the-time friends, we are true-blue friends. It shall be awesome!
And then on Sunday I'm hanging with BFF and some grad school friends of hers and their kids. That shall be awesome as well.
So yes, apparently I've got some sort of a social life this weekend. One unconnected with lame dates with dudes. Who knew this could be the case?
So yes, apparently it's summer. All of a sudden, summer is happening, and apparently it happens whether I premeditate it or not. I suppose this is a good thing to know.
But so, I finished the Great Packing of Crazy's Office, which included throwing a TON of shit in the recycling bin, along with packing 3 boxes with paper that I couldn't face going through and filing. At the time, it seemed like it would be best to go through it at the end of the summer. It seemed that way because I hate filing. I have a feeling that these boxes will stay in boxes for a long, long time, until I ultimately toss them into the recycling bin in a similar institutionally inspired purge.
So, now that all this is done, I'm pretty much free until Monday. I don't necessarily need to accomplish anything between now and Monday at approximately 8AM, when I'll need to throw something together for a 10 AM meeting. This is good, right?
In other news, I talked to my itinerant friend Naomi tonight, and I think we're going out or hanging out or something tomorrow night! Hurrah! I've known Naomi since I was 14, and while we're not all-the-time friends, we are true-blue friends. It shall be awesome!
And then on Sunday I'm hanging with BFF and some grad school friends of hers and their kids. That shall be awesome as well.
So yes, apparently I've got some sort of a social life this weekend. One unconnected with lame dates with dudes. Who knew this could be the case?
So yes, apparently it's summer. All of a sudden, summer is happening, and apparently it happens whether I premeditate it or not. I suppose this is a good thing to know.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Life Is Pain
I'm in my office, packing up everything on my bookshelves as well as all surface matter (papers, lamps, etc.) because my office is being recarpeted at some point in the next few weeks. This is taking longer than I want it to take, for I have far too much crap. Far, far too much crap.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Insert Title Here
Ok, so I was going to do a "real" post, entitled "Small Goals ---> Big Goals" but then I realized that I couldn't manage to organize my thoughts into a "real" post, as the semester is over and I'm busy regrouping for the work that will happen once the Time of Regeneration is done. Here's the thing about me - I need the Time of Regeneration, as does anybody who's going to be productive. I know, you all think: That Crazy, she's a machine! She doesn't need to take a time-out! She has all her shit together! This is so not true. The fact of the matter is, what I do is run myself into the ground and then I sleep for like a week.
See, this goes back to the thing about people being amazed at my productivity. It's true. I do make myself do things that others seem not to manage. Yes, I am the person who managed to organize one allied MLA panel, one special session proposed panel, to write a review, and to finish my book manuscript in a month's time. During the semester. When I was teaching three courses, one of which was a writing course. Yep, that's me. And then I spent the next month catching up on all of the work that I didn't do during that time. And I have an atrocious amount of service that I do. Yep, that's me. But at the end of the semester, I do crash. I am not, though I would like to have people believe that I am, a machine.
You must remember, as I list off all of these things that I'm not in a relationship, I don't have kids, and that I have only the most pathetic of social lives. That said, I'm really fucking productive! Oh yes I am! But here's the thing: all of that productivity is really about allowing myself to take these long (or at least I think they're long) periods of rest in which I sleep every three hours and I don't do crap. See, here's the thing about me: yes, I'm very good at being motivated when I need to be, but I'm also very good at resting when I've accomplished the things on the to-do list. Blame it on being one of the lonely people, blame it on being a totally self-centered only child, blame it on what you will, but this is who I am. I can work myself up into a lather of productivity, but I also am a person who can laze about without guilt. That's the fun of me. (Except clearly there is some guilt, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this.)
Of what has the lazing consisted, since grades were submitted?
So why am I a good goal-setter? It's because I've got the freedom to crash at the end of it. It's because I choose to be in debt rather than to pay off my debt by teaching summer school. It's because ultimately the "person" to whom I'm ultimately responsible is a cat. (By the way, we've had a lot of qual. time over the past few days.)
(Incidentally, I feel like this is a much more aggressive post than I meant it to be. Maybe I need to go to sleep again. Too bad that with all of the napping I don't actually feel tired.)
See, this goes back to the thing about people being amazed at my productivity. It's true. I do make myself do things that others seem not to manage. Yes, I am the person who managed to organize one allied MLA panel, one special session proposed panel, to write a review, and to finish my book manuscript in a month's time. During the semester. When I was teaching three courses, one of which was a writing course. Yep, that's me. And then I spent the next month catching up on all of the work that I didn't do during that time. And I have an atrocious amount of service that I do. Yep, that's me. But at the end of the semester, I do crash. I am not, though I would like to have people believe that I am, a machine.
You must remember, as I list off all of these things that I'm not in a relationship, I don't have kids, and that I have only the most pathetic of social lives. That said, I'm really fucking productive! Oh yes I am! But here's the thing: all of that productivity is really about allowing myself to take these long (or at least I think they're long) periods of rest in which I sleep every three hours and I don't do crap. See, here's the thing about me: yes, I'm very good at being motivated when I need to be, but I'm also very good at resting when I've accomplished the things on the to-do list. Blame it on being one of the lonely people, blame it on being a totally self-centered only child, blame it on what you will, but this is who I am. I can work myself up into a lather of productivity, but I also am a person who can laze about without guilt. That's the fun of me. (Except clearly there is some guilt, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this.)
Of what has the lazing consisted, since grades were submitted?
- Playing Civilization IV.
- Sleeping (a lot)
- Re-reading The Golden Compass.
So why am I a good goal-setter? It's because I've got the freedom to crash at the end of it. It's because I choose to be in debt rather than to pay off my debt by teaching summer school. It's because ultimately the "person" to whom I'm ultimately responsible is a cat. (By the way, we've had a lot of qual. time over the past few days.)
(Incidentally, I feel like this is a much more aggressive post than I meant it to be. Maybe I need to go to sleep again. Too bad that with all of the napping I don't actually feel tired.)
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Crash (A Rambling and Unstructured Sort of "I'm Crashing" Post)
So I turned my grades in Monday. I don't entirely know what happened to my day after that.
Yesterday, well, I slept a lot. A LOT. Like enough for three full-night's sleeps during the semester.
Today, I went to a "training" for a thing that I didn't really *need* to attend, but as the one junior faculty member from my dept. who went, I think it was good I went. Even if I did arrive late and leave early. Was seen by and saw VIPs so my presence was noted. I hate that I've become this sort of person. While at the "training," I made a big fat to-do list and I made some plans for a feminist theory course I'm slated to teach in the spring. Nothing like a long and winding meeting to inspire one to think about new courses one is developing.
Then I slept some more.
Then I chatted with a friend on the phone.
Then I checked my email, and for the first time ever a journal has contacted me to ask me to be a reviewer for a manuscript that they are considering! Hurrah! But is it really hurrah? I've not yet responded - I'm a little freaked out. On the one hand, this is part of the profession, and I'm now clearly somebody who's got a little bit of respect as a member of it. On the other, this is work. And I'm not terribly (read: at all) familiar with the primary texts with which the article deals, which makes me think on the one hand that I should say no, but then I think I should say yes because from the title I suspect they thought of me because I can respond to what the essay is doing theoretically. Might I mention also that this is a very good journal and one to which I've considered submitting my own work? As you might imagine, I'm probably going to say yes, even though this means that over the next month I will have to....
1) read that article (and the primary texts) as well as to write a reader's report (which I've never done before and so feel clueless about doing even though, really, I've seen them and so I shouldn't freak out about not knowing how to write one).
2) read a novel because I claim that I will speak about it at one of my two conferences.
3) do some research.
4) write two conference papers (well, I've got more like 6 weeks for one of them, but you see).
And that's just the scholar-work of the next month. In non-scholar work, I will need to:
1) pack up my office and dismantle my computer so that my office can be recarpeted.
2) spring-clean the Home of Crazy.
3) make travel plans for summer conferences, including arrangements for Man-Kitty for one of the conferences (for the other he'll be staying with his grandparents).
4) have some semblance of a social life.
But for now, I'm crashing. I think the most I can hope for out of the rest of today/tonight is to sleep some more, to make some more lists (and check them twice), to spend some quality time with my M-K (who is truly the most darling kitty-cat in the world), and to talk some more on the phone. Oh, and I've been rereading The Golden Compass, too, so I suspect I'll do some more of that.
But so all of this is a long way of saying that I feel like I'm heading into a blogging slump. I'm not sure if this slump will really materialize, but just look at what happened last year at this time. No posts from May 17 to June 1, and then no posts from June 2 to June 11, and then another gap from the 11th to June 19. Only this year's blogging slump promises (if it happens) to be even worse, as I've already got a scheduled slump planned for when I'm in the UK the first couple of weeks of July. You'll all still be there when I return from the slump, right, if indeed the slump does happen? You realize that I'm not quitting blogging or something equally as horrifying? It's just, well, when you work at a place with a heavy teaching load, the summer ends up needing to be a time of increased productivity in a lot of areas. (I'm not even allowing myself to think about the fact that when I get back from England I'll have to deal with the book manuscript again. Let's just ignore that for now.)
But so yes, I've got a very full next few months ahead of me. So I suppose it makes sense that I've powered down to neutral for the past few days. A girl can't live her entire life in high gear. She just can't.
You know, though, apparently I live my life (my work-life, that is) in a much higher gear than many people do. I've had many people in my life (colleagues, friends) note with incredulity how much I produce, given my circumstances in this particular job. The fact of the matter is, I usually don't feel like I'm doing all that much. I really believe that a lot of this has to do with the fact that this job has taught me that some things on which I think many in "better" job situations spend huge amounts of time really don't (and shouldn't) require so much time. I'm mercenary for example about the amount of time I will allow for grading. I'm... not mercenary exactly, but very... regimented... about the time that I devote to things like conference papers. As much as I complain about teaching writing, I think it's taught me to "scaffold" the research assignments I set for myself much as I "scaffold" assignments for students in my writing classes, i.e., 3 conference papers build up to one article (or at least that's the theory - I really need to get another article-project underway, if that's really true) - everything leads to a bigger picture thing, and I'm good at setting small goals that lead to bigger picture things and achieving those smaller goals.
Now, of course, a lot of this is possible because I'm not in a relationship and I don't have kids. I get to let things slide that others can't let slide. This can't be the way of me forever. But can it be the way of me until something worth rearranging my life comes along to force me to rearrange it? Perhaps. I can't keep the personal stuff permanently on the back-burner - otherwise that worthwhile thing won't come along - but actually, things on the personal side are feeling more settled lately. This has absolutely nothing to do with dating. It has more to do with the fact that I feel like somehow I'm making more friends who are girls here, which for me is always the mark of a place being a good place for me. Without a posse, I'm not a happy Crazy, and somehow I seem to be slowly but surely developing a posse of friends here. Now, is it the posse of my grad school years, where Crazy had a core of partners in crime? Well, no. It's not like that. But I am feeling like I have peeps, even if all the peeps aren't connected in one big pack of going-out-ness.
The fact of the matter is, I think that kind of posse is unreplicatable given the demands on me professionally now. For you grad student readers, I'm going to say something horribly condescending: have fun now because you will never have this kind of time again! I know, I know, you have no time. I thought I had no time. But let me tell you, when I had no time in grad school, I went out like five nights a week, and I ran around like a Crazy on fire. This is impossible now. It's also not what I want now, but if it were what I wanted now, I'd have been fired or I'd have had to quit my job. Also, I had room to Think Deep Thoughts in grad school in a way I just don't now. Everything has to "count" for something now, and everything has to fit into an elaborate Grand Plan. There's no room for thinking about stuff that won't get me someplace. I look forward to a time beyond tenure as perhaps offering me that kind of space again, but I'm not entirely hopeful about that. It's not that I don't think about cool stuff now, but it's all connected to very concrete and specific stuff that is required of me (teaching, research in my field, etc.) and it isn't as wide-ranging. That's not necessarily bad, this focus to my Thinking - in many ways it's probably really good - but it is less free. Sometimes, like now when I'm crashing, I miss that.
Actually, I think what got me thinking about that today was brainstorming about the feminist theory class. I realized that I haven't read any theory that's unconnected to my research in like a zillion years. And I probably never will again. I'm a worker-bee now. Again, that's not bad - just how it is. I'm ok with it, but I do miss the freedom of just deciding to read Lacan's Four Fundamental Concepts and to use it for a paper because I thought it would be interesting. Those days are long gone.
Hmmmm.... what else in this unwieldy and unstructured post? Ooh! I got some good news today: MORE REASSIGNED TIME NEXT SEMESTER! I feel as if this blog has in some ways been my talisman - since I started it, I've not taught four courses in a semester. Thank god, as if I were teaching four courses and doing all this research and service I might have died at some point in the past six months. There's actually a lot of talk about going to a 3/3 load going on at my university (with various names for it that make it seem like it will not be "reducing" the importance of teaching but rather about "recognizing" all of the kinds of work that faculty do that contribute to good teaching). At any rate, this makes my prospects here, should I remain, infinitely more humane. And it makes me actually pretty glad that I didn't get the job that I campus visited for this year. Because had I got that job and then found out that my current job went to a 3/3 (or some configuration of that), I think I would have regretted the move. If that's all it would have taken for me to regret the move, clearly that place wasn't for me. So it will be interesting to see what the job list holds in the fall, because I'm fairly committed to going back out again should there be something that really catches my interest, but I suspect that what would really catch my interest now will be quite different than what caught my interest last year. I'm also much clearer about the fact that I will likely end up here even if I do try again, and I think I'm more ok with that now than I was at this time last year. At any rate, it will be interesting to see what I do. It will be interesting to see what my criteria for trying again are.
Ok, this is the never-ending post. But since it is, is there anything else? I feel like I may as well just throw every single thing in at the rate I'm going. Is there anything I'm missing? Oh! I know! Remember my infatuation? I bet you thought you'd never hear about him again, didn't you? But no, Crazy's infatuations never totally disappear - oh no, not even if they think they want to! I got a series of postcards from him this weekend! A. How fun is it to get mail that's not bills and B. How fun is it that my infatuation has not forgotten me! Of course, it would be impossible to replicate the craziness of that period over spring break when I became infatuated, and I do think that we are now going to be "message-in-a-bottle" type people in each other's lives - sending the odd missive via actual post - but yay! How fun and old-fashioned is that! I need all of the correspondence I can get, as does everyone, as far as I'm concerned.
In news of infatuations past, FL broke up with his girlfriend and is ever more motivated to plan a visit this summer. He wants me to come to North Carolina, but I've explained to him time and again that NC is my Bermuda Triangle and I really can't go there - you know the song, "All My Exes Live in Texas"? Yeah, well all of mine live in North Carolina. I think it's best if I just avoid the place, even if I submit to seeing one of those Exes. Also, on my trip to the UK I will have, as I think I mentioned before (can't be bothered to find the post), a full 10 days of touring around not with an Ex but with my dear and awesome friend G., with whom I did engage in a fleeting 3-month-long transatlantic infatuation once upon a time in the late-90s. Now HE was a great infatuation. Very attentive, and sent the absolute best REAL letters ever (which I've actually saved, and I'm not generally a very sentimental saver of mementos sort of person). He's much less attentive now that there is no more infatuation, but I suppose it's impossible to keep up that level of attention when nearly ten years have gone by. Also difficult to keep up that level of attention when one's object of infatuation insists on replacing you with new infatuations as well as real-life boyfriends of various stripes.
Coffee Guy? You wonder whether he's still in the picture? Meh. Kind of. Not in a dating way (to my mind). He keeps saying I should call him when I have time. The issue is, I will never have time if you leave it up to me. I need more enthusiasm from the other person. I'm sure he thinks he's being "nice," but I think he's just being lukewarm. Which, of course, is a death knell. That's just the way of me. But so anyway, I'm going to attempt to friend him, for he is fun, but I'm not interested in anything beyond that with him.
So yeah, that's all the dude news, most of which is imaginary (natch), and that which is not imaginary, well, what's the fun in writing at length about that?
I believe, for the moment, that this is everything. Congratulations if you actually made it to the end of this post - I suspect I'd have stopped reading at about the point where I say a girl can't live her entire life in high gear, which is really where this post should have ended :)
Yesterday, well, I slept a lot. A LOT. Like enough for three full-night's sleeps during the semester.
Today, I went to a "training" for a thing that I didn't really *need* to attend, but as the one junior faculty member from my dept. who went, I think it was good I went. Even if I did arrive late and leave early. Was seen by and saw VIPs so my presence was noted. I hate that I've become this sort of person. While at the "training," I made a big fat to-do list and I made some plans for a feminist theory course I'm slated to teach in the spring. Nothing like a long and winding meeting to inspire one to think about new courses one is developing.
Then I slept some more.
Then I chatted with a friend on the phone.
Then I checked my email, and for the first time ever a journal has contacted me to ask me to be a reviewer for a manuscript that they are considering! Hurrah! But is it really hurrah? I've not yet responded - I'm a little freaked out. On the one hand, this is part of the profession, and I'm now clearly somebody who's got a little bit of respect as a member of it. On the other, this is work. And I'm not terribly (read: at all) familiar with the primary texts with which the article deals, which makes me think on the one hand that I should say no, but then I think I should say yes because from the title I suspect they thought of me because I can respond to what the essay is doing theoretically. Might I mention also that this is a very good journal and one to which I've considered submitting my own work? As you might imagine, I'm probably going to say yes, even though this means that over the next month I will have to....
1) read that article (and the primary texts) as well as to write a reader's report (which I've never done before and so feel clueless about doing even though, really, I've seen them and so I shouldn't freak out about not knowing how to write one).
2) read a novel because I claim that I will speak about it at one of my two conferences.
3) do some research.
4) write two conference papers (well, I've got more like 6 weeks for one of them, but you see).
And that's just the scholar-work of the next month. In non-scholar work, I will need to:
1) pack up my office and dismantle my computer so that my office can be recarpeted.
2) spring-clean the Home of Crazy.
3) make travel plans for summer conferences, including arrangements for Man-Kitty for one of the conferences (for the other he'll be staying with his grandparents).
4) have some semblance of a social life.
But for now, I'm crashing. I think the most I can hope for out of the rest of today/tonight is to sleep some more, to make some more lists (and check them twice), to spend some quality time with my M-K (who is truly the most darling kitty-cat in the world), and to talk some more on the phone. Oh, and I've been rereading The Golden Compass, too, so I suspect I'll do some more of that.
But so all of this is a long way of saying that I feel like I'm heading into a blogging slump. I'm not sure if this slump will really materialize, but just look at what happened last year at this time. No posts from May 17 to June 1, and then no posts from June 2 to June 11, and then another gap from the 11th to June 19. Only this year's blogging slump promises (if it happens) to be even worse, as I've already got a scheduled slump planned for when I'm in the UK the first couple of weeks of July. You'll all still be there when I return from the slump, right, if indeed the slump does happen? You realize that I'm not quitting blogging or something equally as horrifying? It's just, well, when you work at a place with a heavy teaching load, the summer ends up needing to be a time of increased productivity in a lot of areas. (I'm not even allowing myself to think about the fact that when I get back from England I'll have to deal with the book manuscript again. Let's just ignore that for now.)
But so yes, I've got a very full next few months ahead of me. So I suppose it makes sense that I've powered down to neutral for the past few days. A girl can't live her entire life in high gear. She just can't.
You know, though, apparently I live my life (my work-life, that is) in a much higher gear than many people do. I've had many people in my life (colleagues, friends) note with incredulity how much I produce, given my circumstances in this particular job. The fact of the matter is, I usually don't feel like I'm doing all that much. I really believe that a lot of this has to do with the fact that this job has taught me that some things on which I think many in "better" job situations spend huge amounts of time really don't (and shouldn't) require so much time. I'm mercenary for example about the amount of time I will allow for grading. I'm... not mercenary exactly, but very... regimented... about the time that I devote to things like conference papers. As much as I complain about teaching writing, I think it's taught me to "scaffold" the research assignments I set for myself much as I "scaffold" assignments for students in my writing classes, i.e., 3 conference papers build up to one article (or at least that's the theory - I really need to get another article-project underway, if that's really true) - everything leads to a bigger picture thing, and I'm good at setting small goals that lead to bigger picture things and achieving those smaller goals.
Now, of course, a lot of this is possible because I'm not in a relationship and I don't have kids. I get to let things slide that others can't let slide. This can't be the way of me forever. But can it be the way of me until something worth rearranging my life comes along to force me to rearrange it? Perhaps. I can't keep the personal stuff permanently on the back-burner - otherwise that worthwhile thing won't come along - but actually, things on the personal side are feeling more settled lately. This has absolutely nothing to do with dating. It has more to do with the fact that I feel like somehow I'm making more friends who are girls here, which for me is always the mark of a place being a good place for me. Without a posse, I'm not a happy Crazy, and somehow I seem to be slowly but surely developing a posse of friends here. Now, is it the posse of my grad school years, where Crazy had a core of partners in crime? Well, no. It's not like that. But I am feeling like I have peeps, even if all the peeps aren't connected in one big pack of going-out-ness.
The fact of the matter is, I think that kind of posse is unreplicatable given the demands on me professionally now. For you grad student readers, I'm going to say something horribly condescending: have fun now because you will never have this kind of time again! I know, I know, you have no time. I thought I had no time. But let me tell you, when I had no time in grad school, I went out like five nights a week, and I ran around like a Crazy on fire. This is impossible now. It's also not what I want now, but if it were what I wanted now, I'd have been fired or I'd have had to quit my job. Also, I had room to Think Deep Thoughts in grad school in a way I just don't now. Everything has to "count" for something now, and everything has to fit into an elaborate Grand Plan. There's no room for thinking about stuff that won't get me someplace. I look forward to a time beyond tenure as perhaps offering me that kind of space again, but I'm not entirely hopeful about that. It's not that I don't think about cool stuff now, but it's all connected to very concrete and specific stuff that is required of me (teaching, research in my field, etc.) and it isn't as wide-ranging. That's not necessarily bad, this focus to my Thinking - in many ways it's probably really good - but it is less free. Sometimes, like now when I'm crashing, I miss that.
Actually, I think what got me thinking about that today was brainstorming about the feminist theory class. I realized that I haven't read any theory that's unconnected to my research in like a zillion years. And I probably never will again. I'm a worker-bee now. Again, that's not bad - just how it is. I'm ok with it, but I do miss the freedom of just deciding to read Lacan's Four Fundamental Concepts and to use it for a paper because I thought it would be interesting. Those days are long gone.
Hmmmm.... what else in this unwieldy and unstructured post? Ooh! I got some good news today: MORE REASSIGNED TIME NEXT SEMESTER! I feel as if this blog has in some ways been my talisman - since I started it, I've not taught four courses in a semester. Thank god, as if I were teaching four courses and doing all this research and service I might have died at some point in the past six months. There's actually a lot of talk about going to a 3/3 load going on at my university (with various names for it that make it seem like it will not be "reducing" the importance of teaching but rather about "recognizing" all of the kinds of work that faculty do that contribute to good teaching). At any rate, this makes my prospects here, should I remain, infinitely more humane. And it makes me actually pretty glad that I didn't get the job that I campus visited for this year. Because had I got that job and then found out that my current job went to a 3/3 (or some configuration of that), I think I would have regretted the move. If that's all it would have taken for me to regret the move, clearly that place wasn't for me. So it will be interesting to see what the job list holds in the fall, because I'm fairly committed to going back out again should there be something that really catches my interest, but I suspect that what would really catch my interest now will be quite different than what caught my interest last year. I'm also much clearer about the fact that I will likely end up here even if I do try again, and I think I'm more ok with that now than I was at this time last year. At any rate, it will be interesting to see what I do. It will be interesting to see what my criteria for trying again are.
Ok, this is the never-ending post. But since it is, is there anything else? I feel like I may as well just throw every single thing in at the rate I'm going. Is there anything I'm missing? Oh! I know! Remember my infatuation? I bet you thought you'd never hear about him again, didn't you? But no, Crazy's infatuations never totally disappear - oh no, not even if they think they want to! I got a series of postcards from him this weekend! A. How fun is it to get mail that's not bills and B. How fun is it that my infatuation has not forgotten me! Of course, it would be impossible to replicate the craziness of that period over spring break when I became infatuated, and I do think that we are now going to be "message-in-a-bottle" type people in each other's lives - sending the odd missive via actual post - but yay! How fun and old-fashioned is that! I need all of the correspondence I can get, as does everyone, as far as I'm concerned.
In news of infatuations past, FL broke up with his girlfriend and is ever more motivated to plan a visit this summer. He wants me to come to North Carolina, but I've explained to him time and again that NC is my Bermuda Triangle and I really can't go there - you know the song, "All My Exes Live in Texas"? Yeah, well all of mine live in North Carolina. I think it's best if I just avoid the place, even if I submit to seeing one of those Exes. Also, on my trip to the UK I will have, as I think I mentioned before (can't be bothered to find the post), a full 10 days of touring around not with an Ex but with my dear and awesome friend G., with whom I did engage in a fleeting 3-month-long transatlantic infatuation once upon a time in the late-90s. Now HE was a great infatuation. Very attentive, and sent the absolute best REAL letters ever (which I've actually saved, and I'm not generally a very sentimental saver of mementos sort of person). He's much less attentive now that there is no more infatuation, but I suppose it's impossible to keep up that level of attention when nearly ten years have gone by. Also difficult to keep up that level of attention when one's object of infatuation insists on replacing you with new infatuations as well as real-life boyfriends of various stripes.
Coffee Guy? You wonder whether he's still in the picture? Meh. Kind of. Not in a dating way (to my mind). He keeps saying I should call him when I have time. The issue is, I will never have time if you leave it up to me. I need more enthusiasm from the other person. I'm sure he thinks he's being "nice," but I think he's just being lukewarm. Which, of course, is a death knell. That's just the way of me. But so anyway, I'm going to attempt to friend him, for he is fun, but I'm not interested in anything beyond that with him.
So yeah, that's all the dude news, most of which is imaginary (natch), and that which is not imaginary, well, what's the fun in writing at length about that?
I believe, for the moment, that this is everything. Congratulations if you actually made it to the end of this post - I suspect I'd have stopped reading at about the point where I say a girl can't live her entire life in high gear, which is really where this post should have ended :)
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Oof - Head Hurts a Wee Bit
But hey - I'm still done with grading! And as I think about it, I could go back to bed right now and it wouldn't really make a difference to anything - absolutely NOTHING on my to-do list is pressing. Maybe I'll eat some ice cream and then decide what to do about returning to bed. Or maybe I'll return to bed WITH the ice cream... and with my kitty-cat. Yes, and maybe some Potter. Excellent.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Another Semester, D-O-N-E!
The exams, they are graded. The papers, they are graded. The final grades, they are tabulated and posted. It is o-v-e-r!!!!! Woohoo!!!! Am F-R-E-E!
(Except I'm actually not, as I've got loose ends crap to tie up in the next week or so, but I'm at least done with the teaching part of things. I had thought I'd go to my office today to get all of this junk out of my house, but it occurs to me now that I am in no way going there today but rather will go tomorrow in the morning so that I will actually be productive. Instead, with all this free time on my hands - for I'm not acknowledging the other things I need to do for at least this afternoon and evening - I think I may go to the gym, or for a walk, or something, maybe to the grocery store, we shall see.)
Now let's see if I get any grade challenges. I feel like I won't, but you never can tell....
(Except I'm actually not, as I've got loose ends crap to tie up in the next week or so, but I'm at least done with the teaching part of things. I had thought I'd go to my office today to get all of this junk out of my house, but it occurs to me now that I am in no way going there today but rather will go tomorrow in the morning so that I will actually be productive. Instead, with all this free time on my hands - for I'm not acknowledging the other things I need to do for at least this afternoon and evening - I think I may go to the gym, or for a walk, or something, maybe to the grocery store, we shall see.)
Now let's see if I get any grade challenges. I feel like I won't, but you never can tell....
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Parents, a Singleton, and Now Some Peace and Quiet
A hush has fallen over the Home of Crazy (HoC). The Parents of Crazy (PoC) have made their exit.
Overall it was a good visit. It was not a visit without conflict, but one thing about me and my parents is that, well, we've all got pretty strong personalities, and well, conflict can arise from that. It is not easy having them descend on the HoC (which really fits exactly one Crazy and one Man-Kitty quite nicely, but which does not necessarily accommodate the Strong Personalities of the PoC plus the Strong Personalities of Crazy and the Man-Kitty with ease). This is not because we're not close or because there's some Major Problem with us. It is not because there is something Wrong with my relationship with them.
So why is it? Well, one issue that is primary among the reasons for the tensions on this particular visit is that my finals week just ended. I am not done with grading for the semester, and I have not had time to do spring cleaning and to get my life in order in such a fashion that I felt like I wanted visitors - any visitors. That said, I've not seen my parents since Christmas, and I wanted to see them. So I didn't make a fuss when my mom said she wanted to come this weekend (esp. after I told her she couldn't come when I was finishing up the book manuscript), and I just rolled with it. This may have been a mistake, but there you have it. The timing wasn't perfect, but what timing is?
Another issue (and this is often an issue when I see my parents outside their natural habitat) is that they don't let me control what we do on visits. Both are kind of set in their ways, and so I pretty much have to go along with whatever it is they want to do. This is less of an issue when it's just my mom visiting, but when it's both of them, I'm kind of stuck. In this way, it is not like having a friend come to visit, as usually when friends come to visit, they want you to show them a good time and they leave it up to you - or at least up to you in consultation with them. Not so with my parents. When I've tried to treat them like regular visitors, it generally does not work out very well. And so, it's their way or the highway, and I do my best to accommodate that. Why? Because I love my parents, and it's not their fault that they're kind of stick-in-the-mud-y, and it's not my fault that I've educated myself into a range of interests and activities that is not necessarily their cup of tea. Also it's not my fault that I'm single, and so my regular life is wildly different from their regular lives.
So on Friday night I had my BFF over for pizza with my parents, an activity that recalls Friday nights from when I was 15. On Saturday, I accompanied my parents to a flea market and to the outlet mall (which meant approximately 3-4 hours total in the car - with me in the backseat). By the time we reached yesterday afternoon, I had regressed to petulant 15-year-old me, not in the least because I think that I spent the same weekend with these yahoos when I was 15.
So yes, as Dr. Pion noted in a comment yesterday, I'm not necessarily an adult in my relationship with the PoC. This is not because I'm not an adult, or because I've never been an adult in my relationship with them, but I do think it has something to do with a) the particular personalities involved (all bossy, all a little bit crazy - because, yes, I do get it from somewhere) and b) the fact that I'm not in a relationship.
Now, you may question item b above. Why would being in a relationship of my own make so much of a difference? If I'm an adult, why am I not an adult to them or with them just because I'm partnerless? Let's think about this for the moment, shall we?
Once upon a time when I was in a long-term, live-in relationship, things with the PoC were different. Sure, the strong personalities were there, but they respected me as an adult who was in an adult relationship. And, perhaps more importantly, they respected that the person with whom I was in that relationship wouldn't necessarily put up with their crap. When in a relationship, it was possible to relate to my parents as one couple with another, and sure, I was their kid, but I also had this primary relationship that was not my relationship with them. When that relationship ended, so too did this particular version of my relationship with my parents. I became, once again, their "little child." And that's how they see me, whether I've got a career, whether I live on my own, whether I've got a life outside of my relationship with them.
I also had an ally in dealing with them. I had somebody to support me through a visit with them, and somebody there to deflect a bit of the attention off of me. These were good things. I also had somebody to help clean the house before a visit, to help think of things to do (and to suggest those things, and of course my parents wouldn't poo-poo those suggestions because I wasn't the one making them).
When single - and maybe when a single woman? not sure if it's the same with men - they don't see me as an autonomous person. They see me as an extension of them, and they don't quite get the fact that I might want them to treat me as an autonomous person - that I might want them to treat me like I am hosting them as guests in my home. Here's the thing that set off the spat of yesterday evening. I had been drinking a diet coke out of a can. I went into the kitchen with that diet coke when I went to feed the M-K his dinner. My mom followed me into the kitchen, poured out the rest of her diet coke into a glass, and then proceeded to dump my diet coke which I was still drinking into the sink, because she hates it when there are half-full cans of pop lying around. I then looked around for my drink, and it was gone. I know that this is dumb, but it is my house! I can have half-full cans lying around if I want! And it wasn't just lying around - I was drinking it! And so I freaked out. Was this stupid? Obviously. It's not like this was the last can of pop on earth. But after a day in the backseat of the god-damned car, after listening to my mom tell me I looked "chubby" and note the barely visible PMS pimple on my face as if it meant I had pizza-face acne and any number of other things, it was the last straw.
So I freaked out and she freaked out, and then the PoC went off to the casino, and then upon their return my mom and I had a good talk about everything, and so all was well. (Because while we both are of the type that flies off the handle, we also both get over it pretty quickly.) And this morning before they left it was great, and I'm ultimately really glad they came.
Did I handle everything with aplomb? Of course not. Did I act like an immature little punk? Sure. Was I entirely to blame for that? No, I was not. Do they think of me as an adult and treat me with that respect? Not really. But is that really that big of a deal? Nah. It's just how it is, at least for the time being. And if I'm fair, I'd say that I set it up to be this way, too, as sometimes it's nice being their "little child" and having them treat me that way.
But am I happy to have the HoC back? Yes. Am I glad that they won't be coming back for a while? Yes. Do I miss them even having said all that? I do.
So that is the story of my visit with the PoC. And it was good, if not perfect; rejuvenating, if also exhausting. I'll tell you what, though: I'm much more excited for my visit to them in June/July, as the PoC are much easier to handle in their natural habitat :)
Overall it was a good visit. It was not a visit without conflict, but one thing about me and my parents is that, well, we've all got pretty strong personalities, and well, conflict can arise from that. It is not easy having them descend on the HoC (which really fits exactly one Crazy and one Man-Kitty quite nicely, but which does not necessarily accommodate the Strong Personalities of the PoC plus the Strong Personalities of Crazy and the Man-Kitty with ease). This is not because we're not close or because there's some Major Problem with us. It is not because there is something Wrong with my relationship with them.
So why is it? Well, one issue that is primary among the reasons for the tensions on this particular visit is that my finals week just ended. I am not done with grading for the semester, and I have not had time to do spring cleaning and to get my life in order in such a fashion that I felt like I wanted visitors - any visitors. That said, I've not seen my parents since Christmas, and I wanted to see them. So I didn't make a fuss when my mom said she wanted to come this weekend (esp. after I told her she couldn't come when I was finishing up the book manuscript), and I just rolled with it. This may have been a mistake, but there you have it. The timing wasn't perfect, but what timing is?
Another issue (and this is often an issue when I see my parents outside their natural habitat) is that they don't let me control what we do on visits. Both are kind of set in their ways, and so I pretty much have to go along with whatever it is they want to do. This is less of an issue when it's just my mom visiting, but when it's both of them, I'm kind of stuck. In this way, it is not like having a friend come to visit, as usually when friends come to visit, they want you to show them a good time and they leave it up to you - or at least up to you in consultation with them. Not so with my parents. When I've tried to treat them like regular visitors, it generally does not work out very well. And so, it's their way or the highway, and I do my best to accommodate that. Why? Because I love my parents, and it's not their fault that they're kind of stick-in-the-mud-y, and it's not my fault that I've educated myself into a range of interests and activities that is not necessarily their cup of tea. Also it's not my fault that I'm single, and so my regular life is wildly different from their regular lives.
So on Friday night I had my BFF over for pizza with my parents, an activity that recalls Friday nights from when I was 15. On Saturday, I accompanied my parents to a flea market and to the outlet mall (which meant approximately 3-4 hours total in the car - with me in the backseat). By the time we reached yesterday afternoon, I had regressed to petulant 15-year-old me, not in the least because I think that I spent the same weekend with these yahoos when I was 15.
So yes, as Dr. Pion noted in a comment yesterday, I'm not necessarily an adult in my relationship with the PoC. This is not because I'm not an adult, or because I've never been an adult in my relationship with them, but I do think it has something to do with a) the particular personalities involved (all bossy, all a little bit crazy - because, yes, I do get it from somewhere) and b) the fact that I'm not in a relationship.
Now, you may question item b above. Why would being in a relationship of my own make so much of a difference? If I'm an adult, why am I not an adult to them or with them just because I'm partnerless? Let's think about this for the moment, shall we?
Once upon a time when I was in a long-term, live-in relationship, things with the PoC were different. Sure, the strong personalities were there, but they respected me as an adult who was in an adult relationship. And, perhaps more importantly, they respected that the person with whom I was in that relationship wouldn't necessarily put up with their crap. When in a relationship, it was possible to relate to my parents as one couple with another, and sure, I was their kid, but I also had this primary relationship that was not my relationship with them. When that relationship ended, so too did this particular version of my relationship with my parents. I became, once again, their "little child." And that's how they see me, whether I've got a career, whether I live on my own, whether I've got a life outside of my relationship with them.
I also had an ally in dealing with them. I had somebody to support me through a visit with them, and somebody there to deflect a bit of the attention off of me. These were good things. I also had somebody to help clean the house before a visit, to help think of things to do (and to suggest those things, and of course my parents wouldn't poo-poo those suggestions because I wasn't the one making them).
When single - and maybe when a single woman? not sure if it's the same with men - they don't see me as an autonomous person. They see me as an extension of them, and they don't quite get the fact that I might want them to treat me as an autonomous person - that I might want them to treat me like I am hosting them as guests in my home. Here's the thing that set off the spat of yesterday evening. I had been drinking a diet coke out of a can. I went into the kitchen with that diet coke when I went to feed the M-K his dinner. My mom followed me into the kitchen, poured out the rest of her diet coke into a glass, and then proceeded to dump my diet coke which I was still drinking into the sink, because she hates it when there are half-full cans of pop lying around. I then looked around for my drink, and it was gone. I know that this is dumb, but it is my house! I can have half-full cans lying around if I want! And it wasn't just lying around - I was drinking it! And so I freaked out. Was this stupid? Obviously. It's not like this was the last can of pop on earth. But after a day in the backseat of the god-damned car, after listening to my mom tell me I looked "chubby" and note the barely visible PMS pimple on my face as if it meant I had pizza-face acne and any number of other things, it was the last straw.
So I freaked out and she freaked out, and then the PoC went off to the casino, and then upon their return my mom and I had a good talk about everything, and so all was well. (Because while we both are of the type that flies off the handle, we also both get over it pretty quickly.) And this morning before they left it was great, and I'm ultimately really glad they came.
Did I handle everything with aplomb? Of course not. Did I act like an immature little punk? Sure. Was I entirely to blame for that? No, I was not. Do they think of me as an adult and treat me with that respect? Not really. But is that really that big of a deal? Nah. It's just how it is, at least for the time being. And if I'm fair, I'd say that I set it up to be this way, too, as sometimes it's nice being their "little child" and having them treat me that way.
But am I happy to have the HoC back? Yes. Am I glad that they won't be coming back for a while? Yes. Do I miss them even having said all that? I do.
So that is the story of my visit with the PoC. And it was good, if not perfect; rejuvenating, if also exhausting. I'll tell you what, though: I'm much more excited for my visit to them in June/July, as the PoC are much easier to handle in their natural habitat :)
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Visiting Parents
I think I've determined the reason that visits from parents when one is an adult are so frustrating. It's because when they show up I feel like I'm grounded, in the way of being 15 and grounded for the weekend. Not allowed to go out with friends, not allowed to talk on the phone, not allowed to do what one wants to do but instead subject to the whims of one's parents.
Needless to say, this makes me feel quite petulant and like I want to sneak out after they go to sleep to ride around in cars, drink Strawberry Hill Boone's Farm wine, smoke contraband cigarettes, and have premarital sex with boys of whom they would not approve.
Needless to say, this makes me feel quite petulant and like I want to sneak out after they go to sleep to ride around in cars, drink Strawberry Hill Boone's Farm wine, smoke contraband cigarettes, and have premarital sex with boys of whom they would not approve.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Poetry Friday - Margaret Atwood
So, there hasn't been any poetry in me for the past semester, and so Poetry Friday fell by the wayside. But this morning I thought I might begin with Poetry Friday afresh with one of my favorite poems by Margaret Atwood, "Variations on the Word Love."
***
***
This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.
Then there's the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.
this word is not enough but it will
have to do. It's a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Grading, Misogyny, Naive and Uncritical Hope, and Coyote Ugly
As you might gather from the "everything but the kitchen sink" sort of title I've chosen, I am inspired to write because I am *fried* on grading, and yet, there are miles to go before the grading will be done. I still have the hope (though this is not the naive and uncritical hope of the title, even though it may be naive and uncritical) that I will finish the grading tonight. This is a kind of hope against hope, as it is nearly 9 PM, and I just poured myself a glass of wine, in order to ease the pain of the grading that I have already completed. But so, here's what's going on in my world.
Misogyny
And I'm not talking about some kind of subtle and insidious misogyny, but about the full-blown thing. I actually had a student submit a paper in which he asserted that motherhood is the source of women's meaning, nay, the reason for women to exist. This, after 16 weeks with me as his professor, so I was offended on three counts. First, I am offended because I am a woman. I exist, even if I haven't had a motherfucking baby. There are reasons for my existence that are not connected to my womb. One of those reasons that I exist is to be a motherfucking college professor and to teach students about literature. Second, I am offended because this... statement... was ostensibly supposed to be related to a paper about literature. Even if what the student was saying is that the TEXT treats women this way, the student should have had the sense god gave him to actually, I don't know, discuss the merits of this or to talk about why the fuck it matters to a reader. Third, I am offended because a student beyond his/her first semester in college should pay at least a modicum of attention to audience. I was the audience for this paper. I am a) a woman, b) a college professor, and c) an English professor. Think about your fucking audience when you write, students! Think about how they will, I don't know, respond to the idiotic and woman-hating claims that you make!
On the heels of grading this paper, I was leaving campus behind what I assume was a student. On the back of this student's automobile was a bumper sticker. It had a picture of Hilary Clinton. (From this, you might see where this is heading, but wait for it - ) The slogan on the bumper sticker? "Women belong in the house - not in the White House." Don't think I didn't consider ramming into the student's vehicle (though I then realized that this behavior would be self-destructive, perhaps even forcing me to confinement in the house, which would only serve this person's evil aims of oppression), taking down the student's license plate, hunting him or her down, and well, I didn't really get further than the hunting down, or fashioning some sort of explosive from the garbage in my car and firebombing the car before it left my sight. I don't give a shit if you don't like Hilary Clinton. Do not fucking proclaim that women belong in the motherfucking house. Offensive!
Naive and Uncritical Hope (which actually, now that I think about it, might be related to misogyny)
So, in one of my classes I teach the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. For my students, this is the height of experimental film. Non-linear narrative? An allusion to a literary text? You must be joking! But so it's challenging for them, but in good ways, I think, and yet accessible, for it has actors they've seen in other movies. Anyway, the point here is this: no matter how critically they evaluate the movie - and really, they do - when I ask the question - really the only question to ask about the end of that movie - does the movie end happily, they answer with an unequivocal yes. Yes, Dr. Crazy, it is wonderful that these two people who hurt each other terribly and had a totally fucked up relationship get back together! Yes, Dr. Crazy, this is hope in the face of the evidence offered by each and every other relationship in the universe of the movie that it's impossible to have a good relationship! Who cares, Dr. Crazy, that they are doomed to repeat the dysfunction forever because they don't deal with the reality of their differences but rather choose to pretend to erase them! It is a happy ending! It is perfect to go back with somebody who ultimately makes you miserable! Being together is always better than being alone, Dr. Crazy!
Coyote Ugly (which some might argue has something to do with misogyny as well, except I don't think it's so simple, actually)
Ok, so I'll admit, I am fascinated with the various incarnations of the Coyote Ugly show on CMT. First there was the show that documented the opening of the Austin bar. Then there was the Ultimate Coyote Ugly show where they got girls from all over the country and that girl with the two-toned hair won (yay!). And now, in the latest incarnation, they've teamed up some young hopefuls with more seasoned Coyotes in order to see which pair will win the day. So, if you don't know about Coyote Ugly, the deal is that Liliana Lovell opened the first one in NYC, and her ethos, it seems, is one that's all about business. She had a career on Wall Street, turned to bartending, and then decided that she would take all that she knew and attempt to create the uber-bar. Now the "business model" is that "beautiful girls+booze=money," so this might not seem like a feminist enterprise. Or, rather, it might seem like a feminist enterprise not unlike Heidi Fleiss's business. But here's the thing: there is something about the rhetoric of these Coyote Ugly shows that makes it seem like it might actually be feminist and empowering. And this, my friends, is why I'm fascinated. On the surface, what we have is exploitation, right? In order to be a Coyote, you've got to be young, hot, spunky, etc. You've got to be a guy's wet dream, and Lil and her dance instructor friend whose name I forget make no bones about that. BUT, here's the thing. The rhetoric of the whole thing is one in which ultimately all of that is just show(wo)manship. What really matters is good bartending skills and money. So yes, you've got to shake your ass, but the rhetoric is such that becoming a Coyote is "really" supposed to be about becoming the best of the best - it's about skill - with singing, dancing, entertaining, bartending, "flaring," etc. And however suspicious good feminists might be about that rhetoric, the fact of the matter is that this is a business owned by a woman that is about making other women - women who are often pretty dumb, if the show is any indication - some money. And so I'm fascinated, partly because I think it's great that these girls aren't working in some corner bar not making money, or stripping, or I don't know, working some dumb minimum wage job. And I think that it's great that they like this identity that they're acquiring - that they feel special and talented and like they are tops at what they do. But at the end of the day, what they're trading on is pretty fucked up. And sure, it's characterized as a fuck you to The Man, but is it really a fuck you with conviction? I think no. But then there's the fact that at least with Coyote Ugly all of this misogynistic bullshit is at least out front and center, so there is something kind of brilliant about that. Complicit, but brilliant still. But so yes, this is my deep and insightful analysis of Coyote Ugly, with which I am fascinated.
By the way, am now watching the Gray's Anatomy Two Hour Event, and it is a) awesome, b) also deeply misogynist, and c) following it there will be a story on my local news about slowing down one's biological clock. I want to kill myself.
Misogyny
And I'm not talking about some kind of subtle and insidious misogyny, but about the full-blown thing. I actually had a student submit a paper in which he asserted that motherhood is the source of women's meaning, nay, the reason for women to exist. This, after 16 weeks with me as his professor, so I was offended on three counts. First, I am offended because I am a woman. I exist, even if I haven't had a motherfucking baby. There are reasons for my existence that are not connected to my womb. One of those reasons that I exist is to be a motherfucking college professor and to teach students about literature. Second, I am offended because this... statement... was ostensibly supposed to be related to a paper about literature. Even if what the student was saying is that the TEXT treats women this way, the student should have had the sense god gave him to actually, I don't know, discuss the merits of this or to talk about why the fuck it matters to a reader. Third, I am offended because a student beyond his/her first semester in college should pay at least a modicum of attention to audience. I was the audience for this paper. I am a) a woman, b) a college professor, and c) an English professor. Think about your fucking audience when you write, students! Think about how they will, I don't know, respond to the idiotic and woman-hating claims that you make!
On the heels of grading this paper, I was leaving campus behind what I assume was a student. On the back of this student's automobile was a bumper sticker. It had a picture of Hilary Clinton. (From this, you might see where this is heading, but wait for it - ) The slogan on the bumper sticker? "Women belong in the house - not in the White House." Don't think I didn't consider ramming into the student's vehicle (though I then realized that this behavior would be self-destructive, perhaps even forcing me to confinement in the house, which would only serve this person's evil aims of oppression), taking down the student's license plate, hunting him or her down, and well, I didn't really get further than the hunting down, or fashioning some sort of explosive from the garbage in my car and firebombing the car before it left my sight. I don't give a shit if you don't like Hilary Clinton. Do not fucking proclaim that women belong in the motherfucking house. Offensive!
Naive and Uncritical Hope (which actually, now that I think about it, might be related to misogyny)
So, in one of my classes I teach the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. For my students, this is the height of experimental film. Non-linear narrative? An allusion to a literary text? You must be joking! But so it's challenging for them, but in good ways, I think, and yet accessible, for it has actors they've seen in other movies. Anyway, the point here is this: no matter how critically they evaluate the movie - and really, they do - when I ask the question - really the only question to ask about the end of that movie - does the movie end happily, they answer with an unequivocal yes. Yes, Dr. Crazy, it is wonderful that these two people who hurt each other terribly and had a totally fucked up relationship get back together! Yes, Dr. Crazy, this is hope in the face of the evidence offered by each and every other relationship in the universe of the movie that it's impossible to have a good relationship! Who cares, Dr. Crazy, that they are doomed to repeat the dysfunction forever because they don't deal with the reality of their differences but rather choose to pretend to erase them! It is a happy ending! It is perfect to go back with somebody who ultimately makes you miserable! Being together is always better than being alone, Dr. Crazy!
Coyote Ugly (which some might argue has something to do with misogyny as well, except I don't think it's so simple, actually)
Ok, so I'll admit, I am fascinated with the various incarnations of the Coyote Ugly show on CMT. First there was the show that documented the opening of the Austin bar. Then there was the Ultimate Coyote Ugly show where they got girls from all over the country and that girl with the two-toned hair won (yay!). And now, in the latest incarnation, they've teamed up some young hopefuls with more seasoned Coyotes in order to see which pair will win the day. So, if you don't know about Coyote Ugly, the deal is that Liliana Lovell opened the first one in NYC, and her ethos, it seems, is one that's all about business. She had a career on Wall Street, turned to bartending, and then decided that she would take all that she knew and attempt to create the uber-bar. Now the "business model" is that "beautiful girls+booze=money," so this might not seem like a feminist enterprise. Or, rather, it might seem like a feminist enterprise not unlike Heidi Fleiss's business. But here's the thing: there is something about the rhetoric of these Coyote Ugly shows that makes it seem like it might actually be feminist and empowering. And this, my friends, is why I'm fascinated. On the surface, what we have is exploitation, right? In order to be a Coyote, you've got to be young, hot, spunky, etc. You've got to be a guy's wet dream, and Lil and her dance instructor friend whose name I forget make no bones about that. BUT, here's the thing. The rhetoric of the whole thing is one in which ultimately all of that is just show(wo)manship. What really matters is good bartending skills and money. So yes, you've got to shake your ass, but the rhetoric is such that becoming a Coyote is "really" supposed to be about becoming the best of the best - it's about skill - with singing, dancing, entertaining, bartending, "flaring," etc. And however suspicious good feminists might be about that rhetoric, the fact of the matter is that this is a business owned by a woman that is about making other women - women who are often pretty dumb, if the show is any indication - some money. And so I'm fascinated, partly because I think it's great that these girls aren't working in some corner bar not making money, or stripping, or I don't know, working some dumb minimum wage job. And I think that it's great that they like this identity that they're acquiring - that they feel special and talented and like they are tops at what they do. But at the end of the day, what they're trading on is pretty fucked up. And sure, it's characterized as a fuck you to The Man, but is it really a fuck you with conviction? I think no. But then there's the fact that at least with Coyote Ugly all of this misogynistic bullshit is at least out front and center, so there is something kind of brilliant about that. Complicit, but brilliant still. But so yes, this is my deep and insightful analysis of Coyote Ugly, with which I am fascinated.
By the way, am now watching the Gray's Anatomy Two Hour Event, and it is a) awesome, b) also deeply misogynist, and c) following it there will be a story on my local news about slowing down one's biological clock. I want to kill myself.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
I Can Keep My Silence No Longer
We've got to talk about it. Robin Thicke. I have been doing my best to avoid him, as every time I hear that "Lost without U" song I think that I'm in danger catching gonorrhea through my ear drums, but then, when you least expect it, there he is on American Idol, with his nasty mustache and his white sneakers and his I want it this way I want it that way filth. Does America really support this Thicke character? Do we really want our children listening to him and - god forbid - buying posters of him and having - eeeewww - sexual thoughts either in relation to him or with him as the soundtrack behind those thoughts or adolescent fumblings that are happening in this, the '07? I can't accept that this is who we, as a country, think is sexy or hot. Oh no, I cannot.
(Not) Grading
I had made this goal about how I was going to finish all of my grading before tomorrow morning, then how I would only have one exam to grade, and then I would be able to post grades by Friday morning, thus being for-real done with the semester. This was my dream.
Only apparently here's how I have chosen to go about making this dream a reality:
Only apparently here's how I have chosen to go about making this dream a reality:
- Upon waking, decide I must go to the mall in order to partake in the Macy's sale where all of the things are 20 percent off. (Biggest score of the day: a GORGEOUS Wacoal bra for which I only paid 20 dollars.)
- Decide that in this week before my lady time that I must have tacos for dinner and that I have a terrible craving for fake sweetened artificial lemon iced tea. This requires a trip to the grocery store.
- Watch last week's episode of Gray's Anatomy online, for I didn't watch it last week.
- Make fake iced tea and tacos.
- Watch 3 episodes of the Ultimate Coyote show on CMT.
- Read Allure Magazine purchased at grocery store that has Lindsay Lohan on the cover. Wow, LiLo is really, really screwed up. I'm embarassed for her that she has to be screwed up in public.
- Glanced at pile of things to be graded, and then decided to write this blog post.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Random Bullets of Apparently I'm Not Blogging
- So it's final's week. Of course I'm busy with grading and students and such.
- I had CG over for dinner Friday, but then realized that he's not my OTL (One True Love) and also, nearly simultaneously, realized that an entirely inappropriate person is more interesting to me than is CG. I am not saying that this person is an OTL - just saying that in comparison with CG I found him more interesting.
- I love the song "7" by Prince (though I think he was a symbol at that time).
- I think my friend, whom I'll call "Disney Heather," may have found her husband. She's a weirdo, but she's my oldest friend. And it would take a weirdo to be her OTL, but I think that this guy is. I so hope that he is and I so hope that she gets her shit together and ends up marrying him before I figure my shit out - mainly because I think that she really wants that more than I do.
- In other news, I think I'm going to be real friends with a former student. I took her out to lunch last week, but I feel that we will ultimately be real friends rather than professor-friends. She's so great!
- While I should begin my day tomorrow with grading, I believe that what I will begin my day with is shopping. Grading, smading, The point here is that I need new jeans and other new clothes, partly for the travels of the summer and partly because I just need new summer clothes. And so I will shop and then grade.
- You know what song is great? Nelly Furtado's Do It. It kind of reminds me of Stacy Q.
- "So don't be a fool. Don't get lied to. Love, you know, was always cruel." Or, if not that, "But me I'm not a gamble, you can count on me to split." There's a person who's not a person who is also not CG whom I'm thinking of with these lyrics, but as he's not a person I'm not really thnking of him. Yep, so that's what's going on with me.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Thinking
Strangely, a lot has been going on over the past 24 hours or so even though really nothing has been going on. Not sure how to blog about it, so won't really, but suffice it to say that all of what's been not going on has me doing some thinking and reflecting about a lot of stuff. This has led to journal-writing, not to blog-post-writing. Also has led to rereading - something I do in times of reflection (and in times of procrastination, for no, I've not begun with the Big Stack of Grading). And the kind of rereading I'm talking about is rereading for insightful quotations type reading, a habit in which I try not to indulge too regularly. Not a peep from CG, and after doing some reflecting about him, I'm thinking that ship has sailed. Oh, I think I'll ultimately hear from him, but I don't think he's for me. I think I did give it a solid try, though. So this week, grading and exams. Friday, parents come to town. Time to transition into the summer. Time to finalize plans for trips, for conferences, for what have you. Time to make a list and check it twice and get down to business.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Dr. Crazy's Current Theme Song
Ok, so I'm in love with Bloc Party. In love with them. And most of all I am in love with this song. And here's the video!
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