An Update

This is for those of you who are concerned about my well-being, given the icky, stubborn New England weather.

I am tired of this weather. Tired of snow, tired of cold. All I want is a sunny 55 degrees. I'm feeling so worn down by it all. However, I have heat and power and hot water. And at this point, I feel so, so grateful for that. Hot water seems like this wonderful luxury that, apparently, most of the rest of the city does not have. I'm also thankful to have sustained no damage, at least so far. No trees have come down in my yard; more importantly, no trees have crashed into my house. So all is well, as far as I'm concerned.

Too Much Stuff

I've been thinking that maybe I'd try to go for a month, then six months, without purchasing anything that isn't a necessity. You see, I know that I really have too much "stuff." And some of it, like my iPod brings me regular pleasure and, thus, seems justifiable. But really, I just own a lot of stuff that I don't really need. I mean, do you have any idea how many sets if dishes I own? And really, how many sets of dishes does a single woman need? And while I'd have to say that dishes do, in fact, bring me real pleasure, there is a limit. And I think I'm approaching that limit. I could say the same of clothes. And so, as I've been thinking about this all and thinking about my finances and thinking about just simplifying my life, it seems like a good sort of practice to cut back and try to figure out what I really need. I have such an accumulation of "stuff" that I could certainly live for quite a while on what I have. But I worry too. I know that I'll inevitably give in and buy something that isn't really necessary, even just, say, a latte. (Oh, I just ordered a Madame Alexander Olivia doll. Talk about unnecessary. But I'm so excited. Thanks to Zee for that!) And I'm worried that I'll be all down on myself, like, "You didn't need that latte. You said you were only going to spend money on necessities. And then you bought a four-dollar latte that you didn't even need. Why can't you do anything right? You are a failure." I'm afraid that it will simply be an opportunity for my old companion Perfectionism to set in. Perfectionism, you know, plagues me, stalks me, really. You know the routine: I hold myself to an unreasonable, unrealistic standard, then fall apart emotionally when I don't meet it. And yet, I have to say that cutting down on the stuff and figuring out what I really need, then what may be a luxury but one that brings true pleasure, this seems somehow liberating to me. I think that, in the end, rather than feeding perfectionism, it will liberate me from the tyranny of unnecessary "stuff." Because all the "stuff" is causing its own kind of anxiety.

Of course, this all brings up inevitable questions about the necessity of own books: Are books necessary? Need I own them, or is checking them out good enough? How many books are necessary, and when have I crossed the line into "stuff"? Am I spending too much money on books?

Anna Quindlen: How Reading Changed My Life

Yesterday, I went to work for just a couple hours in the morning but came home early in order to make it home before the weather turned too, too horrible. Ice storms, you know.

Anyway, since I left work early, I had some free time on my hands. And after a good, long nap, I spent the afternoon reading Quindlen's How Reading Changed My Life, which, although published individually, is really a long essay. First, I should say that, thanks to my mother, I'm on this Quindlen kick. How have I missed her all these years? My mom sent me her Being Perfect a couple of months ago; and it so much resonated with me. But How Reading Changed My Life was wonderful and made me feel less weird, less nerdy for simply being someone who likes books. I especially appreciated Quindlen's sense that books, novels particularly, are this path to female understanding and female relationships. Books give us, women in particular, a way to understand the internal lives of others and especially of ourselves. But books also give us a way to connect with other people. Books give us something to talk about. Books provide both intellectual engagement but also an opportunity for social interaction.

And as I read Quindlen saying all these things, I thought about all the times I looked to Virginia Woolf for comfort, for the sense that someone understands how I feel. But maybe more importantly, reading Woolf (or McCullers or Charlotte Perkins Gilman), has given me the forum for talking with DC or my mother or whoever else about how it feels and what it means simply to be. And I think that personal connection, that opportunity for reflection and conversation is maybe more important than the books themselves. Eek! It's hard to believe that I'm saying that there's something more important than the experience of reading and writing. But the older I get, the more I come to believe that the interpersonal connections I avoided and even scorned are the really important thing in life.

Anyway, I do recommend Quindlen, especially How Reading Changed My Life.

Snow

So it's nearly mid-April. And it's snowing. And it's cold. And sometimes I feel like I just can't take much more of this weather. I guess I know that it's Vermont and that this is the way it's "supposed" to be. But I'm tired of it. I don't so much miss the sun. I'd settle for 50 and rain showers. But please, no more snow. Guinnie doesn't much like it either, by the way. She makes a big fuss every time I make her go "out." Honestly, the way she acts, you'd think that I'm positively abusing her, making her pee in the snow. She's such the drama queen.

I just want the weather to go away.

Not Me

So lately, I just don't feel like myself. When I pass a mirror, it's like the woman passing on the other side can't possibly be me. She's someone I don't recognize. I don't like this feeling, and I'm not sure how I got to this place in my life. It's like: "Where's the Drennan I know? She was interesting. She wore interesting clothes (not sweat pants every day) and arrived at work early. She read and wrote and cooked interesting things. She had places to be and people to see. This woman, the one with the ponytail in her hair, isn't the woman I knew at all, not at all." I find this troubling, and I'm not quite sure how to begin to deal with it. I don't know how to relax. I don't know how to be the person that I used to be or used to want to be. I'm boring. I'm bland. I'm giving in to being unattractive. I've lost something, and I don't know how to describe it. If I did, I'm sure that I could "fix" it. It's not that something is missing from my life; it's more that something is missing from me.

Burroughs: Running With Scissors

Yesterday, I finished Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. That's not so very Easter-like, is it? But then, it snowed all day, which isn't so Easter-like either. It's something I'd been intending to read for the last year or so. And it was wonderfully written and funny and horribly sad all at the same time. It's so much written from the point-of-view of the young Burroughs that we see the world that way. Consequently, when Burroughs is, say, 14 and begins having a sexual affair with a man in his 30s, we don't immediately see the horror, see that this man is violating a teen-ager. Although we know that this is wrong, that this can't be "love," we very much see that Burroughs himself, at age 14, believes this is love, believes that it's OK. He doesn't see himself as victimized, for the most part. In fact, he values this relationship. Horrible things happen to poor Augusten. Yet he keeps going. And he sees the humor in it all. And he's a terrific writer. I totally recommend this book. The subject matter is, at times, troubling, as I think Burroughs intends it to be. And yet, it's all so well written that it's not as difficult to cope with as I, as a reader, had anticipated. And there's just something endearing about it all. By the end of the book, I like and even admire Burroughs. At the same time, it was depressing. I guess that I don't have anything all that profound to say about this book, only that I enjoyed it.

Conference Paper

So although it's Spring Break, I'm at work. And I'm writing this conference paper on Gregory Maguire's Wicked and about how it's Gothic and grotesque and carnival, etc, etc. And I think it's kinda interesting, really. But it's hard to focus and get actual work done. You know, it's so much easier to sit and blog and read and journal. And writing, the kind of writing I need to get done, is really hard work somehow. And so I'm sitting here, listening to my relaxing music, sipping tea, thinking about this novel, clearly trying to coax some sort of muse, and all I can think about is the "Book Report" song from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. You must know the one. All the characters are to write book reports on Peter Rabbit. And Lucy opens with, "Peter Rabbit is this stupid book about this stupid rabbit who steals vegetables from other people's gardens." And Charlie Brown spends the majority of the song justifying his procrastination. And while I think Lucy Van Pelt is this great character, I'm especially fond of Schroder's analysis of Peter Rabbit. Schroeder explores the ways in which Peter Rabbit is like Robin Hood. And of course, what Schroeder comes up with is really this summary of the Robin Hood story: ". . .the part where Little John jumps from the rock to the Sheriff of Nottingham's back, and the Robin and everyone swung from the trees in a sudden surprise attack, and they captured the Sheriff and all of his goods, and they carried him back to their camp in the woods, and the Sheriff was guest at their dinner and all, but he wriggled away and sounded the call. The men rushed in, and the arrows flew. Peter Rabbit did sort of that kind of thing too." (OK, is it a bad sign that I know all of this "by heart"?) Anyway, my Wicked paper is feeling like that sort of analysis. Am I writing about Wicked but really writing about something else, probably about myself? I suspect that may be the case. And in the end, are all literary analyses about ourselves? I suspect that most of us are basically self-absorbed; I certainly am anyway. So here I am, when I should be writing about Elphaba, writing about myself.

I think I'll see if I can download the soundtrack from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

Donnie Darko

Ok, so yesterday afternoon, I watched Donnie Darko. How is it that I've never seen this, before? I LOVED it, loved it. And I keep thinking of Jimmy Stuart and Harvey; only it's like this sadder, creepier, truer Harvey, right? And the whole "cellar door" thing is really from Tolkien, right? And I keep thinking about Donnie and the line between genius and insanity, how we as a culture treat creative, insightful artists as though they ought to be medicated. (And those of you who know the last six months of my own history know that it's been six months of fighting with medications, antidepressants.) And I don't know. Is Donnie crazy or is he Super Man? Is he delusional or does he simply understand quantum physics better than the rest of us do? I'd love to see the director's cut. And I want to BE Donnie Darko. Maybe I'm Drennan Darko, which doesn't have quite the same ring to it but is still fun.

So does the movie maybe explore the ways in which we think we are doing good, are helping are simply leading to pain for others. Does the attempt to love simply entangle others in our emotional pain? I don't know the answers to these kinds of questions, but I do think that asking these kinds of questions is important. I guess that I'm still thinking about the movie, about what it means, about why I feel drawn to it somehow.

And it brings up the whole Jake Gyllenhaal dilemma. On the one hand, he looks kinda dopey, and he was kinda dopey in that whole astronomy / rocket-boy movie--I don't remember the title of it. He's got that overly cute, doe-eyed quality. And I want to be annoyed by Gyllenhaal. But I'm not; I actually like him. He was super as Donnie.

And now that I get to the end of this post, I realize that I don't have anything especially insightful or original or productive to say about this film. Only that I really liked it.