More on Feminism

So here's what I don't get. Aren't there some out there who would argue that feminism is really about having control over our own bodies? And maybe this is a good point. Maybe, arguably, freedom means doing what we desire with our bodies. But really, this idea that we CAN have control of our bodies seems to me a big lie of feminism.

Let's face it, our bodies fail us, or at least disappoint us, all the time. My body, at this point, would not allow me to run a marathon, no matter how much I wanted to right this second. And I'm in reasonably good health. My body rebels if I eat more than about two bites of beef, quite honestly. People get cancer all the time. Our bodies betray us in a thousand ways.

Is the notion of having control over our bodies really even realistic? Or did I just miss something? Along the path of indoctrination, did I just miss something really important?

This simple, activist kind of feminism that argues that we should do whatever we want specifically with our bodies just doesn't work for me, for a number of reasons.

Words Are Not My Friends

Right now, it feels like words have failed me, again. DVL knows this, because I just sent him an e-mail in which all I really said over and over is that there are no words adequate to convey the sense that I mean. How can there be words for how opera sounds, for example? And there are even fewer words to show how the sound of opera makes one feel. And there are no words to describe how on a cold, wintry day, waiting for snow storms, I finished rereading my favorite, favorite book, how I felt when I finished because I knew that simply the rereading had somehow in a way imperceptible to others altered who I am. How can I describe that? How can I show someone else that my soul is different for having reread something? It's maybe not even logical. Maybe it's not logical at all, hence the inability of language. And so what I wanted to say to DVL was that I am a different person, a more beautiful, less-like-Ungit person now. But where are the words for that?

I trust words. I depend on them in a thousand little ways and a hundred thousand big ways. But sometimes they betray me.

What I Did This Afternoon

Ok, normally, I tend to front load my work week. That is, Monday through Wednesday, I work quite a lot, but I tend to work less on Thursdays and Fridays. This is partly by intention and partly just how it seems to work out. Anyhow, I left work early this afternoon, around 2:30, and I came home and made hazlenut-almond biscotti. I love making biscotti lately. And while it was baking, I watched my soap opera. I'm embarrassed (sort of) to admit that I watch Guiding Light, and it's only in the past 9 months or so that I've started watching it. Really, once a week is about all that I want to see of it. But I hadn't seen it in quite some time, and I have to say that there's something really relaxing about sitting on the couch, smelling biscotti baking, watching mindless TV and flipping through a magazine. It was like I just really needed to do nothing for a while, I guess.

I feel so thankful that I have the opportunity to bake and watch TV and sip tea (I'm drinking white peach tea just now). There are so many little things that I am tempted to take for granted, but when I don't, when I stop and enjoy them and feel thankful, I'm a much happier person. I feel blessed just to be alive.

Interesting Link: All Songs Considered

Today, I discovered on NPR's web site this link to their online radio music program, All Songs Considered, and I thought it was worth sharing:

http://www.npr.org/programs/asc/

One can search their archives, get it as a podcast, or listen online. And it's free. It's an unusual, interesting mix from what I can tell.

Oh, and Happy Birthday Mozart tomorrow!

Dinner

I've been thinking that maybe it would be a good idea if I wrote more about things that make me happy, rather than going off on rants all the time about everything that annoys me. So I wanted to say that I had the most lovely dinner this evening. I really enjoy cooking, although it's sometimes hard to motivate myself to cook for just me in the evenings. But tonight, I made this cool shrimp scampi rice bowl thingy. And boy was it good. I even had a glass of champaign (you know, in lieu of my red wine) to celebrate whatever, to celebrate that I'd made it through the day, through the majority of the week, to celebrate that life is this amazing, beautiful thing. Many days, I feel blessed somehow to simply be alive and breathing. (SIDE NOTE: I've been practicing meditation again, and it makes me think that simply breating is just such a wonderful thing!) Anyhow, it feels good to be me and to know that life exists and that I am capable of love. I guess I'm not explaining it very well. Making dinner made me very happy.

Antigone

I am short on time, but I wanted to write down, quickly, my reaction to Antigone, which I just finished reading. About half way through, the chorus says, "This law is immutable: / For motrals greatly to live is greatly to suffer." And I wonder if maybe this is really the point of the entire Oedipus Cycle. Maybe this is the one thing that we are supposed to learn, that the human condition is such that suffering is requisite.

More Peter Rabbit

I just had my class, and I was surprised to hear many of my students say that they hated Peter Rabbit because they thought it was horrible and way too scary, all because Peter's father had been made into rabbit pie by the McGregors! And it's too scary, they said, because Peter is chased for much of the book, and he knows that if he is caught, he too will end up as pie. Then they talked about how "gross" the idea of rabbit pie is, how they'd never eat that. I pointed out that most of them eat other dead animals.

Anyway, one interesting fact: The most recent edition of Peter Rabbit published by Warne has restored some of Potter's illustrations that had been dropped out, including an illustration of Mrs. McGregor serving said pie.

I don't know. Getting all hung up on how scary it is seems to me to miss the point. I mean, do we really ever think that Peter is going to be caught, that he will end up as the McGregor's dinner?

I'm fascinated by Beatrix Potter's tales at the moment. I think it's the whole question of English cultural identity, a topic that, especially as it is represented during the first half of the twentieth century, I find absorbing.

What I'm Reading Now

Today, in preparation for class, I am reading Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit and some of Perry Nodelman's analysis of it. The more I read and think about Potters apparently simplistic story, the more it fascinates me. There seems to be so much tension for Peter (and for us as readers) between behaving as though he were human, as his mother requests, and his own instinct to behave as a rabbit. Why is this so appealing? And really, it is on the surface this moralistic tale: young bunnies (read: children) ought to mind their mothers or they are likely to end up bunny pie. However, isn't the lesson that really it's more fun to be like Peter, to disobey mother an have an adventure? I mean, come on, don't we identify with Peter, rather than merely watch him from an objective distance? And isn't he more interesting and appealing than the sisters who do just as mother requests? Here, in this illustration, we see Peter with his back to the group. It seems that Peter, the only male in a house full of female rabbits, does not feel like a part of the group. He doesn't seem to have a sense of belonging. I don't know--I'm babbling. Or maybe I'm just collecting my thoughts. Still, it's a fascinating story.

UPDATE: New Year's Resolutions

1. I've been using toilets as is appropriate. CHECK.

2. I brush my teeth regularly. CHECK.

3. I haven't had a glass of wine in a week or so. So no check there. I need to go to the grocery store.

No, those were just my dummie resolutions, resolutions that I could feel good / silly about. My real, real resolution (or at least something I told myself I wanted to do) was to blog or write about everything I read for a year. It's proving more difficult and time consuming than I'd anticipated. Maybe I just read more than I realize. And I wasn't even going to write about short things I read, magazine articles, say, but only longer things, novels and the like. And I've been doing it mostly. But it is a bigger task than I'd realized. And it's still January!

My Latest Dilemma

So here's my latest dilemma. And I've been polling everyone (my dad rolled his eyes, I'm sure, when I asked him), so please leave comments. This could just be more of the need to feel "cool," but I think it transcends that.

My dilemma is this: so I finished my Ph.D. last month, and for the past year or so, I'd been saying that for a graduation present to myself, I'd get a tattoo. And this seemed like a good idea, and I had a tattoo all picked out. And I'd been excited about it. Only now I really want an iPod. So my dad said, "Well, I don't think there's much dilemma there." (He's not big on tattoos; I think he's pretending that I don't already have one. He also, very graciously, ignores my nose stud.) And I agreed that an iPod does seem to have greater potential to improve my quality of life. But my mom pointed out that "a tattoo lasts forever," so I guess that's one vote in favor of a tattoo. Should I get a tattoo, I want a Celtic trinity knot, as pictured at the right. But I'd want it in three colors.

Shay, whom I don't really know, suggested that I get a tattoo of an iPod. While that's a witty suggestion, it's not really what I had in mind.

Is it sad that this is the biggest dilemma I face? Should I post a picture of the tattoo I already have? Is this just more need to feel cool? I think it transcends the whole cool thing. I mean, a tattoo really means something, right? It means something to pick a symbol to commit to living with for the rest of one's life. But then, an iPod would be fun.

The Need to Feel "Cool" and Why I Drink Tea

Just a couple of days ago, I had a conversation with one of you about how sad I think it is that here we are in our 30s and we think of ourselves as professionals and want to be taken seriously. But then, some of us, one third-party in particular, we'll call her Franny. So Franny feels the need to feel "cool." And she creates this online persona, and she talks about how she's an intellectual but she also knows how to ROC and how she just loves people with brilliant minds who also know how to party. And my comment, my response, was, "Well, I think that's a little sad. That here she is an intellectual who wants to be taken seriously as a professional, but then Franny gets on MySpace, which is just for 17-year-olds to hook up anyway, and wants to project this uber-hip, super cool persona. I think it's sad that at 31 she's so insecure that she has to do that." And, of course, her name really isn't Franny, but I just over the weekend had this conversation with one of you. Only then I realized. . .

. . . I realized that I'm doing the same thing, needing to feel cool, only in my much dorkier, nerdier, kind of way (Side note: I recently took a quiz on the net that determined I was a "modern, cool nerd."). Only I don't go around talking about how much I like to party, because I really don't party, not at all. And I never have. But instead of feeling cool because I party, I in my interior monologue, walk around feeling cool because I drink tea instead of coffee. And I like coffee, used to be an addict. (Hi, I'm Drennan, and I'm a recovering coffeeholic.) But now I've switched to tea, and I have become this weird tea snob. And I drink cup after cup, all day long, in class, in my office, at home. But I feel oddly superior because I'm drinking tea, not coffee like everyone else.

So aren't I just the same as Franny? Only I get my coolness fix from feeling somehow different (maybe it's my need to always feel as though I'm "interesting") simply because I'm all into tea? Isn't this weird / dumb? And the more I think about it, the more I think it was silly of me to be all catty about Franny because I'm just the same, only with me it's more internal. And I really do like tea.

So Much To Say, But Where To Begin? This is For Dolce Carina

An Open Letter to My Readers (which probably mostly means Cara and me):

So you notice that I haven't been blogging as much the past couple of days. It's because I'm busy, really busy, and it almost never lets up. And I work and work and feel as though I give all I have to my students and my work and my colleagues and making phone calls to biology candidates for what is apparently one of only several positions open in the nation, only no one really WANTS the job because the pay is so bad. And I give. And I give. And when I come home from work in the evening, I cry, often cry in the car on the way home. And I cry not out of pain or hurt or frustration, although there's that too, but I cry because I am so tired in every way imaginable. And I think during my brief, 13 mile commute, that I take care of everyone else and I wish, I wish, that just for 15 minutes after I get home, wish that for 15 minutes someone would take care of me. That's all I want--just 15 minutes of complete attention from someone else. I want to come home and have 5 minutes to tell someone else how my day was, and the next 5 I want someone to make me a cup of tea, and the last 5 could even be in complete, mutual, communal silence. This is what I want out of life. Is it asking so much? I just want to be taken care of for 15 minutes. I feel like I give all that I have mentally, emotionally, even physically to everyone else in my life. And I'd like to feel like there was someone to look in on me. And I'm not even talking about a mate or a "life partner," just a friend. But, of course, that doesn't happen, not here, not now. So I simply figure that I have to take care of myself the best that I can. And I try to do nurturing, nourishing things for myself each day. And if there's no one else to make the tea, then I come home and boil the water for myself.

Ok, so maybe this was just another rant. I seem to be full of rants these days--rants about books and the lies we've all been fed by feminism, by the establishment, whatever. There's really more I want to say. I want to write about books (I'm teaching The Hobbit right now!) and volunteer work and cookies (made almond cookies over the weekend!) and tea and insomnia and the ways we like to pretend that we have control over our lives, our selves, our bodies. Only all I seem to get to is these rants. I should take the time to write about more things that make me happy.

Oedipus at Colonus

I am reading and prepping to teach Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, and it occurs to me that maybe one reason I blog (I can't believe I'm using "blog" as a verb!) is so that I have a space to say all the things that I can't really say in class. I mean, often, not always, in class, I feel compelled to follow some unspoken, official agenda, rather than point out what's really speaking to me in a piece of literature. I feel like I have to elicit and then validate students' analyses, rather than giving my own, if it's non-traditional. Anyway, As I'm reading this second play in the Oedipus cycle, it strikes me that in part what this play is really about is the way that whether we are kings or blind, wandering paupers--Oedipus has been both--we all die in the same state somehow. Seeing Oedipus a broken, yet still prideful old man, Theseus tells him, "I know that I am man; in the day to come / My portion will be as your, no more, no less." Isn't this an indication that we all spend our lives one way or another, yet end up equals, almost, at the moment of death? Is this specifically a pagan way of looking at human existence? Although Theseus and Sophocles are, I suppose, pagans themselves, it seems to me that this is a truth that transcends the pagan / Christian dichotomy, that it is true that at the moment of death, what we accomplished in the world's eyes is not what counts. I'm not sure. I guess this is an issue with which I am grappeling--what, in the end, is the value of our lives, our actions? At the moment of death, how will I measure myself? Will I consider my life meaningful? Will I have served a purpose? Or in light of eternity, do such questions merely fall away?

It's Not Enough; It's Never Enough

So often, I look at the clock or the calendar and realize that the minutes, hours, days are slipping by, yet I never seem to accomplish enough. I am overwhelmed. Here it is, Sunday night, and I look at my list of things to do over the weekend--laundry, grocery shopping, read this, write that. And of my list of 15 items, I have completed maybe 2. And I hate that feeling, the panic that arises when I realize that there's so much I should have done but somehow didn't manage to do. And I know, I try to remind myself, that maybe my expectations are unrealistic, that maybe it's healthier to simply sit on the couch and read on Saturday morning. (And let's face it, all I want to do on a Saturday morning is to read a book, bake muffins, take a bath, and watch a movie.) But here I am, with so much to do, not enough time in which to do it. No matter what I do--simply make dinner, or grade a set of essays, or even finish my dissertation--it never feels like enough; there's always more, always the thing that I didn't get done. I think that probably the real underlying problem here is perfectionism. And to be honest, I expect more of myself than I do of most other people. I want to move beyond that. I want to feel satisfaction in what I have accomplished instead of focusing on all that I haven't. I could probably list, just off the top of my head, 35 things I've failed at, most of them relatively unimportant, some of them important. Yet, I'd be hard pressed to list 10 that I've been successful at. And what really gets to me sometimes is that I know there are people out there--my friends from grad school who don't have jobs yet--who look at me and think how "lucky," how successful I am. And sometimes I wish I could see that, instead of seeing all that I haven't done: laundry, grocery shopping. No matter what I do, it's not enough; it's never enough.

Visiting Churches

Today, I visited a new church, and it was actually encouraging. Since I moved here 18 months, well nearly 18 months ago, I've been looking, sometimes not very diligently, for a church. And nothing had been satisfactory for one reason or another. Maybe I'm overly picky; maybe not. I guess that I can't really help it that I believe what I do and that I'm looking for a church whose doctrine matches my own.

Anyhow, today, for the first time, I visited a United Reformed congretation. It's about an hour's drive, which isn't ideal and isn't feasible when the winter weather is bad. But the good thing is that for the first time since I've been in Vermont, I was not immediately put off by the service. In fact, I found nothing to which I immediately object; this is unusual for me. In addition, the people, the pastor and his wife and the other members, were very warm, welcoming, and friendly. In the past when I have visited churches, I haven't really felt that. I'm the first to say that one shouldn't pick a church based on how friendly everyone is, but I have to say that it was just nice, almost like coming home, to feel genuinely welcome.

I'm embarrassed, quite honestly, that it's taken me this long to visit there. But I am greatly encouraged by the whole experience. Maybe this will work out for me. Maybe this will be my "church home," at least while I'm in Vermont. I don't know. But I am proud of myself that I went today, that I took that step. I have all this weird social anxiety, and it sometimes manifests itself when attending a new church, especially by myself. I know that that sounds odd to someone who doesn't have problems with anxiety--I know that many people maybe don't "get" that. Anyway, on the way there, my stomach became nervous, and I started to worry. But the point is that in spite of my panic, in spite of the difficulty, I managed to do it. And it was a blessing, the right thing to have done.

Weekly Goals

As some of you know, I am working to incorporate into my routine things that will make me healthier (spiritually, emotionally, physically), things that I can do daily or weekly with commitment. And this is pretty much something I'm always working on. However, those of you who know me well in "real" life know that my tendency is to decide to make these big, dramatic, sweeping kind of changes in my life. However, I set myself up for failure that way--I ask of myself more than one person can reasonably be expected to do. So my new strategy is to implement changes, small changes, one at a time. Then, implement more small changes a week or two later. This makes sense to me. The other part of my strategy is that I'm going to post my goals and progress here. It not that I so much think that anyone really cares to read about all this, but I think I'm more likely to follow through if to someone I care about, I verbalize my goals and commitments. So here we go:

For last week (well, really the week that ends today, my first week back at work), my goal was to read my little personal devotional (I hate that word) and pray each morning. So--CHECK! I've done it. If anyone's interested, I'm reading Tabletalk from Ligonier. However, I'm reading last year's issues--currently a study of James. I'm also reading my Bible regularly in the evenings. And this is such an important thing, but I'd not been very "good" about it all in recent months. But starting a new semester always inspires me to clean up things in other areas of my life as well. I think it's the switch to a different schedule. I don't know--it just feels like starting over.

I'm still mulling over my new goal for the coming week. Would it be silly if my goal were simply to take more bubble baths? I think that's a good goal. I know that I'm saying this all the time, but I really, really believe that a key to contentment is learning to enjoy, even revel in, the little day-to-day activities and luxuries. For me, this means a good read in a long, hot bath or really good tea in a cup that I enjoy. This also means watching BBC stuff on DVD, rather than crappy TV that I don't even enjoy.

Maybe my goal for the coming week, however, should be to write in my journal each morning. I know from past experience that this helps me stay sane. Or maybe my goal should be to practice meditation each morning. Or maybe my goal should have to do with exercise--yoga and pilates have done wonders for me in the past. Yikes! I realize that all these things make me a healthier, happier person. Why don't I do them more often.

As a side note, I've decided that my quality of life would be greatly improved by an iPod. Am I just being silly?

Drennan

What I'm Reading (and Teaching) Today!

I promised myself that I'd blog at least a quick reaction to everything that I'm reading. This is my project for myself, and now that I'm back to work, I am realizing that it may turn out to be a bigger project than I'd at first anticipated. But here's a quick run down:

1. Reread the introductory stuff and the first chapter of The Hobbit this morning before class. I've read it many, many times. And I never tire of it. But the good thing is this. I was really reading it with an eye to the themes that I want to cover in my class (it's a class specifically on young adult fantasy fiction, and we are reading The Hobbit as our first selection. I'm looking at it as foundational to the genre). There was quite a lot that I wanted to say about medievalism, cultural identity, and gender. And the really great thing is that my students on their own seemed to pick up on all the things that I really wanted them to notice. We talked about runes, Tolkien's work as a philologist, how it all serves to "medievalize" the novel; I guess I can use the term "medievalize." We talked about social class, food, clothing, and other cultural markers. We talked about the clear lack of females in the work. But my students, wonderful, brilliant students, acted like this was clear, and they were engaged with the material. I guess what I mean is that it's all turning out the way one would hope.

2. I read some secondary stuff by Perry Nodelman about picture books--probably not very interesting for me to rehash here, but useful in preparing for teaching. Then, both in and out of class, I "read" several board books. And there's really more going on in most of them than people realize. I also read two different Alice in Wonderland pop-up books. So what could be more fun than that?

3. I think I've given up on We Were the Mulvaneys. Joyce Carol Oates, I'm sorry, but I don't know if I want to deal with it. I have, however, read maybe 250 pages, so I hate to give up now. I'm just not all that into it.

4. Am intermittently reading P.G. Wodehouse. Nice break from "serious" reading.

5. Most importantly to me, I'm reading C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces. I know that I keep telling all of you this. But it's a book that I think everyone should read. It's such an amazing, moving novel. And I'll say more about it in a later post--it deserves its own post. But (and I mean this quite literally) aside from the Bible, this is the single book that has changed my life the most. And it seems important somehow, for a number of reasons, that I revisit it now.

So there's my quick update, not really that I think anyone cares, but this was all what I needed to write.

My Brother's West Side Story

I'm writing this mostly b/c Dolce Carina said I should write about it. It all sounds rather melodramatic, but I've been pretty upset.

Yesterday, my brother J. who is 15 fractured his hand during a performance of West Side Story. J is a dancer, and literally, for the last 8 years at least his dream has been to perform in WSS. There are many good dancing roles for a teen-age boy. Apparently, the director tells him he has a nice pirouette. But yesterday, during the opening "fight scene," he fractured his hand. So now he's in a cast, although he has quite a few more performances. And I guess he can still perform (the show must go on, after all), but I don't know that he can do everything. I guess some of his "moves" had to be modified.

Anyway, I really love him, and I feel sorry for him that this crazy, ironic, painful kind of thing had to happen now, as he was approaching his life-long goal. That was an overstatement, but that's how it feels. I wish I could be less engaged emotionally with the situation.

It seems like all these weird, unexpected things have come up in my personal life in the last couple of weeks, and any one of them alone wouldn't be a big deal to cope with, but all together, it's been overwhelming for me. And I'm not even the one in the cast. I think that part of my difficulty is wanting to be near my family but being on the other side of the country.

D

Life is. . .

I don't really have time to write, only I'm "addicted," so I feel like I need to write somehow. Today it strikes me that life is so very beautiful and painful and fulfilling and disappointing and wonderful and disturbing all at the same time. And I am absolutely exhausted; in fact, I just noticed (and corrected) that in a post from yesterday, I used "to" instead of "too," which shows just how exhausted I am.

But it seems to me that the painful and the beautiful things seem to happen sometimes all at once, and it is overwhelming sometimes. And I'm writing in generalities but thinking of specifics, only there isn't the time for the specifics here.

I guess I just understand what it means to be overjoyed and tortured, disappointed and hopeful, all at once.

Ok, I realize that sometimes I'm way too flippant or whatever. And the truth is that I want to be taken seriously. But then I post silly stuff about Sophocles. I mean, I should take Oedipus and his problems seriously, right? Isn't that who I'm supposed to be.

I don't want to be like the dumb-dumb sterotype. And sometimes at work I feel like because I'm youngish and I probably look younger than I really am (last semester one student says, "so you're like 23, right, Drennan?"). In case anyone is wondering, I am 30, nearly 31. But I don't want to be so silly all the time. I mean, silly is Ok for some things. But really, I do have ideas, and I do care passionately about things, and I am committed to my work and to what I believe and to the people with whom I come into contact.

So why doesn't anyone seem to see this about me? Why am I just silly Drennan? Is it because of all the hair-color accidents I've had? Is it because I don't take myself seriously enough?

I work so hard, and I care so much. And I want to be more than the professor who makes jokes about Oedipus, because I am more than that.

Oedipus Rex, or "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!"

I just finished reading Oedipus Rex and prepping to teach it tomorrow morning in my classes, and I just want to say here all the things that I can't say in class. I know that it's tragedy, and we are supposed to be studying it as an example of classical tragedy and all that, but all that I can think of is things that make me giggle.

The thing about teaching is that I get to teach really cool stuff, and that's great, but sometimes I feel like I'm supposed to be all serious, you know, like when it's tragedy and all, but I just can't find it in me to take it seriously. I mean, tragedy is supposed to elicit the "twin feelings" of "pity and fear," but I don't feel those at all. I just want to say, "Oedipus, get over yourself." And then I want to make really bad jokes like, "It's all Greek to me." And I know this is really immature and stuff, but it's how I feel about Oedpus right now.

I mean, hello, what does blinding himself actually accomplish anyway? I get why it works thematically. And Ican talk about Tieresias, the blind prophet, who is really the only one with insight. And I can talk about how fate works in the play. I can do all the things that, as a good teacher, I'm supposed to do with the play. But right now, I just don't want to.

Instead, I want to say, "Hey, does anyone remember the episode of Inspector Morse where he thinks that Oedipus Rex is the key to the mystery, but then it isn't?" Here's inspector Morse. Dolce Carina knows the episode I mean. I guess that this talk about Morse really demonstrates why it's important that my students read Sophocles' play--cultural literacy and all that. I mean, hey, we couldn't make sense of the Morse episode without knowing something about Oedipus.

Then, there's the whole Freudian thing we can talk about. I'm sure I will have to explain to my students that, yes, Oedipus does really have relations with his own biological mother. That's kind of the whole point. And they say how "gross" it is, which, again is kind of the whole point.

I know that I'm just being a little bit silly about it all. I really am interested in the literature as literature. It's just funnier to think of silly pop culture references. Like, "You'll shoot your eye out." Does everyone know that one?

DISCLAIMER

It strikes me that my entries must sound so sad. I'm not a sad person, really. I'm just very emotional, and I have learned to be OK with that, to accept that it's an important part of who I am. I feel things, and writing about them and talking about them and really feeling them is important to me. I don't know; I guess I just needed to explain, maybe to myself as much as to anyone else.

Zevin's Elsewhere

I'm writing because my unstated, but really more serious, New Year's Resolution was to write about what I read, either here in my blog, or in my journal. But, really, I'm discovering that blogging is more fun.

I just now finished a novel titled Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin. I would probably not have picked this up on my own, but J., a colleague whom I respect very much, recommended it to me. It's the story of a teenage girl, Liz, who dies and is transported to an afterlife called Elsewhere. And Elsewhere is neither heaven nor hell, really much like our earth, except that people age backwards.

Anyhow, the first two-thirds weren't all that great. But the last third or so was fascinating. And I cried all through the last 20 or so pages. And this is weird because I almost never cry in books. OK, I admit that when I read The Hobbit, I cry every time when Thorin Oakenshield dies, but other than that, I really don't. And I do not know how to explain how or why this book affected me this way. But I sat on my couch with Guinn and Polly and cried and cried for all the loss that people experience. And I cried for all the people I miss. And I cried for the people in my own life that I've lost. For some reason, I never have proper tissue (you know, Kleenex or something) at home. I do in my office, but not at home. So I sat and cried and cried black eye-liner and blue eye-shadow into lengths and lengths of toilet paper, and I don't even know why. And I just kept crying. And I kept getting more and more toilet paper from the bathroom, as my make-up made this huge mess. And that's almost funny (I'm laughing now), the blue glittery eye-shadow on these handfulls of toilet paper. I guess that reading the book, finishing it anyway, made me thing about loss. I guess that, more than anything, maybe it has to do with thinking about how S.W., a friend of the family, had died recently. It really "got" to me, and then this novel was maybe too much. And, of course, there are all the losses, big and small, that I dare not even mention for fear that I'd never stop writing. I'm OK, really. I just needed to post my entry about Elsewhere. I suppose I'm glad that I read it. It makes me thankful just for life.

Typical Evening

Ok, for those of you who are interested, here's a typical evening at my house. Things to note (marking it as typical):

1. Drennan on the couch in a tee shirt and pajama bottoms.

2. Dogs on couch with Drennan. Polly is the one on the left; Guinnie is on the right.

3. Blankets on the couch.

4. A profusion of books on the tables.

So, I know that this really isn't the best picture of any of us. Looks like it didn't load very well. But I thought it would be fun anyway. I think that if you click on the pic, it will load a bit more clearly or something. This is mostly for my mom who always wants pictures of me (but not necessarily pics of the dogs, but you know, "love me, love my dogs" and all that!)

We're All Mad Here

I know that I should be trying to sleep, but I don't feel like sleeping. I feel like writing--is this a compulsion?

Anyway, last night, I talked to A.H. on the phone, and he said that he was reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland for a class he was teaching on Avant Garde something. So I've been thinking about Alice ever since.

I think that my favorite part of the story is when Alice meets the Cheshire Cat (don't you love the above graphic?), and he says, "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad. . .You must be [ mad]. . .or you wouldn't have come here." But of course the thing about Alice is that she isn't mad. It's Wonderland that's "mad." Alice is a fairly normal, healthy seven year old. It's the world around her that's "mad." And I so often feel that way. I wonder if I'm mad or, which really seems more likely, if the world that surrounds me is simply mad. I suppose that the Cheshire Cat would make the argument that simply because I am here, in a world that is apparently mad, that doesn't seem to make sense, that simply because I am here, I must be mad too. But I won't believe it. I know that Alice isn't mad, even when her surroundings are. And I have to believe that I'm not mad either.

Alice escapes Wonderland only when she sees things, the pack of cards particularly, for what they really are--nothing more and nothing less. Is that the way out of the apparent madness of this world? To simply learn, through growth and experience, to see things for what they are, no more and no less?

I will not believe that we are all mad simply because we happen to be "here," either in Wonderland or in the "real" world.

I'm Back on Track

Ok, so I'm back on track, for reals. No really. I'm on track. No more griping and worrying about what I didn't do each day. No more excuses. Starting today I'm back on track. And the new semester is starting and all, so it's a good time for it. So here's the deal: there are all these things I'm wanting to change and add to my routine and all that, so I'm trying to just take it slowly and add one "thing" a week. So this morning, I got up before work, and I read my little devotional thing, and I prayed. So I added that to my schedule--so you see: back on track.

I think that if I just keep writing and writing, I'll write myself to wherever it is I am meant to be.

And I'm back on track. And I will, I will read my Bible before bed.

Why I need a Personal Assistant

I don't really expect anyone to even read this, but I write just to maintain a grip on what I pretend is sanity. I decided today that what I need, like Carina's idea for a p.t. (she knows what I mean) is really a personal assistant. In fact, in all those BBC things I watch, they call them p.a.s, so it's perfect, really. Or a wife. Maybe what I need is a wife to take care of things for me. No, maybe it isn't a wife that I need. I don't need someone to cook and clean--I'm happy doing those things myself. But I need a p.a. to run photocopies, make and confirm appointments, attend meetings where he or she would take brief notes so I could skip out on the meetings. All I want is to be able to devote myself to my teaching and my research and my writing, and instead, I spend all my time putting paper in the photocopy machine and making cups of tea. Who knew that with my Ph.D. I'd end up spending so much time running photocopies, which inevitably leads to fighting with the photocopy machine, answering e-mails, and attending meetings. When I was very young, my aspiration was to be a secretary (although now we call them administrative assistants). Ironically, I went to graduate school only to become my own secretary! Oh, this is all just a silly rant, I know. But as my semester begins, I'm frustrated with the amount of time is taken away from activities that contribute to my teaching in a meaningful way. And all this could be solved by having a p.a.

STUDENTS!

I think it would be totally unethical (well, at least partly unethical) to write about it here, in a public forum, but my semester hasn't even started, and I'm already upset / annoyed / frustrated with my students.

Is this normal? Am I just a bad teacher?

Dolce Carina, help me!

Thankful for Work and It's COLD

So I came into work this morning! And although classes don't start until tomorrow, I have plenty of interesting stuff to do. And I am just so thankful to be back to work! I've been on break for about three weeks, and I am just simply a happier person when I have work to get up and look forward to each day. I know that I should be actually working, rather than sitting here blogging, but I wanted to express my excitement somehow.

On an unrelated note, it's cold, really cold. When I left my apartment, the thermometer in my car said it was 5 F, but by the time I got to work it said -4 F. That's cold. I don't know if I'm cut out for this.

Dad, if you are reading this (which I doubt) I'm wearing one of the ties that you gave me as a belt. It looks uber-chic. Aren't you proud to be a part of that????

D

Feeling alone, then connected: feeling unloved, then wanted AND other random observations

Ok, so I know that just a couple of hours ago, I threatened to go to bed. And I did. Well, at least I got in bed and read for a while, then slept for an hour, then read more. But that isn't really what I'm tring to say.

In a conversation that I had with C. the other day and in reading some things she'd written, I realized how quickly we can move from the extreme of feeling completely alienated from the entire world to feeling connected in a meaningful sort of way. Or we can move from thinking that love has somehow failed us to understanding that there are so many people to love us, if only we are open to them. And this suddenly seems like a very important revelation to me. Not only are we capable of being connected to the world and the human race because we have the ability to reach out to others, but also because others care for us too. So when I am having a really, really bad day, I can call my mom or whoever, and there really is someone who loves me. And feeling disconnected is maybe the real lie. Maybe if we all just asked a little more often when we wanted reassurance, we wouldn't feel so alone. That said, I'm going to make a renewed effort to reach out to others because I don't want anyone I care about to feel as isolated as I have at some points in my life.

But the bigger issue, really, and I grapple with this one, is that we are never alone because God is there. Yet, why is it that when we seem most often to need Him, He seems to be silent, far away? I accept that on these occasions, the fault lies with me, not God. Early on in his A Greif Observed, C.S. Lewis writes, "Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms [of grief]. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel his claims upon you as an interruption. . .But go to HIm when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence" (4). Of course, Lewis later explains that this isn't really how God works, but it's how things seem to feel sometimes. We pray for peace, for comfort, but sometimes God does not seem to send it.

The other thing I wanted to write about is that, as you can see from the above, I'm reading and thinking about Lewis again! That makes me happy. For me, one unwanted side-effect of my dissertation was that for a while I had no interest in reading or even thinking about C.S. Lewis. And now he's back, and it's strange, this feeling that maybe I know him, a man I have never met, better than most of the people I do know. I find myself thinking, far too often, what Lewis would say about a particular situation. But I've come full circle, I think. And I think that I can read C.S. Lewis again for all the reasons that I was drawn to him in the first place, for comfort. For a while, I'd lost that, and I think that I hated the process of wiriting my dissertation, in part, because I felt somehow as though I'd lost this relationship with a writer, a relationship that I'd treasured. But now, maybe it can be different and I can read Lewis again.

It's not that C.S. Lewis is technically the best writer I've ever read. And it's not that his works are so terribly profound, but I derive a sense of comfort from Lewis. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is dedicated to a child named Lucy (Owen Barfield's daughter, I think). And Lewis in the dedication says that someday when she's old enough to appreciate fairy stories again, she can take the book down from the shelf and read it. And when I read, I think I become that Lucy, and Lewis's works are doing for me all the things that Lewis and his friend Tolkien say that fairy stories should do. I see the world and my position in it in a new and delightful way. I'm so thankful to be able to return to that experience, that sort of reading. Maybe the lesson here is that I should not do more academic work on Lewis, that I should treasure that inexplicable something that he is to me and hide it away in my heart. Right now I am not sure.

A Wasted (?) Day

So today was it. I was going to plan out my semester, set goals, decide what I wanted and needed to read. Only all of that didn't happen, at least not to the extent that I'd hoped. I woke up with a sinus thing and took Benadryl, so I slept much of the day. And that's not so bad, I guess. And I just want to go to bed now, although it's only5:00ish.

But I did get some goals set, some lists made. I guess I am frustrated that there never seems to be the time to do all I want to do. How am I supposed to work into the day or even the week time to work and read and write and exercise and pray and cook and socialize and do volunteer work? Why can't I find the time for all the things I want to do? I guess this is my perfectionism coming out, isn't it? I always think that I should somehow be able to do more; I require of myself more than I would of other people. I want good enough to be good enough somehow. But that so rarely happens.

So here I sit, feeling like the day was mostly wasted because the weather was too icky to leave the house and because I didn't accomplish all I wanted to. I hate ending the day with this feeling. I want to learn to be satisfied, to say that I did what I could, given the circumstance and to be OK with that, but that is so hard for me. I want to focus on what I did accomplish. I thought about priorities and what I want to do daily and weekly with my time. (I tend to reassess these things often, but especially as a new semester starts.)

It's times like this that I want friends. I want to call A.H. knowing that he'll tell me that I am going enough. He'll remind me that while teaching full-time, I still managed to finish my dissertation. Or I want to call C. who will remind me that I'm like this academic-super-babe who keeps her work going, no matter the dissappointment. Maybe it's good that I simply remind myself of these friends who, I know, believe all these things of me, even when I don't believe them of myself.

Would it be too corny if tomorrow or the next day, I were to post my goals, etc? I always have this thing about wanting to articulate to someone else what it is I'm trying to accomplish, with the idea that if I verbalize it and that someone knows, I'll be more likely to follow through.

But I do follow through with so much. Why must I focus on my shortcomings? Why can't I say, hey, I finished a Ph.D. in the midst of all sorts of personal drama? Or hey, my lift may not be perfect, but every single day (well, most days) I make a difference in the world?

Oh well, don't worry. I'll get over it. Maybe I will call A.H. or C. or even my brother just to hear a friendly voice. That's all I really want. Maybe the bottom line is that I miss being near those people I love the most.

On NOT Reading What I "Should" Be Reading

There are all these things I think I should be reading (or rereading) because I think they would be emotionally or spiritually or psychologically nourishing for me, but I am just avoiding them. And I don't know why. I know that there's a part of me that somehow needs to reread C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces, his most brilliant piece of fiction, yet I'm going to log off and watch a Bette Davis movie instead. Why am I doing this? Why am I immersing myself in a Joyce Carol Oates novel that I no longer even enjoy instead of reading the thing that I know will speak to my soul? Is it simply that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak? I don't think it's that simple. I think I'm avoiding the reading that could cause emotional discomfort, eventhough I believe that from such discomfort comes growth and renewal. Oh well, I think that I'll think about it tomorrow, maybe compile a list of books that I think will be good for me emotionally and spiritually right now. I'm open to suggestions, of course. Carina, I do have the new Didion, but I'm avoiding it for the same reasons. Yes, well tomorrow, I'll get my act together. I'll plan it all out. I'll list what it is that I think would benefit me to read. Shall I post my list here? If I do, then each of you will somehow, even if it's internally, hold me accountable, so there's a risk there.

In fact, one of my larger projects for tomorrow is to put together a schedule of sorts. With the new semester starting, I want to decide what's important for me to do each day or with regualrity--reading my Bible, yoga, meditation, eating healthy stuff--and then get going on Monday with it all. It's so hard. More tomorrow.

Love and Happiness,

Drennan

Winter in Vermont

So you all know that I'm really, really a Californian. And when I moved to Vermont, taking my "dream job" in a non-dream location at less-than-dream pay, no one really warned me about winter. Last year, I felt like I needed Winter Living for Dummies or The Idiot's Guide to Winter in New England. (Let me point this out: Vermont is New England; northern New York, only 20 miles away, is not) When I was mailed my contract, there was not a hand out explaining what winter was like and how people get through it. So I'm attempting to lay it all out for you, lest anyone of you step unsuspecting and ignorant into Vermont winters.

My first winter here, everything was new, even interesting. I thought of it as a challenge, and I was bound and determined that I wasn't going to let some abstract "winter" keep me from doing what I wanted to do and living the way I wanted to live. And honestly, I got through it. I survived. It was OK. This year, the thought of winter makes me feel rather run-down.

Sure, there are good things about it. There are days when it's beautiful, like living in a Currier and Ives print. I remember Thanksgiving day. It was snowing, and I drove from the town through the woods to pick up my friend Catherine for Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's home. And it was lovely. The snow was clean and fresh (this before it's been plowed to the side of the road five days straight and has turned a bleak grey); the river ran past snowy banks covered with trees. It's pretty. I grant that. And I enjoy the beauty of it. And I feel that surge of artistic impluse that makes me want to photograph all the beauty, and even the ugliness, that I see.

But then there are the day to day practicalities. For instance--dry skin. I've lived much of my life in climates with relatively dry summers. But dry skin was never something I thought about all that much. Now it's like this enemy to be fought daily. Burt's Bees products are my new best friends. Especially useful is the Burt's Bees Hand Salve--they call it "the defender." This is a great, great product. And so every night, after washing my face, I sit in front of the television slathering it on my poor, chapped, cracked hands. The Burt's Bees Lemon Cuticle Cream helps too. These products, though not expensive, are worth twice what they cost. (Ok, now I sound like an info-mercial for Burt's Bees, but it's a line of products that I truly believe in, especially for the Vermont winters.)

The other thing that no one mentioned, and this isn't all bad, is that the sun rises about 7:30 and sets about 4:30. I know--we are past the solstice now, so the days are getting longer. But let me tell you, the nights are long, long, long. Some days I like that. There's something cozy about it. I love the idea (and even the reality) of letting a pot of soup simmer in the kitchen while I read and write. There's something almost romantic about holing up inside and drinking tea and doing all the solitary, intellectual, or creative things that I do. But psychologically, there's also something difficult about it. I generally like to get up very early in the morning. 5:30 isn't too early for me. But sometimes I wake up, start my morning routine, and think, "It won't be light for hours yet."

OK, so the other thing is contending with the ice and snow itself. In the past three weeks I've slipped and fallen on the ice twice. It's almost funny, because I did not hurt myself, but I live in fear of slipping, trying to break my fall, and in the process, breaking my wrist. Both times I slipped, I really wasn't wearing appropriate shoes. So there's another thing--before leaving the house, one has to think, "Do these shoes provide the traction necessary to coping with walking around outside?" Even taking the dogs out can be treacherous. In fact, one of the times I fell, I was taking the dogs out. Imagine me: in my jammies and a coat, wearing Birkenstock clogs, two boston terriers pulling in opposite directions on their leashes, me falling on a patch of ice.

Then some days, one needs to add an extra 15 minutes or so to travel time. The car has to warm up (that's assuming it starts; when it's 15 below, it's iffy). And warming up the car isn't that big of a deal. But scraping the ice off the windshield is. Brushing off snow, even inches of it, is a breeze. But scraping, scraping, scraping ice and frost is a pain. It takes longer than you think, and it's more physical work that I'd have realized. So there I am, dressed in a nice skirt, because I'm on my way to work and I do sometimes make an attempt to look professional, wearing my snow boots. I'm scraping away, as my boots are filling up with snow. Naturally, I'm wearing one of those fun winter hats, but my ears are still cold. I'm still scraping away. I'm wearing these super-industrial strength gloves, because I fear things like frost bite. Still scraping away, while the car warms up. Finally finished scraping, I open the car door, only to realize that when I opened it earlier to let the car warm up, snow has fallen into the car. It's on the floor, on the seat. At this point, I'm cold, there's snow in my shoes, my nose is pink with cold, and I'm so annoyed that I simply sit in the snow that has fallen onto the seat.

No one explained all this to me. I know that I should focus on the positives, and there are certainly positivies. I love wearing scarves and hats, especially scarves and hats that match. I love the excuse for crocheting scarves! I'm even learning to knit. I love the culinary possibilities: soup is so much more interesting when it's about 5 degrees out. I make chili about once a month, and it somehow tastes better than it did in California. Snow, unlike rain, is nearly silent. I love lying in bed at night and watching the snowfall out my window. It's like existing inside a snow globe. But some days, especially at 7:00am when I'm on my way to work, I just want to cry. Having a garage now seems like this amazing luxury.

Maybe the best part of it is that once mid-May arrives, I'll appreciate spring more than I ever did in California.

P.G. Wodehouse and Joyce Carol Oates

The last couple days I have been thinking about this: Whatever I happen to be reading tends to seep into my thoughts throughout the day, even affecting how I happen to perceive the world. This makes sense to me. So two weeks ago, was I depressed because I was reading Carson McCullers? Or did McCullers appeal to be because I was depressed? I guess it's like the "chicken or the egg." I don't know what the answer is.

So now I'm trying to somehow balance out my reading. You know, something morbid or sad set off by something comic or heroic. So I'm alternatinge between P.G. Wodehouse's short stories (you know, of Jeeves and Wooster fame) and Oates's We Were the Mulvaneys.

Wodehouse is funny, very funny. And really, I'd said he writes exceptionally well. Something about the cadences of speech strike me as funny (satire, I guess) because the are authentic somehow. Plus, Wodehouse appeals to my interest in cultural Englishness, especially between the World Wars. I'll spare all of you my adademic rant about that. But it's a topic--English cultural identity in the 20th century--that interests me, as some of you know.

And then there's Oates. I read Expensive People, my first Oates novel a couple of weeks ago. Like the Mulvaneys, it is written in the first person, and in both novels Oates seems a master of the first-person narrative. And let's just be honest--I like the gothic elements. Oates, in a way very different from Wodehouse, is a prose stylist. She's amazing.

But aren't they an odd contrast? And why am I reading them together? And what does it say about my psychological state? I think as much as anything, it says that over my break, I am wanting to read literature different from what I read during the semester. As much as I love the material I teach, there's more to life than adolescent lit.

Drennan, Resident Literary Critic and Introvert

The Back Home Again Cafe (And Celebrating Time Off Work!)

Today, I woke up and decided that I'm going to take full advantage of my last few days off before the semester starts. So I'm not going to do any academic work until Monday. After a morning of doing more loads of laundry than I care to recount, I took myself out for lunch at The Back Home Again Cafe. One of the things I miss about California, as silly as it sounds, is all the good places to eat. In Rutland, there just aren't that many interesting places to dine, but the Back Home Again is so wonderful. They have a fairly small menu of salads, sandwiches, and the best soups in the world. They also have a cool juice / smoothie / espresso bar. It's sort of a health-food oriented place with lots of veggie and vegan options. It's run by this cult (and maybe that's an offensive term, but that's really what they are) that calls themselves the Twelve Tribes (see www.twelvetribes.org). But the place is just so wonderful. The ambiance is lovely. Today, I ordered a cup of Thai peanut soup with homemade bread, a Cajun fish sandwich, and hot cider. And I sat next to the fire place and enjoyed my lunch and read a book, and it was all just so lovely.

I guess I just get really excited about good food. At heart, I'm a "foodie;" I really am. Like I said, they have the best soups there, all made in house with organic ingredients and the like. The serve one called "Butternut Bevy" which is this great butternut squash soup filled with feta cheese. Does it get any better than that?

Anyway, as part of my commitment to really appreciate and enjoy the little things in life more fully, I just wanted to express my enthusiasm for The Back Home Again. Although I don't agree with their theology, they make lovely food!

I'm also thankful for the opportunity to be able to go out by myself and enjoy a leisurely lunch and sit by the fireplace and read a book. I realize that to the Maven Moms and the rest of the Stroller Brigade, this sounds like a regular vacation. And I appreciate what I do have in my life.

Cheers,

D

More Maverick Feminism--This is especially for Dolce Carina, Joybug, but also for all the strong women I love

Coincidentally, providentially, what's the word? In the past two days I've talked to Carina and Joybug on the phone, and something strikes me:

When we were younger, we thought that finding the right man would make us happy. We wanted to meet someone, date, fall in love, get married, and then things would be fine. We wouldn't be lonely; we'd be fulfilled. We wanted someone to wake up next to; we wanted someone to share our lives with. And all that is fine and good.

Yet what I realize now, maybe should have realized long ago, is that finding the right man, as wonderful as that may be, isn't the answer to all our problems, and we still need each other. And I find as I get older that I select my girlfriends more carefully than I used to and that I cherish and nourish my relationships with my girlfriends more than I used to.

We love men and we want men, and for better or worse, we marry men because they complement us. They are different from us, and maybe they fill in our weaknesses. But then, in a silly, hysterical way, we get annoyed when they don't respond to us, to our emotions, the way that women do. And this is why, I think, that for all of you, your husbands come first, but we still need and want each other. I know that whatever maddening or terrifying or frustrating things happens, I can call Carina, and she will react exactly the way I want her to. She sees things my way, and she doesn't ask me to calm down and be reasonable, and she doesn't try to solve the problem. She just shares my annoyance or indignation or whatever it is I feel. And I love her for that.

Let's face it: men give us something we need. Lately, when I feel really, really crappy, I call my dad (who is absolutely wonderful), and he reminds me that I'm not crappy and that my life isn't crappy, no matter how I happen to feel. When I've been emotionally involved with men, they do that rational, stabilizing thing for me. And that's great.

But sometimes, I have come to realize, that I just want my girlfriends. And I love each of you, and I value knowing that no matter how much time has passed since our last phone call, I can call Carina or Joybug or Cortney, and we simply pick up where we left off. And I value knowing that each of you knows how crazy I can be, but you love me anyway.

My goal is to work on nurturing my relationships with each of you.

So, here's to sisterhood! (Was that cheezy? Even if it was, you understand.)

The Maverick Feminist

Maverick Feminism

CAVEAT: This is my soap-box. And I'm writing this mostly to the Maven Moms (you know who you are.) But please, no one take offense.

I think of myself as sort of this maverick feminist. You see, I'm a feminist--I believe in equal pay for equal work--but I have so many conflicts with second and third wave feminism. I feel like I don't fit in, but maybe Dolce Carina and Calamity Jane will understand, maybe.

Ok, so as a young, professionally successful woman, I feel all this pressure. It's like second wave feminism, particularly, is telling me that I ought to have a great career and be super-mom all at the same time. And here's the thing--I can't do it. I don't know if anyone can do it. I look at what I'm putting into my career right now, and I know that to keep working the way that I am, to do what I need to do professionally, I cannot give children the attention they deserve. I recognize that I can't do both. I can't have this 55-hour a week academic career and take care of a baby. Something would have to give, and right now, I'm thankful that I don't have to make that choice between my career and my children. And I really believe that this is true for most of us. We can't take care of babies and give them what they need and still work and work and work the way we might have to to get ahead, especially in competitive careers. When I look at my friends, the ones I know are admirable mothers, I cannot imagine doing what they do every day. In fact, I think that all of you work harder than I do. I don't know. What I'm trying to say is that I feel all this pressure to have the perfect career and the perfect children, and I find it hard to believe that most women can do both of those things and do them well, especially with small children at home. But isn't this what second wave feminism ala The Feminine Mistique tells us we should be able to do? Isn't this what much of society expects, criticizing those who are "only" stay-at-home moms?

By the way, hats off to stay-at-home moms. I think that each of you is doing what's best for your children--you are making the choice in the best interest of those you love.

And then there's third wave, the movement that, generationally, I should be part of, right? Only what's up with "do me" feminism, anyway? I refuse to accept that the objectification of women is fine, if that's what women choose. I refuse to accept that prostitution is OK for society, provided that women choose that option.

Have I just misunderstood something?

So where do I fit? Call me the maverick feminist.

Blogging like a Maniac

So all I wanna do is blog, blog, blog. Well, blog and drink tea and wine and listen to Johnny Cash. Is there a psychological term for my condition? It's becoming like a neurosis; at least I'm not doing destructive things. I think this blog has taken the place of my journal. I don't know how I feel about that. On the one hand, it's a handy way for some of you (Carina, Joybug, etc.) to know what's going on with me, since I'm not as good about keeping in touch as I might be. At the same time, I write and write without any filter, so if anyone cares enough to read he or she has to wade through all the garbage. (NOTE: that's pronounced with the accent on the second syllable, sorta like it's French--gar-BAJE. I learned that from my Grandma Opal who totally rocks as a person.)

So here I am, again, only this time I am writing just to write, just to see what comes out. I really believe in writing as this process as a way to arrive at something. Sometimes I just don't know what the something is supposed to be. But I believe that if only I write enough, I'll figure it out. Isn't it weird how much implicit faith I have in the process of writing, in the written word, maybe because I think of it as a reflection of The Word. So here I sit writing and writing. And wouldn't Peter Elbow be impressed?

What's happening to me? I'm becoming one of those neurotic academics. Only the thing about it is that I'm totally comfortable with being a slightly neurotic academic. Did you know that I hold entire conversations with my dogs? Where will it end. Remind me to write soon about my idea for Guinevere to be the compation / side-kick character for the BBC's Inspector Morse. The only thing about it is Guinn wouldn't ever realize that she's the side-kick. She'd totally think she was the main character because that's the kind of pup Guinn is. For pics of Guinn, see the archives.

I love blogging, and I love being me!

On Tea and Johnny Cash

Lately, I've been drinking a lot, a lot of tea. Many of you know this about me. But it's like and obsession or something. Here's a great site to order from:

www.adagio.com

At the moment, I'm drinking a cup of this great green tea with toasted rice, which, of course, makes me long for sushi.

I'm also fixated on Johnny Cash. I know, I know I'm a poser now that that Walk the Line movie is popular (I loved it by the way), I jump on the band wagon. But it's not like that, not completely. I've always liked Johnny Cash, and the movie made me more interested. So I keep listening to the same CD over and over, at home, in the car, at work, alternately laughing and crying.

If I can have tea and Cash, I'll be happy.

One of my goals is and always has been to enjoy the little, day by day things (this is why I think having fun dinner plates is important). This, I believe, is a secret to daily satisfaction and happiness. And for now, tea and Cash are what I'm enjoying and appreciating moment by moment.

D

Lot 49--Maybe I'll skip the chapter-by-chapter (and Misc)

Ok, so I know I promised a chapter-by-chapter analysis of Lot 49, but I have rather lost interest, not in the novel, but in analyzing each chapter. That said, I finished the novel last night, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's just so funny. Well, I think it's funny; apparently some people don't "get" it, and that's OK too.

At the same time, there's something sad about it. Oedipa, as she recognizes, sees the men she's come to depend on slipping away, one by one. Plus, all these people that she sees as connected to Tristero start to die. OK, so I just stated the obvious.

I think that I need to read things that are more life-affirming. And I'll do that once I'm back to teaching next week. Maybe I need to read things that are uplifting, rather than stuff that gets me mired down in post-modern uncertainty and feelings of helplessness. Maybe I need to spend more time on the couch with my dogs watching BBC murder mysteries. So much to do, and I have the time, but never know where to start.

To Carina, Andrew, JoybugsDoug, and all the rest, I love you!

Lot 49, Chapter 3

So this is the chapter where we get this weird Jacobean revenge tragedy. And it's really great. We also hear Mike Fillopian tell about the Peter Penguid society.

So with the Peter Penguid society, they are all into promoting celebrating some historical event that may or may not have happened. If it did happen, they are not sure who was actually involved and whether it took place off the coast of Carmel or Pismo Beach (I love references to the Central California coast!). So there's all this indeterminacy and no real way of getting at the historical truth, if there is any historical truth.

This, of course, immediately precedes Oedipa's first look at the Tristero symbol--the muted horn.

But really, The Courier's Tragedy, is a great send-up of Renaissance revenge tragedy because it includes sort of all the typical elements of a revenge tragedy, only in "spades." There's all kinds of torture and mutilation, and there's even incest. It's like all grusome Renaissance revenge tragedy combined. And of course, Trystero is mentioned as opposing the Thurn and Taxis families, the accepted mail carriers of the time.

Oedipa goes in search of the text for The Courier's Tragedy, hoping that finding the "authentic" text will clear things up for her. Oddly, there's no way of finding an authentic text. Again, Pynchon calls into question what literary scholars tend to take for granted: that there is a meaningful, authentic text, that a text means something.

I don't know--none of this is very scholarly. I just feel like it's something I want to write about right now.

I'm like Oedipa, I suppose, in search of the meaning of a text.

Lot 49, chapter 2: I left my heart in San Narciso

This is, for me, the funniest chapter in the book. I love that everyone is pretending to be something else, but there seems to be no substance underneath any of it. Metzger is a former child-actor, turned lawyer, who believes he becomes an actor before a jury. The Paranoids are clearly Southern Californians who are pretending to be British for the sake of their careers. Manny Di Presso is an actor, formerly a lawyer, who is playing Metzger, the actor-lawyer-actor in a pilot about Metzger's life. Where does it end? Everything is simulacra, pretend. But there's nothing real under it all.

Also, what I want to know is this. What is "San Narciso" really? I get that it's the Southern California suburbs. Is it really Orange County? That's what I want to know.

Narciso, I suppose, is a fictional city, pretending to be a real city, named after a saint who doesn't really exist. Except, it's clearly a pun on Narcissus / Narcissism, which is what saints are NOT supposed to be.

Could all of this happen anywhere but California?

The other thing that strikes me about this chapter is the movie that is running on the TV, the "Baby Igor"/Metzger movie. Apparently the reels are mixed up, so Oedipa isn't even getting the narrative in the correct order. And then it ends with the child and his dog drowning, when Oedipa expects a happy ending: "All those movies had happy endings," Oedipa says. What, here, is Pynchon implying about the possibility of narrative? Not only does the narrative defy and subvert Oedipa's expectations, but also it seems that meaningful narrative isn't even possible--the film isn't in the right order. . .or maybe it is. Oedipa never knows, and consequently, we never know.

Once, when I was maybe 10 years old, and we didn't have cable TV, the local independent station was showing the movie where Godzilla meets Mothra (a giant moth), and the reels were out of order. So, first we see the epic battle between the two; later we see native peoples calling up Mothra. Have you ever noticed that sometimes Godzilla is the good guy, sometimes the bad guy. I want to believe in a redemptive power of narrative, but it doesn't always work. We cannot, apparently, count on narratives to do what they are supposed to do. The world is less predictable than we might like, I suppose.

The Crying of Lot 49, Chapter 1

So, this is at least the third time I've read The Crying of Lot 49, and it strikes me as uniquely funny. Really, I mean that. I love that in the opening paragraph Oedipa "tried to feel as drunk as possible" (10). I love the rhythm of "the layering of a lasagna, garlicking of a bread, tearing up of romaine leaves" for something so apparently mundane. I love the characters' names, Mucho Maas, especially. Can anyone tell me, is technology the enemy here? Mucho sees people trading in cars that are "metal extensions of themselves" (13). Have we become so enmeshed in technology that it is who we are in Oedipa's world?

One thing that strikes me the most about this opening chapter is the image of Oedipa in a tower, kept there by "magic." This, of course, is an image borrowed from fairy tale. Is the entire novel a fairy tale? Certainly, the repetitions and seeming coincidences are reminiscent of the fairy tale form.

Oedipa feels that "what really keeps here where she is is magic, anonymous and malignant, visited on her from outside and for no reason at all" (21). This "magic" then is not helpful or benevolent. Yet by the end of the novel, when Oedipa is, I assume, released from this tower, is she any better off? Arguably, being kept ignorant, being Rapunzel locked in a tower is easier than confronting the truth of the world in which we live.

Just random ramblings on Pynchon's work. I'm hoping that my friends who know more about all this might feel inclined to enlighten me. Or maybe I should accept that, as for Oedipa, full enlightenment isn't possible.

Why I bother to blog, or "We tell ourselves stories in order to live"

OK, so one of my current projects, as some of you know, is to blog about whatever it is I'm reading, both for work and for pleasure. Although, sometimes those two aren't so different. But I realized today that it's more than that. I've always been a compulsive writer. For years I've kept a journal, and there were times in my life that whenever something difficult happened, I felt a compulsion to write about it. And, for me, writing about something is my way of coming to terms with it. Not to write about something important in my life is to ignore it.

And so here I am, blogging away, and it matters not whether anyone ever reads any of this crap. What matters is simply that I write it, that I get it out there, that I hold up words and look at them from different angles, so that maybe there's a chance I'll understand the thing itself better.

In the opening to her collection The White Album, Joan Didion says "we tell ourselves stories in order to live," and by that I think that she means that we create narratives as a way to understand the apparently senseless things that happen in our lives. We try to make sense and menaning of apparently random events. And while I believe that human life is inherently meaningful, is not random or senseless, it does feel as though it were merely random at times. And like Didion, I go through my day constructing narratives as a way to fit the pieces together, to attempt to discern meaning, and to ultimately continue living in a meaningful way. This is why I write. And this is why it matters not who reads this or who cares.

And now I can come back to Carson McCullers. She must have written because she felt she had to. Speaking words is inadequate, but maybe writing them down allows for a greater possibility of meaning.

I suppose that post-modernism really deflects the possibility of meaning. I don't know. I lay no claim to being an expert on post-modernism. I do believe, however, that human life is meaningful, but sometimes it's hard to find the meaning. For me, ultimately, meaning resides in trusting that God is in control, that all is for the best. Maybe I write to remind myself of that.

On Loneliness, Part II: For David, Whoever He May Be

David, you who were sent here by Joy W, must be worth writing to, for Joy herself is so wonderful.

I feel less isolated, less lonely today. Rather than immersing myself in Carson McCullers, I'm reading things that make me laugh. I'm reading The Crying of Lot 49, not Wodehouse, although Wodehouse was not a bad suggestion. And while Lot 49 is funny to me, Oedipa Maas, like McCullers, seems disconnected from her world too. And, of course, all the men that she wants to rely on-her husband, her shrink--let her down. Maybe it's just the 20th century where we all feel disconnected, wanting to love, wanting to communicate, knowing only that we feel.

Just thinking about Jeeves and Wooster makes me giggle. I recommend to everyone the BBC / A&E series with Hugh Laurie (spelling???) of House fame. Hugh Laurie seems to be my theme for the week. More on that later.

Anyway, maybe reading and writing, simply going through the motions of trying to communicate is the antidote to loneliness. Words, words, words. Dolce Carina, you know what I mean.

I think that each chapter of Lot 49 deserves its own blog entry!

Loneliness

I am so lonely, feel so alone. And I feel funny writing this where just anyone can see, although I don't know that anyone cares. I don't know--feel like a discarded, forgotten, disconnected person. I want a thin, thin pounded gold threat connecting my heart to someone else's. Only the thread has been cut, or maybe it never even existed.

All I know is that I am so alone. And it's only two little dogs who care if I get out of bed tomorrow morning. Other than them, everyone else, the rest of the world will go on the same with or without me.

I don't want to be alone forever. I feel as though the world, everyone in it, has continued on and I've been left behind somehow. My mother, who is wonderful, would say that isn't true, that people do care and need me. But I feel adrift. I want an anchor.

D

McCullers, Part 2: "Ballad of the Sad Cafe" or the Impossibility of Love

So today, I read McCullers's short story "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe." I, again, don't know how to write about this work. Only to say this: human love seems impossible. To love someone means he or she will never love us in return. Loving seems to only drive away the beloved. Yet, McCullers (or the balladeer) says it is better to be the lover than the beloved, for the beloved can only feel suffocated, crushed by the experience of being loved. But how it must hurt to love in McCullers's world; it hurts to love in my world. If being loved only destroys, crushes, how is it better to be the lover? How is it better to destroy the one you love.

I cry when I think about it. Is a requited human love possible? McCullers suggests that it is not. I am inclined to agree.

I suppose that I am not loved in return, because it is simply human nature for the beloved to feel rather than to love.

Tonight I will cry myself to sleep, again.

McCullers's "'The Member of the Wedding"--Dolce Carina, this one's for you

I just finished reading McCuller's "The Member of the Wedding," and I feel like it's something I have to write about right now. It's real. Fiction, although fiction and not the truth, speaks truth. And right now, I think this story speaks the truth of me.

It's a story of an adolescent going through many transformations (isn't that what adolescence is for?) from Frankie ( character like Mick in McCullers's The Hear is a Lonely Hunter), to F. Jasmine, to Francis.

In the opening paragraph the narrator tells us that Frankie "belonged to no club and was a member of nothing in the world. Frankie had become an unjoined person who hung around in doorways, and she was afraid." I guess that this sticks with me because now I too feel like an "unjoined person," a "member of nothing in the world." I realize that it sounds so self-absorbed to say that, but it's how I feel; it's who I am today. And like Frankie, I so much want to feel connected to people in the world.

Frankie, now F. Jasmine, becomes obsessed with her brother's wedding, and she wants to believe that her brother and his bride will accept her as part of their relationship and take her with them. She tells herself over and over that "you [Jarvis and Janice] are the we of me." This line, "you are the we of me," repeated so often strikes me as a refrain. I guess that the important thing to me is realizing that we all want to be a part of a "we;" none of us wants to be an "unjoined person." In McCullers's work, however, joining seems much more difficult than we may think. Jarvis and Janice, predictably, turn out not to be Frankie / Jasmine's "we." Now what I am getting to is this. The reason I've loved J.S. (Carina knows who I mean), the reason that I stayed and stayed getting hurt is that he was "the we of me." Now, I just feel adrift, an "unjoined person."

Reader response theory argues that we, as readers, create meaning in texts, maybe even create the texts ourselves in the ways that our experiences, beliefs, assumptions, and prejudices affect the meaning we find in literature. I guess this is true of me and "The Member of the Wedding."

I think that Frankie, maybe even McCullers and all writers, are "the we of me."

I loved this story, and although sad in many ways, I find it validating and even life-affirming.

I want this world to be "the we of me."

Resolutions, part 2

So, I'm doing well so far with my New Year's Resolutions.

1. I have, so far, only urinated in appropriate places, toilets and the like ;)

2. Brushing my teeth--going well so far.

3. Drinking my daily glass of wine has greatly improved my quality of life. I think I have my friend Rachel to thank for this. She's my red wine inspiration. Last night, I opened a bottle of Cabernet / Merlot blend, and it's lovely.

I'm giving myself a metaphoric pat on the back!

This is me with Polly. This picutre was taken a couple of months ago--we know this because I am not wearing a sweater. I know this isn't such a great picture, that both our heads are cut off. But it makes me happy!

V. Woolf's The Years

As a sort of New Year's resolution, I've decided to post something about the books I've been reading. My idea is, not so much that all of you care about what I'm reading and thinking, but that this is a way for me to think though the reading I'm doing, both for work and for pleasure.

Virginia Woolf, however, is somehow ineffable. I find her writing so intensely moving, yet I don't know what to say about it, somehow.

The Years traces several generations of a single, extended family and the patterns and reoccurences that their lives seem to follow. It's not easy reading, as the point of view shifts often. As with much Woolf, it's internal-dialogue, stream-of-consciousness kind of stuff. I don't know: I think it speaks to the relationships between the old and the young. Woolf herself, of course, committed suicide when she was middle-aged, but she seems to have an understanding of how it feels to grow old.

I felt almost as though I were evesdropping on people's most intimate thoughts, maybe impressions would be a better word. There's something almost voyeristic about reading Woolf, yet it's healthy and life-affirming somehow.

I'm not articulating this very well.

I think that reading Woolf is chaning who I am in some important way.

New Year's "Resolutions"

So, I've decided on three New Year's resolutions. First, let me say that I think it's really important to make resolutions that one can actually keep. That way when 31 December rolls around, we can all feel good about ourselves. So here are mine:

1. I resolve not to pee in anyone's backyard. NB: This resolution is really an "homage" to a good friend of mine. He knows who he is.

2. I resolve to brush my teeth (with either toothpaste or baking soda) at least once a day.

3. I resolve to drink one glass of red wine each evening, as we now know it's good for our hearts. The glass of wine, however, may be waived if I have a beer or if I have a small serving of dark chocolate (also good for the heart).

I'm certainly taking requests for further resolutions.

D

Books I'm reading--The Catcher in the Rye

I've decided it would be interesting to start keeping a journal of what I have been reading and what I think about what I've been reading and whether or not I'd ever want to read the thing again. On Sunday, two days ago, I reread Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. First, I remember liking the book very much whenever I read it before, probably in college. But I don't know; this time around, it just made me very depressed. I spent much of the day reading it, and by evening, I felt nearly as depressed, disjointed, and displaced as Holden. I mean, I get that it's about adolescent angst and all that; I appreciate the narrative voice; I think I see what Salinger is trying to do. But I can only take so much! On every other page, Holden talks about how lonely / depressed / suicidal he's feeling. And I get it; we're supposed to see into his mind. He's disturbed emotionally. In fact, we know from the beginning that he's been institutionalized for his psychological problems. I just can't get with it, I guess. Rather than interesting, the book simply strikes me as sad.

I know that's not the appropriate academic response. I could talk about Salinger's novel more academically, I suppose. I could talk about narrative theory or important themes or symbolism or even what the title tells us. But I just don't want to. The predominant feeling I have is merely one of sadness. Maybe that says as much about me as it does about the novel. I'm not sure.