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.