The Secret to a Good Mood

I just discovered the secret to arrive at work in a really great mood, and Dolce Carina will appreciate this. The key is to listen to the Pixies loudly the entire car trip. That's all it takes! I wish someone would have told me this years ago.

Wednesday (Wish it Was Friday)

I haven't been writing as much lately as I might normally. This, I know, is always a bad sign. Last night when I asked about "hitting bottom," I don't think I really meant it. In the last 2 1/2 years, I have thought I'd hit bottom any number of times, thought, "It has to get better, because there's no way it can get worse." Almost invariably, it does get worse. I have rarely felt so completely isolated. Maybe I shouldn't say that when so many of you have made a point of reaching out to me in the past week--got a wonderful, happy, encouraging e-mail from Cort a couple of days ago! I've not yet replied. So maybe it's my own fault for feeling isolated. I don't know. All I really want to do is sit at home with my puppies (what could be nicer than puppies?) and read and drink tea. It's so hard to get anything done. It's like disappointment and discouragement and going to work and pretending that I'm OK takes up all my energy. And the maddening thing is that I don't know how I got this way, how everything degenerated to this point. But it'll get better. I have decided that starting right now, I'm making it better. I'm here, at work. I'm showing up and doing what I can. And at least I get to talk about interesting things. I guess that all I can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other, like I've always done, and trust that some day I will wake up and feel better about things. Anyway, I really hope that's how it works, because I don't know what else to do any more.

How do you know when you've hit bottom?

Update

Not that anyone is all that interested, but I am home sick today. I feel so run down, like I can hardly do it anymore, you know?

But then then bus will pull up to a stop, and I'll realize that all of you are on the bus with me, and everything will be fine.

I really love every, single one of you, just for being there!

P.S. Just started a book called Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper. Has anyone read any Piper?

Fed Up!

So, I just want to say that I'm really tired of the snow. And I'm really tired of grading. And I'm really tired of "March Madness" being the only thing on TV.

Guinnie's Memoirs

Guinevere has decided to finally sit down and write her memoirs. It's something I've been urging her to do for a long time. We've decided that she can dictate and that I'll be her scribe. But just a quick preview--you can expect to read about such high points in her life as

when she was working as a waitress and was picked up by a mafia member, thus getting her start in the world

her involvement as a U.N. goodwill pup

her alleged involvement in the Pup of the Year scandal, the scandal that rocked the canine world, leading to the end of the coveted Pup of the Year Award and even the Pup of the Month award.

Guinnie wants you to understand that whatever she's done, it's always been for the "greater good" and not for "what could appear as the bad aspects" of the activity. She also says that she's a Jesuit.

Look for further posts as Guinnie begins the task of composing her memoirs.

Crazy

One more thing. . .some days I think I must be crazy.

Miscellaneous

There's all this random stuff I want to say. I'm drinking tea, and as I've said before, I do wish that sometimes there were someone else to make the tea. But there's just me. All I really want to do is drink tea and lie on the floor and listen to U2 until it's all better, you know?

Today, in class, we were talking about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and one young woman raises her hand and says, "I know this doesn't have much to do with our reading, but I was just wondering what you think. Do you think chivalry is dead?" (I just talked to Carina about this.) I know that the proper, academic answer would have been to talk about how chivalry is a construct in literature and social history and never really existed, not like she's thinking and blah, blah, blah. I know that's the script I'm supposed to speak from. But instead, I said, "Well, judging from the men I've dated recently, I'd have to say that, yes, chivalry is dead." So, I know that was really the wrong thing to say. But it just sorta happened, you know?

So maybe temporal happiness is U2 and really good tea. Or maybe U2 and tea and a hot bath. And then a episode of House MD. Or maybe just bed in clean sheets. I have this thing for sheets right out of the dryer, you know?

Is it weird that I like George Michael? Does anyone remember back in the day when we could use the word "gay" as a general insult, and that was OK? I miss those days.

Maybe temporal happiness is reading John Donne and drinking tea. Or maybe temporal happiness is 1:00 am with your best, best friends, drinking wine and making biscotti or some such. Come to think of it, there are lots of things I like.

The Cutest Dog I've Ever Seen!

So I know that I'm silly and prejudiced and all that, but I think that Miss Perfect Polly is the cutest dog I've ever seen. Here she is asleep on my pile of dirty laundry. It's nice that my sloth is providing someone with comfort, don't you think? I think she's just beautiful and good and perfect, like an angel in canine form.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

As I've probably mentioned, I'm teaching Sir Gawain this week and next--oh what fun!

And since Archer asked, I thought I'd mention something about the hunt scenes in part III which parallel the Lady's purusit of Gawain. So these scenes are pretty clearly written to mirror one another, I would say. The narrative structure, if nothing else, indicates this for us. What I find most interesting is that on the three successive days, as Lord Bercilak hunts a deer, a boar, and a fox, both the Lady and Gawain seem to take on the characteristics of these creatures. I'd expect Gawain, the hunted, to parallel these animals, certainly, but I think the Lady does too. On the first day, her purusit of Gawain is graceful and apparently noble, like the deer. Gawain's response is the same. As one of my students said today, they are very "deery." On the second day, both are more stubborn, pig-headed even, as is the boar which Bercilak hunts and kills. In both scenes, the literal hunt and the figurative hunt back at the castle, both hunter and hunted show tenacity. Finally, both the Lady and Gwain behave in the manner we traditionally associate with the fox: they are cunning, sly, tricky, and not totally above board. So that's that. And it's interesting.

But I keep asking myself, "But what does it all mean?" And it seems to me that Gawain finds himself in a situation where he can only fail; it's a question of which fault he will pick, I suppose. Again, in the words of my students, he needs to cut his losses and get out with as much dignity in tact as possible. Arguably, this is what he does. But he still feels himself to be a failure. And I think this is exactly what it "means." Humans fail. Expecting perfection just doesn't work. Gawain can't be entirely perfect all the time, as he learns, in spite of his intentions. And, in the end, it's OK. I suppose that as much as anything, this analysis is really coming from where I am right now. (Ok, ok this is maybe not very sophisticated literary criticism, but it's what it is. And really, if we can't learn about ourselves from literature, what's the point?) We try to be perfect; maybe we think we have to be perfect. But we can't. This world just doesn't work that way. And in the end, it's Ok.

I'm entirely honest that I struggle with perfectionism. And it makes me crazy and anxious and miserable, sometimes. And it also means that I do a really good job with some things, but I don't even enjoy my successes because I focus only on the one, tiny thing that could have been better. I'm learning more and more to move away from this, but it's hard. I know that some of you can identify. I was talking to a colleague today, and he seems to think it's a product of being a female of my generation. Maybe there's something to that. Maybe it's the same old issue that I have with feminism--the idea that I have to be all things to all people all the time. Only I can't.

So I've done it again: I have taken a post about something outside of me, and I have made it about me. But I guess this is what I needed to write.

One more thing: henceforth, I want to be known as Pajama Sam.

Some days, you work and you work. And you feel guilty because you've made a student cry. And you come home and work at not having a panic attack. And once the panic subsides, you work some more, grading essay exams, which turn out to be much better than you'd anticipated. But still, the panic is there just below the surface. And you try really hard not to give in to the urge to pick up the phone to call your ex-boyfriend. You just want someone to talk to, but you know that calling him will bite you in the backside in the end. So you just keep working. And all of a sudden the exams are graded, and it's 6:30. So you order a pizza with feta an artichoke hearts. And you watch Empire Records, all the while unable to remember if you've seen in before. And you think how you love this genre of cheezy, high school hijinx movies, all the while telling yourself that maybe tonight's the night to start that "thing" you've been meaning to write. And you hope that bed time comes soon. And you hope that once bed time arrives you'll be able to sleep. And the phone never rings.

Sometimes Blessings Come From Unexpected Places

I'm taking a break from grading midterms for my "Touchstones of Western Literature" course. One of three options that my students had was to write an analysis of the story in Genesis chapter 22, where God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. I was pleasantly surprised at how many students chose this particular option. I was even more pleasantly surprised by the insight of their responses. So many of them pointed out that doing what we are supposed to do is difficult but that we are blessed in the end, blessed precisely because we do the difficult thing. I suppose this is exactly what I needed to hear, yet I didn't expect to find it among a set of sophomore-level midterms.

It so often strikes me that what we need comes from a source we wouldn't have expected.

iPod and Podcasts

I have little energy for today's post, so I'll keep it short.

NPR's free podcasts are a wonderful thing.

D

Larry McMurtry

I am reading McMurtry again. So far Texasville is pretty trashy. But he's this funny writer.

How's this for an opening sentence: "Duane was in the hot tub, shooting at his new doghouse with a .44 Magnum."

And here's something about Duane's wife: "She had thirty or forty T-shirts with lines from. . .songs printed on them. Every time she heard a lyric which seemed to her to express an important truth, she had a T-shirt printed" Couldn't this be me? Well, Karla does a lot of crap I wouldn't do, but couldn't this description be me in a weird, alternate universe, one where I live in Texas and have the means to obtain all the tees I want???

Lonely / Sad / Alive / Happy / Working

So today I read the first two "fitts" (that means parts, I suppose) of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I know that I pretty much claim to love everything that I read, but I really do love Sir Gawain. You know, it's all medieval and stuff. No seriously, doesn't Sir Gawain's predicament tell us something about human nature, about how no matter how hard we try, we always fall short, yet others see us as being wildly, dazzlingly successful? What does it all mean? Is Gawain just a perfectionist? The Green Knight / Bercilak forgives him, so why can't he forgive himself? Ok, so I know that theologically some would quibble with this notion of "forgiving" one's self, but you know what I mean. Anyway, it's all interesting. Gawain's character is interesting. The language of the poem is interesting. If you are nerdy enough to care, I'm reading Tolkien's translation. It's all just wonderful and comforting on this very personal level. I realize that I say this kind of thing about nearly everything I read, and that's fine. Most of what I read for work / class is stuff I've selected because I like it so much and find it meaningful.

So Gawain is the good part. But I feel so very alone. I am overwhelmed and anxious. And I want to feel like someone cares, like there's someone I can call who won't be too busy or annoyed or whatever. But right now, it feels like it's just me and Polly and Guinnie, the evil non-genius. I don't want to always feel so alone. And most of the time I'm OK and all. But still.

Well, if you've read this far, thanks for listening to my rant. I love you for it.

D

Diana Wynne Jones

I'm reading Diana Wynne Jones's Charmed Life, and I want to say that Jones is, in my professional opinion (I say that because it sounds funny), one of the most under rated contemporary writers for young adults. She is inventive; she is a good writer. Why aren't more people reading and talking about her novels? I totally recommend her to anyone who is interested in YA fantasy, my current fixation. Jones seems to understand the experience of being a child in the late 20th century; there's something authentic about the perspective from which she writes. And I love it! If anyone's really interested Patricia Wrede is OK, and Jane Yolen can be good, both writing in the same vein. I wish there were something more academic or at least smart-sounding that I could say about Jones's work. In Charmed Life she writes a world parallel to ours where magic is fairly common. What's the theory? Where one posits that for each event (or maybe each major event) that occurs, there's some alternate world where that event turned out differently? If anyone knows the term for this theory, rather common in fantasy, let me know. I should know this. Anyhow, the characters find ways to travel between these parallel worlds, and it's all interesting, a fun read. But more than that, I think Jones has her finger on something about the selfishness of human nature. J.R.R. Tolkien would say that the great thing about fantasy is that it allows us to see truth about ourself in a clearer way by putting human nature in a different setting. (If anyone's really interested, read his "On Faerie." Now I really sound like an academic. I don't know if I can help it; I read, even think, through the lens of Tolkien and Lewis. Sometimes I feel silly about it; other times I just accept it.)

Anyway, I realiz that none of this is too profound. I think I'm writing to begin to collect my thoughts about Jones as much as anything.

It's The Little Things

I often find myself saying that I think, at least for me, one important part of being content each day is appreciating, even reveling in, the little, daily things that one enjoys. Today specifically, I am enjoying and am thankful for really good tea, my iPod (it's hard to remember living without it), Guinnie and Polly, a hot bubble bath, interesting reading material, fun DVDs, my physical health, my emotional health (hey, it's taken me a long time to get to this point!), the way my body and spirit feel after yoga, friends, and most of all God's presence in my life.

I know it may all sound cheezy (is that a technical term?), but I feel so joyously thankful for all this abundance! And I somehow feel as though I should share it with the world.

I sometimes feel invigorated when I wake up in the mornings, knowing that there's so much to look forward to during the day. I even happen to like Mondays.

Update on Augustine

Ok, so I just wanted to quickly say that I am reading the section on memory in the Confessions, and A. is beginning to rectify some of the concers and questions I had about the ability to trust one's memory. I'm feeling better about things. And I'm rather obsessing about A., which I am fine with (or rather, with which I am fine.) My biggest concern is what to read next.

The Office (and other DVDs)

I've spent the last three hours or so watching the first few episodes of the BBC's The Office, and boy, is it funny. And it's really offensive at the same time. And I can't remember the last time I thought that offensive could be funny. But this is. I guess the point is that these characters, while saying and doing potentially offensive things, are presented as real asses. And this is funny to me.

I have also started watching House M.D. on DVD. It's also very entertaining, but it took a while for me to get beyond thinking of Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster. But once I did, House seemed brilliant.

Ah, so much TV, so little time!