I consider this post a shout out. . .

. . . to Dolce Carina and the rest of the fidfam, who are on their way to Europe today. And I'm so thankful that Carina and O. are joining M. in Europe, because to me this says that maybe all is still right with the world, you know? I mean, I so appreciate that there are healthy families out there, making healthy decisions. So, this could easily turn into a paean of praise for Carina, but I'm afraid that would embarrass her. But really, I just so appreciate the strength she has to seize what's right for her and to do what works, even when other people don't necessarily understand. This, to me, is quite inspiring. And so, even though I don't take the time to tell her so nearly often enough. Carina is such an encouragement to me; she's the kind of friend who doesn't come along very often.

NOTE TO SELF

Cold sores and orange juice don't mix.

I'm Sick

I think that anyone who knows me (the real me, not the blogosphere me) knows this about me: when I get sick, I'm a really big baby about it, and I get really depressed really quickly. I woke up with a cold this morning. And in addition to looking like crap, I don't feel so hot. And all I really want to do is to drink a cup of tea and crawl back into bed. (SIDE NOTE: As what I want out of a relationship is this: someone to make me a cup of tea once in a while. Dolce Carina knows this; it's not some big epiphany that I've had. All I want is someone to make the tea. I say that, but I suppose that's not totally true; that's not all I want. Still, at times like these, it seems important.) What I don't want is to have to stand in front of a bunch of 19 year olds and try to act perky for 50 minutes, although once I get into it, class will just go, and by the end of it, I'll be thankful for work. I don't know; I'm sick. And I'm already annoyed with having to be sick. I'm already anticipating all the things I'll have to miss out on because I'm sick. Goodness: this is not how the Buddha would handle feeling sick, of that I'm sure!

Hello, my name is Drennan, but I also respond to "Festering, Moldy Rat Ass."

I love pasta, chocolate tea, feta, bleu cheese, C.S. Lewis, Inspector Morse, my friends, my family, my dogs, Law and Order, funky fashion, the Beatles, Hello Kitty, boys, bad pop music, brown ale, Zinfindel, word play, Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Johnny Depp,body art, to fit in and pop tarts.

I hate snakes, the oppression of women, high heels, Led Zepplin, "white" Zinfindel, Two and a Half Men, boys, bad pop music, The Old Man and the Sea, backstabbers, to fit in, and belligerant 18 year olds.

I want another tattoo, a pint, to go to England, to write, a boyfriend, another dog, purple hair, a raise, to find a church, to fit in, and to stop thinking about my weight.

The Tattooed Professor

Ok, the funniest thing just happened. This is right up there with the time that I got invited to join some student's D&D group. This guy from the campus paper just came by my office and interviewed me. He's doing a story about tattoos on campus and had interviewed a bunch of students and wanted to get a faculty perspective. So apparently I'm like, I don't know, a side show freak; I'm the Tattooed Professor. So, I talked to him, of course, told him why I have the tattoo that I do. But really, is this what I want everyone to know about me? That although I masquerade as a professional, I secretly have this nerdy tattoo?

Procrastination

I know that maybe I should be working. I should be grading or reading or even preparing my sexy lecture on Little Women. Funny: Little Women isn't sexy in the normally accepted sense of the word "sexy," but I assume that all of you know that I use "sexy" to mean exciting, fun, attractive, and Drennanesque. It's like, "Hey, that pink eyeshadow is sexy!" or "Hey, your paper on the grotesque in Wicked is supersexy." But what I really want to do right now is to write. Well, I want to write and eat the new Buffalo and Ranch Doritos, which are super sexy.

I've been thinking a lot about my brothers lately. Although I know they'll never read this (Jake doesn't "believe" in the internet, so I assume that he doesn't "believe" in blogs either), I just want to say that I love both of them so very much. But more than that, I think both Jake and John are wonderful, interesting, admirable, fascinating people. And having them as brothers has so much enriched my life. This morning on the way to work, I was listening to The Specials and thinking about John and how I think he's super sexy and how I know about The Specials because of him. I don't know; I'm not articulating this very well. Jake especially is so different from me, just as a person. Jake knows about and is competent at all these wonderful, amazing things that I just don't get, but I love that he has enthusiasm for his job and his life. And I feel like I better understand the world and people and all of it because I can sometimes, for a second, see the world from his vantage point. He has such a happy disposition; he's so good with people. He's really so many things that I'm just not. And then there's John, the Goose. John and I are certainly more alike; only I wish that I had even half the talent that he does. I'm so in awe of him. He's just this smart, interesting, artistic, analytic, intelligent young man with superfly fashion sense. I like to think that he gets the fashion sense from me. I don't know; I'm getting all sentimental and sappy. I just really love them both.

"You Just Put Your Lips Together and Blow"

I should totally be grading, but this seems ever so much more interesting. Last night, I watched To Have and Have Not, because I'm onto a whole Humphrey Bogart thingy just now. But I liked the movie a whole lot, and I've decided that when I grow up, I totally want to be Lauren Bacall. I think she's so wonderful and beautiful in this powerful way, you know? She's like, I don't know, pre-feminism, anti-Marilyn Monroe, transcends-Sex-and-the-City feminity. And that's so what I want to be. She rocks. Whatever she does, she makes cool. I saw her with Bogart in The Big Sleep not too long ago, and that was good. But To Have and Have Not was even better. So where am I going with all this? I don't know right now. Only I know that she seems to be the kind of woman that I so want to be.

Hello Blogosphere,

Not much time, as I'm off to class in just a few minutes, but I thought I'd check in since I've not really been posting much lately. There's not too much to tell about. I've been watching Humphrey Bogart films lately, and that's kinda interesting. I think Lauren Bacall kicks ass. I'm all in favor of all this October baseball madness, but I rather miss House. I bought these great red cowboy boots that I'm wearing for the first time today. That's about all there is to say about me. Oh, I saw Flags of our Fathers on Sunday and didn't like it at all; maybe I'll write more about that later. Oh and P.S. 18-month-olds in lumberjack gear, playing with pumpkins are just the sort of thing that makes life worth while, don't you think?

MySpace

Ok, I think that I'm the only one under 35 in my family who doesn't myspace. Seriously. Brother, sister-in-law, cousins, they're all doing it. But I'm not. For a lotta reasons. (OK, and writing in fragments shows just how distracted and bothered I am about this whole thing.) So really, I'm I the only one who doesn't have a myspace account? Is this why I feel so disconnected from everyone on the left coast? Are the rest of you out there, posting, reading, commenting, connecting without me all because I don't myspace? And can I even use "myspace" as a verb? (Side bar: "I don't know the difference between nouns and verbs. I don't understand. I'm not saying I was never taught it in school. It just didn't take." ha, ha--this is Jake and Weiscracker.) So really, I don't want to give in to the whole myspace craze, in part because I don't think I want to make myself public to my students in that forum, not that they really are all that interested, but still. And yet, I feel like I'm missing out.

Homage: Two Words, Five Times, Twice

Ok, I'm getting all meta and intertextual here: This post is my homage to Dolce Carina. I'm going to list five two-word phrases to explain why I've disappeared the past week:

mother visiting
movie watching
Jerry Orbach
painting wall
eating out

And here are five two-word phrases describing all the fun, wonderful thing in my life right now:

dogs cuddling
fire burning
soup simmering
friend visiting
wall painted

It's up to you to make the Jerry Orbach connection; it has nothing to do with Beauty and the Beast.

Arrrrrrrr!

I'm back to work after a week's break. And in my 19th Century Children's Lit class, we're reading Treasure Island, which has me thinking about pirates. Yesterday in class, many of the female students informed me that they really didn't like because female are largly absent. The males, however, said that they liked it because pirates are just "cool." I conceded that I like it as well because pirates are "kick ass," and Johnny Depp, of course, proves it. Is it passe to be in like with Johnny Depp? But really the point that the narrator of Treasure Island makes is that the pirating life and the lust for treasure is dangerous at best, even deadly. Yet, it seems to me that we, as readers, don't really take that away from the book. I mean, by the end of it all, we still think pirates are kick ass, and we still appreciate adventure. Ok, I want to make a plug for the Muppets Treasure Island movie, which I really love. Tim Curry plays Long John Silver, which is brilliant. Oh and another thing about Treasure Island: it represents what is best about the boys' adventure novel.

Ok, so I know I've not been posting lately. I AM alive and am just fine. My mom's been visiting for the last week or so, and I've been busy with her, hence the lack of posts. There's not much to tell. When things settle down a bit, I'll post a pic of my newly painted dining area. Mom helped me paint it, and it looks lovely.

The weather is suddenly cooler, and I guess that's nice. I mean, that's what weather is supposed to do this time of year, right? This time of year, my thoughts turn to nesting, winter time reading. Alas, I can't find Jane Eyre, which seems like exactly what one should be reading just now. Recently, I read The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, who is apparently a first-time novelist. And it wasn't terribly literary or deep but was a good read. And it reads in some ways like a 19th century novel, which may be part of the point. Still, it made me rather long for Jane Eyre, which it references several times. In the absence of Jane Eyre, I could turn to Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair, which is a spectacularly fun read! Dolce Carina described it as being something like Harry Potter and good detective fiction all in one, and she's right, as she so often is. I highly recommend Fforde. He's just lots of fun. Lots of literary in-jokes.

OK, last week, T. asked me if I wanted a copy of Kerouac's On the Road. T. is teaching a class on beat poetry next term, and the publishers had sent him extra desk copies. Well, I almost never turn down a free book, and since I've never read Kerouac, it seemed like a good opportunity. And so on Sunday, I started On the Road. I read maybe the first third. And that was enough. It generally annoyed me. And it somehow seems trite, overdone, self-involved, and all kinds of other icky things. But my question is this: am I a washed-up, old fuddy duddy if I don't LOVE Kerouac? Seriously. I mean, I want to be all hip, and so I'm supposed to like his brand of drivel, right? But I just couldn't do it. I wanted to like it; I really did.

And now I'm back to P.D. James's Inspector Dalgleish. I'm rereading the first Dalgleish novel. And it's grand. And I remember why I liked James in the first place. I think that the Zoloft has made me even more enthusiastic about reading that I'd normally like. I mean, I'm always all for a good novel, but I'm really having this sense of reveling in my reading lately. This is a good thing.

So I'm not going to bother to proofread before posting; please excuse the inevitable errors!

Ok, so I don't really know what exactly I want to say, only that the Zoloft seems to be a good thing, at least for now. And really, I don't like the idea of being on meds, but I suppose that it's worth it if I feel better. It's like suddenly, I feel motivated to do all the things I'd been putting off. And I'm feeling less worried, less upset. In fact, I'm even relatively unfazed by the mouse problem I'm having. I just sorta feel like I can deal with it and like everything will be OK. This is how I should feel, right?

Ok, I think it's just best to be really honest and open about this: I am depressed. Yes, I've diagnosed it myself. I've also put myself on Zoloft. You see, I'm a doctor. Well, I'm not that kind of doctor. But I know myself well enough to realize that things aren't so OK, you know? And I'm sure that if I knew how to use the whole DSM thingy, I'd find that I'm suffering from depression, accompanied by an anxiety disorder. But for me, anxiety just seems to be part of life. It's like it's part of my make-up or something. Doctors, "real" doctors, say that there's a genetic component to this sort of thing, but my mom insists that she doesn't know of anyone on either side of the family who struggles with anxiety. And this all makes me wonder, what did we call panic attacks, say, 100 years ago? I mean, I assume that panic attacks, anxiety disorder, OCD, and all the rest are not recent developments, new conditions. Or maybe they are; maybe these are just symptoms of societal post-modernism or something. Or maybe it's all just some sort of post-feminism, I-can't-do-second-or-third-wave-anymore kind of affliction. Seriously. I feel like we Gen-X women, we 30-somethings females are under all this pressure to be all things to all people. And I know that so-called third wave feminism is supposed to be about having choices. But I feel like society (yes, that nebulous, non-personal "society") is telling me that I'm supposed to be Super Mom, to have a fulfilling, stellar career, to spend six hours a week at the gym, and to cook like Julia Childs all at the same time. And I'm convinced that most of us can't do all those things. I know that I tend to rant about this too frequently. But it bothers me.

And so, I am, at the end of the day, depressed. I keep going, keep getting out of bed, keep going to work, keep paying the bills, keep answering e-mails (well, I answer most e-mails, anyway), but I'm tired, and there are days when I don't want to keep going. I want to stay in bed and pretend that it's not happening, not like this. I feel, again, like I'm in Wonderland, stuck in a life that I couldn't have imagined, a life filled with nonsense. I'm stuck in relationships where communication breaks down, and we're all finally alone.

I really don't have a lot of time to sit here and write. But I wanted to say that I'm just tired, tired mostly of always doing what I think I "should" do. There's something in me that wants a month or a week or even a day off of all the "shoulds." I want to lie in bed all day and eat ice cream. I want to think only of myself, of what I want for a while. I want to be able to relax. I want to stop concerning myself with what everyone else thinks. I want to walk away from the stacks of essays and papers.

Beowulf

I feel like I need to say this out loud:

I LOVE Beowulf, love it, am excited by it, adore it. But I'm finally admitting it: a book can't keep me warm at night.

Ok, I'm plagiarizing here, but lately I feel like "House of No Momentum." Seriously. (Side note: I'm way overdoing the "seriously" in my own writing--I realize this.) I don't know what my deal is lately, but I'm having a really hard time getting anything done. I shouldn't say "anything;" it's more like I'm having a really hard time getting professional stuff (and laundry) done. It's like all I want to do is read, write, crafts, cook, whatever. But my teaching feels sucky, and grading just isn't happening. This is unlike me, and it rather concerns me. First, I'm not a procrastinator by nature; I'm just not. I don't like to let things pile up, even first-year essays. Second, I'm not one to wait around until I feel "motivated" to do work. I firmly believe that action begats motivation, that if I work at something, eventually momentum gets built up, and that's where the feeling of motivation comes from. Still, it's like nothing is getting done. And really, part of it's this whole weird anxiety / perfectionism thing: I feel like I can't get down to working, to grading, to even reading for class until I get my desk and my office area all neat and organized. Maybe that's a backwards kind of procrastination, or something.

I feel sluggish. And I keep telling myself that I'll be OK if only I do more yoga, which I somehow seem to never get to either. And all I really want to do is read popular fiction and threaten to read Virginia Wolf, although serious reading isn't really happening for me either. I want to knit and crochet and make soup and take photos of everything interesting that comes my way. And crafts, paper crafts especially.

OK, so now that I've turned this post into a big, whiney rant, I might as well go for it. I also feel like sucky teacher lately. I'm only teaching three classes this term. One is loads of fun and is going reasonably well, although the students aren't always as responsive as I'd like. This may be attributable to the 8:00 time slot. And another is going mostly OK, although I'm drowning in grading that just isn't getting done. The third is painful. And I can't figure out what the deal is. It's a class that I've taught at least four (I think more) times before, and I think I've been succesful in the past. I waltz into class each day with my usual enthusiasm, give my usual song and dance, and the students just aren't into it. They don't answer questions, don't even seem to pretend to be interested. And I don't know what to do about it. I'm sure that part of it has to do with the actual, physical classroom. The class is overenrolled, and there aren't enough seats if everyone shows up, which is kinda a problem. And the students are all kinda squished in, and there's this derelict looking TV and VCR on a cart in the corner. I don't know; it's just not, apparently, super conducive to learning or something. And so there I am, putting in my three hours a week, play acting in front of an audience that positively exudes apathy. Ah well, only eight more weeks of class, and then it all changes.

And then there's the loneliness. The more that I think about relationships and such, the more I come to believe that companionship is really what I want, you know? Someone to share the silences and empty spaces with, someone who's somehow willing to play along with popcorn and BBC adaptations of murder mysteries. Does that make sense? And really, "a little conversation," provided its with the right people would go a long way.

And what is it about Virginia Wolf? Why do I keep coming back to her? What's going on there that I think I can identify with? I can't figure it out. Kinda makes me think that what I really need is a good psychoanalyst. I mean that only half-jokingly. What is it about VW that I want to embrace or even to be? I can't figure it out. I'm spending my life as what Julia Cameron calls a "shadow artist," always loving words, images, writing, yet not being brave enough to produce art of my own. And maybe that's it. Maybe I want to be VW (sans, the insanity, of course). Or maybe I just believe in the power of words, that reading and writing can somehow save me, can save us all.

Girl Seeks Bliss

Ok, I'm reading (just started) this book: Girl Seeks Bliss. And I'm so excited that here's this book about practical Buddhism for trendy 30-something women. And I'm certainly no expert, but I think that at least some aspects of Buddhism really are compatible with Christianity. Recently, I've been struck by the fact that it's so helpful to simply accept what is, rather than being sad or angry or disappointed over what I think should be. And I don't see this as at all counter to Christianity.

My other big thing, at the moment, is Kimberly Wilson's Hip, Tranquil Chick: www.hiptranquilchick.blogspot.com. I just LOVE her podcasts. And she's totally what I aspire to be, in some ways. The hip, tranquil chick is someone who practices yoga, practices mindfulness off the yoga mat, and still appreciates cool clothes and fun lip gloss. Plus, Kimberly is all about pink. I totally feel like she could, in different circumstances, be my best friend or something. I just really like what she's all about. And, in fact, Girl Seeks Bliss, is a book she recommended in one of her podcasts.

So, I'm no expert about any of this. But I'm enjoying reading what I'm reading. And it's all making me realize that I want to be more committed to practicing both yoga and meditation, not that those two are clearly separable. And maybe I'll post more on this later, but I've also been reading about contemplative prayer as meditation, and that's fascinating too, although I'm not sure that I'm quite ready to incorporate it.

I don't know. I guess that I think it's good to think about being all Zen and accepting and in the moment. I certainly need more if it in my life right now.

Blog, Blogging, Blogged, Have Blogged

Sometimes, I can't believe that I actually use "blog" as a verb. And I know that I haven't posted anything ("haven't blogged") in a while. I think there's a lot that I haven't been keeping up with lately, the last week or so. And it strikes me as especially funny in that weird post-modern kind of way that to blog about not blogging is so "meta," if you know what I mean. But here I am. I'm waiting for my new super-sexy printer to initialize, and I'm using the time to blog about why I haven't been blogging. And seriously, I hope I can handle installing this new printer myself. I'm no techno-wiz; kinda wish I were. But if I were all techno-inclined, I wouldn't be me, right? Isn't it all part of my charm? Maybe not. I hope the printer works like it's supposed to. This sort of thing makes me anxious. But I'm here to say that despite the lapse in blogging, I'm alive. I'm well. Well, I'm getting by at any rate, and maybe that's the best we can hope for.