I'm BAAAAAAACK

I'm back. By popular demand. Well, I suppose that's a tiny bit of an overstatement. But I'm here and I'm posting, maybe not by popular demand, but because C.'s been encouraging. She even told me earlier today that she misses my posts. And of course, I wouldn't want to deprive her or the rest of you of good reading or at least of some sort of voyeuristic insight into my life and my emotional health. Or maybe you're just interested in what I've been reading and eating.

First, maybe a word about my silence (since 15 May) is in order. I've been really busy, at least for the two weeks that my family was visiting. And I've been pretty depressed--I'm finally admitting it--for the rest of the time. What's really kinda bugging me about this particular bout is that I cannot figure out why I'm depressed. But I do recognize the symptoms. Possibly most frustrating, at least at the moment, is my sense that I just cannot seem to get anything done. There's just no motivation there. Even things that I want to do, things I enjoy, fun things seem to elude me somehow. I know that it's not rational, and I cannot really figure out what to do about it. I'm teaching summer school--the one thing I can seem to get done each day--but when I get home, around 1:00 each afternoon, I seem to just sit. Even fun things just aren't happening for me. And it worries me when I get like this. And the weird part about it is that I'm not so much aware of feeling sad or bad, just lonely sometimes. It's more like I'm just this big slug, and I don't want to be this way. And I honestly can say that it's not that I'm just lazy, because even lazy fun things, like reading Harry Potter and watching fun DVDs, aren't especially appealing somehow. It's like I get home and I think that I want to read something fun, something not too challenging, but I just never quite seem to get to it, but it's not like I'm busy with other things either. I'm really doing nothing. And it doesn't make me too happy, I have to say.

However, I (finally, after three weeks of blah) am taking steps, concrete steps, to feel better and even to be better some how. And maybe I'll write more about that later. For now, I think it's enough to say that I AM doing something about it all. And just knowing that I'm doing something to start to pull myself out of whatever this weird funk is makes me feel better already.

Now that I'm here and I'm posting, I realize that it somehow feels good to be back. Or maybe it's that it feels good to be connected to the outside world, even in this "virtual" format. I've missed you all!

Gulag Archipelago

I've just started Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. And, at least so far, it is endlessly fascinating. And sad. And horrifying. And mesmerizing. How is it that I've never read this before? It's one of those things that for years and years I've been telling myself I "should" read, and of course telling one's self that one "should" do something is maybe the best way to dissuade one from actually doing it. I've read about 50 pages so far, and the writing itself is amazing. I suppose that the translator is maybe partly to credit here, but the writing, the individual sentences, are so well crafted. And all I really want to do is keep reading, in spite of the fact that both Elizabeth George and J.K. Rowling are beckoning. I don't know how to put into words how I'm feeling about Solzhenitsyn just now.

Weight

Since the first of the year, I've gained about 15 pounds. And there's not such a good reason for it, unless it's paxil (some call it pack-it-on-paxil). But I'm off that now, have been for six weeks or so. And the weight isn't going away. And I don't know how to explain how painful and difficult it is, living with the weight. My clothes don't fit--I'm down to about 2 pairs of pants and 3 skirts that I can wear. And I don't know. It's just emotionally debilitating, although I can tell myself it shouldn't be. So I've started Weight Watchers, again. But I don't know; it's all so hard. And I'm so discouraged that I do rather just want to give up and give in and decide that I'm going to be OK with being heavy, although I don't really know how to be OK with it. And I'm so, so frustrated, mostly with myself, which is the worst frustration of all. And I feel so alone in it somehow. Isn't that like some kind of weird refrain for me? I don't want to feel alone any more.

The Phil Spector Trial

When I'm home during the day, I like to have Court TV on, and of course they are currently covering the Phil Spector trial. The witness, Kathy Sullivan, who was on the stand yesterday afternoon and this morning makes me ill. She really does. She's a woman who claims to be a "platonic acquaintance" of Spector. And she was out for drinks with Spector earlier on the evening that Lana Clarkson was shot. So, it's obvious to me anyway, that it easily could have been her, rather than Clarkson. Of course, I suppose that statement implies that Clarkson's death wasn't suicide. Anyhow, this Sullivan woman is testifying as to the nature of her relationship with Spector and what they'd done earlier in the evening. And she's clearly turning this into her own 15 minutes. She's on the stand, acting all cute, cracking jokes (which the attorneys laugh at, by the way), turning this all into something about her, turning it into her chance to be on TV, to talk, to have attention. And it just makes me sick. I want to scream. I want to say, "Look, a woman is dead. Can you only think about yourself?" And it's not the normal thinking about self in the sense of saying, "Oh my gosh, this is terrifying. This could have been me." She seems not at all shaken by the whole think. It's friggin' unbelievable. And I use "friggin'" sparingly, so you can judge the severity of my reaction here.

The other weird thing that strikes me is this. And here I have to credit Lisa Bloom and Vinnie Politan for exploring some of this in their commentary. Spector seems to have this pattern of going out to dinner with a female friend, then picking up other women at the restaurant or bar and saying something like, "Hey, after my driver takes this woman home, do you want to join me for drinks?" There's something supremely creepy about that, in my opinion. And all these women he hangs out with claim that their relationship is merely platonic. Politan points out that "platonic" means that Spector was interested in a sexual relationship, but the women were like, "No thanks." If that's true, platonic must mean the women are like, "no thanks," until Spector drinks too much and then pulls a gun on them.

I don't know, rather like Anna Nicole's life and death, as Spector's story unfolds, I am struck by how supremely unbelievable it all is. I mean, I do believe it, and I think that the way that the prosecution is portraying him is reality. But if this were merely a movie and not real life, I think we'd all say, "That would never happen. That's totally unbelievable."

I sorta alluded to some of this a couple of posts ago. I sometimes feel like there's all this "stuff," important, sad stuff that's happened in my life, stuff that I'm just not talking about. And it seems like I somehow need to talk about it. I think that just avoiding it, or acting like it's unspeakable makes it more damaging. And really, why not talk about it? I think I'm just somehow protecting people who don't care about me. Here's an example: just over three years ago, I didn't get married. I was engaged, and J. waited to decide that he didn't want to marry me, waited until the last possible second. Seriously. He waited until there we were, in front of our families, in this public forum to say, "Oh sorry--don't want to marry you after all." OK, that was a paraphrase, but you get the idea. I suppose it would be more accurate to put it this way: he said something like this, as he dropped the ring he was supposed to put on my finger: "I'm really sorry, but I just can't do this." What he said isn't my point however; my point is that he chose to do it in a very public and thus extra humiliating fashion. He chose not to deal with me; he broke up with me, in front of, like, 50 people. But here's the part that I'm getting to. A week or so later, when I told some colleagues of both of ours that we didn't get married after all because he changed his mind, he got all bent out of shape. He got mad and told me that I had not right to tell people, especially people with whom he had a professional relationship, as did I, that it was his decision. That, he said, was too much personal disclosure. So that made me really angry. I mean come on! One: it was his decision, and I didn't want the additional pain of having my character called into question as the one who didn't keep commitments. Two: he did it in this oddly public way anyhow. I mean, after that, I think that any reasonable expectation of privacy was gone anyway.

The more I write about this whole situation, the more I feel absolutely disgusted with J. He'd be horrified, I think, that I'm posting this publicly, and I'm proud to say that I've gotten to the point (finally!) that I really don't care. It's somehow therapeutic and helpful for me to say it all publicly. The more I think about how he dealt with the situation and what he's done since (he lives with his mom. He's 35 and lives with his mom, not because he has to for any reason, but just because he's kinda pathetic like that). . . oh, the more I think about what he's done since, the more I just feel really, really sorry for him. And so there it is: I was in love with a pathetic loser. He was the love of my life. And I'm sure that I'll never be quite the same. But still, at least I've moved on and actually have a life of my own. Oh, his mom's quite wonderful, but that's not really the point. I've found a career that's mostly fulfilling and that I'm mostly successful at. I've forged other meaningful relationships. I have friends. I have interests outside of work. I guess I don't know where I'm going with all this, just that I need to get it out.

Lonely

Ok, this afternoon, I'm really lonely. And I know that this sounds kinda dumb, seeing that I teach at a college and all, but I sometimes feel like I'm languishing intellectually. You'd think that being a professor (ha, ha) and all, my work day would be filled with all kinds of smart, intellectual interaction, but really most of my day is filled with kinda mundane activity. And what I really want is someone to talk with about women's writing and women's experience and feminist theory. And there's sorta, kinda no one I feel like I can talk with. And T., my usual go-to-guy for this sort of thing, is busy. And Carina is far away, and maybe I'm just missing her. So I'm thinking about this Women Writers course that I'm scheduled to teach this fall, and I'm all obsessing about the possibility of a true women's discourse, you know? So here I am, getting all "Laugh of the Medusa," and it seems like there's no one around who can relate, you know? And then, I miss J. at times like these, because although he wouldn't be all into feminist theory and although I've had to explain second- and third-wave over and over to him, still he'd listen and ask the right questions to get me thinking about it. But how do you corner someone new and say, "So I'm reading Irigray lately. What do you think?" Or, "I'm interested in how the question of embodiment, especially the experience of the grotesque body, affects one's sense of identity." Or on a different note, "I'm convinced that Eco and Rushdie are speaking to one another in some important ways, but I can't figure out how they might be connected." I mean, I want these ongoing (possibly slightly tipsy) conversations about literature and feminism and postmodernism and medievalism and the self, and it's just not happening in my life. And my students are great. And they are attentive and responsive, but it's just not the kind of exchange that I'm craving. I don't even know where I'm going with this whole post. Maybe it's just that I'm missing friends and the life that I had (or maybe just some idealized version of it) in Riverside/cide.

Observations Made While Grading Essays on Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest

1. When someone introduces a thought with, "Not to be sexist or anything, but. . . " the subsequent thought is sure to be offensive.

2. "I found it boring" is not particularly insightful as a critical response.

3. The use of the word "crap" creates a decidedly non-academic tone.

4. What I really need is "a frivolous and partying alter-ego."

Ronald McDonald

Ok, I just need to get this out: I'm totally freaked out by Ronald McDonald. I don't much like clowns anyway, but he's the worst of the worst. The stuff of nightmares, really.

Procrastination (Again!)

It just occurred to me that I've been procrastinating about posting again. And the reason for my procrastination is soooooo annoying. I realized that there are all these things I want to say but, I feel, for a number of reasons, like I have to censor myself. And that's so irritating that I'm just not wanting to deal with it. It's like I want to talk about my recent weight gain and how that makes me feel. I want to talk about C., my ex-husband, and how that makes me feel. Sometimes, I just want to talk about what a struggle work is some days. But it's like I'm suddenly all paranoid. Is it paranoia if it's justified? Seriously, I want to tell the world about all the crappy, mean, evil, destructive things that C. did to me. But will that come back to bite me in the backside some day? What happens if I ever apply for a job and a potential employer Googles me, only to read all this crap about my personal life? I mean, this isn't just paranoia on my part. If I had used the half-brain that I do have, I would have started this whole project with some clever, interesting pseudonym. But now it feels too late. And so, I just have to say the nice things. I can't say that my breasts are bigger than they used to be and that it really bugs me or that I still dream about C. several times a week. And I hate that I feel like I can't talk about these things, so I guess it's sometimes easier not to talk at all.

An Update

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

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

Too Much Stuff

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

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

Anna Quindlen: How Reading Changed My Life

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

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

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

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

Snow

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

I just want the weather to go away.

Not Me

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

Burroughs: Running With Scissors

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

Conference Paper

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

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

Donnie Darko

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

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

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

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

A Few Random Observations

1) Yes, I've changed the format of the blog a bit. I like it.

2) I'm so thankful for good friends. And I miss having them around.

3) Work is rewarding; weekends are perfect.

4) Contentment is feeling immense gratitude for whatever is right before us.

Visually Satisfying Blog

OK, here's a link to a really pretty blog:

HELLOmynameisHeather

This comes courtesy of Zee. But the woman who runs this blog must be amazing. And it's so perfect visually. It gives me something to which to aspire. I can't even get my little book-cover-graphic-thingys to be in proportion to everything else. But this blog is just pretty.

Another Friday Night

I heart Friday nights.

A. left a couple of hours ago. He'll be gone until Tuesday, or so. I miss him already. But I LOVE Friday nights.

I love putting on my jammies and getting into bed and reading while I watch Biography's City Confidential. Tonight's was on Brownsville, Texas, and I'm so ready to visit there. I never thought I'd be saying that. And I suspect that it's probably a passing whim. But that's not the point. The point is that, finally, I'm relaxed, am doing what I want, am enjoying time to myself. And I don't feel like I "should" be doing something else. I'm just being. That, for me, is absolute contentment.

So finally, this week, it's starting, slowly, to feel like spring. And I so have the urge to spend tomorrow digging and planting. But, of course, it's too early for that, because it still gets too cold at night. I'd worry that plants would freeze. But I want to plant and garden and celebrate general spring-y-ness. What could be finer?