philosophotarian

On being a difficult person

2012-01-27T14:36:00.000-06:00

It is difficult to read self-help/personal development blogs, books, and articles that recommend that one cut negative people from one's life; that one avoid difficult people; that one manage difficult people. As though only easy/positive people read these blogs, books, and articles. As though people were always and to everyone either positive or negative; either easy or difficult.

I am a difficult person. I have been accused of being very negative. Should everyone cut me out of their lives? I suppose it is up to them, but I tend to be happy when people choose not to do so.

Nothing in any of these articles is very helpful for difficult people. The writing assumes that difficult people simply like being difficult, refuse to change in ways that are clearly positive (because the positive people have already so identified them), and require management or a very wide berth. But what is a difficult person to do about her own difficult-ness?

Remember, you positive, easygoing, laidback, cheery, easy to get along with folks: negative, difficult, awkward, uncomfortable people have feelings as raw and real and delicate as your own. In fact, it is possible that the difficult people in your life are even more sensitive to negativity, difficultness, awkwardness than you are. Some of us are hypersensitive to ourselves and to others. This makes us super self-conscious much of the time. It also means that we can go from being a-okay, happy to be around folks and out in the world to being overstimulated, deeply uncomfortable, and shut down or closed off within minutes. This can be triggered by anything--by things that seem like nothing to those around us. It's not our fault. Are we responsible for it? Sure! But what is it you'd like us to do? No response we can make that accounts for our intense discomfort will feel acceptable to you. If we simply leave and retreat to our homes or rooms or beds, refusing to take calls until we feel sufficiently lacquered over to handle company or the world at large again, then you call us selfish, closed off, abrupt and uncomfortable. If we try to wait for the moment to pass (just a little!), taking breaths and smiling weirdly (or not able to smile at all), saying little or nothing and hoping no one will notice until we've collected ourselves a bit before participating again, then you tell us we've shut you out, we're acting weird, you don't know what to say to us, we're changing the energy of the moment, we've made things awkward again. If we tell you we can't be in touch for a bit because we're in a rough spot, then we're not letting you be a friend, we're pushing you away, we're devaluing the relationship. If we try to tell you about our sensitivities as we experience them, sharing what is really hard to share, you often don't understand--that made you upset? That much? Can't you just get over it now that you know? No, no we can't. That's the point. That's what we're trying to say. That's why it feels so hard all the time and it takes so much effort so often just to appear natural. Alternately, you turn our stresses and worries and overwrought feelings into a judgment of your character, or our relationship. When we say "interaction X" left me feeling raw and drained, you take it personally, as though we are accusing you of having done something intentionally hurtful. What hurts is not you or your behavior (much of the time); it is the feeling of outside air on a soul that feels scantily covered. Sometimes a breeze makes its way beyond the insufficient skin and that breeze--delightful to others--can be painful for some of us difficult, highly strung, negative people. And it doesn't stop being painful.

Cut us out of your lives if you must--you do us no favors by remaining in relationship with us if it bothers you that much; remember, we can be highly sensitive and are often keenly aware of your discomfort and of the fact that we can do nothing about it. And if you decide to "let" us stay, do stop trying to manage our difficultness. Part of what makes us so uncomfortable to you is the fact that we don't try to manage your discomfort around us--we aren't able to change ourselves in order to make you feel more comfortable in our presence. Yes, we know you are uncomfortable with our sensitivities, our weirdness, our lack of reliable social grace. And many of us understand just why you are uncomfortable--after all, we make ourselves uncomfortable, too. But we (some of us at least) are able to let you have your discomfort and we can, to varying extents, sit with that discomfort we both feel. Can you do that for us, too? Can you let yourself be uncomfortable with us? For many of us sensitive, difficult folk, that is one of the most longed for expressions of friendship: the ability to acknowledge our discomfort, awkwardness, unease, self-consciousness, and rawness, to sit with it without trying to "fix" it or "cure" us, and to love us anyway, somehow.

Of course we understand that this doesn't look like the kinds of friendship other folks get to enjoy. It looks, well, negative. It looks sparse and chilly. But this is what we need if we are going to share the other parts of our personalities with you. Even those of us who are rather difficult are rarely difficult all the time. We might go through phases--whole years maybe--when it feels that way to you and also to us. But we have moments of pure sunniness. Some of us are quite clever, hilariously funny and entertaining; we can be deeply supportive and we can be creative and warm in the ways in which we show care; we can be or play the part of the outgoing extrovert at times. We can be amazing friends, lovers, and partners. But you won't get to know or experience that unless you are able to love--equally--all of the ways in which we are also difficult.

It would be nice to see any of this addressed in the advice offered for "dealing with" difficult people. (One "deals with" pests, generally; perhaps if you can't think of difficult people in any other terms than having to "deal with" us, then you might take that as a sign that you can't help but see difficult people as the enemy, in which case, yes, avoid us. We will be grateful to you.) As a difficult person myself, I tend to find such advice very depressing. I am difficult but I am not (usually; I, like any "easy" person, have my moments) a jerk. And I don't like being difficult. Very often I wish I could be otherwise. The truth is that I can't. And it hurts to read that one should not share one's dreams with difficult or negative people because they'll just look for ways to bring you down. It hurts to read that folks think that their successes produce negativity in difficult others. Maybe in/for some people it does. But then there must be as many ways of being difficult as there are of being not-difficult. It hurts to read that difficult people need to be "right" all the time. Sure I like being right. I like it a lot. In terms of interpersonal relationships what I need more than being right is acknowledgment that I am not necessarily wrong. Just because my feelings are nothing like what your feelings would or might be doesn't make me any more wrong or right than you. It just makes me and my feelings very different. The more you tell me that I am wrong to feel in some way, the more I will dig in and assert the reality of my experience. It hurts to read advice suggesting that you not respond to someone's negative or difficult attitude. Would you refuse to acknowledge or respond to a friend's sickness if she had, say, a cold? If your friend were missing a leg would you tell her to get over herself and just run a 5k with you? Or would you respect her limitations (whether permanent or temporary) and adjust your responses accordingly?

I started by asking what a difficult person is to do about her own difficultness and I haven't even addressed that all. This is amusing as I began by criticizing other authors for not addressing just that question. I've not come up with any ways of becoming any less difficult myself, for example. On the other hand, I am not entirely convinced that being difficult is itself a problem. There are many things we value because they are difficult--running marathons, climbing mountains, earning advanced degrees, performing brain surgery. I suppose I am trying to learn to value the ways in which I am difficult, which is itself a difficult thing to do. I invite others who are not difficult, or who are less difficult, or who are differently difficult to challenge themselves to learn to value difficultness in the relationships of which they are a part, too.

reading wallace stevens in the new year

2012-01-04T19:48:00.000-06:00

I.
I don't understand poetry. I can see beautiful things in poetry--in small and in large. And there are things I do and can understand sometimes and in some poetry. Reading, say, Wallace Stevens lately, I have the sense of something beautiful down deep where I can't see/fathom/conceive. There is something there inaccessible to me and I don't know what to do about or with it.

The only activity I know to take with writing, with words, with the letters is to take the words and phrases and lines apart. To try to break the thing into constitutive pieces. But the poem, it seems, is not made of bricks. I can't undo the edifice to reveal the building plans. It is not, say, a chicken, and I cannot, like a master butcher, carve it up, moving my knife into the spaces between the bones to divide it effortlessly into essential pieces. The poem, it seems, is more like a painting and my approach to the poem is rather like trying to understand a painting by removing each layer of paint. The poem is like a large piece of pottery--a sealed urn--and inside that urn there is something. The urn gives me that sense somehow.

Whatever there may be inside that urn, however, requires the protection of the pottery for its existence. I don't know how it is I know this, but I seem to know it. So how may I understand it? How can I understand the urn if I don't understand what it protects? How can I know the secrets of the urn unless I open it somehow?

I try to take apart the words and lines of the poem in order to understand it. Even while I do this, I see that I may as well smash the urn and, with violence, force the secret from it. What do I find? Aha! There is... ! Liquid gushes and spills everywhere good for nothing and no one and ruins my shoes. Or a peculiar smell--and nothing else--escapes the shattered vase and is lost in the ether. No, a tiny thing like a homunculus--hairless and fragile--scrambles among the sharp pottery and bleeds to death trying to hide his nakedness.

How can I learn to understand poetry and not destroy it?

II.
Perhaps poetry is particularly tough (or so it seems) because its medium is the same as that of strongly analytic scientific work. Like a painting done in equation-paint or a sculpture done in moving gears. How, now, can I tell the difference between the factory and the gallery? Between the library and the laboratory?

I tend to focus on the stuff of it, the material, on the sense of the building blocks and/because I cannot apprehend the poem as/for/in itself. Words mean things. But what/how does that mean in /for poetry?

There will be enough

2011-12-15T11:52:00.001-06:00

Since the advent of the new budget, I have had to learn to use things up, make do with things I have, and do without things I otherwise might have bought. Not a bad lesson to learn, certainly. I have been learning that I resist using things or using them up because I worry that there will not be enough—that I will be caught unprepared.

I have been learning to tell myself that there will be enough. It is okay to use the last box of broth because there can be more (whether I make or buy it). It is okay to open the last bag of pasta because I can get more. I don't need to buy a new bar of shampoo until this one is mostly gone; there will be more.

And sometimes things work out in spite of my planning or lack thereof. A friend sent lovely handmade soaps and now I have enough. The sub shop down the street unexpectedly brought a box full of mini subs for the office and now I have lunch.

I tend to worry more than I ought. Reminding myself that there will be enough and finding that it is indeed the case that there will be enough might become a strong antidote to fear and worry and rumination.

showing kindness to myself

2011-11-28T18:21:00.001-06:00

Every morning, as soon as I (finally) climb out of my warm bed, I head to the kitchen and put water on to boil. There isn't much to do while the water is boiling, so I put on my rubber gloves and do all the dishes left in the sink from the night before. This may be the best idea I have ever had. I do the dishes every morning while still half asleep. By the time I start feeling alert, the dishes are nearly clean and my water is about to boil and it feels almost like someone else has done the dishes for me: later on, after I've returned from the office, I come home to a clean kitchen and very little memory of having cleaned it. It feels like a favor I do for myself almost every day.

Lately I've taken a similar approach to cooking. On an ideal Sunday, I get enough groceries for the week and make one big meal--usually some kind of stew. This will be my lunches for the week (works better for me than sandwiches do) and, if I am very good, my dinners, too. I enjoy my lunches, but my gratitude for dinner is even greater. This evening, for example, I heated up a hearty portion of a Moroccan-spiced chicken and chickpea stew and poured myself a (small) glass of wine and a (large) glass of water. My dinner was tasty, emotionally satisfying, and I have the entire evening ahead of me to write (ahem). It feels almost like someone else cooked for me (and cleaned up) and all I have to do is pour a little more wine, write, and enjoy these homey comforts.

conjunction of the mind and opposition of the stars

2011-11-22T20:21:00.001-06:00

The philosophotarian has a lovely new coat. The wool is very soft and the collar slopes and drapes. The cut is asymmetrical and the coat falls in flattering folds.

My coat is a cheery red armor against dark winter and despair. Passers by treat you differently when you wear a red coat. They talk to you in tones reserved for friendship. They offer you cookies from a freshly opened box and commiserate with you over the difficulty of writing.

It is difficult to feel perfectly despondent when one dresses well. In tailored skirts and cashmere, new boots and a daring red coat, I am well contained. No external threads are loose. No stains show. Nothing visible torn or ripped.

When wearing bright colors, one can protest, disagree, insist one is not hiding. Hiding? In brilliant red? Hardly. Of course I am making an effort. Of course I am putting myself out there. I am hardly invisible. In a sea of bare heads and fedoras, I stand out in my buckled cloche. So distinctive it could be a costume.

True, even a red coat--and such a red coat!--will not, cannot call back an absent or an unwilling lover. Cannot make him want to tell you about his day. Did he arrive safely? Did he? Coats are not prophets, either.

And neither tailored clothes nor strange, invisible perfumes can guard against loneliness or heartsickness. The stepsisters were beautifully turned out and Cinderella was already worthy.

excuses

2011-11-18T14:24:00.001-06:00

Basically, I have been avoiding my blog because I am not sure I like my therapist. If I start writing here or in my journal I'll have to think about it (the therapist; why I don't think I like her; my life in general; the crazy awesome momentum I seem to have right now that I don't want to think about because I am afraid I will jinx it; evil; money; family thanksgiving; peoples' lives being really, really hard; etc), and that is too exhausting. So I'm writing my dissertation instead. Back soon though. I won't hide forever.

love,

the philosophotarian

Courage and Silence

2011-10-22T21:47:00.000-05:00

I have a new reason for avoiding mydissertation and it is one I am loathe to confess. A few years ago I wasdelighted by the silence constructed and maintained by the Ramsays in To the Lighthouse. I marveled then attheir proficiency in circumlocution. I still see the love there and I am notentirely disenchanted. Or, if I am disenchanted, then it is in the best ofpossible ways: I see how Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay are not magical; they are, insofaras fictional characters can be, terribly, wonderfully human and they fail andsucceed as other humans do.

When I last read the pre-prandial conversationbetween Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay, I found myself wishing they’d said more, that they’dchallenged themselves and each other more. Specifically, I wish Mr. Ramsay hadsaid to her—

Then, he wanted to tell her that when hewas wakling on the terrace just now—here he became uncomfortable, as if he werbreaking into that solitude, that aloofness, that remoteness of hers. . . . Butshe pressed him. What had he wanted to tell her, she asked, thinking it wasabout going to the Lighthouse; that he was sorry that he had said “Damn you.”But no. He did not like to see her look so sad, he said. Only wool gathering,she protested, flushing a little. They both felt uncomfortable, as if they didnot know whether to go on or go back. She had been reading fairy tales toJames, she said. No, they could not share that; they could not say that.

I see now, as I did not see before, thatthis is a failure in the silent communication between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay. Intimacyrequires a willingness to brave discomfort for the other. The other thingsMr.and Mrs. Ramsay resist mentioning—the bill for the greenhouse roof, thepossibility that Mr. Ramsay would have written better books had he not married,and the things they do discuss instead—Andrew’s future, Prue’s beauty, theflowers—are part of a shared conversation they’ve built over time. The bitquoted above shows a spot of tenderness, something that resists even a carefuleye or a gentle finger. They have no conversation to cover over this tenderspot, this bruise in their union. Now, a few years after my first readings of To the Lighthouse, I find I wish Mr.Ramsay had been brave and forged ahead, had told Mrs. Ramsay how he felt abouther solitude, about that fundamental remoteness from which he could never protect her;I find I wish Mrs. Ramsay had been strong and acknowledged her thoughts; hadtold her husband that she thought, first, that “there was no treachery too basefor the world to commit, that “no happiness lasted.” That she thought, shortly thereafter, watching thelight, that “she had known happiness, exquisite happiness, intense happiness,”and ended in an ecstasy of “It is enough! It is enough!”

Had she known how it pained him to feeltheir fundamental separateness, would she have seen his concern differntly? Hadhe known that in her separateness she was capable of holding nadirs andzeniths, would he have seen her protectiveness differently?

I am being made to see that I needed theRamsays’ silences to justify my own. Moreover, now that I am finding thatexplicit speech is sometimes required, I am newly critical of the Ramsays. Ihad not realized that my dissertation was an attempt to affirm my ownproclivities, and now I see that, at least in part, it has been so. This makesme more than a little uncomfortable and I am uncertain how to move forward.

A Mind of One's Own

2011-10-19T07:30:00.000-05:00

Perhaps one of the greatest obstacles to writing a dissertation, particularly a dissertation in the humanities (or so it feels to the one writing such a dissertation), is the absolute triviality of it all. No life will be saved if I complete my dissertation. No cancer cured nor heartbreak mended. The world will continue spinning and the universe will continue expanding whether or not I finish and no word I write will make the world spin any faster or the universe achieve its doom any sooner.

My life, generally speaking, is much the same. Some people feel stress because they are pulled in too many directions and bear too many responsibilities. Others feel stress because they are pulled only ever inwardly and bear no responsibilities to others. No more that is, than the very thin responsibility to not be an asshole, or the the very vague responsibility to commit to justice and things for everyone. No one depends upon me for anything. If I do not earn a living, no stomach will suffer but my own. If I do not make something of myself, no person's pride will suffer but my own. If I decide to hide myself in the deepest solitude, no one will be affected. If I ruin myself with hard living, no one stands to be disappointed. In this way I am very, very free. I am entirely free to mean and be nothing. This is, I find, a very burdensome freedom.

My response to such freedom has been indulgent self-pity--yes, I am free to wallow, as well. Instead, I might take a cue from artists, as described by Virginia Woolf.

Further, accentuating all these difficulties [those that attend the creation of a work of genius] and making them harder to bear is the world's notorious indifference. It does not ask people to write poems and novels and histories; it does not need them. It does not care whether Flaubert finds the right word or whether Carlyle scrupulously verifies this or that fact. Naturally, it will not pay for what it does not want.

But I care that Flaubert has found his word, my mind cried out. The world is a poorer, dimmer place if he has not! And that is precisely why and how I and my dissertation can matter. Not in a splashy and important way. We are not, after all, relativity, or a categorical imperative, or the enthymeme. But in a very small way (because I am, myself, very small) I can matter in ways parallel to those in which Flaubert's word matters. No belly goes empty whether Flaubert finds or does not find his word. No cancer cured. I am free to live a life of genius, a life full of moral beauty. No one's needs stand in my way and others can only help, not hinder, my project. The world is indifferent, yes. The world will not pay for the life I want to create. I need to remember that I don't need it to do so. The world will not pay for a line of Flaubert, either, but I wouldn't want to live in a world made up only of things that achieved value in this way.

There is another world. A secret world. An invisible world filled to bursting with invisible value. In this world, empires topple when the right word is not found. There are cancers of the soul for which only the only cure is some expression of aesthetic genius. I am wretchedly free in this art-indifferent world and must learn to bear my responsibilities elsewhere.

"Aye, aye, Starbuck, 'tis sweet to lean sometimes"

2011-10-18T15:05:00.000-05:00

I had a glass of wine with M on Friday. I told her I was reasonably certain I had decided upon a therapist to see.

"But k," she said, "you hate shrinks."

"Not true—I never knew any."

She asked why I had decided to see a Shrink Lady, and I told her how difficult it is to be truly close to someone. It's not so much that I hate intimacy, I said, I just don't see the point. M laughed very hard at this.

Relying upon others is very difficult. Be that as it may, even Captain Ahab could not avoid it. At the end of Moby-Dick, the Pequod chases the white whale for three days before meeting its final doom. The whale has chewed through another ship and has destroyed Ahab's leg for a second time. Ahab, finding it difficult to stand on his splintered ivory leg, relies upon Starbuck, first mate, moral hero, and only member of the crew willing to question Ahab's judgment.

But when he was helped to the deck, all eyes were fastened upon him; as instead of standing by himself he still half-hung upon the shoulder of Starbuck, who had thus far been the foremost to assist him. His ivory leg had been snapped off, leaving but one short sharp splinter.

"Aye, aye, Starbuck, 'tis sweet to lean sometimes, be the leaner who he will; and would old Ahab had leaned oftener than he has."

Had old Ahab learned to lean, he might have unwoven the curse that overhung his head.

It is, naturally, untrue to say that Ahab depended upon no one. He needed his crew, for example. Had they mutinied, he could not have carried out his monomaniacal plan. He needed the owners of the ship to recognize his ability and entrust the ship and crew to his leadership. Etc. etc. Needing others is not the same as leaning on them. When Ahab leans on Starbuck, he—without asking—shifts the burden of his weight onto Starbucks's shoulder so that, temporarily, Starbuck bears his own weight and that of Ahab.

As he rests upon Starbuck's shoulder, Ahab seems to recognize how very different he might have been—more like Starbuck, perhaps—had he leaned oftener on others. Had he shared his burdens with friends or with his wife; had he married sooner; had he chased after human company instead of a whale that cared nothing for him: had he been otherwise, perhaps all else would have been otherwise. Ahab seems to see this and forbids Starbuck from chasing Moby Dick. If only Starbuck can be kept safe, sent back to his loving family, then perhaps Ahab can be redeemed. In the end of course, Starbuck is forever separated from his beloved Mary, and it is indeed Ahab's fault.

So this is why I am seeing the Shrink Lady. I want to learn to lean on others before it is too late. Who knows how many others I might hurt by refusing to depend upon anyone?

Book I have finally read*

2011-10-16T20:06:00.003-05:00

Moby-Dick

*one does not finish Moby-Dick; one may read every word and still find it unfinished.

what is accomplishment?

2011-10-16T09:16:00.001-05:00

The number one obstacle to my writing here is the fact that I have not yet finished reading Moby-Dick. I am at chapter 127, about fifty pages from the end of the book, and I have not yet finished reading it.

I haven't read Moby-Dick for weeks. Reading this book has taken me the better part of a year, and not because the book is long. I read a bit and then spend weeks or months away from it, away from the catalogs and lists and asides and reflections; away from the doomed pursuit of that awful whale.

For months I have been imagining the blog post I will write after having finished the book: Book I have finally finished will be the title. The content: Moby-Dick. That will be the entirety of the post. Nothing to it, but the thought of writing it gives me such satisfaction.

I both long for and dread the completion of this book. I want to have read it, to be able to say "I have read Moby-Dick." A check next to the title and I can move on to some other beautiful piece of literature. Still, I know I have not yet finished this book for the same reason I can't bring myself to read Titus Andronicus, Timon of Athens, and the rest of the sonnets--I don't ever want Moby-Dick, or the corpus of Shakespeare's writings to be complete. I want to sail in the unmolested Pequod forever, always in search of that legendary whale, my days filled with hard work alternating with peace and unparalleled beauty. I don't want to have to think of the next stage of my life off of that ship, beyond the ship, in a world in which the ship no longer even exists.

Imagine an Ahab for whom possession and dominion were not paramount. Unimaginable, I suppose. I know that, having read Moby-Dick once, I will not have possessed the book, will not have cracked it open and forced its secrets from it, will not have unwoven the rainbow and pinned its every miracle to some eternal mounting board. In a world with so many books I have not yet read, how can I avoid behaving as though this were the case? Who has the time to absorb through unpossessive rereadings and many meditations the miracles of even one book? Of even one poem, ever?

The Pequod in which I am sailing cannot be eternal. The best I can do is to follow Ishmael and continue to re-visit the tale of Moby-Dick. Future rereadings (which I already anticipate) will never have the quality of that first voyage. The memory of that first voyage will color every future visit, adding layers of experience and sentiment and meaning. I will do well to look forward to this; I must keep Ishmael in mind: if I do not leave the Pequod, I will die thereupon.

480 tampons later...

2011-10-14T12:34:00.001-05:00

So, I guess I'm going to see a therapist. The first thing I did when I got home after my meeting today? Naturally I went straight to Amazon to buy tampons in bulk--organic, pesticide and bleach-free lady products. And then if you subscribe, you save even more money. So I'll have two years worth of tampons in about 6 months. Deal, right? And then I'll cancel the subscription for a year. Because I'm smart.

What is still a little fuzzy is the relationship between ladyproducts and therapy. It isn't as though the price of a bi-monthly box of tampons is enough to pay for my bi-weekly time with the therapist. I think my thought process was something like this: if I don't have to budget for ladyproducts, I can put that money into a different envelope and every bit helps, right? I won't even have to think about buying them, so that frees up the cash to pay for, say, laundry soap or cat litter or coffee filters, so I don't have to buy both in any one month...

Okay, so it doesn't exactly make tons of sense. But I'm clearly taking measures for my health and in a variety of arenas, so that's a good thing, right? And I'll probably be able to spot you a tampon if you need one, so there's that.

a small measure of success

2011-10-12T18:43:00.001-05:00

The philosophotarian kept to her budget this month. One down, forever to go...!

I have been desperately desiring a new tube of lipstick. The intensity of this desire is a little embarrassing, really. I have visited Sephora.com countless times, filling my online shopping basket and then closing the window just before purchasing.

This month, I have been throwing away all catalogs as I receive them, not even allowing myself to look. I have unsubscribed to every email shopping alert I've received. I've planned out all my cash, stuck to my budget, turned down fun, cancelled plans for which I had no funds; I've seriously downgraded my coffee, made pantry stew (rather tasty), and cashed in gift cards.

And I have been dying for a new lipstick. Ideally, it would be something swanky in lovely packaging--a Tom Ford or a Dolce and Gabbana piece of art. I broke down yesterday. I took my "beauty/grooming" envelope and headed to the CVS, where I spent a little bit of the money I had already set aside for the haircut I'll need at the end of the month. After much looking and comparing, I found one. A drugstore lipstick. I haven't had one of those in ages. But this seems to be exactly what I wanted: not too shiny; no pearl or metallic element; not matte, either; just a bit more than the natural color of my lips and it doesn't smell too bad. And it was under ten dollars.

I shouldn't get quite so much pleasure out of something so frivolous. I know this. It does make me feel more confident and hopeful about this budget as I prepare for month 2.

Poor Lamia

2011-10-11T13:13:00.000-05:00

Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold psychology?

That is the line, right?

I will not develop an emotional relationship to the sun. The sun is a dull common thing for all its brightness—it simply is and I can do no more about it than I can about the oxygen content of the air I breathe or about the color of my eyes.

Given a world in which the sun, or the air, or my unimaginable future, or my inability to X or Y are simply the case, how shall I be? That is the far more interesting question. It doesn't matter at all how I feel about these things. Feelings are fleeting and unauthoritative. Shall I leave my job because I am irked with the clerk next door? Shall I tell So-and-so what I really think about her management skills? Of course not. I shall be mistress of my feelings and not vice versa.

That I feel something is not very interesting, and why I feel something only slightly more so. I am not, I confess, very interested in exploring either. If feelings masquerade as beliefs, then that is more interesting and worth exploring. If such beliefs present themselves as the kinds of facts recorded in the "dull catalogue of common things," then that is still more interesting and more worthy of exploration.

How shall I live and keep the rainbow whole and the air full and haunted?

friday and in the office

2011-09-30T14:19:00.001-05:00

There is a woman in my office who eats microwavable meals every day. The recycling container is usually filled with discarded Lean Cuisine boxes. She is also sour and looks hostile. I wonder if these are related?

things I haven't bought since I redid my budget

2011-09-29T13:39:00.001-05:00

(I redid—no,*did*—my budget just a few weeks ago)

Body oil: $30

Hair goo: $22

Tights (I could use about 3 pair): $24

Perfume: $75

Room spray: $8

Gray cardigan: $24___

Total: $183

I can't even say I've saved almost $200, as this is money I never even had. I am currently paying off my consumer debt so I can live on only my paycheck. This is a lot harder than I imagined it would be. I haven't lived this way since college (and I had fewer and cheaper wants/needs then). In college, my rent was just about 25% of my take-home pay. Now, my rent is nearly half of my take-home pay. So there are differences.

I just read an article in which a woman who gave up shopping for a year tallied the dollar (well, pound) totals of all the things she didn't buy for that year. She saved over £5000 that year. I won't be saving any money, but I will be going deeper into debt more slowly (that doesn't sound very good, does it?)

Why am I fussing over this? If I can't (won't) be disciplined with the dissertation, I may as well develop other kinds of discipline in the meantime. Retraining my habits in ways that feel unrelated to the dissertation should help "trick" me into greater productivity and discipline in other areas of my life. Already the ways in which I waste time have been changing. Etsy who?

when i grow up

2011-09-28T21:38:00.000-05:00

When I was small(er) I wanted to be many things. I was going to be a writer, a singer, a lawyer, a missionary, and maybe a doctor. All together. By the time I got to high school, my employment goal was to become a pastor's wife and have babies and sing in the choir and lead women's ministries and maybe homeschool my kids. In college I had no clue what to be when I grew up and decided to become a grad student instead, and so I have been for the past eight years.

I have just begun to think that perhaps my ten year old self had a clue. Lately my ideal employment arrangement includes freelance work, adjunct or part time teaching, writing, and possibly some additional part time employment. Some have asked, "What about health insurance?" I'm not too concerned. So I'll have to buy some sort of health insurance or just pay out of pocket for my health care. I'm okay with that. Next they ask about retirement. Yeah, eventually I'll set something up (after I'm out of school; it's out of the question now).

When I think of my future in this way, it stops feeling so oppressive. When I think of my future employment plan as a patchwork of several things I enjoy, the things I am doing now feel like preparation for my future. For the first time since I was about ten, I sense a feeling that might be the beginning of excitement about my life as a grownup. This is encouraging. This might help me to write the dissertation.

Suits of armor and doubting doubt

2011-09-27T08:58:00.002-05:00

I remember reading women’s magazines atthe end of high school and after I started college so I could learn aboutclothes. Until the very end of high school, I refused to notice clothing orfashion. I wanted only to cover my body—the more covered the better. I woreloose jeans and oversized t-shirts and grandpa sweaters. I hadn’t yet heard ofthe term “body conscious” but I certainly wouldn’t have been interested,either. My standards in high-school were modest and utilitarian. The image Iwanted to present (insofar as I was even aware that I was presenting an image) wasthat of someone who couldn’t be bothered to care about something so trivial(and sensual, and sinful) as apparel.

Justbefore I went off to college, I decided I didn’t want anyone to know I waspoor. I don’t think I was motivated by embarrassment so much as by pride: Iwanted to be ambiguous; I wanted it to be clear that I wanted for nothing eventhough I was not wealthy. I bought my first pair of pants that actually fit meand this was somewhat momentous.

Currently,I buy a little above my means. The clothing I want is just a little nicer thanit needs to be. There is an image I want to present and it is important to methat others see or sense the image I want to project. I want to look PutTogether. I want to be All Set. I want to look Appropriate.

It makes sense to me that I want, formyself, to be Put Together, All Set, and Appropriate. What is less clear is whyit matters that anyone/everyone else see this as well. Do I really imagine thatpeople will notice me and think to themselves, or tell their partners overdinner “I saw a woman on the street today who was very Appropriately dressed,”and that somehow I will earn credit for that acknowledgment?

Certainly what I want is approval. I dowant credit. I want a grade. I like grades: they have usually been quite goodand report cards full of As and +s are so gratifying. I want to be gratified. Iwant to feel as though I am making progress and succeeding.

This makes relationships hard. I don’tknow what success looks like. I don’t know how to earn As and +s. I don’t knowhow to graduate from kindergarten to first grade, let alone from college tograd school. I do not know which skills to learn or how to learn them. Inschool, one starts at the very beginning with the alphabet and numbers andthings. Amazingly difficult and complex concepts presented as though they wereelementary. I suppose they are, but they are also worthy of abstruse disquisitions.But what is the equivalent to the alphabet here? Have I got the hang of thealphabet, though, and am I actually already ready to start writing words anddoing simple addition? How do I know?

This feels even more difficult because Iknow I am not an easy person. I tend toward nervousness. I overthinkeverything. I make people uncomfortable. I am a little too intense. I amawkward and aloof and introspective but I am also bossy and opinionated and aknow-it-all. I don’t pay attention or want to get involved, but I have a realsalesperson/missionary personality. I can sell myself, but I don’t know how togive myself. Once I’ve convinced someone I am just the thing they need, I amsurprised that they’ve bought my sales pitch and…I can’t deliver on theproduct. The pitch is the product and there’s nothing left to do but run awayand try the pitch on someone else.

I have been hoping, without acknowledging that I have been hoping, that myfuture job will make good on my sales pitch. That I will have some Self tooffer to others when I have a job. When I am self-supporting, I will be Realand will be able to back up my pitch.

It isn’t true, is it? Just like I learnedover three years ago that I had to choose to be happy before I would be happy,and that no boy, friendship, doctoral position, job, book, dress, etc. wouldmagically push me over the mental fence that demarcated where happiness was andwas not; could and could not be. I had to move myself to “happy” first and thenexpect different boys, friends, jobs, etc. to come. And they did come. And I am happy about that.

I have a hard time believing myself to be likable because I don’t even believe that there is any “me” tolike. At the same time, I want very, very much to be likable, and Ifeel strongly that others should make the effort. But when they do, I am not sure how to believe them: I know that they just bought a lousy sales pitch. How can I trust theirjudgment? That is precisely what I need to do: trust their judgment. There aresome people who claim to want to spend time with me. I need to believe them.And so other peoples’ opinions can and do and should matter to me. Not aboutthe dresses I wear, but about the reality of my existence.

Seeking Failure

2011-08-19T12:09:00.000-05:00

This is my next goal: I want to fail. A lot. Frequently. To challenge, court, invite, and risk failure.

When one exercises one's muscles with heavy weights, one learns to work to failure to test how far the body can go to learn how to become stronger. Failure is the inability to do even one more repetition, even if offered a million dollars as a reward. When you know where failure is, you have a sense of where to begin and where your goals lie—how progress can and should be measured.

I hate failing. I avoid failure. I avoid doing anything I cannot do extremely well. I avoid anything that I know makes me look imperfect (and I worry over all the things that make me look imperfect that I do not see).

Still, I know that avoiding failure is itself failure. I avoid doing things I do not do well so that other people will think more highly of me. By avoiding these things, I make it impossible for other people to connect with me in any but the most superficial ways and so I fail in worse ways than I had feared.

So I am going to hunt down failure. I am going to learn to delight in failure. I already hate failure. I will develop a taste for it, as though it were a particularly fine cheese, or a strongly flavored liquor. I will become drunk with the success of failure. And then it will take more failure and more failure before I can fail. And I will grow stronger, and failure will become strength.

books I have read recently

2011-08-16T14:46:00.000-05:00

Confessions
The Subversive Copyeditor
Clothes
Listening Below the Noise
Perfection
I Don't Know How She Does it
What Alice Forgot
A selection of Seneca's letters
Enchiridion
The Rule of St. Benedict
The Blue Fairy Book

I was wrong

2011-08-03T11:52:00.000-05:00

In Shakespeare's telling, Cressida is false. I still don't find Troilus particularly true, but Cressida is indeed false.

notes taken in day three of advanced editing class

2011-07-25T13:18:00.003-05:00

poetry, poetry translations

coding for poetry: how to make clear for typesetter
in the eg: code for poem same whether in spanish or english: The Other = the first poem (poem title one). same code for the spanish original and for the english translation. [coding doesn't come out in blog post. weird. < PoT1 > the other < / PoT1 > (maybe spaces will help)]
leave notes for the typesetter about facing pages, line numbering, coding conventions
~~look up the Mistral poems: mad women.~~
----
work on grammar etc.
diagram sentences. maybe 1-2 hours/week? [if i get virgin: 35/mo and then I can maybe get voice lessons, too...; structure week; make new syllabi]
go through logic book. Perhaps: spend 2-3 hrs/week on logic and sentence diagramming.
can I get my chalkboard hung on the wall? would sam hang it for me?
move desk?
get rid of couch?
file fafsa!
pay sprint bill
sign up for indexing course. advertise among faculty!

-----
start taking editing tests
make a checklist of all the tasks I have to do for each conferral period
find and save my thank you emails from students. build a portfolio so that I can make a case for making my assistantship a staff position; outline the advantages of making my position long-term staff (half-3/4 time)
--do this 1 hr each day in office until finished; metropolis with iced tea for an afternoon.
look into starting in magazines. [still, how/where?]
book production--easier to find a job in a publishing house; good for someone who is organized
work on foreign languages; also, consider reading lists as job prep for editing (not just catch-up reading for my own edification): the more culturally informed I am, the better editor I can be (consider my responses to MUW)
study parts of book, stages of book production; vocab, names
teach: editing and teaching are very similar. teaching adjunct will help with editing; editing might help me to get teaching gigs
talk to erich about building a website
------
get heavier weights. just do it.
build a new blog: offer to edit, index, and advise on all and sundry matters; link to facebook
homestead.com
offer samples of work. try to find lady's webpage (the woman to whom I sent editing assignments in class) janine/jeanine
see if I can really get a job at ben's company: freelance or part time edit from home.

resume: simple. no bells and whistles. too fancy: looks like they have lots of money and time; looks like all fluff, no substance. should look sleek and professional but not fancy (how would mine look?). No typo anywhere. Majority have them. Majority have at least one. Recheck mine. Change typeface. When applying for editing jobs: sense of proportion. Don't make it look like editing is my fallback from academia.

write to Real Simple about their etiquette person. I should have an advice column.
learn how to use spreadsheets (does maria know? maybe she can help?)

Formatting presentations: tell students to google their questions. Remind them that what they need to do is doable and easy to find.
-------
one must not wait to be inspired to work (at office; freelancing; on dissertation; working out--everything)

just get a watch. go to fossil store today?

can email instructor for whole ms: how long does it take me to complete a whole manuscript? do this. goal: 100k word book in 75–100 hours.

definitely do voice lessons for well-being. so go with ~~virgin.~~ t-mobile.

these classes are very stimulating. should consider taking (cheap!) classes frequently just for the change of pace, new thoughts, increased drive, creative thoughts re: whole life.

do I really need a kitchen table?

If I am going to freelance/ adjunct/ part-time--must stay very healthy so I can work for a very long time: I don't have any retirement funds! More reasons to exercise very regularly, get heavier weights, exercycle, stretch, do pushups, and walk.

nov 17–19: editing electronically. then I'll be done.

Thanks, Anne Lamott

2011-06-07T10:10:00.000-05:00

And we are put on earth a little space.
That we may learn to bear the beams of love.

silentium

2011-06-06T13:29:00.000-05:00

still searching for megalopsychia but right now the search requires silence.

halfway through the month

2011-05-16T16:26:00.000-05:00

And I have used my credit card on eight out of fifteen days. Wow! So much for "no credit card" month!

rules

2011-05-10T15:38:00.000-05:00

It is very difficult for me to keep track of all the decisions I make. I have started my style sheet for my dissertation. It includes rules like these:

no contractions
.3 inch tab
indent first lines of footnotes
level 1 subheads: bold type, centered, sentence-style caps
ragged right margin
dictionary: Merriam Webster 11th ed.
check punctuation for correct usage (en and em dashes and colons); serial comma.
check footnotes: terminal period? full citations at the beginnings of chapters?
call out promises and recollections: do I fulfill the promise to come back to item A? Do my vide supras match up?
check verb tenses. All match?

I should make a style sheet for my life, too:

no sugar before noon or after five
may not skip exercising for two consecutive days
may not use cell phone if I have consumed more than 1.5 alcoholic drinks
may not eat barley for more than three consecutive days
may not eat beans for more than two consecutive days
clothing must cover knees
monthly clothing budget may not exceed half of monthly rent amount
must pay bills before they are due
must be out of bed before 8 am
must eat vegetables every day

My rules are solid. What I need is an editor who will impose deadlines.

changing my environment

2011-05-06T12:06:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I had a spring cleaning kind of weekend. I did a lot of housework, all of which was necessary and satisfying. The best part of the weekend was cleaning around and behind the oven and the refrigerator. I unplugged the fridge, pulled it away from the wall, and cleaned it all up. I vacuumed the floor, sucking up years of dust, a pile (?!) of cat food, and several cat toys. I found two corks from forgotten bottles of wine (were they even mine?). I vacuumed the back of the refrigerator which had grown fuzzy with dust, cat hair and cooking grease. I scrubbed the floor beneath the refrigerator.

I moved the oven away from the wall and swept first, discovering charred kale, a burnt mushroom, layers of borax, and a wooden spoon. Then I vacuumed, and then I scrubbed.

I've been avoiding just these tasks for some years. I've been afraid of them, worried that what I would find around the oven and behind the refrigerator would be disgusting, possibly even frightening. It wasn't. It was only mildly embarrassing--I waited so long, and for what?

Now my kitchen is wonderfully clean. It is a pleasure to stand in front of the stove. I have not dreaded getting out of bed so much these past mornings. I feel more relaxed at home, even in other rooms.

The relief I feel in having a clean kitchen has had an effect elsewhere. I am prepared to overhaul my outline for chapter three, for example. I am prepared to let go of Northanger Abbey and, just maybe, to take up Antony and Cleopatra instead. I'm sailing the Pequod to Egypt. I don't think I could have done so if my kitchen hadn't been clean.

the dubious pleasures of self-knowledge

2011-05-05T11:04:00.000-05:00

One of the memoirs I read just after Christmas (the first book I bought for my kindle) was Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project. I liked it a lot and check up on her blog every now and again. On Wednesdays her blog posts offer tips or a quiz.

There is one quiz I keep taking, hoping for a different result. The result is always the same. The quiz is "do you make other people unhappy?" and my result is always "yes."

I've given Sara Maitland's memoir about silence a lot of credit for my increased solitude this year. That book did indeed help me to acknowledge my own need for solitude, silence, and reflection. However, I should credit Rubin's quiz for this solitude as well.

It isn't that I don't enjoy being around people. I do. And things are much more comfortable when I spend time with people one at a time, or in very small groups--I come much closer to earning a negative answer (a positive result) when I spend time with people in that way. This quiz has given me a way to interpret something I had sensed but had a difficult time understanding or discussing, and this increased awareness makes me more reluctant to spend time with others. I may be able to see that I have a negative effect on group dynamics but I don't know what to do about it. If I can't provide the antidote to my own poison (a somewhat harsh metaphor, but work with me), then it seems that the kindest action is to withhold the poison in the first place.

I think this realization still smarts a little. I know in my head that any one person cannot be everything or have every good attribute. Eventually I might be able to accept the necessity of this solitude and perhaps even to enjoy it.

lean with seeing others eat

2011-04-28T11:57:00.000-05:00

my neighbor's part time position has been just changed to a full-time one. I know this because that is the subject of the conversation all around me. I am not a part of these conversations.

I would like myself better if I were the kind of person to be happy that his part-time staff position has been upgraded to full-time. I am not that kind of person.

But what about me? He is very relieved to be able to give up his other part-time job, to have health benefits and tuition benefits (after a period of time).

But what about me? I have no security in the world. I have no job. I have nothing waiting for me and nothing to fall back upon.

(yes, of course this is my own doing. I should have remained satisfied with my assistant manager position at Discount Retail Store X and not reached out for things beyond my station. I understand this.)

I am not a part of this office. No one asks if I'd like to join them in lunch or on walks. No one says "hey, we're ordering X--want in?" Mostly I don't mind. I am not unhappy to be left alone. And certainly it doesn't make sense to befriend a mere graduate student who will be gone in another year.

On the other hand, not fitting in doesn't help me professionally. No one here would go out of their way to help me out in future endeavors. Not many (if any) would help if it were "in their way."

This would be fine if I were otherwise secure--I'd learn to freelance and (somehow) to write so that I could work alone and on my own time. I prefer that anyway (and that is one of the best thing about my current position--I am a solitary worker, no one checks up on me, and I have a lot of freedom in the way I structure my time.)

But I am not secure. I have no reason to believe that I will ever have a job once I graduate. I have no reason to believe that I will not be homeless within three years.

Usually I can shove such thoughts aside. Today my envy overwhelms me.

things the magazines won't tell you

2011-04-27T11:34:00.000-05:00

you don't need a microwave to pop popcorn.
(no, you don't need a lumberjack to pour your milk, either.)
suggesting that overweight women/women struggling with weight issues might consider switching from "regular" microwave popcorn to "reduced fat" microwave popcorn is just sneaky marketing.
telling fellow readers that just such a switch helped to turn you into a weight-loss success story is revealing and sad: giving up one food product for another is not a success.

How to Make Popcorn:
Pour about 1 tablespoon of oil (grapeseed, corn, safflower, or peanut would be good; olive works but you'll have more unpopped seeds) into a 2-4 qt saucepan. Make sure this pan has a lid. Add 2 tablespoons of popcorn kernals. I like white, blue, or red ones. Yellow ones are tasteless and less crispy.

Place pan on a burner on the stove and turn the burner on. Medium heat.

Keep the pan on the burner until the popping slows down considerably. Shake popcorn into a bowl. Salt. Eat.

Homemade Microwave Popcorn (if the thought of popping on the stove is too terrifying for words):
Place popcorn kernels into a paper bag. Fold the bag shut (tiny folds: you want as much space as possible). Microwave 2-5 minutes.

Cheap. No "butter flavor." No added coloring. No preservatives. No artificial sweeteners. No TBHQ or partially hydrogenated anything. Less packaging. Less waste. More flavor.

If popcorn is the one thing standing between you and your skinny jeans, you might want to rethink things in general though.

I, on the other hand, am the one so irritated by the magazine copy that I have devoted an entire blog post to it. So I might need to rethink some things too...

Okay May, I have a Project for you

2011-04-15T16:09:00.002-05:00

May will be (as much as can be possible) the month of paying only with cash for everything.

Exceptions to be paid by check: rent; electric bill.

Exception to be paid by credit card: phone bill.

Everything else will be paid for in cash. Not with a debit card even. Only cash.

monthly projects are hard

2011-04-11T16:35:00.003-05:00

The Month of Xtreme Thr!ft was great. I ended the month feeling happy and well balanced and in control of my wallet. I learned more about my spending habits and spending style and, even if I did spend a lot in March, I am very confident in nearly all of my purchases. yay.

The Month of No Complaining was horrible. I did learn a lot. I learned that I complain a lot. I learned I complain most to those I love the most. So not cool.

In exchange for not complaining, I offered myself treats--lots of cookies! Very bad idea.

For the past three weeks or so, I've felt very off balance. After I turned in the first draft of dissertation chapter two (March 16, not that I noticed) I read several memoirs about silence and the search for silence. One of these books (A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland) was wonderful. I look forward to reading it again and I am worried to read it again--what if it doesn't live up to the feeling I currently have for it? I digress. Reading Maitland's book, I had a two-pronged "aha" moment--first, I require a lot of alone time and second, I don't like to multitask when it comes to sound.

I enjoy my time with others much more when I have had enough quality solitary time. I knew already that I am and can be quite satisfied with my own company. I hadn't quite realized that I need solitary time of a certain kind (or of certain kinds) in order to relax and behave around others. Wasting/wasted time is not quality alone time. Sitting on the couch wondering what to do next, wandering from kitchen to office putting off chores, lying in bed when I am no longer sleepy are not restorative for me. Time spent reading fashion magazines or trashy novels is not restorative. Watching movies can be mildly restorative or neutral.

Following a routine with my chores and keeping up on them is restorative. I vacuum on the weekends. I do dishes morning and evening. I do laundry once every week. I sweep every other day. When I am not overwhelmed by mess, maintaining my space is relaxing.

Time spent reading lovely books is restorative. Time spent walking along the lake is restorative. Time spent exercycling--as long as I make it at least 20 minutes--is restorative. Time spent in the Art Institute and reading certain blogs is restorative.

I seem to require an aesthetically positive and/or productive element in order to feel whole, balanced, and prepared to engage with others.

I don't like music when I take care of housework or when I read or when I write. I find it very distracting. I would rather do nothing else if I am listening to music. When I perform chores, I would rather focus upon them as chores.

Learning this was and continues to be very helpful.

Perhaps the fact of new or heightened awareness about my needs has left me a little sensitive, and perhaps this contributes to my sense of imbalance. Certainly learning how frequently I complain, feel sorry for myself, and make excuses for myself has been a disappointment.

I'm sure things will right themselves soon. But I am sensitive and then I am critical and snappish and then I am aware of my criticism and snappishness and become even more sensitive and even more disappointed. I need to sit down before I tumble into despair.

Letter to the Sartorialist and his readers

2011-03-29T17:40:00.002-05:00

(it's a short letter)

I am a curvy size 0-2.

I am very small. But I have some lovely curves. Really.

Thank you very much.

The Philosophotarian

Expectations

2011-03-28T10:42:00.003-05:00

The question was whether it is better to have unrealistically high expectations or to have lowered expectations. I think the question is unclear and asked whether the question was whether it was better to have unrealistically high expectations or unrealistically low expectations, or whether the question was whether it was better to have unrealistically high expectations or lower, more realistic expecations. That clarifying question was not answered.

The next question, which I didn’t ask, is whether we are talking about a natural predisposition, or whether we are debating which kind of expecting one should cultivate. Is it better to tend toward having unrealistically high expectations or is it better to cultivate unrealistically high expectations are two different questions, both leading to very different discussions.

Given the original poster’s response, that unrealistically high expectations might be a useful coping tool, I am going to assume that we are debating the cultivation of expectations.

There is one woman who feels very strongly that lower expectations (whether lower than high and therefore more realistic, or lower than realistic was not made clear) are preferable. She claims that the person with lowered expectations will be pleasantly surprised when something better happens, but that the person with high expectations will never be satisfied.

It may be that she is thinking of her own life when she makes this claim, even as I am thinking of my own life when I take the opposite position, and so I hope to be kind and gentle. To both of us.

This woman further stipulated that one should have high expectations for oneself and low expectations of others. I don’t recall if she mentioned events or situations.

That sounds like a lot of work to think meanly of others and highly of myself. It sounds, I’ll say it, elitist: others simply cannot live up to my standards and quality and I shouldn’t expect it of them.

When I expect my colleagues to say racist things, to be unprofessional, to be petty and uncharitable, I usually find that these expectations turn out to have been very realistic. When I expect them to be interesting, well-informed, creative, and kind, I am sometimes surprised to find that these expectations were also realistic. Sometimes, at least, the expectations I cultivate reveal much more about the things to which I am paying attention, and about my attitudes and judgments about others, than they do about ‘the real nature of things.’ This isn’t to say that the racism isn’t there to be seen, but that the racism and the pettiness are not the whole story. The ways in which I frame my expectations of others can determine the kinds of story I tell about the world. They make the world more manageable by eliminating (or ameliorating) surprise: though I may be surprised when my racist colleague says something enlightened, by calling him or her (in my head) The Racist, I learn to forget to look for other parts in his or her personality. I make the world smaller instead of letting my idea of the world grow larger.

When I expect very little from my boyfriend by the way of conversation, time spent together, the desire to communicate with me and not just the me in his head, I find that I am even less satisfied with what I get. Instead of enjoying the time we have together and delighting in his company and conversation, I realize that I have been consumed with measuring that time and company and conversation. Measuring is not delightful. Lowering and lowering my expectations in this case requires constant measuring: are my expectations lower than they were yesterday? Good. Measuring and perhaps a little air of martyrdom.

When I expect very little from myself or from my life, I find that I push people away, I fall back upon rehearsed performances of anxiety, I grow envious and self pitying. No, I will never get a job. I’ll have to go into Exile. How many times have I said this? Worse, how many times have I said this when others have congratulated me for having made progress on my dissertation? How many times have I so responded when others, who have more faith in me than I do with myself, have tried very gently to remind me that the future I picture may not be accurate?

These are three things: framing the world, measurement and evaluation, and faithfulness. The expectations I have or choose to have tell a story about how I interpret and move through the world. They reveal the ways in which and the extent to which I thrust measurement and evaluation between myself and the people and situations that make up my world. They are themselves a measure of the faith or faithlessness—better, unfaithfulness—that makes up my attitude toward people and events and situations—the world.

When I expect little from others and from myself, I tell a story about all of us that turns us into the kind of people from whom little (or little good, anyway) can be expected. I tell a story about essences and about worth.

When I measure my interactions with others and when I try to scrupulously measure my own responses and beliefs, I substitute my measurements for people and events and situations and even, sometimes for myself. I don’t respond to a friend as my friend, but as a quantity of experiences which I then judge. I become my friends’ and lover’s judge and set myself up as arbitor of reality and of goodness.

I am unfaithful to my colleagues, acquaintances, family and friends when I expect very little out of them. I am unfaithful to my boyfriend when I expect very little from him. I am unfaithful to myself when I expect very little from myself now or in the future.

Given this, I am lead to believe that I must carefully craft my expectations based upon the love I wish to bear. Not even upon the love I do currently bear, because that love is tainted with the ghosts of previous determinations and judgments and infidelities and despair. The love I wish to bear is free from these things. It is upon this love that I will build my expectations.

possibly the best dream ever

2011-03-25T15:29:00.003-05:00

Jesus (who was kind of small and scrawny but only sometimes) had a sidekick named Watson.

Why have I never thought of this before?

Don't steal my idea, people. Way not cool. Supersleuth Jesus and Supersidekick Watson will hunt you down. With Chuck Norris. Who is probably watching you right now.

Think of it: The Casebook of Jesus and Watson.

1. The Curious Case of the Fishes and Loaves

"But, Jesus, how did you do it?"

"Elementary, Watson. I merely rearranged the laws of matter and physics to create more matter out of some matter. You know my methods."

"When you explain it that way, Jesus, it all seems so simple, and yet I am sure I couldn't do it."

But I'm still re-reading it.

2011-03-21T15:57:00.002-05:00

On the one hand, Jane Eyre is a super role-model, and I couldn't properly appreciate that until just now. I didn't have the appropriate Romantic, post-Enlightenment, modern, feminist, ontological, or social tools to appreciate (and perhaps even question) Jane's insistence upon sexless, genderless justice, egalitarianism and equity, and authenticity to self.

(I also didn't see how completely unsubtle Charlotte Bronte was in her pictures of the adult Eliza and Georgiana Reed. Wow.)

On the other hand, Mr. Rochester, for all his romantic meltingness, is so obviously a projection of female desire, that the relationship between Jane and Edward is not one of equality, of two spirits meeting above and beyond the mediators of flesh and of morality. Instead, we get an enviably individual, authentic Jane and an Mr. Rochester who is the imagined but not real ideal lover for her.

I need a better Jane Eyre--the book, not the character. Keep Jane as is and make Jane more believable.

the philosophotarian is growing her hair

2011-03-18T14:10:00.004-05:00

For most of my life, my hair-styling efforts have been aimed at preventing people from seeing what my hair actually looks like.

My hair is very fine, rather thin, and, when clean but un-styled, hangs limply from my head. It's not terribly flattering.

For years I have kept my hair very short. When it is very short, I can make it look a lot thicker than it is with little effort: a little thickening goo, a blow dryer, a flat-iron, some texturizing paste, and about fifteen minutes and I'm done.

When I was very small and suffered from severe acne, my parents would take me to an aunt's house and we would perm my hair to dry it out and give it some body. (It was the 80s. That should explain a lot.) When I got a little older and my skin had cleared up, I still curled and teased and sprayed it to create the illusion of more hair.

I've not stopped putting the goo in my hair. I still blow-dry it, run the flat-iron through it, and add a little paste for texture. But my hair is lying closer to my head than it has in years. This makes me nervous.

I feel more naked with smaller hair than I do with no clothes on. I feel exposed, as though, in some way, I am revealing my limitedness. I am only so much and no more.

I feel less attractive but slightly more honest. I've also been wearing more (and brighter) lipstick. Make of that what you will.

I've joked for years and to many people that I am terrified of anything having anything to do with commitment. Of course I commit to things all the time. Sometimes I commit to silly things, or to things that require little to no thought. Sometimes I commit to things without realizing it (or without realizing it right away, or without having made a prior and conscious choice). It isn't commitment (like having to commit to my dissertation and the fact that I chose to get a Ph.D. in philosophy) that bothers me, actually. What terrifies me is disclosure. Exposure. Revelation. Being identified as a particular something or someone. Committing to myself, to being a self. That makes me extremely uncomfortable.

I wouldn't say I hide. Not exactly. I don't usually mind sharing all kinds of things about myself. I quite enjoy giving my opinion and pronouncing judgments, when I have them. Doling myself out--on purpose, in ways I can see and measure and evaluate--is not a problem. Being identified or identifiable in ways I can't see as well, don't know, cannot evaluate provides a seemingly endless source of anxiety.

I've preferred being a potential someone to becoming a particular person. Found it safer anyway.

I'm sure there are a lot of things I could suggest as catalysts for the growing conviction that there is no real safety in potentiality. That the safety I sought there was only ever illusory. I won't try to determine precisely why or how it is that just now I have felt burdened by the need to become something particular.

My hair is growing. I'm not sure it's the only thing that is changing or has been changing. But I can see it, keep my eye on it, and that's a bit of a comfort.

not the post I promised. Still a new post, though

2011-03-15T14:34:00.002-05:00

There was a fire today just down the street, just a block from my place, in a building I pass on my way to work. When I got outside this morning, I could hear shouting. After a few minutes, I realized someone was shouting for help. I didn’t think much of it right away: there is often a lot of shouting in my neighborhood. But the shouting didn’t stop, so I started looking for the source. I don’t know which I saw first, the smoke or the two men leaning out of an open window shouting for help.

Three people were on the phone to 911 as I passed, so I continued on to work. By the time I was a block past the fire, you could see the smoke blocks away. One fire engine screamed past me on its way to the building. For the next twenty minutes or so, I kept hearing more and more sirens.

I was tingling with nerves by the time I got to the office. My boss reminded me that I could check the breaking news on the Tribune page. I did, and got the news as it arrived. At least eleven hurt. At least two jumped. No one seems to have died.

I was a little surprised at how upset I was. I can’t imagine how I would react if I were trapped in a burning building. Would I shout for help? Would I be as calm as one of the men in the building seemed to have been? Would I try to save anything other than my flash drive? Would I jump? I can’t imagine jumping. Jumping seems like death, even if it’s not that high.

When I imagined myself in the same situation as those trapped men, I couldn't keep from thinking that their most pressing thought, behind the cries for help, must have been, “I might die today. In minutes. Soon. Today.” We all know that any day could be our dying day; something like a fire a few doors down makes that thought a bit less abstract than it usually is.

I felt terribly weak for leaving, for walking away while those men shouted and shouted and shouted. There was nothing I could do. Three people were on the phone calling 911. I would have been in the way. And still. Perhaps I could have talked to them until the engines arrived. Encouraged them to keep from panicking. Assured them that engines and ambulances were on their way and that they would be rescued. I could have done that. I didn’t do that. I am ashamed.

trivia

2011-03-10T11:09:00.004-06:00

things that I have no good reason for disliking but dislike anyway:

water anywhere near my eyes
when a wet shower curtain touches my body
cheerios
the word 'armpit'
cremini mushrooms
feet, generally speaking
the feeling of two fingers rubbing together, as when one tries to snap
eyelids
plain green tea
exposing my knees
black shoes
toothbrushes
exercising
making phone calls
yellow gold
sardines
blue ink
couscous
white rice
parties

new post in the works

2011-03-04T17:02:00.002-06:00

For now:

thou shalt not place periods after subtitles

thou shalt not type subheadings in UPPER CASE LETTERS

thou shalt not create new heading hierarchies for each chapter

thou shalt not capitalize the word following a colon in a sentence

thou shalt not type table titles in _italics_

thou shalt not neglect to indent run-over lines in the TOC

thou shalt not use more than one typeface in your dissertation

thou shalt not place commas or periods outside quotation marks

thou shalt not use quotation marks for epigraphs or block quotes

thou shalt not use hyphens in place of an em dash

thou shalt not make an en dash do the work of an em dash

thou shalt not neglect the left parenthesis in a run-in list

Check out my new idea!

2011-02-24T13:46:00.005-06:00

It's so new and shiny and pretty and new, you'll be so impressed. Ready? Delayed Gratification. Yessss!

What does this lovely new (did I mention how new this idea is?) idea mean? Ah, sweet readers, it means that one delays the acquisition of some new thing until one has (a) decided it is really necessary/perfect/awesome/the right new thing, (b) determined that she can afford it, and (c) put into a ranked list of other necessary, perfect, awesome, right new things to see which is the one (one! not two!) that should be gotten now--assuming any can be gotten.

whew!

It turns out that a good deal of the pleasure of these nparnts (necessary perfect awesome right new things) comes before they have been acquired. In order (I think. Revision is for other people):

1. identification of a need
I need an airtight canister for my coffee beans! and new underwear! and a bright yellow, otherwise plain, giant yellow (must be yellow!) coffee mug

2. plotting the importance of the need
It is more important to have a canister than a mug. I have mugs. I do not have a canister. Both the mug and the canister are more important than underwear. Except for when I'm exercising, at which time, underwear may be the Most Important Thing Ever.

3. determining where to acquire the thing that will meet the need
Brick and mortar store? Amazon? Etsy? eBay? Small online retailer? Thrift store?
What will be the environmental impact of meeting this need? Who will be helped or hurt if/when I meet this need? How can I maximize the benefits of meeting this need and minimize the harms?

4. replot importance of need; add more needs
small insulated reusable handmade lunch sack! hair goo! homemade hair conditioner! shirts for spring! big yellow mug! glasses!

(repeat all steps until purchasing is possible)

I still haven't gotten to the point where I am allowed to purchase any of these things (hello, March!). I don't want to spend in one day (March 1) the equivalent of a whole month's worth of spending: part of the goal of the Month of Xtreme Thr!ft is to reduce my impulse purchases (with a larger goal of reevaluating what I consider necessary) and to trim my overall budget.

I still haven't decided how I will rank all of the things on this month's list of "things I think I need to buy or have." I have decided that in April or May, I'll do a thrift project wherein I don't buy any things. I'll buy food and toothpaste; I'll buy tickets to plays if there are any I really want to see. But no things.

Xtreme Thr!ft

2011-02-22T17:40:00.002-06:00

This project is going better than anticipated. I see that I could cut back even further, particularly in my food budget.

I've filled and emptied my Sephora shopping cart three times. I can't wait for March 1.

I've tried on 2 rounds of glasses and will order (for free!) more try-on frames soon.

I'll get an airtight coffee canister and probably some new scanties. Maybe a haircut.

I'll probably let myself go to Metropolis for coffee on the weekends so I can get out of the house while I write. I haven't written anything yet this month.

Cutting back has been easier than I thought. I'll probably keep recording my daily expenditures. Days when I spend no money are rarer than I had thought they would have been, but they make me happier than I could have imagined.

Deadly sins for a reason

2011-02-18T13:06:00.008-06:00

I am surprised by my feelings about Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's proposed budget.

I am among the least politically active or politically informed people I know. I find all things political extremely stressful. This is probably because I know I need a lot more information and because I feel very helpless to change anything.

Lately I've been making a bit of an effort to pay attention. (Maybe this is one reason why falling asleep has been so difficult?) I am a bit overwhelmed. On the one hand the popular uprisings in the Middle East offer hope: young people peacefully working together to bring about political change. Wow. Learning about such cooperative, informed, constructive passion is refreshing. Super cool.

While I am dismayed by the terms of Walker's budget proposal, I am even more dismayed by the reactions I've seen by friends and family on facebook.
A thinks that teachers and state employees should just be grateful to have jobs at all.
B thinks that if teachers don't like the new conditions, then they should get out and get new jobs; everyone has the a choice.
C thinks teachers should consider themselves lucky to have any sort of benefits since she doesn't have any.
D thinks that it's about time someone stood up for taxpayers since teachers are getting rich while not teaching anyone.
E thinks that if public workers don't like the cuts, then they should get some education and get a different job.
F thinks that teachers wouldn't last a minute in the "real world" (I have never figured out where this is).

...

The envy in these posts is what strikes me hardest: I don't have everything I want; you shouldn't have anything I'd like to have. Classic "bootstrap" mentality: I did everything on my own (which is never the case) so you don't deserve anything I couldn't get for myself.

I am Envy, begotten of a chimney sweeper and an oyster-wife. I cannot read, and therefore wish all books were burnt. I am lean with seeing others eat. O that there would come a famine through all the world, that all might die, and I live alone! then thou should’st see how fat I would be. But must thou sit and I stand? Come down with a vengeance!
Doctor Faustus, II.vi

Dear World,

2011-02-16T14:42:00.004-06:00

Some words cannot be used non-literally for trademark kinds of reasons. Champagne, Roquefort, and Gorgonzola come to mind.

Some words cannot be used metaphorically because it is impossible--can you have a metaphoric metaphor? If you use a metaphor metaphorically, it would become, by definition, literal, right?

Some words are used non-literally and metaphorically but should not--ever--be so used. Like rape. No one wants a trademark on rape. But when the word rape is used metaphorically, it literally exacerbates the burden of sexual assault on survivors, previvors, and everyone else.

Unless you mean you that sexual assault was a mysterious correlative consequence of your large electric bill, do not say you were raped by the power company.

Unless you mean that humans sexually assault animals when we treat them inhumanely, do not say that the meat industry rapes animals.

Rape is never cute. Never funny. Never a clever verbal hyperbolic tool. Never. Not ever.

Movies I wish I didn't have to return to Neflix

2011-02-14T13:41:00.004-06:00

Casablanca
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Metropolitan
Doctor Zhivago
Funny Face
Bringing up Baby

The Month of Extreme Thrift

2011-02-11T16:49:00.002-06:00

That is the name of this month's main project. Extreme thrift is not nearly as cheap as I thought! Okay, it is more accurate to say that my budget is a leaky sieve and stopping up half the holes makes it easier to see just how much cash I leak all the time.

I've been making my coffee at home and eating oatmeal for breakfast. I've been bringing sandwiches to work for lunch and eating apples and oranges for snacks. I've not bought a single e-book for my kindle, nor even looked at eBay for skirts or shirts for spring.

Still, I've already spent $90 on groceries this month. I paid the cobbler the $35 balance on the boots and shoes I had repaired. I bought (inexpensive) dinner out on the night of the Literacy Center Benefit Gala. I'll buy an Amtrak ticket ($22) for Sunday and a gift ($?) for my mother in honor of her birthday. I'm not sure I'll have time this month, but if I do, I'll go see As You Like It for $20.

Wow! Already I can see that this was a necessary project. I think I'll do a Month of Extreme Thrift every three months in an effort to better control my budget and my spending. Learning to defer gratification will be useful when I go into Exile.

books I have read lately

2011-01-25T15:06:00.003-06:00

The Happiness Project
Poser
Not that Kind of Girl
The Dirty Life
Middlemarch
Nicomachean Ethics
The Consolation of Philosophy
The Pretend Wife
Broke is Beautiful
No More Dirty Looks

books I must read soon

2011-01-25T15:01:00.002-06:00

Discourse on Method
Aeneid
Augustine's Confessions
Paradise Lost
Abelard's Ethics
Seneca
Cicero
Time and Narrative
Oneself as Another

philosophy may begin in wonder...

2011-01-19T11:38:00.002-06:00

I suppose I should be a little bothered by the ants in the ladies room, but I'm kind of fond of them. They seem so determined and look as though they know where they are going. It seems to me as if the floor should be for them a tiled desert, a grim and vast white and shadowed wasteland. I picture miniature Charlton Heston-ants looking for a promised land. Ants with staffs.

But then sometimes the grout looks like a smooth paved street dicing up perfect city blocks. And then an ant or two will climb up out of the road to wander in curves across the tile and I wonder whether it crawls into a building or over it. Little Don Draper-ants with briefcases.

More reflections on my wardrobe

2011-01-13T10:28:00.004-06:00

(wow. that sounds excessively self-involved)

It occurred to me yesterday, after having written yesterday's blog post, that I really like my current wardrobe.

In my head, I am a jeans and flannel or jeans and tank top kind of gal. (This is probably related to my ardent early-adolescent desire to be a tomboy. If you have to want to be a tomboy, you should just resign yourself to not actually being a tomboy.) In my head, I like to wear sturdy, well-made, no-frills jeans, sturdy, warm, and well-fitted flannel shirts (or thick, well-fitted tank tops) with good boots and maybe a nice belt.
I am prepared for all sorts of work, am super-low maintenance, unconcerned with getting dirty, able to move about freely and comfortably and probably carry large and heavy sacks of ... something frequently.

That is not my life. In any way. And it is certainly not my wardrobe.

I wear skirts and sweaters and tights almost every day. Most are wool, wool-blend, or cashmere. In the summer I wear more dresses. I wear boots or dansko shoes. (And I probably should buy any other shoes except for exercising. They are the most comfortable shoes I can find.) And I find I am prepared for all of the things I actually do, am low maintenance, unconcerned with getting dirty, able to move around freely and comfortably, and feel perfectly appropriate all of the time.

In other words, my actual wardrobe matches my actual life and so I am not concerned (as I have been when younger) with any insecurities about the fittingness of my wardrobe. I don't think very much about trends (although Fall 2010 was full of clothes that are just my thing. That rarely happens!) because I am more concerned with longevity and fit. It doesn't bother me to dress differently than those around me because I am at home in my clothing.

pretty neat.

Wardrobe Projects

2011-01-12T11:51:00.005-06:00

Perhaps some of you have noticed wardrobe challenges throughout the blogosphere. Over at Academichic, at ReadyMade, and elsewhere, bloggers did 30 for 30 challenges, wherein they selected 30 items (including accessories) they would wear for the next 30 days, denying themselves access to the rest of their wardrobes for the duration.

There's another challenge I just saw today (though others have been doing this one since fall, at the very least). It's called "project 333" and those taking this challenge are selecting 33 items to create a seasonal wardrobe (3 months).

I thought I'd give it a shot, and I started listing to myself the things I wear all the time. (Seriously. These are the things I wear at least once a week.):

1. Gray skirt
2. Green skirt
3. Plaid skirt
4. Green patterned skirt

5. Green sweater
6. Navy sweater
7. Black sweater (favorite)

8. black boots
9. frye boots
10. danskos (around the house for support)

11. down parka
12. scarf
13. hat

14. jeans (the new ones)

Then it started getting more difficult. Those are the things I wear all the time. Wow. 14 things. This doesn't include pajamas, underwear (so I'm not counting tights, either), or workout clothes.

15. earrings (I've been too lazy to switch out the diamond studs lately)
16. green necklace (which I wear with the green sweater sometimes)

17. brown skirt
18. houndstooth dress

19. brown cardigan
20. tan cardigan
21. gray sweater (fuzzy)
22. gray sweater (ribbed)

I don't add in other shirts under my sweaters (if I do, they count as underwear because they aren't ones I'd actually wear to work or in public). This does keep my wardrobe small.

23. black coat
24. other scarf
25. black hat

There is not much else I wear on anything like a regular basis during the late fall/winter season.

26. snow boots
27. boots I just ordered because I realize I do not have enough for a proper rotation; boots I will wear all the time, for sure.

things I wear infrequently but can add since I still have space:
28. other black sweater
29. reddish/marroonish sweater
30. black lace skirt
31. tan sweater
32. blue plaid skirt

I might have to go home and look at my closet to find item 33.

I think of myself as having lots and lots of clothes. It is probably true that I have more clothes than I need. Most of my excess takes the form of spring-fall shirts I keep because I don't have many spring-fall shirts I like. However, it looks like I can streamline my closet even more. I won't take out all my winter stuff that is not on this list (which is not much. I'll still keep those pink sweaters. I just haven't worn them much), but I can take out anything that isn't perfect.

I feel even better about my clothing choices having done this little exercise. I get a lot of stuff on eBay or from used clothing stores. I try to get things made from natural fibers as much as possible and I shop for my current body shape only. I have a lot of wool (a lot!). Lots of A-line and fuller skirts. Lots of body-skimming sweaters. This is what suits me. Buying what suits me in quality fabrics, flattering, well-made cuts means that a lot of what I have can be combined in various ways. Moreover, everything is long lasting and washable.

It will be interesting to do this for spring and summer.

It's a new year, folks!

2011-01-06T13:26:00.005-06:00

And the philosophotarian, who seems to have forgotten how to budget, will relearn! Hooray!

January budgetary challenge:

$20/week (or less) on groceries. Not even $20.01.

It is likely that I stay within that most of the time, so this will be a good way to ease my way into a year of budgetary challenges. (snacks and beverages out are far worse for my pocketbook than trips to the grocery store.)

Once the intercampus shuttle is up and running again, I'll hit up Trader Joe's more frequently for frozen fruit, oils and other pantry staples.
Meat will only be organic for now, so there will be less meat.
Eggs will also be only organic/cage free etc. for now, so I'll have to spend my eggs more carefully.
To get the most bang for my vegetable buck, I'll stop being so lazy: instead of buying so much of my produce at the big (expensive, not very good) grocery store two blocks away, I'll head to the smaller (cheaper, better) grocery stores about a half-mile away.

All of this, naturally, is fuel for dissertating and preparation for Exile. Obviously.

The Lady's Book of Last Names

2011-01-04T10:38:00.004-06:00

Dear feminists, womyn writers, list-makers, genealogists, compilers, indexers, people who can't write well but nevertheless want to be authors, and others,

Please make this book. Finding a new last name is otherwise Too Hard and I am Too Lazy to put any work into this project.

Will edit the book for free. Ready Set Go!

preparation for resolutions

2010-12-28T14:34:00.002-06:00

How do those of you without children, dogs, real jobs, roommates, live-in partners, medication schedules, yoga/spin/expensive class of choice get out of bed at a reasonable hour of the morning?

Is there anyone other than me who fits that category?

we have turned

2010-12-22T11:16:00.003-06:00

we have turned every one to his own way.

This year we practiced three times, each for several hours. We labored over the 16th note runs ("For Unto Us a Child is Born" really is the hardest). We practiced the final "Amen" the night before the event (and that is harder than the 16th notes).

About halfway through the evening, my voice opened up a bit and it was easier to achieve those Fs and Gs.

Toward the end of "All We Like Sheep" there is a bit that changes up the runs on "we have turned" and C and I went over and over that until we nailed it. Last night, however, I did not nail it. At the end of it, I second-guessed myself and went astray. More accurately, I just gave up and came in at the next measure. And I knew it! And we'd practiced!

Strangely, "Lift Up Ye Heads" was the chorus I sang best. That was a surprise.

luminescent

2010-12-14T14:46:00.003-06:00

I fully support healthfulness and am happy to hear of others' success stories regarding improved health. However, I've never, ever seen skin that glowed. I think if I saw someone with glowing skin, I'd be concerned for them, and wonder if maybe they hadn't heard what happened to the Radium Girls.

already weeping

2010-12-10T13:06:00.001-06:00

The thought that I will (probably) outlive Alan Rickman is just too much to bear sometimes.

breaking up is hard to do

2010-12-06T16:13:00.003-06:00

Dear Wine,

you are no good for me and I don't think we should see each other any more. I think it's best if this is a clean break--don't call or write or text or email. I know how that will go: you'll say "let's just get together for a few minutes, just for one glass." Next thing I know, I've drunk you all up. Honestly, if I'm going to lose control like that, I'd rather do it with chocolate or cheese.

love,

the philosophotarian.

ps. I mean it. I mean it super hard.

note to self

2010-12-03T14:07:00.002-06:00

I have this fantasy of being All Set. Fully Prepared. Ready for any and all Contingencies. Although I am only a poor graduate student, I have been using loan money to purchase things like:
* a warm winter coat
* hats that fit my head
* warm woolen tights and well-insulated boots
* a bed and a comforter
* reading glasses (see right)
* wool skirts that suit my shape and fit my body
* a laptop and a netflix subscription (cheap gym!)

The idea being that, if I get these things now, I won't have to worry about them when I no longer have loan money to supplement my income. In a few years, when I've moved on to Exile U, I'll already have a warm winter coat, hats, tights, skirts and glasses to keep me All Set. I'll have a bed and a table and a desk and bookshelves. I won't need to get these things later, I'll already have them.

I am finding that I am nearly All Set. Sure, there are some things I'd like (a few silk slips; classy, versatile earrings that don't turn my ears green; a velvet sash or satin cummerbund. Basics like that). But I have enough shoes, enough skirts (more or less), enough sweaters. I am supplied with tights, with scanties, and with undershirts. I have more glasses now than I need (the old ones are still perfectly good for around the house). My kitchenware is more than adequate. It'd be nice to have a chair that supports my back and allows my feet to rest on the floor, but I think that's pushing it with the universe.

But if I am All Set, that must mean that I am Ready to Go. Which means there is nothing left but to finish my dissertation, find a job and become a Person. This frightens and disappoints me. I don't feel All Set. My feet are warm, I look put together and sufficiently polished, and my things have cozy little homes, but none of that makes me feel any more ready to be the person I have been, ostensibly, preparing to be.

oh, and

2010-12-02T13:07:00.001-06:00

Philosophical Investigations
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

and maybe something Christmas-y?

or not.

Books I must read soon

2010-11-29T16:12:00.002-06:00

Either/Or
Works of Love
Anna Karenina
The Princess Casamassima
Fear and Trembling
Discourse on Method
Phaedrus

Wherein the curse of eve is a mighty curse

2010-11-29T12:04:00.002-06:00

And lo, the angel of the lord came upon them and the glory of the lord shone round upon them: and they were sore afraid.

Suffering under Eve's heavy curse, I rolled out the pie pastry for Thursday's pie. It didn't feel right. I couldn't tell what was wrong or different, but it was not the same and it was despised and I esteemed it not. Like sheep, it had gone astray, and turned every one to its own way.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

And so I made a chocolate cake as well, just in case the pie was not edible. Alas, it, too, like a sheep had gone astray and turned to its own way. And so the cake was not quite right, either.

At that point, I contemplated a pumpkin spice cake. It was midnight: For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people. Yet the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. So I went to bed instead.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

The next morning, I arose and shone, and ate a tiny piece of the pie. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: the pie was not terrible! It was indeed safe to eat. I ate a small sliver of cake, too: Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. The cake was not terrible, either. A smidge dry, and a smidge dark: not bad at all.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Thanksgiving was going to be just fine.

Cooking while cursed and while practicing for this year's DIY Messiah is so wonderfully dramatic.

Pie!!!

2010-11-23T11:45:00.004-06:00

I got to practice my pie-making skills last night. I don't make pie very often. I think my last attempt at pie crust involved a box of Jiffy mix (don't judge me too harshly!). While making this dough, I was convinced it wouldn't come together. Not having made a good dough before, I wasn't sure what to look for, or what my goals were. Still, I followed the instructions reasonably well and the result is both lovely and delicious!

Happy Thanksgiving!

why, yes, I am hungry

2010-11-18T15:44:00.000-06:00

my platform

2010-11-17T14:51:00.002-06:00

Philosophotarian, if elected to goddesshood, will even entertain other peoples' conundrums right here on this blog. That's right folks. Philosophotarian will, if asked to do so, open her big mouth and dispense advice.

2011 campaign

2010-11-17T14:05:00.005-06:00

I'm running for goddesshood next year, so you should plan to vote for me.
I will thwart evil and reward goodness.
I will have a particular fondness for the brilliant, witty, and wise.
Best of all, I will provide practical advice in real time to those who ask for it.
I make very good points and I am very often correct.

So vote for me! Add me to the pantheon! philosophotarian for goddesshood 2011!

*I'm not running for capital-G divinity. I don't have to be the best of the best. No, no. There's room enough for many. A parliament, not a monarchy.

I will not spend thirty years taking notes

2010-11-16T09:52:00.003-06:00

After a weekend of naughty excess, I am returned to productivity and virtuousness. Shall we make a bet? Or, if play is not to be endorsed, then perhaps I may be dared? Double-dared?

I must now turn reading notes into research into section 3 of chapter two. Goal: 5 strong, new pages by the end of the week and revisions of previous writing. Who will shame me if I do not meet my goal?

pay my boon and sing for joy

2010-11-09T15:13:00.001-06:00

I wish I could write polyphonously.

clearly not learning from Aristotle

2010-11-09T09:41:00.005-06:00

When I do work in earnest I am quickly shown how little I work in general, how lazy I am most of the time. If I used my time better, I could be so much more accomplished. I am, as it is, so very far behind. When I do see clearly how undisciplined and lazy I’ve been, I become very disappointed in myself and quite ashamed of myself. When I am not working, although I recognize that I am not working, I do not take a measure of work left undone. When I begin to work again, I remember how quickly (and slowly) I do work, and am able to take better account of just how much work I have not done, just how much more work I have made for myself, just how much longer it will take before I can even begin to catch up.

This is a very ugly habit. It has deleterious effects upon my character. I grow resentful and envious of those who are better disciplined and more accomplished. I grow angrier and angrier with myself. Moreover, I despair. I grow discouraged. Petulant. I become so disappointed in myself that it seems inconceivable to me that I am not a disappointment to everyone I love. How can anyone stand me? I am lazy, careless, weak, cowardly.

It becomes clear that no one but my own self has ever stood in the way of my success. When I am not working, it is easy to point to all the teachers who did not encourage me, even those who declined to offer guidance when asked for it. It is easy to point to the family from which I sometimes feel alienated. It is easy to point out that I meet few people with whom I can discuss philosophy in ways that are simple enough for me to understand without being trite or silly.

When I begin to do work again, I remember (why do I ever let myself forget?) that I never had to be brilliant. Never had to be the smartest person I know. I only ever have to (ever had to) work consistently to the best of my ability and always try to improve. That’s all. I don’t have to move at leaps and bounds. I will never be able to do so. Avoiding work because I cannot do everything at once is so foolish—and I know this, of course. There is not—there never was—any time limit. Had I kept plodding at my own very stupid pace, I would be so much further along than I am now.

And then I think of the ways in which I spend my time, the things with which I fill my head. If I’d spent half of the time I currently spend reading magazines reading texts in the history of ethics, I would be very well read. When I then remember that I reread these magazines, sometimes more than once, I am very ashamed. I could have written at least one conference paper. I could have read books that are much more edifying. I could have lost five pounds. I could have tried a dozen new recipes.

file under "not getting it"

2010-11-02T15:25:00.002-05:00

Dear Sir,

Yes. I did give you my phone number last May. You asked for directions to Clark street (what don't you understand about a grid system?) and I gave them. We were both walking to Clark and you started talking to me. You were pleasant enough for a stranger. Fine. Then you suggested that we might hang out sometime. That surprised me and I probably responded something like "uh. maybe. sure." Then you asked for my phone number. I gave it.

You texted that evening or an evening or two later. I don't really remember. I apologized for having given you my phone number. Said I didn't have time for new friends--hardly had time for the friends I already had--and I was seeing someone and I wasn't available to hang out. I think you asked if it was okay if you hung onto my number in case I had time at some later date. I'm pretty sure I said I would not have time at some later date.

I don't remember if you actually texted at some point a few months later at which time I would have responded that I still did not have time. Then you said ok, you'd delete my phone number. At some point you did say you would just delete my phone number.

(keep in mind that we met once, briefly, on the street, strangers)

So why did you text me Sunday evening, after a year and a half, to ask if I remember having met you? "Hey. This is ------. We met a while back. Do you remember?" I believe that the event I remember is the last time I gave out my phone number to a boy. So I believe I am correct in thinking the text message I received Sunday is from that boy I met a year and a half ago. What don't you understand? I am not available. I will never be available.

I didn't respond. If you text again, ------, I will say "No. You must have the wrong number."

baking for dummies

2010-11-01T10:40:00.005-05:00

Imagine that this is the recipe you choose to make:

3 c sugar
1 c oil
4 eggs
1 can pumpkin
2/3 c water
3 1/3 c flour
spices
salt
soda

makes 2 loaves

Now, imagine that, from the start, you decide that that is too much sugar and too much oil. Also, you will use brown sugar, not white. And you'll make muffins, not loaves. You amend to

1 3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c oil
4 eggs
1 can pumpkin
2/3 c water
3 1/3 c flour
salt, soda, spices

makes 24 muffins

However, you had to dash out for the brown sugar while the quinoa was cooking (oops) and the sweet potatoes, apples and dried cherries were roasting. So

Before mixing together the sugar, oil and eggs, scrape out the burnt quinoa and put the pan to soak. Stir the roasting fruit/veg.

Mix together the sugar and oil. Add the eggs. Realize you have only 2 eggs. The recipe, now, is

1 3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c oil
2 eggs
1 can pumpkin
2/3 c water
3 1/3 c flour
salt, soda, spices

Decide to use buttermilk instead of water; begin to make purple rice:

1 3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c oil
2 eggs
1 can pumpkin
2/3 c buttermilk
3 1/3 c flour
salt, soda, spices

Dump in the can of pumpkin, stir the rice and the fruit/veg. Begin to combine dry ingredients in a rather large bowl. Realize you have less than 2 cups of flour. Add oats. Dump the purple rice into the pot of lentils you'd made earlier in the day.

1 3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c oil
2 eggs
1 can pumpkin
2/3 c buttermilk
2 c flour
1 1/3 c oats
salt, soda spices.

Add the remaining ingredients. Decide to add a shredded apple. Add the roasted veg and fruit to the lentils and purple rice. Eat a bowl. Decide it's bland, but will be better later on with kale and chicken sausage.

1 3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c oil
2 eggs
1 can pumpkin
2/3 c buttermilk
2 c flour
1 1/3 c oats
salt, soda spices
1 shredded apple - cortland is nice.

Bake at 350 for about 20-25 minutes.

Try one.

Realize you forgot to add the salt. Feel even more disappointed because, had you added the salt, they actually would have been pretty darn good. As it is, they are a little bland. Eat 2 anyway.

Zeus takes the scales in his hand

2010-10-27T18:07:00.003-05:00

and weighs the fates of the champions. Just as Hector, beloved of Zeus, was fated to die, so must I write this evening. Fate is fate, regardless of desire. I have no desire to write, but fate does not care. (Neither does Zeus.) I will battle the wind to reach my home, pull on my heroine pants, make a big pot of tea, and continue writing.

I hope I don't have to be either Hector or Achilles. Hector never gets to finish the dissertation; Achilles never gets a job afterwards. Doom either way. I have to figure out how to be Aeneas.

I wonder what my metaphors will be when I move on to Middlemarch.

Dear Everyone,

2010-10-21T11:56:00.003-05:00

It seems that many of you missed the memo, so here it is:

MEMORANDUM FOR ALL PERSONS

FROM: the philosophotarian

SUBJECT: leggings

Leggings are not pants. Leggings = undergarment. Alternatively, leggings (like flip-flops) = verboten. Do not wear leggings in place of pants, skirts, shorts, kilts, etc., unless you are a method actor in a production committed to historically accurate clothing. In which case, I expect to see codpieces.

Heroines need pants to wear for heroic activities

2010-10-20T15:21:00.002-05:00

This heroine has 11 pages. Villains everywhere are perking up, ready lure the heroine away from her heroic activities. Stop, villains. It will not do. I will not submit to your villainy. I will pull on my new coffee-colored, petite-length, super-soft writing pants and thwart you. Yes. Thwart. I expect to reach 24 pages by the end of the weekend.

But Rilke makes it better

2010-10-14T14:51:00.002-05:00

Lösch mir die Augen aus

Lösch mir die Augen aus: ich kann dich sehn,
wirf mir die Ohren zu: ich kann dich hören,
und ohne Füße kann ich zu dir gehn,
und ohne Mund noch kann ich dich beschwören.
Brich mir die Arme ab, ich fasse dich
mit meinem Herzen wie mit einer Hand,
halt mir das Herz zu, und mein Hirn wird schlagen,
und wirfst du in mein Hirn den Brand,
so werd ich dich auf meinem Blute tragen.

--Das Stundenbuch, in Das Buch von der Pilgerschaft no. 7

prickles and you don't let anyone get close to you

2010-10-12T15:18:00.004-05:00

Tuesday October 12
1:47 am
dream

I just recently awoke from a dream. Cat decided to chase after a python which had slithered 87 feet up a tree [actually, I think it was a wall and a tree]. Cat fell out of the tree and snapped his neck. Intense grief woke me up. In my dream the tears came so thick and fast--tears piled on tears before any even fell. If I could have formed other thoughts, I would have worried that I might drown or choke on tears. I sobbed in a great howling wail. I didn't even hear myself making sound. Felt rather than heard the wail which, looking back, didn't even feel or sound real.

And the pain! A column of pain from my neck to my belly. Squeezing, suffocating pain. Even now [I woke up and wrote this a few minutes after having the dream], I've lost the depth and reality of the pain and it is only a memory of a dream.

That's what I felt for my cat in a dream. I have never felt grief over any human person's death. What if I never do?

Aunty Philosophotarian reads Kafka

2010-10-07T15:46:00.002-05:00

Tonight I am teaching philosophy for 2.5 hours to a bunch of freshmen. I am both excited and terrified.

a dinner party with Disciplina and Necessitas

2010-09-14T14:51:00.004-05:00

I still haven't written. Haven't done much with my notes. Haven't reread the two articles I plan to use to introduce my chapter. Haven't pasted notes into a magnificent new outline.

What I will do is this:

Head to the grocery store
Buy a chicken, a lemon or two, some dried figs and nettle tea
Roast the chicken with butter and herbs and potatoes and an onion
Bake a cake and fill it with the figs and lemon
Brew the tea and drink it and breathe

When I have cooked for myself and fed myself and taken care of myself, I will permit myself one hour for dissertation work. No more than one hour. After one hour I will stop. And then I will tell myself, "I have begun."

replete with excuses

2010-09-09T15:26:00.004-05:00

I want motivation, determination, and bravery in a bottle. Take as needed. Now in prescription strength.

I am stalling. I am not working. I am afraid to make progress. I am afraid that I will never make progress. I have devised lovely plans for myself and for my work this semester. Every day I find some reason why I can't start now. Can't start this minute. Can't start today. Tomorrow. Next week. When my dry cleaning is returned. After my doctor appointment. After the weekend. After I hear from my sister. After I've found a better chair. After I've cooked something for dinner. After I've picked up groceries. After I've scheduled the x-ray. After my next workshop. After ...

My goal is five pages every week. This is a very, very doable goal. I could write no more than one page for five mornings and meet my goal. That is such a very small amount of writing! I still have not begun to write.

Sometimes I dream of quitting. I am, quite frankly, a quitter. I simply don't do difficult things. There. I've said it. I could quit, I tell myself in a tone of voice reserved for other naughty suggestions (I could buy a new purse; I could eat a pint of ice cream; I could have a second drink). I could quit and do something easy. Something that would be effortless. Something that would require nothing from me.

I inhale the fragrance of quitting. The minty and zesty top notes of more time and fewer demands reach me first, followed by the watery, floral allure of letting go. These are nearly enough to convince me. The cedary, molassesy, earthy base nudges me out of my reverie. There, at the bottom of the perfume, is the reminder that there is nothing that I can do that will be effortless. Nothing I can do that won't challenge me. Nothing I can do that will require nothing of me. This doesn't inspire me to work but it does remind me of the futility of quitting. I neither work nor quit.

This is how I write chapter two.

classifications

2010-08-25T09:28:00.003-05:00

My cat is wailing. He’s been doing this lately and I do not know the cause. Perhaps he is filling our otherwise empty quiet space with the noise of his own insistent conversation. My cat doesn’t seem to appreciate the noises of the city as much as I do: the industrial laziness of the cicadas; the whoosh of the express trains and the rhythm of the red line trains; the CTA announcements behind the cicadas and whoosh and car alarms and street traffic; the rustle of leaves from the very large tree outside my window; the saxophone player at the el stop who plays my summer theme songs through purple night air; the jangling of dog tags and the clatter of shopping carts; slamming of doors and running down stairs; the pulsing atonal siren of the cicadas; the yelling, the talking, the drunken mariachi outside my bathroom at 2 in the morning: this is my soundtrack.

I’ve discussed this with some people before and I do think I am not wrong. Other people have other ways of classifying types of people; I have my own. There are two sorts of people: amoebas and pencils. Amoebas are shapeless and shifting, taking on this shape, no this one, no this one, no this one. An amoeba’s behind sometimes precedes its in-front which may be at odds with its behind. The shape of the amoeba is most noteworthy when it resembles something else: a cloud! an ink blob! a horse head!

A pencil’s behind always follows its in-front. A pencil comes to—and has—a point. A pencil can in fact be used as a pointer, can be waved or shaken—much like a knife—for emphasis. A pencil knows precisely where it is going and why: toward the end of the sentence. A pencil loves nothing so much as the terminal period.

An amoeba is unaware of its own direction or purpose. An amoeba, attempting movement, may find itself distracted or repelled or impelled or compelled and find itself someplace very different than it (thought it might have) intended.

A pencil carries with it only a ghost of a past. Mistakes can be unmade. All evidence erased. A worn-down eraser is the only indication that perhaps the pencil has committed some error. The eraser, however, is silent, unable to tell any tales, voiceless, a mute servant.

An amoeba can hardly hide. It is very simple. Wears its metaphorical heart on its metaphorical sleeve.

A pencil, though pointed, grows dull and must continually resharpen itself. Eventually it dwindles and must be discarded.

An amoeba divides itself and divides itselves and divides itselveses and divides itselveseses and divides itselveseseses.

A pencil is singular. An amoeba becomes community.

If there is a problem with my classification, it is because I have a disproportionate amount of sympathy for the amoeba. I wish I could be more of a pencil. I wish I had a point, a direction, a purpose and an eraser. The usefulness of a pencil is immediately clear. The usefulness of an amoeba much less so.

the end of an age

2010-08-17T14:07:00.003-05:00

Two new years begin soon. As for anyone who has never left school, the end of August marks the beginning of a new year and the end of that strange and shapeless in-between time that is not part of a year at all. Some people term this time "summer;" I call it "the time of the year I cannot wear boots."*

The beginning of October marks the end of a decade and looks like the beginning of a new one.

I am plotting strange and wonderful plans for these new years.

I am going to begin pouring words into chapter 2 any day now--perhaps even today. I have been shaping the container all summer and I think it might be ready to hold the words that will make it visible. I, naturally, will not know if this is the case until I have poured a great number of words into the chapter. Lately, like a potter, I've been gliding my hands on on unformed, sloppy, wet shape. Later, like a sculptor, I will chisel at existing words to finesse that shape.

I am going to learn how to read poetry. This might be even more difficult than writing my dissertation. Suggestions welcome. I cannot remain illiterate any longer.

I may work on my sewing skills. I may learn to knit. I will become a pro at baking bread.

I will travel this year. I don't think it even matters where I go. I need to see new things. I need to learn to navigate new surroundings.

*except for last summer, which was exceptional

it's like drowning in virtue

2010-08-12T12:48:00.003-05:00

If you begin now, you should be able to read every post at Inky Fool by the end of next week (assuming you choose to do a few other things as well).

It is a good thing my boss does not know about my blog, because then she would know that this is precisely how I am spending all of my time at work this week. I call this research. I believe I am significantly wiser today than I was yesterday and at least three times as wise as I was on Tuesday. You may decide for yourself, at the end of next week, whether my reading is the cause of my increased wisdom.

by the lamplight

2010-08-03T09:49:00.003-05:00

I've bought at least four dresses this summer. Two hats. A pair of shoes. A watch. Books. Many books. Spent $875 to receive a free copy of the 16th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. And yet toilet paper feels like an extravagance. I walk into the bathroom, count out two squares and fretfully blow my nose. The roll is worn very thin and I only have three rolls left and I really ought to reduce my spending, tighten my belt (I could use a new belt), watch my pennies. I hardly feel a twinge of guilt when I purchase a new dress, but toilet paper--and trash bags--feel like luxuries too precious to afford.

It's nearly eleven o'clock when I write this. I know I should sleep soon but my chest hurts (again) and that worries and frightens me so much that I no longer feel tired. Neither can I write. I have nothing to say. The thought occurs to me that if I should die before I wake I will never have to worry about toilet paper ever again. This does not comfort me as much as I would like. It does make me laugh a little. I know I am being extremely silly. I just don't know how to stop. I keep the lamp on until I fall asleep. I'm not sure what it is I think this will do, what kind of help it will offer, but at midnight it just Makes Sense. In the morning I wake to the sound of rain and a meowing Cat and I am okay.

Wardrobe: Shoes

2010-07-26T13:12:00.004-05:00

Dear inhabitants of Chicago summer,

Flip-flops are unlovely. Fwap, fwap, fwap, fwap is not an elegant sound-accompaniment for a life. How can one think of someone who fwaps everywhere as beautiful and stylish?

No. No, darling summer-people. They are all wrong. You are all wrong.

Your shoes should support you, should cushion your whole body from the assault of asphalt. They should help you to stand tall and with enviable posture. How can you prepare a life--your life--when your toes are splayed, when your arches sag, when your ankles roll, your back sinks and your shoulders droop?

Your shoes should make walking a pleasure and should help to guide your every step. Your gait should be smooth and should feel effortless. You may dance to the beat of the drummer of your choosing, but there should be some rhythm in your step.

While my blog sleeps, I will creep into her room and steal away all of her offending shoes. On tip-tip-tip-toe, I glide, gathering up all this junk food for the sole(s) in several armsful. I order them banned throughout the kingdom. When she awakes, there will not even exist a word for these fwapping offenders. In her closet will be sturdy and lovely shoes that will cradle, cushion and comfort. In them, she will walk like a queen. Even in the simplest of clothes, she will appear fully, impeccably dressed.

or maybe not

2010-07-16T12:18:00.002-05:00

ok, you two. maybe this blog doesn't have to die. if i can find a way to re-purpose this blog so it has more of a theme ... if it didn't feel quite so naked ...

perhaps not death but an enchanted sleep after which Princess Blog will awake wonderfully refreshed.

i suppose this makes me a fairy godmother softening the spell of the evil witch. heh heh.

during the enchanted slumber this fairy godmother will work very hard at providing a new wardrobe for Princess Blog.

stay tuned, then ....

goodbye

2010-07-15T10:18:00.003-05:00

I will be deleting my blog at the end of the month. It was an interesting experiment. Thanks to those of you who read and commented on my posts.

All best,

k

Punctuation garden gone to seed

2010-07-12T10:57:00.002-05:00

I did not earn my good-worker dress. Darn. Maybe by the end of August I will have earned it. By the end of August, I hope to have 10 pages written. That's worth a new dress I think!

It has been difficult to get through the reading list I created. This is for a variety of reasons:

1. It's hot in my apartment
2. I've been busy with final copies at work
3. I've been catching up with friends
4. Some of the books are so badly written I throw them across the room in frustration. Getting up, retrieving the book, returning to the couch and finding my place in it all take up a surprisingly large amount of time.

It is difficult to avoid being distracted by the disastrous prose I've been reading. My first thought is usually that I missed something--that I read too quickly and so overlooked the word(s) or punctuation that make the sentence or conceit work. Because I am so generous, I re-read the sentence and too often conclude that I was correct - the sentence is badly written. Then I turn forensic grammarian and try to figure out what would have made the sentence work - sometimes it's as simple as a preposition switch or the addition or subtraction of commas. Other times it appears that a sentence's failure can be traced to the author's attachment to a certain phrase within the sentence: the rest of the sentence simply does not fit with the phrase but the author prizes the phrase more than s/he prizes clarity. Misuse of verbs is unfortunately common. Relationships don't cut, you cannot emasculate a thing or idea, and you cannot sever a split. Lastly, it appears there is an all but irresistible temptation to resort to important-sounding vagaries when approaching innovative or original thought. I suppose that it must be easier to leave readers with a mysterious-sounding short and pithy-seeming sentence immediately followed by something different and easier - more familiar that is - than it is to write one's way to an explanation of what one means.

How will I ever learn to write well when I must slog through so much bad writing? Bad writing is distracting. It is self-perpetuating. It is unethical. It is a disservice to everyone. It generates bad karma.

"What's FGM?"

2010-06-30T09:42:00.004-05:00

I've only had two sips of coffee but I'm wide awake and all abuzz. I wish it were the coffee. Shock, anger, fear, frustration and horror produce a more potent rush of adrenaline than caffeine.

I have attended a few training sessions to refresh my knowledge before doing advocacy work again. The sessions have a large number of attendees - probably at least 40 people. A social worker came in to give a brief presentation that introduced the special concerns that immigrant survivors of sexual violence face and briefly described the legal/social remedies created to help survivors get help and remain in the country: VAWA, U-Visas and T-Visas. The social worker displayed a list of the crimes that constitute VAWA violations. One of these was FGM. As if on cue, more than half the room asked: "What's FGM?" I was surprised. I don't think of myself as terribly aware of, well, the world, generally. "What's FGM?!"

What surprises me too is the misinformation that courses through the room. A D&E is not a "medical" abortion. The Sexual Assault Survivor Emergency Treatment Act (SASETA) does not cover abortion costs. At all. Ever. A survivor may not have an abortion performed in the emergency room. Emergency contraception will not hurt a fetus.

It will never be appropriate to stare in surprise or disgust at evidence of physical harm or at symptoms of STIs.

It will never be helpful to give incorrect information. If you are unsure whether a person will be able to take 8 or up to 12 weeks unpaid leave from work, then do not pull a number from your head and hope you are right. If you don't know when the first trimester ends, don't just guess at some timeline (1/3 of 40 weeks, folks). If you don't know the difference between making a police report and pressing charges, don't talk yourself into knots. If you don't know the difference between an order of protection, a civil no contact order or a restraining order, then don't offer them up specifically.

Giving misinformation hurts others. But what about when you don't even know you have or are giving incorrect information? Why is this not addressed explicitly in training? Giving bad information confuses and re-victimizes survivors. But I have not heard a single staff worker say anything about the harm false "facts" can do.

failed relationship

2010-06-24T11:14:00.003-05:00

Dear "bistronomic" restaurant,

We had a lovely time together last night and I appreciate the energy and humor you brought to the table. You were lively, surprising, and attractive. You portioned yourself out in small servings lest I become overwhelmed by your variety and inventiveness. You were hip, fun, cool and easy on the eyes.

So please believe me when I say that it's not you, it's me. Really.

I like your flash, I do, but I need more sustenance, something simpler, easier to digest. The brioche twinkie with the deconstructed caesar salad, for example, was brilliant and the salted caramel with thick dark chocolate was heavenly. But I can't build a life on brioche twinkies. And now, the morning after, I feel cheap and used and a little sick.

I won't be returning for another serving of your dynamic gastronomy. I'm staying with my braised kale, barley risotto, whole wheat couscous and ripe stone fruits. I'm renewing my commitment to oatmeal, yogurt and berries. There's a life there for me, a wholesome and - yes, I'll dare to say it - delicious life and I don't want to give that up for a night of pleasure followed by a morning of regret.

Goodbye, bistronomic restaurant. I wish you well. I hope you meet others who will give you what I can't.

Don't call

k

love believes all things and is never deceived

2010-06-23T11:18:00.004-05:00

I'd forgotten - a little - what it means to advocate for survivors of sexual assault.
To be an advocate for a rape survivor, one must believe everything s/he says no matter what.
To be an advocate, one must direct all of one's energy toward being on her/his side, in spite of anything
To be an advocate, one must set aside any tendencies to evaluate the survivor and and take care of her instead.
To be an advocate, one must trust the survivor, even when trust is difficult.
Advocates must trust survivors.

Although I understand the reasons for the methods used to train advocates, I would appreciate a conversation about what this means ethically and epistemologically. I suppose that conversation doesn't have to take place during training.

But what does it mean to produce the effects of love without the love? What does it mean to put someone else's needs above everything else; to drop everything to take care of someone simply because she needs it; to trust what she says simply because she said it; to refuse even to let oneself consider whether anything she has said might be false - what does it mean to do all this as an outsider, as someone who can and will leave, as someone for whom this is not a crisis, as someone who manufactures, on the spot, compassion and authority for several hours at a time?

Kierkegaard claims that love believes all things and is never deceived. The one who loves does so regardless of the risk of being considered gullible or foolish. The one who loves commits to believing the beloved against reasons for disbelief. Of course, for Kierkegaard, the one who loves is following Jesus' command to love one's neighbor, albeit in a radical, self-altering way that even secular folks can understand.

Why do advocates believe survivors? Advocates do not believe survivors out of love (though some may indeed be moved by love to work with rape survivors). Advocates are trained with certain political and pragmatic goals in mind: advocates believe survivors because it is expedient to do so. Advocates believe survivors because it works. This makes it easier - particularly for volunteer advocates - to separate their advocacy work with the rest of their lives; advocacy training and work need not move volunteers to experience any deep ethical or epistemological crisis: volunteers need not import the practice of believing all things into any other part of their lives, nor need they consider the implications of such belief for their advocacy work or their "real lives".

How deep - and of what kind - is the impact of advocacy training and work outside of the settings in which it is needed?

I admit that one could not conduct a training session about loving survivors. That could be a panel presentation, perhaps, at a conference attended by seasoned advocates. If Jesus had had PowerPoint and ran a seminar, his commandment wouldn't have been nearly so effective. Kierkegaard's book is so convicting because he describes in such detail what it means to love. Love believes all things and is never deceived. Love hopes all things and is never put to shame. Love builds up. Love hides a multitude of sins. Love abides. These things would be terribly unhelpful - and inappropriate - at an advocacy training.

And yet. Why do we believe survivors? That's not a question one can ask in training. This is not a place for hypothetical and theoretical conversation. Believing survivors is a political choice that works to help survivors to get the best care possible. But I wonder if being already motivated by love (an ethical commitment not easily at home in a secular world) might help advocates to find or create something like joy even in the emergency room, even while watching a homeless woman's fingertip being sewn back onto her finger. Expediency doesn't seem to help combat advocate burnout. Love might.

I'll be the best dressed philosopher you ever did see

2010-06-15T14:25:00.003-05:00

Apparently reading for new clothes is the way to go - I've made significant progress on my reading list since deciding that I am allowed a new dress at the end of the month for my hard work. How exciting!

It is also exciting to become suddenly aware of an improvement you didn't realize you were making, even if the improvement is relatively insignificant or even trivial-sounding. The fingernails on my thumbs and pointer fingers had had horizontal ridges on them for - I think - years. I'd file them down when applying nail polish but otherwise never thought of them. Yesterday I noticed for the first time that they are gone - those nails are smooth and straight. I hadn't noticed the ridges growing out or the smoothness growing in. How lovely to see evidence of improved health in an unexpected way. Encouraging, too.

A new carrot!

2010-06-04T15:31:00.006-05:00

I've been falling woefully behind on my reading for this summer. Woefully. Woefully. Today, however, I have a plan:

If I can end the month of June only 1 week behind, then I will treat myself to a new dress. I have my eye on one already:
If I do not make up the reading, then I have to wait until I've started writing chapter 2. I think. I think it's a good plan. Maybe I'll treat myself to a hat to congratulate myself for having thought of it:

Addendum: I got this one instead:

i love my job. really.

2010-06-04T09:48:00.002-05:00

Dear [student],

I regret to inform you that you have failed to meet the minimum formatting requirements indicated by the Graduate School in the Formatting Manual for Theses and Dissertations and the Formatting pages accessible via the Graduate School’s website.

The Graduate School takes very seriously failure of this magnitude. You will be invited to a meeting with the Deans of the Graduate School, your dissertation director, your graduate program director, and your department’s chair. In this meeting you will be asked to explain how and why you selected the formatting procedures you followed. The Deans will undertake a special review of your academic career prior to this meeting. A report of this meeting will be added to your department’s file and may be used in the future during departmental evaluations.

The Graduate School makes every endeavor to facilitate the success of the students admitted to the programs under its jurisdiction. When a student exhibits failure of this degree, and at this stage of the academic career, the Graduate School must seriously reconsider whether to allow the student the privilege of continuing his or her degree.

Please complete the enclosed reply letter and mail or fax it to the Graduate School within one week of receipt. Failure to do so will result in automatic dismissal from your program.

CC: GPD, Department Chair

Encl: reply letter.

ps. this is all in fun.

the handwriting itself, independent of anything it may convey

2010-06-01T14:10:00.004-05:00

Though I love the tug of a pen across paper, I write better with my hands on a keyboard. For some things, however, only ink and paper will do. To do lists should not be typed up. Neither should recipes. Reading notes should be typed. Worries and fears should be written. Apologies should never be sent via email or typed and handed over. For an apology only heavy paper and thick lines of ink will do.

For some apologies even the power of creamy paper and black ink is not strong enough. I cannot apologize, for example, to my mother for abandoning her to her life. I cannot say "I'm sorry" for not being the daughter she longed for in any way that could make sense, that ease her life. Neither can I apologize to the world - to everyone in it - for my insistent excess when I've had a drink or two too many.

All I can do is bear gracefully my own guilt for having stopped being my mother's daughter, and bear just as gracefully my own disappointed self-loathing when my conduct does not meet my standards.

hungry

2010-05-28T12:44:00.003-05:00

I've had a new breakfast lately, inspired by "Resolution Muesli" but simpler: into a round ziploc container, throw a handful or so of oats, a pile of defrosted frozen fruit, a dash of cinnamon or a drop or two of vanilla and then top with yogurt. Take to work and let sit in bag or on desk until hungry, by which time the oats will have softened, the fruit fully thawed and the flavors melded. Hearty, wholesome but not too virtuous-tasting. Easier than oatmeal. Portable. Non-squishy. Delicious.

I too like carefully plotted lists. I too like perfectly sharpened pencils. In the shelf below my new alarm clock, I have a small vase full of identical sharpened pencils. I find this extremely satisfying.

I do not have a story prepared for this evening's party. Theme: "the best i ever had". This is a story party, we are to come prepared to tell a story related to the theme. But such a tiny little life I lead! Shall I tell a story (ha! a paragraph) about the best mascara I've used? A story about the best poem I ever wrote (not very good, but I liked the conceit: a woman with a ragged hole in her chest, stumbling forward, offering her pulsing, gushing heart to a very horrified man. Silly lady! He didn't want your real heart! It's a figure of speech. You'll die!)? A story about the first time I used the word "fuck" in a term paper (most satisfying use of a naughty word)? About the best (only) date I've ever had with a woman (terribly stressful!)?

It occurs to me that I have no stories. I am story-less. I don't mind the mundane. But I think I might have more to say if I lived in a cloister (at least then I could have a best ever vision of god) (at least then when I talked about my best bowl of oatmeal, there might be appreciative nods and kindled wonder).

M acknowledged that some folks worried that the theme for this party could make the event kind of a downer but insisted that it didn't have to. I agree. But when I try to think of something amusing, it all comes out Miranda July. I like her work a lot, but even when she's funny, she's so very, very sad (or at least I think so). Best date with a woman: Winterson, natch (but subversively. hmm.). First use of the word "fuck": Lydia Davis. Best awful poem: Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt or Lorrie Moore. Flip a coin. Could be either one. All of these: sadly amusing, that is, amusing in sad ways, like a damp hand on soft down. Unless someone brings a heat lamp or the sun, these stories will not do.

It's nearly 3. Still want to work out. Still have 2 loads of laundry to fold and put away. Trash to take out. A shower to take. A story to imagine.

avatars

2010-05-24T09:21:00.001-05:00

There was an impotence then. A thorough-going powerlessness. A hardly articulated ever present longing to escape. The moths would gather at the porch light by the back door (but there was no front door. It was the door. The side door. The door). They would cling to the screen and fly in sometimes. It got dark early and stayed dark long and the mornings smelled of mud. Mineral mud and fish and trees and damp.

How I hated it all! Hated it all so much I couldn’t love what I loved: the smell of morning, the pale light through the telescoped tree tops, the smell of fire every evening while the trash burned. These things I remember now and I love them. How I hated them all then, lumped them all together because they were together and they were my life and I wanted to escape. Embarrassed to go into town and stop at the Ben Franklin. Embarrassed at the Laundromat. Embarrassed to hear the story of the red ants. Again. Embarrassed to see the moths flying into the kitchen.

Rushed through the days to earn the comfort of night to remember that night here is just as long as a day. My sister’s curling-up ski slope toenails slicing my ankles in the bed we had to share. Wedged between the wall and my sister’s adenoids, deprived of the breeze that scooted around the bunk bed and hit the door, falling. The adults in the other room, walls cliché-thin, playing canasta (sometimes they’d head to Escanaba which sometimes, to amuse myself, I’d rhyme with “Canada”) or cribbage, voices low, keeping me awake. I was a very light sleeper and listened.

Morning brought the coldest milk I can ever remember. Or maybe it was not cold and I contrasted the warm milk with the perfect coldness which I thought I remembered milk could have. Whether the milk was warm or cold, it is still and always will be the coldest milk I can ever remember. I still wish my milk could be that cold.

This is not to say that there was never pleasure. Pasties with ketchup: heaven. Perfect food. I never did watch a fish being filleted but my great-grandmother certainly fried them up well. Walleye and bluefish. Free blueberries picked in wooded fields owned by no one. Or at least no one charged. I was a model berry-picker: I always picked far more berries than I ate. Like filling my basket or tin or bucket or whatever they gave me with virtue until I overflowed the tin and had to ask for a fresh one. No one picked as many as I did. Diligent. Quiet. Focused. Well-behaved. Sugar-plums, too (though you had to reach for those).

There was the pier and I think I sometimes sat there with a book. I think I also tried to look cool. I think I tried to look tall and lanky and beautiful. How I wanted to escape, escape everything, escape it all.

I don’t think of escape any more. Haven’t for years. I think it has occurred to me that there is no escape. Wherever I go, the days are all as long and the nights are all as dark. What a hopefulness there was behind that longing for night: later, when I’m older, when time has passed, things will be different. Something will have happened to me. Some magic something will have happened and will have taken me away from all of this. Some prince will have come and taught me how to be happy. Now I know that that is not the case. There is not a prince in the world who can give me that, who can teach me that. There is not anyone that can stand between me and myself and lift me off of myself and remove me from myself. I am what I must bear always. And so there is no escape. No running. No hiding. No new beginnings.

Still. What hasn’t stopped is the premonition of a future more real than this present. This can’t be my real life. No. not this. This is not yet it. I am still waiting for myself to arrive. That future one is the one to whom good things may happen. That future one is the one who may be loved. That future one is the one people will respect and admire and adore. This – this current one is merely a stand-in. Don’t get too close! Soon this inadequate one will be replaced and that future one is the one in whom you may confide and to whom you may entrust your very own self.

A new alarm clock sits in my new bookshelf. This clock belongs to that long-awaited future one who will replace me.

I no longer feel so powerless. My days are all my own and my nights are too. I am not consumed by that same helpless rage. I have things to do and often I do them. The embarrassment is not entirely gone, however. This might be already clear to those who know me.

I still think of those moths fluttering around the light at the back door (the side door, really. The only door at which a guest would knock. The door). The steps were red (and if they weren’t, they should have been). Standing at the door, back to the house, the trees formed a green-black wall nearly opaque in the night. It smelled of green and mud and fallen apples and the dying smoke of the night’s trash and the lake out back giving more light than the moon which was invisible for the trees anyway.

I am the one I’ve been waiting for.

Even so. Come quickly!

until next time

2010-05-21T12:09:00.002-05:00

A new post is in the works. Seriously.

Update:

- nearly an entire week behind on my 10 week reading plan. Aieee! I hope to recover some of that this weekend, however,
- I have not been a hermit: lunch with J today. Then a drink with MK. Had a drink with a N on Wednesday and dinner with MJ on Monday. That doesn't even include the lovely time I've had catching up with D or the rescheduled coffee rendezvous with DG. So,
- Need to learn how to balance this healthy social activity with the intense amount of reading I've been doing; but,
- Have still been exercycling and strength training at super-star levels. Hooray! Feels very good (and not enduring belly-bloat during lady-time? very, very cool), even if
- I haven't been cooking nearly as much or as well as I should. Have been relying on my freezer (nearly empty), eating out (spendy!), and sandwiches and yogurt for too many meals in an attempt to save time.

To Do:

- Plan menus again. I don't need my meals to be very exciting right now. I do need them to be nourishing, packed with produce and relatively simple (so I don't waste [or 'waste'] time on food prep as an excuse to read less).

- Pack better lunches so I can stay in the office longer typing up my own notes

- Cut back on cardio (!!?!!!) to 30-45 min/day, 5-6 days/week and do 10-15 min of strength/calisthenics to keep my workout to 1 hour per day (yesterday, for example: 80 minutes exercycle, 20 minutes strength and about 10 minutes stretching. Decadent).

- Plot out my reading/writing/working/cooking/exercising etc. hour-by-hour every morning to keep myself on target (... that would be a little scary. Last resort).

soon: a post on waiting for my "real life" to begin