I remember when I had standards. That was a good day.

Poor neglected blog. If I had a little more rage and a little less self control, I'm sure I'd write more. Or if I had more discipline and creativity. Or more gratitude and gentleness. As is, I have been too apathetic these days to do much of anything but exercise and tweak my grocery budget. My body has never looked so good; neither has it ever seen so little action. 

I have been avoiding writing in all forms these days. It takes me weeks to write letters to my friends, even when they offer me up letters like gifts, sending bits of their hurt and heart and love when I've done nothing to make myself worthy. I address the envelopes and stamp them and tuck a piece of paper or a note card into the flap of the envelope and then I carry them around for weeks meaning to write a little note. There are some I've carried around for nearly two months. What could I possible have to say to these, my brilliant and busy and accomplished friends? 

I haven't written a dissertation word in over a month. I have a reading assignment currently. I have discovered some things that genuinely help my project. I have thought to myself, while reading and reflecting on those things, I must write this down; if I can freewrite this, I'll think it through; there's a connection I can make and it's close to the surface. it will come if I just write it out. I haven't written it out. Any of it. I've talked a little of it out. Thought about it. But worked the ideas through my fingers onto a keyboard? No. I can't bring myself to do it. 

I can't take up the long-ish books I need to read because I can't (so it seems) focus on anything of length. Oh, except for Anna Karenina. And The Complete Father Brown. 
 
I have been instructed (by my voice teacher who, except that his middle name is Torquemada,* is actually a nice guy) to make a habit of doing vocal exercises every day. This is not a new idea, of course. I mean to make a habit of meditating every day. Of writing my dissertation every day. Of reading for the dissertation every day. I mean to make exercise a habit and not a quota--to trust myself to work out on a regular, reliable schedule and not to bunch up workouts because I've slacked, or to dread it all day until I actually begin and am pleased. Now, on top of all the things about which I already feel guilty, I have to add the vocal exercises (which are challenging; I am not good at them). 

I laughed, though, when it occurred to me that I have been instructed to do what I want to do, and that about which I am, in a sense, writing. At the core of my thoughts about ethics is the idea (not an original one) that  what is most important are the tiny small things that one does regularly. I am being told to pay attention to what I am and what I do, and there is no difference between attending to silence and attending to self or to aspects of self (like vocal health). I can't attend to silence if I can't attend to the tiny ways that I sabotage my efforts at creating rituals, routines, and habits: to what am I paying attention if I can't or won't pay attention to myself? 

I've lumped things like "reading" and "writing" under "dissertation" or "academia" so regularly that all reading and all writing feels like a chore because I associate it with the reading and writing I am not doing and must do. In this way I have slipped into lethargic apathy. "Singing" is not part of that lump. Now I have only to begin everything again, tiny bit by tiny bit. I feel like a Taoist master. But ask me again tomorrow. 

*But not in a bad way.

Lately I have been afraid to read. When I say that fear hasn't kept me from reading, you should not cheer me on: I can read the following with ease: 

1. facebook status messages
2. blogs
3. in particular, food blogs
4. self-help books
5. magazines (the shorter the article, the better: I've even been avoiding the real articles)
6. the Ikea catalog
7. Etsy

There are many, many things I honestly want to read. There's that book on Kant's moral philosophy that I started. I enjoyed reading it (the 20 or so pages I accomplished) but have not returned to it. I started War and Peace one night. A bookmark about 15 pages in is all I have to show for it. I have several books on my shelf (free! I have them!) about fiction and literature. These would help me in my dissertation work. I might not even have to take notes on them. And their spines and covers are perfect, without a single crease or bend. I loved The Golden Bowl and I have two copies of The Ambassadors. Haven't started. And then, of course, there is the poetry into which I can't bring myself to journey; I run my mind lightly over their surfaces instead of plunging into their depths.

I just can't bring myself to do it. I am not even entirely sure what it is that I am afraid of. Unless it is that I am afraid to learn and know more than I do. I am at a stage of writing now where I am better able to see the holes in my work. I am also at a stage where I must prepare (much and quickly) to obtain a job, and I see the holes in my professional development. The reading I want to do and must do would certainly help to fill those holes. 

And that, I find, makes me very, very nervous. I see that I have used "I don't know that" and "my background is not very good" and "oh, but I'm not very well-informed about that" as excuses. I have used such excuses to keep myself from becoming competent. That way, when I fail, I can say "well, I didn't know X or Y or Z" even though I could have taken it upon myself to learn them. 

I am afraid, it seems, of being an academic. Of having any authority. Of pushing myself to work (sometimes) at my own limits. If I did that--if I explored and expanded my limits--I'd have to learn to tell new stories about myself. I'd have to develop stories about growth and accomplishment and achievement. And that is why I just cannot, these days, bring myself to read.

not waving, but--

Today I lost it. Angry, tantrumy, teary mess. 

Two professors emailed me about a teaching possibility for next year. Very reasonably (I thought), I explained to them why this was a completely unworkable, unreasonable idea: I need to focus on finishing my dissertation by January so I can defend in March and graduate in May. I have been telling myself the story of this timeline for months. It has become something of a mantra: chapter 5 August chapter 6 November chapter 1 January revise February defend March graduate May. Teaching full time would force me to revise the mantra and I have been so proud of the mantra: finally I might redeem all that time I wasted, all that privilege squandered. 

I am teaching now and it is all I feared it would be: more work than I have time to do; no idea how well or poorly I am doing; no clue how to prepare or improve; no pleasure or satisfaction or reward. I hate things I am not already very good at and I am not already very good at teaching. The thought of taking it on full time--more accurately, the thought of trying to do so--scares the shit out of me. I am already more lonely than I thought I could be--I who require large doses of solitude, I who can't handle too much social time am overwhelmed by my feelings of isolation and aloneness and insignificance. The thought of taking on such loneliness for years? I lost it. Freaked out completely. Sobby irrational mess. 

The boy says I have to do it. That I can. That it's necessary to try. I knew he would say so. 

To be at all ruffled would be sufficiently irritating. That I have become entirely disheveled, emotionally speaking, is distasteful. I am just the kind of person I despise. 

I will, with red-faced soul, retract my reasonable arguments and try. Or try to try.

when i grow up

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.

lean with seeing others eat

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.

Expectations

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.

Aunty Philosophotarian reads Kafka

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

i love my job. really.

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.

Neuroses, snobbery and general melodrama

In my head this is what happens every time I think of completing my dissertation:

I go on the job market. There is nothing. Nothing at all. I scrape by for a time. Perhaps I move in with my mother for a year. (*shudder*) Then, eventually, finally, I get a job offer. Full-time teaching position. At Exile University, in Noplace, which is in the middle of the state of Nowhere, USA.

Exile U. is a small liberal arts college located in a town so small its population triples when school is in session. Or maybe it is a community-type college in close proximity to 3 or 4 dead or dying villages.

To do anything in middle-Nowhere, one must have a car. The grocery store (there's really only one. Or maybe there are 2 outposts of the same chain.), one must drive a minimum of 10 miles. Probably more. Unless one wishes to shop at the gas station (of which there are several) for most of her groceries.
One must buy plenty of groceries, as the restaurants are either fast-food, major chains (Applebees anyone?) or family-style restaurants. There may be a pizza parlor. It will be very popular. More popular than the food (canned sauce? frozen dough? cardboard-y pepperoni?), the wine (mmm. Black Opal...), or the service (yes, I would like a clean fork. If it's not too much trouble...) can justify.

The rent is cheap in middle-Nowhere, which means I can afford a garage for the car I have to purchase, and I have space for the furniture I don't have. The extra bedroom-cum-study is nice. The extra space unnerves me. Cat and I rattle around like two dried beans (thank goodness Rancho Gordo delivers!) in a bell, er, Ball jar.

The sidewalks are poorly maintained here in Noplace, Nowhere. Or they are smooth and plentiful in the 'shopping district' - which takes up about 4 blocks. Or perhaps there are more interstate highways than village roads and biking and walking don't feel safe. It is not convenient to walk anywhere in Noplace. There is no gym. Or there is one. Or the college has a small, cramped room that serves as a fitness center. I keep my exercycle and pedal to movie after movie after movie.

There is no local, small/mid-size roaster in Noplace (or anywhere nearby). I stop drinking coffee. Tea is not so difficult to mail-order. Perhaps there is a coffee shop. They will call drip coffee with Hershey's syrup a caffe mocha. I drink my tea at home. I miss the camaraderie of the small cafe.

I will be able to afford to have internet service at home with my new job at Exile. My preservation! I am able to maintain my friendships for a time, exchanging messages about our new, then less new, then old accomplishments and mileposts. The frequency with which these messages are exchanged, however, decreases. Perhaps we only see each other at conferences and the occasional wedding. Perhaps one's teaching load is not conducive to conference attendance. Perhaps we don't really keep in touch very much at all. But we're busy. Very busy. So that's understandable. That's okay.


So I'm already thinking of what kind of car I should consider (2-door Toyota Tercel. I think they're so cute. Red. I usually have red cars); whether I should rent a small house or a large-ish apartment; whether I should get some serious free weights so I can build a home gym when I leave. This is not helpful. My hope - perhaps an ambitious one - is that by exposing my dramatic, excessive anxiety, I can begin to laugh at it. Oh, and remember that none of it, not any of it at all, is real. At least not yet ....

patterns

It's only just occurred to me that I've been both getting more dissertation work done and completing more chores/tasks that are (seemingly) unrelated to dissertation work.

Item: creamy polenta with gorgonzola and mushrooms

Item: wine-braised lentils with winter greens and a poached egg

Item: scoured, sanitized countertops

Item: a scrubbed bathroom

Item: a refridgerator emptied of molding contents (ok, ok, i know!)

Item: on-time bill payment (ok, i look really bad/lazy at this point!)

Item: laundry put away within 1 day of washing

I'm cooking again, my apartment is cleaner, I'm even thinking of *gasp* exercising - and none of these things seriously diminishes my work output. In my head I know this. But when I'm not getting work done, I can hardly bring myself to take care of myself in other arenas of life - it feels as though I'm "cheating" on dissertation. Silly silly silly. It has just been suggested that, when I'm not getting work done, that I make myself cook and so push myself (from another direction, as it were) to do dissertation work too.

being patient. and patient. and more patience

I think if I ever have children, I will name them Patience and Prudence. Then, whenever I have to interact with them (which would probably be often), I would be (gently) reminded to be patient. and prudent.

I suppose that would work just as well with dogs and cats, too.

Things I have not done:

-Finished (began?) my dissertation proposal
-Put away my laundry
-Ironed
-Lowered the storm windows
-Written abstracts for the chapters of DTM's book
-Made soup
-Gone grocery shopping

Things I have done:

-Sent lists to HM
-gossiped
-sent a petulant text message
-dishes
-made hot chocolate
-asked for - and received - advice
-sulked
-talked to my mother
-gotten drunk
-regretted drunkenness
-resolved

Things I will do:

-look at calls for papers
-save M's dissertation bibliography
-cook
-clean
-make tea
-bathe
-write all kinds of abstracts
-love

I can feel myself on the verge of having something to actually write. It is making me both cranky and excited. I am snappish and distracted. I want company but am finding it difficult to be nice. Sigh. I am procrastinating because I am intimidated by this whole thing. How was Alice so brave with her mirror?

career day

increasingly i wonder whether i want to remake the world. of course, then i wonder if i am simply afraid/intimidated/self-defeating.
looking at names, at academic heroes, i wonder - do i want that? is it important to have a c.v. as tall as i am?
this is very quick - i must leave in about 7 minutes for my volunteering position.

but it may be that i want a 'smaller' life.
one in which i might garden and make soap and work in a well-woman's clinic and volunteer and be a part of intimate, connected community.

this is not to say that academia and community cannot be combined. but i don't want to be so married to productivity that i forget to love well. or worse, that i never learn.

back to my first statement. i know that i cannot remake the world. but i can love a handful of people (or learn to. learn to). and that seems like it might even be the more challenging project - to forge community. (not in a retreating way, hiding from the world. that would be safe and easy and would result in death. but in an open, free, growing, move-ing way. i am not making sense)

ok. that's all. oh and no worries that i'm not going to finish this degree. this is simply another musing on how i can use it when i'm done; on what kind of person i want to be when i grow up; on how to best combine philosophy with love.

so i am not reading philosophy right now. i can't quite bring myself to do so. the question that keeps circling around my head - "to what end?" - is too buzzing and insistent to let me read productively and in peace.

my plan:

- begin again with Beauvoir. Her fiction, her non-fiction (shh. don't remind me it's philosophy...). everything
- some Kierkegaard. (again, shhhhh). Not that philosophy should be a self-help enterprise, but i am most certainly a better person for Kierkegaard. Philosophy should help us to answer the question "But how should I live?"
- fiction.
- i am going to catch up on books i have wanted to read, or suspected might be important, or seem to utilize interesting methods to explore ideas i find interesting.

i'll get back to philosophy. but i am feeling a bit disenchanted right now. i think i just need to start ticking things off of lists, and i think i need a do-able list.

for now, i'm going to forgo my assistantship duties and do dishes. that will feel better too...

working on the proposal

I know I have told this story before. It is one of my favorites.

“Why did you choose to study philosophy?” someone will ask.

“Ah!” I will chuckle, “I was an English major for an hour.”

“Only an hour?”

I was the first one in the classroom. A seminar room with the tables arranged into a circle. I sat with my back to the windows so I would be sure to pay attention. A literature class. I was so excited. I love literature. Another girl came in and sat across the room from me. Then a friend of hers came in -

“Ohmygod! Like, how are you?? Like, I haven't seen you since, like, um, summer started? You look, like, soooooooo good! Like, what did you do?”

“Ohmygod!!! Hi!!! Like, I'm, like, good! My summer was, like, super fun! Oh, and my hair? I braided it!! See? It's like, braided!”

“Ohmygod!!!!! You like, totally braided your hair! That's, like, soooo cool! You look like, really good, we should, um, like, good shopping or something? That'd be super-neat!”

Then their friends came into the room ...

The professor, when he arrived and began the class, informed us that, as we read the literature he would
assign, we would learn a bit about the philosophical ideas and movements that influenced and informed the novels. That decided it. I didn't need to listen to these girls yammer on. I could study philosophy and read the novels on my own. I already knew I could do that. Yes.

I didn't do that. I ran out of time. I was busy. I didn't pay enough attention. I forgot to connect the two. Now, it is 8 years later and I have not deeply connected philosophy and literature in the ways I intended. My reason (justification?) for studying philosophy in the first place.

How to make up for lost time? Where to begin? A period of time? Which timeline should I use – philosophy or literature? A series of authors? Which – fiction or philosophers? Is it a bit late to want to go back now? Is this just dissertation procrastination? Or might it be important?

Like, it would be, like, soooo super cool if, like, I could totally figure out a, um, dissertation? by reading more fiction? like, even maybe cooler than my new purse and hat? awesome!

expanded version of previous post

SWIP conference this past weekend. Good. Interesting. What/who do I want to be? There were women there – who do good work, I have little doubt of that – whom I do not want to become (laying aside all caveats about how I will only ever be me etc.). A woman was talking to/advising one of the younger women there (younger than she, older than me), telling her to stop writing to/for her critics (where the critics are men and/or heteronormative, and/or patriarchal, and/or confused about the idea), to (it seemed) write instead only to other feminists and/or people who already understand her, and/or people who already (at least fundamentally) agree with her. Screw those other ones.

Thoughts:

• I have deep reservations about the possibility for or the ethics of conversion

• What is terribly interesting about only talking to people who already agree with you?

• Where does love come in?

• Where should judgment end?

On the one hand, it may be that we can only convince people of different opinions/views whose fundamental, deep assumptions are significantly aligned with ours: so perhaps I can convince you, a devoted strawberrry ice cream lover to try, and to learn to like, mint chocolate chip; but if you don't even like ice cream at all – if you actually hate it – then I may never be able to so convince you.

• Difference between conversation and conversion?

• Continuum/scale: conversion ----- conversation ----- silence ?

An orientation toward the world:

• fuck everyone who doesn't already love/respect/adore/admire/agree with you?

• love everyone you see better than you think you are able?

What makes someone a doormat?

• loving people who hate you?

• acknowledging that you may be wrong?

• believing that even 'oppressors' can make good points?

• looking inward to find harmful attitudes before locating them externally?

• insisting upon transforming anger into action and then into love?

I don't want to be angry. I don't want to be crusty and crotchety and surly and defensive and terribly intimidating. Does this make me a 'stereotypical woman'? Does this belie my 'feminine orientation'? Have I been too well socialized by the 'system', the 'patriarchy', the 'man'?

I am happy. I feel so healthy and so happy being happy. Does this mean I am coopted? Does this mean I have so internalized my oppression that I am now doing the work of the patriarchy myself?

I have no doubt that the world is not well. I don't consider myself completely blind to the deep wrongs that continually occur all over this globe. Pain and suffering and evil and wickedness and injustice are everywhere. I agree. Is it a condition of being part of movements to change or heal that pain that one must see nothing else? Am I selfish to see beauty and love and generosity and kindness and growth and change as well? Should I refuse to see love 'until the patriarchy is over'? Is that reasonable? Does that work?

Who makes the more 'feminine' sacrifice – the one who loves or the the one who refuses love unless it can be 'perfect'?

Is the desire for and the pleasure in feeling healthy a privilege I have not earned and so do not have the right to enjoy? Ought I to shelve my pleasure until everyone else may also desire health and take pleasure in health? Am I taking an 'every woman for herself' attitude when I laugh while my 'sisters' weep? Must I always weep until weeping ceases?

Presenting at the SWIP conference

does it make me
- bad
- a bad feminist
- non-radical
- anti-revolutionary
- unethical
- selfish
- over-privileged
if I want to
- be happy
- revel in this happiness
- anticipate the possibilities for future happinesses
or if I want to
- focus more on forgetting hurt than remembering it
- see more beauty than ugliness
- be more easily delighted than offended
- spend more time learning to love than in justifying anger

?

what kind of philosopho-lady will I/can I/ought I be?