Dear Everyone,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.