Science.
This makes me furious and very sad.
I've noticed an interesting shift toward the negative in my attitude toward science and scientists since I've been back in school. I say interesting I guess because if anything I would have expected a shift in the opposite direction.
Two reasons for the shift: 1) the incredible arrogance and narrow-mindedness of some professors/scientists/academics I've encountered, the complete confidence allowing for no doubt that the so-called scientific method is the only reliable way to find out anything true, and 2) the creeping awareness of the scale of cruelty inflicted on animals in science labs every single day.
Number one is what it is. People believe what they believe. Number two is the one that's most difficult for me.
For my science classes, I read paper after paper about animals studies and sometimes ... I have to stop and cry. I'm not talking about the kinds of examples anti-animal rights people always trot out, like finding a cure for cancer or diabetes, etc. I mean studies like the one above, where the scientist is looking for a correlation between stress during pregnancy and brain development of the child by blaring a horn at a pregnant monkey for 10 minutes a day. I guess what appalls me is that people just read right past that and don't even think about that pregnant monkey, about the ethics of that experiment. And even if you do find a correlation -- its relevance and usefulness for humans in tenuous. The scientist is presented -- presents herself -- as some kind of hero, a crusader for the poor. To find out whether or not stress fucks people up, she sets out to fuck up a few hundred monkeys. It's nauseating.
I really do believe that our descendants will look back at this period with horror and disgust, that our treatment of animals will loom large in history.
I've noticed an interesting shift toward the negative in my attitude toward science and scientists since I've been back in school. I say interesting I guess because if anything I would have expected a shift in the opposite direction.
Two reasons for the shift: 1) the incredible arrogance and narrow-mindedness of some professors/scientists/academics I've encountered, the complete confidence allowing for no doubt that the so-called scientific method is the only reliable way to find out anything true, and 2) the creeping awareness of the scale of cruelty inflicted on animals in science labs every single day.
Number one is what it is. People believe what they believe. Number two is the one that's most difficult for me.
For my science classes, I read paper after paper about animals studies and sometimes ... I have to stop and cry. I'm not talking about the kinds of examples anti-animal rights people always trot out, like finding a cure for cancer or diabetes, etc. I mean studies like the one above, where the scientist is looking for a correlation between stress during pregnancy and brain development of the child by blaring a horn at a pregnant monkey for 10 minutes a day. I guess what appalls me is that people just read right past that and don't even think about that pregnant monkey, about the ethics of that experiment. And even if you do find a correlation -- its relevance and usefulness for humans in tenuous. The scientist is presented -- presents herself -- as some kind of hero, a crusader for the poor. To find out whether or not stress fucks people up, she sets out to fuck up a few hundred monkeys. It's nauseating.
I really do believe that our descendants will look back at this period with horror and disgust, that our treatment of animals will loom large in history.
Bus Stop Wake & Bake.
Every morning at the bus stop there is a man, and sometimes 2 or 3 men either together or not, smoking a thin cigar that is at least partly filled with marijuana. At first I thought it was just some very strong tobacco that reminded me of marijuana, but after days of smelling it, I'm sure it's pot. These guys look dressed for work, one of them, the one I see most frequently, wears a dress shirt and tie. I catch the bus at about 8:30 a.m. I'm very curious about this.Once again I find myself in a neighborhood where I am treated with indifference or contempt. I have vowed to continue to say "good morning" to the people I pass on the street or see at the bus stop, whether or not -- and almost invariably it's not -- they reciprocate, but it's disheartening. Basically I live here for the same reason they do, which is because I'm poor and have few options. (I understand that I am poor because I chose to go back to college instead of working, and that I have always been poor because I chose a vocation I don't make money at, that my poverty is to some extent intentional, etc., but it's still poverty.)
Not that, if I suddenly had some money I would move across the interstate to a white neighborhood. (One of the things I love about this part of town is that it is ethnically mixed -- black and Mexican with a smattering of white folks -- but then I have to wonder why a mixed neighborhood is so great if people can't be neighborly to people who aren't like them.) Still, I might choose a slightly less bleak mixed neighborhood. The difference between most of my neighbors and me is that my family does not live here. And ethnically speaking I am in their neighborhood. It's not that I don't understand the hostility directed at my whiteness, but I always wonder where it leaves me personally. Just because I am white, am I the colonizer? And, if so, then what is my obligation? Does my whiteness and privilege obligate me to pursue a job that will pay enough for me to afford to live in a white middle-class neighborhood?
Anyway, all that to say that, though I am curious about the morning pot smoking, I don't know how I would find out more about it. The pot-smoking men are black.
There is a young black woman I frequently pass on the way to the bus. She's walking the other way with a baby and a toddler, and she always smiles when I greet her. I find myself hoping I'll see her, craving her smile.
Magic.
I love this. I usually shy away from the word "queer," because I think it is used to describe so many things that don't evoke the frisson I associated with the word. But this does. It's like seeing the world through a lens that shifts everything slightly in one direction or another so that reference points don't exactly line up. Everything small detail is surprising.
Love Is Everything.
This song makes me cry like a baby. Sometimes I listen to it and just sit here, and I can hardly believe how true and wise and beautiful it is. Really. It finds a place so deep in the wisdom of my experience, and it shakes me. Life is just so unbearably sad, isn't it? There's no getting around that.
Weirdness.
I guess this would fall under the NSFW column, but why are you reading my blog at work in the first place? The other column it falls under is What Will the Japanese Think of Next? What makes this truly weird is that it isn't an isolated bit of weirdness; it's one of a fad of mashups of dance music and gay porn with baby heads covering the genitals. If you enjoy this (and who wouldn't?) there are hundreds more.
Women.
In my Postmodern America class a couple weeks ago, we were talking about the 50s in America, talking broadly about some of the big cultural changes associated with that decade. Someone brought up The Feminine Mystique and "the problem that has no name," and I made an offhand remark about how women were bored because machines were doing all the work they used to spend all day doing, like laundry for instance.
A woman in the class, a graduate media student, said, sharply, "Actually, that's not true." She said that there were some recent books and articles pointing out that that was a myth, that, with automation of housework, expectations of what housewives could accomplish had been raised so high that any benefit of the new appliances was lost.
We left it at that -- we had other things to discuss besides the women's movement -- but the exchange left me feeling a suddenly very specific lack in my life of close women friends. I guess I mean close mainly in terms of proximity, because I do have a few intimate women friends but none of them live within a thousand miles of me. My sister and I are close, but sporadically in touch, and it's only about once a year that we get to have anything like real conversation. But I don't have a woman friend that I just hang out with, have coffee, talk about whatever's on our minds. (Actually I don't have men friends like this either, except J, and I feel that lack, as well. I don't have many friends here, but that's another story.)
I thought about this again while I was reading this article. I have lots of ideas about this. I always have opinions. I wish I had someone to bounce them off of, a woman friend who maybe has had some experience with this stuff, who might forgive my insults born of ignorance -- for instance, when I say, rhetorically, "why is it some women feel it's so important to be able to simultaneously give birth and raise a baby and maintain a career outside the home? if you're going to have kids, have kids. it's not sexism making women unhappy, it's multi-tasking" -- who might be willing to tell me what she thinks I'm right about and wrong about.
It's hard to have these conversations in a classroom, where so often people have a desire to express a strongly-held view instead of listening and examining an issue with an open mind. I'm just as guilty of this as anyone. And there's the whole "sensitivity" issue. Most of the kids in my classes are encountering the expectation of sensitivity for the first time in their lives, I think. Sensitivity to sexism, homophobia, racism, etc. And that's a good thing, especially here in Texas. It's just not where I am with these issues.
Well, last week I made a couple new male friends. Maybe women are next.
A woman in the class, a graduate media student, said, sharply, "Actually, that's not true." She said that there were some recent books and articles pointing out that that was a myth, that, with automation of housework, expectations of what housewives could accomplish had been raised so high that any benefit of the new appliances was lost.
We left it at that -- we had other things to discuss besides the women's movement -- but the exchange left me feeling a suddenly very specific lack in my life of close women friends. I guess I mean close mainly in terms of proximity, because I do have a few intimate women friends but none of them live within a thousand miles of me. My sister and I are close, but sporadically in touch, and it's only about once a year that we get to have anything like real conversation. But I don't have a woman friend that I just hang out with, have coffee, talk about whatever's on our minds. (Actually I don't have men friends like this either, except J, and I feel that lack, as well. I don't have many friends here, but that's another story.)
I thought about this again while I was reading this article. I have lots of ideas about this. I always have opinions. I wish I had someone to bounce them off of, a woman friend who maybe has had some experience with this stuff, who might forgive my insults born of ignorance -- for instance, when I say, rhetorically, "why is it some women feel it's so important to be able to simultaneously give birth and raise a baby and maintain a career outside the home? if you're going to have kids, have kids. it's not sexism making women unhappy, it's multi-tasking" -- who might be willing to tell me what she thinks I'm right about and wrong about.
It's hard to have these conversations in a classroom, where so often people have a desire to express a strongly-held view instead of listening and examining an issue with an open mind. I'm just as guilty of this as anyone. And there's the whole "sensitivity" issue. Most of the kids in my classes are encountering the expectation of sensitivity for the first time in their lives, I think. Sensitivity to sexism, homophobia, racism, etc. And that's a good thing, especially here in Texas. It's just not where I am with these issues.
Well, last week I made a couple new male friends. Maybe women are next.
Taylor Swift.
I first heard, and heard of, Taylor Swift when I was staying with T in New York and we watched SNL. She was the musical guest. I was mesmerized. I had no idea until days later when I looked for her on iTunes that she was a country artist. It sounded like pure pop to me. Really good pure pop.
I don't like the CD versions of the songs -- she's much better live -- so I didn't download anything. The clip below is a bizarre production number from the CMA Awards. Here's one that's a little more stripped down. I searched for the SNL clip, but the NBC goons have already made sure nobody gets to see their "property." (How does alienating your audience make good business sense?) The SNL performance is better than either of these versions. I don't know that I can really explain yet why, but Taylor Swift makes me feel good about the future of country music.
I don't like the CD versions of the songs -- she's much better live -- so I didn't download anything. The clip below is a bizarre production number from the CMA Awards. Here's one that's a little more stripped down. I searched for the SNL clip, but the NBC goons have already made sure nobody gets to see their "property." (How does alienating your audience make good business sense?) The SNL performance is better than either of these versions. I don't know that I can really explain yet why, but Taylor Swift makes me feel good about the future of country music.
Saturday.
Yesterday my new friend M and his friend D picked me up at home and we met another friend at Epoch for coffee.
R is a guy I hang out with at the bar if we both happen to be there, but otherwise we don't socialize. Last weekend there, at the bar, R and I were outside on the patio about to smoke a little, R saw M standing by himself and thought he looked interesting, so he asked him if he wanted to join us. He turned out to be an artist, a teacher, a really interesting man, we kept in touch during the week. It was from M that I found out that in Texas one can get a job teaching in the public schools with just a bachelor's degree. There's a state program where you can work toward your certification while you are teaching, taking weekend classes or some such thing. (The institution where these certification classes are held just happens to be right across the street from us.) M and I talked about it a lot that night we met, and over coffee yesterday I continued to grill him about teaching. His friend D teaches high school and loves it.
Coffee lasted for hours and it was time for dinner so we all went to a Thai restaurant nearby. It's rare, for me anyway, to make new friends, so it was kind of a thrill. I got home about 8 I think, talked to J for a while. He was excited because his improv class had gone really well. He's enjoying that more and more. I can't wait to see him do it! J went to bed at 9 -- he's preparing for his Paris trip (he leaves Friday) by adjusting his sleeping hours. I'd slept till 10 that morning and I was wired from the coffee and stimulating company, so I was wide awake.
It had stopped raining, and earlier it had seemed warmer, in the fifties maybe, so I decided to ride my bike down to the bar. Once I started riding, I realized the temperature had dropped, I'd only worn a long sleeve t-shirt, but I knew I'd warm up with the exercise. It crossed my mind that it was going to be colder on the ride home.
There wasn't much happening at the bar, nobody I knew to talk to was there, so I sat with my beer, stood with my beer, walked around with my beer. After an hour or so, R showed up. We went out to the patio to smoke. He always has really good stuff and that makes us both, naturally pretty shy, very chatty. I like R a lot. He's a good-hearted man. Every once in a while in our conversations I remember how different we are -- usually it's when he starts talking about real estate. He's very sensitive, has an artistic temperament, but chose a conventional life. So there's sort of a basic level on which we connect but his everyday concerns are very different from mine. Anyway, we have fun talking about sex and random things.
I was getting cold so we went back inside. It was dark in the bar, the music was loud, completely unfamiliar dance music, the pot was kicking in, and I was enjoying it a lot. It's like therapy for me, getting high and sitting in a crowded bar, listening to loud music, with no pressure to keep up conversation. It's one of the few times I feel completely off the hook.
The last couple of times there I noticed a boy, he was a little cocky I guess is why I noticed him, Mexican I assumed from his features, young, small, wavy shoulder-length hair like Peter Frampton but black. Very sexy but not someone I would necessarily take a specific sexual interest in, mostly I guess because he was so young, but also because he seemed to be there with a big group of friends who, for whatever reason, didn't look like people I would hang out with. (Younger and a little more dressed up than the regular flannel shirt beer gut crowd.) But I had enjoyed watching him.
Last night, he was watching me too. Before R got there, he (the boy) had walked past me, stopped, smiled and said hi. Then his friend snagged him and they disappeared. Later, when R and I had come in from the porch and were sitting on the bench along the back wall, I pointed him out to R and told R how intrigued I was by him. While we were talking about him, as if he knew, he walked over and sat right next to me. Within seconds R had disappeared, I think assuming that I wanted to pursue this kid and he would give me room, but honestly I was scared. I was disoriented by someone so young showing interest in me, and I was suddenly very stoned.
Every time I looked over, he was smiling at me. He told me his name was Tim and he was from Mexico, here in Austin going to college at St. Edward's. He had no accent at all. He said something about me that I can't quite recall now, something like "you're interesting," and I being completely hypnotized by now said, "I think you're beautiful." Which embarrasses me now to remember, because it's such an old man thing to say to a young person, but on the other hand, how many times do we get to express exactly word for word what's on our mind?
He smiled and shifted his leg so that it touched mine. I thought, "I am not safe here."
He asked me how old I was. I said, "In a week, I'm going to be 48." He very politely told me I didn't look it, and I said, "Well, it's dark in here." I asked him how old he was. "15," he deadpanned. (I was ready to believe him. He looked very young.) But after a beat, he smiled and said, "How old do you think I am?" I thought 18, but said 20, I think in some unsuccessful attempt to reduce the lecherous troll quotient a bit in my head.
"I'm 22," he said.
I said, "How old is your father?" and immediately wished I hadn't. He laughed and said, "Younger than you."
He kept shifting himself closer to me and if I would look over, he would meet my gaze and smile. He was androgynous -- not in the way I usually think of, neither male nor female but some state in-between -- he was strongly both male and female. It was almost more than I could take. There was something about his age, the absolute beauty of a 22-year-old boy, that was overwhelming, but the other aspect of it was the mere fact of someone who I assessed to be very much more attractive than me expressing sexual interest in me. I have no power over that. Nothing has ever arisen in me to protect me from that.
He said, "Do you like to play pool?"
I said, "No."
"Do you want to?"
"Mmm. No. I don't play."
"Really? You won't?"
I shrugged. I didn't want to play pool. I'm sure I was worried about embarrassing myself in front of this beautiful boy who liked me for some unknowable reason.
He looked at me for a moment and then said, "That sucks."
I said, "What?"
"That sucks. You could have at least tried." About 30 seconds later, he got up slowly and walked away, back toward the pool tables, and I sat there feeling like I was 300 years old.
It had gotten much colder and the two beers I'd drunk weren't enough to keep me warm on the way home. I was seriously painfully cold for the first half of the ride. I rode fast to get my heart pumping to warm me up. It didn't really work but it was fun to ride fast. It's mostly uphill on the way home and Springdale is deserted at 1 a.m. My mind was racing too, back to the beautiful Mexican boy to my day with wonderful new friends and my recent fretting about the future and it suddenly seemed clear to me that I should be a teacher. I should look for a job teaching high school in the fall. I've always wanted to teach and the thing that has kept me from pursuing it is the worry that I could not do it and also make art. But this week I met M, who is both an artist and a teacher, as if to teach me that it is possible.
So much points toward it being a sensible pursuit. I have a strong hunch I will be good at it. I complain about the state of American education all the time -- here's a chance to do something about it. It's a field where there are jobs available, which is rare these days. It's a state job, with good salary and benefits. I'll have mountains of student loans to pay off once I finish school. I'm going to be 50 in 2 years. Maybe this is a way to age with some grace.
R is a guy I hang out with at the bar if we both happen to be there, but otherwise we don't socialize. Last weekend there, at the bar, R and I were outside on the patio about to smoke a little, R saw M standing by himself and thought he looked interesting, so he asked him if he wanted to join us. He turned out to be an artist, a teacher, a really interesting man, we kept in touch during the week. It was from M that I found out that in Texas one can get a job teaching in the public schools with just a bachelor's degree. There's a state program where you can work toward your certification while you are teaching, taking weekend classes or some such thing. (The institution where these certification classes are held just happens to be right across the street from us.) M and I talked about it a lot that night we met, and over coffee yesterday I continued to grill him about teaching. His friend D teaches high school and loves it.
Coffee lasted for hours and it was time for dinner so we all went to a Thai restaurant nearby. It's rare, for me anyway, to make new friends, so it was kind of a thrill. I got home about 8 I think, talked to J for a while. He was excited because his improv class had gone really well. He's enjoying that more and more. I can't wait to see him do it! J went to bed at 9 -- he's preparing for his Paris trip (he leaves Friday) by adjusting his sleeping hours. I'd slept till 10 that morning and I was wired from the coffee and stimulating company, so I was wide awake.
It had stopped raining, and earlier it had seemed warmer, in the fifties maybe, so I decided to ride my bike down to the bar. Once I started riding, I realized the temperature had dropped, I'd only worn a long sleeve t-shirt, but I knew I'd warm up with the exercise. It crossed my mind that it was going to be colder on the ride home.
There wasn't much happening at the bar, nobody I knew to talk to was there, so I sat with my beer, stood with my beer, walked around with my beer. After an hour or so, R showed up. We went out to the patio to smoke. He always has really good stuff and that makes us both, naturally pretty shy, very chatty. I like R a lot. He's a good-hearted man. Every once in a while in our conversations I remember how different we are -- usually it's when he starts talking about real estate. He's very sensitive, has an artistic temperament, but chose a conventional life. So there's sort of a basic level on which we connect but his everyday concerns are very different from mine. Anyway, we have fun talking about sex and random things.
I was getting cold so we went back inside. It was dark in the bar, the music was loud, completely unfamiliar dance music, the pot was kicking in, and I was enjoying it a lot. It's like therapy for me, getting high and sitting in a crowded bar, listening to loud music, with no pressure to keep up conversation. It's one of the few times I feel completely off the hook.
The last couple of times there I noticed a boy, he was a little cocky I guess is why I noticed him, Mexican I assumed from his features, young, small, wavy shoulder-length hair like Peter Frampton but black. Very sexy but not someone I would necessarily take a specific sexual interest in, mostly I guess because he was so young, but also because he seemed to be there with a big group of friends who, for whatever reason, didn't look like people I would hang out with. (Younger and a little more dressed up than the regular flannel shirt beer gut crowd.) But I had enjoyed watching him.
Last night, he was watching me too. Before R got there, he (the boy) had walked past me, stopped, smiled and said hi. Then his friend snagged him and they disappeared. Later, when R and I had come in from the porch and were sitting on the bench along the back wall, I pointed him out to R and told R how intrigued I was by him. While we were talking about him, as if he knew, he walked over and sat right next to me. Within seconds R had disappeared, I think assuming that I wanted to pursue this kid and he would give me room, but honestly I was scared. I was disoriented by someone so young showing interest in me, and I was suddenly very stoned.
Every time I looked over, he was smiling at me. He told me his name was Tim and he was from Mexico, here in Austin going to college at St. Edward's. He had no accent at all. He said something about me that I can't quite recall now, something like "you're interesting," and I being completely hypnotized by now said, "I think you're beautiful." Which embarrasses me now to remember, because it's such an old man thing to say to a young person, but on the other hand, how many times do we get to express exactly word for word what's on our mind?
He smiled and shifted his leg so that it touched mine. I thought, "I am not safe here."
He asked me how old I was. I said, "In a week, I'm going to be 48." He very politely told me I didn't look it, and I said, "Well, it's dark in here." I asked him how old he was. "15," he deadpanned. (I was ready to believe him. He looked very young.) But after a beat, he smiled and said, "How old do you think I am?" I thought 18, but said 20, I think in some unsuccessful attempt to reduce the lecherous troll quotient a bit in my head.
"I'm 22," he said.
I said, "How old is your father?" and immediately wished I hadn't. He laughed and said, "Younger than you."
He kept shifting himself closer to me and if I would look over, he would meet my gaze and smile. He was androgynous -- not in the way I usually think of, neither male nor female but some state in-between -- he was strongly both male and female. It was almost more than I could take. There was something about his age, the absolute beauty of a 22-year-old boy, that was overwhelming, but the other aspect of it was the mere fact of someone who I assessed to be very much more attractive than me expressing sexual interest in me. I have no power over that. Nothing has ever arisen in me to protect me from that.
He said, "Do you like to play pool?"
I said, "No."
"Do you want to?"
"Mmm. No. I don't play."
"Really? You won't?"
I shrugged. I didn't want to play pool. I'm sure I was worried about embarrassing myself in front of this beautiful boy who liked me for some unknowable reason.
He looked at me for a moment and then said, "That sucks."
I said, "What?"
"That sucks. You could have at least tried." About 30 seconds later, he got up slowly and walked away, back toward the pool tables, and I sat there feeling like I was 300 years old.
It had gotten much colder and the two beers I'd drunk weren't enough to keep me warm on the way home. I was seriously painfully cold for the first half of the ride. I rode fast to get my heart pumping to warm me up. It didn't really work but it was fun to ride fast. It's mostly uphill on the way home and Springdale is deserted at 1 a.m. My mind was racing too, back to the beautiful Mexican boy to my day with wonderful new friends and my recent fretting about the future and it suddenly seemed clear to me that I should be a teacher. I should look for a job teaching high school in the fall. I've always wanted to teach and the thing that has kept me from pursuing it is the worry that I could not do it and also make art. But this week I met M, who is both an artist and a teacher, as if to teach me that it is possible.
So much points toward it being a sensible pursuit. I have a strong hunch I will be good at it. I complain about the state of American education all the time -- here's a chance to do something about it. It's a field where there are jobs available, which is rare these days. It's a state job, with good salary and benefits. I'll have mountains of student loans to pay off once I finish school. I'm going to be 50 in 2 years. Maybe this is a way to age with some grace.
Ham? Did Somebody Say Ham?
J and I used to have Pickle Surprise on a VHS demo compilation from J's days as an entertainment writer for a magazine in New York. The tape was long, and full of great stuff besides Pickle Surprise -- Ann Magnuson and that crew of East Village 80s drag queens and crazy people doing lots of weird characters, etc. At some point in our crazy life, we lost the tape. There are few things I have missed as much as I missed that tape. We had serious Pickle Surprise cravings for years. We looked for it forever, and came close to spending $50 for a copy from some museum archive.
Hooray for youtube!
Hooray for youtube!
New York.
I didn't mean to be all cagey about my New York trip. For anyone who reads this and is wondering: the Lizzie Borden showcase staging was a huge success, the producers are really happy with the shape the show is in now, and they're going ahead with plans for an open-ended run in the fall. The next step, from what I understand, is to find a space.
I wish I could blog about it, blow by blow, but I always end up writing myself into a corner, not knowing what's appropriate to share at this point. A lot of it is just, in the end, not my story to tell. Rest assured that when the show is a big hit this fall and we all makes pots of money, I'll let you know all about it.
I wish I could blog about it, blow by blow, but I always end up writing myself into a corner, not knowing what's appropriate to share at this point. A lot of it is just, in the end, not my story to tell. Rest assured that when the show is a big hit this fall and we all makes pots of money, I'll let you know all about it.
La-di-da.
I'm so all over the place, I don't know what to write about. The world is so full of fearful and exhilarating things. I swing from scared to thrilled, apprehensive to excited.
I got a 100 on my Rigging midterm. It was easy, but still I feel very proud of myself. My Spanish exam on Friday was tough. I rushed through it and didn't have a chance to double check my answers. I'm generally okay with the written stuff, but understanding spoken Spanish is another story altogether. I struggle with it. I want so badly to do well in that class, in large part, I'm not proud to admit, because the teacher is cute and he likes me.
I'm trying to decide whether I should finish my degree this summer, as I had originally planned, or go to Utah for the summer to work and come back to finish school in the fall. Since I'm not going to grad school in the fall, there's no real rush. Except that I'm so close to being done I can taste it, and just want to get it over! The advantage of waiting is that it prolongs having to figure out what to do with my life. And, of course, summer is Utah would be paradise.
On the other hand, somehow fall seems like a good time to start something fresh. Whatever it is. I've been thinking seriously about looking into teaching, high school or middle school. You can start teaching here in Texas with just a college degree and then do whatever coursework you need to get your teaching credentials while you're working. It would be an insanely huge commitment, but I have this feeling that I'd enjoy it and be very good at it. I hear there's a demand for teachers at the higher grade levels in the public schools, so maybe it wouldn't be hard to get a job. I like teenagers -- they're much more interesting to me than younger kids. Am I crazy?
I got a 100 on my Rigging midterm. It was easy, but still I feel very proud of myself. My Spanish exam on Friday was tough. I rushed through it and didn't have a chance to double check my answers. I'm generally okay with the written stuff, but understanding spoken Spanish is another story altogether. I struggle with it. I want so badly to do well in that class, in large part, I'm not proud to admit, because the teacher is cute and he likes me.
I'm trying to decide whether I should finish my degree this summer, as I had originally planned, or go to Utah for the summer to work and come back to finish school in the fall. Since I'm not going to grad school in the fall, there's no real rush. Except that I'm so close to being done I can taste it, and just want to get it over! The advantage of waiting is that it prolongs having to figure out what to do with my life. And, of course, summer is Utah would be paradise.
On the other hand, somehow fall seems like a good time to start something fresh. Whatever it is. I've been thinking seriously about looking into teaching, high school or middle school. You can start teaching here in Texas with just a college degree and then do whatever coursework you need to get your teaching credentials while you're working. It would be an insanely huge commitment, but I have this feeling that I'd enjoy it and be very good at it. I hear there's a demand for teachers at the higher grade levels in the public schools, so maybe it wouldn't be hard to get a job. I like teenagers -- they're much more interesting to me than younger kids. Am I crazy?
My Take on Comics.
I thought I'd share with you a short essay I wrote for my class, Postmodern America. The assignment was to write a personal essay addressing the question of whether one thought of oneself as a modernist or postmodernist. Here it is:I don’t get comic books. That may not seem like a big deal; some people don’t get true crime (get) or anime (don’t get) or Bollywood (totally get) or science fiction (get, but only Samuel Delany and that’s just because there’s lots of deviant sex in his books) or whatever so-called genre there is to get or not get – doesn’t it seem like there are more genres every day, like porn: whatever you’re into there’s a sub of a sub of a subgenre just for you and the handful of others whose prenatal hormone mishap or relationship with their mothers have cursed (or blessed?) them with the same particular inability to get off on anything else? – but I can’t help feeling that somehow not getting comic books is a serious handicap right now, when our mass entertainment landscape is dominated by Batman and the rest. I try. I went to see The Dark Knight. I saw a couple of the Spiderman movies. Superheroes are one thing on paper – I went to art school; I’m a big fan of drawing, and I appreciate that there is some great drawing in comic books – but these movies with live actors playing superheroes always look to me like some guy forgot to take off his Halloween costume and everyone is pretending they don’t notice. It’s not a generational thing, though there is a mark on a timeline, maybe a fuzzy mark, that separates the era when little boys saw their lives through comic books from the current era when everybody (except me) sees their lives through comic books. Maybe it started when Pollack and Rothko etc. were knocked off their high modern pedestal by Rauschenberg and Warhol and, well, Lichtenstein, but I grew up in the 60s; I should have got in on the ground floor. Other boys my age carried comic books around with them. I had a couple Archies books, which I liked okay, but I’m sure the Archies don’t count. Maybe it’s a straight boy thing. Lip-service to change notwithstanding, mass media is still mostly created by straight boys. The inscrutability of comics certainly wasn’t the only thing that shut me out of the world of real boys when I was a young homosexual. Whatever the reason, superheroes are not my native tongue, and they say there’s a certain age past which it’s very difficult to learn a new language. I fear I will slowly lose my grasp on a world increasingly mediated by a popular mythology of superheroes. It’s way beyond the books themselves now. I think the actual publishing of those books, pamphlets really, printed on soft newsprint and sold in dusty little mom and pop stores, must be, if not over, at least a much smaller industry than it was in say the fifties. Keep in mind that I am relying on a version of the history of comics that I’ve mostly unconsciously composed in my head based on, at best, indirect observation, eavesdropping, misreading of magazine headlines, etc. I dated a guy briefly in my early twenties in the early eighties who was an artist at DC Comics. He drew Superman for a living. We met at the Ninth Circle, a hustler bar on 10th St. at the very ass-end of the West Village being at all counter-anything. A. had studied at SVA, I at Parsons, where our teachers were the last generation of artists whose teachers worshiped at the altar of Abstract Expressionism but whose students were painting, you guessed it, comic book characters, on canvas, and selling them in trendy galleries in the East Village. The night we met, I followed him to an after hours club on Houston St. and watched him dance maniacally to Gang of Four. I found him more intriguing than attractive. He lost his job at DC, and, whether he told me this or I assumed or fabricated it in the intervening years in order to create bit by bit, like we always do, a cohesive narrative out of events that most likely at the time didn’t cohere, let’s say it was because the comic book industry was on a downturn. I hate this word because it’s indiscriminately applied, but in the case of A. it’s accurate to say that I “dumped” him. One day he called from the corner of First Avenue and asked if he could come by. I said yes for no other reason I can think of than that I was a coward. I let him buzz for a while; then, someone must have let him in the building because he was knocking on my apartment door. I stood perfectly still on the other side of the door so he wouldn’t detect movement through the peephole until I heard his footsteps fade slowly down the hall toward the front door. Later that day I found slipped under my door a handwritten letter several pages long full of wistful regret about the demise of punk and the cynicism of the art world in New York. Many years after I left the city he got my address somehow, and now he sends me letters dozens of pages long, typed with an old manual typewriter on the back of Xeroxes of band fliers and newspaper photos of high school athletes and violent crime victims, which I assume are references for his work. He makes a living now drawing custom pornographic comics for people who are into torture, mutilation, Nazi medical experiment fantasies, stuff like that. When his letters arrive, before I read them I turn them over and leaf through the backs of the pages. Sometimes there’ll be a copy of a rough draft of one of his porn comics. I’m not particularly turned on by Nazis, but I get these comics. Batman, not so much.
Back and Forth.
I got back from New York last night, did a little Spanish homework,some fancy footwork with my schedule next week, hung out with J for a while, then went to bed.
I wasn't going to, but now I am going to, go back to New York this weekend for the Lizzie Borden showcase. When the performance was rescheduled for a Monday, I told T and the producers that I wouldn't be able to be there because of my classes, but T strong-armed me a little -- at one point Saturday night, he threatened to wait till I went to bed, buy a plane ticket, and then in the morning dare me to say no -- and the more I thought about it, the crazier it seemed to miss this event. This is the kind of thing I've worked for and hoped for years and years. It's a big deal. I realized I was being superstitious about school, that missing a couple days of classes was not in any way going to jeopardize my finishing my degree, was not going to really matter in the long run AT ALL.
The show is on Monday, so I will miss Monday and Tuesday's classes next week. I managed to reschedule a midterm exam in my Stage Rigging class and an in-class composición in Spanish. I'm scheduled to do a short presentation in my Postmodern America class next Tuesday morning, and I'm hoping someone will switch days with me.
I wasn't going to, but now I am going to, go back to New York this weekend for the Lizzie Borden showcase. When the performance was rescheduled for a Monday, I told T and the producers that I wouldn't be able to be there because of my classes, but T strong-armed me a little -- at one point Saturday night, he threatened to wait till I went to bed, buy a plane ticket, and then in the morning dare me to say no -- and the more I thought about it, the crazier it seemed to miss this event. This is the kind of thing I've worked for and hoped for years and years. It's a big deal. I realized I was being superstitious about school, that missing a couple days of classes was not in any way going to jeopardize my finishing my degree, was not going to really matter in the long run AT ALL.
The show is on Monday, so I will miss Monday and Tuesday's classes next week. I managed to reschedule a midterm exam in my Stage Rigging class and an in-class composición in Spanish. I'm scheduled to do a short presentation in my Postmodern America class next Tuesday morning, and I'm hoping someone will switch days with me.
Dreams.
When I'm anxious or troubled, I have vivid nightmares and remember them. Otherwise, I don't usually remember my dreams. Two nights ago, there was a car crash with a mangled bloody corpse sprawled in the front seat -- a lot of my nightmares are about the aftermath of car wrecks (I don't have recurring dreams so much as recurring settings or types of events in which the details change from dream to dream) -- and a weird trio of blond children wearing angular plaid suits and old-fashioned haircuts who were terrifying for some reason.
Last night I dreamed that J and I encountered a tiger and her cubs on a hiking trail. J ran right by her, but she blocked my path. I managed to intimidate her and keep her from attacking me. J took one of the cubs home. He was holding it in his arms, and it was beautiful and vivid with pale blue eyes. I kept telling him that he had to take it back to its mother, but he ignored me.
I don't enjoy being stressed out, and I wouldn't exactly say that I enjoy having nightmares, but there's something about them I like. They're maybe instructive, at the very least diverting.
Last night I dreamed that J and I encountered a tiger and her cubs on a hiking trail. J ran right by her, but she blocked my path. I managed to intimidate her and keep her from attacking me. J took one of the cubs home. He was holding it in his arms, and it was beautiful and vivid with pale blue eyes. I kept telling him that he had to take it back to its mother, but he ignored me.
I don't enjoy being stressed out, and I wouldn't exactly say that I enjoy having nightmares, but there's something about them I like. They're maybe instructive, at the very least diverting.
Autoepiphany.
I think I need to get a car. Maybe not immediately, but before too long. I've been so resistant to the idea, because I hate driving, I don't want the expense and trouble of a car, and I'm opposed to car culture in general. But I live in a city with crappy public transit, limited sidewalks and poor pedestrian access to many areas, not enough bike lanes (which aren't safe anyway because they're so often used for turn lanes or parking). Am I just making myself miserable to prove a point? Is this one of those cases where I should just give in and live in the real world even if it doesn't line up with my values?I love Austin and want to stay here. Maybe I have to accept Austin on its own terms instead of expecting it to be something it's not and consequently resenting it.
Having a car would eliminate so many little day-to-day frustrations, like having to rely on others to shop for me, or my apprehension about almost every invitation or social activity because I don't like feeling stranded and dependent on someone to drive me home. Being without a car makes it difficult for me to contemplate getting a job, it makes me reluctant to pursue a date with anyone, it makes what should be the simplest tasks feel like walking through a foot of mud. A car would also relieve some of the anxiety I feel about the heat here, because I wouldn't be out in it as much and I wouldn't be soaked with sweat every time I arrived somewhere. (Anxiety must seem like a strong word, but that's what it is. Today when I was walking to the bus in the humid 80-degree weather, my heart started racing and I thought I might cry because the air felt like summer coming and I thought, "I have to get my life together before the heat comes because once it does I'm going to be incapacitated for 5 months.")
I think the strain effects me more than I have admitted.
Now, the actual getting of a car is another story since I have no money. But I feel a small sense of relief having realized that I want one.
I Guess I Could Always Lead the Nation's Toughest Warriors.
I was thinking on my way home from school today that tonight I should make a list of things I might want to do in the fall, since I no longer have plans. Just to sort of get my thoughts together. In the mail when I got home was a flier from the Marine Corp. that says, "When you started college, you planned to change your world." And then you open the thing and inside it says, "You still can." Hm.