Merry Christmas Baby...

Well. At least one post a month? I think that's a target I can hit, or at least use to motivate me to write tonight. I'm watching S.O. play Halo 2, and every now and then, things flash across the screen like "You were sniped by stinky clamhole" and "You beat down Cash a Nash co." S.O. is playing on line with his dad, who has probably been consuming a good bit of Christmas Cheer.

I was sad earlier, because I hadn't talked with my mom. Today is her birthday. I was all set to ruminate about how lonely I feel, shed a few tears, and go to bed. But S.O. came home and reminded me that she is a doctor, and if she hadn't called me back, it could be that she's out delivering a Christmas baby--otherwise she probably would have tried to get in touch with me repeatedly. It made me feel less sad. Thank God for S.O., really.

So I made myself a really awful cup of coffee with my new coffee maker (not the coffee maker's fault). And I'm sitting here with three books. Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird," Lincoln and Denzin's "The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues," and a Christmas gift from my mom--the 2007 edition of "The Best American Short Stories." A. is spending the night with grandma. She's going to use the wallet Santa brought her to go shopping at Dollar General tomorrow. If that's not Christmas joy, I don't know what is.

Over the past couple of months, I've been doing a lot of writing and thinking, though it hasn't led to that magical moment where I complete a full draft of this article I've got to get out by the end of the month. However, I have had an important recurring realization.

It may be possible that I am a writer that happens to be a social science researcher, and not the other way around. I'll refrain from any romanticizing of writing as a vocation and just say that I'm going to keep working my way through "The Artist's Way at Work," I'm going to keep plugging away at that article, and I'm going to keep writing.

In her introduction, Lamott writes "that sometimes when my writer friends are working, they feel better and more alive than they do at any other time." She says that she tries to:

"...warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do--the actual act of writing--turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward."

Let the church say Amen.

She says that a good place to begin is by writing down childhood memories "as truthfully as you can." I'll do that in a minute, I suppose. I know that doesn't sound convincing. Annywhooo....

Perhaps by sticking with writing (everyday, even if it's just the Artist's Way "morning pages" or something sort of like a journal entry--or a blog posting), I'll be able to do justice to some of the things that seem interesting to me. Like, the fact that when I was at the Casino last weekend celebrating my sister-in-law's college graduation, even after the roulette ball jumped out of the wheel and hit me in my chest, I still didn't get the message that perhaps that wasn't my lucky day. Or, last night--the experience of watching an infamous, local "Ashford and Simpson" type musical duo perform "Tonight is the Night You Make Me a Woman" at the BYOB hole in the wall club on Christmas Eve....

But mostly, hopefully, I think I'll just continue to have that feeling that Lamott describes so neatly.

Thanksgiving 2007

So this is my first post in quite a while. Quite a while. This is the second time I've written since my Grandma died.
Crazy--looking back a week ago, she actually died a week before I was remembering her death, that's how screwed up my perception of reality was.
Anyway. Since then, I've gotten an absolutely shitty 3rd year review. I've been through an appeal, with the majority of my colleagues still feeling as if my contract should not be renewed. If I don't get two single-author publications by the end of the year, I'm done. If I don't get two single-author pubs in press plus 2 or 3 more under review by this time next year, I'm done. Been a little down.

I've gained a few pounds--not a lot though. I've been to a conference in New Orleans, and I've renewed my motivation to stick with the three month process of working through "The Artist's Way at Work: Riding the Dragon/Twelve Weeks to Creative Freedom." Can't hurt. I've done two weeks of morning pages, though not always in the morning and not always the highly recommended three pages of writing. But I'm sticking with it.
And I'm writing this post. That definitely counts as progress.

On the kitchen table:
A buttered three quart casserole dish for the macaroni and cheese casserole I'm making to bring over to my sister-in-law's house
Four packs of shredded cheese
A small container of country crock
My morning pages notebook and the Artist's Way book
A Michelob Ultra Pomegranate and Raspberry bottle, 4/5's empty
My laptop
A can opener

My S.O. and my other sister-in-law's friend are listening to bad 80's rap and playing Madden 2006 in the living room.

I did my morning pages today. I'm glad to bringing a dish instead of hosting. I'm glad that my mother-in-law could take my daughter to visit her great-aunt and her cousins while I cooked. I'm thankful. I'm going to have another beer.

Happy Thanksgiving to You and Yours

Ways that I Think About My Environment

So, it's either today or tomorrow that is "Blog Action Day."

This reminds me of something I've been meaning to write about. Over the weekend, we went to an art festival, where my mother struck up a conversation with an artist who had rendered places traveled in mixed media paintings.

She talked about the process by which she took photographs of places she'd been (on her international travels), transformed them into black and white images, attached them to some kind of masonry, and then painted and waxed the surrounding stone with "lots and lots of layers of paint and wax." Curious, I asked what the material was that covered the lower half of one of her pieces. In a practiced, sing song voice, she told us that she'd used grass from her own yard, covered with wax, "and lots and lots of layers of paint."

It was at that moment that I uttered a mental scream of anguish. "Grass from your own yard?"

If this was not the quintessential metaphor for a bourgeosie upper middle class woman turned artist, I don't know what it is. Her essentialized images of the "the Orient" and French city scapes, surrounded by globs and globs of pretty paint and "grounded" by clippings from her lawn. Of course, there were no actual people represented in her artwork--really, I can see how that might be aesthetically problematic.

My only question is whether she gathered the clippings herself, with a pair of scissors, or whether she had to leave specific instructions for her under-the-table gardner.

Blech.

Yes, it's one of those days. I wish Forest Gump was here so I could clasp his hands, kneel in a corn field, my eyes squeezed shut as I utter those famous words: "Dear God, make me a bird. So I could fly away. Far far away from here. Dear God, make me a bird. So I could fly away. Far Far away from here."

And haven't we all felt like that? Yes, yes we have. I'm not the first to cite this idea in a blog and I'm sure I won't be the last.

And now, to the other end of the pendulum. Things really aren't that bad. It's a fall day in October, cold enough here in the South so that the leaves have a little color. Cold enough that my toes and fingers are a little tingly. From a mile or two away, sounds from the highway drift by. The cardinal living in the tree behind our townhouse looks at me with his shiny black eye, admonishing me to get back to work. And if that woman wanted to do her part to support sustainable environments by using grass clippings from her yard--more power to her. Right? If I got to know her, I'd probably find she's a very nice person who is, at this very moment, sitting on real patio furniture on her deck, instead of a teensy yellow folding chair that she bought for her daughter at Big Lots.

Finally! The truth comes out. The source of my hateration is that age old sin--jealousy.

(Sigh). Damn it.

Mattie Rufus Wright, 1922-2007

Grandma died this morning. I had written a letter to her earlier this year, a letter I had been meaning to write for a long time. I'm glad that I got around to doing it. That letter is below.

Dear Grandma—

You’ve been on my mind. I’ve been thinking about the gift of your presence in my life. So much is said these days about the struggles of women who juggle the roles of worker, mother, wife, daughter, friend….I don’t have to look very far to be strengthened and encouraged as I go through these same struggles. You are right there. Your life is an example to me, in the truest and best sense of the word. You are the root of a tree that has born the sweetest fruit imaginable.

Looking back on those days when I was putting myself through school by cleaning toilets and washing towels at the recreation center…at those cold Michigan winters when I barely had enough money to catch the bus to my classes, I see things clearly. It was YOUR spirit that kept me going, kept me striving even when I didn’t get into grad school the first time around. It was the spirit you passed on to your daughter G. that gave me a family and a place to live while I worked my way through graduate school. There were so many times when I thought I wouldn’t be able to make it—that I wasn’t strong enough, or smart enough. In those darkest moments, God has been there, and so have you. I am because you are--because of the spirit that you possess, a spirit that you gave to each of your children—and all of them are an inspiration to me. Even though life has not been a “crystal stair” for any of us, we are who we are because of you.

As a child, I remember your son's sketch books and fashion designs, L.'s fancy clothes and shoes, G.’s wonderful desserts, J.’s scripts and my mother’s medical books and dictionaries…

As a woman with a daughter of my own, my heart seems to overflow when I think of the fact that J. pursued his dreams in New York, that L.—with only an associate’s degree—has become the first African American general manager of a department store, that G.—after retiring from her state job after 20 years—has become a pastry chef and traveled the world, that J. has financed her own movies and entered them in film festivals, even while working full time as a special education teacher.

And I think about my mom. I think about how she had me when she was nineteen. I think about how she raised me and my brothers and sister and then went back to school to pursue her own dream. I think of how proud I am to say that age 50, my mother became a doctor.

And then, my thoughts turn back to you, when I lay awake at night and my heart literally aches with the desire to be a writer. I believe that is why I have chosen to help African American girls and boys express themselves through stories. As I try to nurture their creative spirits, I wonder if I am doing enough to keep my own dream alive.

Langston Hughes once asked “what happens to a dream deferred?” Like your own dreams, each of your children’s dreams have been deferred. But we have held on to them, nurtured them and kept the fire going when those dreams were just coals among ashes. I imagine that this is what you did, when you wrote bits of poems on church programs. When you wrote the beginnings of stories late at night after your children were asleep, as you hemmed pants and sewed curtains for your customers.

I am so incredibly proud that at the age of 84, you've taken creative writing classes, written children's stories...and you have published your own book of poetry. Through it all—through working, through raising your children, through caring for Granddad as he struggled with Alzheimer’s, you kept your dream alive.

I want you to know that I believe that I can be a writer, and it is because of you. You are my inspiration and my muse. Your spirit lives on in my mother, and it lives on in my heart and my soul.

I love you so very much, and I just wanted you to know that God has blessed me beyond belief by making you a part of my life.

Your Granddaughter,

f.e.wright

From My Other Blog Again

I'm sensing a theme here. I keep having doubts about the posts that I make to my non-anonymous, "professional" blog. Makes me think that perhaps I should just skip the middle step and post anything longer than a paragraph here at LouLou's. Warning: the post below is a tad lengthy.

On Ontologies and the Moon

Relationality and mobility are the root metaphors that have come to guide my thinking about new media and new literacies. Specifically, the centrality of "connectedness" to my theorizing of mobility has led me to an exploration of relational ontologies, as they are operationalized in different disciplines.

Connectedness. How I would get better at defining what I meant by connectedness? I mean, Cresswell goes back to Soja and LeFebvre because of this idea of a third space, when in reality, the third space is just another way of restating a dualism between the first and second. I know I'm not quite getting it, but I feel like Soja is saying that there's first and secondspace and thirdspace is the "best" because it is both first and second. It's not additive or multiplicative, but it is still dependent on first and secondspace for it's identity or definitionality. Which makes me think of what Dewey said, or at least my loose paraphrase of what he said--a concept that gets its identity from a prior concept is not identifying or articulating something new, it's just restating the old in the form of a dualism. Right now, thirdspace seems to be trilaterialism with a bunch of fancy words around it.

I have a colleague that references strategic essentialism when I try to talk through my emerging conceptualization of mobility in the context of new literacies, but I really hope that what I'm talking about is starting to move away from a duality between place and mobility...I hope that I'm beginning to think through more sophisticated ways to talk about place and mobility as interdependent.

I was just laying upstairs in the bed with my daughter snoring gently in my ear, her arm resting on the pillow above my head and my mind was churning away…I absolutely did not want to get up from that place, next to her and next to my husband. But I felt as if my thoughts would disappear if I didn't get up and try to type them out. I told myself, in my mind, Get your ass up out of bed. Get the fuck up. It was so hard to pull myself away from that space/place, I think that my thoughts were enabled because of my connection, my laying there next to them.

Instead of the warmth of my daughter's breath on my cheek, now what I have in terms of a sensory experience is the sound of my fingers hitting a keyboard....A very lame exchange if you ask me.

In any case, I was thinking about the way that Cresswell's geographical understanding shapes his presentation of the concepts of space, place, representation, and practice. He talks at great length of the way we've framed the idea of "home" and the way that people have alternatively demonized and celebrated "nonplaces" (Auge)…but home, nonplaces (airports, McDonalds), these things are human constructions…True, there is nothing that human activity has not altered or changed, with the NPR newstory this afternoon about the speedy melting of the icecap being clear evidence of "man's" destructive touch….but when we talk about place, why is it that we orient ourselves continually around the places humans have created but do not talk about our relationship or metaphorical understanding of the natural environment? I know that anthropologists talk at length about the way that the environment is a part of our lives….but as they study culture, its not the natural world that is the focus but what people do with it. I know

I'm losing the original thought I was trying to express…. What I'm trying to say is that even through Cresswsell is giving credit to Butler and to Bourdieu for their theorizing of the way that our bodies are the sites of cultural production, difference, habitus and general meaning making at different units of analysis, they do not discuss the way that these same bodies are an important part of how we see place and space as we look at the natural world....Or maybe they do. I'll keep reading. Until then, here are my own thoughts.

Sky, Sea, Rock

I know I am not alone when I say that I feel something powerful when I look at the sky. I am never disappointed at the ability of the sky's expansiveness and the movement of clouds across it to provoke wonder and awe. And it's not just the movement of the clouds, its the way that the colors and shapes of the clouds at dawn or twilight are really quite magical. I focus on these times of day because often that's when I'm coming to or from home down a long stretch of highway in the Deep South. My commute consists of travel up and down a ribbon of asphalt punctuated every now and then by a chicken or hog-toting eighteen wheeler, in the midst of gently rolling hills, and underneath a sky that makes me feel large and quite small at the same time. I would not feel this magic in the same way if I was not situated with my feet or the wheels of my car on the ground--anyone who's been in the window seat of a 747 can attest to that. Different kind of magic all together. There is something about looking up from a "situated" place at the sky

…Pilots talk about the danger of losing one's bearings when flying a plane because of the way in which you can lose a sense of what is up and what is down. It is this fear that popular culture plays on when they show a space traveler who, as the victim of foul play, has been set adrift forever in space. This same fear is used in movies set in the ocean. Think about Titanic, Poseiden, The Hunt for Red October, or The Abyss. Conversely, think about how different it feels, the sense of wonder and awe and peace one feels when we have the opportunity to take a long walk along the beach. Even the innocent child's game of "keep away" with the incoming waves of the tide seems to be implicitly tied to our constant search for both a figure and a ground, a metaphor for the interdependent way that our "rock" (earth) and the "unknown" (sea/sky) helps us feel as if we are a part of something "real."

Feeling connected, feeling that we are a part of something real requires, absolultely requires a connection--be it to an idea, a place, a person, a discourse….and it absolutely requires a PRACTICE that is based in those connections…Feeling that we are a part of something real requires an acknowledged practice of the interdependence between space and place…Of course, this is nothing new to anyone who is reading this that has spent much more time than I puzzling through these things, and in much deeper ways, but given that I'm pretty much the only one that consistently reads my blog, if you happen upon this post, please forgive my broad brushstrokes and feel free to help me think more deeply. So maybe I'm not even too the brushstrokes stage yet. I guess I'm mostly fingerpainting now...but you never know...someday soon I might be doing water colors like Bob Ross used to...

In any case. The other night I was driving home and I looked up, as I often do, at the moon. On this evening it was a half moon, a pale glowing yellow…like a photograph of a luminous bowl provisionally taped to a midnight sky. As its position changed, its color deepened…I started trying to capture what it was that I was seeing. I imagined that the moon was this large rock, slippery with sea moss, half submerged in some vast body of water. I felt reassured by its presence…and even as I watched, wisps of nighttime clouds coalesced above this half-circle moon, like waves of some water that had been captured by Ross's brush. Skip forward to today.

I was thinking about the concept of time. Actually, I was thinking about why it was that I was trying to do something weird like imagining that the moon, or time were my "friends." The moon is cool with me, but it is much more difficult for me to be friendly with time. And then I started thinking about how the moon aganst the sky is also a metaphor for our relationship, an uneasy one, with time. We have a constant need to mark time,to fix ourselves in particular ways based on our understanding of where we are relative to the moments that have just passed or that seem to be approaching. The moon helps us to do that, whether it is in the course of a single night, and we are standing in a field or whether we are traveling home on a course that takes us West , and then Southwest…Or whether it is in the course of a month and we see the way the moon changes as it goes through different phases…The sky and the sea are scary precisely because they have the ability to unfix us from our ways of understanding who we are within the flow of time. We know through the work of so many philosophers and social scientists that it is through time that we make meaning of our lives and the lives of others. That's why, when we see Brad Pitt's character at the end of The Perfect Storm, bobbing up and down so precariously on top of the roiling monstrosity of the hurricane-whipped ocean, it conjurs up feelings of hoplessness and despair.

That's also why we are so very excited to see video of the ballroom of the Titanic still intact. We like to know that there are dishes and knives and spoons that are sitting at the bottom of the ocean in this great ship's kitchen, just waiting for us to come down, fish them out, clean them up and eat off of them again.

All of this leads back to the importance of a relational ontology for social science research and methodology. Isn't all of social science predicated on this idea? Whether one's view of what can be known falls up or down the objectivity/subjectivity continuum, what we choose to try to know still requires that we orient ourselves through relations…how fast does a bowling ball fall from the Tower of Pisa in relation to a feather? Aren't things so much better for black people now that when we were slaves? In what kind of relationship does a dependent and independent variable exist? Who am I now vs. who I was ten years ago? We constantly meditate, fixate, and relate through time/temporality.

That is why the sea and the sky are so scary when we're in the middle of it, why the moon is comforting when we are standing on the ground and why we penetrate the sky with space shuttles and satellites.…Time is just too central to our lives for us to be on friendly terms with it.

More about (the Real) Me

God has plans for you. Or, at least this is what an angel named Earl told Detective Anna "Grace" Darko in the season finale of Saving Grace on TNT. In the show, Grace is a boozing, slutty police detective who is visited on a regular basis by Earl, who has been sent to "help her"…I'd tivoed the final show, and I just watched the end of it after having a phone meeting with a graduate student who asked for some advice on her plans for coursework.

Though Saving Grace is basically a darker, more focused version of that smarmy 90's show, "Touched by an Angel," the underlying hook is the same: God has a plan for you. One of the most powerful ideas behind television & movie plots that pulls me in (and pulls others, I assume, given Saving Grace's popularity) is the concept that there is a purpose to my life, a purpose that only I can fulfill. God's plan. I'm certan this is why I cannot give up…and don't really want to give up…my belief in an omniscient God (see an earlier post below).

I'm not claiming that my thoughts are darker than most, that my inner turmoil is more violent or more important than anyone else's. I don't need to make that claim to own my own experience. I do know that in order to keep going, to get out of bed, to try to do whatever… I have to hope and pray that there is some presence "looking down" on me that knows that even as I fail spectacularly in most of my endeavors…

It's okay.

Or, at least, even if I don't think it's okay, there is someone/thing "up there" that feels that I am okay and crazy as it sounds, I should keep persisting, trying, living.

I had an important conversation with a friend last week. We talked about this blog, and I made light of the fact that the ads that Blogger felt it most appropriate to list at the bottom of the page were ones that started with the phrase "Feeling down? Your'e not alone--there's help out there." In and through our conversation I put some things together (with the help of a couple bottles of Sam Adams).

I realized that I'm writing this blog to gain clarity, whatever that might mean. I realized that I am not attempting to find someone whose experience mirrors my own (actually a very frightening thought). And, as much as I might want it to be about my daughter, my relationship with my husband, my struggles to be a better scholar/researcher, the blog is about me owning up to the fact that I struggle with being depressed.

A lot.

It fucking burns me up to write that. One more thing to add to my ten foot long of list of personal failings and flaws? Fuck! What's next? And then I think, it should make me feel good to admit that, right? I mean, isn't the truth supposed to set you free, give you wings like Red Bull? No, not really. Most of the time telling the truth about myself just feels shitty.

So…for what it's worth, I'll keep writing about my life, about how shitty it feels to struggle with depression, about the good things that do, on occassion, happen. I'll be honest about my struggles and I'll keep hoping that at some point I'll feel a little bit better. That, and I'll stop scheduling, then canceling appointments with my therapist. Thank God for Tivo and TNT.

From my other blog life...

...Still thinking about the Hollywoodization of anthropologists, "Bones," in particular. I'm certain that the cult of personality, as manifested in our professional meetings, is partially to blame for my preoccupation. Bones is just Hollywood's version of the cool social scientist that draws a standing room only crowd when he/she gives a presentation at a conference.

And really, who can forget the first graduate student that rushes into one's office excitedly exclaiming "Oh my gosh, I just got back from the .......Association meeting and I got to meet (Fill in the Blank)! He/She was SOOO cool!" Oh, wait a minute...I was that graduate student.

Anyway. I'm presently preoccupied with the question of how Hollywood represents the life of a woman whose profession requires her to represent the lives and identities of others. I took a second look at this question. In talking with graduate students, I often ask them what the "question behind the question is..." As most of us do, I've found that they tend to first create questions for which they already have answers. So...I already knew the answer to the question above. Bones:
Is sexy
Likes to carry a gun and can do pseudo-Karate (a la Steven Seagal)
Relies on a postpositivist ontology (otherwise, how would she ever catch the real murderer?)
Must wear a ballet top and a chunky necklace of unknown ethnic orgin at least once every episodeSo what is the question behind the question? Well...given my burgeoning interest in mobility and a very real desire to stop acting starstruck everytime I meet (insert name here), I think it is this: How do the creators of Bones see (and therefore write) the mobility of a white, female, gun toting, karate-kicking, postpositivist, heterosexual forensic anthropologist? I think the answer might be best addressed through a scene in which Bones goes to a hip hop club (only at the urging of her artsy, exhibitionist friend) in order to get practice at "being social" and "having fun." At the bar, Bones asks if her "costume is all right," after which she and her friend proceed to the dance floor and have this dialogue with four nameless club goers who I imagine might described in the script as "Ghetto Bitch #1," "Ghetto Bitch #2," "Thuggish Black Dude," and "(Smart) Ghetto Bitch #3:"
Bones: I love this music...It's so tribal!
Friend: Don't say tribal sweetie...
Bones: Why--because of all the Black people?
Friend: Sweetie, just for tonight have fun, stop dissecting and take part!
Bones: African Americans aren't the only one with tribal heritage.
GB#1: (Arms crossed, stepping in front of Bones) You sayin' we natives of some tribe?
Bones: Anthropologically speaking, we're all members of tribes!
GB#2: You better shut your mouth!
Bones: No, I just meant hip hop mirrors the direct visceral connection you see in tribal communication...
TBM: WHAT?
Bones: After the Cartesian split in the 17th century we separted our minds from our bodies...the numeros from the animalistic...
GB#1: Are you callin' me an animal, bitch?
SGB#3: No, bitch, she's usin Cartesian philosophy to say she's down with the music.
GB#1: Who you callin a bitch, bitch? (To Bones): Get out my way. (Tries to push Bones aside). Bones: (Pseudo-Karate chops GB#1 and knocks her to the floor)

Of course, I was deeply offended by the absolute racist/classist cheeziness with which this scene has imagined an exchange between African American club goers and Bones. After watching the scene a second time and listening more closely to the dialogue, I'm thinking that each of the GB's probably studied acting at Julliard.
...Okay, I admit it. I was also put off by the way in which Bones was portrayed as so completely uncool.
....And then I remembered the last time I was at a conference and stepped into a club that had been inundated with "real" enebriated social scientists (present company included).
Maybe Bones isn't so bad after all.

Play Time

I am on a quest to link my work with my play. For example, I would like nothing better than to have a caramel sunday from McDonald's, to rent the first season of Bones, and find the episode where Bones goes to a Hip Hop club and gets into a fight with a stereotypically "ghetto-acting" Black lady after Bones says that she really likes the "animalistic" beat of the music.

I mean, there are times when popular culture just seems like the most wonderful petri dish for attempting half-baked deconstructions of race, class and gender. It's the intellectual compliment to my as-yet unconsumed sunday. Or maybe its more like a twinkie for my brain? Anyway.

The video store is only five minutes away. I'll be back in as much time as it would take me to procrastinate about doing the work I'm currently feeling guilty for not having done....

Some Thoughts about Spirituality

Although I talk about Buddhism as an active source of spirtuality in my life, I stop just short of claiming it. When I pray, the idea of a benevolent patriarchal figure looking down on me seems practically burned into my psyche--perhaps due to my attendance of Grace Evangelical Lutheran church EVERY Sunday as a child living at my dad's house, or perhaps due to the influence of my Grandpa and Grandma--members of their Detroit Church of Christ Congregation for over 50 years.

But...though I can't outline my spiritual manifesto, there are certain things that I know I believe. Like, I believe it is important to acknowledge a power in the universe that is larger than myself but that includes me, all of me. And, I also believe that things happen for a reason--though that reason may not be apparent when we would most like, and though the reason may change as we change. I guess related to that, I believe that we are all here for a purpose....

Okay, even as I type, I can feel myself drifting into a smarmy pseudo-religiocommentary. I'm half expecting to accidently refer to you as "thou."

But seriously, I do think we are all here for a purpose--probably, multiple purposes. In my own life, I define my purpose (when I'm thinking about it clearly) as doing good work. And since I fail quite often at that, I believe that we are also here to learn.

I believe in Karma...though there are clear parallels to this in the Bible (Whatsover a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Ga. 6:7).

But then again, I'm also a product of The Farm, the "Largest and Longest Running Intentional Community" in the United States. Here's a quote from Stephen Gaskin, the leading mind behind the creation of The Farm:

"We all start with undifferentiated energy, and then we hold an idea of our self, and if we lose that idea of our self we start to die. That's what happens to people, they lose their idea of themselves, and don't create themselves good enough to make it anymore. We're each one creating our own self and our whole universe. Saying things like that is like throwing a rock out somewhere and listening for an echo. It really is, because like when I say that you are all gods creating your own universe then there's implications that should arise in your mind, like this is the universe that you're creating right now... see. Here we are. This is your creation... each one of you. Each of you creates all this."

Coming up as a kid, I was liable to have my parents tell me that I was "being too into the juice" (the juice being the collective energy present at any time). My mom and stepdad also talked a lot about positive and negative "vibes."

The idea of "energy" being all around us and a part of us is central to my idea of spirituality.

Anyway, those are my random thoughts on my higher power.

Organizational IEP

It's been a little over three months--roughly the whole summer--and I've been working my way through two of Julie Morgenstern's self-help books: "Organizing from the Inside Out," and "Time Management From the Inside Out."'

I have a whole notebook devoted to organization and time management notes and journaling. It's this woman's equivalent of an IEP (Individualized Education Plan, all students with identified "special needs" are supposed to have one).

That's not a bad thing. In fact, I'm proud of myself. I wrote in this journal last night:
8/21/07
I feel super good about almost being done with the organization of my home office space and materials. It...having a clear system really hasn't changed what I think is most important, but it's made my thinking clearer, and I feel...so much more confident about being able to reach my goals. Before doing this work I honestly felt that I couldn't achieve most things that were important to me. By getting organized, at least now I'm beginning to have a sense of the work I have ahead of me. Though it's a lot, it feels good to be on the verge of getting a workable, TRUTHFUL plan together. And maybe it has changed the way I think about my work. Instead of defining my work days by what is MOST late or what will help me deal less with big projects I've procrastinated on, I feel like I've started to develop a hierarchy for the different aspects of my work life. That in itself gives me a sense of moving forward--instead of being depressed about how much I haven't done/how much I have to do.

I realize that blogging should be a part of at least one of the areas of my life that I've identified as important to me through reading Morgenstern's books. Interestingly enough, I have three blog identities--so I guess I need to explicitly acknowledge that I like expressing myself in this way. But what definese each of my blog spaces? I'd perhaps characterize LouLou as the cynical, self-deprecating, "let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may while secretly hoping to be a better person," bitch (for the most part).
In another blog, I try much harder to nurture the positive, spiritual side of myself (especially since the title of the blog references my grandmother), and I hope that it will be a space for me to honor (and not cut down) that part of myself that wants to write creatively.
My third blog houses my "professional identity." Curiously, there's not a whole lot in it. As an academic woman who is riding the precipice of receiving a critical third year review, it just seems dangerous to assert ideas too strongly. So my posts in that space tend to be fairly general musings that are vaguely connected to my work. I wonder what would happen if these three people got together for some tequila shots....

You Know You May Be Depressed When....

You know you may be depressed when Google decides that the most relevant ad to put at the bottom of your blog begins like this: "feeling stuck? Depression effects us all..." or this gem that I just noticed: "Save your marriage now!" I guess I can't complain too much--clearly, I seem only to post when I'm at the bottom of my emotional barrel.

So for a change of pace, let me attempt to write about some of the good things in my life. My daughter started kindergarten last week on Tuesday. Tuesday afternoon:
Me: SO--how was your first day?
A: Great!

Wednesday afternoon:
Me: How was school today?
A: REALLY grrreat!

Thursday afternoon:
Me: Hi SweetiePie. How was school today?
A: Splendid!

Talking about "good stuff" is surprisingly difficult. For example, I have this overwhelming urge to talk about when S.O. called me downstairs this past weekend because he felt something crawling on the top of head--after he flicked it off and it scurried under our living room rug I assisted him in the search and destroy... and what do you suppose the bug was? Nothing less than a cockroach...excuse me...a "water bug" that seems to be half the size of Rhode Island. Talk about motivation to keep the dishes washed.

Okay. Positive stuff. One of my new bosses took me to lunch and I managed to be fairly charming. I think I may be on a roll. My list of positive stuff:

1. My daughter's general enjoyment of kindergarten and her teacher noting that she "wished she had a classroom full of kids like A."
2. I kept my foot out of my mouth while lunching with the new boss
3. I only spent 30 dollars at Target (as opposed to the 150 dollars of merchandise that I fully intended to purchase 30 seconds before getting to the cash register).
4. I almost got to go hang out with an almost friend tonight
5. I had a wonderful and relaxing dinner with A. (she makes a fantastic salad by the way).
6. I have found renewed enjoyment in shopping since "discovering" a store around the corner called "Dirt Cheap."

(Dramatic Pause of 10 minutes or so while I valiantly attempt to put 10 items on my list).

7. I helped a graduate student think through some dissertation research issues
8. A friend's wife's cancer has gone into a miraculous remission
9. A friend of mine is pregnant
10. Even though my grandma was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer, I have hope and faith that things will be okay and I take tremendous comfort in the knowledge that she is a living example of the power of deeply-rooted spirituality and a positive, blessing-seeking attitude.

I sent Grandma a plant today. It's a kalanchoe that FTD described this way "Given the proper care, this lovely plant will last for years." She's an 84-year old that you'd swear was 65. If you're reading this post, please send some prayers and positive thoughts her way.

I wonder whether it's important to know what my purpose is...The question of what I'm doing here has plagued me for a long time. And, obsessed as I am with finding the "right" questions to ask about the multidimensional nature of human experience, I feel like I'm just coming to understand how unimportant it is to focus on finding a "purpose."

I'm just here, wherever here is. That doesn't mean that I don't have goals, or things I'd like to accomplish--and it doesn't mean that I should just give up completely on everything and say "fuck it all."

All this comes from this unsettled feeling that's been plaguing me this evening. At first I thought that it was emanating from the time that I hadn't spent reading academic stuff. And then I realized that even if I wasn't watching a movie with S.O., I sure wouldn't be reading an article or a chapter from a book I felt obligated to learn about...I was tired, and my brain was not in that mode.

Then I thought that perhaps my mood was due to my stress about getting A. up early tomorrow, bathing her, charging the video camera for her end of day camp program, going and being around a whole bunch of people tomorrow at the program, and then having a few short hours before picking A. and her cousins up--in short, maybe the restless feeling was due to my anticipation of being involved in activities that were unpredictable, that required my "social face," and not having time to immerse myself in projects (whether home or work-related) that have demanded my attention for what seems like the whole summer. That wasn't it either. Because even though it may be a pain in my ass to do the things above, I like being there for A., and I like being there for her cousins (and their mom). I like the fact that I can do something to show how much I appreciate what S.O.'s mom has done for me in terms of taking care of A. with very little monetary compensation. Isn't that what I'm claiming makes living here so special--the fact that we are connected to family in ways that we haven't been before? It is. They are important to me and it is important to me that they know it.

After resolving that issue...I again tried to get to the bottom of my bluesy unease. Could it be that after talking to a friend and colleague, I was feeling bad about how unproductive I have been this summer and maybe subconsciously I was feeling down when faced with the prospect of laying my lack of productivity on the table? Maybe.

Or maybe it's the fact that we're penny pinching and scrounging again, that we're late on bills again, that we're waiting for that big reimbursement check so that we can pay all the bills we didn't pay when we used our regular income to finance a trip to see S.O.'s family and so that (ironically) I could go make some money for some consultation work.

And then, of course, there was the inevitable thought--maybe it's ALL of these things rolled into one big ball of frustration, stress, depression, anxiety...

These were the things that crossed my mind as I was driving home from the video store after returning a bunch of movies that S.O. had rented to take his mind off of his own big ball of middle-age angsty string.

On the way to the video store though, I had asked for some help from God. Please help me, guide me, I asked. I believe in a power greater than myself, I really do. Because as I was nearing my house, the most significant thing rolling around in my head was this idea that it really doesn't matter. All of the problems and failings and unrealized goals and unclear paths were not relevant. The only thing that was relevant was the present moment. Doing the best I can in the present moment. Paying attention to the person in front of me turning left without a signal. Coming home and straightening things up before I go to bed so that we can come downstairs to a tidy (albeit dusty) space. Putting clothes in the dryer and charging the video camera so that Grandma P. can see the kids' program since she'll be behind the cash register at Walmart when they perform.

Using the time that I have--whenever that might be--to write. Doing my best in the time that I've been given. I still think that there's something to be said for finding one's purpose, and for actively pursuing what that might be. Failing that, the next best thing is letting your purpose find you and manifesting that in the moment.

I'm sure I'll look back on this and be amazed at how smarmy all of this sounds. How funny it is that I felt the need to write that! It just goes to show how difficult it is to stay in the moment.

So-- If my future self thinks I'm a cornball then this self-in-the-moment will just have to tell future me to fuck off...though I'll do it in a caring, trying-to-be-your-best-you kind of way.

Just Writing

4:45p.m. on Friday, June 22, 2007.
I see that my last post was at the beginning of May, and I am amazed at how long ago that seems. I'm working my way through Julie Morgenstern's books "Organizing from the Inside Out" and "Time Management from the Inside Out." In the latter book, she asks the question, "If there were one thing that you could add to your life to make you happier and more fulfilled, what would it be?" I don't have to think about it at all--to publish my writing. And I'm being real here, because it's not just the writing, though that's a tremendous part of it. It's working to express myself through words and making that into something that CAN be shared.

And so, I have to ask myself why it is that I don't make time for that in my life. Consistently. I see that I write when I want to bitch. As if pain and anger were things that really warrant spending the time. I feel so strongly that I have something to give, something to say. I am so tired of writing about wanting to honor that part of myself that is a writer! I shouldn't have to keep reminding myself that I feel like I will explode if I don't write....

28 Weeks Later

It probably hasn't been that long; well, I know it hasn't. After all, there was that REALLY cheerful last posting.

Since then, I have had a successively imploded existence. The grant I've been working on for the last two years was blindsided by my collaborator's assertion that our working relationship "was unproductive and unhealthy." Of course, this was after I showed callous disregard for how important she is in our work and did not make sure that her name was on an award that was given to our project. She was nominated with me but somehow, in the rush to put on the first ever awards luncheon for Nameless University Organization, the folks running the show didn't realize that it was "us" and not "me." I didn't do nearly enough to educate them. And now, here I am, with an insanely large framed award in my trunk that I'm ashamed to hang in my office because (1) I didn't treat my colleague right and (2) the grant that's supposed to come from the work being recognized by the award is a fucking bust.

Oh yeah, did I tell you that I realized that I am a callous, insensitive bitch as far as my husband is concerned?

And that I've started barking parental bile at my daughter, like "If you don't stay up in your room while Daddy and I are talking I will come upstairs and (insert corporal punishment here."

I fucking suck.

On the basis of this realization I have spent the last twenty minutes debating whether or not I should chill the Negra Modelo (that I wanted to drink at 11am) in the freezer or the can of "Rip It Chic" Energy drink in "Berry In-O-Scent." Hip depressant...or wanna-be-hip stimulant. This is my world. Meanwhile, colleagues and friends are dealing with spouses who have cancer.

I fucking suck. But maybe if I guzzle the Rip It Chic, I can get the dishes done before my husband and daughter get home. That, and actually motivating myself to take a shower would be my most significant accomplishments of the day.

Am I a Self-Centered Bitch? Don't Answer That.

I just deleted most of what was a straight up bitchy post. I just feel so frustrated sometimes.

Maybe a bit of Buddhist advise would help:

See with your Eyes every Sight.
Hear with your Ears every Sound.
Smell with your Nose every Smell.
Taste with your Tongue every Taste.
Feel with your Body every Feeling.
Think with your Mind every Thought.
Function pure untainted by Greed or Hatred.
Penetrate deep and mindfully into your experiences.
Relish every sensation.
But do not become attached.

Your six senses-Be forever liberated by learning best you can from them, or be forever trapped by indulging worst you can in them.

Seeing as though I still want to pour myself a big travel mug of vodka and OJ, that didn't help at all.

Negra

My marriage is falling apart. Today in the shower I contemplated what it would be like to be a single parent...to do the one thing I promised I would never do--give my daughter a life as a child of "broken home." Though I feel that the idea of a broken home is bullshit--there are plenty of two parent homes that are cracked and broken--I still don't want to do that to her.

What we have is a dried out husk of a relationship, ready to catch flame at any moment. Or at least it seems.

On Tuesday my husband "accidentally" misread an email from a new friend of mine and called me while I was pumping gas, ready to get on the highway and get to work. He accused me of having an affair and told me to "get my fucking ass home right now" right before hanging up on me.

It stunned me. Stunned me. My hands shook as I called him back. I screamed at him, hung up, and my hands were still shaking when I turned my phone off.

I feel as if the only thing holding us together was the idea that we had a certain amount of trust that neither one of us would betray our wedding vows. The fact that he assumed I would break that trust has in turn eroded something within me.

And now, last night, we've had a further argument. He's accused me of being self-centered and insensitive. I've accused him of being an absent parent and husband. We slept apart and today I realized that what is going on with us represents six of the seven signs of a marriage headed for divorce. I sent him an email asking that we go to marriage counseling.

He didn't respond.

There Comes a Time

4:30pm. A. is wondering at this very moment, when I will be coming to scoop her up from her preschool day.

I'm going to go old school though--this is going to be a random, unwieldy, poorly written post simply because I could care less about whether anyone sticks around long enough to get past the first sentence. I just have to write, for me. S.O. has been gone the whole week. This is his second week in the Southern part of this Southern state, being the assistant for his boss on a "big" trial. They are up against the federal gov't. But enough about that. In his absence I have been trying my best.

I don't know where to start. I have to take the Christmas tree and the decorations to our storage space before it gets dark. Take an application to a local church to sign up A. for their summer program, an application that I should have turned in weeks ago. I can't find the application so I guess that's the first step. I feel like my job is turning into kudzu, somehow everywhere I look there are piles of books and binders and papers and unopened mail and applications and notebooks. I stood Bakhtin up this Wednesday and instead of spending time with him, I bitched to a colleague about work issues. I feel incapable of gaining even a semblance of control over the smallest details of my life. It makes me sad, really. I don't want to be constantly thinking about my job when I'm at home with my daughter. And yet it seems every moment with her is tainted with whether or not I can squeeze in a little bit of work. Can I check an email while she puts on her pyjamas. If I get her to bed a little earlier tonight can I get organized for tomorrow. If we wake up a little earlier, can I get this material ready for that meeting or maybe find time to do some kind of reading.

I feel inadequate as scholar, inadequate as a mother. An hour ago I called my husband's secretary to see if she might be able to pick A. up from preschool so that I could somehow begin to get my head on straight--meaning, a plan for how to get a week's worth of work done by Monday. Yes, she had offered to help me out this week with A. since S.O. is gone, but who am I to ask her for her help when she has three kids at home herself, works full time just like I do, and takes college classes toward a paralegal degree? I feel like I need a sign that I am doing something right. That all of this struggle means something to someone. But asking for such a sign just makes me feel like a spoiled brat. It's the depression that comes right before I feel like giving up. Why keep trying when all evidence points to the futility of trying to be a good mother, a good wife, a writer, and an academic?

And to add insult to injury, I see that my last post was just as pitiful. Just for the record: there have been good things that have happened in between this month and last month. I just didn't make the time to write about them.