I'm a Little Surprised

It seems the fates are conspiring, because several miscellaneous individuals in the last few days have told me to become a writer. (Yeah, I know how revoltingly hubristic that sounds coming from a mediocre blogger. No need to comment.) It's actually a little weird. T's uncle, his dad, my parents, T himself...perhaps I should be made skeptical by the fact that the only people encouraging my writing are relatives who are kind of forced by filial ties to think I'm a genius. My father even told me that I'm very funny, albeit he thinks often unintentionally. Uh huh.

The thing is I think being a writer sounds perfect. Getting to work from home, rising each day early enough to water my plants and drink some strong coffee, and then settling down to write. That's my favorite way to work; as much as I hated the stress of having to produce original scholarship every 11 weeks, I really enjoyed the finals week schedule during graduate school. You think and write furiously for maybe 8 hours, and then enjoy life. Watch a movie, read a novel, go to the gym. I kind of do that now, except that I spend 8 hours a day performing menial tasks in a house of cards attempt to climb the corporate ladder, and then spend several additional hours catering to my students' needs. It's a funny life, I guess, but funny stupid. Funny pointless. Funny turning me into a cynical bookselling soul-sick pawn to the Man who has actually started fantasizing about the life of a stay at home mom funny. It's just so worthless!


And just to confirm my suspicions that a monkey could do my day job, nepotism has landed a really dimwitted 17-year old in our department for the summer. Really not good for office morale.



The real problem--and this is a doozy--is that I have no idea what on earth I would write about. I'm in the process of writing a short story, but I'm keeping it under wraps in the off chance that it's terrible. So aside from my story, and my blog (which is grossly inconsistent and only has two readers anyway), what do I have to share with the world that might also be lucrative? And don't suggest a fictionalized account of my travails as a lowly bookstore clerk come college professor, because that's what my story is about, not that I'm saying anything about it because it's so totally under wraps.

So, dear readers. Suggestions?

Theorizing Thin

I know that no one has sympathy for the skinny girl. American culture has taught us from an early age that skinnyness is a physical attribute both to aspire to and to despise; like anything we desperately want, our feelings for it are a contradictory mix of lust for and repulsion of the desired object(ive). It is not us, so we want it. It is not us, so we distrust and mock it with humanity's unique xenophobic psychology. In most people's troubled attempts to become united with their potentially thin selves, they realize the inevitability of imperfection and so begin to loathe skinny. Call it superficial Lacanianism. Or the Freudian haute couture.

The thing is, being skinny has a few marked disadvantages. I'm starting to experience these disadvantages more frequently as I get older, because clothing is designed for women with at least a modicum of curvaceousness. In my current search for clothing that doesn't look like it spends 8 hours a day in a book warehouse, particularly a few pretty pre-wedding pieces, I've spent hours trying on dresses in stores that range from the nice to the Forever 21 to no avail. Either they sag in the front, or they droop in the back, or they make me look like an underdeveloped whore. I'm beginning to think that I either need to learn to alter clothing or start stalking fashionable Japanese exchange students.

What skinny seekers don't realize is that it's as depressing for a woman as tiny as myself to shop as it is for someone who's a little overweight; both of us leave stores feeling a little less feminine than when we went in, a little less pretty and alluring.

A Clinton supporter would point out right about now that it is foolish for women to pin some fraction of our self-worth on appearance, but I believe that doing so is hard-wired. Before women were social beings we were biological beings, and being attractive aids survival. You don't see any Neanderthal ladies prancing around, do you?

Okay, poor, anachronistic, and pseudo-scientific reasoning. Nevertheless, I think I'm correct to suggest that superficial qualities impact the way we feel about ourselves and the ways that others view us. As a result, when nothing fits I feel un-gendered and ill at ease. There are women all around me with boobs and hips, and men with penises, and then there's me: skinny bones jones with no easy physical allocation in the world.

Am I exaggerating? Well, yes. Theorizing about something always imbues it with more dire significance and bullshit than it deserves. There are good things about being skinny, too. For instance, I can fit into my fiance's grandmother's wedding suit, and a lot of other cool vintage items. I can squeeze past slowpokes on the sidewalk without appearing brusque. I can eat dessert twice a day and tell myself that it is all part of the the great Breast Cake Plan. I am sleek and muscular and lithe like the Arctic fox.

It may sound trite and impossibly difficult, but it is genuinely best to feel comfortable in your own skin and to love your body. I find this easier to do when I don't go shopping, which goes a long way toward explaining my wardrobe. Do I wish I had a bosom that required a bra and hips and that made my 24-inch waist look impressive? Yes. Do I have a pang of jealousy when my voluptuous goddess of a best friend shows up looking like the Marilyn Monroe to my prepubescent Gabbie Hoffman? Yes. But I try to desire the things and experiences that I am capable of attaining without plastic surgery.

Besides, no one likes a whiner. Especially a skinny one.

F is for Fabulous

This should be brief, because it's past my bedtime and I haven't yet undergone my extensive preparing for bed routine. I assume most women have such a routine: wash the face, apply toner and any special creams; brush and floss; remove contact lenses; pluck errant hairs; contemplate one's image for a moment; moisturize hands; fold and put away clothes; crawl into bed to read for a bit. It's markedly different from the male routine, which is oblivious to facial and dental hygiene. T-money is of the opinion that "sleep happens" without needing to ready oneself for it; while he is logically in the right, I maintain that this phrase was funny four years ago and its humor is now long past its expiration date. Besides, I have minty fresh breath and a clean visage when I slide into bed. He doesn't have to kiss the evening's enchiladas goodnight.

Old enchiladas aside, I'm a bit bummed out on the teacher front tonight. It looks like 3-4 students from my morning class are going to fail, just for lack of trying, and about half of my evening class, for lack of showing up. I ran into a past student at the bookstore today, who reassured me (without prompting--art students are really weirdly attuned to professorial ego) that I'm a good teacher and my students are to blame. Ah, who knows. I appreciated the sweet words coming from his bepierced lips. I've just never failed so many students. Not even the quasi-illiterate Samoan football player, who I passed out of pity for his sports scholarship (I know, I know. These kinds of favors to athletes are unethical and are leading to the dissolution of higher education. But you look a giant boy-man in the eyes and tell him his dreams of going pro are about to be dashed by his poor understanding of pronouns.). It's disheartening. To paraphrase one of my best friends (and loyal blog reader), if everyone just did what I told them to do when I told them to do it, the world would be a better place. Certainly the writing classroom would be!

I'm going to have to lay the smack down in my summer course. No late work! No emailed papers! No sob stories about cats falling from third-story balconies! No being a punk ass pain in my butt.

The butt that now is going to pack herself off to bed. After a 20-minute cleansing, of course.

Like Lightening, I Strike so Quick

Several things irritated me today.

My co-worker, B---, whose bad moods cast a pall over his immediate environment, in which I often have the misfortune of being located. B---'s crankiness is a contagion that infects the rest of the "team" (let's pause to mock the corporate world's ironic and futile attempts to mimic natural social conditions). But my irritation runs deeper than that. I hate the sight of his squirrely face squinched up in type-A agony deep in the root of my being, in the churning seat of my passionate liver. I detest his narrow cranium and upturned-but-not-in-a-cute-way nose, his scrawny biker calves and his shaved head. Actually, B--- shaves off all of his hair, probably to elicit more speed from his already frenetic body. Being near him increases my blood pressure and induces murderous fantasies.

Oooh. Yes. B--- is numero uno in the day's irritations.

Number two would be my boss, also a B---. He's just fat, lazy and incompetent. I mean, really. Fat. Lazy. Incompetent. He also smokes, and while I accept people's freedom to engage in self-destructive habits (maybe his addiction is proof of natural selection working in our favor), it just adds to his grossness. There's nothing worse than a large smelly idiot giving you poor instructions for activities you can do quite well on your own.

To be fair, I tend to resent authority figures who are less educated than myself. Which is totally pretentious, I know (I mean, look at where all that schooling's brought me). Nevertheless I stand and listen to one B--- drone on, while the other B--- does his best impression of an angry human tornado, and I ponder the uselessness of my life. How did I reach this point? Why am I such a failure?

Being around the B---s is really bringing me down.

Since I'm targeting people for slander, let's move on to Hillary Clinton. She LOSES the primary race. She throws a completely illegitimate hissy fit about counting ballots that she'd previously promised not to be on. She actually courts votes based on racism and ignorance, and uses passe first-wave feminist rhetoric to woo women of a certain age. And now, when she could gracefully say, "I have run a phenomenal race. I am proud of myself, and disappointed by very narrow defeat. But it is time to unify the party and stand behind the winner," does she do so? No! Instead she makes incendiary remarks referencing the popular vote debacle in 2000, inferring a situational corollary between herself and the far more dignified Al Gore, and then announces her desire for the vice presidency. How, in the names of the founding fathers, can Obama now select a different running mate without provoking the ire of millions of Clinton supporters?

Who may comprise my final beef of the evening. All those people who say they'll sit this election out or grant victory to McCain--our jowly, war-mongering Republican contender--rather than vote for Obama? Yeah, they may be worse than the B---s. They're definitely worse than Clinton, although I think she encourages their behavior. They are so small-minded, so critically un-attuned to what is at stake in this race both domestically and for the U.S.'s global standing, that they are willing to relinquish their democratic IMPERATIVE (and I don't mean party, I mean political right) to vote. And that, imaginary readers, is really irritating. Think for a minute of all the Zimbabweans suffering state-sanctioned violence and the curtailment food and health aid right now because they deigned to elect a new leader. Why don't we do Mugabe a favor and send all of the Americans who don't want to vote there, and trade them for people who appreciate political privilege?

And let's send the B---s with them. Mugabe can have them.

Eggplant Parmigiana

YUM. I'm too drained from reading student papers to say anything of substance, but I wanted to share my new eggplant parmigiana dish, courtesy of Gourmet Magazine. I should preface this by admitting that I usually find eggplant disgusting. But it was a good price at the market, and I believe in trying new things (or old things different ways). And what a lucky thing that I do, because this parmigiana is savory, salty, spicy, rich and healthy all at the same time. I served it with a lemony Caesar salad (minus croutons).

Peel and slice two large eggplants (or however many small or large eggplants you desire) into 1/4 in. slices and brush both sides with olive oil. Place on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes at 450 degrees F (flipping once). Set aside.

In the meantime, get a lovely tomato sauce bubbling. (I actually did this first, but I like to let sauces simmer for a long time.) Make it a tad bit on the salty side to compensate for the blandness of the plain roast eggplant and mozzarella. Start by adding a healthy amount of red pepper flakes and 2 cloves of minced garlic to a nice slug of olive oil. (One of the secrets to an amazing, rich Italian tomato sauce is a liberal slug of olive oil.) After a minute or so, add a 28 oz can of diced organic tomatoes and let it simmer until it thickens. Then add 1/4 C Parmesan cheese. Set aside.

Make individual parmigianas by layering: a slice of roasted eggplant, spread with some sauce, topped by fresh basil and a slice of mozzarella, followed by another slice of eggplant. Etcetera. Repeat until you have a well-sized eggplant tower (I found three slices sufficient). Keep the cheese layer moderate, to prevent greasy pools of dairy from mucking up the glorious acidity of the tomatoes and the gentle sweetness of the eggplant.

Pop the parmigianas back into the oven until the cheese melts and starts to brown in places.

Enjoy!

postscript: I find the current Michigan-Florida delegate debacle horrifying. Why don't we just save Bush the trouble and make the democratic process entirely obsolete?

Light the Path and Let Them Lead the Way

I had the following email conversation with a student this week:

Me: [to all students] Please remember to bring your first graded rough draft into class next week in order to receive credit for it.

Student: [several days later] I can't find my rough draft anywhere!

Me: You did not turn in a rough draft.

Student: [several days later] Does that mean that I won't get credit for it?

I teach writing. I like to think of my purpose more broadly than that, however, extending my job from teaching prepositions to instructing young minds in how to think critically. I assign readings inspired by current news items (celebrity voyeurism, the ethics of torture in the war on terror, polygamy, you get the idea), and maintain high expectations while being patient and nurturing with their mistakes. I really love my job. There are times when the communal discourse is so passionate and thoughtful, ideas flying around and myself in the middle, sharing pithy bits of theoretical knowledge and telling jokes, writing down interesting ideas on the board. And then there are the times when my students sit, stone-faced like statues of really dull gods; when they forget to turn in work, and to finish the readings, when they skip paper conferences (for which I do not get paid), and when they skip class.

We've had a lot of those times this term.

Somehow my 20-year old students have made it through two decades of life, apparently without thinking much the entire time. I know, this is incredibly hard to imagine. If you're like me, your brain is constantly awake with thought. Not all of it brilliant or even interesting to anyone else, but it is nevertheless active, questioning, engaging the world in an ever-changing dialogue. Maybe you hold fake conversations in your head, like I do. Devise fantastical scenes of drama and happiness; repeatedly compose your wedding vows and future Oscar acceptance speech. Imagine an alter-ego who is a UN human rights lawyer or a diplomat, because reading about politics gets you excited.

You probably READ.

Not so my students. I don't know what they do. And I wish I could just dismiss them as stupid, but the fact is that most of them are pretty smart. Not all--I've definitely had the wrestler with the thick folds of skin at the nape of his neck and across his brow, connecting his eyes and giving him a look of permanent idiocy; the pretty dumb blonde; the illiterate football player; the plain dumb kid with no extracurricular talents in evidence; all of whom happened to be studying primary education (oh mama and we come full circle!)--but most students are intelligent. They just don't care, or they expect to coast through class without trying. Maybe they assess my youth and casual teaching style and think, what does she know?

Here's what I know:

The world is composed of arguments and conversations. Most of the information in these arguments and conversations is highly subjective, laden with unseen biases and smooth-sounding logical fallacies. You either learn to read these dialogues for what they are, or you thoughtlessly vote to invade Iraq.

My students invade Iraq every time, because they don't appreciate the power of language and they don't want to do the hard work of thinking. It is very, very disheartening.

The Devolution of the Written Word

We run across the most ludicrous book titles at work. For example, Why Paint Cats: The Ethics of the Feline Aesthetic (really, why paint cats?). Or, What Your Poo is Telling You and The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 Facts about the World's Greatest Human. The latter book is actually fairly informational. For instance, did you know that the movie Anaconda was filmed in Chuck Norris' pants?

At any rate, considering that apparently anyone can publish a book nowadays, I've decided to start my own list of preposterous future book titles. Right now I'm partial to The Ties that Bind: Bondage for the Entire Family, inspired by a slew of awful romance novels like Nauti Nights and What's a Ghoul to Do? There's an entire genre dedicated to horror and supernatural romance! Vampiresses are really in right now, as are demon slayers with man problems.

I don't know about you, but vampires just don't do it for me. Sure, Angel was sexy in a Neanderthal way--low brow ridge shading brooding eyes and sharp canines--but I prefer men who don't collude with the dark forces. I also have no desire to be a vampire myself. Blood is gross, and drinking blood is grosser. As I've said before, I'd rather eat a cooked raisin.

It is interesting how many people fantasize about having paranormal power, and how much of that fantasy is sexually charged. I think it must be an expression of an existential desire to understand the metaphysics of the world, and the world's political and spiritual super-structure. It's kind of awesome, if not totally reassuring, to think that earth's evil is embodied in some creepy looking physical beings, rather than "evil" being a psychological concept or drive generated by the human mind. You punch, stake, or roundhouse kick the bad zombie, and voila, peace on earth is reestablished.

It would be trite to now go on a rant about how life isn't that easy. Besides, I have to get dressed for another really exciting day at the bookstore!

So in the interim between this and my next blog, ponder this:

Why Paint Cats?