still grumpy but feeling a little better

well, i was walking around stv with, i'm sure, a very sour look on my face....some would even call it a smirk or scowl....until one of my former students ran up to me with a camera and took my picture. of course i had to fake a smile but nevertheless i played along. well i got an e-mail from her today...i've been added to her facebook? as a friend. it's kind of a nice feeling, kind of disconcerting...my face on someone's web page...but oh well...struggle on. i haven't seen this because i don't have an account...don't know if i really want one...this blogs hard enough to keep up with.

what a day

well, i must say that this is turning out to be one hell of a day for various reasons.
1) sick most of the weekend
2) really, really, really, not feeling comfortable with my body or image
3) my class (that i teach) seemed more than quiet today...and for some reason their silence bugged me to no end...trying to tell myself that this is not a reflection of me but that conversation with myself isn't getting anywhere
4) talked to my mother...she has a case of the shingles ON HER HEAD
5) my father's pissed that he didn't get my card i sent him for his birthday
6) both my mother and father are not very happy with me right now because i haven't been home since xmas 2005
7) feeling terrible about myself because I DONOT particularly want to go home right now and that really bugs me...no sense of place whatsoever (this can probably be related back to the body image thing...i don't feel comfortable in any place)
8) i have wonderful people around me up here who care deeply and i am lucky to have them in my life (you know who you are) and i would be in very sad shape without them but i still feel incredibly sad. btw: the random "christian" reader who stumbles upon this blog entry...please don't comment about how jesus is the way, blah, blah, blah...because HE isn't any way and i hold his church responsible for alot of this rant...so don't waste your time with a comment cuz i'll just delete it without reading past the first sentence (wow can that sentence be any longer?)
9) feeling kind of guilty about crying in my beer but sometimes the violins make the most excellent music and for anyone who thinks they are above this kind of self talk...well what can i say, i guess i'm not strong enough and you are...congratulations.
10) my apartment is still a mess and i'm sick of living in my own abjectness but i just can't seem to do anything about it right now...i'm not the person that i once was...not that that was an improvement but it was better than what i'm living now.
11) today i just want to disappear

poem for the week: on voice or the lack thereof

The Little Mute Boy

by Federico García Lorca
Translated by W. S. Merwin


The little boy was looking for his voice.
(The king of the crickets had it.)
In a drop of water
the little boy was looking for his voice.

I do not want it for speaking with;
I will make a ring of it
so that he may wear my silence
on his little finger

In a drop of water
the little boy was looking for his voice.

(The captive voice, far away,
put on a cricket's clothes.)




From The Selected Poems of Federico García Lorca, by Federico García Lorca, translated by W.S. Merwin, published by New Directions. Copyright © 1955 by W.S. Merwin.

poem for the week

For the young who want to

by Marge Piercy

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don't have a baby,
call you a bum.

The reason people want M.F.A.'s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else's mannerisms

is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you're certified a dentist.

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.

william cook...whoever you are...you rock!

so, in my never ending quest to find new ways to procrastinate i found myself going through customer reviews of products on amazon.com. this adventure, as it were, led me to reviews of tony kushner's play made into an hbo movie: "angles in america." many of the reviews were really good and a lot of the criticisms seemed to me resonable. however, there are some insane people out there who wrote some pretty scary stuff. how can you rent (or worse, buy) a movie simply based on the cover...watch it over and over and then write a review saying that you wanted to puke? or complain the you were fooled by the cover and thought that it was about "angels"? the depth of humanity's utter stupidity amazes me sometimes (strike that..all of the time).
However, i did fine one comment in particular so great that i had to post it.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

It's Just a Title, June 8, 2006
Reviewer: William Cook (Cleveland, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews

Reading these reviews, I was surprised by a number of the comments but most of all by those that rented/bought this movie believing it was somehow about "angels" and then had the nerve to complain that they didn't know what it was about or that there were no angels in the movie.

With that in mind, I'd like to offer some advice to those that may inadvertently rent/buy other movies:

There are no Cuckoo birds and no nests in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
There is no obvious wind in Gone With the Wind and what there was didn't blow anything away
There are few, if any, good fellas in Goodfellas
There are no lambs in Silence of the Lambs
Chinatown isn't set in a town in China
There is neither $1,000,000 nor a baby in Million Dollar Baby
You guessed it, no bulls in Raging Bull
The coats are made of denim or some such material in Full Metal Jacket
Paul Newman's body temperature is about 98.6 degrees just like the rest of us in Cool Hand Luke
There is little, if any, sleeping in The Big Sleep
The prison hallway is only a few feet long in The Green Mile
The African Queen is not about a gay black man
No waterfowl were hurt in the making of Duck Soup
The earth rotated as usual on the Day the Earth Stood Still
There are actually multiple conversations in The Conversation
The raunchy men's magazine does not appear in The Hustler
Nobody inherited the wind in Inherit the Wind. It still belongs to all of us
There is no discernible odor while watching The Sweet Smell of Success
All the President's Men is only about *some* of the president's men

I hope that some will find these simple reminders useful. If not, you may want to consider looking at the back of a DVD case, visiting your local library or going to one of the thousands of web sites that talk about every movie ever made.

As for this film, if you're not frightened by things that might be different than what you've experienced or that perhaps strike too close to home, and don't spend your time judging how everyone else lives, then there is much to love about this work. It may not be perfect, and there can be many legitimate gripes about it, but overall it's very, very good. Scan through the positive reviews here and you'll get a good sense of it. No need for me to repeat it all here. Unfortunately, most (but not all) of the negative reviews are just those with some sort of political/religious agenda to put forth instead of commenting on the film.

william cook...you rock!

"Nothing is lost forever"

Harper Pitt: I dreamed we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air, and attained the outer rim, the ozone, which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening. But I saw something that only I could see, because of my astonishing ability to see such things: Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning. And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules, of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them, and was repaired. Nothing's lost forever. In this world, there's a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead. At least I think that's so.

Angels in America
Tony Kushner

thoughts while in my composition seminar.....

I had to read these articles for class and "journal" them...what a better place to work all of this information out than right here on this blog...for better or for worse.

Janice M. Lauer, “Graduate Students as Active Members of the Profession”
Robert Boice, “Work Habits of Productive Scholarly Writers”
Carol Berkenkotter and Thomas N. Huckin, “Gatekeeping at an Academic Convention”
Deborah Mutnick, “Time and Space in Composition Studies: ‘Through the Gates of the Chronotope’”

I read the articles in the order that they are listed above. The first three worked well together while I conceptualized the Mutnick piece as an elaboration or discursive outgrowth of the Berkenkotter and Huckin article. The tenor of the first three articles centered on writing and its various processes in regard to publishing while the fourth articles proved to be an effective, if not extremely compelling, example. I definitely felt that I was the audience for these readings. As such, I also became keenly aware of that old and familiar tension creeping up into my chest. I have a tenuous relationship with writing because whether it is “academic” or personal it reflects part or parts of my subjectivity/subjectivities. In short, I am always writing myself into any text that I am working on/with.
I thought that Lauer's article pointed to the crux of the problem when she describes the notional space of being a student and attempting to publish. She disrupts the “publish or perish” claim that haunts many graduate students' nightmares by positing other ways to conceptualize what constitutes our developing professionalism and the extrinsic and intrinsic pressures that accompany this rhetorical situation. I myself have been told on countless occasions to fashion my scholarship to fit a particular academic discourse community. I have been told to “be a player” and to “network.” I have found that this does not necessarily work well for me or for friendships. Indeed, I understand the value of dialogue and of the valuable work that can be accomplished in contributing to a conversation and “being” part of a community. But the question that I ask is to what cost? To be more specific, how much does one have to tailor or, better yet, camouflage particular aspects of how her/his personality, clothes, academic work, etcetera in order to survive? I would like to know just how “necessary” this is and what are the costs?
Lauer gives no answers, she simply posits more questions. I can appreciate this because I don't think that there are any concrete answers to gravitate toward when it comes to how one negotiates her/his self as an aspiring scholar and professor. To be a player and to network raises red flags for me that point out the potentiality of a rhetorical violence. This violence, while on the level of language, is extremely damaging, indeed. I have seen too many graduate students involve themselves in this “proactive” behavior that fosters a competitive spirit which inhibits supportive and collaborative networks. Consequently, to be a player and to network means to isolate yourself as a struggling academic while at the same time comparing your successes to others' failures. It is for this reason that I found Lauer's discussion on an “ethics of care” (234) to be comforting and, at the same time, challenging. I like this concept because it disrupts a negative environment that stultifies collaborative work at the expense of individual achievement. Lauer asks “[i]s an ethics of care possible, probable, practical, especially for our students who strain to position themselves in the field?” (235). I do not know the answer to this question and, I suspect, no one else does either.
Although I have some methodological issues with Robert Boice's article I found his psychological research on scholarly writers interesting if not compelling nonetheless. I was heavily trained during my undergraduate training as a music therapist in the area of behavioral psychology. The field of behavioral psychology is useful and in many academic circles valuable in the acquisition of monies for various programs. However, the work of behavioral science, like almost all other sciences, establishes a self imposed importance through empiric observation. When being trained as a counselor at Florida State University, I was always told: “If you didn't see it [meaning a certain type of behavior] and document it then it didn't happen.” This practice ossified in my young mind the privileging of materiality and its relationship to writing and its processes. This is not to say that I disagree with Boice's research or his approach per se but I do wonder if writers and writing processes for that matter can be observed and categorized so easily.
My writing process is always changing that is why it was hard for me to “place” myself under the various rubrics in Boice's article. For the most part writing, is excruciatingly difficult but not in the sense of a writer's block. Rather, I have all of these ideas swimming around in my head like little fishes and when I attempt to grab them they just slip out of my grasp...schooling in some dark corner of my mind. I'm also completely astounded at the amount of knowledge that I do not know and that I probably, when all is said and done, cannot know. Consequently, I become overwhelmed. I read texts and I ask myself: “what can I possibly contribute to any conversation?” Nevertheless, I have a few questions about Boice's article: Why is passive always negative? Why is active seen as the exemplar? I do appreciate Boice's attempt to disrupt the binary between passive and active by distinguishing active and passive waiting. I see this as an attempt to make a conceptual change on the level of language (217-18). However, this type of approach still creates binaries. I find myself occupying all and, paradoxically, none of the categories that Boice outlines in his article.
One of the more compelling pieces to Boice's argument is his approach to emotion and writing. It is at this point in the article where he combines behavioral and cognitive approaches in his research (212). Boice tells “blocked” writers to start writing before she/he “feels” like writing or “before feeling ready to write” (220). He suggests that we make writing a habit. “The most reliable motivation comes in the wake of regular involvement in writing, not in advance of it” (220). I think that this point of entry is most important. For me, writing as habit detours the other concepts of waiting that enfold active or passive approaches. I also found his concept of “stopping” to be most valuable indeed. I remember when I was writing my master's thesis. I was working forty hours a week and I was taking a night class. I would get up at 5:00 a.m. and write until 7:30 a.m. In the evenings, I would read and prepare. In essence, I established a writing habit that Boice describes and I found it highly productive. However, I have changed since enrolling in a Ph.D. program full time. I have found myself caught between active and passive approaches to writing and my sense of self has been disrupted to the extent that I cannot find a “writerly” self to engage with in the actual process of writing. Hence, this is what I mean earlier when I stated that I could not find myself in Boice's article.
Berkenkotter's and Huckin's article reminded me of the arbitrariness of the academy. I thought that it was insightful because what counts as an “excellent” CCCC's paper presentation abstract depends upon who is in power. This is where Mutnick's article became most compelling for me, since her article was, in it's earlier stages, a CCCC's presentation paper. I just kept coming back to the same conclusion as I read these last articles. The academy through a language system can be tenuous and rhetorically violent. Bodies that move within the academy's purview are constantly under pressure to fulfill the terms of what it means to be not only a scholar but a viable contributor to the conversations that shape the emerging field of rhetoric and composition. Must then writing and, more specifically, subjectivity formation through writing (and publishing) be dialectical and seemingly violent? I think that each of the authors of the articles that are represented here are grappling with how to detour the inscribed ways in which current traditional ideologies have come to define the academy. I would hope that the current will change.

poem for the week

Coping

by Audre Lorde

It has rained for five days
running
the world is
a round puddle
of sunless water
where small islands
are only beginning
to cope
a young boy
in my garden
is bailing out water
from his flower patch
when I ask him why
he tells me
young seeds that have not seen sun
forget
and drown easily.

poem for the week

The Weakness
by Toi Derricotte


That time my grandmother dragged me
through the perfume aisles at Saks, she held me up
by my arm, hissing, "Stand up,"
through clenched teeth, her eyes
bright as a dog's
cornered in the light.
She said it over and over,
as if she were Jesus,
and I were dead. She had been
solid as a tree,
a fur around her neck, a
light-skinned matron whose car was parked, who walked
on swirling
marble and passed through
brass openings--in 1945.
There was not even a black
elevator operator at Saks.
The saleswoman had brought velvet
leggings to lace me in, and cooed,
as if in service of all grandmothers.
My grandmother had smiled, but not
hungrily, not like my mother
who hated them, but wanted to please,
and they had smiled back, as if
they were wearing wooden collars.
When my legs gave out, my grandmother
dragged me up and held me like God
holds saints by the
roots of the hair. I begged her
to believe I couldn't help it. Stumbling,
her face white
with sweat, she pushed me through the crowd, rushing
away from those eyes
that saw through
her clothes, under
her skin, all the way down
to the transparent
genes confessing.




From Captivity by Toi Derricotte, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Copyright © 1989 Toi Derricotte.

poem for the week

it seems that i am always attempting to "clean" up my life...cluttered and disorganized...i sometimes imagine what it would be like if i were "together." in any event, this is an ongoing process with me and one that i will probably never master...or want to for that matter. however, in this latest spurt to organize i have been attempting to file away papers, etc. in the really nice filing cabinet that i have. until now, it has stood next to my desk, empty. this leads me to the poem of the week. i found my poetry books and i was reading through them. i used to write poetry and short fiction all of the time but since i have been in graduate school i just haven't felt the interest...not that i think my poetry/writing is any good...quite the opposite but for nostalgic reasons i think that i will put up a poem that i wrote way back in 1993...wow, at the tender age of 25. here it goes...

applying for heterosexual status

"when the applicant comes in

make sure that he is properly dressed
absolutely no purple or pink...anywhere.

make sure he understands that
picking flowers is no longer an option
anymore and neither is holding or hugging
anyone except for the occasional girlfriend
or wife (and even then use discretion).

make sure he deepens his voice...
facial hair would be nice and advise
him to rape a woman (mentally or
physically) if he is certain that he can get
away with it.

make sure that he holds a job that
requires him to wear a suite,
construction clothes, or at least
a tie.

make sure that he does not lisp.

make sure he understands that truly
caring for anything should be avoided at all costs
and if, by chance, he does, order him
to kill it. Speaking of death, encourage
him to join the military or the NRA...it's manly
enough and very patriotic.

make sure he eats a lot of meat.
hunting and killing defenseless
life-forms should also be considered
an appropriate hobby to pursue...and/or golf.
populate, populate, populate, populate
this world and by all means express
to him the importance of setting an
example for future generations."

oaw (12/29/93)

i should've added something about church or religion...i think the populate, populate sentence does this but i can't remember what i had in mind. i don't know what prompted me to write this...i think i was fed up with "straight acting" white gay men.
also, if i were to revise this i would add something to the effect:
"make sure he incorporates the conjunction 'but'
it's a useful word because he will be able to qualify any
misogynist, racist, and/or homophobic utterance that he wants
to relay...for example:'let me say that i am a pro-feminist male but...blah blah blah." or
'i'm all for letting people live and let live but...blah, blah, blah."
'i've written and edited books on sexism and homophobia but...blah, blah, blah."

poem for the week: abjectness or something like it

A Reason for Moving
by Mark Strand

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving
I move to keep things whole.

re: the gay games

ok, i know that the gay games are over in chicago but i'm thinking next year....i am really, really, really good at "beetle bomp" on yahoo games and i'm wondering if i should start a letter writing campaign to see if i could get this "sport" listed on the agenda because, quite honestly, i could get the gold.

meme

dev tagged me to do this meme, so here it is:


1. One book that changed your life:
Toni Morrison's Beloved

2. One book that you've read more than once:
Toni Morrison's Beloved

3. One book you'd want on a desert island:
Harry Potter books! and Beloved

4. One book that made you laugh:
compilations of Gary Larson's The Far Side cartoons

5. One book that made you cry:
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

6. One book that you wish had been written:
one more book by Audre Lorde

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
Adolf Hitler's Mien Kampf

8. One book you're currently reading:
Moby Dick

9. One book you've been meaning to read:
Julia Kristeva's Black Sun

10. People you are tagging to do this meme.
Anyone else who wants to do this.

a compliment to dev's poem of the week :-)

You Begin
by Margaret Atwood

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.

It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

song/poem/lyrics for the week

this is an attempt to define my stance on religion as per a recent post and comment earlier today (please see below) that lead me to listen to some xtc. here's the lyrics to "dear god"; very apt words in today's world...

Dear god,
Hope you got the letter,
And I pray you can make it better down here.
I dont mean a big reduction in the price of beer,
But all the people that you made in your image,
See them starving on their feet,
cause they dont get enough to eat

From god,
I cant believe in you.

Dear god,
Sorry to disturb you,
But I feel that I should be heard loud and clear.
We all need a big reduction in amount of tears,
And all the people that you made in your image,
See them fighting in the street,
cause they cant make opinions meet,
About god,
I cant believe in you.

Did you make disease, and the diamond blue?
Did you make mankind after we made you?
And the devil too!

Dear god,
Dont know if you noticed,
But your name is on a lot of quotes in this book.
Us crazy humans wrote it, you should take a look,
And all the people that you made in your image,
Still believing that junk is true.
Well I know it aint and so do you,
Dear god,
I cant believe in,
I dont believe in,

I wont believe in heaven and hell.
No saints, no sinners,
No devil as well.
No pearly gates, no thorny crown.
Youre always letting us humans down.
The wars you bring, the babes you drown.
Those lost at sea and never found,
And its the same the whole world round.
The hurt I see helps to compound,
That the father, son and holy ghost,
Is just somebodys unholy hoax,
And if youre up there youll perceive,
That my hearts here upon my sleeve.
If theres one thing I dont believe in...

Its you,
Dear god.




now, what are we critiquing here? the notion of god that we have constructed in language and deployed through ideology or something else, beyond language. my guess is that it's the first and not the second.

how does one write one's life?

"Every three years I discover again
that No I knew nothing before.
Everthing must be dragged out,
looked over again, The unexamined life
is the lie, but still
must I every time deny
everything I knew before?"

Dorothy Allison, "The Women Who Hate Me."





i have been proofing a narrative project for dev and it's really stunning. she does a really good job in attempting to capture the essence or shall i say essences of her life. how we come to know ourselves as subjects is an enigma to me. as i was reading dev's narrative i was putting myself in the place of the author. how would i write my life...to me it seems like a psychic version of cleaning my apartment...overwhelming. hopefully one day, i will have the chance to try but right now i wouldn't know where to begin.
i know from experience that many gay/lesbian/queer/transgender/transsexual persons start with coming to terms with identity. to be sure, coming out stories are a really good place to begin because it seems that seeing at least through what appears to be dissonance is key to rooting oneself in "place" even if this "place" is extremely mobile or transient.
i thought to myself, where would i begin. would i begin at the coming out intersection. by comparison, my coming out was not so much surrounded by dissonance than by complicity. i never felt compelled to jump out of the closet...i just opened the door and sat down in the open. my mother pats me on the shoulder and kisses my cheek while my father tells me that there were a lot of "gay" guys in the marines and it is no big deal. i guess i feel fortunate...can one begin a story from a point of consonance? i don't know...so i look, i look for dissonance to begin a story.
i do remember when i knew that i was "different" from the other kids in my school. 7th grade for me was the kicker. i had a crush on john miller...i was also attending a very strict, fundamentalist, bob jones university supporting "christian" school. my social science teacher, mr. laws (i'm not joking that is/was his name) brought out an article where two men were "gay bashed" in our town by a group of sexually repressed skin heads. mr. laws told us that god didn't like violence per se, but he could understand why someone would want to bash in a gay person's head...and he balled up his fist as he said this and i felt as if i were a sheet of paper being crumbled up in a hand. as he went on about the job of rationalizing his feelings to make it fit with his christianity, i thought to myself, "wow, i better keep my mouth shut or else i will either get seriously hurt or killed." i can remember that moment as truly feeling what it meant to be afraid.
i never told my mom or dad. i graduated from this school, so it wasn't like this was the first time i would have to endure homophobic tirades or calls for violence upon difference. but i remained silent.
i grew up methodist and my parents were not religious fanatics. they put me in this school because they somehow knew that i probably wouldn't make it in public school...not intellectually but physically. this christian school was also known for its academics...and to be fair, i did receive a good education. by the time i graduated i had the equivalent of an a.a. degree from a community college. academically, my education helped me advance in the university setting. but the silence that i learned was and is most profound. the most valuable lesson that i learned in life was invisibility and silence...to walk into a room and not be noticed, to be gentle, to be kind but most of all be ready to run if i needed to. which, come to think about it, was why i probably liked track in high school...especially cross country...i could out distance most if not all of the jocks, i knew i could run for a long way and not stop...sometimes i feel as if i haven't stopped yet.
so maybe if i am to write about my life i need to write from a location of silence... or, perhaps, maybe that is why i can't.

poem for the week: contemplation

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII)
by Edna St. Vincent Millay


What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

poem for the week

When a friend dies
by Marge Piercy

When a friend dies
the salmon run no fatter.
The wheat harvest will feed no more bellies.
Nothing is won by endurance
but endurance.
A hunger sucks at the mind
for gone color after the last bronze
chrysanthemum is withered by frost.
A hunger drains the day,
a homely sore gap
after a tooth is pulled,
a red giant gone nova,
an empty place in the sky
sliding down the arch
after Orion in night as wide
as a sleepless eye.
When pain and fatigue wrestle
fatigue wins. The eye shuts.
Then the pain rises again at dawn.
At first you can stare at it.
Then it blinds you.

to be or not to be...that IS the question

on my friend will's blog (http://www.rhetboi.net/sordid/)he wrote:

But the way I see it is this: I can go to Target at 10:00 a.m. when there are no lines, and that, to me, is a great thing. I can choose to work at 8:00 a.m. or 11:00 p.m., and I can choose to teach summer school or not (well, not really, since I need the money, but it's still technically a choice); I can do much of my work in this hotel room or at the local coffee shop and am not bound to my window-less office. I ain't got it bad, and that's good. But it could alway be better . . .

i don't think that i need to be reminded of this at a better time. it's near the end of the summer and it's that time where you're in between student loans and starting the teaching work load. i hate the concept of money. i quess i could fool myself by saying that it's a "marxist" thing but really its a "i don't like to so i won't manage my money" kind of thing. very frustrating, not only for me but for my family cuz the no money thing prohibits me from going home very often...which, to be quite honest, i don't loose too much sleep over cuz the family really stresses me out anyway.
but, back to the topic at hand. i have often found myself wondering "what in the hell am i doing?" i quit a really good job (that i was getting burned out on but that's neither here nor there) to pursue a career in the academy. upon further reflection, i don't even think it's that. i think this was a way for me to get back to chicago. i mean, when the opportunity presented itself i thought "wow, this is great." what i didn't consider was the drastic change in life style. i'm entering my third year in this program and i still haven't gotten used to the life of a fulltime grad student (money issues aside). i mean, i can't even seem to manage my time. writing, for the most part, is excruciatingly difficult...not in the sense of a writer's block but in that i have all of these ideas swimming around in my head like little fishes and when i go to grap them they just slip out of my grasp...schooling in some dark corner of my mind. i'm also completely astounded at the amount of knowledge that i do not know that i probably, when all is said and done, cannot know and i become overwhelmed. i read texts and i think to myself what can i possibly contribute to any conversation.
i don't know what kind of ideal i had coming into this but, at this point, i can't see myself in the academic field....i can't see myself in anything at the moment. my therapist told me the other day..."it's ok to run away from something just as long as you have another something to run to." i think that's my problem, i don't think i have had anything in my life that i honestly wanted to run to.
but will's post did help me see that i could, at least if not temporarily, see the incredible amount of freedom that i will have in sculpting a niche in the academy that i would not otherwise have. perhaps, i need to create something to run to instead of looking for something to run to. i just hope that i will be able to do it.

poem of the week...the work of nostalgia

Michael Lassell's (circa 1985)

How to Watch Your Brother Die

When the call comes, be calm
Say to your wife, "My brother is dying. I have to fly
to California."
Try not to be shocked that he already looks like
a cadaver.
Say to the young man sitting by your brother's side,
"I'm his brother."
Try not to be shocked when the young man says,
"I'm his lover. Thanks for coming."

Listen to the doctor with a steel face on.
Sign the necessary forms.
Tell the doctor you will take care of everything.
Wonder why doctors are so remote.

Watch the lover's eyes as they stare into
your brother's eyes as they stare into
space.
Wonder what they see there.
Remember the time he was jealous and
opended your eyebrow with a sharp stick.
Forgive him out loud
even if he can't understand you.
Realize the scar will be
all that's left of him.

Over coffee in the hopsital cafeteria
say to the lover, "You're an extremely good-looking
young man."
Hear him say,
"I never thought I was good enough looking to
deserve your brother."
Watch the tears well up in his eyes. Say,
"I'm sorry. I don't know what it means to be
the lover of another man."
Hear him say,
"It's just like a wife, only the commitment is
deeper because the odds against you are so much
greater."
Say nothing, but
take his hand like a brother's.

Drive to Mexico for unproven drugs that might
help him live longer.
Explain what they are to the border guard.
Fill with rage when he informs you,
"You can't bring those across."
Begin to grow loud.
Feel the lover's hand on your arm,
restraining you. See in the guard's eye
how much a man can hate another man.
Say to the lover, "How can you stand it?"
Hear him say, "You get used to it."
Think of one of your children getting used to
another man's hatred.

Call your wife on the telephone. Tell her,
"He hasn't much time.
I'll be home soon." Before you hang up say,
"How can anyone's commitment be deeper than
a husband and wife?" Hear her say,
"Please, I don't want to know all the details."

When he slips into an irrevocable coma,
hold his lover in your arms while he sobs,
no longer strong. Wonder how much longer
you will be able to be strong.
Feel how it feels to hold a man in your arms.
Offer God anything to bring your brother back.
Know you have nothing God could possibly want.
Curse God, but do not
abandon Him.

Stare at the face of the funeral director
when he tells you he will not
embalm the body for fear of
contamination. Let him see in your eyes
how much a man can hate another man.
Stand beside a casket covered in flowers,
white flowers. Say,
"Thank you for coming" to each of several hundred men
who file past in tears. Some of them
holding hands. Know that your borther's life
was not what you imagined. Overhear two mourners say
"I wonder who will be next."

Arrange to take an early flight home.
His lover will drive you to the airport.
When your flight is announced say,
awkwardly, "If I can do anything, please
let me know." Do not flinch when he says,
"Forgive yourself for not wanting to know him
after he told you. He did."
Stop and let it soak in. Say,
"He forgave me, or he knew himself?"
"Both," the lover will say, not knowing what else
to do. Hold him like a brother while he
kisses you on the cheek. Think that
you haven't been kissed by a man since
your father died. Think,

"This is no moment not to be strong." Fly
first class and drink scotch. Stroke
your split eyebrow with a finger
and think of your brother alive. Smile
at the memory and think
how your children will feel in your arms,
warm and friendly and without challenge.