Category Archives: School

Roseanne and J. Alfred Prufrock

Posted on 6 March 2009 | 3 comments

At this point, your guess about why I am up at 4 AM watching reruns of Roseanne is as good as mine. I suppose there are worse things I could be doing right now than watching Darlene and Becky banter across the old brown couch. I forgot how funny the early episodes are, and I forgot how much they remind me of my family. Before the show started taking itself so seriously and before Tom Arnold came into the picture, it was a beautiful simply complex portrayal of blue-collar life in Lansford, a town not unlike Hartford City.

I am watching an early episode in which Jackie and Booker start dating. Most of the episode is filmed in a bowling alley, and the subplot is Becky’s first rendezvous with Chip. I remember why I love Darlene (Sara Gilbert). I think I might have wished she lived in Hartford City.  I look back now and think that she reminds me of my friend, Tisha: sarcastic, smart, and a little feisty. My life is better for knowing Tish.

I woke up at 3 AM—I laid in the bed for about 45 minutes before I gave in and finally got up—in order to begin memorizing “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” I am sure Bec will be thrilled that I am trying to memorize another poem. I think she got her fill of “A Supermarket in California.” I can’t imagine I woke up so early for T.S. Eliot, although the beauty of the poem does not escape me. Here is the opening, a loose interpretation of a sonnet:

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats 5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question … 10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

I am sure my early morning can be attributed to the stress of the coming two weeks. Or the stress of the next few months. I am take my comprehensive exams in August. While I realized they were looming around the corner like a teenage tranny at RuPaul’s dressing room door, making my book list and going over it with Debbie yesterday really hammered it home. I have six months to prepare for the biggest test of my life. And I have to pass it.

Because I have to break up my serious study time into small chunks, I tend to spend a lot of time stumbling around on the Internet. I have decided to stop calling it procrastinating, because I have learned some interesting facts and been able to find some helpful websites during these mini-breaks. I found this site last night. I couldn’t resist reading some of the other posts on the blog, but the one I originally stumbled onto was the best. This morning I found this: F*** My Life. You, the viewer, actually get to vote: does the person’s life really suck or did they deserve what happened? Genius.

It’s now 4:44 and the episode that’s on—Dan wants to get a family photo to send into their high school reunion committee and it just so happened that when he and Roseanne broke up for a week their senior year, he slept with the woman who is organizing the reunion—reminds me of how I feel about high school reunions: they are a mechanism by which some people reassure themselves that their lives turned out better than others. I am not sure this is how reunions function for my class. Maybe I am naive. Maybe when I finally get my PhD, I will go back to a reunion. Maybe I won’t.

I had a couple of good beers last night with my delicious chicken etouffee.  The first one was an oldie but goody: Skullsplitter Scotch Ale. I am finding that I really love Scotch Ales. They have some body and nice complex taste. I also had a nice Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout. Usually, okay sometimes, Chocolate Stouts are too sweet, but this one was particularly tasty with some nice coffee undertones. Brooklyn’s was the chocolate equivalent of Breckenridge’s Vanilla Porter.  I would drink it again. And again with HomeMade Peppermint Chip Ice Cream.

Maybe I am awake so early today because I am excited to get Minerva out of the garage, give her a bath, fill her up, check her tire pressure, and ride her all over the countryside. I mean I can’t go too far today, but I a girl can dream (funny Freudian slip I accidentally typed cream to begin with). I have until one o’clock when I am supposed to meet Julie at the Blue Bottle for coffee. Maybe I can talk her into beer at the Heorot.

Adult swim is really weird at 5 AM. Is it idiotic or genius? Frequently, the line is very fine, like one pixel fine.  And, I think Drew’s cat pooped over by the fish tank again. This is why I don’t get up early as a rule. This is why I am glad we are going to pull up this carpet this summer.

Oh, and I cut my hair last night.

Also this.

3 Comments

Posted in Beer, Literature, Motorcycles, Reading, School

Waiting is Not My Strong Suit

Posted on 23 February 2009 | 2 comments

I hate waiting. I think everything should happen instantly.

I should know right now, today, whether or not I have a job for next school year.

I should know right now, today, if I will have an assistantship for the summer.

I should know right now, today, what will be my future.

I’m impatient. I admit it.

If I could know what my future holds, would I chose to see it? Would I want to know if I was going to get hit by a bus tomorrow? Would I want to know that I would live to be 100 years old? Probably not, but I just hate waiting.

I think what I really hate about waiting is the fact that usually when we wait, we are waiting for someone to evaluate us, to tell us what they think of us, or we are waiting for something over which we have absolutely no control. Fate: that whore.

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I woke up at 9 o’clock this morning. I have done nothing productive yet today. I am the biggest slacker. Ever.

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I have never realized how bad day-time television can be. Desperate Housewives is a really bad show.

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I am really fortunate to have so many great professors. I am slowly realizing their value and their influence in my life. I often require a large skillet clanged against my head in order to understand such things. This time, I am getting it by osmosis.

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I do not regret leaving Grace Church. I miss some of the people, my friends. It was good to see people I haven’t seen in ages. It was good to be back in a place that feels like home. It was good to know that in their own disfunctional way the people there still love me. I missed the time I spent there as both a parishioner and a professional.

But, I do not miss the mind games, the old-boys club, or the way some people find it necessary to manipulate others. Particularly I don’t miss a certain “pit-bull with attitude” who has no ability to see the results of his poorly chosen actions.  A promise is a promise. You don’t reneg. Do you really think what you do is okay? Do you even consider how your actions impact others? No. No. No. I don’t think you do. If you did, you would reconsider. If you had as your first interest the salvation of others, you wouldn’t make it continually about you. That is selfish. We are called precisely to be unselfish, to give unconditionally, to give.

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My brother found this saying on a bridge:

Generosity is not measured by how much we give, but by how much we keep.

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I am still wading through wounds suffered in church. My pastor is leaving. I find it difficult to forgive. I find it difficult to find a reason to go to church. I find it difficult to believe. I find it difficult to put my faith in our church hiring someone like David to replace him. I think we may end up with a conservative, middle-aged, homophobic, pro-life misogynist who wants to put Jesus back in our schools. I don’t want to be there for that. I don’t want that.

And, I am not stupid enough to bind my belief in God with my belief in a man. My doubts have nothing to do with David’s leaving. His leaving just picked open old wounds that I have to let heal again. While they heal, I retain my right to be angry with God. So, God, I am angry with you, but I still love you.

2 Comments

Posted in Feminism, Grace, Politics, Queer, Relationships, Religion, School, Teaching

Stand By Me

Posted on 21 February 2009 | 2 comments

Sometimes things look more hopeful than other times. Sometimes you get good news and it gives you hope.

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I want to start a piece of writing with: The first time he said he was a Trans-Man, I thought he said Trans-Am and the words took me back to the early 90s when every guy I knew had a run-down Trans-Am, Camaro, or Nova they were “fixing up.”

They were constantly talking about faulty trannies, souped up hot rod engines, sleepers, and paint jobs. There is something to being a Trans-Man and a Trans-Am having a faulty tranny. There is a bit of word slippage in the idea that somehow reminds of the dire need of men to guard and bolster their own masculinity. Is this accomplished by fixing their trannies? Is this accomplished by having a big engine that one does not suspect like in a sleeper? I need to tease this out more, but I know a stolen dildo and a leather harness figure in somewhere.

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Right now, I am watching a movie that I should have seen years ago. When it came out, my mother wouldn’t let me watch Stand By Me because it was too violent and they swore too much. I think the story outweighs the unnecessary crudeness. In fact, the crudeness is a good part of the story of growing up. Isn’t it?

I wonder, am I better now for having seen it? I think so, but I will have to reflect more once I am finished wiping my warm, wet cheeks.

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Today will be filled with writing. I have to write a letter of recommendation for a friend, my CV (resume), my educational philosophy, and a formal observation of one of my professors. I also have to read Jubilee, American Anatomies, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City, and two articles for one of my classes. It never ends.

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I want to write some short-short memoir pieces to cobble together into one for publications. I need to revise the pieces I already have written and I need to send them out for publishing.

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One day I will get everything done.

2 Comments

Posted in Just for Fun, Queer, School, Writing

Sometimes Things Are What They Seem

Posted on 15 February 2009 | 2 comments

Right now I am sitting on the couch in my living room watching Natural Born Killers with Becky’s nephew Jacob. He is staying with us for a couple of days. When I asked him why he was on break in the middle of February, he responded by explaining that the rich kids at his school needed to go skiing. While some of his classmates are at Breckenridge, he is here. In Muncie. Brave young man that he is.

I had forgotten how strange, how deranged, how fucked up this movie is.

It is very fucked up.

The most fucked up.

Only Tarantino and Stone together could make this fucked up shit happen this well.

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I spent the weekend in Chicago. I miss it already. I spent the hours of sitting at CElla’s booth counting the numbers of writer stereotypes I saw. Apparently, there is a school somewhere that teaches a class in how to dress as a writer. Hopefully they teach their students how to write as well.

Perhaps, though, they concentrate more on teaching their students how to look like Rembrandt:slf_prtrt_gorget_beretWe counted the berets (particularly those paired with a scarf), the long flowing skirts, the Nathans (men with beards, plaid shirts, and corduroys), men with leather vests, and women with tall leather boots. I hope they can write as well as they dress. There is something to be said for originality, in both realms.

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I went to some excellent panels while I was there. The best ones involved writers that I already knew I loved: Lucille Clifton, Kim Addonizio, and Dorothy Allison. From each woman I took new strength, insight, and inspiration.

Clifton reminded me of the universality of suffering and how common the female experience is. She reminded me that good writing reaches the heart whether or not we have shared experience. I have never had an abortion but that didn’t keep me from weeping at Clifton’s reading of Gwendolyn Brooks’s “The Mother” and her reading of her own “Lost Baby Poem.” I was moved deeper than I have been in a long time. I didn’t have to have my own abortion to understand the implications of their words. My guts moved at them.

Kim Addonizio reminded me not to take myself too seriously. There she was on the stage at one of the largest sessions at the conference laughing at herself as the woman who was signing her poems made the motions for vibrator and dildo. The same sign for both but the former with a little jiggle of the wrist. Addonizio has the kindest eyes. And the most sincere laugh. What do you say to a woman whose poetry changed your life and made you want to write something other than the shit you wrote before? I stood before her smiling and saying, “Thank you.” It was all I could say.

I hope I never get the opportunity to speak with Alice Walker or Toni Morrison. I would probably throw up like on South Park when Stan talks to Wendy.

Finally, Dorothy Allison taught me that she isn’t my Yankee-ass’s granny, which I take to mean that she isn’t my mammy. I don’t want her for my granny or my mammy; I just want to read her writing and have it change me for the better. I want to know how someone can love and hate a place at the same time, how someone can hold onto their past while simultaneously purging it, and how my writing can reflect all those things I loved about growing up somewhere like Hartford City, but how it can also betray the fact that I need so desperately to never return to it. How does she do that? I think humor and honesty. Without saying it, she said it.

Sometimes things are what they seem; sometimes they aren’t.

The worst panel was about being a gay writer in the Midwest. This panel quickly digressed into an advertisement for Chicago, and how they (Chicago Queers) feel so oppressed because they don’t get the publicity of San Francisco or New York. They don’t even get as much press as LA: “We have big events and they don’t get into the Advocate or Out.” gay-boys“Sniffle, sniffle, and dry your eyes,” I wanted to tell them,”come to Muncie to see the real Midwest. Then you can go home and choose one of your many gay bars at which to drown your sorrows, while the queers here in Muncie all join up at the one, the only, Mark III Tap Room. Seriously. Get rural in the Midwest and then figure out why half the room got up and left your session.”

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I had two new beers while I was in Chicago: Belhaven Wee Heavy and The Reverend Avery Ale.

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Mickey and Mallory just shot the Indian on a bad trip. Things will begin to go very badly for them. It will involve lots of biting snakes and my favorite song on the soundtrack. And, Jacob will still be moving his hand keeping time to the music. Or, he will  go upstairs and go to bed. And so will I.

2 Comments

Posted in Beer, Feminism, Literature, Queer, Reading, School, Writing

Schlafly Don’t Bother Me

Posted on 7 February 2009 | 3 comments

I had a Schafly Oatmeal Stout for dinner. As a side I had spaghetti and meatballs.

I spent most of the day doing homework: reading Sula by Toni Morrison, creating a chapbook called Boundary-less Bodies, and starting a book called American Anatomies. The rest of the day I spent trying to figure out how to deal with a difficult situation: how do you address a situation in which people don’t realize they something entirely inappropriate?

Friday was PCM: Practical Criticism Midwest at BSU. Basically what that means is that all of us English folks go spend a whole day showing off our academic prowess. We then unwind by drinking wine and eating tiny sandwiches, fruit, and cookies.

The last part of the long, intellectual phallic strutting day is the Doggerel competition in which everyone tries to out do each other the opposite direction. And, let me tell you some people really out did themselves. Typically, of course, one of the features of the Doggerel is that each participant actually writes their own original poetry—they don’t generally steal someone else’s poetry (originally written as a joke)  in order to humiliate them. Doggerel is supposed to be funny, witty, and crass. I think it is safe to say that with few exceptions the MC and the judges were the funniest part.

Perhaps, they can do better next year, and with any luck, I won’t be there to know.

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On Monday, after being sick for about two weeks, I get to start running again. I would love to remain healthy for the time remaining until the mini-marathon. I would have kept running while I was sick this time, but I had goop in my lungs. Every morning I cough up enough phlegm to make me ease off running until I was only expectorating a bowlful or so with each cough.

I need new running shoes, too. My favorites have worn through the ball on the right foot. I am hoping to find some new ones on-line. I think these may be the ones I buy when my ship comes in.

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Next Wednesday Elizabeth, Sarah, and I leave for Chicago. I already wrote about how much I am looking forward to leaving the humdrum of Muncie for the excitement of Chicago. What I haven’t written about is that I will get to hear people like Kim Addonizio, Joy Castro, Tyehimba Jess, Dorothy Allison, and Lucille Clifton read their own work or discuss writing.

Also, Art Spiegelman is the key-noter. If you don’t like to read, or if you only get to read one book about the Holocaust, I recommend reading Maus I and Maus II. They are graphic novels. Not really. They are two of the best graphic novels I have ever read.

Finally, I am drinking a Buffalo Bills Brewery Blueberry Oatmeal Stout for dessert.  A good end to a mediocre week.

But, next week will be better, and tomorrow I get to spend the day with my family while we go to see my grandma, so it can’t be bad.

3 Comments

Posted in Beer, Running, School, Writing