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.

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Posted in Beer, Literature, Motorcycles, Reading, School

Another Gift Idea

Posted on 2 March 2009 | 1 comment

Buy one of these for someone you love. A friend of a friend makes them with her own two hands.

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Posted in Gleaning, Grace, Writing

Dear Lifetime Channel

Posted on 2 March 2009 | 4 comments

To whom it may concern:

I am writing about your recent decision to change the morning program line-up. Ever since The Golden Girls aired for the first time in 1985, I have been a great fan. I did not miss one episode in the entire seven years they were on air, and I watch a full hour of reruns on Lifetime each morning.

Lately, I have used the program as a tool with which to unwind each morning before doing my homework. Sometimes I used it as tool of procrastination to be sure, but I could always count on The Golden Girls to brighten my day. I have been feeling especially frazzled the past couple of weeks because I have not been sleeping well, so I look forward to Rose’s long inane stories, Blanche’s sexual escapades, Dorothy’s quick sarcastic wit, and Sophia’s old-world charm to prepare me for the long days I face as a graduate student.

Imagine my shock and disappointment this morning when I carried my freshly French-pressed Sumatra coffee with clove, cinnamon, and cardamom and my perfectly toasted bagel with cream cheese and habanero preserves into the living room to watch my girls. I laid out my breakfast, having eaten my banana in the kitchen while the water for the coffee boiled, and sat on the old, floral print couch. Holding the remote in my hand, I savored what would come next, but someone in your programming department had played a cruel trick.

“What the hell is this?” I asked myself when I saw Reba McEntire’s face looking out at me from the squarish frame of my old tube television set. I quickly—read frantically—scanned the programs before and after Reba. I thought maybe I had just been mistaken about the times, but my searching was to no avail. I am positive that The Golden Girls showed at 9:00 AM and again at 9:30 AM, and your website says they show from 8 AM-10 AM and again in the afternoon. However, this morning there was no sign of my special morning friends. You should update your webpage, because it is misleading and contributes to the already unstable psyche of the people (mostly women) who watch your channel.

So, here I sit, watching the History Channel and Billy Ray Cyrus as he hosts a program called Hillbilly: The Real Story, and trying to choke down my otherwise delicious breakfast. While I enjoy learning the true story of the Hatfields and the McCoys, the serpent handlings Appalachians don’t hold a candle in the wind to Dorothy, Rose, Sophia, and Blanche and their Miami shenanigans.

In closing, I would appreciate it if you would please return The Golden Girls to their rightful place on weekday mornings, and possibly for my pain and suffering, you should send me a photograph of The Golden Girls with the autographs of the remaining three golden girls. My very sanity hangs in the balance.

Sincerely,

A Fan

4 Comments

Posted in Just for Fun

Two Beers: Both Un-exceptional.

Posted on 1 March 2009 | Leave a comment

I have never been disappointed in a beer like I was disappointed in Dad’s Little Helper by Rogue Brewery. The Beer Advocate, which I finally broke down and joined, gave the only slightly flavorful piss-water a B-. Actually, I should say the readers and reviewers of Beer Advocate gave it a B-, because the grade the beer receives is the average of all the reviews.  I would probably give it a D, but then I should probably stick to rating Porters and IPAs since they are really the only beers I love. Those and good, cold, thick-headed Guinnesses.

Part of my disappointment in Dad’s Little Helper came because my first beer was also lousy, so bad it’s name escapes me. What do I expect for two beers and a twelve inch banana pepper pizza that still cost less than $10? I just wish the Heorot would bring back those $1.50 Avery Porters. I could have had four of them and a pizza for under $10 with money left for a tip!

*

Yesterday, while tripped up on cold medicine, I got lost at the Muncie Mall. Sounds funny, huh? I would normally laugh. However, I felt like I was in one of those fun-houses they use in B-grade horror films, all mirrors and clowns and shit. Not fun. In fact, quite scary. Abbie said, “It’s one hallway, you just keep walking around until you get back where you started.” And, she is right.

I have never been able to keep track of my car at shopping malls. I don’t know why with three weeks of poor sleep, being sick, and taking cold medicine I thought I would be okay to go shopping by myself. All of that combined with the fact that the last time I went to the mall was with Abbie and Ed before Christmas, not counting the time Jacob and I walked straight through to go to BWs to get some spicy chicken arms, should have made me feel less insane. I left the mall feeling slightly dodgy, overly sensitive, and oddly disoriented. I might still be standing in Books-a-million looking at books I would never buy had Shannon not come over and said, “Hey, Lady, can I help you find a book?”

I came home and wrote about what it feels like to be inside my head sometimes. I am afraid to read it today. I don’t want to know what I wrote.

*

Last night we went to Welliver’s for Abs’ birthday dinner.

I ate too much. I couldn’t stop myself.

I felt gluttonous. I smiled the whole way through.

I don’t think I need to eat again for days.

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Posted in Beer, Christmas, Fat, Writing

The Thursday After Ash Wednesday

Posted on 26 February 2009 | 1 comment

It’s Lent. I am not fasting. I am not sure I care.

An alternate title for this post could be: “Just Like Any Other Thursday.”

Let me try to explain. As much as Tom the homeless guy has no physical house, as much as he walks around talking to people that no one else can see, and as much as he has no creature comforts like thick wool socks and gloves that match to keep his hands warm, I have no spiritual place.

I don’t feel like Agape could ever be my church “home.” I go there. I like most of the people. However, I am also pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, not sure I believe in hell, non-fundamentalist, mostly non-evengelical, and unable to commit to the idea that there will be a second-coming of Christ. And I don’t base every decision I make or belief I hold on the “Inerrant Word of God(t).”

“How did you make it through seminary?” you might ask.

“Good question,” I would respond.

Like Tom, I find myself (although not literally) talking to people that no one else can see. I have been on a manic rush—learning that I could be slightly manic came free with my seminary tuition via the psychological evaluations they made us take—for about three weeks now, and although I talk to people who really exist, I am not sure they understand me. I talk too fast. I space out. I jumble my thoughts. God bless Debbie for bearing with me through my independent study with her. And Becky deserves a badge for putting up with me right now.

It isn’t that I haven’t slept in three weeks, because I have, but it is the fact that my sleep comes in small spurts, filled with fitful/unsettling dreams. I would say my last night of good sleep happened before I went to Chicago, before I had my current “am I doing the right thing with my life” crisis, and before I had this, my third round of the amazing English department head and chest cold.

And, about talking to people I can’t see, I sometimes  think I have some strange, otherworldly perception. I frequently see little flashes of what I perceive to be people or spirits lingering about me. I haven’t seen as many in the house we live in, but I think my ability to sense what other people are feeling has increased, and I keep having a recurring dream about one of my professors.

In it, she is trapped in a house that is slowly crumbling and there is no way out. Even though the walls keep falling down, she can never get out. Each time she thinks she is able to get out another wall is standing in her path. Then it crumbles, and she has to run to another part of the house to find another way out. She can’t just leave through the crumbling wall because the actual pieces of the wall are detrimental to her safety. I get the sense that there is heat or a gas building up around her as well. She screams, but I can’t hear what she is screaming. All I can do is watch her suffer. I have tried to re-dream, so that I can get into the dream with her and help her out of the house, but it won’t work.

I am not sure I have ever had a dream like this before about someone I know so superficially. I did have a weird dream about my Aunt Winnie. I dreamed she died on the actual night she died. And, the other night I had a dream about one of my former students. The next day I received an email from her, which wouldn’t be weird if I had conversations with her regularly. But, I don’t. In fact, I haven’t heard from her since I had her in class two semesters ago.

This dream about my professor is different, though, I have had it for about two weeks straight, and then I stopped having it, but I had it again last night. Weird. So that’s my version of talking to people who aren’t actually there. I just have weird dreams and sensations about real people, which are particularly obvious and happen increasingly when I cannot sleep well. Or when, as the professor who read my psych. report said, I am “slightly manic.”

Back to my analogy about Tom’s physical homelessness and my spiritual homelessness, I don’t have the creature comforts that come with finding a perfect spiritual home. I have never been to a church where I feel completely comfortable. I know the point of church isn’t my personal comfort, but I want to be able to be who I am in Christ. I don’t want to have to mask or hide any part of myself in order to feel accepted. It isn’t that I don’t recognize that all of us have areas of spiritual growth and development; it is that I think differently about what those areas might be than the ways other people perceive them.

We know what our behaviors are. We know the bible says. We know where they don’t line up. Church should be about giving grace to people until they do line up, not about doling out condemnation because they don’t align. I don’t believe in tough love; I believe in grace.

For example, I know I should spend more time contemplating scripture. How do I know this? One quick example is Psalm 1: “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.” I do not meditate on this law day and night. I barely even look at my bible, nor do I memorize scripture. How then can I meditate day and night? My behavior does not align with what I perceive to be an overarching theme of the Biblical text. I know what I need to do to fix it, now I need the church to provide me with the support to do it.

The same would hold true for an alcoholic. Or a liar. Or a stern parent. Or a woman of ill-repute.

Typically, churches are so consumed with their own agenda (abortion, homosexuality, blah, blah, blah) that they can’t pay any attention to helping their parishioners foster the close relationship with God that is paramount in Christian life. Would we need to talk about abortion if everyone was willing to help an impoverished or single mother raise her child? Would we need to talk about it if we provided birth control education to teenagers? When was the last time you heard a sermon or had a small-group that focused on how we are to keep God’s words hidden in our hearts, so that it can inform our behavior and shape our lives? Come on. Be honest.

This might be a message of grace: through your understanding of and meditation on God’s words, your relationship with [Them] will be strengthened. In turn, you will better understand what God’s love means in this world, and you will be able to pour God’s love out to other people. I mean, if I was a pastor, I would preach about this. This would be the thick wool socks and matching, warm gloves I would give to my congregation.

So, all this to say, I feel like a spiritual homeless person. Does anyone know of any good shelters that will take me in? Mess that I am.

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Posted in Grace, Politics, Queer, Relationships, Religion, Winter Weather