Toward a theory of malcontentedness

I'm emerging from the long, dark, tortured night of the soul. I think. We'll know for sure after I finish the next version of my dissertation concept paper. I think at long last I have settled on my theoretical framework, one that makes sense with my topic and approach. I think. Of course, I could be wrong. Thinking has never been my strong suit, especially as I've grown older and my brain has turned to a pinched, parched husk in which thoughts rattle around like dried-up nuts.

If I'm not so good at thinking, what is left? Feeling? I can't say I'm all that good at feeling, either. Well. Wait, I take that back. I'm pretty good at feeling anger in all its myriad forms: resentment, bitterness, martyrdom, snarkiness, you know, the typical expressions of a chronic malcontent. Anger is sort of a one-sided approach to expressing feelings, though, even I have to admit. Maybe if my life were different, I would be more likely to sprinkle some ebullience, effervescence, and mirth into the mix. Ha. The idea makes me smirk. When the hellish hand-basket freezes over. Ebullience is highly over-rated. And effervescence is for cleaning dentures. Which I can say with some relief I don't yet have.

So, is that all there is? Thinking and feeling? Cognition and affection? Wait, that can't be right. (Hey, I'm not a psychology major, cut me some slack.) The adjectives would be cognitive and affective. So, would the noun forms be cognition and affection? Bravadita will be able to tell me. Alas, alackaday, I'm caught up in terminology these days: social constructivism, systems thinking, expectancy-disconfirmation theory... la, la, la. To stretch my theoretical muscles, I shall now devise a theory of malcontentedness.

I propose that the condition of malcontentedness is a function of (a) my mood (which is a function of how much sun is striking the earth in the vicinity of Mt. Tabor); (b) the number of phone calls received during a day (more is bad, fewer is better); as a proportion of (c) hour the alarm goes off in the morning (not at all is best); multiplied by (d) how much money is in the bank account (obviously more is better); plus (e) whether or not I have posted in this blog within the past two days (level of malcontentedness decreases in proportion to the number of posts posted).

I could write the theory like this:

M =[ m(S) – P] 
--------------------
A ($ + B)

Where:
M = malcontentedness
m = mood
S = sunshine
P = number of phone calls received
A = hour the alarm goes off
$ = amount of dollars in my bank account
B = number of blog posts posted in past 48 hours

For those of you who are trying to make sense of this formula, don't bother. You will be relieved to know I am proposing a qualitative phenomenological design for my dissertation, in which I will be staying as far away from math as possible.

I could never be friends with someone who likes country music

Today I woke up to clouds, and the rest of the day just went to hell from there. George, my landshark, arrived at about nine to continue his work (pounding, sawing, scraping) in the two bathrooms on either side of my burrow. He's retiled the shower/tub stall with shiny white tiles. I know this because I saw an example of his work when I went to tell him my bathroom sink was filling rapidly with milky water. Alarmed, I hotfooted it next door and found him in the bathroom, covered with white tile plaster and grout. It was pretty clear to me that George was washing up in the bathroom sink.

“George, my sink is filling with water. White water.”

“Oh? This sink is draining.”

Duh, dude. It's draining into my sink! I didn't say it. After some hemming and jawing, he said he'd take a look at it—tomorrow. He is apparently in grouting mode, not plumbing mode. I politely admired his tile work for a moment. Then I stomped back to my nest, and in a few moments, the air began to vibrate: He'd cranked his boombox up to some country station. Twang! I would have pegged him for a classic rock guy. Guess we'll never be friends, George and I. Too bad. A friend with plumbing skills can sure come in handy.

Seeking asylum, I went out to the front garden to pull weeds and plant the stringy rosemary my mother had painstakingly rooted herself over a period of several long months. George's full-size pickup truck made a nice barrier between me and the street traffic, but the cafe across the way was going full-swing. The acoustics on this corner are uncannily acute. I can hear everything. How do you like the potatoes? Oh, really, I read that, too! Jeremy, keep your hands to yourself! I had to look up from my labors several times to make sure the diners weren't headed right for me, coming to tell me what to do with last year's collard greens, now four feet high and gone to seed. Add in the frequent 40-foot buses swinging wide around the corner, the occasional pedestrian with baby in stroller, and George's crazy taste in music, and you've got a recipe for a lively morning at the Love Shack.

I heard a familiar sound: the Adventist Hospital laundry truck coming up Belmont, making its way over the hill, carrying fresh linen to Adventist. I have heard this truck for years. I recognize the engine whine and clinking of chains as it trundles around the corner. I never knew it carried laundered linens to Adventist until I found out one of my students works for Adventist. He once mentioned he drives the laundry truck. Today I was curious to see if it was him, but I was afraid to look. I didn't want him to see me wearing grimy grubbies, working in a dilapidated garden, the real me. At that moment a bus came along in the opposite direction; I knew that would occupy the Adventist driver's attention, so I looked right at the driver. Sure enough, it was my student, expertly negotiating the truck past the bus, the corner, the parked cars, and the pedestrians. For a moment I felt proud, like I had something to do with his skill. I smiled. Then I laughed, as it occurred to me that I will be a dusty foot-note to the great things this twenty-year-old kid is going to do with his life. Maybe my words of praise will live on in a letter of recommendation. 


I'm supposed to be working on my concept paper. (Yes, still.) But I also have homework for work. Now that I'm teaching at two campuses, I have to bring work home. Two heavy bags of books and files, one for each aching shoulder. It's like being an adjunct all over again. The homeless, worthless adjunct instructor. There's just too much to do. So what do I do? I turn to this blog to vent to the five people who regularly tune in. And to the folks who stray here by accident, and have actually read this far—(wow, you must have a lot of time on your hands), welcome to the hellish hand-basket.


Now a slippery whiny sound is coming from the bathroom next door. I am guessing George is rubbing his shiny new tiles clean. It sounds like a whimpering dog. My cat is looking askance at me, like, when did we get a dog? I shrug my shoulders at him: dunno. 

And now, to my profound relief, making a late appearance: the sun, or something like it. Cue applause.

Did the utilitarian philosophy just dive bomb my head?

You can tell it's summer because there are flies everywhere. Or maybe it's my lousy housekeeping. A fly is buzzing my head, and my cat is just lying on the floor, ignoring it. I can only hope Eddie (my cat, not the fly, I don't usually name flies), is conserving his energy for a strategic leap. Yep, sure enough, there he goes. Bam! But he missed, I think, or maybe there's more than one fly. A fly remains, lazily circling the room, just out of reach, like a hawk riding the updrafts.

Speaking of flies, no, speaking of hawks... No, speaking of lazily circling a room, this week we started a new term at the career college. I met some new students at two campuses. Both days I talked way too much. That's normal for a new start. What is not normal is to meet a class, and then find out I will be swapping classes with another instructor for the rest of the term.

An instructor I will call Amy also makes the trek to Wilsonville every other day. We are nomads, no place to sit, no computer to call our own. You know, like adjuncts. The main difference between us is Amy is losing her job at the end of the term, and I (as far as I know right now) am not. I won't say Amy has lost the will to live, that would be overly dramatic, but she seems to have evolved past the “Let me help you” stage of teaching into the “I don't give a rat's ass, figure it out yourself” stage. I know she's a good teacher. I think she no longer cares. (And who could blame her.)

Now that I've denigrated her, in her defense I should say Amy was assigned to teach a subject she has no business teaching: Excel. She isn't a computer person. She's muddled through keyboarding, and fumbled through PowerPoint, but it was clear today she met her match. I was sitting with my seven-person College & Career Success class, when suddenly Amy appeared at the door, looking pale and desperate.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“Could you come up to the lab when you have a minute?”

Five minutes later I dismissed my class and went up to the computer lab on the second floor. I eased in through the door and looked around. She had a class of maybe 15 students, half of them out of their seats, milling around the printer. The room was bustling with activity. Amy was helping an older woman who looked confused. Amy looked up as I came in.

“Oh, we figured it out.”

I watched for a couple minutes. Amy came over to me, and we whispered together. She told me she shouldn't be teaching Excel, because she didn't know what she was doing. I mentioned what I was teaching: College & Career Success and PowerPoint, two classes she has taught before. Her eyes lit up. I could tell she would be thrilled to take those two classes, if only I would take the Excel class off her hands.

Part of me was like, yes! I get to be a hero, and then my next thought was, Oh no, I think there are some people in this class who have never used Excel before. Possibly they haven't even used a computer before.The smell of fear was in the air. That could be a a lot of work. On the other hand, I would be down to five preps instead of six, and that would be less work.

And I could get rid of the talking class. The CCS class. That was the clincher for me. Much as I love helping new students get off on the right foot, I really dislike being the “leader” of a class. I can handle “guide,” “facilitator,” or “coach,” but too much talking wears me down to a nub. What can I say. I'm an introvert. Even seven students can seem like an army when all eyes are on me. In the computer class, doing a demonstration is different from leading a discussion. I don't have to talk about feelings—theirs and mine. I don't have to share. I just have to describe the actions needed to format values, or copy cell contents, or absolute a cell reference. Just the facts.

Like a wimp, I told Amy if she could get permission to swap, I would be willing. She was off like a shot. Within three minutes she was back with a look of profound relief on her face. She announced to the class that I would be taking over come Thursday. I waved at them tentatively. They sized me up. And that was that. As I went off to PowerPoint, I wondered guiltily how the College & Career Success students would feel about having Amy take over their class. After all, it's unprofessional to switch instructors mid-stream, as it were. But the good of the many (15 Excel students) outweighed the good of the few (7 CCS students and 2 PowerPoint students). The utilitarian philosophy wins again.

I haven't seen the fly for a few minutes. My cat is lounging again, stretched out on his favorite blue cotton throw rug. Did he catch and eat that fly, I wonder? Is he looking smug and well-fed? Nuts. Eddie always looks smug and well-fed. He could be digesting a fly. Then again, the fly could have migrated into less turbulent airspace, AKA my bedroom. Guess I'll find out.

I'm a blip

In the wake of the various disasters and traumas in the news, I am finding it hard to focus on the trivially mundane, parched, pedestrian blip I call my life. What is there to say? I haven't been in a car wreck (yet), I haven't been shot at (recently), I haven't failed a class (yet)... really, what is there to complain about, you might ask? Go ahead, ask, but be careful what you ask for, because the chronic malcontent always has something to complain about. Whine is my middle name. Well, not really, it's Mary, but don't tell anyone. Whine is so much more accurate. And funnier.

On Thursday we ended a term at the career college. Friday was spent complaining to my colleagues, grading a few papers, complaining some more, and then driving with Bravadita to in-service in Wilsonville, to sit through three back-to-back sessions of peer-produced palaver aimed at making us better teachers. (Did it work? How could you possibly tell?) After which, we escaped, only to spend the next 45 minutes sitting in near stand-still traffic, trying to get back in time to grade a few more papers, maybe actually turn in our grades.

And when we finally made it back to the Clackamas site, we found out we wouldn't be allowed to stay very long—low enrollments means no evening orientation, which means the staff goes home early (those slackers!), which means we don't get to use the copy machines to print out syllabuses (syllabi? No, apparently not anymore), which means we will have to frantically compete with each other for copies on Monday morning. Argh.

Today I was tired. No excuses, just gray skies and foggy neurons. Even after the clouds departed, leaving lovely blue sky, my mental fog remained. I knew I should feel peppier, with so much sunlight, but with all the drama and trauma of the week, I just can't seem to conjure any gumption. The best I could do was take out the trash. Some days, that feels like climbing Everest.

It occurred to me today that none of this so-called life, this thing I think is so important, none of it really matters. In the end, all this crap I have accumulated will end up in a landfill. All my art will molder into dust. All my writing, all these stupid journals, will get dumped in the recycling bin and shredded to make more important things like paper bags or cardboard boxes. No one will care, because I have no descendants to speak of. (Well, I have one niece I don't know very well. I guess I could designate her my heir, but that seems like a mean thing to do to someone I like.) I certainly won't care what becomes of all my earthly crap, because I'll be dead, beyond caring, quickly forgotten. The whole sordid thing I call my life is just a blip in the continuum of human existence.

Just a drop in the ocean of life. Just a few breaths in the timeline of breaths. A couple shuffles on the mortal coil. Carrying on the fine tradition of being born, complaining about how life sucks, and then dying to make room for someone else to do the same. You know, it just occurred to me that this blog might outlast me. What a thought. Long live the blip.

Curiouser and curiouser

Curiouser and curiouser is all I can say. The crazy online university I have been privileged to pay my discretionary income to for the past six years has decided to take away Dr. C., my new (full-time, punctual, reliable, thorough, and trustworthy) dissertation chairperson and restore Dr. G., the former (part-time, flaky, incompetent, untrustworthy) chairperson that I had previously. Huh. Go figure. After all the propaganda about moving to a new full-timer mentor model, now this? I can only presume that means they hired Dr. G. full-time, which if true speaks volumes about conditions at this online institution. If they really did hire Dr. G. full-time, I can only conclude they don't pay attention to and/or care about student evaluations (see RateMyProfessor), and they don't check competency or mentoring skills. In short, they are desperate.

I know all about being hired in desperation. That is how I got my current job teaching at the career college. The program director hung onto my resume for two years, before desperation compelled her to dig to the bottom of her desk drawer for some sorry loser that was so marginal he or she might actually still be unemployed. She called me in on a Friday, and after a brief conversation, apparently decided I met the hiring criteria (alive and willing), and handed me two books. “The term starts Monday,” she said. “Be here at 7:30. Good luck!”

After I read the e-mail about the change in mentors, I thanked the person at the university who informed me of this unexpected turn of events, and in my e-mail I expressed my concern, as diplomatically as I could, while not actually claiming outright that Dr. G. is an incompetent flake. After all, that is just my opinion, based on very few interactions with her over the course of about five months. Not enough data to make such a claim. And really, who would take me seriously if I did make such a claim? I know what goes on in educational institutions when students complain. I'm a teacher, too. It's us against them.

I try to be the kind of student I wish all my students would be: conscientious, responsible, and not flaky. Let me give you some examples of flaky. A flaky student turns in an ethics essay full of cliches, grammar errors, and frothy emotional appeals, and then says, “I didn't have enough time to finish it because it was my sister's birthday.” Or she turns in an Access database assignment in which she tried to save each Access table as an individual file. Or he turns in a test that is half-blank, saying he was up half the night working on a paper for another class. Or he claims his mother accidentally laundered his flashdrive. Or she whines that someone stole all her books when her car was busted into when she was out dancing until two a.m. the night before. Or she asks a fellow classmate to inform you that she has to miss class because she is getting a tattoo.... well, you get my drift, right? Flaky. I try not to be like that. I offer no excuses for my sloppy logic, my bad grammar, or my misaligned problem and purpose statements.

I'm sure I have more to say, but my cat has decided it is time to stop whining. He always knows best. Signing off.

Time to put on my thinking cap

I got the news yesterday. I'm sad to report my concept paper is not ready for prime time. Yet. I hope there's a yet trailing along somewhere in this journey. My chairperson, we'll call her Dr. C for Cruella de Ville, politely smacked my pathetic concept aside, saying I hadn't yet provided a clear line between the problem, the purpose, and the research question. And where the heck is my explicit contribution to theory?

Well, I beg your pardon! After my righteous indignation passed, I calmed down. It's too soon to panic. This is only the second iteration, and it was a complete overhaul from the first submission. It would have been akin to winning the lottery to have it approved as is. 

And it could be worse. My first submission was sent to the Graduate School way before it was ready, courtesy of my flakey previous chair, using up one of my three chances. No chance of that happening this time around. I've got a methodologist hacking my paper to shreds, and I can tell by her polite comments that she is capable of ruthlessness. Hey, I'm a teacher. I can see through thinly veiled comments to the seething impatience below. Like, come on, already, you... you student, you. 


I can look on the bright side, at least for a nanosecond. It is reassuring to know without a doubt Dr. C is actually reading my work—thoroughly. I feel like I've had a colonoscopy, that is how thoroughly. It is embarrassing to realize I have exposed my sloppy thinking to the person who has the power to flunk me. I'd rather display my high-water pants, my granny panties, my mismatched socks, my increasingly luxuriant mustache... anything but reveal my feeble reasoning skills and sloppy wordcraft. Hey, in my defense, behind every writer there is a great editor, right? I don't have anyone but my brain helping me, and on a good day my brain is trying to kill me. It's a wonder I made it this far. Yeah, way to look on the bright side.

I thought I had largely shed my student persona after passing comps, but it appears when I lack conviction, I revert to paddling about in the kiddie pool. If I want to swim in the deep end with the big kids, I'm going to have to put on my svelte waterproof thinking cap. Wait, I thought I already did that. Hmmmm. Well, maybe I need to go down to the hat boutique and get a smarter chapeau, because the one I have is obviously leaking. 


Back in a moment.

Waiting

I had a dream last night. I was following a wilderness path, struggling over mounds of dirt, around thorny bushes, clawing my way along a chain-link fence, finally reaching the edge of a placid lake across which stretched a causeway made of green grass. I wanted to get across that causeway to the far shore, but I was afraid the lake would rise with the tide and swallow the path, leaving me to drown. I followed a group of faceless, genderless people who were further along than the path than I. They didn't see me, but they led the way. I followed them out upon the causeway, running after them along the green grass, my heart in my throat. The water began to rise! They were running ahead of me, appearing to run on the surface of the water. They marked the route. I splashed, I waded, feeling the grass under my feet and the water swirling around my knees. I was almost to shore when the water came up, and I was swimming for my life. I thrashed and gasped, a few more feet, and I made it. I pulled myself up onto the far shore, safe.

How's that for a dream, eh? The perfect metaphor for my dissertation struggle—my life struggle—with a happy ending. I triumphed, albeit soggy and terrified, but I triumphed. I hope I remember this dream later, when I am faced with the pressures of living, working, waiting.

My dissertation chairperson gave me an ETA: feedback by Thursday of this week. My landlord will be ready to tear out all my windows and replace them on Thursday and Friday. Two momentous events that terrify me. I can't change either one. All I can do is wait. So, I'm waiting.

What do you do while you are waiting? Let me guess. You probably get out all those projects you've kept on hold for a time like this, your rainy day projects. Your mending, your deep cleaning, your writing and art projects... now you efficiently set to work. You probably hum while you do this. And at the end of the day, you have some fruit to show for your labor. Or at least some clean cupboards and hemmed pants.

Well, let me tell you how the chronic malcontent waits. I fret. I stew. I muddle around in the wreckage of the future. I seek a new past. I'm anywhere but in the present, that's for sure. I listen to music that inspires me to madness (Associates, the Buggles, Gary Numan, Bill Nelson, Depeche Mode, and of course, the Monkees, because it reminds me of Karen, who died). I write in this blog. I'm so self-absorbed I can hardly breathe.

I know the solution. To get outside, and outside of myself, to do something for others. I helped my mother add minutes to her new Tracfone. I went for a trot in the park. I kissed my cat. I thanked the sun gods for burning off the low clouds and leaving clear, blue skies. And I remembered my dream. Waiting can feel like shite, but it can also be fertile ground.

Finally, at long last... summer. Don't blink.

This week, while I wait for my dissertation chairperson to review my concept paper, I have had time to fret over other things. That's what I usually do, fret. Wreckage of the future, and all that. Except, oddly enough, this week has largely been a fret-free zone. Other than orchestrating a conference call between T-Mobile and Tracfone, other than having the plumber walking through my place twenty times in one day, other than having to empty my bathroom of everything except the porcelain... it's been a great vacation. I credit the weather. I guess I just can't get overly fretful when the sun is shining.

I don't have windows to the north or the south. What I have to the east is blocked by a holly tree (the topic of a future rant). That means in the summer, the Love Shack is cool and dark. I wear a sweatshirt and my usual cap, and socks with my slippers. I wait impatiently. At 4:30 p.m., on cue, the sun peeks around the corner of the building, over the mountain, aiming straight at my front windows. In a matter of minutes, the fabulous shining orb takes the stage and begins to bake the front of the building. It's fairly brutal. It's 89° outside right now, and I'm pretty sure it's over 95° in my apartment. (And no, I don't have AC.) 


The Love Shack used to have awnings, removed a couple years ago when George painted the place. It used to be gray. Now it's taupe. With blue doors. And no awnings. It looks naked. With no awnings between me and the western sun, in May I batten down against the onslaught: portable mylar sun shades hung from cup hooks, then the regular window shade (futile), and drapes. Well, they aren't really drapes, they're actually Home Depot paint drop cloths. Natural color cotton/linen-type stuff, hanging on a thick dowel from the top of the window. It's a wall o' drapes in name only, doing a half-assed job of blocking the sun.  

Right now, the drapes on the front window are glowing a lovely golden color, like a fireball is coming straight at us. I feel a little like I'm in a burrow, cowering in the face of a very bright searchlight. Hot air rushes in through the barely open window. The ceiling fan is valiantly tossing hot air against my skin. The temperature outside is dropping, and soon I will throw open all five of my windows. Later I will go outside and sprinkle water on my parched squash plants. But it will be hours before the air in here cools back down into the low 80s. I have taken off my hat and socks. My skin is exposed. My blood is finally circulating. My hands actually feel warm. I can move my fingers. My feet are alive. I laugh when I notice that it's only 70° in Los Angeles. Eat out your little Hollywood hearts.


Tomorrow I hear clouds will ease in from the south. As I am struggling to get up at 5:30 a.m. to return to work after my summer vacation, it might actually rain a little. Some may breathe a sigh of relief, but not I. I will begin to fret. In the meantime, the cat is sacked out on the floor, sprawled like a shooting victim. He knows what to do in the heat: Don't move. It's siesta time. 

Plumbing makes my world go round

My cat is hunkered under a chair in the bedroom, hoping the pounding and power tools will stop shattering our peaceful morning. I feel like doing the same. My vacation is almost over, and my landlord has called in a plumber. So much for peaceful relaxation. When I opened my bleary eyes at the ungodly hour of 9:00 a.m., staggered to the bathroom, and turned on the faucet, there was nothing but air. Where usually there is a reliable stream of hot water, nothing, only a gurgle, like a mirage, taunting me, as if to say, this is how it feels to live in another century. Or in an undeveloped country. How would you feel if you had to tote that water five miles from a well or a spring? City kid!

Come on. This is the 21st century. I know what would happen if I had to tote water. I'd die. Call me crazy, but I rely on running water. In fact, without the four modern conveniences—running water, heat, electricity, and internet—I'd shrivel up and die. You know how crazy I got when my internet was on the fritz. Seriously, have you ever counted how many times you wash your hands in the course of your day? I tell you, being able to flush the toilet is a gift from the plumbing gods.

A few minutes ago, my landlord George knocked on my door and said, “We can replace your bathtub fixtures at the same time we do the ones in the other apartment. Can we get to your tub?”

“Right now?” I gulped.

“In a few minutes.”

“Uh, okay.”

Gradually over the years, I have remodeled the space I live in (fondly nicknamed the Love Shack) to suit the whims and fancies of one cat. That means any window that has space for a window seat gets one. That means there are chairs placed just ... so, to make it easy to reach the food court. That means there are places to hide, things to climb on, and lots of rugs to tear up. That means there's a screened back porch with a perfect vista point on which to lounge and eyeball the neighborhood. There's even a cloth-covered office chair with a tall back that is super fun to perch on. (I would try it myself if my butt weren't so wide.)

There's a lovely window in the bathroom, over the tub, that looks out on prime territory for monitoring cats, birds, and the occasional stray dog. I built a cat seat, of course. What a marvel of engineering! An L-shaped contraption, all wood, painted a deep forest green, lining two walls while resting on the edge of the tub, and attached precariously to the windowsill by one tiny screw. Surprisingly (because I am not a carpenter), over the years, the construct has held up well, despite the regular pounding of my 15-pound cat's huge pile-driver feet (he's all muscle). Pat on back for Carol.

After George's knock on the door, I spent a nerve-wracking half hour disassembling the room formerly known as my bathroom. (Who knew you could get so much crap into a 5 x 8 foot space. If I had to, I could probably figure out how to live in there. Don't laugh, I once lived in a 10 x 10 storefront. I know what is possible.) It took me awhile to deconstruct the cat seat. It was wedged in tight. I had to cut off a piece to maneuver it out the door. Now it is parked in the bedroom, making that room impassable. But the bathroom is so empty sound echoes. Strange how it looks bigger with nothing in it. 

And here he is now, a big hulking guy named Eli, carrying a wrench. He makes my place seem tiny and cramped. I am reminded again that this is a one-person/one-cat apartment. Bang, thump, and now he's walking out the front door with a handful of corroded metal: my bathtub fixtures! Two minutes later I hear pounding, knocking, and sawing, in the bathroom of the empty unit next door. I go into my bathroom with my camera, planning to document the mess. There are two pipes sticking out where there used to be handles to turn on hot and cold. As I watch, they slide into the wall, yanked from the other side, like the disappearing legs of the wicked witch of the East. Plumbing and pounding and resentment: Oh my!

A shack of her own

It's amazing how much difference a little sunshine makes. I'm a new man. Woman. Whatever. Who cares, the sun is shining! What could possibly go wrong when the sun is shining? I spent the morning pulling weeds in the front garden, navigating the steps (yes, the same steps that tossed my mother like a stick doll, leaving her breathless and broken in the concrete step well), and saying howdy to all the pedestrian strolling by on their way to Mt Tabor Park to blow up stuff and watch the waterfront fireworks. My skin is tingling from too much sun. Skin cancer? Who cares! The sun is shining! I planted some squash and beets that have been languishing for weeks in the shade of my back porch. One volunteer sunflower nodded far above my head while I impersonated Pizarro, machete in hand, hacking at the undergrowth. Look there! Evidence that tomato plants really do reseed themselves! 

It's July 4, my own personal emancipation day. Nine years ago I left a lousy relationship. I packed up and moved all my stuff while he was camping for the weekend with his three teen-age sons. I took nothing that wasn't mine, except perhaps the stray cat. I moved to my present humble abode on the slope of the extinct volcano. I have never regretted anything about that relationship except starting it in the first place and waiting so long to leave it. Only two regrets in almost five years isn't bad, right?

When I first moved, I couldn't believe I had so much space to myself. A kitchen! An entire bathroom! A bedroom, for me? And a living room, a room in which to finally allow myself to live. Who cares if the place is dark, moldy, and drafty. Who cares if the most frequent bus route in the city lies fifteen feet from my bedroom window. Who cares that the bizarre acoustics of this corner allow me to hear everything, I mean everything, night or day. Who cares! No longer was I relegated to one corner, one stinky kitchen nook, one shelf in the fridge. My boxes finally had a home. 


I was slow to unpack, sure that something would go wrong. For months I expected a knock on the door and a gruff voice saying, no, you are too happy. You are not allowed to be that happy. We will have to kill you now. Whenever I was scared and feeling unsure what to do, I would ask Meme, the long-haired cat. He would say (in cat language), “Sleep! Eat! Play! Poop!” I did what he suggested, and gradually I grew to fill the space. 

Now, nine years later, I'm hemmed in on all sides by artwork, books, binders, photos, and 55 years' of knick-knacks, all sitting on shelves I built with my own hands. Some of the shelves are a little askew, not quite square, but they are multi-colored and embedded in the studs of the walls, built to last, built to hold the evidence of my life. I love my shelves. I love this shack. The fact that someday I will have to leave makes the passing days bittersweet. As the landlord begins the strenuous task of replacing all the windows in the building, I can see what will eventually come.

But today, life is good. My concept paper is put to bed—for one week, anyway, the sun is shining, and it's a day to celebrate freedom. Freedom from tyranny of all kinds. Freedom to live as I please. Freedom to be who I am. Freedom to just be. Just for today, even the malcontent is smiling.

Happy Freedom Day.

One person's mountain is another's mole hill, or something like that

You know how when you are out hiking and you see a hill in front of you, and you think, oh, if I just make it over that rise, then I'll be at the top. Then I'll have the world spread out below me. Then I can rest and enjoy the view. You know what I mean? And then you struggle to the top of the hill, and gosh darn it if there isn't another hill in front of you, an even higher one, that you couldn't see because it was hidden by the little one in front?

I just got to the top of the little hill. Yes, I'm pleased to say that I submitted the second draft of my concept paper to my chairperson today. I'm sure she'll have some edits, but for now, the thing is off my plate onto hers, and I hope she's hungry, because she's got 45 pages to read, not counting the annotated bibliography (which I bet nobody reads. I finally figured out the annotated bibliography is a drop-and-give-me-100 sort of exercise, designed to separate the whiners from the stoics. Stoics win.)

So what did I do after I got to the top of the hill? I felt strangely empty. I ran a couple errands in a haphazard, poorly planned fashion, and then I went home and took a nap. I wanted to keep sleeping. My head is full of June fog. Oh, wait. It's July now, isn't it. I guess I need to peel off June and see what barn or shed awaits me on the July page of whatever promotional calendar hangs on my wall. The weather was dull today, to match my brain fog and my mood. You'd think I would be elated, wouldn't you. Well, you would be wrong. For one thing, I'm a chronic malcontent. Elated is not in my lexicon of feelings. For another thing, look at my calendar. There are some massive mountains I must climb. This little hill was a gentle slope compared to what I fear is coming next.

I'm feeling anxious that this dissertation process is taking so long. I essentially re-wrote the entire paper (except for the annotated bibliography), so it was a fairly large undertaking. But there were many distractions along the way: work, cat, Mom... If I worked on the paper 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, it probably would have taken about two weeks. Maybe less. It took me two months of Fridays and half days on Saturday and Sunday. What's that, like twelve days? Yeah, that sounds about right.

I am so tired I can't think. I will finish this when I have some functioning brain cells.