Flogging a dubious metaphor

For the past few hours I've been working on the introductory chapter of my dissertation proposal. This is the chapter that contains obtuse subheadings, like... Theoretical Framework. When I see the word framework, I think of furniture, like folding screens and wooden headboards. Scaffolding. Shelves. Say, have I mentioned my DIY shelving? I have shelves on virtually every wall in my dinky apartment, in line with the theory that the floor looks bigger if everything is stored overhead.

I digress. Or do I?

I'm building the literary equivalent of shelving. I'm scaffolding my argument. I'm assembling pipes and planks to support my topic and justify my method and design. Ho hum. I suddenly felt my brain slipping away. Flogging a dubious metaphor makes me tired. I'm sure you have already gone to the refrigerator.

Anyway, I am making progress, slow and steady. There's no race to win, you know. We are all winners in the human race. Whatever, it's a nice idea, even if it doesn't feel much like I'm winning most of the time. What is winning, anyhow? One of those mysteries of life, right up there with why men spit. I would define winning as success on my terms, I guess, although I don't always know what my terms are. In other words, I don't always know what I want. I say I want one thing, but my actions say I apparently want something else.

Right now, I want to stop typing and make tracks to the refrigerator. Not that there is anything comforting in there: zucchini, collard greens, eggs.... tomorrow's breakfast. Hey, I know what I want. I want all the things that used to comfort me to comfort me again: I'm talking about food, money, and love. It irks me that these things, once so comforting, in excess and mishandled now just make me feel worse. What gives? Is it no longer true that if one is good, two is better? Does it no longer hold that bigger is better, nower is wower, whiter is righter? Wha—? Well, whatever. Do you get my drift? Probably not. I'm having trouble focusing. It's late. Tomorrow morning comes too soon. Sleep is my last refuge, and that is where I am headed.

Scratching the teacher burnout again

I just finished the weekly task of grading the work of my keyboarding students. They are required to type and print a variety of asinine documents. Scintillating and informative topics like The Integrity and Ethics of Job Applicants. Ending Procrastination. As if students actually pay attention to the content of what they are typing. Ha. If they did, they wouldn't make so many damn mistakes.

The software program scores their work and catches their typos, but not their formatting errors. That is where I come in. Out comes the red pen. I rip their documents bloody. Add line spaces here! Delete this extra space! Insert a page number, no don't just type a 2, what the hell are you thinking, do you want every page to be numbered page 2? I spend way too much time (and derive a disgusting amount of satisfaction) editing the crap out of their work, and then feel righteously angry when they don't feel inclined to revise. What! Are you going to settle for 9 points when you could have all 10? When will I learn they don't care? They just want to pass the class.

I've been proofreading the same documents for almost ten years. Reports in business style and academic style, memos, chart notes, letters, tables... over and over and over. Every few terms, I catch a break from the scheduling gods, and I'm excused from the keyboarding drudgery. Next term, I hear, I might get lucky. The trade-off is that I may end up with a new class, an introductory computer class for medical students who are notoriously computer illiterate (and sadly unconcerned about it). I hear there are three sections. With a lot of students in each. So I hear.

The term is winding down, two weeks to go. Teachers are going through reviews. Today I sat in a computer lab listening to a keyboarding instructor walk his students through the review for the keyboarding final.

“What fingers do you use to type the number four?” he asked in a slow voice, like they were third graders.

“R4 L1!” they shouted.

“Very good, class. And what fingers do you use to type the number six?”

“R4 L1!” they shouted again. No, I thought, that is not what the software teaches us. I almost interrupted. I put my hand over my mouth. Before I stick my foot in it, I must have evidence! I signed myself into his computer class (let him puzzle over who this new student is, two weeks before the end of the term). I poked around the lessons until I found what I sought. Lesson 14. Yes! I knew it. It's L4 R1!

By then he'd moved on. All the answers were written on the whiteboard, all copied dutifully into students' notes. Would I really consider undermining his authority by pointing out to him that he is teaching them wrong information?

Well, what does wrong mean when it comes to typing, I ask you. It's not like this is a medical terminology class and he taught them salpingo-oophaboomboom instead of salpingo-oophorectomy. My father typed with his two index fingers on a manual Underwood with sticky keys. He wasn't graded down by his superior officer, as far as I know. He retired early, a happy man, and spent more than 20 years never worrying about typing again. I've seen students type 70 words a minute with two fingers—I wouldn't have believed it possible if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I've seen a person with one hand type faster than most people type with two. When it comes to typing, I guess the lesson to be learned is.... who the hell cares what fingers you use? Let's just be grateful we have fingers, if we do, and let it go with that.

Every time I grade keyboarding I am reminded of how much I hate grading keyboarding. I know I could just let it go, do less, give them less feedback, demand less, expect less (if that is possible), but my sense of integrity rears its weary head. No, can't give less than... oh, about 96%, I'd say. I used to give 110% but after ten years, I just don't have it left to give. Not for keyboarding, not for anything, anymore. I've got a classic case of teacher burnout. It's like athlete's foot. Or a yeast infection. It burns, it itches, and it doesn't go away.

Ear to the floor

There's a new noise to complain about at the Love Shack. It's a more or less continuous high-pitched whine, like a blow dryer or a dustbuster. At first I thought I was just hearing things. Getting old. Crazy person, overly sensitive to sound, self-diagnosed with misophonia, any little noise can grate on my nerves. Maybe it's just some kind of ringing in my ears, the kind of ringing that happened when I laid my head on my purring cat for too long. (Fun at first but not recommended.)

I put my ear to the wall between my apartment and my noisy neighbor. When she's home I can hear all kinds of things. I don't even have to try. I hear her blowing her nose. I hear her toilet flush. I hear her getting lucky on Saturday nights. (When the bed starts shaking, I'm tempted to pound on the wall, just for the hell of it.) This time I heard nothing. Hard to believe, but I don't think the noise is coming from her place. Unless her little dog is using the blow dryer to dry his short and curlies.

I made like an Indian, oh sorry, Native American, and put my ear to the floor. Amazing what you can hear when you do that. (If you don't mind getting cooties.) The floor was gently humming.

Was the noise in the basement? I got my laundry room key and went downstairs to have a look. The basement in this old triplex is mostly a dank, dark, unfinished cave. The laundry room is lit by two bare bulbs, festooned with spider webs, dust, and lint from years of tenants' laundry. It's cold in summer, colder in winter, not pleasant. The front side, though, is a different story. In the front of the triplex, a very steep driveway used to lead to a pair of very narrow garages, built for very narrow cars. Think Model T and you might have it. Some years ago someone bricked up the wall with glass bricks. The sun coming in through the bricks refracts the light, illuminating piles of furniture and boxes. (My landlords use the brightly lit front space for storage.) One of the old wooden garage doors is still in place, giving the place some authenticity.

I skulked through the basement, listening carefully while dodging spider webs and a smelly wetsuit (my noisy neighbor is a surfer, did I mention that?). All I heard was the usual cracking and sighing of an old crumbling shack. Nothing in the basement was making the whining noise, although I could still hear it. It was in the walls, in the floors, not loud, just an insidious whine that set my teeth on edge.

I heard it best in my bedroom and bathroom, which means it is probably something in my silent neighbor's apartment. Her name is Mary. I rarely see her. She's a ghost, compared to Joy, my neighbor on the other side (the one with the pooping dog). What is Mary doing over there?

Maybe it's a dentist's drill, maybe she's practicing to be a dental tech. No, maybe it's a hair dryer, maybe she had a stroke while sitting under a hair dryer and now she's a mummy, toasting in the heat while the dryer whines on and on. I know, maybe she's got a roombot! That would be cool. Except wouldn't the whining sound change as it bashed into walls and ran over shoes and stuff? I don't know. If I had a roombot, my cat would shred my favorite books, destroy my clothes, and then hide under the bed till next Christmas.

I have no idea if the whining is actually constant. I do leave the Love Shack once in a while. I don't know what happens when I'm gone. My cat could be watching porn for all I know. My cat could be in cahoots with my neighbor. With both my neighbors! To drive me crazy. Does that sound crazy? Well, whatever. After three days of the mysterious whine, one day I came home, and it was gone.

Then a few days later I got home, and it was back. Looks like I'd better learn to live with it. I'm trying. I've managed to set aside my curiosity about its source long enough to take my afternoon naps between morning and evening classes. I've written a note, in my mind, several notes, actually, something along the lines of: Dear neighbor, what is that odd sound, do you hear it? Is it perhaps coming from your apartment? If so, would you please SHUT IT OFF!

This weekend the noise is off. Not on. Whatever. I don't even know what makes the noise. Maybe it's my ears after all. Maybe it is a function of how much salt I eat, or how much sleep I get, or how addicted I am to Scandal. I don't know. I'm beginning to think the universe is testing me to find out how spiritually evolved I am. The doctoral saga. The career college meltdown. The dog poop. The whining noise.

On the bright side, my sister's boyfriend has surfaced in SE Asia and reports he is intact. She's ecstatic, despite winter storm Nemo burying Boston in two feet of wet snow. I'm happy for her. Love is a wonderful thing. So I hear. Hmmm. I'm not sure I can trust my ears on that, either. Oh well.

Feeling anything but safe

Today after my two morning classes, I dutifully joined an assembly of 40 or so faculty and staff in a two-hour safety session. I yawned my way through tales of perps and victims, disasters and catastrophes, told by two decrepit retired law enforcement officers, now criminal justice teachers. All their fear-mongering accelerated my heart rate, which I'm sure is the only thing that kept me awake. (I worked till 10:30 the night before, hence my walking-zombie condition.) I'd like to scoff and say compared to the Chronic Malcontent, these guys were rank amateurs, but actually they did a pretty good job of disseminating doom, with the main difference between them and me being that they actually believe they have some control over the disaster situation, and I am quite sure we don't. Hence my propensity to wring my hands and bemoan the hand-basket thing.

These two guys were almost old enough to be my fathers (ick), but they acted like kids, no, let me be clear, they acted like boys, telling their tales of blood, guts, and death, laughing about the time they blew up four sticks of dynamite in a hole, just to see what would happen. Giggling over the time they pepper-sprayed the engine of their colleagues' cop car. Describing with gusto the many times they had to slam a perp to the ground. My father was in law enforcement. I never heard him describe stories like these, but I know he was one of them, the brotherhood. Just like these two old has-beens, he never grew up. His jokes were juvenile, usually involving sex. His interests were narrow: family and football. His loyalty was clear: white and might make right.

I left the safety seminar feeling anything but safe. A three-hour nap restored me to my usual fugue state. I turned on my computer and took a desultory look at my dissertation proposal—the next course started on Monday. The chair responded to my literature review submission very positively. I don't think she read much of it, but most of it wasn't new. Next up, the introduction. I thought she'd be chewing on the lit review for a few days, but nope, it's back on my plate. Time to dig in to my topic again, time to grab it between my yellowing teeth and slam it to the ground. Maybe poke out its eyes and rip off its penis, and then spray it down with cayenne pepper, just to be on the safe side.

There's so much to do. We are coming up on finals week at the career college. I need a haircut. My laundry is piled to the rafters. I should call my mom. My sister's boyfriend is still missing in SE Asia. Bravadita is still down for the count with the flu bug from hell. The earthquake is coming. At least three of my students probably brought a gun to school in their cars. And we're all going to hell in a hand-basket.

I may have to emote at some point

I've been buried in my literature review almost every moment I haven't been working, sleeping, or attending a meeting. I forgot the Superbowl was today. Not that I would have watched it, probably, but since I am a student of marketing, I have a half-hearted professional interest in the commercials. I don't feel bad. I can watch them tomorrow from the student lab at work. That will help me stay awake.

One good thing in being alone a lot is that I don't have much contact with other people, especially sick people. So far I have managed to avoid the flu bug. Knock on high-density particle board. I don't know how I have been so lucky. Zinc, maybe? Irascibility, maybe? My friend Bravadita is suffering mightily and dosing heavily. Hope you feel better soon.

Another benefit to being single is that you don't have to keep track of other people much. When I was in  a relationship, everything I did, every thought I thought, was in relation to my partner. He existed, I orbited. My sister's boyfriend has gone AWOL in a foreign country. She's distraught with worry. I would be, too, if I had allowed myself to commit to (rather than collide with) another person's fortunes. I've never been much of a joiner. For her sake, I hope he turns up soon.

I feel reluctant to whine when others are suffering. But what the heck. People are suffering all the time, everywhere. I can't keep my whining on hold indefinitely. I am the Chronic Malcontent, after all. It's my job to whine. Right now I'm too tired to whine. I have too many big words floating in my head. Ontology. Epistemology. The icons on my desktop are starting to come loose when I blink. I guess that means my eyes are crossing or something. I just wanted to write something, to let you know I'm still emoting.

Is it odd or is it god?

Does detoxification invite the unexpected? There's a question for you. I'm supposedly in detox mode, thanks to the shenanigans of my person shaman (my naturopath, Dr. Tony). And all these weird things are coming in the mail. Well, maybe the recurring invitation to AARP is not so weird. But a letter from the University of Northern Iowa announcing a job opening for a Marketing Department Head, now that was unexpected. How on earth did they get my name? And how desperate are they, that they would undertake a nationwide search? I have to assume it's nationwide—there is no rational reason they would be singling me out.

And then there's the pamphlet from the Historic Message Church, notifying me of an event called the Bible Prophecy Conference, at which we can find out what the last night on earth will look like. Tempting, but no thanks. If it doesn't involve chocolate and a bottle of chardonnay, as I suspect it doesn't, I don't want to hear about it. I guess they probably knocked on my door, but I wasn't home. Whew. If that is not proof of the existence of god, I don't know what is.

And then, today the mail carrier delivered a box from Amazon, an occurrence that happens with some frequency at my place, I'm embarrassed to admit. Yes, I am a book junkie. But when I opened the box, I thought, hey, these aren't the smutty vampire novels I ordered, oh, no, not another Amazon mix up. What is this massive tome? A book on the history of costume illustration? What? Maybe another me, from a former life, but... oh. There is a card. Oh, hey, it's a present from a former significant other. Like, way former, from the 1980s. Wow. Totally unexpected and just the slightest bit creepy.

We like to think oddities come in threes, so there you have it, three odd things in my mailbox. But there was plenty of other crap in the mailbox, the inbox, and the cat box. And plenty of other oddities around that I probably failed to notice because I'm too self-absorbed to pay attention to anything but myself.

Now I'm wondering what Cedar Falls, Iowa, looks like. Ha, dream on. Not that I would consider moving to the Midwest, but it's nice to think they might want me. Unfortunately, I don't meet the qualifications. I haven't finished my doctorate, and I haven't published anything. (Yet.) Oh well. The last line of the letter is a request that if I don't, would I please pass the letter along to someone who does. Sigh.

The long-awaited back adjustment

It's always an adventure when I visit the naturopath. What will he do to me this time, I wonder. Will he stick me full of needles? Will he give me a magic potion? Will I drink it or rub it on my stomach while reciting a Walt Whitman poem? (I just made that up, he's never asked me to recite poetry.) I never know what I will get when I visit the naturopath, and I'm always slightly bemused when I leave. Today was no exception.

He rubbed his hands gleefully when I came in. Uh-oh, I thought.

“Hi, come on in! I have some new things to try on you.”

“Okay,” I said gamely. Great. How much is this going to cost, I thought, but didn't ask out loud.

“I've wanted to learn these techniques for a long time, but I had to finish my other degree first,” he said, pointing at a wall of framed certificates that could have been made with PowerPoint and a laser printer.

Feeling some trepidation, I laid down on the table, the one with the hole where your butt goes (never thought about the unsettling implications of that hole before now), and he proceeded to do a round of unfamiliar muscle testing techniques. He was brisk, energetic, and efficient. Then he told me to sit up. He counted my vertebrae and then shot me in the spine with a little gun.

Not shot me, but poked me, pushed me, I don't know what the gizmo did. It was just a thump. Nothing exploded, don't worry. I have no idea what the purpose of the procedure was, but he tested more stuff, shot me a few more times in various places along my spine. Then he torqued my rib cage back into alignment (who knew it was misaligned?). Then he told me to wrap my arms around myself and give myself a great big hug, because he was going to give me the come to jesus back adjustment he couldn't do until now, because I wasn't strong enough to handle it. Really? For three years you've been saving this moment?

I sat up and wrapped my arms around myself, thinking oh no, here it comes, the moment when my neck snaps, my brain strokes out, my bowels void into the hole in the table. Before I had a chance to draw a breath, he said, “Breathe out.” Then he put his arms around me, and all I could see was his blue shirt. It was strangely intimate. He smelled mildly like b.o. I bet he uses no deodorant. He's a natural guy, after all. And then, while I was inhaling his unique scent and wondering if this looked as ridiculous as it felt, he lifted me straight up off the table, leaving my back somewhere behind. Craaaaack. My spine unraveled like the San Andreas. He did it one more time and let me go.

I sat there, wishing I could shake myself like a dog, work out the kinks, try to regain my grasp on reality. Who am I, again? What just happened?

“I've just done a major detox on your system,” he cackled. “Drink three liters of water daily for the next two days!”

I was out of his office in less than a half hour, and only $105 poorer, which is the least I've ever paid him, I think, in the three years I've been seeing him. Bargain! Was I floating just a little as I walked out to my car? Where's my car, again?

I had enough energy after I left to stop at the grocery store for vittles to replenish my empty larder, but after that I was tuckered out. De-toxing is tiring work, apparently. I hit the mattress when I got home, and slept like a dead person until my bladder woke me up. (Damn, I hate drinking water!) I worked on my Literature Review for awhile, updating sources, trying to make sense of the nonsensical. That got boring fast. There's nothing on TV worth watching. The cat is draped over my wrists as I type this. It's 10:00 pm, time for bed, and I'm wide awake and probably won't get to sleep until 3:00 am. Curses! But at least I'm detoxed!

Hold the presses: I need to slow my chi down

Chi? I suppose I should write it as qi. Would you have a clue what I'm talking about? I don't, but apparently I need more houseplants. In the world of feng shui, the chi around my house shouldn't move too quickly, and a few fluffy fern-like things will do the trick. Except for the fact that I live in a cave. Hmmm. As I was flipping channels, I heard some commentators say ferns will slow down my chi, but they didn't say what to do if you live in a cave.

Well, living under boulders seems to be de rigeur these days. So maybe there's a plant that will restore my chi in the darkness of a cave dwelling. Chia pets, maybe.

I worked on my dissertation proposal this evening and got hopelessly bogged down in my study of systems thinking. I'm pretty good at finding sources, and very skilled at downloading them and saving them with meaningfully coded file names. I can do that all day long. I can even read them and highlight interesting bits of text with the cute little highlighter pen tool (if the pdf files are not too old and funky). But ask me to read critically and synthesize the bits of information into coherent observations that I can place strategically into my paper to support my argument... well, really, you are asking too much from this old parched brain.

Parched. Drink more water. Apparently, it will help your brain function better. I'm off to take a swig. Be right back. I'm back. It took longer than I anticipated, because first I had to re-fill my water bottle. Then I had to put on the teapot, because I decided tea would taste better than water, although I can't seem to find a tea that I really like, because I'm not doing dairy or soy or rice or almond or oat or hemp and without something white in it, black tea is so... robust. Then I had to give the cat a back rub. Then while I was choosing my tea flavor, he stole my chair, and I had to negotiate its return. So you can see what drinking water can lead to.

Several of the articles I reviewed tonight were written by Chinese scholars responding to a western author who is known for a lifetime of study of soft systems methodology. (You're like, soft what? I know, me too.) These Chinese guys are super-smart, even though their English isn't always so great. I can tell they really know how to parse a thought. I mean, they are analytical to the max, rambling for pages on the ontological and epistemological meanings of hard and soft systems methodologies as they discuss why Checkland is a loser. I'm like a pre-schooler next to these guys. But every now and then, they can surprise me. After several long erudite paragraphs about the nature of reality, one guy concluded, “If there is no commitment to realism, it will be a really bad thing.” I burst out laughing when I read that sentence. Yes! I totally agree! Ignoring realism is not a good thing. And I love how you say it so we can all understand it! Thank you, Mr. Wu (2010, p. 196).

I talked to my mother earlier tonight, during one of my many breaks. She described her trip to the store as a prowl. I like picturing my skinny little mother prowling. She's like the opposite of a prowler, of course. That is why it's so funny. Here's another funny story about my mother. My little brother (who lives near her) told me she had a run-in with a neighbor over some dog poop. Apparently my mother saw her neighbor's dog pooping somewhere it shouldn't have, and no one cleaned it up. So my mother bagged up the poop and took it over to the neighbor's condo, where she was preparing to hurl it over the fence onto her patio. Unfortunately for my mother, the neighbor caught her in the act. Busted!

Mom never told me this story, which indicates she either forgot (possible) or she was so embarrassed at getting caught that, in spite of my recent run-ins with a neighbor's dog poop, she chose not to tell me (more likely). I won't ask her about it. I don't want to embarrass her. But I like this feisty old mother of mine. She's pretty fun since my dad died. I think her chi is a lot better now. I guess being liberated from a half-century long semi-crappy marriage can do that to you. Plus she has a lot of houseplants.

The chronic malcontent is feeling nasty, brutish, and short

I've known that I have obsessive compulsive tendencies for a long time. When I was in first grade, I looked down on classmates who ate crayons, but I repeatedly bit the hard little buttons on my cardigan sweaters until they cracked. As I got older, I fell into the habit of ripping my cuticles until they bled and tearing my fingernails down to the quick. In seventh grade I went through a period where I pulled out my eyelashes.

I always knew those behaviors were socially unacceptable and felt a pervasive sense of shame about them, but I was never able to control my obsession. My parents would chastise me—Stop picking!—but weren't inclined to discover what compelled me to engage in such obvious self-destruction.

Now I know I'm in good company. Dermatillomaniacs are legion. Just Google skin picking. You'll see forums full of shattering admissions from self-mutilators who are practically weeping with relief at finding out they are not alone in their insanity. Some of them have disfigured themselves by pulling out their hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes. Others have torn apart their fingers and endured life-threatening infections. As self-mutilators go, I'm not very high on the charts. On any given day, I may sport only one band-aid on a finger. In times of high stress, I may have two or rarely three.

These are times of high stress. As I get closer to finishing my dissertation, I think about disaster (shootings, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis). I think about death (illness, injury, insanity). I think about old age, if I live that long (dementia, stroke, nursinghome). It's not enough to stop me from going to work or the store or the gas station. I forget about it while I'm not thinking about myself. (Hint, hint.)

How do you cope? Do you overeat? Do you drink? Do you cut yourself, or sleep too much, or bury yourself in video games? Why is it so excruciating to be present sometimes? Am I the only one? Do you ever feel too twitchy to inhabit your own skin?

Then something wacky happens, like my one and only niece goes and has a baby, a charming little fellow with a lively eye. Something changes. There's a flavor of something I hardly ever taste... could it be hope? Then I laugh, wondering what kinds of obsessions he will have, coming from this wacky family, and I can see the comical side of surviving in times of high stress. We do what we can. We do what we must. It might be nasty, brutish, and short but it's all we've got.

The artist's futile lament: I gotta be me

It's almost 11:00 p.m. I've spent much of the day grading student work. I haven't even been outside today. The cold winter sun came and went, and I missed it, hunkered in my cave. It's midterm time. Instructors are required to submit midterm grades, in case they get run over by a truck before the end of the term. Or get fired. Or they quit because they found a  better job with a better company. (Dream on.) It takes time to do a good job grading. I joked with someone today that I probably could just throw darts at a dartboard. Ha ha, I'm sure my students wouldn't think that was funny.

Actually, once I see some writing samples, I can pretty accurately predict the grade each student will earn by the end of the term. We don't grade on the curve. It's all about points. Everyone can get an A if they do all the work satisfactorily. I have no problem giving everyone an A. Considering that my job security depends on how students evaluate me, I guess I'd say giving all As is part of how I keep my job. Kidddddingggg. No, really. I'm kidding. Just because I work at one of those low-life for-profit colleges we all love to bash doesn't mean I don't provide the best learning experience I possibly can. I'm sure I can do better on any given day—who couldn't?—but I really do try to show up and do a good job for these students. Most of whom don't give a rat's ass about learning, I might add. They just want to get out and on with their lives.

This term I have fewer computer classes and more business classes. That means more stuff to read. Two sections of Organizational Management (four students total), two sections of Professional Selling (three students total), one section of an introductory level Marketing and Finance (two students). One section of Access (five students, one of whom refuses to do any work, so he won't be around much longer). And two sections of Keyboarding, with about 25 students total). Do you wonder how this career college stays afloat, with such a low student/teacher ratio? I do.

I often complain about Keyboarding as a reason I want to poke my eyes out with a stick. I use the word “teaching” very loosely when speaking of Keyboarding. Teaching isn't exactly what I do as I stroll around behind the students, peering over their shoulders, poking at their monitors with an accusing finger. This is how you set a tab stop! Center the table! Vertically! Which way is vertically? Google it! I'm the Keyboarding drill sergeant from hell. Most of the students find me very annoying. But how else can I stay awake in class, I ask you?

After nine years, I can say with some certainty that I have pretty much perfected the job of grading keyboarding. I have developed a very colorful Excel spreadsheet that does all of the calculations for me. All I have to do is plug in the numbers. It's a thing of beauty, but unfortunately, I still have to review many documents for accuracy and formatting, a very repetitive and boring process. Letters, memos, reports, just kill me now. I've seen these documents so many times in nine years I bet I could recite them out loud. Especially the medical transcription documents. These are the documents the medical students must type from dictation files. They hate typing big words like... salpingo-oophorectomy, acute suppurative streptococcal infection, drippy gooey pus-filled tonsillar exudate (I embellished that one a little bit), as much as I hate reading them. This is why I am earning a doctorate? To teach medical keyboarders how to transcribe dictation? Where's that stick?

After nine years, am I done? Am I ready to finally admit I've done all I can do at the career college, and it's time to move on? I think I'm almost ready. Soon, very soon. Within a year, I think. On to what, though, is the question.

The cat just settled into the chair behind me and now has somehow managed to take over the entire chair. There isn't room for both our fat asses. I guess that means it's time to stop and take a nap or something. When in doubt, do what the cat does.

I'd be running in circles if I could only remember why

I'm circling my dissertation proposal like a fly buzzing a pile of... no, wait, I'm not going there again. Tired metaphor, too close to home. Been on that pile, still scraping the poop off my clutch pedal. I posted my irate diatribe (re: tiny fecund dogs and their fetid output) in the laundry room (neatly sandwiched in a plastic sleeve and hung with a pushpin), but I'm not sure it's been read yet. Nothing has changed. Except I bought more flashlights.

I have a memory like a gnat's lifespan. That is to say, very short. A few days ago I was irate over something unrelated to stepping in dog poop, and I was anxious to blog about it. But now, the passage of time has eroded the memory. Now all I remember is that I used to be irate about something I thought was worth blogging about. Maybe I've found the secret path to serenity: dementia. If you can't remember what upset you, why get upset at all?

It's a trick. My brain is trying to kill me again. It knows I am feeling the pressure to finish the dissertation proposal, and it is eroding my cognitive functions in a frantic attempt to keep me calm. I guess it's working. I feel pretty good. This despite the fact that I've had Chapter 2 (the Literature Review) open on my computer for the past three hours, and I haven't typed a single word. La la la. What have I been doing? Anything but. I cleaned the cat box (and the human box). I refilled the minutes on my stupid smartphone. I roasted some beets. I made some tea. I nuked my rice-filled foot warmer. I'm like a cat, turning round and round before settling down to the important work of napping. Except I've been turning and turning for three hours. And napping is not an option.

On the radio today I heard part of a program about Oregon's new education standards. I usually don't pay attention to K-12 stuff; it's too complicated for my peanut-brain. But someone said something that caught my attention today: The new standards are developed from an assessment of “college and career readiness,” and form the basis for a decision to focus core reading curricula on fewer classic literature texts and more informational texts. I want to know who decided what constitutes “college and career readiness”? Did a cabal of employers hold a book burning, in the name of enhancing the development of job skills? No more 1984, no more The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Nope, now it's all about How to Read an Annual Report.

And now I remember what I was so upset about a few days ago. Oh, darn. Now I've forgotten again. But that reminds me of something else. University of Phoenix is having accreditation troubles. I don't think they'll actually lose their accreditation, but they have such a monstrous online presence, I worry that there will be negative fallout for all for-profit online institutions, including the one to which I pay my hard-earned cash. As if there wasn't already a huge stigma against both for-profit institutions and online learning. I'm not a fan of University of Phoenix. I'm also not a fan of for-profit higher education. I am feeling very unemployable after hearing this news.

The years of budget cuts have forced the public universities, state colleges, and community colleges to raise tuition and cut back on under-performing programs. They have also become more selective about who they admit, leaving the dregs (non-traditional students) nothing but the for-profit sector. For-profit higher education institutions wouldn't have swooped in if there weren't such good pickings left by the failure of public institutions to meet demand. With the ready availability of student loan money, for-profits make a killing, students get a second-rate education (at best), and taxpayers are on the hook for the loans that end up in default.

Now I remember what it was. I was driving home late Wednesday night after work, listening to NPR. A guest on Tell Me More said he was against the idea that public funds (i.e., taxpayer-funded student loan money) should be used to support degree programs such as art, music, and anthropology, because, he claimed, the graduates of these programs incur student loans they will be hard-pressed to pay back. This argument came as no surprise to me, but I was still saddened to hear it.

The for-profits don't waste their time offering art, music, or anthropology. They offer programs that are in high-demand fields such as healthcare, business, legal arts, and criminal justice. Makes sense. It's all about the money. But what happens if public institutions do the same thing? Are we destined to become a nation of healthcare workers? What happens to society if we don't also grow artists, poets, writers, musicians, and philosophers? Who will dig up old bones and excavate buried tombs? Who will record our experience in art, music, and word? Who will help us make sense of it all?

Society is richer for the artists and anthropologists. So, in my opinion, society should pay to educate them, even if those student loans are never paid back. But I'm a frustrated artist and a crazy recovering debtor and clearly not in my right mind.

The for-profit college motto: Move 'em in and move 'em out!

My cat is sitting on my computer table, helping me write my dissertation proposal. Sometimes he sits with his back to me, wide butt flaring regally behind him; sometimes he flops bonelessly over on my lap. But he's always lurking somewhere nearby, staring at me with a critical eye. (I call him Eddie but I suspect his real name is Squint Eastwood. Or Krawl the Warrior King.) I'm beginning to think he has authored all my work, from December of 2005 until now. I sure don't remember writing any of it. Unless I was having a seven-year out-of-body experience, I have to conclude my cat is responsible for my entire academic career.

He expresses his displeasure with my word choice by grabbing at my fingerless gloves (also known as socks), which keep my hands warm while I type. Once he snags me, nothing short of human sacrifice will get him to let go. I can distract him by scratching his neck with my free hand. That usually puts him in the zone. Then I can sneak my glove out of his claws. Sometimes. He's relentlessly on guard. I don't know when he finds the time to write.

He exits, stage right, leaving wads of hair wafting all over the keyboard. Little mementos to encourage me to draw on his wisdom while I struggle to remember my dissertation topic. Funny, once the concept paper was off my plate, I apparently jettisoned the mountains of information I had piled up in my brain, sort of like flipping the switch on the garbage disposal. Whooosh. All gone. Now I need that knowledge back, but it's been hauled off to the city dump. Figuratively speaking.

I can hardly bear to read the wretched tome now, after exorcising it so thoroughly from my brain. All I see are typos and grammar errors, cliches and redundancies. Reading it is torture. Argh, it's the Abu Ghraib of literature reviews! Who wrote this crap? It sounds like it was written by a fat lazy cat with nothing better to do than wax maudlin about the lack of academic quality in for-profit career colleges. Oh, wait. Huh?

Well, never mind. Tonight, after a day of mixed rain and snow, the temperature is dropping, and I can look forward to sliding to work in the morning. That should be entertaining, if it doesn't end in tears, which driving on ice usually does. Maybe I'll get lucky. Maybe there will be a two-hour late start. We'll have to cram six hours of class time into four, else we'll have to make up time on yet another Friday. But hey, we'll get it done. Move 'em in and move 'em out, that's our motto. The show must go on. Never let it be said we didn't teach! Of course, the relationship between teaching and learning at our institution is tenuous at best. But what do you expect from for-profit higher education? I figure it's a good day when management leaves us alone and no one is trying to kill us.

I remember the days when I was uninformed about the pecking order of higher education. I thought teaching at a college was a prestigious honor. I was loyal and committed to my college, willing to put my money where my mouth was, ready to embark upon this doctoral journey. I naively thought that earning this degree would earn me the college's commitment and loyalty in return. Ah ha ha. I also used to think we cared about quality... the quality of our teaching, the quality of our course materials, the quality of our customer service efforts. I cared, some other teachers cared, but guess who didn't care? Yep. Management.

Tonight I'm at home, but a few stalwart teachers are teaching a few stubbornly committed students while the roads turn black with ice. Apparently no one in authority is there to make the decision to cancel class for the remainder of the evening so folks can try to get home before the ice gets really bad. Absentee management. I wouldn't be surprised if I went up to the third floor corporate offices and found nothing but cobwebs. Who is steering this sinking ship? Could be we are rudderless, adrift. Could be management sneaked off in the lifeboats with all the loot while we were busy bailing the hold.

I really stepped in it this time

There's nothing like stepping in dog poop to make you appreciate those easily overlooked moments when things are actually going pretty well. I was having a few of those moments. You know what I mean. Those mornings when you get up on time, and there's no cat barf to slow you down. When students show up and do their work without complaining. When computers work properly. When it snows prettily and doesn't stick to the roads. Those moments.

You're going along and going along, and everything seems tolerable. And then, blam, dog poop. You step in it. It happened to me on Thursday morning. Somewhere between my back door and my car, a landmine lurked, but I couldn't see it in the pre-dawn darkness. It wasn't until my heater kicked in while I was on the way to work that I smelled it. Then I knew I had stepped in it.

Luckily it's only a fifteen minute drive to work. When I parked my car, it was almost daylight. I opened the door and stepped out onto the pavement. A gloppy mess of poop covered the entire front of my left shoe, and not surprisingly, it was all over my clutch pedal. Agh. (I have an expression of eeewww on my face as I type this.)

I tried to wipe the mess off my shoe in the wet ivy that edged the parking lot, with mixed results. Better than nothing. I got out my spray bottle of white vinegar and sprayed my shoe and then my clutch pedal, trying to catch the stinky drips with paper towels. Once inside the building, I made a beeline for the restroom, where I washed my shoe under tepid water, trying not to breathe through my nose.

All morning I walked around school thinking, I'm tracking little invisible pellets of dog poop all over the carpet. When I found myself crossing my leg, I quickly put it down, for fear someone would see the muck in the tread of my shoe. I imagined the smell of dog poop wafting behind me like Pigpen's dust cloud. As I drove home for my mid-day nap, I breathed through my nose all the way, hyper-aware of my shoe on the filthy clutch pedal, permanently grinding the poop into the grooves.

When I got home I looked for the evidence of my mishap. It had rained hard and snowed, and I found nothing definitive, no skid mark, no telltale smashed pile. The path was clear, and believe me, I scrutinized it carefully. Nothing on the path itself, but the churned up grassy area right in front of my driver's door looked suspiciously mushy. The poop could have washed away into the dirt and grass, what was left of it, anyway: I inadvertently took most of it with me to work. Or I suppose someone could have cleaned it up.

Did the poop belong to my neighbor's dog? At the time, I wasn't positive. But now, today in the cold light of day, I found more poop in the same place. Little dinky poop, lots of it, almost like she encouraged her wretched little mutt to poop right there, right in front of my car door, right where I would be most likely to step in it. Could this be payback for the times I scooped the poop on the path and left it on her back steps? Could she be retaliating because late one night last week I pounded the floor with a hammer in a frustrated frenzy, hoping to get her to turn her music down? Does this mean... war? At the Love Shack?

Time for action. I spent some time composing a polite note. I posted it in the basement laundry room. I described my poopy experience and asked for help to find a solution. I didn't get mad. I didn't blame anyone. I tried to be both diplomatic and humorous. I'm not sure if I succeeded, though. You know how when you are really, really ticked, but you are trying to pretend like you aren't, and everything comes out sideways? This could be one of those times. Still, I intend to give my landsharks a copy of the letter. Might as well put it all on red.

I'm over it now. What can you do? The world is full of invisible poop. I mean, think about it. There's no way to know how much poop you stepped in during your day today. It could be everywhere: on your shoes, on the bottom of the wheely backpack you dragged along a sidewalk, on library books, on the vinyl seat at Denny's, on doorknobs, faucets, and coffee cup handles. Everywhere. Why bother to care? As you already know, we are screwed. See previous post about volcanoes, and then google Krakatoa.

On the bright side, my cat has been thoroughly entertained by all the new smells in my apartment.

Whining: Anger coming out a really small hole

At last I can move on to writing the dissertation proposal. Yay, I guess. Now that I have my marching orders from my dissertation chairperson (expand the Literature Review first, then work on the Introduction, and then do the Methodology chapter), I find myself strangely reluctant to dive back into this project. Maybe it's not so strange. The path to earning a Ph.D. is littered with the hopes of the ones who gave up in the home stretch. That could be me, if it weren't for my pride and my nagging desire not to disappoint my mother. It could still be me. I make no promises. Daily I consider heading for the hills.

I called my chairperson last week to find out next steps. I recognized her speaking style after nine years of teaching adults. She spoke slowly and carefully, as if to a two-year-old, with frequent insertions of phrases like, “Does that make sense?” I reined in my inclination to be myself and tried to meet her where she was. I tried not to interrupt. I kept my sentences short. I let her finish the checklist I am sure was on her desk in front of her: Describe process. Check. Ask for understanding. Check. Encourage continued progress. Check. Probe for warning signs. Check. I let her go through her process, but I really just wanted her to talk with me without the affectation, without condescension. She sounds much younger than me. I have no doubt I am much older.

We are having a short-lived heat wave here in the Portland area. It's 51°, according to the gadget on my desktop. In January! Wow! Lest you suggest I get out the sandals, know that it won't last. I heard cold air is moving in on Wednesday, bringing the possibility of snow. That makes me want to go back to bed. My heart sags in the winter. My blood slows down. I could hibernate with no problem. Sleep seems the only way through it. Oh, now it's 49°. We are sinking back into the cold black hole. Oh, great. I just heard my neighbor's wretched dog barking out back, which means I will have little stinky offerings to dodge in the dark when I leave for work in the morning. We were doing so well. For a few weeks, I thought she was at last doing her part to be a good neighbor. But sadly, last week I narrowly missed stepping in some dog poop left on the path. True to my chronically malcontented passive aggressive nature, I scooped it up and deposited it on her back steps. I'm not sure she could have known it was me and not her infernal dog that put it there. Maybe she knew. Later she turned her music up so loud I couldn't hear my own music over the pounding of her bass. I fear the Love Shack is now a war zone.

And now I have this new writing project, which is just more of the old writing project, the same old topic I am thoroughly sick of. No wonder people give up. They are bored to tears, picking away at the scabs of a topic that used to be marginally interesting and which now oozes blood, shredded by too many reviewers chasing APA errors, alignment failures, and critical thinking lapses. Give me a break. Nobody cares about this topic, least of all me. I was warned this would happen. Is this this the academic equivalent of waterboarding, designed to break the spirit in the name of building character? Don't I have enough character already, with all my years of failures large and small?

The next couple months look like they might be dreary. The weather, the job, the neighbor, the studies... I am sure I can find other things to whine about. My car. My bowels. Guns and ammo. You name it, I can make it all about me. Once again, faced with my ever present resentment, uncertainty, and fear, I resort to whining, which as my friend says, is just anger coming out a really small hole.

Who cares: We are so screwed

Usually I write a post and then I choose some drawing to go with it. This time I'm doing it backward: I'm choosing the drawing and letting that direct what I write. Look at me pushing the creative envelope in the new year. Whoa.

I notice I had a hard time figuring out how big to make the nose. Look at all those extra lines. It's like the shape kept growing more and more bulbous. I could have tried to photoshop out all those mistakes. (Isn't it odd how photoshop is now a verb? I don't even have Photoshop anymore. It's like xeroxing on a Konica. Or putting Kleenex on your shopping list when you always buy Kroger's generic not-so-soft.)

This drawing reminds me of a show I saw on PBS about a newly discovered Leonardo da Vinci painting. A stylish gal narrated the story of how the painting was authenticated. She spent a lot of time walking around Milan and Paris. I wish they had spent more time filming the art and less time filming her strutting the cobblestone streets in her tight lemon yellow dress. Despite her apparent role as a fashion plate, she was impressively fluent in Italian and French. Anyway, whatever, the point is, they authenticated the painting by infrared light, which showed that the painter had changed his mind about the position of a thumb. First he painted it bending one way. Then he painted it bending another and covered up the older version with layers of paint, something a copy cat artist would never do. That is one compelling reason for believing the painting was an original da Vinci. All this to say, the drawing you see here is untouched. It's authentic. I have integrity: I leave my mistakes for the world to see.

I saw another show on PBS, possibly the same night. I don't remember, because the second show scared the bejesus out of me. I forgot all about the new da Vinci painting until my drawing reminded me just now. Who cares about art when the world's most deadliest volcano is about to erupt! Yep, I'm talking about Katla in Iceland. Holy moly. We are so screwed. That is what I kept saying to my cat as I watched the story unfold, getting more and more terrified. Who cares about art, even a new da Vinci? Who cares about dissertations? When Katla blows, none of that will matter. We should be heading south now. Argh. We are so screwed.

Iceland has many volcanoes. Some are scarier than others. The scientists on the show introduced Laki, followed by Hekla, and then Katla, all of which are worse than the one with the impossible name that erupted a couple years ago. We are talking a mile-high plume of ash blocking out the sun in the northern hemisphere for a year, covering the ground with 15 feet of inert non-fertile material, and coating the land (and your lungs) with sulfuric acid. And like a cranky possibly pregnant teenager, Katla is late.

I thought the earthquake off the Oregon coast was going to be the Big One, but Katla makes our imminent rumble look like a re-run of Dancing with the Stars. Ho hum. Our local disaster will be over in five minutes. Sure, we'll be picking up the pieces for a while, but when Katla erupts, the potential damage will be widespread and long lived. Of course, it all depends on how high the plume goes and how much material is emitted. Maybe it won't be so bad. Yeah, maybe it will be a walk in the park on a slightly rainy day. Annoying but not a catastrophe.

Well, you can imagine, a story like this gets the Chronic Malcontent amped beyond all reason. Yes! Another excuse to claim every worthwhile pursuit is pointlessly doomed. Yay. Now can I retire to that adobe hut in the desert? (I can practically hear you say, What's stopping you?)

Wow, who knew all this verbiage would be inspired from this one drawing?

Resistance to change: The ongoing challenge

The theme for January is always the same: Do it differently than I did last year. Don't eat so much, eat better food, get more exercise, drink more water, read better quality trash, write more, live less fearfully... bla bla bla. After years of New Years' resolutions abandoned by February, it seems sort of pointless. So I am enjoying the fact that I got a few things done over the winter break, without any expectation that my new behaviors will turn into ongoing habits. If I drink more water today, that doesn't mean I won't dehydrate myself tomorrow. I make no promises.

My dissertation chairperson took time out of her holiday celebration to send an email letting me know that my concept paper was approved by the mysterious Graduate School reviewers. I know this is good news, although all I can see is the even taller mountain ahead of me, the mountain known as the dissertation proposal. It's just more of the same: writing to persuade some anonymous reviewers that my study is worth conducting. It's hard to conjure up enthusiasm for a project that has long since lost its allure.

Someday this will all be over. Right. And someday I will be dead. There's no telling which will come first, when you get to my age. I was heartened to read in the university discussion posts that I'm not the oldest graduate student: Several are in their sixties. Well, at the rate I'm going, that could be me in a few more years. Funny, I don't feel that old.

Whenever I want to stoke my internal boiler of bitter self-righteousness, I read books on servant leadership and think about how the management style at the career college that employs me is anything but that. In fact, I would characterize the college management style as slim on leadership and devoid of service. Servant leadership is a concept that appeals to the frustrated idealist in me. I have a deeply held belief that employees have value and should be treated with respect. Further, I believe that management's job is to serve employees, so that employees in turn can serve their customers. To me, it seems self-evident. That is why I get so cranky when the so-called leadership at the career college treats faculty as if they are an expendable resource, like tissues to be used and tossed away.

Rumor has it that it is now a fact: the site in Clackamas is moving. Where and when remains uncertain, but because the lease is up in June, we surmise it will be before then. It is unlikely management would move during the middle of a term. If management intends to move between terms, then moving day would likely be Friday, May 3. If this is the case, the new term would start Monday, May 6, in a shiny new location. Whether they will bring their old grimy teachers to the shiny new location remains to be seen.

One of the precepts of the servant leadership philosophy is that management includes employees in discussions about disruptive change. I think moving or closing a campus is a change worth discussing with employees, don't you? It is eight weeks till our next in-service meeting. How much you want to bet management fails to mention any specific plans for moving or closing the campus? Further, how much are you willing to bet that, if we ask straight out, that direct answers will not be forthcoming?

As I was cruising indeed.com doing what all people do when they cruise indeed.com, I found a new job listing for the college: Instructional Designer for growing career college's online division. Must have a Master's in education. That sounds sort of interesting. I don't qualify, of course, even if they were willing to hire a snarky old teacher from within. I got the feeling as I read the ad that, as their brick and mortar campuses are tanking due to lack of enrollments, the school owners and managers are putting all their hopes on the online dream. Like every other college and university on the planet. Yeah, lots of luck with that, dinky career college.

There is no shortage of change in the world, that's for sure. It seems to me the people that survive and succeed are the ones that are able to adapt to change, whatever form it takes. The ones that wither in the ditch are the ones that say things like, We've always done it that way; This will never catch on; I can't learn anything new; Don't tell me, I don't want to hear it. I can relate. I have my own resistance to change. No new technology, please, my head is exploding. No new laws, I can't keep up with the ones we have. No new jargon, I can barely understand you as it is.

What if I learned to embrace change for its own sake? What if adapting to change was a grand adventure rather than a terrifying obligation? What if I knew I could not fail? Would I do anything differently in this new year? Or would I slink back into my snarky role as the Chronic Malcontent and blame “management” for my resentments?

Happy one year anniversary to the Chronic Malcontent

It's been almost a year since I started blogging as the Chronic Malcontent. I began with no purpose in mind other than to share my writing and drawings in a public space. A few things have changed. I used to disclose my gender and age. Then I had a birthday and decided I didn't want to think about age anymore. I stopped claiming to be female, too. I've never been particularly attached to being female, and at times I've actually been quite resentful about it. Can you blame me? Considering the way women are treated in many parts of the world, it's not a quality that gladdens my heart. The only thing worse than being a woman is being a man. But I digress.

My fan base has more than tripled. How cool is that? Before you get too impressed, that means instead of just my sister reading my blog, now I also have two friends, maybe more, who regularly check in. Or so they say. Plus a whole lot of people from Russia who apparently drop in by accident. I won't tell you how many visitors I have received during the past year, because you will laugh and say, Why do you bother? For sure I don't get enough visitors to be able to sell ad space to Google. In the world of blogs, I'm not even a blip. It's sort of calming to realize I am just one blog in a sea of blogs, floating in the blogosphere like a baby planet nucleus a billion light years from the next blog. No pressure to perform, because no one knows I exist. Or how to reach me. My anonymity gives me the shelter to share myself with you.

One hundred-and-thirty-some-odd posts later, I can discern some patterns. It seems my musings are usually prompted by an event. Small or large, something happens that resonates with me, something tragic, something funny, something puzzling, and I feel compelled to discuss it. Poke at it. Whine about it. Weep over it. My topics have mostly focused on my endless journey to earn a Ph.D., my adventures teaching at a career college, and my occasional attendance at family events, but I do stray into other areas like an explorer who fears cannibals might be lurking behind the next tree. The overall theme is one of whining, true to the nature of chronic malcontentedness. (Which, by the way, Blogger does not recognize as a real word.)

I've mulled over the end of the world, the impending inevitable earthquake and tsunami, the contents of a bug-out bag, and the collapse of the financial system. My latest itch is the possible demise of the power grid by solar flares. (You can make an aluminum foil-covered box to store your electronic gear in, did you know that? But if the power grid goes down, lotta good it will do ya. And your car will be toast, in case you thought you could escape to the other side of the planet.) Say what you will, there is something comical about our fascination with the end of the world.

I've complained endlessly about higher education. I whine almost daily about my quest to finish the Ph.D. I started back in December of 2005. It's taken a year to beat my concept paper into a condition deemed acceptable for submitting to the Graduate School reviewers. (Still waiting for the verdict.) I whine about the career college I've worked at for the past nine years, how the students don't want to take responsibility for their learning, how I am too burned out to care, how tiring it is to drive 25 miles to Wilsonville in the wee dark hours of pre-dawn winter, how much I despise teaching keyboarding. Waaa, poor me, I have a job.

I've burned my neighbor in effigy for being too noisy. I've mentally trussed her dog to the wall with duct tape for pooping all over the path to my back door. I left the poop on her back step. I really did, I didn't just fantasize about it. I've welcomed spring, I've reveled in summer, I've dreaded fall, and now I'm enduring winter. I've mourned the loss of Davy Jones and 20 kids in Newtown. A lot of life under the bridge during the past year. I'm older, grayer, saggier... I wonder, am I snarkier? Am I more malcontented since I started this blog? Not sure. I'm more self-obsessed, I think. Whenever something happens to me these days, I think about how I can spin it for my next blog post. I'm becoming more conscious about telling the stories of my life.

So, after a year, what do you think? Should I focus on one topic? Sooner or later the dissertation will be behind me. Sooner or later I will leave the chains of keyboarding in the dust. Winter will pass, spring will sneak up on us, and summer will make life worth living again. What is the point of it all? I ask you. No, really, tell me if you know what the point of it all is. Some might say to serve god. Some might say to have fun. Some might say there is no point, no meaning to life except what we give it.

That's all I can think of right now. Looks like I've written myself into a corner. I'll stop now and just say, Happy new year from the Chronic Malcontent.

Merry Christmas and a genderless new year

My mother called me last night and in typical indirect style expressed her desire to go shopping today. “I need some boots,” she said. “Lilly got some nice boots at Nordstrom Rack.”

“That's nice,” I said. After a few moments, I caught on. “Do you want me to take you to Clackamas?”

“Well, I know you are very busy.”

I tried to reassure her that no, actually, I wasn't busy. I was on vacation. It wasn't until I said, “I need to get gas, and I usually get it in Clackamas,” she said, “Oh, really?” like I had just offered her a ticket to the Superbowl. Well, maybe not the Superbowl. Ice Capades, maybe. Anyway, she was thrilled that I had a reason to go to Clackamas, and she would be able to tag along. On the way she told me she didn't feel as comfortable as she used to driving out of her neighborhood. Inwardly I sighed. I can see what is coming. More time spent taking my mother shopping.

Luckily she is a guerilla shopper, like me. Get in, get out. Off we went to Clackamas (yes, the same Clackamas where a shooter killed two people and wounded one before taking his own life at the mall on December 11). We weren't going to the actual mall. We were going to the poor man's mall across the street. Target, Kohl's, Nordstrom Rack... and the career college I work for, but since I am on vacation this week, I did my best not to notice the ugly orange stucco building I'll be slaving in next week.

Mom pawed through the racks at the Rack. She found some Uggs but decided the $169.95 price exceeded her budget, so we walked a few doors down to Payless Shoes. She sat on a bench, and I fetched boots for her to try on. The sales clerk, an older gal wearing all black, scurried by us. “These are all on sale!” she trilled merrily.

Mom tried on several boots and settled on a pair of black suede calf-high boots (man-made materials, made in China, $34.99 on sale), and we went up to the cash register. The sales clerk helped her navigate the credit card machine. “Now just swipe your card, honey!” I turned away to look at slippers, not wanting to see the train wreck as my mother poked at the little credit card screen with the corner of her credit card.

The door bell rang. Someone came in. I wasn't paying attention. I heard the sales clerk say, “Can I help you, sir? Sir?” It took a moment to realize she was talking to me. I turned around. The clerk said, “Ma'am.” I said, “I'm with her,” pointing at my mother. The clerk finished the transaction, red-faced. She said something inane about the doorbell that made me think she was trying to make amends for mislabeling my gender. I ignored her discomfort and waited for my mother by the door.

It's not the first time in my life I have been mistaken for a man. When I was a hippie-wannabe teenager with long straight hair and a flat chest, someone asked me, “Are you a boy or a girl?” It's true sometimes I wear my hair quite short, but it seems odd to me that people would have so much trouble identifying my gender, because I have an undeniably female figure. By that I mean, hips. I have hips. But I hide my shape with big jackets. And that is what happened today. I was wearing an over-sized black wool men's jacket with broad shoulders and a black cap over my very short hair. Most likely, she saw my bare neck and broad shoulders from the back, and leaped to the conclusion that I was male. Maybe she was a tiny bit frightened, wondering how I got from the door to the slipper aisle so quickly. Maybe she thought I might have a weapon hidden under my big black jacket.

We left and went over to Target, where I bought a stainless steel omelette pan (on sale). Then we were done. I took her home. Later while I was steaming a piece of salmon in my new omelette pan, I thought about gender and how annoying it is that we have pronouns to differentiate the sexes. He, she. Him, her. Hers, his. Why can't there be just one word? We managed to make Ms. politically correct. Why can't we do it with He/she and his/her? Some other languages have gender-neutral pronouns, and I guess some folks have suggested some English alternatives that have yet to catch on.

I'm not a linguist. Most days I feel barely literate. What would it take to change the way we use gender-specific language? Maybe a society that is based on gender equality? That might be a good place to start.

I survived the family gathering

Merry Effing Christmas from the Chronic Malcontent. I spent the day in the tub, recovering from a sugar high. Last night was the paternal annual family gathering. You know how I feel about families. And gatherings. My siblings hung me out to dry. My brother and his girlfriend opted out with conveniently contracted head colds. My older brother, who lives in Seaside, Oregon, was ostensibly blocked by rain and snow. My sister had the best excuse: She is in Munich, where it is apparently 50° and sunny, learning how to sprechen deutsch with her British boyfriend. Likely story.

So it was just me, escorting the maternal parental unit to the party. The evening was cold and damp, but not raining, not icy. Just a typical chilly Portland Christmas. I parked across the street and helped her over the curbs. Mom wore her best Christmas sweatshirt and jeans and chugged up the wet concrete steps to the front door like a little locomotive. She's by far the oldest of the clan, the last of a generation, but you can't call her the matriarch of that family, since we are related to them by marriage. We are all that is left of my father's presence, and once my mother is gone, I'm sure they will forget all about us. At least the children will. The grandchildren never knew us.

I've come to realize raising families has a lot in common with working retail. Parents are the sales associates, going through the daily obligations of birthing, rearing, and launching children. Merchandise in, merchandise out. You price them, front and face them, and send them out into the world and what do you have to show for it? You track sales against costs and hope you net a profit. But you can never win. It's never done, as long as there is breath left in the body.

I remember holiday gatherings on other Christmas eves. My father's mother had a lot of siblings, so there were tons of cousins and second cousins. With so many people, it's not surprising something went wrong. Somewhere back in the foggy history there was an argument. People chose up sides. My mother is the bridge between what is left of the factions. I wonder if anyone remembers what they were fighting about.

I went to the party with the intention of going off my strict no-sugar diet. I didn't just fall off the wagon, I jumped off, lay down on the ground, and let the wheels of epicurean indulgence crush me to a pulp. My cousin Anne makes a particularly luscious type of cookie. I'll pass on the fudge, just give me those deceptively simple little white wafers with the creme filling. I ate three. Plus some other crap. And a few swallows of a Chardonnay to really put paid to the debacle. Meanwhile, three children under the age of five jumped around and screamed like fiends. The teenage generation huddled together on the couch, watching an iPad or something, coming up occasionally to forage. The 40-something generation sprawled in chairs, exhausted from watching their little jumping brats, too dazed from alcohol and sugar to do more than mutter lame attempts to connect: Hi, how are you? What was your name, again? I grazed the dessert table. People left me alone.

At one point toward the end of the evening, I wandered into the kitchen and found four adults (one my mother), all wearing Christmas red, standing apart from one another, not talking, not moving, except for their jaws, slowly chewing brownies, fudge, and chocolate. Their eyes were distant. Were they getting ready to share some philosophical epiphany on the nature of the chemical relationship between fat and sugar? They were in the zone. Some zone, anyway. My entrance didn't break the spell. I had to say something before anyone woke up and responded. I wanted to take a picture, but no camera could have caught the eeriness of the scene.

We left before the white elephant game began. Thank god. As we staggered out into the frosty night, I wonder if others would go away feeling like they missed out on something. All that work, the shopping, the baking, the buying, the wrapping... demolished in the space of a few hours. What will the kids remember? How fun it was to jump on the couch with the cousins. How tense and anxious the adults were at the beginning of the party, and how strangely morose or maudlin they were by the end of the night. What will the adults remember? How much work it was. How annoying the kids were. How great it felt to sink into a glass of Chardonnay and a mouthful of chocolate. How wonderful it is that this horrible season only comes once a year.

Many happy returns on the last day of the world

I don't consider myself a Christian. That means I am not inclined to be cheery during the Christmas season. In fact I can hardly stand it. There's no other time of the year that is so pervasive, intrusive, and all-around annoying. (Did you think I would have something good to say about Christmas? Hey, I'm the chronic malcontent; I have nothing good to say about anything.) I lay low and try to hibernate through the season, emerging during the dog days before New Years to re-stock my fridge and re-new the wards on my apartment. Wards? You know, the juju rituals I do to keep away the sights, sounds, and smells of the Christmas season. It works. Come over and you will see no twinkly lights festooning the place, no dead evergreen wilting in a pot of fetid water, hear no Andy Williams or Bing Crosby crooning on the radio, and smell no stinky mulberry candles guttering in the corners. This is a yuletide free zone. Vive le grinch.

Here's something maybe you can help me understand. Yesterday at work, I ran into a teacher I don't know well. She's an energetic adjunct, one of those who takes her job way too seriously (in my opinion). She speaks in exclamation marks. I can't come close to matching her energy. It's exhausting to be around her for a rabid introvert like me.

She rushed off the elevator, dragging her wheely-bag behind her. “Hi! Merry Christmas!” she caroled at me as she trundled by on her way to the office.

I grunted something, heading for the stairs. Suddenly she stopped and turned back. I could practically see her brain whirring as she tried to calculate whether or not she should speak. It took probably a full second for her to say, “Oh, hey! I have something for you!”

I stopped. She dug into her wheely-bag and came up with an object wrapped in white tissue paper and tied with gold ribbon. I could feel my face pulling sideways into a kayla maroney.

“Oh, really, not necessary...” I began. She thrust the thing into my hand.

My brain leaped off the cliff: I don't even know you, why are you doing this, it's probably a candle, I don't need more crap, who can I regift this to?, I didn't get her anything, I didn't get anyone anything, I'm such a scrooge, everyone is drinking mulled cider and they didn't invite me, bah humbug, I don't care, I hate Christmas. Eventually I pulled my lips back into a grimace, said thank you, and went on my way.

After class, I opened the thing, mildly curious, a little apprehensive, and found a clear glass candle holder with an etched inscription: You have a special place in my heart. 

What? Really? Who knew I meant so much to her? I pictured her scanning the shelves at Michael's Art Store, muttering to herself: What can I give my colleagues to make them feel special and appreciated during these dark times? Really? Naw. I don't believe it for one second. She probably got a deal on those etched candle holders. Why didn't she put a candle in there, is what I want to know. If I really had such a special place in her heart and all.

The other thing that perplexes me about this season is the whole Christmas card thing. Some of the coolest people send the lamest cards. I don't want to think that my cool edgy friends are actually closet Christians. Is that too harsh? Maybe they are so cool and edgy that their cards are actually intended to be ironic commentaries on our sad reliance upon organized religion. Maybe I'm not cool and edgy enough to get the joke. I fear in the case of one particular card (nativity scene), my erstwhile cool and edgy friend has gone over to the dark side: she's handwritten a quote into the card, something about how hard it is to keep the season holy. Whatever.

On another card, a girl with with glittery angel wings holds a little gift in her hands (and the glitter is rubbing off all over everything on my desk). On another card, glittery fir trees hold up an enormous star and a huge fat white bird—I guess that is the white dove of peace? I can't ask the person who sent it to me, because I can't read the signature on the card. Two holiday cards sport a snowman theme: charming. But isn't it a tiny bit creepy to imagine snow creatures dressed up in human clothes coming to life? Brrrr. One friend sent a card with a photo of her and her husband. They look happy. I love that it might actually be true. My favorite card is from my colleague Sheryl (not her real name). The card has a picture of a stoic old white-haired gal who is clearly not impressed by the season. The message says: It's Christmas. Try to contain your enthusiasm. Now that's a Christmas card for a chronic malcontent!

Looking at all these cards spread out in front of me, even the one with a goofy nativity scene on the front, is making me realize that even the chronic malcontent has friends. Awwww. It's been a rough couple weeks for everyone. In this holiday season of mixed feelings, I confess I am grateful for simple things: friends, oatmeal bath salts, and the fact that the world appears to have survived another day. I'm thankful for the footwarmer I made myself out of an old pillow case and some white rice (just say microwave!).

Some years ago I strung some dinky white lights around a favorite painting. One moment. Please stand by. Ok, I'm back. In honor of this blog, I just turned them on. They don't blink, but in my dark cave of a workspace, they do look rather festive. Now for the... how do you say it, the coup de grace? No, that's a deathblow, not quite what I'm looking for. Fois de gras? No, isn't that some kind of liver pate? Coup d'etat? No, no overthrows going on here. How about...the piece de resistance! (Spoken with all the appropriate glottal mucus. And sorry all the accents are missing. It's too hard to go look them all up, it's all I can do to remember the code for the Fahrenheit degree symbol.) What was I saying? Oh yeah: the penultimate, The Christmas Stick.

The Christmas Stick is an old dead stick stuck in a vase of rocks and hung with a few old faded ornaments. It spends the year gathering dust on a high shelf in my kitchen. It's jolly in a rather sparse, dusty sort of way. I put it by the string of little white lights. Hmm. It's a Chronic Malcontent Christmas.

Thanks for the cards. Thanks for the gifts. Thanks for shaming me into a holiday mood. But don't get your hopes up. I donated all my disposable income to charity. You won't be getting any cards or presents from me this year. Merry ho ho ho to you, too.