C is for Cookie!

In honor of Sesame Street's 40th Birthday, I post the tribute of my hero, Cookie Monster, to his greatest love:


Sesame Street first came on when I was 2. My mother still tells me -- and by "still," I mean that she just wrote this in an e-mail to me -- of my 2-year old self sitting in front of the t.v. at my little pre-school desk with the magnetic top, placing my magnetic letters in a row and singing along as they called them out on the show. This was how I learned to read long before the schools would think to teach me.

Cookie Monster, of course, was my favorite. How can you deny the exuberant single-minded passion of that fuzzy blue monster? We should all have such purpose and joy!

My first car was a bright yellow Buick Skylark. "Lemon yellow," my dad said. "No," I replied, "Big Bird yellow." I got a little Big Bird figure and stuck him to the dashboard like a Jesus or St. Christopher statue. I liked to think of his gentle curiosity guiding my car on my wanderings about the city; and, of course, I adored his insistence on his friend, Snuffaluffagus, in the face of everyone else's jeers.

Keep on, Sesame Street! Teach more children about passion and trusting themselves and reading.

I am Et Al, and I'm Dying to Share This News

I'm dying to share this news, but I can't. At least, I can't share the details because that would too directly connect my blogging identity with my real identity in a way that can be found through Google.

Suffice to say that a major project that took up three years of my early career, my life, and my sanity, has finally -- FINALLY -- come to fruition!

I whole-heatedly believed in the work. I think it was and still is an incredibly important project. I loved the work and I cried because I was put in a position in which I had to leave to save myself. The work changed and shaped me. I became a much better researcher because of the project, which led directly to my current research. I derived a sense of pride and esteem from my work. I despaired of ever seeing it reach the light of day. Now, it is here!

I am eternally grateful to the people who came after me who could help this volume through its final stages; and, of course to the people who came before me and had to abandon ship just as I did. I can't believe that the press (a really important one located on the coast of New England) put up with all of us for so long. Lots of people gave enormous amounts of time and effort and head-banging frustration to make this volume live. Now, it is here! In my hands, with my name on the title page (and by "name" I mean that, when you look up the book on Amazon or in the library catalog, I will be "et al")!

It is here! Here! Here! I want to hug everyone I see out of joy!

But, I can't say exactly what it is.* It just is, and that's what matters!

Those three years were not completely lost! The academic public now has access to that work!


*Intrepid readers may be able to do a little investigating and figure it out

Halloween, The Opening of the Candy Season!

Happy Halloween, my pretties!

Oooooh! Scary!

Sick and disgusting!

That is what a carved pumpkin looks like a week after the Pumpkin Carving party. I thought it appropriate to keep it around, fly-infested and decaying, for Halloween.

Of course, the real meaning of Halloween is the opening of the Candy Season (for which I have been training all year).

The High Holy Days of Candy Season are, of course, Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Easter. Other days can be snuck in there with "harvest" colored candy kisses for Thanksgiving, and the creep of Peeps into every other holiday. In fact, I think that having a Peep shape for a holiday officially inaugurates it into the Candy Season.

Here is a page from the liturgy of the First High Holy Day of Candy Season, courtesy of Jerry Seinfeld:

Have happy, spooky tricks and treats!

ETA: My favorite scene from "It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown," in which the World War I Flying Ace must bail out of his Sopwith Camel after being shot down by the Red Baron. Stealthily, he escapes through the French countryside, finding his way to a Halloween Party. There, he touches his lips to a Bossy Girl's lips, then rejoices to piano tunes. Alas, his true nature outs when his grief over his lost comrades leads him to howl at the moon.

More Weekend Kitsch, National Cathedral Edition

The National Cathedral has its own, if limited, brand of kitsch.

The Cathedral itself is Episcopal, and not governmentally funded, but they like to pretend that they are -- what's the word for "open to all other religious faiths." In evidence, they point to such things as visits by the Dalai Lama as the use of the cathedral by two Jewish congregations (do Jewish congregations actually refer to themselves as "congregations"? I'm horribly ignorant on some of these finer points -- some of the larger ones, too). This is "openness" is also reflected at points in the gift shop. Of course, I'm interested in some of the near comical ways. Comical to me, the insensitive atheist, anyway.

For instance, they sell all sorts of distinctly Catholic religious items, such as medals, prayer cards, and rosaries, including rosary rings. I may be wrong in identifying these items as strictly Catholic, because I am uncertain as to how many Catholic practices were retained by the Anglican, then Episcopal, churches. Still, let's face it, that's not my point.

My point is this, the Mother of All Rosaries:

The rosary beads are the size of a child's fist, and the crucifix and image of Mary and Jesus were both larger than my hand. You see it draped in half over the corner of a baker's rack display. I held it up and the thing was about as tall as I was. It must be for some sort of decoration or display or theatricality in a service. Otherwise, all I could think was that you must have done some damn big sinning to need a rosary that large.

Maybe it was meant for people like me?

I didn't find too many Jewish items in the adult section. I failed to take a picture of the Menorah Christmas tree ornament (falling down on the job, I know!). Never fear, I do want to go back with binoculars to see more of the gargoyles. I'll take it then.

In the children's section, they had a nice, little display for Jewish youngsters which might also be purchased for Christian youngsters so that they could learn a bit about the Hebrew faith. My favorite, of course, was The Matzah Man, there on the right. I might also like that Hebrew letters kit, too:
Although they had items related to Buddhism in the adult section, they had none for children. They also had absolutely nothing in the tchotchke category having anything to do with Islam or Hinduism.

This being a Christian organization, of course, that shouldn't surprise me, especially since they only singled out the Dalai Lama and the use of the building by Jewish congregations. Including all religions, especially those that were not connected to anything that occured in the cathedral, might not fulfill the mission of the shop nor be cost-effective.

Meanwhile, Christian children could play Bible games, both by answering questions about the Old Testament and by - I don't know - playing Jesus and the Money Changers with the "coins of the New Testament":
Actually, Jesus and the Money Changers would be a cool game. That was Bad Ass Jesus acting like a Dirty Anti-Capitalist and preventing the desecration of the Temple.

In fact, when I was a little girl in New Orleans among all of those Catholic kids going through confirmation and such, we used to play similar games in the backyard. Jesus was always imaginary, and we girls were always much more militant apostles than those in the Bible. Then, we discovered Little House on the Prairie and we were all about building those little houses.

Speaking of little girls, yours could be Jesus's princess:
That, or she's being stalked by Pedophile Jesus, which I don't think was in the Bible or apocrypha.

I'm going to Hell for "Pedophile Jesus." Probably for "Bad Ass Jesus," too. I should go back and get that Mother of All Rosaries. Or perhaps I should just get this:
That's a tiny little Bible, printed out on a small, square piece of plastic, much like microfiche. You can keep it with you at all times. I'm not sure what good it does if you need a microfiche reader to find any helpful passages; but, it's still kinda cool, just the same, and people like my grandmother would probably just like to have it for the comfort they get from the idea.

Actually, my grandmother would have liked it because she would have felt morally superior to those who were around her who didn't have it; but that's just her.

While I must admit that would have liked a "Heroes and Heroines of the Bible" action figure series. (I've seen them. I swear!) The cathedral gift shop, overall, refrained from such potential blasphemies as bobble-headed Jesus or Jesus action figures, or even "Buddy Christ." (O.k., maybe not with the "Secret Admirer" t-shirt.) It maintained a level of taste, education, and respect appropriate to a shop located inside of a religious building and run by a religious foundation.

Of course, I wonder what Jesus would have thought about a gift shop in a church?

On another note, as I continue this Kitsch series, I'm finding that I want a more precise definition of "kitsch" and philosophies about kitsch. The first time that I recall encountering the word was in The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera -- book, not movie. Kundera positioned kitsch as the opposite of art, mass-produced and meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I've been conflating adult kitsch with children's toys. I'm also interested in this kitsch and its depiction of historical subjects. I'm wondering more and more at those connections. That perhaps should be another post for another time.

OMG! Gargoylz!!!!11!!Eleven!!Eleventy-one!!!

Last Sunday, when my parents were visiting, my mother requested to see the National Cathedral. I confess that this had never been high on my "to visit" list, mostly because it made me nervous. I like the Gothic architecture and the stained glass and the craftsmanship and artistry and all, but when it starts becoming too explicitly Christian, I get uncomfortable. I'm not really up to unpacking that, so let's leave it for another time.

My parents themselves aren't particularly religious. As I've written before, the main tenant of their spiritual philosophy is, "we generally believe in a Christian God, but we don't get up before noon on weekends." So, this visit to the National Cathedral stemmed more from my mother's desire to see the art. My father, on the other hand, would have been happy to skip this site; but, since my mother had sat through the Air & Space Museum the previous day (literally, after a while, she found a seat and played Tetris and some sort of sheep-flinging game on her iPod), it was his turn to endure her choice. I've noticed that this is how many marriages endure.

Meanwhile, I suspected that the Cathedral would have gargoyles. I also figured that they might have a good gift shop. So, I went for the gargoyles and the gift shop.

The problem with gargoyles and grotesques, however, is that they live so high up on the building:
I tired to zoom in with my camera to see them better:

I tried to think of how one might satisfactorily see the gargoyles and could only come up with some sort of jet pack or, more reasonably, rappelling down the side of the cathedral. Both would be cool. Most people, however, go for binoculars. In fact, even inside of the cathedral, a pair of binoculars would help to see much of the artistry in the details.

The gift shop did not disappoint. They had the exact book that I had hope they would have, Guide to Gargoyles and other Grotesques, which includes close-ups of the gargoyles on the cathedral.

They also had something approximating the tchotchke that I had hoped they would have: Miniature versions of some of the gargoyles, except they were repositioned to look like grotesques. I purchased the second one from the far left on the bottom row. He -- and this one is, for some reason, a "he" to me -- looks like this:

He is supposed to represent "Evil closing its ears to good." To me, however, he represents the gargoyle in my head that shuts my ears to all of the bad voices. He seems to be saying "fuck you all of you bad ideas!" That's why he sits on the window sill above my desk.

This being a gift shop, and me being me, I had to scope out other gargoyle items that ranged into the kitsch category. Indeed, I didn't so much have to "scope" as to just look around.

I really wanted this one:

That's a gargoyle hand puppet. He, however, fell outside of my rules for purchasing tchotchkes: must fit into my hand, and must be no more than $10 (I admit to fudging a little on that last requirement by a few dollars from time to time).

The puppet was in the adult section. In the children's section, they had plush gargoyles that, frankly, were downright frightening. Here's a red one from the side: Here is a flock of green and blue ones:
I must confess, that green one on top in particular (he's the one at the very top on the right, for those of you who are color blind) reminded me of the Flukeman from that X-Files episode. (Between that and the Blair Witch Project, all of my Girl Scout camping nightmares were fully imagined on screen.)

Then, there were these:

Gargoyle pencil tips -- or whatever you would call these rubbery things that aren't erasers but that you can stick on the ends of your pencil. Pencil-puppets? In any case, at 50 cents each, my nephews are now in possession of one each.

By the way, one of those nephews can make a face that should be reproduced on a grotesque. I'd show you, but he's getting old enough that I don't want to put him on display that way.

I now have another mission should I ever actually get to Europe: to see more gargoyles in their natural habitat!

One last thing: for the record, since my parents qualify as physically disabled, I had the experience of learning that the National Cathedral has ADA issues due to the very pre-ADA design.

Sexist Much?

While wandering around Target last night, I came across this:

Yes, boys should be great and girls should be glamorous. Boys should be "Best at Everything" and girls should be "A Goddess." A Goddess, admittedly, is a step up from "princess" since goddesses presumably have power; but when this goddess is supposed to use her patriarchally approved beauty to gain power and very little else, well, that's not much of a change. From anything.

Fortunately, all was not lost for girls in the Target book section. Amid all of the stalker-fantasy vampire books -- or at least those packaged as stalker-fantasies since I must admit that I went through my vampire stage with Anne Rice, who was more about questions of power, immortality, and morality -- I found a book of hope. Look close, there in the center:Emily the Strange: Here is the description:

The transcription of the description: "13 years old. Able to leap tall building, probably, if she felt like it. More likely to be napping with her four black cats; or cobbling together a particle accelerator out of lint, lentils, and safety pins; or rocking out on drums/guitar/saxophone/zither; or painting a swirling feral sewer mural; or forcing someone to say 'swirling feral sewer mural' 13 times fast...and pointing and laughing."

Dark and grumpy in the way only a 13 year old girl can be, Emily does stuff other than try to look pretty and control people with her prettiness. Please please let more little girls drift to this rather than to the "Glamour" book!

Then, I heard someone from an aisle or two over shout, "hey, Mom! They have Glenn Beck books here!" He was not being ironic.

I needed solace. In the candy section. Where I found this:

Candy skeleton fingers for your martini!

Actually, what first caught my eye about these was that, when you turned them on their side, they looked like this: A row of skeletal birds. That's pretty much how I felt at that moment.

Then, I got some candy and felt much better.

Art History Kitsch

We will, of course, return to the Online Therapeutic Ramblings shortly. Meanwhile, last weekend -- that would be the weekend before the Parental Unit Visit -- I had gone to visit the Gentleman Caller. I was the Caller on this occasion! At one point, we decided to go visit an art museum and to see a particular statue that was of interest to us both.

In the art museum gift shop, I found this wonderful item, a Plush Vincent VanGogh:When I first saw it across the room, I thought, "That will be so much better if it doesn't have an ear." Sure enough, if you will notice, the ear comes off. The only way that could be better would be if they had used red Velcro to attach the ear, and maybe if they had a little box in which he could deliver it to the prostitute. Of course, I find it rather sad that he doesn't hold a paintbrush and a palette. He did do something other than sever his ear, after all!

After the gift shop -- and the museum -- we drove down to the statue, which depicts a certain fugitive slave incident. You know that the statue depicts a fugitive slave because the fugitive is wearing torn pants.:

Just so you know: all fugitive slaves wore pants torn up to their thighs, even when they had been gainfully employed in the city for several years past. The text also make the incident sound like the whole city was involved in rescuing this particular fugitive when, in fact, the rescuers were mostly attendees at a national abolitionist meeting being held in the city. The city residents' attitudes were more along the lines of "we won't tell if you don't get uppity."

This tweaking of the facts in favor of the city is much like the frequent claims that every other house north of the Mason-Dixon was a stop on the Underground Railroad: everyone in the north -- or at least in the locale -- was an abolitionist. Abolitionists themselves would tell you that most of the north wasn't too happy to see them come to town because abolitionists disrupted too many status quo notions about race and property and just caused trouble, dammit! That was the reason that the abolitionists had to fight so hard for so long.

Still, I can't get too worked up about these flaws in the statue. You see, that second leg that you see in the picture belongs to the black abolitionist Jermain Loguen and the event actually does address a mass, somewhat non-violent action of abolition. You don't often see that as far as I know (and I may not know that far, but I will certainly be looking more).

By the way, the Gentleman Caller assisted me greatly in the second part of this post. By "assisted" I mean that he pointed out the telltale torn pants leg, the fact that the fugitive had been in the city for a while, and the fact that the city wasn't exactly happy to have that particular fugitive in town. In other words, I really should just credit him with this second part of this post since I took it all from him. He's pretty smart. He also made the whole weekend fantastic in ways that would bore you to nauseated tears but give me twitterpated butterflies.

ETA: On closer (and embiggened) examination, I see that Plush VanGogh does, in fact, have a very fuzzy paintbrush in his hand. It looks a bit like a lion's tail. The ear must have preoccupied me to the exclusion of that detail.

Parental Unit Visit: Days 2-4

The continuation of my parents' visit has turned out surprisingly well. Much of the better cheer stemmed from some of the places that we visited and my new found ability to steer the conversation onto subjects on which we can all vociferously agree.

On Friday, my mother wanted to see fall foliage, so they decided to drive north west. I had suggested Harpers Ferry, and I must confess that I fell down on the job by not realizing that Friday was the big anniversary celebration. They also went to Antietam. So, that evening, I made sure not to let the conversation get further than, "Oh, the pretty fall leaves. That was a very nice battlefield. There was a big celebration at Harpers Ferry." Really, you don't want to engage a couple of Confederate apologists in conversation on either Harpers Ferry or the battle that led to the Emancipation Proclamation.

Instead, Friday night at dinner, I managed to keep the topics of discussion confined to:

1) How cute are my nephews? Please show me the pictures again. How cute is that? Aren't they adorable. Let me see the pictures again!

2) Some managers and administrators (like the fellowship coordinator) prove the Peter Principle. This one can get tricky because my father was a government bureaucrat and the topic can become political very quickly.

3) My grandmother has a narcissist personality disorder. My mother's iPhone came in handy on this one since we could look up a semi-clinical definition. I think my grandmother's picture was next to one.

4) How cute are my nephews? Let me see the pictures again!

That seemed to work. Nothing terrible happened.

On Saturday, we went to the air and space museum out by one of the big airports. They have the HUGE birds out there, such as a Space Shuttle, the Concord, and the Enola Gay. I'll have to write on the museum in another post (with pictures!). Suffice to say for now that they convey tons and tons of technical information with very little historical context or awareness of what some of these planes actually did.

My dad has always loved airplanes. I get my love of flying from him. He has studied planes and the history of planes for his whole life. I don't mean his adult life. I mean since he was a small boy. That meant that he could tell me everything about every plane: How the construction of one evolved into the construction of another, how this particular bi-plane led to the creation of that particular airline, how that reconstruction there was built by former employees of that airline, how those two planes were misused in that war, how that plane over there was designed specifically for fighting another type of plane, how these planes were used for tactical air power, and on and on.

Many of you may think, "oh. My. God. How tedious!" I didn't. I loved hearing about the evolution of air travel and power. I loved seeing how some of these planes essentially started as some wild-assed, what-the-hell idea and either took off or became "what the hell were they thinking?"

Mostly, I loved being with this version of my dad. This is the dad that I love and like. This is the knowledgeable dad who purely and deeply loves something, and the love, not the thing itself, is important. This is the dad who wants my company as a junior comrade, interested in what he is interested in. I loved feeling like he was being the father I wanted and I was being the grown child -regardless of gender - that he wanted. In those several hours, we were.

I also had a vision of what my father's life should have been. As I wrote, he was a government bureaucrat for 25 or 30 years, and he hated his job. Worse: he hated his job, but cared too much about doing a good job in it that he would neither disengage emotionally from it nor find another job. He had an irrational terror of "running away."

Before he was a bureaucrat, he worked as a civilian for one branch of the armed forces. Before that, he was in the Air Force. He left the service because his next assignment was Saigon, after Tet, as chief of Air Force police. That is the second point in his life where I wish he had made a different decision (the first being when he married my mother -- really, that fucked up both of their lives, and their three children's in the process).

At that point, I wish he had gone to graduate school and become a historian. Sure, he would have been one of those old school military historians, but he would have been much happier and my brothers and I would have had a less abusive childhood.

Better yet, I wish that he had found a path that led him to the restoration hangar of this or a similar museum. The manual labor, the almost religious calling of restoration, and the historical and technical knowledge for such work would have made my father a much happier and more satisfied human than he ever was. We may not have had much of the class privilege that we had growing up, but we also probably wouldn't have been beaten as much nor have had to tiptoe around rages (at least in regard to one parent). Heck, maybe he might have been happy enough to have realized that divorce would have been a superior solution to the unholy nightmare that was my parents' marriage.

I know he has found a certain peace in his life now (just keep him away from Fox News!), with his post-retirement work, with my mother, and as a grandparent to two grandsons. I'm happy for that. I also like being around him the way he was at the museum and on Sunday when we went to the National Cathedral (gargoyles!) and this shockingly kitschy German restaurant (complete with polkas and lederhosen-wearing dancers). This is my Good Father, not my Other Mother Father. After he dies, I hope that this is what I remember of him. I wish it were all that I could remember of him now.

Meanwhile, I have to keep politics out of our interactions, and I have to recognized and clean up after the damage that was done to me during those 20-25 years in which both of my parents were miserable, small minded, narcissistic, and taking all of their rage out on their children.

One of the steps in accomplishing that is to draw a line in my memory. On one side of the line is "that was then," and the other side is "this is now." On the "then" side, I was a child with no power, and was warped. On the "this" side, I am an adult, and in charge. That second part helps me stop any continuity of the warping from the "then" side. That second part also helps me appreciate the good parts of my parents while reducing the guilt that I feel over my powerful reactions to the bad and the past bad parts.

At least, I hope that this is a good approach.

Parental Unit Visit: Day 1

My parents are in town. They tell everyone that they are visiting me; but, really, they are touring the museums and only have dinner with me. For this, I am grateful. About an hour or two may be all that I can take if last night was any example.

We went to dinner. Within the course of the meal, I learned several things about my father that really appall me.

They had gone to the Holocaust Museum earlier in the day. Moving, tragic, important. I figured that was a safe topic of conversation because you have to be a complete asshole to say something offensive about it. How could I be so very naive? I learned that, in the museum that day, my dad had said, "you know, Germany wanted 'change,' too."

Yes, that's right. My own father compared the Obama administration to the Third Reich. While standing in the Holocaust Museum.

At least my mother, who is a Democrat if a Lieberman-esque sort of Democrat, had the grace to be embarrassed. "You aren't in Texas anymore," she told him.

Our conversation then shifted to flying. We can all agree that it is a pain in the ass, that the seats are too small, that people who tilt their seats back are inconsiderate, and that the security process is getting too ridiculous. I should have steered the conversation away from security immediately.

"It would go a lot faster if they would just let security profile," my dad said. He meant profile brown-skinned people, not white-skinned domestic terrorist people. When I pointed this out, my dad said, "well they aren't a problem right now." Yeah, because right-wing whites aren't bringing guns to presidential rallies these days.

Finally, we finished dinner and went out to their rental car. Who knew that could be a minefield, too? "I can't believe I'm driving around in a car with New York plates," he said, with much disgust. Understand that the man has seen nothing of the state of New York other than a short stretch of interstate. He's never set foot in New York City.

"Provincialism is unattractive," I told him. "Don't be like those Yankees." By which I meant the nasty people whom I encountered in That Place. Then I launched into an overly detailed explanation of the best route back to my place.

Fortunately, they did not want to come up and see my apartment.

Fortunately, also, they did not refer to any non-Anglo ethnic food with derogatory racial slurs.

We are scheduled to have dinner tonight. They are supposed to go up to Harpers Ferry today, or perhaps Antietam, although they may end up seeing the bones exhibit at the natural history museum. I hope they have done the last because I really don't want to hear about how the Civil War was not about slavery. Because they would do that. They would tell a PhD-carrying historian who writes about Frederick Douglass that slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War.

Pray for me.

Blank and Wobbly, but Good

I should write something, but I feel strangely blank. Blank isn't necessarily bad. In fact, the blank feels a bit like the eye of a hurricane. Not exactly peaceful, nor permanent, not even creative, but somewhat calm.

Being in love creates this bubble of delirium. Experience has taught me that this bubble, like all bubbles, is short-lived so I must enjoy it. I don't want to ruin it by diving into the muck. At the same time, given the nature of my muck, I have to dive into it from time to time in order to keep the person with whom I'm in love.

I have tended to mistrust anyone genuinely kind who cares for me. I think, "I am so obviously a terrible person. I am so obviously a fraud, and cruel, and cold, and lazy, and stupid, and gullible," and anything else negative. I think that, if I am that horrible, then anyone who cares for me is either stupid and not worthy of my respect, or working some sort of angle. I confess, that pattern of thought makes a person pretty damn lonely and miserable in their own skin. It's such a cliche', too; but I am nothing if not a cliche'!

So far, I haven't fallen into that trap with this person; but I'm afraid that I could. That means that I have to keep going back into the muck to take apart the devices that make me believe the Bad Ideas about myself. I have to excavate the bad ideas, and analyze them to the point that they no longer have any meaning -- like when you say a word over and over and over until it becomes just sound.

At the moment, on the verge of going to visit this Gentleman Caller, I don't want to do that. I want to bask in the glow of being in love. Basking has not yet become the raw material for anything creative. I can only express it in the words and the music of other creative people, like a 16-year-old making mix-tapes. Which is fun, but has its embarrassing limits. I must become more confident in this feeling, give it strength, learn its complexities, trust it, before I can allow myself to let it infuse the other parts of my creative life.

I'm delirious about visiting my Gentleman Caller, about being the caller myself. The following weekend, however, my parents will be visiting me. Not me, per se, but the city; during which time they will visit me. I love them and sympathize with them, but the love and sympathy are so tied up with the abuse and conditions of their love that I dread the repercussions of any contact with them. I have to psyche myself up.

They don't know about the Gentleman Caller, and I wonder why I haven't shared it with them. Of course, the thought suddenly occurred to me that he isn't really their business. My whole life I've felt as if I must tell them everything, which has led to my completely indiscreet personality and my inability to keep a secret. I've had very few secrets from them; but those that I've had, I've kept because I know that they are powerful in some way. They make me an adult, not their little girl.

I think that has been one of my most recent epiphanies, making complete sense out of a particular period of my life in my late teens and early twenties. That was the stalled period, when I sold myself short, stunted my own growth, and simply could not move forward. I jokingly refer to that as my "breakdown" because whatever system of belief or fear or motivation that kept me going through each step of life to that point had broken down and no longer worked. I couldn't take the next step in becoming an autonomous adult, and I was completely miserable.

I have realized that I had grown up in a house that hated women. Little girls were fine, but fully formed women were incomprehensible to the dominant powers in the house. Grown women were harridans and viragoes, like my grandmother, and therefore hateful; or they were weak, incapable of taking care of themselves, and therefore should be resented, like my mother (whose own mother never really let her grow up).

Women were also like shoes.

To be a little girl, pink and cute and non-threatening, like a live doll, was good. To be a grown woman, full of power and opinions and capable of taking care of herself was dangerous and bad. To be a little girl growing into a woman was treacherous. I grew from the furious beatings of my frustrated mother into the berserk beatings of my misogynist father. Both out of control until their rage subsided. I had to be a grown woman in order to get myself out of that environment; but to survive in that environment, I had to try to stay a little girl. I have not yet fully understood how I mustered the resources to get out; but I know that they too involved abuse. I simply chose the devil that I didn't know over the one that I did.

In the past two or three years, especially this last one in analysis, I've actually found a place in my head in which I feel safe. It's not a big place, just a little corner, guarded by gargoyles. I have started to feel that all of that abuse, compounded by more abuse, inflicted by Other Mothers of all genders and types, has actually passed. It may have shaped me, but I don't have to live with it, I don't have to let it reproduce itself in the disastrous personal or professional relationships that have plagued me forever. I can trust the kindness of strangers. By "strangers," I mean those genuinely kind people.

This realization leaves me light-headed and wobbly. When you try to rise above your experience and ignore it, you take a risk. You have to hope and trust, rather than defend and disappear. You have to reprogram yourself (which was my whole goal in seeking analysis). This job, this Gentleman Caller, this next book, this life here -- I keep thinking, "I've finally found the starting line. My real life has begun. Make it bigger and better! Don't fuck it up!" I think this blankness is my effort to keep upright and not swoon or wobble over.

This blankness is me holding my breath, waiting for the moment when I know that I can trust myself not to fuck it up.

Worlds of Wonder

Yesterday, a student asked to speak with me privately after class. The student seemed to be hiding the fact that s/he was upset. I figured that s/he had a family emergency of some sort, maybe someone had died or worse (and there have been worse). Instead, with a slight tremor, the student said, "God wants you to know that he really loves you."

"Oh crap," I thought, "conversion alert! That, or s/he's going to object to something I said in class."

Not at all. "God wants me to tell you that he really loves you, but there is a dark presence following you." S/he shook his/her head, trying to find the right words.

"A dark presence?" I asked.

"Yes," s/he said, "like something bad is going to happen."

This student was sincerely worried. So much so that I couldn't even think of anything glib or even reassuring to say. I couldn't admit to being a non-believer because s/he seemed so disturbed by this vision.

Instead, I wanted to know how s/he was experiencing this event. "Do you see something? Maybe a cloud?"

The student struggled for words. "It's like...it's a presence, a bad presence...I don't know. I don't have the words for it." S/he looked straight at me, "God just wants you to know that he really loves you and that you should pray. You should say the rosary." The student reached into his/her pocket and pulled out his/her own. S/he held it out to me, "here, take mine if you need it."

I blinked and looked at the rosary. "That's OK," I said. "I have my own." (I didn't say that it was plastic and pink and purchased at a gift shop at the Amtrak station. That seemed profoundly disrespectful.)

I told the student that s/he was very sweet to be so concerned. I thanked the student sincerely and promised to pray. I honestly meant it, too. Then we went our separate ways.

Now, I know in reading this, many people will think "whoa! Yipes!" Atheist that I am, I still cannot bring myself to think something derogatory or sarcastic or at all negative about this encounter. The student seemed very affected by this vision that s/he had. I respect that. Down to my very guts I respect that; but I have no idea what to do with this information. I have no ideological box in which to put it.

The scientific side of my mind wonders if this is a mental illness. The anthropological side of my mind wonders how the student is experiencing this, what the student sees, how the student fits this into his/her own cosmology, what his/her own cosmology involves. The part of me that is in Jungian analysis tries to discern the the archetypes in this, and relate it to the cloud of past abuse and melancholia that actually is following me, then make a story from it. That same part wonders about this student's archetypes and how they affect the way s/he functions in the world. The teacher in me wondered what my responsibilities toward this student might be. How should I react as a teacher?*

I confess that I did tell my chair what happened, mostly because I didn't quite know how to react. That's the reason that I'm writing about it here, despite my uneasiness in talking about it at all. I do know that the very wrong reaction is sarcasm and cynicism; and I'm actually surprised at myself by the absence of both of those in my response since sarcasm and cynicism are my default.

As an individual, the encounter felt like I had walked into a different world. I live in a world in which I search for facts and understanding. There is no spiritual mystery. This student lives in a world in which there are mysteries. At no point did this student seem to assume that I don't believe in a god. In fact, the student seemed to presume that I was Catholic. The student didn't seem to want to bludgeon me with religion, which is the way that I've experienced most religious people -- they want to assert a moral authority that I don't recognize. Instead, this student just seemed very concerned about my welfare.

This student lives in a different cosmology from my own, in one in which people have visions, and in which malevolent spirits can exert force upon the material world. For a moment, I felt as if I had entered his world, alien to mine. It was jarring.

I still have no idea what to do with this encounter.

*I actually feel a little uneasy blogging about it, as if I'm violating privacy. I will delete if the consensus is that it is a violation.

This Is The Story That I Tell Myself So That I Can Begin

This is the story that I tell myself so that I can begin to write, to love, and to live.

This is my office gargoyle*:

As you can see, he -- and for some reason I think of him as "he," but occasionally as "she" -- sits in my window of my home office. As I write, we contemplate one another with the same expression. In fact, I've come to insist that we always sit in a position in which we can maintain eye-contact when I look up. I think of him -- or her -- as quite helpful. As an ugly but benevolent being, she -- or he -- embodies something that enables me to write.

I've come to imagine all of the nasty, hateful voices that I have internalized and expanded upon as ugly little gremlins of varying sizes who undermine all of my ambitions, passions and successes. In fact, they feed off of them. They have voices that have multiple tones, much like a piano chord, with each note being the voice of a specific person, but all somehow sounding just like me. They keep me from writing.

I'm trying now to imagine the good voices, the ones I want to claim but somehow won't let myself. What do they look like or sound like? How can they fight off the gremlins. I like to think of my ambitions and passions and successes as the better angels of my nature. I just can't quite imagine them as angels. Angels have too much baggage and seem too foreign to my own mythology, which seems to be populated with monstrous beings. Yet, I still imagine these better angels as creatures with wings. The gargoyle seems to be the solution. Stuck as I am between the gremlins and the angels, an ugly creature with wings, who scares off evil spirits, has become my totem.

The office gargoyle sits there, as we contemplate one another with the same expression, and reminds me to tell the gremlins to shut the hell up, just in case I forget.

*Actually, he -- or she -- is a grotesque. Gargoyles are water spouts, creatures who "gargle," but I like the sound of the word, so I call grotesques "gargoyles."

Obamamania Continues

Every time I begin to write a blog post, the same old stuff comes out -- or doesn't come out. Either I ramble into my annual bitching about the same issues (see last post) or I want to gush about the Gentleman Caller. I haven't focused enough to jump on another Douglass post, although I feel one coming on sometime later this week. Then, there are the myriad issues that are far too tangled right now to write about publicly or coherently, even for someone like myself who seems to have no sense of boundaries or privacy. I'll get to that eventually, but right now it's all in the muck and doesn't yet have a shape.

Meanwhile, I shall share with you some more examples of the Obamamania kitsch. The Gentleman Caller came to visit weekend before last (again, wow!), and I went to pick him up at the airport (where we engaged in Hollywood movie levels of PDA). While waiting for his plane to arrive, I wandered around the airport and discovered a shop that sold all sorts of "patriotic" paraphernalia. Needless to say, I was in kitsch heaven!

First Pooch Bo has become quite the popular plush item. Here we have him in a box decorated with images of Himself happily wagging his tail on the White House lawn:
This is a slightly larger, free-range Bo:
This version creeps me out with those big eyes that remind me of those old pictures. You know, the ones with waifish children and animals, usually in the rain, staring dolefully out of the image with freakishly large eyes on the verge of tears? I hated those.:
In the Smithsonian gift shop, I found similar plush animals representing zoo residents, so this may be some sort of new trend. Were I a child, I would either feel tremendous sympathy for the toy, to the point of tears in the store (I was a depressive even at age 4), or I would have avoided it and refused to go into that shop.

There seems to be more creepiness seeping into some of the other Obamamania items. In this picture, you have the magnetic dress-up Obama in the foreground. That isn't so bad, if you don't mind having the Commander-in-Chief and Leader-of-the-Free-World staring back at you in his skivvies when you go to the fridge for your morning juice. That should be Michelle's private domain, don't you think?

What is creepy is the package of nuts next to the Magnetic Obama. It says something to the effect of "Nuts for Obama.":

You know how you sometimes glance at something, and the signals from your eyes to your brain misfire, so you only register parts of what you saw and the parts that you register give you a weirdly different message? Well, on first glance, I thought that the bag said "Obama's Nuts." I truly apologize, Mr. President.

Of course the store had bobble-heads. Both the president and the First Lady:

The President Obama bobble-head is about as dignified as a bobble-head can be; but that Michelle Obama bobble-head is downright creepy, even for a bobble-head. That smile is about a millimeter away from evil-clown territory.

As with the Douglass and Tubman actions figures, I have to ask, "why is the guy serious and the woman grinning?" Not smiling, mind you, but grinning. I ask that especially in both of these cases because both Harriet Tubman and Michelle Obama were and are just as -- if not more -- badass as their male counterparts. Is the smile supposed to make them more appropriately feminine and non-threatening? Indeed, wasn't the hideous Hillary Clinton nutcracker also grinning?

To be fair, the Bill Clinton corkscrew also grinned, but that item didn't have the same sexist subtext as the Hilary nutcracker. Also to be fair, the First Lady does have to grin and nod quite a bit -- much like the bobble-head. Still, in the end, these three women are not at all the grin-and-not types.

Note also the "Nope" t-shirt in the background. The shop was relatively equal opportunity, as we can see in this:Yes, that is an Obama-in-the-Box. Not only does the doll wear a full-blown evil-clown grin, but the box depicts Obama in the very pose that Nixon struck as he left office in shame. That last detail is disturbing. Maybe I'm making a leap here, but the reference to Nixon and the proceeding for his impeachment also calls to mind the Clinton impeachment. The unearned vitriol now being spewed against Obama, reviving the careers of the hate-mongers who appeared during Clinton's administration, and the efforts to somehow connect Obama to corruption, cause me to wonder what the makers of this toy are trying to say. Do they think Obama should be impeached for something? Or do they simply want to tie up this administration with an impeachment much as was done during Clinton's administration?

Yeah, I know, it's just a toy. Still, I can believe that the makers of the bobble-heads and the Obama action figures (which were also there) and the beanie babies and so forth are just trying to make a buck off of Obama supporters; but this is clearly designed for Obama-haters. Most of the Obamamania kitsch that I've covered has been in fun, if sometimes in poor taste (literally, in the case of the Safeway cookies), and always to make a buck. Now, I suppose we shall see the opposition's take. Poor taste will probably take on whole new dimensions there.

Feeling Prickly

The proposal that I managed to work my way toward writing in my last post was accepted for the panel. Now, the panel awaits acceptance (or rejection) by the conference. Score one for the week!

The Gentleman Caller called last weekend, but I won't elaborate on that other than to say "wow!" He's fantastic!

Meanwhile, I've reached the prickly point of the semester in teaching, and this is one of my posts in which I am writing my way through my frustration.

The week of meetings left me in a nasty mood, wondering what I am doing in this profession in which the attainment of a doctoral degree, publications, experience, and genuine professional status automatically makes you suspect in the eyes of the rest of the world. I try to remind myself that every profession has its own indignities and frustrations, and plow through to the end of the week. Once the semester starts, I remember why I do this teaching thing; and the majority of my students, at least in the African American history classes, are genuinely enthusiastic about learning the subject.

Then, odd things began to crop up that have very little to do with the subject itself. These are the odd things that force me to define my boundaries, but also make me wonder at what exactly is going on with students amid some of the details of acquiring their education. I also wonder if there is actually any solution to these problems, or if this falls under the "you can lead a horse to water" heading.

Some of these quirks are new. For instance, in past years, the fall semester began after Labor Day. Not so this year, when we began the week before Labor Day. Nonetheless, hoards of students showed up the Tuesday after Labor Day wanting to sign up for a full schedule of classes. "But I didn't know!" they all said. I felt so badly for those poor people working in advising and registration!

Since students are still allowed to adjust their schedules and therefore sign up for classes through the second week, new students began cropping up in the classes that late, each requiring an orientation to the class requirements and each expecting to make up the work from the missed classes.

This year, we have another added issue. We have far exceeded enrollments of past semesters, which is, in the long run, a good thing; and, many classes are already overloaded. This means that many instructors -- myself included -- get to hear what I loosely refer to as "life stories." We have received many an e-mail that goes something to the effect of, "I absolutely HAVE to have your class to graduate this semester! I KNOW the semester has already started. I know that your class is already full, but I need your signature to get into it. I promise that I will work very hard..." and so on and so forth. Some even throw in references to work and children and various other responsibilities, which is the reason that I call them "life stories."

I do feel badly for them, and have let many in because we all need a break now and then; but, 40 students in an online class is ten short of two full classes. That's a lot of work! I'm hoping that the administration approves more sections next semester, if this is the trend. Things being as they are, however, I think they will just raise the cap on classes. Forty-student classes, especially if they are online, are cheaper than employing even adjuncts.

In addition to these new students, I begin to hear the stories that I really don't quite know what to do with. The majority of these have to do with acquiring the textbook. To be more accurate, these have to do with failure to acquire the textbook because of the cost.

Our state has asked that we assign inexpensive textbooks. Yes, the legislature actually sat down, debated, and passed a resolution of some sort. Our tax dollars at work, right there! Anyone who has had to deal with textbooks in any way knows that "inexpensive" is a relative term, since even used textbooks can go for nearly $100.

I tend to allow students to use any edition in order to purchase used editions, since most are only in the 2nd or 3rd and not too out of date; but that also means that, even used, the books are still quite pricey. For this same reason, we are discouraged from assigning anything extra. I try to scan or download articles, book chapters, and documents to give them something more on particular subjects. Meanwhile, we have a Social Sciences computer center that keeps copies of the textbooks there for students to use. Yet, students are still not getting the books for several weeks because of the price of the book, or the price of faster shipping from internet purchases, and because they don't have the time to go to the computer center because of their work/school/family schedules.

I hear about all of this because I have them take online quizzes to ensure that they, in fact, do read the textbook. (Seriously, I have learned that there must be a tangible reward for these students to do anything. It's more a question of time-management rather than laziness. If they are going to spend their time on something, it better have a clear-cut, immediately observable result.) The quizzes are all due on the day that we cover that material in class. I don't allow make-up quizzes because they have over a week to do the quiz on their own time and with their open book before the software shuts them out. Still, here we are, headed into the fourth week of classes,, and I have requests right and left that I allow make-up quizzes because the students are still in the process of getting books. Some don't even have computers at home.

Here is the dilemma that makes me so prickly every year: at what point should this stop being my problem? Setting up make up quizzes for those who can't get the book until later -- when they get paid, or when the book arrives after the free shipping period -- takes a lot of extra, potentially open-ended, time. It also isn't fair to those who are able -- for whatever reason -- to get the text and quizzes done on time. I don't want to privilege those with the resources; but, at the same time, what else can I do to ensure that the class goes as it should and that they learn what they should in the necessary order to comprehend the material?

Which brings me once again to the different ways that I and my students see education. They see the requirements of the course as a series of hoops through which to jump, at the end of which they receive a grade. The accumulation of these grades, of jumping through the hoops of each class, leads to the degree.

I'm reminded of that every time I see an ad or spam in my inbox inviting me to apply to a for-profit college. They don't say "get the best education that you can." They say, "get the most convenient education that you can," or, "We make our hoops more convenient for your busy life." I understand that convenience is a valid concern, especially in the absolute need for a college education; but actual education (which is not necessarily as quantifiable as many would like) must take place for that degree to mean anything. Actual education is a process that requires full engagement from the beginning of the class. I'm not sure that many of my students understand that -- at least at this point in the semester.

To them, not having the textbook in the first month of classes should not be a problem as long as I am "compassionate" or "understanding" and let them take the quizzes when they can before the end of the semester. The students see the quizzes as serving the goal of fulfilling requirements for the numerical grade. As long as all tasks are done before that numerical grade must be reported, then what's the problem? Just as with the Outcomes Assessment borg at our school, the end number is all that matters. Actually learning new information and ways of looking at the world is just a cherry on the top of the sundae, not the sundae itself.

I, on the other hand, see the quizzes as serving the goal of being prepared for class. You must read chapter 1 before chapter 2 in order to understand the progression of events between chapters 1 and 2. You must read the chapter on English colonization in order to understand and ask smart questions in the class covering English colonization. You should understand English colonization in order to understand the issues that led to the American Revolution, and so on and so forth. History does require some accumulation of knowledge for comprehension, not just gathering information to sort out for an answer on the mid-term. I try to explain this to them, regularly. They look at me as if to say, "how is that my problem? I just need to pass this class."

The main problem here, then, is their utilitarian approach to getting a grade in the class as it bumps up against my understanding that the grade should reflect an understanding of material, not a task completed. Both encompass the issue of acquiring a textbook in a timely manner. In the process, I am trying to weigh their economic issues with my desire not to have to teach 150 individual classes to 150 individual students with 150 individual situations. I become prickly because, at some point, I have to say, "the fact that you cannot get the book, cannot get to the computer center, and cannot get your work in on time is not my problem." I don't want to be put in that position because it makes me feel like such a bitchy failure as a teacher for even thinking it.

In other words, I am struggling to find an appropriate way to respond to this issue. I understand the drive to improve oneself in the face of limited resources. I want to show some empathy for that. Yet, part of the responsibility of attending college includes acquiring the required books and supplies -- or at least access to them in order to meet the requirements of the course in the manner prescribed by the teacher.

I think that last sentence is my answer.

Writer's Block

For some reason, I cannot get to the place where I keep the words. This would be what most people call "writer's block." I hate that. I hate the term and I hate the concept. Really, the only cure is to simply write. As with any sickness, the cure takes a bit of time before you feel better again and you usually need to feel better right now.

Right now, a generalized sense of anxiety has the words blocked. The anxiety is not over anything in particular or really anything that has anything to do with me right now. After a week of demoralizing meetings, school started and I felt much better to be actually teaching. Sure, our college fired the highest level administrator that we have. In reading the comments on the news articles on the subject, I am once again struck by the amount of resentment and hostility directed toward college professors, particularly by the business-modelling educrats. Of course, this last is not new, and neither it nor the firing actually affect my day-to-day life.

Then, just as Historiann pointed out an article about the University of Illinois' attempts to create an educational sweatshop, our distance learning program asked another history professor and I to create and provide content for online class so that they can get adjuncts to take over the teaching. They want to exploit our intellectual property and labor with little compensation (and no royalties) for the end product, then turn around and exploit the adjuncts' labor by essentially turning them into underpaid t.a.s, all to cram in more online classes with students who have real anxieties. It's sort of a Wal-mart model of education. I don't know how that will go or if I can even refuse to do it or anything like that. Still, that shouldn't be affecting me like this.

The main point of anxiety for me right now, right this very second, is a paper proposal. Two hundred fifty words should not be so difficult. All I have to say is "this is what my paper is about, this is how it fits with your conference theme, please accept it." Why is that so difficult? Why do I feel like my head hits a wall every time I sit down to write it? Why can't I just do it?

Why? Because, me being me, I have to take this tiny little paper proposal and blow it up into a symbol of my whole future career, my future life, and my entire ability as a historian, past, present, or future. My ability to put these 250 words on the page has become an emblem of my self-worth, and my inability a revelation of my fraudulence. If I can't do these 250 words, then I am a loser, a joke, unworthy of my job, my doctoral degree, or love from anyone, anywhere, at anytime. My whole life rides on these 250 words!

You can see why I cannot access any words.

I get these stupid attacks when things seem to matter. I can write and write and write, as I did earlier in the summer, when the product doesn't matter. When it does: performance anxiety. I get bogged down in the little details. How should I begin? How does a paper proposal start? First person, third person, passive voice to avoid all persons? How to say what I mean?

Where are the perfect words -- and they HAVE to be PERFECT -- to say that writing a biography of Frederick Douglass from the perspective of the women who influenced him is novel and revolutionary (well, maybe "revolutionary" goes a bit too far)? How to say that, in focusing on the women, I can question the ways that this "woman's rights man" understood gender and gender roles in both his private and public lives, with particular emphasis on the intersection of the two? How to say that, in focusing on the women, I can explore the ways that these individual women within the institutions of slavery, marriage, and political activism used their relationship with the most famous black man of the 19th century to define themselves and their understanding of these institutions? Should I just limit this paper to the abolitionist women (which might be the better way to go)?

Can I say that I want to attempt a feminist biography of Douglass? Is a feminist biography of a man possible, even if that man was for women's rights? What might a feminist biography in general look like? I mean, I keep tossing around this concept of "feminist biography," but what the heck do I mean? Should I just let that concept go?

If I write a biography of Douglass from this unique perspective of the women in his life, is that a feminist biography? Can it be a feminist biography if all of these women will be defined by their relationship to Douglass? Did they define themselves in that way? If not, how did they define themselves, and what function did Douglass serve in their lives? If so, then what did they gain from that -- or lose? What is important about their lives both through their association with Douglass and separate from Douglass? Is this a feminist biography, or a biography of a series of relationships that can illuminate the intersection of race, gender, sex (as in both sexual scandal and miscegenation), power, and political activism in the 19th century?

Yes, I think that last is the best way to go: "a biography of a series of relationships with women that can" and blah blah blah and how a gendered analysis of Douglass's life might allow for greater understanding and so on and so forth.

Perhaps now would be the time to stop free writing in public as a sorry excuse for a blog post and go write the damn thing!

ETA: Shitty first draft accomplished! Before noon!