DIRT CHIC

Election Eve Thoughts, AKA Here at the End of All Things, Sam?

Well, to say that I am anxious and bothered and uncomfortable tonight would be HIGHLY ACCURATE.  I didn’t feel this way last election.  Or the one before.  I had my opinions, I was excited about them, I lost Facebook friends, I made my family upset (unintentionally), but none of it made me feel not unlike how I did when I was small, and my mom got the flu, and was out of commission for days.  My dad is the most wonderful dad ever, but mom is mom, and the grim spectre of doom was REAL on those dark, dark nights of having no soothing mom presence around, just something mom-like upstairs, bedridden, stripped of her powers.  I’m not turning this into a metaphor about moms vs. dads, don’t worry - though as Louis CK hilariously pointed out, that would be apt.  I felt this way this summer during the RNC.  Cleveland has seen a lot of victory and excitement this last year, and the mood during those times has been pervasive.  The mood during the RNC was of a city with a mom with the flu.  It was warm and beautiful and I sat in my house on the couch, a disgruntled gnome of displeasure that my city was being overtaken by what felt like the wasteful aftermath of a state fair come to life.  

And the thing is, I am not prone to being disgruntled.  I like a good party, even for the other team, when the teams are both great teams (see recent Cubs vs. Indians - so much fun was had by all).  My disgruntledhood was not in protest, but in reaction.  And I feel a much more disturbing version of that tonight.  I can’t imagine tomorrow will be anything but worse - until, as are my hopes, it gets better (even though I am not so naive as to assume any victory will be without significant storm clouds hovering dangerously close by).  

I wonder right now if I’ve said enough.  Did I say I enough.  I know I didn’t DO enough, in terms of civic duty of canvassing and making calls and other important deeds that I do truly value and only neglected because I’ve spent the semester neck-deep in trying to teach my of-voting-age students solid rhetoric and civic engagement.  I don’t assume social media or blogging WILL change minds, but along with not being prone to being disgruntled, I am not particularly cynical.  Who’s to say I couldn’t?  

I should’ve said: do you have concerns or doubts, questions?  May I discuss them with you?  Would you like to know my complex and long-thought-out reasons for voting the way I’m going to vote, as a liberal progressive urban Christian?  As a teacher, as a person close to the medical and mental health fields, as a writer, as many other things?  

Could I have said, which I’ll say now, that I don’t vote a party.  I don’t even vote my personal values because they are not actually quite the same as my civic values; I consider the ethics of the communities and demographics that will be impacted by leadership and policy.  The personal IS political so of course there is plenty of personal in my political; for those who say I have a responsibility to vote my values - well, I do.  I have multi-layered values.  And expectations.  And I have known who I’m going to vote for from the very beginning.  I’ve been given crap about it, I’ve been given support.  I’ve devoted a lot of time to my choice, though, as I continued to stick with my choice; I’ve given thought to other choices.  The main thing, is that I’ve thought and thought.  And I’ve held back my thoughts, plenty.  

But I think it’s clear who I’m voting for - if it isn’t necessarily clear, where I stand.  And if someone assumes where I stand based on who I vote for, then that would be as fair as my assuming where you stand, based on who you’re voting for.  I’ve not descended into that so far, though I’ve felt like it tonight.  Oh man, have I felt like it.  I’m frustrated to see, near the finish line, more crappy fallacies and non-credible sources trotted out as legit evidence, as good thought, as worthwhile.  I DO understand why people are voting for who they vote for, generally, along as many possible lines as I can brainstorm; I still don’t find some choices acceptable, even if I do understand them.  But the thing I find most bothersome is the lack of willingness to think things through, to find real information, to have standards for what is worthwhile, to make choices based on that.  Instead people throw in the towel - I know this is CHOCK FULL of mixed metaphors, and I don’t apologize - because of the sheer amount of information and feeling out there, or so it seems.  That is understandable, but unreasonable.  

Though don’t let me imply that reason is the only appeal I care about.  I clearly care about credibility - character.  And of course, emotion.  I care about the complexity of our country and what is in front of us, and it is a country of humans, so I’m not expecting perfection and my goal is not “right” answers.  My goal is progress, and deep humanistic values, and classic liberalism where helping each other become better is part of the social contract.  

You know who I think will uphold that, far better than the other major choice.  

And if you still have time, and the inclination to talk about it, feel free - shoot me a message.  Because it’s not quite the end; not quite yet.  

This n' That, Spring 2016 Edition

Man.  I'm so out of touch w/ye olde bloggyng voice.  Probably because back when I did it a lot more, I was obviously less busy - "busy" - and needed some kind of outlet.  Since I don't really journal.  Or do much autobiographical writing.

And I don't know what to do with the term "busy".  I feel like it's a catch-all term that's lost its meaning, if it ever had much to begin with.  I have a lot to do - sometimes.  It comes in waves.  I certainly can make my schedule busier by saying Yes to everything and/or feeling like I need to do more.  I look forward to not being busy, but then I get messed up if I spend too much time alone.  The summer threatens that; I'm already trying to remedy it in advance.  I wish I was better at hobbies.  As in absorbing tasks that don't involve a of shopping but give me a sense of meaning and satisfaction.  I have issues with that sometimes: finding meaning and being satisfied.  I have a feeling I'm not alone, but it feels very lonely when that's the place I'm in... yes?

I am going to mess around w/soapmaking this summer.  And mild perfumery, since it's expensive, all those ingredients.  Maybe some cosmetic-making as well.  Along with writing.  I don't have any classes lined up this summer, which is a first.  And a good thing, honestly, since I taught 11 classes the last two semesters, and have 5 comp ones lined up in the fall.  Am going to do odd jobs, which I like.  Painting my parents' house, for instance.  I do like rote work like that.  I'm a freak.  I was thinking about the time I spent the summer cleaning out their garage, and how much I loved that. ?!?  I have a feeling I would highly enjoy house renovation, if that's the only thing I had to do.  Perhaps I missed my calling.  As a construction worker.

Started Screenwriting Club yesterday; it was great.  I'm working on two horror movie ideas, one of which I've been chewing on for awhile, the other of which is new and unbroken.  (I like breaking stories; sounds violent, huh?  Kind of is.  But only for my BRAIN.  But it's great fun to tease out a world, all from my conscious and sub-conscious.)  I also enjoy teaching it.  I did two workshops for the Dramatist's Guild last weekend, one on dramaturgy, and it was also great.  I'll still be doing one-on-one dramaturgy, but I have to remember to focus on my own, as well.  Haven't done much writing, creatively, for myself, this last year (though have written a good deal, and I'm not complaining; it's been great.  SO MUCH GREAT STUFF).

Well.  It felt very satisfying to write this, which is satisfying.  This is partly why I feel kind of wacked-out a lot of the time: I think about thinking.  A LOT.  It certainly has its benefits, but it can also get kind of... dysfunctional.  Hence: hobbies, writing, rote work.  And it's all good.

And hopefully I will keep on bloggin'. :)  I certainly plan on it!

And because I apparently don't take many pictures of myself anymore, here is a pic of a something I happened across at my parents' house over Easter.  Mr. Hamster Has a Snack.

Not Quite Technically Fall, But It Feels That Way.

I think a little blogging is in order.  Why?  Well, because it's raining, and 61 degrees out, and I'm curled up in my robe and a blanket, drinking coffee, and it's Saturday.  I decided during the middle of the summer (more realized) that I spend far too little time actually feeling content, and did I have some control over this?  Turns out, I do.  Not that I always did.  But I do.  

I was noting that last night when I was also curled up on the couch, eating Colby Cheez-Its and watching Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, and feeling enormously comforted by the dark vibe and art direction of the movie - aided by having my vintage sputnik lamp on in the "game corner" and having my favorite "bonfire"-scent candle going.  CONTENTMENT.  I think the key is not so much that I think all the world and all of life is glorious and perfect, but enjoying the small moments, and not stuffing them full of anxious thoughts about what do I have to do next and how am I going to get what I want sooner than later and yadda yadda.  

That was fine in my 20's but it doesn't work anymore.  It doesn't work for many reasons, but mostly it doesn't work because I have a very full schedule and many responsibilities, so I MUST, I NEED to take time to clear my brain of expectations of the future.  I don't really concern myself with that much, anymore.  I know some of the things I need to do, but beyond that - who knows.  

Tonight is CPT's Pandemonium, and some lovely friends are doing my little play The Birds and the Bees, which will be great fun to see again.  AND, I will find some way to deck myself out because it's PANDEMONIUM.  Pictures maybe forthcoming.  I do not feel photogenic anymore.  That's the problem w/looking at pictures from... my 20's.

But.  I've done a bit more thrifting and have some treasures to show.  Will probably just go the easy route and use Instagram to post them here.  But since thrifting is still one of my favorite things to do, and my summer of austerity is over, I'll be posting more.  AND it's costume season so hopefully I'll score some major finds.  Score.

Opinions, and, Do You Want to Read a Post about Christianity and LGBTQ?

Today has turned into a long string of missive-writings and waxings cultural/spiritual/theoretical.  And it is 12:30, and I have yet to read my play-o-the-day, though it WILL happen, and I will go retrieve a GAJILLION more at the library, and then I will go teach and learn evermore about grammar and punctuation.  And then I will come home and probably read and wax more waxable stuff.

I've been having a long conversation with a dear relative of mine, about our world and our culture and about religion's place in it.  For me, it keeps coming back to my paradigm: good comes from choice, a lot of the time.  Love is a choice, joy is a choice, and small acts are just as important as big ones - and definitely more important than just making noise.  It's important to articulate cultural and personal morals/ethics, but at the end of the day, that better not be all a person does.  That is, if they consider religion to be important.  I also think it's a good idea for anyone.  But I've been focusing on religion, because I like to think about it and human meaning and value.

I've also been reading plays.  I won't name names, but I've read a few that are existential realism and I have little-to-zero use for them.  Existentialism: OVER IT.  Just like I'm over fear-based defense tactics in rhetoric.  Existentialism doesn't automatically mean Great Art!.  I find it boring.  Because: get over yourself and how you don't know if you matter or not.  You do.  We're all out of our minds, some of the time.  Nobody's better off than anybody, so let's stop trying to trump each other in any and every way, with our misery, irony, self-righteousness, on.  I find other excavations of human concern and worth worthwhile.  Let Beckett do Beckett because Beckett does it best.  

OPINIONS.

I have a post I wrote to Christians regarding LGBT.  I will probably post it.  It's a little more obnoxious than my usual, although the paragraph above OPINIONS is basically the same, tonally.  

In the meantime I find this article about yuppies to be interesting, and honestly, a call to commonality and a de-focusing on material well-being.  (I'm not saying it's not important or valuable.  I just don't think it's everything.  Material well-being, that is.)  I also find this sorta-old article about Facebook to interesting, as well - snide as hell, just warning you, and for the record I don't care for that pathetic-in-terms-of-abusing-pathos quality about it - because I think it's another call to commonality despite its dire conclusion.  Spending quality time with people is more important than anything else.

GoCavsGoCavsGoCavsGoCavsGoCavs

Another pic-less post.  I have pics, on my phone, but my phone is downstairs, where it is exiled  when I'm getting writing done.  GETTING WRITING DONE.  Got a lot in today.  The floodgates, apparently, have opened.  And tomorrow I have to take a lil' trip.  I tend to get jack crap done on trips, but I'll TRY.  I'm on a ROLL.

Feeling a bit emotional today - I mean, more than usual.  I am not a ball of emotions - until I am.  Good thing I don't have cable.  Cuz commercials.  I watched a Nike one about CLE/Cavs/LeBron and I nearly lost my shiz.  Lost my shiz = sobbing.  I did everything up to the shiz-losing point.

Why?  Because Tamir Rice.  Because CLE being a place of loss and being kind of a national scapegoat, though it no longer deserves it.  I'm not as entrenched in the deepest of the problems in this town as some, but I've made it a point to not run away from its problems.  I mean, my students have family members who get shot and killed, or have been shot and killed.  Students who live in poverty and fear and oppression.  So without getting into it too much, parts of that commercial speak about that, to me.  And the power of hope, of sacrifice, of unity - I am not a cynic.  That stuff's real.  Their power is not static, but that doesn't mean their power isn't long-reaching.  You just don't know.  I don't.  But I'd rather my effects as a person be of the positive rippling nature, not the negative.  Can't say that I've always succeeded.  But my mantra: change happens because we make it happen.  

Watching a commercial doesn't change much, I suppose, but my heart needs to be reminded of suffering - and hope.  I do hope the Cavs win, win everything.  Not out of rabid team allegiance but because there's been a lot of stuff.  Tamir.  The whole Brelo thing.  And I woke up to learn that a pizza delivery guy got shot and killed in my neighborhood.  I can't understand, or fathom, or abide, knowing that some people don't give one goddamn shit about the life of another person - so my choice is to mourn, instead of compartmentalize and think in terms of it being just one other thing.  I'm working on a commissioned play about everyone mattering - and man, it's just something that keeps needing to be said.  

I won't get into some of the LGBT stuff that's gone down today but let it be known, clearly: I am 100% a LGBT-community ally.  It breaks my heart and honestly, angers me.  Like whoa.  I'm heartened, to some degree, by there being positive trajectory in our nation's past, when it comes to doing the right thing - but why does it have to be so slow?  And with casualties?  I've seen some of the most IRRATIONAL and unreasonable things... even when I specifically hide people on Facebook.  Stuff just shows up anyway.

Sigh.

Well, I'm going to go get some Ben & Jerry's, and frozen pizza, and am gonna put up my card table and tackle a massive puzzle, and listen to the game, because I'm SO OLD-SKOOL (not at all, really - just don't have cable, or a receiver for the basic channels.  Need to get on that).

And hope for the best in all things, but I REALLY HOPE WE WIN.

GO CAVS

(And everyone)

Adulthood Hobbies Dentistry Athleticism Etc.

Hiked 5 miles on Sunday.  Can't say I'm used to that.  Makes me feel old.  But also better.  Need to do that more often.  As well as yoga.  Especially since I paid for monthly studio membership.  Also need to bike more.  Especially since I sold my mountain bike and got a hybrid for only $25 more.  Craigslist score.  

Getting another crown today.  Not the royal kind.  The fun part of getting older!  A dear friend of mine informed me that her teeth have been problematic in her pregnancy.  Great.  Another thing to worry about if I decide to actually have children.  I thought my teeth were bad enough AS-IS.

Maybe I should ride my bike to the dentist.  Something my students keep saying, as a preface to what I assume they think is terrible news, is "I'm not gonna to lie to you."  Or, "I'm gonna be honest."  My reaction to both phrases is always amusement.  Them: "I'm not gonna lie to you, I don't understand this assignment at all."  Let me praise their candidness.  As if I want them to lie to me.  As if I don't know that already.  Which is all to say: I'm not gonna lie to you: I am not an athletic person.  I wish I was.  But I'm not.  Maybe I'll become a fervent marathoner or epic cyclist or yogi, like, in my later life, but I doubt it.  I do not come from an athletic people.  I come from a discussiony people.  A shoppy people.  A sit-around-the-firey people.

The Cavs game is tonight.  Let it also be known that I'm not a sporting type, but this is just too fun for my current hometown.  I was going to see Mad Max but that'll just have to wait a little longer.  Drat.

Speaking of hometown, I was in Omaha (not my hometown) at a candy/antique store (such things exist and are proof to me of divine love for myself in particular), for the second time that day (I can explain) (but won't), and I was talking to someone and turned and here this was:

What the motherflippin' what?!?

Yep.  FURTHER PROOF.

Next, I need to be at a Bakelite/lipgloss store for the third time in a day, and surely I will find a vintage Longmont map made of everlasting cotton candy.  I expect this.  

I miss home.  Homes.  I realized, recently, that the thing to do about this is to let it happen, and to live in it.  Not wallow in sadness and self-pity, but to let love do its work, so to speak, and to remember that everything that's happened to me is part of who I am, and to actually let these feelings and memories activate themselves, and be what they are.  Sounds mystical, huh?  It's not, not really.  I just find it's better not to push them aside.  I've been making more phone calls, or Skyping, or FaceTiming, because Facebook is just nothing in comparison.  My grandma moved from her home in West Virginia, away from six siblings and extended family and loving parents, to Colorado and Wyoming, to remedy her oldest boy's asthma.  And she never lost her accent.  And she and her family exchanged many long, long letters, and later on, phone conversations.  And of course visits.

I have no idea what my life will be like or where it'll take me.  But I'm not going to wait around until I get closer in proximity to my loved ones.  To be better about spending time with them.  I used to be pretty good at this, but this was before the supremacy of social media, basically.  

Not knockin' it, or the internet, but I'm not satisfied with either.  

And in related news, I think I'm going to do something radical and tell my students, next semester, that they can't email me to get out of anything.  I'm chewing on how to word it and approach it, but I was thinking about my undergrad years, and how if I missed a class, I just missed a class - and my fear of attendance policies certainly got my butt in my chair plenty of times (I was not the best student at first), because I couldn't send a plaintive note to a teacher that was laden with excuses.  It's just way too easy to make excuses.  I get it, but at the same time, email makes it too easy.

But I digress.

I'm taking up soap-making, and maybe makeup-making, and eventually, maybe, perfume-making.  Tried the latter before, but it's not cheap and I was not as committed to it as I should've been.  Yah, this is in prep and research for my epic length of fiction but also because, well, I'm obsessed with soap, and I need some more meditative, productive hobbies.  

Not because my life sucks.  Because it doesn't.  Not at all. :)

There's just some elusive ways to enjoy things more - elusive unless you realize they're right there.  

But you gotta DO them.

I like to look, but it's time to make. (LOOK at that above.  Sigh.  Bliss)

Actually, it's about time to go to the dentist. 

And MAYBE ride my bike. :)

New Christmas

Winter.

I will accept snow; where is it?  Applications will be rushed.  SNOW ALREADY.  

10-ish days to beginning-of-semester.  Month off: needed.  Well-used.  And it's not even over.

Holidays: CHEER.  Minimal stress.  Normalcy without normalness is my norm, normally.  

I DID wear my festive dress - twice.  One, for a night of theatre and a good friend's wassail party; two, to another good friend's wedding.  In Georgia.  I got to see Atlanta and some surrounding areas.  Drivers were way too aggressive, and I'm used to Chicago, for crying out loud!  (Have I already mentioned this?  Apparently I'm traumatized)

But anyways, this is the best pic I managed to get of it.  Dork.

 

In other sartorial news, I BOUGHT JEANS.  (At SalArmy in Indiana, $6.)  But they are black jeans so it's not really that much of a difference.  It's nice to have them now that it's finally getting colder, though.  Who knew.  (Everyone who wears jeans.)  

(I actually have another pair of black jeans but they are not for daily wear.  Strangely, both pairs are Ralph Lauren.  Also, who knew?)

I went home for a New Year's Christmas with my fam.

First I went to Mary's Motown Dance party.

As you can see, Mary is VERY RAD.

And New Years Day was, ahem, Christmas.

Thing 1 (niece) on the left wanted fake poop.  Yep.  She got it.  For her toy dog.  Thing 2 (niece) on the right wanted stuffed animals, so I got her a Himalayan, which I think she referred to as a bear for a little while.  Same difference.  Right?  

(Which reminds me: go look at this Twitter.  It's awesome.)

And I finished the Pooh animal set with Tigger.  Okay, okay, I have a bunch more to do, and I won't stop making them, but I will definitely take any leads on tiny stuffed craft things.

Here's Mary's pic of the set.  You can tell my skills, such as they are, have improved since Pooh (the first animal, naturally).

And.  Well.  There's this.

It is not a present.  It is/they are the ashes of my dog.  If this disturbs you, you're not alone - it blows my mind, and not really in a good way.  I had a good cry over them when I got back to CLE.  Can't say I go in for this rainbow bridge idea... except when I think about it, actually meeting Biff, um, on a rainbow - I cry.  I also had a dream the other night that he wasn't, in fact, dead!  He just had a cough!  Apparently the denial phase has to occur in my dreams.

But it was easier this time, at home.  He is still very missed.  Sweet boy.

Well, I haven't QUITE hit the ground running, but I do have lots and lots and lots to do - and when I thought about all of it this last week, I was grateful to realize everything that's happening, everything I have to do, I look forward to it all.  

So I'm off.  And I'll leave you with this.

Tea. Etc.

This.

As I well remember from the time I tried to document my daily outfits, doing a post-a-day-on-a-specific-topic becomes a taskmaster pretty fast.  Which is fine.  No one's holding a gun to my head, making me post about thrifting.  But something I also remember from that other time is that it both was a relief to have a daily thing to count on, and also sometimes vexing, when I didn't feel "up" or "on" but still would post something benign.  It just bothered me at times, because it felt false some days.  Not my posts.  But not feeling able to express how I was really feeling.  OH MYYYYYYY.

ANYWAYS, was just thinking about that, and how it's kept me a bit from posting about non-thrifting things.

Like my tin of Twinings Earl Grey.  Which actually reminds me of two things: camp, and working at the Lettuce Entertain You corporate office during gift card season.  Both fond memories, though camp wins out by far.

I bought this tin at the awesome little international foods store at the West Side Market.  I'm a sucker for tins.  And Earl Grey.  And now that it's fall and not oppressively hot, I feel more like drinking it.

I'm sure this is all very interesting. ;)

BUT, I also am pumped that it's loose, although that makes everything more complicated.  Complications in tea: I can deal.  

And it's 9:44, and I'm supposed to join some friends post-show (I'll go to the show next week), and I just want to take a bath and drink abovementioned tea and read Vanity Fair or whatever.  Not that I'm complaining; I just feel tired and COUCH POTATO-Y. :)

In other news:
-I finished my play and that was and is great.  I cleaned it up this eve and sent it to a few places, just 'cuz.  Readings are in a few weeks.  I have to sit through talkbacks.  Which I just think is funny.
-My computer froze 7 times today, which because I didn't have PMS didn't make me have rage.  
-Listening to Nirvana while driving to teach university students at 7:30 in the morning is, in the words of my Romanian friend Viviana, "a mind-blow." 
-I think I'll get a real alarm clock.  
-NOT INTERESTING NONE OF THIS IS INTERESTING. I think I'm just doing it because I CAN.  Life is not relentless for the first time in like three months.

But I started doing this early, which is SO GREAT.  Which is funny, because I normally feel kind of overwhelmed by it, even as I enjoy it:

If you don't know what this means, you will. (In Yoda voice)

Super-Freaking-Long With No Pictures

I don't work on Fridays.  "Work".  I have plenty I could do on Fridays, for my "work" and my "career".  I could walk around with a t-shirt on that has a Mac spinning rainbow pinwheel of death or the hourglass and giant font that says BUSY.  I woke up on the right side of the bed, but when the coffee cleared the cobwebs I didn't want to stare down everything that was in front of me.  It wasn't just that I felt overwhelmed.  It's that I felt tired.  I felt tired, and I felt the way I felt all week - like I was some sort of semi-porous part of the earth's crust, just there; holding down my responsibilities while everything else weighs down, but not really troubled, because that's just existence.

But I don't want "just existence".  I don't want life to be a circle.  I don't want my old self-reflexive mode that I adopted for self-preservation the last couple of years, and mostly kicked - which is whittling everything down to particles.  Everything in my mind.  I'm not a scientist at all, actually, but I can't help but sometimes think of everything that matters to me as a vapor of chemicals or a painless firing of synapses.  I hate it.  Not violently or with attending depression.  But I still hate it.

I finished a draft of the play that I'm supposed to write and it was hard to write, but I marathoned it and I got it done.  And, well, I hated it.  I told myself the usual things about how I have no clear objectivity about my writing - although I do for everyone else's - and I knew that that could be the case, because it has happened in the past, this initial rough-draft hatred; I also knew it could just be a horrible, horrible play, and try as I might, I couldn't totally expel those chemical vapors/thoughts.  (I also know that chemicals/emotions are not vapors.)  I worked on cleaning up the formatting last night, and felt deflated, because having to read through my dialogue didn't make me feel any more confident.  I also worked on it this morning, and as I was running on fresh coffee and 8 hours of sleep as opposed to 14 hours of wakefulness after marathon essay-grading and teaching, I found myself feeling a little more heartened, and with it enough to start making copious notes on what I could do to make it better.

But it bothered and bothers me that I hated it, because there was very little joy in writing it and not much joy in the thought of it getting slowly on its feet this next year.  I said to one of my playwriting buddies yesterday, "I don't really even care if it sucks or not, I just want my actors to have a good time with it."  I do, of course; but feeling self-defeated and bleh about a really awesome opportunity to get my work out in front of people is NOT A GOOD FEELING.

So I walked to the library to pick up some books for another project.  Was thinking on a lot of the mess and death in the world, and then "general dreariness" of a jam-packed schedule.  (That was a Chariots of Fire quote.)  I was thinking the other day on how I didn't choose teaching as a career.  I just kind of went into it because that's what my degrees generally prepped me to do, as opposed to accountancy or dentistry.  My degrees prepped me for the life of an adjunct, at least for now - and I have not yet had a moment where I've wanted to walk away from it.  I've had moments of needing a solid break or an aristocratic beverage, but teaching is a wonderful thing to be a part of and it benefits me, generally - and I hope I benefit the people I work with.  It's like the workhorse for people who are into… equines, and my writing is… the unicorn.  That's why I put "work" and "career" up there, not to make fun of what I do for a living, but because my falling into it without much forethought makes me feel kind of cheap in regards to it.  I don't feel like a hack anymore, because I've gained some teaching chops in all my, well, teaching, but I do feel too jack-of-all-trades-y sometimes, bopping from campus to campus and teaching a crazy grab-bag of classes, whatever gets thrown at me.  I am a jack-of-all-trades with a grab-bag of classes, and I think I will create the one-man-band Bert from Mary Poppins uses because I think that will round out the picture of how I feel like I'm creating and living a bunch of noise that I've made for myself, a lot of mental noise and a lot of busy noise.  

I also think about how a lot of people feel that way about their jobs - generally, they're just trying to do them and do them well and get through the day and week - and then I feel guilty for not taking full joy and self-actualization from my job(s).  I guess I have basically harbored the half-formed idea that if I had a faculty position that I actually chose to work towards when I started graduate school I would not find myself being tired.  Yes, laugh.  Do laugh.  But I don't mean tired in the physical-mental sense.  I mean tired in the emotional sense.  And of course, I don't actually think that would change anything.

So I was walking to the library and thinking about how it's rough to not have much to look forward to.  Yeah, yeah - whine, whine.  But really.  I went from having a lot of free time (which was not always a good thing) and having a lot of hopes and dreams to moving to Cleveland (bless it) and having a lot of amazing opportunities.  And responsibilities.  And I've got everything that I need, in terms of creature comforts and essentials.  I'm married to a person who works extremely hard at a very demanding job, and he's very, very good at it - but I think (I don't speak for him) that he feels like this new version of adulthood is pretty relentless, too.  We work hard, we do what we need to do.  But this is it.  This is what life is.  Sort of.  

I got my books, and walked towards home, and I thought of poetry and Anne Lamott and Madeleine L'Engle and Trinity Cathedral, and how putting myself in the path of certain forms of worship is worthwhile and how when I sit at home for huge stretches of time, writing or reading not-for-pleasure or grading or class-planning I do get a little mentally ill, I do get a little skewed, and I need to stop and smell whatever smells good and think on that until the cobwebs not just in my head, but soul, clear.  But I also thought, blah blah, that's still not going to crowbar me out of my existential funk because I NEVER LET MYSELF totally get free of it - almost never, that is.  I thought about my play, and how in the past I had ideas of grandiosity and plenty of ego was mixed in with my hopes and dreams but dangit, I don't give a rat's ass if people think I am the shiz when they see or read my plays, I just want them to have what I sometimes have at the theatre - an experience where I am moved.  Where what I see is true.  Where it transcends my antsiness and constant-stream-of-thoughtness and I can clap at the end with the fullness of my entire BEING and salute the actors because I just participated in… being alive and knowing it and not just existing.  I just want to write something that moves and is true and if it holds itself up just enough to not fall totally flat on its face while it does this than that's ok, that's all I want.  

Right now it's on its face.  I need to be on my face.  I have to hold myself up through life's responsibilities (because only you can do that for yourself, ultimately - no one else can be your center) but I am not a person who does well without some kind of psychic safety valve.  I rounded the corner to my house and I thought of how the words I grew up with, "come to me and I will give you rest", are some of the best words ever, because that is what hope and faith is - giving all the cares up and placing them in the hands of the universe and falling flat on your face in gratitude and exhaustion.  Not everyone needs it, but I need it.  I miss it.  Devotion is actually a practice, not a compulsion, and I forget it as I do what I think I should do or what I'm tasked to do, which includes my writing, which is also my "work" and "career", which means I also feel cheap about.  Because I do it sometimes with rote commitment and I end up with something that I feel little or no connection to.  I HATE IT.  

Truth and beauty, beauty and truth.  They are fullness.  The best way to the center of them is the secret trap-door of joy and I do have access to that.  They are fullness and they are love, which sometimes scares me because dangit, love is a HORRIBLE SCARY BEAST, or as ee cummings put it so much better, "love everywhere exploding it maims and it blinds".  The times in my life where I have felt most alive, and most known, where the times when I dwelt fully in love, and that is a dwelling-place that I miss mightily and therefore sometimes utterly avoid.  I.  Avoid.  Love.  I think of my dog, who is not well and not infinite, and I think about how I went into that trap-door of loving him and how much it hurts now, and how much it's going to kill, when I have to let him go.  So, why not throw myself into responsibilities that make me forget?  But also make me feel like a crusty ol' crust of the earth?

I keep thinking about Ernest Hemingway in Midnight in Paris and whichever character it is states the awesomest thing that has come from Woody Allen's mind: art is the thing that elevates.  That I should keep pursuing the true.  Yeah, I'm an adult, so I don't get massive stretches of time to myself to create things gloriously.  I do get to be with people and maybe sometimes help them along, in my job and in my non-job life.  Good people.  I love people.  And I am going to revise my play and somehow go to the scary place that I miss, because that's really what's going on, here - I have to practice devotion and I have to go to a place that can be painful.  I need to do a number on the self-reflexivity/pathology.  I need to remember to read poetry.  I need to seek the divine, even though it makes me cry.  I owe this to my play.  I owe it to myself.  

Nonfiction, Architecture, and Egocentrism. BECAUSE

This is the only place I feel like writing about myself.  Well, here, and in emails.  And in both instances, I live in fear of being ponderous.  I hate being ponderous.

I'm not going to assume I'm never really going to launch into creative nonfiction, because I've assumed similar things about other genres in the past, and have been totally wrong.

But I'll probably be really old by the time I want to do that.  And by then I might have dementia or something, so there goes that.  

I DON'T LIKE WRITING ABOUT MYSELF in a hyper-constructed way.

I don't like drawing insights from or about my life in a hyper-constructed way.

I'm too messy.  Internally.

I bore myself when thinking about myself.  I don't like being bored.

I can't focus in on just one "voice".  I don't even like to HEAR myself talk.  

It's best I deal with myself elliptically through fictional projects.  It's also best that when I have to hear myself talk it's for some kind of greater good.  Not to infer, in any of this, that those who write creative nonfiction are in any way inferior, bad, or misguided.  I actually prefer to READ creative nonfiction over all other forms.  Go figure.

But here's this: I was at the Westcott House in Springfield, Ohio (Springfield cannot be avoided, even when I change states), another gorgeous restoration of a Frank Lloyd Wright.  Going to FLW structures is the same as going to a great museum, for me - inspiring like whoa, reminding me of artistic discipline in a refreshing, outside way.  

There were some t-shirts in the gift shop printed with my favorite quote of all time, not just of FLW's but from anyone, anywhere: "An idea is salvation by imagination".  

The shirts were terracotta-orange so that was a no-go, sartorially - but that wasn't the point.  It was good just to see it in print, again.  I think of it off and on (and it's obnoxiously in my teaching philosophy), and when I do, I always think to myself that I need to stick this on a post-it and always have it in front of me.  It's the nature of it all; I forget important things unless I dwell on them.  And it's easy to just wake up and want to go - not dwell.  (Though I DO love to dwell, I do, I do.)

I bring this up just because I want to, but also because I was noting throughout the house tour what information was included and excluded.  I don't think a house tour should necessarily include a concise history of an inhabitant's and/or architect's personhood, nor does it need to be very, if at all, political.  I even question how historical it has to be - I don't formally study architecture, so I don't know what methodologies are put in place for such things, though I doubt what ones are, are required to be followed.

BUT, I couldn't help thinking about history textbooks, and how skewed they are towards a rosy portrait of the United States. (Have been reading up on this lately.)  So I extra couldn't help thinking about it when the docent informed us that FLW expected that living in his houses would make the inhabitants better people, and then made a little comment that went something to the effect of "that probably seems like kind of an egotistical statement", in a way that charmingly diffused the potential egocentrism.  The docent moved on from it, to talk about organic architecture.  I wanted to obnoxiously pipe up (I don't know what it is about doing these house tours that makes me - and I've noted others - want to overtly act like I know something about what's being talked about.) and note that FLW WAS, in fact, one of the most egocentric artists a person could ever study.  And I wouldn't even say it snarkily.  Besides it being THE salient feature of his personality, I think it's a salient point for interpretation.  FLW was not, in his time, considered a morally-quality person.  He also wasn't that interested in the continuity of physical property from a craftsmanship standpoint - so many of his buildings were experimental, and did and do cause serious problems for owners and conservators.  He put his artistry above all else - including fiscal solvency.  He was often barely a step ahead of creditors, if even that.  

But look what he did.  And while I've heard him called, over and over, the greatest architect of all time (I don't disagree), he fought his own lifelong battle with failure, obscurity, disfavor, tragedy.  But he seemed to have rock-solid belief in his genius.  It's not a particularly popular idea, that one of our finest organic creators (and by organic I mean of the United States) was also not someone we could hold up to the standards and values we sometimes profess to be "American".  

I love this about him.  I love this about so many artists.  I love this about so many figures in history.  Learning about their strengths and weaknesses doesn't diminish them for me, unless they've been on a pedestal for far too long.  FLW's egocentrism is truly what made him tick, and it shouldn't be a side comment, explained or batted away.  He is a great figure in our history, and I don't think heroes need to be lofty or pure. (Sorry, Plato.)  Or even fallen, for that matter.

But anyways.  He was, and is, right - he offered and offers salvation, over and over, because he understood something fundamental about the human spirit and what we need.  Buildings will fall apart unless constantly cared for; I need to sit in front of the beliefs of others that somehow have rung true for me, too, so I can be better at what I do.

Which is creating something interesting, hopefully, from my not-so-terribly-interesting life.  

We can't all be Frank Lloyd Wrights.  :)  (In this case, not even close.)

But I have no problem with us all trying to be saviors.