I’ve been writing in a paper journal more lately than in the past few years. It’s amazing how much that simple act helps put things in perspective for me. I remember writing furiously as a teenager, crying or raging or something, and being able to calm myself down, talk myself off a ledge basically, just by writing down what I was thinking. It makes for embarrassing reading now, of course, but it was so valuable to me at the time.

Money–there’s not enough of it to support my current SOL. Just reviewed my loan situation since grad school and am pretty horrified. (And haven’t even calculated the hub’s loans yet.) On the one hand, I would like to let my job be school and the adult literacy center I help run. On the other, it’s hard not to spend money that’s there, even if you know it’s not really yours. Sigh. Maybe mint.com can help me more this go ’round.

Bodies–I’ll share an anecdote. Last night, my soccer-playing friend (S-PF), my swim team friend (STF), J, and I were all hanging out, having drinks at the local beer garden. It was the first time STF and S-PF had met each other and one of the first things STF said to her (S-PF) was, “So what do you do? Your body looks like a–dancer, or something.” (I should note here that S-PF is a petite, sporty 26-year-old woman, and STF is a high-energy, kick-ass 42-year-old woman whose idea of a good time is going on two swims and a run in one day.) S-PF, characteristic of her, stammered in slight embarrassment and replied that she plays soccer and runs a lot. STF then said that if S-PF was a bike, she would be like a light carbon model that’s easy to pick up. Unable to stop myself, I said, “Yeah and I’d be a heavy steel framed cruiser with saddlebags.” We all laughed; it was a light-hearted moment; but it bothered me for the rest of the night. It wasn’t anything about either of my friends–it was rather that the interaction dredged up all these old feelings about myself and my worth.

When we got home, I felt resolved (the steely, shame-motivated resolve of high school and early college) to change my ways, to exercise more regularly, more intensely, to stop being so “lazy.”

Lazy, as we all probably know, is teenage girl code for fat–and probably a larger cultural code for it too. In fact, “code” is probably giving it too much credit: think of the phrase “fat and lazy.” They go together.

Eventually, I got over my funky mood. But I think what bothered me so much was the assumption (which in this case is quite correct) that S-PF is an active, fit person. She is, indeed. But so am I, and I’ve never been asked that question. Strangers and acquaintances don’t approach me wondering how I’ve achieved the body I have. S-PF’s body is naturally smaller than mine, and people credit her with character, discipline, and good humor, all because she looks a certain way. Our lifestyles are similar, but I feel like I have to prove to people that I’m not lazy–that is, not fat. (I think, too, of the time my ex-roommate [whom I detested but to whom I had to be nice] saw me putting on running shoes and said, “Oh I didn’t figure you for a runner,” and the rage and shame I felt then, too.) Hence the shame, the resolve to punish myself more severely, to be better, to eat less, to do more.

This should sound familiar to most 20-something women in America, maybe even “most women in America,” period. We may now know enough to be ashamed of smoking and not working out, but we certainly aren’t any more comfortable with the space we occupy in the world. It seems we can never be small enough, never abstain enough, never put our bodies through enough. I speak from a woman’s perspective, but I know there are similar pressures on men. I wish I could fast-forward 100 years and see what cultural critics and historians will say about us. We might be defined as the Conundrum Generation: “Obsessed with consumption, and consuming insane amounts of resources every day, they nonetheless had an equally riveting obsession with lean bodies, regulation of food consumption, and regulation of exercise. The sheer array of goods manufactured to assist with and measure Conundrums’ running activity boggles the mind,” (says my imaginary future historian).

Or maybe not. After all, flappers don’t seem that far away in time from us, except they didn’t have texting so they had to be like, “Meet me in the hotel lobby at such-and-such a time” and write letters and such. And they also consumed unprecedented amounts and were obsessed with lean women, so maybe it’s something about the modern world/modernity. But we’ve always policed our bodies in various ways (corsets, anyone?) so I dunno. You tell me, folks.

Also, Chicago summer + bikes = increased yogurt consumption (most ladies and a few gents will probably know what I’m talking about without more (rather icky) details).

Also, sow thistle should be picked young or, if picked old, COOKED. Man, thistle is right. Them shits HURT.

Finally, Mayfest. Today. See you there!

Also, Pi0n33r W0myn (don’t want lovers of the site to find me) is pretty and cutesy but much less my style than I was hoping and praying a feature article in the NYer would indicate. In a good way, she reminds me of my friend Heather. In a bad way, she reminds of that blog I’ve been meaning to write about the idealization of agricultural practices and, more importantly, life styles, of about 100 years ago as some kind of golden age. (And that’s coming from a gal who makes her own yogurt, brews kombucha, and uses vinegar, castile soap, and baking soda for most of her cleaning needs. And doesn’t flush after every #1.) More on that phenom later. I’ve been letting it brew for 2 reasons: 1) see paragraph #1, and 2) want to make sure it’s not a reactionary rant.

Toodles!

Left: Jolie does not want to be photographed. Right: J interprets her expression/pose in the photo at L.

We only go to the new ones, however. We walk around the model homes, counting it especially lucky when there is stale microwave popcorn or bottled water for the taking. The realtors somehow take my mother seriously in spite of the dilapidated minivan–and we do, too, my sisters and I. “This one’s my room!” we call as we enter the professionally decorated bedrooms. The televisions are fake, but each room usually has one; everything is pristine, but there are touches that make you think somebody might live here: a sweater draped over a chair back, a turned-down bed and a teddy bear, food box-facades in the kitchen’s refrigerator.

My mother always frames these as outings, but they are outings with a purpose. She is particularly smitten with the idea of leaving our house (a model home once itself; by the time we are touring track homes, it has a leaky roof, an out-of-control backyard, and stained carpet) and moving into one of these cavernous, clean, history-less houses. No ghosts haunt them; no cat piss lingers in that one corner where Gus liked to spray. The kitchen is not crowded with two marriages (and two divorces) worth of mixing bowls, electronics, and utensils. The bathroom is grime-free and the towels match. There are no broken toys or impulse buys or secondhand clothes shoved into any of the hall closets. No dogs leave their hair everywhere here; but it is pleasant to imagine them slurping water out of bowls on the kitchen floor, sunlight falling on their backs through the French doors.

The whole appeal of this place is, of course, that we do not live there–that nobody does. This does not keep me, in particular, from feeling secretly hostile when other families wander through and admire “our” house. I am comforted by reminding myself of what my mother says often enough: that nobody wants the model, and so if we take it, this very model, I’ll get that 3-ft-tall decorative giraffe and elephant poster for my very own. I will own fake TVs that are sleeker and more glamorous than our real TV, and since the real point is to enjoy inhabiting this space, to enjoy inhabiting this outline of a narrative that someone else has set up for us, it doesn’t matter that my channel-changing gesture doesn’t alter the grey facade.

I’m trying to decide whether I should try to keep a paper planner again (I usually give up on them after a month) or try to do everything digitally (this is hard since I don’t always have a computer with me). I imagine that the next time I get a new phone (probably in January 2012), I will get a “smart” one that will have a built-in calendar that I can sync with my gmail one and give voice commands to and make pick up my dry cleaning, probably. But part of me resists that day, mostly because I don’t know if I want to be “plugged in” all the time, and I yearn for the halcyon days of yore, before iPods and cell phones, when looking out a window and thinking was how you were expected to endure a 10 minute train ride. But then again, those days are gone, and somewhat imaginary. I should probably just get a smart phone. Eventually.

And now off to make pudding!

Me & Jolie

(This is my new generic greeting of choice. At any rate I’m trying it out in emails to my class this semester.)

The morning started with me being rudely awakened out of a heavy beer-y sleep by my painful tum, complaining of (expected, cycle-related) cramps. So I did the tried and true Advil/cramp bark tincture combo, sat in the tub with a very hot shower pointed at my midsection for 15 minutes, dried off; felt sorry for myself, felt I was suffering more than was fair or right, wondered (for perhaps the millionth time) how women dealt with their pain one hundred years ago (or today in less affluent & privileged situations than mine), reflected that perhaps it’s all the coffee and beer, and maybe my lack of biological children, giving me this intense pain; lay on the futon and read selections from DFW’s Consider The Lobster, felt better, ate crackers & drank EmergenC (to which I have a weird addiction) & ate gummy vites, then felt shitty again & took more Advil and lay on the bed and read blogs. And now here we find ourselves.

It’s now a little after 1 pm and I’m in what I call PJs but which are essentially my lazy house clothes, since I don’t wear them to bed, and haven’t done anything remotely useful except nurse my own pain the entire morning. What’s that you say? That I must not have much to do or I wouldn’t now be on this blog, telling you about my exceedingly-tedious-to-you but alright-at-parts-slash-terrible-at-others-to-me morning? Well, my friend, I refer you to both the title of my post and to this little gem, Structured Procrastination, by one John Perry, according to whom being on this blog right now is actually, contrary to all appearances, helping me wind my torturous way toward the eventual goal of preparing adequately for the week ahead!

I know, I kind of don’t believe it either. But it helps me feel less guilty, which guilt more often than not leads to paralyzing feelings of shittiness. So really maybe I do believe it in the sense that it helps me transcend some of the BS that keeps me from getting work done.

I hope you all have nice Sundays, regardless of your views on procrastination, and that you never have to read another bullshit passive sentence with too many adverbs and/or adjectives, the meaning of which you suspect is unclear even to its author, ever in your life.

“It’s of some interest that the lively arts of the milennial U.S.A. treat anhedonia and internal emptiness as hip and cool. It’s maybe the vestiges of the Romantic Weltschmerz, which means world-weariness or hip ennui. Maybe it’s the fact that most of the arts here are produced by world-weary and sophisticated older people and then consumed by younger people who not only consume art but study it for clues on how to be cool, hip–and keep in mind that, for kids and younger people, to be hip and cool is the same as to be admired and accepted and included and so Unalone. Forget so-called peer-pressure. It’s more like peer-hunger. No? We enter a spiritual puberty where we snap to the fact that the great transcendent horror is loneliness, excluded encagement in the self.” (p. 694 paperback Back Bay 2006 edition).

Actually, I just looked at the other things I had marked, and they don’t translate as well into snippets as I thought they would when I was reading, and would require a lot of background, etc. What else can I say about it? Some of the most gut-churning scenes, on the one hand, and tender, on the other, that I’ve ever read, plus DFW’s signature style, which I happen to love. Don’t bother with the Eggers Foreword, though, in my opinion, unless you really love him, and reading a vague, glowing endorsement of IJ and reading in general would push you over the edge into “OK, I’ll go ahead and read this” territory.

And now, back to work!

Yep.

That’s what I need to do.

Any minute now.

…

But also the guy sitting next to me in the graduate student study lounge is listening to something that sounds like ska/reggaeton in his earbuds, which I, of course, can hear. This is me looking at him:

But I will not let that trip me up. There is free coffee here, and a desk with electricity, and minimal distraction.

I just looked over. He’s watching youtube vids.

OK, I’m really leaving now.

A friend recently told me, half-apologizing for the “cheesiness,” that she has started writing down things she is grateful for. And I thought, that is not a bad idea.

Yesterday I taught, took PT to Lakeview, got my hair dyed, walked downtown, stopped in at the Newberry, studied at the university library, walked to J’s mom’s office, ate Mexican food that  a drug rep had brought too much of, then went home with J and finished White Teeth (the miniseries, not the book). It seems like–and indeed, it was–a simple trajectory to the day. As usual, I set studying goals that I did not keep. As usual, I resolved to do better tomorrow.

But yesterday was also somehow special, in ways large and small, and largesmall. The hair color, obviously. Sauntering around as a redhead, wondering what new assumptions and connections people make about me now. The torta I got for lunch, which I ate with gusto in Lincoln Park, my hands freezing. The walk downtown, through the garden between conservatory and zoo, then through the zoo. The zoo, nearly empty save a few wandering adults, and the snow leopard pacing in its enclosure. The snow leopard’s awe-inspiring tail, which, I read, it can use as a scarf or shawl in the bitter winter. Its blue eyes. The friendly, almost flirtatiously so, guard at the Newberry. The Newberry itself, how it lets anyone with a photo ID and sixteen years on this earth look at its collection. The funny things my students said in their reading responses. Their tininess and largeness contained in one place. My own tininess and largeness.

And, of course, the cat.