There's a party in my closet, calling all skeletons

I realized something important about myself today: I am not a team player. Of course I always suspected this to be true as a long-time evader of team sports and group projects, but this afternoon it became abundantly clear. I enrolled in a weight management course here on campus in the hopes of gaining some control over my manic eating habits and my expanding waistline. The doctor who heads it up seems okay to me and already she has commented that I am "too intellectual" (duh) and need to get outside the realm of intellect to solve this problem (another duh). This is not to say that I will proceed closed-minded and expect to learn nothing because that would be pointless; further, I'm not a snob (at least about this). So I went to the class and there's about twenty-five people in it and our first task is to get into groups. URGH. We are going to be in TEAMS, with team goals and support. Blahhhhhh.

Almost every person in the class said they wanted to be in a group for support and accountability, but not me. I prefer to work alone. Is it true that I'm a control freak and that no one else lives up to my standards? Yes. But in reality, I think there's something more to it. I don't mind having many people depend upon me (students, dogs, family, etc.), but I am not at all good at depending upon others, mostly because they let me down or make me feel bad about myself in some way because all of my weaknesses show (?). I should probably get to the therapeutic bottom of this someday soon. And this is not at all where this post was supposed to go, either.

I planned to be funny about how I hate team playing simply because there is no I in "team" and I'm all about the I. Maybe that really isn't so funny after all.

These feelings tend to leave me with a hole in my chest

So. I've been home for days with the major-yuck sick and the world's most bizarre dreams. I had one this morning about being at a creative writing event (a conference?), which would never happen...but anyway. I found that I was stuck in an unfamiliar town that I kept calling Ft. Collins but it clearly wasn't - it was some European city. An old friend and colleague (a guy) was there and he was miserable because his wife is a shrew and always yelling at him on the phone (this was in the dream, but something I always suspected to be true in real life). Turns out that this person actually goes to these conferences so that he can escape. We sat at the bar and drank heavily and ate cheese pizza sandwiches. Then he started to hit on me and I have always liked him but not that way (true in real life). I listened compassionately, and then kept fending off advances by saying that I love my hubby too much to possibly cheat, even if it's tempting. I never thought that dreams were places where we enforce our morals, and this information makes me question the content of other dreams of late. Guh.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel

One of the most interesting parts of writing my dissertation has been the surprising ways in which I find inspiration. The only surprise - in reality - is that my instinct is correct and it makes me wonder why I foster such gross insecurities about this fact.

My diss project has a mind all its own and is all over the place, but in a good way. It represents everything I hope to be as a writer, and that is really saying something. But as I was pondering birds in cages (one of the trace resonances of the headnotes to each major movement of the book), I found that I didn't have the last piece to complete the interludes. I realize that does not make sense to anyone unfamiliar with what I'm writing, but bear with me. In short, when I'm teaching, I seem to find myself constantly talking about the caged bird metaphor, which is a salient one, but I don't think it's dead yet. Now when I need one more bit of this, it seems to be nowhere that I can find, despite days of looking.

Then, as if from a divine parting of clouds, I'm teaching my Children's Lit course on Thursday night and there it is, the last bit about the birds in - of all places - Rapunzel. Even funnier is that I don't much care for this fairy tale because it is one that appears to be incomplete by the time it gets written down by the Grimms. Too many gaps in its logic and no clear point that I can find, so had I been aware that in the new version of the text book that story appeared in this chapter, I may not have assigned it at all.

And people laugh at me for jumping and hoping the net will appear...

I need to take leave of my senses to get a moment's rest

Thursday morning already! Guh. The weeks really do tick by at an alarming rate these days, and I also note how long it's been since I've written anything here. I'm at ACC this morning in the coffee commons where, much to my complete surprise, two maintenance men just came and opened the floor right next to me and crawled into it. I didn't even know there was such a space; what's worse is the the opening in the floor is quite tiny and watching a full grown man climb into it is far more than my claustrophopic mind can handle before 8 a.m. So I'm distracting myself.

Six classes this term between two campuses, the saving grace of which is that three of them are all the same course and one I've done a million times. But so far all of my students seem cool and this is also new. Usually by week two, the troublemakers have started in already, so I'm feeling hopeful that there will be no repeat of summer comp class.

And in general I'm feeling better; I cannot tell if it's because I started taking B complex every morning or because I have 130 pages of a dissertation written, or because I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, or all of the above. Who knows. I am starting to fantasize about life post-doc and it looks pretty good. Yesterday I actually calculated how much free time I'm going to have when it's done and I fear I may not know what to do with this kind of freedom. But I'm sure I'll figure it out. It's about time that my free hours got filled with things I love for once.

Can you tell I'm all over the board here? Too much coffee too soon and I can't focus. It's a good thing my teaching day - while long - is at least a no brainer across the board today. Taking a deep breath for the plunge in T minus 31 minutes and counting.

Mini-Me Strikes Again

I know that I should not be surprised to discover that my daughter turns more and more into me every day of her life, but I am. Perhaps what makes my heart glow is that as I watch her navigate high school - the very high school I once navigated - I note that she does so with such grace and aplomb. She is, in fact, me - but the me from my adult years and not the me of high school - and what a wonderful thing. Really. I do not hold many fond memories of high school; the ones that were good were great, like first kisses and a ton of band stuff and some good friends I made, but on the whole, it was confusing and stressful and full of self-loathing for me. I was insecure about everything and that often led to bad decisions, some of which remain irreparable. But Sami - I watch her in awe because at 15 she is more sure of who she is and her place in the world than perhaps I am, even at 37. No one pushes her around; no one judges her because she refuses to accept judgment from those she does not respect and love; boyfriends who don't make the grade get dumped quickly; her best friends are her second family and she could trust them with her life; and she does not even flinch at talking to someone else about a problem or issue that makes her entirely vulnerable as long as she trusts that person. And she trusts a great many people, some of whom are my friends (read: old enough to be her mother). She is open and honest and shockingly frank at times and I simply love it. She isn't necessarily forthcoming, but if I ask the question, she'll answer it, even if it's about sex or drugs or drinking.

Most of all, I smile at these things because I know she'll be okay no matter what. She's already solved so much angst that took me decades to negotiate that I know she won't suffer some of the same heartaches that I did. She'll have her own because life is like that, but I don't worry about her getting into an abusive relationship, for example, because she'd never make the kind of up-front compromises that other women do who find themselves in one down the road. She liked this guy for a while she just called "hot guy," but when she finally got to talk to him over MySpace, she found out he was not only self-involved but "kinda dumb" and she just stopped talking to him. All of this was discovered in about three email messages. Ha. I know she adores her good friend Josh, but after he broke up with her to go out with "a skank," she will no longer entertain the idea of going out with him, but she'll be his friend and regularly remind him in his woes with new girlfriend how foolish a decision it was to not stay with her. And she is clearly fine with it. Her mind is made up. He can do nothing now to return to her good graces except in the friend department. And they are good friends. I appreciate a girl with those kinds of boundaries, because it makes the people in her life have to match her and when that happens, one achieves lasting and meaningful friendships.

In many ways, I believe she came into this world with her personality and so I cannot take more than a small percentage of credit for how she is turning out, but the more I know her the more I feel certain that I can and am a decent parent to this determined soul I've been given watch over. I often suspect that had my own relationship with my parents been anywhere near as fruitful or understanding, I would have become the person I am now much earlier. But I forgive them sometimes for being young souls and not knowing any better than the life they accepted for themselves and still do. They never made any attempt to understand me and rather remained baffled by my lack of conformity to their ideas of the world and criticized it and they still do. I wonder what my life would have been like if either of them ever just listened to what I had to say, or if either of them decided to just be a cheerleader for whatever I liked at the time, whether they "got it" or not. Perhaps they would have been happier people.

Bummer

It's a job interview. One guy is interviewing for a campus ministry at CSU. In my head, at least, they're gay and their love is denied and tragic.

I have a tendency to wear my mind on my sleeve; I have a history of losing my shirt

Daz Bog again. I am proud to say that I got up early, walked my ass down here and parked it to work on my dissertation introduction, which I have - quite remarkably - actually accomplished. I am uncertain what it is about being at home that prevents me from this one task, but it seems I can write on this project anywhere but there. Yesterday I was quite prolific despite being in the ACC commons with a gaggle of middle eastern students talking loudly (if I were better at knowing the subtleties of the languages of the region of the world, I would address them more appropriately) and watching some version of American Idol that was not American. In many ways, I am thankful for the large number of non-English speakers at ACC because it allows me to entirely tune them out. I cannot understand a word and therefore no temptation to eavesdrop exists there.

Alternatively, however, here at Daz Bog in Northglenn, everyone's middle class white and English-speaking. Like the two nondescript guys sitting across from me on sofas who just met here and had not met before because there was no recognition and a follow-up with "are you...[the person I'm waiting for]?" In between the steam of the cappuccino machine and the whir of the blenders, I cannot help listening to them. I can't establish the purpose of their meeting, but so far they've talked about nothing but their Christianity. It's like an AA meeting, "I was rebellious, acting out, .... and I called myself a Christian, but I was driving down the highway and realized that I wasn't living a Christian life." Sigh. And here I was hoping they were gay men who met on some tawdry website last night and thought they'd try to hide the fact that they're just hooking up by doing it in some innocuous burb coffee shop. Or why can't one of them be an Amway salesman? Perhaps I could tell myself that they ARE gay men, meeting to talk about the love of Christ so they can either (a) decide how they can be gay and Christian at the same time, or (b) how they can hide this fact from their families and churches. Or how they will stage a protest...

Why do all devout Christians use the same tired words and catch-phrases: "I handed my life over to Jesus." "I was washed in the blood of Jesus." "I was born again." Blah. I might be more interested if it didn't all sound like the same set of brainwashing phrases designed to make people feel better about their own lousy decisions. What if Jesus doesn't want to run your life for you? What if God gave you a brain so that you would use it and stop bothering him with every little thing? I always imagined that God had better things to do than worry about me and whether or not I keep that pen from the bank or give it back. Whether or not Jamison and I have sex without a piece of paper that sanctifies our relationship. Whether or not I choose to say 'goddammit' or 'gosh-darnit' - and if I choose the latter, isn't it really because I MEAN to say the former? What's the difference between intent and vocalization if God's inside my head?

Now they're watching a video that is so loud I can hear every word. I am tempted to ask them to turn it down - does that make me a bitch?

At any rate, I'm writing simply to keep the writing going. Now that I've done that, I'm going back to the real writing, which is my introduction. I'm on page 22, and that's saying something.