Disinclined to acquiesce to your request

I've been trying to get into the habit of writing every day, and I hate people who can do this with discipline; I have a friend who will roll her eyes when she reads this because she simply marvels at how I can sit at a computer and pound out a page or two of an essay without much pause whilst sitting in a busy Starbucks, but still.  I can't call up creativity when I want; essay-speak, and particularly that variety of bullshit that only results from years of being indoctrinated in the English graduate school double-speak of using a lot of words to say very little of import.  See?  I just managed an entire paragraph and have told you basically nothing.  If I threw in a couple of allusions to Shakespeare and some engagement with my methodological and epistemological views about the decentering of identities in postmodern texts and the juxtaposition of fragmentation which creates a problematic paradox of critical inquiry, we'd be all set.  Ha.

It's Wednesday morning and I have nothing to show for this week so far; I gave my students at DU the day off yesterday to finish their final projects, and the course I planned on teaching last night was canceled due to a power outage in the building.  Until yesterday, I had no cable television and I've had a cold.  I ran four miles at the gym yesterday, but other than this, nothing.  I've had all this borrowed time in which I could be productive - write, read, I dunno - work on a freakin' dissertation or something, but no.  I've watched the dog sleep, done a jigsaw puzzle, made peace with my crow's feet, and watched an unfortunate few minutes of the film Transformers.  That one had so much potential, too.

I did, however, read a book called What is the What? by Dave Eggers and I have to say it's one of the best books I think I've perhaps ever read.  And that's saying something in my world - nearly every flat surface of my home is held down by a pile of books and my home office couldn't hold one more book if I forced it into the room with a crowbar.  And I've read nearly all of them.  This book is a fictionalized narrative biography of a young man who escaped southern Sudan and was a member of what they call "the Lost Boys" - it was truly an incredible read and I can't stop thinking about it.  If you've read this book, drop me a line.  I'm dying to discuss it with someone - anyone.  Read this book.

I keep having a dream where I'm in a classroom of unruly students and I'm shouting but cannot be heard; for days now, this one has plagued me in the early morning and I wonder what it means.  I'm certain that much of it comes from my Friday class this term, which is a class I like but feel like I have to yell at constantly, but there is something more insipid about the dream that plays upon my own anxious nature.  In the dream, I'm always being challenged and I have to yell louder and be tougher.  I'm sure that's symbolic.  In one of them, I was having trouble shouting over a class when two other teachers from DU came in and wanted to do something in the room whilst I was teaching (I don't know who they were, but they were women), and I had to kick them out - I had to scream at them and tell them that it was MY classroom and that they couldn't do whatever they wanted.  Oi.