Justice goes unjustified under a toupee and an eagle

Who in the holy hell would admit in the current environment to liking George W. Bush?  Apparently the answer is in some of the students of class I just subbed.  I didn't initiate the conversation, but they are talking in that class about vocal rhetoric, and I overheard one young woman state that she heard W. speak last week.  I perked up and asked her about it, wondering what she thought.  She began with "he is such a charismatic speaker..." and I knew I was in trouble.  This kid is apparently the local spokesperson for some uber-conservative young Republican outfit here on campus and went to Washington last week, where she also had the "great fortune" of meeting John McCain and Anne Coulter.  I was about to say something like, "you mean you had them all in one place and didn't set off at least a stink bomb?"  (<--that's a joke people; don't go calling the feds, even though they're probably red-flagging this even as I write it).  She snarled at me and said how she couldn't stand that people are so "mean" to the president - he is, after all, the president and deserves our respect and admiration.  He is apparently "very funny and intelligent" and no one gives him credit for this.  Besides, "we all elected him."

What I find staggering is not only the odd kind of brain-washed rehash this girl was spewing out but that the kind of adoration she expressed was akin to idol worship; it was the same kind of starry-eyed responses that the Manson family gave in court and later interviews about their leader and prophet.  I have to say that even though I'm completely liberal and on board with Obama as the significantly lesser of evils, I really can't comprehend young and female republicans - don't they know how much the republican party is against nearly all of their best interests?  I am not even saying that as though I think I'm right and democrats have the only ideas in town for post-boomer generations, but really.  John McCain?  The man is 71 years old and a complete crackpot and Mike Huckabee is a bible-thumping hick with a marginal amount of personal charm and down-home kinds of statements that appeal to the less educated.  Guh.

If either of these yahoos gets elected, I'm expatriating.

Pain's too difficult to prove; they're gonna make pain illegal

Lately, I've been drudging up old music on iTunes because I'm old enough and out of the loop enough to still be utterly intoxicated by technology; that I can go onto a website and get any song I want for 99 cents and put them seemingly endlessly on my tiny little iPod and thus carry my entire music collection around with me to listen to at whim still makes me feel giddy, like a little girl with a secret stash of her favorite candy or something.  Today it's John Wesley Harding, whom I love and haven't listened to in years, mostly because I lent the CDs to someone at some point who never returned them.  Grrr.  But I guess that doesn't matter as much because now that I'm with the 21st century and dependent upon the mp3 format, CDs only seem archaic and brief, and when I play them in the car, I'm amazed at just how quickly I get from one end of it to the other, and I find it tedious to have to skip songs I don't particularly like.  Great.  Now I've got one of those millennial attention spans for media: give me what I want right now and make it so simple a monkey could do it.  Ah well; it was bound to happen.  Last week in one of my classes I showed a Simpsons episode from a VHS tape and I thought my students would fall out of their chairs; it was akin, I'm sure, to someone bringing to one of my classes an 8-track tape to listen to.  Funny.

I'm at my desk at DU in my former broom closet of an office that doesn't even have a phone in it this early because I am subbing classes for a friend who covered me while I was in London last fall.  I don't mind, of course, but being here this early and knowing I have to stay late has its drawbacks.  I always tell myself that quiet time alone in my office is a great time to get work done, like reading and research and writing - both on my dissertation and fiction projects - but no, alas I sit writing about nothing at all on my blog and listening to an iPod.  These are just the things I get angry at my daughter for, and even more irritated with my students for doing.  Of course, I have always subscribed to the "do as I say, not as I do" method of parenting/teaching, and I suppose it's something we all do.  You know you've given good advice if you never heed it yourself.

If you can't say anything nice about anybody, come sit by me

I should warn you that this post is all about bitching, and it will be self-indulgent, probably unflattering regarding my character, and certainly vexing.  Read at your own risk.

I struggle with my weight.  I don't mean that I vainly quibble about not being a size 2 - oh no.  I pack on pounds like no one I know; I can literally think about cheesecake and gain a jeans size.  I can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't overweight by some standard and it has often seemed there was nothing to be done about it.  I'm not a particularly vain person; I can openly accept myself as the universe made me, knowing that my "ideal" or "healthy" weight is still considerably higher than most.  I completely concede that I am not nor will I ever be skinny, and that's quite fine with me.  What is not fine with me is a state of ill health; as I approach my forties (not real soon, but soon enough), I want to be fit, healthy, and the best version of myself I can be.  Last year, I hit an all-time high weight and lost nearly 50 pounds by working out, eating right, and (honestly) taking a shitload of diet pills under the supervision of my doctor.  It's been wonderful to hear how great I look and to shop for new clothes, but as far as I'm concerned, I still have a good thirty pounds to go - and this is realistic for my body - and the fucking scale will not move in any direction but higher.  I can't tell you how many desserts have been skipped, how many times I go out to eat or to parties and drink soda water whilst everyone else eats chips and guacamole or pizza and drinks beer.  I've been to backyard barbeques with just my trusty water bottle, talking to anyone who wasn't eating.  I go to the gym and lift weights at home, and do pilates from a DVD, and walk the dog, and run up and down my stairs - I haven't taken an elevator in six fucking months.  Yet here I sit feeling fat, and it's not because I'm whining; it's because I'm fucking fat.  Guh.

Do you know what it's like to go to Bally Total Fitness to work out?  I hate that place but I love the equipment, so I tune out; I put on my iPod or bring a book and insist on not making eye contact with anyone.  I usually go in the evening, when the entire gym is almost exclusively full of hispanic men of varied ages wearing too little clothing and - this is not racist, I swear - but what is it with this particular population that allows them to leer at women, head to foot, with a smarmy expression and not feel like the motherfuckers they are?  It's so insulting and when one of them meets my glare, he will usually quickly turn away, looking either guilty or shocked.  Guilty I have some sympathy for because he knows he's been caught being a douchebag, but the shocked expression makes me want to go over and cut the guy's balls off and stuff them into his eye sockets.  The other part of the gym experience is when these aforementioned guys strut around the gym and insist on lifting weights that are too heavy and require them to make cro-magnon style, testosterone-pumped grunts and growls and shouts.  Frankly, if you have to make that noise when you pick something up, it's too heavy; put it down and stop making a complete ass of yourself.  If you're reading this and fall into this category, please know that it's not impressive or sexy or cute - it's fucking annoying and stupid and it makes most of us want to kill you - not because we're "jealous" but because you're a fool.

So this is what I endure because the membership is cheap and I suspect all other gyms in my vicinity must look something like this; the alternative is to go to Curves, where the women are, but then I run into the same issue of either having to be social or dealing with other women and listening to them bitch about their weight, which, frankly, I don't want to do.  I am only interested in bitching about weight with my girlfriends who struggle the same way - not making new ones so we can commiserate.  I'm such a bitch.  

However, and back the original rant here.  I'm hungry all the time; I don't eat fast food, white foods, things with sugar; none of my drinks have measurable calories; I drink enough water; I eat fruits and veggies; I count my calories and my fat grams and my fiber and they're all within diet range; I work out; did I mention that I'm hungry all the time?  I don't drink alcohol but rarely; I skip nachos and evening snacks; I don't eat red meat and I do eat lean, broiled fish and brown rice; I don't eat butter and I drink skim milk; we have low-fat cheese and cereals like "flax flakes" and omega-3, vegetarian fed eggs; I eat organic yogurt with no fat; I take Alli; I eat soups with low sodium and all veggies; no pasta, no bread, no french fries.  Did I mention that I'm hungry all the time?

This isn't fair.  I went online this morning after the daily weigh-in went badly and looked up articles related to not losing weight.  I found one that read "8 reasons why you're not losing weight" and thought, great - this should give me some insight.  

Reason 1 was drinking soda pop, which I don't do except for diet, which is acceptable to this writer; 

Reason 2 was not drinking enough water - I drink so much water I have to pee every hour; 

Reason 3 was eating french fries - no shit?  You mean those make you fat?  I can't remember the last time I ate a french fry; 

Reason 4 was eating "white" foods with refined sugar, or white rice or white bread, etc.  Haven't done that in more than a year; 

Reason 5 was not eating whole grains - fuck that, I've done that for years too; 

Reason 6 was not getting exercise - did I mention my gym woes?  I'm not just filing my nails on a stationary bike, people; I'm running for miles on treadmills and elliptical machines for up to an hour at a time; 

Reason 7: eating too much fat - nope; 45 grams a day is low even for a diet; 

Reason 8: not eating breakfast.  Well, that solves it; I'm a medical anomaly.  I've never not eaten breakfast - it's my favorite meal of the day in fact and I do it right and well: whole grains, low-fat proteins, no sugar, fresh fruit.  Yup, that's me.  I'm not sitting around eating coco krispies with whole milk watching Good Morning America with a side of bacon and buttered toast.

Even Oprah's site was not helpful in this regard.  The complaint of a message board participant was "I'm doing everything right and still can't lose weight" and do you know what the replies were?  (1) buy these books by friends of Oprah, and (2) you're not doing everything right, so change this fact.  Thanks.  That will keep me from heading to the clock tower with a high-powered rifle.

I started running but there's nowhere to run to

It's been a weekend funk once more.  I dunno where these moods come from, but every so often everything I have to do sounds overwhelming and I waste the day feeling bored.  How someone with a to do list as extensive as mine, with a life as full as mine, and satellite TV to boot can be bored is one of the cosmic quandaries.  Once I realized the Turner Classic Movies was playing The Return of the King in letterbox with no commercial breaks, the night was entirely shot to hell.  Usually I won't watch it if it's on TV because the chopped picture and endless commercials make me nuts, but at least if I get sucked in the Glade plug-in commercial will provide ample pause for me to realize I have things to do and turn off the idiot box.  Quite tricksy of them to suck me in this way...

But everything I have to do feels so heavy of late that fantasy worlds are all the more appealing; I don't want to write a dissertation anymore, I don't want to read books that require a pen in hand, I don't want to be mommy to every single person in my life (except for, ironically, my offspring), and most frightening is that I don't want to do anything else either.  Going out sounds like work and being sociable feels impossible some days.  If teaching my classes wasn't an exercise in keeping in character on a stage, I may never be able to face them at all.  Ever.  

Blah Blah Blog...

It's Saturday morning, and Pajama Day has commenced.  I'm hungover and groggy and feeling a bit hollow.  There are many things to do and I plan to do none.  Fuck it.  The week was manic - I had really great moments (mostly in the classroom) and some really shitty ones, including weeping at the bar at Charlie Brown's last night until I swallowed enough vodka to no longer care, which for me, is about two ounces - I'm such a lightweight drinker, which is comical on so many levels.  For someone with mostly Irish roots and the job of English professor, I'm a disgrace to my alcoholic ancestors and colleagues.  The fact that I grade papers sober and have only taught class under the influence one time in six years makes me the English department square - the goody two-shoes, the Miss Manners.

Have you seen the commercial for "Akavar" - this diet pill that claims "eat all you want and still lose weight!  We couldn't say on television if it wasn't true!"  Between this one and Denver's Anti-Gym ads, I pretty much want to crawl into the TV and kill whomever is responsible for such utter rubbish.  For those of us who consciously and purposefully strive for good health, moderate weight, and overall well-being by trying to eat right, avoiding the drive-thru, going to a gym, and so forth, such things are a bold middle finger to our efforts, and given the amount of effort this lifestyle takes, I can only respond - not with appropriate disdain and tuning out - but with complete rage.  I long for the days when vengeance was in fact justice one could feel good about; someone should turn the Anti-Gym guy into a meat pie and feed it to people he would call "chubbies" - that's poetic the way Tamora had to eat her two sons in pies for raping Titus' daughter at the end of good old Titus Andronicus.  Granted, Titus ends up dead too - as does the large percentage of the dramatis personae, but what the hell - there are too many people on earth as it is.  

Over coffee the other day, my friends and I - geeks that we are - were deciding on what our drag-queen names would be, should we ever change professions.  Given that I'm the only girl of this particular bunch, it was funnier to think of myself dressed up like a drag queen - so Shakespearean even - to be a girl dressed up as a boy pretending to be a girl.  

My drag name is:  Miss Anthropy.  Ha.

O! I am fortune's fool...

Whilst running at the gym this afternoon, right about mile 3 and Rob Zombie on the iPod, I experienced that glorious moment when my cluttered brain releases its hold on the superfluous junk lying around and everything seems clear.  I do all of my best thinking in the shower and at the gym; if I could spend more time in these two places, I could probably solve all the world's ills.  

I have been writing so much lately, and sadly, not much of what I'm supposed to be writing.  Andrew told me over lunch a few weeks ago that he was thinking of embarking on writing a novel and I asked him, "shouldn't you be writing a dissertation?" to which he responded with horror and scorn at my goody-two-shoes stance.  "Fuck the dissertation," he said and while I laughed, part my obsessive brain began to worry that he wouldn't get his dissertation written.  Furthermore, if Andrew, the single most devoted student I know is shunning his devoted study for loftier pursuits, then what hope is there for me?  Surely my sheer need to be first, best, and most organized freakshow in my department precludes any shirking of responsibility on my part, but who knows.  As I approach my own dissertation work, and with the recent political drama associated with it, I too have succumbed to fiction writing.  Sitting at my computer last night, I suddenly got the urge to write something and I did - many pages that, upon re-reading, are quite good and sound like the opening of an interesting story.  This just goes to show what I was trying to tell my students on Friday about writing: a writer will do just about anything to avoid writing, and this is precisely why hard deadlines and threats of physical harm are necessary to get writers to write in the first place.  

Speaking of students, my DU class is working on revenge tragedy, and specifically Renaissance revenge tragedy.  It goes without saying that they neither share my passion for it, nor understand my obsession with murder, incest, and dismemberment.  Mostly I like to talk about these things so that they'll squirm and look vaguely uncomfortable - because, after all, that is the role of literature, is it not?  To make us uncomfortable?  Part of what I want them to realize is the notion of the Wheel of Fortune and that Lady Fortuna is blind and spins that wheel at her whim.  Most of them are too young to feel the cold sting of gross misfortune or to understand that life is not fair (despite their often indulgent expressions of entitlement), but I too have succumbed to this lately.  What I realized at the gym this afternoon is that I've been whining about things that just don't matter.  I honestly don't care about this dissertation anymore; it's another hoop I have to jump through and I'm just going to do it; I have no doubt whatsoever that I'm a good professor who cares about her students, that I'll be exactly the kind of scholar I want to be despite what pretentious fucks say about my work, and more than any of this, I love what I do and the only reason I'm putting myself through any of it is so I can keep doing it for the rest of my life.  Ha.  Weeks and weeks of grousing and rage, and all I really needed was a great run.

The smile outside covers lies like the ocean tide

I feel better today.  It's Tuesday morning and I'm sitting at Starbucks near DU after a meeting with my advisor about my dissertation and prospectus.  I think I was right about the tone of the emails I got last week, and he is ever the politician and keeps things in the realm they should stay in when I would just go off talking shit about people.  I appreciate that he confirmed my suspicions without resorting to talking behind someone's back.  That's maturity I often lack and I admit it; I let my anger and frustration rule my mouth and that is something I am definitely going to work on.

I feel a bit more like myself today.  There is still rage just beneath the surface of my skin but I am hoping to keep it at bay for as long as possible in the hopes that, like a toddler, it will tire of trying to get my attention and go to sleep.  Listening to angry industrial music, believe it or not, actually helps this - Nine Inch Nails, Rob Zombie, Rammstein - these are things that my little rage monster loves but keeps me smiling.  I tried to explain this effect to my students last week when we talked about Titus Andronicus and I don't think I've yet convinced them that we like violence because it frees us from having to be violent and that we listen to angry music to keep from being angry, and that kind of thing creates the fabric of our civilized society.  They gave me that blank look that I've become accustomed to and interpret as "what is this insane woman babbling on about?"  It doesn't bother me anymore; it's the one kid who sits in the middle of the room, gets my Douglas Adams jokes and has seen Sweeney Todd on Broadway and in the movie house that I teach to anyhow.  I gave up a long time ago on reaching them all; the average number of students positively affected by my classes is about two per course, and if there are more, I just consider it icing on an already tasty cake. 

See, how's that for positive?  I'm working on it.