How Awesome Am I?

Short answer: Not very. I'm in the middle of a truly horrible depressive cycle, fueled by excruciating loneliness and a schedule of classes--including Women's Lit. and Postcolonial Lit.--for which I am singularly awkwardly suited and in which I feel like a total f***ing fraud. (I mean, they seem to be going well, and I've got plenty to say, and the students seem to be digging the work we're doing, but still: total f***ing fraud. No, you're delusional.) Anyway, so I'm miserable and life sucks and what's the point of it all?

But.

Worthless as it all is--and it is, Big-Picture-wise--there are moments when we briefly and trivially matter. This morning, I'm walking to class (first time I've done the walk through falling snow, which is neither as bad nor as romantic as it might sound), and about 1/4 of the way there, a small blur races by my ankle. Said blur turns out to be an enthusiastic Boston Terrier (visuals available here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Terrier), leashless, and I turn to look for the owner.

There is no owner. This is a runaway. F***. Cute thing, it has seen me, and figured out that one human being is pretty much the same as another, and that as long as it sticks with me, it'll be fine. So it does. I keep walking, thinking--hoping--that it's just been let out by an occupant of a nearby house and that once it's taken care of business, it will return. No such luck; I continue to be followed by my new best friend. I notice also that New Best Friend has the disregard that small dogs often have for traffic--it simply does not exist as a possibility. And, as I say, it's snowing heavily, and gray, and the roads are icy. The recipe for canine annihilation is near-perfect. Dammit. I have to do something. But I'm late for lecture. So I make little incremental deals with myself--If it follows me one more block, I'll try to catch it and help it. S***. It followed me. OK--one more block. S***--what is this dog, a professional tracker? OK--if I get to the intersection...

But it's no use. Much as I make my small, accumulative deals with devil, the damn dog keeps following me, happy and safe in my company--and, oh for Christ's sake!--now I can see that it's limping, either due to injury or to keep at least one of its paw off the freezing ground. And when I finally (f*** it) kneel down to check it out, it comes bounding into my arms, eager for love and body warmth. It has a collar. But no address on the collar. But it has a phone number. OK...OK...what to do...I can't phone the owner myself--I've got to get to class now, five minutes ago, preferably. But I can't leave it here--we're nearing a busy intersection, and the dog will die if I let it go. Dammit...

I look for open businesses, but it's not yet 9:00, and none are open. It's getting to the point where I will be very late indeed. Then, praise Zeus, I spy a woman shovelling snow off of the driveway of a law firm's parking lot. Clearly an employee! Hope! Please, God, let the Midwestern kindness hold firm--otherwise, I'm going to have to bring this little bastard to class...

I speak to her in cheerfully apologetic tones. The dog's cuteness helps, I think. She tells me that she's just there to clear the snow--her husband's over in the plow across the parking lot. Crap. But, she says, let's see what he says. We go over; I hold up the dog, and explain that I have to get to work, but "I hate to leave the poor thing out in the cold and traffic"--holding up the poor thing and willing it to really shine on the adorably pathetic look it's been giving me.

He doesn't pause. "Well, I guess we have to, then," he says, with that easy-going kindliness I've come to expect. And I hand over the dog, and he looks at the phone number, and reaches for his cell. "You have a nice day, now," he says to me, meaning it. "You too--and thank you," I say, meaning it even more. And hurry on to campus.

So with a little help from a kindly stranger, I saved a cute little dog this morning. I was late to class, but they heard my tale and were appropriately moved. I did the right thing with only a slight hitch or two of callous self-regard.

Now do I get to go to Heaven?

Some Non-Lame Version of "Huzzah"

Sorry, but as a former (and recovering, thank you very much!) Renaissance Faire attendee and Dungeons & Dragons player (I only went to one convention! I swear!), I can't really think of a cheer that doesn't sound, well--OK, I'm not in favor of using "gay" as a synonym for "lame"--or indeed, as a synonym for anything other than "emotionally and physically attracted to members of the same sex and leave them the hell alone, will you"--but the offensively colloqial use of the word expresses a certain kind of lameness, a quality of male behavior that strives for one effect (coolness, intelligence, sophistication) and achieves something much, much sadder. And no other word captures that specific--and quite common--essence.

Bottom line is, we need a new word to express this particular idea, one that doesn't conflate ten percent of humanity with a pejorative. (I mean, Ian McKellen is gay, but dude, he is in no way "gay," if you see what I mean--I only wish I could be as cool as that man. Whereas Bill O'Reilly is, to the best of my knowledge, straight, but whenever he tries to talk tough, he is incredibly "gay." Michael Savage is both. Hey! Perhaps we could allow the term to be used only in reference to bigots who who go nuts at being called that term. We could have that whole "Bugs Bunny Kisses Elmer And Drives Him Into A State Of Apoplectic Sexual Confusion" thing! I loved that. Bugs Bunny--first straight guy to realize that if you want to mess with a slow-wit's head, hit on him--he won't know what to do. But seriously, we need a new word, and I call upon my brothers and sisters in the gay and lesbian community to come up with one. And hurry up--there's a lot of stuff that needs to be called by this new term. We breeders will wait for your call.)

OK, that was long and pointless digression. Briefly then, and then let's wrap this up because I've got celebratory drinking to do, I just got the call from the folks at the college where I teach and, woo-hoo!, they've renewed my contract for next year. For another year, I eat, live in a nice apartment, teach, and generally get to exist like an adult. Praise be unto to Allah and all his Saints, and to the blessed memory of Joseph Smith, his prophet and his avatar, Krishna. In Jesus's name, Amen. (Just figured I'd better cover my bases. Oh, and if you're up there Zeus? Odin? Nice going, guys. Kisses.)

OK, booze is waiting. Hold my calls; I'm off for a lost weekend...

Home Again, Home Again

This won't be so much "a post" as "an explanation for a non-post"--there's nothing duller than hearing about an unpleasant journey--delays and more delays and flight cancellations at every gate but ours and horrible airport food or the lack thereof--I can, by the way, inform all and sundry that the worst coffee made with the intention of being sold to and consumed by humans is currently available in the Kansas City airport--one sip and I actually decided that I'd rather have the caffeine withdrawal, and this after getting up at 4:00 in the morning--thank God, and I never thought I'd say this, for the ubiquity of Starbucks, which was available at the far end of the terminal--anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, ze treep, she--how you say?--sucked. It was dreadful but there's nothing duller than the story of a miserable trip--except perhaps the description of 'this totally weird dream I had'--because we've all had them and they're all the same and you don't want to be bored, right?

So let's focus on the positive--big fat flakes of snow are falling as I type this--no blizzard, just plain ol' seasonal weather--I've got my coffee and a week to re-acclimate (and study up for three new courses next semester, none of which I have taught before--working without a net here, folks, no wires!) and just...sink back into the comfy chair of the Midwest and relax in the knowledge that it really is so much better here. Love my family, love my friends, miss them horribly and worse--I truly do, and it was wonderful to see them all, and in that sense, the trip was too short--but it's just so much...nicer here. (Although SoCal did take a stab or two at me in reminding me of its charms--you can't watch several pods of dolphins swim by the restaurant that overhangs the coast here in the MW, I gotta concede.) Still: sigh of general 'God's in His heaven' contentment.

The only fly in the ointment is that I slept wrong a night or two ago and my lower back--yes, I'm in my late 30s--is continuing to punish me for my unwitting indiscretion. Damn you, lumbar region...! Aspirin, please. And a whiskey chaser. Yeah, I know it's only 9:00 in the morning--don't judge!

Wordsworth Revisited

I would like to say before offering this that I am completely and utterly convinced that I am not the first person to whom this revision of a classic has occurred, and that I may therefore be guilty of an appalling amount of unintentional plagiarism in what follows, in addition to the obvious hypocrisy, given the vehicle in which I've chosen to express these sentiments:



The Web is too much with us; night and noon,
Connected and detached, we lose our hours:
Why need we stop and smell the flowers?--
A virtual rose, T-lined, downloads so soon!
This Net that lures us with its siren's croon;
Sex, love, adventure, 'life' are ours,
What need for patience, guidance? Such stillness sours;
What music need we more than Ipod's tune?
Yet hungry still.--O World! We cannot see
That you are wider than the realm of Porn,
Blog, and MMORPG--
Does 'chat' make 'conversation' food for scorn?
Is reading marked for quaint antiquity?
I fear the cold, hard breed this 'gift' has born.

Spirit Journey Formation Anniversary

Which is to say, Happy Birthday to me.

A time of reflection, consideration, rumination, self-assessment, self-evaluation, self-gratification, self-obsession--a bleak, miserable, bitter reflection on a waste of life. Where's my copy of Wild Strawberries...?

For someone as instinctively slothful as I am, you'd think that I'd be delighted to be amidst a month of enforced inactivity. But frankly, I'm starting to go squirrelly--I need to get back to work, because I just haven't developed that Zen/Stoic/stoner ethos that tells me that it is my inner self that truly defines who I am and that self-worth is an illusion and that the goal is to truly be and not to do or to judge. Yyyyyeah, no, that's never happened. I need to actually contribute something to the world, however small, to feel, I don't know, worth-while, and frankly, I need to work to feel that. When I make that minimal contribution, then screwing around is the pleasure it was meant to be. I think of it as the Gym/Dessert principle. If you work out, you can enjoy your dessert because you've earned it. Only my version is much less shallow. Or so I tell myself.

Point is: I've enjoyed my break, but it's time to get back to work, and interaction with the world at large, and for Chrissakes, I'm thirty-f***ing-seven (past 33, all age-defining digits must be hyphenated with an obscenity), and I need to be living the life of an adult. Which frankly, is next to impossible in Southern California, where the zeitgeist revolves entirely around maintaining the looks, tastes, and maturity of late adolescence. Screw this noise, I'm going...home.

Huh. Thinking of the Midwest as home. Interesting...

Anyway, to sum up: Birthday today. Life sucks. Wasted life. Back to work. Small ray of hope in the fact that I seem to be growing up. But very, very small indeed.

Trying Not To Channel Jeremiah

The problem with three years of Bible Study in one's adolescence is that one knows, as one goes through life, that, well, there is no new thing under the sun. Also, that such gloominess and a generally morbid sense of the ugly futility of the time we live in inevitably sends you to quoting Ecclesiastes and/or Jeremiah--neither of which will get you invited to any of the really good holiday parties. (And since I have a birthday coming up, I just can't risk that. I mean, imagine not being invited to your own...no, I can't think of it. Shudder...)

Anyway, point is, one can't help, at year's end, to look back over the events of the preceding year, and goddammit, if 2006 didn't demand that we all stare fixedly at our hands for a few moments, muttering "Vanity, vanity, all is vanity," then what the hell would? I've grumbled before about it being too easy to blame certain individuals--I mean, if Rupert Murdoch didn't exist, somebody else would have done what he did--and when the Rupert Murdochs of the world control the political landscape, then you wind up with presidential administrations like our current, miserable catastrophe of an Executive Branch. Is there hope in the election of the Democrats to power in the Legislative Branch? Maybe, if the lot of them nut up and start to recognize that by serving every special interest, they serve none. But I wouldn't count on that. Republicans naturally gravitate towards power because they really only have to please two constituencies--the insanely rich, and the fundamentalist poor. Lock up those votes, and you're in. (That favoring the interests of the former invariably means dicking over the latter never seems to dissuade the dirt-poor from voting red--but then, when you live your life by faith, facts and experience have little meaning.)

So I think the Democratic ascendency will be brief and unspectacular--and really, isn't it too late? I mean, Katrina did her number on the Gulf Coast (we always focus on New Orleans, which must make the rest of the region that go slammed just as hard feel wonderful about their lot), and the adminstration said, and I'm quoting here, "Yawn." 3000 dead in Iraq is actually small potatoes compared to Vietnam (whenever people compare the two, I always roll my eyes and mutter "Body Count...")--and yet we're not going anywhere, and Bush just made terrifyingly Johnsonian decision to put more troops on the ground. (If he'd done that in the first place, it would have been shrewd and effective. Now he's just giving emboldened insurgents more targets to shoot at.) Stem cell research continues to be off the table--and Bush will veto anything that crosses his desk on that subject. And what concerns me most is not the politics of all this, but the culture of it. I once wrote about how we'd entered into an Age of "Meh"--of indifference to real world events because artificial events of internet or tabloid-like basis had consumed our attention spans and thus our ability to care. But I worry now that "Meh" will start to look like a good thing as this age of nasty mean-spiritedness grows--as no solution presents itself in Iraq and we become angrier and angrier at the frustration we must feel at our failure. As New Orleans continues to (literally) fester and hundreds of thousands of people (conveniently black and/or poor) realize that their government will never, ever help them regain their lives--and this after indirectly causing their loss by shoddy workmanship and ineffective disaster relief. As victims of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and MS--victims including the families who suffer right along with those carrying the diseases--listen to know-nothings speak about the sanctity of life while protecting the microscopic and unsentient and scorning the present and agonized. And as for global warming...well, it's just too terrifying and depressing to contemplate. How can we not degenerate into rage--and the rage of impotence? Because who will fix this? Who will care enough to organize, to march, to protest, to vote--to commit acts of civil disobedience--to face the German Shepherds and the fire hoses? I know of no one.

Jeremiah mourned a captive nation of good men and women who suffered for the sins of their fathers. I mourn for a nation that doesn't even exist--where individual suffering isolates us into our own private life of grievance and anger and loss.

Dammit, I knew I shouldn't have left the Midwest--I need to get back there--being surrounded by a sea of human decency has really softened me up, no? Normally, a trivial thing like the end of the world would just roll off my cynical back. But now, thanks to the people back there--I care again. Mostly because I think they deserve better than...well, a nation of people like me.