Upstate Badgerland

I was invited to a memorial day weekend party at the house of one of the English department faculty at the new College. Good time. Lots of good food, two cute dogs, several interesting small children and a lot of future colleagues whose names I can't yet keep straight. It's a little odd to be the junior colleague, but it's also good to be around these people and to be able to loosen up and be me for the first time. Both of these circumstances combined to make it an evening of jovial cracks about the new professor's age gap. "Phish are going to stop touring, I hear. James, do you need to take a moment to grieve?" That sort of thing. But it was fun, and I feel very welcome. I also feel like I'm going to be the town single 30-something guy for a while. Things could be worse, I guess.

Here's a photo I took yesterday of my apartment building. It doesn't look like much but the three windows there are huge from the inside. It'll be great come July.

Bizarre awakenings

Three things woke me up just now from a deep slumber wherein I was dreaming with some jealousy about my ex and her new boyfriend:

1) Thunder (again), which was very nice.

2) The apparent sound of a very loud, very yippy dog, squeaking at intervals to the inexplicable applause of a crowd of people in the street. It turned out that the road outside my house has become the finish line for a 10K run, and that the dog is the mechanical horn signalling the runners' crossing it.

3) The word "Dictator" screamed loudly in my dream, which to my mind wasn't about dictators, and so seemed puzzling. I realized after a bit of reflection, though, that it contained a Joycean double pun that expressed both my jealousy in the most blatantly vulgar terms and also perhaps my concession to the new boyfriend that their relationship was a good thing ("Dick, date her"). The mind is a funny thing.

Happy Feast Day of the Venerable Bede!

Oh, and also happy my dissertation defense day.

It was horrible. It went well, but it was horrible. I am so happy I never have to do that again. It's like taking your baby in for shots and having the doctor smack it for two hours.

But aside from some of them not being convinced by my arguments, feeling that I had hamstrung myself with my own theoretical model, and being occasionally flabbergasted at my egregious neglect of certain obviously crucial critics, it went well. Most of what they had to say was a way of changing the project when I make it into a book (or two, or three), so that's good. I tend to practice a pillage-and-move-on form of literary criticism, so I have loads of underdeveloped ideas and occasionally it reads like an incoherent grab-bag.

But nevertheless they all signed the form and agreed that I have only a couple months worth of work yet to do before I file my dissertation, so I'm one step closer to being a doctor. I can taste it. I feel like the guy in the death star attack who keeps saying "aaaalmost there..."

Now see, if I were the geek I once was, I'd be able to remember that guy's name. You know, Gold Leader. Someone who had his action figure, help me out.

I shall now drink. And sleep. Huzzah.

Developments

The dissertation defense is tomorrow, so I'm rereading the whole thing today and writing up an outline for my presentation tomorrow. 10:30-12:30. I will of course let you know how it went. I'm a little stressed out, but HD has assured me that I need not worry too much, and I think it'll go okay. We'll see tomorrow. If they say I have only a couple more months work (or less), I'm golden.

In other news: you know how I said that although I knew there were other women in the world, I couldn't possibly even conceive of anyone who could be as good for me as J? Well, that was true. Now it's not. I hesitate to say much more than that. I still love and miss J, of course, but for both our sakes I'm in the process of letting go as much as possible. And I have recently met someone so incredibly well-suited to me that it's almost scary. I'm very wary and very cautious still at this point, but I will let you know more if and as it develops.

Sometimes you just have to quote Eric Alterman

This is from the "Stop the Presses" column from the June 7th issue of the nation, "Hawks Eating Crow:"

Excuse me, but just what was so hard to understand about this bunch? We knew they were dishonest. We knew they were fanatical. We knew they were purposely ignorant and bragged about not reading newspapers. We knew they were vindictive. We knew they were lawless. We knew they were obsessively secretive. We knew they had no time or patience for those who raised difficult questions. We knew they were driven by fantasies of religious warfare, personal vengeance and ideological triumph. We knew they had no respect for civil liberties. And we knew they took no responsibility for the consequences of their incompetence. Just what is surprising about the manner in which they've conducted the war?

Exactly.

Pomp and circumcision

So last weekend was my commencement. Already a bit of a farce, since I don't defend for a week and I don't file the dissertation for a couple months, but it meant a lot to me to be able to walk across a stage with my longsuffering and infinitely supportive dissertation director, HD. So I bought my regalia, knowing that it'll come in handy for the rest of my life. And the tasselled floppy hat is actually quite becoming. I welcome the chance to dress medieval at any opportunity.

My parents came up with one of my sisters, and another sister came in from Minneapolis, toddler in tow. My out-of-town friends put them all up, which was a mercy. Now, the family is very sweet, but everyone's a little slow for various reasons, so it can be trying to be around them. Waitresses have to be interpreted, since my mom's deaf, my sister L has a baby, Dad's in his own world much of the time, and my sister D is, well, D. So there's lots of "She asks 'what would you like to drink?'" And then they have a tendency to talk over each other, Dad reads road signs aloud in lieu of having conversations that require his brain, and Mom has amusingly honed passive aggression into a valid theatrical subgenre. In short, it was good to see them but I'm glad they're gone.

Friday before the ceremony we went to HD's to lift a glass of champagne. Any fears of embarassment were unfounded, since HD is gracious enough to direct conversation in such a way that makes even my dad sound interesting, and she can find common ground with these people with whom she has as much in common as a sea snail has with a mountain goat.

We went to HD's in two cars, because D didn't want to be squished into the van, and thereby hangs a tale. There was one parking spot, so while dad drove around to find another, I ran the ladies up to HD's, and returned to help him out. We finally parked at a metered spot and got to the party a half hour late, but niether I, nor uncharacteristically my Dad, noticed the signage near the parking spot which indicated that after 4:00 pm it became a tow away zone.

So a half hour before my graduation ceremony, the cap, gown, and hood that we had spent the morning de-wrinkling (and whose symbolism we proudly smiled over), was towed away. Dad felt horrible. I just felt frazzled. Well, I thought, I'll be easy to spot; I'll be the one without the gown. In retrospect, it's pretty funny.

Especially because HD didn't let me panic and I got a loaner at the last minute. Huzzah. So I walked and shook the chancellor's hand and posed for pictures, and made my family and a very supportive senior academic colleague very proud.

And the ceremony wasn't even boring: an honorary degree went to Florence Howe, a pioneer in women's studies, and during her speech when she dared to imply that perhaps the reputation of the US might be sullied for the next few decades, some jackass booed her and shouted "Go home!" To which she responded, "right on!" and kept on trucking. We gave her a standing ovation.

Why I am not a drag queen

As mentioned about a month ago, I was at a catholic schoolgirl-themed party. My leg hair is finally starting to grow back. I'm the one on the left. O. there on the right was even more uncomfortable in a skirt than I was. 

Pope Alexander

Went to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last night. Love that Charlie Kauffman. But as lots of people who'd seen it told me, maybe I'm not in the best place in my life to appreciate a movie about two lovers who've broken up and are trying to erase each other from their minds. Especially since--though the characters are nothing like us--I bear a passing resemblance to Jim Carrey and J looks not terribly unlike Kate Winslet.

The scene that got me the most was when they've just met and Clem matter-of-factly takes a piece of chicken off Joel's plate. On 2 October 2001, I was at a party for Renaissance Studies at a British University, and had a piece of what I thought was chicken on my plate. When I took a bite it turned out to be some fried Indian onion horror. No sooner had I made an "ew" face than a beautiful woman I didn't know said "Oh, that's an onion bhaji. I'll have it." And she took it. Off my plate. With a bite out of it. As if we were already lovers, as Joel Barish says in the film.

Within about thirty minutes J and I were closer friends than I usually acquire in years. People asked how long we'd known each other, thinking the answer would be months, not hours.

Sigh. Can't erase these memories. And why would I want to? But letting go would certainly be easier without them. Blessed are the forgetful.

Puddlejumping

I am very pleased. I stepped out for a sec to take some photos to be developed from this weekend's wedding (more on that later) and got caught in the most brilliant thunderstorm. I got soaked anyway, so I decided to sploosh around in the 3-inch puddles. Good stuff. PhDs aren't sposed to do things like that.

So this weekend was my friend L's wedding. It was in one of those meccas of tack that dot the midwest, a sort of tumor of kitsch, fudge shops, all-you-can-eat theme restaurants (we had to choose between Paul Bunyan's and Black Bart's), etc. that grew up around a bit of the Wisconsin River of breathtaking natural beauty. Kitsch plus nature equals big big fun. The wedding was on a boat on the river, and was very nice. There are, or have been, some doubts about the marriage among the groom's side for various reasons, but there's no denying that he's happy and in love, so mazel tov, I sez. There was a dinner cruise that was no less gorgeous for being interrupted by thunderstorms, and there was contingency hotel bar drinking late into the night. After which the tourist trap town provided my friend J and I an opportunity to drink at a bar called--I shit you not--"Nig's."

We felt a bit conspicuous at the wedding, and I admit that we did pull focus away from the bride a bit. J was in a smoker of a scarlet dress, and she's six feet tall. I, for my part, was dressed like Johnny Cash. Red and black. We felt like we were representing evil. "Best wishes on your big day from Moloch, Breeder of Blasphemies." But then, there were two teenage rodeo cowboys chatting about how they would kill the various wild animals on the riverbank, and a guy in a confederate flag baseball cap and a "100% Redneck" T-shirt. At a wedding. So we weren't the only things to look at.

It was a hell of a time. Good luck, groom boy. I'm going to go fight my cynicism about marriage by jumping in more puddles.

This is what happens when I take a day off

You know what's the best job title ever? "Rough In-betweener." It's some animation studio thing; isn't it great?

Okay, back to the cultural anthropology.

Hoops

Last night I turned my dissertation--well, a version of my dissertation--in to my committee. I scammed 1340 pages of photocopying off the depertment's xerox machine after hours, and created a huge pile of dead tree and snappy thought. Well, mostly snappy. I'm terrifically tired. I will sleep today and clean and do the washing up and maybe shave and get a haircut and sleep and watch "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

Or maybe I should start reading more space theory in preparation for my defense. God, when will this ever stop?

Pffghthrsg

Running on caffeine. Not getting much sleep. Have 248 pages and need a preface and a conclusion. Is a 12-page bibliography enough?

I'm jittery and it's Machiavelli's birthday. And apparently I'm Signor Non Sequitur today. Whoooooooooeeeeeeeee!

My problem is this: The worst part of my day comes when I'm lying in bed but not falling asleep--thinking about grief and pain and fear and stress--so I've been trying to minimize it by staying awake until I'm ready to drop. But my dissertation worries wake me up at 7:00 whether I'm rested or not.

I think tomorrow I'm going to have to have a nice long nap.

Fucking midwest

"It's MAY!" I shouted angrily out the window just now, when I woke up. Yesterday was sunny block party weather. Not that I participated in the annual dowtnown block party, but I did get from page 93 to page 195.

This morning it's snowing big fat wet flakes that are actually accumulating. So fat that they look like they should make a sound when they hit. Like a high pitched, falling, fading "BOOOooooo" as they shrink on the pavement from big white splots to little pinpricks to nothing.

Well, I guess it's beautiful, so I shouldn't complain. It'll cover all the litter from the block party.

Now where did I put aside those childish things?

I'm in a serious transitional period, it struck me today. Things contributing to me feeling more like a grown up (finally):
1) A job that pays above the poverty line.
2) A velvet-trimmed gown with a funny floppy hat that signals the end of my 25 straight years as a student.
3) One hundred ninety-six clean and fairly serviceable pages sitting on my desk, and only one chapter left to revise before the defense.
4) Knowing exactly what I want out of my next serious relationship, should I ever be fortunate enough to have another one.

So that's pretty cool. On the other hand, I'm poor, sleep deprived, and apparently I have elevated cholesterol. Which I guess could also be signals of growing up.