Complacencies of the Peignoir

In a Minute There is Time

2010-01-03T18:12:00.008-06:00

I didn't get to see everyone I know and love on New Year's Eve, but I did spend the night with some of the dearest friends I have on this planet. This is just one reason I know that 2010 will be a hell of a good year. Cheers.

Bette's Year-End Sign Off

2009-12-31T16:22:00.004-06:00

We are getting ready for a night of booze and bad booty dancing at the downtown pub. 2009 has been a bitch of a year, but my glass half full self just knows 2010 will be a good year. I want to wrap my arms around the men and women I love tonight, and dance until my legs feel like they are still moving long after I've hit the sack. I want to find warmth in a quick pull on the rum glass rim, and I want to feel, come midnight, full and fuller with the emotion that precludes the changing of a guard. Happy New Year, ladies and gents. Much love to you and yours.

A Ten Year Wish

2009-12-29T08:57:00.004-06:00

This is the time of year when I always want to revisit the past in many different manifestations. Part of this desire is satiated by a return to my journals from when I was just a girl. In preparation to visit one of my oldest and dearest friends from high school--who now is a mommy--I curled up on the corner of my couch with my journal from the summer of 1998. It was the year I turned 16, and I also took a bevy of trips that year--Panama City Beach, FL; Charleston, S.C.; Whitewater rafting on the Ocoee, etc. How was my life so carefree and badass back then?

In the midst of reading through that year in my life, I realized something: I haven't changed one bit--not an ounce--and for that, I am quite satisfied. The same girl speaking self-consciously from the pink stationary pages of my old journal is the same hyper-aware woman typing into this html box over eleven years down the road. Sure, I'm nicer now and not nearly as catty as young girls tend to be, but I also feel a certain amount of pride in the knowledge that if I could have such a self-assured and precocious daughter like the 16-year-old Bette, then my life would've served its purpose. Please make 2010 the year I get a little baby inside of me, oh gods of the internet world.

I also fast forwarded my reading to the time my life changed dramatically roughly ten years ago. The Bunny and I have gone through many changes in our decade together. Towards the end of my journal writing--which was later replaced by handmade zines in my early-college years--I mention a boy that I've met. It's really just as casual as this:

I'm so sleepy this morning. There is this guy named Bunny who I've been talking to at night. I don't get it... He's like no other guy I've ever met. He's so confident, individualistic, and talented. He's vegetarian like me. I like him because he makes me feel special and he does not laugh at my decision to wait until I'm married to have sex. (This was obviously during my Southern Baptist days, and that whole sex bit didn't last once I met magic hands over here.) I'm not sure what I expect from our relationship. We're already great friends, and I'm sure he'd be a great boyfriend... but I have other things to worry about. College and my future career are a big deal to me, and I'm not so sure I'm ready to fall in love with this guy.
October 22, 1999

That didn't really last either. After the next entry, which was a book review of Orwell's 1984, I write an open letter to Mom and Dad, who were having a tough time with my transition to college and my new obsession with the Bunny:

You think it's so trivial when I talk about the Bunny. Have you ever stopped to think I might be falling in love? You never want to discuss the emotional aspects of college, only the scholarships and grants. (You know I hate statistics and figures!)...
November 17, 1999

That last entry was written on the night the Bunny and I became a couple, and the New Year's Eve 1999 was the first time we rang in a new year together. That is what is on my mind as we approach NYE 2009. Though not nearly as eloquent, I still identify with the melodramatic teenage girl. I still listen to moody music when I write. I still idealize the way life should and could be, though this Bette knows about insurance and mortgage payments. This Bette knows, already, that 2010 will not reflect the little picture she has had in her head all along, but like the young Bette, I know that even unexpected things--e.g., my unanticipated affection for a boy that should have came around five years later--can turn into the most perfect and special experiences of one's life.

I hope I read this blog entry in 2019 and find myself doing something greatly departed from what my limited visioning can give me in this moment.

This is My House; I Have to Defend it.

2009-12-23T10:47:00.002-06:00

I just cleaned the entire downstairs, and though I didn't note the time on the clock when I began, I do know that it takes the entire four-LP set of Siamese Dream (one of my favorite albums of all time from the 90s) played without pause in between sides to complete this task. During this time, I realized how incredibly selfish my last blog must seem. Why is it that the Bunny and I deserve a good 2010? 2009 was surely a shitty, shitty year for us, but it was much worse, I think, for many other people that I love--divorce, loss of a child, major illness, financial woes, job loss, and freak accidents that sometimes caused death. What the fuck right do I have to even be sad?

There is a man traveling around America with a message of happiness. I saw him featured on CNN yesterday. It's simple, really: If you want to be happy, then be happy. I don't know that I can pull myself out of the slump I've been in since I realized that my life will not look quite like I expected next year, but, then again, no one's life ever does, right? (See above list of life-altering occurrences.) I'm going to really work on this being happy business in the coming weeks.

I heard a kid say the other night that "the 90s didn't contribute a goddamn thing." I must have jumped out of my skin a bit, because he backtracked and said, "Well, at least not fashionwise." Though I'm no fashion expert, I'd say larger-bodied supermodels and copious amounts of flannel with a smattering of red lipstick is about the most fashionable shit I could imagine. The 90s made me and many others very, very happy. I've noticed how people in my age bracket always wax sentimental about that decade. Were the 90s truly exponentially cooler than the way life is now, or were we all just too young to know better?

I watched Home Alone with the Bunny last night for the first time since I was a child myself. I realized something that may seem obvious: that Macaulay Culkin is super cute. It hit me that maybe I find him adorable now because, unlike the Bette that watched the film from a child's perspective in the 90s, I am a grown woman with firey hormones and a greater than 80% need to have a little Kevin McAllister of my own. I even cried my eyes out when Kevin and mom were reunited in the end. Would a child do that?

If my belief that all decades' values/ideas/aesthetics cycle back around after twenty years of dormancy is true--and, no, my ideas are not nearly as evolved as Yeats's gyre theory--then 2010 will bring a myriad of sexy possibilities for you and yours. Happiness is just a decade away.

I'm Going to Wish on Christmas Like a Lifetime Feature Film

2009-12-23T09:16:00.004-06:00

After talking to several intelligent female friends, and after attempting to really understand what will make my man and me happy in the coming year, the Bunny and I have made some decisions that have, at least in part, brought us some peace. In the coming weeks, I hope to get closer to the reality of these decisions, and I look forward to sharing every bit of it with this html box that speaks my hopes and fears to close friends, acquaintances, former enemies, significant lurkers, and total strangers alike. Cross your fingers for 2010. Bette and Bunny need this one to be a good year.

A Very Tennessee Christmas

2009-12-21T10:50:00.005-06:00

So many of my holiday memories are really just food associations burned into my brain over 27 Christmas seasons. We even have running food jokes in my family that are ever more important to my family's traditions than hanging stockings or putting a special star on the tree. It all started in the 1980s when my father's brother married a woman named Lisa. My mom used to always bring the same dish to family potlucks: cheesy scalloped potatoes layered with lots of fattening creamy things and, of course, copious amounts of shiny butter. Fattening, yes, but oh are these potatoes delicious! Circa 1992, my Aunt Lisa got the recipe from Mom and started bringing the very same potatoes to family gatherings. Seemingly overnight, family members started asking for "Lisa's potatoes." Now, when my mother makes this dish for just us, we always call them "Lisa's famous potatoes." This line is inevitably dripping with sarcasm, and though we've been doing this joke for over 15 years now, we still keep it up for several minutes at a time. My father might say, "Wow, Lisa's potato recipe is fantastic." I'll chime in, "Hell, yes. These potatoes are blowing my mind." Mom: "Yes, we must be sure to thank Lisa for this recipe." This was how I knew for certain that my husband was part of my family. The Bunny will now show up at family events and immediately beg with a smirk, "When can I dig into some of Lisa's delicious potatoes?" I hope for my sake this ritual of smart-assery never goes away.

Another fattening and decidedly Southern concoction at our family meals is my grandmother's, Nanny's, macaroni and cheese. Creamy and rich shells the color of Cheeto dust comprise the dish that always gets eaten first. My cousins and I line up--though the youngest is now 20--to fight for dear Nanny's mac-n-cheese. Roughly 2007, when my Nanny lost her second husband and began to go a little crazy (who can blame her?), I started to notice something about her recipe: that mac-n-cheese was starting to have an uncanny resemblance to Kraft Shells-n-Cheese. (Cue the mystery music) I began to realize that Nanny's mac-n-cheese is not Nanny's mac-n-cheese at all! Even the portion sizes that she offers for potlucks has begun to dwindle to a one-box serving, as her mental state delves deeper into old age and grief. The taste of her potluck offering hearkens back to my early-college years when Kraft Shells-n-Cheese was the perfect economical dinner.

I've now begun to second guess years of tasting Nanny's "homemade" mac-n-cheese. Has it always been this way? Did I change or did the recipe change? As the oldest of all the cousins in this side of the family, I don't have the heart to tell the others that we've been hosed. I did, however, offer to bring the mac-n-cheese this year for Christmas Eve dinner, so let's hope there won't be any drama over this change in tradition. I'm certain cousin Jim Ed will complain about the ol' switcharoo, and though I will be making my mac-n-cheese from scratch, I promise to take Nanny's secret to my grave.

As for the rest of the food, my Aunt Terry, the oldest and wisest sibling, always brings something semi-cosmopolitan, as she is the world traveler of the bunch. In Southern terms, this means Ramen Noodle Cole Slaw or Fancy Ham Roll Spirals with Miracle Whip filling. (I'm not really sure why the South contains the fattest states...) My Aunt Phyllis, ever the practical one, will generally buy premade dishes and reconstitute/heat in the microwave/or place on a plate the items in question. My mother never fails to provide a modified vegetarian version of a classic Southern dish for the benefit of the Bunny and me. My Aunt Barbara, the baby, will make something in a crockpot, and Nanny will provide old school cakes--these made from scratch--with a decidedly mid-50s cool whip-esque topping.

Because we are the only adult kids (cousins) in the group (i.e., married with a mortgage), the Bunny and I are also the only non-Aunt/Uncle/Grandparents that contribute to the meal, though my sister and two of my cousins are all 23-24. All of the above dishes were prepared, if you'll notice, by aunts, and these same women will also do all of the Christmas shopping, meal-planning, and clean-up after the eating while the men and "children" laugh and pat their bellies on the couch. The exception, of course, is one man--the Bunny--who not only pitches in with the cooking but also helps clean up. Even in my Nanny's eyes I can see the confusion when the Bunny starts digging into the mountain of post-dinner dishes in the sink. I'm certain--as it has been mentioned to me in the past--that they all think I beat the Bunny into submission.

All of these traditions make me wonder what we'll be doing twenty Christmases from now. Will the cousins all be married with kids or still living at home--now the middle-aged losers still failing to contribute in any form or fashion? Will the boy cousins pat their bellies on couches or will they, in the spirit of my feminist husband, put away silverware and help Saran-wrap the dishes? Which aunts and uncles will still be alive? Will we all still love one another, if not always enjoy each other's company? Every Christmas makes me scared that it could be our last together as a complete group, and for that reason, I am grateful to have these coming days.

Bless His Heart

2009-12-15T14:16:00.002-06:00

Is it a particularly Southern trait to grin and bear it around those we cannot stand? I had this conversation the other evening with my good friend Lisa, who is not from the South. She says that when she moved to the South seven years ago, she had to tone down her directness. That is, people in this region are used to speaking negatively or directly about one another--if not to one another. Lisa is honest but not cruel, and, yet, I can imagine the hand-to-throat moments where Southern ladies and gents alike were appalled at her New England via Midwestern sensibilities.

Something cut off my honesty nuts a few years ago. I suppose I had a behavioral response to the realization that honey actually does catch more flies. In my younger days, I was all too direct and even confrontational, but I wasn't nearly as "likeable" as I am now. The late-twenties Bette, however, smiles and stays silent on so many different levels. Case in point, a guest was being a real bitchface at my house the other night in response to my predominantly vegetarian values, and I did not make a peep. Certainly people are entitled to their own opinions in my home, but it turned from discusssion to arrogant lambasting. Maybe confrontation is not so important, but when does one cross the line from social politeness to being ran over by the opinion bus? I was socio-politically castrated in that moment.

I was shopping with my parents this weekend when a middle-aged man passed my mother and said, "Well, hello! What have you been up to lately?" I could see the pained expression on my mother's face--an obvious indication of her disdain for this man--yet she continued to speak to him, even updating him on her status and asking about his current employment. I told my father to take note of Mom's disgust, and when she returned, I asked her about the man. She claims he was a former co-worker who seemed nice enough until he was convicted of raping his own daughter. He actually spent time in prison and then returned home to his loving wife who stayed by his side despite his abuse of their offspring.

Those who know me know that there is no reason to run off on a tangent concerning my own repulsion in this situation, but what about my mother? She herself was a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of family members, so how must she feel speaking to this man--the very embodiment of the perpetrator? I asked her why she was so nice to him, and she said, "I can't answer that. Really, I don't know why." It was then that I realized how incredibly lame I've become. Poor mother is bound by her Southern social code to smile and make nice with this monster, and I am headed down this very same path. I don't want to become the "bless him" type, who can merely state her real concerns about a nemesis over coded discussion and tea with friends. Why must I keep pretending to like people--even inviting them into my social world--when I am utterly and wholly repugnant of their values or lack thereof? Like Mom, "Really, I don't now why."

I would make a commitment in 2010 to change this behavior in myself, but I suppose that is the death of all resolutions in much the same way that tattooing a loved one's name sets an expiration for said relationship.

Letter of Recommendation

2009-12-14T14:27:00.003-06:00

Dear downtown barista with semi-hipster mullet hair:

Please stop standing over my shoulder and talking to me while I am obviously working. That is, though you didn't quite get my not-making-eye-contact maneuver as a suggestion that I was busy, I was certain the deft pointing at my pile of research would do the trick. Remember that day you brought a picture ripped from your roomie's magazine to work in order to prove your point that I "look just like that one chick?" I was working that day too. I was also quite busy the day you derailed my plans for a quick trip to the supermarket. You cornered me in front of the Morningstar products to discuss holistic foods, etc., while trying to conceal your box of hostess cakes. Today's intrusion, however, was classic, as nothing knocks me out of my working ritual more than your incessant need to tell me all about your decision to pursue a doctorate that you won't finish until you are "like, ancient, you know. I'll totally be 33 before I'm done!" The thing is that I don't actually care about your career goals. I get paid to listen to my students' aspirations, but you, ma'am, get paid to make my coffee and leave me alone. Please don't misunderstand me: I'm not one to maintain hierarchical boundaries between myself and those who serve my caffeine needs. In fact, I, too, spent many years as the silent service worker slinging home improvement products across a laser scanner. I can tell you that those folks didn't give a good goddamn about my school/home life/pets/magazine perusals/haircut/hobbies. This is a lesson that I'm certain you'll learn when you start school, and, eventually, head to graduate school for that doctorate of holistic medicine which you claim, "Is like a real MD, you know? I totally can't believe they expect me to be in school as long as a regular doctor. Wow." Upon receipt of this message about social restraint in the workplace, I'm going to need you to make that business in the front of your skull meet the party in the back of your head halfway for a conference on hair etiquette. You look like you are stuck in hair school purgatory.

Most sincerely,

Bette

A Minor Amputation

2009-12-11T15:40:00.003-06:00

Besides his baby blue eyes and dark, messy hair, the Bunny's elegant yet masculine hands were the first things that drew me to him. Our attraction was instantaneous.

Today is a month to the day the Bunny sawed off part of his left thumb, and I am finally able to look at it without the bandage. The selfish part of me wonders how I would've felt if he had lost more of those gorgeous hands of his.

Sweet Nothing

2009-12-10T12:04:00.007-06:00

So what does an English major do in times of turmoil? Well, write haikus, of course!

Ph.D.
Pardon her disdain.
Fifty applications mailed.
Pure, hot, dejection.

I started walking around the track, nearly leaving indentions in the pavement for all of my angst-ridden power walking/jogging. I must have listened to the Velvet Underground's "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" five times. I meant to figure this whole job situation out in a few simple laps around the park, but I just opened up more questions.

1. They finally caught the guy that shot the former Marine and father of seven in the face in broad daylight a few miles from my house. The perpetrator is a boy, but he will be tried as a man. Since the day he killed a man for his wallet, he has turned 16 and is now printed all over local papers--an unmoved face staring at nothing. Not a week ago I remarked on my more conservative feelings about heinous crimes against humanity, but something in me is torn. This is just a boy, and though he took seven other children's father away from them forever, I highly doubt he had a father himself. What am I supposed to feel in this situation? Condemning him to life doesn't seem right, nor does slapping his hand and locking him in a juvenile center for only two years, so what should be done in this case? Unfortunately, my walking didn't work that one out.

2. When am I ever going to get time to have that baby? I had coffee talk with my good friend yesterday, and she told me that another girl from my graduating high school is pregnant now. I can't help it; I feel jealous. If I do get the coveted job, I'll have to jump right in and prove myself. By the time I'm settled in a position, I'll be thirty, and though I know that isn't old, the really selfish part of me--the part of me that stomps around and pitches fits from time to time--wants a baby now. I get angry when people accidentally get pregnant. My ten-year reunion is next June, and I just know all of these smug little mommies will be talking about their kids. I can't help but wonder if I made the right decision to put off having a family until I get settled in my career. I can't even be proud of my accomplishments for my narrow visioning of the things I still haven't achieved. My walking didn't work that one out either.

3. The good news is that, despite all of the negative blogs I've been posting lately, I am utterly and completely comfortable in my skin. Thank you aging process for working that one out for me. If I weren't already me, I would totally do me.

This is Just to Say

2009-12-10T08:50:00.004-06:00

Dear Readers:

I just need to take a moment and share how I'm feeling at this point. Please, feel free to eject yourselves from the responsibility of containing all my insecurities. I often censor myself on the darkest days because of my perceived sense of responsibility to my readers, but when I think back to my reason for starting this blog in February 2008, I realize that if I can't vent here, then where can I vent? Further, I'm quite sure that this will be one of the worst pieces of writing I've ever submitted, but anxiety and self-deprecation do funny things to the creative mind.

With the job market prospects getting worse and worse, I keep just wishing for Nobody College in Nowhere, USA to call me for the possibility of an interview sometime within the next four months. My search for a job has become this silly carnival game, and I'm a little dancing monkey stationed beside the merry-go-round. Oh, you want me to put on a sequined vest and shake my tail for you? Certainly! I have no pride at this point. Maybe I could buy the hiring committee a round of drinks and offer lap dances to the department chairperson. Would that get me an interview? Degrading? No--nothing is as degrading as having a decade's worth of college degrees, years of teaching experience, exorbitant debt, and no prospects for a good job. Add into the mix that there are hundreds more like me out there that are at least as qualified if not more, and it makes one wonder why anyone would ever decide to pursue a Ph.D.

Two years ago, I was in one of the cafeterias on campus at my graduate university. While standing in line at the Subway, two cutesy undergrad girls stared at me until one spoke up and said, "Oh my god, I totally love your outfit. Are you a fashion major?" I laugh about that now, and I imagine that those girls have completed their degrees at this point. They likely have jobs working in department stores--say, Macy's or Kohl's--but they probably make more than I do per hour, and at least those store jobs offer health insurance. I responded, "Why, no, I'm an English major, and I also teach here." Imagine me as a fashion major. I suppose I could do worse--e.g., ten years pursuing a degree that I may or may not be able to pay off in the end. They seemed impressed, as professors are not known for their sense of style. If those girls could see me now, they would stare right through my costuming into my pitiful desire for someone to ask me to the big dance.

I had my mock interview on Tuesday as practice for the elusive interview I may or may not get this year. (Yes, I have moved away from wanting a job to just wanting an interview!) My committee members are all fantastic people who truly seem like they want me to succeed. The mock interview was helpful and enlightening, and I felt as if I could actually "win" that coveted position if I could only have my name drawn for the academic job market lotto. They instructed me in everything from interview clothes to compliments for the search committee members. It was like mom and dad instructing me for the first day of school before sending me out into the world. I don't want to disappoint them.

That same day, I also received a call from a community college in NY state that wanted me to do a phone interview immediately for a tenure track position. I certainly have no shame about working at a community college, so I felt overjoyed to be speaking to the slightly nervous-sounding man on the other end of the phone. Here's the buzzkill: They would need me to begin by mid-January. With finishing my dissertation, already committing to work at my second teaching job here in town, and holding the writing grant at job number one, I just couldn't accept the interview. That was a painful moment--turning down an interview for a tenure-track position in a rad town. The Bunny was practically ready to start packing that day, so I'm still sitting here now wondering if I could have somehow finagled a way to move to New England in a matter of weeks, in the middle of winter, and while I still own a house in the South. I suppose there is no reason to drive myself nuts at this point.

I noticed a trend this year: many schools have deadlines that end during winter of next year, so this waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting could last until I graduate in May. I'm constantly creating "back-up plans" for the Bunny and me. I feel like I owe it to him to get this shit figured out for the both of us, though he has been utterly and completely supportive and overall fanfuckingtastic throughout this harrowing process.

Readers, there is really nothing you can say or do to quell my insecurities, but thanks for listening nonetheless. I'm going to pound some pavement, as the worst thing I could do right now is to allow my ass to get any bigger while I wallow here in self pity and misery until the Bunny returns home from work.

Whiskey kisses,

Bette

Bette Writes a Letter

2009-12-02T00:07:00.007-06:00

Dear Liberals:

Lately, our relationship has been on the skids. I've always voted pretty far to the left--pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-stem cell research, and pro-universal health care--but where I break from the pack--harsher punishment for repeat offenders and death penalty for heinous crimes against humanity--I've found your taken aback wrath to be rather disconcerting. That is, your lambasting via Facebook over my stance that any person who exploits a child should have their rights to a fair retrieval revoked--ahem, Roman Polanski--made something utterly and completely clear to me: conservative or liberal, you're all a bunch of fucking fascist bastards. On that note, I have decided to take a break from our relationship. I'd like to see what's out there on my own. No, I don't believe I'll be needing a copy of the party "checklist," as I've decided to really go "maverick" on your asses and vote my heart/head from here on out without fear of your scathing reviews. This goes double for you, dear liberal academics, as your -isms are no longer working on me. Your P.C. commentary over blah, blah, blah--your blab, blab, blabbing--will never make a difference in the world. Your academic-ese will not quell the pains of living, so you, too, should not bother with ordering a new "liberal" academic social book for me any longer; you've all bastardized the so quoted term anyways. I'm going "rogue," as the kids say, but don't you go getting any ideas either, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. Both sides of what appear to be the same damn party can eat a dick.

Dear Feminists:

Our bond was pure sweetness that time I nearly shaved my head bald Freshman year of college. You loved my irreverent Goodwill t-shirts and plastic glasses coupled with old men's Wranglers. You swooned when I got involved in the anti-hanger rally on the quad. The thing is that I've grown up a bit, you see, and now I realize something: I can bake cupcakes and wear pretty dresses and still argue for equal rights for vaginas, penises, and everything in between. You, however, have refused to budge on your stance. Your essentialist visioning of a "feminist" is decidedly limited and nominal in its expanse. Your pitiful followers now lament the extra 20 minutes I took this morning to distinguish myself away from the quintessential bag-lady "feminist" appearance that is, to be honest, quite tragic. As I am not interested in dowdy neutral wear that lacks a shape or even a suggestion of feminine curve appeal, your minions have chosen to eject me from their club. How is it that one becomes this elusive creature--this "feminist" of which you speak? This message is also applicable to you, dear Mean Girls of Memphis. Your former Riot Grrrl selves have forgotten the entire fucking point of the movement in the first place, and now your activism has come full circle back to the beginnings of exclusivity. So what does a feminist look like? I suppose since I am not the catty one--I am not the one who has put limitations on our dress code or who has verbally massacred my fellow woman due to petty misgivings about myself--then I am, in fact, more feminist than you, pussies.

Okay, I think I can sleep now.

About a Thumb

2009-11-13T08:41:00.004-06:00

Shortly after I wrote my last self-indulgent blog about the academic job market--and thanks to all of you folks that responded with undeserved but much appreciated commentary on the matter--I got a phone call from the Bunny. He was screaming into the phone, and his panic drained the blood straight out of my body: "Oh my god, Bette! I've just cut the top of my thumb off."

He had been working at my parents' house on a small job, and this final cut was the "last one before lunch." He'll admit that he got careless, and the table saw just doesn't give two shits about your flesh anyways. I'm not into gore, so I'll stop there with any other details, but you should know by now, dear reader, that my history of fainting makes me thankful to Jesus/God/gods that I was not there when it all went down.

I rushed at 80 mph along the rural back roads that connect my county to my parents' county until I met him at the hospital in my small hometown. It was the same place both my father, my sister, and me were all born. I arrived amidst chaos, as an entire family waited to hear the fate of their overdosed and now-coding brother/lover/son. I felt guilty with my red-faced agony. I jumped security concerns to find my husband sitting alone in a room with scant gauze covering the injury. I didn't yet know that we would be sitting there for another FOUR HOURS until the doctor would tell us to head to the hospital in our town, which just happens to be a mile from our home. But what do you do...fuck it. Yes, my husband sat with a bloody stump, no pain meds, and nurses that acted as if asking them where the bathroom was located was akin to asking if I could strap on a gigantic dildo and insert it into their ear. "WHAT?!? The bathroom? You need to go urinate???" We bided our time reading five-year-old Southern Living magazines and singing Dinosaur Jr. lyric songs about appendages: "All I could do was lick your hand."

The idiots in small-town hospital finally stuck him with some hard and fast drugs, which made our 30 minute commute quite entertaining. As we were headed to see a Dr. Sparrow--plastic surgeon extraordinaire--the under-the-influence Bunny said, "I want my name to be Sparrow, but can we make it plural? We could be Robin and Fred Sparrows. People would call me Freddie, and they would say, 'Hey, Freddie, can I get you to do some wood work out at my house?' And I would say, 'No, man, I don't mess with saws anymore.'" This extended commentary with himself lasted until I turned on the radio, and, unfortunately, found KISS playing: "I-IIIII, just cut my finger oooooffff, but I party every day!" I guess the drugs worked.

As the shot wore off, we were still hanging around E.R.s across the region, until someone gave us the honor and privilege of giving the Bunny a bed and a doctor. This was about 8 hours after the initial accident. If this was our "urgent" care, I'd certainly hate to see what they do with "semi-urgent"--a scale of "urgencies" I found listed on our chart. I bet the "semi-urgent" cases are given a number and told to return within the day for a rapid response.

I suppose I didn't understand what it entailed to fix someone's sawed-off finger. Every other person had a finger amputation story for us, so that was, umm, endearing/useful(?) I can't even remember how many male hospital employees gave me the finger while explaining their own battle with the table saw. Poor Bunny lay on a cold slab in the middle of the bright room and had to tell ten different people with charts what he had eaten/drank that day, what previous surgeries he had had--right femur, left tib/fib, reconstruction on left foot--and what that old man tattooed on his right arm meant.

I guess it hit me about the time the Dr. started discussing anesthesia. I got really scared. I didn't want anybody to take him, and I knew he was terrified in there under the lights. I just wanted to cry. I wanted my mom, but when she offered to come, I told her not to. I guess I really felt like a wife that day. Five years of meal-planning, remembering in-law birthdays, and dusting the wine cabinet were just given a big f-you by my role as bedside wifey. I thought about the last thing I taught my students, which was T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The line, "Like a patient etherized upon a table"--the same line we'd hashed out over and over again--kept running through my head.

During his surgery, I waited in the room with his parents. We watched Nat Geo programming for 2.5 hours. When the Bunny returned, the nurse started discussing his pain medication options. The Bunny's parents' history of prescription drug abuse came in handy, as they made comments like, "Oh, no, Darvocet won't help shit. You better give him the Morphine." Their faces watched intently as the Bunny was injected with the drugs. I swear his mother licked her lips while his father grinned in glee--the by-proxy recipient of that sweet fluid. It was sad and sick but also quite funny. (Is that possible?) The Bunny and I laughed about it later, but, yeah, it was sad. Drugs are bad, dolls.

I slept on a cold couch by his bed. Actually, sleeping is an overstatement. I kept looking at his body in the bed, and I don't know if I've ever been able to love him as much as I did then. I thought about all the people that died in that hospital that day. My man lost part of his thumb. Big deal, right? Still, I just wanted to climb in the bed with him and hold him. I don't want to think about the day when one of us plays this role again but the other person is dying. It hasn't even been three weeks since the Bunny's grandfather died, and I made all of those bitchy statements about death. Oh, Bette, you get what you get.

A flash out the window kept me up--well, that coupled with the all-business nurse's decision to LEAVE THE LIGHT ON every time she left the room from midnight-4:00 am. The light outside my window flashed green, orange, and white as a signal to the helicopters landing with battered bodies. Nearly ten years ago to the date, the Bunny and I sat at a park near the hospital. We were lying together in a drained wading pool and looking out across the town to face the same hospital in which we now were sleeping. We weren't yet dating, but we were young and absolutely nuts about one another. We were in that "playing it cool" phase. I remember staring at that same light--we called it the Ireland light--and having a conversation about my plans for college. A few days later--November 17, 1999 to be exact--we officially became a couple. Looking at that same light from a different perspective, the same boy still by my side, I can't help but be grateful for how much things change (here, the Bunny's thumb and the nature of our relationship) but how some things, thankfully, stay the same.

(I love you, babe.)

Bette Runs the Numbers

2009-11-11T09:28:00.004-06:00

The semester is almost over at University Job #2, and I only have a few weeks at University Job #1. I'm ecstatic, but I'm also a little sad that I won't be teaching at UJ#1 next semester. I'll be, instead, writing like a mad woman to finish my last two chapters, hopefully getting an interview (not holding my breath), and getting this house ready to put back on the market, as we took it off after our last buyers' loan fell through. We didn't want it to set all through the winter months, and I was just too overwhelmed with everything to keep it sparkling clean and perfect all the time.

The Bunny and I have made a pact: no matter the job market outcome, we are moving up and out of here next summer. The numbers don't look good, kids, so let me see if I can break it down for you. Last year, when I served on a job search committee for a candidate in our department at UJ#1, we had over 40 applicants for 1 job. As I am in modern and contemporary literature, that number expands exponentially, so I've heard that some of the jobs that I applied for have over 300 applicants. Though I've sent out over 35 applications for tenure track positions, non-tenured instructorships in cool ass towns, and one-year fellowships, I can't ignore the statistics. The lottery that is the academic job market has really been a Debbie Downer for me lately. I alternate between self-deprecation and unrealistic optimism. Today I'm somewhere in between the two.

Something on paper will have to stand out enough for my file to be pulled from the mountain of CVs stacked in the chair's office at each university. If by some slim chance my application is chosen for advancement, I'll have to knock down the other short list contenders until I am the last woman standing. The task ahead of me seems insurmountable, and I wonder now--with all of the school debt, research, nights without sleep, and years of delaying bits of adulthood in order to finish school--is it worth it? I can only be glad that my man is aware and ready for whatever happens next year. He will go where I go; we will make it work.

The market is a complex process. Academics don't get to choose where they want to live. Every Fall, the job calls are posted by committees at schools around the nation/world. Each job has a department and a field of specialization. I first look at the lists for jobs in English, but then I am limited to calls for jobs that are applicable to my dissertation research areas: modern/contemporary drama and modern/contemporary American literature with a specialization in the South. Even though I have taught upper-division courses in British and Children's Literature, I am not qualified for a job in this area. Out of the jobs that I applied for, only about half are firmly in my specialty, which means that I will be promptly ejected from several piles based wholly on this fact. Let's just say, hypothetically, that I still am a strong applicant based on my field of research alone. I must then be in a tier of schools that is at least at the standard of or above the teachers within that department. That cuts out several jobs where the department's professors--I know because I neurotically peruse each job's departmental website--all studied at Ivy League schools. They won't hire my metropolitan state school ass based on academic politics alone. Let's say that leaves me with 10 jobs for which I'm qualified based on my education and research area qualifications. Then they'll look at my publications, my teaching record, my letters of recommendation, and my writing sample. If even one committee member is not convinced I'm their girl, or if my work somehow overlaps with Dr. so-n-so's project about women and abuse narratives, etc., then I'm flicked into the 'no' pile.

Then again, let's say I get an interview all the way to campus--a 1 in 100 shot--then I will be competing with at least two other candidates at that level. If I show up and I'm too over/under dressed for their departmental tastes, that could screw me in the end. If I am too overeager, too nervous, or too chatty, that, too, could be the kiss of death. My advisor likens it to a combination lock where every turn must fit precisely. Each component must fall into place for one to achieve the tenure track position. In this market, I'm more likely to find a unicorn galloping through my living room eating E.T. cereal and singing INXS than to land a tenure track position. I'd argue the same for a decent-pay instructorship in a cool ass town with the way things are going this year.

Believe it or not, I'm grinning as I type this because I realize that teaching in academia is not the only thing that would make me happy. I'm still down for opening a vegetarian restaurant in a little mountain town. The Bunny and I want to get a whole litter of pygmy goats and rocking chairs on a porch looking out over a mountain range. I want to have some babies in a few years, and I want to have time to read what I want to read when I want to read it again--a luxury I have missed since I began grad school five years ago.

Maybe I'll look back on this blog and laugh because the future me knows how silly this girl is acting right now. Maybe I'll read this blog from behind a desk in an office at a nice university. Then again, maybe I'll balance my laptop over my knees while I lounge at the base of my backyard by the mountains/rolling hills/beach. Either way, I'm okay with everything. Yeah, I guess I'm having an optimistic day.

The Dark Side of Mentoring Hormonal Young Men aka Court Evidence

2009-11-06T08:28:00.005-06:00

I woke-up yesterday with a smile on my face. I had a dream about jazz hands, the sun was shining over Autumn trees, and my iPod kept cranking out the most appropriate soundtrack. I spent the morning teaching my favorite poet--T.S. Eliot--and I had a productive and inspiring conversation with one of my dissertation committee members.

As the semester progresses, I've fallen in love with my two sections of English majors at university job #1. They are so excited to be in class. Seriously--they email me to say as much. One guy, who, incidentally, has a mountain man beard down to his chest, always remarks, "Wow, great class, Bette." I'm a stunner. I'm on my game. I think it's due, at least in part, to our foray into the Modern period, but I like to think it has at least a little bit to do with my skills, yo.

I did, however, have two very odd encounters yesterday with young men from different sections of the course. During a mid-afternoon meeting, one creepy, self-deprecating guy stopped by my office to remark on death, god/God, and the worthlessness of his life. I just wanted to hand him his grades and send him on his way. Instead, he wanted me to understand that "the anvil is about to drop." (Yes, whatever the fuck that means...) I don't take this lightly, so don't misunderstand my tone. His odd behavior left me with chills, and I turned his name in to the department Chair. I also gave his name to dear Grace as evidence in case I turn up chopped to bits in a ditch. If I'm laughing now, I can assure you that it is nervous laughter, and that is all I want to say about that...

In my evening class, there is a guy in his mid-late 20s who is always super involved in the conversation. (Yay for the teacher's wet dream.) That class is interesting to me because I seem to have collected a couple of followers. One girl is crafting jewelry for me, and another young woman wants to hash out "The Wasteland" together sometime--just for kicks. This is also the class that contains a Real Housewives of Atlanta's NeNe look-alike. She send me ecards on a weekly basis, while the bearded one is a fan of my lectures and the way I sign my emails with a simple "Best," at the end. (This is pretty old hat for academics, actually, but I won't burst his bubble.) I could go on and on, but I need to return to that above-mentioned eager beaver classroom talker.

He waited until my desk cleared, and then he followed me out the door, across the street, down the sidewalk, and to my car. I kept making the average social gestures and statements to make him understand that this conversation/walk was over: "Well, my husband is cooking dinner, and I must start driving home now..." He just kept talking about my dissertation--no, he didn't know anything about Southern literature--the politics of "porn church," and the nature of addiction. I seem to have two psychos on my hands this year.

I don't want to rant about men, but I'm going to rant about men. With a small minority of my male students, shit just gets out of hand. They get classic "hero worship" tinged with a decidedly patriarchal desire to contain me --I can't quite peg it down. It is this complex mix of both admiration and disdain for me. They want to not only be my "friend," but they also have this blazing need to show me their beliefs and to try and make me understand that they are right and true. It's obsessive and weird and, at times, scary. Yesterday--with the creepy office visit death guy and eager beaver porn addiction counselor dude--I was overwhelmed by the oddness of these men. (Wait, let's call them boys.) Worst of all, their motivation seems to be driven by the fact that they've located--through context clues?--the fact that I am not a religious woman. I don't know if this is a misconstrued form of Christian recruitment, but the next time an obsessive male student tries to mention something about God to me, I will likely call campus security. I just don't want to overreact when we are so close to finishing the semester.

There is that issue, too, with young males in general whereby they have these unusual attachments to individuals based wholly on a fantasy relationship they've created in their head or on exaggerated social exchanges, i.e., my natural warmth with all of my students is recreated as evidence of my interest in a deeper relationship. I'm trying to work this out for myself, so feel free to stop reading. We read a lot of stories of obsession this semester, and, here, I am thinking of Browning's "Porphyria's Lover" and "My Last Duchess." Both poems center around the murder of a jealous male maniac's lover. Certainly I'm not expected to censure literature for the sake of my own fears, but in thinking about this now, it makes everything that happened yesterday seem all the more terrifying. Yet, I know I'm not doing the scenarios justice, as there is no way to type the slow, stilted intonation in both men's voices.

I'm safe at home now, but after a night of tossing and turning in my bed, I couldn't shake the image of these two guys. Let's just say for safety's sake that if I disappear, this is a clue for you, dear officers of the law, as I'm not completely sure this matter will play out to its finest.

Cheers to you, Virginia

2009-10-27T13:01:00.004-05:00

Carroll's "Jabberwocky" best describes my feelings at the present: "O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! He chortled in his joy." I just taught Virginia Woolf's essay, "The Mark on the Wall," in my British Literature class, and the students were jumping out their seats to have their say. Apparently, when one confronts issues of indeterminacy and textual meandering, our western world, capitalist "civilization" is alternately incensed and inspired. Welcome to the Modern period, my friends.

It was beautiful to watch them debate and think. Even those that hated Woolf did not realize that she made them engage with her writing--often despite themselves. Bravo, Ms. Virginia.

I always wanted a child named Virginia for three reasons: 1. Woolf 2. My Nanny (who is named Virginia, though my father hates her name) Number 3, however, is more complex. My mother loves the original Miracle on 34th Street. The little girl in the movie is named Susan--my mother's name. Despite the girl's unusual rational thinking for such a young age, she does eventually believe in Santa. As my mother never got anything for Christmas, I think there is a part of her that wanted to be that little girl in the film--the cosmopolitan and charmed child in fancy dresses and hats. She still likes to believe in the notion of a generous guy dropping random gifts for children all around the world, though the more rational part of her knows that this could never occur; case in point, she didn't get visits from Santa. Still, that classic, Americana quote, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus," always comes back to me, and I think about my mother, steadily believing in this thing that never served her once.

I'm eating a feta/hummus veggie wrap from the kiosk. The person that made the wrap threw caution to the wind and placed gigantic hunks of feta throughout my wrap. I'm certain that doesn't fit into Aramark's budget.

I have a pile of work ahead of me, but instead I'm blogging. The Bunny just called to say our buyers backed out of our contract completely; I told him just to take it off the market until next Spring. Yet, this hummus is really good, and despite the high cost I paid for this sandwich--despite this mess with the house, the Bunny's grandfather's death, and the driving rain--I'm in a lovely mood today.

Meditations on a Hospital

2009-10-22T13:20:00.004-05:00

We found out yesterday that the buyers' loan has been delayed, if not inevitably, until they can save more money for a down payment for a different kind of loan. That is, yadda yadda, we aren't moving anytime soon. I was pretty bent up about it yesterday, but today I'm okay. We just started the modern period on my British Lit class, so I'm eager to impart the knowledge of alienation and isolation to each and every one of my dear pupils.

We also learned yesterday, shortly after getting the bad news about our house, that the Bunny's grandfather is in fact dying. I suppose I could lie and say it is tragic, but I'm just not in the mood. After a long day at university job #2, I rushed to the hospital last night out of guilt for my absence while everyone else kept vigil by the dying man's bed.

There are a lot of funny and sad or funny/sad things that happen at hospitals. When I first arrived to paw paw's dying room, everyone stood/sat/leaned around the vicinity of his bed. His face was covered in some sort of complex respiratory device. In panic-stricken fits where paw paw would lose his breath, various family members would rush to his side to readjust the device--knowing that his life now depended upon this healthy dose of oxygen pumping into his crotchety old lungs. When finally he fought to keep it off--choosing instead to wear the much less encroaching nose/wire breathing piece--nobody argued with him. The room got silent, and through his morphine-induced mumblings about needing to "take a shit," there was this unspoken rule that we had all decided to just let him slowly stop breathing.

I watched ten people sobbing, and I had to look down at my knees. I have the unfortunate habit of laughing uncontrollably in times of turmoil. The comedy of death was overwhelming. I reached to squeeze the Bunny's hand, catching his eye long enough to confirm his shared feelings of misplaced hilarity, and I leaned in to crack a joke: "What do you bet ol' crackhead uncle Mike only came for the will and the morphine?" We both started to shake a little with laughter, but I guess it looked like we were, instead, physically and woefully moved by paw paw's present state. Mission accomplished.

When the last insistence that paw paw needed to make a poo poo came grumbling from behind his bed sheet, everyone cleared out of the room like a record scratching to a halt. What once was a pity party turned into an "okay, well let's catch a cigarette break." The Bunny and I opted to walk the halls.

We passed the doors across from paw paw's room and noticed a boy of about ten lying alone in a hospital bed. I was told by my nurse friend Jennifer, who works on this floor, that this is where people go when they won't ever leave. I suppose that means the boy is dying. For the first time all night, I started get a little sad.

We walked to the other side of the building and found ourselves in the cancer wing. It was dark, and there wasn't a soul in sight. The Bunny said, "Boy, it's really dead in here." I'm certain he didn't mean anything by it, but the inappropriateness coupled with our tired and emotionally overwrought bodies just made the whole comment seem hilarious.

On the walk back to the dying room, we passed another family of mourners. They were wearing Tweety Bird, et al. regalia, and one woman remarked through her sobs, "The last thing he said to me was, 'Shake it; don't break it.' I'll never forget those words..." Her sorrow fits echoed down the empty halls, as did my resounding and spontaneous half-howls of laughter. Seriously, what the fuck? One could only hope to say such significant things as "I need to shit" or "Shake it; don't break it" in their final hours. I'll likely recite the Oscar Meyer wiener song or perhaps I'll perform the theme from the hit 90s television show The Nanny.

After finding out the fecal hijinks were still in progress in the dying room, the Bunny and I rode the elevator down to the labor and delivery floor. Parked directly in front of the window was a true newborn. Born that day and with a head full of the darkest, oil-slick hair, the baby's unassuming sleep moved me. I put my nose to the glass and cooed at its unhearing ears. The Bunny was enraptured by the infant's fingernails. Behind us, a saucy brawd in a sweatshirt said, "Perty, ain't she?" I like to think that she was not family but, rather, the type of woman who sees fit to comment on any and every situation. Still awed over this brand new creature in front of me, I said sweetly, "Yes, she is just perfect."

We finally returned to the room, and I felt boxed into a night that surely promised a long process of dying and trying over and over again. I thought it best to go home and watch Top Chef on my DVR. I motioned for the Bunny to slip away at my signal, and we ran down the hallway like bandits. I plan to blame it on the Bunny's absentminded mother--"What? Rox didn't tell you we were leaving? I can't believe that!"

The hospital has made many recent improvements. The best, however, is the new sexy female elevator voice that announces all pertinent motions of her travel. As the elevator descends, her coy mistress remarks, "Going down." I'm certain it is a statement, though it is posed almost as a question. From the ninth floor to the sixth, we rode alone. At the fifth floor, the elevator opened and welcomed a middle-aged African American man wearing Notorious B.I.G. memorabilia and a giant gold crucifix. The elevator doors shut, and I looked him straight in the eyes. Mimicking dear elevator maiden, we said in unison, "Going down?"

Somebody Give this Woman a Hand

2009-10-20T12:11:00.003-05:00

At our usual haunt on Saturday night, I found myself in a rum stupor, leaning against a dingy bathroom wall covered in tawdry bar humor, and having a moronic conversation about clavicle bones and v-neck tees. Even in that compromised state, I knew enough to think, "What the hell am I doing with my life?"

I feel so directionless lately. There are days where this mood breaks, and I feel driven by clarity and freedom and happiness to keep on keeping on, but for the most part, I need a good kick in the pants to get moving enough to trim my bangs.

I'm certain I seemed impressive and authoritative in my lunch meeting with the English chair from university job #2 yesterday. I could step outside of myself and linger above our cafe table littered in perfectly nibbled deli sandwiches and hear every word coming out of my mouth. Dr. Chair sat taking notes on my comments while I carefully extracted lettuce from my canines. Dr. Chair remarked, "Yes, please, let's do this again sometime--and let's leave out the business talk!" Oh, Bette, you are so clever when it comes to social mores.

After the meeting, the Bunny called to say that the realtor let him know today that our buyers' loan has been delayed while they find a new lender. I don't know the ins and outs of this major pain in the ass, but I do know that I'm too emotionally vapid right now to really care all that much. So, we may or may not be moving in two weeks, which is our original closing date. I do know, however, that our new landlord will keep the $1,000 deposit we just mailed last week at the advice of our realtor.

Following a brief but passively aggressive yet threatening phone call from my mother-in-law, we went to the hospital to visit the Bunny's grandfather. This is the one that makes the rude remarks about, well, everything. I don't suppose this will actually be the time that the grandpa-who-cried-wolf dies.

It isn't that I wish his demise, but I just really hate all of the predatory family members feasting voraciously on every bit of bad news. If he takes a "turn for the worse," every family Facebook update starts blowing up my ticker. If he feels better, however, there is the requisite, "Pops is doing better, but we know he'll never leave that room." It's bullshit, really, and you can all get me back for this decidedly non-p.c. attitude when I'm dying. There--you have it in writing.

That crooked eye doesn't fool me, sir

2009-10-16T14:36:00.006-05:00

I had a conversation with my adviser yesterday that ran the gamut from football to ugly early-90s rugs to life after graduation. For one, I'm finally starting to crack the code of the unusual man that has guided my academic career for the past several years. I now know that he watches football to the point of ritual obedience every Sunday. He remarked that he has to "be sure to work-out and eat in the morning" before the noon games begin, thus keeping him occupied until at least 9:00 that night when the last football game ends. This vision of both a sports fanatic and an awkward and absentminded professor does not mesh in my head. How can one be both a scholar of early-modern British drama and know the names of every football player to hit the NFL since the mid-70s? Disconcerting--yes--but I'm pleased to find this complexity in his character.

The football discussion was birthed out of a tangent from our talk about jobs and fellowships overseas. I simply asked, "Did you ever consider a job outside of the states?" He said there was one reason alone that he could not leave America: How could he watch his football games in a foreign country? After a thirty minute diatribe about the sports "experts," who he claims "don't know a damn thing about offensive" something or another, I stood to leave and remarked on the sad, dingy, dusty rose and country blue floral rug that is gelled to the bottom of his office floor.

Me: "When I'm gone, you will need someone new to occupy your time. You'll need someone to mentor, and the quality of students you receive might improve if you consider discarding that sad rug on your floor. It's depressing."

Him: "Some people don't even have a rug in their office."

This last statement was spoken with just a hint of pride. It was as if this rug delineated some sort of tangible division between himself and others. It was like a luxury not everyone could afford. To my surprise, he then took my suggestion to heart, stared for a while at the floor, and he said, "Well, maybe you are right."

Our dynamic is quite traditional. Where many graduate students easily engage with their professors, offering a hello to "Pam" or "Stan," I still call my adviser by his proper title and surname. Where my peers might invite their professors to personal events or vice versa, I imagine my adviser's house as some mystical hovel on the outskirts of existence. I'm not sure there is much else there beyond an endless supply of canned tuna fish, every issue of Modern Drama since its inception, and a wood panel TV for football viewing. (Certainly, there must be a satellite dish.) Oh, and since he likes to jog, I hope there are sweatbands, nylon shorts, and dad Reeboks lying in a neat pile on his dresser. There could be a lover there--male or female--but I know that there are no pets or children. I once saw The Club secured on his steering wheel in the faculty parking lot, but I do not know if this is a precaution he takes at home.

Even if on the smallest level, his earnest consideration of my office decorating tips betrays a steadily closing chasm between our once fixed roles as student and professor.

Dance Magic Dance

2009-10-11T08:24:00.005-05:00

Our fancypants coffe maker broke on Friday. It was fine by me, as, despite the lovely and stylish design, the damn thing wasn't very functional. We decided to go ahead and invest in a new BUNN, so the Bunny headed off in the rain to buy us our new prize. (I told him I couldn't wait a few days for Amazon to deliver it to our doorstep.)

While he was away, I started our dinner of palak paneer, a household favorite for Bette and Bunny, and hummed a little bit by the stove. In Thursday's class at university job #1, I used a clip from Labyrinth to illustrate a carnivalesque and uncanny scene in Oscar Wilde's "The Harlot's House." The clip was from the dream ballroom sequence where the Goblin King (David Bowie) tries to get a 14-year-old Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) to forget about the baby she's trying to find by romanticizing her away from the clock. I never realized how overtly erotic the film actually was--especially given its status as "Children's fantasy" genre--and I was appalled at all the phallic masks popping up into poor Sarah's face. Probably more disheartening was the fact that some of my students were born post-1990. (I know, what the fuck?) They had never seen/heard of Labyrinth. I told them the world would be a cold, dark place for them until they found a way to see the film, and then I left the room for a minute for effect. I think they thought I was so taken aback by their ignorance of this flick that I wasn't going to return, but I did. It was a fun lecture, really.

It was in this soft, fuzzy glow that can only be brought out by a David Bowie fantasy sequence--so sexy--that my dear husband arrived home with the coffee maker. I stirred the palak paneer while he started frantically and haphazardly unpacking the box. All of sudden, he just started to shake and sat down on the stairs jutting into our kitchen. He said, "I just saw a dog killed, and there was nothing I could do to stop it, but I feel like I should go back and get his body." He then started to cry.

This is when I feel most connected to my lover. Normally very guarded and reserved, and now in this very vulnerable stage, I just wanted to rock him a bit. I held him a while, made him look at his dogs and their happy faces--Sebastian was now concerned about the Bunny's distress and was looking at him in earnest--and we piled our plates high with spinach pureed the texture of baby food.

Matthew McConaughey and his stupid wannabe surfer/hippie talk makes me die a little inside

2009-10-07T08:44:00.010-05:00

For a decade--ever since The Mummy franchise began--I have always despised Brendan Fraser. It wasn't even until summer 2008 when Alison informed me that Brendan's last name was Fraser and not Frasier that I even took the time to say his name correctly. Alas, that hate has now been displaced on this man: Matthew McConaughey.

Oh, it's no insignificant emotion. Imagine my delight when Dear Wendy's husband emailed this treat to us: Matthew McConaughey Can't Stand Up by Himself. I alternated between visceral disgust and reluctant awe.

This is why it pains me to use the following classic McConaughey movie quote from Dazed and Confused as evidence of my own status as a teacher: "I get older, and they stay the same age." Granted, I'm not talking in terms of hyper-sexualizing my students, but I feel like this every year as I move further and further outside of the boundaries of the defining generation of my students.

I just tutored one of my university job #2 football players on Monday, and he kept abbreviating words in his paper. By the time I told him that he can't type "min." in place of "minute" and that "ima" is not an acceptable way to say that you intend to do something--future tense, I realized we had a major problem on our hands. I asked him, "When did you get your first cell phone?" He responded, "When I was 12, maybe 11." He is 18 now. That means he was a preteen only six years ago, and I have been married nearly that long.

While he was OMG-ing it up and asking WTF?, I was learning how to properly load my dishwasher and stock a pantry. If we want to talk acronyms, I was probably requesting something through ILL or renewing my membership to the MLA. He was likely looking at MILF porn. I was making sure no one called me Mrs.

Last week, I was walking down the hall at that same job, and one of the older women working in the testing office said, "Excuse me, miss, can I help you?" This same woman has had extended conversations with me on multiple occasions. I said, "It's me, Bette, and I'm here to do my writing workshop." She said, "Oh, I thought you were a student." I guess she picked the wrong day because I just got so fed up with the B.S. treating-me-like-an-outsider mentality. I said, "Well I'm sure as hell not a student." I suppose to her I do look somewhat young, but I wanted to tell her how I don't even know how to talk to my students sometimes, as they were in Kindergarten when Clinton was fucking Monica Lewinsky. I wanted to tell her that I talk about Showbiz Pizza to illustrate automatons for the Freud Uncanny discussion, but they only know it as Chuck E. Cheese's. I wanted to mention that my first book reports were conducted with the help of books in print and not Wikipedia.

Instead, I stalked off down the hallway. I'm pretty certain I heard her mumble "kids" as I retreated.

Oh, Mr. McConaughey, how right you are... I curse the day you uttered those words of wisdom, thus forcing me to control even a portion of my hate. You muppet-faced puppetmaster.. Oh, wizard of the dark, I rue the day you got your first Romantic-Comedy role, but I bow to your infinite knowledge on the nature of aging.

Professor Doucheyface

2009-09-30T10:09:00.003-05:00

There is an overweight lesbian girl that sits on the front row of my morning class. She never says a word in front of her peers, but she arrives 30-45 minutes early and reads in the hallway before class begins. I quite like her.

We started the Victorian section of my British Literature class yesterday, and I did a long introduction into the era. Then we read Elizabeth Barrett Browning's double homage to George Sand--a cross-dressing, Romantic-era, French revolutionary and writer.

Sometimes I feel like this girl must think I am such a douche. I look a little bit douchey on occasion. I've become a bit of a yes-woman, and I do take extra care with my clothing because that's what grown-ups do. I don't know if I would like me much either given the opportunity to sit on the other side of the classroom again.

I want to whip out a picture of me when I was an undergraduate--around her age--and when I was miserable, fat, and, though not a lesbian, hating every stupid word that came out of my classmates' mouths, and press it into her hand. Yesterday, she emailed me a long note about how much she enjoyed the lecture and wanted to know my thoughts about contemporary novels written about the Victorian era--thank you Amanda for lending me Waters's Fingersmith. She chatted about Victorian-era sex and lesbian undertones, and I just wanted to call her over for a long chat. I needed to prove that I am not this douchey exterior, and that more than she can ever know, I get her.

None of this happened. I suppose I'll see her in the hallway again tomorrow, but I wonder if we will ever have a conversation outside of my inbox.

When do I get my leather elbow patches and pipe?

2009-09-30T08:50:00.003-05:00

Every time I sit down to pee on the second floor of the building in which I work at university job #2, my eye moves to the top rung of the stall where someone has drawn a clever little depiction of a dancing penis with the letters "O.C.C." below it. In explanation, the words "on campus cock" are scrawled below. As this is the faculty women's bathroom, I'm not really sure how said depiction got there in the first place. The closer I look, I'm pretty certain the dancing O.C.C. is wearing a letter jacket or at least some sort of Greek-letter insignia. Oh! Clever cock... There isn't, however, a number to contact the on campus cock, so this drawing is mere art for art's sake.

I've had, more often than not, several unusual encounters in university settings over the last week. Good ol' O.C.C. is now a welcome friend, as he greets me each time I urinate. Yesterday, I went to my dear adviser's office to catch-up post-conference. We just learned Monday that a legend in our department--at university job #1--died last Friday. Not only was he a world-renowned scholar, but he also worked up until just days before he died. He had been at the university for 40 years, wandering the halls quietly on Sundays, and taking food home from every department-sponsored luncheon.

As I am still cracking the code of my very secretive mentor, I was a bit surprised when he spent 45 minutes recalling the times he had with his friend over the years. Hard-faced and stiff-lipped, he looked like he might have been crying a bit before I came into his office. It was moving, to say the least. I can't imagine spending decades building a friendship with someone to have them die in a moment. My mentor said he mourned the loss of the man that was his mentor. I imagine myself in his position one day, and then I imagine myself in the position of the man that just died.

I walked straight from my teacher's office to the office where I play teacher, and I met my former student, who now is more like an adopted son to me for all the affection I feel for him. We discussed his project--porn studies--and then I went outside to keep Grace company while she smoked. After listening to my adviser's horror stories about academics in the early-80s--calling the women professors "honey" and working under the fist of a tyrannical department chair--I breathed a sigh of relief that I had not been born sooner. (Will someone think the same thing about my experiences in the 20-teens?)

I think about time passing so far--in much the same way that it does in the 1960 film version of The Time Machine--until we all have faces that only suggest our ancestors' and our clothes mimic that of our current time under a decades-removed interpretation. I also like to think that ol' on campus cock will still be dancing at the top of the stall, unmoved by the passing of time.

Please Hold All Questions Until the End

2009-09-28T13:18:00.004-05:00

I spent the last couple of days down in Georgia at a conference for and about southern women writers. As a last minute treat, dear Wendy accompanied me on the trek. Some things about conferences stay the same: vague and snippy registration volunteers, stock buffets riddled with starchy carbs and economic bounty, and lectures where everyone pretends to be fascinated, though we are all thinking about the moment we can return to the hotel and play on Facebook or watch free HBO. (Well, at least Bette has these thougts.) There are those that "ask questions" that are really well-disguised ploys to make themselves seem cutting-edge and, well, smart. I know I brought up fellatio in one of my panel questions. (Does that make me seem smart or cutting-edge?)

To end here, however, would seem cynical, as this entire experience exceeded my expectations. I met an academic soulmate, who will, if I'm lucky, be a long-distance research partner and friend for the rest of my professional life. I met other women throughout the weekend--some speaking truths about traiditionally genteel and lesbian women's schools in the South and others unabashedly making the classic vagina V in public to accompany their spoken word at open mic night. The lone men who braved the predominantly female conference shared their works about kotex purchases and panties on "supple" butts. Even the awkward Russian girl that left mouths agape with her odd 8-point-font reading of a story about (I think) rats and feces as fuel in the future is a necessary component to my full-circle recall of this memory. I wish I had the ability to replicate her thick Russian voice impersonating a southern drawl. I think her Borat-esque performance might be part of a film spoofing academics, so look for us all in the theater next year. Seriously, it was that random. I, of course, spent my entire weekend talking incest with everyone that happened to catch my presentation. I suppose this is the lot I drew for myself.

On the final night, thanks in part to said academic soulmate, I finally got to have a short chat with Marsha Norman, who is my fourth primary source interview. (I've been chasing her from conference to conference for over a year.) After watching a production of Norman's play, Getting Out, and nearly getting lost in the emotion of finally seeing the very thing I've only previously read, my heart was so full. Yeah, I realize this all sounds ridiculously melodramatic, but I just found myself at a loss for words so many times this weekend. When I most needed my generally impeccable communication skills, my throat closed syllable-shut and saliva-sealed. The beauty and power of so many women in my field is truly overwhelming. The stories and the research that reach to opposite ends of every inkling of southern culture put me in a sweet daze.

I remember when I believed for certain(?) in a god, and I would come home renewed from church camp, certain that this time I would "do better." I suppose the feeling is similar, as I'm so fulfilled in this moment by the people and the words that I encountered this weekend. There is a buzz in my stomach. Thank you gods of the academy for making yourselves more available on a Friday in September.

Wendy and I took the long road home together in the dark. We left shortly after the play and drove through the night. I don't know if it is my damn hormones again or if it was my already weakened state-of-mind--Norman's play is no easy viewing--but I started crying about the most random thing. Wendy and I were talking about death, and I talked about the last time I saw the Bunny's selfless aunt Anne alive. She was rotting from cancer in a hotel bed, and I gave her a hand and foot massage. It was her birthday, and I wanted to make her shitty day special. She died anyways.

After philosphizing and reminiscing for hours, we pulled safely into the drive at Dear Wendy's Nashville home. We replayed the whole weekend over again for Mark, Wendy's husband, before watching Family Feud outtakes via youtube. I think I dreamt about sexy food poetry and those Russian rats. Uncounscious in my guest bed that night, I was 3-feet-tall, but everyone could still see me.

On a Thursday

2009-09-19T09:21:00.004-05:00

I can't stop thinking about Thursday. I've been playing catch-up since the beginning of the semester, which is the plight of all teachers, really. Thursday, however, I finally caught my stride with my students. I always thought having two rooms full of English majors would be a treat--really, more a gathering than a stout lecture. After discussing the role of art and the subjective nature of truth and beauty along with Keats's "Ode On a Grecian Urn," we started talking about the book/poem/story that made us each first decide we would choose this academic path. No, it wasn't completely relevant, but it was a nice discussion, and I could feel us all relaxing and learning one another's quirks like new roommates.

In the space between classes, I generally sit in the semi-dark and smack away at some required work on my computer. Thursday, I spent this time with Grace.

Grace is Romanian. She has the big, deep-set, Eastern European eyes, the messy hair, and the steady aloofness that drives American men insane. Couple that with her blase facade, and she is the cool girl that surely would've been the source of many crushes in high school. The first time I met her was two years ago at a local conference our department hosted. She was working the registration table, and I was checking in for my panel. With efficient and detached motions, she barely acknowledged my presence before saying, "And who are you?." I'll be honest: I thought, "And who are you, bitch?" As she was the newcomer, I was appalled by her swift dismissal. For semesters, Grace was merely the girl chain smoking and wearing black, and I countered her initial perceived rudeness with an equally cold complacency. (Lisa says 'complacency' is my favorite word, and maybe she is right.) Grace might stop by the office to borrow my old mate's lighter, but she and I certainly did not mesh.

I don't suppose I know what changed this dynamic. I know we had a coffee date, and now we have had about 30 cups together--20 of those were on Thursday. We imagined the possibilities of some great project in the future, though we will likely be separated by several statelines at that point if we both get our tenure-track wish. Grace is using a queer theory framework in her discussion of Vampires, and her Gothic tradition directly relates to my Southern Gothic concentration. The incest theme prevails throughout both of our areas, so I imagine intercontinental fame co-authored by us. Not to mention, I just love the idea of academic collaborations.

I don't know if it was our talk about Grace's childhood in Communist Romania, or our commiseration during the "who has the most mentally unstable student?" game, a common topic of discussion amongst TAs, but I began to realize not only how much I misjudged her, but despite her customs and mine, Grace has a warmth about her that is so genuine, if not overt. I'm certain Grace has gone the way of many women with which I initially did not gel. I'm proud to have her as my friend.

Grace won the department award last Spring that I won two years ago, and which another old friend won the year between. I think of this as some sort of academic inheritance, where we women are creating evidence of our existence in the department. Our names immortalized on these plaques, we are forever connected because of our shared title. (The year before I won, I found out a previous winner of the award had been murdered. It gave me an unhealthy sense of awe.)

I drove home under an ominous sky with grey-blue clouds rolling down to meet the cocaine cowboys; my Dad taught me that term for the cops catching drug traffic. The sky nearly obscured the subway signs and neon chicken outlines announcing pop-American culinary heritage along Eisenhower's best contribution. It was, in at last three literal ways, the quintessential American driving experience. Hell, it was enacted from behind the wheel of a Mustang. That's pretty fucking U.S.A. I thought about Grace's disdain for Romanian roads, as they are crowded, unkempt, and narrow. I thought about my own desire to live where roads are no longer necessary--to work and live within the same small block--so that I might escape the need for my own car. I think now about the in-roads that it took for us to become friends, and somehow, despite the ways in which our habits and customs do not add up, we've found our way to one another.