Mouse's House

 I have lots I want to write about, but not a lot of time or energy, so I'll focus on one specific moment that just happened. I've been talking a lot with Actor-Guy; in fact, I'm not currently talking to anyone else. I'm still on some dating apps, because who knows, but right now my energy is going into getting to know Actor-Guy. (Also, Actor-Guy is not really an appropriate nickname; it should really be Theatre-Education-Guy, but that would be a pain to type.)  [We still haven't met because we live 2 hours apart and also, oh yeah, global pandemic.]

I've started the semester and am teaching one of my classes in person (a story for another post, perhaps), and so in preparation and in starting, I've been talking more about, well, my job. And since my job is in education, and Actor-Guy has also worked in higher education, we've talked a fair bit about academia and such. 

I suppose I should say here that I have multiple post graduate degrees. I have a Masters of Letters in teaching, a Masters of Fine Arts in directing, and doctorate in English Literature. This will be relevant in just a moment-- I'm not just sharing my educational background for the hell of it. 

In the middle of a conversation yesterday, Actor-Guy asks, "I assume you consider yourself a feminist?" 

We've already talked about feminism, so he knows I do (and he considers himself one, too), but rather than be rude and say "didn't we already talk about this", I just said yes, curious as to why he was asking. 

It turns out that AG has been talking about me to at least one of his friends. (This is totally fine. I'm writing about him in a blog, after all.) And this friend, a self-proclaimed feminist, told him that he should not pursue me romantically because I have more education than he does, and that my dating someone with fewer degrees would have a negative impact on me. In fact, she said, if he were to date me, that would be, and I really am fucking quoting here, "an act of oppression." 

I've seen some weird takes before, but I have to say this one surprised me. 

More than that, she said it to AG as if this was something every progressive and feminist should know because it's just obvious and that it's a widely shared thought. 

My response, and I apologized for it afterward because I suppose I was insulting his friend, was "That's the stupidest "feminist" take I've ever heard." 

(To be fair, when I was less in the moment, I was reminded that actually TERFs have the stupidest "feminist" take, but nevermind that for the moment.) 

But seriously, what the fuck? And he asked me not to be mad at the friend as she was looking out for me. I'm just glad I don't know what friend this is so that if I ever meet her I won't immediately judge her and demand "WTF?"

Conversation continued, though, and it was clear that AG was really worried about this and about the differences in the numbers of degrees we have, and wouldn't I rather be with someone who is my intellectual peer? I pointed out that education does not equal intellect, and that we've been talking for weeks now, so obviously I think he's my peer. Also, I know multiple people who have doctorates who I think are not particularly intelligent. I said I couldn't date someone who doesn't value education, but that, too, is different than having a bunch of degrees.

Eventually he changed the topic to music. 

What I didn't say, but thought of later when I was recounting this story to another friend, is that not only does education not equal intelligence, but in fact it rests on a whole host of other factors. What does it say about me that I have a PhD? It says that I had enough privilege (money, educational background, etc.) to be able to spend years on academic thought. Sure, it also says I put in the work and that I was smart enough to do this very specific kind of educational intellectualism, but that's only one of a billion ways of demonstrating intellect, and one that, given opportunity, a lot more people could achieve. (Not that I would recommend doing so just now, given the state of modern academia, but that, too, is for another post.) 

There's enough actual oppression out there, like the gender wage gap, particularly for women of color. We don't need to be inventing new not-actually-oppressive things to shame people for. We don't need to put advanced degrees on such a pedestal that their earners must be protected from the hoi polloi.

I don't want to say too much about what I know of AG's background because it's not my place, but suffice it to say that he has done things that I have not and could not and he didn't have all the privileges I did. He does have degrees that I'm extremely impressed by, but even so they don't measure his intelligence any more than if he had a PhD. Before he explained what he seemed to be worrying about (the act of oppression... sigh), he pointed out that I probably didn't have a lot of intellectual equals to choose from, that there aren't a lot of single PhDs just floating about. I joked that I do work at a university with a med school, so maybe I should pick up an MD, but even then I would consider them a slacker because where are their masters degrees, too? I hope it was obvious that I was joking, that I'm not so much a snob that I require multiple advanced degrees to speak with me (I mean, geez), and that there's no magical equation based on education (or anything else) that says if two people are compatible or equals. (And in the end, that's what I said-- that if we're not a match, it won't be because of a difference in education.) 

 I haven't dated anyone since I moved to KY. (I flirted with one person for a while and it seemed like a possibility, until one night after we'd be laughing and flirting and drinking, he basically told me that he didn't want his boss involved with his love-life, and since his boss had tried to set us up, I took the message, and we've not hung out since.) 

I didn't leave behind any great love in AZ, either, but I'd seen some people and even had a 6month-ish relationship. (And the implosion of that, due to my awkwardness and probably a fear of commitment, is a story for another time. I hope he is doing well, though.) 

But a couple weeks ago, I got a haircut. I don't change much when I see my stylist-- I have long hair that I don't want cut short. For the past year and a half, the underside of my hair has been bleached/dyed blue and I've been getting my gray hair (sigh) covered, going slightly darker than my natural color. I still didn't make a huge change this time around-- we dyed the last 6 inches or so of all of my hair blue and I got bangs. (Sort of curtain bangs, sort of just long/in my eyes bangs. Honestly, I hated seeing forehead in the Zoom camera during meetings.)

(Did you know that there's a whole BOOM in the plastic surgery business right now? Apparently people REALLY hate seeing themselves in the Zoom boxes. At least I just got bangs and not a nose job or something.) 

Anyway, I thought I looked pretty good, and the overwhelmingly positive responses I received to the photograph I posted to Facebook bolstered that feeling, so I thought, what the hell, now's a good time to try online dating again. 

(I'm not looking for someone to complete me. I think 1+1=2. But if I could find someone with whom to be a team? A partner? A friend and lover? Yeah, thtat'd be awesome.) 

.... Trying to date after 6 years via app in the middle of a pandemic and a week before leaving town is PEAK Eilonwy. Good job me. 

Anyway, it's been 2 1/2 weeks and it's been interesting. It reminded me some things about myself (like how I overthink everything) and also has shown me that people who are single in their 40s probably are for a reason (myself included.) 

A run-down of the people with whom I've spoken so far (all via text, although in one noticeable incident via audio)

• Photographer-Guy: My first impression on seeing his photo was HOLY FUCK THIS GUY IS OUT OF MY LEAGUE. He's gorgeous. And he loves travel and is liberal and his photography (his profile linked to his instagram) is also gorgeous. And he messaged me back! (I started by using Bumble which requires the woman to make the first move.) I was giddy at first. But then, like 3 days in, he sent me a video of himself doing karaoke (alone in his house) and he mostly talks about going to the gym. When I wished him a Merry Christmas and asked how he was spending it, his response was a 2 minute audio message about cooking 40 pounds of beef and separating the fat from it and .... hell, I don't know. I don't eat meat so I tuned out. He's all for getting dinner when I get back into town (I'm out of state visiting my parents for 3 weeks), but I'm reluctant, partly because of the pandemic and partly because... what the hell will we talk about? As a friend said, we may have already figured out why he's hot but single. I tried asking about his photography but he didn't respond (despite making sure I'd seen his insta).

• Actor-Guy: We started talking on OKCupid (I realized that I didn't like making the first move over on Bumble.... and you get a lot more information about a person on OKC if they filled things out, whereas there's no place to even do that on Bumble). Conversation started slooooooooow. I messaged him about House of Leaves, a book by Mark Z. Danielewski that he referenced on his profile, and it took about 3 days of one-message-a-day to get beyond that. But as of Christmas Eve we've been talking more and have just switched over to text messages instead of the app's system, so that seems a step in the right direction. And he hasn't sent me karaoke or asked to join me in my life goals. (You'll see.) 

• Military Intelligence Guy: Another OKCupid find, he messaged me. If he is the state of our military's intelligence, I fear for our country. He seems incapable of remembering what we'd already talked about-- even though it was in text that he could look back at-- or at understanding what I'd said. I wished him a Merry Christmas yesterday (not everyone is good in writing, right?) but haven't had a response, so I think this one is over. I'll certainly survive. 

• Corps-of-Engineers-Guy: This one is actually a disappointment. He messaged me on OKC and we had a great conversation for one evening and then he disappeared. Which sucks because he was smart, funny, liberal, and attractive. Oh well. 

• Mandalorian-Guy: This one's a bit of an enigma because we haven't talked much. He started by messaging me about The Mandalorian (hence the name) and we haven't really gotten much farther than that, although he does have 3 cats and wasn't weirded out by my admission of 5. He went quiet for a few days so I figured that was the end of it, but popped up again today, so who knows? 

• Academic-Career-Guy: This one started super promising. Yeah, he was 2 hours away from where I live (I had to set the radius quite large because I live in the middle of nowhere), but he was in academia (administration) and was from where I currently live. We had a lot of interests in common and had a fabulous first conversation. We're still, nominally, talking, but since that first conversation, his EVERY SINGLE MESSAGE has been about how he got a job interview, a job offer, or how he's going to get a great next job. This is particularly galling because as someone in academia he must know that it's not the same out there for faculty. EVEN WHEN I TEXTED HIM MERRY CHRISTMAS, his response was about how he hadn't gotten any concrete offers before Christmas, so his gift was a bag of anxiety. He's super attractive and smart, but I'm so done. If he messages me again (and it's not about job offers) I'll respond, but otherwise, nope.

• Life-Goals-Guy: This one has had a lot of different names already. We matched on OKC and I was intrigued because not only did we agree on the big things (ie: politics, climate change, equality/equity) but we also seemed to complement each other, um, sexually. I think that's all I'll say about that because this journal is public now and it probably wouldn't take too much to link it to my actual self. But anyway, this seemed really promising! We had days of great conversation about the Big Stuff! We switched to text from the app. He suggested we meet up to either date or play and I was like, yeah! (Although given that he lives pretty far away, meaning he'd be making the drive purely to see me, and there's a pandemic going on, this made me nervous, too. But since I won't be back in town for a while, I figured that was Future-Eilonwy's problem.) But he's made two jokes (...I think) about whether I want a roommate (he's new to the area and not committed to the city he's picked.) And when we were talking about politics and the law, I mentioned that one of my interests is to either get a law degree or a masters in law (which doesn't let me practice but would enable me to be an advocate for immigrants.) He said I should do it, and I responded, Sure, along with my other life goals. :) 

His response was to ask if I wanted to take a chance and life goal together. 

.... I mean, I don't entirely know what he's saying there, but we've been talking for roughly 3 days and no, no I would not. I don't take the chance of so much going to the store without considering the weather, the probably crowds, and checking the website for its hours of operation. So I took a while to decide how to respond and went with something along the lines of "Ironically, that's both too spontaneous and too much commitment for me to answer yes to, lol". 

I thought he responded well with a "Haha" and smiley face. But when I messaged later to ask how his evening was going (I knew hew as alone for Christmas) his responses were terse and he seemed either maudlin or drunk (he said he was having a beer Christmas.) So I ended up not responding his last message and he hasn't texted since. 

Now I know it's hard to judge through text messages. He could have been joking all along; I could have wildly misinterpreted what he was asking/saying; he could just have gotten busy in the evening, but it just seemed so weird. Like, what response did he want??? "Sure, move on in, and let's get our law degrees?" (I haven't lived with anyone in 15 years and I'm not starting with a stranger I've literally never met and who currently doesn't have a job. That way lies madness.) 

There are a few other honorable mentions-- for example Dinosaur Footie Pajama Guy, Professional-Axe-Throwing Guy-- but conversation pretty much immediately petered out in most cases. Basically, it all boiled down to not knowing how to have a conversation. I understand that I'm the common denominator here, so it  might be something about me, but these guys didn't do themselves any favors, either. Everyone in question has been between 35-45, old enough to know how conversations work and young enough that they should be familiar with text as a form of communication. (I started texting when I was living in Ireland, in 2000, though that wasn't like full conversations because every text cost 10p. But between then and 2008, when the first iPhones came out, texting became, y'know, a thing. And most people my age used things like AOL Instant Messenger before that. So typing a conversation is not a foreign concept, or at least shouldn't be. But in so many cases it quickly became pulling teeth. I have enough problems like that with my students and don't need my dating life to be that way. It's a pandemic-- we're not going to immediately meet-- so learn to converse. I ask a question, you answer. I respond to your answer ... at that point it's probably your turn to ask a question. Like, y'know, how conversations work? I can only comment and ask so many questions before it becomes an interview instead of a conversation. 

So, that's my pandemic "dating" experience thus far. At first I thought it was a lot different than last time (about 6 years ago). Something about talking to men in their late 30s or 40s, when I would expect them to have their shit together, was different than early to mid 30s. It has something to do with how I don't feel like an adult most of the time, I think. But honestly, other than fewer people messaging to ask for immediate hookups, it's not much different than it was. There are still tons of profiles that don't actually say anything (my favorite being one that, under self-summary only said: "im just normal average man". No other info was provided and he hadn't even answered more than 5 of the OKCupid questions.) 

Also, speaking of learning about me.... I identify as bisexual (or pan)-- I have for 20 years now. I've only had a couple of girlfriends, mostly when in poly relationships. And I know that some people sort of swing around in what gender they're most interested in. I set both Bumble and OKC for men and women, but have not really found any women that I wanted to contact. I think this is partly because they all seem so sure of themselves and I'm projecting that they don't want someone who's bi. (That was certainly the experience I had when I first came out and tried online dating. Most of the women's profiles said they wanted lesbians only.) I'm generally attracted to more women than men, and I get along better with women than men. (This second part is undoubtedly mostly unconscious bias on my part as opposed to something intrinsically linked to gender, but that's where I am.) And yet, when I think romance for myself, these days it's almost always het. I know that there are heterosexual/biromantic kinds of labels, but I think that's too restrictive. 

Honestly, what this has all shown me is that dating apps are a useful tool but ultimately limiting. I could go out for a date with the hot Photographer-Guy, but if all he's really interested in is his job and the gym, then I'm not going on a second date. I might not find someone else's photos super compelling (honestly, like Life-Goals-Guy) but their personality (until they suggest life-goaling together) changes my perception. I've always thought that I would meet my "one" through friends, which in retrospect makes sense -- we'd have things in common already and attraction, if not immediate, could grow through getting to know each other. Alas, my friends have fallen down on the job. ;)

There's no fundamental point to this post. I'm not upset at how things are going. If I do meet up with any of these people (Actor-Guy seeming the most likely at this point, having taken the front runner place from Photographer-Guy (who has suggested dinner) and Life-Goals Guy (who has suggested getting together) due to being interesting and not creepy, so far) I'm sure it will cause enormous amounts of anxiety because that's just how introverted, insecure women with social anxiety roll especially in a pandemic and especially when it will be a 2 hour drive for whoever goes in whichever direction, making it seem like it has to be a Bigger Thing than, say, coffee. 

But it's what's happening in my (virtual) life, and taking up a portion of my thoughts, and so voila, a post is born. 

While making lunch this afternoon, I found myself singing "Jingle Bells," which, given that it's December 7th probably isn't that weird, except that I was singing it in the 'lyrics' I learned as a kid. When I was in elementary school -- I don't remember what year specifically, but it had to be 4th grade or earlier, and if forced to guess it might have been 2nd -- we had to learn how to sing "Jingle Bells" in Spanish. 

I have a terrible memory and almost no ability to visually imagine things, and yet I can still (in my limited way) picture the music classroom and the textbook we sang from and how the words were written out phonetically (because we were a bunch of eastern PA kids, more likely to speak a smattering of PA Deutsch than Spanish). And I remember -- even though this is at least 30 years ago (holy carp I'm old now) -- that I was frustrated by the experience and also extraordinarily proud of being to know a song in another language. (Yes, I was a nerd even then.) 

And I still remember the (phonetic) words-- or more accurately, the sounds. But years later, as an adult, when speaking with someone who actually knew Spanish (despite this being more recent, I cannot remember who or when this was) I learned that no, in fact, what I was still able to recite was nothing like what "Jingle Bells" in Spanish actually sounds like. And I was weirdly upset to realize this. 

But today, when I was singing the nonsense syllables over a bowl of salad, I thought, well, let's give it one more search on ye olde internets. 

"Jingle Bells" in Spanish brought up a bunch of hits that were, indeed, nothing like the sounds I recalled. I thought, maybe I had the language wrong, so I listened to a whole "Jingle Bells in 20 Languages" YouTube video, but nothing sounded "right" (for the definition of right being what I recalled, which was something like this): 

Cascabey, Cascabey, 
Music ca de more
Duchess, Horus
Gratis, Horus 
Juventin in flor

Cascabey, Cascabey, 
Tansin ti mattell
No day jes cas be leet us
de repeat guitar

Utter nonsense, I know. And in retrospect, almost certainly taught to us by someone who didn't speak Spanish, so the pronunciation (which is all I have to go off of) could be wildly incorrect, too. (I mean, it certainly IS, but more so.) 

But Google to the rescue! Being slightly more educated in foreign languages now than I was at age 8 or so, and the internet, y'know, existing, meant that some judicious Google searching and suggested fill-ins brought up "Cascabel musica de amor" which-- sounds a lot like my nonsense in that first line! I was on to something!

And the lyrics I found read like this (minus one accent mark that I'm too lazy to figure out how to do in Dreamwidth):

Cascabel, cascabel, 
musica de amor. 
Dulces horas, gratas horas, 
juventud en flor. 

Cascabel, cascabel 
tan sentimental. 
No dejes cascabelito, 
de repiquetear. 

VIDICATION, I thought. I mean, frankly, my 3 decade old recollection wasn't too far off in sound!! 

Then Google offered to translate the page for me. I thought, well, I mean, I know the English words to "Jingle Bells," but let's see precisely what's going on here. And here's where it got weird(er). 

Rattlesnake, rattlesnake
love music. 
Sweet hours, pleasant hours, 
youth in bloom. 

Rattlesnake, rattlesnake, 
so sentimental. 
Don't stop
rattling, rattling. 


What. The. Fuck. I mean, I know that Google Translate is not always the most reliable of resources but .... seriously? What did our textbook have a couple dozen elementary school students sing at our parents that Christmas??? There had to be a parent or two in that audience who realized we were singing about rattlesnakes at them, surely. And is this, like, a thing? I found it multiple places on the internet, but with no explanation. Are rattlesnakes just, y'know, festive in some Latinx traditions?

Ok, it's probably a translation thing, where "cascabel" means multiple things and Google translate chose "rattlesnake" but I am just giggling over the idea of a Christmas rattlesnake just be-bopping through a Winter Wonderland. (I'll ignore the whole cold-blooded thing for a moment.) But even so, this doesn't explain this version versus the one that comes up when you look up "Jingle Bells" in Spanish. 

I don't know whether to feel vindicated that I remembered and these lyrics exist or just entirely confused. 

(Unrelated, I did doodle a rattle snake with a bow on its tail, and it kind of looks like mistletoe.) 

 It's fine. It's fine. This is fine. I'm fine. 

Insert the dog with the coffee and the flames image here... 

Honestly, though, I am. I have a job, a house, my pets, friends, etc. I'm not an extrovert so this whole staying home thing isn't really a big deal. I'm staying where I am for Thanksgiving, but will go home to my parents (driving) for Christmas (where I will stay the whole time before coming back here to start the spring semester.) I'm being as safe as I can be in the time of a pandemic. 

And yet I'm unsettled. Which is probably pretty normal, to be honest. And I don't think it's just the pandemic, unless it's a build-up of months of pandemic and changes. 

I'm functioning pretty well, especially for someone who had been dreading November and the election and the anniversary of Tamnonlinear's death. I'm doing pretty well for someone in a pandemic under a democracy that is eroded a little more each day in its slide into authoritarianism. (Also, I just had a very difficult time spelling authoritarianism for some reason.) 

But there are cracks, y'know? I have cracks under the best of times-- it's not like depression waits to attack only when there's a global pandemic. I'm content, I guess, but it still feels like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I wonder, sometimes, if anyone is really happy or if content is all any of are lucky enough to be. 

I've spent much of November writing, but not the novel I wanted to do for NaNoWriMo. Instead I've written and compiled just under 200 pages of evidence that I should be promoted. (Ahh, academia.) It's a weird experience. (I did it once before, to go from assistant to associate professor.) On one hand, I'm writing about how great I am, but on the other, as a humanities professor in a world that no longer respects the humanities, it's also a document trying to justify my continued existence. 

I'm off track here, but how many of you have jobs where, when someone asks what you do and you answer, the response 95% of the time is "I hate [that]" 

Them: What do you do? 
Me: I'm a professor at the university. 
Them: What do you teach?"
Me: English. 
Them: Oh, I hate English. 

NINETY-FIVE PERCENT OF THE TIME. To be fair, that happens more here than it did in other places, but still. 

Enrollment in the humanities is down because students come to college expecting it to magically grant them a job, but that's never been the purpose of a liberal arts college. And if it were, it wouldn't help students in the long-run anyway. Current projections are that people will change CAREERS between 5-7 times over the course of their lifetime. A liberal arts degree-- something that teaches people how to learn, how to be curious and ask questions, how to analyze and be introspective-- is to prepare for that kind of eventuality. So what does an English degree get you? ANYTHING YOU WANT. 

(And I actually mean that. Statistically, humanities majors have a better rate of success on things like the MCATS than science majors. So, get a humanities degree and go be a better doctor than you might otherwise have been because maybe you'll have learned empathy along with curiosity and analysis.) 

I have no idea how I've gotten to this point in this post. 

I currently have a student who is frustrated with my class-- and that's fine, it happens, I get it. I suggested that we should Zoom (it's a fully online course, but also ALL courses at my university are online from now 'til the end of the semester.) He said no, Zoom doesn't help, and then went on a diatribe about how pointless the class is and how it's too much work, and what even is the point of these assignments. He specified two of them so I responded, in detail, as to the point of those assignments. Will it help? I dunno, (I also reached out to his advisor and coach in the hopes of the student getting help from someone he's not currently frustrated with.) And I don't blame the student-- they're all stressed right now and I can see how learning about ethos in a required college course doesn't seem immediately applicable to real life, when you're 18 years old and think you know everything but really don't. I'm sure I was equally insufferable about things at that age. (In fact, at that age I petitioned successfully to not have to take a composition course, so....)

I'm tired of justifying my existence. And yeah, I know my career and my existence aren't the same thing, but they might as well be. I don't have a lot else right now, and maybe that seems more extreme because, y'know, pandemic. But still. 

Ugh. I don't know. This is stream-of-consciousness ranting of the kind I used to do as a 20-something. There are no answers because there are no questions. There's complaining but even that is amorphous. (Oh woe is me, no one respects my job.) 

I guess a lot of it is that I'm lonely. It kind of snuck up on me. I'm an introvert who already lived alone, so other than canceling a bunch of summer travel plans and teaching online, my life hasn't changed a great deal due to covid. But even introverts need people. I only have one close friend where I currently live. 

I'm a literal stereotype -- a single, 40something cat-lady. 

Some days I embrace that. Today is not that day. 

And now I'm off to proofread the documents that will hopefully move me up one step in my career that currently feels purposeless, no matter how many pretty phrases I use to justify my existence.

 In these days of daily Zoom calls (and appropriately also the day that analyst Jeffrey Toobin was suspended from the New Yorker for masturbating while on a video conference), it seems like today is the perfect day for what just happened.

I'm teaching entirely online this semester. (Next semester, barring Covid shutting down the whole campus, I'm teaching 1/2 online and 1/2 in the classroom.) As we've switched to an 8 week block system for at least the duration of the pandemic (and that's whole other story but man I hope this doesn't stick), we've just finished up the first fall block courses and started the second. I'm teaching the same course that I taught in block 1, so I made some changes to better help students based on what I saw happen in block 1. One of the things I implemented was the requirement for every student to come to my virtual office hours this week, just to introduce themselves and so that they're comfortable with office hours later in the semester if/when they need it. (Almost no one used my office hours in block 1, or did only at the course's end, and then commented on how much they wish they'd spoken with me sooner about assignments and things.) 

Today a student who has so far been exemplary signed in to Zoom. Apparently he didn't know that his mic was on, even though his video was off. (I assume he thought the two are connected, but they're not.) So he spent the first few minutes of his being in the Zoom room talking on the phone to someone else. That part's fine if something of a waste of my time. The part that isn't fine? Is when he said to the person on the phone "Oh she's kind of ugly" once my camera turned on. 

Look, I can mouth the platitudes about beauty not being everything all day long, just like anyone else. But after months of seeing myself on Zoom, and of gaining weight (thanks pandemic and lack of self-restraint when it comes to sweets), my opinion of my attractiveness is at an all time low. (There's something about seeing myself in Zoom rather than a mirror that just highlights all the flaws that I've spent decades overlooking.) 

It's not the student's fault. Was it rude? Sure, but the student is probably 18 and certainly didn't mean for me to hear. But it was an unpleasant reminder that the world judges us, especially women, on looks, and mine have always been lacking. 

I don't need-- or frankly want-- my students to find me attractive. (That'd be gross.) But I'd like for them to not judge me based on appearance and preferably not remind me that most of the rest of the world agrees with them. (It's awfully hard to say looks don't matter when you're single at 41.)

So, I dunno, let this be a lesson to you to always be sure your mic is muted when you don't want someone on Zoom to hear you disparage her. 

 I'm still here. 

I've been doing better. I saw a new counselor, which was awkward (face masks. And she works for the university) but also kind of nice. My psychiatrist agreed that the medicine switch-- even though it was just formulations-- may have caused the crash and switched me back. The rest of the week was better; not 100% but miles and miles past where I was Tuesday/Wednesday. Friday was fine. Saturday was weird in that it took me all day to get done what I thought I could do in a couple hours, but emotionally I was fine (if irritated.) 

Today's my birthday though. And while I think it's a given that all pandemic birthdays kind of suck, it's still kind of hard. The one person I expected to see forgot/was busy. So it's been a day like any other except I thought, oh heck, let's bake a cake. But while it's not finished, it seems like it kind of sucks (too much salt, I think. I now believe I grabbed the wrong measuring spoon) and I'm not keen on the chocolate buttercream frosting I made. But we'll see what happens if/when I put it all together. (It's cooling.) I nearly set the oven on fire, though, because the batter overflowed. Oops. 

I don't have a point except to say I'm still here and I'm okay-ish, but today kind of sucks. It's not Tuesday-night-I-don't-want-to-exist bad, but man, if this is what life is from here on out, what's the fucking point? 

 I started my LiveJournal in 2001. I only remember this because I can, oddly, picture myself in my college, senior-year dorm room, writing about how I'd probably forget that I had an LJ within a few weeks. Instead, I kept it regularly for more than a decade. I made online friends and kept in contact with IRL ones. 

But what I remember most about LJ is that it saved me. During the long slog that was summer 2001, when I was incredibly depressed but didn't have the language (or diagnosis) for it, writing and getting responses saved me. In grad school, when I got so depressed that I stopped eating and lost enough weight that people thought I was anorexic, writing and getting responses saved me. 

Now it's 2020 and I don't think anything can save anything anymore. And I know that writing here, on DW where I've never had a community and where I don't think community exists anymore anyway, isn't going to garner any responses at all, but I suppose it can't hurt to write.

I'm a mess. I haven't been okay since 2016, not really. Not since Tamnonlinear died. Not since election night. Though to be fair, those two are one and the same. After a time (months? more?) I became functional again. (I don't remember November 2016.) But that time broke off a piece of me. I used to believe people are basically good, especially as individuals. I don't anymore. 

I knew this autumn would be bad. I planned for it, in fact, saying no to work things that I would ordinarily have said yes to. Paring back where I could in order to give myself room for, well, me, I guess. But I didn't expect a global pandemic. (I'd say no one did, but that's not true. Epidemiologists have been predicting something like covid19 for decades.) 

In the past few months, panic attacks have increased substantially, so my doctor and I upped my dosages. It helped. No longer was I freaking about every set-back, every time something raised a bit of uncertainty. When asked, I would have said that anxiety was my main concern; the depression was under control, more or less, other than how the two work together. 

But that's not true anymore. The way I feel today-- the way I felt last night-- was like being thrown back into summer 2001 or fall 2016. I've been crying for hours for no particular reason other than the general existential dread that has settled over me and become a companion these past 4 years. Yes, I have specific worries, but nothing that should have been sobbing all the time. 

I went to bed early and took Advil pm in the hopes of just ... not existing for a while. It helped and I slept and I woke up feeling very slightly better. But I also spent significant time wondering what relief there would be in not existing at all. 

Hamlet, in his famous soliloquy, ends up deciding that the reason we don't all just kill ourselves is out of fear of not knowing what comes next. I would disagree. For me, it's more about not wanting to cause pain to my parents or Pyrite.

So, if you didn't know this already, I'm an English professor, and more than that, I'm an English professor in an area where education is not really valued and where students are underprepared and I teach at an open enrollment school. So, while I DO get to spend at least one course per semester (and usually two) teaching literature, I also have to spend two courses per semester teaching composition.

(This is particularly ironic since I never even took a composition course. I petitioned my way out of them at my own undergraduate college.)

At any rate, summer enrollment is very low, for lots of reasons (many of them having to do with financial aid, and the lack thereof.) So I have only 5 students signed up for my online summer composition class. And yet I have spent more time dealing with one of these students in the past two days than I have with entire classes in past semesters.

My only main point here is that writing IS important even if all you'll ever do is send an email. Because of the the dozen emails I've received from this student, I've had to puzzle through all of them and even sent two of them back, writing, "I don't know what you're trying to say here." And this student's most recent email was not even a full sentence informing me "I have the assignment done at 5." All right, but what? Does the student mean s/he will have the assignment done at 5? Does it mean that the student already has it done, and posted it yesterday or this morning at 5? And what assignment is this student talking about, since this was in response to an email about two different assignments?

The kicker to all of this? THIS STUDENT IS A COMMUNICATIONS MAJOR.

All I'm saying is, if someone tells you they don't write, or don't need to know how to write, point out how this sort of thing looks in any kind of business world. I'm not expecting everyone to be able to produce Shakespeare (and Shakespeare produced some questionable stuff at times, too...) but as casual a form as email has become, you still have to be able to convey ideas, right? Surely?

Call me a snob, but I want a communications major -- and frankly ALL MAJORS -- to be able to communicate.

Fashionably late (by over an hour), the traditional workers party and the national socialist movement* have arrived in Pikeville, dressed in black (polo shirts mostly), carrying flags and assault rifles.

The Unicorn Riot interviewers are asking questions about things like whether they agree with heimbach (head of the twp)'s statement that interaccial couples need to be put into camps and re-educated (they answered yes) and whether hitler was a good person (heimbach answered yes). I just can't wrap my head around seeing such naked evil on display.

I should be down there on the protest side. I'm a coward to not go... but I'm nearly 100% certain I'd lose my job if I did go.

The campus chaplain is down there, in robes. He is my hero. (For lots of reasons, actually.)

The two sides are about equal in size now.



*Yes, it's petty, but I just can't bring myself to capitalize their names.

What set me off yesterday, I think, was the glibness of conversation happening around the twp/nazis invading Pikeville and how my colleagues were ignoring that, and yet rushing to talk about safety concerns due to antifa/ara. I sat there in the faculty meeting, arms crossed, realizing my body language was getting more and more defensive but just so angry that I couldn't bring myself to care.

I know being angry all day / kicking a wall due to "presidential glibness" is overreaction. Please see my previous post to see my struggle to articulate the event.

Anyway, to follow up, the university president has posted the following on our website and it is MUCH more evenhanded and better in tone and reassuring about not welcoming (or ignoring) the kinds of ideology that brings the twp here. (I ... don't know how to make an LJ-cut, 'cuz this isn't LJ. Sorry.... Stop reading here if you're not interested and visit me for my next post...)


from the university president...
When my wife and I moved to Pikeville, Kentucky, we were immediately impressed with the kindness and hospitality of the people who call this region of the country home. Our little town is warm, safe, and has a charm that one would expect from a village nestled in the mountains on the edge of the south. Our university has been in this place for more than 125 years. We are blessed with caring, expert faculty in the arts and sciences, humanities and professions. Our medical school is exceptional and our new optometry college is highly innovative. Our university is diverse and welcoming. We have students, faculty and staff from across the country and around the world. Faces of all colors walk our streets, work in the local hospital and study on our hilly campus. We love it here.

It now appears obvious that this weekend we will be invaded by people who want to bring hatred, fear, and violence to our part of the world.

By now, you have probably heard about the rally sponsored by the Traditionalist Workers Party (TWP) that is scheduled for this Saturday in downtown Pikeville. They were not invited to our town and are not welcome on our campus. They chose to visit Pikeville for their own reasons, contacted the city, and were granted the right to assemble in our courthouse square. Groups of all sorts come to this same location in Pikeville. The city does its best to provide a safe place for free speech to occur, regardless of the political agenda. According to several reputable sources, the TWP is a Neo-Nazi organization that has a strong racist platform. If you have doubts about the truth of that statement, look them up online. Though violence tends to follow this group, they seem to be expert in provoking rather than being violent.

As a university founded by Presbyterian ministers, we have worked hard to build and maintain a tradition of a hospitality toward everyone, therefore, we utterly reject racism in all of its forms.

In fact, one of our students partnered with another student from the region to create a counter protest. They contacted the city and reserved the city park for their event. The Rally for Equality and American Values (REAV), was to be a family friendly alternative located just a few blocks from the TWP rally. They gathered significant financial support and had generated significant enthusiasm in the community. The hope was to have an event that would show the true spirit of Pikeville - family, equality, and peace - as a contrast to the rally at the courthouse.

There were some concerns for safety. Would the TWP leave the courthouse and walk the five blocks to the park? Would a shouting match ensue? At a meeting between the organizers for the REAV and myself, we determined that if they moved to our campus we could help them increase the distance from the TWP. While the REAV was never an official university event, it did closely align with our mission and values.

Over the last week or so, it has become apparent that at least two other groups are now planning to come to Pikeville. Anti-Racist Action (ARA) and Anti-Fascist Action (ANTIFA) have both made it known that they plan to send contingents to Pikeville this weekend to protest against the TWP. At first glance, it might appear that these two groups would be more closely aligned with the REAV and university positions, but you must look deeper. These two groups are vehemently opposed to the TWP, but their tendency to incite violence causes me grave concern. Review their history online and you will discover that their form of confrontation is usually not peaceful.

As a university founded by Presbyterian ministers we have worked hard to build and maintain a tradition of a hospitality toward everyone, therefore, we utterly reject violence. Indeed, racism is a form of violence that is insidious.

This week, in meetings with city officials, law enforcement, and others whose job is to watch these kinds of events we have come to the conclusion that the presence of the TWP, ARA, and ANTIFA in downtown Pikeville presents a real danger to the peace of our town. The likelihood of a violent conflict between these groups is too significant to ignore. When presented with this information, organizers of the peaceful, family oriented REAV gathering on our campus determined it was in the best interest of safety to postpone their event.

If you have ever been to Pikeville, you would understand. We have limited parking here because we live in a narrow valley. It is impossible to keep crowds separated when there are large events that occur simultaneously. The risk posed by bringing peace-loving families into the same parking garage with the TWP, ARA, and ANTIFA was simply too great.

The university agrees with the decision to postpone the Rally for Equality and American Values. We think it was the right decision for this day, but we wholeheartedly support their goal. We hope that in the weeks to come we can work to bring a peaceful event to our region that celebrates our diversity and upholds our values.