A Reason Not to Feel Like I Just Wasted 2 Hours

Let me tell you a little story about academic posturing.  Every Friday in our fine department, we have a colloquium series.  In theory, it’s a place for the department to come together, share ideas, and engage in good ‘ol intellectual comraderie.  In reality, it’s a weekly forum for intra-departmental politics to continue to play out.

I would tell you today was particularly special but, alas, it was not.  I find it interesting and moderately funny that the more I witness sociologists at work, the more I realize that we are all bound by whatever particular lenses we use to approach the world.  Thus, today’s display of possibly the most masculine form of feminism possible in a woman was just another entry in the journal of “All Sociologists Really Are Freaks.”  I include myself, of course.  I just think it’s funny that every single person I’ve ever seen present something embodies the contradiction of their work.  So, while they’re talking about one thing, they’re embodying its opposite. It’s fascinating, but another post.

No, today what gave me a migraine was the bizarro questions of junior faculty who feel compelled to say something…anything.  No, I take that back.  Senior faculty did the same thing.  So really, when someone opens the floor for questions at the end, much like in a political setting, the questions are not questions but mini-speeches asking the speaker of the day to relate, oh, I don’t know…gender and medicalization, say, to…social movements, inequality, culture, politics, classical theory…to those posing questions, I just wanna say…stop putting your own work in the way of the agenda of the day.  We can all play, “6 degrees of Sociology.”  It’s uninteresting.  If you can’t move your mind around to consider the topic at hand on its own merit, then shut the hell up.  Thanks.

Even as I begin to really seriously think about my own work, I find it most disheartening that academia is only about academia and very little about the ideas.  I came to grad school, foolishly, to learn how to expand my thinking.  I’d say I accomplished that and for a time I could say it was part of my daily life–and that was wonderful.  I haven’t been at that place for 2 years…I’m now wandering in the desert of professionalization…and it’s not my kinda desert. When the quality of ideas is secondary to whether or not we can quantify that idea with a line on the C.V….that’s where I need to get outta Dodge.

In reality, I’m choosing to stay in Dodge.  But that stay is temporary…and I need to figure out how to have it not completely kill me.

"Oh the majesty of a frozen lake!"

Welcome to Chicago in February.  On days that I’m waxing eloquent, I would look at this picture and proclaim something like, “Oh the beauty!”  Today I’ve had it up to here (the imaginary equator line I’m drawing across my nose) with snow, cold, and days that usually look more like this:

The beginning of the end of my tolerance of winter.

It’s now the middle of the second straight cold month without a real holiday (I’m sorry…in no way do I count MLK, Valentine’s, or President’s Day as legitimate holidays as they bring with them no merriment or lighted shrubbery.), the novelty of the whole thing has worn off, and the snow left is brown and crunchy.  My jeans have salt lines running half way up my calf and my lips are hopelessly chapped. Even though it was sunny yesterday, I feel like we haven’t actually seen the sun in years, mostly because my skin, pale by most normal standards, is now become blue and translucent. Yet, all of this is superficial compared to the real reason that February starts to wear on me.

People are edgy.  I’m edgy. You’re edgy.  We’re all edgy.  My tolerance for mostly everything is low, low, low.  I’ve been snappish (some might say mean and I’m not totally in disagreement).  I find myself rationalizing not going out because of the weather which leaves me isolated in my tiny (relative to the rest of the world) apartment in my tiny mind without thinking about what’s going on outside of that.  I work especially hard to talk to new people.  In insulating my body (which also includes the growing layer of fat increasing 10-fold with each day), I’ve insulated my whole life.  It’s warm in here, yes, but it’s also testy and low-energy.

For me, there’s a mental shift when February ends.  I like March much better.  It’s 5 letters.  It’s one syllable.  Halfway through it magically becomes spring.  And then it’s winter again but in a manageable cycle of 3 days.  Of course, I’ll start ranting about the idiot college kids who break out the flip-flops pre-April, but that’s much more fun…and less gray.

February…don’t take this personally but we’re over.  It’s me and not you.

How’d I do it?  With the kind advice of many, I found proper motivation and her name is Rachel Maddow.

It was not coincidental timing that my Ipod Touch arrived a couple weeks ago.  Not only did I want it because I promised myself I could have one after my special fields were done but I specifically had that device in my sights because…it plays tv shows…whichever ones I want…whenever I want…and with better clarity than my regular tv.  This thing is truly amazing.

I knew I would use it to take to the gym because I can push through just about anything physically painful if I’m watching tv.  There’s something so very calming to me about it.  But I also knew I needed to find “just that show” that would motivate me.  And it had to be something I would only watch at the gym, so in order to indulge televisionally, I’d have to go step onto that crazy elliptical and get going.

Her name? Rachel Maddow.

I’m pretty sure I’ve extolled her virtues before, but I’m renewing my accolades.  This woman is just…amazing.  I am in no way a political junkie but now I want to be one just so in case I meet her on the sidewalk I won’t embarrass myself.  Oh man, she brings it.

And I was thinking yesterday as I was “ellipticalling” away that I find great comfort in her show because *it evens out the playing field.*  It’s no secret she’s progressive–she jokes about it openly–but it rights the balance (actually it “lefts” the balance) of the media coverage we’re fed unless we’re being really aware and listening only to NPR.  When I go to find the news (maybe sadly), I’m not vigilant about where it’s coming from.  So, I take in whatever happens to be around (unless it’s Fox News which I consider on the same plane as E! News)…Rachel Maddow serves as a “corrector” of sorts to a lot of mainstream media and I’m thankful for it.

PLUS…I love that she’s somewhat set herself apart from her counterparts Chris Matthews and Keith Olberman who really come across as loud, grandstanding foils to the Rush Limbaugh’s of the world.  I don’t think she does.  She just “breaks it down.”

The bottom line for me, though?  She’s very cool.  She makes smart cool.  She makes reason and fact-checking cool.  I can appreciate her commentary on particular issues but I appreciate even more that she’s teaching all of us how to de-mystify the political process (a lot of her fact-checking comes from public sources).  She’s teaching how to create accountability.  That’s amazing.

So, agree or disagree…I say watch her…at the gym if you have to.

It’s motivation to work out.  I have none.  I currently have a fully functional gym membership, all the time in the world, and I live three blocks away and I cannot force myself to go.  Perhaps it’s the fact that I view it as “the worst thing I’ll do all day” (even though once I get there, I actively disagree with myself).  Maybe it’s because my gym clothes suck (but I love them…).  I don’t know–I just cannot force myself to get there.

So, here’s what I need.  All 3 of you who read this…I need to know how you motivate yourselves to go.  Respond in your inner monologue, using the exact phrasing you use to tell yourself the gym is a good thing and you must go.  Maybe I just need an inner monologue update.

Until then, I think I’ve talked myself into yoga as a workout again.  Yoga’s wonderful…but it’s not making my jeans any looser, if ya know what I mean…

Anyway, I’ll kill myself to remember the Budakon guy’s name but he is amazing…he’s like some kinda black belt in Tae Kwon Do (I’m sure that’s spelled wrong) but super stretchy so he does yoga too.  This is not the point, however.  My point is he said something in one of the videos (that I basically did for 2 years straight) that has stayed with me.  He used to say, “When you concentrate on something, it expands.” What?

I had images in my head of swirling power energies and chakras and auras and things.  I felt I was out of my element.  It was new agey and weird.  But this little thought has followed me around like a nagging 2-year-old for years.  So finally, I stopped to give it its due and…I think he’s right.

If you concentrate on it, it expands.

Of course.  I’ve been doing this for years but I didn’t know it and actually I think it’s been killing me.  Allow me to demonstrate with…a cheeseburger.  Sorry all one of you vegetarians who may or may not be reading this…but one of the few things I crave hard in this world is cheeseburgers…like the, “I need it now” craving.  Once I’ve established that I need that cheeseburger…it’s all I can think about.  It consumes every other thought.  It’s always poking around from the dark corners of my brain, asserting itself mercilessly on my poor frazzled psyche…until I get it…and then happiness.  The same goes for misery and discontentment and loneliness…all that seem to be conditions brought on by reality but all that are actually my own mantras, allowed to form through the circumstances I’m in.

All of this is a long way to say, I’ve decided to choose happy.  It’s a very conscious decision right now because choosing unhappy is a well-formulated awful habit I’ve picked up.  But I ran a little test experiment not too long ago and, I’ll tell ya what, choosing happy works. I think the key for me was realizing that in my life, the opposite of happy is not unhappy, but worried.  I somehow roll around gloriously in my worry…if I’m not worried, I start to worry that I should be. Frankly, it’s ridiculous.  So, I’ve chosen strategically what and how much I’m allowed to worry about things…and I’ve actually started breathing again and everything.

Choosing happy is not easy.  I’ve been trained in worry.  And I’m good at worry…but it’s only taken about 17 years (alright, alright, 28 years) to realize that it’s not worth it.  There is a time and place for everything.

It’s time to give happy its due.  Thanks Budakon guy…whatever your name is.

My progress was good, by the holidays I was still on target–life was looking up.  And then came January.  Oh wicked winter month of January.  I cut my holidays short, I got my self back to Chicago and I hunkered down.  In two weeks I procured two final drafts and one “really good” first draft of a dissertation proposal which was scheduled for January 21st.  After a good but reality-inducing meeting with my dissertation director (who is new and who replaced my old one that announced he was leaving the university in July), we decided–upon the advice of other faculty–that moving the defense back wouldn’t have that much effect on the fellowship application…thus, the defense was pushed back, the application turned in.  And I could finally breathe again.

That was for 3 blissful days.

This afternoon I returned to an e-mail from the evil trolls at the graduate school.  They flatly rejected my fellowship application–that’s right, the one I broke my back working to get in on time.  [THUD]. “What?!? Why?” you might wonder.  Well, because I didn’t have my dissertation proposal done–you remember, the one we postponed on the advice that it wouldn’t be that big a deal.

Awesome.

And so, here’s my reflection today.  It’s surprisingly not gripey–frankly, I knew this would happen and I am not at all surprised by the bad advice, the incredibly rude e-mail I got informing me of this decision (which also told me I could come and pick up my application at the graduate school to get it off their hands…well, thanks Graduate School…you guys are great), or the fact that I’m now on my own again to figure out how to keep living.  No, my reflection is on my complete lack of panic.

If this graduate experience has taught me one life skill worth talking about (and on days like today I feel this might be the only one), it’s the complete control of my knee jerk panic.  I have no doubt this will work out.  I have no idea how.  I don’t even know where to begin.  But this is the 6th year in a row I face this situation in February.  And miraculously, something works out.  And so, I just think it will.  That could mean it won’t…but I don’t think that.  I don’t know if the options I think I have will end up being the saving grace.  I suspect something else will pop up.  It just will.

And after this degree is firmly in my little paws, I’ll reflect on the degree to which the universe is telling me to get the hell out of sociology.  It’s becoming hard to deny.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me six times–something is just not right here.

But that reflection will have to wait for awhile.  For now, Mrs. Katie’s gotta go get a job.

1. I was not writing.  That is NEVER a bad thing. EVER.

2. I was spending time with friends who are more like family.  When there is something effortless about people who you find worthwhile, it’s always rewarding. These people are special gifts in life.

3. My apartment “got” painted.  I’ll tell you what the best moment of my day was.  It was finding out that the tiny little space between the sink and the wall in the bathroom was painted.  I didn’t know how I was going to do it.  And the next thing I know…it’s done. This, I think is an interesting function of single life.  I’m so used to having to figure everything out for myself that when something that poses a huge conundrum for me ends up accomplished, I feel especially warm and fuzzy inside.  These don’t have to be “rocket science” things and, in fact, they’re often the opposite.  I still think the greatest thing Andras has ever done for me was take out the trash.  83% of me is not kidding. The one thing I will say to all of my paired-off friends is this: Never, EVER take for granted the fact that there’s someone else around to get your back.  They might bring with them a host of other annoying attributes but remember…that’s garbage you don’t have to take out and tiny slivers of wall between the sink and the wall that you don’t have to figure how to get to. That’s just incredible to me.

4. My apartment got painted.  Holy Crap.  That’s a major project in a whirlwind…done.  Amazing.

5. I laughed.  When in solitary confinement, writing, laughter can be hard to come by.  This was nice.

6. Pizza. And Beer. Need I say more?

That’s enough.  How much more does a day need to be great.  I’ve got a “stunning” week ahead…in that I’m going to be tired and anxiety-ridden and in need of everything that today was.

Sometimes the universe just knows what you need.

Anyway, I digress.  She wrote a very interesting post about relationships and the point in which a relationship crosses the line from mutual responsibility to me just letting someone else off the hook for not giving me what I need.  But the one thing that really made me think was her question about the “sunsetting” of relationships–the natural falling away of those who once served a very important purpose but have since grown more distant and, sad to say, less important.  At the very least, our relationship to them has changed significantly.   I have to say, this notion both terrifies and intrigues me.

I have always been something of a warrior princess.  If I think something is important or worthwhile, I will clamp on to it like a vise and fight to the  death to keep it.  What I often lose sight of is that the process of holding on generally turns it into a mangled, ragged version of what it once was while I’m standing there sweaty and out of breath.  It would have been better for the integrity of whatever I’m holding and  for me if I’d have just let it go and slip away quietly…and maybe beautifully. There’s a certain grace to letting things go the natural way.

On the other hand, if I’m being sunsetted…well, that’s just about my worst fear which I’ve come face to face with before…and it’s still my worst fear.  Being let go always feels to me like a total rejection with a side of shame.  In whatever way, I’m so disappointing in this relationship that they’re not even going to try anymore.  Personally, I’m scarred by this–yes, I’ve been sunsetted–and frankly, I’ll always be a little skittish when I suspect someone’s leaving me before their time.  Kristine knows.  For one day a couple months ago I thought she was moving to Tampa and I freaked.  No, sunsetting and I will never meet in a spirit of love and friendship no matter who’s doing the sunsetting.  But it’s not because it shouldn’t happen. It just always hurts.

I think we’ve become used to having our own comfort at our control.  We have things when we want them.  We have choices…lots of choices.  We can artificially sustain things as long as we want (except life, but we’re pretty close to that too.)  That kind of life has allowed us to lose touch with the natural cycle.  Birth leads to life leads to decline leads to death.  That’s how it’s always been.  And I think there’s a truly natural wisdom in that.  And if we let each stage have its moment and respect it, I think there’s something inherently beautiful about each.

Letting go, I think is easy.  Accepting that something’s run it’s course.  That’s just about the toughest thing we have to deal with.  I think because we’re all a little bit warrior princess.

Because of this, I’ve noticed a kind of latent effect.  I wonder if this happens to everyone: when I’m in the midst of intense writing (generally accompanied by intense thinking), a host of mental abilities become a lot sharper.  I can do mental math (which I usually cannot), I solve more crossword puzzles faster (and I mean markedly faster), I can read like lightning.  But my senses also get sharper.  I usually have really good hearing (inexplicably) but last night I was awakened from a dead sleep by the water gurgling through the radiator in the kitchen. The beeping of the gate on the parking lot across from my apartment is about to drive me to drink (wait….).  And I pity whoever around me is singing even the slightest bit off key…I’m telling you now, I can hear it.

Beyond this, I get SUPER critical (as if I wasn’t a good degree of this already) but in a weird, detached neutral way.  I’ll watch some weird, schlocky reality offering on BRAVO like Real Housewives and make editorial comments like, “Now I would have panned away from Theresa at that moment to capture the angst on Danielle’s face.” What? Who cares #1 what you think and #2 about Danielle’s angst? And who uses the word angst in everyday life anyway?  I don’t think I’m judging…I’m just analyzing everything.  It’s a runaway train. Over my vacation, I took great joy in watching The West Wing mostly because they were talking at a speed that I could understand. The Gilmore Girls is also good for this.  It doesn’t really matter to me what they’re saying.  I’m just comforted by the fact that someone is talking at pace I know.

All of this I’d call “hyper-awareness” and I’d like very much for it to go away.  This crazy internal monologue that I have perpetually running in my head sounds like it’s playing on a mini-tape recorder on fast-forward.  It’s my voice “Alvin and the Chipmunk” style.  I wish it were energy.  That’s more helpful.  This is like mania or something.

At the same time, I’m fascinated by it.  It’s not always around; in my non-writing periods I am virtually a slug in Gap jeans.  I can be blissfully oblivious to lots of stuff.  In an interesting correlation, I’m also a lot happier during those times. I like slugs.  They’re slow. And quiet.

I think the predicament is interesting.  I always wondered what it would feel like to think and write at this level.  I know now.  I’d like to give it back.

1. Time is your friend.  You will not be suspended in this state forever.

2. Eat. Sleep. Do Yoga. Plan breaks.

3. Do it Now.

4. Don’t panic.  You’ve not really epically failed in your life up to this point.  This will be no different.

5. Don’t overthink. (Underthinking is never a problem but don’t do that either.)

6. Write while it’s light outside and at least a paragraph a day.

7. You will financially survive the next year.  Today is not the day to figure out how.

8. People are not out to get you. Work with them and accept their help if it makes sense.

9. Continue to make reasonable social plans and keep them.  Cancelling on them for PhD makes you a hermit.

10. Today is not the day to find your “inner genius.”  Just get it done.

This is go time.  And it’s funny that my pep talks have evolved over time.  But I will say I’m glad I have ‘em in their sum right now.  Because this is the hardest thing I’ve done.  After this, I think I might be able to conquer the world.