My Tent on The Beach

Well, well.  In completely typical fashion, Chicago’s gone and gotten all hot and humid, once again banishing any hopes for a nice sliiiiiiiide into summer.  I’m not sure why I still hope for that; I’ve lived around the Great Lakes my entire life and somehow I’ve never really experienced the change of seasons as something gradual.  Whether spring or fall, it usually begins and ends with a seasonal line drawn in the sand.  Yesterday could’ve been 65 and rainy; today you wake up and it’s 90 and renders all clothing hot, wooly, wet blankets.  So today, I’m caught in the “it’s so hot it I’m nauseous” feeling of late August and a little worried that it’s only June 23.

Thus, I’m going to blame a couple of my own lazinesses directly on the swoon.  This is why life in the deep South in general feels so leisurely–the heat actually causes (maybe forces) life to slow down.  Also, it drives you to drink and it’s well established that alcohol slows everything down too.  So why haven’t I written here in awhile?  Clearly…it’s the swoon.

But I’ll also say this (whether or not the swoon is to blame here I don’t know): This time of the year becomes intensely boring for me.  Summer scheules annoy the hell out of me; they’re too flabby.  To be clear, my schedule is always flabby, so I rely on the schedules of others to be my “schedule corset” if you will.  Now, we’re all a little flabby around the schedule and it’s bordering on what I may describe as just “stupid.”  No purpose, no momentum, no desire for either purpose or momentum.  Ew.  I’ve had very little to think about, write about, or describe in what seems like weeks.  I saw a lot of people last week, had a lot of conversations, was out and about.  Did any of them really make a mark on anything? No.  It was oddly non-descript “business as usual.”  I felt like I missed a lot of opportunities last week and yet I never stopped moving.  Maybe ultimately I was uncomfortable with all of that and decided not to reflect on it…I don’t know.

This also might be the calm after the storm.  The past couple months have been intensely taxing; I can’t believe I’m gonna say it but I’ve never been that stressed out in my whole life (and I’m always stressed out).  No, no.  This was stress at all new levels.  Now a lot of that has dissipated whether for good or for bad.  I’m wondering if I just don’t know how to deal with non-stress.  That would be sad…and also a real paradox.  Maybe I’ve overdosed on yoga.

All I’m saying is this: a little snap in the air, a cool fresh breeze…and I think life happens a little more freely.  Slogging through this wet blanket…makes me just want to give up on the day and watch tv.  Which is narcotizing, yes…but leaves very little to actually think about.

[Sigh.]

[Sweat.]

[Sigh again.]

I’ve been majorly avoiding this blog, probably because I know how it looks.  Every month or so I put up a post about how crazy things have been and how I’m starting over.  I try to make it quippy and funny.  Then 4 weeks later I’m still doing the same thing, only after another chasm has somehow changed everything forever.

This life is a challenge.

I remember when I was teaching at Walsh and worried that if I stayed there the next 25 years would look exactly the same and I wasn’t happy with that. So instead I chose a life that requires every February – May to be a scramble to figure out how I’m going to support myself, keep inspired, stay healthy, not go totally nuts with worry. And now I find myself looking back at the Walsh days with a fond nostalgia toward its consistency.  Everything there is pretty much the same.

So, this, maybe is the lesson I’m supposed to learn in graduate school, the one I didn’t know I was paying for: that life goes on, opportunities come and go, people come and go, and my life and that which ultimately stays important is where I am.

These last months have been hard, presenting me with challenges I’ve never even thought about facing…mostly involving taking action on plans of which I cannot envision an exact, finite end point.  It’s truly been about making moves with the resources I have now and hoping that it works out in the end and at the same time learning how to adjust expectations and re-frame the way things work out when they’re beyond my control.  I’m learning one step at a time to “go with the flow.” It’s been backbreaking some days.

But I should learn to be careful what to wish for.  For the last several years I’ve bemoaned a lack of constancy in my life.  I’ve hoped for some kind of foundation to ground me.  I think I’ve found my constant and it’s name is change.

It’s not the constant I expected.  But it sure is always there.

I know I talk a real lot about my school work.  There’s just no getting around that; it’s what I do.  I spend almost all of my time–days, nights, weekends, holidays–thinking about this one project.  I spent 8 hours on New Years Day writing and wasn’t even that aware that other people weren’t doing the same.  I sent a business e-mail to my advisor on Jan. 1 and then had to send a second one saying, “Heh…oops…forgot the holidays are upon us.”  This is the long route to saying, I’m all consumed by this.

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.

…and it was funny (if I might say so myself) and, lest I be a little immodest, it might have been occasionally insightful.  Sometimes it would get a little Zen-ny and then it would flow more like “People” magazine for awhile.  Sometimes there would be pictures.  I was good at lists.  And then, somewhere in the ether, my blog evaporated.  Probably with the endless months of intense (and I’m gonna go ahead and say intense) paper-writing, sitting at my computer for hours at a time, my hip flexors contracting to nothingness.  Sadly, I began to look a little like Montgomery Burns…all jaudiced and hunched over and with little warty things on my face (not really, but redness yes).  Oh, I was a sad sack.  Am a sad sack.  But trying to be a recovering one.

As I was driving home to the Cleve on Monday, I realized that I have been miserable as long as I can remember, almost to the point that I can’t remember what it feels like to be happy.  But my reasonable, logic-driven head remembers that certain things do make me happy…at least for awhile.  And funny thing…writing on this tiny little postage-stamp of the Interwebs is one of ‘em.  I’m not sure how to recapture the voice I had when I started this thing…a lot has changed…and actually, sometimes I long for the stupid Vox blog on which it all started (technically it’s still there but I hate Vox and this thing is paid for for up to three years).  So, I’m just gonna re-start and see what happens.  I refuse to let Facebook train me to speak to “my public” (all two of them and dwindling) in 140 characters.  I’m going to have a say and it might be a long(er) one.  Yeah.  But, so as not to fall into a crevasse of negativity, here’s a list of things I promise (myself) not to do:

1. No whining or complaining unless I think it’s actually funny and/or wittily biting sarcasm.

2. No blowing sunshine up anyone’s nose.  This post inevitably comes after a particularly whiny, wheezy one (See #1).

3. No “deep insights into the world” unless I provide the context and do not preach.  I hate preachy blogs.

4. No over-sentimentalism or over personal-reflection.  Can you believe I write a journal too?  That’s where that stuff goes.

5.  No changing names to protect the innocent.  I have real friends and now their friendship with me is contingent on being mentioned by their real first names (no last names…seriously, that’s just not right) for their greatnesses.  I will only celebrate friend greatness.  If you piss me off, I’ll wait to we work it out and then talk about it vaguely and in the past tense.

6. No overly dedicated school talk.  School does nothing but make me whiny, wheezy, and agitated.  (See #1 again).

I think that’s a good start.  And yes, I’m going to be that person that posts the updates on Facebook because…no one checks this thing regularly.  So deal.  Those updates just let you know there’s something new in the pot…it doesn’t mean you have to eat it.

Let the blogging begin.  Again. For the first time. For the last time.

I’ve been held hostage in my apartment by UPS today.  The helpful little sticky left for me on my front door yesterday boldly (and helpful) proclaimed that UPS would attempt a re-deliver today sometime between the hours of 10:30am and 5pm.  They must now be conspiring with the cable company to offer very constructive information regarding their paid visits.

Anyway, because of this, I’ve wanted nothing but to go outside of my apartment and, thus, have had to keep myself busy in other ways.  All hasn’t been lost though.  Despite my bondage, I’ve had a good day here including (but not limited to):

1. Forcing Andras to bring me his “good-bye” lunch instead of going out for it.

2. Finishing a UW project exceedingly fast…when all I wanted to do was walk away from it.

3. Feasting on Trader Joe’s food almost constantly.

4. I’m going to work out here in 5 minutes or so.  Usually, this urge wouldn’t strike until at least 7:30pm.

5. Cleaning the kitchen.  I know.

6. The possibilities feel endless at this point.

I always feel some kind of relief when this person shows up and gives me the go-ahead to assume freedom.  But until then, I suppose there are worse things I have to endure.

Like getting a PhD…but I’ll worry about that later.

I really hate to be that chipper, cheerful, “Look at the sunny side of life,” kinda girl.  In fact, it makes me want to flog myself for it. I’m much funnier when I’m wry and cynical.  But amazing things have been happening to me recently and I’m not sure why.  I suppose the smarter side of myself says, “Katie…what the hell? Why are you questioning it?”  But, you know, I like to live on the wild and stupid side.  So let’s dig in…

The goodness, I’m finding, is in the universal return.  Like Mars in retrograde, stuff keeps coming back to me at the right time, in the right place.  I’m making myself sick with my own giddyness about it.  “Like what?” you say, “Katie. What is mystically on the return?”

Like:

1. Chez and Patrick with whom I now share an office.  Previously I thought that would be a productive space.  Today, Patrick and I proved that it probably won’t be…academically speaking…but it was great.  My return to the sociology department is the return I was looking for.  Weird.  Couldn’t have seen that coming.

2. Katie and Andy visited on Tuesday.  For Katie, it was a return to Chicago. It was glorious.  For Andy, it was not a return, but he didn’t seem to have a horrible time, so maybe someday he will return.  Either way, though, it was wonderful.  I haven’t had that much fun in a long time…with adults who appreciate Harry Potter like I do.

3. Friday we returned to Book Club.  Another fantastic time.

4. A little bit of my zest for sociology has returned.  It feels right again when for a long time it did not.

5. I returned about 79423874 library books last week.  Literally a weight off my shoulders.  Also means…I read them.  Another weight off my shoulders.

6. Fall is returning.  This past week I literally curled up under my down blanket, had a beer (the RETURN of Goose Island Harvest Ale), and watched football.

I could go on but I’m getting nauseous.  Bottom line, the returns are so celebratory because it means I’ve been given a reprieve from waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting.  I guess I want to ask why…what changed?  Was it me? Or the Universe?  And how do I keep this table turned in my direction?

But, you know…questions are stupid right now.  I’m just going to go sleep while I can because with returns, here’s the thing: everything returns.  Even waiting.

Oh no.

I’m having a PhD-cum-life moment courtesy of an exchange I had today with a friend of mine who is honest but exasperated…possibly honestly exasperated.  I can’t say I wouldn’t be either.

The specifics of the event are not important but the lesson here is something for me to think about.  Or actually, precisely not think about.  One of the serious problems I have in balancing life and PhD is the inability to shut my brain off.  It’s become an occupational hazard.  I cannot speak for all of academia; these results may not be generalizable.  But as I examine all of the reasons I was so hesitant to keep moving on this after classes were over, this theme of “overactive brain activity” recurs frequently.  I live in a state of hyper-thinking and it’s hard to manage.

I’m already insanely observant in a subconscious way.  I know this because I know whole songs that I’ve never heard before.  As they filter into the world as white noise, I hear and know them even when I’m not trying.  Same thing with tv…my knowledge of television would indicate that I watch it 24-7.  In fact, I do not.  But I can be doing 4 other things and still know every detail of a show, including the credits.  I think it’s this quality that makes me intuitive about people; I don’t have to study them to know exactly what they’re about and what they need.  In a lot of ways, I’ve always considered this a gift.

However, I’ve begun to see in the long term that this quality ramps up to dangerous levels when I do academic thinking.  I can think in the abstract all day long and feel wonderfully comfortable.  My brain chugs happily along just thinking conceptually.  But then reality hits.  It’s a different beast but my brain doesn’t make the accommodations necessary and I end up looking at real life situations in an analytical perspective that’s so narrow, I risk wrecking what’s real.

Need a “learning lab of life” moment? Sure.  Think about the last conversation you had with another person (sorry, dogs and plants do not count here).  Now, take just the last sentence of that conversation.  Next, imagine all of the possible ways that sentence could be interpreted, running the gamut from the best message ever to apocalyptic.  Now, run a quick analysis of the most likely meaning.  If you want to add in body language and facial expressions, do that here.  Do those observational clues match your earlier language analysis?  What inconsistencies stand out?  How do you feel about what you think the likely meaning of the last sentence was?

This is how I could very systematically watch all of my friendships explode.  Aforementioned friend gave me a pearl of wisdom that I’ve always told myself but that earns a new gravitas when received from someone else.

“Just stop analyzing it.”

Yes.  Yes.  I want to do that.  But I don’t know how when my whole focus (which I’ve fought months to regain) at this moment is analysis.  This is why, in the hallowed halls of academia you see frazzled, rumpled, wrinkled, obviously brilliant people who suffer from severe social arrested development.  They’ve chosen their path and I commend them.  They’ve chosen analysis.  On the other hand, there are the apparently blissful people thrilled to not analyze a single blessed thing, who hop through life just taking it as it comes. I commend them, too.  They’ve chosen a simpler but not unfulfilling path.

Ultimately, I have to figure this out or I risk becoming “that friend” that’s held at arm’s length because of apparent uncontrollable neurosis which is time consuming and, frankly, annoying on both sides.  And while I have a lot of answers to a lot of things, I am at a loss here.

How do I keep my analytical edge without turning it toward personal relationships? Any suggestions are welcome.  I won’t even analyze ‘em…I’ll just jump in and blindly try at this point.

One of the biggest struggles for me this summer has been contending with the notion of delayed gratification, satisfaction, relief, any other kind of “good” feeling you can think of.  This has plagued me in random facets of my life for awhile but never all at once.  This PhD is the ultimate in delay…accomplishment always lies somewhere in the not-too-distant future.  But it also seems to be trickily elusive; like the carrot tied to the horse’s head that dangles in front of it’s nose, just always out of reach, the end seems to move farther away proportionate to any kind of strides I make to get there.  This PhD is really about tricking the carrot.

For this past year, the delay was waiting to move from Crummy, Dark, Weird Apartment #2 into a place that I knew would work as a true, comfortable home base, a facet of life I’ve been without for 4 years really.  A lot of energy was spent actively waiting for that to come down.  Now that the wait is over, the relief is almost unimaginable.  But it was intense in the month of June, which happened to coincide with several of my friends heading out of reach, some permanently and some “just for the time being.”  The delay with the friends was (and still is) that my everyday life qualitatively changed.  I had to temporarily imagine my life working differently and unexpectedly and in ways completely out of my control if I still wanted them to be a part of it. It felt uncomfortable and tenuous.

I guess there’s a lot of ways to approach this.  Some might tell me I needed to adjust my mind-set: “Why wait for others when you can take the reins yourself, ” they’d say.  My response to those is that when you take the reins there, you’d better be prepared for loneliness because you’ll be the only one present to you.  Other people just become part of the decoration of your life; people in picture frames on your walls.  My question is why they’re not sitting on your couch.  Others might say that I need to loosen my grip a little.  This is probably true to some degree, but do I really want to allow “slack” with people who possess the power to turn my world?  Do I become, then, the “slacker”? I’m not comfortable with that, either.

As this month is winding down and headed back toward some kind of normalcy, with people back where they “should” be and life snapping to some kind of new but comfortable shape, I’m realizing that the lessons of delay that I take away from this June and others like it reveal themselves immediately. I’ve learned that a little missing, a little wanting is good; too much is toxic and not enough is apathetic.  Time always passes.  But forever wanting can wreck you in a very unobtrusive, quiet way; a mantle of that kind of unique discomfort can really weigh heavily.

So, I guess my lesson of delay is really this: The quality of the days in which you get what you’ve been wanting will be determined by the quality of the days you’ve spent without having.

Appreciation will usually be the end result if we’ve played it right.  But that’s my lesson.  You may have to find your own.