August 29, 2001
Some random crap inspired by returning to graduate study for the year:
Oh, kids, I am in so far over my head, I'm halfway to China. I'm teaching three classes at University B and teaching one class and taking three at University A. I have two to three papers due per week, plus three to four hundred pages of reading, and that's not even counting the stacks and stacks of papers that I'm going to have grade, the journals I'll have to check, and the lessons I have to plan. Plus, I need to read a bookmobile full of more books for the comprehensive exam I have to take in January. And, somewhere in the midst of all this, I'm also supposed to be writing. Yeah, right. Writing? Isn't that some quaint little hobby I used to have?
It seemed like a good idea when I told Estelle (my boss at University B) I could take on that extra class. I was blinded by my own greed! I'm so determined to save enough to not have to work next summer that I'm ensuring I won't be able to work past November because, with this schedule, I'll be having a nervous breakdown right around Thanksgiving. But that extra section is the least of my worries since I started my fiction workshop today and got it into my head that it would really be making the best use of my remaining time in the writing program to promise Gayle that I would not only submit three pieces for critique this term but also serve as commentator for three other works. "Oh sure, Gayle. I can do that. Let me just run down to 13th and Spruce so I can pick up some amphetamines and I'll be one writing, commentating machine."
Um, sure. Why not? I never really liked having a life anyway.
It's my own fault, though. Once in a very rare lunar cycle, I turn all workaholic and ambitious. To tell you the truth, it's rather creepy. One minute, I'm sleeping until three in the afternoon and watching endless reruns of every incarnation of Law & Order known to man, and the next, I'm on some frantic quest to not only bite off more than I can chew but to make sure I choke on it as well. The last time I was in this "I am super-accomplished-woman" mode, I worked one job from 10 to 4 without a lunch, ran home for an hour, and went to another job from 6:30 to midnight, five days a week. I did that for eight months. Luckily, the whole ambition, need to get ahead thing wore off.
Let's see how long it lasts this time. Hopefully long enough for me to rack up some serious bucks in my savings account and maybe even manage to channel some of this wacko energy into getting published.
~*~ Speaking of being in over my head. I taught my Creative Writing class today and I completely ripped off Scott.
I taught them Scott's "Seven Elements of Short Stories" -- except I forgot what number two was and had to make something up. I gave them Scott's speech about James Joyce and epiphanies. I channeled Scott about character and motivation. I even told them his "Hamlet" anecdote: "Don't let anybody tell you that your stories need to follow a certain format or contain certain elements. Look at Hamlet. It starts at the climax. What could be more climatic than Hamlet being visited by his father's ghost who tells him that his uncle murdered him and then charges him to get revenge? But, after that, the action doesn't really go anywhere. Hamlet says, 'Sure, Dad, I'll avenge your death' and then spends the rest of the show going, 'I don't know. Should I? I don't know. Should I? I don't know. Should I?' Then they put on a play. And Hamlet goes back to 'I don't know. Should I? I don't know. Should I? I don't know. Should I?' Then Rosencrantz and Guildenstern take him on a cruise. Hamlet get back and it's a return to 'I don't know. Should I? I don't know. Should I?' Then everyone dies. There's no rising action and yet, Hamlet is one of the greatest plays ever written." I even did the diagram that accompanies the story. It doesn't translate so well to the page, but, believe me, it's a great story.
Actually, I don't feel that bad since Scott once told me that he ripped off most of his stuff from his professors. Mostly, I'm just glad that I've taken his class so many times that this stuff is second nature to me now. Again, Scott proves to be my fairy godfather in yet another way.
~*~ I am beginning to suspect that I am far too practical-minded for academia. There, I said it. I keep feeling like my father in a room full of James Liptons. The most frequent sentiment on the tip of my tongue is "What the fuck is wrong with you people? Don't you have lives?"
Prime example: I'm standing in the elevator lobby, waiting for the Elevator of Doom (you know, the elevator I'm talking about -- it takes eons to come, and when it finally does, it likes to play mindgames and make you think you're getting trapped in it for the rest of the day). Two of the guys in the Ph.D. track are loitering outside one of their offices, chatting. Apropos of nothing, one of them says, "My students are already stalking me."
His colleague looks bemused. "Why? It's too early to have flunked any of them."
"Oh, no. It's because of this one biography I'm using for my History of American Lit. class. See, there are two editions and the one I ordered is the one with the extensive introduction, plus several critical essays on the author's work and excerpts from other sociological texts. Well, my students keep coming up to me and asking if they can buy the edition that just has a three-page introduction, no criticism, no excerpts."
Both Mr. History of American Lit. TA and his companion laugh derisively at the foolish students who are asking such an inane question. The friend asks, "What did you tell them?"
History of American Lit. TA chuckles. "Well, I told them, I suppose they *could* buy the other edition, but I was wondering if they also liked eating cake without the icing."
Oh, yeah, Mr. History of American Lit. TA, that's my idea of the icing on the cake -- some endlessly long, complicated introduction followed by even longer, more complicated theory from Derrida or Lacan or some other jackass who has succeeded in fooling everyone into thinking he's smarter than the rest of us. Come on, when you're reading for school, do you honestly read the introductions? Scratch that. I'm sure *you* do, Mr. History of American Lit. TA. And, really, there's nothing wrong with that, if that's your scene. But some of us don't even have time to read all of the actual texts that are assigned and you want us to waste a few hours reading the introductions. Whatever.
I swear, sometimes graduate school is like having to repeat my sixth grade Gifted & Talented program where everyone else was all into writing to foreign travel bureaus and creating television commercials for France or Italy or Trinidad or Hell and I was sitting there, thinking, "What the fuck is wrong with you people? Don't you have lives?"
~*~ This afternoon, I was inordinately proud that I work at University B with Miles. Now, Miles is a nice guy -- funny, smart, kind of cool -- he even plays Bad Cop for me in the lectures that we run together. Still, I've never really felt the need to puff out my chest because I know him. Most of our students can't stand him because he takes way too much pleasure in covering their papers in red ink and failing them. Plus, he has this tendency to look like a Pilgrim. (Hence, the pseudonym "Miles." Standish, anyone?) He's tall, lanky and angular with this longish, straight chestnut hair that hangs to his chin in a sort of man-bob. Throw in little round glasses and a pale complexion and he's bringing to mind Mayflowers, Plymouth Rock, and Squanto. Even better, he's versatile. Pull his hair back into a little ponytail, tie it with a ribbon, and you've got Ichabod Crane. That's Miles, Colonial archetype extraordinaire.
And you wonder why I haven't been overly proud to be his co-worker until now?
Anyway, Miles graduated from University A's Creative Writing Program a few years back and in his final year he won this prize and got a story published in a big collection. Nearly four years later, everyone in the program still knows who he is. Although, last year some woman who graduated in 1982 won the PEN/Amazon.com Fellowship so I have a feeling that Miles' days as Number One Program Graduate are numbered.
But not just yet. This afternoon, in fiction workshop, Gayle must have mentioned Miles five times in the space of two hours. She only mentioned the PEN/Amazon.com chick once. "Oh, one of our former students, Miles has been to Sugarloaf and [insert name of another high-falutin' writers conference that I'm sure I've heard of but for the life of me can't remember]." "Well, when Miles was in the program, we read The English Patient and they had just made that awful movie and after he saw it, he said to me, 'Gayle, they sold Kip down the river!'" (Don't worry if you don't get the joke, neither do I. I just laughed politely.) "Miles has the most lovely buckles that he wears on his hat and his shoes. He always keeps them so shiny! I can always see my reflection in Miles' buckles." (Okay, she didn't really say that last one. Just checking to see if you were paying attention.)
Gayle, like everyone else in our program, raved about Miles, so naturally, I'm all like, "Oh, I work with Miles!" as if the fact that he and I share a two-foot-by-four-foot cinderblock cell of an office (where, I might add, he insists on keeping his bicycle) makes me more talented. I don't know what came over me. I was sitting there, enjoying Gayle's introductory talk, and she mentioned Miles yet again and I was overcome by the fierce need to let everyone know that I actually associate with the Miraculous Pilgrim of Literature on a daily basis. I guess it wasn't enough that I impressed Gayle by being able to recite a little poem by Mrs. Parker on cue. I just had to go for the glory by association.
Ugh. If I were any lamer, I'd be Tiny Tim. (But, hey, then Miles could be Bob Cratchet. I'm certain he could pull off the poverty-ridden-Dickensian-clerk look with no problem. Just get him a long, striped muffler and some gloves without fingers and he'd be all set.)
7 Deadly Sins and Other, Less Fatal Diversions
Pride:
See the actual entry. It's too long to explain here.
Envy:
Envying Miles, of course. Actually, that's not quite true, I wouldn't want to write like him for all the publications in the world. He writes this needlessly complicated prose, the kind that people think they should like just because it's so dense and hard to follow. Once, one of his characters -- who was supposed to be a regular-joe farmer -- actually described his relationship with his son in terms of quantum physics. Okaaay. So, no, I don't envy Miles' writing, just the adoration lavished upon him by everyone at University A.
Wrath:
Why did I lose my Social Security Card?!!!!!
Sloth:
Because I am a slob, that's why.
Avarice:
More work. More opportunity. More money. More. More. More.
Gluttony:
I am glutting on work. Who am I and what have I done with my slacker self?
Lust:
All those needless tangents about Law & Order and Homicide have brought the Belz back to the forefront, babe.
Book:
Tune:
Crush:
Didn't read today, but I did buy three books. Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot so I can get yet another headache from reading "The Wasteland;" The Collected Works of Hart Crane so I can get my first headache from reading "The Bridge;" and Back from the Dead by Chris Petit. The first two are for school; the last one I bought simply because I could afford to.
Weezer -- "Hash Pipe": You got your big tears; I got my hash pipe.
Fenton. I've been trying to explain to the Belz that this is an entirely different thing and that he's still my Number One Daydream fodder, but I don't think he's buying it.