August 31, 2005
Existential Dread
Yesterday was the first day of classes. I decided a while ago that I wouldn't write much about my job, mostly because I like it well enough to want to keep it. But I figure there a few safe job-related topics, and I'll hit some of those.
For instance, here were some good things about the day:
1. I finally got to wear these fabulous new red d'Orsay pumps
I bought five or six months ago and have never had an occasion to wear. When you get really great new shoes, you can't wear them just anywhere the first time.... But now these shoes have been introduced to society and can go anywhere they want.
2. The M&Ms that have been sitting in my desk since April were still fresh.
3. Someone very kind left a box of lavender jasmine tea and someone else left a bag of goodies in my mailbox.
4. A student rushed into my office with an mp3 and said, "I've been waiting all summer to play you this song about falling in love in a concentration camp. The first time I heard it, I instantly thought of you." I'm not entirely sure I was flattered by that.... I mean, I did talk about love a lot, especially the traumatic kind, in the classes he took with me, mostly because he wrote about it a lot.... In any event, he showed me these features on my computer I didn't even know about and played me this cool song.
Here were some bad things about the day:
1. Tom and I don't teach on the same day--he teaches MWF, I teach Tu-Th--so chances are I will hardly ever see him this semester.
2. The crackers that have been sitting in my desk since April were anything but fresh.
3. I was plagued all day by existential dread.
I mentioned this last item to a couple of colleagues and they said, "Oh, it's Hurricane Katrina." But it's not Hurricane Katrina. The devastation she wrought in the Gulf fills me with horror and compassion, and as for what the remnants of her are doing here, well, I'm not that afraid of some heavy rain.
I've felt this way for a while, actually. Something beyond my consciousness is wrong, and since I don't know what it is, I don't how to fix it. I have the vague sense that something is menacing me, and I don't much like it. I tried to explain this last Friday to SBJ. I said, "I just have that feeling of alarmed anticipation, that feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop, that anxious certainty that something bad will happen, but I don't know what and I don't know when."
He said what he always says when you're telling him something that doesn't really make sense to him: "Huh. Hmm. Huh."
I began to fear this is a sensation other people don't have, so I asked, "Have you ever had that feeling?"
He said, "Probably, but I don't really feel like trying to remember a time in my life when I did." Which I guess I could understand; he was in a good mood, so why search your memory for trauma and pain?
But yesterday, when we were talking about our first day back, he mentioned that he's teaching a class on existentialism, and I said, "I'm suffering from existential dread right now," and he perked right up and was all over that. "I don't know what to do about it," I added.
He was as animated as a five-year-old talking about a birthday party. He said, "That's ‘cause there's nothing you can do about it. That's what makes it existential dread: it's generalized; it has no object. If it had an object, it'd be something else: fear, for instance."
"Well, it's making my stomach all tense," I said, punching myself in the gut to show how constricted it was.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"You know," I said, "existential dread is just another name for what I was trying to tell you about last week when I saying I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, that something bad is definitely going to happen."
And he did that thing again: "Huh. Hmm. Huh."
I don't normally get jittery at the beginning of the term--I've been doing this a long time--so I suspect it's something besides new-semester nervousness. I don't know what's wrong. Hopefully nothing--I managed to relax after I got home and had dinner and sat down to blog (which is all I really want to do these days). But if it is really something, believe me, you'll hear all about it.
Posted by Holly at 6:04 AM | Comments (1)
August 30, 2005
I Never Meant to Hurt You
Few things piss me off more than the statement, "I never meant to hurt you," since it's usually mustered in defense of some fairly heinous act.
"I never meant to hurt you... by sleeping with your best friend."
"I never meant to hurt you... by failing to explain that my estranged ex isn't always so estranged."
"I never meant to hurt you... by taking your credit cards and running up charges in excess of your student loan debt."
"I never meant to hurt you... by A) having sex with and B) impregnating you in your own bed while you were passed out from a night of heavy drinking and unable A) to give any kind of consent or B) tell me where the condoms were or C) remember a damn thing."
Well what DID you MEAN to do, asshole? What did you think your actions would result in? I hate that phrase because what it usually translates to is, "I was too lazy/selfish/stupid/mean to consider how my actions would affect you, so I just did what I wanted and hoped I wouldn't have to deal with the consequences."
No one HAS to hurt someone, and who CARES whether or not you MEANT to hurt someone if you really, really did? If I realize that I hurt someone, and I regret it, regardless of my intentions, I say something like, "I'm really sorry. I screwed up. What can I do to make it better?" I don't try to erase my responsibility for the consequences of my actions by saying that causing that hurt wasn't my primary objective, and I never say I HAD to hurt someone, though I have occasionally admitted that I hurt someone on purpose–what else can you do but be honest after you've said something really hateful in the heat of the moment and then have to deal with its effects a few days later when the heat is gone and the relationship frigid? I know I have choices, and I show that I value my right to make them by claiming responsibility for them and their consequences.
I'm not done with this topic, but this entry is long enough, so I'll end here and take the topic up again another time.
Posted by Holly at 6:38 AM | Comments (1)
August 29, 2005
Without You I'm Nothing
I like to sit around my motel room after my show in my bra and panties and I’ll say to somebody, “Get me a Remy Martin and a water-back, goddamnit!” -- Sandra Bernhard, WYIN
At some point during the summer of 1990, I went to the Catalina Theater on the corner of Campbell and Grant in Tucson, Arizona, to see the film version of Sandra Bernhard’s smash one-woman show Without You I’m Nothing. I went by myself; I know people who won’t go to movies alone, but I’ve always kind of liked it, liked sitting wherever I want and being able to watch every last credit without someone saying, “Can’t we just go?”
I remember sitting in the theater, my jaw slack with wonder, my stomach clenched like a fist with envy. How does someone work up the audacity to do a performance like that? I knew I didn’t have a personality that would let me dance around on stage to “Little Red Corvette” in pasties and a sequined g-string bearing the stars and stripes, but I did decide that I wanted to use my life as the basis for my art, just like Sandra did, and that I was willing to bare almost every crevice, crack and contour of my soul.
In 1990, Sandra was best friends with Madonna, which is why she gets to deliver the great lines
And while we’re being really honest here, now that we’re not together, here’s her number. Call Madonna and f*ck the bitch! And while you’re at it, f*ck Martika!
Martika is one of those one-hit wonders who simply couldn’t go away soon enough in my book. And it was lines like that that made me write in my journal that WYIN is “full of very timely jokes and references, so I wonder if it will age well.”
A book I teach often is Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, about which I have mixed feelings. I love the preface; I find it witty and engaging and I love Eggers’ defense of why he wrote the book as a memoir rather than a novel. But other parts of it are boring and annoying, and it’s not at all surprising, given his admission in the postscript, “Mistakes We Knew We Were Making,” that there are long passages he wrote hurriedly and never revised because he just wanted to get the damn thing to the publisher.
I continue to teach it because it lays out a lot of the intellectual and aesthetic issues involved in writing and reading nonfiction, and because students generally love it. One semester they were all admiration for the fact that Eggers writes about the television show American Gladiator without actually referring to the title of the program, which went right over my head, because I never once saw the show. “It’s so cool that he includes the lyrics to a Journey song!” the students enthused. “It’s so cool that someone is writing about pop culture this way and that it’s so relevant to our lives!”
I turned to study something going on outside the window so they couldn’t see me roll my eyes. When I turned back to them I said, “You think it’s going to stay relevant?”
“Of course,” one of them said. “I mean, he’s writing about stuff that’s a part of our lives. It’s not like we’re going to forget this.”
“Maybe...,” I said. “Maybe you won’t forget it, but will it mean anything to anyone else?”
“Why not?” one of them asked.
“Why don’t you just tell me if you have any idea who I’m talking about.” And I straightened my back, spoke from my diaphragm, and said:
I dedicate this song to Apollonia! To Sheila E! To Vanity! To Lisa and Wendy on their own! To all that the glamorous life implies.
I looked at them. It was a small class, only half a dozen students. All six of them were staring at me in rapt alarm. “Know who I’m talking about?” I asked. They shook their heads. “Then I’ll keep going.” And I continued:
But above all I want to dedicate this song to the purple paisley god himself, to the little man who chooses to sit all alone, naked, under a cherry moon, love sexy! It’s the sign o’ the times, it’s the sign o’ the times, it’s the sign o’ the times.
Then Andy, very tall, very talented, very smart, and the front man for a band, said, “Oh, uh, Prince. It’s Prince.”
And I explained that yes, the whole riff was about Prince; the list of women were his musical proteges and in a few cases his lovers. But none of them shone much in her own right, as any brilliance they might have possessed (and I’m not sure Sheila E had much to begin with) was eclipsed by the glory his astonishing genius.
“Those references were current in 1989 or ‘90,” I said. Only fifteen years and they’re almost incomprehensible.” I picked up my copy of AHWOSG. “Because this is print, I’ll bet it ages twice as well--I bet it’ll be 30 years instead of 15 before it’s thoroughly dated.”
They didn’t want to believe that something truly inspired and relevant could become so dated so fast. So to prove it, I brought in my VHS copy of WYIN (a gift from my friend Wayne) and showed it to them.
When I mention this to colleagues, they are often shocked. “You didn’t!” said a colleague who shows some pretty outrageous movies himself. But like I said, it was a small class and I also prepped the students repeatedly, told them that there was nudity and a graphic (although brief) sex scene and that it was weird and they’d be annoyed and they had to give me their permission to show it to them and not report me for subjecting them to indecency--but hey, it meant classtime would be devoted to a movie instead of a discussion, so of course they said yes.
The movie ran a little longer than 75 minutes allotted for class, so I didn't ask for comments until the next class meeting, two days later. One of the students was planning to go to graduate school in film studies. Even though 48 hours had passed since he'd seen the movie, he said, “I’m not ready to talk about that movie. I still don’t know what I think about it.” The other students had even less to say.
Without You I’m Nothing was released on dvd on Tuesday, August 23, 2005, so if you haven’t seen it, put it at the top of your Netflix queue! You may or may not get a lot of the references, but even still, there’s just so much going on in that movie. And if you have seen it, please leave a comment telling me about one of your favorite scenes.
And don’t forget:
If you should wake up one long, lonely night and feel that you’re all alone, remember: YOU ARE.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)
August 27, 2005
What I Look Like
Posted by Holly at 12:57 AM
August 26, 2005
Celebrated Saturday
Last Saturday afternoon, SBJ and our new friend Anesthesia and I went downtown to Celebrate! the city we live in. It was your typical street fair, with jugglers and really cool chalk drawings on the pavement and a couple dozen tiny girls (three, four, five years old) doing fierce tumbling routines along the main thoroughfare of town.
We walked around, looked at crafts, searched without success for a stand selling funnel cakes with tomato sauce (SBJ claims they're all the rage in Connecticut), drank beer in the park. We talked about important things, like emoticons. We agreed that the only acceptable emoticons are the plain old print ones, like :-), and that the cartoonish ones you sometimes see online should be banned from use forever more. We spent some time figuring out what Anesthesia should be called in this blog–we were happy enough with the nickname we came up with. At first she said, "Yeah, but it puts you to sleep!" I said, "That's not my main association with it. I think about getting general anesthesia before surgery, and how it feels really good, but it's dangerous--too much can kill you." Which didn't reassure her all that much, but then SBJ pointed out that the word would make a great album title for some metal band, and then we couldn't think of anything better, and this word sounds like another name that is meaningful to her, so we went with it.
SBJ asked about really bad haircut stories. This is a competition I always win because I almost died from a bad haircut. Seriously: I cried so much my intestines exploded and I nearly hemorrhaged to death. (That's the short version--the long version is truly fascinating, provided you're not afraid of being grossed out. I'll tell it someday.)
We found a stall where girls were selling samosas and painting on temporary henna tattoos. SBJ wanted something to complement his three questions, so the girl gave him a straightforward geometric pattern an inch or so below them--she said she had never hennaed a man before and wasn't sure what would be appropriate, so she went for something simple. It looked fine, but SBJ was not overcome with pleasure at the finished product. In fact, he said he felt gypped.
Then it was my turn. I got a paisley (one of my favorite designs) on my shoulder, which looked pretty awesome, and felt very celebratory. All in all, a very satisfactory day.
Posted by Holly at 8:43 PM | Comments (1)
August 25, 2005
Kant's Three Questions and Yo! God
Sweet Baby Jesus's biceps, it should be stated at the outset, are pretty great. Lately he has been spending a decent (not a ridiculous) amount of time at the gym, and he's bulked up since I first met him a year ago. He looks good.
Not long ago he began toying with the idea of decorating one of those biceps with a tattoo. Of course he came very close to getting a band of barbed wire around his upper arm.... Just kidding. He'd never do that. Nor would he opt for the ribbon of celtic knots--yes, they look fabulous, but they might be one of the few tattoos more ubiquitous than Chinese characters.
What he finally decided on were the three questions posed by Immanuel Kant in Critique of Pure Reason: "What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope?"
Which are pretty f*cking awesome questions.
He spent a lot of time experimenting with fonts, and finally chose an unusual, angular font called Daupin. When he knew what he wanted, he grabbed his passport and drove to Toronto so he could get the tat done at a really great parlor he'd heard about up there. This is not as eccentric a move as it might seem; we're not that far from the Canadian border, and no one raves about the tattoo parlors here. Given that not only tattoos but certain blood diseases are forever, I'd be willing to drive four hours to ensure that the needles were sanitary and the marks permanently etched on my body aesthetically pleasing.
And aesthetically pleasing the three questions are. They're high up on his right arm, and all three questions are legible even when is arm is at his side. The tattoo looks nice simply as a band around his arm, and then you realize the band actually says something, and your appreciation for it deepens. It's one of the best tattoos I've ever seen.
He also got this Hebrew word, transliterated as "hineni," tattooed above his heart. I don't read Hebrew (in the late 90s I went to the synagogue in Iowa City to ask about Hebrew lessons, but they told me they don't provide that for the goyim, especially since there was a perfectly good university in town) so I have to take his word for it when he tells me that it's the word Moses spoke to God when God first appeared to him in a burning bush, translated in Genesis 3:4 as "Here I am."
He explained, however, that the word could not be used to say "I was here yesterday;" it indicates presence in time but not in space, and is all about the now. "So it's kind of like saying, ‘Yo!' to God," I suggested.
"Kind of," he said. And then he gave me all this other information I'll try to paraphrase as well as I can.
It has "the flavor of being in the accusative rather than the nominative," or of being a direct object (me) rather than a subject (I), and is a way of "announcing yourself at the service of others, rather than as an agent who acts upon others." (It occurs to me now that it might be like what well-mannered store clerks or receptions say: "Jill speaking; how may I help you?")
His interest in this word comes from his study of Emmanuel Levinas ([1906-1995], philosopher and Talmudic commentator, born in Kaunas, Lithuania, naturalized a French citizen in 1930), who was the subject of SBJ's dissertation. According to the obituary of Levinas published by The New York Times, on December 27, 1995,
Dr. Levinas's alternative to traditional approaches was a philosophy that made personal ethical responsibility to others the starting point and primary focus for philosophy, rather than a secondary reflection that followed explorations of the nature of existence and the validity of knowledge."Ethics precedes ontology" (the study of being) is a phrase often used to sum up his stance. Instead of the thinking "I" epitomized in "I think, therefore I am"--the phrase with which Rene Descartes launched much of modern philosophy--Dr. Levinas began with an ethical "I." For him, even the self is possible only with its recognition of "the Other," a recognition that carries responsibility toward what is irreducibly different.
Knowledge, for Dr. Levinas, must be preceded by an ethical relationship. It is a line of thought similar to Martin Buber's idea of "I and thou," but with the emphasis on a relationship of respect and responsibility for the other person rather than a relationship of mutuality and dialogue.
According to SBJ, Levinas illustrates his ideas about "the Other" and our responsibility to It with Isaiah 58: 6-9:
Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy reward.
Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.
SBJ tells me it's the only place in the Bible where GOD uses the term "hineni" to address humanity, the only place where God declares himself in the service of humankind.
He also said, in all seriousness, "Originally I wanted to get this passage from Isaiah tattooed on my chest...." Which is another of those earnest statements I can't help but titter at. I mean, it's really quite cool that someone who isn't a bible-thumping evangelist would want three and a half verses from Isaiah tattooed on his chest as an ethical declaration. But it's just not something you hear someone announce every day.
And as the tattoo over his heart healed (it didn't get as much air as the one on his arm, and he said it itched a lot), he would lightly press his hand to his chest and take a deep breath, which was rather a lovely gesture.
In any event, both are very cool tattoos: stark, intelligent, tasteful. They are like mine in that they are primarily verbal declarations rather than representational images, so it's not remarkable that I would find them so remarkable. If you ever meet Sweet Baby Jesus, ask to see them! He'll be embarrassed, but chances are good he'll oblige you by showing them off.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)
August 20, 2005
I Love Needles
This is kind of maudlin and strange, but what the hell.
Every couple of weeks I drive 20 miles for a block of alternative health therapies: a chiropractic adjustment, a massage, an acupuncture treatment.
I start off with an adjustment from Jack, the chiropractor, whom I really like. He's young, 6'5", well muscled, blond, and affable. If you're going to let some guy you hardly know cradle you in his arms and squeeze until all your joints crack, it might as well be some hot guy with a slow, sly grin. Yesterday I told Jack I was just a mess, and he agreed–said my adrenals were shot and marveled at how toxic my system was, until I told him I've been treating my insomnia with booze, benadryl and prescription sleeping pills.
Bonnie, my masseuse, was astonished at how knotted and tight my neck and shoulders were, until I told her I've begun standing on my head for a few minutes every day as part of my yoga practice. She refuses to believe this is a good idea, even when I explained how it's supposed to massage your internal organs and give you a new perspective on your problems and flood your brain with oxygen etc etc. She had no sympathy when I cried out in pain as she dug her thumbs into these kinked lumps along my trapezius muscles, but at least I felt better when I got up off the table.
I save the best for last: I LOVE acupuncture. Maki, my acupuncturist these days, is a very cool Japanese woman who trained at the New England School of Acupuncture, the oldest school of acupuncture and Oriental medicine in the United States, also the alma mater of my other favorite acupuncturist, who lives in Iowa. I told Maki what I told Bonnie and Jack: that I was a mess, and she agreed. She started some process of assessment, then told me, "Your mind is so busy, isn't it. You think too much."
"Everyone tells me that," I said. "But it's hard to stop."
She paused, then said, "But it's your heart that's most disorderly. It's going crazy. What happened to you?"
So I told her some of what I've been dealing with lately. And then she started inserting needles.
One of the things I love about acupuncture is that it works: it has healed and improved so many of my ailments. Another is that it sometimes causes these funky altered states. It doesn't happen every treatment, but when I feel it coming, I get really happy because I know it'll be good. One part of my brain turns off and another part takes over and I go on this cool ride to someplace I don't get to visit often enough. When I felt the transition starting last Friday, I told Maki, "I need to tell you while I still can that I'm OK, but I'm going away now. And I won't be able to talk to you for a while."
Instead, I talked to my heart. I could feel myself having this conversation with it, I could hear it and I could feel it, could feel it as if it were a separate entity, this presence living inside me with an identity of its own, talking to me, telling me how I'd neglected it. It seemed terribly brave and strong to me, in ways that astonished and humbled me. I kept offering to protect it, and it kept telling me it didn't need protecting; it just needed attention from me, and nurturing after it got hurt.
So now, however cliched and silly it sounds, I'm trying to listen to my heart. I guess as I consider the matter it seems that phrase might have become a cliche because it can mean something real. And I'm trying to trust this bravery I somehow carry inside me, this refusal to accept protection and safety as a substitute for experience, discovery and growth.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)
August 19, 2005
Out with the Guys
Last night was one of those nights I go hang out with the guys and talk about writing. Sweet Baby Jesus was there (the tattoo on his arm looks so fabulous! I promise I will get around to writing about that soon), as was Tom, as well as a guy I'll call Lemonhead, because he told me that's his nickname, and another guy I'll call the Monk, because he said he is one. The weather was pleasant, so we sat on the patio of a bar where the drink special was "anything Stoli for two bucks," and I had no problem sucking down four cranberry stolis and one stoli & tonic.
We are all writers, so we workshop our stuff. SBJ and Lemonhead had some really great poems up, the Monk gave us a very poetic short story, and I submitted an essay about menstrual problems I had as a fifteen-year-old anorexic recovering from a bizarre and traumatic illness. The piece is actually kind of funny and I like it as well as anything I've written in a while, but I was still worried the guys might be freaked out by the subject matter. I shouldn't have worried. They gave me really smart suggestions for improving the piece, and didn't seem a bit weirded out that they now know all kinds of details about my menstrual cycle. They also claimed to be grateful for a little clarification about what happens in a gynecologist's office.
It was a fun evening, and we even talked about yesterday's blog entry, and my ambivalence about being "one of the guys." They protested that I could hardly be considered that, and pointed out that I don't look anything like a guy. I admit, on these evenings, I make sure I look better than I do when I go to the grocery store, when I'm content to throw on some old skirt and top and put my hair in a pony tail. No, I dress up: partly because I like dressing up, partly because I want to reinforce my own sense of my femaleness. I wear a dress I like, lots of jewelry, do something with my hair. Last night I was able to wear a dress I haven't been able to fit into for the past three years: this strange malaise I've been in since I got home from Sunstone has made it really hard for me to eat, and I've lost ten pounds in two weeks. The dress must have looked OK, because I noticed that I turned a few heads. That's always nice.
Anyway, I feel better about spending so much of my time with men. And if I'm going to be one of the guys, I'm pretty lucky that this is the group of guys I get to be one of.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)
August 18, 2005
One of the Boys
Right now, I'm kind of one of the boys. My two best friends here are Tom, who is married, and SBJ, who is not, but as I said, my affectionate mocking of him is tinged with the fond feelings of a slightly snotty big sister.
By a significant margin, most of my colleagues are male. I do have some fabulous female colleagues, but most of them are married with small children. These are women with PhDs, diverse research interests, cool husbands, and very busy schedules. For various reasons, it is harder for these women to socialize than it is for the guys I work with. Although I manage to meet these women occasionally for lunch or coffee, a more common event in my social life is to find myself the solitary woman at a table with three or four or five guys, drinking a round of Arrogant Bastards (a local brew), talking about poetry and tattoos and bowel disorders and gross medical procedures and how the fact that SBJ likes neither Pink Floyd nor Led Zeppelin is one more thing that makes him odd.
I'm sort of not complaining, and I sort of am. I'm not really used to this "hanging out with the guys" business. I'm the second of five children: four daughters followed by a son everyone expected to be another girl. My mother has a very strong personality; my father clearly loved us very much but was never good at showing affection; my grandfathers were downright distant; plus I had all those sisters and no brother until I was almost nine; so I was very female-identified as a child. Then there was the fact that I grew up Mormon, and saw very early that a lot of men were power-hungry bastards. It's not that I never found good men--I found plenty--but I was always very wary of them, until they demonstrated that they deserved my trust.
I was and am straight, which was complicated by the messages I got from the church, particularly when I went on a mission. Men in the Church, I was told often enough, were in authority over me; I should not try to be on an equal level with them. But exerting the authority of the priesthood seemed to render men not larger and stronger, but stunted and misshapen. Consequently that's how I saw them: distorted, disjointed creatures, some of whom one could be romantically attracted to, some of whom one must try to obey despite their failings; none of whom could demand from me the mutual respect and understanding I felt ought to exist between me and other women, who were my equals. The good relationships I achieved with men occurred when they sought to minimize their authority, not when they sought to enlarge it, as so many of them often did.
It got easier to see men as complex, complete human beings when I left the church, but anyone who thinks the sexes are equal, that men don't have opportunities and freedoms that women lack, just isn't paying attention. Patriarchy is strange. The guys I hang out with are good guys, and I value and enjoy their friendship. But it's still weird to spend so much of my time with a large group of men, none of whom are or ever will be a romantic partner.
I'm going to have more to say about this, about gender roles in general and my own gender performance--actually, I've already started saying things here about my own gender performance--but I'm planning on saying even more. It's something I've been thinking about for a very long time, given the fact that I was a feminist by the time I was twelve and that my boyfriend from kindergarten, my date to the prom, and my ex-fiancé all grew up to be gay Mormon returned missionaries. Then there is my dear friend Wayne, who, according to his myspace.com profile, was "Formerly a bed-wetting, drug-addicted, Mormon Drag Queen."
Yeah. This is a topic where I have something to say.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2005
Madge and the Beast
I sometimes say that Madonna saved my life while I was a missionary in Taiwan, because it's really kind of true. I hadn't much cared for her before my mission--I loved the song "Material Girl," because it was so witty, but so much of her other stuff just seemed like the silliest, shallowest dance music, and I liked my dance music rife with complexity and angst. But as a clinically depressed missionary given to long bouts of crying, I guess I felt that since the whole God thing wasn't working for me, I might consider looking to other things to offer me happiness.
I got transferred to Taichung, one of the larger cities in my mission (which covered the lower half of the island) at the beginning of June. It was monstrously hot, and spending all day riding a bike when it's 100 degrees and 100% humidity really takes something out of you, even if you're not being treated for depression. To escape the heat, my companion (an assigned working partner, not my lover) and I would do something we called "shopping first-contacting," which meant that we would go to some department store with air-conditioning, then wander around passing out flyers advertising the church until we at least felt human again.
Our favorite department store was called LaiLai's. It offered many attractions, including a restaurant in the basement that served barely edible pizza (as opposed to the inedible kind of you found everywhere else--Pizza Hut had not made it to Taiwan in 1986) and an electronics department featuring a big-screen TV that constantly played Madonna videos. We would often position ourselves right at the top of the escalator, which was also midway between an air-conditioning vent and the television, thrusting flyers at people without saying a word as the escalator crested. They almost always took them, looked at them, looked at us, and shrugged.
OK, OK, it was a lousy way to do missionary work. In my defense I'll say that there were other ways in which I worked really hard. But missions don't cut you much slack--you're supposed to work 63 and a half hours every single week--and sometimes you had to find creative ways to survive.
Anyway, the point is, watching those videos over and over and over again, I began to appreciate Madonna's genius. It seemed clear to me that she respected her religion without feeling bound by it. She was able to incorporate accouterments and ideas from Christianity into her own creative vision. She demonstrated something I suspected: dance music could be as inspirational as religious liturgy. About that time her third album, True Blue, was released, and she changed her hairstyle from the golden ringlets she'd sported for her first two albums to a close-cropped platinum do. She provided me with an example I needed: a woman who could reinvent herself.
As a result I have always loved her, and always will, even if I don't care for some of the stuff she's done lately: I bought American Life but couldn't even finish listening to it. I put it in my cd player once, took it out before it ended, and have never tried listening to it again.
Yesterday was her 47th birthday. I thought about making yesterday's blog entry a happy birthday shout-out to her, but that just seemed silly. Instead, I sent this email message to my friend Wayne:
You have probably already baked a cake and bought the party favors, but in case you forget, thought I'd remind you that today is Madonna's 47th birthday. I realized that this day is more important to me and requires more recognition than something like the summer solstice. She's crazy now, isn't she, really truly crazy? But I still have to be grateful for what she has meant to me.
Last night we were talking on the phone and he suddenly interrupted me to say, "Holly, Holly-- Oh, oh my god. Oh my god." And then he read me a news story about the fact that she had celebrated her birthday by going riding on her country estate in England, fallen from a horse, broken her collar bone and three ribs, and fractured her hand.
That's some pretty heavy karmic shit. Madonna's whole kabbalah thing requires her to believe that everything happens for a reason, that we draw energy and events to ourselves, and drawing to you the kind of energy that makes you fall off a horse and sustain several fractures on your birthday, two months before your album comes out, so that you'll be laid up in bed and unable to film any dance videos any time soon, is serious stuff.
But I still hope she recovers quickly. I've never had a broken collar bone or a fractured hand, but I have had a broken rib--it happened on my mission--and I can say that ONE is excruciatingly painful, so having THREE has to really suck. I can only guess about how bad the other stuff feels.
This morning when I got up, turned on my computer, and checked my email, I found this message from Wayne:
Good morning!Repeat after me: Today I am going to be a ray of fucking sunshine!
So be it.
I am so freaked out about Madge and the beast. I have never really liked horses that much. Some things should not be domesticated. And some people, I suppose. Madonna's self imposed "English country wife" thing makes we wonder if I am fulfilling my true purpose or just deluding myself? Am I supposed to be wild and free or good and trustworthy or dumb and f*ckable?
One thing I like about Wayne is that, aside from the two times he did something so awful to me that we didn't speak for months until he worked up the nerve to apologize, it's really easy to be his friend. He claims he is hard to be friends with. But I think it's not at all hard to be amused and enlightened and captivated by brilliance and inspired to be a better person, all of which are things that happen when being friends with Wayne.
Or at least, I guess it's not hard for people who want those things. For people who want to be bored most of the time, and stupid most of the time, and content with the drivel the world has to offer, and given permission never to learn or grow, well, yeah, it might be hard to be friends with him.
So today I will take his advice and be a fucking ray of sunshine–a ray of sunshine who is also thinking about Madge and the beast. Am I fulfilling my life's purpose? I don't know.
I am also a ray of sunshine with a very sore neck. I injured it somehow helped SBJ move. It hurts to look anywhere but straight ahead of me. Perhaps that is also a message from the universe? I don't know.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)
August 16, 2005
Mellencamp
My friend and colleague Sweet Baby Jesus is roughly the same age as my younger brother, and I am chagrined to say that something about SBJ brings out the bitchy big sister in me. A fairly common sequence of events is this: a bunch of us go out for beers; mocking SBJ occupies a good portion of the evening; I go home, think about how I teased him, and feel bad; I stop by his office the next day, and apologize for tormenting him so, saying it seems out of character for me, since I don't treat my other friends that way; he says he doesn't mind at all--in fact, he insists, he enjoys being the center of attention and finds it all good clean fun as long as it's a gentle mocking rather than malicious bullying; I go away reassured, but full of resolve not to tease him so very much next time.
I'm still working to identify the reasons why this happens. So far I've come up with two: 1) he's telling the truth about enjoying it; he plays along and laughs good-naturedly, and even after the conversation has moved on to something other than his most charming foibles, he provides us with information that almost seems designed to provoke more teasing, which means that 2) he deserves it.
In some ways, Sweet Baby Jesus is one of the oddest people I know. Don't get me wrong; I like him, quite a lot, actually. But he has some of the strangest ideas, opinions and behaviors.
Last December a dozen of us went out on the last day of classes to celebrate having survived the semester. At one point, apropos of nothing, SBJ asked, "Do you ever play that game where you take two things that are basically equal, and make people choose which one they like better? For instance, like with Bruce Springsteen on one hand, and John Cougar Mellencamp on the other."
We were in the middle of a crowded bar and the din was terrific, but at that moment it was like the entire world went silent. Everyone looked around the table. "You're kidding, right?" someone asked.
"Of course not," SBJ said. "Mellencamp is like the Midwestern Springsteen."
We stared at each other again. "You're really saying that John Cougar Mellencamp is ‘basically equal' with Bruce Springsteen?" someone asked.
"Yeah."
"You're saying that ‘Hurts So Good' is on a par with ‘Thunder Road' or ‘Blinded by the Light,'" I began.
"Or ‘Jack and Diane' is the same as ‘Born to Run' or anything off Nebraska," someone else said.
"Yeah," SBJ said. Everyone looked around the table again, and burst out laughing.
"You're forgetting songs like ‘Little Pink Houses' and ‘Blood on the Plow,'" he cried.
"That's ‘cause they're forgettable," someone said.
"Mellencamp is an authentic voice of middle America,"SBJ said, his voice rising even more. "You're all just a bunch of east coast snobs."
THAT pissed me off. "I am not going to let some guy who grew up in Connecticut and went to school in New York call ME an east coast snob," I said, jabbing at him with my forefinger. "I'm from Arizona, remember?"
"Yeah, but I lived in Indiana for six years, and I really grew to appreciate how Mellencamp speaks for the Midwest," he said.
"I lived in Iowa for eight years, and I'm sure that even in that bastion of Midwesterness, people have the sense to prefer the Boss to a guy who named himself after a mountain cat," I said.
"And let's not forget cover art," some said. "Mellencamp looks pretty stupid on his album covers."
"Or hair," I said. "John Cougar Mellencamp's hair was so poufy and feathered, he could have been one of the girls in a White Snake video."
SBJ seemed genuinely astonished that no one--not a single person there--thought Mellencamp was the artistic equal of the Boss. You'd think he'd learn that this is not a question designed to arouse a lot of respect for his taste in music. But no, months later, he still brings it up when someone new comes along, so he still gets to hear people guffaw in disbelief as they finally realize he is serious about the comparison.
The game–-which we now call Mellencamp--can make for fun bar banter when you play it with things that are actually comparable. Coke or Pepsi? East Coast or West Coast? Cats or dogs? Window or aisle? Mac or PC? Q or A? T or A? Ginger or Mary Ann? Aiden or Mr. Big?
And I'm probably going to have to apologize to him for posting this--or maybe delete it, if it really hurts his feelings--but I want to say this: SBJ, let it go. You can like John Cougar Mellencamp as much as you want, but you can compare apples to oranges more easily than you can compare Mellencamp to the Boss.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2005
Moving Day
In addition to my friend and colleague Tom, I also have a friend and colleague, Sweet Baby Jesus. That's not the name his parents gave him; that's the name he gave himself. It rather fits. Sometimes we call him SBJ, and sometimes we call him Dr. Sweet Baby Jesus, because he has a PhD in one of those silly, useless areas of the humanities.
Sweet Baby Jesus just moved out of a horrid apartment complex full of old ladies who hang wreaths of dried flowers on their doors, changing the wreath to match the season. He never fit in because his door remained unadorned, no matter what the time of year. But now he's living in a cool semi-detached house across from a park.
SBJ does not have a lot of stuff--people who name themselves after wandering mendicant faith healers often don't--but he still has more stuff than he could move on his own. So he asked me, Tom, a new colleague ML, and her husband HC, to help him load up a truck and shlep everything across town. He said that if we did, he would reward us with pizza and beer, and as an added treat, we could watch him eat an entire large pizza on his own.
It took only an hour to get everything in the truck from the old place and out of the truck at the new place.
And then it was time for pizza. Since we are a lively bunch of cynical academics, and since we began drinking around noon, the conversation centered on meaningful concerns, such as when SBJ would host his first party in his new place. "I was thinking I'd have a craft night some time soon," he said. He says things like this all the time, and it always makes me giggle. "We're going to go back to my apartment to make collages," he told me a few weeks ago, when I asked him how he planned to entertain a friend who was visiting from out of town. He would have made such a great Mormon girl. We were always crafts nights: tie-dying t-shirts, stringing beads, practicing embroidery. Don't get me wrong, I dig that stuff--it just seems funny to have someone organizing an evening where a bunch of PhDs sit around a dining room table and decorate t-shirts.
"Collages again at this crafts night?" I asked.
"Maybe," he said.
"Candles?" asked HC.
"Door wreaths?" asked ML.
"Door wreaths would be good," I said.
Then we started talking about lame superpowers. ML had a good lame superpower (very oxymoronic statement, I realize, but hopefully you know what I mean): she is related to so many people through families that have split through divorce, then extended themselves through remarriage, that she can probably manage a way to make YOU related to her. She offered to set me up, for instance, with an uncle of hers--she says he's the right age for me, a die-hard ex-Catholic (which should complement my die-hard post-Mormon status well), has liberal politics and a job that involves helping the under-privileged. He lives a couple of states away from all of us, but still in the same time zone, which is closer than anyone else I'm interested in. So we'll see how powerful this lame superpower of hers is.
Then it was 2 p.m. and any remaining pizza had grown cold (we were all pretty sure SBJ did not manage to eat an entire pizza on his own, but hey, it was his house, so we weren't going to insist) and we all had stuff we ought to go do (I really need to write a couple of syllabi) so we left SBJ to his unpacking.
And that is the thrilling story of my thrilling Monday. Check back for more on SBJ, who gave me permission to write about his very cool new tattoos.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (1)
August 12, 2005
Answering My Own Question
The church's approach to homosexuality is to "hate sin but love the sinner." For a long time that was my approach to the church: I hated the sexism, the racism, the homophobia of the church; I hated its smug certainty, its foolish and self-defeating attempts to stifle creativity and questioning; I hated its more illogical and vicious doctrines; I hated and I still hate the Book of Mormon, which lacks the linguistic beauty, the human diversity and the spiritual complexity of the Bible. But I told myself that I loved the church: Loved the community, loved the heritage of sacrifice and striving, loved the hymns, loved the habits of discipline and self-control I was taught to cultivate. The problem, I eventually had to acknowledge, was that the church simply would not let me love the sinner while hating the sin: I had to love the sin as well; in fact, I had to convince myself that the sins were not sins at all, but were instead God's righteous decrees, and that by not loving them, I was the sinner.
And trips to Utah are traumatic because there, I encounter people who want--oh so generously, oh so magnanimously!--to help me see how I've sinned against God's righteous decrees, and bring me back to a fold I cannot survive in.
I am never able to attend all the sessions I want to attend at Sunstone, but there are so many I just want to run from. No--I don't want to run from them, because that implies genuine horror and fear, whereas what I feel is mostly heartsick fatigue. It's fine that other people want to continue to debate the historicity of the Book of Mormon; I just don't want anywhere near such a discussion. It's fine that others want to plumb the depths of Joseph Smith's psyche, but I don't give a shit about the guy! I feel about such discussions the way Catherine Morland, heroine of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, feels about history:
I read it a little as a duty; but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilence on every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all; it is very tiresome; and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention. The speeches that are put into the heroes' mouths, their thoughts and designs; the chief of all this must be invention, and invention is what delights me in other books.
For one of the panels I was on this year, I needed the text of Boyd K. Packer's "Talk to the All-Church Coordinating Council" in May, 1993, in which he discusses the dangers posed by "the gay-lesbian movement, the feminist movement (both of which are relatively new), and the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals." I admit this was the first time I bothered to track down the actual text of the infamous talk, and I was vexed and wearied by his glib trivialization of the feminist movement as "relatively new," given that one of the most important feminist texts ever written, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by Mary Wollstonecraft, was published in 1792, almost 40 years before the Book of Mormon; that the Seneca Falls convention on women's rights was held in 1848, two years before Utah was organized as a territory; that the women's rights movement was referred to as the "feminist movement" in newspapers worldwide in the 1890s; and that women were finally given the right to vote in this country in 1920, not because it simply occurred to Congress that it was a good thing to do, but because many women agitated and demonstrated tirelessly, demanding this fundamental right.
Instead of talking about what should actually be done to improve the lives of women in the church and in the world, Mormons have to pretend that feminism is a new and therefore illegitimate phenomenon, simply because Mr. Packer assumed its existence could not predate by much his notice of it. How very vexing. How very wearying.
And I don't want to deal with that, but I still have to, simply as part of doing my research for presentations on what I do want to deal with: discussions of the NOW, of how Mormonism made me into the person I am today. I don't love the sinner any more: I don't love the church. But I also don't hate it. I simply accept that it has affected my life in on-going ways, not all of them negative, despite my conviction that so many of the church's doctrines and practices are profoundly immoral.
The contribution to Sunstone I'm proudest of was a panel I organized for the 2004 symposium, entitled "Mormonism as Praxis" (reprinted in SUNSTONE December 2004), inspired by Karen Armstrong's discussion in The Spiral Staircase of the difference between orthopraxy (right behavior) and orthodoxy (right thought). Armstrong convincingly cites the argument that in many religions, orthodoxy and doctrine are of little significance--what matters is behaving rightly, cultivating behaviors that change us for the better, regardless of what we believe. This argument was so revolutionary and astonishing to me when I encountered it in March 2004 that I needed to explore it further.
Remarkably, once I abandoned the idea that orthodoxy--that troublesome, unswallowable bone in my throat--mattered at all, I felt more at liberty to celebrate and embrace those practices inherited from Mormonism that truly have enriched my spiritual life. The five panelists, including me, considered the special benefits offered by cultivating religious habits and behaviors either unique to Mormonism or approached in a uniquely Mormon manner. (I talked about keeping a journal.) The panel was what I hoped it would be: a positive and validating experience for any audience. Active Mormons were able to affirm those practices that reinforce their faith, while people who were no longer active or believing Mormons could acknowledge and remember what was valuable about their training as Mormons. The idea was to celebrate the ways in which Mormonism inculcates and encourages behaviors that truly do make us better people, regardless of belief.
That's what I want to do at Sunstone--and I keep going because I'm able to. But I still have to confront all the people who are horrified by and angry at me because I reject orthodoxy, and who resist my self-definition: people in Utah always want to call me an ex-Mormon. But I refuse that label. I'm not an ex. I'm a post-Mormon or a cultural Mormon.
And all of that really is a kind of psychic assault, and dealing with it wearies and vexes me, and makes me heartsick, and tired.
Perhaps I should be pleased that it takes me only a month to recover from that, instead of three or four.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (2)
August 11, 2005
The Matrix of Mormonism
I'm WAY fucked up.
I feel like someone has punched me, well below the belt, and left his fist there.
My colleague Tom is one of my best friends here in the Northwest corner of Pennsylvania where I've ended up. The other day he stopped by my office to see me and I asked, "Do you speak New Age?"
"A little," he said.
"If I start talking about my root chakra, are you going to know what I mean?"
"Not really," he said. So I explained: in various schools of eastern physiology and philosophy, you have seven energy centers running along the center of your body, from the base of your spine to the crown of your head. The lowest chakra (Sanskrit for wheel), the one at the base of your spine, relates to issues of physical safety and of the unit that provides you with that safety--in other words, your tribe, especially the one you were born into.
My birth tribe is the Mormons, and I recently returned from a week in Utah, and my first chakra got a heavy dose of weird, weird energy, some of it good, and some of it not. That's the fist I can feel gouging into my intestines.
Before I go any further, I must hasten to add that I am NOT from Utah--I am from southern Arizona, thank you very much, a fourth-generation native, which is something not many white people can say. Three of my four grandparents were born in Arizona before it became a state. While I was in Utah at the end of July, I met a po-Mo (post-Mormon) who asked me, "So, did you never live in Utah?"
"Not unless you count the nine weeks I was at the Missionary Training Center," I said. I never even went to BYU. My alma mater for my first two degrees is the University of Arizona--go Cats!
But since 2001 I've been going to Sunstone, this symposium on Mormonism held every summer in Salt Lake City, and every summer it has been a really good experience: I connect with old friends and meet some new ones; I stay with my sister and her family in Bountiful a few extra days and play with my niece and nephews, tickling them, reading to them, picking them up by their ankles and swinging them around; I present several papers that I can list on my curriculum vitae.
And every year when I get home, my insomnia is out of control and other stuff is screwed up too. This year I cannot eat. I have this constant, low-grade nausea right now. Eating doesn't make me feel better and not eating doesn't make me feel better. The only upside is that I'm losing a lot of weight, something I have vaguely and remotely intended to do for the past few years.
Fifty-one weeks out of the year, the only practicing Mormons I talk to with any frequency are the members of my immediate family. I know Hinckley is still president, but I have no idea who his councilors are and I don't really want to know. I don't want to keep up with what's going on in the church these days, because I don't care: I only care about the church insofar as it affects the lives of my family, and insofar as it is among the primary institutions that shaped me.
But that "insofar" goes a long way: I truly believe that "an unexamined life is not worth living," so if the church somehow lost all its members tomorrow and existed only as a historical relic, I would still be concerned with scrutinizing and puzzling out how my present life has been shaped by my past, including the 26 years I spent as a devout Mormon, obeying the commandments, participating in the culture and passionately studying the doctrines of the Church.
And one of the things I want to know is this: why is it so traumatic to go to Salt Lake City, to march through the matrix of Mormondom? Why does it so screw up my system? Why does it take me a month to recover from Sunstone when I really enjoy the conference while I'm there, and why has this trip been extra bad?
The Matrix of Mormonism. Yeah. Right now I feel sort of like Neo before he takes the pill. Funny thing was, I thought I already swallowed it.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (3)
August 10, 2005
The Ultimate MF
Yesterday on campus I told my colleague Tom that one of the reasons I wanted to start this blog was to share with the world my recent insight that the Mormon god is the ultimate motherf***er: he's up there in the celestial kingdom, having sex with all those mothers in heaven.
Tom wanted some elaboration. I said, "According to Mormon doctrine, we are supposedly all the literal spiritual offspring of a father and mother in heaven. Our spirits were conceived by the sexual intercourse of God with one of his wives--according to Joseph Smith, he might have plenty--that's the whole polygamy thing."
"So this is real sex," Tom said. "It's not just some spiritual thing, or is it? Does it involve actual body parts?"
"Absolutely," I said. "God has a body, parts and passions. It's a basic tenet of Mormon doctrine." I told him about being a teenager and being shepherded into the cultural hall with all the other young men and women, where a high councilman told us in no uncertain terms what was at stake in the phrase "families are forever": only in the celestial kingdom, the highest level of Mormon heaven, would people allowed to be sexually active; everywhere else--and this is a quote I remember almost 30 years later--"You'll all be just steers and heifers." In other words, the promise of an eternity of sex in the next life was why we better not have any until we were married in this life.
"Huh," said Tom, who is the son of a Baptist minister. "Heavenly sex."
"But it's all about reproduction, not fun, which means eternal PMS and endless celestial pregnancies for some of us," I cried.
"I like it," he said. "It's a metaphor for something. I just don't know what."
But I, on the rag, heavily drugged by the muscle relaxant ibuprofen and aware throughout the conversation of the blood gushing from my body, doubled over in horror and buried my face in my hands.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)
August 9, 2005
Self-Portrait Series
I love self-portraits, partly because in grad school I read this fabulous essay by Philippe Lejeune called "Looking at a Self-Portrait." Lejeune is a literary critic whose primary interest is autobiography, verbal and visual. He asks, "What is it that makes a self-portrait recognizable as such? What special interest can their be in looking at a self-portrait?"
Of course there is nothing in a painting that marks it as a self-portrait for anyone who does not know what the painter looks like, hence the existence of titles like Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, by Parmigianino (which John Ashbery borrowed for the title of one of his books). Painting, Lejeune points out, has no obvious first person, whereas "For the first person, writing is invincible."
Not long after reading that I started writing self-portraits: "Self-Portrait as Hungry Nude." "Self-Portrait as Burnt Offering." "Self-Portrait as Someone Who Looks Exactly Like Me."
I have this really fabulous book given to me by my big sister as a Christmas gift several years ago, called Seeing Ourselves: Women's Self-Portraits. Some of the titles of the works depicted there are so thoroughly cool: "Self-Portrait Painting the Virgin and Child." "Self-Portrait at the Dressing Table." "Self-Portrait, Black Background." "Self-Portrait with Metro." And my favorite, by a painter named Cynthia Mailman: "Self-Portrait as God." (!) Some day I will steal all those titles and turn them into self-portraits in language.
Sometimes people call what I write stories. In the terminology of critics and writers, I don't write stories. I write nonfiction. I tell stories, but they are usually true stories, and the things I write about them are essays, memoirs and poems. I admit I have two ideas for novels I want to write, but they'll have to wait until I'm done figuring out my own life.
So what you'll get on this blog are lots of self-portraits. Self-portrait as Woman Who Can't Find Anything Worth Eating in her House on a Tuesday Morning. Self-Portrait as Insomniac. (I've done so many stinkin' versions of that one.) Self-Portrait as Someone who Simply Enjoys the Act of Typing. Self-Portrait as Someone with Something to Say. Because I want to say something that matters about the things that matter to me.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (1)