Manliness, Sweaters, My Future

The nights grow darker and descend ever earlier, highlighting the strangeness of my life.  I've been trying to get up before seven in the mornings, when it is still quite dim, and by the time I get around to dinner it is already dark and cold.  And my day has, really, just begun: after dinner I get to start the "studying" part of my studies, completing tasks which are seeming increasingly irrelevant and... separated from what I want to be doing.  I've a whole stack of books and stories I want to read - not frivolous things, things I want to study, big thick theoretical literary and theological works I'd love love love to spend a solid week devouring and digesting and meditating on, and I can't, because (and this is a painful thing to have to type) I have to instead read Gertrude.  FRICKING.  Stein. 

(Shudder.)  It's not that I hate modernists.  Give me Woolf or Eliot any day.  Hell, give me James Joyce.  But... Stein.  Man.  It's cruel that she exists in the same universe as me.  I mean, when we've reached this point of the semester, Muppets in drag will follow.

So, in sum, my schooling is interfering with my education, and I am doubtful that this situation will ever improve itself, and I am questioning my previously-unquestioned plan to simply coast my way through the academic track, grad school to more grad school to professorship to tenure, because if it only gets worse, and not better, from here, then I'm doomed.  I know I write less in terms of output now than I did in high school, and I think I've actually gotten worse in terms of creativity...do I really want to do this for the rest of my life?  And if not, what do I want to do?

Which brings me to the two seemingly disparate topics of tonight's post: self-care and men.

The latter is more fun, so I will address it first.  It has recently been suggested, by various well-meaning but dismayed adult consultants, and half-humorously (but half-not), that I simply marry a rich middle-aged man and make his evening years more comfortable, while publishing novels in my (ample) spare time.  This...is actually sounding more and more like a good idea, which frightens me.  This could be my future.
But... well, as always, Destiny's Child explains the situation a little more eloquently than I can.  And, well, compared to the run of men my own age, quiet sensible middle-aged men are looking pretty damn' fine.

Which leads to my nascent dissertation on the stages of a man's life, and why all of us trying to avoid gold-digger-dom are increasingly screwed.  Here, then, with apologies to Shakespeare: The Stages of Man.

1) Little Boy: Many never progress beyond this stage (and can be seen wandering around campus, in their basketball shorts and stained T's, see earlier posts).  They are mostly harmless, but also have a hard time conceiving of the world beyond their impulses and desires.  They relate to others mostly in terms of Pleasure or Utility (to borrow Aristotle's categories) and generally slouch around having tantrums, being bored by anything that is not centered around them, and (not to harp on it) wearing basketball shorts.  Everywhere.

Reaction to poop joke: loud, slack-jawed laughter.  Bonus points if the voice cracks.

2) Geek: This is when boys start having interests, realize that girls exist and are actually kind of really different than their guy friends, and have a crisis of confidence.  This is the "shy and sensitive" kind that, in all likelyhood, is just too insecure to say what he thinks and tends to hero-worship sympathetic female friends -- from afar.  Also, somehow having an awareness that social faux pas exist makes them more awkward than type 1.  Sometimes showering or wearing correctly sized clothes can be a problem.  There is some hope for this type, as with patience and coaxing, they can sometimes be formed into decent specimens of humanity.  However, they represent a considerable investment of time and energy, and what we're looking for is someone to make an investment in us.  Of money, in case that wasn't clear.  And red-hot lovin' wouldn't hurt, either. 

Reaction to poop joke: Laughter, but surreptitious, hastily stifled, and in some cases eschewed in favor of some biting comment about maturity that only serves to highlight their bitterness over not getting to enjoy the poop joke.

3) Man: sometimes at first mistaken for the more well-groomed specimens of type 1 (a subspecies I like to call "Player," the "Cute -- but he knows it" flavor, or, alternatively, "Manslut").  They have a certain swagger which may be more or less defined depending on the Man's manners, education, and inherent intra/extraversion.  Nevertheless, it will become apparent in certain situations when the Man will act a bit like an ass, without regard for what anyone else thinks.  However, their decisions will be in line with an internal reason that has more to do with objective reflection on experience than the desire or whim of the moment, and if the Man is a good one, your initial irritation at their presumption will be softened by your appreciation of their integrity (by which I mean they are integrated, they "move as one" -- like integers -- there's minimal hypocrisy, and for the most part everyone is rampantly hypocritical.  How many times have you said to yourself today, 'I know I shouldn't, but (fill in reason).')

This is, incidentally, both the type that is rare not only on most mid-sized private libarts college campuses, and the type I find devastatingly attractive.

Reaction to poop joke: Loud, full-throated laughter, and if a girl standing next to them should happen to shoot them a disapproving look, their reaction will not be a defensive "Whut?" (type 1) or a sheepish grin (type 2) but a tolerantly amused glance.

There.  Now you all know my thoughts on the subject.

Part II: Self Care, Sweaters, and the Hierarchy of Metaphor.

During the long weekend, I contemplated all of the evil things I had to do with my time when I would rather be doing other things, and whether or not I was doing the right thing with my life after all, and while I was engaged in these salutory meditations, I found myself getting guilty.  How dare I try and figure out what I wanted?  Didn't I know there were clothes to wash, homeworks to do, children starving in Haiti?  How did I muster the gall to take a time out and sit quietly?

I don't know if guys do this.  Chicks do.  All the time.  I call it the Female Self-Martyring Syndrome to distinguish it from ordinary "martyring" because a martyr usually has a worthy cause, but FSMS is its own cause -- that and the confused identity of the nurturer perpetrating it.  Basically, it's the idea that we are not allowed to take care of ourselves, because that's what horrible selfish people do and we should be spending everything in the service of our careers, our families, our friends, our communities -- what-have-you.  I was wrestling with this a bit because, though I am as prone as any other female to think that I am responsible for everything, I've always resisted the FSMS label because it feels too facile, too self-indulgent, too pop-psychology.  (Besides, what if it really is my fault every time something goes wrong?)

Then I had a revelation.  We are not ourselves.  We are the greatest gift we've ever received.

We are, in essence, a cashmere sweater.

I shall elaborate.  Philosophers have wrestled for aeons with the question of what human consciousness and identity is, and no one's come up with a simple answer.  To what do we owe the unique mix of drives, tastes, experiential frameworks, and emotional responses that make up our usness?  Evolution?  Random chance?  The kindness/cruelty/indifference of the Universe?  We don't know.  We didn't do anything to earn ourselves.  The least we can do is be grateful for our selfhood.

And here is where the hierarchy of metaphor comes in handy.  What is gratitude?  What does it look like?  Well, say you randomly got a really nice cashmere sweater one day -- apropos of nothing, from a maiden aunt you hadn't seen or written to in years, who doesn't have all that much money and, hey, we're talking a nice sweater.  The sort of thing I have detailed, faintly melancholy, "when-I'm-a-grown-up-I'll-dress-like-that" daydreams about.  Like, upward of $200.

How would you properly show gratitude for it?

Well, you could put it in the closet and never wear it, for fear of "wrecking" it, but that would just be a waste of a good sweater.  Alternatively, you could wear it all the time, even when making chocolate mousse and painting the garage, and never wash it.  It'd be trashed in a matter of weeks.  That also would be a waste.  If you made sure it was clean and ironed it before an important interview or job presentation, and then you told your maiden aunt how nice it had been to have such a cool sweater at such a significant time, that'd be pretty cool.  If you took care to have it dry-cleaned and mended when it (inevitably) got runs, that'd be good too. 

And if, say, you met a friend on the street with a significant roadburn, then there would be two wrong things to do.  You could decline to help entirely, saying that you can't afford to risk your sweater since your sweet Aunt Mabel gave it to you, and wouldn't she be disappointed if it was ruined, etc.  (One imagines the friend would then send sweet Aunt Mabel hate mail, and she'd have a crisis over your dishonoring of the family name and write you out of her will and perhaps passive-aggressively contract tuberculosis and guilt you about it.)  On the other hand, if you whipped off that sweater and used it to daub Neosporin on your friend's arm, when the raggedy T-shirt you were wearing under it would have sufficed -- well, that's not quite cool either. 

We are the cashmere sweater.  Or rather, "we" are transcendent identity (see the protoexistentialists on the irreduceable "I") and the sweater, all snuggly-warm and completely unmerited around our fragile selves, is our drives, emotions, needs, fears, personality bits, etc.  It's easy to think it selfish to take care of that sweater when it gets run-down, but it's only selfish if we're going around thinking that we are ourselves...if that makes sense.  If, however, you start to think about the gift of your self (all your strengths and subjectivity and suchlike) and what it's enabled you to do and experience, and realize that it's not something you created, own, or have any control over...suddenly, taking care of that sweater, and "knitting the ravelled sleeve of care," and letting other people pick up the slack sometimes, and sacrificing minor external responsibilities in favor of this bigger one, seems a lot less like selfish indulgence and a lot more like the prudent, sane actions of someone humbled by their own mysteriousness.

This is the high and rarefied argument with which I hope to excuse my current immersion in Oprah magazines and attempts to identify my inner child, nurture my creative self, and, ultimately, justify my loveless marriage.

If that makes sense.

I leave you with Britney Spears's rendition of what will likely become my classy!golddigging theme song, as I attempt to charm the wealthy but reserved with equal parts sparkling wit, youthful naivete, and judicious sock-based augmentations.

Good night, LA.

Further Ramblings

It is now very autumny and properly October, which is most satisfying.  Life proceeds, leaving me trotting in its wake, calling with faint hope, "Wait, you dropped me!"  At the moment, though I am drenched in agenda ("things that MUST be done") I have no motivation to do...any of it.  I am instead enveloped in a horrible but vague dread and mournfulness.  Thus, I am blogging, hoping that doing something I meant to do but don't have to do will soften my mental block and ease me into productivity.

Also, procrastination.  But I am surrendering to the impulse.  I think it's the only thing I can do.

This feeling of abstraction from self is a fairly common one for me, and also one I am not supposed to encourage.  Overactive Vata, excessive Fiveishness, call it what thou wilt, according to what character assessment system thee pleaseth, fact is I'm currently hiding from my body.  The cure for this is usually: a) doing the work that you keep not wanting to do and b) to prevent recurrence of same, exercise.  I do not enjoy exercise, as a rule, though I am very fond of walks.  However, there is one thing that gets me excited about my physicality: stabbing people.

See, I have a well-subverted but also dangerously well-developed violent streak.  Others may choose to deliver vengeance through snide comments or revocation of privilege, but if a situation gets dire enough that I feel redress may be necessary, in my heart of hearts I want to stab.  I want physical and permanent marks of the dissatisfaction that has finally grown severe enough to develop into rage.  There is very little betwixt and between for me.  Either I am slightly miffed, but not miffed enough to mention it, or I want to kill you. 

This proves problematic, since (for God only knows what weak Enlightened reason) society has seen fit to outlaw duelling as a method of conflict resolution.  Thus I am forced to sublimate and re-sublimate my (very) occasional murderous impulses, creating a cycle of anger that gets self-directed, spawning more hurt which spawns more anger, etc., etc.  My solution: reintroduce the duel, with the stipulation that it be nonfatal.

I mean, fighting for sport is already widespread.  Boxing, "wrestling," various Eastern imports, paintball, fencing -- all of these are ritualized combat, and their appeal is that of competition in its rawest form -- that is, the primal I AM BETTER THAN YOU because I can use my body and mind to physically wreck your s*** and keep you from doing the same to me.  We are all the discontents of civilization -- we all feel the need to defend our self-interests, and are prevented from doing so because of "morals" and "humanity" and other such trivial things.  Now, I am generally a fan of civilization and know that if it were removed I would be probably number 213 worldwide to die as a result.  However, this does not prevent me -- and apparently others -- from feeling a little frustrated sometimes, and so long as the lethal element is removed, the controlled and regulated expression of violence is, I think, quite healthy.

So why not go a step further?  If, after a terrible day at the office, it's wonderfully freeing to work out your frustrations upon the bodies of those towards whom you are favorably disposed, how much more satisfying to call out Bob from Accounting when he finishes off the office coffee without making more for the TWENTY-NINTH TIME?  How much more healing to externalize the conflict, to formally begin and end it?  How much more soothing, if you could look upon the bruises you inflicted and feel not a sneaking guilty pride but a calm satisfaction at an injury well and honestly redressed?  And how much more effective in the long term, if you could sufficiently thrash Bob, not with forced pseudocourteous words but with your WEAPON, so that he bore the memory of your "conversation" in his very neurons, and every time he walked by your cubicle with his empty mug you could smile ever so pleasantly and remind him of the hurting you will lay upon him if he continues to disregard your reasonable requests?

I think this is a far more humane method of conflict resolution.  Some will protest that the strongest will naturally get their way all the time; for one thing, this is already the case, and for another, even a pathetic shrimp such as myself, if sufficiently motivated and trained, can become a force to be reckoned with when given a sword: violence is the equalizer, while civilization gives the advantage not to the physically strong but to the morally unscrupulous.  Finally, would it not increase our fear of violating the rights of another person, our respect for the mystery of their inviolability?

Bah.  I grow excessively misty-eyed over the pleasures of jabbing metal into other people.  Most likely this represents a character flaw on my part, but screw it, we all have our flaws, and it is good to recognize them.  Also, it is good to stab.  Powerfully, unbelievably good.

On this note we segue into the Adorable Dog Breed That Wants To Kill You feature: the Borzoi.  Also known as the Russian Wolfhound, they're delicate, beautiful, a little dopey-looking with their long curvy noses, and frankly almost effete.  Their character is that of an aged spinster aunt: passive-aggressive, nondemonstrative, dignified, quietly loyal.  Which is why I take great pleasure in showing you the two sides of their personality they don't want you to know about:
PUPPIES!!!  Oh gracious, they're so cute.  They just want to chase and chase....

...and chase.  Yeah, Russians use these to kill WOLVES.  Which means most likely they can kill you.   With more beauty, grace, style, and ruthless efficiency than you will ever be able to muster.  Certainly with more than I can muster in the execution of such basic tasks as completing my homework.

Needless to say I badly want one.

With this I leave you, dear readers (all three of you).  Heartsstarshorseshoes.