11.20.09
Do you remember Umbro shorts? Were any of you part of those 90s? I was. I had a few pairs of Umbros, but my favorites were the black ones with the white stripes. Not-so-much the Adidas stripe, but the classic Umbro stripe: not too short, maybe 1 or 2 inches above the knee, and we wore them with whatever cool t-shirts and tennis shoes we had. But it was the Umbro shorts that made the statement; I’m not quite sure what statement exactly, but we were saying something, damn it! We did, however choose to put the Umbros away when the weather grew chilly so we could sport some other fashion feast, and I’m not seeing those same trends here in Athens, Georgia as our fall slowly creeps toward “winter.”
Oh, but it’s not the classic Umbros I bring to your attention today, friends. I mean, please. During this modern era and in this hip college town, the fashionistas are sporting a new exercise short as the iconic college campus supplement to one’s wardrobe. I’m generalizing here, but I believe the new hipster short belongs to Nike, the “Nike Tempo Track Women’s Running Short.” If you have not seen them, they are….well….Umbros. Just shorter. Now don’t get me wrong—I have a pair of these shorts which I bought (on sale) about 3 years ago at the largest (and only) outdoor sports store in town, and they are extremely comfortable. When I’m exercising. They breathe well, they are light, they come in a plethora of colors, and I have seen almost every color available on our campus since school began back in August.
The Nike short, shorts have been complementing t-shirts, tank-tops, tube-tops, sweatshirts, long sleeve tees; and more recently, as the weather has become a bit nippier, the shorts were sported with a really nice Cashmere sweater and (get ready) pearls. I know writers are supposed to exaggerate sometimes to make the story more intriguing, but I bring no fabrication with these words, people. I have seen all types of bodies advertising for Nike too, so these shorts do not discriminate, that’s for sure! I’m not sure how this fad began and who thought it might look good…maybe the same girl who started wearing rubber rain boots with the Nike short, shorts when the clouds came rollin’ in during the months of September and October. She was probably the one who decided Uggs were out and galoshes were in. So yes, the fashionistas went from the simple Nike short, shorts and decorated tops with appropriate jewels, to the Nike short, shorts with various and sundry galoshes.
Striped galoshes, plaid galoshes, polka dotted galoshes, green, pink, red, blue, yellow, purple, orange, they’re all represented. If you can imagine it, they are wearing them. But only when it’s cloudy or raining. Or maybe if there is a chance of rain—then they’ll have to wear them, right? You’re damned skippy that those galoshes match those Nike short, shorts. Perfectly. And those tanned and toned little legs (or not-so-tanned and toned) are covered with chill bumps, goose pimples, whatever you’d like to call it when it’s 50-60 degrees Fahrenheit and little girls are running around in paper-thin short, shorts and J-Crew or Gap (not Shoe Barn or Shoe Circus, mind you, because they have rather large signs in their windows reading, “WE DO NOT HAVE RAIN BOOTS HERE”). At least winter is around the corner. The Uggs are indeed coming back out now and I’m starting to think they look pretty good with the Nike short, shorts.
Yes, yes, they are wearing other things; it’s not all Nike and galoshes—that’s just during the school week for class! This season’s football divas retired the “that’s so last year” polka dotted and 80s dresses with plastic belts and instead spent papa’s money on these just-barely pieces of material that were supposed to represent dresses—some with really thick eighties-esque leather belts instead of plastic—and others that were just….well, pieces of material covering about 4 feet of those bodies running around town with those adorable cowboy boots. We did go to one football game this year, so I got to see a lot of those cowboy boots and just-barely-dresses holding each other up and rubbing each other’s hair professing their undying love for and friendship to each other as their dates proudly poured them one more bourbon and coke. (Diet). Oh, the golden days…
Me? I lost my cowboy boots about 10 years ago. And unfortunately my dresses are all at the cleaners, so I had to make sure my fiancé was OK with me wearing jeans and a fleece. Fiancé, yes, for those of you who haven’t heard, I got engaged! It’s a very exciting time for Thomas and me, as we will be uniting our love symbolically in front of a few family and friends next October in Panama City (I know I sound facetious—and if you picked up on that, you were spot-on, but I really am thrilled and can’t even begin to describe how perfect my partner is for me!) Phoebe Day will be my maid of honor and the ring bearer as well, and Thommy will be training her for the next few months so she can behave appropriately at the church. OK, not really. But I am getting married, so that’s pretty cool. Who woulda thunk it?
As for PhDness. What can I say? In these past 3 and ½ years, I have completed my course work, written and defended my comprehensive exams, written and defended my prospectus (research proposal), taught a few classes, supervised some future middle school teachers, had a real anxiety attack, been so dramatic one might think I was going for an Oscar, cried so much my tear ducts ran dry, laughed so hard my cheeks got stuck, and wanted to quit this freaking PhDness to bartend more than not. And now I am about to begin collecting data for my dissertation study during the spring semester. I can’t believe it. I thought bartending was SUCH a better option so many times, and now I’m beginning to think I can actually do this. (And if you ever want to jump into PhDness, I recommend getting yourself a Thommy—I now know what people mean when they say “he’s my rock.” I always thought they were referencing hard-headed/stubborn partners…..those damned idioms we use in the English language….)
My dissertation topic is the phenomenon of bodily enoughness. (That’s what I’ve named it). So I’ll be working with 7 seventh grade girls with whom I did a young writers workshop this fall because I missed teaching writing, and I’ll be following them around, kind of stalking them, asking them to write, talk, take photos of, moments when they feel like they “are enough” in, with, and through their bodies and other moments when they feel like they are “not enough” in, with, and through their bodies. And the spaces in between. Kinda interesting, huh?
It’s pretty amazing that I thought I was finished with all of the “body work” I started doing as a teacher in Colorado with the 7th and 8th grade girls, but it keeps coming up with middle school girls—and other women I hang around, and me---so it turns out to be a great topic to research. My study is going to focus more specifically on girls of color (African American and Latina) because they are not represented in educational literature in a very positive light. My hopes are to look at the intersections of how some girls (but not all girls) talk about bodies through race/ethnicity, social class, gender, religion, ability/disability, popular culture, peers, family, etc. as I gather my data during the next semester and stalk them for 5 months. Then I’ll write some cool book and use them as the fictional characters or something fun like that!
Sorry it’s been so long. I’ve had some of this essay in my head since September when the shorts and galoshes came out, but I’m just finding a few minutes today to sit down and write. Alas, I have to go get my theater seats for New Moon. I would have seen it last night at midnight, but damn that’s late!
I hope all of you are well and would love to hear from any of you who are up for writing!
HEH
Friday, November 20, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Marching Ants Lead Me to New Initiatives
As I was hiking up my skirt to hoist a leg over the rail and lean far enough over to pull out the screen of my townhouse’s front window, I took a moment to look around and see if anyone was watching, realized that indeed, 2 people were observing curiously (but not asking if I needed any help), and then suggested to myself that I might need to take a few days and rest. I’m not sure if you are familiar with the “comps” process (comprehensive exams) in PhDness, but before I endured it, I had only a limited grasp in my head. Yes, there are comprehensive exams for master’s degrees and I will not take away from the difficulty of that process—it’s stressful for sure! And in PhDness, there are several ways in which one can ‘take on’ comprehensive exams; so many, in fact, that they go beyond the scope of this essay (that’s a new, famous line I use in papers I write these days….good excuse to say, ‘yeah, I know there’s more…just not going to write about it).
Let me just say that my own comps process was…a learning experience? A life-changing experience? A melodramatic experience? Three written questions in the form of 25 page papers and four months of brain-draining (wonderful?)hell that brought me to tears, anxiety attacks in an MRI machine, picking apart my boyfriend’s whole being on any given day, and of course, several moments of “Why Have You Forsaken Me’s!” with the universe. And now it’s over. And it’s as if it never even happened. Well, that’s not entirely true…hence the hiking of the skirt incident mentioned above due to locking my keys inside my house, the remnants of the anxiety attack lingering here and there on any given day when I don’t like what I’m hearing on NPR, and my new attitude of, “Oh, I’ll just start working tomorrow; it’s summer. Today I’ll go to the pool and….read to prepare for my work tomorrow, yes, that’s it.”
Yet, as I try to pretend I’m not working for PhDness, my brain obviously doesn’t see it this way as the experience of comps still lingers and overlaps with the future of writing my prospectus (research proposal for dissertation topic), continuing to siphon all of the intellectual juice out of me. All of this suckage, of course, leaving room only for my absolute and unqualified initiative to kill every single ant in Athens, GA. But more on that later. For now, let me recap a few incidents from the past few weeks that I contribute to comps sucking the life out of me:
• Void #1
Totally convinced I lost my wallet while trying to leave the house, keeping me trapped there for an hour retracing every single step I had taken that day, and knowing I had used the wallet twice in my AM journey; only to finally give up, accept that it had fallen out at a gas station and some lucky jerk was spending the fifty bucks frivolously, and upon opening a random pocket in my computer bag found it lying there smiling up at me. How had it ended up in my computer bag, I asked my boyfriend later on the phone. “Oh, you had your computer when we left this morning, remember? You were going to go to Joe’s and do some work after you dropped me off.” Huh? That was me? What kind of work? Who’s Joe?
• Void #2
During that same time period at the house: I wasn’t only looking for my wallet, I was also looking for my phone, which I had just been talking to my boyfriend on, as acknowledged in the statement above. Couldn’t get online to tell anyone to call me so I could hear my phone because no one I IM with (Yahoo instant message…c’mon, people, get with the times) was online, because they were already at the location where we were all supposed to be meeting (the outdoor UGA pool to “swim laps”); sooooo I just kept walking around talking to myself, asking me where I would have put my phone, and responding to myself that I had no idea because I had just used it 30 minutes before. Checked all of the random places one would NEVER put the phone—the plants, the fireplace, the mailbox…I’m serious. It could have been there. The pool bag? Yep. It was there waiting for me, just where I had apparently packed it.
• Void #3
Same day after finding lost articles: arrived at pool. Looked over at the pool bag while chatting it up on the phone; turned off car, put keys in pool bag; grabbed school bag full of books (not pool bag); looked over to the pool bag and decided I’d walk around to get it out of other door due to bad back—can’t lean over and grab things—shut door, locked it, stood and stared at locked car with keys inside pool bag. Inside car. As small favors had been coming my way already that day, I had also cracked windows about an inch because of this horrid Athens (GA not Greece, Loretta) heat. So I grabbed a nearby stick and broke in to my car. Observers? Yes. But they can mind their own damned business…me, myself, and I are very busy over here trying to get through this day and we have had it with people staring!
• Void #4
Next day (not changing events taking place in time to make story more interesting…really was very next day): went on walk with house key in short’s pocket; returned home to shower and go do some work elsewhere; left with car keys. House key? Still in shorts pocket back at house. Thus bringing me to the hiking up of the skirt section at beginning of essay.
And just two days after while I was driving to the coffee shop to meet a friend to do (well, nothing) work, I got to the stop sign and had no idea where I was going. I reached down for my phone to call anyone to make fun of myself, and of course realized that again, with the best intentions, meant to bring my phone, but obviously left it in the plastic and guarded brain container back at the house. Or maybe the cat borrowed it?
This is just the beginning, folks. If you add the full-fledged panic attack I had while in the “open” MRI machine (but it was not really open, but they said on the phone when I asked them if it was really open because I might be a little claustrophobic that of course it was an open MRI because they had the latest technology and this was 2009 and they were one of the only open MRI labs in town and was I stupid or something?) two days before my last comp was due, to which I had NO IDEA what was happening because I’ve never had any kind of “attack” caused by anxiety, therefore, did not know the symptoms (rapid heart-beat…more like about to bust out of chest, heavy sweats, huge waves of nausea rushing over me like tidal waves…pretty sure death had arrived to take me but not sure why because we’ve chatted and I told him I have a few more things to do) and the MRI technician apparently thought it was funny to put me in that machine and leave the room for a snack. When he got back, he must have seen my feet flailing around like I was having convulsions, but he did not hear me, of course, because the intercom system in the high-tech machine was “broken” at this fine establishment that my limited and shitty health care provider told me to go to.
I think they hired the MRI tech, too, because that dude pulled me out of the machine, said, “Are you going to be able to do this? Because if not, I’ll need to get you some meds.” While I’m pale and pasty, dry-mouthed, and contemplating what I still needed to do in life (maybe get married, have a baby, go to New Zealand, write a young adolescent novel…you know, important stuff), and I’m still not understanding that I’m having a panic attack because he forgot to mention that….
Needless to say, the next day back with my doctor (I had already emailed her an extremely long and detailed letter the night I got home lamenting my intense displeasure that the MRI tech had obviously turned the machine up too high and was trying to fry my organs and kill me), she looks at me and says, “Um, MRI machines are magnetic; they can’t fry your organs. You had a panic attack. You know, sometimes people’s outside stress can manifest inside the MRI machine and cause panic attacks. Do you have any external stress right now?”
I chuckled. “A little.” I said. “Just a little.”
So here I am now and despite the crazy new void in my brain, my life is wonderful! Comps process, both written and oral defense, successfully completed. Only cried once during the 2 hour oral defense. Where my major professor jumped in, reminded me of some wonderful things, and then another professor on my committee reminded the other committee members that they obviously didn’t know me that well yet, because I was “pretty dramatic,” pulled it together, and moved on to verbalizing all of my newly learned information from the previous 4 months. Started physical therapy for my lower back and hips; will soon begin mental therapy for my panic attack (ok, so not really…but shouldn’t that go here?); and will enjoy my new roommate—Thomas Bryant Decatur! Prospectus needs to be written sometime this summer. But I’ve been too busy. Don’t have time to write my research proposal. Why?
Killing ants.
They have moved in to 116 Tamara Ct. and taken over. The ladybugs ain’t got nothin’ on these little bitches! They came around about the time I began my second comp and started their attack in the kitchen. They visited last year about this time, so I bought some do-it-yourself ant killer and they went away. This year, not so much. Do you know the Broadway musical, Les Miserables? There is this song where all of the people are singing loudly and it’s such a great song—“Do you hear the people sing” I think it’s called. That’s the song that the ants have taken up and they sing it every other week as they return in droves outside my front door. I spray and spray and they go away….then it rains…..then in a few days Phoebe and I go outside to chill in the morning….and there they are…..millions of them marching in a perfect line on 2 different steps. But these days, they seem to be all carrying something.
And singing.
“Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men.
It is the music of the people
who will not be slaves again.
When the beating of your heart
echoes the beating of the drums,
there is a life about to start
when tomorrow comes.
Will you give all you can give
so that our banner may advance?
Some will fall and some will live….”
Well, you get the drift. And believe you, me, most of those little warriors have fallen. But there have been a few that keep showing up in the kitchen…and then they fall too…
So that’s that. Resting the brain. Killing ants. Learning how to share space with my new roommate whom I love dearly (but who is a man, so I’m finding a whole new list of topics about which to write—bathroom habits, kitchen habits, Facebook habits…stuff like that). And preparing to write my prospectus each day I awake. And then preparing again the next day, due to the lack of writing that day. Two more years. Two more years. ONLY two more years! Wooohoooo. HEH
Let me just say that my own comps process was…a learning experience? A life-changing experience? A melodramatic experience? Three written questions in the form of 25 page papers and four months of brain-draining (wonderful?)hell that brought me to tears, anxiety attacks in an MRI machine, picking apart my boyfriend’s whole being on any given day, and of course, several moments of “Why Have You Forsaken Me’s!” with the universe. And now it’s over. And it’s as if it never even happened. Well, that’s not entirely true…hence the hiking of the skirt incident mentioned above due to locking my keys inside my house, the remnants of the anxiety attack lingering here and there on any given day when I don’t like what I’m hearing on NPR, and my new attitude of, “Oh, I’ll just start working tomorrow; it’s summer. Today I’ll go to the pool and….read to prepare for my work tomorrow, yes, that’s it.”
Yet, as I try to pretend I’m not working for PhDness, my brain obviously doesn’t see it this way as the experience of comps still lingers and overlaps with the future of writing my prospectus (research proposal for dissertation topic), continuing to siphon all of the intellectual juice out of me. All of this suckage, of course, leaving room only for my absolute and unqualified initiative to kill every single ant in Athens, GA. But more on that later. For now, let me recap a few incidents from the past few weeks that I contribute to comps sucking the life out of me:
• Void #1
Totally convinced I lost my wallet while trying to leave the house, keeping me trapped there for an hour retracing every single step I had taken that day, and knowing I had used the wallet twice in my AM journey; only to finally give up, accept that it had fallen out at a gas station and some lucky jerk was spending the fifty bucks frivolously, and upon opening a random pocket in my computer bag found it lying there smiling up at me. How had it ended up in my computer bag, I asked my boyfriend later on the phone. “Oh, you had your computer when we left this morning, remember? You were going to go to Joe’s and do some work after you dropped me off.” Huh? That was me? What kind of work? Who’s Joe?
• Void #2
During that same time period at the house: I wasn’t only looking for my wallet, I was also looking for my phone, which I had just been talking to my boyfriend on, as acknowledged in the statement above. Couldn’t get online to tell anyone to call me so I could hear my phone because no one I IM with (Yahoo instant message…c’mon, people, get with the times) was online, because they were already at the location where we were all supposed to be meeting (the outdoor UGA pool to “swim laps”); sooooo I just kept walking around talking to myself, asking me where I would have put my phone, and responding to myself that I had no idea because I had just used it 30 minutes before. Checked all of the random places one would NEVER put the phone—the plants, the fireplace, the mailbox…I’m serious. It could have been there. The pool bag? Yep. It was there waiting for me, just where I had apparently packed it.
• Void #3
Same day after finding lost articles: arrived at pool. Looked over at the pool bag while chatting it up on the phone; turned off car, put keys in pool bag; grabbed school bag full of books (not pool bag); looked over to the pool bag and decided I’d walk around to get it out of other door due to bad back—can’t lean over and grab things—shut door, locked it, stood and stared at locked car with keys inside pool bag. Inside car. As small favors had been coming my way already that day, I had also cracked windows about an inch because of this horrid Athens (GA not Greece, Loretta) heat. So I grabbed a nearby stick and broke in to my car. Observers? Yes. But they can mind their own damned business…me, myself, and I are very busy over here trying to get through this day and we have had it with people staring!
• Void #4
Next day (not changing events taking place in time to make story more interesting…really was very next day): went on walk with house key in short’s pocket; returned home to shower and go do some work elsewhere; left with car keys. House key? Still in shorts pocket back at house. Thus bringing me to the hiking up of the skirt section at beginning of essay.
And just two days after while I was driving to the coffee shop to meet a friend to do (well, nothing) work, I got to the stop sign and had no idea where I was going. I reached down for my phone to call anyone to make fun of myself, and of course realized that again, with the best intentions, meant to bring my phone, but obviously left it in the plastic and guarded brain container back at the house. Or maybe the cat borrowed it?
This is just the beginning, folks. If you add the full-fledged panic attack I had while in the “open” MRI machine (but it was not really open, but they said on the phone when I asked them if it was really open because I might be a little claustrophobic that of course it was an open MRI because they had the latest technology and this was 2009 and they were one of the only open MRI labs in town and was I stupid or something?) two days before my last comp was due, to which I had NO IDEA what was happening because I’ve never had any kind of “attack” caused by anxiety, therefore, did not know the symptoms (rapid heart-beat…more like about to bust out of chest, heavy sweats, huge waves of nausea rushing over me like tidal waves…pretty sure death had arrived to take me but not sure why because we’ve chatted and I told him I have a few more things to do) and the MRI technician apparently thought it was funny to put me in that machine and leave the room for a snack. When he got back, he must have seen my feet flailing around like I was having convulsions, but he did not hear me, of course, because the intercom system in the high-tech machine was “broken” at this fine establishment that my limited and shitty health care provider told me to go to.
I think they hired the MRI tech, too, because that dude pulled me out of the machine, said, “Are you going to be able to do this? Because if not, I’ll need to get you some meds.” While I’m pale and pasty, dry-mouthed, and contemplating what I still needed to do in life (maybe get married, have a baby, go to New Zealand, write a young adolescent novel…you know, important stuff), and I’m still not understanding that I’m having a panic attack because he forgot to mention that….
Needless to say, the next day back with my doctor (I had already emailed her an extremely long and detailed letter the night I got home lamenting my intense displeasure that the MRI tech had obviously turned the machine up too high and was trying to fry my organs and kill me), she looks at me and says, “Um, MRI machines are magnetic; they can’t fry your organs. You had a panic attack. You know, sometimes people’s outside stress can manifest inside the MRI machine and cause panic attacks. Do you have any external stress right now?”
I chuckled. “A little.” I said. “Just a little.”
So here I am now and despite the crazy new void in my brain, my life is wonderful! Comps process, both written and oral defense, successfully completed. Only cried once during the 2 hour oral defense. Where my major professor jumped in, reminded me of some wonderful things, and then another professor on my committee reminded the other committee members that they obviously didn’t know me that well yet, because I was “pretty dramatic,” pulled it together, and moved on to verbalizing all of my newly learned information from the previous 4 months. Started physical therapy for my lower back and hips; will soon begin mental therapy for my panic attack (ok, so not really…but shouldn’t that go here?); and will enjoy my new roommate—Thomas Bryant Decatur! Prospectus needs to be written sometime this summer. But I’ve been too busy. Don’t have time to write my research proposal. Why?
Killing ants.
They have moved in to 116 Tamara Ct. and taken over. The ladybugs ain’t got nothin’ on these little bitches! They came around about the time I began my second comp and started their attack in the kitchen. They visited last year about this time, so I bought some do-it-yourself ant killer and they went away. This year, not so much. Do you know the Broadway musical, Les Miserables? There is this song where all of the people are singing loudly and it’s such a great song—“Do you hear the people sing” I think it’s called. That’s the song that the ants have taken up and they sing it every other week as they return in droves outside my front door. I spray and spray and they go away….then it rains…..then in a few days Phoebe and I go outside to chill in the morning….and there they are…..millions of them marching in a perfect line on 2 different steps. But these days, they seem to be all carrying something.
And singing.
“Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men.
It is the music of the people
who will not be slaves again.
When the beating of your heart
echoes the beating of the drums,
there is a life about to start
when tomorrow comes.
Will you give all you can give
so that our banner may advance?
Some will fall and some will live….”
Well, you get the drift. And believe you, me, most of those little warriors have fallen. But there have been a few that keep showing up in the kitchen…and then they fall too…
So that’s that. Resting the brain. Killing ants. Learning how to share space with my new roommate whom I love dearly (but who is a man, so I’m finding a whole new list of topics about which to write—bathroom habits, kitchen habits, Facebook habits…stuff like that). And preparing to write my prospectus each day I awake. And then preparing again the next day, due to the lack of writing that day. Two more years. Two more years. ONLY two more years! Wooohoooo. HEH
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