Writer-phobia

Last night, I went to a reading by one of my favorite authors of all time (and this includes the dead ones). He's someone I wrote part of my dissertation on, someone I teach rather frequently, and someone I have been calling "My (insert ethnicity here) boyfriend" on Facebook in the run-up to his talk. The more that I anticipated seeing him up close and personal, however (and the more that I indulged in fantasies of him picking me out of the crowd and sweeping me away to his private love nest in New Jersey), the more uneasy I began to feel. What if he proved, in person, to be so much more disappointing than the man-myth I'd built him up to be?

I think this fear is based on at least two crushing experiences I've had with living artists. The first, and less devastating, was hearing a Fresh Air interview with a pre-Hulk Edward Norton. Remember when people thought EN was going to be the next DeNiro? He was writing, directing, dating strong (semi-crazy) women like Salma Hayek and Courtney Love. All of this worked to build up the closest thing I'd had to an actor crush since Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank ("my psych profile fit a certain...moral flexibility"). In the interview, he talks intelligently about working in Fight Club, about being related to one of the first American city planners. So everything is well and good until Terry asks EN what his favorite book is. Wait for it. Catcher in the Rye. CATCHER IN THE RYE? What are you, sixteen?! (Look, I've got no beef with CitR, but I don't think you can be an adult and claim it as your favorite book. If you have to go Salinger, than at the very least go with Franny and Zooey. Better yet, don't go with Salinger at all. And CERTAINLY, Big Ed, don't start talking about your affinity with Holden Caufield.)

Game over.

Later, I had the opportunity to hear a famous lyrical novelist read his work and answer questions. Loved him. Wanted to have his babies. Hot Sri Lankan man who had a way with words and a deep baritone voice? Sign me up! During the Q&A, being the nerdy little graduate student that I am, I asked him about a pet theory of mine: that his first novel, an invented biography of a jazz legend, was in fact structured like jazz music---seemingly improvisational, variations on a central melody, etc. The answer? "I'm a poet and it was my first novel. I just couldn't hold the structure together."

I hate everyone, and particularly authors who are incapable of judging their own works.

I spent the entirety of the Q&A last night waiting for My (insert ethnicity here) boyfriend to tell some inane or horrifying anecdote about his process, or his reading list, or his unselfconsciousness of his own work. Thankfully, none came. He was articulate and charming, and lovely; neither solipsistic nor incapable of self-questioning. Whew. The crowd was small, and I could have easily waited in the short line to talk with him and get a book signed. I dallied for a minute considering the option, but headed to my car instead. I was too afraid to ruin it.

It occurs to me that I really should stop working on living writers, if I have to live in fear that their work is so much less impressive than they are as people. Is it unfair to ask artists to be as smart in person as they are on the page or screen? Would I be willing to hold myself to this same standard?

As Close to the Classics as I'm Gonna Get

All the kool kids (like Medusa) are doin' it:

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the kfluff
They kill us for their sport.

Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from?

Get your own quotes:

I could write something of substance, but Project Runway is on, bee-yotches. Catch you on the flip side.

Easily Distracted

Yup, that's me. Easily distracted. Yup. Sure enough. What's that over there? Something shiny! I should go see what it is! Wait, but I could be cleaning the bathroom/putting down storm windows/grocery shopping/grading grading grading/reading for class/grading/writing an abstract... You get the point, I'm sure.

It is the time of the semester (hell, it's PAST time) for me to buckle down and do some work. All the time. To clear the plate well in advance of the next boatload of tasks coming in. As in, finish this set of papers because the next set comes in tomorrow. As in, if you want to write that abstract, you should spend the weekend reading and grading.

I'm on a new kick: I'm trying to spend less time punishing myself. I know, I know, it's crazy. I could probably use some punishment. And if any of you know a dominatrix that works on the cheap, send her name my way. Until then, I've come to the conclusion that refusing to let myself do anything over the weekend until I do work (and I do mean anything: go to the gym, read for pleasure, shower) just results in a weekend of sitting around the house avoiding work, but living under its shadow. I woke up on Friday and spent the the morning having a increasingly heated and histrionic argument with one of my colleagues. In my head, of course. But there was no way that I was going to do work at that point. In keeping with the "no punishment" rule, I went to Target. On Saturday, when it still felt like the entire weekend was in front of me, I went to the gym and then out for a bento box with Senor Fluff. And then it was the run-up to Torchwood, for God's sake! On Sunday, I had that "oh good Christ, I've wasted the entire weekend" feeling, and made a decision: if I ever want to be a real academic, I've got to spend time doing research. So I went to the grocery store (huh), and then spent the rest of the evening reading a book, grading two grossly-overdue student presentations, and looking at the collection of primary texts that I'm working with.

Oh, and I made this for dinner. And it was heavenly.

I don't know what any of this means. Part of my brain despairs; is it the case that I'm simply incapable of doing work? That I'm turning into one of those professors that never returns student works AND never researches (and the million dollar question: what do those people do with all of their time?!!)? Am I doomed to that fate? Another part of me thinks that I'm in some sort of gestative state---something's working its way to the surface and this is all a part of the process.

Either way, I've set myself up yet another week of anxious and exhausting teaching/grading/writing. But at least this time, I left the house.

Taking a Walk on the Wild Side

Oh, what the interweb gives us for procrastination! Below, me getting down with my wild self. Courtesy of Lina.


Perhaps the tongue AND the ears were a bit much?

I'm (almost) Baa-aack!

Tap, tap...is this thing still on?

Sorry for the radio silence, y'all. [In my fantasies, you've all been faint with worry about my disappearance from the blogosphere. In reality, you're now trying to remind yourselves when you put this feed in your Bloglines account, right?]

I'm leaving the 'rents' house in homestate today, so I'll be back in Urbania tomorrow, and prepared to give a full accounting. Try to contain your excitement. What's on the list of topics?

• Weekend meeting with alums and writers contributing to collection. Angsty!
• Nostalgia for home and region. Sappy!
• How lingerie sales vary from place to place. East Coast/West Coast smackdown!
• Acquired self-knowledge about group dynamics and writing process. Navel gazing!
• Fall fashion strategy. Insider tips!
• One more wedding anniversary. Awwwww!
  

I think that should do it for awhile. Feel free to let me know what you'd like to hear first. Assuming that you're not coming to this blog looking for Harry Potter spoilers. Although my mother, through her library mob contacts, has filched a copy right out from under the 7,000 youngsters on the waiting list. These retired schoolteachers: sadists, all of them.

Til tomorrow!