20181110.0430

Today is my father's birthday, one of the many November birthdays in my family and my circle of friends. I've noted the event before (here, here, here, here, here, and here), and, without reviewing all of the more than 2000 posts I've made to this webspace in detail, I do think it is one of the more repeated topics herein. But that is not a bad thing, to be sure; my father worked hard to make sure that his kids had a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, food in their bellies, and support for themselves and their endeavors--even though at least one of them has been a vexation to him for three dozen years, now. It's the kind of thing that deserves commemoration and acknowledgment, the more so because it does not happen as often as it ought--even though it has for him and his.
As I write this, he is recovering from another knee surgery. The recovery is going well; he has a great deal of range of motion in the joint, and while there is still pain, it is manageable--and not just because he refuses to acknowledge it publicly (though he does tend not to let people know who do not already know). Already, he is waking with only the aid of a cane, and doing pretty well at that; it shouldn't be too long before he is able to go without the cane most of the time. He is getting older, though, so it's not too likely he'll be putting the cane too far away once his knee has more or less fully recovered. I know better than to think he'll throw it away as long as there is any semblance of use left in it; it's not quite in him to do so, as I know from a lifetime of experience with the man.
It may read a bit strangely from me, the phrase "a lifetime of experience with the man." Certainly, there are some people who have known my father longer than I have. His mother, for example, and mine. His sister and her husband. Friends of his from his youth--now just a bit farther away--who remain in touch with him through social media. (There are few such, which is less strange than it might be, given the regions involved.) But in nearly all of those cases, those who have known him longer than I have also not known him; only his sister is an exception to that. But she does not know him as I do; I have no doubt that he is a good brother--and probably a better elder brother than I have been--but I have every expectation that he is better as a father despite being in less practice with it (and brothering not being nearly so demanding as being a dad).
All such is to say that I remain grateful for having had my father in my life, and I am grateful that I continue to have him for a while longer.

20181109.0430

As I write this, I've finished the first round of grading I get to do in the present teaching session. I am working to remind myself that it is an issue of "get to do" rather than "have to do." Teaching is a side-job for me, one I ply to make extra money--not because I have to have it to make a living or because I am in a position to be able to make a living at it. I have long since lost that possibility, although adjusting my mind to that loss and getting it right in my heart is taking far longer. It is, in effect, a luxury, albeit a strange one; it allows me to indulge habits developed through more than a decade and to accrue some direct benefit to myself through doing so.
Were I able to do this and only this, reliably from session to session and year to year, I might do so. Were I able to do it at the rates I currently do, consistently across terms, I probably would. But I know from long experience and from watching many, many others that I cannot count on continued work in this line of endeavor. I cannot be sure I'll have a job every eight or sixteen weeks, and I am not in a position where I can stake myself on that risk. The reward was never enough to justify it, really; I had simply convinced myself that it was as a way to help myself feel better about such privations as I experienced--and as I asked my loved ones to endure.
So it is that I keep teaching part-time, that I am allowed the chance to put to their direct use those skills I developed in the pursuit of being a knowledge-worker and proselytizer of the secular soul of spoken and written English. I know that I may not be offered the opportunity in the next cycle--indeed, I may never be offered it again. Yet for all the complaints I have about the matter, some of which have some substantiation to them, I tend to enjoy the work more than I lament it. Some of the students seem actually to open up to my view, and I appreciate the trust they place in me. Others introduce me to ideas I've not seen; they have them, I know, but they do not always share them, and I value those who do.
Some still show me the light of knowledge and understanding brightening within them, which vision is a dear thing to me. It is a thing I get to see in my beloved Ms. 8, and I love it in her, but I have seen it longer among the students in my classroom. It is a warm and comforting light, something I crave again and again. And so I work to be grateful to have the opportunity to have it shine upon me once more--and to get paid to kindle and bask in it.

20181108.0430

I've not made anything resembling a secret of playing role-playing games. I started doing so not long after I started my undergraduate program, and I've continued in the hobby with more and less intensity since. Sometimes, it's been weekly evening meetings with several outside readings. Sometimes, it's been asynchronous online interactions. Sometimes, it's been synchronous and distributed across the world--or at least across what gets called the Western world, problematic as that term and its associations are. And in the latter two capacities, it's been on my mind as I've started another session of teaching a couple of classes, online and in a nearby city.
In the online class, the commonplace topic of social media has come up again--which I expected. Similarly, I expected the reaction I see from many of the students in the class, the assertion that "social media is making children worse at talking to each other." (Somehow, it's always kids that bear the brunt of the opprobrium, not those who afford them access to social media--and who are themselves often on it.) There are some who are making the case that social media does more to foster understanding than to diminish social skills--as if social skills were so common as all that in the first place--and one made the comment that gaming online has served as a connection to others, which surprised me. It has been my experience, certainly, but I do not often see students make the assertion. It warmed my cockles. I'm sure I'm going to hear about it later, though.
The on-site class brought it up differently. For it, as for the version of the online class I taught previously, I am drafting samples of the required assignments. (I'm using previous samples for the current online class. The assignments are the same, so the samples should still be good.) For the first couple of those, beginning here, I opted to write about a recent RPG experience. During class, I showed the first sample to my students; several expressed surprise that such a thing could be done, and they asked after the subject of the work. It was flattering to find my interests of interest, and it was useful to be reminded that my students come to me with preconceived notions of academic writing as being removed from life and joy.
It is a thing I remember knowing, and from experience; I remember being amazed that scholars could write scholarly work about comic books and video games and cartoons that I had watched. I remember being amazed again that scholars before me had written of RPGs already (Gary Alan Fine comes to mind). I remember being amazed yet again that bullshit studies--excuse me, taurascatology--is a thing. I should not be surprised that those less immured in The Work than I have had cause to be are as surprised now as I was on those several thens; I should instead celebrate that they have wonder yet and that I have helped them to find it, as I often have, through rolling dice and telling lies.

20181107.0430

In many ways, I am a failure. Time and again, I have set a goal for myself and have not achieved it. I started my undergraduate studies in an attempt to become a band director; after my second year of college, I changed my major, having not succeeded in my stated goal. When I changed majors, I did so with the intention of teaching high school English; when I applied to do that work, I was rejected from it. When I went to graduate school, I did so with the thought that I would become a professor; I may carry a title with the work "professor" in it at present, but I know and the institution that employs me in that capacity know that it is a courtesy only, that I am a temp worker kept on in eight-week bursts that could end at any time. And while my current full-time job is one that does good work and helps people who need it, and it treats me reasonably well, it is difficult to look at it against my credentials and earlier career goals and not see it as a failure.
For all of that, though, I am in a good place. Again, my current job is a reasonably good one, and if it necessarily imposes some humility upon me, that is likely to my benefit; those who knew me when I was much younger than I am now (insofar as there is a "much" younger) know that I was a cocky little ass. Too, I am still able to do the kind of work I was trained to do, though I am not dependent upon it or upon the notoriously tight and capricious academic labor market to support myself and my family. I have my family, both in my home and in my life; I do not have to give them up to do the work that I am still very much called to do. I do not have to be away from the people I love, whether from being on the road or from being so buried in what I do that I cannot exhume myself for their benefit. And I am in a place that, with all its faults (and the Texas Hill Country does have problems, to be sure), is one with which I am familiar and one in which I and my family can flourish.
It helps me to remind myself of such things every so often. I often find myself dwelling on the materials in the first paragraph despite being surrounded by those of the second, and such dwelling is not a comfortable place to live. Nor is it uncomfortable in the useful way that spurs action and improvement, but is instead the kind of uncomfortable that prompts a recourse into lethargy and the concomitant self-rebuke for doing nothing to make things better. Taking the time to think about the second does not make the problems of the world go away for me or for anybody else, of course, but it is helpful for me to remember what is good in my life and what gives me reasons not to answer the bean sidhe's call.

20181106.0430

In the United States, today is Election Day, something about which I've written before (here, here, here, here, and likely elsewhere that I do not recall at the moment). For those who are eligible and able and have not done so yet: vote. (I took care of my voting early; an early voting site is near my workplace, and I don't usually take an hour to eat my food.)
Given where I am and what my predilections are, I typically vote with little hope, and more against people than for them. I acknowledge that they may not be healthy attitudes, being convinced that my vote will not much or at all matter and that nobody actually deserves my endorsement even if a fair number deserve my condemnation. But they are what I have to spur me on in such dismal matters, and they did, at least, serve to spur me this time, as has not always been the case. I am given to understand that I am not alone, either, and that is held by many to be a good thing.
Of course, such holding presupposes that the aggregate will make the right decision, and that is fallacious. Ad populum has long been recognized as an error of reasoning; that many people do a thing does not mean it is a thing that ought to be done. (And I know that "ought" is fraught.) I've heard it expressed by my parents no few times, as I am sure many others have: "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you, too?" (I don't remember if I made a smart-ass self-pitying reply like "It's a bad question; since when do I have friends?" But it seems the kind of thing I'd've said at many points in my youth.; I was a little shit, as I've often observed.) But elections work from the premise that the group will decide well.
I know, too, that "well" is a slippery term. Like most, I count as good that which conduces to my benefit and the benefit of those about whom I care. My background and experience circumscribe the latter substantially, I admit, although I do not think I am even close to alone in that. Ultimately, I know that I am compromised and biased--I have made no secret of it, nor do I do as others do and try to claim I am not when it is clearly untrue--but that does not mean I am not correct. Nor does it mean that I am not immensely frustrated by things going as they too often seem to go--or that I do not look forward to and strive to create a time in which they go otherwise, and better.

20181105.0430

From time to time, I've had trouble with the zipper on the front of my pants. I'm not unique in that, I know; I've seen people wrestle with their flies from time to time, and I'm sure I'm far from alone in having seen people walk around with theirs undone. I've been such a person on occasion before, as I have noted, although I have tried--successfully, for the most part--to avoid being one since. A few days ago, though, I had a problem with the closure of my pants again, although it was not a matter of not having zipped my fly. Instead, it was another problem entirely.
What happened was this: I had gone on my lunch break at my day job, and, after I ate, I made a trip to the bathroom I've noted before. I did there what I needed to do, and, as I went to wash my hands afterwards, I noticed blood on my hands. A quick inspection showed me that I had cut one of my fingers again. It was an annoyance, but not a concern; I have a mild habit of biting my nails, which sometimes leaves my fingers bloody, and I work with paper and staples quite a bit, so I often find my fingers a bit bloody. But this time, I had trouble getting the bleeding to stop, despite my efforts to blot my finger dry, and the stinging that I began to feel seemed different than what I usually get from a fingernail partly torn off or a papercut. And I noticed that the front of my pants was covered in blood.
Evidently, I had caught the side of my finger in my zipper as I had closed back up, and I had not noticed it for long enough to leave rusting splotches across the crotch of my trousers. Given the work I do at my day job, I could have gotten away with doing nothing; I sit at a desk for most of the day, so the forming stains would be hidden from view, but I was set to teach that night, and I was mindful of earlier incidents involving my fly and my classroom. Consequently, I rushed back and forth across my hometown, going back home to change into another pair of pants and getting back to work just before the scheduled end of my lunch hour.
Even now, as I type this, I have the involved finger bandaged. It is a bright orange thing that calls attention to some of the more interesting gestures I have it in me to make, which I am sure will not have any unintended consequences at all over the next few days. It also makes typing just a bit more challenging than I like it to be, or it will for a little while. Over the longer term, though, it means I'll have to be careful about a few other things getting caught between my zipper's teeth than I had already been.

20181104.0430

Today is my birthday, an event I've marked in this webspace before (here and here). I've written in this webspace on several other iterations of my birthday, but I have not always commented on the fact of my birthday. And it might be thought that, having now seen thirty-six of them, I'd not be inclined to mark any more. There's a reason I do, though; there's a story that goes along with it, and I've noted that I will be working on putting out stories that are mine to tell for a while. To that end, I offer what follows.
I am more than passingly familiar with what happened when I was born. It is not because I remember them directly, no. Instead, it's because I've heard the story repeatedly. Year after year, I get a series of phone calls from my mother on my birthday--and I expect a similar set today, honestly--that narrates the events of however many years ago today it was. I've been told about the delay in going to the hospital, both when and why. I've been told what time my mother had her epidural. I've been told how far dilated she was and when. I've been told when the forceps came out and when they went in. And, at 10:44am Central time each year, I pick up my ringing phone to hear the birthday song yodeled at me once again--a comforting, if silly, bit of ritual.
It's not a story, as such, I know, and not even a detailed description of what happens for me most every year on this day. In truth, while I remember the broad strokes of the conversations, and I remember from being told again and again the progress of events, the details of the conversations have run together for me. And I'm not sure how I'd narrate the narration, in any event. I'm told that reading transcripts of conversations often bores people, even many of those who otherwise enjoy reading; I already run close enough to boring people without going where I know I will do so.
What it is, though, is a small glimpse of who I come from. Many of the folks I've known have families that...differ from mine. What we take as regular jokes and idiocultural touchstones might well be regarded as oversharing; I've gotten remarks about too much information when talking about the birthday ritual face-to-face, and from more than one person. My wife has described it as contributing to something of a collective memory, and I do not disagree. Said memory is one that has been a comfort to me both on days such as this and on days when things are going wrong, when I am more than normally aware of my many failures, small and less so. I am glad to have access to it, and it is the kind of thing to which I hope to give my daughter access, even though there are parts of it I no longer recall. But what does remain, though, I am glad to have--even if I get early phone calls one day out of the year.

20181103.0430

One thing that occurred to me to write about while I was in the shower, and which I am pleased that I am able to remember, is myself. Arrogant as it sounds, it also lines up with conventional writerly wisdom--write what you know--and memoirs and testimonials pervade reading and publishers' lists; I've also been thinking about putting together some kind of retrospective for a while (and not only because tomorrow is what it is). It thus makes sense that I would spend a bit of time relating things that have happened to and around me. Some of them might even be entertaining or edifying, although perhaps I stray too far into arrogance for tolerance in making such a claim.
However justified or not it may be for me to tell the stories I have lived and seen, though, I do have at least a few. Some of them, I've already put out into the world, whether by telling them on a stage in front of drunken graduate students or putting them into print in one collection or another. Of some of them, I am not at all proud; in one example, I made a joke that punches down, far too literally. It's been more than a decade since I did it, to be sure, and I was not as I am, but I probably ought to have known better then; I certainly do now. And there are others that expose my faults more directly, though I know I am a fit target for my own work (offering another reason to write about myself).
There are only a few stories in which I take pride because of what I do in them, and most of those are briefer and less detailed than those which give me pause to recount. Having caught a knife--and it was a hell of a catch, certainly--somehow takes less telling than having come to throw one or drop one, even though it is a far better thing to have done. Having given a good performance now and again seems to admit of less discussion than having faltered and failed at one. But I know that my life has been of limited scope; I am not among the mighty. My successes and failures have been small, really, and small successes make for small stories.
Small failures, however, seem to make for decent telling. I suppose it is because stories of them serve to humanize their subjects; we all have our little foibles, and I imagine that they take up more of our thoughts than is good for us. Stories of them might well serve as a way to build common ground and rapport; they speak to commonalities in ways to which many may well relate, and without the hyperbole that abounds in too many places and serves to deaden quickly senses of wonder and perspective. How fortunate it is, then, that I have as many stories of small failures to tell as I do; having common ground seems it would be a good thing.

20181102.0430

One of the things that series of verse allows is the relatively easy establishment of a buffer. The limerick narrative and the hymns against the Stupid God lent themselves to writing in chunks. Once I got going on the limericks, I would put together ten or so at a time and set up one to post on each of the next successive days; at one point, I had thirty days' posts set up ahead of time. The hymnal has not been quite as amenable to prior setup--the sonnets I usually write for it take longer to compose than limericks, as do some of the other verse forms--but I usually had between one and two weeks' worth of posts ready. And while I did sometimes err in how I set them up, for the most part, I was able to write, set, and attend to other things while my buffers ran; it afforded me more time to get things put together.
As most any student can say, it is harder to put together cohesive prose on a schedule. By its nature, prose needs more words than verse, and more words take more time to write. And if it is the case that the words in lines of verse take more careful selection and placement, it is not as if those of prose do not demand attention, themselves. Further, for me, at least, the idea of where to go in prose is far less clear than in verse, almost as if falling back on structure and the kinds of figuration that poetry prizes more than prose lifts me to a better vantage point. That, or I see less far ahead in composing a limerick or a sonnet than in writing something that might be an essay, even as it does not follow the same set of conventions students believe they learn.
I run into another problem as I consider what to write in this webspace. Most of the prose writing I do takes the form either of reports about classroom activities or essays of a reasonably academic nature--conference papers, samples for students, or summaries and responses to the things I read. (And I need to do more reading, I know, far more than I have been.) I generally do decently with such things, and I am happy about that, but something about this webspace still suggests to me that I should follow other paths here. That is, this is not the place for me to wax intellectual about current events or to explicate materials as I used to do. But that I know what I ought not to do here does not mean I know what I ought to do here, and I need the latter more than I need the former.
Obviously, if I am to continue to put words into this webspace, and to do so in a way that does not leave me scrambling at the beginning of each day, adding stress to my life that I do not need, I shall need to give some thought to how I will proceed.

20181101.0430

I've spent a while pushing forward my hymns against the Stupid God, and while there is certainly more to say in despite of such, I find that I am having more and more trouble putting forward those words. Between that and the new month beginning, it seems appropriate to shift topics a bit--and it's been a while since I've made a sustained effort to put into this webspace the lucid prose in its overall title...
In the past, I've followed one or another of the gimmicks that associate themselves with November. No-Shave stands out in my mind as a prime example; looking back on it, I am somewhat embarrassed by my performance, not only on the event itself, but on the rest of what surrounded it. I was far from at my best when living in Oklahoma, and I probably deserve to have lost out on the jobs for which I applied while I was there. I was following gimmicks instead of doing what I ought to have been doing, and I have paid for it. I do not mean to fall into the same error now.
To be sure, I am doing better now than I was then. I'd have to look back over my bank-books to be sure of matters, I admit, but I have the sense that my household brings in more money than it did in the Sooner State (if not nearly so much as in the Empire State). More of our families are closer to us here than there, and, if I am to be honest, I am in a better place professionally than I was. I do still teach, adjuncting over a class or two in most of the sessions at a nearby for-profit college (about which I've made some comments here), but my primary work is no longer that of a scholar. Instead, it is among the directorate of a local non-profit, one in which I work to support others' efforts to help people. I do good in the world, and, at the end of the day, I leave my work behind me and head home. It does not have to intrude upon my family, and I even have time to do some fun things that I'd had to set aside for far too long (about which I've commented here and in other places).
Too, at the moment, I'm in a better mood and a better overall frame of mind. I spent a lot of time trying to find jobs and failing, and the repeated failures did quite a bit to sour me--as might well be expected. I run towards more "negative" states of mind, in any event, and my time in Oklahoma and on the job market afterwards was far from helpful in that. (I am grateful for those who stuck with me while I was amid it. I know I was not easy to be around then. I'm trying to do better.) Having a reasonably solid set of professional circumstances is a great help (though I know it can always change; I'm doing what I can to protect myself and my family against such shifts). I do not think I would have been able to have it in a place where the winds sometimes collide in tight spirals as the ground itself shakes beneath. I am glad to have it here.
So, while I'll not be indulging much in many of the month's associations, I do think I'll be spending some more time putting together prose ruminations like this one--or better ones. I hope they'll be pleasures to read.