Friday, November 30, 2018

20181130.0430

I've made it to a month of mundane entries, of prose and not of verse, with but one hiccup--and that amended. It's not been the achievement of a lifetime, to be sure; I've not written a novel, and probably haven't done much in the way of simple essaying (if it can be called simple; my students might well contest such a description). Still, I am largely pleased with what I have done; I am happy to have reminded myself that I can, in fact, do such a thing, that I am not limited to writing short snippets at a time, but can instead still spend at least a little bit of time finding an idea and expounding upon it--regularly. (The twice-weekly posts on my other blog, of which one has been a sample for class, are not the same kind of thing, buffered or no, as the writing I've been doing here. They're longer, generally, and for different audiences. Too, they're fewer, so the sustained effort is not in place for them as for the pieces in this webspace; even building up a buffer takes a longer exertion than the pieces I draft elsewhere.)
As the new month promises to begin, I am not sure whither I will turn. I could continue to write these bits of prose--whether ravings or repeated dashes of the lucid, I am unsure. Perhaps I ought to, and to do so working from the newspapers that I have bought and continue to receive. Time was, I looked at what was my local paper and responded to it in earnest; perhaps I ought to do so again, engaging more fully in the life of the greater community in which I live. It would be a good thing to do, helping me to understand better the people I'm around and the place where I grew up and where my daughter will be growing up. I've certainly struggled with that understanding enough over the years; having an aid for it should be welcome.
I am not certain that I will do so, at least, not consistently. If I am going to build up a buffer, responding to the news is not necessarily the best way to go about it; the ephermeral, emergent nature of the news is not something that readily admits of planning ahead of time, as buffers require. But not all pieces demand immediate response; many allow more consideration and reflection. And, again, it will be good to have a better handle on the part of the world in which I live and work...

Thursday, November 29, 2018

20181129.0430

One of the tasks allotted to me in my day job is collecting hair samples for drug testing. Normally, I collect from the head, taking enough hair to fill a small soda straw. Not always am I able to do so, however. Sometimes, the clients who come to me don't have enough hair on their heads to offer such a sample, whether by choice or by chance (and more often the latter, alopecia being what it is). On occasion, one will not want to have my gloved hands messing with a precious 'do, will resist the touch of Barbicide-cleansed scissors on the scalp's fine coat. That is a rare thing, though; most who come to me for a small haircut know that it is the easiest and best way to get what is needed--even though they may not always be happy about the need.
When folks come in who can't--or won't--give a sample from their heads, other measures must be taken. For a few, a small beard-trim is in order, and the bearded usually grumble only a bit about my work; I wear a beard, as well, so they seem to understand that I understand. It takes a fair bit of time to grow a beard that looks like anything decent, so having it trimmed is not a fun thing; my own beardliness tells the clients that I'm not going to take more than I must. (It sometimes backfires; three of the follicle samples I've taken have been returned as of insufficient quantity. Only three of the several hundred, but more than I'd like it to have been.) But most of those who lack hair atop lack it on cheeks and chin, as well; the Texas Hill Country does not admit of full beards as much as other places I have lived, certainly not of such length as help to keep a face warm.
No, most of the hairless-headed or sacrosanct-scalped I see get shaved. Right now, we have wonderful pink razors waiting, each in its own package and used only once. In the last week, I've shaved forearms (preferred because of ease of access and lack of squickiness), legs (not as preferred because of contortions), and armpits (less preferred for obvious reasons); more than once, I've shaved chests and backs. It's been...revealing, to say the least. Shaving someone else is a different experience, and I hadn't been accustomed to shaving parts other than chin and cheeks and neck. But there is a certain intimacy in such acts, something strange to have between a glorified clerk (still in long line descended from him of Oxford...) and people coming in to discharge the demands of the workplace or of the court and not again for six months or more, if ever.
If there's something to follow up on in that, I have no idea what it is.

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

20181128.0430

My wife stayed home from work yesterday, taking a sick day. She does not often do so, so the fact of her taking a day marked off how poorly she had to have felt. Consequently, I got our daughter dressed and off to school in the morning, which marked off for me how much she does in the mornings--and, by extension, throughout the rest of the day. (It also highlighted to me Ms. 8's attachment to her mother; our little girl was in tears about her mother being sick, and she repeatedly noted being worried as I took her to school.) I do tend to do more in the mornings--I am the family's alarm clock and breakfast- and lunch-maker, among others--but I am able to do what I do in large part because my wife serves as an emotional anchor for us. And I have to wonder about what it means for us that she carries that burden.
I am well aware that many families operate in such a way, wherein the wife and mother carries out more emotional labor than the others in relationships with her. In the case of a minor child--Ms. 8 is four as I write this--it is to be expected; a young child should not be expected to do as much as an adult. But I, at least, am not such a child and have not been for as many years as I was one. For her to be the anchor she is for me gives me pause; while it is appropriate that those who love one another will support one another, I have to wonder if I am offering support in measure to her as she does to me. And I am concerned that if I ask her, she will work to spare my feelings if I am not doing as I ought to do...
I have been fortunate in having my wife in my life, I know. While I was working on the dissertation, she did much to help me access materials and resources. (Different institutional affiliations allowed us different borrowing privileges, hers more useful in many cases than mine for scholarly work.) When I took the summer off after completing my doctorate, she kept our household afloat. When I found myself out of work in The City, and when I was out of work again upon the wind-swept plains, she stood with me, moving into what still feels like exile and moving again in what still feels like a defeated retreat--and she did what she could to soothe me then and after as I struggled again and again to find work along the way. And she remains with me, encouraging me to do things like play in the community jazz band and maintain my tenuous hold on academe insofar as it still brings me pleasure to do so. On days like yesterday, when I am obliged to take up some of her work, I am reminded of how much of it she does--and I am both humbled by it and driven to do more to be worthy of it.

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

20181127.0430

In conversations with my wife over the long weekend just past, I had occasion to remark about my involvement with various intellectual properties. In my younger years, I spent quite a bit of time, money, and energy consuming such narrative milieus as the Star Trek and Star Wars universes, of Middle-earth, of Asimov's sprawling future history that now looks so quaint even though the clarity of writing remains in force, of Donaldson's chronicles of unbelief and their turgid prose (and I am sure that one shows in what I write more than I might want it to--for several reasons), of Hobb's Elderlings corpus that led to my master's thesis, of Legend of the Five Rings and of roleplaying games more generally. And I am aware that most or all of them have surpassed my ability to access them fully; they are surrounded by critical and fandom apparatuses that exceed me (in most cases; fandom is largely beyond me, though I have a handle on criticism of one of the properties I've listed, at least).
I am not sure how I feel about the matter. I've noted in other places that I'm glad to be free of the dick-wagging that accompanies so much community engagement with the intellectual properties I've engaged with and those similar to them. I've also noted that I miss being able to devote myself to them as I once did--even though I know that engagement is far harder now than when I was young, given the proliferation of nostalgia and the products that cater to it, as well as increased access through various media technologies. There are not enough hours in the day to attend to them all even if that is all that gets attention, and I am not in a position to be able to give myself fully over as I used to be able to do. I cannot afford to be so selfish.
I am also not sure anymore that I want to be. Aside from the simple matter--but important to the kind of little shit that I was and that many people still very much are--of a sex life (which I do not discount), family life is fulfilling in ways that fandom never was for me. To be fair, I've been lucky in my direct experience of fandom; the communities in which I participated were relatively supportive, but part of that support came only because I had a place enforced upon me, and my challenges to it were in the forms accepted by those communities. Those in which I am still engaged are far more casual and more broadly supportive--but, again, I know I am lucky in finding them. Each of us within them has horror stories of others that were...not, and they do not except the "official" fandoms, those associated most closely with or outright endorsed by the owners of the intellectual properties involved.*
My family, though, my wife and daughter, particularly, are far better for me to have than a place among the various fandoms. I am an expatriate of those fandoms no less than of academe, and I return to them as I may, but I do not think I will seek to emigrate from that smaller, greater nation in which I now dwell.

*I am aware, at least peripherally, of the challenges of fan-work and, indeed, of fandom itself, to ownership of intellectual properties in a moral and ethical sense, though not so much in a legal one. The latter seems to be the common understanding, though, and given the general audience I presume to address in this webspace, it is the one with which I am working in this piece.

Monday, November 26, 2018

20181126.0430

Today will see me return to work and some semblance of normalcy from the last of the fall holidays and the first of the "winter." (It is not as if the season has changed here; indeed, in the Texas Hill Country, it was more like fall after Thanksgiving than before, but Thanksgiving is reckoned a fall holiday and the shopping sprees that begin after the leftovers are portioned out are assigned to the Christmas season.) Objectionable as I may find things to be reckoned as they are, I know that they are so regarded. I know also that I will be glad to get back into something like a routine again; I do not do well with too much time left to my own devices.
I've noted with some bitterness my obligation to leave academe. I recall noting, too, that no small part of that has been my own fault. While I was enrolled in graduate school, pursuing my degrees, I had definite end-goals in mind--and clear paths toward them. Take the classes that needed taking, sit for the exams that needed taking, write the thesis or the dissertation and submit it for committee review, and the thing would be done. With the master's done, I had the doctorate to begin in earnest. With the doctorate done, though, I did not have a clear path to follow; I thought at the time that the job I had--which was a good teaching job, if a remarkably busy one, until it wasn't anymore--would be the job in which I'd remain for quite some time. I did not look forward, therefore, to getting a book written from the beginnings of it in my dissertation (and I still need to do that bit, though I am far removed from the work I once did). I did not look then at getting pieces into print, for the school at which I worked honored seniority over the traditional concerns of tenure. I did not look at finding other work, for I thought I had work that would sustain me.
In short, I trusted that things would be well, that matters would fall out as I expected them to do. I did not take care to have a backup plan to sustain me in the event of things failing and faltering, as they ended up doing. And, when I was given some semblance of a tether to academic work, I did not attend to the research that I ought to have been doing to secure a spot as a tenure-line professor, making what I now recognize were feeble attempts to teach decently. (It is only now, after I have resigned myself to not having a full-time teaching career, that I feel like I am doing decently at that work; there is still a part of me that hopes some outside force will see it and open a door to me as is done in some of the works I study, but I know that part of me is a damned fool.) I did not do what I ought to have been doing if I was going to call myself a contributing scholar. Now, I will not be one.
If I let myself wander away from the path I ought to have been treading, based upon the training I undertook to sally forth, I did so because I did not look ahead as I ought to have done. I did not think of what goal I should pursue next, what steps I would need to take to reach that goal. I have no intention of making that mistake again; I know what goal I am pursuing at this point (eliminating my debt-load), and I know what steps I have to take to make that happen (work more, earn money, pay down debts, save what remains). I do not always succeed at following those steps, at adhering to the disciplined routine I know I ought to heed, but I do a damned sight better at it with an idea in mind than I do without one.

Sunday, November 25, 2018

20181125.0430

With Thanksgiving past in the United States, attention turns towards the ostensible Christmas holiday, and it does so once again in the form of hypercommercialization and the reinforcement of putative traditions that have only grown up within the last generation and have altered their forms even within so short a time, although they tend to be held up as unaltered and inviolable. And I suppose it has become something of a tradition, too, that I complain about such things in this webspace; my curmudgeonly self has written about such vexations any number of times, although not necessarily on a regular schedule, such that I am not about to try to plumb my archives (2,052 posts prior to this one, if it can be believed, including one on nearly every day of the year since 2014) to find them all.
It will suffice to say that I am not overly fond of the way the United States marks such occasions--or it would were I not certain that some who will read this will think that I am not bound to honor such customs. When I try not to do so, I am rebuked, and by many. Both at home and away from it, I get to hear people tell me that I should do things a certain way, that I am expected to do them certain ways, despite having no desire to do so--and, indeed, active desires not to do so. And perhaps I grouse about others doing so, and I might deserve some castigation for that, but it chafes to be told on the one hand that all I need to do is not and on the other that I had damned well better. But I have long known that I am in abundant company as a hypocrite.
In the end, I usually win such arguments as happen. All I need to do so is nothing; no act secures my victory, but simply not doing as I am exhorted to do by those who repeat across years that I do not believe what I say even as I have said it for just as long and have tried to believe but cannot get myself to do so. I have tried to profess the belief, thinking that I can "fake it 'till I make it," but I wearied of the lie soon enough, and I have not been able to maintain it even in places where social expectations make it easier to go through the motions of belief than not to do so. And even if I did believe, knowing what I know about how things have come to be, I do not think I could reconcile myself to the way things are done; I know they are done as they are, and I know that nothing I am likely to be able to do will change how they are done, but that does not mean that I am pleased with the state of affairs or that I have to, by my participation, actively encourage its continuance. And I have no intention, this year as in years past, of doing so.

Saturday, November 24, 2018

20181124.1130

It's finally happened; I let my buffer run out and a post fail to happen as it ought because of my inattention. I can only plead being busy with the recent observance and having family in town because of it. I still ought to have planned better than I did, and I am abashed that I did not do so. To those who have been reading regularly what I have been posting online, I can only offer an apology for my oversight and the assurance that, even as I complete this post, I will be working to build back up the buffer for this blog that I had boasted before.
I do not do so for money, to be sure; this work is unremunerated entirely, and I make little enough from the other writing endeavors I undertake. No, I do this because I need the continuous practice in the simple act of typing, in the more complex act of attending to formatting and layout, and in the yet more complex act of finding words and their orders and putting the latter into the former. I am well aware of what happens to my skills when I do not practice them; they do not remain static, but atrophy. I already feel that I never do well enough; to have my skills decline, and to be aware to the decline as I become when I attempt to practice them again, is vexatious.
Playing in the community band has served to remind me of such. I noted when I picked up a horn again that I had not done so in anything resembling a serious fashion for some sixteen years, and it was clear to me in the first few rehearsals that I had accumulated quite a bit of rust and other problems in that time. Recently, I was reminded of it again when I went to work through some of the traditional etudes for my instrument: the contents of the Ferling book. (Saxophonists will know it, to be sure.) Pieces I had once played with relative ease were forbidden to me; my fingers would not work upon them. Pieces I had seen before were foreign to my eyes entirely. Had I had an audience for my attempt to play through them that had any knowledge of how they are supposed to sound, I should have been ashamed; as it was, I was not pleased with myself.
I do not want the same thing to be true for my writing as has been true for my playing. (I am working to address the issue, albeit likely not with the diligence it deserves.) It is for that reason, or at least in part for that reason, that I have worked to keep going in this particular webspace, removed from my more professional concerns so as to allow practice, while still potentially in the public eye so as to keep me more or less honest. I do not relish having lapsed in it, even if I had cause to do so; I shall, as in much else, work not to do so again.

Friday, November 23, 2018

20181123.0430

With the change in weather that heralds the approaching winter, or so much of it as the Texas Hill Country is accustomed to getting, has come a change in what pollens are in the air. (As I've noted in another place entirely, certain plants 'round here like to get freaky in the cooler weather; that it's been wet this year ain't helpin'.) With that change has come an assault upon my sinuses, which do not bleed but spill out what has been in them nonetheless. I am well otherwise, but the persistent flow from my nostrils, which no amount of blowing clears, as I no sooner blow than I flow again, is damned distracting, as well as occupying my hands no less than the pressure behind my nose and eyes occupies more of my thoughts and attention than I would prefer to give it.
But amid all the blowing comes once again a song common to the men of my family, and I am adding my strains to it once again. For it is a commonplace among the men of my family that their noses honk--and at different pitches--when they are blown. My late grandfather would clear his snoot with a mighty rumbling; my dad's nose blows with a clear tenor to counterpoint his lower voice. Mine has previously sounded in a baritone not unlike my awkward singing voice or the throaty bellow of my saxophone; this time around, though, it is octaves above it, speaking in a soprillo's range through ululations I could never articulate with my inept hands and blunted fingers.
Time was, I could play a strange song on my septum, squeezing my nose to change pitch subtly, blowing less or more to amend my volume (though never to such a pianissimo as most around me would care to hear). This time, though, I but shriek shrilly into tissue and handkerchief. My darling daughter still delights in the din that my dripping occasions, and to hear Ms. 8 laugh is a lilting counterpoint that fits to any melodic line that might be thought or heard. But I still worry about my diminished capacity; I worry that my nose will not be the only thing I play less well than once I did.
While I will leave the details of what things I worry about handling less well than previously to my readers' imaginations--they will come up with better answers than ever I could--I will note that I am working to maintain myself, at least. I am resting as I can, drinking juice to fortify me, taking what medications actually seem to do me any good. (They are few enough, particularly against the threats I see in them in the people with whom I work day by day.) And I practice my arts as much as time allows--more than I used to, certainly, but probably less than most of them deserve. I can hope thereby to stave off for a while the decline that eventually claims all.

Thursday, November 22, 2018

20181122.0430

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States, and my wife, my daughter, and I will be joining my parents for a large meal and a fun time. My grandmother is down from Iowa for a visit, and I expect my brother, his wife, and my nephew will be at my parents' house for the meal, as well. That's the plan, anyway; it's still a bit early to know how it's going to go--or, really, even if it's going to go.
I do not recall if I have commented on the matter previously, but I feel that Thanksgiving is a vastly underrated observance.
While I am aware that there are some fraught issues with it--typical depictions of invading Puritans and their interactions with the various Native American tribes are wildly inaccurate, including in their depictions of friendliness and enlightenment, and hypercommercialization both suffuses it and elides it--the root of the celebration is to eat a large meal, which seems a good thing and uncomplicated. No gifts are really expected, save the small ones given to hosts at any visit. Cooking and cleanup are chores, to be sure, but far less so than decorating a whole house and navigating around the decorations for weeks associated with Xmas, or cleaning up the candy-induced vomitus or teenager-induced vandalism associated with Halloween. So while there are problems with Thanksgiving, there are fewer than for many or most of the other observances common in the US--and there seems to me to be just as much good.
Admittedly, I am not big on holidays, generally. I'm pretty sure I've noted it before, but I react poorly to the expectation and enforcement of good cheer. I react poorly, too, to the disruption of comfortable routines that get things done, as well as the obligation to take time off not to catch up on things that need doing but to attend to those disruptions. Yes, it makes me something of a curmudgeon; I have long known myself to be one. And that's another part of Thanksgiving that I appreciate; the demands and expectations are somewhat less than for other holidays. There's not much, if any, dressing up for me. There's not much of decorating to do. There's cooking and cleanup, but those happen most days, anyway. There aren't songs to sing or expectations of protestations of faith and fellow-feeling. And if, after the meal is done and the dishes washed, I want to slip away for a quiet bit, I can. And that is worth celebrating.

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

20181121.0430

I will readily admit that it's been harder to keep up on writing these little bits of prose than I expected. I mean, I had noted that it's harder to maintain a stream of these than the streams of poetry I had been writing for quite a while, but the task of writing chunks of prose like this one is more difficult than I remember it being. I suppose some of it has to do with the circumstances in which I write. Admittedly, I do have more time to write, as I've remarked, but I'm not sure I'm putting it to best use. And there's the issue of having to bring more in to put more out--and I've not been reading the way I ought to read, even if I've got more access to more time to read than had been the case for entirely too long.
Still, the exercise of doing the writing, in addition to the other writing I'm doing and should be doing, is proving to be rewarding. I am not getting much more readership than I had before, if any, but I am feeling better about the writing I'm doing. I know I'm writing short pieces that do not often connect to one another, unless through linked references I force into place. It's not exactly a literary masterwork over which I'm laboring, no Great American Novel, if there can be such a thing anymore--or if ever there could have been. So it is perhaps absurd that I am having any trouble at all getting the words together in my head and letting them come out through my fingers and the keys on my board, where they can lodge on the screen and wait for others' eyes to take them in while leaving them in place.
If it is absurd, however, it is nonetheless the case for me at the moment. And just as there are challenges to generating and sustaining a vision across hundreds of pages of prose, there are challenges in coming up with a new thing to say--and to try to say well--in a scant few hundred words. For this is an online piece, and readers online generally do not read with the same dedication that readers in print do; a full novel in a single post would be an interminable read, the medium not conducive to the longer work. We need the page-turns to help things make sense, to render them into small enough chunks to be taken in; the whole plate is not swallowed at a go, even by the largest of mouths and the hollowest of stomachs people wield. To make each bite its own course...so perhaps I ought not to feel so badly that a few hundred words at a time is not so easy as I might have hoped it would be.

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

20181120.0430

I've noted, I believe, that I've been taking part in a community jazz band in my hometown, one for which I am playing the bari sax I inherited from my grandfather. I've been enjoying myself greatly so far, even if my chops and technique aren't nearly as good as they used to be (not that they were terribly good to start with) and far less good than the ensemble really ought to demand. We'd previously been practicing at a privately-held facility where one of the founders works, but this past weekend saw us relocate to the local high school bandhall for practice--a move likely to last for quite a while, given how things are falling out. And going to the high school bandhall was something of a strange experience for me.
To be fair, the space is not the space I practiced in, twenty or so years ago when I was in high school band, marching alto and bari saxes and anchoring the jazz band with my honking buzzsaw of a horn. The school has moved since then, though its name and that of the bandhall--named to honor a long-time award-winning director whose children followed him into conducting and whose grandson even now is coming up through what was his grandfather's band program--are the same as they were when I left them. Many of the awards on the walls are the same, as well, and while it was a peculiar comfort to see that the commemorations I remembered were still in places of honor, it was a bit of an oddity to see my name on the walls in a place of pride--and with others' names coming after mine in succession, when there had been a gap before mine of quite a while.
Somewhat shocking was to see old pictures of myself and my old bandmates in places of honor. I was told by the band director that the students had been going through some of the old materials in the bandhall, unfiled and unsorted things that needed to be cleaned up somewhat. Pictures of my freshman and sophomore years' marching bands were among what they found, and the students had decided that pictures of the bands that are, for them, of old needed to be displayed. They are not wrong; there is value in looking back to an organization's history to help it develop and maintain an esprit de corps and to promote morale. It is simply strange to be one of those looked back upon; I know that I have wondered about the stories of those who went before me, and I wonder if I am the subject of some of the same wonderings now.
If I am--and I know better than to assume that I am, though I am vain enough to hope that I am--I know that those who wonder as I did have something that I did not have in nearly so much abundance. I am here, and I am happy to tell what I know. When I was in, those who could have told me were distant from me; I like to think, and I hope I am right, that I am a bit closer, even if there is perhaps not so much that I would be able to say as others might have done. Still, some has to be better than none...

Monday, November 19, 2018

20181119.0430

In my post yesterday, I make reference to "legitimate" scholarly topics. The specifics I refer to--and which I know I do not name--are those of my medieval studies work. My dissertation was on Malory and the process through which Le Morte d'Arthur became the canonical piece of Arthurian legend it is recognized as being. My conference papers have tended to address Malory, with a few ranging back into Old English works and a few others going in different directions entirely. My publications, few as they are, do not show up any kind of consistent agenda, except perhaps looking at locations and practices of teaching.
I did enjoy doing the work to make those things happen, to be sure. There is a certain amount of love for the thing that has to go into doing the work of writing theses over months or a dissertation over years. There is a certain amount of joy that inheres in finding places where knowledge is lacking and, through careful investigation and argumentation, correcting that lack. (Among others, and as I tell the students I reach in my expatriation, being the first to know a thing is rewarding.) But, as I noted yesterday and have noted elsewhen, the fields in which I tried to work as I sought to make myself a "real" scholar, one who has the luxury of living a life of the mind as a primary occupation, are not those that got me into scholarly work. They were, as it were, covers for the work I wanted to do--but I stopped doing the work I had hoped to use the "legitimate" work to enable. The cover became the primary thing--as much as research ever did for me. (I know part of why I was unable to get a full-time college or university gig was my too-short publication list.)
No, it was looking at things that many will deem silly that awakened in me the desire to make more knowledge. The roleplaying games that secured my undergraduate honors, the Robin Hobb novels I studied for my master's thesis, always seemed to me to need defending as objects of scholarly inquiry; I still struggle against the idea, just as I struggle with the notion that the work I do for the Tales after Tolkien Society needs defending. Such work may, but not for the reasons typically advanced, that the objects of such study are not worthy of such study. As much as anything else people do, they are--and I am not the only one of that opinion, else there'd be no other resources than those I've made. (I flatter myself that I've done pretty well with Hobb, though.)
If there is a benefit to the end of my pursuit of full-time scholarship to my scholarly work, it is this: I no longer need to work to hide my interests under "legitimate" work that I am increasingly unequipped to undertake. "Legit" work takes resources I no longer have easy access to--or much of any access. I keep what I can, but there's only so much I can do on that score. But I can do the kind of work I've done with RPGs and other pop-culture stuff still, and it's more of what I wanted to do, anyway...

Sunday, November 18, 2018

20181118.0430

In a few of my recent posts, as well as in others throughout the span of my writing in this webspace, I've made reference to roleplaying games. Traditional writerly advice is to write what you know, and I've spent enough time rolling dice and telling lies to claim to know about RPGs, at least a little. It's part of why I return to them again and again, both in the writing I do (here and elsewhere) and in the recreational time I have. The other part, really, is that I enjoy the work; I like the material, I like working with the material, and I like sharing that love with others. Some others, I can reach through the table itself, whether physical or virtual. Some others, though, I can only reach by way of the writing I do, here and elsewhere.
I took the opportunity to look back over some of the writing I've done about RPGs in this webspace. Often, I merely make a glancing comment about them, speaking to my then-current involvement with one or another, or relating some then-present experience to something I recall from one of the several games in which I've taken part. There are a few times I've taken things more seriously, whether reviewing RPG products or going off on what might be called liberal-arts screeds about one thing or another I find in them. (Here and here come to mind as offering the main examples.) Those entries join my undergraduate thesis (I'm glad it's not online) and a number of papers I wrote prior to that, as well as selected bits later on, in a relatively minor line of work I've done throughout and outside my abortive career as a scholar.
Thinking back over that line of work leaves me feeling a bit strange. There's still relatively little work done on RPGs, at least the tabletop variety that have attracted most of my attention, although I'm not up on as much of it as I used to be. Not being a full-time scholar accounts for part of that. Not having focused on it when I was trying to be a full-time scholar also accounts for part of it; despite my prevailing interest, I felt compelled to dedicate my "real" work to "legitimate" topics. It was folly for me to do so, I realize. I had focused on "legitimate" topics in part to afford me better academic job prospects; the results of that focus should be obvious. (I'm not a full-time scholar.) If I was going to fail in my goal, I might as well have had some more fun along the way--but I wonder, now, if I might not have had better success looking into the strange places that attracted me, rather than into the staid ones that, while meriting examination (and I wonder if I will ever return to that project...), put me in direct competition with many others whom I know to be better scholars than I am. At least, in a smaller field, I might have stood out more.
It is too late for me to make such a change now. I am, as I've noted elsewhere, an academic expatriate (I can still visit, so I am not an exile, but my visits back to the country I sought to enter are fewer and fewer); I do not think that I would be able to build up my credentials as I would need to to be able to repatriate. But my case might well be a bit of a warning for others. If they need any more warnings than they already have.

Saturday, November 17, 2018

20181117.0430

My wife and I recently began taking the San Antonio Express-News, although it is not quite our local paper. (We live about an hour away from San Antonio, for reference.) It has been interesting thus far; there have been more days than we'd like that have seen our paper delivered either late in the day (in the afternoon, although any "after we leave to go to work" is too late) or not at all, and we find we rarely have the time to sit and read the paper we'd like to have. We thought that we might be able to make a bit more time for it, and, while we can do so on the weekends, during the week, it just never seems to happen.
It's a shame, really, because both my wife and I recognize that there is value to taking a local(ish) newspaper and reading it. There is a viscerally different experience to reading something in print; reading online is still reading, to be sure, but print seems somehow to offer more opportunity for consideration and less in the way of embedded, inherent distraction. Indeed, even as I write this, I find my attention called away by the other windows I have open, although I am not clicking through them to pull up additional information I need to write what I am writing here. When, as is often the case in my more formal blog, I am obliged to click though windows to pull up information I need to support the claims I make, I find myself following side-tracks and interesting bits of trivia, ultimately distracting myself from the task at hand more than the task will necessarily tolerate. It may be the Millennial in me that acts so; I do not know. I do know, though, that print reading does not present the same problem to me.
It is definitely the social-media-connected part of me that finds waiting on the newspaper for news interminable. The articles I see on the front page of the paper are those I saw online before I went to bed the night before--if not earlier in the day yesterday. I read them online and hear about them on the radio long before I have the chance--when I have the chance--to read them in the newspaper for which I 've paid. I seem to want my news to be newer than the day-old, even though I spend and have spent as much time as I do and have looking at things far older than that, and I have less patience with seeing things again than I recall having before.
But that's not really the point of taking the paper, is it? Really, it's an issue not of being informed, as such, so much as an issue of working from a common set of information. It's a community-building thing, really, a way to help us feel like we are a part of the nearest actual city to where we live. And in that, at least, it is doing some good. I don't know that it will be enough for me to renew our subscription when the time comes, but still...

Friday, November 16, 2018

20181116.0430

One of the things I appreciate about my current employment situation is that it allows me time to do some writing (which is strange, because I seem to be struggling to do the writing that I want to do). Among others, I don't have to take work home at night--or not as much as used to be the case--and I don't have nearly so much of it to do before I work to get my Mrs. and Ms. 8 on their way every morning, so there's some time that I can put to the task of putting words together in some semblance of order and reason. I appreciate having the opportunity to do so, certainly, although it might be argued that I need to do more to ensure that the work I do in that line is directed toward ends that might conduce to my family's support.
To be sure, there is a fair bit of what I've done in this webspace that I might be able to put that way, with some time and attention. The materials are in place, and I'm capable of editing decently enough. (After three degrees in English and a dozen years teaching, I ought to be.) And there're some other things that might emerge from them, as well, that might work in different ways, if I can but take the time to make them happen. I find myself somewhat hesitant to do so, however. I suppose it is fear of rejection at work; I've gotten quite a few rejections about things I've written, far more than acceptances. And I note with some aspersion that my readership in this blog is quite low; if folks won't read what I write when it's free, why would they pay to do so? (The other blog is doing better in terms of readership, but students are something of a captive audience; the comparison's not entirely fair.)
I know I need to get over it, though. It's not like it's much of an issue for me in practice; I keep putting out materials here, despite not having the readership I'd like to see, so I'm clearly okay with relatively limited circulation. And there are the old adages of missing all shots not taken and of failure being certain when no attempt is made. I've got the time, perhaps; I don't know that I could add working on projects for publication to the writing I already do around the work I do, both in my day job and in the teaching I still do. But it might be coming up on time to take a bit of a break from some of the blogging I do or some of the other side-projects, focusing on writing in a more "professional" capacity than I've heretofore done (though I have gotten paid for my writing on more than one occasion, thank you kindly). If I do, it'll be so I can get something else put together that'll be well worth the time away. Or I hope so, at least.

Thursday, November 15, 2018

20181115.0430

We've had a bit of what we let pass for winter in the Texas Hill Country these past few days; in many other places, they'd be nice fall days, while in still others, folks might think about wearing shorts and shirt-sleeves outside. It's been nice to have the change, to be sure; I've long held that cooler weather helps keep the stink down, and I am not alone in noting a greater propensity to be physically close to people when the temperature drops.
The weather around here looks like it's going to hold for at least a few days, getting slightly warmer before more rain is supposed to come back through. I look forward to it, actually, because 1) I need to mow my yard and 2) cooler temperatures makes it easier to do the work. I've got a yard large enough that a riding mower makes sense for it--but no riding mower. It's normally a sweaty two-hour workout to take care of the thing; the lower temperature will help keep my stink down as I see to it this time around. Provided the rain doesn't come in earlier than expected. Which it might. It's done so often enough before--including each of the last few times I've thought I might have time to mow my yard.
There has been a lot of rain in the past couple of months. It's been good, overall, though having so much of it come so quickly as did a couple of times has had less-desirable effects. (The Kinglsand bridge is only the most prominent example. Cleanup is still going on in parts of my hometown, in fact, with debris that gathered along low bridges only now getting cleared away.) The general wetness has helped us to have something resembling fall foliage in the area, which is a rare treat. Most years see the greenery brown in July and August and not greening up again in time to fade into reds and yellows. This year, though, has seen the trees show colors other than fading green and crackling brown. Ms. 8 has been particularly delighted to see them, and I am happy to see her happy.
With more wet weather wending its way to where I am, I expect that the upcoming year will be a good one for wildflowers. I already know I'm going to be driving to San Antonio a fair bit through the spring, so I am eager to once again ride the twinned asphalt ribbons of Interstate 10 as it makes its way through oak-, cedar-, and mesquite-clad hills of limestone, surrounded by streams of bright blue and red and yellow that blend into the sunset and sunrise so that the sky seems to be beneath as well as above and the beauty of it enters the eyes and lifts the spirit such that waxing poetic is an insufficient response to the whole of it. I am likely to try to do it anyway; insufficient as it is, it is still better a response than most any other I could offer it.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

20181114.0430

I am late in noting the death of Marvel Comics' Stan Lee, I know. For me, news of the death came as a shock that I know ought not to have been one; the man was 95 years of age, so it was only a matter of time. But I had not been attending to concerns of fandom as I might once have had the time and resources to do, so even though the death makes sense, it was not something that was expected. At least for me--and my reaction is all I can speak to. That, and what it brings to mind for me as I move forward.
The thing is, I have not been much of a comics nerd. I have been aware of the major properties, of course, and I have enjoyed reading them from time to time, but even in my adolescence and youth, I was not as into comics as I was into, say, Star Trek or Star Wars. In college, of course, I was taken up with RPGs, fantasy novels, and the work that would lead me into graduate school and all of the glories and horrors thereto appertaining. Comics were more a background issue than a dominant one, but that background is an important one. Aside from being a common cultural touchstone for me and a fair number of the people I have known, comics--particularly Marvel's comics, which I have tended to enjoy more than DC's--were an embedded part of the world I once inhabited, and, even now, they do much to support the identity I have made for myself.
In effect, comics serve as a vital member of the chord over which my life's melody has been playing. With Lee's death, one player of that note has fallen silent. The chord is still being sounded, but there is a difference in timbre that I cannot ignore, a lack that I cannot replace. And I am forced to wonder which instrument will be the last to be silenced, though I do not look forward to knowing that answer. I have to wonder how the melody will play on, how the improvisations will be shaped, over the decreasing sounds of the underlying chords, how they will sound against the hollowing-out performances below them. I have to wonder, too, what will others do when, in time to come, my own strain is silenced.
I find my melody sounding in a minor key, arpeggiating on diminished chords. I do not mourn so much for Lee as much as for losing just a bit more of what had been, of being just that much further from a world in which I could believe myself safe, of having to turn the page on a story where, despite the world that is, a vision of a better one could be. I expect I shall weep many more such tears in times to come.

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

20181113.0430

Once again, funerals and memorials are happening in the wake of mass shootings in the United States, and discussion of what is to be done is ensuing again even as some claim it isn't the right time to talk about such things. And I'm not going to comment on the shootings themselves, nor yet on the funerals and memorials going on and continuing. Hearing about them on the radio, though, I am minded of what my own plans for such things have been--and how they've shifted without me thinking about them (at least consciously).
The topic of funeral arrangements has been one I've often deployed in teaching. I've been assigned public speaking classes on no few occasions, and I tend to have my students given impromptu speeches in them. A favorite prompt of mine is "You're going to die; you can't avoid it. When it comes, how do you want it to happen, and why that way?" Morbid though it is, it leads to some interesting remarks from students--after the first few, who seem always to talk about dying while asleep and at home. It also allows me a follow-up for the next class: "After you're dead, what do you want done with your body? Why that?" It elicits some laughter from students to be offered the prompt after the earlier one, and I get a few interesting answers--though most talk about not wanting people to cry.
The students have tended to ask after my own answers to the questions I put to them--which is fair. Typically, I've told them that I want to have people weeping and gnashing their teeth, tearing their hair and rending their clothes; I want people to be sad that I am gone. More seriously, I've noted that I'd like to be buried in regalia and have commentaries about my work offered by way of eulogy, perhaps to be gathered into a festschrift later on. And, if I teach such a class again, I'll likely give the answers again; they work well enough for the classroom.
But they are not the correct answers anymore--or they were not as I thought on things. In truth, I expect a few people will be greatly saddened by my passing; quite a few more will have a reaction on the order of "Damn, that sucks" before going on with their lives as if nothing has happened. Some, I am certain, will dance ugly little dances of happiness--not that taking joy in another's death makes it ugly; they just can't dance worth a damn. None of them will be particularly well served by making some production out of dealing with my remains. My family certainly won't be--either by the event itself or by the expense of having such an event. So I think it'd be best if I were quietly and simply interred--no ceremony, perhaps a simple marker for the grave, if there is one. I've no preference for where any ashes would be spread, no real attachment to any grounds to be left upon. And since I'll be dead, I doubt I'll much care--but I'd not have my family have to deal with more than they must.

Monday, November 12, 2018

20181112.0430

Across a couple of days not long ago, in one of the roleplaying games in which I participate, a couple of things happened that I get to experience fairly often--things I am sure my erstwhile colleagues get to experience, as well. In one instance, a person with whom I play online remarked--in jest, admittedly--"Being a professor is easy. You just wear bad ties and sleep with hot girls to fix their grades. That or hunt down artefacts in exotic locations with a trusty sidekick and a whip." Later, another of my fellow gamers commented "I wonder if I should worry more about my grammar now we have an english prof hanging around [sic]." While I replied that "I don't work when I'm off the clock," which is true, it joined the earlier incident to give me cause to consider some of the strangeness in how the professoriate, particularly the humanities professoriate I tried without success to enter, is regarded in the world outside.
I've not looked into the matter in nearly the detail Timothy Carens does in a College English article I've referenced any number of times ("Serpents in the Garden," so you know). But I have encountered the viewpoints repeatedly that the work of teaching is easy--and the work of teaching at the college level, particularly for a for-profit, where "I paid for my A" is the perceived rule of the day is easier--and that English teachers at all levels act from compulsion to "fix" people's grammar. (Not that what most folks call grammar is grammar, and not that their "fixes" to arbitrary and capricious systems are objectively correct.) And there is some justification, to be sure. Teaching work is done largely inside, and there's not much heavy lifting. (There does seem to be a risk of getting shot that appears more prominent, now, though.) Those called to teach tend to experience it as a calling, and those who respond to calls tend to be engaged with them most or all of the time. (The parallel is to clergy, from whose ranks Western academics descend.) But it is also the case that the work of the classroom demands much time and effort outside of it, far more than is seen and more than is recognized by those outside; it is also the case that that time tends to restrict outside outlets, and with their lack comes a necessary focus on what is had.
The further away from a full-time career in academe I get, though, the more aware I am of what I lacked while pursuing it. I am more fortunate than many in that I got to have time with Ms. 8 in her earliest days, but I also remember that much of the time I was with her saw my attention divided between her infant needs and the demands of work I was doing--not all of which was directed to her support and her mother's. There was much I missed as I was locked away at work on my research--and with that having come to naught, or as close to it as makes no difference, I find I have a fair bit to regret. It's why, anymore, I work to not work when I'm not on the clock. I don't always succeed, but things are better than they were.

(As an aside, my post from yesterday is not incomplete.)

Sunday, November 11, 2018

20181111.0430

It is once again Veterans Day, something I have noted in my blogging several times before (here, here, here, here, here, and here). It is also the centennial of the end of World War I, so the observance has particular significance today. I find myself obliged to make some remarks about it, but I do not know that there is anything I can add either to what I have already said or to what I know has been said, is being said, and will be said by others. The semblance of sense I have lately grown tells me I ought to keep my mouth shut when I know I have nothing to add, so

Saturday, November 10, 2018

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.

Friday, November 9, 2018

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.

Thursday, November 8, 2018

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.

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

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.

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

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.

Monday, November 5, 2018

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.

Sunday, November 4, 2018

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.

Saturday, November 3, 2018

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.

Friday, November 2, 2018

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.

Thursday, November 1, 2018

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.