Aging Lotharios?

I know I’m not the only one: I read several novels at a time. One is usually in the kitchen; the other by my bed, a third in the living room (or even the bathroom, though magazines are more appropriate there since I need a pen or post its when I read).

By some odd coincidence, all 5 of the novels I am reading now or have just finished are quite similar: the narrator or one of the key characters is a man in his late 50s or 60s who is going through some sort of post divorce/relationship,  fear of death and aging/health crisis.  Maybe it’s just the usual midlife crisis, but happening later? 

These are not traditional man-caught-with-his-pants-down (and it’s all revealed in e-mail)  sort of stories, either. These men are portrayed quite sympathetically: their wives range from the bitch who left, to the bitch who is at the top of her professional career to more sympathetically but equally unavailable wives (one with incipient alzheimers; the other just growing in a different direction). 

This trend (if I may call it that: four of the  novels are fairly recent) provides an  interesting alternative perspective to the Sandra Tsing Loh article in the Atlantic.   Though I wouldn’t say it’s a call for passion either a la Cristina Nehring’s Vindication of Love.  The men in these novels are quite sexual or sexually frustrated or just plain horny:  In two novels, women’s butts figure prominently in  the plots; in 2 others, the male characters fantasize but don’t act; and in the fifth, well, I haven’t read far enough yet to know, so don’t tell me.

Basically, this is an in progress blog posting: I haven’t finished two of the novels yet, so I’m not sure if this “trend” I’m noticing will hold up, and I’m not so sure how new a trend it is.  Philip Roth’s characters immediately come to mind. But these men, well, they are different. 

If you’ve read any of these, let me know what you think:

• Jim Harrison’s The English Major
• Richard Russo’s Straight Man  AND Bridge of Sighs
• Jim Lynch’s Border Songs
• David Lodge’s Deaf Sentence

Half Marathons Are Not All Alike

In my overachieving sort of way, I doubled the goal I set for myself last year: I completed, not the planned one, but two completely different half marathon races this month.  And I’ve learned that what runners talk about when they we talk about races is, of course, our time, our place in the pack, our aches and pains.  And we also talk about the course itself.   For the edification of no one but own self, and to prevent me from boring my friends and family on Facebook and in person with all the grueling details, I blog about running now.

Half Marathon #1:  

• Nearly 700 runners (nearly 500 of them women, interestingly) converge on a forest trail and run in three waves based on one’s speed (or self perception of one’s speed, I suppose). I run in the third wave having signed up for the race months earlier, when I was much slower, thus I have the satisfaction of running faster than at least a few folks in the second wave (a psychological edge that cannot be discounted).
• The weather: 50s and cloudy at the start; 60s and sunny by the end.
• The course: dirt, rocks, hills, mostly single track, still muddy in spots from weeks of rain.  Twisted my ankle on a lovely rock around mile 4, but it quickly righted itself, thankfully.
• My stats:  2 hours 8 minutes 15 seconds.   Came in 420th out of 683 completers.  I’m happy with that–hey, it’s my first! No injuries. Little pain the next day even.  Probably could have pushed myself more, I’m thinking. 

Half Marathon #2:

• About 1400 runners, also in three waves, but this time the waves were set up by luck of the draw–I happened to be in the first wave this time; this naturally means that there were folks in the third wave who whipped past me even though they began 20 minutes after I did. Psychological edge: zilch.
• The weather:  45 degrees and damned cold while we waited, but by the time the race began the sun was out and it was closer to 50 degrees–warming up to the very warm 70s by the end of the race.
• The course: entirely paved bike trails.  After spending the winter running mostly on treadmills, I spent the spring running on dirt trails, so I was not very well prepared for paved bike trails. My feet still ache a bit from the pounding they took.
• My stats:  1 hour 57 minutes 51 seconds.  Came in 354th out of 1400.  I was told I’d run faster on a paved trail, but 10 minutes faster only 2 weeks after the first half marathon is quite a treat!  But, except for my achy feet, no pain at all.   Definitely could have pushed myself a little more.

So now, naturally, I want to go faster.  Not run a marathon (the idea of running for up to 4 hours just doesn’t do it for me), but to run the half marathon faster.  Obviously, I’m not going to win any medals, especially since the women in my age group are damned fast, but I want to at least try to do the 8 minute mile for most of the race (rather than the 9ish minute mile I’m at now): so 1 hour 45 minutes or so.  By next year? I’d say it’s possible.

For non runners, especially non running academics, who have bothered to read this far:

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, what’s the appeal?  Who cares how fast you run? WHY would anyone want to run 13.1 miles, or run for nearly 2 hours? 

I give you the pleasures of running half marathons:

• Being able to control my aging body with my increasingly flexible and strong mind.  Since I was never a jock or an athlete, I’m now, finally, thoroughly enjoying the mind/body interaction that running races requires.
• While I struggle for the first few miles (mostly because I’ve not yet figured out how much or even how to warm up ahead of time), once I’m in the “zone” the running becomes easy, fun, exhilirating even.  Those endorphins kick in, and the thought of any other mind-altering drug is almost repulsive in comparison. 
• I have done my most productive thinking while running.
• I have had my most divine fantasies while running.

Really, for that last reason alone, I recommend running. That and the ability to eat a bowl of cookie dough ice cream every day and not gain weight.

Rejection, Failure, and Self Reflection

My first panic attack happened during the summer before my second year (not my first, interestingly) of graduate school and adjunct teaching.  I was walking along 5^th Avenue in NY and suddenly stopped breathing: there’s no other way of explaining it.  I responded with the usual Prozac and Psychotherapy, stopping the latter soon after realizing that the Psych Ph.D. was no smarter than I was (intelligence being a key factor in how I chose men, no matter what their relationship, at the time), and stopping the drugs as soon as I discovered that alcohol was cheaper, and quicker.

That was many, oh so many, summers ago, but ever since then I’ve gone through the depths of despair, so to speak, every single summer. Sometimes it happens in August, as it did way back when, but more often it happens in July, and now, it seems, it’s front loading to late June.   

I know other academics go through this, too (see PhD Me, for example): we are so focused on others and ideas (our own and others) for 60+ hours a week, 7 days a week, 10 or so months, that it’s not until the academic year ends that we have the time to breathe.  And while we are breathing we see the now pages long, 10 point font, to-do list we’ve been saving for just this summer, (everything from finishing the painting of the damned hallway, finally, to reading the dozens of books and articles we’ve saved for course prepping for fall term, to the reviews we promised to write, to the dinner invitations we still need to return, to writing up our own half-baked ideas we’ve been jotting down or blogging about informally all year), and naturally panic occurs.

It’s not necessarily rational: I do have more time now that I’m not teaching 15 hours a week, holding office hours 5 hours a week, grading and prepping 20-30 hours a week, and doing committee work several hours a week.  I’m teaching online, which requires only 5-10 hours a week, depending on the week.  I know the problem:  all the free time,  too much time to think, to dwell, to obsess. I must spend so much time working or just DOING STUFF during those 10 months of the year that I am successfully postponing any self reflection, any time for just thinking. 

Clearly, not a healthy way to live.

Thus the panic is happening earlier this summer than ever before, but at least this summer, I can attribute it to two specific events (or, more precisely, non-events).

The first: the rejection I received from NPR. Though they wrote to ME, asking ME to submit a revised “Three Books” essay. They have now rejected the revised essay with this pithy note:

“Thanks so much for your submission.  The essay isn’t really working for us, so we’re going to pass.”

To be honest, I really don’t love what I sent them: I struggled with turning something I originally threw together in 200 words into a 500 word essay. (Here I am writing a 1000+ word blog posting for god’s sake—I simply can’t write 500 words!) In the process, the heart and soul was whittled out of the piece.  But, despite actually agreeing with their pithy assessment, rejection is rejection, right?

And today, I’ve decided NOT to continue reading David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest even though I wasn’t so sure I’d go through with the whole Infinite Summer thing to begin with. I did read the first 63 pages (as per our assigned reading).  However, Dave Eggers’ 2006 foreword was perhaps not the best way to start the book: in it, he practically begs the reader to give the novel a chance. He starts well, noting that most readers of “literary fiction” like to read both easy to read fiction as well as challenging fiction, rather than either-or:

“These readers might actually read both kinds of fiction themselves, sometimes in the same week.”

Yes, that’s certainly true. I’ve just finished Kathryn Stockett’s The Help (definitely in the “easy to read” category—fast read, stock characters, happy ending) while also reading Infinite Jest and Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth (the latter two in different subcategories of “challenging fiction”).

But then Eggers compares Infinite Jest to a

 “spaceship with no recognizable components…very shiny, and it has no discernible flaws…It simply is. Page by page, line by line, it is probably the strangest, most distinctive, and most involved work of fiction by an American in the last twenty years. At no time while reading Infinite Jest are you unaware that this is a work of complete obsession, of a stretching of the mind of a young writer to the point of, we assume, near madness.”

At this point, I’m thinking: oh great, one of those cult-followed novels that only those who wear black, black framed glasses, and carry their smugness like Linus’ blanket everywhere they go will appreciate this novel.   Then Eggers says that the expected age of a new reader of this novel that captures “the consciousness of an age” is 25.  Oh, he concedes that some more ancient readers, 30 or even 50 year olds, might be condescendingly reading the book for the first time, but basically, he assumes that like he was the first time he read the book,  the reader is a 25 year old English major, and, I assume, male.

So I go into this book knowing that I am not at all the target audience. Not a good way to begin a novel when I have dozens of other novels,  novels that are practically begging a middle aged woman English professor to read them, waiting for me by my bed. 

So even though the novel is fairly easy to read (despite the endnotes, which do seem to be increasing with each chapter, unfortunately), and with characters who (sorry Eggers) DO resemble other characters in fiction, from Holden Caulfield way back to Tom Sawyer—and all those adolescent boys/men in between—and there does seem to be an actual plot focusing on different addictions, I just don’t want to keep reading. I have too much else to read. 

So, rejection and failure in one day.

But it has led to self-reflection. It’s summer. I do have a long to-do list, but hell will not freeze over if I ignore half of it. And while neither my rejection nor my failure will impact my career or my life in any negative way—no job or income depended on either—they have led me to reflect on what I really want to accomplish this summer.  And I’m happy with that.   I’ll let you know if I figure what that actually IS before August.

Monday Meanderings

Is it summer yet?  The calendar says so, but the weather?  Not so much.

NPR essay submitted: now the wait to hear from the editor (I’ve been practicing my radio voice)

Summer school teaching online: new graduate students. Generally a pleasure to work with, although each June I must remember that they are only gradually realizing that they are once again students (John Irving reference anyone?).

Office move this August: I’ve started to go through my stuff.  I have a lot of books from the 90s (now in the hallway with a handcrafted “free” sign on them).  And several interesting finds:

• A fuzzy red scarf, something that a 1920s stripper would wear (can’t be from a drunken faculty party since we are a “dry” campus, so from where?). 
• Oooh, and a bumper sticker a colleague gave me years ago after I received a student evaluation that complained about my sarcasm (I’ve since learned to smile and let out a very short giggle after a sarcastic remark–it’s remarkably effective): “Sarcasm: Just One More Service I Offer”
• Dittos. Yes, I found actual dittoed handouts.  I think they still smell.

A Weekend of Firsts

Annie Em’s first…

• Half marathon: 2 hours, 8 minutes, 15 seconds (on a forest trail, with many, many rocks, and a few mud puddles).
• Pure Romance party. And no, I didn’t buy anything.
• Graduation ceremony in which the number of graduating students from her once a year online class outnumbered those in all of her 11 live classes combined (and yes, I’m still grading those online final essays).
• E-mail from NPR asking me to develop the Three Books posting into an essay.

Three Books: Academic Fiction

The Chronicle of Higher Ed’s Ms. Mentor has asked readers to recommend new academic novel titles and Erin O’Connor responded.

NPR invites listeners to recommend three books on a single theme. 

I’ve decided to combine the two requests and beg you, dear readers, to submit OTHER titles to me since my towering pile of summer reading just needs to grow a bit more before it hits the ceiling. Below is my recent submission to NPR in response to their call for Three Titles:

I teach at a community college, a setting rarely seen in the academic fiction genre (at least until I write my own!), yet the usually humorous foibles of professors and students depicted in the typical college novel crosses institutional boundaries.

Each June, after (ok, sometimes even before) submitting final grades, I dig up my what I (and many others) consider to be The. Best. Academic. Novel. Ever. Richard Russo’s Straight Man.  It’s laugh out loud funny, and it never goes out of style: the chair of the English department (a required character in these novels) threatens to kill a duck a day if his budget is not approved (as he holds up a goose).

A.S. Byatt’s Possession is another favorite, more mystery than riotous, but dripping in those insider literary references that remind us literature professors how much we love our novels.

Finally, although I could cite many more than three, I must mention one of the first college novels I read: Mary McCarthy’s The Groves of Academe.  McCarthy’s novel, while still being quite snarky, is an early attack on political correctness. It’s more focused, as is McCarthy’s style, on ideas and ethics rather than the amusing tale, like Russo’s novel, or the romance of literary mystery, as Byatt’s, but it was my first academic novel, the one that made me want so desperately to join the, albeit dysfunctional, club of the professoriate.

Infinite Summer with David Foster Wallace

Bitch, Ph.D. linked to this challenge: finish David Foster Wallace’s 1000-page novel, Infinite Jest, by Sept. 22nd.

The website also identifies some warm up readings, including his essays and short stories (including the most recent collection, This Is Water–his 2005 Kenyon College commencement address, which includes the parable I alluded to in my speech).

Since my summer reading list has grown as large as the stacks of books on the floor in my home office, I’ll probably not participate in the challenge of reading a novel some have called unreadable (though others praise it, or more pointedly, their own accomplishment in having finished it).  But I do recommend Wallace’s essays and short stories: think of them as tapas and engaging conversation for those who don’t want a 5-course meal and an intense, multilayered lecture.

Dead Weekend

The horrid quarter system (10 weeks of instruction followed by 1 week of finals) doesn’t really allow time for the traditional “dead week” of no classes and no assignments so that students can study for finals; however, for some instructors, we do have the lovely hiatus I’m called “dead weekend”: the weekend before finals week when advanced composition students are frantically revising research papers (I spent dozens of hours reviewing the drafts last weekend) and where my online introduction to fiction students are taking their “take home” short essay finals.

So what did I do during my dead weekend? 

I must say, it was divinely decadent.

• I chatted with students on the last day of classes who thanked me for my speech to honors students last weekend: I decided to go the personal/inspirational route. And, taking advice from Ink, my metaphor was: doing well academically is like training for the half marathon.  I also referred to David Wallace Foster’s “what the hell is water?” parable.  It was a speech chock-filled with imagery (and the obligatory “always wear sunscreen” reference got the chuckle I hoped for).
• I went out Friday night with colleagues and friends to celebrate the end of one friend’s rotation as chair of a department.  We ate, drank and talked outside in the evening sun—something we rarely do when classes are in session. Decided we needed a faculty lounge on (our dry, alas) campus.
• I leisurely ran my favorite trail along the river laughing to “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” and admiring the wildflowers in bloom.
• I went to a birthday bbq the next night, sitting outside by the fire pit, nibbling on those yummy chicken sausages and chatting about summer plans (reading, writing, running, the 3Rs, as well as socializing and travelling).
• I ran a 5K race on Sunday morning, and ran a personal best of 26:06: I came in 137^th out of over 700 runners.  The half marathon I’ve been training for is next Sunday and I now feel great confidence that I can not just complete it, but complete it well.
• I worked in my garden: I now have several pots filled with soon to be blooming flowers.
• I finished watching season 1 of “In Treatment”—the HBO series starring the studly Gabriel Byrne that has me oddly hooked.  I’ve had a few sessions of therapy, enough to know that this tv show is a wild exaggeration of what is probably mostly skimming on unethical therapy in real life, but ooh, what great drama it is.  Of course, the drama in Paul’s personal life (Bryne’s character) is the most intriguing. 
• Pondered (well, started to ponder) the definition of “happiness” as a result of Ph.D. Me’s posting on Friday.
• I finished reading Elizabeth Strout’s amazing novel Olive Kitteridge and had a sudden flash of an idea for a project I’d like to work on this summer as a result of the MLA’s new discussion group on Age Studies.

Today is Monday and finals week has begun: I’ll receive nearly 40 research papers today, the other 50+ written assignments later this week.  One student, who handed in her essay this morning, needs to return to her home country immediately to get her mother out of a war zone where her uncle was just tortured and killed.

Dead weekend is over.

Multiple Blogiality Disorder

Last December I gave a lecture on Oprah’s Book Club, and based on my emphatically positive spin on the Oprah Effect, I was recruited by an eager colleague to assist in starting a faculty and staff blog: a public space for our rapidly growing institution to remind each other who we are and what we do.

We’ve been active for a few months now: our small blog task force has reached out to those faculty and staff members who we think might have something interesting to write about (and who might actually want to take time out of their busy daily lives to do so).

Based on the blog stats, people are reading these postings (with truly novel takes on subjects such as post- modernity, social networking,  soap and chemistry, and “generation me”).   One faculty member “outed” herself as an anonymous blogger of mostly mother and teaching related reflections when she agreed to cross post on our college blog. Another faculty member who posted is also a blogger, but not an anonymous one: she links to both blogs on Facebook, and enjoys the cross pollination of the various public forums.

This week, for the college blog, we are encouraging faculty and staff to submit their summer reading lists.  I am getting some interesting titles, but not as many as I’d hoped.

Despite a slow start, it’s been rewarding starting this new blog—which has yet to really find its footing.  Is the college blog a public relations tool of sorts (not that the PR folks are selling it in any way), or is it just another form of a “Water Cooler” that we have on our internal e-mail system? Right now, it seems to be the latter, but what is most interesting is that because I am one of the public faces of this new blog, I am often confused as the writer of many of the postings—folks stop by on campus to thank me for my interesting posts about Facebook or teaching, and I have to stop and remember that they mean my colleagues’ posts on the college blog (not Annie Em’s posts on those same subjects).

It’s a little unnerving.

This blog, too, is still trying to find its niche: partly educational, partly self reflection, partly a pastiche of links that amuse me.  But that’s ok.  I’ll keep writing and see where it goes.  While I don’t have the talent to write stories like TK,  or the charm to blog on life like Inky, or the wit of Acadamnit, I enjoy the process of writing a blog posting.  Tenured Radical (a rather well-known blogger) has a thoughtful recent 400^th posting where she reflects upon her rather satisfying “career” as a blogger, a public intellectual of the 21^st century.

That’s a marvelous goal, to be a public intellectual.

One of my students this term came to chat with me about that: he wants to be a public intellectual when he grows up (he’s 22) and asked me what he should major in!  I was truly at a loss. What would you have said?

Since he was sitting there in my soon to be small, old office, waiting for me to give him advice, I ultimately said something, though it probably sounded like a rambling list to the poor guy:  I said that it didn’t matter what he majored in, as long as he took a variety of classes, challenging classes, too.  I said it was probably more important that he write and participate in conversations as often as possible.  That he travel and become involved in the world around him. I gave him a list of titles of books by writers I consider to be public intellectuals, and encouraged him to take classes with professors on campus who I think would be possible mentors for him.

And then I said I hoped we could chat again someday after spring term when my brain was not quite as mushy.

I hope he does stop by to chat next week after he hands in his research paper (an approach on a topic that is, of course, original and challenging).  Maybe I’ll tell him to start a blog.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary

___________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                     June 1, 2009

LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER PRIDE MONTH, 2009
- – - – - – -
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION

Forty years ago, patrons and supporters of the Stonewall Inn in New York City resisted police harassment that had become all too common for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. Out of this resistance, the LGBT rights movement in America was born. During LGBT Pride Month, we commemorate the events of June 1969 and commit to achieving equal justice under law for LGBT Americans.

LGBT Americans have made, and continue to make, great and lasting contributions that continue to strengthen the fabric of American society. There are many well-respected LGBT leaders in all professional fields, including the arts and business communities. LGBT Americans also mobilized the Nation to respond to the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic and have played a vital role in broadening this country’s response to the HIV pandemic.

Due in no small part to the determination and dedication of the LGBT rights movement, more LGBT Americans are living their lives openly today than ever before. I am proud to be the first President to appoint openly LGBT candidates to Senate-confirmed positions in the first 100 days of an Administration. These individuals embody the best qualities we seek in public servants, and across my Administration — in both the White House and the Federal agencies — openly LGBT employees are doing their jobs with distinction and professionalism.

The LGBT rights movement has achieved great progress, but there is more work to be done. LGBT youth should feel safe to learn without the fear of harassment, and LGBT families and seniors should be allowed to live their lives with dignity and respect.

My Administration has partnered with the LGBT community to advance a wide range of initiatives. At the international level, I have joined efforts at the United Nations to decriminalize homosexuality around the world. Here at home, I continue to support measures to bring the full spectrum of equal rights to LGBT Americans. These measures include enhancing hate crimes laws, supporting civil unions and Federal rights for LGBT couples, outlawing discrimination in the workplace, ensuring adoption rights, and ending the existing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in a way that strengthens our Armed Forces and our national security. We must also commit ourselves to fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic by both reducing the number of HIV infections and providing care and support services to people living with HIV/AIDS across the United States.

These issues affect not only the LGBT community, but also our entire Nation. As long as the promise of equality for all remains unfulfilled, all Americans are affected. If we can work together to advance the principles upon which our Nation was founded, every American will benefit. During LGBT Pride Month, I call upon the LGBT community, the Congress, and the American people to work together to promote equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2009 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon the people of the United States to turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

BARACK OBAMA