Wishing I Was Buildning a Haunted Gingerbread House Instead

Woke up to bacon cooking in a cast-iron skillet, wind whipping over the tin-roof, a fresh-mown tract of land, fallen leaves, a bright blue sky and chilly morning air. This place is stunning  today.  How I WISH I didn’t have an LSU to-DO list as long as my leg. Today is the EXACT type of day I would like to be doing a million things OTHER than reading, researching, or writing yet another play-for-a-grade…

I really am struggling this morning with what to include in this blog-post.

I don’t care about theatre today, or higher education or articles, reading assignments, theory, 17^th and 18^th century catch-up work, contrived one-acts or anything of the sort. I care about them in general, I care a great deal. Tomorrow I will care, but not today.

I would rather go buy some pumpkins and carve them, or find some recipes for fun Halloween chow and whip them up, or go buy preggo-lady clothes, or get a cheap manicure, or drag my canoe to the water and paddle around a bit or find a book store and sit outside with a NON-work related book and sip  iced chai.

I want to think about ANYTHING other than education.

Ugh. Arrrgh. Ok. Ok…

Um, WORK. Ok, I have loads to do.

Going to start with my reading for Monday.

Next I will try to get closer to finishing my 17^th/18^th century play.

Then I will complete one of the two hours I’m supposed to spend on my 17^th/18^th century “final” document.

Meanwhile, outside, the most gorgeous day I’ve seen all year is passing me blithely by…

Which way do I GO, Which way do I GO?!

So, my mind had been drifting repeatedly back to the idea of Fringe-studies for my dissertation. I’m actually pretty excited about the idea.

A part of me feels that the abandonment of my two previous ideas is, well…weakness, but the OTHER part of me knows that mode of thinking is simply a self-sabotaging waste of time. YES, I have a great deal of passion for helping to create a reputable Tennessee Williams archive in the playwright’s home town. But I can help to accomplish this without dedicating my dissertation to the task. In fact, I am guessing that I would be MUCH more effective at getting things done on that front if I was NOT saddled with the formalities of dissertating. An approach to this work, were it done through the university, would likely turn into a theory-heavy venture which would probably fail to serve the actual building OF an archive.

There…so I’m off of the hook on THAT front.

And as for my interest in examining prize-winning drama as a canon representative of national identity and social ideals, I’ve been beaten to the finish-line. I found a book which accomplishes just that. Yes, I could certainly find a fresh angle of analysis but I’d simply be looking to find a fresh angle of analysis and LOOKING for fresh angles without being inspired to do so through a personal passion or perception of a NEED is exactly the self-serving and contrived kind of scholarship that makes my stomach turn.
I feel that if I were to dedicate myself to this focus of study, I’d be tap-dancing.

On the other hand, I DO feel that there is a dearth of Fringe scholarship and I DO feel very strongly that the Fringe phenomenon deserves more attention. I feel that my research in this area would be worthwhile, timely and needed. I feel like my background with the Fringe would position me to do the needed research with a behind-the-scenes understanding that would serve the work immensely.

So now what?

Dr. J suggested I might consider taking a close look at 2-3 or 3-4 festivals. I would certainly want to look at the Orlando International Fringe as one of the oldest/most successful in the states. I would also like to look at the New Orleans Fringe as one of the newest .

I think that all of the theory and history-heavy work that we do at LSU has caused me to be a smidge irresponsible in forgetting that criticism is also part of what we do. I LOVE the idea of case-studies and analysis of the NOW. But I don’t know where to start. I feel like this is the area where I have the least amount of training. What NEXT?

Women, Write Your Bodies

While I did enjoy recently reading Helene Cixous, I have had to learn to navigate an awkward relationship with some feminist philosophy. This is an uneasy admission. I feel that I should wish to carry banners and bullhorns but the honest truth is, I’m of a generation that has enjoyed the fruits of the warriors for women that came before me. I am just removed enough from blatant oppression to rarely feel infuriated. I am not proud of this.

But today is different.

Today I am feeling petulant and angry and hormonal and distressed.

Today I finally got an email containing the list of doctors I must choose from in Lake Charles. These are the only doctors in the area who deliver babies and are covered by the insurance I have through LSU. Men. They are ALL men. On the list was a man in particular who came recommended by an acquaintance of a cousin of mine. He’s the ONLY person on the list who I have even HEARD of in my multi-week search for a comfortable match. He is also the man who I was warned would, under no circumstances, prescribe birth control. His convictions dictate that he requires women to give up all agency concerning when or how many children they are willing to have. I struck him from the list. The only man recommended had to be struck from the list.

I am so angry. I have absolutely NOTHING against men who wish to be OB/GYNs. I have the utmost respect for anyone who wishes to dedicate their medical practice to the health of women and the successful delivery of babies. But I do not want a male doctor. A man can only theoretically understand the birthing process. I did a massive amount of reading concerning the physiological, psychological and emotional changes that a pregnant woman goes through. I have often been aware of what would happen to me BEFORE things happened with me. And yet, for all the reading and theoretical preparation, I have been ceaselessly amazed at how the EXPERIENCE blows the book-knowledge clean out of the water.

This process is indescribable. There is something overwhelmingly astounding and humbling and beautiful and scary and exciting and inconceivable about it all. There is also something inexplicably isolating about it. I do not mean this is a morose manner. It isn’t a depressed isolation I speak of, its just that during this process, you must necessarily experience the MOST intense “stuff” you’ve EVER been faced with, largely by yourself. You sit in restaurants, classrooms and offices while people around you talk about whatever it is they speak of in day-to-day conversation and meanwhile you can feel your child learning to move. This puts you into dual-consciousness. You can be present in the pizza parlor or the conference room but you are also sitting with life, death, fear, God, hope, development, spirit and movement. MOVEMENT of the most intense and fluid kind…movement of thought, movement within, movement of the machinery in your mind whirring to handle the logistics, movement in your heart. And with ALL this movement, you physically remain still. You sit still until class is over, you sit still until the meal is done.

I feel like this is where the women SHOULD be communing. I feel like I should be with mothers, grandmothers, sisters. A tribe. My intuition strongly and clearly shows me that THIS is the time to be mindful, deliberate, aware.

I understand that access to medical help is important…especially since I am older and especially since there have been previous losses in my family throughout this process on both sides. But I feel like I should be able to go through this with a woman to guide me. I feel like I should be in a birthing center and not a fluorescent-lit stark and soul-less room.

Lake Charles is not a micro- town. How can there be no women doctors there who are covered my insurance? I feel like waving banners. I feel like picking up a bullhorn.

Dreamers Awake

Dreamt last night that Dr J-Fletch came to class and performed a musical number. His hair was short like it was in his high school pictures and I realized that he could be the twin-brother of my good friend Mike Lane, a talented actor from Orlando. In the dream, Dr J was singing his lecture. He'd choreographed the piece as a surprise performative experimental and  interactive piece. My fellow PhD pal Macy jumped up and joined in. I remember being surprised that Macy was the first to jump up as she usually prefers research to performance. She was trying to compliment Dr J's movement by making extensions of his gestures rather than by mimicking or mirroring him. She left the singing to him. 

I remember thinking that it was an engaging number and while I cannot remember the lyrics of the song, I know it was about Professing Performance. I think the chorus was a kind of cheer-leading directive for students to remember that genealogy of performance studies should be FUN. In the dream, I was thinking that the lecture-show was fun but that the reading had not been fun. Not fun at all. 

I wish I could  clearly identify what it is about Shannon Jackson's writing that fails to engage me. I recognize that her work is important. I recognize that she is thorough. I can see that she clearly states her intentions, illuminates her interventions and makes known what she is intentionally leaving aside for other scholars to suss-out. I feel like her work represents something I ought to want to aspire to. Truth is, there is something in my brain that shuts down after every five sentences. I absorb the first line and a half and then I seem to go into some sort of auto-pilot mode. My eyes move over the text, I acknowledge what I am looking at as words. I attach the words to a notion of scholarship and further take note that I am encountering a dialogue about the fraught relationship of performance studies to the university empire. But aside from these vague pockets of awareness, I am reading blind. Eventually I will get five sentences in and realize that I have failed to absorb anything meaningful...the way a person does when looking at a menu without realizing until a waiter asks to take the order that they have failed to really look at the menu items closely enough to consider what they do or do not want. 

I spend more time LOOKING at Jackson's words than I spend absorbing meaning. 

Anyhow, that's my confession for the day. Perhaps that's why I dreamt of Dr J's lecture performance. I am looking for ways to feel engaged with this text. Wonder if anyone will sing tomorrow.

Regulating Aversion

After reading selection of Brown’s Regulating Aversion  for my Grad studies class, it has come to my attention that I have taken tolerance for granted in ways I’ve been wholly and spectacularly ignorant of. I am guilty of accepting the term as descriptive of high moral aims. I have automatically associated the term with equilibrium and with generosity of individuals and groups towards others, be they othered through race, sexuality, spirituality and/or culture. I am one of the masses who has accepted tolerance as a transcendent and universally positive concept instead of considering it as being historically and politically discursive.

I have always haphazardly thought of tolerance as a lofty goal…something I ought to achieve, something masses of like-minded people ought to be able to do for people with ideologies different than said masses. I am sensitive to instances where I feel I have been intolerant of someone. These instances generally cause me sensations of guilt. I am also intolerant of others who I feel are being intolerant. A closer investigation makes me realize that the game of tolerance is precariously balanced on points of, well…self-righteousness, really. I never considered tolerance as a mode of modern governments which perpetuates power-struggles between those in power and those deemed deviant.

I feel the need to confess that a breaking-down of my tolerance-beliefs briefly, just briefly caused me to feel disheartened.

So now even tolerance is suspect?! TOLERANCE is now OPRESSIVE?! Great!

It occurred to me that PEACE would be next on the chopping-block. PEACE has certainly been manipulated as a tool for political and religious organizations to wield in operations of governance and regulation. HOWEVER, I found relief in Brown’s assurance that tolerance need not be demonized, and I DO very much see the value in considering the relationships between tolerance and depoliticization as well as in the simple act of noting ambiguity in meanings attached to tolerance. I am also humbly prepared for the debunking of airs of superiority. I can bolster myself through a belief that alongside the political and social constructs of tolerance bandying, there may still dwell a childlike and innocent intuitive breed of tolerance which may be inextricably bound to curiosity and wonder.

And had I forgotten that there was a Museum of Tolerance? I do have a vague recollection of hearing it spoken of and thinking, et the time, that I ought to find out more about it. MUST make a trek out to LA to check it out. Perhaps I will send some of my west-coast cronies out there to report back on the dazzling sound and light shows. How frightening to know that the museum purportedly supports bloodshed in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the same time, how fitting an example of how “tolerance” is hijacked for seemingly misguided acts.

Guess I’ll have to wait a while to visit the MOT myself. No bathrooms are a sure-fire way to keep Preggo chicks out of the place.

Hey WAIT a dang minute!!! NO bathrooms inside?!
OBVIOUSLY the MOT is intolerant of women in their child-bearing years.
Preggos UNITE! I say we SUE the MOT for intolerance!

Bluestockings RUNNING behind

Today my body is in knots. It feels like my neck is made of metal rods. Tension. There are so many things that are depleting the lives of the people I care most about and I am largely powerless to fix things.

Today I did not get to school in time for my first two classes. I thought I’d make my second but didn’t succeed. Rushing towards something you know you are going to miss is unbelievably frustrating. Each red light, road-block, slow driver clogging the fast lane…each of these reach a larger-than-life magnitude.

This isn’t the state I wanted to be in once it was time for the class to critique my play. I intended to get myself into a jovial and peaceful state-of-mind. Ah well. All went exactly as I expected it to go during the critique. I’m not frustrated by that class anymore, I now accept it for what it is and what it will be. I’m not looking to write what will matter to me down the road, I am looking to write what needs to be written now and I definitely have a sense of humor about the whole thing to replace the angst I felt before.

I now have a secret project. My next piece will be crafted to fit the “formula” of proper playwrighting…as can be gleaned from THIS class.  I will write in one-act form and finally cease the goal of a full-length. I will adhere to STRICT unity of location guidelines. I included a porch AND interior in this last piece and it didn’t go over well. The next location will consist of a single room, I may go so far as to make it a prison cell or cubicle. I will also adhere to STRICT unity of time guidelines. All will happen within a thirty-minute period. I will ensure that the piece is devoid of ANY blackouts. There will be NO break in the linear, forward motion of the action. There will be three characters, tops.

I’ve decided not to feel cheap about this plan.
I’m looking at this as a legitimate challenge.

In the mean-time, I am going to knock out three more hours of homework and then I am shutting down the work station and am going to soak myself in a tub and wash this stress down the drain.
I am going to get centered and be peaceful and I will wake up tomorrow refreshed.

To Do

Today I woke up anxious. Ended up in the hospital with my grandma again and my sweet papa is having a harder time with the chemo than I realized. Ma is taking care of everyone and is in Hell with her work. And I about all of the transitions that I am going through. I feel like there is too much to do and that time is rapidly slipping away from me. AM I worrying too much? Am I worrying too little?

Perhaps I should dedicate today’s blog to facing my fears.

Maybe if I write down everything I have looming, the worry will dissipate?
Maybe I can expel it from the pit of my stomach…like an unruly hair-ball.
Here goes…

To DO before graduation:

Ask committee members for their hand and blessing

Design a study plan for my general exams

Make a check-list for my dissertation project

Create a calendar with all of the above included

Sit down with my husband and discuss financial responsibilities if giving up funding

Research conferences and plan which I will submit for while I am dissertating

Attend McNeese production

Find out how I might apply to guest-direct or teach a course

Write my dissertation

Defend my dissertation

To get through the semester, I first must:

Write another one-act

Prep for final projects in my Intro To Grad Studies and US course

Prep for week two of US class-leading

Prep for my final ten-minute presentations and working group proposal

Submit my 17^th and 18^th C work

Keep blogging

 

And not to be forgotten:

Find a new doctor in Lake Charles

Get a baby-appropriate automobile

Move out of my apartment

Build a nursery

Grow a baby

Decide whether I think I can deliver without pain medication

Deliver a baby

Learn how to be a momma

Get a job

Ok.

Ok…

I’m not sure if that was cathartic or terrifying.

At least my Germanic wont for list-making was satisfied.