Small Talk

I talked with my father today, something I seldom do.

You have to understand. My father and I have never been very close. We do not see eye-to-eye on politics, education, art, sports... well... pretty much on anything. Plus, he and my mother split up, and he moved out of our house when I was about 11 years old. In addition, he has always lived in Tennessee, and I lived in Boston for years before moving to California. Add to all of this the fact that I do not like to talk on the telephone. I don't know why. I will write a long e-mail or a letter or send a postcard in an instant. I even talk on the telephone for great lengths of time when people call me. But I have a hard time getting myself to pick up the telephone and call someone else. I just won't do it. My father, on the other hand, seems to always be "thinking about calling" me, but I can count on one hand the number of times he has called me in my life. He's not much of a talker anyway. So while I love him very much, we don't talk much.

Anyway, I called him today because my sister-in-law has been in the hospital for several weeks due to complications with her pregnancy. Darling Wife wants to send something to the hospital, but I didn't know which hospital my sister-in-law is in. I know from my sister that my brother stays in the hospital almost all the time. I didn't know how to reach him, so I rang my father. After my father told me the name of the hospital and my sister-in-law's room number, he says that I need to call my brother whose feelings are hurt because I haven't called him already. Then dad says, "And I understand that," implying that he feels I don't call him enough either, something he is always throwing in my face.

Now, I am pissed. I want you to know that my sister-in-law has been in the hospital for a month, and my brother has not once called me to let me know where she is or how she is doing. I wouldn't even know she was in the hospital if it weren't for my sister telling me. And my father hasn't called me in over a year, unless I called him first. How dare they! This is not all my fault. How dare they get their feelings hurt just because I didn't do something that neither of them ever does either. The hypocritical bastards!

I suppose, as usual, I will have to bite my tongue, cover my anger, and ring my brother to apologize. But I refuse to actually be sorry about it. I don't believe I have done anything wrong.

Who knew?

You Are 64% Evil

You are very evil. And you're too evil to care.Those who love you probably also fear you. A lot.

How Evil Are You?

Gather ye rosebuds

I found gray hairs on my chest yesterday, quite a few of them. They must have been there for some time, but I hadn't noticed them before last night. This brings to the surface something I've been thinking about for awhile, perhaps even for years. My recent birthday brought it to mind more insistently, and this discovery urges me to express it, if I can. I feel it is cliche to rage against growing older in a society that priviledges youth, and in truth, I cannot completely lament it. There are some things about the experience that sadden and frustrate me, but I must confess there are others that bring blessings and contentment. I am not sure how to feel. Shall we ponder this paradox for a bit as we age a little more together?

Let me first state for the record that I have never had a positive self-image about my appearance. I never liked my hair, my weight, the color of my eyes, the shape of my face, etc. During childhood, I was neglectful of my appearance, so the self-image was most likely accurate, and it got worse for a time after high school. But in my early 20s, I made an effort to change my life for the better, including my appearance. I was never fully satisfied with the results, but I know that others found me attractive. For a few wonderful years, I was tall, dark, and handsome. I was 6'4" and thin. I had curly, dark brown hair that grew long and waved around my shoulders. I had a dark complexion and bright blue eyes. I dressed sharply and carried myself confidently, even if it was a facade; I cultivated an ability to flash a smile and flirt effectively; I went to parties and night clubs; I socialized equally with poor artists, popular athletes, and wealthy aristocrats. I was bold and charismatic. And for the first time in my life, people noticed me and liked what they saw.

I am not old now; don't get me wrong. But I diet constantly and cannot keep my weight down as I did in those halcyon days, making me more "big" than "tall." I have lost much of the hair whose rampant curls used to vex me and appeal to the ladies, and what I have not lost has turned half gray. I keep it short to mask some of its thinness, but with only partial success. I do not have many wrinkles, but the fresh crispness of youth is unmistakably gone from my features. I dress as well as I can, but my broad shoulders and barrell chest are far from the wraith-like proportions fashionable today. When people notice me now, it is not with that longing look of attraction; it is with the casual observation unavoidable when one is my heighth. And it is not just a matter of appearance. I lack the energy I once had, and I find my ability to say the right thing and drink until the wee hours diminishes with each passing day. Some men become distinguished or acquire an air of culture as they age; others just become middle-aged. I am the latter.

Still, I am happy. I love my wife. I stay home at night because I want to, not because I have to. I am good at what I do, and I have some excellent friends. I also have great memories. I wouldn't change anything I did or exchange anything I have, and I don't believe I would go back to those rowdy days of youth if I had the chance. In some ways, having a different life but possessing the memories of my former life is like actually having them both, now, simultaneously. Memory allows something from the past to exist in the present so I can be in two places at once. Whereas when I was young, I couldn't be what I am now. Youth precludes experience. It is where one acquires that experience, not where one possesses it. Certainly vitality and a wide open future are appealing, but I'm tired of possibilities and endless moving around. I'm ready for something different.

Nor do I want to associate with those who are young. Their attitudes and actions seem hopelessly naive to me now, and in truth, they are. Mine were too at that age. I just didn't know it. I get no joy from spending time with them. It doesn't make me feel young like them. Quite the opposite. It makes me more aware of how different, and older, I am. I used to want to be one of those "cool" professors. You know, the ones who have a drink with you at the pub after class and want you to call them by their first name. But now I realize that I am not like undergraduate students anymore, and pretending to be is just sad. They may still see it as "cool," but I can't think of anything more uncool. And God knows it would be disasterous if they found me attractive.

So, growing older is not so bad. Still....

University Health Care SUCKS!

Yesterday, I went to the student health center on campus. I should have done this a long time ago, but I have been too busy. Past experience tells me that getting a new doctor can be time consuming and involved. I thought that the summer lull would be a good time to establish myself with the center, get a doctor there, and have my records transferred from my PCP in Boston. With that in mind, I called Monday to schedule an appointment. The person I spoke with was confused and brusque at first, but eventually we understood each other, and she made the appointment.

When I walked through the door yesterday, I was greeted by a computer monitor with "Self Check-in System" scrawling across it. One just swipes one's university ID and follows a series of prompts to check oneself in. I'm sure this is a very efficient system, but it felt rather impersonal. I wasn't sure what I'd gotten myself into. Then, I found my way to the waiting area, following signs as the computer system directed. After a few minutes, a nurse came in with a clipboard and forms to fill out, which was good because it gave me time to recover from my bike ride before having my blood pressure, etc. taken. When I'd filled out the forms, the same nurse took the usual measurements in a hallway-like space and ushered me into a typical examination room. The doctor came in after about ten minutes. He shook my hand and introduced himself as Dr. Andrews, but I got the feeling this friendly greeting was a common formality; there was no sincerity in his touch.

Then, Dr. Andrews sat down opposite me and asked me why I was there in a bland, bored tone. Each time I would say something, there would follow a long pause while he just sat there looking at me... or the floor. I didn't know what to say or do. It was clear that Dr. Andrews didn't think I should be there since, to my knowledge, there is nothing physically wrong with me, and he wasn't sure what to do either. He didn't even want to do the cholesterol test that was scheduled as part of the appointment. He said it was very likely my Boston PCP did one last year, and it didn't need to be done every year. He didn't examine me at all. Instead, he drew me a little map of where "medical records" was located in the building and sent me on my way to fill out forms to have my records transferred. He also told me the health center's operating hours and mentioned I could have the same doctor each time if I wanted. The way he said this made it sound like he didn't think it was necessary, normal, or desirable for me to want to see him again. Words can't express how his tone was discouraging. I walked out thinking, "Yeah, uhm, right. I'll be beating down your door. I bet they have better bedside manner in the morgue."

When I got to medical records, a kid hooked up to an iPod told me he'd be with me in a moment, and I waited while he moved around the room stuffing manila envelopes into slots. Then he gave me some forms to fill out and disappeared. Some other guy came over after a few minutes, and, again, I got twenty questions about why I was there. "No, it is not connected with any issue or appointment, per se. I'm just establishing service here. I will be at the university for awhile and would like the clinic to have my medical records."

The worst part about the experience was that each time I answered these questions, the people didn't act like they really cared what the answers were. They asked out of mild curiousity because my situation was unusual to them, but the answer didn't seem to interest them at all. The whole place acted like I was putting them out because I was there when there wasn't anything wrong with me. They assume that students are 19-22 years old, healthy, and have their own doctors elsewhere who handle routine, annual exams. The student health center is there to deal with accidents, colds, flu, and allergies. That's all. I honestly wanted to scream, "No, I'm NOT SICK. But I'm also not 19 yrs old on mommy and daddy's medical insurance back home in Iowa. I am a graduate student who lives here all the time and has the university medical insurance. I don't want to get sick. I want to have regular check-ups with a doctor who has read my records and knows me. You know, like I'm supposed to do! If you don't want to do this, you shouldn't insist that we name the student health center as our PCP on our insurance!"

Once again, graduate student life has its downsides.

External Validation, at Last!

Last Monday, I finished my last paper of the quarter/year and turned it in . The class was Victorian Novel with a professor I admire, and I partly applied to my university to be able to work with her. Consequently, I had a lot invested in the outcome of this paper.

For my reactions to make sense, you need to know a little about the professor. She is a New Historicist critic, which I aspire to be, and has done some very respected work on little girls in Victorian Literature, specifically on the relationship between girls and adult male writers. In a nonpedophilic way, it's a more interesting subject than you might think at first. Consider Lewis Carrol and young Alice Liddell, for instance. Anyway, this professor is very critical and very British, which means her reactions to my classroom work have been difficult to read. If you are familiar with the stereotypical British temperment, you know what I mean. She condescendingly guffaws and snorts at almost anything anyone says in class and pushes her own interpretations of the material with such understatement that one is never quite sure what she thinks about his or her ideas, despite her blustering. Yet irrespective of this, she comes off as perfectly charming and delightful, even when she disagrees with you; however, she can be vicious to written work, which I learned to my grief earlier in the quarter when she ripped apart a previous paper with a pencil-sized scythe.

You see, the class was set up so that we had to write, in addition to weekly response papers and a class presentation, two seminar papers of 8-10 pages instead of one paper of 20-30 pages, as is normal. The professor explained this by saying it allowed us to engage more than one of the novels from the class if we were so inclined. In addition, conference papers are rarely over that length, and she stressed that our papers should approximate conference-style papers. This seems easy, right? I should be able to write 8-10 pages in a day with no problem, right? Wrong. After years of writing lengthy seminar papers, I found it difficult to write a short paper that still contained sufficient depth, flare, and response to critical discourse, and as I indicated, my first attempt to do so for this class achieved disasterous results.

Consequently, I waited tremulously for the return of this last paper. Part of me craved to see the results with a desire that bordered on unstable, but part of me denied the very existence of the offending document. I wanted desperately to do well in this class above all others because it's my area, and I felt a need to prove myself on this paper. When I picked it up recently, my hands trembled and my stomach lurched as I grasped the pages and glimpsed the prof's pencil scrawl covering the entire right-hand margin of the first page. But lo and behold, she was all praise of it and my work in general in her end comments. Well, not ALL praise. She made some typically scathing margin comments that I need to look at more closely, but her end comments were almost wholly positive! I can't properly express how elated I was when I read her glowing remarks. My knees almost buckled... although maybe that was from my bike ride beforehand. But seriously, I shouted alleluias to the fountain in the building's courtyard and sprinted back and forth in front of it with childlike glee. I'm sure I looked pretty foolish, but I didn't care. Besides, there was no one to see.

Such is the life of the graduate student. Most people don't understand it exactly. They can identify with this feeling, but not the context. I often wonder about my choice to remove myself from "the real world" and pursue a life in the academy, but days like this make it worth it. Perhaps I'll stick with this Ph.D. thing after all.