percolating things

yes, for the record, while i'd like to say i hate steely dan, the truth is, i can't even muster the energy to care that much. i'm just flabbergasted anyone likes them. like listening to paint dry.

i don't have to teach tomorrow. completely forgot kurt, kristin and i were scheduled to take a look at revamping the sophomore curriculum based on some conversations we had this past fall. i know i talked about it briefly then, but the quickie version is we're looking at spending the first trimester focusing on writing and the second on literature. obviously it cannot be a clean break, but it would allow us to spend more concentrated time on writing, which is our goal. i'm excited to sit down and look how this concept might play out concretely. will take some work on our parts, but it's the kind of work i enjoy, unlike grading bibliographies. really, can they not alphabetize? or are they just lazy?

currently experiencing flashbacks to my junior high days. the rest of my house church is wanting to set me up with someone and honestly, i felt completely uncomfortable. i remember at some point i stopped telling my mom when i liked someone because she always made a huge deal out of it. same feeling i am getting now. i know their intention is not to make me uncomfortable and i am actually flattered that they think enough of me to want to see me make some kind of connection. but for me, it's hard for me to even answer, especially since i've "met" this person once and that for twenty seconds and i'm being asked if i could see myself going out with her and all i can think is, "we barely made eye contact. i'm not sure i could even pick her out of a line up if i saw her. and i'm supposed to be able to determine if i like her or not?"

yes, i know these are my issues. and i own them.

i read an interesting article posted to one of my mailing lists called "The Pathologies of Hope" by barbara ehrenreich (you can read it for yourself here). interesting look at this thing called hope and how in some cases it has been twisted by society. one paragraph in particular resonated with me:

In fact, there is some evidence that the ubiquitous moral injunction to think positively may place an additional burden on the already sick or otherwise aggrieved. Not only are you failing to get better but you're failing to feel good about not getting better. Similarly for the long-term unemployed, who, as I found while researching my book Bait and Switch, are informed by career coaches and self help books that their principal battle is against their own negative, resentful, loser-like feelings. This is victim blaming at its crudest, and may help account for the passivity of Americans in the face of repeated economic insult.

since high school, if not earlier, i've had a problem with that "moral injunction." on many occasions, i remember being told by well-meaning people that my occasional journeys into the darkness of life were ruining my life and were, in fact, something God frowned upon. and my reaction was always, "great. now, not only am i making my own life miserable, but i've disappointed God, too." how is this a good thing to tell someone who is already feeling bad. frankly, some days i just want to tell all those positive people to shut the frak up. just as feeling bad won't make my situation any better, thinking happy thoughts isn't going to change my situation either. and sometimes, for me anyway, i feel much better after letting the darkness come in instead of keeping it at a distance.

don't get me wrong - like ehrenreich, i'm not an advocate for hopelessness, though i'm sure that's how it appears to some on the outside. i've seen too much in this world to believe there's no hope. but i've also seen too much to know that putting a positive spin on everything is lying to oneself at a fundamental level. there are painful things in this world. there is darkness. to ignore it and pretend it is the light only makes you more likely to be swallowed up by it in the end.

it dovetails with the latest oprahnomenon, the secret by rhonda byrne, which i just heard about for the first time yesterday. i haven't done much research on it (for obvious reasons) but it sounds like a variation on ye olde name-it-claim-it/healthandwealth gospel we've been hearing in christian circles for ages. if you imagine it, it will be yours. if you constantly think of yourself as rich, you will become rich. if you think positively about your job, you'll find yourself in a better job. what boggles my mind is people are buying this (it's been on the nytimes bestseller list for ten weeks at least, probably with a lot of help from oprah). while i'd like to believe our brains have that kind of power, i think it's a load of crap. yeah, i'm sure if all those living in poverty just thought of themselves as doing better, they'd be able to escape. its a crass combination of positive thinking and materialism and, well, i'm so disgusted i'm going to stop talking about it.

i really didn't mean to come here tonight to rant and rave. but obviously i had some things to sort out. or spew out, i guess.

i get to sleep in tomorrow a bit - don't have to be at the white house until 7:15, which means i don't have to leave the house until 6:30, what with traffic and all, so i can sleep in an hour. excellent. here's hoping this unnatural heat we're experiencing doesn't keep me from sleeping tonight, though the way i feel right now, sleep seems far, far away. have i ever mentioned how much i hate to sweat?

enough for tonight.
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Tunes: rancid - time bomb