KT, GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW! I'm going to count to three... one... two...

Yesterday was my mental health day for the week. I abandoned Evanston for the delights of flat and muddy Wisconsin. Waking in the morning and looking up at my ceiling I thought to myself

"Self - you really should go to the library"

The part of myself that is 6 years old (KT) proclaimed loudly (while stamping her foot with great impiousness on the floor):

"Don't wanna!"

"Now, be rational little KT - you have all of these papers to write, orals lists to construct, reading to do, you can't simply deny these responsibilities to play around all day." (a disapproving frown from me cast at my younger self was supposed to drive this point home with due seriousness)

"Pbttttt!" Hands on hips "I wanna play, I wanna go outside - the sun! the trees! antiques! estate sales! donuts! liqour! YOU NEVER PLAY ANY MORE!"

Another disapproving frown "But KT, we played this weekend..." There was nothing to be done. She sat in the middle of the bed, wrapped in a rubber ducky bespangled blanket refusing to look at any more theory until I took her out to play.

"Ok, just this once, but then you have to be good ALL WEEKEND."

"k"

That was it. We called up Allyson, took off for Racine, attacked antique stores, looted thrift stores, and pillaged a beach on Lake Michigan for shiny objects. Donuts were eaten, alcohol was drunk, and "Tomb Raider" was watched. KT has promised to be good for the rest of the weekend, and I have promised not to ignore her so much.

Apparently the elusive Katie is a 6 year old with a surly temperment and a penchant for shiny objects.

And I like her.

Eeep!

So I left my seminar today and was driving home with Heidi, when I suddenly realized (halfway through the conversation) that I was speaking exactly like my professor.

This was mildly disconcerting so - turning to Heidi and indicating my suspicion of the alterity in my orality - continued speaking in this mode for a further three sentences using the aforementioned complex of theoretical jargon. This brought immediate hilarity and I am now consciously capable of producing a perfect impression of this professor.

At the same time, however, this was an utterly destabilizing moment for me. Am I Descartes wax tablet - to be imprinted with not only memory and knowledge, but molded into LITTLE EXACT REPLICAS OF MY PROFESSORS? I posit to you that this is undeniably freaky and yet unsettling. Has academia so corroded my sense of self that I am capable of effortlessly embodying someone else's demeanor? Do I actually USE made up words in conversation in a non-mocking fashion? Is all of this happening without my knowledge? EEP?

Just for that, I will do no work tonight. I will work on my comic book - I will drink alcohol - I will get in touch with what it means to be Katie - even if this elusive Katie is to be found only at the bottom of a bottle of tequila. If I return from this inward journey, I hope that I will find my unique subjectivity - either that or I will find a hangover.

You rolls your dice and you takes your chances.

Party like it's 1999

So the party was good. Despite my personal hostess paranoia about putting on a “quality” party, I seemed to pull the food, drink and merriment off with reasonable success. Good food, good friends, good alcohol, good gossip. There really are only so many things that can be said for a party. The turnout was smaller than expected, but the company was so cool as to make extraneous people simply redundancy of fun. Of course this means that I bought way way too much alcohol and everyone I know will simply have to throw themselves on the pike and drink heartily with me in the future (if only for the sake of my refrigerator space). Anne and Jett brought limes and some delightful queso dip that harmonized perfectly with the 4 year English Edam and the red wine. It was a feast.

In any case, the secondary party (apparently I was the pre-party to this post-party) was also a blast, and there are few things so entertaining as watching random members of your department chug beer bongs a-la-undergraduate-frathouse. I felt as though I was returning to those moments of blissful freedom where papers could be written in a weekend, homework only took and hour, and my social life was my utmost priority. Clearly I have my current priorities all out of whack - as I am neither carefree nor any smarter (although I can sure talk the talk - I used "instantiate" and “abject” when speaking to one of my professors this morning). Everyone got to meet my ever-charming boyfriend, and some events were so amusing that people literally fell down and cried they were laughing so hard. These, my friends, are the moments that stick with you. Although I may not be able to recount for you Adorno's particular views on aesthetics, I will always remember the tear-streaked faces of my friends rolling on the floor in a fit of utter merriment.

The rest of the weekend was delightful - although overshadowed by the 3-month surgery rotation hell into which my boyfriend is plunging. The little I see of him will now shade into the "almost never" category - which makes me a very unhappy girl. I feel that the only remedy for this is throwing myself into my schoolwork, cleaning my apartment, indulging in totally self-centered tarot readings, drinking tequila, and pining away pathetically while holding his picture (you didn't really think that I could be objective about this did you?).

That aside, I am looking towards a week filled with mystery and wonder - the mysteries of the far-more-fucked-up-than-I-thought-possible-Pierre, and wonder at my own ability to fall asleep anywhere in the Regenstein. Not all that mysterious or wondrous, but frankly, look at the material I have to work with here.

The night before - all is silent, cooks are cooking.

My apartment smells so good right now. Spaghetti. That's all that needs to be said. This is my own especial recipe - created from many nights of gaming, junk food, and alcohol.


And.


Tequila. TEQUILAAAAAA!

Avast there me hearties, I spy a boring book!

I have always been a fan of Melville, and I have defended the length of Moby Dick and intervening chapters on the art of: harpoon making, ship building, rope coiling, and seating arrangements in a whaling-boat against the barbs of the bored. But MY GOD! PIERRE IS SO UNHOLY BORING! I have never encountered a book about whose characters I care so little, can identify with so poorly, and have a malignant hatred for. This book is 363 pages of 180 proof distilled literary torture.

Who the hell marries his sister in order to salvage an ideal of his father (this ideal already having been shattered when he found out about the events that lead to his having to marry his sister)? Who would keep from his mother his father's infamy by making her only son into someone she deems dead to her; ESPECIALLY WHEN THE INFAMY WAS BEFORE SHE MARRIED HIM? I mean, seriously folks, this wandering adultery was perfectly acceptable in bachelor men (just not in women) in the 19th century. In fact, a woman was supposed to waste away under the weight of her infamy while the guys didn’t have to worry at all (oooh and we get a perfect example of wasting away under the burden of infamy in Della or Nellie or whatever the fuck that stupid girl’s name is – her baby dies, her parents disown her, and the adulterer ignores her). This, in fact, sounds a lot like one of the after-school specials that I had to watch in health class in high-school about the girl who got pregnant as a teenager (done with shamefully sculpted 80’s hair). I distinctly remember a scene where she runs away from home, ends up living on a mattress with her boyfriend in some rundown shack of a motel, carts her baby around and has a mad screaming fit on her fetid mattress when she finds out that she can’t go to the prom. These movies always had innocuous titles like “Mary’s Mistake” or “A Serious Situation”. It’s moments like these that make me look back on high school as a brief brainwashing process punctuated many moments of incredible oddness. Thank god for friends and gossip, or we would all have turned out completely insane.

I'm hoping that it is simply the lag of 150 or so years that makes this book less scandalous and more ridiculous, or I may have to rethink my position on Melville. He should have stuck to the ocean.

Homeyrotics

another word coined at the pub. If we could only get money for these....

I would just like to point out that the people in our department are very cool. And smart, very smart. I always feel like I am sitting in on some really fascinating cocktail party in Paris with a whole bunch of too-cool-to-be-Postmodern-kitsch people chatting about their relative likes and dislikes of obscure beers. (Upon further reflection, I mean this to say that most of the people in the department have the effortless intelligence of the really hip without the pretentiousness of the desperately-wanting-to-be-hip nonhip people; not that we are pathetic geeks who can talk of nothing but our alcoholism and spout terms like “aporia” “alterity” “subaltern” and “instantiation”). Pub night is a fascinating example of this. For example, I can pound on the table and say "Dick is good!" and people simply smile and are totally laid back (in their semi-tipsy U of C way) and say "well, of course it's good - it's powerful, it's primal, it’s phallic, it has commodity value... etc.." I mean really, these are cool people.

That said, I just finished a car ride of some 40 min with a student from Northwestern where I detailed for her why people from the U of C are so bitter. Apparently our reputation as a bitter department is well earned.

The contradiction between cool people and general bitterness is making my head hurt, so I think I will go and instantiate my subjectivity in the form of cleaning my bathroom so that I can present to others the "self" I wish to portray (that of a clean, hip, grad student instead of a slovenly geek).

Folklorize this!

You know, I had a really churningly bitter black bile of a post to put up today (about my paper and my life in general, aloofness, oversharing, coldness, incommunicado, rain, orals, rewrites, and people who use the prefix “uber" who aren’t German) and yet I suddenly just don't have the will to be grumpy anymore.

I mean - after I wrote it, I didn't care anymore. This either means that I am achieving a Zen-like state of calm oneness with the bitter aspects of my life or that I have dropped right off the sanity mountain into the gorge of …er... insanity.

What is called for at a moment of personal destabilization like this is an Oatmeal Cream Pie. Now there are those who say that these delightful little disks of cookie-frosting-marshmallow goodness are bad for you. Bad for your body? Undoubtedly yes. Bad for the mind? Undoubtedly no. There is nothing to calm the nerves like sitting down and allowing yourself a contemplative muse about the good things in life while the lingering aroma of Cream Pie floats across your taste buds. It's really hard to be angry at life when there is a circle of pure goodness sitting in your hand - it's like shining a halogen bulb down the esophagus of a gift-horse.

So please pardon me while I take a moment to look on the bright side of the things I was bitter about.

*pause*

Ok, that should do it. Thank you for your time.

Holy shit is this getting out of hand

I have in my apartment as of this moment… hold on a sec...24 books and/or articles on folklore, superstitions, fairies, brownies, ghosts, witches, devils, and goblins.. oh, and Hawthorne. This is totally out of hand. One of which is in FRENCH! I'm starting to look like one of those hunchback old ladies that can carry 8 times their body weight in sticks on their backs.

All of this to work out a 10-page conference paper (soon to be seminar paper) for my class on Tuesday. Now I know that I'm overdoing it, and that I can't possibly use all of these references, and that my argument is way way way too complex to be presented in a 20 min format, but yet - somehow - this doesn't stop me from wandering into the library and squealing with glee when I encounter yet another copy of "The Fairie Mythology".

I think this has something to do with spring. Since it has gotten warmer I have this unlimited energy, which has in a very silly way been funneled into writing this paper (over which I am causing myself far too much anxiety). I think the only remedy for this is to kick back, watch some TV, perhaps go thrift shopping, print out and cross off huge sections of my paper, and generally sink to the level of the lowest common denominator.

I listened to Louie Armstrong singing "Mack The Knife" all the way home from Hyde Park today - windows open, hair flying, fingers snapping, sunglasses on, singing along, other drivers staring - Now I KNOW it's spring.

Behold! - and there were three orals advisors
Behold! - and they are all willing to help
Behold! - and they are awesomely cool people

A triumvirate of power (I hope) has been amassed such that I can now move along my tour through the flaming hoops of grad school with at least a little more assurance.

I ambushed my professor today. We were meeting at Starbucks to talk about my presentation, and in the middle of our 2 hour (!) conversation about various and sundry things I essentially said "I have a confession to make - I brought you here to ambush you into being my orals advisor." She laughed, I laughed, and now I never have to do that again.

Frankly, there is something about choosing an orals advisor that is like proposing or agreeing to a death-pact or something. It's oddly frustrating to find just the right time to ask, you're nervous, you don't know what to say--- it's really odd.

Thank god it's over with.

In any case - I spent the rest of the afternoon looking up and photocopying random items in the Northwestern University library: digging through ancient volumes of fairy, witchcraft, ghost, brownie, and bogyman lore. Pretty interesting stuff.

And tonight I am wishing that I were hanging out with people and not books. Guess it's white Russians and "Tomb Raider" or perhaps "Galaxy Quest".

Desert, Oasis, Industrial Complex - boy am I full of imagery tonight.

I don't know if it's just me, but blogging has been just totally unsatisfying for the past few weeks - probably due to the totally hectic and insanely overscheduled life that I am trying to lead at the moment.

Perhaps when it calms down I shall once again be my old semi-witty and vaguely odd self punctuated by moments of bitterness.

Perhaps it is the weather. I have noticed that a general cloud of misanthropy, grumpiness, bitterness, and general exhaustion has settled over the department in the last few weeks as if the unwelcome smog of a new industrial complex is upwind of us. What this industrial complex may be, I don't know - but I bet it has something to do with leftover anxiety of post-winter-quarter papers and the unholy cold snap that seems to have enveloped Chicago. I wake up in the morning to be greeted with a cold shoulder from Nature - after she had blown a kiss to me the night before. Truly this is the kind of hot / cold weather to unhinge the mind and make even the most cheerful long for silence, seclusion, brandy, and an electric blanket.

Ahhh spring.

In any case - I am meeting with one of my professors on what seems to be my home turf tomorrow (namely Evanston) in an oddly casual context to discuss the 20 min presentation that is consuming my life this week (Blithedale romance). How one can adequately historicize in a week is beyond my comprehension, but I will try. Other than that, it's working up orals lists (Gothic and 19th century), attempting to coerce one more person into being my orals advisor, rewriting a paper, and figuring out a paper topic. Any more scholarly bliss and I may just explode from utter enthusiasm [can you see me smiling so hard that it makes my teeth hurt?].

Socially, my week is looking like the wastes of the Sahara – there is an oasis of liquid refreshment in the distance, but it may just be a mirage (this is evenings, of course – during the day I generally meet someone for lunch) There is, however, the rumor of hanging out with Kerri this weekend – perhaps my weekend will be an oasis after all – perhaps there will be a charming cabana boy serving piña-coladas there - you never know.

Scattershot posting.

After a small yet depressing season of mourning for my B+, I wrote a charming and totally professional letter to Prof. X, explaining my paper and asking for a rewrite.

Now all I have to do is situate my argument in the theoretical discourse such that it is shown to be an original and unusual take on a perfectly bizarre story.

Not a problem at all. Either that or explain again how what I am doing eschews a lot of the things that people are discussing concerning the "Artist of the Beautiful" (like Art and Beauty in the Kantian sense), and drawing the discussion into one of taste and highbrow / lowbrow interaction or lack thereof punctuated with moments of oddly transcendentalist leaning away from high intellectualism towards human connection (despite the ending of the story). Oh, and how this is translated into an analysis of Hawthorne's position within the culture of taste that makes all of these Kantian judgments about the work he is presenting. Bleah - not interesting - not even sane, but perhaps will raise that B+ to an A-.

In any case, the Easter/Birthday celebration went along just fine this weekend, and I am now the proud owner of a copy of Dante's Divine Comedy illustrated by Gustave Dore. Oh Baby! Additionally, I went antiquing all weekend, which contributed greatly to my sanity.

Despite my recent dip in mood, I am now running at 75% power and inching up on the speed where I can make the jump to hyperspace (I don't exactly know what this means, but I'm tired and have been doing nothing but cramming in about as much comic-book goodness as I can handle this weekend). Speaking of which - the comic book gets handed in tomorrow - wish me luck!

B+

Apparently I live in a porn movie. Huh.

My Day, A Lament, and A Question

So today was the party at Prof. X's house. Rather uninteresting - people talking past one another - an amazingly huge kitchen - general we're-not-in-class-anymore-but-this-is-odd awkwardness. I left by 9:20, and was completely eh about the entire experience. The only thing that was good about it was the pre-partying that occurred at Anne's where we had an amazing white wine and I got my birthday present (A really really cool mesh bag with a skeleton in Victorian-era garb on the outside - sort of a Dia De Los Muertos thing. Utterly amusing).

I picked up some more prints at my favorite Hyde Park bookstore this afternoon (the aforementioned clergyman, a man with a bird, and two amazing color prints from a botany book). More importantly, however, I met Kerri's charming (if slightly timid) cat Sophie - who is, I think, quite cute (despite her ducking and weaving, random sorties out from behind the couch, attempts to flee my every approach and general catness that made her damn near invisible for my entire visit). Let's here it for cool cats, and funky 40's clothing (note to Kerri: the red coat with the fur collar is really cool).

And I have a tiny lament and a tiny comment to post here.

Lament first -

Why is it that I cannot find a grocery store that sells those little non-dairy creamers that you find at restaurants? They are the perfect size for pretty much any non-dairy creamer need, they never go bad (being, I think, made entirely of plastic or soy or something), and they can be stacked into aesthetically pleasing pyramid shapes while talking on the phone. These are so integral to my drinking repertoire (tea, coffee, and liquor) that I just don't know what to do without them. Yet, despite my best efforts they continue to elude me. Perhaps I'll create a Creamer-Retrevial-Emergency-Airlift-Manouver for some squad of ninjas. They will be dressed entirely in tones that match the dairy food aisle for ease of camouflage.

Perhaps not.

Now my little comment.

I have noticed something and feel that I should put it forth for comments and / or rebuttal. Don't you find that the most interesting things in life are those that aren't planned? That is, aren't the coolest things that happen to you, the things that really stick with you, and the things that you look back on and say "fuck, that was awesome" also the things that are totally spontaneous (and generally when you look back on them probably a stupid idea)? I have this theory about these things and am interested to know what others think. Personally, I'm looking back on my life (this week has been one of massive personal/social upheaval and thus promotes reflection) and I have come to the conclusion that the best (and probably some of the worst) things that have ever happened to me were totally spontaneous, utterly random, and against my common sense.

For example: Deciding to smoke a cigar while drinking, dangling your feet (or trying to keep others from dangling their feet) in lake Medota while drunk [pure gold], spontaneous houseguests / sleepovers, driving down strange streets on a whim only to find a totally cool shop I love, dating, sex (the fun kind), dancing like an idiot to music and making a fool of oneself, etc... The list really could go on and on.

I feel that I just have to say this - If it offends you, I apologize in advance. But from the way my life has been going lately, I feel that it has to be said - not to anyone in particular, but just to mankind in general.

When I do something stupid, please just tell me. It will save you from frustration, and me from making the same mistake twice.

Keeping something irritating a secret is just a good way for you to get mad, and me to remain utterly oblivious (if I was dumb enough to say or do it in the first place, I probably didn't catch that it was rude).

I understand that I have no tact (really - I think it's a genetic defect or something) - I rely on others to let me know when I have crossed the line. Thus, it is in the best interest of everyone to let me know when I am an idiot. I promise not to be offended if you point out when I act stupidly- in fact, I will probably apologise for the pain that I have caused you and correct (to the best of my ability) my future behaviour.

I'm just sayin'

More Prospies!

Ok, just one, but it was an interesting day.

I started out with the intention of having lunch and showing around a prospective student in the afternoon today (interestingly AFTER I found out that there are apparently 200 more pages of reading that I simply missed on my syllabus for this week. Ak.). This lunch, however, turned into meeting in the afternoon and driving up to the northside for tea and dinner at Potbelly (mmmmm toasted meaty cheesy goodness). In any case, fun was had by all when we met up with Stephanie and Carl to chat about classes and the program and such. Well - fun was had by all except perhaps poor Emily (the prospective student), who was vaguely jet-lagged, prospie-day-dazed, overdosed on caffeine, and generally carsick. She was charming nonetheless, and in the midst of her feeling especially uncomfortable still had the impulse to comment on the relative beauty of Lake Michigan and the full (uncommonly large) yellow moon. Personally, I find this very impressive. If I could be that reflective when I didn't feel well, grad school would be a breeze:

"I'm overtired and underfed and yet I can do an intricate close reading of this obscure passage of poetry and capture its essence of beauty. Hand me the Tylenol, would you?"

In any case, not only did I get a delicious (department reimbursed) sandwich, the ability to eat lunch with Anne (always entertaining), and a chance to meet a cool person I may never see again - I got more tea! Vanilla bourbon will be my flavor of choice for the week.

Bourbon, yes - this is surely a good thing.

Just a Hint...

800 pages of reading for a seminar is too much for one week - I'm just sayin'.

Ugh.

Read Last of the Mohicans from 10am to 7pm today (with various breaks for food, etc..) Accompanying articles to be read tomorrow.

Usually it wouldn't take me this long to read a 400 page book, but I think that I may have fallen asleep at the more boring parts. And there are BORING parts. Let's just say that I read all of Robinson Crusoe without once getting bored (such is my stamina for tedium in books) and I STILL found Mohicans incredibly dull in places. We go up the hill, we go down the hill, we go through the trees, etc. Let it be known that Cooper is second only to Tolkien in fascination with the most boring details of an otherwise thrilling story (leading a perfectly good tale to inevitable tedium). I think that the LOTR movies did nothing but improve on Tolkien's works; by rendering visually the thousand words that Tolkien uses to express each picture.

Haven't seen the movie "Last of the Mohicans" but I bet it sucks.

In any case, fun was had yesterday - and the lingering smell of pizza and liquor fill my apartment. Good friends, good food, good gossip - what more could you want from an evening?