is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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UP. DOWN. and then!
UP. DOWN. and then!
This entry is inflected by some recent very bad news, but, in general, this has been a week of tremendous ups and downs.
DOWN. I had a misunderstanding with one of my friends here in Amherst. It isn�t a huge misunderstanding, or one that will stand out in the history of misunderstandings in a Life Of Jill. But it has stayed with me because of what else it made me think of (in part because of a conversation I had with Evany, Evany Thomas). And that is: my, it sure does take a LONG time to make good, real friends. There is nothing wrong or deficient with any of my new friends here. But the thing is, they do not really know me. The misunderstanding that I had arose because, after returning to Amherst after my month in San Francisco surrounded by people who 'know what I mean' when I speak, etc., I made the mistake of thinking I could be understood easily here. And the fact that I made that mistake made me think about how, just because you click with a person on a lot of levels does not mean that they 'understand' you in that way that can only develop over years of practice and experience with 'what this person means when she says "x."' So that had me down this week, the misunderstanding, and then the realization that even my good friends here are really only people who I've known for a few months. And that is my lot for the foreseeable future, given the way the academic jobworld works.
UP. These people are good people. They might end up being good friends later. But that takes time. DOWN. And how long will I be here? Odds are: not very long.
DOWN. My first day of teaching felt weird and off, like somehow I had forgotten to feed myself and then had shown up in the wrong classroom (even though I was in the OCTAGON!), and also it seemed as if an entire sports team (of some sort. what do I know? lacrosse? football?) had enrolled in my class about thinking through alternatives to legal responses to mass violence. I wasn't sure I was prepared for such an audience. (And I made that judgment not because, looking around, I judged a bunch of guys to be jocks. I've already learned that every student can surprise me. No, I had the fear I had because of how they were behaving on the first day of class.)
UP. But the second day of class went well. I didn't feel off. The people who where there seemed to be there for the right reasons. I lectured the whole time because the book hadn't arrived at the bookstore yet, and I think I managed to be INTERESTING for an hour and a half, which in itself is a noteworthy accomplishment, no matter what a person is talking about. (It just so happens I was talking about Hannah Arendt, who, after Levinas and Nietzsche, would be the person I would be most apt to be interesting about. Others would include Rousseau. And for some reason I can actually be interesting, finally, when I speak about John Rawls. But that is DESPITE John Rawls, whereas with everyone else on this list, the brilliance of their writing far outweighs anything I could ever say about them in a lecture.)
Of course I am more interesting in general when I'm not talking about ANY of that stuff!
DOWN. Then last night I became alarmed and anxious about all the work I have to do. UP. So I did some of it, including reading my thesis student's 80-page draft, and I was proud of him, even though it's a mess right now. It's allowed to be a mess. It's a draft. DOWN. Then I reread some parts of Arendt's The Human Condition, an excellent book, but which was hitting too close to home in its analysis of the worldless worthless quality of much of what passes for culture in this society.
UP. Then today I had lunch with Chris for two hours. It was so great to see him! Also, he has threatened to introduce me to single people in the area. That sounds good. I can't remember how long it has been since I've met anyone who even KNOWS any single people. But regardless of whether I get any dating action out of it, it was so good to see him! He just got back from Sundance and from filming an episode of American Dreams (where he and the band are playing The Hollies and singing "Bus Stop," you know, the "please share my umbrella" song), so he was full of good stories. And we had very yummy chocolate cake.
DOWN. Then I found out that an old friend of mine committed suicide this week. He and I were not the kind of close friends I'm attempting to describe in paragraph one: he owned a nightclub that I used to spent a lot of time at just after college, and Liz worked there. He was in a group of people who I spent a fair amount of time with socially, and I always liked him. He still is(was) part-owner of a club in San Francisco, and I used to go there and drink and hang out with him a few times a year when he was in town. I was always glad I was still invited after all the passing of time. I knew that things had been rough for him for awhile. But you rarely imagine it's that bad... how could you imagine it, I suppose? So the news was shocking, a bit paralyzing, and sad. He was a generous person who always made sure his friends were having fun. Anyway, somehow it feels wrong to write about it just now. It is very sad news.
12:56 a.m. - January 28, 2005
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