is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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My Toaster Is Not Dangerous.
My Toaster Is Not Dangerous.
I�ve met lots of good people here in Quaker Bubble, but so far the person with whom I�ve had the most �real� conversations consistently is an older philosopher who teaches at Bryn Mawr. He�s older than my parents but younger than my grandparents. We ended up sitting next to each other at a dinner that gathered together the philosophers from Haverford and Bryn Mawr to welcome a visiting philosopher. We began talking and all kinds of uncanny things happened, connection-wise, in our conversation. So we get together now and then to walk around and talk or eat and talk. I�ve read the final chapter of a book he�s working on and commented on it and now apparently I�m going to get credit in a footnote for refining one of his paradoxes. It�s funny how sometimes when you�re commenting on something that you hardly know anything about at all it can still be helpful. Anyway, the interesting thing is how different his perspective is on what we might call life-angst for someone of my age and situation. I�m tired of not knowing the future, job-wise. I�m tired of not having a romantic relationship. He doesn�t see why I�d want such a thing. I�m free! To think and act and do whatever I please!
I tell him I know the other side, too, of being in a relationship and looking back on the times of being-single, etc., of not having to check in when you decide to make a detour on the way home, or coordinate plans with someone else�s plans and inclinations. But think about it, I said: there�s no one who will notice when I don�t come home. No one to care about my plans and inclinations! It goes both ways, that story. I have those thoughts sometimes. Like: what if the toaster electrocuted me right now? How many days would it be before someone came looking for me? Quite a few! Total CSI episode about the sad old lady. But on other days there�s nothing happier than the story of the woman who has a number of days in a row to work on whatever she pleases with no distractions other than those she would choose.
In the long run, however, I fear that the story about the �free� woman (or person in general) is somehow less human than the one about the human being who doesn�t get as much of her own work done because her life gets interrupted by the narratives of the other lives that are part of her life. So being in Pennsylvania is difficult in that I�m not the same person. (Like the South African concept of ubuntu, a person is a person through other people.) I can�t throw huge fun parties, or meet unemployed Evany for a late breakfast, or run off to meet Caroleen at the Metreon for a really bad movie that not even Evany or Liz will consent to see.
I�m lucky to be living a double life, of sorts, such that in less than a month I�ll be back in San Francisco, for a month, doing many of the things mentioned above. What is difficult about the profession I seem to have ended up in (ha! As if it happened overnight and by mistake!) is its constant deferral. (Gayle�s point.) �Someday I�ll be able to say with a fair amount of certainty where I�ll be in a year or two or, shucks, five.� �Someday I�ll get paid real money.� �Someday I�ll know whether this is yet more deferral I�m living, or just life.�
Of course, maybe this way of living is just a forced metaphor for human life in general. Even when we think we know the future, we don�t. But life-of-deferral complicates that a bit: at the same time that I don�t know the future, I do know that the future will be unsettled, in a scheduled way. I know that in two years I won�t still be here, because I have a two year job, just like last year I knew that �next year� I wouldn�t still be in Amherst, because I had a one year job. It would be nice to be able to fool myself that the future is knowable, the way most of us do most of the time.
And THAT, my friends, is what I think is really bothering me about not finding any romantic link that sticks. The only stable things I have in my life are my lasting relationships. As Hannah Arendt pointed out, �promise� is the faculty human beings have to carve out islands of stability from the inherently uncertain future. It would be nice to meet someone willing to take the risk of imagining a future with me. It is always a risk, to forecast a future, and give over to someone else some of your powers of happiness. But it's usually worth it. It occasionally pains me to think that lots of everyday things I would enjoy in San Francisco are still happening without me there. But most of the time I concentrate on my luck to have that to go back to, and to have a life that allows me time to go back to it.
This is just what my life is right now. There are good things about it, too. I have these great students, and smart and interesting colleagues, and a tremendously great apartment, and time for work, and enthusiasm for work, and a fair amount of possibility in that unknown future. And it takes three hours to get from my door to Linda�s door in NYC on fairly pleasant public transportation.
Speaking of which, after a few months of homebodiness, I�m going to NYC tomorrow through Friday or Saturday, where Linda, Marilyn and I are COOKING, and I�ll see lots of friends, then again the following weekend back to NYC Friday through Sunday (can�t miss Trip�s holiday party, nor lunch with Simon), then the following weekend to Amherst to throw a late birthday party for Tom aka wine-and-ice-cream. And then the following weekend, there I am in SAN FRANCISCO. For a MONTH.
I told my new philosopher friend a story about how long it took me to convince my grandmother that I could be an aging female who wasn�t married and that being not-married wasn�t a travesty bound to lead to dread unhappiness, and he couldn�t believe that anyone would want younger people to get married. He himself is happily married (for the second time, and for quite a long while) so it isn�t a reflection of too much cynicism in him that makes him say such things. It�s just a different perspective that sometimes makes me laugh at some of the things that I might otherwise take too seriously. It�s good to meet a philosopher like that sometimes.
12:25 a.m. - November 22, 2005
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