is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Room of Mystical Light (side order of searing pain).
Some time in the last few days there was a sea change, and I definitely feel much more like normal-Jill now than I did over the weekend or last week. It's such a great feeling�like when you've been sick for some period of time and you finally begin to feel health returning. Or when you've been in a lot of pain and you begin to heal or the painkillers kick in. True relief. Of course the jump from sick to well or pained to normal doesn't happen all at once. But there is a sense of elation in the comparative lack of the despised state of being that makes the inching toward "normal" seem like you've stepped into a happy ending or a room full of mystical light. Or something.
I'm still a bit rough around the edges. Yesterday I spent the day, all day, in searing crampy pain, and also had to spend the day, all day, in various meetings and work-themed "social" obligations (many of which would have been enjoyable had I not been in pain). Have you noticed how very distracting searing pain is? Of course you have. Remember that whenever you want to go on about a mind-body split or call yourself a creature ruled by reason first.
The first, early morning�and you know how Jill loves an early morning!�meeting was with the person with whom I've been in the protracted ridiculous misundergreement, too. It went OK. The person in question seems to have recognized that something was spun out of control by problematic assumptions. So, like I said, fine in a week. I hope.
However, later in the day I got a bit more forceful and impatient than I needed to be when, in a committee meeting, I got mad when someone tried to suggest that I should make a really important decision without having the information I needed before I could make the decision. Of course such a situation is maddening. But normal-Jill would have handled it with more diplomacy and less residual-dad (which is what I sometimes call my impatience when it is not diplomatic, because it is a pattern of behavior inherited from my dad (and his dad). My dad sometimes reads this diary but I know he won't be mad if he reads this because he's not so angry anymore either). However, if ANYthing is going to bring out residual-dad in me, it is injustice. And that was what was being asked of me. I wish I could describe the situation to you but that is simply not possible given the nature of the work in question. It, too, would make an excellent episode of The Office if The Office took place in academia.
I guess if I'm still going to be a hothead sometimes, at least it's in reaction to manifest injustice. In the case at hand I was being asked to contribute to a decision that would be unjust to someone else but would have no impact on me. That, my friends, is modern evil�that people can be insulated from the harmful effects of their decisions, and tell themselves that they've done nothing wrong because all they've done is follow prescribed procedures or "the way things are." (Last week's financial crises are a real case in point here. Do you think ANY of the men [sic] in charge of the irresponsible decisions and policies that wrought that crash will end up struggling to get by, or worrying about their retirement, or how they'll afford food or medicine or rent, ever?)
Of course I've oversimplified the committee meeting. A decision is required that will make no one entirely happy, and everyone will have good reason to wish it were otherwise. But it still matters how the decision is made.
Between that meeting and my final obligation I decided to go do therapy. For me therapy is eating at a totally generic chain or tourist or mall restaurant alone, with a book. I don't know why, but the absolute non-individualized "character" of such places is tremendously soothing to me. Part of it is that there will be no surprises. Part of it is that there is no way I'll run into anyone I know. And then there's always a humor factor, too. Mostly it's like a step outside of the space-time continuum of my life. I went to the Heartland Brewery (and don't click on that unless you want to be ROCKED, hard, into mediocrity) in the Empire State Building and had mashed potatoes, steamed spinach, and an utterly delicious pumpkin beer spiced with cinnamon and other spices. Now that was the right decision.
Some women sitting at a nearby table eating dinner-sized salads looked at what I was eating and laughed. I think they were jealous. Then I went to a really interesting public talk about the relation of the black church to black politics and US politics in general at the CUNY graduate center.
10:56 a.m. - September 24, 2008
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