Of an evening...

I can stay pretty balanced during the day. There’s lots to do at work, and I’m with people some of the time, so I get feedback. Then I can go to the gym, listen to my favorite podcasts (Dan Savage, Slate Culture Gabfest, Mark Kermode’s Film Review (BBC), Howard Kunstler, Podcastle). But when I get home, I’m at a loss. Hence the beer and wine. Hence the obsessive Fairyland game activity. I used to be more self-sufficient. I also used to smoke cigarettes and write poetry, often at the same time. The same hope still lingers; one more NoDoz tab, and I’ll write the best poem ever! One more half-a-beer, and I’ll figure out how to quit Firefox, open up the word processor, and express myself freely again. I may be addicted to the internet in some undocumented, insidious way. Sometimes we do indulge in television here at the homeplace, but when doing so, I always have the feeling of being “kept” on the couch by my spouse so that we can “enjoy” the show together (albeit it’s always Netflix, since we don’t have cable). My remaining calm involves more beer or wine, and corn chips. Since I don’t really eat dinner, this isn’t making me fat, but I do wonder what exactly it IS doing. Enabling me to work the next day, I guess. Why doesn’t watching a really good episode of an HBO TV show give me the same internal “cred” as reading literary criticism does? Or better, writing some literary criticism! I just don’t approve of myself these days. I don’t know what it will take for me to approve of myself. Probably doing something totally horrendous about which I shall be FORCED to feel righteous. Don’t know what that might be. All I know is that I want to go back to being the author of my own life rather than a spectator, even if it’s being a spectator of others’ pretty-good productions.

What’s art & what’s not...

The last show in our most beautiful gallery (we have three at this university art department) was a very skillful collection of paintings, prints, and handmade books by a student who has found her solace in religion. Her experience of religion is connected with the idea of Family. In all fairness, I have to say she loves children, and is capable of relating to them, catering to them, and portraying them. Some of her artworks are adequate portraits of children, done from photographs.
Many of her handmade books are full of photographs of herself and extended family. Some of these are cleverly made to be contained in small, ready-made tins.
At one end of the gallery, she’d arranged two tables, covered with a tablecloth, and arrayed with containers of candies. She provided plastic bags for collecting the candies and taking them away. I admit I availed myself of chocolate kisses until they were gone. There was also a small table with paper and crayons for any children who visited. This student artist also liked decorating cakes. So there were some styrofoam cakes covered with elaborate fondant on the candy table, and three large posters of cake designs on one wall.
This is an integration of Life and Art. So much so, that the critical thinker wants to say, it’s NOT art. I cannot stop the critical thinker, and I am one. This student’s artist’s statement waxed rhapsodic (not RAPsodic) about the influence of her church, God, Jesus, and (yes) the art instructors in her life. It was decidedly NOT post-modern. It was as if the ART was a by-product of her life. Is that so terrible?
Because of her great skill, her consummate craftswomanship, she will graduate and proceed with her life. I am reminded now of many students whose senior shows were very abstract expressionist; everything that they should have been. And yet, some of them are still struggling in life. I don’t think this gal will be struggling. She has integrated. Her skills are in the service of her particular social subset, and she is adored and praised by her immediate associates. What could be better than that?
And yet, in relation to our department, she has gone astray. It is as if we were unable to reach her. Will she end up doing posters for her church events forever? Or portraits of the children of fellow church members? Has she no critical bone in her body? OK, she NEEDED her community. And they came through. And she then came through for them. So her work is essentially collaborative. So many things are good about this, and yet I am writing her off, intellectually and artistically. This is my fault, my bias. And the thing is, she seems so happy. And I’m not, really.

What is sex these days?

Just had another birthday. I’m rather accomplished chronologically. But not in other ways. I’ve never figured out what sex is. Has anyone? In the last few years there’s been a proliferation not only of “porn,” but of approaches to it; an expansion of “permissiveness” and appeals to its normalcy and desirability. There’s a whole new “normal.” And I thought I was a rebel, losing my virginity at 16.
That loss of virginity had nothing to do with love, and even less to do with a “relationship.” It was simply the thing to do at the time. I sensed that, given the tide of difficulties in my family of origin, I might be leaving home soon. And I would need some currency. I wasn’t capable of loving anyone then. I would occasionally develop intense feelings of dependency, but that wasn’t love.
So, now I’m to understand that I should have known not only how to achieve my own “pleasure,” but how to demand it of my various partners! I was a silent, shy girl at that time. I was lucky people took pity on me and gave me a place to stay. I wouldn’t have known an opportunity if it chucked me under the chin. I once stopped some hippie guy from “going down” on me because I didn’t understand what he was doing, and thought it was wrong and peculiar. I said, “Let’s take a walk instead.”
Although I’ve advanced quite a bit from that attitude, I’m still not comfortable with “kink.” For one thing, my spouse has no inclination at all toward that kind of thing (that I know of). For another, it seems like something that emotionally distances one’s sex partner rather than bringing them closer. But how would I know?
I tremble at the brink of realizing that I’m OF ANOTHER GENERATION! The world of so-called “intimate relations” is changing, and I am not changing with it. Perhaps I should stop listening to Dan Savage’s “Lovecast” on my iPod, and face the facts. I’m friggin’ OLD. Even the sex advice columnists and podcasters rarely deal with those in their 60th decade! I google “older women,” and get things for women in their 40s. Physically, I feel like I’m still in my early 50s, and I look good. But my mind is all a-whirl. Once I got over my runaway stage of life, sex, for me, was proof of love. Now it’s just another art form or recreational activity. I would like to think there is something mystical or cosmic about sex. But no, those options aren’t appearing on the horizon. All I can say is, thank goodness I’m married. Things in the sex department may be old-fashioned, but at least they exist.

Expanding/Contracting New Year

My spouse and I are exchanging home offices. This means all the crap that we have each collected has to be transported several yards to another location. I already knew about my crap. I didn’t know about his. But that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I have to DECIDE what matters. All this memorabilia; it’s kind of pointless, now that I realize no one but myself is interested. All the newspaper clippings, notes jotted in notebooks, brochures I worked on, printouts of photographs, it’s all ephemeral. It represents a person I no longer am. Sometimes I wish I was that person. That person had a lot more energy. That person was capable of following an illusion to the very end (and the end is never a dramatic cliff, but a foggy expanse of nothing). So where is it that we embark from when we embark on a new venture? It’s not exactly the same mindset that we had last year, or last week. Every night, as we sleep, we change. It may not be to our liking. Things are shuffled off and allowed to fall into some abyss. I don’t even know if I am a “writer” anymore, even though that’s what I always thought I was. I can type pretty fast, that’s all I know. I like Christmas, because it means I get some time off; but the synchronicity of expectation of goodwill with my mood is not ideal. I no longer understand any of it. It’s as if, given my age, I have no reason to get all worked up about either Solstice or Savior. What I’m worked up about is much bigger. And because it’s so big, I feel small. I will be happy to have a door I can close. At least in my new room, I’ll be in control, and therefore, cosmically larger. I am introvert; hear me roar!