Ketchup

First of all, we saw “Don Jon” and it was SO GOOD. We had high hopes for it for several reasons, in spite of its admittedly off-putting trailer. It’s written and directed by Joseph Gordon Levitt, who I believe is not an idiot, for starters, and furthermore I could tell that underneath all the guido-accented porn-joke posturing it was actually going to be a movie about deeper stuff, which it was. Really, it’s about idealism and how idealism can destroy your ability to have real relationships. And it explores this idea from both a traditionally male and female perspective–a porn addiction can give a man weird unrealistic ideas about what it means to be with a woman, sexually and otherwise, but the kind of romantic movie clichés marketed to women by Hollywood can generate expectations and behaviors, with regard to relationships, that are just as damaging and unrealistic. Plus, the movie has a surprising twist that I think you will really enjoy. Also, all the performances are somehow SO GOOD, even Scar Jo, who I usually don’t care THAT much about, although I bear her no ill will. In addition to being actually about powerful and interesting ideas, and in addition to NOT WUSSING OUT on its exploration of those ideas, it’s also just an incredibly well-made film, in terms of its nuts-and-bolts (editing, pacing, script, etc.). Also, it is very funny.

I know this seems surprising given its trailer, but I urge you to give it a chance and see what you think.

In other news, I gave my finals finally (lol) and am now ostensibly on break, although I have a monster to-do list involving a looming grading deadline, 100 things to grade, prepping for various other looming deadlines that I am losing sleep over, and generally just not feeling very good in my body due to essentially no longer ever exercising or taking care of myself physically in any fucking way whatsoever. There has to be a better way! I have to believe that this is not just what full-time teaching is like forever. Surely being simultaneously on the market and not being able to afford a housecleaner (only half joking) must add significantly to the generally stressed-out and addled vibe of this life, right? Because otherwise I don’t know how people do it! How do people HAVE KIDS, living like this? The idea of spending all my waking hours largely thanklessly nurturing and gently-guiding and teaching kids and then going home and continuing to interact on that level with additional kids is legitimately horrifying to me. HORROR. Like my stomach drops when I imagine it. I don’t understand how/why people do it. I love my job so much, and I love nurturing and guiding and engaging with kids as they work toward realizations and self-improvement. It is an awesome job I take seriously and feel passionately about. But like, it can’t be the only mode of interaction in my life! It can’t be all I do or think about. And right now it kind of is, in a way that seems mildly unhealthy/unbalanced. And in conclusion that is why I am glad I have zero desire to procreate. It is hard enough to drag my ass home and stare at the wall for 4 hours and engage meaningfully at least every once in awhile with my human husband.

Another thing I have to get better at is not responding to work emails instantly. It makes me SICK with anxiety when I know I have student emails that I am not responding to. Even when they email me at midnight and I am getting home from a rare night out, and want to go to bed, I can’t sleep until I’ve written back. Even though my students thus far aren’t even dicks about it! Knock on wood–I have heard stories that would turn you white. But thus far they are very nice and surely do not behave as though they expect me to write back to them at midnight. But it haunts me.

Turning off your day job! How do you do it? If I were you, and you were asking me this question, I would say “yoga,” but in practice apparently I am not able to adhere to even that reasonable and mild advice. So I guess the answer is just “nothing” and “learn to live with a mouth full of sores”

The other issue is that all this stuff is SO BORING to hear about, and even to say, and I feel so bad that I just keep repeating it endlessly to my friends, who I love and who I want to engage with about different things. But it is like I can’t help it, like even while I am talking my brain is saying “JESUS SHUT UP ALREADY” and yet I can’t. It’s like that time I ruined my brother’s Halloween party except it happens every time I talk to anyone. And not even talking incessantly about something that is at least marginally interesting at least to me, like maybe a paper I’m writing or something, no, it is just me saying how many papers I have to grade over and over again and how tired I am. Like I am special? Like that is not how everyone feels? And so I am sorry, to all of you, both my real life friends and my wonderful readers, who are putting up with so much repetitive information from me that is not even interesting the first time you hear it, much less the twelfth. I am working on it.

Right now I am trying to write a paragraph explaining how my research interests fit into my field at large. And I am writing various “elevator speeches” for research areas I’m engaged in, as well as for pedagogical practices. It is pretty fun. And I am trying to figure out an abstract I could slap together for a conference in Hawaii and one in New York, just because I would like an excuse to go to those places.

Our house is an actual pigsty where pigs would not feel out of place. Tonight we will clean and make miso soup and try to be calm and healthy.

– even though I know how damaging cynicism can be, I remain totally committed to not really liking earnestness and sincerity, and I feel like this maybe makes me a bad person. I like sarcasm and I can’t live without it
– I made another incredible pie. Please applaud quietly for me and my insane pies I finally learned how to make. I will toot my own horn for a thousand years. It is truly the greatest accomplishment of my life, much harder to attain than writing a dissertation, and it took ten times as long
– I’ve had a couple interactions with students where they point out the way something was when I was a kid. “You were a kid during the golden age of Phish,” one of them said enviously. Another one said “when you were a kid, cassette tapes were a new technology.” Another one was talking about how “when you were my age you probably still wrote letters and sent them in the mail.” Tell me something I don’t know, kids. Remember last year when a kid who was a fan of the band I was in in college told me that when she listens to that music it takes her back to a time in history she wishes she could have experienced but that she dreams about, and that if she had a time machine that’s where she would go? And she meant “the 90s”
– thinking a lot about death, as per
– re-watched Beverly Hills Cop, and with the exception of a couple really awkward gay jokes and race jokes, it really holds up. It’s basically just a series of musical montages with palm trees. We were especially struck by the unusually committed and sensitive performance given by Judge Reinhold
– in light of the pleasure we took in this revisitation I keep agitating for re-watching Tootsie but my old man WON’T and I don’t think that’s fair. Tootsie is my Beverly Hills Cop. I am living in a patriarchy
– The single defining reason I become actual friends with anybody is shared sense of humor. Sense of humor trumps even politics, because I find that actually it’s rare for someone with dramatically different politics to share my sense of humor. Sense of humor is fucking indicative! It signals so many grander things. Why does it? It’s amazing to me that there are so many people in the world for whom shared sense of humor isn’t that big a deal. I would say I have (unconsciously) chosen 100% of my boyfriends based first on sense of humor, with all other considerations coming later, even including sexual attraction. How do you even talk to each other? Being around someone who isn’t funny to me and who doesn’t find me funny is easily the most enervating, upsetting conversational experience available to me. I would rather argue with a creepy racist, so long as they were funny to me, which they wouldn’t be, and so ’tis all of a piece. This realization has caused me to be once again struck by the wonderful diversity of priorities and experiences manifested by humanity in all its glory and terror
– I secretly like bluegrass music and I don’t care anymore if you think that’s lame. I’m not saying I listen to it actively, but when I hear it, it makes me happy, and you can go screw off
– I want to write an article incorporating my reading of the poster for “Oblivion”. How can I make it about music, or do I have to? These are great questions
– I have been eating this bagel for three hours.
– I just discovered Haim and Key & Peele for the first time and am pretty stoked.
– And honestly, I forgot how to be interested in Beyoncé. OMG as I was typing “Beyoncé” the person working behind the coffee shop counter said “Beyoncé.” WHAT WOULD JUNG SAY