Zero Time

OK.

Happy New Year! Sorry, I haven't been blogging, I got caught up in life. I worked over time hours for about two weeks, commuted about 3 hours a day, wrote a 25 page essay (well, 19), took the GRE, had to find some extra money, celebrated xmas and new years, and typed documents for my dad's company. That was December. It turned out to be a big detour from my original plan of looking for a more corporate environment, compared to the gig I have now, but I enjoyed it. I forgot what it was like to communicate in the terse language the academy requires (which can contradict the complex but sometimes empty vocabulary). Some of the issues that were prevalent when I was a graduate student are still there, but many of the contentions about theoretical language that happened 13 years ago have cleared up like a bad case of acne . . .at least at this particular place. Yet, there are still fears of sudden eruptions and outbreaks.

Before the university application (thanks for the help M+K+Doktor Doktor), an overstressed visit from corporate offices at my gig, petty politics from the head manager (which caused an exodus of the subordinate managers), the xmas rush and an infected cut on my hand, I was reading Women in Love. Now I am busy looking at I'll Take My Stand and a book entitled The Agrarians. They are boring, but in terms of intellectual movements they are essential to 20th century American thought and New Criticism, and to think all this happened in my hometown of Nashville, Tennessee in the 1930's is amazing. I should at least know that part of American intellectual history. More comments on them later.

Otherwise talked to R, my best friend, whose family is my second family. Lots of drama, but I am simply floored by the fact that both of her nieces are pregnant. One is 20 and the other 21. This is the first for the 20-year-old, and the fourth for the 21-year-old.

The way that a lot of young people are conducting their relationships is pretty bad concerning self-esteem, self-respect and understanding what is needed to live with one another. I feel like sometimes independence is declared by a marriage or a baby in certain circumstances. Why aren't we making education a meassure of independence (and I mean something higher than the GED). And, why are people not using condoms? The 21-year-old is married, but the 20-year-old is not, so assuming that the elder one's husband is faithful, why is the younger one not scared of catching HIV? That is what is on my mind this evening. Where is the disconnect? My best friend R basically said it is low-self esteem. I hear it, but I just don't know how to address it, though I know all of the environmental reason behind the young women's decisions (insight from watching someone grow up from pre-school to adulthood).

... I have to make a note to myself to write about my rides to the project when I was 14 with my friend Andre. He was 4 years older, had just graduated from an all white, all boy catholic prep school, and went to bang chicks in the hood ever chance he got. I used to listen to him talk about sex all the time, and the way he felt about the ladies he conquered. His emotions ranged from love to a disdain he tried to hide with chatter about hips, breasts, legs, faces, etc . . . We rode from our middle class neighborhood all the way over to the then Preston Taylor projects in the spring and summer. I turned into a pretty fit 14-year-old for a little while. I used to just sit on the steps smoking cigarettes and drinking wine coolers (the newest thing at the time) oblivious to the reality of living in the projects. It was like I was a tourist. Man there is more to that story . . .

. . . In my life I feel like I have zero time for advancement, for love, for sleep, for eating properly, for exercise, etc . . . but, when I look back home sometimes, even at these Agrarian writers (who seem to have been behind the curve in the 1930's as well) I feel a different sort of measure in time concerning maturity, ideas and a sense of self . . . like I have lived several light years beyond, moving with other celestial shards of ice that are invisible to my childhood friends and environment.

Holy flying fish! -- days, hours, seconds -- what a motley crew.