Nancy's Musings

 My Facebook peeps already know about this, and you're being awesome, I assure you. But this is gonna be a thing with me, and I'm sorry. But it is. This song, by the Arrogant Worms, has been a favorite of mine for many, many years, but I have never felt it quite as deeply in my sads as I do this year. I did not accomplish much. Anything, really. But I didn't die this year, which (what number are we up to? 350,000 Covid-19 deaths?) lots and lots of people can't say. Y'all know I can gripe about being underemployed. That has shifted in a direction, but still remains in force. I can gripe about being single, although some days, the more men I talk to, the better I feel about being single/Never married, because I just. . . some people's exes. . . I feel for them. Solidarity, sisters. And then there's the "happy Mormon" option of counting blessings/vomiting gratitude. I mean - I have no problems with happiness, and seriously NO problems with gratitude! ...

 Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I leave my classroom feeling certain that I have said something that will end my career*. I think through everything I said. I gloss through each chatty or digressive moment. I flinch and gasp as I drive home, wondering what people who see my face must think of me, grimacing to myself.** I have said things I shouldn't have, and the consequences were catastrophic professionally, personally, and interpersonally. Consequences are necessary, but must they necessarily be nuclear? I needed to learn to see things from my students' perspectives, to understand how to make the room safe for learning. Not all of us come by that knowledge instinctively, and not everybody's primary discourse is conducive to teaching. But what is the point of learning if my supervisor says, "You're not going to try to teach again, are you," inflecting it as a recommendation rather than a question? What could I have said? I agreed that it wasn't for m...

 I feel like I blog about dating a lot. I think it's because I lost the journal I usually use to write out my experiences and feelings about the guys. I do apologize if I'm boring both of my readers. So mixed in with the general male rejection of me, which is to be expected and isn't a thing I'm worried about correcting at the moment, another pattern is beginning to emerge: men who date like fireworks - it explodes pretty for a few minutes, and then fizzles and dies. Covid still exists. It's by parts mundane and overwhelmingly horrifying, and there's not really a way to predict which will happen to any one person. It causes brain damage, permanent heart damage, and fatigue in otherwise healthy individuals who may or may not experience symptoms. I'm willing to take precautions to avoid it, and the fewer precautions the public takes, the more I am willing to avoid everybody else. Many men express a preference for in-person contact, and normally, I'd agree ...

  The engine shivers, sends warmth to its vital organ: the driver. Leaning lazily, head resting looking out I watch the sky shed crystal cells Dusting across the frigid ground, Landing on the vertical glass, Each of six arms reaching out in the confidence of cold. The arrogance of ice. I see them, each one a giant but still eating, still hungry. Their elaborate growth from moment to moment of free-fall Visible, detailed, exquisite, And then Brownian Chora. Infancy.

1) I defended basil. The herb. Yes. 2) He texted, "I'm smarter then I look." How was I supposed to resist the obvious reply? 3) I expressed my distaste for The Big Bang Theory's gender politics. 4) I think he was tired of being pressured to communicate. 5) I vaguebooked that hearing about his sexual fetish was an emotional burden I wasn't prepared to carry. To be fair, I should have had a one-on-one conversation about it. But I didn't feel safe. It's messy. 6) I told him to go away. (He gets bonus points for respecting my decision.) 7) He interpreted my flirting as WAY dirtier than I meant. To be fair, though, I've made the same mistake with others. 8) He moved away to law school. 9) I literally don't know. Maybe he was gay? He did seem very, very obsessed with going on Disney cruises with his mother. 10) I didn't like that he reposted a sexist meme on Facebook, and said so. 11) I think I just bored him. 12) I lost my temper at his total inabil...

Quick Background: Some guys out in the luscious dating world are like, "just ask!" and others act like with each question you're moving towards their tonsils with a tongue-depressor. Some are both. I 100% understand not being ready to have objective conversations with relative strangers about sensitive subjects. I'm not like that myself (to everybody's frustration). I just think that it's smarter to control what information you give out about yourself, instead of giving the impression that you're trying to prevent people from getting to know you when you've ostensibly entered a social situation where everybody is supposed to get to know you. I used to do the thing. I don't do the thing anymore. I do other things which are worse.  So I've decided, as a writer, to come up with 25 different responses you can choose more or less at random to maintain your information boundaries without implying that the person you're talking to isn't worth ...

"Welcome to fear, said Moist to himself. It's hope, turned inside out." - Going Postal    Lots of people are having a really bad day for lots of reasons. I'd love to give you specifics, but there are simply too many. If you glance at the news, I'm sure you'll find something that will truly piss on your pancakes too, and then you can join all the people having a bad day. My dad called this morning, just before the internet crashed, and we talked about bad days. I mentioned hope in Christ, and he pointed out (as I have done so, so many times before) why that doesn't really answer for the emotions of the moment.  I didn't point out the irony of our sudden role reversal, but I have been wondering what I meant by it. I think most hope is false: the delusional belief that something  will go right . It won't, you know. In The Wee Free Men , Terry Pratchett points out that "If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . ...