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Fluxuation
2004-12-15 9:36 a.m.

I wonder if on any particular day, I span as wide a range of emotions as I did yesterday. Is that typical for me, in other words? Did I notice it simply because I was paying attention and thinking about it? Or was yesterday an unusual day?

And anyway, I think that's pretty healthy. I feel alive when I feel, whatever that might mean for the moment, and I hate it when people insist that you should immediately try to make yourself appear more neutral. Not that that happened yesterday, I just felt like saying I hate it when people say that.

One thing I felt was protective. Jill, a particularly outspoken WS student of mine, sort of timidly asked if she could talk to me about something. I nodded, and she chucked pages and pages and pages of printed out internet drivel discussing how fat/curvy/boob-less/big-boobed/ugly/beautiful she is onto the desk in front of me. Jill, you see, ran the 26 mile marathon in New York City in November, and when she finished - in an impressive 4:31, by the way - she pulled her shirt off, because she was hot, because all the men around her were doing it, and because she "felt like it". (This, by the way, is legal in NYC.) For me, and for Jill, this goes under the so fucking what category. I mean really, we humans stroll around the rest of the world - at beaches, at markets, wherever - topless, and NO ONE CARES. Only in Puritanical-founded, booby-obsessed America do we get hysterical over such things.

So Jill's friend stumbles across this site, among others, in which posters take it upon themselves to scrutinize her body at length, oftentimes pointing out all her "flaws". This particular site I linked to even explains it has "hottened her up" by making her look thinner or something. Hrmmm.

I told Jill that first of all, she is not fat. More importantly, I said, she ran 26 miles without stopping that day, and at a good pace to boot. I seriously doubt, I told her, that all the idiots spending much of their day staring at a stranger's body and writing about it on the internet for "fun" could run even a mile without stopping. "All the time you're running," I said, "they're sitting in front of their computer, eating potato chips, and photoshopping your boobs". This made her laugh, which was good, but I'm still really disgusted. People seriously need to get out more, or try to have sex more or something. Fer crissake, there are tons of boobies in National Geographic specials about African or South American tribes, if we're all that desperate.

And why all the fuss about boobies lately - and how we're seeing too much of them in ads or on TV shows - if everyone clearly wants to see them anyway? We are apparently entering into a new age of Victorianism. Overtly, we say (or are told) No booby viewing EVER, for boobies are BAD and NAUGHTY, especially if they appear during a half-time superbowl show or are hinted at during a pre-game commercial. If such things happen, all the good, "family" companies will pull their ads, thus punishing the network for even SUGGESTING that boobies exist. All of this in the same culture, however, that is so booby obsessed that this discussion of Jill's breasts will go on and on and on for days. What do we want? Why can't we make up our minds? PAGING DR. FREUD!

Another thing I felt the other day was accomplished. I am planning out my next course, and I still can't believe it was given to me - by the same person who used to teach it and who taught it to me years ago, no less. I feel that she's entrusting me with something huge, which makes me feel good.

There is, of course, that nagging, ridiculous feeling I get when I feel like a fantastic fraud - something that, at least as far as I've read, many women in Academia feel. Peggy Orenstein in School Girls, for example, explains how she felt upon completion of her Master's thesis - that she wasn't smart, accomplished, well versed in Sociology - that she was just fooling everyone and any day now, someone was going to discover that she was a fake. And all these feelings despite the rigorous curriculum she went through very successfully at Columbia University and the many publications she had under her belt. "Don't worry," her advisor said to her, "that's totally normal. I felt that way too...still do...". Orenstein realized that this was due more to a confidence gap or self-esteem issue, one that men in academia didn't seem to experience at all, and had nothing with actually being a fraud. I guess it comes along with an old line of thinking - that Women in Academia are still "departures" from the norm.

Even though I and people like Orenstein obviously think such thinking is outdated and ridiculous, there is a subtle air or atmosphere of hostility - if not coming from the Uni itself, than from the culture that just tells you have babies, be pretty, worry more about your hair... day in and day out - surrounding our jobs. I am trying not to let this weigh me down as I plan out this lit class, which I discovered the other day was full. "Well, you are teaching it, after all. You're quite a draw," another of my bosses said when I told her it was full. That felt nice too, and made me feel like less of a big fake whose secret utter lack of intelligence or pedagogical method was about to be discovered.

Yet another emotion? Annoyed. I'm very angry with the president, in case you haven't figured that out by reading other entries by moi. My annoyance persists, though, because I'd really like to go to Oman or Iran (I went so far as to research plane fares to both for the month of July), but now I can't because he had to go shooting his mouth off and being a complete asshole to the rest of the world so that his friends could make some money. I'm also annoyed because very quietly, he's dismantling Sex Ed programs that were actually effective and replacing them with programs that refuse to address issues that are very real and very pressing (like STD transmission) and pretend that no teenagers will have sex, ever, as long as you tell them not to. Oh! Is that all it takes? DUH! What have we been thinking all of these years, providing discussion about protection and birth control? Silly US!
I'm also scared about this because I'm wondering how badly the system will crash in on itself, and how exponentially teen pregnancy and STD rates, which were actually sort of under better control lately, will rise.

Speaking of idiots...I was watching The Amazing Race last night (a reality show where contestants have to travel all over the world, racing to get to a finish line and win a million dollars), and got really annoyed at one contestant who keeps saying really ignorant things. I understand that her tendency to do so is exactly why the producers chose her and put her on television, but it still gets to me. I suppose that's a design.

Anyway, the contestants had been in Senegal for the last two episodes. I do love it when the show winds up in an African country, and some of them just freak out about how "everyone is staring at me!!" or "there are no seat-belts in this cab!!" or "there are goats just roaming around in the streets!!". I eat it up, really I do. Anyway, this particularly annoying woman, with her cute little matchy matchy jazzercize sweat-outfit, was looking out the window at all the people she was passing at a crowded and somewhat dilapidated-looking marketplace. She said loudly to her boyfriend, the taxi driver, and the camera: "Ugh, these people just keep breeding. All this poverty is disgusting." Nice. Classy! What better way to say we as Americans are good-hearted people than to speak of other humans as if they are livestock? Oh, and by the way, Ms. I'm-not-racist and her boyfriend were taking a taxi ride back from a slave memorial, which explained in words that EVEN DUMB AMERICAN BRUNETTES CAN UNDERSTAND that European colonists came years ago, senselessly ravaging and destroying the country for their own selfish means, thus leaving the country and its people in total poverty and ruins. Sigh. All I can hope is that really bad karma will make it so she winds up having to shave her head and eat bugs or something.

Fear was also starting to squeeze its way into my day. I found a great price for two seats on Delta from NYC to Lima for early July. Before I book them, I want to do some additional research, as I always do, on accommodations and possible itineraries for the month-two months we plan to spend in S. America. In my research, I found something new to be afraid of: Altitude / acute mountain sickness. Pulmonary oedema! Cerebral oedema! Ack! Poor Steve. In the last 24 hours, I've asked him many, many questions about what he thinks about AMS. What about my migraines? Does having migraines mean that I might have "circulation problems"? What about the history of vascular problems in my mom's family? Do those count as "circulation problems"? What do they mean by "people who have circulation problems should be especially careful"? Do you think I've improved my circulation because I exercise so much? I was in Colorado as a child, wouldn't I have been sick then? Do you think there are medical facilities around Machu Picchu? How high into the Andes can we go? Yes, I know, I have to ask a doctor/tourism person these questions to get correct information. But I just expect Steve to know everything sometimes - cause he usually does. tee hee. He's so dreamy.

So how do I feel today? Alive. Really friggin happy. Strong. Loved. A little hungry right now. I have to clean the house, as we're having an impromptu holiday gathering on Friday. Should be fun – our tree is up and we decorated the living room and kitchen over the weekend. Yay! Santa!

xo,