78uuu lumière des étoiles

Dusty:Starlight:Culture



please won't you be my neighbor
2008-03-03   4:32 p.m.

I’m exhausted today, sleepy in the back of my eyes and fatigued in my arms; can’t keep them from drooping forward. Walked around PathMark this morning like cro-magnon woman and forgot to buy green peppers and cheddar cheese.

Winter + Christmas-time Pecan Pie + resultant cutting of carbohydrates post-Christmas-time + more protein + more running + more weights = tired: too much running, not enough carbs for too much running. Vicious, I tells ya. I can’t seem to decide if I want to be a runner (more carbs, less weights, longer cardio) or body builder (more protein, more weights, shorter cardio). Yes, activity is good, but this is a little schizo and probably not so good for me. I can’t commit, and I think the back and forth is making me tired.

I have three academic conferences I’m presenting papers at this month. Contra last semester, I do not feel squidgy in my stomach just thinking about them. I have, it appears, gotten my mojo back. Where did it go? Why is it back? Why was I terrified to present my research to large groups last semester, when I present info to large groups for a living? And now that I’m not so worried, should I be worried that I’m not worried?

The crazies continue.

I made a new friend a few months ago. I lurve her and she lurves me. It is nice when you hit it off with someone easily because you have so much in common but are different enough to find each other fascinating. Steve and I just had a few friends move very far away and recently heard of another’s plan to do the same come summer. It’s been tough on both of us. We had a looooong conversation driving home from a bar this weekend about the different level of opportunities he and I have to make new friends. He teaches elementary school mostly with women who seem disinterested in interacting with anyone beyond polite but distant friendliness, because as one of them literally said to him, she’s “married now” so “doesn’t really need to make new friends”. ??? This came when Steve suggested the faculty have more opportunities to collaborate around non-work related events. I don’t think he was particularly interested in anyone’s friendship in bringing up the idea, but thought that a faculty who know each other well would work together more effectively. I wonder where he got that crazy idea?

But her misinterpretation and subsequent response was telling, and makes him feel odd-person-out at times. He’s artistic, political, creative and easily bored, and he works in an environment that should be teeming with like minded people, but isn’t. I met my new friend at my job, where there are a lot of people who are artistic, political, creative and easily bored. They’re not always nice (or sane), but sometimes someone appears who is and I am thrilled to have a new person in my life to share things with or who challenges me and is supportive of what I value.

Though we understand we are a case-specific example with our own relative circumstances, we wondered if this could be a more macro-example of the ease with which women can make friends at this age/stage and the difficulty a man like Steve faces with the same. When I decided I wanted to pursue my new friend, I asked her if she wanted to get coffee after our classes were done and she said yes. I’ve done the same with men co-workers, fellow grad students, etc., and there never seems to be anything odd about doing so.

But if Steve finds someone in one of his grad classes, or at work, interesting and wants to get to know them better as a friend, can he ask them out for coffee? Both a man and a woman might find that odd. Or maybe they wouldn’t, but they’re likely to see it as more “normal” or expected – or perhaps even non-threatening – coming from me than Steve. And maybe in being able to disregard any sort of tension in that way, I don’t have the obstacles in my path that he would.

We’re eternally grateful for the friends we do have in our lives, but we also enjoy the process of getting to know new people too. I guess we decided that the whole process is more accessible to someone like me than to someone like him. Or maybe we were disoriented since our ears were ringing from the music at the bar.