Oh, Scarlet!

Sunday, the Bunny and I spent some time with his family. His grandfather acts completely insane, but is cognizant of his actions, and, therefore, uses this act to manipulate his offspring into submission. That, or they are tantalized by the desire for an inheritance. Thankfully, I am neither interested in his money or entertaining his misogynistic notions. His degrading commentary on the role of women and his constant one-upping attempts at every bit of good news I share has only made me more aggressive in my counter-remarks. That being said, "Paw Paw" loves and respects me, I think, more than the average family member.

He is a sad sack of a man sitting in a recliner all day, watching the gem network, and talking about how many days he has to live. My response: "Give me a break. You told us you were dying five years ago, and we still have you hanging around." I'm certain this induces mouths to fall agape, but I just don't care anymore. It's a nice feeling to have the freedom to be who you want to be with your in-laws. That only came with years of dating/marriage and some growing up on my own behalf.

We had to take the dogs with us on our visit this weekend because the family dinner fell during our open house. Staring at Dax, our ex-police dog/man, we started reminiscing about Paw Paw's old lab named Honey. Everything we shared about Dax, Paw Paw had a next-step-up response. "Oh, well Honey could use the shitter. What do you think about that?" I mostly sloughed it off until I mentioned Dax's hip displaysia, and he said, "Well, Honey never had that problem, and she was BIGGER than Dax. You must not be taking proper care of his joints."

Now, I know this seems wholly dysfunctional, and it is. For what it's worth, I tried to keep my mouth shut. I mean, he is a crotchety old man married to a boring woman that replaced the love-of-his-life dead wife. Then again, I can't handle negative comments attached to my dogs or my parenting of them. This is the man that took my news of graduating with my doctorate in English in May with the statement, "Well, I bet you can't tell me what a dangling participle is, huh?" Now that I am actually typing it into the blogosphere, it seems even more ridiculous, but such is my family life.

An example of how I lost my cool: "Oh, well I just guess Honey was one fucking magical, mystical dog, huh?"

Yes, sometimes I can be completely petty and inappropriate. I think it is happening less frequently, but this is the kind of social vomit that should've been stricken from my DNA via a Southern genteel inheritance. I guess I missed that gene.

In a Knee Jerk

I believe the female body is a complex sort of being that takes the mysterious ways of humanity and amps it up with hormones and emotional waves that ebb and flow depending. Come on ladies--I know you feel me.

With sore breasts and a weepy demeanor, I've been having the kind of week that turns my generally pretty rational form upside down. The smallest thing pushes me over the edge, and I hate myself for crying--can stand outside my form and see myself crying--but can't stop nonetheless. I'm scared. I'm anxious. I'm afraid of failure. I want sweet tofu for dinner. I want salty tofu for dinner. If I'm sitting, I need to be walking. How the fuck does the Bunny deal with this mess?

I went to the meeting at LU to find a room full of professors waiting to greet my arrival. They sat in a semi-circle with me at the full point helm. I got a bunch of "my, you've become a lady" and "oh, I wouldn't have recognized you." Then again, as I stated to them, I am an adult now. I put on my confident I-know-what-the-hell-I'm-talking-about face/voice/hand gestures, and proceeded to woo them into believing that I had all the answers. They have recruited me to head up their new writing lab, and though composition is neither my speciality or interest, I am the weak sort of being that is very much moved by unabashed flattery.

Before the meeting was done, they had taunted me with visions of "grants to bring you here tenure-track" and "freedom to choose what you do and how you do it." Oh, those feisty professors! I spent the weekend imaging an alternative plan where we don't move at all, thank you very much, and I retreat into the semi-quiet life of teaching writing at a tiny entity in my town. That is, I spent a few days contemplating this notion until, under the influence on Monday evening around midnight, it hit me: I don't want to stay here. I don't want to self-stunt myself by taking the easy way out. Crisis averted!

This isn't a woe is me blog, oh no, dear readers, as I'm a little jerky today but happy all the same. Tomorrow is our in-service meeting at Job #1, and I'll be presenting to another class of new, hopeful instructors with, I can only imagine, notions of changing the world one expository paper at a time. I'll put on my best impression of "adult Bette," and pull out the same old I-know-what-the-hell-I'm-talking-about face/voice/hand gestures because I know human nature never changes, and we all want to feel like someone has the answers.

I have nothing brilliant to say

The Bunny was working like a man at his new job but only being paid the wages of a boy, so he quit yesterday. It leaves more time for sex, which is tops in my opinion. It's nice getting our lives back in order after last week's chaotic dog baby adoption and this week's impending real estate events. I certainly have no delusions of unloading this place anytime soon, but I get restless when nothing is happening. My pro-active nature has rubbed off on the Bunny, who now likes to "make things happen." At least he has never uttered the words "get the ball rolling" or "at the end of the day."

In the midst of all of this routine-making, I got a message from a professor at my Alma mater. He said they were needing someone to teach some writing courses, and he thought of me. Before I even had time to consider my personal information that I passed along to him, my phone was ringing. (How many years did I waste wishing this place would call me?) Here I am with a house in the neighborhood, and all I ever wanted was a modest teaching position. Now that I am chalk full in my schedule and prepping for a class outside of my discipline and which I have never taught before, now that I am selling my house, finishing three more chapters, working my thighs back into shape, starting a graduate writing support group, and trying to make time for the most important person in my life--the Bunny--now they call.

I was thinking ahead to the coming Spring when I'll be without a teaching position at my current job and likely needing work, so against all rational thought, I agreed to meet with them Friday. Oddly enough, the professor that called--who is now the chair of the department--was not my biggest fan. Somehow, she's decided she likes me--that or she has forgotten my angst-faced, dirty jeans, mouthy Eliot-loving former self. If I could explain why these events always happen this way, I suppose I wouldn't have to wonder about God and the universe anymore, right?

The Bunny and I have decided to buy National Geographic heredity kits for one another. We were on the website last night perusing all of the glorious history of humankind. I felt like I was being privy to something ancient and remarkable. I barely felt worthy to enjoy this knowledge. It has been years since someone tried to inform me on the ways of the Easter Island inhabitants or the Viking warriors or the Incans, whose bloodline is clearly iterated in the face of a man that works at the Mexican restaurant out South. Bloodlines are a beautiful, mysterious thing.

I'm stalling, as it appears I've been doing for the last week. I hope all of this works itself out.

End Times

Yesterday was the kind of weather I never feel we deserve. August in West Tennessee is pretty much like winter weather in Minnesota: We just try to get through it and survive. I find myself opening the door a mere crack to let the dogs run outside and use the bathroom before ushering them in quickly. It's so hot that five minutes in the August sun makes my Sebastian gurgle like a lung cancer patient. Yes, we are just trying to survive this month.

Yet, I opened the door yesterday morning to an unseasonably cool--okay, 90 degrees in the shade--but not nearly as humid day. As it was the Bunny's night off from work, we had an early evening supper comprised of all the goods I scored at Mom and Dad's house: roasted eggplant with a basil and cucumber yogurt sauce and a Greek pie concoction with malabar spinach, roasted tomatoes and onions, feta, and fresh mozzarella. Then we went downtown to get some homemade birthday cake ice cream and sat on a bench in the courthouse square.

We saw Pa Kettle, the latest downtown scamp to inhabit our hood, and he, of course, heckled us for random information about watch batteries and KOOL cigarettes. Spawned out of a comment left by my friend Grace on my previous blog entry, I relayed an idea for a sexy thriller novel that would surely be adapted into a money-maker film. It's about a professor couple that gets involved in a steamy threesome with a former student of the female part of the couple. Let's just say the inevitable racinian ladder ensues and, of course, someone goes crazy and someone dies. The student goes on to academic success before perpetuating the same vicious, steamy cycle. Heard this plot before? Me too, but I figure illicit sex acts involving bourgeois parties never fall out of favor in popular culture. I'll certainly never get rich writing about incest stereotypes in Southern literature and culture, but this might be my golden ticket to pay off my exorbitant student debt. It'll make the kind of book-turned-film that was so hot my mother made me cover my eyes. (Think Sliver and Disclosure in the 90s.)

After our co-writing session--the Bunny kept adding erotic details to my basic plot--we drove home and enjoyed the cool evening in the backyard with our dogs, which includes the foster dog we are keeping until we can find a suitable home. We ended the night on my heirloom quilt, sprawled on our backs on the front porch, and staring up the sky at the meteor shower until 1:00 this morning. I suppose it isn't necessary to add any full-circle commentary or poetic conclusion. It is what it is--my perfect day recorded here for me to savor again when I find this blog again.

We Ain't Even Been to the Ocean

I wanted to spend this moment writing about the sweet August afternoon I just spent with my parents. I wanted to tell you, dear reader, about the kind vegetarian gesture that was their supper offering--malabar spinach quesadillas with grilled feta-topped eggplant and peppers. I wanted to remark on how my father teared up a little when we talked about my leaving next year. I teared up a little when I considered all of the sweet August afternoons that would no longer be spent grocery shopping in my parents' crops. I drove home at the loveliest time of day when the sun is hitting the fields, and the humidity has subsided enough for driving with the windows down. I couldn't figure out a way to explain the ubiquitous sadness that occurs upon leaving my childhood home and heading back to a silent house where my absent husband, who now works nights, will not be waiting to greet me. I thought it best to say as little as possible.

Sunday with parents
The harvest rolls in my trunk
A bittersweet leave

I wanted to tell you about my neighbors that left in the night. They are the loud renters on the corner, who, whether it be Wednesday, Thursday, or any other day of the week, are always surrounded by equally loud family and friends. They gather in the driveway and play a game of audio combat--each one-upping the other with their selected bass-heavy tunes. They left in the night, but their dog is still tethered to a tree with a chain. The Bunny and I have been feeding her until we can figure out what to do. I guess we keep wondering if they'll return, or maybe the dog would be better off if they didn't. Every time I cross their property line, I think I smell those ribs, which we were offered but never tasted.

Boom boom boom boom boom
I hear bass before I smell
Neighbors cooking ribs

To my left is an empty bowl. The Bunny will be home at midnight.

Special K with milk
You feed me and then you leave
Others have to eat

You Kept Me Wanting, Wanting, Wanting

I used to imagine my teachers' lives outside of the classroom. These mystical humans with which I'd spend fifteen weeks at a time, staring at their podium-safe forms for an hour or more a day, and forced to regurgitate for the purpose of examination those truths they espoused were always the source of my adolescent curiosity. I might attach to them the kind of things I enjoyed. Hippie English teacher, Ms. Huey--the only liberal teacher in my white-bred Southern town who painted Dylan lyrics around the crown of her room--was surely a fan of decoupaging while listening to Neil Young. Or at least so thought my dreamy 16-year-old self. In fact, Ms. Huey, as I later learned, was quite the fan of wrasslin.' (Wrestling, for those who don't speak local twang.) Ms. Huey would shift her hips to face the chalkboard--a zinnia finding its hotspot--and my eyes were fixed on her trite gypsy skirts while wondering about the sort of meals she shared with her husband.

The bits of evidence I'd collect throughout weeks spent in their classrooms melded into one indiscernible vision of a person I could never fully know. The coach that taught Geography liked riding motorcycles and once took a long, mind-dulling jaunt across the state of Kansas before working as a prison guard. The Journalism teacher's husband, a local pastor at the town's largest Baptist church, nearly died when a turtle came flying through his windshield, clipping his flesh near the jugular. God bless him. There was the Chemistry teacher who had some mysterious suicide involving a swimming pool in his immediate family history. No one knew all of the details, but there was plenty of Virgin Suicides-esque conjecture surrounding the whole affair.

This obsession followed me through college and into graduate school where I obsessed over the instructors, who, though they became more accessible in their casual invites to department parties and end-of-school potlucks, still remained a mystery to me. I've been teaching for four years now, yet the student part of me can't help but wonder about the private lives of the instructors that are frustrating in their closeness while their true quirks remain cloistered behind the mores of hierarchy. Maybe it's the Southern in me, but I respect my elders and maintain boundaries between myself and those meant to instruct me.

For nearly six years, I've had the same advisor. This odd man with outmoded and politically incorrect commentary hails from an era long gone. Think of Mr. Hart in 9 to 5 without the inappropriate sexual harassment. I'm certain he might call me sweetie, though I've never felt nothing but respect for this man, who, though we've worked closely together for years, remains more a mystery to me than any other person in that department. His bad suits and lack of common sense are rendered impotent by his impeccable knowledge of the field and his eagle-eye editing skills.

I'm almost ashamed to admit the hours I've wasted hypothesizing about his musical interests, his hobbies, his sexuality, and even whether or not he has ever loved another being--animal or otherwise. Really, this man who eats the same odd lunch every day at noon--a pack of neon orange peanut butter crackers, one tin of tuna, a cheap, waxy apple, and one Halloween-sized piece of chocolate washed down with fiber-laced fountain water in a dirty mug--seemingly has no pleasure in life outside of his master discoverings of misspellings in major publications. (These instances are always revealed to me with a punctuated "Ah ha!" finger-gouging-the-air mini-celebration.)

To end here, however, is to only tell half the story. Though I might be his only fan, this socially awkward man, who deflects all of my attempts to know more about his life, has done nothing but make me feel as if I deserve this degree. I know enough to know he cares about me and my work and where I end up when it is all said and done. There are bits of evidence six years has earned me: He's Jewish, loves theatre and football equally, lifts weights regularly but hides it behind those pitiful suits, abstains from alcohol, is a crypto-Luddite in the most lovable sense, and once had a man steal books out of his office and try to re-sell them to him. I guess, for now, that's enough.

I wonder, when I'm sixty-years-old, crotchety, and tired to hell with this career, will I be the same unknowable force? I've already told you all too much as it is. I like to imagine that some student will hunt down this evidence of my existence, and it will all become clear: She liked to living room dance. She felt fat up until her late-20s, when it just didn't matter that much anymore. She listened to the same obsessive song on repeat until it made her dogs cry.