Gone Campin'

See you all in a couple of days.

Influential Writers

As seen over at Dr. Crazy's.

As my regular readers know, I love me some writers. Other than individuals I know personally, I would say writers have had the largest influence on my life, so I was quite happy to see this meme.

According to the rules you are supposed to list the 25 most influential writers in your life. As others have pointed out, influential writers are not necessarily the ones who you enjoy the most nor is this a list of my top 25 most important writers. Rather it is a list of people who have influenced me over the years. I will admit, however, that I am predominately influenced by those I like. If I don't like a writer, I stop reading. Life is too short and there are far too many books to be reading something I don't enjoy.

Some are doing this in chronological order but I don't think I will be able to do so. Some writers have influenced me greatly but differently at different eras in my life. You are also supposed to tag 25 people to do this, but that is too tall of a task. Instead I will invite you all to play along.

1. Octavia Butler
2. Ursula K LeGuin
3. Virginia Woolf
4. Toni Morrison
5. Doris Lessing
6. T.S. Eliot
7. Anne Carson
8. Carol Gilligan
9. A.A. Milne
10. Grace Paley
11. Maxine Hong Kingston
12. Jane Austin
13. George Eliot
14. Leo Tolstoy
15. Dr. Seuss
16. Tillie Olson
17. bell hooks
18. Sara Ruddick
19. Carolyn Heilbrun
20. Adrienne Rich
21. Mary Oliver
22. Nikki Giovanni
23. Mary Shelley
24. E.B. White
25. Henry James

It is also very interesting to follow the links back to see other people's choices. It makes me want to start following new blogs. I suppose it is similar to the saying "a friend of X's is a friend of mine."

Growing Pains

Angel came home for the weekend. It is Spring Break for both of us. Originally he was going to be home for the entire break so he could work but there is no work. So he decided to go backpacking with his fraternity brothers for the rest of the week. He came home to hang out, eat, and borrow gear. Boredom has always been Angel's nemesis. Just the thought that he may end up bored strikes terror in his heart. There is no way he felt he could survive a week home without friends or work to occupy him. But a weekend appears to be doable.

Friday night we all went to the dojo together. During the workout he appeared unmotivated and not very social. As soon as we left he became highly critical of everything taught or not taught in the dojo. I held my tongue. Much of Saturday was similar. We had to run errands as a family and went out for lunch. His comments seemed harsh and rigid to me. He seemed defensive and I, in particular, seemed to be doing nothing right in his eyes--from my feminism to my dieting to my career choice.

I tried hard to let things roll off my back and not take them personally. Earlier in the week a colleague mentioned his family expecting him to go home for regular visits but how being with family can push your buttons. I know this myself only too well. I don't want to push Angel's buttons or allow him to push mine. I want an adult relationship with him; I don't want him to feel that he is being pushed back into a box every time he visits. I want to be able to enjoy the man he is becoming without missing the boy each time I see him.

These transition visits are difficult for both of us. It is hard to find comfortable ground between who he was and who he is. Young adults often assert their adult status by rejecting beliefs and values of their parents; by taking a strong stance and defending it. I imagine this is particularly hard when you (a) mostly agree with your parents and (b) have very laid-back parents. So sometimes the arguments/discussions get very lame and far-fetched. However it is mostly the hostile tone and attitude that bothers me. I think I'm pretty good at not taking it personally; at seeing it as an internal struggle and feeling sympathy for him. However it is hard to go long stretches of time in his presence without feeling the love. I think it is the absence of warmth that bothers me the most.

Saturday night Pumpkin and her friend/my student came over for dinner. The weather had been gorgeous all day so b grilled and we all hung out in the backyard eating dinner by candlelight and then sitting around the firepit. Angel joined in but was rather quiet and kept disappearing to work on a fraternity project. The fraternity is pretty much his world now. After the girls left, he came into our room and snuggled on the bed--working--while b and I watched TV. Then this morning he called me into his room for a snuggle and we spent a pleasant day together--no real deep conversations but no defensiveness or hostility either. At the end of the day we all had a nice dinner and then off he went.

I know one day visits will be happy occasions, I just don't know when.

RBOC: Snow Day

• Yes, as it is everywhere else on the East Coast, today is a snow day here in SouthLite. It has actually felt more like a snow weekend for me. We had endless rain for two days and b has been home sick in bed. This means I have been working nonstop.
• One more snow day and I could actually be ahead--yeah, that's so not going to happen.
• The Brute seems to be mostly over his cold (the violent sneezing from last week's post). For about 2 days all seemed good with him. He was no longer scratching, obsessively licking, feeling scabby or sneezing. Last night however we discovered a small bald patch on his left shoulder and the scratching appears to be back.
• b, although sick, did manage to get a reprieve from 2 of his wisdom teeth being pulled. However the one that's in sideways--that needs to come out and it will be surgical.
• Angel is still not employed and is still bored. He's coming home next week for Spring Break and not looking forward to it. This, of course, makes me feel extra-special wonderful.
• Friday Pumpkin came over for lunch and we ended up in a discussion where I had to give her constructive criticism. She took it well...I felt lousy.
• Even though my students continue to impress and delight me I am still counting the days until summer.
• Our Women and Gender Studies program hosted a fabulous discussion on feminist pedagogy for faculty and students.
• I have very few absolute lifetime rules that I have imposed upon Angel. They can probably be summed up with: you can never join any branch of the military; you should always drink responsibly and never drink and drive; if you father a child you have to take responsibility for said child; and you can never own a motorcycle. He's fine with most of them except for the last. Here's a picture from his adventures in Costa Rica:

No Worries...

...I'm not about to stop blogging just yet. I didn't really mean to give that impression as much as explore what blogging does and doesn't do and what it is still doing for me personally and for others who choose to continue in spite of FaceBook and Twitter. I guess seeing so many sign off or fade away made me realize that I may do the same some day. But I'm not about to do it yet.

But thank you for the lovely comments. They made me think about several additional issues. One is the issue of Unbloggability--issues that occur in our lives that we cannot blog about due to personal and/or professional obligations, yet they often take up a lot of our mental space. The Unbloggable makes the distinction between a blog and a journal perfectly clear. But what do we do on our blogs while in the midst of the Unbloggable? It often seems false and/or unsatisfying to write posts on other topics, especially since they often end up being fluff. So perhaps we just blog less.

Are we going through a time when many of us have the Unbloggables? Is it a cohort effect? Is it tied to the economy and changing national mood? Do we need a space where we can blog our Unbloggables anonymously? Ms. Prufrock tried setting that up for us at Swallow The Key, but that site has been quiet since November.

Then there is the issue of identity, which I think is Profgrrrrl is referring to in her comment and she has mentioned previously on her blog. If we start out as an academic blog and circumstances in our lives change so that our daily concerns and thoughts are on non-academic issues, do we go with it? Will we lose/disappoint our original readers? Do we have an obligation to them? Do we want to see ourselves as something other than an academic (or literary or what-have-you) blog? I felt this way when going through some of the worst of Angel's leaving. Some of it seemed unbloggable because I became aware just how easy it was for people IRL to find my blog and there were aspects I didn't want to share with some people. I also felt too much would alter my identity as an academic blogger to an empty nest blogger (a category I don't even think exists--yet) and I wasn't sure that was something I wanted.

However if I look past my own identity concerns and think about bloggers I have been following for a while, whether they were academic bloggers, literary bloggers, or feminist mother bloggers to start, who have changed the tone and content of their blog due to changes in their lives, I realize I not only don't stop reading or get disappointed, but often enjoy them more. I think what turns me off a blog is inauthenticity. Following life's twists and turns and how people reconcile their roles and identities is fascinating to me. So perhaps we all need to be kinder to ourselves and give ourselves the same leeway we give our friends.

FYI...I played around with Twitter last night, figuring I should give it a try before stating it doesn't work for me. So far its not doing too much but I'll give it a week or so before I make an official ruling.

A Reluctance To Blog

I'm not sure why but I really haven't been feeling it lately. In part I've been doing very well on my resolve to write more for work and spend less time reading blogs and blogging. I guess like most things with me, if I'm not doing it all the time I tend to not want to do it at all. I've been trying to at least stay somewhat up-to-date with my bloggy friends and have been reading every couple of days. However my commenting is way down and that makes me feel bad. I mean isn't that what blogging is all about--sharing, connecting, continuing the conversation?

Truth be told I go through phases IRL where I'm a reluctant participant in most conversations. I have the reputation of being "quiet" or "an introvert." Both are true but really I enjoy being inside my own head many times more than I enjoy hearing what is in others. It may sound awful but I'm rarely bored with myself. In fact I often amuse myself. Its not necessarily that others bore me--at least not my IRL or bloggy friends--it is more that its a lot more work and sometimes (oftentimes) it is easier to be by myself.

The reluctance may also be caused by a sudden loss of certain bloggy friends. Several people I've followed for well over a year now have given up the ghost. One or two have admitted as much and posted farewells and others, well weeks then months go by and...nothing. Other beloved bloggers are just posting far less frequently, like me I guess. For some of them I believe it is mostly due to a newly acquired addiction to FaceBook. I'm on FaceBook (and actually had my first experience of being "found" by someone I really wanted to find me) but I can't get into it. I don't think I can Twitter either. If I'm going to write its going to be long-winded. Minutiae in small but regular doses isn't my thing. I'd rather write my minutiae in nice long blocks such as this one.

So the recent farewells have me thinking about the purpose of blogging--what it does for me, what it does for others. If I'm going to fade in and out, will I need to find new audiences each time? That seems both sad and like a lot of work. If, as I've written about before, my primary aim here is to stretch my writing voice, will I eventually wander off to more productive pastures? As for my friends who have left blogging for FaceBook is it because the conversation there is more satisfying? Are they seeking quicker responses/gratification? more comments/interaction? Have blogs served their purpose and now we'll all move on?

Brigindo's Menfolk

The guys in my life are having a rough time of it. Every summer b takes a paid vacation in Alaska where he gets to lead a sea-kayaking class for several weeks. It is something that defines him and makes him whole. This year, due to the economy, he was unable to get a contract. He is also in the middle of dental work, which is never any fun but it is particularly unfun to have all your wisdom teeth removed.

The Brute has been to the vet 3 times in the past 3 weeks. He is allergic to flea bites and had turned into quite the scabby and mangy looking cat this winter so we sucked it up and took him for the first appointment. He HATES going to the vet and is quite mean to anyone he meets there. Of course he was behind on all his shots. So the first visit he got flea medication, steroids and antibiotics. A week later he had to go back for rabies and other important vaccinations. In the midst of all this his teeth needed cleaning and he started eating on one side of his mouth (it seems this is a really bad sign in cats as well as people). So the other day he went in for a full day of anesthesia and dental work. He came home sneezing...violently...and hasn't stopped. Did I mention we have to thrust bitter antibiotics down his throat twice daily?

To top it all off Angel is not having a good semester. Turns out taking a lighter load was not a good idea (and I can't even say I told you so) as he is bored out of his mind and less likely to study hard when he has too much time on his hands. He took the lighter load because he is broke and wanted to get a job. His job search was delayed because he needed a new car first. He now has the new car but can't find a job....yeah that pesky economy again. On top of that his new car was broken into once (and his GPS taken) and then his roommate backed someone else's car into his, scratching and denting it. On other fronts, his new fraternity duties are stressful but he's not allowed to discuss them and the martial arts club he was running has been temporarily kicked out of its space with no word on when that will be resolved. Luckily no teeth problems (that we know of...child hasn't been to the dentist in quite a while) but Angel has suffered from terrible acne (we're talking 2 rounds of Accutane--most potent stuff available--and its still there) since he turned 14. He has been diligently caring for his face at college but nothing has made a difference and he hates looking at himself in the mirror.