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I stumbled across a great book yesterday (literally stumbled over it… hey, I work in a library). Hamlet on the Holodeck: the future of narrative in cyberspace by Janet H. Murray. The inside jacket flap says “Today we are confronting the limits of books themselves – anticipating the end of storytelling as we know it…” which gives me pause, as Hamlet would say, yet I’m actually prepared to agree with her once I read more. Updates to come.
Lori my lover (“lover” sounds so much better to me than the clinical/professional implications of “partner”) has made a paper clip chain to count down her days left at work. Each day when she gets home, she takes off a clip. Fridays are the big colorful clips. The colors of the Friday paper clips go from the shades of a bruise to bright and clean. We’re not anxious about leaving or anything.
Grad school update:
I also applied to the library school at Simmons College. I had my second interview this morning with their admissions committee. Last week I spoke with Dr. Cinlar from the History department and this morning I spoke with Dr. Bastian, head of the Archives/History dual degree. Both conversations left me wishing I was in grad school now. To have brief conversations like that regularly.
The moral of the story is, boys and girls, all you people in school right now should stop complaining and go have a drink with a professor or two… or more. You have no idea what kind of opportunities are spinning around you right now. The people, man, it's about the people. When you get out into the cubicle world, all that mental stimulation you keep putting off and bitching about is going to seem like the long lost opium that you'll never taste again but will forever crave.
That's why once I'm back in school, they'll have to drag me out kicking and screaming. I'll get one Master's degree. Then a second one. Then a doctorate degree. Then I'll just have post-doc appointments forever and ever. Research this, research that. Write a paper. Publish an article. Go to a few dozen conferences every year.
Why do you think Tevye, in Fiddler on the Roof, sings
"If I were a rich man…
… I'd discuss the holy books
with the learned men,
several hours every day.
And that would be – the sweetest thing – of all."…?
Dig it?
Because once you get out of that environment – where everyone around you is having to read something or research something – the chances of talking about really cool shit like the French Revolution, the nature of gravity, or the linguistic similarities between Sanskrit and English go WAY down. You'll find yourself talking about TV shows, repeating media gossip, and since you'll be working full-time (which is not worth it, don't do it) and not paying for textbooks anymore, you'll have money to buy stupid crap you don't need. The real world is completely fake. Don't go there. It's a bad place.
I want to wake up at 4am every morning, stretch very well, exercise a tad, read some Italo Calvino – finding several wonderfully bejeweled turns of phrase as I go, one of which will become my signature here – write in my journal or even make a blog entry. Exercise more, take a soap-filled, well-scrubbed shower, dress well and comfortably, have a small breakfast, warm up a chai, walk out into the day I have already begun with great pleasure.
I know what I want to do. I just have to do it. Simple.
4:00 wake up, brush teeth, drink a glass of water
4:10 stretch in every direction twice
4:20 light aerobics with hand weights to get the blood flowing
4:30 read Calvino or other book
5:00 write in journal or blog
5:15 read newspaper/headlines/email
5:30 sit ups & weights / go for a quick walk
5:45 shower, contacts, lotion
6:00 toast & chai, get dressed
6:15 cut apples, pack lunch
6:35 walk to work
Let it be written. Let it be done. (King and I? Yul Brenner?)
Lots of things have happened in this fine month of March 2006 that herald a renewal of those rusty communication lines I have neglected for far too long now. If you're an old friend who just got an email from me for the first time in a long time, I apologize for that really long time.
But now everything is changing and I'll tell you why. On March 13th, the day before the Full Crow Moon (or Full Worm Moon), I got a letter in the mail saying I had been accepted to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for the library science program. For my girlfriend and me, this meant an escape route out of Corvallis! We could leave our dead-end jobs! Finally change to a completely different zipcode andarea code, which is like a fresh blood transfusion for a military vet like her and a former military brat like me. Neither of us has had a new beginning like this for a few years so we're feeling long overdue.
And then later that week I finally came out to my parents about this long relationship I've had with a wonderful, beautiful woman.
I coupled this news with the grad school news, hoping both pieces of information would seem exciting and positive.
I am naive. That was almost two weeks ago and I still don't know how my dad is taking it.
