Victorian Graffiti

I feel a bit aimless today. I have work to do and I'm feeling fine mentally etc. but can't seem to gather my mind up and do something. Maybe it's the weather or the lack of people, or just general malaise. Or maybe I'm just lazy. I don't deserve to be lazy today, though. It is a useless day.

I couldn't finish the last novel I started reading. It took to long to start up, and the women in it were half-assedly composed. Now I'm reading Death and the Penguin, a short novel translated from Ukrainian and it is speedier and just the right scope for a short novel. Whatever you think it may be about, it isn't. Ask me about it some day. But not today.

Yuri opened the apartment door and walked out onto the landing. He lowered himself onto the floor and let the cool stone hit his back slowly. It was hot. He could hear the neighbour's air conditioner and he wondered, again, why his mother would not buy one. After several minutes, he heard someone walking up the rear staircase. If it was his mother, she'd be angry that he was lying on the dirty landing. He got up and went back into the apartment, leaving the door open a crack behind him.

Kingston in August was always hot. Today it was especially hot, and it made Yuri cranky. He plodded noisily into the living room.

"Put a shirt on Yuri. You're getting too old to walk around without a shirt." His grandmother was facing the window, her back to Yuri, smoking and sipping on a cup of instant coffee. Yuri ignored her and went into the bathroom.

He looked int the mirror. He didn't look any older, he thought, than he did last summer. He leaned in and looked closer at his face. Some of the boys in his grade were starting to grow mustaches. Yuri was not. He was ten years old, and ready to grow up.

I have a friend who's in the head shrinking business. A while back, she read us bits from an article about psychiatrists having relationships with their patients -- intimate, romantic, sexual, etc. Apparently some ridiculous percentage of shrinks (something like 30%) had engaged in some kind of relationship with a patient, and they thought it was perfectly fine. They didn't see it as an ethical problem. In fact, some of them actually cited it as part of the course of treatment for their patient.

Maybe this confirms that you have to be a little off to be a psychiatrist, or maybe it speaks to the bigger issue of the weird ground psychiatrists tread in the medical world. Psychiatrists, more than any other medical doctor, develop intense interpersonal relationships with their patients. They work with drugs, shock therapy, behavioural modification, but a lot of what they do is talk. Freud's method is called the talking cure, after all, and although a lot has changed since Freud's era, the importance of talking in therapy is still pretty much paramount. And talking regularly, and about deeply personal things, inevitably means people get to know each other. People start to develop complex relationships. It's no different for a patient and a therapist, but it's a land mine of a situation in that case: is there a line? Where's the line? Who drew the line? What if the line is crossed in one way -- crying in a therapy session -- and it obliterates the line because it seems so intimate, so intense, that lines don't matter anymore?

My Dr. friend is aware of the lines and, because she's a remarkably good doctor and self-aware person overall, doesn't mince words when it seems like there's potential for things to go bad in the doctor-patient relationship. Recently she told us that a patient revealed they had a crush on her, and she dealt with it in a respectful way. There's no point in denying someone their feelings -- that's counterproductive in pretty much every avenue of life -- but that doesn't mean the feelings should be encouraged, or acted on, or exploited. Dr. friend is very much not in the 30% of her colleagues who think intimacy beyond the lines of therapy is advisable or ethical.

I'm not a doctor yet, and I'll never be a "real" doctor (unless the real doctors somehow become extinct and anyone with a PhD is forced to take on their duties because we're at least used to being CALLED Dr. soandso. But that's just silly), but teachers, especially university teachers, often confront the same ethical dilemmas involving relationships. As much as it's an apparent taboo for profs to sleep with students, it does happen. You may not hear about it, or you may only hear rumours about it, but it happens.

Not surprising, really, when you think about the setup of a university: young, smart students on the brink of adulthood attend classes where teachers treat them like adults. Students take classes in areas they're passionate about, and they find profs equally passionate. They admire them. They look up to them. They like them. The result is usually a brain crush -- the kind of crush that's mentally motivated. It doesn't matter if the prof is male or female; brain crushes don't follow the rules of normal crushes. It doesn't matter if the prof is gorgeous or just normal. The prof does, however, have to be smart, charming, witty, interesting and personable. Hell, that's practically a list of desirable qualities for hiring committees in university departments. I remember having a huge brain crush on a prof in my undergrad years. She was smart, honest, a great teacher -- she was everything I wanted to be. Did I want to sleep with her? No. Did I want to be her friend? Not really. Did I want her to be my mentor? Undoubtedly.

But what if the brain crush keeps going? What happens if you become friends with a prof? Is it ethical? Is it fair? My husband is friends with his supervisors at work, but they're not so much his mentors as his colleagues. Students are not colleagues. They're adults, but they're usually not peers. The area becomes stickier as students get older and become graduate students, then graduate student teachers, then full-on profs, but by that time they've usually moved on to another university. But undergrad-prof relations -- where's the line? And when does it move? Most profs, it's true, will not sleep with their students. Does that mean they can't become friends with their students?

My office mate and I recently had lunch and he shared a story about a couple of his undergrad students. He got along with them and they invited him for a beer after the final exam. He hummed and hawed and eventually said no -- because the class wasn't technically over yet. He still had to submit marks. But once that was done, he would freely have a beer with them. Suddenly the line shifts: now it's okay to be friends, at least on the surface. But does that mean he's no longer in a position to be a mentor? Has friendship eroded the teacher-student model of prof as adviser? Will those students ever be able to take a class with him again? Will a beer completely break down Socratic system of mentorship-based education? Are we all dooooooooomed?

But seriously: where's the line? Is there a middle ground, or is it just capital-P Prof OR totally unprofessional teacher who opens the doors for all sorts of potential teacher-student issues?

Can you be friends with a prof?

I made it to the doctor this morning and luckily I have no nerve damage in my back. Still don't know what caused the back pain, but at least I have some options now. I'm going to book a chiro/massage appointment, and my doctor gave me some anti-inflammatory pills and some Valium (it's a muscle relaxant and has the fewest side effects -- who knew?). So I've temporarily become a 1950s housewife, popping Valium and dozing on the couch. All I need is a box of bon-bons and an apron. Oh, wait....

It's too early to compose anything intelligent, so for now I'll give you an entry from my old blog that drew some interesting feedback.

Why Orwell Kicks It

A few years ago, Christopher Hitchens published Why Orwell Matters, a commentary/quasi-bio of English essayist and novelist George Orwell. I haven't read it, primarily because I'm too busy reading Orwell and haven't yet explored the commentary on Orwell, but the title resonates with me.

Orwell really kicks it. To be fair, I'm not an Orwell expert, and I'll admit that his idealistic Socialist opinions never seemed to reach any fruition (but to be fair, he died at 46 from TB) -- but his writings about poverty and the various humiliations that are tied up in poverty are, well, touching. I've never been as poor as Orwell, and Orwell was never as poor as some of the friends whose lives he narrates, but he does a damn good job of talking about poverty in a way middle-class folk can understand.

Does that sound strange? It shouldn't. The middle class as we know it today is a fairly new phenomenon, and middle-class living condition have changed drastically in the past 200 years. In the mid-19th century, firmly middle-class folk didn't necessarily own their homes, but they did employ servants. They spent money on school for their children and very little on vacations. They likely had tabs at local grocers and launderers, but they probably had little debt otherwise.

When Orwell writes about being poor, he writes about it as a member of a particular generation of middle-class folk, but his writing is relevant to current ideas about poverty and class today.

Have you ever thought, either about yourself or others, that if money is low the solution is to just not go out? Not do anything fun? Not spend money on non-essentials? Easier said than done, because, as Orwell points out, poverty is boring. It's complicated -- like the rent pay-day shuffle so many students these days have to deal with -- but life gets pretty monotonous when you don't have the money to do anything fun. In Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell writes about living on the fringes of poverty:

You have thought so much about poverty--it is the thing you have feared all your life, the thing you knew would happen to you sooner or later; and it, is all so utterly and prosaically different. You thought it would be quite simple; it is extraordinarily complicated. You thought it would be terrible; it is merely squalid and boring. It is the peculiar LOWNESS of poverty that you discover first; the shifts that it puts you to, the complicated meanness, the crust-wiping.

And about the strange relief of finding yourself at rock-bottom:

And there is another feeling that is a great consolation in poverty. I believe everyone who has been hard up has experienced it. It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs--and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of anxiety.

I've never hit rock bottom, but a few times I've felt close. Luckily there are a lot of social safety nets out there, but the day I started looking up how to apply for welfare I realized how a lack of money can make you feel ashamed. Like you're somehow a bad person, even though your only real problem is cash flow. These days, few people in countries like ours starve, but we hide poverty. This really isn't anything new, at least according to Orwell. To keep up appearances, Orwell would spend his last francs on a drink while out with friends; these days, we patch up missing income with credit cards. We don't run tabs at stores, but we live on money borrowed from the bank. We lie about how much money we make, spend and save. So not much has changed in almost a hundred years: "all day you are telling lies, and expensive lies."

I don't know what it's like to be homeless, and besides the occasional day or two without money while travelling I don't know what it's like to go hungry. But it's naive to think that the things we do to keep up the appearance of prosperity and fill our days would suddenly change if we really did hit rock bottom. Orwell knew this, and part of his message about class was the need for empathy. And a good glass of wine every once in a while.

I woke up with a sore throat this morning. I feel stuffy and cloudy now. I suppose it matches the day -- warm, but not consistently bright. I had a bath to ease my back.

I suppose this is my version of "This lime-tree bower, my prison." I'm a bit Coleridge today, whiny and self-important. Mike, Scott and Caroline went our to sightsee and go to Beacon Hill Park. My back is still spasming randomly so I am home, alone, considering the garden, considering going back to bed.

Yesterday I thought about how I write: in my journal, I am surprisingly careful, holding back some bits, exaggerating others. I don't quite understand the journal concept -- why keep one? To have a written record, yes, but I'm not sure if it's for me or for the future. Maybe someone will find it and read it and I've secured some immortality by tracking my life. When I write here, with just the possibility of public consumption, I am less restrained, but I also write about things less private. I do not write about family conflicts or issues with friends or intimate bodily details. I also type here, whereas I hand-write most of my academic or creative writing. I have no desire to delete here -- it's a very of-the-moment mode of writing, and I don't feel the need to record anything for posterity (although I do get a kick out of the date stamp on every entry, especially since it isn't entirely accurate if I don't publish an entry right away). This is, I suppose, an exercise for me. It is a unique way to write: to know it can be read but not to know by whom. I write freely here. I feel particularly enlightened today.

...if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.

Near China Beach

I've been fumbling with the poem for a while now. I recently included it in a poetry reading and it sounds much better than it looks, but I also edited it while I was reading. Unfortunately I didn't take notes after the reading.

Seaside Blues

At Margate we did not walk along the water.
The promenade offered a better view:
in front, the dove-grey ocean;
behind, a concrete slab of flats.

Years ago Brits flocked to this spot,
a handy jaunt from London.
Even Oscar Wilde would attest
to its lack of snobbishness.

I am very glad you went to Margate;
It is a nice quiet spot not vulgarised by crowds of literary people.

Tonight, we take a wrong turn off the bandstand
and confront a modern scene:
ladies of the night
and a man being obscene.
Towards our hotel the sea-bathing hospital is brambled
and a sign on it reads: Sold: Ferrari.

So this is seaside England today:
Car companies buy up the shoreline,
the grand hotels look beaten,
the boardwalk glows with marquees.

It is hardly Stratford,
but people still choose to stay.

And in the air there is something that tugs at the past:
an imagined memory of corseted ladies and well-suited men
walking arm in arm, as we have just done.

The sunset is massive.

It bleeds into water.

When I'm sick with a cold the only time I feel good is when I'm in the bath. You know what I mean? You fill up a warm tub, soak until you feel wrinkly and relaxed, and then you figure you've revived yourself enough to face the remainder of the day. But once you're out of the tub and dried off -- once the prospect of getting dressed hits -- bang, you feel sick again, and ready for another soak.

I hit the library this afternoon and picked up some new books: another book by Andrey Kurkov called The Case of the General's Thumb, On the Road by Kerouac (I know, how hideously 10 years too late for me), Herzog by Saul Bellow, and How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn. I haven't decided which one to crack open first.

It's a windy, temperamental day. My kitchen is a mess. My motivation is missing.

During dinner on Saturday, we (two Michaels and one Ben and me) discussed the Lord of the Rings movies. My favourite is the second, the others seemed to prefer the first, and we all agreed that the third is good but, alas, predictable and disappointing in its final execution of the scenes in the shire. It's all just so thoughtlessly confirming of compulsory heterosexual matrimony as the only ending for the real hero -- and by the real hero, we mean Sam. Frodo is the main character, but he's not a real hero. He's odd, so it makes sense that Elijah Wood plays the part. Elijah Wood is creepy as fuck.

Visual evidence, exhibit A:

This is Wood playing Frodo. What the hell, man? Are you trying to steal my soul? And he's not even DOING anything creepy here -- he's just standing around!

Of course, eventually he does put the ring on, being the weirdo-outcast Frodo and all. Never mind all the warnings, Frodo -- Sam will save the day! Yeesh. And to top it off, he's practically suicidal -- he's only happy at the end when he's boarding a boat to....where again? Oh, right. CERTAIN DEATH.

But I can forgive one creepy hobbit role. After all, Frodo's character is complex, and the juxtaposition of the cute wee hobbit image and Wood's icy eyes and awkward, uncomfortable presence make the character interesting. But does he have to be creepy all the time, and does he have to do it so darn convincingly?

Visual evidence, exhibit B:

Sin City had a lot of evil characters, but Wood's dead, dead eyes and smug grin make Kevin the movie equivalent of the creepy dude who lives down the street with a collection of naked dolls and a freezer full of unidentified, slightly rotting ground meat of some kind. Oh, and he owns a wood chipper of some kind despite living on a gravel pit. Creepy as fuck. Gives me the shivers.

The worst of it? Elijah Wood the actor is actually creepier than the plastic action figure made of Kevin.

At least the doll looks a bit angry.

Can Elijah Wood play any role without looking creepy? A quick unscientific image search says no. And as a warning, don't do an image search for Elijah Wood when you're home alone at night. It's like going into the basement when you hear a noise at night -- just not a wise decision.