where's my dresser?

Here’s what I hate. I hate that women’s clothing maintains an antiquated belief in a dresser. Someone who waits on you hand and foot, who helps you into your bodice, ties you into your girdle as you clutch the bedpost for dear life. Someone who lifts your laden velvet jacket over your arms and onto your shoulders as you stand with your arms outstretched. I mean really – some of our clothing closures weren’t even invented with this sort of thing was going on.

Don’t we all mostly dress ourselves these days? Even the rich? Don’t we even have a saying about it – he puts on his pants one leg at a time. I’m betting that Oprah Winfrey, although there might be a retinue in her bedroom as she prepares for the day, still gets her own blouse on and manages to get it closed up. So why. Oh why are women’s buttons still sewn on the left side of the shirt? They’re there so our dresser can easily, and right handedly, button us up. But where’s my dresser?!

Why, and this is a particular problem for the great majority of us who are right-handed, do women’s zippers still zip from the left side? My left hand is always pulling the zipper in an odd way and never getting it up on the first try. Although it might be so subtle as to go without notice, I always wind up having to raise the little nub more than once.

And every time my zipper sticks a little because of the non-smooth raising my left handed job is doing, I curse those renaissance women who had nothing better to do than stand around while someone got them dressed.

Resistance

Resistance is not futile, it works. It works to keep me from accessing the deep melancholy. And it’s futile because the deep melancholy overtakes me anyway.

A few notes on climbing

The sport of rock climbing requires your attention in a way unequalled in most other sports. It’s not just that if your attention wanders while you are climbing the results will be instantaneous (and they will). It’s the exceedingly intimate nature of the climber’s relationship with her belayer. A climber’s life very literally, and very immediately, depends on the willingness of the belayer to pay the proper heed. In a time of parsed attention and multi-tasking that diverts our gaze, climbing requires that the parties genuinely and with full concentration look at, really see, each other’s gear. In a time of clouded intentions and embarrassment about authenticity, belayers must confess that they care whether their climber lives or dies. In a time when baring our souls, investing our energy in what we really believe, has fallen victim to increasing partisanship and posturing, climbing is our primal relationship made real: our lives depend on one another.

why work

That's pretty much my question. Why do I have to work? I'm feeling a bit overworked (whatever "a bit" means in reference to "overwork"). And I'm thinking I'd like to have my first job back -- a candy stand attendant in a movie theatre. (Although I'd like to make the salary I'm making now.) The theatre I worked in didn't sell popcorn -- the management thought it attracted rats. But even though there was no popcorn to be seen anywhere in the vicinity of the stand, people would still approach me and ask for popcorn. That's how ingrained popcorn at the movies is. Near the end of my time there a man came to the counter and asked for popcorn. In my usual way, I said "I'm sorry, we don't sell popcorn." He looked at me and very quietly he said "bubblehead" and walked away.

back in a saddle

I ran into the former president of my university this morning on my power walk. He’s looking old. He recognized me as someone who used to work for him, I guess I should be a little flattered. I’m sure, however, that he has no idea what my name is or where I work. He did ask how things were and told me to give his regards. He was out walking his westie, carrying his cane and limping like a hip replacement candidate. There’s a guy who overstayed his welcome by a long, loooonnnnnnng, time. But as I walked away from him I longed for his days of benign neglect. Now that we have a meddler, micromanager, a guy who thinks in the equation of his university that faculty are a confounding variable, a nuisance often minor sometimes major, the hired help, it’s not so much fun. And I fear of the doings of our new dean, what agenda has she brought? I am torn between becoming actually involved and learning what I need to learn to participate in the fight, and shutting off my caring bone and just doing as I’m told. Being, in short, hired help. Why should I care? Should I care? I care?

I’ve got a project I want to work on. It is the exemplification of my fear of committing to projects, my fear of failing, of doing poorly, of being a bad researcher, of not understanding the information I do find. But the project’s been in my quiver for 13 years now, ever since I was tenured here at this institution. I’ve worked hard on it and I’ve completely ignored it over the years. I’ve made numerous commitments to do something with it, anything. And skipped out on them. Now I’m done with that. I finished another project that came along afterwards and I am moving on to the next, prior thing. This thing. This project about Belle Mazur, favorite aunt, odd woman, and fascinating person all rolled into one. She was that relative you hear stories about, the one who led such an interesting life you can’t tell fact from fiction. I’m not sure what form it needs or wants to take, but I’m hereby putting myself at the service of this story. I open my hands wide and make ready my heart. What is first, I wonder? I keep trying to find the trajectory of the narrative. Is that the beginning of the project?

US Open

Maybe next year at the open Ralph Lauren can have the ball people wear actual polo pony costumes. That's the only way I can imagine his logo being any larger than what he's designed this year.