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like... nothing new, nothing special, this whole year is just absolutely miserable. I've been falling behind in my schoolwork because I'm prioritizing my job because I have an immediate sense of external accountability to it. Honestly, my job is a million times easier than my courses, because it's a team effort and I have supervisors putting our deadlines up on the shared calendar so that I get reminder pings automatically. For class, it's more like... motivation? in MY me?? it's less likely than you think!

but then, also, so - this morning I had to take care of some house things so I missed breakfast before my 9h call to class, and I came so close to just saying fuck it, today's not happening. And then instead, professor had reorganised things so that we could spend the whole first hour of seminar getting things off our chests, starting with the death of RBG (zt"l), and like. the first person who was gonna speak up changed his mind because he just got so choked up in the span of just like three seconds, he had to pass.

I actually don't think I've managed to cry this out since spring, either. It's like I don't have a right to spend time indulging myself, when the problems are so much bigger than me. My family needs me, I have too many obligations to waste time getting caught up in how terrible everything is. I have too many obligations to myself, too - I promised myself to my academic and professional careers, I've found myself a creative outlet, I didn't put a breakdown on the schedule. And I know that's obviously not fair or feasible but it's also true that this year is so full of horrors that are so much bigger than us, that if we let it, they would consume us. 

But it's also true that I'm also about three seconds from crying 24/7 and just maybe that's a sign that things aren't going great on planet eric, either. 

So when we were slowly peeling ourselves open, finally I could also talk about how losing RBG is reminding me of when we lost Dr MedEth (zt"l too). I came to this campus for her, I was gonna be her intern at SFGH, she was our mentor and friend and when she passed it was like the ground fell out from under my feet. The sense of oh God, what do I do now? just like we're all feeling again now. Where do we go? What can we do? Our country is a fascist catastrophe in action, our state is literally on fire, our cities are closed, I haven't been able to spend time with friends who I love in months; the only way I see people I'm not living with is saying thank you to the cashier and sanitation monitor at safeway. No wonder we're so utterly delicate right now, and if anything is a blow, it's the loss of such a key leader like her. 

But it still took hearing my professor say it first, that this is just a truly miserable year, for me to let myself say it too. It's been seven months, of course I know that this an impeccably shitty time, but it's such a huge truth that it hasn't needed me saying it for a while. 2020 is the pits, water is wet, I'm sad, who isn't.

So she asked us to think about what we were doing there, in class. In the philosophy department, in the MA program, as students, to remember what brought us here. And we started chewing on the point that we're all here, one way another, because we do believe in the possibility of change, that we as individuals have come together because as a community we are here to learn how to use tools that we do believe can make a difference. So and so is here and working to dismantle the carceral state. So and so is here and in a decolonialisation program. So and so is here and in reproductive justice. So and so is here and countering toxic parenting. And I'm here and in nonprofit civil law. We are so isolated this year, physically and emotionally, but we can still be part of an intellectual community. We really do feel like this is just the red queen's race, but we still do have agency. And when we can't believe it in ourselves, we can remember it in each other.

The world is making us raw. It's a paradox, it's funny, but we've become more honest over zoom. We're further from each other, and have less between ourselves. A year ago, I absolutely don't believe that most of us would've been brave enough to get so emotional in class, but the world is pulling us down and leaving us with only ourselves to hold up. This year is fucking awful, and we all know it, and we don't need to hide a misery that everyone is sharing in. Professor said it was like she used to be able to plug in to the world, but now it's just an endless deluge. it's not an IV any more, it's a port. And it's doube-edged, because we're so receptive to the world but we're also so much more present to it. I'm exhausted and miserable and not alone in it. None of us are. I hate this year, but at least we're going through it together.

this break has me itching to get back to school; the more healthy I slowly get the more unhealthy I recognise some things to be, and I need that distraction 🙃

Good news though, I've been taking the time to read and it's been great! Too stressed to write unfortunately, but well seeing as the first book of 2020 has been The Future Is History (Masha Gessen) I haven't really been in a fic headspace. Gotta love starting the year in the streets 

I also found myself re-reading Ender's Game/Shadow and trying to finish Lawrence in Arabia (Scott Anderson) so the pall is hanging pretty well around me. Whatta world, isn't it!

Realtalk, The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia is probably one of the best contemporary reads I've found. (Off of the top of my head, my other best nonfiction for the decade was probably Down Girl.) Masha Gessen is an excellent writer, and I'm so glad to've found a sincere explanation of the road to current events. Gessen is, of course, talking specifically about Russia and the rise of Putin's system, but understanding that also helps me realise so much of what's gone on in the US as well. It's grim, certainly, to realise the extent to which we're collectively living in Interesting Times, but the best we can do is try to find common ground, right? The anti-russian nonsense that's been kicking back up is so bafflingly stupid to see, and instead I wish I could convince more people to read this and realise how much more we have in common than not. 
Honestly, if I was the one teaching my spring semiar on totalitarianism, I would've probably included the chapter "The Future Is History" itself on our readings list, because Gessen does an amazing job of tying together some of the best names and introducing their concepts without pretension. I first read Arendt in that class and it was frankly extremely hard for me to break into digestible pieces. Gessen processes and contextualizes Arendt, Fromm, Gudkov, Bogdanov, Fitzpatrick, etc, and before you know it, you're holding a working epistemology of totalitarianism vs authoritarianism, with confidence to branch out to, say, Levada next!

My other cheery read has been a slow slog through Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East, which is everything it sounds like. The abject horror of knowing what the west is about to do to the middle east is only tempered by Anderson's relentless mockery of how poorly WW1 was run - on a random quick flip-through, I've got "when it came to committing folly, British war planners were just warming up" (118), "the old-fashioned notion that a nation should abide by its promises" (163), and of course, "Lawrence was nothing if not resourceful, and he had next thought to put one of his more pronounced personality traits to good use: the ability to annoy" (192). Yeah, it's named after Ned and he's one of the major threads, but it's not actually just another biography. Anderson has a full cast to refer to in trying to explain (not unlike Gessen, actually) how on earth the stage was set for what we've got today. It is Buckwild to think that America was once considered a distant and noninterventionary body. I laugh so I don't cry, yanno?

So in hopes of lightening the mood, I figured I'd watch The Witcher! Which actually is infuriating if I try to actually think about 99% of it, but hey, I might have a fever, so it's easier than usual to fuzz those bits out. anyway, sick!brain insists on 'henry cavill leather armor fight monsters,' so I'm fine with that. It took me a while to get solid netflix access actually, so I took that time to write up a bit of meta responding to a really good meta on the bath scenes with Jaskier and Geralt vs Geralt vs Yennefer, because I don't faff about when hyperfixating lmao: ( Read more... )

tripped and fell 100% into geraltxjaskier though, like, I have taken that bait, hook line and sinker. I'm not feverish enough not to notice I'm being yanked around - the instrumental cut of 'her sweet kiss' playing in the bg of geralt and yennefer's reunion kiss is like, the cherry on top of dashing any questions that it might not've been intentional. But I'm always a sucker for pining, so catch me sketching along to 'you belong with me'!