Just a Sci-Fi Kid Like Me

1) A memorial of sorts: Over half my life has been spent in a security state.

2) An undergraduate came in who said she had an assignment to look at a book in the collection. I showed her how to find things in the catalog, she identified something to look at, I got her registered in the system and pulled the book for her. I was doing our usual bits of "leave the book in the cradle, it's safe to take pictures with no flash, do you need any paper for notes?" and she finally said, "Um. What do I ... do ... with it?" I wonder what expression I was unable to repress, because she became hugely apologetic, and I asked what did her professor's assignment want her to do, and she had no idea. Bless the poor child.

 Dr. Eric Lander, Science Advisor to the President, has an interesting statement on the five hundred year old text he chose to be sworn in on. Very much worth reading in full if you have any kind of interest in books or the usage of books, but above all here is the snippet on his choice:

 I also have some incomplete thoughts of what it means to be watching this as a millennial. Pretty much every Xer and older I see on my social media has made some kind of remark regarding their shock and disbelief at yesterday's events. Maybe it's because they have a decade and change of ideological padding that I don't, but I honestly wonder where they have been and what they have been watching. The 20 years where I have had an actual role as a voter have all been beset by drama and danger.

- I'm literally pumping the air every time they talk about socioeconomics and the uni students wondering where their next meal is coming from versus the ones wondering what club to go to that night.

- ooh talking about covid and racial data now

- Talking about eliminating the phrase "not racist" because you're either racist or anti-racist, you're either upholding structural racist values or trying to tear them down. Hey.

- On a question on how to deal with racist friends beyond finding new friends (me internally: why?): He suggests starting a book club, having the first few books have nothing to do with race, and then have one that is so that they are already more open to dialogue. (I wonder if he's written about this, this is flirting with bibliotherapy.)

 Rebecca Solnit shared this on her social media with the commentary that while it overlooks immigration and language status, it is "more complex" than many other such break-downs; the original poster, Tanya Taylor Rubinstein, noted it was "humbling" to read.



I did this mentally and came out 2 "ahead" because of the race-based questions. (Hey-o, white privilege.) What struck me thinking about it was how low that is for someone of my current socioeconomic station--I'm a tenured prof at a major university. I beat the system as it were.

And yet. It also kind of underscores how alone I have often felt and do feel on both sides of the equation: the family members that will both congratulate and knock me down for my phd, for instance; the people I have talked to who assume because of my status I don't what "the real world" is like (and I have gotten that from both other academics and other working-class folks, because how could *I* possibly know except for that's my background); the people I know from grad school who literally stopped talking to me and/or dropped me from their social media because me getting a job "better" than theirs was a symbol of how I really wasn't a member of the working class, etc. etc. And that doesn't touch on the professional-based stuff where a lot of people assume because I'm a librarian and in a woman-dominated profession I have it "easier" when I'm in the rare books field which is filled with old dudes and all the ick that entails (except for the current job where, on the contrary, our unit is heavily women AND we have 2 BIPOC AND we're mostly young-ish). And then the flip-side when I've hung out with other people at even higher institutions who may as well live on different planets, with the expectation/lived reality that is research trips in Italy for months at a time and such like, and WHAT EVEN IS THAT.

TL:DR I guess this is what middle-class life is like and sometimes it's unexpectedly exhausting?

Like, habits I have yet to break: 

Rationalizing to myself when I want to buy something I want, can afford, I still categorize as "luxury": books, music, food take-out, etc.

The constant feeling of "faking it" when interacting with people.

The impostor syndrome inherent to being in academia period.

The guilt of being a millennial who actually managed to do some upwards mobility. 

The guilt-trips/shame my family is really good at bringing out period.

Anyhow I feel like I belong nowhere and am uncomfortable anywhere, and also race and sex and class are all bullshit and we should just Star Trek already, please.

 Warning for unedited and unpolished word vomit.

Last week I started reading Janine Barchas's The Lost Books of Jane Austen, a study on popular editions of Austen that are largely "lost" because they were read to bits with few survivors. Eg. there was an edition in the late 1800s that was printed as a promotional by a soap company, and if you sent in x number of soap wrappers they would send you a book as a reward. Fascinating stuff, but early on Barchas describes her study as "bibliographical slumming" because she's studying popular works (never mind that Jane Austen is part of the canon; if this was a study of popular Shakespeare editions this same method of analysis would no longer be slumming and we all no way). A colleague scolded me for repeating the phrase, however, because "slumming" is such an ethnically and class-coded term, which is fair.

But I also contemplate the problematic ways that I as a human am read because of who I am now, which is as a tenured professor at a top university. It's assumed (and not just by this one person; it's happened with other people in other incidents too) that I don't know anything about working class life and so on, despite the fact that, you know, I grew up backwoods and blue-collar and so on. Frankly I know WAY the fuck more than a number of colleagues about problems of class and abuse in the US because I have fucking lived through it. And I have gotten to a point where I need to figure out how to much more openly address these issues in a useful way.

This weekend I picked up several books from the library. I got two volumes of Milosz's prose after talking to Todd last week; apparently the reaction of both of us in the wake of political goings-on was a desire to read/reread the work of a poet about how to intellectually survive in a totalitarian regime. I had also requested the new biography Becoming Beauvoir a while back and it finally came. It is very good and imminently readable, and it was very surprising to me to hear that most of the WW2 experiences of Beauvoir and Sartre are recounted as explicating varied love affairs (which honestly needs a chart to track) than anything else. So I suppose that survival is also about reading and fucking and loving, which I guess is helpful in its own peculiar way too. 

Politics: So relieved that the Blue Wave showed up. I've read some comments and analyses downplaying this, and like, between the hundreds of women and POC who will now be in office and the fact that Texas is now a battleground state, I feel hope and conviction that the arc of justice does go forward.

Meanwhile, in Illinois: We saw several houses on Sunday and are going to look at some more tonight. The market is very different than that in Boulder, which blows my mind a bit: properties are cheaper and better taken care of. (Scott's comment: "I am OVER doing a major house project each year!") It was gray the first few days here but the sun came out yesterday. It's chilly but I kind of like chilly, and I *really* like the golds and reds of fall foliage.

We've had a few meals out but also got some groceries, both to keep expenses down and just to shop locally. Everything is about a third cheaper here too. We went to a brewery the other night called Destihl (pronounced "destill" but we're just going to end up calling it "Destiel" because we're us) which was quite good, and a good sushi place. We also ate a heckin trendy place but I ordered poorly--the waiter recommended a veggie torta, but when it came it had so. much. goat cheese. Which, I like goat cheese, but not that much; after the stress of traveling I also wanted something light, and it was just way too rich for me--I was full after four bites, basically.

But in general I am encouraged--I barely got to see the town during my interview, so it's nice actually getting to look at restaurants and shops and things. We're also going to check out the farmer's market on Saturday; I like that they have it year-round, just moving it indoors during the cold months. We're also going to meet one of my future colleagues for dinner tomorrow night, and I hope that'll be fun!

... for the first time in like 15 years or something. Anyway, it hit a little too close to home, with the scene of the idiot government guy and his busty "secretary", and then the bad guy's enlisting of other baddies that include the KKK, Nazis, Saudi cliches, and gross white dudes. And then he leads them in the Pledge of Allegiance to Eeeviel.

We're living in a Mel Brooks movie. And it's not Space Balls.

I've been wanting to write a post on various things going on, but have put it off because there just always seems to be too much. Anyway, here's a bunch of random things:

We were worried our car had died and were fretting because Now Is Not The Right Season to figure out getting a new car, but luckily, the autoshop diagnosed a problem with the engine and alternator, and it only cost a couple hundred books and they promise there's plenty of life in the old girl yet. 

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I finished my first proper fic in ages for space_wrapped !! fritz42  was such an awesome beta and cheerleader and I am so happy! Will be posting on Dec. 23.

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[Insert disjointed incoherent thoughts on how stressful and difficult holiday shopping and preparation is.] 

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Was so astonished and relieved about Doug Jones's Senate win last night. Was texting with Todd, who said that his brother texted him to say "This is proof that God exists and God hates Roy Moore." Todd wrote back "Maybe this is proof that God is a fourteen-year-old girl."

Another political note: I am so fucking tired of all of my [white, straight] friends complaining about sad and tired politics makes them. Bitches, how do you think everyone ELSE feels? But that's why you have to just keep fighting. [N.B. These are the same people who will share BLM stuff on social media but don't appear to have any actual POC friends. Both of which require a whole lot unpacking, mental acrobatics, whatever.]

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Outlander season finale feels: OMG I love how they fixed the Willoughby plotline, and I hope the next season(s) can similarly fix the issues with race in the translation from books to screen, because I don't think I can handle white people shrugging off the genocide of Native Americans and slavery with a shrug of "well what can we do, nothing's gonna happen in 70 years anyway." I've already had a couple arguments with people about this on social media where they use the whole "men of their time" argument that never fails to piss me the fuck off, because it does such a disservice to everyone who was "ahead of their time" and, you know, ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY.

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Ongoing in Our Weird Old House: We're working on the master bathroom--will be doing most of the work--ourselves--and discovered that the previous owners had at some point converted a full bath to a 3/4 bath. So...that project just became a bit more complicated, but it's still kind of a cool thing to find.

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A while back I got a job rejection letter that basically went, seriously, "You are so qualified and very impressive, but we're not going to interview you. Good luck with life!" Which, *flail* so I'm going to try to volunteering with my local library just to try to get a toe in the door and also hopefully build in some opportunities so I can renew my CA in a few years. I had a good meeting yesterday with the admin who coordinates thing and will likely be doing social media stuff for them for a bit. So, here's hoping.

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My diss. I'm trying to finish a chapter and....it is so hard. Why is it so hard? Still continuing on, anyway.

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Will have some sort of year-end post for year's end, hopefully.

 I know this. I know we are witnessing the last gasps of white supremacy and pure hatred. I know the good apples far outweigh the bad apples.

But my gods, am I tired of the bad apples. 

I swear I have been on the edge of a nervous breakdown for the past week, but it feels longer. Every new day is a new horror, a new threat, exponentially elevated from the past months of new horrors and new threats. 

And today's horror was at UVA, and ...I know that campus so well. I know people there--good, good people. And to see it taken over by murderous goddamn fucking Nazis breaks my heart and fills me with something that I can't name, past fear and anger and revulsion. It is not hatred, because I know that well, and because hatred doesn't touch on the pure contempt I feel for the murderers out there in force today.

We outnumber you, motherfuckers. And the quality of our mercy is increasingly strained. 

I do not think we will have a second civil war, as some do; I do not think the numbers bear it out. I think we will have several years of social unrest, and protests, and movements, and eventually, the goddamn Nazis will melt back into the rotting shadows from which they emerged to begin with, and die there. But they are going to make it damn unpleasant for us in the meantime.

Do not give up. Do not give in.

Hold light in your hearts, and put it together with mine, and let the light burn away the darkness.