salt storms in iowa

Today I discovered yet another reason that Iowa (or really any state that gets a foot of snow per week) sucks during the winter months.  Picture it:  I was sitting in class and had hung up my coat and scarf on the wall rack across the room (because when you have to wear a coat, a hat, ear muffs, two scarfs, and gloves, it gets too bulky to keep at your chair and you get in the habit of using the coat rack) but had, as usual, kept my bag at my chair so that I could access its' contents--chap stick, hand sanitizer, kleenex--during class.  At hour 1.2 of 3, I leaned over to grab my bag off the floor, plopped it into my lap and proceeded to rummage for the chap stick that the severe wind and cold require I use four times an hour, minimum.  There I was, happily applying chap stick as my hyper-literate classmates discussed the topic at hand.  I couldn't have been happier.  After a liberal application, I returned the tube to the bag and the bag to the floor only to discover a rectangular patch of murky, white dust that had accumulated in my lap.  My gay senses practically threw up on the spot and I let out a semi-audible squeak as I frantically brushed the mysterious powder off of my lap.  While a good half of the class was watching me intently, I shakily grasped my leather messenger bag only to find that the entire back of it was covered in dust.  That was when I squeaked even louder and started smacking the bag repeatedly, a cloud of dust billowing out with each, solid thwack of my hand.  At this time I had the attention of the entire class.  It wasn't until later that I discovered the origin of that white, grainy powderdust.  As I don't normally keep my bag on the floor (only when my table space is too small or otherwise occupied), this dust had escaped my notice.  It has been slowly creeping in since the first snowfall in November and is nothing less than the salt they use to make our sidewalks and drivable surfaces safe.  It accumulates in astonishing quantities.  There are little piles of it around the corners of the room and where the table legs meet the floor.  If you listen carefully, you can hear it under your feet.  If you lie on the floor and breathe deeply, you might accidentally snort some and get a contact high.  Welcome to Iowa.

my little slice of office

I moved to Iowa at the beginning of August, 2008 and at the time, the only desk I had was one that matched the bedroom set I got when I was in first grade.  It was pretty tiny; not really enough space to have a computer and a book open at the same time.  Luckily, the studio apartment I moved in to had a large, built-in desk that worked perfectly.  Needless to say, I left my old desk at home--one less piece of furniture to move six hours up the road.

I moved into this two bedroom apartment on December 1st, 2008.  While it has more space and is a perfectly nice, functional apartment, it isn't nearly as cool as the studio.  No high ceilings, no storefront look, no hardwood floors, no floor to ceiling windows, etc.  While my roommate and I are more than happy to have an apartment that keeps the Iowa winters out and our heat in, there are some things our apartment lacks that we would love to have if we had the money to pay for them.  I was mostly missing the built in desk; I spent the weeks before finals writing papers at the dining "area" table while my roommate played Nintendo and watched Desperate Housewives.  It wasn't the optimal working environment.

But ah the triumph of man!  Today, while I was at Target picking up some Seventh Generation laundry soap, I found a missionary-style desk that fit the space I had available (not much) and was big enough to spread out a bit of research or grading on.  It only took me an hour to put together and looks positively delightful.  What is more, I can finally unpack my "office supplies" box that has been sitting around annoying me for the past month and a half.  I am as tickled pink as when I got my bedroom set in the first grade.  I have some serious nesting instincts.

on upheaval

Upheaval is a funny thing.  It is something that happens and it has an effect; for me that effect has always been like being overcome by a sudden sense of overwhelming dread.  It is never pretty, but the results are like building muscle; you tear a few things down so they can build themselves back stronger.

I was thinking yesterday about my freshman introduction to writing course that I took from an amazing feminist who is very fond of the color purple.  Like most good composition courses, the focus is not necessarily about how to write a five paragraph theme or methods of research--all of the technical aspects of writing too a backseat to the readings we did.  In the end I learned a different way of looking at the world; I learned how to see with a critical lens.  I am not sure if her class was the direct cause of my change in world view but I can safely say that it planted the seeds for the plants that I would need to eat for nourishment in the months that followed.

Shortly after basic composition, perhaps two months, I came out of the closet in a not very smooth or confident way; I was not prepared for how unsettling the experience would be.  I remember very distinctly laying on my bed as the walls of my apartment mocked me with a taunting dance.  I couldn't breathe, I was dizzy, and I felt like I was weighted to the bed.  I remember kicking off the physical effects long enough to send a text message asking for help:  "I can't do this alone."  The response came back:  "You aren't alone, but I can't help you right now."  Getting out of bed the next morning was one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do.

The summer before my senior year in college, I had a few friends who stayed in town for jobs or internships.  We had GRE study parties where we usually ended up cooking some food and drinking copious amounts of alcohol, our vocabulary lists and writing samples shoved in a pile to the side of the room.  One of these friends is named Claire.  After years of believing the right-wing religious nut jobs who used the Bible to condemn me to hell, I had adopted her as my religious coach.  One day I decided I wanted her to explain a Bible verse about homosexuality so I got my shit together and drove over to her apartment where she explained several things that acted like explosives at the foundation of my rejection by God.  It was one of those new world view moments where you walk in not necessarily content with the world, but at the very least confidant that you know how it works.  I will repeat something I said earlier because it is both very important and very true:  those world changing moments, particularly their after effects, aren't very pretty.  Over the next few days that talk and its implications banged around in my head knocking shit over and leaving my thoughts in general disarray.  During the next study party, I consumed a fifth of vodka and had what can only be equated to a complete emotional breakdown.  I was innocently using the restroom one moment and I was on my knees dry heaving and sobbing while attempting to crawl back into the living room where I spilled my drink on every surface available while ranting about religion, my dead mother, the pains of being born a gay man, and people like Claire, who have the innate ability to bring that kind of shit together in a cute, original, and fun package with a velvet bow on top.

At Iowa State, English graduate students are most commonly hired for one of two jobs, a composition TA, or a speech TA.  I was hired to be a speech TA and had long been mulling over whether or not I should switch to composition at the beginning of the next academic year (better for my intended career path).  I had decided not to switch as of 6pm last night--I was comfortable where I was and reasonably confident that I could still get into a PhD program without experience teaching basic composition.  I was thinking about all these things last night while simultaneously absorbing the classroom activities of my course called Theory and Research in Composition--the class where we learn how to effect that element of a "changed worldview" into our students.  The byproduct--intended or unintended, it doesn't really matter--of learning how to do this is that I am going through another worldview change.  It suddenly became very clear that I am teaching the wrong thing, that I desperately need to switch to be a composition TA.  And not just for the resume building aspect, but for the "this is what I want to do with my life" aspect.  It is what I want to do with literature as a student of it, it is what I want to do as a professor of literature, and it is what I want to do with writing as a basic form of communication--I want to teach students that it is good to question everything, to hold the crystal up to the light and look through a different spectrum, even for a few minutes. 

It was like I was back in Dr. Udel's freshman writing course, like I was back on my bed with the room spinning, like that night I broke down on the floor my friends' apartment.  It was one of those annoying, world changing epiphanies that makes you want to throw up but only because you have some putrid shit in your stomach that has been there for too long.  Now I am trying my best to sit on my laurels, waiting from an answer from the powers that be--will I be allowed to submit a late application for reassignment?

so this is the new year?

"What is the feeling when you are driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing?  It's the too huge world vaulting us and it's goodbye, but we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the sky." Jack Kerouac

Ugh I hate the end of things.  Today was not only the end of the "Holiday Season" but the end of 24 hours of fun and mayhem shared amongst friends from Illinois College.  Jordan, Claire, Kim, Juliane, Anne Marie, Ann, Jacob and Nikki all came together at my dad's house to celebrate the new year at Don's, the undergrad hangout.   It was so wonderful to see everyone and catch up on everything--there was so much genuine happiness surging through the air it was catching.  The group next to us said once "Man, the party is over there."  After the bar we all took the drunk bus back to the house and some of us kept drinking until five am.  Today wasn't very pretty but Dad cooked a buffet brunch and we napped a bit and spent the rest of it talking before everyone had to leave and go back to our little corners of the globe (some as far as Alaska and Japan).  Oh it is fucking depressing and I hate it.  I am never good with goodbyes and I never handle the end of things well.  It isn't just an emotional response, my entire body gets involved in it.   I feel sick, anxious, my stomach is flipping around, and there is a tightness in my chest.  

This is the same feeling I had when I tried to go to Germany, when I went to and came back from Paris and when my undergraduate career ended.  It is nice to know that these past twenty four hours rate up there among those experiences.  Good friends can change one's entire outlook.