Tag Archives: 2021

Nobody owes an explanation of one’s own life to anyone else. Nobody has to write an autobio. Of course, most people who do write one do it for the money, but my point is more about existence, and how it’s perfectly fine to live one’s life in obscurity because, well, a life isn’t really for the writing — it’s for the LIVING of it. Duh. And — and this is vague — but I’ve also been thinking lately that it doesn’t matter to get things about one’s life into the media. I don’t need my photos to be widely seen — I don’t need weird trivia about my life (my favorite show, say) to be out there in public. I don’t need to give interviews. I don’t really need to present my life — my physical or experiential life — for others to see, when I’m already sharing what I want to share: my life-as-written, my writing-life — my mind-on-page. I don’t need to tell anybody what pens or paper I use. None of that matters to anyone else’s experience. I mean, sure, a little — after I read that the Mamet writer used Clairfontaines, I got some of those Frenchy notebooks — and they’re good, sure, but they also don’t matter. It doesn’t matter that I make my own journals, or that I use Google Docs instead of Microsoft Word. It doesn’t matter what I wear, drive, watch on TV — none of my opinions matter! And that’s wonderfully freeing. Sure, it’s OK to write my opinions into my journal writings, and, yes, those opinions may then see the light of publication, but not because they’re vital. I’m not gonna post those things to my Facebook profile or to my blog. None of the particulars of what I do matters — the writings are enough. Don’t turn my house into a museum. Life moves on — see my house as YOUR house! Don’t look at my relics — look at your own things as relics (maybe).

[From school journal of Thurs., 26 Aug. 2021]

So, yeah, (“soy,” I wrote, which is to say, I didn’t mean to say “soy” but the “y” snuck in there. The “why” snuck in — isn’t that always the case that the “why” sneaks in, at least mentally, and I wonder just why I’m doing something, and so often the answer that comes back is “because I have to — in order to keep my job, or to keep my house, or just to be a good person.” I have to keep my father-in-law living with us, spilling Pepsi all over …, because I want to do right by my wife, who wants to do what’s right by her dad. Sure, she feels filial piety — but also, what the hell else is there to do? I wonder if I’m at an age where I start being aware of how much I need the system — how I start to feel my fragility, or not “fragility,” really, but my vulnerability. I’m still feeling, seeming, strong, healthy, but I’m aware that that can be gone pretty damned fast.

[Later on in that day’s journals:]  My father-in-law thought I said “f***ers” when I’d said “Rutgers” and, well, he’s not wrong. It seems sometimes like the universities are where there’s a level of sophisticated living — of the life of the mind. Of course, minds live in a lot of places, and minds don’t need tenure, either. Also, I thought today that it’s — that it shouldn’t have been a surprise that people in the country have taken irrational positions w/r/t politics and pandemic. It’s always been true that a lot of people one meets aren’t rational, you know?

[From school journal of Fr., 1 October 2021]

Things I missed during the pandemic. I mean, did I really miss things? As I sit here today, I’m not sure. I guess I missed the sense of ease, of not being afraid to buy groceries, etc. I almost said I missed watching sports on TV, but, no, sports went on anyway, at least on TV. I missed … Hmm. Just now, as school gets back to normal, I feel I’m missing last year’s school a bit. Not entirely, of course, but I sure am a lot busyier (sp?) during the days this year than last. There’s no time, or, to be accurate, little time to plan and to grade. But it’s school. The pandemic didn’t really seem to lead to lasting changes, and maybe it’s too much to expect big changes, when many people just wanted to get back to how things were — though things weren’t always that great pre-pandemic. {Google has red-underlined “busyier” — and Google has asked me if I mean “bustier” — Google, I don’t.}

[From school journal of Weds., 18 Aug. 2021]

Bach’s a playin.’ By time I wrote the first time-quote on the line above, the time-quote had changed — but that’s the problem with time-quoting, isn’t it? Ah, well. So, I gave a quiz to 1st and 2nd hours, and I remembered that I need to grade the CW1 journals and several other things. But save those grading thoughts for later. You don’t have time to grade now — now ‘tis not the season for the grading. Now is the season of the writing and of the recording of the attendance, and suchforth and so on. And now I’m here, having arrived at the time-quote  of “12:23 PM” and still I live — I made it another minute! That’s not really much of an accomplishment — and yet, also, it is. …

I DO try to think of my favorite artists as not being superpeople — they’re more-or-less like me; I mean, I try to remember that. I try to remember that just because somebody wrote something cool that it was good to be in their presence all the time, or even any of the time. I think about the Chana historical signs, too — how any time we write something, it seems special, but no, it wasn’t all that special — especially that one dumb sign on Chana Road that says some dumbasses looked for oil but didn’t find any. Well, duh. But the attempt got a metal (poured — cast-metal, that’s the word) sign. We’d all like a cast-metal sign, like those blue plaques London puts on buildings where authors lived. And yet, to not have done something deserving of a plaque makes the enplaquened look goofy. And yet, of course, NOBODY actually deserves a plaque. THAT’s what I think of artists now, I guess. I don’t think anybody deserves a plaque. Nobody’s that great — or, let’s say, it distorts our understanding now to give anyone from the past a plaque. Mostly, even the great artists were, well, just, you know, doing their thing — doing some work, trying to have some fun, eating, showering/bathing, dressing, crapping, all that stuff. I wrote at home-journal this week that there are people (including neighbor lady I exampled) who are very helpful and warm and kind people, but if she never writes a book, she’ll never get remembered. I’m not as kind, but I’ve put down lots of words on paper! Of course, she knew the deal — what’s on paper gets saved, gets studied, gets remembered. She puts stuff on Facebook about her kids and her husband being a lawn perfectionist, and also a — what did she call him? She said something about how her husband is teaching their kids what  a “gentleman” is or some bu*lshi* like that. And she writes stuff about her kids on their birthdays, she characterizes them — hey, that’s great. I didn’t really want to characterize things lately — I don’t, I mean — because those characterizations are so flawed, they give the wrong idea. We teachers ask students to read things for class — novels or stories or whatever — and it’s cool when a student has, or, heck, when I as a teacher have, a cool idea/insight into what we’re reading — but the institution doesn’t really know what to do with that insight, or hell, even with enthusiasm. Teachers can’t care too much if students LIKE what we read in lit class because, well, we’re gonna read it anyway. It’s on the curriculum. And it’s ON the curriculum because, well, it’s not too offensive and we can get many copies of it — it’s certainly not the best stories that get curriculumed. 

[From school journal of Friday, 10 Sept. 2021]

I used to be kinda fascinated with fictional worlds — how [The Simpsons’] Springfield had one of everything: one cop (well, 3 cops), one politician (Diamond Joe Quimby), one school, one Groundskeeper Willy, one Lindsay Nagle, etc. But now-uh-days, I’m far more interested in the nonfiction worlds we each live in, which is to say, the particular shape and flavor of the concept of the world each real person has. I don’t want to know about “Rochelle” or “Chicago” or wherever, but about each person’s Rochelle or wherever. I suppose I could go find, and pluck out, each of the worlds in my journals — or, I mean, the details may add up to a world, one that likely doesn’t reflect the real world, the real Rochelle or Byron or Ogle County. How could you ever even contain that in particulars? You’d have to fall back on b.s. generalizations — “Ogle County is X and Y” and so on, blah. Instead, there are pockets I describe — I go to here or to there, I met this person or that one — and the people I know but don’t see every day.

[From my school journal of 30 Sept. 2021]

6:00 (A.M., phone time) So, yeah — here I am. I’d thought I could lead off by saying that I realized yesterday that I’m probably “on the spectrum,” autism-wise. I mean, I do feel I can read people’s moods most of the time — people aren’t that opaque to me. On other hand, maybe I’m just German (I watched a couple more German Girl in America videos last night — she said Germans tend not to do small talk).

But I saw yesterday, in a Lithub essay suggesting Thoreau was on spectrum, was not “neurotypical,” that people on spectrum hate to lie, or are very honest. Here and I thought that was an admirable trait! Ah, well. At least I do feel I’ve more-or-less outgrown the sense that I need to try to make friends with colleagues or get them to appreciate my ideas. Ah well. So, but the nice thing I felt yesterday — I laughed about this, I laughed as I read this line — I was alone in my room over lunch — is, OK, so, maybe this is why I just don’t quite get the social scene (M said she too is not neurotypical.. She said last night that she never understood how people — regular people — were satisfied with their regular-people lives — volleyball, for example … these people M knew through church, they played volleyball and had dull-seeming lives. M said she didn’t know how these lives were satisfying. M did say that she liked being on college campuses, around other atypicals.)

So, yeah, I can start to accept this about me. This is why I have had so many awkward interactions, especially with women. But it’s not like I didn’t realize these interactions were awkward!

[From journal of Thurs., 26 Aug. 2021, Journal 346, page 117-8]