PTSD

dialed another number on the wall tonight

As some of you may know, I'm part of a weekly writing group (completely unrelated to the still-theoretical-dissertation) that meets in Cleveland Park. So I was sitting there tonight, listening to our conversation, and I figured out one reason that I'm moving so slowly on the phd.

It's because, for all that I love my research topics and teaching students and writing about political science, when it comes to having fun, there's no comparison.

Eyeless dinosaurs under Chicago, and the rhetorical stylings of Beowulf, and Raymond Chandler reworked into iambic pentameter. Trying to name all the Audrey Hepburn movies in order. The way that the fourth draft is utter shit, and the fifth is suicidal, and the sixth is good. Better, at least.

The weird beauty of Paul Gross singing about rottweilers and pickup trucks and bondage while quoting Hamlet. How Jennifer Lopez is sort of terrifying and inescapable. Kinnie Starr and two-fours.

These are things that never come up in my real work. But when someone mentions them on a Thursday night, no one even blinks.

On the other hand, I also wonder what the people at the next table must have thought of us. Probably best we didn't ask.

Labels: conversation, writing

posted by Elizabeth @ 8:10 PM