Dear Friends,
For as much as I have weird, inimical feelings about springtime, I tend to fixate on it and write about it a lot. I began some spring cleaning the past couple of days. I’m still in a chrysalis where all the stress of the past month is attached to my back like some type of dybbuk. I figure before the last of the mania ends, I should channel that go-go-go energy into trying to make a home oasis I can depress myself into.
Talking about how busy I’ve been is probably the most authentic way I feel I can bare my soul and connect with you all right now, but it’s probably not that interesting to read about. The thing is, I don’t like being busy. I think some people get off on the fumes of how busy and inaccessible they are, but I’m the type of person who tries to shuffle my calendar so I can do everything and see everyone. I want to show the people in my life that they are priority to me, but sometimes it is to my detriment.
In any case, spring teaching went well, but it was demanding while also trying to complete the last course of my graduate studies. I try to be transparent with my students to elicit some empathy, but it always feels a bit odd to be standing in front of a class of two-dozen 19-year-olds saying, “Technically, I’m a student too! I’m also working on a paper right now!” I don’t think they ever really know how to make sense of all that. I recently stumbled upon a site where students talked about the quality of their universities, and most of the reviews about my institution were about the local beaches and the quality (or lack-there-of) of the cafeteria food… so I may be on a slightly different wavelength than undergrads by now.
In any case, grades have been submitted, I finished a seminar paper about Jane Eyre, got an “A” in my final class (well, maybe not an entirely different wavelength—we all still dream of our full marks), and after this weekend I’ll be done with all of my side gigs I do for the school as well. Although I do have an “incomplete” for an on-going independent study I need to finish polishing up… but then I am ready to move onto my exams during the upcoming academic year!
For me, grad school is harder than my creative writing is because it often requires me to keep going when I’m reaching burnout (with writing, I can be patient and take a break if it all feels like too much). I ultimately did enjoy writing about Jane Eyre (I wrote about how fairy tales inspired Brontë both in the novel’s content and form), but whewboy, absolutely no part of my being wanted to write another seminar paper. I’m in, like, 22nd grade, as far as school is concerned, and at some point you’re just ready to move on.
This is all to say that another school year is over, and another summer of funemployment is upon us (me). My teaching stipend is paused until September, so I’m entering the tug-of-war season where I flail like a Muppet between the gig economy and living as a starving artist who is reclaiming some of their time for art-making.
Next spring I will be taking my comprehensive exams, which more-or-less means being rigorously tested on a list of 100 books I produce. As I understand my situation at the moment, I’m permitted to have the summer as an exploratory phase before I fine-tune my list, receive a stamp of approval on it, and then go forth writing a rationale about it in early fall. I’ve decided for now that my primary list will be queer literatures, but what angle I will take on that… well, that’s something I’m hoping will emerge over the next few months.
It’s also becoming clearer to me that if I’m taking on a creative dissertation eventually in the form of a novel, that there should be some coherence between my exams rationale and the creative work I hope to eventually produce. I don’t want to say too much at the moment, but I’ve had some epiphanies these last few weeks, and I’m feeling really good about how my creative career is running aside the critical work I’m doing in school.
The biggest mystery right now is what my third list will be (second is supposed to be critical/secondary sources that are in conversation with the primary list). My tertiary list is encouraged to be removed from my primary/secondary (queer literatures), and my mind has been popping along everything from speculative poetry to literatures of the fantastic to the Southern Gothic.
I’ve partially resisted the idea of being an expert on any one thing, preferring my blood-tongued magpie existence, but if you get a doctorate in any field without becoming an expert of sorts—well—we probably have a problem on our hands. So while becoming acquainted with the idea that I am to be a queer studies expert and no longer just a queer studies journeyman (journeythem?), I’ve actually had quite a bit of fun falling down rabbit holes and creating reading lists.
Which brings me back to “spring cleaning.” Yeesh. I don’t think I need to go into detail, but I’m sure some of you can relate to just buying (or being gifted) books, and you don’t have shelf space, so you make a stack in a random nook in your home… or maybe you do have a shelf, but you shove things in a haphazard way. And then, let’s say… one or two years go by…. Well, in any case, my cozy apartment was the Great Chaotic Book Disaster, and I ultimately caved and decided to buy two bookcases, which were assembled these past few days and handsomely placed in my kitchen (I said the apartment was cozy). It also gave me an excuse to sort through all my books, which now live in eight distinct areas in my home.
Besides a few outliers (mainly poetry and comics), I haven’t really had the capacity to read anything that wasn’t for school, so to be honest I’m a little overwhelmed about all the infinite possibilities of summer (friends’ books I still haven’t read! best-sellers that have been on my radar! all these books I need to read for my exams! poetry books! used books I’ve picked up! comics! reading for pleasure!), and I hope to have a trajectory by the end of this weekend.
Before I went back to school (back when I was only in 20th grade), I definitely had this romantic dream of the PhD where I’d finally have time to read all these gorgeous books that have been on my TBR list for years, and so far, that, uhh, might have been a rosy ambition. But perhaps having a clean, cozy, organized home and some nice color-coordinated pastel spreadsheets will move me in the right direction.
On a final note, seven years ago (oof, just felt a bone crack) I did a stint at a lit website called Real Pants. It was very similar to the situation I’m in now (I was completing my MFA at the time). It was a summer break between semesters, and I wanted to catch up on reading. I wanted to do micro-reviews/book talk, although like most ideas I have, I struggle to K.I.S.S.. Some reviews became longer than intended, but I enjoyed getting to chat about books. The series was called “H.A.G.S.”—named after an acronym that people used to write in yearbooks (back when I was in a normal grade and not 22nd grade).
Personal growth is realizing it’s better to underpromise and underdeliver (lol), but I’ve been thinking of H.A.G.S.ing it up again, so maybe next time I pop into your inbox, it will be to talk about my summer of reading?
Anyway, yes, it’s still spring for another month, yet here I am writing in all your virtual yearbooks:
H.A.G.S.,
JD