Now for something of substance
In Plotting Crime we were discussing the nuclear family in Conrad's Secret Agent and we started talking about how no love, even mother's love, is ever wholly unconditional. I didn't comment, but I certainly had a lot to say about the topic. After class Marc (as in the prof) and I were talking and he was like "I thought you were going to pipe in on the matter of mothers" and I said "Well, you said you didn't want it to get to Oprah, and I figured I would, I'm pissed at her right now" and he questioned and in explaining I said "she used to love me" and he said "she still does" I told him I knew that, it was just learned the conditions of that love that hurt. As I was walking back to my room I began to think about my current situation and it occured to me that in this time of increasing distance from my family I have built something of an academic family. (At this point I feel it necessary to give credit to my friends, who are more family than I could ever ask for, you know who you are, you know that I love you, but this post isn't about you).
You see I've kinda built a family out of this semester's profs (as they're my three favorite profs here), Marc Katz, with his dry wit and good advice, has taken on the fatherly role, and Jennifer Friedlander is like the older sister I never had. She's the not so distant future that I'm striving for. She's what I want to be, my goals in the flesh. Always so cool, always a little out of my league. Nancy Macko represents my distant longed for future, tenured at a good college, teaching what I love, living with the woman I love. In feeding me, and offering me her protection, and just generally caring has taken on the role of providing my maternal nurturing right now. Not in any direct or intentional way, but just that that she is where that energy is flowing from right now. I don't think any of them realize the roles they're filling in my life right now, and I'd feel too weird telling them. So instead I'll thank them here, where they'll never see it, and hope the general positive energy of it makes their day a little better.
You see I've kinda built a family out of this semester's profs (as they're my three favorite profs here), Marc Katz, with his dry wit and good advice, has taken on the fatherly role, and Jennifer Friedlander is like the older sister I never had. She's the not so distant future that I'm striving for. She's what I want to be, my goals in the flesh. Always so cool, always a little out of my league. Nancy Macko represents my distant longed for future, tenured at a good college, teaching what I love, living with the woman I love. In feeding me, and offering me her protection, and just generally caring has taken on the role of providing my maternal nurturing right now. Not in any direct or intentional way, but just that that she is where that energy is flowing from right now. I don't think any of them realize the roles they're filling in my life right now, and I'd feel too weird telling them. So instead I'll thank them here, where they'll never see it, and hope the general positive energy of it makes their day a little better.