Friday February 14, 2024
[Notes: 1) I’m doing something different with this diary. I’m co-writing a book about everyday life, and instead of keeping a chronological diary, I decided to make notes around major topics in the book. 2) This is reconstructed after-the-fact from notes, and I stopped taking notes early in the day. The rest is from memory and is pretty scanty].
Affect/mood – A pretty even-keeled, upbeat day. I woke with my mind pretty quiet, felt calm and present pre-caffiene. Happy it’s Friday (even though I’m retired, I work on my writing and research during the week and take the weekends off). I had a productive week and felt like I could let up on the throttle, and was looking forward to going out with C. for Valentine’s Day. I had an engaging breakfast hangout with my friend JP, and felt affection for him and felt very present and attentive. My body felt good all day after a good, strenuous workout on Thursday. The sun was out, which always helps: it poured through the kitchen windows in the late morning; and I saw a sliver of moon in the brightening sky as I was driving to breakfast.
Later, when C. and I had a scheduled meeting to look over our budget and do some kind of general, long-range planning, I had some difficulty listening well and keeping my head in it. C. has been worrying a bit about money, she responds to worry by trying to exert control; whereas I philosophically think we have little control over much at all. So, this is a longstanding dynamic, and I did well enough, but my attention was wandering. This took place in a coffee shop where it took an absurd amount of time for my tea to come out. At dinner, we continued talking about the future, but the pressure was off, and I had a stiff cocktail, so my affect was light and I was buzzed/attentive.
Media – I did not look at media before my breakfast hangout, on purpose; on the drive to the restaurant I listened to the classical music station. I heard a few minutes of the BBC news hour driving back: the story about the guy who got sort of swallowed by a whale while his father filmed it with his phone (of course!); the Congolese civil war—terrible but distant.
During a late morning break, I watched the first half of “Severance,” which is the best show going now, I’d wager. Last weekend I talked to friends about it, and we debated whether it’s more or less in tune with the Zeitgeist now than it was in its first season, in 2020. It really seemed miraculously timed then, during lockdown, with its dystopian workspace and hyper-alienated labor. So I said I thought it’s a little less in tune with the zeitgeist now, but E. argued that it’s more—with its emphasis on predatory capitalism and having no control over your work life. (This difference certainly registers that fact that she’s still working at dear old BSU and I am retired).
After dinner we watched, “Possession,” a not very good but very entertaining, scenery-chewing, Joan Crawford vehicle, where she plays a woman who has gone mad and is narrating her backstory while being interviewed by a psychiatrist and an intern on a psych ward.
Looking back I see that I avoided “the papers”—actual U.S. political news—entirely. Unusual.
Politics—See “media” above. This was an unusual day, very little politics thinking or talk. Generally I’m on a strict-ish media diet, checking in a few times a day and forbidding myself to linger, and spending even less time on social media because my feeds are largely expressions of political anger and agony. I did talk with JP at breakfast about the crisis and about the Zen place I’m in in regards to my thoughts about it: I don’t know what’s going to happen; I will have to respond as things unfold; the worst thing that can happen is that we will die, and that IS going to happen (the Buddhist thing. The monk, quoted in Oliver Burkemann’s “Four thousand weeks,” who explains his equanimity by saying, “I don’t mind what happens.)” Also, I told JP about my conversation with A.M., who said all we can do is “pick your thing and do it,” which also seems wise.
Time—JP, my breakfast companion, has Parkinson’s, which is advancing. He’s looking into getting a “death doula” to help him deal with the forthcoming transformations. I spoke with him about Zen Master Dogen’s idea of us as “time beings”—as people who live in time, who in a certain way are time, and therefore are not people who can manage time or save it or &c &c &c &c. Dogen’s actual ideas are more complicated and much less expressible in language than this suggests; his writing seems, and I think is, designed to leave you scratching your head; but part of the point is that time isn’t something outside you that you budget or save or really manage. JP is facing his mortality concretely while I face mine abstractly (more or less).
I am, of course, only intermittently successful in accepting my status as a time-being. See “work” below.
I managed to spend a reasonable amount of this day in the present. I wouldn’t hazard a percentage, because consciousness being what it is, I was, I’m sure, of course, flittering around in my head among the past present and future all day. Obviously, while C. and I were planning, we were thinking about the future. We talked during this about our trip to Japan in May (insh’allah) which is all planned out: moving, saving, the Japan trip—all future. At dinner, we talked about the past a little, about that memorable Valentines Day, possibly our first or second together, when we sat next to a couple, the woman loudly and without cease berating her partner for failing to buy her flowers or a gift.
Structure of feeling – this is, in short, the idea that feelings are social and that large patterns can be observed in them, within a society or social group. The only thing that comes to mind today is the pattern of approach/avoidance with media and politics—that’s certainly a structure of feeling we’re living right now. It’s part of the small talk with friends or even friendly acquaintances: “How are you?” “I’m fine except for the political shit show.” “How are you managing?” “What’s your media strategy?” I’ve had this conversation 20 times since the inauguration.
Work—I’ve been grappling, somewhat unhappily, with the internal taskmaster lately—feeling pressure and resisting it, despite the fact that I’m retired and theoretically I do only things that I want to do. I had been timing my writing sessions as a self-discipline tool, but that started to feel restrictive and inflexible, so now I’m just going with the flow, doing writing sessions and taking breaks organically. It feels better, mostly, and my productivity is fine.
Today I sit down to work at 10; answer an email about a talk I’m giving in Louisiana in a couple weeks; answer an email about a special issue of a journal I’m editing. Then I write for about an hour, adding material to the book introduction, scribbling notes on a legal pad, pausing to consult books that I’ve got scattered around on the dining room table. This feels good; I’m trusting the process. There’s a lot of work ahead shaping this book, but it’s going to get done in a series of single sessions, like this. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
At about 11:30 I break and watch Severance; then have lunch. From 1:15-2:15 I take care of some good-of-order business (track down a tax document; take a return call from my nephew, who is having a birthday; deal with a permissions matter about the journal issue), then write from 2:15-3:30. At 3:30 we go downtown to the coffee house to have our planning meeting—end of work-day/week.
Caregiving—I do very little of this, as I am not a parent and my elders have passed. Of course in daily ways C. and I care for each other. I made her coffee this morning. Others are caring for me today—waitresses, cooks, baristas.
Attachment—Feeling my connection to C. & to JP today especially; and, as we’re planning to move in about 16 months, I’m feeling fleeting, intermittent, anticipatory grief for all the friends we’ll be leaving here.
I have a strong bond with my nephew, invoked when he returns our birthday call. He likes to talk, so we listen: about his trip to Chicago, how much he liked the Steppenwolf theater, how he’s marking his birthday. I did not 100 % succeed in being fully attentive to what he was saying.
Going out to dinner is a dual ritual: of my attachment to C. and my attachment to Indy. Also, I suppose, attachment to my self-image as someone who likes & seeks out good food. We went to Bluebeard, one of the very best restaurants in town, which we kind of rediscovered a few weeks ago.
Rhythm—Daily rhythms are much more varied nowadays than they were when I was going to the office every day. There’s still the morning make-coffee ritual (which I did even though I was going out to breakfast, since I was up first). It had been a while since I was at Lincoln Square Pancake House so I took a wrong route to get there—arrhytymia! There wasn’t much flow to the day—work sessions broken up by other tasks and interruptions. Later in the day, in my last writing session, a sense of time flying by set in, with a slight edge of tension.
Crisis—Discussion of the crisis we’re living through was limited to talk with JP at breakfast. Oh, and a daily update email about Higher Ed that I haven’t unsubscribed from did show up in my box, bearing news about Linda McMahon’s confirmation hearing as secretary of (dismantling) education.
Attention—See “affect” above. It was work to focus in our planning meeting. My attention wandered listening to my nephew on the phone. At one point, while I was writing in the morning, C. came by and wanted to talk about getting some groceries for the weekend. “Can you focus for a minute?” she said. She knows me.
Creativity— See “work” above. This book project feels more like a creative project than my previous books, and I’m having to stay cool with feeling-about for the structure and constructing temporary scaffoldings as the book gets written. Thoughts and reading about how creative people work have been helpful. Today was not especially creative in the small, everyday ways.
Agency—this came up in talking about the crisis moment with JP. As I noted above: “pick your thing and do it.” Our agency over the crisis is severely circumscribed, but it’s what we’ve got. And it’s in the day, in the moment. That’s where we hatch plans, and pursue them. (Or not).
Community—I’m feeling more connected to Indy as a place now that I can foresee leaving it. There’s a difference, though, between having a community and having a network of friends who mostly never see (and in many cases don’t know) each other. And, since leaving Ball State, I think I have more of a network than a community. Yet the city (Indy) does provoke a feeling of belonging, somewhat attenuated but there nonetheless. Back in Philadelphia, the Eagles super bowl parade is happening today. (Innocuous, really, but with fascist overtones. My niece is working from home in Center City and texting me about it.) Going to Bluebeard is a ritual of the imagined community—going to a place where like-minded people go and have gone, with a specific location and vibe. And I ran into a Ball State colleague there, surprisingly.