Mental Masochism, or I Know Why I Have Carpal Tunnel

During this past semester's course, I had a number of writing assignments. Obviously, I like writing...it's my major, it's what I do for work (to some degree), and it's what I do for pleasure.

But research papers are tedious. All those sources to be cited.

So I procrastinate. I know this is one of my worst faults. But without someone (literally) keeping a fire beneath my arse, I just rarely work ahead of schedule.

Part of this might be a bit of arrogance. It's just writing, right? I could do it in my sleep. Who needs a month, or a week, I can crank it out in a day.

But this is where my tendency to procrastinate crashes head-on with my need to please.

This very quandary led me to argue that a paper did NOT deserve the grade my professor so kindly bestowed, and to his response that he would lower the grade and allow me the chance to revise it.

Groan. What an idiot I am.

But all is well that ends well, considering the message I received..."All of your work has been received. The [last paper] was a particularly thorough and interesting analysis of the Internet's effect on literacy. Despite your own misgivings you excelled in the course and your submissions, including the final exam, were among the best of the semester."

I think my favorite part is that he referred to my SUBMISSIONS.

I'm going to do some Professor/slutty student roleplaying now.

Fuck Jazz, Moving on to the Blues

Of one thing about myself, I am sure. If there is mental chemistry, there is bound to be physical chemisty. And without mental chemistry, there cannot be more than a fleeting physical chemistry.

Oh, I've met smart men. Witty men. Men with humor dryer than an Egyptian tomb. Men who self-deprecate their fetishes until my ribs ache from laughing.

But not many of them put me in my place. I don't mean to connote discipline, but headspace. There is a miniscule portion of the male population that has the right combination of all of those virtues (vices?) who actually instill in me a DESIRE to submit. Not just the simple urge that we submissives get, in general terms. But to...YOU. I will submit, can submit, in fact, cannot avoid submitting to you.

But what if this is not what they want? What if their plates are so full that they can not accept you?

Does the need for humiliation at the hands of another extend this far - to self-inflict rejection by submission with no hope of domination?

Is that the definition of devotion, or an exercise in futility?

These are not rhetorical questions, folks...I would appreciate some advice.

Walls

I dreamed that I was in a small room with no doors. Just ceiling, floor, and four concrete walls.

And there was no one to save me. No. One.

This dream requires no deep introspective analysis.

I need a fucking jackhammer.

More on that

I always pretended to be an Indian. Native American. Displaced natives. Whatever the correct term is nowadays. The where and how of my growing up included lots of time near or in forests. I tried to school myself to walk through the wilderness with no sound. No broken twigs, no crackled leaves. Cooper's Hawkeye, only with tube socks and pink plastic eyeglass frames.

I have a photo, myself squinty-eyed with laughter, jumping on the bed with said tube socks and wild hair. Thin as a rail. Fast as a snake, racing all the boys. I remember. A boy named Marshall who tried to catch and kiss me - not quite fast enough. Eating honeysuckle blooms to make those unkissed lips sweet.

Sometimes I still see that girl in the mirror. I'm not fast enough to catch her, either. I've given up trying. Now it seems I came from the womb in sensible shoes and a permanent scowl, the very picture of that german hausfrau. On my better days, I think of the line in the movie version of that Forster-esque story The Enchanted April - "a woman with the face of a disappointed Madonna." Aside - I still like to say the name Arbuthnot, it rolls off the tongue so unusually.

The rubbing of elbows with the some precocious, some annoying youths in class will surely stave off the advancing middle-agedness. I hope.

The Bride Abridged

Why am I always a bundle of nerves on the first day of class? Am I frightened of youngsters?

I'm convinced I have a german hausfrau air.

Gray and cold. It's beautiful.