I've had a splitting headache for several days that won't go away. It's terrible, to the point that it's making me feel disoriented and tired.

I'm so hot that the small of my back is sweating all the time, practically, and it's November in Minnesota.

My hair is driving me nuts, and I want to shave it all off. I am thisclose to doing it!

I wish I could afford to get acupuncture. :-(

One of Becky's recent posts inspired me to ask the question: Why aren't there more feminist or postmodern critiques of Burke? Celeste Michelle Condit's essay "Post-Burke: Transcending the Sub-Stance of Dramatism" is the only one I can think of (it's in Landmark Essays on Kenneth Burke. Years ago, I took a seminar on Burke and wrote a paper attempting a genealogy of his theory of form (form is the creation and fulfillment of desire in the audience, and I wanted to problematize Burke's use of "desire." Where does desire come from?) . Regrettably, I tried to use it as a chapter in my master's thesis, which was primarily about Donna Haraway and how composition theorists have used cyborg theory. To this day I call the chapter on Burke the cuckoo in the nest that is my thesis. Anyway, back to the lack of feminist critique of Burke. I will admit, I have no desire to engage Burke, not when Judith Butler, Judith Halberstam, Joan Wallach Scott, Michel Foucault, and so many others are out there. Perhaps I just don't get it...but after a whole semester of reading and discussing Burke's corpus of work, I still don't really see much value in it, and I don't think that's just because I'm an angry feminist. Okay, there is one little section of A Rhetoric of Motives on "Marx and Mystification" that, in my opinion, makes a real contribution to theory, but I can't think of anything else.

It's Friday, and here are my five.

1. Using one adjective, describe your current living space.

Infinitesimal!!!

2. Using two adjectives, describe your current employer.

cerebral, rigorous

3. Using three adjectives, describe your favorite hobby/pasttime.

couchy, funny, delicious

4. Using four adjectives, describe your typical day.

long, challenging, gratifying, beneficent

5. Using five adjectives, describe your ideal life.

wealthy, sociable, philanthropic, feminist, cognoscente

This morning, I laughed so hard at Jason's Doodle Duels that I almost cried. What a fine way to start the day. I mean, how cute is this?

UPDATE: Oh dear! Libby is at it too!

Here's a response paper I wrote for my Women's Studies class. We read Beloved by Toni Morrison and "The Epistemic Status of Cultural Identity: On Beloved and the Postcolonial Condition" by Satya Mohanty. We were asked to read Beloved as theory and also to connect Morrison's and Mohanty's work to the other material we read on experience in feminist theory. Mohanty, rejecting both the "ahistorical essentialism" of an uncritical acceptance of experience as a foundation for theory and the skeptical postmodern turn toward "experience" as completely discursive and the product of an individual interpretive framework, argues for a "realist" approach to cultural and political identity, in which you take as given that experience is mediated by discourse and by theory, but that you see experience as both cognitive and affective. Mohanty insists that experience can yield knowledge. That being said, when I finished Beloved and the Mohanty article, my head was swimming. I had read Beloved several times before, and I appreciate it more each time. I think I use this word pretty sparingly to describe things, but Beloved warrants it: it is monumental. There's just so much there. I read it once when I was writing a paper about folklore and alternative knowledge systems, and there's so much of that (for example, Amy uses the folk remedy of putting spiderwebs on wounds to stop the bleeding on Sethe's back, where she has been whipped). Anyway, here is the response I wrote, which I think I'll rewrite later, because I'm not satisfied with it right now.

This is a flash movie about factory farming. Definitely a must-watch.

The other day, I posted about my love of 80s TV theme songs. In fact, that was exactly one week ago, and I was experiencing some Monday gloom. It's Monday again, and I'm slightly less gloomy, but I find myself thinking again of an 80s TV theme song I love, this time the one from "The Fall Guy":

The Fall Guy



Well, I'm not the kind to kiss and tell,

But I've been seen with Farrah.

I'm never seen with anything less than a nine, so fine.

 

I've been on fire with Sally Field,

Gone fast with a girl named Bo,

But somehow they just don't end up as mine.

 

It's a death defyin' life I lead,

I take my chances.

I die for a livin' in the movies and TV.

But the hardest thing I ever do

Is watch my leadin' ladies

Kiss some other guy while I'm bandagin' my knee.

 

I might fall from a tall building,

I might roll a brand new car.

'Cause I'm the unknown stuntman that made Redford such a star.

 

I never spend much time in school

But I taught ladies plenty.

It's true I hire my body out for pay, Hey Hey.

 

I've gotten burned over Cheryl Tiegs,

Blown up for Raquel Welch.

But when I end up in the hay it's only hay, Hey Hey.

 

I might jump an open drawbridge,

Or Tarzan from a vine.

'Cause I'm the unknown stuntman that makes Eastwood look so fine.

I can blast that song in the car, sing along, and just generally rock out to it! What's the matter with me?

I am looking forward to the three Fs--friends, food, and family. I just reserved a flight home for the Christmas holiday, too--December 21-January 3. Last year I stayed until, I don't know, January 11 or something like that, and started to get depressed when I'd go out with my friends who live in Florence, AL. During the holidays, I'd see people I went to high school and undergrad with, and it was fun, but then afterward, I had this sinking "left behind" feeling as I started seeing the current UNA students doing their back-to-school partying. I vowed not to stay that long again. January 3, I think, will be a fitting time to leave. In the spring, I'm teaching a class I've never taught before, Rhetoric 1223: Oral Presentations in Professional Settings, and I need lots of time for syllabus composing.



As for today, I am going to do laundry, read copious amounts of feminist theory and genre theory, and go to the gym.

When am I going to start being realistic about what I can get done in a day?! Note: I'm striking through items not because I've gotten them done, but because I'm cutting corners.