I Which I Make a Charge and Abuse my Captive Audience

IN THE BEGINNING of this blog, I inform'd you that I was born under a cloud of parental subjectivity and genetic misfortune; -- but I did not inform you exactly how. No; that particular detail I will reserve entirely for a blog of its own; -- besides, kind reader, as you and I are in a manner perfect strangers, you must surely realize that it would not have been proper were I to share too many stories of myself all at once. -- You must have a little patience with me, novice blogger and lusty picaroon that I am.

I have undertaken, you see, to write not only my life in this blog, but to test my opinions also; hoping that your slow and gentle knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am (vis-à-vis these pages), each by the other, would give you a better understanding of the first: as you read further about me and my often faulty and illogical opinions, I expect that the slight public acquaintance, which is now blooming betwixt us, will grow into familiarity (and, we dare to hope, might be lacking all contempt!); and that, unless one of us is in fault (see post, 28 March, for examples one should avoid), will terminate in friendship. ---- O, diem præ-clarum! ---- then, I know that you, and you alone, will find nothing which has touched my life trifling in its nature, or tedious in its telling. When else does a young academic find herself with such a willing and captive audience? Oh, to finally be able to reveal myself in the very manner I always knew would show its truth in the most realistic light! Would that I had discovered blogging long ago…

Therefore, my dear friend, and newly claimed virtual companion, if you think me somewhat thrifty with my personal narrative during our initial contacts, -- bear with me, -- and let me go on and tell my story my own way: ---- or, if I digress now and then from this blog’s stated purpose, ---- or should sometimes put on a dunce’s cap (yes, complete with bell upon it!) for a moment or two as we pass along, -- please, do not leave me reader-less -- but rather, courteously know that I possess but slightly more wisdom than what appears on these humble pages; -- and as we press on, either laugh with me, or at me, or in short, do anything, react in whatever way feels most authentic to you ---- only keep your temper; and, if possible, enjoy this journey by my side.

In the Cause,

T. Shandy, Ph.D.

In Which I Discuss Picaroons, Peccadilloes, and Fucktards

IN ADDITION to the many posts I anticipate writing on the always titillating topics of love, sex, relationships, and life in academia (as though one could separate these four!), I also fully intend that this blog -- as my ongoing and very public exploration of self-awareness -- should be a site for continued contemplation of the complexities of friendship (often wrongly confused, of course, with any one of the four afore mentioned topics).

As an admitted "lusty picaroon,"* I have enjoyed my share of peculiar peccadilloes. I have made friends, lost friends, and even created friends, and yet, I have never successfully identified even the slightest, singular thread by which these relationships -- with all of their glorious growth spurts or rapid, and often painful, declines -- might be explained. Indeed, if there is a thread to be found among the thirty-some-years of amity in which I have taken delight, it is likely it is I.

So, with this "thread" in mind, I now entertain the possibility that each of my friendships, along with the making, breaking, and defiling of such, are -- you perhaps sense that I am loathe to accept this as truth? -- a signifier of my own unique brand of foolishness, insecurities, and interpersonal missteps. I console myself with the following scrap of logos: if it is true, that I alone am responsible for the decline of these lost bonds, then [praise be!] I am equally liable for the unlikely successes.

While I have any number of long-term friendships I might use as further evidence of my exemplary talents in creating rapport-- outside of my own word, though I imagine one might consider any "proof" I might provide as nothing more than creative wordsmithing, and hence, just more of my "own word" --; I believe that two other avenues of discourse might provide richer data for my continued, critical self-examination.

To this end, future posts will more closely examine 1) an example of friendship lost, including the myriad of ways in which I, no doubt, fucked it up, and 2) friendship reclaimed, via the mechanism of virtual reality: Web 2.0 (the specific manifestation of virtual friendship, in my case, has been the "social networking site" commonly referred to as Facebook).

Meanwhile, I have compiled a list -- offered in no particular order of significance or gross maladjustment -- of but a few ways in which friendships might be destroyed in the grandest tradition of personal drama and decadence. I have gathered these random examples over a good many years, and though I have been guilty of at least one of these transgressions myself, most have been provided courtesy of assholes the world over.

Toward Friendship Reduction:

1. Sleep with said friend's spouse

2. Kill friend**

3. Accuse friend of being "overly" educated

4. Crash friend's vehicle, sleep with friend's mother, and "borrow" $200 --- all on the same weekend

5. Get married

6. Travel internationally with friend and 27 others -- without the benefit of air-conditioning

7. Have grunge sex with (new) friend on a train to Madrid ***

8. Call friend a fucktard**** -- and mean it

9. Report friend to the IRS*****

10. Have friend deported -- even though friend was born in Arkansas

This list is not intended to be exhaustive, but should, instead, serve as a foundation for our future metacommentary here at "The Life and Opinions." I urge you, nay compel you! -- to seek absolution were you ever guilty of even a single indiscretion listed herein. Or, if the dissolution of friendship was well deserv'd, I applaud you for your grandiose, relational contravention!

In the Cause!

Dr. T. Shandy

* Though the word "picaroon" has fallen out of favor with youth today, the Urban Dictionary lists two possible definitions for this apropos term. I would like to think that I easily fit into either category

** To clarify, this must be a successful "kill" and not merely an "attempt"; credible prime-time soap opera research has consistently proven that murder attempts may, in fact, prove more exhilarating than anticipated, which serves to rapidly move friendship -- though also, likely, to an inevitable "end" -- into an entirely new category, that of (ahem) "partnership"

*** Trains elsewhere work equally well, though it has been my experience that international trains offer a unique brand of "grunge," thereby insuring that friendship will not survive said excursion

**** The word, "fucktard," is in no way meant to disparage those persons suffering any form of mental handicap. It is, instead, a simple contraction of the colloquialisms "fuck" and "retard" = "fucktard" (as in, "he is a fucking retard")

***** The "DEA" is also a fine replacement, depending on specific circumstances of friendship in question

Glory to the Trillium, the Heleborus, and the Haiku!

I WILL now take leave of our regularly scheduled posting, to bring you a few haikus I have written as my own humble way of honoring the coming of spring. All hail the tulips stretching upward toward the light! Praise be the daffodils, for they will make you weep at their delicate beauty! Glory to the trillium and to the heleborus, whose weird names belie the soft petals and vibrant colors of the maker's most amazing bloom'd creation.

Cold, crackly, dry grass --

Make way for earth's green glory.
Sing, Hallelujah!
–

Oh, chattering birds!

Would that you might fly elsewhere!
Make your home next door.

–

Birds take wing'd flight,
yet breeze warns winter lingers;

Fuck'd. (surprise!) Blizzard.

In the Cause,

Dr. T. Shandy

A Few "Bon Mots" from Diana: Love, Marriage, & the Road to Self-Awareness

BEING THE romantically unattached, international gadabout that I am, I often find myself intrigued -- nay, obsessed -- with the visceral entanglements of others. My dear friend, Diana*, who also claims academia as her home -- yet manages an openly "tough as nails" approach to her many lovers -- regularly provides me food for thought as she shares her own observations regarding love, marriage, children, and the like. She has been married twice, taken countless lovers of all persuasions, and yet insists that every love-affair (no matter now kairotically different the situation or the players) always ends the same: badly. I suggest, on occasion, that endings, are by their very existence, generally "bad." She scoffs and rambles on, leaving me to take notes and wonder.

Yes, I have collected these random "Diana-isms" for some time, yet lacking an outlet for extended rhetorical contemplation, these wise witticisms gathered dust, and never made it fully into my personal encyclopedia. Now that I have begun this journey toward public self-awareness (for what other "awareness" of self is there -- outside of our public persona?), I feel the need to reconsider these bon mots and, possibly, even begin to consider all the many ways in which I might begin to integrate their truisms into my own trysts.

Meanwhile, perhaps you will offer me YOUR insights, oh-pretend-reader (henceforth referred to as simply "P.R."**)? Will you read and share your own realities -- your own unique knowledge of such complicated human attachments?

Marriage/Sex/Love (Part 1), According to Diana:

1. All women become naggy on a long enough timeline. In fact, all women believe all men need nagging; some actually do, and for the rest, nagging makes whatever "issue" you were nagging over -- infinitely exaggerated

2. No matter how different the men, if husband #1 disliked your unavoidable, immutable "quality A," or if he found your annoying "habit B" less than endearing, then rest assured, eventually husband #2 will too

3. Sometimes sex is just sex; men inherently know this, and women will deny it -- indefinitely

4. Women cling so desperately to their belief that sex is always more than sex, that some will go so far as to marry inappropriate men just to prove that the "relationship" was more than "just sex"

5. Given the proper circumstances, most men will cheat

6. Given the proper circumstances, most women will too (see #4 for the way in which women, generally, handle said dalliance/s)

7. She who holds the remote and/or programs the TiVo, has the power; get it early and keep it

8. All women think all men will change when they get married; all men pray all women will not; everyone is eventually disappointed in this process

9. You should love your kids, and you can love your dog, but it is far better to LIKE your spouse

10. "Like" is an irrelevant issue for a love affair, unless said affair, is, indeed, of the nefarious sort, in which case, see #4, making this a moot point, as #9 trumps #10

11. All marriage involves compromise. Lots of it. Gauge your own willingness and/or ability to compromise daily (even when the compromisee in question is an undeniable dumbass), and you will likely have a good idea how content you will be in any long-term relationship

12. If your partner is unwilling to compromise when he/she is still safely ensconced under the label of "lover" -- he/she will be even less willing to compromise down the road

13. Children never "fix" anything; most complicate matters to the nth degree, in fact. Which is not to negate the value and greatness of kids, but few people are able to admit the very thing that most people, ultimately, must learn the hard way -- usually at the kids' expense


Remember, if you will, that I never claimed Diana to be anything other than a bitter and narcissistic woman, and yet she doggedly contends that all of these observations -- many of which I find "cliché " and disturbingly over-simplified -- are true. Can you corroborate even one, dear P.R.?

In the Cause,

T. Shandy, Ph.D.


*As with all pseudonymous adventures, I have, henceforth, changed my imaginary friend Chastity's name to "Diana" in order to protect her immutable make-believe status.

** Because I am lacking in creativity, and real readers, I have opted to openly appropriate Mr. B. Freret's use of the term "P.R." -- his original "name" for his "pretend" superaddressee (pre the cult-like following he enjoys today). http://freret.blogspot.com/ Thank you Mr. Freret. Thank you. YOU. COMPLETE. ME.

Manipulating the Product: Genetics, Blogging, and the Power of Metadiscourse

I WISH, as I begin this new "blogging adventure," that either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in consequence both equally responsible for the act that led to my conception, had thought for just a moment as they conceived me -- had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing: that not only were they creating a rational being (one may hope), but that possibly this being's physical entire self: mental acuity, potential genius, and, yes, the very cast of her psyche (not to mention her future fortunes gained and lost) would depend on the ability of these two very human humans to raise her [yes, me], manipulate (out of necessity) decades of genetics, and somehow -- somehow -- not totally fuck up the entire "product" in the process.*

Had they sincerely weighed and considered all of these pressing and complex issues of child-rearing, and proceeded more cautiously in my upbringing, well, I am, today, convinced that I should have made a quite different impact on the world -- different, for example, than the PhD'd, middle-America, humanities professor I lay bare before you.

Believe me, good readers, this brand of discourse is not as bizarre a thing as many of you might think; we are all, I am duly persuaded, on a path to becoming our parents. And we hate it. Every minute. Oh, of course we deny any such "nonsense." But, as the old game of logic demands, "If you call a dog's tail a 'leg', how many legs does it have?" Naturally, we all long to scream "five" (if I say you are a liar, for example, well, then, you are a liar), but in truth, you cannot turn a tail into a leg by merely wishing it so. My own life is proof. Likewise, you cannot deny your lineage (nor it's unavoidable impact on you) by simply claiming it has had none. Blood will out. Or something like that.

Take my word... nine parts in ten of any woman's sense or nonsense, her vanities or neuroses, her joys and her sorrows -- indeed, her very successes and failures in this world depend upon this immovable genetic make-up; add to this the remaining one part made up of the different tracks and trains parental guidance lures us into, and well, you quite likely have a mess.

Yet, somehow, no matter how diminished or increased we find our circumstances from that of our parents at a similar age, we do not seem to ever escape youthful imprinting; we become our parents -- if only in reverse. Yes, those who *think* they have escaped this tragic fate, are, without exception, a walking mirror image of their parents. Of course, a "mirror image" is, by its very definition, wholly reliant on the original it mimics; it exists at all, because the original image made it so. Reaction against our parents, in my opinion, generally results in the same outcome as outright mimicry. Naturally, mimicry is more annoying, but you see my point.

Nevertheless, what is perhaps more disturbing, is that we repeat this process, I've outlined above, generation after generation. We procreate without so much as a second thought; and, by treading these same steps over and over again, we eventually beat down a road -- one that appears to be as even and as smooth as any downtown, asphalted surface. And, as we all know, once we do something often enough, the Devil himself is hard pressed to drive us from our chosen path.

I write all of this by way of introduction. Having spent a considerable amount of my life cloistered in the ivory tower of academia, now I seek a different education. I look for life -- for questions rather than answers; I crave a deeper understanding of my fellow humans -- of this fucked-up, mean, beautiful world in which we are all forced to live. I have finished my formal education, yet now I find that I thirst for my real education to begin.

In the meantime, I should make transparent (no pun intended) my belief that any journey which seeks a more complete understanding of the interconnectedness of all beings, must first begin with a smaller journey of self-awareness. To that end, I began this blog at the beginning. My beginning.

I was born. I live. I hate. I have loved. And I blame my parents for all of it. On nights when I find myself awake and alone, I often shudder silently in the darkness when I consider what foundation my parents have laid for the thousand weaknesses of my body and mind -- weaknesses which neither physician nor philosopher will ever set thoroughly to rights. Today, doctorate in hand, I look inward for the correction to the mental and physical maladies life has dealt me. This blog is step one.

In the Cause,

Dr. T. Shandy


*With apologies to my godfather, Larry Sterne; likewise to my namesake, the "original" Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.