September 27, 2001, 9:36
p.m.
listening: Punk & New Wave 1976-1979
five-CD boxset
reading: Mattimeo, Brian Jacques;
Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality , Sarah Ahmed
I had office hours today at the cafe across the street from the
anthropology building, crammed behind a round table on a bench outside
while students worried about their first papers, showed me rough drafts
and asked for resources. The course requires a semester-long project
examining a particular commodity and its production, distribution, and
consumption in circuits of financial and symbolic capital. (I love
this project.) I reassured them that yes, tanning beds, garters,
Britney Spears, dildos, microwave ovens, bathroom scales, and Gillette
women's razors are all legitimately fascinating subjects, and I think I
might have discussed at too much length about each of these to
illustrate my point.
Finally L. shuffled the papers in front of her after the others
had left and said, "Yeah, I'm also writing my women's studies
thesis this semester, but I can't find a second reader. I want to write
about herbal abortion but I'm not sure what aspect of it to write about,
and I don't know anyone who can help me." I think I must have startled
the elderly man wedged behind the next table because I exclaimed, "Oh my
god! I can totally help you! I was a women's health activist, blah blah
blah," and proceeded to produce a flurry of interrogative questions
about historical practices and discursive effects and promised L. a
chance to rummage through my archive.
I came home several hours later to a series of looming deadlines for
anthologies, conferences, grants, magazines. I have two weeks to revise
two essays for two different anthologies before the manuscripts are sent
to the the presses' readers and a little over twenty-four hours to
compose a Punk Planet column. Before the end of November I have
to present on the production of the refugee subject, queer subcultures,
and race and riot grrrl for two guest lectures and one MIT symposium. Of
course, I'm also supposed to be writing my dissertation, printing the
Race Riot compilation, and editing an anthology.
I'd like to think that all this isn't necessary, that I don't need
the push and pull of deadlines, pressures. I pretend as if I'm not
working on a schedule, as if it weren't true that I need to do such
things as "budget" my time or "manage" my priorities. And
I worry sometimes that I love my work too much, so many bits and
pieces of me sent out into the world, and that if I didn't have all
this, I would be lost, or longing.