Chaos and complexity

If social media has existed when I was in high school it would have been disastrous for me; my prefrontal cortex was lazy as hell and would not have protected me from making terrible decisions that would harm me later. 

In a meeting today K talked about wanting to plan a different type of orientation for our new students, something more “playful”. Although I taught theatre for fifteen or so years because I wanted something playful, the suggestion rankled for some reason. Playfulness feels intimate and I feel grossed out by the idea of being playful with strangers, particularly adults. I expressed my lack of interest in participating and left out the part about finding it distasteful. K made a note on her pad of paper. I am guessing she wrote bitch. 

I am navigating cancer with T and this is frightening. I feel impatient with her for her lack of boundaries and want to tell her that’s how I think the cancer got in. But there is plenty of evidence to suggest that those of us with rigid boundaries are just as susceptible. It makes me sad that our childhoods have so much to say to us in the present, fucking epigenetics. 

I have been asked to write another chapter for the book that is coming out in the fall; I have to figure out how to use the research that I have already done without it being considered self-plagiarism. These kinds of stupid rules and technicalities are exhausting. My teaching docket is quite full and although teaching adults is infinitely more satisfying at this stage of my life, I am irritated by their anxieties. Don’t they know I have my own to grapple with? My cuticles continue to suffer and I have mostly given up trying to stop hurting them. A certain degree of self-abuse is tolerable. My teaching partners are disappointing. I prefer the courses that I teach alone. I do not ask my students what type of animal they would be if they were animals, I do not tempt them to be playful. I ask them to check out their own highlight reels and then line them up with the evidence and see what matches and what does not.