people tell me stuff

an essay was due so student emails arrive asking for extensions or a few days grace. they tell me of their circumstances. problems at home, sicknesses, a computer virus, and one just discovered that she's quite pregnant. she says she's okay, but scared. a tiny statement that struck deep when i read it. i can't fathom what it would be like to be her. but the fear seems reasonable. i wished her well. all this takes place in the seemingly mundane traffic of email. but yeah, she got to me.

a nice weekend. when i make progress on the current chapter the sun shines brighter and i walk with ease. the world is good.

i met someone with dark eyes and a nervous laugh. we sat on a park bench and talked about who we were. i'd like to take him to bed, but just to lie together, to talk, sleep, and lean into each other. he makes me quite comfortable.

the sound of traffic

i'm taking a course of antibiotics in case 'the thing' is an infection and not my nervous system. 2 days in and it wasn't looking good. last night the pain arrived and stayed. not as severe, but it wouldn't retreat. painkillers and all. it had somehow moved from my jaw to my front upper teeth. this morning i cut my toast into small pieces because i couldn't bite. lunchtime it was a little less tender and i could tear at (but not bite) my sandwich. eating, once again, was hard work. a delicate, eye-watering procession.

but tonight something strange happened. my pain was gone. and i believe it's not coming back because my head is clear. i haven't felt like this in some time. it's like when your eardrum pops and all the sounds return to how they should be. all senses fall into place. there's no dull ache, no pressure, no between-pain numbness. just empty and gone. and it's amazingly good.

i want to remember this feeling. i want to draw upon it when i next think that all is shit. because it isn't. and maybe my head can feel like this forever.

it's hard to write this without sounding naff. i'm quite abuzz. i'm hearing the traffic outside. i'm noticing sensations in other body parts. for the last month or longer i've been little more than my head. it felt huge, explosive, unmanageable. everything (not just eating) happened in and around my head. there's the conversations with others where i had to pretend that i wasn't throbbing; the reading on the bus where i would try to ignore its arrival; the slow metered breathing at night, waiting for it to ease. which it did, but it never died. it never felt like now.

a lot of the work i did was in trying to forget it. thinking and talking about it brought it back. when telling people it would stir as though i was shining a torch on it. i was deeply troubled by the potential of this future and thought about how death might be the end point of my pain. but then tonight happened. i ate ice-cream, i drank tea, and nothing made me shiver or close my eyes. no reason to put my hand to my face (not on my face, but just hovering near it) and breathe slowly (my general response).

now i go to sleep. and tomorrow i think of other things.

things could be different, but they're not*

today pain comes and goes, but seems mostly absent. though it's hard to tell, as my memory of its intensity is short-term. earlier, i attempt to sip coffee at 1 minute intervals - maybe now is okay. ouch. maybe now is okay. ouch... etc.

it seems to help when i'm busy. and when i don't drink hot liquid. the espresso packed the least punch (in terms of pain) as i guess it wasn't so hot. i'll stick to those tomorrow. the thought of food and drink being painful is somewhat distressing, as these are a few of my favourite things. i don't want to lose certain dietary pleasures. i want chewy bread, chocolate and coffee to stay in my life.

but nothing is certain.

i got writing my first lecture (aids and globalisation). i like the form it's taking. it's only one hour, but at this point i could talk for four. there's no shortage of stuff. but connecting the stuff to the readings, to previous weeks' discussion, and to my own interests, has been fun.

*of Montreal

trigeminal neuralgia

last night's sleep is restless and pain wakes me throughout the night. my head is in a vice. a throbbing hold on my the left side of my jaw. my left. today i'm a sleep-deprived zombie, still experiencing pain. it comes and goes. right now it's alseep, dormant, but likely to return. it visits unexpectedly, inconveniently, like when i'm teaching.

it's been visiting for some months, but its visits are more frequent and intense now. i visited my dentist and he thinks it might be this.

i'm now in that limbo zone of 'almost diagnosed'. i read myself into the lists of symptoms and pain experiences that the internet offers. a different kind of research today. but not that different - i'm still looking for texts, links, and grappling for some sort of coherence. i learn that it's most common in women over 50. that's not me, so maybe i'm safe. but there are exceptions. until tuesday, i'll keep reading.

elsewhere, i sneeze from hayfever, my eyes itch, and my nose infrequently drips.

elsewhere, in today's swim, three boys invade my lane. i want to say "spread yourselves out, there are other lanes". but you can't talk when your face is underwater. a few laps in and it seems okay. a rhythmic pace. until i collide. my hands hit flesh near the shallow end, sending a shock wave through my body that cripples my lower legs. if i was in a comic book my feet would be closer to my knees, legs like a closed accordion. i can no longer kick. i take a break and slowly stretch to ease the pain.

i ache and limp and drip. today my body is falling apart. but still, at least i have my health.

in defence of theory (a rant)

apologies for what you're about to read. it's a rant inspired from my experience of listening to 5 old white men talk about knowledge and intellectualism today.

it's 5 men. 2 have just published books. all are cynical about post-structuralism and calling for a state of emergency in academia - "what are we teaching these kids? the kids are 'bluffing'! they don't need to be drawing on all that theory, particularly if they don't understand it properly. give them a copy of Wittgenstein and a slap on the wrists!"

don't get me wrong - i like Wittgenstein. i'd encourage people to read him too. but i wanted to challenge so much of what was said. as usual, i didn't. the words i wanted to say could not cohere in my mouth. perhaps i felt threatened as much as these men did.

apparently post-structuralism doesn't apply to scholars 'here'. it's need and usefulness is obvious in france where structuralism was the order of the day, but not for us. we can never understand it in the way the french can. maybe. but should we then abandon what might contain some useful practices and ways of knowing?

apparently if you want to use a theorist you have to know what 'he' is responding to, where he's situated, the context of his writing. maybe. but maybe not. maybe the author is dead!? but i wouldn't have dared to utter that.

apparently there's no room for contradiction in academic pursuit. to that i just wanted to raise my hand and shout "i believe in contradiction". it was a provocation, surely, but nobody else seemed unsettled. the man who said it had already shot down Latour, Woolgar, and all the other sociologists i read.

i wanted to say that social practices - everything we do - is full of contradiction. that that's the process of living. as John Law has pointed out, life is mess and social research is part of this. it is not beyond the social (dis)order. to deny this is to raise the social scientist above the everyday person, as the enlightened voice who can speak for others; as god. hello neo-colonialism. but we're all there, feet on the ground, walking through the mess that we study (even if we don't officially study). and these spaces, these experiences, bristle with contradiction.

these men seemed to think they have a crucial role in protecting the edifice that is the university, or rather, its knowledge foundations. we need to know, explain and understand everything. we need to no longer 'obfuscate' (word of the day) with theory. we need simplicity. there's a Wittgensteinian thread here, which I like, but the use of his theory seems pretty fucked up. as i understand it, Wittgenstein was of the everyday, and looked to 'ordinary language' - or the language of the day - because this gets us closer to the experiences we speak of. this might be seen as simplification, but i doubt it. because his work is complex, and this premise does not deny the shifting roles and use of language - 'the language games' that we're all engaged in. but these 5 men seemed to suggest that we should stop obsessing about language. upon the linguistic turn (as much as i hate that expression) they look away, towards their own certainties about how things really are and why it matters to say so. their foundations are being eroded and they're clearly threatened. old men on comfortable salaries with books published (which are partly motivated by the threat of being made intellectually redundant). which must suck, i'm sure. and it must be hard to be wedged so tightly by your beliefs in pure knowledge that you find yourself being challenged from all levels, including the 'bluffing' essays of students.

which is another point i wanted to interject on. perhaps we read different Wittgenstiens, but isn't bluffing part of our language games? isn't this a tactic (as per Certeau, inspired by Wittgenstein's language games) that we all engage in, whether undergrad students appealing to what the tutor wants, a postgrad student pre-empting the desires of a marker, or the academic going for an ARC grant? we're all bluffing! this is how we practice competence (as per Lyotard - another name I dare not mention). we are all 'poaching' (Certeau) - be it from theory, from data, or the people, things, and ideas around us that can elevate us, or better position us, or just get us laid - whatever it is we want. we are at play. how can we not laugh at the stupid things we do in these games? surely if you believe that this is significant and crucial (and far from game-playing), and a question of value, then maybe you deserve to fall with your sandstone castle.

or maybe it's okay to believe that something is significant and crucial. obviously some things are. like efforts to stop war, famine, suffering. values have a significant function in interrupting such events, as do institutions that can elevate us in making demands for change. but still, pure knowledge is not going to work on its own, only as one of many tactics, within language games, to get what is wanted.

oh man, how did i get here? oh that's right. famine was mentioned too, as a valuable concern, by the guy who dissed Latour and contradiction. and i guess i'm suggesting that because i believe in contradiction i'm not relegating myself to a relativist impasse where anything goes. my belief in contradiction has a political agenda. and that's a politics of practice which extends beyond (though also through) what i read and write (and my use of theory). more so, it relates to how i read and write. and somewhere in there is a need for not only contradiction, but obfuscation too.

in regard to obfuscating language, perhaps the task of coherence can be portioned to readers as well as writers. but that's another rant for later. until then, long live dead authors!