Thursday, August 30, 2007

i'm reluctant to blog over the clark coolidge post because i love his words more than mine right now.

however. i'm going to let you know that if there is any question in the world that i'd like to remove from all conversation... or maybe even just conversations with ME... it is : so, what do you do?

this, after, say 15 minutes of conversation with my wonderfully conversational PhD student and partner.

when i feel defensive i say: i write.

when i feel amused i say: i walk dogs.

lately i just feel annoyed by the question. so my answer, after a long pause, is: i work and i write.

this i am posting because i am willing to bet that there are other PhD candidate's partners in the world with the exact same *issue.*

to you young & single PhDers out there: DO NOT ASK THIS QUESTION.

if you must. DO IT BEFORE 5 MINUTES OF CONVERSATION RE : YOU AND THE UNIVERSITY has passed.

after that it is just annoying & comes off as *just being polite.*

and, honestly, after that... i'm not going to be very polite. i'm just going to be bored.


***

i post this because i CARE.

i post this because it seems to be a daily occurence.

lucky for me there is Lucipo & some Duke PhD's [and ers] that are also Poets.

thank you for listening.
Posted by at

3 comments:

carrie hunter said...

I ask this guy that once at a party when I didn't know what else to say. He got really mad at me too, and said No one ever asks that question at burning man!

People should really stop all the doing. I'm sick of doing.

12:21 AM
suzanne said...

i think the discomfort around being asked has to do with one's own difficulty valuing what it is one 'does' or 'does not'. it's often hard to answer the question in a foreign context, isn't it?

the guy who says 'no one asks that at burning man' is an insensitive ass, an ass because obviously if you're all getting hot and dusty at burning man you all have one fantastic [and ridiculous] thing in common: you want to be at burning man. you're already speaking the same language. and insensitive, because a gentler person would know in one second that carrie hunter is asking in order to invite conversation, not gauge that person's social value or financial net worth.

the question, what do you do? i think is most generally asked by people who want to find some common ground--or lack of--and while it might not be the most socially gracious method of inviting conversation, that's what it is: an invitation. You can't change how your answer resounds inside that particular person's system of value, but you CAN receive that question always as an invitation, instead of as assault, and change your own experience infinitely and permanently for the better.

10:28 PM
kathryn l. pringle said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
10:09 AM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)