cranked up midnight fun
Had another one of those writing epiphanies last night where I was all worked up. This one was:
Withholding information IS power!and was sort of exploding in big neon letters or like a very large bell bonging repeatedly in my head.
This, as I rant to John about poetry, schools, authority structures, role-playing games, collaborative authorship, every bad job I've ever had, Bakhtin, the Ars Magica rulebook vs. the LOTR rpg rulebook, some science fiction novel I read with a future soldier girl from the USA being captured and raped and marched into Tibet somewhere and she thinks she is a prisoner and being tortured, but it turns out to be Shangri-la and she and others are there for hundreds of years in this semi-Maoist self-criticism process, her, other 'prisoners', and the 'guards', but they aren't really, and then there's a huge world-destroying nuclear war and they're the only ones left. And the words keep coming out of my mouth, "I hate the Cultural Revolution and I'd be the first up against the wall if we had one but what if they are right, we can't have justice, or levelling, without tearing down, tearing apart, destroying, we can't have justice and at the same time high art and people who sit around writing pointless novels about the battles between the Witches and the Demons on the planet Mercury? Am I both a Leveller and an aesthete and a snob? No wonder I'm alienated!" (I begin to cry.)
Pity J., for he was ripped through this succession of mad ideas forcibly at around midnight and I wouldn't shut up. I have this vague feeling that to anyone who lived with me in the past, I was like this EVERY NIGHT. Thank god for those sleeping pills I have now. Otherwise I would be a junkie or an alcoholic. Manic insomnia is insufferable.
Anyway, I am drawing these information flow or data flow diagrams to describe everything and I suddenly realized that annoying thing where people try not to reveal their sources of information, so as to look omniscient or something, or so as not to reveal how little they actually know; that gains them power.
This led into a whole other thing where I was like, Duh! of course this is my pet peeve, because it is my means of production! Information and ideas and words ARE my means of production, so when people hold back information... uh... does this mean I am a Marxist? Didn't think I was. J: "Yeah, I think you are a little bit marxist." Me: Ack! Really?
Sedated self at 1am with shot of vodka and The Worm Ouroborous.
Did a funny parody sort of thing of the last chapter of Homi Bhahba's "Dissemination". did some more homework. did not write paper. Washed all dishes. Cleared out nests of black widow spiders from in front of L.'s house. Attacked potted plant in giant clay pot; it had wormy looking inch thick roots snaking out of the pot all over and was very disturbing. It is only half-dislodged from the pot. Still fighting urge to read binders of old letters, clear out file cabinet, alphabetize CDs, or anything other than paper-writing. I worked all Friday, but ended up with what kindly prof says is way too big of a topic ("outline" I sent her was 3 pages.)
Meanwhile, M.'s worst fears were realized today as he fell in the toilet. I am going to Bad Mom Hell.
How am I so lucky as to have this quiet toddler who plays by himself on the floor for hours, only requiring me to occasionally kiss an alligator or shove a tinkertoy into place? And s.o. who whisks child off to cafes and playgrounds so I can sit around avoiding writing my paper in peace? I feel amazingly lucky.
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