VirusHead

Ahhhhh, spring. The azaleas are starting to bloom, and everything smells fresh and alive.

Unfortunately, I am still weighed down by this dissertation project.

I would like nothing better than to spend every day planting things and taking Ben to the park and walking and even working at my job… but I have to overcome this existential dread and finish this thing. I’m planning on handing it in very soon. It is discouraging to think of how much more could be said, how many books I read and researched that don’t make it into the final draft, how limited my scope has become. But, a good dissertation is one that is finished, and I so need to be finished. Maybe I’ll pick it up again in a couple of years and make a book out of it, when I can stand to think about viruses again – maybe it would be more fun again then.

Despite my feeling that I couldn’t afford to do it, I went Thursday to the memorial service at the senior living center where my father used to live. It just didn’t seem right that there wasn’t any funeral or service. It was a surprisingly moving interdenominational service, including about a dozen people who had died. A short eulogy was presented for each person – "independence" was the word most people seemed to associate with my dad (*wry smile*). I was impressed by the kindness and humor and sadness – all wrapped up together. After each eulogy, there was a candle lit, a chime, and those who were gathered said, "May the peace of God be with —". It was moving to hear about all the other people too, as though he were in a little club. I was very happy that I participated – but again, it was time, time, time.

Ben has some friends coming for a sleepover tonight – so tonight and tomorrow morning are shot as well. And of course, I’m writing something that is not my dissertation….right now! At his point, I would rather eat live ants than continue writing this thing. It could have been so amazing, so brilliant – and somehow it is not living up to my vision for it.

I can only do the best I can with the time I have left….again, an existential dilemna. I still say the most important things to say, talk about the most important examples. I do have the knowledge, and I probably really am the world’s expert in this particular topic of how viruses are imagined in contemporary fiction. It’s just…. this thing could really have been brilliant, and I somehow got into an adversarial relationship with it! With a piece of my own writing… how bizarre.

I’ll let you know how it all turns out. I’ll be doing revisions straight through to July, I suspect.

The debate about U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s subpoena of hundreds of women’s private medical records is divided into two basic camps. Predictably, these are drawn down the line of pro-life (anti-abortion) and pro-choice (anti-government intervention). On the one side, those who are opposed to abortion systematically chip away at the laws stemming from Roe vs Wade, try to redefine the start of human being, and feel they stand for morality (at least until their sister is raped, perhaps). On the other side, a heavy rhetoric of medical privacy is used to keep the controversial decision of whether or not to be responsible for a terminated pregnancy a personal rather than an institutional one – but while it focuses on that issue, it also refuses to confront difficult (albeit personal) spiritual and religious issues. Both sides have flaws – this is why the controversy never dies down.

I suppose what bothers me the most about this debate is that, like so much else, it is being conducted at such a superficial level. Where are the investigative reporters? Why don’t we ever read or hear about the interconnections between each argument and other realities such as the death penalty, or welfare, or class structures, or the religious misunderstandings by both sides? Even the basic issue is much more complicated than our public discourse would suggest. Haven’t we matured enough into this debate to finally start asking some more difficult questions? Or are Americans really so dumb that all we can do is march around with a Yes or a No? I don’t understand how Ashcroft or anybody else can justify going to private hospital records – but why aren’t we surprised? Where are the OLD republicans that would have compared the transparency of all our private information to the current administration to those bad ole Russians over which we held such clear superiority in terms of freedom and values. I don’t actually see much in the way of values or integrity across the board. The next time you hear someone mention that word, how about a definition – a real definition.

Let’s lose the buzzwords – we need to get down to the real arguments and evidence in these matters. And we need to somehow do it outside of the charged emotional mind-numbers that our abortion debates have engendered among us.

There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that I clearly need about another three weeks to make this unwieldy text into a dissertation. The good news is that my extension until May is REALLY an extension through the summer as well. So if I hand it in by the end of March, my director will have time to read it and dictate revisions, then I’ll incorporate whatever changes he would like to see. Then the second draft goes out to my committee – who will either suggest more revisions or sign off on it. I’m writing at full steam, so it looks as though I might actually finish this albatross and have the Phd in August. AND, I might even be finished with the whole thing sooner than that. I’m back to work – I had a great inspiration yesterday – it helps. I won’t be writing much here over the next couple of weeks, but I’ll make up for it later. ;=)