Thirty-six is the Year of Pretty

One of the things I realized on sabbatical (because while from the outside it looked like I didn't actually take a break, my sabbatical was in fact incredibly restful and provided ample opportunity for reflection) is that one of the reasons I felt like such a drudge is that I often looked like a drudge. Now, many will probably disagree (Brian continues to make all the right noises about how cute I always am, just as a good husband should), but that's hardly the point. I felt dumpy and really not-cute. So I got a kicky haircut that I really like and decided that 36 (my current age) is the year of pretty, which basically means getting dressed in the morning as if other people can actually see me.

The result? Since I've been back at work full-time (a week now), people continue to remark on my new look--my hair is cute, my earrings are adorable, I look nice generally. I usually respond with a smile and say, "Thank you. 36 is the year of pretty." What I'm actually thinking is, "What kind of hell did I look like before?" or "It's going to be really sad when I go back to being too tired to comb my hair in the morning."

This Is Not My First Day on the Mommy Job...

...and yet, this morning found me on the playground of Cate's preschool *weeping.* I told Brian he would just have to quit school and go back home to taking care of her full time. We had to sit in the observation room until I was composed enough to be able to go to class.

Frances is in fourth grade and this is Cate's second year of preschool, so I've got a few first days of school under my belt. The weepiness this morning was quite unexpected and I am at a loss to explain it, though it does seem to go along with my general irrational emotional responses to all things Cate-related (that's a post for another day).

Cate, in typical Cate fashion, was completely unconcerned with my tears. As soon as she saw her teacher and she ran and gave her a hug and then turned around, hugged my leg, said a quick dismissive "bye," and walked away. Which really didn't help matters at all.

Here's hoping I get through tomorrow without feeling like an emotional mess.

Teaching the Comic Book

Let me start off by saying the while I generally do for living what I trained in graduate school to do (I am, in fact, a college professor and a literary critic), there are many aspects of my job I never imagined in grad school. I never imagined that I'd be director of an African American Studies program (that was never really on my list of career goals), yet here I am. I fancy myself a scholar of the African American novel, yet I've yet to publish on the African American novel--a book of Octavia Butler's interviews, a book on the critical reception of Baldwin, an article on an intellectual crisis during the Harlem Renaissance, another on a comic book, but nothing on the African American novel.

And this semester I find myself, for the second time, teaching a course on the graphic novel. Today was the first day of class and I woke up in a panic feeling wildly unqualified to teach a course about comic books. Sure, I'm on the comics sholars listserv and have been absorbing comics theory and criticism for the last three or so years. Yes, I've been reading all the articles on comics I can find in journals and books. Yes, I read tons and tons of comic books. But still...I'm a scholar of the African American novel! To top it all off, because the course is big (40+ people), I'm teaching in one of our lecture rooms. There's a stage! I taught on a stage today, which totally exacerbated my anxieties about people looking at me while I'm teaching. (Yes, I know people are looking at me. I like to pretend they aren't though, which is rather difficult when you're standing on a stage.) So I'm standing on a stage, using Powerpoint (which, as a general rule, I detest), and feeling sick to my stomach because I feel like a big geeky fraud, when this exchange happens:

Very intense female student, clearly a lover of comics: Is there any reason why we aren't reading Maus?

Me, thinking, oh no I've been found out: Well, since even people who don't read comics, and I assume that most of the people in this class don't read comics, have been introduced to Maus in high school or some other arena, I thought we'd read other things together. I think it would be a better use of our time to look at things people haven't read before.

Girl: And people haven't read Dark Knight Returns?

Me, thinking I hear a hostile tone, but actually that's probably just in my head: Well, in my experience, even big fans of Batman and Superman haven't actually read a Batman or Superman comic. Of the many times I've taught DKR in various courses, I've run into very few students who have actually read it.

Girl: Well okay.

At this point the interrogation is over, though there were other questions about why there are no Marvel books on the syllabus and why I've never been to Comic-Con and whether their friend can draw their mini-comic. It was a very stressful 75 minutes.

Tomorrow I'm teaching comp and Intro to African American lit, both courses I could teach in my sleep at this point. But all I can think about is how not to make a fool of myself the next time I'm in the graphic novel course.

Breastfeeding Revisited

At the risk of courting the ire that accompanied my last breastfeeding post (if you want to get a whole bunch of hateful, angry comments on your blog, just suggest that breastfeeding may not be all it's cracked up to be), I'm linking to this *great* piece by Hannah Rosin in the April 2009 issue of The Atlantic. I found the piece through a discussion on She Writes about taboo subjects in writing about motherhood and someone suggested that we aren't allowed to talk about how the notion that breastfeeding is the cure-all for whatever ails you is kind of bullshit.

Here's the intro to the piece. Go read it.

In certain overachieving circles, breast-feeding is no longer a choice—it’s a no-exceptions requirement, the ultimate badge of responsible parenting. Yet the actual health benefits of breast-feeding are surprisingly thin, far thinner than most popular literature indicates. Is breast-feeding right for every family? Or is it this generation’s vacuum cleaner—an instrument of misery that mostly just keeps women down?

Black Writers Rock

Two noteworthy posts in the world of black publishing today.

First, Carleen Brice over at White Readers Meet Black Writers has a new store open at Cafe Press with really cool t-shirts, mugs, and bags. Claudia calls Brice a latter-day Georgia Douglas Johnson, and I tend to agree.

Also, Verb Noire, an independent publisher dedicated to, among other things, publishing stories by and about people of color, has a new call for submissions. They're looking for retellings of fairy tales and folk stories that feature people of color or that come from non-Eurocentric traditions. Check them out.

Questions Plaguing Me This Morning

1. Where does one buy a boy's tie for a 9 year old girl that is both fashionable and school appropriate?

2. Does being vegan really mean giving up butter and cheese? That seems like torture. (Especially after seeing Julie and Julia last night with Alison and watching people having near orgasmic reactions to butter.*)

3. Why isn't erotica aimed at black female audiences better written? I applaud Zane for trying to fulfill each and every erotic literature wish black women seem to have, but man, does she need a good editor.

*As in our last trip to our local arty movie theater, Alison and I scanned the crowd to see if I were indeed, again, as usual, the only black person in the room. In fact, we spotted one other black woman, someone Alison knew. Which, I think, says, something about Alison.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl

Those who know me know that our battles with Cate, our youngest, over drawing on the walls are numerous and frequent. No trick or reward or punishment or lecture or tears works. She draws on the walls (I say "draws"--she actually draws, colors, scribbles, stamps, places stickers, glues paper...) every chance she gets. (Here I am reminded of something she said in the doctor's office after drawing picture of herself and making sure to include a knot in her hair: "I knot my hair. Anywhere. Anytime." With a devilish grin she said this.) So Brian and I have given in (despite our strongly held parenting belief that given clear boundaries and ample opportunity for self-expression, children will not draw on the walls--clearly Cate was sent to us to poke holes in all of our strongly helf parenting beliefs) and lined her room with drawing paper. The picture above is Cate just after Brian finished the first part of her wall. She immediately grabbed a marker, jumped on her bed and started scribbling. "I'm making crazy art," she said. "When I'm done, it will make you smile." The hat came later because artists where hats. If you look to the left, you can see evidence of the wall art the paper is now covering up.

And here is a picture of the finished project. Cate is just out of frame, knotting her hair. We found her in bed that night looking at all she drew (pictures of all us, superheroes taking the bus home, a turtle, a meat bug, among other things) and trying to cover up the fact that, in addition to drawing on her new wall, she had also drawn all over legs, ears, and scalp. "I wanted to be fancy," she said. And so, having, hopefully, conquered one problem, we embark on another.

Fun with Zane at My Local Library

I think I've blogged here before about my new research project. I'm writing about contemporary black popular/market fiction--those books that are in face out displays at the bookstore during AA history month. The ones about baby mama drama and urban angst and freaky threesomes. I've been reading a ton of this stuff all summer and have finally come to Zane's work.

In typical academic fashion, when I decided it was time to read Zane's work, I decided it was time to read *all* of Zane's work. As her particular brand of erotica isn't exactly the kind of thing carried by my university library, I turned to the public library. I requested all the Zane books in the system and had them delievered to my local branch. Last Friday, I go the library and check out Twent-Six Princesses for Cate and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing for Frances. At the desk, the librarian says I have four books on hold and brings me the ones pictured above. There was awkward silence as the librarian looked at me, then my children, then back at the smutty books I was checking out. I tried to be adult and rise above the embarassment I was feeling, but wound up just scooping up the books and rushing out the library.

We are in that library all the time. All the librarians there know my children by name. There are three more Zane books (with equally provocative covers, I'm sure) waiting for me to pick up. Can I say to them, "This is research. Really." I think I'll have to send Brian.

I Want My !@#$% Fruit Roll-Up

This morning, Cate woke us up at 7am to request a fruit-roll up. We told her she couldn't have one and should have some real breakfast instead. She insisted, we resisted, until finally she banged her little fists on the bed and yelled, "I want a fucking fruit roll-up." We immediately sent her to her room for a time out and to think about why you shouldn't use bad language; and when she was gone, Brian gave me the "You know, this is all your fault" look.

It's probably true. Frances is a bit of a puritan when it comes to cursing and other bad habits, so she never repeats the myriad curses that come out of my mouth. but Cate--cate loves to curse, almost as much as I do. And I do love it. Actually "love" doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of how much I enjoy saying "fuck" in any and all situations. It's one of the most satisfying things I do, actually.

But clearly, we can't have Cate telling her pre-school teacher, "I want my fucking fingerpaints," so something needs to be done. But as I've given up sleeping in, buying new shoes whenever I want, vacations alone with my husband, Saturday mornings spent reading (instead of watching soccer games and playing ponies), it seems really wrong that I should give up the pleasures of a good curse word.

Michael Jackson

Here are some random reactions to MJ's death from Casa Afrogeek:

--Frances asking, in quick succession while watching the news footage, "Isn't Michael Jackson supposed to be black?" "What's wrong with his nose?" "How can he spin on his toes like that?"

--Brian and I felt incredibly old when (1) upon hearing he was only fifty when he died, Brian, fast approaching fifty himself, said sadly, "He was so young" and (2) when the video for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" came on and I got up in the middle of the floor and forced my children to dance with me, just like the old folks used to do to me whenever Al Green was on the radio.

--My mother and sister and I spent all night on the phone singing MJ tunes to each other ("Heal the world, make it a better place, for you and for me and the enitire human race...") because we apparently are characters on a sitcom

--Cate has discovered a new favorite song to shake her butt to, "Smooth Criminal"

Michael Jackson - Smooth Criminal
by Tina007

A Poem for Mothers

Ode
by Elizabeth Alexander

I love all the mom bodies at this beach,
the tummies, the one-piece bathing suits,
the bosoms that slope, the wide nice bottoms,
thigh flesh shirred as gentle wind shirrs a pond.

So many sensible haircuts and ponytails!
These bodies show they have grown babies, then
nourished them, woken to their cries, fretted
at their fevers. Biceps have lifted and toted

the babies now printed on their mothers.
“If you lined up a hundred vaginas,
I could tell you which ones have borne children,”
the midwife says. In the secret place or

in sunlight at the beach, our bodies say
This is who we are, no, This is what
we have done and continue to do.
We labor in love. We do it. We mother.

Katrina Tourism

Here at Afrogeek Mom and Dad, we don't talk about Hurricane Katrina much, despite the facts that Brian is from the 9th Ward, that his mother and sister lost their 9th Ward homes in the storm and have been unable to return to New Orleans, that Brian's is a typical New Orleans family in that they all lived in New Orleans for generations (some never leaving the city limits) and now that is all gone forever, with family scattered around the country. We don't talk about it much here because it hurts, really really hurts, still, after almost four years, despite the fact that we weren't in New Orleans when the storm hit. It hurts because of the devastation the storm caused in Brian's family, but also because the city that we know and love will never be the same again. Corporate greed, national apathy, and morbid curiousity are conspiring to turn New Orleans into a Disney-version of itself. It's heartbreaking. Over at The Bottom of Heaven, Frieda links to a video made by N.O. natives about the tourism industry that's grown up around the storm. Check it out.

No One Calls Han Solo A Bitch

I am buried under a mountain of deadlines (one of them for a reader of this blog--I promise I'm working on it) and preparing to go out of town with the children and teaching. Busy doesn't even begin to describe these last few weeks. Yet, I have managed to watch Fanboys. As if George Lucas sensed my growing obsession with the new Trek universe (I bought an Uhura action figure yesterday--she's going to live on my desk at work), Fanboys is released on DVD to remind me of my first love. For all of you who are obsessed with all things Lucas, who can recite entire scenes of the original trilogy from memory, who camped out or stood in line for hours or drove to the next town over (like Brian and I did) because you had to see Phantom Menace first thing in the morning, then Fanboys is for you. Go rent it right now. For the rest of you, if the idea of a cancer-stricken guy and his pals driving across country to break into Skywalker Ranch to see a rough cut of Phantom Menace before it's released sounds like good a time, then you'll enjoy this movie too. But probably not as much.

My book has an ISBN #!

Look what I just saw: HEE!

That is so so cool.

Random Thoughts From Boston

1. Darius Rucker was on my flight from Charleston to Atlanta. He is foxier in person than you expect.

2. Elizabeth Alexander, who gave an amazing reading that was both a celebration of poetry and a an assertion of the importance of academics to poetry, wore the most unexpected, sexiest 4-inch stiletto heels. They were incongruous with her cute, baby doll face.

3. The intellectual earnestness of graduate students is unparalleled.

4. I am no longer a junior scholar. Not only that, but on more than one occasion, when people saw my name on my name tag, they said, "Oh! I know you from [Afrogeek Mom and Dad or the Comics-Scholars list, or my school website]." I found that a little disconcerting.

5. There was an anime convention in town, so it was not uncommon to see Sailor Moon and Captain Jack sitting at Au Bon Pain enjoying muffin together.

6. Hotels are the very best invention ever.

7. The Starbucks banana bread recipe is not the same all over the country. In Boston, banana bread comes with some kind of weird icing and is light anf fluffy. That's just wrong. Someone should write a letter.

8. The best meal I had was in a restuarant in the airport. I had a heavenly dish with crab cakes and grilled scallops and shrimp. I may have dreams about that meal.

I'm home now, with a ton of work to catch up om. All in all, it was a lovely trip.

Drive-by Post

Hey All!

I have been woefully absent from ths space. (I know, same old song...)I started back teaching last week at the exact same moment as I caught some creeping crawling death from the three year old. I have been alternating between grading and lying on my sofa, curled up waiting to die. And now, I'm off to Boston for the American Literature Association conference where I will present on race and American superhero comics for a bunch of people who have probably not seen an actual comic book in ages. (Though, to be fair, I read tons of comic books and am also a college prof--maybe all the academic geek-y types will come out of the woodwork for my presentation). Plus, Elizabeth Alexander will be there!

Here are some updates:

Work--The page proofs for my Octavia Butler book came yesterday. Woohoo! One step closer to being an actual book on in an actual store.

Books--I finished the Pride and Prejudice zombie book. It was an enjoyable read, but really had only one joke to tell. I'm dying to read Colson Whitehead's latest. I may finish the Twilight series.

Movies and TV--I've been mainlining episodes of Supernatural on DVD. I know what you're thinking--"Conseula, aren't you terrified of zombies and ghosts and demons?" Yes, I am, and watch a lot of the show through my fingers. As creepy as it is, though, it is also really funny and heartbreaking and I love it. I also saw Star Trek again. Spock and Uhura are my current happy place.

I'm off to teach now. See you when I get back from Boston.

Star Trek is Made of Win!

In rare instance of the universe arranging itself so that Brian and I could see not one, but *two* movies in one week without having to pay a babysitter, we managed to see both Wolverine and Star Trek. And while I enjoyed Wolverine a great deal (Hugh Jackman is amazing, and sexy as hell, as Wolverine and that guy whol played Gambit wasn't bad either), Star Trek rocked my socks. Brian and I are both Trek fans (though I've never seen an episode of the original series) and were super-excited to see this. (side note: Brian proposed to me after we saw the first Next Generation movie, so Trek has a special place in our hearts.) It was satisfying both for people who know Trek and got all the inside jokes (don't listen to the haters who are saying the film monkeys with canon; the movie does fool with canon, but in crazy delightful ways that make my fangirl heart really happy) and for people who've never seen anything Trek related before now.

I don't want to give anything away (so, if like me, you hate any kind of spoilers, stop reading now), but my very favorite part of the movie is the fact, despite the marketing campaign's suggestion otherwise, Uhura is not, in fact, the ultimate prize for the alpha white male. Kirk doesn't win her as a reward for his aggression and general disregard for the rules. Something much better than that happens. But you'll just have to see it to find out what that is.

Were-lions Make Me Blush*

Brian and I were in Barnes & Noble yesterday doing a little pseudo-research for a project I'm just beginning. As Brian often helps black women find the kinds of contemporary commercial fiction they are most interested in, I asked him to point out some of the titles that seemed the most popular. This resulted in me standing in B&N, reading the back cover summaries of books, giggling and blushing. Why didn't anyone tell me how *dirty* contemporary romance fiction is? The *summaries* had me blushing like a schoolgirl. I can hardly imagine what's actually in these books.

*There was one book in the romance section, not featuring black characters, about a romance novelist who tries to overcome her fear of cats by making the male protagonist in her latest book a were-lion. Without warning the character comes off the page as an actual flesh and blood being and she becomes involved with him. I opened the book to a random page and was greeted by the dirtiest, kinkiest sex scene. I squealed and dropped the book because I'm, apparently, 12.

Kick, Push...and Coast

Our new car has a great new sound system and the girls are getting their money's worth from it. Their latest favorite song is "Kick, Push" by Lupe Fiasco (check him out in the video). When I say favorite, I mean we listen to it incessantly in the car. In the morning, when we are in the car for approximately 10 minutes on the way to school, that means we listen to it about 2.5 times. But on Saturdays, when soccer games and birthday parties and grocery shopping and library trips and play dates keep us in the car off and on all day, I hear this song about 12,693 times. Brian and I are conspiring to get them to like something new (though the sound of the three year old singing the chorus in the backseat is kind of cute).

C.O.R.A. Diversity Roll Call Week #4--Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine

This week's roll call asks us to write about a Asian, South Asian, or Asian American writer we like. I'd like to recommend a comic book (or graphic novel, if you like) called Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine. I'd read some good reviews of it here and there and saw it on the shelf at my local comic book shop (where I had gone to purchase the latest issues of Tiny Titans and New Avengers), so I picked it up. It was amazing.

The basic story revolves around Ben, his girlfriend and his lesbian best friend. Ben (and his girlfriend and his best friend) is Asian American and may or may not have a serious white girl fetish. The story follows a typical narrative arc of self-deluded protagonist finding some clarity by the story's end, but what I really enjoyed about this book was Tomine's ability, through the art, to get me to *feel* Ben's cluelessness, his desperate need to keep himself in the dark. Tomine has a wonderful ability to convey awkward silence in this book. And as I am endlessly fascinated by works of fiction that portray the way race is actually lived in America (it matters when it matters, it doesn't when it doesn't, as I tell my students) while also being about something completely unrelated to race (in this case, how soul-sucking New York City can be, how soul-sucking self-delusion can be), this book rocked my socks.