An Awokening

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Why Aim for Greater Cultural Intelligence?

A series of experiences come to mind because I’ve read two articles today that make me uncomfortable -- my brilliant, openly queer friend Li Sian Goh’s essay and openly gay NYT columnist Frank Bruni’s op-ed:

An adorable Asian young man and I are talking with other lovely, mostly Asian people at the 31st birthday party of MJ Yap, my colleague and friend, several weeks ago. He tells me that he’s from Bhutan. He’s got the same complexion as many South Asian people I’ve met from India. He says, “They call me Baby. That’s my nickname.”

“There’s an amazing lesbian novel called Babyji that I loved – about a lesbian in India, who –“

“I’m not from –“

“I know you’re from Bhutan, not India, but in India, adding 'ji' to a name is an endearment –”

He doesn’t care, his expression tells me, he’s not lesbian and he’s not from India. Get me out of here, I’m thinking. I’m just trying to affiliate with this otherwise sweet guy and I’ve made a faux pas and want to disappear.

Earlier in the evening, I’m feeling awkward around three attractive Asian-American women and blurt nonsensically, “Do you ever feel invisible from an attraction standpoint because the older I get, the more invisible I feel.” One of them dignifies my comment with an answer, “No, but I do routinely have to deal with people cutting ahead of me in lines as if I’m not there. I think they think I won’t say anything.”

Which is better? For me to have avoided going to a birthday party, where I’m one of the only non-Asian and older people there or to go and make at least a couple of potentially alienating remarks? Li Sian has gently helped me see that this is not where my focus needs to be. Rather, it needs to be simply on apologizing for my microaggressions. I'll apologize here and then will also do so individually. I'm sorry for my cluelessness and will work on becoming less so.

Or what about the recent event that included a screening of “Moonlight” and a panel on the intersectionality of diversity and sexual orientation? Does it help or hurt for my gay white friend who is with me to hear one of the panelists, Andi, say that he could never call himself gay and chooses queer instead because gay is “a white men’s” term? (Scroll down for more discussion on this.)

Or how about when a friend who is visibly differently abled posts her despondency at being made fun of by strangers while walking down the street recently? And then clarifies for those of us who write outraged responses, saying that she isn’t looking for pity, just had needed to post about the indignity.

Or the heterosexual Indian friend who posts a 1995 photo of himself the other day with the caption that it was the day he was going to kill himself, but then didn’t? And then explains to friends who comment at how they wish they had known of his unhappiness and how glad they are that he is not dead, saying that he has deleted the original post because it was going in the wrong direction – that he was only trying to point out that things can be bad and then they can improve.

Or the sincere people who ask about Pat & me, “Who’s the husband?” And how I answer graciously and factually, “No one. We’re both women, so both of us are wives.”

Or the colleague when I worked in Schaumburg, Illinois, who wanted to know how I could have blue eyes since I’m Jewish? And who was thrilled when I gave her the ham I won in the company’s free, random Thanksgiving lottery? (I was not the only non-pork-eating employee there. Just ask my colleague Farooq.)

Frank Bruni’s is first, during my breakfast omelet, which Pat has made with love. The op-ed begins snidely, and even though I can tell that it is coming from hurt feelings, I can hardly stand to keep going: 

“I’m a white man, so you should listen to absolutely nothing I say, at least on matters of social justice.” Of course, he’s upset. No one likes to feel excluded or silenced or that his or her opinion doesn’t matter. That same white, gay friend who came to the “Moonlight” event has explained to me similarly over the years: I’ve never known from white male privilege because since boyhood, I was routinely beaten up and made fun of and did not feel part of that club. Yet Andi's experience is no less Andi's experience.

 

I’ve written about this before: I learned what “inclusion” meant when co-facilitator Steve Basile invited me to the United Auto Workers’ Diversity Conference in the late-90s; our topic covered how to be inclusive of gay and lesbian colleagues at work.

The first night, I went to the opening reception and even after Steve arrived, I was among the only non-Black people in the cavernous hall. I said to myself then, I know what the definition of Diversity is: Environments / teams / places qualify as diverse, as long as I’m included, whoever “I” is in that statement. (Ironically, in the late-90s, LGBT seminars, including ours, unfortunately, did not routinely include education on bi and trans people.)

Li Sian’s essay also is difficult for me to read. Li Sian is writing about the racism of the novel, Jane Eyre.  Somehow, I wasn’t required to read it in high school and I’ve never done so. The essay is difficult because it also challenges privileged people who feel proud of reading books by authors from the margins, and by extension, for feeling pleased whenever they make an effort to stretch themselves beyond their social cocoon.

As a relatively well-educated, employed and solvent American-Jewish lesbian, I am more and less privileged than others. I want to be proud of the times I extend myself to gain some cultural intelligence because if I can’t celebrate my bravery and encourage myself to keep extending myself, then I just want to burrow in and stick with apparently my own people exclusively. That's my experience, and Li Sian's is hers, just as Andi's is his, and the Bhutanian's is his, and the Asian woman's from the party is hers, and my differently abled friend's is hers, and my heterosexual, Indian friend's is his, and Frank Bruni's is his, and my white gay friend's is his, and my Muslim colleague Farooq's is his and Pat & mine is ours.

After reading these articles today, I’m on high alert:

I turn to the last page of “The New York Times”, where I am annoyed by the headline and story, “Why Women Had Better Sex Under Socialism”. Why Non-Lesbian Women Had Better Sex … is what the reporter means, I confirm by reading the article. More lesbian invisibility. Get me out of here – this is the phrase that springs to mind whether I’ve embarrassed myself through my own cultural ignorance or someone has irked me with his or hers.

What would “getting out of here” achieve, though? I prefer to transform indignities into art, whereas escaping just allows me to escape the particular situation, but the unhappy feelings come with me. Getting out of here does not foster art or connection with people. Acknowledging their experience, and my own, does.

What Will We Do When We're No Longer Outsiders?

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Death and Art Propel Big Questions This Weekend

At the funeral of our neighbor Megan of blessed memory earlier today, bookmarks-as-mementos sat next to the guestbook. One of them featured a girlhood photo of Megan and a quote: "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." -- Wayne Dyer

The quotation reminded me of some insights shared with me earlier this weekend, and how I might change the way I look at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) identity.

Last night, with our friends David & Gerard, I attended a lecture by Jonathan Katz, the co-curator of Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. Most of the works he featured in his slideshow included metaphors and symbols and codes that were dense and tense and rich for eyes that could recognize the homosexual subtext of them; in a number of cases, Jonathan Katz decoded them for us, as a number of them were subtle.

As I watched and listened, I was touched by the artists' ability to make visible to any degree a segment of society that between 1898 and 1991, and even still, today, depending on where in the world we live, typically was marginalized, stigmatized or at the very least, in the shadows.

During the Q&A afterward, I asked, "What happens when LGBT artists are no longer outsiders?"

Jonathan Katz said, "Other differences will emerge....It will not be central to their themes."

I was shaken by this answer. And I told David and Gerard so after walking through the exhibit together.

Gerard: "He was saying something hopeful, I thought, like that even heterosexual artists might include us as subjects and we'd just be more visible."

Me: "Maybe I'm too literal, but I don't ever want to be lesbian just incidentally. It's part of my core identity."

David: "I'm literal, too, but maybe assimilation's not so bad. I mean, isn't it nice being married now?" (He meant, he to Gerard and me, to Pat.)

"Yes, *so* nice. Your use of the word 'assimilation' helps me a bit because it reminds me of some alarmist Jews in my community who say that Jews will disappear if we assimilate too much, and yet, we've been here for 3,000+ years. I don't really think we're gonna disappear, since we've hung on for this long."

Dance? No, Lurk Around the Margins.

We said goodbye, since I was ready to go home, while they wanted to linger at the exhibit a bit longer. Making my way toward the exit, I found a free dance party on the third floor of the museum.

Oh, the music was so good with Rhianna's voice bouncing off the paintings in the nice and dim, cavernous room. I was nearly ready to enter the dance floor and move alone among the crowd, which likely would have been fine had I not been too shy.

I wished that Pat were with me, so that I'd have a partner. It struck me that no one would even notice us; in fact, we might stand out more so for being older than most of the crowd, rather than for being a same-sex couple -- to Jonathan Katz's earlier point. After "Sweet Dreams" by the Eurythmics played, I slunk away to my car in the parking lot. When that song was first popular, I was most of the dancers' ages, and I just owned a bicycle and a subway pass, and a radio/tape-deck I got as a premium for opening a bank account.

Driving home, I thought, Oh, no! Have I become like the lesbian separatists who used to alienate me when I was first getting involved in the gay community in the late-'80s? Who thought that "womyn"-only spaces were supreme while I thought they were unappealing and even obsolete as a group due to their insularity?

There's an analogy, right? AIDS and other societal realities made lesbian separatism untenable back then, just like today, staunchly gay, lesbian, bi or transpeople were misguided whenever we ghetto-ized ourselves, smothering ourselves with an insecurity blanket; more and more polls showed that younger people weren't half as discriminatory as previous generations, so why did any of us hang on so fiercely to separateness and outsider status?

Still, the chip on my shoulder had become comfy after all these years of hauling it and the prospect of heeding Wayne Dyer's/Megan's advice to change my thinking was scary. Earlier today, I spoke with a heterosexual relative, to tell her of my new confusion around my identity, and of my fear of losing my minority status and as usual, she had great on-the-spot wisdom in response:

Sarah, you don't have to be ghetto-ized or Marrano-like anymore [in this area of the world]. And compared to Jews, I think there's less of a chance of LGBT assimilation causing the end of LGBT people, since you won't intermarry.... And in any case, don't worry that you'll lose your identity when people stop being hateful, as there will always be hateful people; there are persistent taboos in every stripe, like unwed mothers. There's always someone who will make sex dirty.... Sex is the engine for intrigue and betrayal and murder and art and politics.... Your sort of desire won't disappear just because it's more so accepted. It will simply be less underground, which should be good, right?

We Are All Outsiders.

In 1998, two years after Pat & I moved in to our neighborhood, Megan, Steve and their young son Ben moved in three houses down from us. I never brought them a house-warming gift, or any food or drink. Never invited them over. Promptly forgot their names as soon as Megan introduced her family and herself to us one day in the street. Thereafter, Megan would drive by us while we were raking leaves or gardening and would always wave. Whenever she had her car-window down, she'd address us by name, and I always felt bad that I had to try to stretch "Hi" into a multi-syllable word, since I was too embarrassed to ask Megan to tell me her name again.

Every time she passed us, she smiled whole-heartedly at us, but after all, what did we have in common with a woman who had a husband and a young kid? So why bother to be friendlier and learn more about her by talking with her? When other neighbors with whom we've been friendly since we've moved in, called to tell us of Megan's sudden death from a massive heart attack the other night, first, I was relieved and ashamed finally to know her name, but then realized that I'd lost the chance of ever being friendlier with her.

What did we have in common? Through loving eulogies from her husband, son, brother and best friends, I learned what I never bothered to find out from her while she was alive: One of only two other families in the neighborhood (that I know of), Megan's family and she were Jewishly-affiliated, attending High Holiday services and bar mitzah'ing their son, who was now 18 -- our nephew and niece's age...like Pat & me, originally, Meg & Steve spotted each other across a room...like part of Pat's heritage, Meg's was French-Canadian...and volunteered from the early days, helping PWA's (People with AIDS), and so likely saw a number of friends die over the early years, like we did. And probably, we'll never discover how much more we might have had in common. It's just ironic, and tragic, how I was so busy, being shy of a stereotypically nuclear family, that I didn't stop to consider that Megan and her family felt like outsiders in the neighborhood initially, which we could have softened by being friendlier.

The other bookmark-as-memento that sat next to Megan's funeral-guestbook had an adult photo of Megan, smiling the smile I recognized, and the quote associated with it came from the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke: "This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess."

"It's the Things That Are Most Different About Us..."

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

"...That Make Us Most Interesting."

I've quoted this sentiment here before; it's my friend Richard's, and I think it's true. Earlier this afternoon, I was viewing a documentary on a woman I met more than 20 years ago at a lesbian dance-bar. She was telling her story for a gay history project and it touched me. I knew none of it, other than that when we met, she was still married and confused about what to do next with her life. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've written about her somewhere in this blog before, too, but prior to having any of the insight I gained today from the video.

She was stunning -- also dark-haired and blue-eyed and Jewish, but a number of years older than I. We left the club together and got into her convertible sports-car. It was summertime and she put the top down, but we never left the parking lot. I half-listened to her talk about her confusion, and meanwhile, was thrilled to have met a gorgeous, Jewish, likely lesbian woman of any age and tried to kiss her in response. She rebuffed me and I got out of the car, figuring, oh, well, she'll figure it out somehow, but not with me, I guess. I went home lonely and never saw her again...until six years ago, when we were at the same GLBT community benefit and I recognized her.

She was visibly older, but still beautiful, and I re-introduced myself to her as someone she had met nearly 20 years ago for just a single evening, and referring to the now-closed dance-club. She seemed not to remember me at all, and I guess that's what it's like to be unforgettably beautiful; you don't remember everyone who remembers you...or maybe she was chagrined to be reminded of that time in her past, or both. Either way, she was cordial, but I excused myself quickly, as I felt suddenly embarrassed to have failed at re-connecting platonically, despite our both now being in much more solid, settled places in our lives.

Humanity as a Revelation

The formerly married lesbian's story reminded me of how difficult it was for me, sometimes, to see others' humanity, and to reveal mine. In the case of our initial meeting, I focused on two of her features exclusively -- her beauty and her Jewish identity -- and didn't want to think about the rest, i.e., that she was tortured about being married at the time and (as I learned from the documentary) had 20 years more of life experience than I, plus an oldest child who was just eight years younger than I.

The other night on Facebook, I posted a link to a CNN story on people who lose a parent(s) when young, and prefaced it with:

I lost my dad of blessed memory to cancer when I was 17. The survey's sponsor reminds me of the grief group I went to for high school kids who had lost a parent(s) in Hartsdale, NY. I was so grateful that my mom found it for me. I went every Wednesday night from December thru June of my senior year of high school.

I was surprised at two comments in response by Facebook friends I knew in high school and after college, who both said they had no idea I had lost my dad. The first respondent said that she had also lost her father at a young age, which I never knew, and the other one was a heterosexual guy trapped in a lesbian woman's curvy body when I knew him, which I did not know at the time.

Why didn't I know about my high school classmate's dead father when we were in high school? Why didn't I know about my then-lesbian friend's gender identity struggle when he was in the midst of it? Why didn't they know about my father's (z"l) death till the other night? All I can say is that this blog and how I live today are reparations to myself for having been so closed off, and maybe the pendulum has swung too far in the self-disclosing direction. Still, I feel that I have been making up for what I experienced as lost time, when I was so self-contained that no one knew much about me, other than that I was typically nice, was funny sometimes, and while in my early-twenties, was ultra-amorous.

Fortunately, I have lived long enough and matured sufficiently to see the humanity of my high-school classmate; my post-college friend; and the gorgeous, lesbian mother...and to try to show them more of mine.

More Poetry

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

Intensity

Scares people
Enjoys the odd fan
Lights the way
Tries too hard
Worries many
Attracts some
Feels shame like fire
Gives birth to inventions
Generates loneliness
Perseveres through loneliness.

Privacy

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

It's Relative

I'm not talking about when one is entrusted with necessary secrets by another, e.g., when a friend confides in another and asks that friend not to reveal what he or she has told him or her, or when one is entrusted not to give away trade secrets by one's employer.

I'm talking about my natural orientation and sense of what is private and what is public. To me, the less that is private, the better. I'm not sure if it's a case of trying to make up for a decade of secretiveness, from ages 11-21, when I was resolving my sexual orientation, and so I'm super-open altogether ever since, or that I'm no different than the most private of private people, i.e., that I wish I could control people's information about me (not to flatter myself that people seek it routinely, but...) and I just use an opposite strategy to the private peoples': I tell everything I can think of, so that no one can catch me off guard and reveal something that I did not want revealed.

Someone marveled recently, "When I began analysis [(therapy)], I was so reserved and so afraid to let go of that reserve. You seem able to share everything so readily."

Well, expressing my thoughts is relatively easy, I agree, and probably is even a compulsion at times, e.g., this entire blog is evidence of that, but sharing my feelings is much harder. Recently, I told a former girlfriend, "I always wanted you to show me some tenderness -- verbally -- and you never really did." That was so hard for me to say aloud. I don't think I ever put it that directly before, or at least not since we were together. It was a pure feeling, and not just a thought, and therefore much, much harder to express.

What Is and Is Not, Off Limits

Friends' secrets and job secrets are unmentionables, but otherwise, I don't think anything I want to share needs to be kept private. Paradoxically, I'm pretty sure I have an disproportionate sense of shame due to perfectionism, and so maybe this defensive entry about feeling that it's my right to share so freely is a strike at that perfectionism-shame cycle.

What is the purpose of privacy? To keep people intrigued; to avoid anyone, feeling ashamed....Other reasons don't come to mind.

What is the purpose of visibility? To help others and myself feel less alone in the world, and to help people learn. For example, my grad school launched "Pocket Knowledge" a couple of years ago, which features papers by faculty and students, and on which any faculty and student is welcome to post. I have posted some of my best papers on it, but relatively few of my colleagues have done so. I asked the librarian who helps troubleshoot the site why that is and she said she believed it was because people were afraid of others, stealing their content. Oy. I don't even think that way. And that's a third reason for my preferring the public to the private; I prefer that my stuff see the light of day and that it be useful to others, rather than that it be hidden, in the event that it's misused. I guess that's the risk-taker in me, and my abundance, rather than scarcity, mentality.

Visibility trumps a sense of intriguing, personal mystery for me, too, and I do try to follow my own rules of maintaining friends' anonymity, so that their shame, if not always mine, is not risked.

"You want to be known," my therapist said. I think I shared this here before; she continued, "Most people want to be known, but have given up; not you. That's hopeful." I have chutzpah and a big dollop of self-absorption that makes me believe that people are interested in knowing me, all the more so, the more honest I am.

Self-revelation is also meant, I'm sure, to weed out the less intense among people I come across, to socially engineer future encounters, i.e., if I scare you with my openness, and we have a choice of speaking again or not, then we don't need to have exchanges ever again.

Facebook apps are like astrology forecasts in my experience and so not something I take very seriously, yet one of them is about characteristics people have labeled as among my strong-suits and the chief among them is "Trustworthy." If I take the app at all seriously, I conclude they feel that way because I'm so open about myself that they trust me more than the usual as a result.

Fighting a Taboo

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Having Second Thoughts

...but I have to combat them. I'm feeling ashamed:

Why do I need to tell the world what I'm thinking? Why *isn't* a private journal-entry relief enough? And yet I know I'm not alone in my human struggles. Or maybe this is my repeated test to confirm that I'm not alone.

A friend of Phoebe -- Toonces was not similarly fond of him -- disappeared apparently. My partner Pat saw a photo of him up at Shop-Rite; his name is Brien and he lives on Alexander Ave., down the street. He weighs 13 pounds. The photo features Brien, reclining on an indoor couch. We only knew him as "the gentlman caller." He used to visit the girls at the sliding glass door of our house. I can't imagine him indoors....If only he had stayed indoors.

Pat just turned to me and said, "Sydney died."

"How do you know?"

"It says, 'RIP, Sydney,' on Jan's site."

Sydney was a miniature pinscher. She had a brain tumor. She was hyper and warm and wiry and affection-loving. Thank God, k'ayn ayeen ha'rah/minus the evil eye, Pat and the kitties and I are physically healthy. I just need to get mentally healthy again. Pat continues to be Pat, funny and supportive and my best friend, and I'm so grateful.

My dad of blessed memory's 27-year Yahrzeit (death anniversary) was yesterday. And yesterday, my mom's therapist called with a recommendation for a therapist I could meet. It felt like both of my parents were taking care of me yesterday. Tomorrow evening is my first meeting.

I am skeptical, but hungry for hope.

Observing My Grief

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

With Apologies to C.S. Lewis

"I feel sad," I told a friend tonight.

"Feel it," she said.

"Yeah, otherwise, the grief just comes back and bites me...." I agreed. Here is why I am sad:

None of the sororities at the University of Michigan asked me to pledge when I rushed in 1983.

Last night, on the way out of class, while exiting Columbia University's Teachers College, where my employer graciously is sponsoring my Masters, I dialed a college-friend and said, "I'm walking out of this great university to my fancy Volvo in an Armani suit and I feel awful....In class, in small groups, we analyzed an article by a black lesbian around my age, about how she joined and then quit a sorority at the U. of I. in the '80s....I have all of this stuff and yet none of it can keep me from feeling second-class."

When we were University of Michigan dormmates, my friend was incredulous that I went through Rush. She never really knew how devastating an experience it was for me. And the extra indignity of having a gorgeous, random roommate sophomore year, who pledged the Tri-Delt sorority, tied with Chi Omega as the top sorority on campus. Her mainstreamness, and that of the beautiful friends -- her sorority sisters who would stop by our room too routinely -- opened my Freshman wound, which festered all year long; living with such a perfect woman, I proved awkward with a mean edge.

That summer, as part of a birthday present, my friend thought she was funny by sending me a whole pad of Delta Delta Delta stationery, with a "Ghostbusters" symbol through the three deltas on the top of every page. I laughed along even as I still felt ashamed that I had not even remotely qualified to join that club.

Outsider Status-symbols

During class last night, our professor showed us amazing clips from "The Way Home," by the World Trust, which highlighted exclusionary experiences of biracial women from a variety of cultures -- a very different sort of sorority. Afterwards, one of my classmates spoke of her experience, growing up in Japan with a Portuguese father and of her own half-White daughter's experience of going to Japanese School on Saturdays.

My classmate's story encouraged me to talk about what I hadn't discussed when we were explicating the "Sistah Outsider" article. I raised my hand.

"Yes, Sarah?"

"I appreciated Cathy's story and it made me want to say a couple of things. In another class, I had a classmate, who grew up as half-WASP and half-Jewish and she said she envied me my solid identity, and I couldn't imagine anyone, considering me privileged for being *Jewish,* a tiny minority that's had to move all over the place throughout history." Sarah, be courageous. Say what you really want to say, I told myself.

"And I didn't say this during the window when we were talking about the 'Sistah Outsider" article--"

"That's OK," said my professor in a kindly tone.

"But I really related to her story, except that I'm Jewish and she's black. I remember thinking, Should I try to get into the WASPiest sorority possible, or should I aim for at least the more prestigious of the two Jewish sororities? What if the friendlier, but less prestigious, one invited me to pledge?

If I got into a sorority, it would be proof that I was a real woman, and I could escape my lesbianism, I reasoned. And then I was invited back to the next round only by the least desirable sorority on campus. [Choking up,] My mom had been in a sorority [that wasn't on my campus....]." How raw I felt!

A Layer-cake, Layered with Shame

It was always a layered shame for me -- my wish to be a sorority-girl: I was ashamed that I wanted to join a sorority; ashamed that none would have me; ashamed that I really believed I could prove my heterosexuality through sorority membership. If anything, it would have been a far more difficult place to try to hide my lesbianism.

I never felt lonelier those first several weeks of Freshman year than when I would put on a skirt, leave all of my new friends behind at the dorm, all of whom thought sororities were ill-suited to their sensibilities, and ride the bus from North Campus to Washtenaw Avenue, or Sorority/Fraternity Row. My father was dead, I was in a new place, where I'd never been till Day 1 of Freshman year, never having moved at all, and nourishing a dream of universal popularity and highly-visible good-deeds.

One of the sororities -- the one that had the cartoonist of Cathy among its alumna if I remember correctly -- promised that the next round of Rush would feature an peppermint social. I could taste the ice cream as the interviewer spoke. I never did get to, though.

First Swim of 2009

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

"It's a Mob-scene"

That's what a white-haired man says to me, smiling, as he and his buddy grab the last free lane. I smile at the kiddy-pool in response, not making eye-contact.

Shaking off the 34-degree weather outside, I'm relieved that the only open water left is the kiddy-pool's; it offers about half a lap in length and is kept twice as warm as the regular pool...no, no kiddies in it yet, and so no need to wonder at any extra warmth supplied by them.

I'm thigh-high (which is as high as it goes) when I hear Pat call to me urgently, "Sarah;" the far-lane has just opened up. Ugh. Freezing, but a better workout's in store by jumping in at the shallow end and swimming in the big pool.

Everyone must have made swimming their New Year's Resolution. I've never seen it so packed. My head is cold. I'm up against the side of the pool, sometimes grazing it with an arm when I do back-stroke. Still, it feels so, so good. I feel strong today.

What is it about a pool full of swimmers that makes me move faster and wear myself out more fully by the end of the 30 minutes?

Am I feeling competitive? Yes.

Am I inspired by better swimmers? Yes.

Am I trying to avoid shame I would feel if I thought I seemed slow? Yes.

Am I trying to prove that I'm in good shape for my age? Yes.

Am I vain? Yes.

The Stock Market Is Down and So Am I

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Only the Stimulus of Blogging Can Help My Dip

"Writing is about not committing suicide," a friend of mine told me this afternoon.

I got my paper back from my professor this evening and called back my friend to say. "Just wanted to follow up from our talk this afternoon; you're right. I felt like killing myself over it."

She laughed. I told her, "Just as I was leaving the main building, I looked up from reading the comments on my paper while an attractive young woman was entering the door; she must have heard me talking to myself. I said aloud, 'I might as well just give up now.' I kept walking, mortified that a stranger heard such tragic self-talk."

When I described the mortifying moment to Pat, she said, "She probably thought you got an F."

I didn't. Somehow, I received an A for the course. She didn't even mark the paper itself.

Pat: "Me, I'd have said, 'Well, phew! I got an A!'"

"Sarah, can I tell you something as a trained professional?" said another of my friends, who is a psychotherapist. "You don't have to try to feel good tonight. You can feel however you feel and still do whatever you planned to do anyway....Just before you go, can I tell you that men are coming out of the woodwork suddenly? Now, should I feel that I'm not good enough when they're not swarming me? Should I care that they don't love me? It's analogous to what you're going through. So what if she didn't like the way you wrote the paper. It doesn't mean you're not a good writer."

Pat: "It's just a new kind of writing that you have the opportunity to learn now; it's different from business writing and blogging. It's writing for grad school. It'll be good for you as a writer to learn an additional way to write."

"You have a journalist background, right?" asked my first friend, the writer, this afternoon, when I was telling her that all I wanted was to be published, even though I do not want to have to revise anything I write. She flattered me in thinking I had journalism training, but I said no; rather, I made the comment in the context of anticipating getting my paper back, and how originally, my professor had said that it needed to include a literature review, if it was going to be publishable -- an encouraging statement, but I never heard another word about publishing after submitting the paper, I told my friend, and so I felt nervous to receive it tonight.

"You're a very good writer with a deep gift for observation and you deserve to be published. Well, but you are published; you're on the web with your blog. Also, you should ask her about the publishability of the paper."

"What I really like to write is personal essays."

"They're not just personal. You write about all sorts of things."

Psychotherapist friend: "What is making you feel so bad right now?"

"I'm embarrassed that I did poorly on the paper, especially when I delivered a paper she loved in a previous class with her. As I think back on it, there wasn't the same requirement for it to be ultra-academic. But this shakes my confidence in my writing, and makes me sad about it."

My professor's comment on the paper's title-page: "Sarah, I found/find the insights are here, but the writing needs greater depth and more alignment with academic conventions to be persuasive...." It goes on with examples of what she means by "depth." Ugh! I'm so embarrassed.

"Don't be discouraged," my professor said to me on my way out; she anticipated my feeling when I would read it upon leaving the department open-house tonight. "Keep in touch."

The open-house included a number of the people I like most in my program, but eventually, the evening turned sour for me.

Exuberance, Then a Crash, and Then Some Hope

At 4:30 pm, I arrived at Teachers College and went to the library to try to take out Reserve books for my upcoming course. It felt luscious to be back in that privileged environment. A steel-drum band was playing in the lobby and a student was dancing unself-consciously by himself in front of it. One of the librarians had a Michigan accent and turned out to be from Ann Arbor (where I had studied as an undergrad). I felt so at home.

As I checked out my books with the librarian next to her, she said that my ID was obsolete, but that she'd check out my books till I got a new one.

"When did they change?"

"In November."

"Ah, well, I was in India for six months and so I missed getting that done."

She seemed unimpressed. I was reminded that I really had been away from the campus for half a year.

I went to the department party and saw my professor, who hugged me, and I hugged my adviser and both welcomed me home. "How was India?"

I was just so happy to be back in an environment, where I was no longer forced to study on my own; I couldn't wax on about how great the experience was.

And then a former classmate, Caitlin, came in, providing dark-coral fresh air.

And then one of the women I know from QueerTC, and then one of the women I went through orientation with, and then another with whom I was in a workshop several semesters ago, and then I spotted my professor for my upcoming class.

Caitlin, my first professor and I talked about "Brokeback Mountain," since Caitlin announce d that she had heard of Heath Ledger's death. We also talked about where our families were from originally and our parents' Holocaust-consciousness and then a doctoral student with an Israeli accent appeared and my professor introduced us to him. He had grown up in Latin America, where his parents had fled from Eastern Europe after his grandparents were killed in the Holocaust.

Caitlin said she was getting a snack, and so I made my move: "Can you slip me the paper now, and I won't read it till I leave, but I'm afraid I'll forget," I told my professor. And then, "You told me it needed to include a literature review if it was to be publishable. Is that realistic, for students to publish while they're still students?"

"Sure. Now your writing needs to come a long way before it's ready to be published. It's too bullet-pointed -- not academic enough. I suppose if you wanted to publish in a trade publication...."

"Like what would be an example?"

"Like an HR magazine or --"

"OK, well thanks." I found a way to excuse myself because I just couldn't talk with her for another moment, since she thought my writing was so poor.

Instead, I went over to speak with my professor for my upcoming course. And then I introduced him to two of the students I know, who'll be taking it. One of them -- who I know less well -- said, "I hope this course doesn't take me over the edge because I just don't know how self-disclosing I want to be."

"I'm not a fan of pain, but I cannot control where the class takes it during the semester."

"Well, I just don't know if I'm prepared for it to be therapeutic."

Oh, God!!! That's just what I'm hoping it'll be. (I don't say this aloud.)

"You should be all right. The most important thing is for everyone to feel safe."

Well, I don't feel safe at all now. I feel like I'm too much. Too intense. I was ready to be super-self-disclosing. I mean, why sign up for "Leadership and Self Development: A Biographical Approach" if you don't wish to do some plumbing?

The stated purpose in the syllabus begins: "This course takes an in-depth look at leadership from the inside out. It is based on the assumption shared by current leadership theorists (e.g. Raelin 2003) that a leader must develop a strong internal foundation of self awareness and personal mastery to achieve great external results."

I excuse myself and return to the first professor, who had returned my paper to me, and to the doctoral student, to show that I wasn't running away from her, and to enable myself to run away from the other professor, who wanted me to feel safe(!)

God has a plan? My writer friend says to me while I'm driving home, "Your writing, your career, your education, it's all leading somewhere, and it'll work out."