Catching Up

crossposted to Live Journal
I'm not live journaling,blogging, analog journaling or much of anything else at the moment. Took on too much, I have started haunting the HASTAC site because I found out about a Women and Gender History conference being held last week at UIUC and I took time off work to go as a treat. It was a blast...most of it was over my head and dealt with stuff that I have no clue about...I am abysmally ignorant in some ways. I claim to be a generalist, but I'm mostly just a lazy dilettante. The keynote speaker talked about Marxist/queer theory...apparently he is some kind of expert...but I no nothing about Marxism and very little about queer theory and/or practice.

There is a woman who posts at the HASTAC site named Cathy Davidson who is teaching a class called "This is Your Brain on the Internet" and the idea fascinated me. I downloaded the syllabus and bought some of the books. I've enjoyed the idea of being part of an online class since I was a part of [info]pernishus 's summer science fiction class a few years back. In any case, I came into the into the brain on the internet class about halfway through the quarter and didn't have access to the class blogs and nobody to talk to, but the reading is interesting.

The first book on the list was The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and then I watched the movie (well, I didn't watch the movie until today). The basic story is a man (the editor of Elle magazine, actually) who has a massive cerebral accident (stroke). He is totally paralyzed, unable to speak and he had to have one eye sewn shut. He still wrote this book, by having an assistant transcribe it for him letter by letter as he blinked for each correct one. I can't imagine how many times he had to hear the alphabet recited over and over. The book was beautiful, it was an act of prose poetry. The movie was also an amazing experience. Most of it was taken directly from the book, from Bauby's memories and from what he experienced as a locked in person, with nothing but his memories, his imagination and one good eye.

It freaked me out totally.

I have a crappy memory, huge holes...I hear Speaker saying, "not the brain damage bullshit again." (38 years ago March 4). I have been trying to stay present, but it's hard. And I have no real idea why I have avoided it for 50 years. It's hard to say what I mean; I know it's hard for other people to listen to me. (Writing is easier because for the past 19 years I have been expressing myself in writing...still can't talk about what is buried, because I am not exactly sure what it is). I have a sense of isolation, of being cut off...and there isn't anyone reciting the alphabet to me.