Post Break-Up Blues

I got out of my NB class yesterday and felt terrible. It made me want to rush back over to CS's office and sign back up again for his class.

In the New Media and Democracy class, NB had a guest speaker - Oct. Hdsn - I didn't check my e-mail until right before class, but because of her visit, we didn't have to turn in the paper that I had worked on all week-end - ok, maybe not all week-end, but the paper was so disjointed that it was difficult to focus on and I felt like I had wasted a lot of time. Oh, well, at least I had finished it, so I went ahead and turned it in. Anyway OH was a very dynamic speaker - an Af-Am woman who had gone through quite a few Harvard programs and is doing some media advocacy work with youth. She got the class to think about values in media and the differences among pr, media advocacy, social marketing, etc. Her whole shtick was leading up to creating media with a message that started "where people are at" - ok, a. i studied this basic tenent of organizing 20 years ago b. i did just that with the golf war c. her strategies were exactly what I taught in my BAVC class and d. she totally didn't understand a basic question I had about how funders have been giving money to filmmakers distribution efforts the last decade (like what she was discussing) and what she saw as the future in distribution, given the internet. In the end, she seemed to be a lot of talk and little substance, and I left the class feeling like I was wasting my time and money. Why am I taking that class? Connections? Freedom to write what I want? Both, I guess. And why did she bother me so much? That she assumed certain things about us - that we were all Harvard snobs who only watched PBS?

After class I reluctantly went over to the Coop to return books from the CJ class - that I had dropped. I also picked up some other school supplies. While I was there, I was very tempted to buy something for Liam - for a few reasons - I can't believe I'm even admitting this - but I feel so disconnected from him and he always wants daddy now that I think there was part of me that just wanted to buy his love. Ok, the more mundane reason was my perennial challenge of being so bored at night playing legos with him and thinking I could buy my way into buying something creative.

Anyway, I was so depressed after that class and not feeling very fulfilled with my classes in general - that I know all of this stuff already and that I'm not taking enough classes - and am wasting my whopping my tuition and all of this time that Chris is taking off and that we're going into debt...that I just wanted to go pick up Liam from preschool. I had brought my yoga clothes and had wanted to practice, but I just didn't think I could focus on anything, so I called Chris to coordinate and walked over there and picked him up. It was so nice to just have that time with Liam at his school. I feel so disconnected to it (and as an aside am furious that there is this fancy schmancy party for the CE parents - why is my tuition going towards this? it's ridiculous - the invites were fancier than most wedding invites). Anyway, it was nice to have Liam be so loving to me. I know that's selfish and probably a little twisted, but every time I used to pick him up at HOAC - he'd tell me to go away. But the downside is maybe he's just not as comfortable at CE and was just really glad to see me.

Anyway, Chris and Kalian met us over there and Liam rode his bike while we walked over to the Harvard farmer's market. It was a glorious fall day and so great to shake things up a bit. We then went over to the Boston common, which has a playground, and it was really nice to hang out there. While we were over there, Liam said that he tried to play in the kitchen at preschool with some girls, but they told me that the kitchen was only for girls! So Chris said that he and Liam would be cooking dinner that night - well, Chris cooks dinner every night. Chris had put on Liam's "Smash patriarchy" t-shirt, which he said he was glad he did since at drop off in the morning there were three fancy suited men dropping off their kids. It's a strange environment that we just don't seem to fit into.

After a yummy pizza dinner that Chris made, I went over to the Science library to study. I walked into the science center around 7.30 and it was packed. I thought, what are all of these people doing out so late - wow, my sense of culture has really shifted being a parent.