Grad School: Week 6

Not writing was a kind of symptom that presents a problem of its own. "He could get himself into places where he was pretty helpless," Costello says. "Basically it was the same symptoms all along: this incredible sense of inadequacy, panic. He once said to me that he wanted to write to shut the babble in his head. He said when you are writing well, you establish a voice in your head, and it shuts up the other voices. The ones that are saying 'you're not good enough, you're a fraud.'"

-David Lipsky, The Lost Years and Last Days of David Foster Wallace

This week was a hard one at grad school and i finally came to realize why everything smelled like anxiety on the second floor. It was all around, not just coming from my armpits. There are a lot of voices whispering in your ear here at school. Many are your own, some are other people's voices. It can be challenging to tune your mental radio correctly so one clear voice, your voice, is able to emerge for even an hour or two.

I did however, manage to ask one of the stupidest questions possible about the painting you see here:


Me: I understand all the male imagery, the hat and alcohol and looking at naked women, but i don't get why there is a cat on the table. Cats aren't masculine
(awkward pause)
Teacher: The cat relates to the slang reference, popular at the time, to female genitalia.
Me: (in my head) Oh, you're talking about Pussy. Got it. I know all about that.

So that was the comic relief in my week. Tomorrow we keep soldiering on...