A Wild New Chapter

and another move on the horizon

If you’ve been with me for a while, you know that I originally moved to Milledgeville, Georgia because they offered me a spot in a fully-funded MFA program, and I thought I needed an MFA, for reasons that are becoming increasingly unclear. I have an MA in Children’s Literature because I’m a scholarly nerd-to-the-core, and what I’ve learned from my time in Milledgeville is that I have an unforeseen passion for teaching Freshman Composition, and that scholarly core goes deeper than I realized. After I took Criminology Theory — thinking I was doing so to gain a deeper understanding of deviant characters in my creative work — I emerged with a passion for studying Deviance, specifically the language of deviance, specifically the rhetoric of deviance (and deviants).

And so, I’m off to get my PhD in Rhetoric, courtesy of an offer I’ve recieved from Ohio University that provides full funding and a teaching assistantship in Athens, Ohio. I’ve never been to Athens, Ohio and have barely even been through the state as a whole, but the virtual open house held by the English faculty was promising, and showed Athens to be a vibrant little place along the Classic American College Town vein, much like Iowa City. I spent 6 years in Iowa City and I loved it there. Even when I got angry at it, I could openly vent my emotions and felt, ultimately, supported: it gave me all the literary and intellectual nourishment I’d hoped for from my undergrad education, and Milledgeville is not a proper college town. It’s not walkable, the food is limited and limiting, and everything is absurdly overpriced. Rent is certainly cheaper than it was in San Francisco (it better be!) but coffee and groceries are not.

It’s been an illuminating nearly-two-years and for many reasons, all of them complicated, I’m glad Ian and I have spent the time here that we had. But I’m grateful to have an exit plan. Some of my favorite authors left their 3-year MFA programs after 2 years, so I’m in proud company. But there are those who are likely shocked that we’ve signed on for another move. This will be the 17th American locale I’ve lived in. Seventeen is a large number, because we’re still young, damn it, but Ian and I grew up moving around, with family who moved around, and a nine hour drive from Georgia to Ohio will be nothing like the epic trek from San Francisco to Milledgeville that we cinematically embarked upon in the summer of 2023.

I’ve spent most of my time in Milledgeville processing my time in San Francisco. This sleepy town is not rife with distractions, which has been equal parts frustrating and productive. I’m prone to escapism but I had no avenues here. I can get to the gym via shuttle, but there’s nowhere to comfortably walk other than work. I couldn’t escape myself or my feelings by walking down the street to sit in a movie theater the way I did in SF (I haven’t seen a movie in a depressing amount of time). The invigorating and devastating relationship that ultimately defined my time in SF didn’t fade into the distance the way it was supposed to: it became, paradoxically, more weirdly vivid, loomed larger and more sharply in my consciousness because of the dizzying contrast it provided to everyone I’ve interacted with since our arrival. Strange how ties are built, strange how ties are cut, strange how ties refuse to break even when they’re no longer being reinforced. When I was little, I heard the phrase Til death do us part for the first time and protested that death can’t part you, not if it’s real love. I believe that still, though I had no understanding then of necessary symbolic deaths.

Today is something of a death day in my life, even though I hate to say that because no one lived more fully and rapturously than my father. April 12th is his birthday, but it’s been a bittersweet celebration since his sudden death at 50 in 2006. The one person in San Francisco who made a lifelong impact on every arena of my existence happens to share that birthday, and just as I thought that a fulfilling April 12th in 2024 would mark the end of raw grief on this day, I found out, that very afternoon, that my dear friend Arlen died by sucide, someone I can’t think of Iowa City without thinking about. His writing, though it never made a cent, altered everyone who came in contact with it during our college years, and after, when he devoted himself to music, he gained a new following, localized but reverent and robust.

Confession: I’ve spent over a month dreading April 12th, not trusting that it wouldn’t bring a new tragedy the way it did last year. Instead — and I need a stronger word than gratitude for this — this is the first day in memory that I’ve woken up knowing what my next step is. My PhD plans seemed about to be thawrted (and in some cases were) by Trump and Elon’s sadistic decision to cut the NIH funding that makes much of University research possible. But Ohio University remains — for now — safe, and they’ve offered me a chance to delve into my academic passions and continue my work with students. Ian couldn’t be more supportive or enthusiastic. He believes in what I do, sometimes with more certainty than I feel I’ve got, and we’ve been doing this move-for-the-other’s-job-or-degree thing for 13 years now. On the whole, I recommend it, though I say that without having any idea what it’s like to want to stay anywhere for upwards of a decade. Those six years in Iowa City? The longest I’ve ever lived anywhere since I was 12.

Whenever I announce a big move, at least three people gasp on behalf of my beloved partner — usually if they haven’t met him — and exclaim, “how does IAN feel about this?!?!” Well, you’re my subscribers, but one thing you should know about Ian: he’s passionate about teaching secondary education and he’s formally credentialed to teach Math, English, and History. He’ll be fine. (For the curious, he did take a necessary break and worked as an Academic Advisor for the same University that employed me during our time here. What he learned from working outside the classroom is that he misses the classroom.)

The most immediate challenge of beginning a new chapter involves having to finish the old one. We have almost a month left of a Spring semester in which my students and I have been collectively tapped out for at least three weeks and I have no idea how any of us are going to go on, but I’m sure I said that last semester. To give them a break I could tell they all needed, I made my most recent class optional to offer a space for people to work, ask me questions, and keep that 2:00-3:15 hour flexible if need be. Two students showed up, asked me questions, and worked the entire time. I remain grateful — look at that, gratitude again — that I wasn’t left toiling alone in what’s admittedly a pleasing classroom space: big windows, lecture-style-but-comfortable seating.

There’s a lot of discourse around the whole idea of Doing a Job right now, given how much has collasped, is in the process of collapsing, and or is on the verge of collapse. I’m big on Journaling and Reflection and pedagogy built on the foundation that our feelings — anxieties, hopes, enthusiasms, despairs, etc. — make a vital impact on the way we write and communicate, and are therefore relevant to everything we write and communicate. If you’re a Leave Your Feelings at the Door to Do Your Work type, then god help you if you’ve got me as your Composition instructor. But the open-hearted sharing my students have added to discussion has floored me, as well as solidifying my desire to go on teaching this subject at the University level.

I should end this with gorgeous images of the flowers that have blossomed all over campus in various shades of magenta and pale pink, but I haven’t taken any photos of them. I haven’t taken photos of anything or anyone in quite some time, come to think of it. I’ll miss the direworlf skull behind glass at the Natural History Museum, but there’s something that seems disrespectful about flattening that out in a digital photo.

I’ll end, then, on a note of nervous excitement. If you’ve ever visited Athens, Ohio, I implore you to tell me everything you know. I plan on shamelessly applying for all travel funding I can reasonably (and beyond reason) hope for, so I also hope I’ll have the chance to see many of you in person over the course of my studies. My classwork-program is 3 years long, with 2 years spent writing my Dissertation. Five years, like the David Bowie song, marking the second-longest time I’ve lived anywhere since I was 12.