My fingertips are genius.

I'm worried:

A. That I'll never have time to devote to my writing, whether that be memoir, blogging, poetry, whatever.

B. That all I have to write about is school (or what is lacking from my life because of school).

So I think if anyone likes to read my writing, Lord knows why, that you'll have to deal with both of these struggles on a regular basis. I plan to complain. I'm basically going to average about three books and a paper or so a week. This makes it difficult both to write blogs and to think about much else apart from transforming the Occident from feudal economy to a capitalist marketplace or the situated construction of identity narratives in a post-modern world or....something about women and white racism (haven't looked at that book yet).

Really, I'm pretty excited about all this. I have about a thousand research ideas, and it's kind of neat planning my position in the discipline. I don't feel much pressure, contrary to the typical graduate experience....and that's making me a little wacky.

I'm imagining an atypical approach to my doctoral work. I might consider using my personal narrative writing. I read a book this week called Landscape of a Good Woman by Carolyn Steedman. It combined a memoir-style with psychoanalysis. The purpose of this book (written in the 80's) was to bust apart previous research about working class women that only caricatured their experience (written predominantly by men). Exciting, eh? It wasn't terribly effective through today's literature, but it raised questions for me about the utility of....unconventional projects, particularly using my own narrative writing.

The narrative is not a new idea. I toyed with it at UK. As I said in the seminar discussion of Steedman's book, I wish I had the courage. You may not be aware of this fact, but sociology (and other fields) have very narrow definitions of how their own disciplinary work can be practiced. Diversity exists among researchers, but what I pose lies outside most feasible frameworks -- especially for graduate students.

I'm not quite sure how I would apply it as research method, to what end, and of course, whether or not I'd find support (either epistemologically or in the Mizzou faculty). But I'm not particularly invested in the discipline of sociology separate from a body of justice-oriented knowledge production. I don't need the disciplinary boundaries that make the big bucks (hah). I'm pretty sure I want to be a stay-at-home-dad anyway.

Bet you didn't take that last sentence seriously. Take it seriously.

Who knows if I can do this or if I'll find a worthwhile purpose....but if I am changing at all here in Missouri, I am becoming bolder. I'm taking names and melting faces. I think you're going to see a very different Mike sooner than you might expect.

Well that's strange....after typing out this blog, I've essentially conceived of a solution to both A and B.

I think I'm gonna buy an iPhone tomorrow as a reward.

-Mike