Cabals, Cliques, and Cloisters Suck...

...when you don't get to choose who joins.

I was trying to discuss with Boyfriend why I hate my life.

The latest reason (#460) is that a person from Midwestern U is coming to join the program I'm in, and my program coordinator (also from Midwestern U, the person instrumental in getting me this job), thinking it would be nice if I had someone from Midwestern U that I went to school with (tangentially) to share my office with next semester (because Beth is leaving), as opposed to a stranger, informed me today that he's moving in. This would, I suppose, not be TERRIBLE, though I am jealous of this person because he just had a book published (or accepted), and I still can't get a single GODDAMN PIECE OF SHIT JOURNAL to take one measly poem from me.

But more than that... that guy has never said more than a handful of words to me, even though I've tried to be friendly to him. So, won't it be just delightful to have him in my office?? The reason she gave for installing him in my office was that we're both "writers" and that the program likes to put people with similar interests together. But the truth is, she just wants to have a little conclave of Midwestern U people together, like we're some club. I think I will be ill.

I much rather it was Doggerel coming to share an office with me. Because I love her.

Meditative

I have been savoring a novel called The Mistress of Spices, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Anchor, 1997), set in San Francisco, about an immortal woman whose mystical calling is to serve the spices in their magical aid to humans--for comfort, or harmony, or peace, etc., whatever the customers of her shop need.

It is, of course, a book about placing the spiritual needs of others above the physical desires of the self, and, in her attempt to help others, Tilo finds that she must not cut herself off from the world, though her calling requires her not to interfere in others' lives, just serve as the handmaiden of the spices to do their will.

And of course, the more involved in the outside world she becomes--for instance, she feels an attraction, perhaps even love, for the American--the less the spices speak to her. And I find that the more she is drawn away from her path, the less I want to read this book. I do not know if she will sacrifice her powers for earthly love, but I fear she might. And somehow, despite the richness and beauty of the book that I have read so far, I do not want Tilo to be yet another woman who must give up her dream, her soul, her being, her career for the fickle love of a man.

Perhaps, because there is a part of me who fears that very thing happening in my own life.