Hell. That is where I am right now, and I think hell is an apropos description of day 3 at a University with no copiers. None. Nada. Not one copier on the whole of campus is in working order. In our building we had three, one by one they fell; not surprisingly because when one broke, everyone moved to one of other two, and when the second one broke, well you know the story. Now repeat that throughout campus and you will see the rippling effect this has had.

I shouldn’t say that no copiers work, I should say that no copiers available to faculty work. It seems that there are copiers available to administration that still work, but we can not use them. Although by now the restless mob is talking about sending all the copying to the presidents office and then see what happens.

You might be asking, as I myself was just a few days ago, why when the first of the copiers broke, did no one call a repairman to fix it? This would seem the next logical step, except as it turns out we have called and the people will not come. Why? It seems the University has an outstanding bill with Xerox and until we pay it we get no help. This seems reasonable and good business practice and it seems if we would just pay the bill then all would be well. But I guess that tug of war has been going on for the last couple of months. As it turns out no one has been here for routine maintenance in six months because we have not paid the bill.

Worse, of course is the awful rhetoric that administration is using to justify the problem. Are you ready for this? The highers ups say that the maintenance people are willing to come out here and fix the machines, it the accounting department at Xerox who will not let them. So it’s really the accounting departments fault and not ours. Yah, try to follow that logic. At a meeting someone asked why we just don’t pay the damn bill and get the copiers fixed so that we can, you know, teach class and go one with our jobs. “But you don’t understand,” was the reply, “it’s the accounting department who will not let the people come out here.”

Stunned Silence. I don’t even know where to start pointing out the fallacies here. My head hurts from the way in which they are trying to step around this. But they can’t side step too long because things are getting desperate. One faculty member already took it upon himself to head over to some copy place and then sent the receipt with a request for reimbursement to the administration. The people who are not as bloody brilliant as that guy are starting to panic. We have no access to put stuff on faculty pages, so we are very dependant on the copiers. I know that a lot of us can do a mambo for a few days, but eventually we will need copies! I don’t know how the hell faculty and staff are expected to do their jobs when we have no tools, and the students are starting to get cranky too, so there is no telling where this will go. I myself will be writing a letter to the union, lets see what happens then.

So I have spent the last few weeks coming back and back to a self-reflexive-ness that just goes round and round and won’t leave me alone. But I too fast, it is the beginning that you want.
So part of my reading during the week, of course, are a variety of blogs that are predictable and eccentric. One of said places I visit daily is Bitch PhD. I don’t comment (I rarely do) but I like her, whoever she is. She is funny, erudite and radical, my favorite combination. But a few weeks ago I found myself sitting slack jawed in front of the laptop. Bitch was writing about Plan B … and her boyfriend. At first I was confused, and I kept going back into the entry trying to make some sense. Wasn’t see married? Maybe I misread that and she is not, or maybe this is a guest writer? I looked some more and of course found the whole story. Bitch had an open marriage.

This bothered me. Why? I don’t know, set the stage.

I would have to quit reading the damn thing, except I didn’t know why yet. Was it because she was someone I thought was cool and then that was changed because I found out something I didn’t like? And why the hell should I care what someone else does with their sex life, it’s not my business.

And it was here that I sat, the parts of myself taking sides. I was vexed and irritated. And of course did what any academic does, delve into that feeling and wonder around in the complexities. Why? Because I am a narcissistic, over education, occasionally pretentious and guilt ridden working class Catholic girl, but aren’t we all?
Finally my husband gave me the impetus, “You know this is your problem not hers right?” Busted by a Marxist. Yes, yes, yes. My problem in more ways than one. I get pissy when someone tells me I’ll lucky that my husband cooks, but I think someone who has a husband and a kid and still sleeps with other people is slutty. Why? Because I know it would not work for me? Maybe I’m lazy, or comfortable; if I had a hotel room for a weekend of wining and dining I would be there with my husband. I know I am jealous and over sensitive so why would I want to put myself through something like that. Or maybe I’m a prude (see the Catholic girl remark above). Or maybe I have a different definition of marriage. I know that if Bitch wasn’t married I would not have blinked twice, no matter how many boyfriends there were. Married is different, I’ve lived with men before and I have been married for three years, its different. And the fact that it is different is what people are fighting about.

But then not everyone has that same definition. I know that some women I know think I am a bad wife, I don’t cook, I don’t clean and I deal with the money. My husband and I decided a long time ago that we would do what worked for us, screw every one else and what they thought. And that was Bitch’s point, if I can simplify, that people should be left alone to what works for them.

That was my conclusion, but it still didn’t make me happy. But this again was my problem. Why the hell did I think that I could deal with my complex and divergent feelings by deconstructing them? I can’t find conclusions when I do this with a book, I certainly can’t find any when I am dealing with my own ideologies. So I have divergent feelings constructed by societal and culture hegemony? And birds go tweet. There is no conclusion, there is no simplification, I am sure as shit lucky that I am at least partically aware of an able to analyze my own situatedness, most people don’t care to try.

So thanks Bitch for making me do some personal analysis, it’s irritating but educational.