There are no words . . .

I've begun a new research project, inspired largely by some recent reading I've done for this project. I've been reading "post-apocalyptic fiction" -- with an eye towards exploring what it says about how we visualize america's position in the world at present. In the past few days, I've read: A World made by Hand, Our American President, The Road and the Pesthouse. of course, by far the most haunting of these works is Cormac McCarthy's "The Road", a short, starkly drawn novel about a man and his son who somehow survive a nuclear war which ravages the America we know. The book is both terrifying and hauntingly beautiful, as the man and his son (whose names we never learn) become their own little universe is a world of nuclear winter, where they are chased by bands of marauding cannibals through perpetual darkness. It's impossible to do this work justice -- but it's one of those that changes you.

However, the downside of being on a 'post apocalyptic fiction' tear is that I have been alternately terrified and too depressed to speak. (Hence, when the power went out here the other night due to thunderstorms -- an entirely predictable event which happens a couple times a year when you live near the coast as we do -- I actually went outside and found my husband because I was so afraid. "It's the North Koreans," I said. 'They've bombed us. I'm sure." and at the time, nothing about that statement felt far-fetched.) I'm beginning to think that post-apocalyptic fiction, like disaster movies (another guilty pleasure of mine) is something that should be rationed.

I've moved up to number 2695 on the list, and as I approach the crossing of the 2500 line, I feel myself once again falling prey to that ancient temptation towards self-sabotage. (Who? me? Take myself seriously? Actually achieve something?) Last week, I kind of missed a TV interview, and may have seriously damaged my relations with our university PR lady. I believe I made a simple honest mistake but a psychiatrist might think differently. However, today I forced myself to write two more reviews. (I'm guilty of actually reading a TON of stuff lately, but not having written the reviews. Some academic stuff, and a couple of other post-apocalyptics that I simply haven't been able to organize myself to review.) I think part of it is that I'm in that particular academic limbo that's a bit like childbirth -- kind of pregnant with the next article, but it's still too unassembled and inchoate to actually make it into the light. And terrified also at the thought that it might actually be really good . . .