I believe in fairy tales.

Or at least I believe in reading fairy tales to children--despite the fact that a lot of them are violent, cruel, overly didactic methods of coercive acculturation. (I'm reading this at the moment.) My parents insist that they didn't read them to me, but I still have the encyclopedia of fairy tales I read growing up. I know I read them! I know I watched an animated Japanese series of fairy tales! Maybe I was introduced to them by Disney movies and pursued the rest on my own? However it happened, I did grow up on fairy tales, and I never fantasized about pushing me mum into the oven or living happily ever after with me pops. Yes, I know there are problems with the parent-child relationships depicted in classic fairy tales, I realize that they can easily be misinterpreted ("But!," I object, "So can any text!"), and I don't actually want my little girl thinking her life will work out so long as she is a diligent housekeeper who obeys the men in her life.

Many fairy tale scholars make these arguments against reading fairy tales to children, and I see their points. I also understand that many fairy tales were never meant for children in the first place, but I believe that I will be able to tell the difference and properly filter the stories for my child. I know I would have been traumatized if I'd read the oldest version of "Little Red Riding Hood" or "Sleeping Beauty" as a little girl, so I promise not to expose my kid to cannibalism, bestiality, and rape until they are much older.

Actually, the only problem I have with fairy tales for children is that, for me at least, they turned every story I was told into a fairy tale. (It makes me a bit sad to think about how my dissertation could be seen as an extension of this childhood misconception. Yikes.) I put everything on that level, including history and religion. Cleopatra was as real as Snow White; Moses was just like Tom Thumb but bigger. Obviously. This was fine, I suppose, until I found out about Santa. (GASP!) In my mind, no Santa meant no Napoleon, no Caesar, no Gretel, no Prince Charming, no Noah, and no Jesus. It wasn't until I learned that history really did happen that I started thinking maybe the Bible might not be a complete fairy tale after all, but I was the most jaded, cynical little girl you'd ever seen for those few years. Nothing anyone ever told me was real!

I don't want that to happen to my kid, but I'm not sure how to prevent it. I think part of the problem is that story time can encompass fairy tales, biblical stories, and fictionalized accounts of history all in the same setting and language. If you tell a kid three stories in the exact same tone, in the exact same environment, I think it's natural for him or her to assume all three are roughly equivalent, even if that is not your intention. Even their names can be similar. You can see how a story called "The Coat of Many Colors" might sound like a fairy tale! But how does a parent fix this? I have no idea. I'll have to think on it.

Being a Teacher Is Weird, pt. 2

So...there I was. Teaching "The Rape of the Lock." We were talking about Belinda's guardian spirit and how he protects her from a variety of terrible disasters: losing her chastity, breaking teacups, staining her honor, staining her dress, etc. I was trying to emphasize how ridiculous these comparisons are, comparing serious moral trespasses to social faux pas like spilling food on yourself. I said something like, "I mean, it would be nice to have a guardian angel to make sure I don't drip ketchup down my shirt. I am a giant..." Wait for it. Wait for it...I was saying "slob" and changed to "klutz" because I thought it sounded better? What came out of my mouth? "I'm a giant slutz." That's right. I told my students that I'm a giant slut. What the hell? I did try to explain (between my devastating blushes) what I meant and how this slip of the tongue occurred, but I am sure all they will remember FROM THE WHOLE SEMESTER is that their teacher called herself a slut.

And then I told Dallas. He has already turned "giant slut" into my new pet name. I hate everything.

A Dialogue: Being a Teacher Is Weird

Student: “I never knew that Shakespeare was a homosexual.”

Me: “...”

Student: “I mean, ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ He’s talking to a guy. He was gay!”

Me: “You keep saying that. That Shakespeare was ‘a homosexual.’ You should know, the word ‘homosexual’ didn’t even enter the English language until 1892, when Chaddock published a treatise on deviant sexualities and classified them as psychological afflictions, as psychopathies. Our culture didn’t feel the need to label same-sex attraction as something worth categorizing until the 19^th century. It wasn’t important, it certainly wasn’t a part of a person’s identity. It was something they did, usually classified as ‘sodomy,’ sure, but it was rarely persecuted. Think about what this means. Our culture didn’t CREATE ‘homosexuals’ as such until 300+ years after Shakespeare’s birth. You really can’t call him ‘a homosexual’ without being terribly anachronistic.”

Student: “How do you KNOW that? You just KNOW that off the top of your head?”

Me: “Yeah. That’s why they pay me the big bucks.”

---

As a teacher, I sometimes find myself saying things that make me think (A) “Who the hell are you, WEIRDO!?” and (B) “Wow, Catherine. This is why everyone thinks humanities professors are crazy, left-wing nutjobs. Congratulations. You are the stereotype.” I'm responsible for teaching two classrooms full of students. I have to walk into class and coherently explain things, usually really old dirty jokes. I have to tell them how language works and why it's cool. One of my class objectives actually says something about "the human condition!"

It can be a lot of fun, and it's shown me that I know things I didn't know I know. Seriously. I started quoting a poem I didn't realize I had memorized. What is that? I corrected one of my students the other day because she said Shakespeare was depressed that the Globe closed in the 1570s and that’s why he wrote his sonnets. I wrote, without thinking, “Well…No. The Globe wasn’t built until 1599.” How do I know that? How can I tell my student the origin of “homosexual” without looking anything up on the OED? Why can I list four poems that pun on the word “quaint” without even thinking? When did I learn about Galen’s medicine? How do I know about Pasiphae, Io, Semele, and Ganymede? WHO AM I? And why, in God’s name, is someone letting me teach? ME? It may not sound all that impressive, but every time my students look at me with those shocked little eyeballs, I feel a bit validated. Whew. I do know more than they do.

The answer to all of those questions is simple, by the way. How do I know these things? Why do I get to teach? I am a grad student—I read a lot and I’m cheap labor. I’ve been studying literature (incessantly. obsessively. ad infinitum. amen.) for about six years and, really, that’s nothing compared to my professors. Nothing! That’s not even all that long compared to the more experienced Ph.D. students. It is, however, long enough that I am completely ruined for anything else. I demand that the people around me actually think critically, and nothing irks me more than people who are perfectly capable of reading but lack any sense of comprehension. They know the words in front of them, but they couldn’t tell you what the whole sentence actually MEANS. It’s maddening, I tell you. It makes me want to punch small furry creatures in their tiny squishy faces.

The other thing I’ve learned this semester is that the sole source of my knowledge is literature. I start talking about the parable of the vineyard and my students think I’m some kind of Bible scholar, but I am not! Most of them have actually spent more time studying the Bible than I have. They grew up in church. I did not. I don’t know the Bible. I know Milton (sort of) and Dante (kind of) and Donne (sometimes). I’ve read Piers Plowman. I’ve read Pearl. I’ve read Augustine. I’ve read C.S. Lewis. If it weren’t for literature, I would be completely ignorant.

True story.

Hi.

I’d like to pretend that my blog title comes from an ancient, secret bit of family wisdom and that I grew up surrounded by people who believed in rolling pin rituals and kitchen rites of passage, that this was just something we said and accepted as Truth along with other Southernisms (“That boy is Satan in a Sunday hat.” “He has molasses in his pants.” “He lets his mouth overload his butt.”), that I was a precocious little 8-year-old, picking dough out from underneath my fingernails as I listened to the womenfolk talk about their lives, that I waited impatiently to become a woman even though I had no idea how to get there or what it would actually entail, just that I really wanted to wear pearls and sip mimosas and talk knowingly about all those things they promised to explain when I was older.

But it’s not. I made it up.

You see, it started out as a book idea for a romance novel I’ll never write because, well, I’m a grad student studying Renaissance literature and I was never much more than a sub-par dilettante when it came to fiction. I love it; I just don’t write it. I’m okay with that.

And I’m okay with my childhood. I don’t mean to suggest that the upbringing I described before is in any way preferable to my real life experience. My childhood didn’t lead to a proper Southern woman with pearls and mimosas, but it did lead to this awkwardly improper woman without any accessories except a wedding ring she sometimes wears and beer. (It also led to someone who apparently considers beer an accessory.) I find this more interesting. My childhood, my family, all of my memories somehow created this me, this woman who invents old-fashioned maxims and pretends they’re common knowledge.

So, despite the fact that this little phrase of mine will never become a book—unless you write it, and, in that case, I demand royalties—I find myself returning to it, not as a novel but as a blog. Why? Because I don’t know anything about being a good woman and my biscuits are about as half-baked as my fiction, and despite the fact that I KNOW this is not some God-given, immutable, unquestionable truth, I really do believe it. The day I can make decent biscuits is the day I have officially become a good woman. Until then, I give you this blog.

***Disclaimer: I've started this blog about a thousand times. It may or may not disappear in a few weeks.***