Opening Ceremony, Closing Ceremony

A few scattered thoughts on another foggy Sunday morning in SC...

The opening ceremony of the Olympics was pretty amazing. I'll spare the quasi-academic analysis (I'm sure that numerous historians, anthropologists, and lit people are going to write all kinds of articles and monographs about it at some point soon) and just note that the US is terrified by China, or at least someone is pretty sure that we're supposed to be. Every few minutes, the NBC commentators would remind us that we should be scared: "now some people would be worried about this display of strength...now some people might note that the inclusion of martial artists is somewhat threatening...now some people might feel funny about how we are weak and they are strong..." etc.

It's just...what country has been behind almost every invasion and/or threat of invasion on the world stage for the last sixty years? The US. Which country is the only one to have ever nuked another country? The US. Which country consistently used and continues to use its strength to make other nations adjust their own modes of government and political culture? The US. It's a kind of gallows humor, that when a new superpower rises, we immediately assume they're going to do the same thing to us. It's like we, the global schoolyard bully, realize that over summer vacation that one kid grew a foot and might well decide to beat our ass next to the swings at recess, only that one kid has shown no indications of wanting to do so...

Anyway, on a personal note, B and I had a delicious sushi dinner at our favorite sushi joint last night, got some cake at The Buttery, came home and watched the Muppet Family Christmas, our ongoing favorite VHS tape. It was kind of our last weekend together closing ceremony, marking the official one-week mark until I leave.

At the risk of talking back to no one in particular, let me lay it out: I'm not just scared or worried about going to France because it's finally time for me to stand and deliver as a historian of Europe. I've spent all of these months dreading my departure because I'm leaving my wife behind for four months, because she has a professional position at the university and we can't fucking afford for either of us to stop working. I want to strangle people whose first reaction is "oh really? Why can't she just come with you?" There's this ossified sexist reaction, especially among people a generation or two older than us, that just assumes that when push comes to shove it's the woman's job to follow her man wherever he needs to go. Likewise, there's this...class-based? Historically anachronistic? something-reaction that a grad student couple can afford to pay their way on a meager stipend, because we obviously all come from big money (or something.) It's this unconscious kind of stupidity, this lack of any perspective on gender or the economic realities of my generation, that makes me spitting mad when I talk to people about the trip.

So yes, I'm excited to live in Paris, France, one of the greatest cities on earth. But I'm also dreading being away from B for that long and I'm not excited about the kind of financial vigilance that the cost of living, both there in the Ile-de-France and here on the California central coast, necessitates for both of us.