I See Dead People

What was the name of that movie with Bruce Willis where the dead person the kid saw was Bruce Willis himself. Anyway, I sort of felt not like the kid but like Bruce Willis at this conference--a walking ghost. I went to this conference to publicize the book. I thought I might find some people who might write blurbs, some people who might look at review copies, or at least learn something. Well, I did learn something that will actually cause me to rewrite the last chapter (not sure if that's cool with the publisher). But it was of course just like any other academic conference and there is a reason I left this behind. These things bore the shit out of me! Academics talking to each other. Which is o.k., I guess, because someone has to talk to them But all that time and energy writing papers no one but a handful of people will ever look at. I mean, more power to them in some sense. Because there need to be some careful thinkers out there. It is just not a world for me. I want to go onto other things. So it was a real throwback and I truly felt I did not belong here, like Iwas observing the ghost of academics past. I realize there is a sense that this is not work I can really do well, although I do it alright, nor is work I particularly care to do. Maybe it is just that I am too lazy, I am willing to admit that. But maybe it is just that there are other things I want to do with my energy. I am not even sure at the end of the day they are more worthwhile, for example, the blog about Chinese women. But at least there I am not anayzing what some thinker said about some other thinker, which is too often the basis for an academic article. So perhaps it was a fitting farewell to academica and perhaps that was why I went