Moojinorbit

You may wonder where I’ve been, where fun, tromping-around-Europe-with-the-boys Nancy has gone. She was posting every other day there for awhile, putting up naughty and pretty pictures, telling inappropriate stories. Now we just get an occasional musing on some bit of Coke Zero miscellanea.

Those of you who know her may have guessed that I’ve been in the clutches of Sue. Yep, Sue’s had me by the throat. She’s been watching my every move like a hawk, not letting up until I complete each task she sets before me. She wakes me up at six in the morning, puts me to bed early, and kicks my butt in between. She has no time for shenanigans. She has no sense of humor. Tough cookie, that one. Kind of a bi-otch.

Who the F is “Sue”? you ask.

Well, if each of us is a kind of basket of different personalities; different, shall we say, expressions of our self, which I think we are, then Sue is my very serious, down-to-business, all-work-and-no-play, inner taskmaster. And, frankly, I’m pretty sure I’d be lost without her. Thanks to Sue I have a job. Thanks to Sue I’ve actually managed to publish a few scholarly articles and pull a couple of book projects together. Sue balances my checkbook. (Poor Sue.) To Sue I give gratitude for my pretty decent (you might be surprised) filing system. I may sabotage her sometimes, but without her I’d probably still be surviving on temp work and Top Ramen (as opposed to bartending and risotto).

Sue got me through seven years of graduate school (along with another more dangerous personality named Beatrice, who I’ll tell you about later if you remind me). She was named by one of my New York roomates, Cat Celebrezze, who noted–though she wasn’t the first–that I was a whole different beast when I was working on a paper, studying for an exam, or prepping for class. Not only was I not very playful or clever; I also had a tendency to stare blankly at her when she asked me a question, as if in a fugue. I was curt with answers, a slave to neat little task lists, and very, very quiet. Dull and stern. No time for small talk.

I don’t remember if Sue was the first of our personalities we actually named, but I do recall us having the conversation that led to Sue. Cat stands in our living room petting her iguana, Tyrone Capone Waylon Jennings, and bravely says something along the lines of,

“You get very serious when you’re working. Sometimes I’m afraid to talk to you. You get kind of intimidating.”

I swivel on my deskchair and fix her with a gaze. Cat takes a half step back. Sue is irritated, but leaves this conversation to me (the personality overlord). “I know,” I say, trying to relocate “gentle” in my voice. “Marcy and Diana [my undergrad friends and roommates] told me the same thing when I was writing my senior thesis. They weren’t crazy about being around me when I was writing.”

“It’s like a different personality,” Cat observes.

“Yeah. What do you think her name would be?”

“Something very plain, like Jan or Barb. No frills, no fun. ‘Sue’.” (Okay, here I have to apologize to Sue Foster who is, indeed, terribly fun and probably the opposite of my Sue.)

“Hmm. ‘Sue.’” And there it was. Nothing really exists for sure until it’s been named.

Cat had a sort of parallel personality to Sue that we called Joan. I just remembered this. Joan was kind of surly, a bit depressive, something of a goody goody. She was Cat (who back then went by Cathy) turned inward in a tight ball. The total opposite of Cat’s fiercer, Jack Daniels-driven counter-personality, Combathy, who liked to wreak all kinds of late-night havoc, leaving Cathy sheepish and guilty in the morning.

Anyway, in the years after Sue was officially named, my friends could recognize Sue and call her out. I’d be borderline grumpy, nagging my study group to stop talking about how many pints they drank last night and get on with the business at hand, and someone would go, “hey, is that Sue? Was Sue invited to our study group?” (Oh, but they didn’t mind getting copies of Sue’s notes, did they?) Marce could recognize her voice on the phone. So could Dubber and Grandpa, and eventually my mom. If Sue answered, most people opted to call back later.

Sue’s not the kind of person you’d bring to a party. But one thing I’ve realized over the years is that almost everyone I know has a Sue. I call that phenomenon, for example, Jenny-Sue. Katie-Sue. Dawny-Sue. Sue is that buckle-down side of us that simply has to focus or it won’t get done. Sue has no time for beating around the bush; she wants to know what you need and when you need it, so she can get back to work. She takes on a lot of responsibility. Who else is going to do it? And she worries a lot. But she get’s shit done.

Oh and by the way, guess what Cat does for a living now, in her post-PhD but free from academia life? She consults people (rock stars, for instance) about how to organize their disorganized stuff, especially archives, into nice, clean databases. She’s a master taskmaster. We might call her Cat-Sue. Here’s her professional website.

Sue did not write this post. But it’s now 8:54–only 6 minutes from the deadline she gave me before the work starts again. Nice talking to you.