the person you are on the phone

i really hate phones. well, not phones, specifically. conversations employing phones. there's something creepy and disconnected and fuzzily fake about phone conversations, and consequently, i feel like i'm being creepy and disconnected and fuzzily fake when talking on the phone. and i probably am, just like how i am at parties with people whom i kind of know but not well enough to feel comfortable, impelling me inexorably towards awkward half-comments that land on the ground and just sit there, staring back up at me, unwilling to be entertaining or insightful or even what i meant in the first place.

although sometimes i think that phones are actually an instance in which people become more like themselves than they are normally? do you feel more acutely like you when you talk on the phone? do all of your insecurities and confidences become larger and more inescapable the nearer a phone gets to your face?

perhaps phone conversations are a chance to watch yourself, third-person-like, demonstrate what a caricature of yourself might look and act like. apparently, i am a terrified bunny. this is not a reassuring realization. i will store said realization in the back of my head and hope to god that it gets pushed off the edge of my memory precipice, which i conceive of much like the cliff in far side cartoon of lemmings leaping to their death. let us pray that this particular memory is not the "prepared" lemming with the inner tube.

at least my thoughts are adorable, if not brilliant, right?

this fear of phone calls would not be so problematic if i did not have to call people i don't know very well, as part of my (chosen) career. right now, i'm conducting a series of interviews for a panel paper i'm writing on women in congress. in order to collect information on the inner workings of congress, i have to phone women who worked as secretaries and staffers and interview them while furiously transcribing as much as i possibly can on my laptop writing writing writing and hoping to god that i don't miss anything really excellent amidst nervous overworked shakiness.

i begin to wish that i had learned to type properly approximately 30 seconds into each interview. the wishing takes more time and brain energy than one might expect, immediately setting my transcriptions back and launching me into a panic that generally does not subside until the interview is well past 30 minutes.

i am not trained to do oral histories. i verbally flail around for information at least once each interview, and i generally feel as if i have somehow insulted the person at least twice by the time i'm wrapping up. wrapping up almost always involves an apology.

after each interview, i write a follow-up email that is calm and composed and thankful. it does not resemble the person on the phone at all. the interviewee in all liklihood wishes that the person writing the email had been the person conducting the interview, but all of that is done and over and there is nothing anyone can do about the preceding awkwardness except shove it gently towards the memory precipice. until i go present the information at a conference.

are these two people - writing and talking rachel - actually entirely different individuals? would the world implode if they ever met?

i am coming to realize that my writing and wildly enthusiastic embrace of any and every piece of information i can get my hands on are simultaneously my two greatest strengths and also the qualities that render me potentially volatile amidst the day-to-day interactions that fill my pre-abd graduate years. especially classes. at least once every semester, i nearly break down into a tearful, angry mess in class. it is because i care. it is because i care, and am incapable of controlling myself. conferences are going to be a blast.

so i guess that these two qualities i have are not entirely irreconcilable. they're just generally at odds with one another within the context of daily interactions. i have arranged and cultivated my innate qualities so that i am more at home in and amenable to academic life than daily life with friendly couples get-togethers and coffee shop run-ins and idle chitchat. i only get along easily with those i know very, very well and those i don't know at all and can deal with directly, rather than through some handheld device that will possibly suck my soul out through my ear.

at least interviews are onetime shots in the dark. they are not extensive enough to allow me to launch into anything intensely personal and my role is one of formal listener, rather than talker. i do not talk if i can help it. i have been told that i am a very good listener.

if only i could figure out how to translate that skill to my everyday interactions. exempt from speaking! of course, given an imposed silence, i would immediately want to talk all the time. because being a contrarian is an academically useful quality as well.

i quit.