I confess that while I should be working on my thesis, I'd much rather write a book exploring whether the current system for developing major league baseball players is prohibitive to lower income players. (I also confess that I could somehow pass said book of AS my thesis, but that topic just doesn't sound like city planning to me.)
Matt W | 04.07.06 - 8:32 am | #

I confess that I was really excited last night when I discovered that my TimesSelect subscription allows me searchable access to the New York Times 'Vows' section all the way back to 1981. I confess that I currently have another browser window open, displaying the results of the search 'tiara'. I confess that I should probably be doing something other than brainstorming search criteria that will yield the most entertaining weddings, ('tiara' only came back with 18 results).
Marta | 04.07.06 - 8:39 am | #

I confess that I find the following 'how we met' story a little inappropriate:

"That September, Dr. Mendelson slipped into a back row at Adas Israel Congregation, a Conservative temple, for [a former patient]'s funeral. She noticed the man one seat over had a bare ring finger and knew the prayers."
Marta | 04.07.06 - 8:49 am | #

I should add that Dr. Mendelson is a pediatrician.

I'll stop now.
Marta | 04.07.06 - 8:55 am | #

I confess I've fallen so low it will be a good day if I buy ant traps, get my daughter to a doctor's appointment, and make a networking call to an old friend who's asked me to do it.
I don't pay | 04.07.06 - 9:25 am | #

I confess that I get confused often when talking with people. The following I confess: what's worse, I oftentimes lack interest in them when they speak to me about some matter or other.

I confess that my lack of interest sometimes leads me to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. For example, I just said "You're welcome" in an instance where the person speaking with me did not even say thank you. I'm sure I was just taken for a sarcastic bastard. Sarcastic, well, no. But definitely a bastard.
Richard G. | 04.07.06 - 11:05 am | #

I confess that, like Richard G., I commonly answer or remark to statements that were expected but not spoken. This is, I confess, due to the fact that I am a shameless "wait to speaker" rather than a good listener.
Matt W | 04.07.06 - 11:48 am | #

I confess that I succumbed to feelings of disciplinary hubris when I went to the first meeting of a class in the english department.

I confess that when I went to a symposium that was well-attended by students in english, french & italian, and comp lit, I was envious of the number of attractive women present in said departments, and indulged my desire to ogle.
ben w | Homepage | 04.07.06 - 12:56 pm | #

I confess to not listening as well as I should, to impatience, and to being too frequently annoyed by graduate students and junior faculty.
Jodi | Homepage | 04.07.06 - 1:01 pm | #

Oh yes, and I confess to not sharing in the bubbling excitement over the Spivak-a-thon because I expect that the exchange could too easily devolve into pointless jabbering about so-called Theory and so-called Higher Eclecticism.
Jodi | Homepage | 04.07.06 - 1:04 pm | #

I confess that I've also been thinking what Jodi said above w/r/t the upcoming Spivak event but I've been too cowardly to either join the group in an effort to change things or otherwise make my fears known via a comment.

I confess that this type of frightened silence on my part happens a lot.
John | Homepage | 04.07.06 - 1:08 pm | #

I confess that I'm definitely not participating in the Spivak-athon, because none of the participants on the "pro-theory" side have a vested interest in Spivak, but Holbo has a vested interest in Spivak fitting his typology.
Adam Kotsko | Homepage | 04.07.06 - 1:32 pm | #

I confess that my allergies are killing me again today and that I can't afford to keep losing entire days to this shit.

I confess that allergies make me angrier than a normal disease would, because there is precisely nothing wrong, but my immune system is overreacting and making me miserable.
Adam Kotsko | Homepage | 04.07.06 - 1:33 pm | #

Although I would be remiss to mention this in polite conversation, but maybe in drunken shoutfests (and poorly at that), I confess that I have a prejudice against Spivak as a windbag riding the Derridian coattails. This, considering that I have never read a lick of anything she has written outside of the Introduction to Of Grammatology. Nothing against Spivak, but her work is just not in my range of interest as of yet.

This makes me confess that I am oftentimes sexist in my intellectual orientations. But I would rather confess to be a sexist than to pose as a feminist in order to get laid and curry female favor. So I consider this confession an improvement.
Richard G. | 04.07.06 - 2:31 pm | #

I confess to wanting to go to the Prado, because somebody at Miss Tomb's said he saw all these Hieronymous Bosches there, and Bosch is not nearly highly considered enough.

I confess to thinking that 'Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills', which I only saw the other night even though it's 1989, is the most hilarious movie I've nearly ever seen, even though that idiot Maltin only gives it 1 and a half stars. That obligatory homo scene that Bruce Wagner always puts in was very much appreciated here, because you got to see Paul Bertran's ass. That black girl that played the porno To-Bell girl was flawless.

I confess that this exact early April day today, with the youngest buds and flowering trees, is as beautiful as any I've ever seen anywhere. Perfectly explains why April is the cruellest month--has the gall to show you things precisely young and untouched as though you wouldn't suffer from it the rest of the year.
metropolitan airhead | 04.07.06 - 4:32 pm | #

I confess that I don't give a shit what happens to Moussaoui--you can't always make people happy, and he doesn't the fuck care, on top of being a dumb shithead--so why should I?
metropolitan airhead | 04.07.06 - 4:40 pm | #

I would love to be really judgmental about this "sexist reading habits" thing, but it's a problem I share. I've never tried to learn a foreign language because I fell in love with a woman author. I had to redo my exam areas because I didn't include very many women at all (basically, Kristeva and Irigaray) -- and not consciously, but just because other women authors didn't occur to me.

This feminism thing is an uphill battle for me, then. I'm dubious about whether it's morally superior to "not pretend" though -- I mean, there are reasons to make an effort, even something that seems at first to be a "token gesture," aside from just getting women into bed, right?

After all, from what I hear, self-consciously "sensitive guys," who want to be praised for having anticipated exactly what all women want, don't have a lot of luck anyway.
Adam Kotsko | Homepage | 04.07.06 - 4:58 pm | #

I expect that the exchange could too easily devolve into pointless jabbering about so-called Theory and so-called Higher Eclecticism.

It almost certainly will, and a careless observer might imagine it was engineered for that reason.
m | 04.08.06 - 6:04 am | #

After all, from what I hear, self-consciously "sensitive guys," who want to be praised for having anticipated exactly what all women want, don't have a lot of luck anyway.

It's because they don't really know what women want. Why? Because they're too busy listening to themselves thinking about what women want than actually listening to women after having asked them what they want.

Comment aside, Adam, I find your comment (or doubt) on moral superiority compelling.

I confess that the rub is that getting from the former (thinking you know what women want) to the latter (actually knowing what women want) is sheer struggle, such that it makes class struggle seem like a distant abstraction. That is, until you're faced with said class struggle when you run into the rare old acquaintance who just had it made and thinks less of you for it.

Or you can work in or around 'prestigious' private institutions of higher education in Massachusetts.
Richard G. | 04.08.06 - 10:32 am | #

I confess that I'm pretty excited that I'm able to read Augustine in Latin, however slowly.
Adam Kotsko | Homepage | 04.08.06 - 3:59 pm | #

Oh, I don't know. Y'all sound like a bunch of resssentiniks to me. Especially this "m" person.

What's wrong with reading Spivak? Actually, I think she's often more interesting than most. Most theologians, just for instance.
Matt | Homepage | 04.08.06 - 5:46 pm | #

It's an acquired taste.
Adam Kotsko | Homepage | 04.08.06 - 6:18 pm | #

Like Moxie, you're saying.
Matt | Homepage | 04.08.06 - 6:31 pm | #

Well, m, you surely are a careless observer. And not the only one.

I, for one, have much more vested in Spivak than in the so-called higher eclecticism. But then perhaps, Adam, you were putting me in the anti-theory "side"?

I confess to a certain bafflement at the ways people have allowed sides to be imposed upon them in this way.
Jon | Homepage | 04.08.06 - 6:45 pm | #

Jon, I was in error.

You are most certainly on the (pro/non-anti-)-(T/t)heory "side"!
Adam Kotsko | Homepage | 04.08.06 - 6:48 pm | #

Adam, no problem.
Jon | Homepage | 04.08.06 - 7:06 pm | #

now that's settled; I've got an earth-shattering post on "Theory" up; it's right here.
Matt | Homepage | 04.08.06 - 7:13 pm | #

Matt, No it's not.
Adam Kotsko | Homepage | 04.08.06 - 7:22 pm | #

Surely you must be blind.
Matt | Homepage | 04.08.06 - 9:27 pm | #

I confess I wasnt around on Friday
Amish Lovelock | 04.09.06 - 5:24 pm | #