Compromise

Today, everything in my life seems like a compromise. A compromise in which I've had to give up something important or several important things in order to have what I have. Today, I wonder if these compromises are worth it, whether what I have is worth having. In all this, thank God for Tot's smile and jubilance, without which things would be a whole hell of a lot worse.

How can I tell whether these compromises are worth it, just the cost of doing business, just the way it is and I should toughen up and not be such a whiner? My feeling about this fluctuates. Today, well, today just sucks.

Therapy tomorrow. That's good. And that's all.

Losing the Faith

I had been thinking seriously about folding up the blog because I started it as an academic life blog, and I'm getting to the point where I don't even want to hear about the academy! Perhaps this is just another phase in the life of an academic -- the point where having gotten on the tenure-track and ruined her life with outrageous student loans, one must ask: is this worth it? Maybe this is what the second year of t-t academic life is all about, losing the faith in what we're doing and then, hopefully, finding it again. But I decided to post today because I really need your wisdom -- especially to know if this is a phase and what I can do to make things better. Here are some of the things that have made me lose the faith in what I'm doing in the past few months (hence my bloggy silence):

• Morale at Specialized University (lookie! I made a pseudonym for my institution -- that is, the one I work in, not the one I should be checked into) is disastrously low. Money issues have been bad there for the past several years, which has made many faculty members cynical and uncooperative. One of the slightly more cooperative ones even proudly declares that he is cynical. Many faculty members are at each other's throats. Faculty and administration are having a face-off, and those who are more vocal about trying to repair this relationship by listening to the other side are considered by many to be "too soft." Since this blog is one space where I can speak back to this unreservedly, I just want to say: these people who think that barking in administration's faces is going to help the situation are total f***ing idiots. There's a lot of sky-is-falling stuff going on at SU, and I know much of the crap is because people are very very scared. (This is the nicest thing I can say about these people.) I'm scared too, especially having moved Absurdist Family across the country.
  

• So what usually keeps me engaged in the work despite depressing institutional crap is teaching. But my last quarter was terrible and really instigated this downward spiral. An us-them relationship developed in one of my courses that I was never able to totally repair. (I repaired things with the ringleader, who was pretty reflective about the whole thing eventually, but it was too late.) Everyone has bad classes, but this was really hard for me because of my situation in the institution. Let me explain: this place is a Specialized University -- not in my specialty or anywhere near. While the mission of the university certainly includes what I do and my department, we're really seen as tangential. Most, not all, students are interested in very practical, non-intellectual things. Everyone agrees that what I teach is important, but generally students don't want to take my courses and aren't good at or engaged in what I teach. I knew that when I took the job. Many of us in the academy live with that. Because of the particular mission of the university and the immediate needs of students, the slant on my core courses is not what I value, though I had worked out a workable compromise that was well within the scope of the class. Perhaps more important, one of my core interests includes a focus that many in my department find absolutely essential for these students. Great! But in an assignment that I gave (to a class that did not blow up), it became clear that many students really believe in something that I think is totally wrong. And much of American society agrees with them. Now, of course, this means that I should spend even more time on similar issues and be proud of getting even one student to think more deeply about such things. Here's the crux though: in order to perform this great educational service of working within and against, I must continue to spend a great deal of my life constantly confronting these mistaken values (I was going to say "evils," but then thought maybe these students, faculty, etc. really are that ignorant -- I'm being charitable here). In short, I have to swim in the ick if I want to try to do some good there. And I'm not so sure I can swim (really live so much of my life) in the ick and keep a hold of my sanity and my best self, which is not only important to me, but to being good to my child and my family. (I'm just not able to completely compartmentalize my attitude or life.)
  

• Working at the CSA farm with people who've chosen alternative lower-cost and value-based lifestyles, our bad money situation with my terrible credit even in a place where we could buy a house that costs less than our rent if I only had decent credit and a downpayment, and AL's being totally overworked and also screwed by his workplace have all led me to feel that I've screwed up all of our lives with all this debt. So I feel trapped. AL also feels trapped. We each recently confessed a half-hearted hope to be let go at our respective jobs. (And I took out almost $200,000 in student loans for that??? What kind of idiot am I?)

• The very latest news that brought all of this to a head yesterday was that I found out that a colleague who got hired when I did is teaching three electives in a row. I, on the other hand, am teaching the core courses. So in two years, I will have taught one elective, while s/he will have taught three. (This is the same person who used my syllabus, that issue I wrote about forever ago and then poofed the post, but it's been so long now that I think it doesn't matter.) Why does this bother me? I realize that Colleague's specialties are sexier, more appropriate to the university and desirable to the students than my specialty. That said, I also found out that another colleague is teaching back-to-back electives. While I am teaching none this year. I haven't made a lot of noise about teaching electives lately because I'm trying to be amenable and flexible. Also, I thought that there were basically a limited number of possible elective offerings. Clearly, I am operating from mistaken assumptions. What's disastrous about this whole situation is that I can't quite teach the courses I'd be excited out of my mind to teach because of certain institutional limitations. But one way of restoring my faith in what I'm doing is to teach an elective I'm happy about, since the focus of the core courses is, for me, a compromise. I thought that each of us basically got to teach one elective a year. I was totally and incredibly wrong. So I'm mad at myself and my chair, who I know gave me the impression of a limited amount of elective availability. So my department, which had been a place where I could at least feel that we were all in this working-against-the-grain together, now doesn't feel so good either.
  

When I told Best Faculty Friend about my loss of faith in what we're doing at SU and how I want to retire from all the crap and go live on a farm, s/he said that I'm too engaged with political stuff to do that. But I'm not so sure. I would love to homeschool Absurdist Tot far away from any place that brings TV or computers into the elementary school classroom. AL says he wants to spend more time with Absurdist Tot and me, but he feels he's always at work, preparing for work, trying to relax after work. He's actually great, as much as someone who works a full-time job he hates can be. My father sucked at engaging with us kids at the end of his long sucky workday.

I haven't told BFF about this latest development of my totally misunderstanding elective availability, but I'm sure I will very soon. I'll see what s/he thinks.

So, supposing you've actually made it down this far, what do you think? How do you find the faith again in what you're doing? I don't want to poison my classes or my work or my life with all this. I want to find a constructive thing to focus on. BFF gave me a good idea for revising one of my core courses to focus on one of my interests, so at least I'd be reading things I'm interested in. (I don't usually "theme" my courses beyond the subject matter, but I'm excited about what I'll be able to accomplish by theming this one. And I need something to make me excited about these classes, so being this tiny bit selfish seems much better than what could happen if I don't try to reinvigorate the work for me.) I trust that many of you have been through these kinds of things before me -- I'd love some advice.

Fantasy Life

So the CSA and the farmer's market both ended last week, leaving me only to copious fantasizing about farming. Now I realize that farming is not an easy life, but right now I'm dreaming of being supported modestly with farming-related work, writing, and AL's business, which he's been wanting to start up in earnest for a while now. Sigh.

So what I'm dreaming of is having a limited-menu restaurant or maybe an agro-tourism bed-and-breakfast. There's a lot of fabulous local food here. It's just that a lot of people don't know where to go or are more interested in going to cholesterol huts than farms. So a restaurant that features local organic food would make this area's bounty accessible to those with more money than time. Really this comes from the fact that every time I make a meal, AL says I should open a restaurant. I've tried to tell him that when you've got wonderful fresh ingredients, you really can't go wrong. But he thinks it's me. Sweetheart.

Realistically, I'm probably better off trying to start a home bakery, since that's what I seem to be good at. (We won't talk about my failed canning attempt yesterday. We'll be eating some tomato sauce in the coming days.) But I love the idea of a restaurant, maybe on someone else's farm or orchard that already regularly brings people in. Here are a couple things that would definitely be on the menu based on family reactions: potato leek soup (hot, so it's not really Vichyssoise), banana bread, zucchini bread, omelettes. I'm going to work on a carrot cake this week because it's Tot's second birthday on Friday, if you can believe it! I'd also have lots of sausage and pork products on the menu because I know several sources of really fabulous sausage, bacon, and ham. Like phenomenal food that would bring all but the super-kosher back to the pig. And of course everything would be organic -- if not officially certified, then at least small o organic supervised by yours truly.

Imagine going into a restaurant -- not a really expensive one or ooh la la one -- and being able to be told about every piece of food -- and knowing that each thing is organic and sustainably grown/raised. I want to go there, which is how I know it's at least a decent idea because those of us who are really into organic and local food know that once you turn your back on CAFO meat, you really limit your take-out and dining options. This place would also have to be extremely kid friendly. I do know of a restaurant that was all or mostly organic that went belly up, but it didn't market itself well, I think. It was too specialized. The trick would be that my eaterie would need to have pretty ordinary food at ordinary prices because most people are going to be used to going to Applebees and in order to stay in business I'd have to rope those people in unless it was located on a farm.

Realistically, I might start developing organic baked good recipes in earnest. A new bakery just started up and they're really good so I wouldn't bother except that when I asked about organic, the baker said that he's really going more in the direction of gluten-free. Of course this is important. But my hook would be that everything is organic. Always. All the time.

Even more realistically, AL and I hope to buy a house and have a big garden and that will be the end of it. But even that's just fantasy right now. But if you like the restaurant or baked goods idea, let me know. I'm reading this great book called You Can Farm by Joel Salatin and he talks about a home bakery as a viable farming centerpiece enterprise. So who knows?

There are other things going on in my life, but this one is absolutely the most fun.

Academia: Noted by Its Absence Plus Digressions

I started to take over Maude's comments to explore how disconnected I feel from academia. This is the way in which this is still an academic blog: I can feel academia's absence -- along with it, most of the sense that I'm well-educated and/or worthy of respect or being listened to. At work, I have to deal with a young doofus who treats me like a bimbo -- he is surprised when I say I can't recognize quotes from Speed and Rocky V. I'm half-tempted to quote 9 to 5 at him the next time he insists on playing movie trivia: "I'm no girl, I'm a woman. I'm not your wife or your mother. . .or even your mistress. I am an employee and as such I expect to treated equally -- with a little dignity and a little respect." Would he get it? No way. Would he see the connection to himself -- note that the other night he said "goodbye, girls," to me as well as a woman who looks at him as a son (she is probably ten years than I am)? Pests like him get on my nerves. But it's not really him, maybe, as much as that here in Urban Home City I am a kid again -- with the boyfriend I had a million years ago and jobs well outside of my particular expertise. It's almost as if I didn't just write a dissertation, contributing to the knowledge of my field. As if I've never written at all. Never done anything at all, but am just older, still waiting for my life to start.

In all fairness, I remember feeling very far from my scholarly expertise at Adventure U, where most of the other members of my department were instructors and had no theoretical or scholarly backing or, even, in some cases, interest in the best thinking in the field.

My biggest excitement at the moment is not how I am ever going to de-fuzz the article I wrote for an edited collection (though that still needs to be done) or think through some problem in my teaching or theory, but what I'm going to cook tonight from the farmer's market. I'm not complaining about cooking, or the farmer's market, or, even, for once, being pregnant, but I'd like to know how it is that people maintain a sense of connection to their fields even when they are taking unofficial sabbaticals from teaching. I know many of you have done this. Please tell me how.

I've spent the weekend in lovely sloth. It is truly and miserably hot in Urban Home City right now. I've been puttering, putting my hand on my belly to see if I can feel kicking (Absurdist Lover got kicked or maybe butt-bumped -- who can know??? -- last night) or just the same fluttering I've been feeling, and reading The Handmaid's Tale again. On Monday, we saw the baby on the ultrasound. I distinctly saw a head, though all sorts of other things the doctor pointed out were murky. I was kind of shocked for a couple days, unable to really communicate what was going on. I'm having a baby -- and my life will never be the same (not a terrible thing in itself as I was driving myself nuts and going on Zoloft and all that, but totally scary nonetheless). But also I went to a male doctor -- a nice one, but still -- instead of a female midwife. It was more clinical an experience than I would have liked. Also, my belly has totally pooched, and I can barely fit into anything. Absurdist Lover continues to be his slim sculpted self. His belly button will continue to be an inny. I feel like he too should go through some physical transformation. Instead he lets me be my beached whale self and tends to many things. He's waiting for me to get my act together now so we can purchase some meat to go with all those farmer's market vegetables. I should go.

And Now for Something Somewhat Different. . .

It's not that I have anything brilliant to say right now, but I have to push that totally depressed and depressing post down the line. It's just too much. And it feels a bit too "look at me! look at me! my life sucks, and I'm not saying why. feel sorry for me" for my taste.

So what's going on? There's a bit of trouble in Camper-land, and I'm staying at my folks for a few days. I've been trying to sort things out, alternating with wanting to hide under the covers. There's just a lot going on. I'm underemployed (I'm certified to teach the SAT but I haven't yet been scheduled for a class -- it's a slow part of the year, but will pick up during the summer) which means that I need to get another job, pregnant and in need of pre-natal care (12 weeks on Friday -- this is nuts), and homeless. Now, the homeless thing needs a bit of explaining. I have family and friends in Urban Home City, none of whom would ever knowingly let me take to the streets. I am not without a place to stay. There are couches and extra rooms aplenty -- and I could probably do a rotation of several days here and there for a long while. That's not what I mean by homeless. I have resources. What I mean is I don't have a home, a space that is mine and has my stuff in it. The camper is the closest thing to having my own space to be comfortable in and have some privacy, but it's not mine, I don't have my stuff, and it's prone to trouble. When I left Grad City, I put most of my stuff in storage to take off to Adventure U. When I left Adventure U, I took about half of what I had to Camper-land. So I've been living with a tiny fraction of my voluminous and much-loved stuff. (As in, I now have only two shirts that fit.) Both Adventure U and Camper-land represented these big adventures. Well, I'm adventured out. I need to nest. I don't have my stuff in which to nest nor an apartment (it's also getting super-hot in Camper-land) in which to put my stuff. What about getting my stuff? It all comes back to the same thing: money. And since I need an apartment and pre-natal care, getting my stuff from 2,000 miles away -- well, that's not a huge priority. So I'm not sure I'm going to have my stuff by the time this baby is born in October. I realize this is more emotional than practical, but hormonally and situationally, I think I'm prone to more whining than usual.

I've been thinking a lot about the future. Since this kid is going to want to pop out at some point October-ish, I feel pretty stupid trying to get adjunct teaching for the fall. Who wants someone to start the semester and then be out? If anyone has any advice about pregnancy and adjuncting, please please please let me know. I'll probably try for it anyway on the off-chance that maybe I can get a sub for two weeks and then be back. Would you believe that my undergraduate Alma Mater is accepting applications only now (for about a month) for the adjunct pool for next year? Nightmare.

I also think that I really must prepare myself for going on the market in the fall. I mean, it's fine to be underemployed and artsy and everything for a while, but I'm going to have a baby. I need a serious, somewhat dependable, somewhat well-paying job with insurance and benefits. Which means I need to get myself to work on publishable articles. I probably won't get any teaching between now and then, but I've taught at least a 2/2 for 5-1/2 years, so that should be enough, no? I'll have to work on my materials as well. At least I have them. If there's anything else I should do to prepare myself for the market, well, I can't think of it.

Finding a job and working on my conference paper and getting some stuff into publishable shape is all on hold at the moment. Why? My laptop won't boot. I've been having problems with it for the last two months. At first we just thought it needed a new battery. That helped, but didn't fix it. Now we're getting a new adapter. If that's not it, then there's something wrong with the intake board or something. My dad ordered the adapter, and it's due here in a couple days. The early draft of my conference paper -- that is, the relevant crap from my diss that I put in a new file to be worked on -- is on my laptop. I even left my flash drive in Camper-land. Not good. It's just so stupid.

So between the emotional stuff and the overwhelming amount of practical stuff necessary for me to get a life and provide one for this new life who has taken up residence in my body, I'm exhausted and overwhelmed and want to hide under the covers. I don't feel strong at all -- strangely, both Absurdist Lover and I look at when I was in Grad City dissertating as a time when I felt stronger (is that screwed up, or what?) and handled things better. And, of course, I need to feel strong to deal with all this crap. Vicious cycle. Plus, I want to have some fun. Enough of all this crap! I want to have some fun! Both the pursuit of fun and escapism and throwing off all the crap enough to get small pieces done and make things better would be much easier with more caffeine than I should consume, more alcohol that I should consume, or anti-depressants. I guess I'm growing. Growing more likely to hide under the covers and whine. (Oh, wine and the inevitable hangover where one's focus dwindles to two things: the pain and feeling stupid. Oh, the promises never to do it again. Sigh. Pregnancy is for the birds. Even the birds are smart enough to just sit on the egg and not try to grow the damn thing inside them. It does somewhat cramp one's style.*)

Anyhoo, that's what's going on with me. So hurry up and blog folks, 'cause I can't drink or go out and raise hell.

*Oh, I know that 40 weeks isn't that long in the scheme of things and giving up really drinking and the caffeine IV and (whimper, whimper) sushi isn't so bad in light of the miracle of a new life growing in my body and coming into the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. And I give up the stuff because I want my baby to have the best chance to develop. Yadda yadda yadda. I know I'm supposed to be all glowy and transcendent about this magical process. Yeah whatever. My mother drank coffee and alcohol, ate crap, smoked, and did drugs when I was in utero. (Of course, she was much younger, and the environment wasn't as polluted. Have you heard about the pharmaceuticals found in the water all over the country? I saw it on Democracy Now. It's pretty terrifying. Estron, a HRT found in the area of the country where breast cancer is at its most prevalent? Duh. I guess it's not just PG&E causing trouble for the S.F. Bay Area anymore. This is really not deserving of a parenthesis in an endnote.) Yes, I want to be a better mother. But I also want to complain. And if I suddenly got all saintly about what I'm giving up to give my baby a better start -- well, y'all'd know I was full of shit.

My Memoir

Life in chaos. No firm ground.

Maude tagged me for the memoir meme,encouraging me to sum up my life right now in six words. I'm sure I've never been so succinct. I never thought about it before, but Munch's screamer is screaming so he can't hear anything. I'm too worn out for screaming. I'm trying for movies and books to drown everything out. Suffice it to say, life is shit, and I almost wish I were dead.

Here are the meme rules:

1. Write your own six word memoir.

2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.

3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.

4. Tag five more blogs with links.

5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

Who to tag? Hilaire and Medieval Woman, who've both had bad news this month and could maybe use the diversion, Sisyphus,whose sense of humor and command of metaphor may just cheer me up, Khora, who needs an excuse to blog more, and T.E., just because.

Excitement Dissipates, Bringing Back Confusion

The impossible has occurred. It will now snow in Los Angeles and be fifty below in North Dakota. Oh yeah, both of those already happened. Which makes my news of finishing and turning in my article early fairly tepid news. Oh well.

So now I don't have an external deadline for writing except for those recommendation letters. These rec letters are a great irony to me -- who cares about my opinion about anything, much less the potential and perseverence of these particular students? Do you see where I am? I am living in a camper in a campground with no job. What do I do for letterhead? I guess just make up my own. Poor students.

The fact that I've actually been working on the article pretty regularly shouldn't impress anyone -- actually the article is one of the things that I feel pretty sure about. When worried about other things, it is wonderful to have a counterirritant. Other things are absurd and bumpy-lumpy in my world just now. After five years in graduate school fairly certain that I wanted to ride the tenure track, here I am, PhD'd and at a loss. I don't know where my life is going to go now. I can't tell you where I'll be living in six months, three months. . .Everything is up in the air.

Having life be eventful and uncertain means that there certainly is more to write about, but less self with which to write. Nora Ephron's parents used to remind her that everything was copy. I suppose that eventually I'll be seated at a desk somewhere writing about this. But where will that desk be and how will my life be constituted? Stephen King says that one of the secrets of his success is a happy and settled home life. Can I order that from Amazon? Special delivery?

Stephen King says three or four hours of writing and reading per day. Certainly I've only spent a couple hours fine-tuning the article. Reading would be good. Surely I should get to work on Project 2. Or find a job, an apartment, a life. Whichever comes first. I should send out some work. That might make me feel like I exist again in the literary world, at least.

Monday Morning Pre-Writing Existential Attack

(Okay, it is not, strictly speaking, morning, but I haven't yet taken a shower or had a conversation, therefore, it is morning to me.)

It is Monday morning and all of my favorite bloggers are doing something crazy -- like working. Many of you are in your offices, all aflurry because you have to teach soon, while others of you are likely doing the impossible and grading in your offices. I always shared an office. It was impossible to get anything done except when no one was around. And the outward and social aspects of teaching made it hard to shut the door and launch into reading student writing. Often on days I taught two classes before 11am, I didn't even want to go back to my office. I was spent after two and a half hours of straight teaching, saying the same things again to my second class, realizing all I had forgotten to say to my 8am. I would go to a coffeehouse or restaurant and sit and be silent. I loved that. Being in public, but being quiet. I've gotten a lot of work done like that over the years. During the dissertation phase, it was great to get myself out of the house. I couldn't just wander over to the fridge or the TV if I were in public. Nor could I scream or cry. These were good things. I had to maintain somewhat in public.

Now I wake up and try to write in my house/camper. Before I even sit down, I do something (sweep, clean the cat box, feed the cat, arrange the bed as neatly as possible since making it is impossible); just in case I get into writing I want to have something to show Absurdist Lover (he says he likes that one now, go figure) that I haven't just been lying on the bed twitching. Also if I end up on the bed twitching then at least the bed is nice and neat, ready to be twitched on. Of course, it's much harder to become totally inspired by recent blog posts if they are not there. Manufacturing inspiration is exhausting.

Last night I was thinking about how today is the day I should get serious. I've been looking at these community college jobs. I need to actually apply for them. Sure, it might be run-of-the-mill procrastination, but I fear my reluctance to apply for them is that I don't really want that kind of job. This is terrible, because applying for those jobs is the easiest thing I can do. Familiar. Even if most of the processes are completely mystified, it is a mystery hell that I know. Then there are all these other possibilities, some of which I've explored and don't like. What I'd really like is something flexible (which maybe community college jobs are, but I doubt it. Where's the flexibility if you're teaching five classes? Am I insane?). I used to not mind that my life was all about work (okay, I did, but mainly I was complaining about needing more time and headspace to write). Now I mind. Of course I have no real idea what's going to happen with Absurdist Lover and me, but I'm hoping that we'll have a family, so I want to line up something that is more flexible. Also, I just don't want to have to be nice anymore. I'm not good at being nice on a longterm basis, as people in offices need to do. I'm just way too moody. (Did this come up a lot at Adventure U, I wonder?) Really, if I'm totally honest, the thing is I want to write. I've written encyclopedia articles and edited dissertations -- I like that work. I especially like that I don't have to show up. I don't feel very presentable lately. (I know I'm totally neurotic about this presentable thing, but if you knew my family and how I grew up, you'd understand that being presentable in the professional world is not something that comes easily to many of us. Except for universities, I've only ever worked in small businesses. I'm not a corporate type, even though I can definitely get into a business-y mode for a while, usually with the help of Working Girl.) Right now, I'd like my work to speak for itself. I'd like to be able to hunker down, preferably in my own space, and do my work, which probably has to be writing because it's the only thing I know how to do -- and only come out when it's done. Anyone have any ideas for a job like this? Teaching ain't it. I think about how much I love the administrative work I've gotten to do, but I think that most of those jobs are 9-5 jobs. If anyone has a great idea about how to, I don't know, become a freelance writer, let me know.

All of this big self-reflective stuff is swirling in my head when really I just need to settle down into the article I'm writing. I only need to go through the last nine pages and rework them. That's not bad. And I want to focus, if possible, on another of my (alas unpaid) projects. I'd really like to send some work out actually. I'd really like to get that done. But of course in order to get to sending work out, first I'd have to actually stop ruminating about where money's going to come from in the future and just be happy that I have what I need now, work through several pages of the article, move on to some work on Project 2, then print out work to send out. You know what? Even if Absurdist Lover won't be back in a couple hours and want to go to the store and pick up a dozen and five things (we would've done this yesterday, but it rained all day) and then hang out and watch movies/play games/eat, I still wouldn't get all that stuff done in one day. It just doesn't happen. Also I have to call the doctor and make sure she's not going to order an MRI. Can't I do that tomorrow? Earnest, focus. What's this article about again? Isn't this collection one you're very excited to be a part of? Didn't you wait on pins and needles for the editor to get back to you? What are you waiting for?

Turning Over a New Winter Leaf

So while people are getting jobs and moving forward into teaching the spring semester, I am also going forward. I'd decided after making a huge egg, turkey bacon, and pancake feast for Absurdist Lover that today was going to be the day that I started considering writing a priority activity -- not something that I maybe get to, but something that is more important than staring off into space and checking email several times a day. I know that in my life I've considered writing a priority activity -- there was that crazed countdown of the dissertation. (I used to be a prolific writer. Of course people used to publish what I write -- and that hasn't happened in a while either. Could it be that specializing in My Field actually paradoxically makes it harder to write? Or is this just an excuse I've been using for a number of years because I'm scared of failure? Or, as Similarly Neurotic/Cool Friend says, I'm afraid of success?) During the dissertation it was painfully and woefully clear to me every day when I woke up that the most important thing I could do all day long was write. I woke up in such a panic that many days I was able to get to it before 5pm.

So after making breakfast I immediately tucked myself in to a spot under the loft at the foot of the bed, Mr. Tabby at my side. What could make me want to write more than being curled up in a tight spot with my laptop? Well, then I checked my email and checked my other email and now there are two students who want letters of recommendation. I'm barely even in academe anymore. One is a bright student from a hard course a number of years ago who says she wants a rec letter for grad school. But I haven't seen or heard from her since that class. So I said she should let me know more about what she's planning on doing. (I admit that part of this is that I just want to make sure that she's really thought this through. If she's already an academic freak, well, there's no thwarting her, but if she's a normal person who just thinks that this is some natural extension of undergrad, well -- I want her to know that grad school is not like undergrad. We don't all find ourselves in grad school because we were such perfect and hardworking undergrads. Some of us were very slapdash about our studies and did extraordinarily well, but only when the subject was something that gripped us. (Of course, here I mean myself.) Grad school is not undergrad with longer books.)

Anyway, you can see how the good idea-or-not-ness (you see what not being in the academy is doing for my language use) of grad school could make me head off course, lured by one of my soapbox sirens. I'm supposed to be working on an article. In fact, writing should be The Thing I Do every day or at least weekdays. The first thing. The most important thing. I can only, likely, work on one writing project at a time (which actually suggests a great deal about how I need to use my time if I'm going to re-enter the academy: if I'm going to write and not go insane feeling I've wasted my life writing narrow academic articles in my field to claw my way to tenure and promotion (not that there is anything wrong with this in theory, but if I do it, I think I'll be mad at myself forever, since the idea was never that academic writing would supplant other public and/or literary writing), I have to make time for writing non-academic pieces -- and it will mean that I will not publish as fast as my academic peers. (It's hard being an ambitious person with too many interests. As an advisor once said to me, I like to have many different projects going at once and then I want to push them all forward at the same time. So they all go slowly. This made sense when I was in Advisor's office. Entering her office was often like entering a very different world from that made me feel like a visitor from a different planet. She offered me coffee from her thermos. I would carefully wash out the coffee mug I would use in the department sink and pad back in her office to set it on her bookshelves noiselessly. Very different from going and visiting other people's offices, with their big desks and the visitor's chairs set meaningfully apart from everything.)) Not publishing as fast as my peers, whether in my field or my backburner field, is a continuing pain in the butt. And I also know I have to sweep all that envy crap away (maybe I need to read Bonnie Friedman's Writing Past Dark again) and write -- whether it's this article I need to write or anything else. I work at my own pace. Perhaps I'm at the crest of a whole new writing jag. That would be nice.

Despite today's delays, I have been reading Book I Should Have Read Months Ago. Academic discourse is a bit overblown and self referential, isn't it? This book is pioneering, so of course there is a heavy lit review from other fields and a tedious repetition of not only the main argument (which is simple enough) but certain collections of sentences. Another book I read that I see cited everywhere but is really not that brilliant or interesting (one of those "taking stock of who is saying what" kind of books) repeats entire paragraphs in multiple chapters. In fields closely allied with notions of good writing and close reading, this must be outlawed. If I'm reading closely, then I notice repeated sentences! I ARRGH!

So I'm going to try to work on reading some more of this book and writing 500 words about/for this article. It's only 2pm. That's not too terrible. (I just had to tell Absurdist Lover that his coming in to the camper every five seconds and talking to me is a wee bit distracting from writing. He was supposed to work for his dad, but apparently his dad is busy trying to collect boxes to ship things in. So instead AL has leveled the camper, fixed two leaks, fixed his car, and is now trying to find something else to do. All that, while I have done nothing but expanded my waistline and procrastinated doing anything of value. If I don't watch it, he's going to try to clean up my clutter. ARRRGH!)

This is Earnest Writer, reporting to you live where Sloth Beast is rising from her inertia to open a document and consider working.

Things Have Progressed, While I Have Regressed

So my life has spiraled back to an earlier time when it would have been normal to go over to my folks to do laundry, live on money borrowed from family members, and drive an abused car (not abused by me, this time). But this doesn't remind me of being younger. In fact, it's completely strange because I haven't done this in so long. Okay, I've borrowed copious amounts of money from my parents over the years, but not while totally unemployed (oh, except the summer -- but I had things then -- you know, like an apartment). Going over to my folks' place to do laundry -- that is completely new. I've lived in apartment buildings that had communal laundry facilities, most of the time. I've certainly gone to laundromats, but I don't go if I have a choice. So now I drive over a bunch of mountain roads, then through Strip-Mall City to get to a freeway which gets me to another freeway and another so I can go and do my laundry -- oh and see the folks, too. My grandmother has graciously let me borrow money so that I don't have to freak out about money while I'm dealing with the breast thing. But dealing with the ongoing family drama? Oy!

I finally got my stuff from Adventure U shipped to me, so now I have academic books and thus much less reason to procrastinate working on that article that is due at the end of the month -- of course, what does this mean if I don't go back into the academy full-time? I applied to teach adjunct at a community college -- we'll see whether they'll be able to give me a class or two. But in the academy and in certain parts of the literary world, the attitude is that writing is a gentlemen's pursuit -- as if we're all informed amateurs, who can afford with our landed wealth, to write for the love of knowledge and literature -- for nothing at all. Monetary remuneration does not satisfy us -- we contribute to the world our words for the sheer love of doing so. Of course, I do write for the love of it, and, if you're in the academy, writing for publication is absolutely connected to your livelihood, but I wish I could write more and do other things less and that means getting paid for my writing. I have to figure that one out. Right now, as I told my grandmother, the responsible presentable version of me who gets stuff done is on vacation. So we're just holding on until then. Really, I'm laboring to figure out how to write about my recent experiences at Adventure U. How do I write about that? Who do I write it for? Who wants to hear about it? What do different people need to understand about all that stuff that I've been studying for a number of years but have only written about for the academy -- and all the Adventure U stuff which I've only written about for close friends? I can't quite figure out how to begin. I know that I have to find some little corner to write about and see what happens. But I also wish I could see myself writing something for New Yorker, or Harper's, or whatever and also contribute to my care and feeding while I'm doing that. On the other hand, my grandmother gave me some money so I wouldn't have to worry about money for the rest of the month. So maybe I should do something insane: like not worry about money until the end of the month? She told me that I really should be writing. Yeah, she and everyone else, including Absurdist Lover. I need to get working on that stuff. Oh and of course this article for Adventure U. Agghh.

I'm going to read a chapter of this book that I think will help me get into my research (and was also written by one of the editors and should've been read by me months ago -- like before I send them a proposal).

And by the way: Mr. Tabby is okay. The vet here who saw him (in this zoo of a clinic -- I'm not sure what I think about it -- it's crazy there) said that his blood work looked fine -- no suggestion of renal problems, which is wonderful. They had to send away for his hyperthyroid meds (in a paste), but he has seemed much more lethargic and unhappy when I give it to him, so I've been undermedicating him, which I know may not be the best thing, but there it is. They also checked his blood pressure, but they did such a half-assed job at it that I don't believe a thing they said. I don't feel confident in this vet like I did in Grad City. But anything's better than vets around Adventure U.

Online On Snowy Pond: Update

Hi everyone! It was only this weekend that we got internet in the Duck Pond Campground. And Absurdist Lover didn't have to work for his father this weekend so we decided to stay in and enjoy -- yes, you guessed it -- the snow. I lived in Urban Home City for twenty-three years and saw snow fall from the sky like twice. But we're out far enough that I guess it does snow. Crazy.

I've been back on the way outskirts of Urban Home City and away from Adventure U and living in an RV on Duck Pond for three weeks now (including that sojourn to Dreadful Conference for which I was still sufficiently jetlagged and whiplash-culture-clash-wearied to be boring at both the blogger meetup and my interview). I'm starting to get my shit together or at least I've come up for air long enough to realize that there is so much to do. I really don't want to do any of it, but it must be done. Because we're pretty much already at the point where we're running out of money. We needed a lot of start-up things, like pans and flatware and stuff. We may have twenty-four feet long of living space, but we use every bit of it. I've been cooking -- mostly breakfast. We now have a waffle iron (that my parents had promised me for about two years now, but finally CostCo had the exact kind again right before Christmas so I got it for Christmas) and have investigated Trader Joe's amazing Swedish pancakes and pretty much all things Trader Joe's as I had promised myself for the last five and a half years. (Absurdist Lover is also all about Trader Joe's, since its ready-made stuff totally subsidized his recent bachelorhood and is a big hit with both him and his dad.)

There are all these things going on right now. Probably the most significant is that at Adventure U I discovered a lump and had my first mammogram (a mammogram is basically about your breast being smooshed like a hamburger patty between cold plates) -- now I have to find "a breast surgeon" to read the film and ultrasound reports and recommend a course of action. Of course, normal people get referred to a doctor before their date with radiology. So I'm trying to find a breast center or whatever -- and the whole thing is very scary, of course. I also found out that my grandmother has breast cancer. (Okay, maybe I'm a totally terrible person to feel that my teeny-weeny lump is even worry-able compared to my grandmother being diagnosed with cancer, but I'm also trying to live in a camper, negotiate a brand-new relationship and living situation, and figure out my life. Basically I figure I must be in complete denial about my grandmother because I have really no big reaction to it at all. Just questions about treatment and decisions. I think I'm full up -- already totally overwhelmed. At the end of A.S. Byatt's Still Life, there is this discussion about people who seem strong as people who process things slowly. So in the moment, they seem like they are really holding themselves together -- being the strong ones. But they really just process things slowly and so take a really long time to really take in and experience something fully. Which means that it takes practically forever to get over something. This is actually much worse than those people who experience things fully and go to pieces and then reconstruct. I think I used to fall apart -- had the energy to put myself back together. But since my dad's mother died at the beginning of 2006, launching these two years of death and strangeness, I think I've become a slow processor. At some point, I'll blog about the two years of death, but not right now.) Also, there is the project of Figuring Out How Mr. Tabby Is Health-Wise. He has been to a veterinarian, and his re-evaluation of his medication is in progress. In order to keep up our high-eating camping lifestyle, I must very soon find work, either adjuncting or doing something else (but what?). I know I should be working more on writing and really want to write about some recent adventures, but am having a really hard time figuring out how to frame this stuff -- figuring out what I want to say exactly and who I want to say it to. (I plan to blog more on this rhetorical/craft problem.) And there is, of course, the novel, which is not progressing at an ideal rate, but still has a quite respectable 8,400 words. I'm editing a dissertation (in slow motion). I have an article due at the end of the month that I haven't officially begun yet (a revision for a slightly different audience of my dissertation and writing sample). I'm getting a car for which I have to get money for insurance. I'm borrowing money. I'm exhausted.

So with all this other stuff, I'm not getting very far in the plan to figure out my life. I read Maude's recent post about getting organized and know that I should also be spending this time wisely and getting publications out and stuff, but I can't even figure out where I'm going to be this time in the fall, much less figure out whether I'm going on the market again or what. Who knows. There are a number of community college positions opening up in not-too-far-away-from-here locations. Do I apply? Will Absurdist Lover and I figure out how to build a life together? Here? In a different part of the state? In a different state? Thinking about academic jobs immediately brings up all those questions. We don't have answers. The questions all aswirl make me want to have a glass of wine and go to bed.

So that's the update. Today we're getting the car -- which has been a whole tangle with my brother since it's originally his car though he is getting rid of it because he got my dad's old much-better car. But somehow that means that my brother who is eleven years younger than I am wants me to keep a fork in the glovebox as a memento of some stoned rice-sharing night. (I could almost do this as a gift of eccentricity from one to another, but he is way too much of a pain in the ass. He admits that he is a "button-pusher." But it doesn't compute to him that this is not "cute" or "funny." Nor does it compute to him that when you're basically a pain to be around, people don't want to do things for you. Generosity just runs dry.) The fact that my brother and his antics are irking me so much means I'm way too involved with my family already. I've seen them maybe three times, but it's already way too much. I need a life. A whole life. I need to work. Or something.

These update posts are so rarely coherent. In short: there's a lot of stuff to blog about (writing issues, mountain towns, sprawly nostalgia near Urban Home City, life questions, health scares, family challenges, and on and on), and I don't know where to begin! Help!

The Long Weekend

After having a couple year's worth of adventures in a semester, I am back at Absurdist Paradise. A new situation to be sure -- but very much absurdist. To sum up: An academic jumps off track to live with her lover and cat in a cozy RV by a duck pond on the way outskirts of Urban Home City. (I hear the pond is stocked with fish, so we won't starve.) I'm calling this period of my life The Long Weekend (yes, this is what the movie or TV show will be called), because the RV is called a Weekender. I'm sure it was never meant for full-time use. Tough luck. This is where we are for now.

Internet is spotty at Duck Pond Campground. There's some internet guru there, of course, but the range on his wireless pretty much sucks. We're likely going to buy him an antenna to boost the signal. If that fails, Absurdist Lover (aka Love and OPL) is preparing to lay hundreds of feet of ethernet cable -- all so I can keep YOU updated on our (mis)adventures. Okay, so he really wants to "show me" World of Warcraft. Uh-huh. Been there, done that. Have I told you about my game-addict ex-husband? Well, Absurdist Lover is not like that. (And if he is, then I'll have more time to blog! So there!)

So my goal for spring semester is to keep myself underemployed with adjunct or other part-time work (test prep centers? language schools?) while I figure out whether I want to jump onto the Casey Jones tenure track or find something else that will allow me to have more of a personal life or what. But more important, I'm going to write. In an RV. While I figure out what to do with my life. With the man I love. And a cat. Oy.

Because we don't have internet at Duck Pond, I'm currently at the Corporation. I worked on my comps in one of these big chairs, listening to the steaming of milk for overpriced over-delineated just-as-you-like-it coffees. I'm in a town on the outskirts of Urban Home City where there are Corporations at every strip mall. It's pretty scary. This place reminds me so much of the suburb where I grew up. Out the window from where I'm sitting, I can see the scrawny trees propped up with dowels in the center island of a wide street -- the tract house development on a slight rise on the other side. The kids have nowhere to go but down to the local pizza place to hang out. The people who can afford to be sitting here in Starbucks on a weekday afternoon, even right before a holiday, are not the ones who live in those houses. People who live in those houses don't have the freedom of independent wealth or the kinds of jobs that would allow them to work at home. Those people are tied to jobs they serve everyday -- and probably not in the academy. I don't want to be them, those people who spend more time in their cars and offices than at home. Of course, I have no idea how make the kind of life I would like to have. I would like to have a small house with a big garden someday, but I'm getting to an age where I better work toward "someday" soon, if I'm serious.

Right now, I've just gotten off a plane, unpacked my bags, and settled in to the RV. I haven't even seen my folks yet. Absurdist Lover and I haven't had any time to figure out what we're doing. Maybe after we get home from Dreadful Conference we'll be able to figure things out.

***Update 3:12pm, mere seconds after I pressed publish***

A guy just came up to me and started talking Mac. When he asked me whether I used it for work, I said yes -- of course I realized that I'm actually unemployed and had to explain that I was "between things" right now, but said I was a writer and professor. And he recommended this Guru seminar (the second person to recommend it), then I asked if he were a writer. He said he'd written like "15 books -- nonfiction. That's not writing -- those are just long term-papers. Fiction -- that's writing."

Even in Suburban Ticky-Tacky Houses, there are crazy writers. I stand corrected.

Happy Blogoversary!

Happy anniversary, dear blog, dear Absurdist Paradise! It was a year ago today that I first decided that I needed a place to vent about and try to make sense of the absurdity, at that time of the job search process, then dissertating, then counting down to Adventure U. Then there's basically been this Absurdist Paradise radio silence, where I haven't felt like I could risk publicizing what was going on with me.

In that blogoversary spirit, I went back and read some of my earliest posts. It occurs to me how so much can happen in a year. I'm in a very different place (literally and figuratively) from where I was last year. If anything, I'm more, rather than less, conflicted about tenure-track academic life. I realize that this makes me a class-A ingrate, considering my incredible luck; on the other hand, I'm not sure that the luck I've had has led me to feeling useful and worthwhile in the world (which I figure is as close to happiness as I dare ask, work, or hope for). Moreover, the nature of my luck made me have to choose, as many academics do, between having a job and having a life. (I'm choosing life.) In looking back at the early posts, I see also that even back then I was intermittently thinking about some of my biggest concerns now -- no, not the job market, but who I was/am as an academic versus as a writer. I've gained a great deal in grad school, including a sense that I can write about certain topics that are important to me and that I may even have something important to say about the experiences that my education and interests have made it possible for me to have. But I'm also extremely grateful for this little academic train hiatus I've built for myself where I can choose to go forward or make a course correction. Most of all, I want to write. I've always wanted to write. And my birthday is coming up -- one of those big birthdays that seem portentous. The refrain in my head goes like this: I've known I wanted to write and wanted to be a writer for twenty-eight years now, since I found out from the bio on the back of a Judy Blume book that it was possible to be a writer and not be dead, with my manuscripts all neatly awaiting publication in my desk. I've wasted enough time. Enough already. Maspeek! Chalas!

So friends, I'm off to the do the impossible. I am yet again moving. This time, I'm moving to Urban Home City, off to a real adventure in being with the man I love, writing, and trying to figure out what to do (fit myself to the tenure track? academic administration? writing/editing? becoming a totally successful novelist/screenwriter almost overnight? being an underemployed overeducated "artiste" when I am entirely too old to do so?) that will support me in living a whole life I can blossom in and support the dreams and growth of my man. Academic or not, I'm sure the absurdity will continue.

By the way, what is up with the damn Wiki? Who would maliciously rip down a democratic and altruistic space that makes many of us feel like we have some control over our lives? Creeps. By the way, I have an interview at Dreadful Conference. My Man is coming with me. I don't know what he'll think of it all. I'm sure the madcap adventures will continue. I hope you'll come with me.