On Self-Confidence: Trying to Become Comfortable with Being My Messy Self

I went to a panel that basically has gotten me thinking about my unease as an academic/professor. I'm not at all going to (or even try to) do the paper I heard justice, but basically what I want to think about here is what I get out of not being myself as a professor at my job and whether I can do anything about it.

So first off, I like my job. But for the last couple years, I've felt messy, like I have no idea what I'm doing. I've talked with some people (including Peppy Advisor, God bless her) and feeling like I have no idea what I'm doing seems pretty much par for the course during the craziness of having a baby under 2. Really, and I know this sounds strange to anyone who doesn't have kids, but I haven't caught up with the fact that I'm a mom. I don't feel like a mom. . .no -- maybe that's not quite right. I don't feel like my image of what a mom feels like. Like so many things, being a mom just isn't what I expected. (What is, right? But even though I know nothing is like its hype in theory, in practice it's all still surprising.) On the other hand, I'm totally a mom. I worry about my darling boy. I think he's the cutest thing in the world. I tell Absurdist Lover to look at the cute thing AT's doing at least five times a day, though he's seen it. I worry for AT. I worry he'll have all my bad habits, my negative self-talk, that because he's a boy he'll get totally bored with school and do all the things that led most of my male friends to take drugs, get in trouble, and drop out. I swear the reason I got through it all was because I wanted to go to college so badly and because I was used to being a reasonably good-ish girl and was scared of straying too much into danger and harm's way. (My mother really helped instill a big fear of men and the world in me. Which may have saved me in some ways but of course I worry about now that I have a son.) Anyway, not to go off on that tangent, but the daily work of being a parent, being a mom means I've never really caught up to the fact that I am a mom and done the reflective work around it that might make me feel like I know what I'm doing as a parent or a person. I just am not sure I've really integrated my identity as a mom into who I am, which is strange and interesting as I discover that, as the Bill Pullman character says in The Accidental Tourist, "I'm just not the person I thought I was" or maybe as the William Hurt character says in the same movie, Absurdist Lover (though Hurt was talking about the Geena Davis character) "has given me another chance to decide who I am." These quotes really resonate with me, obviously. To make a long story short (too late), my identity has been in flux these past couple years.

And I think fundamentally I feel really embarrassed about that. Like I don't want people to see how messy I am. Now, I've always been kind of messy. But before I was more messy cynical. Now I am a more. . .sentimental. I'm a bit embarrassed about loving crochet (though I always loved cross stitch before too), enjoying making dinner and baking bread. As if I'm some weird throw-back, undoing the progress of the women's movement or something. I'm embarrassed, a bit, and defensive about how granola I am, how I've started praying pretty regularly (though I still love astrology, even as I truly know how ridiculous it is), how I've come to believe that affirmations may seriously help someone with such toxic self-talk. I say that "I'm such a nerd" way too often. I'm a much better friend to my friends, who I find myself telling that they are fabulous because I really believe it and I think they are just hard on themselves, than I am to myself. I need to be a better friend to myself. I know this. Dammit!

Of course, starting a job in the middle of all this doesn't help. It's another identity transformation -- from grad student to professor. (Yes, there was that first job at Adventure U, but then I was an adjunct after that -- and we all know how that contingent status just does a wonderful job of making a person feel like contingent person.) I'm also the only person in my department who has young kids and looks like an exhausted mom. I feel totally like I do everything half-assed. Which, from what everyone who's done this before tells me, is normal. But I'm also isolated and have few people to laugh about it with. I've got to work on that.

So being in an identity flux and feeling like I do parenting and academic work completely half-assed (also my scholarship is changing a bit, but that doesn't feel quite as foundational) makes me feel insecure in who I am, feel insecure in my job, and feel not even remotely self-confident. But I don't want to feel that way anymore. One of the most wonderful people I know in the world is just so upfront about her messiness that it doesn't even come off as lack of confidence or anxiety or anything. Instead of trying to hide anything, she's confident enough to admit her frailties, her messiness. I think I might have once been like that -- or at least come off that way. But that's the way I want to be. I don't want to hide. I don't want to pretend I'm not an exhausted momademic. I am. And it's exhausting. And I'm not trying to get out of any work or anything. Not at all. This is just the period of my life where I don't sleep much and am pretty sure I'm not doing my absolutely best work. But I am doing the best work I can right now.

I want to find a way to stop feeling defensive and silencing myself. Remember the clothes obsession I was having a while ago? I used to wear jeans to teach when I was in grad school -- not in the first weeks of the semester, but eventually. Occasionally I would get comments about it, but generally it was fine. I never wear jeans in the classroom at VPU. Just never. I do occasionally wear them to work, but I'm always super-aware of the fact that I'm wearing jeans and then I feel underdressed next to the professors (always older and tenured) wearing suits. (In fairness, there is a colleague who wears jeans and a sweater every day -- and I've been told he's done that since the start of his career here. But he's male. Is it different? Is it different because I say it is and am overcompensating for my insecurity? I don't want to see something that is not there.) I want to be taken seriously. But I also want to be myself. I don't know if this means I should start wearing jeans. Maybe not wearing jeans here is not out of fear but from a more savvy sense of what's appropriate in this very different context. I do have students call me Dr. English, not because I'm not a casual person, but because I'm not a grad student anymore. I deserve it.

I'm a hard worker. Not that I feel like a hard worker when my elective is so radically underprepared at this point, but I think I also have impossible perfectionist standards and then I procrastinate and fail in my own eyes. This is not good. I need to be better to myself. Not that I'm really having a problem with my teaching, but I think my teaching will be more enjoyable if I just try to be a good role model of a person who is authentic, realistic, and honest about who she is, and, most important, not ruled by fear. I want to work on this. I don't want to project all this insecurity out onto my colleagues as if they are making me feel this way. I honestly can't really tell. But I think I need to make more of an effort to talk to my colleagues. It's true that the first year is just grueling -- and having a baby at home means that I can't just get together with people for drinks or anything. But I need to meet and talk with my colleagues more. Perhaps I'll make a goal of meeting with a colleague once every couple months. (We're all so busy, this is probably a very reasonable goal though it sounds ridiculous -- surely I should be able to manage one a month, but. . .I know we're all sort of running scared most of the time.)

I'm going to have a better spring, I've decided. I'm great, absolutely stellar at tying myself into knots. Now I'm going to figure out how to be Houdini and get myself out of them. If anyone has any advice on how to become more self-accepting, less anxiety-ridden, and more mellow, I'm all ears.

Daycare Update and Things Are Springing (Slowly) Forward

It's ironic that I began last Thursday's blogpost with my concerns about our daycare over the long term, because by the end of the day we decided we really can't take Absurdist Tot back there. When we went to pick him up, the person in charge told us that AT had a big mark on his eye that they found after his nap, but even though he asked the morning person and researched whether there was anything in the nap area that could've caused it, they found nothing. He said this before we saw AT, as the little ones are not in the front room. When we saw AT, it looked awful. Not only was his eye puffy, but he had big sort of square splotches above his eyebrow. How could they not know what caused it?

Now, I've certainly had my back turned with AT when he smashed into things. He's a very active little boy. But I can put two and two together afterward and surmise what must've happened. I'm not that upset that he got hurt at daycare, or even terribly surprised that it happened when someone's back was turned, but how could they not figure it out? It was bad enough that it looked like AT must've cried when it happened. And as AL quite rightly pointed out, they didn't call us about it, even though they must've known about it for hours before we picked him up. What if he had needed a doctor? Since this is on top of some other icky vibes we've gotten, we're not taking him back there. So we have no daycare now and are searching, again, for a place that will deal with us with the food. We had seen some other decent places when we were searching before, but it's hard for me to feel good about putting him in a place where he's going to get non-organic food, not because I think somehow I'm going to keep his little system pure, but because I just want him to have the best I can get for him -- and if he's going to get pesticide-ridden things in daycare, then it's going to be on a regular basis rather than the occasional bad thing. The more good food he gets, the stronger his system will be. The more his little liver is trying to rid him of bad things, the less energy his body puts into things like growing and developing.

The strange thing is that I feel sad about leaving our old daycare. But I know it's for the best, because the caregiver we really felt confident about was only there for a halfday anyway. And I don't feel as confident about the other caregivers, especially because it really seems like they have just too many kids and not enough caregivers. The prospect of looking for a new daycare leaves me feeling deflated. I'm trying, again, to find out where the granolaheads send their kids, but I'm afraid the answer at his age is either expensive (private nannies) or impossible (staying home). But in the time it took to write that AL called up a new (to us) place and asked about opting out of the snacks -- and they volunteered that it was fine because they have a number of kids on organic-only diets. Cross your fingers. It's a Christian daycare, and in the past that would've been a complete no-go for me, but now I'm so confused about religion that. . .I just don't know. The new organic co-op we found has a box of prayer requests, so maybe. . .I just have no idea.

Both Absurdist Lover and Tot are sick. AT has not been sleeping well, which means I'm not sleeping well -- and I spent a number of hours lying in bed thinking about my elective, thinking while ostensibly doing something else being the operative way I work nowadays. I don't feel like a good academic just now. I don't feel like my classes are prepped as much as they should be by now. Sigh. Next week, when Absurdist Lover is well, I'll ask him to watch AT more so I can get stuff done. AL reminded me recently that I should ask him to watch AT so I can do supportive and restorative things for me too. We put a hopeful sum away for me to buy a car. AL is likely starting his own business. We're determined to be more positive. So good things are happening over here. Spring has sprung, and I long to be outside more. We're trying to find more community. It's all just sort of slow going right this second. The daycare thing is a drag, but we'll figure it out -- and maybe this new place will be much more in line with us.

Big changes may be afoot in my department -- and I have some things to say about them to the bigwigs proposing the changes. (I'm not against them, but I want more explanation for some particular curricular revisions they're proposing, since I've been trying to get some curricular revision done around some particular courses -- and it's clear they're not thinking what I'm thinking.) It feels a big David-and-Goliathy but probably only in my own head. Imposter syndrome. The young mother in jeans against the men in suits. It's just me. I'm smart, dammit! I'm going to start daily affirmations or something. This imposter syndrome has got to stop. I need to be a good academic, professional, and colleague -- and I can't do that if I feel like I shouldn't say anything until after tenure. No. That's not who I am. It's just hard to have so much on the line. (And all this hand-wringing in my first year. Ee gads!)

Still Sick

I was going to write everything in bullets, but then I realized that everything sort of bleeds into one another, which probably means that while my life might be particularly messy, most likely it's that I'm unable to divide, organize, basically control or make sense of my life. Yes, that is definitely true. I am definitely feeling my life is happening to me, wave upon wave crashing over me. It's not a great feeling.

First and foremost, I am sick. Really sick. I'm sure I have an ear infection because I'm hearing all sorts of weird sounds in my ear. I got it from Absurdist Tot, who got his first ear infection and is on antibiotics. I am not thrilled about his being on antibiotics because of the merry-go-round of sick-antibiotics-sick that so many kids end up on (where's the preventative medicine, dammit? but I guess that's all the good nutrition we're forcing on him). Anyway, since he's on antibiotics, he's actually fine, going to his second day of daycare on Thursday. They sent home three artworks of things he was working on (I don't know how they did this, because he's fifteen months and super active) on "four" and "yellow" and when I saw them I just started bawling. His first artworks! His first lessons! I'm weepy just thinking about it. We don't do anything like this at home. I mean I point and say things and try to get him to make connections between the color red in the book and the red Elmo doll, but all this really leads to is his throwing the Elmo over the gate and trying to bite the book. I confess I haven't really done enough to try to figure out educational activities for him. Mostly he runs around and plays and eats. I'm already exhausted, have very little time to read, and have no extra money to get books on development or games. But clearly I need to at least know more about how to teach him things. I don't know. The thing I'm really trying to encourage with him right now is communication. I want him to learn more words, since he's only really got two down. But I guess it's okay that I'm not doing the same thing as the daycare.

We took him to the eye doctor because one eye looks in toward his nose, and they want him to wear glasses all day every day. I just don't think this will ever work. He likes to pull my glasses off my nose. And he can't get at them all the time. Absurdist Lover and I haven't officially discussed it yet because I'm too sick right now. I'm sick still because not only have I been doing search committee work that has had me running around and because I don't have a doctor and when I tried to find one, first the local provider list on my HMO's website was completely wrong, listing doctors at locations where the people had never heard of them. Then I called doctors in the booklet. One number was disconnected. Another was taking no more managed care patients. Two more were closed that day. Finally, one is taking new patients but schedules a meet and greet so she can explain her policies. Why do I, who already distrusts medicine in general, have a bad feeling about someone explaining her policies to me? I just want to say look: you work for me. Not the other way around. But I've got an HMO and the real plain fact of managed health care in this country is that the doctors work for the insurance companies. Anyway, I'm still sick and am going to beg her to please look in my damn ear rather than just tell me her damn policies.

There's an unbloggable situation at work concerning other people, not me, but it's completely inflamed my imposter syndrome. Now I think: are they going to remember that I wore jeans come promotion time? I swear I really think this, often freaking out about clothes and how I present myself and what the full professor who wears suits and ties everyday (and, while nice and reasonably friendly, is sort of a caricature of a professor type) must be thinking about me. I feel like I'm just not presentable. And let's face it: with bunched up snotrags in my pockets, I'm probably not. I should not be at work. Of course, the head of the committee wants us to meet again on Monday. And though I think it's important to have my voice in the mix, I think I may bow out. Everyone who sees me says I should be at home (except my colleagues on the committee, of course). OY.

What else? I pretty much have a bleak and dire outlook on everything right now. Much of our lives seems hopeless. Of course, it is February. There's a reason why February is the shortest month. But it's probably really that I'm sick and that AT's two days a week at daycare (we can barely afford that right now) end up getting taken up with committee stuff. I've been trying to get work done on my scholarly projects. But I'm now so sick I really can't do that. Today, I got a nap because AT needed a long nap after waking up early and being tortured by the eye doctor. Glasses for AT! We can't even afford to pick up my glasses, making it good that the frames are on backorder. And I'm so stupid, I didn't sign him up for vision insurance because I figured, ineptly, that what kids needs vision insurance and I was trying to save every little bit of money for our monthly living expense. Stupid stupid stupid.

I want to be one of those women who can't be defeated, like Julia Child or the women in Steel Magnolias (and what else? What else should I be watching and thinking about for inspiration??? Let me know!), but I'm thinking I'm not a strong person -- or the kind of strong I am is flexible, if at all. I want to be one of those people who are just determined and positive and optimistic when things happen, just fighters, unable to feel defeated and sorry for themselves and like the whole world is out to get them. How does one become like that? I'm thinking I need therapy or to get religion or something. Well, first, I need to get well. Except for today's nap, I haven't been able to take care of myself and sleep in. My life just doesn't allow me to do those things. I need to nurse. I need to get up with AT. Absurdist Lover does help and do a lot, but I still don't get left alone much (not to mention the one room where I could get away if AL watches AT is the bedroom, which has poor light and is very cold and without money to rectify those situations -- well, this is what I mean by everything seeming hopeless). I told AL that I want to sleep in, that I'd nurse AT, but then he could watch him and feed him yogurt, etc. We'll see what happens. I'm sure once I'm reasonably healthy, my outlook will improve. Right now, everything but AT sucks. And the poor boy has my eyes.

So my friends you can see that I'm not altogether here. Absurdist Lover is also sick, but doesn't seem to have stuff in his ear. Of course, he doesn't have insurance, since we're not married and he's unemployed, so it's good if he doesn't need antibiotics. I clearly do.

Still I recognize things could be worse, and I'm thankful they are not. I'm trying. I really am.

I poufed the post I had here because I was starting to get paranoid. If you missed it, suffice it to say I was sharing a situation so I wouldn't feel so isolated, with no one here to talk to about it who wouldn't end up in an awkward position. I thank those of you who commented and reminded me I was not totally insane and who helped me see the bright side of the situation. I'm sure I have more to say about how being annoyed in a work situation has made me feel even more isolated, but I just saw Food, Inc. and though I knew about most of it -- the CAFOs, Mon$anto, the horror, the horror, being a big organichead myself -- I didn't know about the 2-1/2 year old who died from E. Coli and Kevin's law. I just wept and wept to see that mother, working to keep other people safe after her son died. I was nursing when she told the story.

I swear there are some people in this country who don't care whether people are sick or healthy, live or die because it doesn't eat into their overhead. I'm too messed up to post. I need something comforting right now.

Deadline Looming!

While everyone else is flexing their creative muscles for NaNoWriMo and whipping out words so fast the internet word meters are crashing, I committed to writing an article for a CFP by the end of the year. Being tenure-track means signing myself up for such little fiascos. I should be able to write 8,750 words by the end of the year, right?

In other news, AB wouldn't fall asleep last night, so Absurdist Family is very grumpy this Sunday morning. And I still have five more projects to grade. Alas!

While everyone writes their novels, I'm reminded that I too used to write creative stuff. I should send stuff out. Of course, the stuff I'd send out would be at least three years old now (two years of hectic life and one year of writing the diss). I know I should bother, but it's embarrassing. I should do it anyway. I should put that on my to-do list.

The Academic and Mommy Wars Within

Absurdist Baby is exhausting. I just put him to bed. He's going through some phase of super-eating and turbo-playing and ten-minute naps. He's drooling all over his hand, which is always in his mouth. I expect to see molars daily, but nothing yet.

I'm supposed to be finishing up my grades, putting the quarter to bed and readying for a new one. But on days I don't go in to campus, like today, I'll spend the entire day without ever getting more than a few minutes, it seems, to myself. No time to compose myself, check in, figure out what I need to do. Not until now, when I'm bleary-eyed. It's a different way of living -- I spend a lot of time thinking and going over things in my head while I'm waking up or falling asleep, and am at my best when I know exactly what to do with a few spare minutes -- today, I graded some final projects when AB was asleep or happily occupied across the room. In fact, I got an impressive amount done. I'm proud of myself. But it never seems to be enough. I feel like I'm not holding up my end at work -- and I come home and feel like I'm not with AB enough. I watch out for him, but do I play with him enough? We have some games we play, but I feel like I haven't read enough books on child development to know what I should be doing with him to encourage the right things. He's very active, loves to run around. People say things to me like of course I've read all the books and am doing everything right. How stupid I feel that in reality I should really ask them which books I should be reading! I suppose children have grown up perfectly well without a bunch of theories. I know the best thing I can really do is be with him, really pay attention to who he is. I know a big part of it is, as Absurdist Lover reminds me, my low self-esteem. I think my neurosis about being a poor mom and a poor academic is exacerbated by systemic problems in the way both are viewed and structured, I want to tell him, but I rarely can put together such a cogent sentence. In fact, it's amazing my students learned anything at all.

A zillion years ago it seems now, I said I would post about my reaction to the whole parenting in academia debaucle of a couple weeks ago. And even with all this time, my thoughts are muddled. I don't struggle with my colleagues about my being a parent, at least not so far. No one has said I'm not holding up my end, yet. Instead, I am my biggest enemy. I constantly feel I'm not doing enough as I think about how this career is really made for people who don't have a lot of responsibilities at home. I have the example of the EE who dissertated dizzily, each day devoted to my goals of the day. I logged whole long mornings at the Corporation from 9 to 2, determined to pump out a few more pages, not going home until I'd met my goal. Now, I'm in a department that values research, but so far the place has been very lonely so I don't have faculty members provoking thought about my discipline in the hallways or anything (not that many of us do). Consumed with teaching and feeling my way around the place and its various tasks and ways, I haven't written a thing. My feeling of inadequacy is made worse when I read things by academics that suggest that some people either don't know what I'm dealing with here (between fuzzy brain, nursing, and an active child who goes to sleep late), can't imagine, or don't care. I always hate it when people claim that others can't understand because they haven't had the experience; this isn't always the case and it's dangerous to assume that because people have kids, they get how exhausting the double shift is about, or that because people don't, they can't or won't. But I feel like I practically have to depend on people's good graces here because I'm running scared. In fact, I'm barely keeping up in all parts of my life.

So when I read the whole academics and parenting thing, I just felt like many people missed the point. I'm not yet at the point where I'm most needed to pick up and chauffeur my child to different events, go to parent-teacher conferences or whatever. I feel marked. And I know so much of it is me. I feel like I have to work super-hard in order to not be marked as the faculty mother who doesn't hold up her end. I fear being seen as deficient, though I realize it's probably because I feel deficient; it may have zero to do with reality. I have to work super-hard in order to not be seen as the Mother of a Baby faculty member. I want to hold up my end beautifully, not be labeled a certain way or seen as deficient. There are so many things I want to do. I have to remember I can't do some of them. And I'm not good at that.

Oh dear lord. The cat just peed all over one of my bags. This cat that found us is having problems, throwing up what little she eats and being a little unsure on her feet. I really thought we had enough to worry about just now. Ha ha. I was wrong.

One lesson I have to relearn all the time and that AB is a great teacher for is this: be here now. Stop worrying. So taking that to heart, I'm going to eat ice cream, watch the ghosts of TV shows past, and maybe get in a little crafts time. Sorry, I'm not going to be grading any more final projects past midnight. I'm not. And I'm not feeling guilty about it either.

Exasperating!

Today was an exasperating day. It was all set up to be a good day, free of some of the work that has plagued me for the last week. I was even kerplunking on the interwebs when dum dum duuuummm, I was reminded that the deadline for a project was staring me in the face. I had thought the work wasn't due for another month -- I really did. I went back into my notes and saw that the due date had been buried -- of course my fault for not having paid more attention, but buried nonetheless. Then I was put in charge of my little end of it, which is kind of cool because I love projects, but I felt like a complete idiot for totally having forgotten about the whole thing, not even knowing what was going on when it was mentioned. Oy vey! I hope I made up for it by getting right on it, but. . .well, we'll see. Way to go, Earnest, starting off that first year right. Sigh.

And then. . .students. What are they thinking? Now, I often have mixed feelings when faculty complain about students, but now really. Sometimes you just have to kvetch. (Partly because Absurdist Lover just can't stand hearing about it anymore.) So what I want to say is students, there are these things called due dates. They are not fuzzy rolling deadlines, but hard definite due dates. When the moment has passed, your paper is late. The late policy is on the syllabus. It's all really very simple. Today, students' special requests and begging for special consideration got so bad that when one student just came up to me and said s/he didn't have hir paper and knew it was late and the late policy applied, I nearly wept with joy for someone who just got it. Part of me thinks that maybe I'm overreacting and this is not a sign of the decline of civilization, but I really do see a difference between these students and students I've taught in the past. Some just have this sense that the rules don't apply to them. (Can you say entitlement?) The worst thing about all this is that most of my students are fine, interesting people who believe in the deadlines and really try to do their work and understand the requirements -- but these others just stand out so much in my head that it's generally dispiriting about the whole enterprise. I have to work on not letting a few rotten apples spoil the bunch for me.

Today was a great example of my exhaustion. I came home and hung out with Absurdist Baby, partly to give AL a break and partly because he's my baby and I love him and want to be with him, and I was okay for a while until after dinner when I basically just kind of passed out. (Absurdist Lover knew it was happening before I did so it's not like AB was in danger of not being watched or anything.) I woke back up and fed the baby some solids and everything, but now, the perfect time to go to bed and try to make up some of that sleep I miss when AB wakes me up at 5am, I'm not that tired and what's more, I don't wanna. This is the hardest thing for me -- not having any time for myself, so I stay up late in order to have some time, then I'm even more exhausted for everything. I think living alone for such a long time and being deeply inside of all that quiet (to the point that it was deafening at times, to mix a metaphor) makes it hard for me now when I'm used to all that quiet alone time but it's really not there to be had. But of course even when I was a kid I needed a lot of alone time. I really don't want to become my mother, but when I was a kid she also used to stay up half the night in order to be alone too.

By the way, before we moved, both our cats had gotten sick and had to be put to sleep. So we've been catless, until recently when a little grey and orangey girlcat was found sleeping inside a hose. It seems now we have a cat. Of course, we really should ask around the neighborhood and mean to, but she so fits in around here that it's hard to even want to. She's been here a week and already knows that she can run the place, stealing my water, jumping into the baby's playpen, and stretching out on the boppy when the baby is eating. For all this, she puts up with AB bopping her in the face and pulling her ears. She's sitting next to me now, purring. Her still happiness can teach me something.

Tomorrow is Friday, people. Woo hoo!

I'm Back!!!

I can't stand it. I must come back to Absurdist Paradise! I still read blogs and love them. I love the sense of community when I blog. So why I haven't been blogging? One issue is time -- I'm exhausted already, always feeling like I'm doing less than I need to and way more than I can handle. Another issue is that. . .I'm not sure I'll describe it well. . .I haven't felt like I have much of a sense of self to put out into the world. I'm sure part of this is exhaustion. I certainly haven't been writing much of anything else either except what I have to (i.e. teaching stuff). But there's something about not feeling presentable and faking my way through that makes me feel quiet and like I should shut up. Or maybe that's not exactly right either. I don't know. Finally, I'm sure I'll put my foot in my mouth. Just today when I told Absurdist Lover that I wanted to go back to blogging, he said to be careful. Anyone who knows me knows I put my foot in my mouth and don't stop swallowing until I've chomped down to my thigh.

I have to admit that one of the reasons why I want to come back to blogging is terrible and self-serving: today, I read one of my own posts and found myself. . .well, much more entertaining than I am right now. (Okay, so I found my hateful dissertating self frigging hilarious. I can't believe I had all that time to waste all the time. I didn't know then what a luxury it was. But then, it's not a luxury when you're just waiting for it to pass. Now, I'd love a whole day, even a couple hours, when I could just futz and read and not be on baby patrol. Doesn't that make me sound like I'm a terrible mother? I LOVE Absurdist Baby, but man I'd really like some time to rediscover me. I'd like to go to a very nice hotel room and read. . .anything I want!)

Something about blogging helped me to resee my life in a more humorous light all these years. I think I need that now. I mean really -- what's more ridiculous than moving to a new town and starting a tenure-track job with no money, no childcare, no family or friends in the area, and a partner who really doesn't want to be staying at home with Absurdist Baby, despite that Absurdist Baby is also pretty frigging hilarious, but is. We don't go anywhere or see anyone, and we practically don't notice because with the baby we'd never have time to see friends or anything anyway. So I go to work and bust my butt (really, I've never worked quite this hard on teaching and felt like I still wasn't measuring up), respond to and grade papers, meet with students, and generally drive myself insane, then go home exhausted but feeling terrible that Absurdist Lover has been home with the baby so I should take care of the baby -- and then I'm super-exhausted, especially on the days recently when AB just is a terror about going to bed.

Side note: I'm an idiot mother. The only way that AB goes to sleep is by breastfeeding (actually eating, because he sleeps with a bottle, I think, when I'm at work). This is not conducive to getting a baby to go to bed when you want him to. So most of the time, it works and my only real worry is whether I'm going to wake him up on the long trek from the couch to his crib. But if he wakes up and starts to cry, well, I'm a wimp and can't listen to his blood-curdling screams for longer than ten minutes before I go and pick him up and try again. I know AL is always waiting for the day when I'll just let him "cry it out," but maybe I'm reading the wrong books or something, but all of them (okay, the big purple one) says not to let them cry it out -- that this is actually traumatic for them. All I know is listening to AB's blood-curdling screams is traumatic for me. This is what I mean by being an idiot mother.

Okay, back to the subject of blogging: so I started the blog in the other place and got some of you intrigued enough to ask me the password -- but it's too hard. I can't make the transition. I need to be here at the old haunt. Maybe only for a while. Maybe because my life is so different from what it was when I used to blog in earnest (ha ha) that I need to be here to stay in touch with who I was. Of course, I probably have no readers left. But we'll see how it goes. I need an outlet. And I need to talk with y'all who've all been through being a first-year tenure-tracker or want to. I need to hang out with my peeps! Maybe it's just this quarter or maybe it's my department or maybe it's just that teaching swallows everyone alive their first term, but I feel pretty darn alone at work walking back and forth from classroom to bathroom to my little cell. (See? Now doesn't that make it seem more monastic and cozy?) Also, at least right now, there doesn't seem to be much of a culture around talking about the things that interest me, though I am now on a committee and soon will be talking about something. I'm sure it doesn't help that I don't go to lunch in the Cafeteria (too expensive, too many students, too much work to do) and chance upon people from the other departments. Boice would kick my butt. Of course, I also don't get any research work done either -- both Boice and the Provost would bust me on that one. My Chair though told me to expect that teaching would swallow me alive. Oh how it is. I haven't even worked on my Professional Development Plan except in late night fits and starts.

Have I mentioned that the first time I used my breast pump in my office a guy replacing the phone nearly walked in on me? In my locked office? Sigh. But nothing like that has happened since. These are the jewels of my life I need to share. All the ridiculousness, all the puzzles. Two and a half years ago, I decided I was going undercover to record the hilarity and silliness of MLA, which quickly grew into blogging the aggravation of dissertating and developing a network of people whose support and guidance I swear made dissertating much more fun. Now I'm going back undercover to bring you the nitty-gritty of academic life, the implausibility of balance, the hilarity and exasperations of new motherhood. We'll see where we end up.

Thanks for reading.

Psst.

I'm in Adventure City, folks. Orientation starts tomorrow. I see students. Remember, if you want to read about the detailed and undercover adventures, you gotta email me at earnestenglish@gmail.com for the secret invitation. There's so little I can say here, folks, except that I miss my blogoverse friends!!!

Feeling Angsty

Okay, here's the thing: I'm nervous and on edge about this move. And then there are all the other things going on (OPL). I just don't have any extra resources right now. I spend every day trying to get control of the chaos of packing and everything -- while trying not to go nuts, since my life has changed and is changing in a number of ways: my heart is big and huge and vulnerable, I've just completed a dissertation, I'm moving to my first post-graduate student job. I'm nervous and scared about everything. I don't know how much I can console other people about the scariness of the future right now. GAAHHHHHH!!!!

That said, I've spent the morning on the phone trying to arrange things. I think I've run out of people to call. Now I have to figure out what I'm going to do today since I ended up totally wasting last night with worry. I'm having a moving party on Saturday, so I know I need to clean up, since things have gotten very messy as every area is some kind of staging area for packing. I need to put out the books that I'm giving away so that people can see them -- and probably put away the things I don't want people seeing. I also need to clean up the kitchen and do some darn laundry!!! Maybe laundry will be the big task for the evening -- which means today should, I think, be devoted to clothes and the closets the world forgot. (Does everyone have to write in order to organize themselves, or is it just me?) And then I do need to do some prepping, which for now means reading and taking notes.

Tomorrow I will need to really prepare for having people in my house. Though I have lived here for five years and I love love love my apartment, I've never had a party here. And if you saw the place right now, that would make sense to you. Everything's everywhere. A total nightmare. I'm not going to be able to get it to the point that I won't be embarrassed about it, but I think I'm going to go for lack of complete humiliation. And floor space. OY! Not everyone is so forgiving as Maude Lebowski and OPL, the last two people who overnighted here. And Fabulous Friend is too sweet to ever say anything about my obvious and complete lack of organizational and cleaning abilities when she comes over. Dishes, reorganization, closets for laundry. Ooh, and I need to go to the store to get more bags.

I'm so nervous that even a Starbucks latte makes me sick. Or else I'd be over there getting one. Of course I might go anyway. OY!

***Update 1:30pm***

Hurrah! I'm going to get to share my madness with Angry Incredible Writer Friend! She's going to let me come over and do laundry, laundry, laundry, which means I have to go into the Closets that Time Forgot and get all that organized. Which means I have focus. I also did the dishes. And I really should go out and get bags and maybe even something to eat. This is totally ridiculous, my need to make public my doings. OY VEY!!!

Blogging the Moving Progress

I know, I know these kinds of posts are the most boring in the world. Look at me try to stay accountable by blogging the progress. I'm sorry if you totally hate this, but I got totally addicted to blogging the progress with the dissertation, so now I'm hooked. Blogging progress is my need! So here goes. Here's what I managed to do today so far:

1. Copied or decided against copying 44 CDs, at least half of which I did copy.
   
2. Did 15 minutes of yoga without the tape, which is also good because for unbloggable reasons, I need to scale down my stuff and can't afford to buy the DVD to replace the tape.
3. Emailed movers and storage for quotes.
4. Wrote in journal about teaching, making me feel all confident and excited about teaching at my new gig.
5. Picked up three books on teaching from the library that I intend to copy (on my no-charge at-home copier -- ha!) fruitful productive teaching things out of, which actually makes me feel much much better -- and is in line with that prepping I said I would do, except that I told myself I wouldn't do it on the weekends.
   
6. Worked out for an hour. (Yes, I realize this means that I've worked out twice today. I did the same thing yesterday. I'm going on the mantra that an hour of exercise equals 50 mg of Zoloft. Though today was a much better happier day.)

Now, I'm going to watch French Kiss (yes, the irony, I can't stand it -- let's not talk about it) and try to pack up some clothes or go through papers (much easier to do in the living room).

Breakthroughs in Packing!

It actually happened -- I actually started packing. It's amazing. Two bookshelves equal something like 15 boxes. Totally ridiculous. But I also managed to both stay on my butt and contact movers at the same time. Really, I'm finally getting things done, partly because Self-Reflective and Fabulous Friend came over and let me make her margaritas and use her wunderbar puzzle-box skills to box up books and partly because I finally don't feel like a complete zombie. I also went over to the library today and got some books that have already helped me get my head back into teaching. So, even though I promised myself that I wouldn't really work on writing/publishing or teaching on the weekends, I actually feel pretty good about prepping for teaching.

Packing and moving is a bit of a different story: though I borrowed beaucoup bucks from the fam, it's clear that I'm going to have to beg for more from someone. I'm trying to do this move on the cheap, but I've got so much stuff that I can't possibly lift. A lot of antiquey-type stuff. The kind of stuff that makes me so nervous about moving it that I MUST pay someone to deal with my anxiety and backseat moving. This is the first move I'm really trying to do on the cheap, so if anyone has any ideas about free boxes or whatever, I'm all ears.

Chasing Butterflies: More Beauty Blogging

This is what happens when you begin to leave a place: you finally start taking pictures! I thought y'all needed some pictures of the sweet little garden on the campus that I'm leaving. I was actually trying to chase some of those little white butterflies, but it's futile! They won't have their souls stolen!

Do you love taking tests to learn more about yourself?

Obviously! I love the intelligences test, which I've never taken before but which I've heard a lot about since my mother teaches K-12, where I guess they pay more attention to the varying abilities of students (perhaps though, now, with No Child Left Behind, pay it lip service) than in the academy.



Though getting into Myers-Briggs helps me understand why some freshman comp students (especially) seem to demand step-by-step instructions. Writing isn't a paint-by-numbers kit! If only! Ahh, I can tell I'll be in the classroom in six weeks. I'm totally not packed or ready or have made a syllabus (though Adventure U's program is quite structured, so the unfolding of my classes will be structurally the same as other people's teaching the same class -- this actually makes me more nervous, makes me think I need more prep rather than less). I'm not even done with the Works Cited of my dissertation, nor some typos that Peppy Advisor is going to tell me about today. ACK! Less than a month! I can't think about it. I was once so excited about it; now I don't want to go at all because OPL can't come with me. So we'll be the kind of long distance that means that weekend getaways are totally impossible. I'll be lucky to see him every couple months. And even that's expensive! Gah!

You can see that all of these things are so close together in my head that I can barely think about one without thinking about the other. So today's plan to not go insane includes the following:

• Therapeutic yoga. (Probably only fifteen minutes.)
• Therapeutic sushi-eating with Angry Young Colleague and Ex-Writing Partner (yes, one person, though he might bring his not-so-wee bairn).
• Working on Works Cited and typos.
• Doing dishes, eventually, so that OPL is fooled into thinking that I can actually keep my own nest clean.
• Begging Fabulous Friend to go and do something silly with me, which may include coloring in coloring books (go ahead and laugh: you're just jealous I have such fabulous coloring books), painting, roller skating, or some other thing FF's cooked up in her head that I haven't even thought of yet! I wonder if the Children's Museum would paint my face, since I've gone off makeup entirely.
  

I should look at some of the materials that Adventure U sent me about my classes. I should do a lot of things. I went and bought file boxes yesterday. Doesn't that count for something???

Anyway, to get back to the point of this blogpost before all this anxiety shoved and elbowed its way to the fore, is that it's very odd and interesting to me that Naturalist came up so high. I haven't gone camping in ages and didn't like it when I went last. (In all fairness, though, I went with the most depressed man who had just broken up with his long-time girlfriend. And I hadn't yet figured out my health concerns so that camping could be easy. I'm better now. That was over ten years ago. Camping is probably like yams: I hated them for years, then suddenly tried them, as I am wont to do just to make sure things haven't changed, and then I went crazy, unable to get enough of yams.) But here's a crazy thing: when I was in high school, I had to take those assessment things of your interests. I so wanted those things to say that I should go into writing. I was looking for any little encouragement, especially since I got kicked out of Honor's English (I know, I know -- do you know how hard it is to write a really effective essay on why Hamlet really did love Ophelia when you're in tenth grade?). Guess what my top was? Agriculture! What am I doing in English? (The next two, which were about equal, were clerical and the arts.) I do love plants and cottage gardens and have long dreamt about planting one of those wonderful front gardens that are really fruits and vegetables organized to look pretty? Can I just ask why it is that I'm going to Adventure U, where I'm not going to be able to plant the roots (French Kiss, I know, I know: I don't have an original thought in my head) I so long for? OY! Yogatime!

Finis, Finished, Finito

I just pounded out a very short conclusion, sent it to my committee, and now I refuse to deal with (ha! notice I just wrote the dreaded and deadly "deal with" that is verboten in academic discourse -- I'm already deprogramming!) the dissertation for a week. So there! So what if my defense is a mere week after that. How much does one need to prepare? Some opening remarks? Preparing for certain questions? I'm guessing I only need a week. Dear blogfriends, please tell me if I'm underpreparing for that moment.

Of course, my need for a break and tendency to space out and think of OPL (and my need for naps) is not at all supported by the fact that Adventure U just sent me my teaching schedule (8am -- wtf???) and a bunch of orientation materials, stuff about the program, blah-ti-blah. I can't deal with it, I tell you! Just no. I'm taking time off for good behavior. And to prevent myself from getting sick.

OPL and I are taking a road trip from Urban City to Grad City. That should be fun -- and provoke many many pictures! Now I'm going to emerge triumphant from my littlest sister's bedroom that I've held hostage for a while now. No doubt everyone else will be doing their own thing and not understand at all that turning in these diss revisions is the kind of thing you toast. TOAST! After all, I've addressed all the big things my readers wanted me to address. There are still some things I have to cite properly that I didn't have access to Urban Home City and some formatting. But I think I can safely say (knock on wood quick!), the diss is nearly done.

Shhhh! I'm Blogging in Secret!

So I'm in the library at Cool Institute University. I'm sure I'm not supposed to be blogging on the librarian's account. (No internet access for those of us who us out-of-towner's.) So most of the institute people have left, but because I got the cheapest ticket available, I'm not leaving until tomorrow afternoon. Sigh. And now that Cool Institute is over and I don't have an impossible amount of pages to feel bad about not reading, I really need to get working on those diss revisions. It occurred to me earlier (right before falling asleep) that I really don't have that much to do and if I could just pull out a can of whoop-ass, I could get shit done so that my trip to Urban Home City won't be totally ruined by making faces at my family and saying things like: dude, I'm trying to write a dissertation here. Get out of my face!

How do I write again? Something about free-writing? Something about sitting in a good chair and getting started? Is that right? Cross your fingers for me folks. I've only got two full days at Grad City and then I jet off to Urban Home City. I'm such a jet-setter. Too bad I'm supposed to be an academic too. Can I just say that I think I've spent more time on the phone here than I have on intellectual work or hob-nobbing combined? But I did notice one really amazing thing: I do actually feel like I know things. I can talk about my dissertation with ease -- and argue points out of it and feel like the expert I'm trying to prove I am. I know things! I really do! I meet grad students who are pre-dissertation, and I see me a couple years ago -- but not me now. It's interesting. I may actually be ready to be a professional instead of a professional apprentice. Wooohoooo!

Professional Life Experiment Update: Suckage, or Blogging the Transition Upset

Well, apparently right now four days is my upper limit on professorial and professional adulthood. So what blew it? The day started off so right. Eating and talking with colleague. Very much like a professor and professional in the field -- check. Picked up laptop -- check. Went to work at coffeehouse but it was altogether too loud -- it happens to everyone, check. Picked up trash like a teenager on Saturday-morning detention a responsible community member -- uh okay, check. Then four hour nap, wake up at 7:30 and realize with a panic I got nothing done and determined to finish up something on Problem 1, stay up until 3am. Ah yes, there it is. The trouble of the over-long nap and panic. Tell-tale signs of. . .something bad.

I once had a therapist who told me that I wasn't very adult in the hours I kept. Uh huh, I said, thinking I'm a night owl. Always have been. Don't fence me in with your ideas of normal, man. Therapists suck because even if I totally reject what they say, it sticks with me. They're like adulthood's version of parents. But here's the problem. My friend will be over tomorrow!!! I have not done the bathroom! Do I stay up and work on the bathroom and sleep in until two hours before I'm likely to see said friend, then throw everything into the washing machine? Or do I go to bed now and worry about the bathroom getting done, oversleep and go crazy in the afternoon hours, trying to get bedclothes into the washing machine. As Bridget would say: tricky.

Professorial Life Insight

I've decided today that having a day when blogging comments on everyone else's blog and then going to a lunch with a colleague and friend is also part and parcel of professorial life. There's no law that says I have to work in the morning, right? Even the best most-exemplary professors have days where they just futz. Right??? I can work in the long afternoon. Well, I better, anyway.

P.S. For a while now, my timestamp has been off. I figured google/blogger just preferred PST or something, since they're in Mountain View, CA. I'm a dork. Why didn't I realize that I would have to change the timestamp to daylight savings time. It's fixed now. And y'all have been thinking that I've been getting up earlier than I am! HA! Not bloody likely.

Day 2 of Professorial Life Experiment with Eruptions of Tabby-Love

My gorgeous tabby cat is sleeping in a patch of sun coming in from the windows. He's just beautiful. This is a change from his usual post at the window, watching the birds. (I think I shut the blinds, so that might explain his change of location.) He's an old cat. I've had him since I was in my early twenties, when I was in college, before I got married, moved, moved again, divorced, worked a real job that made me feel like I knew something, came to Grad City U to devote myself to professorial life. So he's been with me a lot of years. (Oooops, he's up. And meowing at me. I think he wants me to say mraaaar to y'all. Now he's going to sit on the desk and make it hard for me to type.) He's not well -- he's got high blood pressure and hyperthyroidism and the suggestion of renal problems to come. Since I don't have to go to school -- or go out much -- we've been spending a lot of time together, just the two of us. We watch the birds. We take naps. We curl up. I'm not sure why I felt I had to blog this; perhaps it was reading Post-Doc's pensive posts. Anyway, I'm a cat person, the sort of caricature of a blogger who types in her pajamas and swats her cat's tail away.

At least, I was until the last hour or so. I got up at a luxurious 10am, journaled and read blogs and emailed and generally typed about until about 1, then began to work on that issue/problem I said I would. I ate lunch (amazing for me that I ate before 4) and researched through the proxy server. All in my pajamas. Finally, around 4 or so, accepting that no one article was going to say exactly what I'm saying about this issue (it would be so nice to just do the whole as this brilliant person says. . . on this one) and that I really am going to have to put a couple different threads of conversation on this topic together, I printed a bunch of articles out and finally took a shower, went to Blockbuster since it is New Release day and rented four and bought three DVDs. (I bought Stranger than Fiction, which is one of those must-haves every writer should own, Blood Diamond, which is now a part of my Big Film Theory even though I don't do film except here on the blog, and Casino Royale, which longtime readers will remember I watched every day for like three or four days when I first rented it, being a longtime James Bond fan and totally floored at how much I loved this one.)

But believe it or not, I didn't mean to get all caught up in writing about Mr. Tabby or movies. I wanted to write about this problem/issue. I got to my stance/argument on this issue on the basis of my own thinking and experience and maybe one or two of the articles I'm now figuring I'll reference, plus some general knowledge of a whole thread of conversation in my field. But a piece of scholarly writing shouldn't always be an intellectual history, should it? So I was looking for someone else to speak my critique, because I don't think it's so damn amazing or anything -- and I felt sure someone would say it by now. And damn it, they won't! It's getting to feel like a willful refusal! This is great from the perspective of having another possible article I could write. On the other hand, I'd rather not focus on this now, when I have plenty of arguments going on already in this dissertation. To me, this issue is a big aside. But one of my readers told me I misrepresented the field, which I kind of did because I didn't stipulate exactly which conversation in my field I was critiquing. OY!

Okay, maybe not an article. A conference paper. I really just wouldn't want to write it, though I can see that with all the crap I printed out, I'm kind of already going to be writing it. And one thing hindering my process here is that I now realize that I didn't copy everything I need from my laptop onto my pen drive. I keep a running bibliography of what I read. This way, I can take out quotes and write off them, engaging in a conversation with the text that can later be cut and pasted into other things. I started this when I was working on my comps -- and when a very productive scholar told me that he kept a running bib, I thought, I already have a jump on that. Often (not always), I've been able to write about some particular idea from a particular text without having the text in front of me because of keeping that bib. But I usually read on my bed and then have my laptop and it feels all weird to try to read at my desk (I have a tail swatting me, by the way) and type, especially since Mr. Tabby usually wants my undivided attention at the desk. On the bed, he's got better things to do -- he must supervise what's going on outside. (Now he's in my lap.) So I have to figure out some new process while those computer people monopolize my laptop.

I didn't write a ton, but I think I've got a bunch of different threads of discussion covered -- and I've got some stuff to read and re-read, which is always fun. So tomorrow, I'll read and bib and freewrite. If I could always have Mr. Tabby when I work, I assure you it would all be much more fun. I don't know what I'm going to do when I'm in an office where I can't take a break to eat something, stare at the birds, watch TV, and take a nap. Then get back to work. Compared to writing the diss, I'm going in slow motion. But since my deadline for having the revisions back is two weeks away, I feel like I can take some time. Maybe I shouldn't, maybe I really should be hauling ass, but now I feel productive yet still like a person. (Except that I haven't seen friends in a while. But this weekend will change all that.) I feel like a summering professional rather than a crazed apprentice. (Mr. Tabby's all curled up on my lap. What am I going to do? I don't like to disturb him, but I kinda thought I was going to go watch one of the many movies I rented. Sigh.)

My big goal to add to my experiment with my new professional life schedule is to journal a bit in the evenings. I didn't manage that last night, but tonight, I hope to. (Mr. Tabby's so cute, trying to get comfortable for nice long nap on my lap. I'm going to have to move him because my leg is starting to hurt. Oh how I love this old curmudgeonly cat!)

Donning the Robe and Reflections on Writing

So I have decided that I'm already a faculty member -- and it's making things a whole lot easier. Prevailing wisdom says I should wait for my advisor's decisions about which revisions I should go ahead on and which I shouldn't. While I see the practical use of this strategy, I've decided that this takes too much control out of my hands in a way that makes me feel pretty powerless and then angry and argumentative, none of which is good for my mental state and attitude during this transition from grad student to faculty member. (Gotta get mentally acclimated now. I graduate and leave for my job in the same week!) So I'm going to go ahead and use my own best judgment on the diss revisions. (Don't worry, I'm not stupid. There are things that I will wait on and discuss with PA, because I don't want to waste my time either.)

Last night, I was reading Boice's Advice for New Faculty Members, the section on writing. I remember when I was reading it before, I felt that I had a long way to go to get to be one of those "exemplary" writers/faculty members he was talking about. But reading it this time, I realized that I know my own process pretty well -- and it's pretty much what he talks about in terms of freewriting. I write a lot in the exploratory phase so that the formal writing is kept to a minimum. I do this as a strategy to get me writing, but I also just like it. Exploring concepts and ideas and possibilities is what I enjoy about this work, so this writing is really play. Also, when I get comments, it's important for me not to just try to "fix" things in the formal writing, but to go back to some exploratory writing so I can really engage with and explore the comment. This makes it more fun for me -- inviting me to learn more about what I'm thinking about. It's true that when it shapes up into something, as it often does through lots of writing and then cutting and pasting, finding ways to meld the texts together can be the hardest part. But at least it foregrounds for me what I like best. Imagining spending some amount of time every day exploring and tinkering with ideas in writing for the rest of my life sounds like fun as opposed to thinking I have to work on the dissertation or I've got to crank out this article/conference paper/book. I realize that these are different orientations to the same practical matter of getting down to writing, but as in English we affirm that point of view is important, so it is in Earnest English's old brainbox. Boice really helps me pay attention to how my attitude shapes my experience. His rules that focus on mental self-discipline -- letting go of negative thoughts and moderating extreme emotions -- is very important for me. (Since I'm notoriously snarky and freaked-out, we'll see how well this works. But at least I'm blogging the one moment where this all seems pretty clear. I'll be able to remind myself later with it. Better than sticking it in a journal and never picking it up again.)

I think some of Boice's terms get in the way for me. For example, his first "writing rule" is "Wait, actively." Now, for me, this means do something meditative, waiting for the good stuff to come. But then his second rule is "Begin writing early (before feeling ready)." Those two don't go together for me. So instead of "wait," I'm going to think "pause, breathe, reflect." That's what makes sense to me. I suck at conventional (what some call "emotional") meditation and mindfulness strategies. On the other hand, I'm great at freewriting, which Natalie Goldberg's Zen teacher said counted as a Zen practice, and yoga. I need meditations that get my body into it. I'm already too much mind already.

The "rule" I really don't follow is the one about writing daily. Writing for me is often like exercise -- I just stupidly forget how good it feels. So I decided last night that I would do some exploratory writing on the notes I had made from my readers' comments. So this morning, after some blogbrowsing and the usual warm up, I got down to it. I also must remember that the best way for me to get to work is to let myself write about all the other stuff that is crowding my mind and get that onto the page so I can make some space to focus and explore. If I'm trying to remember half-a-dozen things, I can't focus. Better to just accept that I need to write other stuff because writing is so much how I sort out my own mind, then I can settle down into some exploring.

So after getting that done, I felt pretty good the rest of the day, even from an hour of work. I sent out loads of emails, solved some problems, backed up my laptop, and took it in. It may be gone for a week or more (waaaaa). So I'm stuck with the old desktop I plan to pack up and give to my mother -- as soon as the laptop comes home.

So tomorrow I think instead of writing about all the different reader comments, I'll spend some time on more close-up work. There's one problem that a reader mentioned that I want to explore and reflect on more. I even began doing some reading concerning that issue, but two pages in I figured out what direction I need to explore in order to explain/discover my own thinking. Instead of writing it down, I daydreamed a little, then took a nap. So I'll start there tomorrow. Though it's unlikely I'll forget, I can always just read over those couple pages again, waiting for that same match to spark.

So I feel pretty good. But I'm starting to yawn, and I really wanted to do yoga tonight. Good night all.