Medusa's losing it

Going up for tenure +
applying for 35 jobs +
teaching three jam-packed couress +
advising umpteen thousand majors +
writing umpteen hundred recommendations for students +
serving on multiple committees+
running a new lecture series+
writing a panel proposal for a major conference +
prepping for a friggin interview with the tenure committee (have you ever heard of such a thing? the 500-page binder wasn't enough?) +
a way overdue revise and resubmit gathering dust on my desk +
the collection I am editing

---

= An exhausted stress ball called me

Tell me it's going to be okay.

Back

And pretty much intact. I am a little worse for the wear. I feel like I have waded through a couple of decades of murky emotional waters. Was it necessary? Probably. Did I handle it as well as I could have? Probably not.

Thanks for advice, by the way, on navigating the family visit. I only managed to get away to a coffee shop to work 2 (out of 14) days. I did end up going farther South to my father's house and a bit further down the cosmic drain, but I am in the end glad I went.

By the way and fyi, the plane trips to and from the Deep Red were HORRENDOUS. Delays, flight changes, hours and hours in airports, lost luggage. The airline system is broken, people, just in case you did not already know. I have traveled twice a year to the Deep Red for the past 15 years and I travel at least one a year for conferences, and I have never seen anything as ludicrous as what went on these most recent flights. Broken.

Okay. End of rant, I think. I do have something to say about the growing popularity of the Aerobed and the serious threat to sleeping comfort it poses for millions of visitors in homes across the country, but I will save that for another day.

I know I sound like a spoiled and ungrateful asshat of a traveler but DUDES it is good to be home and back with The Someone and easing back into what will be a crazy busy but--I have no doubt--completely awesome rest of the summer.

Just going to let Bobby Z say it for me

I know at some point I said that if I did a post about Buddhism or my new meditation practices, it would be code for "that asshat at work is up to more ass haberdashery." But I just don't have the zen in me, folks. No, no I do not.

So let's enjoy this repeat musical interlude with the Dylan and videophorically give the melodiphoric finger to those idiotic Idiot Winds in our lives.

Brautigan Saturday, "The Return of the Rivers" (+ some ruby shoes)

The Return of the Rivers

All the rivers run into the sea;
yet the sea is not full;
unto the place from whence the rivers come,
thither they return again.

It is raining today
in the mountains.

It is a warm green rain
with love
in its pockets
for spring is here,
and does not dream
of death.

Birds happen music
like clocks ticking heavens
in a land
where children love spiders,
and let them sleep
in their hair.

A slow rain sizzles
on the river
like a pan
full of frying flowers,
and with each drop
of rain
the ocean
begins again.

Happy Spring, everyone. This last stanza is one my favorites in all of Brautigan's poems. The beautifully quirky and rich image of a pan of frying flowers followed by this impossibly romantic thought. Quintessential Brautigan.

It has been a frantic week, back from break and trying to get ready for what is going to be an insanely busy April. With regular teaching, directing a student thesis project to its completion and presentation, hosting a major campus event I have spent hours and hours and will spend hours and hours more organizing, making sure my umpteen senior advisees will indeed graduate, grading the final work of umpteen students, and oh leaving for five days to attend a conference and chair a panel and give a paper there, April will indeed be the cruelest month. I am anticipating back-to-back 70-hour weeks if I am lucky. Oddly, I am feeling okay about it. Energetic, at least. Perhaps I am in complete denial. Of course, getting all of this done requires that I completely avoid Idiot Wind (formerly called TDC here) and ignore all of her last-minute, time-sucking requests--three alone in the last week.

What's just happened here?? Away with thee, bitchy franticness! It's Spring! Sorry I did not have time to post my wardrobe inspirations for the week. By way of apology, behold:



Ruby shoes. Calvin Klein ruby shoes. Want them. Cannot afford them right now. Thank the Zappos gods that my size is out of stock.

The United States Postal Service is under no obligation to deliver your mail

Did you know this? I did not know this. See, I was under the impression that if you were to give a package to the United States Postal Service and were to pay the required postage fee that the United States Postal Service would in fact deliver that package to the address specified. Ha! No no no no nooo.

In actual fact, unless you send your package Priority Class (pay extra), send it Registered (pay extra) with a return receipt (pay extra), and/or insure it (pay extra), the United States Postal Service may or may not deliver that package. If you pay only the basic postage rate, they are not responsible for the delivery of the package. They can lose the package. They can deliver that package damaged. Or they can deliver that package, as was the case with one I recently sent to myself from the Deep Red, with big holes torn in it and with most of the contents missing.

So the basic postage rate is apparently a fee paid to the USPS to take your package with no promise of delivering it. So you are paying some people to take your stuff. A robbing fee, if you will.

In brief, in the exact words of a customer service representative of the United States Postal Service to me, the "United States Postal Service is under no obligation to deliver your mail (Miss)." Huh. I thought that was pretty much the only thing the United States Postal Service was obliged to do. I must have been thrown off by the whole "postal service" thing.

My father's daughter

My father, in his own words, has been "upset since the day [he] was born," but in a funny, boisterous, ranty, somehow stoic, super Irish way. The "upset since the day I was born" is part of the whining speech, delivered to chronic complainers: "What?? You're upset about something? Why shouldn't you be upset? What's wrong with being upset? You probably should be upset. I've been upset since the day I was born."

Believe me, he had good reason to be upset from that day he was born in 1930 in Southern New Mexico. The times, they were not good. But he and his family made the best of them, and he became a successful man, a good father, and whatever the opposite of a "whiner" is. He never ever complains but oh my god does he rant. The rants, they are endless. I really can't list them all. The most frequent: IDIOTS. The most random: Kenny Chesney. The most recent: unflattering chunky clunky shoes.

So, because I am my father's daughter, here are some things I am TOTALLY AGAINST for no good reason:

1. Flameless candles
2. Andy Rooney's eyebrows
3. Robin Thicke
4. The following words: moist, girth, corpuscle
5. Tom's of Maine
6. Facial hair trends, such as the goatee (or any imitative and therefore uncreative creative facial hair)
7. Caller ID entitlement (not leaving a message on the assumption that I will see that you called and therefore call you back)
8. Olives & mushrooms (I know, everybody loves them. I dare you to make me like them. Stuffed and/or alcohol-drenched not included.)
9. The U.S. media's "predator" fetish


(Okay, so there are good reasons to be upset about one or two of those, NOT THE LEAST OF WHICH IS ROBIN THICKE, but we ranters have our convictions too.)

Icky Sicky

Fever, chills, aches, lunatic stomach. =(

How does this happen in August when I am, for the most part, holed-up in the garret writing? (It was the subway last week, wasn't it? Or the bus. Damn bus.)

Stressed-out gypsy

My adventure with More Fun was not as carefree as I would have liked it to have been. If I weren't so loathe to admit it, I would say that the sucky situation of last week brought on by the putrid behavior of it (leaving him/her genderless) who shall now be called the Nemesis of Medusa was a bit too much to be overcome during my short trip. More Fun did his best to make me feel better, including affectionately demanding many times that I marry him, tell the Nemesis to fuck right off, and move to Rock-n-Roll Circus Land.

I think more than anything I am jealous of my gypsy friends. I was too aware that I had to come back to this. How dare NoM fuck with my gypsy time and my summer adventures, as few and far between as they are! I don't even feel like doing my work--work that I was excited about and work that makes the gypsy time all the more fun--since NoM pissed all over my career.

At least it has come to a showdown. I have to try to remember that and to move ahead, even though I am uncertain of what's ahead. Isn't that the gypsy way, after all? Day after tomorrow I leave for the Deep Red for a long visit with my family. I hope that change of scenery does a bit more to dispel the NoM nastiness in my head.

The Chalupa will be joining me on my travels! We are very excited but a little nervous about the long plane ride(s). Any advice on how to handle a wily Chalupa in a airplane cabin? Chalupas on a plane! Chalupas on a plane!

OK. . .I am going to end this disjointed and kind of nutty and kind of ranty and kind of maudlin post and go to the gym or drink some wine or both (but not at the same time obviously). The Nemesis just fucking sucks so fucking much, for fuck's sake! (Ahh . . .cursing does help, it really does.)

Cryptic and desperate plea for advice

How do (or would) ya'll handle unfair treatment by a superior especially when his or her actions could seriously jeopardize your career? How do you keep it from sucking all of your energy, energy you need to spend on your work? How do you do what you can to fight it then draw the line and redirect your energy toward the major, time-intensive projects you need to complete? How do you put a limit on how much mental space you are going to allow the fuckwit to have? How do you handle the anger and frustration of someone putting you in a deeply unfair situation?

I am thinking voodoo doll, but I welcome any and all suggestions. Help!

No one loves me (a Medusa pity party)

Evidence that no one loves me:

Exhibit A. Got an email from The Grand He this morning, reporting that his "joyous wedding" (who the fuck says that, besides the pod people who write for Hallmark cards?) went off without a hitch and AND that he and the Mrs. just returned a wonderful honeymoon in my ancestral homeland. They went to my homeland for their honeymoon!??!?! Words fail me.

Exhibit B. No one has replied to the very important business emails I have sent out in the past few weeks. I know, I know--it's summer. Still. Should I actually use the phone to contact these people? That seems totally insane.

Exhibit C. No one comments on my blog anymore. Is anyone there? [tap tap] Is this thing on? Hello?

Evidence to the contrary:

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B: Ambiguous Friend wants to go out to a favorite spot for dinner and then to a movie this evening. Hmmm. . . wish I weren't so ambivalent about Ambiguous Friend.

Exhibit C: Rumor has it that Diego Luna, Alfonso Cuarón , and my boyfriend will be teaming up again for Mexico '68. Proof that God loves me.

Must get to work

The last thing I want to do is hold myself accountable on the blog, but I think I must. I am pretty sure I have lost an entire week of planned work time. Two whole weeks at the end of the semester to take care of personal, medical, and household projects?? Positively scandalous. Oh, I am forgetting that last week I actually did do the major department project TDC was riding me about. I even submitted it a full week earlier than she had originally asked for it. (She moved up the deadline 10 days at the last minute. Typical.) So my first week off, I went to the dentist, to the eye doctor, started on insane workout plan, and emailed various folks about various research projects. Second week, I did major department project. But, I still have not:

1. Planned summer class. It is a class I have taught before, but I have never taught it summer-style. This will take some tweaking but will not be terribly too much work. I just want to make sure assignments and readings are perfecto so that it's pretty laid-back for me. I need to do two other research projects while I am teaching it.
2. Worked on Major Project due to publisher tentatively in June. Work on Major Project involves:
1. Emailing several people I want to be involved to ask them to be involved, including AB, AE, LE, and KC.
2. Looking over some guidelines and sample thingies
   
3. Deciding on several important details regarding format and content
   
4. Emailing some other people
5. Compiling
6. Writing
7. Crossing fingers
8. Sending
3. Cleaned out study by: filing this year's course materials, move boxes to basement, move big photo project somewhere, set up sewing machine, cleaning out files, and getting S. to come over for an estimate on finishing shelves.

Did I mention I also have a meeting with TDC (grrrr...), an appointment for a scary medical test (it's nothing, just a c.y.a. thing my doc is making me do), an appointment for a haircut and highlights (ok, this I count as pampering and fun), and a shrink appointment this week? Then there's Insane Workout Plan to work into the schedule every day. Did I also mention that in less than two weeks I may be joining More Fun for a few days here and then a few days with the rock-n-roll circus? Did I mention that three weeks from yesterday I am going to the Deep Red (where work does not happen) for a 16-day visit to my family?

Yes, I conduct my life like an idiot. But how can I not when my life is so idiotic? I am soooo tired of all the pressure, all of the crazy blinding-to-all-else amount of teaching during the year, all of the Summers of Deadlines, all of the family obligations that require me to come to them in the Deep Red for increasingly extended (and irrational, considering my work load) periods of time, and all of the department ridiculousness. I cannot tell you the last time I began a summer not mildly to utterly panicked about the amount of work I have to do. It's not normal. It's no way to live a life. I am in the ninth circle of burnout. I am this close to packing it up and doing something totally different. I feel like I would jump at the first opportunity to do so.

On poofing posts (and the 48 Laws of Power)

Just poofed away a rant about TDC that I wrote this morning. It didn't reveal all that much and it was not all that scandalous, just another petty frustration really. I am not sure why I feel uncomfortable writing about TDC, uncomfortable enough to want to erase the occasional post. I know I need to vent, but I also think I may be giving this too much power. She's an asshole, yes. Most of what she does is total bullshit, yes. But so what? I cannot keep feeding the negative energy. I have to find a way to let it roll off my back--to know she is going to be a jerk about most things, to know I will have to continue to fight battles over the most basic things to do what I need to do, and to stop allowing myself to react emotionally. I have to stop letting myself get caught up in the pettiness and stupidity. If she does have an agenda to screw me over, unless I let myself get totally crazy, I can certainly outwit her, right?

Hey, maybe I should re-read that diabolical bestseller among corporate generica, the 48 Laws of Power. Do you know this book? I discovered it in grad school, when I found it on my then boyfriend's bedside table. I immediately had to buy a copy and study it with a mad intensity to see what kind of mind power he might be trying to wield over me. (I should point out that this was a completely ridiculous relationship that began in an arcade and only got more ludicrous from there.) Around the same time, my Uncle, the fundamentalist Christian with whom I have a long-standing long-distance book club, mentioned it as something I should read. I was shocked that a) two such wildly different people were reading the same book, and b) Uncle J. did not recognize the tome as the work of The Devil that it is. I also got Dr. Crazy involved in my study of the 48 laws, as she was also involved with the bassist of one of the crazy boyfriend's bands. (Was he the bassist, Dr. Crazy? Why am I remembering him as a bassist, other than the fact that I was drunk that year?) Anyway, Crazy and I began to assign one of the 48 laws to each person we knew as "signature laws." The signature law represented a person's standard operating procedure, their normal modus operandi in life, relationships, etc.--kind of like an astrological sign. The authors of 48 Laws, by the way, never mention such a thing or suggest this as one of the uses of these laws. We, being students terrorized daily by a harrowing graduate program, were just heavily into methods of divination, even those we totally made up. My signature law, for example, was Law 44: Disarm and Infuriate with The Mirror Effect. I believe Dr. Crazy's was Law 17: Keep Others in Suspended Terror by Cultivating an Air of Unpredictability.

Hee. Can you see me next year covertly trying out a new law of power on TDC each and every week? This week, in our meeting regarding assessment, I will whip out Law 37 and "Create Compelling Spectacles" in order to generate an aura of power that dazzles all. That might actually make for a very amusing academic satire, I think. What I should probably do instead is re-read Straight Man, drink some martinis, and stop taking everything so fucking seriously.

Grrrrr. . . . .

I am so frustrated with TDC and . . .*poof*

Random Bullets of Cranky Easter Morning

• What's up with the cold weather, people? 31 degrees Fahrenheit with an expected high of 40 degrees. This reminds me that every single May I vow to make plans for a mini-vacation to a very warm locale for the next May. I always pretend I will have the money or will somehow find the money to do this. I never do.
• Money. I don't have any. I don't care at the moment if it is incredibly crass to talk about it. It's an enormous struggle every single month. I am tired of it. It also occurs to me that it's RIDICULOUS that I am putting 5% of my paycheck into a retirement account when I have to panic and scramble right now to pay my bills. I have let my father pressure me into doing this. (And, yes, I suspect the reason I am woefully financially unsuccessful at this late age is because I have let my father continue to have a major influence on my financial decisions.) I am actually paying some bills with a credit card that doesn't charge interest until August, because by then I will be able to pay it off with a check from teaching summer school. Pathetic.
• I am teaching summer school. Boo.
• Paloma has invited me to a wonderful Easter dinner. She's cooking for her entire family and a few friends, all of whom I would really like to see. I know this should be a good thing and not a cranky-making thing, but I had no idea what she was talking about when on the phone Friday night she was "reminding" me of Easter this and two hams that and scalloped potatoes here and cobbler there, all at her house. She had thought she had told me weeks ago. Normally this would not be a big deal, but I am so so behind in my work. I was way behind before the weekend began, and the past three days of seeing out-of-town friends and going to papers at the conference that is in town has royally screwed me. I estimate I need about 10 hours each day today and tomorrow to get through the work and that may be a little on the conservative side. I can see squeezing in an hour tops for Easter dinner. That would be extreme eating and running, though. On Easter. Rude. What to do? Go for a bit? Say I am not feeling well?
• I actually am feeling sick. I don't know if it's allergies or what, but I am exhausted, achey, and, as is abundantly evident by now, cranky.
• There is a very large hawk in my neighborhood. I wish I could say something Thoreau-like about its mighty beak or the gold of its tilted feather in sunny flight (I heart Thoreau, in spite of myself, I really do), but as he seems to have taken a loud screeching interest in the Chalupa the past few mornings, what I will say is this: "Get within 100 feet of this yard in any direction, you filthy scavenging coward, and I will rip you apart with my own hands."
  
• I have been having these amazing dreams that I am in a reality that isn't real. I am not talking about lucid dreaming, which is standard dreaming procedure for me. I mean in the dream I am projected (for various reasons, by various forces, some friendly, some not) into a simulated reality, a holodeck-like projection, and have to navigate my way through it. At first, it feels like I am travelling through a muddy-feeling substance that looks like the world but has thick heavy mass and texture. As I learn how to walk, to breathe, to talk in this new environment, it begins to feel natural. I bounce around as I would in my normal environment, but there's no gravity. There is only substance around me, and I can walk through it in any direction--down into the earth, up into the sky, up walls and upside down on ceilings. I can find the substance is moldable and I can create things I need from it. Am I a) stepping precariously closer to the edge of psychosis; b) really getting into a certain something I am teaching right now; c) spending way too much time in virtual environments; or d) fabulously creative and brilliant?
• Have you noticed blog cliques? I have been branching out in my blog reading, and I have seen a few groups of blogs that seem to discourage outsiders and seem to encourage a certain exclusiveness--in posts, in comments--among a limited amount of people. I am not talking about those bloggers who have a combination of new readers, IRL friends, and readers from a certain community. What I see from those bloggers is an at least implicit generosity with all visitors, except of course those commenters who are hostile. What I think I am seeing are some blogs that are the virtual equivalent of the "cool kid" table in the high-school cafeteria. I do not comment frequently even on the blogs I regularly read and I have never commented on these cliquey blogs I mention, but I am fascinated by what it is that gives off this exclusivity vibe on certain blogs.
  
• How did I forget what a great movie Moonstruck is? I watched it last night before bed. Best forgotten line, between Olympia Dukakis's character and the NYU professor (played by John Mahoney): OD: I am not old for you. JM: I am too old for me!. HA! Think I actually told The Grand He that he was too old for himself once, not remembering that I had stolen that line. I do this constantly, by the way--steal lines from movies and forget they are from movies and think they are mine. A huge amount of them are from the 80s.
  
• Finally, in way of an apology for all of the crankiness I have just dumped on you: Happy Easter, Happy Spring!

Should be grading should be grading should be grading

I am stuck at school for another two hours (well, look at that, I have lost a full 51 minutes messing around on the Internet) hour and change. I am having an early dinner with one of my BFFs from grad school, who is in town for a conference, so I decided to grade in my office until it's time to meet. HA! I am embarrassed to say how few papers I have graded in the holy god three-and-a-half hours since my office hours ended.

Have I done anything one might call work in this time? Unless you count researching whether or not you can use flexible spending dollars to have your eggs frozen and stored, no, no I have not. In case are wondering whether or not you can use flex spending to freeze and store your eggs, the answer is yes. In case you are wondering if there's a more banally tragic scenario than trying to find out whether or not you can use flex spending to freeze and store your eggs, the answer is no.

I need a break, folks. I am talking a big-ass, long-ass, real-ass break. I know you know the feeling.

I miss Conference Land

All this week I have been doing the "last week at this time" thing and trying to account for why in god's name I love a conference so much. Is it the travel? To some degree, yes. I can be giddy like a little child just by traveling to a fruit stand 10 miles down the road. The new sights! The new sounds! The adventure! But I also know that it's the shot in the arm I get from the (here's where I geek out, folks) the scholarship--my own and others'. I love the panels, the discussions, the casual conversations, watching graduate students suck up to muckity mucks, and even all of the pretentious and ridiculous performances of scholar-ness. I even enjoy the bad shoes. I just do not get ANY exposure to this kind of interaction at Foggy C. Because of TDC, it's much better to keep my research pursuits on the downlow.

I am realizing over and over again (or forgetting and remembering, habitually) how maddeningly difficult it is to do what I want to do at Foggy C. And it's not that I should not do it, because of the institutional culture, as TDC would have me believe. In fact, I am required to be active in my field, to give conference papers regularly, and to publish. I keep thinking that I just have to play it smarter, to not discuss these pursuits with TDC, and to somehow find an intellectually nourishing environment in this job. I wonder, though, if that's really possible.

What a conference shows me is just how starved of WHAT I DO for most of the year. Yes, I get a lot out of teaching. I consider teaching to be just as important as research, and I am exceptionally good at it. I put a ton of energy into my teaching, and I get energy from it. I get good ideas for my research from my teaching all of the time. But it's just not the same as being with and talking to other people who are actively involved in research. Is once a year (and I do tend to do all my conferences in the Spring) enough to sustain my energy?

A huge part of the problem is TDC. . .*poof* . . .She sent me twenty-one emails last week. Twenty-one.

Ok, that's enough poof-worthy bitching for a Sunday morning. I have a snoring chihuahua to feed, a novel to read, and a condo-association meeting, in which we discuss what to do about the drunken musician who is suing us, to attend. (No, somewhat unbelievably, the drunken musician is not an ex-boyfriend of mine. I don't even think he's a bassist. That is, however, the first thing I am going to ask at the meeting. "Is the plaintiff a bassist?" is in fact the only question on my "Condo Meeting, March 2007, Re: Lawsuit and Various Liability Issues" list so far.)

Can I move to Mexico City?

It seems like an excellent, most desirable plan.

There I will reunite with Tomas, the first boyfriend of the (14-year-old) Medusa.

There I will bask in the sun and do . . .something both important and fun.

I will have window-boxes full of azaleas.

Can you tell I am in paper-writing hell?

Hate the filthily stupidly theoretically dense theses to which I am attracted.

Next year for this conference I am going to write about Robert Downey Jr. doing lines off of Jake Gyllenhaal's bare chest--apropos of nothing, suckers!!!!

In other news, it has been 601 days since I smoked a cigarette.

I might take up smoking again when I move to Mexico City.

I refuse to write a paragraph of more than one sentence for this post.

I would like to be drunk.

Or even just hungover.

THAT IS HOW BAD IT IS.

The chalupa, on the other hand, is quite content.

Random Bullets of I Feel Like Crap

I have sniffles and chills and aches. A cold, plain and simple. I got into bed at 7:30 p.m. last night and pretty much slept straight through to 9:30 a.m. this morning. I still feel crappy. I am too cranky and foggy to put the things bouncing around in my head into narrative form, so . . .

• I might be turning into my mother. My mother avoids all people with colds at all costs. She will also cancel plans if she is coming down with a cold or recovering from a cold, because she thinks it unforgivably rude to pass on known germs to others. I am especially cranky about this cold, because I got it from someone who knew he had a cold and made plans with me anyway and didn't tell me he was recovering from a particularly nasty cold until he had exposed me to all of his germy germs. Oh god! I am a seventy-year-old woman.
• But you see, I CAN'T HAVE A COLD RIGHT NOW! This is the week after my holiday but before school starts--the week in which I have to do everything I need to do in order to start the semester on a reasonably sane note. This is TCB week. Dammit!!!!!
• More evidence that I might be turning into my mother: I bought this. My mother has always refused to use a coffee maker. She has two old-fashioned percolators and makes a pot of decaf and a pot of regular every morning. Is it really worth the trouble? After two weeks of drinking the old-fashioned percolated coffee and then returning to my Mr. Coffee coffee, I have to say "blek, blek, blek" and "yes."
• At the risk of forever losing my film critic cred, what with yesterday's recommendation and with what I am about to say, that Night at the Museum really is a cute movie. My new favorite word is "weirdie."
  
• Is the "Megan Mullally Show" really still on the air? Have you seen this thing? It's unforgivably bad. The conversations I have on my couch with my non-celebrity friends are more interesting. Oh, I could turn to "The View," which airs at the same time. Ayyyyyyyyyyyy! Right, I'll say it again, "Hey Barbara, Rosie, Elizabeth, Joy--you're killing feminism!"
• I should be getting into the shower then getting into my study and then doing the things with the syllabi and the files and the organizing and the what-not. Don't wanna. Cold. Achey. Pajamas soft. Robe warm. Bed nice.
  
• I love The Blog of Henry David Thoreau. Isn't this passage beautiful? I have swum in Walden Pond at sundown more than once and once at night under a full moon. Transformative.
• Is it okay if I stay in bed today? If I do, I would only have a few days to get ready for my semester--writing syllabi (but I've taught these classes before), reviewing student work (but that does not have to be done right now, necessarily), re-organizing study, etc. Won't I just feel like a useless slug if I do stay in bed? Agh. Annoying even myself.
• Damn you, Man with Cold! You are bigger and stronger and younger than I am! Damn you for giving me your cold and going on your merry way!
• When I feel better, I want to blog about my New Year's Resolutions, which are serious this year. Briefly, they are: 1) Goof off more; 2) Indulge on regular basis creative impulses, including new one--sewing--made possible by snazzy new sewing machine I got as a Christmas gift; 3) spend time meditating, first of all and most importantly on the question of whether a) to go for tenure at Foggy C; b) to do a bigger job search next year; c) to do something totally different; or devious option d) to get tenure at Foggy C AND to put most of my energy into doing something totally different; 4) giant Spring cleaning, starting in Winter and lingering into Summer.
• OK, what if I moved into the living room, set up camp on the futon, did some work, watched some movies, but drank juice and tea and napped at will?
  
• I am seriously thinking of getting my hair cut, which is quite long, like this. But not until Spring. Thoughts?
  
• I think I might be the most boring person with a cold in the whole world.
  

So long from the Deep Red

I will be leaving for home tomorrow morning. It's the first time in recent memory that I am not excited to get back home. Just too much there I do not want to face. At all.

But it's a bright new year, right? I can deal. I will deal.

Catch you on the flip side.

Goodbye 2006, You Nasty Nasty Bastard

I am not in the least sorry to see you go. You will go down in my personal history as the mocker of all best efforts, the minion of seemingly inescapable negative truths, and the enemy of faith and humor. No need to dwell in specifics, as the brand of failure you dished out has no redeeming value.

It's a bright new day and a bright new year.

Hello 2007! I am already half in love with you.