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A job with a view

Deep into my tenure portfolio this week. The first draft is due in just a few days.

Actually, it’s a really good way of reflecting on just how much I’ve accomplished in the past five years. I’ve been much busier than it sometimes seemed, and I’ve actually completed a pretty impressive body of work.

In fact, it was work that got me through the dark times a few years back when I felt like the whole world was collapsing around me. It gave me a goal–something to work toward–and it made the days seem not quite so pointless. When you’re already depressed and suddenly a lot of really crappy things happen, it’s easy for days to start seeming pointless.

Work gave me something I felt like I could control, and that’s something I really needed at that point. A lot of other situations at the same time in my life had left me feeling like I wasn’t in charge of my own destiny, which is pretty fucking unpleasant, especially when you’re a control freak by nature.

Anyway, that whole desire to excel at something (or at least to control something) turned out to be a really good thing career-wise. it’s hard to believe I’ve been at this for more than five years. And I still think “tenured university faculty” is about the last thing anybody expected from me ten or fifteen years ago. But it just may happen now, assuming I can complete a lot of paperwork successfully, document everything I’ve done sufficiently, and convince the powers that be that they should keep me forever rather than can me.

Should be an interesting six months or so, anyhow. I’ll keep you posted.

Perks

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I couldn’t decide where I wanted to go for lunch today, so I just kept driving until I ran out of land. It was fun.

That’s one of the perks of being a divorcé with no kids, no pets, and a burglar alarm. You can leave your house at 9:00 in the morning and not get home till midnight, without having to be concerned whether anyone else will worry, starve, shit themselves, complain, or otherwise react in any way whatsoever.

I think I wrote about this once before, fifteen or so years back, but I can’t be bothered to look for it to create a link right now.

A good Friday, all in all

It’s been a very productive day off for me. I’ve gotten caught up on many administrative and financial sorts of things I’ve been procrastinating over, including my taxes–but sadly, not Mom’s, as they’ll require an actual CPA this year–and assorted bill payments and filing. This is nice because it will allow me to spend a good chunk of the weekend doing things I actually want to do and might even enjoy.

For those who keep up with such things, my house in Winston-Salem is back on the market. You can see pictures here and if you’re really interested, I can send you the listing. Three showings in as many days. That seems like good momentum, but we’ll see. I still love that house, but it’s the last little bit of a period in my life that needs to be over now so I’m anxious to let go of it. Losing the mortgage payment will have a certain charm as well.

Randomly Saturday afternoon

At the close of a busy week:

  • Therapy session on Wednesday where I discussed conflicts I’m experiencing over sex. No Freudian clichés there, eh?
  • With April comes the real beginning of the intense phase of my march toward tenure. It’s going to be a long six months. Interestingly enough, I had one or two of those “I’m not a fraud. I really legitimately deserve to be considered a professional in my field” moments this week. Those are nice.
  • Listening to the last day of live DJs on CBC Radio 3 yesterday made me sad. I’m not pleased about the changes. I don’t think anyone is.
  • Continuing to ponder whether Los Angeles or Seattle would be a better post-conference antidote to my required visit to the Bay Area. Suggestions welcome.
  • Still waiting for the teabaggers to launch that Ted Cruz birther movement.
  • Still waiting…

Marching on…

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As ever, I’ve been doing this for way too fucking long.

March 2010: Pittsburgh, eerie foreshadowing, and duct tape. And why is the SNCA conference always at some really inconvenient time for me?

March 2005: New computer, ska librarian rendezvous, and assorted quips. Not my best work, I must say.

March 2000: Apparently the most important thing in my life was the new Krispy Kreme. Or Fred Phelps. Or something else. Otherstream in it prime, maybe. Maybe not.

Gym without class

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Interesting article from the Toronto Star about bullying coaches.

I never played team sports as a kid. In fact, I did everything I could to avoid sports. I pretty much still do. A big part of that is that I just wasn’t interested. It wasn’t my “thing.” But I suspect a lot of it also had to do with the fact that, since I showed no natural ability or inclination, I was never treated in a way that encouraged me to want to stretch myself and learn about options other than football, basketball, etc.

Face it. Gym class is traumatizing for pretty much everyone in junior high. But for a queer kid who wasn’t very good at sports and who was already socially challenged and mercilessly teased on a regular basis, it was a fucking nightmare. And a bunch of redneck, meathead coaches who just didn’t “get it” made things much worse. While physical education classes are supposed to help you develop healthy lifelong habits, they had the exact opposite effect on me, teaching me that sports and physical fitness were something to be feared.

There were actually some things I was relatively good at–gymnastics and track come to mind–but as a boy, I was pushed into competitive team sports I had no talent for and no interest in. Not surprisingly, I faced a lot of ridicule. The asshole coaches and the forced curriculum were no help whatsoever.

My point here, however, is not to show what jerks my junior high PE coaches were (OK, maybe it is part of my point) but to show what a missed opportunity junior high gym classes can be for some students. I could’ve been inspired to do healthy things that I enjoyed, but instead, I developed a fear of all things athletic. The minute I was no longer required to take physical education classes, I stopped. I’ve never set foot in a gym since, and there’s a pretty good chance I never will.

The whole process didn’t do my general social development a lot of good either, but that’s a story for another day.

Home

Exhausted, with much unpacking, sorting, and catching up to do, all just in time for company Sunday night.

Coming later, if I have time:

  • New York pictures (maybe two trips’ worth).
  • Random thoughts on long-distance rail travel in the USA.
  • Pondering this summer’s West Coast adventure.
  • Another few paragraphs on the wonder that is Pittsburgh.
  • The inevitable rant about how batshit crazy my state has become.

For now, though, it’s bed…

It was nice…

…being home for a few hours. Now that I’ve washed my underwear and rearranged my luggage a bit, it’s off on the next voyage. This time I’m off to Greenville NC (maybe the most boring college town in the world) for a conference presentation.

Dagnabbit, I just wanna watch TV for a little while. Is that so much to ask?