steal my sun away

a winter depression has hit our house.

this morning, one of my spring classes was dropped due to low enrollment. another one will almost certainly also be dropped. but there are always classes added in this last week, so there's definitely still time for work to appear. I hope. thmarn is taking it pretty hard for some reason, and I'm doing my best to let her be as blue as she wants.

yesterday I applied for what would be a dream job for me. I really, really want it.

it's snowy, but a little warmer today than it was yesterday, so it's a good time to run some errands. I'm going to try to stay busy and cheerful. if I had plenty of work I would have no time to enjoy, so I'm going to enjoy my free time while I have it.

there is a season

2009 was a mixed bag.

at the end of the year, I was overworked, underpaid, tired, stressed, and poor.

I was also happy.

two years ago, while out with friends, I said that my resolutions were to find a tenure-track job and to make progress on the process of having a baby. life threw obstacles at me that kept either from happening. so this year I'm not making resolutions. I am, however, going to do more of the things that increase my quality of life. I made a big list of these things in my journal, to help me remember them on days that are hard.

at our party, we put out a sheet of paper with the words "I resolve to..." on it, and let folks write what they would. somebody wrote "value every day." that's exactly what I'm going to do.

she was speaking in cursive

one of my jobs is teaching at a school 30 miles away. I do a lot of thinking as I drive, although I teach so early in the morning that the quality of my thoughts is fairly superficial. it's still dark out as I drive to school, and the world seems sleepy as I drive through it. the road is very straight, and it feels sometimes as if I am on a huge treadmill, driving as the road unrolls ahead of me and disappears behind me.

I think about my lesson plans, my social life, the big events coming up, the weather, the music I'm listening to, my future. besides being sleepy, I'm usually quite content on these drives.

sometimes on the way home I stop at a produce market and pick up apples, or squashes, or pumpkins. I watch the seasons change and think about what the drive will be like next semester, in January and February.

my commute to the in-town school is very different. I walk to school, often listening to music, and watch the city get ready for its day. I see people buying coffee, workers sweeping sidewalks and washing windows, and the cat who lives in the storefront watching it all too.

there is water at the bottom of the ocean

today was mp's birthday. we slept in, had breakfast and coffee, and ran a couple of errands. when we came home, mp did some class prep while I baked her a cake and made a fruit crisp. then we went to dinner, which was very tasty, then hung out a bit before going out. we went to the bar, and lots of friends came out to wish her a happy birthday, and we all had a great time. all evening, I was surrounded by great people and excellent conversation. mp laughed, and drank the drinks people bought her, and played pool, and had fun.

we never got around to eating the cake, so there is a whole cake in the fridge.

happy birthday, mp. I hope this year is full of all sorts of wonderful things for you. I love you.

what you don't have, you don't need it now

I am not a musician.

this has, at times in my life, been a problem. as a young person, I had this pesky habit of dating musicians who thought that anyone who wasn't a musician was just not as good as someone who was. with one, there was this ongoing argument that I lacked passion because of it. with another, I lacked discipline. with yet another, I just wasn't as cool.

I developed quite a chip on my shoulder about musicians, thinking them to be pretentious and mean-spirited. then I met thmarn, who dislikes those types of musicians just as much as I do. so I got over it.

I still don't know that much about music. I know what I like, what I appreciate, what I respect. but I know that there are moments when music wraps me up in a sense of shared experience and just generally makes me feel wonderful.

last night, thmarn and I went to see U2 in Chicago. we love U2 and have seen them a lot. thus, we've had a lot of experience with U2 fans, who are crazy at best. most of the time, we try to steer clear of them, as they often have an overinflated sense of entitlement and a rabid competitiveness ("I see you went to the last tour...I saw them four times on that tour."). so we were prepared for a lot of unpleasantness and were not disappointed.

(I should say, however, that we saw several acts of just fan-related kindness--people being nice to each other just because. there were also lots of families there, just happy to be having fun together.)

both before the show and after, we seemed surrounded by the worst kind of fandom. however, while the band was onstage, I was filled with that bubbling, connected euphoria that comes sometimes when you're watching live music with a crowd. I looked around the stadium and saw tens of thousands of hands waving and clapping. to my right was a guy who was at the show solo but dancing and belting out the songs for all he was worth.

I threw my hands in the air and sang my heart out. what a wonderful night.

take a second, take a second, take a year

the first few weeks of a semester is always a lot of work. there's this constant scramble to read, and prep, and get used to the new schedule. this semester I'm teaching 3 classes at 2 different schools. I teach monday through friday. I have 3 separate preps, all new. it's the third week of classes and I'm exhausted.

I know I'll get used to the schedule, but for now I'm tired. I don't have time to do all the other stuff I should be doing: job hunting, revising my article, writing new material, preparing for a conference, etc.

I get to walk to work every day. well, at one school I do. I get to teach new material, so I'm definitely not bored. and I am once again surrounded by people who are clever, smart, funny, and kind.

not to sound like I'm on repeat, but life is, for right now, pretty great. I feel like I've been given this little bit of time to just...float, and heal, and renew. even though I really have more work to do than time, it feels like a break to me.

I'm ready to say "I'm glad to be alive"

I'm back in BG. this is, in some ways, the equivalent of moving back in with my parents--I've come home to live with a certain sense of security and a strong support network.

but I still get to teach, at least a little bit. the cost of living is low. I get to hang out with friends any time I care to.

I haven't seen thmarn laugh this much in a long time.

when I was making plans to move back, I was trying to describe to a friend how I felt about it. I eventually said this:

"relief. like silence after too much noise, or sleep after a hard day, or the feeling when a cramped muscle releases. ahh."

I can breathe again. I'm home again.