I love summer. It is a time of rejuvenation and renewal. And a time of no committees, no (required) teaching (though of course I will be teaching in the service of the Financial Freedom and the now very real goal of having a down-payment for a house), and no committees. (Notice how I put that down twice. Although I've actually agreed to do a committee thing this summer, but at least I'll be being paid a grand to do it.) It is a time of research, but after the teaching and the committees, the research seems like rejuvenation and renewal, so that's just grand.
It is also a time of grand socializing. First, there was the awesome dinner with BES's parents and her and Mentor Colleague. And then, the Inimitable A. came for our annual weekend of awesomeness (which, by the way, is especially awesome precisely because it's always Memorial Day weekend and we've committed to that weekend until forever. Like seriously: we've already discussed how it will go down if ever one or the other or both of us procreates, which as far as we can tell is the only thing that could threaten the weekend in a continuous way). Today I had coffee with my kitten-dealer (and happily said no to the service thing - which would be crippling - that she presented to me as an opportunity, and I'm really freaking proud of myself for declining, I've got to say) and tonight I went to a play at the opening night of a local theater festival with another friend, and I'm in the planning stages of a (potentially lame) coffee meet-up with a stranger (for that is the pain that is the life of the single girl). And there are plans in the offing with Naomi (for with her schedule and my schedule during the academic year, those don't happen often enough, but with summer - yahoo!).
And I'm plowing my way through a biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay (just for fun), and I may be shepherding some brave souls through Finnegans Wake in the coming weeks, depending. And also I've got some plans in the offing with Mentor Colleague and others about advice about how to make plans that will lead me to full professor.
In research news, I sent off the revise and resubmit a couple of weeks ago, and now I'm about to work in earnest over the next five days or so on the draft of the collection article of awesomeness (this in opposition to the collection article that's been held hostage for years - for this collection already has a publisher and it's on the fast track to being published in 2010, because it's about something Silly, though really Cool).
So yes, that's all of what's going on here. Lots of fun, lots of thoughts, lots of work but fun work that doesn't require me to negotiate with people with whom I disagree. It's lovely. Oh! And I'm going to NYC at the end of June for a weekend, to visit with my dad's sister whom I've not seen for years, and in which I'll get to see High School BFF and her mom, for they will be there on the exact same weekend! And then my mom has a visit planned with just me and her (in which I will make her help me haul all of the shit that she's given me that is useless to goodwill as punishment for giving me shit I don't want or need, but also in which we will have quality time together). And then, when summer teaching is done, a trip to Hometown.
There's a lot of less pleasant stuff I'm leaving out, but all in all, I'm very excited about this summer, and already it's shaping up to be glorious fun. Except for my broken computer (am now on alternate computer), but that I'm sure will work out swell (somehow) too.
The only piece of total unswellness is, well, probably something that it's less than cool of me to write about here, but I'm going to anyway. Let's say that once upon a time (nearly two years ago exactly) you fell into a Long Distance Relationship with a person who, really, is fantastic. But let's also say that this person had a total block about realizing the necessity of SEEING you - in person - and refused to make plans to see you in any real way, just to see you, not as a tacked-on thing to a family visit - and at a certain point you realized that this wasn't going anywhere. Note: this person is fantastic, but just because a person is fantastic it doesn't mean that you and the person want the same things. And so then you didn't speak for a month, although there were some angry emails sent back and forth, because just because you didn't want to talk it didn't mean that you wanted to be ignored. But so then, the person didn't ignore you after you forced the person not to, and you felt better about it all. BUT. Now the person is calling regularly again. You're trying to keep it light, but really, you feel like the person needs to chill and to leave you alone a bit. Because seriously, you can't talk to this person every three days, and have him emailing you on the off days (though with forwards, nothing substantive), and still move on to have coffee dates with strangers, which you need to do since this person has made it totally clear that he's really just not that into you. (And yes, I hate myself for invoking the He's Just Not That Into You thing, but that really is what it is here.) How exactly do you make it clear that you want to be the friend of a person and that this does not mean that you fall into the same every-day contact pattern? Without being a bitch, and thus making the person ignore you? Which of course, makes you filled with rage, because you're so not good with the people ignoring you? It's a conundrum.
And clearly it's an issue of boundary-setting, with which I've never excelled with this person. So anyway, I'm being fucked up about it all - in which I either try to be breezy and to allow contact or I ignore the person (which is uncool, given how I myself hate the being ignored and know how it's lame). I know it's just that he misses talking to me. Shit, I miss talking to him, too. But I get it now. He does not want what I want. And if I allow the everyday contact, well, then we won't move on, which we both need to do.
So that's the unswellness of this summer. Really a tiny blip on the swellness that is the rest of it.
And that is the latest and the greatest from the World of Crazy.
12 years ago
1 comment:
NLLDH and I broke up for about 2 years in the midst of our relationship, when he finished his degree and moved away for a job, and felt as though I should only move with him if we got married, but didn't feel ready to get married. But after we broke up, because he wasn't in town, initially it was like every other time we'd been apart - talking every day on the phone (which we'd done on research trips). Since we weren't in the same place, I couldn't use a change in our actual day-to-day F2F interactions to signal to myself that we'd broken up. So I had to say, "I can't talk to you right now," just so I could absorb that things were actually different. Because it made me kind of mad for him to break up with me, but then to expect the relationship to continue on pretty much the same terms (given the constraints of being long distance) - it felt like he was having his cake and eating it too.
I don't know if that makes sense, but I think it's pretty much what you're describing here. I feel you.
Post a Comment