Ok, So the Metaphor of FB Yesterday WAS Disgusting...

And yet, I thought of him today when I sprouted (is that the right word?) the rare zit on my chin. Perhaps the emotional angst goes hand in hand with the maladies of the skin? And if so, perhaps as disgusting as his mind is in conceiving of metaphors for my emotional state, he may not be utterly foolish?

There is nothing worse than a blemish on the chin. Unless it is a blemish on the nose. There but for the grace of god go I.

RBOC: Retreats Are Much More Exhausting and Boring Than the Name Would Indicate Edition

• So the retreat wasn't too terribly painful. I arrived about 40 minutes after the "continental breakfast" was to start, and I was concerned that the actual agenda would have begun, as it was supposed to have done, when I sped up in my little car. But no! I planned things perfectly, as we didn't get started until a full 10 minutes after that. Apparently 5 years on the tenure-track is good for something, as I apparently understand the rhythm of my department well enough to be able to sleep in a little bit :)
• The retreat itself was ok. Good conversations. Will be interesting to see if anything practical actually emerges from them. One can only hope.
• In other great news, I came home to two things of note: 1) I'll be reviewing a manuscript for a Very Good Journal for which I've never reviewed anything before, which I know is invisible service, but it does make me feel like I am Fancy and Have Stature in the Profession, and 2) My cousin and his wife are having another baby!!!!!! This is very exciting news, as I love their kids, and I've always wanted them to have more babies (they've already got 3 kids), and so this means that I shall have a new infant to coo at in 6 months' time. Hurrah!
• All systems appear to be go with putting up my online course without the aid of the Useless Office Whose Responsibility It's Supposed to Be to Help with Such Matters. I love my colleagues in my own department, who are generous and helpful and the most efficient and wonderful people ever.
• Well, except some of the colleagues who aren't all those things, but I don't have very much interaction with those ones, so they don't bother me one way or the other.
• I'm also very excited for classes to start next week, other than the whole online fiasco, because even the one that is, arguably, the least attractive is full to the gills. I am popular! Really and truly popular! (So now the next agenda item is to be so mean and scary the first day that a few drop each of the courses. We'll see how that goes.) I'm also very excited about seeing some of my favorite students in those courses. (I almost just called them "repeat offenders" but that perhaps sends the wrong message :) )
• But so now I have work that I should accomplish, but am feeling a bit drained from the whole "retreat" business. Perhaps a nap is in order?
• I don't think I actually have a cold. I just needed a cocktail of allergy meds to alleviate the effects of the Poisonous Weed Allergens that fill the skies.
  

Deja Vu All Over Again

I am attempting to motivate myself (read: drinking coffee) to get ready (read: slap on some clothes and make sure I have a notebook for doodling with me) to go to a "retreat" (read: day-long meeting at which nothing will be accomplished) at which the primary item on the agenda is, wait for it, the exact same agenda item that was featured during my first year at this job at a similar retreat.

I suppose one benefit of this do-over is that it does confirm that nothing is actually accomplished at these retreats.

In other news, I'm feeling awfully sniffly, in spite of allergy meds. I think I might have a summer cold. It would figure, wouldn't it?

Meltdown

There was crying and complaining and rambling and yelling and all the usual things that go with the deal when I have one of these... well, I suppose one could call it a tantrum. It's a lot like a tantrum. Except only jerks throw tantrums, and I'm not a jerk.

FB bore the brunt of this particular episode, but he seems to think that I have a pattern. The metaphor he used was related to having good skin, quite a lovely and clear complexion - emotionally, that is, although I do have this in my real life as well - but that every few months or so I get a horrible and disgusting zit that ultimately will, and this is so disgusting, pop. Remember, this is my emotions we're discussing here. So, sure, this image is totally horrifying, because apparently I'm an emotional puss-filled zit that needs to pop, but as FB notes, some people are emotional rash-havers who always have fucked up splotches that itch all over them and they never can get it to clear up, so at least I don't have that. I will say this disgusting metaphor did distract me from my wailing and it kind of is true that I do have these periodic freak-outs and that it's not unlike what he describes, I suppose, how I need to just totally melt down periodically. FB understands me so well. And he really listened quite patiently while I raved like a maniac.

What's sick is that I still kind of feel like crying. I hate the transition from summer back into the academic year. It really fucks me up.

In Which It Becomes Clear That My Online Course Will Not Be as Cool As I'd Like

Ok, so I'm not going to spew all of the venom that I would like to spew on this subject, but suffice it to say that it is very difficult to do an excellent online course when resources that one was made to believe were readily available and easily accessible are not, in fact, either. Oh, the course will go, and it will be fine, but I am pretty much decided that I will not be enlisting the "help" of the office that is supposed to exist for the purpose of serving faculty in my area. In some (many?) respects, this will make my life much easier. In other respects, I'm filled with rage that it's "easier" to do a brand new course without support than with it.

The only thing that tempers my rage is that at least this course is for a department that is not my own and is about subject matter that I don't give two shits about. Well, that's not really true. I'm interested in the subject matter. But I am not committed to it, and it will not play a role in my broader life as a scholar. Which is why I agreed to do this course in the first place.

But at the same time, all of that excitement I was feeling this morning and all of that energy I had seems to be gone. Why? Because it doesn't matter one way or the other how invested I am. So I'm just letting it go. I'll do my best, within the constraints, and that will have to be just fine. Fuck it.

Ooh! More Inspiration!

So, this afternoon, I went into campus to get two of the films I'll be teaching for my class. I ended up having an impromptu meeting with a colleague, and as we chatted, it was revealed that I may get to teach a brand new course next summer!

I'd only been thinking of this theme for a course in a scattered sort of way while I was in Lebanon, and I'd figured I'd never teach it. See, I was thinking about it in terms of redesigning one of my upper-level undergrad courses this year, but then I decided that I didn't like the idea of revamping that particular course because I love it so as it is. And so, it was going to go the way of many new course ideas that I've had over the ages: into the ether.

But no! See, if I teach this course next summer, I'll teach it as a GRAD course. And it would give me an excuse to teach a bunch of stuff that doesn't fit into the other courses that I teach. AND - and perhaps this is the biggest AND of all - as I threw the idea out to my colleague, it occurred to me that this would be my next writing project: an article that would come out of this particular course. And it might be an article about teaching, or about the lit - not sure. But then I thought - because I'm never one to have one idea without a follow-up idea that is big and crazy - so does this mean that my plan post-tenure is a series of articles? Could be. But then I thought, what if what I wanted to write was about teaching? And if so, maybe what I really should do is write a book about teaching.

Not a textbook; a book about teaching. And this is where my ideas get the better of me, because I have no idea who would publish such a book, what the audience for it would be, or what would go in it. And, because I'm a weirdo, those are the sorts of ideas that always capture my imagination most, naturally.

Maybe it's really a good thing that school's starting again, for it seems to have energized not only my teaching brain but also my scholarly brain.

But so I won't know for a while whether I'll be teaching this course or not. It all depends on what would be most advantageous for the program, and I'm not going to steamroll my way into teaching it. But if I do teach it, what is the course?

A course on terrorism. That's right. The idea would be to teach 4 or 5 novels maximum, one novel per unit. Each unit would then also feature selections of poetry, non-fiction, and theory. And each unit would explore terrorism from a different angle - so we'd talk about Irish nationalism and the IRA in one unit, radical Islam in another.... you get the picture. Wouldn't that be so totally cool? And we could explore things like gender and terrorism and domestic terrorism and well, really, the list just goes on and on. I'm so excited!!!! Of course, the whole idea could come to nothing. But wouldn't it be so great if it didn't? Ok, need to get back to work, as the afternoon is quickly getting away from me.

Procrastination As Excellent Inspiration for What May Be a Very Cool Course

Ok, so I've been working solidly on my online class. People, what can I say? All this time I've spent not working on it? Totally awesome! Indeed, I do believe that in the back of my procrastinating brain ideas have been percolating! The course design - it goes swimmingly! I'm super-interested in what they'll be reading (have spent the morning doing reading questions to guide their analysis), I can totally see the connections to the lectures that I'll put up about interdisciplinarity and writing and methodology and such, and hell, I feel like I'm going to learn a ton over the course of the semester!

Of course, these are all famous last words, probably. But seriously: I don't think I am in nearly the bind I imagined I was. I think I'll be able to finish the reading questions by around 1 PM (ETA: 12:30 PM and the reading questions are finished! I just need to type them into documents!), and then I can move to doing the power points and lecture notes that I'll need to go in super-prepared for my meeting tomorrow with Tech Guru. The only major challenge that I should encounter is being able to get all of the movie stuff figured out between this afternoon and tomorrow, as I'll be teaching four films I've never taught before in this course, and really, I can't possibly hope to watch them all tonight. That said, I don't really need to do so, as long as I have all of the movies available to put onto the course website tomorrow. (Also ETA: The films that I needed to get from Amazon just arrived! Huzzah! So a slight change in plans: Am going to school so as to get the other films from the library, and then will watch the films while working on the typing things in as well as doing some questions for guiding the viewing of those and some lecture notes about them. Ah, multitasking! Huzzah!)

So anyway, you may be wondering what this course is. Well, it's not a course for my department. Instead, it's an interdisciplinary course that will serve another major on campus, the goal of which is to have them work in a sustained way on interdisciplinary approaches to research. The theme of the class is "social class," and so they'll be reading four books, and watching four films. The rest of the course will be devoted to strategies for integrating research across academic disciplines and to how to write using a multidisciplinary approach and methodology. The class will include one major paper, a portfolio assignment, and three blog posts to a class blog (and they'll have to comment to other classmates' blog posts on weeks when they're not posting). It will be a lot of writing for them, and a fair amount of reading/grading for me, but all in all, I feel like it's a completely manageable amount of work for all of us.

The one thing that still nags is that I'm going to miss the freewheeling nature of how discussion and lecture works in my traditional classroom. I am hoping that the class blog will go a long way toward facilitating a version of that - I mean, we have freewheeling discussions here, right? - but it still won't be the same as what happens in the in-person classroom. I find myself wondering about how I can be funny or encouraging in writing without them misreading me as mean and demanding. How do I create an online teaching persona that reflects my offline teaching persona without losing something? But then I wonder what I might gain from this experiment in going online with a class. How will it influence my "regular" teaching persona, if at all?

At any rate, I just thought you all might like a less whiny and bitchy post to move the whining and bitching of the past two down the page a bit.

(I am totally getting excited to get back in the classroom. This semester will be awesome! Yay!)

A Totally Inappropriate and Weird Rant That May Be Offensive, or Just Plain Mean

So, last night I had a very hard time falling asleep, which never happens, and as you might suspect from the fact that I'm blogging now, I didn't sleep terribly well once I did fall asleep. Ok, that's not entirely true. I fell asleep just fine on the couch around 10 PM, was awakened when the phone rang at 12:45, had an hour-long phone conversation about issues surrounding 1) departmental politics that are not mine and 2) spirituality, and then tried to go to sleep again. First, I couldn't fall asleep. The combination of being angry about departmental politics that weren't mine plus my irritation at even the notion of spiritual quests had my mind racing. When I finally did fall asleep, horrible anxiety dreams ensued, dreams involving ex-boyfriends, my potential death by drowning in Lake Erie, a scene where I bought a magic wand and was given some sort of phrase that would trigger my knowing how to use it (which actually is where things started looking up dream-wise, except I've obviously now forgotten the phrase that would have made my wand work).

So why was I so angry about departmental bullshit that isn't even my departmental bullshit? Because the person involved.... how do I put this? I feel like there are certain things that when they happen, you're supposed to stand up and take notice and pay attention. Certain things irrevocably show you who the people around you are, and how you respond then in turn shows you what kind of person you yourself are. And if you attempt to continue to play along with those people once you've seen their true colors, thinking that this will "get you what you want," ultimately you become complicit in a system that will never "get you what you want." You're tricked into playing a game that will never serve you because those in charge of the game are not trustworthy. And I know that I sound reactionary and rigid, but I really do believe this. Now, sometimes we've got no choice but to play the game. But if a person has tenure, wouldn't one think that this would give one the power to call bullshit and to leave it at that, at least for a bit? Why plot and plan and scheme in ways that would make you just like the underhanded double-dealers who are screwing you? And why defend the underhanded double-dealers as if they're not only out for themselves, which clearly they are, no matter what else they've given lip service to - defend them, and accuse the person to whom you've brought this problem of thinking the whole thing is bullshit and that these people suck not because the whole thing is bullshit and these people suck but because she is biased for outside reasons having nothing to do with the bullshit and sucky people?

(It may not help that I'm biased for reasons having nothing to do with the bullshit and sucky people. But even so, if you bring something to biased me, you've got to expect a biased response. It's not like I'm hiding my bias or something.)

But anyway, this then segued into a discussion of how the person in this departmental pickle has been trying to be more spiritually grounded, etc., but by the end of the conversation, I felt like the whole "quest for spirituality" crap was a bunch of self-indulgent hooey and that it was only contributing to this person's inability to call a spade a spade regarding the department bullshit as well as to, I don't know, wake up and realize that being "zen" about everything is really fucking annoying and perhaps counterproductive to maintaining relationships with actual human beings (especially human beings who have Midwestern sensibilities, who were raised Catholic, and who ultimately think that people who detach from everything and attempt to do away with their "ego" - or claim to - pretty much are heartless automatons, or want to be heartless automatons, which might actually be worse, now that I think of it).

And so yes. I went to bed at 2, and I woke up at 6, and I am still seething about all of the above. And I really don't understand why, except perhaps that PMS has a tiny bit to do with it? Well, and I want to shake the person who called me. I mean, why call me with all of that if you're not going to listen to anything I say and follow my advice? And you know what else? I'm even more pissed off because the person involved was all, "I'm totally not pissed off, or at least I don't think I am." Guess what, Sherlock? If you weren't pissed off, you wouldn't have spent the last three days updating me on this situation and then called me at 12:45 to tell me all of the latest gory details. Sure, you want to be "above" anger or something because anger is "egoic" (which is not a real word), but that doesn't mean that you're not bothered, so don't pretend you're not. GRRRR!

And no, I will not be reading Eckart Tolle's books anytime soon unless somebody buys them for me. And even then, we're looking at the end of October before I'd get to it because in the next 8 weeks I'll be teaching (and reading, at least in some fashion) Ulysses, Pride and Prejudice, The Swimming-Pool Library, Class (Paul Fussel's book), along with countless poems and shorter works. I don't have time to read some book about my "spirit" in the midst of all of that, so I'm just going to have to hope that I can piece something together about my "spirit" from the Western Canon of Literature. If not, I suspect my spirit is fucked. Don't worry, though. I'll find a way to soldier on, I'm sure.

RBOC: Fuck. Damn. Shit.

• I went to the office after I posted and only just got home now. a.) The kittens do contribute the Culture of Procrastination, and I'm officially mad at them. b.) I'm exhausted. c.) Fuck.
• I apparently have to do all written documents for my online class tomorrow. Because I'm an idiot, and I scheduled a meeting with the tech guy for Wednesday morning. I'm an idiot. I want to complain about the tech guy, but that would be bad form as I've clearly done this to myself.
• I got an email from my youngest half-brother (I've got two). I feel like an asshole, but I feel like he didn't write it but rather that my step-monster wrote it pretending to be him. This feeling is probably crazy.
• I love my thesis student! What's her pseudonym again? Oh yes, it's BES (Bright, Enthusiastic Student). Sure, she didn't really "accomplish" much this summer, but our meeting was very productive, and it was also revealed that she won't be graduating until May after all, so the lack of productivity this summer? Excellent! We have a whole extra semester to work together!
• The final shit for the book should (crossing fingers, praying novenas, etc.) be done. For real this time. Like in theory, barring anything unforeseen, it should be out in October.
• Oh, and another great thing about BES is she's decided to take a year off after she graduates and not to apply to grad school this fall. This is an excellent decision, I think.
  
• How on God's Green Earth can school be starting in one week? How can I do all the things I need to do? And is drinking wine really advisable right now? Perhaps not, but I am drinking wine right now.
• How can everybody I run into seem all rested and relaxed and ready to begin again?
• And I really have to remember that I can't talk to myself in public. This is one of the problems with living alone and with cats. It seems normal to just say things out loud. It is not normal.
• I really have to work on my road rage problem. Esp. as it pertains to a certain traffic circle on campus. You know what would help with this? If people weren't fucking idiots in the traffic circle.
  
• Please tell me that I can get everything done. I know it's a lie, but please tell me this anyway.
  

Remember How This Is an "Academic" Blog?

Indeed. One week from today classes begin. And so this week begins the following:

• Meeting with students.
• Meeting with colleagues.
• Forcing myself to finalize that online class and getting it up and running (which really, will be no small feat given my horrifying lack of progress on that score).
• Getting myself back on a sleeping schedule that in some way resembles my teaching schedule.
• Cleaning out my campus mailbox, which hasn't been empty since... who knows when.
  

I've got to say, I'm both ready and not ready to go back. This morning I received pages from my thesis student, and I was excited to read what she's written, and I'm excited to meet with her later today, even though I feel like she's not going to be terribly happy with some of the feedback I give her. I also plan to spend most of the day at the office, taking care of the final book stuff that I've been procrastinating about, and making a solid start on the home stretch of the online course and on updating my website, which I've not touched for like a year. I feel like perhaps my wee kitty-cats have been assisting me in cultivating a Culture of Procrastination in the home, and so a change of scenery may go a long way toward increasing productivity.

But then, I'm also not ready to go back. I have so much work to do. And I'm not in the mood to do work. Not at all. One bright spot is that I don't really have anything on my research plate at the moment, which makes me feel like even with all of that work, I can have some semblance of a "normal" life. But the first weeks are always so intense and draining.

Part of that is just the shock of being so inundated with people in the first weeks. That's always the part of the fall semester that throws me, as much as I've now come to expect it. Just the sheer number of people who need my attention and who want to have conversations with me always exhausts me at first, before I get used to it. Now, I'm a friendly and people-oriented person, but in the summer, well, I don't have the volume of contact with other human beings. While on the one hand I look forward to that change each year - for I do tend to get a bit sick of myself by summer's end - I also know that it will knock me on my ass for the first little bit.

And this year will be both the same and different than the ones before it because this year I go up for tenure. I'm not sure what to say about that at the moment, but I do want to write more about it and about how the tenure-track has worked for me at this institution over the past years. One thing that becomes increasingly apparent to me is how totally different the tenure process is not only based on institution type but also based on a lot of other factors. That's something that probably we should talk more about in academia, because it just seems weird to me that we spend all of these years getting trained to do a job, we somehow manage to get one, but then we have no idea at the outset what the real requirements are for the next step. Sure, there's some mix of teaching/service/research required, but I feel like what that means - and how one proves it - isn't always terribly transparent. So look for me to write about that as I finalize the Big Binder of Tenure Application and think more about it.

But ok, I've procrastinated enough. If I really hope to get lots done today, I'd better get in the shower.

Adventures in Baking

Ok, I don't really know what's gotten into me, but I've had the urge to bake something for the past few days, and so this morning I did some research and right now I am baking something that might be the most awesome thing ever.

Oatmeal Breakfast Bars, people. Following the advice of some of the reviewers, I substituted Splenda for sugar and apple sauce for oil, so this recipe is pretty much 100% healthy (if you ignore how much sugar is in dried fruit of all types). And, for those of you who care about such things, it's vegan. That's right: no dairy, no eggs. It also doesn't use flour or any wheat products. I suppose if one wanted to go crazy, one could even make it using only organic ingredients, but Crazy had to draw the line somewhere and so she bought the cheap-ass Quaker oatmeal and not the Red Mill fancy kind, and she bought Kroger nuts, because dude, nuts are nuts.

And it took no time at all to do the prep. And my house smells DIVINE. Ooh! and now they're done! And they are delicious! And nutritious!

I feel like I am going to make a version of this once a week (changing up the nuts and fruits, etc.) to have for satisfying snacking and breakfast-on-the-go needs.

Adventures in Cooking

Ok, so I made a vow to myself that I wouldn't go to the grocery store until I actually was done eating the food that would go bad in my refrigerator. This led to a bit of experimentation.

Sure, I could have made Hungarian ham and cabbage (pathetic lunch meat version), or I could have made pasta with Italian chicken sausage. Or I could have made my Thai/Indian fusion chicken curry (fusion only because I sort of made up the recipe). But no. I had to experiment.

It all began with the dried beans in my cupboard. I thought to myself, "Self, what's more lovely in the summer than a cold bean salad?" And then I remembered that I had lowfat bacon. And so then I consulted the internet. Now, this recipe got rave reviews, but the thought of using mayo grossed me out, I have no canned beans in the house, and I had a whole head of cabbage that I needed to use. And thus began the experimentation.

Here's what I ultimately came up with:

Ingredients:

• approx. 10 slices center cut bacon (I presume one could use turkey bacon as well).
• dressing made from olive oil, dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar, and approx. a tablespoon of splenda. Medusa always complains that I don't give proper measurements, so I won't even pretend here. I just made what seemed like enough, to taste.
• approx. 3/4 cup dried black beans, soaked and cooked.
• approx. 1 1/2 cups dried great northern beans, soaked and (tragically slightly over-)cooked.
• 1 head cabbage, shredded (or just cut with a knife in a not terribly conscientious way, as I did).
• 4 ribs of celery, chopped.
• 1 medium onion, diced.

And, like 7 hours later, here's what I ended up with:


I have to say, it tastes better than it looks. Were I to do it again, I'd use either red cabbage instead of regular or red beans instead of white. But the cabbage and celery and onion is pleasantly crunchy, and the beans are pleasantly creamy, and bacon is pleasantly bacony, even though I do believe that this recipe I've constructed makes approximately 8 servings or so, so there really isn't very much bacon.

Actually, the more I eat, the more pleased I am with this experiment. Mmm. Yummy. Sweet, and salty. Slightly spicy with the dijon. I should totally go on The Next Food Network Star (even though none of them typically becomes an actual star.... as BFF and I noted, it's really "the Next Person We Might Give a Chance in Hell by letting 6 episodes of a show air on Sunday morning"... and even if I did get on, I couldn't, like, open a coconut or debone a chicken or whatever, so I'd be out in like week 3 at the latest).

So yeah. That's what has been happening at the House of Crazy. Experimental salad creation.

I have not, tragically, worked at all on the Online Class that I Clearly Am Avoiding. Tomorrow? Perhaps.

An Absolutely Perfect 34th Birthday

And I didn't do a damned thing.

That's right. No big celebration, no drinks or dinners out or anything like that.

I had cake for breakfast, ice cream for lunch, napped with the kitties during a blissful few hours, and made enchiladas for dinner.

There was some glorious flipping back and forth between an ANTM marathon and What Not to Wear, and then, most awesomely, I watched what might be the worst Lifetime Movie Ever (but apparently one from which I cannot look away), the classic "I Me Wed." Oh, and I took a restorative bath with some lovely lavender bath oil, read my Elle magazine in the tub, did a face mask and finally used this Frederic Fekkai hair mask sample that I'd been saving for months, and I talked to my best friend from high school on the phone. I did no work, and I had a day that was all about relaxing and doing whatever I wanted (which turned out to be vegging mostly, but still, it was joyous).

I started my new journal, made some plans for it and for what I'd like to do moving forward with it and with myself, and yep, that's pretty much it.

And so now I'm having a glass of delicious pomegranate and cherry immunity defense crystal light, and typing this blog post, and then I think I shall go to bed and read for a bit and then blissfully fall asleep.

And you know what? I wouldn't change a single thing about this day and night. It was exactly how I wanted to spend the day. Exactly.

'Twas the Night Before Crazy's Birthday... 2008 Edition

As I went to title this post, I realized I'd used the exact same title for last year. Apparently, I decide to write about my birthday on the Eve of it, and apparently, I find the same titles compelling year after year. It's a wonder you people continue to read! And yet you do, and this is wonderful, if I do say so myself. But so at any rate, it's as good a time as any for some (more) self-reflection, this time of the non-blog-related variety.

So, how are things? If I do say so myself, I think they're quite good. I'm feeling kind of quiet as this, my 34th, birthday rolls around. I have no big plans for celebration, and while my friends near and far seem to wonder at whether this is a good thing, seriously, after the summer I've had, I'm sort of excited to have nothing going on. Between teaching and the article and the book and the visitors and the new kitten and the travels... well, I've had a hella-busy summer, and I'm feeling sort of exhausted by it all. In other words, looking forward to doing absolutely NOTHING in the coming days is actually sort of fantastic. Of course, I can't really do absolutely nothing. I've got an online course to slap together, along with emails to catch up on (I'm making slow progress), and who knows what else. But really, I have no agenda for tomorrow or for the weekend, and that's lovely.

Looking back over my journal from the last year and a half or so, which I plan to finish up with tonight/tomorrow so as to begin a new journal which was a birthday present to myself - and which actually looks quite lovely with a totally unexpected birthday present from FL that I received yesterday, a lovely Montblanc pen that is black on the base and the cap but orange in the middle - and looking at my navel-gazing on the blog from about a year ago, I feel like I'm making some progress.

The greater ease I was feeling last year about the job has only increased, and I really do feel like it's cool if I end up here forever. Of course, the "smart" thing to do would be to go on the market this year.... I guess. FB and I were talking about this, and I know that he's sort of right, but I also feel like I have no interest in going on the market because it's the "smart" thing to do. I'm not going to make substantially more money than I'm making now even if the Richest University in the World were to hire me (the salary range in English just isn't that big), and the thought of starting over someplace else... well, I'm not so into that. The thing about my current gig is I do feel settled and comfortable and, well, empowered. So while I've considered sending out applications this fall, I kind of am not terribly enthusiastic about it and I wonder whether I'd really like to expend my energy on doing so. Whatever the case, I'm definitely not going to MLA, which makes sending things out sort of pointless for many jobs, I'd imagine. Why am I definitely not going to MLA when I love it so, you ask? Well, because I'm committed to being at the next three after this one, and even the MLA-loving me needs a freaking break. I cannot imagine not taking this year off. So there we are.

Personally, in terms of the romance business, well, things sort of are in a comfortable if not ideal place as well. Sure, there are things that I'd "want" or whatever, but I'm not feeling all angsty about anything. Nah, things are what they are on that score, and that's just fine with me.

Personally, in terms of just my own personal situation, like finances, I'm making great headway on debt, the book will come out - with a lovely blurb on the back - and yep, things are good there, too.

I suppose, although it's almost cheesy to write, I feel as if I've got a lot to be thankful for on this birthday eve. A good life, good friends, good wine (for a change), and a good plan for going forward. I don't feel so much like I'm chasing my tail, although a certain wee Mr. Stripey is currently doing just that :)

Actually, speaking of Mr. Stripey, FB has admonished me that this blog template needs an update because "you have two cats now," and apparently, it is a grievous offense that I am not showcasing the one that he prefers in this here space. I explained to him that I didn't even do this template, so the likelihood of my changing it was quite small indeed, and so if it was such a problem for him then he would need to do it for me. As I explained to him, changing it would involve a complete overhaul, because the current stripey template wouldn't go if Mr. Stripey, with his non-orange stripes, were in the header. FB may or may not be taking on this task, especially since he didn't seem to enjoy my insistence that I wouldn't use whatever he did if I didn't like it.

Until that day comes when the template changes, however, perhaps you would enjoy a picture of Mr. Stripey. Here he is, stretched out to his full stripey-ness. You can also see how it looks like he's a kitten wearing a kitten-suit, with a zipper.

Some More Navel-Gazing, This Time in Response to Comments

First, thanks to those of you who commented to the last post. I do suspect that what I'm feeling right now in relation to writing here and blogging generally does have to do with summer doldrums + post-book funk, but I wanted to pick up on what people posted in the comments in an actual post, because thinking about how you all responded is allowing me to think through my own state with more focus.

First, I'm going to extract from some of my excellent readers' comments. Profgrrrrl wrote:

This post really resonates with me -- and I'm one of those people who has all of those crazy life transition things going on right now. [...] Or ... well ... I feel oddly self-conscious about turning my blog into all wedding and baby all the time. I mean, that's what's going on with my life right now, and while it's interesting to me it's not interesting to anyone else. Or at least the parts that are interesting me right now wouldn't necessarily be interesting to others, so I've tried to restrict myself to things like going on leave, which don't seem to be discussed often and try to make the situation more about academics and less just about what's going on in my life. I'm annoyed because I feel like I've lost my voice and it's my own fault.

Sorry, don't mean to hijack comments here. This post just gave me the moment of release about this stuff.

Along similar lines, Earnest English wrote:

I read your post and the above comments and then went away from it for a while (partly because I was hungry and made something to eat, partly because I feel a bit on the spot about blogs turning from academic blogs to more personal blogs, specifically about relationships and babies -- which of course has been my dominant theme since I haven't been IN the academy in that official way). While I was away, I was thinking about this post and what I like about the blogs I read. I like not that they are academic blogs, but they are blogs by and about people in the academy.

Both of these comments made me want to reinforce what perhaps didn't come through so clearly in my last post: my problem isn't with people who are blogging about their big life changes, whatever those changes might be. Like EE, I like to read blogs that are about people's lives, whatever shape those lives are taking. And my intent here is not at all to judge people for what they choose to write or not to write on their blogs. I don't necessarily enjoy blogs that are all academic all the time, nor do I want this one to become that or think that it should become that. And god, if one can't write about major things in one's life like having a kid or getting married, then that sort of defeats the purpose of blogging, if blogging is supposed to be a medium that allows for such flexibility of content, which I think it is or at least should be. And it should be possible to write about that stuff without it meaning losing our voices. And dude, Profgrrrrl, you so weren't hijacking with your comment!

I think that the resistance I'm feeling (which feels a bit like trying to get a car out of a muddy ditch by rocking back and forth) has to do with a feeling that what I'm "supposed" to write about (as a woman) doesn't match up with what I do write about or want to write about, if that makes sense. In other words, I think I'm imposing certain kinds of gender norms on myself while at the same time I'm resisting that impulse to impose such norms. And this feeling of being pulled in two directions isn't really imposed from outside, though outside forces exacerbate my tendency to do this to myself. And by outside forces, I don't really mean that individual folks in the blogosphere are making me feel this stuff. It's more a combination of factors - like people in Lebanon asking why I'm not married, like M. attempting to articulate what kind of "man" I "deserve," the fact that the only "personal" blogging endorsed by IHE is the Mama Ph.D. blog, and the fact that tons of people around me are pregnant or moving in with significant others or getting married or whatever. It's like I've hit some sort of threshold where I'm "supposed" to be focusing on things other than my career or myself or whatever, and that if I'm not focusing on those things, and continuing to be a careerist self-absorbed freak, that there's something wrong with me. And again, that's me who's putting all of that shit on myself, really.

(This paragraph will go poof in the service of the pseudonym.) Poof!

I think that I'm feeling like the only things that I'm supposed to be thinking about are "girl" things, and since I'm not, that in some way makes me lame, or a loser. But the problem is, in terms of my options in blogworld that are readily apparent, I can't just retreat into a masculine (masculinist?) version of gender and sexuality and call it a day, later to return to the "girl" things, which is what I did once I felt more secure, in my academic life. I could make the choice, in that version of myself as a writer, to "see how the other half lived" and to return to the "girl" things with fresh insights. But what is the alternative, if one wants to write personally, which I do, to mommy blogging or single-girl-looking-for-love blogging? I think that's the bigger question that I'm thinking about, and I'm not sure that I know the answer to it. Sure, I could have a purely "professional" blog, but since I'd have no interest in reading that, I'm certainly not going to write it. And the "personal" writing that some male bloggers do is typically centered on fatherhood, so that's not really an option for me either. What is the model for writing personally in one's mid-30s if one isn't going to write about relationships or kids? Because I'm not going to complain about the politics of my department or my students or my colleagues. That would just be tacky, and it wouldn't solve this particular tension that I'm feeling.

What was also interesting to me about the comments was that Rokeya and Gwinne both noted that this blog is not, to them, a HeteroBlog (grin) and that this is something they appreciate about it. You know, I'm not sure what to write in response other than that I'm so flattered that this is something that they don't think that I do here! It's funny, a friend of mine just got into a relationship with a woman, after previously only having relationships with men, and at the very start she noted that I was a better "cultural lesbian" than she was, which made me laugh, and yet, which I also agreed with. You know, that's the thing, and this is another place where what I do in my blogging life conjoins with my work: As much as I'm straight as the day is long, I really do consciously try actively to resist falling into certain kinds of heteronormative traps. And as much as I feel this tension about how to write here at the moment, one of the reasons I don't want to stop this blog and why I don't want to change the voice or venue is because I think I've found a way to perform that resistance here. (I know this sounds all theory-speaky, but it's the only way I know how to put it. And also, that's not to say that I've done this perfectly, because I haven't. But it's been a consistent aim.) The point isn't that I wouldn't write about it if I got engaged, or pregnant, or fell in love, or whatever, but I don't want to write about it in the way that I'm supposed to write about that stuff. Because ultimately, if I did, that would really be counter to the way that I've really tried, not only on the blog but also in my academic writing, to write as a woman, a straight woman, in a way that is gendered but yet that isn't sort of heteronormatively gendered, if that makes sense. (Yes, these are the convoluted thoughts that I have when I think about my writing voice. And yes, this probably has something to do with the fact that some of my most significant mentors have been gay men.)

(Another paragraph that will go poof!) Poof!

But another great thing about the comments (Mel's, Helenesch's, Powerprof's) is that they reminded me of the way that we can judge ourselves as "boring" or insignificant or whining while others still get something out of what we write. This is one of the greatest things about this community of bloggers that we've got here, people. We're all universally interested in one another. Not because we "should" be or because it relates to those academic hoops that we jump through, but because we have grown to care about each other. And yeah, that's cheesy, but I still read Mel and Powerprof, and they still read me, even though all of us feel like we're annoying and boring. That's awesome - don't you think? I mean, how many of us can say that we're this committed to reading anything scholarly that anybody we know writes? (Though maybe all of you are that committed, and I'm just a crappy scholar. Anyway.) My point here is that even though I know this navel-gazing that I'm doing these past two posts is tedious, I also know from how people respond that you are actually interested in that I'm thinking about it. And that matters so, so much. Because that is something that just doesn't happen with one's scholarly writing, you know? I mean, sure, you can bully some people who are your friends into reading it, and sometimes people read it by happenstance because it's related to their own work, but there isn't the immediate feedback or the support or the real caring that my readers, pretty much without fail, exhibit. So you know what? Thanks. Because I do feel like I needed that support today.

And of course I'll write about the "what's next" stuff as I get to it. Not sure when that will happen, but it certainly won't be top secret :)

Bored with Blogging? Kinda.

So, last night I was in a funk. I almost blogged about it, actually, but it was a funk of such boring proportions that I ended up deleting the opening paragraph of the post I began and then retiring to bed to wallow in irritation and self-pity until FB called me and listened to me rave for a bit, and then made me watch this AWESOME thing that I'd not heard about because I was out of the country and FB was right that it did totally improve my mood and make me into a shiny happy person like my normal non-disgruntled self. But anyway, so what does all of this have to do with blogging? One of the things that I raved about to FB was blogging, actually. I'm not even sure of what I was raving on about, but he immediately cut in with the following:

"Crazy, the problem is you're bored. With blogging. Your blog is long overdue for a shift of some kind, or something. This has been true for months."

I found this insight, well, shocking. Because the thing is, he's kind of right. Which, of course, was mildly annoying, and it meant I had to interrogate him about how long he knew these things and demand why he'd not mentioned them to me sooner, so I didn't get to think at length about the actual content of his insight, for it was time to go to bed after we got off the phone. But here's an overview of what I briefly mused about once the interrogation and wild demands were taken care of:

• When I began blogging, I began it as a writing experiment, and the whole "community" aspect of things really wasn't primary to me. As I've continued with the blog, the writing experiment has fallen by the wayside in favor of the "community" part. In some ways this is great. In others - like in terms of the actual content of what ends up on the blog - it's less so. See, the writing changes when you feel like you're updating people who know you about your life, etc., and I think it necessarily does become a bit boring. That's not necessarily bad, but it does mean that the blog no longer works as a terribly interesting medium within which I play with my writing.
  
• Part of my boredom with blogging isn't so much about my blog but about the fact that my plate is pretty much clear of writing projects. Yep, that's right. Clear. The book is to come out in a couple of months, I've got no articles I'm working on, no conferences in the pipeline, nothing. So what is my next project? And how do I write an academic blog that's interesting when I've not really got any new ideas at the moment and when I'm teaching stuff I've pretty much taught before except for the one class that I'm only teaching because I don't care about it and it means less time in the real-life classroom?
• Part of my feeling... hemmed in by blogging as a genre has to do with.... Ok, I'm not sure of the word to use here. Competitiveness? No, that's not right. Envy? Not really. Something in that area of words, though. See, there's something about the fact that I feel like many of the people I read are having these big life changes (career changes, babies, marriages, major moves, etc.) and I... well, I feel like my stupid life just doesn't really measure up. And that sucks, because one of the reasons that I started this blog in the first place was because I felt like lives like mine and voices like mine were drowned out by the voices of parents and people with two-body problems, etc., and I was sick of feeling like my concerns didn't "count" as worthy of discussion. But now, even in the blogosphere I feel like everybody is singing those same songs, and the fact is, I don't want to write about that stuff even if I am experiencing it because I feel like we've heard it all before. But let me say that when I write this, this is really about my own writing preferences and issues with voice and it's not meant to be mean to any of you who do write about these things. It's just that I chafe against the feeling that if I'm not writing about that stuff that I'm not... something. Again, I don't even know what words really apply to this vague sense of dissatisfaction and inadequacy.
• Then I wonder whether some of my chafing against blogging and the genre isn't just my typical back-to-school feeling of being in limbo and vaguely disgruntled - looking forward to having things going on again while at the same time resenting that I'll have things going on again. Blogging since 2004, I've got to say, I know that I go through these phases. It's not that I want to stop blogging - not an option I'm considering at all - but I do want to be interesting again. And I just don't feel like I've been interesting here in quite some time. Dude, I feel like my most interesting posts are the ones that I write in the voices of my cats. And that's just pathetic.

But so, what? I'm not really sure. I like Reassigned Time and the voice that I've developed here and the friends I've made through the blog and the fact that the blog really is integrated into my life now in a way it wasn't when I started. I have no interest in closing up shop or in moving or in reconfiguring what I do here, not really. But I do need something else to get the juices flowing, because the blog really isn't serving that purpose for me right now. I don't think - as FB suggested - that blogging itself has become lame, that as a genre it's run its course. I think it's especially valuable in an academic context that people can use blogs to get insight into the profession, into the way lives look at different kinds of institutions and at different points in the career and hierarchy. I also think that this space - and this community - serve for me as a great place to think things through and to work out things related to the job - whether problems with teaching or whatever - and I wouldn't want to give that up.

At the same time, how many to-do lists can I reasonably expect people to read without deciding I'm the most boring person in the world? I suspect I've already hit that number and surpassed it.

And so, I think the thing that I need to force myself to think about is "what next?" Do I want to start with another scholarly book project? Do I want to write a series of articles and forgo the whole book idea for a while? Do I want to write a novel? Do I want to write a text book? What role to do I want blogging to play in my post-tenure academic life (crossing fingers about tenure this year, etc.)? I doubt I'll be able to decide this without a great deal of moaning and whinging and ruminating. But I think that these are the questions that are on the table, and that must remain on the table if I'm going to get out of my disgruntled funk.

Or maybe school just needs to start again, in which case in two weeks everything will be grand.

Having Bored Myself into Motivation....

I fully intend that today will be a day chock full of productivity. This is my aim. As a way of getting myself out of the house immediately, I do believe that I shall purchase myself some Starbucks coffee on the way, and then it's off to the office I go. The main plans for today are the following:

1. Final syllabus for copying to send to copy center. And I also sent some assignments there as well! I'm very fancy!
2. Schedule library day for one class.
3. Finally decide on books for online class.
4. Send about 10 people emails of varying lengths and levels of importance. Ok, well, so I didn't finish with all of my emailing, but I did send a number of emails. I should be able to be really and truly done by the end of the week at the absolute latest with the emailing.
5. Odds and Ends with the book.
6. Clean shelves in office and organize office desk.
7. The gym.

Now, that's one heck of a list, and I do acknowledge that. But, if I follow my typical rule of feeling good if I get around 60% of a to-do list done, that means that doing 4 or 5 of these things will put me in really good shape. Yes, that is the way to look at this. Totally.

More when I've finished with the Busy Day of Productivity!

When Fake People Read Your Real Life Blog

Now, let me just say, that one of the weirder things about my Fake Relationship with the FB is that he's known about the blog from the beginning. Indeed, he knew the Fake Dr. Crazy before he knew the real life person who's constructed her. In many ways, this has proven to be beneficial. First and foremost, it meant that I never used this space to wax diaristic about our Fake Relationship, for I knew anything I'd write could, potentially, be read by one of the main players in said Fake Relationship. I was under no illusions that this space was publicly private, or some such. But, on the other hand, FB is in no way a religious reader of this here blog, as far as I know, since we've become involved in our fake relationship, so sometimes I do write about him, assuming that while he could read what I write here that he's not going to be terribly conscientious about doing so. As he noted once, "you're one long-winded bitch." FB has a bit of a short attention span when it comes to me. If I'm being nice, I'd say that he'd rather hear about what I have to say directly, rather than through the medium of the blog. If I'm not being nice, I'd say that he finds me a wee bit tedious when I ramble on here. Anyway, the point here is that I always assume that he will or could read what I write here, though I don't actually try to communicate things to him through the blog (much more reliable to speak to him directly about whatever's on my mind, especially knowing his less than careful reading habits of me).

But then, every now and again, he'll bring up a post in which I discuss him. Like the time when he got annoyed that I called him "the muse" because he felt I was emasculating him. Or like today, when he claimed that I, like his mom, was "devastated" by his return to his home location, citing the post I did yesterday as evidence of my devastation. Sure he was kidding, but still! I so do not believe that I was "devastated" seeming! I mean, really.

Combine this with his weird insistence at every turn this past week that I don't "care" about him, and I'd suspect that he's fishing for affirmation. From me. I'll admit, my initial gut reaction is to resist such passive-aggressive tactics, if only to prove a point. I mean, really.

But then I thought to myself, self, why not see if he really is reading carefully? Why not actually post about this and see if he says anything about it? So, FB, if you're out there, obviously I adore you, though you are also a silly, silly person. While this is often why I think you're fantastic, I find you much less fantastic when you don't recognize that I'm actually used to you not being around, and thus could not be devastated by it. I also find your silly claims that I don't care about you utterly mystifying, as obviously, if I didn't care about you, you wouldn't be so privileged as to be my Fake Boyfriend. Moreover, you know full well that the reason that I don't just adore you without reservation is that every likelihood is that we will never be geographically compatible and that even if we were one or the other of us would totally ruin the whole thing.

So stop with your nonsense, FB. Obviously I think you're spectacular, which you know full well. And if you don't know this, then you are a total idiot.

School's Out for Summer

Any time this issue comes up - the idea that academics get "summers off" - my knee immediately jerks and productive conversation almost immediately becomes impossible with the person (or people) who've raised the issue. I think this reaction is not unlike the common one that academics have when they're told that they work only during the time that they clock in the classroom, but, ultimately, this "summers off" thing actually pisses me off more. See, I get where the average person thinks the only work we do during the average academic year is to pontificate in front of students, but with a little explanation, most people see where that is a false assumption. Sure, they might not get the profession in its entirety, but they do kind of get that there are many parts to teaching that take time (grading, prep, etc.) and they're willing to accept the idea that we professors may actually work full time when we're teaching.

The summer thing, however, totally mystifies most average people (and even some administrators and/or staff at universities). Which is odd to me, as if they were to take a gander at my contract, they'd see that I'm not paid to work in the summer. In other words, legally, I could very well assert that I do not have to do work in the summertime because I don't technically have paid employment. And that wouldn't mean I'm a slacker: it would just mean that I'm following my contract to the letter. Of course, were I to take that radical step, I would likely lose my job. And so there is the rub.

So much of the work that we do as academics is difficult to account for or to quantify, and this problem is exacerbated in the summer, when we're not actually compensated for the work that we do and not required to be on campus for meetings or classes. And yet, even with these two things being the case, I have always "worked" in the summer, regardless of the fact that I typically do not teach in the summer.

For example, let's take my summer teaching that I did this year off the table and consider the work that I have done.

• Journal article written and submitted.
• Proofs for book.
• Correspondence related to the book (some of which was done in Lebanon).
• Correspondence related to a conference that was not to be, ultimately.
  
• Correspondence related to an executive position in a scholarly organization.
• Preparation for my four fall classes (some of which was done in Lebanon).
• Correspondence with students, including my senior thesis student as well as some advisees.
• Service work for the graduate program that we are starting.
• Service work for another graduate program with which I am affiliated.
• Prep for an upper-level class I will teach in the spring (done in Lebanon).

And all told, this has been a somewhat "light" summer work-wise, as I've had no conferences and the book is nearly done. And none of this work has been compensated with, you know, actual money. I'm not clocking hours in an office, and I'm not being paid as if I am. In theory, I could do none of the above, and it would be within the terms of my contract, but if I did, I would be s-c-r-e-w-e-d come the academic year and come tenure time.

Now, I am not arguing that I'd rather have a year-round contract, because I think, ultimately, the summer that is unscheduled and uncompensated is, for me and for many of us, a welcome reprieve from an academic calendar in which we are compensated but in which we are over-scheduled and we don't have the intellectual space to do much of the work that is required for us to get tenured (particularly for those of us at teaching-intensive universities that nevertheless require research). But - and this is an important but - what I would wish is that people wouldn't regard this unscheduled time as the equivalent of summer vacation when one is in elementary school. Because it's not. And I would like it if people would note that I pay for this time by not having "vacation time" or "personal time" to take at my leisure throughout the year, as do my friends with year-round employment. Family function in October? Sorry, I've got to pass. Death in the family? I may or may not be able to show up and grieve, depending on the time of the year and whether I can get a colleague to sub for me. Friend's wedding in the last week of April? You'll get a card and a check, but you won't get me at the ceremony.

The reality is that they can't bring in a temp to cover my desk during the academic year, if I'd like to take some time off. So yes, my time is flexible in the summer, because I'm not being paid, but that's not really a "perk" so much as it is compensation for the inflexibility of my schedule at other times. And while it's true that I have time during the year when other people might wish they'd have more time, I also don't have flexibility at Thanksgiving or Christmas, when I'm hustling to grade or to attend last-minute meetings or my discipline's convention, etc.

I hope that this post comes off as explanatory rather than as bitching and moaning. Ultimately, I really like the schedule that this profession offers me, and the level of autonomy it gives me in determining how I use my time. I just get angry when people act as if I should be grateful for these things, or that I should feel guilty because I'm not clocking hours in an office. The fact is, without the summer to rejuvenate, I couldn't do this job effectively.*** Partly because in order to be "on" for 9 months, I really need 3 to recharge, even if part of that recharging includes a fuck of a lot of real work.

***And this is where I think the adjunctification of higher ed is fucked up, because how can adjuncts possibly manage, on the market every year, teaching far more than is reasonable, with less than what I've got? How is that possibly good for them, as workers, or for students? So I'm not meaning this post to come off as failing to recognize the plight of adjuncts - or overburdened grad students. In fact, I'd say that this post actually is more about the fact that what I've got really feels like the bare minimum of compensation for the jobs that higher education expects us to do.

On the Fake and the Real

So, FB is asleep still, and I am awake with my wee kitties and some lovely coffee. (Except FB just woke up to go to the bathroom and then went back to bed and stole away my wee-est kitty who's like his best friend or something, which I resent.) I feel like I should write an actual post, but before I launch in, I'm just going to be up front and say I'm not entirely sure how to write about this. So it may end up being utterly lame, or it may end up being great. It is hard to know.

The thing that I've been thinking about a lot over the course of seeing FB (intermittently) this week is the whole "fake" designator. See, that came about because he's never quite been an imaginary boyfriend (for I've had those, and typically they don't necessarily realize that you are a human being, let alone that they are having a relationship with you), nor, for any number of reasons but probably primary among them geographical, has he been a real boyfriend (although if he had I think we would have had a spectacularly horrifying break-up long before now).

As things go, we're most definitely friends (probably best friends, really), but lets just say that there are certain areas in which we cross certain lines that friends (even best friends) do not cross. And so, what exactly is this thing, I asked myself ages ago. It's not Friends with Benefits, because the whole "benefits" aspect of the thing so is not primary. What exactly are you when you talk to a person daily, know all their stuff, they know all your stuff, etc. etc., but you don't get to see each other regularly and, well, you're in totally different places ? And I decided, well, he must be my Fake Boyfriend, because he kind of seems like a boyfriend, only up close he's totally not. Kind of like a cubic zirconium ring kind of seems like a diamond, only up close it's not. It's still shiny, and it can still make you happy, but it's not, at the end of the day, a "real" gem. (This is kind of a mean comparison depending on how you feel about costume jewelry, but I'm going to go with it for now.)

I'll admit, a conversation I had with A.'s boyfriend who lives with-her and with whom she has a quite normal "real" relationship (M.) got me thinking about all this last week, before I saw FB. See, M. went on a lengthy drunken rant about how I "deserved" a "real" man who would "take care of" me. First, the feminist in me wanted to say, "I can take care of myself, thank you very much," though I didn't because I actually really like M. and I know his heart's in the right place. But also, well, I tried to explain to him how I've ended up in this particular fake relationship, and to explain that I'm not some sort of victim in the whole thing. (That's the thing that really irritates me when people assume that I'm victimized and that I'd necessarily want a more traditional set-up or that I'd even like FB as much as I do had we gotten together like normal people, which I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't.)

But so anyway, all of this has been rattling around in my head, and I'm not sure that I have any conclusions. But what has been so utterly shocking to me about seeing FB is how chill and normal it's been having him here and being with him in the same place. (This is shocking given the fact that I'm really kind of an ass about having dudes in my space, and the last time I saw him I was a bit of a weirdo about him being here.) We haven't done anything terribly interesting or exciting. We've just spent lots of time together, really. Like last night I made chicken parmigiana for dinner and we ate and had some wine and went for a walk around my neighborhood and I made him watch Mad Men and we talked and went to buy him a fan (aside: what is it with dudes and fans for sleeping? I know no girls who have this requirement). And I look at that, and god, what a totally "real" and "normal" and some might even say mundane sort of night. But it was great. And so I wonder about continually sticking FB in the "fake" box, when really, most of how things are with him now - after quite a long time, really - is not fake. It's real, and yet also just.... made confusing because it doesn't really look like what, say, A.'s relationship looks like, or like other relationships that my friends are in.

And then I think that maybe it's good that I stick him in the "fake" box because it takes a lot of pressure off, being in a "fake" relationship. It turns out that in a fake relationship the only people who matter are the people who are in it, and that's kind of awesome.

Eh, whatever. I'm sure I'll wig out in like the next two weeks and will no longer feel so chill and normal and that will, ironically, make me feel all normal and like I understand everything again. But it's nice having that FB here. And I kind of think I'd like to be with him in the same place all the time. I kind of think that we'd both like that a great deal. At least for a while :)

ETA: Oh! And I almost forgot! M-K was much more lovable (if not loving) when FB showed back up. He still looks at him suspiciously, but there was no hissing or growling, and he consented to be in the same room with us while we ate and watched TV. And now he's sleeping happily as can be in his usual spot that he sleeps in while I'm on the computer. In other words, I think all is well in the House of Crazy re: kitties and their enemies.