mamamusings: January 13, 2003

negativity

Things I don't want to do today, but don't have much choice about...

1. Grade projects
2. Prepare class materials
3. Go outside (it's really cold out there)
4. Wait for a tenure decision (due at the end of February)
5. Call my old hosting company (CIHost) to argue about billing errors
6. Call the pediatrician about my younger son's persistent cough
7. Laundry
8. Return phone calls
9. Blog
10. Answer e-mail
11. Open my door

Seasonal affective disorder? Or just all-around crankiness? You be the judge. (Saw a bumper sticker I loved last week--"I'm not just A bitch--I'm THE bitch. And that's *MISS* bitch to you." -- or, in my case, *Dr.* Bitch...)

blog drain

I don't have blog clog. That would imply that there's lots in my head waiting to trickle--or rush--out of my fingers, onto the keyboard, into the blog. Instead, I have blog drain. The content drains off the bottom of the blog into the archives. The energy drains out of me, and there's empty space everywhere.

Sometimes space is good. Sometimes it calms, cleanses, provides breathing room. That's the kind of space that's like open fields, or fresh fallen snow. But sometimes space is bad. It's an empty, dusty warehouse. Or a basement of a house that's been moved out of, with the unwanted items strewn around. That's the kind of space in my mind today. Not so good.

I recently moved into yet another new office (six in six years--the itinerant instructor, that's me). I've got it down to a science now. I can pack my books and belongings (and there are a *lot* of books--one of the great perks of being a prof is getting free books from publishers) in under 3 hours. (21 boxes this time, plus all the breakable/valuable stuff I lugged home temporarily) And I've learned that when it's time to move back in, I have to do it just as fast. I hate being surrounded by half-unpacked boxes, hate the feeling of not quite settled, hate the impersonal feel of an office that hasn't got pictures of and gifts from my kids, goofy magnets, and comforting stacks of books and papers.

So I'm unpacked in the physical world, but somehow I still feel not quite settled in my mental world, in my blog world, in my head. Don't know why that is. But I'm restless, uneasy, uncentered. Maybe writing about it will help. Maybe not.

And now, back to my list of things I don't want to do.