Better

working again this year has brought several moments of concern. whenever i have a bad spell, i worry that i am sliding back toward madness and despair. i scrutinize every thought, fret over every action, put the sharp knives and bourbon away.

i thought i'd return from my long time off with profound thoughts and insightful Rules for Living, but it's not like that. wasn't it gertrude stein who said, "knowledge is what you know"? knowing runs deep, like an orientation or a sensibility, and not like a list -- which means it's not always on the surface, available for a casual check-in.

still, every once in a while i get a glimpse into the before and after. today, in the middle of pulling together a presentation for tuesday, i went into my amazon.ca file. i know there are better ways to organize ideas and keep track of books, but i use the amazon shopping cart to store things that intrigue me, but not enough to shell out money for. i decided i was ready to move the following from "save for later" to "delete":

• julie jensen, i don't know what i want but it's not this
• barbara winter, making a living without a job
• nicholas lore, the pathfinder: how to choose or change your career for a lifetime of satisfaction and success
• barbara sher, i could do anything ... if only i knew what it was

i'm not quite ready to delete every day's a weekend: an insider's guide to early retirement and exotic travel by newton hockey, or bob clyatt's work less, live more: the way to semi-retirement -- but it's a start.

year-end catch up

it's been so long since i've blogged -- over a month -- that i'm not sure i remember how to do it anymore. and i'm not sure what to write about, so many ideas have come and gone.

i was going to write about post-course tristesse, that sense of loss and desire i still experience when i watch my students write their final exam. i look at each serious head, bent to the ruled booklet, and wonder exactly what will become of katie the nurse, or johnny the class clown (what's he hiding? when he does finally take himself seriously, how painful will it be?). i look at hac, who's spoken english for under ten years yet wants to write like the BBC commentators he reads online: could i have spent just a bit more time with him in my office, talking writing? over in the theory class, i'm still marveling at the single mom who brought her 8-year-old to exposure's trans day of remembrance, thrilled at the varsity hockey player whose world was blown wide open by eli clare's gender ambiguity -- gender wealth? -- and curious as to what motivates alex, the quiet military guy who didn't miss a trick all year. i watch them write and i think, hard, about who they seem to be now and who they might become, and hope that what i've been able to offer these past few months is enough. in this way, teaching is painful, and it only becomes more poignant by realizing, as i have this year, that so much of what's just happened will be forgot -- by them, by me....

i was also going to write about more generally about what it was like to be back in the classroom after so many years away -- i loved it, obviously -- but also what a mysterious thing it is to learn something, by which i mean: i know that i am different from two or three years ago, but the difference is so evanescent that i can't really pin it down. i think differently, something like that. and so, yeah, i get tired, but i don't (can't?) work beyond my limits any longer. i was savaged on the dep't listserv, and just moved on. i was flattered, no doubt, to be nominated by my students for a teaching award, but it didn't serve as a measure of my sense of worth. a therapist might say i make better decisions now, but as usual the decision-making process is so habitual and, well, quick that it never feels like you're sitting at the table saying no to the day's special in favour of the tried and true.

christmas has been really good, one of the best ever, in both edmonton and ottawa, and i was going to write all about that: my sister's life-changing brussels sprouts, how my uncle got up at 5 in the morning to purchase a wii fit, the conviviality around dan and tony's dinner table, what it's like to spend evening after evening just visiting with good friends and family. among other things, we've seen a ton of children this christmas, and i really enjoy my relationship with them: laura's diva style, morgan's love for shoes, maggie's ballet and daisy's made-up song, eria's cuteosity, stella's blue pjs, harriet's brute intelligence, the other morgan's shy, sardonic and dangerously passionate approach to the world -- i feel lucky, on an almost daily basis, to have exactly the relationship with children that i want to have.

i was going to write about how aunty jo told everybody at boston pizza that yes, heather and maureen are going to ottawa this year but she just didn't feel up to it. i was going to rave about how many new design blogs i've found (though i suppose you can see them in the blogroll) and how keen i am to rearrange everything on the main floor of the house. i was going to talk up the exposure board for anyone interested in arts and culture and event planning and hard work and fun. i was going to mention that my first column in unlimited magazine will be posted here after 1 jan.

but now here we are, 2008 is on its last curtain call, its brave bow turned bored and its glance to the techs in the rafters more and more worried: any second now the curtain comes down for good, and there will be no time left to write any of that.

Work week lurch

the semester is announcing its groove.

sundays are a gift, a day of rewards so sweet i forget, temporarily, what's coming 'round the bend. sundays are walks in the autumn gold, or a yoga class, waffles with fresh fruit and yogurt, newspapers in bed and feeding peanuts to the bluejays who eat out of my hand. sundays i phone friends in other cities, refuse to read my email, remember to look at the sunshine. sundays are short.

mondays are a grading and class prep day. i go to pilates in the morning and spend the rest of my time (barring meetings, of which there are, predictably, several) trying to get ready for the week. i'm teaching two new courses and supervising a directed reading. all the material in both undergraduate courses and some of the material in the DR is new, and in a fit of enthusiasm i embraced technology -- make that technologies -- in both classes, which presents a fairly steep learning curve of its own. mondays are a big day and i spend much of my time banging my own forehead with a fist and asking, "what were you thinking??"

tuesday, though, i feel good. i'm ready to teach from 9:30 to 11:00, though it rarely goes well, for reasons i haven't fully divined. there's the certainty that i will humiliate myself on some small point ("the eli clare text is finally available at the bookstore!," i might announce, for instance, to which my puzzled students respond, "what book?" since, it turns out, it is indicated exactly nowhere on the syllabus), but there's something else i can't put my finger on -- the material is too difficult, or i'm speaking too quickly, or the students are too shy, or something. i struggle through even though my feet start hurting after an hour.

i don't teach again until 2:00, which is like hiking up a steep hill and settling down at the top for a sandwich: there's always some sharp stone digging into my back and reminding me that i can't relax yet because i have another class to get ready for. in three hours.

my new practice is to leave the building and go for a swim at noon. (it used to be running until i got the arthritis diagnosis.) even in the pool i feel a certain anxiety and spend much of my time calculating how fast my laps are and how many i'd like to do, subtract the total from 1330, which is when i have to get out of the pool, or actually before, because i have to get back up the hill, and also when will i actually eat lunch? even so, it is good to swim.

the 2:0-3:30 class goes reliably, though i'm always careening between too much and too little. i'll work our way around to a really great point, only to realize, godawfully, that we're only ten minutes in and i've blown my wad. fifty minutes later i am in a panicked rush when i realize we're not going to get through everything. for example: we've only listened to 3 of the 9 tracks i put on a playlist to teach the blues. even though i made the point with billie holiday. this is pacing, and it comes with experience. comes back with experience, i should say. i hope.

every tuesday so far i've had something on right after class: a meeting with the chair, a talk by a visiting scholar, women's studies 20th anniverary, a book launch. so i don't get home until 6-something. by the time we've eaten and i sit down again to work, i'm a) tired; b) panicked; and c) behind. again.

wednesdays have become miscellany day: meetings with graduate students, meetings with the canadian literature centre, meetings with visiting scholars, meetings with my directed reading student. the great thing is that amy and i do the directed reading on foot, which gives wednesdays a great sense of being in it: in the ideas, in the moment, in the city. we walk from the university to wherever it makes sense to go, talking rebecca solnit or jane jacobs or linda goyette or lucy lippard as we go. it's so exciting that i need a nap afterward.

but there is no napping on wednesdays because those are exposure meetings, which seem to run longest when the agenda is shortest, which makes me by turn frustrated with others and doubtful of myself, neither of which puts me in the best frame of mind for coming home and getting ready to teach again on thursday --

-- which is just plain tiring. by thursday the pre-class shuffle, the 2 x 90 minutes of standing and pacing and trying to understand where 30 other people are coming from, and running two or three computer programs and translating theories i don't believe in to language students will understand, and then sitting in my office trying to catch my breath before doing it all again in a few hours -- by thursday it's all just.hard.work. and so i skip the workout, not because i don't think it would help, i know it would help, but the question is, would it help more than staying behind and clearing my inbox just a little? the bad decisions continue into thursday night, when i feel capable only of watching trash TV.

friday is a day of reckoning. i guiltily reply to emails and read student proposals, apologize to my collaborators, open dinning letters from various editors and, if i'm lucky, balance my chequebook. my sense of embodiedness is most acute in the evening, when i feel my sitting-bones drawn to the rare-earth magnet otherwise known as the sofa, where i sit and watch TV or, if i'm feeling particularly lively, play tetris and, lively or not, eat cheese popcorn and peanut M&Ms and salt and vinegar chips and chocolate and dried mangos and regular popcorn and licorice if we have it. all of which sets up a terrible hangover saturday morning, my mouth raw from the acid and my body still struggling to metabolize all that fat and sugar. it takes all day to rouse myself to run, though i'm always happy to have done it. after the saturday chores, of course.

this weekly descent is the epitome of mindless living, and i find it particularly distressing because of the painful knowledge i have gained over the last two years. when i was away from the university i still worked, but i also slept sufficiently every night. every night! i exercised regularly and prepared healthy meals. i quit working for the day when i was too tired to be productive -- often, in fact, i quit before i hit that point. i took evenings off, to hang out with mo or read magazines or even, sometimes, novels. but the point isn't what i did or didn't do -- believe me, my life is hardly exemplary -- but for the most part, i made decisions about what i was doing. i lived mindfully.

the hectic life i have returned to is, i think, typical of the lives all my friends lead. freelancers, professors, artists, parents, editors, teachers, fundraisers -- everybody is working way too hard all the time. the details change, but the sense of being stretched too far and tired all the time seems common, even when we like our lives and our jobs, which most of us do. i want to register, before it all gets normalized again, that this is a bad way to live. it is dangerous. it's unsustainable.

while i've been trying, for two weeks now, to figure out why i am so tired all the time, something david suzuki said has been pinballing around the edges of my consciousness. naturally, i can't remember it word for word, but the gist was this:

happiness has a direct correlation to sustainability. the things that make people genuinely happy are environmentally low-impact and personally/socially regenerative. what people like to do, what makes them happy in a deep and abiding way, includes spending time with loved ones: friends or family or lovers or tricks or comrades or animals. we are happiest when we live in our bodies. we thrive on being creative, whatever that means to you; unless your hobby is, say, reproducing dupont substances in your basement, pursuing a hobby tends to be environmentally friendly, and have you ever met a bitter scrapbooker? happy people spend time alone, spend time in nature, spend time being active and spend time being still -- they spend time, they don't "save" it or "waste" it -- all of which is not just neutral but actually good for human beings and good for the planet. unlike driving, shopping, fast food and television.

i think this is profound. and while i don't yet know how to solve this issue for myself come monday or, worse, thursday, it's something i'm thinking about. you know, in those days after days after days when i'm not finding any time to blog.

Terrible truth

for ethical reasons i won't blog about my students, which means it's been hard to write much over the last week. and who am i kidding, it's been hard to find ten uninterrupted minutes. going back into the classroom after being away for so long is shocking, exciting, depleting, disorienting, sobering, thrillingly scary, and absolutely crammed with realizations, most of them banal yet resonant. among them: teaching is tiring. it takes an incredible amount of energy to respond to 40 people at once. i'm not exactly complaining; i don't mind the work; it's just hard. it's like cooking a multi-course dinner party for a dozen friends. several hours into the prep, your fingers pruny and your feet aching, you find yourself wondering how this ever seemed like a good idea. when the wine starts flowing and conversation pools around the candlelight, though, it's all good.

and then there's all the other beginning-of-term stuff that ramps up. meetings, to be sure, and graduate student committees, and proposal-writing workshops, and office hours and major grant deadlines and so on, but also the socializing. next week i will be out monday, tuesday, wednesday, friday, and saturday evenings, entertaining visitors, attending talks, putting in an appearance at the obligatory department party. again, it's not that i don't enjoy it (well, okay, i could live without twinkling at the dep't party); it's just that after about 90 minutes of hanging out with anybody, i need a nap.

around the time that cycle ends, grading will start coming in.

all of this is doable, i keep saying, as long as i pace myself. right? right??

but the truly heartbreaking realization -- banal yet resonant -- is this: i am actually going to have to break down and get myself some comfortable shoes.

now, that i might not surive.

Bad feminist

the following ad floated to the top of the debris pile otherwise known as my inbox the other day, advertising the newly reconstituted faculty women's club (originally called the faculty wives' club, if memory serves):

The Wine & Cheese Social will be an opportunity for both newcomers and returning members to check out the club and our many activities: from Art Gallery Tours to Golf, Book Groups to Bridge, or Gourmet Dining to Dog Walking - just to name a few. We have activities that meet during the day, in the evening, and even occasionally on the weekends.

i know i'm not supposed to feel envious -- but, wow: what kind of a charmed life would you lead if you had time to take in dog walking groups?

Rules of work

a kind friend loaned me a book called the rules of work: the unspoken truth about getting ahead in business. it's so easy to make fun of it's almost not worth the trouble; it's one of those books that more or less makes fun of itself, with advice from pithy (don't wear hawaiian shirts to the office) to pious ("the right attitude is head up, never moaning, always positive and upbeat, constantly looking for the advantage and the edge"). some of it is downright creepy, like how to practice your smile (videotape!) and mimic the boss (if he takes his jacket off in a meeting, you take your jacket off in a meeting; if he rolls up his sleeves, you roll up your sleeves). if you're looking for stalk tips, here's one: know where the bosses socialize and be there first. some of the advice might have been better left "unspoken" like the subtitle promises, such as the section on having your warts removed and checking your facial hair for crumbs. some of the advice is startling; i underlined the bit about never dressing up for halloween if you're looking to get promoted. and there's bad news for ambitious vegetarians: your avant-garde lifestyle will amost certainly stand in the way of advancement -- unless, presumably, you're looking to advance within greenpeace, since conformity is all. some of the book just goes to prove, yet again, that the english are weird.

but underneath the egregiously facile bits is some useful stuff. for instance, it's probably a smart idea to cultivate diplomacy, think one step ahead, and have a game plan. i've never been very good at sussing out other people's motivations; being reminded that some folks are motivated by power, money and self-glorification is helpful. (well, okay, i'm in the academy, i know all about glory.) and i did love reading the bit about leaving on time: resist presenteeim, "wave boldly and [say] that whoever leaves last shuts off the lights!"

the real problem with a book like this is that we professors in the humanities don't really think of ourselves as workers with jobs. we know too much, we're smarter than the average bear, and we really do believe, like the rubes mocked in the rules, that our opinion "counts for something, has an audience, is important, will make a difference." idealism matters to us. frustrating as i find it to listen to some colleague offer a principled objection to, say, signing a conflict of interest form (rule #18: be cool, be cool...), i am ultimately on the side of the thoughtful, idealistic and dismayingly fuddyduddy.

as i contemplate the year ahead of me (and believe me, i'm quaking) i realize that the main challenge is going to be to save me from myself. it's not just that i'm stuck at rule #32, "don't bitch" (bitching, says the rules, identifies you as petty, idle and trivial, and makes you a magnet for moaners); it's that i think of teaching, learning and serving as noble callings and i believe the role of university administration is to foster these things. it follows that i want my job to provide things like a sense of purpose, a sense of worth, and a sense of possibility for progressive change in the world. it's not the only area in my life where i seek these things, but it's the one that takes the largest number of waking hours.

so the grim truth is that checking-out isn't going to work for me and neither, probably, will the rules. still, i'm going to learn how to "volunteer carefully" (rule #3) and, just in case, you won't see me wearing green on st patrick's day.

A career parable

in the dream, i start out partying. all sorts of people are there, including the beautiful tim kulak, a former student of mine. suddenly i look around and realize everyone else has gone home. the party has ended when i haven't been paying attention. i'm still a little drunk, but i have to deal with an overflowing toilet: ugly. the place i am is nice stylistically -- it's all white plaster and oiled beech, a good design concept when it was put together but a little bit shabby now. the wood is not quite rotten but spoiling and the whitewash is grubby. dirty california.

not quite sober, i have to drop something off to a rich patron of the arts whose condo is way up on the fifth floor, and to get there, i have to take the tiniest elevator in the world. even before the doors close i feel myself panicking with claustrophobia. i calm myself down: relax, you can do this, you have to do this, it's only four floors up (only it's actually five floors up because, i realize, there's an extra floor stuck in there, a ground floor and a first floor). the doors close and the elevator starts to rise. my eyes are glued on the numbers. i can do this... then we stop at 2 and a janitor gets on with a big cart of stuff. i'm now shoved into the back corner, sweat trickling down my spine. i can't see anything where i am, just the back of the janitor. the doors close again. i panic, i wonder if i can push myself out the walls of this elevator, this dream -- and then the doors open again on the next floor, where a lawyer pushes himself in, holding sheafs of important-looking legal-sized paper out in front of him. i'm really angry at him; can't he see there's no room? can't he wait for the next ride up? is he really so oblivious to everyone but himself? i honestly don't think i can make it, i've got to get out of the elevator, there's no air here. but then we arrive at the fifth floor, the others disappear and i walk gratefully out of the elevator, only to find myself standing on a platform the size of a diving tower, a full storey above my destination. i can look down and see the condo i'm supposed to be at. around me there is nothing, not even a roof, just me all alone, dizzy and scared, on this tiny swaying platform in a terrifying wind.

it's back to the awful elevator to get down, and now i'm worried i'm late, have let too much time go by, won't be accepted where i'm going.

by the time i knock on the condo's door, i am stone sober. and here's the thing: it's gorgeous. totally worth it. the condo is made of wood and glass; it's decorated in mid-century modern teak (remember teak? back when we still grew hardwoods on this planet?) and everything is lit beautifully. through the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows you can see city hills dotted with other beautiful houses. it looks a bit like sydney. there are a lot of people standing around in the condo having elegant conversations and drinking wine. the patron is generous and kind, funny and deft. she plies me with canapes, even though i'm more or less just a messenger, and she offers me a tour of the premises. the most beautiful room of all is what should, structurally, be the kitchen, but she's turned it into an artists' studio. this is where her artists come and work on extended contracts. here even the ceiling is glass. the view isn't quite as stunning as the view from the main room in the condo, and for some reason the entire place is covered with faux-leaf chandeliers, green, some strewn on antlers and some shaped like grape clusters and all of them, to my eye, ugly. i can see immediately that you'd want to remove all those light fixtures to let the room be itself. it's as big and as lush as a muttart conservatory greenhouse. the patron smiles and says, "you should come back sometime, for real," and then she gestures to the gift bag that all of the artists in residence receive. it's wrapped in yellow paper.

***
well.

i have had three conversations with three trusted friends in the last three days on the topic 'what will become of heather.' and here, delightfully, is my unconscious with a droll little complicated narrative in answer. i won't decode this here entirely (though anyone who reads it is welcome to offer observations). i am left with a few key questions, though -- like when, exactly, did the party end? why can't i go to law school? and, finally, what is in the gift bag, wrapped so tellingly in UofA colors, and why am i so tragically curiosity-bound that i still, still want to know?

Secret happiness club

the early part of this week has been crazybusy, so having a day when i could stay home and actually get some work done felt like a gift. i worked well til about 2, kept at it until 4 and then thought, this is ridiculous. it's beautiful outside, i can't concentrate, i'm tired of working and i'm getting nothing done. what i really want to do is sit on the front porch and read.

then i thought, scandalously, why don't i? if i sit on the front porch and read a novel, nothing bad will happen. it was revolutionary, marvelous, scandalous.

i felt like i was part of a secret happiness club, a group of people who'd cracked the hard nut of joy for the sweetmeat inside.

perfect.

Homo academicus

i am a bad academic.

i say this without judgment of either myself or the academy, but it is pretty obvious at this point that i simply don't fit. the people i've worked with in the university are amazing. and by "worked with," i mean -- well, these people work work work work work. they love to work. they live to work. and me: i just don't. not no mo', anyway.

i've been at a symposium this weekend that i helped organize. as is always the case when you're an organizer, you hit the event tired to begin with. add to that the week we've had at home, what with the recalcitrant roofers and aunty jo suddenly in the hospital, our trip to buenos aires just a week away, and you've got all the ingredients for a stress fest.

there's something about being this tired that turns me into a human portal. i have a body that i can propel around campus. it's your typical human body equipped with two legs, two eyes and a pair of hands. i myself was in another universe, the parallel universe of the exhausted. but through those eyes, like some kind of extraterrestrial anthropologist, i could see the academic life. and it's ... well, frankly, it's kind of staggering.

one person at this symposium came in spite of the fact that her 18-year-old daughter had just been admitted to the hospital with a brain clot. this colleague is a lovely woman. after apologizing for missing the first half day, she explained that she felt coming at all was a "healthy choice." besides, her husband, who had been in europe, arrived in toronto to spell her off at the hospital. she was in edmonton for something like 36 hours, all told, and faces an all-day journey to get back to the maritimes. it's not that i am scandalized by her decision. if she says it's a healthy choice, i'm sure it is. i am just stunned that she could do it. me, i don't have that much energy.

most academics, from what i can tell, enjoy working on the weekends. i seem to be the only sourpuss who complains that conferences should happen on working days, or that department retreats should take place instead of, not in addition to, our regular commitments, or that people deserve a couple of weekdays (not weekend days, which are a whole other thing) to turn documents around. i don't know how they do it, these colleagues of mine. i find it hard to work five days a week, let alone six or seven.

don't even start me on colleagues with kids. i fare badly on one night's sleep; they are chronically underslept. i need weekends at the end of each and every week, downtime when i dust and vacuum, cruise the blogosphere, catch up with my friends, and, on a good weekend, rent a movie or two. while i am squandering my life this way, they are giving up yet more time to other people, driving to soccer practices, making nice at play dates, and running endlessly for groceries. i keep reminding myself that there must be payoffs to that life choice, but for the most part it looks to me like two full jobs.

it's not just the lack of energy that sets me apart from my colleagues; it's also the lack of patience. you need extraordinary amounts of patience to deal with people, but especially, i think, academics, who, god love 'em, take every opportunity to become their own nightmare students. take yesterday. i announce, "lunch is across the quad. i'll stay in the room so your stuff will be safe." there's already a hand in the air. "heather, can we leave our stuff here?" "yes." another: "will the room be locked over lunch? will our computers be safe?" "yes," i say, but already somebody is tapping me on the shoulder. "heather," she says, "i'm just wondering, do you think i can leave my things in the room over the lunch hour?" there must be some people who don't mind this or are inured to it -- perhaps people with kids?? not only does it irritate me to have people constantly tugging on my virtual shirtsleeve, but i've lost my ability to pretend it doesn't. so by yesterday i found myself saying, snippily, "yes, that's why i just announced that very thing." which is, i think, a pretty significant sign that you've been in it too long. i don't want to be an irritable bitch, and i don't want a job that turns me into one.

this morning, i walk the group through a process. i explain what we hope to get from it. i solicit the group's agreement to the process, and we carry on. i'm in a bathroom stall when a handful of symposium-goers comes in. "i don't think this makes sense," says one. "i know," says another. "we should do it like this," she says, and goes on to explain what she thinks. the third person with them agrees. when i re-enter the room, one of them approaches me and says that she thinks we should do it differently. i say, as pleasantly as i can, that if she feels that way, she should go ahead and lead the group. "oh, i don't want to take over!," she says.

it sounds like a bald lie -- and yet, the logic of homo academicus suggests that it isn't. i think what academics truly love, more than anything, is being right. they don't like the unknown, they don't want to trust processes, they don't want to take a wrong turn and end up in unfamiliar surroundings. they want to know things, and they want the things they know to be correct. critical by habit, by training, and by conviction, they always, always know best.

and this is ultimately the biggest difference between me and the academic world. there are gazillions of things more important to me than being right. for one, being happy. for another, learning. for a third, collaborating. also: taking chances. making things. using my imagination. seeing beauty. listening to other people. trying things out. leading.

so, i disgraced myself. i left the symposium in tears, before it was even over.

the surprising thing is how disappointed i am.

Pro-crastination

so i have to do revisions to this article that i initially wrote over three years ago. eh, academic presses are slow. i understand that the lag is not the fault of the editors. still, after three years it's hard to cast my mind back to where it needs to be in order to revise it properly. so i have been putting it off. and off and off and off.

i printed out the paper and the editors' comments back in early december, when they first got in touch with the green light from the press. then i stacked four other projects on top of it, just so i wouldn't have to look at it. but it turns out it's not the visual that matters; it's the sound. the paper scolds me in the middle of the night, it yells at me when i shuffle through other stuff on my desk, and it takes over my mouth in conversations. seriously: a student of mine asked recently what i was up to over the weekend. i named a few things, then said casually, to see whether i could trick myself into it, "oh, and there's this paper i have to revise..." she didn't miss a beat. "that's not the same paper you were talking about last time we met, is it?" oh god. really? "the one you were working on before you went to switzerland?" really? i believe i even mentioned this article in a previous blog, the one about ironing. it's all part of a well-intentioned if desperate attempt to embarrass myself into doing it. and yet?

and yet, i have become the person i hate. oh, i know that person very well; i'm trying to motivate her to contribute to a collection of essays that i'm putting together. it's karmic. as an editor, all i want is to know where the paper is at, how it's developing, how the revisions are coming along. i write politely, then curtly, then i facebook her. when she still doesn't write back, i key an awful, smarmy email that is really a threat: "i know that my last few notes to you have gone unanswered. i promise that if you don't respond to this one we'll stop harassing you about this collection. but...."

that's my outbox. over in my inbox -- well, i can't really say what's going on in my email inbox, 'cause as of this week, having missed a deadline of 7 january, and another of 10 february, and a personally-imposed-absolutely-cannot-be-broken deadline of 29 february, then easter weekend, when for sure-for sure i'd do it, i have actually begun to avoid my email. i simply opened a gmail account with an address the editors don't have, and i conduct my business there.

of course, there is an upside to all this procrastination. you wouldn't believe how many other things i've got accomplished. it's not just that the house is vacuumed and the shredding up to date. no, this procrastination is much worse than the usual make a pot of tea and ensure all the pencils are sharpened. this week alone, i have organized a multi-day symposium for 35 people, replenished a steering committee of 12, taken on a special job for the UofA president, organized a commemoration for the tenth anniversary of the vriend vs alberta decision -- and that's just the work. i've been so abject that i've actually looked into my finances, an endeavour that reliably gives me a pain right ... here. i've renewed magazine subscriptions, subscribed to "stuff white people like," repotted an ailing jade plant, mailed a change of address form to alberta health care, phoned my dentist, emailed my trainer, streamlined my facebook groups, and filed my taxes.

and i've caught up on my blog.

now what??

Sunday evening pall

if saturday morning is a sun-filled loft, sunday night is a cheesy motel room. the light is poor, but you can still take in all the evidence of your misspent time: suitcases half packed, the toothpaste tube squeezed in the middle, the stale smell of pizza boxes and unfilled promises.

which is to say i didn't build a birdhouse or paint my study, i didn't run and run and run -- i jogged a wee bit, slowly -- and making granola, it turns out, wasn't quite as exciting as i made it sound.

anyway, time's up and i gotta get out of here, or you know what it's like: they start charging you by the hour.