No school today due to snow and ice.  Hooray!  Not only do I not have to drive to campus on the ice-slickened roads, not only do I not have to teach, but also I’ve gotten a good bit of work done at home.  It doesn’t get much better than that!

On top of this, S. received an email this morning announcing that her offer letter should arrive in the mail today!  Out mail carrier has not yet made it to our house this afternoon, so as of yet we do not have letter in hand—-but damn this dream is close to becoming a big, blooming miracle!

In light of this, I felt inspired to work cleaning out what had been my second closet upstairs in the guest room.  Shortly, S. will be moving her clothes into that space, so we can make a closet available for Rachel.  My productivity on that front amazes even me, as I filled three large trash bags with clothes for the Goodwill and disposed of stacks and stacks of previously unsorted mail.  The closet is now pretty much ready for new occupancy.  The completion of that task means the junk room/Rachel’s  room is one step closer to being painted.  I feel a sense of urgency about that space, as any global disaster could have S. overseas in a matter of days.  Well, maybe not, she still has to apply for and receive a business visa prior to departure.

But the fact remains that we are moving forward finally–at a fairly slow pace, perhaps–but we seem to at least be on the right road–that is, one that heads East.  We seem to indeed be Bangkok bound.

Clearly I need to dedicate more time to beefing up this blog, which I’ve neglected of late, due to school-related responsibilities.  Mea culpa!  The problem I face is this–my life right now remains routine and the Asian adventure with S. has yet to begin.

I should mention, however, that school is moving along well.  I enjoy teaching and do not yet feel paralyzingly busy.  My students seem reasonably engaged, and currently I have the energy to relay information with enthusiasm.   Let’s see what happens later this week when my first set of essays arrives.  At that time I may feel less pep, less passion, less poised when facing freshmen.

But, gosh, this process of writing seems agonizingly painful, slow, and tedious.  Perhaps, it’s good for me to struggle in this regard.  Maybe I’ll approach my students with more empathy and be better equipped to respond to classroom questions about the process of composition.  Hopefully that will happen.  At the moment, however, I plod by way through each post.  At the moment blogging sucks.

Yet my office mate Amy said this morning that she thought I should write a book about this year’s experience–the experience of traveling in Asia and Africa while my partner responds to global disasters.  Yes, the adventure would seem to lend itself to excitement and drama.  Yes, I appreciate Amy affirming that I should do what I fantacise about doing.  But writing a book would involve just that–writing.  And, dear God, the whole process of compostion currently cripples me.  To think this is the subject I’m supposedly qualified to teach.  What a hoot!

However, S. just said something significant–namely that the real challenge for a writer is to take the ordinary details of life and make them meaningful, make them add up to something more than themselves.  If that’s the case, these months at home should provide good practice  in the craft of composition.  The process of pounding out post after post should better prepare me for the task of actually writing a book.  Perhaps, a year from now I’ll be begging for a bit more of the mundane.  Now that’s a crazy thing to think about!

For two days straight I have worked on a drawing that can be used as a logo or banner for the mountaintop removal event the Writing Program is sponsoring in April.  Because of this project, yesterday for the first time since beginning this blog, I posted nothing.  I’ve been trying this evening to upload the piece to this post but have not yet succeeded.  Technology makes me nuts.

At any rate, I’m too burnt out from that creative effort to write much of anything here tonight.  I want to toss this laptop aside and curl up with a book in an effort to decompress before the launch of a new week’s worth of responsibility.

Sometimes I wonder if I should bother blogging on days when I have so little to say.  Is it worth the effort?  Does it matter that I say nothing of real meaning or merit?  Surely, if I had regular readers, they would stop looking for updates, if all I posted were shit like this.  And, god knows, I wouldn’t want to alienate any of my non-existent fans.   So please keep reading.  At the very least, I promise  this writing can’t get much more pathetic than it does this evening.

S. and I did the grunge thing this afternoon–visited an antique/flea market establishment called Feather your Nest,  hopped over to the Good Will thrift store for clothes to beef up our wardrobes, discovered a new used book store in the same section of shopping center, and stopped at a new- to-us sandwich establishment, where I attempted to eat the chicken salad with a none-too-sturdy plastic fork that bent back on itself each time I tried to stab a chunk of ice burg lettuce.   That’s what you get when you try to eat healthfully in a joint more famous for its classic club on toast than its salad du jour.  At any rate, it was all quite fun and, perhaps, one of the few such adventures we’ll be able to share before Samantha heads off to Asia, where, golly-jee, we’ll have a new nest to feather.

Hip, hip, hooray!  S. received the employment guarantee we’ve been looking for.  Word came via email within the last hour.  Currently the NGO is working out our housing logistics in Bangkok.  S. is expected to be in Atlanta with paperwork in hand by February 9th and almost certainly in Thailand by the end of next month.  I can’t tell you the relief I feel.  Finally, we are moving forward, not just treading water.  As S. just said, “My, my, what a difference a month makes!”  Who knows what might have happened in another six.

In the mean time, I remain insanely busy with school, but not paralyzingly so.  I’m still able to work productively.  I’m making progress.  However, this evening I’m mind-numbingly exhausted.  I can barely keep my eyes open.  I want to sleep.  I want to sleep deeply for a very long time.  And in that spirit, I’m going to hip, hip, hooray myself to bed.

I am busy beyond belief–no time to do anything even marginally recreational.  It seems this shouldn’t be happening so early in the semester.  I guess the good thing is that this helps the time pass more quickly–that is the time until I’m able to leave for Bangkok.  It’s sad that the semester has barely begun and already I’m wanting it to end.  However, again this has nothing to do with not liking my job, nothing to do with not enjoying the classroom, nothing to do with not caring for my students.  I suspect I actually love teaching.  In fact, I almost always walk away from the classroom energized.  The real issue is that I simply want to move on.  I’m excited about returning to Thailand, and I want to do so immediately, if not sooner.

Rachel came by this evening to talk about how things will work when she moves in–the logistics of bill paying and dog feeding, the details of paint picking and closet emptying.  It was good to see her.  She’s excited about the loss of housing costs, and the notion that we trust her so completely.

At any rate, I suspected this would indeed be the day I didn’t blog.  Yet I’ve pounded something out–not a very good something, but words and sentences and paragraphs, nonetheless.

Clearly I promised to begin blogging daily, but this has been the first day that I’ve come close to not fulfilling that commitment.  I’m simply too tired to compose anything remotely meaningful, which is sad since today Barrack Obama was inaugurated the 44th president of the United States–a hugely important event in the history of our country  I almost hate to comment on the significance of this day, as I’m afraid that anything I might say is already close to cliche.  To elaborate on the importance of our nation’s first African American president is probably commentary I’m not qualified to make.  Yet I can say that the event moved me–perhaps even deeply so–especially the president’s suggestion that we will extend a hand to those who raise their fist in anger against us.  That seemed a terribly powerful image.

On another note, I might mention my intense irritability.  I’m not sure exactly why or what’s wrong with me.  I only know that almost anything has the potential to irritate me and indeed does.  I feel like I need to escape into a bubble that will eliminate my contact with external stimuli–especially sounds–sneezing, snoring, barking, breathing.  I also can’t tolerate disorder or dirt. 

More than anything, however, I can’t tolerate uncertainty.  And almost everything about our lives right now remains in limbo, especially since S. refuses to even check her email in case she has not heard from her potential employer.  This seems utterly absurd, and it’s making me crazy.  If we don’t know something definite soon, I’m afraid I may go stark raving mad.  I might have to insist that she act soon, for the sake of my own sanity.  I don’t deal well with not knowing.  I don’t deal well with it at all.

Classes begin again in the morning, and I’m not terribly thrilled about that fact.  Sadly, however, I don’t understand why I feel this indifference.  I think it is indeed a form of indifference rather than out and out hatred of the whole idea of teaching.  There are few activities as rewarding as connecting positively with students and knowing that a particular class meeting has gone well, that students have both learned and enjoyed doing so.  In fact, a class like that produces a near euphoria in me–perhaps, an emotional state a notch or two below out and out bliss, but a damn good feeling nonetheless.

This being the case, my indifference makes no sense.  Could I be depressed?  Could these feelings be a seasonal response to the cold, wet weather?  Or could it be the lack of concrete assurances about Samantha’s pending employment that prevent me from experiencing my own work in more positive terms?  Or maybe I just want to accelerate the rate at which theses changes are happening or not happening in our lives?  In other words, could this indifference about the here and now be impatience for the then and there?

Now that I think about it, I might also be impatient to lose the weight I’m working to rid myself of.   I have been exceedingly dedicated to this effort–drastically cutting calories and increasing exercise.  It’s just not happening fast enough to suit me.  I think the recent haircut has boosted my body image.  At least the gray is gone, and the shorter length makes my hair seem thicker.  But again I want the physical changes to happen as instantaneously as the hair has been improved.  Surely to God there has to be a way to hasten this process.

Perhaps, then, I face frustration on several fronts.  So, by all means, let’s get this god-damned show on the road.

S. and I saw The Reader this afternoon at the Kentucky Theater–perhaps the most moving and powerful film I have ever seen.  I know that’s an unusually strong endorsement, and maybe the movie will not affect others the way it did us.  But I believe that by all objective measures this adds up to one hell of an afternoon at the theater. 

The Reader stars Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes.  Winslet plays Hannah, an illiterate streetcar worker with whom the Fiennes character has an affair the summer he turns 15.  Hannah helps the younger Michael when he becomes ill with scarlet fever.  Several months later when the teenager is well again and returns to Hannah’s apartment to express his appreciation, the affair begins, as does Michael’s reading to Hannah without recognizing her illiteracy.  When Hannah receives a positive job review and is promoted to office worker, her inability to read or write compels her to run away and join the SS.  Michael knows nothing of her whereabouts until, as a law student, he visits a war crimes trial that features his one time lover as defendant.  Hannah’s ultimate conviction depends on her confessed composition of  an incriminating  document.  She allows herself to be convicted of murder rather than admit  her own  inability to have written even her own name.

Probably I should share no more of the plot–should only share that the film explores the imprisoning nature of shame and degree to which we will go to keep shame secret even if it means our own literal incarceration.  It also suggests that sometimes what we perceive as indifference to the feelings and suffering of others may, in fact, be something else entirely, that what may seem meaningful to one person may remain nothing to another, that who we are and why we behave the way we do is a complicated affair, that, perhaps, we should withhold judgement of others, as we may know less than we think about their tangled inner lives.  Perhaps, we ourselves remain poor readers of motivation.  Could we be equally illiterate when it comes to deciphering the texts of our own shame-based behaviors?

I suppose I should be energized this morning, but for some reason I’m not.  It’s Saturday and I have no school till Tuesday.  I think what threw me is having slept in till after 7 am–an indulgence I don’t generally allow myself, as starting my day that late makes me feel behind well into the afternoon.  You just can’t accomplish that much when you spend extra hours lounging in bed.  God, I sound so much like my mother it frightens me.  She rarely if ever allows a laxing of her achievement standard.  Go, go now, go fast, go far–her drill sergeant, Nazi concentration camp guard ethic.  And I wonder why it’s hard to relax!

So, at least I’ve begun this blog!  Right?  That has to count for something–not much maybe but at least a smidgen of success.

On another note, I should mention that S. finished her stint in Frankfort yesterday.  I know she’s pleased that it’s over but not so pleased that we have had no recent update for the NGO she’ll work for overseas.  However, her contact person was scheduled to be in Europe this past week, so we assume that may account for the delay.  Regardless, we are anxious to have the details finalized, anxious to move on with our lives, anxious for both of the above and then some.  It’s not easy to live in limbo.

Less in limbo are our plans for this evening .  Then we are scheduled to have dinner with my friend Anne at Mia’s.  Anne works in the Writing Program.  Mia’s is a lesbian bar downtown that has upgraded its menu in the last year, so that now it is equal parts upscale restaurant and neighborhood watering hole–quite a nice place to eat actually.

I need to run and email Rachel now.  Have I mentioned that it looks like she will house sit for us next year?  At any rate, S. wants to know what color she’d like us to paint her room.  Perhaps, we’re a little less in limbo on that front.