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.

I got a great haircut today!  Actually had inches and inches chopped off.  It had hung to my shoulders but now is chin length.  What a relief to have the gray gone, as well as the split ends.  By the way, I had my color done also–high-lights and low-lights.  All in all, an enormous improvement.

The problem I face this evening, though, is that I don’t feel like writing–don’t seem to have the creative energy to make this meaningful and fun to read.  I’m going through the motions because I made the commitment to blog each day–not because I’m currently in love with language or happy with my ability to craft words into reasonably elegant prose that even borders on entertaining.  But then you could argue that I’m expecting too much–that it’s not realistic to demand my work be both elegant and funny, both memorably eloquent and amusingly so.

Alas, I’m less than perfect.  Guess I should keep that fact under wraps.

Three cheers for the weekend–or almost.  Let me clarify.  Generally I don’t teach on Friday, so Thursday begins a three day break.  However, this coming Monday is Martin Luther King’s birthday–a school holiday-so this should really be the start of a four day vacation from all things academic.  But, alas, I just received an email asking me to attend a meeting tomorrow.  And, mind you, this makes me want to scream–not just a little bit, but a lot.  I’m beginning to feel meeting-ed to death.   At this point  I only want  to stay home, almost warm, in bed.  I say “almost” because it’s so cold out right now and our house is so poorly insulated, that even under the covers my feet are not entirely toasty.  I know my attitude sucks.  But I’m not sure what to do about that fact.

On a more positive note I should mention that Rachel may indeed want to live in our house for the next year.  She seems to think our offer is too good to be true.  I don’t think she realizes how much the arrangement would benefit us.  Plus, she would have to deal with our dog Lucy’s insanely high-decibled bark.  Then again, Rachel has stayed with Lucy and knows how maddening the bark can become, and here again, not just a little maddening, but a lot, a whole lot.

First day of classes and all went well.  This was one of those days that reminds me what I love most about teaching–managing to make learning fun–communicating that I care–sharing the best parts of  me with the best parts of my students.

What amuses me the most, however, is that six University of Kentucky cheerleaders are enrolled in one of my classes.  I swear–this has got to be a first.  This group was appalled  to learn that I had never attended a UK basketball game–a near sacrilege for any Lexintonian–let alone for a university alumnus and current university instructor.  At any rate, I suspect their presence will create interesting dialogue in that class.  Hopefully I can cheer them on as writers, as we all tumble our way into a new semester.

In the midst of getting to meet my students for the first time and enduring all the first-day-of-classes insanity, I am also busy with the writing program’s mountaintop removal event scheduled for early April.  I had not anticipated the work associated with that to consume so much of my time.  Currently, I am trying to solicit art we can exhibit that evening and dealing with potentially competing agendas from artists and committee members alike.  One artist with whom I’ve communicated is sometimes difficult to wok with, but he does art on this stuff.  I feel like he always has to have his way.

Gosh, this post almost makes it sound like things are not going well, when indeed they are.  It’s just that I feel scattered already, this early in the semester.  This is not necessarily bad, only an indication that that I am busy, busier than I would like.  But maybe this will make the time go by more quickly, the time until I leave for Bangkok and other Asian destinations.  Hopefully, I will lead my own cheers as this semester gets started, cheers for my students success as writers and for my own success with all weight loss related endeavors.

Today has been nothing less than insanely busy, as I am getting ready for school to start tomorrow.  I’m afraid this may not bode well for the rest of semester, but hopefully the intensity will lessen and things will proceed at a more moderate pace.

On a less than positive note, I might mention the person we had hoped might live in our house this next year has decided that our back steps would be more than her knees could handle and that she is not up for a move at any point in the near future.  I understand how she  feels.  So we are without a house sitter, but not without potential candidates.  I emailed my former student Rachel a while ago to see if she might be up for the challenge.  We had considered her our best bet all along.

I swear I wish I had something, anything, of interest to share, but life has been reduced to the mundane drudgery that is my job–not that I would have considered it such before the prospect of Asian adventure.  However, the truth is that I enjoy teaching and at times absolutely love it.  And I’m sure I would feel that way today were it not for options that feel more appealing. 

At any rate, I start a new semester tomorrow, and, I believe, I’m up for the challenge.

This morning I attended the writing program’s all-staff meeting, which actually turned out to be a rather encouraging experience.  Andrea Lundsford, who directs rhetoric and composition studies at Stanford and also wrote the St. Martin’s Handbook I use with my classes,  discussed projects her students had done that both engaged them with the community and asked them to explore issues about which they felt passionly.  I found her to be quite inspiring–an attractive elderly woman with white hair coiled in barrettes above each ear.  The bottom line is this–she communicated a care and concern for her students that moved me and reminded me why I am teaching in the first place.  I felt affirmed.

I have yet another meeting here in the next 30 minutes to strategize further about our “Evening with the Mountain Keepers” event scheduled for early April.  I don’t feel like attending today.  I’d rather head home and blog from bed.  I just returned to campus from home, where I let the dogs out to go potty and cleaned out litter boxes.  I wish I hadn’t had to come back to school. But, alas, I’m here, willing and able to do what’s needed.

S. is in her Frankfort office this afternoon, hating what remains of her job more with each hour she’s forced to spend there.  I’m not exactly sure what she dislikes so vehemently.  I suspect it’s having to be there when her heart has returned to disaster response.  Once she has made up her mind it is difficult for her to wait, which, in fact, I  understand.  I sure as hell don’t want to be here at the University of Kentucky this semester.  I want these changes to hurry up and happen.

In conclusion, I must mention my concern that this blog is degenerating into mundane reports about daily events.  No one wants to read a simple catalogue of “I did this” and “I did that.”  Boring!  I’m not sure what the solution is, since not much is actually happening.  If I had more time, I’d be able to take the details of daily life and make them interesting.  Blah, blah, blah.  I should stop while I’m ahead.  Enough of this nonsense.

Good news!  I got on the scales this morning and discovered I have lost 3 pounds in the last week.  This motivates me.  However, I know I will not continue to lose at that rate for long.  Inevitably the early pounds come off more easily than the latter.  But, God, if I could average 2 pounds a week instead of 1, I would be able to get the excess weight off in half the time, with a good portion of it gone by the time I leave for Thailand in May.  This makes me feel more optimistic.

Similarly fortuitous is the fact that the travel section of today’s New York Times features an article about Phuket.  S. and I consider this a good omen.  We spent almost a week there in March of 2007–six days of lounging on the beach, soaking up the sun, and swimming in the warm, blue waters of the Andaman Sea.  One day we visited sites that were rebuilt after the Tsunami of 2004, and another we rented a scooter and explored the island.  By far, however, I preferred walking the shore in search of shells and coral and rocks–most of which I brought home to the states.  At any rate, Phuket is an especially magical place for us–one I’ve often thought of when fantasizing about a return to Thailand.  So its feature in this morning’s New York  Times suggests to us on some level that we are on the right page in our plans regarding Thailand.  It makes me feel affirmed–embraced by the universe.

In the midst of dreaming about Bangkok and about what life there might be like, I must get to work on school stuff this afternoon, preparing my first major essay assignment of the semester and entering student names in my grade book–not terribly tedious tasks but ones that must be done.  In the meantime, S. is cooking Indian food in the kitchen.  I realize am hungry–gotta run get lunch.