Month: March 2019

“There’s a very fine line betwen a groove and rut,” sang Christine Lavin, and and I’ve fallen into what feels like a groove, but I’ve basically stripped my life down in the past few weeks to work, rest, and feeding myself. The side work has slowed down, and I’m finding my time away from the office enjoyable again. I’m putting myself to bed at a reasonable hour, although still not habitualizing the Darth Vader machine the way I need to.

My focus at work has been unsually keen. I’m not ready to credit the new office, but I need to be honest and say that certain truths about the new space have worked better for my writing focus. Other circumstances make a difference too, like having reliable wheels and not taking an hour to get from home to work, or two hours to get back home. I’m having most of my breakfasts and dinners at home (I’m getting home early enough because I haven’t been stopping at cafes to do the side work), so I’m mostly letting myself eat out for lunch. Not having to deal with all that lunch prep every week makes a difference too.

This whole routine of waking, having breakfast, going to the office, working an honest day, then coming home for dinner and downtime feels like what it’s supposed to be like for a single, middle-aged guy. Sometimes I run errands after dinner, or go to a flick, or get groceries. It feels like life. If I made a little more money I would almost call this contentment.

Can’t stay like this, though. I’m about to try and add something to my evenings, and because I don’t make a little more money, I do have to ramp up some of that side work. And getting exercise hasn’t been a priority lately, and I have to work that back in. I don’t see how I can add any of that stuff back in without throwing me out of this groove.

One way I think I can do it is to make more strategic use of my vacation days. I get twenty-two days a year (or thereabouts) and can carry over fourteen or fifteen days from year to year. Last year I only took as many days as I had to not to lose any to that carryover limit, and maybe that’s not the best way to use them. This is a new thing for me, these vacations days not dictated by the academic calendar, and my approach so far has been that having them is more valuable to me than using them, kind of like this little stash of giftcards I have for lean times when I could really use a dinner out. Using a day today might be nice, but it feels nicer knowing I can.

Today is a state holiday, and I never get enough stuff done on holidays, so I’m taking the morning half of my day off tomorrow. It feels good not feeling pressured to do everything on the to-do list, knowing I have a little bit of overflow tomorrow. This might be the new strategy for those vacation days. Just add a half day to each state holiday or three-day weekend.

Friday Five from here.

What’s something you’d like to increase the volume of?

My fridge has been feeling a bit cramped lately, and it’s plenty big enough. Still, it’s very old and I think I need to start with a fresh one, one with a bit more freezer space.

Who would you like to mute?

I can’t say the answer that comes first to mind because for Lent I’m sort of not bad-mouthing this person. I mean, I’m doing something more than not bad-mouthing the person, but bad-mouthing definitely works against the goal (if there’s actually a goal) I seek. I’ve already kind of blown it and am assigning myself a few makeup days after Easter to make up for the slippage. You know, like snow days in those parts of the continental US where snow days exist. So maybe I’ll say I’d like to mute myself.

When was your body (or part of your body) most recently scanned?

I had some blood work done last week, so my blood was scanned, and that’s a much nicer answer than what I would have had to say before the blood work, because I recently had to mail something in for colon cancer screening. That test came back negative. Yay. I guess before that it was at the airport coming home from Boston.

What part of the upcoming weekend would you like to skip?

I’m getting to this after the weekend in question, so the part I would have said is the time set aside for some house chores. I didn’t do the chores anyway. I guess I did skip that portion of the weekend.

Whose input could you really use right now?

Ah, geez. I had lunch with a former colleague yesterday, and without bringing up something that’s been weighing me down, I managed to get a little bit of input anyway, and it really helped. If I felt ready to talk about it with anyone, I suppose it would have been her. I mean, I could definitely use some input on this certain social situation (yeah , the situation is a woman) but I think talking about it now would be creating a situation that might not actually be a situation. Better to keep it as hypothetical as I can for now. I guess.

From here.

If you were outside right now, what would you most likely be doing?

It’s Sunday afternoon as I type this, so almost surely listening to podcasts and just walking about. I really need to do more of that. The move to the new office has made it trickier to find my steps goals. The area itself is fine; I’ve pounded tens of thousands of steps in the neighborhood over the years but I haven’t worked it into my day the way I could on campus.

Right now, what’s a little too close to you?

The dog. It’s a cute little thing but it wants to play fetch and I’m trying to write.

Right now, who misses you?

That’s a good question. My students used to call me heartless when they asked, “Are you going to miss us after we’ve graduated?” and my response was, “Probably not.” Actively missing someone is an emotional thing I don’t think you can predict about students (and maybe anyone) no matter how good your relationships are with them. You spend so much time focused on the students in your classrooms; it’s rare that you have moments to miss the students who aren’t. I hope wherever they are, they realize I was right, since of course they don’t miss me one iota. People have their lives. I don’t think they miss the absence of me in those lives. And since I am at this very moment in my parents’ living room, I can’t say my folks miss me.

Right now, what’s having its way with you?

Certain household chores keep piling up and I can’t seem to get caught up. They’re beginning to cause me stress, and that stress is affecting the quality of my life. Maybe it’s the stress that’s having its way with me. I even took a day of vacation Thursday to try and deal, but I ended up sleeping most of the day and then going to a late matinee of Captain Marvel. Which turned out to be a good idea, because my stress level dipped but I still haven’t done anything on the house work. Ugh.

What do you most wish you were doing right now?

Ninety percent of the time my answer to this question is usually “sleeping,” but right now I wish I were drinking coffee and reading Harry Potter.

From here.

1. What’s something people cautioned you against that turned out not to be dangerous or bad at all?

   I know a person who once worked where I work today. He was supportive of my efforts to get a position here, and when I accepted the position, he congratulated me and then warned me that the culture is toxic.

   I said, “Then this is my chance to detoxify it!”

   I meant it because I think good influencers, which I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to be, are more powerful than bad ones even when they’re outnumbered. Yet I’ve found very little toxicity here, and certainly none in my department. I really love the people I work with and am super happy to be here.

2. What’s something you wish someone had cautioned you about?

   My problem is that when someone warns me not to do something, I almost automatically want to do it. For the purpose of this question, let’s assume it’s someone I trust and it’s something I sincerely want wisdom about. I’ve had my failed relationship with R on my mind a lot lately — I just turned 50, and I fell in love with her for good when I was 19, and I recently downloaded a dating app on my phone (which I have not yet opened, and it’s been three weeks), so I’ve got a lot to think about. I think maybe my biggest regret in life is not making the most of love when I was in the middle of it and when it was requited (in my mid-20s). I worried about appearances; I worried about not being grown up enough; and honestly I was pretty comfortable right where we were. I believe now that there are critical moments (I’m still trying to decide whether it’s plural or singular, actually) in a relationship where if you don’t go to the next thing, you never will. I would actually have been okay with that but it’s clear that I am the only one. I wish someone had at least led me to consider what this might be at 50, especially with some kind of foreknowledge that I would not be teaching high-schoolers anymore. But even as I type this I know I wouldn’t have listened!

3. What’s your favorite non-English word of warning?

   There are two interesting phrases in Japanese I always hear in my mom’s voice. The first is ki o tsukete kudasai or usually just ki o tsukete which she says when I’m on my way out the door. It’s just “be careful” or “travel with care.” If I say it to her, her response is always “hai, thank you.”

   The other is abunai, which is more like “watch out!” It’s literally “dangerous,” so the meaning depends on context and tone.

4. What’s a really stupid thing you’ve done that could have resulted in your demise?

   I’m saving this story for another time so the short version: I saw a homeless man yelling at a Korean shop owner in downtown Honolulu once. She was yelling back, so I went inside and asked the guy what the problem was. He told me he was only asking to use the phone and that the lady yelled at him to get out. I said, “Let’s go outside and talk about this.” I let him share as we walked across the street, and a few minutes later I put him on a bus and paid his bus fare to get where he said he needed to go (he said he’d needed the phone to call a cab). I went back to the store to ask the lady if she was okay and she was. I’m not sure what I could have done differently and still diffuse the situation, but with so many of these guys you don’t know what state they’re in or what they’ve got in their pockets. I was lucky; the confrontation only cost me $2.75.

5. What should you probably stay away from this weekend?

   They opened a new Japanese dollar store less than a block away from the office. It’s the second location in Hawaii, and people still line up to get inside the first, which has been open for months. It’s a symptom of rock fever, that disease many of us get where we’re dying for something new because we often can’t find something new without getting on a plane. I hate crowds and lines, so although I will go in to the office for a little while, I will avoid the area around the new store.

From here.

Where do you think you’re going?

I’m writing this on Wednesday, and tomorrow I am definitely not going to work. I really need a day or two off, and I prefer not to take Fridays, which are often my most productive days in the office. Also, I would rather be off on days when I know most people are working. I have a bit of housework piling up, and I wouldn’t mind seeing a movie or two. Although there’s a fair chance that where I think I’m really going is to a boba cafe to drink tea and read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It’s all I really want to do anymore.

• 

Who do you think you are?

According to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, I’m INFJ, which, according to the popular graphic someone put out several years ago, lines me up with Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter universe. I’ll take it, but I disagree with some of the characters this person put in the chart. I don’t know if there’s any way to tell Sirius Black is an extrovert, for example, or that Lupin is an introvert. Also, why are Lily and James Potter in this chart? We don’t even really know them, and there are so many other characters we could consider for these types. When I’m done re-reading the series, I really want to re-do the chart, although I doubt I’d be much better at it. I have to admit I like being a Lupin.

What’s gotten into you?

I’ve been working rather hard lately, and what’s gotten into me is a kind of weariness. Add my struggles with Lent this year (I’ll explain another time, maybe) and it’s physical weariness on top of mental weariness. Yeah, I’m a big wuss. Physically and mentally.

How do you expect to pay for all this?

I’m having to rein in a few things, but I mostly do all right, although I’ve been unable to save anything since my gig with the city councilmember ended last August. I dipped into saving to pay regular bills last month, and my car was in the shop most of last week for some clutch work. That was a $700 repair I’m still paying for. So mostly, how I expect to pay for all this is to cut back on a few bad habits I’ve picked up and be a little stricter with my impusive spending. That’s the plan, anyway! Next on the car list is to get the AC looked at.

When are you going to come to your senses?

Hopefully never. Without the MBTI chart, if you ask me which HP character I identify most closely with, I’d say Luna Lovegood. We’re very different in so many ways, but I feel like I get her, and I think she’d get me. Sense, at least the way we usually talk about it, is not one of Luna’s governing traits. My second choice would probably be Mad-Eye Moody, although I’m basing that mostly on the Mad-Eye we know through most of book four, and (no spoiler!) if you’ve read the book you know why I can’t honestly do that. It isn’t Moody’s CONSTANT VIGILANCE, but the way he knows how to say the encouraging thing to a student when the student most needs to hear it. I’m not the greatest teacher in the world, but that’s something I do.