The mobius strip of journals
Jul. 25th, 2003 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanpaku_backupSpeaking of ruts, let me reprise all that I ever think about here: Past couple of days with the baby and the Mrs. have been wonderful, but I still miss the buzz of experience that comes with talking to or seeing old friends. I haven't stopped thinking about the where to live issue, based in part with talking with some people at work and basically thinking that, yeah, they may not actually need me to go to New York any time soon. So we can think about putting roots down somewhere, at least so long as my academic career remains stalled.
Providence is already beginning to take on the feeling of Baltimore, a place that we really enjoyed but were fundamentally isolated in. And finding people our own age is just not working out. And besides, I don't want to go through the trouble of meeting new friends, I want the friends I already have. But everyone is spread out all over the place.
Speaking of the academic career, I'm wondering how much of an effort to apply to jobs and whatnot to make this year. I should really be trying to type up work into a chapter. But I'm also beginning to realize that there aren't going to be any "eureka" moments with the new work I'm doing; a book will basically come from me reworking the stuff I've already written. And I can feel in my bones that I'm not in good shape to do that, intellectually or research-wise. To put it another way, I know what the kind of book I need to write -- to get a job, to get a book contract, even -- should look like, but my knowledge is too thin in too many places to be able to do that.
Meanwhile time is winging by. I was reading through![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
flw's journal again, to get some more detail now that I understand the big picture of his move, and I realized that that was more than 15 months ago. All this time and it has barely registered with me. OK, I've been busy. But I keep thinking I should be doing more with all this time. And not only have I been thinking this, I've been writing about it in LJ for almost three years now, with nothing having happened. I honestly don't know how you all stand it.
Providence is already beginning to take on the feeling of Baltimore, a place that we really enjoyed but were fundamentally isolated in. And finding people our own age is just not working out. And besides, I don't want to go through the trouble of meeting new friends, I want the friends I already have. But everyone is spread out all over the place.
Speaking of the academic career, I'm wondering how much of an effort to apply to jobs and whatnot to make this year. I should really be trying to type up work into a chapter. But I'm also beginning to realize that there aren't going to be any "eureka" moments with the new work I'm doing; a book will basically come from me reworking the stuff I've already written. And I can feel in my bones that I'm not in good shape to do that, intellectually or research-wise. To put it another way, I know what the kind of book I need to write -- to get a job, to get a book contract, even -- should look like, but my knowledge is too thin in too many places to be able to do that.
Meanwhile time is winging by. I was reading through
flw's journal again, to get some more detail now that I understand the big picture of his move, and I realized that that was more than 15 months ago. All this time and it has barely registered with me. OK, I've been busy. But I keep thinking I should be doing more with all this time. And not only have I been thinking this, I've been writing about it in LJ for almost three years now, with nothing having happened. I honestly don't know how you all stand it.
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Date: 2003-07-26 08:54 am (UTC)And you could always come to Philly. I could introduce you to lots of nice people. You could be in NYC in 2 hours door-to-door from your Mt. Airy rowhouse... If you liked Baltimore, you would love this city.
Soon I will smack you around in person...lookout.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-27 05:39 pm (UTC)Also, I have this weird thing where the more work I have, the more I get done. If someone was paying me to do creative work, I would crank it out. I would hate myself for being a whore and a hack, but then afterwards I would realize it was not as bad as all that.
But I don't know now what it would take. The diss. was an external thing. Now I have to generate an internal pressure to do the work, and it's so much harder.
Anyway. I do think about Philly, actually. But then after I wrote all this I remembered vowing a year ago never to move again until someone pays me to do so. So instead you and everyone else I know will just have to move to Providence.
Now that that's settled, when exactly are you leaving, again, and when will you be up here? Also, I wanted to tell you that you might want to rethink taking Route 1, (http://www.ellsworthamerican.com/thisweek/07-24-03/ea_news3_07-24-03.html) at least once you get toward the Bangor area. (Though you would miss the Big Chicken Barn!)
no subject
Date: 2003-07-27 06:57 pm (UTC)must go now. so tired. so hot. so tired!
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Date: 2003-07-28 06:20 am (UTC)