tis the fricking season

I hate the holidays.  I get surly and sulky and bitter.  Which, when mixed with authentic happiness, gets a bit confusing, really.  It was all fine and dandy to be 18, blasting NIN while wrapping a few presents, angry, heartbroken, and able to escape the familial through regular and judiciously timed smoke breaks.  It was all fine and dandy, too, to just skip family entirely, and spend it with The Ex and her family, if still fraught.  But the mountain has come to Mohammed, and yet rather than being impressed with the miracle I'm feeling alpine-ophobic.  (Damn. There's already a band named "Fear of Mountains.")  Anyway, a professional wobbly yesterday, courtesy Radical Colleague, whom I just don't particularly like, despite having known her for 20 odd years.  She seems to be on a slightly different track, a path of less resistance, perhaps because of a more obviously "sexy" field.  So the additional request I received sent me for a spin, which merely confirmed that I get sulky and surly and bitter around the holidays. I like it that way, I think.  Which is not to say I don't have 30 minutes to shower, shave, shit, shine, and shampoo in time to accompany a family member to purchase cases of wine for the benefit of my alcoholic family, arriving from up North all too soon.  Including my speed-dealing, meth-head, light-fingered cousin, who will be staying with us, along with his latest floozie.  We'll deposit YCT's jewelry at someone else's house, but what about silver candlesticks? Financial documents? I may just go on and on about how broke I am, and he'll not bother to steal my identity. If he's even smart enough to do so.  Then, shopping for pretty much fucking everyone.  Boo. fucking. Hoo.  Merry fucking holidays, all.  I'm slammed until the conference in Chicago, then when I come back I'm teaching (to which I actually look forward), but totally fucking slammed with work until April, at which point I should be able to breathe and get some work done.  

brullyant

A fab idea, slightly bastardized from the suggestion of a quasi-colleague, who came wandering into my office not long ago to share the tail-end of a bottle of champagne.  I do wish I knew her name...  Anyway, we were discussing a novel, and she enquired about my work before noticing the NYTimes displayed on the monitor, and she laughed.  She suggested the category of "productive non-work," i.e. developmentally useful readings not directly connected to one's work (including intriguing novels).  And it strikes me - my office is a place of binaries: I work, or I fail to work; I deal with university things, or utterly reject and avoid them.  So, I'm going to try and work the middle ground here, and give myself permission, nay, insist that if I'm not working, that I pursue productive non-work rather than exclusively non-productive non-work.  Hah.  Revelate!  Deviate!  Celebrate.  Tomorrow and tomorrow, etc.  The petty pace ain't over yet.