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AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
Started soaking dried fruits in cinnamon-infused brandy a few days ago with only a vague goal of "vegetarian mincemeat thing that gets you drunk and takes care of your monthly fiber needs." Today I figured out what I'm doing with it: Upside-down mincemeat spice cake!

Thanksgiving Friday is gonna be awesome.

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AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
I really like being reminded that, even when I intend to phone it in, I'm still really good at my job.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
Woke up feeling great.
Then I went to an estate sale and found some amazing silver-on-copper tea and serving pieces I don't yet have. I got six pieces including teapot for $50.
Then I went to the museum and got to see a ton of little kids excited about learning stuff.
Then I had a great conversation with a guy who owns an antique map store.
Then my favorite bookstore had all the latest books I wanted for $5 each.
Then I went home and smoked a joint in my backyard.
Then my husband checked the mail and found out the bank's lowering our mortgage payments by $70/month, plus refunding us an extra thousand for overpayments we didn't even know we'd made.
Then our pit bull and our new kitten finally met face-to-face and they've been inseparable ever since. The dog grooms the cat and the cat snuggles with the dog. It's the cutest thing I have ever seen, and my dog has been wanting a tiny cat friend for the longest time. I have never seen the dog happier.
Tomorrow I'm going camping next to 2,000-year-old pictographs.

Life is pretty sweet.

AltoidsAddict has a new favorite as of 05:49 on Apr 16, 2011

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
I'm visiting Albuquerque, and asked someone in Old Town where I can get a good dose of red chile. He directed me to a place that was about a block away, but the route he had me take was quite odd. I followed it anyway, rounded a corner, and wound up meeting three Navajo Code Talkers and talking about history and heritage with them.

I'm not easily blown away, but I was just overwhelmed by these gentlemen.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
I was hiking with some Hotshots today and one of them made an anthropology joke about ancestral Puebloans putting in a pot dispensary.

It's like I'm living in a Dennis Miller monologue.

Oh, and today I stopped by a diner/post office because of all the weird secessionist signs on the building and discovered the pie shake. PIE SHAKE! A pie, and it's also a shake! Why is this not everywhere. Fortunately I paid attention while they were making it.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
This was yesterday, but my small town puts on the best fireworks display in the state. (We have gently caress-all to spend our town budget on, so we pretty much blow the entire year's budget on blowing stuff up.) A bunch of my friends came over, we had a barbecue all day, a few of us got really baked, and then we all went over to watch fireworks.

We got there just in time to get the best parking spot in the entire place, right next to where the fire department was launching the fireworks. Everything was going off right above us, the weather was perfectly not too hot and not too cold, not overcast a bit, and it was just the perfect day.

AltoidsAddict has a new favorite as of 16:57 on Jul 3, 2011

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
Got my birthday present a month early.

I've never had a new new car before.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
Yesterday a friend and I took my brand new truck out to get un-prettified in the Pawnee National Grassland, which is the best place to get things dirty and test out a 4-wheel-drive. It's all dirt roads up there, nobody gives a poo poo about maintaining them, and the monsoon and frequent cloudbursts wash out the roads and create deep, muddy cattle wallows where the roads are supposed to be. There's something magical about gunning it through 2 feet of muddy water and seeing what a 5.0L V8 can do for the first time.

My truck is now covered in dirt and mud and probably a lot of cow poo poo too. It was white, and now it looks like it was made of adobe. Which is just the way I want it.

And while up at the trailhead for the Pawnee Buttes, a couple of tourists asked me tons of questions about the history of the area while I cuddled their schnauzer puppies. Even among historians, I'm normally alone in my love for the history of the plains and here were two people who were fascinated by it!

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
My entire cohort from graduate school is, as of this morning:

1. Gainfully employed
2. In the field or at least a closely-related field
3. With a living wage*
4. With benefits*
5. Doing something intellectually fulfilling and stimulating
6. With room for advancement*
7. In the state, so we can all be together.

I'm the asterisk, because I love my job the way it is and I have my husband's income and benefits. But everyone is getting what they need and what they want!

The last person from the cohort got hired today. I got hired while still a student, everyone else took anywhere from a month to a year. For terminal M.A.s in history in a state where history jobs have been gutted, this is goddamn exceptional that one of us would get a job, let alone in the field, let alone all of us.

Also I met my new boss yesterday and he is amazing.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
I'm in a coffeeshop working on my book at 3:30 a.m. and a very cute stranger had to come up to me and gush over how I use OneNote "like a beast." Apparently he's a programmer or something for OneNote, in town for this big tech convention. I'm a nerd, I know, but it was really awesome and I got to thank someone for the software I rely on most.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
A few doors down, I have these neighbors who are the second most annoying on the block. Their friends come to visit in big redneck gently caress-off trucks with flames and poo poo painted on the side, and they blast horrible metal and hair bands at all hours on these trucks, and then they go inside to drink or whatever and just leave that poo poo running at top volume for hours so the whole neighborhood can enjoy.

But if someone they don't like so much as sneezes, they tattle to the HOA - and "someone they don't like" means "gays" and "Mexicans" and "black people." (And how's this for karma: On one side of this house, there's a guy from Ghana. On the other side, a family from Nicaragua. Across the street, a lesbian cop and her partner, both Mexican-American. Behind this house, another Mexican-American family.) Fortunately the HOA, observing that these people have a weed-infested lawn, shutters falling off the house, and other violations of HOA rules, told them "If you stop complaining about stupid bullshit, then we won't fine you $XX for all of your violations."

Today, all their dumbass redneck friends came over and parked in every drat place with their stupid trucks. And unloaded the entire house, and drove all belongings away, leaving behind only a "For Sale" sign.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them

The Jumpoff posted:

Pretty sure the HOA is the Home Owner's Association.

But I'm pretty interested in why they're only the second worst...

Take this exact same scenario.

Substitute "Toby Keith jingoistic kill-all-ragheads crap" for "metal and hair bands."

Also add like 7 kids, none of them older than 13. The 8-year-old was tasked with managing and lighting their huge illegal fireworks show (think "the parts of the firework stand separated by a thick black curtain") every year until the cops put a stop to it before somebody lost a finger.

Once the kids reach 9, the mother sends them out to work in the neighborhood to help afford the mortgage. (The kids are, somehow, really well-mannered and smart when they're not handed a lighter and goaded into exploding poo poo. And it's kid stuff like weeding and mowing lawns and shoveling snow.) What does she do? Well, near as I can see, she stands out on the porch with a cigarette, shrieking into a cell phone, alternately pausing to shriek obscenities at her children - which is pretty much the maximum amount of supervision the kids have. Since the police here don't care about anything short of physical abuse, the neighborhood helps out and we encourage the kids when we can.

They also are selling their house, but they were smart enough to redo their front lawn for curb appeal, repairing it from where the dad drove home drunk from the bar and decided the tree was a good parking place. A few times.

I figure being a petty racist loudmouth busybody isn't as bad as a drunk-driving bad parent.

It sounds like a trashy neighborhood, but everyone else is really nice and there's just minor stuff nobody reasonable gives a poo poo about, like weeds in the lawn or whatever. Our HOA does nothing about that because for $20/month, the HOA is just supposed to throw barbecues and shut the gently caress up about lawn edging. This is kind of a rednecky town anyway and tends to bring out the latent trashy tendencies in everyone. And when your development used to market itself with "no money down! Just don't start a meth lab!" desperation tactics at the height of the housing bubble, you're going to attract a wide variety of people. I think the cyborg retired rock stars across the street from me are worth the tradeoff.

vvv Oh, God, I don't even live in the south. A lot of little western towns are like this.

AltoidsAddict has a new favorite as of 07:38 on Jul 23, 2011

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
My life is fantasy camp.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
I am recovering well after having been sick, and this is the first day in two weeks that waking up has not been painful!

This is awesome especially because today was the day of my faculty seminar, which everyone loved, including one of the directors. Turns out I love teaching other faculty as much as I love teaching the students.

Talked with my boss about some charity work my husband and I are doing, and in the course of the conversation, it looks like I will possibly be teaching a 4/4 for the department next academic year - including an upper-division course about my very favorite topic, which I get to design. That will be interesting given that I'm (hopefully) about to start my doctorate at the same time. I will die. This will kill me. My friends will wither and grow impatient with my refusal to talk about anything but collective memory theory. My husband will leave me for somebody who isn't a complete nutcase. I can't imagine doing anything else with my life.

And now I get to go home and relax for the rest of the day before devoting the weekend to curriculum design! Think I'll smoke a fatty and watch some bad horror movies. I got leftover chicken wings from last night. Life is good.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
After an October with mostly 70- and 80-degree temperatures, it finally snowed! The area where I live got hammered and they didn't open our roads until now, so I had to call in to work. My husband's spine is leaking so he gets to work from home.

We've been hanging out, drinking hot chocolate, and enjoying horror movies on our new Blu-Ray surround sound system. I love soup weather, too. I've made the first soup of the season, which I always love making because soup used to be my specialty when I was a cook. It smells fantastic and it's almost ready.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
I took my husband's "after" pictures today.

He wanted to see a comparison of the before-and-after photos, so I showed him a quick morph of the "before" into the "after." Seeing the look of pride on his face has just made my year. His expression was... "Holy poo poo, I lost 150 pounds!" It's just starting to sink in that he has changed his life so dramatically.

He said "Imagine what I'll look like next year!" And then he went downstairs to watch Harry Potter... from the treadmill.

I'm animating the pictures for a present for our upcoming 17th anniversary (shh!).

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
Already lost the 5 lbs. I put on for the holidays, plus a couple more. But that's not really why I'm posting in this thread, though it's pretty awesome.

Academics can mess up an office like nobody else. Today I got my office cleaned up for the most part. The books are where they're supposed to be, I have my immediate reading pile collected (only 29 books I absolutely have to get through this semester that don't have to do with my research!), and I even made up a comfortable reading nook. I already made a dent in Howl and a bunch of books about the Arab Spring.

I've been so involved in one thing or another for the past five months, then two weeks of being completely spaced out while I calibrate my MMJ dosage, that I haven't had the time to just sit down and really read. I didn't realize how much I missed it. (Yep, I lost that holiday weight while constantly high on weed.)

Also my husband just brought up scrambled eggs and sausage, because he knows I hate interrupting my reading just to get food.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them

Reset_Smith posted:

Apparently, I was supposed to die on Saturday. The FBI foiled a terrorist plot here in Tampa, and it appears that the intended target was the bar I was at that night. Here's the affidavit which states that after purchasing an assault rifle, uzis, grenades, a carbomb and a suicide vest from an undercover agent (all items were secretly inoperable) his stated target was an unnamed Irish pub with all night music. There are only three Irish pubs in that area. Only two have live music. Only one is consistently packed on Saturday nights. That's where I was. I'm alive. My day is awesome.

High five near-death buddy.

Yesterday I almost got rammed by a propane tanker who had been going around a blind curve going at least 65 mph in a 45 commercial zone (about to change to 30 mph, too, right before the stoplight) and of course he was not paying attention to the road either. He wound up tailgating me, then just like that he was on my rear end - I think he even scraped my trailer hitch a little. I'm a great defensive driver so I was able to swerve and avoid him by gunning it into the parking spot I was aiming for anyway. He braked so hard to avoid killing me, he left most of his tires on the asphalt and his truck stalled. It smelled like the Springfield Tire Fire.

Two people were outside watching the whole thing. Then they invited me into their shop and gave me stuff because apparently I acted like this poo poo happens to me every day. (It doesn't, but strange poo poo happens to me every single day, so this is not exactly out of the ordinary.)

Today it is snowing, and I have hot chocolate to drink instead of 3rd degree burns over my entire body, which is pretty cool.

AltoidsAddict has a new favorite as of 20:12 on Jan 11, 2012

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them

A Fancy 400 lbs posted:

My new semester starts tomorrow. All Tuesday/Thursday classes. Hello four day weekend every weekend.

Mine too! I've already had half of my students e-mail me because they could not sit there staring at their books one more second, they gotta start reading now! God, they're adorable and brilliant and giddy, all of them.

I told them to crack open some Rilke. Today I reread my Rilke books for the hundredth time, wondering how long it will take before one of my students says something unique and innovative about Letters to a Young Poet and then I will get to reread it for the hundred-and-first time with a completely new perspective.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
I've been hitting the MMJ really hard lately because my stomach seems to think that "being hungry" is actually "time to puke" and MMJ is the only thing that makes it behave normally. I figured I could do one of two things: Smoke as much as I need to each day, which carves out a big chunk of time I have to spend stoned and/or asleep; or, the option I chose, which is to smoke more than I need for three days and sleep like crazy, write off work for those three days, and hopefully alternate that with a few days of consistent lucidity and comfort with only minute amounts of MMJ ingestion before I go to bed so I can just sleep through my trip.

This alternating thing is working. I woke up, I was hungry but it wasn't too painful and I could eat without taking more MMJ, and I'm getting my entire week's work done in one night because I feel that super. In my world, that's a significant victory.

It's been an adjustment with this new drug regimen, and I'm glad that I seem to be finding a way to work with it without the side effects completely killing my productivity.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
This morning I was going to ask my boss if I could take next semester off to focus on research.

I walked in to his office and he asked me if I would mind taking next semester off so that one of my colleagues can have another course.

And my husband and I won trivia for the fourth week in a row!

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them

D is That Guy posted:

To top it off, the company dress code was being updated to allow for mine, and any other employee's facial hair as long as it is well maintained. Sometimes I love my job. :allears:

:worship: If I were a man, I would admire you as a god.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
Screw roses.

My husband brought home valdeon.

Hallmark does not get to tell me which one smells better.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
Seven months ago, I got a persistent cold that didn't go away for a long time. Then when it finally did go away, I started sleeping for 23 hours a day and woke up exhausted. This went on for two weeks and I was starting to panic thinking I had something weird with an unknown etiology and possibly a psychosomatic component. I went to our local (lovely) emergency room, and they offered zero help except for a useless followup suggestion with a doctor whose receptionist gave my husband a list of things they "don't believe in" (everything from painkillers to MMJ to a number of proven postviral conditions to SSRIs). When my husband got misdiagnosed with viral meningitis a month later, I figured that must have been it and as in most cases of VM I'd just gotten over it. This was a bit of a relief, but when it turned out he'd just ruptured his spine and it wasn't VM, I started wondering if the fatigue was going to come back - and maybe worse than the first time.

Tonight I was tracking progression of my lupus, and hey, turns out it was just a lupus flareup! It just threw me for a loop because I hadn't had that before.

It seems weird to think this is awesome, but it really did make my day. I know how to advocate for appropriate treatment if it happens again, even if I have to go to the lovely local ER. It's a hell of a lot easier to deal with my slowly-progressing lupus than "oh, I might sleep 24/7 randomly for a really long time and screw my life."

AltoidsAddict has a new favorite as of 10:36 on Mar 12, 2012

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
1. I realized I need a lit agent/manager.
2. I called someone reputable and pitched.
3. I now have a lit agent/manager.

It is so weird that this little idea I had is turning into a BIG idea.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
I've been trolling and it makes me feel awesome.

What I do is, I go to the Village Inn in the mornings and pick a table with an adorable elderly couple or a senior who looks like they could use a pick-me-up or sometimes I see a senior counting change when the bill comes, so I secretly go to the manager and pay their check and tip.

On mornings when I don't want to get out of bed and I wake up grumpy, like today, I think "go to the Village Inn and pay for someone" and it motivates me. I've probably spent $200 in the past six weeks doing this and it's the best money I've ever spent.

This morning the lady I paid for looked just like my late great-grandmother. :3:

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
I spent the day playing in the mud to the delight of the neighbors. Now we have day lilies, Siberian iris, bearded iris, arctic willow, hydrangea, hibiscus, and cattails in what used to be a smelly, festering, mosquito-attracting bog in our shared front yard. (Nobody remembers me posting about the first bog I had two years ago, but that's now a beautiful wetland and garden. This is a second bog in a different part of the yard that started a month ago. Did I mention I live in a place so devoid of water, towns were only made possible by massive water engineering projects and canals hundreds of miles long?)

AltoidsAddict has a new favorite as of 10:39 on Jun 10, 2012

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
I'm sitting in a coffee shop in Gunnison, Colorado, where I'm editing pictures and waiting for my husband to come down from the plains to join me. Yesterday I got to photograph a bike race and I'm loving the photos I got.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
My lupus flare and the depression it brought finally broke and skittered away as I slept last night. I woke up at 4 a.m. refreshed and interested in everything. I don't feel like self-medicating by taking more weed than I am prescribed. I feel like doing things and talking to people. I feel like working. I feel like living. A month and a half of hoping that I die in my sleep and waking up alive and disappointed, all over and done with.

Convenient timing - my husband and I decided that since our 10th wedding anniversary was Friday and we spent most of the day trying to figure out if any of our friends had been shot (none had, everyone was either going to other theaters or had tickets for that exact screening but miraculously stayed home due to various fuddy-duddyness), we should have a do-over today. Not only do I feel refreshed and energetic and alive, but I get to celebrate with my husband.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
This morning, the water in my cabin shower reeked of wet dog. I was gross so I couldn't afford to skip the shower, so I resigned myself to smelling like a wet dog all day.

When I moved on to the next town, within five minutes I had a trail of dogs following me around, attempting to jump in my truck, and even jumping out of other trucks to follow me. As horrible as I think I smelled, a friendly, goofy pack of dogs is pretty awesome, and it seemed to amuse the local drunks.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
I had a historical epiphany today while driving around, and boy is it a good one. I researched the hunch later on with some primary sources and other history-fu, and my hunch turned out to be correct. And utterly ignored by every scholar who has written about this area. In hindsight, it should have been obvious - this is a big-E Epiphany for sure. (Not that it's a failure of my colleagues; most of history's changes are like this, and most of history evolves because of how a particular scholar is wired, or how their process leads to discovery.)

I love it when research and the field intersect. Because I have independent funding and an employer that allows me to spend a lot of time in the field in exchange for a pitifully low or usually nonexistent paycheck, I spend more time in the areas I research than most academic historians. Having the occasional epiphany as a direct result of being in the landscape is a sign I'm doing it right.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them

loving bro hug posted:

I reeeeeeaaaaalllllyyy want to know what your Epiphany is, but would settle for the general historic period/geographic region you're researching.

Well, the epiphany is about why northwestern Colorado (principally, Routt and Jackson counties) has radically different patterns of settlement than every other area of Colorado. The literature I've read chalks it up to the lack of profitable mining or attractive natural resources as the primary reason, but I believe the explanation is more borrowed from observing settlements around the Estes Park and surrounding area. The country up here really isn't as harsh as my sources make it out to be. Abundant timber, great place to raise hardy cattle on forage, great haying country - so where the hell are all the ghost towns? Why did US settlement in this area lag behind by decades?

I believe the X factor lies in the differing behaviors of the Mountain Ute and Bannock tribes in the northeastern part of the Colorado Plateau and in western Wyoming. The northeastern bands' approach to international politics in this specific portion of their territory, particularly the borders, resisted permanent expansion but welcomed trappers and traders. These trappers and traders were allies more of these northeastern Utes and southern Bannock than the United States, not just because of intermarriage, but because it was profitable to all involved to keep a nomadic approach to stewardship of the valley. Interestingly, development in the area still has that same sense, and the locals I've talked to are quite proud of both the remaining historic structures and of the way "real" ranchers don't try to build everything up.

There's a lot more to it than that, obviously; but I tend to think of Native American tribal relations in a purely international relations context, which I think allows me to easily separate the minute regional differences among tribes. Most literature about the Mountain Utes focuses on simplifications of the Meeker Massacre, or the Utes in the southwest.

------------

I have a really awesome reason for posting in this thread: I have a new dog! She was sitting in the middle of the highway yesterday causing a heck of a traffic jam, dehydrated, exhausted, and very probably pregnant. I took her, promising to either find her owners or adopt her. As luck would have it, her owners didn't care about keeping her since they can't seem to sell her 3-month-old puppies ("Eh, she'll get hit by a car sooner or later."), and they gave her to me.

She's at the vet right now getting shots, treatment for the monster UTI she undoubtedly has, heartworm test, and the whole works. She's getting a gravid spay this week if she's healthy enough. She's a chihuahua/corgi mix and may be the only creature who enjoys riding in my truck more than I do. I named her Mesa.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
Madlad, that is such an excellent feeling, isn't it? This is the moment in which you have decided that you, not the world, controls your feelings and your reactions.

I've been exposing my new dog to tons of new things and experiences. Every time she finds something she likes, I can see her healing.

Instead of fearing for her life whenever she hears coyotes at night, she just burrows under the covers between me and my husband. She used to shake, terrified, for hours.

She used to take treats and stash them somewhere instead of eating them, because she never knew when she would get to eat again. (I've found out that the graying on her muzzle that makes her look so old is the result of long-term malnutrition.) Yesterday, she took a treat from someone and actually nibbled on it.

She discovered she loves going to the groomers. She doesn't actually need it because I can do all this stuff at home, but I'm trying everything and seeing what clicks. She seems to like being around a whole bunch of dogs, she likes getting bathed and shampooed, and she loves her groomer.

She had no idea what toys were for, so I bought her every conceivable kind of toy just in case she responded to something. Now she has three toys that she will pick up and sort of play with.

Now she is curled up in the paws of my pit bull, and they're both snoozing. I'm so proud of her for being so brave.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them

A Fancy 400 lbs posted:

My American History professor is hilarious and he's using MS Paint to explain the Revolutionary War while doing a John Madden impression.

I am so glad somebody else does that.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
My grandmother flew out from Wisconsin for Thanksgiving. In the past two days we have spent 8 hours just driving around for fun. I discovered that she, just like me, loves the plains more than the mountains. Also I discovered she really likes A Tribe Called Quest and funk and hip-hop.

I recorded three hours of her talking about her childhood, our family, and her thoughts in general. :)

And today? I cheered up a Marine fresh from Afghanistan who hit a snag getting home to his girl and set him back on the road. He put me in his phone as "Guardian Angel." Awww.

Tomorrow: My family does Thanksgiving after the actual day so people whose families suck can still have a happy holiday. I have 12 pounds of standing rib roast in my fridge.

AltoidsAddict has a new favorite as of 06:23 on Nov 23, 2012

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
I have been having such a good time lately that I haven't had much time to even lurk SA, much less post!

Last week, I found out I don't have to worry about a job or a publisher in academia as long as I live. I basically got handed a golden ticket I never asked for because, well, nobody gets those. I have been doing so much thankless grunt work for my university for the past eight years because I genuinely love the place and I believe in it. I've been doing it for free with no benefits - my salary even gets donated back to a scholarship fund, what little there is of it - and sometimes I have anxiety about the way lack of pay often signifies lack of value to the folks making the decisions. It's nice to get confirmation that the university is noticing what I do and that some higher-ups appreciate my enthusiasm.

Tomorrow, I'm going to the neurologist. That means that tomorrow right after the neurologist will also be the longest possible time until I have to see a doctor again, and that is worth being happy about. (I got this outlook from, of all places, reading Garry Marshall's autobiography. He has a statue of Sisyphus on his desk. Sisyphus must push the boulder uphill, only to see it roll back down, and eternally he must repeat the cycle. But, said Marshall, it's not so bad - Sisyphus gets to take his time walking back down the hill, reflecting on his efforts, enjoying time that even in the midst of eternal punishment is still his and his alone. I can't believe I got a life philosophy from the guy who wrote for Love, American Style, but it's still a drat good message.)

On Wednesday, right after office hours, I'm going to Pueblo, Colorado, for a few days because my business gets to provide a big part of a historic preservation museum exhibit that will run for an entire month. I love Pueblo - my favorite Indian restaurant is there, sloppers done right, a great cheese shop, I have a ton of friends and colleagues to see, and I love the history and the culture of the Pueblo area. I feel so privileged that my photos and research will be reconnecting people to the rural schoolhouses and towns where they grew up.

Brain damage is so tricky. I cannot do the simplest things to care for myself. I need direction and supervision just to put away my clothes. I need a caregiver to ensure I wake up for work, because I don't respond to any alarms. I am unsuitable for most types of employment. But I can teach Foucault to freshmen, I can bring the past to the present, and I can make my world better in a big way. It's hard for people with brain injuries to craft a life in which our deficits don't matter and our skills can be used to their fullest, and I feel like I have lucked into a one-in-a-million situation. It's easy to forget that sometimes.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
Went to the neurologist today.

Got weighed.

I am no longer obese.

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
I kept down cereal and pizza last night, and I didn't throw up once this morning, so I got to go to work today! I love going to work. Every time I go, everyone seems so happy to see me and someone gives me a present.

(Today it was Ted Collins' "The Routes of Man." Do my students know me or what?)

AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
I entered one of my photos in the Smithsonian photo contest. I don't even dare hope that it wins or elicits any reaction at all really, but just entering the contest gave me this really odd feeling of, I don't know, maybe if my photos are good, it's not just luck and maybe I have something to do with it.

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AltoidsAddict
Sep 13, 2007

when they're yours you'll love them
I am now the size I was when I graduated college for the first time. I have taken off all the weight I've put on in this century. I have one more size to go until my original goal weight and size, but you know what? My body can do more if I just continue to work at it.

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