Dear Anthony,

You were one of the ones who got on my last nerve, I swear.  One of the reasons I left that miserable job.  Yeah, that job.  The one that sucked the life out of me and turned me into someone I never want to be ever again in my life.  The one where I lost a bunch of weight, made a few messed up life decisions and quit in the middle of the year.

But back to you, Anthony.  You were a part of my worst class, 5th period. The class I had to take to and from lunch.  The class who stupidly brought little roasted potatoes back from lunch and treated me to an in-class food fight.  You were obnoxious, always finding an excuse to get up out of your seat, go to the bathroom, do anything but your work.  You were always getting into it with the other kids, although I know it wasn't always you.  I know, some of them would make fun of you and provoke you.  The truth is, even though I often viewed you as a "problem student," I knew that at heart you were a good kid.

One thing my brain keeps going back to concerning you is the time someone messed up your food at lunch.  I don't remember exactly what it was they did...like poured milk in it or something to make it inedible.  You got SO mad.  Oh, my God.  You nearly got into a fight with the kid over it and afterward, I remember us standing there in front of my classroom door, you still super heated over the whole thing, and me, talking to you to try to calm you down.  You were so upset, you started tearing up.  "That was my FOOD, man!" you kept repeating.  Suddenly, it hit me, and I felt ashamed.  The reason you were so upset, tears welling up in your eyes because some stupid kid poured milk in your lunch was because having lunch at school was probably the only time you got substantial food during the day.

Another thing surprised me.  When I finally announced that I was leaving, you were one of the most vocal ones crying out in protest.  "Pleeeeeassse don't leave, Miss Smith.  I'll change my ways, I'll be good in class, on God, if you just pleeeease don't leave us."  I remember cynically thinking, really?  Now you want to change your tune after putting me through hell?  I couldn't believe that you, of all people, were begging me to stay.  It was slightly amusing.

Anthony, I couldn't believe it when I got on Facebook yesterday and saw some of my former students, your former classmates, posting R.I.P messages about you. (Yes, some of them wanted to be my Facebook friend after I left, and I figured why not.)  I immediately messaged one of my most dependable students from that time and asked what had happened.  She told me that you were shot and killed the other night while playing dice with a group of others.  She didn't give me all the details, but I can fill in the blanks.  Some argument probably arose between you...I'm guessing money was probably at stake.

What a senseless killing.  What a senseless death.  I'm sorry, Anthony.  I'm sorry for you and your family and for all the people affected by losing you.

I thought about you for a long time yesterday.  I wondered if maybe I should have stuck with that miserable job until the end of the year.  I had the chance to affect your life in some way, but I was too demoralized, cynical and burnt out to think about anybody but myself.  I really hated where I was in my life during that time, but I'm really trying to learn that it's not always about me.  For what it's worth, I will always remember you.

Your former Spanish teacher,

Miss Señorita Smith

The Procrastinatory Minute: Music Edition

Another late night library date with my man.  Poor guy has been burning the midnight oil a lot lately.  It's his last semester of coursework.  The least I can do is drag my lazy carcass to the library with him to get a little more of my you-know-what written.

But what am I doing?  Regaling my readers with random songs I have to listen to.  You know how a random song pops up in your life and seizes you and then you have to keep listening to it and it keeps hitting you in the feels and you can't let it go until you've run it into the ground?  I hate the weird, cornball stuff I end up liking.  I really do.  It's embarrassing.  

#1.  "Dearly Departed" by Shakey Graves.  Just the name of the artist is so stupid.  But I was having a solitary lunch in this place downtown which specializes in pot pies and it came on the radio.  And it got its stupid catchy clutches into my brain.

#2. "Underneath" by Hanson.  I was reminiscing about the 90s with my husband and we started playing Hanson youTube videos and laughing.  But that little 90s reminiscence inspired me to add Hanson to my Pandora playlist.  And then I heard a Hanson song I'd never heard before that hit me DEEP in the feels.



#3. "Show Up" by John P. Kee.  You know I got that Contemporary Gospel box checked on Pandora, tho.  And when any John P. Kee song, but this one in particular, comes on, I'm in the kitchen with my mom on Sunday morning and I feel a warm blanket of home wrap around me.  Like someone put a big plate of some good food in front of me.  Like a black prayer warrior grandma just enveloped me in her ample bosom and she just bound the enemy and loosed every blessing in my life.  This is like the best dissertation writing song.  I have to listen to this on repeat sometimes.



 Sigh...let me try to type a few more lines...

Like a Wedding

Me and Lucía during the Q&A after the reading

That's how I would describe my latest feat of academic significance, organizing a campus visit with the author of one of the novels I analyzed in a chapter of my dissertation, Lucía Charún-Illescas.  I was pretty pleased with how everything turned out, and it was such a rare opportunity to meet her and expose students and colleagues to information about the black presence in Peru.

Anyway, there was so much planning: getting sponsorship, dealing with paperwork and rules and coordinating dates, making sure the bookstore would be there with copies of the book...and then during the visit: going to and from the airport to pick up the guest, running around to pick up food and supplies, making sure everything was in place.

And then, just like that, it was over.  Like I said, like a wedding.  All of this planning and agonizing over it, and then when it happens, everything's a blur and it's over.

All in all, it was well worth it, and I hope to stay in touch with Lucía in the future.  And now, back to writing my you-know-what.  I think I'm finally starting to see a tiny light at the end of this long tunnel.  And I have a defense date set: July 18.  Almost there...almost there.

Thirty-four

Wednesday was my birthday.  Since I am currently still off of the Face of the Book, I didn't get the annual perky, cute, heart-warming Happy Birthday messages plastered all over my wall.  It was my self-inflicted punishment for working slow as heck on my dissertation.  Oh, you don't want to finish this chapter?  No FB birthday messages for you, slacker.

Nevertheless, my big day was a sweet and lovely day in no small part due to my sweet and lovely handsome hunk of a man. I woke up to several cute and cozy small gifts with a lavender birthday card.  After wishing me happy birthday, he admitted sheepishly, "I didn't know what to get you."  I just cried, overwhelmed by his sweetness and sincere desire to please me.  I loved every single thing. He was also determined to make me a birthday cake, and, by George, he pulled it off.  Chocolate on chocolate with sprinkles and pink gel writing out "Feliz cumple Channy."  My husband bakes cakes, people.  And yes, he put 34 whole candles on that sucker and did light them and I did blow them out. (Not before I made a wish!)  He really helped me have a special day.

How did I get to be 34? When I turned 31, I called it my "Baskin Robbins birthday" (31 flavors, har har).  When I turned 32, I called it my "Magic Johnson birthday" (his jersey number).  When I turned 33, I jokingly called it my "age-Jesus-was-when-he-was-crucified birthday."  But now?  It's the last-year-before-my-fertility-takes-a-nose-dive birthday.

I know, I know.  I need to stop reading statistics online.  There's something to be said for educating yourself, but there comes a point where it becomes obsessive, and that's no fun.  To be frank, just my existence defies all kinds of statistics. The fact that I was raised in a two-parent black home with parents who never divorced. The fact that I spent my childhood in Italy.  The fact that I'm a college-educated, married black woman (the stats are brutal, y'all), married to a white man, at that.  The fact that I'm about to finish a PhD program.  The fact that I'm trilingual (more or less). I could go on...Can I just accept the fact that I defy stereotypes, statistics, norms, whatever and live with it?  If the statistics have often not applied to me with everything else, why would they now?

Things will happen when they happen.  The present is a gift.  I should celebrate it and take care of what I can today.  Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.

Friends

1. I have a friend who said if "Friends" were a black show, it would be called "Dawgs."  Wassup, dawg? This is the same friend who subversively invented a writer on the spot to counter the cultish, must-be-in-the-know and must-be-serious mono-ethnic culture of "whiters" in a Creative Writing program. She dramatically rolled lemons across the long workshop table as she began to read a poem about lemons.  Kidded me about an inappropriate and everlastingly embarrassing crush.  Burn me, Kram, burn me.  Other funny fragments of poems I remember: lemon tipped ears, made of your wax a thick brew, my fried pajamas, I'll rock you into, I put the cat back. She would walk through the quad collecting fall leaves listening to Al Green.  I'm so tired of  being alone, I'm so tired of on my own.  Long-armed, hair-netted, cigarette-smoked ladies sizzling up melts and fries and serving them up to drunken stragglers in a 24-hour on-campus diner.  Late-night giggling girls devouring the greasy fare, not caring if they were out of place.  The same friend who knew it was me who wrote that letter to the editor of the campus newspaper about ignorant frat boys in the elevator at the library before she saw my name at the end because of my use of the word "guffaw."  She used to high-five me for using SAT words.  She rebuked the devil in a drawing to cheer me from absurd infatuation: a Spanish professor nearly thrice my age.  Scolded a former suitor, claiming he had "coleslaw stained hands" (on this blog).  Red Lobster Ultimate Feast.  Discarded bowls of stiff Cream of Wheat and strewn sunflower seed shells.  I once gave her some candied sunflower seeds and flavored massage oil (the least scandalous of my offerings) in front of church ladies at her wedding shower.  She one-upped me when my time came, though.  Good.  An age old question, equal parts meta and hilarious: What if there were no hypothetical situations?

2. I have a friend who used to be my husband's Portuguese instructor before I knew he existed.  She was my Portuguese instructor, too, from that class I audited that summer before I got lazy and stopped going.  An English-language-learner story where I laughed myself to tears:  In Brazil, when you order ice cream, the word to use for "scoop" is bola.  So, if you wanted two scoops of ice cream?  Dois bolas.  Well, she learned that words don't always translate directly when she went into Ben and Jerry's and asked for "two balls."  Two literature nerds and frequent tea drinkers on my green couch.  Among many other things, I learned that my uncle looked like a samba singer she used to have a crush on.  Later we drank tea long distance over Skype while we suffered through the academic job market wringer together.  We laugh that we both ended up with dark-haired, introverted, bespectacled husbands.  This city and this program and this 5-year chunk of my life?  She's woven into it.  A refreshing constant.

3. I have a friend who ended up committing his whole life to me.  A shy guy wearing plaid, band tees and hoodies.  Skater punk with freckles and a big heart.  He used to be ashamed of being from a small town, couldn't wait to get out.  But now he's proud of where he's from.  That's what I remember him telling me on our second coffee date.  He asked if I wanted to hear him play open mic downtown.  Hipster coffee bar with a mini-stage.  He plays left-handed, like Jimi Hendrix.  My jaw dropped when I saw this shy guy transform into a passionate powerhouse from the first strum.  I remember a particular week we spent every single day together.  On the last day of that week, we bought guitar tuner batteries from Best Buy and kissed for the first time.  Now, I know he likes the toilet paper roll over instead of under.  Now, I make omelets for him that fall apart, but he doesn't care.  Now, I see glimpses of him as a father.  We still laugh about my response to a certain message he sent me on Facebook being nothing more than a single smiley face.  I didn't want him to think I liked him.

Chapter 4 Procrastinatory Thoughts

1. We were at the library this past weekend, and there was this Asian guy with a red plaid shirt and khaki pants on who kept walking around and around the library.  It was so weird.  At about the 4th time he walked by I got super distracted and sort of obsessed with the whole thing and started excitedly texting P about it. (We were sitting in separate areas.)  "Did you see this guy?  He's just walking around and around the library!  What is he doing??" Eventually, at about the 10th time (no lie), I started wondering if maybe there was something wrong with him.  I texted P and asked if maybe we should ask if he's okay.  The next time the guy walked around, P got up and approached him to ask if he was okay.  A minute or so later, P came walking over with a grin on his face to tell me the guy said he had plugged his phone in and was waiting for it to charge and he didn't feel like staying in one place while he waited.  Wut? Okay...it was so funny and weird.   But then earlier this week, on our way out of the library, we saw him walking around again...wearing the SAME EXACT thing!  And P told me he saw him again a day later...STILL wearing the same thing!  So weird.

2. Yesterday was our 10-month anniversary.  I had a meeting with someone at the department, and on my way back to my library jail cell, I heard P's voice so I stopped by his office to say hi.  His office mates were in there, so he came out and chatted for a minute, then I asked him if I could announce to everyone that it was our 10-month anniversary.  He was cool with it, so I said, "Hi, everyone, I have an announcement to make...today is our 10-month anniversary!"  And everyone was like, "Awww, congratulations, you guys are so adorable," etc.  But suddenly, it dawned on me that if I begin a statement with, "I have an announcement to make," one of the top assumptions is that I might be about to announce that I'm pregnant.  This realization made me feel strangely powerful.

3. Today is St. Patrick's day and I've begun a tradition of wearing a particular lime green dress.  My last name is now extremely Irish.  I mean, Irish to the max, so I feel this faux-obligation to celebrate my newly-adopted Irish heritage.  My husband on the other hand, freckled, red-bearded (when he grows it out) with a super Irish, holiday-appropriate middle name to boot, leaves out of the house fearlessly unadorned in green.  I told him that he's not worried about getting pinched because he's one of the ones who commands the pinchers to do his bidding.  He's immune to St. Patrick's day pinches by default just for existing.  He's a tall undercover leprechaun.

I would surrender a kidney to the black market to get a dissertation-writing machine in my possession. Just hit the "finish" button and be done.  Sigh...how did such a lazy girl get this far?

Why I'm Feeling Bad Right Now or The Things I Hate

1. I feel like I'm not a good worker.  I am not writing my dissertation.  I am taking way too long to just finish.  Why can't I just sit down and focus and write?  I cannot stand how terribly I've procrastinated.  It feels like every word I attempt to type is pure garbage.  I keep trying to tell myself that it doesn't matter, that it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be done.  I hate that I've put myself in this situation.  It is 100% my own fault.  I'm already not going to walk in a graduation ceremony.  I feel like I don't deserve to walk in one anyway because of how much time I've thrown away, like I don't deserve to celebrate, and I utterly hate it.

2. I know I'm driving my husband crazy.  If I were him, I would not want to be with me right now.  This is what I hate the most because when I'm in my selfish little whining procrastinatory sad world, it sloshes all over him.  I end up making him feel badly for no reason.  No reason at all.  It's what I hate the most about myself and it's what I desperately wish I could change the most.  I really hate seeing other people negatively affected by me.  My moods.  My absurd ways of conceptualizing things.  It's terrible and ridiculous, but it's what makes me feel like he would be better off without me.  I hate that I allow this stupid thought to even enter my mind.

3. We're in a position to move together and we want to stay together.  We don't want to do the long-distance academic couple thing.  We just don't.  And we don't have to.  He'll be done with coursework and he doesn't have to finish his program on site.  But since he's decided to move with me, what that means is that he'll no longer be on assistantship, which means that he'll no longer be a full-time student, which means he won't be eligible for certain grants/awards, which means that he'll be missing out on opportunities that he could benefit from academically and professionally.  And it feels really unfair.  And I hate it.  I don't want to be separated. I don't want to be alone.  But I don't want him to be disadvantaged, and I feel really badly about it.  I know what he wants is for us to stay together and it's what I want, too.  But if we have to sacrifice being together for him to have more opportunities that would help him in the long run...I hate that we're in this position.

4. Whenever I read things that are supposed to help people who have committed their careers to academia (i.e. The Chronicle of Higher Education), it makes me want to scream and cry.  It makes me feel like I'm not cut out for this, that I don't have what it takes to be successful.  My worst fear is that all of this time, all of this education, all of this dedication will be worth nothing.  That it's all an exercise in futility.  I almost don't care anymore.  It was never my dream to get a PhD and ascend to the upper echelons of the ivory tower.  That is not me.  All I wanted was to have a satisfying job doing something I'm passionate about.  Because what I thought I was passionate about doing before starting this program, at least the circumstances under which I was doing it, was not it.  That is the only reason I did this.  Because my last job was the job from hell, and I needed a ticket out.  I'm being honest.  I didn't start a PhD program because it was my dream.  I started it because it was a way out.  I'm not saying I regret doing this.  It was where I needed to be at the time.  I furthered my education, connected with a lot of wonderful people (including my husband!), and had great experiences.  I don't regret it.  But I am too old to be unstable and insecure in my career goals.  I am too old to be "finding myself" and "figuring out my passions."  That's what I hate.  That continued sense of instability that I wanted to be done away with a long time ago.

5. I want to have a baby and I want to wait to have a baby at the same exact time in equal amounts.  But I'm afraid to wait.  I'm not getting any younger, and the very idea of fertility treatments makes me feel sick.  When is the perfect time to have a baby?  When is the perfect time to make any kind of change, any kind of life-altering decision?  There isn't one. We don't have a perfect set of circumstances awaiting us at a perfectly appointed time in the indeterminate future.  It just doesn't exist, and I wish I could rid my mind of that absurd idea.  All we have is now.  All we are given is today.  And I have been terrible at being thankful for today, living in today, doing the best I can today.  The one thing I obsess over is the one thing I have no control over: how things will play out in the future.  It's a shameful waste of time and energy.  It's a relationship-drainer.  I know it, but I can't seem to help myself, and I absolutely hate it.

Fly Away, Kentucky Bluebird

Something about sitting across from my husband trying to get work done in a coffee shop that prompts me to go into mind wandering mode.

We're spending the first part of our Spring Break ("break." Ha.  More like week to work without teaching and going to class, which for me, is just a regular old week to work since I'm currently not teaching or taking classes) in our future temporary home base.  I suppose I can say what state it's in without any weirdos who may read my blog that I don't know showing up at our front door.  Kentucky.  (No, we haven't had any fried chicken yet, either.)

We're looking at houses/apartments/townhomes, checking out churches, meeting with colleagues, doing all of these things that are somehow making me feel melancholy, because they are all signs of the one constant in all of our lives, the inevitable, change.  Transition.  Getting used to another way, another place, another social landscape, another mode, another set of responsibilities.

I'm happy.  I am.  We are blessed to have this opportunity.  That I was offered a job.  That P is finishing coursework so that we can stay together.  Things have worked out for us so far, so what makes me think they won't continue to work out?

But I can't seem to get over these feelings of uncertainty and instability.

I was determined to finish my dissertation in time for a May graduation, but I think I'm going to push it back to the summer.  I don't plan to spend the entire rest of my summer writing the blasted thing, but it'll give me time to wrap it up without feeling rushed.  Here's the rub: My institution got rid of summer graduation ceremonies about a year or two ago, so that means that I won't walk.  They allow summer graduates to walk in December, but by that time...nah.  I'm honestly not bummed about it, but I'm afraid other people might be.  Seriously, though, just finishing is going to be my celebration, on everything.  If people want to get together with me to have a party or something, let's do it.  But I'm not going to spend beaucoup money on robes and regalia and go through the whole pomp and circumstance of a graduation.  Again.  Lord, this would be graduation number 4.

And then there's ye olde baby on the brain.  I wouldn't mind waiting.  I really wouldn't.  But I'm turning 34 this month.  Even though I've thankfully inherited those amazing negroid genes that keep me from cracking (you know what they say...), they don't necessarily apply to the baby making apparatus.  We're talking about going full utero starting in the fall.  Which, fingers crossed, would translate into a little curly-haired bundle of joy next summer.  Which would mean that I'd spend the better part of my new job as a knocked up bundle of raging hormones.  Sigh.

My husband is a patient, loving man.  Homeboy must love me forreal for real.  I would have gotten tired of myself a long time ago and been like girl, if you start crying over inexplicable stuff one mo' gin... I'm trying to picture myself as a reasonable, sensible, kind man trying to figure out what to do while his high-strung wife is sitting there weeping as if someone just told her Nutella was a carcinogen.  Ugh.  Get it together, now.  Put on your big girl panties.  You can do it.

Late-Night Library Date

Two married PhD students spending their nights together at the library.  How romantic. We're the only married students in the same department in a PhD program at the same time.  I think we've been the only ones in the history of the department.  We should get a gold star and a lifetime supply of Nutella for that.

Him: teaching 2 and taking 3.  Me: writing that dirty dirty D.

Mommy and daddy fell in love and got married when they were both broke, stressed out students.  And then you were born nine months after mommy started her temporary job because she didn't want to wait until she was a wrinkled up prune to have you.  She waited as long as she did because she didn't want to be knocked up while trying to finish her dissertation.  What's a dissertation?  Well...it's a rambling piece of boo boo that mommy is going to try to clean up and turn into at least one article and hopefully a book.

Speaking of publications...my contributor's copy of the edited volume in which my first academic publication is found arrived today.  Check out that Chapter 9, son!

Yezzir.

A few minutes ago, P got up from our little workstation to go to the restroom.  I watched him as he walked away and was just struck with the fact that the man I was watching walk away is my husband.  Like, at one time, he was just some dude out there, and now he's going to be the father of our children.  Like, wow.

Anyway, (sigh).  When I finish writing my dissertation I swear I am just going to cathartically scream for like 5 minutes straight.

Get Your Life

Dissertation writing waits for no woman.  Had to get my life this week.

1. Facebook?  Deactivated.  

2. Installed a Chrome app called StayFocusd.  Why I didn't do this a millennium ago, who knows, but it's an extension you install on your web browser that will block whatever sites you want for whatever days and times you want to keep you from getting distracted. So, Mon-Fri from 8am to 5pm I have blocked a plethora of sites I tend to waste time on.  And if I start to waste time on a site that isn't blocked after about 10 minutes a little window will pop up saying "shouldn't you be working?"  If that don't put the fear of the Lord in me to get crackin.

3. Getting up and starting work no later than 8 am every morning.  No excuse.  

4. Work when P works.  He's a little worker bee.  Especially since he's teaching 2 and taking 3 this semester.  He don't play no games.  And neither should I.  So when he announces he's going to the library to do more work after dinner, I resist my urge to chill hard and take my lazy sack of bones right along with him.

Time to stop playing.  Time to stop procrastinating.  Time to get it in.  Time to go hard. Time to get my life.

El libro de cara

I'm weird about FB posting.  Like, I'm too paranoid or something.  I'm always worried about people "getting up in my business."  But seriously, if I cared that much, why am I even on FB?  Its very purpose is for everyone to acceptably get up in each other's business.

I guess I'm just super selective about what I post and when.  For example, I didn't change my relationship status on FB until after P and I were engaged.  I don't know...it just seems like announcing your relationship status on a non-long term relationship after about 30 or so is sort of juvenile.  Of course, the definition of "long-term" probably varies from person to person, but for me, long-term means you are firmly on the road to becoming my baby daddy.

I feel like I'll be the same way (maybe in about 6 months from now?) when I have a bun in the oven.  No ultrasound pictures of a little bean or of my baby's grainy private parts from me.  No, ma'am.  Of course, I'd tell my friends and family, but I feel like I wouldn't want the FB world to know until I am visibly preggers.  Like, I'd post a pic of me with a basketball belly with the caption "Can you find my son/daughter in this picture?"

Anyway, so I signed the contract for my new job and put it in the mail today.  I felt like it was safe to post on FB.  But I still had reservations.  I didn't want people to make annoying commentary or ask for details in the comments.  One particular comment I hope to avoid is "Where is that?"  To be honest, I had never heard of the institution myself before I applied, but it is an established and reputable one.  I would have to hold myself back from responding, "The internet enabling you to be on FB right now is the same internet that would enable you to google it and find out yourself."  I mean, right?  Anyway, it's done.  I'm glad I acknowledged it.  Now on to the last step: Finishing that dirty dirty dissertation.

I Have a Job

I have a job.  I sent an email to the Dean this morning officially accepting her offer.  They're going to send me a letter with the terms in writing, I'll sign on the dotted line, send it back, and voilà, c'est fait.

Getting a job post-PhD was one of my major concerns, and now that has been settled.  It's something I should be proud of, even though it wasn't what I expected.  My husband is 100% on board, I'll be making more money than I've ever made, it's an area between our families with a ridiculously reasonable cost of living, and it's going to give me good experience in a supportive environment.  God is good.

Now that that's been settled, time to finish my dissertation!  I have a lot more motivation now.

The Times I Wouldn't Mind Being Single Again or When Things Didn't Work Out the Way I Hoped

I don't know why I'm partial to "or" titles.  It's sort of like two different ways to think about a singular piece simultaneously.  In fact, one of the novels I'm analyzing for my dissertation has an "or" title. Santa lujuria o Papeles de blanco.

When I say there are times I wouldn't mind being single again, I want to make it clear that it doesn't have anything to do with my husband.  It has everything to do with me and how I'm used to thinking and coping with life as a single woman.

When I was single, I was lonely sometimes, but I was fine.  I mean, I was fine as in, I was completely capable of handling my business on my own.  This is not to say that I was (or am) completely self-sufficient, never relying on anyone like my friends and family for support.  Of course, I still do rely on them.  No one is completely self-sufficient.  But what I'm trying to say is that I just got used to dealing with myself by myself and making decisions for myself which largely only impacted myself.  Is it selfish thinking?  In a way.  But there's a freedom (which can also be seen as a trade-off) in only having yourself to worry about, and there's a strange comfort in knowing that whatever personal decisions you make can only potentially mess your own situation up.  The only person who has to deal with the aftermath (good or bad) is you.  I'm used to owning my stuff.  My positive qualities and successes well as my hangups and baggage.

But when you're married, you no longer have complete ownership of your personal stuff.  Getting married is the equivalent of sharing for life.  I don't mind sharing positive things.  Fun and uplifting things that make people smile and laugh and think you're wonderful.  But I have a problem sharing the other stuff.  I can't divorce myself from the other stuff, somehow excise it with a magic marriage wand because it's a part of what makes me me, like it or not.  But I don't like it, and I don't like getting it all over my husband.  Because it makes me feel bad.  Guilty.  Almost manipulative in a weird way.  It makes me want to gather up all my contradictions and worries and insecurities and vulnerabilities and lock them away from him so I don't have to worry about them falling out all over the place and negatively affecting him.  This is the one thing that I'm afraid of: Me being the person I am somehow negatively affecting the person my husband is.  I just don't want that.

But the thing is, if you try to lock that stuff completely away, you end up being dishonest and pushing your spouse away.  At least I do, because when I want to handle it the way I'm used to, I feel myself wanting to pretend that it's all good and fighting the urge to distance myself from him.

Hi, my name is Chantell, (Hi, Chantell) and I'm a recovering control freak.

So, yeah, the times the stuff I try so hard to keep at bay threatens to overflow and make things messy are the times I wouldn't mind being single again.

Which leads me to things not working out the way I hoped.  Not my marriage.  My job search.  But my marriage is connected to my job search because the results of my job search are going to affect my marriage.

I got a call on Friday that was not at all what I expected.  The Signs job was offered to someone else.  It hurts to be rejected, sure, but I guess it hurt more because I was optimistic that I would receive an offer.  It's one thing to be disappointed, but it's another for you to feel confident that things would work out a certain way and then not only feel disappointment, but also feel that you overestimated yourself.  However, there's a twist.  The search committee head told me that although they offered the position to someone else, they were still highly impressed with me, think I'm an excellent teacher and would still very much like for me to be a part of the program.  So, the Dean decided to create a one-year Visiting Assistant Professor position for me, if I were interested.  Though the job is temporary and not tenure track, there's a tenure track position opening up the following year and they would highly encourage me to re-apply.  Nothing's a guarantee, but it's not uncommon in academia for a temporary position to give you a leg up into a permanent one. Nevertheless, I had super mixed feelings about it.  On one hand, totally not what I wanted to hear, but on the other hand, pleased that they were impressed enough with me to create a position for me.  Nothing is official quite yet, but I'm almost sure I will accept it.

It made me think about the many other times in my life where things didn't work out the way I hoped they would.  It sucked at the time, when all I could see was disappointment and rejection.  But so many times, things eventually did work out, in a way I didn't anticipate, and better than what I initially had in mind.  Maybe this situation is another example of that.  Maybe God is opening a door, and I should trust Him, walk through, and see where it leads.

Signs

"Signs" is the game-in-my-head par excellence.  I used to play it when I would have a dumb crush on some dumb guy.  It's not a true game, it's more like a ridiculous list of reasons my future with said guy was fated by the universe.  Most of the reasons would consist of me desperately wishing for something to happen concerning him and then it happening, proof that it was meant to be.  Or worse yet, some kind of absurd repetition, amounting to an uncanny "coincidence," further proof that our future together was written in the stars.

Whenever I reflect on this insane mind game, I'm brought back to the singular moment in my easily besotted pre-husband life when the stakes of this game were at their height.  That time in my early 20s I fell hard for a green-eyed, long-lashed Spaniard the summer I studied abroad in Spain for the first time.  I wished desperately for him to walk me home from that birthday party.  I almost fainted when he asked if I'd like him to walk me home.  A sign!  He came to church with me after he said he wouldn't be able to at first.  A sign!  When I got back to the U.S. and the same Canadian jazz band whose CD he lent me was playing at my university.  A sign!  In my Spanish Golden Age Literature class, one of the pastoral novelists we studied had the same first name as my crush.  A sign!  I played that dumb game so indiscriminately, there was no limit to the realm of possibility of a sign!  So ridiculous.

Now that those intense crushy days are over (thank God), it seems like instead of crushes, I'm putting jobs to the Signs test.  It is so real out here in these streets.  Dissertation still undone, agonizingly waiting to hear back from the places where I've had interviews.  In order to not let the devil steal my joy, I've resorted to playing Signs with this particular job:

1. At first I applied for a generalist position they had open, but an administrator emailed me to request that I reapply for a second position (I had somehow missed) that was more in line with my credentials.  A sign!

2. It's one of only two jobs I applied for (didn't even get a preliminary interview with the other one) specifically seeking an Afro Hispanist.  A sign!

3. It's located within a day trip driving distance from each of our families. A sign!

4. My committee members reported to me after conversations with the search committee head that they were really excited about me and that I was their first choice.  A sign!

5. The former university president of my current institution started out as the university president of this prospective position's institution.  (Like, the university president went from there to here, so that means I will go from here to there!) A sign!

6. It's a teaching-centered institution, and I'm a teaching-centered kinda gal.  A sign!

Jesus, be a fence all around me every day, fix it, work it out, make a way, do what You do, youknaaimean?  Ya girl out here tryna hold it down, keep it real and stop them thug tears from slippin.

Unnatural

For whatever reason, it's still weird for me to conceive of myself as married.  Like, saying "my husband" out loud in whatever situation I find myself in where I'm talking about him or mentioning being married still feels slightly unnatural coming out of my mouth.

I guess considering myself of limited husband procurement potential for so long has taken its toll on my psyche.

I have a sinking feeling this "unnaturalness" with the change of my marital status will also apply when I (in the precious name of Jesus, pleeeease) graduate with my PhD in May.  Will referring to myself (or other people referring to me) as "Dr." ever feel natural?

Always, Mostly, Take Turns

I always...
Clean the bathroom
Dust
Cook

P always...
Takes out the trash

I mostly...
Go grocery shopping
Pay bills

P mostly...
Drives (if we're going somewhere together)
Washes dishes
Vacuums

We take turns...
Making the bed
Making the morning coffee
Washing/drying/folding clothes (we always put away our own, tho)
Making each others' sandwiches/packing each others' lunches

That's how we do.

MLK Day Confessions

So, P and I volunteered during our city's MLK Day of Service today.  I lowkey wanted some well-meaning but slightly misguided person to come up to me and P and tell us that we were the living embodiment of Dr. King's dream fulfilled.

For the Entire Rest of My Life

Hello, last semester of school for the entire rest of my life.

So hard to believe.  But the train has left the station, so I gotta jump on, buckle down, saddle up, do all those things that deal with bootstraps, buckles and all other securative and reinforceative accoutrements and get. it. done.  Dissertations do not spontaneously write themselves.

For the entire rest of my life.  Two things: no more school after this semester, and being married to my husband.  What does forever mean?  When you pledge to spend the rest of your waking days to another human being, what does that even mean?  It's this weird, unfathomable, slightly spooky thing.  This dude.  Glasses-wearing (not in our wedding photos, tho), freckled guy.  Forever.  Forever seems so deep.  It seems so eternal.  So fatalistic.  Signed in blood, serious and binding, to the death.  But paradoxically, what forever looks like day to day is pretty ordinary.  Waking up before he does and watching him as he's still asleep.  Walking to the bus stop together in the morning.  Buying almond milk and wheat thins from Kroger.  Watching The Office on Netflix in our jammies and laughing so hard.  Day to day, forever is mundane.  Simple.  Graspable.  Forever is a warm, crocheted blanket you wrap yourself up in while you sip some pear and green tea.

I never wanted a "there all along" love story.  One where he was someone I grew up with, knew all my life, was as familiar to me as my own brothers, but one day, I began to see him in a different light.  No.  I wanted a new and different person.  I wanted the intrigue of the unfamiliar.  P and I are two different people from two different worlds.  But somehow we work.  There's something holy about the process of taking a chance on someone and loving them.

First Musings of 2016

First of all, I will start out this New Year changing the way I refer to my husband in this blog.  We've already discussed the impropriety of "hubby," but I've recently been informed that "hubs," albeit less undesireable than "hubby," isn't a preferred term either. Therefore, my husband shall be henceforth known as P.

So, P and I have been chilling with my family for the last two weeks in the dirty South, and we're leaving to head up north to spend time with his folks tomorrow.  It will be the first time we will have air traveled as a married couple.  Come to think of it, it will have been the first time we will have air traveled together, period.  First Christmas as a married couple, first New Year's as a married couple, first airplane trip as a married couple...first graduation as a married couple, first job as a married couple, first move as a married couple...(sigh).  Lots of firsts and lots of firsts to come.

I know this isn't true, but sometimes it feels like the life we have right now as a married couple is not "real."  Like, we're both still students and we're living in a student apartment with this student-y life.  Like, although we're completely able to pay the bills with our graduate assistantships/fellowships, neither of us has a real-world job (yet) and we haven't had to deal with any major life issues (yet).  So these things make me feel like our "real" marriage will start after I graduate, get a job, and we relocate.

It's silly.  This idea of waiting for the "real" part of your life to begin.  What's crazy is that I used to believe versions of this at different points in my life: single and working, single and in school, single and living abroad...like, now that I'm married and in school, will my feelings about "real" life change when we both get jobs?  When we have kids?  When we have a house?  When does "real" life really begin?  It's endless.  And it's ridiculous to keep believing that "real" life is actually a thing.  What is it going to take for me to realize that if I'm alive, what I'm living is real, no matter what my situation?

With the spectre of "real life" hanging over me, I realize that there is so much about "real life" that I'm ignorant of.  So much.  Especially when it comes to financial matters—saving, managing and investing money, paying off debt, home ownership, et al.  It makes me feel like I'm not an adult.  And if I think about how ignorant I am and how much "catching up" I have to do (another false idea that I wish I could banish from my brain), it's really easy to feel overwhelmed and succumb to another false idea, which is that I will never be able to reach a place were I feel secure and content.  Funny.  I thought I would feel an everlasting, unalterable sense of security and contentment once I was married.  Surprise!  As I've said elsewhere, each point of "settling" only opens up an entirely new set of variables.

Something else I'm sure I've said elsewhere is that everything is a process.  Nothing happens all at once, so I need to stop expecting it to.  You don't learn everything all at once, you don't get experience all at once, so I need to stop thinking that I should.  A realistic focus this year is to begin increasing my knowledge about personal finance.

In less adult stuff news, I'm also embarking upon a new hair journey this year.  For those of you who know what I'm talking about, I'm getting off that creamy crack.  Yup.  No more chemicals.  "Going natural," as we say.  I'm actually already about 5 months into this process.  Everyone I talk to who's transitioned warns me about how hard it is, and I get it, but I'm just sick of putting unhealthy chemicals into it, and I'm ready to let my black be beautiful and get my kinky curl on.

New hair.  Finished dissertation (fingers crossed!).  New job (fingers super crossed!).  Move.  New place.  This year is going to bring some major change.  So, I need to embrace it.  I need to grow from it.

It's going to have to be my New Year's Resolution if I'm going to make it this year: I will embrace change and allow it to help me grow.

Being the Bomb vs. Bombing It

So, I had a series of preliminary interviews this week.  Three, to be exact.  I felt okay about 2 out of the 3.  But of course the one is what I've already partly blocked and am desperately trying to stuff into the "to be utterly forgotten" box of my hyper-critical, insecure, obsessive brain.  Ugh.

Must we indulge ourselves with particulars?  No, we mustn't.  But suffice it to say that I just felt totally thrown off of my usually upbeat, confident game.  I was up to bat, a straightforward, legitimate question was pitched (may I add that the pitcher seemed previously unmoved and unconvinced by any illusions of my competency or gravitas?), and I blanked.  By the time I managed an ill-executed swing..."STEEEEERIKE!"  O, time travel god, I beseech you, go back to the time of my conception and give my mother a "headache," causing me to unexist!

I will give these particulars, though: All of my interviews before that one had been conducted by a mixture of native and non-native speakers of Spanish, and had been primarily conducted in English, although at least one or two of the questions were asked of me in Spanish so that I could demonstrate my fluency.  However, in this case, all of the committee members were native speakers and the entire interview was conducted in Spanish.  Even after all this time studying the language, I am often very insecure about my abilities, particularly with native speakers.  That was factor number one throwing me off my game.

I will also add that I applied for this particular position not really expecting to get a call back because I didn't think I was qualified (they wanted someone to "direct" a particular program in addition to teaching), but went for it anyway because it is extremely close to my husband's family and the post was seeking someone with interdisciplinary interests, which lines up with my research.  So, when I did get a call back, I was like, Okay, well they've seen my CV so it's not like they don't already know what I've done and what I haven't done, but apparently they still want to talk to me so...it wouldn't kill me to try and see. Little did I know how much of a confidence punch to the gut it would be.

It wasn't my dream job, I was iffy about it in the first place, I was psyched out by the all-native speaker, all-Spanish interview, and I was utterly unprepared for a pretty legit question.  Donc, voilà, what you expect?  Le catastrophe, that's what.

Not to be a cornball, cheesy after school special moral of the storyist, but it was a learning experience.  If such a question is asked in the future, I'll know to be prepared for it, most importantly.  Even if you're the bomb most of the time (which I don't believe I am, which makes me feel uber-impostor syndromed when other people seem to think that I am), it's still not altogether a bad thing to be reminded that you can still bomb it.

Why don't I want to be one of "those" women?

Because...it's annoying.  "Hubby" this, "hubby" that, "I can't wait until hubby gets home," pictures of what you made "hubby" for dinner, cute stories of what "hubby" did or said.  Geez, get a life.  Do you not have an identity apart from "hubby"?  We get it.  He's sweet and makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside and you're ga-ga for him and you have the best hubby ever.  But then, after my annoyance subsides and I take a look at some of my own FB and blog posts, an inconvenient truth manifests itself right upside my head...

I am one of those women.

(Except, in my defense, I don't use the term "hubby."  My husband refuses to be identified as such, and I'm totally with him on it.  It's just trite.  I say "hubs" instead.)

But back to the issue at hand, why does the idea of being identified as one of those women chafe against me?  Why does the whole, omg my husband is the best ever and we're so happy and have so much fun together look at how cute we are bother me?  I'm the hugest hypocrite when it comes to this, because do I not do the same thing? But not just that, what's wrong with it?

I'm so weird.  Like, when I was single, I wanted a husband, but I didn't want to be one of those girls who wanted a husband.  Like, oh my Lord, I am a wretched single girl over 30 and I'm going to end up with withered ovaries and an overabundance of cats if Jesus don't make a way. Ugh.  When I finally had a significant other, I didn't want to be one of those girls who finally had a significant other.  Like as if, okay now I have a boyfriend so my existence is officially validated.  Ugh.  And then when I got engaged, I was excited, but I didn't want to be one of those engaged girls.  Like, OMG my wedding day is MY day and I've been dreaming of this day my whole life and I can't wait to say yes to the dress and salivate over floral arrangements and wedding favors. Ugh.  And now that I'm married, I'm so in love with my husband it's ridiculous, but I balk at the question "How's married life?"  Like I'm supposed to be emanating rainbow beams because at long last, I have achieved the ultimate life goal of becoming a Mrs.  Nawl.

I guess, number one, there is nothing wrong with wanting to show the world how cute you and your husband are.  I think people should be ga-ga for each other.  I'm certainly ga-ga over my man.  But I guess my reservation comes from the idea that 'ga-ga' is the only acceptable mode.  You see what I'm saying?  Like, just as I felt this pressure to be enraptured with all the frou-frou of a wedding when that just wasn't me.  I think it's 100% fine to be enraptured with wedding details if that's your thing, but it's the idea that 'enraptured' is the only acceptable attitude to have towards a wedding that bothered me.

I mean, part of it is the idea of not wanting to be considered in this stereotypical way, part of it is not wanting a certain mode to be the only acceptable mode, but part of it is something else.  It's this implicit idea that I should be grateful.  I mean, that's not it.  I am grateful.  But that I should be ecstatic because someone putting a ring on it saved me from a fate worse than death.

Aren't you excited?  Yes, I wanted to answer, but not for the reason you think I am.  I went through this stage where my brain interpreted "Aren't you excited?" as "Aren't you thanking your lucky stars that a functioning man finally took it upon himself to have mercy on your long-undesired self and redeem you, rescuing you from a life of wrinkled-up spinsterhood?"  I know, I'm horrible.

Maybe I just need to accept the fact that I'm now one of those women and not care and stop being so judgmental of other those women just because I don't want to be like them even though I am.  After all, I can't wait to see my hubs in a little while.  We're going home to eat a dinner of porkchops, mashed potatoes and gravy and carrots.  But I'm not posting a picture of it, don't get it twisted.

The Job Search and Other Tales

I'm currently in a down-home, small-town cafe in the city of my husband's birth.  They have wi-fi (and awesome toasted marshmallow lattes).  This year is his family for Thanksgiving since last year was mine.  It'll be our first Thanksgiving as a married couple.  Awww.

Dissertation: Finished with a draft of my second chapter of analysis.  One more analysis chapter to go before I finish up with intro (reworking of my prospectus, so not starting from scratch) and my conclusion (which won't be nearly as involved as everything else).  I need to put the pedal to the metal, but some progress is better than none.  I MUST defend in April to graduate in May.

Job search: I had my first campus visit last week, and I think it went pretty well, overall.  I felt confident about it and I think I might get an offer.  We'll see.  I have since gotten two other call-backs for preliminary interviews.  One of the places is only an hour from my husband's family, so my mother-in-law is super excited about that possibility.  There's still a place that I (think I) would really like to hear back from which is situated more conveniently between our families.  It's a really scary process, frankly.  Everything is so up in the air.  I still have my dissertation to contend with, which is such a beast.  And no matter where I end up accepting an offer, chances are that we're going to have to move.  I mean, it's a part of what I signed up for...it's how it's going to have to be.  I am very thankful for one thing, that by the time I finish, my husband will be done with coursework, so we'll be able to stay together.  I know a few academics who do the long-distance thing, but that's just something neither of us are willing to do.

What I'm thankful for: I usually do this whole list thing, but this time, I want to focus on one thing. And in spite of myself, in spite of not wanting to sound like those women who post things about their "hubbies" all the time, I have to keep it 100 and say that I am overwhelmingly thankful for my husband.  Who he is is what I need.  That's the best way I can describe it.  A lot of people think we got together "too fast," and I get it.  We met 8 months before we got engaged and we were engaged 11 months before we were married.  But what I love about my husband is that there was something that made him decide I was it for him, and once he made that decision, he was consistent and committed.  He was not afraid of the risks because he loved me and believed in us.  I'm thankful for the consistent confidence he has in me and in us.  It's one of the things that makes me feel adored and secure.  We wrote our own wedding vows, and his last line was "My love for you is here to stay."  I'm thankful for my husband and I don't ever want to take him or what he's brought to my life for granted.

No, I'm not French...I just use French interjections in frustrating situations.

As a student of languages and speaker of (optimistically speaking) three languages, I sometimes have a habit of using my second languages in mock-frustration.  It's sort of hard to accurately explain why, but it's a weird way of practicing the language as well as a sort of inside joke to myself.

The reason the self-joking even functions as such is because 1. expressing myself in mock-frustration in another language is a way to tell myself I'm not really frustrated since whatever language I'm using  to express myself (either Spanish or French) is not my native language, and if I were really frustrated then I would use English, and 2. if anyone were to hear me, there's an underlying assumption that they wouldn't understand me.

And number 2 is what has occasionally plunged me headfirst into awkwardness, precisely because of that underlying assumption.  Here's an example, although not in the context of mock-frustration: Once I was at the grocery store about to buy some cilantro because I really really wanted some to go with the carnitas tacos I was about to make and I was doing (what I thought was) some low-key self talk about getting cilantro, but I was saying "cilantro" with a Spanish accent.  I turn around and there's a Hispanic family behind me waiting for me to move so they could also get a bunch of cilantro (maybe even for the same reason) looking at me weird.  

So here's my French faux-pas.  Husband and I were standing in line to get free tickets to see a documentary at a venue downtown.  Tickets were free for students as long as you show your ID and the place was packed.  The line was pretty long and didn't really seem to be moving, so I said, "Qu'est-ce qui ce passe ici?"  with this really Frenchy annoyed tone of voice.  It basically means something to the effect of "What's going on here?"  I didn't think anyone was paying me any mind, and I really was just trying to make my husband laugh, but then the guy in front of me turned around and with a distinctly French accent asked, "Are you French?"

Oh, em, gee, I wanted to die.  It was just my luck that I just happened to use mock-frustration French in earshot of an actual Frenchman.  Of course, I immediately started cackling, expressed how embarrassed I was and that I'm totally not French, but that I playfully use it sometimes, thinking no one would understand me.   And then I did get to practice my French a little, telling him how I studied abroad, et al.

Moral of the story: Never assume.  Because chances are you will be in the precise situation to prove your assumption dead wrong.  And then you will feel awkward and boisterously cackle.

Husband, Salamander Killer

It's been a little rainy in these parts lately.  I guess the wet stickiness brings out the slimy little creatures, because, on everything, we were sitting on the couch Netflix and chillin the other night when I saw a slow moving dark shadow under our bedroom door.

What is that?  Oh, my God, honey, what is that??  If it was a bug, it was a long, huge, extremely undesirable bug.

So we jumped up, ran into the bedroom, peeked behind the door and there it was in the corner, a dark, slimy, long tailed creature that looked like a little lizard but wasn't, and I wanted to die.  How dare that thing have the audacity to enter our apartment!  The sanctity of my life literally felt violated.  I started yelling and screaming and jumping up and down and felt the weight of all of the slimy disgusting things in the world enter my mindspace and I just couldn't even.

This was not just a bug that you could smash, wipe up and then go about your life.  This was a creature.  An animal with a heart and eyes and a little brain and little slimy creature bones that could be broken.  I'm pretty sure hubs was just as grossed out as I was, but he was kind of matter of fact about things.  First things first, eliminate distraction.  He told me to go into the other room where I commenced to ball up on the couch with an afghan, shuddering in disgust.  I figured he was going to scoop the little guy up somehow, maybe with a dustpan or something and throw him back outside.  But then I saw homeboy pick up his church shoe.  Oh, snap!  He ain't playin no games!  Somebody was about to get sent to salamander heaven.  But then, I imagined salamander guts on our carpet and went back to shuddering.  A moment later, he came back out and got a gignormous wad of paper towels, and then emerged with the balled up wad (avec salamander dedans) and went outside to dispose of it in the dumpster.

Slimy, disgusting little creature disposed of, I had questions.  The first of which involved the prospect of creature guts on the carpet. Apparently, hubs didn't 100% obliterate it, but hit it just enough to stop it.  Stop it from moving and breathing, that is.  But was there any blood?  Salamander innards and juices? What did it look like where you hit it?  Yes, the same one screaming bloody murder and shuddering in disgust now had to know all the dirty details.  No juices or innards, but it was "a little torn up" where he had hit it with the shoe.  Ewwwwwwww.  SO gross, but somehow hilarious and morbidly satisfying to know.

Now, when I want to make him laugh, I just call him "salamander killer."  Amphibians, beware!

The First (of Hopefully More) Adventure(s)

I'm sitting at the window of a small-town local coffee shop with hubs during a Sunday inter-service afternoon work session...what ends up going down when you're PhD students who go to a Pentecostal church which still does the two-service thing.  It's rainy and gray, but nothing a toasted marshmallow s'mores latte can't brighten up.  My husband is adorably hunched over his laptop, doing what he calls "coding."  Linguistics stuff.  We know enough about each others' stuff to understand it, but our fields are different enough for us not to be all up in each others' academic space.  This is fabulous relationship-wise, but also positive when it comes to both of us having to find jobs in the same (geographic) area.  Speaking of which...

This is how the academic job search works:

1. Apply (duh)
2. If they like your application, the institution will conduct a preliminary interview with you, usually a video conference.
3. If you make the second cut, the institution will fly you out for a campus visit.  The campus visit includes you having a ton of meetings with faculty and students, you'll teach a class, present a "job talk," have a campus tour and have another formal interview.  It's like a date.  They're trying to see if you're a good fit for them, but also trying to "show off" so that they will present themselves as desirable to you. At this point, you're usually competing with 3 other candidates who have also been offered campus visits.
4. If you make the final cut, they will make you an offer, at which point negotiations usually come into play.
5. If you accept the offer, pending your graduation, at which point you'll have a PhD in hand, you'll sign on the dotted line and have an official, bona fide job!  Whoo-hoo!

So far, I have made the first two cuts with a particular institution I mention here.  So, a week from today they're flying me out to participate in round two of the Academic Dating Game.

I'm excited...my first call-back has now become my first campus visit.  This place had the earliest application deadline, and I suspect they're trying snatch people up before the Academic Dating Game commences in full force in the spring.  However, I must admit that there's a part of me trying not to feel overwhelmed.  I feel the weight of things.  I feel the unpredictability of things.  I'm confronted, once again, with the fact that, try as I might, I can't control my life.

I naively thought that once I got married, the variables of life would be settled.  Or, at least, more settled than they were when I was single.  What I see now is that each point of "settling" actually opens up an entirely new set of variables.

The Only Thing a Dissertation Cares About

So, hubs and I both gave a presentation for our department's Graduate Student Colloquium on Friday.  Here we are pre-presentation:

It was probably the only time we'll ever present together...unless we author a paper together, which might be something we'd consider in the future.  It was a great experience.  We both got a lot of positive feedback, and it reminded me that I'm actually doing something I'm interested in and that I like and that I'm good at.

I'm telling you, writing a dissertation is like one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.  I'm used to getting by on being "smart."  What I'm saying is that I've always defined myself by making good grades, being a good student, etc.  I've basically been a nerd my whole life.  What I'm learning, though, is that you can be the smartest, most intellectual person in the world, but as far as writing a dissertation goes, it means nothing.  Dissertations really don't give a flip about how smart you are.  They really don't.  The only thing a dissertation responds to is getting your butt in a chair and getting your fingers on a keyboard and hammering it out.  That's it.  It takes sheer work.  An iron will.  Showing up.  Consistently getting all your little fancy ideas spelled out into a Word doc.  The only thing a dissertation cares about is your hustle.

I've had some pretty dreary days.  Days where I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing or why I ever thought this would be a good idea.  I have days where I feel uber overwhelmed and where my desired future seems so far away.  I have days where I feel woefully unprepared and like at any minute someone out there who actually has it all together could walk up to me, rip off my facade and expose me as the fraud I am.  Some pretty dark and somber things get cooked up in my brain stew when I'm locked away in this garret of a library carrel.  But presenting like I did last Friday is a little bright spot that reminds me that despite my feelings of insecurity, I must be doing something right.

Another little bright spot: I got my first call back for an interview!  Funny story: I originally applied for a generalist position at this small liberal arts institution about halfway between each of our families. It was the first job I applied for because it had the earliest application deadline.  So, they emailed me back and asked me to apply for another position they had open because it was more in line with my credentials.  When I took a look at it, I realized that it was for Afro-Latin American studies!  There is only one other position I'm applying for specifically looking for someone in that area of specialization.  They must have posted it after I applied for the first one.  It made me feel good because obviously they were interested in me if they asked me to apply for another position in the department.  So, anyway, we'll see.

For now, back to writing...

In the Moment

So, we were riding along on a beautiful autumn afternoon, windows down, admiring the gorgeous fall colors on the trees.  "I love being in this moment with you, baby."  Yes, we unsarcastically say things like this to each other all the time, and it is mushy and gushy and wonderful.

We finally got to a stretch of road where there was a little bit of traffic, and slowed down, almost to a stop. Suddenly, we heard screeching brakes and I remember looking to see where it was coming from when...BOOM!  Someone rear ended the stank out of us.

While adrenaline was coursing through my veins and I was shaking and tearing up, my husband slowly pulls over, puts the car in park and asks if I'm okay.  Then he calmly gets the insurance info out of the glove compartment and gets out to exchange info with the culprit, an old wrinkled up man in a bow tie.  Homeboy tore the bumper almost completely off.

I didn't even get out of the car.  I called the police so we could file a police report, but I just stayed put.

Even though I was a little shaken and highly annoyed at the carelessness of the man who hit us (you "didn't see us"?  Dude, we were practically stopped for about a minute or so before you came plowing into us.  It's almost like hitting a parked car and claiming not to have seen it), I was very thankful for a calm husband who just handled it.

Although it sucks to have a messed up car and now to deal with the insurance stuff (which he's handling now, too), I realized that even though getting rear ended wasn't as beautiful as driving with the windows down and enjoying the fall colors, I was still in the moment with him.  It was a negative moment, but we were in it together.

I know that getting rear ended is probably the least of the negative things we will have to deal with throughout our marriage.  But I'm glad that I won't have to deal with the negative things that come in life on my own.

Confessions

1. Writing my dissertation is hard, and I'm behind on my writing schedule.

2. I should be in my library carrel right now, but I'm not.

3. My hair is dirty and I don't feel like washing it right now, so I'll probably throw on a hat and call it a day.

4. I asked my husband whether he'd had a thing for a certain girl in our department before we started dating, and once he admitted that he had, I immediately regretted asking him.  Now, I feel stupid, not to mention hypocritical, for being bothered by it.

5. When I'm confronted with the fact that I am extremely blessed and have an overabundance of things to be thankful for, I feel convicted and I make a mental note to be more purposefully and explicitly grateful.  God knows I don't take it for granted.  But when I feel the way I feel this morning, it makes me feel bad again because I don't understand why it's so easy for the security of knowing that I am blessed slip away from me.

6. After all this time, I am still uncomfortable with uncertainty and I still struggle with trying to control my life, all the while knowing how futile it is.

7. Sometimes when my husband is asleep and I'm still awake, I look at him and wonder why I married someone so different from me and why he married someone so different from him.

8. A professor took me out to lunch this week to celebrate my getting an article published.  It was originally a paper I wrote for her class.  She was giving me advice about applying for jobs, mentioning that I shouldn't count out applying for posts at flagships on the West Coast even though it's far from where I want to settle because after a year or two I could enter the job market again and it would look attractive on my CV and give me some leverage for a more desirable position in the future.  I wanted to tell her that I don't care about applying to places strategically, I don't care about increasing the attractiveness of my stupid CV, I don't care about being a successful academic.  I want to finish this program, get a job, settle down and start a family.  I'm tired of moving around and feeling unsettled.

Dream Job

So, there's this job I really want.

It just seems perfect.  They're looking for someone who specializes in precisely what I'm writing my dissertation about.  Not just a Latin Americanist who speaks Spanish fluently, but someone who specializes in the African Diaspora in Latin America.  Hello, that is SO me.

The place is a small liberal arts college, which is also so me because the emphasis in those kinds of institutions is teaching and at heart, I am and always will be a teacher.

The place is also on the East Coast and sits snugly between our families.

The place is also near a major metropolitan city but far enough away not to be smack dab in the hustle and bustle.

And, there's a little side story.  So, I came across the job posting, told myself that I was totally going for it, and then came across the posting again in a listserv for current and former holders of the prestigious fellowship I have now.  Soon after the posting went out, a member of the listserv who is a new hire at the dream job institution said, "Hey, if anyone is interested in applying, let me know, I was hired last year in the same department and we can chat about it."  I was like, um, me!  So, I sent him an email expressing my interest.  It also happened that he was going to the conference I just got back from and we arranged to meet up and chat.  It also happened that I was presenting at said conference and he agreed to come to my presentation.  In the end, we chatted, he had lots of positive things to say about the institution and the department and gave me positive feedback on my presentation.  It's not like he's on the search committee or anything, I mean, he was just hired last year, but at least he might put in a good word for me...maybe flag my application and be like, "Hey, I met her, I saw her present, she's also a recipient of the same prestigious fellowship I had, maybe we need to take a good look at her app."  Who knows?

But now, here I am, slogging away at my dissertation, having to apply to mad jobs while slogging away, and knowing that if I'm to land anything desirable in this competitive world of the academic job market, I MUST finish my dissertation.  No bones about it.

I'm trying to be open, trying not to drive myself (and my husband) crazy, and wanting to hope but not wanting to get my hopes up too high.  

If I could JUST finish.  Finish, get a job, and have a baby.  In that order.

First Conference Presentation as a Mrs.

I guess there's a first time for everything.

I'm in a major metropolitan city (where the pope just left from) for a conference from now until Sunday.  It hit me that this is the first time I've air traveled and will have conference presented under my new name.

Like, my first boarding pass as a Mrs. My first conference introduction as a Mrs.

I've decided to use my maiden name as my middle name professionally.  So, on my CV and papers and publications and whatnot, I'll be Firstname Maidenname Marriedname.  I like how it flows, truth be told.  I still haven't gotten any funny looks or comments about my new last name, though.  It absolutely screams Irishness.  Girl, how you get a St. Patrick's Day soundin name like that?

Can I admit something?  I am scared, I am uncomfortable, I feel inadequate, I feel underprepared, and I feel overwhelmed.  I can't explain how badly I want to stop feeling this way.  Everything seems to be screaming at me, You aren't ready!  You aren't good enough!  You're not going to finish in time!

I honestly don't know how I'm going to do it.  I don't know how this is going to happen.  There's more that I don't know than I do know at this point.  But what else can I do but keep putting one foot in front of the other?

The Internet Preachin TROOF Today

Am I in church?  I thought I was sequestered in a library carrel, tired, unmotivated, and unsuccessfully resisting urges to pro-crass-the-nation (I got that from my homegirl), but no.  The Don Miller blog and the Multicultural Listserv started preachin the Word of GAWD today and all I could do was shake my head like an old sanctified black lady who made some sweet potato pies for the silent auction muttering "My, my, my" with a hand held to my convicted heart and let dat troof settle into my soul.

Don Miller blog,"Why Change Can Be Good, Even When You're Not Ready":

Sometimes when we say, “I’m not ready,” what we really mean is that we’re not ready to succeed. And we’re probably right. But the new roles and opportunities that present themselves to us often won’t for us to be 100 percent ready to succeed. Rather, what we need in order to step across those thresholds is a readiness to struggle, learn, and grow. We’re not born ready to be successful professionals, spouses, parents, neighbors, and friends. We become those things over time, through practice and process, sometimes failing, sometimes winning, always persisting.

Preach.  Preaaaach!  Thankya Jesus.

Multicultural Listserv:

The worst thing you write is better than the best thing you didn't write.

Yaaaaas!  The devil IS a liya.

I am metaphorically forehead palming my dissertation and taking spiritual authority over it until it speaks in tongues right now.

After I take a nap, tho.  It is real out here, y'all.

Is this me?

Sometimes I don't believe this is really me.

Is this me?
Is this me who has a husband?
Is this me who's been married for four months now?
Is this me who's writing a dissertation?
Is this me who's supposed to graduate in May?
Is this me who's applying for jobs?
Is this me who's thinking about having a baby in the near future?

Sometimes I feel like I'm not really me.  I'm just someone who is passively observing what someone else who I'm not is supposed to be doing.

Like, when I was riding in the car with my husband back to our apartment tonight, I was spacing out (as I often do) and it occurred to me that the man sitting beside me promised to be with me for the rest of his life and that I promised to be with him for the rest of my life.  Lifelong promises, just like that.  There was a time when my life was without him in it.  Now, I have no idea what it would look like without him in it.  Riding in a silver Camry.

All that my mind is wrapped around is writing my dissertation.  It doesn't even seem like something I (if I were really me) would ever do.  But I'm miraculously doing it.  And not fast enough.

Is this me who wants to be a professor?
Is this me who wants a career in academia?

It seems like that's stuff for other people.  Other people do well-researched, serious stuff.  Stuff where they know just what they're doing and exactly what they're talking about and precisely what their plans are.  I just chance upon things.  I make it up as I go along.  It seems like I've lucked out more than diligently worked.  It seems like what I'm doing now isn't substantive.  That can't be true.  But it just feels like it.

What is it going to take to convince me that I'm going to be okay and that I must be doing something right?

My First Academic Publication as a Graduate Student

Hopefully this little guy will help me get one of those things.  You know, one of those whatchamacallits.  You know...one of those things productive citizens of society are supposed to have?  A, um...yeah, that's it.  A job.

Check it out here.  Especially if you're into diasporas and Africa and transformation and migration and stuff.

So...Week 4.

This is how it's going to have to be.

Writing a dissertation is seriously one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life.  Chapter 3 is due this coming Friday and I really need to pick up the pace.  For real.

On top of that, there's a little book review to revise and resubmit and there are already postdoc applications that are due soon.

I can't believe I've gotten this far with such reluctance to get things done.  Like, I'm the laziest "overachiever" there ever was.  I am so serious.  I've totally shut myself off of social media, I get up every morning at 5:45, I go work out, I get to the library between 8:00 and 8:15am, stay until 5pm, and I (try to) go to bed every night between 9:30 and 10:00pm.  I'm trying my best to regiment my life to allow writeyourdissertation to seep into my bones and consciousness, but still.  I still get super distracted (Pomodoro notwithstanding), I still stare at my cursor blinking for hours without any writing produced and I still question if I'm really cut out for this.

Whether I'm cut out for it or not, I'm going to finish.  I have to finish.  I have no choice.  I mean, I guess I do have a choice, but the consequences of not finishing are pretty darn undesirable.

This is just where I'm at.  In the thick of it.  This is all I'm going to be blogging about, probably, until it's done.  So...onward.

Week 3 of Hammering It Out

We interrupt this dissertation writing session for a quick update:

This weekend, I went to my hometown, primarily to attend this friend's baby shower.  I left hubs behind, because he preferred to stay home.  If we were going primarily to visit my parents, we would have left sooner.

My mom knew I was coming, but my dad didn't.  It was nice to surprise him. I went to church with my parents on Sunday and of course, the inevitable, "Where's your husband?  Whuut?  You're already leaving him behind?"  Ugh, please go sit down somewhere.  I jokingly told a few people we got into a fight, just to see their reaction.  Heh, heh.

But here's what I really wanted to tell: When I got back on Sunday night, I came home to a beautiful bouquet of sunflowers in a vase with a card from my husband telling me how much he missed me and how much he loves and appreciates me.  Super swoon.  There is nothing like the love of a sweet freckled-faced man with a dimpled smile.  I seriously believe my husband is the best husband in the entire world.

I just love spending time with him.  Riding the bus together in the mornings, coffee in my little to-go cup with our church's logo on it. Getting little visits from him while I'm working in my little writing hole for hugs and kisses and "I'm proud of you"s.  Taking lunch breaks with him on a bench outside the library, laughing at how a squirrel nearby darts around and nervously eats pieces of sandwich bread crust I throw his way.  Work a little longer and soon we'll be heading home on the campus bus, but today we're going to make a quick stop at the campus Creamery first.  Dessert before dinner.

Going to a baby shower has definitely brought about a resurgence of baby-on-the-brain-itis.  The fact that a colleague recently announced her pregnancy hasn't helped matters.  I even told hubs, "If all goes according to plan, next year around this time, that will be me!"  He smiled and said that it would be.  He is going to be the best dad, too.  I know it.  I have these visions of me with a cute little pregnant belly being cuddled and coddled by my husband.  Sigh.

Back to work.  This chapter is shaping up, but at this point, it needs to shape up a little faster.

And at the end of the first week of sequestration...

Here's what I'm learning that finishing a herculean task consists of:

Framing the task within parameters of structure and consistency.  The reason I'm waking up every morning at 5:45 am and leaving out at 6 am to then go work out for 30 minutes every morning and then arriving at my library carrel by 8 am Monday through Friday is so that I can burn "schedule" and "consistency" into my brain and consciousness.  It's not that I love waking up early or that I'm trying to lose weight.  It's just a thing I need to do.  I'm consistently getting up.  I'm consistently working out.  I'm consistently going to the library.  I'm hoping these things will translate into "I'm consistently working on my dissertation."  It's hard.  It's hard to stay focused.  It's hard to make the kind of progress I would be happy with.  But I'm making some progress every day.  That's what needs to be consistent.

A colleague introduced me to a productivity app that I'm going to try stick to called Pomodoro.  Each "pomodoro" is a 25-minute interval, which ends in a 5-minute break.  After 4 pomodoro/5-minute break intervals, then you get a longer 15-minute break.  It's a way to make yourself consistently work without feeling overwhelmed.  It's good for a person like me who finds it hard to consistently work for long periods of time.  But 25-minutes of consistent work at a time is doable.  And it gives you the option to skip a break if you're on a roll and then at the end of the 4 intervals, you get a longer break. Operation Pomodoro starts tomorrow.

I have the chance to personally interview and communicate with the author of one of the books I'm analyzing.  I wrote her and let her know that I'm excited about the chance to talk to her, but that I would like to have time to prepare first, and asked for her availability to perhaps conduct the interview via Skype.  I'm pretty pumped about it.  My adviser and I are discussing the possibility of bringing her to the university for a talk.  That would be pretty awesome.  We shall see.

Sequestration: Day 1

My new semester routine:

1. Get up and out the door by 6 am to make your way over to the Ramsey Center.
2. Jump on the elliptical for 30 minutes while you listen to audio of the Bible.
3. Get back and take a short, energizing shower.
4. Down a cup of coffee with a fruit/a bagel/oatmeal and take a multivitamin (if we're planning on getting preggo in about a year from now, gotta start getting vitamins and good stuff in me now.)
5. Get yourself together, grab your lunch (that you made the night before) and make it to the library by 8 am.
6. Sit your little self down in your library carrel and read/write/take notes/highlight/write down ideas/organize, do whatever you need to do to work towards one goal: Writing. Your. Dissertation.
7. Take a lunch break with hubby.
8. Sit your little self back down in your library carrel and repeat the actions in step 6 until 5 pm.
9. Give your mind a break, and make sure you get to bed by 10:30pm.

That's how it's gotta be, folks.  Ain't nothin to it but to do it.

Everything You Wanted

Another husbandless night.

I'm eating and watching trash when I should be dissertation reading.  There's something about my husband being gone that turns me into a sad bum.

But I watched this video of this girl who makes a list of all of the qualities she wants in a man, the producers or whoever finds a man who meets all of these qualifications, and she goes out on a date with him:

 Even after having every single qualification that she wrote down met, they still didn't click.

I don't know, there's just something equally hilarious and sad about that.  Like, he had literally everything she professed to want, but when it was presented to her, there were still reasons why she didn't feel they were compatible.

I found a list that I wrote when I was 16 and realized that my husband does line up with pretty much all of them:

1. "He has to be tall."  He is, I guess, around 5'10, which isn't basketball-player tall, but a good 4 inches taller than me.  And I can wear heels and still not be taller than him, which is all good.

2. "For some reason, I don't know why, but he absolutely must have long eyelashes.  It would also be nice if he wore glasses."  He has very long lashes and he does wear glasses.

3. "He would have this absolutely charming smile that would make you melt every time he flashed his pearly whites.  Dimples would be nice, too."  He does have a nice smile, and he does have dimples.

4. "He has to like to read."  Check.

5. "He has to have a passion for music, and an appreciation for all types. It would be cool if he could play the guitar (I love guitar!)--then he could make up guitar ballads about his undying love for me (just kidding)."  I really wasn't kidding, though.  He definitely has a passion for music, he definitely plays the guitar and he has definitely written ballads about his love for me.  He proposed to me with one.  When I wrote this 17 years ago, little did I know that I would one day also play the guitar and that playing the guitar would be what initially brought my husband and me together.

6. "He has to be understanding--he has to be sensitive to my feelings and realize that sometimes I say or do things that I really don't mean, and sometimes I myself may not understand why I feel a certain way, but he'll understand that, too."  This is so true.  I am emotional and sensitive and cry all the time and he is the sweetest, most understanding man ever about this side of me.

But here's what's crazy: If there were some other person out there who had all the same qualities that I claimed to want and maybe even need, there's absolutely no guarantee that he would have "clicked" with me.  I mean, my little teenage list aside, even if my "mature," 30+, single self had written a list like the girl in the video did and that man materialized right in front of my face, there would be no guarantee.  Everything you wanted is really not everything you wanted until you actually have a chance to want it in a flesh-and-blood person who also has a chance to want everything they wanted in you.  I know that's a little convoluted, but it's true.

There are things you think you want/need, but then there are things you never knew you wanted/needed that only come alive within a living, breathing bond between two living, breathing people.

The guy the girl in the video described up on the whiteboard was not a real person.  He was a conglomeration of ideas and characteristics.  Even if all of those ideas and characteristics could somehow become concrete (imperfectly, because the abstract can never be made perfectly concrete), there is, as the video showed, no guarantee that this concrete abstraction would or even could meet our needs, or as we like to call it, "click" with us.

This is another idea that makes me see a marriage as a sacred metaphor.  Great is the mystery of godliness.  Great is the mystery of what it is that makes what we think we want and need somehow secondary to something as ungraspable as another human being's bond with us.

Done! (For now.)

The first thing I've finally cleared off my plate are thank you cards for the wedding!  Woo hoo!  Excuse me while I get my praise on right quick.  Y'all don't even know.  Like, I feel like I just took my burdens to the Lord and left them at the altar and got delivered for the first time in my world-weary, downtrodden, Jesus-needing life.  I feel like I just got brought out of the miry clay and got my feet set on a rock to stay and got a song put in my soul today, tho.

My sweet, sweet husband helped so much.  He refused to let me do it all by myself, even though I kind of tried to, but he was insistent.  I really appreciate that about him.  I have this big-sister, I'll-handle-it mentality a lot of times that I'm learning doesn't really fly in a marriage.  Not for the long haul.  

We sent off the ones that could be sent off.  It felt so good dumping those 90 some-odd cards into the mailbox.  You will be thanked.  You hear me?  You sent us waffle makers and can openers and picnic baskets and planned bridal showers and lingerie showers and sent CHC (cold hard cash) in wedding cards to us and you think you gonna get away without being thanked?  Nawl.  Like I said, you will be thanked.  And you are going to read every handwritten word in those handwritten cards and you will smile and get a warm fuzzy feeling inside and you will go to bed and sleep in peace, knowing that finally, at long last, you have been officially thanked.

Now for local church folks, it'll probably take me a month to actually hand out the cards, but, hey, the hard part is done.

The second thing I've cleared off my plate is this blasted online class.  It is ovah.  It is finished and it has given up the ghost.  Got those finals graded and and those grades posted and those reports printed out and put in the big boss's box.  The last class I'll ever teach pre-PhD.  Yup.  But of course no college-level course worth its salt is without a last minute email from a desperate student.  Is there aaannnnyyyythinng I can do?  It's like, girl, you got a freaking A minus.  Go saddown with all that.  No, you cannot do any last-minute extra assignments.  Especially not after I've busted it trying to get your finals graded and get final grades posted on time.  The grades are in and they're staying in.  Like, I feel like it's kind of disrespectful and presumptuous to even ask that.  It's like, my friend, you have earned the grade that you've earned and that's that.  Why should I give you special consideration?

So now that those two biggies have been checked off, the road has been cleared for plunging head first right back into dissertation writing.  I'm planning to finish re-reading the novel of my next chapter this week, I'll take a little beach break with my husband and his family next week, and then, get ready.  I'm about to wear my library carrel out.  It's all nice and reserved, I got my books all nice and set up in the bookshelves and I even bought a little chair cushion from Bed Bath and Beyond to put on the library's ugly little hard wooden chair so as not to wear down my natural padding.  It is bout to go DOWN.