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.