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1133 & the bite
Jan. 29th, 2021 11:51 amTwo themes in the few posts I've made in the last years: I'm lonely; I'm successful.
A pretty middle-aged conundrum.
I sometimes open up my email and search around for whatever is in there from back 10, 15 years ago. Not too often, rarely looking for anything in particular, just something like "before 2008, has attachments." And so I stumbled yesterday on some old pictures of friends, old messages, old MP3s we sent to each other.
We were so close that it took well over a dozen years for me to look back and really recognize that it's over, the inevitable drift an irresistible chasm, something like a polite schism, the people I loved acquaintances from a before-life.
Oh, my depression is truculent and malicious, a bruxism of mind; and yet though I recognize these are the thoughts of my anhedonia and loneliness I can't summon a challenge. I know it's the bloody pandemic and the isolation and the distance and the somewhat enclosed feeling of a small house with two young kids. Yet.
There's a cost to getting what you want. I'm sitting in a house we can pay off in a few years. It's almost slightly distasteful to look at our joint chequing account and see how much comes in every month, how secure our positions are.
A pretty middle-aged conundrum.
I sometimes open up my email and search around for whatever is in there from back 10, 15 years ago. Not too often, rarely looking for anything in particular, just something like "before 2008, has attachments." And so I stumbled yesterday on some old pictures of friends, old messages, old MP3s we sent to each other.
We were so close that it took well over a dozen years for me to look back and really recognize that it's over, the inevitable drift an irresistible chasm, something like a polite schism, the people I loved acquaintances from a before-life.
Oh, my depression is truculent and malicious, a bruxism of mind; and yet though I recognize these are the thoughts of my anhedonia and loneliness I can't summon a challenge. I know it's the bloody pandemic and the isolation and the distance and the somewhat enclosed feeling of a small house with two young kids. Yet.
There's a cost to getting what you want. I'm sitting in a house we can pay off in a few years. It's almost slightly distasteful to look at our joint chequing account and see how much comes in every month, how secure our positions are.
I'm in a relationship that, for the first time in my life, I have no hesitations about. That inevitable feeling that I must move on never comes. I wanted the PhD, I wanted to teach--and yes, the children were surprising, difficult and delightful in equal measure--and received all of it.
It just cost me leaving home and never coming back. I talk to my therapist about my intrusive fantasies: what if I had never left? What if I had come back?
And when I look at a forgotten memory--even a dingy halo of light in a Pointe-Claire apartment building basement--the savagery of my own sadness is a drowning-wave I can't explain to anyone except the void where community used to be. Here.
1130 & the unexpected
Jul. 2nd, 2019 11:01 am So 2019 has been a year.
I haven't posted in over two years--clearly, I want slash need an audience--but I feel like I can't leave things as they were in post #1129. It's a nice bookend (if end it is!) to post this, since this journal started when I was still an undergraduate (May 11th, 2002, so, like, 17 years ago). But yeah, I was made full-time professor at Fanshawe College two months ago.
I honestly thought I wouldn't make it, because of the instability of course offerings over the semesters and the low pay adjuncts receive. We made do with EI in the summers and just lived with our modest means, though it always felt like enough.
But now I have the job. And a house we bought on a quiet street on the bad side of town. I like it. I like the yard. And don't tell anyone but oops second kid on the way. September! And I'm not writing, but I should be writing, I'd like to very much, and maybe I will. And openness.
Turned 40 this year. (Many of us are). It's pretty good. I mean, you know, peak male depression is around this time, around 40-50, and it's not always perfect in my head. Objectively it's pretty good.
So things turned out. No do-over.
I haven't posted in over two years--clearly, I want slash need an audience--but I feel like I can't leave things as they were in post #1129. It's a nice bookend (if end it is!) to post this, since this journal started when I was still an undergraduate (May 11th, 2002, so, like, 17 years ago). But yeah, I was made full-time professor at Fanshawe College two months ago.
I honestly thought I wouldn't make it, because of the instability of course offerings over the semesters and the low pay adjuncts receive. We made do with EI in the summers and just lived with our modest means, though it always felt like enough.
But now I have the job. And a house we bought on a quiet street on the bad side of town. I like it. I like the yard. And don't tell anyone but oops second kid on the way. September! And I'm not writing, but I should be writing, I'd like to very much, and maybe I will. And openness.
Turned 40 this year. (Many of us are). It's pretty good. I mean, you know, peak male depression is around this time, around 40-50, and it's not always perfect in my head. Objectively it's pretty good.
So things turned out. No do-over.
1129 & the do over
Apr. 11th, 2017 03:30 pm So as a failed academic--I mean it's not official official but it's pretty close--the new plan is to transition into instructional design.
This has been a long time coming, and I've foreseen the distinct possibility of not securing permanent work in post-secondary education. I've become a very good college professor in a narrow, personality-based way, and more importantly, the work feels easy and fun.
I'd rather take a few small steps sideways than abandon education altogether, and instructional design seems like an obvious move. People are hiring, the money is okay, and hopefully I won't hate it. (What I need in work is autonomous problem-solving; anything else and I kind of want to die).
I'm going through some grief about not being a good enough philosopher given an admittedly very shitty job market, but of course if I was as brilliant as I thought I was at about 19 then I would be at Harvard with tenure already. Yes, okay, there are factors outside of my control that explain my current situation. There are others that were, and it's okay if I admit to myself I didn't do a great job with them.
Through Fanshawe College I have access to Lynda.com's training modules on Instructional Design, I've downloaded pirated versions of software, and I have a plan to create a portfolio based on last Summer's logic course (which used open source texts--a decision I made which was partially motivated by anticipating I would have to do this transition).
So yeah, I saw this coming. Still stings. I've been teaching at Fanshawe College part-time for 3 years and wasn't even selected for pre-interview internal testing despite getting wonderful student reviews, above average every year. I would've been perfectly content teaching some philosophy courses and a bunch of boring communications and writing classes.
By my calculations I'm eligible for 4-5 months of EI. In that window I'll re-train myself and start over... at 38.
Don't know if I will post here more but there's definitely some stuff that my 'curated' FB personality can't really talk about. Gotta keep up appearances.
iopha
This has been a long time coming, and I've foreseen the distinct possibility of not securing permanent work in post-secondary education. I've become a very good college professor in a narrow, personality-based way, and more importantly, the work feels easy and fun.
I'd rather take a few small steps sideways than abandon education altogether, and instructional design seems like an obvious move. People are hiring, the money is okay, and hopefully I won't hate it. (What I need in work is autonomous problem-solving; anything else and I kind of want to die).
I'm going through some grief about not being a good enough philosopher given an admittedly very shitty job market, but of course if I was as brilliant as I thought I was at about 19 then I would be at Harvard with tenure already. Yes, okay, there are factors outside of my control that explain my current situation. There are others that were, and it's okay if I admit to myself I didn't do a great job with them.
Through Fanshawe College I have access to Lynda.com's training modules on Instructional Design, I've downloaded pirated versions of software, and I have a plan to create a portfolio based on last Summer's logic course (which used open source texts--a decision I made which was partially motivated by anticipating I would have to do this transition).
So yeah, I saw this coming. Still stings. I've been teaching at Fanshawe College part-time for 3 years and wasn't even selected for pre-interview internal testing despite getting wonderful student reviews, above average every year. I would've been perfectly content teaching some philosophy courses and a bunch of boring communications and writing classes.
By my calculations I'm eligible for 4-5 months of EI. In that window I'll re-train myself and start over... at 38.
Don't know if I will post here more but there's definitely some stuff that my 'curated' FB personality can't really talk about. Gotta keep up appearances.
iopha
1109 & ascension
Sep. 4th, 2014 07:18 pmProbably means nothing to most of you, but since I'm chronicling this here anyway: climbing v5 / 5.11 now and it feels goooood.
Well I mean right now everything hurts....
Well I mean right now everything hurts....
1100 & the oldest conflict
Aug. 6th, 2013 02:21 pmI don't have a lot of time until luck becomes a real factor, and then the decline inevitable. 15, 20 years. I'll be in my fifties. Then the roles will reverse again. But for now here's one strange realization rock climbing has given me: Rorschach's reversal as applied to the mind-body problem. I'm not a mind trapped inside a fleshy, bodily prison. This is a body trapped by my mind.
For now. It will win in the end. But I have twenty years of being the jailer. And that's an encouraging thought.
For now. It will win in the end. But I have twenty years of being the jailer. And that's an encouraging thought.
1094 & time makes you bolder
Jun. 5th, 2013 12:13 amMoment of tiny, staggering heart-break with Wren: we're at the park down the street. Usually I follow her around, helping her climb, catching her at the bottom of the slide. Today she turns to me and says "Daddy. Sit bench. Go, over there." And points. To the bench. With the other bored-looking parents. She's two and a half and doesn't need me at the park any more.
(Except that she totally did within, like, 3 minutes... but the thought was there.)
Also.
I haven't checked Facebook in a week. I feel weird, disconnected, and free. It's a little like not wearing underwear, I guess.
If I call any of you people out of the blue that's why.
1062 &&& the good news
Dec. 13th, 2011 03:24 amWe saw our pediatric neurologist today. It was a short visist. He has no significant concerns and wants to follow-up in another 12 months. He seems to to think there's a good chance Wren will be fine growing up.
This is true for about 10-15% of children with stage II HIE. The good doctor was rather amazed. We got lucky, I guess.
Tube's still going in. Didn't help my constant second-guessing and nerves that the neurologist seemed surprised we were moving forward with this. He seemed a bit more understanding when we explained our ongoing feeding difficulties (low solid intake, refusal to bottle feed, etc.) but fuck I still hate it. I can hold on to this, though.
This is true for about 10-15% of children with stage II HIE. The good doctor was rather amazed. We got lucky, I guess.
Tube's still going in. Didn't help my constant second-guessing and nerves that the neurologist seemed surprised we were moving forward with this. He seemed a bit more understanding when we explained our ongoing feeding difficulties (low solid intake, refusal to bottle feed, etc.) but fuck I still hate it. I can hold on to this, though.
