Going out of town, again. I probably won't get to see a hockey game while I'm gone this time, though.

I think I'm the better for having taken a few days away. I used to travel so much more, especially when I was playing hockey, and I'd forgotten how useful it is to just leave everything behind for a bit. I'm going away again on Thursday for four days, and I think that, too, will be nice.

One thing I realized this weekend is how much my confidence is being eroded and undermined by my current job. I was completely blown away on Friday when the people with whom I interviewed took me absolutely seriously. I'm so used to being talked to as if I was a pre-schooler that being addressed as a presumably intelligent adult knocked me back on my heels in surprise. I talked to six different people on Friday, and I never felt as if they were merely indulging me, but that they actually wanted to hear what I had to say. That hasn't happened in awhile and as I thinking about it afterward, I decided it should happen a lot more often. Really, it should.

Where I was Friday at 2 p.m.:

http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/04/1006humanities.html

Maybe I'll say more later, but my opinion can really be summed up in a short sentence: I was convinced NOT AT ALL that Stanley Fish had any sort of remedy for the (alleged) crisis of the Humanities.

In the interest of spending even more time alone, and possibly rendering myself completely mute, I'm going out of town this weekend. Leaving Thursday, coming back...well, we'll see. By the end of the weekend, I'm sure. Certainly in time to go out of town again next weekend.

Silence is habit-forming, isn't it? If your daily routine requires--or at least results in--isolation, and in addition you spend the majority of your free time alone, you lose not just the opportunity, but also the desire to share your thoughts with other people. All communication is inwardly focused, and the external world ceases to exist after awhile. It's a subtle but possibly irreversible slide into reclusivity.

I used to think that becoming a hermit would take work, or that at least I would feel some level of sacrifice, giving up social interaction and stimulation. But it's the exact opposite: becoming and staying alone is easy. The effort comes in remaining connected to the people I (used to) know. It's so simple to postpone speaking, hoarding my thoughts and forgetting--refusing--to share them later. It's easy to be lulled into a state of complacency, reading my own mind and keeping my own counsel. Participating in public discourse takes on the form of self-betrayal, and in the end, it's more rewarding to pull away entirely, and refuse to answer when people stand at the mouth of your cave and demand that you come out and play.

What I'm trying to remember is that eventually I'll feel better. At some point the pendulum will swing itself out of this trough and I'll hit some high days, days when I won't have to carry this exhaustion with me everywhere I go. How can a person spend twelve and a half hours in bed and still wake up tired and spent? I wish I knew.

Lately, I've been thinking about how nice it would have been to actually realize the future my parents envisioned for me when I was young. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, I managed to stray so far from their chosen path that I'm not sure they're able to recognize me now, what with the haze and distortion of the long distances between us.

When I was a child, it was pretty much assumed that I would attend a Christian college. In junior high, it looked certain that I would be going to Western Baptist in Salem. But when I was really young, the plan was always to have me go off to Oral Roberts University and become a gospel singer. My mom eventually changed her mind on that (thanks, Patti Roberts), but still, it probably puzzled everyone when I chose Western Washington over Western Baptist. I even gave up on music in the end, possible a bigger surprise than giving up on Christianity.

I don't think it's really the "in" thing for atheists to do, but if someone called me up tomorrow and offered me a job as a gospel singer, I'd probably take the gig.

I guess the best that can be said for the situation is that my boss didn't fire me, and I didn't quit. That probably means that we both exercised at least a bit of restraint, although I'd argue that I exercised a lot more. A *lot* more.

Well, Catherine kicked my ass again in today's 5k. I kept telling myself I would catch up with her, even if it meant puking afterward. I didn't catch her up--she beat me by 5-8 seconds--but I did throw up in the end. Unfortunately, I wasn't the first person to use that particular trash barrel to vomit, and that discovery made me upchuck a second time. And yet still, we went out to lunch with our neighbor afterward and planned our next race schedule.

This morning I had a few applying-to-graduate-school errands to accomplish, so I took a few hours off from work. I think my quality of life improved from being able to get an extra hour of sleep, even if I have to skip lunch a couple of times to make the hours up.

If anyone wants me, I'll be down by the river, sitting under an osage orange tree and reading a book.

Today my boss told me to be careful when I'm speaking to clients because some of them are extremely religious. I asked him what he meant, since I thought I was doing a remarkably good job at ignoring the bigotry that sometimes goes on around me. He said, "Well, the other day in the meeting, L. said something, and you muttered that she was being a totalitarian." He didn't explain, of course, the connection he thought I was making between totalitarianism, religion, and handicapped access to our museum, which was the topic on the table at the time. Anyway, I think if he's going to accuse me of something, he needs to get it right. What I said was, "Ah. Jeremy Bentham's formulation of utilitarianism, the greatest good for the greatest number of people," an assessment that was not only inoffensive, but perfectly appropriate for the conversation. If only my boss knew who Bentham was, that is.

And speaking of formulations, how many different ways can I say that I'm tired? I've run out of synonyms. I wish I never had to get out of bed. Ever.

If I believed in god, which I don't, but if I did, I'd wonder why he was always pounding his fist on Haiti. It's a big universe--don't you think he could spread it around a bit?

1. I decided to go w/the Dick Francis option, just in case you're curious. There's 30 or 40 of them, and re-reading them should keep me busy for a couple weeks. And just to prove that I am still a Serious Thinker (tm), I promise I'll read at least one of them in a language other than English, okay?

2. I also decided some other stuff--a LOT of other stuff--so I won't have to make any more decisions until the middle of 2005. And even then, the decision making won't be all mine, so there's nothing more to worry about. I easily narrowed a list of about 50 schools to about 24, and then without much more difficulty cut that list down to six. Then down to five, and finally to four, although number five keeps getting cut then added back on. But, really, down to four. And that's all the decision making I have to do on that.

3. I wish I had run as well last Saturday as I ran this evening. It sucks to be me.

Too many choices. Besides the race yesterday, we had many other choices for entertainment this weekend: the Lotus Festival, the International Mongolian Festival, the Multicultural Festival, the Chautauqua of the Arts, the Apple Butter Festival, and a hot air balloon race.

We had to cross the Mongolian Festival off our list because tickets were $40 a piece. That's a bit steep for a one day pass, no matter what the attraction. The Chautauqua and the hot air balloon race missed us because I was too tired to drive that far yesterday afternoon. Really too bad, because I wanted to see the balloons go off. We did the free-of-charge parts of the Lotus last night, and that was fun. Today we went to the Apple Butter festival, and right now Catherine is at the Multicultural Festival. I'm going to meet her there later, after I clear some e-mail out of my inbox. I think I've earned a vacation.

Catherine ran in her first 5k today, and she kicked my ass. I struggled the entire race to keep up with her, and now I'm wiped out. She, apparently, feels fine and is very much looking forward to the next race.

Just got back from downtown. We wandered around the free part of the Lotus Festival this evening. Had a good time watching Kepa Junkera. Actually, I mostly watched the drummer, Blas Fernandez, and the txalaparta players, Igor Oxtoa and Harkaitz Martinez. Wish I could get me one of those things (the txalaparta, not the Oxtoa or Martinez). Very nice way to pass an hour.

Breaking my self-imposed moratorium on political discussion, I must say fundrace.org is really fascinating. If you put in a zip code, you can track political contributions in your neck of the woods. Some of the contributions from my neighborhood are to be expected--a few $20,000+ donations to the RNC by big business--but who would expect a grad student to have given Wesley Clark, John Kerry, and John Edwards $1,000 each, then follow it up w/$800 more to John Kerry? I wish I had his graduate student stipend. I would have guessed the top echelon of the Chamber of Commerce leaned right, but I was wrong, it donated to the left. I sure as hell wouldn't have expected anyone from Ken Nunn's office to be voting Democrat, but I was wrong about that as well. But the Mellencamps donated exactly how you'd expect them to, so I guess the world's not so crazy after all.

Massive headache. Must kill.

Lessons learned this week:

swallow the pride and ask for the favor;

Villa Lante;

Tsaritsino;

if the USB port on the back of the computer doesn't produce results, try the one on the front;

good goggles = ability to see dirt in the pool;

not a mathematician;

not a statistician;

the world deserves itself.