After a bit of a flight delay that landed us near home at 2am this morning, we're back.

Speaking of back(s), here is Mr. Squirrel's back, next to some Very Large Trees. (Guess where?)

(no, really)

Last night, mother-in-squirrel accused me of cheating at Scrabble.

This morning, father-in-squirrel told me that he had added up the point totals from the four games (I won two, I think) and that I certainly did not have the highest amount of points overall.

Dear fuck. Must leave for airport soon.

post-holiday angst

This idea of having both sets of parents in one house for six days was... bad. A bad idea. Mr. Squirrel keeps saying that things could be much worse, but "worse" would have to involve screaming and bloodshed.

The worst bits for me are the snarky little comments I've been getting from Mr. Squirrel's parents about my relationship with my parents. Apparently I'm mean (particularly to my father), and I don't speak to them respectfully, among other things.

Oh well. We fly back tomorrow and drive home the day after that.

Today we drive to my brother's house (about two hours away) and tomorrow we leave for the Other Coast. I have my iPod fully loaded, although I'm still considering a new TV show or a movie. Everyone keeps telling me that as a Whedon-fan I'd also like Veronica Mars, but I tried the first few episodes and wasn't overly interested. Maybe it gets better? Maybe I should download a few more episodes?

Oh! I just noticed that movies are really expensive... maybe $14.99 isn't bad for a DVD, but it's way too expensive for something to watch on the itty-bitty iPod screen. I know there's some illegal way to burn them, but I'm too lazy (and probably too concerned about the "illegal" bit) to do that. Shame, because I haven't seen Pirates of the Caribbean 2, and I think it would be good for the plane.

When we get to Other Coast, we have a couple days with just my parents. Then, around the 22nd or so, Mr. Squirrel's parents will join us. Yes, that's right: six days with both sets of parents in the same house. Who came up with this evil plot? I did.

P.S. No one ate any cookies at the cookie party. Or at least, very few cookies were consumed. The few "other" snacks that were there, however, were devoured.

Update: Boo! on iTunes!!! I gave in and bought Pirates 2, and then realized it had 75-minute download time. WTF? I haven't waited that long for a download in years... so I won't have it to watch on the plane, because we're leaving in 1/2 hour.

I think iTunes should be up-front about this. Hell, I can download an hour-long TV show in about 2 minutes... I know movies are better quality, but I think they should warn you.

We're about to be late for a cookie party.

Okay, I understand - in theory - the cookie party, but I really don't think I like them. Basically we're going to someone's house, bringing both cookies and drinks, and leaving by 5pm. What kind of drinks does one bring to a late afternoon party that couldn't be provided by the host? Is it really so difficult to stock up on coffee and soda these days? Hell, I might drink beer that early, but do others?

I'm in a snarky mood, in case you couldn't tell.

(Getting closer to leaving): Seriously, who came up with this idea, and when? I thought that if you were having a party it was generally because you wanted to have a party... if you really just want your guests to bring all the food and drinks, why not have everyone meet for lunch somewhere? It's certainly less annoying.

Specifically for Buzz...

An article, just for you (and me)!!

Re: working out and lowering cancer risk -- "The greatest benefits went to those who had quit smoking and also exercised, with just 82 cancer cases compared to 95 in sedentary former smokers."

See? We rock!

Bullets, with updates!

See what happens when you draft? You end up with updates to points that no one even saw...

• Apparently blogging about blogrolling fixed the problem. Who knew? This must be similar to blogging about lost objects.
  
• My car is refinanced, barring any weirdness. I'm happy, and I have one less thing on my plate. Update: Er, there were some issues with this later in the day, but they only resulted in an extra $11/month, and I'll go with it for now.
  
• Mr. Squirrel is calling PsychoCollege today to try some stalling tactics. I spent a good half hour talking with our new grad chair (I do love him) about the possible ways to fix this situation. I believe Mr. Squirrel is going to take the "honest" approach and say that this was not what he was expecting, and that he must wait until the other interviews play out. Update: PsychoCollege basically withdrew the offer. Apparently they wanted him to decide today, and when he wasn't willing to do that (actually, he hadn't talked that far... this happened after about five minutes of discussion about details of the offer) the Dean cut him off and said something to the effect of 'this isn't likely to work, because we need a decision NOW.' Mr. Squirrel is a wee bit morose, because this is a sucky way to have your first official offer play out.
• Oh, and the loan money that finally went through (after the registrar lost my paperwork for the fourth semester in a row) is dwelling in a black hole somewhere. The bank has transferred it electronically to my college, but it's not in my account. Contacting the bursar has resulted only in my frustration (and some choice swear words at home). Now they're "not promising" it will reach me by the 27th, and I have started a steady stream of polite but really pissed off emails to various places. As if that has a chance in hell of helping.
  

bullets of problems (for someone else to solve)

• Blogrolling hasn't worked for the last several days.
• Mr. Squirrel was just offered a one-year contract, four hours from here, and is supposed to get back to them on Wednesday. What does one do, when there are interviews being set up for January at other schools? This was supposed to be a tenure-track position, too, and he has no idea why they'd offer him this instead. (Well, they said they were opening the search back up for next year, which makes this offer a bit of an insult.)
  
• I still haven't refinanced my car, and have been playing phone tag with the dealership chick over the last two days.
  
• My desire to exercise has flown out the window. I was up to about an hour of cardio a day - and enjoying it - but now I keep finding reasons to avoid the bike. Have set a small goal today (20 minutes), simply to get myself back into the habit.
  

Of course they are.

My parents are in Chile right now. They leave Concepción for Santiago in a couple days.

Wooing?

I feel as though Mr. Squirrel and I are being wooed. Not for sex (I don't think, although I'm notoriously dense about these things) but for... "couples BFF" or something.

I sorta feel like I need a shower, typing that.

This is new to me. We are not a social couple. In fact, one of the reasons we're a couple is that neither of us is overly social. A good Friday night in the Squirrel household involves cooking dinner and cuddling in front of the TV for an hour, before we run to our respective dens and pet our respective cats.

Lately, though, we've been getting lots of invitations from other couples to do stuff. Two other couples in particular, with a third lurking in the background. (I think couple #3 would really rather bond with couple #1 instead of us, but couple #1 seems uninterested in them, in that way.)

It's all rather too much like dating, for me. And we, the Squirrels, are that person that treats his/her dates like shit -- we don't call back, we're bad at returning emails, and we don't host dinners (the latter more because we don't have the space for it). Still, these couples seem to like being treated like that??

Please note: I really do like two of the couples. In a normal situation, I'd be very happy to see them on a somewhat regular basis... but for me, that means "when we bump into each other," because I suck at the social thing. I have very few people in the "friend" category, actually -- four? Not including family? And I talk to those people a couple times a year, and see them even less frequently.

Well, the exam wasn't the most thrilling thing in my life, but it went okay. Good thing, because I'm going to have to have them far more frequently: every two years, at this point.

They found three polyps - two large, one small - and are doing biopsies on the large ones.

Oh, I was on "low" sedation, at my request, so I remember all of it. And it did hurt a bit, but nothing horribly bad. After they snipped the first one, the doctor looked over at me and said "did you hear the ticking?" As I started wondering if I the was the only one on the wacky-inducers, he finishes with "'cause that was a time bomb, that one was."

Joy. (For those of you unaware of this, large polyps often become cancerous. Size really does matter, in this case, which is why people with family histories of them need more frequent procedures.)

I should find out next week about the results. I'm not overly worried... either it's cancer, or it's not. If it is, I'll starting worrying then. I don't imagine my father will be pleased, though. He was finishing his PhD in this very city when he was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 32.

Beer is a clear liquid!

In the midst of SquirrelCar woes and Mr. Squirrel finally making it home, I had forgotten that I'm having a minor procedure/test tomorrow. The preparation for this - which everyone says is the worst part of it - requires that I don't eat any solid food, and drink only clear liquids.

Don't worry, I won't go into details about this... I'm rolling my eyes even as I type.

I'm looking at the list of what I'm "allowed" to drink/eat (cause you're allowed Jell-O, just no red Jell-O) and thinking "white wine and beer are both clear liquids, aren't they?"

So I googled. And indeed - according a reputable office that does said procedure, even - beer and white wine are both acceptable clear liquids.

Considering the general anxiety I'm feeling over this whole thing, I might just have made my own day.

I wish he had flown.

Mr. Squirrel is okay, but got in an car accident tonight, 10 minutes from his (job interview) destination.

Minor injuries: whiplash, burns from the airbags... nothing big. Although whiplash hurts like a bitch, it does. I warned him.

The car is probably in trouble. It was towed to "Ed's Exxon," (that's not a joke) and awaits a mechanic in the morning.

It was dark, and there was a lot of traffic. Then, apparently, there was a cinder block in the middle of the freeway lane, and nowhere for Mr. Squirrel to go, to avoid it. Cinder block + underneath of car = Not A Good Thing. The car behind him hit him, and then veered into the median. All drivers are okay. For this I am very thankful.

Update: All seems fine, health-wise, this morning. I was worried he'd wake up with some horrible slow-acting injury, but all is well. The interview is at 2pm, but he's lost most all of the prep time that driving down early was supposed to give him. (He teaches six courses, so there hasn't been a lot of free time to prep before now.)

He doesn't want to tell the interviewers about the accident, lest they think he's making excuses... I told him he has to, even if he couches it as "a funny thing happened on the way to the interview."

Further update: Why must it be so damn difficult to get someone from point A to point B? After probably an hour on the phone - on hold, of course - with Enterprise, someone finally told me "oh, we don't do one-way rentals." Huh? Unfortunately, Enterprise happens to be the only company that has a deal with State Farm... so our $20/day rental coverage is pretty much useless, for today.

[Would you submit the car rental receipt to the college in expenses for the interview? Mr. Squirrel drove instead of flying, and the rental will still be far less than the plane flight would have been... and they explicitly said they didn't mind paying for airfare.]

Anyway, I've finally managed to find him a rental car, and set up a long-term rental through the Enterprise office here starting tomorrow.

No idea on the status of SquirrelCar, which is still at Ed's.

I have four days to make a decision about my car.

Here's the deal: I'm at the end of my lease-type-thing and have a mid-sized balloon payment to refinance. This is fine, except that my (admittedly very low) monthly payment will go up by about $100.

My other option is to use my car as a trade-in on a new car - same weird lease-type-thing - and have the low payments again for another 2-3 years before a new balloon payment comes due. One assumes (*cough*) that in 2-3 years I won't be an ABD adjunct, any longer, and will better be able to make higher car payments.

Suggestions? Honestly, I'm leaning toward keeping my car, but part of me says that's being stupid.

Last night was my last class of the semester. Or, at least, the last class of mine this semester -- I agreed to guest lecture in Mr. Squirrel's class tonight while he leaves for his job interview.

I forgot last night was the last class. How lame is that? They've generally been a very good class, and I didn't say a word to them about the semester overall. May have to write a nice email, encouraging them to continue what they're doing. Two of the six ended up being slackers, but the other four were always prepared and very into the readings.

So, tonight, I go into a three-hour night class with absolutely nothing prepared to say. Even though that's okay - the alternative was cancelling the class - I still have a little wobbly feeling in my stomach.

It doesn't help that it's snowing, and that I don't have my snow tires on the car, and that it's a 45 minute drive on icy roads... Ack!

I had no idea this was being made into a film. Where have I been?

Oh no!

I feel horribly, horribly guilty for requiring the book we're covering in class, today.

It was new... it looked interesting... the author is someone I hadn't read before, but seemed up-and-coming...

It sucked. It essentially characterizes all "western feminists" as dumb-ass racist bitches who write for Vogue and spend their spare time picking flowers to decorate the goddess statues in their white, middle-class communes.

We've covered some really difficult modern feminist thought in this course, and this is some retreat into brow-beating Carol Christ and Mary Daly.

Sigh. That'll teach me to end with new text.

...and more

I've promised Mr. Squirrel that if he gets the tenure-track job, we can go to Amsterdam for a few days this spring. I was thinking how silly that was, financially, even though fares are dirt cheap (flight + hotel = $500 each) until I remembered: I'm saving at least $2000/year from not smoking.

Shouldn't there still be rewards for not smoking, this early (less than 2 years) into my quit?

Oh, also...

... in addition to vibes, I need recommendations for a Neil Gaiman book. Apparently - or, according to all of my recommendations on Amazon and other sites - I would enjoy his books. Haven't read any of them.

Vibes needed...

In a couple days, Mr. Squirrel has an on-campus interview for a tenure-track job about four hours away.

I have no idea what we would do, if he got this job. It's close enough that I could stay here and teach, if my chair would give me a Tu-W-Th schedule and a contract... I'm not opposed to renting a studio (or a room) and spending two or three nights a week by myself.

Candles!

There's a big candle sale at Pier One*. I got 9 (varying size pillar) candles for $29, today. This is good, because the power is likely to go out as we get slammed by Big Storm.

*Note: this is the online version (obviously) but it seemed like all the candles in-store were on sale.

Bullets of Crap, end-of-semester version

• Since we got the new bed, I've been sleeping like crazy. Seriously, like crazy: I don't wake up in the middle of the night, and I sleep at least eight hours. I know the exercise is also contributing to the new sleep pattern, but the bed has made a huge difference. Today, however, we crossed into "too much sleep." I went to bed around midnight, and woke up at 11:30am. Why? It's not as though my body is catching up on sleep. And if I'm fighting off a cold or something, I'm doing an excellent job -- I don't feel at all ill.
• What on earth do I call my husband on this new blog? I was thinking "Mr. Squirrel," - and I think I used "the squirrel household" in an earlier post - but we are not the squirrels of the blog title (we don't scream very much). The obvious answer is that if I'm Margie - for reasons that I'm already unclear on - he is Bill... but that makes no sense, either.
  
• One week left in the semester. Everyone else is looking forward to the end of the semester, but for me it means going back to full-time work. I only have four classes next semester - still trying to get a fifth - but it will mean five-day workweeks again.
  

Eek!

I've just been asked to replace my usual summer course offering (at Small Private College) with another course. This is fine... except that this particular course is fraught with issues and I'm a bit scared of it. I teach the 400-level version of the course at Large Private University, but it's super-specific and relates very easily to my other interests. Teaching the intro. version of the course requires a lot more general knowledge, as most intro. courses do.

Now, I've been explicitly told that I can morph it as desired, and turn it into something closer to my usual "speciality course." I don't actually want to do that -- obviously my interests will show in the texts I choose (she says, rubbing her hands together in glee!) but I don't want it to be the same course. Summer courses always seem like a good time to stretch my comfort zone: we have no official course evals during the summer at SPC, and the students are usually somewhat interested.

Teaching this course also adds nicely to my CV. This particular field is currently white-hot, and though it's likely to cool off in the near future it will still serve me well.

Tonight's wine.

Yes, it was a special night in the Squirrel household. Opening a bottle of wine valued at more than $10 always marks some kind of important occasion.

Summer classes have been assigned, and we both ended up with at least two (assuming students register for them). Many professors, I'm sure, would cringe at the idea of losing most of their summer to teaching... for us, it means keeping food in the cat bowls and in the refrigerator. And not even the same food, at that!!

Seriously, it's a load off both our minds. And since we didn't get through the whole bottle, I can have a nice relaxing glass of wine tomorrow night, too. (Thanks in part to the wonders of the Vac-U-Vin. If you ever wondered whether this particular item was worth $12.99, let me assure you that it most certainly is.)

Seen at Buzz's, and I'll do it even though my readership can be counted on one hand. Hell, for someone with my particular interests, this is the equivalent of seeing the Flying Spaghetti Monster first-hand.

[Short Version: Link to this post in the name of science. Ask others to do the same. Results to be announced during the "Meet the Bloggers" panel at MLA 2006.]

A grad student is doing an experiment on the speed of memes.What is the speed of
meme? People write in general (typically triumphant) terms about how swiftly a
single voice can travel from one side of the internet to the other and back
again, but how often does that actually happen? Of those instances, how often is
it organic?

1. Write a post linking to this one in which you explain the experiment. (All blogs count, be they TypePad, Blogger, MySpace, Facebook, &c.)

2. Ask your readers to do the same. Beg them. Relate sob stories about poor graduate students in desperate circumstances. Imply I'm one of them. (Do whatever you have to. If that fails, try whatever it takes.)

3. Ping Technorati.

That is all, except that I fixed the typo from the original web page in instruction #3, and find that rather amusing.

P.S.

In my head, there's a competition to see which of the (four) senior seminars in our department will fill up first.

Despite the fact that I know no one else in the school pays attention to these things... I won! And I feel good about it! (And I might be able to parlay this into a third section if I act quickly, which would help my Spring budget immensely.)

Also: I am still very much liking Studio 60. I stand ready to curse the sudden but inevitable betrayal-cancellation of yet another show I like.

Anxiety monster rears ugly head.

As you know, I quite regularly use my blog to unravel and/or talk myself through my anxiety attacks. Today has been a doozy. The levels of anxiety are low to middling, but we're hitting a rather longish duration, right now. It started right after class ended (6pm) and is still going at 11pm.

Please note that this was one of the reasons I was not diagnosed with anxiety disorder way back when... the doctors said that nothing that lasted as long as I said it did could possibly be anxiety or panic attacks. Boy, were they wrong.

I suppose that considering the dx they came up with (MS), I should be happy to have apparently proved them wrong. Usually I am. Passing the five-hour anxiety attack mark, however, makes me less happy than usual about it.

Today seems focused on random death fears. Like: I just started having a headache behind my right eye. Despite the fact that I had a (completely clear) MRI about six months ago, this immediately means "large unknown mass pushing on eyeball," rather than "stop sitting with your shoulders crunched into your neck." (Fascinating, isn't it, how all those muscles are connected? Most of my headaches really can be traced to my posture immediately before or during said headache.)

Maybe it's allergens.

ahead of the game, today

I'm caught up on grading, and I've read every sentence of everything we're covering in class today. I have four hours of pre-class-time, and I'll have to spend none of it worrying about not being prepared.

Woohoo!!

I do still plan to work on chapter four today. I was reading back-posts on Academic Coach yesterday, and am going with the idea that smaller chunks of time, daily, make more progress than infrequent, long writing sessions. I will update this post later with my progress.

and more cats

I don't usually blog this much about the cats, but they're all behaving horribly this morning.

Instead of sleeping on my head, Winter decided it would be more fun to bat at my head -- at 7am. Little Guy, a few minutes later, started crying to be let under the covers. As he's Siamese, his crying is impossible to ignore. Finally, Winter found a small piece of paper and started batting at that instead, making more noise than I would have believed possible.

The kicker is, I was in the middle of this really odd dream and was trying to find a secret door behind a wax head... I had just figured out that there were, in fact, six secret doors, but that only one of them would take me where I needed to go.

Bastard cats.

Get off your ass!

The job search has come to a screeching halt. After nearly two months of preparing applications, sending packets out, and waiting for interviews, we're the in "wait" stage of "hurry up and..."

Sasha has an on-campus in early December. The other two schools he interviewed at will be making those (on-campus) decisions in January. None of my schools were doing pre-screening interviews, and so I haven't heard a word from any of them. I'm thinking positively and have decided that not receiving a rejection letter yet is a good thing -- it may mean that I've made it through the first round of decisions.

It's a strange time of the year. I need to put in three good weeks of dissertation-writing before going to the Other Coast for the holidays. (More about that later, as the in-laws will be staying with my family, and I'm wondering how it will go.) I have not worked on the dissertation for the last six weeks, and after meeting with my advisor last weekend I'm feeling strange about the process. She was very supportive, but in a "get off your ass" sort of way. I do, in fact, need to get off my ass, so that's not the issue.

Tomorrow, then, one single goal: organize what I have of chapter four. (I'm skipping chapter three for now, because I feel it's holding me back.) This should be about an hour of work, and will - hopefully? - help me realize that I have a good start to the chapter.

Cats!

My cat, Winter, sleeps on my head. Because she's only 4 or 5 pounds, this doesn't bother me... it's much like having a fuzzy little hat for cold nights.

Last night, Little Guy - the middle child - decided to do the same thing. Little Guy weighs closer to 12 pounds, and is impossible to move.

Cory, our eldest, ended up in the crook of my knees.

When I got up at 8am, I looked back and saw half a bed with Sasha (sleeping soundly), and half a bed with 3 cats. I'm not even sure how I fit into the little space the cats had left me. They won't sleep on Sasha because he tosses them off in his sleep... apparently I don't toss with enough vigor.

Usually Winter follows me out of bed, waits somewhat patiently while I make coffee, and then curls up in my lap while I do morning-computer-stuff. Today, she looked up blearily when I moved (my head) and promptly relocated to the center of my pillow. Almost two hours later, she's still there. Cat loyalty fades when the temperature drops below freezing, I think.

An explanation.

I'm almost financially okay.

As of this morning, I've been approved for a loan that will - I think - see me through the end of summer. Well, it will if I:

• teach at least four (preferably five) classes in Spring semester.
• get at least one (preferably two) classes in summer session.
• don't do (or drink, or eat) anything even remotely interesting.

Since I really have to finish writing the dissertation, point three shouldn't be too difficult.

Now, an explanation of the move here...

This weekend was job-centered. Not so much because I was interviewing or came anywhere close to getting a job, but because there were other people around me doing those things (note sarcasm).

Thinking about my CV, I realized there was a possibility of someone tracing me to my blog. It would take some effort and maybe even a bit of luck, but it certainly could have happened. I've erased that particular issue from the CV, and checked that no one from the towns/colleges have been visiting, but it still seemed like a better idea to be a little more careful.

While I'm fairly sure that someone could track me from this blog to my actual self, I'd rather that the reverse wasn't possible.

Keep your fingers crossed for me: I should find out tomorrow if I got the loan that will solve many of my financial problems.

Tomorrow, with some coffee, I will also blog about the change of venue.

Welcome back?

This is my new space.

Even though it's still under construction, I am happier with it. There were some issues with my old blog, and I hope to fix those, here.