I don't always feel much like posting. Sometimes it's easier just to read for a while, and maybe to chime in with a comment here and there. It's sort of like when I get on the freeway on a route I've driven dozens of times before; I know it well enough to just get myself into the correct lanes, and I just drive without actually thinking about it. An hour can go by, and I realize that I've made it almost all the way home without really knowing what I did with such a big chunk of my time other than go.

It's nice at times, really. Almost meditative. But still, I always feel slightly uncomfortable when I come out of it. And I kind of think that I might keep a journal because of a similar kind of discomfort: I sometimes feel like I need to force myself to pay closer attention and keep myself from slipping into a type of holistic autopilot.

I think that's part of it, at least.

Anyway, I've spending tons of time thinking about house stuff and flowers and furniture and whether or not we want to pair the blinds with sheers, and while it certainly wouldn't hurt to cultivate a greener thumb and a slightly more consistent approach to domestic upkeep, I really need to start being a student again.

At one point, I had five different jobs at the same time, and working them took up most of my days (and evenings as well). I had a very easy, legitimate excuse for my slow progress—there just wasn't enough time. The move provided a legitimate excuse for a while, too. Still, I'm quickly running out of fingers to point at things that are keeping me from my dissertation. I just need to get my ass in gear, pound out a proposal, and get some work done. I cut down on my job hours dramatically, and there's plenty of time now.

But that's part of what's frightening about the whole process. When you're out of excuses, you have to confront some things about yourself that might be more basic problems. Discipline, motivation, a loss of the conviction that "I'm going to be a professor no matter what, even if I have to move to rural Alabama because that's where I get a job, if I'm lucky enough to get a job at all." The realization that this project is just big and difficult and that the longer I spend away from it, the more rusty my memory of what I've already done gets. (If you're me, this only takes a few months to start in.) The knowledge that if I'm going to finish, I'm going to have to get to work not only on the project, but on some basic behaviors that need to be modified if I'm going to get the work done.

I love being in a new home, working on how it looks and how it feels. But I haven't spent every year since 1994 in grad school so I could be better at interior decorating; I came to do this thing, even if I'm no longer exactly sure where I want it to take me. Somewhere in this process, I'm bound to remember that I actually love the work, too. Some of the professors I know have managed to stay in a kind of honeymoon phase with their scholarly activities for decades. They speak about them fondly (or wistfully when their studies are delayed by administrative duties or overloaded classes). They miss them as they would miss a loved one during an absence, and their eyes gleam when they talk about an article or book idea they're working on.

I don't think I have it in me to stay in that kind of honeymoon phase my entire life. Indeed, I think it's already over, unless these things are renewable. I know I can still gleam, though—even if I occasionally have to sit in front of an empty Word document for three days in order to get there. And it's time for me to start working myself back to that place in my head where it happens.