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.

I've put so many things away tonight! There's more to go, though, so I had to take just a little, tiny break and look at the old yearbooks in one of my boxes. In 1983, someone referred to our middle school as "bitchin." In 1984, someone encouraged me to have a "punky perfect summer and eat lots of peanut butter." In 1985, a clever girl used one large 'S' to request that I "stay sweet and sassy," and, more daringly, a large 'B' for a warning: "bad boys bring babies."

I'll even post pictures.

6th grade:

I was late transferring to that school, so it was one of those new kid group shots.

7th grade:

Was I still in my Nancy Drew phase then? I thought I had moved out of that years before this photo was taken.

8th grade:

That hair! Oh, the humanity.

My 9th, 10th, and 12th grade yearbooks don't seem to be in that box, but the former two were years I spent overcoming the combination of braces, an ill-advised perm, and intense chlorine exposure. You're not missing out.

11th grade:

As jonlipnicky would say, "I will fucking kill you."

In other news, I bought a new toaster today. It was cheap, and it has those nice, wide slots that can accommodate bagels. When I took it out of the box, I learned that it has specific, printed settings for Pop-Tarts and Eggos. Something about owning a toaster with settings just for Pop-Tarts and Eggos strikes me as rather trashy, but damned if I didn't put a Pop-Tart in it and toast it on that setting. You know, just to see.

It was good.

So, you know that wedding you went to ages ago, and at the reception, there was this godawful band with a lead singer who was bad when he sang, but even worse when he talked, which he never seemed to stop doing? He made unremittingly unfunny jokes and kept trying to get people to do interactive dances, when all everyone wanted to do was grab another cocktail and dance like normal people. You said nothing, not wanting to offend your friends who were getting married, but you suffered silently and perhaps rolled your eyes once or twice to communicate your discomfort to your date.

My neighbors hired That Guy to help along with the festivities at some sort of shindig this evening. I tried hard to tune it out, but I kept catching lines like, "and then, they ran out of rickshaws."

The new washer and dryer are supposed to arrive tomorrow. Never in my life have I looked forward so eagerly to doing laundry. I'm sure the feeling will wear off quite quickly, but for now, I'm going to try to ride that domestic wave.

Interviewing people for jobs is always interesting and a little draining. We've been interviewing candidates for positions at the Writing Center for next year, and it's really quite fascinating to see how differently people react under what is undoubtedly a stressful situation for many of them.

I've had three different jobs in which part of my job involved interviewing. Some people walk in, completely relaxed, and you sit down and have a pleasant conversation about pedagogy, the job, the responsibilities and challenges. Others walk in with a definite "game face," and while they often give impressive, well thought-out answers to the questions I've asked, it sometimes feels like talking to someone who used to sell used cars for a living. I've actually found myself trying to calculate "bitchiness potential" with the game face folks; it's hard not to wonder if they're just acting nice.

[Side note: I actually think my own interviews are usually somewhere between these first two, depending on how much I know about the position and how comfortable I feel with the interviewers.]

Others come in seemingly unprepared to answer any question, no matter how sensible, and sputter out answers that are at best ill-advised. Why would you tell a potential employer that you want to work somewhere because it doesn't seem too stressful and you really hate grading freshman comp papers? Or that you've had trouble getting jobs in the past? Or that your best job experience was good "because you really didn't have to do anything"? These are also the people who seem absolutely shocked when we ask them to do things like look at a sample paper and tell us what they would say about it if we were students who had come to them for an appointment. They shoot us a slightly accusatory look, say, "You mean right now?" and then choke for a bit.

Then there are the people for whom interviewing is obviously a semi-traumatic experience, and these are the hard ones. You can often tell that they're really quite qualified and friendly, but you sit there and observe as they panic, see them sweating in a cool room or breaking out in hives, and watch as their minds—obviously not empty as a rule—go completely blank. It's hard to watch. I want to take them out for a beer and get them some jalapeno poppers and chat more informally so that I can actually get some basic sense of who they are.

And if they don't like beer and jalapeno poppers, well... then I'm at a loss.

I don't remember losing my faith, and I wonder sometimes if that means I never had any. I've read the accounts of people like Mary McCarthy, who remembered exactly what it felt like. She smoothed out the gaps that time creates and embellished a few of the particulars, but it is obvious that everything she felt about losing her faith was still quite present for her, present in her story.

Losing my faith was more of a matter of phasing it out. Perhaps it's because I had to make a conscious decision to acquire faith in the first place. I had moved to Texas with my brother, my mother, and her new husband, and I was quite young. I had been living in Northern California, and Dallas seemed strange to me. It was hot, and people talked funny, and they seemed to care about things that my old friends hadn't cared about. My mom had a tattoo and had been divorced more than once; this was the stuff of scandal in our conservative neighborhood. My brother and I used phrases like "oh my God" periodically, and had no idea what such utterances would do to the expressions on the faces of people around us. "Shast-aaaa!," Mrs. Reeves would call when I visited her daughter Laura, "are you taking the name of the Lord in vain in my house?"

"No, ma'am," I answered, sometimes truthfully.

Well, there seemed to be two options. We could remain heathens, forsake the Lord and His teachings, and have scorn heaped upon us by our neighbors, teachers, and schoolmates. Alternatively, we could become believers, start attending church, and carve out a bona fide place for ourselves among our Texan neighbors.

When I put it in such terms, it seems as though our decision amounted to a simple sell-out, but that's really not the case. We didn't consciously decide to Get Religion in order to make our neighbors and peers accept us. There is a point, I think, where being a disbeliever can seem much less sensible than being one of the devout. When those around you obviously regard you with a mixture of pity and horror—our souls were in danger, after all—their zeal starts to seem normal, and you wonder if they aren't perhaps right.

We did, at least.

I remember attending a Lutheran church for a while, which I thought strange because my grandparents—in their more devout moments, anyway—identified as Catholic. They still do, though they are some of the most lukewarm "non-lapsed" Catholics I've ever met. Grandma used to watch television evangelists while lying around in bed on Sundays; she hung her rosary beads from one of her bed posts. Never mind that the evangelist wasn't Catholic; it was an activity she considered spiritual. It was half-assed, no doubt, but to her, it was something. Occasionally, I listened a bit, though I liked the choirs better than the preachers, who always seemed like Richard Dawson, complete with Vaseline but plus about seventy-five pounds. Grandma had an exercise bike in her bedroom, and I used to pedal as fast as I could, which kept me busy and had the side benefit of drowning out the evangelical exhortations.

But my grandparents didn't live in Texas; they lived in San Francisco, and Texas was a different kind of realm entirely. I remember spending a great deal of time around Baptists, though I don't think we ever attended a Baptist church. I don't remember why we abandoned the Lutheran church, though I do remember going to Sunday School at a Methodist church for several years. One of its members was actually excommunicated for getting a divorce. My mom, who was on her third marriage at the time, asked why she was exempt. She was told that she had not truly found God before attending this church, so her past sins were forgiven. The implied message, of course, was that she—and anyone else listening, for that matter—had better watch their step, because this church had the power to cut them off from salvation.

What is it like to retain faith but feel like you've lost access to your community of worshippers, and perhaps to your God? That's what I wondered as the Divorced Sinner was driven out of our church. It must be horrifying to believe but feel that your belief won't do you any good. I wonder if it would be something like having a pocketful of foreign currency and not being able to spend it on groceries that you absolutely need—though I imagine it would be worse. I found myself hoping he would decide that this particular church didn't have the final word on the matter, that he would find a place for himself and for his soul.

Our friend's excommunication provided a dilemma for me to ponder that was both practical and spiritual. Yet I also found much to confuse me in biblical teachings themselves, and this confusion seemed of even greater import to me. I constantly re-read the passage in Genesis where Noah's sons get cursed for seeing him naked in his drunkenness and covering him up. Even at the tender age of seven, it seemed obvious to me that no son should be cursed for having a lush as a dad. My feelings were, in part, quite rational. They also were indicative of one of my most basic personality characteristics: I have a passionate antipathy towards injustice, and when accused of misdeeds I haven't actually performed, I will defend myself as vehemently as any cat backed into a corner. It extends to others, as well, and I couldn't help but be awfully pissed off at Noah for giving his sons such a raw deal.

I noticed hypocrisy, and I noticed injustice, and I noticed that the pressure to be Christian wasn't necessarily good for Christianity. I don't think I ever lost my faith because for me, the pressure to be Christian always felt more social than spiritual. I always harbored a pip of doubt somewhere in my heart about the whole enterprise, and this seed made shedding my religious skin quite painless after my family moved away from a city in which belief was tantamount to an entrance requirement.

Yet, while I had shed the belief, I hadn't managed to get rid of the habit of belief. I moved into new areas entirely; I experimented a little. For a while, I thought what I found was quite exciting, as it didn't seem as stringent as our Texan doctrines had. What I found had its problems, too.

(to be continued and concluded in part the deux...)