Doing the Extras (a Potentially Controversial Post)

Last night I worked essentially from 8:30-10:30 pm, other than the two hours (4:30-6:30) in which I picked up, fed, and hung out with my children.  That's all I saw of them all day, except if we're going to count the hour (45 minutes for LG) of getting dressed, driving across town and being dropped off (I read a couple books to Tiny Boy, thus his bonus Mom-time).  Although these days are rare, they're more common in spring semester (I can think of five [six?] such nights in March/April).  I also have two Saturday events that will involve about 4-5 hours of childcare during the day.

So when I was asked earlier this week by a fellow admin type to do the annual 'tell-high-school-students-parents-why-this-field-is-awesome' gig, I said no.  Historically it's been on a Friday afternoon, about two hours.  This time it's going to be an all afternoon Saturday thing.  I actually really like the person who asked me, and truth be told I like this event.  I probably would have said yes if April wasn't already the month of WAY TOO MUCH EXTRA CHILDCARE AND AFTER HOURS EVENTS.  The money is only part of it.  Saturday is the one day I really do nothing related to my job.  It's the day we do family stuff, which is increasingly rare with a middle-schooler and increasingly important with a four-year-old.  In short:  there is a consequence for me being gone too much, and it generally involves bad sleep all around.

Case in point:  I got home last night at 10:30, LG still wasn't asleep, I still hadn't made Tiny Boy's lunch (thank you, former student babysitter who did the dishes!!).  Lets keep in mind I'm usually asleep by 10:15-10:30.  By the time I got ready for bed and decompressed enough to fall asleep, it was about midnight.  And then Tiny Boy was in my bed (which he rarely does anymore) at 2:30 because he didn't want to be alone in his room.  I kicked him out when his skull wormed its way under my pillow around 5:00, and I'm not sure he went back to sleep.  I'm not sure I did either, or if I did, it wasn't that restful.  And I've been fighting the cold-that-will-not-die for more than a week.  I expect sinusitis to set in any minute now.

This has turned into a ranty thing, but mostly I meant it to be a philosophical discussion.  I like the 'extras' of my job--going to readings and talks, dinners with guest writers, weekend workshops, etc--but there's only so much of it I can do.  And I'm maxed out.  I've spent too many nights (or even afternoons) in my career going to things that aren't rewarding because I thought I 'needed' to (and I really did, pre-tenure).  Now I go to the stuff that I'm in charge of, or that I find really meaningful (infertility advocacy stuff), or to support colleagues when I can.  But if it means staying up late or losing time with my kids, it better be fucking awesome.

Time Warp

Tiny Boy had A NIGHT.  One of those (fortunately now rare) that involves him being awake for about 1.5 hrs in the middle of the night.  Which means, despite being on a rather hefty dose of Lunesta, I'm awake from roughly 2:00 on (no, I'm not counting the roughly 5 minutes in which I fell back to sleep just before the school bus squeaked to a stop outside our house and the cat started meowing).  

In some ways I prefer having those nights before I teaching day, because adrenaline can power me through.  Today is the one day I don't go to campus.  By 8:00 a.m. I made peace with the fact that I would probably get almost nothing done.

Given these low standards, I was remarkably productive, having accomplished the following:

• finished reading Rebecca Solnit's Men Explain Things to Me
• wrote a not-so-bad poem
• sent off a mass email publicity thing (file under:  the book tour I'm not having)
• dealt with some home business (i.e. making appointments I keep putting off)
• folded and put away two baskets of laundry
• did the dishes
• had a phone meeting with a collaborator that actually furthered the project
• followed up with a series of emails
• dealt with administrative type email
• made headway on another collaborative project

That is, I actually got done most of what needed to be done today, minus the chunk of time I spent staring into space, which usually would have been reserved for putting more words on paper.  I spent a lot of time on email, more than I ordinarily would, but most of that fell into the category of me emailing things I needed to do, rather than responding to other things that make me cranky.   I am hoping tonight is better, so tomorrow can be better.  I'd really like my brain back.

X Marks the Spot

So The X-Files is back on tonight.  Which is one of my all time favorites.  It might be tied for #1, actually, with Gilmore Girls.  The X-Files is what I did Sunday nights 1997-2002:  me, my best friend from the time (or sometimes Dr. Boy), Chinese take out or pizza with spinach and feta, Mulder and Scully.  Even during the year I was studying for my qualifying exams (1997-1998) and had a sheet of paper over my TV so I couldn't watch it without seeing "NO," I watched The X-Files. It has only gotten creepier with age, and my own reproductive nightmares.

I am not apparently a true enough fan to stay awake to watch it when it airs whenever the football game ends.  Or, more precisely, my sleep needs outweigh my need to see Gillian Anderson.  But I'm excited nonetheless.

If you never watched it but are curious, my absolute favorite episodes are "Postmodern Prometheus" and "Bad Blood," both from Season 5.  But we all know I'm a literary geek.

Musings about Email, Accessibility, and Overwhelm

I had one of those mornings when time seems to expand.  I took the kids to school.  Went about my morning routine of coffee, eggs, reading.  Wrote for a while.  Worked on the edited collection for a while.  Somehow it wasn't yet noon, and I was still in my pajamas, happily focused on my work.

The afternoon was different.  I do admin stuff in the afternoon.  And email.  And it occurred to me (again, this isn't the first time I've had this revelation) that it is in large part email (and to a lesser but related extent looking at a screen) that makes me stressed and overwhelmed.  The problem with email is that I go to it to do something that I need to do (i.e. ask my chair for money for an event) and by the time I'm done writing that email someone has sent me a request to do something I wouldn't otherwise be inclined to do (i.e. meet with a prospective student when I'm not generally on campus). I could spend whole days--and I know other administrators who do--just dealing with things over email.  I haven't done the math (I should) but I'd venture to say that I spend more time replying to email than I do writing it. 

There's a longer existential meditation here on life in the twenty-first century.  And while I'm not one of those writerly types--I know those writerly types--who answers email so infrequently it's useless (like a month or longer!!!) I do think I'm going to start limiting my email time even more than I currently do.  I wonder, honestly, if I could keep it to a single 30 minute session per day?  Probably worth the experiment.

How Much Is Too Much?

I spent some time yesterday planning the remainder of the semester (this past week involved just living through it, as the Tiny Boy/insomnia combo was back with a vengeance).  The planning involved making a list of everything I need to do.  It's just too much (even with a course release). Now, admittedly, I think I feel this way at the beginning of every semester, and I'm sure I'll muddle through.  But I'd like to do more than muddle through.  I'd like to work at a reasonable pace, and I'd like to do things well.* 

But, to give you a taste--and, no I don't think this is necessarily irregular for an academic**--I'm teaching a class, serving on a major committee (10 hrs of work this past week alone), acting as a program administrator (which involves, among other things, curricular development, event planning, website upkeep, editing, supervising a student intern, overseeing a student organization, reading for awards/scholarships, and dealing with other humans who are at best egotistical and at worst actual sociopaths), overseeing three independent projects on the undergrad level, serving on graduate guidance committees, serving as a regular reviewer for a journal in my field, and doing my own research/writing (by last count six major projects at various stages of completion, and the smaller stuff).  These are just the major things that come to mind.  There are also student recommendations to write (they never seem to stop) and numerous queries that find their way over email.  And.  And.  And.

That is, just writing new stuff, revising old stuff, and keeping on top of publicity for published stuff could be a full-time career.  And then there's my JOB.

So while on the one hand I find myself in a place of relative excitement--I like my class, I like where I'm at with my writing, I'm reading good stuff, on a meaningful committee, etc--I also feel so overwhelmed by the various people/responsibilities that need attention that I'm paralyzed.  What do I not do this week?  I do think that cutting my admin job is ultimately the way to go (can't quit now but I could decide not to do it next year) because even if the trade off is doing another course, in many ways that's simpler, less emotionally tangled and less fractured work (simply: reading, grading, teaching).  In the meantime, though, something has to give.  Even though I could come up with a few more hours each week in which to work, they're not optimal hours, and I really do need them for downtime (i.e. you're not going to find me commenting on student papers in lieu of watching TV the moment I should be getting ready for bed).  And once someone gets sick (Tiny Boy's cough is back!) all bets are off...



* I feel like I used to do things well.  And then I had two kids and stopped sleeping.  And now I'm just getting myself back.

** Psycgirl expresses a similar idea in her latest.

What We're Good At Isn't Necessarily Good For Us

So my major time suck for the week is being on a search committee for a major admin position.

We're talking to all kinds of fabulous people I'd love to hire.  Really.

And asked about why they want to move into a major admin position, they are mostly citing things about how they're "good at" it.

And what has struck me as a "minor" or "low level" administrator...although I might be good at it on some level (I can get along with all of my colleagues except one; I can handle detail and minutiae; I can manage a budget; I can make decisions about the program and not the individual, etc) I'm not entirely sure I like it.  And I know it's not healthy for me as a long-term plan.

So this is something I need to do something about.  Namely, ask for more, so the reward is higher and/or the work easier, or stop doing it.

Take Two

We're two days into the semester, which is to say not very far at all.

On the one hand, I'm starting this semester without a child home with pneumonia or a snowday, so yay!  I like my class (I think; we've only spent two hours together).  I have something resembling a plan for the semester, in regards to my own writing.  I'm doing a collaborative project I love.  I'm making headway on other stuff.  I have moments, like this afternoon, sitting on my couch writing a list of discussion questions for tomorrow, that I'm just excited to be able to do what I do.

But.

Too much going on.  Too many projects.  Too many obligations to other people.  Just too much all around.  (Case in point, I will spend about 13 hrs on COMMITTEE WORK alone this week.) Opening my inbox fills me with anxiety and dread.  Feeling like I need to go back to therapy and/or crack out the xanax, which, of course, is not really a legitimate plan.

Ah!!!!!

Me, Reading Stuff

Mostly I read literary nonfiction and poetry, because it's the critical part of my job.  But Nov-Jan tends to get me reading a fat novel.  Last year I did The Goldfinch.  Before that The Interestings and some other stuff.  I got about 60 pages through Americanah, which is highly praised, and realized quickly I was doing other things than reading it.  So I stopped.  Why, at this stage of my career and my life, should I read a book I wasn't (a) enthralled by or (b) expected to read for some concrete reason.  I devoured Emily St. John Mandel's earlier book Last Night in Montreal.  And now I'm reading Emma Donoghue's Room, which is all kinds of disturbing, but also short enough I'll have it done by Monday when classes begin.

Also loving Ada Limon's collection Bright Dead Things (I'm mad it didn't read it before I ordered textbooks!)  And Rebecca Solnit's Men Explain Things to Me, which every woman should read.  And Sven Birkerts Changing the Subject, which is about our age of distraction.

I'm only four days in but I'm loving this reading first thing in the morning thing.

Waking Up, or, Life on the Other Side

(I wrote a draft of this, and it was great I tell you, and then hit some key and it disappeared into the ether!  Argh!)

The gist of it was I had an epiphany yesterday, one of those that I have cyclically and then forget about, probably because it goes against a cultural dominant.  Even as I'm making--and dreading--my "to do list" it occurs to me that those "to dos" are my LIFE.

Perhaps it's because all the big things I've worked for in my adult life I've accomplished.  And at the moment I have no big WANT that's fueling me, just the sense that I am where I need to be.  And past the crisis mode of infertility/high risk pregnancy and the make-it-through-the-day mode of baby/toddlerhood and sleep deprivation.  It's time to actually thrive.  I mean, Tiny Boy is 4!  LG is almost 12!!!

Nothing is urgent, which makes everything feel urgent.  But really, what would happen, for example, if I decided to not check email AT ALL over the remainder of winter break?  Probably not much.

*

I'm writing this here, because this is really as close to a journal as I get.  Although there are many things I'd like to accomplish and "goals" I have for the year, I'll list here only what I'd like to do in the next few weeks.  I'm reluctant to call them "goals"; perhaps areas of focus or dedication?  (Life is not a business.  And although there is much good advice to be found in books about 'productivity,' I'm not sure that productivity is what we should aspire to.)  Anyway:

Self:  establish regular exercise regimen/daily yoga practice.  This is tricky, due to the cold/snow/ice where I live.  After a lot of deliberation I'll spare you (though I'd be happy to answer any questions about my thought process!), I'm trying out "YogaGlo" online and might also try an online barre class.

Family: spend one-on-one time with my kids.  This is something I have mostly always done, but I'd like to think strategically about it (talked about this some in my last post).

Work:  establish more regular reading habits (I do read, but I'd like this to be more systematic.) One small change I'm going to implement is reading on paper before sitting down to write for the day.

*

I'll probably say more about this process as it goes.  Now I need to go check some things off the list live my life.

New Years Resolutions, Themes, and All the Plans

I've been reading with interest as the bloggers I read put up their annual review posts, and those detailing goals and/or themes for the year.  I really like what Ana has to say about lightening up, and I could easily claim that as my own.  What I like about a theme is that it ties disparate areas of life together under one umbrella.  But the fact that I can't really come up with one that links organically the hodgepodge of things I'd like to work on suggests maybe that's not the right approach for this moment in my life.

Ditto the quarterly goals of Laura Vanderkam.  Oh, don't get me wrong:  I think she's absolutely right that smaller goals makes more sense than grandiose resolutions.  But it seems disingenuous for me to make a goal for next fall, when I have no idea what next fall will actually bring (I might be looking for a new house, I might be on the job market, my mother's health might take a turn again, etc). When I work with students on year-long projects and they have to come up with a title and a plan, I'm always very clear to them that it's bureaucracy.  It's a starting point.  No one expects that the finished project will look anything like that preliminary sketch.  Life is no different.

There are many things I'd like to do with my time in the next year.  And to encourage some of those happenings, I'm going to focus on establishing some activities and routines that can be scheduled. I'm also going to think small, rather than big; concrete, rather than abstract.  Big grandiose plans are so overwhelming or unrealistic I'll barely get started or will get frustrated and stop (i.e. read all the novels of Virginia Woolf this year!), but small daily habits.  Perhaps it's because I'm an academic and have three distinct rhythms and schedules for the year, right now I'm going to think most about spring semester (January through April).  And then check in with myself, revisit, and consider the summer.

*

When I need to be, I'm obsessively goal-oriented; that's what got me through grad school, infertility treatment, completing a book manuscript for tenure, etc.  There's something very addictive about all this planning (I want to be better at everything!  let's go!) but I'm not sure it's healthy for me.  If there's anything I want (see above about themes!) it's being calm and content, as a person, in my relationships, and at work.  That's not so much something I can do but I can foster the circumstances in which it is more likely to occur.  That will take some more thought.

*

On the concrete side of things:

1. I'm going to continue to schedule alone time with both my kids.  With LG this requires actual scheduling with a calendar.  We have plans to see The Sound of Music at the theater here in February, and I'd also like to schedule time to go to a women's athletic event (gymnastics?).  On a smaller scale, we've been watching The Gilmore Girls together.  She's said she'll help me with cooking, so I'll have her plan some menus we can do together.  And although I'm reluctant to do more on the computer, I do think we'll start doing 'words with friends' or something as a way to do a game on a smaller scale.  It was great doing a 1000-piece puzzle over break, but we don't have that kind of dedicated time.

I'll take Tiny Boy to some local (free!) children's events.  But what's critical for me here is actually putting them on the calendar.  This will help (a) having a plan for the weekend and (b) reminding myself that we really do do a lot as a family.  They might just go in pencil right now, but I'd like a visual look of the 'balance' of my life for the next months.  I'm also going to sign him up for tumbling classes.  He likes it.   It will give him something structured to do on the weekends, and give me a break.

2. There's more I can say about exercise, cooking, reading, socializing...pretty much every area of my life.  (I know; too much!)  For now I want to sit down with my calendar and start filling it out.  And hack off some things to do for the next week, before the semester starts.  Ready set go!

*
Finally, I'l take a cue from Mel.  If you're here and don't regularly comment, please do say hi!  I've been blogging here for ~7 years so my audience has shifted.  If there's anything you'd like me to write about, let me know.  And, a question for you:  if you're one of the five people in America who still uses a landline (me!), who is your provider and are you happy with it?

Good Morning, 2016

Happy New Year, everyone!  We're home from our family meetup and happily settling back in. Yesterday involved grocery shopping and doing puzzles (1000 pieces for LG, 48 for Tiny Boy). Also movie watching; I wanted to do something epic (in particular I wanted to watch The Wiz, which I missed, but couldn't seem to find online anymore?) but LG nixed my plans and the kids settled on some animated thing about a cat that I completely ignored, even while sitting next to them on the couch.  Not sure what today holds, though I do have ingredients for almond butter chocolate chip cookies...

All over the interwebs right now you can find "best of" and "what worked" and various resolutions posts.  I like reading those sorts of things.  And I like writing those sorts of things.  But ask me to come up with a theme for the year?  Or a list of goals?  Meh, not today.  I think part of my reluctance is simple fatigue: that's the sort of thing that requires a vat of coffee and quiet* time for self-reflection that I simply won't have until the kids are back in school on Monday.  I wasn't even able to read really at my mother's house, other than poems (oh my goodness Bright Dead Things!).  I did manage to scroll back through my Dec 31/Jan 1 posts here and that was some interesting reading.  I've been in this space a long time.  Through a lot.  Enough said.

I do like Laura Vanderkam's approach of thinking about quarterly goals, so I'll probably set some.  I was thinking it would be fun to design a "class" for myself in terms of non-work reading, maybe three or four different subjects over the course of a year?  That requires a bit of research, though. You can probably expect an update on that idea early next week.

Mostly on a personal level I'm happy, but could think about some fine tuning (my evenings could look different now that I'm mostly sleeping!) and professionally I need to think about applying for jobs next fall...but all that feels far away right now, which is great.

Anyway, Tiny Boy wants to throw snowballs at his sister, so time to get on with 2016!




* So either my brother and sister-in-law don't know me, actively hate me, or are just clueless; they bought Tiny Boy a toy that lights up, moves, and makes noise.  Oy.