Mid-January funk

Yeah, so that New Year's resolution lasted about as long as Robert Browning's one about writing a poem a day in 1853, except for the part where he wrote "Childe Roland" on the third day. (I've been doing somewhat better at the weekly project I've undertaken at the place where I blog under my own name.) I think a lot of it was just the reality check I had last weekend when I realized that the start of the spring semester was a lot closer than I thought it was--and this is a really intense prep this time around. (New course, new material, not a topic I know much about.) I spent a lot of last week going back and forth between the library and the adjunct office at Not-NYU so I could use the photocopier, it's been ridiculously cold, and my shoulders are still in a lot of pain. I don't have the huge amounts of emotional angst that I had last January, but I don't feel grounded or productive or engaged--not like I did in the first week, but I wasn't really working efficiently then either. I've done really nothing dissertation-related since the latest draft of my fellowship application; I was going to do another draft today but just never really got around to it. My syllabus is due on Wednesday. It's closer than it was, but there's a lot that's still vague and unread, some holes that still need to be addressed. A bunch of offices have been moving at Not-NYU and I don't know what the tech situation will be this week.

Being on Nerve has been a bust so far, though at least I got to see an interesting play. Have been on two dates that went nowhere and that were clearly going nowhere from the first half hour, though for different reasons. The highlights of last week lay elsewhere. Mostly having to do with The Poet. I sent him an email when I got home last night that basically said, I wish I'd been able to know you at 40. I don't indulge in that feeling often, but I had been feeling this powerfully as my eyes glazed over while reading the profiles of all these dudes who are just that--dudes--not men. I know that some forms of masculinity get a bad rap, but I want to believe that being a douchebag is not the same thing as being a man.

J. seems to want to get back into my life, but I told him I wasn't going to have these text-message exchanges again.

I haven't been as good about going to the gym as I could be. I also seem to have very little lunch-appropriate food in my apartment, so I ate brussels sprouts at like 2:30 and now I'm starving and I still haven't read The Craft of Research and my shoulders and upper arms hurt, and I gave up on zazen today and it's hot in here and I'm going out in 45 minutes. So what I'm probably going to go do now is make a to-do list and marvel that this is the last night of the Bush presidency.