Dear diary:
weekly updates and musings have become monthly. sorry.
I sit here in a particularly un-ma-and-pa coffee shop in Linden Hills listening to Peter Tosh's "Legalize it" and feeling a mixture of emotions having nothing to do whatsoever with the relatively upbeat, jolly Jamaican anthem in my headphones. The soundtrack to my morning continues: Ratatat's "Germany to Germany", Softcell's "Tainted Love." Today's sky is blue, at least from here on earth, but for some reason the Saturday shadows hang a little heavier in the corners of parking lots and alleyways, laking my footsteps sound a little grayer and lending to the cold, windy day an air of pessimism that makes me long for that warmth of bed which I relinquished not two hours earlier.
The past fifteen hours of my life have consisted of one soul-sucking, territorial-pissing-match of a post-secondary College of Humanities department meeting, one mouth-watering Chatterbox burger accompanied by THE BEST chocolate stout I have EVER had followed immediately by an hour and a half of Mike Tyson's Punch Out with creative monsters Eric and Matt of Red Circle, and a wonderful session at Tea Garden prying thesis snippets from this brain and a 29" stack of papers and journal articles as the capstone projects begins to build momentum. This paper finally has a form...and it's ready to take off, like one of those uberfastmotorcycles on the salt flats of Utah. I capped the evening with a replenishing seven point five hours of sleep, which is the most I have had in two weeks.
Teaching is going well. 5:45AM comes earlier than it should, but as an adjunct, part-time teacher I fully embrace with open arms the opportunities that roll downhill from the gods up atop it. le merde can't defy gravity, and I can't deny my decent fortune despite its rigors.
Tara flies to Ecuador in 8 days for her four-month sojourn and soul-search while she disappears in the arms of Pachamama and under the loving vigil of the Andean condors, which will surely chuckle with affection and gratitude when they see her coming with her internal frame pack and Timbuk2 messenger bag. That's OK. She's pretty quick to assimilate, and she'll shed the norteamericana facade in the time it takes her to pack her cheek full of coca leaves and pick up the phrase "Where's the bathroom" in Quechua. Anyhow, as I live vicariously through her adventurous spirit, I am at peace with spending Valentine's Day 3,000 miles north of the person with whom i'd prefer to spend it.
Lots of bobbers are in the water right now for summer and fall. Waiting to hear from Fulbright on the 2007-08 teaching grant. If that doesn't happen, Spain's Ministry of Education has about a thousand similar grants to bring Canadians and U.S. folk to the peninsula to teach culture and language. For summer, my fingers are crossed for a one-month contract to teach in Argentina. Madison and Texas also have PhD apps from me. Three more years of Hispanic Linguistics...i think i am up for it.
OK, off to hug strangers and commit random acts of kindness. i leave you with an image from Bristol's own guerrilla graffitist Banksy:
