Frogs and Ravens

Some Blogs Worth Visiting

Cribbing off Dale's blog list, some nature/writing blogs:

Creek Running North

Field Notes

(I really need to set aside some time for updating my own links list...)

Spit Takes and Tulle

Want some snark? Want to see really UG-lee dresses?

Go to Ugly Wedding Dress of the Day.

Astonishing stuff. Really. Go!

Prayer

I tend not to pray -- my sense of God is not such that I think there is a sufficiently coherent "self" to address in a prayer, and even if I did, I doubt that such a being would have the time to pay attention to the worries of such a small organism who's better off than many other strugglers -- but Dale gives a good, different reason to consider including it in one's life.

Other Things

Some small things that have made me happy:

A warm bowl of "Scottish" oatmeal this morning, with raisins and brown sugar and milk. I'd wanted steel cut "Irish" oats, but these were pretty good, nonetheless.

A walk with D. in the local neighborhood, looking at all sorts of lovely houses and petting an occasional cat along the way.

Combing llama wool in preparation for "worsted"-style spinning (short explanation -- worsted yarn features fibers in parallel, while woolen yarn tends to have a more random arrangement). Remember combing doll hair, or a favorite pet, or a child? It's rather like that. I have an old wooden comb that smells of rose oil for the task, and it is very soothing to watch the carefully smoothed tufts line up in my tub, waiting to be spun into yarn for a lacey shawl. Mmm.

Revising my internship application essay -- it brings order out of chaos, and helps me clarify just why I want to work in a museum. It also feels productive!

Reading Yoga Journal. It is oddly soothing, just in itself, to read about stress and struggle and the gentle persistence of yogis who find ways to maintain compassion and balance in the midst of chaos. I breathe more slowly and sit up straighter afterwards -- both good things.

Having the neighbor's cat sit outside my door meowing to come in, followed by her twining about my ankles and purring with pleasure when I accede to her demands.

A warm cup of Earl Grey tea with sugar and milk.

So Nice to Be Wanted

While there are a few slightly irksome things about returning to the first place I began temping (such as discovering that some of the projects I worked on are still not done!) I am so much happier here than my last place at the Job From Hell.

For one thing, I was requested by name -- they even said that if I wasn't available, they weren't interested in hiring another temp.

For another, every time I do something well, or think of some way to make things clearer or easier, I am praised -- what a concept!

I also have an office to myself (albeit one that really needs an incandescent light -- I may bring one in with me Monday) with a computer and an internet connection -- such luxury. It being next to The Big Boss (usually not in), the Nice Man and away from The Burrower is an additional bonus.

Funny how I found this job so annoying at the beginning; now it seems like a dream come true (well, almost. *wink*)

Add in getting paid, receiving my copy of Yoga Journal and D. coming over tonight with homemade chocolate pudding, and my day has turned out to be quite delightful.

Back at It -- Sort of

I'm in a much better mood today, after a day spent recovering and working on internship applications, and a morning of yoga. (My GOD, I am stiff!)

Today I have a "new" job -- I'm to work a few days for the college where I filled in as registrar. I'm not sure if that's what I'll be doing, but I do know that it will be quiet, and clean, and involve no heavy lifting.

Amazing how my standards have dropped.

Plastic Bags

Amanda has just posted a really good piece at Household Opera in which she begins with observations about grocery bagging and ends with a nice analogy to the current problems besetting academia. (I'm not doing it justice.)



Note to Amanda: I share your annoyance with the bagging situation. In fact, I am obsessive enough to arrange my stuff on the conveyor belt in an order that will hopefully result in good bagging. Of course, I also line up all the bar codes towards the scanner, but that's more an aftereffect of doing the same in libraries.)

Breaking Point

I quit.

The job was hard enough without adding in depression and lack of sleep. Even those could have been managed, at least for a while longer, if there had been any gratitude for my efforts, or even simple acknowledgement of the hard work I have put in. Instead, when I came in today, there was a note in my filing area. It told me to file the files from yesterday before sorting more.

On the surface, this seems innocuous. Realize, though, that I have always finished any task not done at the end of the day the next morning. Realize too that the containers holding the files were full, so it was physically impossible to sort more files unless the others were filed first. Translation: my supervisor believes me to be irresponsible, incompetent and stupid.

Yes, that seems a lot to read into a single note. What it did was make me realize though was that this was part of a larger pattern of not noticing me or listening to me or taking my concerns about the job seriously, and only talking to me to either order me to do something (usually something I was already doing or just about to do) or to point out a mistake. Indeed, as I turned in my final timesheet, she did not even say thank you. Bitch.


I do not feel happy, or even relieved. I feel tired, and depressed, and poor. Quitting has perhaps saved my sanity and my health, but at the cost of two weeks' pay. I have no back-up job, and the rent is due all too soon. It is not a time for celebrating, but recovering, so I can keep struggling.

I am going to eat, and sleep, and return to the struggle tomorrow. Today, it would be too much.

Vicious Cycle

When I don't get enough sleep, I find it very easy to slide into depression.

Unfortunately, when I'm depressed, it's often the case that trying to sleep means lying in the dark thinking about things that make me more depressed -- and the only solution, alas, is to stay up until I am so exhausted that I just collapse into unconsciousness when I finally go to bed.

Not good, not good at all.

Transformations

This weekend my friends had a sifting bee at the remains of their houses; the idea was to combine a barbecue lunch with digging around in the rubble in the hopes of finding something intact.

Surprisingly, we did indeed find a number of things that had survived the inferno. High-fire ceramics seemed to have fared the best, if they were not crushed by something else. Terra cotta also did well. Glass did not; when it was not melted into interesting shapes, it liquified and acted as a glue binding nearby objects together. Paper -- especially books -- transformed into incredibly fragile piles of ash; one breath and they dissolved. Metal either became bent and fragile or puddled into strange little blobs. Wood charred and turned to black chunks, if not instantly incinerated. One of the odder "finds" I discovered was a box of pencils; all that remained were the leads and the metal rings that had held the erasers.

(When I returned home that night, I found myself looking around my apartment with eyes that gauged which possesions would survive intact, which would vaporize, and which would be strangely transformed.)

The event was surprisingly joyous; it turned into a bit of a competition to find the most intact things, and it was a happy thing to see my friends beam at the sight of some small treasure resurrected from the debris.

But there lingered an air of poignancy, even as the faintly sour smell of ashes remained on our clothing for hours afterward. The saddest and most awkward thing was briefly trying to help their former tenant sift through his rubble; he had no insurance and the joy was not there. Instead, D. and I felt creepy and weird looking at the remains of his possessions, and soon returned to the boisterous crowd of amateur archaeologists with no small amount of relief.