Odd dream: Ceiling noises.

The other week I dreamt that I heard odd noises from above me as I lie in bed, and I look up and 2 big ceiling tiles are being taken off by the toddler who lives upstairs and I can see him leaning over and looking down, so I stand on my bed and put my head through the hole and get him away from the edge, where he might fall in, and call over to his parents to watch him more closely with what he's doing.

I also talk to them about the odd thumps and stomps and rattling that have been getting me up on the mornings when I try to sleep in (=something that's happening in reality), and they point to the ceiling above them and say that they're bothered by that too, but those sounds are travelling all the way down from the attic.

Confession of my one Polish-American mathematician friend.

When my one Polish-American mathematician friend was back in the city visiting his parents over Christmas, me and him got together for martinis.

Interestingly, he's re-learning Latin as a fun independent project, and has been reading the Vulgate in conjunction with re-memorizing paradigms.

That's in addition to his project where he made a New Year's resolution to read one piece of literature per week, whether a play or a novel or whatnot (it's almost a year, and he's read 76).

He also was telling me that when he decided to go into math, his immigrant father expressed deep concern over his choice out of fear that he would become a very very narrow person, which makes me wonder whether he's normal among U.S. mathematicians because of his Polish heritage, and how there mathematicians can have sides of themselves besides something weird and cerebral - that is, in the Old World, mathematicians can be full people who engage in and are a part of other high culture.

He also confessed that he's always thought it's very cool that I know Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and was very struck by that when we first met years ago (he's blurring facts a bit, though, I didn't know any Hebrew then).

Xmas vacay text from the Deep South.

I was at a bar near my uncle's with him and my mom when I get a text from my one (white) colleague from Mississippi, who had been home to visit his mother:

In a bar in Huntsville, AL you'd dig.  They still smoke here.  The menu board says 'Piece of Ass 5.00.'

When we texted back and forth, he joked that they might be advertising rump roast, and I joked that he should tell the bartender that she looks like she's worth at least twenty dollars.

More recently, I was thinking that after you pay the bartender five dollar, she should turn around and rip a big nasty fart in your face.

Honestly, that would serve you right, with your masculine privilege and sense of access to women's bodies, even in jest!

Thoughts about my future.

I do hope that I can teach college; I really enjoy it, it's rewarding if you're teaching the right people, and a flexible schedule is great.

That said, the $ is low and the instability high.

For the moment, though, that's def. preferable to a 9-to-5 job, in my opinion.

Two fears for these next four-and-half to five months.

Since I'm teaching so much for the next four-and-a-half to five months, I really fear:

- the magazines that I subscribe to piling up (something that I experienced in late Nov. and Dec. already, when I had much less work!).
- not being able to go to 5 new bars a week.

Interesting Conversation w/an Italian.

The other week I met this one (older) (Italian) former grad student for a beer:

1) Growing up in Albania (!), he remembers getting Italian news - and some of the first broadcasts that he remembers were the ones about the Pope getting poisoned (=rumors about the death of John Paul I).

2) In his section of Romance languages, it's now not uncommon for people to struggle for 4 years after graduation, then luck into a sweet tenure track job at an R1, something that he says is due to there being so few positions, like 1 a year (=the future of the rest of the Humanities?).

3) He thinks that the left now has no more "project" that serves as a counterweight to deregulation and capital, and that environmentalism is the most prevalent alternative but isn't enough of a vision for people to rally around.

Odd dream: Cavernous library.

The other week I dreamt -

I was in a large empty stone hall with high windows, that was very dark.

Strewn over the hall were 4-5 pads with bedding on them.

I slept fitfully in one, since a few people far away on the other side of the hall were talking to each other and murmuring and since also the room was dank, although it had worn dark blue industrial carpet over the entire floor.

I was there since you could rent a bed to sleep there downtown if you needed it, which I did since I was working so much at the art school that it didn't even make sense to go home and sleep since you'd lose so much time going there and back.