Winter insights (2 of 2): Freneticness.

I'm starting to get impressed with how fast I can bang out a pop article on my academic expertise.

If I know the material, I can sketch out a quick outline of something that I know'll be around 1000-1200 words, and then if I'm not too tired and I can make myself sit down for 1-2 hours straight, I can easily churn out a full pretty final rough draft that I can revisit in a day or two and mop up with edits pretty easy.

Winter insights (1 of 2): Sloth.

This winter when it's below zero and the weekend, I just feel like lying in bed.

I've never wanted to hibernate so much before.

A dream of methods to go to sleep.

The other week I dreamt -

I wasn't using effective methods to get to sleep, and instead I should be using a mechanical reader of seeming nonsense passages related to dreams and sleep, where the thing would drone on and on and on but you couldn't make any sense of any of it, so you'd fall asleep pretty quick when it was on.

I somehow look at one of the big cards that feeds the reader, and it's a series of pictures to which the reader reads nonsense captions in turns, and it's cartoon wolves and wolf pups with space-age collars floating in ovular bubbles with rather pointy ends, and looking disconcerted like the bubbles might pop at any time.

. . .

Then, I wake up.

Me in a city.

The past few weeks when I've headed out the back alley way from my apartment, or looked up and seen the skyline downtown, or looked at the (diverse) faces of people in cars as they pass by me after I've gotten off the subway and while I'm waiting for the bus, I can't believe that I live in the city, and I think of how normal it's all become for me, and how odd and new stuff like that was for me years ago when I was growing up and would visit a city.

Even to see the face of a (Mexican) guy driving a work truck, that would have been so strange.

Shittily paid teaching positions are starting to bother me this year.

I work so many hours, and I'm starting to treat the students like time obligations, rather than people.

I've noticed I'll slot aside 15 minutes for paper meetings (= my job), but a lot of times I duck out from otherwise discussing ideas (= not my job) like some of them want to, since I'm often so tired and have worked a ten hour day and I've just had oodles of paper meetings and I'm just pooped.

What a sad situation.  They deserve better, but the set-up of my job militates against good outcomes.

Convo with an everyday worker (2 of 2): Periodontal billing worker.

My credit card wouldn't clear at the periodontist's office, and so I had to go check into that with the bank later and then go and call them back.

It turns out that a $1000 did go through, so I called up the periodontist's office only to have the billing worker there tell me that nothing was showing up on their end.

"So," she was like, "I see you're coming in on Monday.  I would *strongly* recommend that you go online or go to the bank, print out a statement showing the payment, and bring it in with you."

"Okay," I was like.

Then, she was silent for a just a beat more after.

Then, she was like, "And I mean, strongly.  Strongly."

Then, she paused again.

Then, she was like, "Got that?  Strongly."

"Got it," I was like, and laughed.

Convo with an everyday worker (1 of 2): Drugstore checkout machine tender.

The other week, I was at the drugstore and was waiting in line for the checkout (there was an open machine and I went for it only to see that it was broken, and then I hung back in line and had to wait), and I started talking with the (older) (white) woman who stands watching over the checkout machines.

"That one's broken?", I was like, to double-check.

"Yeah," she was like, "And if it's not her, it's another one, they can be moody like that."

"Okay," I was like.

Then, I was like, "How do you know she's a her?".

"Woman's voice," she was like, "Plus she's moody like a woman."

We chitchatted a little bit about how the machines are moody, then I started telling her about how a friend in the Pacific Northwest's grocery store took out the automatic checkers because of too much theft, like how people would ring up organic fruits and vegetables for regular prices.

"Oh, I believe it," she was like.  "We get that here, someone sees me busy and they try something, but I know they'll do it and so I turn in time and catch 'em, you have to be like that all the time and can't let your guard down, otherwise they'll get away with it."

Then, I bought my stuff and left.