Try, try again

*I tweaked and resubmitted a chapter proposal concerning Battlestar Galactica and fandom's fitting response. Maybe this one will be the proposal that gets accepted. This is the third attempt at getting some love for this current line of my research. I'm bound and determined that these ideas will see print. Brilliant ideas, I tell you! Brilliant!

*I visited the MRI Mobile late Tuesday afternoon (think bookmobile but with no books, just an MRI machine) and had the ankle-o-pain magnetized. There was some concern by hospital staff that all my piercings would be a problem. The MRI tech proper: "I've been doing this for 25 years. Your piercings aren't going to be a problem. Don't take them out." Thank goodness. All the piercings have to be removed with pliers and there's always the risk that I won't be able to get them back in if the metal gets bent too much or whatever. If I lived in a big city, not a problem. I don't live in anything remotely resembling a big city. MRI mobile, remember? I tried levitating metal objects after being MRI'd, but to no avail.

*Spring semester starts tomorrow. I'm teaching three classes I could take or leave. That's an occupational hazard, I'm afraid. In order to teach the way cool stuff, you have to teach the mundane stuff. Thankfully, I rarely have a semester where all three class are "meh." This just happens to be such a semester. I'll deal.

*Already dealt with a student crisis this afternooon: homesick, tears, cry for help. I'm a good listener, when I want to be, and I'm quick with the Counseling Center's number. I'm a professor, Jim, not a therapist!

*I'm in a really yucky space mentally and have been for quite some time. STK finally called me on my shit tonight. I love my job and my family but feel like I'm adrift. Is this what life is all about? That lostness translates to frustratedness, angriness, and general unlikeableness. Dark Me ascending is never a good thing. I'm in a space where I don't like people very much. Oh, I can fake it, but I'd prefer to be holed up in my home office by myself. The fewer people I encounter, the fewer who can irritate me. I have zero tolerance for anyone and anything. Z-E-R-O. Over the years, I've acquired the tools to get myself out of this space. The question of the evening is: When will I decide to apply those tools?