slowing down, thankfully

Music: Talk Talk: Laughing Stock (1991)

I arrived home from Chicago on Sunday only to begin work anew on Monday. Prior to my Wednesday departure I cleaned house in a major way, and I cannot express how refreshing it was to return to a clean and tidy home (minus the cat pee accidents, the consequence of vengeful putties angry to be so lap deprived). I promptly dirtied it up rushing to catch up with paperwork and promised labor. As I type there is a dirty crock-pot, stacks of crusty dishes, and heaps of laundry sitting here and yon ready for pretreatment.

I missed my dog. It was nice to see someone so happy I had returned home. Jesús the break-up dog has turned out to be such a blessing. Who knew? (You dog lovers did.)

By unexpected foresight, I managed to schedule two guest speakers for my undergraduate class this week. This is especially welcome for two reasons. First, I came home with a touch of laryngitis, and so the less talking the better. I also did a guest talk with my friends at Southwestern University this afternoon, so saving my voice for that worked out especially well. Second, I'm not currently prepping a new lecture. This semester I have been up on Monday and Wednesday nights trying to prepare brand new lectures for my Celebrity Culture class. I realized that it's my first new undergraduate prep in five years---my, how I forget the work involved in thinking about structure, and how much students appreciate structured lectures. Unlike preps of the past, however, I've been learning Apple's Keynote slide program and developing slides for my lectures. The result is a very pretty, "television-like" presentation, but a few extra hours of labor. It's nice to be spending those hours reflecting and blogging tonight, chatting on Crackbook, and reading trashy celebrity gossip blogs.

A number of folks have asked "how was NCA?"---a question that refers to this weekend's annual meeting of the National Communication Association, the largest professional organization of my field. My response has been, typically, "it was a blur." "Blur" is defined as "to make or become less distinct," and it's accurate. My memory of the conference is episodic, little snippets of conversations and events that seemed to have whooshed by, both exciting and . . hard to pin-down. Clearly I did too much, and I hope I appear much less frequently on the program next year. One of my best friends in the world and I were only able to figure ourselves together in a two-hour window in four days! When conference duties overwhelm the ability to see my best friends, I know I'm doing too much.

Thanks for the dinner E. You helped me recharge more than you know.

NCA increasingly disappoints me as a professional organization for its calculated and strategic silences on issues of major humanitarian import. I also hate the fact that people are fearful of speaking out about basic human decency; it seems there's something particular about NCA that makes people afraid to speak their minds. I cannot put my finger on it quite yet. I'm thinking. Nevertheless, at the same time, I enjoy going to NCA because it puts me in contact with people who share my concerns. Mostly, my experience of NCA is joyful because of the love I feel for my friends and colleagues, despite the frustrations with being a member of a ever-huge, pulsating brain in the widening corporate academiverse. While I am ambivalent about my professional organization, I am not about my colleagues. I am very fortunate to be in communication studies, I think. We are not like other fields; in general, I think we take care for one another, and I'm especially proud of how well we care after our students. You hear so many horror stories about how grads are treated in other fields. Torture-loving republichristians aside, I think you can measure any community by how well it takes care of its youth (broadly defined).

Anyway, I'm rambling (and also glad to have the time to ramble, for once this semester!). This is been one of the busiest semesters of my career. I don't think if every semester was like this I could continue as a professor (I am simply not happy being so busy), but I do think the combination of four trips, a new prep, promotion and tenure, car repair, and textbook preparation/writing is not the norm. At least I hope so! Perhaps the anxiety about promotion is making things more stressful, I don't know. (I'll find out if I am "vested" here at UT in about four weeks or so.)

So, anyway. We're heading into the home stretch. I'm looking forward to getting back to some writing. I have high hopes for a quick essay revision, a textbook chapter draft, and a brand-new, from-the-ground-up essay by the time school begins in January. And, hopefully, a couple of co-authored drafts completed along the way. It's amazing what you can get written when you can devote weeks at a time, day after day, of concentrated thinking and writing without meetings, defenses, letter-writing, strategic planning, conferences, and so forth. And for all you grads reading this: that's what I'm learning the average professorial life is like. Semesters are for teaching and service; breaks are for scholarship. The early assistant professor life is less clogged-up with service; take advantage of that! Write! Make babies! Do whatever! But around the associate years, you're carrying much, much more than you can imagine. 60 hour weeks? Hah! Try 80 hours . . . .

Just sitting here in anticipation of writing, I'm getting a little excited. Surprisingly, scholarship feels like a luxury, like a time for vacation. It's sort of like going to a movie: once you get into writing or composing something, you're not thinking about laundry, or errands, nor are you worrying about letting others down. It's almost a selfish pleasure.

I'm listening to Talk Talk's later music now. Gosh it's good. Music is good. Music still gets me by on a daily basis. Yesterday I picked up the 20th year anniversary of NWA's landmark "gansta" album---what memories that brings. And let me just say this year brought us some excellent albums. I'm looking forward to writing my yearly best-of sitting at the kitchen table in my parent's home.

And I'm looking forward to visiting my friends in Athens. And my peeps in Atlanta.

And I'm looking forward to watching the final season of Battlestar Galactica, which seems to be my indulgence for the holiday seasons in years past.

Can you tell I'm ready for break? "So say we all!"