Thursday, July 8, 2004

Kludge

We're moving to NY in about one month.  Summer is scooting by incredibly fast: goodbye get-togethers, constant (hauntingly constant) house-cleaning and perfecting (as in the inhumanity of sweeping the floor for sixty days or leaving behind nary an item of clutter), out the door on a moment's notice for showings, pet adoption woes.  I've even been helping the neighbor lady's mother find a cleaning job so she can get financed to buy this place.  

If I ever sell a house again, I'll do things differently.  1. List it FSBO.  2. Register the property on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service).  3.  Tack on a flat rate selling bonus for a closed transaction by a specific date.  4.  Crank out a few full color fliers and a web site. 5. Price it low.  6.  Make sure the exterior is flashy.  Nobody makes it to the gorgeous interior if the outside is, as ours has been called, "drab."  I've never had a good time in sales jobs or the sales side of jobs I've held, and so I won't carry on about the profession of real estate brokering.  But I have opinions now--hard-learned.

Where will we live when we pull the last plug in KC and relocate to 13244?  Here or there.  A cozy apartment is on hold, but we're still holding out hope for a different, roomier option. Might even take a plane ride one more time to firm up choice digs. Optimizing proximity to campus, Ph.'s school of choice, and affordable rents into one: labyrinthine (that said, huge props to the CCR folks for unbelievable support in the process).

Why else is July a jumble?  Replacing myself at work keeps hitting snags.  Protracted interviews, lunch follow-ups, interrogations of work samples all resulted in a declination. Got a new stack of resumes today; set another interview for the morning.  On top of that, I'm pounding through some of the more difficult challenges I've ever faced with the online courses, their maintenance, redevelopment, systemic supports, core outcomes statements, and big stakes (well, okay, relatively small stakes, depending on how you fight fights) wrangling over enrollment caps in all English courses set against per-student salary structures for contingent faculty.  Grrr.  It's messier than I want to blog.  All blogging is messy? No...I mean Mess-ess-y. Unrecognizable.

All of this stuff--as well as I think I'm handling it--has snuck into my neck and lower back, forming knots, funking up my sleeping habits and infiltrating my system despite any hearty attempts to meditate it away, release it to ease.  These stressors accumulate into a kind of sub-affect, subliminal intensity of circumstances, and inescapable duress.  So the strain isn't a mood-breaker or a pout-maker, but it has rattled the ordinary patterns I knew just six weeks ago.  This is as near as I'll get  to putting my cause for bumbled blogging (and lots of other things) to words. And to beat the forces back, I've been studying many of the insightful web sites about stress, where I can find soothing advice such as, "Wear comfortable and loose clothing when possible. Take off your shoes when you can."  untying...untying...loosening. Shoes are off.  (Will they know if I didn't follow the instruction to "print out this document and read it offline"?)

Bookmark and Share Posted by at July 8, 2004 10:14 PM to Under a Bushel
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