Notes from Exile: Stargate SG1 in the time of COVID-19

So, Hubs and I have been working our way through all ten seasons of Stargate: SG1 over the summer. I somehow never watched it when it was on television, so in order to avoid having to turn in my nerd card, I started watching it. Unlike Babylon 5, I didn't hate the first season (I watched the movie first, so that could have something to do with it), and I did watch all the way to the end. I did not switch over to Stargate: Atlantis or Stargate: Universe, and I haven't watched any of the movies yet.

So we were watching the series finale last night and I was really not enjoying it. At some point, I decided to talk about it, and got Hubs so wound up (because that was one of his favorite episodes) that he requested that I just shut up and watch. What I was not liking about the episode was - spoilers if you haven't seen it, but seriously it's been at least 10 years so, #sorrynotsorry - all of them being trapped in the spaceship with no real timeline for how long they would be there.

I was spewing ideas about how it was too drawn out and how most of season ten had been almost slapstick in its levity so this level of emotion was jarring. But I think it was the parallel to how at least some of us have spent the time since mid-March that was more than jarring, it was downright unsettling. It came to me during the scene where Col. Mitchell was running through the ship, and then ends up in his quarters, throwing things around and destroying everything he could get his hands on.

At first, on Stargate, they all tried to work with Lt. Col. Carter to find out how to escape from the time bubble without the ship getting exploded by a shot from a hostile vessel. But after a few weeks and then months, they started getting on with whatever they could on board the ship. In the end, they were trapped there for 50 years, as barely a minute passed outside the bubble.

I have chosen to stay at home almost exclusively since mid-March. I go out on the weekends to get our grocery shopping done. I have spent one evening, recently, at the home of one of my beta readers, going over feedback for an upcoming novel. I drove to Georgia for the completely outdoor and socially distanced funeral for my Aunt Mary back in April. Other than that, these four walls and occasionally our yard and street (to get the post) have been the extent of my world. For five and a half months, I have been here.

The first parallel is that I have watched eagerly - in the beginning, until it became begrudgingly - as each Coronavirus Task Force Report played out on television, hoping that the day would come SOON that a vaccine had been developed and life would return to normal while we could still remember what normal was. We would be back on campus in the fall. There would be football Saturdays and renaissance festivals to look forward to - but none of that happened. Every "cure" and treatment and suggestion by anyone in charge would be the next best thing, and then it would fail. Finally we all were advised to wear masks, and while that seems to slow things down, it was not widely enough adopted to be really effective.

The second parallel is how my life adapted easily, it seemed, to getting on with things here. I am one of the lucky ones that could do my work from home, so I filled those endless days with transcription and planning for the summer semester, still certain we would be back on campus in the fall. But, just as it did on board the Prometheus in the time bubble, that started to wear thin too - didn't take 50 years, thankfully, but it happened. It comes with the moving of the goalposts, I think, from "This will be just until the beginning of April," to "I'm sure we will be back on campus in June," to the current "I am remote working until January."

The final parallel, or where everything fell into place for me last night, was the scene I mentioned above, where Cameron is shown running through the ship, then sparring with Teal'c and taking things more than a bit too far, and then finally losing it in his quarters and destroying things. I can completely understand the feelings there. I ran through the ship for exercise while I was buying a desk and setting up an office in the spare room in our house. I sparred without caution as I let myself have free reign to eat what I liked, hang out on the couch all day during the summer, and generally did nothing in terms of self care because WHAT WAS THE POINT, ANYWAY? And finally, on the inside anyway, I am raging, I am destroying, I am screaming - but not out loud, not in front of people, and certainly not when I'm taking my scheduled exercise at the grocery store and Costco.

And the grand moral at the end of this tale, the moment you've been waiting for if you've made it this far reading is that there isn't one. It's me, and Hubs, and the dogs, here in the house, and likely to be that way through that mystical far off time called January. Three months ago I would have said that in January we will all step out of our isolation and fall back into the swing of things as they were before. After all, on Stargate last night, they managed to reverse time and stop themselves from going into the time bubble in the first place. They were reset - the past 50 years didn't happen (in true Bobby Ewing style, if you ask me) and they were ready to go on another adventure through another wormhole.

We can't reset anything. We are here, for better or worse, six chevrons are encoded and we're just waiting for the seventh to be locked in. (Thanks, Walter.)

Notes from Exile: Week Two in the DayJob

Old Main Building, Clemson

I know that I have titled this "Week Two" but it really doesn't feel that way. The first week was only three days of classes and two days of absolute soul-crushing stress, so I'm not sure that makes a week. Instead, I am fairly sure that it has been about six months since I was celebrating my last week of the weirdest summer break I've ever had.

In retrospect, that's pretty normal for the first week of a semester, so I guess I should be glad that it didn't seem like a year. Interpreting into a camera has been very different from sitting in the front of a classroom and interpreting, and has made me very aware of the fact that I am not suited for Virtual Remote Interpreting (VRI) that is taking over the market these days. I spend most of my time playing dispatch - chasing down zoom links and Canvas sections, which is not that different from what I would be doing in the office on campus.

I do miss having my office mate across the desk. I miss catching up with people from the other offices in our building while waiting on my lunch to heat. And believe it or not, I miss the two hours a day on the bus from here down to campus.

When I envisioned my semester working from home, I have to say this was not what I thought it would be. I was looking forward to a bit of DayJob work, interpreting my class three times a week, getting some novel work/marketing done, and maybe having time to run out for some interpreting gigs here and there. Last week felt more like someone put me in a runaway roller coaster car and pushed me onto the track, swinging me just close enough but not quite to be able to feel like I've gotten anything done successfully. I would just feel like I was catching my breath going up one of those Scream Machine-esque hills before plunging back down into Zoom rooms that weren't allowing the caption writer to enter and videos to transcribe that were due to disappear from Canvas long before I could get the work done. I did not touch anything I've written the entire week.

I finally broke down and got int touch with my beta reader for an upcoming stand-alone novel in a new universe to suggest that we get together to go over her feedback. I'm putting this manuscript up for #pitmad in September, so there isn't much time left before that (if I don't get any requests, I will just put it in the pipeline for self-publishing). We got together at the weekend and went over the novel with a fine-toothed comb and a couple of glasses of wine and I felt the most like myself that I have since March.

Surprising? Yeah, me too. I've been basically with my partner ONLY since March, and I thought that I was introverted enough to be okay with that. I was wrong. It was a good time, socially distanced, and I basically bathed in hand sanitizer when I got home. This does not signal a rapid return to weekly girls nights out, retail therapy, or any of the social outlets I had in what my partner and I lovingly are calling "The Before Times." I'm still far too concerned about falling ill with COVID to return to my old life. I was becoming legitimately concerned for my own mental health, and this jolt may have recharged my ability to wait for safety to return so that we can stand in each other's kitchens, cooking, laughing, and relaxing into our friendships and letting go of the DayJob stress.

For now, though, it's back to my desk, in the office I share with our dogs and the house that has been my world, more or less, since March. I'm just a little better able to handle it.

The end of one exile, beginning of another...

So, we are still at home, still in the midst of a pandemic, and to be honest, I don't know exactly how my state is doing, because the numbers have to be taken with so much context - so I'm pretty much still here at home until there is a vaccine.

I'm working from home until January, at this point, in the hopes that things will look better next year. Our university is starting classes today, online until mid-September because we still have some pretty alarming trends in terms of COVID cases in this part of the state. In a way, it feels the same as it has since the first week of May when I officially "went on summer break" from my job in academia. But really the only difference is that I'm spending more time at this desk than I did over the summer.

In March, we watched the students leave for Spring Break and not come back. We had about a month of scrambling and pivoting to online study only. The summer was the beginning of the true exile: no renaissance faire, no girls night, no nothing except weekly trips to the shops for food. The anniversary of my mother's death. The death of one of my favorite aunts. Cancellation of the trip to Scotland to be with my partner's family to celebrate his father's birthday. Just me and the dogs and these four walls. Lots of time to write and barely any motivation to do so.

So this begins a new kind of exile. Daily communication with my office colleagues. I had a video call with my office mate last week that nearly left me in tears because I miss her. I miss the office. I miss the dynamic. But I'm determined to stick this one out and do my part not to spread this horrible virus. And so, my officemates now are Daddy's Jeany-greyhound, the duckling, the bluebird (inexplicably in the pond but there you are), the YHC lion reading his books, the odd Celtic-ish warrior and the no-longer roaring triceratops wearing Yoda as a hat. We have Julius Caesar as a guide to inter-office politics and Profee watching over all of us. And we are all fine, really.

Well, until I find the batteries for the triceratops, that is...

Notes from Exile, Week Five, via Twitter

What I'm researching today:
1. Irish Mythology
2. How Irish history informed Irish Mythology
3. The Strid/River Wharfe at Bolton Abbey in Yorkshire
4. How not to lose my mind with one screen instead of the multiples I have at my DayJob™#workingfromhome #writerlife #ihateexcel

— NancyD_writes (@nancyd_writes) April 22, 2020

On crowded spaces and weird moments of podcast clarity

(photo courtesy of the Anderson Independent: Clemson students on the library bridge at class change)

This morning, as my bus hurtled down I-85, I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts: And That's Why We Drink. It is one part paranormal stories, one part true crime stories, and several parts humor. But this morning I listened to an episode recorded after the shootings in El Paso and Dayton. The tone was angry, accusatory, afraid, resigned, and just sad - and I felt every single one of those as I listened. As usual, storytellers Em and Christine spoke my truth along with theirs about this issue.

But then, as also often happens on a dark bus before 8am on my way to work, my mind started to wander. Christine had said something about people who are now afraid to leave their homes, afraid to go to crowded places. Em was talking about how people who want to go to the premiere of a superhero movie think twice now after the Aurora Theatre shooting. I thought to myself that I haven't really changed that much of my daily life, but that could just be because other than my friend who died at Virginia Tech I haven't really had a personal connection to the other shootings.

But on closer inspection, I do have some alterations that have happened. One glaring one is related to the picture above. In order to get from my office to two of the buildings in which my students often have classes, I have to cross over that bridge and it often is just that crowded. I don't do that anymore. I go under the bridge and take the elevator up to the top of the stairs at the other end. I thought I was just doing that because I was lazy - and I am, don't misunderstand - but it is also because I have become rather uncomfortable in large open spaces that have loads of people in them. Places like college campuses. Places that could be targeted.

I tested that theory the other morning by walking across the bridge rather than under it, and sure enough, by the time I got to the other side and was walking up the steps to the sidewalk I was full of anxiety. On my walk back from class I go across the bridge all the time with no worries - because there aren't that many students on it then, I suppose. As much as I hate to say I'm letting the terrorists win - however melodramatic that is - I am because to arrive at my class to interpret with a ball of anxiety in my chest is not doing anyone any favors.

I wonder if this is a permanent thing? Will I be resigned to side streets and outdoor elevators for the rest of my life? Will someone somewhere that is in charge finally do something about the root cause of these shootings?

And here y'all thought I was going to complain...

Not today.

Okay, earlier today, but not now, even though the sun is creeping up and into the window I'm sitting in front of and making it darned near impossible to work because I CAN'T SEE...

Nope, still not complaining. I am instead starting a new way of working - may or may not have asked permission or cleared it with the higherups but you know, sometimes, to quote Christine Kane, you have to "leap and the net will appear." At least I hope there will be a net.

This is a time of change in my office. Great change. But only for me. After seven years of sitting at a certain desk in a certain office within our suite, I am being relocated. At first, I was angry. I have been here the longest! Why am I having to move? But now, I'm starting to look at this arrangement as a new way to work - semi-digital semi-nomad life, here I come.

So I was going to get myself all worked up over having to be out of my office today, but I'm not - I'm in my office now wherever I am. It's a scary thing for someone that had needed the stability of a 9-5 job for most of my life, but it's turning out to be more okay than I thought.

More time for writing when I'm not chained to a desk. More time to sit in a comfy chair and read my prep materials. More time to be me, rather than the poor team player that I always seem to end up being. More time, less office. Yeah. I think the net is appearing.

Hey, I just noticed the purple and orange in the photo up there. Huh. Coincidence?

Impostor Syndrome, la maladie du jour.

What?!?

So with my last post, I covered some pretty heavy topics and unpleasant truth, and this time is no different, really. Last time I still had faith in my country and my senators to do the right thing. No, I didn't, that's a lie. Last time I still thought that maybe enough of the people elected to represent us would want to represent us and listen to us. No, again, that is a lie.

Let me start again. This time I'm going to talk a little bit about something that I face on a regular basis, in all facets of my life - sometimes with a bit of help from colleagues and co-workers that I am positive are not doing it on purpose. I didn't cross that out, but it's still not 100% true.

I found an email today with an excellent article on impostor syndrome in academia from the Chronicle of Higher Education, linked here. While this article specifically speaks to academia and even more specifically to the faculty that work in this field, I found some points that were salient to my own life, both my professional life (as a nationally certified sign language interpreter) and my avocation (a novelist or an author or whatever you want to call me - well, not whatever you want, that could get a little ugly). 

You see, I am really good friends with Impostor Syndrome. I'm sitting here right now - having finished working hard to get my software ready to provide real-time captioning in a class on campus and arrived at said class to find no one there and nothing in my email about why - worried that because I decided to use the time I should be typing 

Female Student: [cannot hear him/her] 

into my software I am blogging, I will be seen as a fraud and fired. Rational Adult Nancy thinks that is ridiculous. But there is another me living in my mind that not only does not share that opinion but spends a great part of our conscious hours working on plans B-Q for what we will do when we are found out to be the fraud we are.

On any given day, I know that what I do for a living isn't easy.  It doesn't matter that I have been actively thinking in and about a visual and spatial language since I was about 12 years old. It doesn't matter that I love languages so much that I fell in love with the process of working between two languages and can't crawl back out. It doesn't matter that I have a Bachelor's degree in American Sign Language/English interpreting from a top university in that field of study - the first one to offer said degree, if I am not mistaken (Hello Maryville College! Go Scots!) - and I was nationally certified as a transliterator (spoken English to a signed form of English) and interpreter (spoken English to ASL) by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Inc. in 1997 and 1999, respectively. It doesn't matter that I have interpreted for celebrities, politicians, authors, Broadways shows, and for students attending Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the UK.

None of that seems to be enough to make me feel confident about who I am and what I do. Currently, I'm sure that the fact that I am the only one in my family of origin without an advanced degree (my father had two of them!) doesn't help. When you're surrounded by grad students and people with all sorts of alphabet soup following their names and all you have is BA, CI/CT to show for it, you can feel pretty less than. But the author of the article I linked above had a great bit of insight into that part of the syndrome:

Learn to see yourself in context. If you feel like an impostor because you don’t know or can’t do a particular thing, think about that thing. Is that skill or content crucial? If so, can you acquire it? Not because you want to belong but because it may make you more effective or productive. And if it doesn’t actually matter, think about why it is that others have it and you don’t (assuming you really don’t and aren’t just being hard on yourself or inflating other people’s capabilities). Maybe there are real and good reasons why that wasn’t part of your background or education.

I don't want a master's in interpreting. I don't see the point in it, to be honest. I learn on the job, every day. I go to workshops. I study other signed languages. But then I see someone sign something so perfectly, so succinctly, with so much meaning packed into such an economy of movement and handshape and I just want to turn in my letter of resignation and go home.

But I don't do that. Of course I don't. Not even when - on various occasions, from the beginning of my career to present - colleagues that either don't sign at all or don't sign well enough to interpret or aren't really even sure what it is I do try to make decisions for me about my work. I should be incensed! I should be furious! I should stand up for me and what I know!

Instead, I scuttle back into my place in the universe and wait for the inevitable revealing of me as a fraud. Writing has done nothing to help this syndrome, either - if anything, it has made it so much worse. I give my manuscripts to my beta readers, breath held, heart rate on par with a disco beat - and I fully expect that they will look at what I have done and know that I am not a real author. My sentences are run-ons and full of too many ellipses and dashes. My characters are stock, storylines/plot so ridden with outdated tropes that you almost don't have to read them to know where they are going. My dialogue swings madly from stilted to entirely too much in the vernacular of both South Carolina and West Yorkshire that it makes no sense to anyone.

And while we're at it - international expat? Ha. You lived there two years, and you let the death of your pets in the first two months color the entirety of your life in the UK. You're no expat. You're just a frightened child. You're a fraud.

WOW, who let her out? The author of the article goes on to mention a specific piece of advice that I am trying to follow in my daily life - something that would be hard even without the aforementioned voice screaming in the back of my head. (Interesting side note: to those that have read my fantasy series, this is where the idea for how Ben communicates with Gin came from: THIS RIGHT HERE.)

Stay concrete. Impostor syndrome feeds off vagaries and generalities. "I’m not good/smart/charismatic/funny/self-assured enough." What’s enough? Who is all of those things? What is "good" anyway?

What happened politically in the US this weekend has cranked up the volume on the impostor syndrome, let me tell you. Remember the woman I mentioned last week? All of those feelings, all of those experiences - they not only lead to a strapping case of this syndrome but they help feed it and make it worse. Everything from why would you think anyone would listen to you to the ever present you must be remembering it wrong because why would anyone want to do that to YOU?

All this to say I don't have an answer for this yet. I haven't found a magic pill that will take these feelings away and silence that inner voice that delights in waiting until I'm about to fall asleep to remind me of all the reasons I'm going to be found out very soon. But I'm still looking, and in the mean time I'm trying to keep her as far as I can in the background.

Post Camp (Nano) Blues

You don't know how many times I have tied that same canoe up to that same dock.

When I was a kid and went to Camp Glisson, I would always be out of sorts for the first week or so afterward. I loved camp SO MUCH that I couldn't bear to be back home, and it would take that much time to get me back to my normal routine. So that's where I am now - still in the outofsorts with no real ETA for the backtonormal.

Bear with me. I have this piece I just finished a week ago today swirling about in my mind, the Baskervilles first novel to finish (nothing like giving a manuscript to betas that doesn't have an ending!), and more of my prequel to the Nature Walker Trilogy to reverse engineer and do primary edits.  Oh, and in exactly two weeks I will be back at my Day Job, but my schedule this semester is going to give me an hour and a half every Tuesday and Thursday evening to sit in my office and wait for the bus, so that's noveling time, right? Lemons and lemonade, y'all. 

Once again, into the breach...err, semester...

Trying the blog thing again are you? Pardon me if I don't stay
awake until you leave it hanging...again... -Willow-Pickle

Here we find ourselves again, dear friends, my handful or so of Lettuce readers, my Lettuce Heads... Oh, I like that, I think I'm keeping it. You are my Lettuce Heads. Yes.

Sorry, moving on...

Here we are again at the beginning of another semester at Clemson. It is fall, so there is the influx of TOO MANY FRESHMEN that makes class scheduling a nightmare at best and my spreadsheet for captioning a never ending work in process.

Welcome to life in Student Accessibility Services, I suppose.

Those lights in tunnels that I spoke about back in May are still burning. GARF was an amazing experience for this seasoned rennie performer that brought loads of new friends and happy memories and bits to try at other faires. The lack of coffee meetings (and overall lack of Daisy) was hard to manage but we moved onward and upward. I'm now on the cusp of the Enchanted Chalice and CRF, and while I am looking forward to again being in my element I'm finding it difficult to bring up the same amount of joy and anticipation that I am already feeling when I think of next year at GARF. I suppose everyone has their niche, and mine is Newcastle.

That makes me laugh everytime I say it, since my parents-in-law live in a village near Newcastle. The real Newcastle. The one filled with Geordies that doesn't pull a Brigadoon in the mist every summer in June.

Nothing new to report, really, other than general personal growth over the summer. Coffee meetings with Daisy morphed into snuggly telly time with Willow (and Bryn, when she isn't being ENTIRELY TOO GROWN UP TO MANAGE A SNUGGLE ANYMORE). Work was steady over the summer, so I was out of the house a lot. I missed dance and poi, but that will start back in a few weeks now that I have a steady paycheck. 

Steady. That's the word for the summer. 

Coming up though? Watch this space, there's news on the Nature Walker front. That's all I can say at the moment, but I'm about to burst here. WATCH.THIS.SPACE

Lights at the Ends of Various Tunnels

Me and my girl at GARF,
photo courtesy of the Southern Travel Guide

Yeah, the last post was pretty grim, and if I'm honest, the work situation (that I still can't talk about) hasn't gotten any better, but there have been bright spots and that's what we are going to focus on in THIS post.

One of them is featured in the photo: The Georgia Renaissance Festival. Now, this is not a new thing, not by a longshot, but apparently, the fourteenth year is the charm, hoopskirt issue notwithstanding. I have made friends at GARF in the past, cast members and vendors and directors and the like, but this year just feels different. I feel at home in "Newcastle" in a way I have yet to feel at home in "Fairhaven" after fifteen years in what we refer to as the Northern Kingdom.

What has changed? Me? Having Bryn? I don't know. But this past weekend, I was able to play, really play, with both the cast and with my partner in crime, Lucy to my Ethel, and the only other member of HOEF that does more than one or two weekends at GARF, Anne. Perhaps it is the beautiful friendship that has formed between her Bo and my Bryn. Perhaps it is Anne's extrovert that brings my introvert along, often kicking and screaming, to get to know the cast.

Whatever it is, I am profoundly sad on days that I have to miss attending GARF, even though it means a 5 am start every Saturday and a late afternoon arrival back home, dirty and sweaty and hot every Sunday between the middle of April and the first weekend in June. I long to be in the lanes, even though that means pulling turkey tendons out of Bryn's mouth and replacing steak sandwiches that she snatches in the blink of an eye. I dream of the joust, and of watching with pride as Bryn thumps her tail when her favorite princess rides by, upside down in her saddle, even though I'm fighting the reflection of the sun off the light colored sand which is swirling about in my eyes and nose.

I'm hoping that this feeling of Rennie family will continue into the fall when I am again with my HOEF family in the dog barn on the eastern side of Fairhaven, and that we can project the kind of skilled performance that we are learning at GARF into our wonderfully laid back home at the Enchanted Chalice in Greenville, SC. Vikings ahoy!

I did say tunnels in the title, didn't I? While GARF is the light at the end of one tunnel, the fact that I only have four days left until my summer break is certainly another. But that tunnel is not quite as bright because I will have several months of empty coffee meetings to look forward to without Daisy. While it hasn't been easy without her, it has been easier because I've had work to distract me. Without my daily commute to Clemson, I am going to have to face what our reality looks like now; no queen on the end of my bed, huffing because I've rearranged my legs and accidentally knocked her about. No beautiful blonde/red fawn fur glimmering in the green grass of the back yard as she sunbathes. No teeth chattering in my ear.

But you see that muppet in the picture with me? She is a light of her own, and she and Willow are there to distract me when they can and snuggle with me when they can't. Their light comes to find me in my tunnel and shines into the darkness to remind me to keep moving forward.

Finally, there is light at the end of the Superginormous Manuscript tunnel...book one in the three book series that it has become is almost ready to go to Amazon, and that is both exciting and horrifying. I took the first Camp Nanowrimo to edit the second book, and am not working on editing/fleshing out the third in between expense reports and mad garb sewing/laundering. So all in all, my life has far more light than dark. I just need to be able to remember that and hang on to it...and keep moving.

When too much is too much...

My Allen Face...or annoyed face.

We all have breaking points. Some of us have higher pain (emotional and physical) thresholds than others of us. Some people thrive on deadlines and last minute pressure, other people fold in the face of increased intensity.

I'm not sure which one of those categories best suits me. In reality, I think that it fluctuates, as I'm sure it does for most people. But right now I am feeling close to the edge of my patience, my sanity, and my ability to interact with others in any way other than with anger, and y'all, that just isn't me.

2017 has been rough so far. It started out way back in 2016 with losing Daisy. I have joked since she came into my life that when I lost her I'd have to be hospitalized because I would lose such a big part of my own soul there wouldn't be much left.

And then it happened and it was terrible and awful and my heart hurt then and hurts now every time I think of her or see her face come up in my FB timeline. I want to simultaneously carry a copy An American Greyhound in Yorkshire around with me all the time, and rip the book to shreds because I can't stand to see her eyes staring out from the front of it. My rational mind reminds me that all dog lovers and pet parents go through this when their animals depart this life, but my heart screams into its own vacuum that it was too soon or not fair or my fault, and that I will never ever let myself be hurt like that again.

I said that after Clowny, and Mills, and Jeany, and Hunky, and Profile, and Franny, and Zooey, and Lizzard, and Bo...and Buffy...and Midgit...and I always do, over and over.

So  I started my new semester on the back foot due to that familiar upturned beehive that is my brain and things were not any better at work. I am not able nor willing to go into details here (or anywhere, really), but vicarious trauma is real, y'all.  It leads to weird things like physical pain, memory loss, insomnia and at the very least, irritability. Next week is our spring break and I will only be down here once for a meeting...and it's like a reward, dessert at the end of a meal of nothing but olives and asparagus. I'm hoping to get my head on straight again during those 5 very short days of doing almost nothing.

But then again, those are five days that start with coffee meetings without Daisy, so I'm not holding my breath.

You're my back bone.
You're my cornerstone.
You're my crutch when my legs stop moving.
You're my head start.
You're my rugged heart.
You're the pulse that I've always needed.
Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating.
Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating.
Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating.
Like a drum, my heart never stops beating...
For you, for you.

(from Gone, Gone, Gone by Phillip Phillips)

Second verse, same as the...I've lost count

And yet, my lesson I have not learned.

Well, it has happened again. I have become utterly broken and tired and overwhelmed and...and...and I have decided to apply to grad school. But this time, rather than just stopping after the cursory search of programs here at Clemson and online programs at other institutions, I have actually begun filling out the application.

Okay, yeah, I've done that before too, fair enough. You have a long memory, my Lettuce readers.  But this time, there seems to be intent and follow through happening, and I've announced my intentions to the world so I have accountability when I feel ready to give up.

What? Yes, okay, FINE, I have done all of this before as Hubs so helpfully reminded me last night when I announced my intention, and by the end of that conversation I had almost talked myself out of even waiting for a response to the inquiry email I sent the department yesterday. Almost.

Just now I have saved the application because my few minutes of calm have broken out in nasty cases of barely controlled chaos as they so often do on this job. I am spinning plates and rapidly applying imaginary bursts of extinguisher to my smoldering hair.

The truth of the matter here is that I am not as confident in my interpreting skills as I was when I entered the field TOO MANY YEARS AGO TO ADMIT, so I am starting to look both at what I feel is my calling (scary prospect) and what I can do that will be a transferable skill when we move back abroad.

Oh, yes, we will be moving back abroad...where? I'm not sure (thank you Brexit), but somewhere that is decidedly NOT HERE. And that, my precious Lettuce readers, is as much of a political statement as you will see in the Lettuce these days. New Year's Resolution, that.

Flashback Post: The Aftermath of Snowmaggedon 2015

Rock on with your bad icicle selves...

First, please read this: In which I rant...

Now, as you know, there was another Winter Weather Event here in the Carolinas a few weeks ago.  Our meteorologists went crazy predicting 10 inches of snow and ice and all sorts of mayhem.  Didn't happen exactly like that but apparently there was enough chaos of the frozen variety that my University closed for a day and a half.

And once again, thanks to those who can afford time at work without pay, some of it was not "forgiven" by the governor's office.  Seriously, if you're going to order us to leave then go on and pay us for the time that we are not permitted to be at work.  It just makes sense...

In which I rant...about money...or the lack thereof...

Me at Traitor's Gate, Tower of London, a photo by Nancy Dunne on Flickr.

Right, so last week, as everyone knows, the Southern United States was blanketed with the horror known as Winter Weather. I think at our house we had between 5-6 inches of snow plus a healthy dose of ice on top of that. Everything came to a screeching halt, as it should have done, because down here we get that kind of weather so infrequently it doesn't make financial sense for cities and towns to have the equipment to deal with it.

I will say that again, so that those of you sniggering at us for our panic over what you consider to be a daily event can digest it and move on and stop with the ridiculous comments.  It does not make financial sense for us to have the equipment to deal with snow because we get a large amount so very infrequently.  It has nothing to do with how well or poorly we can drive.  We good? Right.

Well, on those two days as might have been expected, the University where I work was closed. The roads were awful and I was thankful that my employer thought that my life was more important than forcing me to drive the 65 miles round trip to get to work because the buses weren't running.

I was thankful until we got word that the governor is not going to grant us leave with pay for those two days. Oh, sorry, that doesn't make sense, does it? In this state, if state offices are closed it is up to the governor to decide if we are given the time off with pay or if we have to use our accrued leave time (of which I have none, I'm not that sort of employee sadly) OR make up the time by the next pay period.

The last week of January saw the first of the Winter Weather and Clemson was closed for a full day (plus two hours the day prior). The governor "forgave" that time so that we didn't have to make it up or use our leave time. Really I could have made it into work that day, but other parts of the state were not so lucky and so it was a good call on her part to close the state offices and a nice thing that she didn't make us make up that time.

Last week it was IMPOSSIBLE for a great many of us to get into work and it was another good call to not only close state offices but declare a state of emergency. But not forgive the time? Really?

The third option is to take leave without pay. Now I'm sure that the governor and many state employees, even those that work in my office, could miss two days of pay out of one check and not even miss it. Me? Notsomuch. Two days means late bills and cutting out groceries and such. We are not destitute but we are not rich either.

I went to the governor's website to see if there was any statement about the leave time or even a place to lodge a complaint. What I found was a proud statement hailing her as the most fiscally conservative governor that South Carolina has had for a long time.

Nice. It's easy to be fiscally conservative when you have money. But does that also make it easy to send the message that you don't care overmuch about your citizen's lives during weather events...that you don't feel that it is important to reward them for doing the smart thing and staying home by giving them the days off?

Whatever. Here's hoping the next predicted polar vortex won't close the University because those of us down here at the bottom can't afford another day away from work.