Two shank's mares walk into a bar

A friend dropped by briefly today. He laughed when he saw me. I thought that was odd, but didn't say anything. We concluded our business. Later I happened by a mirror and saw that my hair was sticking straight up. I looked like Don King. Or a shocked Bride of Frankenstein. Since I stopped coloring my hair (brown), it's now reverted to it's natural color (mottled grayscale). Not only is the color different than it used to be, but the texture has also changed, which accounts for its vertical tendency. There was a time when I would have killed for hair with the ability to stand up and salute. I guess it just proves the maxim that if you wait long enough, all your desires will eventually come to you.

Take climate change, for instance. Hot, is all I can say. Hot, hot, hot. I'm loving it, although I admit that I start to wilt a bit when the thermometer nears 100°, especially if I'm outside hiking from store to bus stop with a heavy sack of groceries. Oh, woe is me, I have to walk. Alas, alackaday, and all that folderol.

Speaking of odd idioms, I called my mother on the phone tonight to tell her I would like to borrow her car on Wednesday. “Shall I come pick you up?” she asked. Part of me would like nothing better than to have my mother drive over to loan me her car. Part of me thinks walking might be beneficial for my butt.

“I'll walk over,” I said.

“You'll use your shank's mare?” she said playfully.

I was like, what? My what? I'd never heard that expression before. I Googled it while we were on the phone and read some background on the term. Ha! Shank's mare! I love language. I should probably have studied English. But then I'd be unemployed. Hey, wait! ...well, whatever. I still love words.

Speaking of words, I've spent the past four days editing a train wreck of a dissertation proposal. At first pass, I despaired. I didn't think there was much hope. The structure was there, thanks to the institution's template, but the content was fractured and bent, with huge gaps (the theoretical framework is completely missing!). A plague of perplexing grammar gaffes sent my brain grasping for meaning... every paragraph had some sort of bizarre arrangement of words, kind of like those magnetic word games you seen on your friends refrigerators, where people before you have spelled out cryptic sentences like closet cats pee dark secrets. I've seen this kind of language abuse before from native English speakers who somehow absorbed just enough in high school to produce phrases like “On the same token,” and “as it relates to them being able to hit the ground running; hence being prepared.”

I am starting to develop a systematic process. First I wrestle the format into submission. If you've ever used Word styles and section breaks, you know what I'm talking about. Once I've got the styles, headings, and pagination nailed down, I generate a Table of Contents to reveal the bones and help me navigate the paper. Then I scan the paragraphs for main ideas and shuffle them around so they fall in line with the subheadings. Next, I take paragraphs apart to nudge ideas next to their buddies. And then I go word by word, semi-colon by misplaced comma by missing bracket, to wrench meaning out of each sentence. I go round and round in circles, finding statements that are repeated, or should be repeated but don't agree, shoving things hither and thither, sometimes working with the paper zoomed out to 30% so I can see two pages on the screen.

I highlight all the 4 billion instances where she should have cited a source (can we say plagiarism?). When I've combed the paper for dead commas and excessive spaces, I save the wreck as a pdf file and get down to the task of digging for meaning. I check my edits as I go—I always find errors, some of them egregious. Argh. As I work, I add comments in the margin, berating the hapless would-be scholar for thinking her feeble research question is going to pass muster with her reviewers.

Then again, she's attending an online for-profit university not unlike the one I attended, so all bets are off. Maybe her reviewers will be inexperienced and lackadaisical and wave her on through to the IRB review. Or maybe she'll get the Nazi mentor who blocks progress because of misplaced commas. I will probably eventually find out what happened: This is her proposal. If she's satisfied with my edits, she'll likely submit the dissertation. I can hardly wait.

Sail on, sailor

This just in: getting old sucks. Where do I start? Well, let's start with the reason I haven't blogged this week. I'm sailing rough seas in a tiny boat. I'm on an elevator that sometimes goes sideways. What am I talking about? I've got one word for you: vertigo.

That's right. My right ear is infected, somewhere deep in darkest Africa. Tiny calcium crystals have shaken loose from their moorings and they are wreaking havoc among the delicate and sensitive and completely blameless little hairs and nerve endings that tell my brain that we are upright in a crazy world. I'm swaying, I'm staggering, I'm flailing from doorpost to chair back. This is a righteous drag. Although, looking on the bright side, I haven't puked yet.

I'm not going to write much today, because sitting at the keyboard makes it worse. Who knew typing was such a balancing act? Tiny motions, little movements of my head, my hands, and I'm swirling again. I can't find my place in time and space. I can feel my blood, though, crashing in my head. It's loud in here. Once again I discover the truth: my mind is trying to kill me.

I have a doctor's appointment on Friday, if I can last that long. And I have a 55,000-word paper between me and freedom. I almost turned it down, but it will pay my rent. Beggars, choosers. This is a torture I never imagined, editing with vertigo. I'd cry, but I need to hold my head still.

I have so much to catch you up on: At the top of the list is the ongoing saga of finding my mother a place to live. My sister is coming to town in two weeks. The siblings are going to be together, all four us, to discuss the situation with Mom. My poor old scrawny mother will probably feel like it's an intervention. Luckily, she is still a free agent: it's her money, her life, her last years. I hope she goes out fighting. But not with me, I don't want to be the caregiver she gifts with a black eye. Just so we are clear.

Meanwhile, my car is still going, my cat is still operational, the weather alternates between awesome and abysmal (it's spring in Portland). Everything has a new uncertainty these days, when vertical is no longer something to be taken for granted. A symptom of old age, so I read. I'd like to see this experience as a sign of my increasing wisdom, but I'm pretty sure I peaked in my 40s. Downhill from here, folks, in a hellish hand-basket.

Shmushed

I just finished editing and uploading some hapless doctoral student's wretched massive tome. Now I have a few minutes before The Walking Dead comes on the local re-run channel to reflect on ants, editing, and stupid people.

I'm feeling a little disgruntled. I counted up the hours I spent on the editing project and calculated I earned just over $16.00 per hour. You might think that is a pretty good wage. If you think that, you would be wrong. Don't forget that at least 40% must be set aside for taxes.

While I was in the bathroom staring at the whiskers hanging out of my nose, I reflected on the possibility of writing a little program that would edit a dissertation for me according to a frivolously random algorithm, replacing commas with semi-colons and periods with exclamation marks. My edited product might defy the rules of grammar; but it would certainly read more energetically! Grammar-shmammar, that's what I always say. To my cat when he's licking his butt in the chair next to me.

The most recent editing project, and the source of my disgruntlement, consisted of the first three chapters of the client's dissertation and her proposal. It's rare to edit the dissertation before approval has been granted to field the study. I get the feeling that this client's brain is not firing on all cylinders. No doubt she is exhausted from smacking her children, placating her husband, and making empty promises to her committee. Or maybe she's just not ready for prime time.

I edited the proposal first, so I would know what the study was about. That took an entire day. On day 2, after I was part way through the dissertation itself, I happened to see an email from the agency guy in my inbox: Hope you haven't started the proposal: the client has an updated version. Enjoy! My yowl of horror and dismay inspired my cat to leave the room for a while. I did a quick document-compare and found very little had changed. No harm, no foul. Thank you, editing gods.

Speaking of editing gods, where were they last week, I wonder, when I won and lost my first (and probably last) dissertation coaching client? All gods are fickle—driving gods, dieting gods, ant-killing gods are just a few of the wingnuts that rule my world...but few gods are more unpredictable or capricious than the editing gods. This is the story.

I got a call on my cell phone from someone I didn't know. That happens occasionally. I rarely hear the thing buzz. My business number rolls over to a Google Voice number, and Google Voice sends me a transcript of the message. I always chuckle when I read Google's attempt to convert someone's quickly spoken words into text, especially if the person has an accent. Which was the case with the message that prompted the ensuing fiasco/learning opportunity.

I deciphered the message by listening to it and heard a man's voice say, “My professor recommended I get a coach.” After some back and forth by email and phone, I met Alphonse last Saturday at a local college campus (not the one he was enrolled with), where we sat at a picnic table in the sun and tried to understand each other. He told he he was enrolled in an online doctoral program in Education at someplace based in Colorado. He needed a coach and some help with APA formatting, he said.

“Do you have a copy of the APA book?” I asked. I held up my tattered and annotated copy. He looked perplexed.

Alphonse is from Kenya and retains a strong accent even after two decades in the U.S. It takes me a while to get familiar with a new accent. Meanwhile, I read lips. His lips were thin, and his teeth were perfectly white. His gums glowed pink, like there was a light on inside his mouth. He laughed a lot. Too much, and way too loudly. I hadn't been out of the house much lately, so I felt a little shrunken at his exuberance.

“Here are two of my assignments that need editing,” he said, holding out two bent pieces of white paper crammed with lines of single-spaced text in a variety of barely readable fonts. I could feel my eyes crossing (which in retrospect was an important clue, if I ever decide I want to do this again). He told me he was in a doctoral program, which led me to assume that he actually qualified to be in a doctoral program. I mean, I assumed he could write at least at a college level; he had to have a master's degree from somewhere, right? So I didn't do more than glance at the assignments he showed me.

Caught in my assumption, I failed to see red flag #1 (poor writing skills) and forged bravely into the muck, agreeing to edit his school assignments, which two days later got me into a frothy brouhaha with his professor, a faceless academic working at a two-bit for-profit university (not unlike the one from which I matriculated), who thought I had written Alphonse's assignments for him. More on that in a moment.

My second error was assuming that because Alphonse could use a cell phone, he could use a computer. Specifically, that he could send and receive emails with attachments. That assumption led me to refuse to receive the flashdrive he tried to give me, stating instead, oh, just email me the files. I'll edit them and send them back to you! Tra la la. Thus, red flag #2: poor computer skills. It's difficult to instruct someone how to download a file over the phone.

Red flag #3 involved his concern about how much my services were going to cost him. Duh. If a person has to ask, obviously they can't afford me. But at that point, I was more interested in the process of acquiring a real coaching client than I was in making money editing. Curiosity won out over chasing the cash. I have yet to be paid, but it's only $67.00, so I'm not too concerned.

As you can imagine, the fact that Alphonse couldn't send and receive email attachments meant he had to physically drive to my apartment and deliver a flashdrive to me. The first time, I met him in the street. He handed off the little gizmo and departed in his Toyota Prius. The second (and third times), in utter frustration, I invited him into my sacred space (red flag #4! Luckily he wasn't allergic to cats) and attempted to teach him how to do some things on my computer: send and receive an attachment, do some online research at the county library, and log into his university course room and upload a file. Alphonse sweated, mopped his brow, and laughed and laughed.

Without a doubt, Alphonse has the worst writing skills I have ever encountered. I do not lie when I say the editing I did for him was essentially a translation from a bizarrely poetic foreign language consisting almost entirely of... well, see for yourself.

This passage, by the way, was formatted entirely in bold. This was one of four paragraphs, all similar. After weeping a little, I began to pick my way through this verbal minefield and eventually produced a concise, neat translation that more or less represented the ideas I was able to glean from the essay. I felt I'd done a stellar job editing difficult material, and allowed myself a smidge of prideful satisfaction, which quickly dissipated when I got a call from Alphonse telling me his professor wanted to talk to me about the editing I'd done for him.

After some phone tag (on a holiday!), I connected with Dr. Bob, who calmly and with arrogant complacency commenced to regal me with his professional pedigree: program director, wrote the curriculum, president of a college, founded a college... yada, yada. By this time, I had looked him up on the Web and I knew exactly who he was: an academic wannabe stuck in the for-profit higher education world. And a bully, too, I found out.

I don't bully easily; I bend, I don't fight back. I didn't argue with Dr. Bob. I couldn't have gotten a word in, even if I had wanted to. I knew I had done nothing wrong: Alphonse hired me to edit his essays, and I had done my job as an editor; however, from an educator's point of view, I had made it possible for Alphonse to cheat. Once I saw that editing his papers was not going to help Alphonse toward his goal of earning a Ph.D., it was clear I had to release my new coaching client.

Meanwhile, Alphonse decided he didn't like his online university and the bossy Dr. Bob and began taking steps to transfer to a local university in his neighborhood. He emailed me yesterday that wanted me to edit his admissions essay. I declined. Alphonse has called my cell phone three times today. My cell phone was dead; forgot to charge it up. Ha. Maybe there is an editing god.

This is way too long, so I'll tell you about the ants another day. Hint: The word of the day: shmushed.

Two theories walk into a bar

I'm back in editing hell, editing other people's crappy papers instead of my own. I should be grateful. I am getting paid for my efforts. However, I just finished editing a literature review on the topic of culturally relevant pedagogy, and if I do the math, I'm pretty sure I will discover I earned about $8.00 per hour.

Now, most of the papers I've edited since I started this bizarre gig pay much better, up to $40 per hour or even more. The reason the rate differs so much between papers is that I get paid by the word. The faster I edit, the more money I make per hour. Unfortunately for me, sometimes the writers... well, let's just say they lack skill. It's not like I'm such a great writer. I can't tell a present participle from a gerund. But I'm getting better at this editing thing. For example, I am now developing a knack for sniffing out anthropomorphisms.

Anthro what, you say? It's a mouthful, I know. Anthropomorphism, often used synonymously with personification, simply put, is when you attribute human characteristics to nonhuman elements (such as concepts or theories, for example). Hence, two theories walk into a bar. Hand in hand, of course, which is what the author of today's literature review wrote. (For more information, see the APA Manual, 6th ed., pp. 69-70.)

My former Chair explained it like this. “If a box can do it, you can use it. Otherwise, don't.” I was, like, what? A box? Yes. A box. To help me while I was working on my concept paper, lo, these three years ago, I drew a box on a sheet of paper, and under the box, I wrote a list of verbs that could be used to describe what a box can and cannot do. Two lists, one a whole lot longer than the other.

What can't a box do? A lot, if you think about it. A box can't argue, defend, claim, describe, or recognize. A box can't illuminate (no, wait, I take that back, it could illuminate if it's a light box!). Well, a box can't illustrate or demonstrate. And a box certainly doesn't suggest, point out, recommend, conclude, offer, or walk hand in hand with anything, theoretical or otherwise. A box can't compare or contrast (that's the writer's job). Boxes can't explore, examine, or find the meaning in a bunch of faculty members' lived experiences with culturally relevant pedagogy. No matter how much you pay them! The boxes, I mean; everyone knows you don't need to pay faculty, they'll work for nothing.

So when one of my hapless authors writes, “This study explores...” I haul out my boilerplate explanation of anthropomorphism and slap it merrily into my editor's notes, concluding by typing, “Don't do this! Studies can't explore, only you the researcher can explore. Be warned. Reviewers have been known to reject a submission simply because someone wrote 'my study examines the differences between pigs that fly and pigs that don't fly.'”

Some people think a box can reveal, but I'm not so sure. I haven't seen any boxes ripping their tops off lately. Celebrities on TMZ maybe, but not any boxes, corrugated or otherwise.

So what can a box do? Not a whole lot. Duh. It's a box, for cripes sake. About all a box can do is show, indicate, support, or include. Most boxes I know can also contain, encompass, comprise, and consist of. Some really cool boxes might be able to focus on, and if you don't blink, you may see a box that can center on something. But I think you are safer if you use the verb involve.

Can chapters do anything boxes can't do? Good question. Chapters can outline, if you give them a nice fountain pen. And the smarter ones can summarize. But they don't ever describe, not even in a really tiny voice. I guess you could use some fancy read-out-loud software to get a chapter to talk to you, but technically that would be a case of sound coming out of your computer speakers, not a case of your chapter actually talking to you. In case you were confused. And not your speakers, either, in case you were thinking your speakers were fond enough of you to start a conversation.

Findings, research, data, studies... none of those things can explore, examine, prove, or otherwise perform behaviors that only humans can perform. I recommend sticking to show or indicate. APA uses those two words, so you can't go wrong. If your Chair threatens you with abandonment because you anthropomorphized a verb or two, change all such verbs to show or indicate and tell her to refer to APA pages 69-70.

When all else fails, use the dreaded I-bomb. Take ownership! Stop the passive voice! Claim your power. What did I do in my study? I explored, I examined, I compared and contrasted the crap out of these feisty fickle data, and I found that it's true: as long as no one is watching (and they are loaded carefully onto a cargo plane), pigs can fly!

The chronic malcontent suffers from existential constipation

When I am sitting like a blob at networking functions, or ripping along the freeway cursing out slow drivers, or picking cat hair out of my eggs, I keep saying to myself, I gotta remember to blog about this. This is worth blogging about. Because the minutia of my life is so meaningful, right? To me, maybe not so much to you. I get it.

If I don't post anything for awhile, though, all these minor epiphanies and major revelations pile up until I am paralyzed by a serious case of existential constipation. Ahhh. Everything is meaningful! Everything is important! But where to start?

Should I write about being the only woman at a meetup about customer experience from a software designer's point of view? Rarely have I ever felt so old or out of place. They were kind to me, in that special way we often treat the elderly and infirm. I really need a new look.

Wait, I must write about the meetup where a so-called marketing guru (his nickname is Dream Killer, no lie) leaned into my space, red beard quivering with passion, to tell me, “You haven't figured out the what! Until you figure out the what you don't have a business!”

No, wait, maybe I should tell you about the local AMA luncheon, my third event since joining the AMA, where I ate wheat, dairy, and sugar while “networking” (talking) with two guys from a company that makes aviation headsets in Lake Oswego (I know, Lake Oswego! Who knew!) I'm chagrined to admit I was more interested in the ravioli and chocolate chip cookies than the headset guys or the presenter (whose topic I have already forgotten).

Or maybe I need to write about my second meeting with my SBDC counselor (what did I call him before? I can't remember. Fritz, maybe? He looks like a Fritz.) I swore to myself as I was driving to the cafe that I wouldn't treat him like a therapist. All I can say is, he asked for it.

So much has been happening! I've got too many papers to edit, on scintillating topics like prostate cancer imaging (eeewww), achievement gaps between white and minority kids (yawn, old old news, but so popular among educators), preteen sex (that was a good one, actually), and grief (complicated and uncomplicated). My hourly editing rate varies because I get paid by the word: sometimes the authors are good writers. Other times their writing skills suck. My reward for doing a good job, apparently, is the opportunity to edit more papers.

I'm reaching in all directions, grasping for something I can call success (income). On the teaching front, I'm planning on testing my first class in ten days on a small group of women—two hours on a market research topic. For the third hour I will get their feedback on the class (and feed them lunch). I haven't printed the workbook, or prepared my lesson plan, or finished my PowerPoint. Instead, I've been learning way more than I ever wanted to know about prostate cancer imaging techniques.

And, lo, the planets have aligned and the waters have parted, and now I have a little research project to work on over the next few weeks. I think it will be both challenging and fun. For a brief moment, my heart lifts. Then I think all the thoughts that come naturally to a chronic malcontent: two months till money appears, and half goes to taxes! What about the editing projects? What about my class? And knowing my luck, my car, my teeth, and my cat will all fall into disrepair at the same moment, and I'll have to move in with my mother. It's like winning the reverse lottery. Ahhh.

Once again, my brain is trying to kill me. I'm flailing in the wreckage of the future. And I'm constipated. I need to blog more often.

Uh-oh. Can I get the cat back into the bag?

I would like to shout out a big welcome to the newest Hellish Handbasket reader: my mother. Yep. You heard right. My scrawny almost-85-year-old Wild-West mother is back online and tearing up the broadest band she's ever had. Speedy doesn't begin to describe her presence on the Internet. With one breath she's complaining that she can't remember how to use her computer. With the next breath, she's leaving snide comments on Facebook and forwarding chain emails to her entire contact list. Way to go, Mom.

A few nights ago, my mother and I were talking on the phone. I don't remember who called who, but as she is wont to do, she asked me what I've been working on. My first thought was to change the subject. My second thought was to lie. But sadly, I don't lie well, especially to my mother, so I took a deep breath and told her about the Hellish Handbasket ebook, which I had just published.

“Oh, what is it about?” she asked.

“It's called 'Welcome to Dissertation Hell,' and it is a collection of selected posts from my blog,” I replied.

“Oh. You know, I don't think I've ever seen your blog,” she said.

“You've been offline for a while,” I said, trying to steer her away to a different topic.

“Where is your blog?”

Suddenly, in a nanosecond, my future life as a demented person who wears her underwear on the outside of her clothes in public, on Trimet, passed before my eyes. Dirty red underbelly alert! Alert! Not... happening. My brain worked feverishly as I considered and discarded 50 lame reasons why I shouldn't give her the URL to my blog. In the end, I came up with zip. Zilch. There was no good reason to exclude my curious mother from reading my anonymous blog. The thought of telling her she couldn't read it felt worse than the thought of her reading it. Still, I made a half-hearted attempt to dissuade her.

“You know I blog anonymously, right? That means you can't tell your condo friends, 'My daughter has a blog.'”

“OK.”

“And you know I write about personal things, right? So you can't be offended.”

“OK.”

So, I sent her the URL to this blog in an email, hoping she would accidentally delete it or corrupt it or something. Well, I can hope, can't I? No such luck.

The next day she called.

“Hello, Mudder,” I answered, as I always do when I hear her voice blasting through the phone.

“You sound like you are the most frustrated person who ever existed!” she shouted. Oh Lord Kumbaya. She read my blog.

“Ma, relax, it's therapy for me,” I tried to explain.

“You are frustrated!” she accused.

“OK, I'm frustrated!” I agreed. “But it's also an exciting time in my life! It's not bad! It's good!”

There was a moment of silence while we both pondered our next move. In used car sales transactions, the person who speaks first loses. So I took a breath and waited.

“Your younger brother tripped over the cat and fell down the stairs,” she said. Whew. Won that round. The equivalent of a 1968 Dodge Dart, I guess. That is to say, not a huge win.

So now I'm outed to my mother, which may possibly be worse than being outed to the entire world, because only mothers can press all the buttons that put us into that special orbit we experience as frustration. I'm not worried she'll reveal my identity... it's out there in the ebook. And who cares if a few silver-haired old ladies know who The Chronic Malcontent is? Not me.

My fear is that knowing my mother is possibly going to read this blog will cause me to censor my words. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, certainly not hers. I don't think I've said anything too derogatory toward her, have I? Besides calling her scrawny. Which I'm sure she would agree with; anyone can see the woman is a stick.

Well, no use fretting over the wreckage of the future. The cat is on my lap, but he would fight to the death to avoid going into any bag, so it looks like I'm going to have to let this one go. I surrender, Mom. Welcome to my blog.

The Chronic Malcontent succumbs to shameless commerce

Well, I did it. I've been thinking about doing it for a while (thanks to the encouragement of my sister and my friends), and I finally did it. For the past month I have been compiling posts from the Hellish Handbasket blog, in preparation for turning it into an ebook. Yep. A compendium, call it a handbook, maybe, of dissertation-related posts for aspiring doctoral learners. Yesterday, I did it. It's done. I've officially gone over to the dark side of shameless self-centered commerce.

All I've ever wanted to do, since I was nine years old, was write and illustrate my own books. Sometime during elementary school, evil powers convinced me it was an impossible dream, so I pivoted toward painting. Equally foolish pursuit, I was told. Thus, in college (the first of many attempts at higher education), I gave up painting for graphic design (or "commercial art" as it was known in the x-acto knife and rubber cement, layout and paste-up days. Wow, I'm old.)

Unfortunately, I sucked at graphic design. But I loved fashion! I used my hazy vision of taking over the fashion world as a fashion illustrator and designer as an excuse to take a geographical to Los Angeles, where I fell awkwardly into costume design, started my own business, and got into debt. The rest is the boring history of me crawling out of the various holes I dug for myself over the ensuing 20 years. But you can't take the dream out of the girl, apparently, even when she's middle-aged, sagging, and growing a mustache. All I ever really wanted to do was create my own books.

It just wasn't the right time, it seems. Until now. All it took was for the world of technology to catch up to my vision and make it possible. Yay.

Of course, the world of technology also has made it possible for millions of other would-be authors to realize their visions of publishing, too. I find I am a speck, invisible in the vast and swarming tide of people who can also proudly claim they are ebook authors. Anyone can write and publish an ebook. (Even my mother could do it, and she just might, who knows! My scrawny 84-year-old mother just relaunched her online presence! Look out, Internet!)

As part of the gigantic and vibrant marketplace of ebooks, odds of being found are not in my favor. Especially considering my ebook is (more or less) an anonymous entry. Some marketing ploys to boost awareness of the new ebook may be undesirable, if I want to stay anonymous. Am I really hidden? No...anyone who wants to find me, can. I'm not well hidden, I'm not really anonymous. Who cares? Once again I find myself questioning my identity. Who am I? Who am I now? On so many levels, I'm still so confused.

But I finally got something done! Something is now present in the world that wasn't present before, and I was responsible for making that happen. That is the victory for me. If the universe wants to take note of it, so be it. If not, whatever. I'm on to my next ebook. My car may have a layer of moss on it, for being parked in the same spot for so long. But not me!

If you are interested in ordering or sampling the ebook, you can find it at Smashwords. And if you want more info, check out the Welcome to Dissertation Hell: the ebook page on this blog.

Believe it or not, this doctorate is almost done. Really. I'm not joking this time.

For the past two years, when people asked me how my doctorate was progressing, I told them, “It's almost done. Almost done. Soon.” And when it kept not being done, month after month, people eventually stopped asking. Or paying attention when I said, “Almost done. Just about there.”

Now I can say it and mean it. Truly, the doctorate is almost done. This morning I received the recommended revisions from the Graduate School. I anticipated many: there were few. Only nine comments to address, and seven were in the Abstract. I took my time, spending several hours making the revisions, although I dedicated half the time to trolling for typos. Feeling pleasantly numb, I uploaded the final draft of the dissertation this evening. If there are any more changes required, they will be so minor as to take mere minutes. The thing really is almost done.

My Chair and I talked this morning by phone. I expected her to offer guidance on how to approach the revisions. Instead she said, “This document is yours, now. It's not mine, it's not the Graduate School's, it's yours. So how you want to address these changes is up to you.” I thought, That's so nice. And then I thought, So if there is anything wrong with this dissertation now, it's on me, not my mentors, not the school. Right. Okay, no problem. I can own it.

I'm so unskillful on the phone. “Wow,” I managed to say.

“Here's what will happen now. Make the revisions, don't overthink it. Today or tomorrow, get it done. I'll send it to the Committee, and then to the Graduate School for the final review.”

“Okay,” I said.

“After that, I'll schedule some blocks of time for your oral defense, about two weeks out. You need to send me your PowerPoint 10 days before the day.”

“Uh, okay,” I said.

“Download the proctor form and notify your proctor.”

“Whoa,” I said.

“You're ready. You did a fantastic job. You are a fantastic scholar. We need to keep in touch.”

I managed to thank her. We signed off. I hung up the phone and looked at my cat, reclining on his chair next to me. He opened one eye and looked at me.

“I'm almost done,” I told him. He looked skeptical, stretched, and closed his eye. I wish I could be that cool.

Take a deep breath, be here now, eat some pie

On Tuesday afternoon I received a list of revisions from my Chairperson, eleven items, some very small, some on the substantive side. Eleven items. I took a deep breath and pulled up my big girl panties, dug in, hunkered down, and bulled my way through that list. I didn't leave the Love Shack for three days (except once to take out the stinking pail of compost. And I refilled the bird seed buffet in the back yard.) I did eat and sleep. I'm not crazy. I did bathe once, I think. And in the evening, when my eyes were crossed and I couldn't see to type, I stopped and zoned out in front of the television until bedtime. So, it's not like I spent the entire 72 hours writing. But it smells like it.

Yesterday was Friday, the sprint to the finish line. I crossed every t, I dotted the i's and j's and anything else that looked better with a dot over it. And when it was as polished and shiny as I could make it, I launched the 380-page monster up to the cyber course room. My hands started shaking as I checked to make sure the document had arrived intact. I sent along with it an explanation of how I had addressed the eleven comments.

After I uploaded the file, I noticed she had sent an email saying essentially, Don't spend a lot of time fixing this thing, let's just get it done. I appreciated that sentiment. However, one of the eleven items was a request to change present tense to past tense in Chapters 4 and 5, which took a long time. I'm sure I missed some verbs, and some could go either way, but I combed through the monster, line and line, changing is to was about twenty billion times, until I got to the end. Well, not that many: I exaggerate. If you make it all the way through spellcheck, Word will give you a report of the grammar check: number of characters, words (93,939), sentences (4,986), and paragraphs (2,802), reading level (grade 13), and percentage of passive tense (13%, which is not bad for an academic scholarly document). I had to put myself in this document: You can't avoid saying I when you are the data collection method (interviewer), interacting with the data sources (human subjects). It always feels so stilted to read The researcher collected the data instead of I collected the data. Don't you think? Let's practice being here now, people.

This morning I checked the course room and found an email from my Chair. She reported that she had sent the manuscript to the Graduate School for review. And she added, Take a rest, you deserve it. Fantastic work! Exclamation point. She uses the word fantastic frequently, so I don't read much into it, but still it's nice to hear. I think I am turning into one of her successes: I don't complain, I do my best, and I get it done.

So now it's waiting time again. Up one more step on the increasingly shaky ladder toward the pie in the sky. But I'm starting to sense that this 8-year journey will soon be over. I have evidence: The Chair sent me instructions to prepare for the oral defense.

There's a moment in every one of my favorite rom com movies where the hero finally bows to the inevitable. When running from love, success, creativity, whatever, no longer works. When the hero has to turn away from the past toward an uncertain future and engage fully with the nemesis he/she has been trying unsuccessfully to avoid for 80 minutes. The tone of the music changes from confrontational to wistfully bittersweet, sort of poignant, as the hero realizes that to reach for a new identity means giving up an old identity, one that might have been comfortable and familiar, but now seems increasingly small and confining. It's a leap of faith. As the saying goes, it takes courage to live life.

So, I'm living life, letting go of an old identity to reach for something new and bigger. Probably when I get it, whatever it is, it won't be quite what I expected, but what pie in the sky goal ever tasted like anything you've tasted before?

The chronic malcontent slogs through another day

Some days I have a hard time making eye contact with people. I thought today would not be one of those days. Today I uploaded draft one of my dissertation manuscript. Yep. All 12.5 MB, all 382 pages. Of course, that includes 50 pages of back end stuff, but still, it's a hefty gulp of... something. I was going to say something snarky at myself, like I usually do. For some reason, I changed my mind. I realize I should feel a sense of accomplishment. Maybe that sense that I should be celebrating just prevented me from downgrading my achievement to a modest 4 on the Richter scale of self-denigration. Whatever.

Anyway, my refrigerator is empty except for four apples, one zucchini, a bottle of olive oil, a jar of mustard, and some maple syrup. Maybe you can figure out a recipe from that, but I'm a lousy cook. So I just went to get food. If you know me, you know that is not as simple as it sounds. First, I don't eat normal food. By normal, I mean regular food that someone like my mother would eat, for instance. Yogurt. Kraft Mac n Cheese. Pudding from little cups. Me, I aim for organic everything, all fresh, nothing processed, no dairy, no wheat, no soy, no sugar, no corn. That limits my options; on the upside, it keeps things very simple. But I always feel this undercurrent of resentment frisson through my body when I walk past the ice cream case.

Second, I'm not earning much money since I got laid off from the job in May. I get an amount every week from the Tuition Unemployment Insurance program, until the end of November, when my doctoral program officially runs out. So, the whopping $84 grocery bill made me sob a tiny bit. Finances always make me want to cower under the covers.

And third, and here's the clincher for me, the well-meaning older lady who commandeered the bagging operation at the store was inept and... well, she seemed just plain not present. Rather than show compassion for a kindred spirit, I felt compelled to show her the proper way to bag my groceries, all the while being completely unable to look her in the eye. The best I could do was focus somewhere over her shoulder.

Now, in my defense, I will say that my eyesight for objects three feet or closer is none too good when I am wearing my out-of-door driving glasses. She would have been blurry anyway, even if I were able to look her in the eye. The pressure of other customers coming through the line, the $84 grocery bill, and her inability to properly bag my groceries... on a good day, I would be able to sail through it. I thought today would be a good day. Unloading my dissertation off my plate and onto my Chair's plate should feel pretty damn good. Especially considering the long hours I've been putting in on the darn thing.

I applied for an extension to my program a couple weeks ago. The powers that be at the online university granted it to me yesterday. That's good news. My new drop dead date is June 2014. If I am not done with this thing by then, then I might as well quit on it. I will have no excuse. Unless I drop dead. I guess that would be an acceptable excuse.

The bagger lady wasn't looking at me, either, by the way. She was gazing off at the checker, maybe hoping to be rescued from the insane customer who pulled all the groceries out of the bag to rebag them properly. (That would be me.) I have a lot of experience bagging my own groceries. You could say I'm an expert at it. I buy the same crap twice a week and I always go through the self-service checkout. If they had a self-service checkout at this store I went to today, I would have used it. They have organic gold beets, organic green beans, and organic crimini mushrooms. For those things, I put up with the human-operated check out line.

The box of organic salad (washed three times!) goes on the bottom. The two dozen eggs go next, side by side. Then other stuff can go on top. The bagger lady didn't want to understand. I know that feeling. She was checked out, just hoping the horrible customer would go away. So she put the second egg carton in the bag, but didn't take the time to lay it flat. I was like, wha? No more, like what the funk, lady? Really? How can you possibly think that would work. I managed to simply say, “It's got to lay flat.” I could have gone on. But I stuffed the other crap in the bag, grabbed it, shouldered the other bag, got my receipt, and stomped out the door.

If I could, I would never go back there again. But that's just plain silly. It's not them. They are not at fault. Inept employees are everywhere. Mentally invisible people are all around. It's not them, it's me. For some reason, I'm on edge, and I wasn't expecting it, not today. I was blind-sided by my own insanity. Again.

The past month has been hard. We had the wettest September on record. I have been writing long hours every day, every day of the week, hunched over my computer in my gloomy dank dusty cave. I drink way too much coffee, a really crappy, cold, black, bitter brew. I forget to eat. My friends are leaving me alone. My mother lets me call her. It's like I am encased in a bubble. A ridiculous Ph.D.—A.B.D. bubble. All but dissertation. An eight-year slog.

My little fledgling business is frozen in time. My websites are neglected. I have a comment that needs moderating. Email that needs returning. I can't remember the PIN to my business bank account. It's like I had a dream that I was self-employed. It seems so far away, after these weeks writing, writing, writing on this massive document that represents something I stopped wanting six years ago. But like all amusement park rides, once you get on, you cannot easily get off. There are consequences if you try to get off a roller coaster early. Free fall being one of them.

I just got a robo-call from “Jessica” from Cardholder Services telling me that I need to do something about my credit cards. Sigh. It's time to put my number on the Do not call list again. Thank god I have no credit cards, else I'd be booking a flight to sunny Scottsdale right now. Thank god I have paid cash for this doctoral adventure, so I will owe nothing when it is finally done. And it will someday be done. Maybe that is what is bothering me. I've been doing this so long, I am fearful of what comes next.

Ah, well. The slog continues, one day at a time. Today I am doing what is on my list. I'll worry about tomorrow's slog tomorrow.

Whine on, whine on harvest moon

This morning I ran errands and basked in the last of the warm summer air. I could feel the hint of fall in the breeze. I hate that. You probably like fall, many people do. Enjoying brisk mornings and warm afternoons, prancing through piles of golden leaves, carving festive pumpkins. Right. All I can picture is braving cold downpours, splashing through chilly mud puddles, and peering through raindrops covering my glasses. Ugh. Fall. Bleh.

That's what I was thinking as I drank in the warm air this morning. Afterward I came home and uploaded Chapter 4 of my dissertation to the course room. It took 10 minutes to upload, that's how big it is. 30+ megabytes of images and text. Three hundred pages that I hope will make sense to my Chair. Good gawd. Oh well. One more chapter to go. I'm dreading this one. This is the one where I have to sound really smart, the one where I succinctly and concisely and intelligently explain what it all means and what we should do about it. Sigh. Suddenly I feel really tired. Where is all that righteous energy that fired me up to start on this crazy journey back in 2005? Where is all that fervor and froth, now when I need it the most? All I can do is say, meh.

There's a harvest moon tonight, according to my mother. I can barely see it through the wretched holly tree that I wish would shrivel and die. Mom says people are crazier than normal under a harvest moon. Is that true? Do you feel crazier than normal? I feel crazy all the time these days. How do you know what is normal? The world seems pretty normal. Another mass shooting, check. Massive flooding, check. Budget cuts, check. Hurricane, check. Officer-involved shooting, check. Earthquakes, yeah, a few, check. Politics as usual, check. Ho hum. Is that all there is, as the song goes. Remember that song? No, you are probably too young.

I get melancholy this time of year, more morose than usual. The surge of satisfaction I felt at posting Chapter 4 was short-lived and quickly forgotten. I seem to be naturally predisposed to cling to the negative... no, wait a minute. Hey. Aren't I a closet optimist? Yeah, that's right. I forgot until I was about to type the word shunning. What am I shunning? (Have I ever typed that word before today?) According to the Happiness test, I'm not a pessimist, I'm an optimist. Oh no, now I need to rethink my opinion of fall. Aaaaah. I'm losing my mind. Who am I, if not the chronic malcontent? Argh. I despise fall. It makes me feel uncomfortable feelings and think uncomfortable thoughts. I hate that. Time to watch TV.

Tomorrow I will dive into Chapter 5, the last chapter. If there is a god, which I'm not convinced there is, then the approvals will flow toward me with ease and grace. I'll put it all together into one massive masterpiece (bigger is better, right?), defend the crap out of it with a superior PowerPoint, they'll confer and grudgingly give me the secret handshake, and then it will be done. I'm already dreaming about the month-long bath I plan to take. Right after the month-long nap. And if there's not a god, well, wake me when it's over.

Will I ever stop doubting? It's doubtful

I'm in maniac writing mode, trying to finish Chapter 4 of my dissertation to upload to my Chairperson this week. This thing just keeps expanding. It's a bloated blob of muck now, completely out of control. I keep stirring it with my stick, trying to make sense of it all, hoping it will come clear.

The cat helps when he can. He just commandeered my chair, so I have to write standing up. The weather took a turn, my feet are cold, my ankles are swollen, and my Chapter 4 is a bloated fetid stinking mass of shite.

My cat poked me in the butt just now and said, “Are you okay?” He is watching me type. He doesn't like it. He would prefer I pay attention to him. I want to post something before I fall asleep on my feet, so I keep typing.

He pokes me again. This time he says quite clearly, “Do you work here?” What, does he want a drink? Sure, dude, I work here. What'll you have? He just wants me to stop typing and give him a rubdown.

It's probably not as bad as I think. I'm just feeling insecure. I live with doubt. I know I'm supposed to be a scholar, and I am almost there, sometimes. But this is new to me, and there are so many details to consider: content, structure, formatting... My fear is that I'll format the crap out of it and it will look like a million bucks, but the damn thing will make no sense. Completely miss the mark. Take off on a tangent, maybe one of those tempting frothy emotional appeals, and zoooom, it's gone, into the stratosphere, leaving the Problem Statement, the Purpose Statement, and the Significance of the Study behind in the mud. My mind is not a great place to be right now. I'm doubting everything. I look at words that I've typed a billion times—Administrative. Systems. Quality—and I wonder, did I spell that right? How many words have I left out? What am I not seeing? Dang it. I need to see it.

I once heard somebody say “I'll see it when I believe it” in reference to some seemingly impossible task. I'm sure he heard it from someone else. He's long gone so I can't ask him where the phrase came from. I'd really like to know if he ever believed it. People say we create our own reality. (Now there's a scary thought.) But I do know my mind is usually out to get me. Hence the constant state of doubt.

The cat looks permanently parked on my chair. Time to turn on the TV. There's nothing on, but I can immerse myself into something other than myself for a while. That will be a relief.

The chronic malcontent makes the best of a curry powder migraine

The most creative time to write a blog post is when one is having a migraine, don't you think? That is, if you get the classic kind like me, in which half your vision falls away. The aura usually starts near the middle of my left eye. For the next 20 minutes or so, it will slowly migrate outward. Meanwhile, I've got a blog post to write!

The typewritten word takes on new meaning when you aren't exactly sure what you are typing. It could be poetry for all I know. Sadly, probably it's not a lot different from the usual drivel I write: I notice I frequently leave out words. It's so humbling. I used to be an excellent writer. I mean, I could spell the crap out of words like onomatopoeia.  Luckily there is a spellchecker in Blogger.

Whoa. Now I can't see my fingers. Good thing all this transcription (ten interviews in two months, four in just the past weekend) has honed my typing skills. I'm probably at 75 wpm with a gajillion errors. Maybe I'll try typing with my eyes closed and see what hapens. Happens. That's what happens.

Some people get migraines from stress. Sometimes hormones play a role. (I don't have any of those left, so I know it's not that.) Migraines for me are caused by chemicals in food. I'm not sure what chemicals. Usually there's a 15-24 hour lag time. I can't remember what I ate yesterday. Not much, since I was freaking out over something that happened with my data collection method, which I may or may not share with you at some point. Suffice it to say, it was sufficiently serious to upset my normally healthy appetite, a very rare occurrence for me.

So, what did I eat that is causing this brain fart now? Hmmmm. About an hour ago I cooked vegetables in curry powder. Nothing new, I use curry powder every now and then, not skillfully, but what I lack in skill I make up in exuberance. This time I added a second kind of curry powder that I got at Trader Joe's. The label didn't list any preservatives. But it was not organic. Could that be the culprit? Pesticides? Herbicides? A one-hour lag time is not impossible. It's happened before.

Now the aura is multicolored, looking rather festive as it moves out from the center of my left eye toward the periphery. The icons on my desktop are refracted and swirly. Cool. No, I should say, psychedelic, man. Did I spell that right?

The data collection methodology crisis was averted. My Chair left me a loophole and I leaped through it with neither style nor grace. As my beloved sister says, just get it done. I'm getting it done. Just a word to the wannabe-wise, remember, your Chairperson is not your confidant. Neither is she your friend. Enough said.

Wow, now I'm looking down a deep tunnel. Like reverse binoculars. I can see the words on the screen again, but only in the center of my gaze, not out to the edges. No peripheral vision on the left side yet. It's coming back, though, along with the usual boring headache. Thank god I don't get the debilitating headaches that some people get, the kind that make them bang their heads against walls or retreat whimpering to dark closets. I'm so fortunate. Not only is my migraine only mildly painful, but it is multicolored. Maybe there is a god.

It was 97° here today, by my widget. Maybe hotter, who knows. I'm sure it broke a record. My ankles are swollen. My cat is sleeping in the tub. I've been working on Chapter 4 of my dissertation all week, immersed in the voices of my ten faculty members. Today, though, I've been at half-mast. Much as I love this extreme heat, it's just not a day for reveling. I cannot forget this is a day for reflection and mourning. Usually I go walking on this day to commemorate and remember, but it was just too hot, even for me.

Now the aura is gone, retreated to a buzzing space somewhere in back of my ears. I can see again, although things look painfully sharp. I think I'll dump out that Trader Joe's curry powder. It's just not worth it.

Tomorrow I'm scheduled to meet some friends at a Mexican restaurant for lunch. Can you say, migraine factory? I'll take my next migraine wrapped in a flour tortilla, thank you. Hold the bright green guacamole.

Trying not to put words in their mouths

Today while I transcribed my sixth interview, a bus tried to cut the corner and clipped a car parked in front of the Love Shack. The neighborhood erupted into activity. Most looked and left. No blood. Ho hum. A couple people rushed around the bus, examined the car, and pounded on my door.

“Is this your car!” shouted a burly man who didn't look like a bus driver. He ran back to the car and held his cell phone up to the fender.

“No, they live down there, in the duplex,” I replied and went back to transcribing. It takes more than an errant bus to keep me from my mission. What's my mission? To finish this wretched dissertation.

Actually, wretched might not apply anymore. I'm coming to rather enjoy this part of the process. Not the recruiting, that still sucks. Not the interviewing. I'd rather be alone. But I really like the writing. The dreaming. The reflecting. The connecting. I don't think I'm very good at it, but I can sense that I have potential. Concepts are coming clearer, like bubbles rising through murky water. Maybe they will surface, and maybe I will be quick enough to grab them and glue them to paper before they pop. And maybe not.

Even though I am not really eager to interview these faculty, I still am enamored with their words. They say such profound things, mostly in very inept ways as they struggle to respond to my questions. And I sit there with the perfect word on my tongue, the word they seek to make their idea crystallize, and I have to bite that rebellious tongue to keep from shouting the word out loud.

It's harder than you think. Conversation is a give and take. I'm not having conversations with these people. I'm conducting interviews. It's a different art. Sometimes the urge to respond helpfully is overwhelming, sort of like the many times I felt compelled to correct a former boyfriend when he kept pronouncing the word chassis as chass-iss. Eventually I gave in to the urge. “It's chassey,” I shouted at him one memorable day. “Chassey!” Of course, after he got over his shock, he never forgave and never forgot. Needless to say, we are no longer in communication.

A few times during these interviews, I admit, I've succumbed to the urge. I can't help it. As a former teacher, it was my job to summarize, to clarify, to helpfully supply the word to finish the sentence, to bring the concept into the light. “Yin and yang,” was one of the concepts I helpfully supplied during my fifth interview. My interviewee's eyes lit up. “That's it!” he cried. As soon as I said it, I was like, oh no, did I just say that? Yin and yang is such a great concept, and I can't use it now, because I put the words in his mouth. Argh. This afternoon I did it again. My interviewee was flailing around for a word, and it just popped out from between my lips, like a bubble: “Trust,” I said.

“That's right, trust. I wouldn't have thought of it, but that is it exactly.”

Just shoot me now. Oh well. This is how we learn.

Don't count your chickens before they tear your lips off

This morning I was on hold with the Employment Department to get my PIN reset and thinking that if I had to listen to the same 45-second clip of Kenny G's insipid soprano sax one more time I was going to poke my ear drums out, when I had the inspiration to email program directors at the career college directly to ask them to ask instructors directly to participate in my study. I sent a few emails, and voila! I got two sign-ups today, and the possibility of one more. Very soon, if the data collection gods are kind, I will have seven, maybe even eight interviews. And that is within spitting distance of the goal. In fact, it might be good enough. Sometimes good is the enemy of the best, but sometimes good enough is good enough.

I hate to think I have Kenny G to thank for this. I'd be more inclined to attribute the sudden progress to the depth of my desperation. My new motto is Drill down, baby, drill down! As in, forget the president of the college, forget the VP of Whatever. Go down into the hole and grab those program directors by the scruff of their necks and shake 'em. Say firmly, Look here, Buster, I need to talk to some faculty. Pronto! And watch them scurry. It worked!

So next week I'll scurry to meet them whenever and wherever they decree, no matter if it happens to interfere with my best thinking time (AKA nap time). Things are looking up. And not a moment too soon. I have three months to put this baby to bed or throw myself on the mercy of the university for an extension. I'm sure they will give it to me, if I ask. I've been a good student. (Meaning I've done my work on time and kept my mouth shut.) But how nice it would be to have this done before the end of the year.

I'm already daydreaming about taking the longest nap, the longest bath, the longest geographical. I'm daydreaming about how I'll finally be able to visit my friends (the ones who still remember me).

You know what they say. Don't count your chickens before they tear your lips off. I have a mountain of research to sift through, to make sense out of, to write about coherently enough to gain approval from the dissertation review gods. The culmination of eight years of work is now culminating! Culminating in progress, before your very eyes. It's not really a pretty sight. Actually, it's kind of stinky. I need a bath. The whole place reeks like a gym bag. But who cares. As my sister wisely says, just get it done.

How to blend in to your neighborhood

It's pandemonium at the Love Shack. My new neighbor has the bass cranked up on his stereo, same old story, just like the old neighbor. Sound travels through the old walls and floors like bladdity bla through yadada. I can't think of any metaphor that isn't a total cliche, because not only is the bass rattling my brain, but the neighbors in back are having an outdoor party, complete with music and applause. Closing the windows helps against the applause, but does nothing to block the bass coming through the walls from next door. And then we've got the music and laughter coming from the cafe across the street. There's no escaping it.

After a lovely evening at the Portland Art Museum with Bravadita and her friend Jeff, this is what I came home to. Cacophony. The first thing I did was close all my windows and pull my shades. I considered cranking up my stereo—a little New Order might help. What I really want is silence. There is nowhere to hide from this, except into my mp3 player, my refuge of last resort. If I can fill my head with my own music, I won't have to hear/feel the bass thrumming in my bones through the floorboards. It's a different kind of assault, one of choice.

It's hard to imagine writing anything coherent with all this noise going on. I was going to try. But it's after 10:00 p.m., and I just don't have the brain for it. I have a lot to write. And a serious deadline. I need a miracle. But I don't think it's going to happen tonight.

I collected my fifth interview yesterday. That is the good news. But it doesn't look as though any more will be forthcoming. By now, all my former colleagues at the career college have had time to make their decision: Will I help Carol or not? After two weeks, one person emailed me to express his willingness, and I met him yesterday morning on campus. Yes, on the campus where I used to work.

Driving there, parking, walking into the building... it felt surreal, like I was Rip Van Winkle, gone a hundred years, shuffling through the door with bad eyesight and a beard. Don't you know me? They knew me. They were just surprised to see me. And it wasn't the good kind of surprise, like, Wow, here's Carol! How are you? It was more like, Wow, here's Carol, what is she doing showing her face here? A few students recognized me, too, which was awkward. I couldn't remember their names.

The interview went well; I collected some good insights that will make my study stronger. When it was finished, he was clearly done with me: There was no loitering, hey, how's it going, no chit chat. I went out to the receptionist area and paused, thinking that maybe I could go over to the main building and find someone else to interview. Stupid me. I quickly realized everyone was in class. Everyone had a job. Everyone but me. I got in my car, drove home, and went back to bed.

Once it gets quiet, my plan is to begin writing up my findings, and continue data collection if possible. Qualitative research is iterative anyway. See? It's all good. Somewhere.

Who is responsible for this crazy life? Uh.. not me.

There is a fly in the Love Shack. Security! The cat in charge of security sleeps with his nose on his paws. Slacker. I can't bring myself to smack the fly. If I wait long enough it will circle lower and lower and eventually die on a windowsill somewhere. A metaphor for life, I guess.

Speaking of life, I had a fun slice of it today. I met Bravadita for coffee in Northwest Portland. Now that she lives downtown in a 3rd floor walk-up, she's taken on an aura of cosmopolitan glamour. She is utterly 100% cool. I mean, she was 95% cool when she lived on the East side, since she was only nine blocks from the River (I'm sixty-nine blocks from the River. At 82nd you are officially in the armpit of Portland. That is coolness of zero percent.) Now Bravidita is 100% cool as she walks everywhere with a stylish bag slung rakishly over her shoulder. So cool she wears a beret!

Time out. The security cat heard me tapping on the keyboard and came over to check it out, spotting the fly on his way to sit on my keyboard. A half-hearted swipe, wait, is that all? Come on! Security!

Well, anyway. Sitting at a wobbly metal table outside along 21st Avenue, Bravadita and I bemoaned the plight of artists and creatives who don't get things their way (us). There was plenty of commiseration to go around. The coffee amped me into high gear. I had an idea every ten seconds, followed by a plunge into darkest depression. Of course, all my ideas were for Bravadita's career, not my own. (Why is it so much easier to fix someone else's life?)

The security cat has failed to capture the fly, which continues to infuriate me by meandering in front of the computer monitor; the cat, however, has slyly captured my chair, so now I must stand while I type. Sigh.

I've conveniently chosen to prune the artistic part of my life so that it fits into a tiny box: this blog. I draw while I sit in meetings. If anything funny comes out of it, I scan the images and upload them here for your amusement. That is the extent of my art life. There was a time when I was positive, beyond any doubt, sure as only a ten-year-old child can be, that I would spend my life writing, drawing, and painting. And to a large extent, that has been my reality. What I didn't foresee, though, was that I would have a great deal of difficulty getting paid to do those things.

Hence... the jobs. Long jobs, short jobs, fun jobs, depressing jobs, I've had many jobs. I can say truthfully that there is not one job I would willingly go back to if I had a choice. Not one that I can say, wow, that was a really great job. The fault, I admit, lies more with me than with any of the jobs. A few were bad because of a particular person or a few people, but mostly they weren't bad at all. It was me. I didn't fit. I wouldn't let myself fit. Because there was somewhere else I wanted to be. Always somewhere else.

I feel lucky now that I've chosen to pursue a self-employment field that interests me. No, it's not art, but it's still interesting. I'm not a victim. I'm choosing it. I don't know if that will make it any more successful than any of the other jobs I've had, but if it fails, I'll know who to blame.

There goes that pesky fly again. Should I let him live? Or is it curtains for the fly? Text your vote to 3330 within the next seven minutes to determine his fate.

Dueling stereos and the wretched dissertation proposal

It's war at the Love Shack. Dueling stereos are shaking the woodwork. I'm being pummeled by New Order, bass on high. I don't know what my neighbor is playing, but I can feel it through my feet. I'm hoping she's getting ready to go out. It's about that time on a Friday night.

Last night around 1:15 a.m. I'd just gone to bed, when I heard a pounding somewhere in the building. My cat and I looked at each other. What the–? I got out of bed and staggered into the living room. The pounding was louder. I heard muffled giggles and a man's voice. Oh boy. My neighbor Joy is  living up to her name. I considered doing a little pounding of my own, and I don't mean that in a self-sex kind of way. However, after a moment, I decided against ruining their mood and went back to bed. They were done, anyway, if they were at the giggling stage. I presume. Hell, it's been so long, what do I know.

I'm taking a break from the gigantasaurus I call the DP, short for Dissertation Proposal. You thought I whined a lot during the concept paper. That was banana cream cake compared to this. The concept paper is to tell the Graduate School what you are thinking of doing. The Dissertation Proposal is to tell them what you plan on doing, down to the most minute detail. There are three chapters in the proposal. Chapter 1 introduces the idea, Chapter 2 justifies it and situates it in the existing body of knowledge. Chapter 3 is a blueprint of the study. When I say blueprint, I am being precise. I must plan every breath, every grunt, every fart. All this planning is starting to get tedious. The more specific I get, the more I want to just say F--k it, just let me wing it! It's qualitative, for gawd's sake. Another word for herding cats.

For a closet optimist I don't really put a lot of store in the future. I pretty much figure we're all going to hell in a handbasket (thus the name of this blog), that it's all hopeless, meaningless, and not a little ridiculous. Why plan for a future that will inevitably suck? But I must write a detailed plan for my dissertation study, as if there will be a tomorrow, and a tomorrow after that.

I rebel at the thought of having to follow a written plan. I'm a go-with-the-flow kind of gal. I'm the pot-stirrer who lobs a rock in the pot to see what will happen. I don't write up a hypothesis before I take an action and then dutifully measure the outcome. I just throw the rock (or the comment) and stand back to watch. This is how I run my classes. Some instructors prepare daily written lesson plans. The copy machine spits out these little gems of efficiency while I'm checking my mailbox. I turn away with a sigh. If only I were that dedicated. If only I cared. I know what chapter I'm supposed to cover, that's the best I can do. I just start asking them questions and let the process unfold. I don't check to see if they learned anything. That is what the test is for.

This morning I attended a Webinar on using “icebreakers” to help a class connect and learn. It was sort of fun. All my learning at the rinky-dink online school I attend has been asynchronous, meaning I have no real-time contact with anyone. There are no team projects. Everyone moves at his or her own pace, struggling through the assignments in isolation. Now and then someone will post a desperate plea in the discussion folder: Help! What is the ANOVA assignment all about? Can someone please explain statistics to me in brief and simple terms? So being online with 900+ other learners listening to some woman explain her PowerPoint show made me feel like I was riding something large, rocking along with a crowd of enthusiastic educators toward a bright and shiny future. These were people who really cared about teaching.

Not really my people. Another story for another day. My head is pounding in rhythm with my neighbor's bass line. I finally took pity on my cat, who is trying to sleep in the next room, and turned off New Order. Just like I have to write this dissertation proposal, planning in excruciatingly detailed every move I will make when and if the day comes I actually implement this study, just like that I have to bend over and take what the universe gives me today. Take two Advil and grab your ankles. This may hurt a bit.

They move on, and we stand still

A recent graduate at the career college called my boss to tell him she got married. She also told him to expect a call from an employer seeking a reference. It took me a moment to remember who she was. Students come and go so quickly here in the career college world. Move 'em in and move 'em out. No sooner do I learn their first names, then they are dashing off to a new term, a new job, a new career. They move past me at a hundred miles per hour, while I'm poking along in the slow lane, living from nap to nap.

During my nap today, I dreamed about two students who are long graduated: I'll call them Trim and Toy, two older guys who used to work at Freightliner before they were laid off and sent for retraining. They chose healthcare administration. Trim was tall and thin,Toy shorter and rounder. Sort of a Mutt and Jeff kind of thing. Former coworkers, then classmates, and I think they went on to get hired by some big insurance company. Anyway, I dreamed about them. They had left a voice mail message for my colleague Sheryl, who celebrated a birthday today. In my dream, I paused at the office door, beckoning to Sheryl.

“Listen to this!”

She came trotting over. In my dream she wore her usual half-glasses on the end of her nose. Her blonde hair looked perfect. For an older gal, Sheryl is in pretty good shape.

We stood by the phone, holding in our laughter, while the voices of our former students thrashed through the speaker. Trim and Toy sang a long, complicated jingle about Sheryl, her cat, and her birthday. It was orchestrated with guitars, piano, and bongo drums, and the lyrics rhymed. I thought, Is that what they learn now in healthcare administration?

Dreams were in the zeitgeist today. This afternoon before I left for the day, the program director of the medical department, let's call her Joan, saw me from halfway down the medical wing. She stopped in her tracks and turned. “I had a dream about you!” she shouted down the hall. She clearly wanted to tell me about it, so I waited, trying not to cringe, as she hurried toward me. She reached me and grabbed my bicep.

“I had a dream about you!” Her blonde ringlets danced with excitement. “I dreamed you were a nun!”

Another teacher from the medical department, whose name has escaped me for three years, came rushing over to hear Joan's story about me in her dream.

“You were wearing the habit, the hat, the whole thing!” Joan screamed. “And your name was Sister Carol Ann!”

“That's amazing,” I said, edging away, back toward the relative safety and calm of the business wing.

So, not only am I a closet optimist, I am now so pure that people are mistaking me for a nun in their dreams? Hard to believe it's because of me or my character. I'm sure it's because I often wear head-to-toe black. I look like some weird monk person, silently skulking around the halls with a permanent frown line between my eyebrows. It's no wonder she was confused. Right?

I just uploaded Chapter 3 of my dissertation proposal to my Chair. While she mulls over my occasional, not-so-subtle use of the first-person pronoun, I will be patching all three chapters together, hoping against hope that I've included enough detail, in the right order, followed the correct template, fixed their errant formatting issues, and checked all my references. Here's hoping the dissertation gods take pity on me and let me pass this hurdle in less time than it took to clear the last one (the wretched concept paper). I doubt it will happen that easily, though.

My classmates trade names of good editors. Their posts lead me to wonder if they actually do any of their own writing, let alone their own thinking. Not me, by god. I'll sink or swim on my own. Editor? I don't need no stinking editor. I may eat those words later, but for now, I'm just hoping I retain enough brain cells to be able to spot those increasingly frequent moments when I leave out entire words, write fragments, and fail to make my subjects agree with my verbs. I weep to remember the days when I used to be a superb speller, when I had a vast vocabulary, when I intuitively understood the secret rules of grammar. Sigh. On the bright side, my memory is failing, so soon I expect I won't be able to remember anything. That will be some kind of relief.

My sister is in Germany, riding bikes with her love in the slushy streets. It's nice to realize that somewhere people have lives and are living them. I hope I won't be standing still forever. I plan to finish this doctoral journey one day soon, and find a life and live it. Maybe not Germany, but maybe someplace more exotic, like... Palm Desert or Yucaipa.

I'm not ready to be unemployed

After a hellish first week, the new term at the career college is.... I can't think of any words to describe how this new term might unfold. I can't say off to a rousing start. The word stumbling comes to mind, but that might apply more to me than the term. Not sure that is useful. As a descriptive term, I mean. Maybe the word hopeful applies: I think we may have more students, judging by the voices echoing down the halls. I wonder if any of our friendly, helpful admissions advisers told the new students that our campus would be moving to a new site in a few months.

To be honest, we still don't know if the move is happening. Rumor has it that the lease is up in April, but I suppose the management could decide to rent month-to-month until they found a suitable location. I'm not feeling all that positive about the possibility of moving. Last week I overheard two students say the reason why they chose our site was because it was near their homes. Location, location, location.

It occurs to me that anyone who hasn't read my blog before wouldn't have a clue what I'm talking about. I'm writing as if I'm narrating an ongoing soap opera for a devoted audience, when in actuality I know that my regular audience consists of a handful of people. I mean, I can count the number of you readers on one hand. The rest of you are drop-ins, looky-loos, accidental tourists traipsing through my blog on your way to someplace else. I can tell what you search for when I look in the stats, and I know you won't find it here. Sorry. Thanks for dropping by, though.

If you stick around, you'll get the whole sordid story of the dinky career college for which I work and its imminent demise. Although, now that I think about it, the demise has been imminent for the years. I guess that doesn't qualify as imminent anymore, does it? It's like going into hospice and outlasting your caregivers. People get a bit peeved. Enough already, just die, would you? Jeez.

I'm not ready to be unemployed. I tried to figure out how I would live if I had to work a minimum wage job. (Oregon minimum wage is $8.95.) My lifestyle would be severely impacted. Like my friend Bravadita, I would have to give up my car. I would have to find a house-share situation. I would have to stop eating organic. Any one of those outcomes would make me want to jump off the Fremont Bridge. I'm such a hothouse flower. I remember when I used to drive a school bus. I remember when I packed books in a warehouse for a two-week temp job. I'm too old for that now. And too damn well educated. No one would hire an aging, unemployed Ph.D. from a crummy for-profit online university to work in a warehouse.

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, hey, where is that optimist that lurks inside you, Ms. Chronic Malcontent? Here's the deal on that. The Optimist is not chronic. She is both rare and shy. You may not see her very often around this blog, since the Malcontent is a bully. But maybe if you clap your hands three times and say I do believe in magic, I do, I do, I... well, no, maybe not. I don't know. I'm just writing drivel so I can move past my resentment and get on with writing Chapter 3 of my dissertation proposal. That, after all, is what I live for these days. Work is just that interval that comes between sleeping and writing. Maybe someday this will just be a bad dream, and I'll be able to just sleep and write.

And there she is—don't blink!—the shy Optimist, hovering by the water cooler, waving her tiny hand at us.