October 3

The research life is complicated, it turns out.

1978

So many false starts! There I was, hovering on the edge of another one. “Perhaps”, I thought, “If I wrote a page a day, I would have a book at the end of the year.” And then I almost got up and began writing, except I had no paper at hand except this. So I hesitated, and saw that I had nothing to write. Which leads me back to my lonely little journal, which is, so far, all I can do. That’s it…my best. Five or ten minutes of glancing inward every other day. I know it isn’t enough to draw upon. I hope eventually it will start to jell into something a bit more grand, more important, more worthwhile. It seems all I’m doing is barely running my hands over the surface, afraid to find out what happens if I go deeper.

What if something I believe to be a solid part of myself turns out to be a mirage? 

1984

What is my favorite day of the week? In weeks like this one, Wednesday. A super-productive morning, lunch with Mom then home to a pleasant housewifely afternoon with Kiddo (laundry and cooking). Jim put Kiddo to bed and I went upstairs for another hour of work. All in all, I got maybe 4-5 hours of work done. It was all choice stuff, though. Things that put me well ahead. Not, however, writing. Ah, well. Not this week. Not quote true. I revised the Eagles paper. Just a few more tweaks and it’s ready to go. Also the Odd Couple paper is finished. It didn’t feel like writing because it was doing footnotes and such.

Good night.

1997

Well, one month into the semester and I am behind at work and home. The menus aren’t done, the errands are neglected…time to regroup. The main problem is that meetings are starting to multiply; such a great time sink. The other problem is that there isn’t time in the morning to do everything, and in the afternoon there is time but no energy. Yes, time to consider the energy/time puzzle.

2023

A day with only three journal entries in all these years! This is a sign to pause and consider where I have been and where this is going.

For all that it might appear that I have spent my life planning, the best things that happened to be were pure luck. Yes, even my two wonderful children, whose due dates I tried (and failed!) to fix on my academic calendar. After all, of all the little eggs waiting to meet that one special spermatozoa, the particular combinations that resulted in Kiddos 1 and 2 were nothing if not lucky. I met my husband through a friend of a friend of a friend, and barely noticed him at first. I got my job at the University of Maryland not only by accident, but in error. My formidable department chair had me confused with another applicant from the same department. She meant to hire the one who sent the thank you note, which was not me. (Sorry, Sara. It appears I had your career for 41 years. I hope your life was at least as good as mine; you certainly deserved it!))

My big writing project (not this, I just hide out here) is a revision/reassessment/mea culpa of my 40 years of writing about gender. I gave a sermon at my church a few years ago about my “search for truth and meaning” and delivered this poem as one of the readings. The research life is complicated, it turns out.

So for Inktober day 3 - path - here’s the poem (2019) and a little (2023) doodle. Yes, that’s a bunny.

2024

Inktober Day 3 - boots. I don’t do boots with heels anymore. Something like these would be nice.