A New Hope

I guess I have chosen the first Star Wars movie title because the beginning is actually the middle. And that is where I am at, starting all over from the middle. My dissertation is back on track, with the change in theme I feel a bit more confident and also feel like I am not trying to bite into an entire piping hot apple pie while it is walking away from me. I got it down to a slice, now I got to consume it/write it bite by bite.

I also started on that "other project". Wrote some pages for it, not sure how I feel about it, but it is getting out of my system.

Then I updated my monster account, so I can start to look for a gig with insurance. I gotta pay for my insulin pump.

And I figured out some of my settings on my blog that should make it easier for comments to be posted.

Talked to a friend in Norway about the riots (I have been making mad comments to people all over the websphere about stereotypes in Europe). Wrote an e-mail to a friend from Brazil.

Watched the Coretta Scott King funeral service in bits and pieces. If I was there I would have called her "a woman with a cool head and a fiery heart". And I would have also said that she proved that to be a mother and a wife does not mean you can't be a warrior.

Later a feminist popped up and said that Jackie O. and Coretta Scott King proved that you can endure and be calm and strong and still be effective. The old feminist movement overlooked them she continued. Then she went on to blah, blah, blah. Anytime I hear that kind of speech I remember when my boss accused me of being "just one of the other men" when it came to power. That was her reasoning for not defending me against some really foul shit. And shortly after that I was sent up the river without a paddle. I could have sued. I think feminism is fair, but in terms of things that have happened to me in my old company, I think I still carry some baggage and trust "issues" (such a silly word now, but a friend of mine from Holland loves its American usage) about power women in the work place and how they perceive me. Them Southern executives who worked with the NYC office ran a freakin' train on all the women and blacks who worked for them. I will never forget this same female director taking me to lunch at my favorite French bistro (it is gone now) and crying telling me I had nothing to do with the power play that was pitted against her. "But what about me" I thought. I just left that job. I had to leave that job, I was not being defended in anyway. I left only to hear other male friends talking about having to leave other jobs too. I guess it is universal . . . in America. German corporate politics are back in the 50's, so you can guess what my black ass had to go through walking through that door. Actually, I did not go through shit cause I am an arrogant pompous ass! Them white folk went through some shit, and I did not tire of giving it too them. Maybe somebody will write a book about it.

Hey, maybe I should write a book about it!

Flash of literary success in front of my eyes.

Now back to normalcy.

I promised not to be an angry slave this week.


And finally I have been getting stuff together for my German trip. I leave on the 14th of February. I talked to Pepper. He asked how long I have to live. I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. Everyone just says, "I did not know it was that bad." Well, actually it is better with a tube running out of my stomach, what is bad is people being so aggressive about drinking and drugs when I tell them I can't do them. I can have a beer, but not anything else. In Germany everybody has to be doing what everybody else is doing . . . at least in the Southern German.

So. I am kinda ready to make my amends. Got two checks coming from my old job here in Nashville. Will meet my Doktorvater (mentor) in Cologne, spend a weekend with some friends, pack my things and start again from the middle.

Teaching again when I get back. Non-insured. Bummer. I do like how companies treat you over academic institutions honestly. But I won't bitch. I think I have found people and a university I can work with the way I want. The important thing is for me to keep on writing.

Now that has got to be in the top 3 things. Ignoring dumb asses and fucking with boys that make me jump through hoops is in the top 5. Girls? They always pop up when I need them. When I want them, or when I want her most I should say. They are secret treats I don't like to share. I have said it once and I will say it again.

I am a repressed heterosexual.