Unfamiliar

I haven't blogged -- I mean, really blogged -- in weeks. Sitting down this evening to type something out feels unfamiliar, like riding a bike after not having ridden one in years. I know I can, but I'm a little shaky starting out.

These past few weeks have seen a lot of changes, and I'll try to recap them just for those few who might be curious. This July I interviewed for postdoctoral jobs, held my PhD defense, and picked up an outstanding cold that's lasted for two weeks.

The job search has been fun -- I'm criss-crossing the continent again and meeting new people in my area of research -- but induces some degree of anxiety. I find myself fidgety about the future.

As for my PhD defense, well, I'm still trying to sort out what that meant. In the lead-up to the day, 7/11, I kept telling myself it was going to be just another day. And it was. But it was also something else that I haven't grasped fully yet.

And the cold, or should I say the Cold, lingers but reminds me every morning of constancy, the tendency of some things to stay the same. Deep down, maybe I'm still an asthmatic kid who breathes funny after running around too much.

I have an image of summer in my mind, but it's been frustrated so far, short of actualization. Summer brings to mind the cold underside of couch cushions, watermelon in abundance, and water sprinklers in the evening. I see my dad cross my bedroom window moving the sprinkler from one spot on the lawn to another after twilight. I see my mother cutting watermelon into cubes and putting them in plastic containers, then the containers on the top shelf of the refrigerator. And I feel the cold velvety surface of the couch that I would dive onto growing up. My dad doesn't have high blood pressure, my mom doesn't worry about my dad, my brother and I don't have school. Those were the days. Ah well.

Moblog posting from New York

So what IS the UN responsible for then?

The day before

Well, friends, the day has finally arrived.

Actually, it's the day before the day.

Tomorrow I get up in front of a live studio (okay, classroom) audience and talk about everything I've done here in Michigan (okay, not everything, just the academic parts).

I'm feeling okay, telling myself tomorrow's just another day. But still, regardless of how the defense goes tomorrow, I'll probably remember 7/11 as something more, the bookend to the shelf that started with 9/11.

9/11 occurred the week after I started grad school. I know the "war on terror" has been going on for a long time, because it's been going on for as long as I've been in grad school. And that's a long time.

Now, here at the end, a life that had seemed in slow motion is suddenly in fast forward. The pages that were turning over slowly, when there was time to read every word, are now flipping by quickly. There's a flip-book stick-man -- he's jumping rope, he's deciding where to move next, he's thinking about his parents getting older -- and that stick-man is me.

Okay, how about a pretty picture?

That's sunset over Ford Road just east of Ann Arbor.

And here's something else that's interesting:

That's one flavor of Doritos you can get in Vancouver (see "deciding where to move to next" above): "Tandoori Sizzler". Suddenly "Cool Ranch" seems downright dowdy.