Half of the final day.

One more post from Chicago, and one more interview to go.

The reason I am doing this now is that check-out here is 1 pm, and my second interview is at 1:30 pm. This means that I'll pack up, leave my stuff with the front desk, go to the interview, maybe hit an afternoon session, and then walk or taxi down to my bus; I get back to Indy after 10 pm and probably won't get online until tomorrow.

I have re-discovered, again, but with more conscious awareness this time, that I have a Gonzo streak; yes, I mean Gonzo as in Hunter S. Thompson. Did I tell you that, on the very day he shot himself, I was due to teach the first day of a week of class dedicated to _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_ (book and film, adaptation course)?

So, this Gonzo streak. Last night I went down to a hotel bar for a nightcap and wound up talking to an Irishman from northern Indiana, who got into engineering and family and too much whisky. It was a fun conversation, as mildly intoxicated conversations between strangers at the bar often are, but this included two rounds of "hey the conversation's fun, have another" which kept me up until the wee hours of the a.m. (because I know from experience not to sleep on whisky; it tends to bite if you don't tame it first). This wasn't--and I don't think it looks like--some kind of intentional subversion of my morning interview, or a sort of preliminary stress release. The whole encounter, conversation and booze were a sort of "gift," the way you just open up and "receive" what the universe has to offer. And this time, I understood: the universe has FREQUENTLY granted me intoxication, more because I don't refuse it than that I actively want it. True, I want a KIND of intoxication, and I don't confuse booze with yoga; the kind of intoxication I'm pursuing now is consciousness-raising, if you like, and that is ALSO the kind that I pursued before. Blake's "decadence, road, wisdom" thing. When I was in my early 20s, I sought out intoxicants (various and sundry) in the name of decreasing my ignorance and attacking interior voices of morality and "maturity" (not ACTUAL maturity but things like "you need a career" which one might more accurately describe as CAPITALIST maturity); a self-discovery quest, a carving of myself out of the provided wood. And as part of that quest, I consumed a LOT of intoxicants. Back in the day, I could feel my insides craving liquor, on a Wednesday morning. That meant it was time to dry out for a week and then, right back at it. I tried to continue to be able to argue and reason effectively, even blind drunk, and so the quest was to throw the mind as far as it would go, to see what its limits were, to see if there WERE indeed limits.

And from those experiences and that mode of living, I have a Gonzo streak, and the universe knows this. So when I was up most of the night, I had decided that insomnia was a wiser choice than any kind of hangover risk. Sleepless, I can handle; I used to have a night job, and back in college I stayed up for 50-odd hours a few times, just to see what would happen, just to feel time distort, to experience reality off the schedule, heh.

I got a total of 2 hours of sleep, woke up at 5 am, made coffee, rolled out the mat at 5:45 and did the Rocket 2, another crim practice, and on a crim day, even. None of that "crim" business matters, I just like to own it. I'd jumped into all the handstands and done all the arm balances and so forth by 7 am. The sun salutation As were tough, but the utter love for SF kicked in for the B's, that and the joy of moving, the sweat beginning, and then I LANDED both of the forearm stand exits--right into chaturanga, the way you do in Intermediate! Score! I fell out of one of the arm balances and didn't stick the final Mayurasana (which is essentially Locust pose with your elbows in your belly, balancing on your hands) or do any foot-behind-head, but I wanted to practice, and I did, and it rocked.

Then it was breakfast, suit, packing, off to the second of my interviews: 9 am.

I was loaded with nervous energy, but where I could USE it, it really served. I don't think that it was my best self-presentation; I was speaking in a lot of tangents and parentheticals, but when asked a question that I could chew on (such as, what are you going to do with Iranian New Cinema and 1970s film theory?), I reached some of my best formulations EVER of what my work might become (and I even gave myself some ideas for the book!). I'm kind of deranged and scattershot, with pretty roller-coastering energy, from the sleep deprivation, but it's fine. They liked the stuff I do, the potential classes, the research, and hopefully the energy was not too all-over-the-place; that's the one thing I'm anxious about. Great gig: well-endowed liberal arts college, way way loose and fast as to students and majors, seems to have either very low or very efficient bureaucracy and pretty empowered faculty. Good good vibes. I wish in a way that I had re-told the interviewers what a completely "RAWK!" gig they have there, but it probably would have come out in that vocabulary, plus, they know. I mean, I made their interview slate and, this place got my LONGEST cover letter. We know we dig each other; will it "pan out"? Who knows, that's precisely the question on which the next round of stress rides into town.

11 am now; interview #3 (the final one!) in two hours and a bit. Time for some lunch and then to check out. I'll see you suckas tomorrow!

The soundtrack, courtesy of YouTube, by the way, has been:

My Bloody Valentine, "Soon"
Chapterhouse, "Pearl"
Ride, "Vapour Trail"
The Verve, "Bittersweet Symphony"