And on St. Patrick's Day, you may find me...

Seated here at 4 in the afternoon debating whether or not to organize the slides for tomorrow's Intro to Contemporary Art test, with a Primary to lead in three hours.

Exciting stuff, eh?

I've never really made much of any holidays since college; my family adores holidays and, if they're able, they make a big production of many of them (New Year's Day a notable exception for whatever reason).

Today marked the return to school after spring break (I spent much of spring break seated right here, having debates with myself, just like this one). This came with what should have been a totally predictable psoas freakout from stress and angst; intense clenching and pain in the low belly and the lower back (hmmm, what muscle might THAT be?). Sun salutation B has been impossible. So be it.

Most of this comes from the video class which meets on Mondays and for which, even on good days, I am never totally prepared. I've just barely learned what I teach in there, and it always feels like a knife edge, all class long, and then it's over, and I do it all again the next Monday.

We are about to engage multicultural art and postmodernism, in the Contemporary class, and I'll just be polite and say that those aren't exactly my favorite things in art.

So school, in April, won't be much more fun than it was in, say January. Whatever.

The job sit remains a job sit; I have figured out recently that in a way, I feel that the November wave of applications is "over," even though I've not heard from at least a dozen schools to which I sent applications in November. What's that about?

It's not a matter of not feeling worthy; I'm just not in the mood to get calls, go on campus visits, play the whole pretty game. Somwhere between February and now, the show got boring and I walked away from it. Sure, I sent out a couple more applications and I will continue to, but a fairly stout case of "eh, whatever, fuck this bullshit" is setting in.

I was busy this morning hating the academy with great heat and eagerness, but now that that class I despise teaching is done, the hate mellows out into a cynical indifference. I don't have positive emotions about the academy anymore. I notice that I still, sometimes, draw up spontaneous syllabi, but those are for people who want to learn things, not for committees and paperwork files.

I feel like everything is boring right now. But spring begins in three days. A year ago I was regularly nailing Garbha Pindasana at about 6:30 am, newly freed from dissertation (the publication date of which was March 30, 2007).

This year it's all pointless, grey anti-agency; nothing exists. But I do not despair, because the old adage is true: if you despair, the gods will give you something to REALLY despair about. So I maintain some smouldering anger in order to protect myself from the incessant numbing poison that this job search is.

Thanks, America; thanks, Academy; thanks for everything.