April 29, 1997
Philosophy Larry has taught me enough about academic politics to convince me I don't even want to be a janitor at a state college! He talked my ear off this morning about a bizarre memo from the president of the college responding to a proposal by the philosophy department to save the philosophy major and minor. The proposal used data from a memo sent out by the president, yet his response questioned the very data he had provided.
Larry showed me all the memos and I was astonished at how badly written and poorly organized the president's original memo and his response to the proposal were. The original memo indeed contained bogus data, duplication of entire tables, missing data in tables that were referred to later... and on and on. The pres. needs a writer and based on his response I guess he needs a reader too.
Bottom line: the philosophy department hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of surviving the budget cuts. The best they can hope for is that whoever takes over when Gov. Weld becomes ambassador to Mexico purges the BHE (Board of Higher Education) and restocks it with people who care about the students rather than the spreadsheets.
I spent most of the afternoon at the podiatrist's office watching old people reading magazines in the waiting room. The room was hot. The magazines were old. There weren't enough chairs. My appointment was at 1:30. I got in at about 2:30 and was out at 3:00.
He rebuilt the orthotic for my left shoe - the left orthotic - and gave me a referral to an orthopedist he trusts in case the orthotic repair doesn't fix the mysterious knee thing. He thinks it will. He said to give it two weeks of walking on it before I call the orthopedist.
After yesterday's deluge, today's bright clear spring day is a bit of a shock. Especially since you don't expect to step in puddles on a day like this. But I did. I parked in a low lying parking spot at the mall. Either that or the mall parking lot has become a vernal pool. Better call the Audubon Society to see if blue spotted salamanders are breeding in the parking lot.
The baristas at Starbucks are kicking themselves for being so worried and concerned about Sean. Nothing bad happened to him, he was just too chicken to quit in person. After he'd been missing a couple of days he sent in friend to quit for him. Kids these days!
I forgot to return Kevin's fruit bowl again.
I spent this morning's therapy time [ for which I was late owing to being unable to tear myself away from the computer until I figured out why the January, February, March journal archive I created last night displayed fine on the Netscape previewer invoked by Claris Homepage but not when I uploaded it to the world and fixed it, which I did] analyzing my disproportionate anger about my damn parking space being taken up by the neighbor kid's Big Wheel, and my doubts that I handled the demise of Skitz absolutely perfectly. Themes: 1) I'm a workaholic 2) I don't feel like I have appropriate adult daily living skills 3) Every time I lose my temper I'm convinced I'll never be able to work again.
That last theme makes no sense unless I write about a work situation that gave me this legacy: any show of strong emotion was a major transgression for which you'd be reprimanded; a tough thing to suppress when the local misogynist is ragging on you for the 99th time... so I was constantly running afoul of the strong emotion taboo. Not to mention that as I get closer to menopause [male readers and young postfeminists please forgive me] my PMS symptoms seem to have intensified. Wild hormonal swings. Ohmigod!
[men and young postfeminists do not read beyond this point]
Yes, before my period I can feel myself getting snappish and irritable even before I start to feel bloated or any of the physical symptoms. Often the irritability is the first sign that it's that time again. I've tried high fiber diet, B6 supplements, increasing the antidepressants by 50mg... nothing works. Not that the symptoms are that bad. Now that I don't work in a high pressure environment the irritability doesn't bother me. It's not going to get me called on the carpet. So I don't worry about trying to stop it. I just leave it alone. If I do go back to work in a corporation, especially a high-tech one, I'll have to do something about it, but for now I can live with it with no problem at all.