Used to having more on my plate.


It’s been over two weeks since I stopped “working” and started my full-time parent gig. I still wake up thinking I have to go work; still go to bed trying to remember if I have any meeting for which to prepare; still keep meaning to check my work email. I’m not used to being home on the computer while Charlotte’s napping and my chores are finished and having a few minutes to just mentally kick it.  Today, the window is open.  I’m drinking my second very large mug of coffee in the last hour.  Charlotte is in a good mood.

Life is good, but I keep missing it somehow.

For a better Monday.


It’s raining.  One of my least favorite people at work is being my least favorite person ever today, on my last day.  Storms are coming, in fact, also.  And I don’t feel very well.  But, you know.  Look at Charlotte, right?  Yeah?  Life ain’t bad.  I tell ya.

My job is over after Monday.


When Charlotte was one week old, I found out that the office in which I work did not have the funding to keep me after my second year in AmeriCorps VISTA. This after it was nearly guaranteed that, if I did a second year of 40-50 hours a week of work for $11,000 a year, I could have “any job” I wanted, even the one my immediate boss (a high-ranking university administrator no less) designed for me, working in faculty development and community engagement. You know, actually using my fancy degrees and experience and talents.

So. A week after becoming a father, I found out that four months later I would be cut loose. Stressed.  Angry.  Hurt.  Scared.

Mrs. P. suggested that I just not go back to work after that, until Charlotte goes to school. Such a suggestion shook us both up. But we decided to go for it.  It never would have occurred to me.

I spent the summer coming to terms with the fact that I had a PhD and would not be working for a few years, that I had more-or-less wasted two years of my life (at least one) on an institution that, well, didn’t give a shit. I am not going to claim that I worked very hard this summer or that I didn’t take an extra day or two of paternity leave. I felt like they owed me. Plus, working more than 40 hours a week was pretty regular, especially during my first year as a VISTA.

Then, a week or two before the date that my contract with AmeriCorps VISTA was up, my boss scored me a part-time gig working on faculty development and even policy development (I’m spending my last day drafting a policy on part-time tenure-track faculty members). Two days in the office, and a few hours from home. Not a bad deal, but it required a great deal of mental shuffling. All the things I had put off until after VISTA was up were on hold again. Most are still on hold.

Our unit moved from our little suite, but I was left behind. I share the suite with two (sometimes three) quiet men. It’s weird. I’ve taken to working with my door closed regularly.  I’m pretty quiet and self-contained.  But I miss the people I used to work with.  It’s strange being in the same office, with different people down the hall and with your desk moved to be ADA compliant. It’s especially worker-bee-esque to be chained to a desk two blocks away, with getting that work done being the only value I give to the university.

My contract was technically supposed to be over two weeks ago, but the funding runs out Monday, and there was something no one wanted to do that they could ask me to do (and which I didn’t mind doing, really).  So.  Monday, that’s it.

It’s strange.  I feel like I’ve spend all of Charlotte’s 10 1/2 months waiting for something and that I’ve missed a lot, at least mentally.  I feel guilty that I get to be with Charlotte daily, while my wife works hard to make money to feed us all, at a job that’s not in her field and for which she’s underpaid.  I feel like I’ve given every professor that’s ever looked out for me the finger twice: once when I didn’t go out for teaching jobs; again when I’m going to put my “credentials” on the shelf for 3-4 years altogether.  I’m waiting for it to bother me, that I have a freakin PhD in philosophy and that I “stay home.”

I’m steeling myself for the shit I’ve been getting and will probably get.  A good friend of mine joked that he told someone about having a friend who’s “a doctor” but “all he does is stay home.”  A lot of people at work react strangely and treat me like some basket case who gave up.  If I were a bolder man, I’d respond, “Oh, yeah?  What are YOU doing with YOUR PhD?  Right, you don’t have one!”  There are some very supportive people, though.  My family and most of my friends are being awesome.  A lady I work with responded, last week when I told her what I’ll be doing, “Good.  Good for you.  That’s great.  The best thing you can do.”  I wanted to hug her.

Having done both, I can easily say that parenting is harder than getting a PhD.  More rewarding, too.  DAD is a much better title than Dr.

One problem with seafood.

Eating it and getting all that mercury messes  your brain up.  Then you don’t realize what a dicky thing it  is to microwave a  bushel of fish for lunch at work and stink up the whole office suite.  Ugh.

Grant application wisdom.


I read through a stack of long grant applications recently.  I’m on the committee, like I was last time we gave this funding out and like I almost definitely will not be the next time.  I have discovered some pointers for grant applications, and I don’t mean these facetiously.

1) Be careful who you’re nice to.  You never know who’s on a grant committee.  That person you blew off two autumns ago might be the deciding vote on your so-so grant application.

2) There really will be some stickler who judges you for typos, formatting errors (everyone knows by now that Word 2007 does to spacing) and spelling mistakes.

3) The quality of your writing really does matter.  Maybe there is no real connection between the ability to produce serious, quality, formal writing and completing a proposed project.  But there sure is the implicit perception.  “Don’t fun that.  He can’t even use a thesaurus.”  There’s worse, too.

4) It does make a difference if you staple, paperclip, merely stack or use a report cover.  Not connecting  your papers at all makes readers find the beginning and end of your application and might have them annoyed when they start reading it.

5) BE CONCISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

6) When asked for a very short statement about your project, don’t just paste your opening two sentences.

7) Don’t call yourself “visionary” in the third person when the application has your signature on it.

8) Don’t list the grant criteria, say that your project fulfills them all, and then not say how or why.

9) Shorthand and abbreviations are unwelcome in an essay that is asking for thousands of dollars.

10) Realize that when you ask for mos of a grant for salary (“consulting”) for yourself when you already work 40 hours a week and will do all the grant work during those 40 hours, that’s called stealing.  You will get rejected, maybe laughed at.  And, you know, people remember you the following year.

Don’t ask me for positive recommendations, or how to actually get a grant.  Sheesh.  If I could do that, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now.  I get paid under a grant, but I didn’t apply for it.

It is my birthday, and I am at work.

I don’t think I’ve ever been at work on my birthday before, except in 2001. My wife (then girlfriend) had flowers sent to the office. And I caught the young ladies of the suite reading the card when I got back from a smoke-break. Evidently, there was speculation of some sort about whether I was single, gay, how old I was, etc. No one believed I was “only” 22, and I was insulted for some reason. The whole “you’ve been with the same girl for how long?” thing was also insulting, as if three years meant something that everyone understood but me. Playing the field? No thanks. I wonder what some of them would say if I told them that we’re married now, with a beautiful daughter.

Today, I am 31, have a wonderful wife and daughter and really don’t care about my age anymore (remind me I said that if I’m still blogging when I turn 40 in 2019).

I wish the worst for this week’s friends.

This week, wherein I am only supposed to work half-time, has been a bitch.  Yes.  A bitch.  I wish it ill.  Plenty of ill-deserved criticism at work, including being talked down to, taken advantage of and other bullshit I don’t need and don’t get paid enough to take.  Oh, and I was still working tonight, when I wasn’t even supposed to be working today.  Fun!

And, well, this is kind of funny.  But I’m sleep-deprived enough to actually be hallucinating a little a few times a day.  I see things that aren’t there and hear things that aren’t happening.  This is getting a little scary.

I am finished with AmeriCorps this week.

I keep forgetting.  It’s strange.  Two years as a VISTA member, and now I can’t get away with wearing shorts to work and only shaving twice a week anymore.

Stranger still, I’m in the same office after the rest of the suite moved.  I’ll be staying on in the Provost’s Office to work on faculty development issues two days a week for six months to earn some cash.  At least the PhD (for which I received three negative comments in two days last week — nice) means something right away.  It was listed as a prerequisite in the job description.

I’m tired of apologizing for it, like I owe it to everyone to live up to three letters or something.  It’s not like being an Eagle Scout, that’s for sure.

Baby’s room.


It’s officially the coolest room in our apartment.  I’m jealous!  I was joking last night that I wanted to sleep on the floor in there read all night.

We never bother to paint because we move a lot; so our walls are all off-white.  For Baby’s room, I used non-VOC paint to get the space a glossy shade of blue.  There is wonderful light (from soft flower and bug wall lamps, to a medium lamp to a big floor to the nuclear dawn of the ceiling light), a soft rug, cute curtains, soft, wooden furniture (including some that we intend to grow with her), a rocking chair, TOYS and — for now — two bikes!Also , to keep the dragon plant company, a money tree!

It was a task. It felt like my Augean stables, as I cleaned off a storage shelf, the huge closet, computer desk, two full bookshelves, bike parts and tools, pens (PENS!). This took me several weekends.

Then I painted with a brush, so that I wouldn’t have to make a mess. Before and after painting, I had fun with sandpaper, putty and DUST (which had to be vacuumed from everything, mopped up, etc., in case of lead paint, etc.).  This took a week of evenings, with a few mornings and one afternoon.

Then there was a big trip to Ikea, after some careful planning and measuring.  And, you know, putting everything together (which I really enjoy).

And, finally, decorating!  This was the fun part.  I had a nice beer, my headphones and went to town last night.  I think that was the last beer I’ll ever drink in there.

The crib is in our room, closer to me, since I’m a light sleeper.  After that, it will replace the bikes in Baby’s room.  Her window looks out onto trees and, when they don’t have their leaves, North Baltimore.  There are three doors: one to the hallway, one to the closet, one to the bathroom (both bedrooms have doors into the bathroom, which is pretty cool and part of the “charm” of this old place).  The floors are the original (creaky and scarred) hardwood floors.

It’s weird to think that, in a matter of weeks or even days, there will be a tiny baby there.

Also, in the mail today: my new camera and the Baby Bjorn!

More photos here on Flickr!

OMG, it’s only Tuesday.

What a week already!  Yesterday, we saw the OB early in the morning.  She said the same thing as two weeks ago: things look stable; maybe in two weeks, Mama can come off bedrest a little.  Good news.

Then we went to the bloodlab, where we spent about four hours.  It was hot, close, and you could feel the frustration from people over the waiting.  The nurses didn’t think Mama looked good.  So we got to wait behind a curtain after the first hour.  Before that, I finished Into the Wild.

We had lunch, which was heaven after we’d been fasting for the testing (I fasted, too, for sympathy).

Came home, did laundry, got an email from my dissertation directory asking for my bibliography.  Scrambled to get that put together and was up late going through all of my footnotes to make sure I didn’t forget anything.

Meetings and “official” stuff already all day today.

My blood sugar is all over the place from fighting the urge to give in to stress.  I’m so tired that I feel like throwing up, but I’m having trouble sleeping also.  I have something huge going on tomorrow (if all goes as planned) that I don’t want to jinx too much by talking about.

But soon, none of this will matter.  Baby will be here.

Things are looking up, with chores also.


After doing a lot of work this weekend toward cleaning up Baby’s room (especially the huge closet holding twelve years of two people’s notes), etc., I am relaxing with a delicious sampler I treated myself to last Friday.  My recycling bin is doubled and then still overflowing, and I am covered in papercuts.  I’ve been offline most of the weekend, and it feels great.  Felt.  Great.

With Baby this close and so much left to do, I’m finding it difficult to really care about much else. My hair looks terribly.  Seriously.

Aside from getting ready for Baby in practical ways, all I find myself interested in is hanging out with Mama, listening to music for Baby, watching the Olympics, “Gilmore Girls” and movies from Netflix.

Chiapas gets it done.

Late-night dissertation editing leads to morning editing with a huge French press of coffee. Have I found the equation which dictates: More Coffee = Less Stress + More Work Accomplished? If so, does it work without this excellent brew from Chiapas?

They don’t just teach writing in school.

Revising my dissertation, I wonder if working in higher education/community engagement, outside of an academic discipline, hasn’t been better for my prose writing? I have to write for university administrators, nonprofit and community partners regularly, not to mention sometimes writing in order to convince people to do something they don’t really want to do. There’s a lot of pomp and false wit in the dissertation that I would never put into something for other people to read on paper like that these days.  Of course, blogging is full of pomp, almost necessarily so, so you probably haven’t noticed, as I haven’t until this morning. :)

Potluck, all about the company.

Office potluck yesterday.  Was not looking forward to it.  Awkward, since I work 4 floors above everyone in that office.  Etc.  But, with good company, it was enjoyable. (Seems like an inane thing to blog, now that I think of it.)

On pleasant early meetings.

I had a coffee meeting this morning with a gentleman who is extremely pleasant, who likes coffee as much as I do and with whom I joked about a shared stationery fetish when we both pulled out fancy notebooks.  My, oh, my, even with more caffeine later, working alone in your office when it’s beautiful outside, especially after a very pleasant meeting first thing, is difficult and….unpleasant.

On the up-side, I spent lunch-time today reworking some dissertation stuff, so that I am doing my part to get that sumbitch defended before Baby comes.  Still, I am increasingling tired of looking at and thinking about this thing.  Changing language around, etc.  I was talking with someone today about publication.  Well, he was talking about me doing some publishing.  And I had to say, “Hell no.”  I don’t want to look at that thing for some time after I defend it.

On another up-side, when work and other people get to me, I think that, in one year, I’ll have a beautiful Baby and my PhD.  The stress to get there becomes obviously worth it, from that start — not just in hindsight.  I remember what Nietzsche said: “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

I think I forgot to mention that the second ultrasound was Okay and normal and good.  There are a few small issues with Mama for which there have been some prescriptions (and prescriptions for the problems that prescriptions caused).  But, so far as we can tell, things are going well.  Morning sickness is over, and Mama has her energy back.  Coming up: 20-week blood tests and the Big Ultrasound wherein we can (hopefully) learn the gender!

Dissertation stress makes work stress not so bad.

I haven’t been blogging much on  here lately because I haven’t had the energy and will.  I hate when people say, “I didn’t X because I’m just soooooooo busy [with the inflection that no one, and they mean no one, is as busy as they are].”  So I won’t give you that bullshit.

I’ve been busy with work and planning the memorial ride for the gentleman who was killed in August.  That accounts for a lot of my time.

I’ve also been pulling my hair out about getting my dissertation director to schedule my defense before my wife’s too preggers to travel.  On one hand, I really like the guy and probably have a close philosophical kin in him.  On the other, it’s frustrating to be at the mercy of other people’s schedules and thereby tempted to push them — hard.  I mean, I’m certainly willing to piss people off if I have to, but not until I have to.  Especially not people that I like.  That accounts for much of my sanity.

We’ve also learned that the pregnancy is not without events.  On the ten week ultrasound, there was some bleeding under the placenta that only showed up on the U.S. but shouldn’t have been there.  Our doctor scheduled another for early last week, and it is still there.  The ultrasound technician said it’s something to monitor but not necessary worry about unless the bleeding gets larger.  We haven’t spoken to our doctor since she got the report, however, and it’s worrisome.  It’s also worrisome, to be blunt, when people who you’d think would be concerned are not, or, at least, don’t show it.  Mrs. P. is also on some medication, and that’s never fun.  That accounts for being emotionally dissinterested in blogging.

Excuses, excuses, I know.

Back to “civilization.”

From camping.  And “civilization” means a few very crazy weeks at work, including a VERY last-minute site-visit tomorrow when I was hoping to work from home and continue the fight against getting sick.

Autumn is here, though, and that is damned fine.

And my waistpack smells like campfire, after my friend Zack and I sat around one last night for 4-5 hours, including melting two glass rootbeer (yes, ROOTbeer) bottles in the center/coals of said fire.  For the record, it was Zack’s idea.  I thought they’d explode, even empty.

I also kinda lost my cool and yelled [shortly] at a few kids who, in my defense, totally deserved it and needed to wake up a little to unexpected pains in the ass that come with being an adult and sometimes come when you’re fifteen.  I think it worked for the time, and there were/are no hard feelings.  Unless there’s a heartless revenge headed my way.  In which case, it did not, in fact work.

I am deliriously tired.

Working in tides.

tide1009
I am not a constant worker. That is, I cannot sit for 8 hours doing the same thing. I never have been able to. Instead, I can usually get done said amount of work in a fraction of the time, with plenty of time for playing/relaxing. (Admitting this just might be why I got accused of being arrogant.) I work in spurts. But I don’t understand why my admitting a weakness (i.e., combination of a short attention span and just plain laziness) leads to charges of arrogance (ahem).

Anyway. School work. It usually happens that I do all my reading. Research. Notes. Outline. Bam, I sit down and write a seminar-length paper in one sitting, that needs minimal editing. My secret is thinking about it for a long time first, so that I really am only going through the formality of typing and composing actual sentences around the cute aphorisms I’m storing in my brain.  Really.  I’m so lazy and have so much trouble paying attention to anything that I have trick myself into working.  No shit.

I tricked myself into cranking out incredible amounts of work today leading to a robust introduction and first chapter of my dissertation.  I found delicious kernels of Pragmatism not only in Emerson, but also in Thoreau.  Textual references that are not bullshit and mis-quoted and taken out of context.  So instead of beefing up the scholarship on my definition of Pragmatism by quoting James scholars, I found a dialogue between Peirce, James, Emerson and Thoreau on the relation of thought and action.  Delicious.

I don’t know why I’m writing this.  I’m exhausted and just enjoyed a nice beer and should be reading a trashy novel before hitting the sack.  I suppose it’s largely because I spent the last few months of 2006 and the first half of 2007 researching and writing the damned thing without ever talking about it with anyone aside from my wife, who was also burdened with writing her own.

What is my dissertation about?

An exploration of the possible usefulness of hate.  Via an exploration of how pervasive hate is and what Pragmatism means to me; a discussion of Nietzsche’s view of hate using all of his published philosophical writing; proposed solutions for how to make hate useful.  Sounds sunny and easy, no?

I will admit for the first time to myself that I spent entirely too much time reading and reflecting on and writing about Nietzsche.  But they want scholarship.  Still, I spent over three months doing nothing but reading and taking notes on Nietzsche.  Do I really get him?  I’m sure some of my colleagues would say that I do not because I am not entirely familiar with the scholarship on him.  Somewhat familiar with it and equally bored by it.  I would, arrogantly, reply that I am familiar with Nietzsche‘s work, and I couldn’t give less of a shit what some deconstructionist in a cafe’ thinks about Freddy’s relationship with his mother or how this or that “scholar” had reduced all of the multifarious things Nietzsche said to one principle, phobia or sexual deviance.

That one might posit that another person might not “get” a philosopher because one spent more time reading the primary material than the secondary material is one of the reasons that I am leaving (and in most ways have already left) academic philosophy behind. Behind in an “I’m better than that” sense?  No, don’t get your panties in a bunch.  If reading philosophy journals and going to conferences is your thing, that’s cool.  You do yours, and I’ll do mine.

I can’t help but think that there’s a point where we’re supposed to stop reading about philosophy and reading people who write about it and what other people have written about what these people have written and start, you know, doing it.  Or is it really just an academic discipline and not a mode of living?

Don’t answer that.