20181101.0430

I've spent a while pushing forward my hymns against the Stupid God, and while there is certainly more to say in despite of such, I find that I am having more and more trouble putting forward those words. Between that and the new month beginning, it seems appropriate to shift topics a bit--and it's been a while since I've made a sustained effort to put into this webspace the lucid prose in its overall title...
In the past, I've followed one or another of the gimmicks that associate themselves with November. No-Shave stands out in my mind as a prime example; looking back on it, I am somewhat embarrassed by my performance, not only on the event itself, but on the rest of what surrounded it. I was far from at my best when living in Oklahoma, and I probably deserve to have lost out on the jobs for which I applied while I was there. I was following gimmicks instead of doing what I ought to have been doing, and I have paid for it. I do not mean to fall into the same error now.
To be sure, I am doing better now than I was then. I'd have to look back over my bank-books to be sure of matters, I admit, but I have the sense that my household brings in more money than it did in the Sooner State (if not nearly so much as in the Empire State). More of our families are closer to us here than there, and, if I am to be honest, I am in a better place professionally than I was. I do still teach, adjuncting over a class or two in most of the sessions at a nearby for-profit college (about which I've made some comments here), but my primary work is no longer that of a scholar. Instead, it is among the directorate of a local non-profit, one in which I work to support others' efforts to help people. I do good in the world, and, at the end of the day, I leave my work behind me and head home. It does not have to intrude upon my family, and I even have time to do some fun things that I'd had to set aside for far too long (about which I've commented here and in other places).
Too, at the moment, I'm in a better mood and a better overall frame of mind. I spent a lot of time trying to find jobs and failing, and the repeated failures did quite a bit to sour me--as might well be expected. I run towards more "negative" states of mind, in any event, and my time in Oklahoma and on the job market afterwards was far from helpful in that. (I am grateful for those who stuck with me while I was amid it. I know I was not easy to be around then. I'm trying to do better.) Having a reasonably solid set of professional circumstances is a great help (though I know it can always change; I'm doing what I can to protect myself and my family against such shifts). I do not think I would have been able to have it in a place where the winds sometimes collide in tight spirals as the ground itself shakes beneath. I am glad to have it here.
So, while I'll not be indulging much in many of the month's associations, I do think I'll be spending some more time putting together prose ruminations like this one--or better ones. I hope they'll be pleasures to read.