Reverse engineering
Today I was mildly productive. I made some headway regarding the direction I'm going to take with my article, in addition to having decided (yesterday) that I would only write an abstract for my article regarding white female and black male subjectivity in Invisible Man and Footlight Parade in the Depression Era and would return to researching and revising my article regarding the cybernation of black male subjectivity. The two articles circle around the same issues, but given the complexity of the issues I have to choose which article to work on first.
Earlier this afternoon, Amy phoned to tell me that she was at Casa Nueva with Sarah J., Jenny D., and Steve L., and that she would go to the Literary Festival readings after and did I want to join? I was thick into my research and told it would be better if I stuck with it. I'm feeling better about the time I have to conduct research, though I am worried about my time getting fragmented. Lots of bellyaching.
Chris R. IMed me and after chatting for a few minutes it became clear to me that my IM dexterity was impaired from disuse. Jason G. is getting married early June (I must send my acceptance by tomorrow) and Chris let drop that Athens is midway between Charlottesville and Indianapolis. How easily road trips come together. I hope my little home will be enough room for the three of us.
I've lately been considering my emotional life from the perspective of the future, which is to say that I've been remembering my past emotional intensities. I'm content and mostly productive, everything even keel. There's much to be said for stability, though something seems to be missing. I think I'm mainly dissatisfied with the state and character of my academic research and my engagement with art. I want more, but it seems that I never have enough time to explore deeply any single intellectual line of thinking. Clearly, this is not situational but symptomatic of a personality that is consistently distracted.
Maybe I don't really love what I do? Perhaps what I do is the “nearest fit” for something I had been deeply passionate about when I was a young man.