2011 came around.
Just a few days old, it has brought sun and cold to the upper Mississippi where the river splits Twins.
For a moment (maybe) I'll put the poetics on hold (perhaps).
My proposals have been rejected for the 3rd time. The concept of strikes applies here, just like on a diamond. Could be a career-killer. Few good options. Time to rely on friends and professional allies. Might be time to ditch the whole Research Biochemist spiel. Can I burn 20 years without blinking?
Anyway, April Fool's Day is the (putative) end. Appropriate, unkind and ironic. Happy Birthday to boot. When planets align that well, its considered an omen. Like that lunar eclipse during the solstice - which, by the way, aligned here
too.
I'm goin' down to the cross-road
try to flag a ride.
Tomorrow
2 comments:
Tomorrow done come
and gone again.
Kamp came by the other day. He needed a square and a place to rehearse and record because the shelter doesn't have have privacy and only offers cold baloney. Not even bread.
He helps me balance. Shows me where
the street begins and where
it ends. Shows me how
to hope.
In the Heart of the City.
Kamp wrote that song, too.
Update
There is more snow to shovel tonight. It has been quite cold of late. I like it. Especially when the sun is shining on fresh snow.
That's the midwestern weather talk.
It appears that my employer is willing to let me volunteer to do my job until I can find another way to pay may salary. I'd keep benefits. It is not nothing. I am fortunate enough to have the luxury of entertaining such an idea. I'm trying to push my institution a bit, to extend support enough for my lab tech. We've worked together for a few years and I really don't want to put him out. I'm pushing to begin "volunteering" while there is still some money left and redirecting to Ed's salary after March. Unfortunately, the system works against such logical conclusions.
It is not altruism or selflessness on my part. I need the help and I have the luxury afforded me by the very system that is failing me now.
Otherwise, its back to the grant-writing treadmill. Its like a giant parking deck with too few spaces and too many cars. You just keep driving, using one "strategy" or another, until Your Space opens up right before you. Timing is everything and its random.
Or, I could just leave the parking lot. That's another way to spend the luxuries I have stashed away over these years of living the dream. There was a time that I did both, but the treadmill became more and more consuming and, as it turns out, more and more futile.
Go figure. Was it Chance? Maybe a Lesson? Maybe neither. Just the stuff of a life. Whenever I look up from the quest, I am reminded of how my fellow humans struggle, too. Most in more dire circumstance and with far, far fewer resources. So, humbled, I take my place in the family of humanity. Past, present and future.
Ever onward, no one ever said evolution was easy, or that life was fair.
Post a Comment