Bad roads

The main things I've learned during grad school and the years of my life that have transpired while I've been in it are that what I want is almost totally irrelevant to how anything happens for me, and that I am the least important person in my own life.  Everything I want is always in other people's hands, and I'm never able to persuade them to give it to me, not out of talent, not out of dedication, not even through pity, and believe me, I'd take pity if it would get people to give me a chance on some things.

I have a hard time even conceiving of what I deserve, but at least the emotionally untouchable taskmaster side of me can step back and say, "something better than this."  It takes other people to point it out, though.  The PhD just about cured me of being able to think that way on my own.

Yes, this is about more than the abysmal job market.

My orchids are in terrible shape because I haven't watered them in months, plural, and at the rate I'm going I'll never finish poetry book #2, let alone do anything more ambitious.  A tenure-track job would help that, but so would a few other things, none of which are in place.  Right now, the only motivation I have for working is personal satisfaction, and I can get personal satisfaction out of having some ice cream and a nap.

It's beginning to make me believe in luck again just so I can believe in unerringly, relentlessly bad luck.  I wrote to the people at Marie Laveau's and asked them to make me a custom mojo bag.  At this point, why not.