Pursuing Calefaction

Well, the semester is coming rapidly to a head, both in Latin and at NC State. I have discovered over this spring break a prodigious capacity within myself for doing nothing while feeling like I’m working my ass off. Running the Red Queen’s race, they call it. I find myself doing things to buy time, and I am left to wonder, is that all I have ever done? Bought time? And what do I do with this bought time, but try to buy more time?

The art of preparing for the moment ahead of time has always escaped me. I have always gotten along by just showing up. As adulthood overwhelms me, I am learning that it is insufficient to keep just showing up, and yet, I don’t know how to do otherwise. Shitting diamonds is getting more and more difficult. And the consequences of that lack of knowledge are soon going to make themselves apparent.

Only one day remains of my spring break. The Sidhe and I travel north to see family and also for a reunion with UMBC’s Ancient Studies department, many of whom have retired already or are in the process of doing so. I graduated in a flaming wreck when I left, and though I wreaked some horrifically amazing works of scholarship, I also left a crater of smoking rubble there at the end. I only hope that the things I built are what remain more in my professors’ memories, and less my failings. I shall bring with me a record of my final serious project, a digitization of our 2006 performance of Aristophanes’ Frogs. And the news that I am a Latin teacher must also bear some weight. I fear to face them, when it comes down to it, for I am ashamed of who I am. But what can I do? They helped better me, so they deserve some idea of the fruits of their efforts.

I need a doctor.