10 years ago, 5 years ago, 1 year ago, yesterday

10 years ago
San Francisco
on the verge of the big 3-0. best friend Joanie plans my first birthday party in decades. I tell the students in my sexualities class "Women are Dogs!" in a tone little more than a growl. It's my fourth year of the Ph.D. program. I've just finished my play. I'm flirting with L*, this little fella, though I think we're both too shy to pull it off.

5 years ago
Las Cruces, NM
Second year of my first job. Overwhelmed, I sit in the bathtub and fantasize about drowning. But I couldn't leave L* with the mortgage, stranded in the middle of nowhere. A surprising pleasure is racewalking. Finished my first race five months ago and now I've got the bug. Racing in the Reindeer Run 10k in Roswell. A runner in his sixties comes in right before me. Don Fon wants to know why the old man gets a medal and I get a medal even though other people finished a half hour ago. "There's age categories and race categories" I explain. "I understand," he replies. "Everyone's a winner." For my birthday, L* gets me a racewalking lesson in Alamogordo! L* is on the job market, with interviews scheduled for the next three months. She buys a down parka online. How will we live with this pressure and uncertainty.

1 year ago
Columbus, OH
I get an email from a certain CSU telling me my file is incomplete. I call and tell them the letters were sent a month ago. They track them down and suddenly I'm scheduling a flight and a job talk. I practice the job talk with L*. We're both on the market and going muy loca. It is another grey day, and I hum "California Dreaming" to keep my eyes on the prize. I skip the quarter's last meeting of the College diversity committee in celebration of the upcoming job talk. I promptly run into the Associate Dean (who's on the committee), whose friendliness is one of the few rays of light. I feel so busted. It begins to snow. How will we live with the pressure and uncertainty of the next four months?

Yesterday
Oakland, San Francisco, and Oakland again
There was frost on the grass this morning, and my eyes water from the cold. I meet with grad students, several of whom are so together, they bear no resemblance to Ktrion-as-grad-student. Others promise a full draft by next week and then duck away from me in the hall. this is more familiar. I dawdle at the office and L* calls expecting me to be on the BART. I run up the hill, miss one shuttle, pay for the bus, run up the escalator and ride off on the Fremont train just as the next shuttle pulls into the station. I make it home in record time, and L* and I are off to our CORE training. We are infuriated by the instructor when she says "It's against the law to bring animals into a shelter." when the big ones come, will some burly fellow claim that the law allows only heterosexual families? How do we engage in community preparedness and yet balance our DEEP suspicion of the "the law." The class teaches me that L*'s whacked out preparedness steps are, in fact, extremely well thought-out. I covet the crowbar for our kit. I wonder if I could keep boxed water in my desk at the office without drinking it in the day-to-day. The instructor tells us if we work in San Francisco and take public transportation, we'll be stuck in the city for at least 2 days after the Big One. So, what? We should buy a second car and I should pay thousands of dollars in fuel and tolls on the chance that I'll be able to drive home after the Big One?