Mary Versus the Trumpeting Legions of Apathy

I've just come back to Austin from a family semi-reunion at my sister's house with a little bit of time before school starts. This is familiar. Two years ago, my parents drove me down to Texas, left some boxes in my apartment, then we had a semi-reunion, after which I bought a car, they bought me some Ikea furniture and took me to Costco and then they drove away. Now, I've been here two years. The big, double-bag box of Quaker Oats my parents bought me is almost empty. Ditto with the enormous bottle of two-in-one shampoo/conditioner. My Ikea bamboo is, miraculously, still alive. (Okay, one stem of it.) I have a different roommate, and a different pet than when I moved here. The first roommate is married and a mother, the bird is dead. I have outlasted a pair of senior Institute missionaries, the grad students in my cohort who just wanted a Masters degree and the departmental secretary.  I have run a half marathon; gone to Fun, Fun Fun and SXSW festivals; kayaked the ...

Man, late afternoon is such a hard time for me. I'm so up-and-at-em in the morning, I frown at the sluggards coming in 10 minutes late to work, I'm focused like a razor, I'm crossing things off my list left and right.... Then 3 o'clock comes around. I like to think I was conditioned from elementary school days, but maybe it's just plain old blood sugar cycles, but I become essentially useless from 3-5 ish. My eyes gloss over the page. I open and shut Word windows. I type a few lines. But I'm not top of my game. To compensate for this, I try to schedule classes (teaching and taking) during this time as well as any hourly or on-call work I need to do. That way I'm doing something without having to self-motivate. Unfortunately, I think this makes me just a little more stupid and slow in my classes. There was a time when I would have Monday Afternoon Movies and just give up on my afternoons, write it off and get back to work in the evenings, but that feels...

I handed my co-worker a torn tab of paper. "Look," I said, "easiest study ever--all you need to do is answer some questions about your mood and they pay you." The email and phone number were from the university. "All you need to do is not be clinically depressed." "Oh," she said, and handed it back. I am a happy person. I don't take credit for this: I'm lucky enough to not suffer from crippling chemical imbalances, I have a strong network of family and friends, and I haven't even encountered any major disappointments or setbacks in my life (knock on wood). But sometimes I think people think I'm faking it or over-the-top, but I really do walk around with a smile on my face all the time. I generally love my work, my friends, my life. That's not to say I haven't had rough times: I've have "off-days" and "down days" and when I first moved to Austin I was definitely less than chipper about the life...