Pains in My Head & Heart

I suppose you think the title is purely metaphoric.

Unfortunately, I really AM experiencing chest pain (presumably heartburn) and little stabs of headache pain as well. Perhaps it's all the caffeine. Perhaps it's the compulsion to eat my lunch at 9:30 in the morning, and then having my stomach catch up to my brain and holler, "What are you DOING? Don't you know that I'm still working on breakfast??!"

Perhaps its the stress of trying to finish the dissertation in the next 3 or 4 days and trying to figure out what I have to do versus what, in ideal conditions, I'd like to do, and realizing that some of the former may become some of the latter, even though it really shouldn't be that way. Fuck.

I'll say it again: FUCK.

Compounding the stress is the fact that my office unexpectedly got slammed with a task that normally comes at a different time of the year, that has a very inflexible deadline, but that does not include the same reasonable amount of time to complete the project in question--thereby removing any illusions I had about being able to do some of my non-paying work at my paying-job. I also agreed to cat-sit for a friend this weekend before knowing about the whole working-at-work fiasco. And I am happy to cat-sit, but unfortuantely, it will also take time and attention away from finishing the god-awful beast that is the dissertation.

Personally, I blame the administration. When in doubt, always blame the university administration--the bureaucrats who have no concept of the time and energy it takes to do scut-work, or its importance, because they never do any. Scut-workers around the world should seriously unite.

"And yet," you wonder, "if you're so busy, and stressed, and overburdened by work, why the hell are you blogging right now?"

A valid question. Personally, I chalk it up to one of my many coping mechanisms--which is to repond to high stress with denial and total avoidance, as well as irony and humor. I mean, it is kind of amusing to respond to two rather high-pressure deadlines with, "Oh yes? Deadlines? Well thanks very much for the FYI but I rather feel like blogging instead. I'm just not in a deadline sort of mood right now, thanks again, so very much..."

Indeed, when in doubt, succumb to denial, paralysis, and feigned nonchalance. On the plus side, I'm going to NYC again next weekend to see my very good friend Phil, who I've not seen in two years. And it will be wonderful in many ways, but not least because by then I will have handed in the dissertation, and will feel--temporarily but magnificently--FREE. And time with Phil is always a great journey of the mind, the soul and the body. Like me, Phil is a great walker, talker, thinker, and eater of delicious, ethnically diverse cuisine, and we do all of these things together with great verve.

Ahhh..

But a lot needs to happen in the ever-shrinking space of time between now and then, and so, back to work I go, having vented my spleen a bit. If there was only a way to stop time, to not have to sleep, to take some of the pressure off...I guess for the time being, I'll have to settle for some TUMS. Everyone, please pray to and adore the academic gods on my behalf. May they be kind.