Facebook Usurper

The blogs are kind of bumming me out recently. Q accurately diagnosed the problem last night when she quipped, in a shockingly (to me) casual way about something to the effect of how the blogs are done, having been replaced by facebook. And, indeed, why bother blogging about anything if you can just obsessively comment and read status updates on facebook? I would submit, though, that these two things simply don't serve the same function. Perhaps if we were all more open and confessional about leaving Notes on our profiles, this would be the case. As it is, pretty much the only stuff you're supposed to write in such notes are interesting and compelling bits and lists of favorites. It's the myspace survey all over again. While this has it's place, admittedly, and I like facebook way more than I ever liked myspace (the latter is quite simply too damned fussy), it doesn't rival the blogs. I've gotta say, though they've fallen off in recent months--first GeoffreyCrayon, then B--I still like them. I still like having one. This is really the only time I do this kind of writing, and while I'm not particularly good at it, I do enjoy it. A lovely difference from my bloody dissertation. Bloody in more than one sense.

So I, for one, am clearly guilty of not blogging. I think this is partially the time of year. I have more momentum in the late spring and fall, or maybe I'm just making that up. Really what it is is I've been waiting until I felt like I could write about something other than how devastated I feel after experiencing my worst case scenario on the job market this year. I always knew it would be bad, people start warning you about that when you're an undergrad with grad school ambitions, but I didn't think it would be as bad as it was. Where this leads me from here is into a shame spiral, k-hole, whatever you want to call it, where I obsessively recount my failures and wail mournfully about my future prospects. I've done that enough, so I'm not going to do it here. I'm trying really hard to pull myself out of that and reclaim my sense of forward motion. So I'm focusing on finishing. And putting off, for now, the job hunt. I'm telling myself that next year, when my dissertation is off my lap, I'll be able to focus on a number of different possibilities. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, a job announcement I saw recently for a book manager at Amazon gave me a great deal of pause. Anyway, suffice it to say: badness.

Moving on, I really want something else to talk about. And this seems silly because I have so much else going on. I have dissertation drama, teaching drama, money drama, family drama. But for the last couple of months, all I've been able to do is scream about the job market. Ridiculous, right? I'm recommitting to my blog. Perhaps it can keep me from being such a whiny bitch.