so much regret. SO MUCH!

i need out of here. last night's dinner was expensive, but i like all those people and it felt good to hang out with them again. they're tired of me, though, tired of listening to me bitch about this town, about my advisor, about our program, about our field, about our university. at one point, l described me as being "both so great in some circumstances, and so not great sometimes also" as though it were the verbal equivalent of a slap in the face: that i should stop talking about how things are fucked up, stop pushing boundaries in any way, and just learn how to take everything bad with a smile it like a proper southern lady.

but fuck that. fuck women who project their own repressed standards onto others.

no one would dance, either—not at z, or at r. i want chaos and laughter and tricksters dancing on tables, and instead i get l suggesting that if only i didn't ask assertive questions in professional settings, i might be an ok person, above scrutiny.

it's a sign that you live in a very repressed place that asking assertive questions is all it takes to win you the label of troublemaker.

w seems to regret his career choices, too. we talked about that and how one of his professors sent in a letter a week late thus keeping him out of the running for a fancy clerkship, and then later i interviewed everyone about their interest in having children.

school is fucked up. all systems of hierarchical inequality are fucked up. is there a way of setting up incentivized rewards that wouldn't fuck everyone up? got j's comments on my job materials today—very long, very detailed, probably very helpful, but i don't know if i have the heart to tackle any of that again. do i want this? probably not. none of the things i'll be applying to are very good—which will mean that i'll have to go into this process, again, next fall. which sounds terrible. enough of this. i hate this. people keep saying, "yes, but your work is good, don't you care about changing the field? your work could do that," and i want to say, "yes, but i have no interest in changing a field that doesn't want to admit me into its ranks." why should i care about my project if it won't get me a job? i like it as an idea, and i like the kinds of research it's allowed me to do, and the kinds of conversations it's permitted me to have, but i have absolutely no commitment to it outside of what it can allow me to do. this isn't just me being ambivalent about the field i've been training for—it's also about me being practical about the potential results of future effort.

why should i keep working? i don't want to keep working. i want to stop.