My Katrina Sabbatical

My Katrina sabbatical (read: G Bitch got fired) is nearly over and the University will hire me back on a temporary, no-tenure-track, no-guarantees basis. I have no idea where exactly I will be teaching--office building or hotel?--or what kind of facilities that might mean--computers? dry erase boards? chalkboards? easel and paper pad? desks? chairs? seminar tables? pews? windows?--or where students will be living--conflicting reports. The University--I can no longer use "my"--has a reliably dysfunctional "way" of disseminating information and since my temporary contract doesn't start until January 2, I’m not doing research.


My Kat sabbat has taught me a few things:

1. I do not love teaching, it is something I do. Well.
2. I love writing, it is something I do not do. Much. For myriad reasons.
   
3. The insomnia and its echoes have erased a part of my personality I am working to rediscover. Or discover.

Turf wars over trailers, improperly built levees, great pictures after the levees broke by Ted Jackson of the Times-Picayune, contractor prices (for what the feds pay to put a blue tarp on your damaged roof, a local roofer could REPLACE your fucking roof) and mold and housing discrimination in Houston topped off by the Houston mayor (Mayor White, no less) wanting extra money because 8 of over 100 violent crimes since Katrina involved Louisiana evacuees....The local news has become unbearable to me. Sometimes I feel like I can't breathe.

Then I take my own advice--just drink a little more than pre-Kat.