Ya know, I almost took down that last post. It seems...I don't know, profoundly regressive for someone who has the personal resources I have to sit down and read a children's book. Really, honestly, I'm much more stiff-upper-lip than that.

But sometimes it's nice to have the respite of a little escape now and then. Lots of bad/weird news happening, and not just related to the hurricane. A bit of minor could-be-bad news: my wonderful department chair has been kicked upstairs into a deanship. The way this could be good in the long run is that it may open a door for him to be the dean of my school when the current good-dean retires. Which means we keep an unbroken string of good-deans, and if my observations of my father have taught me anything, the fastest morale-killer is to have crummy administrative management - either people who micromanage, or who don't trust their faculty, or who are very inequitable in funds distribution. The way it could be bad is that we need a new department chair. We're going to try to promote from within but I'm not sure if anyone would want the job. And hiring someone from the outside scares me a little, because there's a very specific relaxed institutional culture in my department (for example: some departments have weekly faculty meetings whether they need them or not; we don't. some departments have turf wars; we don't. we share food in this department - we break bread together, not as often as we did before our schedules all got tighter, but we do eat together at least a couple times a semester. Decision-making is very relaxed and very much a group effort.) If we bring in an outsider, my fear is that we'll either get someone with a more rigid, hierarchical model of leadership, or someone who's power-hungry and likes to pit people against each other (and don't tell me that doesn't happen!). Or someone with an agenda beyond 'what is best for our students and our department.'

And a good friend of mine is in the hospital - stroke and pneumonia. And youth group starts up tomorrow night but I don't know even if my co-worker will be there as her parents have not been well. I don't even know if any kids will be there.

So right now, there's a lot of instability and insecurity in my life. A lot of it is low-level stuff that I intellectually tell myself will sort itself out for the best, eventually, but that doesn't stop me from feeling unsettled. (And having tummy troubles.). I don't like change and I especially don't like unsureness (like about the youth thing). I'm very much a rigid plan-it-out sort. I could probably coordinate a land-and-marine invasion if I had to, but I can't be comfortable with not knowing how many people will come to a picnic....that's just how I am.