the end is nigh

Nigh, I tell you, nigh! But that's a good thing. The psychopathic, manipulative, senile, abusive old fuck for whom I've been working for 7 long months will be getting a polite two-week notice letter on Wednesday. Around which time the last of my tenure-track job applications should arrive at their various destinations. And should the old fuck fire me, oh happy day - unemployment! My exit plan has been moved up by two weeks courtesy some friends who need construction/repair work done around their house, bless 'em, and offered me more money per week than the current gig. And they're intentionally aiding and abetting my escape. Bless 'em.

Also, physical exhaustion doesn't stand in the way of getting (academic) work done in the same ways that the mentally and emotionally draining environment of my current office position does. I'd much rather think, and even write, while physically tired than think while 'turned off' and deep in survival mode. I need to be alert and alive to the world around me in order to, almost paradoxically, turn it off and focus on the work to be written. Starting out mentally stupefied, although similar, just doesn't have the same effect. Perhaps it hearkens back to my undergraduate habit of studying in cafes - the many distractions sharpened my ability to tune it all out and read. Since then I've lost that, and find libraries or home far more conducive to getting anything substantive done. But the remnant, perhaps, lingers on in the need to have something to exclude.