SUNDAY. 10:35 PM. The past five days have just been a dull blur. Time has passed. On the one hand, the days seemed to have gone by in blinks. On the other hand, the days seem draggy and slow. I guess that's just what a case of the "blahs" will do to you.

I named the beast. I shouldn't have talked about missing my melancholy last week. Now that I've spoken its name, it seems to have found me again. And since last week, I have been pretty useless, listless, directionless.

I'm feeling the seven week slump. I guess I'm so busy trying to get my students to pay attention and to keep their energy up, that I failed to realize that as a teacher I'm probably subject to similar highs and lows. The energy of the start of the school year has finally faded. The honeymoon so to speak is over. And now I'm in the nitty gritty of routine. It doesn't help that I'm also in the midst of another pile of papers and I really just don't enjoy the rigors of grading 101 essays.

I think I'm done with teaching freshman composition -- at least in the incarnation that exists at the University of Maryland. I really like being in front of the classroom. I really like working with students. But I think I'm done with the material, the assignments, the heavy rhetoric. I'd really love to teach a literature class or a creative writing class or even something like UNIV100 "The Student and the University" -- basically, a "Welcome to College" class. I am going to look into seeing if I can get a section or two of that class for the spring. Maybe there will be other teaching opportunities I can take advantage of at Maryland.

Last Wednesday was the official beginning of the slump, I think. I woke up and just felt like a truck had run my head over. My sinuses were all cottony and I just didn't have any energy. I don't think I was sick. It was most likely allergies. The weather's been rainy. Damp weather always means my two respiratory best friends: mold and mildew. I was basically useless the whole day. I couldn't concentrate on anything. I did absolutely nothing except stare at the computer or try to sleep all day.

Thursday was a bit better since I had to go into school. Though my students seems a bit more resistant than usual. They're next big assignment is due next week and their probably feeling the seven week slump a lot more than me. Thursday night was completely useless as well.

Friday was spent feeling icky and pooey most of the day. I think I managed to do a few things around the apartment. I got cable TV installed and didn't even feel like watching it. I really wanted to get out and do something. But no plans were made. The weather was a little drippy and I didn't really feel like driving into the city. So, I went to bed early.

Saturday, I got up and did a little more work on Archaea. Then I went over to my friend Meredith's house to watch folks carve pumpkins. I brought over my newest acquisition, a brand new (yes, it's still in print) copy of Mazes and Monsters, a made-for-TV movie from 1982. The movie comes at the height of the Dungeons and Dragons backlash and is about four college role-players, one of whom (played by Tom Hanks) gets lost in the fantasy and loses touch with reality. It's a hoot, dated, and funny. All of us sat watching wondering, "Do we talk like that? Do we act like that?"

Saturday night, Meredith and I drove down to Manassas in preparation for our friend Lori Lou's wedding the next day. Meredith had rented a hotel room near the outdoor wedding site so she wouldn't have to get up super early to get ready and drive to the wedding. So I decided to head down with her.

Today was Lou's wedding. It was a nice ceremony outside in a park in Virginia. The weather held up and didn't rain. But it was pretty chilly. I didn't really know that many people at the wedding since Lou's life is pretty much diverging from the life she had with our immediate circle of friends. I don't even really know her now husband. But I'm glad she's happy and I hope the best for her.

Two weddings in two weeks. I also caught the garter at Lou's wedding. Actually, it wasn't much of a competition. I got up with all the other eligible men. They all stood behind me. And after one false start, I decided to "take one for the team" as they put it. Whatever. I guess that means I'm doubly supposed to get married next. Or do they cancel each other out?

WEDNESDAY. 8:03 PM. I have just finished a near twelve hour marathon of grading. My writing hand hurts. It's sad to realize that I hardly ever write things out by hand anymore. It's all typed. I wonder if handwriting will ever just vanish off the face of the planet. I guess at some point it will.

I am a little tired, a little grumpy today. Grading always puts me in a mood. But the past few days have pointed up a few things that irk me, confound me, or distress me.

Monday night after a day of grading papers, I went down to Adams Morgan to hang out with Nancy. We walked around a little bit and then had coffee at Tryst. It was nice to see her; we haven't really had much of a chance to hang out lately.

Tuesday was classes. It was the third video day of the semester. I showed my students the pilot of Smallville. We talked about visual literacy, about close readings of texts including television shows, about mise en scene, and about subtexts and intertextuality. After watching the episode three times in a row, I managed to see a few details that I hadn't noticed before including the fact that parts of the episode are shot with primary colored lighting (blue, yellow, green, and red).

Tuesday was also my second Speakers Bureau of the semester--this time for an Honors 100 class. It went relatively well. There were only 15 students and we managed to talk for an hour and a half. But I came up with an interesting analogy during the talk: I compared the irrational fear of the sniper to the fear of coming out, of being public about my sexuality, of being in danger because of who I am. I think the feelings are similar--the fear that simply existing, of being in a place is dangerous. It seemed to hit home for some of the students.

Tuesday night was Buffy and a new episode of Smallville.

This morning I received an email, which was massmailed to a bunch of people, where a friend of mine described something as being "gay." It is a term that a number of people I know, particularly men, use on a daily basis. For the most part, I have told them that I would prefer they not use the epithet. I guess coming off of the energy of the speakers bureau, I decided to make the email a teachable moment. Of course a brief discussion was started about the merits (or lack thereof) of a word that was not being used in a homophobic way. "Gay" simply means "dumb, stupid, lame, wrong." Right?

I am surprised that people cannot see that the word bears a much more negative, much more pejorative meaning regardless of intent or context. The association with homosexuality, the conflation of being gay and being "bad" or "wrong" or "sick" or "damned" is still there; it is still part of the semantic history of the word. It is true that there are words that communities are trying to reclaim, to reverse the negativity, but the process is on-going and controversial. However, words like "fag" or "dyke" or "queer" (or "nigger" or "geek" or "bitch") are being reinscribed with positive values, with positive definitions. Using "gay" in a "I don't mean homosexuals" way is still using "gay" to express a negative judgement or feeling. The word is not being neutered or disarmed.

I am gay. I describe myself as gay. A word that I attribute with individuality, with freedom, with confidence, with love, with diversity. But when that word is being used in a way that goes against that idea -- no matter how innocent -- it diminishes me, it hurts me. In the end, I simply said that why should it matter whether the word is valid or not. If it bothers me, if it hurts me, if it makes me feel bad, then people particularly friends should try to respect my request that the word not be used.

It floors me even more when I'm characterized as being "overly sensitive" or "too politically correct." What's the big deal? The big deal is that I deserve respect. The big deal is that I want my world to be sensitive to oppression and prejudice, particularly when it's covert or seemingly harmless. The big deal is that unless people start changing their attitudes about sexuality (or gender or race or class), then even innocent comments or attitudes will only continue to entrench the homophobia and give validation to those who think it perfectly right to treat another human being like a second-class citizen.

I'm done.

MONDAY. 10:00 AM. Ok, I stole this NPR story about the 30th anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons from a fellow DC NaNoWriMo writer. It's a pretty fun little piece.