They say

that stress affects short term memory (I think I may have read an article on this recently), and once again, I think it turns out that they are right. Unfortunately it's been a while since I've done yoga (moving, travelling, and apparent butt-region hamstring injury to top it all off) so I don't have that as a destressing agent. And it's hard to not dwell on the fact that tomorrow, at the precise moment that I will be teaching my final class of the semester on the 2nd floor of a Jesuitish building (which, unlike many other buildings on campus, is refreshingly crucifix-free) there will be a faculty meeting on the 4th floor of the very same building in which it will be decided if I will or will not be offered a job in the department. Overall I've been much calmer this job-search season than in the past, but please, this makes for a kind of in-your-face reminder -- as I'm in my office getting the course evaluations and some other stuff, faculty will be streaming by en route to the meeting. So awful! The funny thing is that all this but in fact I'm highly ambivalent about the job, and if I was offered it, it's not immediately clear that I would take it over some other potential jobs that I might possibly be offered.

Anyway, the whole point of the memory thing is that this morning I made it all the way to the entrance of the metro station, that's like a 14-minute walk, before I realized that I didn't have my wallet. I stood there, and stood there some more, and then laughed (a little bit like a crazy person) and then realized I had no choice but to walk home. Now one of the things I like the least in this world is retracing my steps. I mean, it's not quite a pathology. But close. Like, I don't love stoner humor, but in Harold and Kumar when they've progressed maybe five feet from the front door of the apartment and realize that they've forgotten something inside and Kumar looks and looks and looks and finally says, "No, too far," I know exactly how he feels. Minus the pot. After I had walked back home and picked up the wallet, I realized that there was no way I could return to the same metro station and start all over again, so I went to the other metro station in walking distance (I'm basically equidistant between the two) and tried to reconceptualize my morning journey as extra (and much-needed) exercise and not punishment for having no brain. At least it wasn't raining...