I mentioned earlier that I am a planner. So not knowing what I’m going to be doing in the next few months is particularly challenging to me. Next week I have an on campus interview. Mostly, I feel comfortable and excited about it, but last night I had a series of stress dreams that indicate otherwise. In the dreams, I was too hungry, too hot, too cold, too bloated. I was sweating profusely, so much so that my white button up shirt became soaked. Then, the armpits of my blazer turned dark from sweat. Even the crotch, waist, and knees of my pants became wet with sweat. There was no way to dry off, and I walked around all day in wet clothes. Sometimes I had too much time to kill. Other times, I was running late, racing down the halls. There was a good deal of physical trembling on my part. In the dream, I needed yoga in the hotel, but didn’t have a mat. And, in real life I know I won’t have a mat because it won’t fit in my carry on luggage. So, yeah.

We lost a ewe today. One of my big life goals is to run a sheep farm someday. That might be in the next year. That might be in 20 years. Maybe it will be a sheep dairy! That said, one of the worries I have about raising livestock is that 1) animals die, and 2) sometimes you have to kill them to put them out of their misery. Since we lost a ewe today, it was on my mind. I began to research how to dispose of livestock. This is gory reading, let me tell you. Still, it seemed…manageable. Burial seems like the best option, but most livestock die during the winter, when the ground is frozen. Composting seems like the next best option. But, you would definitely have to be set up for it beforehand. And there’s the work of turning it and dealing with it for what? A year? Getting the animal to the burial or compost spot would be just horrifying work any way you look at it.
The take away is that if I’m going to have sheep, I should probably try to raise a small breed of sheep, one that I could handle physically if I had to. The sheep I’m used are on the big end, weighing nearly 300 pounds.
I wish there was an easier way. More than anything, I wish this wasn’t one of the things I’ll have to deal with.

Despite cough and fever, I interviewed well enough for an on campus interview at one of the few places where I can actually see myself working. Last night, the cold moved from my lungs to my sinuses. My head is still in a fog. I was up on and off last night and slept until late this morning. After a week of excitedly “seeing” myself at this new place, last night I had doubts. What if I can’t find the right place to live? The thing about this city is that it is somewhat illusory. It is friendly to walkers, but each block stretches on for a quarter mile. What seems only a few blocks away, is, in reality, miles. The cultural pressures there are strange, there’s no getting around that. The urban sprawl is a nightmare. I cannot end up in it. So, while the week before was about hope and possibility, last night was about worry and pessimism. I will undoubtedly go through a lot more of this back and forth before I actually get a job and move to where ever it is that I’m going to go next. Once this cold improves, I’ll have a better frame of mind about everything.