No Direction, Home or Otherwise

A few weeks ago, Patrick and I watched the Martin Scorsese bio-pic on Bob Dylan, No Direction Home, and just recently watched I'm Not There, the mash-up of real and fictionalized Dylan anecdotes, accounts, characteristics, and influences that features Marcus Carl Franklin and Cate Blanchett, among other notables. You could say we're on a kick, but I don't think it's considered a kick if it lasts our whole lives. (It will.)

I've wanted to write about the Scorsese flick for weeks, wanted to say eloquent things about the emotions it elicited, wanted to discuss Dylan's persona and genius and sartorial selections.

But I can't.

Maybe what it comes down to is utter awe. At Dylan. At Scorsese. At the 60s and at the fact that Dylan didn't hear music, but heard sounds and a feeling behind the sounds.

But probably, what it comes down to is my own direction. I've been in Seattle for just about three and a half months now, working three jobs, tripping over my own feet to attend family and friend gatherings, and lacking the brainpower to actually read in my time off--one of the things I was most looking forward to after completing my Masters degree. Just three and a half months, and I'm over it. Three and a half months, and this is entirely the wrong direction.

I'm applying to graduate schools. Again. To just a few programs, since I decided to do this pretty much yesterday and applications are due in the next three weeks. I'm not sure that I've found the exact right programs, but they are more right than wrong and that counts for something when you're working three jobs that barely pay the bills.

I'm applying to teaching positions, mostly at some online universities. Seattle is an intensely over-educated area and the competition for low-paying, low-level teaching jobs is fierce. Plus, if I work online I can teach in my pajamas! While baking bread! And I can vacuum as a break from grading papers!

And this weekend, I'm going to read a goddamn book.