Out of beta? Out of blog? Out of fog?

There's a header now on this blog infrastructure about being "out of beta" on the new techy platform. In parallel, I feel like I'm out of blog steam. Have been so RUSHED in so many ways, that I just puffed out of energy in a lot of ways.

I'm still wracked with the residue of some respiratory virus my otherwise adorable babyniece inflicted on me when she coughed in my MOUF over the holidays in Windsor, a virus that I toted hither and yon around the province, across the wee ferry to take Porter Air to Montreal for New Year's with F, scattered widely across that city and then left lodged in F's lungs for his trip back to western NY. Now I'll take it on a plane to CA tonight, where it will trail with me from SF along a drive down the coast, through Big Sur overnight and onto Santa Barbara.

Where school awaits, and more recalibrating about my plans, my work, what AcademicCate really is and can become. Another committee meeting where I'm not ready to have my proposal approved, though they're a lot happier with me since I sent a note about my status and my thinking two weeks ago. It will be rich -- it always is -- and I'll ground in my tribe, and anchor myself a little.

So many suspended stories as 07 begins...where will it take me and F? will I be able to cobble together meaningful and lucrative enough paid work that lets me live my other two lives? how can I throw myself full force into school this year? Two days ago, the work path looked evident, but ow it seems this huge grant we were working on may be buggered up, and I'll have a lot more flexi time in the first quarter than I thought. The intrepid life of a consultant, as usual -- one moment it looks as though I might be able to earn enough for my whole year in the first 3 - 4 months, the next moments it's pffffted back into Ministry coffers and vanishes. Back to basic income, eking it out a bit, trolling for work, trying to focus the time productively to write.

This moment right before Winter Session for school is always a little fraught for me -- last year I was poised to buy my condo, to sever the going-nowhere, energy-sucking relationship with T, to try to refocus my academic work after a year where I just milled about, really. I'm in such a different place now -- life stories being tentatively co-written again with someone complex who... feeds me.. in so many ways, so much more clarity about the field I want to play in, less angst about income even when opportunities surge and vanish, a loft that feels home-ish, even if not HOME yet. A really-makes-me-alive project with the orphans. A strong web of people scaffolding and stretching and buoying me. A body reasonably fit, though not at its peak. Places touched and felt over the year -- Portland, New Mexico, Oregon coast, Houston, Montreal, Santa Barbara, Vermont, DC, Vancouver, ROC, Ottawa -- and some across an ocean to be savoured in the coming year.

Still a bit edgy in all of this -- the sproinnnnng of a suspension bridge across a gorge, where you're really not *positive* that your backpack isn't going to tip you over -- but trying to just give over to the bounce, the spring.