(Randomness from yesterday)

Wherein your author finds herself On The Bus

"On the Bus" is, of course, an euphemism for being 'familia', a "friend of Dorothy", queer, gay - something that's amused me greatly these past couple of weeks. It's felt like I've been "on the bus" way more than off it some days. Today - the 7-hour trip from Mexico City to Guadalajara. This, just four days after returning from Queretaro and Celaya, and only three short days before taking a bus back to Queretaro, and then taking another bus from Queretaro back to Mexico City.

On the one hand, I want to stay parked in one place when I bring the kid back in a few weeks. On the other hand, there's just so much to see in this phenomenally beautiful country, and the buses are safe, inexpensive, and a great way to get from place to place to place to place. So very many places, so little time.

I've been a bad blogger the past couple of weeks, owing more to spotty ideas about what to write than spotty Internet access, I'm afraid. I s'pose I can dig through photos and write up a few chronicles of high points of the previous days, but I've been more preoccupied with some of the thoughts that kick in when one finally takes enough time away from the pressure cooker of the borg to just breathe.

Such as: Is this (work) how I'm to be spending the precious moments of my life?

Don't get me wrong. My job (at least as I left it a few weeks ago; heaven only knows what reorgs have taken place or are planned to come - and the one I do know about isn't exactly a source of comfort) - it just rocks. Love it, feel challenged by it, learn a huge amount from it - and the pay's not exactly an insult, either. But - it's all starting to feel like a treadmill, a little less like life, a little more like being a cog in a handful of wheels - work, church, school - with next to nothing left over to even just be with the kid and explore this vast world.

If I go back to a job that's not markedly different from the one I left, or if one of the proposed little pilots out there managed to get some feet in my absence, maybe it's workable for a bit longer. Maybe even 5.5 more years - time remaining 'til my next sabbatical's available.

All things I think about on seven-hour trips across Mexico. My friends on the bus are curled up asleep in their seats, unable to offer any distraction, and as my mind settles into this 'sabbatical' mode, thoughts that are otherwise buried under day-to-day getting through wakeup/kiduniform/schoolattendance/workcommute/meeting/meeting/meeting/meeting/lunchincubiclemeeting/meeting/meeting/commute/kidpickup/homework/dinner/bedtime/workemailcatchup/collapse - lather, rinse, repeat - come to the forefront.

But we're just 15 minutes out of Guadalajara now, my traveling companions will awaken soon, and I can rest again in the more peaceful, mundane question of how to spend the next few hours, and let the next 20 years take care of themselves.