Faced with the prospect of no trip on the horizon until November (Hawaii!), and two more months of potential triple digit temps here in central Texas, I did the most logical thing any adventurous, cold-air loving soul would do: got a temporary job spending most the day walking around outside at a place I worked at for 14 years in  my pre-Antarctic life. I was going to go to Ireland for a few weeks, or drive to northern New Mexico again, but I was gripped by my ancient, ingrained work ethic persona (even though I was born in Austin and dress like one, I am not a "slacker" in my soul!) & decided I needed to be busy & spend the day doing something I'm being paid to do instead of trying to dream up ways of passing the days. I also wanted a sort of work solidarity feeling with my peeps on the Ice, as it was "time" for me to go back to work. So I got a temp job at the University of Texas, (which I also graduated from 25 years ago) walking around tracking down professors and grad students to tag newly purchased inventory. I have tagged mostly brand new computers, some strange lab equipment that apparently does something with live frogs that I probably don't want to know about. I have a giant binder of millions of dollars of stuff purchased for UT Athletics so I'll be spending lots of time at the stadium tagging everything from racing sculls to batting cages. An immense, state university is a fascinating place to work - I could never work at an office park or in some environment where you don't have a rich environment to balance out the soulless work going on in the cubicles. When I first took this job I was angry at myself and wondering if I did the right thing, as "going back to UT" (as we've always referred to it) turned the knife that was in my heart about not being on the Ice this season. I felt like a puppet that someone else was pulling its strings - why am I staying in this oven city for two more months working 8-5, missing yoga, travel & sleeping in, doing this grueling work? After 3 days of work I know why: because life is more interesting when it surprises you & doesn't follow your own script (who was it that wanted a job?). Something in me knew this was the right thing to do for now even though it's not "exciting!" or in a "foreign locale!" After 3 days of hard work I am not complaining  ceaselessly like I was about the weather - I don't have time to navel gaze as I'm so busy organizing how I'm going to do my day. I interact with people so much that a huge contact void is being filled. I thought I knew what I wanted but like I heard Bob Dylan say "getting what you want is just getting what you want." And he also said something about the state of being happy was not as interesting as other states one might be in. I get that. And some good people I hang with have a great saying: you may not get what you want but you always get what you need. Having a regular job dials down my neurosis to a very low hum, whereas endless hours of free time will have me in a mental tailspin derived from self absorption. I have experimented with this for years: quitting jobs I hated & trying time after time to "self-structure" so I can make art, but it never works. I need structure. And I need external structure, preferably by a large institution. I've had jobs with small employers and it always made me nervous - I like the womb like feeling of the massive employer (UT has 25,000 staff members). So, like an adult, I have made peace with my decision, and tomorrow will happily run around all day applying little silver stickers on laptops, frog cleaners and centrifuges...because right now, I need to be identified with the tribe of the "employed." My identity was so tied up with being "that chick who works in Antarctica," that I've been lost for a few months knowing I wasn't going back. But I still am that chick, because I will go back, just not for now....