idiomatic

I feel sort of restless today.

I am not entirely sure why I feel restless. I sort of feel like I have a bunch of thread-ends trailing off in various directions, any of which could be tugged on at any moment and I would unravel.

In the somewhat immortal words of Weezer, “if you want to destroy my sweater, hold this thread as I walk away.” Just kidding. Also that’s a funny song when taken at face value. Actually, it’s a totally nonsense song when taken at face value.

Andy emailed the three of us (Kate, Denise, and me) last night after we had all returned to our respective homes and/or lives. He basically told us what we already knew – that a move to Boston is more or less imminent, with special emphasis on the less because he seems desperate to not land a solid blow – and asked in an indirect way for our feelings on the matter. By that I mean he didn’t ask at all, just said “would be happy to hear your thoughts, positive or otherwise.”

I have not told him what my feelings on the matter are, in part because I’m still sorting through my own personal feelings, trying desperately to organize them into little piles with headings like ‘rational’, ‘irrational’, and ‘rational but dismissable’, and in part because he seems anxious for affirmation and most of my feelings on the matter are markedly negative.

I suppose the logistics of moving to Boston are really no more unwieldy than any other move, and a move will be inevitable at some point, and this one will probably be financed by his future employers. Also, Boston is kind of a science hotbed, which can only help my future. I just have a(n extremely) hard time thinking about it.

Denise didn’t respond until later today, either, when he had an opening to prompt her because he had another email to send about a meeting that she and he and another professor+student combination needed to have. “I’m on needles waiting for your thoughts,” he said.

She giddily showed the email to Kate and me, because here in the Phillips group, we’re sharers. Oversharers. “Did you get one, Shannon?”

No, but I suspect it’s because he didn’t have a real, organic (heh heh) opening to prompt me. Kind of like sending too many texts to someone who isn’t responding; you don’t want to appear needy or desperate.

“Isn’t the term ‘pins and needles’?” asked Kate.

“Yeah,” I said, “or ‘on tenterhooks.’” No one knew of that idiom, so I started to doubt myself, but a quick google showed me that I was right. Guess I did too much reading as an adolescent. Just kidding. I did a wonderful amount of reading.

We went to Nica’s for lunch today and brought our haul back to CRB to eat. I got a coffee and a chicken pesto panini, and saved half of the sandwich for dinner. I’m looking forward to eating it tonight in a kind of not really excited way. It’s just convenient.

There was another faculty candidate speaker today, and I understood most of what he was talking about because we covered PACE (phage-assisted continuous evolution) in chemical biology when I took that course, and because it wasn’t covered particularly thoroughly, I spent a lot of time exhaustively poring over it. He also talked very, very quickly. It was actually probably my favorite of the talks so far.

Probably because I didn’t feel like the science was beating me over the head.