RBOC: Return to Research Country edition

• It's good to be back in RC.  I feel methodologically and theoretically energized by it, even after just a few days.  (Not least after taking in some of the downtown scenery of Research City!)  I think I was languishing professionally in Evacuation Country, even as I managed to crank out some job-application materials of various sorts.
• I had an awesome, inspiring conversation yesterday with a very smart and accomplished colleague; I wouldn't at all mind being like hir when I've grown up (more).  By the time we parted company, I felt ready to take things on.  Do things.  Accordingly, this morning, I submitted an article I've been drafting for longer than I'd care to admit to the one of the top-tier Pseudology journals.  I really don't know if it's ready for anything more than a revise-and-resubmit, but fuck it.  Time to dig into this stuff, instead of agonizing over it inside the echo chamber of my head.  If nothing else, it forces me to put that article away with a clear conscience, and focus on the new one I'm drafting now.
• My crazed, I-am-unstoppable burst of energy was sapped this afternoon when my landlord stopped by to collect the rent, and insisted that I find the money for February's rent, too.  I kinda knew this would happen, but it's still aggravating.  No one paid me for February, I will have you know.  I'd like to blame RC for withholding my money with one hand while demanding I pay up with the other, but that's really not an accurate assessment of the situation.  My money doesn't originate with RC at all, and in any case, I'm pretty sure that my lease contract contains no amnesty for "evacuation in case of revolution."  If I have to, I can pony up the back rent from the money I have in hand, and I can eke it out for the rest of the month, but I'm not happy about that option.  Then again, the mere mention of this complaint is probably going to make Shedding Khawatir's blood pressure shoot up, so maybe I should just heave a sigh and suck it up.  It's rough sledding trying to save money as a newly minted academic.
• At least, if I can't get my landlord to give up on getting his money – I know, just putting it down in black and white makes it sound totally insane, right? – I can retain the legal authority to ride his ass about the slow-moving repair jobs he should be on top of.
• It actually makes me feel a bit better to remember that the annoyances of dealing with such logistics may just be the price that I pay for an extraordinarily rare Pseudological opportunity.  My data is going to serve me well, and I suspect that, if I write quickly and effectively, the articles (...and books?) that I turn out will be of more than the usual level of interest to colleagues.  It already seemed to work in my favor for my job talk, although of course that remains to be seen for certain.  I need to start pounding stuff out: strike while the iron is hot, damn it!