Day 842 of isolation.

Finally made a LinkedIn profile. All sorts of professional contacts coming out of the woodwork. Lots of profile views from senior people and I assume HR personnel.

No job interviews since late March. Lots of applications sent in the meanwhile. We'll see if Russ at KUMC can make a hustle for me for a non-tenure track position there. Pitt still hasn't told me to fuck off and I also put a non-tenure track app there at the same center, along with my existing tenure-track job app.

Things are getting progressively worse. To work, I need to have a slow but steady intake of alcohol throughout the day. My job is a toxic cesspool that's slowly killing me psychologically and physically. I'm in physical pain most of the time due to psychosomatic reasons. Everything hurts and doing even basic shit for my job feels like picking up a 40 pound sack of suppurated dicks.

I've been having suicidal ideations again. I'm not the type of person to commit suicide, and there are too many people depending on me, so obviously I would not do it. But if I died somehow I would not object.

My wife and others say it will be okay. That I'll find a job before March 2023 when I'm scheduled to be booted out unless my tenure appeal or a lawsuit is successful. I wish I could say I believe them. I don't. Fuck hope. It has gotten me nothing during the pandemic or beforehand. Hope made me overlook tragic flaws in partners, my child, and my situation.

I barely get paid this summer because I ran out of grant funding and startup funds. I could have done things differently. Smarter. More efficient. Now I am trying to project strength and confidence when all I feel inside is desperation, hopelessness, and disease.

All of my medium-old friends are gone. Acac and I have started talking some, mostly about job shit. Kate from college, who's over at Pitt, and I got back in touch because I thought I'd end up there. She occasionally sends me words of encouragement, Catholic-like things to show support, and is nice. I guess the revolving door of my social sphere occasionally has repeat customers. Few and far between. I guess getting closer to death does that to folk.

I'm a shadow of the man I used to be. But until I well and truly fail, I will keep on trying to get out of this hell. Even if I feel like I belong here and deserve this.

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