I don't pray very much anymore, Klara Jane, and when I do, there's no discipline to it, usually just desperation. (I started a poem a few months ago tentatively titled "Losing the Habit of Prayer," in fact.) These days I tend to like liturgical prayers more than my own, and I'm not sure why, other than they feel more grounded than whatever my desperation prompts.

I have been very surprised at the insensitivity of my administration. I regarded my chancellor very favorably until this spring, and she has become someone I don't recognize. I know that it is impossible to be compassionate when you're firing someone, but her silence and indifference--not just to me but to almost a dozen tenured faculty in four departments--has verged on the inhumane.

By the way (to combine conversations from different comments) the imminent loss of employment has affected my dating life. I'm not sure whether it should, but it has. I don't know quite how to answer the obvious question, "So, what do you do?" I can say what I have done and will continue to do for a little longer, but I can't say what I will be doing a year from now. Maybe I'm attributing too much to that uncertainty, but I worry about it.