I'm trying to keep this channel from turning into a sort of live feed from the bridge of a starship in the midst of battle, or perhaps the engineer's radio on a locomotive out of control, the tracks having ended a half-mile back. But the "ephemera/legit" content split in the website design does encourage the occasional firm protest to the universe at the general circumstance on the "ephemera" channel.
Really, given the degrees and the experience on the CV, there is no rational reason for the events of the last several years (excepting the recent brief, useful, and pleasant years of economic banishment/digital nomadry).
I can only say that I've slogged through worse than the gulags for months at a time, and continue to do so. The family, given the fractious rivalries and the deep distance from normalcy that is constantly conjoined with sensitive government work, is not a source of reality or assistance, and each line of career development I've plowed out seems to be snowed over in short order.
At this point, I don't think of my life in the usual sense of being a certain person with certain degrees and skills trying to do a certain thing in the world. After many years, those appearances, which are appearances as authentic as any other, simply don't correspond with the event. Each day, I encounter the social illusion as illusion, keep the discipline as something that transcends the social illusion, and attempt to accomplish worthwhile work given the tools at hand.
Onward.