Six months ago I was given my current job permanently. I had done it for two years prior. Guess I did an ok job. Anyway, the rules of the institution say that I get to play in the big pool now. Part of playing in the big pool is being on search committees for other jobs.

Academic job searches are tough and easy all at the same time. You send off some stuff. People read it. There may be a phone interview. The big thing is the campus visit. You get flown to the area, put up in a hotel and then spend a day on campus. There are tours. Lunches. Interviews with the relevant Dean. Teaching demos. The pre-dinner culmination (denouement?) of the day is the “research presentation” sometimes also called the job talk.

So, I’m on a committee. My program is doing a joint hire with one of our “friend” departments. The program I run is interdisciplinary which means I work with units from all over campus. Some are fun. Some are not. This one is fine. They like me and my program and I like them. It’s one of those academic departments that has both social sciencey people and sciencey people. When we first talked about a joint position, I thought we’d do something social sciencey. For lots of complicated reasons, we’re doing a sciencey hire instead.

I’ve now listened to two job talks and know more about areas of knowledge that I had never even contemplated at all before. A little knowledge can be dangerous. I could say something stupid at a gathering about which I really know nothing.

For example, here’s something I learned…

Most marine invertebrates (or so I hear) do something called “broadcast spawning.” That means that they shoot their eggs and sperm out into the water. The eggs and sperm mix out in the ocean and produce baby marine invertebrates, who never even know mom or dad invertebrate. I was going to say “see” mom and dad but I don’t think they have eyes.

It’s a fun, if exhausting process. I’m mostly glad to be on this side of it. But I’m also glad to be learning new things about science.

Go ahead, ask me about the seasons. Or fog. Later in the week, I get to learn about fire. I can hardly wait. Really.

This week I had a flat tire on the freeway. My tough little truck has BIG tires. Honey and I and a nice passerby guy who had just moved to L.A. (natch–no “real” Angelino would stop) changed the tire. No single one of us could lift the damn thing. When I went to get a replacement (gash in the sidewall), I found out that tires are $210 EACH. They say you buy cars with your reptile brain. I want. Truck pretty.

Don’t get me wrong, I like my truck, but it seemed less than smart when I can’t change the tire by myself and the replacement costs that much.

The other day I was washing out Biscuit’s water bowl. She had fresh water. She walked over to the mud puddle I created washing the bowl out and started to drink. I called her to the clean water. She sniffed and lapped at it for a second. Then she went back to the puddle. Water. Mud. Drink.

I’m about to go off to a meeting where I have to faciliate a high-end discussion. My boss’s boss asked me to do it. Hope I can get to higher order thinking. Given the way things have been going, I’d take the under.

I haven’t taught a class since the Summer of 2005. I semi-taught a class last summer and another this fall, but both were canceled before I could get going.

So today I taught for the first time (for real) in almost two years. While I was InterimDirectorofWhatever, my Dean didn’t want me to teach. Now that I am AssociateProfessorandDirectorofWhatever, I have to teach. I can’t get tenure otherwise. I didn’t want to teach for my return engagement in WhateverProgram, despite my being in charge of it, because the courses are especially challenging to teach. So I graciously (well, I quibbled over the number of students that could enroll) accepted a chance to teach in my PreviousDepartment. It wasn’t my Department really. They never let me all the way in the door. I was a (dum dum) lecturer. No status. No job security. The same four classes over and over again. Still, when the chair of PreviousDepartment called and offered me one of those very four classes, I said, “yes.”

So, today I went to teach it. Truth be told, I prefer to teach three days a week for 50 minutes. It’s easier to be cute for 50 minutes. Here I am teaching twice a week for 75 minutes. Those extra 25 minutes are a killer.

It’s a course on gender. I did my usual ice breaker of having everyone say “breast” and “penis” out loud so that they won’t be nervous later when we talk about menstruation and genital mutilation. Sounds uplifting doesn’t it?

It’s a fun class, though, some of the tougher topics aside. I’ll be fine. But today I didn’t feel so fine. My jokes felt flat; my syllabus overview felt mean. Because it’s a prime-time class, there were seven people who wanted to add and stood around the perimeter. Ah, the joys of state education.

I need to re-establish my comfort-level in the classroom. Self-deprecation, wit (such as I have it), and deep breathing will all help. Maybe I should do some shout-outs of “breast” too.

Or maybe not.

I always jokingly complain that Halloween is the worst time of the year for folklorists because we (especially if we’re listed in a university’s expert directory as I am) get called to explain the holiday. Last year I got three calls. I did my little rap about the origins of the holiday and its changing nature over time. I’ve got it down. It sounds good. I’ll tell you how to spell and say Celtic words like Samhain. I can be all authoritative. I get quoted. Usually it’s for teeny tiny give-away papers. Still. Me, an expert. Imagine.

This year? No calls. Not one.

It is way worse than no kids coming by the house for candy. Honey and I have Gummi-Savers–a fat free food–to give away. Maybe I’ll tell the kids about Samhain.

Or not.

I was in line today for lunch after my professional development workshop. The professional development workshop was actually pretty good. Though a colleague of mine, who is not fond of institutions, noted that the whole idea of professional development workshops was predicated on the notion that we all wanted to be professionally developed. I do, truth be told. I didn’t learn how to administrate things or negotiate the vagaries of a large and complex bureaucracy while studying what I studied in grad school. Why anti-establishment colleague works for an establishment of this type is probably a subject for another time.

Back to the lunch line: the fare was the usual array of sandwiches and sides. They were arranged thusly: beef…vegetarian…sides…turkey…sides

The effect, while standing in line, was that for all appearances it looked like you had two choices, beef and veggie. The turkey was sort of a surprise at the end of the table.

The level of panic exhibited over the seeming lack of a poultry choice was palpable. There was tinge of hysteria as person after person, all with advanced degrees and lots of responsibility, asked in quavering voices, “is there turkey?” The level of panic was heightened by the general and pervasive panic about the number of Diet Cokes available. People eyed the drink table from their vantage points, and I could tell they were counting the number of Diet Cokes in their minds and comparing it to the number of people in line. A number of people gave up their places and got a Diet Coke with little triumphant smiles on their faces. Some then got in the back of the line, others sat down to have, I guess, Diet Coke for lunch.

I was at the table farthest from the line and observed all of this as I waited at the back of the long line. My closest line-mates were deep in a conversation about something that interested me so little that the turkey and Diet Coke panics were more engaging.

When I got to the head of the line, the catering people had realized the panic state. There was a man stationed behind the tables near the beef sandwiches who said over and over, “there’s turkey at the end of the table. There’s turkey at the end of the table.” As I grabbed some tongs to get a roast beef sandwich, he spoke loudly and directly to me (though I had not been looking at him), “THERE’S TURKEY AT THE END OF THE TABLE.” I smiled my acknowledgement and took a beef sandwich anyway. He went back to chanting his mantra, turkeyattheendofthetable turkeyattheendofthetable.

I got a Diet Coke and enjoyed my beef sandwich. The lemon bar panic was mild which is good. I’m not sure some people could have handled more.

Tomorrow is the first day of the fall semester at my campus. Traffic will be horrifying. And my assistant director suggested in no uncertain terms that it was my turn to bring in “happy treats.” She’s right, it is my turn. And she’s also right that treats make the office crowd happy. I think I’ll get bagels. It seems healthier than most of the alternatives.

I’m just off the phone with one of the bath people. If I never hear another word about bathing, it will be too soon. Math either. The good news is that I have a new knife that clips to my bag. It’s long and tough looking. The bad news is that assault is still illegal. Assault thoughts aren’t. Being a twelve month administrator has its drawbacks at a nine month place. One of them is that you can’t take the summer off from math.

On the plus side, Alejandro Valverde is winning the Vuelta. Move on the next paragraph.

Hi! Glad you made it past that last bit…

I wish fall were more, well, autumnal in Southern California. It was over 100 today and hot and dry. When I was in college, fall in Washington always pleased me. It actually got crisp. Of course it also usually rained. But youth is best seen through the gauze of “aww.” I was just talking on Friday night about the wettest I’ve ever been after getting caught in a rain storm in D.C. in the fall. My car was so wet that for weeks, my shirt and pants would get wet from sitting in the seat. And woe unto the passenger, for he or she would be extra wet. And that was all from three people getting caught in the rain and then getting into the car.

New beginnings are nice, even if they seem inserted into my otherwise rolling existence. I decided to go to a lunch for new faculty. I’m not really new, but I am. Tomorrow is a Tuesday, but it’s also a beginning. And being a beginner means the promise of things to come. It also means you can screw up sometimes and attribute it to your beginner status. So, I think I’ll look forward.

No, the title is not a double entendre. A colleague of mine brought back a plastic sword for me from Italy, where she spent a month this summer, the poor dear. In a villa in Tuscany. Don’t you just weep for her woes hearing about that? I sometimes wonder about taking a 12 month position in a field where everyone else works 9 months. Tuscany seems very far away from Southern California summers. But then I remember… I wasn’t exactly being bombarded with job offers before this one. Right. You gotta dance with them what brung you, to quote Molly Ivins.

Anyway, she bought the sword in front of the Coliseum, one of my favorite places in Rome. She said I’d need it in my new job. My new job which is my old job, just now mine as my boss keeps saying gleefully, “forever.”

The sword is about two feet long and has a shiny silver blade and a vaguely Celtic looking handle. The Romans are not particularly interested in authenticity and never have been. When I spent time in Rome, I kept looking for evidence of the ancient city. It’s not there. I mean, it’s sort of there. But it’s got churches built in it. Once I accepted that the best Roman architecture was Baroque, I felt better. Plus, Borromini rocks. Really. Ok, I think he rocks. Undulating buildings.

That’s St. Ivo alla Sapienza. See how he uses curves and straights to suggest the classical form while also calling it into question? No? Fine. Ok, end of art history lesson. Why do I think it won’t be a popular as usage lesson over at Honey’s blog? Because it won’t. Moving on…

I like the sword a lot and keep holding on to it in meetings. I fuss with little things during meetings, and the sword is satisfying in that way. I’m sure the Freudian minded among you have all sorts of idea about the lesbian in the big office with the sword. Go ahead, think what you must. It’s probably just your subconscious telling you something.

Honey and I had a old wooden table on our back porch. It had been sent to us to accompany Red, the late great Welsh Springer, when we took him from my parents. He liked that table when he was a young dog. He’d stand on it and it was called his circus dog table. It gotten broken in shipment and we sort of propped it up and put random crap on it. Honey was cleaning random crap off the back porch and once the table was clear, asked what we should do with it.

I immediately volunteered to destroy it. I thought we had an axe and went looking for it. Whereupon I discovered that we didn’t have an axe, but did have two pickaxes. (How does one acquire these things? I mean I’ve never purchased a pickaxe, and yet we have two).

I emerged with the pickaxe. Destroying the table was extraordinarily satisfying. Way more so than just holding the sword.

Thing is, people seems scared of the sword. I had to put it up the other day because the person I was meeting with was alarmed by it. I slid it between my devil ducks and my “See Rock City” mini-barn/birdhouse. Then it fell on my head. Handle first, fortunately. So, now it’s back on my desk or my table at all times. The devil ducks don’t like it, which is why they dropped it on my head.

I didn’t like that we didn’t have a regular axe. We may need one at some point. Sometimes, a pickaxe isn’t the right destroying implement. So I went to the hardware store and bought what I’ve been referring to since as an “axe for girls.” It’s orange and black.

Oh, and did I mention it was made by a scissor company? Anyway, it seems like it could destroy stuff anyway.

I feel sufficiently armed, now. Plastic sword? Check. Axe for girls? Check. Pickaxe? Check, check. Let me know if you need me to destroy anything for you.

Oh, and if anyone is now scared of me…let me know that, too.

The job, she is mine. I “start” Monday.

Whooo oooo oooo.

Maybe I should buy a bike to celebrate. Oh wait. Did that.

Maybe I should smile a lot. Check.

Maybe I should have pea soup. Check.

It’s also good that I have the job before anyone figured out about my fatal typo flaw. Good thing scout is my Honey. She edits things. But not Sporks News apparently.

I’m heading off shortly to another meeting on the dreaded “bath” department controversy. I hate them. It’s enough to make me want to stop buying soap. And to make our bathrooms into shrines to some obscure cult-like divine figure.

Actually, when you get down to it, I’m in favor of bathing; it’s the math assholes that irritate me.

I was good in math in high school. I attended high school in Georgia and in that great state, in the summer before one’s junior or senior year, it was possible to be nominated to go to a sort-of geek summer camp called Governor’s Honors. I REALLY wanted to go to Governor’s Honors. I wanted to go in English or social studies. The school wanted to nominate the strongest people in each area. We had to write essays, take math tests, do science experiments, and take history quizzes. I got all the problems right on the math test and my semi-rival wrote a better essay than I did in English. They decided to nominate us both. My heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t want to spend the summer thinking about math. AT all. I was good in math because I had a crush on my math teacher. She was lovely. I didn’t know I had a crush on her then. I do now.

I didn’t get into Governor’s Honors. (Several years later my brother did. We still call him “sock stud” because he had a shirt that said that. Score one for him). English nominee didn’t either. It was the first year in a long time our high school didn’t send anyone. I should note that my high school class was also the only class never to win the homecoming float contest.

Anyway, math teacher decided that I could skip junior math and go straight into calculus as a junior. I was up for it, because she would be teaching it. Yea!

Late the summer before my junior year, she took me to dinner to tell me that she had gotten another job offer and wouldn’t be coming back in the fall. I cried and never saw her again.

The guy they hired to teach calculus was this German dude who said sinus and cosinus instead of sine and cosine. Mrs. R made sine and cosine seem nifty with her warm Southern accent. We sniffed in class every time German dude said sinus or cosinus. It was all ok though, sort of, because by this time I had fallen into infatuation with the girl who was the valedictorian of the senior class. She sat in front of me in calculus. The drama that followed is a story for another time.

When I was a senior in high school, I walked across the street to Agnes Scott College every afternoon to take college calculus. I loved going over to Agnes Scott. It’s a spectacularly beautiful campus and, at first, I thought my math interests were renewed. The professor was a lovely woman from South Africa named Myrtle Lewin (great name then, still a great name). When we got to imaginary numbers (the square roots of negative numbers), she lost me. I sort of understood what she was talking about, but the world had shifted.

I went off to college the next year and never took another math class. I didn’t have to and I didn’t want to.

In an hour, when I’m staring across the table at the math people, I won’t think of Mrs. R or Dr. Lewin or the valedictorian. I’ll think, instead, of the imaginary places in my mind. They’re much more interesting than any imaginary number could ever hope to be.

Last night I shook between 400 and 500 hands. I know that’s nothing for politicians.

My program had 700 students eligible for commencement and I had the “big” side of them to shake hand with.

I’ve never much liked my hands. They’re small and have stubby fingers. Sausagey fingers really. My mother has nice hands. My brother does too. Go figure.

Still, they’re not bad hands to shake with, I don’t think. The size isn’t overwhelming and they’re pretty soft. I don’t moisturize as much as I could, but they’re pretty soft anyway.

There was a pause there while I moisturized. Nothing like the present.

Honey said that I should have gotten the optional extra pocket put into my gown for purell.

Most of the students whose hands I shook last night were women. The men were all vigorous grippers and some of the women were too. Lots of the women offered their french tipped hands like dead fish. I was into reactive shaking. I offered my hand, but the squeeze factor was determined by them.

I shook hands for more than an hour. The folks who shook before me could not keep their feet on the yellow “stand here” sign and the photographer had to keep telling them to move back to the sign. One guy, despite being told not to, kept turning toward the photographer to be in the picture with every graduate, arms around each one. Here’s the thing, though. His department had like 25 grads. Mine had 700. And my Dean had a bet with the SocSci Dean that we would be faster. It was on me really.

So I stood on the yellow sign and did not move. I hugged one student. One. After I shook her hand and made sure her picture was taken.

But because I was standing still on the yellow sign, my leg fell asleep. The very nice Dean of the Library, who comes to every graduation, kept asking me if I needed a break. No f’ing way, I thought. I’m going woman-up here and make it through. Then I realized my leg was numb. Collapsing=not good.

I let her take over for ten minutes. Then I finished off. Here’s where I’m screwed up…I felt bad about taking a break.

Back to the hands. Most people’s hands are pleasant. Some are long and some are stubby. There were about fifteen people who had really wet hands. REALLY wet. And then what was I supposed to do? Give their wet to the next person? Or wipe it on my robe?

Here’s what I settled on. Wet hand=I’d wipe my face with my left hand and then gently rub BOTH of my hands on the side of my robe. When all else fails, blame your own sweat.

The Dean reports that the President was grateful we were the hand shakers (this was an innovation for us this year and apparently only our college did it). The Dean herself had cautioned against rings: advice that I took. I was a little sorry I wore a bracelet. More people grabbed it than I would have liked.

One student, in a haze, said “congratulations” after I said it. Lots had their names butchered by the name caller. “Close enough” a lot of them said. Too many of them brought their phones onto the stage.

Still, the sun had sunk behind the big tower on our campus and the breeze felt nice. Lots of them wore leis and the jazz band sounded great, as did the national anthem singer. Our speaker quoted cool people and is a progressive political figure in local politics who told them why the humanities was best for their futures.

My hand is a little sore, but I like that it helped send the class of 2006 out into the future. Now, if they’d just put the phones down for a minute…

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