About a Thumb

Shortly after I wrote my last self-indulgent blog about the academic job market--and thanks to all of you folks that responded with undeserved but much appreciated commentary on the matter--I got a phone call from the Bunny. He was screaming into the phone, and his panic drained the blood straight out of my body: "Oh my god, Bette! I've just cut the top of my thumb off."

He had been working at my parents' house on a small job, and this final cut was the "last one before lunch." He'll admit that he got careless, and the table saw just doesn't give two shits about your flesh anyways. I'm not into gore, so I'll stop there with any other details, but you should know by now, dear reader, that my history of fainting makes me thankful to Jesus/God/gods that I was not there when it all went down.

I rushed at 80 mph along the rural back roads that connect my county to my parents' county until I met him at the hospital in my small hometown. It was the same place both my father, my sister, and me were all born. I arrived amidst chaos, as an entire family waited to hear the fate of their overdosed and now-coding brother/lover/son. I felt guilty with my red-faced agony. I jumped security concerns to find my husband sitting alone in a room with scant gauze covering the injury. I didn't yet know that we would be sitting there for another FOUR HOURS until the doctor would tell us to head to the hospital in our town, which just happens to be a mile from our home. But what do you do...fuck it. Yes, my husband sat with a bloody stump, no pain meds, and nurses that acted as if asking them where the bathroom was located was akin to asking if I could strap on a gigantic dildo and insert it into their ear. "WHAT?!? The bathroom? You need to go urinate???" We bided our time reading five-year-old Southern Living magazines and singing Dinosaur Jr. lyric songs about appendages: "All I could do was lick your hand."

The idiots in small-town hospital finally stuck him with some hard and fast drugs, which made our 30 minute commute quite entertaining. As we were headed to see a Dr. Sparrow--plastic surgeon extraordinaire--the under-the-influence Bunny said, "I want my name to be Sparrow, but can we make it plural? We could be Robin and Fred Sparrows. People would call me Freddie, and they would say, 'Hey, Freddie, can I get you to do some wood work out at my house?' And I would say, 'No, man, I don't mess with saws anymore.'" This extended commentary with himself lasted until I turned on the radio, and, unfortunately, found KISS playing: "I-IIIII, just cut my finger oooooffff, but I party every day!" I guess the drugs worked.

As the shot wore off, we were still hanging around E.R.s across the region, until someone gave us the honor and privilege of giving the Bunny a bed and a doctor. This was about 8 hours after the initial accident. If this was our "urgent" care, I'd certainly hate to see what they do with "semi-urgent"--a scale of "urgencies" I found listed on our chart. I bet the "semi-urgent" cases are given a number and told to return within the day for a rapid response.

I suppose I didn't understand what it entailed to fix someone's sawed-off finger. Every other person had a finger amputation story for us, so that was, umm, endearing/useful(?) I can't even remember how many male hospital employees gave me the finger while explaining their own battle with the table saw. Poor Bunny lay on a cold slab in the middle of the bright room and had to tell ten different people with charts what he had eaten/drank that day, what previous surgeries he had had--right femur, left tib/fib, reconstruction on left foot--and what that old man tattooed on his right arm meant.

I guess it hit me about the time the Dr. started discussing anesthesia. I got really scared. I didn't want anybody to take him, and I knew he was terrified in there under the lights. I just wanted to cry. I wanted my mom, but when she offered to come, I told her not to. I guess I really felt like a wife that day. Five years of meal-planning, remembering in-law birthdays, and dusting the wine cabinet were just given a big f-you by my role as bedside wifey. I thought about the last thing I taught my students, which was T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The line, "Like a patient etherized upon a table"--the same line we'd hashed out over and over again--kept running through my head.

During his surgery, I waited in the room with his parents. We watched Nat Geo programming for 2.5 hours. When the Bunny returned, the nurse started discussing his pain medication options. The Bunny's parents' history of prescription drug abuse came in handy, as they made comments like, "Oh, no, Darvocet won't help shit. You better give him the Morphine." Their faces watched intently as the Bunny was injected with the drugs. I swear his mother licked her lips while his father grinned in glee--the by-proxy recipient of that sweet fluid. It was sad and sick but also quite funny. (Is that possible?) The Bunny and I laughed about it later, but, yeah, it was sad. Drugs are bad, dolls.

I slept on a cold couch by his bed. Actually, sleeping is an overstatement. I kept looking at his body in the bed, and I don't know if I've ever been able to love him as much as I did then. I thought about all the people that died in that hospital that day. My man lost part of his thumb. Big deal, right? Still, I just wanted to climb in the bed with him and hold him. I don't want to think about the day when one of us plays this role again but the other person is dying. It hasn't even been three weeks since the Bunny's grandfather died, and I made all of those bitchy statements about death. Oh, Bette, you get what you get.

A flash out the window kept me up--well, that coupled with the all-business nurse's decision to LEAVE THE LIGHT ON every time she left the room from midnight-4:00 am. The light outside my window flashed green, orange, and white as a signal to the helicopters landing with battered bodies. Nearly ten years ago to the date, the Bunny and I sat at a park near the hospital. We were lying together in a drained wading pool and looking out across the town to face the same hospital in which we now were sleeping. We weren't yet dating, but we were young and absolutely nuts about one another. We were in that "playing it cool" phase. I remember staring at that same light--we called it the Ireland light--and having a conversation about my plans for college. A few days later--November 17, 1999 to be exact--we officially became a couple. Looking at that same light from a different perspective, the same boy still by my side, I can't help but be grateful for how much things change (here, the Bunny's thumb and the nature of our relationship) but how some things, thankfully, stay the same.

(I love you, babe.)

Bette Runs the Numbers

The semester is almost over at University Job #2, and I only have a few weeks at University Job #1. I'm ecstatic, but I'm also a little sad that I won't be teaching at UJ#1 next semester. I'll be, instead, writing like a mad woman to finish my last two chapters, hopefully getting an interview (not holding my breath), and getting this house ready to put back on the market, as we took it off after our last buyers' loan fell through. We didn't want it to set all through the winter months, and I was just too overwhelmed with everything to keep it sparkling clean and perfect all the time.

The Bunny and I have made a pact: no matter the job market outcome, we are moving up and out of here next summer. The numbers don't look good, kids, so let me see if I can break it down for you. Last year, when I served on a job search committee for a candidate in our department at UJ#1, we had over 40 applicants for 1 job. As I am in modern and contemporary literature, that number expands exponentially, so I've heard that some of the jobs that I applied for have over 300 applicants. Though I've sent out over 35 applications for tenure track positions, non-tenured instructorships in cool ass towns, and one-year fellowships, I can't ignore the statistics. The lottery that is the academic job market has really been a Debbie Downer for me lately. I alternate between self-deprecation and unrealistic optimism. Today I'm somewhere in between the two.

Something on paper will have to stand out enough for my file to be pulled from the mountain of CVs stacked in the chair's office at each university. If by some slim chance my application is chosen for advancement, I'll have to knock down the other short list contenders until I am the last woman standing. The task ahead of me seems insurmountable, and I wonder now--with all of the school debt, research, nights without sleep, and years of delaying bits of adulthood in order to finish school--is it worth it? I can only be glad that my man is aware and ready for whatever happens next year. He will go where I go; we will make it work.

The market is a complex process. Academics don't get to choose where they want to live. Every Fall, the job calls are posted by committees at schools around the nation/world. Each job has a department and a field of specialization. I first look at the lists for jobs in English, but then I am limited to calls for jobs that are applicable to my dissertation research areas: modern/contemporary drama and modern/contemporary American literature with a specialization in the South. Even though I have taught upper-division courses in British and Children's Literature, I am not qualified for a job in this area. Out of the jobs that I applied for, only about half are firmly in my specialty, which means that I will be promptly ejected from several piles based wholly on this fact. Let's just say, hypothetically, that I still am a strong applicant based on my field of research alone. I must then be in a tier of schools that is at least at the standard of or above the teachers within that department. That cuts out several jobs where the department's professors--I know because I neurotically peruse each job's departmental website--all studied at Ivy League schools. They won't hire my metropolitan state school ass based on academic politics alone. Let's say that leaves me with 10 jobs for which I'm qualified based on my education and research area qualifications. Then they'll look at my publications, my teaching record, my letters of recommendation, and my writing sample. If even one committee member is not convinced I'm their girl, or if my work somehow overlaps with Dr. so-n-so's project about women and abuse narratives, etc., then I'm flicked into the 'no' pile.

Then again, let's say I get an interview all the way to campus--a 1 in 100 shot--then I will be competing with at least two other candidates at that level. If I show up and I'm too over/under dressed for their departmental tastes, that could screw me in the end. If I am too overeager, too nervous, or too chatty, that, too, could be the kiss of death. My advisor likens it to a combination lock where every turn must fit precisely. Each component must fall into place for one to achieve the tenure track position. In this market, I'm more likely to find a unicorn galloping through my living room eating E.T. cereal and singing INXS than to land a tenure track position. I'd argue the same for a decent-pay instructorship in a cool ass town with the way things are going this year.

Believe it or not, I'm grinning as I type this because I realize that teaching in academia is not the only thing that would make me happy. I'm still down for opening a vegetarian restaurant in a little mountain town. The Bunny and I want to get a whole litter of pygmy goats and rocking chairs on a porch looking out over a mountain range. I want to have some babies in a few years, and I want to have time to read what I want to read when I want to read it again--a luxury I have missed since I began grad school five years ago.

Maybe I'll look back on this blog and laugh because the future me knows how silly this girl is acting right now. Maybe I'll read this blog from behind a desk in an office at a nice university. Then again, maybe I'll balance my laptop over my knees while I lounge at the base of my backyard by the mountains/rolling hills/beach. Either way, I'm okay with everything. Yeah, I guess I'm having an optimistic day.

The Dark Side of Mentoring Hormonal Young Men aka Court Evidence

I woke-up yesterday with a smile on my face. I had a dream about jazz hands, the sun was shining over Autumn trees, and my iPod kept cranking out the most appropriate soundtrack. I spent the morning teaching my favorite poet--T.S. Eliot--and I had a productive and inspiring conversation with one of my dissertation committee members.

As the semester progresses, I've fallen in love with my two sections of English majors at university job #1. They are so excited to be in class. Seriously--they email me to say as much. One guy, who, incidentally, has a mountain man beard down to his chest, always remarks, "Wow, great class, Bette." I'm a stunner. I'm on my game. I think it's due, at least in part, to our foray into the Modern period, but I like to think it has at least a little bit to do with my skills, yo.

I did, however, have two very odd encounters yesterday with young men from different sections of the course. During a mid-afternoon meeting, one creepy, self-deprecating guy stopped by my office to remark on death, god/God, and the worthlessness of his life. I just wanted to hand him his grades and send him on his way. Instead, he wanted me to understand that "the anvil is about to drop." (Yes, whatever the fuck that means...) I don't take this lightly, so don't misunderstand my tone. His odd behavior left me with chills, and I turned his name in to the department Chair. I also gave his name to dear Grace as evidence in case I turn up chopped to bits in a ditch. If I'm laughing now, I can assure you that it is nervous laughter, and that is all I want to say about that...

In my evening class, there is a guy in his mid-late 20s who is always super involved in the conversation. (Yay for the teacher's wet dream.) That class is interesting to me because I seem to have collected a couple of followers. One girl is crafting jewelry for me, and another young woman wants to hash out "The Wasteland" together sometime--just for kicks. This is also the class that contains a Real Housewives of Atlanta's NeNe look-alike. She send me ecards on a weekly basis, while the bearded one is a fan of my lectures and the way I sign my emails with a simple "Best," at the end. (This is pretty old hat for academics, actually, but I won't burst his bubble.) I could go on and on, but I need to return to that above-mentioned eager beaver classroom talker.

He waited until my desk cleared, and then he followed me out the door, across the street, down the sidewalk, and to my car. I kept making the average social gestures and statements to make him understand that this conversation/walk was over: "Well, my husband is cooking dinner, and I must start driving home now..." He just kept talking about my dissertation--no, he didn't know anything about Southern literature--the politics of "porn church," and the nature of addiction. I seem to have two psychos on my hands this year.

I don't want to rant about men, but I'm going to rant about men. With a small minority of my male students, shit just gets out of hand. They get classic "hero worship" tinged with a decidedly patriarchal desire to contain me --I can't quite peg it down. It is this complex mix of both admiration and disdain for me. They want to not only be my "friend," but they also have this blazing need to show me their beliefs and to try and make me understand that they are right and true. It's obsessive and weird and, at times, scary. Yesterday--with the creepy office visit death guy (C.A.) and eager beaver porn addiction counselor dude (B.F.)--I was overwhelmed by the oddness of these men. (Wait, let's call them boys.) Worst of all, their motivation seems to be driven by the fact that they've located--through context clues?--the fact that I am not a religious woman. I don't know if this is a misconstrued form of Christian recruitment, but the next time an obsessive male student tries to mention something about God to me, I will likely call campus security. I just don't want to overreact when we are so close to finishing the semester.

There is that issue, too, with young males in general whereby they have these unusual attachments to individuals based wholly on a fantasy relationship they've created in their head or on exaggerated social exchanges, i.e., my natural warmth with all of my students is recreated as evidence of my interest in a deeper relationship. I'm trying to work this out for myself, so feel free to stop reading. We read a lot of stories of obsession this semester, and, here, I am thinking of Browning's "Porphyria's Lover" and "My Last Duchess." Both poems center around the murder of a jealous male maniac's lover. Certainly I'm not expected to censure literature for the sake of my own fears, but in thinking about this now, it makes everything that happened yesterday seem all the more terrifying. Yet, I know I'm not doing the scenarios justice, as there is no way to type the slow, stilted intonation in both men's voices.

I'm safe at home now, but after a night of tossing and turning in my bed, I couldn't shake the image of these two guys. Let's just say for safety's sake that if I disappear, this is a clue for you, dear officers of the law, as I'm not completely sure this matter will play out to its finest.

Cheers to you, Virginia

Carroll's "Jabberwocky" best describes my feelings at the present: "O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! He chortled in his joy." I just taught Virginia Woolf's essay, "The Mark on the Wall," in my British Literature class, and the students were jumping out their seats to have their say. Apparently, when one confronts issues of indeterminacy and textual meandering, our western world, capitalist "civilization" is alternately incensed and inspired. Welcome to the Modern period, my friends.

It was beautiful to watch them debate and think. Even those that hated Woolf did not realize that she made them engage with her writing--often despite themselves. Bravo, Ms. Virginia.

I always wanted a child named Virginia for three reasons: 1. Woolf 2. My Nanny (who is named Virginia, though my father hates her name) Number 3, however, is more complex. My mother loves the original Miracle on 34th Street. The little girl in the movie is named Susan--my mother's name. Despite the girl's unusual rational thinking for such a young age, she does eventually believe in Santa. As my mother never got anything for Christmas, I think there is a part of her that wanted to be that little girl in the film--the cosmopolitan and charmed child in fancy dresses and hats. She still likes to believe in the notion of a generous guy dropping random gifts for children all around the world, though the more rational part of her knows that this could never occur; case in point, she didn't get visits from Santa. Still, that classic, Americana quote, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus," always comes back to me, and I think about my mother, steadily believing in this thing that never served her once.

I'm eating a feta/hummus veggie wrap from the kiosk. The person that made the wrap threw caution to the wind and placed gigantic hunks of feta throughout my wrap. I'm certain that doesn't fit into Aramark's budget.

I have a pile of work ahead of me, but instead I'm blogging. The Bunny just called to say our buyers backed out of our contract completely; I told him just to take it off the market until next Spring. Yet, this hummus is really good, and despite the high cost I paid for this sandwich--despite this mess with the house, the Bunny's grandfather's death, and the driving rain--I'm in a lovely mood today.

Meditations on a Hospital

We found out yesterday that the buyers' loan has been delayed, if not inevitably, until they can save more money for a down payment for a different kind of loan. That is, yadda yadda, we aren't moving anytime soon. I was pretty bent up about it yesterday, but today I'm okay. We just started the modern period on my British Lit class, so I'm eager to impart the knowledge of alienation and isolation to each and every one of my dear pupils.

We also learned yesterday, shortly after getting the bad news about our house, that the Bunny's grandfather is in fact dying. I suppose I could lie and say it is tragic, but I'm just not in the mood. After a long day at university job #2, I rushed to the hospital last night out of guilt for my absence while everyone else kept vigil by the dying man's bed.

There are a lot of funny and sad or funny/sad things that happen at hospitals. When I first arrived to paw paw's dying room, everyone stood/sat/leaned around the vicinity of his bed. His face was covered in some sort of complex respiratory device. In panic-stricken fits where paw paw would lose his breath, various family members would rush to his side to readjust the device--knowing that his life now depended upon this healthy dose of oxygen pumping into his crotchety old lungs. When finally he fought to keep it off--choosing instead to wear the much less encroaching nose/wire breathing piece--nobody argued with him. The room got silent, and through his morphine-induced mumblings about needing to "take a shit," there was this unspoken rule that we had all decided to just let him slowly stop breathing.

I watched ten people sobbing, and I had to look down at my knees. I have the unfortunate habit of laughing uncontrollably in times of turmoil. The comedy of death was overwhelming. I reached to squeeze the Bunny's hand, catching his eye long enough to confirm his shared feelings of misplaced hilarity, and I leaned in to crack a joke: "What do you bet ol' crackhead uncle Mike only came for the will and the morphine?" We both started to shake a little with laughter, but I guess it looked like we were, instead, physically and woefully moved by paw paw's present state. Mission accomplished.

When the last insistence that paw paw needed to make a poo poo came grumbling from behind his bed sheet, everyone cleared out of the room like a record scratching to a halt. What once was a pity party turned into an "okay, well let's catch a cigarette break." The Bunny and I opted to walk the halls.

We passed the doors across from paw paw's room and noticed a boy of about ten lying alone in a hospital bed. I was told by my nurse friend Jennifer, who works on this floor, that this is where people go when they won't ever leave. I suppose that means the boy is dying. For the first time all night, I started get a little sad.

We walked to the other side of the building and found ourselves in the cancer wing. It was dark, and there wasn't a soul in sight. The Bunny said, "Boy, it's really dead in here." I'm certain he didn't mean anything by it, but the inappropriateness coupled with our tired and emotionally overwrought bodies just made the whole comment seem hilarious.

On the walk back to the dying room, we passed another family of mourners. They were wearing Tweety Bird, et al. regalia, and one woman remarked through her sobs, "The last thing he said to me was, 'Shake it; don't break it.' I'll never forget those words..." Her sorrow fits echoed down the empty halls, as did my resounding and spontaneous half-howls of laughter. Seriously, what the fuck? One could only hope to say such significant things as "I need to shit" or "Shake it; don't break it" in their final hours. I'll likely recite the Oscar Meyer wiener song or perhaps I'll perform the theme from the hit 90s television show The Nanny.

After finding out the fecal hijinks were still in progress in the dying room, the Bunny and I rode the elevator down to the labor and delivery floor. Parked directly in front of the window was a true newborn. Born that day and with a head full of the darkest, oil-slick hair, the baby's unassuming sleep moved me. I put my nose to the glass and cooed at its unhearing ears. The Bunny was enraptured by the infant's fingernails. Behind us, a saucy brawd in a sweatshirt said, "Perty, ain't she?" I like to think that she was not family but, rather, the type of woman who sees fit to comment on any and every situation. Still awed over this brand new creature in front of me, I said sweetly, "Yes, she is just perfect."

We finally returned to the room, and I felt boxed into a night that surely promised a long process of dying and trying over and over again. I thought it best to go home and watch Top Chef on my DVR. I motioned for the Bunny to slip away at my signal, and we ran down the hallway like bandits. I plan to blame it on the Bunny's absentminded mother--"What? Rox didn't tell you we were leaving? I can't believe that!"

The hospital has made many recent improvements. The best, however, is the new sexy female elevator voice that announces all pertinent motions of her travel. As the elevator descends, her coy mistress remarks, "Going down." I'm certain it is a statement, though it is posed almost as a question. From the ninth floor to the sixth, we rode alone. At the fifth floor, the elevator opened and welcomed a middle-aged African American man wearing Notorious B.I.G. memorabilia and a giant gold crucifix. The elevator doors shut, and I looked him straight in the eyes. Mimicking dear elevator maiden, we said in unison, "Going down?"

Somebody Give this Woman a Hand

At our usual haunt on Saturday night, I found myself in a rum stupor, leaning against a dingy bathroom wall covered in tawdry bar humor, and having a moronic conversation about clavicle bones and v-neck tees. Even in that compromised state, I knew enough to think, "What the hell am I doing with my life?"

I feel so directionless lately. There are days where this mood breaks, and I feel driven by clarity and freedom and happiness to keep on keeping on, but for the most part, I need a good kick in the pants to get moving enough to trim my bangs.

I'm certain I seemed impressive and authoritative in my lunch meeting with the English chair from university job #2 yesterday. I could step outside of myself and linger above our cafe table littered in perfectly nibbled deli sandwiches and hear every word coming out of my mouth. Dr. Chair sat taking notes on my comments while I carefully extracted lettuce from my canines. Dr. Chair remarked, "Yes, please, let's do this again sometime--and let's leave out the business talk!" Oh, Bette, you are so clever when it comes to social mores.

After the meeting, the Bunny called to say that the realtor let him know today that our buyers' loan has been delayed while they find a new lender. I don't know the ins and outs of this major pain in the ass, but I do know that I'm too emotionally vapid right now to really care all that much. So, we may or may not be moving in two weeks, which is our original closing date. I do know, however, that our new landlord will keep the $1,000 deposit we just mailed last week at the advice of our realtor.

Following a brief but passively aggressive yet threatening phone call from my mother-in-law, we went to the hospital to visit the Bunny's grandfather. This is the one that makes the rude remarks about, well, everything. I don't suppose this will actually be the time that the grandpa-who-cried-wolf dies.

It isn't that I wish his demise, but I just really hate all of the predatory family members feasting voraciously on every bit of bad news. If he takes a "turn for the worse," every family Facebook update starts blowing up my ticker. If he feels better, however, there is the requisite, "Pops is doing better, but we know he'll never leave that room." It's bullshit, really, and you can all get me back for this decidedly non-p.c. attitude when I'm dying. There--you have it in writing.

That crooked eye doesn't fool me, sir

I had a conversation with my adviser yesterday that ran the gamut from football to ugly early-90s rugs to life after graduation. For one, I'm finally starting to crack the code of the unusual man that has guided my academic career for the past several years. I now know that he watches football to the point of ritual obedience every Sunday. He remarked that he has to "be sure to work-out and eat in the morning" before the noon games begin, thus keeping him occupied until at least 9:00 that night when the last football game ends. This vision of both a sports fanatic and an awkward and absentminded professor does not mesh in my head. How can one be both a scholar of early-modern British drama and know the names of every football player to hit the NFL since the mid-70s? Disconcerting--yes--but I'm pleased to find this complexity in his character.

The football discussion was birthed out of a tangent from our talk about jobs and fellowships overseas. I simply asked, "Did you ever consider a job outside of the states?" He said there was one reason alone that he could not leave America: How could he watch his football games in a foreign country? After a thirty minute diatribe about the sports "experts," who he claims "don't know a damn thing about offensive" something or another, I stood to leave and remarked on the sad, dingy, dusty rose and country blue floral rug that is gelled to the bottom of his office floor.

Me: "When I'm gone, you will need someone new to occupy your time. You'll need someone to mentor, and the quality of students you receive might improve if you consider discarding that sad rug on your floor. It's depressing."

Him: "Some people don't even have a rug in their office."

This last statement was spoken with just a hint of pride. It was as if this rug delineated some sort of tangible division between himself and others. It was like a luxury not everyone could afford. To my surprise, he then took my suggestion to heart, stared for a while at the floor, and he said, "Well, maybe you are right."

Our dynamic is quite traditional. Where many graduate students easily engage with their professors, offering a hello to "Pam" or "Stan," I still call my adviser by his proper title and surname. Where my peers might invite their professors to personal events or vice versa, I imagine my adviser's house as some mystical hovel on the outskirts of existence. I'm not sure there is much else there beyond an endless supply of canned tuna fish, every issue of Modern Drama since its inception, and a wood panel TV for football viewing. (Certainly, there must be a satellite dish.) Oh, and since he likes to jog, I hope there are sweatbands, nylon shorts, and dad Reeboks lying in a neat pile on his dresser. There could be a lover there--male or female--but I know that there are no pets or children. I once saw The Club secured on his steering wheel in the faculty parking lot, but I do not know if this is a precaution he takes at home.

Even if on the smallest level, his earnest consideration of my office decorating tips betrays a steadily closing chasm between our once fixed roles as student and professor.