The Secret I was Given, Part II

"Okay, I promise I will never tell another living soul the thing that you're about to tell me, and I'll do this favour for you." (Yes, I realize that at least three people are about to find out the secret I was never supposed to tell.)

"I need you to weigh me. Once a week, I want you to come to my house, first thing in the morning, and weigh me. If I do it, I'll obsess about the numbers all the time. If I don't know what the numbers are and you just tell me if I'm up or down, then everything will be okay."

My first thought was, "Oh my god! This is fantastic! I am living an utter, undeniable, science fiction life!" but what came out of my mouth was, "Yeah? Okay. When did you want to do this?" because despite the fact that I didn't like her, and despite the fact that I thought that if she just quit lying to herself all the time and faced up to the fact that she had some serious issues that needed dealing with by someone with a professional background, I actually could do this and be helpful about it. I didn't hate her, I just didn't respect her very much and didn't particularly like her. At the same time, I knew she felt terrible about her (really, quite lovely) body and if she wanted a bit of help, then I could help. At the same time, I knew that it was unlikely that she'd even go through with the first weigh-in, because she would see that it wouldn't really help the situation. Or she would just back out of the whole thing. Or who knows. Anyway, I said yes, whatever my own motivation and whatever the end result.

It was a curious, intimate, and yet totally detached relationship. I was relieved to get away from her when I moved to the east coast, and then of course eventually she moved back there too, because she always said she would. (And people from the east coast who don't live there spend their entire lives trying to move back. They're worse than spawning salmon.) I would see her mother in Winners, and then I would eventually see her too, and every time it was, "Oh, hello Very Thin Person! You have two kids now?! And still so thin!" which just made me feel sorry.

Anyway, I weighed her every Friday morning for eight weeks, and then she didn't want to do it any more because her weight wasn't changing, which I knew it wouldn't because she didn't have any weight to lose. She ran all the time, she was solid muscle except for the boobs, and she didn't eat that much. She'd go up a pound, down a pound, but that could just as easily have been a big poop as actual weight loss or gain. Who knows, I didn't ask about what she was eating, I just recorded the numbers and didn't tell her what they were, just whether there was a positive or negative change. I'd get a phone call, "Don't come this morning, I know I'm up," and then eventually, after a couple more weeks, I was told not to bother any more.

After she moved back to the east coast, I was at the downtown Farmer's Market one Saturday morning, and I saw her and her sister walk past me. I was with my kids and Hub was off getting some bread, and the kids were a bit fussy about something so I was kneeling down to talk to them. I saw the sister first, I looked her in the eye in fact, but was also dealing with the darlings so said nothing. Because I can read lips pretty well, I saw her lean over to Barbie and say that I was there, did she want to say hi? And Barbie didn't say anything, just looked at her and made that throwy-up face and they kept walking. I thought to myself, "Well, it's one of the rare instances that you've actually told the truth. Good for you. I hope you keep on with that."

The Secret I was Given

I said that this would be about a woman I knew in grad school, and that's not quite true. She was in grad school, I was a postdoc, and we worked in a relatively large lab for a very well-known inorganic chemist. There were several labs in our warren, and we were in a small one, so it was just the two of us. I need to give her a name, and since she looked like one, all blond and buxom and bouncy, I'll call her Barbie. Very energetic, and surface-friendly, Barbie had an all-consuming inferiority complex, one that focussed on her size.

Like many people from the east coast (and I'm sorry, it's true. I'm not extraordinarily small, but I was told all too often while living there that I was far too thin. Even my physician, who weighed the same as me and who was a good six inches taller, thought that maybe I was too thin. When I asked her what she weighed and then compared it to my weight, she realized that eight years on the east coast had skewed her perceptions. I digress.) Barbie was not particularly small-boned, and yet, after years of exercising continuously and running obsessively, she was as thin as she would ever get. She binge-ate, but only "things in little packages". Go for breakfast? Great. Little peanut butter and jam packets on the table? Super. One minute you're enjoying your toast, the next minute Barbie is eating the peanut butter out of the little packages with her finger. And then the jam. And then the sugar. And then you don't enjoy your toast any more, because even small children aren't usually allowed to do this, never mind an adult woman. Later you would find out that Barbie had squirrelled away eight or ten packets of peanut butter and you'd catch her eating it in the lab. I'd yell at her for this, since you're never supposed to eat in the lab and certainly not with your fingers. After that she'd do it when I wasn't around.

She would actually buy boxes of packages of peanut butter.

She had become bulimic in high school because she went from a skinny, flat-chested 12-year old to a curvy bombshell over a summer, and this shocked her. I do understand eating disorders, don't get me wrong. Food is a powerful thing and we focus on it, we control it, we abuse ourselves with it...and I had just come through a particularly bad bout of food abuse myself while on my previous postdoc and while getting rid of the dickhead known as my first husband. So while I understand that things can get out of hand, if you say that you're over the obsession, then you're over it. You shouldn't lie about being over it, if you're not. If you bring it up in conversation, and say everything is fine, and then go and puke your guts out? You're lying. You can keep lying about it, or you can say that it's not as easy as you thought and you're trying to be okay and sometimes you slip up. Or you can lie because you still need to, I guess. Or you could try to cover it up and hide it. Or I don't know.....you could quit bloody looking for attention all the time. The long and the short of it is that I didn't feel sorry for her obsessions, because I don't respect lying and I hate weakness. This is my own issue though and I realize it sounds particularly hard-hearted but I didn't say I was nice.

Barbie needed to be everyone's fashion consultant. I know what I like and I know what I look good in, and I know that I don't need or want anyone else's opinion on how I should supplement my wardrobe. Barbie took it upon herself to apply her fashion ministrations to all us poor soles who couldn't quite keep up with the latest trends, or who weren't aware that attention to a short waist needs to be diverted, and that big boobs should always be put forward: you need to accentuate your best traits. On the subject of fashion, I didn't need a mentor. She always looked pretty good, and would announce to anyone that she was a winter, a blond winter, isn't that unusual? Many a female chemist would end up with glazed eyes after a chat about their seasonal colours and what they should be wearing. Many of us were really pretty busy and just didn't give a damn.

She tried hard to be a good person, but was so caught up in herself and how she looked and whether or not she was fat, that she didn't have a lot of room to be really caring or concerned about anyone else. She wanted a man, he had to be tall, over six feet, he had to weigh at least 200 pounds, he had to have red hair, he should be Scottish or of Scottish origin, and it would be helpful if he had money, although that wasn't critical since she was going to be a dentist. (She did finish her masters degree and then go to dentistry.) I was actually invited to her wedding six years later, and you bet I went. How could one avoid the extravaganza? Book smart but not a whip of common sense, Barbie is as materialistic and concerned with appearances as you'd expect her to be. On the inside she may have been a bucket of turmoil, but that was only for her to know.

Why do I know all this? Because I hung out with her when she was interested in having me around. I found her amusing, but I am outspoken and I don't often bite my tongue, so I wasn't always the most fun person for her to be with. Plus I was older than her by about eight years, so I didn't care for bar-hopping or the like, and I didn't exercise, and, horror of horrors, I ate what I wanted, when I wanted.

I edited her thesis. The word "circumfrential" doesn't exist, except as the name of a highway around the city that she's from, and I had a difficult argument with her when I wanted to get rid of this particular word. Her abuse of the English language was shocking, even ignoring this particular transgression.

One day, after I'd moved into a new lab in the basement and Barbie was still writing up her thesis prior to dental school, she came down to see me. "I need you to do something for me," she said, "And you can't tell anyone, ever, and you have to prommmmmisssse that you'll never tell anyone that you're doing this, okay?" So I looked at her, and I thought, "Well, I could make this promise and then find out what the deal is. Or I could say forget it, you need someone other than me to do whatever this deed is, and I don't want to be involved," and as usual, despite my misgivings, I promised that I wouldn't tell anyone what it was. Why would I do this? Why would anyone do this? For the sake of doing it. For the experience of whatever it was, because knowing Barbie, it was going to be something (that I thought was) insane. Of course, one would also say yes to a request like this for the sake of gathering information. I don't understand the anxieties that people carry around...I mean, I have my own of course, but I don't understand everyone else's, and I'm always researching how people behave. So I'm mentally taking notes, trying to figure out what on earth she's going to ask me to do. What request carries a caveat of never, ever, telling another living soul? This is especially intriguing because even though Barbie and I are hanging out now and again, I know full well that we aren't friends. She claims we are, but I know we aren't, I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her. I didn't even like her very much.

Tomorrow: The Weekly Meet-up

A Dark Poem

I wrote this last year when I was applying for a Master's degree in Fine Art (Creative Writing). It probably seems very dark, and it is, but it's funny too. I think of where I was when I was writing some of this stuff, and it will take some work to go back there. I have read other pieces that I wrote then too, and they're okay, some need lots of work, others less. I'm putting this one up because it's got the staccato cadence of Dr. Seuss with hiccups of smoothness, so it's annoying to read from that perspective. People with secrets are often annoying, especially when they think they're so important that they can control your life.

It doesn't reflect my current outlook or anything like that, I don't feel anything near to this darkness in my "real life", despite recent events.
As per any published material, electronic or otherwise, it's copyrighted to me.

Dr. Seuss after dark

What’s your little secret?
Can you tell me, will you tell me?
What’s the most private, quiet, thing you’ve ever known?
Is it that you killed the cat by swinging it against a tree?
Or did you see your father
Was he looking right through me?

Did you cheat on your last husband? Was it just an easy thing to do?
Did you wish your best friend dead?
Did she drop dead, just for you?
What was it, you can tell me, I’ll never tell a one.
Because I’ve got many secrets, keeping secrets just for fun.

I’ve been to such dark places, places I should never go
I’ve jumped down a dark hole, it was darker than you know
I’ve broken people—sweet, good people, just to see it done
And now all those nice people
They haunt me, one by one.
I have let them all believe that I could do what I could not
I let them believe it, when what I knew was naught.

When the doorbell rings don’t answer,
It might be me, it might be me,
I will hurt you, you don’t know it but you will soon find out
Because I’ve got things to tell you:
Little secrets, little lies, little pinpricks in your eyes.

So you just tell me all your troubles
I’ll put them here in this big box
And when secrets need repeating, I’ll
Let them out, redux
You will never know I did it, it’s my secret
Safe with me.
When you're crushed with grief and pain,
I will stamp on you with glee.

***********

Now you have to think about this, think about the people you've known who've been secret-hoarders, or people who've gathered information only to use it against you or someone else. They really delight in revealing the facts, regardless of the agony of the recipient. They love the power they get from this, the attention they garner. It's sadistic, and yet they are always the person that ends up being told "things". They put on that trustworthy face, that blank face, but underneath it there's such avarice. "I cannot wait to use this!" they think. We all know these people, sometimes we find them entertaining, while at the same time we hope to god that they don't know anything about us.

Tomorrow (or whenever I next post): a woman I knew in grad school.

Settling In

Time passes, we learn to adapt to our situations, whatever they may be. I have to say that unemployment, all four days of it, is beginning to grow on me. All I need now is the unlimited funding that would allow me to keep my lifestyle and still not have to answer to anyone.

I do love that pie in the sky outlook.

I am still grieving, albeit in a backhanded kind of a way. I'm now chastising myself for not having tried hard enough to actually get the job, and maybe I didn't try hard enough, maybe I did. I can't ignore the fact that I was sick, and not thinking clearly at all. I gave a mediocre research presentation and came off like a small town girl, self-deprecating and yet with a touch of (hardly warranted) belligerency.

I could analyze all day, it's my best thing after all. Rather than that, I'll point out that it's been a beautiful weekend, Hub is off in Florida at a conference trying to figure out how to spend $3M on new instrumentation, and I'm feeling mostly good. I was not feeling good earlier this week, but now that I have no choice but to feel good, things are looking up. What the hell, it's not like wallowing in sorrow is going to get me anywhere, might as well enjoy what I've got and figure out how to live on one salary, at least for a while.

I am resigned to not being an academic any more, even if there are people who think that I don't have to bow out of the game so quickly. For my own sake, I do. I need to get away from the work, from the fact that I hated feeling like I was never quite good enough to be where I was, for the fact that I was successful even if 3/4 of the time I didn't have a clue what I was doing.....don't get me wrong, everyone feels this way. You get a job, and suddenly, here's your teaching load. "But I've never taught before!" you wail in your bed at night, and at the same time try to figure out how to do it, because you have no choice and nobody else was taught how to teach either. "But I don't know how to write a grant proposal!" and that's too bad too, figure it out, and keep trying no matter how many times you get told "no". (eventually it paid off, after my eyes bled onto the pages) "But I've never chaired a committee before!" yes, but no one else will do it and it's your turn.

And so on. Many things you've never done before, never thought about doing before, and never particularly wanted to do, here on your plate. Departmental meetings are a shock the first time through, because suddenly you're in a room with all of the smartest kids in the class, and no matter the topic, they know best and must be heard, at all costs. You learn to not tell established faculty members to shut up when you're talking; they apparently don't like it. You smile and go to university functions, because they're plying you with free food and booze and quite frankly, one never gets over being a poor starving grad student and so one eats the free (terrible) food and quaffs the free (terrible) wine because, even if you're a full professor, you still don't know where the next meal is coming from. Or rather, in a rational moment you know you're a prestigious member of the academic community, but when presented with anything free you lose all ability to reason.

I'm not missing it so much as I'm reminiscing. Do we sense a book in the offing? I notice already that in my writing I'm not as often searching for words, because my mind isn't cramped by a thousand disparate details. I notice that my shoulders don't hurt and I can turn my head from side to side without feeling all the tendons slip and crunch over the bones. Nothing hurts except my knees, slightly, because I've been spending too much time sitting cross-legged and knitting. But do we sense a book? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I don't know how I'd make it fictional, although dear God the truth is stranger and funnier than any fiction I could invent anyway.

On another note, Fab Former Student wants to be promoted to BF status. How much room is there for BestFriends? Not a matter to be taken lightly, I will have to consider seriously this request.

Professor Nomore

So I'm jobless. Another candidate was offered the position and has accepted it. I don't know who the person is or their background, and in fact I don't know anything about them. It could be anyone, someone who wanted to come home from the U.S. maybe. I will always have to compete with grad students from my PhD supervisor's lab, and from another lab in Calgary. I always knew that I wasn't the only person in the world that could do the job, even if several people told me that. I've had a number of comments along the lines of "they've made a very grave error" but there's no telling what they've done, until I know who they've chosen that wasn't me. The only question I have is in regard to the CFI application, because it's pretty clear that the particular grant they're after is for established researchers who have moved to a new department and need a particular piece of equipment that the department doesn't have. The established part is that which is important there, and one of the criteria that CFI lists is number of publications...now granted a new PhD could have as many as 10 papers, but I have over 50. It will just be interesting to see who it is. Hub says that if they strayed too far from the ad that I should talk to our lawyer, but I don't know if I could do anything like that. Well, I could certainly talk to the lawyer but I don't know if I would take it any further than that.

I found out about my pending unemployment on Tuesday, and while I needed to know something, I was still so shocked at not getting an offer....it was like having the wind knocked out of me and like I couldn't feel anything at the same time. I was certainly deeply upset, and I still am, although as of today (Thursday) it's not so much that I don't have that job, but that I don't have any job. I don't know what I am if I'm not a chemistry professor. I think I've written about this; I will have to figure out what I am, if not an academic. There are no jobs available right now within driving distance, even if there are five universities within driving distance. I could teach part-time at any of them (except the one at which I applied for a job, because that would be embarrassing) but that's not really what I want to do. I like teaching, but I don't like teaching exclusively.

Another twist of the knife is having to turn down my NSERC grant. Who the hell turns down research money? Oh, yeah, people who don't have a job.

My former employer is about to advertise my former job also. They weren't going to, because they would have had a UFA to replace me (University Faculty Award, for women or aboriginals) but the woman they chose was not successful in this regard. I can't face the commute back and forth between the east coast and "central" Canada, so I wouldn't consider going back there. Former Student says that the department there is hollow and mean now too; things have changed and not for the better.

A lot of things are going through my head, but for now I'm going to paint the bathroom and Little One's room, and rearrange the kitchen. And maybe dig up the back yard and build a new shed. And search Workopolis.com and Monster.ca for every job that might be marginally appealing, and look for courses to take that might make me employable.

Something New

Ondaatje's new novel, Divisidero, will be out at the end of May. I thought it was already out, but apparently it's to be published on April 21, according to the Globe & Mail. Naturally all the Canadian reviews will be fawning, and no doubt when I pick it up I will fawn also.

The Shock of Nothing

Sometimes, it's more disconcerting to have nothing happening than it is to have too much happening. Right now, nothing is happening, and not much has happened all week. Sure, Belinda Stronach quit politics to go back to running Magna International for her dad, and other matters of political ilk have occurred....Stephane Dion, exactly what are you thinking by not running a candidate against Elizabeth May....Soldiers are dropping left right and centre in Afghanistan.

but here at chez moi, nada.

I suspect many people pray for weeks where nothing happens. So many people have so much suffering to deal with, that one week of quiet would be a merciful release from life's harassments. I don't have a great deal of difficulty in my life, however, not having anything happen is agonizing in its own way. I hate waiting for something to happen.

So you'd infer by this that I'd not heard about the job? You'd be correct. As of this weekend we pass out of the realm of "early April" and into "mid-April". Since I was told I'd hear about the job in early April, I am taking Monday as a special nagging day to find out what the hell is going on over at that academic institution at which I'd like to be employed. Monday I'm also supposed to go over to the other academic institution where I've not quite finished teaching, but I'm blowing that off to go with Big One's class to the performing arts centre to see a play. After I get home from the play, nagging begins.

Instead of ranting and being impatient, here are some random comments from the past week and otherwise:

1) A note from a former postdoc supervisor.
A preeminent inorganic chemist in this country, and someone who's always helped me out when I needed it, he emailed this week to find out if I'd heard anything about the job. When I replied that no, I hadn't (along with my usual three paragraphs of descriptive prose....I don't do anything without too many words) he said not to worry, they're probably just slow. From him, I can take comfort in these few words; nobody else could tell me not to worry and have me believe them.

2) Cooking Italian
Not that I cook Italians.
When I want to cook in the Italian style, and often I do, it is easy for me to get authentic ingredients here in this small city. Last weekend I got aged provolone from Italy, and a couple of other cheeses from Italy, pesto from Italy...many of the fish at the grocery store are flown in from Italy...and I know I said that I would eat a more local diet, and I have been. Except for the Italian stuff.

3) Kids have been insane.
Is there something in the water? my kids have been nuts the last few days.

4) More Irish than Italians
Hub just pointed out that there are more Irish in this city than Italians, but you wouldn't know it. There was a little article and picture in the local paper about Irish dance (he recognized it right away because one of my former students used to run an Irish dance school and we've seen her and her students perform. I like it a lot more than Scottish Highland Dance.) and he mentioned that on the last census (and now I know who reads these things) there were more Irish here than Italians. You would not know this! Ever! I thought it was because the Italian-Canadian community had more money, but he said no, not necessarily...having grown up pretty poorly-off he would know...so I said well, more a mafia mentality then, taking care of the community. We agreed this is more likely the case. We could be full of crap.

5) Crappy spring
The weather has sucked ass lately, which is good because it goes with my mood.

6) Sister visit
My sister is coming to visit in a month. She's awesome. She said we might have to go to Toronto to go shopping. We might have to go??

7) BF2 goes to Paris
His mumma is visiting and he's taking her throughout his favourite places in Europe for the next couple of weeks. This week she stayed in London while he went to work, and tomorrow they're taking the Chunnel to Paris for the weekend. Sunday night they'll be back in London, then later in the week they're off to Italy. And I heave a deep sigh and wish I could go too.

8) BF1 finishes her Hawaii picture album
It's lovely.....but not as good as being there. Wish I could go back there.

That's about it. there are other things but I don't want to belabour the point of having not very much to talk about. And since now I can't even write a full sentence (too much Australian shiraz for supper) without going back and fixing most of it, I'll sign off.

And really. For those of you who are curious, rest assured that if I had anything to say about the job, I'd say it. We wait until Monday.

June Callwood

Journalist, activist......whatever label you give her, June Callwood is an amazing woman. Absolutely inspiring to the end, George Stomboulopoulos interviewed her this week just before she went into palliative care. If you read the comments there are a lot of accolades for George's interview, but quite frankly June knows full well how to help an interviewer along by being objective, sensitive and open, even about the difficult topic of dying. She was diagnosed with inoperable cancer a few years ago and has "been very busy" up until now, no time for treatments.

Leaves one inspired and with little reason to complain.

Good 'n Cold Friday

Here's what today looks like. Outside it's currently -7C, which wouldn't normally bother me. It's early April, it's Canada, the weather can do almost anything, global warming or climate change or whatever's happening out there be damned. So I'm not so surprised that it's snowing, nor that it's supposed to snow all weekend. It's Good Friday, nothing is open anywhere, and I found out last week that no Catholic masses are celebrated anywhere in the world today. (It could be all Christian masses, I don't actually know, not being the most excellent Christian ever.) It's not really cold out, and it feels sort of "first snow"~ish out there, you know, that fresh sort of smell that indicates that it's a big change in the weather of late? It's quite lovely.

And I'd appreciate it a whole lot more if the furnace hadn't quit working sometime on Wednesday night and if I weren't sitting here in the house typing on a laptop that feels warm to my touch, and if the temperature outside was going to warm up today or even tomorrow, I'd be all okay about being chilly inside. It's not supposed to get above freezing until Sunday, and by the time Happy the Furnaceman arrived yesterday, it was too late to get a new furnace (for that is what we need) before Monday. Maybe Tuesday. It's not going to be warmer than 5C before Wednesday next week, so this chilly air will prevail. I am less than pleased.

Everyone else is next door making special Italian cookies that I can't type the name of because I don't know if it's a real Italian word or not, or just a dialect bastardization of another word....anyway, if you know that in French, potato chips (or crisps if you're in Britain) are called "croustilles" (and you would know that here because it's supposed to be on all of our bilingual food labels) then the word in Italian for what everyone is making next door (and over at Zia Lucia's, where we will go on Sunday for a bit) is similar to that but with more "oo" sounds... anyway, it's a deep-fried cookie dough that's gone through the pasta roller a few times, and then after deep-frying you coat the things with sugar.

Nothing says Easter like fat, flour and sugar.

My apologies for the run-on nature of many of the previous sentences. Being cold and slightly pissed off and did I mention cold? makes me keep talking without stopping. Oh, and we aren't mentioning the job thing because no, I still haven't heard anything. Let's just keep the anxiety to a minimum here though, and focus on the immediate situation.

It's warm next door at my brother-in-law's place. I could bitch about being cold here, but I only have to walk 20 meters to be warm, so I'm going to do that. I'll even take Brother's Christmas sweater...and rip out the part where I missed decreasing for the arm holes. Dopey me.

It Ends with Little Fanfare

Or at least, thus far it is ending with little fanfare. Stay tuned, because tomorrow it really ends. "It" being the last of classes. I am trying to make a lecture for tomorrow, and I have thus far been slogging for three hours, with nothing to show for it. It's supposed to be an overview, and these are the easiest lectures to make, because I'm just summarizing everything we've done. Hmph. Not so easy for me when it's organic chemistry and when I'm changing the format to lump everything under slightly different headings. I should really be working on it, but I am distracted and anxious. It's Tuesday of the week after Things Should Be Decided at the academic institution at which I applied. It's been just over a month, could we please make a decision people? My life is hanging in the balance here and I need to know if I should apply for the job at the bakery up the road.

Quite frankly, there are days that I think that kneading dough all day would be the most fantastic thing ever. No big decisions, no grant proposals, no panic. Just yummy dough.

Last week I found out that my NSERC grant was renewed, so I'm safe there. I let the people at the possible new job place know that I'd secured my funding. This may or may not make a difference. Who the hell knows. It actually should, because then I can focus on the other huge proposal that has to go in this fall for the instrumentation necessary for me to do my work (and to help out with the work of others in the department).

Really. Should I worry? I should be far more confident than I am. I already have grant money (not a lot, but enough to get started), I know how to teach well, I have been on oodles of committees, I've graduated lots of students. On paper, and when I say all this, it looks like I should be a shoe-in, right? So how come I don't feel that way?

Maybe because I interviewed like a brick. Granted, a lighter brick than usual, but still, brick. Sinking to the bottom of the river, fast.

So, in order to focus on the lecture for tomorrow (which I am clearly doing as I write the blog entry) I have decided that beer is the best aid. In the last 10 minutes, I have gulped one of these darlings, (Tankhouse Ale) and I am soon to open another. I think that will be enough, as one has to be careful to maintain the fine line between focussed and loaded. I don't have to cook supper because I went to the poultry market and picked up one of their chicken pies, which are better than any chicken pie I could make (and I make fantastic pies. That bakery idea? It's not half-baked.) and besides, cooking tonight would be a waste of an hour. Not that it matters because I can't think to save my life tonight.

In other news, I am attempting a more local diet. This means buying food as close to home as possible, within 100km if it can be done. Obviously vanilla won't be within the radius, and if you think I'm giving up vanilla you are on crack...it is the most necessary baking flavour ever extracted. Spices all around are a bit of a problem, except for those we can grow, which right now we can't especially because it's supposed to snow all weekend. Hello! Easter here! Easter Bunny would rather not hop through the snow to deliver the baskets! but whatever. I won't care, I'll be done classes and note-making. Dear Sweet Christ Upon The Cross I am so glad I will not have to do this any more.

At least, until the next time I have to do it.

I shouldn't even be thinking about hearing about the job this week anyway. Once the dept makes the decision, it has to be okay'd by the dean, and that won't happen immediately...especially if it's me and the dean says, "Why are you picking the person I didn't meet? I liked the other one better." .... and in the interest of my sanity, we will not go there.

OH! it's also the week of course evaluations, my most very favourite time. Actually, it's not so painful as first term, and we just got those evaluations a week ago. What a farce. This term we're making the students do paper evaluations rather than the online fiasco they did first term, and so the secretary types up the comments and I get them same day. So let's see, from the grab bag: "She's totally unapproachable for questions, doesn't welcome them at all." "She's so helpful and always answers every question." "Excellent prof." "I can't stand her."

The class is bonkers? No, this is typical, especially of first year. In upper-year classes I get excellent reviews because by then they realize how lucky they are to have me as their prof. That's not ego talking (see fourth paragraph. I don't suffer from egocentricity.) because it's true. Mostly, I will answer all of the questions put to me, even the stupid ones that show me you slept through the entire term. "Mostly" because there are some questions that are so insane that I get offended. Apparently when I am offended, you don't need to be told how I feel, it comes off of me in waves. Even if you are useless at reading people, even if you can't understand body language to save your life, you will understand me. Instantaneously.

So this is where I am: anxiously waiting to hear whether I am still a prof or not. Anxious about tomorrow being the last day of class, and at 5:08p.m. I still have nothing to talk about tomorrow. Thus, we shall pour another beer and see if all this shite can be brought together to a coherent whole. If not, well, what the hell. They've already evaluated me.