My office is so cold that I took a drive in my car during my lunch hour just so I could crank up the heat and thaw out my extremities, but then pollen attacked so I came back to campus and now here I sit trying to work without touching the surface of my desk, which feels so much like a block of ice that I wonder who decided that it's time to set me on an ice floe and push me out to sea.
And while I'm feeling old and decrepit, here comes news that a sweet little girl I used to babysit was recently named Vice President for Student Something-or-Other at my alma mater, which made me wonder when 12-year-olds started being eligible for academic Vice Presidencies until I counted up on all my fingers and toes (twice!) how many years it's been since I last saw her and I realized that apparently she's not 12 anymore, and neither, as it happens, am I, more's the pity.
But even if it were possible, I wouldn't go back to being 12 years old because the thought of struggling through all the horrors of adolescence all over again makes me want to puke--it would be almost as bad as going back to square one in my academic career and having to struggle toward tenure again, which is a good enough answer to my colleague who keeps asking why I don't go on the job market ("You've published! You're employable!") and certainly more convincing than "I would miss my birds and wildflowers."
So I guess I'll just stay where I am, regardless of the climate. Just hand me a blanket and a box of tissues and everything will be cool cool cool.
No comments:
Post a Comment