The Nanny [substitute word for "diaries" here], Part 1

I wouldn’t consider myself a “kid person.” Plenty of girls my age go gaga over anything under two feet, but I find babies to be rather ugly. It’s probably a most unmotherly confession, but I can’t help it: they’re shriveled and pink and hopelessly scrunchy. Maybe my biological clock just isn’t ticking yet. Or maybe it’s telling the wrong time.

Babies remind me of a story from my mother’s babyhood, who was—as she puts it—not the most attractive of newborns. Eager friends and family who came to pay homage to the new arrival would peep over her lacy bassinet, faces aglow, ready to spout out effervescent adjectives about this adorable child. As they leaned carefully over the side of the cradle, their smiles would freeze. The words came out, slowly, deliberately:

“It’s a… baby.”

Not precisely what every parent wants to hear.

As babies grow out of their scrunchiness, they become nonscrunchy children, or tiny configurations of normal-sized people. Starting at age twelve and continuing through my teenage years, I babysat enough children to know all the ins and outs of that group, too. And it’s not that I don’t enjoy children as a whole; my two younger siblings bring a great deal of joy and ruckus to my life. But I’m not one of those people who positively adores children, who dreams of being a teacher or pediatrician or professional kid wrangler. I don’t aspire to have a family of six and a menagerie of pet rabbits, thereby populating a small village in Africa with both livestock and people to eat them.

So it’s ironic, then, that for a few weeks in August I had a new job description: nanny.

Since I’ve been loathe to apply for “real” employment, I’ve been piecemealing jobs together to try and make ends meet. You’d think having a degree would significantly alter things, but to my wonderment I’ve somehow made a spectacular return to the kind of jobs I had in high school: restaurant work, marketing calls, and kid care. The last came about when an acquaintance of my mother mentioned that she desperately needed help—two nannies had just quit in rapid succession. This should have been a red flag, but the $350/wk was enough to tempt me, and voila: I became the nanny to her three children.

First, let me air my feelings about the word “nanny.” Could there be a more unattractive word in the English language? For the extent of my employment I desperately searched for alternatives. “Au pair” is properly French and exotic-sounding, but it’s also inaccurate—you have to be in a foreign country for it to count. “Babysitter” doesn’t have quite the same import as nanny, and it’s equally hideous to the ear. “Childcare provider” is unduly pernicious. “Governess” is archaic…I’m not Jane Eyre. “Wet nurse”? God forbid I’m suckling 12- and 14-year-olds for $350 a week.

It seemed I was stuck with nanny. Just for kicks, I looked up its neighboring influences on dictionary.com. Etymologically speaking, the word has less than dazzling relatives:

“Ninny,” n. A fool or simpleton.

“Nonny,” n. a silly fellow; a ninny.

“Nanny,” n, 1. a woman who is the custodian of children; or
               n, 2. a female goat.

This didn’t exactly bode well for my new job.

But all things considered, and disregarding the knot in my stomach every time I was introduced as “the nanny” (does Fran Drescher get royalties every time someone says that?), my nannying stint wasn’t too bad. With only three children, four pets, and five incidents of poop-on-carpet (all pet-related…I think), it could’ve been much worse.

Although there were, of course, mild inconveniences. For example, I realized the inadequacy of my choice of vehicle. Or rather, I was reminded of it daily. My dusty ’96 Corolla is missing a hubcap and has no CD player. In fact it doesn’t even have a tape deck—it’s jammed. The last nanny had a white Trans Am convertible; she’d just bought it on the day she started. She had a CD player; she had state-of-the-art speakers; she could roll her top down. I heard about the last nanny’s car so much that I began to hate her, inventing farfetched fictions as to the miserable nature of her little life. She needed the convertible as a way to fill the emptiness, a badge of approval, a popularity stamp. Her father had given it to her to make up for years of neglect; her boyfriend had given it to her because he was unfaithful; her brother, always jealous of her good looks and straight teeth, had given it to her wired with explosives and set to detonate at 10,000 miles. The last nanny would get her come-uppance in the end, and I, with my dingy green Toyota, would get the last laugh.

Beyond the psychological torture inflicted by the constant reminder of the last nanny and her cool car, there were logistical problems to contend with. The 12-year-old played double bass in the orchestra, and in his 2-SUV family, this had never been a problem. But on the first day I came to pick him up, naturally toting a full car (8-year-old, 14-year-old, 14-year-old’s 15-year-old boyfriend, and myself), the arrangement required some finesse. We rolled the back window down and set to work. Our final configuration: the bass-player, crunched into a ball on the back floor, the lovebirds elatedly squished up together in the front, and the double base luxuriating on the back seat, a good 18 inches of its neck hanging out my open window. The youngest sister sat in the back with the colossal instrument resting on top of her. When I looked in my rearview mirror, I could just see the top of her head sticking up above the black case.

My car didn’t fit in with the other cars, either. In an upscale neighborhood filled with the privileged elite, my car was old, dirty, and small. It was an embarrassment to the manicured front lawn. In school parking lots, my car was dwarfed by imposing Navigators, Blazers, and Suburbans. Never before have I seen so many large and shiny black cars. These were the soccer moms, and these were their vehicles of choice. I was a fish out of water, and a poor fish at that.

But my car did suffice for one thing: Petsmart runs. The first day we went to Petsmart, we were on a mission: buy cat litter and a new collar. But the children were much more enamored with the variety of pets on display—they looked at hamsters, mice, gerbils, lizards, guinea pigs, and rats. A brief trip turned into a festival, and two hours later, we finally emerged from Petsmart into the stifling afternoon sun.

The next day, we were back. The children had begged me, and since I had nothing else in mind, I relented. This trip was characterized by more fervent admiration of the rodents and slyly concocted plans to somehow sneak one into the house behind their rodent-detesting mother’s back. As any good nanny would do, I squelched the mutiny. But they continued to run around the store, poking and pointing and begging annoyed Petsmart employees to open up cages so they could pet the inhabitants.

By our third trip, I was bored of Petsmart. The people were starting to recognize us. I felt like we should be paying admission, like this was some kind of amusement park and we were cheating the system by getting in free. The children, however, were anything but bored. They were still delighted by the same animals we’d now spent hours with. I brought a book and plopped myself down in an aisle to read. An employee stopped in front of me.

“Are you okay?” she asked suspiciously.

“Just tired,” I said. “I’m nannying.”

She left me alone.

That’s when I saw it. It was sitting on the middle shelf, regal and beautiful, proud and unashamed. It was the thing that made all the nannying worthwhile, the very reason, perhaps, that fate had brought me here. It was my destiny. A thing of inspiration, of brilliance, of sheer artistic beauty; it stood and beckoned. There it was, my own holy grail: Pee Post TM.

you can be trained to be a business at no extra cost

Over the summer I received an email addressed like so:

Dear Bree:

As a former university professor, it gives me special pleasure to congratulate you on graduating as a member of Phi Beta Kappa from Amherst College. Your outstanding academic record at one of the nation’s top universities distinguishes you in ways that are of considerable interest to us.

This is typically the point where I stop reading. And it’s not just my short attention span regarding long paragraphs. For one thing, it’s obviously a form letter, probably sent out to every new Phi Beta Kappa member who, imagining all sorts of illustrious opportunities reserved for card-carrying PBK members, eagerly forked over their email address.

The “considerable interest to us” is mildly alarming too, partly because it’s shrouded in corporatespeak, but mostly because “us” is simply one of those scary totalitarian words. I can’t think of many situations in which “us” is innocuous. There’s the mafia us: “We’d like you to come with us—just for a talk;” the interrogation us: “Why don’t you tell us what you were doing the night of the 26th?”; and then, of course, the parental us: “Your behavior really concerns us. We’ve put a call in to Dr. Schliderschluck.” “Us” exploits the power of the We: strength in numbers, the hegemony of a cohesive unit. And Orwellian images spring unbidden to mind.

However, the mysterious email sender did get my alma mater right, which deserved some street cred. And my name was spelled correctly, which might not seem impressive until one considers the amazing assortment of misspellings I’ve borne personal witness to over the years, everything from “Brie” to “Bry” to the inexplicable “Bra.” No, my name was not inspired by my mother’s affinity for her Hanes® TAGLESS® All-Over Comfort Wirefree Wonderbra, thank you very much.

I was also struck by the articulate phrasing of the email that appeared so magically in my inbox. With its excellent word choice and elegant grammar, it stood out from other unsolicited emails boasting titles like “SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT: yeah so I am sexy Russian girl” and “you can be trained to be a police at no extra cost.” Can I be trained to be a police? I’m not usually one to demand the presence of a “man,” but this might be an exception. What if I want to be trained to be a fire instead? A fore? A handy? Where will it stop?

The email continued:

By way of background, the D. E. Shaw group is a global investment and technology development firm with an international reputation for financial innovation, technological leadership, and an extraordinarily distinguished staff. Today, the D. E. Shaw group encompasses a number of closely related entities with approximately 1100 employees and $35 billion in aggregate capital.

Here is where my English and European Studies degree begins to fail me. My last glance at anything-econ was on the AP Macro Exam in high school. I can fairly say that “global investment and technology development firm” is a semantically empty concept in my world. I understand the individual words of course, but strung together they are senseless. The phrase evokes vague phantasms of some tall building in New York with shiny black marble floors and a glut of business suits wearing the faceless people inside them. What does one do in a global investment and technology development firm? Besides innovate financially, lead technologically, and distinguish oneself extraordinarily?

But here’s the part that really caught my eye:

While we would certainly welcome applications from individuals with a background or interest in mathematics, computer science, or economics, we are equally interested in speaking with brilliant liberal arts graduates, regardless of major, who are open to the possibility of a career they may never have previously considered.

So there it was. The D. E. Shaw group was looking to hire beyond their usual target areas. It’s like they were speaking to me personally, me with my messy tangle of liberal arts interests and degrees. The venerable D. E. Shaw thought I was one of the brilliant liberal arts graduates of whom he spoke! The mystique was intoxicating; the flattery worked. As anyone will agree, it feels good to be pursued… even by way of a form letter.

I stayed up all night tweaking my resume and crafting what I hoped was a brilliant cover letter (the time stamp on my outgoing email reads 4:53 am, so “brilliant” probably isn’t the best word for it). Excitedly, I waited.

Two days later, I received a response. It was no longer from D. E. Shaw’s personal email but from some fellow named Strategic Growth (RD). It was addressed “Dear Candidate.” I had already regressed from “Bree” to “Candidate.” Damn.

This particular email thanked me for submitting my resume and politely requested additional details. Attached was an information sheet asking for all sorts of things: awards/accomplishments, prior public speaking experience, GRE scores, SAT scores, and other information that Mr. Growth (RD) deemed “a bit unorthodox.”

But even more unorthodox was the request for

a short expository writing sample, ideally 5 to 10 pages in length. The sample should be entirely your own work, unedited by anyone else. However, you should feel free to edit, correct and otherwise improve the piece yourself. We would like to see writing that you are particularly proud of, and not necessarily a sample of an average day’s work.

For the next five days, I launched into an extensive search and recovery effort. I opened up all the files on my computer from the last three years, sifting through a plethora of papers to find a piece of expository writing I was particularly proud of. After that I went even farther back, digging out the hard drive to my old laptop and going through those files. I searched through hard copies, too, opening up folder after folder and thumbing through notebooks full of essays. This proved particularly challenging due to my general paperwork strategy for college classes: for the first few weeks of each semester I would keep everything in scrupulous order, but soon I’d start stuffing papers into all sorts of places they didn’t belong, cramming them into notebooks until the corners practically vomited paper phlegm. Organizational prowess is not my strong suit.

My hunt unearthed papers on all sorts of things: literature, cultural theory, symbolism, and even one particularly choice paper entitled “Phallacious Freud.” Over my years at Amherst I strayed from traditional papers and took strange diversions into creative subject matter, writing pieces that questioned my own concept of self. The essays became weird, probing examinations of identity, and all the intellectual crises of my undergraduate career came to light in those bent and folded pages. This odd collection of papers formed the bizarre backbone of a very personal journey through theory and self and the sheer terror of the unknown.

In short, not a bit of it was expository. There was nothing I could send.

I still haven’t replied to either D. E. Shaw or Strategic Growth (RD). The information sheet is still sitting partially completed in My Documents. When I first received the email, it seemed the perfect opportunity to try my hand at a “real job,” a career that might actually promise some sort of financial security. So it’s not what I’m interested in, I said to myself. Might as well try it out for six months or a year.

But the problem is, I can’t do that. A global investment and technology development firm just doesn’t excite me, no matter how you look at it; stats like “$35 billion in aggregate capital” don’t get my adrenaline pumping. It’s simply not what I want to do, even for six months or eighteen months or some other arbitrarily set time limit. Maybe this is the point in life when you’re supposed to start making sacrifices, but I don’t think I can do it. I’m just not sure I have it in me.

The email’s still in my inbox. Sometimes I look at it and I wonder. How would my life be different if the D. E. Shaw Group was everything I wanted? If the concept of “us” delighted me? If I’d played sports in college? If I’d majored in mathematics? What would life be like if my shelves were filled with expository writing samples where each word followed a clearly delineated path to the very end?

I guess it wouldn’t be my life.

Zeus Strikes the Penurious

Sometimes in this languid life, the gods speak to me. It’s usually in the little things: the crisp brush of wind against my cheek, a glorious storm, the gentle braying of a sheep. Often the messages are so small, so minute, that I hardly recognize them as they shimmer by, little wisps of ephemeral missives that vanish like bubbles when poked. But on beauteous and rare occasions, the voice is so vividly clear that I cannot help but be still, and listen, and know.

Like when a bird shat on my face.

When I say a bird shat on my face, I am not lisping in hypertext. A bird did not sit on my face. A bird shit on my face. To clear up any lingering uncertainty, let me be blunt: from the rectum of a small and impertinent bird came excrement onto my upturned, unsuspecting upper lip.

If it weren’t for the particular course of events leading up to the incident, I wouldn’t attribute this to divine intervention. After all, millions of people get shit on every day, literally and figuratively. In all likelihood, the gods or God or “the higher power” (if you’re in AA) have very little to do with it. But my bird-shit-on-face experience came with a particularly poignant moral lesson attached. It was no coincidence, no arbitrary cosmic occurrence, and certainly no gentle nudging from the big guy above. There was nothing subtle about it; the whole method was very (pardon the pun) in-your-face. It was a blatant wake-up call, a more environmentally conscious and cost-effective alternative to a burning bush.

We’ve all heard that God will “smite the faithless” and “burn the wicked” and so on. There’s a whole assortment of action-packed mandates for all those poor, unfortunately-adjectived souls. Well here’s one you may not have heard: God will birdshit the penurious.

I was walking out of the Boston bus station with a slice of sizzling pizza in hand, suitcase trailing behind me. What a lovely day, I thought, enjoying the warm sea breeze on my skin. Sauntering into a seductive sliver of sunshine, I nestled myself on a park bench to munch my vegetarian delight in pleasant solitude.

No sooner had I sat down than a couple approached me. They were young—not much older than I—and the man was semi-supporting the woman’s weight. She looked unwell and distracted, her disheveled hair pulled back into an oily ponytail. They were both dressed in ill-fitting flanell shirts. He held her hand tightly, and she gripped his to the bone.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, stopping in front of me. “I’m trying to get my girlfriend home to Springfield on a bus. Do you have $4.80 you could spare us?”

For a moment I experienced a dichotomous tug in my chest. $4.80 wasn’t that much—I had a few bucks, right? She really did look sick, and he seemed so earnest…

But then I remembered the last time I’d given money to someone who asked for it. A woman had begged me for a few dollars to buy food, and after I’d emptied my pockets, I continued across the street for a bowl of soup. From the restaurant’s window I watched as the woman walked directly into a liquor store and emerged with a brown paper bag in hand. I nearly choked on my clam chowder. At that moment, I swore I would never give money to a beggar again.

That was it: I was going to stick to my guns. I would say no. I swallowed my heart and looked the man straight in the eye.

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to master a chilly nonchalance in my voice. “I’d like to help you, but a woman cheated me a few years ago and I promised myself I wouldn’t give money to anyone again.”

As I was pronouncing my edict, I had the most curious sensation. It wasn’t that I felt free, or even that I was consumed by guilt. Rather, the sensation was physical: it was warm and wet.

The expression on the man’s face was undergoing a strange transformation, too. Before he had looked beseeching; now he looked mildly horrified. I felt a pang of regret. I must have truly offended him. So much so that he and his girlfriend were slowly backing away, continuing to gape at me as if I were some kind of cruel and merciless Medusa.

Strange, I thought to myself. I feel like part of my pizza is on my face.

I reached up to try and wipe away what I thought was a wayward piece of cheese or tomato on my upper lip. But upon examining my fingers, they came back covered in sabulous green gloop. What’s green on my pizza? I mused. I didn’t order pesto.

And then I knew.

A bird had just shit on my face. The couple had seen the bird shit on my face. They knew before I knew that a bird had shit on my face. Most of the shit was still sitting on my face, resting contentedly on my upper lip. I had no napkin. How mortifying.

My appetite vanished quite suddenly. I smeared the rest of the mess from my face onto the top of the pizza box and chucked the whole ensemble into the nearest trashcan. I tried to think about not throwing up.

I am a stingy and parsimonious bitch, I realized with sudden immediacy. And I am being punished for it.

The point is, whoever’s up there is getting creative. Zeus utilized thunderbolts, the Egyptian god Set forfeited a testicle to begat the desert, and the God of the Old Testament sent locusts, boils, and bloody water. Today’s god squad is following suit. Instead of opting for anything complex or technologically advanced, modern deities are electing to return to the good ol’ days of animals, body parts, and pestilence. The current emphasis is on heavensent humiliation using standard household ingredients. It’s even organic!

Next time someone asks for money, I think I’ll give it. Nothing like a little birdshit to bring generosity back with a splat.

The Temp Agency: Tales of a Business Suit Deflowered

I only own one business suit. It’s a difficult thing to admit; at twenty-three, my wardrobe should be brimming with executive pinstripes and tailored attire. Instead, my dresser drawers reveal a host of screen tees, low-rise jeans and cotton hoodies, not to mention the matching sweatpants/sweatshirt section that’s eerily reminiscent of a JLo music video gone horribly wrong. My closet reeks of “card me, I’m underage.” Or worse: “I can’t even buy porn and cigarettes.”

So when I first decided to go into the temp agency, it’s not like I spent an hour in front of the mirror trying on outfits. Upon peering into my closet, I quickly realized my personal clothing collection is divided neatly into two parts: business suit, and everything else. For that professional touch, fuzzy pink where’s-the-bling combos don’t quite cut it.

Enter business suit Exhibit One (and only one): trim, black, lightly pinstriped, and very dashing. The white blouse needed ironing and the skirt was a little long—the story of my short-legged life—but regardless, the ensemble was oozing with polished appeal. In it I became cool, confident, and uncomfortably corporate. Gone was my quirky and bohemian self; in her place a soulless sycophant, slithering in serious silk.

Don’t worry, I told myself. It’s only temporary.

On my first trip to the agency, I arrived precisely at 4:58 pm. The office was closed.

As any cubicled member of society knows, the concept of “9-5” is somewhat fluid. The 9 and the 5 are only loose parameters, ultimately mutable in either direction. The 9 may be 9, but 9 may just as well be 8 or 10:30. As for the 5, there’s no way to know for sure. On dreadful days, 5 isn’t 5 at all, but rather 6, or 7, or so on until all possibilities of catching happy hour are totally extinguished. But on good days, 5 pm can be averted by preemptive measures and rearranged for the greater good, now occurring somewhere in the 4:40 to 4:59 block. This typically results in blissful triumph for those inside the office, and embittered frustration for those who aren’t.

After sitting in a hot and sticky car for a thirty minute commute, I was part of the second group. Despite the teasing fluorescent glow leaking out from the windows, the office for temporary employment was decidedly closed a full two minutes early. Resume still clutched in hand, I huffed across the parking lot, threw myself behind the wheel, and spent another half hour edging my way along a highway full of other 9-5ers who, most fortuitously, had also left the office at 4:58 pm.

The following day I decided to make a second attempt. Again I donned my business suit, slightly crumpled from yesterday’s wear but still screaming “hire me! I’m a young professional!” This time I made it inside.

Bathed in blinding white lights, the office was sterilely spacious. Everything appeared in shades of black and white, the carpet an emphatic dull gray. I was greeted by a woman in a business suit strikingly similar to mine. She smiled wanly and handed me a formidable stack of paperwork.

“If you’ll just fill these out,” she said, directing me to a table on the far wall. A whole stack of sorrowful Bic pens taunted me from the corner; I went through two before I found one with ink.

For forty-five minutes I sat filling out papers. Green papers, pink papers, papers on residency, employment history, sexual harassment, references, computer competency, former felonies, wpm…after a while I was signing papers about the other papers I had just signed. The whole experience was becoming very meta, and by the time I was done, I was sweating underneath my jacket.

“Here you go,” I said, handing the papers to the woman. I noticed she had shocking red lipstick on, possibly the only non-monochrome hue in the room.

“Great,” she replied, looking up from her desk. “Now what’s your experience with Data Entry?”

I froze. Data Entry? What was Data Entry? Surely this was some complex, technical term. What was my experience with Data Entry? It must require some knowledge of a certain program, a highly developed skill. In short, I was screwed. Nervously I wracked my brain for something, anything that might reflect my extensive experience with Data Entry.

Focus on the positive, I thought. Focus on what you have done. “I’ve done a lot of writing for websites…” I swallowed the end of the sentence. Clearly, my confusion showed. The woman looked at me strangely. Only later did I realize that, much to my chagrin, the mysterious and arcane Data Entry was merely data entry, also known as the entering of data. Sometimes I despise my propensity for over-analysis.

After a long and sustained pause filled primarily with my discomfort, the woman thought it best to move on. Out of the Data Entry disaster, onto more pressing concerns. “We just need a copy of your driver’s license and social security card,” she said reassuringly.

Now, in today’s age of pilfered identities and Citibank’s worrisome (yet amusing) commercials, I don’t typically go around with my social security card in my wallet. Not to mention the fact that it’s practically disintegrated. (For some reason the card itself explicitly precludes the one course of action that might prevent this: lamination.) Was I carrying my well-worn social security card on me on the day in question? Of course not. You can see where this is going.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig. Except this little piggy did not say “weeeeeeee” all the way home. This little piggy was thinking of a somewhat different verbal response, one that might make Mother Goose roll over in the Granary Burying Ground in which she rests.

Temp agency, round 3: I arrive in business suit which now clings damply to my body. I have social security card in hand. I give to woman. Woman is all grateful smiles.

“Thank you so much for coming back in today—I know it’s a trip.”

Lady, I think to myself. If I came back another day you’d realize I have only one suit.

“We’ve got all your info on file, so we’ll call you when we have an open position, okay?”

She still hasn’t called. Maybe it was my inability to accurately deconstruct the conceptually complicated “data entry.” Who knows? Whatever the case, my business suit is back on its hanger, dejected, deflowered, depressed.

Corporate America, I’ve evaded you for at least a little while yet.

B.A. or B.S.?

There’s a conversation that’s becoming uncomfortably common in my daily interactions, and it usually starts something like this:

“So, whatcha studyin’?” Picture a well-meaning resident of a small Texan town with southern twang in full swing—context is key.

“Oh, I just graduated,” I say, waiting for the inevitable next question.

“Where from?” They’re no doubt expecting one of three answers: Texas A&M, UT, or maybe, just maybe, Texas Tech. The thought that universities and colleges might exist beyond the state border is a non-thought for most Texans; to cross the Mason-Dixon Line itself is sheer treachery.

“Amherst,” I respond, careful not to pronounce the “h,” ever the mark of the plebeian. Oh, the shame of those early Amherst days when, in my humble ignorance, I dropped so many audible h’s I was at risk of hyperventilating.

“Uh huh,” is the ineluctable response, which means they have no idea where Amherst is or even what it is—maybe a nursing school in the panhandle? Undaunted, they shift subjects slightly.

“Well what’s your degree?”

Here’s where it gets tricky. There is always a small temptation to invent something truly outrageous, something that might elicit “oohs” and “ahhs” and a pat on the back for my solid career choices. I relish the thought of sighing a casual “engineering” or tossing out a glib “computer science.” Even simply “economics” would suffice, sure to evoke pleasing mental images of the well-trod road to my successful business future. But I’m not much of a liar, and as is usually the case, the truth prevails.

“I double majored,” I say, with a strange blend of pride and sheepishness. “English and European Studies.”

To this there is either no response, at least not a verbal one—it’s something akin to an embarrassed expulsion of air and a way of shaking the head without visibly moving the head—or there is a brief statement, always a variation on the same theme. It should be a question, really, but it’s always pronounced with the utmost definitiveness, a terrifying certainty that brings shivers to my spine.

“So you want to teach.”

No, actually. I don’t.

The problem is, I can’t really blame these well-meaning conversationalists for jumping to conclusions. My academic choices put me on a track headed straight for the gilded doors of academia. But suddenly, I’m not sure I want to be there, and I can’t remember when the course of events began that led me here. I never wanted to teach; on the contrary, I swore I’d never do it. Yet somehow, my academic interests were such that, over my time as an undergrad, my future began to echo in the present, carving itself in the very language of academia. The GRE, grad school, MAs, PhDs, the long struggle for tenure—all seemed the natural components of my expected future. And it’s a future I don’t think I want.

For now, I harbor no ill-will towards my lovely little liberal arts college. On the contrary: I miss it like hell. But I’m wondering, what do I do with my B.A.? my indecipherable Latin honors on an elegant roll of terribly un-pc sheepskin? my troubling questions about life, literature, and those damned French theorists? What does all this get me in life? And where do I go from here?

Answer: temp agency. See next blog.

Sigh. Sometimes I wish I was an ibanker.