Pretty Tense

I guess I'd say things are pretty tense around our house.

You wouldn't know it to look at us. CV and I don't don't look jittery: in fact, we barely move. In fact, if you set up a time lapse camera in our house, the shot you'd get back would show us both hunched over our computers all the damn day.

And even though we both have desks, we've set up camp in the living areas. CV has the couch, with the coffee table in front of it. (Another thing about CV: he built all our furniture. Well, he built two chairs, three tables, and a bookshelf. Which is nearly all the furniture in our living room.) His books are stacked in three stacks at strategic spots around his fort on the couch.

On CV's stacks, the edges of the book line up. They are architectural columns of educational materials.

Periodically, CV lies down on the couch and takes a nap. Then he gets back up and hunches over his computer again.

I've set up camp at the kitchen table. I sit like a complete freak with my legs all twisted up like a pretzel. Around me are my wallet, a beer cap, my Ibook (ON a stand and WITH an extra keyboard parked in front, because I am that accessorised and also because I am convinced that the second I start to type in earnest on a project of significance I will be zapped with carpal tunnel so bad I will never be able to use my hands again, and I will have to learn to type with a stylus held between my teeth and it will NEVER BE FAST ENOUGH AND I WILL DIE WITHOUT EXPRESSING). There's also a PETA envelope with some really important notes on it so I have to remember not to throw it away, some doggie antibiotics, the title to my car, a few books, and a lottery ticket because THAT'S JUST HOW TENSE we feel. The kind of desparation where you're there filling your gas tank, no sweat, and then you go to pay and OH SHIT, OH MY GOD, LOTTERY TICKETS. IF I WIN THE LOTTERY THAT WOULD SO SOLVE EVERYTHING. I'm practically ready to start shopping at Wal-mart.

My stacks do not line up, and are not composed of educational materials. Frankly, my stacks are a total mess.

What are we doing at our "desk" areas? Hell if I know. We're fretting. We're obsessing. I recently installed a site meter, and I can't stop looking at it AND I DON'T KNOW WHY. Honestly, I think it's because it's easier than dealing with this HUGE pile of correspondence papers I still have to grade. And they don't stop coming! Every damn day in the mailbox the envelopes stuffed with papers. OKAY, PEOPLE, I'VE MADE CLEAR TO EVERYONE I'M HAVING A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN, HOW IS IT I STILL HAVE THESE PAPERS TO GRADE.

Thinking about all this makes me realize that THERE IS NO GOD. And what I mean is, there is no one in charge of processing all my forms. There is no power of attorney! This call is not monitored for quality control.

I guess I mean that no one is weighing all the factors and making sure everything works out. There's no giant headquarters, making sure my transition from Indentured Student Labor to Self Contained Wage Earner goes smoothly. There is no master plan at work.

And about that job search.

We're getting envelopes full of shit for me to grade, but what we aren't getting is official rejections from schools.

But we are having nervous breakdowns because we do not have work.

It's funny, because we have no less work than we knew it was possible to have. We knew that CV could easily get no interviews, especially because his diss. isn't done. We knew that he'd probably only get to teach one section in the spring. We knew that I might not get to teach at all.

And yet we'd started to hope otherwise.

Hope is a bomb with feathers.

To be fair, the reason we hoped CV would get a second section to teach -- financial bonanza! -- was that BMU assigned CV a second section to teach. With a section number, a full enrollment, and everything.

The reason we started hoping CV would get interviews is because... we hadn't heard otherwise. And CV got good reviews at a mock interview that made him suddenly realize how much he had to offer. And because the places we hadn't heard from already have all CV's materials, so there'd be no intermediate request for writing sample. And because those places were all good fits for CV's strengths. And also because we really, really wanted to move to those places, which made us raving optimists.

The reason we were hoping I would get to teach in the spring is that we weren't. We were hoping that I would be able not to teach, because I am clearly a crazy person. And crazy people maybe should not teach.

But nobody ever said a crazy person shouldn't do a Ph.D. exam. Or write a book. So I thought I had lots of options.

We abandoned all hope at roughly 5 p.m. Friday, the end of the business week. Now it's late: we haven't heard: we won't hear. To make things crummier, I was supposed to hook up with this nanny gig but THE PARENTS DID NOT CALL ME ON FRIDAY WHEN THEY SAID THEY WOULD. And even though I routinely don't call people back (or get things graded or, like, post recipes) when I say I will, I am totally convinced that these parents discovered my infamous puke-in-ear comment and deemed me unfit for caring for their progeny. Which, re-reading this paragraph, I'm seeing their point. But really, I've done nanny gigs lots of times and I like them and I am good at them and THEY PAY CASH MONEY. Which I like to have.

Because when I'm tense I need to buy many, many California-style steamed burritos. Also, I have to buy a pleated skirt: just one. (After all, it's pretty tense.) Also some Thai food. And Crazy Person Pills, which when I don't have health insurance anymore in two weeks are going to cost as much per day as a California-style steamed burrito with tofu.

Let's all now note and appreciate the irony, because I have a job. Namely, I am (still) the official grader for a correspondence course.

Which pays a generous sum per paper graded. So it's a totally good job. Which I got because I knew someone who worked in the office -- so it's even nepotism. (Actually, not really: nearly everyone in my department grades for this program, because there's a high turnover rate because the THE PROGRAM IS SO POORLY DESIGNED. And because none of us make enough money to live on through our teaching stipend.)

So I have a job. In fact, you add up how many papers I have piled up in my inbox, it's probably $300 that I'd get in February.

BUT $300 DOES NOT SEEM LIKE ENOUGH. Given the emotional labor of the job. And the fact that I already quit.

Nope, this job is officially the lightning rod of my current nervous breakdown, so it's gotta go.

Unofficially, of course, my nervous breakdown has to do with CV. I'm having sympathy-pains, sympathy job-search-pains. CV's breakdown, on the other hand, has gotten displaced onto a situation I wish I could tell you more about. Let's call it "professional."

I try to tell him that he's feeling the same kind of pain I felt last year. You lost the job you didn't have, but hoped to have. You lost part of the job you BELIEVED you had. And part of what's left, you feel like you're doing it completely wrong. So of course you feel bad.

I also try to tell him that what is going on is called "exchange of ideas," "field research," "pushing the envelope," "staking your territory," "inviting collaboration," "being rigorous," "the profession," but he's convinced that NOT ONLY HAS HE ENSURED HE'LL GET NO INTERVIEWS THIS YEAR, BUT THAT NO ONE WILL EVER WRITE HIM ANOTHER RECOMMENDATION LETTER, EVER. AND THAT HIS HARD DRIVE WILL CRASH AND I WILL DUMP HIM AND THAT HIS DOG WILL RUN AWAY.

In other words, CV has become a crazy person.

Which, as you've probably guessed, I AM ALREADY A CRAZY PERSON. But I am clearly less crazy right now than CV, so it's this weird reversal of rolls. Suddenly, these non-crazy-person tasks fall to me:

1. remembering to buy the tag for recycling.
2. doing the dishes.
3. parallel parking.

Also, I have to say out loud the crazy thing CV is thinking -- like, you think someone is calling your advisor right now, on the secret line -- so he can act like he's all annoyed because of course he would never be thinking that.

He's also losing weight.

The weird thing is, today I finally sold the damn car.