Visiting Dolphins

It looks like I'll get a chance to glimpse the dolphins after all.

"I have to go to California on Sunday," I told Friend when she returned my call just about an hour ago.

"Oh?" she asked, sounding amused. "I thought you weren't going to take the interview."

"I wasn't," I said slowly. But my contact emailed and said everything had pushed through and they wanted to see me soon. When she called and said, "Sunday?" I somehow ended up saying, "Wonderful!"

The point is that I'm very flattered that she's pushing this hard to see me. I do want to meet the people out there. I need to understand exactly what I'm turning down, I suppose, so I can agonize over this a bit more. I want to take California pictures for my blog! And tell dramatic stories about job searches and interviews! At least in theory. When it comes to actually doing this?

"I have to go to California on Sunday," I repeated to Friend, looking around at the living room that I just cleaned and glancing down the hall at piles of boxes and mounds of stuff - the sorting and packing of which had consumed most of my day. I was thinking about a garage sale this weekend! Cooking out with Friend and her roommate! I could have put pictures of that on my blog instead.

"I, um, fly out on Sunday and we interview on Monday. They wanted to have dinner and drinks the night before but that's Sunday so we're having them on Monday night instead. So I'm coming home on Tuesday."

"OK," Friend said and I started talking again.

"Maybe they'll hate me," I said, talking to fast and starting to panic. "Then they won't offer anything and I can sign the Industry offer when it finally arrives and everything will go according to plan."

"If you're going out there to make them hate you," she replied, "I'm not sleeping with your dog. That's just not worth it."

"I'm scared," I think I confided and she offered to drive out again tonight. I said that would be good, deciding to move out of my bedroom so Prettiest Cat could take up residence again. (Poor Prettiest Cat is still taking antibiotics and since Friend is here more than home, it makes sense for Prettiest Cat to be here too.) I offered to pick up dinner when she began the commute out.

Hands shaking and stomach sick, I called her back 10 minutes later. "I'm going to start drinking," I informed her. "So you can pick up dinner or stop and get me and I'll go with you. But I won't be able to drive here shortly." She asked if I couldn't wait until she arrived, fearing I'd fall asleep rapidly after slipping past tipsy, and I shook my head.

I dumped thawed strawberries into the blender with a bit of frozen lemonade. I added rum - lots of rum - and tossed in some ice before greedily spooning some into a glass and beginning to sip. Friend might come later - I hopefully will be too drunk to care much either way.

There's still time to tell me to cancel - I've not yet made travel arrangements. I don't plan to tell my parents unless I actually consider an offer. I'm Freaking Out and the rum isn't yet working well enough. So feel free to offer thoughts. And I'll whimper over the fact that I was going to write a nifty post about packing rather than whining about a fabulous job opportunity.

Crap. The dolphins better show up when I'm there and be very flipping cool.

Oceans and Dolphins

I rode the bus yesterday, enjoying the air-conditioned ride on the steamy afternoon. I was distracted from thoughts of things to do when I got home by three young women sitting in front. One of them, let’s call her Leader, was telling her seatmate about campus.

“There’s a really good Thai place about 3 blocks away,” she said confidently and I frowned – I thought that place closed. I like Thai food – why am I not going there? I lost track of the conversation about shops and restaurants as I groused over my lack of panang curry, but tuned in again when Leader looked across the aisle to Reader.

“What’s your book?” Leader asked and Reader glanced up inquisitively. Leader repeated the question and I decided the heavy accents might mean these folks were international students here for a summer program. Neat, I decided. Then I offered a quick hope that they all liked heat and humidity. Freaking South. Reader finally showed Leader the cover of her book – it was a Sweet Valley High novel – and Leader chuckled.

“High school book!” she laughed loudly and I frowned darkly at the judgment. I personally read romance novels for fun, and I take umbrage at those who think they’re somehow better than me for being entertained by more intellectual texts. I love to read and tend toward stories I enjoy. There’s nothing wrong with that! Stupid Leader shouldn’t make Reader feel ridiculed for reading something fun! Plus, if the alternative is talking to a twit like you, I decided with a glare at Leader, I’d read the manual for the bus! (I was in a bit of a mood yesterday. Er, lately. Something about the heat bugs me.)

Leader, unaware of my squinting glare, turned her attention to Seatmate, who unwisely mentioned she’d been waitlisted for the program and was very pleased to be here.

“I wasn’t waitlisted,” Leader said with a toss of her hair. “I can’t believe someone would turn down a spot though – you’re really lucky you got in.” I raised my eyebrows, shook my head and silently called her a name.

We all exited the bus at the same stop and I wandered toward my car while noticing Leader was opening the doors to her own vehicle. It’s a good thing you drive, I thought unkindly. Because otherwise you suck.

I recalled, as I settled in my car and turned the air all the way up, my own undergrad research experience. I applied to a small program in New England, I recalled. They were doing oceanic research and there was a cottage near the water where all the summer students lived together. They were provided bicycles to ride to the labs and took boats far into the Atlantic at least three times a week. There was a single Physics spot – the other dozen or so positions were filled by biology, chemistry and geology candidates from around the world – and I dreamed of getting it. I’d always been drawn to the east coast – the charm and history and shorelines – and carefully filled out my application, but wrote it off as a long shot.

The more likely choice, I thought as I piled up brochures and printed pages from larger schools with bigger summer research programs, was a public school near home. I had one in mind and considered the 40 or so openings in the engineering school and hoped hard that I would get one of them. I liked the campus – was already considering it for graduate study in some yet-to-be-determined field – and was thrilled to take a phone call with a distinguished professor who offered me an 8-week spot in his lab through the program. I’d live in the dorm near the lake, he told me, and come to his lab on the fifth floor to do work that straddled materials science and physics. He had two grad students working through the summer and was thinking of hiring an additional summer student. They had lab meetings every day at noon.

I told him I would be there and, thrilled, told anyone who would listen of my good fortune.

Then New England called. And I thought achingly of the boat and bicycles, of the house near the water with a dozen other students. Of models and collaborations with geologists and chemists to learn about magical ocean phenomena – the mysteries of the deep! Perhaps I’d even see a dolphin! The 100 or so days I could spend there dangled before me – an offer I hadn’t at all expected to get from a man I still remember as being young and passionate and wonderful via our phone and email exchanges. So I made lists and obsessed and talked to people.

That summer, I headed north rather than northeast. I moved my belongings into a dorm room near a lake rather than a house near the ocean. And I learned a great deal and met some cool people. I was likely a bit too arrogant – I still thought myself rather brilliant in college (I’ve since been cured of that.) – but my future remained filled with possibilities. And anything seemed figure-out-able given enough data. I’d chosen safety over adventure, sure, but everything worked out.

My drug company contact called on Friday. We talked casually about my future plans – I mentioned the Industry job and how I was planning to leave academic research in the near future – and, to my utter shock, she said she hoped I’d consider a job with them.

I'll briefly review my dealings with drug company (Please see the end of that post for additional detail.) for those of you who haven't been following my every word for the past year or so. Boss asked me to help with this project because a grad student was screwing it up. I had time (and had asked for something to do) so I happily learned how to handle the various tasks. Said tasks included loading data from CDs, burning data to CDs, labeling files and keeping lists of what was done and needed to be done. Then – for a super-challenge – sometimes I'd meet with a very important MD and show her files. And type in the numbers she said to a spreadsheet. Or make a presentation of the relevant findings. Then I'd deal with scheduling emails and quality checks and the like. Had I been busy, it would have been awful. But I had the time and didn't mind doing it, so life was good.

Then there was the whole thing about not getting credit for any of this work. And while I'm willing to admit it wasn't hard, I also wasn't doing it for fun. I was spending hours of my life each week fielding phone calls and questions, waiting for data to transfer, looking up odd bits of information that might someday be relevant. So I told drug company contact I wanted an authorship on the eventual paper. She said no, explained the situation, VIMD firmly said I would be granted an authorship, I refused to do more work until drug company gave me what I wanted. They finally said OK. At which point, I uncrossed my arms, stopped pouting and promptly handled the work again.

If you went back and referenced those posts, you'd see that I felt badly for making those demands. But I was angry and got aggressive and dug in my heels. They could pay me or give me an authorship, but I was not working for nothing. I was rather petulant about my requests when they were denied and used every email reply as an opportunity to remind them that any requested work that I didn't get credit for was pretty low priority. In short, I was not very nice. So I assumed they didn't like me so much.

“Wow,” I said after she explained the position and how it opened, “I’m…” Don’t say ‘surprised,’ I told myself firmly and decided on, “so flattered!”

The problem is that – were I to describe an absolutely perfect job for myself – this would be it. All the training I’ve received, all the priorities I have, everything I think is good and important about the research I do – this job would allow me to use and enjoy and deal with that work. I didn’t even see postings of jobs like this, having some idea that they were so rare and coveted that you had to know someone to get invited to interview. But now I did know someone! And rather than thinking me lame and pouty for demanding authorship and being clear about what I wanted, she admired my attitude. She liked that I answered emails promptly and was clear about timelines. She enjoyed that I understood the work at a high level but wasn’t too good for menial tasks. And – miracle of miracles – I might be able to get hired to do this.

“We reviewed your CV,” she said yesterday when we spoke again, speaking of herself and her boss – a man I think is brilliant and am thrilled has viewed my qualifications at all. “We think you’d be very happy here and we’re trying to rush HR to get you an interview before you have to sign anything for Industry. Try hard to stall them when they send you a contract. We think you’d be happier doing this work,” she confided and I had to nod in agreement. The job is this sparkling bit of perfection for me. “So just give us a chance to get things in order – we’re very interested in you. And I think you’d like California – it’s beautiful out here.”

And there’s the sticking point, I thought with a wince. I’ve told my parents I’m coming home. I’m going to live within easy driving distance. See my nieces more often. Work at a huge company so they feel relieved and secure in my future. So I feel more secure too – I want stability and room to get promoted, opportunities to learn and grow and meet people. The job I've been offered already is an amazing one – I worked for months and months to get it and am thrilled that they want me. That it was the only offer I had and therefore easy to joyously accept was bonus.

Now I’m conflicted, thinking of oceans and dolphins again. Yet as I put things into boxes and prepare to move north at the beginning of next month, I know it’ll be like that summer research program. I can’t, I think not without some degree of sadness. It’s too far away, too scary, the unknowns too numerous. And as perfectly wonderful as it sounds, I tend toward safety – where the places seem familiar and home is just a few hours away. But until I finally tell my drug company contact that courting me is rather useless – and I will do that soon, I promise – I’ll think longingly of research tailored to my interests and training, of sunny beaches and astronomically expensive homes, and maybe a stray dolphin or two.

Feedback

My belief is that people are basically good. They stopped when I had a car accident in grad school to make sure I was OK – calmly patting my arm and assuring me the dust was from the airbag and not smoke from a fire, reaching past me to engage the emergency brake when I was too weak and shaky to do it myself, lending support so I could hobble across the street on my sprained ankle. Perhaps some of our species drive while intoxicated or distracted and lose control, smashing into some innocent vehicle on its way home. But I can’t truly fathom the idea of someone choosing to turn the wheel into oncoming traffic – to engage in purposefully harmful behavior without comprehensible motivation. I don’t get it. And so I’ve always assumed I’ve done something to trigger – at least in some way – an attack.

“That smells like accident,” I said sadly as Friend and I moved slowly past a cluster of cars toward my house last night.

“It must have just happened,” she noted, peering across me at the people beginning to exit their own cars to check on the Jeep that was smashed and facing the wrong direction. “I didn’t see any other damage – perhaps she hit the guardrail and spun around? Though if she did hit the semi that was stopped up ahead, we wouldn’t be able to see the damage.” I nodded at Friend's thoughts as we picked up speed, rather pleased we were too late to have seen it and comforted by the fact that at least 5 cars had turned on their emergency lights and formed a barrier between the victim and interstate traffic.

“I’d call 911,” Friend said, “but I saw people with their cell phones out so I’m sure they’re taking care of it.” Thinking the southerners were a helpful bunch, I nodded, but never considered that the line of cars and trucks, yellow lights blinking warningly, had arranged themselves around the broken SUV to prevent someone from taking aim at the driver and running her over. Given the opportunity, people avoid doing each other harm, I thought.

But that’s not always true.

I’ve been thinking over the past couple of weeks about feedback. There’s no shortage of opportunities for people to tell students or post-docs or even faculty members that we’re not doing as well as we should. The paper isn’t written properly – I don’t see the significance. The experiment is OK, I guess, but I would have done something else. Try something else and we’ll talk again! Not funded. The hiring committee decided to go a different way. You can’t defend until you fix your dissertation. Or get three papers. No, two papers. Well, let us decide on the details and then we’ll let you know.

Given that the story of my defense could be used by grad students who get jerked around or criticized unfairly, who are presented with feedback incongruent with their perception of reality, who stare across desks at professors they liked and trusted, now wondering what had shifted and made these people so awful – I feel like I should offer something more about how I handle these situations. I choose to believe that Chris is right when he commented – I have won. I packed my diploma awarding me a Doctor of Philosophy the other day. I’ve created a rather impressive CV and published and collaborated over the past three years. I was offered a job I badly wanted and will continue to use my years of training to be quite good at said job. So I’ve collected a couple stories about my reaction to bad feedback and thought I’d share (in a rather lengthy post - brace yourselves.)

Wait.
Friend once asked if I could do a quantification of hatred post. Where drivers who go slowly in the left lane ranked next to people who wouldn’t turn left despite many opportunities. If showing your disdain for the audience by preparing a seminar so poorly that you flipped through 30 slides, saying “Well, we don’t have time for that!” was rated a 7, was starting part seventeen of your talk when you’re already 20 minutes over your allotted time an 8 or 9?

It turns out I couldn’t do it. I made a graph to help explain. We have four situations to consider – two positive and two infuriating.

Compliment on my shoes – Perhaps someone tells me I’m adorable with my flip flops and how they match my shirt. Or I’m wearing my brown flats and the woman taking my blood at the blood drive says, “Look at the pretty bows on your toes!” I like this.

“I’m proud of you.” – I had gone in to see if Boss had finished with the two papers I’d given him several weeks ago. He had not. So we chatted about how he was traveling more than normal, I told him to make sure he took care of himself and turned to leave. He called my name when I was almost to the door and I glanced over my shoulder. He told me he was proud of me and I smiled and thought that was very sweet.

Bad Talk – If I’m giving you an hour of my life, teach me something. Don’t mumble, write clear slides, act like you have some clue of what you’re talking about and respect that 100 of us came to sit through this atrocity.

Awful Drivers – Seriously, people. You’re killing me. There are rules. If we follow them, you’re far more likely to stay out of my way.

Now. If you consult this figure, you’ll notice there are three numbered areas. I therefore have three points.

1. My moods vary. The figure is probably generously conservative since I likely get in the car or walk into a seminar room between a -6 and 6 depending on what’s happened earlier. But let’s pretend I’m somewhat stable and am just slightly off center. So I establish some baseline and then the arrow indicates some event that happens as defined by the legend.
2. Uh oh. Something has thrilled or enraged me. The feeling – bad or good – is going to be intense. I’m either cooing or cursing, melting into a sweet smile or gritting my teeth.
3. OK, now I’m relaxing into whatever it is and the emotional intensity lessens. Sometimes this takes days, often it takes moments. I can, of course, retrigger the peak intensity if I think too hard about it or write about the situation on my blog. But, should no other stimulus arrive, I even out a bit. The caveat is that you’ve altered by baseline mood. I am now better or worse than I started. And this is why the next event could be handled better or worse than one that happened earlier.
   

So quantifying these things is hard. They happen, I react very strongly and then I calm down. Since I’m ever so slightly introspective, I know this about myself and try desperately to allow time before I respond. I’m either swamped with love and desperately want to please someone in return or stomping my feet in a tantrum and unlikely to do much other than spew profanity and insults at someone.

Obsess.
So let’s imagine a feedback scenario, shall we? One Sunday night, just after writing a rather innocuous post about flowers and random weekend happenings, I received a comment.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Pajamas & Papers (& Pictures!)":

Wow. You are just as lame and lifeless as when I last wasted time looking at this blog. Congrats on being almost 30 and just as psychologically stable as a 12 year old girl on crack.

Cheers.

Posted by Anonymous to Minor Revisions at 8:23 PM

You would not have noticed this comment because within my peak emotional intensity, I deleted it. (I know this contradicts the entire point I just made about waiting. But! My blog is a place primarily for me and I don’t like mean comments.) So I treated those words like a spikey weed and removed them from the page. Then I blinked back tears and rubbed at the ache in my chest and very sadly told Friend that somebody didn’t like me. She asked to see the comment and, after reading it, remarked that it was rather cruel.

This brings me to my major point about feedback, I think. It’s something that I haven’t yet learned and don’t do well at all. Because I still read that and wonder what post might have urged someone to write that out, re-read it for errors and press publish. Why, on some Sunday night on a post that should not have provoked such a reaction, would someone decide to hurt me?

Cue obsessive thoughts.

I guess I am lame – I’ve never pretended to be someone who’s fascinating and brilliant. I write on my blog most every day about mundane things that somehow caught my attention. I complain and think and giggle at things perhaps only I find amusing.

“You actually did stuff this weekend,” Friend defended me. And I nodded, still wounded, thinking that we’d gone to the botanical garden. Had burritos and ice cream. Talked and taken pictures and wandered around the very pretty day. Surrounded by life!

“And,” she continued thoughtfully, “It seems like a 12 year old on crack would be pretty intense - not lifeless. So this doesn’t even make much sense.”

“But she obviously reads – or read – enough to know how old I am. Which means it’s not a completely uneducated statement. She knows enough to form some opinion based on something I’ve written. And she wanted to hurt my feelings.” I suppose there’s enough memory of when Missy said I was mean in junior high. Or that time that Jill didn’t want to be friends with me when I was 10 that I assume vicious remarks come from females.

I don’t like to think that it was random – that it’s a person who lives far away (SiteMeter didn’t catch the visit. So I set up Stat Counter as a fail safe. I will catch you next time, mean commenter! Freaking site stats…) was just that bored and decided that in addition to reading crap she clearly doesn’t like, she’d also hurt my feelings. I’d rather think it was one of very few people I’ve actually tried to irritate in the years I’ve been online. (I’m not always controlled in that peak emotional intensity – sometimes I behave badly.) But even if that’s true, none of these incidents have been recent. That fact that I still can bug someone that much is bothersome.

And this is the problem I really wanted to address. Even if you can call bullshit on parts of it, there’s enough truth in hateful statements that can nibble at my self-esteem. Every time I hear the word ‘lame,’ some part of my brain reminds me that someone thinks I’m lame and lifeless. Enough to say ‘Wow.’ And once weakened, my sense of well-being is easily attacked by memories of other people who found me lacking – that guy who never called after we went out, the journal editors who didn’t like my papers, when Advisor wouldn’t defend me against statements that I wasn’t ready to graduate, SPB slapping me back for continuing to bug him for resources. So I get sad and some random sentence from a stranger triggers this unnecessary evaluation of what’s wrong with me.

And that’s hard. So if you do it too, I’m very sorry. I wish we didn’t have that in common.

If possible, fix it.
Sometimes criticism, even poorly delivered, is worthwhile. So you fix the figure even when Reviewer Two is a condescending asshole. I thought carefully about whether I wanted an academic job when my weakness in a particular skill emerged over and over. I decided I didn’t – screw you guys, I’m going to industry. If someone says your shoes are brown and should be black, think about it. If that’s right, grit your teeth, tell a friend you have to work with a shoe-obsessed moron and buy some black flats. Perhaps with pretty bows on them!

There are, however, times when something is just wrong. When obsession brings me to the point where I can say, “You know what? How about NO.” I reached that point with a secretary in the department over travel receipts. She couldn’t reimburse meals without receipts, she wrote. So I could find documentation or they’d remove them from the report.

No, I wrote politely. I’ve done this before and meals under $15 aren’t subject to that rule. Check your notes.

No, she replied firmly. Finance wouldn’t accept it.

No, I wrote back, jaw starting to ache from clenching my teeth. If you look on page 14 of the Finance guide, it says there’s a $30 limit for non-documented meals. So I’m actually far under.

She apologized for the confusion, saying that it wasn’t finance but the department who made the rules. And while they might accept one or two meals without receipts, five was too many.

At which point I wrote (and deleted without sending) an email filled with exasperated questions and too many Capital Letters (!) about her nonsensical rules and sense of over-importance. So I waited. I thought about how much I wanted less than $50. And I decided I wanted to win more than I wanted the money. I was willing to go the Boss and the chair of the department over this. I’d dealt with this woman before, was not impressed and was not admitting defeat. (I think I said something about seeing her in Hell first. I'm very dramatic.)

So I wrote an email telling her that I was growing frustrated with how difficult she was making a simple process. I asked her to check with the person who needed to approve this, to let me know if I should meet with said person directly, and when she decided what version of her made-up rules she was going to go with, we could talk again then. I was snippy and firm, but I wanted it to be clear that A) she was annoying and B) I was going to win.

I got email a day later that said she received approval to submit the expenses. Had the circumstances been different – was I staying put rather than packing up to move – this probably would have been a bad call. So the evaluation of when to fight and when to roll over is important. But if you’re going to battle? Win.

Finally? Friends.
Element of truth or not, annoying or heart-breaking, for those of us who take these comments hard, there must be some easing of the hurt. What has worked for me is, quite honestly, writing the blog. Putting words on a screen and letting people read them has worked beautifully in terms of processing situations and receiving sympathy and support.

In the end, I don’t know Anonymous commenter and dearly love Friend. Friend hangs out with me enough that she knows me very well – she doesn’t think I’m lame or lifeless. That lessens that power of some random icky person to cause lasting damage.

Enough of you have called foul on my defense experience that I’ve released what shame and hurt I currently can. I cling to some of it, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was.

I think – from years of reading her blog – that PsycGirl is dedicated and smart and wonderful. She cares about what she does and the people she meets. Anyone who tried to make her feel badly about her progress or talent is a moron and jackass and meanie. I’m absolutely positive about this. And I’m sorry she has to deal with such lower life forms.

I guess I mix Boss’s pride and a bad talk and the former seems more important. I think of staring at giraffes next to Friend at the zoo and compare it to some piece of ick who tried to hurt my feelings. And I think about the giraffes instead of that comment on my post about flowers. I hope that you’re reading because you find something mildly entertaining rather than moderately frustrating, but understand I have limited power in influencing how you think of me. And while I accept – for lack of a better option – that there are sometimes mean people or those who, for whatever reason, choose to create misery for others, my belief is that people are basically good. And that’s somehow enough to keep trying to do whatever it is that I do, even knowing that’s going to earn me more feedback.

To Do

1. Organize. Pack.
"Whatcha doing?" Dad calls down the hall occasionally after I disappear.

"Packing. Organizing. Throwing stuff away," I call in reply from my spot on the floor surrounded by a tub for stuff I want, box for stuff I don't (but that's still good) and trash bag for crap. It shocks me that after hours spent doing this, so very little is done. I've dealt with books (small percentage - 3 tubs and counting), clothes (perhaps most - the master closet is as done as I can accomplish without forsaking clothes completely for the next month. Nobody, including me, wants that.)

But there is a pile of tubs growing in the garage. I'm making slow progress. But I have a lot of stuff.

2. Mow.
"I could raise the deck," Dad offered loudly over the roar of the mower.

"It's fine," I said in return, continuing to shove the machine through the tall, thick grass.

"You shouldn't let it get this long," he told me, following along behind me while I wondered why he couldn't go find anything else to do.

"It's fine," I repeated, slowly clipping a path through the grass. "Thanks for trimming the edges," I called as he continued to walk with me. "It looks very nice." I saw him nod and sighed when he moved away to make sure one of the fence slats was secure.

"You're only mowing half as much as you could," he told me on my next lap. Pointing to how I don't use the full width of the mower deck, overlapping my rows pretty liberally.

"I know," I replied. "This is how I do it."

"I could raise the mower deck," he said again, reaching toward the handle.

"No," I said, clinging to control in our little land battle. "This is how I do it."

"But it's too slow," he argued.

"No," I repeated, shoving at the mower and dabbing at my face. "This is how I do it." I had just congratulated myself on my victory when the mower sputtered to a stop.

"It's out of gas," Dad said gleefully. I nodded and walked around to the garage to get the little red tank.

"He's moving the deck up," I muttered to myself as I trudged back to the gate. "I just know it."
I couldn't resist a grin when he straightened away from the final wheel and took two quick steps away when he saw me return. He tried to look innocent as I quietly filled the tank and screwed on the cap.

"I raised the deck," he finally offered.

"Never thought you wouldn't," I sighed as I stood and started the mower again. I shook my head and smiled at him while he grinned back.

3. Touch up paint.
"There are the two spots on my ceiling - water leaked or something - and they've been there forever."

"We'll get special primer," Dad decided. But before we had a chance to acquire some, we decided to fill in some of the spots that appeared after my roof was done. "The nails are coming through the drywall," he said after we maneuvered the huge ladder he found for me (it lives in the garage) to reach the tall ceiling. So instead of a chainsaw up a tree, there was a pocket knife up a ladder as he scraped at the nail heads before dabbing spackle over them.

We met at the paint counter this afternoon, each having examined a different aisle, holding different chips and deciding whether the exterior paint we'd use to touch up the door frame out back should be more yellow or tan. We finally agreed and asked the nice paint man to mix it for us. After selecting a small brush and carrying the special primer he needed, I paid and we moved toward my car to come home.

"That looks much better," I praised as I glanced up at him carefully covering the stain and smoothing the paint on my textured ceiling. "But my head is killing me. I'm going to take a quick nap." Focused on his project while I cursed my allergies, he nodded absently as I escaped down the hall.

I jumped when he woke me about two hours later. "Come see if the paint color is OK," he said, obviously ready for me to be done sleeping. I made some noise of startled exasperation and finally shuffled down the hall to say I thought it looked beautiful. "You did an excellent job," I yawned.

4. Do something fun.
"Friend sent me stuff about racing this weekend," I told him this morning. "There are drag races on Friday - apparently people just bring vehicles from home and race them." I looked dubious until I glanced over and saw him visibly brighten. "We could go do that," I concluded and he nodded happily.

He called Mom to tell her so she could be suitably jealous. He's going to take his camera. I'm pleased he'll get to do something worth telling his friends about on his return home. And I'm trained to suffer through races - I did it all the time growing up - so I'll be OK. Friend foolishly agreed to tag along, though she'll have to be at work crazy-early to actually participate in the 'let's go watch cars!' plan. We'll see how that goes.

But as far as project 'get house ready' goes, it's coming right along. And I'm rather enjoying the time with Dad - I love him a lot.

Wait! Now? Really?

My phone rang just before 9AM. I wondered, after answering, why my mom's greeting sounded vaguely apologetic.

"Your dad should be there around 3," she offered.

"But..." I trailed off and looked across my living room at Friend. "Today?"

"He left at 7," Mom reported, sounding cheerful as she focused on her life rather than mine. "I asked when he was coming back and he said, 'Like you'd care.' And he did pack a whole suitcase full of clothes. So he might not be back for days! It'll be so relaxing and wonderful," she sighed with pleasure. "He was in kind of a bad mood and he said he hadn't called you because you said he could come whenever. So he's on his way!"

"But..." I said again. "I said late this week. Or this weekend. Not '24 hours after I left!' I just got home - it's a mess and the lawn isn't mowed and Friend is here and I was going to work today! I'm not ready."

"Yeah," Mom said, not unsympathetic to my plight. "Try to pick up a little and hope for the best. Because he'll be there this afternoon!" Friend, laughing in her corner of the couch, didn't seem overly supportive either so I sighed and said that was fine.

*****

"I'll get them," Friend said later that afternoon. I convinced her that we both should drive and I should return home alone. Dad likes people about as much as I do and the addition of Friend - while lovely for me - would make him tense, I think. Then he might yell and she'd yell back and I can't handle that. Plus, he amuses her with some of his more outrageous statements and I feel badly for him when she laughs and he looks confused.

Anyway, she handed me the stack of boxes after she descended a few steps. I'd parked illegally near her building and was acquiring the boxes she obtained earlier in the day. "No more steps," she offered as I took the folded pieces of cardboard from her.

"Oh!" I cried over my shoulder when I understood. "Because I fall down! Right - now I get it!"

"Congratulations," she offered dryly and I grinned at her while we tucked packing materials in the car. I waved after she wished me luck and offered again to help (and deflect criticism) should I need it.

"I'll be fine," I assured her and headed home. I quickly swept the stray grass clippings off my driveway. I parked outside so Dad's car could go in the garage. I frantically picked trash off my floor and shrugged at the lingering clutter. I winced at the back yard, knowing I'd be firmly scolded.

*****

"That guy is some supreme being," Dad commented as we sat at the table this evening. I glanced at him inquisitively, wondering what he was talking about. He'd arrived, commented with great disappointment on the lawn and said there wasn't all that much to do to prepare the house to go on the market. He killed a mosquito when I yelped and refused to do it myself (I hate when I think a bug is dead and go to remove it and is moves!) and settled on the couch. When he said he hadn't eaten (though I specifically told him during a phone call that I didn't have food and he should stop on the way), I jumped at the chance to go fetch beer and pizza.

"What?" I finally said of his supreme being statement.

"He's like a leader of something," Dad explained. "He summoned someone."

"Oh, on Charmed?" I asked of the show I watch about the witches and warlocks. "I thought you were talking about the neighbor!"

"No, TV," he said and paused to have a bit of salad. "She married him but he's bad. Evil," he corrected himself, having clearly watched the program while I was gone. "Is she going to get pregnant?"

I nodded and swallowed my bite of pizza before explaining. "She turns evil too - just for a few episodes. They she does get pregnant - the baby's all evil too. So the the witches kill the husband and the baby... Well, remember that woman who showed up late to the wedding? I told you she was the evil psychic lady? Well, she magically takes the baby from the wife witch into her own womb, but he's too powerful and he kills her. And himself."

"Wow," Dad said and I paused for a moment before starting to giggle. So though I expected this would be stressful and hard, it's actually been rather easy and relaxed. He's currently napping on the couch while the TV is on too loudly. I've clipped back the sheflara - it was just too big to move and it'll grow back once we get settled up north. I packed two 20 gallon tubs with books (tip of the iceberg) and have started to sort clothing into piles. I fixed the blinds Sprout broke (Friend taught me when she moved and now I'm awesome at it.) and packed up all his toys (and continue to do so as I find stashes he's hidden).

I'm making progress.

And while it would have been nice to control the timing a bit more, it'll all work out. Stuff will go into boxes and get cleaned and fixed. I'll occasionally freak out that too much is changing and somehow things will get done. I don't feel ready. I suppose it's good that it doesn't seem to matter.

Diapers

I Hurt Everywhere.

There are certain aspects of life that simply work better in theory than in reality. When I picture coming home to hugs and kisses and games of peek-a-boo, it's delightful. I miss my nieces terribly sometimes and I hate that they don't know me as well as they should. Yet, upon arrival, it's somehow being awakened when Little One blows whistles in my ear before 7AM. It's temper tantrums and watching movies over and over again. It's carrying Smallest One who is just heavy enough to make my arms and back ache. It's exhausting and a little stressful and I'm generally ready to go home before it's actually time to leave.

It was time to go early this morning. I called down the steps as a temporary farewell to His Sproutness. I'm not worried about him, having been awakened at 4:30 this morning by the opening of every window in the house. When I mmphed at Dad, he said that Sprout wanted to sit in a window and since he wasn't sure which one was best, he was opening all of them. I rolled over and tried to rest for a few more minutes. So while I keep glancing around the house for the stripey cat now that I've arrived home, I know he's OK.

In more bittersweet news, it turns out that pushing a tire swing for about an hour is nowhere near as fun as swinging. My shoulders and back continue to ache from pulling the tire over my head and letting it swing toward the fence while Little One squealed with delight. Even as I sweated and my muscles twinged with pain, I continued to stand in the hot sunshine and shoved the tire to and fro. We talked about other kids in day care and what cartoons she liked. She told me about playing games at a party and how someone cried when he lost. It was lovely. But it hurt.

Likewise, I ended up building the whole flipping diaper cake (we give them as baby shower gifts) while Mom visited with the neighbor who'd arrived uninvited. She made the baby blanket to go on the platter at the base, but I rolled most of the diapers and secured them with rubber bands. Who tied the ribbons around each layer? Who secured thinner ribbon to each little toy so it could hang from the bottle the defined the top tier? Who tied bows and curled ribbon and threw away trash? Me. And it's not that I mind making diaper cakes - it's just time consuming. And when dinner preparations began, before I escaped outside with Little One, everything was too loud and busy and messy. And Mom started talking about how I'd be home all the time after I moved so I should get used to how things were and I started feeling panicked and trapped.

"Doing OK, Kate?" Brother asked on his way to the refrigerator and I stared up at him until he grinned at my expression.

"If your mother," I said deliberately, "thinks I'm coming home all the time to cook and clean and run endless errands and making freaking diaper cakes, she's out of her ever-loving mind." He glanced over his shoulder at Mom while I continued to wipe down the counters. He patted my shoulder before reaching for another beer. "You people are going to drive me to drink too," I muttered.

It's somehow rarely as good in practice - a visit home, that is - as it seems in theory. Perhaps, I comforted myself, when I live closer, they can come see me more often. Or the durations of my stays can be shorter because the drive isn't so dreadfully long.

Regardless, I've given the last kisses and cuddles and waved to Little One last night and Mom and Dad this morning. The latter will arrive relatively soon to help prepare my house to go on the market. I still don't know details of the relocation package - I'm sure I'll let you know when I get more information. I've paid bills and am excited about going paperless for my credit card statements. Chienne and I are both sleepy - I had to wake her up to walk out to the mailbox with me. But it's good to be home. And I did - despite a few snags - have a nice weekend with my family.

(Oh, and the diaper title - because that wasn't clear. Refers to how nifty I think the gift is, despite the fact that it's constructed of items designed to hold human waste at some point. There are some things you just shouldn't think about too carefully. Like visits home, apparently.)

Tire in a Tree

"That was fast," I said as Mom moved across the concrete toward where I stood holding the ladder as Dad balanced on the top step.

"It was yesterday," she said of the graduation party she'd left to attend. "I must have read the invitation wrong. She's going to go to local college and major in elementary education," Mom reported as we looked up at Dad securing a section of rope over a branch of the pine tree.

"Is she going to live at home? Don't worry - he's fine. This is the last rope," I assured her as she continued to frown up at Dad.

Mom nodded and moved across from me to hold the other side of the ladder. "She says she wants to teach at the grade school she attended. Live close to her parents after she graduates. She's not going to live in the dorms so maybe she'll never leave." I shrugged and said she was 18 - she'd figure out a path that worked for her. I was, I decided, in no position to judge the daughter of Mom's colleague as Dad's sneakers balanced some six feet off the ground trying to recreate a piece of my childhood for Little One.

"She loves to swing," Mom said this morning as we chatted over coffee on the back patio. We cuddled together on the wrought iron loveseat as it rocked gently back and forth. "I should get her a little swing to put over one of those limbs."

"Good place for a tire swing," I commented, sipping from the mug that held the logo of Dad's former employer. I raised my eyebrows when she looked confused. "I had a tire swing at the old house. In the tree by SideStreet." When she continued to squint at me quizzically, I got offended. "On the other side of the garage. In the tree. I used to play there all the time! How can you not remember?" I gave her a moment to shake her head at me before yelling inside for my father.

"Do you remember my tire swing?" I asked him as he opened the screen door and stepped outside, settling himself in a chair and balancing his cup of coffee on his knee. He nodded immediately and I looked smugly at my mother. She shrugged.

"It was in that tree I fell out of," he told her.

"Oh," she said, nodding while it was my turn to look surprised.

"You almost fell out of my tree? Was it while you were putting up my tire swing?"

"No," he said, looking thoughtful. "I was trimming some limbs and I lost my balance when I was starting the chainsaw."

"You threw it so you wouldn't fall on it," Mom remembered and Dad nodded.

"I knew I was going to fall, so I threw the chainsaw as far as I could and then fell down."

"So you didn't get hurt?" I asked, trying to remember and wondering if I was born yet at the time of this event.

"I almost broke my neck! But I didn't get cut," he concluded, taking his turn at being smug.

"Huh," I said, taking another sip of coffee. "I don't remember that, but I did love that tire swing."

"Was it flat or hanging on end?" Mom asked and I glared at her for her continued lapses memory.

"It was flat," Dad and I said together.

"We should build one for Little One!" Mom decided and I nodded slowly in agreement while Dad, knowing the project would be assigned to him, frowned and sighed. "We have all kinds of tires," Mom defended her request. "All we need is rope and those bolts and some nuts." Dad finally nodded, already gazing into the yard to evaluate limbs.

We returned from running errands this afternoon and Mom flitted off to the party she thought was today. Dad and I walked out back with Chienne and stared up into the pair of pines that reside inside the small portion of fenced yard directly behind the house. We quickly decided on a sturdy limb not too far off the ground and set off for the garages out back to select a suitable tire.

"That's too thick," I decided of one he picked up to stand on end. "Try that pile on the left."

"The rims are still in them," he replied with a shake of his head. So we both continued to glance around behind the garages at the 10 or so tires that were piled in various areas. "I think I have more in the shed," he decided and I followed behind him while shaking my head over the fact that I couldn't even estimate how many old tires we had.

"That's perfect," I decided while he told me it was the original tire from his mother's car. She died when I was very small. Which makes this tire rather old. But I began to roll it toward the fence, tugging Chienne along beside me as she explored the yard. I gathered the materials we bought earlier while Dad carried a huge, old drill from the garage. He handed me a yard stick while he drilled the first hole through both sides of the tire as it sat flat on the ground. I knelt when he was done and measured to make sure the three holes would be equally spaced. We decided on 18.5 inches between them and I watched while he drilled.

He preened when he realized he'd chosen the perfect length hardware for attaching the ropes to the tire. I handed him washers and helped screw on the nuts. He showed me how to change the drill bit for a sander and I carefully smoothed the inside edges so they wouldn't scrape Little One's legs. We both took a moment to smile at the hardware-decorated tire before moving it across the patio to the tree we selected.

He climbed up the ladder the first time and I could hear him muttering to himself as he looped the rope into a knot. Back on the ground next to me, he tugged at it until it slipped to grasp the branch tightly.

"Good job," I praised.

"It wasn't supposed to slip," he told me and I glanced up at it in time to see it slide free and drop to the ground.

"Try again!" I smiled as I said it and he sighed before climbing the ladder again. I watched him attempt the knot a second time before wrapping the rope around his waist - he told me that's how he learned to tie the knot in Boy Scouts - and memorized how the rope looped and crossed before tossing the end over the branch again and knotting it correctly. I watched when, back on the ground, he slipped the rope through the silver hole and knotted it again. Mom arrived to assist with the final one.

"So what do you do for fun when you're home?" I asked myself. Then I answered. "Oh, I stand around in a tiny circle with my parents to protect the fire while we singe the ends of nylon rope. It's really very cool." Mom giggled with me as we stood shoulder to shoulder with Dad around a tiny flame from the lighter as Dad heated the ends of the rope and pushed the threads together so it wouldn't fray.

"Oh," I breathed when we finished and stepped back to view our completed project. "It's just perfect." I held my breath when Dad sat gingerly on the tire, watching the knots and the branch for any signs of imminent slipping or snapping. It held steady as he swung back and forth a couple times before getting up.

"Get in," he told me. "It's fun."

"Oh, I can't. I'm too heavy. And old. It's for Little One."

"It'll hold you," Dad scolded. "Just try it." So I moved slowly toward the tire before turning away. I gripped two of the ropes as I sat down into the swing. I felt a little silly until my feet left the ground and the tire swung gently forward.

And then it was just perfect. The texture of the rope on my palms and fingertips, the smell of old tire and slight grittiness that remained. The smooth glide through the air while sheltered under a bough filled with needles and cones. I giggled as I rocked back and forth while Dad smiled at me before moving to put tools away and Mom called Little One to tell her of the new toy she'd see when she next visited.

I dipped my toes to touch the ground and nudged the tire into rotation, staring up into the tree as the carefully-knotted ropes wrapped around each other in a tight twist. There was a moment of stillness when I caught my breath with anticipation, remembering the exact same feeling when a tire seemed gigantic compared to my tiny body. The reverse rotation started slowly but picked up speed, turning the familiar world behind my parents' house into a blur of greens and browns, houses and garages and trees and yards. I giggled again, stretching my legs out in front of me to enjoy the spinning and blinked dizzily when the tire slowly - after going clockwise and counter, clockwise and counter - stopped twirling around.

There's something about the familiar that's appealing. Seeking places where you feel loved and safe and knowledgeable about shortcuts and shops, where you know people and backgrounds, seems natural. There are adventures away from home, of course, and I can't say I'm sorry I've sought some of them, even though my parents had to threaten me out of the car when moving into my freshman dorm. When I wept bitterly after they left me in grad school, then again in my post-doctoral city. I still pout when I return to a house filled with toys and tiny girls and parents who are more interested in filling sippy cups than hearing my stories. The fact that change in inevitable seems sad sometimes.

It's those moments - perhaps when one is twirling on the tire swing and breathless with laughter - when the familiar love and happiness seem within easy reach. Since I've been aching over the thought of leaving Friend for a new city or Sprout for here several weeks while I deal with the transition of moving or selling the house I love or having to meet everyone I see in the hall rather than just saying hello to those I've known for three years? It's somehow perfectly comforting that long-lost moments can be recreated, at least in some sense, when my feet left the ground to float through the air, and in the thought of Little One giggling and twirling her way to her own memories.

Morning at my parents' house

"I could make pigs in a blanket," Mom offered from across the room just moments ago. Dad and I wrinkled out noses at each other. "Sausages wrapped in pancake!" she explained with exasperation.

"I would rather have sausage," I held out one hand, "and pancakes." I held the opposite hand far away from the first. Then I wrapped one hand around the other and shook my head firmly.

"Why would you think of that?" Dad asked her.

"We saw them at that restaurant!" she exclaimed and I grinned at her, recognizing that I came by my passionate tendencies toward over-dramatization honestly. "The three people at the next table got them and I said they looked good and you said they looked good too!"

I grinned and glanced at Dad. He shrugged.

"I said I wanted to make them and you said I should!" Mom continued, starting to wave her hands around while I giggled.

"And then you woke up?" Dad asked.

"No!" she cried. "At the restaurant! With the three people! And the pigs in blankets!"

"Why are you getting so upset?" Dad teased her. "It's not my fault I don't remember your dreams."

"This was important to me! You never remember what's important to me! No pigs in blankets for you," she huffed and moved toward the kitchen.

"No," Dad protested, rising from his chair and following her to the stove. "I want pigs in blankets! I remember!"

But this morning started with coffee on the back patio with Mom. Yesterday, I was awakened by Little One blowing whistles in my ear. Today we're running errands and having pizza. Yesterday was exhaustedly playing with tiny girls and mowing the lawn.

When I have time, remind me that PhysioProf and I discussed doing a post or two about postdoctoral salary structure. Oh, and the phone interview I had with the CEO of a start-up on Friday. And how sad I am that the moving transition will start with Sprout staying here with his grandparents when I drive home tomorrow or Tuesday. I will miss him. And I don't deal particularly well with change.

Corrections

Without even officially starting, I've screwed up with my new job. I was supposed to get a huge set of documentation. It's available only to in-network computers and is far too large to email. So someone suggested Adam burn and mail a CD. I said that was fine or it would wait until I arrived in several weeks.

Adam replied and chided me for giving up too easily. He asked if I had an ftp site - I didn't, but do now - and reminded me that we live in 2008! Embrace the technology! I initially felt awful - profoundly disappointed in myself that I'd failed already - but I decided I was going to screw up a lot in the next few months. It's a pretty drastic change from what I've done until now. I'm bound to stumble.

So I replied that I had set up an ftp site and was pleased to know that he wasn't the type to ask me to purchase a horse and ride north for several days in order to copy the documents by hand. My strategy, therefore, is as follows: I got hired because I'm lovely to work with - I shall remain charming and witty even when I look dumb. If I pretend I'm not horrified by the mistake, then people won't hesitate to correct me (and therefore teach me) in the future. I won't make the same mistake twice (well, no more than twice, maybe) and I'll fix it as quickly as possible.

Anna and I were talking last week about how we hated being corrected. I postulated that it was the condescending manner in which criticism is handed down that often grates on people. So how is it done properly?

"This one taked a nap," Little One told me as we played Strawberry Shortcake.

"You took a nap?" my doll asked hers and she nodded.

"I took a nap too!" She hopped another doll over and said it correctly this time. I smiled at her. She knows the right way to speak, but gentle reminders seem best when words go wrong.

Likewise, when one doll stole another's spot for napping, they appeared to be growing fairly violent in their discussion. My doll hopped over and said we were playing on a bed - there were many places to nap. And hitting wasn't allowed in strawberry world. Only baking. And napping. And other things I like. It seemed to work and I was too tired to engage in a lengthy interrogation when my first inquiry over doll fights was met with a shrug.

That's not to say said method always works though.

"Have you been crying?" I asked Brother's Wife when she walked in. She nodded and proceeded to tell me about a talk show while I mostly ignored her and played Peek-a-boo with Smallest One. She thinks it's hilarious and I always giggle too.

"And it decapitated her head off," Brother's Wife concluded. I glanced away after clapping and saying 'Peek a boo!' with great feeling and blinked at her for a second.

"That's very sad," I said, "that someone was decapitated."

"Decapitated her head off," Brother's Wife repeated, shaking her head with apparent misery. I opened my mouth to say that decapitated was a head-specific sort of thing. But I decided that I didn't really want to embarrass her (but apparently I do want to point it out on my blog) because it's sweet that she was upset for these people on TV and how often is she really going to use decapitated in conversation? At least I tried.

As for whether my method is sound or not in general? Who knows. I'm obviously still getting nudged away from wrong answers too. (I did make it home safely. I'm tired and achy, but these drives home will soon be much shorter!)

Homeward Bound

"Did you get my voice mail?" I asked Mom about a week ago.

"I did," she said and I nodded before she continued to speak. "I listened to it three times just to hear your voice."

Since I'd have to go through blog archives to recall my last trip home - perhaps the March interview with Pseudo-Academic - it's definitely time to trek north with the happy dog and protesting cat to see the much-neglected parents.

The problem was the same as when I was trying to find jobs the last time. I didn't know when they'd decide. I wasn't sure how much money I'd make. I had no flipping clue what I'd do if nobody hired me. Imagining their looks of horror should I mention moving to Texas meant I couldn't even comfort them with a back-up plan.

My parents are emotional, rather dramatic people. It's lucky I haven't inherited these characteristics - being the model of cool stability that I am. Seriously though, we feed off of the ambient energy and all worry together and it creates this suffocating feeling of impending doom. So Dad would have offered to loan me money from the cash he hordes and carefully deposits in the bank. Mom would tell me I'd be fine while her eyes looked pinched and stressed. So I avoided it - sticking firmly to my 'hibernate until there's good news!' plan. Now - Thank God - there's a reason to celebrate and feel relieved and happy.

"I told Aunt you had a job offer - she says to tell you she's so proud of you - and how much the salary was. We both gasped at how high it is and Aunt asked if you took it right away. I told her you were going to ask for more money and she said that all we could do was nod and smile. Her girls are the same way - you don't think about jobs and money the way we do."

I smiled and mused that I probably should have asked for more money still since my gentle 'how flexible is that salary number?' was met with thousands of dollars. I might have been able to push a bit higher, but I'm enough of Mom's daughter to pounce for now and nudge for increases later. As for travel demands and working hours (No naps? I don't understand. Napping is awesome!) and the stress that will certainly come from a high pressure job? I think I'm ready. I have decided I'm going to be fabulously good at this and on tough days plan to think of paper rejections and grant renewals and all that stuff that just never seemed OK to me.

"When are you coming?" has been the prominent question of late. With Friend asleep down my hall - we're likely to be nearly inseparable for the remainder of my time here, which will make leaving hard (I'm already bracing for the emotional fallout - I'm going to be very, very sad about that loss, folks. Not good.) - and the car mostly packed, I believe the answer to when is 'quite soon.' I'll see if I can't come up with funny parent stories while I'm there.

Congratulations continue.

Much like the reaction I’m seeing in my comments (which is lovely and important to me, so thank you so much for offering your yays! or congratulations!), the general sentiment here at the office has been primarily relief, followed quickly by a pleasant amount of pride.

“Did you get the job?” Ken asked when I walked in. Someone asks – and has done so – at least every day. But this time, I got to say yes.

“I got the job!” I chirped happily, and he glanced up to grin while Marlie turned and asked a couple of questions. I soon wandered down the hallway and knocked on Boss’s open door before entering his cluttered domain.

“Industry made an offer,” I told him with a tentative smile. When we’d discussed options, he’d thrown his admittedly gentle support behind academic roles. I understand that – we’re trained to write grants and do science and teach and learn, not watch bottom lines and compete and sell. But instead of mild disappointment crossing his features, he closed his eyes very briefly in what looked like abject relief and smiled before reaching for my hand with both of us.

“Congratulations,” he said softly. “I’m so proud of you and think this is a wonderful opportunity.” So we talked salaries and start dates and how to finish up these last 3 papers before I bolt from campus life for good. “You’re not cutting off any future opportunities though,” he mused. “Many people go back and forth between academia and industry.” Then he proceeded to list names of people who’d done well in both settings and moved back and forth pretty freely.

“You should tell Dr. Bus,” he said of the man I see most frequently on the rides to and from work. I like him – he’s smart and kind and funny, so I nodded. “He’s been worried about all of you,” Boss elaborated. “We’re trying to place four of you here in the near future and we were all starting to put our heads together to think of contacts we had to find you all jobs.”

“Oh,” I said, thinking briefly of the three men who started right around the time I did in 2005. “Are we all struggling?”

“I think everybody’s struggling,” Boss said sadly, looking down and nudging a pile of papers with his foot. “Even grant applications are fewer than normal – I don’t know if people are giving up and getting out or what. But it’s not good right now.”

I frowned, growing concerned for my peers as I thought through the situation. I’m much more aggressive than any of them for the simple reason that I’ve had to be. These past few years haven’t been particularly easy (which you know – you read my blog. It’s not like I have to welcome you to the whining). But I’ve grown up – even Adam (which is what I think I’ve settled on for my first industry boss after calling him several things here because I didn’t really think I’d get the job) – stated that the post-doc has been very good for me. I’ve published and presented more. I’ve talked enough that I’m pretty good at it. I’ve met people and pushed hard enough to eke out a job here before my time ran out.

“How’s it going?” I asked Dan, one of my fellow job-seekers at a meeting this afternoon.

“Could be better,” he muttered. “I’m starting over again. Which means I have nothing to show for the past 3 years. Which means it’s going to be hard to convince anyone to hire me to do more of this nothing I seem to be good at.”

I nodded, made soothing noises and came back to find an email from Pseudo-Academic job. They did not pick me. I quickly filed the email, not wanting to look at it and dwell on the fact that I came thisclose to resorting to Plan 'I Don't Want To'. Had I given up when Adam didn’t return my calls, had I not pushed for the fourth time to get an interview, had I not gone and played it confident because I didn’t think I was going to get it anyway – it’s somewhat miraculous that I’m not staring at unemployment in my parents’ basement with the tiny windows at ground level. That’s terrifying, honestly, and makes me want to cling to Adam’s ankles in gratitude while I beg him not to change his mind.

Instead, I decided to ask for more money and to push my start date back a week. Not that I won’t fold like tissue paper – nary a whisper of protest in me – should he refuse, but it seemed appropriate to at least ask. I’m currently waiting to hear back from him – since this very state will likely define my life from here on out, I’m OK with it. (He called back and easily gave me $5K more than the initial offer and was fine with starting in July. I love Industry!)

In the spare moments when I stare at the items on my desk that will soon be tucked into boxes, I smile over comments that have arrived during the day. Some pop up in Gmail where I can coo over them. Other people poke their heads in the door to nod proudly or offer hugs. I’ve received calls and emails from former group members and Advisor. I even went to the bookstore to begin putting together thank you gifts for my references.

I’ll admit to ducking my head sheepishly at the number of times someone expressed how concerned they were that I was looking narrowly and running out of time. I was worried too (Very Worried, actually), though a friend of a friend was just named director of a center and offered me a spot in the southwest. (That was Plan 'I Don't Want To.' Not because I don't think highly of this person - she's really talented and fantastic - but I don't want to move farther away from home! That's not the goal!) There was just another industry position posted that sounded rather perfect for me, though not nearly as good as the job I’m going to take. Then Advisor wrote that she thought she could get me a post-doc at my graduate institution. So there were options – none of them great – that made hanging on for word from Industry and/or Pseudo-Academic semi-justifiable.

As for what comes next, I’m going home this weekend. I need to sign a contract sometime next week, after they work out some details up there. I want to go see Carrie for a few days while I still have vacation time to speak of. I’d like to get these 3 papers accepted somewhere, which means we need to finish revising. And I’m going to bask in the flexibility of sleeping late and leaving work early. And there's the pure joy that comes occasionally when I think about opportunities and challenges and a new house and being home again.

I'm happy. And it's very nice.

The Outcome

I broke the clip off my pen while talking to his secretary. I was nervous. I apparently had reason to be since the 35 minute phone call was a bit stressful. I took three pages of notes with the pretty blue ink that flowed from my pen. I stared at the fuzzy inside of an iris petal while thinking this job sounded hard. No, challenging, I reminded myself. Challenging is good!

Pick something impressive, I ordered myself when he asked for a situation that showed leadership skills. I glanced through the notes I'd written this morning, took a breath and launched into a description of project X and how some people thought it couldn't be done. How I'd found funding from multiple sources, collaborated heavily, presented the work multiple times to gain insight and was planning to hand the project over when I left. "I think that the work is more important than the credit," I said humbly.

I hung up after the VP assured me someone would be in touch after they all talked. I placed the phone back on the table and sat for a moment, willing my hands to stop shaking. I blinked a couple times, realizing I was moderately weepy and sat on the loveseat and stared at the television. Realizing I was growing more upset, I clipped the leash on the dog and headed outside to weed my front yard in the steamy afternoon heat.

The spikey weeds, thwarted in their attempts to take the back yard, have launched a frontal attack and set up camp in the flower bed. I sat down on the front walk and began to dig at them with the pokey tool. When I realized their roots weren't very long at all, I began to nudge the mulch away from the base and pulled. The spikes are present there, but not yet firm enough to sting my fingers. I soon had a decent sized pile of spikey weeds next to me on the concrete. So I went to fetch a bag from the garage to hold the awful plants. While transferring them inside the plastic, some of them poked through my gloves and into the flesh of my palm. It hurt.

I crawled toward the house a little more before tucking my legs underneath me and continued to wiggle and pull root systems from the beds that should contain flowers. I gasped with dismay when Chienne decapitated an iris with her leash. I smiled gently when I noticed the pretty flowers that bloom in the fall had started to sprout already. When Chienne began to pant, I put her inside and focused on pulling the plants that didn't belong and let my mind drift a bit.

I met my current department chair in flip flops, I recalled. He wasn't on my schedule, I assumed we were almost done as it grew late in the day and had slipped my blistered feet into pink sandals and tucked black pumps in my bag. Boss entered his secretary's office and said the chair had time to talk and I was to follow him immediately. So I went - in my gray suit and pink blouse and matching casual shoes - to chat with a very important doctor about my qualifications and how they'd love for me to work here. It was all very pleasant, if embarrassing, and I underestimated how tough this VP would be. He was clearly evaluating me before signing off on anything, and I doubted I'd been impressive enough.

Trying to be philosophical, I glanced at the progress I'd made in the flower bed, dabbed at the sweat on my face and came inside the cool house. Remembering how I'd prayed before the call started, I took a breath and tried to show a little faith that things would work out. I showered and washed my hair, I dried off and slipped on clean pajamas. Then I returned to my loveseat to sip some water.

I blinked to find email from the man who would be my boss should I get this job. He said to call him!!!! So I did, commenting on the number of exclamation points in his email and starting to feel flutters of hope. He asked about my current salary structure and any benefits I currently receive. Then he promised to call me back in 10 minutes. That was approximately 1 hour ago.

*****

Shortly after I typed that, he did call. Though he hadn't yet gathered all the details, he wanted to let me know that they wanted to offer me the position. At which point I put down the paper I had at my side and responded that, yes, I did own my home. And did not have dependents other than my pets. "The dog and cat are pretty flexible when it comes to offers," I noted.

"Wait," I said when he commented that he'd try to track down the HR man with whom I interviewed to get back to me about salary. Relocation would be included, he assured, so my house shouldn't be a problem. "Thank you," I told him when he paused to let me speak. "I'm a little surprised, I think, and I'm thrilled and thank you for thinking I can do this."

"I may be slow at responding to email and phone calls," he teased, "but I am good at recognizing quality. I'll be in touch soon."

At which point I started calling people. Mom cried. Dad sounded relieved and offered to come if I needed help getting ready to move.

Brother was suitably excited and impressed. They celebrated his recent promotion last weekend. We'll celebrate mine this weekend while I'm home, he said happily.

Carrie squealed with glee for me. "This is it!" she said. "You'll be there forever. And I can finally tell my husband to hush when he tells me how worried he is about you keeping your search so narrow. We were both a little worried about you. But now I'm happy! And you ended up near home! Congratulations!"

Steve, another collaborator I met in grad school, echoed her thoughts. "Can I tell you how relieved I am?" he asked after we did the happy congratulations. "I was getting concerned that you hadn't heard anything and were sort of running out of time. But this is great. Are you going to wait to hear from Pseudo-Academic?"

I called Anna after allowing her time to get home from work. She never lets me down with her pleasure over my accomplishments and this was no exception. After each call, I'd smile and sigh.

Friend and I met to sit outside and talk for a bit. The weather was perfect - it was almost cool by the time we headed inside. We snacked on bread and fruit. I listened to the wind rustle the thousands of leaves that hung above our blankets and realized with profound relief that those voices in my head who constantly fretted over what I was going to do come August were quiet. Somebody picked me, I thought with awed happiness. It's going to be OK. So thank you for the good wishes and crossed fingers. It looks like there's a path for me that leads away from independent research and, after we figure out some details and I talk to some other people, I'm very likely to take it. I'm very happy and tired and scared and relieved.

Phone Interview Day

There is a bit of twitchy stress, but I'm relatively (for me) calm. I typed up my responses to some predictable questions this morning and felt excited about the ideas and opportunities that go with this job.

Then I released some anger via snippy email at an admin in my department who won't reimburse $4 in meals without a receipt. Seriously. I don't care about the money that much, but I've decided that I'll see her in hell before she wins this one. She's taken money and time from me in the past and I'm done. That was my last trip and I will make her life miserable before giving her $4. Because I'm cool and mature like that. (I do not plan to mention this little glitch on my phone interview.)

While I was reviewing my notes one more time, a friend sent a note with a job announcement attached. I kind of want that job too! So I perused a website and edited a cover letter and sent along my CV. New applications always make me feel hopeful and it's been months since I've found even a glimmer of something that sounds cool. But a final interview and new application in one day?! Well, that will cushion the blow should the former be terrible! Hooray!

That's all I know for now. Stay tuned for an evening update at which time I'll report on how the phone call went. (It starts about 2 hours from now. Positive thoughts are much appreciated. Please?)

Pajamas & Papers (& Pictures!)

"Are you going to post photos on your blog?" I innocently asked Friend a moment ago.

"Don't know," she said, having just finished a phone call to her mom. "Why?" When I just blinked at her, clinging to my guilt-free expression, she smiled and said I was free to post them if I'd like.

"I'll credit you," I promised, "but some of them are so ridiculously exquisite that I have to show people!" I have this first one - with the water and the clouds and the rocks and the lotus (!!!!) as my desktop background. It's just perfect. And after Psyc Girl commented that the pictures were rather relaxing, I abandoned my lit search and watched a slide show of Friend's 150+ pictures in Preview. "It is relaxing," I sighed as the flowers appeared in bursts of colors and faded away to make room for the next image.

Unfortunately, the pretty bits of petals and greenery made my head all sick. I woke at 3, took 2 antihistamines and did lit searches until 4:30. Exhausted, I headed back to bed, only to cough and cough. So I got back up to drink some juice, finally drifting off again around 6:30.

"There were two problems with the church plan," Friend noted at the doorway to my bedroom. I opened one eye to see that it was 10:00 and rolled over to see her with her hair still ruffled from sleep. Then I nodded - neither of us woke in time. Plans to go to the zoo were similarly abandoned - not by any conscious choice, but because neither of us was peppy enough to actually get dressed. I'm still in pajamas and glasses and ponytail - all relaxed and comfy. This made napping easier this afternoon. I had been re-writing and trying to read pdfs on my screen and my brain just got tired. And though Friend showered rather than slept, she still put on a different set of soft gray sleepy clothing after she was clean.

The paper is coming along pretty well. I brought home pages of printed text, but only got through the first two before I started to edit on the screen of my laptop.

"Guess what?" I said to Friend after frowning at a table for a moment. When she looked up, I explained that my rows should be columns and columns should be rows. "When you want people to be able to compare values across groups?" I clarified, "You should put them next to each other rather than every fifth row. I made this really useless for anyone who wants to understand my results."

I began to move cells around in Excel, carefully checking values with raw data and offering a resigned nod when I realized that this was the only logical way to present my results. How did I not see this when I created the sucker in the beginning?! I tossed the document - called Katie's ugly table - to Friend. Then there was clicking and mousing across the room as she made it pretty in Illustrator for me.

"Wait," I said after a moment. "I need to put in * for significant differences!" After a bit of discussion, we decided that * would be p<0.01, ** p<0.001 and *** p<0.0001. I felt smart when we did this and beamed at her. "It's like this table is making everything really easy to follow!" Then she found me a † to represent a significant difference between two different groups (which was hard - I gave up while looking for it, but she persevered!).

So I have done considerable work clarifying tables and text, and feel like the paper is tremendously improved. I'm pleased, but tired.

As for Friend's pictures, aren't they pretty? I didn't do any cropping or anything! She's been killing my wireless all day uploading photos to Flickr, so if you can talk her into letting you see them, there are many, many more that are gorgeous. And my paper is getting better too.

Frolic through the Flowers with a Friend

"It's going to be hard for you to move," Mom said this morning as we talked on the phone. I woke at 7, but was back in bed by 9:30. I blinked at the clock in confusion at 11:30 and shuffled down the hall while I rubbed at my eyes and said I was still tired!

"Well, yes," I replied, glancing around at all this stuff I have in my pretty house. But it would be lovely to get a job. And move on to the next thing.

"You'll miss Friend," Mom said gently, sounding worried, and I nodded in response before speaking.

"I know," I said softly. "I'm hoping that she leaves at around the same time since she's starting to look for jobs too. I'll miss her very much." I dread it, quite frankly. The loss of someone who knows me so well, the easy way we have of communicating, the knowledge that someone knows the background to all my stories and can appreciate the jokes or rants or whimpers of dismay.

After we sipped coffee and both got dressed, we grabbed two bottles of water and headed off to a nearby garden. Upon arriving, we snapped a few photos and wandered down a hill toward a small pond. I bent to take a picture and gasped when my full water bottle tumbled out of my camera case and on to the bridge. "Oh, no!" I exclaimed as I reached too late and listened to it splash into the water. "I littered," I breathed, horrified, to Friend. She laughed at me and I glanced around to see if anyone saw. Then, side by side, we leaned over the edge of the bridge watched the blue bottle float with the moss atop the water.

We continued to wander around the prettiness while I resolved not to ruin any more of it. Friend took three pictures to every one I captured but it was relaxing to move slowly along the paths, glancing at signs and appreciating flowers, breathing in fragrant bushes and piney trees and climbing roses.

"You know," I mentioned as Friend dropped to the ground yet again to complain that the wind was blowing blossoms out of frame as she tried to get very close to the flower, "I tend to take pictures from farther away. Perhaps I'm more a big picture person and you're better at details." She looked at me and sighed, saying something about how it more meant that I just did more work cropping my photos before I showed them to anyone and I paused. "No," I decided after thinking for a moment, "my explanation is more profound."

"Putting that on the blog, are you?" she asked, moving toward the next photogenic plant.

"Yes," I decided, "yes, I will."

"That's pretty," she said at one point and I huffed out a sigh.

"The light is crap," I offered, squinting at the display on my camera. "This is going to be all wrong!" I walked behind her as we moved away from the view of the bench with red flowers. "That was negative," I mused as I followed her. "So, yes. It is very pretty."

Once we got closer, the bench was lovely and we lingered there for a bit. "So," I asked as we moved back up the hill, "if you brought Former Roommate, would she just enjoy or try to dig stuff up to take home?"

"She would not try to dig stuff up to take home," Friend sighed. "You can take her out in public." I nodded in reply.

"I need your water," I said as we found a different bench a little while later and sat down. "Mine," I paused to think of the right word, "unfortunately got lost." She handed me the bottle and while I greedily gulped two swallows, I choked on the third.

"You spit on me," she offered mildly after I'd coughed and coughed, losing the final mouthful of precious liquid all over the path in front of us, my jeans and my camera case. I dabbed at my eyes and coughed a bit more before glancing to see her swiping at her own pants. "Sorry," I offered hoarsely. "Having a problem here."

"Former Roommate doesn't spit on me," she teased. "And she'd know the names of these plants too. Take better pictures." I nodded and blew my nose, thinking the drinking water was very hard. We walked a bit more before deciding to call it a day.

"Now my head hurts," I offered when we were sitting in the car. "I feel a little queasy. I think we should eat something." We wove our way out of the neighborhood we'd been visiting and headed toward my house again. I sighed longingly over Qdoba. Thrilled when Friend agreed to my choice, I happily ordered a burrito and went to fetch a fork to eat the filling out of the center while Friend nibbled on a quesadilla and chips.

"It's so good," I sighed, carefully transferring rice and beans and chicken and cheese from inside the tortilla to my fork. I nodded in firm agreement when Friend said she was full.

"There's always room for ice cream," she decided and we walked across the parking lot to fetch some. She soon regretted her words as we sat outside, enjoying the mild temperature and gentle breeze and ice cream with caramel and fudge, pecans and brownies. "There's not room for this much ice cream," she decided.

Having chased down my last pecan, I proclaimed myself finished and tossed my cup in the trash. We got back in the car and headed toward home, full of food and thoughts of flowers. I'd mostly forgotten about the fact that my mom is missing me terribly and I really need to get home. The paper needing still more revisions sat untouched on my loveseat. I didn't even obsess about phone interview preparation or how I'll sell my house or if I'll find someone to love me in my next location.

Instead, I enjoyed the fact that someone loves me here. We're thinking drinks tonight. Church tomorrow morning. And perhaps elephants and giraffes tomorrow afternoon.

So. Yes. It will be very hard for me to move. And when I think about how much I adore this blog and the people who read it, I always smile when I think that it introduced me to Favorite Friend. And, of course, the blog gives me a place to put my flower pictures.