Working Hypotheses
Google News yesterday: “Tiger Woods Hires Swing Consultant.“
Ambiguous.
Morning at our breakfast table: A small earthquake occurs and immediately Happy Wife darts away from the table and into the bathroom.
Also ambiguous.
As many of you already know I will be parting ways with my present employer come January. Wring (sic) out the old, they say.
Thus far I have been spared the usual pushing and shoving that ensues by those who are paid to take notice of these events, your hunters of heads, talent scouts, etc. etc., when a free agent of my Letteredness reappears suddenly on the labor market. To the contrary. You can hear a pin drop in my inbox.
I have my hypotheses. In no particular order, I am old. Whereas I used to be a young beast of burden, a capable farm animal sturdy and strong in my yoke putting furrows to field, the seeds of my vitae coveted by many — come work with us! — etcetera etcetera, I am now viewed with the same sentiment afforded a rescue to be brought inside the barn. Of all my hypotheses talk of this one greatly dispirits Happy Wife. And who can blame her. But cheer up, I tell her, the real reason might be the finest pastures (e.g., where we now live) are not coincident with the homes of the cultivators (employers) who would judge me too early for the barn. Not that they’d extend themselves and offer to pay to relocate me (or Us) to greener pastures, nevermind that in that regard (at least so far) HW and I are about as flexible as an icicle. Or it may simply be anonymity — I’m not strutting my stuff enough. Or a combination of all three. Or others I’ve overlooked. Or I’m merely impatient.
I did apply to the university. A tenure track job. It really was a fantastic application despite 1) what they (the search committee) may have said about it, and 2) their final decision.
Look on the bright side, I tell myself, unemployment has afforded you the opportunity to get to know the beasts in your own green brown pasture. Why, how many people can look out their kitchen window — and I mean right outside the window (I could’ve almost touched this beast) — whilst hand washing the morning’s dishes and see this:
He was finishing up a pee just as I started recording. Lovely, right? His girlfriend (I’m assuming) is back there by the raised beds. Listen carefully and you can hear Harry’s report from the backyard once he got a snoot-full of ’em, and later, me, giving an apparently pitiful rendition of a chorus line from Bohemian Rhapsody. This bad boy wasn’t the least bit amused. That expression on his face, it’s almost as if he’s saying: “You, sir, are no Freddie Mercury.”
“Yeah, well, at least I ain’t missing an antler. So there.”