is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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a-NO-nymity
One thing I've found in my years in Amherst and then Quaker Bubble, is that it is impossible to be anonymous in a small town and on a small college campus. This was new (and news) to me because I have always been urban, and I've always attended large public schools. I had never reflected on the fact of how urban I am until I felt so very isolated living in a place (Amherst) where the closest airport is 1.5 hours away by car, and in another state. Here in Quaker Bubble the airport is much closer and I can get there on public transit (o! glory of glories), plus Philly and NYC are reachable by easy-access train, but the Bubble itself is small. Yesterday at the post office, as I was posting my latest eBay sales and crop of job applications, the post office clerk said to me, when stamping my envelope addressed to somewhere in Missouri, "wow, there's a place you won't mind if they don't give you the job!" Then the conversation switched to how my amateur eBay sales are going. And when I go to the Campus mail room to pick up boxes that arrive for me, they always comment on what I've ordered now and how they know I'll always keep coming back to them and all that. All this no-anonymity is news and new to me because at a huge public university like Berkeley and in a city like San Francisco one simply cannot avoid one's own anonymity. Especially at the U of CA, if you need the bureaucratic room-full-of-monkeys-with-a-switchboard to do something for you, you better be ready to do some explaining, some waiting, and possibly even some vain pleading followed by tearful begging. NO ONE knows who you are. NO ONE cares. Your identity is an 8-digit number.
Of course it is not always like that, at the U of CA. Every bureaucracy is lined with human faces, and some of them are kind and helpful and don't mind doing their jobs. But, as we all know, it is very easy to pass the buck in a large system. And "rules" and "procedures" don't always help things move along. Sometimes even the will to help does not help an employee of a bureaucracy help you.
So that's a nice thing about smaller places. People know who you are. When they handle your package (IYKWIM), it isn't just some box, it�s YOUR box. (Heh.) And when there's a misunderstanding about sending a driver to pick up your distinguished visitor, then someone in particular feels really bad about it, rather than feeling like it has nothing to do with that someone's life. In a small community you get to deal with real people, one on one. That's how things work.
Of course, given how large the world we live in is, and how most of us end up being urban, most of us don't have the luxury of dealing one-on-one with people in all aspects of our lives. That's just how things work. And it can be nice to be anonymous sometimes. You can walk the streets of a city and think your own thoughts, and do your own doings, and no one is going to make you talk about why you're mailing job applications to Missouri and South Dakota and Pennsylvania and Berkeley, and on and on, and no one is going to feel like they've got your number if they notice where your mail packages are arriving from. No one cares. Sometimes it is very freeing, other times it is utterly alienating, that no one cares. Neither way of life, the large nor the small, is without its flaws and its advantages.
(The other day I had my students fill out an anonymous form evaluating how class is going so far, and when I returned to class at our next meeting and discussed the results (they're all happy, and there is no big disagreement about how class time should be run), after one of the comments I mentioned, a student said, "oh, that was me." Sometimes people don't even desire anonymity, ha.)
And, if you're relatively alone somewhere, it's nice when there's a limit to anonymity. I hosted two friends on campus today, courtesy of our Distinguished Visitors fund--they both gave excellent talks, answered questions, made us think. It was good to have friends around. And today while I was ushering my guests around, one of my mailmen drove by in a truck and waved to me.
Tonight, after the day of ushering around, and hosting speaking engagements, and wining and dining, Gayle said something like, "That was such a great day! I mean, I had to work and everything, but I kept thinking, this is just like one of Jill's big parties in San Francisco--it all ran smoothly and no one had to worry about anything!" That made me feel like a superhero. I mean, who wouldn't want to have the power to make work feel like a big fun party?
However, the same is true of today as is true of any party: the person throwing it can provide a setting, refreshments, mood, and an array of participants. But it's the participants who make the party. It was a good day, and Gayle and Diane are so very smart and engaging, and my colleagues here are wonderful and interesting, and my students are angels. And now I am very excited about SLEEPING.
1:17 a.m. - October 12, 2006
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