is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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It�s funny.
It�s funny� I was walking around campus today feeling more rather than less annoyed by how the speeches at the farewell party were handled, when I came home, checked my diary, and found the comments about me being snarky. And of course I was being snarky. I knew that. But in retrospect I also see how amazingly ungrateful I sounded in my description of the party. So it strikes me as funny how often communication can fail. None of what I wrote seemed terribly ungrateful at the time, but that�s because I knew the whole story, of how I�d had to work so hard to remain composed during the party given what was said, etc. So me making a comment about not being excited about Godiva seemed just fine, in the balance of things. But of course I didn�t tell the whole story. And I still won�t, but now I�ll reveal more about what was said, because it�s pretty funny as a study in human communication.
So. A person is throwing the party, and it comes time to acknowledge the three persons for whom the farewell party has been arranged. Person #1 gets a fine speech, which he well deserved. Person #2 got a heartfelt speech, also well deserved. And then there�s me. The speaker, having just finished heartfelt speech about Person #2, turns to me and adds, very very briefly, �and Jill�s going off to have sex in the city.� That�s all. No: Jill has done us proud by teaching great courses for two years and throwing a successful symposium and being a good colleague, and then getting a tenure track job in New York City. Just: Jill�s going off to have sex in the city. So everyone looks at me, and what else can I do but remain composed and say, �one hopes.� Laughter ensues.
I mean, many of the people in the room couldn�t have known that I got a tenure-track job in New York City, which would render the strange reference to Sex and the City even more bizarre. Are they now thinking that I didn�t get a job, and am off to be a prostitute who sells her body instead of her soul? Who knows. So there I am, at the party, looking like a fish out of water in my really nice dress, off to have sex in the city, because what else would a tomato like me be doing?
At the time I just sighed to myself about how my life is surely unimaginable to the person who gave the speech (just as hers is pretty much unimaginable to me, and by unimaginable I mean only: I can�t imagine what it�s like). However� my point is: even if I do strike this person as someone who should be in an episode of Sex and the City, why is that the thing to say about me in an official gathering of colleagues?
It gets better. A few minutes later, when she handed me my champagne and chocolate, she said, �you can save the rotgut for the human pyramids� �which could only be a reference to my love of bourbon and my fabulous 40th birthday party (east coast version... there was also a west coast version) one year ago. Basil Hayden is not rutgut, btw.
Sigh #2.
For some reason since then, rather than letting it roll off, I�ve become more annoyed by the whole scene. It was so unforgivably inappropriate, and yet she seemed to be intimating that there�s something about me that is inappropriate or way out there. And she�s wrong.
But she�s not the only one who might think such a thing in such a setting, I know. And most of the time I have no problem at all inhabiting the space of the �unimaginable.� I can rock it, as they say. But it never occurred to me that someone would find only that to say about me when it comes to speaking about me professionally. Because when it comes to my work, I am not to be trifled with. That is my declaration (accompanied by thrown-gauntlet-sound).
So, there you have it. Sorry to sound like an ingrate. It�s clear to me now that I never would have said anything snarky about Godiva chocolates if I hadn�t been feeling bad and annoyed by what happened at the �party.�
But now I�m off to another party full of colleagues, and this one will be fun, I feel certain. It�s a cocktail party, at a friend�s house, and that friend is a great cook and a great host.
And I am wearing a damn hot outfit.
5:32 p.m. - May 18, 2007
MatthewB - 2007-05-18 23:29:13
A damn hot outfit, indeed. And objectively -- irrespective of snark -- Godiva chocolates are pretty crummy.
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Miranda Hobbes - 2007-05-19 09:28:19
This is so interesting. I honestly can�t tell whether you were actually flattered by how apt the comment was and you are now playing up the Carrie Bradshaw thing or if you truly had no will to the truth or consciousness of the potential effect your very public persona as cyber Diva might have on your professional life.
I agree that it was a mean-spirited thing to have said at the goodbye fellows party. But how could you not have seen it coming? Your College colleagues have no doubt been reading your blog (and your friend�s blogs about fashion, the single-life, and their parties and musical tastes) since you appeared. Why should they like what you wrote in this blog (sorry, diary) about their hallway/elevator parties, bad job presentations, exposing a la Carrie Bradshaw, the social life of an academic who seems to spend a lot of her post-doc life at parties? (I don't think it is true. I think you work as hard as any other academic.) As you noted when you arrived, the campus is a very small place and anonymity is nearly impossible. Maybe it is time to consider that to them this isn�t funny. How about a little mea culpa?
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Josiah Leet - 2007-05-19 11:13:50
Acadaemia is and has always been a shark tank...and you were caught out of the bait ball. Not so much caught I suppose, but well-gnashed by that particular hammerhead. Evidently a fellow wearing a lovely dress is fair game...tho' I rather suspect it's that 415 area code they've been resenting all this time. But really now, Carrie Bradshaw ? Not hardly...at the very least, your snide hostess-person might've pulled out a Madame Bovary inference...or a jibe at one of the flashier (hotter) Bronte sisters maybe. But most certainly not a t.v. character, nuh-uh.
It has been said that academic tenure is its own form of "doing it for money", but no one can say with absolute certainty which of those two "professions" is the oldest. Outside looking in, you got it goin' on girl...they just hatin' is all.
btw: FAUCHON trumps GODIVA every time.
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nola - 2007-05-19 17:45:11
Yes, it's true: being paid to work on ideas is just like being in a civil war! And Godiva chocolates are pretty awful. Who would give those to a person? Only a hater! Just thinking about receiving them reminds me of that thing in Levinas about the face. You know, how the face is the figure of the vulnerability of the other, and that presented with that vulnerability, one feels disposed to either do it violence or to quash that feeling, and that ethics is based in this tension? So you have to ask yourself, what did you do to Captain Humanities to compel that kind of gift?
I doubt it was living an unimaginable life. What's left to the imagination? And why does that make me think of a human pyramid? I mean, that other one � that was supposed to be a private joke, too.
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