Won't Even Work For Food

So, early on the morning after a reasonably successful Thursday night during which I apparently pioneered several new styles of modern dance, I was lying in an innocent stupor halfway between my couch and my bed when the people from the very pleasant liberal-arts college in the middle of nowhere called to offer me a job. (I don't think I acquitted myself very well during the phone call.) I've been beating myself up about the decision this presents ever since. On the one hand: nice folks, an easy life of teaching and roaming the countryside in a tweed jacket, and the kind of job security you only see in academia. On the other hand: not much money, the middle of nowhere, I may be confusing the terms "easy life" and "stupefying rut", there's a reasonable chance I'd be on suicide watch by the middle of the first winter because of the aforementioned middle-of-nowhere factor, the scale of which I cannot overemphasize.

I have until the end of the week to tell them what I'm going to do, and I'm leaning towards a no. This is hard, though, because every pragmatic bone in my body is urging me to take the damn job and make the best of it, rather than launch myself into the harsh, damp, strange world of Not University. (Because, you see, the chair of my current department will be perfectly within his rights to tell me to piss off and stop costing him money once I inform him that I'm being all picky about academic positions.)

(Upon rereading: Jesus. Back when I was a youthful idealist, in January, I briefly supposed that this blog might aspire to something greater than navel-gazing - but now, after this post and its predecessor, I think that idea has gone decisively tits-up. I was not astute enough to come up with a decent structural device - be it reviewing things, writing letters, or swearing - and now I am left with what the world actually needed the very least of all: an online fucking diary. Alas, the sedan chair of my dreams recedes ever further into the distance.)