Holiday

Holiday, Celebrate
If we took a holiday
Took some time to celebrate
Just one day out of life
It would be, it would be so nice

First of all, let me just say for the record that there is a REASON why I hardly ever wear these sweater-knit tights, and I need to remember it.  The thing about sweater-knit tights is although they are in fact toasty warm, they are also very untight-like.  They don't have a control top.  They are not very stretchy.  And I need both stretch and control to hold these suckers up!  Seriously.  Wearing a sweater on your legs is not such a great idea.  The crotch of my tights hovers somewhere mid-thigh all day.  It's very distracting.  And very hard to walk.  Even though my legs are quite warm thank you very much.

Sigh.

I need hubs to have a real holiday.  I NEED for him to have it.  He is working so freakin' hard every single day, and I keep thinking "but he'll have 3 weeks off for Christmas!" and then I get hit in the head with reality that that means absolutely nothing.  Academia doesn't care about Christmas.  In fact, he will leave Christmas Day night for Boston for a week long international Philosophy conference.  Gross.  Which means even though he has a break from teaching, technically, he will be scrambling for 2 weeks to prepare to present at the conference on a topic that he has never taught.  It's supposedly a pretty big deal to be asked to speak at this conference, but that just adds to the stress. 

So I keep looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, and the closest I can figure out is June.  June is the light at the end of the tunnel.  The school year will be over, and he may or may not have a job.  Which presents its own whole ball of stress for him, but I'm pretty confident about that part.  If he has a job lined up for fall, great.  If not, then he'll stay home and write and network and work on his job apps for fall 2012.  And we will be fine.  He'll walk the dog during the day, and we'll get to live in the same house.  He will formulate Plans C - Q.  I imagine those plans will include things like "Apply for jobs teaching high school philosophy at snooty private schools" and "Resign self to the despair of working at Starbucks for the rest of life" and "Convince wife to have kids so I can be stay at home dad". 

He mentioned last night that perhaps we should think about overseas ministry as an option.  I iterated that overseas ministry should probably not be anyone's fallback.  And besides, we would have to find some place where we could take AugDog, and where he wouldn't get bitten by poisonous snakes or stolen for someone's dinner, or abducted by a giant bird of prey.  Hubs' eyes got big and he solemnly noted that yes, we'd have to go somewhere where pup could safely accompany us.   

But all this job angst and the politics and the scandals of academia have given me a great idea for a long term writing project.  I'm not sure if it will be fiction, non fiction, a how-to, or a collection of essays, but it will be called "Tenure Track Wife".  If you or someone you know is the spouse of a college professor, give me a buzz.  I want to start gathering intel.  Every great drama deserves a book, right?