When you go to meet the Queen of England, you’ll be told that there is a single rule you must follow, a single thing you can’t do if the Queen decides to strike up a conversation with you. 

What is the single most important thing you shouldn’t do when you meet the Queen?

Wow, what a weird day. One of our candidates – a fellow who has lost his tenure case once and has been adjuncting all over the country since then – also got a tenure-track offer at a school that I won’t name but I’ll say that it’s a famous R-1 in a fantastic area. I’ve seen this guy once at an interview but I feel like it’s Christmas because I’m so happy for him.

When people say that somebody who has “an old PhD” and has been adjuncting for almost a decade at anonymous community colleges in remote rural areas will never get a tenure-track position at an amazing school, they are talking out of their ass. I know somebody who beat enormous competition and today got an offer from a sensationally good place. And no, she has no connections. What she has is a difficult, gruff personality and a complicated personal life.

I love this kind of stories.

N listens to books in his car. This week he finished Moby Dick and started a novel by Virginia Woolf. I’m very envious because I can’t do it. Whenever I hear anything that is not the sound of my own voice, I tune out completely and nothing reaches me. 

Turns out that Amazon digitized all of the music I have ever bought from them, including an Eminem CD from back in 2003, including the records, everything. I lost the Eminem CD a decade ago but it turns out I can still listen to it on Amazon. This is insane. I have no idea they were doing this. The list is like a trip through all the stages of my music-listening life. 

They need to publicize this shit more widely because people are unaware. Or maybe only I was unaware. 

On Saturdays, Klara spends time with N while I go to lunch alone and then to the salon, or shopping, or to the café. When people find out, they react as if I just confessed to something terrible. It’s like one can’t both love their family and enjoy spending time alone once a week. 

Klara is very unlike the way both N and I were as kids. At the music lesson, parents and kids sit in a circle. Klara always crawls right into the middle of the circle and starts rotating 360° to make sure that everybody sees and admires her. 

When I was little, nobody could have gotten me to stay at the center of a circle no matter what they did.