A line I’ve used at my new job…

…at the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel, whenever someone who seems chill enough orders a “Mick ultra” (Michelob Ultra):

Me: “Ahhh, a Mick ultra… The favorite drink of my friend’s ex-wife.”

. . .

(True story. They also usually don’t know what to say and I usually say this to the [macho] [white] guys who drink that shit, although once someone was like “Well, that’s something” and then said no more, which I guess is a lot like not saying anything at all in response, I guess.)

A mild joke at my new job…

…at the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel, when the managers are finally cutting me for the night but also seem unsure about whether to do so, yet:

Me (in game show voice): “Is that your final answer?”

Addendum.

I've come across work by people who have major institutional positions, like curatorships and stuff, and it's like, ERP.

And, these are major well-known places, too!

It's like a colleague who works on a different language family and who's given me good advice has observed to me when I relate stuff to him about the field, "What is this backwater?". 

Supposedly anonymous peer reviews.

In the past half year, I got back some supposedly anonymous peer reviews for an article where a peer reviewer in the first round had tried to sabotage the project (probably because I'm obviously right, and they'd tried to put their hand to the notorious field-problem before, to no avail).

And, these new peer reviews you could work with, but they were still shocking. You could totally tell who wrote them, and although I’d previously categorized these people as better people in the field, there was still some pretty glaring eccentricities in thinking, as well as the use of widespread but poorly-grounded operative categories that they simply weren’t questioning, but instead rotely repeating as obvious touchpoints.

And, these are the good ones.

Like, what the f*ck is up with this field that I’ve been dabbling in, with the one ancient language that I’ve made myself into quite the expert in over the past number of years?

Honestly.

The quality of scholarship is just very bad, although I often charitably call it “uneven.”

I really don’t understand what these people do all day, since they certainly don’t seem to be solving major unresolved issues in scholarship.

Professional oddity.

After my one popular lecture a few years ago, people have been asking me to do another one, but the biggest stumbling block has been access to a portable projector for a PowerPoint.

I can understand why university tech resources wouldn’t want to loan them out to just anyone, but it’s just an odd position to be in, where I can access the libraries and maintain a larger practice with conference presentations and journal publications and whatnot, and yet I don’t have access to that basic tech.

It’s really like a dividing line putting me on the outside of the profession, separating the haves from the have-nots.

One of those days, a few months ago.

I wake up and am waiting for my coffee to brew, and then I realize that I forgot to turn it on.

And then, when I do turn it on, it’s the wrong burner and it starts singeing a pan that I had sitting out on top of it, which I only notice when the burning gets so bad that you can start smelling it.

It’s a rainier, greyer day, too, and I can’t read the footnote of an article that I had printed out in 4-on-1 format to save paper and make it so I save space in my hard files of marked-up articles, so I have to bring it to the window to look at it there, or use the bright light on my smartphone to illuminate it.

At the local brewery that night, the one (white) (young) (female) bartender with (pussy hat) energy is coughing up a storm and wiping her nose with the back of her hand, repeatedly, and it’s totally Typhoid Mary vibes.

. . .

(“Maybe she needed the money and couldn’t afford not to come into work,” my mom says later.)

A customer interaction at my new job…

…at the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel, that I now work at:

When a (well-dressed) (vaguely foreign) (round-faced) (older) (white) lady who's (mildly chunky) and who had been getting wine and cocktails with two (educated) (white American) types goes to pay, she hands me the bill and cash, and is like, “That should take care of it,” to which I’m like, “The only problem is if there’s too little.”

And, at that, “Ha!”, she’s like, “Yes!”.