(dave e)

exile

somedays, i think it would be wiser to pack it all up and move to tanzania.

what with the job market and invisible adjunct's handy catalogue of cautionary tales. what with my discomfort as a citizen of the new empire. what with the economy. what with the housing market in suburban d.c.. what with the overabundance of unecessary suv's, which does little beyond raising my blood pressure. what with the popular distate for academe. what with the job market... oh, did i already mention that?

i'd never never give up my u.s. citizenship. this is my home. i am an american, and i intend to remain one. but i kind of sort of think i want out for a while.

given natalie's solid experience in subsaharan africa, and the fact that i absolutely loved my visit (oh, alright, i was only in s. africa, but, dammit, we were out of jo'berg, up in the rural stretches around the kruger n.p. -- you know, hoedspruit, the timbavati, hazyview, klaserie, the drakensberg mountains... right around there), i think we could pull it off. maybe up in tanzania somewhere. not too far from kilamanjaro would be nice. arusha, moshi, something like that...

[sound of footsteps approaching quickly. noisy smack of backhand against back of head]

hey, ya jerk! get offa my blog!

sorry, that was a shady doppelganger, i'm afraid. trying to spread bad rumors. i sure am excited about the writing i'm doing today. returning to some work on edmund morris' dutch and gore vidal's lincoln. picking apart the dialectic of fiction and history in those representatively weird u.s. presidential biographies.

i sure am glad i'll get to start picking a job soon. everyone keeps asking me what part of the country i want to live in. i tell them i'd prefer a small new england liberal arts college, near a city, but close enough to the mountains to ski on the weekends, when i don't have to worry about grading and editing for publication anymore. but, if worse comes to worse, i could live in a city on either coast. i figure probably i'll go with a research I kinda school if i take that option, though.

Posted by dave at July 17, 2003 12:43 PM | TrackBack