What kind of fool doesn't think about it?

[robotnik2004]

This post has a soundtrack! It's the song "The Rest of My Life" by the band Sloan, on the album Action Pact. I've been listening to it constantly for the last two weeks, which probably means that for the rest of my life, whenever I hear that song it will take me back to February 2005.

I started thinking 'bout the rest of my life
I found my selfish looking out for trouble and strife

I guess I can take the Friends-only lock off my news now: as I've quite possibly already told you, I got a job! And it's one I'm very happy with: a tenure-track job in U.S. history, a nice balance between teaching and research, at a good school in Ontario near family and friends. As I said before, it's wonderful news. Any success in the job hunt is worth celebrating, really. Even getting through it without success is probably worth celebrating, if your sanity is still intact. I feel like a huge sack of worry and uncertainty has been lifted off my back, and for the first time in pretty much forever I can start picturing and planning for a future with a time horizon greater than the next academic year.

But if I ever said I wasn't set in my ways
Then I guess you caught me lying to myself

...which is, of course, terrifying. How can I leave Boston, this city of brainy, geeky, prickly, awesome people that seems to have been designed expressly for me to fall in love with it? And, even bigger question, how can I ask papersource to leave it too?

Truly, L has been great about the job and the move—she bore the brunt of my job hunt stress, and now she's probably more happy for me than I am. And her lip has barely quavered at the idea of leaving her home country and traveling to the frozen edges of civilization. But she has like a bajillion close personal friends in Boston. And she also has a great job at what is probably one of the very best public high schools in the United States, where she happens to be beloved and praised to the heavens by everyone she works with. It kills me to take her away from that. Of course, she'll find a place in London. Of course, she'll continue to be awesome wherever we go. But it's rough how the day we are released from all that worry about my career is the day all that uncertainty gets transferred onto hers.

Am I gonna settle down, am I going to be
Someone who has to take the rest of my life to settle down?

That phrase "settle down" is funny. L & I have each been in Boston for ten years. We've been together for five of those ten. We're married, we own a condo, and last night for example we had takeout Chinese and fell asleep around 9 pm, halfway through She's All That (!) on the WB. These are the salad days, baby. You don't get much more settled down, or more happily settled, than us. But then I've also been saying, "well, who knows where I'll end up next year," for basically the last five years. Temporary was the new permanent for an awful long time. Now I'm on the phone with realtors and wondering what neighborhoods have good schools. Eek!

London could be temporary too, I suppose, in the sense that everything is temporary, and who knows how anything will turn out? But I have a good vibe from the place. And if I want it, I can probably get tenure there. Which means that, if L&I want it, we could be there for a long time.

What kind of fool doesn't think about it?
You'd have to be a fool not to think about it

One reason this news was under wraps for a little while was that I was also up for a job at the Business School. (Which business school? If you have to ask... :) ) Longtime readers may recall that being short-listed and then turned down by the Biz School is kind of an annual tradition for me. This time I was up for a tenure-track job. I made their short list, which is very flattering, had a series of interviews, and gave a job talk there. But I didn't get the job in the end, and that's a relief in a lot of ways.

If I'd gotten the job, and taken it, it would have been very different than the one waiting for me in Ontario. Instead of teaching U.S. history to undergraduates, I would have been teaching macroeconomics to MBAs. Instead of writing for an audience of historians, I would have been doing research, at least in part, for an audience of CEOs. That has its appeals and its costs. I would have been making B School Money, which is nothing to sneeze at. I also would have been running on a steep treadmill getting up to speed on the material and the culture, and facing an extremely high tenure bar. Phrases like "you won't have a night off for two years," and "I have to schedule time to see my wife," were heard on the day of my B School interviews. So was the phrase, "more money than I thought I'd make in my life." But I didn't get it, which relieved me of making a tough decision, and was probably the right call on the Biz School's part. I was flattered to be there and hugely impressed by the people there, but it didn't feel like me. There are very smart, very high-powered economists and political scientists who have been dreaming of that job for years. They should have it.

Still, like the song says, you'd have to be a fool not to think about it.

One thing I know about the rest of my life
I know that I'll be living it in Canada

That's the shout-out line in the song. I haven't seen Sloan in concert since it came out, but I bet it gets a big roar from Canadian crowds ("The lyric contains the name of a place I know! I love this band!"). I've been listening to this album again and again lately, and feeling different emotions every time the boys from Halifax sing that line. As I said above, I don't actually know if I'll be living the rest of my life in Canada, but it now appears on the horizon as a genuine possibility. I love Canada, yes. I love the people. And I'll love being close to my family and my Canadian friends. I also love health care and gun control and some semblance of liberalism and not living in a pariah state. But you know I love the U.S.A. and Americans, too. And for ten years now, my whole identity has been wrapped up in being an expat. That does funny things to you.

There's a footnote in my dissertation where I chide American historians for knowing so little about Canada, but I then chide Canadians for clinging to the narcissism of small differences. Which is such a clear case of the pot (me) calling the kettle (other Canadians) black. When I was in Canada last, I was amazed at how thick the Canadian accents had gotten; how slow-moving and earnest the TV commercials; how clunky the user interface for Canadian PVRs. Yes, I recognize that these might not be the most important criteria for deciding where to live one's life, but one does notice.

Ah, I dunno. To be continued. This post reads a lot more negative and anxious and a lot less thrilled and excited and relieved than I actually feel. Song lyrics and everything—I'm so emo! I'm not complaining. Really, I'm not. I'm just using LiveJournal to work through some of these weird ambivalencies. What else is it for?

Edit: Hey, I should point out that none of this is quite as impending as I might have made it seem. I mean, we won't be moving until July or August. Certainly not before L's school year is over. It's not like we're going to London tomorrow. Well, actually we are going to London tomorrow, but just for a visit. We're coming back Wednesday. Lots of time between Wednesday and July to see all you Bostonians and do stuff and game and not game and all that.

Comments

[kniedzw.livejournal.com]

All the best in the Frozen North, Rob. What's the timetable for the move at this point?

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Kyle. And thanks for asking about the timetable: I don't know for sure yet but I imagine we'll move in July or August.

That reminds me, I wanted to mention that in the post above, in case I erroneously gave the impression that we were leaving like next week or something.

[head58.livejournal.com]

The kinds of feelings and settling down questions and all that - reminding me a lot of the summer of 97 when aliwings and I were getting ready to head back to New England after a 5 year exile in Ohio. We had just bought a house the year before, but she got a job back here and we knew it was time to come home. My grandmother had just died, and I hadn't been able to be around to see her before she passed, or even to get back for her funeral. I knew I needed to be back near my family.

But at the same time, we had all these friends in Ohio (mekkasimian and empress_schwa, garrity and space_mice, wiliqueen and brainiac5...I'm noticing a pattern here) and most of our life together as we knew it was there.

You'll thrive there, damn you. Both of you will. We'll all miss you and we'll talk about coming up to visit that will somehow never happen and we'll keep reading/commenting on each others blogs. And when Jeb gets elected in 08 and we annex Iran and Syria, you'll look at each other and shake your heads and thing "there but for the grace of god..."

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that. I'm kinda curious to hear how other people have managed and thought about the move to or fro Boston.

[mgrasso.livejournal.com]

I feel like I got the Alpha version of this post the other night at John Harvard's. :)

Seriously, I know you'll both do well up there. And hey, this reminds me: I must borrow Action Pact one of these days. And by borrow I mean shamelessly rip it. :)

[head58.livejournal.com]

Speaking of these things, my gmail account is so very lonely and empty...it was expecting a present from you...so sad:(

[mgrasso.livejournal.com]

D'oh! Well, it's in my car right now, if you can burn it.

[head58.livejournal.com]

Bring it tomorrow night. I'll be able to do it then. Thanks.

What is it about the 2 of us that we always end up hijacking people's comments with our stuff?

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

Hey you pesky kids, playing around in my comments page, frica fraca, gwan scram, why I oughtta...

[mizalaina.livejournal.com]

Don't be dissing the Canadian PVRs.

I think it's awesome awesome awesome that you will be coming back. I promise that we will make you feel welcome by killing a moose and leaving its carcass on your front lawn. That's what Canadians do, right? I'm still trying to fit in.

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

Don't be dissing the Canadian PVRs.

I'll have to get you to construct me something better than the pseudo-TiVo Rogers Cable gives its subscribers.

I promise that we will make you feel welcome by killing a moose and leaving its carcass on your front lawn. That's what Canadians do, right?

Like a Canadian version of the Godfather: "This is a message from Don Cherry!"

[mizalaina.livejournal.com]

Like a Canadian version of the Godfather: "This is a message from Don Cherry!"

AHAHAHAHA`