...Waiting

There are certain kinds of waiting that afford no pleasure. To explain, I will borrow the speak of our infamous former defense secretary, Donald Rumsfield (who is hatable, certainly: the new Seymour Hersh piece on General Anthony Taguba, published in the New Yorker, provides a fresh, inside look at some by-now classic abuses of power): there are things we wait for which we know, things we wait for which we don't know, and things we don't know we're waiting for but wait nevertheless we do. The last category might include love, death, STDs, or the late-night arrival of Republican brownshirts at your door. I don't have much to say about this category. The things we wait for which we know a.) are coming, and b.) are good, also require little commentary (Christmas presents, say, or spring break). It is almost always pleasurable to wait for such things (the whole Keatsian "for ever panting, for ever young" syndrome) - even while one hates to wait. Those things we know are coming but which are lileky to be bad or painful (e.g. the dentist, the end of spring break) are far less pleasurable, obviously, but they can still occasion some pleasure: the pleasure of still being in the dentist's waiting room, say - that is, with no drill bits in your teeth.

But waiting for those things of which we have no real sense of the outcome is the worst. And it is this particular kind of waiting that many academic fields offer in abundance. Abstracts for conferences, presentations, fellowship applications, job letters, article submissions, book proposals, tenure-review files, hot peppers on ratemyprofessor...all of these offer little if any pleasure in waiting. You might be waiting for acceptance, legitimacy, income, leave time, the esteem of your colleagues and peers, or chili peppers. But you might just as easily be waiting for rejection, humiliation, continued unemployment, or the feeling that you've wasted an enormous block of precious time. You cannot, in other words, take pleasure in saying "oh when do I get to get that fellowship" unless you are factoring in the years of your entire career and the inevitable multiple proposals you will have to come up with and write before you get THAT fellowship.

I applied for an NEH faculty grant this year. It already seems like a long time ago (April) when I submitted the application package via an online submission system that actually felt less convenient than printing five copies and mailing each the old fashioned way. The only thing that might be positive about the NEH system is the huge lag time between submission and announcements. I find out in December. By then I will have forgotten how many other urgent activities I had to put aside to complete my proposal, etc. In addition, everyone I talk to says that you never get an NEH fellowship the first time anyway (except that most of them did). Waiting for an NEH is neutralized by the necessary distance between desire and outcome and by the odds against you. It's like waiting for the end of capitalism. Sure it'd be great. And as Marx said, it's inevitable, right: the bourgeoisie = their own gravediggers. But it isn't likely to happen any time soon. Other fellowships (internal, or smaller) take less time and are thus more painful. We might think of these as reforms, not revolution: they eventually come in some form or other but when they do they are always less than is needed.

Right now, for me, it's an article that is making me crazy. I waited too long to submit it, I think. First, I waited too long in that I labored over the intro and conclusion until I probably crossed the improvement threshold and started back toward unimprovement. I also waited too long in that I submitted it at the end of March. I thought this might still get me a reading by May (when I had to submit the first part of my tenure review file): before summer, that is. But now it is the end of June and I'm wondering If there is any chance of hearing something before the start of the fall term. The MLA directory of periodicals says that this journal takes 2-4 months to get back on articles. But then many journals say they get your stuff back in 2-4 months. And is this like the 5-7 days to clear a check? 5-7 business days, that is. Academics don't work summers (except most of us do).

It is maddening (in an unpleasurable way) how long this process takes. Maybe the article will be back by job-letter time (I may need to write some). But this is still waiting for a possible negative result. Keats again: "That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd / A burning forhead, and a parching tongue".

The following line is better yet: "Who are these coming to the sacrifice?"