everything > PhD school

A lot is happening in higher ed these days, and since my life is deeply enmeshed in higher ed stuff, I have Thoughts.

In an nutshell: the general public no longer thinks it's a good idea to spend most of your entire adult life paying for a degree from a mediocre school. As a result, the vast majority of schools are having money troubles and some have decided to eliminate subjects like English and/or university departments entirely. And the government has decided now would be a good time to make it more expensive to get doctoral degrees.

All the academics in my twitter feed seem to think this is a coordinated assault on higher education. But...doesn't it seem obvious that the cost of college is insanely high? And shouldn't students who are going heavily into debt major in something with clearly transferable job skills? Who could argue with a straight face that there aren't enough doctoral students in the world? Who among us disagrees that most PhDs (myself included) may have been better off doing something else with their time? And do we really think that all those entry-level jobs that require a 4-year degree couldn't be done by a high school graduate?

So am I crazy or are all the people in my twitter feed? My hunch: the tweeters (twitterers?) are actually just worried about their jobs. School and department closures mean fewer jobs for new PhDs. No grad students means professors will be deprived the pleasure of replicating themselves through their students. An army of administrators will no longer be available to fill out all that pesky paperwork. Academic jobs are disappearing, the means of (academic) production are changing, and many of us may need to re-train when our positions are eliminated. Who knew that factory workers and academics could have so much in common?! 

And the cherry on top: Ben Sasse saying that the humanities, hard sciences, and sports are all "greater than" the social sciences. Reader, I laughed! (Social scientists, of course, are pissed.) Now what I really want to do is find a way to make Sasse's tweets and the responses into a modern version of the Protagoras (a version where Socrates is too busy with his day job at Google to chat with the sophists). Obviously, the conclusion of the dialogue will be that sports management is in fact the highest form of knowledge. 

peripheral tidbits: grant edition

A couple nights ago I finished Ron Chernow's new biography of Grant. I'm feeling pretty accomplished, too, because the book is 960 pages and I managed to read it in three weeks. (I checked it out of the library so there was a hard deadline.) It's easy to read 960 pages when they're interesting, though, so it's actually Chernow who ought to be feeling accomplished.

Anyway, it's a good book and I learned many things. (Notably: reconstruction was hella important and I should know more about it.) However, as is my wont, I would like to make note of two peripheral tidbits:

First, I hadn't fully comprehended just how crazy office-seeking and patronage politics were in 19th century America. I feel like an idiot, but I finally understand what Tocqueville was talking about. Also, I think he's probably wrong, since Americans were clearly obsessed with place-hunting. Though I guess the French were worse?

Second, I learned that campaign tactics were infinitely cleverer before television and the internet: in the 1880 election, Republicans printed a pamphlet about Winfield Scott Hancock's political achievements—a pamphlet that contained nothing but blank pages. Why did no one think of this in the 2016 election? If either side prints a clever pamphlet in 2020 I will vote a straight ticket for them. 

online doppelgänger

I get a lot of German email. I don't speak German and I've never lived in Germany, but my last name is very German, and this leads to a lot of spam and misdirected emails. For the first few years, I just deleted and ignored everything. Then, over time, I realized that there is a particular German Julia with my last name who keeps using my email address. First, she tried to create a Facebook account using my email address. Then she signed up for Pinterest using my email address. Pinterest, unlike Facebook, doesn't require you to confirm your email, so she just kept logging in using my email address and I kept getting notifications about it. 

So one day, after the umpteenth notification, I used my email address to change her password, and then logged in and deleted her account. It was so satisfying! No more emails from Pinterest, and I figured I had taught German Julia a lesson. I felt slightly bad about it, but figured she would now realize that she really needed to use her own email address. 

Then, a couple months later later, I got an email confirmation for a gynecologist appointment in Köln. First, I was impressed that women in Germany can make medical appointments online. Then I was intrigued that this Julia is apparently from the same city as my grandmother (maybe we're related?).  And then I became frustrated that this other Julia really is too dumb to remember her own email address. I wrote to the doctor and explained they had the wrong email, but nothing changed. So after the third email asking me to confirm my appointment, I canceled it. Ha! Take that, German Julia! Now, I was sure, she would finally realize that it's my email address, and that I happen to be a person who is not at all above messing with her life. 

But alas, today I received an email confirmation for an appointment at what appears to be a nice nail salon in Köln. This time I didn't even wait for a second or third notification. Appointment canceled! No shellac for you, German Julia!   

And now I'm really, really hoping that she will use my email address to sign up for a dating site next! Because then I will really get to mess with her and it will be so fun. 

in your dreams

I doubt any of you will be surprised to learn that I watch a lot of HGTV.  I watch all the shows, pretty much, and would watch even more if we hadn't canceled our premium cable package. I love all renovations shows, and indeed, my childhood home was a renovation project, so my early years were sort of like growing up with the property brothers. My whole family just really loves real estate: going to open houses was a regular Sunday afternoon activity in my family. And then I met Josh, who works in real estate, and so the love affair continues.

All this to say: I understand real estate aspirations! What I do not understand, however, is the idea of a "dream house." I also do not understand the idea of a "dream job," but I'll get to that in a minute.

The people on HGTV shows are constantly talking about their dream house. The most fascinating part, for me, is that they all seem to have the same dream. They want an open floor plan, they want 3-4 four bedrooms, they want to stay in their current neighborhood (unless they are on House Hunters International), they want a "master" with a spa-like bathroom. They all have a very specific price range, but are OK with blowing past it so they can have the Carrera marble or the gas fireplace or the wine fridge they have their heart set on. And, most annoyingly, they are always ecstatically happy with the final result. They are so happy they cry. 

After a few episodes, watching people achieve their dreams so consistently ends up feeling pretty oppressive. I start to think these people's dreams must also be my dreams. Suddenly, the popcorn ceiling in my apartment brings down my mood. My parquet floors begin to nag at me. The laminate counters in my bathroom become unacceptable. If only I could do a renovation! Then I too could be living in dreams!

Then Josh turns off the TV and insists we go outside, and I remember that I actually like my apartment. And then I walk around the block and remember that I don't have dreams about housing at all! I dream about living in Paris, I dream about getting a call from Marilynne Robinson asking for my opinion about an essay she's writing, I dream about writing a bestselling romance/mystery novel under a clever nom de plume, I dream about reading all the Platonic dialogues in order, but I don't dream about houses.

And just a few weeks ago a friend inquired about my future job plans, and when I replied without much gusto I was told I that I need to conceptualize my "dream job" in order to achieve my full career potential. When I insisted that I have never once dreamed about working, she was somewhat taken aback. I don't have a dream job—I have dreams about what I would do if I didn't have to have a job.

This conversation irked me, and I realize now that it's for the same reasons that people crying with happiness when they see new hardwood floors irks me. The whole point of dreaming is that it's not real! Why would you dream about bathroom tiles when you could dream about your long-lost great-aunt bequeathing you a palazzo in Italy? Why would you dream about working when you could dream about stumbling upon buried treasure and only doing whatever you want for the rest of your life?

I do understand that most contentious people have goals, and those goals may include getting particular jobs, purchasing certain houses, and acquiring specific wine fridges. Good for them! But I sincerely hope their dreams involve more interesting flights of fancy. 

Then again, I've never cried with happiness about anything, so maybe I really just need to loosen up and take more pleasure in interior decoration.  

a perfect word

"I have an experience of recognition, not just in response to others’ ideas, but on the order of a single word. It happens, in my own writing, in those moments when you know there’s a perfect word, even though you have not written it yet. You cast about for it, and over time, some obscure word will come to you — your mind knows it’s there. Often, it’s a word with such an extraordinary precision that you wonder how it survived. You think, This must have come down from early modern English or Anglo-Saxon — how did it come to birth? How did it survive? Who was it that needed this word first and coined it? It’s amazing. You wonder how many people have had any use for it over the last 300 years, but there it is."

—Marilynne Robinson 

petty cultural tyrannies

Why is not wanting to see Hamilton treated as a minor form of heresy? I never thought I'd see the day when I felt oppressed by the need to feign interest in a musical. I'm not even trying to be a contrarian (...mostly?) and yet otherwise polite people become visibly annoyed when I don't want to listen to them sing along to the soundtrack. Who wants to listen to anyone sing along to a soundtrack?? (Seriously. Find me that person and I will buy you an expensive cocktail.)

And why is it that these same people who are so peeved by my lack of interest in seeing Hamilton have never read any Hamilton? I mention the Federalist Papers and all I get is a blank stare. Or a look of total disinterest not dissimilar to the face I pull when people extol the virtues of Broadway musicals.

And now that I think about it, that's is a pretty succinct illustration of the gaping intellectual void that undercuts all of modern culture. You're welcome! 

the &^#@*! side of history

Somewhat masochistically, I now keep an eye out for uses of my least favorite phrase. In case you're interested, here are some recent gems:

• From HuffPost, "Donald Trump once again cemented himself on the wrong side of history, pleading Tuesday not to remove statues honoring the Confederacy."
• From the NYTimes, "Sometimes standing on the wrong side of history in defense of a cause you think is right is still just standing on the wrong side of history."
• From Vice, "Let's keep it simple: The statues should come down because they honor men who fought on the wrong side of history."
• From The Cut, "But then, Google might simply want to be on the right side of history. Using science to explain the differences between groups of people is a look that has never aged well."

(As an aside: while my frustration extends equally to anyone making claims about the right or the wrong sides of history, the latter formulation seems more popular these days. We are clearly feeling less triumphant and more reproachful.)

In every instance, "the wrong side of history" could be replaced with a simple normative statement and the sentence would be all the better for it: "defending a unjust position, even in defense of a just cause, is still wrong"; "the statues should come down because they honor men who fought for an unjust cause"; "but then, Google might want to do the right thing," etc, etc.

Clearly the authors are uncomfortable with making simple judgments about right and wrong. I sympathize: it's often hard to demonstrate why something is wrong. So they appeal to history instead, as though doing so would definitively show the reader how people ought to act now. But most people have no idea what to do when confronted with political or moral dilemmas, and history (at least none that I've read) does not give us any reason to believe otherwise.

Yes, slavery has been eliminated, the confederacy was defeated, and scientific sexism and racism have been proven wrong, but that doesn't mean we've moved beyond injustice. The one thing history does show is that humans are brilliant at finding new and interesting ways to torment each other. 

learn to cook

From a NYTimes profile of the novelist Claire Messud:

"I had a sense that the costs [of having a family] were high,’’ she said later. ‘‘And I had a sense that I didn’t want that to be my fate. I had a sense that I’d better not learn to cook, which I never did."

From a Harper's magazine article on women in the alt-right:

In late 2016, two pundits started an online advice column...a female reader looking for an alt-right spouse got [this] advice.“Become as attractive as you are capable of. Commit to having many white babies!...Learn to cook.”

Why is a woman learning to cook making a "traditional" statement of some kind? Cooking is a skill, and a crucial one at that.  You will eat thousands and thousands of meals in your lifetime. Why would you cede the responsibility for preparing all of those meals to others? By learning to cook you are neither resigning yourself to a lifetime of drudgery nor preparing to find an alt-right husband: you are learning a basic skill. 

Obviously this applies to all humans, regardless of gender. It always seemed insane to me that anyone could make it to adulthood without learning to prepare a simple meal for themselves. This is poor parenting! Learning to crochet can be optional, learning to feed yourself should be mandatory.

And maybe if Claire Messud ever learned to cook, her husband—who, according to the article, is an excellent cook—could finally be free to have a career! Poor man. 

values ≠ morals

There's an article from Harper's Bazaar floating around the interwebs, which argues that if you should happen to find yourself married to a Trump supporter you should divorce them. Here's a part with only minimal hyperbole:

Supporting Trump at this point does not indicate a difference of opinions. It indicates a difference of values. Values aren’t like hobbies or interests. They don’t change over time, and they more or less define who you are. Trump’s administration may have been, for some of us, a time when what we value has become much clearer to us.

Re: Trump divorces, all I have to say is that people get divorced for a lot of stupid reasons and we hardly need another one.

Also, can I pause here to kvetch about how writers (who are presumably paid to choose their words carefully?) use the word values when what they actually mean is morals. Value pertains first of all to the monetary worth of something. So the word you use to justify the price of the used bathing suit you just posted on eBay should not be the same one you use to discuss morality. I know that using value as a synonym for moral is here to stay—thank you, Nietzsche—I just wish that writers would, you know, think about words more.

Anyway, all of that aside, my true beef here is with the idea that people's morals don't change. I'm going to take the author seriously and assume she really believes this. If so, then she's suggesting that she was born with the correct political and moral ideas and that absolutely nothing has changed since. (I would really like to speak to her middle school classmates to verify this.) Or maybe let's be generous and say that by the age of 20 she was morally developed enough to be able to make just decisions about absolutely everything for the rest of her life. I guess in a perfect world this is conceivable—after all, she could be Jesus!

And Jesus would be totally chill about your divorce if it was for totally justifiable Trump Reasons, right? And if you don't currently agree with this lady about Trump (for any reason) then he would totally understand that you are not just irredeemable during this election cycle, you are irredeemable forever. You cannot change! Not even if she tries really, really hard to persuade you one afternoon on twitter! No. If you voted for Trump you deserve to be divorced and, most likely, expelled from the Republic. This woman is clearly the soul of moral probity. You should most definitely take marriage advice from her. 

dead time

It's my first day back from a week's vacation, and I just spent the entire afternoon moderating two separate panels on a subject I know next to nothing about and had very little time to prepare for. And knowing next to nothing is the worst kind of know-nothingness, as I've said before, because you know enough to be acutely aware that you know nothing, which makes you self-conscious and stupid, as opposed to being just stupid. I've found that I consistently do better in these situations when I'm full-on ignorant, rather than just mostly ignorant.

And of course, I could not manage to pry any questions out of the participants and one of the panelists was a no-show. There was a lot of "dead time" to fill, and I did so, flailingly and with much sweating.

It felt a lot like the worst semester of my life, when I was a teaching assistant for a class on a subject I had never studied. Except this time, instead of a bunch of students looking at me blankly, it was a bunch of adult professionals. Which, I have to say, feels worse.

The upside: it only lasted four hours, as opposed to the semester, which lasted a never-ending, infinite, endless, immeasurable number of weeks. Also: I did at least receive a living wage to make a fool of myself today.

Suddenly, I feel so much better! I here reaffirm that really there is NOTHING worse than grad school. Though some days may come very close.

niceness is not a virtue

"The key objection to niceness amounts to the fact that it's not really a virtue. You can't rely upon it as the foundation for the duties required of friends, family members, or fellow citizens. A nice person won't fight for you; a nice person wouldn't even lie for you, unless there's something in it for him. A nice person wouldn't be a Good Samaritan, if it required genuine risk or an undue deployment of time and treasure. A nice person isn't animated by love or honor or God. Niceness, if you think about it, is the most selfish of virtues, one, as Tocqueville noticed, rooted in a deep indifference to the well-being of others. It's more selfish than open selfishness, because the latter accords people the respect of letting them know where you stand. I let you do — and even affirm — whatever you do, because I don't care what you do as long as it doesn't bother me. Niceness, as Allan Bloom noticed, is the quality connected with flatness of soul, with being unmoved by the relational imperatives grounded in love and death."

—Peter Augustine Lawler, Our Country Split Apart

p.s. My apologies for all the quotes lately—these posts are just my way of remembering particular passages. (I used to keep a journal for this purpose, but that was so very 20th century. Not that blogs are particularly avant-garde either.) 

the principle of progress

"In his marriage, he now realised, the principle of progress was always at work, in the acquiring of houses, possessions, cars, the drive towards higher social status, more travel, a wider circle of friends, even the production of children felt like an obligatory calling-point on the mad journey; and it was inevitable, he now saw, that once there were no more things to add on or improve on, no more goals to achieve or stages to pass through, the journey would seem to have run its course, and he and his wife would be beset by a great sense of futility and by the feeling of some malady, which was really only the feeling of stillness after a life of too much motion, such as sailors experience when they walk on dry land after too long at sea, but which to both of them signified that they were no longer in love."

—Rachel Cusk, Outline 

two things

First, I would like to note that Emily Nussbaum did (mostly) pull through for me in her review of The Handmaid's Tale:

"That go-girl moment made me sit up straight—and pull back. I could feel it being hashtagged, like “she persisted.” The book is never inspiring, not explicitly. Offred is a witness, not a heroine. She’s often ashamed and numb. She’s even a little cold. It’s painful for her to remember her daughter, but her drive isn’t to find her family; it’s to stay sane."

Emily is not quite as unhappy with the show as I am, but that's ok. This is still the only review I've seen with even a whiff of negative criticism, so I'll take it. I'll also remain decidedly miffed with all other television critics. You all suck.

Second, I enjoyed this essay by Keri Smith:

"I don’t yet know what to call this part of the left...It has its own dogma and jargon, meant to make you feel like a good person, and used to lecture others on their ‘sin.’ “Check your privilege”- much like “mansplaining” and “gaslighting”- all at one time useful terms - have over time lost a lot of their meaning. These days I see them most frequently being abused as weaponized ad hominem attacks on a person’s immutable identity markers…a way to avoid making an argument, while simultaneously claiming an unearned moral highground in a discussion."

I would argue that none of those terms (you can add "microaggression" and "social justice" to the list) ever really had much meaning, but whatever. The tone of the essay is a bit woe-is-me and she makes much of an aphorism from Beyond Good and Evil—which is never a good sign—but I haven't read any criticism of the left from the left since Mark Lilla's great and much-hated contribution to this genre. Liberal critiques of the left may be my new favorite type of political writing.

A Hero's Tale

I am not at all pleased with the new series based on The Handmaid's Tale. I watched the first episode recently, and not only was the tone of the whole thing wrong, at the very end of the episode the writers made a deviation from the book that is, in my opinion, totally indefensible. (Yes, there was some yelling at the television.) Dishearteningly, I have yet to read a negative review of the series; I'm counting on Emily Nussbaum to deliver for me where no one else has. (Megan McArdle has a sharp take, which is worth reading, but she's concerned with the book, not the show.)

My main beef is this: in the book, Atwood finds everyone guilty—the new regime and the old. In the show, the Republic of Gilead is purely evil, a theocratic society radically imposed upon an otherwise virtuous and free people. In the book, Atwood is very clear that Gilead is a direct product of the free and liberal society that came before it. We often want to imagine that tyranny arrives suddenly and with no chance to avert it, but the book (and history) generally indicate otherwise. The most interesting theme of the novel is an exploration of the close relationship between freedom and tyranny, but the show ignores that. I'm sure no one wants to be accused of blaming the victim.

I ended up yelling at the television at the end of the first episode because of something else, though: the show gives Offred, the main character, a name. In the book, her only name is Offred (meaning "of Fred," in reference to the man who owns her) and the reader never learns her real name. This reflects not only the narrative intimacy of the book—it's mostly interior monologue—but also something very important about Offred herself: she could be anyone. Indeed, she isn't special in any way; she isn't particularly beautiful, brave, ingenious, or even kind. By giving her a name (and in a triumphant way), the show negates all that. It suggests that Offred is special, that she is a hero. The book is about the quiet desperation of everyday life in an oppressive regime, and there is no heroism in it. But I guess that story would not be much fun to watch on television.

And finally: no matter what the critics might say, the novel sheds no light whatsoever on Trump. (Megan McArdle covers this point better than I could.) Good novels remain good no matter who the president is. This could have been a great series, too, but it would have required the writers to trust the audience a bit more. It's really a shame that Margaret Atwood didn't insist on that.

the gospel of dave

About two and a half years ago, I was in the car with Josh one night (probably on our way back from eating xiao long bao in Rockville) when a deep voice with a southern twang came on the radio. Josh turned the volume up. "Have you heard this guy?" he asked. "You might like him."

The guy in question was Dave Ramsey, and the first thing I heard on his show was a caller asking, "How are you, Mr. Ramsey?" and Dave answering, "I'm better than I deserve." And I turned to Josh immediately and asked, "is this Christian talk radio?" And the answer was yes, it is a Christian talk radio show about personal finance. And you may be surprised to learn, Dear Reader, that I was hooked.

First, I think the Ramsey message is wonderful in its clarity: 1) don't go into debt and 2) pay off any debt you have as fast as you can. If you want to buy something, you need to save up for it and pay cash. (With the caveat that 15 year mortgages are acceptable.)

The advice is entirely pragmatic, merely with added bonus of being in line with scripture (or so Dave says). Furthermore, the Ramsey system is designed to work for everyone, no matter their location, salary, or education. Dave himself is intrinsically egalitarian and charmingly pro-free market; the people who call in to his show are earnest regular folks looking for advice about everyday money issues. I'm not the only one who has found this compelling; the show is syndicated on over 500 radio stations. (Though I guess these days that doesn't say much about your relative sanity. And I should note that a lot of people dislike Dave, too.)

The overarching argument is that if you get out of debt and stay out of debt, you will be free (and not just in the financial sense). This is the actual language he uses, too: people in debt are slaves, and people who have no debt are free. That message resonates with me, but it's incomplete. While I have no debt at the moment, and I'm very happy about it, I don't exactly feel free, either. I'm still, as Marx would say, a wage-slave. And while my white collar servitude is cushy, I will likely remain a wage-slave until I retire to my estate and live like the landed gentry of old (i.e., never).

Regardless, though, I keep listening to the show. And why I keep listening is somewhat mystifying to me. Dave's plan is very simple, and while I don't follow it to the letter, at this point I could recite the steps for you by rote. I guess I keep listening because the people who call in represent a fascinating range of American experience and they talk about money which, frustratingly, almost no one speaks about openly.

For example, just the other day I was listening and a woman called in. She is 24 years old and her husband is 25 and they have a five month old baby. They both work on the family ranch. Her question was about how much life insurance to buy. I knew the answer to the question already, but the very nature of this person is fascinating to me. I doubt that I will ever in my life meet a 24-year-old ranch hand with a husband and a baby. And then you have the guy who works on an off-shore oil rig and wants to know if he should take a job that pays him a third of what he makes now but lets him see his kids more than once every six months. Who is that guy? I will also probably never meet someone like him, and even if I did he probably wouldn't want to talk to me, much less tell me about his job conundrum.

If nothing else, Dave's show has given me some small insight into my fellow Americans, who, I'm sad to admit, often seem very foreign to me. 

lodge your complaints.

Recently, I've been out of town for a work event which I played a major role in organizing. Just for the sake of an example, let's say that this event was a 12 course dinner for 100 people, and I helped plan the menu, hire the chefs, and serve the food. After the meal, a diner came up to me to express that he was unhappy with a minor detail of the event—let's say, the quality of forks provided at the table.

The complaint was put to me this way: "I come to this dinner every year with the expectation that the meal will be of a certain caliber, and the forks this year ruined (ruined!) the meal for me. It was impossible to focus on the food while using such a terrible fork." And after assuring him that we did our best on the forks but certain compromises had to be made for certain justifiable reasons, he said, "I know, I know, and I'm sure you don't make the decisions about the forks! But please tell those in charge to consider how much the forks impact the experience of the diners here." And then he repeated himself: "I know that it's not your decision, but please just pass my message on the planners of the event."

Now, this is not the only complaint I received, and as far as the complaints went this one did not bother me very much. Despite the fact that forks usually have no bearing on the enjoyment of food—and the real subject of the complaint had zero bearing on the quality of the event—I have made peace with the fact that people have peeves and they enjoy expressing them.

What bothers me is that he didn't think I had any control over the "forks." I totally did. In fact, for this event I selected the "forks" myself. If he wanted to get the forks changed for next year, he was speaking to exactly the person with the power to change them! I was happy he didn't know this in the moment because I would have gotten another earful, but in retrospect it kind of pisses me off that he didn't think it was my fault. Not only did I have authority over the forks, I also made a ton of other, waaaay more important, decisions. And if he isn't going to blame me for the forks, then I won't get any recognition for the delicious escargot, or whatever (I'm probably stretching this analogy too far, sorry).

I just need to keep this in mind for the next time I'm held responsible for something going wrong. I'll try to remember to be happy that I'm in trouble, because it means I have enough power to screw something up.

(And now I realize that this entire post can be paraphrased by that dumb quote from Spider-Man: "With great power comes great responsibility." I am trite.)

you can call me ann

I just got an email with a signature that went something like this: 

Dolly Parton (she/her/hers)
Professional Singer
Tel: 090-0900-8888
Email: dollyland@hotmail.com

The email was not from Dolly Parton, sadly, but you get the idea.

Now, I generally don't give any thought to how people choose to sign their emails. But...I am perplexed. Why do I need to know that she is, you know, a SHE? If I were to write her back, I probably wouldn't use any gendered pronouns. "You" works quite well when writing to someone directly. Is this person assuming that we will be talking about her amongst ourselves, hence the need to specify a singular third person pronoun? Perhaps. But I'm still befuddled as to why it would matter.

I've received a countless number of misaddressed emails over the years. My last name is deceptively hard to spell, and people always get it wrong. (My dissertation advisor, bless him, never got it right once.) I'd wager that I'm called "Julie" as often as "Julia." I had an otherwise nice exchange with someone who addressed me as "Ann" in multiple emails, which was also fine. The best one ever was a student who addressed all emails to me as, "Hey you." I thought that was objectively terrible, but I also didn't bother to correct it. I figured that kid was going to have enough problems in life and didn't need a lecture from me.

But aside from naming issues, what if someone used masculine pronouns for me? Do I feel affronted at the thought? Not really. Men are people too; as long as you don't mistake me for a squirrel, I think we'll be ok.

I guess most people are not as laid-back as me about this? The person who wrote to me would probably be very offended if I presumed she was, you know, a she, but was instead a he. Maybe she prefers to be a "they"? I could manage that, but it would make grammar difficult. Is there a thing where people prefer to be "it"? That just seems too rude; I don't think I could do that. But I guess those who defer to grammar and convention are not sufficiently woke?

Frankly, being woke all the time seems exhausting. Not caring about most things has, I think, served me very well in life. I am a very well-rested person.

try not to flinch.

For one of my book clubs, I'm reading The Sellout by Paul Beatty. It's...difficult. The author himself describes his motivation for writing the book as: "I wanted to make myself flinch," and this is the perfect way to describe the experience of reading it. You will flinch. A lot. And if you think a satire about slavery—albeit a well-written, legitimately funny satire about slavery—sounds reprehensible, you will hate, hate, hate this book. If you just can't crack a smile at a good joke about misogyny or the holocaust or any other serious subject, you will loathe this book with your whole soul. And I must tell you: I do not hate or loathe this book. It's not fun to read, but damn is it funny.

It's actually the perfect thing to be reading on January 20, 2017. I'm going to wager that dark satire will be on the rise for the next few years years. I'm not lamenting this: I love satire. It's also really hard to write well, and now lots of good authors are likely to be inspired to try it. The Onion has spent many years perfecting the art, but now that reading the New York Times feels like reading like the Onion, you really need some finesse to pack the right satirical punch. I think the whole nation would really benefit from a Catch-22 for the Trump era. It would be a public service.

I've been thinking about this because I think I've offended some people lately by making jokes about life in Trump's America. This has happened with coworkers, my family, and in routine polite conversation. Usually I'm joking in order to lighten the mood away from utter despondence; I find incessant anxiety and hand-wringing to be mind-bendingly boring. But also, and quite honestly, there is just so much good material in the world nowadays. Almost any joke I hear that includes the phrase, "I have the best words," is at least worthy of a dark chuckle.

Is the world ending? Quite possibly! But as I learned from Marilynne Robinson, Dante reserved a whole circle in hell for the sullen and wrathful, those who refused to find any joy and laughter in the never-ending human farce we inhabit.

And on that very topic, The Sellout has some stuff to say about offendedness:

"What does that mean, I'm offended?" I asked the unrequited love of my life, talking to her through the panoramic rearview mirror..."It's not even an emotion. What does being offended say about what you feel? No great theater director ever said to an actor, 'Okay, this scene calls for some real emotion, now go out there and give me lots of offendedness!'"

"That's saying a lot coming from a callow farm boy who's never been offended in his life because his head's too high in the clouds."

"That's because if I ever were to be offended I wouldn't know what to do. If I'm sad, I cry. If I'm happy, I laugh. If I'm offended, what do I do, state in a clear and sober voice that I'm offended, then walk away in a huff so that I can write a letter to the mayor?"