Job search, opening sally

About 30 jobs on the initial release of the job list that describe anything like what I do.  Two of those are looking for a poet who can also do literature classes.  Let's savor that for a moment: 27 jobs (to be precise) in the entire nation for which my background might qualify me.  Two in the entire nation that are really what I do.  I'll expect about 2/3 that many more to post during the main season, which will bring me to maybe 50 jobs total, maybe 3 or 4 for which I'm really suited.  For those few positions, scores of other people will be as well-suited, plenty of them with stronger pubs and fully-complete PhDs.

I never imagined I was doing some self-destructive, self-indulgent thing in shaping the career path I've tried to shape.  I thought poetry meant brains and a distinctly unworldly commitment.  Transworldly, maybe.  The ivory tower seems to think of it as best characterized by placidity, bordering comfortably on nice-person identity politics and creative nonfiction.  It's not even the same arena as the one where I've been waging my battles.

I went through the gossip about who got last year's jobs at jobswiki, and while it's hardly comprehensive, the information that's there was discouraging.  Lots of people with 2 books on the market; the names of people who got the poet jobs where I was applying, at least the ones I recognized, are IMO very bland writers.  The listings read like that's what departments want, too, and I can see that, now that I have a year of dwelling on them under my belt. 

The very few literature jobs in the 20th century so far are downright bleak, for my strengths, without even one that sounds much like me.  That side definitely looked better last year at this time, not that it did me any good.  I can only hope postings through the fall, and the spring, if necessary, do me better.

Web Job finally actually offered me the real money and real position yesterday, but since I'll be a student through at least mid-December, and possibly until degree conferral in February, I begged off giving a real answer.  As I said a while ago, it's not a question of whether I take the position, but of how I feel about it; I spent all night last night and then this morning intermittently crying, so the answer there is, not good.  I try to focus on the In This Economy aspect, but it's just not strong enough.  Or, I don't care enough about money.  As far as personal fulfillment, taking that job as a long-term option would represent a profound failure for me, and going to 40 hours a week will mean the end of my scholarly career.  I'd love to see any one of the faculty I deal with, or any of the ones from my department, try to maintain an independent research program while working a desk job 5 days a week.   I might still write poetry, but without the innervation from teaching creative writing and having the academic apparatus of tenure and conferences and so forth to prioritize that work, I doubt it will go very far or happen very often.  Poetry Band does some for me, but not as much as a teaching job would by a very long stretch.

I'll be looking harder at VAPs, but I really think that my chances may just end up being poor, after all this time.  10+ years of graduate school and I may end up a decently-paid web monkey with a lot of debt and a lot of useless knowledge.  I could be giving the liquor store a lot of business under those circumstances.  I've barely drunk for years, but if anything was going put me back on it, that would do the trick.

Vodka's good for you, you know.  It's made out of potatoes.