I get you! In the end, I left the R1 for an R2 because, well, I discovered elite academe was not for me. I sort of wish I'd not "gotten lucky" because the job wasn't a good fit. Live and learn.

I wouldn't have gotten that job had it not been for the coincidence of the acrostic.

I went to non-elite schools ("Harvard of the Midwest" SLAC, Bama for my MFA), & I swear, the only reason I got a job at an R1 was that the day before my campus interview, my first book was the solution to the NYT acrostic. They were salivating! But I don't know how the acrostic even happened.

I call the building of new centers and "hubs" "Administrative Competence Theater."

So I took my change and singles to the bank and asked a very nice young cashier named Ariel if he could count my money and give me a twenty and a ten. Luckily, he wasn't busy.

I haven't been this close to running out of money since grad school 30 years ago. I feel like I'm in my 20s again--but in a bad way, not a good way!

Backstory: I've been on an unpaid medical leave since January. I also left my husband in January. So I've had no income for quite a while. I'm just trying to get by until 8/23 when I return to the payroll. So technically, the lamps are an extravagance, but...but...

This afternoon, I stopped and asked myself, Cathy, do you HAVE 30 bucks? This is what I came up with; a five, 20 singles, and 5 bucks in change--with 4 pennies to spare! But I was too embarrassed to hand this to the yellow lamp lady.

The fact that this lady was also selling this chuck wagon lamp for the same price as these two amazing MCM lamps leads me to believe she had no idea she could have asked for more $$$