That makes sense. You can't begrudge sense. It would have helped if they'd have tempered their enthusiasm and not informally offered me the position at the end of my phone interviews, and then fawned all over me about why Harvard sucked and how awesome I was and they were while I was visiting, but hey: you get jerked around. Unless you are immediately relevant to someone's life circumstance, you are nothing to them. Life is a generally unforgiving zero-sum game without a whole hell of a lot to recommend it beyond fucking, occasional nice dinner out, and (at least for me) a really awesome result.

The good thing is that they talked with NIMH and there's a "very good" chance that they can get an extra slot of their T32 training grant. See, I'm American Indian and White, like an oreo except really more of a tan cookie crust, you know. So I need to get together 3 fairly easy to write double or single-spaced pages about my prospective research project out yonder. They get to write 3 pages and a face letter about how they recruit diverse students and exactly why they have this curious specimen on their doorstep wanting kibble and some head scratches.

I do not like to play the injun card. Granted, this is a 'you have to be meritous AND have gotten ancestrally fucked by the American government to qualify' sort of award.

I prefer the hard luck American Dream narrative. I think it's much more important and relevant that I got to where I am now from a single parent poverty level home. But society didn't do that. My mother's largely incoherent choice in men and professions is to blame there.

I'm a judgmental fuck. You know this by now.

So I get to copy and paste from various applications, send that in, and see. I have no idea what I'll do otherwise. I haven't heard from UCLA or Harvard in months. I'm assuming that is a bad sign, although PET guy at Harvard said 3 weeks ago that he put in a good word for me. I like Darin. I like Stacey too. They would be good mentors. The trouble is I am hell-bent on going to Philadelphia, in part because they collect a hell of a lot of data and love collaboration

And in part because I need my two oldest friends in the world. I need family. I need stability. I need to know something besides my work is going to be around to give a fuck that I'm still alive. I have done the extended loner phase, and there is nothing in that direction except desolation and misery--and I am damn near 30. Any semblance of usefulness, sanity, or cool about that life choice has long since died.

Yeah. I need people. Daath here has only occasionally mentioned the crazy bullshit that's gone down the last several years. The Paper That Will Not Die (TM), my dissertation, finding a job, all of my other papers, the incessant micromanaging goddamned nightmare that's my official boss, and breaking up with Emily. All of this came to a crash in the last 2-3 months, and before that it was just endless waiting, the Sitskrieg, the calm before the avalanche that deposited Swords of Damacles all around me.

I am sick to death of new setbacks and barely anything to hold on to. If it weren't for Acacia these last few days, I'd be a fucking nervous wreck. They pull the rug out from under me and, turning on a dime, I give them smiles and positive attitude and kind of mean it at the time. Who to thank? Her. And Barb and Michele, some post-docs in the lab. But mostly talking with an old friend has given me perspective and strength.

I don't know what fucked up development will raise its marrow-saturated head this next time. The only thing really keeping me going and off the precipice into the needled canyon of depression is that I have friends to come home to.

That is shit I can rely on. That is shit that will not spontaneously explode into indecision or whimsical fuckery. That is. The one. Goddamned thing that will give me peace right now for the next leg of my life.

That is why it is crucial to do the best job I can basically re-applying for a job I thought I already got. Because the alternative is being alone.

And I know what that has done to me before.

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