That Infernal, Internal Fellowship Strikes Again.

After spending all of Saturday veering from shocked pride for the recognition of my "Daddy Issues" post, to guilt for all the reasons explained in my "Guilty Daddy-Issues" post, to gratitude that no one in my family seems to read Historiann, Shakesville or Salon, to trying to figure out how many minutes of fame that I have left (and if Clio and the writer behind Clio get separate 15 minutes, or we both get the same), I then had time to reflect on another weird development of last week.

Remember that frantic series of posts back in April and May over the infernal, internal fellowship and the coordinator with control issues? Yeah, that one. At the end of the whole ordeal, I had agreed to show up and shut up for the remainder of the meetings in the fall semester. Assuming that was the end of the story, I went about my business and tried never to think of the matter. In my best Scarlett O'Hara accent, I told myself, "I won't think about that today. I'll think about that in the fall. After all, the fall is another semester!" I was doing a pretty good job of it, too.

Last week, the dean sent me an e-mail. "We need to meet about your concerns with the fellowship," she wrote. "How about Friday at 3:00 pm."

"Oh, fuck," I said, "What now?" I wrote, "Friday at 3 will be just fine." Then, the fretting, and worrying, and rehearsing, and contacting of the union representative commenced. Plans for drinks with Vuboq afterwards were made. A migraine attempted to take up residence in my head. I ate Skittles for dinner.

On Friday, I appeared at the dean's office. Now, our dean has generally be very fair and good to me. She doesn't take a lot of crap, and she could fall into the category of women who use "strong language." So, I had reason to hope that she was a bit sympathetic to my side. Still, I sat outside of her office sweating like a racehorse.

"How are you doing?" she asked, escorting me into her office.

"To be honest," I told her, "a bit scared."

"Why?" she asked. "I'm not a scary person." Well, actually, she is. She is formidable, and that can be intimidating, but that ain't a bad thing.

"Well," I said, "the last time I was brought into a meeting, late on a Friday afternoon, about my concerns with the fellowship, it turned out to be a meeting about the fellowship's concerns with me."

She asked me to tell her about it, so I did. She said that she had not heard about it until that insufferable coordinator sent out an e-mail to ensure that my schedule would accommodate the fellowship meetings. I'm not sure that the dean was telling the whole truth on that, but I didn't really care if she was being circumspect. I was just grateful that I wasn't being blindsided and gaslighted. "She doesn't hate me!" I thought. "She wants to hear me!"

"God, you're pathetic," my monster told me.

"Go to hell," I told it.

"You promise?" it said.

The dean and I chatted about the fellowship for a while, getting down to my expectations and the failure of the fellowship to meet my needs.

"Do you want to stay with the fellowship," she asked.

"I agreed to shut up and show up," I said.

"But do you want to stay?" she repeated.

I desperately wanted to say, "hell no! Get me out of there! It's a huge waste of my time!"

"Don't," said another monster. "If you do, you walk into a trap. Or you will look bad."

"Here's what I'm afraid of," I said, "when I tried to treat this like a bad fit, to remove myself because I was perceived as hostile and a threat, I was told there would be consequences if I quit. So, I agreed to stay and to not say anything."

"Oooh!" groaned both monsters. "You idiot! You showed her your hand!"

"Well, I won't hold it against you," she said.

"I was worried that this could hurt my employment here," I told her.

"You just get worse," said the monsters.

"You two shut the hell up," said my gut. "Run!" it told me. "Take it and run!"

"It will not affect your employment," she said. "If this isn't working out for you, if it is not meeting your needs, there is really no reason for you to stay in it."

"Take it!" yelled my gut. "Quit the damn thing! Quit now! Do a Snoopy Dance of joy!"

"No affect on my employment?" I asked.

"Not at all," she said. "It would be a waste of your time to stay, and I'm sure you have better things to do." We went back and forth for a minute, my monsters saying, "it's a trap!" while my gut said, "you're free!"

Then, she asked about this summer NEH seminar. "That should turn out much better than this fellowship," she said, indicating the infernal internal thing.

I handed her a press release that the institute sent participants to give to whatever relevant poobahs might want to advertise our participation. It began, "Scholar receives national recognition." My gut gloated.

The dean was impressed. Then she saw the stack of books I had with me. "Are those the books for this?" she asked.

"Some of them," I said. I showed her the reading list, and she was impressed and interested.

"This is what professors should be doing in the summer," she said. "I envy that you can focus more on your subject in the summers."

A few minutes later I left, still feeling a bit naughty, but immensely relieved that I seemed to have clearance from on high to separate myself from this infernal internal fellowship.

I headed back to my car, on the way to drinks and yummy eggplant and sweet potato fries with Vuboq, whose invitation ensured that I had not wasted make-up and hair for a one hour meeting. Of course, compulsively, I began to replay the conversation. After the intial "free, free, free from the fellowship," a few things struck me. First, that the dean seems to see me as a serious scholar, and that she doesn't seem to accord that recognition to everyone. Second, that I have earned a reputation for being "negative." My gut says, "yeah, you are negative. You always have been. Big deal. Accept it. Don't let another damn person tell you that, however you are, you're wrong."

Finally, some of the way that she phrased things reminded me of the way that the coordinator phrased things, and they led me to believe that -- well, let's put it this way, when I say that I expected the fellowship to be conducted at a graduate level (at minimum), I've been told that "there are so many levels" in our fellowship, and that "not everyone" approaches the fellowship from that scholarly level.

My gloating gut wants to say, "see, they think you are smart!" My monsters say, "see, they think you are a snob. You aren't that smart." To which my gut says, "so, it's wrong to expect people with at least a master's degree to engage at that level of analysis, regardless of their subject specialty?" The monsters say, "see? Snob!" Then a third monster says, "oh, you are making too much of nothing." My gut says, "yeah, you are right. Don't zapruder the exchange. You are free!"

May this be the last post ever on this subject!

Then, the monsters say, "oh, karma will get you somehow."