…and within a single month we jump from the height of Summer to its death throes. Three weeks ago we pulled up stakes and moved 10 miles down the road to Ypsilanti. It's a hobby to compare the poor place unfavorably to Ann Arbor, which isn't fair; there are more outward signs of trouble, true—more homeless scouring the neighborhood for glass bottles, empty storefronts all in a row, more broken glass in the street—but the rent's cheaper, local brew is $2.50 for 22 oz, Ian has a lovely bike commute under broad trees, and it's been scientifically proven that Ypsi is 85% less completely full of itself than AA. So the trade-off is closer to fair than not.
Ian has started to get serious about putting together the materials he'll need for the job market. As with most things, he should have gotten serious about this a good deal earlier, but he'll be none the worse for it. To the casual observer nothing has changed; he still spends long stretches at his computer, still tries his best to produce good prose about Aristotle day after day—but now he's a product and has to think about the packaging.
This kind of thinking is not foreign to him; he has an ideal advisor who has at every chance ushered him toward presentability, and the lessons will serve him well. Ian has an ambitious plan for drafting and redrafting the chapters of his dissertation and the numerous documents that philosophy departments across the nation will want to see from him (teaching dossier, writing samples, CV; it's not so different from applying to any other job that requires one to show something for the time one has spent preparing to apply for it)—ambitious and perhaps a bit insane, but he's only ever done what's expected of him, and the key to his success was always his unreasonable demands.
Today to celebrate our three months of marriage, we cleaned! Well, actually we cleaned before we rewarded ourself with a fun day. We traversed to Ann Arbor to eat at Zingerman's Road House for a late lunch. We've been talking about doing BBQ there for ages, and really, after such a yummy lunch, we shouldn't have put it off so long! After lunch we ran a few errands, then went on a lovely long bike ride on the patch between Ypsi and Ann Arbor. And how nice to come home to a lovely, sparkling apartment—with the cat lolling on the rug by the door—to some refreshing iced tea.
Anyone wishing to see our new place: your long and frustrating wait is over!
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| The Office, Where Ian Spends Much of His Time |
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| Our Lovely Little Kitchen |
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| Rachel's Chaise, Just to the Left of Ian's Desk |
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| Our New Dining Table |
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| Our Bedroom |
