I made my cup of tea,…

I made my cup of tea, took the Baxter to bed, drank the tea, and read through three essays before falling fast asleep for a few more hours. Woke up around 9 and went back to reading it. I was thinking of buying Jed a copy of this book for Christmas, but there's actually quite a bit of repetition in it -- better to just have him read a few of the more individual essays (the Karen Brennan and Bernard Cooper pieces stand out), and then point him to some actual creative nonfiction. I wish I still had the booklist from that class; it's going to take some time scanning my shelves to find all the relevant titles.

On the plus side, the store not only has the paper in question, but is willing to deliver it for free, if I order at least fifty dollars worth. It's terrifying how quickly I can go through fifty dollars worth of paper these days. It's mostly job applications, some of which have required entire copies of my book. Applying for academic job -- not a cheap process. Between all the printing and mailing and university fees for sending out confidential references and official transcripts, I'd guess that it's cost somewhere in the $750 range already -- I wouldn't be surprised if it hits a thousand bucks before we're done. At this point, I'm feeling moderately positive about maybe getting some kind of job offer out of all this -- I can just imagine how disheartening it must be to put this kind of time and effort into the job process, year after year, to no result.

Back to Baxter. Oh, quick note -- I convinced them to change the spine color to one of the shades of green from the cover. I think it'll be just as visible, and the book will look much less cutesy. :-)