This Side of Lost

Samantha has accepted a position as Rare Book Cataloger at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY.

First off, she's completely jazzed about the job. It will be for her what my current job has been for me -- a fantastic first position doing exactly what she wants to do, with a great salary + benefits, great colleagues and a supportive administration. Plus, it's in the Hudson River Valley just north of New York City -- a beautiful region with a lot to offer. So I'm very excited for her as well. She starts in mid-November.

Secondly. For a variety of reasons mostly involving the timing of academic hiring and a bevy of musical commitments I've made, I can't leave California quite that soon. So I will be staying here for a while. Probably until next summer. Yes, that means we will be dealing with a long distance marriage for a time. This sucks, but we're prepared to deal with it because we know that this short-term problem will be for a better long-term future. In the meantime, I'll be looking for positions in NYC and surrounding area.

This has been in the works for about a month and a half, but the official offer letter did not come until last week, so we had to kind of sit on it. But there has already been much progress to make this a reality: Samantha has located a subletter in Pok (the us-approved shorthand for Poughkeepsie), I have located a smaller apartment here in California, the rental truck has been reserved (we'll be taking our lessons learned and making the cross country trek ourselves with Samantha's half of our worldly possessions in November), the flight back home for me has been purchased, etc. etc. There's still a lot to figure out -- should we switch banks? get a new phone plan? what happens to Netflix?? -- all of which will come in time.

But soon that sample Google Maps search is going to come a lot more in handy.