Break Out the Bubbly...

Dear readers, I may have been out of sight, but you have not been out of mind... and at least I recognize that, having ignored this blog for over a week, I better have something appreciable to say for myself upon returning. So I'm giddy giddy giddy to let fly with the news (admittedly, not all that well concealed in my last post), that I have accepted a tenure-track professorship at Northwestern University to begin in the Fall of 2006. I couldn't be more excited. Literally, if you try to imagine me being more excited than I in fact am, you will fail. The job is a joint appointment in the Department of English and the Program in Gender Studies, which only makes it easier for me to offer a wide range of courses in film, literature, theory, drama, gender and sexuality studies, etc., etc., at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and at a truly premier and exciting institution. In a fantastic city. With job security. The official offer arrived late last week, after all the usual bureaucratic processes, and I gleefully accepted it yesterday afternoon.

As if I needed any further incentive to accept this terrific opportunity, there's the enormous karmic plus that follows from Northwestern being mentioned by name in When Harry Met Sally...:



HARRY (lamenting his first date Back Out There): So I downshift into small talk, and I ask her where she went to school, and she says 'Michigan State.' And this reminds me of Helen. All of a sudden, I'm in the middle of this massive anxiety attack, my heart's beating like a wild man, and I start sweating like a pig.

SALLY: Helen went to Michigan State?

HARRY: No, she went to Northwestern. But they're both Big Ten schools.

Anyway, thanks to all who have e-mailed encouragements or written to ask whether I was c) trapped under something heavy. (See above, and for gosh sakes, do yourself an enormous favor and memorize the movie.) Much more to say on the eve of Oscar, after second viewings of Capote, Munich, Good Night, and Good Luck., and Walk the Line, plus a bunch of off-the-radar Oscar nominees from year's past, ranging all the way from delectable surprises to deadening fiascos.

And I read two fascinating plays, and I'm back in the middle of an all-time favorite novel (come on, people, it only costs one cent!). Things have been hopping. More soon. No for real, I promise.