Episode 1, The Job Talk

Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Here are the things a California girl notices immediately upon her arrival in Maine:

· I just spent an hour and a half on a small commuter jet alongside a large (250+) man. We were both at pains to remain frozen in place throughout the flight, so as to minimize the awkwardness of brushing up against each other in any way. Thank God for books. And ipods.

· There is snow on the ground when I get off the plane. I know this because you don’t disembark from commuter jets directly into the terminal; you have to walk down the stairs and across the tarmac, which sounds very Grace Kelley-Old Hollywood, until you realize that it’s not.

· When you get a rental car in Maine, it comes with a long-handled ice/snow scraper in the passenger seat—free of charge. When I opened the door and saw that, I thought, “yep, definitely not in Kansas anymore.”

· Moose crossing signs. In California, these are yellow road signs with profiles of deer, and they are placed along busy roads but not the highway; in Maine, it’s a moose, with big moose antlers, along the highway. This completely cracked me up.

· The highway toll to drive from Portland to Maine is one dollar. I didn’t think anything cost as little as a dollar anymore—not even coffee. That is literally one-fifth of what it takes to cross the Golden Gate Bridge today. But in Maine you have to pay going both ways…with the Golden Gate, it’s basically $2.50 each direction.

· There seem to be a great many country music stations in Maine. But I found a good classic rock channel or two, so I was happy. Creedence Clearwater Revival seems to be big, and I am A-OK with that. They are my go-to guys for roadtrip music.

· There is a very scary public service ad on tv in Maine. It is a mustachioed guy with a heavy New England accent who talks about how, in a winter storm, when the power goes out and you call their hotline, a service tag is automatically printed out and guys like him go to work for you to get the power back on. My power is going to go out??? What if the phone line went, too? Will I have cell phone access in Maine? Oh my GOD! I’m going to get cut off from civilization!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (This is why Stephen King lives in Maine.)

· I did use the ice/snow scraper. It snowed between 6 inches and a foot on the last night I was in Maine. So I found myself clearing snow off of my partially buried rental car for a good 20 minutes. Then I climbed in the car and realized that I had gotten snow all over me. I wondered how this would work if I wound up living here: what do I need to know about anti-freeze? Probably where to put it. I don’t know that right now. Must find out. I guess I would keep a bottle in my trunk. What else would I need to keep in my trunk? For the past 12 years, it’s been flip flops and a beach blanket. That’s all you need in California.

I arrived on this first journey in order to give the job talk that got me the one-year appointment. When the Search Chair picked me up to take me to breakfast, I immediately became aware of what winter does to your poor car on the East Coast. I was remotely conscious of this before, but seeing entire parking lots filled with vehicles that have basically been trashed across their lower half—by snow, by sludge, by the salt they pour on the roads to keep them from icing—it definitely becomes abundantly clear. This actually made me relieved that my car is already dented on both sides; then I won’t be destroying a flawless machine but simply adding to the “character” of the one I already have. :)

So I’m dressed in classic job talk attire: the full suit. Black pencil skirt, black jacket, red camisole, black pointy-toe (d’orsay, for those in the know) heels. And we walk into a classic New England breakfast joint, a very simple rectangular shack, filled with classic New Englanders: old wrinkled men in suspenders and trucker hats, women in what look to be hand-knitted sweaters (no, I’m not judging—I’m actually wearing a hand-knitted scarf, although I didn’t make it and I don’t think that makes me a member of the club anyway, judging from everyone’s reactions). Because everyone stops and stares at me. I feel not so much like a person from “out of town” (as the Search Chair turns and explains to me) as a green, scaly-skinned alien who has just landed her spacecraft in the parking lot and descended upon said breakfast joint for the gawking pleasure of the Maine masses. It is a very self-conscious, “my God I’m over-dressed for this situation” sort of moment.

But breakfast is delicious, the thinnest strips of bacon I’ve ever seen, which is how I like them. The whole shebang with eggs and great toast and coffee all comes in at under $5. Coming from California, that is one great deal.

And I’m thoroughly impressed by the people I actually meet (not the ones who stare at me). There is a bartender at the Grill Room in Portland named John, who seems to know a bit about everything and clearly does quite a bit of reading in his spare time. When I start talking about how I’m in town to give a lecture on female sexuality in the Victorian period, he’s right there with me—he knows about the history of the vibrator and the erroneous “hysteria” diagnosis attributed to women for hundreds of years until (at least) 1952. I am very impressed. He even gives me a copy of that day’s Portland Daily Sun (“sun”…ha!), page two of which contains an article about the latest sexual controversy: apparently the Vermont Country Store catalog decided to introduce a new category of goods—sex toys—and as a result, affronted New Englanders who could not bear the concept of “personal massagers” and “instructional videos” offered alongside their flannel pajamas and roof ice rakes had been sending angry letters and canceling their subscriptions. This is great stuff. I use it in my lecture as a recent, local, and specific reference to the contemporary relevance of this topic in our society.