June 6: Gloucester, Twelve On, Twelve Off, a Piece of My Mind

...Then she invited me to visit Ernie during the summer, at Gloucester, Massachusetts.  She said their house was right on the beach, and they had a tennis court and all, but I just thanked her and told her I was going to South America with my grandmother...

These are the kind of people Holden is used to being around.  People with summer homes in Gloucester, Massachusetts, on the beach.  People who play tennis on their private tennis courts.  People who actually do go on trips to South America with their grandmothers.  These aren't just successful people.  These are wealthy people.  The Caulfields have money.

You may be wondering what's on my mind today.  Well, I'll tell you:  money, and my lack of it.  I just flipped through my copy of The Catcher in the Rye and read about Holden's private schools and lawyer father who produces Broadway shows and Hollywood writer brother.  I have nothing in common with these characters at all.

It's summer now.  While my colleagues at the university at teaching summer courses, I'm basically working twelve hour shifts at my medical office job.  Twelve on.  Twelve off.  Twelve on.  Twelve off.  Sometimes I'm so tired when I get to my car at the end of the day that I'm not sure whether I'm done with a twelve or starting a twelve.  This schedule is by choice and necessity.  Without the income from teaching at the university during the summer months, I choose to work these hours in order to not go into foreclosure on my home.

My situation is not unusual.  My office mate at the university is also contingent faculty.  She has two kids like me, as well.  And she waitresses at Applebee's to pay the bills.  These are the choices people make in order to provide for their families.  Thus, summering in Gloucester is about as foreign-sounding as flying to Uranus.  If I were in Gloucester, I'd be working as a busboy or registering hotel guests.

The strange thing about people of means is that they don't realize they are people of means.  When I sit with a group of professors and they start complaining about how many empty rooms they have in their homes, I want to punch them in their throats.  I want to say, "Ooh, yeah.  I understand.  Just the other day, I was talking to my wife about converting one of our guest bedrooms into my second library.  What do you think?"  Puh-lease.

I'm sure I sound a little whiny at the moment.  I am.  I'm also jealous, angry, and exhausted.  If you give me a few more minutes, I'll probably come up with three more adjectives to describe the seven dwarfs of my fairy tale.  And I'm one of the lucky contingents.  I have a second job that provides health insurance for my household (for the moment).  My office mate doesn't.  She's one case of pneumonia away from eviction.

I'm not looking for pity or even sympathy.  I'm looking for a vacation from my twelve-hour-work-day life.  A nap, too.  I want a nap.  And maybe a glass of cheap wine and some chocolate.  Those are my goals for this summer.

Saint Marty has just given you a piece of his mind.

My house in the Hamptons....