Well, the first tenure packet is almost together. I still have to print out the official letter-of-request on official stationery, and get my latest "performance review" sheet (I know what it is already - commendable (second from top) in teaching and service, and outstanding (top) in publication). I also need to make a pretty title and paste it on the outside of the binder, and get a set of file-dividers that will work with the fact that I have chosen to use sheet protectors rather than hole-punched sheets.

And then I have to do the same thing all over, for the promotion packet. It's a "second verse, same as the first" situation but it's expected.

The problem is, this is the sort of thing that makes all my latent compulsive tendencies, and also my phobia about that "permanent record" that was supposed to follow me all my life come out. I look at the nice pretty binders I bought, and I think "hmmm...I hope they aren't too pretty. I don't want them to think I'm a lightweight or too 'girly'." But then again, the other choice was to buy the same binder my colleague Tim used (and look like I'm copying) or buy the absolutely fugly yellowish (actually, sort of a meconium color) binders that were the other choice. Or buy a binder at W@l-M@rt and Not Support My Campus Bookstore.

And then I look at the binders again and think: gee, the plastic looks awfully thin and transparent. And then I have one of those I'm-not-living-up-to-the-Martha-dream moments and I fear that I will be rejected because my binder is too flimsy, or because I forgot one important paper that Everyone Must Have Even Though No One Tells You, or because I will invariably paste on the title crooked, or something.

And I have to take a deep breath. And eat the candy bar I keep hidden in my desk for medicinal purposes. And remind myself that if this were a place that would reject someone for tenure solely on the basis of choosing a binder with plastic that looks too thin, it is not somewhere I want to be any way.

I dearly wish I had plugged up my ears - or been absent - that day, so many years ago now, when Dr. Coppola was grousing to the Honors Organic Chem class about tenure, and how he had seen marriages break up over it, and people commit suicide because of it. I wish I had never had the seed of the idea that This Is Supposed To Be Stressful and If You're Not Ready To Jump Off A Cliff, You Are Doing Something Wrong planted in my mind.

I'm not a drinker, so I won't go off and have a big stiff drink when I finish the second binder. But I think I will go home and make myself a strong hot cup of tea, which seems to be the bracer of choice after discovering the body in English cozy mysteries