Vacation

I am, really for the first time in almost a year, on vacation.

Woo-hoo.

I realize skeptics will look askance and opine: “But weren’t you on sabbatical from September to April?  What about that?”

To which I will admit: “Yes, indeed I was, but that’s just the point.  During all that time, I was under contract and for most of it, fulfilling the responsibilities associated with my Fulbright grant.  I never had a day off; I was always representing my school, my country, and the discipline of Philosophy for Children.  During any of that period, had I been arrested, the headlines (well, probably the page four sub-head) would have noted that it was college professor/Fulbright grantee, David A. Shapiro, who had allegedly done whatever.”

Now, though, I’m off-contract, a private citizen, who no other responsibilities or affiliations than those I give myself.  I’m free, in other words, to fully fuck up on my own time.

Not that I have any particular plans to do so; I’d like a quiet summer of fiction-reading, pot-smoking, and lake-swimming.  Spending time in police custody would certainly put a damper on that way of life.

Still, it’s liberating to not be a representative of anything but myself.  I’m relieved that, for the next three months or so, my actions do not reflect on the integrity of the US State Department or Cascadia College or even the American Philosophical Association.  I can no longer damage their reputations just by besmirching mine.  Now, it’s up to them to look bad on their own.

Of course, this doesn’t mean my peccadillos can’t make anyone but me look bad; should I embarrass myself with unfortunate behavior, I suppose that will reflect poorly on middle-aged White males of Western European and Jewish ancestry.  

But really, here’s a group that’s already done a stellar job of making themselves look less than spectacular; surely nothing I can do will make us look any worse than we do now.