The Harvard Faculty Club

6/1/2002

The past week was my last week working on the project of moving the Harvard Library of International Studies. I have to say that the experience was a good one; I learned to recognize a few words in Russian, to differentiate between Chinese and Japanese characters, to work with some neat preservation issues, and I got some solid cataloging experience in. Yay me. The moving of the library went as smoothly as could be expected.

The last week was the most fun. I helped Bob & Meghan, two other librarians on the project, move a big empty card catalog into their boss Cambridge apartment. After the last day, we went drinking with Peter, another librarian on the project, and two conservators that Bob and Meghan know. As Peter and I went walking to the bar after work, we passed through a section of Cambridge that Peter called “The Gay Futon District”. You know how in the South there are all those little Jesus fishes in the windows of businesses to let you know that the proprietors are Christian? In the Gay Futon District, there are all these little Rainbow stickers in the windows to let you know the furniture dealers are family, as friends back in the 'boro would say...

Drinking after the last day was good. As I walked home over the River Street Bridge, the sun set bright red in the dark clouds, like someone was trying to make an over-dramatic backdrop to my last day of work. And after I got over the bridge, right as I stepped into my neighborhood, the skies opened up for the first real Summer Thunderstorm. In four blocks, despite the umbrella that Meghan loaned me, I managed to get entirely soaked. Probably because I just stood on the overpass bridge for a while to watch the lightning strike the Boston skyline, heavy and dramatic, like a bad heavy metal MTV piece. Wicked.

But the beauty of the Boston skyline under a heavy rain doesn’t change the fact that I’m now quite unemployed. I have less of a chance of getting to stay here in my personal heaven now than ever.

Still, my employers were quite nice. I got an amazing written recommendation from my head supervisor, and on my last day the Japanese librarian took me to the Harvard Faculty Club for lunch. She insisted, to thank me for some last minute cataloging I was able to do for her. I accepted, even though I had on jeans that day, and the Harvard Faculty club…well, I was sure there was some sort of dress code, right?

Not for lunch, it turns out. We walked in, and were seated in the main dining room by a guy wearing white gloves. We ordered the buffet, and I had duck, some sort of fancy cold potato dish, and a few slices of melon. Kazuko, the Japanese librarian, had roast beef and sheer slices of raw pink salmon, along with some sort of pasta salad. The cook came out with more large platters of food as we were eating, and as he passed tables on the way to the buffet, he would stop and offer people fried soft shell crabs, or calamari, or stuffed tomatoes. But what’s important to the story here is that when I made my buffet round for entrees, I noticed the desserts.

Now, keep in mind, I was a little uncomfortable in the Harvard Faculty club, even though I was excited to be there. I was sitting up very straight, keeping my left hand in my lap, and mentally checking the silverware to make sure I was using the right damn fork. I kept my eyes down, and my legs crossed at the ankles, sort of mentally hoping no one noticed how bad my combat boots needed a good shine.

But the desserts! There was a fancy Banana Pudding, and then a huge plate of perfect fresh fruit – strawberries, blueberries, watermelon, raspberries, you name it – and chocolate sauce. Also chocolate pudding, which made me wonder what chocolate pudding not out of a box might taste like.

I often dream of banana pudding; and this was in a big heated silver tray, smelling lovely as banana pudding ever could. But I’ve been eating a lot of potatoes and beans and rice and cornbread lately, and the sight of strawberries and blueberries just about drove me crazy. With chocolate sauce. And I kept trying to make the decision in my mind as to what I would pick, even as the best duck I’ve ever had in my life melted on my tongue. I kept being reminded of the buffet at the Opryland Hotel that my Grandfather took me to as a child. At the Opryland Hotel, no one thought twice against taking as many desserts as you’d like. But not here. Not at the Harvard Faculty Club. People were taking only small bits of the very delicious desserts. So the problem was still there, until, someone else did something so embarrassing I knew that I couldn’t top it.

A man in a business suit upset the whole bowl of chocolate pudding –splat – right onto the dark crimson thick carpet of the Harvard Faculty club. No kidding. He turned really red, and then kept putting food onto his plate like it hadn’t happened.

After seeing someone who was probably a Harvard Professor tip over a very large fancy bowl of Chocolate pudding, something big and contrary rose up in me. And I thought: Fuck it; I may never eat here again. So I used one of the lunch plates, not a dessert plate for pudding and fruit, and then I put chocolate sauce into a pudding bowl for dipping, and I ate like I would have at Ryan’s or Ponderosa, those gross and disgusting middle American barns of food, like a big ol’ ungraceful blue collar thing, and I stand unremorseful.

Best damn blueberries and banana pudding ever, by the way. Not that I would ever tell my grandmother that…

And now, it’s over man. I have no job, less money, and no solid prospects to speak of. Harvard is laying off library staff now, not just talking about cutbacks and limiting perks. So I’ve taken my surplus of frequent flyer miles and booked seats to see my Grandparents and sisters in the South. Road trip time, if only to eat out of my friend’s refrigerators. Time to seriously look at Emory and UGA. Time to find out how broke I can get with these two degrees of mine. Tasha and Aral will look after MR. Puck and the Sea-Monkeys. Wish me luck…