Huh.

While I was busy with other stuff, somebody else built the career I thought I might have. This distresses me. I landed a book contract with the University of Utah Press, and midway through the rough draft the other guy published essentially the same book. I couldn't bring myself to read it, but I hear it's good. He's since cranked out another book or two and papers in journals that cheerfully reject my submissions. I don't read those either. The other half of my department is braver and tells me that we are essentially clones, soulmates, sharing a single stone tool-based brain and writing the same stuff in the same style.

I guess I'm glad I'm not the only person who thinks about our subject matter the way I do, and that the ideas are getting out there to a wide audience. I'm just bothered that it's under his name rather than mine.

It's my fault, not his, of course. I never wanted to go back and polish up the hoop-jumping and ass-kissing skills that are necessary tools for navigating a PhD, nor did I want to sit through another introductory physical anthro class with a bunch of 20-ish baby grad students, nor have I ever had any interest in an academic career that would require teaching. So I toil in obscurity and wonder if I really have any idea what I'm doing after all after the drawing's done.
















My only reliable skill set. Shh, don't tell the boss.