Anthropologist in Residence (AIR)

I got a job as a handyman at a museum in Panama City,

the L. A. (Lower Alabama) Folk Life Center. I called myself

the Anthropologist-in-Residence (AIR). Like Isaac Bashevis Singer

I was a luftmensch, who lived on air, or with his head in the clouds.

An airhead. I wrote an Anthropologist-in-Residence (AIR) Creed

and posted it at my web site. My employer read it and laid me off

for lack of work. I suspected that I had been fired for blogging,

but I couldn’t prove it. Anyhow, I was eligible for unemployment,

so I went on that. I drew 26 weeks, than a 13-week extension, then

Emergency Unemployment Benefits (EUB). I was a yoob novelist.

When that ran out I got an economic stimulus program grant writing

training courses for the unemployed. That was only three months work,

but I saved enough money to keep me going until now. I’m still here.