Torn by a Lemon peel

Last week, I wrote to my friend, Sara Chaisano, to renew my invitation for her and family to come over for dinner (it's about 40 minutes to an hour's drive), and to update her on my current career thinking. I'm torn, because it seems the prospect of them offering me some adjunct teaching for next year is shoring up. What do I want, now? Not sure.

Hi Articulate! Sorry to take so long to respond. Life is really crazy. Newborn schedule and my current administrative tasks. So I am checking email about twice a week only.

Anyway, thank you for the invitation for dinner! It is very kind of you and we would love to come up there. [Detailed Logistics]. So maybe April would be better. But then it's so hard for me to find time to grade now that I spend so much time baby-tending, that it might be better after the semester is over! Or maybe we could meet half way?

Good luck with your faculty job search. That's too bad about [Lake View U.]--do you know why they did that? Here at [Lemon University] it looks more and more like we'll probably need someone to cover our [Field 1] 101 course for the fall and spring next year. I'm not sure about anything else yet, but also possible the [broader crossdisciplinary] class. Nothing concrete yet---but if it works out would you be interested in teaching 101 for us? I already have my two [subfield 2] colleagues on board to approve you.

Take care!
Sara

I've got to reply in the next few days. I'll have to discuss this with the Rocket Scientist. I'd be loathe to turn aside an opportunity that I've spent years working for (even if it's on the bottom rung), without something else to hold on to. This is a really tough call for me. But I respect Sara too much (and my own sense of propriety) to lightly say, yeah, sure, I'd do it, unless I have a good sense that I'd be willing to follow through. To some extent, it would depend on logistics: what would the pay be, and what would be the schedule, both of which would help me to decide the practicality of the commute vs. the costs in time and money for travel.