September 25, 1998

Transitory Lives in Academe: Separation and Solitude

By LUCIA PERILLO

If I had to devise a descriptive epithet for myself, as do the warriors of Zulu culture, it would probably be something along the lines of "She Who Acts Crazy in Airports." I am the seatmate from hell, the woman whose germ-laced Kleenexes pile up on the tray table as she sobs into the pillow jammed between her head and the window. A missed connection can set me to keening like an animal caught in a leg-hold trap. I