And S Once Again Gets Roped Into My Insanity
So the other day S came over to pick up varying bits of detritus that still live at my apartment, even though S
himself has not lived in my apartment for like four years, and it was totally a different apartment anyway. So along with the computer that we built that never actually worked (sometimes I wonder if that was actually the goal- they break anyway, why not just build one that doesn’t work in the first place), I was finally able to give him the scary box. The scary box is where I put everything technology related when I moved apartments, because until then it had all just sat around the non-working computer like little computer orphans. I, of course, knew the real story, which is that it was not sitting there all sad and “We only want to help”, it was actually
plotting, because technology is cunning and evil and a tad bit the drama queen. So I took everything and put it in a box and hid the box behind other boxes on the top shelf of my closet where the only way it could get revenge was by kamikaze-ing down onto my head. Which it did approximately once a month. For two years.
I’m not even kidding.
Meanwhile, in the rest of the house, technology was plotting and apparently
breeding. As part of my “I am going to make this the most organized move in the history of moves so that unpacking actually takes
negative time”, I decided to clean out my nightstand. The top drawer was pretty much normal, but I hadn’t really opened the bottom drawer in awhile. When I did, I found:
2 Skeins Yarn
2 Cheap Ashtrays
Approximately 7 cell phone headsets for phones I do not own any longer
4 pairs non-working headphones.
GIANT PILE OF WIRES.
Y’all? I have
no idea where these wires are from. I have no idea what these wires do. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that I initially only had 2 wires and they have been having their fun in the drawer for the past 18 months. So what did I do with the wires? Seeing as I have no idea what they do, I probably should have gotten rid of them, but they are technology, and along with being scary, technology has a way of being
important. (Not until the day after you throw it out, but I am hedging my bets here). So I did with it what I do with all technology, as evidenced above: neatly folded the wires and put them in a box.
So S is getting the computer and he has Box Of Technology #1, and he asks me if I still have the mouse I bought. Which I did! But… I didn’t know where. And then it hit me…
Yes, the mouse was in Box Of Technology #3, which was also filled with renegade wires and things, and was on the top shelf of a
different closet. Y’all, seriously,
technology scares the shit out of me. But technology? So does not scare the shit out of S. S has technology’s number, he does. So I instantly drafted S to play a fun game with me entitled: Look at the Boxes of Technology and Tell Me What Things Do. That went something like this:
Me: “Look! Technology! What does it do?”
S: “Well, ok, this is a USB cable. So is this. So is… ok, you have a lot of these.”
Me: “But those are occasionally useful! And sneaky. Because I have so many because I keep buying new ones because they hide.”
S: “Ok, I can go with anthropomorphizing the technology.”
Me: “What does this do?”
S: “That’s a midi cable.”
Me: (blank stare).
S: “This… I think this is mine, actually.”
Me: “Take it! Take whatever you want! Ooh, I recognize that! I have more of those!”
S: “You have… more of these?”
Me: “Yes! In the other Box of Technology!”
S: “You…. You have
another box???”
Me: “Yes! I will get it.” (gets box). “Here! All technology! Except the handcuffs.”
S: “I.. ok.”
Me: “So what do these do?”
S: “They make stuff talk to your TV.” (He knows how to talk to me.)
Me: “Are they useful?”
S: “Well, they can be…”
Me: “Good. I have seven.”
S: “You have… seven. Good lord. Ok.”
Me: (holds up strange foreign cable.) “What’s this?”
S: “I have no idea. I not only do not know
what this is, I can’t even fathom a guess as to
why something like this would ever exist.”
Me: “Genetic mutation.”
So we went through all my technology, and now I am down to one box, and S asked if he could have the other box to take stuff home in, and I said sure, because I am cool like that. And then I looked at the box.
Me: “S? You want to know what is really funny?”
S: “That’s my box, isn’t it?”
Yep. So see, even subconsciously I know that all things Technology belong with S, and far, far the Hell away from me.
But if anyone wants to come over, I still have one box and a mystery cord!
It Is Probably Never a Good Idea to Tell Your Professor: “Bite Me”
… but it’s becoming more and more tempting by the day.
This semester actually should be going well for me. I have three classes that I really, really like. In Con Law II, the professor is mildly insane, but in the way that leads to interesting conversations, at least for people like me, who like stuff like gender studies and critical race theory. The neat part is, there are actually other people in the class who have like those things too, or at least are willing to talk about them, and the conversations are a blast. We are slowly all becoming all bond-y and friend-y and talk outside of class and grab a cup of coffee-like and that? Is kind of fun.
Especially fun is when one guy in particular talks, because he always starts with a very intelligent, rational comment, and then at some point he goes somewhere so insane and absurd everyone just does a double take. It’s like, “Yes, in
Brown v. Board, the progressives were making a radical movement towards judicial activism through a divergence from traditional jurisprudence, much like when the Kool Aid man leapt through walls in the 80’s, except now children eat too much sugar.” And everyone is like, yeah, yeah, …. The
FUCK?!?
I also enjoy Indian Law (except y’all? We totally screwed the Native Americans. I mean, I always had a vague understanding that we screwed the Native Americans, but seriously? We
totally screwed the Native Americans.). My human rights advocacy class is cool too, if for no other reason than it got last years’ memo, and totally from day one has not even pretended to be a law class (Professor: “I am not teaching a law class.”), making it a refreshing change.
But y’all? The year is not going well for me. It is not going well for me at
all, because of my fourth class, which is the
class from Hell. I knew this class would be bad when we got like a seven page e-mail assigning us things that were due
before class even started. Worse, this e-mail looked like it was written by a troll on a mommy blog, with the amount of exclamation points and bolds and ALL CAPS throughout. The class got worse though, as the two professors, (yes, there are two) seem hell bent on wasting all of our time. We have to write papers, and the class is set up so that people are presenting papers. This means that for the first couple classes, we had very little to do. Did this stop Professors Talky and Gabby? Oh, hell no. They kept us around, for
entire class periods, either re-discussing class rules or going over things like, “a paragraph has a topic sentence.” I am not kidding.
So as I wrote about in my last entry, we have to write these papers. And we are supposed to post a draft the week before we present, and then we present the draft, and they give us comments, and we rewrite. Ok… fine. So I killed myself a few weeks ago, including taking a day off of work, to get a draft done so I could post it. And I did, and (limericks aside), I was ready to go last Tuesday, but… Mssrs. Talky and Gabby wouldn’t SHUT UP, and they ran out of time. But they were all, “You… need to write a new paper.” So, ok. I could improve on what I wrote. Not that they
helped me so much, more like giving me widely vague ideas that I should “consider”.
Anyway, so I went home and I did a bunch of research and I stumbled on a topic. That I liked! And I e-mailed the profs and took Friday off and did a ton of research. Friday night, my prof e-mails me back, (AFTER I had done all the research, mind you), and is like, “Eh, you can cover that topic, but you have to bring up other issues. And take into account our conversation on Tuesday.” *
* Note: Our conversation on Tuesday? Basically boils down to: pick a topic, which I thought I
did, as evidenced by… my topic.
But anyway, I freaked, but didn’t have much of a choice, since I ALREADY took the day off work to research. Again. So I wrote him back and pointed out ways that my new paper did what he had asked, all nice like, and then spent most of the weekend writing what I honestly think is a pretty good paper.
This morning (this morning, people. THIS MORNING. My paper needs to be posted later this week, and he gives me feedback NOW? I WORK, asshole. My life? Is NOT your class). Anyway, his brilliant feedback today?
“Can we meet after class? I am afraid your topic is too broad.”
….Too broad? Too broad??? You mean, the topic that you told me FRIDAY I needed to add to and not just focus on??? THAT TOPIC???
So I wrote him back an e-mail, establishing that:
1. I work full time.
2. I have an appointment Tuesday night after class.
3. The paper? Is already written.
And somehow, I managed to NOT sign it: bite me.
Y’all? I need a break.
We're At The Point Where I Just Bitch. A Lot.
Oh, y’all. The traveling is over and the waiting is over, and everything has worked out fabulously, and I still can’t give any details yet. But then I sort of woke up and was like, “Oh, right, I work and I go to school and I totally have a paper due and Oh yeah!
This is why I hate my life.”
I mean, seriously. I spent the majority of the holiday weekend working on this damn paper. Of course, by “working on a paper” I mean a very specific ritual that also involves smoking cigarettes, doing millions of loads of laundry, and finding every single goddamn piece of dry cleaning I had and delivering it downstairs. (And yeah,
that was fun when I went to pick it up and the lovely woman in the convenience store informed me and my friend, who I had happened to run into, that I had spent “Much money! Hundred dollars!” Yeah. Well, she was close.)
And it was even more fabulous on Monday night, when Kate and E came home while I was working on my paper, and I continued to work on my paper all the while thinking, “They are having more fun than me. I KNOW they are having more fun than me. Maybe I should go out there and have fun, too.” Luckily, E was able to provide an emergency back-up printer (oh, don’t even ask), so I was able to get something done.
Of course, that something may have been a limerick.
Yes, y’all, I have a 25 page paper on federal reporters’ privilege due, at that point I had maybe 7-8 pages written, I didn’t even really know what my thesis was, and I produced: A limerick. Which I will reproduce here for you in full, because it’s maybe the only thing I can be proud of accomplishing lately:
Federal Reporters’ Privilege: An Utterly Irrelevant Limerick
There once was an agent named Plame.
Who came by some accidental fame.
And then by court order,
They jailed the reporter,
For not revealing a name.
See how brilliant I am? Brilliant! Hear that noise? Yes, that is me
slamming my head against my desk. God I hate this time of year.
And unfortunately, it is simply not getting any better any time soon. Because in two weeks- I move! And I move on a weekend where there also happen to be 47 social events that of
course I need to be at, except… wait. I ALSO have the final version of the paper I have been working on due a week after that (and believe me, that involves some serious editing) and did I mention I have to end the plight of Romanian orphans? (Oh, and that so sounds like a nice hyperbole thrown in there for good joke-y measure, but I am actually not so much kidding. Because in Human Rights Law (yes, I take MANY classes) we have to take a major human rights issue and put together a proposal to FIX. IT. As E said, “Bonus points to those who actually start up their own non-profit!”) So yeah, Romanian orphans and two other classes, neither of which I have even
been to with any regularity. And my boss has decided we have “stagnated” for too long, and wants to “kick things up.” So boxes and unfamiliarity and a new commute?
Bring it.
See? See how much fun my life is?
Sigh. Send wine.
Traveling Has Turned My Cold Cold Heart to Mush
So, I haven’t written much. Maybe that is because for the last ten days I have flown to Texas
every thirty-six hours. I am not kidding. In ten days I made three round trip trips to Texas, and I am exhausted and really,
really glad to be home.
Part of my problem with all of this is my general feelings about flying, which can pretty much be summed up in a conversation I had with The Joker, which I will post below. This was directly prior to my second trip, so the gloss had worn off, but I was not yet to “curled up on the couch crying”. (more on that, later).
The Joker: “Excited yet?”
Me: “Eh, it’s more…
Run to metro.
Travel to airport.
Hate airport.
Hurry to get through security.
Get through inexplicably empty security in record time.
Sit and wait. And wait.
Get on plane. Yay plane!
5 minutes later: Hate plane.
Takeoff- convince myself am going to die.
Do not die.
Fly, fly, bored.
Try to sleep.
Get crick in neck.
Contemplate coke or coffee.
Get coffee.
Instantly hit Murphy’s Law of Turbulence.
Spill hot coffee on self.
Hate plane, turbulence, pilot, guy next to me for good measure.
Land. Convince self am going to die.
Look out window to determine when close enough to ground to survive crash.
Do not crash.
Find cab.
Ride uncomfortably to hotel.
Check in hotel.
Yay hotel!
Excited.”
Annnd… that pretty much sums up the last ten days or so. I have not been to work. I have not been to class. Instead, I have been staying at a gorgeous hotel with a Jacuzzi bathtub and have been taken out to fabulous lunches and dinners and basically have been treated like a rock star.
You know what I realized? I don’t so much want to
be a rock star. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. And while traveling is a lot of fun, I have had the best times lately at home. And a Jacuzzi and great hotel room just aren’t as much fun if you don’t have someone to share them with.
Which… isn’t like me to say, so much. When I planned this whole thing, (because yes, there was some planning involved in this insanity), my life was different. Mainly, I had not met The Joker and was making plans as I always did- on my own, and for me. There’s nothing wrong with this. But since I’ve been with him, I’ve been remembering things- or maybe learning them for the first time. I’m realizing just how much more things can mean if you have someone to share them with. I’m seeing that “home” can be more than a city, “life” can be more than a job, and “future” can be more than a five year plan. All of those things can also be a person, and when they are things are different. Things are, actually, better, even though it’s scary as hell sometimes.
Y’all, I am one big ball of exhausted stress, so forgive me my sappy rambling. I intended for there to be some major changes in my life. I just didn’t intend on having someone at my side while they happened. But every day I realize more and more that having that person may be the best change I never even hoped for.
I’ll be back soon with your regularly scheduled snarking.
