This morning, one of the guys in the department was shocked at my still-in-progress new look, which entailed my hair being tied back into a long ponytail, my hipster-ish clear sunglasses, and my new, mostly-shaven face.
"Going for a new look?" he asked me. "I was afraid you'd cut your hair."
"That'll come next week once I get a new guard for my clippers in the mail," I replied.
"Naw, really? Don't cut your hair. Just keep it tied back like that."
Granted, this guy is older and balding himself, yet he doesn't know about my own hair loss problems, or just how much shampoo and conditioner it takes to keep my hair looking as nice as it does on a daily basis. Not to mention the amount of sweat it soaks up when it's hot, like it was today. However, my hair is one of the few things about my appearance I take pride in, and take time to actually make look pretty. I can't believe I just typed that. Somebody stop me.
"I'd rather not go through a bottle of shampoo every week," I told him. If I shower every day and actually want to get my hair clean, this is pretty accurate. "It needs to come off now so that it has time to grow back over the fall months before it gets cold again."
Y'know, if it decides to grow back on certain sections of my head at all. After all, I am drawing first blood here with the whole haircut thing.
"Well, you do what you want," he said, "it's your hair. But I think you should keep it. Rock it, own it."
It's still coming off. I'd be tempted to use the clippers now if I didn't want it to be so short that I couldn't stand it for a month or so. That's why, obviously, I need the guide comb I'm still waiting on.
Already this semester I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and over-tired. My friend Andrea thinks that it's because I'm not used to getting up early again yet, not used to teaching every other day, and staying out until 10PM for classes -- not to mention being exposed to the germs of all my students and colleagues again, which my immune system is probably working overtime to fight off (even though I'm not sick). While all of that is at least partially true, the biggest concern for me right now is the boredom and loneliness of living alone in a house 24 miles north of Wichita. Yes, I have the cats, and yes, I have plenty of work to do (and I do it, if begrudgingly at times) but I can't help but reiterate how strange and new it is to live alone, with no noise in the house other than the cats chasing one another, my own breathing, and whatever music I'm playing on my PC at the time. Music that I've kept playing almost constantly whenever I'm at home, because otherwise the silence gets too unnerving. While I'm sure I'll get used to all of it eventually, right now it's just...well, strange.
This afternoon after I got home, I noticed the cats were meowing and crying in my room, the kind of meowing that has the distinct tonal quality of hey dad, we caught something alive, come see us play with it. I walked back into my room from the kitchen where I had been washing dishes to see them gathered around one of my sneakers. When I shooed them away (pun intended), I saw that inside the heel of my very nice pair of black sneakers was a very, very large brown recluse spider. As in, the size of a 50-cent-piece large. May be the biggest one I've seen in the house.
I dumped it out and immediately killed it (obviously), checked my other shoes and clothes laying around the room out of sheer paranoia, and then immediately went downstairs to the garage's storage room, where I got out the half-full gallon bottle/sprayer of Ortho Home Defense I purchased two years ago when the former girlfriend and I moved into the house. I then proceeded to completely douse, as if I were making magic circles, every outside door/entryway/crevice/window (those I could reach, anyway), making sure to take special care to soak down the areas around the back door, garage door, and the door that goes from the inside of the garage into the house, as well as making a perimeter around the foundation of the house as well as possible with that liquid I had. Even though I took special care not to get any inside the house (as, obviously, it wouldn't be great for the cats) I did get it all over my skin, hands, and clothes due to the sprayer. Once I'd emptied the bottle of bug poison and was satisfied enough that nothing else would be able to get into the house unless it had a countenance of steel, I threw away the bottle, stripped (throwing my clothes in the washer as I went) and took a shower to scrub it all off. Never again, spider-fucks. Not if I have anything to say about it.
The spiders don't even creep me out, really. When you live in the midwest, having hundreds (if not thousands) of brown recluse in your house with you at any given point in time is nothing new, and generally, they don't cause problems; it's when they actually try to invade my space -- like, say, my shoes -- that pisses me off.
You may be thinking something along the lines of so wait, Brandon, are you trying to say that you killed this spider on principle, as an honor killing? Yes. Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Almost any other kind of spider I'd be fine with just letting the cats kill and eat, because they do that. I killed this one as a warning to the others. Cue the dramatic music.
While I was down there, I cleaned out a large chunk of the garage as well, because -- really -- what else was I going to spend my afternoon doing? Got rid of a lot of junk, but nothing big or important; there's still some furniture and other stuff down there that I'll keep and use if the former girlfriend doesn't eventually want it back when she moves out of Wichita, like a file cabinet and some unfinished tables/chairs -- but the junk I'll never use became the latest victims of "The Trashing." At this rate, I may actually get my money's worth out of the exorbitant fees the city of Newton charges for trash and recycling.
I also need to mow the grass at some point again soon. It's getting tall and nasty. I won't have time to do that before Friday, however. Maybe I'll do it Friday morning, especially if I've not made any "weekend plans" before then. As I was only on campus for about four hours today, I didn't really have the chance to talk to anyone about any plans or future gathering-like things. Tomorrow will more than likely be my best shot to see if I can set anything up with anyone, really. I'll be on campus for a little less than twelve hours, but most of that time I'll just be there more than anything else. I do have two classes, but I doubt either of them will last the entire time. Well, the workshop probably will. I have a feeling that's going to be a very interesting class tomorrow night, for various reasons.
This morning, Rae told me "by the way, just a warning, I'd try to date outside the department if I were you."
I blinked a few times. "Oookay..."
"No, I mean in general. I told [the former girlfriend] that too. Dating within the department will just cause all sorts of entanglements and problems down the road. No good for anyone involved."
"I wasn't planning on dating anyone within the department," I told her, which is mostly true. Mostly. "However, if it happens, or I'm offered a date by someone here -- hey, I'm not going to complain."
This has always been the rough plan, really -- actively pursue nothing, but also actively pay quiet attention to anyone who may have more than a passing interest in me. As it stands, I may have one or two leads as it is, and no, I will not say whether they're in the department or not. Frankly, it's nobody's business but mine. I will say, however, that I've had the ability as well as the time (imagine that!) to make a few new friends since I've been single, friends that I treasure having in my life and will probably become part of a new core group of tightly-knit friends I'll have throughout the rest of my graduate school career. That's certainly interesting to think about, at least.
Last I checked, I haven't sold any more copies of the book. I'm going to wait a few weeks to see if any other classmates/colleagues purchase it once we get our long-awaited first paychecks of the semester on Friday before I spread anything else about it via word-of-mouth. Just curious to see what happens, really. I've brainstormed several ideas for a follow-up but haven't put anything on paper yet. Interestingly enough, none of my own family members have purchased the book yet. This doesn't really surprise me, as none of them have really made any bones about the fact that while they support my choice in career and education as an English instructor as well as a writer, and they're glad I'm making something of myself in a roundabout way, they don't really care to actually read any of my writing. Save for my parents, of course. My mother has always been a big fan of this blog. As for everyone but my parents? I'm glad they're sending positivity my way for the first time since I entered graduate school, at least, but I totally respect if they're not interested in reading any of my stuff. It's not like my style and subject matter is everyone's proverbial cup of tea.
On that note, I must get ready for bed. I don't have to get up early in the morning, but I do have to get up and make the trip in there to class at some point, the earlier the better (for a better chance at getting a somewhat decent parking spot). I don't actually have class until 1:30, and all my work for it is already done. So it looks like tomorrow will be a sort of "lounge about" day until my classes. Maybe I can use some of that "lounge about" time to my advantage.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
The Reinvention of Brandon, Part III
Fall semester: day seven
I went to bed last night a little after 8PM, not because I was ungodly tired (though I was, indeed, ready for sleep) but because it was much cooler downstairs than upstairs. As it had been thoroughly pleasant outside most of the day yesterday, I had turned the air conditioner off to save money on the electric bill -- a bill that has steadily been climbing as the summer months go on into the fall -- and because of that, by the evening the upstairs of the house had reached close to 90 degrees (95.1 in my Man Cave before I went to bed). I was sweating through my clothes, and had begun to develop a sinus headache due to the rain/storms that were supposed to be moving in during the overnight hours, so I just said fuck it, put away the sausage I had thawing on the counter to cook for dinner, and went to bed.
I awoke shortly after 4AM, got up and had my customary cigarettes and coffee before showering, tying my hair back for the day, and getting dressed. Off in the distance, I can see/hear lightning and low rumbles of thunder, which means I may be driving through some rather nasty weather this morning to get to school. This will also be the first day this semester I wear socks and actual shoes, as I'm not a big fan of having wet feet all day if it does decide to downpour on me.
Yesterday's errands were short-lived; I got up yesterday morning not feeling too great, but knowing I had a lot to do. I didn't have my next volley of packages ready to mail out yet, so I decided to forego the post office for this week and instead try to mail some more things out next week. As you know, I've been mailing out thank-you packages of tie-dye shirts (as well as other things) to those friends who helped me get back on my feet by sending me either small appliances or furniture after the breakup with the former girlfriend. I've still got three or four packages to prep, and should be able to get those done over this coming weekend.
I've learned that it's probably not the best idea to trust the Monte Carlo's gas gauge; yesterday, before I did anything else, I pulled into the gas station near my house to "fill up" for the week. According to the gauge, I had a little more than 1/4 tank left, and my trip meter read 150 miles exactly. Knowing that my car usually took about nine gallons or so on each fill-up, I wasn't expecting anything more than that.
It took 12.4 gallons and could have taken more -- it just kept filling and filling. As the price entered ludicrous territory, I stopped it, because at that point, I had paid for $43 worth of gas at $3.52 a gallon. How that car could take that much gas is beyond me, but it either means that it has a good-lord-huge gas tank of 16 or 18 gallons, or that my fuel gauge isn't exactly being honest with me, and I'd run it down much further than it would tell me. From this point forward, I'll be relying on the trip meter above my odometer only, and when it gets to that 150-mile point (or somewhere around there) I'll fill it up. That, at least, I know is accurate.
After spending $43 on gasoline alone, I was in no mood to hit up the Dollar Tree, so I bypassed that as well and went directly to Walmart, proceeding to spend more money there than I'd originally planned as well. I did, however, get a new rug for the kitchen, and finally purchased a paper shredder there (so that I don't eventually have to order one from Amazon), amongst other household things and foodstuffs. I was home by 10:45 AM, after which I spent a good thirty minutes chopping up celery to place into baggies for snacks/lunches this week. I'm trying to eat healthier, eat more fruits and vegetables, etc -- it's one of the reasons I asked my mother to send my dehydrator out here if she can, so I can make dried apples and kiwi slices to take to work with me on my long days. If I can keep up the habit of eating lots of fruit and vegetables again, not only will I begin to slim down a lot more in the weight department but I'll also be able to better balance my food budget.
My hair clippers arrived in the mail yesterday, and they're very nice. I can't wait to use them. The biggest clip that came with them, however, was a 1" clip, and while I want my hair short, I don't want it that short. So yes, I do have to wait until I get the other guide clip in the mail, whenever that may be. That's why I've tied my hair back today -- I'm trying to get used to the idea of myself with less visible hair and no full beard anymore, so that every time I look in the mirror I'm not surprised by what looks back at me.
Today should be mercifully short; I teach at 9:30 and 11, and have a thought-provoking lecture planned for my students. Depending on how long said lecture lasts for each class, I should be able to get out of there and come back home a little after the noon hour, and won't have to return until tomorrow in the late morning or early afternoon hours (my first class tomorrow is at 1:30). Tuesdays are, as I've said before, my easy day, which I'm thankful for because it's not only the shortest day of the week for me, but the only day of the work week where I don't have to attend any classes.
The Reinvention of Brandon is slowly progressing; as you know, I'm changing my looks and eating habits, but the other thing I'd like to do is find something to do (other than homework) over this long weekend ahead of us. As you probably know, next Monday is Labor Day, and everyone's off work/school. I'm going to try to find somewhere to go, find someone to come visit me up here in Newton, or perhaps try to find a date for one of the weekend nights -- even a friendly one, and even if it means I have to run myself ragged and end up doing something on Thursday night after class (though I hope it doesn't come to that, as I'll be dead tired). If I'm unsuccessful in finding something to do, that's fine of course -- I will, after all, have more than enough homework to take care of over the weekend -- but still, I'd like to do something fun. I think I've earned it, I think I deserve it. Tomorrow will mark a full month of my being single, and I've yet to actually do anything interesting with that newly-acquired single status, not just dating-wise, but actually getting-out-of-the-house-more-wise. We'll see what happens.
On that note, I must pack up and leave the house for the day to get to campus. It's dark enough to where I'll have to use my headlights (and wipers, of course, if it's raining) to be able to see.
I went to bed last night a little after 8PM, not because I was ungodly tired (though I was, indeed, ready for sleep) but because it was much cooler downstairs than upstairs. As it had been thoroughly pleasant outside most of the day yesterday, I had turned the air conditioner off to save money on the electric bill -- a bill that has steadily been climbing as the summer months go on into the fall -- and because of that, by the evening the upstairs of the house had reached close to 90 degrees (95.1 in my Man Cave before I went to bed). I was sweating through my clothes, and had begun to develop a sinus headache due to the rain/storms that were supposed to be moving in during the overnight hours, so I just said fuck it, put away the sausage I had thawing on the counter to cook for dinner, and went to bed.
I awoke shortly after 4AM, got up and had my customary cigarettes and coffee before showering, tying my hair back for the day, and getting dressed. Off in the distance, I can see/hear lightning and low rumbles of thunder, which means I may be driving through some rather nasty weather this morning to get to school. This will also be the first day this semester I wear socks and actual shoes, as I'm not a big fan of having wet feet all day if it does decide to downpour on me.
Yesterday's errands were short-lived; I got up yesterday morning not feeling too great, but knowing I had a lot to do. I didn't have my next volley of packages ready to mail out yet, so I decided to forego the post office for this week and instead try to mail some more things out next week. As you know, I've been mailing out thank-you packages of tie-dye shirts (as well as other things) to those friends who helped me get back on my feet by sending me either small appliances or furniture after the breakup with the former girlfriend. I've still got three or four packages to prep, and should be able to get those done over this coming weekend.
I've learned that it's probably not the best idea to trust the Monte Carlo's gas gauge; yesterday, before I did anything else, I pulled into the gas station near my house to "fill up" for the week. According to the gauge, I had a little more than 1/4 tank left, and my trip meter read 150 miles exactly. Knowing that my car usually took about nine gallons or so on each fill-up, I wasn't expecting anything more than that.
It took 12.4 gallons and could have taken more -- it just kept filling and filling. As the price entered ludicrous territory, I stopped it, because at that point, I had paid for $43 worth of gas at $3.52 a gallon. How that car could take that much gas is beyond me, but it either means that it has a good-lord-huge gas tank of 16 or 18 gallons, or that my fuel gauge isn't exactly being honest with me, and I'd run it down much further than it would tell me. From this point forward, I'll be relying on the trip meter above my odometer only, and when it gets to that 150-mile point (or somewhere around there) I'll fill it up. That, at least, I know is accurate.
After spending $43 on gasoline alone, I was in no mood to hit up the Dollar Tree, so I bypassed that as well and went directly to Walmart, proceeding to spend more money there than I'd originally planned as well. I did, however, get a new rug for the kitchen, and finally purchased a paper shredder there (so that I don't eventually have to order one from Amazon), amongst other household things and foodstuffs. I was home by 10:45 AM, after which I spent a good thirty minutes chopping up celery to place into baggies for snacks/lunches this week. I'm trying to eat healthier, eat more fruits and vegetables, etc -- it's one of the reasons I asked my mother to send my dehydrator out here if she can, so I can make dried apples and kiwi slices to take to work with me on my long days. If I can keep up the habit of eating lots of fruit and vegetables again, not only will I begin to slim down a lot more in the weight department but I'll also be able to better balance my food budget.
My hair clippers arrived in the mail yesterday, and they're very nice. I can't wait to use them. The biggest clip that came with them, however, was a 1" clip, and while I want my hair short, I don't want it that short. So yes, I do have to wait until I get the other guide clip in the mail, whenever that may be. That's why I've tied my hair back today -- I'm trying to get used to the idea of myself with less visible hair and no full beard anymore, so that every time I look in the mirror I'm not surprised by what looks back at me.
Today should be mercifully short; I teach at 9:30 and 11, and have a thought-provoking lecture planned for my students. Depending on how long said lecture lasts for each class, I should be able to get out of there and come back home a little after the noon hour, and won't have to return until tomorrow in the late morning or early afternoon hours (my first class tomorrow is at 1:30). Tuesdays are, as I've said before, my easy day, which I'm thankful for because it's not only the shortest day of the week for me, but the only day of the work week where I don't have to attend any classes.
The Reinvention of Brandon is slowly progressing; as you know, I'm changing my looks and eating habits, but the other thing I'd like to do is find something to do (other than homework) over this long weekend ahead of us. As you probably know, next Monday is Labor Day, and everyone's off work/school. I'm going to try to find somewhere to go, find someone to come visit me up here in Newton, or perhaps try to find a date for one of the weekend nights -- even a friendly one, and even if it means I have to run myself ragged and end up doing something on Thursday night after class (though I hope it doesn't come to that, as I'll be dead tired). If I'm unsuccessful in finding something to do, that's fine of course -- I will, after all, have more than enough homework to take care of over the weekend -- but still, I'd like to do something fun. I think I've earned it, I think I deserve it. Tomorrow will mark a full month of my being single, and I've yet to actually do anything interesting with that newly-acquired single status, not just dating-wise, but actually getting-out-of-the-house-more-wise. We'll see what happens.
On that note, I must pack up and leave the house for the day to get to campus. It's dark enough to where I'll have to use my headlights (and wipers, of course, if it's raining) to be able to see.
Monday, August 29, 2011
My Mid-American Review Rejection Story
Inspired by a story from my dear friend Rae, who keeps a blog of her own over at The Red Glasses (and doesn't hide her identity there, so I won't give her a codename here), comes a story of a personal rejection. She had submitted some of her work to the Mid-American Review, a journal quite well-known and respected within the literary community, and was written a personal rejection letter by the editorial staff. As I too have submitted to MAR, I have received letters like this as well, and thought I'd share the story of one of them that sticks out in my mind as, by far, the most amusing.
The year was 2005, and I had just graduated from West Virginia University with my Bachelor's in English and Creative Writing (which, at the time, was basically a double-major at that school). It was the summer, and I'd fancied myself a real, full-fledged writer, full of hope and promise -- having just finished a major screenplay I'd shopped to places like Tokyopop and Viz Entertainment to see if it could be turned into a graphic novel, and had also sent off several short stories to different publications, journals, and magazines to try to get my foot in the door of the world of publishing.
Please note that this was when I was young and naive, and did not yet know how much being an unemployed writer trying to make his way in the literary world would utterly suck. I truly thought that places like The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Kenyon Review would jump at the chance to publish what, in my mind, was absolutely breathtaking poetry and fiction. I had not yet ventured into the realm of nonfiction (aside from the online diary I kept back then) in a serious fashion.
Anyway, one of the pieces I sent out was entitled "The London Flat," and it was about a mentally-ill man who -- on the verge of a nervous breakdown -- left his wife, children, and all of his worldly possessions behind to go live in London and live there without telling anyone where he'd gone. The story was written in a series of diary entries by the main character, and at the end of the story it is heavily implied that the man has been dead and has been a ghost the entire time, and that his delusions and visions he was haunted by weren't ghosts he thought he'd been seeing in his apartment or drug-fueled hallucinations, but actual people moving in and out of the building over many years. It was a little Sixth Sense-y, perhaps, but even now I still think it was original enough, as well as one of the best stories I've ever written. I followed all of the submission directions, readied my SASEs, and mailed this story off to Mid-American Review, in hopes that they'd find it interesting.
I will say that back then at least, MAR wasn't as well-known as it is now. Yes, it was out there, and yes, it was one of the journals you'd heard of if you were in academia or literary circles like I was, but in my opinion it was far from one of the country's "premier" journals, being -- in my eyes at least -- second-or-third-tier at best. I could've been wrong even then, but the fact is that I don't think the journal got nearly as much respect then as it does today.
So, I waited. And waited some more. I created an account on Duotrope, which I'm sure at this point has been deleted due to inactivity on my part for the past six years, and slowly began to send out other submissions to other publications, both fiction and poetry. At the time, my fiction was most important, as I thought (and confirmed, by looking at it again several years later) that my poetry during that time was mostly crap. I also passed the time by looking for writing jobs, as I was fresh out of college and had a writing degree that I wanted to use -- so even if my work was rejected by the places I'd sent to, I might yet find a job that would let me write and publish through it.
One by one over that summer the submissions came back to me, all rejections -- sometimes via a short letter saying that the publication regretted to inform me that they couldn't use my work, sometimes by returning the entirety of the manuscript I sent them in my SASE, and sometimes via email. Rejections don't faze me now, of course -- getting hundreds of rejection letters throughout my writing career is nothing new; it is the calling card of a seasoned writing vet, and if anything makes me try harder to succeed -- but back then, before I learned to steel myself and become more jaded, they were crippling to my psyche and morale, and each one was like getting a telegram that told me another dream was dead. My screenplay/premise for a graphic novel had been rejected by both Viz and Tokyopop, all of my fiction and poetry had either been rejected and/or rejected and returned to me, and the one thing I had left that I was waiting on was my Mid-American Review submission of "The London Flat."
Finally, near the end of that summer, I received a thick envelope in the mail from MAR. Inside it was a rejection letter, of course, as well as my original manuscript, but it was one of the most unique rejection letters I've ever seen -- and I'm going to paraphrase to the best of my ability to remember, anyhow, what it said below (as I no longer have the original letter in my possession, but it is still in my parents' house in West Virginia because I wanted to eventually frame it):
Dear Brandon,
We regret to inform you that we are unable to accept your piece entitled "The London Flat" at this time. We at MAR feel that your piece is derivative and cliched in many ways, and could greatly benefit from stronger character development and a more refined narrative style. Because of this, we cannot include it in our publication, but thank you for allowing us the opportunity to read it.
Mid-American Review
That, to the best of my knowledge, is what it said, though my wording via paraphrase is probably a little off. I do, however, distinctly remember the phrase about it being "derivative," needing "stronger character development" and "a more refined narrative style."
I couldn't help but laugh at the letter, really, as laughing would keep me from crying about it (remember, I was much younger, and much more naive). More than anything else, it was this letter that made me realize how hard it would be to make it as a writer in this world, and was the real beginning of a long list of rejection letters that would come over the years. I have still, in the six years since, yet to publish any of my professional creative writing, save for my book (which I self-published) and all of the articles I wrote for both the newspaper here in Newton as well as for the newspaper back home. I have since submitted more work over the years to Mid-American Review, but never received another rejection letter that amusing from them -- just the standard fare, sadly. The next time I visit my parents, though, I will find that letter and bring it back to Kansas with me so that I can scan it into a picture file for you folks to see.
So, there's my personal Mid-American Review rejection story. Amusing, no?
The year was 2005, and I had just graduated from West Virginia University with my Bachelor's in English and Creative Writing (which, at the time, was basically a double-major at that school). It was the summer, and I'd fancied myself a real, full-fledged writer, full of hope and promise -- having just finished a major screenplay I'd shopped to places like Tokyopop and Viz Entertainment to see if it could be turned into a graphic novel, and had also sent off several short stories to different publications, journals, and magazines to try to get my foot in the door of the world of publishing.
Please note that this was when I was young and naive, and did not yet know how much being an unemployed writer trying to make his way in the literary world would utterly suck. I truly thought that places like The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Kenyon Review would jump at the chance to publish what, in my mind, was absolutely breathtaking poetry and fiction. I had not yet ventured into the realm of nonfiction (aside from the online diary I kept back then) in a serious fashion.
Anyway, one of the pieces I sent out was entitled "The London Flat," and it was about a mentally-ill man who -- on the verge of a nervous breakdown -- left his wife, children, and all of his worldly possessions behind to go live in London and live there without telling anyone where he'd gone. The story was written in a series of diary entries by the main character, and at the end of the story it is heavily implied that the man has been dead and has been a ghost the entire time, and that his delusions and visions he was haunted by weren't ghosts he thought he'd been seeing in his apartment or drug-fueled hallucinations, but actual people moving in and out of the building over many years. It was a little Sixth Sense-y, perhaps, but even now I still think it was original enough, as well as one of the best stories I've ever written. I followed all of the submission directions, readied my SASEs, and mailed this story off to Mid-American Review, in hopes that they'd find it interesting.
I will say that back then at least, MAR wasn't as well-known as it is now. Yes, it was out there, and yes, it was one of the journals you'd heard of if you were in academia or literary circles like I was, but in my opinion it was far from one of the country's "premier" journals, being -- in my eyes at least -- second-or-third-tier at best. I could've been wrong even then, but the fact is that I don't think the journal got nearly as much respect then as it does today.
So, I waited. And waited some more. I created an account on Duotrope, which I'm sure at this point has been deleted due to inactivity on my part for the past six years, and slowly began to send out other submissions to other publications, both fiction and poetry. At the time, my fiction was most important, as I thought (and confirmed, by looking at it again several years later) that my poetry during that time was mostly crap. I also passed the time by looking for writing jobs, as I was fresh out of college and had a writing degree that I wanted to use -- so even if my work was rejected by the places I'd sent to, I might yet find a job that would let me write and publish through it.
One by one over that summer the submissions came back to me, all rejections -- sometimes via a short letter saying that the publication regretted to inform me that they couldn't use my work, sometimes by returning the entirety of the manuscript I sent them in my SASE, and sometimes via email. Rejections don't faze me now, of course -- getting hundreds of rejection letters throughout my writing career is nothing new; it is the calling card of a seasoned writing vet, and if anything makes me try harder to succeed -- but back then, before I learned to steel myself and become more jaded, they were crippling to my psyche and morale, and each one was like getting a telegram that told me another dream was dead. My screenplay/premise for a graphic novel had been rejected by both Viz and Tokyopop, all of my fiction and poetry had either been rejected and/or rejected and returned to me, and the one thing I had left that I was waiting on was my Mid-American Review submission of "The London Flat."
Finally, near the end of that summer, I received a thick envelope in the mail from MAR. Inside it was a rejection letter, of course, as well as my original manuscript, but it was one of the most unique rejection letters I've ever seen -- and I'm going to paraphrase to the best of my ability to remember, anyhow, what it said below (as I no longer have the original letter in my possession, but it is still in my parents' house in West Virginia because I wanted to eventually frame it):
Dear Brandon,
We regret to inform you that we are unable to accept your piece entitled "The London Flat" at this time. We at MAR feel that your piece is derivative and cliched in many ways, and could greatly benefit from stronger character development and a more refined narrative style. Because of this, we cannot include it in our publication, but thank you for allowing us the opportunity to read it.
Mid-American Review
That, to the best of my knowledge, is what it said, though my wording via paraphrase is probably a little off. I do, however, distinctly remember the phrase about it being "derivative," needing "stronger character development" and "a more refined narrative style."
I couldn't help but laugh at the letter, really, as laughing would keep me from crying about it (remember, I was much younger, and much more naive). More than anything else, it was this letter that made me realize how hard it would be to make it as a writer in this world, and was the real beginning of a long list of rejection letters that would come over the years. I have still, in the six years since, yet to publish any of my professional creative writing, save for my book (which I self-published) and all of the articles I wrote for both the newspaper here in Newton as well as for the newspaper back home. I have since submitted more work over the years to Mid-American Review, but never received another rejection letter that amusing from them -- just the standard fare, sadly. The next time I visit my parents, though, I will find that letter and bring it back to Kansas with me so that I can scan it into a picture file for you folks to see.
So, there's my personal Mid-American Review rejection story. Amusing, no?
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Things Done and To Do
I finished Moll Flanders this evening, and my final impression was this: Interesting book. Needs more death and boobs.
Please note -- there is a lot of death in that book, yes, but nobody ever dies in an interesting or fun way (okay, well, there are a few hangings, I'll give you that), and almost every death is glossed over quickly with very little detail. As for the boobs? Yeah, it definitely needs more of those, especially if Moll is as much of a "whore" as she claims to be repeatedly throughout the novel.
With that done and out of the way, I've officially completed my list of school-related tasks for the weekend, save for reading more of Sugar Street (as I may or may not do tomorrow; depends on what sort of mood I'm in).
I have received confirmation from UPS that my hair clippers will arrive tomorrow, as scheduled. This is all well and good, but I won't have the crucial, separate guide comb I need to use with them in order to actually cut my hair. That, as mentioned before, won't arrive until sometime this week. So it appears that I will be sitting and staring at the clippers in apprehension about actually cutting my hair for the next several days, at least. Unless that guide comb arrives on Tuesday (since after I finish teaching, I'm done for the day and can come home), my hectic schedule on Wednesday and Thursday will prevent me from touching clippers to head until Friday at the very least. In the meantime, since I'll have to be out in the hot weather this week quite a bit, I'll probably just keep my hair tied back so that I don't sweat as much.
Yes, I am looking forward to confusing the hell out of my new recruit classmates and new professors. First they saw me with my crazy-long hair and the wild-woodsman beard. Now, for a few days, they'll see me with my hair tied back and most of the beard gone, except for the chin patch and mustache. Next week they'll see me with that new facial hair style and much shorter hair. I'm hoping I can make a few brains melt -- or, barring that, attract a few lovely ladies who may not be so big on the "wild man" look that I previously rocked to much success. If I start wearing my clear hipster sunglasses (which you can see in my profile picture to your right, as well as on Facebook) all the time, it'll really mess with people. Scandalous.
I have acquired several new readers here over the weekend, as evidenced by some of the hits I've gotten. Hello, folks. Welcome to my nightmare; buy my book, my cats need to eat. I know at least two of those new readers are colleagues and fellow classmates at Flat State University, and no, that doesn't bother me. I encourage it, actually. I had an online diary when I was an undergrad at WVU, as well, and a ton of my college friends subscribed to updates from it; I loved the feedback I'd get from them on some of the things I'd write there, as well. Like that diary, this blog is open for anyone and everyone to see, and I hide nothing -- not even my name -- from my readers and friends. I write nothing incriminating, and say nothing here that I wouldn't say to anyone's face. I've never been the snarky type anyway; those of you who know me well or have been reading this blog for years know that I live in a drama-free zone, and like to keep it that way.
As I told my generously-endowed-in-the-breasts-department friend (and she will know I'm referring to her when I say that) a few days ago, though, to protect the privacy of others in this blog I will once more need to come up with codenames for its cast of characters, especially those characters who actually read the blog and enjoy it. I'd rather not name anyone directly, of course, which is why the former girlfriend had the moniker of "the girlfriend" for the entire four years I've been writing here (up until recently of course, when I added the "former"), as well as in my book when she's mentioned. I do this not only to protect my friends but to protect myself -- I'm already in the very, very preliminary planning stages of my next large book project, and that will more than likely be a memoir of graduate school. It will also have a lot more actual writing time involved, as (silly me) I deleted my entire first year's worth of blog entries about it when I turned this into Soakin' Up Paycheck 2.0.
Then again, I could end up writing the space opera/time travel novel I've been kicking around in my head for a few years, who knows.
Anyway.
Changing subjects, I wonder if they'll be doing another grad student mixer this year. Last fall during the first few weeks of class, the museum on campus held what they called the "Grad Student Mixer," which was basically a party within the museum where free beer was provided. Good beer, too. Fat Tire, Sierra Nevada, etc. All graduate students from all the departments on campus were invited and we proceeded to get trashed on the university's dime. You may recall, if you've been reading this blog for a while, that I wrote about this night when it happened last year -- as it was the time where I got so drunk I would've been unable to find my own feet, and accidentally locked myself in the museum's bathroom for a few minutes because the ability to work a doorknob had escaped me.
Yeah. Not kidding. Luckily, I wasn't driving.
Anyway, that night evolved into, hands-down, one of the best college-related experiences of my life, even when counting the debauchery I committed while a student at WVU. If the museum does it again this year, I will spend the gas money to get down to Wichita (as they'll do it on a Friday evening) and will take the time to find a friend's house to crash at instead of driving back home -- after all, I am now single, and I shall mingle. I think I really need to mingle and loosen up, to be perfectly honest with you. Today I told my friend Shainna that her mother is hot (even though, well, she is), so I take that as proof that I really need to get out more, and not just to the local Walmart or gas station. Maybe I'll consult with a few friends in the department to see what their teaching/class schedules are, and set something up that would be fun to do (and would get me out of the house for a few hours). Inevitably, however, that always tends to lead to the phrase "hey, let's go to the bar!" especially between grad students...and that is a phrase I'm trying to avoid most of the time.
Yes, I understand we're grad students, believe me. But doesn't anyone just get a 12-pack -- or a bottle or two of wine -- to split between friends, and drink quietly at home anymore? Or is that too old-fashioned these days? I'd be more than happy to go to someone's apartment or home, or have them come visit me in mine.
Translation: please come visit me, I'm sick of talking to myself and/or the cats and no one else.
Ahem.
Tomorrow will be a busy day for me; no, I do not have class or teach (though many friends do), but I have a lot of other stuff to do. As mentioned previously, I do need to make my customary weekly trip to the gas station and post office, for reasons which should be apparent, and I need to get a few household items and minor groceries from Walmart and the Dollar Tree. I'm out of milk, cat litter, dandruff shampoo, bleach, and aluminum foil, amongst other things. To get all this stuff done early, I have set my alarm for 8AM so that I get up, take care of everything that needs to be done, and can get home before it gets too hot outside. Once again, as is my luck, the only days of the week it's supposed to be over 100 degrees are the days where I have to be on campus and/or otherwise outside the house. Tomorrow I just want to get everything done so that I can spend the last hours of my "weekend" in peace, going to bed early so I can start my week at 5AM Tuesday morning.
Let next weekend come quickly and mercifully, please.
Please note -- there is a lot of death in that book, yes, but nobody ever dies in an interesting or fun way (okay, well, there are a few hangings, I'll give you that), and almost every death is glossed over quickly with very little detail. As for the boobs? Yeah, it definitely needs more of those, especially if Moll is as much of a "whore" as she claims to be repeatedly throughout the novel.
With that done and out of the way, I've officially completed my list of school-related tasks for the weekend, save for reading more of Sugar Street (as I may or may not do tomorrow; depends on what sort of mood I'm in).
I have received confirmation from UPS that my hair clippers will arrive tomorrow, as scheduled. This is all well and good, but I won't have the crucial, separate guide comb I need to use with them in order to actually cut my hair. That, as mentioned before, won't arrive until sometime this week. So it appears that I will be sitting and staring at the clippers in apprehension about actually cutting my hair for the next several days, at least. Unless that guide comb arrives on Tuesday (since after I finish teaching, I'm done for the day and can come home), my hectic schedule on Wednesday and Thursday will prevent me from touching clippers to head until Friday at the very least. In the meantime, since I'll have to be out in the hot weather this week quite a bit, I'll probably just keep my hair tied back so that I don't sweat as much.
Yes, I am looking forward to confusing the hell out of my new recruit classmates and new professors. First they saw me with my crazy-long hair and the wild-woodsman beard. Now, for a few days, they'll see me with my hair tied back and most of the beard gone, except for the chin patch and mustache. Next week they'll see me with that new facial hair style and much shorter hair. I'm hoping I can make a few brains melt -- or, barring that, attract a few lovely ladies who may not be so big on the "wild man" look that I previously rocked to much success. If I start wearing my clear hipster sunglasses (which you can see in my profile picture to your right, as well as on Facebook) all the time, it'll really mess with people. Scandalous.
I have acquired several new readers here over the weekend, as evidenced by some of the hits I've gotten. Hello, folks. Welcome to my nightmare; buy my book, my cats need to eat. I know at least two of those new readers are colleagues and fellow classmates at Flat State University, and no, that doesn't bother me. I encourage it, actually. I had an online diary when I was an undergrad at WVU, as well, and a ton of my college friends subscribed to updates from it; I loved the feedback I'd get from them on some of the things I'd write there, as well. Like that diary, this blog is open for anyone and everyone to see, and I hide nothing -- not even my name -- from my readers and friends. I write nothing incriminating, and say nothing here that I wouldn't say to anyone's face. I've never been the snarky type anyway; those of you who know me well or have been reading this blog for years know that I live in a drama-free zone, and like to keep it that way.
As I told my generously-endowed-in-the-breasts-department friend (and she will know I'm referring to her when I say that) a few days ago, though, to protect the privacy of others in this blog I will once more need to come up with codenames for its cast of characters, especially those characters who actually read the blog and enjoy it. I'd rather not name anyone directly, of course, which is why the former girlfriend had the moniker of "the girlfriend" for the entire four years I've been writing here (up until recently of course, when I added the "former"), as well as in my book when she's mentioned. I do this not only to protect my friends but to protect myself -- I'm already in the very, very preliminary planning stages of my next large book project, and that will more than likely be a memoir of graduate school. It will also have a lot more actual writing time involved, as (silly me) I deleted my entire first year's worth of blog entries about it when I turned this into Soakin' Up Paycheck 2.0.
Then again, I could end up writing the space opera/time travel novel I've been kicking around in my head for a few years, who knows.
Anyway.
Changing subjects, I wonder if they'll be doing another grad student mixer this year. Last fall during the first few weeks of class, the museum on campus held what they called the "Grad Student Mixer," which was basically a party within the museum where free beer was provided. Good beer, too. Fat Tire, Sierra Nevada, etc. All graduate students from all the departments on campus were invited and we proceeded to get trashed on the university's dime. You may recall, if you've been reading this blog for a while, that I wrote about this night when it happened last year -- as it was the time where I got so drunk I would've been unable to find my own feet, and accidentally locked myself in the museum's bathroom for a few minutes because the ability to work a doorknob had escaped me.
Yeah. Not kidding. Luckily, I wasn't driving.
Anyway, that night evolved into, hands-down, one of the best college-related experiences of my life, even when counting the debauchery I committed while a student at WVU. If the museum does it again this year, I will spend the gas money to get down to Wichita (as they'll do it on a Friday evening) and will take the time to find a friend's house to crash at instead of driving back home -- after all, I am now single, and I shall mingle. I think I really need to mingle and loosen up, to be perfectly honest with you. Today I told my friend Shainna that her mother is hot (even though, well, she is), so I take that as proof that I really need to get out more, and not just to the local Walmart or gas station. Maybe I'll consult with a few friends in the department to see what their teaching/class schedules are, and set something up that would be fun to do (and would get me out of the house for a few hours). Inevitably, however, that always tends to lead to the phrase "hey, let's go to the bar!" especially between grad students...and that is a phrase I'm trying to avoid most of the time.
Yes, I understand we're grad students, believe me. But doesn't anyone just get a 12-pack -- or a bottle or two of wine -- to split between friends, and drink quietly at home anymore? Or is that too old-fashioned these days? I'd be more than happy to go to someone's apartment or home, or have them come visit me in mine.
Translation: please come visit me, I'm sick of talking to myself and/or the cats and no one else.
Ahem.
Tomorrow will be a busy day for me; no, I do not have class or teach (though many friends do), but I have a lot of other stuff to do. As mentioned previously, I do need to make my customary weekly trip to the gas station and post office, for reasons which should be apparent, and I need to get a few household items and minor groceries from Walmart and the Dollar Tree. I'm out of milk, cat litter, dandruff shampoo, bleach, and aluminum foil, amongst other things. To get all this stuff done early, I have set my alarm for 8AM so that I get up, take care of everything that needs to be done, and can get home before it gets too hot outside. Once again, as is my luck, the only days of the week it's supposed to be over 100 degrees are the days where I have to be on campus and/or otherwise outside the house. Tomorrow I just want to get everything done so that I can spend the last hours of my "weekend" in peace, going to bed early so I can start my week at 5AM Tuesday morning.
Let next weekend come quickly and mercifully, please.
The Reinvention of Brandon, Part II
Apparently, the Reinvention of Brandon also includes a metric fuck-ton of reading.
This is fine, of course, to a certain extent. I like reading, I like books -- I'm a graduate student in an English department, so that should go without saying. What I did not expect, however, was the sheer amount of time I'd be devoting to my studies this semester, which is more than slightly troubling.
Most of the day yesterday, for example, was spent doing these things:
1. Reading the first two chapters of my teaching textbook (Technology and the Future), and creating lesson plans for the week: 70 minutes or so
2. Reading through all of the handouts I need to know the material on for all three of my classes: 45-60 minutes or so
3. Reading Moll Flanders from the beginning, and getting to around halfway through the book, breaks included: four hours or so.
As my Asian/Middle Eastern Lit class is taking two weeks or more to cover the novel we're currently reading in there, an even-less-interesting book than Moll Flanders called Sugar Street, I'm holding off on reading any more of it until around Tuesday/Wednesday or so, if then. I do, unfortunately, have to get through Moll Flanders before class on Wednesday, and that in itself is going to be enough of a challenge if it doesn't pick up soon. Out of the 100+ pages I've read, about 70 of those have been along the lines of "Well, I lived here. Then I moved there. Then I married and had kids. Then that ended, so I moved to this new place and got married again. I worked doing this, this, and this. Also, I'm a whore."
Etc. You get the idea, I'm sure.
I don't dislike the book -- it does have its merits -- though I do dislike the character of Moll Flanders, who seems to be...well, for lack of better terms, a self-centered, gold-digging sociopath through much of the novel. While reading through many sections I have actually found myself saying aloud things like, "Wow, you're such a bitch!" and "Way to be a horrible mother!"
I'm sure those of you in that class with me, or those of you who have previously read the book, would agree. I considered live-blogging my reading of the novel -- because it would be fun -- but decided against it as it would take me ten times as long to finish it, and I just want to get it done so that I can take care of the rest of my tasks this weekend. If I come across a shorter book for one of my classes later in the semester and find myself with an afternoon or two of free time, then perhaps I'll do it at some point in the future.
Today, "The Trashing" continues. I've got several big bags to gather up and dump into the trash can, as well as a stack of broken-down leftover moving boxes to take to the curb. Tomorrow I will be making my customary "errand day" as per the usual on Mondays, where I'll be making another trip to the post office, gas station, and Walmart to get the stuff I need taken care of, preferably as early as possible. If the weather's nice, I may try to get the bags of clothes to a donation center as well just to get them out of the house, but that's rather low on my priority list at the moment. The rest of my day today, though, will be spent -- you guessed it -- finishing Moll Flanders.
Whatever possessed me to take two high-workload lit classes in the same semester is beyond me. Please, find me and smack me if I ever say that I'm planning to do this again.
I got the electric bill in the mail for August, and it's $136. Yeah, that's about what I expected, really. It's a good chunk of money to be sure, but with the air conditioner running it can't really be helped. Right now it's 97 outside, and is supposed to be between 95-102 every day for the next week again. Again, I have the feeling that the Monte Carlo isn't going to like driving in it. Yeah, those cooler, autumn-like September temperatures can start rolling in any day now, really they can.
Due to my cynicism, however, I believe that said weather is waiting until I cut my hair next week, and then the temperatures will drop like a stone so that my skull will freeze.
On that note, I'm off to take care of my stuff for the day, sweat through another tank-top, and drink copious amounts of cold water and Kool-Aid Lemonade just to stay hydrated and cool while doing so.
This is fine, of course, to a certain extent. I like reading, I like books -- I'm a graduate student in an English department, so that should go without saying. What I did not expect, however, was the sheer amount of time I'd be devoting to my studies this semester, which is more than slightly troubling.
Most of the day yesterday, for example, was spent doing these things:
1. Reading the first two chapters of my teaching textbook (Technology and the Future), and creating lesson plans for the week: 70 minutes or so
2. Reading through all of the handouts I need to know the material on for all three of my classes: 45-60 minutes or so
3. Reading Moll Flanders from the beginning, and getting to around halfway through the book, breaks included: four hours or so.
As my Asian/Middle Eastern Lit class is taking two weeks or more to cover the novel we're currently reading in there, an even-less-interesting book than Moll Flanders called Sugar Street, I'm holding off on reading any more of it until around Tuesday/Wednesday or so, if then. I do, unfortunately, have to get through Moll Flanders before class on Wednesday, and that in itself is going to be enough of a challenge if it doesn't pick up soon. Out of the 100+ pages I've read, about 70 of those have been along the lines of "Well, I lived here. Then I moved there. Then I married and had kids. Then that ended, so I moved to this new place and got married again. I worked doing this, this, and this. Also, I'm a whore."
Etc. You get the idea, I'm sure.
I don't dislike the book -- it does have its merits -- though I do dislike the character of Moll Flanders, who seems to be...well, for lack of better terms, a self-centered, gold-digging sociopath through much of the novel. While reading through many sections I have actually found myself saying aloud things like, "Wow, you're such a bitch!" and "Way to be a horrible mother!"
I'm sure those of you in that class with me, or those of you who have previously read the book, would agree. I considered live-blogging my reading of the novel -- because it would be fun -- but decided against it as it would take me ten times as long to finish it, and I just want to get it done so that I can take care of the rest of my tasks this weekend. If I come across a shorter book for one of my classes later in the semester and find myself with an afternoon or two of free time, then perhaps I'll do it at some point in the future.
Today, "The Trashing" continues. I've got several big bags to gather up and dump into the trash can, as well as a stack of broken-down leftover moving boxes to take to the curb. Tomorrow I will be making my customary "errand day" as per the usual on Mondays, where I'll be making another trip to the post office, gas station, and Walmart to get the stuff I need taken care of, preferably as early as possible. If the weather's nice, I may try to get the bags of clothes to a donation center as well just to get them out of the house, but that's rather low on my priority list at the moment. The rest of my day today, though, will be spent -- you guessed it -- finishing Moll Flanders.
Whatever possessed me to take two high-workload lit classes in the same semester is beyond me. Please, find me and smack me if I ever say that I'm planning to do this again.
I got the electric bill in the mail for August, and it's $136. Yeah, that's about what I expected, really. It's a good chunk of money to be sure, but with the air conditioner running it can't really be helped. Right now it's 97 outside, and is supposed to be between 95-102 every day for the next week again. Again, I have the feeling that the Monte Carlo isn't going to like driving in it. Yeah, those cooler, autumn-like September temperatures can start rolling in any day now, really they can.
Due to my cynicism, however, I believe that said weather is waiting until I cut my hair next week, and then the temperatures will drop like a stone so that my skull will freeze.
On that note, I'm off to take care of my stuff for the day, sweat through another tank-top, and drink copious amounts of cold water and Kool-Aid Lemonade just to stay hydrated and cool while doing so.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
The Reinvention of Brandon, Part I
Last night, because it was finally beginning to drive me effing crazy to the point where I couldn't stop scratching at it, I charged up one of the two sets of beard trimmers I own and shaved off the crazy, fresh-out-of-the-woods beard I've been growing since finals week in the spring.
Well, most of it, anyway. I can only very rarely bring myself to take off all of my facial hair, as it immediately leaves me with the condition I'd like to call "baby face," or, conversely, he-looks-like-he's-twelve syndrome. Only once every year or two will I make myself completely clean-shaven, down to the skin. Most of the rest of the time when I shave, I just take the guard off the trimmers and do a once-over, which leaves me with some good stubble. I like to think that it makes me look like a Miami Vice-era Don Johnson (who, coincidentally, grew up in Wichita).
Last night was a rare exception where I actually broke out the razor after the trimmers. I told my brother, Aaron, that I was going to try to get the Frank Zappa look with my facial hair. You know the look, I'm sure:
This, of course, proved quite difficult. My beard and mustache are thick, but they're not that thick. And, additionally, for any of you who have tried, it's quite hard to shave your chin into a square, especially if your chin hair isn't exactly conducive to that sort of fine-tuned shaping.
So, after trying to get it right and miserably failing, I shaved what was left of my face into a style that resembles, sort of, a capital T. This is the result:
I tapered it down, left it a little wider at the bottom, etc. Last night I wasn't a huge fan of it after it was done (a little something I'd like to call shaver's remorse) but today I think it looks good enough, I suppose. After all, there's not much I can do about it now. Coupled with my long hair that I still have for the moment, if I had a black mask you could call me Zorro. I also think it looks much better in person, as my camera is reeeeeeally old.
It's all part of The Reinvention of Brandon. When my clippers come in the mail from Amazon (they shipped this morning, and should arrive Monday), my hair will be sheared off as well. Gone is my original vow not to cut my hair until I finish grad school; while the long hair and thick beard both look good on me -- in my opinion, anyhow -- they're not exactly conducive to a) looking somewhat respectable and "normal," and b) helping me in the "not creeping out the ladies" department. There will be at least one or two days, however, if not all of next week, that you folks within the department will see me again with my long hair -- the specialized very long clipper comb I ordered won't arrive until next week sometime, which means I can't use the clippers until I have that as well.
Unless, y'know, you think bald is a good look on me. I can assure you, it is not.
This whole Reinvention of Brandon thing comes at a very opportune time, as well, and my reasons for it are myriad -- I'm now single. I've been single for about a month. I don't have a lot of money, I drive a car I bought for $500, and most of my "free time" this semester will be spent alone on the couch or in my Man Cave, reading various novels for my classes and/or writing papers on those novels. I've got to do something to get myself out there again, because this "solitary confinement" thing of living alone and never talking to anyone but the cats may feel liberating and peaceful at times, but it's also really fucking boring. I have to, eventually anyhow, get back into the dating scene, as scary and/or depressing as that may sound at my age, or otherwise I'll turn into the crazy cat man with the Decepticon car who never leaves the house.
I was invited out for drinks last night by a female friend, but didn't go -- I politely declined, as sweetly as possible. I was cooking dinner and running laundry at the time, and the Monte Carlo needs me to put gas in it before I can make another trip to Wichita and back. Besides, you know me and bar scenes -- if it were going to be just me and this friend, I would've tossed everything aside and leapt at the chance, but it wasn't. A fair amount of people from the department were going out together, and if you know me at all, drinking in a large group of friends always spells trouble. Especially when I'd have to drive home afterwards. I've always had a large aversion to crashing on someone's couch for the night unless I'm currently fucking that person, and believe me, I've not yet been that lucky in my new life of singledom.
A lot of friends, including my sister, have mentioned the word maintaining when it comes to dealing with life's problems and/or being single again after a long relationship. Up until recently I never gave the word maintaining much thought, as if anything my plan was to go onward and upward -- and it still is -- but maintaining is a good way to describe various parts of my life right now. After all, it's going to be hard enough trying to keep my head above water with all the work I have to do this semester, let alone trying to take care of the bills for the house, repairs on the car, groceries, sleep, etc.
The other thing I've noticed is the wide berth and the way it seems that some of my friends have sort of distanced themselves from me in the wake of the breakup. I don't know if I've been cast in some sort of unfavorable light since it all went down, or what-have-you, but the fact remains that some friends I had before the breakup are now either basically refusing to acknowledge my existence except when absolutely necessary, or otherwise seem to be in this mindset of "walking on eggshells" around me when talking to me, as if something they say is going to set me off, make me cry, who knows -- silly me, I thought people I called friends would know better than that at this point. Others, I've noticed, have even taken me off their friends list on Facebook, with no explanation. Which, to an extent, sort of makes me laugh just because it's so childish; it's not like any of those people have even talked to me since last spring -- they don't have the first clue about what's really going on with me, nor do they apparently care to know.
It may just be paranoia for the most part, and it may be that everyone's busy during these first few weeks of class, but really I don't know. I've been trying to maintain the friendships I have (and overall, I think I'm doing a decent job) and also trying to foster new ones with some of the new recruits. I've even started flirting with one or two lovely ladies, which is strange for me at this age. Luckily, they don't read my blog and have no clue it exists. Actually, of all my friends around the Wichita area, I'd be hard-pressed to say that even ten of them know this blog exists. My officemate does, and a few other guys in the department have been reading it occasionally over the summer (and now, into the fall), and maybe three or four of my female friends around the area/in the department know it's out there and have possibly glanced at it once or twice. It's not like I publicize it unless necessary, though one of those female friends jumped at the chance to read it on Thursday and told me she'd love to be able to see inside my head on a regular basis, so there's that. I don't even know if the former girlfriend still reads this blog, though it's not like that would make me filter anything I would say otherwise anyhow.
Still, even though I feel the need to get back into the "dating scene," at some point soon, I'll be doing it at my pace and my pace only -- there will be no rushing into things when it comes to this old man re-entering the field. With age comes wisdom in some regards, at least, though I know some of you would tell me that in my case, even that is debatable.
The rest of my day will be spent reading on the couch, as I've got a lot of work to cover this weekend. That's also where I plan to spend most of my time tomorrow, as well, as yes, there's that much to do. I posted a Facebook status update asking anyone who wanted to come up here and visit me in order to distract me to please do so, but have yet to receive any offers.
Well, most of it, anyway. I can only very rarely bring myself to take off all of my facial hair, as it immediately leaves me with the condition I'd like to call "baby face," or, conversely, he-looks-like-he's-twelve syndrome. Only once every year or two will I make myself completely clean-shaven, down to the skin. Most of the rest of the time when I shave, I just take the guard off the trimmers and do a once-over, which leaves me with some good stubble. I like to think that it makes me look like a Miami Vice-era Don Johnson (who, coincidentally, grew up in Wichita).
Last night was a rare exception where I actually broke out the razor after the trimmers. I told my brother, Aaron, that I was going to try to get the Frank Zappa look with my facial hair. You know the look, I'm sure:
This, of course, proved quite difficult. My beard and mustache are thick, but they're not that thick. And, additionally, for any of you who have tried, it's quite hard to shave your chin into a square, especially if your chin hair isn't exactly conducive to that sort of fine-tuned shaping.
So, after trying to get it right and miserably failing, I shaved what was left of my face into a style that resembles, sort of, a capital T. This is the result:
I tapered it down, left it a little wider at the bottom, etc. Last night I wasn't a huge fan of it after it was done (a little something I'd like to call shaver's remorse) but today I think it looks good enough, I suppose. After all, there's not much I can do about it now. Coupled with my long hair that I still have for the moment, if I had a black mask you could call me Zorro. I also think it looks much better in person, as my camera is reeeeeeally old.
It's all part of The Reinvention of Brandon. When my clippers come in the mail from Amazon (they shipped this morning, and should arrive Monday), my hair will be sheared off as well. Gone is my original vow not to cut my hair until I finish grad school; while the long hair and thick beard both look good on me -- in my opinion, anyhow -- they're not exactly conducive to a) looking somewhat respectable and "normal," and b) helping me in the "not creeping out the ladies" department. There will be at least one or two days, however, if not all of next week, that you folks within the department will see me again with my long hair -- the specialized very long clipper comb I ordered won't arrive until next week sometime, which means I can't use the clippers until I have that as well.
Unless, y'know, you think bald is a good look on me. I can assure you, it is not.
This whole Reinvention of Brandon thing comes at a very opportune time, as well, and my reasons for it are myriad -- I'm now single. I've been single for about a month. I don't have a lot of money, I drive a car I bought for $500, and most of my "free time" this semester will be spent alone on the couch or in my Man Cave, reading various novels for my classes and/or writing papers on those novels. I've got to do something to get myself out there again, because this "solitary confinement" thing of living alone and never talking to anyone but the cats may feel liberating and peaceful at times, but it's also really fucking boring. I have to, eventually anyhow, get back into the dating scene, as scary and/or depressing as that may sound at my age, or otherwise I'll turn into the crazy cat man with the Decepticon car who never leaves the house.
I was invited out for drinks last night by a female friend, but didn't go -- I politely declined, as sweetly as possible. I was cooking dinner and running laundry at the time, and the Monte Carlo needs me to put gas in it before I can make another trip to Wichita and back. Besides, you know me and bar scenes -- if it were going to be just me and this friend, I would've tossed everything aside and leapt at the chance, but it wasn't. A fair amount of people from the department were going out together, and if you know me at all, drinking in a large group of friends always spells trouble. Especially when I'd have to drive home afterwards. I've always had a large aversion to crashing on someone's couch for the night unless I'm currently fucking that person, and believe me, I've not yet been that lucky in my new life of singledom.
A lot of friends, including my sister, have mentioned the word maintaining when it comes to dealing with life's problems and/or being single again after a long relationship. Up until recently I never gave the word maintaining much thought, as if anything my plan was to go onward and upward -- and it still is -- but maintaining is a good way to describe various parts of my life right now. After all, it's going to be hard enough trying to keep my head above water with all the work I have to do this semester, let alone trying to take care of the bills for the house, repairs on the car, groceries, sleep, etc.
The other thing I've noticed is the wide berth and the way it seems that some of my friends have sort of distanced themselves from me in the wake of the breakup. I don't know if I've been cast in some sort of unfavorable light since it all went down, or what-have-you, but the fact remains that some friends I had before the breakup are now either basically refusing to acknowledge my existence except when absolutely necessary, or otherwise seem to be in this mindset of "walking on eggshells" around me when talking to me, as if something they say is going to set me off, make me cry, who knows -- silly me, I thought people I called friends would know better than that at this point. Others, I've noticed, have even taken me off their friends list on Facebook, with no explanation. Which, to an extent, sort of makes me laugh just because it's so childish; it's not like any of those people have even talked to me since last spring -- they don't have the first clue about what's really going on with me, nor do they apparently care to know.
It may just be paranoia for the most part, and it may be that everyone's busy during these first few weeks of class, but really I don't know. I've been trying to maintain the friendships I have (and overall, I think I'm doing a decent job) and also trying to foster new ones with some of the new recruits. I've even started flirting with one or two lovely ladies, which is strange for me at this age. Luckily, they don't read my blog and have no clue it exists. Actually, of all my friends around the Wichita area, I'd be hard-pressed to say that even ten of them know this blog exists. My officemate does, and a few other guys in the department have been reading it occasionally over the summer (and now, into the fall), and maybe three or four of my female friends around the area/in the department know it's out there and have possibly glanced at it once or twice. It's not like I publicize it unless necessary, though one of those female friends jumped at the chance to read it on Thursday and told me she'd love to be able to see inside my head on a regular basis, so there's that. I don't even know if the former girlfriend still reads this blog, though it's not like that would make me filter anything I would say otherwise anyhow.
Still, even though I feel the need to get back into the "dating scene," at some point soon, I'll be doing it at my pace and my pace only -- there will be no rushing into things when it comes to this old man re-entering the field. With age comes wisdom in some regards, at least, though I know some of you would tell me that in my case, even that is debatable.
The rest of my day will be spent reading on the couch, as I've got a lot of work to cover this weekend. That's also where I plan to spend most of my time tomorrow, as well, as yes, there's that much to do. I posted a Facebook status update asking anyone who wanted to come up here and visit me in order to distract me to please do so, but have yet to receive any offers.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Exhaustion (already)
Fall semester: day five
I would like to note that I more than likely would have just sucked it up and gone in to the EGSA/department journal editors' meetings, despite these meetings by-and-large being big wastes of time and gas money for me as there's really nothing new going to be presented within them that I didn't already know -- but, as I didn't wake up until 10:30 or so, that didn't happen.
On Wednesday afternoon, I told our journal's new editor -- a friend and fellow writer in the department -- that I probably wouldn't be there anyway. My gas in the car is low and my sleep levels are even lower. Last night was the first night of decent sleep I've had since Sunday, and believe me, I slept like a rock.
"You should really try to be there," he told me. "I was thinking of making you the 'head' nonfiction editor."
I was one of three nonfiction editors last year, as some of you may know or remember. Name's in the editorial staff masthead within the book/website and everything. However, apparently the journal is going by a new staff setup this year, and the ones in charge are no longer the editor and assistant editor only -- those of us sticking around on staff who have proved our worth (and have actually expressed interest) have been or will be bestowed with the titles of "head editor" of whatever genre they're working in. For me, obviously, that would be nonfiction, and I already expressed interest in the role, if only because I'll be the only second-year on the nonfiction staff and the journal needs some sort of litmus test to gauge by what is a good or not good submission.
"And that's fine," I told him. "If you want to make me the head of nonfiction, go ahead -- it's not like I won't do the work for it. But everything else is stuff all of us heard at last year's meeting, and even as the 'head' of that genre, it's not going to change any of the work I do. It's not like we get hundreds of nonfiction submissions, like we do with fiction and poetry."
The meeting will indeed be useful for all of those first-years who want to join the staff, as I did last fall. But for the rest of us? I'm guessing that most of the info will be along these lines:
1. Hey, we have an online journal now too, so start soliciting submissions from all of your friends and undergraduate schools.
2. We'll have fundraisers at some point like trivia nights or bake sales to help finance the cost of running the website and the print run of the journal in spring.
3. "This is what the genre editors do..."
Etc.
I tried to be as conciliatory as possible when I told the editor I probably wouldn't be there, not just for those reasons but also because that's a lot of miles to put on the car and about $6-8 in gas money to spend every time I make a trip to Wichita and back, and that car's already getting driven into the ground by my daily use of it to do that.
Not to mention, as I also told him, that I'm fucking tired. My schedule, even in the first week of classes, has already started to run me ragged. Tuesdays are fine, but being on campus until 10PM on Wednesday before getting up at 5 to do it all again on Thursday -- a second night I'm there until 10PM -- is wearing me down, and will continue to do so until I get used to it...if that actually happens. I've never had two nights in a row of 7:05-9:45PM classes before, let alone needing to get up at 5AM in the morning between them to get to campus and teach.
Teaching yesterday was fine, I suppose; my classes are slowly, slowly growing. I gained/lost one in my first class, and gained two more in my second class. I now have 15 in my first and 19 in my second. Three different students I had in the spring semester are taking my class this semester, so I already know their writing styles and abilities. It's always good to see familiar faces, too -- all of them liked me as their instructor in the spring.
I'm still trying to feel my way around this class and the curriculum; most of these folks seem to be fairly easygoing; some are quieter than others, some are athletes and some are just plain engineering nerds. The one thing I've found more than anything else, though, is that they're all deathly respectful. Occasionally one of them will make a joke, but they don't talk while I'm talking, they don't converse with one another via whispers, they don't text on their phones or read the newspaper. I have complete attention from everyone when I'm in front of the class, which is something both astounding and inspiring. None of my 101 classes were like that, and I've taught four of those. I guess engineers are patient, more mature, and have higher self-discipline levels for the most part. This is thrilling. If I can maintain that sort of class environment throughout the rest of the semester, teaching these kids will be a breeze.
In other news, I do feel the need to mention something else about the book -- I've been told by friends who bought it that when Amazon transferred it to the Kindle format, it messed up some of the formatting in it. Andrea told me that the footnotes in it became basically randomized (don't ask me how that happens) and that every ten pages or so, it repeats a sentence or something like that. Obviously, it's not like that in my own manuscript, and I'm not even sure how the wording or footnotes could change, as my manuscript for it was in PDF to discourage any of that shit from happening. I glanced through my manuscript again earlier, and everything's good on my end -- so it's apparently something to do with Amazon. I don't have a Kindle myself, obviously (though I think if you're selling Kindle books and making profits for Amazon, they should give you one), and the Kindle Reader program doesn't work with Linux. There's a Kindle "editing program" that Amazon offers for Linux, but it appears to be command-line only, with no install option -- which doesn't matter, really, because I can't get the thing to work correctly on my computer anyway. As much as I don't want to, I may have to buy a new laptop sooner rather than later just so that I can have a machine with Windows on it that will let me actually use the software to edit through that book a fourth time to see just what the hell is wrong with the formatting. As I just paid the rent today and still have to write the deposit check to the former girlfriend at some point in the near future -- as well as get my car worked on -- that would be a last resort, obviously.
Perhaps I'll see if there's an all-online version of the program or if there's a computer on campus I could use for that purpose, if only for a few hours at a time. It's not like I don't have enough to do already this semester, though. My point is, if/when you do buy the book, try to overlook the formatting issues. I will say once again that it's not my fault, but Amazon's.
So, on to other things: this afternoon I ordered a specialized set of hair clippers and the biggest clipper guide they make, a #12 -- which leaves hair at 1.5" all over. After I get them in the mail, as I know myself well, I will probably let them sit in my room for a few days while I stare at them in apprehension and hair-filled fear before I just say fuck it and do the deed of actually cutting my hair. The best time to do it is now, as if I'm going to pull the proverbial trigger on this sort of thing, I need to do it before it gets cold so that it has time to grow back out over the fall and winter. I'm planning to take the beard off, too -- or at least trim it down drastically -- so that it has the chance to re-grow itself during that time as well.
Why have I decided to do this? Well, as you already know, I am beginning to lose my hair, and it's thinning out a lot as it is. This won't slow the process, of course, but it will stop all of my long hair (that keeps falling out more with every shower) from clogging the tub drain. I also think it's time for a change; over the course of the past month as a single guy I've sort of been wanting to reinvent myself appearance-wise, and this is one of the easiest ways to do it. Plus, I'll not have to buy shampoo and conditioner every three weeks.
What I haven't told you folks is that when I haven't been completely exhausted by my school day, I've been coming home at night and eating lighter meals, have been trying to watch my diet a little more, and have started a basic exercise plan of push-ups, sit-ups, and ab crunches. My back doesn't necessarily like this shit, but I know if I try to keep it up it can only help me. I really should have told the former girlfriend's mother to bring by that exercise bike when I had the chance in 2009, as I now have room for it and would use it a lot. Oh well. Maybe I can find one on Newton's Freecycle thing eventually.
"The Trashing" continues; albeit slowly. I've slowed down on it for a while as I can really only put one of those huge steel-sac bags into the can every week without the trash people getting suspicious that I'm dumping bodies or something, and I still need to run the clothing bags to a donation center somewhere. I did, however, find a bunch of older "failed" tie-dye shirts I'd made that I'll bleach and re-dye with the little dye I have left -- they'll make good thank-you gifts for friends I haven't sent stuff to yet. Maybe I'll redo a few of them this evening while football is on, as I need to ready my second volley of those packages anyhow.
As for the rest of the weekend, it's going to be filled with crazy amounts of work to do -- most of tomorrow will be spent reading not one or two, but three different books, with the intention of finishing at least one of them. Aside from that, I have workshop poems to critique and a week's worth of lesson plans to write/calculate (as well as my students' first assignment to get ready), I need to make a quick shopping trip to get the cats more litter and put gas in the car, and I need to make a run to the Dollar Tree for bubble mailers and other small items (like some cheap cookie sheets and cooling racks). Maybe, if it rains, I'll be able to mow the grass on Sunday or Monday, too. So yeah, I'll be busy. Very busy.
Remember, though -- being busy keeps me from becoming too lonely or depressed, so that's a good thing.
I would like to note that I more than likely would have just sucked it up and gone in to the EGSA/department journal editors' meetings, despite these meetings by-and-large being big wastes of time and gas money for me as there's really nothing new going to be presented within them that I didn't already know -- but, as I didn't wake up until 10:30 or so, that didn't happen.
On Wednesday afternoon, I told our journal's new editor -- a friend and fellow writer in the department -- that I probably wouldn't be there anyway. My gas in the car is low and my sleep levels are even lower. Last night was the first night of decent sleep I've had since Sunday, and believe me, I slept like a rock.
"You should really try to be there," he told me. "I was thinking of making you the 'head' nonfiction editor."
I was one of three nonfiction editors last year, as some of you may know or remember. Name's in the editorial staff masthead within the book/website and everything. However, apparently the journal is going by a new staff setup this year, and the ones in charge are no longer the editor and assistant editor only -- those of us sticking around on staff who have proved our worth (and have actually expressed interest) have been or will be bestowed with the titles of "head editor" of whatever genre they're working in. For me, obviously, that would be nonfiction, and I already expressed interest in the role, if only because I'll be the only second-year on the nonfiction staff and the journal needs some sort of litmus test to gauge by what is a good or not good submission.
"And that's fine," I told him. "If you want to make me the head of nonfiction, go ahead -- it's not like I won't do the work for it. But everything else is stuff all of us heard at last year's meeting, and even as the 'head' of that genre, it's not going to change any of the work I do. It's not like we get hundreds of nonfiction submissions, like we do with fiction and poetry."
The meeting will indeed be useful for all of those first-years who want to join the staff, as I did last fall. But for the rest of us? I'm guessing that most of the info will be along these lines:
1. Hey, we have an online journal now too, so start soliciting submissions from all of your friends and undergraduate schools.
2. We'll have fundraisers at some point like trivia nights or bake sales to help finance the cost of running the website and the print run of the journal in spring.
3. "This is what the genre editors do..."
Etc.
I tried to be as conciliatory as possible when I told the editor I probably wouldn't be there, not just for those reasons but also because that's a lot of miles to put on the car and about $6-8 in gas money to spend every time I make a trip to Wichita and back, and that car's already getting driven into the ground by my daily use of it to do that.
Not to mention, as I also told him, that I'm fucking tired. My schedule, even in the first week of classes, has already started to run me ragged. Tuesdays are fine, but being on campus until 10PM on Wednesday before getting up at 5 to do it all again on Thursday -- a second night I'm there until 10PM -- is wearing me down, and will continue to do so until I get used to it...if that actually happens. I've never had two nights in a row of 7:05-9:45PM classes before, let alone needing to get up at 5AM in the morning between them to get to campus and teach.
Teaching yesterday was fine, I suppose; my classes are slowly, slowly growing. I gained/lost one in my first class, and gained two more in my second class. I now have 15 in my first and 19 in my second. Three different students I had in the spring semester are taking my class this semester, so I already know their writing styles and abilities. It's always good to see familiar faces, too -- all of them liked me as their instructor in the spring.
I'm still trying to feel my way around this class and the curriculum; most of these folks seem to be fairly easygoing; some are quieter than others, some are athletes and some are just plain engineering nerds. The one thing I've found more than anything else, though, is that they're all deathly respectful. Occasionally one of them will make a joke, but they don't talk while I'm talking, they don't converse with one another via whispers, they don't text on their phones or read the newspaper. I have complete attention from everyone when I'm in front of the class, which is something both astounding and inspiring. None of my 101 classes were like that, and I've taught four of those. I guess engineers are patient, more mature, and have higher self-discipline levels for the most part. This is thrilling. If I can maintain that sort of class environment throughout the rest of the semester, teaching these kids will be a breeze.
In other news, I do feel the need to mention something else about the book -- I've been told by friends who bought it that when Amazon transferred it to the Kindle format, it messed up some of the formatting in it. Andrea told me that the footnotes in it became basically randomized (don't ask me how that happens) and that every ten pages or so, it repeats a sentence or something like that. Obviously, it's not like that in my own manuscript, and I'm not even sure how the wording or footnotes could change, as my manuscript for it was in PDF to discourage any of that shit from happening. I glanced through my manuscript again earlier, and everything's good on my end -- so it's apparently something to do with Amazon. I don't have a Kindle myself, obviously (though I think if you're selling Kindle books and making profits for Amazon, they should give you one), and the Kindle Reader program doesn't work with Linux. There's a Kindle "editing program" that Amazon offers for Linux, but it appears to be command-line only, with no install option -- which doesn't matter, really, because I can't get the thing to work correctly on my computer anyway. As much as I don't want to, I may have to buy a new laptop sooner rather than later just so that I can have a machine with Windows on it that will let me actually use the software to edit through that book a fourth time to see just what the hell is wrong with the formatting. As I just paid the rent today and still have to write the deposit check to the former girlfriend at some point in the near future -- as well as get my car worked on -- that would be a last resort, obviously.
Perhaps I'll see if there's an all-online version of the program or if there's a computer on campus I could use for that purpose, if only for a few hours at a time. It's not like I don't have enough to do already this semester, though. My point is, if/when you do buy the book, try to overlook the formatting issues. I will say once again that it's not my fault, but Amazon's.
So, on to other things: this afternoon I ordered a specialized set of hair clippers and the biggest clipper guide they make, a #12 -- which leaves hair at 1.5" all over. After I get them in the mail, as I know myself well, I will probably let them sit in my room for a few days while I stare at them in apprehension and hair-filled fear before I just say fuck it and do the deed of actually cutting my hair. The best time to do it is now, as if I'm going to pull the proverbial trigger on this sort of thing, I need to do it before it gets cold so that it has time to grow back out over the fall and winter. I'm planning to take the beard off, too -- or at least trim it down drastically -- so that it has the chance to re-grow itself during that time as well.
Why have I decided to do this? Well, as you already know, I am beginning to lose my hair, and it's thinning out a lot as it is. This won't slow the process, of course, but it will stop all of my long hair (that keeps falling out more with every shower) from clogging the tub drain. I also think it's time for a change; over the course of the past month as a single guy I've sort of been wanting to reinvent myself appearance-wise, and this is one of the easiest ways to do it. Plus, I'll not have to buy shampoo and conditioner every three weeks.
What I haven't told you folks is that when I haven't been completely exhausted by my school day, I've been coming home at night and eating lighter meals, have been trying to watch my diet a little more, and have started a basic exercise plan of push-ups, sit-ups, and ab crunches. My back doesn't necessarily like this shit, but I know if I try to keep it up it can only help me. I really should have told the former girlfriend's mother to bring by that exercise bike when I had the chance in 2009, as I now have room for it and would use it a lot. Oh well. Maybe I can find one on Newton's Freecycle thing eventually.
"The Trashing" continues; albeit slowly. I've slowed down on it for a while as I can really only put one of those huge steel-sac bags into the can every week without the trash people getting suspicious that I'm dumping bodies or something, and I still need to run the clothing bags to a donation center somewhere. I did, however, find a bunch of older "failed" tie-dye shirts I'd made that I'll bleach and re-dye with the little dye I have left -- they'll make good thank-you gifts for friends I haven't sent stuff to yet. Maybe I'll redo a few of them this evening while football is on, as I need to ready my second volley of those packages anyhow.
As for the rest of the weekend, it's going to be filled with crazy amounts of work to do -- most of tomorrow will be spent reading not one or two, but three different books, with the intention of finishing at least one of them. Aside from that, I have workshop poems to critique and a week's worth of lesson plans to write/calculate (as well as my students' first assignment to get ready), I need to make a quick shopping trip to get the cats more litter and put gas in the car, and I need to make a run to the Dollar Tree for bubble mailers and other small items (like some cheap cookie sheets and cooling racks). Maybe, if it rains, I'll be able to mow the grass on Sunday or Monday, too. So yeah, I'll be busy. Very busy.
Remember, though -- being busy keeps me from becoming too lonely or depressed, so that's a good thing.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
That's How I Roll, Winning
Fall semester: day four
It is 5:45 AM. I have been awake since my alarm went off at 5. I went to bed at 11PM, which was a little more than an hour after I got home last night. I will, again, leave the house in a little over an hour, and not return until after 10PM tonight.
This, folks, is my Thursday in a nutshell, for the entire semester. To further explain my fatigue to you, this morning I performed what I call the five minute scrub. For those of you who are guys, especially single guys, you should recognize this routine quite well -- spend no more than five minutes in the shower, scrub yourself down quickly but thoroughly, and use a 3-in-1 item (shampoo/conditioner/body wash) to expedite the process. I actually keep a bottle of 3-in-1 in the shower specifically for days like today, when I have little time/patience/sleep.
Yesterday, I wore my Charlie Sheen "Winning" t-shirt, and heard no end of shit for it.
Really, people? That's how I roll. I even had my fiction professor comment on it. I will say, though, that some of the people around the department liked it. Not many, but some. I'm guessing that even as much as I like it, the Sheen shirt may be one of those shirts that get stuffed into the back of my closet and worn only rarely to school (or even outside the house).
Yesterday was pretty interesting, though. I have two classes on Wednesdays -- my Graduate Studies in Fiction course and my poetry workshop -- both of them taught by professors I've never had before. Our poetry professor is new to the program, as he was just hired in the spring, and it's possible he may run an even more lax environment in workshop than I've seen previously -- an example of that is the fact that we don't need to produce a new poem every week. He told us "every other week" or less would be a good guideline to shoot for, with a total of anywhere from four to nine of our poems being workshopped over the course of the semester. We have three new poets this fall, all guys. Two of them I've met previously and spent some time with on campus, at least (as one of them is our new officemate). So, that class will more than likely be the highlight of the day on any given Wednesday, despite the fact that it doesn't start until 7PM.
Of course, that may also be because, when asked what I was looking for out of workshop and where I thought my poetry was headed or trying to accomplish, I said I wasn't entirely sure yet but I was considering taking up alcoholism as a hobby as it could only help.
My Fiction course looks like it's going to entail a lot more work, of course. There are two big papers in there, a presentation, and five smaller informal "response papers," that revolve around the seven novels we'll be reading in the class. Our first meeting of that class took about an hour, where we were given the syllabus and the order/rough schedule we'll be taking care of the assigned readings and papers. A fair amount of the novels, at least, sound quite interesting -- and I've never read any of them before. First up is Defoe's Moll Flanders, which I will be reading over the weekend.
Today consists of getting dressed and going to campus, drinking coffee, teaching my two sections of science writing, and then....nothing until 7PM. I have office hours in there as well, but unless there are major problems with students trying to get in/out of my class, I doubt I'll have anyone come to them. Instead, I'll be spending those hours reading/finishing Sugar Street for this evening when I have my Asian/Middle Eastern lit course, which will hopefully not go the full almost-three hours (as I'm already exhausted and want the weekend to start).
On that note, I need to hop into the Monte Carlo and make the drive down there. It's a beautiful morning.
It is 5:45 AM. I have been awake since my alarm went off at 5. I went to bed at 11PM, which was a little more than an hour after I got home last night. I will, again, leave the house in a little over an hour, and not return until after 10PM tonight.
This, folks, is my Thursday in a nutshell, for the entire semester. To further explain my fatigue to you, this morning I performed what I call the five minute scrub. For those of you who are guys, especially single guys, you should recognize this routine quite well -- spend no more than five minutes in the shower, scrub yourself down quickly but thoroughly, and use a 3-in-1 item (shampoo/conditioner/body wash) to expedite the process. I actually keep a bottle of 3-in-1 in the shower specifically for days like today, when I have little time/patience/sleep.
Yesterday, I wore my Charlie Sheen "Winning" t-shirt, and heard no end of shit for it.
Really, people? That's how I roll. I even had my fiction professor comment on it. I will say, though, that some of the people around the department liked it. Not many, but some. I'm guessing that even as much as I like it, the Sheen shirt may be one of those shirts that get stuffed into the back of my closet and worn only rarely to school (or even outside the house).
Yesterday was pretty interesting, though. I have two classes on Wednesdays -- my Graduate Studies in Fiction course and my poetry workshop -- both of them taught by professors I've never had before. Our poetry professor is new to the program, as he was just hired in the spring, and it's possible he may run an even more lax environment in workshop than I've seen previously -- an example of that is the fact that we don't need to produce a new poem every week. He told us "every other week" or less would be a good guideline to shoot for, with a total of anywhere from four to nine of our poems being workshopped over the course of the semester. We have three new poets this fall, all guys. Two of them I've met previously and spent some time with on campus, at least (as one of them is our new officemate). So, that class will more than likely be the highlight of the day on any given Wednesday, despite the fact that it doesn't start until 7PM.
Of course, that may also be because, when asked what I was looking for out of workshop and where I thought my poetry was headed or trying to accomplish, I said I wasn't entirely sure yet but I was considering taking up alcoholism as a hobby as it could only help.
My Fiction course looks like it's going to entail a lot more work, of course. There are two big papers in there, a presentation, and five smaller informal "response papers," that revolve around the seven novels we'll be reading in the class. Our first meeting of that class took about an hour, where we were given the syllabus and the order/rough schedule we'll be taking care of the assigned readings and papers. A fair amount of the novels, at least, sound quite interesting -- and I've never read any of them before. First up is Defoe's Moll Flanders, which I will be reading over the weekend.
Today consists of getting dressed and going to campus, drinking coffee, teaching my two sections of science writing, and then....nothing until 7PM. I have office hours in there as well, but unless there are major problems with students trying to get in/out of my class, I doubt I'll have anyone come to them. Instead, I'll be spending those hours reading/finishing Sugar Street for this evening when I have my Asian/Middle Eastern lit course, which will hopefully not go the full almost-three hours (as I'm already exhausted and want the weekend to start).
On that note, I need to hop into the Monte Carlo and make the drive down there. It's a beautiful morning.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
The Slog
Fall semester: day three
Oh, I'm already feelin' it, folks.
Feelin' what, you may ask?
I call it the slog. It's that continual dragging feeling that one gets when one is busy, has a lot of things to do that he or she may not remember without writing it all down, and the specific point in time that those things start to wear one down when one compares the hours spent doing them versus the hours spent sleeping. It is after this point where one finds him or herself, well, slogging through things.
I have already started to reach this point on day three of the fall semester, and I've only been on campus five times (total) in the past month.
This does not bode well, folks. It does not bode well at all.
Last night I went to bed around 1. I didn't have to get up early this morning, which should be obvious from the fact that I'm writing here at 10AM, and instead set my alarm for 8. When the alarm went off, it felt like I had gotten no sleep whatsoever, even though I'd slept for almost seven hours and had an afternoon nap yesterday for about two.
I have myriad things to do, and this week is just now ramping up, even though it's already Wednesday morning. Over the next 36 hours, at least 20 of them -- if not more -- will be spent on campus, either in classes (my own as well as the ones I teach) or in my office for office hours/working on various things. Today I have class from 1:30-4, office hours from 5-7, and my workshop class from 7:05-9:45. While I don't know if either of my classes today will last the full time as they're the first ones of the semester, I still have to plan for them if they do. After I get home tonight, I have to sleep fast because I'll be getting up at 5AM again to go back in to teach tomorrow morning, and then have more office hours and another late class tomorrow night at the same time as tonight's.
Yeah. Welcome to my semester, folks. I may only have to go in three days a week, but two of those three days are pretty long, ending at 10PM. It's no different than last semester -- when I actually had to be there four days a week, or fall semester last year for that matter, but still. As I mentioned before, I think I'm getting too old for this shit.
Friday is supposed to the the first meeting of the EGSA as well as the first meeting for the staff of the school's literary journal. It all starts at 11AM. Why they schedule it on a Friday, when none of us have to be on campus for anything, let alone a meeting, is beyond me. Those of us on the staff at the journal, at least, repeatedly requested last semester that future meetings not be held on Fridays for that very same reason. I probably won't get home on Thursday night until around 10:30-11ish, as I have my late class -- which means that at 11AM on Friday, I will probably still be asleep. This is also problematic for me as it costs me about $7 in gas every time I make a trip to Wichita and back, and puts 48 more miles on the car, for a meeting that usually lasts less time than it takes to drive there and back. It's just not economically or realistically feasible for someone like me. I'm one of the three current nonfiction editors on the journal's staff, and I would like to keep that position, but if it means that I must attend every meeting, especially if those meetings are held on days where I won't normally be on campus, then I'll have to give it up -- at least for this year, anyhow. Realistically, all I do is receive submissions from the editors via email, and approve/reject them via a reply. While that position may look good on my resume in the future, it's already on there from last year, and I'm not going to tax the car (or my wallet for gas, or my sleep schedule) any more than I have to in order to get to these meetings. With my schedule this semester I don't have the time to do anything extra for the journal but edit that stuff, anyhow -- I've got two lit courses and a poetry course to worry about, and two classes to teach and grade papers for.
In other news, from this point forward I'm not going to talk much about my book here -- unless, for some reason, it starts selling thousands of copies overnight and I can't figure out why. I don't really want this blog to turn into a plug-machine of shameless self-promotion, even if I am more narcissistic about myself than I rightfully should be most of the time. I've sold several copies already, and if that's all I end up selling, period, I'll be happy. Over the course of the next few days, I'll probably post a link to the Amazon page for it somewhere on my sidebar to the right, or link to it in the header of the blog or something, but other than that it's not like I'm going to go balls-out advertising it. If it sells and people like it, good. If it doesn't sell that well, I'll shop it around to publishing houses and literary agents over the course of the next year, and try to get a print version made. No biggie; you folks know me -- I go with the flow.
On that note, I need to leave the house now in order to make the slog to campus for the day's classes and other activities. Here's hoping I can get a decent parking spot and won't have to walk half a mile to the building on another day where the temperature is supposed to be over 100.
Oh, I'm already feelin' it, folks.
Feelin' what, you may ask?
I call it the slog. It's that continual dragging feeling that one gets when one is busy, has a lot of things to do that he or she may not remember without writing it all down, and the specific point in time that those things start to wear one down when one compares the hours spent doing them versus the hours spent sleeping. It is after this point where one finds him or herself, well, slogging through things.
I have already started to reach this point on day three of the fall semester, and I've only been on campus five times (total) in the past month.
This does not bode well, folks. It does not bode well at all.
Last night I went to bed around 1. I didn't have to get up early this morning, which should be obvious from the fact that I'm writing here at 10AM, and instead set my alarm for 8. When the alarm went off, it felt like I had gotten no sleep whatsoever, even though I'd slept for almost seven hours and had an afternoon nap yesterday for about two.
I have myriad things to do, and this week is just now ramping up, even though it's already Wednesday morning. Over the next 36 hours, at least 20 of them -- if not more -- will be spent on campus, either in classes (my own as well as the ones I teach) or in my office for office hours/working on various things. Today I have class from 1:30-4, office hours from 5-7, and my workshop class from 7:05-9:45. While I don't know if either of my classes today will last the full time as they're the first ones of the semester, I still have to plan for them if they do. After I get home tonight, I have to sleep fast because I'll be getting up at 5AM again to go back in to teach tomorrow morning, and then have more office hours and another late class tomorrow night at the same time as tonight's.
Yeah. Welcome to my semester, folks. I may only have to go in three days a week, but two of those three days are pretty long, ending at 10PM. It's no different than last semester -- when I actually had to be there four days a week, or fall semester last year for that matter, but still. As I mentioned before, I think I'm getting too old for this shit.
Friday is supposed to the the first meeting of the EGSA as well as the first meeting for the staff of the school's literary journal. It all starts at 11AM. Why they schedule it on a Friday, when none of us have to be on campus for anything, let alone a meeting, is beyond me. Those of us on the staff at the journal, at least, repeatedly requested last semester that future meetings not be held on Fridays for that very same reason. I probably won't get home on Thursday night until around 10:30-11ish, as I have my late class -- which means that at 11AM on Friday, I will probably still be asleep. This is also problematic for me as it costs me about $7 in gas every time I make a trip to Wichita and back, and puts 48 more miles on the car, for a meeting that usually lasts less time than it takes to drive there and back. It's just not economically or realistically feasible for someone like me. I'm one of the three current nonfiction editors on the journal's staff, and I would like to keep that position, but if it means that I must attend every meeting, especially if those meetings are held on days where I won't normally be on campus, then I'll have to give it up -- at least for this year, anyhow. Realistically, all I do is receive submissions from the editors via email, and approve/reject them via a reply. While that position may look good on my resume in the future, it's already on there from last year, and I'm not going to tax the car (or my wallet for gas, or my sleep schedule) any more than I have to in order to get to these meetings. With my schedule this semester I don't have the time to do anything extra for the journal but edit that stuff, anyhow -- I've got two lit courses and a poetry course to worry about, and two classes to teach and grade papers for.
In other news, from this point forward I'm not going to talk much about my book here -- unless, for some reason, it starts selling thousands of copies overnight and I can't figure out why. I don't really want this blog to turn into a plug-machine of shameless self-promotion, even if I am more narcissistic about myself than I rightfully should be most of the time. I've sold several copies already, and if that's all I end up selling, period, I'll be happy. Over the course of the next few days, I'll probably post a link to the Amazon page for it somewhere on my sidebar to the right, or link to it in the header of the blog or something, but other than that it's not like I'm going to go balls-out advertising it. If it sells and people like it, good. If it doesn't sell that well, I'll shop it around to publishing houses and literary agents over the course of the next year, and try to get a print version made. No biggie; you folks know me -- I go with the flow.
On that note, I need to leave the house now in order to make the slog to campus for the day's classes and other activities. Here's hoping I can get a decent parking spot and won't have to walk half a mile to the building on another day where the temperature is supposed to be over 100.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
The Book is LIVE
Ladies and gentlemen, the book is live:
If you would like to purchase and read it, you will be able to do so at this link. If you do purchase it, to read it you will either need a Kindle or the appropriate Kindle reader software for your PC/Mac/mobile device/etc., which is free and readily available on Amazon's site. If you do want to purchase and read it, I would appreciate if you would review it at some point afterward, good or bad (obviously, be honest).
I also have but one more request: do not share this on Facebook. When I am tagged in a post, any and all of my friends have that post pop up on their news feed, and it pops up on my own wall as well. There's a large number of people I'm friends with on there that I do not want to know that this book exists (read: the people I worked with while it was being written, who all have codenames within the book, but still) for a very, very long time, if ever. I do not want to have to go through Facebook and untag myself from all of these shared posts, worrying if any of those people saw the link before I did so. I am still friends with many of them, and this is the reason that I've never mentioned anything about the book on Facebook, ever. Andrea shared/tagged me on there for the book earlier tonight, and while it was a wonderful gesture and I appreciated it, I didn't realize that it would post everywhere and I would have to hurry through and untag/delete myself off of everything. Sharing it on Twitter is fine. Sharing it on Google+ is fine. Just not on Facebook. I will be sharing it myself with several people on Facebook, but via private message only.
(No, Andrea, of course I'm not mad at you. You didn't know. It's okay, trust me.)
Anyway.
I'm not sure if the formatting issues (as seen on my officemate's copy) persist with the "live" (read: latest, definitive) version of the book, but if you find that pages/chapters run together, spacing's off, etc, try changing the display/zoom settings on your Kindle (or reader program) first and see if that fixes it. If there are formatting issues with the text in the file, they're on Amazon's end, not mine. Just for future reference.
So yeah, there you have it. The book's done, the book's live, the book's for sale. Go nuts, folks. Help me pay back some of these student loans.
If you would like to purchase and read it, you will be able to do so at this link. If you do purchase it, to read it you will either need a Kindle or the appropriate Kindle reader software for your PC/Mac/mobile device/etc., which is free and readily available on Amazon's site. If you do want to purchase and read it, I would appreciate if you would review it at some point afterward, good or bad (obviously, be honest).
I also have but one more request: do not share this on Facebook. When I am tagged in a post, any and all of my friends have that post pop up on their news feed, and it pops up on my own wall as well. There's a large number of people I'm friends with on there that I do not want to know that this book exists (read: the people I worked with while it was being written, who all have codenames within the book, but still) for a very, very long time, if ever. I do not want to have to go through Facebook and untag myself from all of these shared posts, worrying if any of those people saw the link before I did so. I am still friends with many of them, and this is the reason that I've never mentioned anything about the book on Facebook, ever. Andrea shared/tagged me on there for the book earlier tonight, and while it was a wonderful gesture and I appreciated it, I didn't realize that it would post everywhere and I would have to hurry through and untag/delete myself off of everything. Sharing it on Twitter is fine. Sharing it on Google+ is fine. Just not on Facebook. I will be sharing it myself with several people on Facebook, but via private message only.
(No, Andrea, of course I'm not mad at you. You didn't know. It's okay, trust me.)
Anyway.
I'm not sure if the formatting issues (as seen on my officemate's copy) persist with the "live" (read: latest, definitive) version of the book, but if you find that pages/chapters run together, spacing's off, etc, try changing the display/zoom settings on your Kindle (or reader program) first and see if that fixes it. If there are formatting issues with the text in the file, they're on Amazon's end, not mine. Just for future reference.
So yeah, there you have it. The book's done, the book's live, the book's for sale. Go nuts, folks. Help me pay back some of these student loans.
The Teaching, Day One
I was very tired after last night's blog post, but was unable to really get any quality sleep. When I was finally able to sleep, I only got between two and three hours of rest at most before that alarm clock went off at 5AM. Knowing I had to get up and start consuming large quantities of caffeine if I didn't want to be functionally retarded during my teaching this morning, I trudged upstairs, looked at myself in the mirror and decided I looked good enough/was too tired to shower, and began the liberal abuse of coffee. I left the house around 7, and fought through what seemed like a lot more interstate traffic than usual to get to campus.
Once there I spent the morning hours before class printing out a makeshift class roster, filled with the students who, as of last night, were enrolled in the class, drank even more coffee, and socialized with the ladies (and a few guys) of the department who were there as early as I was. I told a few people around the department about the book -- those of them who didn't know about it already, anyhow -- and mentally prepared for class.
My two science writing classes are in a different building (but both in the same room), about 150 yards or more from the English department and on the opposite side of the street. I've never taught in this building before, but it seems to be one of the newer, as well as most technologically-advanced, buildings on campus. I have what is considered a "smart classroom," which is really just jargon for a classroom that has a built-in projector, computer terminal podium, and a screen with light-pen capabilities. It's also very small, and humid/stuffy compared to some of the other rooms I've taught in before.
At around 9:15, my students began filing in for my first class. My first class is populated -- solely and completely -- by men. Nerdy men. Fourteen nerdy men.
My kind of students, I thought. They'll get all my references, and won't bat an eyelash when I say something like "Kneel before Zod" or when I wear my Fantastic Four t-shirts.
My second class, at least, has two females. And fourteen more nerdy men.
Both classes sort of went the same way, to be honest. I introduced myself, handed out the syllabus and covered the basics of it -- like the grading scale, the papers that we'll be writing in the class, my office hours and email address, and the books we'll be using. After that point, I performed what has become my customary first day of class ritual.
For classes of rough crowds as well as easygoing folk alike, I devised a plan during my first semester of teaching a year ago -- at the end of the lesson on the first day, I ask each student to introduce him/herself, and tell the class two things about him/herself that can't be where they're from or what their major is. This tends to get the entire class relaxed and vocal, and usually leads to at least a few amusing facts from some people. After the class has finished introducing themselves, I introduce myself in a more informal way, just as they did. It ends the first class on a positive note, and helps them realize that even if the syllabus and coursework looks daunting, at least they have a friendly instructor who will be social with them and willing to help.
Each of my classes today lasted about forty minutes -- first days are always short, of course, and at the end I told them to make sure they brought their workbooks with them on Thursday, as we'll be covering the more important sections of that as well as filling out some forms, and then taking care of the diagnostic essay (as per my supervisor's instructions).
For those of you who have never taught an English course before, the diagnostic essay I speak of is a sort of test that the students don't get graded for. They're given a choice of several topics and asked to take about 40-50 minutes to write a standard five-paragraph essay with a thesis and conclusion, and it's scored on a scale of 1-5. Those essays are kept for records and then compared with the final exams at the end of the course (which are also graded on a 1-5 scale) to see if there's been marked improvement in a student's writing over the course of the semester. I'm sure Flat State University isn't the only school that does this sort of exercise; it's probably pretty standard across the country. In classes like 101, which I taught my first full year there, the diagnostic also serves as the trial-by-fire litmus test of whether a student should be in that class or should be taking a remedial or ESL course.
So, after my classes were over, I was done for the day -- I've set up my Tuesdays to where, if needed, after I'm done teaching I can get the hell off campus and go home. By the way it looks, Tuesday afternoons will be the days I'll run errands and do shopping, as once the semester gets into full swing, my weekends will be consumed by reading, writing and grading. Not to mention watching football of both the college and NFL varieties. If by some weird and wholly-implausible stroke of luck I end up taking some girl on a date or two this semester, I have to clear some weekend time for that, as well.
After returning to my office and chitchatting with my fellow English men, I packed up the stuff I'd need before tomorrow and came back home. The temperature had shot up twenty degrees from what it had been when I'd arrived on campus around 7:30, and was already getting very hot. The car drove great though, powering through the heat and traffic. Due to a long line of semi trucks on the interstate (like, five in a row, back-to-back, with just enough space between them to make passing them one at a time a futile maneuver) driving around 60mph in a 75 zone, I scanned the area for cops. With none around, I was actually able to kick the Monte Carlo into high gear and get it up around 88-90 or so to pass all of them. It was thrilling, and the highest speed I've ever driven the car up to this point. It still only hit around 400o R.p.m. even at that speed. The tachometer goes up to 8500 or so, and it was like the car was craving more once I passed the trucks and slowed back down to normal.
Never let it be said that a Monte Carlo Z34 with 217k miles and counting (and with two misfiring engine cylinders due to old spark plugs) can't haul some ass when needed. Even with its problems and its age, for the most part that car runs like a champ.
I got home around 1, which means during the time I was driving home from school is when the east coast earthquake struck. I first heard about it from my friend Donna, who wrote a blog post about it, and by around 2 the internet was swamped with news about the quake. It was strong enough to be felt in my hometown of Morgantown, WV, and on the mountain outside of town where I grew up. I have friends and family all around the area, from DC to Baltimore to Pittsburgh, who all felt the quake. My own mother emailed me this afternoon to tell me that she felt it in her office on WVU's campus, and their entire building shook, prompting a 20-minute evacuation.
Crazy shit, really. I may be missing something here, but since when does the eastern seaboard have earthquakes, let alone earthquakes that are close to 6.0?
I live in Kansas. We get no earthquakes here. I'm jealous.
I said that this afternoon to have not one, but two of my friends reply "Tornadoes aren't good enough for you?"
"We don't get hurricanes either," I said in reply. "This place sucks."
I mean that in jest, of course. As for the tornadoes, Newton hasn't had one around the city since '07 or so.
After catching up on the earthquake news, I did what I had originally planned to do: I ate a quick lunch before dozing off on the couch until around 4:30 or so. When I got up, I came back to my room to see that the internet was still abuzz with stories about the earthquake. Yeah, it's a big deal. But no one was hurt, and there was minimal damage. Unless this stuff starts happening every week, I'm pretty sure it's not the endtimes.
In other news, my officemate was the first person to purchase a copy of my book this afternoon, by searching for it in the Amazon Marketplace. Why Amazon would make it available for purchase before it's considered to be "live" and on sale even to me, as the author, is beyond me. According to my own administrative page there as an author, the book still says "publishing," which is the term they use for "it's not ready yet, we're still trying to convert it to Kindle format to be ready for the sale." This is probably true, as the copy my officemate purchased this afternoon is full of formatting errors; line/page breaks were screwed up, pages/chapters running together, etc. This is not my fault, obviously -- I spent weeks and months perfectly formatting that manuscript and making sure everything was on each page I intended it to be on, lined up correctly, and making it look like, well, a book.
This is part of the reason I've told you folks not to search for it and purchase it early before I give you the go-ahead and link once it's "live" on the site -- I'm not sure what formatting they do to it in the process between "publishing" and "live," so it's possible that my officemate purchased a not-completely-processed version of the book -- though through no fault of mine or his. Either that, or he may be reading his Kindle on a higher aspect ratio (read: to make the text bigger), which may change around the way the words look on the "page." I don't know, I don't own a Kindle -- I just write books for them. Believe me, once it goes "live," as much work as I can do on my end will be done, and I will certainly encourage you to purchase the book. Until then, though, you should probably wait. It shouldn't take too long.
What's really amusing, though, is the response I've gotten from the people who have known about the book for some time, including my officemate.
"Why haven't you told anybody about it?" he asked me this afternoon. "I mean, you could be setting up readings on campus, publicizing it, getting more sales and attention."
While this is all certainly true, I've not made a big deal of it because I don't like to count my chickens before they hatch, as they say. If I'd run into a big snag or snafu (such as, for example, if my computer decided to die/lock up and I lost 100 pages of the book's text while writing/editing it, or something along those lines) and I couldn't finish/publish it for several more weeks or months, if at all, then I'd rather keep it mostly under wraps until it's ready and only risk disappointing a few people, including readers of this blog, instead of a much larger and wider group.
The other reason, frankly, is because for a while the book itself was in jeopardy. With the breakup between me and the former girlfriend, I wasn't sure whether or not I would even finish what I had of it, as for about two weeks a lot of variables about where each of us would be living was in the air, as well as all of the monetary issues surrounding those things, combined with the headlong rush of returning to school this semester. All of it was a bit overwhelming at the time, and I briefly considered shelving the book (yet again) for another year or so. I figured, however, if I did that it would remain shelved forever and I'd never come back to it. As fortune favors the bold, I just needed to get it done.
Still, it's not like I'm going to mention it in every casual conversation I have with everyone. Yeah, I wrote a book. It's funny. Lots of people have written funny books. Mine's no more special than theirs are. I may be vain and narcissistic about a lot of different things, but for some reason, I've found that this hasn't extended to the book. I'm not sure why, really.
For the rest of the night -- for as long as I'm awake, anyhow (I don't have to get up early in the morning; I just have to be on campus between 1:30 and 10PM or so for class), I will be languidly reading the Naguib Mahfouz novel Sugar Street for my Asian/Middle Eastern Lit class I'm taking this semester (first class is Thursday night), and I've currently got a large tray of jerky baking at low temperature in the oven. Overall, things could be worse.
Once there I spent the morning hours before class printing out a makeshift class roster, filled with the students who, as of last night, were enrolled in the class, drank even more coffee, and socialized with the ladies (and a few guys) of the department who were there as early as I was. I told a few people around the department about the book -- those of them who didn't know about it already, anyhow -- and mentally prepared for class.
My two science writing classes are in a different building (but both in the same room), about 150 yards or more from the English department and on the opposite side of the street. I've never taught in this building before, but it seems to be one of the newer, as well as most technologically-advanced, buildings on campus. I have what is considered a "smart classroom," which is really just jargon for a classroom that has a built-in projector, computer terminal podium, and a screen with light-pen capabilities. It's also very small, and humid/stuffy compared to some of the other rooms I've taught in before.
At around 9:15, my students began filing in for my first class. My first class is populated -- solely and completely -- by men. Nerdy men. Fourteen nerdy men.
My kind of students, I thought. They'll get all my references, and won't bat an eyelash when I say something like "Kneel before Zod" or when I wear my Fantastic Four t-shirts.
My second class, at least, has two females. And fourteen more nerdy men.
Both classes sort of went the same way, to be honest. I introduced myself, handed out the syllabus and covered the basics of it -- like the grading scale, the papers that we'll be writing in the class, my office hours and email address, and the books we'll be using. After that point, I performed what has become my customary first day of class ritual.
For classes of rough crowds as well as easygoing folk alike, I devised a plan during my first semester of teaching a year ago -- at the end of the lesson on the first day, I ask each student to introduce him/herself, and tell the class two things about him/herself that can't be where they're from or what their major is. This tends to get the entire class relaxed and vocal, and usually leads to at least a few amusing facts from some people. After the class has finished introducing themselves, I introduce myself in a more informal way, just as they did. It ends the first class on a positive note, and helps them realize that even if the syllabus and coursework looks daunting, at least they have a friendly instructor who will be social with them and willing to help.
Each of my classes today lasted about forty minutes -- first days are always short, of course, and at the end I told them to make sure they brought their workbooks with them on Thursday, as we'll be covering the more important sections of that as well as filling out some forms, and then taking care of the diagnostic essay (as per my supervisor's instructions).
For those of you who have never taught an English course before, the diagnostic essay I speak of is a sort of test that the students don't get graded for. They're given a choice of several topics and asked to take about 40-50 minutes to write a standard five-paragraph essay with a thesis and conclusion, and it's scored on a scale of 1-5. Those essays are kept for records and then compared with the final exams at the end of the course (which are also graded on a 1-5 scale) to see if there's been marked improvement in a student's writing over the course of the semester. I'm sure Flat State University isn't the only school that does this sort of exercise; it's probably pretty standard across the country. In classes like 101, which I taught my first full year there, the diagnostic also serves as the trial-by-fire litmus test of whether a student should be in that class or should be taking a remedial or ESL course.
So, after my classes were over, I was done for the day -- I've set up my Tuesdays to where, if needed, after I'm done teaching I can get the hell off campus and go home. By the way it looks, Tuesday afternoons will be the days I'll run errands and do shopping, as once the semester gets into full swing, my weekends will be consumed by reading, writing and grading. Not to mention watching football of both the college and NFL varieties. If by some weird and wholly-implausible stroke of luck I end up taking some girl on a date or two this semester, I have to clear some weekend time for that, as well.
After returning to my office and chitchatting with my fellow English men, I packed up the stuff I'd need before tomorrow and came back home. The temperature had shot up twenty degrees from what it had been when I'd arrived on campus around 7:30, and was already getting very hot. The car drove great though, powering through the heat and traffic. Due to a long line of semi trucks on the interstate (like, five in a row, back-to-back, with just enough space between them to make passing them one at a time a futile maneuver) driving around 60mph in a 75 zone, I scanned the area for cops. With none around, I was actually able to kick the Monte Carlo into high gear and get it up around 88-90 or so to pass all of them. It was thrilling, and the highest speed I've ever driven the car up to this point. It still only hit around 400o R.p.m. even at that speed. The tachometer goes up to 8500 or so, and it was like the car was craving more once I passed the trucks and slowed back down to normal.
Never let it be said that a Monte Carlo Z34 with 217k miles and counting (and with two misfiring engine cylinders due to old spark plugs) can't haul some ass when needed. Even with its problems and its age, for the most part that car runs like a champ.
I got home around 1, which means during the time I was driving home from school is when the east coast earthquake struck. I first heard about it from my friend Donna, who wrote a blog post about it, and by around 2 the internet was swamped with news about the quake. It was strong enough to be felt in my hometown of Morgantown, WV, and on the mountain outside of town where I grew up. I have friends and family all around the area, from DC to Baltimore to Pittsburgh, who all felt the quake. My own mother emailed me this afternoon to tell me that she felt it in her office on WVU's campus, and their entire building shook, prompting a 20-minute evacuation.
Crazy shit, really. I may be missing something here, but since when does the eastern seaboard have earthquakes, let alone earthquakes that are close to 6.0?
I live in Kansas. We get no earthquakes here. I'm jealous.
I said that this afternoon to have not one, but two of my friends reply "Tornadoes aren't good enough for you?"
"We don't get hurricanes either," I said in reply. "This place sucks."
I mean that in jest, of course. As for the tornadoes, Newton hasn't had one around the city since '07 or so.
After catching up on the earthquake news, I did what I had originally planned to do: I ate a quick lunch before dozing off on the couch until around 4:30 or so. When I got up, I came back to my room to see that the internet was still abuzz with stories about the earthquake. Yeah, it's a big deal. But no one was hurt, and there was minimal damage. Unless this stuff starts happening every week, I'm pretty sure it's not the endtimes.
In other news, my officemate was the first person to purchase a copy of my book this afternoon, by searching for it in the Amazon Marketplace. Why Amazon would make it available for purchase before it's considered to be "live" and on sale even to me, as the author, is beyond me. According to my own administrative page there as an author, the book still says "publishing," which is the term they use for "it's not ready yet, we're still trying to convert it to Kindle format to be ready for the sale." This is probably true, as the copy my officemate purchased this afternoon is full of formatting errors; line/page breaks were screwed up, pages/chapters running together, etc. This is not my fault, obviously -- I spent weeks and months perfectly formatting that manuscript and making sure everything was on each page I intended it to be on, lined up correctly, and making it look like, well, a book.
This is part of the reason I've told you folks not to search for it and purchase it early before I give you the go-ahead and link once it's "live" on the site -- I'm not sure what formatting they do to it in the process between "publishing" and "live," so it's possible that my officemate purchased a not-completely-processed version of the book -- though through no fault of mine or his. Either that, or he may be reading his Kindle on a higher aspect ratio (read: to make the text bigger), which may change around the way the words look on the "page." I don't know, I don't own a Kindle -- I just write books for them. Believe me, once it goes "live," as much work as I can do on my end will be done, and I will certainly encourage you to purchase the book. Until then, though, you should probably wait. It shouldn't take too long.
What's really amusing, though, is the response I've gotten from the people who have known about the book for some time, including my officemate.
"Why haven't you told anybody about it?" he asked me this afternoon. "I mean, you could be setting up readings on campus, publicizing it, getting more sales and attention."
While this is all certainly true, I've not made a big deal of it because I don't like to count my chickens before they hatch, as they say. If I'd run into a big snag or snafu (such as, for example, if my computer decided to die/lock up and I lost 100 pages of the book's text while writing/editing it, or something along those lines) and I couldn't finish/publish it for several more weeks or months, if at all, then I'd rather keep it mostly under wraps until it's ready and only risk disappointing a few people, including readers of this blog, instead of a much larger and wider group.
The other reason, frankly, is because for a while the book itself was in jeopardy. With the breakup between me and the former girlfriend, I wasn't sure whether or not I would even finish what I had of it, as for about two weeks a lot of variables about where each of us would be living was in the air, as well as all of the monetary issues surrounding those things, combined with the headlong rush of returning to school this semester. All of it was a bit overwhelming at the time, and I briefly considered shelving the book (yet again) for another year or so. I figured, however, if I did that it would remain shelved forever and I'd never come back to it. As fortune favors the bold, I just needed to get it done.
Still, it's not like I'm going to mention it in every casual conversation I have with everyone. Yeah, I wrote a book. It's funny. Lots of people have written funny books. Mine's no more special than theirs are. I may be vain and narcissistic about a lot of different things, but for some reason, I've found that this hasn't extended to the book. I'm not sure why, really.
For the rest of the night -- for as long as I'm awake, anyhow (I don't have to get up early in the morning; I just have to be on campus between 1:30 and 10PM or so for class), I will be languidly reading the Naguib Mahfouz novel Sugar Street for my Asian/Middle Eastern Lit class I'm taking this semester (first class is Thursday night), and I've currently got a large tray of jerky baking at low temperature in the oven. Overall, things could be worse.
Monday, August 22, 2011
The Trashing, Part II
First day of fall semester...for everyone else, that is.
I have found that throwing things away, recycling other things, and doing heavy cleaning gives me some sort of catharsis, to be honest with all of you. It's a way I can keep moving forward in life at a continual speed when everything else seems to have come to a virtual standstill -- home as well as social life included. As you know, in order to keep from feeling lonely or bored, I've been trying to stay as productive as possible -- if I don't, I start thinking about things, and when that happens it always leads to trouble.
This morning I got up just the same as I have for the past three mornings, and started working (after my routine of cigarettes and coffee, of course). Due to the sheer amount of, well, trash I had produced from "the trashing" as well as routine cleaning, I had opted not to take the garbage out last night, but instead wait until this morning when I could actually see what I was doing. In addition to the normal trash, I had two very heavy bags of cleaning trash to heave into the dumpster can, as well as two very overflowing recycle bins -- and that's not even counting the first part of the leftover cardboard moving boxes that I'll be moving in a piecemeal fashion down to the curb every week, as well.
When that was done, I checked on my book. It wasn't "live" on the Amazon site yet. Which was fine, I didn't expect it to be. It went "live" earlier tonight, but due to the last-second edits I had to make to the manuscript, I had to re-upload it, and it is now processing yet again. I'm guessing it will be finally live and on sale by this time tomorrow night, and when it is, I will post the direct link to it here (as well as in many other places all over the web, such as my Google+ page and Twitter). Brittany said the actual item page for it is up now (or at least it was this morning), though I haven't looked for it myself.
After that, I did indeed have a list of errands to run for the day, my last day of real, true freedom before I have to return to campus at least three days a week for the next four months. I mailed off my first volley of thank-you packages to friends (Amber, Brittany, Mere, and Shanna) this afternoon, which was about $25 in shipping altogether. Then I bought stamps, which bumped the total cost to something in the thirties. I put almost seven gallons of gas in the car (it was right around/below the half-tank mark, but if I didn't do it now I'd have to do it on Thursday around 11PM) to fill it up completely, and I then made the trek to Walmart.
As you know, while I've been taking care of "the trashing," I've also been making that perennial list of stuff I still need around the house. That list a week or so ago was about thirty items long. In my shopping trips since, it whittled down to about ten things, then ballooned back up to about twenty by this afternoon. Now, this evening, there are but six things on it.
Amongst the things I bought today was a box of the huge, thick Hefty "Steel-Sac" garbage bags contractors and construction workers use, so that I can continue "the trashing" over the next few weeks without a) going through a bunch of the actual garbage bags for the kitchen, and b) so that when I have these hundred-pound-bags of trash and other throwaway items, they won't rip apart and tear when I have to lug them out to the trash can and heft them in.
I also (finally) got some other essentials for around the house, like a panel curtain for the upstairs window. A single one. They only had one in that style and I really liked it, so I'll have to check back later to see if I can get a second one (and thus be able to draw the windows completely closed). Pete found the curtain intriguing, despite knowing what curtains are and how they function. He's just not used to it. I also bought two new pillows for the bed, as the former girlfriend took every pillow in the house -- even the throw pillows we'd had on the futon, that she hated -- when she moved. I brought my old pillows upstairs, and they'll now be used on the couch, which has since been draped with a very long, thick and heavy blue velveted fabric remnant that she'd left in her room for throwaway/donation.
There were other various little things as well -- picture hangers, a potato peeler, a standing slicer/grater, new scratch pads for the cats, an incense burner for the living room, sugar, and a needle and thread set, to name a few -- that I needed and purchased as well. There is but one item that the former girlfriend took with her that I have had an incredibly hard time being able to replace, and that's what one would refer to as a "hall table." It's a long, narrow table that's really high off the ground (like three feet or more). She had one sitting in front of our picture window in the living room, and took it with her because apparently her father had built it. That is something that's near impossible to replace because I can't find one in any retail establishment, online or otherwise, that's over 30 inches tall.
30 inches comes up to about my mid-thigh area. I want one that comes up to my waist, at least, as the bottom of the windowpane comes up about that high. This table was important because without it, there's no other piece of furniture in the house that's tall enough for the cats to sit on and look out the window. All of the bookcases she left behind are too short, and while the sewing desk she left me is tall enough, I'm going to leave that in the spare room so that I can use it as a "work desk" this fall. It's also heavier than hell.
So, I suppose I'm on the lookout for hall tables now. If I can find a really tall, moderately-sized one (read: big enough for three cats to sit on at the same time and watch the birds) then I'll probably get it, price be damned.
In other news, it's interesting to see how the new folks at school interact with one another as well as us older students. From what I've seen both in person and via Facebook, they've started to integrate fairly well, make friends, and make plans to go out together and socialize, with few exceptions -- if any.
And then there's me.
I am a second-year, granted, but even at this early stage of the semester year (after all, it's only the first day today) I'm already starting to realize that, yeah, none of these new people are going to get to know me very well. That's not to say that they won't try, of course, and that's not to say that I won't try myself or be receptive if they do, but even during orientation week and the activity I observed on Facebook over the weekend, I could tell that those new recruits who are good at making friends and/or wanted to buddy up with the second-and-third-year students have already started doing so, and were forming their own little friend groups much like I did at this time last year.
I see myself slowly slipping into my old habits I used to have in undergrad at WVU, and for many similar reasons. In undergrad, I lived at home with my parents, I had no car, and I was single for a good 90% of my undergrad career. Because I didn't live in Morgantown, but about 20 miles away, I didn't spend any "extra" time there with friends, and rarely socialized or did anything of the true "college life" sort unless I did it between classes or on days when I didn't have to work and only had one class (which was frequent). I still didn't enjoy much nightlife, because when my parents' day ended at work and my day of classes was over, I went back home with them.
This isn't to say I didn't have any college fun or hijinks; believe me, there was still plenty of time for sex, drinking beer for breakfast in the student union, and doing all sorts of other things that would probably curdle the blood of most of my family members if they knew (which is why they don't, and never will if I have any say in it). But, my point is, when my day was over, I went home and was alone in my room, with my computer, with long unruly hair and comic-book character t-shirts.
I started my college education ten years ago this month. Ten years ago. Where am I now?
Well, aside from being 1,000 miles away from West Virginia, I'm in much the same situation I was then. I still live 20 miles out of town, away from the school (24, actually), I still leave campus when I'm done for the day with little to no fanfare involved, and though I now have a car and no longer live with my parents, I do come home alone and spend more time in my room than I probably should, but now I do it with a newer computer and longer, more unruly hair, and right now I'm wearing a twenty-year-old Batman Returns t-shirt.
It's thoughts like this that keep me up in the middle of the night, like now, when I should be asleep.
I do not see this scenario changing much for the foreseeable future, either. I'm much too cautious and overall high-strung to go out and have fun socializing or drinking with my fellow graduate students, because I know that regardless of the outcome, I'll still have to drive home...twenty-four miles home. Strike one. Once I start drinking, if I'm having fun, I usually don't/can't stop until I get sick. Strike two. I don't want to know what strike three is, because it's probably yet another sign of alcoholism.
I also think I'm getting to the stage where I feel like I'm getting too old for this shit. I'm not the same person anymore that I was when I was an undergrad. I was, if you'll believe it, a pretty huge dick when I was in college. I didn't care about anything or anyone but myself, I screwed around, and I was an overall mean-spirited, loathsome person (with a heavy dose of mental instability to boot) to everyone but my friends. Yeah. There's a reason that my "exile" of sorts is more self-imposed than anything else. Unless I'm already in the process of doing so, I have no desire to get drunk and/or trashed anymore, and my personality has changed so drastically over the years that I don't even recognize the person I used to be anymore.
I'll turn 30 next year. I'm old. I get hangovers now. I'm done with the parties, the wild stuff, the wandering, the screwing around. It all just wears me out. I'm ready to settle down, do my job, finish my degree, and start a family -- leaving all of my wilder days in the past. Deep down, this is all I've ever wanted out of my life, and all I knew I'd want out of life at this point -- stability, security, and a family.
Most of these kids in the program, however, are fresh out of undergrad -- 22-24 at most. Some of them have been terribly sheltered (after all, this is Kansas), some of them are just moving here from out of state and want to continue the party, and some of them were born to be the life of that party. Most of them wouldn't understand my perspective if I tried to explain it to them, and certainly wouldn't understand the perspective I've gained from taking five years off between undergrad and graduate school -- five years that were spent in a stable, committed relationship -- without any debauchery involved in my life. I grew up, I matured, I went to work and paid the bills, and then came back to school. So, generally, even though I'd like to think that I'm fairly well-liked within the department (whether I truly am or not, I'll probably never know), I'm also seen as a sort of killjoy when I don't want to go out and do these college activities, even when invited to do so. In the worst-case scenario, I'm looked upon as being gruff, standoffish, and antisocial, which is far from the truth. I can be social. I can be very social. But trying to be social in those sorts of situations does not usually work out well for me. I'm just not that person anymore.
Realistically, I've found that slowly but surely, I've been giving up trying. Without the actual need to be on campus every day, I'm not there. Without the need to be there to wait on the former girlfriend to get out of class -- or, conversely, have her wait on me to get out of mine -- I'm not there. Not being there eliminates anything extra that I may be asked to do, and places I may be asked to go to with friends. So, you see, "the trashing" doesn't just refer to things around the house that need to be thrown away or otherwise removed from my life -- it's also a metaphor for my viewpoint on life now. Out with the old, in with the new -- even if the "new" is really the "old" me of being single, getting older, and dangerously skirting hermit territory. I'd like to think it's an evolution; I'd like to think I've grown up and finally become an independent man who is ready to leave his teens and twenties behind him for his responsible thirties, but even I'm not sure that's completely what it is.
Does any of that make sense?
Anyway. It's 12:30. I have to get up at 5 to start my day, get a shower, and teach my first two classes of the semester. In twelve hours, I will be done and should be able to come back home shortly thereafter, where -- if I don't pass out quickly after getting through the door -- I will update you here on the status of the book and tell you how those classes went.
I have found that throwing things away, recycling other things, and doing heavy cleaning gives me some sort of catharsis, to be honest with all of you. It's a way I can keep moving forward in life at a continual speed when everything else seems to have come to a virtual standstill -- home as well as social life included. As you know, in order to keep from feeling lonely or bored, I've been trying to stay as productive as possible -- if I don't, I start thinking about things, and when that happens it always leads to trouble.
This morning I got up just the same as I have for the past three mornings, and started working (after my routine of cigarettes and coffee, of course). Due to the sheer amount of, well, trash I had produced from "the trashing" as well as routine cleaning, I had opted not to take the garbage out last night, but instead wait until this morning when I could actually see what I was doing. In addition to the normal trash, I had two very heavy bags of cleaning trash to heave into the dumpster can, as well as two very overflowing recycle bins -- and that's not even counting the first part of the leftover cardboard moving boxes that I'll be moving in a piecemeal fashion down to the curb every week, as well.
When that was done, I checked on my book. It wasn't "live" on the Amazon site yet. Which was fine, I didn't expect it to be. It went "live" earlier tonight, but due to the last-second edits I had to make to the manuscript, I had to re-upload it, and it is now processing yet again. I'm guessing it will be finally live and on sale by this time tomorrow night, and when it is, I will post the direct link to it here (as well as in many other places all over the web, such as my Google+ page and Twitter). Brittany said the actual item page for it is up now (or at least it was this morning), though I haven't looked for it myself.
After that, I did indeed have a list of errands to run for the day, my last day of real, true freedom before I have to return to campus at least three days a week for the next four months. I mailed off my first volley of thank-you packages to friends (Amber, Brittany, Mere, and Shanna) this afternoon, which was about $25 in shipping altogether. Then I bought stamps, which bumped the total cost to something in the thirties. I put almost seven gallons of gas in the car (it was right around/below the half-tank mark, but if I didn't do it now I'd have to do it on Thursday around 11PM) to fill it up completely, and I then made the trek to Walmart.
As you know, while I've been taking care of "the trashing," I've also been making that perennial list of stuff I still need around the house. That list a week or so ago was about thirty items long. In my shopping trips since, it whittled down to about ten things, then ballooned back up to about twenty by this afternoon. Now, this evening, there are but six things on it.
Amongst the things I bought today was a box of the huge, thick Hefty "Steel-Sac" garbage bags contractors and construction workers use, so that I can continue "the trashing" over the next few weeks without a) going through a bunch of the actual garbage bags for the kitchen, and b) so that when I have these hundred-pound-bags of trash and other throwaway items, they won't rip apart and tear when I have to lug them out to the trash can and heft them in.
I also (finally) got some other essentials for around the house, like a panel curtain for the upstairs window. A single one. They only had one in that style and I really liked it, so I'll have to check back later to see if I can get a second one (and thus be able to draw the windows completely closed). Pete found the curtain intriguing, despite knowing what curtains are and how they function. He's just not used to it. I also bought two new pillows for the bed, as the former girlfriend took every pillow in the house -- even the throw pillows we'd had on the futon, that she hated -- when she moved. I brought my old pillows upstairs, and they'll now be used on the couch, which has since been draped with a very long, thick and heavy blue velveted fabric remnant that she'd left in her room for throwaway/donation.
There were other various little things as well -- picture hangers, a potato peeler, a standing slicer/grater, new scratch pads for the cats, an incense burner for the living room, sugar, and a needle and thread set, to name a few -- that I needed and purchased as well. There is but one item that the former girlfriend took with her that I have had an incredibly hard time being able to replace, and that's what one would refer to as a "hall table." It's a long, narrow table that's really high off the ground (like three feet or more). She had one sitting in front of our picture window in the living room, and took it with her because apparently her father had built it. That is something that's near impossible to replace because I can't find one in any retail establishment, online or otherwise, that's over 30 inches tall.
30 inches comes up to about my mid-thigh area. I want one that comes up to my waist, at least, as the bottom of the windowpane comes up about that high. This table was important because without it, there's no other piece of furniture in the house that's tall enough for the cats to sit on and look out the window. All of the bookcases she left behind are too short, and while the sewing desk she left me is tall enough, I'm going to leave that in the spare room so that I can use it as a "work desk" this fall. It's also heavier than hell.
So, I suppose I'm on the lookout for hall tables now. If I can find a really tall, moderately-sized one (read: big enough for three cats to sit on at the same time and watch the birds) then I'll probably get it, price be damned.
In other news, it's interesting to see how the new folks at school interact with one another as well as us older students. From what I've seen both in person and via Facebook, they've started to integrate fairly well, make friends, and make plans to go out together and socialize, with few exceptions -- if any.
And then there's me.
I am a second-year, granted, but even at this early stage of the semester year (after all, it's only the first day today) I'm already starting to realize that, yeah, none of these new people are going to get to know me very well. That's not to say that they won't try, of course, and that's not to say that I won't try myself or be receptive if they do, but even during orientation week and the activity I observed on Facebook over the weekend, I could tell that those new recruits who are good at making friends and/or wanted to buddy up with the second-and-third-year students have already started doing so, and were forming their own little friend groups much like I did at this time last year.
I see myself slowly slipping into my old habits I used to have in undergrad at WVU, and for many similar reasons. In undergrad, I lived at home with my parents, I had no car, and I was single for a good 90% of my undergrad career. Because I didn't live in Morgantown, but about 20 miles away, I didn't spend any "extra" time there with friends, and rarely socialized or did anything of the true "college life" sort unless I did it between classes or on days when I didn't have to work and only had one class (which was frequent). I still didn't enjoy much nightlife, because when my parents' day ended at work and my day of classes was over, I went back home with them.
This isn't to say I didn't have any college fun or hijinks; believe me, there was still plenty of time for sex, drinking beer for breakfast in the student union, and doing all sorts of other things that would probably curdle the blood of most of my family members if they knew (which is why they don't, and never will if I have any say in it). But, my point is, when my day was over, I went home and was alone in my room, with my computer, with long unruly hair and comic-book character t-shirts.
I started my college education ten years ago this month. Ten years ago. Where am I now?
Well, aside from being 1,000 miles away from West Virginia, I'm in much the same situation I was then. I still live 20 miles out of town, away from the school (24, actually), I still leave campus when I'm done for the day with little to no fanfare involved, and though I now have a car and no longer live with my parents, I do come home alone and spend more time in my room than I probably should, but now I do it with a newer computer and longer, more unruly hair, and right now I'm wearing a twenty-year-old Batman Returns t-shirt.
It's thoughts like this that keep me up in the middle of the night, like now, when I should be asleep.
I do not see this scenario changing much for the foreseeable future, either. I'm much too cautious and overall high-strung to go out and have fun socializing or drinking with my fellow graduate students, because I know that regardless of the outcome, I'll still have to drive home...twenty-four miles home. Strike one. Once I start drinking, if I'm having fun, I usually don't/can't stop until I get sick. Strike two. I don't want to know what strike three is, because it's probably yet another sign of alcoholism.
I also think I'm getting to the stage where I feel like I'm getting too old for this shit. I'm not the same person anymore that I was when I was an undergrad. I was, if you'll believe it, a pretty huge dick when I was in college. I didn't care about anything or anyone but myself, I screwed around, and I was an overall mean-spirited, loathsome person (with a heavy dose of mental instability to boot) to everyone but my friends. Yeah. There's a reason that my "exile" of sorts is more self-imposed than anything else. Unless I'm already in the process of doing so, I have no desire to get drunk and/or trashed anymore, and my personality has changed so drastically over the years that I don't even recognize the person I used to be anymore.
I'll turn 30 next year. I'm old. I get hangovers now. I'm done with the parties, the wild stuff, the wandering, the screwing around. It all just wears me out. I'm ready to settle down, do my job, finish my degree, and start a family -- leaving all of my wilder days in the past. Deep down, this is all I've ever wanted out of my life, and all I knew I'd want out of life at this point -- stability, security, and a family.
Most of these kids in the program, however, are fresh out of undergrad -- 22-24 at most. Some of them have been terribly sheltered (after all, this is Kansas), some of them are just moving here from out of state and want to continue the party, and some of them were born to be the life of that party. Most of them wouldn't understand my perspective if I tried to explain it to them, and certainly wouldn't understand the perspective I've gained from taking five years off between undergrad and graduate school -- five years that were spent in a stable, committed relationship -- without any debauchery involved in my life. I grew up, I matured, I went to work and paid the bills, and then came back to school. So, generally, even though I'd like to think that I'm fairly well-liked within the department (whether I truly am or not, I'll probably never know), I'm also seen as a sort of killjoy when I don't want to go out and do these college activities, even when invited to do so. In the worst-case scenario, I'm looked upon as being gruff, standoffish, and antisocial, which is far from the truth. I can be social. I can be very social. But trying to be social in those sorts of situations does not usually work out well for me. I'm just not that person anymore.
Realistically, I've found that slowly but surely, I've been giving up trying. Without the actual need to be on campus every day, I'm not there. Without the need to be there to wait on the former girlfriend to get out of class -- or, conversely, have her wait on me to get out of mine -- I'm not there. Not being there eliminates anything extra that I may be asked to do, and places I may be asked to go to with friends. So, you see, "the trashing" doesn't just refer to things around the house that need to be thrown away or otherwise removed from my life -- it's also a metaphor for my viewpoint on life now. Out with the old, in with the new -- even if the "new" is really the "old" me of being single, getting older, and dangerously skirting hermit territory. I'd like to think it's an evolution; I'd like to think I've grown up and finally become an independent man who is ready to leave his teens and twenties behind him for his responsible thirties, but even I'm not sure that's completely what it is.
Does any of that make sense?
Anyway. It's 12:30. I have to get up at 5 to start my day, get a shower, and teach my first two classes of the semester. In twelve hours, I will be done and should be able to come back home shortly thereafter, where -- if I don't pass out quickly after getting through the door -- I will update you here on the status of the book and tell you how those classes went.
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