The Reinvention of Brandon, Part IV

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.