More Whirlwinds, Part III: The Shopping

Spring semester: day fifty

Despite the fact that we were up late, Lady and I woke up the next morning, Saturday the 17th, fairly early -- around 9:30 or so. Neither of us could sleep any more, and I was not used to sleeping again in my bed back home; it's much, well, harder than the bed I have here in Kansas, and smaller (it's a full instead of a king), so sleeping on it gave me a bit of a backache. It didn't seem to bother Lady, though, which was good.

That morning, once we got up and about, Lady met my mother -- and my mother loved her immediately. This was an immense comfort to me, because while I wasn't nervous or anything like that, really, I've only introduced two other women I've been in a relationship with at the time to my mother. Even though I don't need her "approval" of the women I date, or anything like that, it's been clear over the ten years or so that I have been in a few relationships that my mother had some points of contention with the others, primarily because the women I've been with in the past have been so unlike her in so many ways that their personalities tended to clash -- either immediately, or after a while. Though Lady is not like my mother either, they at least share a lot of common interests and discussion topics, and Lady loves her sense of humor and general demeanor, and the same goes for my mother on Lady's own humor and demeanor. Because of this, I was made completely at ease very quickly.

I've also said in the past that my mother trusts my judgment, if at times (quietly) begrudgingly. She always has; she knows if I want to bring someone home to meet her and my dad that said person is really important to me, and someone I'm proud to "show off" to them. In the back of her mind I'm sure she also knows that there's a lot of trust involved, or implied at the very least, in doing so. My parents have only met a handful of my friends, let alone romantic interests. My point is that my parents didn't have to like Lady, but both of them did. A lot.

Anyway.

We had breakfast, my uncle called (and I couldn't get off the phone with him for a good, oh, forty minutes) and we got ready to leave the house. To do what, you may ask? Well, a full month prior to the trip-- long before Lady and I made our arrangements to meet my parents -- Andrea and I had made plans to galavant around Morgantown and go shopping, have lunch, and basically do what would be classified to most as "girly things" together. While I am not a very girly man (though some would probably try to vehemently debate that, as I am a poet, I like to smell pretty, and I spend way too much time on my hair oh god Brandon stop typing, stop typing), Andrea is my "sister" and my best friend, so really it's like going shopping with my little sister and doing all sorts of fun things with her. It's become sort of a tradition that whenever I'm in town, both of us stop whatever we're doing and spend a day shopping, enjoying the weather, going to all sorts of different places that I can only visit when I'm back home, such as up and down Morgantown's High Street (the main street in town), Gabes (a discount clothing/department store), etc.

In the weeks leading up to the trip, our mutual friend Shainna decided to come into town from Charleston that weekend as well, not only because it was St. Patrick's Day weekend but because she hadn't seen me in about six or seven years (basically since I graduated from WVU). We had also learned in the past week or so prior to the trip that Shainna had finally gotten pregnant, after months of trying with her husband, so we had that to celebrate as well. When Lady and I made our plans, it added another bonus to the shopping trip -- it's not like I'd go without her, so not only would we have fun BUT Andrea and Shainna would be able to meet the lovely woman I've been so enamored with for some time now.

Note: Andrea knows everything about Lady and I, and I mean everything; as Andrea is my most trusted friend, my best friend, my sister, Lady long ago gave me permission to tell Andrea anything and everything about our relationship, which made me really happy -- because keeping it all in was really difficult. Andrea loves her and is very happy for us, by the way, but we'll get to that a bit later.

So, with Shainna coming to town and with Lady there with me, we had two more people on our shopping trip than we were originally planning, which thrilled me. I texted Andrea for the timeframe, and then called her to confirm -- we were scheduled to meet for lunch at 12:30 at a new restaurant on High Street called "The Golden Finch." I'd never heard of it until Andrea told me about it a few weeks ago, but I was told that it was very, very good -- so Lady and I got ready for the day, hopped into the borrowed Prius, and made our way down the mountain to Morgantown.

We met Andrea and Shainna at the Golden Finch and had lunch, and both of them immediately loved Lady. The feeling was mutual, as well -- Lady got along with them very quickly, and all of us had a fantastic lunch. I had some sort of grilled chicken/curry rice dish, and Lady got a ciabatta sandwich with chicken and andouille sausage on it. It was really good -- I know this because when Lady left the next day, she forgot to take the other half with her, and I had it for my lunch on Sunday. But again, I'm getting ahead of myself.

It was a gorgeous (but hot) eighty-degree day in Morgantown. It was also St. Patrick's Day, so the streets were lined with hundreds of rapidly-drunkening college students (ah, WVU, how I miss your party school environment at times) wearing goofy green clothing. We parked the Prius in the Pleasant Street parking lot, but neither of us had a lot of pocket change so I had to go feed the meter again in the middle of lunch -- but it was still a really delightful lunch, and I got to meet Andrea's friend Rachel as well, who stopped by to eat after running some sort of marathon that morning. We had a blast, the food was good (and inexpensive), and afterwards we made plans to meet up at Gabes.

I've written a little about Gabes before here in the blog, not only in this entry but in previous years (all of the posts of which have now been long-deleted). Gabes is short for Gabriel Brothers, and it's a chain of stores based in Morgantown, but which appear all around the area. Most of the stuff they sell (now, anyway) are overstocks from different department store chains and clothing companies, but in the 80s and 90s it used to be a fairly sketchy place. People looked down on anyone who shopped there because they would sell shirts with three arms, pants with no zippers, jeans and shoes with holes in them that weren't supposed to be there, etc. Now it's become a much, much more refined place, and it's really no longer looked down upon to shop there because of the quality of the stuff they get now. While growing up (and even in my college and post-college years) the vast majority of my wardrobe came from there; I wouldn't be the fashionable person I am [insert uproarious laughter here] if it weren't for Gabes. Most of the clothing I've purchased from Gabes over the years, even back to high school and middle school, remains in my wardrobe today -- especially in my collection of shirts and shorts. Every time I'm in town and I go back there, I tend to spend about $100 on new stuff, which my parents then have the pleasure (sarcasm intended) of shipping back to the midwest for me, as I never have room to take it on the plane.

This time, I spent about $50 there with Lady, and mostly on stuff for her (I insisted). She did pick out a really neat shirt for me, though -- I don't know what company made it, but it was a t-shirt that has buttons at the collar and an all-over print with the dictionary definition of "industrial progression." It's really cool-looking, and I like it a lot. It'll be fun to wear when I teach my students, who are all engineering majors. I also found a $4 pair of rubber flip-flops, because in my sneakers my feet were killing me from all the walking. I'd made the mistake of wearing my black skate shoes to West Virginia, and while they are comfortable to wear and drive in, there's no arch support in them, and they're not comfortable for lots of standing or walking. I ended up wearing the new flip-flops for the rest of my trip out there, only switching them out for the other shoes when I flew back home (my big shoes wouldn't fit in my backpack for the plane).

For Lady, we found a nice pair of Puma running shoes that she adored, some hair bows (she loves bows), some socks, and maybe one or two other little things -- I can't remember everything we bought, because Shainna and Andrea used our cart as well, so it was piled high when we got to the checkout lane. People must've thought we were insane. Which, in itself, is highly amusing. The girls got a lot of stuff, which made them pretty happy. I have to say, going shopping with those three women was one of the highlights of my year thus far. It was one of the best, greatest experiences I've had in a long, long time.

And then there was the sauce.

Let me explain.

One of the reasons Shainna came up from Charleston to visit with us over the weekend was because she wanted to spend time with me and Andrea, and meet Lady, but the other was because of spaghetti sauce. I'm not kidding. She eats a specific kind of spaghetti sauce (I believe it was one of the Ragu flavors, though I'm not certain) and the only place she could find it was in the Kmart in Morgantown. Yes, she did a store search. Again, not kidding. Kmart is right next door to Gabes, so we were planning to go there anyway -- I needed to get a card with which to refill my phone minutes, and Shainna needed her sauce. Besides, I've been to a Kmart store only once since moving to Kansas -- they only have like two of them here within an hour or two's drive. One is in Hutchinson, about 45 minutes from here, and the other is waaaaay out in the middle of nowhere by the airport in Wichita. If there are others, I don't know about them.

Anyway, we got the sauce. Shainna bought every jar on the shelf -- ten or twelve of them I think; I don't remember. It filled the bottom of the cart, though. Then we wandered the store; I found a pair of dressy flats for Lady, because she needed a new pair of flats. She pleaded with me playfully not to get them, but I wouldn't take no for an answer. She loved them, and I'd already told her I'd get her anything she wanted the entire day we were shopping. And then there was this photo:

Yes, that is Shainna (and her sauce, in the cart) on the left, and me on the right, lounging on really expensive, but really comfy patio furniture in the middle of the aisle at Kmart. Andrea took the photo. We're classy people.

When we checked out, me with my phone card and Lady's shoes, the lady at the register activated the phone card, and it said "activation failed." She cleared the screen and said not to worry about it, that it always does that when someone gets a card there. I didn't think much about it, because hey, if it always happens, then it's not a problem, right? Right.

Trust me, this will become more important as the story goes along.

After we were finished at Kmart, it was getting dark and Lady and I were both tired. We said our farewells to Shainna and Andrea, and headed back up the mountain in the Prius -- I would see Andrea again the next day at the party my parents were throwing for me (that'll be my next post), but Shainna would go home the next morning. As for Lady and I, it would be our last night together in West Virginia; she would have to return to Virginia the next day in order to get the train back to school out here on Monday morning, and wouldn't be able to stay for the party either. So, since it would be our last night together for at least a week, and the last night she'd be able to spend time with my parents, that's what we did -- we had dinner at home and spent hours on the couch and on the front porch with my parents. Those few hours were very nice, very relaxing hours. My parents got to know (and love) Lady better, and Lady was able to be at ease and get to know them more as well. It was really fun; I can't remember the last time I was so at ease around my parents and comfortable, which is fairly strange because most of the time when I'm at home I'm a bundle of nerves and really stressed out (trust me, Lady can attest to this -- she saw it firsthand).

Eventually, long after dark, we both showered and went to bed. And that was our Saturday. I don't remember when we eventually fell asleep; it was probably mid-conversation in the dark, actually. We were so tired and the previous two days had taken a collective toll on us both, what with my flights and running around and her driving up from Virginia, then the day of running around shopping. Again, we slept like rocks.

So. There you have it; there's Part III. I'll try to cover both Sunday and Monday in Part IV, in order to speed this process along a little bit.

More Whirlwinds, Part II: Meet the Parents

Days of Spring Break remaining: one

As you folks may (or may not, since I've been so quiet) have assumed, I have safely ventured to, and returned from, West Virginia over my Spring Break. I've been back for four days now, but in those four days I've been quite busy. Busy with what, you may ask? Well, here's the entire story. Of everything that's happened in the past ten days. I'm not going to post it all at once (doing so would take hours to write and would create a blog post that would easily span ten pages if typed into a word processor), but instead in segments -- probably three or four more after this one, depending on how long it takes to tell the whole story. Suffice it to say that there is a lot to be covered about my trip. Really, really a lot.

Also: because this story won't make any sense unless I divulge this information (not that the vast majority of my blog's readers don't know it anyway), I've decided that it's time to let you folks in on the secret I've been keeping from you, the one that's made me so happy as of late -- I have been seeing someone new. Yes, I am in a relationship. With a girl. And she's wonderful, sweet, (fairly) local, and I am very, very happy. I am happier in my life than I've been for a long, long time -- which if you're a regular reader of this blog, you should already know. The two of us have been together for a while now.

I've kept this quiet until now for a multitude of reasons. For one, she and I have been keeping it low-key, under-the-radar, and we're both fairly private people about this sort of thing. It's really nobody's business but ours, and both of us intend to keep it that way. As mentioned before, the only reason I'm writing about it is because the story of my Spring Break -- both here at home and in West Virginia -- won't make any sense unless I mention this. To those of you who already knew about our relationship, you're probably sarcastically thinking "wow, shocker," right now. And, to be fair, most of you who already know this information know it because, well, you've met the girl already. Ahem. But we'll get to that.

Anyway. For the purposes of this blog, I will give her the codename of Lady, because that's what she is. She's my lady, I'm her man, and we're not defining ourselves as anything more than that in the confines of our relationship. Besides, Lady is a regal sort of codename. Like lady of the house or something like that.

Again, anyway. Let's begin the story.

Thursday night (the 15th), I was talking to Lady before I went to bed. To make this story make a little more sense, I should also mention that she originally hails from the east coast (which, of course, better explains my plans to look for work/teaching opportunities in New England and the Mid-Atlantic), but goes to school out here. However, while my spring break was just starting, hers was ending. Well, sort of ending, anyway. Because she has family in Virginia whom she was visiting at the time, and I was flying to West Virginia in the morning, she came up with what she thought was a "crazy, outlandish idea."

This idea was that since we were both going to be on the same side of the country at the same time, which would never happen otherwise unless we were to go out there together, that she should borrow her aunt's Prius and drive up to meet my parents while we were both still (relatively) close to each other on that side of the country before she had to return to the midwest again for school. This idea would entail not only getting permission from her aunt to borrow the Prius for the weekend, but would mean that all of a sudden, after barely telling my parents about her a few weeks prior, that I would have to ask my parents "Hey, do you want to meet my new ladyfriend when I'm in town?" and have them say yes as well. As it was going to be a lot of driving for Lady (seven hours, one way, in a Prius) this permission from both parties was, needless to say, important, as her own car was still out here at school, parked at the dorm parking lot.

Luckily (very luckily), my parents were fine with the idea, though a bit apprehensive at first -- understandably so. Because of the incredibly long drive Lady would be making, she'd be staying at the house with me, in my room, for at least one night. As a small aside, I wasn't concerned that my parents would nix the idea -- I knew they were curious to meet my new woman, and the arrangements wouldn't be any different than when my ex used to fly out to West Virginia with me to visit, which we did twice over the time I've been living out here. The only real difference would be that Lady and I would be traveling separately, though the end result would be the same.

Lady, of course, got permission to borrow the Prius for the weekend, as her aunt already adores me from everything she's told her about me, and tentative plans were set before I went to bed that Thursday night: I'd arrive on the ground in Pittsburgh, and she would be on the road shortly thereafter, using her GPS to plot the way to Morgantown (and, eventually, my home), arriving sometime that night. Excited, I went to bed.

On Friday morning (the 16th) I woke up at 1AM. My flight out of Wichita was scheduled to leave at 6. I talked to Lady for a while to cement everything (because she was still up), and then finished all of the preparations of the house -- making sure the cats had enough food/water/litter, locking everything down tight as a drum, etc. -- before leaving the house around 3:30 to drive to the airport.

For those of you who have never been to Wichita's Mid-Continent Airport, it's a really confusing route over three different highways and several access roads to get there, especially from Newton. And because my GPS is old, it gives me (at times) confusing directions. I had to turn around in a Kmart parking lot, then in a JCPenney parking lot, at 4AM, just to be able to get on the right road (twice) that would lead me to the airport. After that nightmare was finished and I'd gotten there safely, I put my car in the long-term parking lot and took a picture of it so I would know where it was. Said picture is now available to be seen in my "Spring Break 2012" photo album on Facebook, as well.

I got into the terminal and printed my boarding passes with about 45 minutes before the plane would take off, only to find the place stuffed with people flying out for their own Spring Break trips. I've flown in and out of Mid-Continent Airport many times; this was waaaaay above-average foot traffic, especially for a little after 5AM. The line for security stretched really, really far down the long hallway, until the TSA people decided to open a second line to lessen the wait.

When I got to the metal detector, I went through it and it buzzed the "you're a terrorist" buzzer. Apparently I had metal on me I didn't know about, even though I'd emptied my pockets and had taken off my shoes. The TSA lady asked me if I was wearing a belt, which I was. I figured that was the problem, took it off and put it through the scanner, and stepped through again. It buzzed again, and then played a little tone.

"Stand right here," the TSA lady said to me in broken English, "you've been randomly selected for additional screening."

Note: this is the first time this has ever happened to me, and my first thought was something along the lines of oh, okay, whatever works. I stood beside the metal detector, but they didn't feel me up or run the wand over me or anything like that. Instead, I was told to step behind the X-ray machine (which I did), and another TSA lady behind the counter swabbed my sneakers and then ran the swabs under what looked like a tricorder from Star Trek. She then looked up at me and smiled, and said, "Okay, sir, you're free to go." So I did. I gathered my things, put them in the appropriate places, and then went to my gate. Apparently, in Wichita, that's all "additional screening" entails. Okay, I'm cool with that.

It was only after I was walking about halfway to my gate, long after passing through security, that I realized my large, shiny metal aviator sunglasses were hanging from the collar of my t-shirt. D'oh. That's why the metal detector kept going off. You think the TSA people would've caught that. Hell, you think I would've caught that as well. But oh well, no harm no foul, and I was ready to get on the plane. I texted Lady and told her that I was boarding, even though she was asleep by that point, and then shut off my phone.

My mother, when she orders me plane tickets to fly out there to visit, will always fly me through Delta. She has experience with Delta, and a long history with them -- in her job she's always handled travel arrangements for the higher-ups, and for the most part she's always flown Delta when she has been able to. Therefore, when she flies me anyplace, about 95% of the time, she flies me on Delta. The only other airline I've flown through on trips home and back was United, which was fine as well.

Delta has a spotty history with customer service, from most of the stuff I know about them. I've never truly had any problems with them, however, despite how many times I've flown on them. Well, not until last Friday, anyway.

I got on the plane fine; it was a tiny little Embraer Canadair Regional Jet, known in the industry as a CRJ. It had less than fifty seats, though there are larger ones that have about 100 or so. This one was a small one; if it were any smaller it would've been a prop plane or a Learjet. I crammed myself into it, and then...sat there. On the tarmac. For half an hour.

This would not have been a problem if I had more than fifty minutes between flights. My flight from Wichita flew into Minneapolis, where I would get a connecting flight to Pittsburgh. I had a fifty-minute window after it touched down where I could get to the next terminal and relax.

"We are going to take off shortly," the pilot said over the intercom, "but we're running a little late this morning and we are seventh in line for takeoff. Should be another ten minutes or so."

This, understandably, made me really nervous -- I'd never flown into Minneapolis before. I had no clue how large or small the airport would be, and would have to quickly find my terminal to get to the next flight, wherever that terminal or gate would be. And I would have to find it in a very short amount of time.

Finally, the plane was in the air and I was on my way. We were, indeed, a little more than half an hour late. Though we were making what the pilot called "good time," I was counting down the minutes that I'd have once I was on the ground in Minneapolis. My only hope was that I would get off the plane, walk forty feet to the next gate, and get on the next one.

This. Is not what happened.

I landed in Minneapolis and found that I was in terminal A once I got off the plane. My connecting flight to Pittsburgh was in terminal C. Terminal C was a tram ride away, a ride that could be a long one. After all, I've flown into and out of Dallas, and their tram goes about three miles or so (or feels like it). I had fifteen minutes before my plane lifted off.

Fuck.

I bolted to the tram, had to wait another three or four minutes for it to show up, and then rode it for another three or four minutes to terminal C, found my gate, and was one of the last ten people to get on my plane to Pittsburgh. No sooner than I had stuffed my bag under the seat in front of me and had buckled my belt, the plane's door was shut and locked, and we were lifting off moments later. I had just made the flight. I was really relieved.

I dozed off on that flight, as I was exhausted (I'd been awake since 1AM, remember?) and when I awakened, we were beginning our final descent into Pittsburgh -- where it was seventy degrees, bright, sunny and gorgeous outside. I met my parents outside in the short term parking, and was really relieved to see them.

"I'm here, we're having lunch with Jane and Wayne, and [Lady] is already on her way to West Virginia," I said.

As I mentioned previously, my parents knew very little about Lady aside from her name and that we'd been together a while. Neither of them are the type to really ask questions about any of that stuff; they know that when I am ready to give them details, I will. Before she and I had made our weekend plans, Lady and I had discussed what to tell our respective parents about each other, and we were still fairly committed to keeping it low-key. She didn't tell her mother about me, for example, until after she'd already left her parents' house and was in Virginia visiting her aunt and uncle; she didn't tell her aunt and uncle about me until the week prior to the trip. Until those plans were made, I was likewise planning to only tell my parents the barest of details -- something along the lines of her name is [Lady], she's wonderful, we've been together a while, she goes to school at [school] and this is how we met...here's a picture of us together, etc etc. The only person who knew the whole story of us was, and still remains, my best friend and "sister," Andrea. A few very close friends, such as Suri, knew a few smaller details, but nothing major.

"So what's the deal with this [Lady] person?" Mom asked me, once we were in the car.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, who is she? Where is she from? How did you meet? I'd like to know who this person is if she's going to be staying in my home."

Reasonable requests, to be sure. So I gave my parents the brief rundown. My Dad is a pretty go-with-the-flow guy; he doesn't really question anything in a specific sense, but he's happy I've found someone. My answers to my mother's questions -- all of which were up-front and completely truthful, as I am honest, honorable, and can't lie to my mother (not that I would anyway) -- put her at ease almost immediately. At least outwardly, anyhow. Whether she was still apprehensive up until Lady's arrival that night, I don't know, but she didn't show it.

I texted my friends from Pittsburgh, Jane and Wayne, and we made plans to meet for lunch at Red Robin at 1PM. I think. It was something like that. Jane and Wayne have been very, very good friends of mine for many years, and I have written about them at length in this blog on countless occasions. They have always been there for me, and likewise I've done my best to be there for them. When the ex and I broke up, they sent me at least two care packages containing kitchen stuff (knives) and tie-dye materials; when my Xbox died, it was Wayne who gave me his old one, shipping it to me in the mail. For my birthday, they got me a copy of Captain America: The First Avenger and mailed it to me. Suffice it to say that they are wonderful, wonderful people and very dear friends -- and because I haven't seen them in person in seven(!) years, we had made plans almost a month ago to meet up for lunch with my parents once I was on the ground...which we did. My parents loved them, too. Jane later told me that she sees that I have gotten a lot of my sense of humor from my mother, which is probably true. It was a very fun lunch, during which all of us got reeeeeally full of burgers and fries. I love Jane and Wayne; it has been way, way too long since I last saw them, and my fondest hopes are that we don't have to go that long between seeing each other again -- as far as to say that the next time (and every time in the foreseeable future) that I'm in Pittsburgh, all of us should meet up for lunch with my parents. Next time, of course, I will more than likely be traveling with Lady as well, and they'll get to meet her, too.

Meanwhile, on our drive back to Morgantown, I heard from Lady via text-message that she had been delayed in leaving, and that she was just leaving her aunt and uncle's place at around 3PM. This was fine; her GPS would take her straight to Morgantown, and the timeframe was that she'd arrive around 10:30PM or so. The plan that night was to get pizza from our town's best pizza place (which had recently split into two places with different names, but the same pizza) and that way we'd have food in the house for her when she got home, even though we would've eaten beforehand.

When we (finally) got back to Morgantown, I cashed my Kansas State Tax refund at my bank, as in West Virginia I actually have access to my bank, and then spent the afternoon and evening once I got home playing with my parents' cats, seeing my old dog, moving/cleaning wicker furniture with my parents, and sitting on the porch waiting for Lady to give me periodical progress reports on her journey to my house. If it was surreal to travel by plane alone (it was; I've never flown anywhere by myself before), it was even more surreal to be traveling separately from my love, to have her navigate her way to my parents' house in a borrowed Prius, and her never having met my parents before. Let me tell you, that wait was a very strange, very stressful experience.

Every two hours or so, Lady would text me a progress report -- first it was that she had to stop to get some coffee and a little something to eat, the next was that she got lost on a back road and that she'd be about an hour later than she thought she'd be, because her GPS was going nuts. I told her we'd wait to get the pizzas until right before the place closed, and when she got home she could eat because they'd be here and we could heat them up.

And then I heard nothing else from her for about three hours.

Imagine my mindset: my love was driving seven-plus hours in a Prius she didn't own, to a town she'd never been to, in the dark, following one of two GPS units -- her Droid smartphone has one, and the Prius has one built into the dash. And I heard nothing else from her for a long, long time. Needless to say, I was worried. Cell phone reception is horrific in the West Virginia mountains, and for a long time during my visit I had no service whatsoever unless I was in Morgantown proper, where I only had AT&T service. My phone is T-Mobile. Always has been. With only AT&T service I can only access about half of my phone's capabilities, and it screws up the timestamps on all of my texts and calls. Badly.

Anyway.

Around 8:30 that night my parents called in the pizza order for carry-out. We knew at this point that it was possible that Lady wouldn't be reaching Morgantown until after 11, possibly close to midnight, so we made the decision to get the pizza as planned, and if Lady needed directions from Morgantown to the house, we'd either go meet her or plot the route to my parents' house (about 20 minutes to the east of town).

Halfway to town to pick up the pizza, I got a frantic call from Lady telling me that she was still about 2.5 hours away, and that her GPS had gotten her hopelessly lost. She didn't trust the Prius GPS because it was sending her in really strange directions, and her Droid was at 5% battery without a way to charge it. I asked her where she was, where it told her she was, and she gave me the name of a highway I'd never heard of. We gave her an address to a street in Morgantown (Earl Core Road, in Sabraton, which is relatively close to the house) and let her zero in on that. She told me she had found route 7, which was good because it was the road that was not only really long, but would take her to Morgantown (in a roundabout way, but would still get her here) and I told her to follow that, follow the GPS, and to conserve the battery on her phone so that if she had to call me or anyone else in an emergency, she could. This calmed her down, and she said she'd follow the Prius GPS and let me know when she was close. She also said that my parents' street address didn't show up on the Prius GPS, no matter how she plugged it in. My dad and I were staying up for her anyway, so I told her to turn the phone back on and call me once she got into Morgantown, and we'd meet her wherever, and I'd guide her back the rest of the way to my parents' house.

Those next 2.5 hours were torturous, let me tell you. She had been freaked out by the drive, was really tired, and just like me, she hates driving at night. But around 11:15 or so I got a call.

"I'm at the McDonalds in....Sabraton?" she said, after asking the clerk at the counter where she was.

"Perfect," I said. "We'll be there in twenty minutes."

Those twenty minutes were somewhat torturous as well. I hadn't seen the girl in three weeks; she'd been away on her spring break, and her break is two weeks instead of one. The last time she'd been in town was the weekend prior to the beginning of her break -- she'd been back east with her family ever since. We don't tend to stay apart too long if we can avoid it; her school is a few hours from me, and if possible, we try to spend most weekends together in some fashion. For most of March, due to her break and my own schooling, we'd not seen each other that much. Now, not only would we be reunited after being apart for three weeks, but it would be in my hometown, in my childhood home, visiting my parents. I hate to over-use the word "surreal," but this time it definitely applied.

We met with her at the McDonald's and split up -- my dad took his truck back up the mountain alone, and I rode with Lady in the Prius, guiding her to my house. Once we got there, both of us were exhausted, but she got to formally meet my dad in the house, as well as meet my parents' cats and my old dog. My mother had gone to bed, so she wouldn't get to meet her until the morning. Completely worn out, she ate some pizza and we went to bed -- ending a very, very long day for everyone involved. We slept like rocks.

So that's the story of just the first day of my trip back home, travel included. It was one of the most eventful, stress-filled days of my entire life, yet so much got accomplished, and so many good things happened -- including my love arriving safe and sound at my house in West Virginia.

The Toyota Prius is awesome, by the way. I'm so buying one when I have enough money to do so.

Intermission

There are updates coming, I promise. I have a very fun/busy weekend ahead of me, but afterwards I promise I will tell the whole story of my trip back home. For now, folks, be patient.

More Whirlwinds, Part I

Spring semester, day forty-four

There are a lot of great, great things going on right now. However, I won't have the time, patience, or energy to write about them here until I return to Kansas on Wednesday. Suffice it to say, however, that you folks will get a full report once I'm back home.

Until then? I am off.

Mid Term

(yes, that spelling is intentional)

It is now past the technical "middle" of the spring semester, according to the calendar; our official "midterm day" at Flat State University was Wednesday, the 7th.

To me, and pretty much everyone else I know at the university, this means precisely dick.

Aside from, of course, that half the semester is over.

For those of you working in academia (as I am) or attending college-level classes within it, you probably already know that midterms mean nothing without midterm exams. This is the first semester of graduate school that I've not had any sort of midterm exam -- my previous three, up to this point, were loaded for bear with them. Now that I'm rapidly approaching the end of my second year, I have "turned the tide," as they say, and almost all of my requirements for graduation are accounted for. According to my calculations, I have but two more courses I have to take before graduation next spring. Two. Over the course of a full semester year. Two courses and six thesis hours (which, really, are just credit hours tacked onto my schedule so that I have built-in time to put together my poetry collection...which I plan to do this summer). Registration, apparently, starts next week for graduate students.

Despite several assurances and/or compliments from friends that I at least have a decent shot at it, I don't believe that I will win the department fellowship for my third year. While it would be nice, I am also realistic. Then again, I also strongly believe that most everyone else in the department is a better writer than I am, even if that's not necessarily true. To the best of my knowledge, the winners have not yet been announced, and probably won't be announced until shortly after Spring Break.

Ah yes, that's coming up soon too. Spring Break. A week from now at this time I will have been back home in West Virginia, visiting my parents, for three days. My plane leaves Friday morning at 6AM. That's about four days away. It will be the first time I've flown anywhere in almost a year -- the last time was last April, when I flew to San Antonio and back for the National PCA/ACA Conference, a conference I'm not going to this year. I make a (very short) stopover in Minneapolis around 8AM, and I'm on the ground in Pittsburgh by noon. It is just my luck that I will be paid on Friday as well, but I do have some spare cash for the trip as well, even if my tax refunds don't come in before then (read: they probably won't). I don't plan to spend any more money than I must while I'm there -- even when on "vacation" I am still fairly thrifty most of the time. For example, even when I was in the glittery Texan town of San Antonio, I didn't spend a penny that wasn't cash I'd saved beforehand. This trip back home for a few days will be no different, if I can avoid it -- if for no other reason than the fact that summer is rapidly approaching and I'll have to scrimp and save to be able to survive -- especially if I have to spend some time without work, however short, between the two semesters. You'd be surprised how fast money disappears when it stops coming in at regular intervals, especially when rent and bills are involved.

Some of you may be thinking but Brandon, you have tax refunds coming to you as well...that should help, right? And you'd be right, to a certain extent. I could survive on my tax refunds all summer if I were able to do so -- it wouldn't be a plush, extravagant life, but it would be survival, without many real/pressing issues. However, I can't do that -- as you may already know if you've been paying attention to my blog as of late, my car needs some serious work if I want it to keep running for the next year until I graduate and can get the fuck out of this state, and while most of that work isn't difficult, the vast majority of it is expensive. For example, four new tires. Yeah. They're not bald yet, but they're rapidly getting there. The spark plug job will be about $400 or $500 on its own, and it desperately needs an oil/filters change and a coolant flush/swap. So yeah. It needs work, and work costs money. Like I've said, the vast majority of my federal refund, at least, will be going into that stuff. I don't want it to, but I have little choice. That car must last me another fourteen months or so. It simply must.

After that, once I get out of here to wherever I'll go next, the fucking thing can fall apart if it wants to. Hell, as long as it will still (legally) get me back and forth for school, it can start falling apart now. I just need it to work for the amount of time I'm in school. While I love that car, make no mistake -- I am also fully aware of its problems and the fact that the poor girl's days are numbered regardless of how much work I put into her. If I can keep her running longer than she would otherwise if I put the work into her, then to me it's worth it. Without that work I'm not certain she'd last through the summer.

Of course, if I win the fellowship, I'll have a little more money to work with to keep her running, but not much.

I also say wherever I'll go next because, truthfully, I'm not sure where that will be. Because of some new, ahem, connections in my life, I've had an entirely new realm of possibilities for teaching and/or writing opportunities opened to me over the course of the last month or so, all of them on the east coast. And when I say "east coast," I mean just that -- the coast. Mid-Atlantic area. Amusingly enough, this is an area I'd never thought about before, really. I'm not sure why -- the areas are within a half-day's drive of my friends and family (traffic and weather permitting, of course), and aside from places like, say, Washington/Oregon/Northern California, the east coast is the last bastion of educated liberals like myself. I have talked to a friend who lives in the Boston area, who tells me there are all sorts of teaching/writing/editing jobs to be had in and around that area, and the fact that I'll have teaching experience as well as an MFA will make me highly marketable there to small colleges and publishing companies. To be more blunt about it, said friend works for an education publishing company, editing textbooks -- she said I'd be that company's "wet dream" if I were to look for employment there.

Do I want to edit textbooks for the rest of my life? Not necessarily. But do I want a job in which I can use my degree(s) and thrive in my environment? Yes, absolutely. Do I want to live on the east coast and/or in New England? Again, absolutely. It's better than West Virginia and a hell of a lot better than Kansas. By leaps and bounds. So, for the moment at least, that's a more focused plan than I had before -- start looking for places to work out there and see if I can get any leads and/or opportunities to pop up in the next year or so. It's at least a start. Yes, it'll be a huge pain in the ass to move cross-country again, especially now that I have a reeeeeeally old car and three cats to move with me when I do. However, I have realized more over the course of the past month or so that I really, really don't want to stay here in Kansas any longer than I absolutely must, not just because there aren't jobs here -- there really aren't -- but because while I like the people (well, most of them) as well as the geography, it's time for something new. Somewhere I've never been before. Somewhere that I can start the next stage of my life's adventure.

Besides, I probably would've ended up moving back home (or home-ish) after graduation anyway. So I would've been moving cross-country again anyway. Except there really aren't jobs in West Virginia either. Just so you know, if you didn't already know that. Just sayin'. So, really, for now it's east coast, mid-Atlantic job hunting.

I know I've mentioned here before that I've been looking at doctoral programs. While I have, amusingly enough, none of them have been on the east coast, but in the south. Well, no, that's not exactly true -- I did look at schools in Maryland and in the Carolinas. Briefly. I have already had my fill of schooling, however; entering a doctoral program may still be an option at some point, but right now? When I graduate, within six months I'll have to start paying off student loans. A doctoral program would more than likely just prolong the inevitable, and I'm almost thirty. I'm not young anymore, and I'm certainly sick of being a perpetual student. I don't have anything to prove to myself or to anyone else, really, but I do desperately want to settle into a rather relaxing career, become comfortable in life, eventually start a family, etc. I mean, these are life goals we're talking about here. As humans we only have so many minutes on this planet, so many hours, so many years. It's time to start using mine more effectively, starting upon graduation.

How is life otherwise? Well, it's good. Really good right now, actually. My writing has been inspired as of late, my car has been running, and I'm not completely broke. Those are all big pluses. And, of course, I get to see my family (and a few beloved friends, like Andrea) this week, which will be one of the biggest highlights of my year. There are, of course, other good things going on as well, behind the scenes, that I haven't written about yet. I'm sure I really don't have to say it, but 2012 is shaping up to be a banner year already, which is good -- because 2011 was a fucking trainwreck disaster for the most part.

I'll be sure to update you again at least once before the break, and my trip, starts. But yes, things are good for the most part. Very good.

Grind Away

Spring semester: day thirty-six

Today is March 6th. I know no less than five people born on this day, if not more. Apparently the beginning of June is a good time to, as the young folks say, get bizzay, because so many people have this birthdate -- including my oldest half-sister, who turns 21 today.

It is 6:04 AM as I write this, and upon getting up this morning (around 5:20ish) I realized that it was 55 degrees outside. During the first week of March, before the sun is up, in Kansas. This is, needless to say, highly irregular weather. While it is March, and the temperatures do tend to get gradually warmer from this point forward as spring and summer both approach, today's projected high is 74. And it'll be warmer than that in Wichita, almost guaranteed. That's more of a mid-to-late May high than a March high. Yesterday it was almost 70 here as well, if not breaching that 70-degree point in the afternoon. It was simply wonderful.

It won't last, though; the high on Thursday is supposed to be 41, which -- as I told my friend Jordan this morning on Facebook -- will barely give me enough time to break in my board shorts again.

As an aside, my board shorts are probably my favorite summer clothing item -- I bought them two years ago in Morgantown, when I was visiting and shopping with my best friend/sister Andrea at Gabes. Perhaps, when I'm visiting home again in a little more than a week and a half, I'll be able to find more.

It's not all upsides to this gorgeous, gorgeous weather, though -- because it's been very warm but also very windy, the pollen in the air has been stirred up like crazy and I have been experiencing some of the worst seasonal allergies I've had in years. I should keep tissues in a little holster on my belt, or something, because said allergies are that bad.

Today, it's back to the grind -- AWP has ended, and most (if not all) of us should be back on campus by now, having returned from Chicago. All of my normal classes are back in session, and it is two weeks of "the usual" before Spring Break starts. Technically, my Spring Break starts at 12:15 PM on Thursday, March 15, as I am done with everything at that point. I fly out of Wichita and arrive home to visit my parents/friends/family the next morning, and then come back on Wednesday the 21st -- which is just about halfway through my actual break. That will give me enough time once I return home to take care of any schoolwork/grading/what-have-you over the rest of my days off. I don't think I could've planned that better if I were trying. Like I mentioned in one of my previous posts, the month of March tends to go fast.

I didn't get a whole lot accomplished this weekend, or at least I didn't get as much accomplished as I would have liked to. Out of forty student papers, I graded about ten -- the rest will have to be graded during my office hours this week, which isn't really a problem as much as it is an inconvenience. I have to grade them as quickly and efficiently as possible not only so the students can get them back, but so that I can enter their midterm grades into the Banner system -- the official "midterm date" of the semester is tomorrow, though I can enter said grades at any time up until the day before I leave for West Virginia.

However, I did carefully revise one of my poems this weekend, and wrote another one yesterday that I'll be turning in to workshop tonight. Two very close friends have already read said poem (which in itself is really odd, since I don't tend to share my work if I can avoid it) and they both love it. I rather like it myself, actually, and I don't like a lot of my work. We'll see what the workshop thinks about it. I am also scheduled to be workshopped tonight, but depending on how long we take with the first poem before mine, who knows whether we'll get to me or not. It all depends on time.

Tomorrow I also have my normal editing class again, as well -- for the first time in three weeks. Two weeks ago, my car blew up and I had to miss it. Last week, it was canceled for AWP. None of us, I think, know exactly what we'll be doing in there tomorrow night, so I'm preparing myself by scanning through the book we're going to cover chapter-by-chapter in hopes that I can actually ready myself for what comes next.

On that note, folks, it's time for me to leave the house to start my week. Should be exciting.

Slogging Forward

I have slept an ungodly amount of time in the past two days or so, which sort of makes me a little ashamed (but not really, because I needed it). I passed out for five hours on Thursday afternoon, got up and stayed awake until around 3 or so on Friday morning, then went back to bed for another eight hours -- getting up around 11 yesterday morning. I stayed awake until around 2AM last night before sleeping until around 10:30 this morning, so that's another eight-and-a-half hours. So, of the past 48 hours or so, I have slept more than 21 of them. Yeah. That's a lot. That's almost half.

Due to my strange week, I've been able to get a lot of stuff done -- errands, shopping and the like -- that I wouldn't normally have time for until the weekend hit. Because of my short days this week almost all of those sorts of things were taken care of after classes, before I came home for the night. For example, there's already a fresh tank of gas in my car, and enough food in the fridge/pantry to last me another week or two -- as well as plenty of food and litter for the cats. Aside from grading my students' papers and performing a little weekly busywork for my poetry class, there's not a whole lot to do. I've seen most of my students' papers already, and for the most part they seem remarkably good, so I doubt it will take an incredibly long time to grade through them. There are, however, still forty of them. I technically started unit 2 on Thursday, but we're getting into the real readings/lessons of it this coming Tuesday, and they have their first quiz over assigned readings that morning as well.

I don't like to give quizzes in my class. I don't want to be "that guy" who expects his students to be perfect all the time, and know every little detail of their readings and assignments. I don't want to be "that guy" because when I was an undergrad at WVU ten years ago, I hated "that guy." While I try to hold my students to the highest standards possible in their work, as you know I try to be the most laid-back instructor I can be. Yes, I'm strict on many things, but I'm also fair and understanding whenever possible -- I'm not heartless. I know these students are engineering students with simply massive courseloads of work to do any given semester...but I also know they're some of the most intelligent, articulate students in the entire school, and skating the lines between departmental standards, my own standards, and knowing what they're capable of is, at times, quite difficult. I've always said that as a teacher at the college level, I learn just as many things about my students as they learn in my courses -- they're just different things.

Anyway, because all of my errands are pretty much finished, I have several small things around the house that I have time to do this weekend which I normally wouldn't. For example, I'd actually like to cook something -- a big pot of soup, or several days' worth of dinners, perhaps. I'd also like to make some more homemade laundry detergent (as much as I have the materials for, anyway) and work on a special tie-dye project I've been doing in secret for someone important. My allergies are killing me, too -- the weather's been alternating between cold and warm, and no matter what I do or what medicines I take, I've been fairly miserable for the past three or four days most of the time. I suppose spring is here -- my allergies become particularly violent in March until I get used to the weather shifts.

Ah, yes, it's March. It's that mid-semester month that seems like it will go slowly, but never does. In fact, March always goes really fast, whether I want it to or not. Not only are midterms during March, but so is the changeover to daylight saving time and Spring Break. My Spring Break is eleven days long, total and including weekends -- the first five days of which I will be in West Virginia visiting family and friends. There will also more than likely be a few days where I don't have my poetry class during this month, as our professor is on a month-long book tour (well, basically, that's what it is) where he's in and out of town a lot. Tenured, highly-respected/highly-paid professors can do that if they want to, and his book is fantastic, so I don't fault him in the least. I know I'll do the same thing if my work ever gets as highly-praised as his.

Of course, winning the department fellowship would be a good start down that path. Again, I don't think I will, but it would be nice. Several people I know think I have a good shot at it, at least, which makes me feel nice, but again -- while I may ooze confidence (and borderline narcissism) at times about everything else in my life, I am overly critical of my writing. Hardcore overly critical. And I tend to be pretty humble about it. I know a lot of people like it, yes, but it's really hard for me to look at it from an outside perspective.

I just took a picture of my cat Sadie, who on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, is laying in the sun on my Man Cave's floor and snoring. Yes, snoring:

See?

I love this little cat. Aside from a few humans (like Andrea, Brittany, and Suri), she's the best friend I have in the world.

So, the slog forward continues for the rest of the weekend. I don't have a ton to do, but I certainly have enough. Once everyone returns from AWP next week and classes get back to normal, my regular workload will resume for about ten days or so before Spring Break starts and I get to visit home for a few days. While I'm not looking forward to another two weeks of the daily grind before I get a bunch of time off, I am looking forward to getting my important stuff done and to getting out of Kansas for a few days, even if the flight schedule there and back may be a hassle.

I'll keep you updated, of course, on how things progress on all fronts over the next few weeks. Depending on how busy and/or sleep-deprived I get, I or may not be writing here a whole lot -- but of course, I will try my best to keep everyone informed on my life's events.

Well, what I can tell, anyway...

Ghost Town

Spring semester: day thirty-three

Because of AWP happening this week, the vast majority of my friends and colleagues are in Chicago right now attending the conference. This means that the English department very quickly became a veritable ghost town after Tuesday morning or so. Of the more than thirty of us GTAs in the department, I've seen less than ten of us left up there this week. Everyone else is gone, including at least a few professors and other faculty members. Campus itself, even, has been really quiet this week -- which is unusual as the weather here has been absolutely gorgeous for the most part. Today it hit 70, for example, without a cloud in the sky. It's just been strange, though, to see the campus mostly deserted at most times for the past few days.

How do I know it's "mostly deserted"? Well, due to my sheer exhaustion and sleep deprivation, I've had a really hard time getting out of bed in the morning this week. As in, harder than most days. I've been pushing myself to get stuff done, important stuff not only in my classes and for my students but personal stuff as well, and while all of these things are good, the downside is that I'm burning the candle at both ends -- which, if you know the old adage, means I'm burning twice as bright for half as long. I know it's been mostly deserted because I've been getting out of bed around an hour later than I normally would (dragging myself out of bed would be a more apt description), arriving on campus a half hour or more after I normally would, and I've still been able to get my normal front-row parking spot every day. During any average week this would never, ever happen. So yeah, I don't know what's going on, really, aside from AWP. Which is really just a conference for writers, not everyone.

As an aside, next year AWP is in Boston. As it will be my last year as a graduate student (and will occur during the semester in which I'll graduate), I do finally plan to go -- even if I'm not presenting anything or doing anything but working for the school's literary journal. I wish I had the money and time to travel to a conference this year, but I just don't. If nothing else, I do have some friends (several, actually) in and around the Boston area who would probably let me have a couch to crash on in order to save the money on a hotel room during said conference. Or, y'know, something like that. Whatever works. That's a year away, so it's not like I can think about it too much right now. I've got enough other planning to do in this next year or so.

In other news, the Monte Carlo is running really well. Like, really well. The serpentine belt and belt tensioner must have been going bad for a long, long time, because the car's been driving like it's new since I got it fixed last week, and seems to be getting a little better gas mileage as well. The car is, for all intents and purposes, much more responsive when it comes to driving it -- the steering is so much looser and more free, the engine is much quicker on the get-up-and-go factor, and the replacement of those parts also now allow the car to get warmer much more quickly -- as in, I don't have to warm up the engine for five minutes or so on cold mornings (or wait for her to hopefully defog/defrost completely by the time I get to Wichita). I turn her on, and the heater blows hot within about 30 seconds if I need it to. All of these are very good things. Once I get my tax refunds, I'm going to spend a fair amount of that money (read: most of it) to get the rest of the problems on that car fixed. I get the feeling I'll be doing a lot of driving in that car over the course of the next year or so.

In addition, those taxes have been completely done and have been mailed off to the IRS as well as the state of Kansas. Altogether I should be getting back around $1200, give or take. This is slightly more than last year, but I also made just slightly more money this year. I slacked off on finishing them for a very long time, but on Monday afternoon I sat down and completed them just so I could get them in the mail and figuratively wash my hands of them. For the first time, I opted for the "direct deposit" option on the federal taxes, to save me time and possibly to get them in the bank before I fly to West Virginia over spring break. I know there's not a lot of time between now and then, but I can at least hope. Can't use a lot of it there anyway since I'm going to be fixing up the car with most of it, but it would be nice to be able to do a little shopping back home, or buy dinner for my parents and/or Andrea once or twice.

The state taxes will still come to me in a check, however, and I can't do anything about that. Kansas mailed me a paper copy of their tax forms, and I just filled them out/stuck them in the mail. If I remember correctly, last year I filed the state taxes online, and they charged me $5 or something to do it. A forever stamp is cheaper. Seriously. So that, of course, I will still have to wait for and will still have to cash at Walmart, more than likely, since my bank account is back home. No biggie.

Still, finishing my taxes meant I could update and renew my FAFSA, which I did as well. All of my finances are now in order, at least according to the government. And I get paid tomorrow, too.

This week has been strange not only because of the "ghost town" scenario but because it's been relatively light in terms of work. As I mentioned before, all of my classes this week were canceled because of AWP. My time on campus was spent teaching my own students (a workshop day on Tuesday, and then collecting their papers/giving them a very short lecture and handouts today. Aside from that? All I had was office hours, my hour in the writing center, and my last visit with our visiting poet -- who also went to AWP shortly thereafter. I will and already do have my usual barrage of homework and/or other stuff to do this weekend, and will begin grading those papers soon, but other than that I'm just going to try to relax and catch up on sleep.

What else has been happening in my life? Well, I also completed the fellowship application for the department. It is due tomorrow, but I finished it and turned it in on Tuesday. Now, folks, I wait. We all wait, actually.

I don't think I'll win, of course. I really don't. I'm pretty sure I already know who's going to win, and I know at least one (if not both of them) read this blog on a regular basis, so I'll keep their names to myself. However, if my hunches are correct and they do win, they definitely deserve the awards. Generally speaking, everyone who gets the fellowships deserve them. They're usually the best students, and amongst the best -- if not the absolute best -- writers in the department. Because of this, if I were to receive the fellowship I would simply call it luck, or a fluke, because while I am a damned good student, my poetry I've always said is mediocre at best. Yes, occasionally I write something good, or at times write something really good, but those pieces are spread amongst my other works, and my inspiration is at times fleeting at best (though I've not really been having a problem with it this semester). I fully admit that there are other poets applying for it who deserve it more than I do, and I would be really humbled and possibly a little embarrassed if I did win it. But still, it would be nice. It would at least show me that maybe I've done something worthwhile in grad school, rather than just tread water and hope for the best.

So that was my week. Tonight I will more than likely stay up a little later than usual, but that's because I passed out for several hours this afternoon after I got home. I don't plan to wake up tomorrow before noon if I can possibly help it. I need the sleep.