Fat Bastardry

Fall semester: day nine

This morning I got up at 5:08 AM. I know this because I hit the snooze button once, and found myself unable to sleep again after it went off the first time. This is probably due to the fact that my clock radio is tuned to the classic rock station in Wichita, so this morning at 5AM I was awakened by Poison's "Unskinny Bop."




Yeah...once that gets stuck in your head, either by alarm clock or otherwise, there's no sleeping anymore. Because it's Poison. I shouldn't have to explain this. I also have no problem with this.

Anyway.

After teaching both of my classes this morning, I was in a bit of a daze. It's not the classes, mind you -- those went really well. It's the schedule and lack of sleep. I didn't get home last night until about 10:30, made a sandwich so that I could put something on my stomach, and fell asleep around 12. Back up at 5AM is never fun. While it is unpleasant and very fatiguing, I can do it. It does, of course, get easier as the semester progresses and I get used to it, but it never becomes "fun," or even "really manageable," in case you were wondering.

I originally planned to take the car to the shop this afternoon, to call them this morning and say "Hey, I need to bring this in and I need you to work on it this weekend, so when can I drop it off?" Not giving them an option, not giving them a schedule, basically saying hey, I'm going to give you money and you're going to work on my car; I don't care how busy you are, you've already made me wait an extra week on this bullshit.

I did not, however. When my mind is in a haze, when I'm scattered and mentally cloudy, and when I'm crazily fatigued to the point where I can't even remember most of what I did yesterday, I revert to my basest of base instincts no matter what needs to be taken care of. Those basest of base instincts, in case you are wondering what they are, are to eat and go back to bed to sleep for as long as possible. These instincts double in their intensity when it's really hot and/or I'm really uncomfortable. Today I'm pretty sure the temperature went up a good twenty degrees between the time I left my office to teach and when I finished teaching around noon. Remember: black car, black leather interior.

Anyway, coupled with the fact that I really forgot to call the shop before I taught this morning (I'm pretty sure I didn't even finish my cup of coffee in the office this morning, which is how scattered I was), and with the fact that it was also above ninety degrees outside before noon, I came up with a plan:

1.) I would leave campus after teaching my classes.
2.) I would stop somewhere -- whether it would be for fast food, for a frozen pizza at Walmart or what-have-you, but I would stop somewhere and get something to eat that would be easy to make or already made.
3.) I would eat said food while watching a disc of Community, the latest season of which just arrived in the mail this past week,
4.) I would go back to bed and deal with the car tomorrow.

I cannot describe to you folks what fully happens to my mental state when I'm stressed, tired and hungry. I tried to above, but that's not even a fully accurate description. I'm almost a completely different person. It's similar to how reptiles go into torpor for their hibernation periods in the winter. My mental and physical faculties start shutting down, and I go a little loopy.

I realized on the way home from school that it was way too hot to bake a frozen pizza in the oven, especially since I close up the house during the day (which makes it muggy and stuffy upstairs, especially in the kitchen), so I mentally examined my other options. I was really tired and didn't want to cook anything anyhow. It was really hot. I was already sweaty. It's also the beginning of a long weekend. There's a Burger King right off the interstate at the first Newton exit.

Hm. Burger King.

Mind you, I very, very rarely eat any sort of fast food, and over the course of the almost four years I've lived in Newton, I've eaten at that Burger King once. I haven't had any kind of fast food in months; the last thing I got was a McDouble from McDonald's one night because I had a few bucks in my pocket and there's a McDonald's inside the Walmart here. That was probably during spring semester.

I got four BK Bacon Burgers and two BK Stackers off of their value menu, two large fries, and a large Coke. Total purchase: $14 even. Fair enough. The intention was to eat a few of the burgers and put the rest of them away to eat later tonight or tomorrow.

This did not happen.

I don't eat much on a regular basis anyway. Really I don't; ask anyone I know. Almost everyone who knows my eating habits has chastised me for them over the years, mainly because I tend to eat one small-to-moderate meal every day and drink two pots of coffee, and that's it. If I'm at work and I have them in my desk, I may eat a granola bar or two as well, but really, that's all I eat. It's not that I'm not hungry; most of the time I am, but I'm also cheap and pressed for time quite a bit as well, or I'm fatigued. If I have to choose between eating and sleeping, I'm always going to choose sleeping (or, conversely, drinking another pot of coffee and powering through it).

So, I came home and systematically -- like some sort of fat bastard machine -- sat down and ate all six of the burgers one by one. I ate both large fries. I drank the entire large Coke. I could've eaten more if I'd wanted to, or had more.

Of course, I immediately felt ashamed by this, mainly because I've never done this before. Apparently my body was telling me that I suffer from malnutrition or something like that, because it felt like it was processing the burgers as quickly as I could eat them, like I was some sort of bottomless pit. Mind you, I used to weigh 330 pounds in undergrad, and ate like a horse then. Still, even in my fattest, most unhealthy days, I never sat down and polished off six cheeseburgers in one sitting like they were finger foods. Not to mention the fries and Coke as well. It's strange. I haven't, however, been dangerously overweight over the past eight years or so. In those almost eight years since I graduated from WVU, and the seven since I moved to the midwest, I've lost eighty pounds, roughly. This doesn't mean that I'm necessarily more healthy now, but I'm down to a more normal weight of someone of my build and stature. Yes, I'm still somewhat overweight, but I'm a lot smaller than I used to be, obviously.

Still, my iron stomach prevails, it seems. No, they weren't massive burgers or anything -- I mean, they were on the value menu -- but still, I've never felt...hm, how should I put this...psychologically fatter than after finishing off all of them today. I mean, try to justify eating that much in one sitting. You'd be hard-pressed to do it. I know I can't.

Anyway. Yeah. I'm a fat bastard.

After I ate, I went back to bed as planned. I got up around 9PM, getting almost double the amount of sleep that I got last night. I needed it, badly.

The car is no better or worse for the wear, despite this week's driving. Yeah, it's still running rough and loud at times, but only at times. Because I made the sleep-deprivation-fueled decision to deal with it tomorrow, I am going to send the auto shop people an email tonight detailing everything I need done to it (it's just easier to do that than to tell them all of the stuff over the phone and waste my minutes) and ask them when I can bring it in tomorrow or Saturday, depending on what parts they have on hand and their work schedule. I am lucky that at this point, they at least know me, they're familiar with me and my car -- AND they're good with their email system, so I should be able to get a reply almost immediately once they open up in the morning. It's also easier to remember and list everything that I need done to it if I write it down, though I'm fairly sure most of it is routine maintenance.

For those of you wondering the other reason I didn't take it in this afternoon -- I will remind you that it's the only car I have, that it was 95-100 degrees in Kansas today without a cloud in the sky, and the auto shop is about five miles from my house. I don't know anyone else in this town, and I live alone -- if I couldn't get a ride back home from one of the auto techs there, which is never guaranteed, I would've been stuck walking the five miles back home while hungry and sleep-deprived in the heat. If I get it in tomorrow or Saturday morning, there's a much better chance that I'll be able to get one of the techs to take me back home and/or pick me up once the car is finished. Again, that's another reason that I wanted to wait until Lady came to visit until I took the car in for all sorts of intensive work. We always take her car everywhere when she's here anyhow if we want to go anywhere (mainly because she hates being a passenger in my car; says I drive too fast and/or am really quiet and too focused on the road.)

She's right, by the way. If you ever find yourself driving in Kansas, you have to assume everyone else on the road with you is a fucking idiot, because generally THEY ARE. Therefore you have to stay focused on the road and what everyone else around you is doing. This is true in most driving situations, obviously, but Kansas drivers -- especially in and around Wichita -- are horrific.

I made a joke with Rae yesterday that I should just go buy a bicycle rack for the car at Walmart for $20, strap it to the car, strap my bike to it, and ride the bike home once I drop off the car -- and ride the bike back to pick it up again. That's not a bad plan except for the fact that the bike has been gathering dust for almost three years and has two flat tires, not to mention that it needs more maintenance than that if I were to ride it again. Additionally, I do not have a bicycle pump for its tires anymore -- the ex took that in the breakup well over a year ago, so that she could use it for her own bike.

So that's the plan for the car, anyway. We'll see what happens. This is a long weekend, of course; it's Labor Day weekend, and with Monday off, I've got an extra day to figure shit out. Whether that will help and/or matter in the long run remains to be seen. What I do know is that I don't have any shortage of work over the long weekend, that's for sure. I have to write twenty pages for my Playwriting class, and will also be doing something like eighty pages of reading for my Surrealism course. Whether I have access to my car or not, I'll still be kept pretty busy and occupied for the majority of the weekend.

Because I have seen now what my average workload for any given week will be for the semester, I relinquished my position as Nonfiction Editor for the school's literary journal. I've held that position for a full year, and with my workload, not to mention taking care of all of my thesis-and-thesis-like requirements for graduation in the spring, I don't feel that it's fair for me to hold on to it when someone else could do so much more for that part of the journal. I will still be a staff reader for nonfiction, of course, but the full editorial position I bequeathed to one of my colleagues within the department, a second-year fiction MFA who has much more time to take care of that stuff than I do. As I'm going to be helping as much as I can with the digital version of the journal on the website anyhow, taking care of the responsibilities of being one of the four head editors would be too daunting.

"I've already got it on my resume for a full year," I told my colleague, the new Nonfiction Editor. "Now you can put it on yours for a full year as well."

I feel good about this, surprisingly enough; I know he'll do a good job, and I know, though it may be hard for me to admit due to my pride issues, that he'll be a better fit for the position and a better editor than I was. He's more social, he lives in Wichita, and he has a better eye for detail when it comes to that sort of writing than I do. Meanwhile, I simply revert back to being one of our many staff readers, just like I was when I began working with the journal my very first semester of grad school.

In other news, I've still heard nothing from Lady since last Saturday. As mentioned before, I've sent her texts, emails, and IMs, but I haven't tried to contact her since her classes presumably began on Wednesday. If she's busy (and I assume she is), I'm not going to bother her. She'll call or text when she has time, I would imagine, whether that be this weekend or sometime thereafter. I am a bit worried about her, yes, but then again I am a worrier in general. And, more than anything else, I'm not going to be a pest.

Anyway, this is the email I've sent to the auto shop people; certain parts of it, of course, have been redacted or edited for privacy concerns:

Hi folks. I had my car (a 1996 Chevrolet Monte Carlo Z34) in your shop back in the spring to have the serpentine belt and belt tensioner replaced, and you were great. I'd like to bring said car in this weekend if possible for regular maintenance and other work, either today (Friday) or tomorrow (Saturday). Most of it is maintenance that's needed to be taken care of for a while, but I have not had the money to do so until now.

First and foremost, it needs the spark plugs/wires changed. As I have the Z34, 3.4L V6 engine in this car, I already know this is an expensive job -- it's the older engine and the one that's more difficult and time-intensive to work on. I know I have two plugs that are out, and I think a third is going out as well.

The car also needs other regular maintenance such as an oil change, coolant flush, new filters, a check of all of its belts and fuses and the like, etc. I'd like to get all of this done at once while I have it there, if possible, but I'm sure the spark plugs alone will take some time and work, as the last time I was there you folks quoted that as about a $400 job due to the unfortunate engine that car has.

I also need one of my high beam headlights replaced; I have the bulb itself already and will bring it in for you if you could stick it in for me as well.

As this is Labor Day weekend, I can leave the car with you folks anytime until Monday evening if necessary, though I will need it back by then as I will need to use it for work next week.

Please let me know if you are able to work on my vehicle this weekend, and if so, when I should bring it in. Email is best if possible; I may not have my phone on me at all times over the course of the next 24 hours or so.

Thanks!
Brandon

I wanted to add I've also called you three times over the course of this past week trying to get my car in there, but I'm sure they already know that. It's more important that they know the amount of work the car needs and exactly what that work is, something I've been able to tell them only in small snippets here and there on the phone because they've been booked up.

I'm not, of course, expecting this to be cheap -- refer to the $400 figure above for the new spark plugs/wires alone -- but it is, of course, necessary. It's been necessary for almost a year now, and I can't really get out of it at this point, not now that the car's acting up.

In the meantime, however, this is the first payday of the fall semester, which means that whatever money I have to spend on the maintenance and repairs of the car will be offset by that, at least. But it's still not going to be cheap.

I do still have to go to Walmart, though, especially if they tell me to bring in the car early in the morning. I have to make sure I have enough groceries and other necessities to last me a few days without access to a vehicle. Perhaps I'll do that tonight before I go back to bed. Yes, that's actually a decent idea.

Worries (and Other Normal Issues)

Fall semester: day six

Luckily, the car is surviving. She's still running a little rough at times (mostly on the interstate, around speeds 70-75mph or so) but she's running. I have narrowed down the probable causes at this point, and am now pretty sure that all indicators point to "another spark plug is going out." This would explain the intermittent sluggishness and the sudden apparent drop in gas mileage that I've noticed over the course of the past several days. Mind you, I know I already have two out. This is even more a reason that I must get her to the shop on Thursday after class. Still, she's not running hot and she's driving admirably, if a little roughly. Here's hoping that she lasts me the rest of the week without major issues -- my week is only 1/4 of the way done. Granted, two of my days on campus are short ones, but this semester is going to be a long one overall -- something that I keep saying over and over, like if I keep saying it or overplaying it, it will somehow seem shorter.


In the next, oh, 40 hours or so, I must drive to campus and back twice, teach two classes, and attend two more. I also must read about 100 pages' worth of three different books, make a blog post on Blackboard for one of my classes (the Surrealism class has us discussing things online once a week, apparently), and take care of finishing and printing out my first real exercise for Playwriting. Oh, and to do that, I must set up my laser printer when it arrives tomorrow, and hope that it works without issue.

In six hours, I will get up, shower, infuse myself with coffee, and head to campus to teach my classes. I'm tired, but it's manageable right now. I don't have to leave the house early on Mondays, so today I got up at 10AM and left here around 2. I returned home at around 6:30 or so, getting out of class a little early. If this means that I come home tomorrow afternoon and take a nap, or go to bed early tomorrow night, then that's what it means. I have somewhat regulated my sleeping schedules, but they're not perfect yet and likely won't be for another few weeks.

In the meantime, I'm a bit worried about Lady. She was supposed to make it back to school on Sunday, and the last I heard from her was about 3AM Saturday night -- she called me when she couldn't sleep, from the hotel room about halfway to school where she'd decided to spend the night. She said she'd tell me when she made it to campus safely, but after several messages and two emails, I haven't yet heard from her. Tomorrow's Tuesday. She starts class on Wednesday. My logic, of course, tells me that she's busy registering and moving stuff into her suite, as well as catching up on sleep, but my irrational fear tells me that something may be wrong, so until I hear from her at some point I will understandably be a bit nervous.

One thing at a time, Brandon, I tell myself. You can only worry about one thing at a time. Compartmentalize things. Between the car, my bills and school stuff, taking care of tasks for my students, keeping the household chores taken care of so that things don't pile up (and become insurmountable tasks), and now wondering if Lady is okay -- ladies and gentlemen, my brain is fried. I'm burnt out, already, and it's only the second week of classes. Yes, I like being able to keep busy, but there's a point when busy becomes too busy, and it is at that point where I start forgetting to do things because I have so many tasks to take care of, even if I start making lists. For example, I almost forgot to pay the rent this month -- it went out in the mail today, no worries -- but that's how addled my mind is. I'll either get used to that addled mind or I won't, but that's just an example of something big and important that it's possible that I'll just forget to do, because I have thirty other things vying for my attention or work at any given time.

I guess this is that whole being an adult thing, hm? Well, it sucks. And it's only going to get worse in the coming months and/or years.

Where's the Fire?

This was so bizarre and happened right after I woke up yesterday that I forgot about it until now, so here goes.

Yesterday morning, I got up around 11. It was really dark and pouring rain, which surprised me greatly. Wow, rain in Kansas in August. That's odd. Then again, rain anywhere in the midwest seems odd at this point -- we've been under severe drought conditions since early June, I believe. Maybe late May.

Anyway, Making a pot of coffee, I put my earbuds in and went about my morning internet-related chores -- checking the news, checking my email/Twitter/etc., and in the distance, I heard sirens.

Now, granted, even though Newton is a really quiet town, this isn't that uncommon. Route 50 is directly behind my house, less than half a mile away. Route 50 is a busy, busy road, so at any given time there could be cops chasing someone down or ambulances using it to speed to the hospital. As it was pouring rain, I figured there'd probably been an accident somewhere, and thought nothing else of it. The sirens got louder. Like, really loud. I stood up, looked out the window (because they sounded like they were on the street behind me), but didn't see anything. They stopped, I shrugged, and I sat back down.

A few minutes later, I heard talking outside my house. My windows are always open, so I knew whoever it was had to be fairly close. I looked out to see two cops wandering about my back yard.

Hm, that's a new one, I thought.

I walked out to the living room and looked out the window. There were two cruisers parked up the street, but a good 40 yards or so from my house. If the cops were wandering around in my backyard, they were looking for something -- or someone. Interesting.

I ventured back to my room to see the cops stop at the wooden fence at the back side of my yard, the fence that separates my back yard from the neighbors' yard behind me, and heard them yell something to the neighbors. This something sounded like "Do you have power?"

Mind you, it was raining like hell, so this didn't seem strange. I had power, of course, so I didn't think anything of it. I watched the cops move on through, walking through all the backyards of my street. Hm. Again, I shrugged, and sat back down. I couldn't have cared less; whatever they were looking for, they certainly weren't looking for me, and I didn't see anyone or anything around. I had power. Oh well.

A few minutes later, I heard more voices. Like, several of them. And really close, like on my patio. I stood up to see three firemen in full firesuits and helmets, one of them holding an ax, wandering through my backyard and looking around.

At this point, I was like okay, what the fuck is going on? Also keep in mind that it's still raining pretty good. So, I threw on a t-shirt, and while the firemen were still in my back yard, I stepped out onto the back deck.

"Anything I can help you guys with?" I asked, concerned.

"Somebody called in a fire out here somewhere," one of the firemen said. "Have you seen anything, smelled any smoke or anything like that?"

Now, granted, I'd only been awake an hour, but I'm pretty sure that in that rain, few things would still be burning even if something had been on fire.

I blinked a few times, because this surprised me. "Nope," I said. "I've only been awake for an hour or so, but I haven't seen or smelled anything."

The other two firemen were examining the backyard areas. I glanced down the row to see almost everyone out on their back porches or decks, just like me, just as confused as I was. No smoke, no fire, nothing anywhere around us.

I went back inside and locked the door before walking out to the living room to see Newton's massive new fire engine -- so large that it could barely fit down the street -- parked in front of my house and the neighbor's house. With it were two more police cruisers and the Fire Chief's long, red Ford Excursion with lights running. Most of the neighborhood's residents, despite the rain, were outside in their yards or driveways. WTF, man?

It then dawned on me that the cops weren't asking the people behind me if they had power, they were asking did you call in a fire. This is Kansas; redneck drawl is as thick out here as it is in West Virginia.

The cops talked to the firemen in the street for about ten more minutes before all of them got back into their vehicles and left. That was the last I saw, or heard, of any "fire." The rain let up for a while, but returned twice as hard as before, so if there was any sort of fire anywhere, it wasn't going to last long unless it was a crazy fire.

Never did hear of anything involving the incident, not even on the news. The action never stops here in Newton, I suppose.

The Slow, Whimpery Death of the Monte Carlo, Part III

I am not a huge fan of waiting on things, as you folks may know. I am, overall, a fairly impatient person in a lot of aspects in my life, and my patience is never thinner than it is when I'm jacked on a pot of coffee and/or am in a fairly crappy mood anyhow. Both of those things were true this morning, about an hour or so after I woke up.

Please note, as an aside, that there are many things I am patient for or can be patient for. I exude the patience of the gods when it comes to my students, when it comes to people I love, when it comes to the cats, or when it comes to most monetary issues. I may not necessarily like it most of the time, but I can be patient when the situation calls for it. Politeness, tact, and knowing one's role also plays a large factor in most of these situations as well.

Ahem. Anyway.

Around 10AM, I called the auto shop back as planned.

"We're still overbooked from yesterday," the guy said. "You called yesterday, right?"

"Yeah," I replied.

"Well, by the way it looks we won't have any room today, and the soonest we'd be able to get you in would be tomorrow afternoon -- but you wouldn't be able to get your car back until Monday afternoon, at least."

Shit, I thought. My heart sank. I can't do that; I have class Monday afternoon, due to my fall semester schedule that now runs four days a week.

I told him I would be unable to do that because I had work on Monday, and he understood.

"Tell you what I can do," he said, "when can you get it in, and how long is the longest you can leave it, in case we're still booked?"

"I work from Monday until Thursday around noon," I told him. "Thursday afternoon would be the earliest I could bring it in, and then the longest I could leave it there would be until Monday morning at the very latest."

I didn't realize until after I hung up that next Monday is Labor Day, so I could actually leave it until that night if I really needed to.

"Well, call us back on Thursday, then, and if we have any open spots at all -- I'm guessing we will -- you can bring it over and we will get your car worked on as soon as we can, since you've been trying to get it in. I apologize for that. I doubt we'd have to keep it the entire weekend."

The last time those guys worked on my car, it was in March or so to fix my serpentine belt and belt tensioner. They had it in and out in a little more than 24 hours. I know they're fast at what they do, and apparently this must be their "busy season."

"Sounds good to me," I said. "In the meantime I hope she holds up until then."

And we hung up.

So I guess that's the plan, really -- call 'em Thursday before I teach to make sure they have open spots, and then drop off the car on the way home from class. I'll probably have to hitch a ride home with one of the techs in their courtesy car, like last time, and in the meanwhile I will just have to cross my fingers and hope that landboat doesn't die on me this week while I'm going back and forth for teaching.

In order to help keep her running -- because I don't yet know what exactly is going wonky on her -- I went to Walmart this afternoon and purchased three bottles of fuel injector/carb cleaner, a new jug of coolant, two more quarts of oil, and a bottle of Marvel Mystery Oil. I put one of the fuel injector/carb cleaners into the tank when I filled up this afternoon, then came home and replenished the coolant, added another quart of oil to the engine, and put about half of the Mystery Oil in there as well (because yes, you can add it to both oil and gas). If it's anything in the fuel system like buildup or clogs or gunk, that stuff and the cleaner should clear it out, and the coolant and oil should keep the car running smoother anyhow. It may be a stop-gap preventative measure, but if it keeps the car running another week until I can get it to the shop, then that's good.

I will note that even if the car starts behaving normally again since I've put that new stuff in it, I still plan to take it to the shop next weekend anyhow. It'll be Labor Day weekend, I'll have Monday off, and the car is long overdue for an oil change and other regular maintenance like a coolant flush and a belt check/lube/etc. Not to mention the spark plugs and fuses, which if they can fix -- price be damned -- I desperately need them to. I love that car. She may be old and heavy and loud, but she's still the best car I've ever driven, and I'd like to make her last until something major blows on her and she can no longer be driven. As I told Zedral, if all else fails and I have to end up driving home to West Virginia in nine months, I want to be able to make sure said car will make the trip. If Lady's car -- which is two years older than mine, mind you -- can make it to the east coast and back twice a year, my Monte Carlo should be taken care of enough to make a one-way trip back home once if I need it to, especially if properly maintained between now and then. That's just the way I see it, folks. If that means I have to spend $1k on getting everything on it fixed, then I have to bite the bullet and do so -- that would be cheaper and easier than finding another car, purchasing it, registering/tagging/insuring it, and then finding something to do with the Monte Carlo. I don't have the time -- or patience -- for all of that unless I have no other choice. Like it or not, the Monte Carlo is sticking around until she goddamned dies on me, and cannot be resuscitated.

Let's hope that doesn't happen anytime soon, as well. And more than that, let's hope that pumping her full of fluids this afternoon will help solve or put a band-aid on whatever is making her all sluggish and weak as of late until I can get her to the shop. Until then, as I said, I'll be driving to and from campus gingerly, with my fingers crossed, hoping that the car will survive another four days of driving back and forth. And I certainly won't be driving her any more than I have to -- gas is already expensive enough, and I don't want to press my luck any harder than I already have.

I will say that during today's driving, she only acted up a little bit -- she revved a little higher than usual when I started her (which, again, makes me wonder if it's a clogged fuel injector or something) but settled back down to idle normally, and she didn't go sluggish on me while I was driving about town. Granted, that was only about five miles' worth of driving, but still. One can hope, right? Again, fingers crossed and all that.

In other news, I revised my students' lesson plans to incorporate page numbers from both editions of the textbook used for the class, and emailed them to tell them, basically, "either edition of the book is fine; buy whichever one you can afford and let's move on with our lives." I didn't use those words, of course, but still, that was basically the message. I also got two emails of praise and appreciation from my bosses for dealing with the situation in the best possible way given the circumstances, and was told that my efforts, flexibility, and devotion to my students/classes is appreciated much more than I know.

I felt really good about that, actually. I was also shocked. I receive so little praise or genuine compliments (from anyone, really) that I never know how to react to them. For example, I've been told I'm good looking many times over the years, and I've always been like "No, seriously, I'm not. I have a receding hairline and a burly, woodsman's beard. I'm overweight and have man-boobs. I swear a lot, smoke like a chimney, and drink too much coffee. Believe me, I am not attractive." People tell me I'm funny, or I'm fun to be around, and I give them strange what-have-you-been-smoking sort of looks, because I don't necessarily see myself that way. Yes, I do have a quick, sharp wit. Occasionally. But the concept of people actually wanting me to spend time with them and or wanting to hang out and chat with me, for the most part, feels strange and foreign. I constantly have the thought of "you people have met me, right?" running through my head. Perhaps my self-esteem is lower than I originally thought. I don't know. I don't think my poetry is that great either, yet a fair amount of people tend to love it, so who knows.

The rest of this weekend will be spent doing homework more than anything else. I have a lot of reading to do, and should spend most of the day tomorrow doing that. I also need to clean the kitchen and run the dishwasher, and try to get some decent sleep. There's a lot to do in the coming week or two.

The Slow, Whimpery Death of the Monte Carlo, Part II

Fall semester: day five


I am beginning to think that my Monte Carlo is just old, tired, and getting ready to really fall apart, instead of constantly being figuratively falling apart. This afternoon she tried to stall out on me twice at two different stoplights, and alternated between running normally and running rough.

Please note that this could be any number of issues, obviously, but as I told Zedral earlier, the intermittence of it all denotes that it is not something "broken," but a part(s) of the car that "just wants to be an asshole."

Yes, those are the exact terms I used.

The fact that it's intermittent, however, does narrow some things down. It's either something as simple as a clogged fuel filter or fuel injectors, or it could be another spark plug going out or something along those lines -- I mentioned the O2 sensor in my last post, for example. Regardless, while the car may be running and driving fine for the most part right now, I don't know how long that's going to last before it won't start and/or run at all, so it is imperative that I get it into the shop as soon as I possibly can to see what's wrong.

With that in mind, of course, I called the shop this afternoon when I got home from teaching.

"Well, we don't have any open spots today," the guy on the phone told me, "but we might tomorrow. We're not going to have you bring the car over and drop it off when we don't know when we'll get to it, though, so call back in the morning and we'll see what we can do."

Okay, fair enough.

In the meantime, I emailed my colleagues and told them I wouldn't be able to make it to tomorrow's (read: today's) meetings; the car will either be in the shop or it won't, and if it's not I'll be driving it as little as possible and trying to perform a bit of maintenance on it myself -- which means I'll be checking/adding fluids and looking over the engine to see if anything looks amiss. Regardless of whether I can drop it off tomorrow or Saturday or what-have-you (Saturday would be about the last day I could do it, as I need the car on Monday again), I'll be driving gingerly to the Walmart two miles away and getting some fuel injector/carb cleaner to stick in it to see if that helps anything. It is, after all, quite possible that those things are just gummed up. Even little things on that car act like big problems sometimes simply because it's so old and beat-up.

On the off-chance that I can't get it into the shop this weekend, I guess I just have to press my luck with it for another week -- it can't be avoided. The place I take it to is the only place in Newton which works on engines, and they're relatively inexpensive. I'll need the car all four days next week, so there's not much else that can be done. If I have to drive, I have to drive. I'd originally planned -- when the car wasn't acting up, of course -- to get it in to the shop once Lady arrived back in the midwest, as when she visits, transportation would still be possible around town with her car if necessary, at least while she's here in town with me. If I can't do it this weekend, I'll have to do that anyway and hope my luck (and the car itself) holds out until then. She's making her drive back out here for school over this weekend, and starts her classes on Wednesday. If the car doesn't get into the shop this weekend...well, essentially I'll be doing the same thing doctors do to patients in hospitals when they don't know what's wrong, except my car isn't human -- I'll pump it full of new fluids, monitor it for a while, and then let it go back out into the world, cautiously. Again, it's all I can do for the moment.

As for any fuse issues it may be having, as mentioned in my last post? Yeah, the shop guys will have to figure that out. I can only do so much, really.

In other news, with some help from my bosses I've rectified the book situation for my classes; I've been able to look at the table of contents for both books, and the newer edition has the same stuff in it as the old edition (as expected) with different page numbers and a few additions of articles I used to distribute as handouts. I told my students that they can use whatever edition they want or need to use, depending on what price they want to pay for a book based on their financial situation, but we'll still be covering the same stuff regardless. I also let my bosses know that I'll fully switch over to the new edition in the spring and will adjust my syllabus and lesson plans accordingly -- but for now, all of those things have already been printed and distributed. A large chunk of my class has the new book one way or the other, while some have the older version and some were waiting to see what I could find out. Their first reading assignment won't be covered until Thursday anyhow, so they have time to get it. Everything will smooth itself out, I assume. No real worries.

Tonight, for the first time in about ten years, I bought a printer for my computer. I had little choice; entering my last year of graduate school and dealing with the new rule that we can no longer print in the department means that I had to suck it up and bite ye olde printer bullet. I bought this one, a Brother printer with full Linux support, on Amazon. I've used Brother printers before. I like them. This is also a laser printer and it had a $50 instant rebate. So, yeah, those were big selling points as well. I'll be printing more this year than I've ever printed before -- I have a ton of my own work to print, including stage plays and at least two copies of my thesis, and that's just in the next two months or so -- and I'm not paying 7 cents a page at the library. I'll also be printing out a fair amount of handouts for my students as well, when necessary, and while I can get those copied at school, they apparently don't want us to print even student stuff there. So, yeah, having a printer is sort of necessary now.

I say "for the first time in ten years" because when I got my old, old HP desktop (which died in about a year and a half) it came with a printer. That printer also died very quickly. Old technology, inkjet, expensive ink, etc. I'm happy to have any sort of printer again, really. It arrives on Tuesday -- just in time for me to be able to print out my reading assignments for Wednesday night's classes.

So yeah, folks, that's what's going on right now. This weekend I'll be dealing with the car and my nose will be buried in several books as an attempt to get back into the groove of graduate school, though I'm not sure how successful I will be in said attempt. Really, more than anything else, I'm just tired. Really tired. Yet life and responsibilities press forward.

The Slow, Whimpery Death of the Monte Carlo, Part I

Fall semester: day three


In "things are starting to suck again" news, my trusty Monte Carlo is acting up again. This time it's more than likely dying and/or dead sensors and/or fuses that run said sensors.

The car's running rough and loud on occasion, and it's having trouble giving me power/speed at times when I press down on the gas pedal. Oh, it does it, it just takes its time to do so -- gradually increasing in power and speed instead of its normal 215hp V6 get-up-n-go. It's not running hot, transmission seems to be shifting and working as per the usual, it's just...well, sluggish at times, and it's noticeable. Other than that the car seems to be working just as fine as it ever did -- with one little exception. Tonight, on the drive home, the "security" light came on my dashboard for several minutes while the car was being sluggish.

This is odd, as it's never happened before while driving. A few minutes later, it went back off, and the car resumed its normal performance.

That in itself, more than anything else, led me to the it's-probably-a-sensor-or-fuse hypothesis, knowing what I do about cars, and especially my car. I looked up "security light" in the manual for the car once I got home (because yes, I do own the manual, I'm not an idiot) and it says this:

If you’re ever driving and the SECURITY light comes
ton and stays on, you will be able to restart your engine
if you turn it off. Your PASS-Key II system, however,
is not working properly and must be serviced by your
Chevrolet dealer. Your vehicle is not protected by the
PASS-Key II system.

It also mentions, as I figured it would, that if the light comes on at odd times that it's a good time to check the fuses. Which I was pretty sure of anyway.

Ah, the PASS-Key system. How delightful. Let me explain that one a little bit.

The PASS-Key system is a little nub built into my ignition key as a security device, similar to the electronic keys newer cars have now. Inside that nub is a chip that interacts with my car's -- and only my car's -- specific ignition system via electronic code. It's a theft-deterrent. It also means that because of that electronic code, I cannot get a replacement key made for my car anywhere but a Chevrolet dealership, or a locksmith/keymaker who can make those specific keys, the latter of whom are few and far between. The ACE Hardware here in town is known to make them, however, and I've been meaning to get a duplicate key made for a long time, but haven't done so yet.

Anyway. The car will run and drive even if this system is malfunctioning (obviously), and basically the only reason it would malfunction is if one or more fuses have blown in the car's fuse box, or if they're about to blow out. I already have at least one fuse that's out, the one that provides light to the left side of the dashboard when the car's headlights are on, and the one which provides electricity to the radio system. I'm guessing the ones that are wonky or are trying to die on me are not only the ones which control that security system PASS-Key thing, but also the ones which control things like the O2 sensor and/or other car electronics.

Fuses are kind of important. Most of them just power little things (like the aforementioned dash light and stereo), but if they blow out, they can definitely screw with a car's performance, especially stuff like the ones that would properly run things smoothly, like the O2 sensor. I thought it would be something like this from the start, but this reminds me that more than ever I must, must get that car into the shop soon to get repairs before something else goes wrong, something possibly catastrophic. Yes, right now it's running -- it may be sluggish at times, and only for short periods at that, but it still needs major work done to it. I've been planning to do that work as soon as I can get just a little breathing space, but this week has been horrific on many different fronts (which I plan to write about over the coming weekend). It's 10:51 PM, and I just got home about an hour ago -- and that's early for me on Wednesday nights this semester. In a little over six hours, six hours, I will be getting up again to start my Thursday of teaching. I've not been able to relax or get any true downtime since last weekend.

I've told both Rae and Jay that depending on how the car acts, and if it's going to want to run normally, I may not make it to the EGSA and journal meetings on Friday afternoon. This comes with a heavy heart, of course; I've tried as much as possible, when I have the time and ability, to help with the school's literary journal -- and I've been on the editorial staff in some capacity ever since I started grad school -- but if this weekend may be the only time in the foreseeable future that I can take my car to the shop and say "hey, fix these few things at least, because the thing's going to blow up if I don't get them worked on," then sadly that has to come first. Yes, I planned (and still plan) to go to the meetings if I can make it there without issue, but I'll also be calling the shop tomorrow afternoon -- especially if the thing's still acting up -- to see when/if I can drop it off. It may be expensive and/or time-consuming, but I need that car to last me as long as possible -- it can't up-and-die on me during the first week of classes, of all times. It almost would've been better if it had died on me during the summer, when I didn't have the mountain of responsibilities I have now, even though I didn't have money to replace/repair it in the summer. I did, at least, have time then to figure something out.

So yeah, add that to the list of "shit that's gone wrong" this summer. It's a big list.

My Playwriting professor canceled class this evening, on the second night of the class itself. We weren't given a reason, just that class had been canceled. We still haven't received any explanations via email, either, which is odd. I was fine with this until I realized that was really the only reason I'd been on campus all day -- that and my evening Surrealism poetry class -- aside from a few small errands I did on campus and in my office this morning (such as paperwork and paperwork-like things). If I would have known class would be canceled, I could've gone back to bed and driven to campus around 6PM or so, instead of 7AM.

I did, however, have my Surrealism class, which is taught -- not exactly coincidentally -- by my head thesis advisor. He gave Jay and I instructions after class on what he'd like to see of our theses and when. I will be providing him with five of my best, representative "samples" from my thesis sometime next week, and Jay will be working with him on another schedule at a different pace, as he's making his an all-new project (apparently). In about a month we'll be giving him our comprehensive exams focus guides of sorts, as well. This is a pretty good pace, really. I'm cool with it for the most part. I'll be juggling so many things over the course of the next month that I'll just add that to the "to-do list" pile.

My brain is already fried and I'm seriously feeling the fatigue, and the semester is only three days old. I haven't had time for anything else, really -- it's been get up, go to school, come home, eat/shower, and go to bed for the past three days now. Tomorrow I hope to be able to come home after class and pass out after I call the shop about the car...provided I can make it to and from school safely and without incident.

Oh, there are definitely more things to write about, but I am so tired and burnt-out that right now, I just need rest. Sleep. For a little over five hours. Oh, how wonderful, right?

Call Me Rico

Fall semester: day two


Hoo boy.

Where do I begin?

The fall semester is a strange semester; it always is. I've mentioned before that for most of us, it's also back-breakingly hard and exceedingly busy -- and even as a third-year, this hasn't changed. I was hoping it would, really.

Parking on campus is more of a nightmare than ever; because of construction on our student union (crazy, very large-scale construction) and further construction around the old football stadium, a good 30% or so of the student parking lots have been closed off and are inaccessible. This basically means that if you're not on campus by about 7:30 AM at the latest, you're not going to get a parking spot -- or you're going to drive around stalking people as they walk back to their cars after class in order to be able to snipe theirs as soon as they leave.

I arrived on campus yesterday around 11:30, and got the sole remaining spot in front of the school's baseball stadium, up against the stadium itself, a spot that was easily half a mile from my office building. That's not a joke. And it was pure luck that I got said spot. I'd heard that earlier that morning, parking and traffic on campus was so horrible that the police were directing it back and forth on the streets. I believe that. It looks like regardless of when or where my classes are, I'll have to be getting to campus as early as possible every morning this semester until the construction is completed...that is, of course, provided that it is ever completed.

This morning I made sure to arrive on campus by 7:20, and that was even after I had to get gas in the car before driving to Wichita. Even at that time, half of the parking lot I normally park in was already filled.

Yesterday was the first day of classes. I had but one class I needed to attend -- Playwriting, in the theater department, at 4:30. Beforehand, I needed to arrive on campus in order to be able to get my syllabus copied for my students and to make sure everything was going to go smoothly today.

Playwriting is held in one of the large theater buildings on campus, which wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't further from my office than my car was parked. Flat State University has a much bigger campus than most students realize, and they don't realize it because 90% of the time, their classes will all be held in the same three buildings depending on what they're majoring in. I've been a student there for two years now and am entering my third year, and I've never ventured past the art museum. I've never had a reason to. The theater that the Playwriting class is held in is probably 200 yards or so past the museum, slung amongst an array of buildings that all look the same. If you could pick a building that is the furthest distance across campus than the English department's offices, it's that one. It's a ten-to-fifteen minute walk, easily.

The class seems like it's going to be interesting, but it's also going to be really work-intensive and time-consuming. While most of that work will be creative in nature, there's a lot of it. Writing a full 30-to-50-page play is not something I'm incredibly interested in doing this semester on top of all of my other work, but it's just one of many assignments in that class -- and we're required to go view at least two stage plays both on campus and around the city, as well, at some point during the semester. It's a lot of work, and it's work that I won't necessarily have time to do. I'm strongly considering dropping the course in favor of taking something much less work-intensive in the spring for my "enrichment" credit, but I'm not sure what that would do to my financial aid and/or GTA status. What I can tell you is that with full sections of both of my 102 classes I teach as well as another lit course (Surrealism in Poetry) I'm taking on top of that, I may have bitten off much more than I can reasonably chew -- so to speak, anyway. It's going to be a very stressful, work-loaded semester regardless of whether I say in that class or not. I can already tell that by early October, I'm going to be fucking miserable -- and swamped, to boot.

After class last night, our instructor informed us that there was a free picnic downstairs that we'd been invited to as students in her class. Free hot dogs, hamburgers, and other picnic food -- macaroni salad, chips, soda, etc. Jay and I were the only two English department students who actually went ("Only a fool passes up free food," he remarked), and we found that we had to put on name tags and a colored dot sticker that was supposed to denote what part of the theater department we were majoring in.

The problem should be obvious here: Jay and I aren't theater majors. We're poets, and grad students at that. Jay looks younger than he actually is, so he can pass for an undergrad when/if necessary -- but me? With my mountain-man beard? I already look like I'm at least 35. I'm not; I'm 29, but this still makes milling around with eighteen-and-nineteen-year-olds seem a little creepy.

Jay wrote his real name on the name tag; I, however, had another idea.

I picked one of the little colored stickers at random (I believe mine was red, denoting that I was a "music performance" major), and wrote on my name tag that my name was "Rico."

Because, really, fuck it.

I was waiting on someone to introduce themselves to me throughout the picnic, so that I could introduce myself as "Rico" and speak in a fake Spanish accent, but said opportunity did not present itself. Instead, Jay and I got our free burgers and hot dogs and ate them sad and isolated from the young'uns on the steps of the theater building before going home. On my way back to my car after the picnic, I deposited my "Rico" name tag in the nearest trash bin.

As an aside, Rico is my go-to fake name, the one I've always used if there's a situation that's called for it.



Note: situations like this don't come up very often, but my name on my gradebook for the classes I teach is filled out this way:

NAME: Rico Suave
CLASS: Graduate Student
SCHOOL: The School of Love

That's not a lie, by the way. I hope I never lose said gradebook, or I'll never get it back. People will be really confused as to where to return it.

And speaking of the classes I teach...

I have two full (or almost full) sections of my classes. In the past 24 hours, I've had three students drop, and one add, my course. I'm sitting at 48 out of 50 right now, a number that is not likely to change very much from now until December.

As you folks know, I am teaching the Science/Engineering English 102 I've been teaching for over a year now. I know how to do it well, I've streamlined it, I've made my lesson plans well in advance, and have set the readings and paper-due-dates to specific times and days. I've done this because it not only saves me time, but because I've been able to help design and tweak this class during the past two full semesters I've taught it, I know how it functions best.

The bookstore ordered the newest edition of the text I teach with. This would normally not be a problem, and would only be a bonus, but said text is not the one I have -- I have the older edition, upon which all of my lesson plans are based, including page numbers and articles we'll read in the class. Said "new edition" has been stocked fully in the bookstore. I knew the new edition had become available, and made sure to tell my students via email last week that we were using the old edition, not the new one, because that's the one I had lesson plans for. The new edition is about $80 in the bookstore and on Amazon. The old edition? $2 to $7 on Amazon, used. I also did not know beforehand that the bookstore had stocked the new edition.

Well, almost all of my students had purchased the new edition of the text, and they'd gotten it from the bookstore. I don't know that the department even has the new edition of the text.

Anyway, you can see my dilemma here; the fact that my students have a new edition of the textbook isn't necessarily a problem; the page numbers will be different, but it should contain all of the articles/chapters in the edition I've always taught with. The problem is that a lot of my students blew $70+ on a textbook that they didn't necessarily need, when they could've gotten a used copy of the one I use, and told them to get, on Amazon for $2 to $7.  This is sort of on them, yes, but I may retroactively be able to save those students a ton of money if they decide to return those books and order copies of the old ones. Truthfully, the students could really use either book; depending on what the new book has in it will mean I will either need more or less supplemental materials, but I'm sure the majority of the content is the same.

Still, if this or the amount of work I will be doing in my playwriting class is indicative, or an omen of, the semester I have ahead of me? Ugh.

In other news, today is my grandmother's 85th birthday. I called her once I got home this afternoon (as I once more finally have some minutes on my cell phone) and talked to her for half an hour. She's doing well, and is in pretty good spirits despite her age and many infirmaries. There's no way I'm living to 85, no way in hell, not with how much I smoke, how badly I eat most of the time, and how much coffee I drink. I've always said I'll be dead before 40, which is probably a fairly reasonable over-under estimate.

Some of you may think I'm kidding when I say that. I'm so not. I am well aware of my own mortality, folks.

I have to be on campus all five days this week; there are meetings on Friday that I need to attend for not only the EGSA, but for our school's literary journal. As I am an editor of the aforementioned journal, I sort of have to be there. This means I'll be filling the car with gas a second time this week -- three trips to school and back between now and Friday will drain the gas tank again. Being on campus four days a week during the semester compared to my previous three-day schedule means an extra three fill-ups on average (about $90 or so) during any given month. Oh yeah, I've done the math. Being on campus more is actually costing me more money. And not just more money every month, but more overall. Yet another reason this semester is going to suck.

Oh well. I suppose I have my kitties and tie-dye and college/NFL football to placate me.

The Last Day

Countdown to fall semester: one day


Well, it's all over now.

The summer, I mean.

Yes, I realize that the actual season of "summer" lasts for another month, but this doesn't really matter and isn't what I'm talking about. Today, of course, marks the end of "summer vacation" of sorts -- though for me it was far from a "vacation." The only "vacation" part of it was that I only had to teach once a week instead of twice, and that I rarely had to go to campus or to my office.

The rest of this summer, if you've been paying any attention to this blog since, oh, May or so, has been hell. It's picked up a lot and not stayed hellish over the course of the past two or three weeks, roughly, but the vast majority of my summer was fucking miserable.

So, I woke up this morning and realized that this is really the end, the very last day until sometime in December that I am somewhat responsibility-free, and I wanted to cry.

Look, okay? I know I'm an adult. I know I'll turn thirty this year, but this is really depressing. I don't need any of that snarky "yeah, well, welcome to the real world, where people don't get a 'vacation' in the summer" bullshit. The people who would say or think that neglect to realize that yes, there was a five-year stretch that I did not work in academia, and in those five years I worked my ass off -- jobs with long hours, jobs with swing and/or overnight shifts, and jobs where I would be "on call" if needed (like the newspaper, for example; any of their staff had to be available in case something happened). Depending on job prospects in any number of cities and states, there is a very good chance that this will be my last year working in academia for the rest of my life. This is not a fact that I take lightly, and it's not something I necessarily want -- of course, I would love to continue being a teacher in some capacity -- but it is indeed quite possible that this is my last day of my last "summer" that I'll be able to enjoy for the rest of my life, depending on what kind of luck I have over the course of the next nine months or so.

As you may already know, my "ideal career" would be spent at home, producing a new book or two every year, and making about $40-50k from that. That's all I need, really. That's enough to get me a newer, mid-grade used car, pay the bills, and keep the house stocked with groceries. Over the course of the past year or so, my priorities have shifted drastically. I no longer have delusions of "doing well" or "being rich and famous" after I get my degree, like I did as an idyllic first-year MFA. No, now it's about survival, and the bare minimums I need for that survival. Yes, I'd like to be a little comfortable in that survival, and not have to need to sell my shit to pay the bills (like I did this past summer), but survival itself is still the most important thing. And again, as you probably already know, I worry about that quite a lot, whether consciously or unconsciously.

In my last day of summer, I am taking a little bit of a break for the moment to write here and sort out my thoughts. The rest of the day must be spent doing a lot of stuff around the house and taking care of everything that I will not have time, nor will I be home enough, to do over the course of the next week or two. For example, the downstairs needs vacuumed. Terribly. When I brought the couch into the house a few days ago, I had to take it in through the garage because it was so large, and it tracked in dirt/dust/cobwebs all over the basement floor. Tonight is garbage night as well, so I need to take care of that. I have to get together all of my paperwork and the like for my students and email them to myself to get copies made tomorrow. I have to designate notebooks and folders for my own classes, so that I have things to take notes in. I have to file away papers from this summer. I have to write out the bills and stick them in the mail so that they go out tomorrow, including big ones like my credit card bills. And, on top of all of that, regardless of how much I want to stay far, far away from that accursed place, I must go to Walmart to pick up a phone card to refill my phone.

Last night I rinsed out a set of dyed bandanas for my friend in Hawaii; there are probably seven or eight of them total (I didn't keep count, really). I've got a few in blue/red/purple, lavender/purple, and in light/dark green for her. They've been sealed up in a bubble mailer and will be taken to the post office as soon as I have enough time to do so and when I'm out of the house at the right time; I made them for her because she overpaid me for shipping to Hawaii earlier this summer when she bought two tie-dyed shirts from me, and I wanted to do a little more for her to make up the difference. With the leftover green dye I had, I made Lady a mint/kelly green patterned tank top, which I think she'll love. She returns to the flatness of the midwest this coming week sometime, as her own classes start on the 29th at her school, respectively.

I have no more dye except for a "kit" that I haven't opened yet; I'm saving it in case someone asks me to make shirts in a particular color or style for them. New dye is on my shopping list, but it is also a very low priority on said list at this point, because I've got so many other things to take care of and/or purchase for around the house. Whenever I do go to Walmart (I'm going to try to wait until late this evening, like 9 or 10) I need to pick up a few other little things I forgot last week, such as the Ortho spray for the outside of the house to bug-proof it for winter, filters for the furnace and the wall vents, and some more vitamins.

As for the past two days? Well, I never talked about the couch, other than mentioning it above and posting two pictures of it on Friday night.

As I was cleaning the kitchen on Friday afternoon, I saw the FedEx truck pull up in front of the house. As an aside, when Amazon ships things, they don't usually use FedEx unless it's something massive or unless they're shipping it from some weird warehouse somewhere -- which was probably the case with the couch, as I was able to track its journey. North Carolina, Kentucky, then Kansas. Normally, Amazon uses UPS or simple US Mail for most of their shipments. I'm saying this because I know that when they send something via FedEx, I'm going to have to sign for it. Always. That's just how FedEx works, unless it's something really small. The couch, of course, is not something really small.

So he pulls the truck into the driveway, and opens the back. We make small talk, and I look at the box the couch is in. It's flat. It's also torn and banged up all to hell.

"This sort of cardboard," the driver said, lifting a flap of dessicated cardboard and shaking it with his hand, "I have no idea why companies ship such hard, heavy things in it. It's practically worthless."

He's right; it was cardboard barely thicker than the kind used in a toilet paper or paper towel roll. I'm not kidding when I say that. As we removed the huge, flattened couch out of the truck, an entire side of the box disintegrated and fell off.

"It's pretty beat-up," the driver said. "Do you want me to make a note that it's been damaged, or anything like that?"

Holding it up on edge, I pulled open the side of the box and peered down inside. Aside from a small puncture hole on the underside of the couch (near where I would put the legs on), the couch itself looked unscathed. It had been, luckily, wrapped in some sort of plastic/fabric mesh that resembled a large, unscented dryer sheet.

"Nah, don't worry about it," I said. "It looks fine to me; anything this large is bound to get a little beat-up in shipping. No biggie."

I also didn't want to get the FedEx driver in trouble, get the FedEx warehouse in hot water, or get the distributor of the couch (read: whoever provided it to Amazon) in trouble either. It looked fine. Screw the box; it's just going to go into the recycle bin anyhow.

The driver was really courteous and nice, and offered me help to get it inside (it was huge, folks), but the entire thing only weighed 52 pounds (according to the shipping weight Amazon said) so I declined politely and just took it in through the garage. I couldn't have gotten it in through the downstairs door if I'd tried; for one, the cats would never get out of the way, and for two, the Monte Carlo is parked right in front of said door.

Once inside, I pulled the rest of the box off of it, and unwrapped it. What I had was a flattened convertible sofa, with no legs, and a single sheet with four steps of construction on it. It was basically a big, heavy mattress with a huge, sturdy base on the underside of it. And it was not flexible like a mattress is.

I looked at the couch, and then looked at my inner stairwell, which is shaped like a very tight, sideways, blocked letter "U." Shit. This was not going to be as easy as I thought it would be, especially as the couch came in one piece and not multiple pieces, as I assumed it would (y'know, like other futon-like couches). And it would not be easy to get it upstairs with three curious cats under my feet, nor would it be easy to do it alone. Hrm.

The stairwell is larger than I thought it was. It only took two really spirited tries to get the couch to curve up around its squared-off edges, even alone. Like I said, it wasn't heavy, it was just bulky and cumbersome. Once upstairs, I looked at the instruction sheet. This was what it said, in diagram form:

1. Remove from box. (no shit?)
2. Unzip pocket on bottom of couch, remove four legs.
3. Screw legs into leg holes.
4. Set couch upright on legs, adjust the back to desired angle.

Yep. That's it. Once I got it upstairs into the living room, it took less than five minutes to put together and adjust.

The cats regarded the couch as a strange, foreign object that they didn't know how to react to. Even now, two days later, they stay away from it unless I'm sitting on it, with the exception of Pete -- who likes to sleep underneath it in the dark and relative cover. Maggie sat on it with me last night for a while as I was eating dinner, but even she doesn't know what to make of it yet, really. Oh well, they'll get used to it, I suppose. It's good that they don't know what to make of it and want to stay away from it, because that means they won't use it as a scratching post, nor will they get hair all over the microfiber.

As for its comfortability? Eh. It's okay. The foam it's stuffed with feels cheap and stiff, but that may be because it's still new and relatively unbroken-in. I've not yet folded it down into "bed mode" yet, but when I sit on it and/or stretch out on it (I actually fell asleep on it for a while last night), it's comfortable enough. It's better than the old couch, and larger, and that's all I really wanted anyhow.

Meanwhile, with the old loveseat couch moved in front of the window, the cats seem to have regarded that couch as "theirs," and sleep on it/use it to look out the window at the birds, which is good -- that's why I put it there. I had to remove one of the end tables that my friend Jordan gave me from the living room and had to move a bookshelf into the spare room, but overall, the living room looks more...lived in? Comfortable? Inviting? Something like that. I like the couch; I'm glad I got it.

So that was my Friday evening, really. Yesterday morning I got up early so that I could go over to Meridian Grocery -- Newton's discount grocery store, which I love because I can get stuff very, very cheaply there -- and I apparently got there too late, since it looked like the place had been very nearly cleaned out over the course of the past three days beforehand. I was still able to get a fair amount of stuff, but for those of you back home in WV, shopping at Meridian is like shopping in a grocery store version of Gabriel Brothers; one never knows what's going to be there when you shop there, and what you can get one day you won't be able to get the next, or ever again. It's all luck. This time, for example, I went over there mainly to restock my supply of Powerbars and other energy bars, and they had none. As in, totally none. This is the first time this has ever happened. I was, however, able to get a lot of pancake/waffle mixes, a bunch of granola bars, some frozen meat (chicken) and some other assorted things, like salad dressing and a snickerdoodle cookie mix for my friends April and Kristine in Portland, who I baked cookies for earlier this summer (and plan to do so again, obviously).

I also found what I think is the coolest clock I've ever owned.

Occasionally, Meridian will get a bulk load of electronics and/or small household appliances from their distributors, which they place in a big cart at the front of the store and sell for incredibly discounted prices. In this cart, I found a clock radio that has voice recognition. It was $5.99. Marked down from $36.99 (it still had an original CVS price sticker on it as well, so apparently that's where it originally came from). It also has audio inputs on it, so with a cable I can hook my mp3 players up to it. I bought it, took it home, and turned it on.

"What time is it?" my clock asked me.

Whoa.

"Eleven forty-nine AM," I said, speaking slowly and clearly.

It set the time for me.

I set the alarm function. "What time would you like your alarm set for?"

"Five AM," I said.

"Alarm set," it replied. "Would you like alarm or radio?"

"Radio."

"Alarm set, five AM, radio."

Again, whoa.

As I said on my Facebook, having an alarm clock that you set by voice may be the epitome of laziness, but I'd rather think that I have an alarm clock that makes me feel like I'm living in the Star Trek universe.

I turned the dial and put the radio station on the classic rock station in Wichita, so when I get up every morning now, I'll be awakened by the likes of Tom Petty, the Stones, Zeppelin, or Journey. Loudly, too. There will be no sleeping through this clock. It's fucking loud.

All for six bucks, too. I'm pretty proud of that fact. I almost want to go back over there and get two or three more of them (there were about twenty of them, not kidding) for Christmas/birthday presents for people. That clock is sweet.

Tomorrow morning the alarm will be set for 7; I don't have to get up at 5 because I only have one class tomorrow, Playwriting, in the afternoon, and I'll be venturing to campus around 10 or 11. This is probably a bad idea, as it's the first day of classes, but I'm not going to get there any earlier than I have to. All I really have to do around the office is get my syllabus and other student paperwork copied and the like, and that's only going to take a little while. I also have to pinpoint the building where said class meets, as well, since I've never had class in it before and it's apparently on the very far side of campus. This shouldn't be that much trouble, though, as I'm taking the class with a few colleagues. We'll venture over there together, I'd imagine. I teach my first classes on Tuesday morning at 9:30 and 11, and afterwards I may attend the first "syllabus meeting" with the 102 people, if they end up holding one as planned. Otherwise I'll just be able to return home.

I haven't even done anything yet, but I already feel the exhaustion seeping in. I'll have to get used to sleeping only a few hours a night again, being on campus and working long hours, doing lots of driving back and forth, grading 50 papers every few weeks, writing my own papers and assignments, etc. While, as I've mentioned before, it will be good to have a little more structure to my daily life to keep me busy, I know I will yearn for that structure to disappear again around October or so, and I'll begin counting down the days to winter break. Again, folks, fall semesters suck. And what our now-department-chair told us two years ago is starting to ring true: It seems overwhelming now, but then you'll get used to it, you'll get into the groove of it, and once you do...you'll graduate and be done. Oh, how true that statement is, how I never knew how true it would really be.

There's not a whole lot else going on. I've emailed my students to tell them what to expect for this first week's worth of classes, and the rest of it is just preparing myself and trying to be well-rested enough to be functional throughout the week. I will, of course, update you folks more when I have the time to do so, though I don't know how frequent those updates will be from this point forward. School and responsibilities come first, after all, and I do have a lot of responsibilities again now.

Sigh. Onward.

Sofa, so good

That'll do, couch. That'll do.

The Beginning

Countdown to fall semester: four days
Orientation day




In case you didn't know, the above is the full version of the song used as the opening theme for Community. It also sums up my thoughts pretty well right now.


My alarm, set for 5AM, went off no less than three times this morning. I finally trudged upstairs at exactly 5:36.


I did not sleep well. Those of you who know me well know that I have trouble sleeping when I have to force myself to go to bed at a certain time, or wake up at a certain time. Usually, the first few weeks of any given semester is really rough on my body, mind, and sleep cycles because of this. As today was the first day where I've actually had to get up in the morning since, well, May, it was not easy.

I am writing this at 7:12 PM. I have been awake almost fourteen hours, and in those fourteen hours a lot has transpired. Let's go through it all.

I left the house around 7:20 or so this morning. By then, I was at least somewhat mobile and functional, and my motor skills (pun intended) were alert enough to drive to campus. Because half of the campus parking lot is closed off due to renovations and construction around the football stadium -- don't ask me why, as Flat State University hasn't had a football team since 1987 -- I knew I had to get there early to secure a parking spot even if the number of people on campus were few. The Monte Carlo sallied forth like a champ; she loves the cool mornings, and especially loves morning driving, and I got to school around 7:45 or so, even with morning traffic.

Even though our orientation meeting was scheduled for 9, not many people showed up in or around the department until around 8:45. The meeting itself didn't even start until 9:30, but got underway quickly once it did. As per the usual, we did the "around the room, let's introduce ourselves" bit, too. There are a lot of new recruits this year -- adding to the thirty or so of us GTAs who are returning in our second and third years, the department has become pretty crowded and packed to the brim with prospective talent. Most of our new recruits seem pretty affable, at least those I met, anyhow. I've only met five or six of the new ones thus far, and barely at that. All -- or nearly all, anyway -- of the women in the new group smoke, as well, which should help me to get to know them better, at least, as in my free time I'm always outside with a cigarette hanging from my lips. Most other smokers in the department either quit or graduated, and the new ladies will be a welcome addition to our small group of nicotine addicts.

We have a new officemate as well; he seems pretty cool thus far. I added him on Facebook tonight. This also means that all three of us in the office once more have beards, so we can reclaim the mantle of "The Beard Patrol," which we were once labeled when my officemate and I were first-years.

There have been some small but important updates to department policies in the between-semesters' time, the most drastic one being that we are no longer allowed to print out our work in the department, but must do it somewhere else. We're still allowed to print stuff for our students, but not our own work or anything extraneous. I couldn't tell you why, mainly because I had to go pee during that part of the lecture (sorry folks; I would've pissed my pants had I been forced to hold it in any longer). Still, that doesn't change the facts of it, and it means that this weekend or next, I will have to do some printer-shopping, even if I end up getting a $40 printer from Walmart that will last for a few months and then die on me. I print way too many papers and the like every semester to have to deal with going to the library or somewhere else and end up paying 7 cents per page. One of the best things about being a faculty member in the department is that we had free printing, and now we won't even have that.

The meeting split up for an intermission around 11:15 or so, and we met at noon with our respective "syllabus groups," which is a shorter way of saying "our respective bosses who run whatever classes we're teaching." Since I teach 102, even if it is the Science/Engineering 102, I meet with the 102 group. I'm sort of the odd man out there -- I'm the only one of them who teaches a class so drastically different than the normal 102. I'm not really required to meet with them, to be honest (at least not anymore; I checked), but sometimes I can give them a different bit of insight on a particular problem, as well as get some good tips from them on any issues that may come up in my own class. Therefore, I will sort of attend those meetings and practicum sessions off and on at my own discretion if I choose to, or if I'm around when they're being held, but I'm not exactly required to do so. Like I said, it's weird for me since I'm the only one teaching the Science/Engineering 102.

After the hour-long syllabus groups meeting, we returned to the Writing Center for a brief discussion on the Writing Center itself and what it does/what we do in there -- a session meant more for the new recruits than anyone else, really. Those of us who are returning, obviously, know the drill at this point -- we work in the Writing Center one hour per week, it counts as one of our office hours, and it's required. My hour this semester is Wednesday from 1-2, which was (I believe) the same hour I worked last semester. It's just the easiest time for me to do it, really. I've got my office hours all on Wednesday in one big block of time from 8AM to 1PM. I didn't necessarily want to do that, but Wednesday is my longest day of the week anyway, and if I didn't do it then, I would be forced to come in early on Monday or stay after I'm done teaching on Tuesday or Thursday, neither of which I want to do, honestly. I set up the rest of my schedule this semester specifically so that I could go home when I was done teaching at 12:15 on Tuesday and Thursday, spending as little time on campus as possible.

Anyway, I'm getting off-track.

After the Writing Center briefing, we were dismissed and wished well for the weekend ahead of us. A fair amount of us teach on Monday/Wednesday schedules, and the rest of us tend to have classes on those days, so most -- if not all -- of us will be back on Monday whether we like it or not. I'm not immune to that, either; I have my first class on Monday afternoon, and I have to get my students' syllabi and first unit timeframes printed and copied before I teach my first class on Tuesday morning. I doubt I'll be on campus bright and early, but I'll be there before or around noon, most likely.

Shortly afterwards, I went home; I'd accomplished everything I'd gone to campus to do today, and orientation had officially ended. The group disbanded and we went about our lives. Upon returning home, I made some dinner, folded laundry and changed the bedsheets/blankets (as I tend to do every week or two) and dozed off on the couch once or twice for a few short periods while watching football before getting up and returning to the computer -- where, as you can see, I now remain.

There's a lot I have to do this weekend, to be honest with you folks. It may be my last weekend of freedom, but that also means that everything I need to take care of must be taken care of now while I actually have time to do it. I have to make out the rosters for my classes, for example, and email them with some information about the course and its required texts (for some reason, the sections I teach never list the 102 workbook as a required text on the bookstore's website, which is strange). I will also be putting together the couch when it arrives tomorrow, and will be rearranging the living room to accommodate said couch. When I wake up in the morning, I also plan to make a run to the discount grocery store to stock up on Powerbars and other groceries for the next several weeks, getting things that I can only get there, amongst other little things I must take care of, such as getting phone minutes and checking in with Lady, who is visiting her aunt in Virginia Beach right now before she makes her trip back out here for school next week.

I am cautiously optimistic for the semester to officially begin; as I told Daisy, I don't know how well I'll get along with all of the newbies, but if they're half as interesting as all of us are, it should create an interesting group dynamic. I'm looking forward to that, at least, as much as social interaction beguiles me most of the time. Truth be told, I'll be on campus less this semester (well, except for Wednesdays) than I've ever spent there during any semester as a graduate student, and in the spring I'll be there but two days a week, just for teaching and then going home, as I ready myself for comps and make final, absolute edits of my thesis.

As an aside, I did learn that for those of us graduating in the spring, there is supposed to be an "early draft" date that we're supposed to have it done and copies given to our thesis advisors sometime this month, but this isn't as much a rule as it is an, and I quote, "eh, who cares" sort of situation. Nobody else graduating in my class has finished their theses, and some/most haven't even started them yet. From what I gathered, as long as they're done around February or March at some point, and given to the readers/advisors then, it doesn't really matter. This is definitely somewhat comforting, but as mine's done (or at least a draft of it is), I'll probably print out a copy somewhere, whether that be at home or elsewhere, over the next few weeks to see if I can get as much of the "grunt work" done for it as soon as possible. I know between now and spring that it will go through more massive edits and additions here and there anyhow, so at the moment it's not worth fussing over.

Coming up soon, once it arrives: a photo-filled post of the couch and its assembly process, hopefully. But for now, folks? Bed. Like, seriously. Bed.

HERLER DERVER

Countdown to fall semester: five days
One day before orientation


I was in the shower earlier, and I found myself singing Dio's "Holy Diver." Why, I'm not really sure, but this in itself wasn't that odd. I sing some weird things in the shower. No, the weird thing was that I found myself singing said song, after two verses or so, in the "ERMAHGERD" voice. Yes. For those of you unfamiliar with this meme/running joke/concept, you can look at this.

Anyway, my "singing" translated to something like this:

GERTER GERTERWER, GERTERWERRRRR, HERLER DERVER!

I'm thinking that it's quite possible I may need professional help, folks.

Ahem. Anyway.

This was not, surprisingly enough, the strangest part of my day.

Today was an odd, busy day. I'd like to attempt to tell the story, because a lot happened and it's fairly interesting (at least to me).

When I woke up this morning (around 7, and I forced myself to get up so that I could go to sleep at a decent hour tonight), I wasn't feeling that well. I came upstairs and made coffee as per the usual, and logged into my email and my bank account to verify that yes, my money had come through just fine. I knew it had last night before I went to bed, but by the time it did, I was too tired to go out and do any grocery shopping -- so I left it for this morning.

The first thing I did was log in to Amazon and buy a couch.

No, that's not a joke, I'm not kidding. A couch. This couch, in fact:

I'm not sure how well you can see it on the black backdrop of the blog here, but it's a brown microfiber convertible sofa. Basically a futon, really. It folds down flat into a bed, but as you can see, it's about the most "basic" convertible sofa/futon thing one could get. I got it, simply, because I need an actual couch in the living room here at the house -- it's the one thing I've really been "missing" since my ex moved out a year ago and took her futon with her. Since then, I've been sitting on a very uncomfortable, +/-35 year old twin-size hide-a-bed loveseat in the living room, one that was left behind by the ex and weighs about 300 pounds since it's all steel and wood. I'm guessing at some point her mother purchased it at a garage sale, and it wound up here with us. Regardless, it's small, highly uncomfortable, and most importantly, it's too short to lay down on. This is one of the main reasons I don't spend a whole lot of time in the living room anymore.

Anyway. I got a good deal on said couch above (about $130 or so), and it arrives via FedEx on Friday. I'll put it together then and will be rearranging the living room so that I can put it where the old couch is now, moving the heavy-ass loveseat thing in front of the window so that the cats can sit on it and look out.

This also means that when it's cold in the winter, I'll be able to sleep upstairs again, where it's much warmer than in the downstairs bedroom. Of course, I'll probably have to put a blanket or cover on the new couch, lest the cats decide to tear up its supple microfiber.

So yeah, there's that. I bought a number of other small things on Amazon that I've been needing to get over the course of the past several months, as well, but nothing big. I have enough financial responsibilities right now; I'm so not going to spend any money needlessly, at least not until I cover all of my bills and the rent for the month, as well as pay back my parents the loan they gave me earlier this summer.

As an aside, I briefly mentioned above that I've not been feeling that well today. Keep this in mind as I continue my story.

I sent a few messages to Zedral, talked to Daisy for a bit, and then emailed both my mother and Lady to tell them about the couch (hey, I bought a piece of actual furniture; I'm proud of myself because it makes me feel like an adult) before, while sick to my stomach somewhat, I got dressed and got ready to make my shopping trip to Walmart. On the way out, I dropped my parents' and grandmother's birthday cards in the mail.

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know that this wasn't going to be a simple, in-and-out trip to Walmart, no. I have been in great need of a great many things for most of this summer, and for the most part have forced myself to just "do without" in order to pay the bills and barely feed myself and the cats. Now that I have the means to do so, I can get some of those things and slowly build up my stock again -- this entails everything from commodities like bar soap and paper towels all the way down to the basic necessities of life, such as bread and milk (the latter of which, actually, I forgot). I had made not one, but two very lengthy shopping lists over the course of the past several weeks, and today it was time to take care of the first large chunk of items on those lists.

Over the course of about ninety minutes, I unleashed myself upon the Newton Walmart. I took my time. I went up and down every aisle, scanning for things I needed but I knew I had forgotten to write down, as well as looking for clearance items and other things I would or could use. My shopping list slowly began to look like morse code -- dots for things I would get later (and believe me, there are still a lot of those things), and dashes through items that I had picked up already.

At the end of my journey, cart piled high, I went to the register. All in all, I spent $211 on food and other necessities, the latter being things like cat food and litter, tissues, soap, etc. I got $40 cash back so I could order pizza for dinner, and went home. It took half an hour to put away all of the stuff, and I still have a lot more to get next week. I am getting everything I need in a piecemeal fashion, a little at a time, instead of spending $600 at Walmart on one trip and not being able to fit everything in the car.

You may be asking yourself how a single guy living alone with his cats could possibly need so much in groceries and commodities. I will remind you, again, that I have been very poor for a very long time, and have been out of many things for a very long time as well (hence why I'm using Palmolive in my washing machine, and coming up with other creative fixes like that). At this point I truly am out of basically everything. And restocking a house when one is out of everything is really, really expensive. It takes time and a lot of money. Again, there are many things I have not yet gotten because I thought to myself eh, this can wait another week or so. Mind you, I now have a shitload of money in the bank, yet I still think things like that -- I am still thrifty, I still only purchase what I need to survive.

Once I got home, I was still feeling a little ill. My stomach was churning; I had to eat something. I was going to wait until later to order the pizzas for dinner, but I was hungry, so I ordered them -- two larges, one double pepperoni and extra cheese, and one called "The Big Bonanza," which was Canadian bacon, bacon, beef, extra cheese, onions, and roma tomatoes with barbecue sauce instead of pizza sauce.

It was new and sounded interesting, okay? And it was certainly interesting. Not necessarily good, but interesting.

Still -- I believe this was mistake number one.

Anyway.

So I ate the pizza, and watched the last disc of season 2 of Community again (to prepare me for season 3, which was purchased this morning on Amazon along with the couch), and relaxed. I finally felt somewhat...at peace, I guess? Sated? Normal-ish again? I examined my life a little bit.

Over the timeframe of the last three months, I thought, I survived financial ruin no less than three times, sometimes even running myself down to single digits in my bank account. I've survived teaching a summer course and survived driving my beat-up car in the 110-degree heat without it blowing up or blowing a tire yet. I've survived that 110-degree heat without having to run my air conditioner that much, too. I've survived skipping meals a few times a week, using dish soap as laundry detergent, and using napkins for tissues. I've lost weight. I've kept the cats happy and healthy. I've been blessed to have true friends and family stick by me and encourage me to keep going, keep trying, even if that trying means I have to sell a lot of my important possessions just to make ends meet. I've been blessed to have people like Daisy and Zedral and Lady in my life. I've been blessed to have family who can help me out of a bind, who will be understanding and supportive.

While pondering all of this stuff, I realized that my mild illness that I'd felt for most of the day wasn't getting better as I digested my food, but seemed to be getting worse. Rapidly worse. Like, going-to-be-sick worse. Hrm. This is not a good thing, I thought -- right before I ended up yacking out the contents of my stomach.

I'm sure you didn't exactly need that mental image. I apologize.

Afterwards, I slowly (very, very slowly) began to feel better. I cleaned the toilet (now that I actually have the cleaners to be able to do so) and talked to Daisy for a short while before she went to the gym. Over the course of about three hours or so, I began feeling normal again. I don't think it was the pizza, but rather the fact that I've been so poor this summer that I've been eating much less, and therefore I think my stomach shrank somewhat, along with my weight. Because of this I ate too much and I think that contributed to me getting sick. Either that or barbecue sauce on a pizza doesn't agree with me as much as I thought it would. Oh well. Who knows. The point is that I'm feeling just fine now. Don't know why I felt ill all day. Perhaps it's because I didn't get a lot of sleep, either.

So, continuing the story of my day, I sat down at my computer this evening to find an email from my mother, telling me that a bank had called for me wanting to ask me important questions about my debit card usage, and that they'd left a number for me to call back. Okay. That's odd. She said she didn't know if it was a scam or not, but reminded me not to give out my numbers or anything on the phone (duh) when I called them.

I checked out the number (Google is a wonderful thing, folks) and found that it was a legit service that many different banks use, a company that monitors banks' debit card transactions for unusual purchases and the like as a lookout for fraud. It's a damned good idea, if you ask me. As I bought a couch and other stuff on Amazon this morning, then spent $251 at Walmart later in the day, I immediately knew why they were calling -- that's a shitload of money to be coming out of my bank account via my debit card when I haven't had any big purchases in a long, long time.

I immediately called them back, turning my phone on for the first time in a month and using two or three of the maybe ten minutes I have left on it, and the guy who answered said "Okay, so what's the phone number we left the machine message on?"

I gave them my parents' number, as they left a message there.

"Okay Brandon," he said, pulling up my info immediately, "we're calling to verify your transactions."

He ran down the list of my last five debit purchases, including Amazon and Walmart, and I approved them all (as they were all purchases I've made, obviously).

"Yep, all of those are legit," I said. "All me."

"All right then, thank you for verifying," the guy said cheerfully.

"Hey, thanks for checkin' up on me," I replied. "I appreciate it." And we hung up.

I do appreciate it, actually. Especially as they don't ask you for any sort of information like card numbers and the like. My bank back home is on top of their security stuff. Once, about four years ago, I had to cancel a rent check and write a new one because the one I'd sent had gotten lost in the mail -- my bank called and asked "So, you just canceled a check written to these people, and then you wrote another one to them on this date -- is this correct? Is there something wrong here?" They were just checking up on me because of the oddness of the transaction. That means a lot to me when it comes to my banking experience. And likewise, whenever I've come to them if I've needed any assistance -- for example, when I was a victim of identity theft in 2006, and someone in Colombia or Korea or somewhere stole my debit card number and purchased $50 worth of "eGold" for some video game with it, they took the charges off immediately and issued me a new card/number within a week. It's little things like that which will really make me respect a company or a bank or anything along those lines -- customer service. Watching out for their clients.

After all of that was settled, I sat down here at the computer again and received an email from the English department telling me that our orientation session in the morning would probably run about an hour or so longer than originally scheduled, and apologizing for any inconvenience that may cause. Hey, whatever works, I suppose; I'll be on campus anyhow, what's another hour? As long as I can get home before the football game in the evening, I don't really care. But again, I have no idea what they could possibly want or need to tell us returning GTAs that's going to take them not only three, but now four hours. I just know that the car is full of gas and has new oil and coolant in it, so my drive down there and back will hopefully be a rather smooth one. Hopefully.

So finally, it is 11PM, and I should be getting up around 5 or 5:30 in order to caffeinate myself and wake up enough to drive to campus. What a long, really strange day. I've finally worn myself down enough to go to sleep, I think. I will, of course, update you more over the next few days, including telling you the story of the four-hour orientation and the assembling of the couch when it arrives.