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.