Scatterbrained

The storms that rolled through Wednesday night and yesterday morning were of little consequence overall; they brought with them a lot of heavy rain (enough to where streets in Wichita were flooded out), but no damage or tornadoes. While it's overcast and rather dark this afternoon, nothing else is predicted for my area for the better part of the next week. Apparently this huge "tornado outbreak" the weather people were getting their collective panties in a bunch about was mainly a bust. Can't say I'm surprised, really, though I can say I'm somewhat relieved.

As much as I want to or need to, I haven't done much over the past few days. In fact, I've been quite lazy. I haven't needed (or wanted) to leave the house, and I've been sleeping at really strange hours. Yesterday morning I went to bed at 9AM; last night, I went to bed at 4AM and got up around 11AM today, etc. I don't know why, really. Perhaps it's because I no longer have to sleep on a schedule, and can therefore sleep whenever I feel tired without repercussions or consequences. This may seem like a small luxury, but believe me, for someone like me who barely ever got any sleep as a graduate student, this is an amazing perk of graduation.

What have I been doing, then? Well, my biggest accomplishments yesterday were that I took a shower, washed the bed sheets, and ran the dishwasher. Yep, that's it. I mean, I have a lot of free time now, folks. The bills are paid, I don't have to go grocery shopping for probably another week or so, and the majority of the house is relatively clean. I need to vacuum the basement again, and really should dirt-devil the stairwell (which is time-consuming and really unpleasant to do) but aside from that? I've got nothing but multitudes of time on my hands.

As mentioned before, I am still looking for work, but languidly right now at best. My body/mind are telling me stuff like seriously, Brandon? Can't you just take a few weeks off and not fucking do anything important? I mean, really?

I think I'm so burnt out from my graduate school career that I need some mental health days. Or, as it turns out, weeks. This translates to some time, really, where I just want to be as lazy as possible. This is sort of like a summer vacation, and I desperately need and/or want a summer vacation. Some stuff can wait. It really can. I'm not running out of money anytime soon, and for my mental stability, I need everything to just stop for a bit until I get bored of having "nothing to do" for a day or two. That's when I'll be motivated to do something pertaining to my future and future employment opportunities. For now, though? I'm somewhat enjoying my time off.

I ordered a new keyboard on Amazon this afternoon because the space bar is sticking on this one after over three years of daily, almost-constant use. I can't do much about that. This keyboard is the one which came with this PC, and it's wearing out and getting dirty and gummed up anyhow. I will clean it up and keep it as a backup, but a new one was $10. Screw it, really. I can afford a $10 keyboard.

Since the storms rolled through, it's barely been eighty degrees outside. This is good; it means I don't have to run my air conditioner yet, and the windows and fans keep the house relatively cool. I'd like to prolong turning on and running the AC for as long as possible, as it drives my electric bill through the roof. Here's hoping we (finally) get another mild summer again. I desperately want a mild summer.

There's not a lot else to report; I've been relaxing, mostly. I get up, eventually make something to eat, talk to Daisy on Skype when she's not working and awake, and then play a video game, do some chores, and go back to bed. This is any given day in a nutshell, really. I haven't yet been writing as I wanted to -- I haven't been inspired to do so yet. It takes a great deal of inspiration to keep writing when it's so much easier to just lay about the house and do little else. I still have to edit through my CV again, I still have to update my Monster.com profile, and (as always) I have to continually clean sections of the house, but my big goal for this summer was, and is, to continue writing at a feverish pace, and when I'm not inspired to do that, said goal sort of falls flat. There are only so many poems I can write about the cats or my car, after all. It's not like I leave the house to do much else.

Daisy, as far as I know, is coming down once the weekend's over; she has to work from tonight through Monday night, and then will more than likely be coming down on Tuesday and staying until Thursday or Friday morning at the latest. We discussed it for a while last night, and she's optimistic she can do it, though her finances are a concern right now. I told her that if she can make it, that's good, but if she can't not to worry about it too much. My schedule is wide-open right now, honestly. If I have to, I can wait another week or two to see her again; we've got the rest of our lives to spend together, and it's not like I didn't spend a week up there earlier this month.

I am debating on cutting my hair and trimming down the beard a lot for the summer months. I love my long hair and beard, but I also know that when it's hot in the summer, both become a burden more than anything else. I haven't shaved the beard off in several months (I shaved it off over Spring Break, I believe), and it's now thick, good-looking, and shaped well. I haven't cut my hair in well over a year. If I do cut my hair, I'm not going to use the clippers this time around; it's too long for that, and it's a pain in the ass to do that when it's as long as it is now. I'll go to a hairstylist and have them cut it. Possibly in Walmart, even. I don't know. I'll ask Daisy what she thinks I should do. Yes, having shorter hair helps in the heat, but it will also more than likely help me get a job if I don't have long hippie-hair in an interview. Long hair looks good on me (I take incredible pride in my hair) but it's not exactly conducive to looking businesslike in professional work.

Yes, I just took this smirking photo of myself moments ago. 3:17 PM, Friday May 31. See what I mean about the hair and beard?

Anyway.

My mother told me yesterday that she has a card for me for graduation, but hasn't sent it yet. She wanted to know what I "wanted for graduation."

Eh.

I told her she didn't have to do anything for me; at this point, my parents have both done enough for me over the years, many times. They've loaned me money, they've flown me out to visit several times, and they've sent me boxes full of food and/or other care-package stuff whenever necessary. I don't like to be greedy or ungrateful, and I don't like to ask them for anything, especially whenever I can provide most things for myself. However, the one thing I would like to do at some point this summer would be to visit home again, as I do have an open schedule now. And, because they have not yet met Daisy, I would like for her to come with me if at all possible -- not just because I want her to come along, but because it's probably important that my parents meet the woman I'm going to marry. Of all the women I've been in relationships with over the years (read: four), Daisy is the only one who has not met my parents. My parents also used to fly me and my ex out to visit at least once a year as well, so this is nothing new.

However, this is sort of a problem with Daisy's job -- she already had to rearrange her schedule drastically in order to attend my graduation and for me to go to Omaha for a week, and even then she still had to work Sunday night while I was there. To be able to fly out to West Virginia with me would require her to basically take off an entire week, or one day at the end of one week and another two at the beginning of a second, with her normal days off in-between. I'm not sure this is feasible for her to do, really. Her job had some sort of stipulation about not being able to take days off for her first ninety days of work, or something like that. I don't remember when she started, and because she works night shift, I don't know when she could possibly take off. This throws a wrench into the works, honestly. I sent her a message earlier this afternoon asking if she'd be able to do it, but she hasn't yet replied.

I brought this up with my mother this afternoon in an email, and said even if Daisy couldn't come with me, I would still want to visit home at some point this summer (I haven't been there since Christmas, and I'm sure you remember what happened then). To be somewhat facetious (but also somewhat serious) I sent her a link to a '98 Monte Carlo Z34 at a dealership in Uniontown, PA, about 40 minutes from my parents' house, telling her that alternatively she could buy that for me and I'd drive it back home from West Virginia.

A guy can dream, right?

As an aside, the car looks just like mine, but it's two years newer, has 120,000 less miles on it, and it's gold. But, the 1998 models and newer have the much-easier-to-work-on, more reliable engine.

I think from now on I'm going to exclusively say "a new car" when someone asks me what I want for my birthday/Christmas or any other gift-giving occasion. Maybe, eventually, it'll work. I've not driven my car since the revving incident; it has remained peacefully in the garage.

In other news, a few months ago on one of her visits, Daisy brought me a frozen 1lb. roll of vegan ground "beef" that could be used the same way you would use ground beef. I'm guessing it was seitan or something similar. I put it in the freezer and forgot about it until this week. While cleaning out the freezer, I found it and realized that I had no clue what I would ever do with it. And then I remembered that with my dehydrator came a "jerky gun" and several packs of jerky cure and seasoning.

So I whipped it all together this afternoon, and in my dehydrator right now are three full trays of vegan beef sticks, drying and making the house smell delightful. I don't know how they'll turn out, but I used real ground beef with the cure and seasoning to make beef sticks last night, and those turned out great. If these turn out good, I'll save a bunch of them and will let Daisy try them when she comes down next week. If they suck, I'll just toss 'em out. I don't care either way, really. I've got plenty of food in the house to eat over the course of the next several weeks.

What else is new? Well, earlier this week I realized that the memory card for my PS1 was no longer functional, so I ordered a new one on Amazon ($4), along with a barely-used copy of the original Gran Turismo, a game I used to own but sold long ago to help finance my move out here to the midwest in 2006. I don't keep up with new gaming trends and never have. I've not yet played it again, though it will more than likely keep me mildly entertained downstairs when it's too hot to be upstairs this summer.

I also ordered some new spider traps for the house; I've killed no less than ten brown recluse in the house since I've been home from Omaha, either in the traps that I already had or by having the cats point them out to me so that I could stomp on them. When it gets warm and muggy outside, they tend to wander through the house more. My brother was amazed and mortified by this when I told him, but this is nothing new; Kansas is brown recluse central and always has been. I've never been bitten by one (to my knowledge, anyway) but they are everywhere here. Especially inside homes. The glue traps I use catch a lot of them, and I put them in several places throughout the house. I no longer have to worry about a rampant spider population. The bad thing is that the glue traps also catch the very few occasional wolf spiders that wander into the house as well, which sort of saddens me because wolf spiders will eat brown recluse and other problematic insects/spiders. If I see a wolf spider in the house or garage, I let it live -- at least if one of them bites me it won't possibly kill or otherwise injure me. Fuck the brown recluse, though. I set up four of the new traps last night as soon as they came in the mail, and was able to sleep a lot more peacefully. I haven't checked any of them yet, but I would imagine that within several days, they'll have caught a large number of recluse. I need to set a new one up in the garage, as well.

On that note, I'm going to go; it's hot, and I might take an afternoon/evening nap.

Last Legs

So, in the past week (while I've slowly been covering the details of my trip to Omaha and back) a lot of little things have happened and/or are currently happening. I'm going to try to cover the important ones as much as I can before I forget about them, and will then be able to relax a bit more and write about things as they come.

As mentioned at the end of my last post, I've only left the house twice since I've returned home; this has been intentional. I was really socially active while in Omaha, and since returning home, I have found much peace in being able to sleep in my own bed, comfortably, with the cats, and not having a set time to go to bed or to awaken -- much less having any true responsibilities and/or other things to take care of outside the relatively insular bubble of my home.

The reality that not only is the semester over, but that I've graduated and have a Master's degree now hasn't totally set in yet; rather, it's slowly seeping in bit by bit. I got my very last paycheck as a GTA last Friday, so I don't even feel unemployed yet (though I suppose, technically, I am). I can't pick up my diploma until mid-July anyhow, so it doesn't really matter at this point, and it hasn't fully registered. In the coming weeks, I'm sure it will.

In this past week, because I don't have to do that whole "needing to go to school and do work" thing anymore, it's been remarkably quiet. Well, for the most part. I've spent the majority of the past week cooking, cleaning, and doing other household chores (after my trip, and because of all of the clothing I got at Goodwill, I had four loads of laundry to do). I've tried to relax as much as possible, though, and because of this (and Daisy's work schedule) I've been mostly able to do so. Here's a few things I've done since I've gotten home:

• Mowed the jungle that I called a yard
• Washed/dried all of that aforementioned laundry
• Paid the rent and bills I had
• Scrubbed down the toilet and bathtub
• Cooked a fair amount of food (since, y'know, I have the time to do so now)
• Purchased new litter and food for the cats
• Cleaned the cat room twice
• Ordered ten more spider traps (I've been killing recluses like crazy)
• Rearranged the living room and installed the box fan in the window
• Brought a small end table downstairs and set up my PS1 on it/the TV
• Cleaned out the spare room, rearranged packed boxes along walls

...Amongst other little things that I can't remember now.

In other news, I'm pretty sure my car is on its last legs. Or at least she's acting that way.

Let me explain.

As mentioned before, I have barely left the house this past week. When I have, it's been twice, to go to Walmart for quick trips (which I also already mentioned). While I was in Omaha, because I knew it was supposed to storm, I put the car in the garage. I did so again tonight for the same reason. When I pulled her out of the garage a few days ago, I noticed on the garage floor under her was some fluid. Some of it was coolant, some of it was oil. This was easy to see, and I can tell the difference between the two. It wasn't a lot, but enough to collect into small, easily-recognizable puddles -- both pooled a bit under the engine, and a few drops of oil back throughout where the undercarriage of the car was.

I've also mentioned before that my car doesn't necessarily like when it's warm and humid -- humidity tends to make her sluggish and creaky, makes her want to growl and cry at me that I'm driving her in such shitty climates. I can't really avoid that sometimes. It's been very warm and muggy here for this past week, but when I took her out tonight to Walmart, she was fine. When it's warm, she also tends to leak a little more coolant and/or oil, and burn a bit more of it off. I've gotten used to this in the two years now that I've owned the car. Add a little more coolant and oil in the summer when necessary, and she peps right up. Usually, problem solved. My car didn't used to leak oil at all until the techs flushed it at the last oil change, and put 5w30 in it over the winter months for better viscosity in cold weather. Well, now that it's nearing summer and I haven't gotten an oil change back to 10w30, when it's warm it leaks a little more because it's a lighter, thinner oil, but not by much -- the weights/viscosity difference is mostly negligible. Still, it never leaked more than a few drops before the oil change, and now (but usually only when it's really warm outside) it drops a small puddle almost every time I drive her someplace. I can't really avoid that. And, as you may recall, the coolant has almost always leaked a little bit. Again, it's an old car. To get the oil off of the pavement in front of my garage (and in my garage) I'll eventually have to dump a bag of kitty litter there to absorb it, more than likely.

Anyway.

I brought her back home from Walmart last night and parked her in the driveway to get out and open the garage door, so I could put her in to protect her from the coming storms (which, again, I'll get to). Almost as soon as I put her into "park," she stalled out on me and died -- the oil light came on, and the "volts" light came on.

This happens, roughly, about once a month or so. No, I'm not kidding.

The first time I ever took Daisy out in my car, she stalled out at the end of my driveway when I was shifting gears from reverse into drive. Usually I can start her back up and she'll be fine, and it's something that, again, I've always chalked up to old age and an engine that's been beat to hell for almost 230,000 miles.

Tonight I started her back up and she started fine, and I gave her a little gas to rev the engine a few times and get some fluids moving, before letting her settle into idle again. This usually appeases her. I got out of the car to go open the garage door. Two steps away from the car and she sputters down again...and then revs up on her own, hard, probably to 3k RPMs. On her own. For ten seconds or so. I thought the gas pedal was stuck, or something. Then she settled back down into idle normally as if nothing had happened.

....what the fuck, car?

I put her in the garage and turned her off, and when I went back outside to get the mail and close the garage door, found a small pool of oil in the driveway under where she'd been sitting that was easily the size of a silver dollar. Great, so you're now leaking oil even when the engine is running? I thought to myself. Perfect. Because this is really what I need right now when I'm on a fixed (read: nonexistent) income after graduation.

I mean, shit, I don't know what to think or do. The car does need its regular maintenance (at some point) of an oil/oil filter/air filter change and coolant flush/change, but as I no longer have income until I find another job, and won't be driving her nearly as much as I did every week until that happens, it's kind of a moot point when the only driving I'll be doing for the foreseeable future is to, say, Walmart and back -- a round trip of six miles -- once every week or so. I did put new oil and coolant in her about a week before graduation, and I've not driven her a lot since then (maybe 100 miles), so it's possible that she's leaking because I put a little too much in, but I don't know what the stalling/revving issue is. The car has always done that on occasion, as I mentioned, even before I got the spark plugs fixed. Could be a clog in the fuel line, or something like that. Could be anything. Who knows. Again, keep in mind that sometimes (very rarely, but sometimes) I've had trouble getting her started, too.

Regardless, she's in the garage now, locked up and protected from the elements until the next time I have to leave the house -- which shouldn't be for another week or so, roughly.

I say "protected from the elements" because, unless you've been living under a rock and haven't been watching any news whatsoever, the weather here in the midwest is supposed to get downright violent over the course of the next 48 hours. Tomorrow and Friday there is a 40-60% chance of tornadoes in the area. This is also part of the reason I went out to Walmart last night -- cat food and cigarettes. If it's going to be fucking crazy outside over the next few days, I want to be sure that not only will I be comfortable, but so will the cats -- and I'm not going out in that.

 

Yep.

Also keep in mind that Daisy is in the red part of that map as well...as is basically the entire state of Nebraska. 

Three nights ago, while we were talking on Skype at 1:30 in the morning (she had the overnight of Sunday off after midnight because of Memorial Day), she suddenly looked up and said to the heavens, "Really?"

"What, baby?" I asked.

"The tornado siren is going off."

Different states/areas have different regulations for tornado sirens. Here in Newton, the tornado siren never goes off unless they're testing it or unless there is a tornado basically hitting a part of the town. I have had tornadoes 15 miles from me before (which is the closest they've ever gotten to my house) and the tornado sirens never went off. In other places/states, if there's a tornado in the county somewhere -- the siren goes off. Even if it's 50 miles away. It's in the county, so the siren goes off. Yeah, it's not like that here. In fact, even when they test the sirens (Mondays at noon, but only in the off-season), I've been at home 95% of the time and asleep, and it only very rarely ever woke me up. That's probably a bad sign, but I digress. 

Daisy took the laptop with her and ran to wake up her parents and sister/brother-in-law, and all of them went down to the basement. Since we were on Skype, I watched this in real time, and felt like I was there. I monitored the storms for them and gave them updates, and a few minutes later the tornado warning was canceled, the sirens were turned off, and most of them went back upstairs (her sister/brother-in-law and their children elected to stay in the basement for the night). There had been a tornado 29 miles away, but it dissipated quickly.

Still, this had me a bit on-edge, so when the Weather Channel had their forecasters sharting their shorts over a predicted "tornado outbreak" between Tuesday and Friday, I paid attention (as you can see from the graphic above). 

And nothing happened.

Well, nothing yet, anyway.

There was a tornado about 80 miles north of me here in Kansas on Tuesday night, but aside from that? Nothing. Barely even any rain or storms, really. It was just cloudy and dark all day yesterday. Last night, some storms moved in and knocked out my power for about five seconds, but after they blew over (quickly), they left barely any rain on the ground and no wind or damage or anything. I went downstairs to cool off and to shut down my computer to protect it from damage, and took a nap. When I woke up, there was a bit of thunder and a little pretty lightning, coupled with a bit steadier rain for a while, but that also quickly dissipated within an hour or so. More storms are supposed to move through later.

Everyone's on heightened alert after the Moore Tornado; this apparently causes weather forecasters to extremely exaggerate their claims. I'll be paying attention over the course of the next two days (the other half of their predicted "tornado outbreak" shit) but I'm also not really concerned, nor do I think anything's going to actually happen.

Anyway.

I mentioned earlier in the blog about how it would take up to sixteen weeks to get my Kansas tax return back. Apparently they're speedier than they have been in the past, because I got it in the mail on Tuesday. I also received a $50 Visa gift card for graduation from my aunt and uncle, which was very nice of them -- I'll be saving that for groceries later this summer. As for the tax refund, I'll be saving that check and mailing it to my parents with a few others so that my mother can deposit it in my bank account sometime soon. It'll be like getting another paycheck long after the ones from the university have stopped. 

I was surprised with the graduation announcements; graduation was two weeks ago tomorrow, and I got surprisingly little response. A few family members and friends sent me congratulatory cards, letters, and small gifts -- which yes, I incredibly appreciated, but I was more surprised by the many people I did not hear from and/or who said nothing about my graduation. Again, it doesn't bother me in the least -- hey, everyone who goes to school eventually graduates with something, right? But it was still curious. There were at least five or six people on the list of people I sent announcements to who I was certain I would at least get a card from, as they always ask about me or try to see me when I come back home to visit, yet I heard nothing. These are people like my godparents and my former boss in Microbiology at WVU (all of whom we always try to have lunch/dinner with when I'm in town on a visit), and some extended family members and/or family friends who are intensely curious and wholly congratulatory when I do something commendable, yet they've all been silent this time around.

I will say, however, that I've gotten emails and messages of congratulations and encouragement from some friends and family, such as my brother and his wife and Wayne and Jane, both of whom I sent announcements to, so I'm not counting them in any of this -- it's the ones who seemed to ignore said announcements that are curious to me. I don't necessarily care, again; it's just surprising.

My parents are happy enough for me, I suppose; they really haven't said much to me about graduation either before or after it happened. My mother congratulated me in a message about two weeks ago, and I forwarded the email from the official photographers (the one containing my proofs) to her after returning from Omaha in case she wanted to order any of the photos, and she said that they were "too expensive" to order. A single 8x10 is $13, yes, but I thought I'd send her the email anyway. Daisy might order one of the 8x10s to be able to make lots of duplicates at Walmart or Walgreens, but with all of the good photos she took of me/us I don't even think that's incredibly necessary.

In addition to trying to do as little as possible and take care of the chores while I've been here and have been off, on Tuesday I also completely re-wrote and revamped my formal CV, which is tailored for teaching positions. In the coming days I will be completely overhauling and updating my Monster.com profile, and will be completing registration at several educational job search engines/companies, such as Interfolio, through which I can apply for teaching positions for the fall. I have to do this somewhat quickly; interviews for fall positions are already starting, and while many of the positions will remain open until filled, if I can find somewhere that needs an English instructor sooner rather than later, then all the better. Daisy's mother found a creative writing tenure track faculty position at a university in the town where Daisy's sister lives, but they must've filled it quickly because it was no longer listed on there when I looked.

I've been trying right now to focus on the Omaha area for teaching jobs, though I do have a saved search on a few websites for any English teaching jobs anywhere. There are several colleges/universities in the Omaha area (remember, Mama gave me a list), which is good because there aren't a whole lot of other places remotely in this area, in Omaha, or even back home in West Virginia (not that I want to go back there) looking for college-level instructors. There was one posting listed for the whole state of Nebraska and none for Kansas. It appears that if I'm going to find a teaching position somewhat quickly, I'll have to research individual universities and colleges and go through their individual employment listings -- which is not only a pain in the ass, but is incredibly time-consuming. Oh well. 

Switching gears back to my own university (or, well, I should technically say former university, now), I am uncertain of my status there when it comes to adjuncting/employment for the fall. As I've mentioned before, I'm on the adjunct list for the fall semester to teach basically anything they need me to teach, though that is (generally) a last-ditch option for me; Daisy and I plan to marry next summer, and spending another semester here in Kansas only to end up where I am right now come December is possibly problematic, as you might have guessed, but it's something both of us have realized is indeed a possibility whether we like it or not. I can have all the credentials, references, and degrees I want, and I can apply for all the teaching positions I want, but it's not like I can put a gun to an administrator's head and force them to hire me -- let alone get an interview with half of these schools via Skype or otherwise. Similarly, there's no guarantee that I'll even have an adjuncting position this fall -- it's all about enrollment and how many sections they need instructors to teach.

There are some bright lights at the end of this tunnel, however, though it's a foggy tunnel. My boss, the chair of the department, forwarded me an email this past week that was written by one of my students this semester and sent to the department. In this email, he gave me high praise and begged the department to hire me on full-time to continue teaching my Engineering English 102 class, as he and many other engineering students he knows who have taken my class have gotten a lot more out of it than they could have from a normal 102 class. I was shocked, to say the least, but very proud overall -- this student went from a mediocre writer in the beginning of my class to getting a full A in it when the semester was over, and he was a good guy, albeit fairly quiet most of the time. My boss, the chair, was very impressed as well.

Here's the bad news, however.

I've mentioned here before, briefly, that the only reason I was the only instructor of the Engineering English 102 for the past two years is because they discontinued the program due to lack of cross-curriculum funding from the Engineering department. The director of the program in our department (the chair's wife), who designed the original version of the course, left her position as director of the program after its discontinuation. However, because I'd been trained in the course and had already taught it for a semester at that point (to great acclaim), the decision was made to keep it going under me as long as I was a student there. As I was the only one teaching it and designing/continually updating the coursework for it, I was -- as mentioned before -- my own boss for a year-and-a-half, and the de-facto director of that program within the department, even though I was just a grad student. While I could basically teach the course any way I wanted (within reason, anyway), I stuck fairly close to its original structure and, over the course of the latter three semesters I taught the class, I did little more than switch to the updated version of the textbook and streamlined the class's workshop days and lesson plans to work in some instructional days on MLA formatting and some Q&A days. I was also able to create my own exams for the class on two occasions, and I added a few supplemental readings to the course that the students would either find incredibly interesting or quite useable in their writing. Other than that, though, the structure of the course remained the same -- don't fix what ain't broke and all that.

It was around this time last year when I learned that the Engineering English program had been formally discontinued, and that after my grandfathered-in teaching of it ended upon my graduation, the class would not be taught again for the foreseeable future. Two of my colleagues -- one who is a close friend of mine, and a second who I haven't seen in over a year -- taught the 101 version of the class, and it was only fair to extend their students the ability to take the 102 version with me afterwards as well. The 101 version ended a year ago and hasn't been offered since. However, there has been a new development of sorts; this spring, we got a new university president. This university president is a large proponent of the cross-curriculum classes, especially in the college of arts and sciences. He is also a big fan of the English department, and with this summer comes new budget projections and allotments for all of the arts and sciences departments.

"Do we know anything about the future of the Engineering English program yet?" I asked the chair during graduation week, as I gave him a large binder full of example teaching materials for my class for anyone who came after me to use if said program was resurrected.

"Not yet," he said. "We won't know until July, after the new budget has been greenlighted." 

The chair has always been our biggest ally in the department, which I've mentioned before. This was true even before he was the chair, when he was simply the coordinator of the writing program. He and I have always had a relatively close working relationship, and to a large extent I've always looked upon him as a father figure of sorts within my education there. Well, maybe a mentor would be more appropriate. Still, it applies. He also knows the class is "my baby," as he calls it, and is as big a proponent of it as I am, especially since it was his wife who originally designed it and taught it for a semester. I ask him to update me on it periodically because if the budget is cleared and the program is allowed to continue, there have been many talks already behind closed doors about me being hired on as its new director, since I now have the most experience teaching it and have essentially been its director for the past year anyhow. This isn't a joke. I could very easily train GTAs and adjuncts to teach this course, as well as continue teaching sections of it myself. I'd revel in the opportunity, especially because it would come with a very live-able paycheck.

As of right now, however, there won't be any word on that until July, and I can't rely on it as a given, obviously. There's a very, very large chance that it will not materialize even if all the chips fall in the right places. If it does happen, while Daisy is and will be happy for me, it's sort of bittersweet -- she'd obviously be moving to the Wichita area at some point to be here with me, and we'd be getting a different house (and quite probably a new car for me, eventually). This would sort of throw a wrench into our Omaha wedding plans, but the bigger issue here is that Daisy is concerned that wherever we end up, she wants to be able to find work as well, and Wichita isn't as large or as populated with high-paying jobs as Omaha is. 

On the other hand, she fully supports me applying for numerous teaching positions in Florida, as do her friends and family, so go figure there.

As I've been typing this, a large line of heavy rain, hail, and storms has moved into the area. No tornadoes or anything, but finally we're getting some of the storms that the weather people have predicted since the weekend.

There have been other little things I've mentioned in the past few weeks which have resolved themselves one way or another as well. My student who kept sending me emails about my error in his grade finally had it processed and changed by the university, for example. Ironically, he's also moving to Florida (I'm guessing he's already there by this point). I've not had any more troubles with my drains backing up and overflowing, either, despite the large amount of laundry I've been doing as of late. I have been cautious, though, and have been watching the drains every time I run a load of laundry and/or take a shower. They've all remained dry and unclogged. This is good. I've also been heavily utilizing the dehydrator I got with my friend April's gift card; I've made a lot of jerky as well as a lot of dried fruits -- kiwi and mango, mostly. I have another pack of ground beef that I will soon mix with the jerky seasoning and cure to make some good, leathery jerky, though I don't know when I'll get to do that. There's a lot of other stuff more pressing than that, obviously, that I have to do over the course of the next few days/weeks.

I filled out five or six thank-you cards, finally, for those folks who did send me cards or gifts for graduation, yet I have not yet responded to. Those I have responded to and have previously graciously thanked, obviously, won't get a card. It's just something nice I wanted to do, even though it costs me stamps (which I do need to get more of soon). I also need to call my grandmother to thank her as well, but since most of my waking hours have been during the middle of the night, and because I was in Omaha for a week, I haven't had the chance yet (my phone also didn't have service through about 80% of the city of Omaha, either). I'm planning to call her today or tomorrow. I also need to see how many minutes I have on my phone, as well, and if necessary, purchase more. I'll need to do that anyhow for job interview calls, sad to say. Here's hoping most of my interviews take place over Skype, since, y'know, that's free.

Actually, I think I could call my grandmother through that Google Talk thing they have now. I put the app for that on my computer last summer, though I don't think I've ever used it. I'll have to look into that.

My allergies haven't been that nice to me since all these storms rolled in; every day or two I'll have to take more allergy/sinus pills, though they didn't bother me while we were in Omaha. Daisy, as you know, has been told she's allergic to Nebraska, and this pretty much has been proven at this point -- she doesn't generally seem to have terrible allergies when she comes to visit me, even though my house is dusty, smoky, and filled with cats. They do bother her on occasional visits, though. The summer heat and stuffiness on the top floor of my house gets to her more than anything else, though, which is also part of the reason I set up my TV, DVD player, and PS1 downstairs in the bedroom -- things to do when it's too hot to be upstairs, whether she's in town or not. Sometimes I just have to retreat to the basement and turn on the fan to cool down. I've done this several times this week, actually, as it's been really hot and muggy (as previously mentioned). 

Daisy is planning, if possible, to come down here next week on her days off. Since my graduation, her shifts at work have been slightly rescheduled; she now works from Friday night to Monday night, when previously she worked Thursday to Sunday -- now giving her Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off. It's a horrible schedule still, to be sure (read: no weekends off, ever), but it no longer interferes with my own schedule, since I no longer work on her days off and vice versa. She doesn't know whether she'll be able to come down yet, but we both hope she's able to. We'd be able to get some time together that didn't involve constantly running around and being social, which would be a total plus. Maybe we could go back over to Hutchinson, though, and I could sell a good chunk of those old Xbox games I don't need and will never play. That would be a plus too. It depends on whether she wants to do anything, though.

So that's all that's going on right now, really. My next few days will be spent writing, sleeping, and continuing my job hunt. I need to clean out the cat room again too, and also need to wash the blankets/sheets on the bed.

The Grad-ftermath, Part VI: The Voyage Home

As I go onward with these posts --and hopefully this will be my last one of this continuing saga -- please forgive me if I'm not as in-depth in my detail as I have been in my previous installments; this all went down a week ago now, and I'm trying to tell the rest of the story as succinctly, but as fully, as possible so that I can move on with my life and actually write about stuff that's more pertinent to the present day. There's a lot going on right now, too, but I can't tell any of those stories until I finish my current one. So, here we go.

The title of this post is intentional; yes, The Voyage Home is a Star Trek reference (it was the subtitle of Star Trek IV), which was the one with the crew saving the whales -- and for those of you who haven't seen it, no, I'm not making that up. It was the 80s, go with it. Anyway, the reason I've included this reference as a title is because we went to see Star Trek Into Darkness a week ago tonight, after getting a dinner of pizza and going out shopping for most of the day.

Meh.

No, really, that's my overall thoughts on Into Darkness. It did have some upsides -- it was very pretty, incredibly well-cast, and introduced one of my favorite starship designs ever, the "dreadnaught-class" USS Vengeance:

A larger version of this picture is my current computer wallpaper, by the way.

Other than that? Eh. I don't want to be spoiler-ish in my take on the film, but I will tell you that it's been done before, and the surprises in said film weren't necessarily the big surprises they could (and most certainly should) have been. Did I like it, and was it entertaining? Yes, on both counts, for what it was at least. Could I have waited to see it until it hit DVD? Yes, absolutely. But I didn't know that going in, of course. My final opinions on it are that they did with this movie exactly what I was hoping they wouldn't do, at least not for a few more sequels, and that made a good chunk of it all-too-predictable in its execution.

As for what Daisy thought of it, I'm not sure; she hadn't seen its 2009 predecessor, though I don't think that's incredibly necessary to enjoy this film as long as you have a basic knowledge of the original series' characters (and, hint hint, a knowledge of the original film series of the 80s). Knowing as much about Trek as I do (I watched Star Trek instead of getting laid in high school and college), I feel it is somewhat safe to say this. She found it interesting, at least as much as she could, but she also once referred to The Next Generation as "that show with the bald guy and the one with the funny head. In space." She did, however, tell me that my interpersonal, social cues are very much like Spock.

"Really?" I asked. "I always saw myself as a Kirk archetype."

If you know my middle name, it's pure coincidence.

"You're sometimes like Kirk," she said. "You'd always risk everything for a friend, to put yourself on the line and all that, but when it comes to logical stuff and analyzing situations, you are very calculating and matter-of-fact like Spock is."

Can't fault her in that observation; she's correct on all counts. When something's important, I am very logical and laser-focused on it, sometimes to a fault. In arguments I use logic and don't let my emotions get the best of me -- in fact, in arguments I tend to be logical and reasonable on all counts in order to either de-fuse the situation or to make the other person arguing with me realize what a stupid argument they're trying to make, especially since that's usually the case. And, most of the time, I am pretty level-headed. However, I do have my occasional Kirk-like moments, where I throw caution to the wind and dive into a situation regardless of how bad the outcome may be.

The movie experience was fine; in Omaha, the theaters are nice, they're clean, and we went to the later show (10:05) and the 2D version (3D tends to give me a headache) on a Tuesday night, so there were maaaaaybe only fifteen other people in the theater with us. Because the theater we went to does a special on Tuesday nights, we were able to get two movie tickets and a large Icee for Daisy for $20. Popcorn and snacks? Nope. From our Big Lots trip earlier that afternoon, Daisy had stuffed two bags of snacks into her purse, so that's what we ate while we were watching the film, because we're not only cheap, but resourceful as well.

Before the movie, of course, we'd gone out and done the majority of our shopping-and-fun time in Omaha on Tuesday. That was when we made that Big Lots trip, and when we went to the mall and Goodwill as well. I didn't find anything at the mall we went to (Daisy took me to one I hadn't been to yet, which had considerably fewer stores or interesting places in it than the one we'd been to over New Year's), though she found a shirt she liked and some incense at an Asian trading store. Everything I found was either overpriced or not in my size, though she did take this photo of me feeling up the testicles of a mannequin in JCPenney:

Wasn't lying, was I?

Anyway.

That night, before the movie, we came home for a bit to relax, as we knew we wouldn't make it to the 8PM showing we'd originally planned to go to, and talked to the parents for a while before they went to bed -- it would be the last time I would see the parents before we left the next day, since by the time we got home from Star Trek they would have been in bed for hours, and by the time I/we would get up the next morning to drive back to Kansas, they would have long before left for work. I once again thanked them for everything, and while they offered us dinner, we declined -- Daisy had planned for us to go to Night Flight Pizza, her favorite pizza place in the city, which had recently changed locations.

I've had Night Flight before; she brought down, once upon a time, a very large vegan pizza which was, and I'm not kidding, amazing. I shall cut and paste the description of it from the menu I linked to above:

V Vegetarian VERY VEGAN PIZZA V
Our Natural Signature Crust with 100% Organic Pizza Sauce and a Vegetable Topping of Your Choice. 100% Non-Dairy  Soy Cheese Alternative available for an additional $4.00 per Pizza.(soy cheese costs us 60% morethen dairy cheese this has to be passed on to Vegans :(
as a vegan myself I don't understand why the cost is so high so i'm with you on the cost. THE UPSIDE IS THIS IS THE BEST VEGAN PIZZA YOU CAN FIND ANYWHERE.

Grammar/punctuation/spelling errors aside, it really is the best vegan pizza. Ever since then I wanted to go there and eat in the restaurant, trying what they had, so we did. She got a pizza with onions, artichokes, and garlic (and good lord was it good) and vegan cheese sticks, and I got a double-pepperoni/double-cheese to see what their normal pizza was like. While I did indeed like mine, I liked hers much more -- which, I know, is strange of a carnivore like me to say. From this point forward, when we get Night Flight, we'll be getting the vegan pizzas exclusively (unless I want to try something really different one night). The prices are reasonable, too; I think my pizza was $11 or something like that, which is cheaper than it would be to order something from Papa John's here at home.

After we were finished and on our way back home, Daisy told me that Night Flight has a reputation of being the pizza place that nobody in town really likes unless they're drunk; most regard it as "greasy drunk food" or something like that. I don't get that, really. I think it's great, especially for the price, and Daisy and I both heartily appreciate the fact they do vegan stuff and lots of it. Regardless of the fact that I'm not vegan, I have been eating a lot more healthily in the past almost-year that Daisy and I have been together, and she's shown me many tricks and vegan alternatives to stuff I love (namely Vegenaise, Earth Balance, almond milk, and Daiya vegan cheeses). A life of eating mostly vegan stuff wouldn't bother me too much, though yes, I would still want, and eat, stuff that wasn't vegan much as I do now.

So we went to the movie and came home; in the interim, we stopped at the local Trader Joe's, where Daisy got a big bouquet of roses for her mother and where I was able to find another cat scratch pad (amazingly enough), but we didn't get home for good that night until after 1AM. I showered, using the last of Daisy's LUSH putty soap (which is amazing, let me tell you) and we went to sleep.

I really don't remember the time I got up on Wednesday morning, but it was still fairly early and long after the parents had gone to work. I let Daisy sleep; she'd barely gotten any real quality rest since we'd been in Omaha, and because of that, she needed it. We were also in no hurry; the cats had plenty of food/water/litter at home, and it's not like I had to be back in order to go back to campus or anything like that, since the semester had ended and I had already graduated. While I missed the cats and while I was curious to see if the bad storms in the area over the weekend prior had done any damage to the house or neighborhood, there was no reason to get in any sort of hurry about anything involving my trip home -- I knew even then that I would miss Omaha, and would miss being in that house with Daisy and her parents.

Mama had left me/us a note that morning saying that it was wonderful to have me visit, and gave me a list of colleges in the Omaha area to look into teaching positions at (I'll get to this in later posts, once I finish this tale). I found that incredibly endearing and sweet; I am very glad Daisy's parents love me and am thankful to have them in my life.

As an aside, I also got to see the shirt I bought Mama for Mother's Day, and while it looked a lot different than the photo on Amazon (much lighter in color, much more detailed in design) it was still gorgeous, and I'm glad she loved it. She was still altering it as of then, though I would imagine she's more than likely finished with said alterations by now.

Since I let Daisy sleep in, I spent a good chunk of my morning going about my normal morning routine of computer/coffee/cigarettes, though when I'm there the latter one (of course) is done outside. Eventually, Daisy awakened, and after eating and relaxing about the house a bit, we left the house around 2PM for Newton.

The drive southward was very pretty; because of the instability of the atmosphere and the storms that had been hitting around the area off and on for the previous several days, we drove through lots of dark clouds and bright sun, alternating. We stopped at Baker's first (a grocery store) to get some food for the trip, and stopped at York as per the usual, where I got a few little things at the local Walmart, before we made the rest of the drive home. We got back here just as it was starting to get dark, around 8 or so, and had just enough light and time to get everything into my garage before the sun set. Which wraps us back around to the beginning of this series of posts, really, in that I found that if we did get some nasty storms here while I was out of town, you couldn't tell -- but my grass desperately needed mowing (I mowed it three days ago, finally).

Daisy stayed the night, as there was no reason for her to drive back north until the morning. I made her dinner -- vegan chicken sandwiches and the like -- and we watched The Rocketeer, since she'd never seen it. I ate the rest of my Night Flight pizza, which I had made sure to bring home with me, and we went to bed with my three cats quickly joining us, as they'd missed sleeping with me/us for the past five days at that point. In the morning, I tried to let Daisy sleep in, but she was awake before I was (around 9AM) and told me that she was going to get ready to leave.

"You told me last night you didn't have to leave until like, 3PM," I said.

"3PM at the latest," she said.

Daisy returned to work that night on her normal schedule of 8:30PM to 7:30AM. This is why 3PM was the latest she could leave; it was the least amount of time she needed to get back to Omaha and go to work. I hadn't really thought about this.

I helped her get ready and we said our goodbyes; she left the house probably around noon or so at the latest, and thus our time together had ended. She arrived home well before work that night, and we Skyped briefly before she went in to the office for her shift.

In the meantime, I've only left my house twice since we came back home -- both for short trips to Walmart to get relatively few essentials, and one of those trips was this afternoon. It's been relatively quiet here in Newton since, though that is likely to change (see my next posts for details) and that doesn't mean nothing has been going on in my life. This story, however, has now finished, and I can go back to writing somewhat normal posts again.

The Grad-ftermath, Part V: Friends and the Haul

I didn't think these posts would be so long and intricate to write when I started writing them, though I suppose hindsight is 20/20. Oh well. Let us continue the story...

One of the most important things I wanted to do in Omaha, as you know, was to go out shopping. I brought a good chunk of cash with me -- more than I would ever need for anything -- with the goal of hitting up places like the other mall I hadn't yet been to and the thrift stores in the area. Daisy supported this idea; she just loves spending time with me, and wanted to take me out to do whatever I wanted to because, and let's be frank here, I don't get out much. Similarly, I wanted the bulk of my time there to not focus on this sort of thing, but to focus more on Daisy and her family/friends, with the shopping something we did that would kill time and would be fun -- no matter how excited I secretly was about it. So, on Monday and Tuesday (and a bit on Wednesday on the way home), we did our around-the-town shopping. In order to spare you every little detail about those trips and to get it out of the way so I can focus on the other events of those days, I'm going to give you the absolutely massive rundown of everything I found and purchased while I was up there, with explanations for some of them when necessary. Here's the list:

• A new cat-scratch pad for the kitties, as they needed one to replace the one downstairs they've positively destroyed over the past year or so ($7, Trader Joe's)
• A 20-inch box fan for the living room window, as I'd been looking for one cheaply for several years ($15.50, Big Lots)
• A 2XL flannel pajama set on clearance ($5, Walmart)
• A new Man of Steel Superman shirt ($7.50, Walmart)
• Five packs/bags of coffee in assorted strengths/flavors ($3 to $4 each, Goodwill and TJ Maxx)
• A 10-pack of 4-blade disposable razors, in case I have to keep shaven for any job I might get ($2, Big Lots)
• Two plastic jars of soup crackers; ranch and sour cream & onion ($1 each, Big Lots)
• Five new pairs of sandals to replace my old ones, which are all falling apart ($7 to $10 each, Big Lots and TJ Maxx)
• Two "room sprays" to deodorize the house; one is "Men's Club" scented, and the other is "Bachelor" scented, which I found hilarious ($4 each, TJ Maxx)
• One large "guyaba" [guava] scented jar candle, which is currently burning in the living room ($6, TJ Maxx)
• A Batman coffee mug ($4, TJ Maxx)
• Fifteen different bags of assorted chips and other snacks, and yes, I counted ($1 to $3 each, Big Lots)
• A can of smoked/salted almonds ($3, Big Lots)
• A jar of dry-roasted peanuts ($2.50, Big Lots)
• A pair of Dockers pants ($3.59, Goodwill)
• A Chaps pullover sweatshirt (99 cents, Goodwill)
• A Faded Glory fleece pullover sweater ($3.59, Goodwill)
• A pair of khaki carpenter shorts (99 cents, Goodwill)
• A "Nebraska Christian College" ringer tee, purchased to wear in an ironic hipster fashion and because the cartoon on the front of it is hilariously bad ($3.59, Goodwill)
• Three pairs of nice corduroy pants, which I've been looking for anywhere I can find them cheaply for several years now (99 cents to $3.59 each, Goodwill)
• A pair of really nice Haggar dress slacks, navy blue ($3.59, Goodwill)
• A new cushion for my desk chair, since my old one is wearing out and becoming flattened ($2, Goodwill)
• Two boxes of Ziploc bags, because I go through them quickly ($1.29 each, Goodwill)
• A backup Brita water pitcher with filter holder ($2, Goodwill)
• Four kiwifruit for my dehyrdator, which I have since already dried (less than $2 total, Trader Joe's)
• DVDs, from both Goodwill and Big Lots, $2 to $5 each: That '70s Show Biggest Hits Vol. 1, Caprica, Pandorum, Dawn of the Dead (remake), Final Destination, Shock Treatment, and The Book of Eli. All of them but The Book of Eli were new and sealed. I have not watched any of them yet.
• Used XBOX games from Goodwill, $2 each: Sonic Heroes, Call of Duty: Finest Hour, and Need for Speed Underground. I have not played any of them yet.

All of this stuff completely filled the trunk of Daisy's car, and necessitated multiple trips to get it into the house via my garage once we got back to Newton. It's not that I have an elephantine memory of what I purchased, oh no -- when I brought it all upstairs on Wednesday night upon our arrival back home, I made a written inventory of all of it, because I knew I would want to post it on here. This also doesn't count the fact that I bought a few other little things while we were out, such as the occasional small food or drink item, pizza from Night Flight (Daisy's favorite pizza place) and I took us out to see Star Trek Into Darkness as well (which I'll get to later). My total at Big Lots was $72, my total at TJ Maxx was $77, and my total at Goodwill was $38. Daisy, ironically, spent more than I did both at Goodwill and Big Lots on our trips there, getting all sorts of stuff for her, the house and the family. She also got me a $3 shirt at Walmart when we went to get the present for her nephew, as well, though aside from one meal (again, something I'll get to later), I refused to let her pay for anything else for me while we were out. And she insisted she pay for that meal, even though I wanted to cover our bill. That's all the money I spent while we were up there -- I am a bargain shopper at heart, and aside from the movies and games, which were purely for fun, I didn't get a single thing that I didn't need or wouldn't immediately use. The fan is already set up in the living room, the kiwi has already been dried, the majority of the clothing is so that I can have some dressier clothes to wear to any sort of office or teaching job I may get in the future, the other food is so that I don't have to do a lot of shopping in the coming weeks/months, etc. I don't spend money on things without a purpose, and all of the cash I had left went back into the "food money for summer" envelope upon my arrival home. I haven't used my debit card in almost two full weeks, and the only check I've written in that time was the rent check, which I mailed out yesterday.

Anyway, so that's the list. Again, I wanted to post it and get it out of the way so that tales of shopping didn't overwhelm the rest of the story of the trip, because the shopping was just a small slice of the overall trip itself -- wedged between a lot of social interaction with many people.

So here's the next part of the story.

On Monday, Daisy needed to sleep before we did anything, of course; I knew this and totally supported it. She went upstairs and went back to bed, and I ate breakfast and had my coffee and cigarettes before joining her in a nap for a few hours. I don't know how long we actually slept; I know I napped with her for about two hours, roughly, something like that, before I got back up and she soon followed. We had plans for Monday afternoon, evening, and night -- three different things to do:

1. A meeting at the house with one of her friends I had not yet met
2. Dinner with two other friends, one being Daisy's best friend whom I knew, and
3. A night of bowling with those two friends as well as several others.

When we got up, we had some time to kill before the parents got home and before her friend was scheduled to arrive at the house, so that's when we made the TJ Maxx trip. When we returned, Mama had come home from work, so we showed her all of the stuff we'd gotten while we were there (Daisy had also purchased some serving dishes for our future house, and had also gotten some for the parents as well as a big piece of beautiful wall art for her mother). 

Daisy's friend was supposed to be at the house at 5 or 5:30, something like that -- I don't remember. This was yet another friend who I was friends with on Facebook (though she deactivated her profile some time ago) but had never met. She seemed to be a very sweet girl, though she didn't stay too long for her visit. It was good to meet her, though. She'd come over to visit because she couldn't make it to dinner or to bowling that night. Said friend was also quietly very intelligent; we were talking about our respective educations, and she could probably run circles around me knowledge-wise. Then again, two English degrees aren't incredibly practical compared to most other degrees out there, so eh. She was nice.

It was also during her visit that I saw the first reports of the devastating tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, as they were beginning to roll across my laptop and I was getting breaking news emails about it (I had my laptop open on the kitchen table). Moore is less than three hours south of me -- it's a little less distance than it is from my house to York, Nebraska, where Daisy and I stop on our trips (as mentioned before). York is 209 miles away; Moore is 193. Anywhere else in the nation, that may be a big distance...but out here, where there's nothing but roads and fields? It's not. It's a straight line south of here, an afternoon drive. That hits close to home.

Anyway.

The evening dinner plans were at a place called McFoster's, somewhere Daisy had spoken highly of in the past. There is a good reason for this -- it's fucking amazing. You can click that link if you want and read the menu, but only do so if you want to start drooling uncontrollably. It was there or an Italian place, but Daisy called and found that nothing they had in the restaurant was vegan. Apparently not even the marinara sauce. So, obviously, we chose McFoster's, which specializes in vegetarian and vegan food. And, for the record, I'm incredibly glad we did.

We were having dinner with Daisy's best friend (the one we'd gone to Gusto's with two nights prior) and were meeting another friend there, one who'd wished to meet me but just now had the opportunity to do so. Again, I'm not naming her either, as she also expressed interest in reading this blog, so I gave her the link to it. Whether she's read it or not, I don't know, and right now that has nothing to do with the story, so I'll continue.

The food at McFoster's was divine. They had as the soup of the day a "smoked tomato soup" that was better than any other tomato soup I've ever eaten in my thirty years on this planet. I wanted to drink gallons of it, I wanted to pour it all over my body and bathe in it.

You're welcome for that mental image, by the way.

Anyway. I got a free-range chicken sandwich (because, yes, they do have non-vegan options) and we had appetizers of tempura-battered vegetables that were so good that I wanted to name my children after them.

"This is my son, Tempura Onion, and my daughter, Tempura Sweet Potato."

Ahem. Anyway.

The new friend was very, very sweet and fun to hang out with, and I'm glad she came. We had a great, long meal filled with fascinating conversation and relaxation, and it proved to be a good break from the running around and forcing myself to be, as Daisy would say, "socially intelligent" for a while. I was more able to be myself, to loosen up a bit, even though I was still meeting someone new. At that point it was par for the course -- between Saturday and Monday evenings I had met no less than ten new people, both family and friends, who were all important to Daisy, and all of them had wanted to meet me and had known about me prior to our meeting. This was fine, of course, but by the time of our dinner at McFoster's I had totally become comfortable with the scenario when normally, I would be at least somewhat apprehensive. Another new friend? Awesome! Etc. Daisy doesn't associate with people who aren't awesome, and I learned this firsthand over my trip there this time around (though it's not like I didn't know this before). Daisy's not introduced me to anyone who isn't a genuinely upstanding person -- she's all about positivity, and weeds negative people out of her life as much as possible. The dinner was great.

When it was over, we returned briefly to the house; I was going to shower, because I was sweaty and my hair was greasy, but we really didn't have time to do so before our bowling excursion. Instead, due to the lack of that time, we grabbed socks (which we would need for the bowling shoes, as I was wearing my sandals and those were the only shoes I had with me) and left again a few minutes later for the bowling alley.

Taking a brief aside for a moment, I saw a lot of Omaha while I was there; we went all around the city, from the really ritzy sections to the industrial sections to the seedier sections and back again. Omaha isn't a huge city, but it is a big one. You can't get from point A to point B in Omaha within five minutes like you can most places in, say, Wichita. No no no; there's always a mess of highways and different streets you have to take, many of which go on for miles in and around the city's busier sections until you have to pull off the highway at this precise point and this point only if you want to get to your destination. Daisy says the city of Omaha is laid out like a grid, which makes it easier to get from point A to point B if you know where you're going, but it is pretty big, and compared to most other cities of that size I've been to over the years, it's confusing as hell to me. If I do eventually live there, of course, I'm sure I'll get used to it much as I have anywhere/everywhere else I've lived, but even Daisy still occasionally has to consult her GPS to figure out where we're going, and she's lived there since...high school? Something like that. Close to ten years, probably, if not longer. I'm not sure exactly. I'll eventually remember to ask her.

The bowling trip had been planned weeks in advance; for a while, Daisy even had a Facebook event set up for it, but took it down for some reason in favor of just calling/texting people to tell them we were going to do it. A lot of people were invited to it, though most of them bailed or had prior commitments. By the time the night rolled around, we had but six commitments -- the four of us (me, Daisy, and the two friends) and two more friends of Daisy's, though whether the other ladies knew everyone else involved was beyond me. I didn't ask questions; our plan was to bowl and have fun, and I would be happy to meet anyone who showed up. I left all of that organizational stuff up to Daisy, as I knew little of what she had planned overall, and they were all people she knew.

The other two commitments to the evening each brought a friend as well, so all in all there were eight of us, with seven of us bowling. Monday nights, apparently, brought a special with them -- three games plus shoes for $12, or something like that. I paid for Daisy and I (since she had insisted on buying dinner at McFoster's) and we got down to it.

I learned five things while bowling that night:

1. I am still a shitty bowler (I didn't break 100 on any of the three games).
2. Daisy is even worse.
3. A bottle of domestic beer at a bowling alley is $3.75.
4. You can no longer smoke in bowling alleys anymore -- aside from casinos, this was basically the only other last bastion of hope for one who likes to smoke indoors.
5. Even if you've paid for your games, the people who run the bowling alley still close everything up at midnight, and will give you the stinkeye and be silently pissed at you if you don't finish your games until 12:15.

The bowling experience was really fun, and I liked everyone I met. When we came home, weary and in desperate need of sleep around 1AM, I took a long shower (which I also desperately needed) and, finally, we crashed. The next two days would be long ones, and we would need -- as Daisy might call it -- our beauty rest.

I will be able to (finally) finish this series of posts in the next installment, hopefully. Until then, my friends.

The Grad-ftermath, Part IV: Omaha, Day Two

I would like to state as I begin this post that I'm not exactly in a good mood today -- I was awakened shortly before noon by my house shaking, and its shaking accompanied by an incredibly loud, grating noise of sorts that sounded like something upstairs was in the slow process of exploding or breaking down. I leaped from bed and ran upstairs to find...everything okay. I looked outside and there was some sort of crew with big machines parked at the end of my driveway. I thought it was the street-cleaning/repairing crew, as occasionally they'll come down the streets and clean them off, patching up holes and/or broken concrete, applying road sealant, etc. I went into my room and realized that was not what it was...this crew was fucking jackhammering my neighbors' back patio area and hosing it off for something.

I live in a duplex, which -- if you are not aware -- are two separate houses connected in the center by a common stairwell. My house is my house; it's completely separate from my neighbors' place except for this stairwell, which is outside, not inside. Both houses are owned by my landlord (who owns every house/duplex on my street except for two of them) and when work needs to be done to them for whatever reason, usually preventative maintenance and the like, there is often little warning (if any) and all of it is done on all of these houses at the same time. For example, when one of the central air AC units in one of these houses needs a recharge of freon, all of them get recharged at the same time in order to save time, multiple trips, and money.

I don't know what these guys were doing; I could hear them talking behind my windows in my room saying stuff like "I don't see why he needs us to do this, but I'll do it anyway," etc. I'm not making this up. It appeared that they were doing cement sealant or something of that ilk on the area where the big back patio meets up with the bottom of the house; they had "mud" and trowels and were applying it all along this area. They left by 1PM and didn't come back, and I went outside on the back deck to see what they'd done....and didn't really notice anything different. There are a few tiny patches on the patio, but really? I don't know what the point of those guys being here was either -- unless it was the cosmos' way of telling me to get the fuck out of bed, or something.

Anyway. On with the story.

Daisy had set the alarm on her phone on Sunday morning for 9AM; her sister and family were supposed to arrive around 10-ish, so this would give us both enough time to get up and for her to get ready while I had some coffee, the only cigarettes I'd be able to smoke the entire day (again, Daisy's nephew is highly allergic to a great many things, including smoke), and get a Silkwood-style shower in order to scrub off as many allergen-inducing particles on me as possible. I never heard the alarm go off; when I awoke, it was 9:15, and I got up and went downstairs for said aforementioned cigarettes and coffee, leaving Daisy to sleep. She soon followed me, and the house received a call from said sister that told us they were running a bit late and would arrive closer to 10:30 or 11. Mama had made coffee and was preparing the kitchen for a late breakfast/brunch with everyone, and Daisy's father had gone out to get fresh bagels for the family.

Mind you, I'd never met this sister yet; Daisy has two sisters, both of whom are married with children. Daisy is the youngest of the three, yet I am older than her two sisters (and, presumably, their husbands as well, though I don't know said husbands' ages). I turn 31 this year; Daisy turns 25 next month. I'd met Daisy's oldest sister and her child when I was there over New Year's, though I have not seen her since, and she recently had her second child in the past two months or so (don't worry, I talked to her on the phone on Wednesday). Daisy's middle sister, the one who was coming in to visit and meet me, is married with three kids and has a fourth on the way. Aside from being friends on Facebook, I'd never even talked to her, and had met her husband very briefly on Skype only once when Daisy was talking to me and they were in town.

As an aside, all of them are in Omaha again this weekend for Memorial Day, a big gathering that I am not there for because, well, Daisy works all weekend and we just got back from Omaha three days ago. Because she works tonight, I'm pretty sure Daisy is sleeping through everything going on with everyone there right now.

Anyway, I had my coffee and two cigarettes before I ran upstairs to shower. It's difficult for me to shower in Daisy's bathroom; her showerhead is detachable and unable to be angled, which means if I want to wash myself it basically entails moving the showerhead all up and down over me in order to rinse off, and to wash my face I either have to curtsy under it or hold it in front of my face. Let's not get started on how difficult it is for me to wash my hair with that thing, too. Ahem. But, I showered quickly, brushed my teeth and got dressed, and went back downstairs shortly before everyone arrived.

Mind you, Daisy had to work on Sunday night -- it was the one night during my trip up there that she was forced to work; there's no way she can get out of work on Sunday nights, as she's frequently the only one on the entire side of her building. This meant that even though her sister and family was there, she did have to sleep a good chunk of the day. So, after a big breakfast of bagels of all different sorts and some family time, she went back to bed for a few hours, and I got to know the kids and her sister/brother-in-law during that time. They're adorable, very sweet and precious little kids, if a bit rambunctious (and they're basically little angels, really) so I didn't mind too much. I played hide-and-seek with the oldest kid for a long time, a little girl, and helped Daisy's dad and brother-in-law put together a swing set for Mama -- Mama had gotten a new porch swing set to replace the old one, so we disassembled the old one and built the new one on the porch (which was a bit more difficult than one might think for something that looked so deceivingly simple). In the process, I pinched my finger really hard with a pair of needlenose pliers, which gave me two big blood blisters, one of which later popped and I couldn't get it to stop bleeding. Eh, no biggie. Battle scars. Builds character. We planned a trip to the big Cabela's store in Omaha for that evening, and before dinner, after Daisy awoke, I went upstairs and took about an hour's nap or so myself -- something that rather annoyed Daisy herself.

Granted, I was also really tired from the night before, still, and coffee wasn't working to keep me awake. I was also incredibly twitchy and moody because I'd not smoked since that morning, and Daisy didn't appreciate this either. I also didn't let any of this show to the family, and I didn't smoke while everyone was there, obviously, because of the one kid's allergies to everything (he would've had an allergy attack even from any lingering smoke on my clothing, even if I'd walked up and down the block while smoking to keep it far away from them and the house). I awoke and came downstairs while everyone was eating, and they asked if I wanted to eat.

I don't eat much, as you know; generally I only eat one meal a day. Eating more than that makes me feel overly tired, bloated, or otherwise ill. Almost everyone but me finds this odd, but it's just how I've always been. When I'm in Omaha, it's a three-meal-a-day house, so I feel disrespectful or standoffish if I don't sit down and eat, even if I'm not hungry at all. This time around I'd just awakened from a nap, I was still full and not hungry from the big breakfast that morning, and Daisy was already irritated with me because I had taken a nap and because I'd been twitchy and moody a bit with her because I desperately needed to smoke. Again, that's totally on me. I put on my brave/happy face and politely declined to eat, and as everyone finished and prepared to go to Cabela's, Daisy and I went back upstairs and proceeded to launch off into a squabble about a lot of little things, though as quietly as possible.

Look, I love Daisy. I really do, more than anything or anyone. And overall, I don't even really remember what we were bickering about (again, I'd just awakened from a very short nap, I'd only had two cups of coffee all day instead of my normal full pot, and I hadn't smoked, so I was not myself and wasn't in my normal headspace). Daisy and I don't "fight." We have disagreements and/or squabbles very rarely, and I will fully admit that when we do, it's usually my fault. We did get past it quickly, as we always do (because there's no point in bickering about anything when you're going to spend the rest of your lives together anyhow) and as the rest of them left for Cabela's, we followed in Daisy's car about fifteen minutes later.

We arrived at Cabela's -- a massive, very expensive-looking store -- and met up with everyone, only to find that they closed at 6PM on Sundays, and we'd gotten there at 5:55 or so. Daisy and I approached her father from behind, without him seeing us, and she ran up and smacked his ass. He turned around and looked at me standing next to him.

"Wasn't me," I said, laughing.

It wasn't until we'd been in the store for several minutes that we found out they were closing, and that Daisy's brother-in-law had gotten a shirt, which meant he was waiting in line for checkout as all of the security guards were trying to shuffle everyone out so that they could go home. Daisy's sister asked if we were okay, as it was apparently evident that we were having a tiff before everyone left the house. I thought it was sweet of her to ask, and we responded that yes, everything was fine. The next thing I noticed, however, wasn't an item in the store, but the large television mounted in the corner...a television that was showing some live radar coverage of very nasty weather hitting my area of Kansas back home.

"Um, honey?" I said, pointing. "Look."

It had been a very hot and muggy day; we were outside in the sun building the swing, and I was sweating. It was probably 85 or so in Omaha for the majority of the day, though as the evening rolled around, storms began to fire up. Everywhere. When I say everywhere I mean basically the middle third of the country, from Texas to north of Omaha, and they were all moving in on us. This was problematic; Daisy not only had to be at work in about two hours, but I was 300 miles from home, and while the house was shut up tightly and my car was in the garage, as mentioned before...that wouldn't help if a tornado decided to knock my house off its foundation and/or kill the cats in the process. My cats are my babies; screw the house, that can be replaced, as can my car -- the cats cannot be.

We got out of Cabela's as they closed up, took some very sweet family photos with all of us, and as the parents went home and we said our final goodbyes to Daisy's sister and her family, I was finally able to smoke in the parking lot and Daisy used her way-out-of-my-league smartphone to look up weather warnings for my area back home. There were two.

"Shit," I said, reading them. "Tornado watch, severe thunderstorm warning..."

"We're under a tornado watch here too," Daisy said. "Have been for most of the evening. Until 11 or something like that."

Daisy's phone uses a mobile version of Weather Underground, which is the primary radar map service I use here at home (clicking that link will show you exactly where Newton is located in the state of Kansas, as well as any storms around me). We couldn't get the radar to work properly, possibly because off in the distance we could see lightning strikes and could watch the clouds rolling in -- Cabela's is on top of a big hill in Omaha, next to a big hotel and convention center. It gives a good view of a large chunk of the city. Omaha is also not like New York or Los Angeles; while yes, it is big, there's also a lot of open space there, and it is not uncommon to drive down city streets past cornfields and wheat fields with lots of wide open, undeveloped property.

I began to read. "Severe thunderstorm heading for Newton...50mph wind gusts, nickel-size hail...psh. That's nothing. House'll be fine."

I've become so desensitized to bad storms since I've been living in the midwest. I've seen golf-ball-sized hail at my house before without it doing any damage to anything. If there are no tornadoes, I don't really care about it anymore; I put my car in the garage to avoid any hail damage and then go about my business. I've been living in Newton since 2009, and the tornado siren hasn't gone off once for an actual threat. The last recorded tornado to hit any part of Newton proper was about five miles from my house, and that was in 2007. There was, at one point in time, video of it on Youtube. There have been many around the area since, of course, but none of them actually have come into the city -- tornadoes tend to move around the town for some reason, and hit the smaller towns around me, if they hit anything other than, say, a cornfield or abandoned barn.

I tried to keep an eye on the storms for most of the evening -- I would later find out that an EF-2 tornado hit the outskirts of Wichita briefly, out by the airport, before dissipating. The airport is a good forty-five minutes to an hour's drive from my house. If it would have touched down and stayed down, it would've caused substantial damage to that part of the city. That was, however, the worst of anything around my area that I saw or heard about, anyhow.

We came home and Daisy's parents were getting ready to go to bed -- both of them get up really, really early in the mornings for work -- and Daisy made a bagel to eat before she had to leave for work herself. I very sincerely thanked Mama, since she was still awake, for everything she and dad had done to make my visit special, as well as for the card and gift. I know I've said it before, but I adore Daisy's parents and family. They've always made me feel included and at home whenever I'm around them. I'm not used to feeling so welcomed all the time, but this is also because I usually don't leave the house.

As an aside, as a bonus graduation/engagement gift of sorts, Mama also gave us fifteen yards of muslin and several jars of procion dyes -- Daisy is learning to quilt, and this is so we can make our own quilt and dye it however we wish to do so. I'm not sure we'll need all fifteen yards of it, nor all the dye, but as I've never quilted anything before, I wouldn't know. If there's anything left over I'd love to get a pirate shirt pattern and make that eventually. I left the fabric and dyes with Daisy so that they don't get smoke-scented, discolored, or torn up by the cats in my house.

When Daisy went to work, I sat down at the kitchen table in silence (since the parents were in bed) and read one of her father's Bathroom Reader books for a long time while I ate a bit of dinner, and went upstairs to go to sleep in Daisy's bed quite early, around 9:30. That's the last thing I remember, really. When I awoke in the morning, it was about ten hours later, Mama had already left for work, and Dad was finishing his breakfast -- shortly afterwards, Daisy arrived home, and Dad left himself.

So yes, that was day two. In writing this post, I realized that there was way too much that happened over the trip to try to cram the rest of it into one entry, so I will basically be writing post after post until I can finish the tale. I do not know how long this will take, but I will write until I am done. Until next time, folks...

The Grad-ftermath, Part III: Omaha, the Beginning

When we last left our intrepid heroes...

Ahem.


The drive up to Omaha was nice; depending on the day, the time of day, and the traffic, the trip between here and there usually takes about five hours -- a little more or less depending on if we stop for food/gas/to pee/etc. Between my front door and Daisy's front door, it is 304 miles -- 4 hours, 38 minutes taking the route we take. That figure doesn't generally waver too much, honestly; we'll usually stop in York, Nebraska -- where the I-80 junction is -- to pee and/or get something to eat, as it's the 2/3 point of the trip there (roughly), or conversely, 1/3 of the way back here. As such, we always stop there, usually at the Walmart in York.

There's a secondary reason I like the Walmart in York -- it is the only place I've ever been able to find the electronic cigarettes I actually love and adore, the Mistic SiX disposable e-cigs. I saw them once there, back over the New Year's trip, and purchased them -- and then never saw them again anywhere. Anywhere. While the ones I got over New Year's lasted until the beginning of April or so, I've still looked for them for months in every store and smoke shop in my area (and now, Daisy's area) and have never been able to find them again. The only place I've ever seen them is in that particular Walmart in York and on the manufacturer's website above (which, if you've clicked on it, you can see that they are "currently unavailable"). They didn't have them in York this time again, as you might have guessed, nor did they have them anywhere else we looked in Omaha the entire time we were there. And yes, we looked -- Daisy was adamant that we look for them everywhere we stopped, even if we were tired and didn't want to mess with looking for them. Because that's Daisy for you -- always trying to make me be healthier than I am now, which I can't fault her for.

As an aside, she did tell me yesterday that she noticed that I've been smoking a lot less compared to before.

"It's because I have to do it outside when I'm here," I told her, motioning around her parents' back porch, where we were standing.

I specifically bought a new ashtray to take with me to Omaha so that I didn't have to ash up her parents' backyard or porch area. When I left yesterday, I cleaned it out, dumped the contents into a ziploc bag (in order to not stink up the kitchen trash can) and brought it home with me. I tried to keep it as far out of sight as possible, and when I was around Daisy's parents, family, and/or friends who didn't smoke or hated smoking, I stayed as far away from them as possible when I did need to smoke. I fully realize it's a horrible, disgusting habit, and I don't force others to be subjected to it; my vices are mine alone, and while I'm okay with being judged for being a smoker (in most situations, anyhow) I am indeed self-conscious about it. Daisy's nephew is also highly allergic to many, many things, including smoke, so when they were in town on Sunday I didn't smoke at all the entire time they were there out of respect and cautiousness.

But I digress.

"No, it's not just that," Daisy said. "I noticed that you're smoking a lot less when we're on Skype or when you're at home in general, and haven't been smoking as much when you're here compared to before."

In reality, I probably am, but I have been trying to cut back a bit. My allergies have been killing me as of late (though they were fine while I was in Omaha, amazingly enough), and the cigarettes probably aren't helping. And a large part of it is that when I am traveling or when I am out doing things, I'm definitely out of my element -- it's not as comfortable to smoke as it normally is when I'm here at home in my Man Cave, with my computer and coffee on the desk in front of me. A larger part of it is finances, as well; tomorrow I get my last paycheck for the foreseeable future, my last paycheck as a GTA, and I no longer have a regular income that I don't have to worry about allocating part of to smoking materials. While I did not spend a ton of money while in Omaha, I did spend a good chunk of what cash I took with me, and the remainder of that cash (all from my federal tax refund) will be used to purchase groceries with for the majority of the summer. I have to be somewhat cautious with my budgeting again until I find a steady job, and that means I have to cut back on my smoking regardless, whether I want to or not. I told Daisy all of this in explanation, which is also why she wanted so desperately for me to be able to find those electronic cigarettes I like while we were in Omaha together.

As an even further aside from this (before I get back to the main story), I have still not yet received my tax refund from the state of Kansas, so I put in an information request on their website to, y'know, actually make sure they received it. Here's what I found out, once I entered my information:

A return requesting a refund has been received and is currently being processed by the Department of Revenue. If you filed a paper K-40 income tax return, your refund will take a minimum of 16 weeks for processing. Thank you.

Good lord. Sixteen weeks?

Yes, I did file a paper return -- I always do. I mailed it, as well as the paper federal return, on April 11. Today is May 24. That means that I won't get my refund, roughly, until around the beginning of August -- at which point I may sorely need it. My state refund is only $83, which is about average for me given any typical year, but sixteen weeks is four months. This should tell you how slow and/or inefficient the state of Kansas is when it comes to anything involving money. At least they got it, however. That's definitely a plus.

Anyway. After that long and super-involved digression, let's get back to the main story.

Daisy and I safely arrived in Omaha around 7:30 Saturday night, at which point we unpacked everything and quickly went out to dinner -- her parents wanted to do something special for me to celebrate graduation (even though I told them they didn't have to in the least), and on the way there Mama called and asked where we wanted to go to eat. I'd mentioned wanting to go out to a Chinese buffet place at some point while I was in Omaha -- there are several of them where Daisy can eat because they have hibachi-style grills where food is made-to-order, and Daisy could eat vegan options via that opportunity...plus, and this may make me sound a little shallow and/or sort of selfish, but it's been years since I've been able to eat at a Chinese buffet. The one in Newton is hit-or-miss, and I haven't been to it since late 2010 or early 2011; I'd feel like a total fat bastard going to a buffet alone and eating my fill. The sad thing is that I absolutely love Chinese buffets; I don't generally "eat out" unless I go to one. Yes, I do order pizzas, and yes, occasionally I'll pick up some burgers and fries on the way home from work if I'm tired and don't want to cook, but if I want to go to a sit-down place? A buffet, especially a Chinese buffet, is always my first choice. Most other places are too expensive and/or I can't eat my fill for one low price. I'm all about economy and filling my stomach to near-bursting when I go out to eat, which probably makes me the typical fat American. If so, so be it.

Anyway, they thought that was good, and we scouted out which one to go to (read: which one Daisy could get the made-to-order vegan stuff at) and we went out to dinner. And it was amazing. I hadn't eaten anything other than a bit of soda and a package of Corn Nuts all day before driving up there, so I was staaaaarrrving. And I ate. A lot. I ate myself into a conscious, Chinese-food-coma of sorts. At one point I was wishing I had four stomachs, like a cow, so that I could keep eating. Yeah, it was that good. Mooooooo. It was great to spend some out-to-dinner time with the parents, as well; that's something we've not done before, mainly because there hasn't been time or because they wanted to cook/grill especially for me at home. I told Daisy well in advance of my trip that they didn't have to do anything special for me; I'm just me. Yeah, I'm marrying their daughter, but that doesn't mean I deserve any special treatment or anything. I also told her a long time ago that it would be less expensive and much less stressful on them to simply go out and do something like this one night I was there instead of trying to plan out a menu for a big meal at home and spending hours in the kitchen working on it, if they wanted to do anything special at all, that is. Daisy's parents had already given me a graduation card and gift; they didn't even have to do that at all -- I sent them an announcement because they're basically my parents too, already, and I see them as such. Because I knew they wouldn't be able to make it to the ceremony (and I would see them the next day as well), I wanted to do something to show that yes, they were loved and knew they'd appreciate the thought/sentiment. Really, that's just the kind of person I am. Being able to visit and having their hospitality and warm welcome when I do visit is all I could ever want, and definitely more than I would ever ask of them.

Anyway, dinner was great, but that was not the end of our night -- Daisy had scheduled several days prior that we would go out to this Cuban cafe place called Gusto's for dancing and mojitos with her best friend, a woman I've known only via Facebook for the past, oh, eight or nine months or so, but never had the chance to meet in person because she was out of town when I was there over New Year's (not to mention that it was nut-numbingly, ass-chillingly cold over that time as well, and we didn't go out to do much). I reluctantly agreed to this; it's not that I didn't want to meet said friend, because I did, desperately -- I adore her, and she's always been sweet to me -- but because I am so not a dancer and generally hate the nightclub environment. Also, after drinking copious amounts of alcohol the previous night, the thought of downing mojitos one after another really, really sounded somewhat disgusting to me, when normally I would be game for a few of them for the sake of being social.

As yet another aside, you may have noticed that I am tiptoeing around this friend's name; this is intended. Said friend is a frequent reader of this blog, though I don't think I've ever mentioned her by any name or codename here before, but she also seems to be an intensely private person and I don't want to share any identifying details or anything like that which may make her inadvertently hate or resent me somehow.

Ahem. Moving on.

This Gusto's place is a really unique, strange place, at least to me -- during the day it is apparently a quiet cafe, with good-sounding food and a well-stocked bar, but during the night, all of the tables are moved to the back patio and it becomes a dance club, complete with insanely loud music, laser lighting effects, and a $5 cover charge. This is interesting to me on multiple levels, obviously. Daisy and her friend like to go there on occasion -- they (or at least Daisy was, at one point) were taking informal salsa-dancing lessons there, and Daisy has been going there for a long time, to the point where she knows the owner of the club pretty well (and he was a really sweet guy).

However, here's the problem with places like that, at least for me -- again, I am not a dancer and tend to avoid the club scene like the plague. While I was incredibly excited to finally meet the aforementioned friend, and was very happy to do so, places like Gusto's make me twitch uncontrollably. Add to this that it was a very tiny little place in a strip-mall-esque row of buildings, and my somewhat normally social, jovial self gets really overwhelmed and claustrophobic/agoraphobic.

The club was very dark and very loud, even before people started showing up to dance. We sat in a booth in the back of the club while the ladies got their first mojitos, and I could neither see nor hear the conversations that I was a part of. I am somewhat hard of hearing anyhow due to many frequent, recurring ear infections as a child, and I know that I have measurable hearing loss from it. Couple that with my hyper-vigilance of my surroundings, and I can hear everything going on around me as a loud roar, but have a lot of trouble hearing words directly spoken to me in loud environments. I also have very, very poor vision in dark environments, and unlike most others, my eyes don't adjust past a certain point; being in a dimly-lit environment is almost as bad to me as being in one that's pitch black. I, basically, become mostly blind. I do know that this is more than likely caused by many years of daily computer usage for hours every day, and that's probably also why I seem to need to wear my glasses on a more frequent basis now, but as a child and into my teen years, even, I could read a newspaper across the room in the dark. Now I can't do that anymore. To be able to fully see, I tend to squint a lot and I need a lot of bright light -- a lot of light. Even the fluorescent lights in our offices at the university were at times not enough for me, when for my colleagues they were so bright that they got headaches and turned them off in favor of desk lamps and the like. This is also part of why I don't really like to drive at night unless I've got my brights on or there are a lot of streetlights -- my eyes have gotten considerably worse over the years.

Well, couple all of these things with a drinking-and-dancing environment, and as I told Daisy and our friend by the time we left, that club became my personal definition of hell. I'm sure if there is a hell, it's where poorly-coordinated, fat white men who hate darkness and loud music go to serve their eternal sentence. That's not a slight against the club, the music, or Daisy and our friend in the least -- it's just not my scene. Really, really not. And it made me flustered and frustrated and really unhappy, even after we moved outside to sit on the patio, where it was more brightly lit and the music wasn't as loud. I actually enjoyed a fair amount of the music, and I did partake in tasting of the mojitos Daisy ordered (they were pretty good, even though I'm not a fan of anything mint) and was happy the ladies enjoyed dancing, even if I didn't take part in it myself. That's just a personal failing on my part, really -- I tried the best I could to be supportive and understanding that the ladies loved this place, but it was really, really hard to hide how much I hated that environment. Again, that's not on them, that's on me; I feel like such an old, stubborn man sometimes. But, as I wanted them to enjoy themselves, I mostly stayed out of the way and sat outside on the patio, alone, smoking and watching their drinks and purses for them. I did not want to be a Debbie Downer just because I wasn't having any fun; part of being in a relationship is supporting what your betrothed enjoys, even if you hate it, and trying as best as possible to put on a game face while said significant other enjoys it. Again, I did this the best I could, but I didn't do it very well -- I'm pretty sure that they both could very easily tell that I hated the situation and was simply tolerating it for them.

In my defense, however, I will say that it was well after one in the morning, after we'd spent the past two days constantly running around and being social in myriad situations, first at school, graduation, and then the party...and then driving to Omaha, going out to dinner with her parents, and quickly changing clothes to go out again to this club. I was exhausted, both mentally and physically, and my patience and energy for being awake, social, and mobile was rapidly running out at this point, as I am generally not an active person. Daisy claims to be somewhat anti-social, but she is much, much more social than I am or have ever been (unless you want to count ten years ago or so in those calculations). I'm also sure that the fact that I drank so much on Friday night contributed strongly to my fatigue as well, though it's not like I necessarily needed to say that.

About forty-five minutes before we left the club, while I was sitting on the patio alone and trying not to fall asleep (desperately, desperately trying), it began to rain. It started softly, a few big drops here and there, at which point the ladies went inside to dance and everyone else who had been sitting outside did the same. That woke me up a bit. It started off and on, and there was lightning in the distance, with a few low rumbles of thunder. I didn't think much of it at the time; I knew that it had been predicted to storm pretty strongly over a good chunk of the weekend, with the worst of it supposed to hit the area in the overnight hours and on Sunday. Those few drops of rain, however, quickly became a monsoon-like downpour, and as the ladies went in and out between dances, I also quickly moved to the corner of the patio that was covered by the roof in order to stay dry. The storm quickly moved in and escalated, with big lightning bolts and loud thunder. I watched it languidly, smoking a few cigarettes while they danced, and it appeared to move off and dry up a bit by the time they decided we should leave. So, we gathered our stuff and did so.

This was not the end of the night, however; the ladies were hungry again, so we stopped at Taco Bell. I bought their food for them, even though our friend gave me a $5 bill to help cover it (I tried to tell her she didn't have to, but she made me keep it). It was the least I could do after I was sort of standoffish and somewhat disturbed/irritated by the club scene; I hate being a spoil-sport in any situation. And, again, it's not their fault I wasn't a fan of the place. As we parked across the lot, the storm fired up again full-force and positively raged around us as we ate our tacos, burritos, and nachos. It didn't stop this time, either; as we took our friend home it was storming/raining so hard Daisy could barely see to drive, even with the wipers going full-force. We got her home safely, however.

This was still not the end of our night, though. Because Daisy's sister, brother-in-law, and their three children were coming in the next morning, and since Daisy already had presents for two of the kids (purchased mostly, I believe, from the Dollar Tree the last time she came down here to visit me), she wanted to get something for the third so that he wouldn't feel left out. This meant we were making a 2:30 AM trip to the local Walmart in the storm before we could go home. I was okay with this, of course -- middle-of-the-night Walmart trips were more my scene, more my environment, than anything I'd done in the past several days at that point.

We spent over an hour in Walmart in the middle of the night; Daisy couldn't decide what to get her nephew. I gave all sorts of suggestions the best I could, trying to help, but most of them proved fruitless. She didn't want to get him any action figures, she didn't want to get him any toys that made noise (something that could have been solved by removing said toys from the package and removing the batteries before giving them to him) and she couldn't make up her mind.

"All of the Transformers have guns," she said, frowning.

"...yes, love," I replied. "They're Transformers. They're warriors."

I could have gone into the intricacies of the Autobot/Decepticon war, but chose not to.

This was just one example, though, of how hard it was for her to find something for him. The kid's a toddler; I'm not sure how old he is, exactly, but he's probably preschool-aged or close to it. I had many action figures with guns when I was his age, and I turned out fine, but okay -- I wasn't going to argue with her. Daisy knows best what is appropriate for her nephew, and what her sister would find appropriate for her child. I sort of went off and nerded out over some of the toys myself, especially the toy guns and airplanes, helicopters, etc. Did you know that the Super Soaker people have revamped their entire line of water guns now, and now have water cartridges for them? As well as bulletproof-vest-looking vests that can be plugged into the guns for a constant pressurized water supply? Neither did I. I was enthralled, and immediately a bit jealous that toys weren't this awesome when I was a child. Back then, we had to pump our massive Super Soakers until our arms were sore (or, conversely, until the pump broke and the water tank would no longer hold pressure).

Mental note: new plan for Daisy's birthday next month -- Super Soaker party.

Ahem.

She ended up finding a set of Monsters Inc. figurines for him, or something like that. I didn't really get a good look at what they were; she bought them and stowed them away in the house somewhere once we got home. The storms had finally stopped and moved off a bit by the time we got home sometime after 3, and we both exhaustedly (and quickly) went to bed. Her sister and family would be there in the morning around 10, so we had to sleep fast.

So that's the tale of my first day in Omaha. Yes, I know it's long. But, as you can see, it was also a very long day. My final post in this series, coming soon, will detail the rest of the trip there and our return home to Newton.