Shadowboxing

Spring semester: day fifty-five

Upon my trip to Walmart Saturday night, I was able to get one box. One.

No, I'm not kidding.

This isn't because of a lack of boxes (okay, well, in some cases, it was), but because they had cordoned off most of the store as they were getting ready to wax the floors. The checkout girl -- who, as I told Daisy, I'm pretty sure has a crush on me because every time I'm in there she eye-fucks me, even if I don't go through her line -- told me that because of that, there was a really small truck order and as most of the aisles were blocked off, the stocking crew wouldn't get to them until after the floors were done.

The one box I did get was a vinegar box, ironically, and it was relatively large -- but that was only because I literally picked it up out of an abandoned aisle and took it with me. I asked one of the other associates who was stocking the toy aisle if I could have some of his boxes, and he looked at me with deadened eyes (or incredibly stoned eyes, I don't know) and told me "Uhhh....I dunno, man, but you can ask a manager or something."

For fuck's sake. I just wanted like five boxes so that I could get a bigger jump-start on my packing. I've worked retail before. I did it for years. And I was a stocker during that time as well. Do you know what happens with the boxes? All of the boxes? They go into a box-crusher/baler machine, and are disposed of at the back dumpster. Seriously. All of them. That's it. Nobody has to ask a manager for a goddamn thing. I was a manager on the night shift at the grocery store I worked in.

"Okay, well, far be it from me to get you in any trouble or anything," I said, trying my absolute hardest not to roll my eyes (and probably failing), before walking away.

Daisy said that all of the stores in Omaha will save boxes for you, but you have to call in advance for them and pick them up between 6 and 7AM. The reason I waited to go shopping until the middle of the night was to cut out the middleman, so to speak, and just get some of the boxes from the stockers in the aisles. If I do that, I don't have to call ahead, and I can pick and choose what I want/need instead of whatever gets thrown into a pile for me to pick from at the ass crack of dawn. Ironically enough, I don't remember what my ex did for boxes several years ago when she moved out -- I was more of the don't-let-the-door-hit-you-in-the-ass mentality to keep track of such things.

Of course, in moving here five years ago, I was coming straight out of that grocery store job, and was able to pick whatever boxes I needed on whatever nights they were available then. As an English professor, I don't generally come across that many boxes in my line of work, except for paper boxes. Which, yes, I'll more than likely end up getting several of. They're useful. I'll ask West campus to start saving them for me, as I can't exactly take a stack of boxes with me on the shuttle bus back and forth (or to and from my class there) in any sort of feasible way. At West campus I can just throw 'em in the trunk or backseat.

I do still have a few of my boxes from moving here that long ago, but most of them have already been filled and sealed up from my previous packing. A full third of the spare room is filled with boxes I've already packed and sealed up.

So I got the one box, at least. I also got a roll of duct tape (since I'll need it) and another box of the Hefty Steel-sac trash bags, the super-heavy-duty thick ones (at $10 a box, they'd better be), so that I can trash what needs to be trashed in the coming weeks and months. I only have a few left in the old box -- I'll need more. I also got a pistol hose nozzle for the garden hose, as the nozzle I have now is a "watering shower wand" and doesn't exactly give off a ton of pressure for washing things or rinsing things off. I'll be doing a lot of both before I leave this place.

Yesterday afternoon I edited through my 210 students' projects, and attempted (and failed) to make lesson plans for my other classes. I was just too burned out after using half the ink in a new pen to mark them up. Their big, final project is something that most of them haven't done before, it can be more than twenty pages long (depending on how large the scope of said project is) and requires a lot of research and time invested into it. That's why I give them a month to do it before they turn it in (they started it during their Spring Break) and we have two weeks of peer-review and drafting before it's all due -- and before they do their oral presentations on it the week afterwards as their "final exam" (because they don't have an actual final). I've mentioned that I love teaching 210; it's easy to teach, the assignments are fun and straightforward, it operates on a much different weekly schedule than the other courses I teach, and the students who take it tend to -- for all intents and purposes -- know their shit. As a professor I can change up or modify the lesson plan a bit to suit the course, and change around dates and the like much easier than my other courses as well, and this has worked wonderfully -- so far, this entire semester, I've only had one solitary absence in the course, from one student who was stuck at work late one night and couldn't make it to campus for class. I don't think I've ever taught a class where there's only been one absence, once, the entire semester.

Also, the fact that the class will end completely, with all grades calculated, tallied, and on the books on April 23 -- almost three weeks before the actual semester's end -- is a huge bonus as well. As mentioned before, I could stretch the class out and force them to come in on April 30 and May 7 as well if I wanted to, but there is quite literally nothing left to do on those days. As it is now, aside from telling them how to do their oral presentations, there's nothing left to teach these eight students I have, students who don't have to be told repeatedly that they have to proofread their papers and cite their sources, students who don't have to be continually reminded of due dates or be given "come to Jesus" talks about the quality of their work or the importance of following directions. They all already have the instruction and skills they need to do their work -- now all they're doing is that work.

It's a very dark day today -- while it's in the 60s, it's so dark at 1PM that the streetlights are starting to click on. We're supposed to get rain and storms (though it's not doing anything now) through tomorrow morning, basically, but the plus side is that today is supposed to be the coolest day of the week -- by Wednesday and Thursday the high temperatures are supposed to be up around 80 or so. The weekend was relatively warm, as well; I wore shorts to work on the deck, and was able to break out the flip-flops to get used to them again when it was warm enough during the daytime.

As for everything else in my world, things are...relatively quiet for the moment. Daisy has been working her normal schedule, which requires her to be asleep during the day during most times I'm awake. There's no more wedding planning news, aside from a few of her extended family members who have RSVPed (bringing our total of known guests up to around 66 or something like that). We've also been trying to help my brother -- who is my best man -- find inexpensive airfare out here and back, as he's flying in from Pittsburgh. He's been having a rough time affording the trip or scheduling for it, as he not only has a job but a wife and three kids to support. Daisy found round-trip flights for $379 on Priceline, and we told him that if it was necessary to save money spent on hotel costs, he could stay with us in our place. We have air mattresses; I have one of my own, and Daisy/her family have at least one or two more. I used to sleep on mine all the time in the spare room when it was too cold to sleep downstairs in the winter (before Daisy got me the electric blanket, of course); it's actually fairly comfortable. We may have a few people staying with us, actually -- we also extended that offer to Rae, as well as to one of Daisy's friends who will be flying back in from NYC (if she can make it, that is).

I also told my brother that yes, while it is important to me that he's there and is my best man, it's not more important than being able to pay his bills and support his family, and as he doesn't make a lot of money as it is, I told him that if it is not financially or otherwise feasible to make it out here, it's okay and I'd understand. In fact, I understand his situation better than most would, due to the fact that I also work my ass off just to make ends meet, and he's about the only person I'd allow to basically "opt out" of the wedding because of it. My brother has a lot of proverbial irons in the fire; neither he nor his wife work in traditional office settings, they have to buy their own insurance now because of Obamacare, and they do, as mentioned before, have three kids -- all of whom are homeschooled. I told him to keep us posted and we'll do what we can to accommodate him if necessary and help him out on the logistical aspect of things. My brother is also not the type of person who wouldn't tell me if he wasn't able to make it -- he'd be sure I knew well in advance.

As for the other family-related stresses and issues I've been dealing with for the past several days...who knows what's going on there. I've basically washed my hands of the situation at this point and don't want to be involved with the drama/bitching/pissing-and-moaning involved with it -- it's a colossal waste of my time and energy, and I have enough things to take care of on my own in not only the day-to-day, but in the upcoming weeks and months.

This afternoon I will be creating lesson plans for my classes this week, though those lesson plans will be fairly sparse as we're beginning the big wrap-up of the semester (and that takes several weeks in most cases). I'm collecting two sets of papers tomorrow -- one in each of my classes -- with the larger set (my 102s) needing to be graded by Thursday morning due to conferences (and, y'know, me giving those papers back to them in their conferences). This means that tomorrow afternoon, regardless of how nice it is outside, I'll be spending most of my hours grading through those...only to get another set of papers tomorrow night, papers I'll be grading over this coming weekend. Wednesday night in 210 we're doing full peer reviews of full project drafts, and on Thursday morning I'll hold those aforementioned conferences for my 102 students. I've already done one of the conferences, as I have a student who has to be out of town for the latter half of this week. Said student is probably my best student in that class anyway, so that's not a big deal.

My 011 class will require the most work this week (at least teaching-wise, anyway), because I'm collecting their papers, assigning the next one, covering two chapters in the book, covering a short story, and then will be giving them a simple, fun take-home quiz. Teaching this class may be easy, yes, but it may also be difficult, depending on how many of them actually show up. As I've mentioned before, they're dropping like flies -- I'll have several more who will fail not only due to absences, but mathematically if they don't come in this week and turn in their papers. Not one single student in ANY of my classes, even the ones who had already failed for the semester due to absences and/or not turning in work (and believe me, I've told the ones who have), withdrew from my rosters by the drop date. Not one. Oh well -- it's their grades and GPA, not mine.

And, of course, I have to get gas in the morning before I leave town -- as is customary on Tuesdays, you know. Gas prices have been going up like crazy over the course of the past month or so; for a while, I was getting it for about $3 or so. Now it's hovering around $3.60 and hasn't really gone down any. If anything, it's fluctuated between $3.49 and $3.69 depending on the week, which is insane. Now, I remember paying about $4.20 a gallon in 2008 and probably early 2009, but shit, it's never been this high here for a prolonged amount of time like this since I've been living in Kansas. For months on end last year I was paying $2.88 a gallon or so. I have the money to pay for gas, obviously -- I'm not destitute -- but damn.

Of course, I'm still (rather impatiently) waiting for my tax returns as well. I/we need that money soon. I have bills that will be coming in over the course of the next two weeks, and Daisy needs what I can give her shortly thereafter as well. The federal return should be processed more quickly this time because there's no check that needs to be cut -- it's direct deposit. I'm starting to get twitchy -- not because I can't pay my bills, because I can, but because that money needs to be in my possession soon so that it can be put to use for necessities for both myself as well as Daisy.

So that's what's going on here right now. Now it's time for me to do my lesson planning, eat something, get a shower, and go to bed early this evening. It's Monday night, after all -- even though the weather may be nicer now than it was earlier this semester, Tuesdays are still godawfully long and gruelling for me, and I still need to get the necessary rest to be able to be awake and running for fifteen hours straight between two different campuses.