Endings

Fall semester: day seventy-one

With the end of the Thanksgiving break upon us, and with nine days left in the actual semester, so many things are going on and coming to a head, coming due, and wrapping up. With the finishing of my project that I live-blogged in my last post here, I have finished a large chunk of my work for the remainder of the semester. All I really have left, at this point, is stuff for my students -- and while there is a considerable amount of that, it doesn't hang over my head like my own work tends to. I can cover student stuff at a more even pace most of the time, more slowly, spacing it out and going through it on a more even keel.

I have printed out the 22-page project, and will be sticking it in my professor's box this afternoon with a note attached saying that if it doesn't satisfy him to let me know, and between now and the due date I will produce a standard paper assignment just like everyone else is doing. Mind you, I don't think I'll have to do this, but by getting it to him now I will have time to do so if he doesn't think the work is up to par. Everyone I've spoken to about the project and given details to about it thinks that it's a wonderful assignment and a fantastic idea, and they haven't even read it. However, I do know how critical this professor is of student work, so we'll see. Again, the project is 22 pages. The required length for the rest of the class's simple research argument paper was a mere 5-8 pages, so I've gone above and beyond the call of duty for something that I didn't necessarily have to do. The other reason I'm giving it to him tomorrow is precisely because it is so long and detailed -- he'll need time to read it.

With the end of Thanksgiving week also comes the end of the month, and at the end of the month many bills come due. I have paid all the bills I've received with the exception of my electric bill, which isn't due until shortly before Christmas, and I have paid the rent. My budget between now and the new year is going to be a little tighter than I expected it to be, but I should get be okay until my student loans drop shortly after the turn of the year, as long as there are no major unforeseen expenses, such as the car blowing up or something like that. I have one Christmas gift left to get Daisy, and it is fairly inexpensive and something I will pick up within the next week or so the next time I go shopping. Other than that, I'm basically done for her. If I play my cards right, I will be able to finish everything for not only Daisy, but her family and my own family in one fell swoop -- inexpensively, at that.

It feels weird to have someone to buy gifts for again. I haven't been in the holiday spirit for two years now, because last year I was single at this time (and cripplingly depressed), and even though the holidays are upon us this year, I'm still not particularly in the spirit of things. I hate the soulless commercialism of Christmas. To me, the holidays have always been a time to spend with family and friends, and while I do have some friends out here, they don't stick around town for Christmas (they have their own families that they return to), and I don't have any family out here. I've not been back home for Christmas since 2005, and until 2010, the ex and I went to spend Christmas with her family in Kansas City -- which, most of the time, was a miserable experience for me after, say, day two of being trapped there. Her family liked me well enough, I suppose, but I would've much rather stayed home. Last year, I barely remember Christmas -- I believe I sat on my old couch in the living room and watched Arrested Development most of the day, which is something that's rather bittersweet now as it was given to me as a birthday gift by Andrea, and she and I are no longer friends; we haven't been on speaking terms since, oh, June or so.

This year, as you know, my parents (my mother especially) are dead set on flying me out to visit over Christmas. I think this is partially because they want to see me, and partially because they don't want me to spend the holiday alone again. I really don't particularly care if I spend the holiday alone; I'm not religious. I am, in fact, a hardcore atheist, and have been for many years. Therefore, Christmas is just another winter day for me. The only reason I celebrate it at all is because most of the people in my life celebrate it in one way or another. And I like getting presents. I feel guilty about that, but I do like getting presents.

I've not asked for anything this year from my parents; my mother sent me an email over the weekend, saying that since I'll probably be there on Christmas morning, she wants to know what I want so that she can get it for me and I can open gifts with her and my dad.

Um...

Okay.

Really, there's nothing that I need. I need money, but that's about it. Money isn't fun to open in a wrapped box with the family, and my parents have given me enough money over the past year in one form or another. I really have no need or want for anything else, really. The only other thing I need is a new laptop, as the one I have at school is about to die on me and is so slow and old that I can barely do any real work on it anymore when I'm on campus -- and I'm pretty sure Daisy got me one of those already during Black Friday sales, as she's terrible at keeping surprises under wraps and desperately wants to tell me, but I won't let her.

I replied to my mother's email and told her that she didn't have to worry about getting anything for me, that me visiting was enough. I also told her what I really needed, through no fault of her own, she couldn't get me. I'll need a high-paying job in about six months, for example. I'll need a new car when the Monte Carlo finally decides to die on me, whenever that may be. Anything else I might want would be just that -- a want -- and not a need. I want an Xbox 360. I want a new T-Mobile cell phone that's not horribly obsolete. But I don't need either of those things at all. In addition, I reminded her that anything they did end up getting me would have to be small enough to take back home on the plane in carry-on, otherwise they'd have to pay extra to ship it out here to me once I flew home. I don't check bags when I visit my folks; I don't need to. I take a backpack with me with about three outfits in it, my DS, and my mp3 player, and that's all I ever bring with me -- because that's all my backpack has room for and because it's all I need. To additionally ship something to me later makes getting me anything wholly inconvenient. I did tell her, however, that if she must get me something, to take me shopping while I'm there and I'll point out a few things to her, because I have a feeling that I'm not getting off the hook about this.

She's looking into plane tickets today, for a trip from the 21st to the 26th or so. That is about the maximum amount of time I can be gone anyhow with the cats left here and with the unpredictable winter weather both here and back home. Also, the five-day round trips are apparently cheaper than the three or four-day round trips, so if it saves her money I'm all for it. It's not cheap for me to fly back home to visit -- I believe my trip out there over Spring Break was about $400. That's the other reason I don't want my parents spending any more money on me for Christmas -- the trip itself is expensive enough.

Another part of it is that I'll be thirty years old; I no longer need my parents to get me anything for Christmas because I'm a grown, independent man. I'm not saying that to be prideful, but it's true. On some level, while I do enjoy getting presents, I am very aw shucks, you don't have to do anything for lil' ol' me about it. There's a feeling of guilt there, probably due to low self-esteem of some sort. Mind you, I always say I have high self-esteem, and for the most part I do, but I'm also much more critical of myself as a person, good or bad, than I am of other people, or compared to how other people think of me.

There's also the question of, if I'm going to be at my parents' for Christmas, when I'm going to spend time with Daisy and her own family over the holidays. This is very important, actually; I wasn't able to go to Omaha over Thanksgiving due to the sheer amount of work I had to do between that project and work for my students, and I've had an open invitation to come up and visit ever since Daisy and I first got together way back in July. Daisy's mother really wants to see me, and I adore her mother because she's always been incredibly sweet to me, but it seems like I keep blowing her family off -- which I'm not, of course, and that is totally not my intention at all -- it's just that every time I'm invited up for an event, something comes up or I am too busy to go. This does, of course, make me feel like an asshole -- especially when Daisy herself makes the drive down here at least twice a month, and sometimes more. It's as frustrating to me as it is to all of them, and it makes me seem like I don't want to meet them or spend time with them when that's anything but the truth. I do. Really I do. The trip out to my parents', though, if it happens, will more than likely take place over the actual holidays. This means I can see them before (which I'm not sure will be possible, based on the as-of-yet-unreleased final exam schedule, and the fact that I have my last class of the semester on the night of the 14th), or I can see them after -- when the holidays have all already passed. Neither option is incredibly ideal, but I'm sure Daisy and I will figure something out.

Speaking of that unreleased final exam schedule, I still haven't a clue when or where my students' exams will take place. Somebody told me that it was released last week sometime, but I haven't gotten any emails about it, and no one else has given me word one about any of it. I also haven't been in the department for a week because of the break, but usually the schedule of rooms/date/time is emailed to us at least twice. I haven't gotten that email (believe me, I check my gmail as well as my student email at least twice a day), so if it has been announced, I haven't heard anything about it. I already have my students asking me when and where it is, so hopefully I can find out today upon my return to campus this afternoon. On the plus side, I don't have any exams of my own this semester -- the Playwriting class doesn't have one, and the Surrealism class's last grade is the project I did this week. Next semester I won't have any final exams either, but I will have my comps to take in April so that I can graduate.

In other news, I turn 30 on December 20.

Most of you already know this; those of you close enough to me to read this blog on a regular basis already know how old I am and how little importance I usually put on birthdays, but this is a big one to me for some reason. I'm not sure why. I have no plans for my birthday and really don't want to have any -- especially if I'm flying out the next day to visit home. This year, my birthday comes almost a full week after the end of the semester, which means I'll have a bit of downtime to relax and to catch up on sleep before I make that trip home, if it happens. I made the joke to a few friends that all I want for my birthday is to go to Chuck E. Cheese's in a big group, get staggeringly drunk on the cheap beers they sell there, and eat pizza and play video games all night, but as fun as that would be, I don't think that'll happen. I also (obviously) can't spend my birthday with Daisy if I'm flying out early the next morning -- my mother always books me for the 6AM flights because it means I get to Pittsburgh around noon, and I like and want that -- so it looks like I'll be here at the house doing nothing on my birthday just because of how the days fall on the calendar.

For some reason, though, it's important to me. I've mentioned before that age 30 is the age where -- inexplicable to me -- I feel like I should be a man. Mind you, I've been a completely independent man with a house, a car, and a steady job for quite some time. I've had a variety of careers over the past several years, from lab technician to cashier to newspaper reporter to college instructor. I pay my own rent and bills, I pay for my own car repairs, maintenance, and insurance. I have two credit cards, which I pay off whenever I can. I can grow a hell of a beard. I am in a healthy, loving relationship with a fantastic woman who makes me feel very, very lucky. In almost every way, I've taken what I've been given in life and have "made do" with it. Yet, do I feel like the hypothetical, grown-up, 30-year-old man? Not really. Not even when Daisy calls me "old man" or "papi" because I have a rapidly receding hairline and occasionally get crotchety or cranky.

I've written here before that despite my age, I don't think I'll ever truly "grow up." It's not in my nature. I still have the sense of humor of a teenager, and will readily laugh at (and make) dick jokes. I still collect comic books and love them. Hell, as I write this, I'm wearing a vintage 20-year-old Batman Returns t-shirt. I still play Pokemon and am not ashamed about doing so (it's my one video game vice). Part of it isn't in my nature, and part of it is because of how I grew up -- my dad, for example, has been a rock musician his entire life, and still plays gigs even at the age of 62. My brother -- twelve years older than me and covered in tattoos -- does the same thing, and he has a wife and three kids. Both of them are also huge nerds, and are into the same things I'm into. My mother, while not exactly nerdy, has a deep (if hidden in recent years) appreciation for Star Trek, as she was the one who introduced me to the original series and TNG in the late 80s...and gave me my middle name, which we will not discuss here. If it wasn't for my mother, I would never have come to appreciate such series as The X-Files and Sliders, either. I am definitely a product of how I was raised and who was around me as I grew up -- and all of the important men in my life got older, yes, but none of them ever "grew up" either, at least not on the inside. Therefore, I don't think I ever will either. I am steadfast in carrying on the nerdy, never-grow-up tradition with my own children, when and if I have any, and while some of you may shudder at the thought of little Brandons running around, I can think of few things which would be more awesome.