Slow Normalization

I have rested, I have started to decompress, and I have (finally) started to feel a bit more at peace.

I will not lie -- Daisy was a big part of that. Despite my frustrated and antisocial tendencies (as exhibited in my previous post), I talked to Daisy for a long time yesterday afternoon and evening, and she helped me feel much, much better about my life and situation. She does, after all, tend to have that effect on me -- I mean, I'm going to marry the woman, so it's good that she can calm me down if I'm mentally starting to go off the deep end of anger and frustration at the world.

Although I did have to tell her several times (in a very joking fashion, of course) to "stop fucking crying, woman" because she was worried about me.

Mind you, I would never say that in seriousness to any woman, least of all my fiancee.

I'm okay. A lot of it was fatigue and stress, letting all the little things get to me. Some of it was probably hunger, as well -- perhaps that Snickers commercial that says "you're not yourself when you're hungry" is right. I ordered pizza yesterday afternoon and felt much better once I ate something that I didn't have to spend an hour cooking on the stove, and another hour washing the dishes/pots/pans for afterwards.

My Citi card bill came in the mail today; the billing period was from 3/7 to 4/5, which means that I did effectively skip a billing cycle on that (which is why the bill is just now getting here). The only thing on my statement, obviously, is Daisy's clothing that I purchased for her on 3/8, and the bill is not due until 5/3. I'll get it in the mail on Monday to be done with it.

I got paid yesterday, which is the other reason I ordered pizza -- I have a bit of money to spare right now, and I usually order about $40-50 worth of pizza at any given time when I get it (I usually get at least three pizzas, then freeze one entirely so that I can eat on it later when I don't want to cook). Ordering pizza also effectively cuts my grocery bill in half over any substantial two-week period, if not more. Ironically, it ends up saving me money. And I did feel much better after I ate and talked to Daisy -- maybe I needed some grease and cheese to right my body chemistry, or something.

Last night I also made my shopping trip to Walmart while it was still relatively warm outside (around 50 or so; it's 72 right now) and I got the stuff I needed around the house. Some of it I waited on; the cats have enough food and litter to last another week or more, and I have enough coffee to last about that much time as well. I did get some of the more ancillary things I kept forgetting to get, however, such as baking soda (for the laundry; it really works well for that when added to detergent in regular loads), dishwasher soap, and dandruff shampoo. Yeah, I know, I lead a really boring life, folks. Work, teach, come home, eat, sleep, grade, go to Walmart. Repeat every week. As I've said before, I'm on a first-name basis with the late-night cashier there, a sweet older lady, and she knows to expect me every week on Friday or Saturday night. She's even pretty close to memorizing the brand of cigarettes I get, though last night I admitted to her that I alternate between two brands depending on what's in stock (Liggett or Grand Prix).

At least it gets me out of the house for a little while, right?

Ahem. Anyway.

I have still not yet received any notification of my comps results, and at this point don't expect to until I return to campus next week. As stressful as it is to wait for them, I'm actually rather at peace with it -- they're not really on my mind that much because the actual exams are in the past. I've got other stuff to focus on over the course of the last few weeks of the semester. Most of my time this weekend will be devoted to grading through the stack of rewrites and new papers I collected on Thursday, and now that I've done my grocery shopping, I can also catch up on sleep and a bit of relaxation.

Daisy and I are discussing wedding plans -- or are trying to, anyway. She's been deeply researching themes, locations, and prices for everything over the course of the past two weeks or so. I've told her not to worry about it too much yet, as everything will fall into place as we get to it -- plus there's the added factor of me not yet knowing where I'll be or what I'll be doing after graduation. Hell, I still have a lot of stuff to take care of before I graduate; I can't even look ahead to what will happen past that point yet. When it comes to the aforementioned grading, I'll basically be grading a set of papers every weekend between now and the end of the semester -- this weekend I've got paper 2 and rewrites of paper 1, next weekend I have Proposals/Annotated Bibliographies to grade, the weekend after that I have workshop copies to go through, and the weekend after that is the end of the semester and I'll be finishing up the grading of their final papers before finals week. During finals week I'll grade their exams, and then at the end of finals week, I graduate. I make this point to tell you folks how detached I currently am from the whole "wedding plans" process. We've basically settled on the date at this point (though, again, I'm not giving that info out here because we may have to change it), but that's about it when it comes to our planning processes. Daisy is "wedding crazy," so to speak; looking up different stuff and throwing different ideas my way is what she spends most of her free time doing. Meanwhile, most of my free time is spent sleeping or grading. See the disconnect there, folks?

"What do you think about a destination wedding?" she asked me last night.

"Unless that destination is Las Vegas....no."

Daisy knows that my dream wedding is to be married in a cheesy chapel in Las Vegas by an Elvis impersonator. Either that or the Han Solo/Princess Leia costume wedding, solely so that I could finally have an excuse to purchase one of those expensive replica blaster pistols and wear it on my hip. Neither one of those scenarios is ever going to happen.

I also suggested the Firefly wedding, where I'd dress as a Browncoat (and give me yet another reason to wear a very expensive replica gun on my belt). Nope. Shot down there too. Sigh.

"This is our wedding," Daisy told me. "Can it please be serious, an actual wedding? It's the only one we get."

I can't really argue with that logic, though I can pout about it and grumble now and again on occasion.

Daisy has also told me that she wants to get me a "graduation present" of sorts, and that she was looking through my Amazon wish list and Christmas lists on there for ideas.

"Didn't you say you wanted an XBOX?" she asked. "I was thinking I could get you one of those, or something like that, just something that would let you relax and decompress. Something fun."

"Honey," I said, "save your money. Pay your bills. If you think we don't get enough time together now....well, if you got me an XBOX and I hooked it up to my TV in the living room, you'd never see me again."

As much as I'd love a 360, it won't serve me much purpose at this point in my life -- I don't have time to play it. My old, original XBOX sits hooked up to my TV in the corner of my Man Cave, and I haven't even turned it on since January. I've got great games for it, too -- I just never play it.

"Plus, the only games I really play anymore are the Pokemon games," I said, "and not only does the next one not come out until October, but it's 3DS only -- which I don't have."

I've reiterated to Daisy a number of times that I don't need her to do anything for me, and yet I know how much she wants to. I'm sure it frustrates her on some level. I don't want for much out of life, really. I'm fine with what I've got. I have plenty of clothes (more than I need, really), I have enough electronics, most of which I barely use, as well as a massive stack of movies and TV series on DVD that I have still not yet watched. More than that, I have food, a decent car (well, decent enough), quite adequate shelter, and enough money to last me comfortably for some time. Really, there's nothing I need or really want -- it's the same conundrum Daisy had when she was looking for stuff to get me for my birthday/Christmas.

She also said that her parents want to do a big fancy-dinner-thing for me once I get up there for a few days after graduation, though I do not yet know what that will entail. Again I told her not to worry about it until the time comes closer, since all of us have so much to do between now and then. Daisy herself had to do some big-time finagling to even get the days off to come down here for my graduation, and to be able to have me spend a few days up there in Omaha in the interim between her shifts. Even with that, it's a lot of driving and time on the road for her -- well, for both of us, really, but for her and her car. As you may know, I've basically been told that I'm not allowed to take my own car to Omaha and back because it's falling apart -- not that I would trust it for that much driving anyhow without at least two new tires, a total oil and fluids flush/change/filters change, and a $300 fix to my wheel bearing that's been loud and really rumbly for the past year. Not to mention that if I really wanted to be able to trust that car for an incredibly long drive, I'd definitely want to get the brakes/rotors/shocks replaced as well. Make no mistake, whenever I move out of the area I'm either going to spend a lot of money on one last-ditch effort to repair all of the old parts on that car before they fail -- in order to squeeze another year or three of use out of it -- or I'm going to get another car and (sadly) junk my baby. If I can't afford either one, then I suppose I'll have to hook it up to the back of a U-Haul and tow it wherever I end up, driving it once I get there until it finally dies.

As you folks know, I try hard to take care of that car. I love my Monte Carlo. And after all the money and work I put into her, she's in relatively stable mechanical shape. But I do know she won't last forever. There are few inanimate objects that I've ever truly loved; that car is one of them. I love that car so much that I've told Daisy that once she dies, I will immediately be searching for another Monte Carlo around the same age (but hopefully in much better condition).

So, that's what's been going on. I'm going to spend the next several hours grading papers before going to bed, and then I'll be getting up tomorrow to continue that process. Hopefully, if I'm lucky, I'll finish tomorrow and will have Monday all to myself to relax and continue my decompression. If not, well, there's an extra day to make sure everything's finished up.