I went to bed Sunday night around 3AM, and told Daisy (via message) that before she went to bed in the morning she needed to call and make an appointment for us at the hair place. She told me she hadn't forgotten, and that she would do so before she came to bed. She also told me to make sure she got up with me whenever I awoke, regardless of what time it was, since she didn't have to work that night and we had our errands to run. I awoke around 9:30 -- Daisy doesn't even get off work until 7:30, which means she doesn't get to bed until 8:30. This, essentially, meant that she got a short one hour of actual sleep -- a nap. She told me when I woke her up that the hair appointment was at 11:30, for both of us.
The place Daisy wanted to take us -- and the reason we couldn't just go get our haircuts at, say, Walmart -- is a beauty school in Omaha named Capitol. She's gotten her hair done there because it's inexpensive ($8), and because of her long, flowing curls, she can't get anyone else who actually knows how to cut her hair correctly without making it look awful. At Capitol, at least, the students there have their instructors working with them and helping them out, training them on-the-job.
Me? I just wanted the classic "short back and sides," which is the standard adult male's haircut. I suppose, anyway. I wanted this because it leaves it a little bit longer on top, where my hair tends to grow at a slower rate. I made the joke that my hair has always grown in like a natural mullet -- much faster and longer in the back, but the top and sides grow in slowly. I figured even at a beauty school, the students would know what a short back and sides cut was, with a fade going up from about 1/2 an inch at the bottom to 2 inches at the top. Apparently not -- when I described to my stylist what I wanted, in as much plain-English detail as possible, she went to get her instructor.
By sheer luck, her instructor had the exact hairstyle I wanted.
"Make me look like you," I told him.
And they did. Over the course of an hour, I was meticulously shampooed, cut, trimmed, and clipped by both of them, as he gave her instruction on what to do and how to do it. This was the result:
I took that photo yesterday morning before my "interview" with the paper. I could've done most of this haircut by myself here at home with my clippers, but I could not have left the length on the top with them. I needed to look professional, not like a skinhead or cancer patient.
Daisy, meanwhile, got about two inches trimmed off of her own hair so that it keeps growing in healthily and with good length/minimal split-ends or breakage. She doesn't want to cut her hair again in any drastic fashion until after the wedding, which makes me very happy. I love Daisy's long hair. It's gorgeous, and a deep reddish auburn that scatters light and makes it look like it's about three different colors at any given time. Because she didn't have a massive undertaking in her own haircut, however, Daisy was finished in about twenty minutes, while my own cut took over an hour.
On the plus side, I look respectable again. As much as it hurts me to say that -- I've made an image of myself as the burly woodsman with the long, hippie hair and beard. Granted, I probably could've gone into the newspaper this morning without worries had I not shaven or gotten a haircut, but I didn't do it for the newspaper -- I did it, as mentioned before, in case I get Skype interviews for teaching positions or other positions I've applied for. And, again, because it's damned hot in Kansas in the summer.
After we were done, Daisy's heartburn was acting up (she's supposed to take a pill twice a day for it, and it acts up like crazy when she hasn't slept a lot), so we came back home to the house to wait and let it die down before going to eat. This pushed our lunch back to about 2:30-3 or so, and therefore by the time we'd finished eating and came home, I knew we both wouldn't necessarily be hungry for any dinner. We did, eventually, eat leftovers, before Daisy went back to sleep. She told me not to let her sleep all night, so I didn't -- I was planning to let her sleep until midnight or so, though she got up around 9:30. I don't remember what we did that night, really, though I remember falling asleep on the couch at some point.
The problem with visiting Daisy for an extended period of time isn't in the being social and/or being away from home -- more than anything else, it's her bed. She has a full-size bed that's lifted off the floor pretty high. I have a king-size bed that's much lower to the floor. Neither I nor Daisy are small people -- this makes sharing a full-size bed, when I'm there, difficult at times, in addition to the fact that her bed is so much different than mine is that all I have to do is lay on it for thirty seconds and immediately my back starts killing me. This isn't a joke; every time I sleep on Daisy's bed, when I awaken it's not because I'm no longer tired, but because my back hurts so badly that I can no longer sleep through the pain. This also means that I don't get much sleep when I'm in Omaha, and tend to fall asleep anywhere I can recline without my back hurting me. I had to take several naps on the couch while I was there simply because it didn't hurt. I don't have this problem at home -- my bed is worn in enough and my body is used to it enough to where it doesn't hurt me at all, and I think over the years I've grown so accustomed to it that I can't sleep comfortably anywhere else. It takes great effort to get any true sleep when I visit back home in West Virginia, as well, even though I slept on the bed there in my room for ten years. Therefore, when I went to sleep while I was in Omaha, it was either passing out on the couch or running myself into sheer exhaustion just to be able to pass out and sleep on the bed that my back hates.
Can't really do anything about it, of course. By Tuesday, my back was hurting me so badly that it was hard to move. I didn't tell Daisy because I didn't want her to feel bad, and I also didn't want her to think that I was being a whiner about it.
Daisy's parents returned on Tuesday night, right as I woke up from a nap (in that bed, of course). With them came Daisy's sister and her two little boys, one of them the baby who had just been christened that weekend. I hadn't seen Daisy's sister since Christmas, and this was also the first time I got to see the little baby, which I held and talked to for a long time. He's a cutie.
As I got up, wincing in back pain, Daisy asked me how I slept.
"Horribly," I said. "I can't get any real sleep on your bed. It's not your fault, babe. It's my back."
It was somewhere around this point that she realized that I hadn't slept well at all the entire time I had been in Omaha. No, it wasn't her fault, of course, and she knew I found her bed uncomfortable, but again I'd been hiding just how much it hurt my back. She'd given me massages and had done everything she could to make me feel better, but by that night, shortly after awakening, my back was seizing and spasming a lot worse than it had been in previous days, and I really couldn't hide it that much when it hurt so bad I had trouble sitting up and walking.
"Do you just want to pack up and go tonight?" she asked me.
"Yes," I replied immediately.
We'd planned to leave on Wednesday morning anyhow; that had always been the plan since we got there. Daisy had asked if I wanted to stay longer, because the rest of the family was coming back into town over the course of the rest of the week (just like they did when I was up there after graduation) and if it hadn't been so hot here in Newton, with me constantly worrying about the cats, I probably would have -- bed and back problems be damned. However, in Newton on Tuesday, the temperature reached 106 -- probably close to a record for that day -- and I was desperately worried about the cats being able to stay cool and having enough water. We'd also been gone for six days at that point, as well.
"Okay, we can do that," she said. "I just worry about you and your back, and I want you to actually be able to sleep without being in pain."
The parents and her sister/the kids went to bed shortly thereafter -- they'd been on the road since 8AM -- and we had our mutual friend over for homemade pretzels after all of them went to sleep. After said friend left, we packed everything up and left the house around 3AM. Neither of us were incredibly tired; Daisy is used to being up at night because of her job, and she napped with me that afternoon as well. We were both awake and wired, and there was no reason to wait until the morning -- when we'd have to drive in the sun and the heat -- to get back to Newton. It's also much easier to make the trip in the night as well, simply because there's no traffic and it's a more peaceful drive. I told Daisy that at least in the summer, we should do this on a regular basis. It makes the trip seem much shorter, and it's a lot more comfortable. You don't want to drive at night in the winter, though, because that sucks.
We arrived back here in Newton around 9AM or so. It was sweltering in the house, but not as bad as I expected it to be. It was nice downstairs, though the temperature upstairs was easily 95 degrees. I immediately clicked on the AC and let it run all day long. Daisy went to sleep shortly after we got home, and I made sure the cats were okay. Of their food, they'd emptied one of the two large bowls and had eaten half of the other, and they'd drank three of the four water bowls dry.
Also -- and here's where the title of these posts come in -- they'd left the cat room and their litter pans so destroyed and utterly a wreck that I'm sure, if they were human, their actions could be tried as war crimes. They were certainly crimes against humanity, the "humanity" in question being me, their owner and master. It took me forty-five minutes to clean the mess they'd made in the cat room and restore it to normal, during which Pete kept trying to charge the bathroom door to get in before it was done.
Yeah, that's seriously why I titled these three posts "War Crimes." I dragged out a joke for three posts. You're welcome, America.
Daisy awakened that evening; I napped for a little while with her, but not too long, and let her sleep until she woke up. When she did, I made her a waffle so she wouldn't be hungry, gave her a bag of the ketchup chips to take home, and she left before it got dark. I waited until she got home safely before going to bed for the night, finally. I slept for at least ten or eleven hours with the cats lovingly cuddling me, with the fan blowing on me at full blast, and without back pain.
Since then, life has basically returned to normal here in Kansas; it's still hot, I still have to cook and clean, pay bills and go shopping, but at least I got out of this house and out of the state for a few days. Yesterday, as you know, I went over to the paper for the "interview," and ran a few errands around town (including stopping at the smoke shop up the street). I paid my credit card bill, which is good, because between the smoke shop and $40 of pizza I ordered last night because I didn't want to go grocery shopping, I put another $90 on the balance. Today I'll pay most of my other credit card bill and try to sleep through the heat -- it is, again, supposed to be about 100 today before it cools down into the 80s again and (hopefully) rains/storms from Sunday through Wednesday. In the meantime, I'll more than likely be working on stories for the paper if they come in, which will keep me busy enough and give me a reason to get up every day.
I also sent an email to the English department chair, asking for updates on adjuncting, dropping off my keys (if necessary) and what the budget situation for the fall is like (read: if I'll be able to do the Engineering English class stuff or not). He replied that enrollment is low, but since I'm golden in his eyes and the eyes of the department, I'm at the top of the list for adjuncting work for the fall, and that we can talk about the future of the Engineering English program when I come back to pick up my diploma in another week or two. This is promising, at least, on some level. Again, adjuncting isn't exactly great money, but it's leaps and bounds above what I'll make writing stringer stories at the paper, and it's usually more than I made as a GTA. I told him I'd take on as many classes as necessary -- my schedule is basically wide open, and even if I don't get a lot of sleep during the fall, at the very least I'll be doing something I know how to do, something I like to do, and something that will give me enough money to live on while I continue to search for more reliable employment.
"What happens if you get a job offer while you're adjuncting in the fall?" Daisy asked me.
"Well, that depends on what you mean by a 'job offer' and how much they'd pay," I said. "I can't just up and leave in the middle of the semester, especially if I'm helming four or five classes."
I really can't. There's no backup plan for that sort of thing; if I have full sections, which I may, the department couldn't shuffle around 100 or more students into other instructors' classes. No, if I adjunct in the fall, I'm locked in there from August through December. I told Daisy that unless it was some sort of $50k a year or more, guaranteed position, in which I would have immense job security...there's little I could do after the semester starts. And even then, if they really wanted me, I'd more than likely tell them that I couldn't start until January. I simply can't leave the university (as well as all of those students) hanging, with no recourse, after the semester has started. Not only would leaving be poor form and immensely irresponsible, it would more than likely burn bridges with the higher-ups at the university -- people who all adore me now -- and those bridges would more than likely be unable to be rebuilt. I have more respect for my university, my students, and my colleagues within the department than that.
It's reached that weird point of summer where I'm not sure how much job searching I could, or should, actually still be doing -- especially since so much is still hanging in the air. Again, I no longer have time to relocate, really, to start teaching across the country in August -- not unless I was offered an amazing position with incredible pay. Any other position, if they contact me and want me between now and August, I almost have to tell them that at this juncture, if they want me, they'd have to defer that employment to the spring semester in January -- even at my fastest there isn't really any conceivable way I could get this place packed and move out of here, cats and car in tow, to anywhere with enough time to start teaching next month. I just couldn't.
Daisy's mother told me some good advice: "If you get an offer, just pack up and go, and deal with the little stuff later."
I can do that for some positions; I can't do it for others. If I got a job offer in Omaha somewhere, for example, I know I could stay with Daisy and her family during the week and come back down here on weekends to pack up everything that I could bit by bit, get a place in Omaha when I could, and Daisy and I would be fine. It would be rough and I'd barely ever rest, but I could do it. It would suck to leave the cats for many days at a time while I was up there working, and only get to see them/take care of them on weekends, but it could be done. That's about the only feasible scenario, though, and I'll remind you that nowhere in Omaha seems interested in my credentials and skillset, save for the place that wanted to pay me $8 per hour for four hours a day.
Indeed, it is at that time of summer where I have no idea what I should be doing next, if anything. So much is up in the air once again. I have the position at the paper, one that may open me up once more to a full reporter position, but that's a big if. I have the opportunity, more than likely, to adjunct at the university this fall, but that's also an if. I have no time to relocate for anywhere but close jobs without a lot of money, help, or both. So, what should I do? Anything? Should I even be looking for applying for anything anymore at this point until, say, mid-September? I don't know. With so many balls in the air, any of them could fall back down and land me something, or they could all fall down and land me nothing. And, unless I apply for teaching positions that won't start for another six months, as I said, it's too late for anything else. If I adjunct, anything I'd apply for now, even if I were to get it, I wouldn't be able to do. If I don't adjunct, I have to begin applying for other positions in Omaha and keep applying for teaching positions for the spring. It's totally a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.
My plan is, really, to lay low for another week or two. If I notice a good position, regardless of what it is, I'll apply for it, but I can't really actively seek out stuff over these next two weeks until I know what's going to happen a little more clearly. Once I know that and can figure things out a little better, I'll be able to better plan my next steps.
In the meantime? It's 4AM here, which means that it's cool enough downstairs to be able to go to bed and actually sleep. Today is Saturday, so I really don't care when or how late I get up. Daisy works for the next three nights in a row, so she'll be sleeping during the day as well, and I will...well, just be here. Possibly writing newspaper articles. Possibly sweating a lot in the heat. Possibly running errands, paying bills, and grocery shopping. But, I'll be here, safe and sound, in Newton.
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