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That's as good of a title for this post as any, right?

Okay. I have a lot to write about, actually. I'm trying to sort out my thoughts.

Those of you who read my blog on a regular basis will realize that there are a few posts missing from this week, posts which were written, put on here, and have since been deleted. There's a reason for that, obviously, which I will get into more as this post goes on.

Truthfully, I find tricky situations hard to write about. Situations in which I'm not sure what to think. I tend not to write about those things, those situations, until everything has been hashed out and can come to a, ahem, natural conclusion. I have had a really strange week (and an even stranger past 36 hours or so), and I don't exactly know how to put a lot of my feelings into words, especially those of the past 36 hours. So. I will start, I suppose, and see what I can work my way through. Perhaps I'll surprise myself.

Those of you who have read this blog over the past week will know that I've been in contact with a girl I met on OkCupid, a girl who, in this blog's since-deleted posts, I gave the codename of Daisy. She and I became close rather quickly. That I will admit, and it is probably my fault. I tend to get close to people quickly. I like getting to know the ins and outs of a person. I like exploring another's mind, and letting them explore mine. All of this deep, mental exploration took place between the two of us over the course of eight days.

Daisy is a very, very sweet girl. I can't say that enough. She intrigues me, she fascinates me on multiple levels. Getting to know her, as I've told her this past week, is like putting together a metaphorical puzzle in my head. Everything I learn about her locks another piece of that puzzle into place. Getting to know someone on an intellectual level is soothing. It's sweet. It's interesting. It's something I like to do. It's something that is important to me, as in the past I've been, ahem, burned by not finding out as much as I can about a person that I may enter into a relationship with. While I have always been on OkCupid for social interaction and friend-making, yes, I am also on there to see if I can find that one person who will accept me as I am, with all my faults and foibles, with all of my extraneous problems (shitty car, very little money, hoping for the best after grad school, etc), the person who will tell me those things aren't important right now, or ever, because they want me.

On some level, because I have those hopes (as small as they may be, and getting smaller and smaller the more jaded and depressed I become with the caliber of people on that site most of the time) I open myself up a little too much too soon, I think. As most of you know, I am an open book about damn near anything. You ask me a question and I'll answer it truthfully. Honesty is important, and I have absolutely nothing to hide. Never have. What you see is what you get with me.

However.

As much as I don't like to admit it, I have changed a lot in the past year or so. From the end of my almost-seven-year relationship with my former girlfriend and subsequently adapting my lifestyle to living alone for the first time in my life (and learning how sad/lonely it is to come home every night to an empty house) to the brief, passionate, but ultimately disastrous relationship I had with Lady earlier this year -- all of it has made me a bit more guarded when it comes to matters of the heart. As open as I am, as friendly and honest as I am, and as close as I'll get to anyone who allows me to, there's always a part of me now who will metaphorically hold someone at arm's length. It's not because I don't trust said person -- most of the time I implicitly trust everyone until proven that I shouldn't -- but it's because I've been hurt and burned in the past if I don't. Call it a defense mechanism, call it what you will, but most of the time I no longer wear my heart on my sleeve. Instead, it is under chains, lock and key, in my chest.

With Daisy, for some reason, it was a bit different. I wasn't as cautious or guarded. I didn't feel that I needed to be. She's fun, she's sweet, endlessly inquisitive and intriguing, and multifaceted to a level where I'm not sure I could figure her out entirely given the rest of my life to do so. These are all positives, mind you. She said our interactions are almost like she's my research project, the one that I endlessly try to understand fully. To a certain extent, she's right. She's still right. And over the course of the past...nine days now, the more we talked, the more we interacted (including a six-and-a-half-hour video call on Skype on Friday night, and a three-hour one last night) the more I could see myself with her. The more I became comfortable with the idea. The more I began to imagine us together, as a couple, as two people together. As much as that thought should have scared me, especially after everything I've been through in the past, it didn't. It soothed me. It was a good thought, a calming thought. There was a mutual attraction, a mutual infatuation, and for a brief time over these past nine days, we sort of solidified our attachment to one another. It wasn't given a definition, it wasn't labeled, it wasn't anything more than "yes, we want each other," and we both made note of it on our OkCupid profiles that our romantic interests were otherwise engaged, but we were both happy to make new friends. That's as far as it went.

I gave her the link to this blog earlier this week. She reads it a lot. She's told me that she wants to read it all, which on some level is very, very sweet and on another somewhat frightening to me as the writer of it, as I don't remember what I've written here since its revamp a year ago, and my mind can go to some pretty depressing, dark places at times. But, I thought, oh well. If she wants to get to know me, the REAL me, this blog is probably the best way for her to do so, for her to get inside my head and learn intimately what I've been through. Her mother and at least one sister wanted to read my blog as well, and she asked my permission if they could.

"Of course," I said. "Show it to anyone you want, dear; I'm not ashamed of it, or anything like that. If anything, if they're suspicious of my character or intentions, the blog should show them that I'm just a normal guy with nothing to hide. My own parents read the blog, regularly."

She told me last night that they'd read it, the latest posts anyway (which, ahem, have since been deleted) and that at least one or two friends had read it. She told me that her mother and sister had poked fun at her codename of "Daisy," which I found incredibly cute. She also said it seemed to allay any big apprehensions they had about me, in a way, since I was more than willing to let them read the blog. Well, yeah, of course. I don't mind it at all. It's like word therapy for me to write here; it lets me sort out all of my thoughts. Anyone who reads this blog for long enough will know exactly who I am as a person, inside and out. So yes, go nuts. I'm actually flattered that anyone's interested in what I write, really. I can at times be a pretty boring person.

Everything was going well. We were getting closer and closer, letting each other know one another's most intimate thoughts, having long, detailed conversations face-to-face (or as face-to-face as two people can do over Skype, anyhow). We told each other our life stories. I even told her about the times I'd seen UFOs (yes, this has happened, and I may write about it here at some point) and I never tell anyone those stories, despite how interesting they are. We were so comfortable and relaxed talking to one another, despite the distance between us -- 200 miles or so.

And then it sort of...fell apart? I don't know how to describe it, really.

I received this message from her last night, after we'd signed out of Skype, as I was getting ready to go to bed. Parts of it, of course, have been redacted to protect privacy. Obviously.

...No, you know what? I'm not going to quote any of it here. There's no reason to. I don't want to, and it wouldn't be right to do so. Those things are between us and are private.

Basically it was a very long message telling me that there was some sort of switch that flipped in her mind last night, a switch that once flipped told her that we weren't right for one another, that we shouldn't be together, that she had a strong flight instinct and that she was sorry, she didn't think she'd find what she did in me and...yeah, stuff like that.

It definitely took me by surprise, that's for sure.

I realized at that moment that I had not held Daisy at arm's length, staying guarded, but perhaps only at half arm's length. If that makes sense. Maybe a quarter arm's length. Slightly guarded but still open enough to let myself be hopeful, to let myself get a little hurt. Not a lot, just a little.

Daisy always told me that she lives in great fear of hurting anyone for any reason. She never wants to do it, she tries never to do it. She also admitted to me in her long message that she knew on some level it would hurt me and apologized profusely about that, saying that if I wanted to now cut her out of my life and not be friends anymore, she'd completely understand, etc.

Of course, I don't.

Truthfully I was more confused than anything else. To a large extent I still am, even though in that message and a few subsequent ones she's explained her thoughts as well as she can, with promises that we'll talk more about them tonight. I don't know if she's second-guessing herself, trying to run away, trying to figure herself out, or if we simply got too close too fast.

I did say this to her, and I will quote myself because it is, indeed, myself:

That said, there will always be a part of me that will think that I've said or done something wrong here that screwed things up, even though I'm not sure whether I really have or not. Like I said, this is a bit of a sudden surprise, of course, when things were going so well (at least from what I could tell).

What happens now is up to you; if you want to remain friends, that's fine, and if not, that's fine too. I certainly don't want to shut you out of my life, or anything like that, unless that's what you want. And, indeed, if you truly do and don't want to say it, believe me, I understand. It's okay.

I wish I knew what else to say. I'm sorry too. Don't worry about it, [Daisy]; it's fine. 

Truthfully, my head is a mess of thoughts right now. I don't know what Daisy wants, not entirely. I don't even know if she knows. I don't know what I expect our conversation tonight to entail. There are so, so many variables in play, especially when, in my head, I was beginning to get comfortable, beginning to think our a possible future with her, even if it was mostly (read: almost entirely) fantasy on my part. We'd discussed bits and pieces of it, things that could or may have happened were we to progress and explore things further. We talked about living situations, and where I may be in a year's time; she talked about how she had, on a whim (and if only briefly) looked up places to work in my area. We were at least thinking about these things, even if in a passive fashion. She could see herself with me as much as I could see myself with her. I know this because she told me, several times. I also know it because in her own journal (which I will not link to here, obviously) she wrote it herself.

I'm not sure if that makes things easier or more difficult to deal with, honestly.

Mainly because I don't know what happened.

I do know that Daisy is indecisive and flighty, and I accepted that from the beginning. Hell, she told me that herself, and I accepted it. It's endearing and cute. I also know that above all, she is honest -- sometimes painfully so. And she'd made a commitment to whatever "we" were, briefly, that she found that she couldn't uphold, whether it was something she wanted to uphold and couldn't or whether it was something she realized she out-and-out did not want. Perhaps she had what alcoholics refer to as "a moment of clarity," and realized that we weren't going to work, or perhaps it was her indecision and flightiness kicking in again -- something she told me happens from time to time. Regardless, I don't know. I'm trying my best to, ahem, deal with it in the only ways I can. I'm not going to delete her from my life or anything like that, of course. For all I know, last night could've been a passing, fleeting flighty feeling (wow, say that three times fast). She is a sweet girl, a complex one, one who I realize that I am lucky to have in my life in any capacity, friend or otherwise. Even if she is over 200 miles away. I may try to "delete" former love interests out of my life, but I certainly don't delete friends or people who are important to me.

So really, I'm sort of torn. I'm not sure what to do, not sure what to say. My friend Zedral, who I've been friends with for about ten years, friended Daisy on Facebook this morning, and told me that if she wanted to talk, she'd be Daisy's listening ear. I relayed the message to Daisy as well. Few people know me better than Zedral, except for my parents and Andrea.

That's where things stand now. I guess I'll find out what'll happen, at some point, if anything.

I have an interesting life, don't I folks?

Quality Time

Four more days until I get paid. Sigh.

Yesterday and today have both been very hot in ye olde Newton, Kansas. It's barely afternoon now, and it's already 88 degrees. Last night, before I passed out, it was still 84 at 3AM. As I told my mother in an email this morning, I suppose summer's here. Ugh.

Don't get me wrong, I like summer. I do. Usually, it's pretty nice. Kansas summers, however, for the past two years running, have been awful. Any of you who live in the area will recall that last summer it was over 100 degrees for about ninety days in a row or something like that, with most days reaching 110 or so. If I wanted that, I may as well move to Arizona, New Mexico, or Texas.

And people say climate change isn't real, isn't happening. Sure it's not. Suuuure.

Vancouver is nice this time of year, right?

Ahem. Anyway.

I called home yesterday and wished my dad a happy Father's Day. I didn't mention to either of my parents (who both read this blog, actually -- sometimes more frequently than others) what I'd written here yesterday morning. I figured it was already stuff both of them knew anyway, and stuff that they'd either read or gloss over during this coming week regardless.

Tomorrow night, of course, I teach my one-night-a-week summer class. Tomorrow is the halfway point of the summer semester. The class ends on July 24, which is the night they'll turn in their last papers and take the final exam. I like teaching the class, yes, though at times it can be a pain in the ass. My students, for the most part, are incredibly attentive and hardworking. This I was able to discern yesterday morning when, after I finished my blog post here, I spent about two hours or so (since most of them were good, that's all it took) to grade through their first papers. I was impressed, really. Only a few of them weren't that great, but out of a class of 25? That's a great track record.

They'll receive their papers back tomorrow night. In 100-degree weather, in a stuffy room in Maize. Yaaaaay. Can't you just feel my enthusiasm about driving down there to teach in this heat? And I know, of course, it'll only get worse between now and the end of the summer semester.

Luckily, my car is filled with gas, and I was able to put more air in the tires (they're wearing out badly, and obviously I can't afford to replace them right now), so as long as I can keep the thing running and not blow any tires, I should be fine for the time being. My dad suggested I put fix-a-flat in the tire that keeps going low, to see if that helps. It might, but truthfully, it's just worn out. As I've said before, the car is a 1996 model, and as far as I know it may still have its original factory tires on it. They're not bald or anything; they have a decent amount of tread left, but they're really old and starting to dry-rot, I think. This is, of course, not good. I have to hope my luck holds out...and as you folks know, I tend to have fairly shitty luck most of the time.

In other news, OkCupid interactions seem to get more interesting by the day. I have made a few friends on there, but nothing more. There is one woman, however, who has definitely piqued my interest. Just one. I've mentioned her here before, briefly, in my last post. I am intrigued with her. She's one of the most fascinating, multifaceted people I've (n)ever met. Many layers to this one. Many things to observe, many things to get to know, to slowly glean from conversations and interactions. This is a new and very, very interesting situation, to be sure. However, we're not exactly close to one another distance-wise. Like, at all. Which makes the situation even more interesting by limiting it in scope for the time being. Perhaps sometimes, sometimes, normality is overrated. And sometimes, cautiousness must be mostly thrown to the wind in order to see things from all perspectives.

I realize I'm sounding cryptic. That's intentional.

So. That's about all that's going on right now. Looks like I can go back to sweating and drinking lots of ice water in order to keep some semblance of cool as the temperature keeps rising (keeps rising! at 5PM!) as we go into the evening hours.

Father's Day

So, it's Father's Day, I suppose? Yeah, I guess it is.

Eh.

Those of you who know me well know that I don't have a relationship with my father; he and I have not spoken in twenty years, though that wasn't of my choice (obviously). My parents divorced in 1987, my father remarried in 1989 and had three girls with his new wife -- only one of whom (my oldest sister, born in 1991) am I in contact with, and only via Facebook. I love my sisters, even though they've never really known me, but as for my father? Eh. He's never really been a part of my life for 2/3 of it at this point, for reasons pretty much unknown to me. I used to resent, when I was younger, the fact that he cut me out of his life, but over the past ten years or so I've become mostly indifferent to it. I'll probably never know truly why he did, nor does it really matter to me -- I still grew up, I still became a respectable, well-rounded, normal guy with no real issues and no real need for him to be in my life anyway -- though there are multiple, myriad reasons for that.

My "dad," the man who raised me, has been my mother's partner for almost twenty years. The two of them have never married, but he took on the father-figure role in my life early, though that was never his intention -- in fact, he's told me that he never tried to be a father to me, never set rules with me or made waves because he knew he wasn't my father (and more than likely, didn't want me to see him as domineering or actively trying to fill that role), and that's true. He really didn't; he didn't see it as his "place" to do so. Instead, I took him on as a father figure, as a dad, because I wanted to. I looked up to him. I admired him. I still do, very much. My "dad" has been more of a father to me than anyone else ever could have been. It is from him who I have garnered my sense of humor, my love of comics (and continued love of reading in general) and my interest in music -- as well as my interest in playing it. He taught me how to build and fix computers, and taught me the ins and outs of the internet in its very early years. If I ever had a "guy problem" I could ask him about it, and always receive an honest answer. He taught me how to be a good person, a caring person, and an upstanding man just as much as my mother did, even if he doesn't think so or is supremely humbled by that thought when I've told him that's the case. I have more love and respect for my dad than he, or most people, will ever know. I've been lucky in this respect; many others have not had it so lucky if their biological father hasn't been present in their lives. I could've had it much worse. I will, of course, be calling him this morning to tell him happy Father's Day.

Father's Day also fills me with other thoughts as well. I'll be turning thirty this year. It is not something that I particularly look forward to. Most people have some sort of dramatic life shift when they turn thirty. I always thought (or at least, always hoped) that by the time I was thirty I would be married and would be a father myself. I never thought that was too lofty of a goal, though by my mid-twenties I realized that it would be -- my girlfriend in my mid-20s (now ex, obviously) never wanted to get married, and absolutely never wanted any kids, ever, everever. Because of this, and because I loved her, I put aside both of those desires for the duration of our relationship. It was the only thing I could do, really, if I wanted to be with her -- and at the time I did. This was, perhaps, a mistake on my part. Not staying together for as long as we did, of course (I don't really assign blame there on either party, really), but trying to lie to myself that these things weren't important to me in the grand scheme of things. It was only later, after we broke up, that I realized what I'd suppressed for the more than six years I was with her -- especially once I saw my friends getting happily married and happily having children. Instead of feeling happy for them, feeling congratulatory, I just felt depressed, sad for myself that I'd wasted so much time not doing what I wanted to do with my life, what I really wanted to do.

That part, of course, is my fault. My ex once asked me the question of why, if I felt the way I did, why did I stay with her?

Because I loved you, I replied.

Love will make you do some really strange things. It'll make you sacrifice a lot of things you once held dear, or put those things on the back burner and not think about them in favor of looking at all the positives of a situation. Despite being a borderline pessimist about many, many things, I've always been an optimist when it comes to relationships. The good outweighs the bad in most cases. In the case of that ex, there wasn't a whole lot of bad (when we were happy, that is), so I focused on the good and overlooked or ignored everything else.

When it came to Lady? I thought I was going to marry her.

I'm not kidding when I say that. We'd talked about it. A lot. We'd planned our future together. I'd planned where I was going to go and what I was going to do with my life after grad school around the best places to go, work, and start our family. We were both all for it and couldn't wait; I wrote about those possible moves/places here on the blog. I did not, of course, mention anything about why I was making those plans, though to most people who knew us (like Andrea and Shainna, and more than likely my parents) it was pretty obvious that those were the reasons behind my/our plans. I was planning to propose shortly after the new year, and we'd already gone to look at and price rings twice; once in West Virginia when she was there with me over Spring Break, and again on Easter Weekend. Again, not kidding.

When the relationship with Lady dissolved, obviously I was heartbroken. It was incredibly hard for me to process; I was in shock more than anything else. And not shock like "wow, that came out of nowhere, I'm surprised!" No, the kind of shock people's bodies go into after a grievous injury. That's why I waited so long to really talk about it or write about it here. I didn't know what to think, or even, really, how I felt aside from suddenly sad and directionless. Something like that really messes with your psyche whether you want it to or not. It makes you question everything about yourself, makes you wonder if there's something wrong with you. Lady and my other ex were the only two serious relationships I've ever had in my life, and both relationships ended because the women involved left me, decided that they were done with me. Therefore, I can't help but wonder if I am somehow fundamentally flawed or broken in a way that I can't see myself, but others can. Those are the kinds of questions that will keep a man awake in the middle of the night.

I know everyone goes through stuff like this, though -- I'm not in the least unique in that regard -- especially by my age. Most experience it at a younger age, though, and can easily shrug it off or forget about it by the time they find someone else to begin dating. I'm so inexperienced in dealing with real relationships, though; I've only had two when most people I know have had five, ten, or more by my age (unless they married their first true love). Does it build character to have experiences like this? Possibly. Who knows. Most would probably say yes. But do I want to build character from horribly depressing experiences? No, of course not. I'd much rather build it from positive ones. Wouldn't most people?

That's not always how it goes though, is it? And that's the sad part.

Again, in a perfect world, in my mind, by the time I approached age thirty I figured I'd be happily married with children, and I figured that my kids would be waking me up this morning with some goofy/sappy homemade card and an attempt at breakfast in bed. That's why days like Father's Day are a little bittersweet to me. I know now that I'll at least be 35 by the time this may actually happen (y'know, to give the kids time to actually comprehend actions like this), and that's if it started now. Which, despite my optimism and hopes, I don't think it will. I tend to leave the past in the past as much as possible and not dwell on it, but it's days like today where I think back and wonder how different my life would be had I found someone in high school, married her shortly thereafter, and started a family then. My kids would be ten or eleven now. Yeah. I'm old. I am officially old.

That's also reasons why my profile on OkCupid says things like this:

My last two relationships made me question a lot of things about myself -- namely who I truly am as a person, and what I want out of life. As I am rapidly approaching 30, I worry about whether I should even try "dating" again, or whether I am getting "too old." I created this profile in hopes that someone would be able to help me figure that out.

That's the truth, folks. I don't think I could be more honest than that.

That being said, I have started a conversation with a sweet, interesting girl on that site within the past day or two. Apparently some people do still reply to messages on there. Amazing, no? I am incredibly intrigued and fascinated with her, which is good. I like intrigue and fascination. The problem? She is about 200 miles away to the north (I don't remember how far, to be honest; I try to ignore the "miles" thing on OkCupid because most of the time it's just fucking depressing; there's really nobody around here), which would make, well, actually meeting up really difficult, especially since my car would most assuredly half-explode before it got across the Kansas state line. I love my Monte Carlo, but as you folks know, she's not in the best shape, and that's putting it mildly. Said girl also lives with her parents (but has her reasons) and she works a lot as well, so that makes things a little more difficult too. Despite all of these odds, I still remain optimistic.

On that note, most of the rest of my day will be spent grading my students' papers, as I need to get those done before class on Tuesday night (I told them I'd have them graded and back to them then, which may have been a mistake on my part). Oh well. Part of my job, I suppose.

I will, of course, keep you folks updated on my life as it progresses.

Slings and Arrows, Part II

I think I'm becoming a little more cynical and jaded than I'd like.

Most of you who know me well know that the last two months or so have been far from a pleasure cruise, of sorts. In fact, they've pretty much been the exact opposite. Between the money issues and the dissolution of the relationship between Lady and I -- not to mention everything else that's been on my mind all summer -- it's probably no surprise to most of you that, ahem, things are not great.

That's not to say that things are bad, but here's an example: by this time yesterday I had gone about 40 hours or so without eating anything. That's not because I wasn't hungry or because I was on some sort of politically-motivated hunger strike -- it's because I had no food in the house aside from dry popcorn, packets of oatmeal, and canned vegetables -- and I'm trying to count down the days until I get paid, so I'm basically intentionally starving myself half the time. I can't help it. If I were to eat normally, my bank account would be empty. With nine more days to go until I get paid, I have to do things like this sometimes.

Yes, last night I did go to the store when I was done teaching, and I was able to get myself some food; hopefully, it's enough to last me until I get paid again and can assess all of my finances after the bills and rent are covered for the month. I'm not telling you folks this to throw myself a pity party or anything like that. I don't really care, to be honest. I'm saying this to perhaps elicit a little perspective, and to describe just how shitty life can be sometimes. Some people don't know how good they have it, and complain about things that are utterly meaningless. At least I have real reasons sometimes, but I rarely vocalize them.

I also realize how lucky I am, despite things constantly going wrong, or going from bad to worse. I realize this. I have many friends who would be willing to help me if I were to just ask, if I were to say the word, so to speak. I haven't done so not out of pride, but out of the fact that I do not want to burden anyone else with my problems or issues, because it's not their responsibility to take care of me -- in any sense of the phrase. Maybe in the situation of "all hope is otherwise lost" would I be inclined to burden anyone else with my issues, but for now most of them are temporary and shall be rectified within the next month or two, so none of them are huge issues. What I'm trying to say is that you people don't need to worry about me, seriously, I'll be fine.

Anyway.

In other news, I recently added this section to my OkCupid profile:


I have a lot of trouble understanding people's motives in why they do what they do, and why they say what they say. Because of that I am really cautious and very nervous in interpersonal interactions, especially at first, because I've been burned/hurt many times by people who say one thing and do another, or say that they really enjoy my company and then never talk to me again/disappear, for example. I want people in my life who will stick around, who want me for me, and who want me around for the person I am -- not for the person they want me to be or the person they think I should be.

I have added this section to my profile because, frankly, it needs to be there.

I should have added, at the end, "and I don't need people who will run away even if I'm 99% perfect for them simply because of that 1% that I'm not."

Over the course of my adventures on OkCupid in the past week or two, I have really only connected with, and messaged back and forth with, three women. One of them, curse my luck, is in Morgantown (yeah, go figure, hm?) and she's very sweet, but she will more than likely remain just a friend as she's moving to Norway within the next year or so. Yeah. Norway. She and I may have some mutual friends in and around town, but eh, I don't know. I think we'll become good friends, though, but seriously doubt either of us have any desire for anything more than that (or ever will) due to the distance involved. Curse my luck that she's exactly my type, too. Figures.

The other two are out here, either around the state or within a 100-mile radius or so.

Those two, after several days each of fascinating, great conversations both via the site and via phone or IM, basically dropped off the face of the earth or otherwise went into radio silence all of a sudden, when everything had been going nicely and I was getting to know them better. One of them even told me that she didn't want to get her hopes up about anything and wanted to stay realistic, etc etc, and then never said another word to me. The other? Just disappeared. Deleted me off friends' lists and the like, went quiet. Again, when everything was going really well both times, too, over the span of several days of good, nice, normal meaningful conversation with each one.

Neither of these instances, of course, were my fault. Like I said, everything was going wonderfully well, and then each of them just went really weird and disappeared, or (the more likely scenario) they found someone else more interesting than me to talk to, and I became yesterday's news. Of sorts.

It's things like this, reasons like this, why I've so rarely tried to open up to and get to know anyone throughout most of my life. The times I have? Yeah (obviously, if you know me), I've gotten burned. Sometimes, obviously, it took longer than others.

When it comes to OkCupid, or even meeting new people in general? Nobody bothers to put in any effort or attention span anymore, at least not longer than a day or two of random chatting back and forth via a website. Nobody seems to bother with anything but a first impression, or at least a first few days' impression. I at least have tried to put in the effort of getting to know someone, and I try to let them get to know me, even if it's so purely only going to be a friend and nothing else. I've never understood the concept of "Well, I'm done with you, time to never talk to you again, delete you from my life, and move on without saying anything else to you whatsoever, like you never existed." I mean, is this what the world's come to? Even if you've become friends with someone? It's so frustrating. It's part of why I feel like I'm becoming jaded and cynical in some respects. There's no common courtesy anymore, no mutual respect or understanding. And I'm so sick of being the kind of person who is very understanding, kind, and respectful, yet never experiences that in return. It's so disheartening, and that's probably why I have very, very few friends that I would call close, that I can talk to and tell everything to -- much less anyone I could trust anymore for anything more than a friendship.

I'd really like to believe that people are inherently good, that they're not cruel, judgmental, shallow or superficial, but that's becoming much harder by the day. And, as I've said for years, I'm getting too old for this shit. I've never claimed to be perfect, and never will, but I would like to think that despite all my little quirks and nerdery, I am somewhat normal. I've had some pretty bad shit happen to me over the years, both in my childhood and in my relationships, but you know what? Today, I'm pretty normal. I'm not crazy, I'm not psychotic, I'm just a guy. And I still have a really strong moral and ethical code and a sense of manners and decency. If I don't want to associate with someone, or don't want to talk to them anymore, I'll at least tell them why. I'm not sure anyone else does that anymore, and I've certainly not met a lot of people who have been through some of the stuff I've been through over the years who could call themselves "normal." Oh, they'd try, but they'd be so, so wrong.

That being said, places like OkCupid are apparently, as I said to my new friend in Morgantown, "swirling cesspools of despair and desperation," which tends to be pretty accurate most times. Like I said, I'm not perfect myself, and I'm not shallow and try not to judge people, but when I find search results like age 31, divorced, I have seven children and four horses who come first and take up all my time, so don't expect to be a priority, I become stunned and not so much disgusted as amazed that people like that actually exist.

Yes, that was an actual example.

"Wow, think of the shape her vagina must be in," was the first thing my Morgantown friend said when I told her of that search result.

See? Told you she was my type. Again, of course she has to be in my hometown now, when I'm 1,000 miles away from it.

Like I said, I'm not judgmental, but for fuck's sake, really? That's not so much bad as it is stunning that OkCupid apparently thinks someone with seven kids at 31 and four horses would be a good match for me. That's more than likely on the fault of their own algorithms, though.

I've tried to sit down and describe my "type" before, laying it all out in text to see if I can do it and construct the ideal mate, and I can't. I can do the physical stuff, the superficial stuff, but when it comes to stuff like personality, the only thing I can think of is "normal, not religious, not crazy." I can only think of the nots. I cannot picture the opposite, because everyone is different.

The stuff I can tell you, however, if you're interested?

Age: roughly 20 to 30, probably towards the younger end of that. I've found that women between the ages of 23-27 are usually the easiest to get along with; they're not cynical, brusque, or mean at that point yet because they're still mostly happy and idealistic. They've not been battle-hardened by the world for the most part yet, but they have already turned 21 and have had a few years to sow their wild oats and think about what kind of guy they really want.

Education/Intelligence: Matters a lot, but depends on circumstances, really. High school diploma, GED, bachelor's, master's, etc. I don't care. I just want you to be able to interact with me on an intellectual level of some sort, whether that intellectual level is discussing Foucault or being able to tell me where the bathroom is on the Enterprise. Please at least have some idea, however, of what you want out of life and how life in the real world actually works. If I can't sit down and have logical, interesting conversations with you about myriad things, then it doesn't matter how attracted I may be to you -- it just won't work.

Living status: Please, for fuck's sake, be single and living on your own, and not in your parents' house/basement/what-have-you. Have a job or be in school to get a good/better one. Have a car that is at least somewhat reliable. Be willing to drive and be able to stay here for weekends or longer trips if we live farther apart than, say, 50 miles, so that we can actually spend some time together.

Height: shorter than me. Don't care how much shorter, just shorter than me. I do like really short girls though. I'm 5'10", 5"11" on a good day. Short girls are hot.

Weight: 150-250ish. Not picky at all, but I really want you to have curves, not feel your bones when we cuddle, or when I hold you while we sleep. I'm not huge, but I am a big guy, so I don't want to worry about hurting you, and curvy women turn me on immensely. Screw the stick-thin ladies. Give me something to, ahem, hold on to.

Hair: Hopefully shoulder-length or much longer, but long hair isn't a requirement. Long hair is, however, really, really sexy. Color isn't important, but I really love natural redheads -- like, the carrot-orange (or more subtle) red hair, or strawberry-blonde-ish red hair is really hot. Overall, though, hair color is unimportant. I love all kinds of hair, straight, curly, frizzy, wavy, etc. It's all hot. I've been told I have a "hair fetish." This is probably true to some extent. Also? Don't style your hair to make it something that it's not; coloring/highlighting your hair is fine on occasion, of course, but don't use five pounds of product every day before you leave the house, or spend hours styling it. Let it be natural and free.

Style: I'm a t-shirt and shorts/khakis kind of guy who's looking for a t-shirt and shorts/skirts/dresses/jeans kind of girl. No frills, no high-end fashions or name-brand clothing required, and don't base your entire wardrobe around a certain designer, store, logo, brand, or clothing company just because it's trendy or popular. Don't spend hundreds of dollars per year on shoes. Wear comfortable clothes and shoes because that's what you want to do, because it suits you -- not because you're trying to impress anyone or because you're trying to make yourself feel "prettier" with your wardrobe. Trust me, you're fine. Eccentricity, however (like goth styles or hipster styles), in moderation, can be very hot though.

Sexual experience/dating experience/life experience: I don't particularly care as long as you're not a total, absolute prude who only looks upon sexual relations as "for procreation only," or, on the other end of the spectrum, a ditzy promiscuous flake. Don't look for a fling with me, because I'm not giving you one. I'm too old for that shit and I want something real, something that will last a long, long time. I'm also not looking to "date" you while you're also dating other people at the same time or looking for a one-night stand, nor on the other end of that spectrum am I looking for someone to tell me you want to marry me and have my babies on the first day I meet you. If you're divorced and/or have one or more children? Not a dealbreaker at all (of course not), but I do want to know these things. Duh. I'm also not into open relationships, I'm not interested in group sex, swinging, or "casual encounters." I am a committed, monogamous guy, and if you're going to be in a relationship with me I expect you to be committed and monogamous to me as well. This should go without saying, but these days I need to make it specific -- because, well, take a look at some women's profiles on OkCupid sometime. Yikes. 


Other positive attributes: On the physical side? Freckles are hot. Paler skin tone is also hot. Glasses are really hot. If you "steal" my t-shirts, hoodies, boxer shorts, etc to wear yourself? That's also hot. Not caring that I smoke, or being a smoker yourself, would also be a plus. Being a big fan of coffee is almost mandatory. Tolerating the fact that I'm a nerd, and therefore do nerdy things like blog, read and adore comic books, play Pokemon, listen to podcasts, and wear lots and lots of nerdy clothing is also a massive plus and almost mandatory as well, even if you're not interested in any of those things -- but it would be wonderful if you were. Be accepting of the fact that I am a writer, and therefore will never be wealthy or completely successful in my own eyes. You must love cats. You also must love the fact that my cats will love you as well, even if the girls will take a little while to warm up to you, and you must realize that yes, they will sleep with us; I cannot stop them and wouldn't want to. Most importantly, having the capacity to love and be loved, to want the same things (or mostly the same things) out of love, life, and our relationship as I would is really, really something I look for. We have to be on the same page, we have to be able to communicate.

Now, here's the fun part...

Don't be (and I've made this a bulleted list):

• crazy 
• hateful
• a drunk/drug user
• someone with "daddy issues"
• a depressing (or otherwise constantly cripplingly depressed) person, or
• conversely, an absolute optimist who never frowns
• screamy
• abusive 
• flighty 
• fighty
• shallow/superficial
• childish/prone to temper tantrums
• destructive
• self-destructive
• bitter
• jaded
• judgmental, prejudiced, or racist
• currently married or otherwise entangled
• incredibly right-wing Republican/Conservative
• an incredibly strong-willed feminist who hates men and "man things"
• filled with anger and/or resentment for anything or anyone
• mentally scarred/traumatized to where you'll never recover from some thing(s) that happened to you in your past, and will always let it affect every relationship you're in
• anti-marriage
• anti-children
• anti-cat
• anti-sex
• a "gun nut"
• a religious nutjob who will try to "turn me to Jesus," or
• someone who will try to change the person I am into the person you want me to be. 

Seriously. Just be goddamned normal. It's really all I ask. Anything else I can deal with, but just be normal.

None of these things, however, except for that "don't be" section above, are absolute requirements. I'm just describing my type, my ideals. And I'm willing to sacrifice a large chunk of those here or there for the right woman. Well, okay, the committed monogamy thing is pretty damned important, and I won't sacrifice that. But, let me tell you, simple normality is hard to come by these days. I don't think anything on the "don't be" list above is too much to ask for. I know there are sane people out there, sane women who don't have any of those problems. There have to be people like that in general, right?

Yeah. But probably not here. Maybe in a part of the country that doesn't necessarily foster a seven-child, four-horse environment.

It's all just really frustrating that it's so hard to even make friends here, in this state, in this town, even in the university environment which I am part of for nine months (or more) out of any given year -- let alone find someone that I may eventually want to share my life with. I thought I had the latter (twice!) in this godforsaken part of the country known as the midwest, but I was apparently wrong.

Don't get too optimistic; I looked up the matches for around Morgantown as well -- where I will probably end up again after graduation if I have no reason to stay out here -- and they're just as depressing. Well, except for my new friend who lives there, but by the time I'd get back to town (if I do go back), she'd already be in Norway.

Again, just my luck, hm?

Between the loneliness, money issues, bad luck, lack of social interaction and the somewhat long-coming-but-still-disastrous end to the relationship I had with Lady, summer 2012 has just been spectacular so far, hasn't it?

Today is June 14. We are reaching the midpoint of the year 2012. I hope, for the sake of my sanity and happiness, that the second half of this year goes better than the first half. And I hope that by this time next year I will be content and happy with my life and all aspects of it, regardless of where I am, what I'm doing, or who I may be with.

It's thoughts and hopes like that which keep me going.

Slings and Arrows

The majority of this past week has been really quiet, which (for once) is a plus. I have a lot of important things to take care of this summer, and I have been working on some of them -- or, at least, some of the lighter ones, such as giving the house a good cleaning.

The return to a solitary life (though it's been solitary for over a month now, really) is strangely freeing, but also strangely uncertain. It's allowed me to re-evaluate a lot of priorities, and has allowed me to draft out some life plans for the future, since my old ones (based around Lady) aren't exactly applicable anymore. Duh. Said plans are as just as scary or uncertain as they were before, but they may be a bit more...realistic now.

That's about as in-detail as I want to go, really, but I will tell you this: I re-opened my OkCupid profile this week and have since spent the past several days revamping it and adding to it.

I told my friends Shainna and Andrea that this seemed like a logical step, of course. I am in my house in Newton 95% of the time, with the other 5% being when I teach my once-weekly class on the west campus or when I go out to get a bare minimum of groceries to last me another week or two. Aside from my students/boss and Walmart cashiers -- plus my friend Jay on campus on Tuesday night -- I haven't had any face-to-face interaction with anyone in over a month. That is probably shocking to a lot of you, or sounds really strange to a lot of you, at least. But it's the truth. It's not that I'm an incredibly solitary person (well, okay, I can be at times), it's that I don't have the money to get out and do stuff, despite having the time to do it, and I certainly don't really know anyone here in town. Don't pity me for that or anything, really. It's just the way things are. So, I told Andrea and Shainna that reopening that OkCupid profile would be a way for me to at least meet new people, even if nothing came of it, and it would allow me to be social, be myself, and be friendly with like-minded people out there, most of them relatively close to me and in the same situation I am.

I'm sure that I don't have to remind you folks that OkCupid is how I met Lady. While that didn't work out and it wasn't destined to, it at least showed me that I am a desirable person that people want to be social with and want to be around. That in itself is a plus. The experience opened me up to being social and flirtatious again (well, to some extent) after my previous ex of six years broke up with me. So I see it all as a good thing. I sort of have this strange, zen-like mindset now where I'm thinking if something's meant to be, it's meant to be, and if it's not? it's just not. Regardless, that whole meant to be thing isn't going to come to pass if I don't "get out there" and be social again in some capacity, anyway, and I'm certainly not going to make any new friends, even, if I don't attempt to try.

Here's the thing, though. OkCupid is hit or miss for anything, even friends. I think most people who use the site are in the mindset that anyone who messages them is just looking for sex, a relationship, dates, etc. While that may be true for a lot of people, I keep my profile there to talk to new people with similar interests more than anything else. No, I wouldn't be opposed to finding a new partner there, certainly not -- it's kind of the overall point of the site, as the word "cupid" is in the name -- but I'm so not the kind of person to be like "Hey, you're hot, let's date a few times and bone." I'm just not. As hard as it is for me to admit, I'm a bit wounded from my past relationships, and I'm a bit cautious. Okay, very cautious. The site is, though, hit or miss. You'll throw out a lot of proverbial slings and arrows before you hit something and it sticks because of the mindset so many users have. Apparently they're really cautious too.

Or they read my profile, think "good lord, what a nerdy fuck," and run away.

A little from column A, a little from column B, perhaps?

I have, however, found at least two people I know who have profiles on the site. Which gives me a little hope -- hope that I'm not, of course, the only one out there who had this idea. And no, I'm not going to approach either of them, duh. I'm not stupid, and I'm really not interested anyway. On some level, though, it is sort of amusing.

However, I'm getting off track.

One of the really neat features of the site (and I'm not sure if other sites like it use the same sort of algorithms or methods, because I've never used others) is that it asks you an endless amount of questions, like an extended personality test. You can answer as many or as few of them as you'd like, but the more you answer, the more the site can match your personality with someone like you. I've answered over 2,100 of them (yes, 2,100, that's not a typo) because they're fun. Some of them are amusing, some of them are serious, and some of them are completely batshit off the wall.

There is one, however, that particularly struck me and stuck in my head, and it was something along the lines of Would it be easier for you to make a list of qualities you want in a partner, or qualities you DON'T want in a partner?

I kind of stopped in my tracks, because there were only those two choices, and not an "I don't know" option. Which, really, is my honest answer. I'm not sure. I don't have a list of requirements or anything, but I do know on a basic level what I'd like. I also know what I don't like and want no part of. So that question was quite difficult to answer. I did, finally, pick the bubble of "qualities I DON'T want" and moved on, just to answer the question, but the concept of both lists stuck with me.

No, I'm not going to make those lists here. That would be exceedingly narcissistic of me. But it did make me think. What do I really want, not only out of a relationship, but out of life? Do I want someone to come home to or go out with? Yes. Do I want children? Yes. Do I care whether a prospective mate already has kids? No, of course not. That could actually be a bonus. I've just been thinking about all sorts of things as of late, because my mind actually has the free time/space to think for once.

I've been told before (I won't say by whom) that I don't know where I'm going in life, that I don't know where I'm going to end up or what I'm going to do after I get my MFA.

Well, yes, to some extent that's true. But does anyone truly know where they're going in life? Even people my age or older? I'm not sure anyone really does. Yeah, most people have some sort of rough plan, or they at least plan to continue doing what they're doing now until they can no longer do so, but how many people just don't exactly know? I know I have a rough plan of trying to get some sort of teaching position or editing position somewhere while I work on getting my books published, but that doesn't mean I'll accomplish those things. I'm a realist. I have goals, but I also understand that some goals may be unattainable or otherwise almost impossible to achieve. Anyone who says "I'm going to do _________ no matter what!" is foolish and amazingly shortsighted -- just look at how many broken people there are out there, people who once had dreams until they realized those dreams would never be fulfilled. There are always obstacles to overcome, and it's best to be realistic. The same sort of realism extends to interpersonal relationships, as well. Nobody's going to be perfect. No situation is ever going to be perfect. We have to make the best of what we have or what we can find, and that's all there really is to it. It's not "settling," it's not "giving up," it's being realistic.

To those ends, when it comes to life I've become brutally honest with myself. And I've also been brutally honest on my OkCupid profile (bet you were wondering how I was going to wrap back around to that, hm?). Those of you who know me well already know that I'm an open book. I don't hide anything from anyone, and I have no reason to. I'm certainly not going to be mysterious with people who may become new friends or something more. There's no point to it. I'm an honest and open person. That's just me.

I wrote on my Twitter this evening that someone needs to put together a "Horrors of OkCupid" website, since there are so many scary folks on there with unrealistic expectations. Seriously. Ladies, just a tip: putting "you must be good in bed" on your self-summary, which is the first thing people see on your profile, is probably a bad idea if you're also looking for "life-long love."

I have sent messages to a few ladies on there, though. Nice ones, sweet ones. I won't lie. Only one has replied, and we've started a friendship. She's very nice and we have a lot in common, so at least I've made one new friend. If more comes of it, it would be nice (really nice, actually, as I like her a lot as a person), but if not, well, at least I have a new friend to talk to with like-minded interests. You folks know me. I go with the flow, etc. What happens, happens.

Other than that, I've been keeping quiet and keeping to myself for the most part. I've been working on my thesis a little more this week, fine-tuning parts of it here and there before adding more to it. I don't know when I'm going to have a finished draft copy of it ready, but I assume it would be sometime within the next few weeks or so if I keep working on it at a steady pace. The thought of finishing a draft of my thesis isn't something I take lightly; it basically means that half of my work is done when it comes to getting ready to graduate. Which is, of course, definitely a plus.

The other half, studying for comps? Yeah, I haven't even touched my reading list. Haven't looked at it in a year or so. I can't afford half the books on it anyhow, and it's not like I've read any of them yet, so I would imagine I'll be stuck basically cramming for comps in the month or two leading up to them -- or at least reading enough to get by, to be honest with you. It's not incredibly high on my list of priorities, to tell you the truth. It's just not. I've got enough to worry about and take care of right now, and I can only take care of so many things at one time. This month it's my thesis, teaching, and paying the bills/affording groceries with what little money I have, and that's me being completely honest with you folks.

I'm sure over the next few weeks things will progress and get more interesting, and when they do, I'll be sure to let you folks in on things. Until then, my friends.

New Chapters, Same Book

It's been a while since I've written here -- a full week -- and in that time, many things have changed. Some for the better, some for the worse. Regardless, I should probably mention most of them here to clear up some stuff and/or to bring some other stuff to light.

First, I need to mention that Lady and I broke up.

Yeah, I know.

This happened a while ago, really, but it was finalized for good several days ago. It was amicable, with no argument or anything at the actual break-up. It's okay. I've been able to process it and deal with it in my own ways, and while that has at times been quite difficult, I'm okay. It had apparently been coming for a long time; the distance between us over the summer proved to be too difficult (as well as several other factors) and it became clear that while it would have been nice, there were too many things that made it evident that our relationship wouldn't exactly work out. Lady is a wonderful girl, though. I'll never wish her anything but the best, nor will I ever, have anything bad to say about her, because there wasn't anything bad to say. It just wasn't going to work, and I accept that. Sometimes things just don't work.

So, for the first time in several months, I am single again. It's a weird feeling; it's not one I'm not used to, of course, but it's still a little strange being completely back on my own. It's interesting, to say the least. Not good, but not totally bad, either. Just...different. I'm not sure, really, whether it's a good or bad different yet. I would imagine I'll be figuring that out more and more over the next few weeks and months. All I can do is keep plodding forward, even if that pace may be a slow one. I told one of my friends tonight, a friend who reads this blog and who also just broke up with her significant other, this:

I've been single a lot over the past year. All I can tell you? Be social. Embrace your friends, go out, enjoy things in life. Don't coop yourself up and let your depression and insecurities slowly eat away at you. That's the worst thing you can do. There are good times ahead. Everything may be shitty right now, but there are good times ahead. That is something that I always must keep believing myself, as well. It's sort of my life's mantra.

It's true, really, isn't it?

It's also something my best friend/sister Andrea has told me over the years, as well. I'm beginning to sound like her. Which can only be a good thing, I think, as she knows what she's talking about. The fact that things didn't work out with Lady is sad and disappointing on some level, yes, but I believe (to some extent at least) that everything happens for a reason. It may be difficult to understand or appreciate at times, but I believe that.

Anyway. Moving on.

My money problems are temporarily patched; I have received some help from my mother, which will get me through the rest of the month until I receive my first paycheck. Oh, I should probably update you on that as well -- I found out that my first check won't be on the 8th, but on the 22nd. Which threw me into absolute financial ruin as all of my bills are due before then. Obviously.

As much as I didn't want to, I had no choice but to ask my mother for help. I don't like asking for help; I really don't. I'm almost thirty, and I feel worthless/like a mooch/irresponsible/etc., which you know if you've been reading this blog for some time. However, this was unavoidable. This was me being unable to survive if I didn't ask for help. I simply had to. And I was lucky; my mother helped me out by giving me enough money to cover what needs to be covered this month until I am paid. While things will still be tight, I will indeed be able to manage and will be okay. It won't be pleasant, obviously, but I will be able to pay all of my bills. I'll have to put my car insurance on my credit card, but I can do that. I will also be paying my mother back once I can afford to do so, and as soon as I can afford to do so. That will probably be about two months from now. My paychecks for the summer, I've found, are going to be split into four different, equal ones -- June 22, July 6, July 20, and August 3. My pay is $1900 before taxes, for teaching the night class I teach. It is a class I will teach tonight, this time at the library on the main campus, for their "library activity day." Should be fun, and at least I don't have to drive all the way out to the west campus.

Teaching the class is pretty interesting; it shows the limitations of what I can cover in the span of less than three hours a week, all crammed into one night, and it also shows the limitations of what students can absorb in that timeframe. I've found myself dismissing a bit early most of the time, as it seems that's the way things will go for most of the semester. Still, I enjoy teaching it, even if it can be a bit of a pain or a bit of a long slog through a night's class. Next week, their first paper is due, so I'll be grading everything after that. It's a deceptively long semester; it seems long, but it's really not. They have a lot of work to do over those ten weeks, and it's my job to power them through all of it.

Other than those big things (which are, admittedly, big) not a whole lot is really going on. It's been relatively quiet here alone at the house, which is indeed a relief. I think I've had all the hectic-ness and emotionality I can stand for a while, and I'm really looking forward to just...being me, being here, being quiet, taking care of stuff I need to as it comes up, and living my life as it comes. Things will be frantic and a bit unstable as time goes on, but as time goes on I also think those times will pass as well. I've got the rest of the summer ahead of me. June is just beginning. I have a thesis to finish, for which I now have a lot more emotional material to write poetry for, and tomorrow I'll hopefully get to see Jay while I'm on campus. It'll be good to hang out with a friend for once.

I will also try to write here more often, and do more than sum up current events of the past week or so. I have the time, of course. I just don't always have the devotion, patience, or energy. My summer will be devoted to doing all of those things that require devotion, patience, and energy. I need to become the best person I can be, because nothing else is good enough for me. In some sense, that's a bit challenging, but in a much greater one? It's also rewarding.

Strange Times Again

I apologize for not writing here more often, my friends; I've been really busy as of late and have been taking care of a lot of important things one after another. This includes paying the rent and what bills I can as they come in, all the while budgeting very hard so that I'm not completely out of money before I get paid again (something that may be a distinct possibility anyhow), talking/writing to Lady, working on my thesis, and working on stuff for my students in my summer class.

I suppose I should start with the summer class stuff first, as for the moment, it's one of the biggest issues I have to deal with. My summer class meets once a week, on Tuesday nights, from 6:30 to 9:20. If you think that a class that meets once a week really wouldn't require a lot of work or prep from the instructor before he teaches it, you would be sadly mistaken. The convenience of teaching one night a week creates many more inconveniences around it, including the fact that it's not on the main campus, but the west campus (as mentioned before), meaning that anything I need to print/make copies of before class must be done before I teach. Today (as it's almost 2AM), this will entail me getting to my office on the main campus in about twelve hours or so, printing/making copies of all this stuff, and then getting back in my car to drive to the west campus for class tonight before I can come home. While that's not necessarily difficult, of course, it's just another added layer to the stuff I have to do in order to teach this class.

As I've not written here since before I taught my first night class last week, I will say that for the most part, the students seem engaged and happy to be there (well, I don't know about happy, but they're ready to work), and they realize that this will be an accelerated course with an accelerated schedule, with a paper due every two or three weeks. Their first one is due on June 12, and I'm giving them the literature/the assignment for it tonight, as well as taking them to the library for next week's class. However, and this is interesting to note -- only 13 or my 25 enrolled students showed up to class last Tuesday night. I'm guessing the rest either forgot they'd enrolled in a summer course, or will end up dropping it (because if they don't, they'll fail, obviously). It should be interesting to see, as the summer progresses, how many of them stick around.

As for other things going on? Well...

There are a lot of private matters I don't write about on the blog for obvious reasons, most of them involving myself or my friends and family. While I am an open book to most people in my life I really care about (so, all like, fifteen of you), on my blog here I am a fairly private person if I can be. I don't gossip or tell other people's stories or anything like that here -- I just write about me. And even if there are things going on around me at times, I won't write about them here until I have the benefit of hindsight, if at all. Because of that, this summer I've found that I've become a fairly reclusive person, though it's not as much by choice as it is by circumstance, summer heat (already, yes) and being very, very poor. Also, when I'm home, poor, and it's very quiet, I tend to think about lots of things that keep me awake in the middle of the night, as I actually have time to think about all of those things. As much as I like the majority of my time being free, those things and the fact that I have no money constantly eat at me during the summer, and therefore make my summer really, really suck. 

Not to mention the fact that it's almost 100 degrees every day, too. Ahem. Yes.

I haven't gotten to talk to Lady much over the past week or so, and I was worried about her because she'd been quiet. I did talk to her on Saturday and yesterday, though, and she's fine. Back home with her family, taking care of the household stuff there, about to start work in two weeks or so. I was hoping we'd be able to see each other again before she started work, but at this juncture that appears to be not only time-prohibitive, but cost-prohibitive as well. I wanted to order her train tickets or Moneygram her some gas money for her car -- which I could and may still do, I don't know -- but the window for her to be able to visit me this summer shortens with each passing day, and is complicated by my teaching and her being able to get back in time to start work. This obviously dismays each of us to a large extent, but I'm not sure there's a whole lot that can be done about it at this point. She'll be working from the middle of June to the middle of August with no real breaks, so we'll have to deal with whatever happens (or doesn't happen), I suppose.

Jay sent me a text yesterday afternoon saying that Rae is catching a train out of Newton on Thursday night, and wanted to know if I was up for hanging out and shootin' the shit with them that afternoon and evening. While I am totally up for it, there are so many background variables going on right now that I don't know exactly if I'll be able to do it. Most of these are, again, things that I can't exactly write about here, but I will say that for the most part, it's nothing bad. It's just stuff I have to take care of and stuff that needs to be done. Because of this, I've not yet replied to his text and probably won't until at least this evening. Also, it's not like I have the money to go out and do anything fun, really. I barely have money for groceries at this point.

I should probably go into that too, a little bit anyway. I'm pretty much broke, folks. The entirety of my paycheck on Friday -- the last paycheck of the spring semester -- went into my rent, as did about $100 more. My groceries two nights ago were purchased on my Amazon credit card, as I don't have enough money in my bank account now to buy groceries or put gas in my car and pay the bills as they come in. I still have a credit card with a $500 limit that I've never used -- I've saved it for emergencies like if the car blows a major part, or if I have to very quickly get back home on a flight or train (or if Lady has to do the same), which, if I have no alternative and don't get help from my parents, will probably have to go towards paying my car insurance at the end of June. Even when it's incredibly hot outside (and it has been, already), I can't run my air conditioner more than an hour or two per night, and only when I absolutely need to, like when it's 95 upstairs in the house, because I can't afford the electric bill it creates. My life right now sucks, folks. I can't afford anything and I can't even go out and have any fun (like to see a movie or to go to McDonald's for dinner for something different) because I don't even have the spare cash for that. Two bags of food for the cats, which will feed them for about two months or so, was $19, and I almost cried at that. Yeah. That's how bad my money situation is. I have no idea how I'm going to make it through the rest of the summer, folks. I can't charge my rent to a credit card, and even if I could, my credit card wouldn't cover all of it. I have about 75 days to go before I get my fall student loans -- money that I desperately, desperately need right now, not 75 days from now. I don't need more credit cards or gift cards or even actual cash -- I need to find a way to somehow get more money into my bank account, and soon. I don't know when the first summer pay will clear for us summer GTAs -- I've been told that it's June 8, and that there will be no interruption in our normal pay cycles, but who knows if that will actually be true or if it will clear on time. I guess, really, for the most part I am just really nervous, not only about that but about a lot of different things.

In the meantime, in the rest of my overnight and morning hours, I need to continue to drink coffee and ready my lesson plans for my students this evening, take a shower, and try not to think too much about the troubling things. That's about all I can really do right now.

Life, or Some Semblance Anyway

The past week has been quiet. Really, really quiet.

Most of the time this is not, repeat, not a good thing. This time around it isn't either. Here's a brief rundown of what's happened in the past week since I last wrote a post here, as a lot has gone down in that time:

1. First and foremost, I did not go to Lady's graduation; this is probably good, as she told me she'd had an absolutely hellish weekend with her mother and aunt anyway, and that her graduation day was one of the worst days of her life. While my presence probably could have helped ease tensions between the three ladies, it could've exacerbated things further as well, so yes, it is probably good that I wasn't there. Lady called me the night before her graduation from the hotel room all of them were staying in, and was in good spirits then, so apparently all of the rather unpleasant stuff happened after that.

2. After her graduation Lady successfully made her trip back across the country to the east coast with no problems, in the span of about three days. Last night she was staying with family about an hour or two from her home, and was planning to surprise the family today by showing up earlier than expected. Whether that happened or not, I don't know; I sent her a text this afternoon asking how things were at home, and never got a response...which probably means she's busy and/or asleep. I'll catch up with her more tomorrow, I assume.

3. My landlord came by and caught me by surprise last weekend, before I was even able to call him to have him look at the air conditioner/furnace fan belt. I was actually going to call him about an hour later, but my neighbors had already called him for a drainage problem in their tub and he thought it had been me who called. While he was here, however, I did have him look at the furnace -- it turns out that I have the type of furnace that's a direct-drive system, no belt involved, and that the problem more than likely lies in the actual thermostat unit on my wall upstairs. However, just like any other problem I seem to have him come by and fix, when he turned it on it began running just fine as always. The electric company has a new digital thermostat they're giving out/installing for free, called the "WattSaver," and he gave me his okay to have one installed whenever I wanted -- if they needed the paperwork to give them permission, he had it on file at his office, and he'd sign it/send it off to them. If nothing else, if it's in the thermostat, that will fix the problem. In the meantime, if I have any other problems with the fan/AC system (like, say, if it goes on the fritz again), I told him I'd tell him and he could look at it while it was acting up. So far, it's been running just fine when I've needed to run it (and I run it quite sparingly, as to save money on my electric bill).

4. Money is really, really tight right now, and will continue to be, terribly, for the rest of the summer. To brace for this and "hunker down," sort of, I've done all the grocery shopping I'll need to do for the next three weeks or so and have refilled my phone minutes with what little cash I can spare right now. My car has about 100 more miles before the gas tank needs refilled, and all of my bills are paid except for the cable bill, which I'll have to write out and mail this weekend if I want it to get paid on time. All of this will keep my expenses at the bare minimums for a while though, which is very good. I'm well-stocked on food and supplies for a good chunk of the summer, with the exceptions of cat food/litter and other small things (like milk, bread, etc) that I will need to continually replace on occasion. However, judging on my rate of pay and my bills, I'll only be able to survive without help until the end of June or so, when my car insurance comes due. I will more than likely have to ask (read: beg and plead horribly) my parents for help on paying that, otherwise I'm going to be homeless -- it's almost as much as a month's rent, and I don't make enough money as a teacher over the summer to pay both during the same month, not to mention cover all of my bills as well. I've mentioned before that my car insurance comes due twice a year, and both times it's in the absolute worst months possible -- June and December. Both times are when my bank account is always at its absolute lowest point.

5. I've been really bored, lonely, and really listless. I'm not sure much more explanation is needed on that. When the semester ends, everything just stops. Because of that, I find myself responsibility-free, which is almost as much of a burden on my psyche as being laden-down with all sorts of things to do is. Adding to the loneliness is the fact that I didn't get to see Lady again before she left to go back home for the summer, and that almost all of my friends from the department are already gone for the summer (or permanently, in some cases) or will be soon enough. I've been reading, writing, trying to catch up on sleep, and taking care of household chores to pass the time, as well as playing a few video games and listening to my collected podcasts, but there's only so long before all of that gets old and boring as well, and I'm rapidly reaching that point.

6. I start teaching on Tuesday night. That's four days from now. I have a full 25-person class, none of whom I've ever had before for 101 or any other class I've taught. I have yet to receive any sort of literature/syllabus/lesson plan for the 10-week course from my boss, so I'm guessing I'll have to venture to campus on Monday to take care of all of that stuff unless I hear something this weekend. I'll more than likely have to go to campus on Monday anyway in order to get copies made of the syllabus and other materials, so there's not really any getting out of that.

7. I got my grades on Wednesday -- all of them have been posted at this point -- and once more I got straight A's. Of course, I was expecting this. My cumulative grad school GPA is a 3.97, only because last fall I got an A- in a class. Still an A in my book.


There are other things going on, of course, in the background, that I'd rather not write about here in such a public place. I'd like to think that everything's staying on an even keel, but I'm not sure. I'm just trying to live day-to-day at this point, and don't see that changing anytime soon. I will, of course, update you when/if anything new happens, but for the moment, things are okay. And that's all I can really ask for.

The End, Part III: The End-ening

Today is the end of the line. I have completed Spring Semester 2012 and survived it. My students' final grades have been calculated, submitted to the Banner system, and all paperwork has been turned in. I got a 100% on my English 681 project that was almost 60 pages. What I needed to pack up and bring home from my office has been packed up and brought home. Everything is finished.

I feel like I should somehow be filled with hope, inspiration, or have the sense that a great weight has been lifted from me, but I really don't feel any of those things. I feel...boredom. And listlessness. And also loneliness.

Due to circumstances outside my control, I will more than likely not be driving to Lady's school to witness her graduation this weekend. She's doing a lot of traveling herself, back and forth from Kansas City's airport at least three times (which, from where her college is, is a lot of driving), and the window I'd get to see her were I to go anyway would be really, really short -- as she must get on the road to her home back east Sunday evening. She can't stay in her dorm past that time and must be out by then. I'd end up seeing her for less time than it would take for me to drive there, not to mention back here, over the course of the entire weekend. And, of course, I'd have to find a place to stay overnight were I to go, whether that be in my car, a hotel, or otherwise. This, of course, doesn't mean I don't want to go anyway -- I certainly do -- but it doesn't look like it's going to happen. Which, of course, sucks. This means that I have no idea when I'll actually see her next (since she's going back home to work for the summer), which is just...well, sad.

The situation is far from ideal anyway. Lady and I, all else considered, have some issues we need to work through -- the least of which will be the distance we're apart over the summer. Most of it's circumstantial stuff; nobody's at fault, etc, but it's still stuff that affects us and still stuff we have to deal with. A lot of outside factors and a lot of really, really shitty luck is taking its toll on both of us right now, and therefore things are a bit difficult. In fact, "a bit difficult" is putting it mildly, in order to avoid going into detail about our private lives -- and that's all I'm going to say on the matter.

None of this, of course, changes anything about the summer -- I am still here, in Kansas, with a short break ahead of me before I begin teaching summer sessions. I found out last night that summer sessions will start (for me, anyway) on May 21; my first night of teaching is Tuesday, May 22. This of course throws a wrench into any plans I had of me and Lady visiting my parents before she starts work in June, as I now have to start teaching a week earlier than I had been told, and therefore must prepare my lesson plans, syllabus, and weekly schedule that much earlier as well. While I still have almost two weeks off in the meantime (well, about a week and a half), that date is fast-approaching, and soon will my world once more be consumed -- at least one night per week, anyhow -- with teaching.

Honestly, it really doesn't matter to me -- money is really, really tight right now, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future until August or so, so I feel really lucky to even have any sort of job for the summer.  I need it. I am so slobberingly grateful for any paycheck thrown my way during the summer that I'm willing to do almost anything. I have very, very little food in the house right now, and can't really go shopping yet because I cannot afford to until I am paid tomorrow. The remainder of that paycheck will go towards the two bills that just came in -- my credit card bill and the water bill. I'll need to pay as much as my credit card bill as I can, because I'll need to use said card for gas to get me back and forth from the west campus for teaching, even if it's just teaching one night a week.

Let me tell you, the best part of winter break was that I only had to fill my gas tank once. Because I never went anywhere. The same is not going to be true over the summer, that's for sure.

The next few days, since I'm more than likely not going to be doing any traveling as I expected, will be spent trying to recover from the wrath of this entire semester. No, it was not a particularly hard semester, but there was still a lot of work involved and a lot of sleep lost, and I'm just...weary. I never thought I'd feel this weary or weighted down after I finished it.

Actually, no, that's incorrect. I knew I would be. I just didn't know it would hit so hard, so fast, and be accompanied with such a sense of listlessness and loneliness. Almost all of my friends have now left town for the summer, and the ones who haven't yet, I saw for probably the last time today until August. We also have two of us not graduating but leaving the program as well, and I doubt I'll see either of them ever again. This sucks, of course, but not much can be done. Jay at least says he wants to come up and visit me at some point over the summer, as very few of us will remain in town or around the area for any real stretch of time, but as for most other folks? Gone, gone home to their respective cities and states across the country.

Andrea keeps trying to come up with ideas for things to do to get me out of the house this summer, things that are either free or very, very cheap. I've told her, though, that I'm so not the type to go out and do things alone, and definitely not the type that likes spending any more time in the blazing Kansas sun than I have to.

"I'm the guy who retreats into video games, into internet stuff, TV, and movies," I told her. "Sleep. Writing. Stuff like that. Not the one who goes out and joins activities and social events, at least not alone."

This is true. I find it hard to be social when I don't have anyone to be social with. With Lady across the country and back home for the summer, this still applies. Going out and doing things alone bores me. It makes me realize just how alone and isolated I am in my little house with my three cats and beat-up car. But, eh, it's life. It's what I've got. It's what I am.

So that's pretty much all that's going on right now, folks. I'll update more soon, when I have something to report. Anything to report.

The End, Part II: Bad Times, Again

It figures on the last weekend before Finals Week that everything which could go wrong did go wrong. In many ways, to many different people.

Hoo boy. Let's start from the beginning, and I'll keep things as brief as possible.

Friday was the only really good day of this entire weekend -- Lady came in and we had a wonderful/day night together. It couldn't have been more perfect; it's days like Friday which remind me (not that I needed to be reminded, of course) why I love that girl so very much. We went out to dinner at Applebee's, came home, and generally just spent as much time together as possible. I can't tell you how much I missed that, or her. Through all of my sleep deprivation, grading hundreds of papers this semester, and writing close to 60-page final projects, Lady has been what's kept me going. I treasure every second with her, especially even more now that she'll soon be going home to the east coast to work over the summer.

It was Friday night that the first omen of the rest of the weekend occurred, and it's when the fan belt broke on my furnace.

For those of you who have a heating/cooling system with a furnace and central air, you know that while the AC unit may be outside, the unit is also hooked up to the furnace, and when it's on it's the furnace's fan that blows the cool air through the house. Without that fan? Nothing blows.

I noticed around 11PM on Friday night that nothing was blowing through my vents, even though the AC was on and running. There was no air moving. The furnace fan was on and running as well. Hm. Because of this, I used my basic knowledge of machinery to figure out that the fan belt had broken -- otherwise the furnace fan wouldn't be running at all. Does that make sense? The "engine" of the fan will run, but the blower won't run. Which means, by deductive reasoning, that the fan belt is about the only thing it could be.

This, of course, was not good news for me and Lady. Lady tolerates heat even less than I do, and it was in the 90s on Friday and Saturday. Without the fan belt, I can't even run the furnace's fan to move air through the house. That in itself is a huge problem -- it means that my house basically turns into an oven. As it's the weekend, Lady was here, and I have my final exam to give Monday (read: today) afternoon, I knew I wasn't going to be able to get it fixed until at least after that -- so, sadly, we were stuck being hot. We dealt with it Friday night; it wasn't too bad. Saturday, however, was awful -- and I couldn't do anything about it. It was easily ninety degrees upstairs in my house, even with the floor fans, propped in the windows, blowing on us. It was because of that unbearable heat, as well as a few other reasons, that Lady went back to school on Saturday evening instead of staying until Sunday morning as we'd originally planned. I may write about that more later, but for now it's unimportant.

I was up all night Saturday night and through most of yesterday; not only was I taking care of stuff around the house that needed to be done, but the heat and my allergies made it near-impossible to sleep. Believe me, I tried multiple times. Finally, last night I was able to take a nap for several hours, which was sorely needed.

When I awoke -- groggy and in the dark, I found that I'd received a voicemail as well as two texts from Lady, telling me to call her because something bad had happened and she needed my support. I found out what it was soon thereafter -- one of her closest friends was killed in a car accident on Saturday night.

Lady is, understandably, devastated. I called her and talked to her briefly, and was as sweet as I possibly could be, of course, but there's nothing else I can do but be there for her and take care of her when she needs me to. And right now (again, very understandably) she's not really in a talkative mood. I probably wouldn't be either, to be honest. I told her I'm here for her when and if she needs me, and left it at that. I love Lady. I love her a lot. I wish there was something I could do to help her feel better, but I know there's really not. At least not right now.

So, really, this weekend has just been a string of bad things happening one after another, with the exception of Friday of course. I also haven't heard from my parents in over a week, so I have no clue what's going on back home, if anything. Still, things could always get worse, and maybe will before they get better, so I'm trying to keep my chin up. After all, this week is the last week I have to do anything school-related until the end of May, when I'll start teaching summer sessions, and next weekend I'm planning to see Lady graduate, and meet her mother and aunt.

Last night, to deal with the heat and to prepare for the summer, I once more made myself hairless. I have gone clean-shaven for the first time in about six months, and I shaved my head almost down to the skin, using my clippers without any guard on them at all. I don't necessarily like being almost bald, but if it's a choice between that and sweating profusely if it's going to be 100 degrees every day again soon, then I'd rather have no hair. Lady encouraged me while she was here to cut my hair again anyhow; she likes the really-short-hair/almost bald look on me. Now, all I have to worry about is sunburn on the top of my head for the next few weeks until it grows out a little more.

Besides, it's comfortable (if a little strange-feeling), and I now don't have to worry about shampoo. I can run the bar of soap over my head for a few seconds, and be good to go.

I will also say that I was originally considering a mohawk. Not kidding.

Anyway.

This week is going to be long and rather strange, punctuated at each end by stuff to do. There's today's final exam and grading, and then finishing up exam grading on Thursday morning with my grading partner before I can post my grades and be done for the semester. In the interim and afterwards, I have Tuesday and Wednesday off, during which I can see if I can get my landlord here to fix the furnace fan belt, Friday to relax, and Saturday to drive to Lady's school for her graduation on Sunday. It's going to be interesting to see what I can get done and how I'll end up doing it. That fan belt thing needs fixed soon, though, before it gets way too hot again.

So yeah, that's the brief-brief version of what's been going on. There's more, of course. I may go into more detail with some things over the course of the next few days, but who knows. For now, though, yes, things could be better...but they could also be much, much worse. And I'm thankful that right now they're not.

The End, Part I

The End of Spring Semester

Yesterday, Thursday, was officially the last day of classes for Spring Semester 2012.

This is, of course, a good thing. It means that I am now officially done with 2/3 of my graduate school career. Well, I will be once I finish grading my students' exams next week, I mean, but for all purposes pertaining to me? Yeah, I've finished two years now.

I can't help but think back to last year at this time. So many things were different. I was in a relationship with a different woman, I had just finished teaching English 101 for the last time, I had crazy-long hair and a very thick beard, I had a lot more money to my name and I didn't even own my car yet. Yes, folks, so many things in my life were drastically, drastically different.

Would I change a thing, however, from how they are now? No. Maybe little things here and there -- little things I shouldn't have said, or the way I handled little situations, but overall? The big picture? Nope. I wouldn't change anything. I used to have regrets about a lot of major things in my life. I've not always been the best person (few people can say they have been). But I've learned from my mistakes, and I've generally made peace with my regrets. During the long period of time that I was single, I was able to think about my life in a much clearer fashion, and partition it out piece by piece for cross-examination. I came out the other side much stronger and with a clear head.

Do I have a better life now than I did a year ago? In most ways, yes. I have a wonderful woman in Lady. I have a car that runs well (knock on wood) the vast majority of the time. I have my own place, in which I live alone in peace and solitude. I don't have a lot of money, but I get by just fine for the time being, and even though I may be poor I can still feed myself and the cats. I also think I am stronger, thinner, and wiser, even if I may be a bit more reclusive as the tradeoff to those traits. I also have a job for the summer now, when that didn't happen last summer. Overall, I think everything's a bit better than before. It's not perfect, of course, but better.

This morning, Lady is coming in for the weekend. She doesn't have class today, so she can get here earlier than otherwise. We're planning a nice weekend together. The weather, while hot, isn't supposed to be nasty, so we won't have to worry about our time together being cut short (as we did three weeks ago when she was last here). So that we're not interrupted by anything or anyone, as soon as she gets here my phone is getting turned off. I'm not going to pay attention to anything but her -- it will be our last weekend together in my place for a long time. I have also finished grading all of my students' final papers in the past day or so as well, finishing the last ones a few hours ago, so that I won't have anything nagging at me in the back of my head. I have nothing else to do for the next three days but spend time with her -- and it's going to stay that way.

However, come Monday, things will change. I must return to campus and give my students their final exam. This in itself is not a problem -- it will be pretty simple. I was expecting to be done on Monday, but apparently the fates had other plans. Y'see, the girl I've been assigned as my "grading partner" for finals has a daytime class as well as a night class that she teaches. The night classes take their finals at a different time -- in this case, Wednesday night. As I have to grade both sets of her essays, this means that I'll be stuck going back into campus next Thursday morning again to grade the set from the night class. This isn't a big deal, of course, but it does extend the amount of time I have to remain, y'know, available on the University's terms by three extra days. Therefore, I'm going in there on Thursday morning, finishing it as quickly as possible, turning in/posting my students' grades, and getting the hell out of Dodge. Lady's graduation is next weekend, and I need to do a little self-tune-up to the car before I make that long-ass drive -- such as check/refill the oil, refill the coolant if it's low, get it new gas and put a fuel system/carb cleaner in the tank, and make sure it has enough air in the tires. I've never driven the Monte Carlo such a long distance before (the most miles I've put on it in one day was about 100), so I have to make sure I can do everything I can to get it there and back safely. I wish I could afford to get the car its oil change this weekend prior to my trip out there next weekend, but I just can't. I really have no spare money right now, as all of my bills just came out of my bank account, and two more just arrived in the mail.

So yeah, minor inconvenience, I know, but an inconvenience nonetheless. I look at it as another day's worth of gas money spent at this point, really.

More updates will come after Lady returns to school on Sunday, of course. But, until then, consider me incommunicado.

Hell on Wheels, Part II

Spring semester: day seventy-five

Today is the last day I have to teach my classes for the semester. I am collecting their papers, giving them their practice exam, and bidding them farewell. And so will end my second semester of teaching Science and Engineering English 102.

I love teaching that class, as I told my bosslady. There's no class I would rather teach. It's so fun. In the fall (provided I end up teaching it again; right now, I'm not sure if I'll get to), we even have a new edition of the book to use, so I'll get to explore a newer version of the text. Also, if I continue teaching it in the fall, it will be the first class I've taught for more than two semesters in a row. I'd be perfectly fine with that.

Of course, I still don't know if I'm teaching it in the fall; if I'm lucky, I may end up teaching online sections of 101 or 102. It depends on how the dice rolls. Regardless, I would imagine I'll find out one way or the other this coming week.

In other news, the massive 681 project is finally finished. I finished it about 24 hours ago. My actual written part of it clocks in at a whopping 47 pages, with about ten pages' worth of extra handouts included in it as well, bringing the total between 55 and 60. It is absolutely nuts. I know I waaaaaay overachieved on it, but I didn't want to create half a lesson plan, or half a set of handouts and quizzes. It would've seemed oddly unfinished. And, after all, my professor didn't give an upper page limit. So, let's see how he likes it. I'm printing out a copy of it this morning and turning it in to him so that if I need to, I can revise it.

In other news, Lady is not only feeling better, but she will be coming in this weekend. It will be our last weekend to spend time together at my place before she goes home for the summer to work her summer job. Next weekend, I will venture across the state line to see her "graduation" from her college and meet her mother and aunt, which should be fun as well. It's sort of frustrating to know that we'll have to spend so much time apart over the summer, but neither of us are thinking about that right now -- in fact, we've both been actively avoiding talking about it. Lady does not yet know where she will be when fall comes, in regards to schooling or living situations. She's currently waiting to hear back from a number of schools and opportunities, but there is certainly the very distinct possibility that she and I will be physically apart (aside from visits, of course) for the next year of our relationship after this summer -- until I graduate from Flat State University and get the hell out of Kansas. Mind you, neither of us want this, but it all comes down to circumstance. I'm locked here for better or worse until this time next year, finishing my MFA program. Graduate school credits don't exactly transfer from one institution to another like undergraduate credits do, so for the next year I'm more or less stuck here regardless of what happens. This is the other reason I was hoping to get the online teaching gig -- if I have to leave town for a few days at some point for visits, at least I can teach my classes from wherever I am as long as I have access to a computer. Next spring this would be even more important as I would imagine I'll be interviewing at several places on the opposite side of the country, providing (of course) that I can afford to fly to these places for said interviews. I also plan to attend AWP in Boston next spring, as well, if money allows me to do so.

Now that I'm rushing headlong into the abyss that is not only summer vacation but my third and final year of graduate school in the fall, I've come to realize that I have a lot of stuff to do, and a lot of stuff planned that I must make happen, including a few very, very large things. I'm going to try to get a jump-start on all of my work over the course of the summer, in-between teaching my classes and writing my thesis, but I have a long long way to go. For example, I've basically given up on spending money to fix up the car -- I'll eventually get the oil changed, of course, and I'll probably put new tires on it, but as for any other major repairs? I won't have the spare money to make them. Ever. Everever. I'll probably end up selling it within this next year in order to get a more reliable, more expensive vehicle that will be able to take me back across the country when I graduate. As much as I love my Monte Carlo, and as much as she will always be the first car I could totally call mine, name-on-the-title-and-paid-for, she sucks gas like crazy and has 222,000 miles on her. I can't depend on her forever, and I certainly can't expect her to make a 2,000-mile trip across the country back to the east coast. What I need is a small, fuel-efficient SUV or a Subaru wagon like Andrea has, even if I have to spend about two or three months' worth of paychecks on it. I won't have much of a choice once next May rolls around -- I don't have any family out here to help me move things; what won't fit in whatever vehicle I have at that time will more than likely have to get trashed, donated, or quickly sold.

No, that doesn't include the cats.

Some other interesting things have been happening lately as well, though they've all been small things. For one, my sleep cycles are regulated now -- they're just regulated in the opposite direction. Due to my constant, crazed work on my 681 project, I've gotten into the habit of staying up until 9 or 10AM, and then sleeping until 6PM or so. During the rest of this semester, this would've been a problem. Now that the semester is over (for the most part) it doesn't really affect me as much. I got up last night at 6PM, and I will teach this morning, go to a doctor's appointment this afternoon, and then come home and go back to bed until tomorrow. Tomorrow (Wednesday) I'm on campus for a few hours in the morning and into the afternoon, and then I am off until Monday (when I give my students their final exam). In the interim, I'll be grading my students' papers and spending time with Lady this weekend, but not doing much else, so time to sleep is indeed pretty flexible at this point. This is fine. I have coffee. I also have two days of downtime to get some rest before Lady arrives.

Tonight, as storms rolled through, my internet went out twice -- once around 11PM and again around 3AM. It was out for over an hour each time. This wasn't really a problem, as there wasn't really much to do anyhow, but it did stop me from being able to talk to Lady for a few hours, until at some point I assume she eventually went to bed. I called to report the outage the first time, and I got a guy on the phone who sounded like he'd been sleeping at his desk. He told me he'd check out the problem and then call me back...and then never did. In the meanwhile it came back on and then went out once more before sticking on for good (currently, anyway). Weird. Usually the cable internet people are totally on the ball when something happens and I call for service. Now watch the guy finally call back when I'm in the middle of teaching class this morning, or something. It wouldn't surprise me.

As I've finished all of my coursework for the semester now, I'm in a bit of what some may perceive as a "lull," at least until I get my students' papers today. With the completion of my 681 project, and my last formal classes meeting last week, I have nothing else to do but grade and give the final before I can call myself done. It's a really weird feeling. I'm not used to having nothing to do -- and instead of a sense of freedom sweeping over me, there's just this sense of...boredom. Of nothing. And it's coupled with an immense desire to just go to bed for a week. That, at least, I will probably accomplish after I give the final exam on Monday, while Lady is taking her own exams next week (however many she has; I believe she has two).

I've paid all of my bills except my electric bill (not due for another three weeks), and I've gone to get groceries that will last me for a good two weeks or so, hopefully. After the semester's over, after I go to Lady's graduation and return home, I am going to do my best to hunker down for a while. I won't have any major expenses, not even gas, until I begin teaching this summer at the end of May. Aside from going to see The Avengers (because, believe me, I'm not fucking missing that) at some point, I'm barely even planning to leave the house if I can avoid it -- especially if it starts getting really hot outside really quickly. The temperature nearly hit 100 last week on one or two days, and it wasn't even May yet. Even with the vast expanse of summer ahead of me, though, I'm only looking forward to the good things in the short term -- I'm excited to see Lady this weekend first and foremost. I haven't seen her in two weeks, and her visit last time was cut short by the tornadoes that hit the region that weekend, prompting her to leave early to miss the weather. Unfortunately, Lady's arrival on Friday means that I'll miss the "end of the year" grad student party, during which everyone sends off the graduating MFA class. Last year it wasn't a formal event and was more or less a "let's go to Rae and Jay's apartment" sort of thing, but this year it's quite well-organized and sort of upscale. If Lady were arriving on Thursday night instead of Friday, we'd probably go together so that she could meet my friends from the department. However, with her coming in at the same time the party's happening, that's not really an option. Rae texted me over the weekend to ask "So when do Jay and I get to meet [Lady]?" or something to that effect, and the sad part is that I really don't have an answer for her -- it'll more than likely be in the fall if they do get to meet her, but then again the possibility is also "never," depending on where Lady ends up going to school in the fall.

I'm beginning to wonder if people think I've just made Lady up, or that she's just a figment of my imagination. No, I haven't, of course, and she's not. Duh. There are, after all, pictures of her on my Facebook, and she even took my profile picture with her phone. We're just private people, and we keep our relationship private as well. As I've mentioned here before, it's nobody's business but ours what we do and when we do it, etc. That doesn't mean I don't want her to meet my friends or that she doesn't want to -- in fact, the exact opposite is true -- it's just that it never happens. Believe me -- Andrea, Shainna, and both of my parents can vouch that the girl is indeed real.

Speaking of my parents, I asked my mother whether or not she would want me to fly back out there over the course of this next month or so at some point for another visit, preferably with Lady as well. There's a small window of available days I could do it, from about May 20 to 27, and from May 29th to June 10 or so. Lady starts her summer job back home in the middle of June or so, but as she'll visit her aunt beforehand in the interim she'll have access to the Prius to drive up for a few days again. For me, it's about the only time I'll have this summer that's completely free and unencumbered by needing to be here every Tuesday night to teach my summer English 102 class, and if I'm going to visit my parents again I want to do it when Lady is available to visit them as well, especially since my parents adore her as much as I do. I haven't heard back from Mom yet, though I would imagine I will either today or tomorrow. Besides, it would probably be best to do it before the summer gets incredibly, crazily hot out here in the midwest, as well as back home.

So that's pretty much all that's going on right now. Coming up? Grading and lots of it, followed by sleep and lots of it, followed by Lady, followed by my students' final exam.

Hooray, this long and ponderous semester is almost over.