Wow. Look at everything
here.
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I had an appointment to get my hair colored today... I've been needing a weave for like eight months. I hardly notice it because I look at myself all the time, but C has started making little jokey comments about it. These are usually after I've made fun of some unsuspecting television woman's hair, but still. It must look bad if Baby C finds it appropriate torture fodder. So I made an appointment with the girl that my regular stylist recommended after she, herself, QUIT. And I had assumed that the new girl would charge roughly what my girl previous had charged. Which, in point of fact, was just this side of the ransom price of a cute and dimpled toddler. I was prepared for that, so when I called this morning,
juuuust to make sure, and they told me that a weave with Shannon
starts at $95 and a haircut
starts at $55; well, that's ransom for more jam-sticky hands than I have
room for. I am
not paying $200 to get my hair done. That's absolute bullshit. I cancelled the appointment (albeit apologetically; I should have checked the price before the day of the appointment) and started calling around. The beauty school, my ace in the hair hole (careful) wants MORE than Shannon. I finally just called the huge gorgeous black woman who cut it for $14. She'll weave it for $50. Perfect. That's ransom for... cute baby
parts... which is more what I had in mind.
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I was feeling better yesterday so I took a quick trip to the gym... would you believe that they had a
pizza buffet set up by the door? What is
wrong with people? And of course there were twelve fat forty-seven year old men-- sweaty backed, wet towel thrown over one shoulder-- standing around wolfing cheese and grease like they were at the fair. And every time I'm doing cardio in that place I get some manager who has decided to do PR strolling around, wanting to talk to me about my workout regime. Yeah, I'm in the
middle of something here. Something that makes it difficult for me to
speak without spitting on you. If I need anything,
I'll find you. I will! I know where you are! There are eighty-five of you lurking behind the *hard sell* wall... you're hard to miss. Eighty-five fit twenty-six year olds in teal polos and a *no mercy* stare. I got it.
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Q: What's better than having the stomach flu?
A: Being set on fire.
I am going to die. Fucking stomach.
Cancel lunch, Barbara. I'll be in my office if you need me.
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It looks like this site is working again... for awhile there it was looking pretty fucked up and complicated. I couldn't even get access-- nothing like unquenchable rage at a mute machine to make the world seem like a piece of crap. Anywho...
I'm off to the gym in a minute. I tell R that I'm on my own personal *Six Weeks To A Body That Doesn't Make Me Want To Back Over Myself With The Car*... and he brings me cinnamon rolls. ??? I'm blocked at every turn.
So this game that S gave me is taking over my life. I'm starting to judge people I meet by what I think their attributes would be... "Hmmm... Speed, about 72... Intelligence, 15... Agression, 95...man, I wouldn't want to meet this guy in a Hidden Forest without a Mage." I knew I was in trouble when, while watching a movie last night, I found myself willing Indiana Jones to cast *razor cloak*... "Invoke Enchanted Sword! Invoke Enchanted Sword!" This isn't good for anybody.
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I'm so upset about that paper that even
reading my last post makes me all fidgety and squinty. Everyone keeps saying *learning experience!* or *hey, you got an A in the class, right?* or *Honey, I know it was just great* (mom. obviously.) None of that is helping. What is also not helping is sitting on my train wreck playing computer games and wallowing in my laziness. And knowing that the only food in the house is canned salmon. And no one's going to want to eat that for the eighteenth night in a row.
"Dibs on the label!"
"I call the lid!"
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My grades were posted online this morning-- two A's and a B. The B was obviously a result of the Ominous Fifty Pager; I would much rather have gotten an email from him allowing an incomplete. I would have appreciated an email from him PERIOD, really. ANY response at all. But whatever. A B is fine. So I'm thinking, "Alright. A's in Vagina and Whales. Maybe I'll mosey out to the mailbox and see if my *A* Vagina paper made it back while I was gone..." *mosey mosey mosey* Sure enough, there it was. And poor me, with the A in the class thinking that opening the envelope is going to be a harmless, possibly
pleasant experience.
Holy Jesus.
I have
never been so humiliated, so aghast, so deflated, so shudderingly fetal as I was when I read those comments. The paper won me a C+/B-. Comments like "far below the mark" and "did you do
any research?" and "this isn't even a thesis!" and "I expected an A paper from you... what happened???' were just the tip of the proverbial blood-crusted iceberg. I'm not even sure what to do now. Both papers that should have been the highlight of my academic career have now both officially been deemed complete shit. And I TOTALLY KNEW IT. That's the absolute worst part. That I sat around and wasted time and tried to pull work out of my ass like I was a goddamn sophomore reading Huck Finn. The best part is that if I want to at least
start my thesis next semester, I need this woman to chair my committee. Because I fucked around and didn't ask the Eccentric Guy until late enough that my request was insulting. (Apparently. I never heard back.) How do I even BEGIN to approach her now? Do I just humble myself and tell her that I
knew the paper was awful but that I flaked and didn't give myself enough time? Or do I...? No. That's really the only option. But should I offer to redo it? Or do another one? Given that this one was shit from the get-go? Or is that overkill? I have to do something. Her disdain is more than I can stand. She obviously thinks that I'm capable of the work-- she did give me an A in the class-- but her disappointment is palpable. I've NEVER gotten ANY feedback like this before. Shit, the WHALE guy gave me an A! I'm just stunned. Just humiliated and stunned.
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I'm so tired, but it's only 8:20. R isn't home yet so I'm *fonting*. This font is so... round. I feel like it should have a "heart over the 'i' option" and be called, "L/Y/L/A/S."
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...
That is
so not as good as it was with no sleep.
I'm really very screwed.
And I have a headache. I should eat. Since it's been... 21 hours and all.
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I feel so loved! Here's the introduction:
"To approach anything remotely resembling “understanding” relative to the impetus behind written fiction as a genre is, to say the least, intimidating; to attempt that task in the context of Individual perception and spacial identity is, perhaps, impossible. When we loftily announce that we will “explicate” or “break down” or “analyze” fictive texts in order that we may better “understand” them, it seems to me a futile attempt. The very reasons that we have the compulsion to unlayer these texts are the same reasons that we will never have any true success; the individual subjectivity that we bring—that I bring—belies any “truth” that I may find. I can understand how fiction operates, I can have an understanding of motive based on cultural circumstances, I can relate slow and sweeping societal phases to the work at hand, I can conjecture and speculate and take gender into consideration. What I cannot do, what I maddeningly cannot do, is know the writer. No amount of porous study into the heart of the construction of language, no comprehensive analyzation of merchantilism or domestication or industry or history will relinquish the Truth. Because the Truth, the writer’s exclusive, absolute Truth, is unknowable. And in this age, when objectivity is a concept that gets tossed around inside a context pervaded by priveledged subtext and hyper subjectivity, nothing can be studied unless it’s through a “lens.” This post-postmodern society of implications and retrospectives and implied retrospectives and retrospective implications… we feed on interpretation because it’s convenient, not because it’s accurate. But that’s what we do. And it’s what we’ll continue to do until “finite cause” is made somehow irrefutably clear.
Which, delightfully, brings me to a point. The study of the evolution of the novel form of fiction is built upon this spark of “cause”; isn’t that everything humans have ever wanted to know? What’s the catalyst? What’s the guiding force? Ironically, causality was considered finite; the novel is, in one small sense, the written record of human independence. It encompasses the break with absolute truths, with cosmic order and predestination, and embarks on a journey to liberate human existence. I will attempt to encapsulate that journey—the primary global factors with regard to dominant, growing and caving philophies, the ideologies that served as conditional backdrop, and the transitions between them. Though this assignment specifically asked that I use a postmodernist text as a way of seeking entry into the various other disciplines, I find that I am insecure in my ability to forgo the “natural” cadence of forward-marching time. Perhaps a student fifty years from now will diagnose my hesitation as a symptom of the provincialism of this age. Be that as it may. I’ll work from the past forward. "
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It's 9:37. I haven't been to sleep yet. The night before last I slept five hours. That's five hours of sleep in 51 hours. That's not a lot of sleep. Even better? I'm drinking wine. At 9:37 in the morning. Because, apparently, I can.
I turned the Fifty Pager in. Not because I felt like it was complete, but because at six o'clock this morning I stopped crying long enough to realize that it was as polished as it was going to get. Which wasn't very. The first 20 pages are a magical experience... the last 10 pages are poignant. It's the middle that sucks ass. I just flat didn't leave myself enough time to do it. Period. And this guy was supposed to chair my committee... *sigh*. I'd rather take an Incomplete. I really would. I mean, it's a B. It's a B paper. But, God! The grade isn't even the point! This was THE paper. This was my publication. And I turned it in with parenthetical quotations that read, "find this quote". I can't even think about it. Maybe I'll feel better after I get some sleep. I'm just absolutely horrified.
It's days like today that I remember why I started this.
If anyone writes and says *don't worry,* or *it's not that bad*.... just don't.
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Holy Christ. I've officially written the best introduction ever written for ANY paper EVER. And I've edited a paragraph.
One paragraph.
In an hour.
I found my Windom Hill cd though, the one from the boat. So I may be moving slowly, but I'm on the brink of crazy nostalgia tears while I'm moving.
Hey. Does anyone know if Robinson Crusoe had a
middle name? We're looking for stretchy here.
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I'm editing the Fifty Pager! I thought this day would never come! If it continues to go this smoothly, and it gets longer and not shorter, I will be *beyond words* ecstatic. On the downside, I'll probably start next semester's paper the night before it's due, secure in the knowledge that I AM JUST THAT FUCKING GOOD.
Ten-to-one I finish, and I have a gorgeous 25-page paper. Bet me.
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I stayed up until 3 last night perfecting the lesbian paper... I actually turned it in on time this morning which is a bonus. It's now 10 am and I'm not even REMOTELY CLOSE to being finished with the Big Guy, but, you know. I've had four hours sleep. I'm raring to go.
On my way home just now I saw a "Fight the Establishment-- Join a Subculture" bumper sticker. Would that be the "subculture" that straps four thousand dollar wheels onto a Honda Civic? I guess it would be. Fight the power.
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TOP SEVEN REASONS WHY I NEED TO BE DONE WITH THE SEMESTER:
1) I've been using the "if you loved me you would" rationale to expedite the food and Diet Coke being furloughed in, and I'm beginning to sense hesitation.
2) I was telling this story last night: "So I asserted, 'No way!'
and he proffered, 'Yeah, that's totally what I said,'
and I stated, 'But that's so unfair! He can't DO that!'"
3) My ass is a TRAIN WRECK.
4) I know for a
fact that nobody gives a FUCK about Tom Jones OR his misadventures.
5) I can't remember how to dial the telephone.
6) That thing about my ass? TRAIN. WRECK.
7) I don't have a seventh thing. In the same way that my fifty page paper is forty-five pages. Let's just accept it and move on.
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I wish I could decide which of my Word Document Assistants I like best. I'm crazy about Clippit, the paperclip. When I press *print*, and he curls up and slides through his own eyeballs? It doesn't get any better than that. But when Rocky the puppy comes scampering out of his elegant Roman arched doorway, and I can see the tiny doggie bones on his private little wallpaper? I bet he's got a great house and a super family. It just makes me love him, too; in more of an envious sort of way.
(I think I love Rocky more. When I hit *save* and he shows me my disk all safe and secure, and then lifts his collar and slips the disk into his neck... that's commitment right there.)
"I love you, Rocky."
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I dreampt last night that I woke up to work on my paper, only to discover that R had invited his ex-girlfriend over and told her she could use my computer. So I walk into my office, and she's perched on my couch in her bra and underwear just typing away. My immediate comment to R was, "What, she couldn't have gone down to your
office and used your
private computer in her underwear? Dude. I have
shit to do."
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So I finished. And I was so excited to get off the couch! I ran outside and got the mail, I unloaded the dishwasher, threw in a load of laundry... and then collapsed in queasy convulsions; apparently the human body doesn't respond well to tasks involving "motion" when all you feed it for two days are handfuls of Cheez Its.
Seriously. I know that's all I've had today. Yesterday I might have gotten crazy and had some Triscuits. You know, some whole grains to balance out all of that dairy.
By the way,
this could be the cutest and most pointless thing ever.
And don't be heartless...
traffic cones are people, too.
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I'm still not finished with this paper, and I've been working like a dog. That scares me. Usually I'm not finished because I've been dicking around. How am I ever going to write fifty ADDITIONAL pages by Monday?? Why did I put myself in this position again? M emailed me this morning... she was so relieved by our commiserate procrastination that she started drinking White Russians and smoking bud at 3:00 yesterday. That's awesome. That gives me hope.
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It is SO two in the morning right now. And I can SO not go to bed until I finish reading these articles. I realized I can't finish that paper until I get an article I need from the library. Which should prove difficult... I owe them $130 in late fines. I'm pretty sure the librarians snuck in here a few nights ago and implanted a microchip in my brain that sets off the library perimeter security system. I don't want to falsely accuse or anything, but I did find a laser pointer and thirty-four thousand paper clips hooked together into a chain by my bed. And half an X-Files trading card (Scully's head was torn off).
My head itches.
(I bet, when they snuck in, they kept telling each other to be quiet.)
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Does anybody else remember when Christina Aguilera was on TRL that first time? It was probably three years ago, and she came out in Jordache jeans and a little blond pageboy and sang Genie in a Bottle. She was an A cup. She may have had on Reeboks.
I wonder if the music producers let her visit her soul on weekends or something. Maybe they give her like an hour on Sundays to make Jello Jigglers and read YM before they start whoring that shit out again.
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My friend M, (who, I should add, is the person I brag on when talking about things like *marriage*, *life decisions*, and *happiness*) just sent me more digital pictures of her baby J. They were actually pictures of her very pregnant belly, but at a week past the due date I think there's like a half-layer of very stressed-out skin defining M from J right now. She sends me these pictures, and they have captions like "just me in my pajamas", so before I open them I'm thinking of M walking around in flannel pjs. Lots of elastic and long, messy shirt-tails. I open the pictures. And
there is M... she's got on a
blue velvet tube top and pajama pants that are
supposed to tie closed but can't, so they don't. All of her *I'm so uncomfortable* bullshit flew out the window when I saw her-- any woman who wakes up and straps on a
tube top, I don't care
what else she has going on... that woman feels pretty fucking good.
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Class last night went well. Significantly better than I had anticipated, actually. I got lost and showed up twenty minutes late, which I think is working toward my *low expectation* reputation since I had, after all, been to her house before. She accepted my abstract, which was a positive. Everyone drank, which was another positive. Well, not
everyone. The Raptor Stare Girl had Perrier. Bitch. We were all on our second glass of wine when we found out that she had turned in a
draft. I thought she was going to get lynched, I swear to God. We all rolled our wine-eyes and made *snorting* noises. When she left she gave this weak sort of "bye," which nobody acknowledged. That was the hightlight of my evening-- NOT acknowledging her. She was always so unforgiving. You can't attempt to set the bar at a dissertation standard and still make friends. You're either a Perrier-drinking, autistic Mensa candidate with no soul or you're one of us. But you're not both. Cow.
So that's over. Now all I have to do is write the paper. Today.
Yep.
Not a problem.
Oh, Dr. Vagina farted on the couch next to me. I figure that has to be worth something in the way of grading leniency, don't you?
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So I finished the real abstract. One that isn't three squares and a triangle (I am a GENIUS). And I decided to finish making that pasta dish for class tonight (with all of my spare time), and I turned on the television. Oprah was on, and OH. MY. GOD. She looks
FANTASTIC! Seriously fantastic. I audibly
gasped at how beautiful Oprah looks. I guess that a billion dollars buys a pretty good beauty regimen. Better than, say, Lever 2000. Which is what I'm currently working with. (I told a Clinique countergirl that once. She whipped out a crucifix and started sprinkling me with facial toner.)
I'm off to class.
"I really prefer the Sport for oil-control, but I've found that the Anti-Bacterial is a great exfoliator."
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Heh heh. I just sent the class my *abstract*. "Here you go, guys! See you tonight! See attatched."
(*Attatched* is a bogus Word document with a bunch of crazy font bullshit on the top line. Hee hee. Like it didn't transmit. Hee hee. I'm pretty giddy about this.)
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I sent an email out to my Vagina Class earlier asking someone to bring Freud's
On Female Sexuality to class tomorrow because I need it for *citation purposes*. I just heard from Dr. Vagina, and she'd like to know "Why I'm citing the text if I haven't read it? Don't bother answering." SHE SERIOUSLY WROTE THAT. I'm choking on my spleen even as I type this. I fired off some email stammering about needing to *double check* info that's being cited in another text. God, way to phrase shit. Awesome job. "Hey, does anyone have a paper on Freud that I can just copy and turn in? Bring it tomorrow night if you do! Thanks!" God.
We're meeting at Dr. Vagina's house again tomorrow. Fabulous. Which not only means that I have to take time out of my *writing papers* trance, but I have to take out EXTRA time so I can prepare a pasta dish. Excellent. With any luck it will be a repeat of last time and I'll be the only one who brings, eats or drinks anything. Everyone else is robotic, I think. PLUS... I was supposed to email everyone a paper abstract tonight. Riiiiight. Like I've got
that on the cuff of my fucking sleeve. How about I just
write the
paper and turn it in? How about that? Dr.
VAGINA! Only about half the class has come up with anything. I should probably do one since I missed class last week. And she thinks I'm retarded. (That could work in my favor. Low expectations.)
(Meanwhile... my potential continues to sit on the couch in a silk robe reading The New Yorker. My potential is very pretentious. It rolls it's potential eyes scathingly and often.)
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I had a dream last night that Calista Flockheart offered me a receptionist position in her law office. I was about to turn it down (I
hate Calista Flockheart), but then I remembered Harrison Ford. Harrison Ford would totally be worth it.
"Do you take your coffee with mashed potatoes? Or a giant porterhouse?"
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Oh, I just got a reply back from that email to my professor explaining why my paper was late. This is what he wrote: "E; I received your email. I must admit that I'm disappointed that a terminal-level graduate student wouldn't know to check the office door before sending such an incriminating and sniveling excuse-- no doubt your late-night trip to campus proved that I had none of the papers in my possession, and hence would never had known that your paper did not meet my deadline. In answer to your question concerning my late policy, I actually choose not to implement any such policy. I've found that scheduling papers to be due on a Friday afternoon generally allows my more astute procrastinators ample time to sneak their work into my office over the weekend. After some consideration, however, I've decided to mark your paper down a letter grade. Not because of it's tardiness, but because of your complete lack of survival skills. Quite frankly, E, I'm disgusted. Dr. B"
(It really read, "E: That's fine. I'll get it Monday. B." The rest was implied.)
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Still working on first paper. Fairly seriously panicked, now. Now I have to finish this paper and turn it in today, read all day tomorrow, write for the Vagina on Sunday... and then start Eccentric Man on Monday? None of this is humanly possible. I know I'm in *serious paper mode* now, though, because I have the music going... speaking of, was there EVER a more profoundly anguished line than when CCR sings "My love is an anchor tied to you, tied with a sliver chain"? The answer is no, my friends. I've never wanted to be in a codependent, dysfunctional relationship more than when I hear that song. And that's saying something.
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I had to drive to campus to pick up the only known VHS copy of
Maedchen in Uniform in my part of the world for a paper I have to write on psychoanalytic theory. The girl who handed it off to me is currently writing her doctoral dissertation on
Infinite Just, and her chair is the Eccentric Professor. So she's going insane. I called her infant daughter an "adorable baby boy", too, so... I think I helped. On the way home I heard the Christopher Cross song
Ride Like the Wind for the second time in two days. I swear when he sings, "And I've got such a long way to go / Till I make it to the border of Mexico," I have to fight the urge to throw some shit in the car and head south. (Yes, The Crossman always has that effect on me. Don't even get me started on
Sailing.)
Still no sign of the keys. I'm thinking it might be time to outfit the Singler. You know, bump it up in status with it's own keyring. I hate that I lost the other one. I got it in Nice years ago
when I was finishing my French minor in Paris. Yeeeaah! You know I'm a bad ass! (Actually, I sneak that phrase into every conversation I possibly can. The irony is that I never got the minor: I took all the classes, but was too lazy to fill out the paperwork.)
"Hey, how long do I have to chill on this beach before I have a minor in marine biology? Cause I'll lay here all day if I have to. My education is just that important to me."
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I upgraded to Blogger Pro this morning. I think I thought that if I surrendered my credit card that my site would suddenly have a full-color anime backdrop, five scroll-down menus and a separate archives page. It doesn't. Pretty much it just has spellcheck. So I have that going for me. Hey, maybe the anime people come by the house personally and set it up for me. And bring a cooler with sandwiches and Diet Rite. Because when you're a Blogger Pro pro, you're thorough and people get hungry. I hope I can hear the doorbell from back here.
I'm still working on this paper. This has to be the longest time I've ever spent on anything, ever. I'm figuring that I can finish this one tonight, read for Vagina Class tomorrow, write that paper on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, read for Eccentric Man on Tuesday, then write his on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. What do you think? I would have complete confidence in that plan-- except that it's taken me a week and a half to write a paper on the subject of all of them that I'm the most comfortable with. I just keep telling myself that last semester I went in Special Forces style, too-- and I got all A's. I really am that fucking good. (Repeat, Repeat...)
Hypothetical: If you and a group happen to find a team of baby kittens living in a Mastercraft, and everybody but you thinks it's okay keep them in a big *bucket* overnight until you can get them to the Humane Society, maybe ask what the other option is before you disagree. Because the other option could be *shovel*.
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