Pencils Down!

The sun is shining today, literally and metaphorically.

I have just returned from my last trip to campus of the year. I dropped off the last of my library books. I picked up some light reading for the plane. I ate some cookies that I assumed were free because they were on a table in the English department. I photocopied some things.

Most importantly, I turned everything in. Every. Last. Page.

A rough calculation of the writing I produced over this finals period came to approximately 20,000 words of content (thus, including substantive footnotes). I was too afraid to add in any word counts of textual notes and paper planning, which generally exceeds the final product  twice over.

When I finished with drafting everything, I felt a little like a black whole inside.
But just now, when I turned it all in, I felt like this:

And also, a little like Bambi here:

I now have less time in the Bronx than I spent on my last draft on Saturday. Ladies and Gentlemen, let's get our Holiday on.

Semester 1: Home Stretch

In a glorious meandering into procrastination, I present a photo post.  

 So: Because I have spent so much of my time locked in my apartment, I've had to force myself to go on walks for sanity's sake. Because the temperature of my apartment would be most appropriate for a nudist colony, I also stick my head out the window into the 30-degree air often.

Right outside my door; done up for Christmas.

My landlords.

Then the snows came.

Snow + Garbage = Strangely idyllic.

My 'hood.

School is a strange mistress. I should be living the high life (and if the world were truly just, I would be doing so with some High Life), but instead I don't sleep, and I arrange ideas on scraps of paper and my computer screen over and over again.

The last first draft, in process.

This project involves a lot of counting. And
Tallying. And frustrating loss-of-counts.

The actual face of paper-writing. I'm not here yet with this last
paper, but you'll note the faint look of terror in the eyes. That's
coming. Soon.

The good news it that for all the isolation and tiredness, the work is getting done, and (if I may flatter myself) it's not half bad.  The end is nigh.

Storm-time.

In an apparent dual act of solidarity, the Bronx has decided to become unseasonably warm and host a monsoon.

This coincides with what I understand to be identical circumstances in Portland yesterday, further reminding me that the only thing actually separating me from being in the Northwest are these final papers and a few days.

It also coincides with the storm of trying to finish everything in time to get out of dodge for the holidays. Somehow, no matter how much preparation one does for completing finals, it still feels like a bomb is ticking away somewhere, and that finding it in time is out of the question.

But, so it goes. And so I go, back to it.

The Way of the World

It was my day off today, and I usually have highly uneventful days off, to make up for the sheer fatigue of many of my days on.  However, uneventful was not in the cards.

For the first time ever I ventured south onto the Lincoln Center Campus,* in order to have a conference with a professor and find my way to this season's production of William Congreve's The Way of the World. I promptly got lost.  This is a feat of epic proportions, as I would come to find out that everything I needed was in the same building, despite my having entered and exited said building several times.

Once I knew where things were, I decided to kill some time by eating dinner.¹  After wandering about for a bit, I chose the diner with the fewest people in it.²  This place, called the Morning Star, was a phenomenal oddity. When I entered, it felt as though I was in the tiniest truck stop in Kansas; the decor was wood panel and exposed light, and a sign made from Sharpie on paper plate announced that they "now HavE GritS!" The sign did not lie.  Also on the menu: a side of sliced tomato. The wide variety of menu choices appealed to the 80 year old in everybody, and may have explained why the only other people dining were elderly folks accompanied only by their hats and newspapers. Personally, it reminded me of Country Bill's, in Portland (where you can buy buttered saltines to go with your exceptionally strong drink), so I too was thrilled.

My waiter was somewhat confused as to what a young whippersnapper like me was doing in the Morning Star, and when he walked up he put his hand on my shoulder and asked if everything was all right with me. He would later drive home his point about my seeming out of place by asking, "you're not from this neighborhood, are you?" as though anyone who was would certainly not have chosen to eat there. I didn't see why this was the case, however, as my food was perfectly fine and was served up in short order, having been expertly made by the chef (who was, incidentally, dressed in a manner reminiscent of Carlos Santana, complete with moustache, fedora, and royal blue blazer--worn over his apron).

This photo, from uk.news.yahoo.com , is not of the man who
cooked my dinner, but I would bet you wouldn't have known
that in a criminal lineup of the two. 

In any case, I left pleased and sated and went to the play. I'll not venture a review of said play here, because I never know what to make of Restoration Comedies (that's not entirely true anymore, after this class). I can now say I've seen TWO of them in my lifetime, though, which is approximately two more than nearly everyone else in the world.

One thing I will say is this: they definitely went for it, and included not only the prologue and epilogue, but a dance number and several between-act dumbshows. 

Following the play, after conversing with some friends, I realized (or rather, they told me) that I was on campus, technically, and rather than needing to take public transportation home, I could take the Ram Van. In college, we often made a big deal about resenting NYU students for having a trolley that got them around without major expense or the subway.³  I jumped for joy at the prospect of waiting a mere 20 minutes (with no walking) and not having to take a train to Grand Central for the Metro North.

My enthusiasm should have waned when I entered the van and noticed the smell. I didn't identify that smell until too late, however--it had the bitter and rank twang of sweat, fear, and pheremone that one might smell on a passenger flight as it hurtled towards the ground. It turns out that the Ram Van is driven by students. In New York City. I have driven in New York a grand total of once, and I was a full fledged human being when I did so.  These youths, so far as I could make out, could not yet successfully grow beards.

What I'm getting at here is that driving in the city, particularly driving a van filled with people whose lives are in your hands, takes a lot of (a) maturity, skill, and calm, or (b) fearless batshit insanity.  Guess which one the 20 year old male behind the wheel had.

The ride quickly escalated to a threat level of terrifying, and the whole van fell silent. I hit the ceiling no fewer than 12 times from 59th street to 190th. That's not an exaggeration. I was counting, because it helped distract me from the fear that I was soon going to meet my end.

But the well trained young man got us home safely. I am home safe, and ready for the weekend, which will not actually have any other days off in it. Such is the way of the world.


Notes:
* I have been to Lincoln Center itself several times, because the Metropolitan Opera House is there, and a Music Library.
¹ It is perhaps indicative of some flaw in my character that I designate the human needs of sustenance and nutrition to a mere whiling away of moments in between important things, and makes me wonder how far up Maslow's Pyramid I'm ever going to climb if I neglect physiological necessity. Self-Actualization? Never!
² And this tendency, it now seems, might have a causal relationship with the frequency of food poisoning in my life. I might be well advised, as a person of delicate constitution, to frequent well-established joints with a large clientele.
³ I actually think we resented them for other things, too, like having multiple food-service carriers, dorms without rats, and a real library, but that's beside the point at hand.

Confidence-by-Proxy

As a graduate student, I am rather often assailed by self doubt and utter confusion.  This is a documented* affliction: called "Impostor Syndrome", it happens when accomplished people in any field have the inability to accept their accomplishments or competency as legitimate. Basically, it's that little gnome in the back of the grad-student brain that reminds a person to feel like a fake, and that at any moment, they'll be found out as such.

Now, normally I accept these feelings of inadequacy and roll with it. I sublimate the impulses to run away, and try not to be the student who overcompensates via attempts at one-upmanship.°  Sometimes it doesn't work.

Today, I was feeling pretty accomplished, and sent a text message to G-face to announce this fact; I did not initially notice the current in the text that undermined my own accomplishment. Her response was both typically apropo, and typically wonderful:

Growing up, my dad had a photocopied poster in his plant. It was a frog in a bird's mouth. You couldn't see most of the frog; just its legs were dangling out the side of the birds mouth and it had its hands around the neck of the bird. The bird looked out from the poster perplexed at the frog's tenacity. Underneath, the caption read, Never Give Up.

The moral of this story is that self-doubt ain't nothin' when you got friends like mine.


Notes:
* Though according to everyone's favorite ill-advised sourcebook, Wikipedia, it's not part of the DSM-IV.
° Also known, in some circles, as "the douchebag."

Operation Wall Street.

Last night, Jess L. and I donned semi-professional looking clothing and went to Wall Street for an adventure.
To prep ourselves, we went to a restaurant on St. Marks that offered culinary masterpieces like "Spicy & Tingly Lamb Face,"  "Spicy Pig Blood Salad," "Lamb Spine," and "Lamb Treasure Soup."*

Lest you think I am at all joking.

The food was stunningly delicious, though (to be fair) we weren't bold enough to try the Lamb Face or the Pig Blood.

The goal, then, was to infiltrate a Wall Street bar or two at Happy Hour on a Friday, and see what all the people whose jobs earn them money do on a Friday night.  The first place we visited, Jeremy's, had 22 different beers on tap (a welcome change from the 3 beers usually offered in the Bronx), and served said beers in 32 ounce Styrofoam cups.
The class of this joint was unparalleled. Horse Racing and Hockey were on all the flat screens, and very wealthy men were inexplicably playing Keno. All of the acoustic ceiling tiles were decorated, most in two ways: first, with sharpie-scrawls immortalizing drunkenness, and second, with bras. There were no fewer than 100 bras stapled to the ceiling.
It was a remarkable display of new wave feminism: instead of burning the marks of the oppressor, these pioneering women offered their protest by removing and displaying the symbols of the yoke of gender-roles in public. The entire scene was quite moving, and I'm certain none of the brave souls who rid themselves of their bondage had any regrets (or headaches) the next morning.
Jess and I decided to keep all of our clothes with us, because we figured there was enough solidarity tacked overhead already. I guess we're bad feminists.

After our Big Gulps of beer were empty, we moved on to a sharper place called The Pearl.

Near Williams Street.

At this establishment, all the doors were opened for us and our cocktails had fancy names, fancy ingredients, and very fancy pricetags. We sat, acting as though there was nothing odd about a pair like us sitting in a place like that, drinking our pretentiously named, 3/4 sized drinks. The ruse worked, and our demeanors and dress actually caused the man behind the bar to think we wanted (read: could afford) more than one drink.

I always assume that my presence in expensive places will be viewed as suspect, a la Pretty Woman, and that I will be snubbed or denied service because I look, well, poor and out of place (both of which I invariably am in such places). The first time this truly happened, I was sixteen and in San Francisco. The Best Friend and I had walked into what, for us, was a high end establishment (I believe is was a Bebe). Perhaps it was our age, perhaps it was the fact that her hair was blue and mine orange, but we were heartily disdained. I believe we vowed never to shop in a Bebe ever again. I have held to that vow, if only because I still cannot afford it.

But last night, there were no such assumptions made. We fooled the entire Wall Street area. And we learned that brokers and businessmen are no more interesting than the rest of us. They just wear nicer suits to drink out of Styrofoam and play Keno.







Notes:
* There were a few moments of deliberation regarding what part of the Lamb qualified as treasure. We decided that, as there were children present, we probably shouldn't deliberate too much.

Radiate. Or...

It's day three of radiator living, and as far as I can tell, the temperature outside has not significantly changed. My home's response to that temperature, on the other hand, is a whole different bucket of fish.

Yesterday was Thursday, which means that in the absence of pressing needs or impending insanity, I mostly stay home and do work. I did excellently with this endeavor and even managed to watch some internet TV in the meantime. But my apartment, she was cold. I bundled up, and she was cold. I got out the fleece blanket I've had since freshman year of college.* All this did was cocoon me in warmth, which led to an inordinately long nap with my face planted on the pages of "Primitive Marriage."¹

Now, when I am cold I am perpetually hungry.² This was thus a dual threat to my productivity. I decided to throw down my gage and enter the fray by baking the worlds most failed apple crisp. By this, I mean that I sliced up an apple, put in in a dish with some butter and some cinnamon, and sprinkled granola on the top. It turned out to be pretty delicious, and turning on the oven somehow reminded the radiator by the stove of its job.

It kicked on, and started whistling away. At first, though, I didn't know that's what was happening, as the whistling from the bedroom radiator was more of a hiss-and-sputter, and this sounded like maybe there was a litter of mice in the oven. I started to panic, because even though I've seen no evidence of mice since operation-peppermint-oil, I once read that they like to live in ovens.  I did not want baked mice babies in my life.

There were no mice in the oven, and the radiator promptly gave up its efforts, leaving me with my hot apple food and a cold apartment.


This morning (and again, I would like to note that the temperature seems not to have changed outside), both radiators were on when I got up, and the pipes that run in the corners of my living room and bathroom were both hot to the touch. My apartment is 79 degrees³ and balmy. And both radiators are still going (I can hear the comforting hiss).

Now, if my apartment is going to remain at this temperature all winter, I will be able to happily continue my day-to-day. I like a warm apartment. In fact, it could be said that I like a prohibitively hot apartment, if you ask the right person. Mostly, this is because I find sweaters uncomfortable, and I only like socks if they add to the interest of my ensemble.  However, if I'm going to be living in a polarized° environment, on the days when it's cold in here my landlords risk hobo-fires.ª

For now, I'm going to flee to work early, because the sweater I have on in order to deal with the outside world is too much for me here in the tropics of my home.




Notes:
* Because I'm the sort of person that remembers these things, I distinctly recall going to Bed Bath and Beyond with my parents to buy "essentials" during my first week in New York. At the time, it seemed very far away (it, after all, was 4 numbered blocks and half an avenue block away from the dorm). I still have most of the things I got that day; I still use that same fold-up hair dryer, for example. I gave away the towels long ago to the High School Sweetheart, because he really liked them (to be fair, they were amazing towels), but everything else I still have.
¹ Fortuitously, I did not drool on the printout.
² An interesting scenario, given that if I eat a hearty meal I always get cold right after.
³ This is not an estimate. I have an electric meat thermometer (which I also sometimes use to determine whether or not I have a fever, because I am classy like that) that always knows what temperature it is.
° Get it? Because the two temperatures are opposite, and one is reminiscent of the poles? No? Fine.
ª Hobo-fire: n. -- Fires built in found objects, such as Oil Barrels, Trash Cans, etc. Typically positioned under overpasses, with a collective of cheerful wanderers huddled around for warmth. Can be used to cook beans while still in their tins. 

Rock: Steady

It has been a busy couple of weeks, to say the least. The program has installed thumbscrews in all the chairs, and insists upon draconian measures of humiliation and lashings for students who don't keep up.

Okay, so that might be an exaggeration. All of my limbs and flesh remain intact; my pride is holding steady.  But I have indeed been very busy.  There have been a few casualties, such as the cleanliness of my kitchen and my store of clean socks, but don't, dear reader, think that anything has been amiss. I have been having adventures a-plenty.

Adventure One: Doodletown
Two weeks ago, Jess and I arranged for a trip to White Plains (a mere 20 minutes North on the train) and beyond. In White Plains, we rented a car. I had not driven since giving up my post in the White Whale, and so was very excited about the prospect. Jess has a learner's permit (because she's a native New Yorker), and was less excited about her own driving, so I was dubbed captain, she navigator.  Our car was a silver Hyundai Accent.

Photo Credits: Jess L.

Once inside, I sort of felt as though I was trapped in an escape pod for a spaceship; the thing was tiny, had no visibility, and because it was an automatic transmission, moved on its own. The loss of control in an automatic now freaks me out immensely, and I spent a great deal of time on the trip reminding myself not to use my left leg. To do so would have led to hitting the E-Brake rather than a clutch.

Nonetheless: We set off, and found ourselves a place called Doodletown. Here's what Wikipedia says about Doodletown:*

Doodletown was first settled in 1762, at least partly by descendants of French Hugenots. The name is said to derive from the Dutch for "dead valley", or Dood Dal, with the "town" suffix added later by English-speaking settlers. Early residents worked as loggers and miners, and the remains of the mines are still visible today. There were also small farms and businesses. 
The settlement was a crossroads for soldiers during the Revolutionary War during battles at Bear Mountain and Stony Point along the Hudson River. For this reason, it may have been immortalized in the Revolutionary tune "Yankee Doodle", but this is probably apocryphal. 
In the 1890s, Thomas Edison bought property in Doodletown to prospect for iron ore, although iron mines had been developed in the neighborhood at a much earlier date. Bear Mountain began to be developed as a park in the early 20th century. 
By the 1920s, Doodletown had a school, a church, several small businesses, two cemeteries and approximately 70 homes. At least several families had lived there for generations. Around this era, military and tourism-related enterprises on nearby Iona Island employed residents, as did the Palisades Interstate Park Commission. Other residences were maintained as second homes or were inhabited by retired people.
Bear Mountain State Park began to expand around 1920, in part by purchasing property from the landowners in Doodletown. By the 1950s, most of the residents had moved away, many to nearby Stony Point or into southern Orange County. Those who refused to sell lost their land through eminent domain by 1965, and most of the remaining structures were demolished or disassembled and moved out by the late 1960s. Debris was buried, the roads were closed, and the surrounding woods were allowed to grow over the properties. In the early 1970s, a dam was built on the Timp Brook, creating a sizable pond. The last remaining building, the stone school house, was kept as a shelter for hikers until vandalism caused the park commission to tear it down in 1980.

Jess and I actually wound up seeing very few remains of anything, but we did tromp around in the woods for several hours, and enjoyed some nice views.

Photo Credit: Jess L.

Photo Credit: Jess L.

Adventure Two: Em Comes to Town

Last week, Em came to stay with me for part of her Fall break.  Although Much of the time I was a terrible host because I was doing work, we managed a few exciting times. A few f'rinstances:

a) On Friday, we went to "Danny's Bar and Restaurant," which has caught my eye before. It claims to be a Mediterranean style Restaurant. What it actually is, however, is apparently the last haven for the Russians in my neighborhood.  A Russian man smoking a cigar invited us in. A Russian woman, fully decked out in Moscow fashion, was surprised that we were old enough to order drinks. 

There was no restaurant, much less a Mediterranean style one. What was Mediterranean style, or somehow intended to be, was the decor. I guess.  Stuccoed into every wall were bunches of grapes, bananas, coconuts, palm trees, and waves. An archway to the back of the establishment was adorned by two figures: one, a bronze naked youth reaching forward on point, the other, a very busty bronze naked lady arching backwards. Their fingers touched at the peak.

This photo is poorly framed because I had to
pretend I was looking for reception so the
Russian men wouldn't think I was photographing
them.

I would say it was all very classy and tasteful, but I think we all know that would be a lie.

Em has declared it her new favorite place in the Bronx, and says we will be returning.

b) On Saturday, we went to the Botanical Gardens. There isn't anything inherently thrilling and adventuresome about this. It was just a nice day for a walk, and there were lots of plants to look at.

c) Also on Saturday, we went out in the City. This involved eating at a restaurant that not only was nearly empty the entire time we were there, but only had half of the menu items available. What we managed to get, though, was delicious.  It involved prancing through a halloween costume store and trying on all the masks, hiding from people in the Strand, eating dumplings in Union Square, and walking around on the Lower East side.   On this walk, we passed a scene. A commotion. Some hubbub. Curious as to what it was, we noticed the police detaining a rather small man and talking to another, who had been the victim of a crime. 

The man had been stabbed in the neck with a fork, and was bleeding profusely. Not into a bandage, though. Into an entire roll of paper towels.  The situation was under control, and the victim was fine; the crowd around the victim, being consummate hipsters, were all standing as close to the action as possible while pretending not to notice it.

Adventure 3: The Terrors of Apartment Living

This one is all me. This morning, while it was still dark outside and I had no desire to recognize the world, I woke up. I woke up because of a strange hissing noise and the smell of a small furry creature on fire. I sat straight up in bed, worried that I'd been having a nightmare about a cat bonfire or something, and tried to shake it off, but it was all too real. So, I focused my little ears, and tried to determine if something was ablaze or if my gas stove was about to explode. 

Then I realized my room was warm. The radiator had finally been turned on.  Having not lived in a place with an honest-to-goodness radiator before, I was woefully unfamiliar of the sounds and smells it produces when it first kicks on for the season. The places I've lived in Portland either had fully customizable heat, or the building  regulated the electric baseboards. In New York, I've pretty much always lived in places with pipes that make the place excessively hot in the winter.  There was 6M in the dorm, which would always manage to be 85 degrees even in January; Baxter Street, which was probably just heated by ire and spite; Metropolitan Ave, which was a basement apartment that had once been a laundry room, so acted as a sauna; and naked Anthony's place (above Black Betty) was warm enough that Anthony didn't mind being naked.  But none of these places had visible, monstrous machines that hissed and clanged and rattled. 

I don't mind, of course. If it keeps me warm, and I don't have to pay extra for the privilege of not having my fingers freeze off, they can clang and rattle 'til judgment day.

Notes:

* Yeah, I cut and pasted that. What of it? 

Digs.

I hereby submit to you, dear reader, a long overdue look at my mostly furnished apartment.  I am quite proud to own my own furniture, all of which has been acquired new. I refuse to let the ownership said articles tag me as a grown-up, however. Just for the record.

Living room, sans chairs.

The dear, simple couch that took way too long to
replace an air mattress

Kitchen + takeout menus. 

My old roommate KW will be happy to note the resurgence
of the mirror-cum-notepad tradition started at the Perch.

Office, also sans chair.

Bedroom, clean.

It's my first real bed!

This brings me daily joy.

More soon. 

XOXO.

Call me Templeton, 'cuz I'm gonna scrounge.

I have always been a frugal girl. This has, at times, manifested in abnormal and obnoxious ways, like being willing to drink kool-aid with half the recommended sugar and calling it "juice," or refusing to shop in retail stores where articles of clothing cost more than fifteen dollars. I am the sort of girl who cannot re-sell those clothes at hipster hangouts like the Buffalo Exchange (or Beacon's Closet, if one is in Williamsburg) because the clothes are "affordable brands."*

This proclivity has reached new heights in grad school. A few illustrative cases follow:

Case the first:
Last week, When Em was here, her father stopped by the Bronx¹ and took us to dinner. This was a wonderfully kind gesture and meant that I got to eat a real protein and some actual vegetables (normally I consume a lot of beans/peanut butter/eggs for protein, and vegetables...um, well, sometimes I eat fresh tomatoes).  At the end of the meal, Em had some leftovers, and realized that she had to take the bus all the way back to Philly; thus, she didn't want to haul the food along with her.
I took the leftovers. No big deal,right? Well. Let me tell you what, dear reader: I knowingly took her leftovers filled with cheese.

For those of you unaware of the implications of the above story, you should know that I am allergic to dairy fat.  Not lactose intolerant, not having-a-distaste-for, but actively allergic.  We're talking hives and vomiting in all their sexy glory.² 


Then, I ate the leftovers, because they were free. And I got hives. And I did not regret it, because as I mentioned before, it was free. 


Case the second:
Last weekend, I went to a lecture at NYU; beforehand a few friends and I met up in Union Square for a beer, and to generally enjoy one anothers' company. After the lecture, which was excellent, we hung around for the free refreshments. Most people hang around to introduce themselves to other people in the field, or to schmooze with the speakers, but I, I was definitely there for the snacks.  I stood by the refreshment table for over a half hour, casually conversing with members of my party and occasionally grabbing pieces of fruit or olives from the tray.  Then came the official-looking lady, with several Washington Mutual banker's bags in her hands.  


She approached us with: "Take some with you. We have to throw it away otherwise."


And thus began my attempt to fill, gracefully, a gallon-sized ziploc bag from a defunct financial institution with brownies, lemon bars, and grape bunches.  I got it half-full before I reached the tipping point between "poor graduate student" and "shame," folded up the bag and sealed it, and shoved it in my bag.


I found it the next morning, still in my bag (I had come home late and gone straight to bed without remembering I'd put it there). Some of the grapes were smashed, and some of the brownies had a coating of lemon. I ate it all for breakfast.


Case the third:
Later that same day, I wandered off to campus in hopes of using the printing room alone (I print in large quantities, and never again want to be the jerk whose documents are shooting out of both available printers for 20 minutes while students with real tasks are trying to print things for class).  While there, the printer ran out of paper.  The attendant who usually fixes these things was absent, so I started rummaging in search of more.


I found a Fordham sweatshirt, buried in the detritus of a drawer.  It was clear that it had been there a long time, as the scrap paper on top of it had a layer of dust (and this was a closed drawer, so that's saying something) and was of a color that is no longer available in the Fordham bookstore.


Having determined that the article was abandoned, and the drawer a zone for forgotten relics, my next step was obvious: I pulled the sweatshirt out. And smelled it.  I turned it over and around in search of identifying markers that might clue me in to its original owner, and I also examined it for stains (marinara sauce, coffee, blood--you know, the usual). Nothing was found. Nor was a size label. I eyeballed it, then quite calmly took the sweatshirt over to the desk where I was working, placed it with my things, and returned to the task of searching for paper.

The sweatshirt fits. If anyone reading this lost, sometime in the last decade, a Fordham sweatshirt in aquamarine,³ and would like it back, feel free to contact me.

Otherwise, I'm keeping it, and going off in search of some free snacks.





Notes:
* This was an actual critique I received this summer while attempting to rid myself of a large portion of my closet. It wasn't that my tank tops were lame, it was that I bought them at Target.
¹ That sentence was as weird for me to type as it was for you to read, trust me. No one comes here willingly, despite the awesomeness of my neighborhood.
² To be fair, the vomiting thing isn't that strange. It happens all the time (totally against my will, I promise you). My high school sweetheart used to call it a "delicate constitution," which was really awfully considerate and understanding of him given that I probably threw up in his car (and mine, with him driving) a half a dozen times before we headed off to college.
³ Another surefire indicator of the shirt's antiquity is that no one has worn aqaumarine since the last New Kids on the Block Concert. The sweatshirt was almost certainly worn with a collection of snap bracelets and a confident up-do of crimped hair.

Anti-

I have, over the course of the past few years, discovered a strange bent in the perception of people who find out I am a part of higher education. There is a large contingent of the expected response of "wow! You must be smart!" (which may or may not actually be the truth--I certainly feel pretty dumb most of the time), but the longer I go, the more I receive a different response.

Case in point:

Em came in to town this weekend, and we had a pretty fantastic time watching television on the internet and eating bagels and shopping all the cheap stores in Manhattan. On Saturday, we had been wandering about like hobos with backpacks and bags weighing us down, and we found ourselves desperately tired and in dire want of a cold, frosty beer.

Now, the problem of beer in New York is one that I harp on rather constantly in my day-to-day, but I will here leave the discussion with: the elusive good beer is prohibitively expensive, and the rest seems to exist so that people who are too weak to drink liquor can get wasted on Busch or Coors Light. Having gotten drunk on cheap beer more than once in my life, I must wholly and utterly denounce this practice.

The bar we went to advertised a happy hour special of 2-dollar pints on select beers. Upon inquiry, it was discovered that in addition to the standby collection of Budweiser, Busch and Coors, they also had PBR. PBR is not good beer, but if it's cold enough it can taste like happy memories of Portland and of Fourth of July nights.  Em and I ordered a couple, and settled in.

We had not been there long before two gentlemen sidled up to our table to make conversation, and here in this conversation is where my anecdote returns to the point.

Man number 1 was moderately drunk, and his friend, Lou, was totally sober and fairly concerned that his pal was being an ass. He wasn't, at first. Then he asked if Em and I were in school. It turns out he meant college, because upon learning that I was in graduate school his face puckered in on itself and he spat, "in what?"  I told him. He turned to Em and said, "Didn't anyone ever tell her that's completely useless?"

If  I had said I was a college student in communications, or attending nursing school, the conversation would almost certainly have continued without a glitch. But my advanced degree in the humanities was intensely offensive to this fellow, and he was not afraid to let me know that.

I would say responses like this are disheartening, but they aren't--at least not for me. I've never held pretenses about the practical applications of a humanities degree, and consider the point rather to be education for its own sake, since that seems to lead naturally into practical skills of higher reasoning. But it does mark an attitude that I never noticed as an undergrad; an attitude that I now see in my own students that implies, somehow, that education is only useful if it gets you a job, or if it teaches you the facts.

I could go into my extended lecture about facts, and the false reliance on them, here, but instead I'm going to go read something useless.

Like Magic!

Dear Reader, as you perhaps know already, I have been living without internet.  I mean, not actually without internet, since my neighbor so kindly left his wireless network unprotected, but without internet of my own. I've been paying for internet, mind you, since the 31st of August.

This made me a cranky Bee, and I have spent many an hour on the phone (or, when possible, chatting on the internet I've jacked) with the internet company trying to resolve this issue. Most of the phone calls begin with a long series of automated, push-button menus followed by a robot-lady announcing that I "can now use voice commands and verbal responses"--this is, of course, supposed to be a relief, since the 10 minutes and 3,000 keystrokes on my cell phone leading up to this moment have surely exhausted me.

The problem with the robot-lady and her voice command setup is that she has terrible hearing. Pair that with the fact that I am angry at having to make this phone call at all, and I am soon shouting, very slowly, into my phone to get her to understand that words "I'm back" and "yes". I have become, in essence, one of those terrible American tourists visiting a foreign country, and assuming that the volume and speed of my vocal register are the reason no one is helping me, rather than simply the fact that I am wearing a neon colored fanny pack and sandals with socks.*

I almost always make it through this ordeal to reach a real person.  Yesterday, however, I had to brave the robot-lady twice before this happened, because they hung up on me 30 minutes into my phone call.  Once I got through, I repeated the game that has happened every time I've called:


Internet: "I see you claim to be having trouble with your internet. Are you having trouble with your internet?"
Me: "Yes. It doesn't work."
Internet: "You've had internet with us since August 31. When did it stop working?"
Me: "It never worked. The DSL light blinks at a steady rate, so it's not getting a signal."
Internet: "Okay. I am going to help you through this, miss. We need to troubleshoot."
Me: "Okay. But I know what the problem is. The DSL line isn't getting a signal."
Internet: "Is your computer turned on?"
Me: "Yes. But the problem isn't the computer."
Internet: "Can you open any websites."
Me: "No. Because I don't have internet."
Internet: "Is the modem connected to your computer?"
[note: the following series of questions comes in rapid succession, and I omit my answers because they should be fairly obvious]
 "Is your modem turned on?"
 "Is your modem plugged in to the ethernet cord?"
 "Does your modem connect to a phone jack? Using a DSL cable?"
 "Are there lights on on your modem?"
Me: "Yes. The power light, the light indicating the connection to the ethernet cable, and the wireless light. The DSL light is STILL blinking."
Internet: "Is your DSL light on?"
Me: "It's blinking."
Internet: "That means it's not getting a signal."

This continues for as long as it takes for them to acknowledge, on their own, what I told them was wrong right off the bat.  On previous calls, they have opened a "trouble ticket" and scheduled a tech to come visit.

A tech was meant to visit yesterday (for the second time), and never showed up. Hence my phone wrangling, yet again.

It was established that this was my fault, somehow, because they "did something to my line" and tried calling me to troubleshoot. When I did not answer, because I was in class, and when I did not call them back because the only caller that left a message was not speaking English, they closed my ticket. They said they assumed the problem was fixed because I didn't answer.   I assured them that, in fact, all the things we'd just discussed remained true, and that I still didn't have internet. They said they'd send a tech.


The tech visit was scheduled for Monday.  The 20th. Three solid weeks into my paying for internet.  My rage and fury knew no bounds, reader, and it took all I had to stop myself from throwing my cell phone into a wall after this conversation.


Allow us, now, to fast forward a bit. To this morning. I awake with the sun, as happens because I live on the fourth floor and have not had the incentive to buy window coverings. I finally muster the will to get out of my bed (the novelty of having a mattress is not yet faded) around 8:45, and I go about my morning routine.  
My morning routine is largely centered around washing my face, brushing my teeth, and making coffee, all while half-dressed because I don't have any roommates and there are no neighbors to look in my windows.


My buzzer buzzes as I am hitting the GO button on my coffee.  It is an Internet Company tech. I have to scramble to put on real-person clothes before he reaches the fourth floor, and I open the door very confused and concerned. 


The first thing I do is look him over to make sure he's in uniform and carrying real internetty equipment. Then, I ask him a series of questions, like: why are you here? what are you going to work on? do you know what the problem is?  do you know the flight speed of an unladen sparrow?¹
I wasn't trying to be a jerk. I was trying to figure out if he was going to rob me. He wasn't. 


Instead, he came to actually do something about my problem, and puttered around my apartment for 15 minutes actually doing things--the previous tech looked at stuff and then descended into the basement beneath the ravioli store before telling me it would be fixed at the end of the day. Today's Internet Company tech futzed with the modem, poked around the phone jack, and used my desktop computer. 


Glory of glories, he made it happen. 


I now have internet all my own.  My desktop computer is now more than an expensive stereo system.

And I, I am one more step towards being settled in.








Notes:
* It has come to my attention that some of my generation, known as "Hipsters", have volleyed to bring this look back. However, they are jerks, and the idea of "bringing something back" is predicated on a prior state in which that "something" was actually cool. 
¹ Interestingly, on my last night in Portland, I was in a bar with some friends and this same question came up (that's not the interesting part, as I have an unhealthy love of Monty Python). One person ventured a guess, and said it with such bravado that an iPhone immediately came out, and he was found to be correct.  The answer is "about 24 miles per hour," in case you are curious.

Furniture and Ferragosto

The apartment is not yet finished, but it now looks as though a person lives here, rather than a hobo.* 

Pictures of the furnished apartment will follow, but for now, enjoy the following 2 series.

Series 1: Furniture Assembly Machine

Because I was alone in my apartment at 9:30 pm on a Saturday night, when the furniture was delivered (I'm not upset by that--who would want to spend their Saturday night sitting on my air mattress with me? I didn't even want to be there) I had the joy of assembling it by myself. Furniture is heavy. And awkward. And noisy, when you drop it on the floor.

Series 2: Ferragosto

Little Italy's annual festival was today, and so Jess and I ventured out into the rain to bump elbows with strange people, try raw oysters, sample Italian pastries, and watch children dance in the streets.

Notes:

* Fine. Hobos are people, too. 

School Sampler

I have now had all my classes, and am endeavoring to do vast amounts of reading for all of them while simultaneously staying awake and alert for more than 6 hours a day.  This remains difficult, because the psychological effect of sitting on one's own bed to do homework within 10 minutes of waking up and having coffee (or a mere 20 minutes before going to bed) is that one always associates the bed with the sleeping.

Rather than embarking upon a full-blown discussion of each class, which seems premature, I have decided to submit to you, dear reader, brief excerpts from readings I'm doing for each class. Note that each week I'm reading from many more things than these, but it will still serve to give a sense of things.

1) English Language, 1154-1776. From Blake's History of the English Language.
"The first change in the vowel/diphthong system is the monophthongisation of the Old English diphthongs so that  æɑ(:) became æ(:) and fell together with the existing æ(:). The diphthong eo(:) was monophthongised to a rounded e sound, which may sometimes be represented as [e / ee] or as [o / oo]. Forms of a verb like OE cēosan in Middle English may appear as chose or chese."

2) Plays, Players, Playgoers.  From Dryden's Conquest of Granada.

I.i.

Almanz. What subjects will precarious Kings regard?

A Begger speaks too softly to be heard.

Lay down your arms; 'tis I command you now.

Do it--or by our Prophets soul I vow,

My hands shall right your King on him I seize.

IV.ii.

Lynd. My pray'rs and wishes your success foretell. 

Go then, and fight, and think you fight for me;

I wait but to reward your Victory.

Abdal. But if I loose it, must I loose you too?

Lynd. You are too curious if you more would know. 

I know not what my future thoughts will be:

Poor womens thoughts are all extempore.

Wise men, indeed,

Before had a long chain of thoughts produce;

But ours are onely for our present use.

3) Marriage & Nation. From Owenson's The Wild Irish Girl.
"'But what,' you will say with your usual foreseeing prudence-- 'what is the aim, the object of your present romantic pursuit?'
Faith, none; save the simple enjoyment of present felicity, after an age of cold, morbid apathy; and a self-resignation to an agreeable illusion, after having recently sustained the actual burthen of real sufferings (sufferings the more acute, as they were self created), succeeded by that dearth of feeling and sensation which, in permitting my heart to lie fallow for an interval, only rendered it the more genial to those exotic seeds of happiness which the vagrant gale of chance has flung on its surface."

Note that the last is a single sentence.
I will return to number one now.

A Tom and Jerry show, without the Tom.

As is to be expected in an apartment beleaguered by nocturnal vermin, I was again woken up at 3 am last night to the skittering of little mousey paws.  

A couple of days ago, I confirmed the furry presence when I walked into what will be my office (when I have furniture, internet, and my paralyzing fear of rodents has subsided) and saw the little thing scurry across the floor. I screamed, like one sees in movies and cartoons of 1950s housewives, and would certainly have leapt up onto something--this time, the lack of furniture prevented my own shame--had I the chance.  I recovered quickly, shut the door to the office, an did this:

This method of using spare cardboard to plug up the inordinate gaps and spaces that plague New York apartments is new to me, because the last time I lived in New York the gaps and spaces were frankly too large and I didn't have any cardboard. I see it as a sure sign of progress that nearly all of my walls meet at the corners and that no part of my apartment has any sign of spray-foam insulation peeking out into living areas.

I then avoided the office for 2 days, hoping that by sheer force of will I could remove the varmint from my home. Or at the very least, contain it while I found a humane trap (when I say humane, I mean: "instant-death" not "namby-pamby release into the forest") and some Peppermint Oil to spray everywhere.

I have yet to acquire either of these things, because apparently New Yorkers in the Bronx only use poison and glue traps, and I have not yet made it anywhere else.

Perhaps as a result of my slow response, the creature became emboldened.  I awoke to a fully lit kitchen, as I have been sleeping with the light on in hopes of tricking nocturnal creatures into staying away. My face is, after all, only 6 inches from the floor, and the last thing I want is a face-to-face encounter with anything that uses more legs than I do to ambulate.
I looked toward the fridge. Thence came the mouse, quite curiously tailed not by other mice, and additionally curiously, not looking for food. This mouse had done something terrible to another resident of the apartment. This mouse was on the lam.

From a two-inch house centipede.

On the one hand, it gave me extreme pleasure to note that the tribes of vermin in my place embark upon their own special brand of civil strife.  I also enjoyed the image of the much larger, much cuter mouse fleeing from what essentially looks like a mutant Daddy-Long-Legs, and for a moment contemplated the following scenario:

House Centipedes in Little Italy, in order to fully cope with the hard-knock Bronx lifestyle, did what any self respecting downtrodden creature in need of power might. They formed a House Centipede Mafia.*  This explains the lack of scary bugs in my apartment, the dominance of the House Centipede, the fear apparent on the mouse's squinchy little rodent face, and the remains of tiny cigars and itty bitty bottles of red wine I find near the baseboards.

After I recovered from this obviously half-asleep delusion, and stopped laughing, I did what any sane person would do. I picked up my can of Raid, and went after the one I could kill.

Here's hoping it wasn't the Don.




Notes:
* I don't actually know anything about the history of organized crime, and suspect that Mafias actually form elsewise. But just imagine Legs McGee holding not one but twenty ice-picks and an uzi. You'd flee, too.