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.

End of the (Whale-)Road

There is no witty narrative* to describe the following, but it should here be noted that the White Whale has reached the end of its journey, and has been sold to a man from Westchester PA who knows naught of its identity or the storied past to which it has been witness.

Let us now have a moment of silence in honor of the Whale's passing.









And a good beast it was.



Notes:
* I do not put forth that anything else you've seen here falls into this category. I'm just being especially clear.