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.
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.
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.
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.
