26 Feb 07

Time:

?, although I will congratulate myself on getting home at an hour so reasonable that I finished my Professor Number Six paper without even staying up very late.

Money:

$4, diet Pepsi and my favorite microwave oatmeal (which was confused with "cold milk" at great and frustrating length by the stocker when I asked where I could find it.)
$0, lunch, Chipotle (see below.)
$14 (I think), three lovely rolls, Doo Zo.

More interesting things:

Got a Monday that fit nicely with my overall very deep fondness for this one-seventh of the week. This started when Alpha pulled out a (second-year's, thank you) candidacy paper, thus beginning a conversation about my own that, despite my remaining in his Hahvahd chair for an extensive period of time, didn't really pick up. I was, however, invited to join him on his walking tour of the money office, the bank, and a lunch place, as he had finally wrangled an important reimbursement and wanted to knock all three things off his to-do list at once. It is possible, therefore, that if you looked out your window over Broadway or West 8th around noon, you saw a large bearded man in a dark gray hat striding around with a rather less large but highly attentive black-coated graduate student firmly attached both to his left side and to the comments that came out of his mouth, most of which were highly amusing and all of which were substantive and relevant to the big CP task. I followed him to Professor Number Two's building (where we waited six years for the guard lady to notice us and our graciously produced ID cards), up to the second floor, back out and up the street to the bank, through the line to the last teller (which I was glad for, as it enabled me to be purposefully inattentive to the transaction without having to sidle conspicuously away from the window), and around the corner to Chipotle, where it was announced that "We're going in here. I'm buying; it's because of this check, you know." Lunch was great, of course - I'm very grateful for all the focused guidance and even more so that it came from Alpha.

Read at my desk with my combat-booted feet propped up and crossed next to my computer, inspiring F. and J. Hardy, who were flouncing out towards lunch, to observe "Oh, look... making ourselves comfortable now!" (that was F.) and "Yeah, must be a pain to be a graduate student around here!" (that was J.) It reminded me inexplicably but very distinctively of, like, two big brothers in perpetual concerted motion who nevertheless have the presence of mind to harass in good humor their poor younger sibling. I think it comes either from TV commercials or from a conglomeration of things I've read, but whatever it was - it was funny.

Heard someone ask someone else down the hall, "So how far along are you?" This was hilarious mainly because in other settings such a question is almost always automatically assumed to refer to a bun in the oven; here, of course, it was talking about a dissertation in the word processor.

Walked to class with the usual crowd - Professors Alpha and Number Seven, plus Anne - and was asked by Number Seven whether I was going to AERA. On responding that the plane ticket wasn't a problem but that it was more an issue of finding a nice tent to pitch, she sort of laughed and said, "Well, after next year, if there's ever a conference in Chicago, you are more than welcome to stay with me." Okay, seriously now: would an offer like that have been made if this conversation had taken place in East Lansing or Austin or Gainesville or Morningside Heights? I don't particularly think so - and it gives me past-tense nervousness to think I nearly ended up in one of those places instead!

Started iTunes for while I was putting my laundry away, got You're Beautiful, explained verbally to my computer that while I liked that song I would rather have heard Bad Day, and got... Bad Day. I love it when that kind of thing happens.