25 July - 5 Aug 07

This is ridiculous. Actually I'm ridiculous. It's not like blogging takes so much time that I shouldn't park my ass in my chair and hammer it out for fifteen or twenty minutes at the end of the day, but the problem is that a lot of the days recently have concluded with beer(ds, sometimes), which can be enough to make a blogger decide she has better things to do. Ah well: fuck it, because a blogger would probably be right about that.

Anyway, here we go with a recount of the last two frickin' weeks. This better be good.

Got a call from Professor Alpha that turned out to have been made exclusively for the purposes of saying "hi." This may have had something to do with the fact that I'd been to his house on Monday and planned to return once again on Friday, but then again, maybe not - he's done things like that before and far be it from me to suggest in any small way that he shouldn't.

Walked past a doorway over a stoop on which rested a newspaper and (more inexplicably) a coffee filter or something filled with... birdseed? It sort of looked like the birdseed was meant to keep the newspaper from flying away, which is interesting because a piece of round tissue filled with tiny scattery seeds is not my idea of the perfect paperweight - unless of course the newspaper's owner was also looking for an item that would fill the bill (ha) as a source of pigeon chow; for this a rock would be less than satisfactory, I guess.

Came across, somewhere between my apartment and the subway station, a lady whom I had seen before. This is not an individual easily confused with others, ladies and gentlemen; she's the only person I've ever seen who manages to cover both the helmet-hair and ponytail departments all at once (and is a bleached blonde into the bargain), but all this is on top of (ha again) what turns out to be a variety of outfits based on the vivid-stockings-and-short-denim-skirt look. (Don't look at me.) Anyway, it took just a second to realize that the place I'd seen her before was the subway station, but it wasn't until whole minutes later that I concluded the station in question had been 59th Street - not exactly my neighborhood, and making the experience funny enough to write about here. (Although, now that I think about it, the long helmety locks might have been enough.)

Went to Washington Square Park with Rebecca, where we listened to a band so decent that I tossed a five in their guitar case in exchange for one of their CDs, which is not bad. "The Rhodes," they're called, and - as unlikely as it seems - I would consider going to a bar where they were playing, especially if there were beer involved. (Last three items from 25 Jul.)

Got taken to lunch at Penang by Professor Alpha. I can't tell if it's that he's THAT smooth or knows that I'm THAT undemanding - it's probably a little of both - but it's not always immediately obvious what he means by "Let's go get lunch." In this case, for instance, his herding efforts did not seem any different from those offered when his plan is to go across the street for a salad, but then again the telephoned announcement about his train timing which segued into the comment "I'll be starving by then, so we'll get lunch, okay?" maybe should have been enough to suggest that he meant "We'll go OUT to lunch." Regardless, I do think that he knows I'm perfectly content to trot along next to him - and that he's one of the few people I know to accept such a thing willingly enough to bank on it in the development of plans. And quite apart from all of this, lunch was lovely, featuring some nice chicken and a long and amusing story focused vaguely on Professor Fluffy Hair and concluding with this response to my comment that the story didn't make me like him any better: "Well, I didn't think you WOULD! Why do you think I TOLD you that story?" Ha!

Walked from lunch to Coles, where Professor Alpha needed to clean out his locker, past a guy who was determinedly angling his car between not just two others parked normally along the curb but to the left of a moving truck that had been keeping less intrepid parkers from an otherwise perfectly nice spot. This effort required driving on the sidewalk and then making a 97-point series of minute turns, inch by inch into the space. Alpha stopped and good-naturedly (duh) helped the guy gauge when to change direction; an older lady walking by, on the other hand, did not stop. She bellowed at the guy - "Where'd you get your LICENSE?" - without pausing.

Noticed, in my quest to get across town to meet Anne after a lovely visit with Professor Number One, that the end of the shuttle line in Times Square (and probably in other places as well) is marked by a regular, octagonal red STOP sign of the kind more frequently found above ground. I know we call the individual sections of a subway "cars," but I never thought the people who drive them would be governed in their work by street signs!

Caught the... 1, I think it was, in my quest to get uptown to meet Anne after a lovely trip on the Times Square shuttle. This wouldn't have been all that fascinating except that the conductor, having offered a fairly lengthy explanation for why we weren't yet moving, must have gotten the all-clear and cancelled out his commentary on our standstill by yelping, "Here we go, here we go, here we go! Stand clear of the closing doors!" It's funny, because you rarely here such goofiness when things are quiet and you would expect these guys to be at their most relaxed; the really funny stuff comes out when it's a Friday-afternoon Christmas-shopping insanity hour or the busiest time of day on the busiest side of the busiest city in the U.S., as if they realize that that's when people could most use a laugh... but maybe it's just that they only like playing to a full house.

Thoroughly enjoyed some wine, cheese, sandwiches, and dessert at Kashkaval, one of the few places featuring food I'll willingly cross the city for. (This effort was undertaken with Anne, whose name is another entry on the list of reasons I'll go more than two blocks crosstown.) Even so, the particular aspect of Kashkaval which earns its mention here is that we were parked under a painting that might not have meant much to me in the absence of fermented grape juice but which, properly intoxicated, reminded me very strongly of the low, mildly ramshackle buildings containing saltwater basins and photographs of sea cucumbers that can be found at Seacamp. (Last four items from 26 Jul.)

Rode the train - I'm getting quite good at the Metro-North in my old age - past a park that appeared to have been taken over by Canada geese. No people, just birds. Everywhere. There were so many geese that it looked like they might have been staging their own personal family picnic or something.

Walked into Professor Alpha's house and was introduced to his cleaning lady as his "friend." I realize, of course, that this has everything to do with efficiency and nothing to do with whatever's actually at the top of the list of ways he might characterize our relationship, but... maybe it's on the list somewhere, which is good enough for me.

Chased a Chihuahua around a large house in Yonkers. It was Professor Alpha's daughter's dog, who runs faster than you might think someone whose legs are three inches long could manage, and somewhere in the middle of my attempts to head her off at the pass, so to speak, I found myself about 36 seconds from falling over in laughter-induced apoplexy: was I really at my professor's house, listening to him alternate between swearing not-that-quietly and trying to keep out of his dog-calling voice the urgency that would send Lola, like any of my own ratfaces, skittering in the opposite direction? Really, there is nothing like a pet to expose a person's low-level, undignified humanity - picking up poop, bribing with treats, tackling escaped bear-dogs on a rainy lawn after they've left other humans spread-eagled on a pile of landscapers' trimmings... you name it. (The funny thing, of course, is that in all that low-level, undignified humanity we get a look at the highest-level, kindest type of humanity you can find outside of Mother Teresa. That, however, is a comment for somewhere more serious, so here I'll leave it at the dog-tackling.)

Weighed - unnecessarily, it turned out - 17 boxes of Cambodia-bound books. Somewhere in the middle of this sweaty effort, Professor Alpha thanked me for my help once again; my usual demurral he waved away with the comment that although I had indeed offered to help this was going "above and beyond" as I had not originally agreed to "850 pounds of schlepping."

Schlepped 850 pounds. To the post office. In two trips. This would have been fine if both trips had gone the way the first one did, with a cheerful postal worker to help us. By the time we got back, however, he had gone to lunch, leaving in his place the pissy-looking guy who had been dealing with the other window during our first visit. Mr. Pissy stre-e-e-etched out his exchange with the person in front of us and then slammed one of the lovely "Next Window Please" signs down, leaving a woman barely tall enough to see over the counter to hoist our 50-pound boxes off the counter and onto the scale: asshole, and all the more so since we HEARD him announce in a nasty tone "I'm not waiting on them," as if somehow he were surprised that we showed up at a post office with... mail! Dickwad. If you don't want to come in contact with people's packages, how 'bout working somewhere where you don't have to come in contact with people's packages rather than taking it out on the bookless Cambodians?

Stood waiting at the Metro-North stop headed for Grand Central (so I could turn around and head back out on a different line, thank you very much!) while an express whooshed by. Now, normally I'm not a huge fan of "whoosh" as a verb - it sounds like something out of a comic book - but here let me explain that I can't think of many better ways to describe it. The third rail crackles to announce that the train is somewhere just around the bend, and then that sucker ROARS past. Bad-ass. It is, I have to admit, even cooler when there's just one track in each direction and the roaring takes place six feet away from your head rather than sixteen feet, but either way, your hair gusts around and you can't help but think you're glad you are where you are - mostly because that means you didn't get run over by a clanking metal whirlwind, but partly because watching that clanking metal whirlwind rush by is like wasabi for the eyeballs: wooo!

Ran off the train, up the platform, and up the staircase in the direction not of the 5:09 or the 5:11, both of which I had missed, but the 5:16, which was the last one headed in my direction for awhile. This required standing on a ticket machine line long enough to cause me to be directly in the way of the usual huge flood of commuters headed (or attempting to head) home, annoying particularly because the girl in front of me, decked out in an irritatingly summery sundress and her monogrammed LL Bean tote, could not seem to keep track of what was happening in front of her and kept failing to move up. It is easy to imagine, then, how agitated I was when with just Sundress Girl between me and my ticket, this older lady came sidling up to the front of the line, airing innocent apologies, a twenty, and a whiny request for the girl at the machine to stay there and buy her a ticket. "You know how long these lines are!" she big-eyed at us. "I just, ooh, you know, I just have to get that train! Ha ha ha!" "Yes," I agreed loudly. "And my train leaves in four minutes too!" (Which was true.) At this point Sundress Girl turned around and asked, "Your train really leaves in four minutes? Go ahead, get in front of me!" Very nice, and sorry for the interior sundress-related snarkiness I was aiming at you when we were at the back of the line. Then, after the girl had gotten a good look at the back of my Swamped with Pride Gator shirt, which of course she couldn't have seen when I was behind her: "Ooh, you're a Gator? Me too!" A somewhat dazed 180 from me, ticket in hand: "You are? Hey, cool! Go Gators!" And the reply: "Yeah, go Gators! Now go get your train!", accompanied by an enthusiastic two-handed brush-away. And you know what? I did get my train, having launched myself bodily down to the lower level and galloping along to the second-to-last car. Thanks, Gator.

Enjoyed an amusing trip among regular commuters and... well, "irregular" commuters doesn't sound quite right, but in this case it may be appropriate, given the tattooed flamer conversation on my left and the train-tracks trespassing business-school conversation on my right. (Last eight items from 27 Jul.)

Walked past a theatre (or something) on Irving Place with a signboard announcing that something called Wolf Parade would be taking place there at some point in the future. Oww-ooo!

Got on the train with (in the sense of "at the same time as," not as in "personally accompanied by") the guy who had checked out of the infirmary just ahead of me, and sat across from a woman with a letter on ed school stationery. Hmm. (Last two from 31 Jul.)

Had a nice chat with a guy who was sorry he'd left the local out of the Bronx, given that we spend so much time sitting around in express-train tunnels. He gave me a wave and a "nice day" as he got off at 125th - I hope he got where he was going on time, and let's add one to the New Yorkers ARE Polite Campaign. (1 Aug.)

Saw an older guy wearing - wait for it - a gen-u-ine blue pinstriped seersucker suit, with an orange-and-blue plaid tie, no less. All he wanted was a straw boater.

Saw his counterpoint near Astor Place on the bench in front of one of those restaurants: a woman next to what turned out upon slightly closer inspection to be a man rather than another woman, decked out from head to toe in flowing black and attending carefully to weird makeup jobs heavy on the grays and blacks. I have no idea.

Offered Professor Alpha, in light of his less-than-hugely-enjoyable experiences moving and dealing with reactions to it, a big hug, which I announced before executing so I could get him to stand still for a minute. I did not, however, realize that our second-floor graduate advisor guy and one of the secretaries was just around the corner at the vertical file; from this region came a long collective "Awwww!" Hee.

Chatted extensively with Professor Alpha, first where he'd plunked himself down in the chair right next to me (perhaps so he could growl particularly quietly about the difficulties of moving) and then in his office, where I read "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" and he read email, each of us sort of loosely commenting to the other as we went along. Here the exchanges featured my observation that his office was really a lovely place to sit now that the scaffolding was gone, which he answered with an offer that he seemed to believe should have been understood from the beginning - "Well, you know, of course, that as long as this office is mine you're welcome to use it..." - and his observation that he was having so much fun with his email that he needed to take a piss. Ha.

Demonstrated for Professor Alpha's benefit, after Rebecca mentioned it to him, my talent for growling. His reaction was very chill, as I have come to expect from him in situations where others might be waiting for something more dramatic ("equanimity" - or maybe just "cool" - is the word of the day here), but a few minutes later, when this lady who does some program liaison stuff was lamenting his upcoming departure [snarl] and mentioning in particular that I must be very unhappy, he leaned down towards me, bared his teeth, and growled three inches from my face, right in unison with me! Ha, again.

Tried to herd nippers out of their end-of-semester party - and clean up a little, which was really the main point - so Professor Alpha could hit the 6:30 train. I followed him back towards his office and chatted with him for a minute as he got ready to go; heading down the hall, he tossed over his shoulder another "thank you" to me, along with the observation that he had already thanked the lady who picked up the beer but that he knew "who really organized this." And ha the third.

Got invited by my own lovely nippers (the population of which had grown quite a lot by the end of the summer, thanks to my variety of positions, but these were the original ones) to further beer consumption at some bar. I declined, because I had already made plans to head uptown, but it was a lovely and concrete representation of the earlier request from one of them, which was supported by the group: "Can't you just teach all our classes?" Holy shit, is all I have to say to that, I think! (Last seven items from 2 Aug.)

Headed once again for the ol' Metro-North, fast becoming one of my most traveled transit systems outside the subway, and spotted a young kid coming off the express dressed in a terrific suit just like the big guy in front of him - funny mostly because when you see suits around here, they're on the backs of people you might reasonably suppose are businessmen, and this kid was maybe 11 - as well as, once I'd gotten to the Metro-North platform, the answer to a long-standing question: the poster ads on trains, it turns out, are put up before a track's first train of the day goes out on its earliest run by guys with yellow vests, a long-handled tool that made me think of wallpaper, and a cart that would look like it belonged to a displaced elementary-school art teacher if it weren't filled with (you guessed it) posters. Of course, this discovery carried with it only satisfaction, not the disappointment of a question too completely answered, because there is still the issue of figuring out why, for instance, I once saw an HSBC poster featuring several dogs from which the head of the German Shepherd had been cut out. It clearly wasn't something on all the posters - others had whole shepherds on them - and it didn't particularly look like an unerasable form of graffiti, because the cut was neatly done right around the exact profile. I saw something like that the other day, but I guess until the point at which I get on a train early and find someone with an artist's razor and an eye for detail, it will be hard to figure out what's going with that, so at least there's still something to ponder.

Helped Professors Alpha and Zulu accomplish some drill-related activities: closet shelves, closet hanging-organizer things, closet rod hooks meant to keep things from collapsing completely, closet-mounted spice racks, and - my favorite, in the sense of not being my favorite at all, thanks to some concrete studs - a bathroom towel rack. (I'm not going for the dumb closet jokes, although I did spend most of my day in them.) We began with the pantry shelves, and after I'd gotten done marking things out carefully, Alpha offered me the drill. I didn't want to take it from him as if I thought he'd fuck it up, so I did the palms-up surrendering move and backed off, but he handed it over and announced, "Uh, no... I'm a professor, honey. I don't play with drills," causing me to respond, laughing, that it's true I wasn't a professor yet ("That's right!", he nose-talked at me) but that I certainly hoped I wouldn't lose my drilling ability once I was (here we got hands on the hips and "Well! I don't see why the two should be mutually exclusive!" from Zulu). Forty seconds later, both had gotten not just out of bit's way but into a whole other room, clearly glad to have passed the responsibility of punching holes into walls on to someone else and to be playing among the boxes. (Last two items from 3 Aug.)