Time, Money, and More Interesting Things

11 Jan 07

2008-01-11T09:22:00.000-08:00

4 Jan

Went to the ATM near my family's house - that would be very much in the southern United States, as we know - at about 7:15 in the morning, not exactly prime time for hopping to the bank, and found that the only other car around was using the ATM ahead of me. It had a plate from my favorite New England state and (this was quite weird) the initials "UK" in the letter part. Ha.

Passed a car, as we headed to the airport, with an alumni sticker from my current school - not that common in those parts. (Just to make it clear, I definitely appreciate the going-back-north "signs"....)

Spotted, outside my apartment and in a collection with some less notable dogs, Jake's absolute twin. Same rough coat, same white spot on the chest, same pointy little head. And I think he lives around here, because a few days later I saw him by himself, presumably with his owner. Hi, li'l Jake!

27 Dec 07

2007-12-27T10:58:00.000-08:00

21 Nov

Phoned, as I waited for a train that would take me back in the direction of the city and a very early shuttle to the airport, my mom, who informed me that not only had she sold a deal but that one of her lovely colleagues had helped us out with the Thanksgiving bill. Thanks, David.

Laughed at the Metro-North conductor who thanked the passengers, as we pulled into Grand Central, for making that railroad the "number one choice for travel between New Haven and New York City..." because there are so many other options, dontcha know!

Spotted on the subway a teenager wearing one of the bright orange jackets of a Bryant Park skate guard.

22 Nov

Appreciated a brown road sign near the airport's perimeter: Long Island this way, as indicated by a highway-style depiction of a lighthouse; Manhattan this way, as indicated by a similar-looking picture of the skyline, complete with Twin Towers, and - in color - an American flag.

Smiled a year later at another JetBlue "Happy Turkey Day" sign.

Thought I recognized a person sitting near my gate as one of my high school classmates; upon hesitatingly interrupting this person and the guy she was with as we waited to board the plane, found that it was in fact Carrie, who recognized me right away.

27 Nov

Was told by Professor Number Four that one possible way to fund my adventures over the next year would be to go to work for "Habitat for Professor Alpha." Then, a more serious request for Professor Abercrombie - which may actually work out - was accompanied by the observation that "She's slow, and she's a pain in the ass, but she's reliable and she knows how to wield a machete." Ha!

28 Nov

Announced, loudly and down my hallway, to Professor Number Six that "I love SPSS!" Someone in one of the cubicle-offices along the hall stuck his head out and laughed, "Number Six! We need a quote board or something, and that's going on it!"

30 Nov

Got the Hallelujah chorus just as the subway I was on pulled into Grand Central - and we were on shuffle well into the stack of 1,570 songs.

Walked past Grace Church, which was playing the Ode to Joy on its bells.

Helped a very polite young teenager who asked, "Miss, do you know what stops come after Wall Street on this train?" He looked back and smiled at me as he hopped off a few minutes later.

Spotted a university social worker lady at Grand Central. She probably would not have known me even if she'd seen me, but what's the etiquette there if she had?

4 Dec

Spotted a Maybach. Yikes.

5 Dec

Fell asleep, as is my irritating custom, just as we were finishing up the hour-long ride back to the city; I snoozed all through the Grand Central tunnels and probably would have stayed there, except that one of those polite New Yorkers gently woke me up with a shake of my shoulder. I do love this place.

21 Nov 07

2007-11-21T09:03:00.000-08:00

16 Nov

Spotted, as I waited for the S to Times Square with the lovely Kelly, three people in: wetsuits and goggles, carrying flippers. One of them had a long coat on, and I might not have noticed her rubbery-looking legs if it hadn't been for her compatriots, but the other two were pretty obvious. Where, do we suppose, those people were headed?

17 Nov

Presented our NCTE panel and did a pretty good job, I think; we had about 25 people come to see us even though we were "concurrent" (read: far, far away from the main thrust of the activities) and they seemed mostly to be paying attention.

Went, with the impressive crowd of Kevin, Professor Alpha, Professor Zulu, Anne, Marisa, Anna, Megan, Kelly, and Charlotte to... the Algonquin Bar. Holy crap. Alpha came up with the idea - partly, he admitted, because he and Zulu had parked across the street - but, really, could you think of a much better English teacher place? The drinks were good, the Christmas decorations were lovely, and the conversation, so far as I could tell, kept flowing. I'm not sure I could have imagined a better place to be sitting that afternoon than at the little cocktail table between Kevin and Zulu, talking and listening and drinking and so on. Pret-ty frick-in cool.

18 Nov

Walked all around town after hitting St. Patrick's; more specifically, up and down Fifth Avenue, which meant stopping to look at Lord and Taylor windows, a Jack Kerouac exhibition at the lion library, and the ice skating rink in Bryant Park.

14 Nov 07

2007-11-14T22:14:00.000-08:00

31 Oct

Spotted a license plate - in Connecticut, no less, where it's a) not native and b) that much more a good omen - from New York which read WOLFIE4.

5 Nov

Got followed around by dogs - two in the Gap, one coming (walking, thank you - not being carried) off the subway, and two at my Italian deli, all with separate owners.

12 Nov

Got described by the fabulous Marisa, after I told her about the lunch ticket, as "Professor Alpha's backup date." HA, HA, and more HA - is that something that even came near to entering my head back in the days when I would contemplate these kinds of things on the treadmill? I don't think so, Tim.

13 Nov

Worked very hard at not laughing when one of my high schoolers mentioned in her timeline Powerpoint "going to fresh air camp and they sent me to a dog farm." Now, I know what she means. But the phrase "they sent me to a dog farm" just broke me up. A dog farm? They sent you? Come on, now!

18 Oct 07

2007-10-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

13 Oct

Caught - finally, and not until Anna spotted me while on her run - a cab to 125th Street, and called Kevin to let him know which train I thought I'd be on, although I also mentioned that I really wasn't sure I'd make that one. I didn't say anything about it to the driver, but he very clearly made an effort to move quickly, so when we got up there, I thanked him for the quick ride (and tipped him extra). He laughed and informed me that he'd heard me talking, and he didn't want me to miss my train! Stick it in the file, under a special heading for People Non-New Yorkers REALLY Think Are Going to Be Rude - Cabbie Section....

10 Oct 07

2007-10-10T12:21:00.000-07:00

Called Dr. P. with some questions about the "top ten programs," and was told that "I know it would be hard," but that she had let a State professor know her "cracker-jack student" was up-and-coming within the next couple of years - and she meant me. Holy crap.

8 Oct

Remembered, having seen some deer crossing signs and having been inspired to think about driving around Pennsylvania, when they used to put red dots on the deers' noses; was as delighted today as I was in 1984 or so to find that someone still does.

7 Oct 07

2007-10-06T22:47:00.000-07:00

6 Oct

Got a pedicure, and sat next to a) a man who was b) wearing a Huskies shirt. Ha, ha, and more ha - is that a sign for Kevin??

5 Oct 07

2007-10-05T13:03:00.001-07:00

4 Oct

Went to Miss E.'s retirement party, which would have been lovely in any case but which became particularly amusing when she of the silver-striped red hair came up to Anna and me as though she were about to ask a question. "Oh!" she announced, "I saw you [that is, me] on the curb at the corner of Waverly and Greene... this was Tuesday at 5:00, I was coming out of class... and you were talking to this GORGEOUS man, with a beard [insert goatee-size jaw rub here] and you were just LAUGHING...." At this point in the conversation I really WAS laughing, and Anna jumped in to add, since I was otherwise engaged, that if she'd been talking to him she would have been laughing too because he's funny. By this time I had stopped cackling enough to respond with an explanation of who he was and how long we've been going out, which tripped her up for a quarter of a second (ha!) before she rolled right on with commentary about sparks and how much I was obviously enjoying myself. She's right, of course, but it amuses me no end to think that she looked hard enough (or thought about it long enough!) to figure it out. Or am I that obvious...?

3 Oct 07

2007-10-03T07:38:00.000-07:00

1 Oct

Stopped to get a sandwich from that nice Italian deli near my apartment. I teased the usual guy about how much fun he was having climbing up and down to fetch various blocks of dairy products, and he answered with a sigh that it was better than sex. Of course, I told him if it was that much fun I'd have to start working there, which he greeted enthusiastically. His answer to my comment that my current boss probably wouldn't appreciate being deserted? "Don't worry 'bout him, we'll put 'im ina rivva. What's he gonna say from the rivva?" Ha.

24 Sep 07

2007-09-24T15:06:00.000-07:00

18 Sep

Heard from the advisor guy on our floor that Professor Alpha likes me, which I sorta pretty much knew (not that I'm not always glad to hear it, now!), but this time in a context that suggested maybe he's not always that fond of people? Who knows... but it was funny.

Scored a cookie - "here, have this while you're waiting" - from the Brooklyn-Sicilian guy who fixed my prosciut' sandwich at that deli.

19 Sep

Crossed Broadway behind a lady and two crazy dogs. They were "Goldendoodles" - terrible name, but funny pups who, being six months old, simply could not cross the whole street without stopping to step on each other's head several times. They were, like, tumbleweeding across the road, and stopped so many times to gnaw at each other that eventually the lady sort of picked one up and essentially dragged the other one behind her: ha!

Sat in a supe meeting and admired two of New York's finest moseying by outside, one with two legs, of course, although they weren't on the ground, and one with four.

Enjoyed a trot around to the post office and the bank before lunch with Professor Alpha at Spice and a social hour in the Social Corner immediately following.

Watched, with Anne and Anna, the filming of a Truth commercial featuring some punching bags and a bizarre line about "you might hit your wife!" in Union Square. I'll keep my eyes peeled.

Looked several times to make sure I was in fact looking at a yellow cab with sirens and unmarked-car-style cop lights, shrieking and flashing and trying to pull away down 14th Street. I didn't know they had such a thing.

20 Sep

Called Professor Alpha to tell him that a large box had arrived for him and was sitting on my desk; that was resolved pretty quickly (red jujube moon cakes, don'tcha know) and we were able to get on to the following sentence, after I responded to his observation that he'd had such a nice time yesterday with the comment that I missed him: "Listen, honey, I miss you too! Don't you get that? You're not the only misser here!" HA!

21 Sep

Got on a plane headed south - yeah, baby - in the company of a comedian head flight attendant. He prefaced his announcement that it was almost time to start drinks with "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the sky," as though it were somewhere we had just landed, and reminded us before leaving to "take everything off the plane that you brought on with you... iPods... children." Heh.

14 Sep 07

2007-09-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

7 Sep

Passed a van with a license plate holder that said "Schultz Ford."

Linked to a review from Inside Higher Ed that described a cool new book about admissions officers and discovered that it had been written by one of my professors; decided to buy it, double-checked the title, and realized that I already had - at the school bookstore, for one of my other classes.

9 Sep

Got, for the last service before September 11th, the only hymn (?) I can really sing along to: Amazing Grace.

Spotted, on my trip back (I left early because Kevin had to go to a christening), the conductor who lets the kids honk the horn.

12 Sep

Made a deposit at the bank with the help of a guy named Junior Cadet, which sounds a lot more like a title I once held myself than the name of a bank teller.

Sneezed as I walked up Second Avenue with Anne in search of some dinner and got two "bless yous" - one from her, one from a guy crossing the street at the same time.

13 Sep

Watched a lady gallop from the turnstile at Astor Place to the train, the doors of which had just closed but which the conductor opened again quickly, presumably to let her on. She flashed him a big grin and a thumbs-up.

Special Report

2007-09-14T11:36:00.000-07:00

All right, so it occurs to me that - not unreasonably - this blog has shifted from the daily fact-driven report implied by the first two words in its title to a record with heavy emphasis on the last three. I am very, very grateful that the life I started describing here a little over a year ago is now so full that there are plenty of nights when I can't sit down to write, but I'm also reluctant just to let this log go. So instead, rather than accounting for the time and money and rather than trying to keep track of every single day, I'm just going to record the "more interesting things," probably more than one day at a time and without worrying about the unnoted days in between.

Okay? So here goes.

6 Sep 07

2007-09-06T22:04:00.001-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$5, D.P. and protein bar, usual place.
$16, an okay salad, what used to be the bug place but now has some improbable Irish/Mexican name. (It's Murphy and Gonzalez, but I wanted to take a minute to make fun of it first.)
$some, mussels, fries, and beer, Belgian beer bar (not that that's what it's actually called.)

More interesting things:

Thought about the propensity of someone I know to strike up conversations with whomever he happens to be sitting next to long enough to make me smile, then looked up from my seat to see one of those subway poems appropriate enough to make me grin: "To You," by Walt Whitman -
STRANGER! if you, passing, meet me, and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you? That would be - you got it, folks - another "thank you."

Watched Anne's class - which was great fun; I hope I'll get to go back sometime - and received a chorus of compliments on my relatively freshly-painted toenails. I'm mostly just impressed that they even noticed, but that they did and then added to it with their very kind observations was pretty cool. (And now I cannot believe that this general topic has been mentioned at least TWICE on this blog. What the hell is my problem?)

Spotted one of those "I am not a plastic bag" bags on the shoulder of someone in Washington Square: eBay, or the genuine stand-on-line efforts?

5 Sep 07

2007-09-06T21:27:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Found, as usual, that what goes around comes around. In this instance, it meant that my checks would clear overnight (thank you, thank you, thank you) and that my mom's boss called her from out of the blue and volunteered to repay a favor she'd once done for him, making it significantly easier for her to stop wasting time messing around in Atlanta. Sentence of the moment? Thank you.

Enjoyed a lovely (if Dojo-based) lunch with Professor Alpha. The conversation was easy and our parting shots were amusing: Alpha observed that what with all the upcoming Jewish holidays he wouldn't be in class for awhile but that we would meet up some other way; my comment that this was important for the purposes of allowing me to avoid withdrawal was met with "Me too! I don't want to go into withdrawal either!" Ha.

Appreciated the second instance of outstanding staircase timing in two days: yesterday I launched down the steps in the direction of class just in time to catch Kevin leaving; today it was Professor Number Four I happened to catch exactly when I needed him to answer a question about the course I was going to try out that very moment. (It turned out not to fit, but at least I'd had three seconds to ask Number Four about it before heading out!)

2-4 Sep 07

2007-09-06T21:23:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Enjoyed the most Labor Day-ish Labor Day weekend I can remember having: one boat, on a gorgeous blue Sunday, across the Long Island Sound to dinner in Port Jeff and back; another, on a gorgeous blue (and even hotter) Monday, to a cove on the Sound where we moored up, went swimming, drank beer, drank wine, ate lunch, and talked.

Returned to the city on Tuesday afternoon accompanied by Kevin, who was headed to class at the same time I was, making the trip to Grand Central a lot more fun than it usually is.

1 Sep 07

2007-09-06T19:48:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?, planes, trains, and automobiles. (Okay, well, trains and automobiles, anyway.)
?, pedicure, whatever the name of that place by Anne's is.
?, dinner, Mundo.
?, some more trains, Grand Central (duh.)

More interesting things:

Rode back south wedged gratefully into a seat that happened to be near the motorman's booth. He went around collecting the little kids from our car and led them back so they could honk the horn, which made both me and the smoked-up guy next to me laugh; I really started laughing when the conductor looked over at me with, "Don't tell me YOU want to give it a try" - and believe me when I say that he was saved from a more honest answer than he might have been looking for by the arrival of a stray rugrat.

Enjoyed quite thoroughly a day of pedicures (!), the park, and an Astoria-related feeding time. Happy birthday, Anne!

Caught a cab for Grand Central (yes, again) which was driven by a woman. This is only the second time that's happened since I've been here (and probably in my life), making it worth recording alongside the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed my return to the southern New England region; the kiss and the nail-polish-inspired admiration with which I was greeted did a lot to cancel out the slight anxiety that had built up earlier upon waking up from my doze to find that the train was a) not at a station and b) not able to start moving forward. Oy - but I made it.

31 Aug 07

2007-09-06T19:13:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Trekked schoolward (to meet Professor Alpha for his last few boxes and things), ambling past a guy cutting luxurious bends and slaloms back and forth across Broadway on his blades and singing throatily: not the kind of thing you get on Glades Road, so much.

Watched the 6 come around the corner, I think at Astor Place, and thought irrepressibly about the trolley on Mr. Rogers.

Jumped (with great abandon, since I didn't know what the result would be) into a cab headed for 125th and Park. Some kid tried to cut the cabbie off and expressed his frustrations with his middle finger; when this earned a middle finger back, the kid decided to escalate to calling the cabbie a faggot. That still wasn't good enough, because the cabbie replied - in classic second-grade style - "YOU'RE a faggot! You are!", this time leading the kid to screech around the cab and hang a ridiculous, squealing left... to the accompaniment of the cabbie's bellow, "Fuck your wife!" - and then a very even-keeled apology to me. I think I thanked him for the entertainment, but if I didn't do it then, I'm doing it now.

Spotted a kayaker on one or another of the rivers between here and the small but lovely rectangular state to the northeast.

30 Aug 07

2007-08-30T19:26:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$4, D.P. and protein bar, the usual place.
$4, D.P. and protein bar, the usual place.
$30, my favorite Cobb salad and my favorite summer drink (the chair's rum-and-tonic, dontcha know), Jack Russell's.

More interesting things:

Enjoyed Washington Square Park, all the more so because I got to talk to two fabulous friends on the phone while I sat there underneath the rustly green trees. There's nothing like a summer day that's not so hot it chases you back into the air conditioning.

Got crazy organized for the ol' STs. Not for me chasing after little pieces of paper with signatures in the last week of the semester - or at least, not for me any more.

29 Aug 07

2007-08-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

Time:

Walking onto the local 0859, arrived Astor Place 0920 - and that's recorded mostly for old times' sake.

Money:

$4, some sort of latte convolution (I think it was grande skim vanilla), campus Starbucks.
$2, D.P., usual place.
$28, sushi, Kirara.

More interesting things:

Spotted, coming out of our lunch spot (known above as the "usual place), none other than Professor Alpha, the only person I've ever met who can get away with responding to my "I missed youuuuuu!" with not just a hug but an "I knooooow!" (It WAS fabulous to see him, of course.)

Went to a "staff orientation" thingy for that freshman class I'm teaching this term and found that - sorry, but it's true - the other people in my college (or at least a lot of the ones they send to do this frufy shit) are the finest examples of PUFFERY I've ever seen. Their responses to quotations from the class novel (that's essentially what it is) were SO fakely intellectualized they must be taking steroids for their IQs. "How am I going to explain this to an 18-year-old freshman/woman?" Are you fucking KIDDING me? First of all, the word is freshMAN - not freshmanS, as I've so often heard, and damn sure not freshWOMAN. Second - and more importantly - you're not going to explain SHIT, pally! Do you really KNOW what some comment about time being like moonlight means? Doubtful! Could you then do an effective job of spooning it back, since that appears to be your ever-so-forward-thinking goal? Even less likely! So go ahead and let your high horse trot on back to the barn - you sat on him for a long time this morning! - and try walking around on just two of the same kind of short human legs your students will be landing here with. Yeesh.

Helped Professor Alpha (and Professor Zulu, actually) out to his car in the most unfortunate incident of "moving out" yet - this time from his office. Snarl.

28 Aug 07

2007-08-28T19:52:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$4, D.P. and protein bar, usual place.
$4, vanilla latte, campus Starbucks.
$19 (or so), wine and quesadilla, Quantum Leap (which was surprisingly all right, although maybe not a place I'll be trotting off to every week or anything.)

More interesting things:

Blogged. Talked on the phone, leading me to conclude that this is just one of those periods of time made to balance out the almost unrealistically joyous ones (people are broke, sad, confused, tired, or some combination thereof; things'll work out, though), but mostly blogged. At last.

25-27 Aug 07

2007-08-28T19:50:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Enjoyed a small but lovely state to the northeast - the beach, dinner, and so on; it was lovely.

24 Aug 07

2007-08-28T14:34:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Grinned at a JetBlue guy standing on the tarmac to guide us to the plane's back door who had thrown me a big smile and a loud "You made it!" in recognition of my earlier conversation with the gate agent that I really, really, REALLY wanted to get on the 6:40 rather than the 8:55 (yecch, even before I had Metro-North plans).

Sat next to a very nice (and clearly Lawn Guyland kind of) lady who kept mentioning "Daddy" to her college-aged son, who acted like he probably called the guy Daddy himself. It occurred to me that this goes right along with having a name like Tommy, matching Daddy with "Ma," and wearing a bright blue class ring - see post from a much earlier trip back to New York.

Laughed, contributed money, and applauded on the train headed north. These two French girls had gotten on the New Haven line with tickets to Tarrytown, which meant, in the words of the conductor (who had spent a great deal of time reminding passengers that it was an express to Stamford and urging them to "be sure you're right!"), that they had "really messed up." He went off to fetch "some French," and a lady in front of them stood up, turned around, offered some mild interpretive dance to illustrate how the track to Stamford curved far away from the one for Tarrytown, found she couldn't in fact understand what they were saying, and got into an extensive debate with the young guy sitting to the girls' left about whether a cab between the two places would cost a hundred bucks (her opinion) or thirty (the young guy's.) Finally, the guy called the cab company and learned that it would an 82-dollar ride. Of course, the girls didn't have 82 dollars, so: he took one of their tickets and wrote on its back, "We need 82 dollars for a cab ride from Stamford to Tarrytown because we got on the wrong train, but we don't have any money and we don't speak English. Please help us." Yes. The girls at least understood, somehow, his suggestion that they should walk up and down soliciting donations, to judge by their hysterical laughter, but even in their refusal to actually get out of their seats they made about 60. The young guy announced, "Look, I'll start," and handed them a five before turning to me and everyone else with a "What about you?" I handed them a five, the Mets fans next to me each handed them a five, and the interpretive dance lady handed them a twenty (and got change, but she redeemed herself by playing Jerry Lewis for the next few minutes. From that point until the train arrived at Stamford, where the girls got off and, I hope, understood the concept of getting a cab, she kept track of how much had been collected and cheerfully encouraged everyone else in the car to help out, causing all the folks in its back end to keep looking over their shoulders; some of them were even brave enough to lurch up and hand her some bills, which earned them our exuberant applause.) I've never seen anything like it, and if I didn't have other things to make me fond of the Metro-North, the people I see and hear when I ride might be enough all by themselves.

23 Aug 07

2007-08-28T14:32:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Did a bunch of running around with my sisters, which was pretty cool but which is being recorded here mostly because... I remembered what I did, even without a note in the ol' phone: holy crap.

22 Aug 07

2007-08-28T14:31:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Napped a little at my grandparents' house before getting ready to head back down south, but interrupted the alleged sleeping with a quick text to my lovely roommate Ben, who responded that he was at Blockhead's with his sister and had been right in the middle of composing a text to me when he got mine: ha!

21 Aug 07

2007-08-28T14:03:00.001-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Drove (!) past a house in my dad's subdivision with a pear tree in the front yard; the best, most Gainesville-y part of it, though, was the sign in the grass below it, inviting all those who passed to partake of "FREE PEARS," as long as they didn't climb the tree.

Drove (exciting enough to merit the verb repeat) past... Santa. I'd seen him once before, in a Bronco with antlers and Mrs. Claus-looking lady in the passenger seat, but this time it was some other car with a plate that said SANTA and a bumper sticker about his other car involving reindeer. You've got to love that, I think.

Drove (! again) past those lovely blue "Welcome Back" signs on campus that made me smile when I was there and which make me smile maybe even more now that I'm not: clearly they aren't aimed at me any more, but I still appreciate the message.

Thought about my "vestigial trail" idea, in which people leave transparent but otherwise unbroken paths behind them everywhere they go, like a three-dimensional version of a photo featuring a fast-moving object but taken at a slow shutter speed, leaving a print of a blur behind whatever was doing the moving. The trails get covered up when someone occupies the exact same bit of airspace you had, as though they were colored over with paint or a crayon. This is a concept I like to ponder, of course, and on the lawn of the Reitz Union it involved me wondering whether any speck of my cold end-of-finals bicycle trip towards (the old) Hume and, eventually, my mom's van, remained; I like to think it does.

Read one of those fraternity rush banners advertising the "recruitment" events for the week; at least one (and probably more) featured the phrase "PUBLIX SUBS," which does not sound like enough to describe the plan sufficiently, much less look particularly enticing to hungry 18-year-olds, but it's amusing to consider that in Florida, it probably is.

Considered that although I have often thought I could easily remain in the city at great length, there are some real advantages to non-student, non-major-metro-hub life, namely driveways, real supermarkets, and big kitchens. (Probably there are others, but these are the ones that kept hitting me over the head during that visit.)

13-20 Aug 07

2007-08-28T14:01:00.000-07:00

Still in Florida. Normally I would have recorded all of this in one big entry, but since I started with the individual ones, I guess I better keep it up.

12 Aug 07

2007-08-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Met a Publix cashier who is from the only town in Connecticut I've spent much time in, and wouldn't have found it out without a phone call and a firefighter. I had just finished some fairly extensive shopping for my sister's graduation party (oh, that would be something from Friday, now wouldn't it) when my mom rang with the news that I needed to fetch a few other things. When I got back, a fireman jumped on line behind me, prompting me, as always, to ask whether he knew my cousin; somehow, this evolved into the cashier's explanation that "Where I'm from in Connecticut, the fire trucks wake me up all the time." The usual questions about where, particularly, ensued, and on a day when I had been kind of worried about the Connecticut person I know, I got a nice reminder to smile about things: thanks.

Refrained from punching my cousin, which was impressive since his response to my mom's announcement that my "boyfriend" (oy) has a beard involved him sidling over and whispering that I better make sure he keeps it neat if I didn't want a rash that would prevent me from wearing shorts: OY. But funny. (It's still a good thing he was holding the baby, though.)

10-11 Aug 07

2007-08-28T13:48:00.000-07:00

Who knows. I'm a pansy, as is well-established, but at least I know I was in Florida.

9 Aug 07

2007-08-28T13:10:00.001-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?, although I know there was cab money and cupcake money involved.

More interesting things:

Watched the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building roll by as I headed to JFK. I still can't always wrap my head around the fact that I see things like that just in getting around town.

Walked through that far-flung JetBlue terminal at JFK in my alumni polo shirt, earning a loud "Go Gators!" from someone who wasn't even sitting on the aisle, where my Albert head would have been particularly easy to spot.

Spied a Boston's on the Beach shirt, waiting (along with its wearer, presumably) for a flight down south, although I don't think it was for the one I was on.

8 Aug 07

2007-08-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

Time:

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Money:

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More interesting things:

Undertook what should have been a quick subway trip to Grand Central but became a major quest to make it 50 whole blocks. Overnight, the rain had been so bad (it looked like serious electrical events were taking place in my living room) that none of the feckin' trains were running; consequently, of course, there was no room on the downtown buses and - duh - no cabs to be had. So I walked. It was hot, gray, wet, and generally disgusting, but it did enable me to see a variety of interesting things. One lady decided that since standing around with her arm up for the purposes of hailing a taxi was definitely not working, she'd trade the arm for a thumb and actually managed to hitch a ride with some plumbers. Another offered to share the cab that she thought she'd grabbed - she wasn't headed for Grand Central, but downtown in general was good enough for me at that point - but then found out that it had stopped for some reason besides getting rid of its current passengers. By the time I started seeing open cabs, I was practically where I needed to go anyway (and not even very late), so I was free to be amused by the giant orange road sign posted in reference to the steam explosion repairs but just as appropriate for that day: USE ALTERNATE ROUTE, which is of course exactly what I did. (I was also free to contemplate, in by-phone agreement with Ben, that it seemed like the kind of day you get after a hurricane.)

Saw... a snack car. I never saw anything like that on a non-Amtrak train, but there it was: sections of seats arranged under the windows near tiny round counters attached to poles, no series of rows to be found.

Realized that I had fallen into my own personal little Einstellung trap when I walked to 42nd Street (about 50 blocks) rather than 125th Street (considerably fewer, and better in line with a getting the train I'd planned for, although it turned out none were running before I'd gotten to Grand Central.) Still: duh.

7 Aug 07

2007-08-28T10:12:00.000-07:00

Time:

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Money:

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More interesting things:

Intended to go to Yonkers for a celebratory/thank-you-related dinner out with Professors Alpha and Zulu. What we got instead was dinner at their house - which was still fabulous, of course - because they were waiting for the return of the cable guy, whose work Alpha had accidentally (and, he believed, irremediably) undone the night before. It turned out that he had just switched some AC adapters, but it did give me the opportunity to drill more holes - large, messy, dusty holes that resulted in a pile of drywall particles on Alpha's head (I did tell him to close his eyes first), and a near-removal of his eyeglasses when I reached out to make sure the bracket was straight followed by an apology, a quiet "that's all right" (as though graduate students are always whacking him in the face), and a pat on the head (for him, from me, thereby achieving one of the great goals of my life, of course.) Between all of this and the fact that I was greeted exuberantly, with a kiss on the cheek, I had a very nice evening.

Decided that it was pretty cool to have learned about your favorite summer drink from none other than your dissertation chair - how did I get that lucky?

Spotted, in a startlingly incongruous way, a guy standing on the tracks at Grand Central. He was clearly a railroad worker - probably a boss of some sort, to judge by the way he looked like an architect on a construction site - but to see a face appear outside the window not just of a train but of a train in those dark, snaky tunnels is pretty weird.

6 Aug 07

2007-08-06T19:41:00.001-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$13, lox and so on ordered in, Pick-a-Bagel.
$25, drinks and the city's best Cobb salad, Jack Russell's.

More interesting things:

Noted the above, in a spirit of doing this correctly for once. Other than that, pretty much hung around and got caught up after doing it incorrectly for two weeks!

25 July - 5 Aug 07

2007-08-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

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.)

23 July 07

2007-07-25T20:25:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$3, protein bar and Diet Coke (yecch), newsstand in Grand Central (and conveniently right outside my Yonkers-bound track.)

More interesting things:

Worked almost painfully hard at not laughing when Professor Alpha tripped, apparently on the door to his living room. I'm not sure how that worked, exactly, but I have to admit to a serious laughing-at-people-who-slip problem, exacerbated by any commentary on the part of the slippee which resembles something like "Jesus fucking Christ!" as it did in this instance. I choked it all back, though; somebody owes me a cookie.

Wore a not-that-slickly commandeered karate t-shirt rather than my one of my favorite (white) polo shirts, which in itself was quite fabulous but which was heightened all the more when, on our way out through the chilly rain to the UHaul place and the grocery store, Professor Alpha tossed not just a jacket but one of his jackets at me. I put it on, waited quite awhile for him to join me near the front door, took it off because I felt like a dork, hung it on the back of a living room chair, and finally answered Alpha's question about whether I was in fact going to wear it with an "I was just waiting...", which got cut off by my into-the-jacket shrug - and, perhaps needless to say, his turkey noises. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the great sartorial accomplishment of my life: not choosing the perfect evening gown, not finding heels that manage to be both good-looking and comfortable, not even picking out a new favorite pair of jeans, but wearing clothing items belonging to not one but two - count 'em, TWO - handsome bearded professors all at one time.

Announced to Professor Alpha, as we left ShopRite with several cans of beans dangling from my left hand, that last July I couldn't really have predicted I'd be hitting up a supermarket just one short year later with the very guy who'd interrupted my bellowing at lazy cadets with an invitation for a phone interview: wasn't exactly in the plans, but oh man.

Discussed, for some reason, being broke all the time - oh, I think it was because somehow Professor Alpha was explaining that his view on money is that it's made to be used, which was the point on which I offered my agreement, although I added that I hoped I would not in fact be broke all the time. He heh-heh-ed a good laugh and responded with, "Well, you picked me as your role model, so you might want to get used to it," or something like that. (Whatever it was, it involved that comment about the role model business, which was the [lovely] key thing here....)

17-22 July 07

2007-07-25T20:19:00.000-07:00

Time:

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Money:

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Got out of bed just in time - at 10:36, to be precise - to leap into my clothes, leap into a cab, leap down the FDR (okay, I didn't actually do that part of the leaping), and leap up to the third floor of the high school at... 11:05. Hot damn. I really thought I was going to be heinously late, and I ended up beating some of my nippers. Not too shabby, thank you. (That was the 17th.)

Went to Professor Alpha's house for a really lovely dinner (and also an introduction to a drink I thought would be horrific - Bacardi Limon, tonic, and lime - but turned out great). While we were there, both my mom and Roey texted to inform me there had been some sort of explosion in the city, which is always a relaxing comment to hear, but it turned out to be that steam business and not only was everybody for the most part okay, but we got back with no problem. (Except for the part where I felt like moving in with Alpha and Professor Zulu. That's a little bit of a problem, since they themselves will not be in that house much longer.) (This was the 18th.)

Hung out with a variety of people, including Kevin and Rebecca, in a not-terribly-productive but still highly enjoyable way. (The weekend, of course.)

16 July 07

2007-07-17T19:05:00.000-07:00

Time:

Almost exactly as much as I thought, from my bed to the front car of a Yonkehs-bound train (although I had time to stop for a muffin and some coffee, which I wasn't sure I'd be able to do.)

Money:

$6, aforementioned railroad (man, do I love the railroad... any freakin' railroad) ticket.
$4, also aforementioned breakfast, Junior's in Grand Central.
$32 (or something), sushi, that really good place in the West Village.
$6, pint o' Bass, Jack Russell's.

More interesting things:

Realized that some purposeful D.P.-related discussion must have taken place in the only house in Yonkers in which I have any particular interest. Professor Zulu ('cause she's Professor Alpha's complement; Mrs. Professor Alpha wouldn't work because she is one herself) announced that "Alpha tells me you drink D.P. - we have plenty of it!", interrupted by a slow growl from Alpha himself noting that that is one of many points on which we have bonded: damn skippy.

Felt very oddly like I was standing around in a house with my own parents as Professors Alpha and Zulu got cleaned up to go to the party for which they were driving into the city (and dropping me off, thank you, at which point I wanted little more than to yell, "Thanks, Dad!" as they drove away.) This was exacerbated by the fact that I sat in the back seat - not a surprise how that would make a person feel like a kid - but also by standing around in their kitchen while they did things like straighten cuff links and compliment necklaces, which does not have a whole heck of a lot to do with my own upbringing. Weird, but in a profoundly nice, strangely familiar (or maybe just familiarly homey) way.

Decided that there are way, WAY worse positions to hold in the world than to be one-half of a two-professor couple living close enough to the world's greatest city that its public transportation system gets near your house and the commute is the same length as that of some people who actually live in the city itself but far enough from that city that the houses are huge (and old), there are not just driveways but cars to sit in them, and the most expedient means of getting to work involves an above-ground rail line. That is - to speak less in fluffy generalities and more in specifics - you would not catch me arguing with anyone who wanted to tell me that someday I'll be a) a professor b) married to another c) living in a not-quite-suburb of New York with d) a big ol' book- and squeak-filled wooden house, e) a corner office in the city, and f) a country house in the mountains. The thing that made me think of all this is probably going to seem very weird, but this was in fact the catalyst: these guys have the option of taking into the city either a 30-minute drive or a 30-minute train ride, a situation which seems so quintessentially Northeastern - Tri-Rail's not that great, folks! - that I didn't even need to be able to look down at the Hudson River to be able to tell you what state we were in.

12-15 July 07

2007-07-17T18:58:00.000-07:00

Time:

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Money:

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More interesting things:

Recorded nothing in my phone about this little chunk of time. I went to the Met, sat around on Fifth Avenue, walked to Grand Central... well, that was two of the days, anyway. And on the day before that I slept too long and hit the gym ferociously hard, both in an effort to ignore my concern for a certain businessman, followed by a happier trip to Astoria for dinner at this cool place (Mundo) with Rebecca and her friend. But nothing too weird or unusual, I don't think.

11 July 07

2007-07-12T12:31:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$4, protein bar and D.P. for breakfast, that place across from my gym.
$4, pretty much the same thing for lunch, Duane Reade (although the lovely Rebecca brought it back for me.)

More interesting things:

Got invited (?) to Professor Alpha's house for moving purposes. You got it, Alpha - I'm getting good at that Metro-North thing....

Had dinner with the lovely Patrick, who turns out to be an excellent cook in addition to an all-around fabulous guy. Thanks, man!

Fell asleep on the phone, but only for a minute before one or more of us snorted back awake and actually hung up on purpose this time.

5-10 July 07

2007-07-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

Time:

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Money:

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More interesting things:

Had a great visit with Michele, which involved going to the Cosby house (where we horned in on a tour and collected my first Newf sighting, complete with white tail-tip), Jekyll and Hyde Pub (ridiculous, and not necessarily in a good way), Jack Russell's, the Staten Island Ferry, Ground Zero, John's Pizzeria (reminding me what the real New York kind is actually like), Jack Russell's, Fifth Avenue, Grand Central (where we met Kevin, who snuck up and grabbed us with a classic "Welcome to the madness..."), Times Square, St. Patrick's, Second Avenue (for lunch, not because it's so inherently cool, although I guess it is), Central Park, more of Fifth Avenue, my apartment (!), and - you guessed it - Jack Russell's, where we either drank or watched/benefited from some very amusing Rusty Nails. (The next day was Blockhead's and the Met and a relatively early COB, but it was fun, too.)

4 July 07

2007-07-10T15:00:00.000-07:00

Time:

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Money:

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The timing (or lack thereof, more accurately) of this entry is absolutely ridiculous, but at least the day was memorable enough that I can mention a couple of good details, all of which had to do with the fact that I...

Went to Professor Number One's house for the Fourth. The food was good, the fireworks were spectacular, and the visitors were goofy. This was particularly true of the only person there under the age of 18: a barely-14-year-old associate, somehow, of Professor Abercrombie, who apparently failed to attend to the "sip" of wine this kid was supposed to take but which she turned into a red wine slam. (Yecch.) At first I thought something was genuinely wrong with her, but apparently ADD mixed with enough instant alcohol to make someone twice her size a little fuzzy is what resulted in her exuberant introductions, including - bad call, kid! - one to Professor Number Five. "Ooh, your name is Number Five?! Ooh, we have... we have a person... [insert loopily tired trail-off here.]" "In Israel named Number Five?" "Yeah!" Har.

Was told by Professor Number Four, in his classic laughing-and-finger-shaking way, not to spread any rumors, which was slightly mystifying but still amusing; heard Anne tell Professor Number Four respond with, "Yeah, she's good at spreading," which was not mystifying in the least and also utterly hilarious. At that point I'd had rather a lot of wine, and Girts's story about spreadsheets at his store, which would have been funny in any case, pretty much sent me over the "you're a moron" edge and may have caused Number One to wonder whether we were in fact ever planning to leave.

29 June - 3 July 07

2007-07-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

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I'm a moron. Just wanted to put that out there before I start piecing together my personal history of the last few days. A big blogging moron. Okay? Let's begin.

Was supposed to go to the beach Friday, but we changed it because the weather was not going to be great - not rainy, but not particularly sunny and a little cool. But of course, I can't remember what I did instead.

Did in fact go to the beach on Saturday. I really did not feel overly interested in heaving myself out of bed, but I soldiered on down to Penn Station - and it turned out to be more than worth it. The waves were mostly high enough to be interesting for playing in and the sand was warm but not disgustingly hot as it often begins to feel within 47 seconds of planting oneself on a Florida beach. Furthermore, there was a bouncing topless woman building sand castles and inspiring us to grumble about the highly inattentive police-like people (who somehow looked around themselves carefully enough to determine that the paper bags near the people on whom they bestowed citations in fact contained beer but still managed to miss the show) and two Gators sitting across from me on the train ride back: dooo-do-doo-do-do!

Slept in ridiculously on Sunday, before attempting to catch up in the blogging department. It should be obvious what a thorough job I did.

Went to work on Monday, where things were pretty quiet because Professor Alpha was giving a workshop most of the day.

Went to work again today, where things were less quiet because Professor Number Four was giving a workshop most of the day and I was expected to go. It was great; I'm really starting to feel kind of attached to that masters group, and anyway, one of my favorite students thereof added to his participation in the question-and-answer period (thanks, Number Four - seriously, although at first that sentiment might have been expressed sarcastically!) with "Just one more question, Counselor" - particularly amusing since he actually happens to be one!

28 June 07

2007-07-03T20:01:00.000-07:00

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Had a weird dream about Professor Alpha, but for the life of me I cannot now remember what it was. Something about him being finished, which only makes sense; in fact it makes so much sense that I wonder if this isn't a particularly dramatic instance of my subconscious brain filling in what my conscious brain doesn't understand or even recall.

Found out that I did quite well on my Spring teaching evaluations. It was just nine students, but... I'm taking what I'm getting.

Got from one of my students what must have been the single highest compliment this particular guy knows how to pay: he said I was really a math teacher. Close, at one time - but ha, and also thank you, Newton.

Sat listening to my students' conversation (I'd given them complete license for what I called a free-for-all), which was so smart, fiery, invested, and authentic - I didn't say a thing - that the intensity of my pride was about two minutes away from turning a mental and emotional reaction physical. I never saw that kind of discussion happen before, and I cannot believe I can try to spend my life getting paid for this stuff.

Stood by at the masters' class party chatting with a variety of people, which was lovely, especially as it grew more and more enbeered. Near the end, one of Professor Alpha's more... interesting? students corralled me and asked, among other, weirder and less reasonable questions, how I'd "gotten so lucky." Fortunately, Alpha himself was not too far away, so through a small but happy cloud of Dos Equis, I invited him without any further explanation to answer his student's "incisive question." The hilarious part was that I didn't have to identify for him what the luckiness in question consisted of. The really pleasing part was that Alpha still remembers calling me on the field that day. And the really accurate part was that he characterized me as weird. Right on, Alpha - but as you yourself have pointed out, my nutty self feels at home here, mostly because I'm surrounded with like minds!

27 June 07

2007-07-03T19:44:00.000-07:00

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Ran into Professor Number Five a second time, just outside the building when she was on her way to lunch. The meeting consisted first of me expressing my mild jealousy that she was off to her regular Tuesday lunch with Professor A.5 and then of Number Five giving me a big hug and telling me outright that she loved me. Hee!

Escorted Professor Alpha from his last class at this university. It's a good thing I had other plans for dinner yesterday, actually, because if I hadn't - if I had gone with Alpha last night - I probably wouldn't have gotten the invitation I did today. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The first thing to note here is that Alpha gave out a really terrific poem to play with - Adrienne Rich, "In a Classroom," which provided all of us with lots of little facets to examine and follow and posit and enjoy; I particularly like that my final interpretation involves the poet as just the kind of book-title teacher Alpha most appreciates. After we got through all that, class was pretty much over, and I performed all my packing-up rituals as slowly as was necessary to stay in step with Alpha. As we left I asked where he was headed - if the answer was "back to my office," I was going with him; for better or for worse I now know very well that you don't leave a deposed professor alone immediately following the conclusion of his or her reign - and got, in answer, my raincheck: of course I'll grab a bite with you... I'd even grab several. So off we went, free this time of conversational falters, all the way to Acme, where Alpha and the waitress deliberated extensively over the darkness of the Restoration Ale and then concluded their discussion with the order of a Hurricane. I got the ale, however, which looked far less interesting than his enormous red beverage but which still invited the kind of curious Alpha-style eyeballing I knew meant he wanted to try it - a conclusion that was good to draw and think favorably about, since right about the time I went to hand him the bottle, he yoinked it from me, aiming it in the direction of his face and announcing that I could try his, if "you're a rum drinker." (Ha.) The executive decision was that the ale was in fact sufficiently dark for him to have chosen it, but it didn't matter; either the rum or the day contained enough intoxicants that the conversation never stopped.

26 June 07

2007-07-01T13:30:00.001-07:00

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Celebrated exactly one year of heading for the back right corner of East. I was going to describe it as "noting," since on the outside that's probably all it appeared to be, but in my head it was in fact quite a lot more than that. I mentioned the day's red-letterness to Professor Alpha in combination with the phrase "scared shitless," to which he responded, "Well, it didn't take long get over THAT, now did it?" Heh.

Yawned, it seems conspicuously. Professor Alpha asked, in that thick from-under-the-eyebrows voice, "we keepin' you up at night?", with just the right suggestive lilt to reduce me to a snorty "uhh...."

Caught an elbow in the side as I waited for copies to finish. Professor Alpha was letting me know he was headed out to lunch but would see us after class. I love a guy who keeps you up to speed without even making you work nosily for it; I especially love a guy who does this kind of thing because he expects the same in return.

Got out of Professor Alpha's class five minutes early, which was useful because my dash from campus to Shun Lee required stops at the ATM and the Gap along the way. We stopped near the restroom so I could finish listening to Alpha's description of his arrival time for the next day, I leapt back out as fast as I could, and... skidded to the elevator just in time to wait for it with Alpha himself and encounter a question with the easiest yet most paining moral answer I've had to come up with in awhile: "Wanna grab a bite for dinner?" Holy crap and no fair, since I had to answer that I was on my way to Shun Lee with the grandparents. His response was entirely supportive, of course... but DAMN. IT! (Not that I didn't have a great time at dinner, as we shall see momentarily.)

Raced, unfruitfully, through the Gap, all the while listening to my mom talk about the officiating powers of notaries public at the weddings of their relatives and then - oy - a conversation in which she told my youngest sister, for the second time at least, that I would probably marry someone who is a) a professor and b) quite a bit older than me. Ha. This lasted pretty much all the way uptown, interrupted only for a second to text Professor Alpha with a request for a raincheck, which was positively received. Anyway, when my mom said all that stuff again, I decided that it was just too mean to keep the joke from her, and admitted that I had been talking to this nice guy from my class last term with whom I planned to go out once he'd returned from vacation. "And he is, in fact," I added in a slow growl, "a professor." At that point, I had to stop talking because of the shrieking laughter coming at me from 1300 miles away; the next obvious question I responded to first by asking whether she would have a heart attack and then with the not-surprising number of 53. "That IS older," she answered reasonably, "but... not really. I mean, YOU'RE 53 inside..." so on and so forth. Clearly, this conversation could have gone much worse - it had, in fact, gone quite well and did not make me feel funny, which was a pleasant surprise - and I was, as much as it bemuses me to say so, glad to have engaged in it.

Heard, to the feigned dismay of my grandmother, a gonorrhea joke. (The part that was supposed to be dismaying, I hope in light of her sex-with-students comments, was that it was my grandfather relaying it and a very expensive dinner table over which it was relayed.) It was something goofy about Big Louie or whatever, but the key here is just that I got it in the first place. My grandfather's a pretty cool character.

25 June 07

2007-07-01T12:48:00.000-07:00

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Agreed with the department chair that things had had "a happy ending," which he observed when in responding to Professor Alpha's booming summons he found that I was sitting there, too. I mentioned that I planned to frame my copy of the committee letter, at which the point the chair sort of laughed in that weirdly tremulous, non-committal way he has and noted that so far things had gone well; just one person so far had been told "no." Here Alpha's eyebrows went up, the chair went back, and he growled, "Yesss... well, we TOLD J. to seek Professor R.'s advice, but she didn't do it in time - and you should never ignore advice from Professor R." Ha, ha, and more ha - the association of my name with this "professor" word is pure insanity.

Rode back uptown headed for a quick dinner at Jack Russell's (that would be 12 dollars for up there, I guess) and got a series of songs that seemed particularly well-timed. First, in the middle of my examination of my class ring we had the We Are the Boys March. Then, I think, it was Miami 2017 or something similarly New-Yorkish. Then I got Spirit in the Sky and Hey Jude, neither of which seemed unusually fitting, but when in coming above ground I thought about my timing needs for the next two years to the accompaniment of Pomp and Circumstance, I figured they'd all been appropriate somehow. So I called my mom, and sure enough she had tried my number earlier, leaving just Norman Greenbaum to be explained; later on, I talked with my dad and was reminded that it was my uncle's birthday. Hi, Uncle Billy.

Read my nippers' journals and found that one had quoted me to myself, if you can believe THAT shiz-nit. It was something about playing with the future, and that I made teaching sound like a cool job. Hot damn.

24 June 07

2007-06-24T14:34:00.000-07:00

Time:

About three hours, making up for two days of missed lifting by adding it to today's. I couldn't run after that, though.

Money:

$2, the LTC's favorite protein bar - chocolate mint, Third Avenue Garden or whatever it's called.
$?, sushi ordered in (although I haven't quite gotten that far yet), Ooki.

More interesting things:

Made it home from Patrick's lovely party - and the ensuing cab rides and pizza (which I guess are technically things I should include up there!) - at 2:47 this morning. Bad-ass, but not as bad-ass as Anne's truly outstanding reaction when a former nipper mentioned not only that Professor Bravo fixated on race in his course - not a surprise, now is it? - but also that he was insulted by a) people supposedly looking at him during meetings because he's black and b) Professor Number One patting his head? First of all, what the fuck is that about? We've BEEN in those meetings, and no one's looking at him for any reason other than that he's the new guy/fresh meat/do-boy, and they like to volunteer him for everything: suck it up, kid! That's the way it is when you're low man on the totem pole, and if you weren't so fucking blind you might realize that - as Anne also pointed out - you aren't actually the only person in the room of any given race. The part I really liked, though, was when Anne reacted so strongly to the reporting nipper's comment about Number One that I thought she was going to spray a mouthful of Maker's (Alpha Jr., anyone?) across the living room: eyes narrowed, neck snapped forward, cup-hand sloshed up, and... "Okay, Number One is like EIGHTY YEARS OLD!", followed by something along the lines of - I think - "She can do whatever the fuck she wants!" and then my small, nitpicky-but-valid point of "Uh, she wouldn't even be able to REACH the top of his head," which Anne hotly supported by hovering her non-cup-hand twelve inches above the bench on which we were sitting and agreeing, "YEAH! She's like four feet tall!" Way to go, team, and suck for Bravo that in hiding behind his thick-ass skull he's missing all the fun.

23 June 07

2007-06-23T17:20:00.001-07:00

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$35, polish-less pedicure, the place across the street from Anne's.
$12, a really excellent sushi bento box, Sushi-a-Go-Go.
$? (because I haven't bought it yet), wine, the place down the street from my apartment.

More interesting things:

Enjoyed the pedicure pretty much as I thought I would - it's hard to complain about warm water, pumice stones, comfortable chairs, good friends, and amusing texts, particularly when it all remains unsullied by toe paint.

Laid around at the park - Sheep Meadow, to be exact - for like four hours. It was spectacular out, and I was really, really glad to have gone.

Got ready for dear Patrick's party. That's where I'm headed now - it should be fun, despite the fact that it involves, as he pointed out in his invite, travel to other boros.

22 June 07

2007-06-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

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$0, since even though my grandparents are, in fact, the "guesty-guests" (which I pointed out over a check-related chocolate strawberry), they are also the ones initiating the party. Thanks, GPs.
$40, wine and cheese with Rebecca, Uva.

More interesting things:

Missed, once again, a morning trip to the gym, and compounded it by not making it to the office, either. I did, however, get off the phone in enough time to take a shower and blow into the hotel lobby on a white-toothed, purple-Poloed, broad-shouldered gust, five minutes ahead of the appointed hour. We went to MoMA, which was great - it's always fun to see the paintings you've known about since second grade, and there was a surprisingly down-to-earth balance of admiration and mockery on display from the more vocal of the other two visitors. The whole thing was heightened even further by the necessity of checking my text messages while making sure no curious transplanted Floridian was looking over my shoulder.

Left the GPs at their hotel, flew back to my apartment to change, and cabbed it (sorry, Grandma) back downtown to make a 5:30 reservation at... the Russian Tea Room. Yes. And outstanding. Most of the outstandingness had to do with duck bits and caviar that actually tasted good, but that it is situated next to an office building (Carnegie Hall Tower) with a poster advertising the building as, in quotes, "Between the Moon and New York City" and featured a red leather banquette at which my grandfather approved of my unreasonable-for-most two-year plan by announcing, "I'm wit' ya all the way!" should not be discounted.

Enjoyed enough wine to get goofy even though I'd been inoculated with a glass at dinner. Excellent.

20-21 June 07

2007-06-23T17:04:00.001-07:00

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Blurred a bit through these days - no notes in the phone, and not a lot of sleeping to be had, either; these may or may not be related. In any case, a pleasant couple of days, even if not very much in cooperation with my best efforts at re-establishing certain routines. Lengthy telephone conversations have rarely been so appreciated.

19 Jun 07

2007-06-23T16:02:00.000-07:00

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Started my day out considerably earlier than I had planned. I was on for the gym at oh-dark-thirty, but awoke even earlier to a text chirp, followed by a lengthy and VERY enjoyable phone conversation. 'Nuff said.

Walked my current nippers to their observation at an elementary school not far from our own campus, escorted by J. Hardy, who has been associating with this school for (apparently) eight years now. Anyway, as we crossed the park, I answered J. Hardy's question about how I was planning to stay in touch with Chair Professor Alpha by explaining that Alpha is very communicative and keeps up not only with email but with phone calls and even text messages; J. Hardy agreed and added, in a tone that suggested he should have started his next comment with "It doesn't matter anyway because...", that Alpha "really likes you, that's clear." Heh.

Met with Professor Number Six, who signed a copy of the accreditation report before handing it over. He's the bomb.

Grabbed lunch with Anne and waited with her on the corner while she caught a cab back to the high school. It was good to see her - it had been a long time since we'd gotten caught up out of hearing range of people under the age of 21!

Received my... committee letter. We will disregard the imperious tone in which it dictates my graduation date - I did sell that one to the dean 100% willingly - and will instead celebrate the three names which appear at the top. Here's once more to Professor Alpha... and Professor Delta, without whom I would have been stuck at just two.

16-18 June 07

2007-06-20T17:30:00.000-07:00

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Slacker, slacker, slacker - I know that Saturday involved Zabar's, the Boat Basin Cafe, and yet more walking; Sunday was the Manhattan Mall (!), where we got sneakers for one of us and a wicked cool lion polo for the other, and sushi with Anne, Girts, and Co. Monday was fun because Professor Alpha invited me to his class to think about his "Speak" assignment with them, but other than that I got nothing. What a pansy.

15 June 07

2007-06-20T16:37:00.000-07:00

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Retrieved youngest sister from JFK and, since she only had one small rolling bag (good job, kid), went right back to my office, which I figured she probably wanted to see anyway. (Also I needed to get an Ed Week off Professor Alpha's table - I'll admit that....) This involved coming out of the West Fourth Street station past the Cage and... a mohawk cop. I looked hard to see whether he was for real or not, and all I can say is "I hope so": that was definitely a large pistol attached to his hip! Then, when we left my building on a quest for the cookie store (which was, inexplicably, still closed), we passed 19 Barrow Street, an apartment building apparently constructed around a central courtyard. The black mesh gate was open, enabling us to see down the low arched hallway of cream-colored stucco to the really lovely garden of a courtyard; red and purple and I don't know what all colors of flowers were visible, and I thought so hard about trotting down the hallway. Sometime maybe I will, but for now it's good to feel like Alice looking through the tiny door she's too tall to pass through!

Continued, on our wide-ranging hunt for some Village-based dessert, back up towards Magnolia, and passed some kind of (I guess) high-fashion men's store - with an ice-cube-filled dog bowl next to the door.

Met Anne and Co. at Grand Central. While we waited for the Co. part of the group to get on the train headed towards his weekend job, we managed to figure out the great arch-whispering secret. It worked, too - pretty cool.

Followed Anne to New Green Bo in Chinatown - awesome - and then across the street to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory - also awesome. Then we walked back up to Union Square to sit and watch the skateboarders (one of whom Anne knew from school) before finally getting on the train back uptown. (Oh, and somewhere on that walk to Union Square, an old red car otherwise painted like a cow rolled lazily by - and blew its mooing horn.)

14 June 07

2007-06-19T18:46:00.000-07:00

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Started the day with a series of interesting sensory inputs. (Is that a word?) First, in the gym I saw that lady who looks from certain angles so much like my grandmother that when I saw her sitting outside awhile back I had actually taken a picture of her. Then, I think when I was on the subway, my iPod served up "Standing Outside the Fire" and then "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now." Interesting.

Talked with the lovely Allan, who asked me to be one of his outside readers (!) This was nice, but the particularly funny part was that I really had been thinking of him when I was teaching; someone asked a question for which I had a potentially much longer answer than was necessary or even desired, but I had to stop and think very consciously about whether what I could have said should have been said. (It turns out the answer is, probably not, which I think I figured out in time: an important skill.) Anyway, I mentioned this new and faintly bemusing dilemma to Allan, whose response consisted first of a snort and then of, "Yep, you're a doc student!" This was not something I didn't already know, of course, but hearing it that way was kind of like finding out I'd been admitted to some sort of club I've always admired - so thanks, Allan.

13 June 07

2007-06-17T12:59:00.001-07:00

Time:

About eight sweaty minutes, from following the relevant administrator into his office to holding in a shriek as I left down the staircase at a high rate of speed.

Money:

?

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Answered the phone (despite the many signs posted around the weights area indicating that I shouldn't) in between sets of bent rows to find my dad had remembered about my meeting later in the day: thanks, Dad!

Tried not to look like I was ogling - although I was, in fact, ogling - the darkest-skinned man I have ever seen. It was particularly striking because he was wearing a pale pink shirt, but even without that it was impressive. You just cannot find people-watching anywhere else like you can in this town.

Added, for the first time in awhile (which is more a comment on my observation skills of late than it is about what's actually taking place out there), to my New Yorkers ARE Polite Campaign. A woman got up from the subway bench, ready to rush off the train except for the part where a dollar bill had fallen out of her pocket, I guess. She didn't know that, though, until at least two other passengers yelped after her, "Miss! MISS! You dropped your dollar!" And nobody even made a move to look like they were thinking about touching it themselves.

Sat next to Professor Alpha, who had plopped himself down in the chair next to me for some audible introspection. We chatted for quite awhile, almost all of the conversation to do with my impending meeting (which he hadn't realized was about to take place) and featuring a thoughtful line that began, "One hesitates to call it intimate, but it is very personal," with the "it" in question being the process of two people working together to turn one of them into what the other already is: a holder of the doctorate. I would have been sorrier than I was to let our chat end except that E.L. finished it off for us by wafting up the hallway exclaiming over how "cute" her view of our feet - the only evidence of our presence visible from where she walked - had been. (Not a bad way to be interrupted, if you have to be interrupted!)

Went to my meeting - see special report. It was quick and mostly involved promising to be done in two years, agreeing to use all three committee members, and explaining why Professor Alpha, Teacher Educator Extraordinaire, is so important to what I'm doing, all of which culminated in an impressive throwing-up-of-the-hands gesture that, coming from a dean in any other case, really would have made me feel weird (are deans supposed to do things like that?) Here, of course, I wouldn't have cared if he'd gotten the word "OKAY" tattooed on his ass and made me take a picture.

Returned to my desk after class well ahead of Marisa to find that Professor Alpha had his jacket on and his phone out; when I asked what he was up to, he looked up and trilled, "Oh, I was just about to text you" (!) I trilled back appropriately, asking what he'd been about to text, and got "I just wanted to tell you I'm so pleased we get to..." and here he trailed off with his canary-swallowing cat smile and a big furry hug.

Went to dinner with Kevin, who had very kindly called earlier in the day to ask about getting together for purposes of either celebration or commiseration. I was glad to participate in the former, of course, but either way it probably would have been a nice evening involving ninety minutes of chatting in my office lobby, five glasses of wine (with the fifth one split between us field-expediently, since the waiter didn't quite know what to do with our decision to share and left us with no empty glasses), and one or maybe two or three instances of activity causing my neighbors to laugh as they passed us on the way out of my building. (And that, in turn, caused us to laugh, which was really kind of fun. Okay, now no more stories no one wants to hear, I promise.)

Decided... well, maybe I shouldn't finish writing here about a possibly lucky shirt; I don't want to jinx it. So all I'll say is that this was the second time out for this particular clothing item - the first involved one hell of a retirement party.

Special Report - 13 June

2007-06-17T12:40:00.000-07:00

We won.

Usually people who say something like that are wearing numbered jerseys or something else that enables a referee to keep track of them. Usually it's said in a location upon which the involved parties converged voluntarily, knowing that a competition was about to begin. Usually people who say it have medals or trophies or wreaths to hold overhead, shining tangible proof of their achievements.

In this case, however, we are wearing Bill Cosby sweaters and scruffy t-shirts. We spend a lot of time in an old building in the Village, and competed only under extreme duress. We can wrap the material evidence of our success around a finger or give it a kiss, but no one will find that impressive because it's just a piece of paper with five signatures on it.

Still.

We won.

12 June 07

2007-06-16T14:25:00.000-07:00

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Left my chair clear so Rebecca, who was wearing a skirt, could sit there rather than on the floor to do her work, causing Professor Alpha to stop mid-hallway, look from one to the other, and point out, from under his eyebrows I'm sure, that I was a "noble girl." Not really - Lord knows I sit in that chair plenty - but it still pretty cute!

Went to the Yankees game, thanks to Marisa. That was really cool, lady - thank you for bringing us.

11 June 07

2007-06-16T13:44:00.000-07:00

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Stopped to bother Professor Number Four for a few minutes, and mentioned my student with the pedagogy problem (that is, he doesn't think he needs it.) Number Four's response? In a quiet, casual, everyday-Number-Four-style tone... "Fuck him, right? Just fuck him." (It's important - at least in my mind - to note that the tone here was so offhand that even my gutter-dwelling mind never considered that as a directive, incidentally; it was an obvious and pleasant instance of Number Four sticking out my thought as though it were his, or vice versa.)

Got a call from Anne and met her at Apple for a nicer lunch than I'd expected that day - thanks, dude!

Wondered mostly idly at the fact that Professor Alpha had not yet returned from his own lunch by the time Marisa and I were getting ready to go to class, but got to stop doing that when he called to let me know where he was. "I forgot to tell you," he explained, "that I was going to the doctor right from lunch, and I didn't want you to think I'd gotten hit by a truck or anything. I'll give you a full report on the ultrasounded kidneys when I get back." Har - first because I DO like to know these things, second because the only reason he knows I like to know these things is that he does, too.

Rang Dr. B. for the first time in a really (too) long time. We chatted for about an hour, during the course of which he mentioned a few times that he'd been worried I might have "outgrown" him. (As if.) When he said that one more time near what seemed to be the end of our discussion, I told him I was so sorry to hear that (prompting him to ask, reasonably, in front of whom he could be insecure if not me?) and asked whether he would now indulge my insecurities and tell me if the call had made him feel better. I think the positive answer I got was for real, because it was accompanied by, "R., I love you"; the unwavering, matter-of-fact tone in which I responded in kind was a nice signal from my subconscious brain that my polite brain was absolutely correct.

10 June 07

2007-06-16T13:43:00.001-07:00

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Wrote nothing down, actually. I know I was in the Village for part of it, with Rebecca at Esperanto Cafe, and I also went to DT/UT for awhile, but... it must have been a pretty chill day.

9 June 07

2007-06-16T13:26:00.000-07:00

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More interesting things:

Kicked, accidentally, that guy who I'm always sitting across from at DT/UT. I apologized; he said that it happened a lot at that table and that, furthermore, he'd met his last girlfriend that way (!). I didn't respond to this as supportively as I should have, but when I slid around to his side to retrieve my computer plug, I apologized again, and this time got the observation that he was always getting kicked around but it was okay to get kicked around by some people. Heh.

Caught a cab across town to meet Anne for some quick shopping and some only slightly less quick cooking. On the way, in an effort to cross another long-standing item off my list, I called my grandparents. They told me about their plans to come up later in the month, and then my grandmother asked how things were going. I didn't realize how inspiring the description of my middle-aged former-lawyer student would be; after replying with moderately amused exasperation that he does, in fact, have not just a wife but also children, my grandmother responded with, "Oh well, you're probably not supposed to have sex with your students anyway." YECCH! (But, I have to admit, quite funny.)

Admired, somewhat confusedly, one among quite a few of those big, like, tone-setting photo decoration things at The Gap: it involved a little kid at the beach - standard fare for a prep store in June, needless to say - but it was labeled "BIG SURF... NO SHARKS." I could not quite fathom the underlying thinking here: by denying something that might not have entered a kid's head in the first place, doesn't it turn into something on the order of "The lady doth protest too much"? Like, if you were walking down the street, and someone said, "Don't worry, no flowerpots are going to fall on your head," wouldn't looking up to check for flowerpots be pretty much the very next thing you'd do?

Spotted... Dianne Wiest, near Columbus Circle. Hot damn. (And also some other guy whose name I cannot now recall; ask Anne - she was the only one among the two of us who knew who he was anyway!)

8 June 07

2007-06-09T12:02:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Made my way down to Brooklyn to turn in my substitute-teaching application. (Yecch, but it's the fastest way to get my fingerprints done.) Anyway, I signed in below a small crowd of people - one with a good Italian name, one with a very Indian name, one with an obviously Dutch name... and one whose first name has been on the "top-ten" list lots of times and whose last name was "Bland." Har.

Waited to get photographed for my ID - that should be a nice one - and noticed not fewer than four signs indicating that applications should be deposited in "the wooden box." Apparently, however, that descriptor was not enough; the wooden box itself was labeled, on such a large sheet of paper that its woodenness was mostly obscured, "WOODEN BOX." Heh.

7 June 07

2007-06-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Followed, as is my well-established custom, Professor Alpha. (Maybe I should be Bravo; we'll leave the "Professor" part off.) We went upstairs to hand some paperwork back to Miss E., who noticed that we matched - white shirts and tan pants for both of us. Alpha's shirt was actually cream-colored, and he had on a tan vest, but it was still pretty funny, especially when Alpha responded with, "Well, look at that! And we didn't even call each other to plan it!" The amusing comments didn't last too long, however, at least not from Miss E., who apparently - and I don't blame her, really - cannot talk to one of these guys without going into a good-bye speech. Alpha's interesting, though. While he has no problem getting compliments or even talking about sucky it'll be once he's not here every day, he doesn't seem to like discussing it casually. I don't know what that means in the grand sense, but in this case it meant that his answer went, "Don't worry! Don't worry - I have to come back to talk to [me]... she's not gonna let me get away." (To which I appended, in my "oiliest" voice [with thanks to Maya Angelou], "Yeah, I'm not playing around with that," causing Miss E. to nod protectively - and Alpha to cackle all the way back to the elevator.)

Looked up from lunch in Professor Alpha's office to find that Marisa had arrived to get ready for class. She came and chatted with us for a bit, which Alpha opened by saying his teacher had taught him lots of good things that morning and holding up his iPod. Marisa gathered right away what we were talking about and told him that soon he'd be ready for a Blackberry, which he dismissed with turkey noises I interpreted out loud as an indication that his thumbs are not compatible with such items. Later, this very mildly amusing exchange was amplified a bit. I was attempting, in Alpha's self-identified efforts to become a "techie," to help him text me a picture he'd been texted so I could email it to him etc. etc. In the middle of all this, I got a text from Rebecca, put my phone on the table to type... and realized I was being peered at by an Alpha, who interrupted me with, "Well, I don't know how you type on that thing either... it's not like YOUR hands are so small!" Which is true, and hilarious for the fact that he made such an observation.

Demonstrated for Professor Alpha, somewhere in the middle of all that, how to post documents on Blackboard. He announced that he'd emailed himself some articles he wanted up, so I went to take the hard copies and head back to my desk, but he stopped me by saying he wanted to learn how to do it himself. So I stood over his shoulder and coached him through it - and then concluded with, "Hey! I don't know why I just showed you that!" and a series of cackles when he anticipated my reasoning: "Why, because now I won't need to keep you around? No, no, I need you for content, honey," in an oily voice of his own. I'm not totally sure what that meant, actually, but whatever it is, I'll take it - it'll be my pleasure to provide content for as long as he wants.

Walked to the train to the accompaniment of what seemed to be a high school marching band. Unfortunately, the guys with the buckets drowned them out once we were on the platform, but it was pretty cool up to that point.

Spotted (so to speak) a guy at the coffee shop wearing my bird poop t-shirt, in the same excellent faded green color I had. Har.

6 June 07

2007-06-06T18:58:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$5.50, collected from the dry cleaners, who turned my favorite cargo pants blue, which is bad, because they started out tan.
$2, D.P., usual place.
$15 or so, cabs to Old Navy, back up to school, and down to the high school.
$60, three pairs of nifty pants (to make up for the dear lost cargos, of course), The Gap on Broadway.
$8, usual lunch (except with Asian dressing - yecch), usual place.
$2, pens, because for the life of me I cannot keep the caps on mine, school bookstore.
$125, month's gym membership, across the street from my apartment.
$4, some cereal cups, Duane Reade.
$21, sushi dinner, Ooki (which is awesome.)

More interesting things:

Rode, for the first time maybe in my entire life, in a cab piloted by a female. She didn't exactly impress me with her madd skillz - she asked me where Astor Place was, and we were all of seven blocks away - but I got where I was going, so that's what counts, I guess.

Screeched (I think with the cabbie mentioned just above) past a firehouse, complete with a fire truck that had an inflatable boat on top and... a dalmatian. (I mean, the dalmatian wasn't on top of the truck. He was in the garage area with some firefighters. Pretty nifty!)

5 June 07

2007-06-05T18:58:00.000-07:00

Time:

About four minutes, between the time I stomped my way in just-missed-train irritation at a therefore unnecessarily high rate of speed down to my spot and the time I could see the next one apparently rising from the ground (that's what the glowing-red train number looks like when it's first coming down the tunnel.)

Money:

$5, yogurt and D.P. (the yogurt is not that fab here), the usual place.
$5, peanut butter bagel and D.P., the usual place.

More interesting things:

Crossed the street headed for the subway in front of a person who by all indications seemed to be a reasonably serious cyclist: helmet, gloves, tight shorts, the whole thing. If you looked right behind her, however, you could see that the milk crate attached to the back of the bike the way a delivery guy might have it came complete with not one but two small hairy white dogs. This was almost as good as the time I saw the biker-dude pup on the back of a moped-like thing on Washington Square South; it wasn't quite as silly, maybe, but it got part of that element we once captured in a picture of a grocery cart full of four or five little dogs that looked similar to the ones I saw today.

Scrolled down, accidentally, while reading an email from Professor Alpha, which is good because if I hadn't I would have missed the part where, in light of the fact that I "don't really work for" him any more, he double-thanked me for taking care of what he'd emailed about. I'd kind of been hoping that maybe he would, like, forget or something; it is technically the end of my appointment, but, as I've said before, I would pay them to let me keep soaking up the professor molecules. (Especially since those seem to be getting rarer and rarer 'round these parts.)

Got a lovely compliment about my "big" teaching voice from the equally lovely E.L. I hope I don't usually go around disturbing people just trying to, say, use the hallways, but I don't particularly know a better way to talk to a class! (And if I do disturb people with my voice... at least there's a great Professor Alpha precedent to follow.)

Read a very cute - and much anticipated - invitation to Professor Number One's Fourth of July party. The thing is... well, actually the "thing" is the same as always: the thing is, most of the people invited are other professors, their spouses, and Number One's personal non-work-related friends. And she invited us like there was never a second thought about it. Where else does this happen? Where? I want to know. Because that's where I'm going to work. And if I can't find it, I'll start it somehow. This kind of inclusion is a custom that must be carried on - I'm having a hard time imagining, at this point, what it might have been like otherwise... and I'm glad I can't come up with it, because one thing I do know is that would have been a far lesser experience. Far!

4 Jun 07

2007-06-04T20:10:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$4, cereal and oatmeal, Delion.
$2, D.P., usual place.
$8, usual lunch, usual place.
$40, my dinner and Rebecca's (I owed her), Apple.
$5, coffee and cookie, DT/UT.

More interesting things:

Planned for the first meeting of our summer class with Marisa. This involved a remarkable brain trick that was far beyond things I normally manage - I couldn't remember the name of the phenomenon I faked writing about for my tenth-grade science project, and no one should be surprised that Googling "German AND water AND problem AND cognition" didn't help... but my brain came up with: Einstellung. Hot damn. And then I looked it up on ERIC and PsycINFO and found articles by people with my third name who used references by people with my last name. Wicked. (And a good class activity, as it turned out.)

Ran across Professor Number Three and Professor Fluffy Hair, one right after the other, and remembered, consequently, how much it's gonna suck when the old guard has the left the building: A LOT. Who volunteers to talk to people who don't seem to like them? Ooh, ooh - ME! Since I'm HERE with them for at least the next year of courses, it seems prudent to keep trying, although it's starting to feel like something in the realm of "a waste of time." Number Three acts like - and I realize she does this with pretty much everybody - there is no possible way she can divert 47 seconds from her immediate, scholarly, non-student-related activity, while Fluffy Hair looks right past me with the kind of smile the duke gave Terri Doolittle when she came dancing up to him dressed like Diana Ross in Jumping Jack Flash: barely tolerant, and meant only to ease him past an irritant. Not a fan, ladies and gentlemen, not a fan.

Realized that summer classes are summer classes, whether I'm teaching them or taking them. There's something about it being light out when you leave, something about the scent of a warm night, maybe, that's the same in either a Gainesville, lifeguard, Dr.B.-and-Norman-Hall kind of June or a Washington Square, adjunct, Professor-Alpha-and-25 one. It is interesting, though, to be the instructor in this case. It very much made me want to call Dr. B. and Allan, and, this morning at least, it reminded of being a high school kid working for the Colonel: walking into the orientation with Alpha, chatting, joking, drinking coffee, and just generally looking like a not-scared, not-brand-new sort of person who's getting ready to bring in some new ones is very much an Army game too - but in this case, I wasn't in charge of the schedule (or getting yelled at if someone took too long to get to the podium!)

Sat drinking coffee with Rebecca at Think, and watched a big guy who worked there, apparently, stride across the middle of the room (where my view of anything from his hips down was obstructed by the counter), swoop down to pick up what I would have guessed was a paper or something he'd dropped, and straighten up with a big ol' brown tabby arranged across his forearm. He kept booking towards a staff-only door as though he'd never even paused (he hadn't, really; it was definitely a swoop) and disappeared with cat in hand. Maybe he thought to leave a cat in the middle of the room would have been to imply a mouse problem, but it would have been fine with me if he'd stayed... I would have shared my coffee.

3 June 07

2007-06-03T17:54:00.001-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$6, yogurt and fruit salad, market north of my apartment.
$12, omelet (egg-whites, thank you), Highlands Diner (I think.)
$16, sushi ordered in, Kyoto.

More interesting things:

Hit the street fair with Roey, which was fun - that you can pretty much just stumble onto such things in this town will never cease to be a lovely perk of living here. (And we ran into Marisa and her husband to boot. Awesome.)

Relaxed pretty much the rest of the day, which is hard to argue with!

2 June 07

2007-06-02T17:55:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$40(ish), mimosas, Colors.
$16, sushi ordered in, Kyoto.

More interesting things:

Went to Professor Number Five's retirement brunch. Anne, Annette, Rebecca, and I formed a herd (as Annette later described us) at the bank and made our way over to the restaurant together. Professor Alpha-and-a-Half invited us to stay with her in California (hell yes), we sat with two English Ed grads (one of whom I knew from the party, and who remembered me well enough to introduce me to the other!), we sucked down mimosas (okay, I sucked down mimosas; my colleagues may have restrained themselves to ladylike sipping), we toasted Number Five with one of her fifth-graders from 1961, whose remarks consisted of what Number Five had written to him on his 1962 report card, we chatted with all kinds of people, we enjoyed a great meal, and we listened to Miss J. sing "My Way" again (this time concluding it in her big voice all the way to the last two words, at which point she stopped belting and uttered "Number Five's way" in a normal tone of voice), causing me to buy it later in the afternoon (but that's another story to be recounted momentarily.) Professor Number Five herself stopped by our table and asked whether we'd ended up going to the beer bar after Otto the other night, which I answered with, "Well, the wine bar... we got tanked." Number Five seemed to approve, and, even better, so did the prof who'd remembered me: "Ah, yes, in the great graduate school tradition." The best part of all this, I think, was the constant sense of - wait for it! - community. Yes, community, ladies and gentlemen, that web between people that makes them feel like they're actually attached to the others, in this case even when you don't actually know them. Got that, administrators?

Bought my 1500th song. I had thought to myself - several days ago? a couple weeks ago? whenever I was last contemplating the next purchase - that no. 1500 needed to be something good. And then I thought to myself - this was just after the party, and I wasn't thinking about 1500 - after all this singing I really needed to buy "My Way." I discovered that iTunes has a million versions, but only one by Frank, which involves a bunch of other people, and I didn't want that. So for now, instead (I'll get Frank's one of these days), I got someone maybe equally appropriate, and probably more my speed in terms of just plain listening: Aretha, baby. How's that for a really good, genuinely special 1500?

Thought, since I had a fair amount of contemplating time trying to cool off once I'd gotten back to my apartment, that fraternities and sororities are supposed to provide their participants with feelings of brotherhood/sisterhood, but a lot of people find that that isn't really true, and anyway - just like no one would vote for "incompetent" teachers but didn't get enough information from the "competencies" - while it's hard to disagree with honor and scholarship and all that other stuff they talk about, I don't think all that's usually specific enough (at least not any more) to bring together otherwise unrelated people. (How does honor for one group - or scholarship, even better - look different than it does at the other end of Frat Row?) Sitting at that table, though, there were more substantive, "talk-able" things in common. One of the women suggested that of course we all love Professor Number Five, which is true, but as cute as it would have been, I might not have had quite as much to say to that grown-up fifth-grader. The commonalities in our educational background, however, meant a lot: we all know what it means to have Professors Number Four and Five teaching a course together, we all know that Professor Alpha cannot talk to someone without touching them (as evidenced by the story of the size-tag picking-off), and, in a meta-community move, we all know how connected we feel/felt, among plenty of others. So - and that Kappa stuff is lovely but does not count here - where's my secret handshake?

1 June 07

2007-06-02T17:40:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$8, pizza and a muffin (very fucking healthy), the usual place.
$21, really good pasta etc., Bardolino (that's the name of the place on 78th and Second.)

More interesting things:

Hung out at school pretty much all day, although I did admittedly get a late start (see yesterday's entry for an explanation....)

Ate dinner with my fabulous roommate. Thanks, Ben!

Went to bed early. A very exciting day - but a nice one. (The last part wasn't sarcastic, just so we all know.)

31 May 07

2007-06-02T17:39:00.002-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$40, my own dinner and some small fraction of Professor Number Five’s, Otto.
And that’s all I remember, although I’m sure the usual place was involved there, too.

More interesting things:

Made reservations for 10 at Otto – well, Rebecca did – which was not as easy as it sounds. They had a spot for us at 6, but of course class didn’t technically get out until 7, so I headed upstairs to ask as nicely as I could whether Professor Number Five thought we’d be able to get out early. I stopped by Professor Number Four’s office, though, where he was quite talkative and asked how people’s “psychological states” were. I thought that was a pretty weird question until I got to Number Five’s office, where in trying not to come right out and detail the whole dinner plan I was apparently TOO indirect, with a “Just! Just! Just don’t obfuscate! Be straight with me today!” aimed at my head. Yikes – not that I could blame her. So I came out with it, got a sort-of “okay,” and headed back down to hide at my desk… detouring along the way to tell Number Four that I now understood his question and thought that maybe the psychological states at that end of the hall were not so good. Sadly, it seemed, he agreed.

Remembered after I had long since headed up to class that I had not, in fact, locked my cabinet, which contained Professor Alpha’s laptop and which I had promised heartily that I would lock. So… I texted him. This would have felt very, very weird except that desperate times really do call for desperate measures, and I was terrified he’d try opening the cabinet and discover that I’m a moron. I just let him know that I’d get to it on my way out and wished him a good trip; you can imagine my amazement when I got a “Thks” texted back.

Enjoyed dinner a LOT more than it had seemed we would based on my earlier interactions with Professor Number Five. She was talkative and funny and only got to her normal Number Five-style fake irritation when she told the waitress she would like it if she were permitted to pay for something and I followed up immediately with the observations that I would like it if she weren’t and that I am quite a lot bigger than her. Anyway, the conversation was great, the winks from across the table were amusing (or sickening, depending on whether you’re Rebecca or not!), and the wine was plentiful enough that I recounted my meeting-Professor-Number-Six story for Number Five, who cracked up appropriately. I think it’s good we didn’t just let her go home after class, and I also think it’s good we didn’t take her to that pub!

Went, with Anne, Rebecca, and Kevin, to V Bar. This was enjoyable for a variety of reasons – not least of which was that I was a little far gone by then – including the fact that after Anne and Kevin had gone, Rebecca started this lovely conversation with these two Irish lawyers, whose candle I had stolen earlier and which, to judge by their thank-you’s upon its return, they wished I hadn’t. They turned out to be lovely, though, buying us drinks and starting good conversations, and I ended up very glad to have stayed around.

30 May 07

2007-06-02T17:39:00.001-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Listened with both empathy and general interest to Professor Alpha’s description of how the Party Professor and one of her colleagues plan to “restructure” things. Thinking about this right now is making me gag a little, but Alpha seems – reasonably – to have washed his hands of all of it: he sort of tossed the paper to the desk, leaned toward me, announced that it didn’t particularly matter to him any more, and added, “At one point I would have said I should just relax and enjoy it, but you can’t say that any more because it’s sexist.” HA! (Which is a pretty faithful transcript of my response, although something like, “Hey, I don’t mind getting directions like that” would have been a lot cooler!)

Noticed that Professor Alpha’s council ID number is remarkably – really strangely – close to my own second-through-twelfth-grade student ID number.

29 May 07

2007-06-02T17:38:00.002-07:00

Time:

Rather a lot, on the local downtown this morning. The benefit of catching a train which has come right up on the tail of another, of course, is that you get to sit down; the bad part is that it’s empty because it has come right up on the tail of another – and you keep having to wait for the more crowded train to drop/pick up passengers, which obviously takes a lot longer on a crowded train than on a quiet one!

Money:

$2, D.P., usual place.
$8, usual lunch, usual place.
$0, iced coffee, under the usual fetch/pay deal, usual place.

More interesting things:

Sat across the train from a well-dressed elderly couple, he in tattersall shirt and frog tie, she in pink poplin and long painted fingernails, sharing duty carrying… a long coil of heavy-gauge wire attached to an outlet box. I have no idea, so don’t ask, but here’s hoping their industrial repair efforts work out well.

Winced with great feeling after Professor Number Four, in what seemed like a normal display of extra energy in which I myself have engaged many times, punched first the wall and then the metal storage box over the desk behind me for four or five good whacks. He did it the same way anyone else would, sort of swinging around at the hips and carrying it through the arm just because it’s more fun than standing still – but he was hitting like he meant it! The wall thumped deeply, the box shook – and so did Professor Alpha, E.L., and I; Number Four just smiled like he always does and rubbed his knuckles with far less care than I would have if I had just gotten done wailing on inanimate and very hard objects.

Walked to the gym past a girl in orange t-shirt labeled “Bolles Swimming” across the front. How many schools called Bolles could there be in the United States?

28 May 07

2007-06-02T17:38:00.001-07:00

Time:

Quite a lot, Airtrain to the A to the 5 to the 6 to the apartment. But cheap.

Money:

$92, watch (thanks, Dad and GP’s!), Macy’s.
$14, frozen dinners, Gristede’s.
$15, really, really good sushi – it’s a sign of the mono’s retreat! – Kyoto.
$15, lemon sorbet and a glass of wine… uh, well. It’s on the corner of 78th and Second.

More interesting things:

Hit midtown with my lovely roommate Ben, who patiently endured a quick check of Bloomie’s (ehhh), a hot and sweaty subway ride down to Herald Square, and a much less quick check of Macy’s, but at least I found a cool watch. Thanks for coming, Ben!

Enjoyed quite thoroughly my fish, my lemon, and my rotten grapes. It was a gorgeous, lovely night, so walking was fun despite my ridiculous levels of soreness (it’s a PANSY level of soreness, is what it is) and sitting at that corner restaurant chatting and watching people go by was great.

Watched an interesting guy heff north and then, after awhile, heff back past us headed south. He had on, like, a rose-printed bustier and tights with a hole where a guy who wears bustiers might appreciate a hole, and overall it was very impressive.

25-27 May 07

2007-06-02T17:37:00.001-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Enjoyed another nice weekend down south. I was able not just to lift (and, consequently, get very, very sore) but to lift with my old pal Tyler – and then chat about it a few hours later over beers at Friday’s. (Well, I drank a beer… he had gin. Yow.) Anyway, the bartender was funny – somehow, he wangled his way into our conversation and asked where I lived; I have to say it was quite cool to be able to answer the usual question (“Oh yeah? Whereabouts?”) merely by saying… “the city.” Heh. (This was the night of 26 May.)

24 May 07

2007-06-02T17:36:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Answered Professor Alpha’s phone call as I stood waiting to finish making my next efforts at planning to get stabbed by a TB tine and talked as unhurriedly as I could before asking whether I could call him back. When I got him again – somewhere between Broadway and Greene, in case you were wondering – he was all jolly laughs and amusing comments, starting off with a question about “this eloquent letter!” “Yeeess… word gets around, you know,” he tells me, which is rather funny since I’m frequently reminded that “no one tells [him] anything,” but in any case I was glad to hear that at least some of the appropriate people appreciated my banged-out email. We’ll see what effect it has on the target(s) for which it was intended.

Delivered my filled-out committee form to Miss N. I worked hard to hand it politely to her secretary (he’s always so nice to me) while positioning myself strategically in her line of sight, hoping she’d have something to say – and it worked. The secretary got up to grab my candidacy letter, and Miss N. invited me in and, signaling better than a two-line exchange, offered me a seat. She opened her commentary with the observation that the whole thing was “heartbreaking,” which was certainly a sentiment I could get behind, and moved on at pretty good length, actually. In the end, I had collected the following pieces of information, interesting in their provision even if I can only hope for their veracity: it’s not a political issue; there’s never a flat “no”; my letter might have been enough logic to defend the contents of my committee form; it sounded like a good committee to Miss N.; my intent to finish within two years is a good thing; Miss N. meets with the relevant administrator weekly and would mention my issue; and – ready? – the origins of this whole thing came from nothing more than a genuine question about student choices. Hmm. But I’m not complaining. I’m looking forward to the next communiqué. (Because that’s what it feels like.)

23 May 07

2007-06-02T17:34:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Spotted a guy across the train from me whose eyewear could have served as a modern-day illustration of the “Soviet-style” glasses Dave Barry mercilessly (but accurately!) makes fun of.

Followed Professor Alpha in the direction of lunch, but stopped short when he was about three steps down from that catwalk-looking thing and I was still at the top, leaving us, weirdly, at the same height. This meant that I was in full eyebrow range when I interrupted his description of a guy who “cut a wide swath” at one of the conferences by noting that that wasn’t necessarily saying much; that’s where Alpha stopped, turned back to me with an eyebrow look, and agreed: “Yes, a friend of mine once told not to think I was hot shit at that conference because it’s not exactly a huge number who are, one, not gay, and two, actually involved with all that.” So, okay – but, regardless, I don’t doubt there was a swath there too.

Completed a series of committee-related up-downs, in both the literal and figurative senses. It’s going to be hard to keep this from getting unwieldy, but I’ll do my best.

It began when I informed Professor Alpha that Professor Number Four had turned in our candidacy letters and asked what I should do next. All smiles, he turned to his packet, yoinked the relevant committee form, and told me to go make copies for “the troops.” Off I went, with just a small speck of now-I-have-to-ask-the-question-formally uncertainty burbling in my head.

I returned to find that Yellow Coat had started making her way to Alpha’s office enough ahead of me that by the time I could have passed her I was right in the middle of the hall and would have had to squeeze by her, and even in the throes of will-you-be-my-chair nerves I’m not THAT rude. So instead, I waited for what seemed like enough time to make it appear that I hadn’t been riding her tail across the lobby before leaning into Alpha’s office and handing off the stack. He went to ask why I was giving them all to him, decided that was too much of an interruption, slid the top copy off – and signed on the appropriate line before handing it back to me: “Yesss!” no. 1 and thank you for saving me from my own indirectness. This was enough of a triumph that I was able to work unjumpily at my desk until Yellow Coat had left.

The next question, of course, given that Rebecca had been unable to get her form past the department chair while a blank line remained, was whose names should adorn the next two spots. Professor Number One had made a good case for her own at one point, but, not knowing this, Alpha couldn’t take it into consideration while explaining why Professor Number Three would be good; when I told him about our hallway conversation from awhile back, he agreed that it would be a bit of a politics thing and advised me to talk with Number One.

I did. And Number One made another good case for herself. “Oy” no. 1.

I returned to Alpha, who did not seem entirely convinced that Number One would not in fact be unhappy if I later changed her name for someone else’s (“bullshit” may have been the word he used) and who suggested that I could go chat with Number Three herself just to float the idea out there – maybe she would refuse immediately and I could sort of wangle out of taking direct responsibility for a choice.

For better or for worse (“better” in the end, probably, although it wasn’t doing much for me at the time) Number Three agreed to sign. This was only a pretty small second “Yesss!”, though, because my sense of achievement in the face of pressure came with qualifications left, right, and center. First, Number Three acted like I was completely crazy for caring about this right now; it makes me a little nervous that she – a doc comm co-chair – wasn’t aware of what was taking place around her. Then, she sort of shot down Alpha’s suggestion of another professor (we’ll call this other person Professor Snarky, for reasons to be provided momentarily) as the third signer, acknowledging that Alpha’s description of the two as close colleagues was accurate but didn’t mean Snarky should be included. Finally, she announced that I don’t really have a question. Well, no shit – isn’t that one thing a committee is supposed to help you with? I’ve got a grip on my topic, for chrissakes, and I thought I made my thinking behind my choice of chair (and, consequently, the rush) very plain. If you’re willing to do it but you have a problem with the fact that suddenly it needs to be done this way, let’s tell someone who can do something about the whole thing – that is to say, not me! Big “oy” no. 2.

I went back downstairs to get my form (along with a paper Number Three asked me to fetch from Alpha’s box) and headed up to Snarky’s office, where Number Three was talking with her and a third woman. Number Three seemed exceptionally apologetic at my interruption, explaining with great alacrity that I had a form she needed to sign, as though I were going to derail all their collective efforts by my presence, but she did indeed hack off. Then, as Alpha had directed, I suggested as subtly, indirectly, and humbly as I could – and as a graduate of the Pentagon Colonel School of Tact that’s pretty subtle, indirect, and humble – that perhaps someone else sitting at the table wouldn’t mind signing temporarily, until we figured out whether she was interested in my topic and would be willing to work with me. “That’s an ambush,” she spat, looking up at me out of the corners of her eyes. Well, okay then, chicky! I backed off with all that humility I just mentioned starting the conversation with and added a touch of “I understand completely” placation before retreating at a high rate of speed and feeling a little ambushed myself. “Oy” the third.

I returned once again to my spiritual home on the second floor. Alpha looked up from his computer with an expectant, on-the-verge-of-celebrating “So?”, and I got to tell him that at least Number Three had signed it. “Number Three signed it?” “Yup.” “Snarky wouldn’t sign it?” “Nope.” “She wouldn’t sign it?!” “Mmm, no… actually, I believe she described it as an ambush.” [Insert snarly face here, and the quite loud pissed/protective response of the year here:] “What?! Well… fuck her! Who needs her help anyway?” Exactly what I was thinking, sir, although it also occurred to me that maybe I really had done something totally stupid, and that perhaps Alpha had forgotten that he lives by an unusually inclusive, student-centered, “we-can-fix-it-up” code. Anyway, big “Yesss” no. 3.

Parked myself sweatily, frazzly, and all the more tiredly for trying not to look sweaty and frazzled in Alpha’s office, waiting for the next plan. (Having never put together a diss committee before and in light of recent events, I certainly didn’t know what to try.) His approach involved closing his eyes, steepling his fingertips, leaning back in his chair, and mentally running around our department’s halls. The first suggestion he offered was the Party Professor, and although I don’t take it upon myself very often to contradict Alpha flat-out, this was one of those times. He laughed and moved on to a suggestion that at least in terms of personality I appreciated very much… and now I’m going to have to give this person a name. Hmm. Let’s go with Professor Delta. She’s going to get central pretty quick here, it seems. Okay, so although Delta is an early childhood person, she did work on adult literacy on quite a broad scale earlier in her career, and – as Alpha cleverly observed – is a big social justice gal too (and barring the inclusion of Professors Bravo or Number Two, I’d be at a bit of a loss in that section.) Besides all that, Alpha mentioned, Delta was a “straight shooter.” So all – ha – that remained, then, was to take my chances on running a repeat of the situation upstairs. Yippee. I didn’t really think I’d get my head bitten off this time, but then again I actually care what Delta thinks of me – I see her quite frequently – and I had zero interest in pissing her off. In any case, I told Alpha I’d catch Delta the next morning, he headed home, I followed him as far as my desk… and heard Delta’s voice down the hall. Gulp.

At that point I was already a good few minutes late to Professor Number Five’s class, but I figured she’s pretty invested in this whole thing and decided to bank on her forgiveness before I’d asked for it. I tiptoed towards Delta’s office, committee sheet dangling from two fingers like I thought it might bite me (it was starting to feel that way), and leaned in to find Delta chatting with the young prof from the cubicle near my desk. She welcomed me and the shield of apologies springing from my lips immediately, looking curiously – but with a smile! – at my paper when the phone rang. It was Miss N. calling to add a few things to my Stewing Pot of Nerves by asking Delta whether she minded reading for someone’s defense, whereupon the young prof jumped in with vociferous directions for Delta to refuse. Apparently Delta has gotten stuck reading a million dissertations in which she has no interest. Fab. Now I have to ask a professor who barely knows me to sign off on a form I never mentioned about a paper she knows nothing about when everyone else in the world is asking her to do similar things and on top of all that I have the ambush comment causing my metaphorical tail to droop. “Oy” number whatever it is.

But what happened next I couldn’t believe, at least not in the context of my earlier third-signer exchange. Before Delta had quite gotten off the phone, she began scrabbling through the papers on her desk in the manner of a person who is looking for a pen. She reached out – still smiling! – for my paper and looked for the appropriate spot. By then I was, to be quite honest, babbling. I made a lot of windy-sounding noises before managing to ask whether Delta would like to know what I thought I’d be writing about; the “Sure, honey, sure!” that I got back didn’t cause her head to lift or her pen to stop scratching. From there I moved right into Alpha’s explanation of why Delta would be good, which took us to the point where she was done filling out the paper and held it for me to take back. She interrupted my still-babbly thanks by leaning back in her chair, crossing her arms, and announcing that we teach what we are, that she thought I must have had some pretty good teachers, that she’s enjoyed talking with me so far, and that she was glad for a reason to meet. So on and so forth. And holy crap. Big, BIG “Yesss…” – and up to the chair’s office as fast as that elevator could take me, thinking as I went that if anyone required any further underscoring of the difference between the old guard and the new guarded, this would make a fine illustration.

And the minute I got with the chair was a good one. I started off by nearly smacking right into him, but I managed to avoid that and followed him into his office, introducing myself as we went (which he answered by kind of laughing and telling me he knew who I was. And I think I actually said something about the principal’s office out loud at that point.) Anyway, he stopped me for a second to ask whether it was okay that I work with Professor Bravo in the Fall – better than Professor Fluffy Hair, that’s for sure! – and then let me give him my form. As he signed it (and noted that they were coming in “fast and furious”), I asked if I could share something important about my choice of chair. Before I’d gotten past the names of two of the other schools, he stopped me again and asked if I could write it in an email that he would then copy to the deans in another letter he would be composing before leaving the office. Of course I was MORE than happy to do it, and managed something reasonable despite a) feeling bad about running back out of Number Five’s class and b) feeling worse because she kept making faces at me. I wish I’d had more time, and I only really got through one of about 16 reasons for my choice, but… whatever. It was a pleasure and an honor and the opening salvo of the siege I’ll start if I have to, so that’s that.

So there is the not-that-succinct retelling of the up-downs. I was still tired the next day. But it finished on a hopeful, filled-in-paper kind of note, so that’s saying something, anyway.

22 May 07

2007-06-02T17:33:00.001-07:00

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Sat next to Professor Sierra Two at the first dissertation defense I’ve ever seen. This was fun partly because she kept gripping my shoulder with indignation and so on at some of the commentary around the important table, but also because when she asked whether I knew how to take pictures with a camera phone I said I could probably figure it out and she replied… “After that party for Alpha, I think you can do anything.” A long way to come with someone who couldn’t remember my name for quite awhile! She’s excellent.

Listened to Professor Sierra Two’s short speech over our millimeters of champagne in which she described the unfailing sense of community she found when she first got here back in the day; in particular, she mentioned how Professor Alpha and others had drawn her right into a project even though the whole time she was thinking to herself that she had no idea what she was doing. This is a habit, then, of the people around here, and it occurs to me now that the LTC has the same kind of habit; it occurs to me further that this is the way to help people develop competence at new and vaguely scary things: treat them like they already have it.

Got a big hug from Professor Kappa, who seems quite excited that I’m going to work with her on the new version of that project in the schools. Hey, I am, too – I think it’ll be great.

Sat taking dictation. Professor Alpha was emailing his strand or something, and he had a lot of things to say, so today I actually earned my pay and, as always, had fun doing it. I shouldn’t find typing so enjoyable, but….

Had a really, really nice couple of beers with Patrick. Here’s to lots more, man.

21 May 07

2007-06-02T17:30:00.000-07:00

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$8, usual lunch, usual place.
$just a few, green coat for Marisa, Gap on Broadway.
$0, dinner and margaritas (because Marisa is a lovely and generous friend), Mustang.

More interesting things:

Hit the gym (slowly, but I hit it!) and got the day’s first acknowledgement of my birthday: a little text from Roey. Thanks, man!

Brought some lease-y things to Rebecca’s apartment management company for her. I’d agreed to do it because her life got a little easier without having to come way up to Midtown, but it turned out be a fun reminder of why this city’s so cool. All these business people were (almost literally) running around, delivery guys were rushing breakfasts from here to there, the air was cool… it was an Atmosphere, and one I do like to breathe in every now and then – so thanks, Rebecca!

Went to grab lunch with Professor Alpha and listened to him prove the comments of the day before that he seems to like to make a bit of a scene. This time, he chose a loud but ever-jocular tone to announce that he thought we were being discriminated against in the free-soda department, as there was no D.P. in cans and we were, therefore, stuck with either Diet Coke or water. In case it needs pointing out, this was all quite hilarious, especially in light of the discussion from Sunday.

Sat trying to be quiet and not laugh when Professor Number Four swept in, hopped behind Professor Alpha (who was, unusually, reading something at his desk), and started giving him a full-on shoulder rub that continued for like five minutes. In my opinion, however, the funniest part was the split-second in which Alpha realized someone had their hands on him like that; his very first reaction was to snap his head to the left to see whether I had escaped my chair. Ha – I wish, but I have (slightly) better judgment than that.

Kept trying not to laugh when Professor Number Four started busting out with the swear words. First, in looking over the shoulder he was still rubbing at some faculty handbook or other, he asked, “Who the fuck ever wrote this shit anyway?” A fine question, Number Four.

Continued still further in my quest to avoid giggling (or, worse, snorting) when Professor Number Four asked, rhetorically I think, what all the beer in the corner was for and then directed me to hand him one. Professor Alpha was still looking at his handbook (although by now Number Four had taken a seat) and answered Number Four with a distracted “Sure, sure, have a beer,” so I leaned over as if I were starting to think seriously about getting one. I was positive I was going to get laughed at – like he didn’t really want one, just wanted to harass me – but when I asked yet again, Number Four told me, “Yes! Make sure it’s a black-and-tan. Hand me a beer!” So, still giving an incredulous, wide-eyed shake of the head, I grabbed the top in the hem of my shirt and popped it off (causing Alpha, who had begun rifling through his drawer to find a bottle opener, to stop cold and stare at me for a second before saying “Okay then!”) And Number Four drank it! At 1:00 in the afternoon! In a university OFFICE, for chrissake! I always KNEW I picked the right job this time!

Drank, in an unusually well-behaved turn of events, only my water, causing Professor Number Four to gesture at the bottle as I finished taking a slug, scrunch up his face, and ask, “What’s with this Poland Spring shit?” Holy crap.

Listened to a highly amusing exchange between Professors Alpha and Number Four about suitcases. Number Four asked whether Alpha would manage to keep it down to, say, four, to which Alpha responded by looking at me and announcing (in an as-always unrestrained tone) that “Fucking Number Four manages to pack all his shit in some little tiny folding bag thing, and I don’t understand it! He changes his clothes! It’s not like he just wears the same thing every day!” Really. They should just have gotten married themselves; it might have made things a lot easier.

Reached out, although I wasn’t totally sure I understood why, for Professor Number Four’s now-empty beer bottle. I went to take it from his hand, but he held on to it for a second, bowing his head at me and announcing that I was “a gentleman and a scholar.” This was quite lovely in itself – not just a compliment I can definitely get with but yet another play on the nice girl/happy man thing – but became particularly funny when Professor Alpha, who was STILL looking at something on his desk, sort of turkey-noise-mumbled, “Thank you, thank you,” causing me to choke down a good snort and Number Four to give me a cute sharing smile.

Held on to the bottle cap, just so I don’t forget where it came from.

Shook my verbal finger at Professor Number Four, who had leaned his head into his hands and his elbows on to the table, by announcing, “See? You drink at 1 in the afternoon and now you have a beer headache!” His answer was that no, it was a procrastination headache. This made me laugh, of course, but it also made me feel a little bad for being a scold, so I made it clear I was only kidding by adding that it was actually a good idea to have a beer, because it could be in honor of my birthday. I got the cute and unmoderated reaction to this that I sort of thought might come out – a loud “Happy birthday!” from Professor Alpha in that strangled kind of voice he does, with the canary-swallowing-cat-style smile that typically accompanies this tone, and a quieter but equally enthusiastic “Ooh, it’s your birthday?” from Number Four. Man, I love those guys.

Listened irritatedly when Professor Number Four asked Professor Alpha whether he knew “this woman is not going to be working for me next year” – in fact, I think I might have added a grunt and a fist-pound (very gorilla-like – lovely). Alpha looked surprised, as I hadn’t remembered to tell him, but changed to annoyed when Number Four added that my assistantship would end up being with Professor Fluffy Hair. He got that cat smile on again, though, and leaned back in chair to drip out the words, “Oh, there are ways to handle Jimmy Boy,” before proceeding to tell me that there were “overt” ways to do it (tell him I don’t want to work for him) and “covert” ones (just hide at my desk and don’t go looking for stuff to do; this would work, according to Alpha [and seconded by Number Four] because “he has no idea what a goldmine he’s sitting on in you…. See, you’re not a clock-puncher,” so on and so forth.

Shook hands with Professor Number Four as he took his leave with a “Thank you, guys.” I have no explanation, and I’m not looking for one; that he involved me in the conversation as much as he did Professor Alpha is all I need to know.

Walked Professor Alpha to the phone store. On our way back, he told me that since I’m his social secretary (yeah baby), I should start thinking about getting the “Three Musketeers” together for… dinner at his house, before they sell it (YEAH BABY – try and KEEP me away.)

Got a big fluffy birthday hug as Professor Alpha headed out.

Got a medium-sized, not-that-fluffy but still really nice birthday call from Roey, who asked what I was up to and promised a beer and so on upon his return. Thanks again, man!

Agreed with Anne that it was absolutely imperative to gallop down to The Gap right after class, as they’d suddenly come up with a whole pile of our green coats and had them on serious sale. We got one for Marisa, who seemed to love it – now the Three Musketeers have a uniform….

Wormed out of a “Share and Swap.” Professor Number Five asked for volunteers for the next day, and because she’s so nice she did in fact let me get away without doing it that day. The second-best part of the exchange was what I said to achieve this opportunity – “Well… I guess I can do it… if you want to make me read a whole entire book on the night of my birthday…” – but the very best part belonged to her: “You know, are you Jewish?” Awesome, as usual.

20 May 07

2007-05-20T19:20:00.000-07:00

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$13, breakfast ordered in, Annie's.

More interesting things:

Enjoyed a really, really nice dinner with Rebecca, Anne, Girts, Ben, Brenan, and Emily at that wicked cool little Italian place I'm so fond of. Thanks, Rebecca, for setting it up, and thanks all you guys for coming - it was fun!

19 May 07

2007-05-19T22:10:00.000-07:00

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Passed, on my way to the gym, a little girly-girl wearing a red Santa Monica Beach lifeguard sweatshirt; I caught her eyeing my lifeguard t-shirt and wanted so badly to respond that once I'd walked past her I couldn't help but grunt, "Yeah, and mine's for real, chicky!"

Enjoyed a lovely interview, some red velvet cake, and a new coffee spot with Anne. Thanks, dude!

18 May 07

2007-05-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

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Walked to the subway past a middle-aged man who looked like his face was carved from polished walnut or something. Not in a bad way, like he had no expression, but in a very cool-looking way, like his features were well-defined and his skin was glowing and medium-dark. Pretty nifty.

Discovered, in a tremendously frustrating and unusual look at my phone once I was on the subway, that I had missed a call from Professor Alpha. I wanted to stop and grab Rebecca's phone charger from her office and drop it off before calling him back, so I reined in my interest in calling him and took care of that first (poor lady's NOT feeling well). I decided I couldn't wait all the way until I got to my desk, though, so I rang him back as I walked along Washington Square South. We discussed the emails I was getting ready to send out and then moved on to how Rebecca was doing; he said she'd be okay because I was looking out for her, to which I agreed very drily, and then he added - laughing like a loon - "Ah yes! Nurse R.! I think that's just the right role for you, isn't it?" Har.

Rode the subway back uptown with the Friday Afternoon Freak Show. Part of it, I have to admit, had to do with the ridiculous advertisement I saw: I always knew that Flip crap Dr. W. dragged us to was a bunch of baloney, but now it appears he's got a self-help book endorsed by the president of NBC Sports or something. Wow. I'm so impressed. Mostly by the fact that it was pretty clear from the start that this dude was some kind of package-selling person - I don't mind self-help writers, but I do mind if they go around masquerading as educators in order to break into that genre! The rest of the freak show involved, for the most part, these two bizarre little seventh-graders (or whatever), one of whom was this furry little red-headed boy, the other of whom was a baggy-pantsed, skull-and-crossbones-do-rag-wearing person who had clearly gone out of her (it turns out) way to make it difficult to tell. They darted around through the decent-sized crowd in the car, stuffed food in their mouths and chewed it like angry horses, and waited (this was the real classy one in the do-rag) for an express train to get next to ours before waving a middle finger back and forth in the window. Oy. And then there were all the other tired masses, some who were putting up with the weirdness, some who didn't know it was there, and some who tried in a very urgent but also very delayed effort to escape it at 77th Street (that was the final oddity, a guy who leapt from his seat, trying to get off the train, but didn't make it out. Usually it's the other way around.) Anyway, by this time I should know better than to expect normalcy on the Friday afternoon train, and also better than to think I won't find it amusing....

Walked down my street past a maroon F150 that otherwise looked just like my mom's, right down to the eagle decal - and it had a New York plate: very unusual.

Got three lovely birthday cards, from my dad, my grandparents, and my Proteach friend Heidi. Pretty nice haul for one afternoon's mailbox checking!

Got also a lovely IM from Roommate Ben, agreeing enthusiastically not only to go out to dinner but to take me to dinner. Thanks, Ben - I really enjoyed it!

Listened to iTunes as I got ready to go to the gym (hooray!) "Any Day Now" came on, and it was amusing how fast it reminded me of playing Tony Hawk with my little sister. (It also reminded me that it's a great song.)

17 May 07

2007-05-19T17:17:00.000-07:00

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Had to explain to Professor Alpha why his extremely well-conceived interview question got put to use on someone besides Professor Number Five, which was a good reason to keep chatting while we waited for the DVD to burn. I believe I described my participant as a horndog, which was amusing because while he could easily have responded with, "Well, what did HE say?", Alpha came back with, "Oh yes? And what did the horndog say? Who is this horndog?" Har.

Trotted once again to the drugstore. They didn't have the prescription right, which was frustrating, but my own sense of irritation was tempered very much by the fact that on our way in, Professor Alpha had waved hello to the ATM. I'd asked him what he was doing, since it was totally unclear to me, and that explanation was followed by another: "I don't know, I'm sort of nutsy today." Which he added to by greeting an old woman in a wheelchair and her companion as enthusiastically as if he knew them. We squeezed by them (and their surprised but friendly responses) and I informed Alpha, in an undertone, that he was lucky I liked nuts; his absolutely correct reply was, "Yes, because you feel right at home." Then, standing interminably near the counter, he wandered back and forth and back again - to the formula, which was, suggestively, parked right next to the damn condoms. I tried hard not to snort, and in place of that came up with a fascinating question about whether he was particularly interested in formula, which got an equally fascinating and rather weird comment that he just didn't know what Next Step was. Uh-huh. At last he decided that we were not going to stand around any more, and led me back out the door in the direction of lunch.

Figured, correctly, that the "direction of lunch" meant "towards Chipotle." I grabbed two forks, since Professor Alpha has been known to forget such things, and he had been so invested in getting a lemon for his soda that I thought he might do so then. I predicted well, and responded to his "Well, it probably would have been nice if I had gotten myself a fork," by handing him one, with the result that he sort of shook his head and asked (rhetorically, duh) how he'd quite made it through the past 38 years, which is always an amusing comment to hear. Anyway, we sat and chatted for quite awhile - I'm getting better at asking fruitful questions; Professor Number Five should be proud! - and headed back to the frickin' drugstore.

Collected, at long last, Professor Alpha's prescription, and left, in a yet another snortworthy turn, via not just the condom aisle but that of the tampons. Excellent, and lovely of them to gather up everything you never thought you'd be escorting your professor past into a single long walk. The internal snorting was fine, of course - mildly amusing and then on with the day. But the really cool part is that an hour before we'd been sitting in his office and got up together on the announcement of his plan to go for another walk and get lunch. It would seem he knows how fond of him I am, since he assumes (quite rightly) that I'm agreeable to such plans, and it would also seem that at least for a decent part of the time he prefers my company over being by himself, since he certainly knows where the drugstore is and would have every reason in the world to want to avoid a medicine-related audience. And that's what makes all the above comments worth recording. (In case you were wondering, I mean.)

Stood in Professor Number Four's door getting news I wasn't entirely thrilled about - something involving next year's assistantship and Professor Fluffy Hair, who is a lovely person I'm sure, but anyway - and feeling a little better about it because Professor Alpha-and-a-Half came up behind me, petted my shoulder, and asked Number Four if it wasn't lovely that I was there. I'm going to have to make a point of reminding her how much I appreciate her sometime soon, because, of course, I really do.

Sat reading - at his invitation, thank you - an email Professor Alpha was composing. Patrick came by, making fun of me and my current activity in some way, causing me to crack up, since I knew the contents of his last email. Alpha did not, of course, and jumped in by explaining that I was in fact working, and that, furthermore, what he'd said earlier (while we were at lunch, thanks to the fork thing) about his level of efficiency was completely true. Hee!

16 May 07

2007-05-19T12:14:00.000-07:00

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Followed Professor Alpha to the drugstore. This is not the first time I've trotted after him, ear affixed firmly to one or the other of his shoulders - that's listening range - while the rest of my body dodged trees, cars, pedestrians, homeless people, strollers, and dogs, among other things to trip on, and not even the first time I've done that as we headed towards a place where audiences are generally unappreciated (the bank comes to mind.) And of course, it's not as if I haven't made many, many copies of what his insurance papers indicate are the sum total of his prescriptions. All the same, I have to admit to a speck-bit of relief when he announced, in an unrestrained tone, that he'd forgotten the new fucking prescription, fuck. Instead, we hunted down a particular brand of conditioner (no dice), a particular type of baby shampoo (not so much), and toothpick-thingies (and batted one-for-four; it was, however, an easy thousand in terms of amusement.)

Explained my interview assignment to Professor Alpha, who suggested that since I was in a situation where I'd have to interview Professor Number Five I ought to make it as Number Five-ish as possible. The thing I really appreciated was the time and genuine consideration he took in coming up with an opening question (one more demonstration of his concern for us and his membership in a familiar community), but the question itself was something I could really use: nothing to sneeze in that regard, either.

Hosted, partly, a particularly well-attended instance of the Social Corner. While Anne, Rebecca, and Annette all floated around, I messed with the Simpsons on Professor Alpha's computer and - more interestingly - answered his call to my cell, in which he asked whether I'd like an iced coffee. The answer, of course, was yes (it was disgustingly hot out, not that I wouldn't have taken it anyway), which was followed by questions for the remaining individuals. Would Anne like some? No, Anne just got one of her own. Okay, would Rebecca like some? No, Rebecca already has a jug of some iced beverage. How about Annette? No, Annette is working on a Pepsi. Just you and me, then? Yep, just you and me then, but thank you, and you're a lovely person. (That very last part I think I left off, but then again, maybe not....) This doesn't particularly go under the New Yorkers ARE Polite Campaign, but at this point - duh - it seems like the How Could You Miss the Community? Campaign is one I probably oughta start. (Its subtitle could be something like, "Concepts for a Dean with No Eyeballs.")

Watched as some Florida-worthy wind, rain, and green-sky made their arrival at the corner of Washington Place and Greene; chatted with Professor Alpha as he decided to sit back down rather than head at that moment for the subway. Eventually he determined that he'd just have to brave the weather, though, and I was grateful for his call announcing that he'd made it to the station and then to Grand Central for more than the usual hee!/familiarity reasons - it really was crazy out there.

15 May 07

2007-05-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

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Met a student whom Professor Alpha had just signed up for my section of the summer class. This would have been nice regardless; it was particularly interesting because "I've just signed you up for [my] course, you'll love it," was directed at a middle-aged guy in collared shirt and Dockers who was "Thank you, Professor"-ing all over the place - but was meant to describe a still-days-off-27 chick in scruffy lifeguard t-shirt who snorts with just plain Alpha. It was not hard to understand the underwhelmed look on this person's face, but it was rather difficult to avoid laughing while I stood there. (Even better, though, was that later, when I related my perspective on this tale to Alpha, and he looked like he was all ready for a good story, he seemed kind of underwhelmed himself with what I described: it really does not enter his head that the contents of my closet or the date on my driver's license should in any way be expected to correlate with what's going on in my head or my classroom, and that somebody else might is just their problem.)

Appreciated and returned an enthusiastic wave from one of Anne's students, who was waiting for the elevator on our floor.

Attempted to meet with Professor Number One at 1330, as directed, but found that she was being hogged by Professors Alpha and Number Four, who had gotten there literally steps ahead of me (Alpha and I had gone up together, actually.) Number Four came back to get something from his office, near which I waited rather patiently, I thought, and asked whether I was meeting Number One at 1330. "Ye-es?" I answered. "No," he answered, "you're not. Hee hee. We'll let you know when you can come back." This, of course, could have been a prime eavesdropping moment, but there was too much other noise and no reasonable way for me to get closer (that hallway does not exactly offer a lot of security and/or excuses for someone who's not supposed to be standing in it!) so instead I just rested my head on top of a filing cabinet next to this half-brown plant I picked at for half an hour (!), inspiring Miss L. to ask whether among my other duties I was now also going to tend to their plants. Mm, no. I'm going to stick to professor-chasing, which I did once they'd all vacated Number One's office, trotting after Number Four with a paper I'd been told was his. Nope, he told me, it's Alpha's. Well, it wasn't, actually; Alpha sent me back to Number Four, and to head off any commentary about going back to someone else once again, I explained to Number Four that he was getting the paper because Alpha was bigger and therefore more capable of beating me up. In what may have been the highlight of my day, Number Four put his hands on his hips, cocked his head, and said, "Hey, don't be so sure, now!"

Got invited, along with my compatriots (although I don't think they know it yet...), to Professor Number One's Fourth of July party, where, I'm told, everyone talks and eats and talks some more, until a certain moment where they all get quiet and face the windows, and you can watch the freakin' fireworks from her apartment.

Met another professor - an adjunct, with crazy curly red-and-silver hair; I don't think I can afford to give her a code name 'cause I'll probably forget what it is - near the elevator heading down, and was complimented once again on our party presentation. I'm very, very glad that it came across in a way they all appreciate so much - and of course, I'm even more glad that it came across in a way our people appreciated so much.

14 May 07

2007-05-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Handed off one last little chunk of money to the Tea-Drinking Professor (not Professor Number Four, who also drinks tea, but the one whose heritage maybe sort of demands it) and was told, "Again, you really did a wonderful job on Thursday; in fact, who was just telling me that they thought you spoke so well?" I don't know the answer to that question, but I'll gladly take the compliment regardless!

13 May 07

2007-05-16T20:58:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Enjoyed a nice relaxing birthday/Mother's Day Sunday at home.

Ate pumpkin cake. (You could file this under the above note, but I think it deserves its own.)

12 May 07

2007-05-16T07:24:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Waited, impatiently and overheated, for the airport shuttle. It was just too hot to stand in the hallway as I usually do, so I compromised and stood in the doorway - with the door to the street open - instead, which was much more pleasant except for the part where I was looking not just for the van but also for seriously drunk guys who might think I was holding the door open for them: yecch. The neat thing was that the doorman across the street saw me and waved animatedly, so he could be sure I'd seen him; I didn't know whether his demonstration that he was watching me was meant to be a reassurance or a warning until he next pantomimed an offer for me to walk over there and wait for my ride with him. Pretty freakin' cool, for this "hard" city of "anonymity" etc.!

Rode up to - eh - Columbia to pick up a kid waiting outside one of the little dorm compounds and blazed (the driver was a bit of a maniac) past TC. And to think I almost ended up there... it gives me the shakes.

Crossed town at 125th Street, passing the train station, the supermarket, and the rumble. Give me a fucking break, people. If you're going to run when the cops show up or - more pansyish yet - brass knuckles start flying, here's a tip for you: don't drag your happy ass out at 4:00 in the morning to start with! You think they're having a street fair down there, for chrissake? I mean, don't get me wrong - it was quite interesting, in a watching-animals-fight-at-the-zoo kind of way, but really. Come on.

Sat near a group of five headed out on vacation - it was a mom, a dad, a son, and a daughter and maybe another son, although it seemed like it could have been a future son-in-law sitting there at the end. Anyway, I saw a good kindergarten-related trick: with the announcement that if anyone had printed out their tickets on big paper, it would be helpful to tear off just the important part, an airline worker turned this family into a bunch of five-year-olds studiously creating origami. I almost laughed out loud, but that would have looked kind of funny.

Saw - and I have it written in after the ticket-tearing business, which would seem to imply that somehow I did my seeing at the airport - the Hell Gate bridge... and it looked just like my favorite rabbit picture!

11 May 07

2007-05-16T07:13:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$2.50, charge associated with using one-half of my free plane tickets, JetBlue.
$224 (or so), charge associated with keeping the other half of my free plane tickets open, JetBlue.

More interesting things:

Answered a call from Professor Alpha as I sat rather sweatily in the hall waiting to watch one of my student-teachers. We talked about some stuff he needed to print, and then he sounded like he was about to ask an important question: "So, uhh, listen... do you REALLY want me to put this chair in your office [a kind description!]? I mean, you know..." and here I had to cut him off a little; he sounded kind of tortured, and I was cracking up. I explained that we really didn't care if he wanted to put it on the ROOF or something, that it had mainly been a prop for our speech, but then he cut me off and said that he actually did want to take it "to the country, it'll be USEful there," which I thought was a dignified job for a chair that might never even have gotten sat in. At any rate, the conversation progressed from there. He said he'd really enjoyed the party... and that it was generous of me to include myself in the "nosy" category I had described, causing me, obviously, to cackle away sheepishly. I TRIED to talk that one away, but it didn't work - and you know what? He was cackling away himself.

Spotted, on my way up West Fourth back to the office, Professor Bravo, who was on his cell phone and waved! Holy crap. I don't usually get a wave even when he's not involved with the phone, so that was one for the books for sure.

10 May 07

2007-05-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$18, nametages, Staples (that much I know, although I was also prepared to slip the bartender an extra twenty if he'd had to go fetch ice from somewhere besides the hallway I'd been told I could steal it from.)

More interesting things:

Rode down rain-fuzzy-green Park Avenue as part of the first time I have ever taken a cab from my apartment (well, pretty much; it was the sporting goods store, actually) all the way to school. We passed what was absolutely the largest pack of dogs I’ve ever seen attached to a single dog walker, and spent a little time discussing the cabby’s opinions: it is way nicer to drive in South Bronx than in Manhattan, for instance, and also undertaking makes a fine weekend pursuit (this last was illustrated by lengthy comments on how the preparation of bodies for burial is different from getting them ready for cremation.) I’d say “Only in New York,” but that’s so obvious as to be a waste of breath!

Walked halfway around the sunny, green, and carefully fenced-in park. The grads weren’t even there yet, but that same air of expectant celebration hung buoyantly over all: you’d think by now I would know that that’s just the graduation feel, so now, here, in writing – I get it! And I’m glad I’m signing up for a gig where I get to see it every year.

Foiled my own blog-writing (although that was just now, not on the 10th.) That last note was supposed to be about the Golden Retriever pup I passed on my way back to the office after my trip around the park. He was one of those hefty little bear pups, just like mine was – a proper Golden baby.

Snuck up, repeatedly, on Professor Abercrombie, who was listening to the graduation webcast as staff from both this and the sixth floors put together our little lobbyish area for the department graduation party. As he explained where to find it online, Miss L. called back and asked me to come put it on up front so they could listen while they decorated. I did so, and then stayed to listen myself – my computer has no speakers and (holy crap) Wynton freaking Marsalis played his trumpet for ten minutes in his version of an honorary-doctorate acceptance speech. After a little bit, I headed back to my own desk, but not before stopping to think about how things in this city – here I’m thinking of the River Café and department-sanctioned graduation parties – often manage to combine two characteristics a lot of boring people think don’t particularly go together: “nice” and “classy.”

Fixed up the nametags. I was pretty sure I had everybody - as it turned out, I was, as they say, close enough for government work - but for the life of me I could not remember Professor Number One's kids' names, even though they'd been on the envelope she had handed me earlier in the week. So I asked Professor Abercrombie, who threw back, "What, I'm supposed to know that? I've only known her thirty years!" Ha.

Stood, goofily, near Miss L., who was pouring wine at the graduation party (and only did that much because Miss J. rooted me out at my desk, grabbed my wrist, and threaded me around the back hall and into the big conference room before parking me in front of the sandwiches and waiting for me to pick one.) After a little rooster wine (!) and some more standing around, however, two things happened. One was that Professor Number Six's Fateful Day Visitor came to chat, with all appearances of having decided to do so purposefully. The other was that Professor Number Six himself came to chat, with the same appearances. (Although this, I'm fortunate enough to say, wasn't maybe quite as surprising.) Anyway, I was wearing my green drill team t-shirt (which explains, in part, why I hadn't gotten up and come out earlier - any clothing item that features a drawing of a rifle should probably not be seen in the same room as graduation robes and neckties), which he asked about; only then did it occur to me that Number Six is one person I hadn't told about my mental proximity to West Point. This gave F. Hardy the opportunity to harass me - some comment about the shined boots I wear for supervising; my big brother, I swear - and Number Six the inspiration to say, "Hmmm... the military, huh? Yeah... I can see that! That explains a lot... the 'sir' stuff and all that." [Nod, nod, nod.] Of course, it DOESN'T. It explains my obsession with punctuality and (partly) my fondness for public speaking, but not the "sir" stuff. Someday, somewhere, someone will believe me about that. (Well, if I can convince whoever it is to move in with my family for awhile - it would become obvious how NOT sir-ish all those sir's really are!)

Hopped out of my chair so Professor Alpha could sit down - and, as it happened, stay down for a few minutes. This would have been fine with me regardless, obviously, but it was particularly nice then because we got into an ice discussion. He asked if there were a plan to get it, Marisa and I sort of announced simultaneously that I had that aspect of things under control, and he looked up at me from under his eyebrows: "You've got it? You're in charge of the ice? So you're the ice queen?" This last was delivered in that just-this-side-of-the-gutter voice which required me, I was pretty sure, to respond with a nose-laugh; I decided I was probably right when his next comment was, "Because you know, I wouldn't have thought that about you! turkey noise turkey noise turkey noise."

Announced to Professor Alpha that I was sending an email from his account and justified the announcement by explaining that while there may be lots of things I don't need to ask permission for (this in light of some conversation earlier in the week, when I'd unnecessarily announced something else - who knows what), I was not particularly crazy about just ASSUMING that it was okay to PRETEND to be Alpha via email. But he leaned back in his chair, put his hands up like he was getting ready to catch a big heavy ball, looked out from under his eyebrows, and gave me the say-the-word-'fish' voice: "You wanna be me? If you wanna be me, you can go ahead and be me, babe, any time you want, believe me." Ha again.

Listened to a small part of and just barely suppressed my laughter at a phone conversation in which Professor Alpha included the sentence, "Well, he's an evil little dwarf, if ever there was one." (Okay, I might have snorted.)

Gestured, brusquely, for Anne to move over while I grabbed party beer from the corner of Professor Alpha's office and followed that with a howly directive for her to sit back down and rest her cold-cultivating self instead of participating in the beer-schlep (which she ignored); it may have been this combination of utterly comfortable familiarity, mutual concern for the other party, and willingness to help out even at a less-than-ideal moment that inspired Alpha to observe for the three of us (Marisa had been in the hall) something so nice it's hard to respond to. From under his eyebrows, once again, he said, "I mean, I know I've said this before, but really, it's just so nice - I think it's so great that you all have found each other [this, that, and the other thing] and... you're a nice group. You're a really good group." And as weighty a job as it seemed to reply, we did remind him that it's pretty much all of us T&L people who get along so well and that, furthermore, he and his people - our people! - set an awfully good example. What I didn't mention - what I didn't consider specifically with regard to this exchange until now, actually - was that in talking about the results of one example he helped set, he provided another one, on how to be a genuine and honest and affectionate leader. A hard row to hoe, but one I'll be glad to take up.

Mentioned to Professor Alpha, as the general conversation turned to our plans for finishing the sweaty work and then getting changed, that I would not just be wearing a real shirt but also heels; I got the appropriately impressed response, and one which led to a small conversation between Anne and him about shopping, I think.

Found myself really glad that I didn't have a key to Professor Alpha's office in my back pocket. We had run back to accomplish the aforementioned changing mission, only to discover that Alpha's door was closed. Anne kind of jiggled the handle and made an apparently vague-at-best effort to look into the office through the little window before I took off for the front and the drawer which I knew held the key. I got back, found the right one, turned it in the lock... and discovered Alpha doing his last shirt button: holy crap. I'm not totally sure why he didn't indicate that there was no need to unlock it from the outside - could it have anything to do with the fact that it's his office, for chrissakes? duh! - but man am I glad it took me a second to get to the secretaries' desks and back!

Stood with Mrs. Professor Number Four - a very, VERY nice lady - and, after a couple of comments about how Professor Number Four reminded me of my grandfather and all that (which she really seemed to appreciate), helped her find him. He was talking to a lady that neither I nor Mrs. Number Four recognized, which was fine; the amusing part came when I explained my unhelpfulness - "Well, it's long silver hair, and when you're talking about professors, that could be anyone..." - and she bust out laughing. (And warning me: "You better be careful! Someday YOU'RE going to be a professor, and YOU'RE going to have long silver hair!" But she cut herself short and got very serious all of a sudden. "No," she reconsidered. "Don't go gray. Go blonde. Blonde is much better," so on and so forth. By this time Anne and Marisa had joined us, allowing the whole trio to catch certain observations about men on the street and so on, along with the assertion that as long as Number Four came home to do the gardening he was certainly allowed to teach us a class in the spring and an invitation to their house for an individualized party reprise. I hope that happens. It'd be fun.)

Got, to add to the day's earnestness (oh yeah, Marisa and I had a very nice conversation about how we really felt lucky to get the chance to do so much for the party, even if the Party Professor was insane), one of the nicest responses to the whole thing I could possibly have asked for. Anne and I were standing near Professor Number Four in this photograph F. Hardy organized, and we kind of just stayed there for a bit afterwards. Number Four mentioned that he'd really enjoyed the whole thing, especially in comparison to a retirement party he'd been to last week for someone in another department which had included "just one student! What kind of a party is that? It was an obituary, okay?" Then he added - and here's where I nearly fell over, nothing to do with the wine - "This party was better, and I know Alpha said exactly the same thing to me earlier, right, this party was better than if somebody gave me 400 gold watches, okay?" all of which he concluded with that kind of eyebrows-barely-up, head-barely-cocked, lips-almost-smiling expression he has. Earlier in the evening, we'd gotten a LOT of extremely flattering comments about our presentation, ranging from a big furry kiss from Professor Alpha as he accepted his chair to claps on the back and - holy shit - "You represented ALL of us [grads] exactly as we would have wanted," but the 400 gold watches beats them all, I think.

Hovered my Big Ol' Shopping Bag o' Beer, at the cost of great effort from my right bicep, over the Party Professor's cart; at first I hadn't just plopped it down because we were making sure everything was nice and flat, but then it became more an issue of the Party Prof tossing in a bag of, like, crepe paper, completely oblivious to our organizing efforts. My answer to this was to say, quietly, "Hm, never mind, " while continuing to hover for good effect, with the incredible result that Professor Bravo laughed - out loud! - and said, "You're funny... that - that was good. That was pretty funny." Hot damn, what a night.

9 May 07

2007-05-14T09:28:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$28, journal and three canvas bags, The Strand.
$11, large white platter, Filene's.
$10, folding camp chair, Modell's.
$15, dinner, Milano Market.

More interesting things:

Tried to start figuring out our presentation for the party with Anne and Marisa, but in large part thanks to a visit from a friend, this effort did not last long. Anne thought she'd seen a mouse run into Professor Alpha's office, I thought she was seeing things; I had unlocked Alpha's door, answered his call to my cell (asking whether there were any crises, actually - he was thinking in party terms, but he ended up with an answer from the vermin department), and plopped down in one of his chairs to chat for a few minutes, when - zoop! - a little furry gray guy charged from under my feet, zoomed boldly across the hallway, zipped between Anne's sandal-clad feet, and (hooray) lodged himself under my desk, all of which was accompanied by some shrieking that might have been audible in Yonkers even if the phone call had been over by then. (The shrieking on Anne's part was, clearly, nothing but a well-earned expression of rodent-related startledness; on my part, I should be ashamed to say, it was helpless laughter, and I will add here that although it was less shriek and more laugh, the same thing was coming down from up north.)

Celebrated the last actual day of class by parking myself, with several fabulous friends, on an old leather couch at Panchito's. (Whoops. Guess that would be something else for the Money section.) Anyway, in an otherworldly display of gumption I refrained from ordering a margarita, opting instead for what they listed as a "Nutty Screwdriver" but which I list as "the amaretto-and-OJ concoction I cut my drinking teeth on when there was no Smirnoff Ice available" and which turned out to be the exact right choice. The weather was gorgeous; I was essentially sitting outside on a couch, minus the bugs; and I was very much enjoying the feel of graduation, even though (or maybe especially because?) I had no need for a gown. Very cool.

Learned, thanks to a phone call from the lovely Professor Alpha, that I'd passed candidacy. The question, of course, is whether someone in East Lansing or Austin would have bothered to do the same thing, and I think the answer is "no."

Spotted (after Anne pointed him out) Spiderman. He was on a fire escape across from The Strand, and he looked right at home.

8 May 07

2007-05-11T14:46:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Edged around a pack of maybe fifth-graders? Sixth? I don't know; whatever they were, they were pretty little, and there were a lot of 'em occupying a rather small stretch of hallway near graduate admissions. The guy herding them around told me that they were students at a middle school, I think, and that they take them on college trips a few times a year. Of course, I told him how cool I thought that was, since it gets a lot easier to remember WHY you should think about college if you know what one LOOKS like, and he agreed; another minute of conversation revealed that he'd had the same "I know I have to go, but other than that I got nothing" experience as I had. So, in at least one respect, those are some fortunate kids.

Squeezed past the horde and popped out in the office of Professor Number Six. This was nice partly because, of course, that happens to be where the elevator is located, but also partly because it gave me the opportunity to a) harass him after he announced that he was sore from golf, b) whack him, in a Colonel-and-coffee-esque move, in exactly the shoulder he'd just complained about, and c) feel bad enough, once he'd laughingly reminded me, that I petted said shoulder. It is always, always amusing to pass through that office; you can collect goofy commentary on the beeline to the secret passage as easily and unintentionally - but far more pleasantly - as you can burrs on a beeline through a woody field.

Got swept along into a meeting, of sorts, that I hadn't really intended to... well, "inspire" sounds a little too friendly. "Rile up" might be a better way to describe it. Either way, I was on the sixth floor for something completely unrelated, I'm pretty sure, when I ran first into Liz, with whom I exchanged a few minutes of angry but choir-preaching commentary, and then into Professor Number One, with whom Liz had a meeting but who performed the abovementioned sweeping. She prefaced it with the observation that we had to figure out what to do about Liz; not until we got to her office did I understand the implied "and you and your classmates and this shitty excuse for an administration" that was meant to follow Liz's name. The discussion included the sentences, "You gave Alpha your paper? Good! Tell him I said you pass! I'll read it later!" and covered the topic of turning in a committee sheet knowing full well what I know despite the fact that, as Number One, noted, "They'll get mad." (To which I responded by letting her know that if I could fill out TEN of those sheets I'd gladly do it.) The funny thing is, I don't even know if it was the sense of mobilizing, of girding up for a battle I am champing at the BIT to fight (should it become necessary, I mean) that I liked best; in fact, I think it was actually how strikingly the unified groupness around here was illustrated that had me smiling for awhile. Of course, wolfies don't get into fights they don't need to get into, so maybe that shouldn't be a surprise. The champing at the bit part doesn't come from wanting to go at it so much as it comes from getting the teeth ready and the hackles up.

Walked back down University Place behind two guys in kilts, with, I think, a dismantled bagpipe slung over the back of one of them.

Found out my dad is pancreas-mass-free: yippee! Congratulations, Dad.

7 May 07

2007-05-08T12:50:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$4, usual breakfast, usual place.
$10, pretty much a usual lunch, Apple.
$40(ish?), excellent dinner, La Lanterna.

More interesting things:

Spent a pretty quiet day at my desk. Commencement exercises meant that there weren't many people around, and I was actually able to get some writing (!) done at my desk.

Got dinner with Rebecca at the abovementioned La Lanterna, a really freaking cool little place to which I will definitely be returning: dark and warm and wooden inside, a very green garden space in the back - looking up, it was ALL green, as a matter of fact, with cloaks of ivy, but the fun and incongruous part was when you kept looking up and realized the ivy clung to old brick buildings reaching up to a blue, blue sky.

6 May 07

2007-05-08T12:47:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$13, pancakes (delivered, thank you), Annie's.
$13, deli lunch/dinner again, Milano Market.

More interesting things:

Interrupted my candidacy paper work only when I started to get confused about whether I was in New York or Turlington Plaza: a big loud drum troop bopped along below us, and I couldn't think of anything else but fall evenings after a nice ass-kicking (of the other guys, obviously.)

5 May 07

2007-05-08T12:42:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$11, lunch, Milano Market.
$10, bread product dinner, one diner or another.
$40, tequila etc., East 87th.

More interesting things:

Walked to the deli past sidewalks and restaurants populated by numbered, shorts-wearing runners. It was warm and lovely, with windows opened wide, and the atmosphere was just the right kind of easy-going, late spring hubbub.

Jumped in front of a pack of well-dressed, brie-consuming young guys after one of them fell in behind me with the observation that HE was not trying to cut in line, as opposed to the even larger guy who had in fact gotten ahead of me and then, apologizing with "Oh, gosh, I'm sorry - why didn't you tell me?", pushed me even in front of his friend, who had actually gotten on line before me.

Enjoyed a great Cinco de Mayo at Marisa's. Thanks, friend.

4 May 07

2007-05-08T12:38:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

I'm sure there was some - and now that I think about it, I'm quite sure it involved the usual place - but I was way too pissed off to keep track.

More interesting things:

Boiled, burned, smoldered, and the like. All painful, high-blood-pressure kinds of things. And that's all I remember from that day.

3 May 07

2007-05-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$75, purple polo shirt, Polo on... well, somewhere in SoHo.
$20, the usual dinner (that's scary), Blockhead's.

More interesting things:

Spotted a New York... sheriff's car? I'm trying to figure out what a sheriff might cover that city police, state police, and Port Authority police wouldn't have pretty much taken care of between them.

Contemplated the upcoming purchase of said purple polo shirt in light of the fact that there is definitely nothing like "orange and blue Fridays" here. I remember thinking that FYF instructor's comments were so cool: "Well, YOU guys don't notice, because you wear Gator stuff everyDAY, but you know, on Fridays we wear our orange and blue stuff, and it's nice." She's right - it IS nice. Nice community.

Stared, intensely, at the elevator ceiling, because I rode four floors with none other than Professor Wink himself.

Tripped, nearly, over some undergraduates staring morosely at the darkened window in a closed office door in the hallway behind my desk. It cracked me up, because of course I remember BEING that undergraduate, hoping that maybe if I knocked a little more persuasively or stuck my ear a little harder to the door, Dr. B. would magically appear.

Met Rebecca in the park for a few minutes, because it was gorgeous. (It was also too hot for long-sleeved silk shirts. But gorgeous.) Anyway, we sat on a bench near a girl in an old Gator t-shirt; she informed me, when I asked, that it was just because she liked blue, not because she had in fact gone to Florida. (Too bad for her.)

Got a nice phone call, terminating with the ever-appreciated phrase, "Thanks, babe!" I'm quite sure I'll never get tired of that.

Special Report

2007-05-05T07:23:00.000-07:00

This is a major break in my normal approach to this journal, and I'll return to backblogging soon (this afternoon if I finish my candidacy paper.) But yesterday and today mark a major (temporary, one way or the other, but major) break in my normal approach to life in general, which is to say: usually pretty damn pleased with the world around me. I cannot remember the last time I was this furious - or insulted.

I looked at the date on my watch and realized it sounded kind of familiar; my diploma, the first one, marked as it is with the "fourth day of May, 2002," explained why - this isn't the anniversary of my bachelor's degree by date, but it is by days.

So on this fifth first-Saturday-in-May, I've woken up fuming and sit here stewing even as I work on my paper. I felt fortunate back then, and I feel fortunate now; I've always been lucky enough to anchor myself to a sense of promise I don't think everyone in the world gets to enjoy. But other dispositions float below that happy approach, ready to come to the surface when it's appropriate. One, of course, is that you don't fuck with my people. Come on and hit me, as the Sergeant Major says, but do not play around with my pack. That I've had to shape daily into a reasonable attitude, and I can handle it.

Another, however, I thought wouldn't come visible until my next interaction with used-car salesmen, whom the administration of this college are doing their best to emulate.

I do not take kindly to the bait-and-switch model, especially when I uprooted my life by 1300 miles to come and take the bait.

2 May 07

2007-05-02T18:35:00.000-07:00

Time:

Local left (without me; it was too packed and I didn't feel like finding a more reasonable car) 0831, another one crept in 0836.

Money:

$5, yogurt-and-granola and D.P., the usual place.
$46, lunch for Anne and me, and a fraction of lunch for Professor Alpha, the Torch Club.
$0, Como pizza (because Anne was paying me back), Piola.
$4, lemon sorbet, Gristede's.

More interesting things:

Noticed this school's version of the big blue "Congratulations Gator Grads!" signs hanging from the streetlights around campus - tall purple banners shouting "Congratulations." Very classy, very cool, and very much another example of how things here are different but not really.

Heard another supervisor refer to someone else as an asshole. This is only worth recording because of the general air of great propriety surrounding the speaker, which she did not, in fact, violate too dramatically: as Anne noticed, it was the most meticulously enunciated instance of that title I've ever heard, as though there were a period in between the syllables. Very appropriate for a former English teacher.

Laughed, quietly, at the wink Professor Alpha aimed at me while he assured the Party Professor that "when you're with [me], you're in good hands, with Marisa, and Anne... good hands... don't worry..." turkey noise turkey noise turkey noise. The thing is, Party Professor is so high-strung that she actually NEEDS the turkey noises!

Invited Professor Number Seven, along with Annette, to dinner with Anne and Co. She declined, although she also added that if she didn't need to finish what she was working on she would gladly have joined us, and you could tell she meant it. The funny thing is that I still remember very well the day we decided to extend our Outback invitation to Dr. P., and how it felt like the absolute height of edginess. Once again, I'll wonder: what is the difference? Am I really so much older? I don't think so. I think it has very little to do with me at all, actually - I think it's them... these professors and their carefully cultivated, genuinely felt sense of community for all of us, not just one community for them and one for the students with some daring overlap somewhere in between. And I'm lucky.

Sat waiting for the "Co." part of Anne and Co. at the corner of Union Square and watched a very hard-core squirrel leap skyward from the tip-top of one swaying young tree to the dangling green branch of another, and as it swung back and forth you couldn't do less than to think of him as a very Tarzan-ish little guy.

Spotted also a guy in black tie. I note it here because at first I thought maybe he was a waiter or something - that seems as though it might be the most likely explanation for a middle-aged man traipsing across the bottom of the square in a tuxedo at 6:00 in the afternoon, but then I noticed his feet: heeled black velvet slippers, the epitome of elegance and so unusual I didn't believe it actually happened when I read it way back when in the 145-2.

Recalled the Metropolitan Diary story about the guy who felt bad lugging his enormous frame pack onto the subway until he saw another person drag a full-size kitchen sink in behind him. It wasn't a backpack or kitchen furnishings that caught my eye today, though - it was a fully assembled coffee table. In Florida we need things like pickup trucks for that kind of business; in New York we just need the local.

1 May 07

2007-05-01T19:33:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$3, D.P. and milk again, usual place.
$8, usual lunch again, usual place.
$0, coffee and a chunk of carrot cake, because Professor Alpha is a lovely guy, usual place.
$16, pad Thai, Cafetasia.

More interesting things:

Barged, accidentally, into this bizarre section of the building attached to my office's building that I hope never to see again; it involved someone shrieking like they were desperately and painfully ill, giving birth, or (as it seems to have been) an autistic kid undergoing therapy. Yeouch.

Barged, purposefully, into Professor Alpha's office. Actually, since he had not yet called my name, it may have appeared that I barged, but I am quite good at recognizing an "uhh... ahem!" of a certain tone and volume as an indication that it's time to hop to, so it was really just what I was supposed to do. Anyway, the point of summoning me in this case was that I should provide Alpha and Professor Number Four with a run-down of what was going on in terms of the whole party business, but Number Four interrupted before I got too far along: looking down at my suede Converse, "Hey, cool shoes!" (When I explained that they were my Friday shoes, Alpha helpfully pointed out that today was not, in fact, Friday: thank you very much.)

Mentioned that last night's funny guy felt a little goofy about his comments, which - of course - started a conversation about what he'd actually said. It turns out that Professor Alpha had no idea he'd been the intended beneficiary of the discussion, much less what the hell the whole point of it might have been, so as he retreated into his office he offered me one last opportunity to explain it. I decided that, in a Professor-Number-Six kind of way, it would have been too rude for me to leave it, so I got up with the intention of figuring it out as I went along - and was saved by the undergrad. Well, I think. But it doesn't really matter, because the point is that this advisee hopped in front of me, and I had a chance to hide back at my computer, which worked out well because I emailed Alpha: the Wikipedia entry for this particular gesture. He finished with the student, and then with another professor, and THEN I could hear him clicking away. I knew he'd checked it out once I saw him lean far enough back in his chair that he could catch my eye; Marisa knew it too when he thanked me for the link to the thorough explanation, including visuals.

Got Professor Alpha chatting about all kinds of things after that, including an ever-so-attractive duck-related article which he suggested I email to individual responsible for all of this to start with (whom we love, incidentally, and to whom I am eternally indebted - it's not every day you have the chance to send a link like that to a professor). That was only the start of the non-work-related conversation, though; we continued at length with extended commentary on theories regarding paper-pushers and, shortly thereafter, as he looked through the catalog to try to prove certain aspects of the theories, an announcement from Alpha that it was too bad his whole job hadn't been about these trivia-type things.

Sat at my desk, working and eating lunch as Marisa checked on cookie recipes, when the Party Professor blew past us and into Professor Alpha's office - and closed the door? Of course, Marisa and I immediately looked at each other kind of funny; I'm pretty sure we were both instantly caused to think what I said out loud: why are you closing yourselves in there when two of the people who have a pretty good idea of what's going on are out here?

Had good cause to make sure Professor Alpha got a hug today, so as he took off past me towards the printer, stopped, turned around, made a goofball face in recognition of the day's insanity, and went to leave again, I stopped him, laughing, threw my arms around him, and told him he was a nice man. Which is funny, because I think I've only taken that approach in one other situation, when the nice man in question was counseling a teenager!

Hopped on the local headed uptown, but it was obviously running behind schedule, and after just a couple of stops the conductor announced that it was going to go express. This meant we got to do one of the coolest subway-related tricks I know: rumble through local stations, relatively slowly but more than making up for the sudden drop in speed by sounding a watch-your-platform-waiting-ass "woonk! woooonk woonk!" MAN. I love it.

30 Apr 07

2007-05-01T18:34:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$3, morning D.P. and a little milk thing for my oatmeal, usual place.
$8, usual lunch, usual place.
$60, what I threw down in exchange for three pints of Bass, a burger, and some unknown quantity of Maker's Mark as I successfully maneuvered a quick escape, Phebe's.

More interesting things:

Laughed - quietly - at a Professor-Number-Six-style rolled "R" from Professor Alpha as he swept up to my desk. All that time he spent drawing my name out apparently spurred him to ask where I'd gotten it from, so I told him first about my mom's middle name and then about the nightclub (whereupon I very generously reminded him how my own middle name plays into that nicely); his response was - in a positive way, now, which is amusing - "Yes, it does sound like a nightclub-y sort of name."

Did a lot of things besides laugh as Professor Alpha came up behind me to ask what we were up to, started answering a question about someone I couldn't find for our list, and then kneeled on the floor right next to me, like he was doing a Queen Anne's Salute. Well, except for the part where he was also leaning into my chair, and, consequently, ME - that would not score any points with the drill judges, of course, but it worked out fine as far as I was concerned. He added to it a minute later when, after getting up (which he did with remarkable grace; my legs would have been falling off and even if I managed to get up without holding the desk I probably would have dropped right back down) and yoinking my pen right out of my hand, he proceeded to wind himself all over my desk in such a way that if I had tried to move back we would have been knotted up: a fine morning indeed.

Spotted Professor Number Six outside the Usual Place, where I got another rolled "R" and, probably more importantly but not any more pleasantly, an okay to miss the first part of class for my meeting. I'm noting it here mainly because a) it's unusual to run into a professor with whom I'm that familiar outside a classroom building and b) I am quite fond!

Felt kind of cool in the "I love getting harassed" way during class when I pulled the evaluation envelopes out of my bag just as Professor Number Seven was getting ready to ask about them and she noted that I served as their "brain backup"; got it again when Professor Alpha mentioned that he was very proud of my lines (the ones on my logic model, which he'd watched me spend rather a lot of time drawing during his meeting last week!) (Also felt kind of cool in a "now I'm going to turn red" way when Number Seven mentioned ways that other students might be able to use said model. Weird, but nice.)

Noted, for the record, that Professor Alpha drinks Maker's on the rocks. (Instead of beer, which, as he demonstrated on Anne's husband, is not good for one's girlish figure.)

Noted, with tremendous amusement and many guffaws, for the record, that Professor Number Four drinks... Old Peculier! And Professor Alpha even made a point of spelling it out for us! So there would be no mistaking that it was the same as the infamous pub! And now, contrary to Anne's wishes, there will be no drinking with Number Four in public, because I will die. Unless I get to the Peculier - a large, large quantity of Peculier - first. Then it might be okay.

Participated in a series of amusing exchanges with Anne, including one in which we discussed how it doesn't seem like we've only known each other for eight months and another in which, less innocently but equally kindly, Anne noticed how cool my red-triangle Bass glass was, added that to what I'd told her about all my Bass drinking with a different professor, and promptly slid the fucker into my bag. (Whereupon Professor Alpha added to it by explaining how that was similar to the day he and his friends wanted to steal the glasses from Trader Vic's, but since they tried to take ALL of them, his late-leaving friends got "held for ransom" until the others brought the glasses back.) Anyway - thanks for thinking of that, Anne!

Identified, correctly, the sour but cough-syrupy shot the party organizer bought us a round of: SoCo and lime. And laughed, yet again, when I realized that for the first time in my life I had slammed a shot with a professor.

Restrained myself, barely, from completely losing control over my bladder, thanks to Patrick and some fascinating question-and-not-really-answer about a certain rude hand gesture. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Answered Professor Alpha's question about whether I was really going to walk with him to the train station in a drunkenly content voice, and then held his bag after he responded to my nod etc. with "Okay, then hold my bag while I go pee." You cannot make these things up. Or if you could, I'm glad I didn't have to - this was all quite real. Anyway, we walked up to Astor Place (although, once we were about halfway there, Alpha noted that it probably would have been closer to go to Bleecker; he added, a second later, and very accurately, that "Well, we're drunk, so the walk is probably good for us,") starting with a series of just-this-side-of-out-of-control giggles as we considered whether it was yet time to cross the street. It continued from there, he (apparently) made his train, and I sat laughing to myself all the way home, except for the small periods of time when I remembered that it must have made me look like a nutcase. Which is also very accurate. But I try to keep that among my people - no need to scare members of the general public.

29 Apr 07

2007-05-01T18:30:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$13, pancakes ordered in, Annie's.
$11, prosciut' again, Milano Market.
$20, an okay chicken salad, with Woodchuck to improve it, Ship of Fools.

More interesting things:

Worked. All day. Again. But this was a very good thing, because all my notes are pulled, all my sources are cited, and the only(?) thing left is to wind those notes into some kind of actual human-like sentences to go with the ones mid-December saw me craft so carefully (at first) and then so exhaustedly (at 6:00 the next morning.) So we'll see.

28 Apr 07

2007-05-01T18:26:00.000-07:00

Time:

?

Money:

$11, omelet and coffee, Highlands (I think.)
$11, prosciut' sandwich, Milano Market.
$?, dinner, because I can't remember.

More interesting things:

Left the house for only a few minutes, at which point I spotted a car near the corner with a New York plate and a Deel plate holder - shades of Harrison Ford Ranger!

Worked the rest of the day, except for the part where I really, really needed to take a small nap in my chair. I guess the mono has infected the muscle between my ears along with everything else on me.