Miscellany

I am sitting in my classroom right now proctoring the final exam for my summer course. The end is in sight! This might seem like an inappropriate time and place to be composing a blog post, but I’m afraid it might be the only chance I get to write anything before I take off for the weekend.

After this exam I’ve got to finish all my end-of-term grading and reporting, deal with a few (?) recalcitrant late assignments, and run approximately forty-seven various errands. But now! Now I just sit, and watch, and wait.

And blog, apparently.

So this weekend I am heading off to Mississippi to visit Clarabella. We are going to be running a 5K and then celebrating afterwards with watermelon-based frozen drinks of some kind. Even if you don’t like to run, wouldn’t you do a 5K for the promise of a watermelon-based frozen cocktail? I bet you would. If you do like to run, well, that is just even better.

I am very much looking forward to the chance to get out of town for a little while and decompress after a summer of teaching intensive courses. When you unceremoniously stuff a semester’s worth of literature (almost four thousand years of texts!) into five weeks, everyone starts going a little bit insane — not just me. I don’t know how the students manage to keep up with it either. We are all ready for a break.

On another subject, I have been loving having my little basil plant in the front window so much that I decided it needed a few friends. Last weekend I went down to this amazing nursery in town and picked out a few succulents to join it in the window. I have had succulents before and have managed not to kill them, so I hope these guys will stick around for a while.

I got a jade plant (my favorite),

an elephant bush (hilarious name),

and an aloe plant (very useful for a klutz like me who is always accidentally burning herself in the kitchen).

Also to be spotted occasionally in my windowsill:

A surly feline, who occasionally has been putting some effort into pretending to be nice. We’ll see if it’s just an act, or what.

Well, I hope you each have a lovely weekend in store. May I suggest a watermelon-based frozen cocktail? If that’s not available, something else, perhaps? As long as it is decadent and relaxing.

Not-So-Extreme Home Makeover

Although I’m still all wrapped up in my summer teaching, it’s about time for a reckoning with regards to the fall semester. That shit is fast approaching! I want to be able to make the most of my time next semester, when I’ll only be teaching two days a week and will have the other three work-week days to do prep, research, grading, and other business. Which I can do from home. That’s right; I’ll be able to work from home three days a week!

This was a bit of an unexpected boon — I’ve been wanting this schedule forever but never thought I would get it. I usually teach three days a week and I had thought I was going to do five days a week this fall. Due to some scheduling and registration mishaps, I got the coveted Tuesday-Thursday schedule of my dreams at the very last minute!

My office at home, where I hope for much of the awesome productivity, writing, and such to occur? Well, it has been sorely neglected for the last couple of years. I almost never work in here at all, and only really come into the room to feed the cat (her food is in here, where the dog is not usually allowed to go because they usually harass each other), to fetch a book, or to dump mail, exercise equipment, and other unwanted detritus.

The room was a disaster. I don’t know how many pieces of old mail and paperwork are in here, but even just the amount on the desk took ages to go through, sort, shred, file, and so on. There are still two small boxes of mail I need to handle.

The area by my bookshelves was a random dumping ground for nonsense, as you can see here.

I definitely had my work cut out for me. I headed out to Walmart, where I usually do not shop, for cheap file boxes and a paper shredder. It’s much closer and a bit cheaper than Target, but readers, I ask you, is that worth the pain of being in Walmart? First, I had to listen to an angry dad yelling at and berating his maybe three-year-old crying son over why he wouldn’t buy him something. It went a little something like, “YOU GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON — ONE GOOD REASON! — WHY I SHOULD BUY YOU THAT. CAN YOU? CAN YOU GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON? I DON’T THINK YOU CAN. EXPLAIN IT TO ME. ONE GOOD REASON.” In response to which the boy just whimpered. Nice job, Angry Dad. Nice. I’m sure that’s an effective communication technique for barely-verbal toddlers.

Then, after paying, I had to wait in a second line of about six shopping carts at the exit. Why? Well, a very officious, bitchy woman was working the exit door, checking everyone’s receipt before they could leave the store. That’s right; in the fifteen yards between the cash registers and the doors, surely we had all managed to steal some of their valuable merchandise. Is this shit even LEGAL, I wonder?

Well, I have gone off topic here, but that all needed to be said, if only for my own sanity.

So, after all that I came home and started tackling the office. I managed to clear off the desk and finally hang a white board and some cork boards (those are actually cork trivets from the kitchen section at IKEA only a couple of dollars per three-pack).

Don’t worry, after I took the picture and saw how crooked the white board was, I re-hung it. I tend to just eyeball those things instead of using a level, which sometimes works and sometimes does not.

I also neatened up the shelf area:

Also, after the picture, I realized I still had some things cluttering the top of the shelves, so I took care of those, too. The white shoe boxes on the short shelf are full of MORE MAIL to sort. Good lord, I hate mail. (And before everyone suggests it, yes, I do have everything possible handled online instead of through paper billing. That makes a dent, but not a big enough dent, you know?) But now I have a paper shredder and a better filing system, so that should help matters.

I’d still like to make a few improvements: I’d like a regular desk instead of the door-balanced-on-two-cabinets thing I currently have going on. The cabinets are about 3 inches too tall for this to work perfectly, but with the addition of a new, taller desk chair from my friend MZ, it’s a bit more comfortable. Then, I’d like my bookcases to match and be of better quality, which is something I don’t see spending money on in the near future, so I will live with what I have. Finally, the couch (whose corner you can see above) needs to go. It has been a bit shredded by the cat and I am constantly having to manage the cat-fur(niture) situation and it’s a giant nuisance.

Otherwise, I am quite happy with the newly organized office! I have put my laptop here as its regular home, and will only carry it out to the couch/coffee table for, say, watching movies on Netflix Instant Play. I like the idea of keeping the computer in the office and having the living room be mostly computer-free.

What this means is that I’ve been hanging out in the office a lot more already, and the dog has been following me in here, and the cat has been allowing the dog into “her” space, for the most part, and everyone seems to be happy.

Good start. I just have to keep the room neat and functional throughout the semester, and I should have a great set-up for working at home three days a week. Now, let’s hope I can resist the lure of blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and online shopping while I’m here!

Seriously, WHAT Did I Do in a Past Life to Deserve Plumbing THIS BAD?

There are so many things to say about Spring Break that I don’t even know where to start. Let’s begin with the fact that on Tuesday night, my plumbing messed up again. A drain in my water-heater closet backed up, flooding the (carpeted) closet with dirty water, and had to be snaked.

Well. They did not snake it well enough, apparently. The exact same thing happened again today. Let’s call it a Tuesday Tradition, shall we? Aren’t you jealous of my festive Tuesdays? Today’s smelly incident happened just after I came home from the gym (where I had done yoga class, lifted over 7,000 lbs in weights, and run three miles), and, due to having to wait on the maintenance guys and on the Roto-Rooter Dude they eventually called in, I did not get to shower or eat lunch for about four hours.

People, I have one thing to tell you about me: when I am that dangerously hungry — when I am as hungry as a person is who has done all that exercise while fueled only by an English muffin with almond butter and it is now 4:30 in the afternoon — it is best for people to stay the fuck away from me. Unless, I mean unless they want to be killed and eaten. People are organic and plant based, right?

Y’all, it was ugly. As soon as I was free to leave and procure lunch, I jetted over to the sandwich shop as soon as possible and then basically inhaled a foot-long veggie sub in, like, four minutes, hands all shaking and eyes glazed with fire. That sub was probably the best tasting thing I have ever eaten.

And because I am still recovering from the psychological trauma, I am making pizza for dinner. Yes, pizza, and it’s not even a long-run day, which means I am breaking my pizza tradition. I happen to think the (unwilled-by-me) institution of this new Tuesday Plumbing Tradition is reason enough for that, however.

It is time for me to sign off and work on some course prep for tomorrow, but I will come back and regale you with more fantastic tales of my week soon! In the mean time, how are you?

Spring Break!

Here are some things I am not doing over the break: teaching, grading, prepping, researching, meeting with students, corresponding with students via email, traveling anywhere fabulous. I am happy about all of these items that are not on my to-do list, even the last one. After February, I am all traveled out for a while.

So what am I doing? So far my break has involved a lot of quality time at home and a little time out with friends. There has been plenty of time to hang aroung the house in my PJs, drinking coffee late into the morning.

But I haven’t been hiding at home the whole time. Saturday night a few of us went out for sushi and then cocktails at the jazz lounge again — this time there was an actual jazz band playing and everything, giving me flashbacks to my days in band with my saxomophone. (The word “saxomophone” is to be pronounced, always, in a full-on Homer Simpson fugue.)

Hopefully I’ll soon be spending some time biking around town now that the weirdly wintry, windy, and rainy weather appears, at least temporarily, to have passed. In fact, spring really seems to be springing into business around here! Do you know what kind of tree this is? It’s not a cherry tree, right? It’s something else? I am no botanist, I admit.

For the first time since I have lived here, I am actually looking forward to spring and warmer weather with pleasure. It helps that I feel like we actually had a somewhat legitimate winter this year, but mostly I am eager to spend more time on the bike and in the pool, both of which are pretty unappealing in winter weather. I mean, if you’re already chilly in your jeans, do you really want to don a bathing suit and hop into the pool? Not so much, right?

The following pictures are unrelated to this post, but I just had to show you the pretty, pretty cupcakes I made to take to the Oscar party.

By now they’ve all been eaten, but weren’t they grand? I got the recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, which is full of wonderful looking recipes, only a few of which I have had the opportunity to try so far. Let me assure you, though, that cupcakes made without butter, milk, or eggs are just as delicious as any other type of cupcake, if not more. If I could prove this to you by posting some downloadable cupcakes here on this very blog, believe me, I would. Until technology makes such a thing possible, you’ll just have to trust me.

And now I must return to my re-watch-athon of season one of Alias, aka Best Show Ever. Hope you’re all feeling fab and lovely, people!

Malfunction Junction

Since before February even started, I have been making plans for this weekend: my first weekend at home in a month! What would I do, I wondered, in order to perefctly relax after all the travel and excitement the month had in store for me? I’ve been fantasizing about wine and movies and making pizza and photo projects and the like, and I think I have a plan.

But before I get the chance to rest my tired self and restore my neglected apartment to a state of cleanliness and order (what I like to call an Awesome Day of Domesticity), my body and my apartment both decided to completely destroy themselves. Oh, yes. Here’s a list of what has happened so far:

1. Last night, while I was getting ready to go out to a play, my toilet decided to stop draining and my bathtub started backing up with dirty water. If you know me or you used to read my old blog, you know I have had problems with plumbing like this before — to the tune of five occurrences during a nine-month stint in one of my grad school apartments. Not good. Everyone says I was a corrupt plumber in a past life.

2. After the play, at a local “jazz cocktail lounge” (shut up, the place is cool), I was chomping down on some delicious lavash and hummus and I bit the inside of my cheek so hard that what’s left inside my mouth is like some ragged ground hamburger with bits dangling off. The dangly bits keep getting accidentally caught between my upper and lower teeth and thus getting chomped more. Did I just disgust you? WELL AT LEAST IT’S NOT TAKING PLACE INSIDE YOUR MOUTH, OKAY?

(Sorry, Reader; it’s not really you I am yelling at, you know?)

3. I got home, hamburger face and all, to find a repaired toilet and tub (THANK YOU, SUPER!) and a lingering smell of swampiness. Still swampy smelling in here the next day.

4. I was straightening an unruly pile of student papers — you know, when you grab the pile loosely and bang the bottom edge of it on your desk, the papers sliding through your hands, to even the edges? Well, as the papers slid through my hands, I gave myself a MONDO paper cut right in the web between my thumb and forefinger. On my right (writing) hand, of course.

5. And then, THEN. I managed to bang my knuckle into the corner of a legal pad that was sitting on my desk and gave myself another papercut on my knuckle. Right hand again.

6. Look, I know it is idiotic and babyish to complain about papercuts, but both of these are huge, deep, painful, and bloody. The knuckle one kept bleeding during my run later and actually bled through the bandaid. What the frak, right?

7. Speaking of my run, I just absolutely murdered my hamstring. Not the usually tight hamstring, but the other one! The one I thought was good! The hamstring I thought I could count on! It felt a bit tight at the outset, but by the time I had run about 2.6 miles I had to stop and hobble back in the general direction of the car due to the stabbing pain.

8. The above is entirely irksome and a bit scary — was my hamstring just too tight, or have I actually injured it somehow, some kind of strain, pull, or tear? I just can’t tell. It came on pretty gradually, so I don’t think it’s a pull or a tear. But then I’m not sure I even know what those terms really mean. I’m just repeating some words I heard here, folks. Well, except for “tear.” I know exactly what that word means and I’d prefer not to think about it. For now, I’m RICE-ing it and waiting to see.

I think after all this I deserve a pretty awesomely restful weekend, though, and to end on a positive note, here are some of the things I have in store:

1. Watching Whip It (again), which I just bought on DVD

2. Doing some leisure reading (finishing The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, and starting either The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo*, by Fellow Nordic Person Stieg Larsson — the Swedish title, interestingly: Män som hatar Kvinnor, or “Men Who Hate Women”)

3. Making pizza

4. Grocery shopping and Target shopping

5. Watching some Northern Exposure from Netflix

6. An Awesome Day of Domesticity

7. Drinking some wine, possibly Target Wine Cube Wine because, huzzah!, my Target has finally started selling wine, oh joy of all great joys.

So, what’s on the schedule for your weekend?