New Home Blues

Facing Reality

2007-05-31T21:08:00.000-06:00

I need to work tonight -- I've been blowing off work since the semester ended. I haven't checked my email in two weeks, and I'm sure it's overflowing with issues I don't want to deal with.

My vacation is over, and it's time I faced up to the fact. Precal (and my adjuncts' classes) start on Monday, and I have to get my lazy butt in gear and do the job I'm not being paid for this summer.

I think I'm going to put in two days a week in the office, working on cirriculumn for next semester, and two days a week working eBay to bring in some extra cash. Fridays are the fun days -- that when I get to hit all the garage and thrift stores.

It's time to grow up and work for a living. Sort of. Even though they aren't paying me. (Gee, am I the tiniest bit resentful?)

Sweetheart? Spammer?

2007-05-31T00:35:00.000-06:00

I think I'm a victim of the lowest spam campaign ever -- sweetie spam. Someone clicked my profile and sent me this message:

"Just wanted to say Hi and that I really liked your profile. Its great to have some things in common, it makes life easier dont you think ? Anyhow I am moving to your part of town in about a week. Its a new start for me- how do you like living out there ? Sorry I dont have a picture yet but if you can see me at my work site. Go to lowauto.com and just type in your zip and hit the Unitrin or Progressive part and you will see me a headset on. People say I look like Mel Gibson, Im just taller-lol. If you like what you see I would like to hear from you.. Thanks Matt "

I'm suspicious after reading the email. It's just too generic. He doesn't say what about me interests him, and he doesn't ask specific questions about the Metroplex. Most telling of all is that part about no photo -- he could have just downloaded his photo from the website then uploaded to match.com.

Next I checked his profile, and found he's a Christian who wants kids and has a conservative political outlook. Yeah, tons in common, baby.

And then lastly I try out his "see me" instructions, and can't find a photo of him anywhere. Unless he's a she. Lots of photos of women, but no men with headsets.

So I've been spammed, and I fell for it. I clicked to his stupid site, and looked for the photo.

I can't decide what to do next. Part of me is tempted to play him/her/them just to see how far I can get this to go. Then, if I don't get a reply or get a stupid reply, I can report him/her/them. The smarter part of me says to delete it and move on. I've wasted enough time.

Getting Better

2007-05-30T01:11:00.000-06:00

Another grammar-mangler contacted me through match.com, but at least this guy had a vocabulary. He said I was ravishing. Yeah, he probably says that to all the profiles, but I still enjoyed hearing it. He's in Colorado, anyway, so that will never work out. Better yet, I have another email in my box, this one from a night owl up surfing for chicks at 2 AM. I'm going to wait until tomorrow to read it. I want to sleep with wonderful possibilities in my mind.

Wallpaper is a bust -- I ran out and had to order another roll. I knew three rolls wasn't allowing for enough experimentation, and I was right. Now I have to wait about a week before I can finish this project.

That gives me more time to work on my classroom mural project. After talking with Mom I made a few changes. She suggested working with bed linens instead of canvas, which saves me quite a bit as an inexpensive drop cloth is about $16, but a used twin sheet is only $2.00 at a thrift store. I already have a bunch of fabric dyes and paints, too, so I don't have to ask the school to buy acrylics for me. Plus the sheet will be easier to store than a canvas.

I'm going to work on a proof-of-concept pillowcase tonight, right after I make it through the Stalingrad level in Call of Duty. I can't believe how breathtaking the intro charge up the hillside is. Almost makes me wish I taught history classes, just so I'd have an excuse to share it.

Bought a home project book at Half-Price books yes...

2007-05-29T00:28:00.000-06:00

Bought a home project book at Half-Price books yesterday, and suddenly I have twenty new things I want to do with my home. Since my summer financial outlook is so grim I might as well work on these things, and get something tangible from my vacation.

My Number One Goal is to finish the wallpaper/bookcase project. I have nine shelves left, and I'm going to try to wrap it up tonight. I keep starting, and stopping, and moving on to something else. It's a real pain, and I want to FINISH it so I can move on to other projects.

Other projects like the kitchen back splash. And I have an overwhelming urge to paint my bar stools. I need to hire someone to do something about the leak over the front porch, and to clean my gutters. There's also that small tree my neighbor complains about, and that other tree that's interfering with the electric lines. I guess I need to call a tree removal company about those.

And I need to hold a garage sale. It's time to face reality -- I am never going to get my Haywood-Wakefield sofa reupholstered. Ditto the wonderful club chair I took off Rachel's hands. I have a twin bed I need to sell, four file cabinets, and several boxes of Rachel's things in the garage. I need to call Rachel and have her move her stuff out of my house, once and for all.

I'm holding off on a lot of changes, specifically to the guest bedroom and the bathroom, because there is a slim, slim, slim chance that everything is about to change. My favorite uncle died this spring, leaving two adult sons behind. The younger son, B, is capable of taking care of himself, but the oldest son J is slightly autistic. J needs someone to help monitor his diet, socialize him a little, watch his finances, drive him to church and the doctor, and generally look out for his well-being. On top of the autism, J has diabetes, and lost one of his lower legs to infection a few years ago. There is a super-slim chance that J will move in with me. It's so slim that I don't even want to write about it, except to say if he does then I'll have to get the bathroom remodeled so it's accessible.

I'm going to pretend he's moving in for a while, so I can motivate myself to do something about the guest bedroom. I'm going to install Outlook again, get R's number out of my backup, and give her a call. I want her stuff OUT of my home. NOW.

Promises, Promises

2007-05-28T17:12:00.000-06:00

I told myself I would communicate with every single man who seemed remotely interested in me, but I'm having a lot of trouble living up to my word, especially when the latest person lives outside Houston and likes women with big, round butts.

That seems a little silly, right? I should be happy there are people out there who find fat people desirable, but the honest truth is that it sort of grosses me out. How can anyone be attracted to my body? Right now my mind is the thing to admire. I want to get a hell of a lot closer to ideal and then have someone admire my physique. For now, sexual attraction will probably come later in a relationship after I know I can trust someone not to run from the bedroom in terror.

How can I possibly communicate with this guy? How could I ever give a pervert like this a fair shot?

Grammar Police Seeks Same

2007-05-28T00:40:00.000-06:00

I've been on match.com for about four days now, and I've only had 13 profile views and one wink. The wink was from an idiot -- his profile title said "Do yourself a favor and meet me" and his description just said "I'm a nice guy" over and over and over until he hit the 200-word minimum. Yeah, like I'm going to bother replying to someone who supposedly has a graduate degree but comes across as barely literate.

I hate this whole "wink" thing. What happens is a guy looks at my profile and "winks" at me, then I still have to make the first real move and reply with an email. I have to stick my neck out on the line -- all he had to do was click a damn button.

Advice: Men, skip the whole "wink" thing, adjust your balls, and send a freaking email!!!

And learn how to spell. "Alot" is not a word. Please, learn a little grammar. It's not "CD's." Please don't tell me you're a "romantic and funny guy." Just write something funny and romantic instead.

I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life, aren't I? Just because I insist on someone who capitalizes the letter I when it's used as a pronoun. (NOT "Just bcase i insist on someone who capitalizes theyre i's when its used as a pronoun.)

Yup, I'm going to die a born-again virgin.

Serendipity

2007-05-24T15:26:00.000-06:00

Too strange -- I decide a bunch of Scrabble boards will make me happy, and a lot of 14 appear on eBay.

Wine and Technology

2007-05-22T21:56:00.000-06:00

Had a nice conversation with a female registrar from Florida while we were waiting for the conference shuttle, and we ended up going to dinner. We found a great Italian restaurant off Congress street, and ate a fantastic meal with a great bottle of Riesling while trading stories of our failed love lives. After a couple of hours we went back to the hotel and opened another bottle of wine, and somehow talked ourselves into posting our profiles (or in my case re-posting) on match.com, complete with a series of giggly drunken photos.

Over the third bottle of wine I was showing her how to navigate through the site, and ran a search for men within 10 miles of my zip code. I clicked on a few, and suddenly choked on the wine. One guy's profile said his roommate is a gay guy named R.

I know statistically that probably doesn't mean anything -- R has a very, very common name, especially for our age group. I'm sure there are dozens of men in this immediate geographic region who share that name. And statistically somewhere between 1 and 10% of those guys are gay.

Still, I find it very encouraging to read that R may be gay just after posting a profile and trying to find someone else. It's a sign that I'm doing the right thing.

Post Austin

2007-05-23T21:36:00.000-06:00

Didn't do much shopping in Austin, since I was there on the school's dime. I didn't even have time to go into Uncommon Objects, although I did get to look in the window. S and I made a quick run through Spice on the way home. As a result I have two new interior decorating to-do list items.

Spice had a table set with dishes, and Scrabble boards were used as the place mats. Loved it!! Cheap, colorful, fun . . . I have to find six old Scrabble sets, which shouldn't be too hard, and then buy turquoise dishes to place on top of the boards. (Target has some I'm in love with.) So cool.

One shop on Congress street had some fairly typical tall rectangular glass vases in their window. The vases themselves weren't anything special, not until the artist covered them with transparent decals depicting colorful vintage scenes, probably from old postcards or scrap art. At first I thought the artist had used clear adhesive paper, but after a conversation with my sister I've decided it was most likely water-slide decals. I really loved this look, and I'm going to strive for something similar. I even have a few sheets of decal paper -- all I need is a vase.

Leaving Austin

2007-05-22T22:53:00.000-06:00

Gods, this conference has been a blast. Every session I went to was informative, fun, and useful. My group's presentation was pretty good, not the snafu I was expecting.

My favorite presentation was from Merton College,where the president is placing large museum-style graphics on the classroom walls and in the hallways as a way to help bring history into student's lives. Their Star-Spangled Banner room is an incredible example.

Their project made me reconsider how my campus designs its space. I want my campus to be a place that seeps students in education. I think every single room should have a map and a globe, posters, pens, pencils, and BOOKS. I want books in the classroom, books in the offices, shelves of books lining the corridor. I want comfortable seating in quiet areas, so people can pursue learning outside the library. And of course I want PCs everywhere. Like Starbuck's, but without the commercialism. And with BOOKS.

And please, please, please some freaking visual stimulation. Some color. Our campus is sooooooo dull. The aqua-and-pink color scheme is straight from the 80s. I'm sure our younger students think they're studying in a bad episode of Square Pegs. And these younger students, these highly visual creatures, are the ones we often hare the most trouble connecting with, just because of the age difference. Placing the students in such a dismal environment invites them to shut down before they even enter the classroom. The students (and me!) need a welcoming, energizing, eclectic, nonconformist space. We need to reflect who they are, just like their bedrooms reflect who they are. They need to feel like we "get them" the second they enter our doors.

So my #1 post-conference goal is to do something about this. I'm going to talk about it, write for the school newspaper about it, and even ask HGTV to help.

Naturally, I'm also going to transform my classroom. Right now all sorts of ideas are percolating through my head. I want to get some huge canvases, paint them with large-scale graphics, and mount them in my room. Or maybe use cheap painter's drop cloths and mount them to the ceiling somehow, like tapestries. That might be easier - I could possibly use suction cups with hooks. OK, this is sounding good.

I want to find pencil cups to place between monitors. And pads of scratch paper. Maybe order some VisiBone mouse pads. Remember those monitor "frames" that were popular a few years ago? I want an upscale version, with Windows hot keys embedded into the design somehow.

This is going to happen. I can make this real.

Just watched the season finale of Grey's Anatomy. ...

2007-05-18T22:42:00.000-06:00

Just watched the season finale of Grey's Anatomy. Now I'm really depressed.

Who am I kidding? I am never having sex again. I...

2007-05-18T20:40:00.000-06:00

Who am I kidding? I am never having sex again. I just don't have the social skills or the body needed to get a man up at bat. Yes, the guy in the restaurant was funny, the way he kept telling the waitress it would be a table for two, but who the fuck am I kidding? Even if we had dinner it wouldn't have gone anywhere. My hymen has grown back, and the only time I can remember what a kiss tastes like is when I'm dreaming. I'm a born-again virgin, and I'll be maintaining this sad state until the day I die.

So much for talking to people. WHY is this so fre...

2007-05-17T22:49:00.000-06:00

So much for talking to people. WHY is this so freaking difficult for me??????? He was nice-looking. He had a book. He had a laptop, probably loaded with Linux. And he wanted to have dinner with me. If I had just stood still and talked for three whole minutes I would have been dining with this doubtlessly nice single guy instead of with a novel I've already read. He was interested, and I made him sit alone.

Damn it, I have done this before, in my other life. I've talked to men. Not often, admittedly, but I've done it. And eventually I was always the one to ask the guy out. Always the one with the most moxie. What has happened to the girl I used to be? Am I still holding out hope for R, who has made it clear he would rather have his mouth sewn shut than kiss me? What am I thinking????

In preparation for the conference I'm practicing t...

2007-05-17T16:08:00.000-06:00

In preparation for the conference I'm practicing talking to other people. It sounds silly, doesn't it? But I'm not good with strangers. My instinct is always to finish whatever business we're transacting and then walk off. Not the best tactic for a mixer, when the purpose is to actually talk. I'm also working more on listening, and asking questions. Usually I get nervous, start thinking about how people see me, and forget the other person altogether in the midst of my anxiety. It becomes All About Me, which is hardly attractive. I'm tired of the Sharon Show. Really, really, really sick of it. It's kind of a bitchy show anyway. There are better things out there. At least with strangers I don't have to worry about what my traitorous hands are doing without my permission, which was always a huge problem around R. I'm pretty sure I can keep my hands to myself for four days.

Games People Aren't Playing

2007-05-17T00:31:00.000-06:00

Can hardly believe I'm buying games again! My high school/early-college collection was based on children's thematic games. I had some fab items, including Gidget Fortune Teller, Steve Canyon, 007's Thunderball, and two different editions of the Nancy Drew game. I sold most of the collection about twelve years ago when children's games were at their peak.

Today my collection has a different focus. In the past it was all about the graphics and the themes. Today the play's the thing. I'm mostly after games that have won awards for how playable they are. Games that challenge the mind, and that bring people closer together. MESNA winners, and Games Magazine winners, and Spiel des Jahres winners. Oh, good graphics and cool components are still a nice bonus, don't get me wrong, but I want to PLAY.

I love all the new Euros, and the new Ameritrash games in the tradition of old favorites like Talisman and Cosmic Encounters. There are more possibilities than ever. More stuff to find, more excuses to shop.

Happily games have always been pretty painless to collect. They're very, very plentiful. And cheap. Most of my games were purchased for less than $5, the exceptions being new retail games or games purchased through antique shops or eBay.

The only bump in the road, a bump I find with any collection, is storage space. Right now my collection has about 50 games (about half left over from my old collection) and the space I had allocated is gone. One of this summer's projects is to finally clean out and re-decorate the guest bedroom, including shelving for my games along with a nice TV.

A longer-term project is to find someone to play with. My primary gaming partners are my oldest niece and nephew. Sadly they live too far away to visit more than once a month, but when they're here we manage to play four or five new games.

So I want to find a grown-up to play with. I picked up Civilization (the original Avalon Hill, not Sid Meyer) at the Salvation Army yesterday. (For $2.99!!!) I've been out on BoardGameGeek reading about marathon two-day sessions of this one game, and it sounds like so much fun! The rule book is thick and complicated -- more complicated than anything I've tried before, to be honest -- and I think the game is a little beyond the kids. So I need a grownup to play with. Hopefully someone without a family who might be able to spend an unplanned evening figuring our Richthofen's War, another thrift store find.

There is a board game group in Arlington I have to go check out. This summer might be a nice time, since I don't have class to interfere. I need to meet new people, and find someone to play with.

Conferencing

2007-05-16T21:55:00.000-06:00

Going to a conference soon, and I think I'll spend my time meeting men. I have got to move past R. The last time I went to a conference with this mindset I did pretty well. I flirted with several guys, had men buying me drinks, and eventually settled into a prolonged flirt with W, which lead to my one real honest-to-god date last year. I can do at least as well at this conference. I haven't had a hookup in years -- a nice conference shag would do wonders for my self-esteem.

Grace

2007-05-15T23:41:00.000-06:00

Just woke from an amazing dream. I entered that lttle town scared, with all my upper-middle-class values wrapped around me like a shield. I left with my soul comforted, my heart touched, and my very self revived. Please, gods above, help me carry what happened in the dream into my waking world. I don't know if Marksville, Alabama really exists, but I know, I have faith, that the humanity I experienced does.

Beautiful Day

2007-05-14T21:00:00.000-06:00

Today is my first day off this summer. I took Mom to the dentist, and afterwards we hit all the thrift stores. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Bought several new games for the board game collection:

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful Krsna Land -- all about Hari Krishna. Beautiful graphics. Just lovely. I bought it just for the box, for $1.99. Gameplay probably isn't that great. I haven't been through the instructions yet, but it has a Candy Land look. I want to frame the box cover. It's just wonderful.
Transverse, a Games Magazine and Mensa Select game, which looks pretty much like checkers but only cost .99 cents.
Power Barons, a finance game. It comes with six snap-on heads used to customize the playing pawns. $3.99.
Zigerty, a Cranium game, mint in the box for $2.99. It retails for $8, so this wasn't a horrible deal.
Cogno Deep Waters, another children's award winner, about being an alien and traveling through the sea. $1.99. The other original Cogno was on the shelf, too, but I didn't realize what I was passing up. I'm going to go back tomorrow and try to buy it.
Vampire Hunter, a spooky child's game played in a dark room. It has a castle in the center, and the castle has two bulbs. If the red bulb glows the board looks one way, but if the blue bulb grows it looks another. Ditto the dice. I can't wait to play this with my niece and nephew. A whopping .99 cents.

Also left Skittles on the shelf at the Salvation Army against by instinct. I should have bought it -- this version of the game routinley brings $25 on eBay. I'll try to get back over there on Wednesday or Thursday.

I also bought several miscellaneous items, like a vintage table cloth, a strange black plastic organizer, and a few pink bath towels. Then later in the evening we went to Target, and by that time my resistance was all worn down, and I managed to spend eighty dollars without fully realizing what I was doing. This is a lesson -- I can't spend all day shopping! My resistance just wears away.

Diet is going just awful. I ate two slices of pizza for breakfast, and ate Olive garden pizza for lunch, and a hot dog and chips for dinner. Just now I'm having my awful indegestion problem, so I'm eating crackers. That always seems to help for some reason. Tomorrow night I have to get to a grocery store. At the very least I need some healthy food for Austin.

Laws of Attraction

2007-05-08T15:32:00.000-06:00

My trig final was today. I think I passed. After a no-sleep 30-hour-study-fest I came home and dropped straight off to sleep.

I had a confusing dream where I was using the Law of Sines and the unit circle to explain to R that he really does like me, and that I can tell because he lets our personal space overlap. All these numbers were in the air between us, circles were on the floor around us, and even as I was telling him I knew the numbers wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. It's the oddest thing -- he's like that in real life, only I didn't realize it. He does stand too close, and he lets me get too close to him. He's never taken a step back, not even when I'm close enough to kiss.

Then I woke up, and the freaking Internet radio was playing, of all things, "Hey Jude," which always makes me think of him. I marched over, switched songs, and told the radio I hate the Beatles and never to play them again. Then I deleted all the Beatles songs out of iTunes. (Not that there are that many, since they just aren't available digitally.) No more Jude, no more stupid When I'm 64, and no more of my previously loved Ob-la-di.

I am living in a Beatles-free world, and I'm happy. There is only one more thing I need to yank out of my life . . .

Nerd Vacation

2007-05-11T20:26:00.000-06:00

This year I want a nice vacation. I've considered all kinds of options -- a cruise, a resort, a tour group -- but they've all had drawbacks. Too much walking, too many strangers, too many single people, too many swimsuits, etc.

Last night, though, I came up with the ultimate nerd vacation. I'm going to fly to DC and spend four days walking around the Smithsonian. It's perfect. Plenty of stuff to see and think about, places to eat, air conditioning, and no swimsuits or social pressure. And if I get tired of the museums there's always Williamsburg. or something. And bookstores.

The only thing better would be the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum in New York, but I don't think I can handle NYC by myself.

I can fly out for about $200 if I book sometime over the next couple of weeks. Then I just have to save enough for the hotel. Very excited about this.

Future Planning

2007-05-10T01:04:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking about the future of my home. One day my Mom will probably need to move in with me, and the more I consider the possibility the more problems I see. Moving myself in addition to moving my mother just seems back-breaking. I need to fit her into my home and my life with minimal stress. Some people doubtlessly think it's stupid to worry about these issues now, but if I can find solutions for the imaginary probelms before they become real problems then I've spent my time well.

The largest issue is going to be stuff. Mom has a whole huge two-story house full of stuff, and we'll have to condense her posessions so they occupy one small room in my home. I'm not sure that's possible. And she loves stuff, even more than I do. She can't walk out of a thrift store without some new posession or another. She's absolutly relentless. I think she probably buys something new every day of the week, and if she misses a day she more than makes up for it on weekends. Moving her into my home is bound to be a highly emotional problem. My solution for this, which I've just now thought of, is to hire a professional organizer to help her de-clutter and manage the transition. I think working with a stranger will help Mom stay objective and focused.
Space is the next issue. She'll have a bedroom, of course, but she'll also need a place for a desk and her sewing machine. The sewing machine can go in the studio, and I'm sure we can come up with some accomodation for her large fabric collection. I think her desk will have to go in the study. I have space -- it was being reserved for a love seat I haven't bought yet, but that isn't going to be practical. I'd really like to have matching desks in this space, so I'll have to be on the lookout for two blonde desks that will work with what I already have. And I want them to be a little smaller than the desk I have now. That side of the room will also need better electricity, so it can support a PC.

Bathrooms are difficult. The house currently two bathrooms -- a very narrow bathroom with a traditional tub/shower, and a bathroom with a garden tub that's part of the bedroom. I think both of these options are unworkable. The bedbath, as I call it, has a toilet contained in a very small, narrow area. It's too small to get a wheelchair into, and that's a distinct possibility I need to consider. The other bathrrom is even more narrow. I think the only real solution is to combine the areas (they're on opposite sides of a wall, happily) to make a larger, wheelchair-capable bathroom. The bathroom will need storage at wheelchair height.

Damn it, the kitchen probably needs to be more accessible as well. OK, I'm going to worry about that later. It's not like we'll be cooking much, anyway.

I think I'm going to let her have the master bedroom so she has a place to put all her stuff. That space has two closets, which she's going to need.

That leaves me with the guest bedroom, which I was hoping to design this summer. This space is my least-favorite room in the house. It's very small and confined. Originally I was going to make it into a TV room/guest bedroom, but now that I'm moving in I'm changing the plan.

My biggest temptation is to rip out the hallway wall and open the space up into the main living area. That would get rid of the closed-up vibe that room projects. Of course there won't be any privacy, so I'll be forced (forced, can you imagine?) to reconfigure the open space into a studio, and make my existing studio into a bedroom.

I really like that idea. I would love having the studio join the main living area of the house. I really wanted a loft, but there aren't many true lofts in Texas suburbs. Opening up that space would be wonderful.

I'm not sure if the house could handle that structurally, though. And it would also cost a small fortune.

My other option is to make over that awful bedroom. If I go that route I want to hire a carpenter to make built-in bookshelves. I want to get as much storage space per square inch as possible. I'll go ahead and keep the TV room vibe I had planned on, but I'll make sure it's nice enough that I can move in without any pains.

Now I just have to figure out how to handle the super-intrusive TV I know she'll want to keep blaring all evening. And how to make her realize I will never, ever, ever, ever put curtains on the study windows. Never. Not ever. I don't care how many nice pairs she shows me (and she shows me every damn time we're out shopping), curtains will NEVER be on these windows. Period.

Dull, Inc.

2007-05-04T15:06:00.000-06:00

Dullness continues. I know teaching a killer class tonight will make me feel better, but at this second I don't want to feel better. Instead I want to go home and listen to the rain. I don't have that option, though. I'm wearing what I thought was a great dress, but a friend says it isn't so great, so now I have to go deal with a class while I look worse than usual. Why can't I just be happy with the things I have within my grasp? I don't really need all those other things, do I?

I'm falling into the mindset of a close friend, wh...

2007-05-03T13:05:00.000-06:00

I'm falling into the mindset of a close friend, who says his life is too dull to blog about. I've always thought this is a depressing state of mind. Who finds their own life dull? Life is a project, life is art, sometimes life is an adventure. I like to think I'm evolving and moving forward, even if it looks like I've wasted the weekend watching the first season of Bones.

But today is a dull, dull day. I'm in my office writing quizzes for a new textbook. How fun. And this weekend I have to spend my time studying for the trigonometry final. Life seems very, very full, but also incredibly boring. It's all work and no play.

I'm even more depressed now that the rug has been pulled out from under my summer. It looks like I'm going to pass trig, and it also looks like I'll be hard pressed to finish the three projects I have in front of me.

No fun in sight, anywhere. Today I, too, find my life boring.

Summer Realities

2007-05-01T13:27:00.000-06:00

I just turned on my iPod, and I knew the volume was turned way, way up. My shoulders were hunched and my teeth were clinched in preparation for the blast of sound. And I still jumped about a foot in the air, even though I knew it was going to happen. Why????

Summer is being slippery. Originally my plan was to take the summer off. I've been very nervous about this -- what will I do all damn day? And how will I finance any of it? I've been working on a new budget, made a list of things I need to do, and even drew up a daily schedule to help me figure out what to do with all this free time.

When I met E for lunch today I realized if I pass trigonometry (chancy prospect at best) then my mornings will be spent in a pre-calculus class, four days a week. And I'll be doing a lot of homework in the evening. I won't have time for anything. There goes about 50% of what I wanted to do this summer.

And after lunch I wandered back to my office and found an email from a student asking what books were needed for the summer Page Design I class. The class I *thought* I had cancelled. Damn it. After a quick look at the summer schedule I realized I had scheduled myself for not one but TWO summer classes. Four evenings a week. On top of four long mornings a week in pre-calculus. (I've since written my adjuncts offering them one of the classes.)

Were was I when I made all these decisions?

My scary summer -- the one with all the empty time -- is suddenly overflowing with things I don't particularly want to do.

Blogging and Purging

2007-04-22T00:07:00.000-06:00

Spent part of the evening removing emotional binges from my blog in a halfhearted attempt to find "closure," whatever that means, after weeks of not seeing him. In my decidedly limited experience closure is just another chance to make a fool of yourself, as I've done all too often the past few years. Closure is another opportunity to cry in public, ask pointlessly embarrassing questions, and to have someone you want to be with want nothing more than to vacate your presence. And why would I want to try to have a serious conversation yet again, knowing he'll just change the subject? I'm a blithering idiot, a fool half in love with a man who has never, ever, ever made a fool out of himself over me. That one fact tells me everything I need to know.

So from now on no more "harmless" dinners, no more stupid blog entries, no more attempts at a one-sided platonic friendship. It's over, and I'm going to see Matisse by myself, alone, tomorrow afternoon.