Life Listed Chronologically

Last Friday, my married, suburban Pennslytucky sister called to let me know that her husband came home with flowers after having been gone on business for most of the week. She basically wanted to brag about how wonderful being married is and how great it is to live in a 3 bedroom home with vinyl siding at least 45 minutes from any city that resembles urban life even if those cities are Harrisburg and Baltimore. She then asked what me and the boy were doing that night and I said, "whatever."

The boy said he'd get food which generally means I would cook something. Actually, that's not true, the Friday before he cooked me dinner and the Friday before that we made pizza together. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised when he insisted on cooking even if it meant I had to instruct him step-by-step at least 10 feet away to avoid "interferring" or "trying to take over".

More importantly, as soon as I walked into his apartment before eating the dry fish and overcooked asparagus (as he said I should let him be the judge of when things are "done" as if done is some subjective thing rather than a fact.), the first thing I noticed was roses! Not only had my boyfriend, who I did not share a 3 bedroom house far from family and civilzation, bought me roses, he also included a small Spongebob Squarepants in the arrangement.

The next night I wanted to go on a regular date, like you know, boy and girl go to movies rather than boy and girl sit on couch while girl knits and boy bitchs about crappy sports teams he insists on watching even though he has already said they were crappy. I decided that we should see "Master and Commander." While waiting in line for popcorn where the boy exclaimed, "I better be getting some at the end of this date," just to shock the dorky couple in front of us, male in tucked in polo and jeans, woman in cardigan with cartoons on it. The woman looked at him as if he was a sexual predator or something and then shook her head at me as I was hysterically laughing. When we went to the teather printed on our tickets, we realized that the tickets were from "The Matrix". I asked the ticket taker what theater the movie we had intended to see was in. In that theater, we got one fo the last two seats together that weren't in the front row and settled in to watch the previews.

I thought it was weird that there were a lot of young elementary school-aged children in the theater but figured that parents really don't care what type of violence they expose their children to these days any how. I then felt it was suspicious that all of the previews were for movies rated G, PG and a rare PG-13, as well as a commerical for a video game. However, as soon as Bob Newhart's face appeared on the screen, it became obvious that we weren't seeing "Master and Commander" or "The Matrix" but rather "Elf". We stayed for the movie, because secretly both of us wanted to see it anyhow but we let our adult sophisitication pick out an "adult" movie rather than the silly stuff we really like.

In other news, I almost wore the exact same outfit today as I wore last Wednesday. As the 9 to 5 working world will probably think there is no shock value in this, keep in mind that my classes only meet weekly. And I see about 2/3 of my classmates only once per week. Halfway out of the house, I made a quick change because i don't want to be known as that girl that wears that white, black, blue turtleneck sweater. Thanks.
Wednesday, November 19, 2003

To whomever reads this page from Columbia.edu, who are you? I would like to know what curious person regularly peers into my life. Email me as I dying to know.
That is all for now.
Wednesday, November 12, 2003

When my father walked into my room this evening and said "turn around" I knew that there was something wrong. Who says that to a person? It was all my fault, or at least I should share some of the blame. Largely though, it was his own stupidity. Maybe it wouldn't have happened if I wasn't such a smart ass and made fun of him earlier.

I noticed that the white whiskers growing on his neck were getting very long this evening and told him he should shave. His neck looked strange that was and I cannot keep my mouth shut. He shrugged and said nothing at the time but later on I heard the clippers buzzing.

For the past 13 years, my father has had a beard. My family likes the way he looks with a beard. It's full and reddish, and slowly turning white. He is the perfect future Santa Clause. He used to shaved it in the summers, but he's kept the beard year-round since 1990. He hasn't gone without since the 1980s! Only once did he shave his moustache when I was a very small girl. I completely freaked and demanded that he put it back on. He wasn't my dad that way.

So when he told me to turn around, I replied, "you better not have shaved off your beard, or else I'll be in therapy for the rest of my life." It took me a good 15 minutes to be able to look at his face. His trimming had gone awry and the only way to fix this mistake was to get rid of the whole thing. I thought maybe he could have come up with some creative facial hair alternative, but he had already decided on taking it all off. The beard was gone and he looks like a throw-back to the 1980s. I couldn't exactly get over him looking like this. I still cannot comprehend it and hopefully I'll just begin to adjust as soon as it begins to grow back. I had to call my sisters and let them know. One said "yuk!" the other vowed not to step foot in the house until his facial hair returned to normal.

We all complain about my father being set in his ways and not willing to bend much to new experiences. When he suggested I add cayenne pepper to the tuna I was making us for lunch a few weeks back I just about fainted from surprise. He spends his days on the road and likes to come home to stablity. We tease hime about this. But the truth is, we like him exactly the way he is, with a beard.
Tuesday, November 11, 2003

"You're a real weirdo."
"Eh, look who's talking."
"Think about it though, what did you just say?"
"I said I loved my dentist. I siad I like getting my teeth cleaned."
"Right, and most people don't like dentists, agreed?"
"Yes, but most people don't go to my dentist. Most people have had bad experiences that they generalize that to all dentists. My dentist allows me to love dentistry."
"Regardless, most people don't like dentists, which makes you rare."
"But not weird."
"But wait, what did you do yesterday when I showed you my jury duty notice?" "Did you know that most people don't jump around over jury duty?"
"But it's exciting, it's civic involvement. It's putting yourself in the process."
"Most people hate it though."
"I think it's great!"
"You like two things that most people don't. There might be people who like dentists and who like jurt duty, but you are probably one of a few who like BOTH."
"So, what does that make me, weird?"

Being playful and lighthearted is essential to wanting to still be in a relationship. All threats are off when someone makes you realize you are probably the only person on earth who likes both jury duty and dentists.
Thursday, November 6, 2003

Today is all about process. And name dropping. By mentioning a name, I get immediate help. By going through the layers of adminsitration, I get the assistance that I need. There is also plenty of frustration involving groups. It seems as if group projects were invented to demostrate how futile trying to collborate can be. I find them to be excessively exhaustive. Talking to people sometimes is like talking to brick walls. Trying to get my message across might work better if written in the sky.

I got a B+ on a paper. I thought this was an okay job, although I was internally disappointed. Many other students that I consider intelligent and worthwhile classmates did not do as well so I was allowed to forgive myself on this basis of comparasion. The boy was a 4-year dean's list member such as myself and he had my gut reaction that I chose to ignore, "you better try harder next time." When it comes down to it, that's how I feel. It is isn't As, I am not doing enough.

While I think of myself as well prepared, bright and capable, there are some things I wish I could change. I wish I would talk more in class. But I hesitate to speak unless I am certain of my argument. And I listen to others, rather than planning my time on the floor. I feel this may impact me negatively but this is who I am. I blame the educational system for telling me to hush as a child since I was more intelligent than my classmates and interferred with the teacher teaching the masses. The second thing is my grammar, or rather typographical errors. I can spot a mistake made by others in a second, but I cannot see those things I make until time has passed. Half the time, I go back and change things here; elsewise, I can't be bothered. Re-reading my senior thesis makes me ill as each time I find more mistakes to a paper I wrote over a year. I am well aware that people judge these errors as a fault in intelligence. I just cannot help it.

If I was perfect though, I would be scary.
Thursday, November 6, 2003

Since I moved home, my younger sister's friend has also been living with my parents. She has always been that girl that everyone loves, that would send me into shock to hear someone ever say anything but good things about her. When my grandma was sick, she called me a million times to make sure that I was okay. She likes craft stores and spends about as much time in them as I do. When she was making CDs this weekend, I asked her to make me a copy of whatever she did for the 45 mintues each way to school. Included was exactly the song I needed to hear, Teenage Wasteland:

I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
I don't need to be forgiven

I discovered the most amazing thing: if I sit at a table and read, I can simultaneously knit anything that has a simple pattern. This makes for extremely productive use of time, although how effective it is when it comes to retaining what I am reading has yet to be determined.
Tuesday, November 4, 2003

Funny how school can be considered such a break from the weekend. I had enough. The trip to the hospital and the generally hectic Halloween. Trying to find my grandma on Sunday after she'd been out of the house for several hours. Near-constant bickering with the boy until I called it all off and declared that we are "taking a break." The looks from yuppies walking in the woods in regards to myself, my dogs or Jesse.

Now I am safe in the modern brick building with stacks of paper surrounding me. I have authoritative emails to send out and complicated "to-do" lists to compile. I have things that require no emotional input from others. I have to gather information and make decisions. I do not have to feel and process. I'm sick of that. I have had enough. I shall become the robot-student for the next few days until I recharge my ability to deal with anything personal.
Monday, November 3, 2003

How I spent Halloween
A true story

I woke earlier than usual. Not hours earlier or in a totally different part of the day, but just a little earlier than usual. I would have continued to hit snooze until 8 or 9 am but the smoke detector in the hallway way going "chirp" and then "chirp" every few minutes. It was a bit distracting so I got out of bed, gave my grandma breakfast and sent her off to adult day-care. The smoke detector was still chirping the whole time and sufficiently got under my skin. So I called the fire department to have them check it out.

The station is only two blocks away from me and I could hear the sirens wailing immediately and, of course, began to blush. There was no fire and no need for sirens! I was just hoping they'd send someone over in the fire care, which looks pretty much like the police cars and has caused e to go into a panic several times in my life when passing it while speeding through town as it tricks me into thinking its a police officer each time. Instead, the fire truck came with sirens on, the men fully outfitted. I met them at the door and they came into the house with the large, authoritative strides.

Since the house had a fire a few years ago, it is now hardwired with smoke detectors. I was under the assumption that this meant there were no batteries in the fire detectors. I was wrong. I had 3 firemen come to my house at 8 am to change a battery for me. And when I say three firemen, I mean all three were standing in the hallway at the top of the stairs changing the battery.

I managed to pull myself off of the floor after laughing so hard I lost all control of my muscles and my bones turned to rubber. I then went for a run in the woods. It was gorgeous out and the leaves on the ground were mostly yellow. I heard all this noise coming from some tall plants abot 5 feet in front of me and thought that my time had come. I get into a panic in the woods now and again as I am convinced that someone will jump out and drag me to their cave. Either that or I'll encounter men having sex. Regardless, I stopped dead mid-stride and realized that it was two deer having sex. The buck jumped off the doe and they ran away from the trail. I chuckled to myself but then realized the buck was staring me down. He gave me easily the dirtiest look I've ever gotten, enough to send a chill through me.

When I got back to my car, my phone was ringing. At 9:15, everyone I know is either working or sleeping and it confused me to have my phone ringing. It was my mother calling from the Middle-of-Nowhere, PA to tell me grandma was sick and needed to be picked up. I felt like a mother having to pick up her sick child from school except my grandma and I never got along when I was growing up. Although I had since forgiven her for being mean to me, when she told me to get out of the house the other day, those feelings had resurfaced of late. Regardlessly, she was in need and I was the only one around who could help her out.

I walked through the plush senior center that looked like what most college student centers try miserably to do in a hurry. I passed a women slumped over in a wheelchair that was shaking and kept on towards the "day room". Wait, that's grandma! She was weak, shaky and generally unable to respond to me. I had to all but lift her into the car as there was very little strength in her. I buckled her in and called the doctor. Nearly as soon as I finished describing her condition to the nurse, I was told to take her to the hospital.

The hospital is never a good place to spend a day. My grandma was not herself. She allow a young male orderly help her change into a gown, something that her normal sense of dignity and independence would have never allowed. Her face was ashen and loked terribly shrivelled. Once the doctor checked her, he looked at me and suggested that I go home if I needed to.

I too felt shaky and ill at that point. The hospital reminded me of the days spend this past summer at the boy's mother's bedside as machines kept her alive until donors were found for her organs. I tried calling everyone I knew, but they were all working or sleeping. I noticed Marie's car near her ex's house; I stopped and let myself in. I was given coffee and had a smal dog licking my face. I asked the ex, who was dressed in a black button-down and tan slacks if he was being Respectable for Halloween. Feeling mildly better, I went home to change out of my sweaty clothes and took some Tums.

Back at the hospital, with knitting and a women's magazine for my grandma, she was rosy cheeked and chatty. She asked me about my pattern, told me to tell everyone not to worry and was definitely better. I sat with her until "Dr. Phil" made me feel ill again. I had plans to make pizza with the boy for my parents who had their anniversary earlier in the week. Grandma told me to go have fun and "not to worry to come back."

Although I make fun of my older sister for obviously trying to be the perfect suburban wife, I too have the desire for that WASPy-perfectionist domesticity that Martha Stewart best embodies. I went to the market and picked up the necessary ingredients for pizza, disappointed that the tomato sauce would have to be from a jar instead of freshly made. At home, my father and I realized something horrible. He had given her a pill this morning as she woke up early, excited to be going to "the club"/adult day care. After he left, I gave her one along with her cereal and juice. When she first started taking these pills, it did make her sick. The guilt send me back upstairs to take more Tums and call the hospital to let the doctors know.

Everyone talks about Catholic guilt and Jewish guilt. Nothing is worse than non-godly, heathenistic guilt. There is no one you feel shamed for except your ownself. This guilt required I return to the hospital with candy and warm socks for grandma along with the boy and my dad. She told us not to worry.
"I'm a tough one. I'll be fine. Everyone needs a break some times."
"But wouldn't you worry about me if I was in the hospital?" my dad said.
"Yes. But you aren't tough."

Assured by the nurse that the accidental double-dosing would have not caused her condition, I returned home to make pizza. The pies were ready for the oven jsut as my mother returned from her long day in Pennslykucky. Perfect domesticity.

By midnight, I was barely human and had turned into a cranky goblin. I looked back upon my day and realized that all of this had happened since the chirping woke me at 7 am. I took some Tums and crawled into bed. Crawling into bed here should be taken literally because I no longer had the ability to control my muscles for the second time that day. I was exhausted. I feel asleep realizing we had not one trick-or-treater because the front porch light bulbs needed to be replaced.
Saturday, November 1, 2003