Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

A few years ago I wrote a mini blog series to in coming freshmen . . . It was September.  Very true.  Very pertinent. Part one .  Part two . Now, as January turns to a bitter, icy grey and colleges reopen a different form of "that time of year" is back.  The spring semester, or also known as "the graduating semester." Le sigh.  Read on, you'll see why. Girls, boys, men, and women come into my office in various stages of fright.  They arrive in my inbox, and the appear in Skype and Facetime meetings, and in classes they teeter on the edges of chair gasping for breath.  Panics about jobs, getting them, getting into grad school, making money...Always the money comes up.  Yea, there's a bit of angsty haze this time of year.  Some good, some . . . well, a few emails this week struck me more than normal.  Amid the "Aw snap, I forgot," "What's going down up in here?" "and "You gots to help me" with arms flailed in the air ...

There was a recent conference in Rome. I know woe is me that I went to Rome while under the larger guise of work. None– the– less, I went to Rome the week before Christmas (came stateside in time to do the Christmas tour of Dixie and spend New Year's at home in NYC).  But before going to the Eternal City, Tanfer had a few requests. Well, as usual, I obliged. Things like Listerine, Pam Cooking Spray, antacids, hand cream, and hair spray made the list.  She wanted Banana Quik, which after four grocery stores and two Targets I gave up the fight to research that it isn't widely available anymore.  So, I subbed hot cocoa instead. Well, aside from the breadth it all took up in my suitcase, the thought did cross my mind of how I might explain the giftable loot at customs. Well, multiple bottles of lotion, specialty hand creams, and such ... I had a plan that wasn't a complete fabrication.  Nope, instead just a minor exaggeration or two as in that I might spend ...

Someone, not long ago, asked me when I was going to write about 9-11.  I had no response, and I expertly avoided the question.  Why? Well . . . here's the best I can do. That day, a decade ago, still seems too close for comfort, too surreal to be true, and like a dream.  I didn't loose people that day, but friends of mine lost cohorts, lovers, and confidants.  To be cliche, we all lost a sense of stability, bliss, and cohesion.  Yet, for scores of people not located within this mecca then, or now, the 9-11 day doesn't ring with the same level of sobriety, somber, and dismay as it does for those within a stone's throw of its ashes. I remember what I was wearing, I remember what I was teaching when the first planes hit, I remember  . . . hours waiting in a computer lab constantly hitting refresh to find a message from a friend.  I remember sitting in shock, lying in my bathtub long after the bubbles had died, the water had gone cold, and th...

These days I'm contemplating the image of the solider verses the veteran.  Fun stuff, for the nerd in me.  Particularly, I'm looking at The American Legion Magazine , and mixed within these pages of patriotic valor and dutiful honor advertisements abound.  That is no surprise. Yet, a continual theme has arisen.  Advertisements for girdles, corrective footwear, and dentures abound.  The dentures  . . . a simple black and white photo of false teeth seems to jump off the page to startle and haunt me.  Gah. I think I was four or five when my Mom's Dad came to visit us in Washington State.  Visits with grandparents are just that: filled with presents, sweets, and good stuff.  Yet, Grandpa left his dentures in a glass on the back of the toilet (or maybe the bathroom sink).  I did not know he had dentures.  See where this one is going? I came running from the toilet with my curls flying screaming about monster teeth.  Good times....

In March of 1996, very close to the date now, I sat in a subway car enviously and frightfully starring at the people around me.  I was baffled that the cars were so full, I was frustrated that I couldn't get a seat or fully grab the knack of hanging on while standing, I was tired from "touring" the city for days, and I was a dreamer.  I remember a thirty-something blond sitting across from me, and she sat with her legs crossed, her briefcase on her arm, and her body language spoke of ease, comfort, and familiarity.  Several college students--as tags on their packs attested--loudly discussed notes for an upcoming exam (fittingly, it was a performing arts crew from NYU) as the train chugged along underground.  A man leaned on one of the poles and read his folded newspaper; he had the "subway fold" that is common to the old school crew who still read the paper version of the Times.  Then, then that blond pulled out a book and casually began to read.  I let out...

Blogging in traffic. Sometimes life has a funny way of working out. Six weeks ago I came back up to NY with wild hopes of staying and refinding my lost dreams of self-respect, redemption, and career. I guess persistence, fear, and shame paid off as I've landed adjunct lines, health insurance, and an apartment share. I emailed every call for adjuncts, and I hit up schools not advertising. I prayed under a star lit sky, along the shores of the island I once called home. In all reality, I never stopped calling NY home. Memories of spending nights in the city haunted and drove me on my quest to find my solace in the city of dirt, grime, dreams by the dozens. The classes kind of fell into place, and after a week of scouring Craigslist for housing I found something great. Of course, I had the handful of crazies and jerks, but persistence paid off as I didn't feel at home in College Point, Queens city, and Kew Gardens. I had secretly had my sights on the sometimes grimy but deeply...

Last week was a shitter. Here are the accounts . . . 1. A friend who had made plans with me months ago, and canceled them just days before I got to NY, sent a text message asking if I wanted to go camping last weekend. I was a little rebuffed, but I initially said okay. Then her boyfriend started with comments, and I got uncomfortable. Mostly, I was uncomfortable because I could already see that their weekend was based on two people, and I would only be a third wheel. Perhaps things wouldn't have gone so badly if he hadn't posted two messages on FB that I have "no sense of adventure" and "no sense of humor." Also, note that he misspelled my name. Anyone who knows me knows I hate that shit. I know better than to ask a friend to choose, I don't do that, and I no longer allow people to treat me like that. I have no beefs with her, and I'm a bit upset that I can't talk to her anymore. The problem is I never know if her boyfriend is reading ...

This morning I awoke to an email from an old friend asking me sewing advice. She plans on making Christmas stockings for her nieces and nephews from her father's old clothes. Very touching indeed. As I smiled that asked me for advice, I couldn't help but think about the time I spend at a sewing machine, the hours I spend sculpting projects, and the moments I have sitting with members of my Mother's quilting guild. My Mom has been part of a guild for about a decade now, and I've been going the past few months. In February she asked me to go to the Hampton Quilt Show (Mid-Atlantic), and since one of her friends was sick I took a Curve Master class. All that is a special foot for the sewing machine made to make sewing curves easier (see my entry with Mellie Bellie's baby quilt). I don't know if it really makes sewing the curves easier, as I just made a Vogue pattern with princess curves on a regular foot. I like my regular foot . . . None-the-less, my favor...

These days I've been thinking a lot about what has transpired in the past year. Last year this time I was fretting away the days until a defense, battling severe anemia, and then there was that pesky surgery on the horizon. Don't forget I was staring the prospect of unemployment in its ugly face. Funny how much things have changed, and it is also funny at how they haven't come that far from where they were. Last month I realized that I hadn't gone out much in almost two years. That was when things started, well I should reword that. That was when the health started to go sour. I didn't feel like explaining so I let that conversation make me sound like more of a loner and nerd than I really am. I defended just fine, had the bloody surgery four days later (yes, a bad pun I know), and things went awry. What I let people know is that there was an unplanned blood transfusion, which coincidentally gave me my bat wings. And seriously, for those of you that are ap...

Leaving Long Island was a lot of things. Though, being an upstanding citizen and all, I did flip it off as I crossed the Throgs Neck Bridge. Yes, I did. Mature, I know. For those of you who got my messages all day . . . laugh. I did. The point of this . . . I am now at my end point, for the time being. And no, I am not happy about the state of my life and career at this point in time. Rooting through things, unpacking, freaking out because I have no job, and becoming even more depressed to learn that adjunct jobs are slim to none has left me far far too uncomfortable. So . . . I rummaged through the vinyl in my parent's house to find my old Willie Nelson Stardust album. Humph. First, I opened the closet door and what did I find? No, not a literal skeleton. But, I did find a metal cane propped next to a .22 rifle. I was even a bit dismayed to learn that it was a "real" one and not an air. Now seriously, is this set-up meant to be easy access for the upwardly a...