Accidents vs. Sheer Stupidity
I’m back. I’ve been lusting for this moment for the past two months not knowing how hard it would be.
I slept for an hour last night. I laid down for an hour and a half, but my first bit of sleep, my mind worked feverishly and my eyes never closed.
I got up –restructured my paper, had a bowl of Special K, and went back to bed with one blanket and all the lights on.
I eat when I’m tired the way I turn down the air conditioner when the music is too loud.
I woke up an hour later wet with sweat and with sore eyes. But it was go time – the day I needed to present my half-baked paper to a room of smarty-pants from everywhere.
First, an explanation. The field of English Literature has not changed the number of Ph.D.s it
produces for the past thirty years. However, the number of English majors has dropped (people becoming more practical, perhaps?) and, thus, there are more qualified Ph.D.s than jobs available. This breeds clawing, kicking, slitting, biting, snarling, stealing…But the English programs I have known have all been so lovely and nurturing, I have seen nothing of this scary world. But I know it’s out there. I hear stories.
To survive and actually get a job in this market, I have to stand out. I must publish, present, charm, and network. That’s what this conference was – a suggestion by my major professor to aid in my professionalization. Two other friends also needed to lose their conference virginity. We signed up for a panel, and then forgot about it. February was far. We would each read a paper for twenty minutes, and then brilliant people would ask us questions or grill us mercilessly. It looks great on a c.v.
But…Hi, my name is Tara, and I think I have a writing problem. This paper was written (hastily and badly) in December. I had submitted it to a conference and knew it would need revision, but I didn’t know how much. My professor returned my paper, full of questions and suggestions and praise and constructive criticism (he’s too kind). I read small bits of theory, constantly reprinting drafts of this paper in different arrangements and color schemes. I thought I would try multi-colored post-its on a tri-fold board, but I made too many points and they all ran together like day-old confetti. I grouped them by category and started to develop small chunks of a paper that would come together later. Problem is, it never did. It was fifteen minutes before our panel was supposed to present and I just printed it out as is. Some parts, there were no transitions. I think I planned on them all being so deep into their grocery lists by that point they wouldn’t even notice – just surface long enough for a clever phrase and a nod. The other girl on my panel did very well. It was inspiring – she was so genuinely excited and aware of her topic, and everyone in the crowd ate it up.
(The above is the blog I started Friday night. Now it’s Sunday, and I have a more interesting story. Please pardon the interruption…)
First of all, I’ve had a request to not address my boyfriend by the name “the Boy.” We’ll make him “Mike”. Please make a note of this for all future exchanges.
Second of all, I’m an idiot. I can’t even hurt myself in a cool way – like “I got that scar from a wrestling match with a cheetah.” Or even “I was rock-climbing and I fell and broke my arm.” No. No major breaks - unless you count the time I broke my pinky in the gym when I dropped a weight on it. My bones are too thick from a lifetime of loving milk (and bad breath.)
No, I sew my finger. That’s my Darwin-nominated injury. I was making a blanket and looking around the machine to check the stitches, but I didn’t stop sewing until I felt the needle in my nailbed. I looked at it for a second, reversed the needle out of my finger, and called for my roommate. I just stared and thought, “Hm. That’s gonna hurt.” The roommate came to my rescue and helped me stop the bleeding. I laughed - which feels much better than crying.
It’s like the end of Field of Dreams, after the little girl falls off the bleachers, and her parents ask her how she’s feeling. “Stooopid.”
My roommate says that when she was younger and sewed all the time, she never sewed her own finger – but she was always afraid she would.
That’s my problem: I think it all happens to other people – never to me. I don’t think I’m invincible, I just think surely the odds won’t leave me as the 1 out of 20. I never even win a free Diet Coke on a twist-off bottle. “Please Try Again.”
It’s a slow and painful process, but I’m learning to be more careful and alert. It’s just hard to remember.
Bobbing for Apple Fritters
Earlier today, when the Boy was trying to compliment me on my looks, I informed him that there had been a tragic accident when I went bobbing for apple fritters earlier that day. I laughed alone at that little gem.
Good evening. I have news.
Well, news for nerds. DID YOU KNOW that you can scan microfilm into a .pdf document? FSU has just acquired this technology. I was giddy until I tried to actually use said technology. It resulted in a lot of whirring and clicking and and zooming and dirty looks from the girl who had just been nice enough to point out the “scan” button to me. And it was one of those awful situations where our workstations faced each other and I had to make a point of turning away when I spaced out so I wasn't giving her the stranger-stare. Very Seinfeld-ian. This was one friend I would not be making.
Hm, maybe I shouldn't have started out with that. But this is the current extent of my excitement. I’m telling everyone. One of my professors shared my excitement, and I felt a little better. Maybe she felt sorry for me. However, much more excitement is pending with trips to Memphis, spring training, Maryland, and many places in between over the next few months. And I get a head-flutter every time I turn the mailbox key. Any day now, the first of eleven letters will arrive. My situation could be helped considerably if our postal technician could be a little more consistent in his delivery times. It feels like a bad relationship, where I’m waiting nervously for him to come around and he is completely oblivious. Perhaps it is time for a little DTR to make sure we’re on the same page. I don’t ask much – just a little consistency on when he’s going to deliver my future. Is that too much to ask?? Perhaps he's just not that into me.
I think I’ve just been watching too much Larry David. One of my friends didn’t realize the potential danger in letting me borrow a season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I've begun to channel Larry David. I was in a store (that shall remain nameless) two days ago, and I almost donned my Larry David wig and went ape on the sales associate. Granted, the two of us have a bit of a history in that I used to go to NEW YORK & COMPANY (ha! I said it) often because they trick you with chain coupon-ing. You buy something to redeem a coupon, and they give you half off of your next purchase. I think I ticked off this particular ray of sunshine one day when, after over ten minutes of searching for a caring sales associate, I finally used the hook and body on one of the hanging quarter-body plastic mannequins to get another shirt down. She got all huffy, and told me that if I’d be patient, someone would help me. I wanted to inform her that no precedent had been set for me to be able to trust her. Instead, I apologized in a not nice way (one my mom would’ve made me re-do when I was 12).
For this encounter, I was actually at the cash register with Sunshine McGee. I needed to buy a pair of earrings, make a card payment, and go. I bought the earrings, but when I tried to pay the credit card (which takes 43 seconds total), Sunshine McGee told me that the other salesperson would ring me up for that. That’s fine - I waited for her to finish with her customers. Except 
New Girl was processing a return on a credit card with an etching of the original sales receipt, and needed to call the original store and speak to the original sales associate who was out on maternity leave, or something. It took a long time. And Sunshine McGee moseyed up to the front of the store, then back behind the counter, then she started rubbing clothes hangers together to build a fire…We had all of the elements – sales associate, cash register, and money – with no action. I barely restrained myself from using loud tones to give her an honest evaluation of her customer service skills. My roommate had my back in case things got ugly. You know those little pins they stick into the security tags? Yeah, McGee!
But this isn’t me. I don’t usually send food that tastes so-so back to the restaurant kitchen, or act rude to the salespeople or servers. I blame the media and too much enthusiasm curbing and I’m now trying to go back to my usual self. But that usual self might just involve fantasies about tackling a sales associate. (“I put my pants on one leg at a time. But once they’re on, I make solid gold records, baby!”)
Okay, confession: I’m so random because I’m desperately avoiding rewriting a paper that I have to give at a conference in 38 hours. (Now that I write that, I’m terrified.) I signed up because I thought it would be good for me. I’m going to stop doing that. So if any of you have an extra paper sitting around about The Killing Fields, and you’d care to share…otherwise, I must go back to work. Boo genocide.
produces for the past thirty years. However, the number of English majors has dropped (people becoming more practical, perhaps?) and, thus, there are more qualified Ph.D.s than jobs available. This breeds clawing, kicking, slitting, biting, snarling, stealing…But the English programs I have known have all been so lovely and nurturing, I have seen nothing of this scary world. But I know it’s out there. I hear stories. 
Second of all, I’m an idiot. I can’t even hurt myself in a cool way – like “I got that scar from a wrestling match with a cheetah.” Or even “I was rock-climbing and I fell and broke my arm.” No. No major breaks - unless you count the time I broke my pinky in the gym when I dropped a weight on it. My bones are too thick from a lifetime of loving milk (and bad breath.) 
