The Parents and The Dude

No time to write because my weekend was taken up with the parental visit, during which The Dude was introduced to the parents for the first time.  The short version is this: The Dude loved my parents, my parents loved The Dude, and the whole thing was comfortable and relaxed and great.  Oh, and I made this as the main dish, and it was phenomenal. 

All in all, I couldn’t have hoped for it to go better.  The Dude said afterwards, “I didn’t think it would be so fun!  It was one of the most fun nights I’ve had in a long time!”  My mom said afterwards, “He’s so funny!  And cute!”  G. said, “He’s good.  He’s a good guy. Open.”  (G. also gave my mom the thumbs up after only about 10 minutes, according to my mom’s report.  My mom also reported last night, “G. hasn’t said a single negative thing about him,” which, frankly, is a big deal, because usually G. likes to say the negative things to my mom, if there are negative things to say.)

And me?  What were my opinions about everything and everybody?  On the one hand, I knew that it would be fine.  What nerves I had were really less about how it would go than about what it all “meant.”  Because I don’t just let dudes meet my family.  And The Dude doesn’t just meet parents unless it “means” something.  So.  On the other hand, I didn’t really think I cared as much as I did about it going well, and after it went so exceptionally well I was surprised at how important that was.

So after all was said and done, The Dude and I had a big phone conversation about us and the future and how happy we are together and lots of mushy things.  We’re not rushing into anything, and I’ve still got to meet his parents in the next week or two, but at least at the present moment, it seems like we are on a path to something quite… permanent-ish.  Which is quite a shock for both of us, and an idea that’s going to take some getting used to

 

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Boeuf Bourguignon

Turns out I probably didn’t need to go above and beyond on the food for tonight’s dinner, as CC’s man and The Dude took to each other like fish to water.  Indeed, it appears to be a bromance on both sides.  (Both from observation and from reports after the fact from both bro corners.) But whatever: the food was so good that none of us had room for dessert.  (Note: this is why I am so lazy about making dessert! and why I make my guests bring that as opposed to some other item!  My food is so good nobody has room for dessert! )

So two weeks from today, it looks like The Dude will be meeting my mom and G.  He will be doing so at a dinner I cook, mainly because I know that there is no way for him to win at a dinner out with G.  (G. will offer to pay, and he will expect for The Dude to offer to pay, and then if The Dude does G. will fight with him, and if The Dude won the fight G. would be pissed, but if The Dude didn’t win he also would be pissed, so yes, I want to avoid all of that, so I will cook.)  It’s worth noting that my mother has questioned the way that we are “calculating” the meeting of people.  I then reminded her that she’s only ever met two people I’ve dated, with a ten year spread between them.  It’s worth noting that The Dude will be a decade after the last one.  As I said to her: “don’t act like an asshole because you can’t expect another one until I’m nearly 50 if you do.”

But so, The Dude, and The Relationship.  The Dude is grand, and The Relationship with him is really, in spite of myself, exactly what I need and want.  Will it last?  We shall see.  But so far so good.

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Check? Check? Is This Thing On?

I know, I know.  I said you could expect a real post last week, but then Life Got in the Way.

 

First, The Dude and I had to have our first actual both-of-us-were-totally-pissed-off-at-each-other fight on Valentine’s eve, which also happened to be like two days before the three month mark of us being together.  Those two things combined might send any pair into a tailspin, I’d say.  Very high pressure.  The specifics aren’t really important – other than that the conflict did reveal some important things (about him to me: when in doubt, The Dude will try to minimize something that he knows is going to upset me, and his first impulse is to “keep me happy” as opposed to dealing with an issue head on, which I suppose some people might enjoy, but I find it very hard to take; about me to him: if you try to minimize something that is going to upset me, and, indeed, if you reveal that you’re just trying to “keep me happy” like I need to be placated and “handled,” I turn into a fucking lunatic) and it all resulted in a very positive conversation about How We Deal with Things Individually and How That Will Work for Us Together, Feelings, and Things Going Forward, and ultimately we had a lovely Valentine’s date (on Friday, as planned) and it was fun and cool and we saw each other Sunday, too, which was also delightful.  Long story short: all’s well that ends well, and probably we were due for a fight, and this wasn’t so bad, as such things go.  Indeed, I think it’s a good sign that we didn’t break up!  (We both totally thought about it, which is oddly comforting, that we both thought about it but we both didn’t pull the trigger, which might not seem comforting to many of you out there, but he and I both have histories of cutting our losses quickly if things seem to be going south, so the fact that we didn’t in this instance is a Good Thing.)

Second, last week I got a test in one class and papers in three others, plus I’m dying under my reading load this semester, and then between meetings and students (I had 14 individual conferences with students on Thursday alone) and things related to a search in the department and curriculum proposals (for it turns out that now that I’m not responsible for serving on any curriculum committees I have time to initiate changes, since nobody else seems to have the will to do such things) and all other manner of mid-semester business, I barely have a minute to breathe.  To give you a sense of how things are, I woke up this morning with a terrible headache, called in sick, took medicine to make the headache go away, and once it did, I proceeded to use the day to grade, to read (all major reading done for the next two and a half weeks!), and to write assignments, as well as to think about some abstracts I need to write and submit.  Yes, I took a sick day less because I was sick than because I really needed to catch up on work. I don’t think I’ve had to do that since maybe my second or third year on the tenure track.  Would I have done that if I didn’t wake up with the headache?  No.  But today was a day I could afford to miss (none of my classes will be behind because of it), and so I took my chance.  And I’m actually feeling a lot better about everything (and my headache is gone!) for having done so. *

So that’s all the news on this end.  I know, boring.  And I know that this doesn’t actually count as a “real” post, in the sense of writing a post with a “topic” that has like a “thesis statement” and actually addresses some “issue,” but I promise that one of those will come along sometime soon.  It’s just hard to manage posts like that when I’m so overwhelmed with various discrete tasks on my to do list plus the whole trying to have a life thing (not just The Dude – trying to keep up with friends and stuff as well).  Don’t even ask me how actual writing is going.  (It isn’t.)

*I should probably admit that my craziness with work might have contributed to my lunacy last week with The Dude.  But that does not mean that I wasn’t actually pissed off at him for very real things: just that I might have gone a little more crazy than I would have done if I didn’t feel like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders work-wise.  We did talk about that as well, and about what he can do to make such freak-outs in his direction when I’m under a lot of pressure at work less likely in the future.  It’s worth noting that when I told my mom about the argument this weekend, and when I explained what’s going on with me at work, she laughed and expressed how happy she was that he bore the brunt of my stress-induced craziness, since usually she’s the one who sets me off.  She also seems to think that he’s pretty great if he’s able to withstand stressed-out me.

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One Hell of a Week

It occurs to me that when I planned my courses for this semester I wasn’t entirely in my right mind.  I would like to blame The Dude for this, but, really, it’s not (entirely) his fault.  If anything, part of my problems right now are that I had decided that I was going to check out of the dating scene until summer, and that was when I decided what books I would make my students buy for the four separate preps that I teach.  Frankly, if I were not dating, I would have a lot more time for reading.  As it is, I am under a lot of Reading Pressure.  Like, imagine reading for comps while also doing all the duties of a tenured professor.  This is my situation.  I do at least partially blame that Phil Collins guy I went out with before I went out with The Dude, because if that date weren’t so horrible, I might not have made these silly choices.  But who am I kidding?  The Blame rests with Me.  Sigh.

That said, part of how I designed my courses does have to do with the fact that I constructed them during the initial Lovesick Phase with The Dude, where I felt like Anything Was Possible.  Now that we have settled into this Thing of ours, it occurs to me that Anything is not, in fact, possible, and reading takes a fuck of a lot of time and energy.  Ah well.  I shall soldier on.  Only 10 more weeks of the regular semester to go.

But this week is especially rough.  I gave a test today (although, huzzah, those tests are already graded because of the stroke of genius I had (in spite of my Lovesickness) that I should design a 1-hour test and screen a movie afterwards), three batches of papers to arrive tomorrow.  One of those batches of papers I need to do some assessment-related stuff with, too, which reminds me that I need to design a release-form for students before I collect them (the next time I teach the course there will be IRB approval, but for now, I just need to make sure they are ok with me collecting the assignments with names taken off for a thing related to a grant; also, I need to design an assessment rubric for how some other non-important assignments relate to this assignment; active learning turns out to be a pain in my ass, at least for the purposes of fulfilling the terms of the grant). Plus we’ve got a not-pre-scheduled department meeting tomorrow (related to a Very Important Topic, so I’m not comfortable missing it, even though I don’t plan on saying a word), plus I’m giving a talk tomorrow evening.  Plus I’ve got 14 individual student conferences scheduled for Thursday (though to be fair, they are only 10 minutes a piece), plus I’m finishing up a novel in one class and starting a new novel in another.  And I’ve got two other appointments scheduled for Thursday, too, plus I’ve got an MA thesis to read and respond to.  Plus it’s motherfucking Valentine’s Day this week (though, thank goodness, The Dude was totally amenable to making Valentine’s Day for us happen on Friday, though it’s also the case that I’m cooking, which means the need to go grocery shopping and to chef up a delicious meal (though, to be fair, the level of difficulty of that meal is totally my decision, for he would be happy with something much easier than what I have planned). That said, though, by the time that Friday arrives, I might be a zombie.

I don’t know why I do this to myself.  There is no reason why I should think that I can do All The Things at the same time, or that I should do All The Things at the same time.  But I think that maybe this is just who I am.  S0.

Ok, enough complaining and whining, though.

You know what’s great about The Dude?

1. He has been totally cool about the fact that I’m busy and overwhelmed and, following that, blowing him off a little (although, of course, that initially made me freak out on him, though it turns out that his coolness does not mean that he’s a jerk but rather that he is supportive and I am ungenerously suspicious).
2. He is not a guy who thinks flowers are an appropriate present for a holiday (for, as he and I both agree, they DIE, but I also don’t love flowers because of a whole sordid story from my parents’ divorce in which my mother, after she’d kicked my dad out, received the bill for the flowers that my father purchased for her, AS WELL AS THE ONES THAT HE PURCHASED FOR THE HOME-WRECKER WHO WOULD BECOME MY STEPMOTHER, for their closely spaced birthdays, so I tend to see flowers as insincere and fucked up, as such things go, though I didn’t get into all of that with The Dude when he announced I would be getting two fun presents, as opposed to flowers, but rather I just enthusiastically agreed that he was entirely right in his antipathy to flowers as anything but a spontaneous occasional offering for a non-gift-giving time).
3. EVEN The Man-Kitty has accepted him.  For true.  It all started when The Dude somehow convinced The Man-Kitty to PLAY like 3 weeks ago (which The Man-Kitty does with no one, not even with me most of the time), and this weekend The Man-Kitty ran up to him for petting when he arrived PLUS when we were hanging out The Man-Kitty totally rolled onto his back, baring his furry, furry belly,  in a snoring sleep In The Same Room with The Dude.  This is UNPRECEDENTED.  The Man-Kitty does not make himself vulnerable in this way when Visitors are in the vicinity.  EVER.  (The Man-Kitty’s usual M.O. is to entice people with his fluffy self, while glaring at them and planning their deaths, and then when they try to pet him, he bops them on the hand, which, let’s note, he did with The Dude for a good couple of months.  But now, apparently, he has decided that The Dude is One of His People.  Also, let’s note that he only has three people: me, G. my stepdad, and FL.  And there’s no rhyme or reason to his appreciation of G and FL, given the fact that he only sees them on random visits and he apparently took to them on sight.)

So, sure, there is still the Problem of The Dude’s Old Dog, Little Mama (I love her, and she loves me, but he is entirely unreasonable about her, I think even more so now that it is clear that she loves me), and sure, there is still the Problem of My Relationship-Phobia, but all is well with The Dude, in spite of the fact that it is really interfering with the many hours that I appear to need this semester for reading.

On that note, I need to sleep, because dude, I’ve got a motherfucker of a week ahead of me.  (And let’s not even talk about the writing I should be doing but have no time or energy to do, because if we talk about that, I might cry.)

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The Ticking Clock

Blah blah blah, things with The Dude are actually fine, for now, I think, blah blah blah.

But as we edge closer to the three month mark (which we all know is a point of stress), which just so happens to coincide with freaking Valentine’s Day (which we all know is a point of stress), and it’s freaking winter with inclement weather (stressful when neither of us typically ventures out of our small-range Zone of Commuting), plus it’s the start of my spring semester (dammit), this is not an ideal time in our budding romance.  Plus he has a fucking old dog.  (An old dog who loves me, and I love her, for what it’s worth, but really, he is ridiculous about her.)  Plus I have the boy-kittehs (about whom I’m less ridiculous, but not in the way that he is about Little Mama).  All of this makes for complications in Emotions, Commuting, and Obligations.

Oh, and The Dude, personality-wise, is really inhospitable to Change.  (Yes, I know we all are.  I am.  But I’m a person who moved to a place where I didn’t know anybody, three times.  I’m a person who has traveled widely on my own – even if there was a conference at the end of it where I’d know some folks.  My “not good with change” is not the same as a guy’s “not good with change” who lives in the shitty town where he grew up and who primarily is still friends with the D00ds he grew up with and who hasn’t gone anywhere other than to visit friends – who he grew up with – in places like Florida.)  This is one issue.

But the bigger issue is the fact that The Dude doesn’t do well with pressure from outside forces.  That sort of pressure, plus the promise of Change, really does a number on him.  So.

All of his people (friends, family) appear to know I exist.  This is good, really, as I’ve gone out with the guys who keep me a secret, and that is bogus.  So yay, the people know of me.  Whatever.  But apparently, his people are Very Interested in the fact that I have remained around for this length of time.  And they are expressing that to him.  Which, I do believe, is making him a bit… skittish.  Ok, whatever, not a big deal really.  Nobody can believe he’s still around with me either.  Except.

This weekend his freaking sister-in-law was interrogating him about me, and apparently learned my age, and was all, “Well, what’s happening?  Her clock must be ticking !

First, DUDE!  Give an old sister a break, sister-in-law who has yet to meet me!  Second, as I said to The Dude when he told me this, “People need to keep their noses out of my vagina.”  (This made him a little uncomfortable, the idea of his sister-in-law’s nose in my vagina.) Third, as I followed up to The Dude, “that’s a conversation I would have with YOU before I’d have it with some random person I’ve never met!  This is not a Topic at the present time!”

Look, I get the pressure he’s feeling, and I get why it is making him feel the need to Slow Things Down, but if what they want is to get him settled, this is not the way to make that happen, at least if I’m in the mix, because, frankly, he feels pressure and he runs for the hills, and while I get his running for the hills when he feels pressure, his running for the hills pisses me off, and it makes me run for the hills, because fuck this bullshit that has nothing really to do with me.  Basically, leave it alone, well-meaning The Dude people!  If you scare him off, I’m going to be scared off, and then once I’m scared off, it’s OVER!  I’m 38 and childless and never been married for a reason!  Don’t scare me off!  I will not stick around for this rigamarole!

Shit, I just want him to get over the fear of change and bring Little Mama over to my house so that sleep-overs can happen at my house.  I love that he takes good care of his dog, but I hate his place, and the whole “dog trumps cats” business is my biggest problem right now, not whether or not we’re going to be together forever or have a fucking baby.

Dammit, his sister-in-law doesn’t understand my priorities at all.  Nor, because of her, does he.  In spite of the fact that I have articulated them very clearly.

 

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Like a Discopone

So, back in olden times, lo, what now seems to be just about 15 years ago, my grad school friends and I took this song as our anthem:

Medusa (longtime readers will remember her now defunct blog) misheard the lyric “I feel like I just got home” as “I feel like a discopone”, and “the discopone” was born.

So my life now is very different than my life was then, as are all of the lives of those women friends of mine who were in that circle at the time.  Except for Medusa, we’ve all left Grad School City, Medusa and I have tenure, two of the others are married with kids, and the remaining lady is now living in the upper midwest with a partner and owns a business.  I have been a  college professor for nearly 10 years, I own a home, I typically socialize by drinking some wine with friends over dinner as opposed to going out five nights a week to listen to live music (though it occurs to me that if I did that, rather than staying home to write and to read, or socializing by eating great food and drinking alcohol, I’d weigh a lot less because of the endless dancing involved in that former live music schedule), and, indeed, last night I was so wiped out by the week that I came home, had some dinner, did some knitting, took a hot bath, and fell asleep on the couch around 8:30.  I then woke up just before 10, and thought, wow, I’m exhausted: time for bed!

But tonight!  Tonight I went out with The Dude (who early in the evening made it his job to annoy the fuck out of me, to which I responded not entirely positively, but it all worked out in the end), and I saw a band I love and I danced my ass off, and honestly, I’ve not had so much fun in years.  Now, it’s true that I was ready to leave long before last call, even before the encore was complete.  I’m no spring chicken.  But, nevertheless, while I might not be a spring chicken, I am, indeed, a discopone.  Maybe not regularly, but that part of me still exists.  Seriously: tonight was fucking boss.

And, on that note, I shall now retire to bed.  And the bars aren’t even closed yet.  Because while I may still be a discopone at heart, I’m also a lady in her late 30s who needs her beauty sleep

 

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On Love

 

So it’s been a couple of months with The Dude and me, and it’s worth noting that typically I don’t last that long in something real.  Today was a big milestone in that it was the first introduction of an outside person into our budding romance: we watched football with CC, my dear friend, who loves the football and whose boyfriend/fiance isn’t interested in it.  I still haven’t consulted with her about her thoughts about him, though I will do so tomorrow.

All in all, I think that this first friend introduction was successful.  I will say, I do think that The Dude and I perform for others.  I notice this when we go out to restaurants or do anything, even when it’s with strangers, but I noticed it in the context of my house with my friend more.  It’s not bad… it’s just… clearly we perform.  And we perform a particular version of our relationship, which is a little… I dunno… combative.  Funny, but combative.  Like we think we’re actors in some kind of a screwball comedy or something.  It’s not inauthentic, but it is “us” on a stage.  And we never decided on that or something, but clearly it’s what we do.

I will say that I was a little surprised by some of the screwball-comedy-style moves that The Dude made in front of/to my friend, in that they were a lot more “serious” in terms of our relationship than I’d have expected him to make in front of anybody but me.  That said, I do love that he made those comments without being self-conscious, and that he made them in the service of a laugh.  But DUDE.  It’s been only a couple of months.  And I know that we ourselves are on an accelerated schedule, but most (all) guys I’ve dated NEVER would have said those things to a friend of mine.  EVER.  (Nothing untoward: just commitment-style things.)

All that said?  The weirdest thing about the whole thing is that I realized I didn’t give a shit about what CC thinks about him.  Which is kind of a big deal, in that I’ve always worried about how people would perceive those I choose to date.  But with The Dude?  Honestly, I’m madly in love, and I don’t give a shit about what other people think.  I never imagined that I could feel this way about another person.  He is my favorite person.  Like, EVER.  Not that he’s perfect – he’s not.  But all the things about him?  They are good for me.  And I trust him.  And I never trust anybody.  So.

Let’s just hope that neither one of us fucks it up, because, probably, this is the best either of us can probably hope for

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RBOC: First Day of a New Semester Edition

• I hate teaching a Monday night class.  There.  I said it.  No, my Mondays are not my Motherfucking Tuesdays of last spring.  But Monday night is garbage.  I won’t see them again for two weeks because of MLK day.  Did they learn anything today?  Who the fuck knows.  But even if they did, with two weeks before I see them again?  What will they retain between now and then?  And the turn-around from Monday to Tuesday totally sucks (9 pm to 9 am is not ideal). Sigh.
• In other news, I’m sort of pleased with the Monday night class, in that I really do think that I can get them on board and that they will do well.  I’ve got one former student who is an active participator, and tonight I had them do some group work stuff and there seemed to be buy-in overall.  This is a dramatic improvement over what happened with my Monday night class last semester, in which so few of them had any buy-in.  So I’m hopeful.
• I had an epiphany today, in thinking about my bullshit evaluations from last semester, that I need to remind my students of how much work they are supposed to be doing and how much time they are supposed to be spending outside of class for a college course.  A consistent comment that I get from students is that I expect them to read too much.  This is annoying, as I think I’m actually really reasonable about the amount of reading I expect of my students.  Let’s say you read 30 pages an hour.  If you spend only 6 hours of time in preparing for a class, that means you can read 180 fucking pages a week.  That is not a crazy amount to expect in a fucking ENGLISH class.  And typically I only assign around 150 pages a week, unless it’s a terribly hard text, in which it’s more like 75 pages, or unless it’s an “easy read” in which case it might be more (250 pgs or so, which let’s note is still less than spending three hours per credit hour of the course).
• As much as the turn-around time between Monday and Tuesday is crap, I really love all of my Tuesday/Thursday classes, and I am excited to teach everything on the syllabus for these courses to my students.  I love what I’m teaching, and that makes such a HUGE difference.
• You know what else is exciting?  That The Dude digs this band (at my introduction) and that we will be going to see them play live!!!!!  I am super stoked!!!!
• Also exciting, really, is that The Dude has not dumped me, and that I have not dumped The Dude.  Seriously, I think this is a record for the both of us.  We are both filled with love, and we both think that this is disgusting.  But WOW does he make me happy
• The writing I’d planned for the break didn’t quite happen, but a lot of thinking did.  I have high hopes for this month (and a lot of plans).
• Now it’s time for bed.  A long day tomorrow awaits me.  A day of Food (as a theme), Love (another theme), and a course that begins with the first tampon in British literature and the most recent tampon in British literature.  I can’t wait!

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Cooking, Wine, Cooking, Proctoring, and a Dash of Mortification

It’s been a busy couple of days.  Last night I had the ladies over for a delicious end-of-semester meal and (gallons) of wine.  More on the gallons of wine later.  For now, here is what I made for dinner last night.  You all should make it immediately.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Double-Dutch-Mac-and-Cheese-with-Chard-352670

I did adapt the recipe slightly, and I will make one other adjustment the next time(s) I make it, but seriously?  This was the best Mac and Cheese recipe I’ve ever tasted.

Adaptations: While I used Gouda and Edam, I also added about a cup of Butterkase cheese (following recommendations to use more cheese in the comments); I didn’t reserve any of the Edam, but rather mixed all the cheeses together and had the layer in the middle all three cheeses; I didn’t really measure the nutmeg and the cayenne but rather just went with what tasted right; I also layered crispy bacon crumbles when I layered the cheese and swiss chard in the middle.  When I make the recipe again, I will definitely double the amount of swiss chard.  I didn’t bother with the bread crumbs; if I make it again I may try them, or I might just put bacon on top as well as in the middle.

Seriously, this is one delicious Mac and Cheese recipe.

So the ladies and I scarfed it down, in addition to eating a delicious salad with persimmons provided by CC and to yummy dessert provided by CF, while consuming the gallons of wine (again, which will come into play as the grand finale of this post), and we talked about lots of things and basically celebrated the end of the semester.  It was delightful. And then the ladies went home.

[Time passes while I make poor choices, go to sleep, and wake up with a hang-over]

7 AM – Time to make quiche!  For my Joyce and Woolf students!  Does this recipe require some effort?  Yes.  Is it ENTIRELY WORTH IT?  Yes!!!!!  I mean, I can’t even talk about how good it was.  And it’s no mistake that the recipe comes from a restaurant where I’ve had one of the best meals in my entire life.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Ham-Leek-and-Three-Cheese-Quiche-234261

I did the recipe as written, except I used butterkase instead of the fontina, just because I couldn’t strap on another block of cheese when I was shopping. OMFG.  This was DIVINE.  And yes, I will not be eating “food” as such for the next few days, because frankly, after last night’s dinner and this morning’s breakfast, I probably have consumed the daily calories needed for a small village.

So, when the quiche was in the oven, I went over to the computer, and I discovered that beside it my copy of Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse was sitting open, turned to the entry for j’taime.  Huh, I thought.  I don’t recall consulting with Barthes last night.  I wonder what that means?  Ah well, I am sure it’s nothing.

And then I proctored two exams, and really had delightful conversations with students, and it was all in all an ok day.  I’m done with grades for two courses, and I’ll have the other two done tomorrow.  Huzzah!

Oh, except.  You know those gallons of wine that were consumed?  They might have led me, once my ladies left for the night, to do some serious thinking.  And that serious thinking might have led me to believe that I needed to consult with Roland Barthes.  And then Barthes might have led me to decide that The Dude does not love me, and that perhaps he should just go away now, since he does not love me with a love that’s pure and true.  And then I might have thought it would be a good idea to get all of this down in writing, in the form of an email.  And then I apparently believed that hitting send was the only way to conclude my reverie. Tra la!  Time for bed!

And then I forgot all about it.

Until of course I was reminded of last night’s psychotic break this afternoon, when The Dude alerted me to the email that I had sent.  Woops.  And then I read over the email and the events of the night before came rushing back, and I was mortified, except for the fact that The Dude responded in a way that was entirely perfect and we seem to have gotten through the freak-out as a result!  Indeed, all that I needed to do was to express my actual (drunken, maudlin) feelings and he appears no longer to be freaked out!  When you’d think that he would be more freaked out because I’m fucking nuts! So let this be a lesson to you: 1) don’t email people when you are drunk and 2) if you do email people when you are drunk, make sure they are the sort of people who don’t frown on lunatic pronouncements and who will only find you more adorable for having made such a blunder.

And also: although I am still mortified, it turns out I’m a pretty coherent and direct writer when under the influence. Good to know.

 

 

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Post-Semester Angst

Luckily, I’ve been through this enough times that I can diagnose it for what it is, but it doesn’t make it suck less.  I suppose, looking on the bright side, at least I’m not sick, which oftentimes is one of the symptoms.  Nah, I feel fine, except for I’m… ugh.

Part of my problem is that I’m rereading – like, really reading again and reseeing – a book that really fucks with my head.  You know, it’s funny.  People always want to know what my “favorite” book is.  I never know how to answer, because I think people want me to name a book that I “enjoy” the most or something, but the books that are most important to me don’t tend to be books that I enjoy.  The books that are most important to me tend to fuck me up.  They are books that don’t allow me to enjoy them, but also that don’t allow me to maintain any intellectual distance.  Instead, well, it’s like they make my insides hurt.  And they make me…. I don’t know… they do something to me that I then vomit out in my actual life, in ways that aren’t terribly productive.

And I also need to make my to-do list for the summer, and while I know basically what’s on it, I’m procrastinating about mapping it all out because I feel like my summer is all full already before I’ve even begun, and I feel like I have no time, and I feel all angsty about that.

And I need to write a conference paper that I’m giving at month’s end, and while I feel like the whole thing is there in my head, I don’t want to write it.

And I had a conversation with FB, who apparently is trying to be a Real Boyfriend to a Real Person rather than a Fake Boyfriend to me, which is all for the best,and actually I think it’s the best possible thing he could do, but it still leaves me feeling a little… wistful.  Yes, wistful is the right word.  Not so much about our fake relationship or anything…. I don’t know.  I’m actually really happy that this is the way that things are going because it will take us out of this loop we’ve been in for years.  Maybe we can finally actually be real friends?  But I feel happy about it at the exact same time that I feel, well, wistful.  It feels like a window of opportunity, that only was ever open the tiniest crack anyway, is now closed.  Which is, again, probably for the best, for the both of us, and I’m not upset in the sense of feeling betrayed or hurt by it or something – remember, I’ve embarked on the dating thing this year, too.  I suppose it’s just that as much as you are happy about something and know it’s a good thing, you can still feel sad at the same time for the parallel path that won’t happen because of the good thing.  (Not that the parallel path was ever going to happen, but the idea of it wasn’t closed off before, if that makes sense.)

But so my transition into the summer is kind of an angsty one this year.  Whereas last year I had all of the stress of the house and moving and everything, I also had the excitement of those things.  This year, well, this is my life.  And it rains every freaking day.  And I’m gloomy and morose.

I suppose I’ll go read the book that’s fucking me up some more.

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