So it’s kind of the last weekend of summer, at least for us academic types. At work today everyone looked totally stressed. Frantically working on syllabi and uploading stuff to course websites. Updating the School’s website in time for the new semester, new students, orientation.
To complement all of the above, I had a huge spate of questions, many of them the kind where the person has tried to figure things out themselves and it’s just more work to untangle …
Plus, “we’re havin’ a heat wave” and it’s kinda miserable outside.
As shown, still 90ยบ at 7:00 PM.
We went down to my office, with the German student, to get John’s new giant computer for starting his MFA. There must be an Apple white box under there someplace. It was all made a little more exciting because of the heat, and because they’ve changed the lot under my building into gated – I wasn’t sure how much it would cost to just pull in for a few minutes, and we couldn’t get the attention of the attendant who was sealed up in their air conditioned kiosk. I think it would only have been $1. But I left Mark with the car and headed up to my office, of course forgetting my keys the first time, and I had to come back down, and go up again. I wanted to get a cart or a hand truck, but then, as Mark said, I woulda had to take it back up. So I pushed the big box down the hall to the elevator, and then kind of brute strength-ed it across the parking lot to the car.
Then we had the great “do we stop at the Terrace for ice cream?” debate – and as the only drinker in or party of three, I really wanted a beer – after a stressful day at work, with the added stress of carrying $2000 worth of computer in a big box that was a little too heavy for me, wearing flip flops. So we stopped. Turned out to be bearable right by the lake, if you stayed still and let the breeze blow over you. And we did make sure we were behind the speakers, so we didn’t have to listen to open mic night. The girl who was on when we got there was pretty bad; the duo who came on next marginally better.
Now I am further self-medicating, listening to an iTunes playlist, titled Falling, that I initially had no memory of making, but now that I listen, it’s coming back to me.
My excuse is sleep. Sunday was a really bad night – no sleep stretches longer than 2 hours, and then awake at some hideous time between 4:00 & 5:00 Monday AM and no sleep after. Last night was a little better, went to bed at 10:30, and dozed/slept until Mark joined me at almost midnight. Slept until 2:00 and then 4:00 and then 5:23. Aiming for one of those blissful four-hour stretches tonight. Yup.
Beer on my desk
And Wednesday dawned hazy, and I didn’t get out of bed till 7:00. I woke every two hours all night on schedule, but at least I was pretty dozy from 5:00AM till getting up.
