is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Feel the Noise.
Feel the Noise.
There are things you should know:
1) I am not insane. There is a machine noise.
2) That dead mouse was FUCKED UP.
3) Dirt is relentless.
4) Amherst is cute.
5) Bourbon is tasty.
Regarding the noise: Apparently I am living over the water heater for the whole building. And the building is old and steam-heated by a boiler. Hence the machine noise. It is like there is a railroad engine getting read for a long trip downstairs. This is also why I didn't notice the noise when I examined the apartment in May. No one was really around, and it was the middle of the day, so the water heater was not doing its thing. Sad Jill is going to have to learn to live somehow with the machine noises. Ear plugs. Sound machines. Philosophical or other explanations-to-self, like: "it's a reminder of just how much of the world is not of my design and is beyond my control�and that is part of the human condition." Or: "the paradox of technology: I want hot water, I don't want a hot water heater. Lame-ass NIMBY short-sightedness on my part!" Also: "they paved paradise, installed a boiler."
Regarding the mouse: This morning I used a dry mop to push the mouse into a bag. This took awhile, because the mouse kept sliding under the bag instead of into the bag, and every time I would touch the mouse with the mop and then miss getting it in the bag I'd have to shudder for a moment or two before making the next attempt. Somehow the mouse MOVING instead of laying still made it extra-creepy. I know, I know, it's just a field mouse. And I've lived in Greece, and Israel, where they have insects larger than that mouse. (The mouse was about 4 inches long, not counting the tail.) But still. It was FUCKED UP. Remember what I said yesterday about how maybe it was swallowed whole by a cat and then barfed back up, then flattened on one side after having its hair teased and greased? And there it was, all googly-eyed and rigor-mortis-y, on my KITCHEN FLOOR. Welcome to Western Mass, it said to me.
Regarding the dirt: This apartment is profoundly dirty. Mostly because no one has lived here for awhile. The woman I am subletting from left in May, and before then had been sleeping here just a few days a week. So the floors are dirty dusty, and all the surfaces are dirty dusty. I even have to re-wash all the dishes and pots and pans and silverware. The windows have all been open all summer, so outside dirt has blown in and accumulated. Every time I clean something I see 18 more things that I need to clean. I mean really clean, like get down on my knees and scrub the shit out of some floors, and climb on chairs and clean out kitchen cabinets before putting anything in them. But I also need to deal with Amherst forms and teaching things. This is a very boring paragraph, no?
So today I went to a faculty meeting. People are very nice. Meetings are very bureaucratic and formulaic and also political. Because I am only a visiting professor I don't have to get all that invested in what is going on with the politics. Plus there are many things going on that I simply don't understand because I've never had a job as faculty before. It all feels slightly anthropological, with me the observer of strange and new customs. As a lecturer at [huge public institution where I last worked] you just teach your classes and go home and if something changes about your job status, like they can't offer you teaching next year because there's no money, you're lucky if they even remember to tell you. But here at a small private institution they read off the names of all the new people and those people stand up individually to identify themselves, and then people come up later and talk to you and welcome you to this strange new world, where the town center is all cuted up and looks like it should be hosting constant historical reenactments of revolutionary battles.
Tonight I went to a convocation in the university chapel. A convocation is an event where all the faculty wear their academic regalia, and there is music, and a speech, and it's a lot like being in church, and some of the students are there, too. I thought I wasn't going to go to the convocation because I didn't have my regalia but then the chair of my department gave me his to wear. He said he'd rather sit with the students. But I suspect he was very happy to get out of wearing the regalia. It is made of polyester and makes you sweat much harder than any gay disco music could. Meanwhile, the student choir is good. It sang two songs about Amherst, including the one with these lyrics: "In the light of Amherst eyes/ Her beauty lives forever/ Still as shining as the ties/ That bind our lives together./ In the temple of these hills/ Beauty has her altar,/ Where the eye of mem'ry thrills/ To Amherst, ever fair." I am not aware of there being a song like that about Berkeley, but there probably is one. Meanwhile, the college's president is a good speaker. He talked about how much he doesn't agree with what Samuel Huntington has to say/write, and I am down with that. Then afterwards I went to get drinks with Nassar and a very smart and funny woman named Paola. Bourbon is tasty.
9:01 p.m. - September 06, 2004
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