is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Babygirl, I know you love your job, but sometimes you have got to let it go!
Babygirl, I know you love your job, but sometimes you have got to let it go!
My mover-guys were hilarious, and nice, and they proceeded to be cheerful all day, even though the job of moving my stuff in was as crappy as a job could get. The moving van wouldn�t fit in the driveway, so they had to carry the stuff from the street, down a cement walkway with three steps, then into the building, and up four steep and narrow flights of stairs, then down a very long hallway with two stairs in the middle of it. And it was of course hot and humid. I told my sister that the movers kept flirting with me and that it was making me laugh, and she said, �they must be hotter than most movers because I can�t think of any I would want flirting with me.� Ha. Good point. There were only two on the job (and I have A LOT OF STUFF, poor guys), and one was fairly hot in the LL Cool J way, and the other was older and funny. My favorite comment of the day was when LL came up the stairs carrying my tiny schooldesk with attached seat and said (because he knew by then that I am a college professor), �Babygirl, I know you love your job, but sometimes you have got to let it go!� I laughed about that for a long time. Apparently the two of them were fighting in the truck about who got to bring the desk up. Ha.
So now I have all my stuff. Man, do I have a lot of stuff. Today, fully into my third day of unpacking with, I kid you not, no discernible end in sight, I became sickened by the thought of having to move it all again in less than two years. OY. I found a box that I had not yet opened (most of them have been opened so I can decide whether they should be unpacked now or later) and I thought to myself, �please, PLEASE do not contain more books I forgot I owned.� It did not. It contained more CLOTHING I forgot I owned. These are my two problems when it comes to excess in consumption. (Another angle on this sad story is captured in the silly moment when I opened one of my boxes from Amherst containing clothes I hadn�t seen all summer, and I immediately saw a cute dress and skirt and actually said, out loud, �oh! Hello, my lovely clothes!�)
Also, having my stuff here makes things harder in a way. When I was subletting a furnished place in Amherst it was easier to lie to myself about where I lived. Now, it appears that I live in Haverford, PA. And that is weird on so many levels, from the way in which my heart really is in San Francisco and the Bay Area in general, and the fact that I�ve chosen a profession that doesn�t allow me always to choose where I�ll be living, to the way in which I am living, once again, in an enclave of affluence. I was given a stark reminder of this when I drove to Center City (downtown Philadelphia) this evening to meet Homay and James for drinks and Quizzo (a bar-bound trivia contest game), and in so doing drove through many very different neighborhoods. It depressed me a bit to have the difference appear along the same street� I basically live on Route 30, which you can take most of the way downtown. Out here it�s all greenery and majestic houses and deafening cicadas. Drive a few miles and all of that is gone. I was pondering this on the drive home, and feeling a bit demoralized, when all of a sudden the radio station I was listening to played a 33 rpm record of �Eye of the Tiger� at 45 rpm, for the whole song, and that interrupted my socio-economic musings. I�ll pick them up again later.
I also got lost on the way downtown. It wasn�t Mapquest�s fault this time. I didn�t pay enough attention to the road signs once the route joined up with an Interstate, and I almost ended up in Delaware or something. So I was late for Quizzo, which is fine, since I am ambivalent about games in general. Still, it was fun to see Homay and James, and meet a few of their friends, and have a beer and be out amongst the people. I�m going to have to figure out how to do that on public transit because I paid $13.50 to park for 75 minutes. And sometimes I like to have more than one beer, you know? You do know. Because I am Boozy McDrinker.
So, the reason why there were no keys waiting for me when I got here on Monday is that I am a dumbass. I thought that Monday was the 16th. Apparently it was the 15th. Oh well. The rest of the things that went wrong during my stay here at the Campus Center were not my fault, however, though none of them were major. The first night, as you read, I was in a room with a relentless whirring sound. The second night I was in a room with a very wet carpet on one half of the room and also the phone wasn�t working, and I really needed to make some phone calls (no cell phone coverage in the building). The third night I was in a room where the phone worked but there was no ethernet cable, and the main reason I am staying at the Campus Center is so I have phone and internet. None of these things could be changed until morning because there is no staff around after 5pm during the summer. Tonight all seems to be just right. Tomorrow morning I leave, and tomorrow night I spend the night at my new place for the first time. It has been nice, for the first few days, to have a place to come to so I can leave the unpacking behind for a few hours.
While unpacking today I listened to both volumes, all 32 songs, of Ella Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter. Man, I love those recordings. I also listened, twice, to the Loud Family album called Days for Days, because Scott Miller is a genius. He really is. In that specific way that a writer of great pop songs can be a genius. Then I listened to Lloyd Cole�s Mainstream. Oh, Lloyd. I also listened to the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282's Porcelain Entertainments. A very, very different form of genius is at work in TFUL 282, I tell you what. I think I've decided that I like Mother of All Saints best of their recordings. Then I collapsed into one of those naps that happens when you tell yourself you�re just going to sit down on the couch for a minute. Now I�m at the Campus Center, where there are no odd machine noises, the phone works (but won�t make long distance calls, so that is still bothersome), the Ethernet cord is in place, the TV has cable, and the bed is comfortable.
My phone starts working tomorrow. But I won�t have DSL or an answering service until I get back from San Francisco. But you can call me! I�ll be around all weekend! Feel very, very free to interrupt my unpacking. (You know, if you are one of those people who has my phone number.) (Also, thanks to all the new people, and also the regulars, who have written me diary-related notes recently. Thank you!)
12:32 a.m. - August 19, 2005
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
