Sledgehammer to the Forehead

[Editor's note: this entire entry was written on Tuesday morning, but I didn't have access to the internet until just now. Realize that although you are just now seeing this, the sentiment and the poor writing comes from a few days ago.]

This journal entry is not going to be as entertaining as usual, and for that I apologize. I'll try to make up for it later. In fact, if I were you, I'd skip reading this entry all together; as Khirsah so aptly put it, "ANGstinG is f' *Losers*," and I would not have you view me as such.

I hate whiners. Unfortunately, I am not able to do much else at this juncture -- I'm under so much stress that I have developed an entirely psychosomatic cough and can't stop my limbs from shaking. Moreover, I've nearly cried three times today, which makes me angry. I'm just going to run a quick summary of the past 24 hours, starting with 11 AM Monday.

Val, Turtle, and I wake up on the floor with sweaters for pillows and coats for blankets. Valancy is incredibly hung over in the pounding headache, churning stomach sense. Being the helpful person I am, I suggest and then procure Eggs Benedict, the finest hangover cure known to man. (Except, Turtle counters, for fish and chips bought at a chip stand. We speculate that the entirety of British cuisine is specifically engineered for its relationship to beer and/or hot tea.)

After the worst Eggs Benedict I have ever had at an IHOP with horrible service (destroying my faith in the cultural icon), Turtle leaves for work and Val and I leave for Target.

I hate shopping. This has already been established in an earlier entry, but deserves reiteration: I hate shopping. I hate mass production. I hate suburbia. I manage to find an elegant handblown vase, which I resolve to use as a drinking glass and which I clutch to me like a lifeline. ("Oh Harry," says Val.) I win Val's undying graditude through the purchase of a blender and a food processor.

After returning home, I spend two hours trying to unpack a little, but am severely handicapped by having no dresser, no drawers, no hangers, and no bookshelves.

I leave for Kung Fu, but throughly overestimate rush hour and arrive a half hour early, so I read a book on trick photography. Once class actually begins, I am (unintentionally?) snubbed by Dr. Harkins, who puts me into a group of brand new students just starting to learn the basic kicks even though I am the second highest ranking white belt present (and am about to test for yellow). He apologizes by pinning me to the floor with a fairly painful wrist lock, and I feel somewhat better.

Back at Clinton House, I pack up my remaining odds and ends, some of which I really have to search for because Stretch has reorganized the cabinets. Rex and Stretch get home around eight o'clock, having spent the past six hours at a party. Stretch demands that I dust and vaccum; I ignore her completely.

I would like to note at this time that nobody has helped me move. Nobody. Nobody has placed even one book in one box; nobody has lended me a hand carrying things. For heavy boxes, I had to rig a dolly from a computer chair. [If we're getting technical, Val did help carry in a few things from my car, and anyway she has the excuse that she's moving too.] It has taken me three days to transfer all of my worldly posessions, and I still have to unpack.

Turtle is the only one who has even visited.

I finally get home at around ten o'clock. Valancy still feels ill, and has been bitten by a spider. Moreover, she informs me that the shower curtain does not work and the dishwasher has browned the new silverware, thus invalidating part of the dreadful Target trip.

Then, before I can unpack even one dress, she has an asthma attack. I am forced to abandon my posessions in order to give her a foot massage, make her a smoothie, and read to her while she sits in the Ugly Yellow Chair.

(The Ugly Yellow Chair is our only furniture at present, a truly hideous piece of molded plastic which I stole several years ago from the George Washington University. Val has tried to forbid it from our apartment, but I developed an affection for the monstrosity after I broke its legs off. I've promised Val that I'll keep it out on the porch. Sure I will.)

I experience very restless slumber since Val tosses and turns all night and I am an exceptionally light sleeper.

I'm going to switch tenses now. The following takes place on Tuesday:

I woke up at eight without the aid of an alarm clock, which is a damned impressive skill if you ask me. I then awoke Valancy and reminded her to turn in the rent check and get the electricity switched on. I have been trying to do this myself since Friday, but everone relevant has been gone for the long weekend. (This is also why I have no phone, which further hampers my ability to contact the electric company, or would if there were anybody there, which there isn't.) If they try to stick me with some kind of late fee, I may have to unpack my Ginsu knives.

Myself, I headed for school, or at least attempted to. This should take about fourty minutes. It took two hours, thanks to some exceptionally bad directions which led me to a horse pasture half an hour in the wrong direction.

Undeterred, I trashed the reprehensible parchment and followed my unerring internal compass, which should have worked pretty well except that a freak storm had knocked out all the traffic lights, leading to further accidents and delays.

When I finally managed to reach the university, there was no place to park, so I had to trudge half a mile through sluicing rain. (What is bothersome is that I have to walk back to my car this evening, after my last class ends at 9:30. On poorly lit streets without any accompaniment.)

I was fourty minutes late to a class I should have been half an hour early for. My professor elected to take me to task, snidely remarking that departing earlier every day and arriving later didn't sound like equilibrium to him. I questioned his Ceteris Paribus assumption since the number of buyers (ie drivers) varies with time as does the number of sellers (ie uncluttered roads and parking spaces). He rewarded me with $16 for playing the commodities market well.

It occurs to me to question the law of diminishing returns, but I'm not through writing my paper on stock as land instead of capital. It can wait.

I must add that there are both advantages and disadvantages to being regularly mistaken for a graduate student.

Also, I have noticed that this is a fairly upbeat "depressed" entry. Who would have guessed that I'm an optimist after all?

[It's still a crap entry. -Ed.]

Well, Fuck.

It looks as though I'm going to pursue a doctorate.

My father is going to kill me.

He's already upset that I'm an Economist. He considers this profession slightly less useful than a major in astrology. My father, you see, is an auditor. He spends his days correcting the mistakes of bad economists and accountants. (Not that he'd acknowlege the existance of a "good" economist as anything other than a crafty gambler.)

When outsiders remark, as they invariably do, how sweet it is that I'm following my father's footsteps into finance, we look at them with rancor. I try to explain that it's like the only son of a renouned classical pianist abandoning the conservatory to play New Orleans jazz; my father compares it to a respected paleontologist's child becoming a die-hard creationist preacher.

We don't even talk about the stock market.

This doctorate thing is his worst nightmare. It marks me as An Academic, possibly destined for professorship or public policy analysis -- two areas known in my family as "Cloud Cuckoo Land." That he wholeheartedly supports my sister's decision to become a beautician cum tattoo artist is irrelevant; I was supposed to go into business, or arts and entertainment -- not this fantasy of socratic philosophy.

It's a good thing that we really like each other, or I doubt I'd live through tomorrow.