Death Cannot Be Outstripped ... and Other Good News!

I. Death Cannot Be Outstripped ...

Yesterday marked the first First Day of Classes of which we haven't been a part. It's official: academia has moved on without us. Worse yet, the constituents of the incoming Class of 2012 were born in 1990. 1990! The biggest pop hit that year was Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U" -- a Prince cover, and it still sucks. (By contrast, the biggest hit of '86 was Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus." 'Nuff said...)

I think it's safe to say that we're about to miss our undergrad days that much more. It's one thing to have left college, but quite another to confront incontrovertible evidence that the university microcosm can and will continue turning without us. During graduation, I kept telling people that it was making me think of death. This is because I am, at heart, an astoundingly morbid person who thinks about death all the time and lives in abject fear of its finality. ("Death cannot be outstripped," sez Heidegger, among other things. Like, "No one can die your death for you," and, "The World worlds, and Beings are all thrown into dwelling in the worlding World.") Morbid or not, days like Wednesday confirm the validity of that death analogy. I wish I could say that today's W&M students are just trying to survive without our guiding lights, to fill the gaping chasm left by our absence. They might look content on the outside, but their insides are sweltering catacombs of grief and existential uncertainty.

But really, they're doing pretty alright without us, I guess, maybe.

***

II. ... And Other Good News!

I have a job, and it begins on 15 September. The job is at a place called the *I*n*s*t*i*t*u*t*e* *f*o*r* *t*h*e* *F*u*t*u*r*e* *o*f* *t*h*e* *B*o*o*k*. (Suck on that, Google.) It's a think tank, the mission of which involves rather nifty stuff like shifting modes of discourse, humanism, technology, post-Gutenberg life, Marshall McLuhan, interconnectivity, the work and the network, etc. Funded by boatloads of grant money. Led by a charismatic tech-guru. More details as they arrive.

I have a lease, and it begins on 1 September. The apartment is in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Now, before you get on your high horse and accuse me of really, really wanting to be black and all that, consider this: it's very inexpensive. And it has great subway access. And it's -- I jest not -- an up-and-coming gay neighborhood. My reasoning? If the GLBTQ community thinks it's a good place to live, it must be. (They're a finicky people. High standards, Double-Income-No-Kids lifestyles, etc. etc.)

Neither of these advances would have been possible without the hospitality of certain fellow Post-Williamsburg bloggers, on whose strikingly refined leather couch I spent many a pleasant night.

Wish I could give this whole thing a more cohesive structure, but that's all I've got at the moment.

***

III. The Last of the Summer Reading List

Paul Auster, Man in the Dark
Donald Barthelme, Forty Stories
Donald Barthelme, Sixty Stories
Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances
Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop
Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World

One Third

The main difference between undergrad and grad school is that on the last day of class, the faculty usually drinks with you and nobody really cares if you putter around the department booze in hand, which is cute.  I just finished summer class #3: Theatre and Performance in NYC, or, taking lots of disjointed field trips and not discussing screenings.  I'll spare you my crankiness and complaints; here are the highlights:

Berman

Simmel

Armitage Gone! Dance Company

Drag Queens

sharing eye-rolls with classmates.

My final paper is about dog piss, tentatively titled "Yuppies with Puppies."  Plus I get to summon Jane Jacobs into my tour de fire hydrants.

Everyone in my program is going home for the weeklong break between summer and fall classes.  I, however, will remain here for journal duties.  And my mom is visiting.  Like, visiting and staying with me.  Which is fine and all.  I have unisom and am forcing her into at least a loose schedule.  And I've given myself a two-night cushion of unwind time between her departure and the start of fall classes.

Fall classes.  We have some kind of orientation part deux, this time with the doctoral students who are still in coursework, which means us lowly MA students will have classes with them.  I am probably taking a class that's cross-listed with the Art & Public Policy/Arts Politics department, the exact ones are TBD.  I also get to meet/meet with my permanent advisor.  All of this means lots of fresh faces and oh, four day weekends.

Two of these weekends will be spent a) in East Lansing to visit my bestest bestest friend and b) at W&M for the 7g new kid show.  I think this makes up for not venturing home during this week's break.

OOH OOH and I found a ballet studio a couple blocks away from the Team Face Shoebox, and it's cheaper than BDC or Steps.  The stretching and releves have commenced in anticipation.  I can even take elementary pointe classes; it's been 4 years.  Whee.

Oh my good sweet lord, I have just stumbled upon an episode of How It's Made that features MOZZARELLA AND PANTY HOSE.

kthxbai.

The Toy R' Us Kid and the Year of Self-Improvement

So after weeks of searching for an apartment in Richmond only to have my roommates back out on me (it's not really their fault though), I've resigned myself to living in my parents' house for a year.

I'm working in my Dad's office for a year.

I'm teaching English to a Burmese Buddhist monk.

I'm teaching illiterate adults how to read.

I'm also taking classes at VCU which start tomorrow. Why? Four words: No Child Left Behind. In order to get into a teaching program for social studies I need more credits. Lots of work for a back-up plan.

I take the GRE on Saturday morning. Wish me luck. Wish me 700s.

I've decided to grow my hair really long. My sister thinks I'm going to look like a bum and maybe she's right. 23 seems like a good year to be a bum.

I've declared this year my year of self-improvement. I'm going to run. I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to get huge or at least be healthy. I just got back from the gym. I'm 1 for 1.

I've started my personal statement to grad schools. I'm applying to schools all over this fine nation - from the purple mountains to the majesty. I could end up in Austin, TX or Durham, NC or even at Columbia (keep your fingers crosses New Yorkers). I just want someone to let me into their school. I'll be a great sociologist. I promise.

I apologize for not updating people all summer. It's nice to know Lucia was concerned about my silence. I didn't have anything exciting or new to write about and I felt like this blog didn't need anymore of my post-grad complaints.

Living in my parents' house will have one plus: drinking on the golf course at night. Also, my friend just got a job at the new club in town called The National (not the band although I did see them there) so I'll have a steady supply of free tickets.

Even though I'm only an hour from Williamsburg I'm going to pretend I live much farther away. Anyone planning on coming to homecoming? I'll go if anyone is down here for it.

Absolutely Yumz

So things are going well (once again, I'm going to say this is lunar) at work and at home. I'm in the middle of a three-week slim down process that coincides with training for the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure (please sponsor me - email me I will send you my fundraising page). I've scheduled my wisdom teeth surgery for September 4th and I've finally wrapped my mind around the idea of having a part of me ripped out. I signed up with New York Cares and have a quick 1-hour orientation monday before I can start volunteering. Work is going well - my boss called me brilliant and I'm accepting new responsibilities left and right. I love my team and will be discussing benefits and a contract-position in the weeks to come.  Also, I work with a coder named Arthur so I find myself saying "thanks arthur..." all the time - matching cream-colored jackets to follow (along the same lines my outfits have been killer lately, I might start live-blogging my wardrobe). 

Cuddles with Alex are on the decline as my runs and blackberry-scheduled evenings don't leave much room for snuggles. This is the only bummer. 

What else? uh I don't know I feel really sunny and do-gooder-y but I think that's kind of a nice departure from the rest of the jaded 20-something meanderings that usually populate this thing. 

Gearing Up for Weeks of Job- and Home-Hunting, the Prizewinning Poet Conducts a Self-Conversation

"I will have a Big Day today."
"Plus-sized. Morning 'til midnight."
"By noon eighty new people will know my name, and fear it."
"Important people."
"Full-time philanthropists. Men about town."
"Women about town."
"People with 'emeritus' in their job titles."
"People with gold-foiled business cards and watermarked letterhead that reads, 'From the office of...'"
"People who custom-order the catalogs that allow you to custom-order things."
"I will bump, serendipitously, into a midtown bricklayer whose cousin works on Oprah."
"Luck is on your side."
"On an elevator in Bushwick, I will offer a throat lozenge to David Remnick's receptionist."
"Chewing gum, also."
"Noticing an errant pigeon hovering above her in Central Park, I will gently shove a famous female out of the way of its descending feces."
"Who?"
"Until it's done, I can't be sure."
"Bring an extra résumé for her."
"I will have taken up pilates by sundown."
"Wearing shorts of a breathable, poly-nylon mesh."
"As I will it to be so, my core muscles will reform themselves."
"The instructor will make positive remarks using the words 'star,' 'pupil,' and 'almost superhuman agility.'"
"Utilities will be included, or else I will negotiate the price of rent to offset their exclusion."
"Bulleted craigslist factoids will affirm the appropriateness of cats and dogs."
"Purrr. Wooof."
"On-site laundry. True bedrooms. Brokers' fees laughed out loud at."
"Then: Beer?"
"Beer."
"I will have a Big Day today."

<3

tale as old as time

Hey e’rybody,

Yeah so where the hell did Dave and Andy go? Hellooooo there don’t disappear on us

I have been wanting to write about this fantastic experience I had last week. Bear with me, it’s nerdy.

I have been working at the museum for a while now, and one would think that by now I would have an idea of my building’s layout, and that I would perhaps become friends with some of the staff members and learn about what they do.

Well that isn’t quite the case. My vague employment status here, coupled with the building’s central purpose of being a storage facility for the museum’s hundreds of thousands of objects and therefore having crazy security, has limited my knowledge of my workplace to an insane degree. However, by some stroke of luck, that all changed last week.

Last Tuesday, I was eating lunch alone on one of the patios outside when a lady came and sat next to me and started talking to me as she ate her lunch. Now I am no longer surprised when people stop to stare at me, as I am sure they don’t know what to make of me—this random girl who has taken up quarters in one of the curatorial offices (my boss is on a trip! For 2 months!) and reads/yells at people over the phone in Spanish (it’s for work, I swear) all day. But this lady actually wanted to know who the hell I was, so I told her. She ended up being very nice—she’s one of the conservators (i.e., object babysitter/restorer/handler) for the collection and has been with the objects since they were housed in New York. Her specialty is the Latin American collection. Just my luck. She offered to take me on a tour of the collection/conservation lab the following day.

Nice conservateur lady picked me up the next morning, took me to collections, and after punching in the secret code, I was in! We took a look at the conservation lab and the objects they were working on at the moment—beautiful pieces for the upcoming horse exhibit—and to the mountmaking studio (badass), and then, on to the 3-story Collections vault/warehouse located deep in the bowels of the building.

Do you guys remember that scene in the Disney classic “Beauty and the Beast”, when Belle goes to the castle library for the first time? Yeah, that’s how I felt when I walked into Collections.

There were 3 huge floors, connected by a central staircase, with endlessly high metal storage cabinets for the objects. They are catalogued by archaeology/ethnography, medium, and region, with random assortments of things like huge totem poles and statues resting in the corners of the bottom floor, from which we entered. She took me to the area where some of the Latin American objects are kept, and we started opening cabinets. Pure joy, man. The variety of objects in the collection was greater than anything I had ever seen. I didn't get a chance to see the gold and precious stone stuff as they have it locked away somewhere else, but I did, however, get a chance to see some incredible textiles and qhipu-the amazing knotted ropes that the Inka used in lieu of a writing system. Needless to say, it was ridiculous and I did not want the tour to end at all. I was so happy that someone finally took note of my lack of knowledge and involvement in other museum activities outside of my little Inka road bubble.

So despite my hazy state of employment, I will continue to work at the museum because I truly love it there, despite being well on my way to poverty. I am currently housesitting and spent most of my weekend walking around in my underwear and watching lifetime movies in the house’s master bedroom, because what else do you do when you have a house to yourself? Don't answer that.

Lastly, I would like to make a suggestion for this blog. There are loads of things I would like to do on the weekends in dc but often I don’t have any way of getting the word out so that interested partiescan join me and I can actually end up doing the things I want because I am in good company. Would it be crazy to list upcoming fun weekend plans and see if anyone in post-williamsburg wants in? example:

- the National Zoo will soon be getting rid of its only hippo, aptly named “Happy” (see; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/02/AR2008080201169.html). I thought it might be nice to go to the zoo and pay him a visit. I also want to see the pandas. Also the zoo is 2 blocks from my house so I don’t have to walk far.

- Thao is playing at the Black Cat next Thursday. I know you want to go.

So anyways, let me know what you think. Thanks for reading my rambles. Have a nice dayyyy