4:39 p.m. - August 02, 2003
How's the song go, \"I'm sitting on a dock in the bay\" or something like that?
Fled to the office earlier today a few hours after the air conditioning unit was pronounced dead for sure by the handyman, with no chance for repair until Monday. The unit failed yesterday and in an unfortunate confluence of events, a 100% humidity front has settled in for the weekend; in a word, last night was awful and how thankful I am that my room has an overhead fan and even more grateful that my door has a lock preventing the insipid housemate from crashing on my floor. In the morning the townhouse's carpets were damp and there's a particular aroma I now associate with humidity: Socks.
So I'm in the office, putting together materials for the new (finally!) course that begins Monday, downloading music, software, and (heh) adult entertainment, and on the laptop Shakespeare in Love is playing. Do you think the IT folks here at the university know what I'm downloading? I would not be a happy camper to find out that they knew I have Dirk Yates' finest works as well as Bi-Bi-Bi-Love in addition to a whole bunch of others whose titles are too embarrassing to note here. When I re-enter my Puritan phase all these materials will be flushed and I'll feel better for a while, and then yearn again. It's a Faustian cycle, isn't it? What does Faust have to do with porn? I don't know either, but the once-I-was-an-English-major in me could hypothesize.
I'm having a great weekend, still riding the crest from yesterday. After the final was done, the married couple from Boston brought in a cake and we ate and hung out for well over an hour - and my dean was also invited and let me tell you, all you budding academic types, deans are good people to have invited by students to a party given in your honor. These past two weeks were too much fun and as I mentioned earlier, I get along far better with older individuals than I do with my peers. I should work on that but when I get free cake and (hopefully) outstanding evaluations, can I really be hard on myself for being peer-distant?
Speaking of being peer-distant: The book I read - "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" by Mark Haddon - which is one of the finest books I've read this year (yes, that good), was selected as the Good Morning America Oprah-wannabe title. I'm bothered by this far too much and I realize I'm an elitist. Let them read comics, I say. Similarly, Oprah selected "East of Eden" as her book and now my copy will have to take a tumble from the All Time Favorites shelf to the Everything Else section. Harsh, that is, but I'm unyielding in my horror of reading what everybody else reads, unless of course I read it first and then it becomes popular. Just what the hell am I talking about? Obviously longing for human contact, eh?
Going back to California in 18 days. This makes me sad.
