7:02 p.m. - 2005-08-04
I've spent way too much time in the Midwest.*
This revelation comes on the heels of a fucking lot of other revelations today. Regular Four Horsemen today has been, though not even distantly allegorically. In other words, don't try to read too much into what follows. The shit just ain't there.**
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Okay. So let's stop just here and ask, what does it mean when our Respected Autor has already footnoted the first two paragraphs?
Answer Lady says: I suppose it means that this is a freewriting exercise; that our Respected Autor hasn't done her organizing; that our Respected Autor may, in fact, be on her way to a Drunk of epic proportions.***
Respected Autor: Yer right, y'lousy...[fades into mumble and slosh of bourbon against ice cubes]
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So, today, I decided to resuscitate a dying campaign to achieve PhD status. Everyone keeps asking me how much I have left. My stammered reply of "a test and a book" doesn't garner me much sympathy, especially when they find out that I also need to finish a Latin class by correspondence (which I've enrolled myself in once before already and didn't complete!). The following conversation directly prompted a letter to my chairman, explaining my financial difficulties and begging (really, begging) his understanding:
Me: Why is it that I get so crazed about the PhD program and about quitting-it-already-for-fuck's-sake?
my very best buddy, Joey: [silence, though I could see he was typing a response on our workplace Lotus Sametime messaging]
Me: hahaha — This is purely a rhetorical question; no need to brave life and limb to answer it.
Joey: wait, you want I shouldn't answer then?
Me: Whatever. I won't hold you to it.
Joey: well it seems you're much more invested in this PhD program than you want to admit; quitting seems to cause you more pain than working it out.
Me: Umm...you know, you're right. You're much smarter than the garden variety holder of the PhD.
Joey: I know. Now finish, already, so you can support me in the manner to which I'd like to become accustomed.
So, I shot a letter off to my chairman, offering just a hint of the financial turmoil I'm in. Hopefully, I wrote well enough to garner an extension via some sympathy and not so well that he'll feel as though I'm asking for a loan. Yikes! How awkward and horrible.****
My very dear friend Joey also asked (upon reading a draft of the letter to Chairman Mao) why I'm so embarrassed to be poor: "What happened to the whole 'proud to be poor and descended from white trash' spiel you were dishing out just last week?" As I tried to relate to him how academia supposedly operates on a higher plane (beyond which creature discomforts cannot exist) and how academics and especially lowly grad students are supposed to adhere to some rather Stoic principles (house wine, Colombian coffee rather than Kona, et cetera) while jumping through hoops placed by the department and the graduate school, I realized how foolish all of this sounded.
I also realized that my eye had been twitching so long that it was actually painful.
And that I desperately needed a drink. Or two.
____________________________________________________________________ Three drinks later (and starting on the fourth), my eye is fine. I've stopped bubbling over with stress tears.
Chairman Mao will either pat me on the shoulder or toss me out on my kiester. Either way, I'll be no better nor worse off than I am now.
And Joey will still love me.
____________________________________________________________________ *Which is why, every single time I log into this site — to read mimismartypants or to post something here — I read it as dairyland.com
**Apologies. Tonight, I'm guilty of what my friend Shipers would call a WUI — Writing Under the Influence. To date, we've shared DUIs (Dialing Under the Influence) and CUIs (Cleaning Under the Influence), both of which usually lead to tears. BUI (Buffy Under the Influence), though — that's all good.
***Is it just me, or does Answer Lady sound like she has a grudge against the Respected Autor? I'm just sayin', is all.
****Though, if you're reading this, D.R. -- a few dinners/week wouldn't be taken amiss. Especially if there's good wine and after-dinner coffee to be had!
