As it turns out, one very effective form of bonding time between gay men and lesbians is television. In the form of Sex and the City. Because what’s not to love about a TV show that features vastly heterosexual characters. Talking about sex and relationships. That are heterosexual. Mostly. Sexual, anyway. Middle ground is the name of the game.
Should you be thinking that a more culturally gay friendly show might be more effective, stop it! I tried the whole Project Runway thing already. It failed. Instead of being something that brought us, as roommates, together, I wound up making catty comments about the clothing or the bitchy rants and drama of the designers on screen, while my roommate stood awkwardly by for a couple of minutes before disappearing into her room and barricading herself in.
But when the topic is one that involves the love lives of four women in New York, it’s a different story. Because gossiping about fictitious characters is infinitely more fun than listening to the whinings of a reality show. (I made no mention of making fun of said reality people in that statement; that part is still ridiculously fun. Actually, Project Runway is all around fun, but for the purpose of this argument, suffice it to say that it’s not high on the list for stellar bonding time between gays of different sexes.)
We happened to watch one episode where the red-haired lawyer woman (names are so hard to remember for that show; it’s probably because of all the sex talk) is mistaken for being a lesbian. Chuckles abounded at the cute little gay jokes that, unlike most jokes of their variety, actually left the characters wishing they were gay. How refreshing.
Unbeknownst to me until this past Monday (roughly), the Superbowl is coming up. I currently have no plans for the day, at least with regard to watching a football game. I haven’t even been invited to any parties. And if the past few years’ commercials are any indication, I’m not even going to watch any of those, either. I’ve already seen the sneak peek of the Pepsi commercial based on a classic Deaf joke anyway.
It seems I made a slight error when I was driving to get my haircut just now. The one entrance to the place, to my knowledge, happened just before the shared lane in the road began. So I fudged it a bit, and pulled in anyway. Only to have a man, sitting in the passenger seat of a mini-van going the opposing direction, pucker his lips and wag his index finger back and forth at me. Woops. I guess I did a no-no. I’d better go sit in time-out now.
Opportunity presented itself to me today. In the form of an afternoon jaunt to Hollywood. I’ve been in LA for a week and half and hadn’t yet been. It’s really surprising that it wasn’t the first stop I made when I got here. Hello! Hookers, bootleg music, stars on the sidewalk, tourists, Scientologists, and lots more! My priorities must have been pretty intensely out of whack, I was obviously way out of line.
Well, I’ve sure seen the error of my ways. I’ve now walked along the only sidewalk on the planet that requires your full attention. No looking at other people or surroundings, lest you miss out on seeing the name of someone famous immortalized on a gold star. Those who visit the street on a regular basis are easy to pick out because they’re the only ones not hunched over while they’re walking, trying to make out names on the shiny stars reflecting sunshine (thus making them quite difficult to read).
And when offered the chance of being a part of the studio audience for Jimmy Kimmel Live (for free), we of course were like, “Fuck yeah! Anything for the chance of being in front of a TV camera and maybe being on national television for a few seconds!” The opportunity of a lifetime, that is. All the glamour of standing outside for an hour, being told to stand in place like a herd of cattle, having our digital cameras removed from our possession, and then of course going through the metal detector and everything. Not to mention getting to sit for another hour and a half or so, waiting for eight o’clock to roll around so they could start the forty-minute filming process. With one of our crew feeling quite sick, and with said icky Jimmy Kimmel happenings, we opted to collect our things and take leave of all the glitter and fuzz.
As to where we took leave, that would be the road home. Which just so happened to involve a highway whose turn we missed at first but caught on the turn-around. A highway that was serving as a temporary parking lot, but whose traffic moved slower than the average grocery’s.
Despite it all (and perhaps because of it all), a fabulous time was had by, uh, all.
Since when is 900 pages considered “light” reading? I’ll tell you when. Since that nutjob monopoly guy professor of mine said so in class this afternoon. But wait, it gets better. He pulled out his monocle and rechecked his syllabus, and corrected himself: not 900, more like 950 or so. Woops. His bad.
Just the thought of actually having to even turn that many pages of various textbooks was enough to send my brain into Emergency Seizure Mode, wherein it prepared for shock to set in and then the convulsions to strike. Which, considering how depressing the lecture was about future statistical projections, and then about all the shit that can go wrong in life that can totally throw our communication systems out of whack, giving me plenty to worry myself sick over as it is… I found is an unnecessary stressor.
In years past, Mondays were generally days of badness, what with being the first day of the week and all. Fortunately, that’s not the case anymore. I’ve found my savior in the form of Margarita Monday! A local Mexican-American style restaurant here has this every week ($2.50 margaritas!). I got invited to it because it’s a big social gathering time. And lo and behold, even though it’s not a weekend night, the margaritas sure come in handy! It’s a great opportunity to socialize, and an equally great opportunity to not think about depressing shit you learned in class.
Oh, and it’s a great way to celebrate just having bought hundreds of dollars worth of textbooks. Because how can you not drink to the fact your four classes require a whopping twelve textbooks between them. I’m so going to have to recycle every single piece of paper I encounter from now on just to assuage the guilt of all the trees that were used for only one semester of my graduate education. Or maybe I should just quit now and go plant trees for the rest of my life.
Graduate school is finally becoming a reality. Oh, sure, I’ve been in school a week already. But today happened to be the day I discovered just how much work is actually involved.
What better way to spend a Sunday than holed up in the library, and then my room, muddling my way through four chapters of two respective textbooks, then taking three online quizzes, participating in online discussion, and sending an introductory email to my professor. While I generally try to avoid as much responsibility as possible on weekends, I made an exception today because I was desperate. Plus it was all icky and rainy outside. Which, interestingly enough, is fairly motivating weather when one has a great deal of homework to do.
So I learned about poorly formulated concepts like “pinball wizardry” models of how language works in the brain. And I had the pleasure of reviewing acronyms versus initialisms. By the way, I totally shook my head when ‘iPod’ was listed as an acronym. Yeah, the nerd who wrote the textbook was clearly not a computer nerd.
Blue skies and sunshine: enjoy them while you can. The weathermen and weatherwomen were wrong today. Mercifully so. As in, it didn’t rain all day long, as it has the previous few days. I think I’ll chalk it up to my needing a sunny day. Not only was I sick and tired of the gloom, but more importantly, I just bought a bike. And dammit, I wanted to ride it. And dammit, I did ride it. The weather was nice enough to let me have my ride to and from campus, free of rainfall. Delightful.
It clouded up again tonight, though, and has been raining all evening. According to a server I talked to while out on the town (I unwittingly went right over to UCLA–I had no idea that that’s where it was located, but there I went), we have joyous warnings of flash floods and heavy rainfall. What the fuck, people? At least I have my handy umbrella that I’ve had for like ten years which, up to now, was mint condition.
Still, I didn’t let the rain deter me (tomorrow will probably be a different story, but I’m not going to lie, I want the weather people to be so wrong they have to go back into remedial meteorology). While most times, Californians know only one speed (that would be: acceleration), they were stunningly adept at making driving conditions not-all-that-bad. I was a little surprised to see the freeway jam-packed at 11:30 at night as I headed home for the evening (though I’m finding I shouldn’t let anything around here surprise me), the fact that the freeway went a consistent 50 mph or so was, for lack of a better phrase, damn nice.
Oh, and before I forget, if you ever find yourself in LA, don’t leave without going to Diddy Riese. Cookies and ice cream at a bitchin’ awesome price. And probably some of the most delicious bites you will ever take in your entire life. Go. Just go. Don’t question, just go. I’m pretty sure they have one of these both in heaven and hell, because it’s something that no one (and I mean no one) should ever live without.
I guess I never really thought about it much, but it’s come to my attention that I am the Ernie to my landlady’s Bert. We’re just roommates, so don’t even go there.
I feel very lucky to have found a place to live that is nice and close to campus, with nice people, in a nice, quaint little area. Additionally, I feel like I’m living in California’s own version of the Smithsonian. Oh sure, I’ve seen places like this before: impeccably decorated, replete with big comfy couches that never get sat on. Did I imagine I’d someday get to live in one? Shit, no!
I’m so glad to have a room that didn’t come prefurnished. Otherwise I’d probably already have been dragged off to prison with charges against me relating, but not limited to, damage of property and a criminal count of actually using the furniture. Some of the other charges might be as follows:
- Stepping on the carpet while still wearing my shoes
- Sitting on the sofa and not fixing the pillows the instant I got up
- Leaning on said sofa pillows, causing them to be less fluffy than they were originally
- Letting one of my keys touch the wood on the dining room table that’s never used anyway (Must! Not! Scratch! Wood!)
- Leaving three boxes of unmade furniture leaning against the wall, out of the way so that people may walk past safely, but clearly ruining the ambience provided by the beautiful paintings by artists no one knows personally
- Using a pot to make some pasta for lunch
- Walking on the runner rug in the hall, causing it to be out of alignment
Oh, and the final strike against me: setting the alarm on my first day here while someone was still in the house. Yeah. That went over well. It certainly made for an interesting phone conversation, that’s for sure.
Who knows, though. Maybe I can help this place be more lived in and healthy. Perhaps put some magnets on the refrigerator. Rearrange the pillows on the sofas. Read some books and leave them laying around in the living room or on the counter. Something. Anything to make this place feel less like grandmother’s house.
“Touch with your eyes, dear.”
“Oh, hahaha! Don’t be silly, that’s impossible!”
Buckets today. In the form of rainfall. Slowly poured buckets, but enough to flood the gutters of the streets and somewhat flood the parking lots on campus. I was glad to have my umbrella handy in the car. I’ve always got it with me in the car, but have never really had much occasion to use it. But given the distance I had to walk, I opted not to do my usual rain-running. I instead favored the use of my umbrella, and it really did make things quite pleasant, despite the fact that my shoes still got soaked from the puddles and the flooding parking lot.
To my great surprise, neither of my two classes today was a snoozefest. And one of the classes is of the three-hour once-a-week lecture variety. I had a feeling grad school here would be different. However, I had no idea I would be in for competent instructors who are also engaging presenters. AND they even have good senses of humor. How refreshing!
Certain assumptions were made, though I’m wondering if that’s customary here. Because my last name is French, I apparently speak French. (I know a phrase or two, but it’s my partner who actually speaks the language.) But given that the teacher who made this sly observation also signed APPLE when she meant to sign BORING, and that she talks very fast and in general seems very cool, I didn’t bother to correct her. Call it laziness if you want to. I’m banking on the fact that she’ll forget all about the whole French thing by next week, if she hasn’t already. I just hope she’s not taking any of those newfangled memory pills.
Today. Day one of school. Officially. Not for me, though. That’s tomorrow. Today was a jaunt around campus, exploring things and ogling people and things. For instance, I learned that the library has escalators. Again. This place is totally, all around, high fucking tech. I’m thinking there’s got to be a standard HFT factor or ratio of some kind. It’s out of control.
Tonight. I was working on putting together some furniture. A favorite pasttime of mine. I realized that perhaps, if I want to not make my roommates hate me, or else evict me, I should cease my construction for the evening. I happened to be in the hammering phase of a set of drawers. A great way to earn points in my favor when it’s ten o’clock at night and I’m hammering away without thinking twice about it.
A friend asked about what the people were like. I’m here to report that the people are crazy awesome. I’m basing this off aesthetics only, because I’ve met only like ten of the ten million people who live here. But. I’m pretty sure I’ve already heard at least fifteen different languages being spoken in various spots I’ve been to. I’ve seen people who are eight feet tall, and others who are a mere 3-4 feet tall (and I’m not talking about the kiddies). The diversity out here is one of its biggest assets. I love it.
On a related note*, it’s been brought to my attention that the program I came here for is, according to every new person I meet in the speech department, “really hard to get into.” I conversed with a number of speech students and faculty today, and here’s a sample of how our conversations went:
Phil: Hi, I’m Phil.
Other Person: Hi, I’m [name]. Are you a new grad student?
Phil: Yep. I’m actually new to the area too. I’ve only been here since Friday.
OP: Congratulations. You know, this program is really hard to get into.
Phil: …
OP: Didn’t you find it difficult to get accepted into the program?
Phil: …
OP: …
I’m not entirely sure these conversations were even held in English. I could have said something to the effect that I was once a pirate with a peg leg who traveled through time to get surgery to replace my missing leg and then returned to school to get my master’s in speech pathology (change of career, you know), and they still would have said, “Wow, good job, it’s really hard to get in here.”
That remains to be seen, but I do know of a place that really IS hard to get in: my closet. Why? Because I recently acquired a zombie of the softest and fiercest kind: a sock zombie. He hangs on the door of my closet, ready to pounce and tear the snot out of anyone’s socks who tries to enter. He’s a force not to be reckoned with, especially if you care for your socks. He arrived in the mail today, and needless to say, I’m aquiver with fear and delight. Heck, I may even toss him into my bag for school and sic him on anyone who tries to use overused phrases regarding graduate school admission.
*Okay, so maybe that note wasn’t related at all. But I needed some form of transition, and that’s the one that won.
Some haps, in the form of an unordered list:
- Current count for items of furniture, fully assembled: two. Today, among other things, I put together a printer stand slash file drawer. An hour, it says? For one person to assemble that thing? Try two and a half. They failed to account for the excessive use of screws. My hands are raw from turning the screw driver over in my hands so many times. Which completely sucks. They’re all red and tender and everything. I guess it serves my own piece of furniture right that it’s not horizontally sound. it’s slightly lopsided, and the wood didn’t fit perfectly right in some places. But I got it together, and if I hadn’t just made note of that, no one would be any the wiser. Unless someone is a total nerd and pays attention to things like that. Sheesh.
- I did some exploration today. Sans map, even. I just picked a street and drove until I couldn’t go any farther. Well. At least until it looked liked I’d need some pretty hefty government clearance of some kind in order to go farther. I saw some more of the mountains in the area, and didn’t find much of anything that would be useful to me or would warrant my returning that way ever again. Regardless, though, it was fun. I’ll be doing more of that here very soon.
- I’m still not used to having roommates. For some reason, I feel obligated to interact with everyone who’s home, or who just arrives. I’m like a puppy that has to go and greet them, and then chat them up for a few minutes before being able to return to my room or to whatever it was that was occupying my time before another resident arrived. Perhaps one of these days I’ll get told to fuck off and go do my own thing, and I will forevermore be cured of puppy dog syndrome.
