If the phone doesn't ring, you'll know that it's me.
--Jimmy Buffet
Generally I like my solitary lifestyle, but there are times it would be a mercy to have someone to call. The only one who could confront this particular dilemma is D, and he's ... um ... oh, MARRIED, maybe? (Rat bastard.)
B could make me feel better-in-general, of course, but D would understand because he's also been tossed into the pressure-cooker that is law school.
But nope, can't call D. And B's line is busy. That's my list of people who can genuinely calm me down when I'm genuinely freaking. All two of them.
I'm afraid that my Minnesota Nice has backfired on me. Or afraid that it might. And I am genuinely freaking.
M had her grade re-calculated in ConLaw. I presently have the high grade, the Book Award, in there. But she said her re-calc brought her to a B+. I know have a B+ and that's all I know. I don't know the numbers.
So I wrote to the prof and said, "I hear M is going to end up with a B+ and I want to be sure that she gets the Book Award if her numbers are higher than mine."
Because that's the right thing to do, dammit. They might forget to check that, and Book Awards are Very Important Things to put on your resume. (Fuck, everything there is a Very Important Thing. I've never been in such a competitive place, and this is a pretty laid-back school as they go.)
So now I'm all freaky that the prof won't really believe I am THAT Minnesota-nice, because they're used to people backstabbing and cheating and lying and everything else in the world to get high grades in law school. And it will just be bizarre to him to get an email like that - which might make him wonder if we cheated.
Which we did not. Unfortunately I can't PROVE that, because I was at home, alone, all night, writing the exam like I was supposed to be.
People who lead quiet, solitary lives have trouble with alibis. And when the rules SAY "Work alone, don't talk to anyone, don't discuss the exam with anyone," well, that sort of deprives you of an alibi. If you follow the rules. Which they just presume you won't. Because you're a law student, and law students cheat like the dickens, and therefore you cheat like the dickens.
What a stinky profession.
My real fear is that I'm going to get M hauled up on Honor Court charges in some way. For myself, that would suck, but I know what I did. Even if there's no way to prove that to an HC tribunal, I can live with it. But I couldn't live with it if I got her into any trouble of any kind.
I'm just hoping and praying the prof, who is from Kentucky, and who knows me a little bit, though not well, understands about Minnesota Nice. The folks in Minnesota would understand. "Yah. That's just the right thing to do." But in SoFlo? I don't know.
This world makes it very hard to be a decent person sometimes.
All right. Nothing I can do about it now.
Dad and I had a fantastic day today. We did house stuff - mostly I did and he advised and pointed and fixed my oopsies. We used the caulk gun and trimmed flashing and screwed down brackets and installed rain gutters and it was wonderful just being. He sent me an email tonight: "I will always remember today." That lumped my throat.
It's never too late, I guess. And that's good.
The other interesting thing about today was that before he came I was frantically throwing together a soup, mixing biscucit batter, and thrashing around in the cupboards for some third element. He was spending the day, and so I had to do a lunch. (Minnesota Nice? Not really. It's more a Norwegian thing.)
So before he came I had the table set, and serving dishes lined up, and fresh butter in the butter plate, and two clean glasses, &c, which is tricky when you have a limited dishwashing capacity. But I wanted it all ready to go so I could come in from pounding and cutting and hammering and screwing and drilling and sit us both down to eat with a minimum of waiting.
It's all about preparation, people. Always work in advance, so when the guests arrive you can look like you've spent all day just waiting for them to arrive, doing nothing else.
And this goes for fix-it days, too. At least in Yg's world.
Dad appreciated, in his understated way. I was peeking in on the biscuits after we'd sluiced the dust out of our hair and put band-aids on all the nicks and I'd done a zippy-zip around the kitchen getting things ready to serve.
"You know," he said tenderly, "a piece of bread would have been fine."
"Oh...but I can't."
Of course I can't. Bread won't do. It's my father. So we had biscuits. And I sent some back out to the cabin with him, and some soup, too.
But I got a good hard dose of this: I am not choosing an easy path, living single, trying to learn all a "traditional man's tasks" and trying to do all the "traditional woman's tasks" at the same time. On Dad's fix-it days in the home where I grew up, i.e. his, he would come in from drilling and nailing and pounding and screwing and Mom would have the lunch on the table.
That must have been nice.
There are some things to be said about Ward Cleaver households and the division of labor that occurs there. Mom doesn't know jack about how handle a power drill (nor did I, until today, granted). But she cooks pea soup like a demon (which I do, too). And me? Oh, I have to know both. I just have to. I can't relax even a little bit. I want to see it all, know it all, do it all, try it all. It's a load of fun. But sometimes I do get a little tired.
Still and all, I suppose that's how the kids are doing it nowadays.
B found my diary. This will be interesting. It wasn't a big secret - I use the same handle all over the 'net and he knows what it is. He called to say he had found it, and to ask about what the etiquette should be. We pondered that a little, and finally decided he was free to (although did not have to) read everything up to today, but not afterward.
I don't mind writing knowing youse guys are out there. I don't even mind the occasional notes from readers. In fact, I cherish them, since the original justification for writing "to the whole damned Internet" was to add my little trickle to the flood of human experience, in the hope that it might help someone, or that someone else's might help me. But I am creeped out by the thought of writing when I know my audience, and especially one I know so well.
Paren: This claim fits nicely with an exchange PL and I had when I was leaving SoFlo.Me: "It's time for me to go. My neighbors are getting to know me. They're asking about school and you and things."
Him: "And that bothers you?"
Oh, PL has such a warm cozy world. It must be nice over there. /paren.
"Well, B...you should know...that there are some things about you in there that aren't very complimentary."
"Hell, I'd expect it, given what a fuck-up I've been the last year."
So we'll see.
But B made me laugh until I hurt on the phone tonight. Again.
"I put up a bird feeder today, B. Guess where."
"I don't want to guess. When did you start doing this?"
"Tough shit. Guess."
"Um...fuck. Um...fuck. I have no idea."
"Clue?"
"Yes."
"It's a psychological bird feeder."
"Um. Okay. Out by the shed I tore down."
"No. Not a bad guess, but that's where my garden is."
"In front on the electric pole?"
"B, what's psychological about that?"
"Okay. Aha. You put it in the room that used to be mine. You tore out the screen, and you put a bird feeder in there."
(At this point I am laughing. But he continues.)
"No. Wait, you didn't just tear out the screen and put a feeder in there. You chainsawed a ragged six-foot by ten-foot hole in the wall and dragged a 50-pound bag of birdseed in there, slashed it open, and left it on the floor.
"No, wait. It's not on the floor. It's on my computer desk. And you piled all my computer equipment in the center of the room, and then you nailed the door shut. And you caulked the bottom of the door.
"And so everything I still have there in the room that used to be mine is dripping with water, covered with rat shit, covered with bird shit, and has birdseed sprouting in it, and there's chipmunks and squirrels and birds and bats all living in my room gnawing and shitting and wrecking everything of value I might have still owned up there.
"And then you haul a chair out on the lawn from time to time and just watch the birds fly in and out of the hole in the wall and laugh to yourself.
"So, am I right?"
I don't think I'll play any more guessing games with B.
When I'd recovered enough to speak, I gave the answer. But at this point it would be anticlimactic, so I'll save it for another entry.
It's often hard to follow B's performances. In the past I rarely tried. Because that's what I love about him. But being a person who doesn't try to follow them is also what I hate about who I used to be.
So that penultimate para makes me wonder about who I have become. Have I really changed? If so, can I stay changed? Do I have to? What's it worth, balanced against the way he makes me laugh?
So many questions, so few pixels.
22:45:52 - 07-10-00
Recent entries:
Sealy Writes - 04-04-18
Rewind to "Everything's Fine" - 12-25-17
What We Have So Far - 12-25-17
Lightning Crashes - 2017-12-24
Long Years in a Short Time - 09-11-13
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