The highlight of our mornings here at Columbia University Press is an institution known as "the coffee truck" (the alternate name for which is, as Joel informs me, the roach coach.) Every morning at approximately 10:30 the coffee truck arrives and honks. Word goes 'round the office, passing from those who are close enough to windows at the parking-lot end of the building to actually hear the truck honking, through the finance department, down on through the indexers cluster by cluster: "Coffee truck.....coffee truck's here.....coffee truck....praise God..." There is a mad scrambling for coats and change-purses, and we begin our daily pilgrimage to that holiest of shrines, the coffee truck.
The coffee truck is a beautiful sight. Its shiny chrome sides gleam in the midmorning light, and some half-dozen spigots protrude from the back of the truck, dispensing coffee, hot water, decaf, coffee, coffee, and more coffee. Cradled in a trough are cartons of milk and Tupperware containers of sugar. On one side of the truck are various tasty comestibles--sandwiches, doughnuts, muffins, and of course cheese Danish. Occasionally there are also yoghurts of varying exotic fruits. Though this concept takes the phrase "highway robbery" to a new height of linguistic irony, and the caloric consequences are sometimes devastating, the coffee truck is indeed one of man's finest inventions, second only to bottled beer.
Which brings me to my point. This morning, there was talk among a certain group of indexers that there should be an afternoon counterpart to the coffee truck. (This flight into fantasy has no doubt occurred because it is currently 10:57 and so far the coffee truck has not made its appearance.) Sometime around 3:00 or 3:15 each afternoon, the afternoon counterpart should make its appearance. It will be called "The Beer Truck."
Ideally, the beer truck would have taps along its back bumper, offering a variety of domestic, import, and microbrew selections. Around the side you'd have your mixed nuts, trail mix, hot wings, cocktail offerings, olives, finger sandwiches, and scoop-your-own popcorn. One of the guys from the warehouse on the first floor has even suggested tiki torches, because by 3:30 in the winter, it's already pretty damn dark and you don't want to spill your drink (except maybe on that jerk from marketing). It was MK who came up with the coup de grace: Friday afternoon travelling beer truck treks.
On Friday afternoons, instead of parking, the beer truck would honk and make a U-turn. Employees could then log off, pack their briefcases, fetch their car keys, and join a caravan, a sort of vehicular conga line, to the destination of the week. We would follow the beer truck hither and yon, through the hills of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow to wherever the beer truck led us. Whenever and wherever the beer truck parked, the party would begin.
For now, though, we're stuck eating our $2.00 doughnuts and drinking mediocre brown swill at a dollar per environmentally questionable styrofoam cup. (I've noticed there's no discount if you bring your own mug. Come on, even Starbucks does that.)
03 December 2004
01 December 2004
Friedrich Schiller Ironing a Kilt
The fact that it's December hasn't occurred to me. November has been so endless that it cannot possibly be near the end of the first week of Advent. Of course, the fact that I'm living with a Jew (though only sort of, on both counts) at the moment might have something to do with it. That and my complete lack of home. Christmas=home, it always has. This year, homeless, I feel robbed of Christmas, even though Louise builds on to her Christmas village every day at the office, and bakes enough cookies to throttle us all several times over. Even though there are lights all the way down Oscawana Lake Road to the Heights, even though I'm far enough north for snow any night.
And more and more each morning, I realize I miss my boyfriend. This morning I just wanted to hold him, to wrap myself up in his warm scent and strong shoulders, even though he clamps his leg too tight over my hip when he's sleeping sometimes, not realizing of course that he could crush me if he wasn't careful.
EdTool was working fine when I came in this morning; now it's being a bastard. It's been 11:30 since about quarter after nine. Which would be fine if I didn't have to work through lunch so I can drive 95 miles to teach tonight. These next few Wednesdays are going to suck....though not as much as the next few Thursday mornings....
I'm a little insulted that Eva called to ask if we were serious about renting the house. I wanted to say, "If you had drawn up a lease, we'd have signed it already." I told her I wanted to move in as soon as the paint was dry. I mean, good god. I'm sleeping on Robin's couch. (well, he's sleeping on his couch, I'm sleeping in the bed, because that's the way Robin is) I have given up the lease on an apartment I loved, I have bought a new car, I have moved an additional 120 miles away from my partner. I am waiting for you, Eva. I have tried to be perfectly clear that we are serious, and that we were trying not to push you, but that we are anxious to move in and get on with it. Jesus. I am nearing wit's end on how to make myself clear and make this happen. I am getting to the point again where I need answers, because this amount of uncertainty is not healthy for me.
Neither is what I'm about to say to EdTool, white-screening me again for the nth time this morning. This hour.
Grrrrrr.
And more and more each morning, I realize I miss my boyfriend. This morning I just wanted to hold him, to wrap myself up in his warm scent and strong shoulders, even though he clamps his leg too tight over my hip when he's sleeping sometimes, not realizing of course that he could crush me if he wasn't careful.
EdTool was working fine when I came in this morning; now it's being a bastard. It's been 11:30 since about quarter after nine. Which would be fine if I didn't have to work through lunch so I can drive 95 miles to teach tonight. These next few Wednesdays are going to suck....though not as much as the next few Thursday mornings....
I'm a little insulted that Eva called to ask if we were serious about renting the house. I wanted to say, "If you had drawn up a lease, we'd have signed it already." I told her I wanted to move in as soon as the paint was dry. I mean, good god. I'm sleeping on Robin's couch. (well, he's sleeping on his couch, I'm sleeping in the bed, because that's the way Robin is) I have given up the lease on an apartment I loved, I have bought a new car, I have moved an additional 120 miles away from my partner. I am waiting for you, Eva. I have tried to be perfectly clear that we are serious, and that we were trying not to push you, but that we are anxious to move in and get on with it. Jesus. I am nearing wit's end on how to make myself clear and make this happen. I am getting to the point again where I need answers, because this amount of uncertainty is not healthy for me.
Neither is what I'm about to say to EdTool, white-screening me again for the nth time this morning. This hour.
Grrrrrr.
25 November 2004
Sneezle Weasel
That would be me. I woke up like clockwork at 6:42, waiting for my cell phone alarm to go off....which of course it did, though it shouldn't have, since I'm home and theoretically turned it off yesterday. Or not. But it's funny, how quickly my body adjusts to the idea of this as waking time. So now it's eight and I'm better than halfway into my mug of tea (tea! what a blissful thing! who thought of tea?) and kicking around the internet while blowing my runny little sinus-infested nose. If the weather would stop changing, or if I didn't have three cats and a houseful of fur that I'm packing into boxes and swirling around, this might not be so much of a problem.
I confess I still have what could aptly be described as "a shitload" of papers to grade from the midterm. But right now I'm still in overdrive mode. Mostly drive. I'm living up at Robin's during the week (how weird is that? ) so I don't have to commute hell and away from New Jersey. These first three days it was a backpack full of clothes and my journal, but Robin suggested bringing the futon and taking over his camera room. I was -- humbled. Floored, to say the least, though on reflection I shouldn't have been. Robin has always had an endless well of compassion coupled with an unerring ability to do the logical thing. The funny thing: my boyfriend is completely okay with this. It's not ideal, but you do what needs to be done. And my wiping out on 287 at six in the morning is, frankly, not what needs to be done. What needs to be done is a massive amount of painting in Eva's house (for me! for us! for my boyfriend and me.....and she even asked me what colours I liked, which was sweet and kind and thoughtful as I am remembering people know how to be....it constantly amazes me, the kindness of people) and then the migration continues, ever northward. I'm already fifteen boxes of books into it.
I should probably be making piecrust. But that can wait another few minutes.
Another interesting development is the very likelihood that I will soon be the owner of my first new car. Not dad's, my own. Even as recently as last month, I didn't think that would ever happen. On the other hand, why spend $5000 of dad's money (to be repaid, obviously) on something that will fall apart in three years, wherein my boyfriend and I will have to do this all over again, and who knows where we'll be then? It might be better, but it might be a hell of a lot worse. And a thousand dollars a year on gas--I didn't even know I spent that much, let alone that I would save that much with this hybrid.
And above all, it's cute. It's a Honda, and even though it's that strange new shade of opalescent light Honda blue, I really like it. It suits me. I felt at home. And, okay, when I went out to pat it on the flank and say goodbye, I got a surge from it--not a battery surge, or a static electricity suge......one of those surges. An "I want to be yours" surge. A surge that said to me that this car feels the same way I do.
I'm just afraid of the commitment, of falling over on my nose and taking someone else with me this time; once again having to ask my father to bail me out because he was right, I overextended. I would hate that. On the other hand, as I observed to Doug the other day, I have completely no fear like this of moving in with my boyfriend. That, at least, makes total sense to me. Well, okay, I'm terrified, let's not be ridiculous here. I'm terrified that I'll curl up like a defensive little hedgehog and stick all my quills out at him until he leaves me alone in my cage--but on the level both just above that and just below that--like a river whose warm currents swirl around a cold eddy--I am completely sure from the soles of my feet that this is the next step for us to take. True, neither of us ever dreamed that we'd be living together before marriage; it's just not the Catholic-parent thing. But this is the way our life has worked out, and--like living at Robin's--this is the best way to proceed from here. It's like the plot of a novel: it has one true path, and if you stare at it long enough, all the other ones slowly melt away until this is the only way left to you, until all other possible paths become absurdly impossible to imagine, as if this had been the road all along, this wide boulevard. Not saying, you understand, that gazing at it makes it so--I'm not quite stubborn enough (or naive enough) to believe that--but simply that after a while it becomes obvious.
The way John Keeble used to say he knew when a page of fiction or a poem was right--it used to hum purple up off the page at him. Very unlike John, on one level, but again, at another, completely John.
My boyfriend's asleep in my bed, torqued and twisted incredibly into the flannel sheets he bought me last winter. That was the most amazing thing to me, when I woke this morning in the grey light: that he should be here, real and solid and warm, after all I've been through, after all the moments dreaming of this moment, that it should become real. that were I to nudge open the door and peer inside, it would be real still. And most unbelievable of all, that it will remain real for many years to come.
I confess I still have what could aptly be described as "a shitload" of papers to grade from the midterm. But right now I'm still in overdrive mode. Mostly drive. I'm living up at Robin's during the week (how weird is that? ) so I don't have to commute hell and away from New Jersey. These first three days it was a backpack full of clothes and my journal, but Robin suggested bringing the futon and taking over his camera room. I was -- humbled. Floored, to say the least, though on reflection I shouldn't have been. Robin has always had an endless well of compassion coupled with an unerring ability to do the logical thing. The funny thing: my boyfriend is completely okay with this. It's not ideal, but you do what needs to be done. And my wiping out on 287 at six in the morning is, frankly, not what needs to be done. What needs to be done is a massive amount of painting in Eva's house (for me! for us! for my boyfriend and me.....and she even asked me what colours I liked, which was sweet and kind and thoughtful as I am remembering people know how to be....it constantly amazes me, the kindness of people) and then the migration continues, ever northward. I'm already fifteen boxes of books into it.
I should probably be making piecrust. But that can wait another few minutes.
Another interesting development is the very likelihood that I will soon be the owner of my first new car. Not dad's, my own. Even as recently as last month, I didn't think that would ever happen. On the other hand, why spend $5000 of dad's money (to be repaid, obviously) on something that will fall apart in three years, wherein my boyfriend and I will have to do this all over again, and who knows where we'll be then? It might be better, but it might be a hell of a lot worse. And a thousand dollars a year on gas--I didn't even know I spent that much, let alone that I would save that much with this hybrid.
And above all, it's cute. It's a Honda, and even though it's that strange new shade of opalescent light Honda blue, I really like it. It suits me. I felt at home. And, okay, when I went out to pat it on the flank and say goodbye, I got a surge from it--not a battery surge, or a static electricity suge......one of those surges. An "I want to be yours" surge. A surge that said to me that this car feels the same way I do.
I'm just afraid of the commitment, of falling over on my nose and taking someone else with me this time; once again having to ask my father to bail me out because he was right, I overextended. I would hate that. On the other hand, as I observed to Doug the other day, I have completely no fear like this of moving in with my boyfriend. That, at least, makes total sense to me. Well, okay, I'm terrified, let's not be ridiculous here. I'm terrified that I'll curl up like a defensive little hedgehog and stick all my quills out at him until he leaves me alone in my cage--but on the level both just above that and just below that--like a river whose warm currents swirl around a cold eddy--I am completely sure from the soles of my feet that this is the next step for us to take. True, neither of us ever dreamed that we'd be living together before marriage; it's just not the Catholic-parent thing. But this is the way our life has worked out, and--like living at Robin's--this is the best way to proceed from here. It's like the plot of a novel: it has one true path, and if you stare at it long enough, all the other ones slowly melt away until this is the only way left to you, until all other possible paths become absurdly impossible to imagine, as if this had been the road all along, this wide boulevard. Not saying, you understand, that gazing at it makes it so--I'm not quite stubborn enough (or naive enough) to believe that--but simply that after a while it becomes obvious.
The way John Keeble used to say he knew when a page of fiction or a poem was right--it used to hum purple up off the page at him. Very unlike John, on one level, but again, at another, completely John.
My boyfriend's asleep in my bed, torqued and twisted incredibly into the flannel sheets he bought me last winter. That was the most amazing thing to me, when I woke this morning in the grey light: that he should be here, real and solid and warm, after all I've been through, after all the moments dreaming of this moment, that it should become real. that were I to nudge open the door and peer inside, it would be real still. And most unbelievable of all, that it will remain real for many years to come.
05 November 2004
Piff!
That was the sound my head made as I was leaving work Wednesday. To wit:
Hi Sara,
I wanted to let you know that on Monday morning one of the people I had hired didn't show up (I found an email from her that morning saying she had reconsidered). She lives a few blocks away from the Irvington office -- that'll teach me to be guided by how far or close someone lives when making difficult hiring decisions. If you are still interested in the job, please let me know. I thought you'd be terrific at the job, but worried, as I think you know, about your long commute until you got settled into your new house.
I look forward to hearing from you-
Tessa
Columbia University Press
I mean, really! So I emailed her the equivalent of "is a bear Catholic" and went screaming down 413 to teach my class. Haven't really stopped spinning since. The beautiful thing is that after all the stress of the past two days, I called Eva and she's about as tickled as can be that we want to move into the house, and the roofer would have been finished today if it hadn't been so windy. So he's coming by tomorrow, and after that Eva (and presumably Diane) will sit down with us around her kitchen table and hash out the details of this thing, and then we will be able to move.
After all.
Isn't it weird? Isn't it positively lovely, how weird the universe is?
Hi Sara,
I wanted to let you know that on Monday morning one of the people I had hired didn't show up (I found an email from her that morning saying she had reconsidered). She lives a few blocks away from the Irvington office -- that'll teach me to be guided by how far or close someone lives when making difficult hiring decisions. If you are still interested in the job, please let me know. I thought you'd be terrific at the job, but worried, as I think you know, about your long commute until you got settled into your new house.
I look forward to hearing from you-
Tessa
Columbia University Press
I mean, really! So I emailed her the equivalent of "is a bear Catholic" and went screaming down 413 to teach my class. Haven't really stopped spinning since. The beautiful thing is that after all the stress of the past two days, I called Eva and she's about as tickled as can be that we want to move into the house, and the roofer would have been finished today if it hadn't been so windy. So he's coming by tomorrow, and after that Eva (and presumably Diane) will sit down with us around her kitchen table and hash out the details of this thing, and then we will be able to move.
After all.
Isn't it weird? Isn't it positively lovely, how weird the universe is?
26 October 2004
Three.....
Three papers left to grade for tomorrow, buahahaha.
Sorry, having a Sesame Street moment. I am looking quite forward to having all the time in the world that the Faire had been eating to concentrate on teaching. Because I know I've got a whole lot of distance to go. And I don't know where to begin. I actually commented to both Robin and Susan that what I really needed was to take a pedagogy class. (perish the thought!) Robin of course had a very rude (and very funny) comment. Also concentrating on housework might not be a bad idea either. Mostly the house I've been cleaning lately has been my boyfriend's, cos it's the one I'm in. But I do have relatively few dishes (try not to fall over).
Still recovering from Faire and the funky formal and subsequent sleep impairment patterns. I might actually be in bed at a decent hour tonight, but I hesitate to hope after last night's abysmal failure. (thanks in large part to the fact that my boyfriend failed to be smarter than his apartment.)
Nose back to grindstone now. Pointy nose. Grind grind.
Sorry, having a Sesame Street moment. I am looking quite forward to having all the time in the world that the Faire had been eating to concentrate on teaching. Because I know I've got a whole lot of distance to go. And I don't know where to begin. I actually commented to both Robin and Susan that what I really needed was to take a pedagogy class. (perish the thought!) Robin of course had a very rude (and very funny) comment. Also concentrating on housework might not be a bad idea either. Mostly the house I've been cleaning lately has been my boyfriend's, cos it's the one I'm in. But I do have relatively few dishes (try not to fall over).
Still recovering from Faire and the funky formal and subsequent sleep impairment patterns. I might actually be in bed at a decent hour tonight, but I hesitate to hope after last night's abysmal failure. (thanks in large part to the fact that my boyfriend failed to be smarter than his apartment.)
Nose back to grindstone now. Pointy nose. Grind grind.
08 October 2004
No Middle Grounds.
dear sara
robin sent your note to me about allegro. here's the scoop. allegro was once a private company that prided itself in the quality of its coffee under the leadership of kevin knox, a most arrogant and obnoxious know-it-all. allegro was bought out by whole foods and about a year ago kevin was finally ousted. allegro makes outrageous and false claims about what it pays to farmers and has avoided the fair trade movement like leprosy. allegro claims that it pays on average more than the international fair trade price and claims to have an audit by ernst and young to prove it. of course, in this neo-orwellian world, allegro refuses to let anyone see the audit or know what the terms of the audit were. but i am a coffee guy and i challenged starbucks publicly on the same bullshit and won, so i can tell you that allegro pays brokers and importers, not farmers, so their price claim is apples and oranges to what we in the fair trade movement pay farmers directly. they also, i believe, included their decaf prices in their calculation, and we have to add a dollar per pound to decaf (their money goes to the kraft or nestles owned swiss water plant).
basically, allegro is an ordinary business (no harm in that) pretending to be a socially responsible business (lots of harm in that), but in modern america, what else is new? sorry for the joyless note, but it's the end of the week and i get so tired of being in an industry where lying qua marketing is the coin of the realm.
be well,
dean cycon
deans beans organic coffee company
robin sent your note to me about allegro. here's the scoop. allegro was once a private company that prided itself in the quality of its coffee under the leadership of kevin knox, a most arrogant and obnoxious know-it-all. allegro was bought out by whole foods and about a year ago kevin was finally ousted. allegro makes outrageous and false claims about what it pays to farmers and has avoided the fair trade movement like leprosy. allegro claims that it pays on average more than the international fair trade price and claims to have an audit by ernst and young to prove it. of course, in this neo-orwellian world, allegro refuses to let anyone see the audit or know what the terms of the audit were. but i am a coffee guy and i challenged starbucks publicly on the same bullshit and won, so i can tell you that allegro pays brokers and importers, not farmers, so their price claim is apples and oranges to what we in the fair trade movement pay farmers directly. they also, i believe, included their decaf prices in their calculation, and we have to add a dollar per pound to decaf (their money goes to the kraft or nestles owned swiss water plant).
basically, allegro is an ordinary business (no harm in that) pretending to be a socially responsible business (lots of harm in that), but in modern america, what else is new? sorry for the joyless note, but it's the end of the week and i get so tired of being in an industry where lying qua marketing is the coin of the realm.
be well,
dean cycon
deans beans organic coffee company
04 October 2004
Motionless
I have no context for grading papers other than either pretending I'm someone else (Ralph Black, Elizabeth, a fellow grad student) or pretending I have a clue what I'm doing and winging it. And comparing them against the others, which isn't fair. I have a shitload of B, B-minus, or solid C papers. Which is discouraging, even though it shouldn't be. If they could write, they likely wouldn't be at a community college. That Matt, though. Damn. With his Calvin and Hobbes esque go-kart narrative, taking it above the level of freshman writing and talking about the freedom of flight. Compared to the vague essays about freedom. Yawn, and badly executed yawn at that.
So I have the hippie lung plague. Again. Every October, round about Fair time. This year I'm damned if I'm going to let it turn into pneumonia, though. First off, because it was a pain in my ass. Secondly, because I want to be able to leave my fucking place of employment in the next few weeks. Even though Mi-Hye is completely crazy and I won't be able to resign at the end of our asinine meeting tomorrow. The one that she insists won't take long--of course it won't take long, she's already convicted me of something she had no right to even question. Fucking freak. God.
And yes that's anxiety and exhaustion and DayQuil talking. Or, more accurately, the need to take another dose of it. Only it's the bedtime kind for me. Even though I haven't graded but two papers and commented on a third. I've at least made a dent, and those are scaring me. Because that still matters to me. I still want to do well...I can't imagine not wanting to give back to Susan, who took a chance on me. And I wonder if she regrets her decision. (Jonas is pawing to get at the medicine cabinet, stubborn little fuzzbutt) I know I'm over-reacting, and that if I go in as a colleague and ask for help and guidance and mentoring like I was supposed to get.....that I can only get better. She knows I have no experience, so why am I crucifying myself for her? Oh yeah, because Mi-Hye trained me to.
And no, for your information, we haven't heard from our respective prospective employers. He at least is on a decent level of communication with his. And Eva just got back from Israel last week, so the house is still there. But still, the waiting is making me more like my worst nightmare-vision of my mother.
I know there's a lesson here. The lesson is supposed to be that I stand with grace in the waiting, grow into a thoughtful, serene woman who can roll with the punches. A rock, my boyfriend's firm foundation. Somehow it's not working out that way.
Oh, and ladies and gentlemen, Matt Schaffer with the go-kart essay on a breakaway, he shoots, he scores! The crowd is on its feet! Yes! Yes! The Giants win the pennant! The curse is broken! 1940! 1940!
So I have the hippie lung plague. Again. Every October, round about Fair time. This year I'm damned if I'm going to let it turn into pneumonia, though. First off, because it was a pain in my ass. Secondly, because I want to be able to leave my fucking place of employment in the next few weeks. Even though Mi-Hye is completely crazy and I won't be able to resign at the end of our asinine meeting tomorrow. The one that she insists won't take long--of course it won't take long, she's already convicted me of something she had no right to even question. Fucking freak. God.
And yes that's anxiety and exhaustion and DayQuil talking. Or, more accurately, the need to take another dose of it. Only it's the bedtime kind for me. Even though I haven't graded but two papers and commented on a third. I've at least made a dent, and those are scaring me. Because that still matters to me. I still want to do well...I can't imagine not wanting to give back to Susan, who took a chance on me. And I wonder if she regrets her decision. (Jonas is pawing to get at the medicine cabinet, stubborn little fuzzbutt) I know I'm over-reacting, and that if I go in as a colleague and ask for help and guidance and mentoring like I was supposed to get.....that I can only get better. She knows I have no experience, so why am I crucifying myself for her? Oh yeah, because Mi-Hye trained me to.
And no, for your information, we haven't heard from our respective prospective employers. He at least is on a decent level of communication with his. And Eva just got back from Israel last week, so the house is still there. But still, the waiting is making me more like my worst nightmare-vision of my mother.
I know there's a lesson here. The lesson is supposed to be that I stand with grace in the waiting, grow into a thoughtful, serene woman who can roll with the punches. A rock, my boyfriend's firm foundation. Somehow it's not working out that way.
Oh, and ladies and gentlemen, Matt Schaffer with the go-kart essay on a breakaway, he shoots, he scores! The crowd is on its feet! Yes! Yes! The Giants win the pennant! The curse is broken! 1940! 1940!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)