Glut

I'm a radio listener. Regular old radio, not satellite HD pay per whatever radio. Want commercial free? Listen to public radio. Even if NPR and their various elitist programs sets your teeth on edge, if you live in or near civilization, a little walk through the lower end of the band will find some public radio stations which play interesting and varied community based shows.

Unfortunately, today I was on my way to work during Democracy Now and I wanted to hear music. The other public radio stations were playing polka-jazz-bluegrass fest or something, so I wandered up the dial until I found some music I could stand. And sing along to. Yes, I am a car singer. As "I Will Survive" ended, the station segued into an ad blitz leading with an Applebee's ad. I was busy merging and got stuck listening to it rather than scanning on to avoid it. I tuned out most of it but I caught this punchline... "Applebees. So much food, so little time."

Holy shit.

I understand that a long work day can create meal planning and executing issues but that is not the gist of this closer. I doubt that too many of us truly find ourselves thinking "That was yummy but I sure could use more time so I could stuff even more food into my face.", and if we do, this is a sign of either an unhealthy relationship with food or a life completely out of balance. Given the upbeat, snappy FUN tone of the ad and the delivery of the line, it's clear the advertisers assume the message of glorified gluttony will resonate and that it will resonate not just with some of us but with many of us.

I spent the rest of the way to work with thoughts of gluttony percolating in the back of my head, thinking of the many forms gluttony can take. SUVs in particular spring to mind.

Here's a short list -
Carpet plush lawns and domestic landscaping involving non-native plants, especially those maintained during droughts.
Super sized anything.
Professional pedicures.
Throwing away all the spare stuff and furniture you don't want to or can't move with you rather than finding someone or somewhere to give it away for re-use (every time someone moves out, take a peek at the dumpster if you live in a complex).

I was also wondering what in my own life counts as gluttony. I am a participant in this culture. It is unreasonable to expect that I don't also have habits which reflect this aspect. Is my air conditioned car gluttony? Does my plethora of office supplies count as gluttonous? (something I discovered in the move is that I have a shit load of office supplies).

And on that note, I am signing off. Thunder outside and there have been a lot of lightning strikes with these daily heat wave induced storms here in CT.

This is not my beautiful life

While my fella and I were waiting for the car salesman to bring around what I was assured would soon be my frosty green 2004 Civic, the Talking Heads was playing at a volume just under loud over the speaker. They pipe the music throughout the dealership, even out into the lot near the door to the salesroom. Through the many hours I was there last night going over variously unaffordable car replacement options, I realized that the dealership playlist was meant to target my age group, possibly a few years older. I smiled, because I found myself perversely thinking of the soundtrack of the aged come the year 2045. I was imagining how strange it will be to hear Frankie Goes to Hollywood playing softly in the background while my roommate is being suctioned for a sputum sample or having her bedpan changed. Most likely, the many intervening years of car dealership soundtracks and other audio indignities will ameliorate the jarring scene that would otherwise be.

On a happier note, I think I'm getting a car. I say "think" because there could still be a hold up with the financing. But if that clears, I pick up my pretty green Civic on Friday. I have my Ford for two more days. I can't get rid of it soon enough. On the way home from this afternoon's meeting with the Honda financing fellow, I sat at the red light with my hand stuck out the driver's side window to compensate for the Ford's intermittently fucked left rear blinker. The smell of cooking coolant wafted in from the engine while the fan whirred away in a mostly futile attempt to bring the engine temperature down from just a hair under well done and I was reminded of exactly why I am willingly about to go very deep into debt and to bleed my combined savings and semester's living expenses of a hefty $6000 this week.

I am so damned happy I have good credit and about a thousand left over from my divorce settlement. But the savings will be gone after Friday, and the debt load will be at a frightening all time high.

This unavoidable situation has helped to underscore that I've been feeling much closer to quitting my PhD program since at least May. I'll leave the precious pauper act for those who have the health, some level of unshaken belief that life always turns out ok, and the family financial backing to support such silliness. Lacking these luxuries, it's nothing short of terrifying to know that I am literally pouring time, energy, and a huge amount of money into completing this degree.

The faculty attitude which sees any slow downs for my health problems as a smoke screen for lollygagging my way through the PhD program are quite wrong and clearly deserving of a battle. It's the kind of fight I don't easily walk away from. But it is looking less like a battle I can win with anything better than a pyrrhic victory. And the degree itself is seeming less and less likely to support me in what are the most probable and desirable careers for me given my physical constraints, my shaken belief that life will always turn out ok, my apparent allergy to academic culture, and what I know about the academic labor market.

An unbelievably petulant and exceptionally passive aggressive email in my inbox from the new grad in my lab this morning helped push that growing sense of "This is not my beautiful life" a little further into the range where bailing seems the best way to cut my losses. So far, I've lost many things including my self respect on more than one occasion. I've found myself needing to sacrifice personal principles I hold extremely dear in order to even try to play nicely with the other children. I spent the last few years of good health I think I will ever have in my life first attending one crappy PhD program and now another, which, after a change in leadership is rapidly transitioning into high grade crap itself. My debt load is increasing each semester I waste here with little chance of a sure way to pay it off at the end (i.e. few tenure track jobs available and those that are involve hideous teaching loads). I know I have more I can lose before I am left with nothing but I doubt my ability to pull up out of nothing. If I were healthier, I might not be so sure of that, but as it is I don't think I can afford to take the hit to my sanity, any chance of current or future peace of mind, and all of my patience that another year of this program seems to require.

Monday monday

Ok it got worse.

I left a little late to go to the nuts and berries doc. Not too bad, but enough to have to hustle. As I passed the place where my car overheated the last time I had an appointment with this person (this today was try three in fact), I felt a wave of relief that my car's temperature gauge was staying in the low to middle end of things.

I got there about 7 minutes before my appointment feeling more relieved. Found the building easily, and found that the door to the office was locked.

The sign posted outside with the hours indicated the office was closed Monday. I could have sworn my appointment was for Monday the 10th though. I called and got the voice mail. On the outgoing message, the doctor announced her office's business hours which were Not Monday. I left a message explaining that I really thought I had this appointment today, etc. and asked them to call me back. They did, just as I was coming out of the campus parking garage. It turns out my appointment was today. So what happened? They were at lunch when I called, the door was locked because someone accidentally locked it, and the office hours are right usually not Monday but not this month because this month the doctor is seeing patients on Mondays.

When I got into the department, I found that the friend who said she'd take me to my ultrasound appointment tomorrow was inexplicably absent from work. She is not answering her phone or email either. These days this can mean anything from she forgot her phone or her phone charger at a friend's house to she's on the lam from the latest round of serious family fuckery and won't be contactable for weeks. Good thing my car's working ok so I don't have to worry about it breaking down if I end up driving myself tomorrow.

This evening I stopped on my way home to mail some stuff from a mailbox about five blocks from my apartment. I spilled a bottle of water - I mean dumped one of those big bottles of water all over the passenger seat getting my letters out of my bag. The seat was soaked. Ok, well I was almost home, I thought. I left the car running, mailed the letters, and got back into the car to find the needle on the temperature gauge teetering on red. I need a new expletive for moments like this. "Fucksticks" is good, but already taken. It's not bad as a temporary linguistic device though.

I do have a new word for something else, and that's some fun at least. It's not super easy on the tongue, but it seems coinage worthy as a concept. It's "manmel toe". At a talk I went to on Friday a man in the audience was sitting in such a way, with legs splayed wide, that he had in fact created a manmel toe with the seam of his pants. I'd imagine this would be quite painful, however he kept at it, even (it seemed) leaning into it.

yeah, it's monday

My alarm didn't go off. I know it is rare that this truly happens, but it did today.

My day is full of running around. I'm hoping my car can stand it. When I got it back from the mechanic this last time, they made me promise I was either getting a new car or would bring it back in if I hadn't replaced it by October. Seems I don't have a lot of brake left in the rear.

Today I have an appointment with a naturopath, at the strong suggestion of my primary care's nurse practitioner. I'm a little less than enthusiastic, but I'll try it. I'm trying to keep an open mind because if it will help me feel better, then that's good.

After the nuts and berries hour, I'm meeting with an Irritator (who, true to name, simply could not meet any day last week), and promptly after that I'll be dashing off to go sit in a room with about 8 other bored to hostile teachingassistants, listening to a fluffy childish woman-girl (whom I've nicknamed "poopapotamus") tell us how to do the job she's only done once - and not well. She was rather recently bragging to me that she failed two students for turning in their final papers 6 hours late. With some context, this might not be as shitty as it sounds. But without is how she presented it, and she was really, truly proud of this. I voiced disapproval, which doesn't matter too much because my guess is that she's more interested in male approval than female.

I'll give some backstory, not lots but some, later. It involves poopapotamus taking two weeks off mid semester to get married but refusing to accommodate me for a conflict between her meeting (it's a weekly thing!) and a medical test which has already been rescheduled three times...long story. I'll tell it later because I have to run to get to the beads and rattles appointment by 1:00.

breakdown

My car, which already overheated and broke down once this month, went into the shop again yesterday. That alone is enough to make me laugh or cry since it's got 115 thousand rather hard miles on it and needs to be replaced soon. The longer I keep it to try to save money by not buying a more reliable car, the more I spend. And spend and spend.

After the last breakdown I decided I should start looking into getting another car. I won't say "new" because this implies ambitions which are far, far beyond me. I looked, I have some idea of what degrees of "can't afford" I can live with. I sought out a local bank which does auto loans (mine doesn't), and bookmarked a few pages. But I thought I'd have until at least October to start the process in earnest.

Therefore, it came as a bit of a set back to this plan when a week after diagnosing and replacing a bad thermostat which caused my car to catastrophically overheat, the parking brake light started coming on every time I hit the brake pedal. It started Tuesday morning, while I was on my way to a new GI doctor appointment. I had no choice but to get my car back in ASAP and see what was up or risk breaking down again, this time with no fella to come get me after. I'm without a safety net for the next two weeks since A____'s leaving tomorrow for a two week trip to Italy. So no A___ and no car of A____ to fall back on since his car will be in NYC the entire time (and is a standard anyhow).

I just found out that getting my car in immediately was a very good idea because part of my brake line is rotted. The light coming on was on account of my having barely any brake fluid in my lines. Fuck. Good thing I didn't drive it on the highway, huh?

The mechanic gave me the estimate for how much it's going to cost to patch up the brake line (and that's without dealing with the nearly worn out pads). Of course I always have the option of getting my car back without even the minimal $300+ repair to the line, but in that case the car will only be useful as a large paperweight, lawn ornament, or possibly a sled come winter.

When I got off the phone with the mechanic, I started chuckling, then laughing out loud. Within a moment I realized I was not only laughing but also crying. By the time August is out, I will have dumped about 5 months worth of car payments into a car which I will have to trade in for scraps as soon as possible lest I risk dumping more potential car payments into keeping this monster road-worthy.

I am currently ready to consider suggestions, recommendations, related experiences, and empirically sound advice in pretty much any form. If anyone has any experience in auto loan shopping, car shopping, deciding between bank loans and dealer based financing, etc that they'd like to pass on please do so. I've resigned myself to the fact that although I managed to live the last 15 or so years with minimal debt, that era of my life is over. And with acceptance comes some something like peace. With a somewhat frigid sense of resignation if not actual calm, I decided I will deal with these things as they come. This is life. For now, for just right now, I have to get on with my day. Maybe do some work before I go pick up my car later this afternoon. One more cigarette, I thought, then I'll go get dressed.

While smoking, I checked my email and found a cranky message from my cranky advisor who has forgotten everything about what I'm doing right now. I think I will make her a poster to hang on her wall. I'll update it as necessary. Oh then I'd need to make her another poster to remind her to look at it though.

I started to write back but decided speaking would be better - less opportunity for compounding what was charitably a text based misunderstanding. While I was waiting for the phone tree to let me access her extension, I opened another message in my inbox. This one was from my little brother. In it, he reports that his insurance has cut off his mental health benefits (he's HIV positive, an abuse survivor, and trying to kick a substance addiction) and that our mother was admitted at about 1 AM to a hospital for acute cholecystitis. I strongly suspect the gallbladder disease has a point of origin somewhere outside her gallbladder given that my brother tells me she's been complaining of severe fatigue for nearly a month now and that she drank Jack Daniels like it was water for 20+ years of her life. I certainly don't begrudge the universe the karmic balancing it is exacting on my mother these days but I do think her messes are going to be extremely hard on my little brother since he still lives with the 'rents.

Well, as hard as I tried, I think I have no choice but to acknowledge that I am standing on the doorway of the tea room again. Two weeks without my partner in crime to help me feel better about the shit in life, the start of an ambiguous school year, and family and financial fuckery most assuredly equals some down time for the psyche.

a little help

Wow this sucks. My cat(Max) got sick last night just after I got home from curtailed errands. Errands cut short because my car (Mo) is officially squirrely and last night was one of its less fine moments.

At some point, I think I am going to have to face it that my car's electrical system is just sort of, well, fucked. I say this since trips to the mechanic involve increasingly familiar reports like "this wire's insulation is gone, that connection was corroded, this one worked when we hooked it up to the machine but didn't when it wasn't...we think it's 'cause our connection was grounding it..." I'd say I've been putting it off except that would imply there was a fixable issue or that I could afford to replace the non-fixable issue (the car). So far, neither is the case.

I got home at about 8:30 to Max having some kind of breathing/choking fit (no it wasn't a hair ball) that went on and on and on. I called the vet and we decided it would be best for him to be seen soon since it seemed he was having breathing problems.

Ok, so I run (limp quickly) over to A___'s apartment to get Max's carrier, start up Mo the car to bring it around to the entrance of the building so I don't have to heft my 18 lb cat too far. Mo had to be coaxed into starting, surged when it finally turned over, then BANG, grind...Mo didn't want to go, not one bit.

I called (and called and called) anyone I thought could possibly be helpful, even people I don't like a whole lot. Then I cried because no one was available. My sister and A___ at least answered my calls but there is precious little they could do from states away. The locals were not taking calls. Keep in mind that there is no public transportation and there are no taxi services out here in the middle of fucking nowhere CT.

About an hour after all this began, my friend M___ finally answered what I think was my third phone call, saying "Oh, I'm sorry I missed (all of) your calls..." He was really sweet though, drove the 25 miles of dark twisty country road from where he lives to my place, carried the 18 lb cat out to his car, and even went in with me to the vet.

M___'s never had a cat and can be a nervous driver, so this late night trip with my cat HOWLing in the backseat was probably a little bit harrowing for him I'm sure. Add to that my singing to the cat (we settled on "I will survive") and it may rank up there as one of those "worst things I had to do for a friend" moments for him. It wasn't that bad as far as bad things go, but, well, I have learned to assume moderate to high levels of sheltered in terms of life experiences of many of my fellow grad students.

The vet was nice, gave Max shots and did an x-ray. Max is still sick but not terrible. His lungs looked ok, but the vet said it might have been an asthma attack. More reason to move since now not only does the mold of the rotting (still not fixed) ceiling make me sick, it may be making my cat ill too . Max spent most of the day resting under my desk, but he hasn't had the scary fit like he was having last night.

And today, my car wouldn't start. A___'s not back until Wednesday night, I've got an appointment for Monday to bring my car in but it will have to be towed and I have no ride back from the garage (which is, like everything out here, far away), and no ride to go get it when they are done.

So all in all, this sucks in a big sucky way. Several years ago, I made a new year's resolution that I would learn how to accept help from others because I was so bad at it I would rather hurt myself than ask. I have spent the last few years with a string of obstacles that require me to ask again and again for all sorts of help from people around me. I see this as one of life's little ironies. Sort of like young jeremy finding 2/3rds of a $20 bill while down and out and needing money. It's one of those nasty jokes of fate that makes you want to believe in a god so you can go into a church and scream "ENOUGH, you fuck!"