The Joel Train

i started the semester with 20 credit hours of school and two part-time jobs. now, 4 months later, im down to 15 hours and im working out my notice on both the library and the restaurant. I've managed to survive the meat grinder that is my life, but only just.

im not sure what i'll do for work. im only taking three classes this summer, so i'll have some spare time. Ana wants me to wait tables. with my history for blurting out terrible things and staring, i dont believe i'll be sucessful. maybe i'll work at applebees. its so awful, i dont think i'd feel bad making a mess of things there. they almost deserve it for eating there, the poor bastards.
imagine working the door.
"are you sure about this? the olive garden's just a few doors down..."

i'd like to continue bookkeeping, but im not sure anyone would hire me after my 6 months stint at the restaurant. you see i "fixed" that place and now my services are no longer needed. i implemeneted new procedures, updated the payroll structure and sales proceedure. I was so effective that the restaurant began to hemorage money. Hemorage Money! and my boss decided that, while my heart was in the right place, it would be best if i stopped trying so hard.

so now im training my replacement, tying up loose ends at school and getting ready for finals week. Ana and I are going to Emerald Isle for a week in May. It will be the first vacation since our honeymoon and im looking forward to it.

we've paid for the house already, but im not sure how we're going to eat yet.

im thinking about starting a spanish language blog. topics may include: family, things to buy at the market, colors

i'll let you know.

when i dropped my class with Professor X (as he shall be known) i sent him an email telling him how sorry i was to have to leave, but good luck with the rest of his semester. Such is my insane need to please that, even after i call him a grandstanding, class winging, hotty pants, online for all the world to see, i still smile and wave everytime i pass by, him seated, smoking, a distant look in his eye as if scanning the horizon for life's quiet mystery until finally, a glint of recognition and a slow nod.

Being me is a complex thing. today, i saw a dog in the quad. it was a beautiful puppy, maybe some kind of husky-lab mix, one blue eye, one brown. I've seen this dog for over a week now, tied to at tree in the quad, no owner in sight, without food or water. now of course it hasnt been there all night, im sure that someone takes the dog with them to school, ties them to a tree while they sit in class and in an hour or so they come out and take the dog home. some might say that a dog can sit quietly for an hour on a cool spring day without incident. well, you people can go fuck yourselves.

the problem is, i am incapable of directly creating conflict. i cant just wait for the owners to show up for their dog and yell at them for being neglectful, that would make me uncomfortable. instead i call campus security, and when they tell me there's nothing i can do but call animal control (which seems to me to be a big step to take), i'd rather call animal control than deal with the yelling and the fear of looking dumb. which is what i did. call animal control that is. but these kind of resolutions always leave loose ends. its never just a phone call. i know somehow this puppy will end up biting me in the ass.

* * * *

i sat waiting outside my advisors office, my mind a thousand miles away from any of my previous weaslings, down the hall bounds Professor X.

"Joel!" he was animated, happy to see me.

His hand raised up to slap me five, and as i presented mine, low in my seat, his arm came down like a guilotine.

"man, im glad you like my buns but im sorry you didnt care for my class."

i was still holding his hand, i heard a desperate rushing sound come from somewhere deep inside. I think i'd been holding my breath and i choked for air.

"my asthma" i offered.

i do remember that, in the end, i was the one that apologized. no hard feelings and all that sort of thing, i think i even offered to make it up to him and buy him a beer next time i saw him at the pub (could i possibly have used the word pub?).

life marches onward, all the while standing still.
i still wave like an idiot everytime i see professor x. and he, dignity intact, cooly dips his head.

losing your mind is a funny thing. i think it happens slowly, bit by bit, so that one day you might think "this cheese is staring at me" and next thing you know you're running through your neihborhood with a butcher knife tucked in the elastic band of your underpants.

school has been kicking my ass for two solid months. there is just so much to do, and since historically i have refused to do any kind of "outside" research (homework, assigned readings, that sort of thing), i cant seem to get caught up. i dont miss too many classes and yet its not enough to sit in class and pretend to be listening. i havent dropped out of any classes though.

last semester i dropped out of a humanities class. the professor drove me nuts. honestly i think he drove me crazy because it wasnt clear to me what he wanted from us. having dropped out of the same class once before, i already had a sense of how a competent teacher might cover the material, and he just wasnt pulling it off. so after i dropped the class, i went to one of those rate your professor sites and started to read his reviews. everybody loves this guy!

here are some examples:

"our class rocked. never had a professor as cool in so many ways before. learned a hell of a lot in his class. dude has gotta be a genius."

"Professor _____ is so brilliant and oh soooooo sexy! I highly recommend him--stimulating in a lot of ways!

"Do sex me up Dr. J!!! Oh that brilliant oxford mind of yours--that hot greek bod to go with it---that gorgeous smile. I beg you, teach the next class in the series so that i might drink from your well again!"


i mean jesus christ.

so i decide to even the playing field alittle bit and leave a message of my own:

"____ tries way too hard. it just seemed like he was crying out 'look at me! look at me! arent i smart!?' which makes me sound like a jerk, but i couldnt figure out how St Augustine's Confessions translated into 20th century cubist art. How do we benefit from somebody name dropping for an hour and 10 minutes twice a week? but what do i know, he's got cute buns."

take that academia!

but straight away things started to go wrong. when i wrote the comment, it was a response to the "oh so sexy" comments i'd read before, but when i posted mine it showed up at the very top of the list. when i mentioned his cute ass, suddenly i was pioneering the idea.

when you write one of these things nobody ever gives their name. usually they leave something like "asheville dude" or "sweet kitty". the form you fill out asks for a name and of course i continued the smackdown with "not impressed", but then it asked for my email address and i got confused.

well. maybe they want to send me updates to the site.
when you register to use other sites theres stuff you just have to include.
what if they wont post my comment without one.

it turns out that only fools add their email address to documents that talk shit about their teachers. i went back to look at my post and there it was, for all the world to see. and its not like i've got one of those vague addresses like guitarstudy@yahoo.com
it might as well been "joel, you know, that guy that was in your 2nd period class on tuesdays and thursdays, sat in the third row, smelled like fritos@yahoo.com"

as you can imagine, i was sure my cover had been blown.

but weeks went by and no axes fell. the semester ended and while i still saw him on campus, we managed to greeted each other with mild enthusiasm of the "no hard feelings for dropping my class" variety.

the semster eneded and i moved on to other things.