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04.29.04 - 10:40 p.m.
"sunny side up? a slew of miscommunications pummeled me throughout this entire week. i'm so exhausted from searching for the sunny side up of things. not much time to explain feelings here, but the convoluted facts include : 1. indirect discovery through my landlord's answering machine message that my roommate is looking for a two-bedroom apartment. that is, she's moving out at the end of august to get a place with her boyfriend. 2. finding out through a very confused receptionist that announcements for one dissertation fellowship were mailed out THREE WEEKS AGO; finding out that the foundation wasn't even clear about my address; finding out (EVEN THOUGH I DIDN'T ASK TO HEAR THE RESULTS) that "unfortunately, we will not be able to fund you this year"... humiliating, disconcerting, disorienting, aggravating, hurt hurt angry angry, UGGHGHGH 3. feeling way out of the loop, when i crunched through the remaining 14 papers in at least 36 hours in order to return them on monday night...only to find out that the other t.a.s planned to return them on wednesday. 4. learning that a distant friend not only claims a ground zero recollection of the past 2 years of our friendship, but also chastises me for even asking her to consider and reflect on the memories i sent of my version (at least a version, who knows if it's the right one). 5. the prof with whom i'd made plans to meet on wednesday, actually needed to cancel our meeting... 6. discovering that a grad student whom i loathe (codename: sli) has recently been slated to teaching in the same writing rubric as me next fall, and that if i don't win this fellowship, i'll have to endure bi-weekly meetings with this bitch whom i just despise throughout next fall... 7. learning that someone whom i recommended to apply to my current part-time job actually interviewed this week, and i'm just so ambivalent if i want to increase contact from the distant but infrequent phone calls, to bi-weekly meetings. she already works with my former thrpst...do i really want her to "share" her with my current boss? 8. finding out that i didn't misplace the essay of one of my smartest white male students, but he in fact never wrote one. irony of ironies, i was entirely too certain that I was at fault, and ashamed that I was certainly in the wrong, that I didn't confront him immediately about the missing paper. instead, last night i profusely apologized to him for losing his paper, asked him to resend it to me. it was then that he said, 'uhm, you must be mistaken. i never wrote a paper for you.' to which i replied, 'when were you going to tell me?' he said, 'i don't know'... to think i was so damn close to just giving this student an A-, assuming he wrote a stellar paper and I was the irresponsible one who'd lost it. i just can't believe i could not believe that he erred, not I. 9. finding out that i completely didn't read one set of readings for my last discussion section wed. night. and worse didn't bring that book to class,breaking my own cardinal rule. have i hit 10 yet? i'm sure i could find two more other disasters of this week. i entitled this entry "sunny side up" since i am trying my damndest to to find sunny things to think about and not succumb to a depressive, self-loathing rut... on wednesday - the proverbial hit the fan day - the morning of this phone call, the morning of the prof's cancellation, etc.... on the sunny side, i hung out with my friend alice some more - we'd already spent two hours catching up on monday, drinking tea in the green dragon, shivering in disbelief in response to the 40o weather that veered on the side of SNOW IN APRIL!!! instead, on wednesday, i was so upset....walked through gs halls feeling dazed...because how do i even relate my the confusing message of i think i didn't get this fellowship, but i don't know, since a letter never came to my house, since the receptionist confused my name with another person sharing the same last name... walking dazed as i share the company of friends who CONTINUE to shine in the glow of very good news...walking dazed and thinking, why not me? i'm a good person, i help so many other people out, i've contributed so much to good karma, positive ethos, generous support... and still, and yet... back to that awful question nagging my center: why the f*ck do you continue to believe that JUST because you give with your best intensions, that others will send good will too you?? the asshole, no asshole; self-centered or altruistic? categories do NOT exist on fellowship applications. i'm sorry for sounding like a broadway music junky but showtunes like "it's my turn..." go round and round in my head? anyway, to get over a tidal wave of confusing messages flooding my way, i through my damndest into being with people, trying to partake of activities to be happy about, even if i'd have preferred to spend my time in other ways. so wednesday afternoon, i joined my friend jen's class to watch Alien 4: The Resurrection - may i inform y'all that the last Aliens movie that I saw in 1986, I remember with crystal clearity being the only person in the whole theatre to repeatedly SCREAM ALOUD. ugh, how embarrassing... so me, age 30, covered my mouth and shrieked discretely in the back of the room. at least, though, i made the effort right to have fun in ways alien to me?!?! and then, went out to stella's after my last class, and smiled and congratulated alice and our buddies for their triumphs - first day of a new job, turning in a diss prospectus (i haven't touched my writing since March), completing a first keynote speech for a talk the next day... sunny side up means that instead of rushing home after a lackluster final class performance, to binge, purge, cry, binge, purge, cry... i went to the lounge instead, ordered my first meal all day, and had not one but two drinks (drunken hemingways are overrated; rita mae's rock my world!)...and stayed out til the place closed. tomorrow, thursday, was a new day... and i did write a polite poison letter to the foundation, explaining how upset and disturbed i felt by that confusing phonecall...and then tried to let it go... and least i'm not pouncing on my mail deliverer every day, or obsessively checking my campus mailbox either. and i've yet to hear from one other fellowship foundation, and the outcome of an essay contest on campus (the first one i've enterred since 2000)... and the weather hit 78o today, had my office hours outside, rescheduled my appointment with the important prof for tomorrow... feeling exhausted, but not thoroughly demoralized, to turn my upside down life, sunny side up, and up, and up.... to be continued
MUSIC: "Roses" by Outkast
READING: Life and Death in Psychoanalysis (La Planche)
FEELING:Exhausted from brightening this side of things
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