Late on Monday night, Esteban noticed that I must have been freaking out much more than usual, because I was being extraordinarily helpful with his packing. Like, I cleaned out my entire car, just on the off-chance that the GPS unit was in there, and made several codependent queries upon the quantities of clean laundry for his suitcase. Normally, I leave the packing shit up to him and am not that Stepford. I even assured him that no, it was fine, I’d happily wake up extra early to drive him to the airport, despite the fact that I wouldn’t be getting home until super late that night and had to drive down to Milwaukee anyway. Insanity? Let’s just say that I was quivering so rapidly that I appeared to be perfectly calm. Up at 4:30 am? SURE! And then, in the morning, I was cheerful as could be. I personally didn’t think anything of it, until he mentioned that he was starting to get a little creeped out by my incessant cheerfulness. It was a lot easier to involve myself in the status of his clean underwear than run over my booklist in my head or mentally concoct several torturous questions that my committee might ask, some of which I predicted would go something like “Finish this line from the eighth paragraph in Chapter 17 of Lolita. I was…”
I got home from the airport about the time I normally would have been turning off my alarm, so I jumped into the shower and then spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out what to wear. I hadn’t picked out an outfit, because if I figured out the ensemble, then it would mean that the oral examination upon which my entire last several years hinged was actually real and not imaginary. It was totally a coping mechanism, but one that kind of bit me in the ass. Don’t count on being able to bunt fashion-wise when you’re behind on the (fucking) laundry, you know?
I did manage to pull it out, grabbing my favorite long black shirt dress that manages to look both casual and also professional at the same time, and then threw on my grey cashmere cardigan over it, because it was still chilly when I left and the dress has short-sleeves. I threw on my sage green Privo flats, that went with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING but then threw my witchy Anne Kleins in my bag, figuring that I’d swap them out after walking to the English building and up the stairs.
I forgot that I had to do an interview with someone about being a fat girl (at some point, I accidentally became an quasi-authority on having a fat ass, which is mind-boggling) and had planned on doing the interview while I drove, but when it was time, I was about to drive through a notoriously bad reception area and just pulled over, figuring that I had a ton of time. Stupid, I totally didn’t, as I planned on stopping at a grocery store to get breakfast and when the interview was done, I had exactly 45 minutes to go another 20 miles, drive through town, park, and then get to the meeting room. Gah!
I made it to Milwaukee in plenty of time, but never realized that parking at school in the morning? A fucking problem! You see, I always get to school after 2 pm, when parking, like living in the summertime, is easy. Normally, I can score a spot that’s like, maybe six stalls away from the door that’s closest to the library, and then it’s just crossing a courtyard and viola, I’m in the fug building that houses the English department. However, on Tuesday morning at straight up 10 o’clock? Wrong. The parking garage was jammed full. Seriously… full, like there was a line of cars, waiting to be let in, one at a time, whenever someone left. A line that wasn’t moving. I drove around a few blocks, looking for somewhere, anywhere to park. Nada. I told myself that I should practice more patience, have zen, and get in line. Where I, along with seven other cars, sat. For 20 minutes.
I managed to get into the 99.99% full garage at 10:21 am. If you’re playing along at home, that meant that I had 9 minutes to find that one empty spot in the entire garage, collate all of my materials, run through campus, up four flights of stairs and also, change my shoes and check my make up. And also, the iced coffee I had on the way down was becoming a priority, and as such, I had to also pee. GRRRREAT.
I found a spot and parked at 10:24 am. The spot was basically an extra city block’s distance from where I normally can park, but beggars can’t be choosers and I just parked and started running. I made it into the building at 10:29 am, pressed the Up elevator button (the one coming down was 8 floors away) and then ducked into the bathroom to pee very quickly, didn’t dry my hands, and rushed out in time to throw myself bodily into the closing doors at 10:31 am, then pressed the button for the 4th floor. The elevator was going to the basement.
More later.
