The Difference Between Undead and Un-Dead

I loved law school.  I loved words and reading and problem solving.  I loved all the things about law school that have nothing to do with the reality of practicing law at major New York City law firms.  The legal industry is like a whole-body root canal: it leaves your carcass and brain intact while extracting your soul.  Without anesthetic!  It’s zombification without the awkward amble.  If you’ve ever been in the conference room of an expensive, oh-so-purposefully intimidating conference room staring down opposing counsel across the wide expanse of a shiny mahogany table during a deposition, you know what I mean.  You can’t hear your own heart beat over the clickety-clack of the court reporter.  The floor-to-ceiling glass windows reveal an incredible view of a New York City that you never get to see during daylight hours, while the light filtering film prevents real sunlight from reaching your face.  And you realize, and you wonder how you didn’t realize this before: if it weren’t for the mold growing under your refrigerator you would have no life at all.

So I left the law.  I decided that I would rather teach about the undead than be one.  Now I teach horror fiction to undergraduates.  Every day is different.  Every class is different; each student with her own unique perspective on the issues we discuss and how it relates to her life.  And unlike being in court where everything you say has been scripted and planned in advance, I sometimes find myself at a loss for words.  This morning was one of those times:

Prof. Dingo:  Okay, team number 5, what five things — and five things only — would your team want if you were suddenly thrust into the middle of a horror movie?  And why?

Team leader:  Water.

Prof. Dingo:  Water?  Um, holy water?

Team leader:  No, just water.  We thought we’d get all dirty and smelly running from the monsters.

Prof. Dingo:  Okaaaay…..what else would you want?

Team leader:  Soap.

Prof. Dingo:  What would you do with —

Team Leader:  So we could wash up with the water.

Prof. Dingo:  Um, I don’t think you quite understood the point of this exercise —

Team leader (she’s really getting excited):  An electric car, matches, and a CHAINSAW!!

Prof. Dingo:  A chainsaw!  That’s good! But you already have five things what about gas for the chainsaw?

Team leader:  It needs gas?

Note to self:  You do not want to depend on these people in an emergency! 

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Almost New Year’s Resolutions

How are you doing on your New Year’s Resolutions?  I read an article last month that said January 21st was the most depressing day of the year for many people because that’s when they assess how well they’ve stuck to their resolutions.  For me and Mr. Dingo, January 21st was not the assessment point.  We have to reassess at the end of every single month.  Medical bills, vet bills, and the fact that I was unemployed for a few months early last year really kicked our butts.  Our resolution for this year is to get out of debt; so we came up with a plan that does not involved robbing banks or printing money to help us reach our goal.  Basically, we are in the cash only lane from this moment on.  We pay for everything with cash.  Credit cards are only for emergencies.  Emergencies are Dingo Girl going into another seizure and not a sale at DSW Shoe Warehouse.  I don’t keep cash on me either.  Loose cash is waaay too easy to spend.  I use my ATM card.  There’s something about the act of pulling the ATM card out of my wallet that really makes me think about whether my purchase is necessary.

Anyway, this morning as I was pulling on my boots getting ready to take Dingo Girl to Central Park and I was thinking about the resolution.  But first, I must digress.  Getting my boots on is a real bitch.  They don’t have that handy little loop at the back to help you pull them on.  They used to have that handy loop.  However, two days after I got them, Dingo Girl decided to chew them off.  I guess she figured the only way her mama was going to build the muscles in her T-Rex arms was to make her struggle to pull on these damn boots.  I love these boots though, even without the bootstraps.  They’re Coast Guard boots that I ordered from U.S. Calvary and they rock.  You know that nasty six inch puddle of water or slush that’s at the corner of every intersection in New York City?  The puddle bottomless pit that leaves you with the option to make like a long-jumper in the Olympics or to walk up and down the edge of the street looking for a place to cross like a cow during a cattle drive?  Well, a puddle like that is nothing to these boots.  Nothing!  These boots laugh at deep puddles, one of those long, condescending sneers like you get from the chick at Victoria’s Secret when you ask her if this comes in your size.  I just wade right on in!  I am Moses!  My feet stay dry and warm.  Out of my way, you people herding along the edge of the curb looking for a shallow spot!  Anyway, these boots are a winter staple.  I have been so impressed with them that I actually wore them to work once hoping that they would be just as effective against the piles of bullshit that I slog through every day.  No dice.  The repelling properties of my Coast Guard boots are limited to water, slush, and snow.

So as Dingo Girl and I were headed to the park I began to think about our cash crunch, luxuries, necessities, and all kinds of things associated with altering our lifestyle for the foreseeable future.  And you know what I came up with?  I have everything I need to be happy.  I couldn’t always say that.  A few years ago, I was a mess.  Rock bottom.  That’s a lifetime ago and definitely a post for another day.  But today, this other life, the things that make me happy aren’t money or anything to do with money.  Don’t get me wrong, if I suddenly found five million dollars in my checking account like this guy did, I would seriously think about a Swiss bank account and a well-appointed hut in the Caymans.  But it’s sitting up until 2am talking with Mr. Dingo about politics, movies, the latest book we’ve read, or cooking a new recipe he found that give me happiness.  It’s cold, damp, snowy days like today with Dingo Girl ecstatic about playing in the snow and her doggie friends that make me smile.  I think you would agree with me that it’s the things that you can’t stick a price tag on that make us happiest, but why is it that we always think we need so much? 

Watching Dingo Girl play in the park knowing that Mr. Dingo would probably have a fire in the fireplace by the time we got home cold and shivering, anticipating a day of reading on the couch and perhaps writing the next chapter of my novel make me feel like the richest woman in the world.  And you can take that to the bank.

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Mo’ Confused

I’m supposed to meet with my thesis advisor in a few hours, but with the snow falling outside and predictions of sleet I’m desperately hoping that school is cancelled and we have to reschedule.  Thirty-something years old and I’m conjuring up the Snow Gods from junior high.  The incantation goes something like this, “Please, please, please, please, please, and I won’t ask for anything ever again!”

In the last week I’ve read three novels, two articles, and numerous academic texts on my subject.  I am sure that given Murphy’s Law of Students (you know, the one that determines that you will be asked a question based on the one thing you did not study) I will be asked to discuss a word I encountered only tangentially in my texts:  Möbius.

I had to look it up a gabajillion times to make sure I understood what the word meant but only the good Lord and Mr. Möbius can figure out how it applies to 18th century Gothic literature. This morning I decided that if I couldn’t discuss it with any coherency it would behoove me to, at the very least, know how to pronounce it correctly.  “Möbius,” for those of you dying to know, is pronounced mɶ-bee-uh s . 

Now there, wasn’t that helpful?  Yes, I thought so.

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The Vampire

I am so freakin’ tired today.  I have no idea how I’m going to stay awake through the endless rounds of meetings that are on my schedule.  I think it’s going to be a Red Bull kinda day.  Today, the bags under my eyes and the zzzzz’s emanating from behind the closed doors of my office are brought to you courtesy of the nocturnal habits of our upstairs neighbor. 

I’m not really sure what he’s doing up there but he keeps some very odd hours.  Vampire hours.  Without fail, between midnight and 5am it sounds as if he’s trying to gouge out a life-sized replica of the Grand Canyon by pushing the entire inventory of our local IKEA across the hardwood floor of his apartment.  At 5am he either crawls back into his coffin or he has finally decided that the chiffarobe actually does look better wedged between the mini-fridge and the sink and all is quiet until the next evening.  Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat. 

Being the nosey parker that I am, I once asked him what he does for a living.  I got some vague entrepreneur, actor, model, type answer.  I’m thinking that maybe he’s in the witness protection program or he’s a secret agent and he hasn’t fully worked out his cover story.  Now, I’m not a vindictive person but if he doesn’t STFU so that I can get some sleep I’m going to put his picture in a full page ad in the New York Times with the headline, “Here he is.  Please come get him.”

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Welcome!

I know I am several years behind the blogging bandwagon but I have a good excuse.  My apartment is a mess.  So, in honor of President’s Day and the presidents who took pride in organizing our great nation, I decided this President’s Day to organize my apartment.  I now join the ranks of bloggers everywhere.  I think another national holiday is in order. 

I can sense some of you nodding your heads in empathy.  You know what it’s like to try to get any work done when the cat’s snoozing on your chair and your desk holds your laptop, laundry, and more books than the New York Public Library.  For those of you who don’t understand what a messy apartment has to do with not being able to write, blog, pay the cable bill, let me ‘splain.  I’m one of those writers who must have a clean and organized space in order to truly get down to business.  Something out of place will just distract me to no end until I get up and put the offending object where it’s supposed to be.  Simple enough if it’s just folding the blanket on the couch or cleaning out my “to be filed” bin but if I do a mad sweep through the living room and take an empty cup or plate into the kitchen my world collapses.  Granted, I can’t see the kitchen from my desk.  We have a nice curtain from Home Depot that blocks the kitchen chaos from my view.  But the problem is that once I take the offending plate or bowl into the kitchen I KNOW it and its culinary brethren piled up in the sink or stacked precariously on the counter are just sitting there mutely but accusingly until I can find the time and energy to tend to them.  And knowing they are there…just, just…well, I just can’t concentrate on what I’m supposed to be doing – and that’s usually my writing!  Mr. Dingo claims that it’s just procrastination on my part that compels me to tackle the great wall of dishes when I’m two days away from a paper deadline and I haven’t even started the paper because I’m still doing research because I just haven’t found the perfect awe-inspiring topic yet.  Nope, that’s not it at all.  I just need order in order to order my thoughts.

I am typically of the “how great for you!” mindset when I hear of someone else’s good fortune but when I read author interviews I am jealous.  Not of their success mind you, but because the pictures that accompany the interviews are stunning.  Well organized bookshelves, beautiful art, not a speck of dust in sight.  No wonder they are on the New York Times bestseller list, I think, look at the beautiful space in which they work!  If I had to define my apartment style, Art Deco, Shabby Chic, or Urban Contemporary aren’t the words that come to mind.  It’s more like 21st Century Ransacked. 

But I must admit that my lack of domestic ability only weighs on me when I am facing a deadline.  Mr. Dingo’s view is we’re busy people --we work, we go to school, we have a life.  We’ll get to it when we get to it.  In fact, on those rare but cherished nothing to do days, dishes and dust be damned.  Mr. Dingo and I would rather take advantage of rare downtime by walking in Central Park with our dog, Dingo Girl, catching up on some reading, or hanging out together rather than making our home ready for some white-glove test. 

But it really would be nice if after one of our afternoons in the park, we came home to find that our friends and the folks from While You Were Out had paid a visit.  Either them or Merry Maids.  I was forced to take matters into my own hands this weekend, however, as it appears that the folks from While You Were Out and Merry Maids had better things to do.  Now that order has descended upon the chaos I have no excuse for not writing my blog, my thesis, or the next Great American Novel.  Finding that cable bill is another matter entirely.

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