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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