dispatch from the trenches

there’s always something a little surreal about conference week. I like the idea, both in practice and in theory, of setting aside a week without classes to interact one-on-one with each of my students. especially considering the dearth of students in general at office hours and after class, it’s often the only time I get to talk to a lot of them directly through the entire semester. however, it’s always just a little weird once I get into the rhythm of actually doing it. before, when I worked on the third floor, it was the weirdness of needing to essentially wall myself off in the middle of what was normally a constantly social environment for me. I was always physically around in my usual workplace during conference week, but wasn’t really able to do anything but be constantly vigilant, always presentable, always on the lookout for the next student, never allowed to be purposely exploding things in the communal microwave or throwing huge 1,000 page tomes down the hall at random like I would normally do.

(I hate that Microsoft Word presumes to capitalize my “I”s. it’s screwing up my slacker vibe.)

now this semester, when it’s usually quid pro quo for me to be isolated anyway, it’s somehow still weird to be sitting here in the Bookie, eight hours at a time, watching everyone come and go but remaining as constant as the ridiculous faux-Native American furniture. conferences sort of exacerbate the already wide gap between the amount of time students spend on one particular class and the amount of time I spend on that class. it’s bizarre; they’re each in for 10 minutes or so, ten minutes of the entire week, and I’m here for eight hours a day or so for five straight days just covering everyone’s 10 minutes. I’m not complaining because obviously I don’t have to do this, I’m just observing the strangeness. I think it sort of reinforces that idea that most of them seem to have that I’m pretty much just a constantly working and teaching english machine without really anything else going on.

well, as sadly close to the truth as that actually is…

…I’m also uncomfortable projecting that appearance any more than I absolutely have to.

I haven’t gotten to go on my usual diet coke binge today on account of the fact that my throat is still fucked up from my sinus infection and not keeping it immensely hydrated = not being able to talk. the result of drinking water instead of diet coke appears to be that I become super bitchy and my head feels like humungous wooly caterpillars with metal, spiky shoes are tromping around inside of it.

but after not smoking at all for 2 weeks or so, stopping the diet coke infusion too is nice…I might have a roaring headache, but it’s nice to know that my brain is entirely under my control for the first time in probably 5-6 months, maybe more like a year.

well, sometime between the beginning of this entry to the end it moved from 9am to 3pm…the first day of conferences is almost at an end. I’m gonna call down to the music store after I’m finished and see if they have anyone who can work on my 650 dollar amp, which of course musician’s friend broke somehow during shipping (oh, and then also are shipping my “backordered” bass on november 26^th, even though they said it was in stock when I ordered it 2 weeks ago). so here’s hoping they can do something. if I don’t have some sort of creative project/outlet soon, I’m probably just going to have a brain aneurysm or something. doing nothing but working and worrying about how crappy your current life situation is is the suck.

I’m really excited for this december show…partially because of all the new bridges, segues, and jams that I’ve been working on, and partially because I’m not at all scared anymore to perform. it’s hard to be scared when you really don’t care anymore about what anyone thinks of you or whether they think you’re good or not. I’m just much more focused on trying to be happy than I was previously, and worrying excessively over other peoples’ appraisal of my worth morally, artistically, professionally, etc. is just more trouble than it’s worth. I’m a harsh enough critic when it comes to me that I’ll probably catch most things that really need fixed on my own…

I’ve had 21 fucking 15-minute conferences today. do you know how many conferences that is? wait, I just told you…

two left. then it’s off to maybe not actually work all night. maybe. it depends on how stressed out I’m feeling about my grad school applications…of course, without 500mg of diet coke, I’m not really feeling uber-stressed about anything. on the other hand, my bladder is about to explode. so that’s pretty sweet.

I’m sorry for all the rambling, but I’m going to try to get back in the 2005 habit of long, rambling blog posts that don’t mean anything, as well as stepping up other meaningful hobbies such as playing starcraft, writing song lyrics on napkins in diners at odd hours of the night, writing impromptu poetry in book jackets of books that may or may not belong to me, playing starcraft, swinging on swingsets, learning more weird guitar scales and ways of chording that result in crazy-ass jazz sounding slide transitions, playing starcraft, learning how to cut my hair in a mirror without looking like robert smith, playing starcraft, generally trying to be less bitchy, playing starcraft, and…uh…oh, yeah: playing starcraft.

so what I’m really saying is that I’m not sorry for all the rambling.

I’m hoping that having some productive, creative things to do in my “spare” time will help offset the desire to destroy my ability to have feelings using various drugs and intentional sleep deprivation. and who knows, I might finally get a few of these damn short stories/essays published, or apply to a grad school by mistake or maybe even *gasp* play starcraft!