2006-04-10
Long Weekend of Mapping Cough Trajectories in Our New Office
Once I started, though, rearranging the furniture became a compulsion. Birgit joined in, and by 1:30 or 2:00 we largely had our computers and bookshelves and lounge chair and books and pens and paper and closet shelving and boardgames and CDs where we wanted them. We had also taken out the television -- Ned's Atomic Dustbin's "Kill Your Television" is rubbing off on me, me thinks -- VCR, DVD player and considered replacing these objects with a microwave before ruling against it in the name of bed.
The older I get, the more I love moving furniture. I don't know if this is an ailment that most near-30 year-olds suffer or if it is something about being a geopolitician in charge of his own space, but damnit, moving shit around is addicting!
Thursday I woke up sicker than a dog. I've been developing a cough for about two weeks now that has gotten to the point of hacking up a lung. I felt like crap; so I just organized the room further and hauled a bunch of shit to the basement that was littering our floor up here -- miles and miles of telephone wire, even though we haven't ever had a landline in this house and never assume we will, etc. I was too sick to go to lecture. I did go to the doctor, though, as I was convinced I had bronchitis, which of course, I don't.
The doctor was a bit of a meany. She wasn't my usual doctor. I had to sit in the waiting room for a good 45 minutes, and then sit in the doc's office another 15 after learning that my blood pressure is back to being low -- the last time I went they said it was high, but that was after downing a half-liter of coffee while discussing music and Ukrainian music pirates with Adam at Mapps. When the doctor came in she was terse, kind of unsympathetic, and basically a little cursory. She was loud too. She was so loud that I could hear her through the wall while she was with the Sophomore woman next door, explaining her birthcontrol options, and which ones might work best for her. At hearing this, I apprehensively eyed the free condom dispenser on the wall and examined the posters around the room -- I hadn't accidentally gone to Planned Parenthood for a cough, had I?! I've been known to get lost after staying up too late moving furniture before.
Went for a walk in the rain and hail once my appointment ended. Lived it up and went into a McDonalds and ordered two cheeseburgers just because I can. Was picked up by Birgit on the corner of University and 10th Ave. We went to US Bank to cash a Money Order that I filled out for the Brazilian Embassy but then realized they wouldn't accept. Man, money orders are a bitch! I have to call South Dakota now and it will probably take months to get my money back... rrrrRRRRR... the $210 visa to Brazil, I guess. Merde.
Spent Thursday evening touching up the office again. Friday came. Birgit went to a doctor's appointment, then picked me up, and I drove her to work. I hung out at the Macalester Library -- because it was National Library Week, the library there had free Caribou coffee all week, which was incentive enough for me. We drove down Grand Avenue and had lunch at Woellets or some weird sandwich shop. I dropped her off and came home. I had a stack of Geog 3511 papers to grade that was starting to intimidate me. Actually, "stack" is the wrong term for it. I had graded the hard copies, but only about five people turned in hard copies. The rest were in digital format on my computer. So I came home and graded for about five hours. And then... Friday night.
Went to some grad student's house to have a salmon pasta dinner. We played a British version of Trivial Pursuit. The questions all dealt with Cricket. I’m not kidding – in 1999 which Australian Bowler married Ginger Spice? It was a bit onerous. There was one Brit there, the hostess, and she dominated. The rest of us kind of sat around praying for a question on North American baseball or anything… The game stretched on at the end, and Birgit and I suddenly stood a chance, but were doomed in the sudden death round – called at 11 that evening – when our opponents were asked what the longest river in Africa was and our question was “in what year did
Saturday, Birgit and I sorted through piles and piles of photocopied articles, old papers, bad teen poetry, and whatever else we could find to weed out. We cleaned the house and ended up with about 75 pounds of recyclable paper. (Academics for being environmentalists sure waste a lot of paper!) I threw out a ton of the articles I had on CyberFeminism, Hacking the Counter Culture, and Classic Geopolitics (e.g., “The Grand Chess Game: US National Security in the 21st Century”… gag). These things were cluttering our closets and file cabinet. It was unbelievable. I also began sorting through the 500 pounds of baseball cards my parents asked me to get out of their attic the last time I was up. Holy shit… I hope my kids never get into baseball cards. They are pretty much worthless, dirty and take up a ton of space. I did find a bunch of Barry Bonds rookie cards stuffed in some box, though. I need to try and sell those before he gets stripped of all his records. In the photo he looks as though he weighs about 140 pounds. Of course, today he is around 300 pounds of steroid built muscle. I also found about 10 boxes of unopened cartons of baseball cards, still in their packs. I have Fleer, Donrus, Topps, and even Topps Football cards – which, I never remember collecting at all. It’s kind of surreal, because they look like they could be sitting on a store shelf today, unopened boxes and packs of baseball cards. I think I will keep those. Who knows, those are probably considered antiques now that they are 20 years old.
Gave up on sorting the baseball cards when my cough forced me out of the basement. I’m now on three anti-allergy medicines, because the doctor is convinced my cough is caused by allergies. I’m not sold, but I’m trying the drugs. What the hell, I suppose.
Met up with our Dutch friends – the Geography professor and punk rocker and their two little girls – on Sunday morning for breakfast at the Sunnyside Up Café on Lyndale. It was pretty fun. We were crammed into a pretty nice corner under the window and I couldn’t stop coughing, but no one seemed as annoyed by this fact as I was, so we had a hoot. I had blue corn pancakes, which was something new. They were delicious. I’m on a real corn kick recently. I’m eating Crispex and Kix cereals almost five times a day. But I digress. The professor went through her coffee hour presentation (that she is doing this week on Friday) for Birgit and I to proof. It was far better than any other urban geography coffee hour series this semester! She is going to rock the house. Of course, she is a little nervous, English not being her native language and all, but she shouldn’t be. Her presentation was polished. She had sound data – incredible data, actually, in that she surveyed thousands of Dutch on how much energy they use going to and from work, etc. She has numbers, an argument, and a conclusion. Basically, she has everything that I learned at
Yes, next weekend is our official – do not celebrate Easter weekend! So we are going up to
Time to roll. I spent about 14 hours yesterday working on two labs for Geog 3511. I had to make them from scratch. One is an isoline lab that the students are going to hate me for. The other is a relatively easy assignment that… well, they’ll probably still hate me for it. What can you do, you know? I try to be laid back, but when half your class doesn’t even show up to lab – last week everyone came in half-an-hour late or not at all – they have a grief coming. Slackers. (I can totally relate to them, of course, having been one for about half of my undergraduate career, but it was a tough ass cartography course that got my act together… so I like to believe in hindsight.)
