(no subject)

so the new semester started yesterday. i am taking three classes: culture & media II. ethnography of latin america and symbolic anthropology which i am really excited about. i think i have something like 3 weeks to come up with the official Ph.D. proposal that they have to sign off on. plus there's the language exam but i figure i'll just take it in russian, since i won't do intensive spanish for another year, it won't do me any good unless i study it right before i go to paraguay...i'll just forget it...and then i'll catch on quickly once i am there...that's exactly what happened in guatemala.
i am reading "giovanni's room" by james baldwin. it's interesting, i spend so much time reading schoolwork and theory and ethnographies that in my free time i try to keep up with new books being published, so it's been a while (maybe 6 months or so) since i've read a "classic"--well, i don't know how much of a canonical classic it is, but it is imbued with the geist and aesthetic of modernism, it's raw emotion and genuine alienation without postmodern tricks of form or meta-disaffect. it's interesting how different genres exist around the same idea, the lack of capacity to love, but they find different forms in which to express it, some more linear and direct, some more displaced or sublimated.
i am moving on saturday...i reserved a UHAUL van today and enlisted a couple of friends' help.
the weirdest thing happened at the odessa tonight...well, weird things always happen there because it's one of the hubs of the vortex, so there were vortexy people there, but the weird thing it was that it was charlie's birthday and i thought i saw mark...it was a guy who looked exactly like mark in profile sans the bleached hair tips...and he and charlie used to celebrate their birthdays together and they used to hang out at the odessa all the time....it was really strange and sad and the guy must have thought i was weird because i kept looking at him.
i've got to try to sleep...

stress, as usual

so everything is as usual convoluted with regards to the move on saturday.
the cable people won't tell me when they will come for the cable box but threaten to charge me if the box is not in their possession when the cable isturned off. i would like to shut off my phone, but i can't find the phone number i need to call to shut it off, which seems ironic, but i am not sure whether it is genuinely ironic, or just alanis morissette-kind of ironic.
the UHAUL people happily accepted my reservation and to my inquiry as to why i don't need to put down the $150 deposit that is standard, they merrily exclaimed, "oh, that's okay, you don't have to" which, rather than provoking joy in me, instead created extreme paranoia that the UHAUL employee i was conversing with was in fact extremely high and did not take my order at all, the paranoia which is confirmed by the fact that they were supposed to call me back today to confirm the location and pick-up time, but they have not, but i guess that's okay, since it's not like my phone will be turned off any time soon since i can't find the phone number to call to turn it off.
the more i pack, the more my room seems like a disaster area. there is literally no floor space left, and instead of walking, i am wobbling on things, feeling not unlike some cousin of humpty dumpty who was in danger of a precarious fall not from a great wall but from the PURE AMOUNT OF SHIT on his floor.
my voicemail is full because i filled out a form on the internet asking for an estimate for movers, and i expected (not unreasonably) to receive the estimate over the internet, but in fact every moving company in the five boroughs and a couple in jersey have left messages on my voicemail, so i have to delete them every few hours.
all of the estimates are way above my budget, and the one company that looks promising called "starving student movers" does not exist in new york. charlie is pointedly pointing out that this is the third time he has helped me move this year, and there is angst in his voice, because he knows it's not the last. i have been trying to call mateo, because who is better to help you move than your friend who works in construction, but his existence has transmogrified into purely mythological in the last week or so, since i have called his apartment like 10 times this week, either getting the answering machine, or having the following productive conversations with his roommate/my vile ex:
me: hi, is mateo there?
him: oh, hey, veronica, how are you?
me: fine, is mateo there?
him: no, he just left
me: do you know when i can catch him in?
him: no, i mean, he was just here and he already ran out. he's hard to catch, he is really fast, we think he might be mexican.
me: very funny. could you please ask him to call me, it's really important?
him: no problem, i will see him in an hour and get him to call you from my cell phone right away.

well, that was two days ago so i've sort of given up any home of reaching him. i think shannon is going to help, god bless her. and it's not like i have furniture, really, except for the mattress that i don't want to part with because i special-ordered it to be bright orange because i really liked the color of my mattress in new orleans.
on top of everything else, i tipped over a BIG bottle of cooking oil on my table, so now i have an oil spill of my very own in the kitchenette region. all i am missing is some sad-looking swans and seagulls being rescued by greenpeace.

it's like migration season. my coworker who i share the office with just moved from upper west side to park slope. claire is moving out of her apartment in a couple of days, sharon is moving back to her parents' house until she leaves for new york, some other people might be moving...it's the lemming effect.
i gotta go do yo-ga. oh my, it's wet outside. nice two-day long winter we had this year.