Random Bullets of Merlot

--- is it Merlot? I think it's Merlot. Huhm. I'd have to check; I tossed the bottle in the recycling already. I think it is.

Everyone has left --- we watched an art movie, and it was Slow, as befits Deep and Meaningful Things --- and in the interest of not letting anything go stale, I poured the last of the wine into my glass and now I must finish it. Considering that the glass was fairly brimming, it may be a while. And I've finished reading everyone's blog stuff which now leaves me in the awkward position of either creating my own blog-related amusement or going to bed ---- which I was going to say was silly, it being only 10:30, but I'm noticing that the wine is having its effect and I am getting tireder by the minute, so trundling off to bed would be only logical were it not for the fact that I don't know how to pour the last of the wine back into the bottle, which brings us back to waste.

Have I mentioned how I love periodic sentences? Truly, no one should ever have to come to a conclusion of any sort. The dash --- or even the semicolon-dash --- is the only punctuation worthy of mention, with the exception of the commas, those wonderful, bourgeois little fuckers.

But typographic marks were not my point tonight. What was? Hurm. Oh wait --- I have no point tonight. Righto. Well, then I can complain about my friends, who all left after the movie instead of entertaining me. This is a problem ---- all my "advanced grad student friends" are leaving me, either to go off to wonderful jobs or move back in with their parents/long-distance significant others after graduating (not that I haven't thought of that, but I'm not quite ready to give away the cats, which would be required by my dad's asthma). The "middle grad student friends" are all hitting the tough part of seminars and midterm grading right now and so don't want to hang out or do anything fun like us ABDs do, who have more flexible schedules and fewer immediate deadlines. And the newbies, as I believe I have already mentioned, are all getting drunk with their undergrads and then bragging about it or criticizing their professors' seminars in public department spaces, which is so unlike my style that we won't ever hit it off well enough to want to hang out. The fact that I've told them to shape up and act more professional surely doesn't help either.

The upshot of all this is that, whereas I turn into a pumpkin at midnight, everyone else seems to be pumpkining at 9 or 9:30 and leaving me all alone. Sad, truly it is.

What else? Well, even my cats have forsaken me ---- Loquito to sleep and Timidio, naturally, to hide under whatever furniture would most convince my visitors that there were no cats in the house. Really, he does exist --- I just haven't gotten any external corroboration for it yet. Oh yeah, and when I was cleaning stuff up for my visitors I was struck by how all the cheap crap in my place is falling apart. (Yes, this is related to the earlier point. My cats eat/chew/scratch everything I own.) My brilliant plan was to just keep all the cheap assemble-it-yourself stuff I got back when I started my first grad program, lo these many years ago, and then trash or just give away most of what I own when I went off to my brilliant tenure- track job. Well. The timeline has come to that point, but there is no job in the offing. And so I keep looking in frustration at a couch with big holes chewed in it or bookshelves that are bowing and pulling away from the back piece or just the generall raggedyness of various towels, rugs, and curtains. Right now I'm kinda sick of it all --- the threadbareness, the style, the colors --- more than I am sad about not having a job, so consider this a new and different point of whining, and I may just up and buy some things soon regardless of my earlier plans, so don't pity me or think that I'm in my post-MLA funk. This is an entirely new funk right here, and one that's layered with all sorts of anti-capitalist and environmentalist anxiety. (Even if I had a job I'd be worrying about if I needed new widgets.)

I think I mentioned in an earlier post, though, how I recently was looking on craigslist and noticed that my town's shitty rental rates meant that I am living in a place currently cheaper than the studios are going for right now. And places near my parents as well as places in the "sketchy' poor parts of SoCal are no cheaper! Gah! I'm not against living with a SO but going out on the hunt just to find someone to get serious enough about we could split the rent doesn't seem like the wisest idea. So I'm not sure then what to do with myself next year ---- it doesn't seem to actually be a benefit to moving if I wanted to adjunct locally. So, no need to move + no money to buy nice new stuff leaves me with all my boring cheap 10-year-old assemble-it-yourself crap. Sure, tell me not to be so materialistic and I'll tell you to duct tape some holes in your sofa and bed and see how long you're content. So, I may buy or fix some things with money I don't have just because I want to be happy here, and because I can stay and think of it as home a bit longer.

I have just noticed that this post has no actual bullets and that pleases me immensely. Since I'm barely keeping awake as it is, I'm going to pound the last of this wine and go to bed. Happy dreams of highly significant, slow silent tracking shots to one and all!

Good night everyone! Be sure to leave me exciting future blog fodder in the comments!