Itinerary and to-do lists

Closing in on three weeks before departure… in three months, when you start hearing rumours of my disillusionment, send me an email and remind me of the anticipation and excitement I’m feeling right now.

I’ve always liked having a concrete flight itinerary to hold in my hands: dates, times, and airports that can fuel the travelbug fantasies. Here’s what will get me stalkers to Ghana:

Yes, if you’ve done the math, it would be quicker/cheaper for me to just drive directly to Atlanta on the 7th. I didn’t make the reservations. Hurray for traveling on the US-GOV’s dime?!

Things to do before I leave:

• Hit up my doctor for 3 months’-worth of prescriptions & a current Yellow Card.
• Burn through (maybe just burn) a pile of half-finished sewing projects.
• Switch banks and decide what method will draw the most interest on my tiny stack of cash.
• Do the whole legal-matters thing, give my parents Power of Attorney, etc.
• Convince Auburn University I really don’t owe them money.
• Look into property insurance for computer & camera.
• Register to vote absentee this November
• Pack.

Promises to fulfill before I leave:

• (Finally) visit a few specific people.
• Camping trip in Callaway with my mom & mutual friend.
• Teach a (different) friend to knit and cook Thai food.

Strange lists, maybe, and thankfully they don’t consist of much at all. If I missed anything, I’m sure someone will let me know.

You can’t go back to Constantinople

Instead of either posting curious lyrics — which are stuck horribly in my head — or else sniping about various morons; I present: This week, the good and bad.

Good things
Mysterious backpacks
Really great wasabi
Enough syrup to make a killer glass of chocolate milk
Rachmaninoff
zomg crazy sweet site hosting deals for the next year.

Bad things
Faculty who think my nametag = MAID SERVICE. No, I will not clear your desk for you, I’m only here to install ____.
Too much sun.
A nationwide coup on cassette albums.
Idiots. In general.

Ashes in the Desert Place

It’s been a long day — not any moreso than usual, really; it’s Thursday, and the week generally decides to catch up around now. I hit “write post” with the intent to hash out a thoughtbubble on my mind, and checked my email while I waited on the page to load. Funny what a few minutes added onto that ever-so-long day can do.

I’m a list-maker. I like to know what I’m doing, and when I’m supposed to do it. I like schedules, and I take a horribly perverse pleasure in knowing I’ve made a really efficient schedule for any given day. So because I’m taking a full load this semester, plus working part-time, plus tutoring (2 singles, 1 group), I have about 5 different spreadsheet-schedule versions floating around my binders/satchel/car “office”. Don’t take this the wrong way: I’m really not that busy; I’m totally happy this way. Downtime equals time without, well, that cliched quality time – and guess what, Sara’s fairly isolated this semester. So lists, specifically full lists, make her relatively content.

Not everything gets memorialized via neatly-typed ink. Lessonplans happen while driving through the dark, rough drafts outlined mentally through dusk. I think lighteningbugs lend favour to pseudo-flashes of creativity. A lot of the so-called “efficiency” comes from scribbled calendarising during phoned-in 8:00am lectures that take the focus of a single brain cell.

Tonight, as I passed a freshly-baled hayfield, I had the overwhelming urge to pull over. The view tonight was absolutely stunning: after a week of overcast evenings, the stars were showing their eyes for the first time in entirely too long. I only live a few miles up the road from that field, but the light polution is enough to keep that sterling wonder firmly from our back yard.

Instead, I drove on. Too much to do: put the laundry in, write the lab, read the papers, and so on. In the end, I grant salve to a still-restless soul: via a half-hour of presumed rambling. Check email in the process. And find more in a series of unanswered Words, hateful — damnedably, scathingly motherfuckingly hurtful words. That won’t be erased, will haunt, and will go on Permanent Record with the List Committee at Large.

Why do we think we know better, what will soothe and give respite? How can we value 20 scant minutes of all-too-precious peace over the More Efficient, when the end result could only be all-too-predictable?

The Lists are perpetually flawed, and so far: haven’t offered me much in return.