Conversation and Travels

So, coincidently, I called home last night to talk to my Mom about some stuff but she was busy so she handed the phone off first to my Dad and then to my brother. Can you say "stilted"?

Reasons I love my Dad: I had been stressing about whether or not to go to VT to check the school out in person... I'm broke, so any time I have to put something on my credit cards I cringe. So first thing, before I have a chance to say more than "Hello", he busts out with "So have you thought about going to VT to check it out? I'd be happy to pay for that." Load off shoulders. Second, told him the price of the extra costs of the surgery and he was expecting it to be twice as much, so he is giving us the extra as moving expenses. He may be a shitty listener, but the man anticipates the financials well.

But back to ROBCOW. I asked him what he was up to. He said, "Pretty much nothing. Except I've decided to kill myself in June." I asked him to hang on an extra year so he could be at my wedding. He said, "No, I don't think so." Now, I know he's not serious, because he's made plans to be back in North Carolina to visit friends in July. And he pulls this kind of stuff all the time. Yes, he's depressed. Yes, he's a functional alcoholic. Is he suicidal? Not even close. "I'm going to kill myself" is his way of announcing that I'm not allowed to ask anything else about his life and that he doesn't particularly care about what's going on in mine.

We ended up having a 45 minute conversation about the South Beach diet, the cartoon "The Family Guy" (which I have never seen more than 5 minutes of, but which BubRub can mimic with freakish accuracy. Freakish.), and the movie Sin City - which I found a bit violent, but Rob assures me I'm wrong and am simply too plebian to notice that it's just Pulp Fiction II. Debate is hopeless, because I am always wrong. Suggestions are met with "Yeah, whatever." And any mention of what I am doing is met with, "Well isn't that nice." and a change of subject.

I don't think there's anyone else on the planet who can make me feel quite so useless. He's got a gift.

Bubby Rubby

My brother is 22 months younger than I am, but when we were younger everyone thought we were twins because he was big for his age and I was pretty small for mine. His hair was as blond as mine then and our eyes are almost the same shade of blue. My godparents' daughter, formerly my best friend, couldn't seem to get the words Baby Robby out right, so for the last 27 years, we've referred to him off and on as "bubby rubby".

Of course, there was a short shift to another nick name when he was five or six... Our parents were off traveling in Utah, of all places, and our best babysitter Theresa was staying with us. One day, can't remember why, she asked Rob was his middle name was.

"Cow," he said.

"Nuh uh," I said. "It's Ky-" but Theresa shushed me up.

"Want to know how to spell that?" she asked.

"Okay."

"R-O-B-C-O-W." There is a reason she was our favorite babysitter, eh? "So now we can call you R-O-B-C-O-W."

And we totally did. For years.

I still do on occasion, though Bubby Rubby seems to be regaining it place of honor. For similar reasons, he still calls me Koffee. I guess it reminds us that we used to be friends. Before we fucked that up.

Not as lazy as I seem

I might not have done much besides read, websurf, and go to the library, but I've earned a day of rest.

Airline arrangements would have been all set, except I realized that the dates I had on hold were the same as Jay's graduation... d'oh.

Doctor's appointment made, attended, and Doc found to be much better than the last guy. Same basic diagnosis - deviated septum and enlarged turbinates. In other words, the pipe I breathe through (or try to) is both crooked and too narrow. And we discussed minor cosmetic alternations as well. Going to have the bump reduced and attempt to correct the twisting - it takes a definite lean to the left. Will call back to schedule June surgery as soon as the Doc has his June schedule ready to go. I could have booked as early as April 28th! But I can't afford to miss school for a week or two. And that just seems a little fast, besides.

Also mailed back my first teaching license so I can get the one I was supposed to have in the first place.

Unclogged the shower drain. Gross.

See, I have been productive.

Just not today.

Last Ski Day

Went up Mill Creek Canyon today with Jay for what will probably be my last ski of the season. Considering that it's the second week of April, the conditions were quite good. They've stopped grooming the road, but there's been about two feet of new snow in the last week or so and at least everything was covered. The uneven surfaces gave me massive foot and calf cramps though. Took about a mile and a half to relax into it.

But who care about that when there is so much else to worry about....

I'm afraid I haven't been writing lately because I'm totally preoccupied with the whole moving, marrying, finding new job thingy. The interview with the Residential life guy went really well. I'm trying to decide if the disparity in the three people I've spoken to thus far is connected to the fact that I get along much better with men than women. As a general rule. Certainly not a hard and fast one. My best friends are mostly women... Um, that looks wrong. Should probably read "most of my best friends are women." Anyway. Gah. Anyway. I bore myself. Feeling most unclever. I'm trying to figure out whether I should cash in some frequent flyer miles (if possible) to fly back to VT and check the place out for myself. Then I could see the town, see the school, meet with the staff/faculty, and have a better idea of what I have agreed to do.

I think what's really holding me back is one of the guiding principles of my life: don't ask the damn question if you can't handle the real answer. Hence my procrastination. Do I really want to know? Do I want to know that this would be awful and that I could never fit into the school to save my life? (And I'm not speaking from a point of inferiority... sometimes places and people are just not a match for one reason or another.) Do I want to find out that they don't think I'll fit in and that there really are no other teaching jobs available in the area?

Granted, I realize that I need the answers to these questions. And soon. So on Monday I will be calling the airline to see what I can do about getting there. I will have to miss a day of school, or rather, an hour of school on a Friday. I don't know how that will be worked out because as a part time employee I can't get a sub. And who would want to sub for an hour, anyway? Not worth the gas money. And I would need to take about four days off from Sylvan as well. Not a big deal. All together lost wages probably don't come to $150. But since I only make about $1000 a month, this is still something to consider. And Jay has offered to pay for a rental car... and I can stay with friends a few nights and I imagine the school could find me a place to sleep for a night or two while I checked out the area. So I have very few excuses left.

But then again, I've been working on getting the whole, screwed up nose fixed for the last year and I'm stil not any closer to that, despite a lack of remaining excuses... except for the one that letting someone cut my face open and rearrange its parts gives me the willies.

So Romantic

So, okay, we're not the most romantically inclined couple in the world. This seems to worry Jay more than it does me, though for the most part we just accept that we are not gushy gushy sappy no-I-love-you-more kind of people. He's started calling me "wife" and I usually respond by calling him "bitch". Hey, it works for us. It helps that I have a rather twisted sense of humor. (See below commentary on marriage charts and data collection.)

So perhaps it doesn't seem so odd that Jay is still alive after mumbling the following words the other night in bed.

"Could you just roll over so I can hump you or something? I need to get my mind off work so I can sleep."

Can you imagine our wedding vows now? Yeah, me too. Scary.