Sunday, October 15, 2006

100 Facts about Elle in 100(ish) Days (12)

Fact #12

I'm cheating--I don't know if these are really facts about me or just a recap, but oh well.

What I did today:
Woke up. Cleaned the bathroom. Showered. Got in bed and read. Blog surfed. Unplugged the modem and gave it to my sister to hide. Read some more. Wrote half a paragraph. Looked at my edited hard copy and tried to figure out how to pull the stuff Advisor wanted out of the notes and put it into the text. Took a nap.

Woke up. Got the modem back for 20 minutes. Checked e-mail. Tried to find critiques of George Borjas--advisor is wary of him and I mentioned him by name at the end of the chapter. Flipped through some blogs. Re-surrendered modem. Played tic-tac-toe, inventive scrabble (rules? we don't need no stinkin' rules!), and read _Giddy Grandma_ with The Kid. Tried to entice him to start reading _Second Cousins_ .

Went to Chili's. Decided to try, once again, to "get a buzz" (I've never been drunk. High either, but I'm way too scared for that anyway. Didn't start drinking until I was 23 (trust me, that's significant for a Louisianan :-) and, before tonight, never had more than 2 drinks in one night.). Had a strawberry margarita. Had an amaretto sour. Came home. Had a Parrot Bay thingy. All I got was somewhat sleepy. Flopped across the bed. Gave The Kid and nephew permission to sleep on an air mattress in the living room.

Strangest thing happened: an ex, for whom I still have a sweet affection, called just to chat. an ex, with whom I have a child, called to ask why I'm not interested in his life. an almost ex (he better quit messing with me!) called to reiterate that he's tired of my being generous with everyone else and selfish with him, to emphasize that I need to grow up (hah!), and to inform me that, unless I get some "little boy" whom I "can run all over," I'm going to "end up alone" Perhaps I will be pissed about this tomorrow, but apparently the alcohol did have some effect as all I said was, "Mmm, okay," and then, at his primadonna-ish gasp, "Well, what do you want me to say?!" My selfishness, IMO, amounts to the fact that I won't get down and worship him as the most brilliant engineer in the history of history. Two people who are used to being "teh smart" equal ego clashes from hell. He hung up in my face. Brief contemplation of calling him back and invoking attitude. Smug remembrance that, since he is upset, he won't be able to resist calling me to remind me how upset he is.

Responded to e-mail from another TA. Re-surrendered the modem. Broke out the old school, spiral, non-perforated notebook--cuz that's what I do when I'm serious about writing, baby. Wrote a page and four lines. Dozed.

Woke up. Requested modem. Checked e-mail. Checked a coupla favorite blogs. Decided to post. Realized I'm wide awake at 2 a.m. Realized my mom, in town for her class reunion, never called me back last night. Reminded myself that I am a mother who insists a woman's life does not have to revolve around her children--especially her grown ass children--and thus my pout because I wanted to see my mom and she's busy doing ridiculous things like having fun with her classmates is totally hypocritical.

Will re-surrender modem. Will climb into bed with John Higham and an article about Slavic coal miners and transnational or translocal or transsomething something. Will fall asleep around 6 am and be bitchy all day tomorrow/today.

See you then.

5 comments:

Leslie M-B said...

You and I have the same taste in drinks! :)

Courtney said...

Re: climbing into bed with John Higham, that inspires me to do a Th-Hers-day on intellectual crushes... what historian would you want to climb into bed with?

For me, probably Sean Wilentz.

Zan said...

23? I'm stunned. Everyone I know had been trashed by 13 :) Except me, cause I was a good, good girl until I got to college. And couldn't get drunk, even though I tried. Oh well :)

Almost Ex sounds....like he'd be fun to hangup on, actually, but I'm kinda evil so you may not want to listen to me :) And what's that about having a little boy to run all over? That's just...hmp. I get told the same damn thing and I don't know why. Just because a woman knows who she is and what she wants doesn't mean she wants to roll over a man. Hmp.

How are you surviving disertation? I keep toying with the idea of going back to get my Ph.D, but I don't know if I can make myself do it. I'll be in Baton Rouge soon, so I may try to get into the program at LSU and work on it there...

elle said...

almost ex and i have been having similar run-ins since I was 20. we go in and out of each other's lives, so there will probably be no resolution. this is a new twist though--i was all shy and sweet previously, but as i age i get more... grrrrr, i guess. and he's not sure how he feels about that i suppose.

durviving is probably the best word for what i'm doing with the dissertation--i'm a horrible procrastinator. but if i can come this far, i don't doubt that anyone can ;-p --go for it.

Gwyneth Bolton said...

After reading this post, I can see the Chick-Lit voice... that stuff about the exes and near ex needs to be in a book... LOL...

Revelations and ruminations from one southern sistorian...