To the Grad Student Instructor who Refuses to Make Eye Contact After I Walked into Lecture Late with a Latte and Let the Door Slam:

Darling, I am nothing. I haven't stopped thinking about you.
I wouldn't care if you were less obvious about it. I want to assure you that you are wasting your time. You figured out, I think, that we share a field of study, but don't stress: I have no career to jeopardize with the threat of your bad favor. I could post it to craigslist missed connections if I thought you liked that kind of thing. It would go

You: a young PhD student with an eight-year history of activism and a pant suit for every day of the week. Going places.
Me: academically insignificant. Apathetic to opportunities for networking. Had an internship and quit it. Took a course with Trinh T. Minh-ha and didn't get it. Will probably be a Y camp counselor forever.
The night after our first meeting, I thanked you for your well-facilitated panel. You declined to respond verbally and nodded me toward the speaker to your right. Am I crazy? Want to never look at each other again? That's the vibe I got.

As you can see, I am not going to apologize. I maintain that it would have been more rude to go without caffeination fall asleep. Although, the door thing was probably distracting. Could have done better there. But Beautiful, we can only look forward. Perhaps into complete oblivion. Let me fade away there in peace.

Eating Ramen in the Rhetoric Lounge

I don't do it all the time. But it happens, and it's never a proud moment. For one thing, I can't shake the notion that I am not really invited in the Graduate Lounge for Students of Rhetoric and Classics. Certainly, I am using it less obnoxiously than the very loud cohort of undergrad Latin scholars currently fraternizing across the room from me, running in, running out, and saying things like, "Yo Nina, we should memorize the first part of the Aeneid together. I'm bored."

But aren't these regrettable characters a little more entitled to use this lounge for their incorrigible antics, being that they take classes in the sponsoring departments? Regardless, it's a moot point. They are eating healthy snacks. Fruit salads. Pita chips. Organic yogurt. Stuff you buy at the student cafe behind the stairwell. The special glass bowl sitting on the counter atop its rubber lid, full of my beef-seasoned broth reveals not only that I just used their microwave for a gross food that is probably produced by babies in the bowels of hell, but that I had planned to do this from the minute I packed my lunch this morning.

It is unlikely that anyone has noticed, you are thinking. Who am I, in light of sliced pineapple, Virgil, and a bubbling discourse developing the potential to get drunk between now and lecture, to captivate their attention with curled, clipped noodles now bloating like tapeworms in food dye and salt? Do they care that my cooperative home is stocked with beautiful lunch supplies? That I resorted to this because we ran out of white bread? Would they spend the second it would take to surmise that I filled the bowl with water from the women's restroom sink? Of course not. And who cares?

Just me I guess.

You Can Thank Me Now

It's time to revive this blog. We could call it the Revival. We can could it a Comeback. But I owe anyone reading this blog -after I Officially Pronounced its ass Dead- an honest assessment of the situation. So Imma insist on calling it by its true name:

Drake's Birthday.

Drake, how could I not blog on your birthday? Despite the fact that the consecutive birthdays of my parents did not quite get the Indiana Rock rolling this week, I'm perched up on my elbows right now, blogging under a blanket so Josephine doesn't wake up. (Shout out to Elaine for making me a blanket.) Drizzy, at the risk of offending the better part of my readership with the juxtaposition bracketing this sentence, as a kid I loved the Beatles. Still do. But coinciding roughly with the onset of puberty I loved the Beatles in a way that generated actual concern. I brought in a grainy, black-and-white Harry Benson print to my hairdresser and asked for something in between Paul and George. I actively collected memorabilia until I didn't have to any more, because my guitar teacher, girl scout leader and neighbors started dropping off Fab 4-realted garage sale finds that "reminded them of Roz". I had a couple Liverpool dreams that one shouldn't post in a public forum.

But I'll post this: you've facilitated my bridge to adulthood just as much. (Shout out to Josephine for falling asleep so I can take this blanket off my head.) I talk to you, and even though I stopped being an Album person somewhere after the thrill of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea died off in tenth grade, I listened to yours all the way through that first summer back from college. And your mixtape. And everything else you've got.

I kinda wanted to post a detailed Top 5 Drake Songs Playlist, but it's getting late, and besides, I'm not tryna be Metaswag. (Who speaking of which is now making cash money reviewing albums in a style clearly inspired by the annotated cd songlists I made him in high school. Live the dream, Tips! And remember who taught you how to write.) So I'll just go back a hyperlink a couple tracks that will make this blog worth reading. Treat yourself. This one is my favorite.