Don’t argue with me, I have a Meghan.

When I graduated from college I bought myself a T-shirt to celebrate- it says, “Don’t argue with me, I have a philosophy degree”. While most people assume this means, “don’t (bother) arguing with me, I will win”, I’ve always felt it meant “Don’t argue with me. I’ve been argued with for four years and I’ve heard it all before in louder tones. Please”. The t-shirt reminds me that while I might not be a philosopher, might wish I’d studied something more marketable, like pole dancing, I didn’t totally waste my time getting a double major in philosophy. I can, at least, argue.
This last weekend, after the annual anthro department party and a bottle of tequila, one of the new grad students sat down next to Meghan and I.
“Hi”, I said, slurring through a smile. “I’m Lea, I wanted to meet you, you’re one of the few people who doesn’t seem horrified by my questions in our bio-anthro class”. The student offered his hand but when I reached to shake it he quickly pulled it back to smooth his hair, in perhaps one of the most cheesy and least intelligent gestures a person can make.
So that ambiguous t-shirt I have? Apparently it really should say, “Don’t argue with me, I have a philosophy degree (and my best friend is Meghan).”
“Oh really?!” Meghan asked him, eyebrows raised. “You’re going to pull that move in front of two social anthropologists? I see what you’re really doing, trying to situate yourself as a humorous insider, one who possesses the cultural capital and social standing that would allow him to include or exclude others from his social realm without knowledge of the preexisting social circumstances. You might want to rethink that move. She bites, and so do I.”
Then, I think, the student ran away and cried under a chair, while Meghan passed around more shots.

a word

Ascetic – adj.- from ‘one that works/ exercises, hermit’.
1: practicing strict self-denial as a measure of personal and especially spiritual discipline
2: austere in appearance, manner, or attitude

Instead of screaming about how much of my time is sacrificed to reading and how unbefuckinglievably difficult graduate school is, I can pretend that I have taken an ascetic vow, and relax in warm pool of moral pride (whist rapidly turning pages).

Alacrity- n. – promptness in response: cheerful readiness

Instead of telling the professor she’ll get the paper when it’s god damn done, I can resemble the very picture of alacrity and tell her I’ve already written it, I just have to locate the file (whist mentally composing in haste).

Anathema –n-
1 a: one that is cursed by ecclesiastical authority b: someone or something intensely disliked or loathed . . . 2 a: a ban or curse solemnly pronounced by ecclesiastical authority and accompanied by excommunication b: the denunciation of something as accursed c: a vigorous denunciation: curse

Instead of curling into the fetal position and questioning my every ability I can simply promise myself that in my next life I will treat all institutions of education as anathema and do something rewarding and relaxing, like sewage filtering or rusty needle collecting.

the worst part of mushroom hunting isn’t the poisioning

I would post pictures of the fecund and varied mushrooms we’ve found, or maybe the painting I just finished, or perhaps some snap shots of the beautiful out-of-doors that has been so, well, beautiful, but,
but I am currently afraid of my camera.
Yesterday while bending over to brush some leaves off a pile of Boar’s Head Mushroom to take a better picture I managed to disturb a tick nest. Literally thousands of smaller-than-freckle sized ticks swarmed over my camera, up my hand, over my arm. Dropping everything I yelled for the closest friend- Jason- and DEMANDED he come over and help me tape off (tape is, incidentally, the only tool I have yet discovered that will removed teensy-tiny ticks less than a millimeter in circumference). It was probably one of the worst tick experiences I’ve had, and I’ve had an encapsulated tick head lodged in my neck since grade school, so believe me, I know when I speak of horrible tick experiences. There were so many, so quick- I left a quarter sitting in the middle of the mushroom where I had placed it for reference and ran for Jason, waving a roll of red duct tape at him. Covering my clothes, backpack, and skin in tape, we quickly realized the ticks were climbing up my legs faster than we could remove them and we made a run for the car. Eli, Jason and I stripped as far as we legally could the second we got to the parking lot. Amelia darted off to the pond, instantly sinking herself in the shoreline of mud. I had one leg up in a yoga position I previously only assumed dirty cats could accomplish while cars drove by, trying to appear like they weren’t staring, horrified by what surely looked like some kind of communal schizophrenic tantrum. On a single, 4 inch strip of tape I could count maybe 200 little ectoparasite bodies, their tiny little legs smashed against the adhesive. 30 minutes and an entire roll of tape later we climbed in the car, our jeans and shoes locked in the trunk. Every single time I managed to stop obsessively examining the same 6 freckles over and over and over I would find a new seed tick, slowly crawling towards my corners and warm places.
I may never go mushroom hunting again. Or touch my camera, which is sitting outside under the car port right now, with the shoes and jeans I don’t think I’ll ever be able to wear again.

the supplicance of winning

Regretfully I woke up today, the sheets soft and my stomach sour. Wiping the sleep from my eyes I checked to see if the faceless coward had surrendered in the night. I looked into her camp for the white flag diligently but without expectation, more for prosperity’s concern than for any real hope. I sipped my coffee and ate my oatmeal and then few of my fingernails, mentally plotting.

I knew the fight would be humiliating (as most who fear the friction fail to realize is the truest emotion in combat). My enemy is eyeless, obese and benign. Our battlefield intangible, unreal, incorporeal and consisting entirely of waiting, waiting.

I’m getting really quite good at A) dealing with the frustration of futility, B) at the honing the skill of stubbornness and C) of getting people to think it was their good idea.

They fucking love me

I thought they promised to tear my ass apart?

Words aren’t flowing for me at the moment- I don’t know what to say, but I feel the need to say it, nonetheless.

I’ve been walking in a yellow haze of school bureaucracy, trying to sign up for classes I must take to keep my fellowship, discovering I may not do so because of a hold on my account due to non-payment (a payment supposedly covered by the fellowship). I’ve sent emails and sat in offices, hoping that someone might know someone who might know how to get the ‘system’ to work for me, instead of against me. I’m playing hopscotch over razor-wire: mindless games with tangible penalty.

Now I must wait, it seems, for the issue to either fix itself or to become an immovable catch-22, where in I am not allowed to take classes because my fellowship waver hasn’t arrived, and I loose my fellowship because I haven’t signed up for classes. And despite assurances that this will not happen, I think it perfectly rational to fear the logicless mean-hearted ways of the ‘system’.

And it’s fucking beautiful outside, too. The kind of beauty that defies celebration, that makes any attempt to enjoy it moot; its transient beauty better felt through open windows than through sunlight on skin.

Which reminds me, I’ve got a shit-ton of work to do. If only I could stop smiling.

(I’m feeling a Sally Field moment coming on: quick, run away).