The alarm went off at 7:15am today. I got up at ten past 8. It is the first day of the new semester, and I’ve showed up to my 9 o’clock class at approximately 9:17. I should have gotten up at 7:15 when ‘The Office’ theme song started blaring out of my cell phone, which acts as my morning alarm. I would have too, if the second I turned on the light, I hadn’t heard the bathroom door being closed, and moments after, the shower being turned on. I crawled back in bed, and waited for my roommate to get out of the shower, while cursing myself for not taking a shower last night; I knew that this was going to happen. But really deep down, I don’t care either way. I don’t care if I’m late, not really. It is the first day of class. He is going to hand us a syllabus, and I’m going to be utterly board (no, bored, not board. I’m not a piece of wood) listening to him explain what he expects of us for the next 4 months of our lives. 4 months. I hardly feel prepared for the next 4 days or even the next 4 minutes. Now I’m looking at a calendar which details every day of the next 4 months. The balance is precarious.
My tooth hurts while I’m walking in the cold; one of the ones in the back with a silver cap. I wonder I have a cavity. I can’t really go to the dentist, because it costs so much, and yet I claim to have an obsession with my teeth. I just have an attraction to straight, white teeth. My tooth hurts, but only in the cold. My hands are warm, however. My hands are warm, but my fingers are cold. I decided to wear my mittens this morning. Sister Hood assured me once that mittens keep your fingers warmer than regular gloves, which I subsequently realized is not true. I wear my mittens now to remember her. I loved her when she would give me compliments. She always loved me in my mittens. She’s married now. Everyone is married. I’m not married.
I was just informed that I am the overflow by my ELANG teacher. The overflow. What does that mean? According to him, it has to do with the class filling up, and the school adding another section, which I then added to my schedule. But does that make me the overflow, really? Wouldn’t the overflow be those who didn’t get into a class at all? Or those students who are camping out on the floor in the back of the classroom desperately trying to add add add before the deadline. Adders.
I need to change my email address. I mention it, because I’ve had the thought several times today. Ditzinay is just not a professional address for a 23-year-old college student. And besides, no one uses hotmail anymore. Google is where it’s at. Apparently. Not that I know where that is. The main point is that I’m not there. Wherever that is.
There is a table at the front of this classroom which is crooked. The books and papers on the desk look as if they might slide off. But they’re not. Falling, I mean. They’re just sitting there. Which gives the feeling that the table is not crooked at all. This is very disorienting, and makes me feel as though the whole room is actually on a slight tilt. I’m feeling a little nauseated as I think about this.
One of the most annoying things in the whole world: waiting in line. That is what I am doing now. I don’t care who you are or where you are from (and I’m not imitating the Backstreet Boys or whatever boy band sings this line), no one likes waiting in a line. Especially not an hour long line which culminates in paying someone for something that you don’t even want-- not really. No line should be an hour long, really. But when you’re waiting to go on a ride featuring Mickey Mouse which races through the inside of a plaster and metal mountain, the wait isn’t half as bad as this one. Unless the ride breaks down right as you are about to get on it… which is what a boy informed me as I mentioned this idea to him while standing in the line. He told me that this is what happened to him at Disneyland. I know this boy from my mission. He recognized me, and yelled, “Sista Nielsen! What up?!” from his place in line. He is 10 or so people ahead of me in this line. The line winds back and forth, back and forth in this little square area in front of the registers, which means that I walk past him every 2 or three minutes, every time going the opposite direction. Since the line keeps moving in a steady stream, it makes holding a conversation impossible, but not acknowledging each other awkward since both of us knows that that other is there. I asked him about his girlfriend. 3 minutes later he told me she is not his girlfriend. 4 minutes later I expressed my surprise. After 2 more minutes, he asked how I knew her, and to keep from delaying the answer for another 3 or 4 minutes, I yelled back over people’s heads that I am from the same city as she is. Two minutes later he responded to my yell. And on and on. In that 20 minutes or so, we established only that he is not, in fact, dating the girl I thought he was, that I am from Springville, and he is from Spanish Fork, but that the reason we never met before serving together in Wisconsin is that I am old. All of this was established in much fewer words than I use here. Then I made it to the end of the line and dumped out my wallet. I am leaving the bookstore with 4 small books in my backpack, and $150 less dollars in my bank account.
My next class is in a basement. A lot of my classes are in this basement. There is no service which reaches down here. When I come down here, I become officially dead to the world. No internet. No cell phone. No signal. Not that anyone will call. No one has called me all day. No one has texted. I have checked a few times. I thought maybe I didn’t feel the phone vibrate even though it was in my own pocket. That happens all the time, right? But no one has texted. Not even that boy who usually texts me 5 or 6 times a day. He does this either to tell me I’m beautiful or I’m a mess. I’m not sure which I actually am, but I’m pretty sure that what he means when he says both of these is that he likes me. That’s how it works, right? Either way, he contacts me a few times every week, which is more than I can say about the other guy. The other guy: the guy I sometimes think I like. The one who says he likes me, and kisses me and tells me not to be stressed, but then doesn’t talk to me for another 5 or so days. Whenever he’s not busy. Busy hanging out with other girls—who of course he does NOT like, he just enjoys spending time with. More than me. But I’ve got these texts. Sometimes.
Of course this all comes back to the boy. What were you expecting? I’m only distracting myself with all of the other thoughts, but really it is him I am thinking about. Thinking about what is wrong with me, and why I am even worried about any of it at all, and when did I even start to notice him in this way instead of as a goofy friend that I sometimes watch late-night movies with when I have nothing else to do. But then, what does it even matter when it began? The point is that it began at all. And now I spend my days thinking about what HE is thinking about and wanting to THINK what he is thinking is what I WANT to think he’s thinking. Right? Or something like that. More or less I’m just thinking. About what will happen next. About why I am so crazy. Anxiety. I have anxiety.
My stomach is grumbling. It is 1:45, and I haven’t eaten yet today. I don’t plan to until after my next class ends. But I’m hungry now. I would go and pick something up, but I wouldn’t be able to swallow it. My throat is swollen. I don’t know what I have, but evidently it is some sort of bug, and said bug gives me a ridiculously sore and swollen throat. Not strep, though. It didn’t give me strep. The nurse at work swabbed my throat last night. It hurt like heck, and made me gag, but don’t worry, no strep. Just a totally swollen throat. I will eat some soup as soon as I get out of school.
Hailey Hood (now Jones) just called me. I haven’t seen her for months. We decided to go to lunch. I got some soup. Hailey told me that her husband thinks I will be the first of her companions to get married. I know she meant it as a compliment (or rather he did; she was just repeating it), but it made me feel bad. I’ve been hearing that my whole life, and I’m still here and unmarried, watching the world go by without me. Dating guys who have ‘commitment issues’. THAT is me. I’m going to be the LAST one to get married.
Dramatic. I'm being dramatic. I crawl into bed, and turn on the heated blanket. I sleep with a fan on in my room, and because it is the middle of winter, I have to have the heated blanket to keep me warm. I would just turn off the fan, but that would eliminate the hum. I need the hum. The hum in the background that helps turn off all of these thoughts. I love the hum. Falling asleep... One last thought... What is it for, all of it??
3 comments:
Dramatic! And real. Very interesting. I should do one of these sometime. Two things: 1) I used to have The Office theme song as my ringtone too, until last season started to frustrate me, at which time I changed it to the Survivor theme song, since that show wasn't disappointing me at the time, and 2) Who was the elder you met in the line? (And yes, that game of sporadic line conversation can be quite interesting.)
Ah yes, it IS dramatic. It wasn't necessarily SUPPOSED to be; I was really just writing what I was thinking all day. I took my computer and just typed wherever I could. I didn't intend on blogging it, but I wanted to try something new.
Two thins: 1) The Office is not my ringtone, but only my alarm. I actually always keep my phone on silent, so though I have a ringtone (Super Mario Brothers), I never hear it. And 2) It was Elder Oldham at the bookstore. And yes, he agreed with me when I said I was old. Nice.
I love this Vanae. I want to write something like this. For my script class I think I have to eventually write a monologue. I may take a page from the Book of Vanae's Awesome Writing. I mean, I'm not saying I'm going to steal your story, that plagerism. (sp?) You get my point, which is that I think you are amazing, and clever, and though much of what you wrote is sad, I loved this post.
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