Thursday

The title of this post is particularly inspired, n'est ce pas? I'll tell you why. Today is Thursday. And I'm writing this today. I marvel.

I am listening to Neko Case on iTunes, much like I did sitting in this very office at about 10:30pm last night. I thought it might, you know, bring things full circle and create a sense of closure.

Now, I do realize that there are many jobs where people routinely toil until 10:30pm, either because they work in some kind of important sector or because they have somehow come to believe that it is important. It's more unusual to go home at 5pm, but then get a call at 9:30 informing you that you've totally screwed something up. And by "something" I mean the sophomore treasure hunt. A thing that is universally understood to have no importance whatsoever. And yet.

In similar circumstances, most people opt to come in early to solve the problem. I do not enjoy early. I prefer to be asleep during early. After many self-deceiving years of "I'll get up early and do that" I finally know this about myself. On the contrary, to catch me at 10pm is to catch me at my best. Another thing I've learned about myself is that I need to be at the very height of alertness in order to understand anything at all about the logistics of a scavenger hunt.

And that, dear readers, is how I came to be here with the janitorial staff and Neko Case, five hours after I'd already gone home, cutting up colored slips of paper yet again. Colored slips of paper that I had spent rather a lot of time cutting up the first time. Colored slips of paper that I had put in an envelope along with some instructions and some bus tokens and then...I don't know. Recycled? Gave to someone as a memento? Ate? I have no idea what became of it. I managed to successfully distribute 14 other such envelopes, but number 15 apparently got the better of me. Among the only things I do understand about scavenger hunts is that they don't work without the clues. (Seriously, if you knew how hard I have to think in order to prepare these accursed clue packets, you probably would lose all respect for me. But I figured it out! Without crying! Or being totally wrong! I rule [in a miniscule, correcting-your-own-stupid-mistake sort of way]!)

A great many other small, tiresome things went awry today, which, were we drinking, I would enumerate in a lengthy, profanity-laced fashion, but, for now, let's just say that I don't think any students went missing irretrievably. So that's something. Also, it's over for another whole year, which is even better.

Tonight, as a hard-won reward, I get to see the Blog Bully. We're going to a play that's the second in a trilogy. Having already seen part one, I'm quite confident that it is not secretly an opera. I'm also thrilled to report that we already know how to get the theatre; there will be exactly zero riddle-solving required to find it. Things are looking decidedly up.

Do re mi

Last week, I went to a play that was secretly an opera. This is not unlike how I went to a [movie] musical in December and it also was secretly an opera. In fact, I'm going to call this the Miserable Phenomenon. (Only you have to pronounce it in a French manner. Mees-er-ah-blah.)

Please. If you are an opera, don't go skulking around pretending to be a play. Just be an opera. It will be better for everyone in the end.

The opera I accidentally saw last week was about a guy being stuck in an elevator. It is called (ready?): Stuck Elevator. That's pretty much the whole plot, but there are other things to sing about too, most notably how much it sucks to be an illegal immigrant. (Oh. We don't say that anymore. Um...an immigrant illegally in this country.) Who is stuck in an elevator. It's not a good combination. In truth, being stuck in an elevator for 81 hours (81 hours! It's a true story.) is pretty horrible no matter who you are, but I'm still not entirely convinced it should be an opera. I didn't hate it, and the lead had a beautiful voice, but I'm sure I would have been happier if I hadn't been anticipating a play (see above).

My favorite things:
1. That some of it was in Chinese and some of it wasn't, but there were supertitles both ways.
2. That some of the songs were addressed directly to the elevator. As someone who talks to inanimate objects as a matter of course, I appreciate the impulse to ask the elevator directly to stop being stuck. 3. An Elevator vs. Take Out Man wrestling match

My least favorite things:
1. Operas that are not out of the closet about being operas
2. The song about the guy wetting his pants, some of which was sung from the point of view of the bladder. Also, the fact that they rhymed "pants" with "pants."

Hate mail

This morning I got an email from Banana Republic.

Subject heading: Top yourself.

I'm going to assume that for some reason no one in the Banana Republic e-marketing department knows what this means. Otherwise, I would have to assume that they're really, really mean.

In case you meant it, Banana Republic, I'm here to remind you that if I top myself I won't be able to buy any more sweaters from you, now will I? It seems you've not thought this through--certainly not from an ethical perspective, nor from a business perspective. Also, even if I were teetering on the brink, I like to think that it would take more than an email suggestion from the Gap Corporation to make me end it all.

A pause in our regularly scheduled programming

I was going to tell you something silly today, but then someone went and bombed the Boston Marathon, and now I don't feel like it. I'll tell you tomorrow though. I promise.

Last week, more or less in my neighborhood, someone got shot on the corner where I'd been standing 24 hours before. In many people's neighborhoods this happens every day. Today someone or many someones thought it was a good idea to put chaos and malice in the midst of celebration and achievement.

All this violence has become alarmingly commonplace.
And I don't like it one bit.

Friday

We have made it to the end of another work week. There are times it seems unlikely, but, really, it's not about us, is it? The spinning world doesn't care about the argument I had with a guy about ice cream gift certificates or what name a kid wants on his diploma, or the dishes I didn't do last night. It moves ineludibly towards Friday, just as it moves ineludibly towards Monday, or towards 2023.

Don't get excited. This brief, cosmic realization of our smallness in the universe, etc., etc., does not mean I will not be swearing at other motorists the instant I get in my car this evening or seething at the people who will not stop texting in the theatre tonight. To quote Alan Bennett's People, which I had the great pleasure to see on Monday (this week? How is that possible?), "P.S.T. People Spoil Things." Have you noticed how people are just everywhere? Doing everything wrong? Uncanny.

I know that easy-going is the adjective for which we are all meant to strive (in as much as one can strive for anything while being easy-going), but I remain a great sweater of the small stuff. Indeed, I am veritably wringing wet as a direct result of the small stuff. I will probably have a fatal stroke at 54 and then a band of free-spirited, polyamorous vegans* can frolic holistically over my grave and the great karmic order will be restored.

What? There's a rule that blog posts have to be cogent? I'm pretty sure that's not a rule. There are a great many blogs. Surely they don't all make a hell of a lot of sense. Blame the Blog Bully, people. I'm just trying to show up.

This afternoon, a group of students is performing a revue of Noel Coward songs from the 20's and 30's. It doesn't get any Friday-er than that. I will be there quietly tapping my foot and trying to keep my enormous delight from bubbling over indecorously. Noel Coward, as I've mentioned, is a great favorite of mine.

*I'll have you know that was praised by a vegan this very afternoon. He looked upon my consumption of a veggie burger favorably. I do have my moments.