This morning’s buscapade evoked two thoughts:
- There’s no eating, smoking, drinking, or profanity on the CAT bus.
- Frances Conroy‘s character Ruth Fisher on HBO’s Six Feet Under, “Language!”
A man got on the bus on his cell phone, taking a seat maybe two rows behind me. He was in the midst of heated (read: screaming) discussion with perhaps the lady in his life, or more precisely from what I could surmise, an ex-lady in his life.
“So why the fuck are you still calling me then?” Imagine hearing this phrase repeated four to five times, with perhaps two seconds (or just long enough for the person on the other end to presumably begin to respond) between each repetition.
My question was, “Why the fuck are you airing your dirty—make that filthy—laundry to this entire bus? And though you make think she’s an idiot, to us, you’re the idiot.
I had a 9:00 meeting that I got in early in order to do a little pref for. About 10 minutes after arriving, I got an email from the person that I was to meet with, saying he was home sick today and rescheduling the meeting.
I had lunch with my ex-grad school professor, and now friend, Susan Katz. We met at Sadlack Heroes, where I tried a different sandwich even though I almost always get their Veggie Wrap, which I love.
I tried their Skillinator X, substituting mayo for the mustard, and it was out of this world. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it.
| Skillinator X Hot smoked turkey, banana peppers, Swiss cheese, mustard, lettuce, tomato, onion, oil, salt and pepper served on toasted rye bread. |
While, there Susan told me about being in a meeting with my boss’s boss, Stan, and him coming up after it to ask her if she knew me. She had mentioned being in the English department in the meeting, and he knew that I’d gotten my Master’s degree there and thought she might know me.
“Oh yes,” she replied. “I know John. He’s a great guy.” [something to that effect]
“Yes, he works in my area, and we love having him working with us in OCC (outreach, communications & consulting).”
Always good to hear of these explicit affirmations.
After lunch, I walked with Susan over to her car and helped her carry a bunch of quilts she’d made, which were going to be used as props in an afternoon interview in her office later in the afternoon.
I learned today that the Center for Excellence in Curricular Engagement at NCSU has been shut down. Just like that. Announced on Monday, gone by Friday. This is of interest, and pertinent, to me in a few ways:
- This is where one of my best peeps in the world, Myra, works. She was the Assistant Director there.
- Her job, along with her boss’s job, the Director of the center, and the person who worked for Myra, a Project Coordinator for the center, have all been eliminated.
- I was being considered for that job as Project Coordinator, but ended up not following through on it. Thank goodness.
On the way home, a somewhat Twilight Zone-ish buscapade took place. There was a lot of talking and cajoling amongst a large group of people who weren’t sitting all that close together, one of whom was “Lowers,” but that’s not really germane to today’s incident.
Somebody in the back would say something, and the guy to my right would blurt loudly, “You got that right, brother!” This happened a couple of times with other ejaculated phrases, such as, “Tell it!” and “Amen to that.”
I kept my head down into my book, as I was in the final chapters of Dewey, and really wanted to finish it today. After tuning them out for about two minutes, suddenly I became cognizant of the word “Dewey” flying around in the conversation.
I kept my head down, as I totally didn’t want to get drawn into this conversation without making sure they’d tried to engage me about the book I was reading.
The conversation proceeded around me, “Oh yeah, Dewey! He trippin’.”
Another: “Yeah, he won’t open that back door.”
Another, talking on top of him before he finished: “Oh no, not the back door! Dewey don’t let no one go out that back door.”
Another: “Lord no. No he don’t.”
Bus driver looking in mirror, “Dewey didn’t let ’em out the back door?”
The conversation then took a short turn to being about a bus driver named Henry and someone said something about what Henry had done.
To which the bus driver said, “Dewey did that???”
“No, this was another driver!” a couple of them shouted in unison.
I thought, “Whew.” It wasn’t until then that I was absolutely sure that they weren’t talking about my Dewey.
The conversation died down after that, and I marveled at the possibility that it was a complete coincidence that a conversation came up around a person named Dewey while I sat right there reading a book called Dewey.
Speaking of Twilight Zone-ish things, today when I logged on to bear411.com, I had an instant message waiting from Scottsteven, the guy who cut my hair last week! I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that he obviously used my customer information to look me up on bear411.
On bear411, his name is also Scott, not Steven. Maybe that cosmetology license belongs to someone who already knows how to trim eyebrows. I’m just saying…
Casey and I had decided yesterday to cook out today, as I’d heard on the weather forecast that it was going to be a “perfect day—sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and temperatures in the low- to mid-70s.” And it was.
Casey had placed some pork chops in a marinade before going off to work this morning, and he cooked those for us on the grill this evening. They were absolutely fantastic!
Dancing was lots of fun tonight, though my knee absolutely killed me toward the end of the evening. And, no, I didn’t stop dancing.
We were stopped from dancing for about ten minutes, while the final winner of American Idol was crowned on the TVs in the bar. The gay guy didn’t win, but the straight guy that did win was totally hot. But I digress…
At home, I finished Dewey before conking out. Yay, glad to be done with it.