Normalization

It's about that time of year when I realize that I only have a month and a half left to the semester and an insurmountable amount of work to accomplish before that. I am almost (almost!) done with my Italian fascism paper (on which I worked all weekend) but that, of course, left me no time to get my reading done for the German history class today, nor was I able to write new lesson plans (something about feudal Japan?) and so I have been completely and utterly unprepared all day.

This morning, I caught a cab fairly quickly, despite the rain (which always makes it more difficult). However, my luck just about ended there, as the cab got pulled over for "blocking the box," the cab driver was given a ticket and I sat patiently in the back seat while a bitter argument with the traffic officer ensued. Needless to say, I was late for class.

I skipped feudal Japan and cut straight to the Reformation (which has now thrown the course out of sequence, but whatever...) and rushed to the library after class to print out the German history articles I hadn't had time to read. Leave it to my school to have an enormous computer lab with all but one of the printers broken and the only working printer rejecting everything I tried to print. I will not be able to get this reading done, and I can only hope that no attention is drawn to my lack of preparation. I absolutely hate walking into things unprepared.

So... that's today. So far, it's all chaos.

The weekend was nice. On Friday I hung out at home and worked on my paper. On Saturday I hung out at home and worked on my paper. NDN came up for a while and kept me company. I took a break at around 6:00 when Bezoukhoff arrived. We had plans to go to the movies, where we saw Lust, Caution. It was awesome. I'm still there, a little bit, in my head.

Narc sent me a text at around 4:00 AM on Saturday night. I didn't get it until 5:00 AM when I opened my eyes for a sec and saw my phone was buzzing. I called him and we spoke briefly, making a plan for me to go down and see him the next morning. Despite the fact that my paper wasn't finished, I couldn't resist...

So... On Sunday morning I had brunch with NDN at a nearby diner and then headed to Tribeca. Narc and I lolled around in bed for most of the morning and early afternoon before heading for sushi at his favorite spot. He was going on and on about Laurie. He said he hadn't heard from her in a few days and was worried that he might have said something that "stepped over the line."

"I don't understand what you mean," I said.

"Well, we're always joking around that we should just get married. And she invited me home for Christmas... Maybe she thought I was serious about that or something."

"If it was just a joke, why should she think that?" I asked. "And why don't you date her, anyway?"

"No... there's nothing between us," he frowned. "Besides, we'd probably both end up in AA."

"That's not such a bad thing."

I was so fucking confused at this point... confused and sad, I guess... or, if not sad, then disturbed. I couldn't put my finger on just what I was feeling, but it wasn't good. So, we kept eating sushi and I tried to ignore my feelings.

Narc also went on about how everyone cheats and about how his friend Danielle (at 38 years old, like Laurie) is crushing on some 26 year old rock-band guy and how all women are like that. I am so sick of his "women are shallow and only want rich, hot guys" diatribes. I just don't want to engage with it anymore. It makes no sense to me. I pointed out that he cheated on PopStar.

"Not until November or so... not until I was sure she was cheating on me."

"Narc, I know we slept together before that-- we were in bed the day you told me you were going to Russia to apply for the marriage!"

"No. That's not true," he said.

"Whatever... not like it matters."

(I looked it up on the blog. She left towards the end of August. We had sex a month later-- on September 18th.)

It's weird, though-- for Narc, all the women he spends time with (except for me) are exactly like that. I started to think about how we all surround ourselves with people who normalize our behavior. For me, it's "normal" to be in AA, it's "normal" to be a single girl living in NYC, it's "normal" to be getting a PhD. Basically all of my friends are doing one or the other. When I used to drink with Narc, we "normalized" each others drinking. Why does he chose such shitty women to spend his time with?

Anyway, after sushi, we went back to his place and I tried to work on my paper a little bit while he played (and beat) Mario on the Wii. Then we decided to cook dinner. Narc doesn't know anything about cooking, but he bought some chicken breasts and wanted to give it a go. So, we made the chicken breasts and some mixed vegetables and he lit a candle and we ate together perched at his dining table. I was trying so hard not to lose my grip on reality. It was cozy and sweet, but a lie.

Afterwards, we watched some more TV (including part of that movie-- "Hard Candy" in which a 14 year old girl wants to castrate a 31 year old man) and then some Sex in the City (we both have very strong opinions about Mr. Big!) and then we headed to bed.

On Monday, I hung out there until about noon and then headed home to attempt some more work on my paper. I got a little done, but was feeling lethargic and wasteful and didn't do as much as I could have. Later on, I headed to AA and tried to resume my work when I got back that night, but again-- I was not at the peak of my productivity.

And that brings me to today-- I'm trying to throw myself into my scholastic life, but it feels awful to be constantly scrambling to climb up this slippery mountain while I keep berating myself that it should have been climbed long ago. I want this work to be finished. I want to be prepared for things. I want to have my feet on the ground.

I don't know... But in any case, I have to run to class now.

later!

love,
h