a frightful amount of custard.

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dateline: oZville

9 september 1996 10:20 p.m.

I'm so totally beat. Today was merciless. Totally without Ruth. Bad, even. I missed my first class by virtue of forgetting that it was at 8:30 and not 9:30, I had an essay due in my second that I didn't even know about ("Oh, it was on the syllabus -- I see! Why, whoever would think to look there?"), and there was a pop vocab quiz in Hawaiian that I got a 21 out of 25 on (which sounds great, until you find out the only grade in the class lower than mine was a 19, and it was a guy I'd never even seen in the class before). The first sign of downersville started yesterday with lead. Some sort of sort-of-long-neglected lead inspection in my building. Not like the landlord's going to tell us if we have any, but they had to do one anyway. At nine in the morning on Sunday, no less. And after that rude awakening, I'm left standing in a stained and wrinkled nightshirt holding a two page "amendment" to my lease agreement that I'm supposed to sign by tomorrow. Went back to bed, only to be kept up by a babywarming party brewing next door. Seems my neighbor (singular -- never seen a guy there) hatched sometime last week (I knew she was hapai -- pregnant -- but not that pregnant). Came home from the hospital and brought her whole clan with her. So that makes two 3 a.m. sleepkillers on my floor. Actually, the party was pretty civilized. When I later wandered out, someone said hello and I said congratulations and got cake. The real problem was that the party included brats. About four of them, making enough noise for a small playground. Tearing up and down the walkway, screaming, fighting, laughing and (I think) hurling various objects over the wall onto unsuspecting neighbors below. My Darwin rant started running through my mind again. I wondered if a small effort on my part (given a few tragic sacrifices) would eventually lead to a population of children that could fly. Before I stormed out and started wailing at them with a plunger (it was the only easily accessible weapon near the door at the time, but the fantasies were very satisfying), I called Derek. "Have to work today," he said. "On a Sunday?" I said. "Yeah. It sucks," he said. "No shit," I said. Thought about walking around, but the sky was so grey... it reminded me of my visit to Baltimore over Christmas. The clouds were heavy and very low and very thick, and all of a sudden the world seemed a lot smaller. And I was trapped in a building with fast-moving, fruit-throwing demon spawn. Called Derek again and we both complained at eachother for an hour. Just before he had to run, I made a desperate query as to what he'd do after work, and he said, "sleep." I talked him into a movie. We went to see "Emma" at Kahala. The theater was pretty empty, and we joined everyone else in settling down and throwing our feet up on the chairs in front of us. There was a preview for "Summer in the Hamptons," which I now want to see... I might have loved "Sense and Sensibillity" a little more, but I still adored "Emma." It was simply great. It's also probably the only worthy romance flick out right now (though I hear good things about "Tin Cup"). If I wasn't so exhausted -- from what I don't know -- I probably would have cried. When Mr. Knightly (Jeremy Northam) proposed? Swoon city. Got a good solid hand-squeeze from Derek. And Ewan McGregor? Never looked sexier. The music, too, was well done. If only I had the energy for a review. We staggered out, two hours after Austen's tale began, and I got dropped off barely able to walk up the steps. I was smiling, trying to figure out all the character parallels between "Emma" and its contemporary, "Clueless," and stepped onto my floor to discover the babywarming was still in full swing. So, as I tried not to evesdrop on them yammering outside, I looked at my e-mail (didn't answer, just looked). Broke into the triple digits again, including some disconcerting mail from two UH students trying to figure out if they've seen me on campus. And the neighbors talked and talked and talked -- switching seamlessly as the night progressed into Korean -- late into the night. At least they didn't play music, and I didn't hear much of the baby. Everyone finally said goodbye -- loudly, I might add -- at about midnight. It was humid and I was restless and I tossed and turned until -- it seemed -- my alarm went off at 7:30 a.m. I grudgingly got up, after three hits of snooze, and lethargically gathered my stuff for an imaginary 9:30 class... Today they were handing out "Campus Trial Paks" at Campus Center. I walked over with a guy (married at 20!) from class and we snatched one each. There was a GuyPak and a GirlPak. We compared our goods. Pretty much the same, it seemed at first... men's and women's razors, men's and women's fragrances. One item I got didn't have a clear match in the guy box, though: tampons. I offered some to my seemingly despondent Tampaxless classmate, but he recoiled like you wouldn't believe. Another "match" kinda bugged me. He got instant coffee. I got Woolite laundry detergent. Try as I might, my classmate wouldn't trade. I ended up going back and saying I wanted one for my boyfriend and grabbed a guy box for myself. Now, altogether, I've got enough oddly colored razors to last a couple of months. I wonder if they'll be there tomorrow?