You Are Among Friends

This is from LAST spring; don't get it twisted. But still! THIS will be happening outside! Soon and very soon!

This was a deadline weekend for me (these happen monthly as part of my MFA program), so of course I spent almost the entire thing chained to my desk, growing meaner and more grimy by the hour. You guys should see my desk right now, seriously. It's a museum display of procrastination and coping mechanisms. My wallet's up here. There's a Coke Zero can. I don't want to talk about it.*

I assume everyone has his or her favorite modes of procrastination. Personally, mine is to avoid stress by pretending that I would totally not mind spending my entire day and night working on an assignment. I'll stretch out at my desk at 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning, holding my coffee, and think: It would be my pleasure to be still sitting here at 8:30 tonight. This mindset frees me of stress-inducing factors like "a realistic timeline" and "hard work." Unfortunately it is also NOT TRUE because NO, OBVIOUSLY I actually would hate to sit here all day on the first warm-ish weekend of the year. But did I? I certainly did.

Stuuuuuuuuuuuuuupid. Or at least NOOOOOOOT VERYYYY PRAAAAACTICALLLLLLL.

I didn't whine or panic, though (ok I whined a little but only toward the end), because instead of letting myself do those things, I chose to turn hatefully inward and say to myself, see these feelings that we don't like? We can avoid these hateful feelings in the future by TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS.

Back on the horse. Spring is coming, I can tell; it's already such a relief. I nearly cried with joy when I heard it raining outside today from the depths of my homework prison. Rain! Because it's too warm for snow!

 

*Speaking of thinking a soda is disgusting, the world deserves to hear about the time my mom famously gave Dr. Pepper an EPIC BURN. We were on family vacation a few years ago, sitting around our flimsy resort house where there is nothing to do at night, and we were all eating cheese and watching Animal Planet or something. One of us opened a Dr. Pepper, and my mom was all grossed out and said "I bet I know why they call it Dr. Pepper...because it TASTES LIKE MEDICINE PRESCRIBED BY A DOCTOR!!!"

FACE, DR. PEPPER!

OK I can't like, sit here and BLOG all night because I have homework to do and this is 100% procrastination, but I just made some delicious coffee in the ol' French press and a) I wanted an excuse to brag about that because it sounds fancy and requires a scrap of effort and b) I wanted to tell you the story of how I got this giant coffee mug shaped like a giraffe.

Well actually, I guess it isn't really shaped like a giraffe. It's shaped like a cup, but it's painted like a giraffe, and it has a giraffe neck protruding from the top with a giraffe head attached, appropriately enough, at the end of the neck. As a coffee cup, it is totally impractical. The head, as you can see, includes pointy little ceramic ears and horns, making the thing downright painful to hold by the handle, especially with hands as lily-white and delicate as mine. So you have to hold it by the mug part, which traditionally houses the boiling hot coffee part. Engineering department, please! Anyway, on to the story.

One day I got a smallish box in the mail. This package was left on our front porch, and it had a return address written on it--San Francisco, I think. Definitely California. There was no name with the return address. Inside the box were some packing peanuts and this mug with a giraffe neck and that is it. When I opened it, I stood in the kitchen staring at it for a long time. The whole thing seemed like a mistake, like a wrong number on the phone, except that the package had been very clearly addressed to me, Lindsey J. Markel, in black Sharpie. I tried to think of who I knew in San Francisco, but the only people I know who live there are the Tanner family, and they are not even real. I tried to remember if I had an inside joke with anyone involving a giraffe, or coffee, or cups, or mail. I tried to think of who knew my address, including apartment number. It occurred to me that I might have a stalker, and this freaked me out a little bit, until I figured it was probably okay to have a stalker that lives like seven states away whose preferred method of terrorism is sending hilarious giant coffee mugs through the mail.

I am telling you this because I still don't know where this coffee mug came from. It sat on the kitchen counter for a number of months, untouched, as a weird little decoration--also, it is too big to fit in the cup cabinet--and then one Saturday morning I picked it up and declared it my signature mug of choice. I mean, I don't even know if I want to know where it came from anymore. Mystery, like coffee, is one of the spices of life, non?

But seriously, if you sent me this thing, get in touch. I need to know I won't be waking up with a giraffe head in my bed anytime soon.