Phenomenology of 12.05.08

On three hours sleep, I get up, shower, and put on my "nice clothes" (which consist of a pair of black slacks and a white button-down shirt. I look like band rehearsal). When I leave my apartment, there are no lights on in the hallway, so I literally have to feel my way down the stairs in the pitch black, which eventually starts to feel like impossibly many flights, shouldn't I have reached the bottom already?, I'm in an episode of the twilight zone. Then I take the 2 to Wakefield/241st Street, and for the first time instead of the usual dozen guys yelling "taxi! taxi miss!" there isn't a single gypsy cab, so I have to wait for the bus, while a Jamaican woman yells at all of us to repent, if I were you I would repent, if I were you I would not sleep at night until I had accepted the Lord Jesus Christ. Then I lecture on Nietzsche and God is dead, it falls flat as it always does in the Bronx, and decide to take the commuter train back instead of the subway, because passing through Grand Central is good for the soul, and I have my oral comprehensive exams at 2, which is soon. On my way into my exam, I run into a friend coming out of his, and he informs me that the letter size page of notes I have is illegal, we're only allowed a 3x5 index card, read the handbook. My exam goes wonderfully well, and soon all I have left to do today is a job interview for a teaching fellowship at the New School, which is exciting because it is one of the highest honours at the school. So I wait outside the Associate Dean's office, in my band clothes, with the glass of water-cooler water her secretary gave me, trying to think of how I'm going to use my words, but by now I have had two cups of coffee and no food, and I have to focus all of my energy on readjusting my scarf so that it covers any possible cleavage and not spilling any of the water. The interview also goes wonderfully well, and we all head over to Café Loup for some moules frites and prosecco. Huzzah!