In the library

Where it SHOULD be quiet all the time.
I opened again this morning - though I went to bed a lot earlier last night than I did the night before, so that's good I guess. Then Kate and I talked for half an hour before we both actually shut up and went to sleep. Then I couldn't sleep properly (but not in the "God, I'm so pissed I just want to be asleep" way. More of a, "hmmn, I wonder why I'm not asleep. What time is it? oh, four thirty. no problem, I've got an hour and a half before I need to be awake" way. It was really very strange.
And now two of the librarians are apparently missing in action. Allison came out and asked me if there were any messages when I got in this morning, and there weren't (At least the light's not blinking. I guess I could check the voicemail anyway) and then wondered out loud where Carole and Karla are. I personally have no idea. Both of their schedules say they were supposed to be here at eight this morning. Oh well. I'm sure they'll show up. We would have heard already if something had happened, so yeah.
Now there's something in the reference area making really obnoxious sounds.
I think I will go check the voicemail. There's nothing better to do.
Oh, I finished all of my homework at 7:30 yesterday! I was so proud of myself, 'cuz then I got to watch LasVegas and Medium and not try to write a lab report at the same time. Of course, then I missed the first part of Las Vegas 'cuz my friend (adopted sister - adopted by me not by my parents, 'cuz she was my sister's best friend until my sister turned into a crazy person who only willingly associates with her boyfriend) Amy called me to ask me if I knew that our friend Mike and my friend Katie had broken up. They've been engaged since last October and I guess Amy asked Mike (who she works with, and who is an incredible guy - regardless of the fact that I've been friends with Katie since seventh grade and now apparently either he broke their engagement or she did, either way I should probably be unhappy with him, but I can't do it) if he wanted to go out with them for her birthday next weekend, and he was psyched, so she was all "well, remember you're engaged," 'cuz he seemed like he was a little too excited about the going drinking, and he was just said "well, actually, no i'm not" apparently with a rather unhappy look on his face.
okay, I have to go now. Really kinda concerned about them, though.

A Dream...When I Should Have Been Awake

I got up late this morning. I was having a rather divine dream - well....if Kate was reading this she would determine to find me absolutely hopeless and give up, but not the point - when I suddenly woke up for no reason at all. Ugh. Don't you hate when that happens? Although, today...not so bad. Reason: My alarm was set for an hour earlier - woke up 6:35, alarm set 5:38. Not good. Had to leave to be here by 7:20, so not having that extra hour (whose purpose was actually to get some more homework done before I had to leave, 'cuz I don't have done everything I should have done for today) was not a good thing.
Anyway, about my dream...
I was at the library (here), or at least, somewhere like the library. It wasn't exactly MY library, 'cuz architecturally it was different, and much larger, but I worked here, the copy machines were the same (yes, I said I dreamed about the copy machines) and the staff was for the most part the same as well.
Okay, so I was at work when I realized that I had forgotten everything I needed for that day - or all of my folders with all of my homework in any case. So I got Nikki (who doesn't even usually work circ desk) to cover me, and then I ran home, but when I got back, somehow I ended up on the stairs, which were not the regular stairs, they were those scary crazy ones which are suspended from the ceiling with steel posts, and as I was running up them I could not actually get up them, it was like an escalator, except it wasn't supposed to be, and then when I got to the landing, the stairs fell and I rolled back down to the floor (this is not the good part). Then I don't remember what happened, but I ended up over by the photocopier, trying not to cry and trying to ignore the fact that I'd just seen John (whom I have been half in love with since my freshman year of high school, who is now engaged and planning to be married next month - and who in my dream is marrying someone entirely different from the woman he is marrying in real life, dream girl is someone I've literally known since I was five and who now goes to Carroll with me). Of course, John, being a guy, refuses to be ignored and comes over and wants to know why I'm crying and is determined to make me feel better, which works, but mostly just 'cuz I miss him so much. Then we end up dancing for some unknown reason, and then his fiancee walks in and one of my friends is all, "hide" and the other one practically waves her over because she doesn't approve of what is happening. So then she finds out about us (apparently this isn't just a spur of the moment thing, and we are - naturally - madly in love) and when she confronts him he's holding my hand really tight and tells her that he's made his decision, he doesn't want to marry her, and then we run off together. It was incredible.
And then I woke up and wondered why I was awake, and then I looked at the clock, realized I was supposed to have been up for at least half an hour (because I'm one of those crazy people who uses her snooze alarm) but that I hadn't heard my alarmclock due to the massive amounts of rain that were coming down - and the thunder and lightening of course, so I turned the volume up a little bit and then got up to go take a shower.
Now I'm tired. Drooping a lot. Need coffee. Can't have coffee. Am sitting at the circ desk. Library policy. Ughh.

I am very tired

Today is the second day in a row that I have opened the library. I should be doing my math homework, but it isn't due until Thursday and I don't have any classes tomorrow - of course the fact that I have no classes tomorrow only means that I will be spending half the day in bed wishing I didn't have anything to do on my day with no classes. Of course, I work from nine 'til midnight tonight as well, so I can easily work on something then. But that will probably be time for reading the novel I need to finish for class on Thursday which I forgot at Courtney's house on Sunday (which she very kindly dropped off for me after she got done with classes yesterday. I love that she has classes in Waukesha - it's rather convenient what with me living here) because God knows I don't want to carry my Geometry book with me to lab tonight - or for that matter to my meeting with my chem study group at four.
The meeting with my study group for which we have not yet received the assignment. Prof's all "oh, I'll get it out to you this afternoon. It'll be due on Friday in class" Yeah. Haven't gotten it yet. RRRR
And I open the library AGAIN on Thursday. I really shouldn't be complaining. I agreed to take the shifts. Hell, I signed up for them. And this morning when I woke up I actually felt like I should be awake, but that doesn't make sitting here in the semi-twilight (stupid rain) any more pleasant. It started raining two minutes before I absolutely HAD to leave, otherwise the library would absolutely not open on time. Of course, it didn't help that I went to bed somewhere around midnight and then proceeded to talk to Kate for about half an hour, until one or both of us fell asleep in the middle of our conversation. Yesterday was a crazy day.
I opened the library, and then at nine called Court to ask her if she could drop off my book. Then I had class STRAIGHT from ten to four, with those cute little ten minute passing times to walk from one side of campus to the other. Those ten minute passing times which professors tend to believe are their own personal fudge times, available times provided just in case they have more to say than they can cover in their given fifty minutes.
ALL of my classes ran over yesterday. Then I came to work from 5-7, so for the hour from 4-5 I had absolutely no desire to spend ten minutes walking home, then ten minutes walking back, so I sat in the coffeeshop and had coffee and a bagel and started reading a book - which I then put back on the shelf because I have very little free reading time and much as I would like to read the book, I didn't feel like carrying it home just so it could sit around until it was due to be returned to the library.
Then when I got home I started making dinner and doing laundry, but some jackass apparently can't read the half dozen signs in the laundry room that say "Don't leave your laundry in the machines. Know when it will be done and come get it." Or something relatively close to that. So I had to do one load at a time, forgetting dryer sheets, so no fabric softener for me, then when the second load was done in the washer, I had to wait for the dumbass with the other dryer to come empty her towels which had been done for approximately twenty minutes. Then Rissa called, so I went and sat on the stoop outside to talk to her - Kate was talking on the phone from the minute I got home until after I got off of my SECOND phone call - which was with Josh, whom I talked to - again mostly outside, after I switched my laundry from the washer to the now-empty dryer while trying to hold my cell phone with my shoulder - after Marissa.
I miss him.
Kate says I should move to Detroit after graduation if we're both still single (I've noticed now she's happily planning her life with her boyfriend whom she's been going out with for a whole two months, she's DYING to get everyone else set up in cute little pairs) and I can a.) teach him to control his drinking and b.) Get to know Detroit - nothing about how happy I'd be there with him, which considering he hasn't ASKED me to go, and is forgoing sleep for the social life he already has. I explained that I could not be happy there with him. I'm too jealous, and I wouldn't fit into his social life - he's kind of a barscene kinda guy and I am very much not a bar person. Which is to say that I am, but I like bars like Cheers, where one can go in and sit on a stool and talk to people, rather than the ones where one goes in and screams to get the bartender's attention and then gets stuck drinking really bad, horribly overpriced booze and pretends she's enjoying it.
And I don't like cities, I can't afford Detroit, and I kinda wanna live with Court - and Don't want to be in Detroit. I'm comfortable with Wisconsin. She was even telling me how they have grad schools in Detroit and she's sure I could get into one (thanks ever so much, love) and that it would be a wonderful program.
I don't even know if I want to be with Josh. Granted, he's beautiful and funny and smart and (when he's not drinking) fairly polite and well behaved, but he's also a flirt and is at the moment teetering on the edge of alcoholism (which I really would like to help him with), and I'm fairly certain he doesn't want me to feel this way about him.
Ugh. I'm always just fine until someone says "hey, why aren't the two of you together" and then my brain goes through all the possibilities of how we could end up - and very few of them end in the happily ever after scenario. Then I couldn't sleep well, 'cuz when I was talking to Marissa she told me about this horrible dream she'd had about how Josh was really sick and died and didn't tell anybody about being ill and then the only reason Marissa found out was because his mom called to invite them to the funeral. I hate when people tell me things like that. Kate - always the font of information - says death in dreams signifies a new beginning or a dramatic change coming up in one's life, so I'm hoping that's all it means.
Ugh, okay. I need to stop this before I start really going off the deep end.

The new story begins...

Working Title: Four Janes

The first one was the hardest. I didn't really know what I was doing then, and it was more of an impulse than anything else. When it all worked out the way I had envisioned, that's when the trouble really started.

WE'd been married three years, two months and seventeen days, and I had exactly seven days and ten hours before I was to present for the final time to the PhD thesis committee.
She wanted to talk.
This was not uncommon, and on any given day I would have been more than willing to sit and talk to her. She was a great confversationalist, even if some of her other traits were growing irksome. However, lately the conversations were becoming increasingly stilted and irritating.

You see, she wanted to start a family, have lots of little brats running around breaking things and making messes. Truthfully, I don't think I'd make a very good parent. I don't like children, I don't like when things move from where I put them. I can sit in my study for hours or even days at a time working on a problem and not noticing the time. And I like quiet.
So, I simply could not let her continue to romanticize about having children. I didn't have time to talk to her about why it was a bad idea, and I could not let her dreams come true. It would have been a disaster!
So I did the only thing I could. I took care of the problem, finished my thesis in peace, and took a professorial position in the history department at NYU - where I'd dreamt of teaching since I was an undergrad - and I went on with my life.

Our car was in the shop, having the windshield replaced and the engine tund up, so I rented one from the service station and had all of the information put in my name. The man who rented me the car warned me about the faulty defroster, but I told him that I rarely drive except short trips, so we decided it would be alright.
I didn't pass on the warning when Patti took the car. She was having dinner with her sister and I asked her to stop and pick up some extra typing paper for me on her way home.
When the temperature dropped and the fog rolled in less than an hour after she left, I knew I was in luck. The drunk driver who got lost on our street couldn't have turned out better if I had planned it. He didn't know where he was, and was on the wrong side of the road when she came out of the curve.
She died on impact. He's been in jail ever since.

I do miss her every now and then. She really was great to talk to, always ready to support reasonable ideas, or to intelligently debate a point she didn't agree with. We had graduated together from Harvard, and while I'd been studying European history, she'd been studying philosophy, so we could quite often share notes on how certain beliefs and practices developed.
That woman could reasearch like no one I'd ever seen before, and had a curiosity that could not be stemmed. But she talked too much and I just couldn't go on any longer.
It's not really so difficult to understand.
I just needed quiet. She knew that.