A Tuesday

I'm an extremely superstitious person. I can't help that. Perhaps it was fated by Destiny when she bestowed upon me the gifts necessary to become a passably incisive literary critic: the type of person who seeks to imbue meaning into every text he encounters is liable to find himself seeking explanation for every event in his life, irrespective of significance or relevance.

At the same time, I have to believe that my faithfulness towards superstition has damned me to fall into a vicious circle. The more I believe that a circumstance is going to end up in a particular way, the more I will subconsciously do to ensure that negative outcome. And my hatred of Tuesdays is the kind of thing that is both reflexive and self-perpetuating.

I came to the conclusion that Tuesdays were the worst day of the week a long time ago. The argument works through simple process of elimination. Firstly, discount Saturdays and Sundays because the weekend is, for obvious reasons, not even in the competition. That leaves us the work week. The two easiest days to discount then are Wednesday and Friday -- the latter because it is the final day of the week and precursor to the weekend, and the former because "Hump Day," as it is affectionately known in many circles, marks the beginning of the downhill slide towards relaxation. I further remove Monday from the discussion because, though it is the start of a new week, most people spend a substantial portion of the day bitching and adjusting, as opposed to actually being productive. Its therapeutic nature makes it at least borderline tolerable. The competition, then, is between Tuesday and Thursday, so what do we have framing these two? On Thursday, we're on the downward slide that Wednesday had foretold, and we can anticipate tomorrow being Friday, so it can't be all that bad. But on Tuesday, you're framed by the beginning of the week and by the minimally-inviting promise that you're almost halfway there.

So fuck Tuesdays. QED.

Yet something about this past Tuesday -- St. Patrick's Day, for those of you playing at home from some indiscriminate week in the near or distant future -- felt like it wanted to buck the system, go against the trend. It was a heads-up, one-on-one battle between a shockingly positive mind set and the inexorable march of fate. So let's get right to the highlights.

The day was doomed to a bad start. I'd gone out Monday night with a friend to see Watchmen. I had promised I'd attend with her before spring break, but while in DC for a few days, I went to see it with Alicia. So I already knew what was going to happen, and I knew that I was not going to enjoy it. (It's not that it's a bad movie, per se, but I know I just didn't like it.) So, despite my better judgment, I dispensed with my typical viewing of 24 to once more see a movie I did not care for. And rather than cut my losses and head to sleep, I instead returned to my friend's apartment, where we played Rock Band until almost 3:00am. And we both had seminar (the same seminar, in fact) the next morning. At 9:00am.

So began the craptacularity [trademark pending]. Seminar was uneventful, perhaps with the exception of the fact that I confidently participated and made an impact despite having only read two of the play's five acts. After a short pat on the back, I printed my material for my editing class and proceeded to The Corner Room for a lengthy lunch and reading respite. I ate, I drank, I finished my crossword, and I put a large dent into Going to See the Elephant (Early Review post forthcoming). Things were looking up.

As I made my way to editing, I couldn't help but notice that spring was most definitely in the air. Not so much because the weather was warm, but because the intangible sensation of the season seemed omnipresent. Winter warm spells are nice, but they carry a sense of dread, because you know that there's a cold front just waiting to shatter the serenity, to break in and kill any anticipation of prolonged warmth. But when spring is really, truly here, you feel the season fighting back. It won't let the chill back in, even if the temperature does drop a bit here and there. This was what I felt as I walked to class: the battle had raged, and spring was emerging triumphant. So too were my spirits.

The rest of my classes passed without incident. I reflected on how the job search seemed to be in good shape -- I even applied for a position that seemed particularly suited to my skills and interests. I returned home, curled up with Going to See the Elephant, and finished it. And, despite a threatening last-minute twist, it ended in a fully satisfying fashion, which further instilled a sense of profound happiness within me. Could it be that the simple joys of the day were going to successfully squash the heavy hand of fate?

It seemed so, until about 7:30pm. After watching Jeopardy!, I became inexplicably tired, but I didn't want to go to sleep. In fact, I wanted to read more. So I opted to drive to Starbucks, grab some coffee to wake me up, and try to put another notch in Gain, the Richard Powers novel I've been slowly working on since October. I parked, I drank, I read, I got sleepy again. Only an hour and a half later, I was ready to go.

Ascending the stairs, and strolled confidently to the door, pushed it open, and approached my car. Which had a large pink envelope in the windshield wipers reading "Parking Violation."

Rather than simply recount the string of curses I spewed forth at the sight, I should explain that I was equal parts pissed off and confounded. Upon my arrival, I'd actively sought out some sign, either posted in the lot or written on the meter, that would explain when the meter ran out. Finding none, I checked the other spaces to see if other cars were parked at expired meters; they were. (Apparently, they also had permits, but I did not take note of this.) By all accounts, I thought I was okay, but I was obviously wrong.

What was most irritating, though, was that it wasn't the Borough that cited me -- it was some private company called Parking Management & Enforcement. The ticket had no address: just a P.O. Box, a phone number, and a website, which also features no information about the company or its office location. Furthermore, the ticket claimed I had a mere 48 hours to pay the $15 fine -- not extravagant, I know, but still thrice as expensive as a standard Borough citation -- or they would sic a collections agency on me. Essentially, their operation is designed to eliminate any option to argue: just shut up, pay, and deal with it. But since I attempted to find some kind of posting about the meters' hours of operation and failed, I don't feel like I can just lay down and deal with this.

So now, I'm on an agitated quest to find a human being at this place to argue with, because I want to at least make it worth the $15 I may end up shelling out anyway. But with the (admittedly, stolen) Internet at my apartment on the fritz, my options are to either go back to campus, find a free WiFi hotspot in town, or visit to friends' houses to borrow their connections. None of which are terribly problematic options, but they are terribly inconvenient.

Which essentially brings me to my point: whether a mere character flaw or damaging vice, I find that I get most angry at little things, not at major concerns. I have a genuine belief that most "big deal" things end up resolving themselves in satisfactory ways: after all, whenever I see people that I consider to be utter wastes of life managing to keep their shit together, I figure little ol' me and my nice education should be able to traverse the treacherous tides decently enough. But my inability to control the more minute details of my life -- like, say, bullshit partking tickets -- irritates me because it's enough to sidetrack me from my larger goals. And sadly, the little bumps end up adding up, even though they inevitably are forgotten in a relatively short period of time.

And I've discovered, furthermore, that my experiences in graduate school have amounted to that very type of sum. All told, my degree is on-track and my job search is, while not terribly fruitful, not completely stalled out either. But the past two years have thrown a lot of bumps onto my road. Some have been fairly minor (centipede infestations, loss of motivation, etc.); others have been pretty life-changing (complete career change; end of a long-term relationship, etc.). Yet they all add up to a sense that this period of my life has been excessively flawed, intensely unhappy, and ultimately damaging. Despite trying to see it all as a chance to grow and improve, it's proven to be a consistently demeaning set of challenges that have come at a troublingly persistent pace.

Having thought all this through, the overwhelming feeling I was left with is that, as incomprehensible as it might seem to the sane, rational mind, the town of State College must be out to get me. And as ridiculous as it must sound to posit that an entire municipality is somehow in control of my personal wheel of fortune, I'm equally hard-pressed to come up with events and occurrences while here that I can't classify as dire, dour, or some diabolical mix of both. So my lamentably superstitious mind clings to that explanation, implausible though it may be. Which is, despite my tone, a blessing in disguise, because that means I have but two more months left until I can dispatch this unfortunate chapter from my narrative and carry on writing the story I want to write, with a degree that identifies me as master not only of the arts but of my own fate.