Already I have been in the house too long

Food. Chex cereal. Coffee. Chair. Book. Coffee.

No fire. Was fire before! Fire now? No fire still. Now? No.

Floss still asleep. Bored now! Play with me!

Book. Plastic milk top to play with. Mmm chicken.

Meow. Meow. Meow.

Meow.

End of semester

Back on Amazon Island they used to provide mountains of junk food during exams, which I hated – the meals weren’t very good at the end of the semester because they were trying to use up all the bits and scraps, but there were always goldfish crackers and M&Ms, fig newtons and Skittles. I disapproved of this and was pleased when, last year, they toned it down a little and included large amounts of fruit, at least.

K and I switched to Bare Bones rations last night. I used up the last of the milk and baking mix to make biscuits, and she cracked open an enormous can of refried beans, so we had burritos for dinner last night and biscuits for breakfast. Probably refrites for dinner again tonight unless I crack and sneak off to buy a piece of pizza.

Ever since my sister gave me this iPod, I’ve been inclined to listen to it pretty much all the time. I listen every day on my way to and from school, on the way to the grocery store, etc. I probably look kind of silly in my leather jacket with my big headphones over my hat, but I have to admit it feels neat to walk through the campus listening to “Police & Thieves.” I feel like I’ve got a chip on my shoulder. It’s amusing.

Now that my set theory final is turned in I’m finding it very difficult to motivate myself to finish my philosophy of language final. Instead I’m sitting around reading depressing Lorrie Moore stories and watching Gilmore Girls. Tomorrow I will turn in my final and then I’ll be done with my first semester of grad school. I plan to celebrate by attending something called Hairbangers’ Ball, which, if it’s anything like the other Bloomington dance parties I’ve been to, will be kind of lame, but Shana assures me there will be jumping around and I’m good for that.

Memphis Minnie Steered Us Wrong

When I came out to the Hoosier State over the summer to find an apartment, our realtor, Memphis Minnie, told me that we could do laundry in a nearby apartment. I vaguely remember her waving her arm in the direction of the apartment building across the street, which looks like a church. Possibly I was too distracted by her yellow patent leather pumps to really absorb what she was telling me. Anyway, we moved out here, and for the last few months I've been alternating between the laundry room in the basement of the church apartment (which is dark and creepy, plus it always feels illicit to me and you never know when the door is going to be locked; once I put my laundry in the dryer and then went home for a bit because of the aforementioned dark creepiness and when I got back the door was locked and my laundry was trapped) and the public laundromat, which is seven blocks away but at least has a change machine. (The one in the church basement has no change machine so K and I just have to stock up on quarters, which is a pain.)

Today K informed me that there is another apartment complex a block away, behind the church apartment, which is owned by the same management company as ours. This, it turns out, was where Memphis Minnie told me we could do our laundry. We have been doing our laundry in the building across the street when we had no right to be in there at all. Memphis Minnie, you have steered us wrong. Next thing you know, it'll turn out there's a grocery store within ten blocks! You never stop discovering things in this town.

Proof

I didn't go grocery shopping this week, since we're leaving for break soon. That means K and I are having a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches and pasta. Or, actually, I'm having pasta; pasta isn't one of K's categories. It's always surprising to me what foods surprise her: penne with tomato sauce out of a jar, spinach omelettes. I had a spinach omelette for dinner last night and she said she'd never heard of such a thing, and looked very dubious about whether it would even work. I have to say, I need to learn some new staple dishes, though, because I'm so sick of baked lentils with cheese and red beans and rice. When I get back to school next month I'm going to learn to cook some new stuff. Trouble is, I can't imagine what sorts of stuff that might be. Beans and lentils, probably. It is to weep.

One of my favorite things in the whole world, when all is said and done, is struggling through a really difficult proof. The hours spent "moving symbols around on the page" as Fred called it dismissively; trying every approach, and running into dead ends, and trying again. I love drifting off to sleep and being hit with a possible answer, as if by a brick, and leaping up to wright it down and have another bash. I love writing on the blackboard in the lounge and pacing and getting frustrated. I love when I'm just about to give up and I move one symbol and the answer is right there, it was there all along.

"How's that going?" K asked me last night as I was working on my set theory, a thin layer of dust obscuring my features.
"Still hopeless," I said gloomily. Then I looked back down at what I was doing. "Unless - did I just solve it?!" I went back over what I had done. It looked - and still does after a good night's rest - correct. I did it.

Those moments are what makes it worthwhile.

Let's Stick to the Script, People

When someone tells the story of how she caught a peeping Tom outside her window, the following reactions are permissible:

• "Wow, that's awful! Who would do that?!"
  
• "He must be killed!"
• "Oh. My. God. I have already heard this story, like, three times!" (sorry, Luke, I will never get sick of telling this story)

The following reaction is NOT ACCEPTABLE, Math Guy:

• Smiling a creepy little smile.

It was so totally him.

Thanks, Bad Decision Dinosaur!

This Cat and Girl speaks to me.

Epistemology works badly when you're CRAZY

I'm not a very good epistemic agent. Even when I know that a disastrous proposition Q is very, very unlikely to obtain, I am often unable to rule out Q on the basis of my evidence. I know that when the mathematician suggests that we go to the movies, it is much more likely that he wants to see a movie than that he wants to get me in his car so he can chop me into little bits. Nevertheless, I see the horrible looming face outside my window and I am unable to eliminate the possibility that he is going to murder me, and my belief-state gets all skewed.

We could model this with possible worlds. I love doing that! It so happens that the possible worlds in which the mathematician murders me are, as modal metaphysicians say (driving me crazy with their lack of rigor) "far away." That means the possibility is not very likely to obtain. However, the set of my doxastically accessible possible worlds (the ones which represent my beliefs) drastically overrepresent the possibility that the mathematician will murder me if I go out with him.

And no, my crazy brain is not concerned with silly math, like the fact that the mathematician being the peeping tom = very unlikely and the fact that probably most peeping toms aren't actually murderers anyway, so the odds of him being the peeping tom AND a murderer are so very very tiny as to defy description. The crazy brain cares not for statistics!

Thing is, now I basically have to go out with him, because to do otherwise would be to let the crazy brain win. And I am so busy worrying about the murderin' that I can't really focus on the fact that I have no interest in seeing Beowulf.

Cupcakes!

Saturday was my flatmate K's birthday and, finals notwithstanding, I managed to convince her that we should invite people over for delicious cupcakes. We invited all the firstyears but only two were able to make it. Nevertheless, the four of us had a nice time, drinking red wine and tea, eating our cupcakes, and talking shop.

We couldn't find any matches, so Scott struck upon the brilliant idea of lighting the candles by first setting a paper towel on fire using the electric burner. No one was hurt and the apartment did not burn down, but jeez, what kind of apartment has no matches! It's like being stranded on a desert island! Except then I suppose we wouldn't have a stove. (And I know I'm going to get snarky comments about dumb PhD students starting fires but could we just not?)

(Also as a delightful party game we had Scott go outside and stand outside my window, to confirm that I hadn't imagined the Peeping Tom the other day. I had wondered whether, with the blinds down and the light on in my room but no light outside, I could possibly have seen a face. No doubt on that score: a face outside my window looks like a face outside my window and nothing else. This at least reassures me that I was right to call the police - I don't want to be all wolf-crying.)

The Disadvantage of Living on the Ground Floor

Last night as I was getting ready for bed, I turned to the window and saw a face right outside. Horrified, I clutched my pajama top to my chest and ran into the bathroom. I called to my roommate through the door: "KRISTA KRISTA there's someone outside my window!"

I struggled into my pajama top and peeked outside. Krista was looking at my bedroom door with trepidation. "What should we do?" she asked, levelheaded as always.

"We should call the police," I faltered. "Could you -"
"Could I do it?" I had only meant to ask if she would get my phone out of my room, because I was afraid to go back in, but she made the call. She gave the necessary information to the operator and then I washed dishes with shaking hands and she dried as we waited for the police to arrive.

The cop was not long in coming. He had a blond crew cut and an Indiana accent. He promised to keep us on special patrol for a few weeks. That's reassuring, but I keep seeing that ominous face outside my window. It looked like Elijah Wood in Sin City. It also looked a little bit like the mathematician.

I mentioned this to the cop, but stressed that I wasn't at all sure and I certainly did not want him to go to the mathematician's house and rough him up. I can't be sure that I saw anything; my blinds were down, though not completely closed, and it was dark outside and light in my room, so what I saw could have been a reflection. Not to mention, the mathematician has no way of knowing where I live: my address isn't listed on my Facebook profile (and we're not Facebook friends anyway). I didn't go home until five hours after he and I parted ways yesterday, and didn't go to bed for hours and hours after that - it would have been some majorly hardcore stalking. There is no reason at all to believe it was him, or anybody, but now that the thought is in my head I can't seem to dismiss it.

I need curtains.