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Perhaps unsurprisingly, the train was late leaving from DC. After standing in line for an hour, it finally departed at about 1820, 40m late. As I stood there, this older woman ran up and down the line squawking "Is this the line?" when it was quite obvious it was. I hate older women who become seekers when they can't get people to turn their necks with their bodies anymore. I don't like being used in that way, as means to someone else's ego.
Ahead of me online was this athletic girl in scrunchy sweatpants. We kept taking peeks at each other. When the train started boarding, I tried to get ahead of her so she would have the choice to follow me into the same car (or not), but just as I overtook her she entered a car at random and I didn't feel I could turn around without being unseemly. In short, I Azelma'd out, and feel bad about it. Real bad. Really.
So instead I sat on the other side of the aisle from this lesbian in her 30s. She had the characteristic extremely antisocial appearance and bizarre mannerisms of a lesbian, sitting in a grossly uncomfortable contorted way trying to take up both seats, throwing her brightly colored things everywhere. I noticed that before the trip began, a woman, presumably her partner, led a boy of about six to her, she waved, and the two walked away, leaving the woman across from me. They sat together with about 2-3 other boys at the head of the aisle.
When the conductor came, the lesbian said she misplaced her ticket but would have it when he returned. He said okay and left, she made no further efforts to search but made an excuse again when he came back. He decided not to press the issue. Again the lesbian was paid a visit by the other woman and two of the boys at the head of the aisle. She then got up, took her bags and moved to a different car.
It was at that point, a good two hours into the trip, I put it together and hailed the conductor. I described the whole thing and said it was clear she was jumping fare, since she was travelling with these other people but sat apart for the purpose of this pretense, but what was not clear, was whether she was actually trying to travel undocumented (it's entirely possible that these two individuals are actually involved in some sort of kidnapping - this is how it would be done, and it would be a logical reason to prefer train over plane, since you can't BS your way out of self-identification on a plane). The conductor got a very worried look and thanked me profusely for my report. However, he said, they changed crews in New York, and he wasn't certain where the woman had gone. I saw him interview the woman and children at the head of the aisle, and he headed up the cars - when he returned back my way he was jingling his keys, implying he'd opened something (the cars are not locked in transit). I wonder.
As I often said, I get very upset about "doors closing behind me" - missed opportunities. I could have fornicated that girl, and I could have gotten that lesbian nabbed - at the very least she's a fare jumper, at worst she's involved in some serious crime. It will bother me for the rest of my life. People who do not have this sort of problem cannot fathom how painful it makes daily life.
Anyway, I had been playing Civ3 on the train, so I played a few more turns before falling into mid-game tedium and losing interest. I texted that girl I've been seeing. She's coming into focus as someone who plays games - has sex early on then tries to use it as a lever of control by being aloof. I don't stand for that, it's why I'd rather just buy sex and be done with it.
And, in the same vein, I received an email from Umholtz. A further response to our previous email dialogue a few weeks back, asking for a letter of rec to AUS/NZ schools, in which she had sadi she was busy. The reply contained no new text.
This is her way of doing what she'd agreed to do (write a letter of rec to the foreign universities, "when less busy") without actually doing it. She wants me to respond to the null message with something revealing my intentions/an update so that she can make a new excuse for not writing the damn letter. She doesn't want to do it because she's a coward and risk-averse and is worried I'll somehow make her look bad, not that anyone in NZ cares about the reputation of some obscure professor in Boston. I didn't quite tell her off, as I wanted to - as I would have, a younger me, nor did I simply ignore the email, as I probably should have, but simply sent her a trite response saying that being coy and dilatory wasn't a good way to earn respect (she is, like many academics, very petty and tries to exact respect rather than earning it).
Umholtz's long dealings with me have been driven largely by her intense desire to win my respect for her and everything she stands for. Of course, she completely misses how self-defeating her efforts are.
This sort of petty bullshit is why I want to leave the American educational system behind - granted, academics are like this worldwide, I know, though America is pretty damn far in this respect (prob not as bad as England, tho). In any event, having been accepted, I don't need her anymore, for now - though I have learned (the hard way) the good sense to not tell her off as I'm tempted to. I may need what little utility can be coaxed out of her at some point in the future.
Funny enough I'd been thinking about her and the educational system an hour earlier standing at the terminal finishing that book about the history of Red China. Some of the most interesting and insightful parts of the book were about how bureacratization and "arbitrary exercise of authority" undercut the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party and corroded its internal functioning as cyncism set in. Reading it just before Umhotlz's latest email it really reminded me of the college system.
When I get back to Boston, I must talk to Massey Univ about starting in the summer semester - which, I am told, begins in November, due to New Zealand's incorrect position on the planet's axis. My parents agreed the other day to fund it (being cheaper than life in Boston lol) and hopefully I can travel by boat, screwing the black chick all the way before sending her back and away forever after.
Aestu of Bleeding Hollow... Nihilism is a copout.
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