Today was a special day! I got to leave the house, not to punch and kick, and not with El Strudeldoro in tow. I test drove my new gynecologist. She handles like a dream on the freeway and sidestreets!

Sirisly, though, it was nice to get out of the house and do something different. I took a book for the bus. I am finally reading Microserfs by Ye Olde Douglas Coupland, and it’s funny to see all the salmon, salmon, fleece, fir trees biznaz. You know what the weirdest part is? It’s all pop-culture hell, and it seems like the protagonist was raised by television advertisements, but it was published before the era of Reality Television and obsessive celebrity culture. I think MTV’s “The Real World” existed, but that’s before there was “Survivor.” “Reality” wasn’t a genre yet. (“BACK IN MY DAY, we called that nonfiction.” SJ creakily wields due-date stamper.)

Can I tell you that I am starting to forget what the time before reality-everything was like? Microserfs is bringing it back for me a little bit. But the book…it feels a little flat somehow. If only he’d waited five more years. Then it would be the perfect melange of old television ads, childhood nostalgia (is that redundant?), alienation, and Flava FLAV!

So I piled on to the bus with the students, flashing my non-student bus pass triumphantly. People discussed readings they didn’t do and living in crappity student housing with difficult strangers. Meanwhile I read about Microsoft, a safe crashpad for those newly-sprung from college and embarking for the rest of their lives. Supa and I were talking about this the other day–the Microsoft “campus” with its weird little buildings and dimly-lit offices populated with man-boys who decorate their offices with xmas lights and manga. Not everyone, I know. But for some, college part two, right?

I was relieved when I got off for the doctor’s at a couple of stops before the bus starts disgorging the university-bound. I walked past the office building where I was awarded a research office during grad school for being a good footstool. I thought about the fact that I would have an office there now, had I been accepted to the doctoral program. I would be starting my third year as a doctoral candidate, rail thin, not sleeping, still living on Diet Cokes and cigarettes. I looked into the windows. Grey. Who designs an office in grey in Seattle? Lots of people, actually. It’s wrong. Maybe it’s to make you feel better about being indoors. See, it’s grey in here and it’s grey out there. In here, you’re dry and making money. Out there, you’re wet and stepping in goose poo.

I had stopped after the bus and bought a sugar-free Red Bull. I have a body memory of being irresponsibly caffeinated whenever I’m in the University District so I can’t resist the lure of piss-tasting chemicals. Actually, regular Red Bull tastes like piss. Sugar-free tastes like fermented piss.

I walked on, delightedly sipping my disgusting drink, and looked down to avoid the puddles on the sidewalk. In one puddle there was a brand-new-looking teal and magenta thong. The doctor’s office went well. I swear they’re nicer now than when I was a student. And it turns out there’s still not a “babydaddy” checkbox on the next-of-kin form. I don’t like the Foucaultesque “significant other.” They didn’t want to take my Companion, so I lied and said I was an orphan. When in doubt, lie on forms.