The Ironing is Delicious

Before you start questioning my eating habits… the title’s not supposed to make literal sense. “The ironing is delicious” is something a friend of mine says whenever we’ve just experienced something very ironic, which actually happens quite frequently when we’re together. Anyway. I thought the phrase an appropriate way to introduce this journal, which I will start without further ado.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, introducing…

PROJECT MARIE AND THE MOHAWK MONKEY WRENCH

Brought to you by the Wild, the Blue, and the Way-Out-Yonder… and, of course, by viewers like you.

So I’m currently sitting in the back of my calculus classroom, at a lone desk in the corner, because I came in late and couldn’t bear walk in front of everyone to my usual seat in the second row. I’ve completely tuned out my professor, because listening to him “lecture” – if you can call it that – never helps anyway… in fact, I think it makes things worse. I had been trying to follow along in our textbook in desperate hopes that somehow the average values of double integrals would make more sense that way, but I gave it up after about twenty minutes, as further enlightenment seemed incredibly unlikely.

This probably makes me sound like a bad student. I’m not, I promise you. I make As and Bs and spend long hours in libraries making up for my aversion to lectures… but at that moment, as I finally decided to just give up and put the book away, a particular phrase started drifting through my head, and a connection was made (though it had nothing to do with math, unfortunately) and this journal entry was born.

The phrase was: “You know, the one thing we need is a left-hand monkey wrench.”

It’s from a Grateful Dead song that I like very much, called “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” “Abraham and Isaac, sitting on a bench – they’d get right to work if they had any sense. You know, the one thing we need is a left hand monkey wrench.”

And that’s all my poor besotted little mind needed to zoom back to 11:03 this morning, as I was sitting in a crowded lecture hall with my coat over the seat next to me to save it for Marie.

I’ve gotten much better about looking over my shoulder at the entrance to the lecture hall. Earlier in the semester, it was all I could do not to stare constantly, so I’d know the instant she came in the door. That tended to get me funny looks, so I trained myself to remain focused on my notes until I noticed someone standing next to me, at which point I’d recognize her shoes, and know to look up. Such was the case this morning. I saw her converse look-alikes first, then moved my feet so she could slide by me into the seat I was saving her. Then I looked up.

I almost had a little heart attack.

I’ve probably said this before: this girl is pure cuteness. Not in a frilly girly pink kind of way, but unmistakably, universally adorable. But this morning… she’d undergone this transformation into… there’s no other term for it: pure hotness.

Usually, her hair is short, dark, and flat, like a boy’s. This morning, she had a miniature mohawk. She was also wearing eyeliner. Silver pirate earrings and all that. She looked vaguely punk, in a soft, feminine kind of way.

Sigh. I know I’m not able to do her justice here – I guess you just have to believe me.

Anyway, on other people, these things don’t usually get to me. But oh, my God… Project Marie was set back months. (Project Marie, by the way, is my fancy name for scolding and wheedling and pleading with myself to get over her, which must happen soon if I wish to preserve what little sanity I have left.) Irony. I’m getting shivers when I think about her. And you know, this is all so unlike me. Usually I giggle over her cuteness. This morning, I literally lost my breath. I don't know what's wrong with me. All I know is I'm in trouble.

So this is why I’m sitting in the back of my calculus classroom, at the forsaken, beat-up desk with things like “ trucker hats, trucker hats” and “econ is GAY” carved into it (the ones at the back of the room always have the most interesting graffiti), writing this journal and completely ignoring example number five: because I can’t stop thinking about how I lost my breath when I saw the way her hair was fluffy in the back, and because I just know the only thing that’s going to save me is a left hand monkey wrench.

Anybody know where I can get one???