Weekends at Westbrae Wash 'n' Dry

The guy who manages the laundromat I go to is a little... off.  The Yelp reviews refer to him as the Laundry Troll, which is not entirely inaccurate.  He's kind of old, grizzly, and very crotchety.  He has a gruff and gravelly voice, and he likes to bark orders at people, telling them not to overfill the machines, or not to leave their dry clothes in the dryer too long, things like that.

At first I was a little intimidated by him, because he's kind of mean, and he's a little creepy when you're a young woman going to do your laundry and he's the only other one there, sweeping the floor and giving you side glances.  But now that I've been going there a few months, he's actually grown on me, in a weird way.  I think he might have some sort of learning disability or something, because he talks a little strangely, and he repeats himself a lot.  My impression of him now is that he just takes his job very seriously, and he likes to take good care of his laundromat, and he also kind of likes to tease people in that way that crotchety old men with a twinkle in their eye do.  I had to go to the bathroom a few weeks ago, and the bathroom door was locked.  "Is there a key to the bathroom?" I asked.  "Uh-huh," he replied, deliberately being as unhelpful as possible and seeing how I would respond.  "Do you have it?" I asked, catching on to his game.  "Uh-huh," he replied.  "Well, can I get you to let me in, then?" I concluded.  And I think he's liked me ever since.

This morning when I showed up to do my laundry, the Laundry Troll was nowhere to be seen.  It was nice and quiet on a Sunday morning, so I loaded up my laundry and sat down to work on my knitting.  Another lady came in, and as she was loading up her laundry, the machine next to her started spewing water.  A big puddle was spreading across the floor, and not showing any signs of stopping.  "Is that yours?" I asked, motioning to the washer.  "Nope!" she said, clearly relieved.  I looked around and whoever's clothes were creating the problem had disappeared.  I set down my knitting and went out the back door to the parking lot, where the Laundry Troll can sometimes be found sweeping or working in the garden.  No luck.

The maintenance closet door was open, so I poked my head in and found a mop.  As I came out and headed for the puddle, an old guy in a tracksuit came in the front door.  "Do you work here?" he half-grumbled at me suspiciously.  "No," I said.  "But this washer started spewing water, so I thought I'd see if I could find a mop."  I started sopping up as much water as I could, but there wasn't much I could do without a bucket.  The old man stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me, watching me swish the water around, looking slightly bemused.  "Hnh," he grunted.  "Where's Larry?"  "I don't know," I replied, assuming he was talking about the Laundry Troll.  In any case, I hadn't seen anyone but him and the Asian lady, so I was pretty sure I hadn't seen anyone named Larry.  "You know Larry, right?" said the old man.  "Larry Lasagna?"

I didn't even know what to say, so I just stared at him.  "Yeah, Larry Lasagna!  I don't know where he is today."

"Me neither," I said.

"You need a bucket," the old man continued, after a pause.  "Where'd you get that mop?"  "In the closet," I said.  "The door was wide open."  He glanced at the door, then back at me, then shuffled across the room to the maintenance closet.

A few clangs and thuds later, the old man in the tracksuit emerged victorious, awkwardly carrying a five-gallon bucket.  He set it down next to me, and I gratefully set the mop in the bucket, letting the gray water collect in the bottom.  Bits of dirt and debris streamed from the mop, but the water was coming out the bottom of the washer faster than I would ever be able to get it into the bucket.  The old man looked at me waiting for the water to drain from the mop.  "You're gonna have to squeeze it out with your hands," he said.  Dude.  No way.  I was already going above and beyond the call of duty by getting a mop of my own accord.  No way was I going to squeeze dirty floor water out of it into a bucket with my bare hands.

I stood there letting it drip for a few seconds, and the old man stood there watching me.  The Asian lady was bustling around doing her laundry, trying her best not to get swept up in the drama of the malfunctioning washer.  The old man looked at me and harrumphed again.  "A shovel.  We can squeeze it out with a shovel."  And he shuffled off back to the maintenance closet.

Forget it, I thought.  I've done more than my fair share.  I propped the mop against the washer and sat back down to work on my knitting.

The old man now had a purpose.  He set to work mopping water and squishing it out into the bucket with the shovel.  He seemed quite satisfied with himself, and also not at all bothered that I had abandoned what had started out as my work.  After a short while, my laundry was done washing, and I was grateful to have an excuse to concentrate on something else.  As I was moving my clothes from the washers to the dryers, the Laundry Troll made an appearance through the back door.

"Steve!" said the old man.  "You got a problem on your hands!"  So the Laundry Troll was apparently not named Larry Lasagna, at least.  Whatever his name, I was glad the old man was the one sloshing water around when he arrived.

Steve/Laundry Troll/not Larry Lasagna took one look at the water and broke out his stash of beach towels.  He was much less angry than I expected.  All in a day's work, I suppose.  I tried to look inconspicuous as I pumped quarters into the dryers, wondering what would happen next.

As Steve was finishing mopping up the water, a pot-bellied man came into the laundromat and headed straight for the problem washer.  The old man pounced on him.  "You overfilled it!" he half-yelled self righteously.  "Look what happens when you overfill the washers!"

"No, no," said Steve the Laundry Troll.  "When there's too many people on the rinse cycle at the same time, 's too much water for the pipe.  Pipe's only 'bout yea big," he said, making a small ring with his hands.  It was the longest sentence I had ever heard him construct.  "Not enough room."

The old man seemed a little disappointed, and the pot-bellied man seemed like he just wanted out of there.  The old man and Steve continued talking about something, and a few minutes later, the old man came over to me again.  "How'd you say you got in the closet?" he asked.  "The door was wide open," I repeated.  He studied me for a moment, then walked back to talk to Steve.

I finished loading the dryers and sat down to work on my knitting.  A minute later, the old man was back.  "You're very industrious!" he exclaimed, apparently quite pleased that not only did I have the chutzpah to look for a mop in a water emergency, but I could knit too.  "What are you making?"  "A hat," I said, not really wanting to engage in conversation with 24 minutes left on my drying cycle.  "Well, it's a nice color," he said.

"Steve wanted to know how you got in the closet, and I said karma!  Ha ha!"  I couldn't help chuckling a little bit.  "She opened that door with her karma, I says!"

"Well, when there's water leaking all over the floor and an open closet, I figure the least you can do is look for a mop," I said.

He looked at me for a moment.  Then: "A very industrious young lady..."

Do things like this happen in State College, Pennsylvania, do you think?

I'm going to miss this town.

Yosemite

We added another National Park feather to our cap this weekend: Yosemite.

I'm still pretty tired from our two hour hike yesterday, and I'm not sure that typing up a big long narrative would really do the place justice anyway.  Suffice it to say that Yosemite is absolutely gorgeous, and if you ever get the chance, you should go.  I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

These first ones are actually from the drive home last night, as the sun went down.  California is a really beautiful place, and I will miss drives like this.

And this is where the Yosemite ones start (in case it's not obvious):

National parks, man.  They are truly a national treasure.

Now I'm back home and it's time for another week of dissertating... but first, a slow and deliberate evening jog to enjoy the beautiful weather, and perhaps an evening of Game of Thrones...

random Sunday thoughts

I have been meaning to document this for some time, so here it is:

There is a lady who lives on the sidewalk outside of Trader Joe's, as far as I can tell.  She is always there, and she always has multiple signs with angry things written on them.  One is about how she's hungry, but she will only accept organic food, or $20, because GMOs are evil, or something like that.

My favorite sign of hers looks something like this:

i am a poet
i write poems
i make words
i am like a radio
BLACK PRIDE


She is white, if that matters at all.  (And I think it does.)

It occurred to me recently that there aren't going to be any homeless people in State College, and it's going to be a little weird.  Homeless people always make me a little uncomfortable, because I want to help them, but I realize there's nothing I can really do to help them, besides volunteering at a soup kitchen or something like that.  I have gotten used to having them around, though, because there are so, so many homeless people in Berkeley.  They camp out on the sidewalks downtown and near campus, and you see the same ones over and over again.  There's also a special breed of weirdo that inhabits Berkeley, and that I've never seen anywhere but here, which is the maybe-homeless.  As in, they look kind of unkempt and disheveled, but you can't tell if they're crazy and homeless or just crazy.  Most of these people have at least a few signs, and they don't seem to care whether you notice them or not.  It's as if they see their life's work as standing on the street corner outside the games store with a big poster identifying animals' footprints, for some reason.  (That's just one guy.  My favorite of this type is probably the guy who walks around with sandwich boards on, with an arrow pointing to the left and big angry letters proclaiming "PASS ON THE LEFT!!!".)

There are many things I will miss about Berkeley, and actually, the crazy people are probably one of them.

I need to do some work today, and instead I have been wasting time on the internet and cooking.  It's been a good day, really, but now I think it's time to do some statistics while my rice cooks.  And then I'll probably go for a bike ride to enjoy this nice day.

Oh!  Speaking of nice days, Jevon and I went to the hipstery-est wedding I could ever have imagined yesterday.  It was in a backyard in San Francisco, replete with thrift store clothing, sideburns, and tongues planted firmly in cheek.  It was actually very lovely, too, in a weird way, but some of the people there made me feel a bit out of place.  Like the very fact that I would allow them to let me feel out of place probably meant that I Care Too Much About Things.

Anyway, rice is almost done.  Bye for now.

o hai, VOT measurements

Why yes, I do have to re-take 4000 VOT measurements today.  It's what I do every day!

I have spent literally every day this week cycling through the same 110 sound files, labeling and relabeling and relabeling them.  Another team of researchers was awesome enough to share their data with me, and my first order of business was to replicate their findings.  (That's only the first order of business.  The more interesting part is supposed to be what I do after I successfully replicate their findings.)  I finally got some results this morning, and much to my chagrin, I did not replicate their findings.  So now I have to re-measure everything again.  Carefully.  By hand.

And if I still don't replicate their findings, then I have a very awkward situation on my hands.  Because they were kind enough to share their data with me, and then I have to be like, "Actually, I did this like four times, and there is now no possible way I can believe what you wrote in your paper.  Because no matter how carefully I do this, I am not getting what you got."

So... cross your fingers that this re-measurement results in a successful replication?  Because I am not re-doing these measurements another blasted time.  And I don't really want to have to write a paper where I say "um thanks but you guys were wrong".

Saaaaaad faaaaaaaace.  :-(((((

o hai, dissertation chapter

Whew!  First dissertation chapter finished and submitted for comments.  It's not perfect, but I think it's pretty good.  As good as can be achieved without knowing what's going to happen in my next two studies.

So... on to the next one!

ETA: funny that this link is getting passed around on my Facebook feed today.  Trust me, these are questions I have considered.

I'm me! I'm me!

Guys!  Guys!  The six month waiting period is up, and my finalized divorce paperwork came in the mail today.  I never thought it would feel good to be officially divorced, but there it is.  I'm just so relieved to be able to get my name back.  So I went to the bank and changed my name on my account this afternoon.  It was the only thing I could do so far, because the social security administration, campus registrar's office, DMV, etc. are all closed today.  But it's a start, and it felt really good.

Now I'm sitting in my apartment with the windows and door wide open, eating delicious, delicious strawberries from the farmer's market with Greek yogurt, and the lady with the massive garden whose backyard adjoins mine is out gardening in the sunshine, and the people in the apartment building next door are having a party and blasting bossa nova music and laughing.

It's a good day.

"...trying to memorize every corner, letting my eyes rest on all of the things I have loved..."

We have a very Berkeley, very local news blog that I like to keep up on, and a guest contributor posted this article this past week.  It hits home a little bit too hard right now.  Read the article for an idea of how I'm feeling these days, and read the comments for an idea of what the annoying parts of Berkeley are...

Today is another writing day.  I've been coding, staring at data, and trying to figure out what I should say for the past week.  But today, it's time to sit down and make myself write.  It's already May, and that's freaking me out in multiple ways.  I've looked at my data in every way I can think of over the past two weeks, and now I have to just say something, even if it's not going to be as good or as conclusive or as tied-up-in-a-bow as I would like it to be.  Then I can come back to it in a few weeks and make it better, once I've gotten comments from my advisors, and I can also compare these results with whatever I find in my other chapters.

To work!

Happy 200th Post-iversary!

I didn't even notice that my last post was my 200th post on this here blog.  And to think that in the beginning I didn't even know if I'd keep it up!  It turns out I quite like blogging, so I think this thing will be around for a while.

Well, I made some good progress on the ol' dissertation this week, but I'm at a bit of a standstill.  The problem is my data set is so, so small that I don't really know how to do statistics on it.  I had what seems to me to be a decent idea just now, but I don't want to take it too seriously and type up all of my results based on this slightly wacky idea, just in case my advisors won't let it fly.  When you're doing your stats is not the time to get creative with your dissertation writing.  It takes a while just to do the stats, and then it takes way longer to write it up, and I don't want to sink a bunch of time into something that's just going to get shot down.  So thankfully, I am already meeting with one of my advisors tomorrow, and I'm going to run this idea by her and see what she thinks.

What this means for me is that I'm already very slightly behind on my self-imposed schedule, I think.  Sort of.  But I also think it'll be okay.  My plan is to spend three weeks on each of my three chapters, and then I will have one month to write up my introduction and conclusion before I start teaching my class in July.  Well, this is the end of my third week for this chapter, and it's not really done yet.  I've made pretty good progress on it, but I don't know if I'm going to make it by Sunday night.  We'll see.

I think it's okay because the data analysis shouldn't take as long for this next chapter.  I think.  Then again, I always think that, and then it takes way longer than I anticipated.  But I can start analyzing data for the next chapter while I finish writing the current chapter, and then I'll sort of be working on two different things at the same time, and that will probably actually be better than just working on one thing.  It is really daunting knowing you only have one thing to work on!  It just stares you in the face all day long, and if you don't want to do it, there's nothing else you can do to procrastinate, and you just feel guilty.  And you gotta watch out for that guilt spiral!

But now I don't know what to do with myself.  I need to start reading books or something.

ch-ch-ch-ch changes

Holy moly...

I mailed in a check for a security deposit on a townhouse in State College, PA today.  It is real.  I am moving there in August, and I even know exactly what my address will be.  And dudes, this place is ca-yute.

Speaking of real, I'm working on a presentation for our lab meeting on Monday, where I tell people what I think is happening with my dissertation data.  (Good timing, considering I just mailed away several hundred dollars, the need for which is predicated on me saying something intelligent about these very data.)  I am struck by how much more real my data seem when I put them in a Power Point presentation.  Maybe it sounds silly, but when I'm staring at graphs and numbers on my computer, or in my notebook, I feel like I'm kind of faking it.  But when I make a nice presentation with an intro and a conclusion and everything, I almost start to believe myself.  When you take random graphs and numbers and structure them into a reasonable story, with predictions and results and citations, it starts to become within the realm of possibility that I may have done or found something interesting.

(from xkcd)

checkmark for Friday!

I'm done!  I just submitted my first research grant!!!!!!

I'm done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't even care if I get the stupid thing at this point.  I'm just glad I don't have to think about it and re-write things anymore.  And now I am totally going for a run.