Walking out for Supplies

In the morning Lizy did not feel better.

I went out to the drugstore to get her more medicine. Along the way I stopped by the Bagel Emporium to get her a bagel for breakfast. When I was checking out from the drugstore the cashier asked for my ID. Was she trying to sign me up for some program, I thought, in a morning daze.

“Why do you need my ID?” I asked.

“For the Dayquil,” she said, “you need to be 18 to buy it and we need to check anyone’s ID that looks under 27.”

What kind of person am I that I included this humble brag that the cashier thought I was under 27 when I was 33?

Lizy seemed to get a second wind from the Dayquil and the bagel. She left around 9am looking to be in bright spirits. I dressed Theodore for the day while the two of us listened to Chappell Roan.

The University of Miami Campus

Theodore and I walked over to the University of Miami together. It was very hot and humid. I wasn’t used to that kind of weather coming from the bay area. I saw a giant orange and blue lizard, but it scuttled into a bush before I could get a picture. A local told me the lizard was quite common in the area. What a crazy place Miami is.

To get to the campus we had to find a place to cross under the metrobus rail. We ended up having to walk to a metrobus stop to walk under the rail. After walking through the station we walked through a parking lot. From the size of the parking lot I gathered that most people drove instead of taking the metrobus.

The students appeared younger than I was expecting. Did I look that young when I was 18? I remember feeling so grown up.

Safari Bench

Theodore started getting fussy in the stroller, so I stopped by a few shaded benches to pick him up. I rocked him back and forth while singing to him. Hopefully the students studying at the shaded benches didn’t find the singing too distracting. He wasn’t responding to the singing so I changed his diaper at one of the benches.

After changing him I had him cradled in my arms sitting on the bench. I noticed the bench rocked back and forth if I pushed a bit. I figured it might calm him down so I rocked the bench, but when I moved the bench water that had settled on the rain cover was dislodged and poured down, soaking my back. I was frustrated to get wet, but at least it hadn’t soaked Theodore and it was so hot I figured it would dry quickly anyways.

There was a big lake in the center of campus. Together with a river that fed the lake the water split the campus into two halves. We had to cross a bridge to get to the other side where Lizy was interviewing. I kept singing Beatles songs to him while walking along the bridge. I thought that if I didn’t have a baby people would think I was crazy. Well, maybe they still thought I was crazy. We walked over to the English building so that Lizy could breastfeed him between her interviews.

In the Professors Office

The professor running the job interview process was allowing us to use his office to feed Theodore. While Lizy was feeding the baby, I looked around the office. On his bookshelf he had a stand with just the cover of the book Breakfast of Champions. It was ripped off a paperback. Then I noticed on his desk he had a mug branded with Breakfast of Champions. Everything else was one of a kind. He had a bunch of poetry books and knick knacks. But the Breakfast of Champions stuff were the only items that came in a pair. I figured he must really like the book.

When he came to fetch Lizy for the next interview I asked him why he liked Breakfast of Champions so much.

“I mean. I like the book. It’s fine. It’s not something I go back to. It’s popular fiction.”

“But you have the mug and the book cover on a pedestal.” I said.

“Those things are just by chance. Popular fiction is fine. Most people that’s all they read, but I spend most of my time reading books that you can’t find in chapters.”

I spent the rest of the trip wondering whether he had acquired the items purely by chance or if he secretly loved the book more than he was letting on. A fondness for popular fiction was clearly something he didn’t want to admit to. He wanted the world to see the some highly curated version of himself that was sophisticated beyond the common man. But did we get to peek at the version of him when no one was around?

More Campus Observations

Lizy went to do more interviews and I took Theodore and we walked around the campus some more. I did a circle of the lake. We wandered by a student practicing the tuba. He was trying to nail three notes. Duh, dah, dah. He played them over and over. I pointed him out to Theodore.

Back when I went to McGill it was a common practice for students to sit on the grass around campus. Maybe you were talking to your friend waiting for a class to start. Maybe you were eating lunch. At the University of Miami students never sit on the grass. They have grass there. I saw quite a bit, but I never saw a student sitting on the grass. They were sitting on benches or maybe even standing. I couldn’t make sense of it. But I guess it’s a Miami thing.

Just as I was finishing my water bottle I came upon a water fountain. Excited for the fresh water, I dumped the last sip of water out of my bottle. However when I held my bottle under the spout and pushed the button I discovered the fountain was broken. Oh how I mourned that last sip of water I had wasted. Why hadn’t I checked the fountain first?

Waiting for Lizy in the Office

Before long, it was time to meet Lizy again. After Lizy fed him again, she had a 30-minute meeting before another break, so Theo and I waited for her in the office. To entertain us during the break I read and pseudo performed from King Lear. I tried to make the voices silly and did the actions over the top. I prostrated myself on the floor in front of Theodore as King Lear trying to renegotiate a larger train of attendants with his daughter. I had to play the daughter too, so I had to go back and forth from standing to kneeling to play both characters.

Back to the Hotel

After thirty minutes Lizy came back and fed Theodore again. She had some final interviews, so I headed back to the hotel with Theodore. On the walk back I stopped at a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch.

When Lizy finally met us at the hotel she was exhausted. The DayQuil was keeping her visible symptoms at bay, but the cold still expressed itself as a deep tiredness. She had to have dinner with some professors at seven and until then she lay prone on the bed.

Dinner with Theodore

After Lizy went out to have dinner with the professors I took Theodore out for a walk. We walked the opposite direction we headed yesterday towards what on google maps looked like a shopping district. It was mostly walking through residential neighborhoods. We also walked through a nice looking park.

As we approached the shopping district, there was sort of a gate to get in with neon letters about the entrance. One of the letters was broken and it gave off sort of a, “This used to be a modern miracle of capitalism, but has fallen into ruin” kind of vibe. Like the vibe of the first Bioshock game.

Walking through the gate it appeared a lot of the structure was a parking lot for an LA fitness. After I turned another corner I was in a semi protected boulevard with two floors of storefronts. Most of them seemed permanently closed. Any that might still be operational were closed for the night. It was eerie. It wasn’t too big though and I eventually got out the other side and found myself on a street with a few nice looking restaurants.

I went to a place called Amsterdam’s Falafel. I was intrigued by a falafel where you would get unlimited toppings from their topping bar. The topping bar had cabbage, fried eggplant, hummus, chickpea salad, pickled beets, and other stuff too. I got a falafel pita and piled it high with toppings. Then I started just putting the toppings on my tray.

The food was great, but Theodore who had fallen asleep on the walk, woke up mid me eating so I had to quickly finish my meal.

I walked back to the hotel with Theodore as quickly as possible. I had to stop a few times to pick him up to comfort him. When I got back to the abandoned outdoor mall there were teenagers chasing each other around. They were yelling and their voices echoed around the corridors. Again I was reminded of the first Bioshock game.

Lizy got back to the hotel as I was walking in the room. We watched some local Miami news before going to sleep.