"I have to admit it's getting better, a little better all the time..."

Hey all, another short post here for now. Thanks a lot for the prayers and well-wishing and everything else, my fever finally quit me sometime yesterday afternoon, and while my other symptoms are still hanging around, it's a remarkable relief to feel somewhat human again. After Mama of all people called and told me to go see a doctor I drove accross campus to the student health service. The nurse there was a nice lady named Maureen Cousino (no relation), and after a few general questions about my symptoms and everything else she showed the doctor in. It wasn't a long visit, he didn't seem too phazed by anything I told him (neither was I, I just didn't like having it), and asked a few of the standard "where are you from/what are you studying" questions. Nice guy. He gave me a prescription for some antibiotics, wished me luck with graduation and everything else, and took off. "You almost made it the whole four years without coming here" said Ms. Cousino sympathetically, as she gave me a small bottle of pills and showed me the door. "Yeah," I said. "I tried."

Influenza: Day V

Sheesh, you'd think it would take me less time to get over this thing. The last few days are all sort of a blur of lying under a blanket shivering, then suddenly sweating and taking off the blanket, then shivering again and putting the blanket back on, with the occaisional coughing fit thrown in for good measure. Every time I fall asleep I keep expecting to wake up feeling somewhat better, or at least rested, but so far that's turned out to be disappointingly untrue. So yeah, I feel selfish asking for prayers for myself, but I really need to get over this, with the semester drawing rapidly to a close, being sick is about the worst possible thing to happen. I hope you are all doing well, thanks a lot for everything.

A Public Service Announcement:

Just to clear up any possible misconceptions, the quasi-dedicated staff of The People's Republic of D.Cous. does not approve of the flu. Under no circumstances do we encourage contact or experimentation of any kind with the flu. Readers of our publication are advised to avoid the flu at all costs, because it may be harmful to your health. We also feel obliged to dispel any fears that reading our blog will result in contraction of the flu. To the best of our knowledge, there is no correlation between readership of this blog and contraction of the flu. The fact that our entire staff has been infected (quite by accident, we assure you) has been attributed (accurately, we feel) to conicidence. Thank you, and have a pleasant week.

Coffee From Above

So I was meandering through one of the classroom buildings just now, feeling more than a little spacy and tired, when I turned a corner and there, in the hallway, was the most beautiful sight I've ever seen: It was a table with a white tablecloth, a glass bowl full of ice, a few bottles of water, a pitcher of cream, some sugar packets, and... coffee. Crackbucks coffee, nonetheless. I swear I heard a choir somewhere, just holding a dominant chord in various forms, climbing to the very top, nay, above the top of the human vocal capacity... I looked around, but the entire floor of the building was empty. Deserted. I looked back at the table, wondering at what point the ethereal choir would have to stop to take a breath. After pondering the situation I found myself in for a few microseconds, I reached the conclusion that any reasonable person would: God wanted me to have this coffee. Not being one to refuse such an obvious example of divine providence, I poured myself a cup, put in a little sugar (not too much), put in some half-n-half, and drank. The choir resolved to tonic and faded to silence. Beautiful silence. Caffeinated silence. Within a minute or two, the first cup was gone. I looked, half-surprised to find that the table was still there. I poured myself a second cup, and walked slowly away, thanking heaven for once again providing for me from its merciful bounty.

Whatcha gonna do about it?

Hello Reginald. I was just sitting here minding my own business the other day when someone walked up to me and said “Hey, what’s the difference between you and a Norwegian kayak maker?” “What?” I asked, somewhat annoyed by the direction he was taking the conversation which ten seconds earlier had not existed. “The kayak maker has a freakin’ job!” He said, and then walked away playing his panpipe and humming rhymes about the coming end of Life As We Know It (LAWKI), Northwestern Canada’s premier television game show in which the contestants have to distinguish between questions asked in nonsense syllables and those asked in the Inuit language. Who cares? I’ll bet the Inuit people do, having their language made fun of like a circus clown on a tiny bicycle falling off of a cliff and onto the next topic of conversation: Petroleum. Just kidding, I sure as shoe polish don’t want to talk about petroleum. I recently discovered that Macadamia nuts coated in chocolate taste delicious. I’d never had any before this week that weren’t buried deep within cookies of the same name, and those weren’t terrible, but I’d have to say that they were better in chocolate. Yes indeed, if you remember one thing which I tell you it should be that things are as they were when they weren’t as yet included in the current order of things that are presently but didn’t used to be. See what I mean? That’s what that nay-sayer with the panpipe will never understand when he’s driving through the sleet in his borrowed Escalade pretending to be somebody’s best friend’s lawyer suing the pants off some poor restaurateur who happened to serve tea at one hundred degrees Celsius the way it ought to be served, Fuzzy Math (FM) notwithstanding. So I was thinking about the Mayfair the other day, not that I’ve ever seen a Mayfair or know exactly what it is, but I’ll bet that it’s pretty nice, because the word has a pleasant ring to it. Anyways, for the sake of LAWKI (and many other acronyms I’m sure), I’d better get to reading some Beaumarchais and studying for a test of my fortitude, which could come and go as it wishes, at any given time. I wish you the best of luck, Reginald. I’m sure that it shall all right itself in an odd sort of way, as it always does this time of year, so hold onto your hat and hope for the best and nothing bad will hurt more than a bee sting in the eye, which I believe would hurt a great deal. Best to avoid the bee’s nest altogether and not to wantonly throw rocks.

Remember me?

Hello blog fans of the earth. Miss me? I apologize for my lack of consistency in posting on this thing, I really don't have much of an excuse. Can't complain about life lately, I went home for the Easter Triduum, which was great. School plods on as usual, which isn't so great, although I'm still enjoying it for the most part. Only four weeks to go, which is still longer than most college students have. For some reason my fine institution of higher education (IHE) decided that we'd rather have a really long Christmas break than a decently long summer. Not a great idea as far as I'm concerned, but who asked me? Four weeks to go... I'm really pretty excited about the whole thing, although the uncertainty of what's to follow still bothers me at times. I'm not even sure where I'm going to live after packing my car full of my belongings and heading for home. The good news is that I have a few options to choose between (assuming that none fall through), so life could be a heck of a lot worse. On the other hand, the decision would be quite a lot easier if I had fewer options. We’ll see. I’m sure it’ll work out alright. That’s all for now, I’ll try to have some thing more interesting to write soon. Have a good week!

What Have We Learned?

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal's "Best Of The Web Today" feature, here's a funny/sad little anecdote for the day: Apparently an Orlando-area public school thought that it would be a good idea to teach kids about the Holocaust by making some arbitrarily-selected group of them wear yellow stars, and restricting them from using the drinking fountains. Brilliant, or rather it would be brilliant, if that was the way that children actually learned these things. When asked about the little social experiment, one boy simply said "the only thing I found out today is I don't want to be Jewish." Way to go, guys. Way to go. Personally, I think that it's far less important to empathize with the people who were mistreated than it is to learn that there was no reason to mistreat them, or for them to be mistreated. It seems that in this case you can either teach kids that it's wrong to mistreat Jews, or you can just teach kids that it sucks to be Jewish, because Jews are victims. Anyways, have a good weekend. More wonderments to come in due time.

There once was a student in college...

...And one day he lept o'er a tall hedge. Sorry kids, I've no chance of coming up with the rest of that limerick. Hm. I suppose it's not a limerick, then. Oh well. So, how are you? I don't honestly know if you're still there, and if you're not I can't exactly blame you. I really ought to work on finding my niche in the blog world. You know, where I offer something that other people don't offer, or at a better price. Unfortunately, everyone and their uncle does pretty much the same thing I do with my blog with their own. On the other hand, girl pants: I can offer no explanation for this image, suffice to say that if anyone's reading this they probably know who's lower half is squeezed into those Levis. Certain references to the film "This is Spinal Tap" spring to mind. In other news, the wonderful bounty of the internet has yeilded hilarity yet again. Far to the Southwest, in the land of bratwurst and beer, there is a place called the Milwalkee Institute of Art and Design. I know what you're thinking, "what's so funny about art school?" "What," you ask? It's art school, for crying out loud! They teach you how to make crap, and then describe it as the deepest thing ever created by man. Ok, to be fair, I've never been to such an institution, and I have the artistic ability of a dead pufferfish, but I'm about to argue that the students at MIAD are no Picassos themselves. Anyhoo, at this fine art school, they have a program of study called "Time-Based Media," which in non-art speak might be called "Film." Paydirt. PAY DIRT. Ok, I can't really explain what I'm about to link to, I'm just going to give you the link, and let the chef d'oeuvre speak for itself: click here. Well, that's all for now, friend. I do hope that everything is well in your part of the world. Stay out of girl pants, unless of course you're a girl, in which case I can't help but recommend them. TTFN! Ta ta for now!

The Ides Of March

Nothing new to say today, just thought I'd remind you all that Julius Caesar was stabbed on this date. Yay history. I feel compelled to tell you that I got this image from this site, via google image search: http://www.newark.k12.ny.us/staffpages/
laganat/RomeD-M/images/JuliusCaesarDeath3_gif.jpg

March Madness

Ok, so this post doesn't really have anything to do with the NCAA tournament, I just have a thing for alliteration. Spring break's rapidly approaching (although hardly rapidly enough), which means that professors think that this week will be a great one for loading up on tests and papers. The thing is, they're probably right. The fact that I'm stressing out all of this week will probably make break itself feel pretty darn good. For that matter, it had darn well better make break feel even better than it otherwise would, or I'll become upset, and goodness knows that the last thing that the men and women who are responsible for my education want is for me to be upset. Yeah. So I got home on Saturday evening to find a friend of mine sitting on the couch hanging out in my house, so being a good host I offered him a glass of wine. Having received said wine, my guest (and The Republic of D.Cous.'s unofficial minister of photography) had the audacity to berate the container in which I had served him his wine. "You serve wine in a canning jar?" Said he, with a look on his face which indicated that he thought the remark was rather clever. "Yeah," I said, pouring myself a Mason jar of my own. "We're classy like that around here." The rest of the evening was spent emptying the bottle of Bloomington, Indianna's finest red wine, discussing philosophy and litterature, and trash-talking while putting one another's nonexistant Soul Caliber II skills to the test. Not that good a game really, but it was a decent diversion at the time. Ahh, college. In case you haven't figured it out by my selection of anecdotes, the weekend was pretty uneventful. Still, I didn't manage to get everything done which I should have, and so here I find myself in the grimy snack bar up the hill, taking a break from reading Oliver Williamson's influential 1985 article on "the governance of contractual relations." Don't let the title put you off though, it's one heluva page turner. The snack bar's one of my favorite study spots, but not for any of its merits, if indeed it has any. The only thing that makes it at all superior to other on-campus locations is that the lighting is much more comfortable, and is not made up of frantically flickering flourescents (dig that alliteration), that gradually corrode one's will to live. Frankly, I think that the reason that I keep coming back to this smoky, dirty, sometimes noisy place is that it's just uncomfortable enough an enviroment to make studying a distraction from it. Anyways, I hope that everyone's having a good week, and I say "everyone" because apparently readership may be up to as many as five people. I'm totally gonna let this get to my head. But seriously, I look forward to seeing those of you who will be in the general vicinity of home next week, and I wish you well.

Once Upon A Friday Night Road Trip

Ok, here's the disclaimer for this post: I'm stupid. I hear voices and do what they tell me to do, or something like that. Maybe I was fed paint chips as a kid. That's my excuse for why, when housemates Matt and Dean invited me to make a one-night road trip to Columbus and back to see our mutual friend Ann in a play, I accepted. It would only take away one night of studying, I reasoned, and I've been feeling pretty eager to hit the road for somewhere (or nowhere) for a while now. Of course, the amount of time it would take was hardly the worst drawback to the trip: as mentioned above, the play was in Columbus, Ohio. Worse yet, the very actress we were going to see is a Hillsdale graduate, studying for her masters (in theatre) at that place that should never be named. You know, the big college in Columbus. In her defense, she hates it just as much as we do. So, it was not without a great sense of foreboding that three Hillsdale students who happen to be devoted Michigan fans began our long journey south, towards Mordor. It was good to be on a road trip, and the shortness of our time reminded me somewhat of the times (yes, plural) when the guys and I headed to Ottowa, Ontario and back in two days. Fortunately, this was significantly closer, but still pretty crazy to drive there and back in one night. What else could we do? Stay in Columbus? Why it's preposterous to even think of, I'm sure you'll agree. After a few hours of riding in the car, listening to music, and cursing Ohio every few minutes, we passed the first road sign, upon which were written those fateful words: "Now entering Columbus." I say the first, becaus we promply passed another sign that said "Now entering bladiblahblah (not Columbus)," and then in equally short order another sign which said "Now entering Columbus." Odd, we thought, but not terribly odd--At least not until the third and fourth times we found ourselves entering Columbus, and on a relatively straight section of freeway. By the fifth time, it was just ridiculous. Are we in Columbus, or not? Apparently the sign company offered the municipality of Columbus a great deal on those signs, and they decided to put them everywhere. Then we saw another sign, the horror of which made us forget that there was ever a man or a place or anything else that might have been named Columbus: "O--- S---- University, next exit." We got out to take a quick picture (you see Matt in front, then Dean, I'm taking the picture), passed another sign that informed us of our entrance to Columbus, and headed on in.We found the theatre without too much trouble, cursing our miserable fate and the red and white street signs marking the streets with unspeakably hideous names, like "woody hayes boulevard" and "buckeye drive," and parked directly in the shadow of the football stadium. The ring was getting to be unbearably heavy, and Matt offered to carry it for just a little while, but I refused. It was my burden to bear, and mine alone.
The play was an obscure (ok, I've never heard of it. It could be quite famous for all I know) 19th century Russian comedy (translated, thank heavens) by Nikolai Gogol, called "The Government Inspector," and the plot revolved around a paranoid small-town mayor and his cabinet attempting to appease (and bribe) a man who they beleive to be an undercover inspector from the capital. I know, it sounds dated, but it was quite well executed, and infused with some brilliant comedic timing, and we all laughed hard enough to forget our environs for two and a half hours, less a fifteen-minute intermission. After the play, we met Ann (who was wonderful as Marya, the mayor's daughter) outside of her dressing room, went out for a congratulatory bite and a pint at a nearby pub (we left and re-entered Columbus twice in the half-mile or less drive), which considering the location was a decent place, stopped at Ann's place, and then hit the road. We considered urinating on the stadium before leaving, but there were security guards present, so we left, entered, left, entered, left, entered, and finally left Columbus, and headed for home, scanning the radio and singing along with oldies to keep ourselves awake. It was too early (or rather, not early enough) in the morning to even mention when we got back, so I hit the sack until noon, and now must spend the rest of my weekend being more responsible. I hope that both of you are well, check back again soonish, and I'll try to have another post up for you.

"Come on, take me to the mardi gras..."

It's Fat Tuesday, boys and girls! Yeah, I barely noticed either. I didn't even get around to going and buying paczkis or anything. Oh well, maybe next year. Ooh, now (21:30 EST) I'm suddenly feeling tempted to run out and buy paczkis right bleedin' now. Not even kidding. Just the thought of stuffing my face with a huge, custard-filled, powdered-sugar monstrosity makes me salivate at the moment. You know what? I'm going to. I'll be back.

"I wanna be wanna be wanna be Jim Morrison."

Don't we all? Sorry I've not been behind my promises to post more often, turns out that I've had a lot of schoolwork this week. Oh well. I guess that's what I get for going to college. I'm kind of shocked that it's already miterm season, I'm already behind on reading, and already spending late nights caffeinated out of my mind wondering why the heck I bother. Other than the craziness though, life's pretty good. I still get a chance to pick up my bass or sit down at my piano and play a bit sometimes, and whenever I step outside I can always look up and thank God for everything that I've received today. Speaking of thankful, today was the fourth anniversary of the death of the great Chuck Jones. Not that I'm thankful that he's gone by any means, great cartoons about greedy ducks and suave rabbits and overly optimistic coyotes are always something to be thankful for. Anyways, it's 1:00 in the morning, I've finished my paper, and I'm going to bed. I should be able to post something enlightening (I use the term flippantly) tommorow, I guess tonight's post is my inner teenager posting to his imaginary myspace. I guess that means that I should say something like "Love like you've never been hurt" and probably mention that I'm listening to the latest All American Rejects or Fallout Boy CD or whatever, and how it really hits me right where I'm at, yo. Yeah, that darn girl who broke my heart. Should I also be pissed at the 'rents for something? I'm no good at this.

My love is like a red, red violet. Wait, wait... that's not right. Magnolia? Daisy?

Hello again. Yes, it's been another week since I last posted, and that means that I should post again, lest my four readers cease their digital meanderings in my direction, and I never hear from them again. Sadly, or perhaps not so sadly, not too much of consequence has occured in the last week, just school and friends and music and what-not to consume the hours, although in far from equal porportions. This morning I checked my student email to discover that my inbox was full of junk emails that someone thought would be rather clever to send to the entire campus. Of course, once someone goes to the trouble of sending one to the world, thirty other people of equal maturity decided that they'd just hit "reply to all" and send along their little messages of annoyance to the whole campus. Yeah. After cleaning the rubbish out of my inbox, I considered reading through my deleted items folder, rounding up a posse, and giving each and every spammer (about thirty individuals, some with multiple emails to their name) a good, old-fashioned punch in the face, but I thought better of it when I considered that the average person could probably beat me at fisticuffs. I'm still pretty confident that they deserved it, though.
There, that's the rage and vengance segment of our program, and now we move on to a lighter subject: Poppyseed muffins. You may think them ridiculously ordinary, but poppyseed muffins are actually one of the most significant inventions of the last two centuries. Discovered entirely by accident one Sunday morning in Dorchesterbrigdeshire by a rather clumsy housewife named Mavis, circa 1824, the wholly remarkable phenomenon that is the poppyseed muffin can perhaps best be described by one word: Jellyfish Market. Alright, you caught me, that's two words, but I think that you can now begin to understand just how remarkably important a thing we're talking about. I mean, one doesn't throw the term 'jellyfish market' around lightly, good heavens above. Anyways, the poppyseed muffin remained in obscurity, its myriad benefits hidden from the larger world, until they were discovered by Emile de Chancoineaux, while vacationing in the English countryside in 1871 (although to be completely honest, he was vacationing mainly in order to get out of serving in the Franco-Prussian War, which would not suprisingly end badly for the French shortly thereafter). Chancoineaux introduced his own version of the poppyseed muffin in his Paris salon in 1873, where it was giddily consumed by the intellectual elite of the time, many of whom were hoping that it was a cheaper form of opium. It was of these very same muffins that novelist Guy de Maupassant was speaking when he uttered the now-famous words:"cette tarte me plait," or in English: "I like this tart." Indeed, poppyseed muffins had caught parisians so much by suprise that they didn't even have a name for them, and resorted to calling them tarts. Jellyfish market, indeed.
Whoah. Sorry, I have no idea where that all came from. I've spent the majority of the last two days in an armchair in my room, reading economics and french books, occaisionally getting up to plink a few notes on my piano or make a cup of coffee or tea. Yes, I'm afraid that my life is that uninteresting most of the time, although it's seldom unpleasant. I'm afraid that (as you can clearly see) I've very little to talk about at the moment, and for that reason I shall leave you until next time. I'll try to update in a few days rather than a full week, and maybe have something interesting to talk about by then. We'll see. Thanks for being yourself, I wish you the very best.

An Inquiry Into The Nature and Causes of The Sloppy José

"Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining," as a certain professor of mine is fond of saying. By the same token, don't give me sloppy joe meat in a flour tortilla and try to tell me that I'm eating a taco. Unfortunately, that's exactly what they do at the cafeteria which circumstances more or less beyond my control force me to seek "nourishment" from. The good news is that no food consumed there is likely to remain in my body for any more than half an hour, so its immediate adverse effects tend to be short lived. The long-term effects are harder to guage, but include a significant loss of faith in mankind, as well as a propensity to starve one's self rather than subject one's intestines to another barrage. To think I used to complain about the food at home. To think that I was home-schooled, only to be subjected to cafeteria trash as a college student. Dear heavens, what did I do wrong? There is something rotten in the state of Michigan, indeed.
The weekend was fun, I went up to visit Lindsey for Saturday and Sunday, hopefully without being too much of a bother to her. Linds was a great hostess, and even cooked--twice! She never ceases to amaze. She did however point out the font Copperplate everywhere she saw it over the weekend (on 20+ distinct products, nonetheless), which was really pretty funny until I started noticing it too. It now may drive me insane. I'm really not the kind of guy who notices fonts much (except MS Comic Sans, whoever uses that will be first against the wall when the revolution comes), so hopefully the madness will be short-lived.
The superbowl was about the same as it always is, funny how the ultimate championship in pro football is seldom the most interesting game to watch. It wasn't bad, but there was nothing to imply that it was any kind of clash of titans, as they say. It's also the one time of the year that we actually eagerly await the commercial breaks. Funny how that works. For the record, "brown and bubbly" is the worst slogan for a diet cola in the history of the world. Sure, diet pepsi is in fact brown and bubbly, but so are a variety of other things that one really doesn't want associated with one's product. Things like poop. There, I said it. Poop. Come to think of it, "brown and bubbly" would be a pretty effective slogan for a sewage hauler. It's humorous, and what can you do to distinguish yourself from other sewage haulers? That's right, make poop jokes. Actually, maybe they all do that already. But enough about sewage. So I was watching congress on CSPAN the other day...
Well, that's all for now. I'll try to update again in a few days, and hopefully by then your expectations will be lowered to the point of being amused. Have a good week!

If only I could put in words the music that I hear...

Hello again. Not much to report of late, I'm afraid. I'm already behind on reading for all of my classes, and need to frantically catch up before it piles sky high. Oh well, I'll manage. Alan Greenspan's been replaced by Ben Bernanke, Sandra Day O'Connor's been replaced by Samuel Alito, and (as is not unusual) the only Oscar category worth following is the Best Animated Feature Film Category, a three-way race between Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle (I haven't seen it yet, but a Miyazaki film can hardly be anything but brilliant), Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (also haven't seen it, and I'd be willing to bet that Burton does more acid than Jimi Hendrix did, but still I hear good things), and Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit (I did in fact see this, and it's great). Of course, this still won't entice me to watch the Oscars any more than previous years' film offerings have (which, by the way, is not at all), but I'm still interested in who wins, because whichever film does win is likely to merit a longer run in theatres (as happened with Miyazaki's Spirited Away, some years back). Dramas continue to dominate the Best Picture category, which I still think is lame (then again, I'm talking about the Academy of Motion Pictures, or whatever it's called). I mean, do you really want to spend nine bucks (assuming that you buy no popcorn or drinks) to cry in a theatre full of strangers? Yeah, me neither. Anyways, I'll stop blathering on about this and let you get on with your life, which I'm sure is full of more important things. I'll try to at least mention something that I care about in passing next time around. Peace and love and what-not to all of you, good night.

A Sign Of The Times

I went to Wal Mart at 1:00 in the morning instead of going to bed. Don't ask why, it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It was either that or be perilously close to having no shampoo or toothpaste this morning, and I wasn't quite ready for sleep anyways. As I wandered the isles, taking the few groceries that I needed and watching the Wal Morlocks stocking the shelves (they were pretty much the only other people in the store at the time), I slowly began to notice the mundane elevator music that was being played on the supermarket sound system at a volume that has been perfectly adjusted to be barely noticeable, but somehow extremely obnoxious at the same time. It's the volume level at which the music in hell is played. You don't even really notice anything about the music, you just hear something like a voice and something like instraments behind it, and curse it under your breath. But then something strange happened: I recognized the voice in the supermarket music. This isn't supposed to happen. You're not supposed to notice anything at all about supermarket music, let alone recognize the voices of its perpetrators. Suddenly the part of my subconsious that recognized the voice found the name that belongs to it: James Hetfeild. Then it all came together. I realized that this was no ordinary supermarket music, it was 80s-90s heavy metal icons Metallica belting out their anthem Sanitarium. Weird.

And now page two: Sandra Banks of Waikiki, Illinois discovered that with a GE/Soft Comfort/Bose mattress/stereo/light bulb, she can sleep one hundred percent better, hear better sound, see better, treat her arthritis, and even fly! Paul Harvey. Good day?

Yes indeed, Reginald. Since whoever reads this blog must almost certainly be a fan of completely useless things, you can download a low-quality mp3 of my song from last weekend here . It's not especially good, but it is moderately amusing. Keep checking in, and I'll keep trying to update this with more useless tidbits.

And Then Suddenly Nothing Happened...

Hello Internet! I assume that no real human being is still reading this nonsense after my complete neglect of the blog for so long, so I might as well address the internet as an entity in and of itself. I'm back in school and that's exciting, taking Economics and French (my major and minor, respectively), supplemented with piano lessons (starting tommorow) and a racquetball class (starting today), to meet a #@*!** physical education requirement. Marvelous. My econ and french classes all seem pretty fun thus far, although the workload promises to be challenging. I just have to fight the onslaught of senioritis when it arrives. On the bright side, I got the opportunity to perform a song that I wrote called "Stilettos" over the weekend, backed up by bandmates Josh and Noah on drums and guitar, and I happen to have pictures (as usual, courtesy of Jonathan Walker). The pink shirt and cowboy hat can be explained by the fact that it's sort of a silly attempt at a country song (a genre that I still do not listen to), and I was trying to be in character. I was fairly happy with the results of the experiment, due almost entirely to my being backed by the right musicians. I myself didn't do as well as I would have liked, but the audience responded favorably, and we all had a great time, so I'm satistfied. The lights get darker sometimes, but not so much that you'd really think to mention it. It's more the kind of dimming where you look around to see if anyone else has that same dumb look on their face that you do, and if at least one person does, then you might venture to say "Ok, did it just get dimmer in here?" Naturally, you say it in such a way as to imply that you merely thought it did, you really aren't quite sure at all, because if you commit yourself to the idea that the lights did in fact get suddenly dimmer, then if no one else noticed it they might abandon all that they previously knew about you (that is that you are a generally sane and well-adjusted sort), and begin to beleive that you're completely bananas. Yup, can't have that happening, not over a loose wire in the lighting, anyways. If everyone really is going to think you're crazy, might as well be because you do things that really are crazy, like call everyone you talk to Reginald, and use their name (that is, Reginald) at least once per sentence in which you speak to them. That would be really good for a laugh, if you really wanted everyone to think you're crazy. Wouldn't you agree, Reginald? Crazy or not I wish you a good week, Reginald, and I hope that next week at this time we shall have another one of these little chats.

Don't believe what those so-called "scientists" tell you...

The human body was originally designed to live in hot water. Maybe we've come from a planet where the entire surface is covered in three to five feet of water at roughly 150 degrees ferenheit, or maybe the earth itself used to be like that, and some environmental catastrophe destroyed our hot water paradise, but the fact of the matter is that the ideal environment for human existence is hot water. I don't mind telling you, I could've stayed in that shower all day if the hot water hadn't stopped coming. True story. Of course, my theory might imply that in its ideal environment, the human body is a formless pink prune-looking thing, and that wouldn't really be conducive to the already difficult (or perhaps not difficult enough) task of propogating the species. Yeah, probably wouldn't happen.
Cedar roping and Christmas lights still grace various surfaces throughout the house, and pine needles are beginning to pile up on the carpet, in anticipation of Christmas get-together number three, due to take place in a few more days. Much as I love seeing relatives, and much as I appreciate their interest in my life, I'd kill to have no one ask me anything about myself, my education, my employment prospects, etc... Hm. Now that I think of it, that's probably a bad thing. It might mean that I should either be happy enough about where I am in life to not mind telling people about it, or should be doing something worth talking about. I suppose that I could always scare them into praying for me by telling them that all I want to do with my life is ride a skateboard and play guitar all the time, occasionally breaking to smoke a cigarette, or get a new tatoo. Of course, those who know me well enough to know that I hate smoke, have no tatoos, and can't skateboard or ride guitar might not be fooled that easily. Details schmetails, I just need to tweak my dreams a bit. Hm... Rodeo rider? Nah, they'd never beleive it. Astronaut? Nope, they'd just tell me that on the way to doing that I could become a successful engineer. Blah, I suppose that I might as well bite my lip and succumb to the onslaught.

Christmas Eve-ish

Hello. I don't suppose that between travelling to in-laws and shopping till you feel like droppings and chesnuts roasting on an open fire right down Santa Claus Lane you feel particularly up to reading this thing, but I feel like writing on it, and as the title implies, it's all about me, baby. It's Christmas time, which still feels wonderful to say if you stop and think about it, but you have to be careful about context and traffic signals and all. I was doing some shopping for gifts this week (yeah, I know, shock), and it struck me just now that I didn't really do so with all that much attention paid to giving the darn things. I just wanted to give the gifts that I would be expected to give, and hopefully no one would hate what I gave them, and within a few weeks they'd forget that it was me who gave them that thing that they never use. I was reflecting on this with a friend, and for some reason the ever popular A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens came to mind, where Scrooge wakes up on Christmas day and, feeling as if he's got a new lease on life, sends a boy off to find a huge turkey, and then sends the turkey to his faithful and impoverished employee's family. My thought process didn't exactly make a lot of sense, but the scene popped into my head because the gift of turkey wasn't expected. Scrooge just felt so darn Christmasy that he sent the biggest turkey money could find off to the Cratchets, unsolicited (now that I think of it, Cratchet's a sort of a silly sounding name, but I'm no Charles Dickens). God bless us every one indeed. I realize that this was important because earlier in the story he's the stingiest man alive, but it still managed to make me feel silly for just buying presents because that's what you do for Christmas. No, I'm not trying to make some point about how our beloved holiday has become too commercialized and all that, goodness knows that if that's what you want to hear there are plenty of people to say it to you, I'm just trying to say that for me at least, the whole thing can get so automatic. You put up a tree, you buy gifts for the people you like and a few people who you don't like, but it would be socially difficult to get away with not giving them gifts, you decorate your house, you make one hell of a meal (not to mention the cookies-you can't forget those), you wear a few garments for the first time since they were given to you last Christmas, you think about the poor in our cities and our soldiers in foriegn countries for a few days, and when it's all over you drag the tree out to the curb (or put it in its box back in the basement if you're one of those people), clean up the wrapping paper and various nondescript spills, and go back to your everyday existence, because that's what you do for Christmas. Hopefully somewhere in the middle of all that you also manage to sit down and spend a few precious hours with those people, but some people don't. I guess I'm just bemoaning (I know, it's so unlike me to bemoan anything) how taken-for-granted it all is, at least by me, when Christmas itself is so deliberate. What makes Christmas special is that God himself deliberately did what was not expected of him by anyone and became Man. The world changed. Man's relationship with God and with creation was altered. God humbled himself so much as to become a man! Anyways, I guess I'm just trying to say merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you, sorry if I got a little wordy in there. Do your shopping, cook your turkeys, say a prayer for the poor and the sick, don't forget to ask for peace in the world and try to have faith that someone can deliver it. Put up a big Christmas tree and decorate it with as little attention to home decorating conventions as possible (let's face it, a dying evergreen tree covered with trinkets and lights is never going to be all that tasteful, might as well have some fun). Smile when you're driving alone at night and you pass by a life-sized nativity scene, and every time someone tells you "Happy Holidays," respond with an even more cheerful "Merry Christmas," and try to say it like you've never gotten to say it to anyone before, and it's been all bottled up inside of you. Aw heck, you know what to do much better than I do. Merry Christmas, I hope that it's one full of joy, love, and peace.