Rest in peace, Sen. Bentsen

"Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy."

This, that, the other

Lately I have to get up in the night (or close to morning) and wheeze my way over to my inhaler where a few short puffs fixes the unfortunate tightness in my precious bronchial tubes and lungs.  It is very annoying, especially in that it affects my dreams and I wheeze in them until I wake up (the other night I dreamed of snow storms, and a red and yellow biplane skimming the top of our roof before crashing into the deck.  Last night it was horses and diseases that changed people inverse colors but also dark, bright purple).  I'm am Fall and Winter's biggest fan.  Spring is, in short, a bitch.  I'm taking four drugs that start with "A."  I was never one for consonants.  Dastardly beasts.

Here is a picture of Lebron James in the third quarter of game 7 against the Pistons.  Alas, the Cavaliers could not pull out the win.  Maybe next year.  Needs to drink his V8 like Bill Walton!  When we can't sleep, we watch ESPN.  A lot during the day, too.  It is my favorite channel, which seems a little odd considering I am not very big on the playing of sports.  It has splendid shows, great personalities, and amusing commercials.  Of course, there's nothing in this world that could make hockey interesting (apart from some Communists and Herb Brooks).

Sick with tercets, quatrains, theories, and positions.  The choices were so limited for this paper, so I'm going with "One Art."  How I'll churn out 8 pages on a 19 line po-em is beyond me, but of course, I'm sure it will all go smashingly.  "You must... believe, boy."  (Imagine that in a Sean Connery voice, strained from being shot in the stomach.) 

It is odd how much I think of things in terms of movies, music, and books.  It must be a cultural thing.  Or an overactive memory/imagination.  There's a quote for every situation.  I can't pour juice without having a little chortle thinking of Steel Magnolias.  "Shelby, drink your juice."  Fight the urge to have a fake convulsion.  Anytime someone says "he'll be all right" or "she'll be all right" I have to say, "Inform Lord Vader we have a prisoner."  It's like the shave and a haircut thing.  The two bits is irresistable.  I hear people talking about their SUVs that guzzle gas and that daddy pays for and I sing a few bars, "You marry a role, and you give up your soul till you break down."  When people say something funny and kind of genius I think, "We've discovered the illuminating principle that wishing makes it so and all living things pop out of no where whenever they're needed."  And quite often if I'm not thinking of something else that's already been thought of, I'm narrating  scenes as I watch people go by.  I see someone breaking up with their girlfriend at the MU (I've used this example before I'm sure.  It's not as uncommon as one might think) and I think, "She wiped a tear from her eyes, feet shuffling silently under the table back and forth in agitation.  The fake seashells on her sandels snagged her heel and scraped against the back of her foot.  He could not look her in the eye.  She knew the end was coming, she just didn't know it would be so soon.  She had taken another step backwards and was convinced she would be an old maid for life.  It was little comfort to think of her cats at home who loved her unconditionally and her friends who would later buy her drinks and expound upon all of her ex's worst faults.  She could laugh bitterly then, but for now she stifled a little cough at the back of her throat and lifted her napkin to her face, slowly wiping her nose against the coarse impression of the Carl's Jr. logo."   Oh the drama.  Sitting in the Malamud room I think, "She cracked open a Red Bull, hoping the caffeine would manage to keep her eyelids raised enough to at least feign interest in the coming hours.  Above her head was a a rectangle cut out in the wall.  She peered at it for several long minutes.  What purpose it served, she did not know, but she imagined perhaps it was a strange kind of fire escape if one could manage to climb the painting below it or lunge from the bookshelf to the right.  If others were trapped they could surely hoist her through.  She longed to crawl through that rectangle and peer out the other side, twist around, and drop down to the floor from such a height, pretending to have powers of stealth and invisibility (or at least a keen desire to escape being burnt to a crisp)."  Ah the joys of narrating.  The world is my playground.  Words, my dearest friends.

Blogging has a way of eating up time that would be better spent studying or watching the playoffs.

You must have been out your head

I should be starting work on my 345 final, but I'm tired and exanimate and it is unwise to write when one is so boring.  Yesterday notepad went crazy or something.  For a moment I thought a good number of files were gone.  Only about one hundred.  None of them matter particularly, I suppose.  Writing is just writing.  I hate what the world did to Oscar Wilde.  I am no Wilde though.  No Shakespeare.  No Joyce or Sand.  A few words disappearing from my files would not cripple the world.

"Changing the world is good for those who want their
names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their
names in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the
treasures most dear." -Orson Scott Card

Back in the day

Dirk Nowitzki: Heartthrob?

Allergies make a person pitiful. That person is me. I feel like I'm constantly taking pills in the spring. I hate that. I'm miserable. I will use repetition to demonstrate just how miserable I am. I'm miserable miserable miserable. Well, maybe only miserable miserable.

My Russian homework today was pretending to be leaving Russia after a visit, and writing a note to some friends to ask them what giftst they would suggest I buy for my family. I said, "My sister is very bloodthirsty. Do you know where it is possible to buy a bloody finger on the left? Do you know how much it costs?" (I like "on the left." It means the black market, underhanded shady dealings and the like) Sometimes a limited vocabulary is a fun thing. We often use sisters as examples in class. I make Scarah the vampire, although occasionally I say she's a hypnotist who has "come to control your minds," mostly because I know how to say these things. Sure, I know how to say "secretary," and "meows like a cat in the shower" too, but it's just a little more fun to say vampire.

I dislike Pinocchio. I've never really enjoyed it much. Steve thinks it's more of a boy movie (You are a real boy!), but I think it matters less about boyishness and more about how fucking creepy it is. I think we can all agree, the donkey part, that is some scary shit. A conscience? Gosh! And that singing cricket... *shakes head* I haven't watched in since I was young, and maybe I should again. The whole whale thing even... I just can't get into it. Hooray Beauty and the Beast.

There's a german mtv cartoon called "Popetown" that looks ever so adorable. An article by Tom Armitage says, "it shows the Pope bouncing through St. Peter's in Rome on a cross-like pogo stick and satirizes religious ceremonies." Now what could be more fun than that? "The Office, "Popetown" depicts the pontiff as a rotund 77-year-old, obsessed with his pogo-stick and surrounded by toys." Delightful! Apparently Catholics don't like it. Whatever happend to senses of humor? Why are people more willing to believe they are ridiculed than to laugh and join in the fun of satire?

I picked up a job application which covers a variety of things on campus. I hate feeling like I never do anything. Writing papers and going to school, well, it's time consuming, but I feel like such an ass just sitting around all day with not even a small real source of income. So maybe I can find a little job to color my time and provide (hopefully) at least a meager monetary supplement.

Dirk and Co. trounced the Spurs! Also, Vince and Co. showed Miami what's what. The Pistons could sweep the Cavs (but I think Cleveland will win one).

I think I'll go read some Orson Scott Card. I keep dreaming about these books. The preacher is incahoots with the devil and thinks it's god. Can Alvin defeat the Unmaker? Armor-of-God has turned politician and wife shover! What will happen next? I think I'll go find out.

Tuesday Morning

People are so patterened. Patterned patterns pattern.
Like little cutout body warmers for babies made in summer, ready for winter long before winter rears its ugly head.
I have friends who every two and a half months or so have some kind of revelation or epiphany. Of course, it is usually something fairly obvious which they always knew but simply never bothered to articulate. Or, in a rare event, it is something they actually just thought of, which everyone else knew all along, and which they probably did too, if only they'd admit it. Either way it is odd. It is as though they try to think of one or two new things every so often so as to avoid being swallowed by all of the same old troubles still hounding them. I think perhaps they're trying to fend off mental breakdowns by having little tiny ones slowly over a longer period of time. The day one of them actually does something about their epiphany will be the day we all rejoice and JarJar doesn't get emergency executive powers granted to the supreme chancellor. (If you're having trouble with that one think snowball, hell.)

I took Ambien last night, which is remarkably good at putting a person to sleep. The only problem is right before you fall asleep there's somewhat of a visual slight hallucination effect with it. It's like dropping acid and then falling asleep. The lights swirl and move and your eyes don't focus much on them. Stationary objects morph just a bit. Perception and deception. But a good nights sleep.

I should get two midterms back today. I worry too much over little things. The sun will go on rising and setting whether Anne fails in geometry or not. Same here, only methods and materials. It cracks me up every time I think that Dave Foley and Bruch McCulloch were in Anne. Hilarious.

Time for Russian. It's always time for Russian. Midterm next monday. Yesterday we learned how to say "cheap floozy" (we were learning to buy things), as well as euphemisms for fuck. So now I can say "Oh fudge, I dropped the baby again." "Oh where are those &%*in' keys." How useful!