It feels like winter. Already.

I have been out of sorts as of late. Last week, I could attribute it to teh influeeenza vaccination. Or stress, a midterm, and other such silliness. I'm hoping November will be better than October. Today, on the intraweb, I purchased a recumbent exercise bicycle. There are so many, it would have been an easier choice had one of them been decorated with stars and moons to not-so-subtly imply that exercise is magic. I'm easily influenced.

I fucked up my ballot by not following the directions and even absentmindedly forgetting to put it in the super secret envelope. So now, instead of voting easily, I'm going to have to go take my ballot down to the courthouse and make sure that it's accepted. It's either that or let the assholes who desire to amend the state constitution with a tobacco tax have their wicked way. That's what I get for not reading and following directions carefully.

Most of this weekend has been spent watching sports. Football. More football. World Series (boo for sweeps). Football.

My mouth hurts. I was brushing vigorously, when my hand slipped and I jabbed myself in the gums with the toothbrush. I tore zee gums of my front teeth, and now I'm waiting (quite impatiently) for the area to heal. My schwester, Scarah, says that she once poked herself in the eye with her toothbrush. Steve admits to the same. I have never had an eye-toothbrush collision, and I hope I never shall. Anyway, my mouth hurts. Orajel says it's for gum sores. Do tears count? They really should be more specific in their packaging.

Considering doing that nanowrimo.org thing. Quality is not the answer. Unless the question is, what is nanowrimo not all about. And believe me, I'm not all about quality either. It's spewing, but without the house elves.

The illustrious 470th post

Things to do:

Finish reading The American.

Write paper on The American.

Figure out why the book I want costs $27 in paperback, and $90 for a hardback. Absurd.

Write short story

Russian homework

Astronomy readings

Watch ever so much football

Continue work on the ballad of Xandrius and Gemfire

Write workshop letter

And why not?

In another time and place, I think Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows and Rei Ayanami would have been friends. At the very least, they would never be enemies.

File under "H" for "Huh?" 2

Once again, flipping through files, wondering what on earth was so important as to be written down. It seems almost anything is.

File name: defeat
Contents: I'm so bad at the recorded Russian conversations. I could have sworn the last one just said something about museums and prednisone.

File name: mdc
Contents: You turn me into a character where I would rather have been the writer.

File name: phantasms
Contents: Remember that episode of Star Trek:TNG--the one where Data dreams? The one with the Counselor Troi cellular peptide cake with mint frosting! And remember when Data stabs her in the shoulder (cause of the mouth thingy, which is really a creature) with a coil brace? Weeell, that's not my favorite episode. It may have Freud and clever interphasic pulses, but it just isn't the most interesting of stories. Love the cake though. Love the cake.

File name: conspicuous consumption
Contents: God not living up to expectations / and we're all counting the fucks until / we can get out of dodge

File name: sleepyhead
Contents: Last night I dreamed of a girl, dancing in marigold shoes. Not the color--made of them. One heel broken off. Mumbling something about metafiction. How it tastes like chicken. And ash.

File name: isbeseems
Contents: I'm writing a poem for my prophet. But it's not finished yet.

File name: satisfyingvultures
Contents: He decides to once again send her a message. Test the waters. A trifle. Something about his latest purchase, a bed, which surprisingly has turned out to be a far greater difficulty than he expected. Nobody had ever warned him about how hard it would be. After all, how often does one occasion to purchase a bed? Surely, not so often as to warrant casual conversation. So there he had it, a message caught between the joviality (that went hand in hand with his unparalleled appreciation of indirectness) and emotional bumper which, made of thick rubber and the hopes of the great American people, carried with it the promise of an even keel. It was either that or tell her a joke, and those were always destined to fail when written out without a novel to buoy them.

File name: darkness
Contents: demagogue42: my sister was looking for my amazon wishlist today
demagogue42: and there is ANOTHER [person with my name]!
gerundy: it's not hard to find
demagogue42: the audacity!
gerundy: another?!?@#
demagogue42: and with horrible things, like the riverdance on it!
demagogue42: i shit you not
gerundy: oh my
demagogue42: who is this child of darkness?! ;-)
gerundy: NOT YOU

File name: lockerz
Contents: I have a friend. And the other day, I realized that if we had met each other only recently, rather than 9 or 10 years ago, we probably would not be friends. This is most unfortunate.

File name: inheels
Contents: I want to wear absurdly tall boots and run up and down hills.

Beady eyes is right, we're needed!

I miss Buffy. Ya gotta love a show that can bring its heroine back from the dead. Take that, WB! FU, UPN! And so on.

I would prefer not to

It's 10 11 12 pm am. I haven't even started the 100 or so page reading I should have done by tomorrow. I've read the book before, and I know just how much I liked James's other books better. It's been a while since I've read it though, so I ought. It is pretty reading; I'm just lazy. I don't feel very interested in school this term. I feel tired and isolated. Years before I can leave Corvallis. Seem to be going no where. I have no plans for after college. I'm half done, bored as fuck, stagnant. Like water, on its way to being chock-full of malaria and DHF! Eyes wide, hands to mouth, Ctrl+Alt+Delete! The first bad sign--melodramatic blogging. Oh, Bartleby! Oh, humanity! Um, yes, I'd like fries while I evacuate language of all meaning. Lots. And lots. Of fries.

Today I wrote character sketches with 6 boys and 1 girl from the 7th grade. They're violent little buggers, but amusing. I can't imagine how Steve manages to deal with 26 elementary school kids down in L.A. Maybe they have more Ritalin there. It's nice to have a break from college students sometimes.

I should like to go to Russia. It seems like it would be nice to struggle to understand. I've done enough standing above.

"The people of the cities have machine, which is prose and a parvenue. They have few events. They can turn over the incidents of a long life as they sit by the fire. With us nothing has time to gather meaning, and too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold." -W.B. Yeats

This just in from accuweather.com!

Central United States attacked by giant green comma!

Christmas in October

I have entered the modern world. My mother and Denise and the rest of the fam in McMinnville sent me a laptop. It's lovely as can be. Mike loaded it up with software. And oh my heavens, it's all legal, too. :) I'm mobile! My new laptop friend can be seen here. We shall have to set up a wireless router at home. Zee computer looks pretty Marjie-friendly and shall facilitate mobility. It's a great way to end what has been a very shitty week. :)

What brings us together today

I don't mind unnecessary risks.
What I mind are dangerous, unnecessary risks.

Like a terrible fish

At work the other day, there weren't very many appointments. I was reading a book for one of my classes, and the other person working was bored and had nothing to read he said, so I offered him the other book I had in my bag, told him it was by a well-known poet and essayist. He asked what it was, and I said, "Of Woman Born: Motherhood as--" and he cut me off and waved his hands in front of him saying, "No no no. Stop it. I don't even want to hear the rest of the title." It seemed, in a kind of sad way, to validate things the book has to say about the distortion of motherhood and the way men and even women at times look at motherhood in a kind of fearful and unhealthy way. Why couldn't he have even listened to the entire title? Is it just that awful that he couldn't be bothered with three more words? Obviously I wouldn't expect everyone to be interested in reading the book, but it just seemed so inconsiderate to act as though the topic was such that it didn't even merit listening to the entire title. His reaction made me feel rather small for a moment, because it was so unnecessarily negative. It seems to me that there are so many things to be thought about and learned, even in books we don't entirely enjoy or that make us uncomfortable.

I declared today Write My Damn Short Story Day, but I haven't gotten anywhere yet. I slept until noon, and showered, and now am listening to the football game on the radio and putting off writing the short story by blogging. Bad habits. Yesterday in the mail, I got Gravity's Rainbow. I wish it were slightly warmer outside (my wishing for warm weather rarely happens), as it would be nice to sit under a tree reading it. Trees are good friends for reading, even if there is always that slight preoccupation with the thought of how many bugs there must be crawling upon the tree, possibly wishing to feast upon you the moment you get lost in a book. Bugs and books, my friends--they're on the same team. Clever creatures. Don't let them fool you.