BORED

So I broke a few laws today (perhaps unwise to post about this on the internets? FUCK YOU). I needed to get a medical exam for Princeton because they don't want any entering graduate students to be impotent or infected with ebola ("drop your trousers, please" in a thick German accent). My doctor decided not to speak English, so I filled out the form for her and she just signed it without asking questions. However, I lied all over the form. I wrote that I got all the required vaccinations although I in fact skipped out on at least one of them. The doctor then proceeded to go off on a spontaneous rant about US foreign/social policy, as Europeans are want to do. I compliantly nodded my head a few times and the meeting was promptly adjourned.

It comes down to the fact that it would cost mony to get that vaccination and money is a rare quantity these days. Plus, I'm assuming that every other entering graduate student actually respects the law, hence they will be vaccinated, hence I won't be at risk from the infectious diseases that they would potentially have if they were free-riding assholes like me. And, according to my calculations, the chance of me being infected with meningitis is about 0.0000125. In any case, if I do somehow get in trouble for this, I can always employ the time-honored policy of deny, deny, deny.

So my brother recently got married on the beach to a lesbian while some speakers in the background blared November Rain by Guns N' Roses.

I'm not kidding. Also: don't tell my mom.

fickle work

that is what i read when i saw an email titled "field work" sent from a guy in my lab.

"word wars" is good. everyone should see it. it's like "spellbound," only about the hard-knock lives of those in the professional (it must be professional, because none of these people have jobs, or even lives outside of scrabble) scrabble tournament players. one of my favorite lines in the movie (and there are many) comes courtesy of marlon, the sole black man who is incessently railing against whitey (and why not?), "women are missing out on the best sex ever and don't even know about it."

Hong Kong: more than just an empty battle cry?

today i ate a hamburger and called my mom. i also watched roseanne on tv. i could do this forever.

really.

i also heard 'thinking about you' by radiohead, and i was reminded of how fanatically obsessed i was with that song years ago. and where am i now, all these years later? wearing white t-shirts and standing mute, fighting back the nausea. lying down at the first signs of emotional disarray. wait, lying down? i meant falling down. or no, i meant reveling in inaction. revelling? i think one 'l' is right. anything to take the focus off of my lack of focus.

a friend of my sister's was on a tv show called 'queer eye for the straight guy' yesterday; he was the guy they made over and all. we watched it at his apartment, which had also been redecorated by the tv show people. it was funny, if a bit unsettling and absurd. the show tends to be a bit, ah, mean. which, as we all know, sucks.

i've always been a bit wary of bars of soap. so primitive. and slimy.


as this is rapidly devolving, i'm going to lie down, with my eyes wide the fuck open, and let my mind flit around for a while. i mean, sleep. yeah, sleep.

clever

i came in to the office a little late today. okay, i got here at 6. and since i've been here, i have answered an email that my advisor sent me. that's it. that's the extent of my production today.
actually, i went on a very nice run this afternoon.
i cannot go to sleep before 4 am. this is getting to be a problem.
it's nice being the only one in the entire building, but it's good for me to have the others in my office looking over my shoulder. it keeps me from fucking off as much as i'd like to.
but i think i will actually do some work in the lab, as that is where the stereo is and i feel like listening to some music right now.

this girl/boy thing.

just returned from seeing fiona...had i been wearing socks, they would be impossible to retrieve. due to their being knocked off. (get it?) seriously, it is a major regret in my life that you all were not here to see this. she can be so right it makes me ache.

unrelated: what i want:

- deck of cards.

- expensive linen guess pants.

- boxcar racer album.

i need to wash my glasses. and bye bye.

nothing doing. strike that, reverse it

i went to the fremont fair yesterday. as it was three miles from my house, i figured i should buck-up and actually ride my bike. and a strange thing happened as i rode down the hill towards the bike path i remembered that riding a bike can be fun. until the hill flattened out and i went to shift and found that my shifters are completely broken. so that sucked. but i was still committed to going out and doing something. namely, going to this fair thing. so i perservered and walked all the way there.
i stopped at the scientology booth for a while just because i've always been interested in finding out just what they hell they actually believe in and do. i had a nice time taking a stress test and talking to this very friendly man who then tried to sell me this book for $10 by whoever the hell that guy is who invented scientology. his name escapes me.
the highlight of the day, however, came when i watched an old hippie with many colored scarves and very, very small red satin underwear dancing right in front of the speakers of this punk rock band. all the hipsters were taking pictures of him with their cell phones.

today i found the best place ever. it is the university surplus store and i had my advisor (though he is in shanghai or paris right now) buy me a new computer moniter for $10. they have everything there. need an ehrlenmyer flask? got it! dentist's chair? got that too! it is amazing.

i also got a free autobiography of tab hunter. he is such a dreamboat.

my kid sold your honor student the answers to all the tests.

i didn't really sleep last night. i just sort of tossed around. i left the light on, too, which may have contributed to the situation. it was like 110 degrees today. that's really quite uncomfortable. watched my sister play some online poker, had some fast food, saw some more stand-up comedians. had some disgusting strawberry creme twinkies. read a bunch of a book by augusten burroughs, who is a kind of genius. right now i'm listening to 'little rock' by collin raye on repeat. a country song from the day. better music has never graced my ears. my claustrophobia is swelling, thanks to the hamster (my roommate) crawling around in his little tubes. 'i'm sorry i cried when i talked to you last night.' i want to have this song's babies.

Two sips from the cup of human kindness and I'm shitfaced

I've become reckless, lazy, and incompetent. In other words, not much has changed. This will probably be the only time that I have state-sanctioned leave to be a total irresponsible fuck for any sizable stretch. And I'm exploiting the opportunity. I don't do homework, I spend a declining number of hours in the library (read: nil), and I burn money with abandon.

I'll be staying with a friend in Freiburg, town 2 hours south of Frankfurt, for most of this week, starting tomorrow (and yes, skipping classes to do so, hence the above). I'm sure it's comforting to know that the US government is subsidizing my lying in bed until 4pm. I'm out.

And this.

the right timing

right now i'm in las vegas, listening to hotel california. i just realised that i forgot to bring the notebook in which i write my daily happenings, so listen up.

i spent the morning pretending i didn't know what time it was, lying in bed and listening to the radio. i finally got up around 1pm and finished off the few remaining cookies from last night's foster market excursion. i then proceeded to sit around for a few hours, doing laundry and reading the paper. i finally started packing, which was quite simple as i am fully immersed in a ONE PAIR era, as far as pants are concerned. michael gave me a ride to the airport, and i got to my gate an hour before departure. i had no carry-on bag, just 'catch-22' in paperback. i used a payphone to call my sister. there was a lady, dyed-blonde and fake-tanned, playing guitar and singing. a sign said her name was rebecca helmer. she sounded a lot like jewel. on the plane, i sat to the left of a man in a suit with a baby girl in his lap and to the right of a woman reading oprah's magazine. the man and baby fell asleep, and i pretended to sleep while really my mind was coming up with countless random scenarios.

once in las vegas, i felt the usual nausea from seeing so many clownshoes gathered together. found my sister and her boyfriend, and we headed over to a casino to see norm mcdonald do a stand-up routine. it was funny. we then came to the apartment and ordered food (chicken fingers). ate the food, saw some 'cosby show' reruns on tv, played with the dog. now it's bedtime. everything is really quite normal.

i feel quiet.

busfuck.

below is the best headline EVER. it's from the 'missed connections' section of craigslist. i want to have it tattooed on my fucking upper lip:

Puerto Rican God waiting for a bus on 82nd and Division.

i wear what i want, dickholes.

on a related note, i'm listening to 'sixteen stone' by bush right now and it is simply the greatest album ever. HIGH SCHOOL!!!

Moulton, AL: A Good Place To Live.

what's been keeping me up these nights is looking for people from my high school on myspace. i swear, these past couple nights have seen more nostalgia from me than the past few years combined. i'm quite tempted to start an account with myspace so i can contact these people, but really, what would i say? 'hi, remember me? well, i remember you. what? no, i'm, ah, in between things right now. yeah.'

in other news, i'm really thirsty right now and i have absolutely NO PLANS for my future. quite liberating, really. i mean, i'm gonna visit my sister in a few days, but beyond that it's really pretty wide open. and i'm not lost at all, just kinda disinterested. no need to do anything REAL. maybe learn how to play poker, and then play online for money. or become a strip club dj. or fuck it all and move to some trashy city in asia. they all have craigslist.

what is this website for? we need to DO something. right? like write a book. or a religious pamphlet. or RECORD SOME MUSIC. we can each record something and then put it all together. OR, we could start a cassette tape circulating around, with each person adding 20 minutes of anything they want. OR, more pictures. i, for one, have NO CLUE as to how to put a picture up on this website. help me help you.

it is approaching 4am. i guess it's always approaching 4am, technically.

i bought some apples tonight at F-4-L. apples are the fuckchrist, as tommy would say. as are BEDS.

oh god, what have i done?

Tonight, tonight

Was it because I drank more than a half galon of Mountain Dew today, that it was the most fantastic day for at least a week? Or was it that we demolished a garage? Cleaned the lab fridge? Helped mother move boxes? Isn't over?

instant gratification

I'm the math guy at a Korean immigrant learning center. One of the classrooms has the writing work of some elementary students, who evidently have varying levels of English proficiency (like my high school kids). It looks like this week they were working on limericks. I copied down a couple to share with the gang:

"Donatello's Explosion"
I know a boy named Donatello.
He liked to eat a lot of jello.
He ate while he filed,
He never ate mild.
And then he was not a one-pieced fellow.

(Untitled)
Many people don't eat roast beef.
However, they do love to eat leaves.
It makes no sense,
Ladies and gents,
Every ones are suffer from grief.

get

I woke myself at 6:45 coughing, once i stopped hacking up green globs, they day's been decent. This weekend, me and Paul and Breck will tear down a garage. Which will be awesome. Destroy a building. Just us and some sledge hammers.

Workin stiff

I hear of a bumper sticker that said "save a tree, kill a teacher"

I swear I don't think there is anything more beaurocratic than teaching and the system that goes along with it. At the same time I think that teachers are boring, I find out they can be the heaviest drinkers and most ridiculous people....well, high school teachers anyways.

And what is up with pretending that we are doing work? I get most of my emailing and blogging done while I am in class! sweet. I pretend I am taking notes on my computer while I am checking email or reading interesting articles online about how professors in college are banning computers in the classroom because noone is paying attention anymore.

Jonathan got a new video game called warcraft. I wonder if there is a chose your adventure book based on the video games war craft and star craft. I think it might sell good.


I am learning a lot, but feel a bit resentful at times at having to prove it all.

time to pretend to pay attention again.

outrunning the disease of the father.

everything is a-okay. what do we have to worry about? nothing. this is life, goddammit. i will not be cowed into any other perspective. we're all so silly.

the best song ever written tonight is 'wish i may' by ani difranco. i mean, really.

'i am stumbling down the gravel driveway of desire
trying not to wake up my sleeping self-loathing.'

if it were possible, i'd shake all of you awake right now and make you listen to it while you read the words in the cd booklet. and then i'd give you some mashed potatoes and let you go back to sleep. because mashed potatoes are GOOD.

this is what it will be.

i went to wal-mart this evening to buy a can of orange soda from the machine. i drank it while sitting on a bench/planter thing in the parking lot. then i came home. trying to decide on a course of action. apparently a guy is gonna buy the center, and he'll continue to rent it to us if we want. so i could stay here indefinitely. but i should move, because it might wake me up a bit. and i should get a job. or go back to school. SOMETHING. but for now, orange soda.

friday night at the buffet

i dyed my hair purple last night. well, parts of it anyhow. having completed my class, i am returning to portland tonight. and once again i am overcome by the unbearable anxiety of traveling in general and traveling by air specifically. but i have my pills.
the hair dyeing took place in the middle of a good drinking episode, with the expected result that the girl who let us dye our hair at her house wondering why the hell she let two drunk people into her bathroom with purple hair dye. then we went back out to face the whiskey again, this time at a dive bar called "the buffet." i liked it at first sight. it reminded me of good times. the other girl who dyed her hair and i both still hadn't washed the dye out of our hair and so just had purple-gooey locks wrapped on the tops of our heads. we decided to play a game with the locals (though close to the U of A, this was clearly not a campus bar--tucson crusties only). there was this guy there who looked exactly like fucking russel crowe, so we decided to fuck around with him a little bit. we told him we were here for a massage therapy class. to massage the knots out of trees. no, really, we're dendrochronologists. by the time we told him the truth, he was so confused he didn't know what to believe. not that he had any idea what dendrochronology is. of course, we gave him a series of false names as well. then these other guys came out of the woodwork right at closing and were trying to put the moves on hard and fast and so we made like trees and got the hell out.

i feel like i've written "dye" an inordinate number of times.