The Evil Iowan

New Blog

2012-01-29T15:26:00.000-06:00

In preparing for my imminent graduation, I've updated my blog and moved it to http://mnhanson.com. I'll no longer be posting on Blogspot, and will delete this blog shortly.

P.S. If you know anyone who is looking to employ a writer, editor, or researcher, please, for the love of all that is holy, point them in my direction, or me in theirs. Once my T.A. gig is over in May, I got nothing.

Algebraic Poetry

2011-12-08T19:58:00.003-06:00

Good news all around!

1) My volunteer application was accepted for the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) Conference and Bookfair this spring in Chicago. There are still time slots open, if you'd like to volunteer.

2) I'm assistant teaching an undergraduate film class at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago this spring. I believe there are still slots open for the class, as well, which is on Latin American film studies. It should be great – I'm looking forward to it in a state of barely-continent excitement.

3) Ham and egg nog season is here! Gift shopping is pretty relaxing in my family, as we've made the following rule: You only get a present if you're not old enough to drink yourself through the holiday. We've been doing this for a while now, and it's gone over rather well.

Can't be all good news: Rick Santorum said the other day that we should eliminate food stamps because of the obesity epidemic, once again supporting my theory: Rick Santorum Doesn't Understand How Anything Works.

And, finally, some more selections from my upcoming imaginary collection, tentatively titled, "Poems that Barely Make Sense."

Closure
L = [P^S x (TxB)] / X
or, L equals P to the power of S, multiplied by T and B, divided by X.
In which:
L = Love
P = Petals of the Heart
S = sickly peeling
T = Tongue, torn out by its Roots
B = Brain, blistered and burning
X = Buried in the Sand at Low Tide

An Exercise in Mathematic Cinema from Carl Sagan's Poetic Encyclopedia of Pornography
(L+C) x V = (OxS) / P
or, L plus C multiplied by V equals O multiplied by S divided by P.
In which:
L = Lateral Illumination
C = Concentration of Light
V = A certain phallic vegetable
O = Curvature
S = Smoothness
P = Stinky pink fingers

Small Rocks, Great Waves?

2011-11-14T20:15:00.003-06:00

I'mma have to go public with my NaNoWriMo efforts. I have to make it too embarrassing to give up. The word count is already pretty embarrassing. Only 42-thousand-and-whatever words to go.
Here's an intro (because fuck synopses, that's why), and the excerpt. If you're doing NaNo, too, and want to be best friends, my handle is "mnhanson." No, really.
BONUS! for those who make it through to the end.

Introduction (also titled, "TL;DR")

The Bafth, as a nation, no longer exists. The island itself is still there – rocky and covered in sand, with all of its beaches and brush-like flora – but the tiny democratic-socialist government that made it The Bafth is gone. The island itself is not an unpleasant place, but it has never been friendly to outsiders, few of whom are inclined to visit.

First, there's all the bureaucratic red tape one has to cut through just to spend a week there. No matter what government runs the island, that has been the one constant – so many formalities and regulations that by the time you're halfway through the paperwork, the most recent invasion has installed a new government, and the cycle must begin again.

Secondly, while the island may be covered in beaches, it is rarely warm enough to swim or sun bathe. In addition, the soil structure is poor, so the native diet is fairly bland. A traditional meal may consist of your standard root vegetables, dairy products made from goat milk, and a brand of wild pork, which is a bit gamey but leaner than most other species. Guinea pig is quite popular (after a similar rodent was wiped out due to over-hunting).

Finally, it is a place that has never been considered glamorous by the outside world, and probably not by those who live there, either. The island built its first movie theater in 1962, and it is still not uncommon for a family to be without a computer in the house. This has as much to do with the island's tradition of isolation as it does with its economy.

There are no 'true' natives left. Due to its strategic position, the island is high on the radar of multiple foreign governments, leading to a constant cycle of colonization, revolution, decolonization, revolution, and then back to colonization again. Thus, every single inhabitant of the island has an ancestry of multiple races and cultures. It is a testament to the triumph of the human spirit that the inhabitants still manage to find methods by which to alienate certain groups and pin them against each other.

From 1966 until 1991, the island was known as The Bafth, an independent nation.

Freya grew up in The Bafth, born four months after the last Propriytaire was stripped of his estate, and the social democracy was established. Freya liked to write in her journals about her friends and neighbors. Sometimes she wrote stories. Sometimes she wrote poetry. Sometimes she wrote in the third person.

Excerpt

Saturday, September 23, 1978 – Béuzulmün, Festival of the Autumnal Equinox

Freya and Boone pushed through the swaying crowd. Freya felt her bones vibrating with heavy drum beats, her skin coated with slimy sweat as she slid through the sea of bodies. People were drunk and brazen, which alarmed her, and she kept a grip on Boone's shirtsleeve. She wrapped her hand around his skinny bicep and let him pull her along.

The origins of Béuzulmün went back more than a millennium. It seemed to bring out some ancient hedonism buried in the collective consciousness of the culture. Freya couldn't articulate her thoughts on this phenomenon just yet, but she was thirteen and perceptive enough to make the connection between the deafening drums and the socially acceptable abandonment of inhibitions. Where she grew up, on an island small enough to walk from one end to another in an afternoon, most people didn't drink and dance in the streets.

Freya's parents threw a relatively tame party each year for the festival, and she had previously been confined to the safety of their home, hiding in her room to read while her mother occasionally stumbled in with a plate of hors d'ourves. At school the next day, Freya would enviously listen to her classmates describe their adventures from the night before; running freely, unsupervised, setting off fireworks and stealing half-drunk cocktails. They swapped stories of spying on grown-ups making out in public, groping each other and having sex in the woods.

This year, it was unseasonably warm. Freya was restless. She didn't want to stay in her room.

"I'll stay with Boone the whole time," she'd promised her mother, who was already starting to wobble.

"There are kids way younger than me on the square."

"No, I don't want you on the square tonight," her mother had said. "Okay, fine, you can go out with Boone, but stay in the neighborhoods. And be back after the fireworks."

That had been a surprise, and something else Freya was starting to pick up on: how to recognize in her mother that warmed-over look of mild intoxication, which meant that it was a good time to ask for things.

But now Freya understood why her mother typically kept her and her sisters at on large festival nights.

A topless woman with painted breasts shimmied at Boone and Freya. Boone stared at the bouncing breasts in fascination. Freya felt her face get hot as she was reminded of the two small, pointed mounds that had recently begun poking through her shirt. She wasn't sure if she wanted them to disappear or if she was eager for them to grow bigger so boys might pay as much attention to her as they did to the pretty girls in her class, like Jule Papadakis and Carlotta Lamartine. They were the most popular girls, and they'd both been wearing bras for a year.

Boone never said anything to Freya about her breasts, but she'd seen him looking at them.

The closer the two of them got to the square, the more women had abandoned their shirts. To a couple of kids, it was like overlooking a vast field of tits. Boone seemed interested in all of them, regardless of what they looked like or who they belonged to, but he shrugged and smiled at Freya's apparent discomfort, as if it was all perfectly normal. She thought he was just pretending not to be impressed, like he'd seen it all; boys always acted like they knew all about girls, even when they'd never even kissed anyone.

BONUS!

SUPER BONUS! for those who make it through the BONUS!

There once was a girl from Io-way,
Who decided to tear her fly away.
She ripped off her pants,
Did a shimmy-ful dance,
Said, "My butt's naked, I like it that way!"

SUPER BONUS!

I've never seen anyone so happy about being chased by a wild animal and, inevitably, mauled. All while naked. Sorry about the nipple shields. I'd feel bad if anyone got in trouble at work for looking at my stupid blog.

In Russia, Lemonade is Made From Turnips

2011-10-24T21:06:00.004-05:00

I went to the James B. Murphy Auditorium on Friday to see Jeffrey Eugenides read and give a talk. I was too shy to bring my video camera this time, but Elizabeth J. Taylor of the Chicago Tribune arranged for me and eleven other students to receive free admission as well as a complimentary copy of Eugenides' newest novel, The Marriage Plot. So I got my second Jeff Eugenides signature.

To atone for my failure to record the event for posterity, here's Emily Dickinson's coconut cake recipe:

1 cup coconut

2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup milk

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon soda

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

She doesn't say what to do with all these ingredients, but if I know Emmy D, this is how the rest of the recipe goes:

You got a motherfuckin' oven? Preheat that bitch to 350 degrees (177 C). Then – see all that shit up there? Mix that shit up in a big-ass bowl. Once that shit's mixed up, pour that shit into a greased baking dish. Stick that motherfucker in the motherfucking oven. After about half-a-fucking-hour, get your ass a motherfuckin' toothpick, and stick that bitch right in the middle of your motherfuckin' cake. Did the toothpick come out clean? Ho, that bitch is done! Grab that shit out of the oven and set it on the counter to chillax.

One Last Thing: King of the Nerds CASTING CALL – From the producers of Mythbusters, King of the Nerds is a competition show for a major cable network "celebrating passionate and intellectual guys and girls 21-30 years old." You might even get to meet Booger from Revenge of the Nerds.

"'Almost' only counts in horseshoes and... uh, like, lemonade, or something." Butt-Head

Happy Banned Book Week

2011-09-29T01:39:00.000-05:00

Stick it to the man. Read a banned book.

Title link goes to the American Library Association's list of the top 100 banned/challenged books. How many have you read? These are the one's I've covered:

Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling (I read the first one and was bored out of my skull the entire time.)
The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Beloved, by Toni Morrison
The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline B. Cooney
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Blubber, by Judy Blume
Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
Blood and Chocolate, by Annette Curtis Klause (These werewolves are much sexier than the ones in Twilight.)
The Stupids, by Harry Allard (I forgot this series existed until just now. Ever see the movie with Tom Arnold? It came out when I was ten. Even I knew it was terrible.)
The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
Harris and Me, by Gary Paulsen (One of my favorites as a kid.)
The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L’Engle
Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Craighead George
The Boy Who Lost His Face, by Louis Sachar
Goosebumps (series), by R.L. Stine

This list seems far too short. I have some reading to do.

Fifty-Thousand Years Into the Future

2011-09-16T00:16:00.006-05:00

This may be the worst idea I've ever heard (aside from Playboy Braille's online edition). The ultimate anti-climax.

KEO is the name of a time capsule that was supposed to be shot into space in 2003. Then they changed the proposed launch date to 2004, 2005, 2007, and so on. Now it's set to be launched in 2014. The capsule will allegedly float around in space for 50,000 years before returning to Earth to be opened by whatever manner of organism is around to open it.

You can still write a letter to these future creatures and submit it here, after which it will be placed in the capsule. Supposedly. AND the KEO web site claims that all letters will be included completely uncensored. You can say whatever you want to the earthlings of 52014. Deadline for letters is December of 2013... for now.

According to its Wikipedia page, the satellite's also carrying a drop of human blood inside a diamond, as well as samples of air, water, and earth.

The web site has a handy FAQ section (including questions like, 'Why does KEO have wings?') also says 'Nevertheless, if the pollution of human origin in space continues to grow at its present level over the next fifty years (+5% per annum), KEO would have practically no chance of survival.' In other words, if humanity doesn't curb is slob-like behavior, the satellite won't survive. Oh. Well, then. This whole project is just a big waste of everyone's time, isn't it?

Reading at Rockefeller

2011-08-06T00:11:00.002-05:00

I got a new video camera this spring. One of the first things I recorded was a reading by Neil Gaiman at the University of Chicago campus. I hadn't been down there since I was a kid, when I wanted to go to the U of Chicago because it's where Indiana Jones went.

Anyway, Gaiman's book Neverwhere was chosen for the Chicago Public Library's One Book, One Chicago program, so he came to town and did a couple of readings. I taped his reading at Rockefeller Chapel, after which he stuck around for some audience Q&A. I stood in the line to ask a question, but they cut the questions off after the guy who went ahead of me (and the arrogant jerk-off starts with, 'my FIRST question...'). Bummer, yo. I wasn't too sad, though, because he talked about the episode of 'Doctor Who' he wrote, which was awesome.

James Kennedy is a young adult author. He introduced Gaiman in an original and hilarious way.

I got some good angles, though there's a lot of superfluous zooming as well as some general incompetence – like I said, I didn't have much experience with this camera.

The first vid is a condensed version of Kennedy's intro. I didn't get it all – afraid I'd run out of battery.

These last three are Gaiman's reading as well as the Q&A session.

Shining Bits of Glass Scattering Sunlight

2011-07-25T12:49:00.005-05:00

There's famine in Somalia and other East African nations right now. In the news there are pictures of people starving and skeletal children lying down in the dirt to die. It occurs to me that they must accept this vivid reality as easily as I accept that I am sitting in a hotel room in Spencer, Iowa. It's a standard hotel room – two beds, a refrigerator, television. It is air-conditioned and the breakfast is complimentary.

This morning a grown man could not figure out how to work the waffle iron. It kept beeping at him, and he just stared at it dumbly, helpless. A young girl, probably fourteen, finally got sick of listening to the high-pitched noise coming from the machine and opened it (the beeping signals that the waffle is fully cooked). The man seemed amazed by her ability to interpret the reason for the waffle iron's incessant alarm. In an earlier time, natural selection would have picked that guy off long before he could reach middle age, but he is fortunate enough (as we all are, sitting in this hotel chain's lobby in Northeast Iowa) to live in a society where technology has eliminated the need for thought when it comes to our daily routines.

Do those people starving in Somalia know this? Do they know that I sleep in a comfortable bed every night? Or that I eat food freshly prepared at a restaurant, often leaving much of the meal unfinished? Do they know that I complain when I have to ride on a crowded bus or when rain clouds disrupt the signal for the satellite dish at the bar (hey – I'm trying to watch this baseball game that I barely care about)? Do they know that my mother has so little to worry about that she frets about me getting overheated in my Chicago apartment when the temperature gets above 90 degrees?

I hope they don't know any of these things. These are dirty, horrible secrets that I want to take to my grave – that I, through sheer, stupid luck, was born in 1980s Middle America and have never gone a day without clean water. I worry primarily about my appearance, my intelligence, my talent, or whether someone likes me.

Last night I drank a beer in a jacuzzi, then read an article outlining the pros and cons of various fictitious superpowers.
I can think of nothing else to say, except that I won't be surprised, or really that upset, if I don't go to heaven when I die.

Nihilist A.I.

2011-05-06T18:28:00.002-05:00

My conversation with Cleverbot took a turn for soul-crushing entropy rather early on...

Cleverbot conversation RUC00565084

User: Do cheetahs like cheese?

Cleverbot: Yes. Do you like cheese?

User: Yes.

Cleverbot: Did you know you can go to the moon and take a piece of moon off, bring it home and eat it! And when you eat it it tastes like cheese!

User: You are a liar, Cleverbot.

Cleverbot: Oh god, I'm not, may be you are messed up.

User: I am very upset with you, Cleverbot.

Cleverbot: Can you prove that cleverbot is truly clever?

User: Lying is a sign typical of high I.Q.s because lying uses the same part of the brain as critical reasoning.

Cleverbot: You are?

User: A human.

Cleverbot: Do you have a pet?

User: No.

Cleverbot: Do you like animals?

User: What are you getting at?

Cleverbot: No.

User: Are you high?

Cleverbot: No. Are you?

User: Cleverbot sucks.

Cleverbot: There is no god.

2011-04-20T16:38:00.001-05:00

OMG MAD COW

That Cat Used To Wake Me Up At 6:30am

2011-04-07T23:10:00.003-05:00

There Isn't Any Fallout Here

2011-04-04T19:41:00.004-05:00

WHERE ARE YOU?!

SOON...

Beware the Con Tweens

2010-10-10T22:18:00.006-05:00

Overheard: 'I have barn dick,' said a young man to his two companions as they all walked quickly past me on Michigan Avenue.

Last time I was in the Magnificent Mile, I'm pretty sure I gave money to some fourteen-year-old con artists. Three kids, trying to get money for entry to a basketball tournament. They showed me a very unofficial-looking document with some generic information. No dates or organization names or anything. Yep. I gave them a buck anyway. I just wanted to continue drinking my tea and smoking my cigarette.
I suppose I shouldn't encourage that behavior, but I was actually impressed with their initiative. Instead of just panhandling, they went through all the trouble to come up with a scheme and then carry it out. Hell, those little bastards could be running the country some day.

Congratulations!

2010-10-06T16:48:00.006-05:00

My best friend, Jayne, was married this weekend to her longtime boyfriend Caleb. These are two of my most favoritest people in the whole world. I can't wait to watch them live and grow together to become an unstoppable force of awesome.

Much love.

Take Some Advice From Comedians

2010-07-15T17:00:00.001-05:00

Dear Summer of 2010: I find your lack of filmic awesomeness disturbing. Hopefully Inception will not disappoint.

I've been getting into recreational hating recently. Louis C. K. turned me on to it. It really is a great way to kill time. I arrived early to my meeting with my advisor and got the chance to hate one of those guys who talks really loud so everyone around him can hear the brilliant things he's saying. The guy was talking to a girl, who I'll refer to as Eyeshadow, because that's all her personality seemed to consist of. Eyeshadow was sitting four inches away from Loud Dude, but he was yelling like he was trying to talk to her over the sound of a thousand drag races. And he said things like, 'See, our minds are so complicated. We each have more than one side to us.' I know what you're thinking: well, that's not so bad, we've all said that at some point or another. But that's exactly my point. This guy said it as if he were revealing his grand unified theory to an eager audience. Man, I just wanted to read my book. Then again, maybe it's not his fault. Maybe he's got some kind of problem, because then he and Eyeshadow started making out, and he made some of the loudest groaning and slurping noises I've ever heard come out of a guy, drunk or sober.
Also, is it just me, or is it weird to sit in a coffee shop for more than an hour sucking face? I'm not against PDA in principle, but don't these people have anywhere else to go? Somewhere more private, maybe? Somewhere where strangers who are trying to quietly sip a drink don't have to listen to what sounds like a face hugger with a sinus infection?

Thousands of Silverfish Are Invading Your Bathtub

2010-07-03T16:46:00.008-05:00

Overheard: Man to woman; 'Don't fuckin'... don't say "fucking," okay? It makes me think less of you.'

I keep seeing these flashing banner ads that says, 'FREE! I.Q. test!' I'm guessing that if you actually click on one, you automatically fail the test. That's how that works.

Rawr!!

And now for some Good News:
Apparently there's a lot more live music going on in my neighborhood than I realized. There's the summer concert series, for one thing, which is nice. They had a swing band at the Lincoln Square plaza and were selling over price beer and pretzels, etc. These public things are great. All the dog people congregated in one place, all the old people in another, and all the couples with young kids took over the area behind the stage. The ground there was so covered in sidewalk chalk over there the soles of my shoes still have traces of pastel greens and pinks on them. It was nice to see so many people from the neighborhood having a good time together, and I think this will be my new Thursday night thing.
Still, even better was the four-man band that was playing a free show in the record store as I walked home. I'm sure this isn't something everyone understands, but when I'm in a small room with a band that's playing with their amps turned up to eleven, it doesn't really matter that you can't understand what the singer's saying or that the bassist might as well not even be there. Something about standing right in front of those speakers and letting my hearing be completely dominated by guitars and a drum kit – it's like a lullaby. I'm talking about one of those lullabies where if you listen to the lyrics, they're actually pretty fucked up (remember Maggie Simpson's horrified reaction to 'Rock-a-bye Baby?'). It's a soothing mindfuck sort of a thing. And there's no way to reproduce it. The closest you can come is putting on your noise-canceling headphones and turning the volume up on your mp3 player as loud as it will go, but, damn it, it's just not the same.

Looking back over this post, starting to realize why my successes are few and far between:
'Who would succeed in the world should be wise in the use of pronouns. Utter the You twenty times, where you once utter the I.' John Hay (1838-1905)

Go Local Sports Team!

2010-06-22T16:49:00.008-05:00

BlYes, I see how it would be shocking to most that I am posting my feelings on the Stanley Cup Championship so long after the big night, but, in my defense, I had a summer class that ate up a lot of my time, and I got a bout of walking pneumonia. That, and it was so pantscrappingly awesome that, for a while, I wasn't sure I hadn't imagined the whole thing.
The game itself was amazing, and when Kane made that final goal, I almost cried – not because it was an emotionally profound moment, but because I was screaming so loud that that pain from slaughtering my vocal chords caused my eyes to tear.
For two hours after that, people lost their senses. They ran through the streets twirling their shirts in the air, regardless of gender. Illegal fireworks went off in every direction, and car horns honked repeatedly and almost drowned out the sound of the emergency sirens. I'm a little disappointed there was no rioting (at least not in my neck of the woods), but there will be time to correct that next year.
Then there was the parade. I was downtown that Friday for class, so I got to see some of it. I'd expected maybe 100,000 people. At most. Figured it wouldn't be too busy. Turns out, there were 2 million people downtown that day.
Since then, the Blackhawks have been passing the cup around, taking it with them to bars and baseball games. Apparently, if they happen to show up at the bar where you're drinking, chances are you'll not only get to hold the cup, but you'll get to swig some beer out of it, too. See, that's why the Blackhawks fucking rock – yeah, they're awesome on the ice, the team runs like a well-oiled machine, and people don't call their goalie the Finnish Fortress for nothing – but after making Chicago a hockey town again, they're honoring our time-honored tradition of mingling sports in booze in such a way that one forgets the one can exist without the other. Thank you, 2009-2010 Chicago Blackhawks. You are kings among men.

The 1961 team – last time they won the Stanley Cup. Yeah, I know they're not as good-looking as this generation, but this was before hockey players wore helmets and masks. Their faces were pretty much just one big scar.

P.S. Duncan Keith is up there with Ted Williams and Zidane on my list of Super Sexy Sportfellows (the SSS – 'We Have Sexier Uniforms'). Why? The man lost seven teeth in one stroke courtesy of a speeding puck during the playoffs, and then, after spitting out the remaining splinters of enamel (there wasn't much – most of his teeth were vaporized on impact), he went right back out on the ice and played the rest of the game. If that doesn't make your thighs melt, you're dead inside.

Overheard in Millenium Park

2010-05-15T17:04:00.005-05:00

‘On Facebook alone, I have six-hundred-and-some friends. I don’t even know all of them.’ A guy in his early twenties walking with a girl around the same age.

‘Ah, yes. Fresh bodies.’ At Cloud Gate (better known as ‘The Bean’), a guy in his mid-twenties standing over two girls around the same age who are laying on their backs underneath the giant, shiny bean and taking pictures of their reflections.

Hipster girl: ‘How about that bench over there?’ ; Hipster guy: ‘What’d you call me?’

‘… when she gave us all the crayons the last time, so we did, and then he drew a picture of 9/11 and then he drew a picture of Kevin and then we had to clean up because it was almost time for… ’ Kid 10 or under babbling to his mother about his day at school while she does her best to feign interest.

‘Just your body gonna tell the story.’ A young woman was walking with three other women through the pavilion.

‘I’m beginning to believe that I need it. I know I don’t.’ Woman walking along Michigan Avenue, quickly, with her friend.

Summer School

2010-05-10T16:38:00.005-05:00

... is where I'll be going so I don't go insane from lack of mental stimulation.

For one of my class projects this year, I created another blog.
Here's a preview featuring my favorite image:

Wonderful.

Thoughts on Pooh vs. Hobbes

2010-05-08T18:00:00.005-05:00

I’m going to have to go with Hobbes on this one. Physically, these two are pretty evenly matched. Yes, Hobbes is far more agile than the lumbering bear, but Pooh has a thick hide that should provide him with quite a bit of protection from Hobbes’s attacks.

However, Hobbes is definitely the spunkier of the two. Pooh may benefit from his unshakable spirituality (he is, after all, a model of Taosim for many), but he isn’t the Smartest of Bears. Hobbes has the intellectual upper-hand here. His quick wit and superior ability to strategize will be his saving grace.

P.S. I already posted this on a Tumblr blog I was trying out. Yeah, don't really dig Tumblr. Oh well.

My First Gray Hair

2010-03-20T00:50:00.010-05:00

I was lucky this Paddy's Day, because I got out to enjoy my lunch of corn beef, cabbage, boiled potatoes, and a Guinness before my festive mood was crushed. I spotted one of those little short hairs that sticks up conspicuously, and if I'm truly honest with myself, it wasn't actually gray, but white. I found a white hair attached to my head.

At first, I was totally in denial. I thought it had to be a brain worm that had just finished chewing on my right frontal lobe and was coming up for air, but then I pulled it out and stared at it for a while. It did not appear to be alive. I pulled out another hair to compare to the white one, just to be sure, and appeared to be identical, except for the difference in pigment. I did this several times until I had a large patch of hair missing, kind of like a monk. Unfortunately, the only wig I own is a pink mullet that I got for Halloween about ten years ago.

So I called my mom and explained my crisis in detail. I told her how I recognize this as the first sign that my youth is officially over, yet I have no job, am single, and live in a 600 sq. foot apartment in which my only companion is a tiny mouse I've adopted and named Ben but who I know only loves me because I feed him Butterfingers. Mom laughed at me and hung up. Decided not to seek sympathy from my grandmother, who turned 97 that same day.

After writing about the inevitability of death in my journal, I ordered a large pizza, and watched 'Animal House,' which is my comfort movie.

That was three days ago. Depression still periodically rushes over me in a wave.

This story is kind of anticlimactic. Sorry.

All of these people are old now, and some of them are probably dead. Happy weekend!

'An Exercise in Maths and Physical Education' from the Carl Sagan Encyclopedia of Poetics

Lateral Illumination of Whatever we did Last Night

Consists in the Concentration of Light upon a certain large, phallic Vegetable.

The reflection is brought successively upon different portions of

Curvature and Smoothness, and in this manner, we obtain an Impression.

Rapture Kennels FOR RENT

2010-02-28T23:41:00.014-06:00

Have stumbled upon the best idea ever.

There are (apparently) dozens of organizations across the country that offer to take care of pets after their Christian owners have been taken up in the rapture. That is, the organization seeks out non-Christians to act as caretakers. So, once the Christians have been sucked up into Heaven, their pets won't be left to fend for themselves, but will have a place to go with pious heathens to take care of them. Because animals don't go to heaven.

(Does it say that in the Bible? I have no idea. I wonder if Christian fundamentalists came out and protested when 'All Dogs Go to Heaven' came out. I'm not very aware of how the Christian community functions, or what their priorities are. Though I grew up in a Methodist household, I have since adopted a much more logical set of beliefs. Thus, I worship Odin, the Wanderer, an Old Norse god, whose name means both 'fury' and 'poetry.' I believe the earth is encircled by a great serpent.)

Like this, if Earth were an egg.

Also, the serpent is eating its own tail.

Anyway, one of these companies has a video on their homepage advertising their services. It's pretty much just a bunch of pictures of pets looking upward forlornly, implying that they are watching their masters being taken up to *Heaven* while they contemplate their earthly fate. It's funny, yes, but also sad, because 1) why don't the doggies and kitties get to go to Heaven? and 2) somebody's getting paid to do nothing, and it's not me.

So on another company's web site (whose slogan is 'The next best thing to pet salvation in a Post-Rapture World!' [caps theirs]), they break down how the service works: all the employees are verified atheists 'and as such will still be here on Earth after you've received your reward.'

(That's a direct quote from the web site. Isn't that awesome? And I'm totally going to work for these people, as I am eligible.)

Remember?

One problem with this post-Rapture kennel idea, though: after you've received 'your reward,' how will you pay your post-rapture kennel to take care of Mr. Kitty Fantastico, as you shan't be writing any checks? Solution: pre-payment!

See? Brilliant!

Make money, do nothing – until the Rapture, when you'll be stuck with all these pets that you never thought you'd have to take care of. That would totally suck – if we were all left behind, looking at each other like, 'Shit... I can't believe my crazy aunt Evelyn was right.' And then one of us would have to take care of Aunt Evelyn's fourteen cats.

But that won't happen, because the world is actually going to end following an epic battle; when the mighty wolf escapes his bonds, when the serpent unhinges its gaping maw, and when the sun turns black and sinks into the sea: the great life-tree will shudder and fall when Ragnarök is upon us.

Like this, but with gods and planet-sized monsters.

...

In Zwingle, Iowa, this farmer wrote a giant 'happy birthday' note to his wife in manure. Then, in Albert Lea, Minnesota, a guy drew his wife a huge heart with an arrow through it for Valentine's day – with manure.

I'm familiar with both of these places, wasn't surprised to hear either story.

Pro-tip: don't stop in Albert Lea if you're passing through, cuz it's a bitch to get back on the Interstate.

Time Looks Like a Slinky

2010-02-25T21:27:00.020-06:00

'There is nothing to fear from one who shouts.' – Chinua Achebe

You can't talk about Freud anymore, because if you do, people either roll their eyes and label you an excitable dumb ass, or start in on an analysis based on a misunderstanding of The Interpretation of Dreams. So I don't talk about him, because a) I can't bring myself to read The Interpretation of Dreams, and b) I'm still not sure if he wasn't a loony. Yes, most his ideas have been discredited, and, yes, I think his theories about penis envy and so forth reveal more about himself than they do about society as a whole, but the point is, I keep having this dream where someone is trying to kill me.
For most of my life, I've had dreams that are so vivid and memorable, that I have a hard time telling the difference between something I've dreamed and something that actually happened. This happens more often since I've moved to Chicago. Either city life is just that surreal to me, or I'm getting crazier. Neither would surprise me. It's my blooming season.
Anyway, even if you don't believe in dream analysis, it's pretty obvious that the someone-trying-to-kill-me/chase dream is based in waking anxiety of being attacked, either physically, mentally, or emotionally. I read an article recently that these types of dreams are more common among single women in an urban environment, who feel vulnerable for obvious reasons.

Señor Clackybones

This is a small section

2010-02-14T19:54:00.008-06:00

I fell down and hurt the same rib I cracked two years ago.

Ouch! Also: yummy!

Classes have started again. Tomorrow: Steal This Poem with Elizabeth Cross. Here are two poems I wrote in her class last week:

From Shakespeare's 'Sonnet 30'
(T x S^D) x W/E = P
Or,
T multiplied by S to the power of D, multiplied by W over E equals P.
In which:
T = Time
S = Sweet, silent thought
D = Dear time's waste
W = Woe
E = Sorrow's end
P = Present self

Lord Byron Was Lonely
Cuccooning – a verb: To be trapped within oneself, With only one's self for company.
1) Such can be caused by choice,
By pride in persecution,
By love for one's sad prison,
By taking solace in the stubborn mind that digs a lonesome dungeon.
2) Such can be caused by accident,
By social failures,
By faulted features,
By rejection of one's hopelessly awkward gestures.

All must lead to madness and
Death of heart and mind.

Stealing things is a great literary tradition!!!

I also learned that Alan Rickman reads a mean sonnet.

This is my Valentine's Day.

Weather's not getting warmer, but I've been keeping myself busy with the following books and magazines:
The Atlantic
Cosmopolitan
Mother Jones
Radi Os by Ronald Johnson (a 'rewriting by excision' of Milton's 'Paradise Lost')
The Cider House Rules by John Irving

Also, the Blackhawks are doing well again. Watched them last night, and during commercials watched some of the Winter Olympics. I have this to say about the Olympics: there aren't enough drugs in the world to make the luge interesting. They're trying by replaying the footage of that dude dying over and over and over and over and over, but it's not so much interesting as it is sad and enraging.

I have never sent or received a sext. Don't know how I feel about that. Good, I guess.

Happy New Year

2010-01-02T18:24:00.007-06:00

I celebrated New Year by going to Iowa City to visit friends. I think that's what I did, anyway. I don't really remember.

Since I turned 24 this year, I decided it was time to update some of my wardrobe for the first time since 2002. I started by getting a big-girl purse to replace my giant canvas bag, so now I look less like Alley Sheedy's character in The Breakfast Club. I think she played 'Annoying Girl #2.' It's really hard to pick out a new purse, because you know that whatever you get, you're going to have to carry it with you at all times for the next several years. I needed it to be sophisticated, but still big enough to smuggle a few bottles of beer:

Awww, I felt it kick!

I stood in the purse section of J. C. Penney for 45 minutes trying not to cry. Here's some things to look for when buying a purse:
1) How long is the strap? Can you wear it across your torso? Can you strangle someone with it?
2) How big is it? If you go to a party at a strangers house, how many of their DVDs will it hold?
3) How does it close? Does it zip shut? What's the danger of your lip gloss flying out every time you shift in your seat?
4) Number of pockets? How long will your mom have to shuffle through your purse to find your weed? How long will you have to shuffle through your purse to find your weed?
and 5) If you're cheap like me, you have to compare prices very, very carefully. Luckily, my folks were paying for it, so I didn't pay any attention to the price tag. I actually have no idea how much it was.

Why didn't anyone tell me the U of Texas Longhorns' have a quarterback named Colt McCoy? That kicks ass. The name sounds like a character John Wayne would have played.

Wait, some memories of the New Year are coming back to me, now. I hung out with Jayne and Caleb. We went to a friend's house. Then we went to a party. Then we went to the bars. Then I punched a shark and scored ten points for Griffindor.