One, congrats to Frank on getting accepted to the PhD. program in Illinois. You rock.
Ugh, that was a bad one.
Two, boo-urns to the Subaru, who required a towing tonight but will be fixed in the morning. This destroyed our evening (though we still managed to watch last night's LOST).
Three, if you're up for some funny reading, check some of the student comments on the sasi blog. Some have some great things to say, others, well... just take special note of the spelling.
Four, I know I haven't written about anything this week; this because it has been largely uneventful. Beck and I have hit the gym twice at 6 in the AM. That's intense.
Five - tomorrow we are headed to my student Danielle's directorial debut. Danielle is the school government president, a great actress, a great student and essentially an amazing human being - funny, sweet, serious and mature when necessary, but more than anything heart on her sleeve sincere about all that she does. She even stops by and chats even though she's not in my class this semester! Anyways, she's been hellaciously stressed out about her show's debut, so wish her luck and send good vibes her way. I'll let you know how it goes down tomorrow...
Six - It was pointed out to me that in my picture it looks like there's some kind of rifle pointing at my head. Not quite - this photo was taken by my friend Ian (pronounced Eye-un) in the basement of an apartment near the Tufts Medford campus; hence the general darkness. The light in the upper right corner is the back corner of a low hanging running lamp that's over a pool table (actually, a Beirut table, but now we're just splitting hairs)(as if you knew what a Beirut table was, anyways). The lamp apparently had some ornate flourishes on its side, which is why that looks like a trigger if you are prone to such morbid thoughts. There you have it - this week's entry for most boring paragraph on the blog.
Rock Laaaaahhhhobster...
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Anthropological Excursions into Highly Cliched Tombs, Or
How My Pink-Shirted Friend Braved a Non-Representative Gathering of the 1996 Clark High Graduating Class
It seems to have been the touching that bothered him most. The touching.
"All these girls, these dolled up, hot-looking, married girls, they all just kept, you know, touching me," brave soul Mike NTPB reported. "Putting a hand on my arm while they introduced me to their husbands, holding my hand for minutes at a time while telling me their let's-catch-up stories. I just didn't get it - I mean, who touches people? For the first hour I was there I thought all the women, husbands in tow, were flirting with me."
Many years of living on the hardened East Coast, with its cold-bundled quick-walks and downward-turned lines of sight, have caused Mike to forget the customary pleasantries of the gentile Southern Belle. In as much as people from Texas can be called Southern, and that these particular women could be called belles. Just kidding ladies! The fact that Mike mistook this for flirting is unsurprising: this is, after all, the Casanova who once was suspended from school for "passionately kissing a female student (this was no peck on the cheek)," the man who brought Clark itself to a grinding halt with his rose-giving antics, and the man for whom the normally difficult crossing of social lines, from manly football player to heart-bearing drama kid, was a mere flick of a switch: his romance runneth over. I am quickly realizing the perhaps unfair expectations I may be creating for one let's call her Karen H (no wait, too obvious, etc.) given the impending loom (doom?) of Feb. 14, aka Black Wednesday. So forget all that romance stuff; the closest Mike has come to being a loverboy is humming "Everybody's Working For the Weekend." Expect nothing; be surprised by the something you get. (Did I make the save, Mike?)
So the female touching was just a Southern custom of familiarity and kindness, not the wink-wink nudge-nudge wanka wanka hey-how-you-doin' that Mike initially thought. Not that Mike would have acted anyways, especially given the aforementioned notable Vacekian absence. I kid, Karen, I kid. Mike did manage to snap these shots of some of the party attendees, so red-blooded males let the drooling begin (and womenfolk of the average orientation, you get to check out the married Lunke and the unmarried chunky, David G). Here goes:
That's Kim on the left, the promised "9 Then, 11 Now," meaning that in a strange twist, we wish that we "Knew" then what Is now. Or something. I don't even really know Kim, so I probably shouldn't be making such crass comments, but so it goes. And that's Heather in the red; she was my TopCat wonsuponatime which meant that she made spirit posters for me before games (those raunchy Friday Night Lights-style "spirit favors" were not present in my little corner of the world back then, but given my status of popularity / enlightenment, other football studs may have been receivers; I can't pretend to know such things). Heather was always quiet but very cool and sweet; she's actually someone I remember from back in the day quite fondly. Your awwwws and smirks are simultaneously noted. According to Mike, she owned the room and beamed with confidence, which does give a little glow in my memory banks - I'm honestly glad that Heather seems happy. Next is Rachel, about whom I remember Jack Squat, and next to her is Devin, who was a friend of Mike's whom I didn't know well. She is perhaps most famous for one of the most sequined, body-hugging / revealing prom-dresses I ever had the pleasure of encountering then or since; its color was called, quite presciently, "Viagra Blue."
Well, that's clearly Mike NPTB on the right there, and that's the illustrious Kim Lytle in the middle, a cool gal cheerleader from the day who made pouty lips pretty in the pre-Jolie era. And next to her is... Mike's going to laugh his arse off at me, but I swear her name is Angela or something but then I'm thinking that I cannot remember for the life of me what Stacey Rudd looks like, so it may be she. Sorry, your host has failed you, but I trust Mike to come to the rescue on this one. Another reason I didn't attend: my inability to remember names would have led to a lot of searching-for-nametag bustline staring, and regardless of how the hand-holding cultural practice is accepted, that one, I fear, would not be taken well. What you don't see in these pictures is the menacing cowboy husbands standing guard.
That's Miguel and dance-studio owner Lindsey White; she too was an exceptionally sweet gal and a drama kid taboot. She married the brother of a country star. 'Sall I got.
That's Mike with Amber; she's now shorter haired and more brunette than back in the day. She was over the top cool; we had 10th grade science together and we used to hang out and play with her kitten Ashby. These are the types of details you don't get at CNN. Amber now does something that I don't remember but also has skydived over a hundred times. This is very, very not surprising if you know her.
And finally, the men of note:
That's Mike with husband / caddy of a PGA champion golfer Tyler Lunke. Tyler is a way back childhood friend; we played baseball, basketball and tennis and such together before his life took a turn to Clark's seedy underbelly in 1992 and he joined the golf team. Tyler was a great guy; another miscellaneous fact is that he was the first among us to learn the road geography of San Antonio. He was thinking in terms of loop 410 when I was still on my driveway shooting baskets. He's now working for a golf company in some capacity.
That's David Gutzman, filling out the old reunion adage of "everyone either looks more or less the same or looks like they consumed a small village." Dave played basketball with us way back when, but after freshman year, I think, also went to the dark world of golf, but now enjoys his favorite sport, beer. David in my brain, however, is mainly notable because one of my best friends in high school, Marisa, had a crush on him the size of a, well, a small village, and David did not pick up on this until way too late. She moved during our sophomore year and maybe spent the last couple weeks of that cavorting with Mr. Gut. The Zman has no clue what he missed; she was a fantastic gal.
(Oddly enough, despite the fact that I know that she works as a TV producer out in CA, I cannot find a picture to share. But she produces a show that features Jerry Rice as a co-host and she was recently nominated for an emmy. Sweet! Double oddly enough is that if you google "marisa silvas," one of the few hits you get is my own blog on the old site. Wack).
So those are the visual elements of Mike's dig. What else did we learn? The average rich white male suburbanite from Clark continues to be rich white and male, meaning that the Wheel in the Sky rule is still in effect, and all the womenfolk were married with children. That's probably another Southern / East Coast difference. Old bandmate (band as in HS band, not as in my famous Rice band CSDH) Alice Kelly was in attendance and specifically asked Mike about me and to say hi; Mike thinks he smelled a smoldering HS crush which as I told him "makes me like Elvis on a much, much smaller scale." What can I say, ladies love cool jones. Jim Gray remains a gregarious nice guy, though he apparently answered Mike's question of "are you happy?" with a sarcastic, "oh yeah, living the dream." Cliff Kuang wrote for the Economist for a while and still acts weirdly - he apparently dodged having his picture taken all evening for some reason. I'm thinking something in the vampire-mirror continuum. Cam Banks confirmed a rumor; Brandon Goertz denied one; both of the rumors are PG-13 so i won't ruin their respective political careers here, but Cam's answer was an emphatic "Hell yes" and Brandon's was a "No, but that does sound like something I would have done." Please note that the literary technique I am practicing here is called "alienating the reader."
Zane Hamilton is married and doing well in some computing job. Okay, now I'm boring even myself! And I knew these people!
So I have a theory on these types of reunion things, and it's largely that had I wanted to stay in touch with these people or had they wanted to stay in touch with me, one of us would have made a bigger effort. There's too much to think about without worrying about whether the "Beautiful People" of Clark's Yesteryear remain "Beautiful People." I know that Mike NTPB doesn't share this opinion - of course not, he went to the reunion. And though his efforts at touring Ex-girlfriend lane were at least partially thwarted, I'm sure he had a good time. But if we are going to be this dynamic duo, I am leaving all shmoozing duties to Mike, because I frankly don't have the stomach for it. So we applaud you, NTPB: you represented the football team, the drama department, and the general Clark intellectual elite brilliantly. So here's a toast to you, and a hearty potential terrorist bomb that turns out to be a light brite (emphasis on the extended pixelated middle finger) to anyone who dared utter the phrase last weekend, "You're a teacher? But you were so smart in high school..."
Mike and Nyet: souls still intact.
Addendum: So here's some news I in my pop culture ignorance recently became aware of:
Whose gorgeous headshot is that, you ask? That's Jessica Holcomb, small scene (and utterly pointless bimbo-role filler) star of Miss Congeniality and starred-as-herself cast member of The Bachelor (2002). And, to round out the resume, she also played an uncredited role as a cheerleader in Varsity Blues and has a law degree from UT.
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA???
Before we even get to that, Miss Holcomb's importance to the story of Nyet cannot be underestimated. She transferred from a small town called Pearsal to our middle school in 8th grade; I, with newfound confidence gained in the school of hard knocks aka the Duke Talent Identification Problem, was under the mistaken but esteem-boosting impression that smart guys could be sexy. Plus I had this weird notion in my head that starting for all the sports teams, playing in the band and jazz band, acing my honors courses, etc., would somehow label me as a catch. So when the breathtaking skinny blond from small town Texas showed up in the band hall that August morning, I pounced (read: I actually talked to her, which if you know anything about my current talking-to-stranger habits and my then Cool-Hand-Luke steadiness around pretty girls, was a feat of no-small order). I should have known better; I had after all had the initial lesson of fickle woman drummed into my thick skull at Duke that summer (thanks a lot, Angela Carpenter, and yes I do remember your name though you don't mine). But I was smitten, over the top, bad. But the unusual thing about this, by middle school standards, was that I was not smitten from afar; Jess and I became great friends and confidants and all that stuff, and there was over the top kinds of chemistry there. I may have been a middle school boy caught in a hurricane of hormones, but even I didn't need a weatherman: we dug each other, big time spark-wise. So after a couple of months of brushing hands and long afterschool talks, I finally gathered the courage to ask her to "go with me."
She said she would get back to me.
While this is a moderately better response than "go where?," it's not by much, and indeed, I should have known better (with a girl like you). Something bad was about to happen; in the rewound movie version where I don't have to cringe through the scene in exacto repeat, I pull some kind of evil, revenge, teenage girl crushing act like saying "just kidding; you thought I was serious? Damn." So something bad does happen; despite our obvious personal connection, Jessica consorts with her circle of female friends, who by this point in the year are not the band peeps she initially hung out with but *those girls.* The same ones who later became cheerleaders in HS; the same ones, you might guess, who tend to do things like show up to high school reunions.
(It should be noted that there is a Freaks and Geeks episode that mirrors this eerily - new, pretty and awesome girl comes to school, falls in with the geek crowd, and they get about a week to hang out with her before she is subsumed into her proper place among the Beautiful People. It's the apex of endearingly awkward television; check it out).
So the popular club holds some tribal council and by their evil druid ways decides that I am not cool enough to be gone with. But this decision is not passed to the masses quickly; Jessica instead avoids me entirely for the next two days, making the decision seem up in the air (when we all knew better). Meanwhile the whole school knows, thanks to the poppers that be, that my heart is sitting out on a plate just waiting to be eaten; even Mr. Montogmery, my history teacher who looked like Randy Johnson, found it necessary to ridicule my foreboding plight in front of the class. Damn, teach, that's cold!
The next day i find this note in my locker, written in red and delivering the inevitable no. It doesn't mention the supreme court decision that caused Jess to arrive at this answer, it just includes this weird story about how at her last school she dated the quarterback and she was the head cheerleader and it was just so perfect and we would just never have that. Yes, the (melo)drama career really took everyone by surprise. Thankfully, though I don't know if he even remembers this, Mike edits the note in black, correcting not only the grammar and punctuation, but emphatically pointing out which parts are the most dumbassed. My friend Chris even wrote a revenge style punk-blues song called "Honeycomb" that we played together; I still know it on my guitar today. So the pickmeup from the dudes (trustable) saved me from the womanly evil wiles (genetic), and despite the devastating levels of heartbreak that one endures when someone who you feel honestly close to sends you to a subcommittee , I managed to survive to other days to develop other, less tragic Pollockian crushes. And if I remember correctly, Jessica and i eventually got to the previous pattern of friendship later that year - never the same, of course - but I remember helping her deal with a Brad Sekula crush and I may have even gotten a "just friends" slow dance out of the whole shebang (though that dance was not to Stairway to Heaven). But the seed was sown; I guess this part of the story illustrates a little bit of the source of my distrust of the in-crowd.
Flash forward three years to junior English, when Jess and I get assigned to the same Moby Dick project group. We hadn't talked much through high school, but I think I can safely sum up her angle as "playing up the ditz factor" (Mike, please verify). And she continued to be a big moron during our whole group's work together; her contribution to the project involved reading off some quotes on MD she had dug up as fast as possible without putting any thought into them whatsoever. So I'm not exactly crying over our lost time together, but then there are moments in the group time where she drops the act and just is, and she's a really beautiful person, aside from the physical, and it's really amazing to see someone for real like that, especially again, and especially after our non-contact over several years. There was nothing romantic about it - I had well learned the lesson by that point, plus I was chasing a senior girl at the time and, you know, eyes on the prize. But there were the moments, and despite all the typical BS of high school, even the unattainable show their soft bellies (note - this was 1995, and not the navel-laden fashion mire of these times; the belly was metaphorical).
So after all of that background, now the punch - she graduated from UT Law? And she's acting, and pulling in some otherworldly salary I'm sure. And all in all pretty set. So on the one hand, I'm jealous plus, I'm driven dagger-wielding insane just upset that someone can behave like that for so much of their existence and the universe does nothing in terms of lightning bolt retribution. And it's a wish-pain-on-your-enemies anger, and it's embarrassing but horribly real. But then I know she obviously worked hard, at least at the law, and deserves it. And then there are the calming moments of just how great she could be, and maybe she snapped to at some point in college and this is all just. So on some level it's all okay, and plus, it's not like I have to see her on a daily basis. On top of all of this, though, is the weirdness of googling your middle school crush and reading blogs of how hot that Jessica Holcomb girl is on the Bachelor. Woah - celebrities aren't supposed to be real.
And neither are high school people. At least the ones I've left behind, or at least especially the ones who weren't all that real to me when we actually were in high school. Maybe that makes me a jerk; could be, I hear ya. But I wasn't one of the beautiful people so I can't really answer the question how it felt, and the answer to what they're up to now is boring anecdotal gossipy crap. I'll always be genuinely happy that people I've known are doing well, and I wouldn't really actively root for their pain - even the heart-crushing Jessicas seem to win me over in the end. SO yeah, I'll never lose affection for the people and things that went before, but I'm not about to travel back to see the ones I haven't even bothered keeping up with over the years to hear their where they're now stories, stories, just stories.
It seems to have been the touching that bothered him most. The touching.
"All these girls, these dolled up, hot-looking, married girls, they all just kept, you know, touching me," brave soul Mike NTPB reported. "Putting a hand on my arm while they introduced me to their husbands, holding my hand for minutes at a time while telling me their let's-catch-up stories. I just didn't get it - I mean, who touches people? For the first hour I was there I thought all the women, husbands in tow, were flirting with me."
Many years of living on the hardened East Coast, with its cold-bundled quick-walks and downward-turned lines of sight, have caused Mike to forget the customary pleasantries of the gentile Southern Belle. In as much as people from Texas can be called Southern, and that these particular women could be called belles. Just kidding ladies! The fact that Mike mistook this for flirting is unsurprising: this is, after all, the Casanova who once was suspended from school for "passionately kissing a female student (this was no peck on the cheek)," the man who brought Clark itself to a grinding halt with his rose-giving antics, and the man for whom the normally difficult crossing of social lines, from manly football player to heart-bearing drama kid, was a mere flick of a switch: his romance runneth over. I am quickly realizing the perhaps unfair expectations I may be creating for one let's call her Karen H (no wait, too obvious, etc.) given the impending loom (doom?) of Feb. 14, aka Black Wednesday. So forget all that romance stuff; the closest Mike has come to being a loverboy is humming "Everybody's Working For the Weekend." Expect nothing; be surprised by the something you get. (Did I make the save, Mike?)
So the female touching was just a Southern custom of familiarity and kindness, not the wink-wink nudge-nudge wanka wanka hey-how-you-doin' that Mike initially thought. Not that Mike would have acted anyways, especially given the aforementioned notable Vacekian absence. I kid, Karen, I kid. Mike did manage to snap these shots of some of the party attendees, so red-blooded males let the drooling begin (and womenfolk of the average orientation, you get to check out the married Lunke and the unmarried chunky, David G). Here goes:
That's Kim on the left, the promised "9 Then, 11 Now," meaning that in a strange twist, we wish that we "Knew" then what Is now. Or something. I don't even really know Kim, so I probably shouldn't be making such crass comments, but so it goes. And that's Heather in the red; she was my TopCat wonsuponatime which meant that she made spirit posters for me before games (those raunchy Friday Night Lights-style "spirit favors" were not present in my little corner of the world back then, but given my status of popularity / enlightenment, other football studs may have been receivers; I can't pretend to know such things). Heather was always quiet but very cool and sweet; she's actually someone I remember from back in the day quite fondly. Your awwwws and smirks are simultaneously noted. According to Mike, she owned the room and beamed with confidence, which does give a little glow in my memory banks - I'm honestly glad that Heather seems happy. Next is Rachel, about whom I remember Jack Squat, and next to her is Devin, who was a friend of Mike's whom I didn't know well. She is perhaps most famous for one of the most sequined, body-hugging / revealing prom-dresses I ever had the pleasure of encountering then or since; its color was called, quite presciently, "Viagra Blue."
Well, that's clearly Mike NPTB on the right there, and that's the illustrious Kim Lytle in the middle, a cool gal cheerleader from the day who made pouty lips pretty in the pre-Jolie era. And next to her is... Mike's going to laugh his arse off at me, but I swear her name is Angela or something but then I'm thinking that I cannot remember for the life of me what Stacey Rudd looks like, so it may be she. Sorry, your host has failed you, but I trust Mike to come to the rescue on this one. Another reason I didn't attend: my inability to remember names would have led to a lot of searching-for-nametag bustline staring, and regardless of how the hand-holding cultural practice is accepted, that one, I fear, would not be taken well. What you don't see in these pictures is the menacing cowboy husbands standing guard.
That's Miguel and dance-studio owner Lindsey White; she too was an exceptionally sweet gal and a drama kid taboot. She married the brother of a country star. 'Sall I got.
That's Mike with Amber; she's now shorter haired and more brunette than back in the day. She was over the top cool; we had 10th grade science together and we used to hang out and play with her kitten Ashby. These are the types of details you don't get at CNN. Amber now does something that I don't remember but also has skydived over a hundred times. This is very, very not surprising if you know her.
And finally, the men of note:
That's Mike with husband / caddy of a PGA champion golfer Tyler Lunke. Tyler is a way back childhood friend; we played baseball, basketball and tennis and such together before his life took a turn to Clark's seedy underbelly in 1992 and he joined the golf team. Tyler was a great guy; another miscellaneous fact is that he was the first among us to learn the road geography of San Antonio. He was thinking in terms of loop 410 when I was still on my driveway shooting baskets. He's now working for a golf company in some capacity.
That's David Gutzman, filling out the old reunion adage of "everyone either looks more or less the same or looks like they consumed a small village." Dave played basketball with us way back when, but after freshman year, I think, also went to the dark world of golf, but now enjoys his favorite sport, beer. David in my brain, however, is mainly notable because one of my best friends in high school, Marisa, had a crush on him the size of a, well, a small village, and David did not pick up on this until way too late. She moved during our sophomore year and maybe spent the last couple weeks of that cavorting with Mr. Gut. The Zman has no clue what he missed; she was a fantastic gal.
(Oddly enough, despite the fact that I know that she works as a TV producer out in CA, I cannot find a picture to share. But she produces a show that features Jerry Rice as a co-host and she was recently nominated for an emmy. Sweet! Double oddly enough is that if you google "marisa silvas," one of the few hits you get is my own blog on the old site. Wack).
So those are the visual elements of Mike's dig. What else did we learn? The average rich white male suburbanite from Clark continues to be rich white and male, meaning that the Wheel in the Sky rule is still in effect, and all the womenfolk were married with children. That's probably another Southern / East Coast difference. Old bandmate (band as in HS band, not as in my famous Rice band CSDH) Alice Kelly was in attendance and specifically asked Mike about me and to say hi; Mike thinks he smelled a smoldering HS crush which as I told him "makes me like Elvis on a much, much smaller scale." What can I say, ladies love cool jones. Jim Gray remains a gregarious nice guy, though he apparently answered Mike's question of "are you happy?" with a sarcastic, "oh yeah, living the dream." Cliff Kuang wrote for the Economist for a while and still acts weirdly - he apparently dodged having his picture taken all evening for some reason. I'm thinking something in the vampire-mirror continuum. Cam Banks confirmed a rumor; Brandon Goertz denied one; both of the rumors are PG-13 so i won't ruin their respective political careers here, but Cam's answer was an emphatic "Hell yes" and Brandon's was a "No, but that does sound like something I would have done." Please note that the literary technique I am practicing here is called "alienating the reader."
Zane Hamilton is married and doing well in some computing job. Okay, now I'm boring even myself! And I knew these people!
So I have a theory on these types of reunion things, and it's largely that had I wanted to stay in touch with these people or had they wanted to stay in touch with me, one of us would have made a bigger effort. There's too much to think about without worrying about whether the "Beautiful People" of Clark's Yesteryear remain "Beautiful People." I know that Mike NTPB doesn't share this opinion - of course not, he went to the reunion. And though his efforts at touring Ex-girlfriend lane were at least partially thwarted, I'm sure he had a good time. But if we are going to be this dynamic duo, I am leaving all shmoozing duties to Mike, because I frankly don't have the stomach for it. So we applaud you, NTPB: you represented the football team, the drama department, and the general Clark intellectual elite brilliantly. So here's a toast to you, and a hearty potential terrorist bomb that turns out to be a light brite (emphasis on the extended pixelated middle finger) to anyone who dared utter the phrase last weekend, "You're a teacher? But you were so smart in high school..."
Mike and Nyet: souls still intact.
Addendum: So here's some news I in my pop culture ignorance recently became aware of:
Whose gorgeous headshot is that, you ask? That's Jessica Holcomb, small scene (and utterly pointless bimbo-role filler) star of Miss Congeniality and starred-as-herself cast member of The Bachelor (2002). And, to round out the resume, she also played an uncredited role as a cheerleader in Varsity Blues and has a law degree from UT.
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA???
Before we even get to that, Miss Holcomb's importance to the story of Nyet cannot be underestimated. She transferred from a small town called Pearsal to our middle school in 8th grade; I, with newfound confidence gained in the school of hard knocks aka the Duke Talent Identification Problem, was under the mistaken but esteem-boosting impression that smart guys could be sexy. Plus I had this weird notion in my head that starting for all the sports teams, playing in the band and jazz band, acing my honors courses, etc., would somehow label me as a catch. So when the breathtaking skinny blond from small town Texas showed up in the band hall that August morning, I pounced (read: I actually talked to her, which if you know anything about my current talking-to-stranger habits and my then Cool-Hand-Luke steadiness around pretty girls, was a feat of no-small order). I should have known better; I had after all had the initial lesson of fickle woman drummed into my thick skull at Duke that summer (thanks a lot, Angela Carpenter, and yes I do remember your name though you don't mine). But I was smitten, over the top, bad. But the unusual thing about this, by middle school standards, was that I was not smitten from afar; Jess and I became great friends and confidants and all that stuff, and there was over the top kinds of chemistry there. I may have been a middle school boy caught in a hurricane of hormones, but even I didn't need a weatherman: we dug each other, big time spark-wise. So after a couple of months of brushing hands and long afterschool talks, I finally gathered the courage to ask her to "go with me."
She said she would get back to me.
While this is a moderately better response than "go where?," it's not by much, and indeed, I should have known better (with a girl like you). Something bad was about to happen; in the rewound movie version where I don't have to cringe through the scene in exacto repeat, I pull some kind of evil, revenge, teenage girl crushing act like saying "just kidding; you thought I was serious? Damn." So something bad does happen; despite our obvious personal connection, Jessica consorts with her circle of female friends, who by this point in the year are not the band peeps she initially hung out with but *those girls.* The same ones who later became cheerleaders in HS; the same ones, you might guess, who tend to do things like show up to high school reunions.
(It should be noted that there is a Freaks and Geeks episode that mirrors this eerily - new, pretty and awesome girl comes to school, falls in with the geek crowd, and they get about a week to hang out with her before she is subsumed into her proper place among the Beautiful People. It's the apex of endearingly awkward television; check it out).
So the popular club holds some tribal council and by their evil druid ways decides that I am not cool enough to be gone with. But this decision is not passed to the masses quickly; Jessica instead avoids me entirely for the next two days, making the decision seem up in the air (when we all knew better). Meanwhile the whole school knows, thanks to the poppers that be, that my heart is sitting out on a plate just waiting to be eaten; even Mr. Montogmery, my history teacher who looked like Randy Johnson, found it necessary to ridicule my foreboding plight in front of the class. Damn, teach, that's cold!
The next day i find this note in my locker, written in red and delivering the inevitable no. It doesn't mention the supreme court decision that caused Jess to arrive at this answer, it just includes this weird story about how at her last school she dated the quarterback and she was the head cheerleader and it was just so perfect and we would just never have that. Yes, the (melo)drama career really took everyone by surprise. Thankfully, though I don't know if he even remembers this, Mike edits the note in black, correcting not only the grammar and punctuation, but emphatically pointing out which parts are the most dumbassed. My friend Chris even wrote a revenge style punk-blues song called "Honeycomb" that we played together; I still know it on my guitar today. So the pickmeup from the dudes (trustable) saved me from the womanly evil wiles (genetic), and despite the devastating levels of heartbreak that one endures when someone who you feel honestly close to sends you to a subcommittee , I managed to survive to other days to develop other, less tragic Pollockian crushes. And if I remember correctly, Jessica and i eventually got to the previous pattern of friendship later that year - never the same, of course - but I remember helping her deal with a Brad Sekula crush and I may have even gotten a "just friends" slow dance out of the whole shebang (though that dance was not to Stairway to Heaven). But the seed was sown; I guess this part of the story illustrates a little bit of the source of my distrust of the in-crowd.
Flash forward three years to junior English, when Jess and I get assigned to the same Moby Dick project group. We hadn't talked much through high school, but I think I can safely sum up her angle as "playing up the ditz factor" (Mike, please verify). And she continued to be a big moron during our whole group's work together; her contribution to the project involved reading off some quotes on MD she had dug up as fast as possible without putting any thought into them whatsoever. So I'm not exactly crying over our lost time together, but then there are moments in the group time where she drops the act and just is, and she's a really beautiful person, aside from the physical, and it's really amazing to see someone for real like that, especially again, and especially after our non-contact over several years. There was nothing romantic about it - I had well learned the lesson by that point, plus I was chasing a senior girl at the time and, you know, eyes on the prize. But there were the moments, and despite all the typical BS of high school, even the unattainable show their soft bellies (note - this was 1995, and not the navel-laden fashion mire of these times; the belly was metaphorical).
So after all of that background, now the punch - she graduated from UT Law? And she's acting, and pulling in some otherworldly salary I'm sure. And all in all pretty set. So on the one hand, I'm jealous plus, I'm driven dagger-wielding insane just upset that someone can behave like that for so much of their existence and the universe does nothing in terms of lightning bolt retribution. And it's a wish-pain-on-your-enemies anger, and it's embarrassing but horribly real. But then I know she obviously worked hard, at least at the law, and deserves it. And then there are the calming moments of just how great she could be, and maybe she snapped to at some point in college and this is all just. So on some level it's all okay, and plus, it's not like I have to see her on a daily basis. On top of all of this, though, is the weirdness of googling your middle school crush and reading blogs of how hot that Jessica Holcomb girl is on the Bachelor. Woah - celebrities aren't supposed to be real.
And neither are high school people. At least the ones I've left behind, or at least especially the ones who weren't all that real to me when we actually were in high school. Maybe that makes me a jerk; could be, I hear ya. But I wasn't one of the beautiful people so I can't really answer the question how it felt, and the answer to what they're up to now is boring anecdotal gossipy crap. I'll always be genuinely happy that people I've known are doing well, and I wouldn't really actively root for their pain - even the heart-crushing Jessicas seem to win me over in the end. SO yeah, I'll never lose affection for the people and things that went before, but I'm not about to travel back to see the ones I haven't even bothered keeping up with over the years to hear their where they're now stories, stories, just stories.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Just Another...
Cool Monday. IF and I hit the gym at 6:30 in the AM and got a pre-day workout it, which was very cool; I ran, she ellipticaled. I made the brilliant decision of wearing my shorts to the gym - it was 8 degrees with a windchill of 0 K when we left the house this morning, so the post-run sweaty Nyet / frigid air combination was less than awesome. As Ringo might say, "I've got blisters on my nipples."
I headed down to the 'Nut for a day that should have been 50 minutes long a grew into a beast with meetings and the like. They were hella productive, but still, 'twas lame. My class itself involved me chewing them out for not doing the blog assignment, and then leading a pretty decent discussion on reliable and unreliable sources. Fun times in there, and I have them reading a DFW essay this week - given the high ESL content of my class, that may have been a bone-jarring mistake. But we'll see.
I eventually left the campus, heading back into the snot-freezing New England winter. I had some time to kill, so I headed to the Framingham Library to pick up some music and a bunch of books - I'm dumb, I know - but I will now force myself to read said books int he next couple of weeks. It's a sports departure, just to give you a preview.
Oh, and what music did I pick up? A couple of Prince albums. Why? Because of this, that's why:
Best Halftime Show in a loooooong time. Prince, you rock my face. Seriously, this was spectacle of the highest order but totally appropriate, and no malfunctions either, unless you consider the blatant use of guitars as phallic symbols to be malfunctory. More on the SB itself in a bit.
So one of the books I got is Baseball Between the Numbers, one I've been meaning to grab for a while now. And funny enough, the library had it listed under one "James Click" as a primary author. no... it couldn't be, could it?
Actually, I knew very well that it could, given Mr. Click's sports-numbers obsessions reported in years past by one Mike NTPB. So I called up the Mike to confirm, and indeed, this was true. Awesome! This is the most humble shout out to James, who was a great friend of Mike's at Yale - living the dream man, and that is fantastic. I look forward to reading your articles, and will rip you to shreds if necessary on this here blog which, given its readership of probably no more than 20, will cause you to lose something approximating no sleep. Seriously, homes, congrats. That is good stuff.
The call to Mike was awesome, too, because it allowed us to catch up on james's hijinks, his recent trip to SA for our CHS '96 reunion, as well as give each other notes both on our greatest art debate and our classes. SWEET! This is awesome, and if I were slicker, I could probably write this into a resume as some kind of interscholastic collaborative course design program. (Note to self: do that). Regardless, the convo was awesome - I've always felt like Mike and I bring a lot to the proverbial table and balance each other really well in terms of optimism / pessimism, real politics / theoretical background mumbo jumbo (I'm the latter on both counts, as if you didn't know), but it more or less always brings my geist back into alignment to have a good chat with him. And a good chat we did have; T-mobile be damned, we talked quite a bit. And yes, IFfy, I will cover that part of the bill.
More notes - Mike gave a hilarious account of the ill-attended HS reunion, which I will post as promised, but only AFTER he provides me with photographic evidence. the reason for this largely has to do with a string of quotes like "She was a 9 in high school, but she's an 11 now." That meat-market and clearly irony-laden comment is clearly not to be taken seriously. (But, red-blooded male readers, that previous sentence was to avert all XXs' attentive eyes, the blog equivalent of a shouted "Look! Over there! McDreamy!"; fear not, NTPB and I do not throw around the term "11" lightly, and so you should be now duly enticed. We're talking football post-game party Vacekian levels of excitement, so don't miss it).
(Previous joke will only be gotten by NTPB, but it is so, so worth it. Ah, Miguel, I cry for you, too; the lesson is, gather ye rosebuds, or Carpe Jamie, whichever version you prefer).
The oddest thing of all of this is that on the Monday after the SB, Mike and I talked that long and did not once mention the Super Bowl. WOAH! Clearly our intellectual stature has grown (or our athletic one has shrunk, it having been recently been exposed to the cold ocean). So that was nuts. As for my take - who cares! It was a tremendously exciting first quarter followed by something of an extended yawn; I think the Colts RB's deserved the MVP way more than Peyton pretty boy (if for no other reason to discourage further endorsement deals - it's not a good Porn unless it's a Peyton Porn, etc.), and as I've been saying all season, Rex Grossman is TERRIBLE, and not to get all emotion-aspect on you, but it just looks like he couldn't care less about the whole spectacle. Which you can't really blame him for, given this year's commercial output. I will, though, give props to
The Blockbuster Mouse
Garmin Navigation Maposaurus
Budweiser Dog With Spots
Emerald Nuts
And maybe the Jay-Z commercial
(And of course, the GoDaddy commercials, you crazy 11-obsessed males, you). Not really.
That's about it; it's dinner time here. I'll leave you with one of my favorite Onion articles and the brief instruction to read the comments of past entries for lots of insight from the readership, especially Karen, who continues to kick all of your collective asses.
I leave you with... Laser Cats 2:
I headed down to the 'Nut for a day that should have been 50 minutes long a grew into a beast with meetings and the like. They were hella productive, but still, 'twas lame. My class itself involved me chewing them out for not doing the blog assignment, and then leading a pretty decent discussion on reliable and unreliable sources. Fun times in there, and I have them reading a DFW essay this week - given the high ESL content of my class, that may have been a bone-jarring mistake. But we'll see.
I eventually left the campus, heading back into the snot-freezing New England winter. I had some time to kill, so I headed to the Framingham Library to pick up some music and a bunch of books - I'm dumb, I know - but I will now force myself to read said books int he next couple of weeks. It's a sports departure, just to give you a preview.
Oh, and what music did I pick up? A couple of Prince albums. Why? Because of this, that's why:
Best Halftime Show in a loooooong time. Prince, you rock my face. Seriously, this was spectacle of the highest order but totally appropriate, and no malfunctions either, unless you consider the blatant use of guitars as phallic symbols to be malfunctory. More on the SB itself in a bit.
So one of the books I got is Baseball Between the Numbers, one I've been meaning to grab for a while now. And funny enough, the library had it listed under one "James Click" as a primary author. no... it couldn't be, could it?
Actually, I knew very well that it could, given Mr. Click's sports-numbers obsessions reported in years past by one Mike NTPB. So I called up the Mike to confirm, and indeed, this was true. Awesome! This is the most humble shout out to James, who was a great friend of Mike's at Yale - living the dream man, and that is fantastic. I look forward to reading your articles, and will rip you to shreds if necessary on this here blog which, given its readership of probably no more than 20, will cause you to lose something approximating no sleep. Seriously, homes, congrats. That is good stuff.
The call to Mike was awesome, too, because it allowed us to catch up on james's hijinks, his recent trip to SA for our CHS '96 reunion, as well as give each other notes both on our greatest art debate and our classes. SWEET! This is awesome, and if I were slicker, I could probably write this into a resume as some kind of interscholastic collaborative course design program. (Note to self: do that). Regardless, the convo was awesome - I've always felt like Mike and I bring a lot to the proverbial table and balance each other really well in terms of optimism / pessimism, real politics / theoretical background mumbo jumbo (I'm the latter on both counts, as if you didn't know), but it more or less always brings my geist back into alignment to have a good chat with him. And a good chat we did have; T-mobile be damned, we talked quite a bit. And yes, IFfy, I will cover that part of the bill.
More notes - Mike gave a hilarious account of the ill-attended HS reunion, which I will post as promised, but only AFTER he provides me with photographic evidence. the reason for this largely has to do with a string of quotes like "She was a 9 in high school, but she's an 11 now." That meat-market and clearly irony-laden comment is clearly not to be taken seriously. (But, red-blooded male readers, that previous sentence was to avert all XXs' attentive eyes, the blog equivalent of a shouted "Look! Over there! McDreamy!"; fear not, NTPB and I do not throw around the term "11" lightly, and so you should be now duly enticed. We're talking football post-game party Vacekian levels of excitement, so don't miss it).
(Previous joke will only be gotten by NTPB, but it is so, so worth it. Ah, Miguel, I cry for you, too; the lesson is, gather ye rosebuds, or Carpe Jamie, whichever version you prefer).
The oddest thing of all of this is that on the Monday after the SB, Mike and I talked that long and did not once mention the Super Bowl. WOAH! Clearly our intellectual stature has grown (or our athletic one has shrunk, it having been recently been exposed to the cold ocean). So that was nuts. As for my take - who cares! It was a tremendously exciting first quarter followed by something of an extended yawn; I think the Colts RB's deserved the MVP way more than Peyton pretty boy (if for no other reason to discourage further endorsement deals - it's not a good Porn unless it's a Peyton Porn, etc.), and as I've been saying all season, Rex Grossman is TERRIBLE, and not to get all emotion-aspect on you, but it just looks like he couldn't care less about the whole spectacle. Which you can't really blame him for, given this year's commercial output. I will, though, give props to
The Blockbuster Mouse
Garmin Navigation Maposaurus
Budweiser Dog With Spots
Emerald Nuts
And maybe the Jay-Z commercial
(And of course, the GoDaddy commercials, you crazy 11-obsessed males, you). Not really.
That's about it; it's dinner time here. I'll leave you with one of my favorite Onion articles and the brief instruction to read the comments of past entries for lots of insight from the readership, especially Karen, who continues to kick all of your collective asses.
I leave you with... Laser Cats 2:
Sunday, February 4, 2007
An apology for the winded nature of my recent writings, specifically for the aspect of that windedness which could be described as long
Penance in the forms of video and link:
First, impossibly great Canadian band The Aracade Fire playing a little impromptu acoustic, crowd-sing-along encore after a recent show. Enjoy!
Second, for balance, a video of the same song played in full orchestration, with a special added Bowie-nus:
The Modern Library's Top 100 Novels
Which one have you read? Notice that the "readers'" list is riddled with Ayn Rand and L Ron Hubbard entries. This both tells you which groups may have been doing a little ballot box stuffing, and also provides empirical proof that the same people who enjoy Scientology enjoy Ayn Rand.
Consider the Lobster
A fantastic read on animal ethics by your hero and mine, DFW.
The Financial Woes of Recording Artists
An insightful article on the finacnial side of the record industry, by oft punk in drublic Courtney Love (former wife of Kurt Cobain and lead lady of Hole)
Castle Smasher
A sweet game
Unusual articles at Wikipedia: pretty self-explanatory
Nomic
This is for nerds only - it's an account of a law-based game theory where inherent is the game is that you can change the rules as you go. Think of it as Calvinball for the college dorks.
Mythbusters
Every myth that's been busted or conirmed by the popular cable series.
That's it - thanks for your reading!
First, impossibly great Canadian band The Aracade Fire playing a little impromptu acoustic, crowd-sing-along encore after a recent show. Enjoy!
Second, for balance, a video of the same song played in full orchestration, with a special added Bowie-nus:
The Modern Library's Top 100 Novels
Which one have you read? Notice that the "readers'" list is riddled with Ayn Rand and L Ron Hubbard entries. This both tells you which groups may have been doing a little ballot box stuffing, and also provides empirical proof that the same people who enjoy Scientology enjoy Ayn Rand.
Consider the Lobster
A fantastic read on animal ethics by your hero and mine, DFW.
The Financial Woes of Recording Artists
An insightful article on the finacnial side of the record industry, by oft punk in drublic Courtney Love (former wife of Kurt Cobain and lead lady of Hole)
Castle Smasher
A sweet game
Unusual articles at Wikipedia: pretty self-explanatory
Nomic
This is for nerds only - it's an account of a law-based game theory where inherent is the game is that you can change the rules as you go. Think of it as Calvinball for the college dorks.
Mythbusters
Every myth that's been busted or conirmed by the popular cable series.
That's it - thanks for your reading!
We apologize. For any inconvenience, the delay may have caused you.
Woah, my eyes are blurry and dry on a Super Sunday morning (which has suspiciously found itself converted to PM). I have used up a lot of my WMP (writing magic points) and gems in writing a review:
Saturday
And this monstrosity of a musing regarding film's status as the 20th century's greatest art. Enjoy, and feel free to comment the crap out of them and my ridiculous opinions.
(I reserve the right to not post your comments. Yeah, spell it along with me, F-A-S-C-I-S-T. Welcome to the Nyetverse, I've got fun and games).
The past three days have brought their share of hilarity - the class is still in full swing, and unsurprisingly, as we sit here at t-minus 4 hours until their weekly blog assignment is due, a whopping two of the eighteen have done it (and another six of those eighteen have yet to have read the blog or this week's article). I smell some zeros for participation grades wafting up from apathy hell...
Friday was actually a great day in class, though because of auditions and college interviews only seven students were present. I also spent a part of Friday defending one of my advisees from expulsion; another notch on my belt of awesomeness and human assistance. But, por supuesto, all of this paled to Friday night, the celebratory dinner for The Grin's, AD's and my women folks' passing of the Boards.
We headed to El Basha, a Middle Eastern restaurant in Shrewsbury / Worcester. It occurred to someone (Sarah? aka "M&M") in our ranks that there are three restaurants with the name El Basha in the vicinity, so after we clarified the location of our dining jubilee, The Grin posted an internet poll in an attempt to clarify the plural of "El Basha." You'll notice that the obvious and correct choice, Los Bashas, is not given as an option. To my complaint, The Grin replied: "But I don't speak Italian." Ali then took off her belt upon entering the restaurant, reportedly accidentally, but this has further cemented her status as the group's most unpredictable and potentially restaurant-ejection-inducing member.
The restaurant was not up my alley, but it was up alleys, of the rest of the crüe I mean, so that was all good. Middle Eastern restaurants tend to restrict me and my delicate (read: picky-as-hell) palate to dishes like lamb kabobs and rice and/or the kiddie menu, so in an effort to head off the onslaught of fun-making that happens when I order things like, say, jello, or pizza bagels, or kids-in-a-blanket, I went with the plain kabab option. Which means, given the proclivity of my fellow crüe-members to eat like sophisticated peoples, I typically end up paying $25 for grilled-chicken and rice. Boo-urns, but I take the good and take the bad. Also, I would say that you're paying for the ambience, but in this case our ambience included drunk and loud as all get out, no really, get out, people at the bar. This included a petite, goblin-like woman with a voice that just happened to match the resonant frequency of the inhibitory portion of my frontal lobes. I unsurprisingly became violent and started discussing both my habit of assessing my chances of winning an all-out brawl any time i step into a restaurant, and then a discussion of Newtonian physics and the proper handle-to-blade ratio one would need for a reasonably (percentage-wise) successful throwing knife. Given the improper h-b ratio of the kabab-cutting knife I had in my arsenal, we opted against throwing my knife over my shoulder and impaling the goblin-woman, which may have perhaps ended her disruption of the restaurant's ambience as well as my violent tendencies, but actually also had a chance of scientifically testing my assessment of our group's ability to win an all out brawl. Ben's physics assessment probably saved our evening. Also, there was an old lady in the corner who was clearly dining with a gigolo and/or her son. And/or.
Ben also noticed that Christophe was stuck in a trap between all three vet-femmes (I've noted before the intestinal soul-death a vet-obsessed dinner conversation can induce), and took drastic measures (i.e., asked the pgoat to switch places) to form a more appropriate Boy-Girl conversational division at the table. This was awesome, because now we didn't have to listen to the gossipy crap the gals were talking about, and AD regaled us stories of 800 million gallons of water and bloody fish-heads. Sweet! The Grin and I then engaged in a contest to determine how many ways we could describe "800 million gallons of water;" his best entry was "500,000,000 toilet flushes" and mine was "800,000,000 gallons of milk with the milk poured out and water filled in them instead." PGoat then complained of her butter-tasting drink and its contestedly metallic aftertaste; Beck drank something vastly better, and M&M drank nothing in deference to her 80 pound bun.
Though challenged by Ben, I am highly underqualified to write a restaurant review (see roast chicken and rice meal, above). But the meals were opulent-looking, everyone seemed to seriously enjoy the appetizers and the entrees and the service was pretty speedy (though they did charge us an auto-gratuity for our party of 6 or more). So personally it was in the C range (just because of the price, the meal was actually good but for what I got, not worth the Hamiltons, baby). But for everyone else, it seemed like a B+ / A- affair, so that was very cool, and I was happy to fork down in celebration of our Pippens' accomplishment.
From there we braved a strange white and wet substance falling in masses from the sky... I think it's called sn...uhow? Yep, winter finally showed itself; we got about 3 inches on Friday which pretty much brings the winter's total to 3.7 inches. This has been a weird, apocalyptic type-winter; I fear for those who don't know AD. SO this was the first adventure of the Little Honda That Could on snowy roads, and it performed marvelously; no skids, and no troubles. We even found a parking spot in front of Cafe Dolce, our dessert destination. While Christophe tried to park his car in an incomprehensibly tight spot under the direction of Sarah and Ben, The Beck, Ali and I went in to check the scene. It was predictably full of couply couples, men trying to impress ladies with their ability to spend $10 on a slice of pie and a ridiculously fancy coffee. Awesome. Eventually, AD finished delivering the "Bumpers are For Bumping" lecture and the sextet assembled, our table next to the bathroom to render it less obvious that our sh*t doesn't stink.
And we had dessert, and it was seriously, seriously good. I opted for the nondecadent coffee, a regular old brewed blend, but it was called creme brulee and it was divine. Pretty much everybody ordered the chocolate pecan pie, except for Sarah who ordered (and was subsequently defeated by) some chocolate concoction, and beck, whose almond cake was largely saved for her Saturday morning breakfast. The revelry continued, and the dessert-fest capped off a great evening. Somehow, Christophe made it out of his space, and Ben, Ali, beck and I tiredly rolled home through the now official snowstorm. A great night.
On Saturday I got up early and stared outside my balcony curtains to witness a flaming airplane descending over the Thames into Heathrow. Or not. I got up early and monkeyed around the house, actually spending a lot of time writing *my musing* which I again reiterate that you should read. At 10, I headed out for two tutoring sessions discussing photosynthesis. Awesome, and possibly my least favorite thing to talk about, considering that plants are stupid. I am not a vegetarian because I like animals, etc. I decided to stop by the grocery store on my way home, and called my Beck accordingly; she answered neither phone. The usual non-despair-inducing possibilities raced through my mind: she was out on a walk, or maybe at the very grocery store sans phone reception to which I headed. She was doing neither of those things. After I bought a lot of diet soda and lean pockets for tonight's rock n' roll affair, I came home at 1:15 to find the Beck STILL IN BED. Bum! Get a job, Lebowski! She rumbled from her slumber to join me in a trip to the gym; we were better looking and more fit than everyone else there (because we rule). We came home and I wrote some more; Beck headed to Natick Mall for a thoroughly unsuccessful attempt at purchasing wedding accoutrements.
Beck headed home, smilingly repaying me for my patience at the Middle Eastern restaurant the night before, and offered to get pizza for tonight. The PGOAT then called, having been abandoned by her hubby and another friend, informing me that I was her third social choice. Huzzah! Just call me Plan C. Through a mass of confusion, Ali got a hold of Beck and escalated, I'm sorry, augmented the order to include her. Ali came over, we chilled and listened to Hair and ate pizza. Good times! Then we watched the Big Lebowksi, which I will review accordingly:
The Big Lebowski: 95
For all my low-art ramblings I made against film in my musing (seriously, read it already!), this film is just awesome. It's in a category that a precious few movies in mind are in, something I would call a "Scene-Saturated Flick." Every scene of this movie is funny; every single one. Beck said she would go the bathroom at the first non-awesome scene, and she never went! It's amazing, there's never a low moment, and the humor hits the entire range of witty, slapstick, subtle, visual, musical, absurd, ironic - it's just a postmodern sort of homerun on all fronts. In other words, it is what it is - there's no wonder this has become such a fixture in my Tufts-friend lexicon: it's in its own realm of brilliance. That's all I got; no real analysis, just a toe-sucking account of how much I enjoy the infinitely re-watchable film.
(Ed: It should be noted that there are several movies that I love for various reasons that don't fall into my normal movie-rating continuum, and TBL is one of them. All scene-saturated flicks are going to score in the 95 ballpark regardless of their other artistic, more film-snobbish merits. i hope you will forgive me - but when others like The Princess Bride and Wayne's World show up in my all-time faves list, this is why. You have been warned).
So eventually Ali headed back to her grinning option A, and Beck and I watched a little more TV and then retired for the evening. The snippet of TV that I watched was MTV's "Two-a-Days, and I think that Texas HS football players have, if it's possible, gotten even bigger. Will we reach a day where today's nickname of the 6'5" person, "Tiny," will cease to be ironic. Everyday, my assessment of my own athleticism, or whatever peak it ever achieved, dwindles more.
Enjoy the SB today - no calls here, but I will continue to ridicule all that I find stupid without suggesting reasonable alternatives. Oh, and here's your enticing "Tomorrow on The Ballad:" outro...
Mike NTPB is on assignment in San Antonio, TX, attending our 10th year high school reunion. He will surely report back to me, and I will give an account that will surely only make sense and/or be funny to the select view who have CHS '96 as part of their memory-horizon. As a questionable wise man once said, "We're excited 'bout it!"
Saturday
And this monstrosity of a musing regarding film's status as the 20th century's greatest art. Enjoy, and feel free to comment the crap out of them and my ridiculous opinions.
(I reserve the right to not post your comments. Yeah, spell it along with me, F-A-S-C-I-S-T. Welcome to the Nyetverse, I've got fun and games).
The past three days have brought their share of hilarity - the class is still in full swing, and unsurprisingly, as we sit here at t-minus 4 hours until their weekly blog assignment is due, a whopping two of the eighteen have done it (and another six of those eighteen have yet to have read the blog or this week's article). I smell some zeros for participation grades wafting up from apathy hell...
Friday was actually a great day in class, though because of auditions and college interviews only seven students were present. I also spent a part of Friday defending one of my advisees from expulsion; another notch on my belt of awesomeness and human assistance. But, por supuesto, all of this paled to Friday night, the celebratory dinner for The Grin's, AD's and my women folks' passing of the Boards.
We headed to El Basha, a Middle Eastern restaurant in Shrewsbury / Worcester. It occurred to someone (Sarah? aka "M&M") in our ranks that there are three restaurants with the name El Basha in the vicinity, so after we clarified the location of our dining jubilee, The Grin posted an internet poll in an attempt to clarify the plural of "El Basha." You'll notice that the obvious and correct choice, Los Bashas, is not given as an option. To my complaint, The Grin replied: "But I don't speak Italian." Ali then took off her belt upon entering the restaurant, reportedly accidentally, but this has further cemented her status as the group's most unpredictable and potentially restaurant-ejection-inducing member.
The restaurant was not up my alley, but it was up alleys, of the rest of the crüe I mean, so that was all good. Middle Eastern restaurants tend to restrict me and my delicate (read: picky-as-hell) palate to dishes like lamb kabobs and rice and/or the kiddie menu, so in an effort to head off the onslaught of fun-making that happens when I order things like, say, jello, or pizza bagels, or kids-in-a-blanket, I went with the plain kabab option. Which means, given the proclivity of my fellow crüe-members to eat like sophisticated peoples, I typically end up paying $25 for grilled-chicken and rice. Boo-urns, but I take the good and take the bad. Also, I would say that you're paying for the ambience, but in this case our ambience included drunk and loud as all get out, no really, get out, people at the bar. This included a petite, goblin-like woman with a voice that just happened to match the resonant frequency of the inhibitory portion of my frontal lobes. I unsurprisingly became violent and started discussing both my habit of assessing my chances of winning an all-out brawl any time i step into a restaurant, and then a discussion of Newtonian physics and the proper handle-to-blade ratio one would need for a reasonably (percentage-wise) successful throwing knife. Given the improper h-b ratio of the kabab-cutting knife I had in my arsenal, we opted against throwing my knife over my shoulder and impaling the goblin-woman, which may have perhaps ended her disruption of the restaurant's ambience as well as my violent tendencies, but actually also had a chance of scientifically testing my assessment of our group's ability to win an all out brawl. Ben's physics assessment probably saved our evening. Also, there was an old lady in the corner who was clearly dining with a gigolo and/or her son. And/or.
Ben also noticed that Christophe was stuck in a trap between all three vet-femmes (I've noted before the intestinal soul-death a vet-obsessed dinner conversation can induce), and took drastic measures (i.e., asked the pgoat to switch places) to form a more appropriate Boy-Girl conversational division at the table. This was awesome, because now we didn't have to listen to the gossipy crap the gals were talking about, and AD regaled us stories of 800 million gallons of water and bloody fish-heads. Sweet! The Grin and I then engaged in a contest to determine how many ways we could describe "800 million gallons of water;" his best entry was "500,000,000 toilet flushes" and mine was "800,000,000 gallons of milk with the milk poured out and water filled in them instead." PGoat then complained of her butter-tasting drink and its contestedly metallic aftertaste; Beck drank something vastly better, and M&M drank nothing in deference to her 80 pound bun.
Though challenged by Ben, I am highly underqualified to write a restaurant review (see roast chicken and rice meal, above). But the meals were opulent-looking, everyone seemed to seriously enjoy the appetizers and the entrees and the service was pretty speedy (though they did charge us an auto-gratuity for our party of 6 or more). So personally it was in the C range (just because of the price, the meal was actually good but for what I got, not worth the Hamiltons, baby). But for everyone else, it seemed like a B+ / A- affair, so that was very cool, and I was happy to fork down in celebration of our Pippens' accomplishment.
From there we braved a strange white and wet substance falling in masses from the sky... I think it's called sn...uhow? Yep, winter finally showed itself; we got about 3 inches on Friday which pretty much brings the winter's total to 3.7 inches. This has been a weird, apocalyptic type-winter; I fear for those who don't know AD. SO this was the first adventure of the Little Honda That Could on snowy roads, and it performed marvelously; no skids, and no troubles. We even found a parking spot in front of Cafe Dolce, our dessert destination. While Christophe tried to park his car in an incomprehensibly tight spot under the direction of Sarah and Ben, The Beck, Ali and I went in to check the scene. It was predictably full of couply couples, men trying to impress ladies with their ability to spend $10 on a slice of pie and a ridiculously fancy coffee. Awesome. Eventually, AD finished delivering the "Bumpers are For Bumping" lecture and the sextet assembled, our table next to the bathroom to render it less obvious that our sh*t doesn't stink.
And we had dessert, and it was seriously, seriously good. I opted for the nondecadent coffee, a regular old brewed blend, but it was called creme brulee and it was divine. Pretty much everybody ordered the chocolate pecan pie, except for Sarah who ordered (and was subsequently defeated by) some chocolate concoction, and beck, whose almond cake was largely saved for her Saturday morning breakfast. The revelry continued, and the dessert-fest capped off a great evening. Somehow, Christophe made it out of his space, and Ben, Ali, beck and I tiredly rolled home through the now official snowstorm. A great night.
On Saturday I got up early and stared outside my balcony curtains to witness a flaming airplane descending over the Thames into Heathrow. Or not. I got up early and monkeyed around the house, actually spending a lot of time writing *my musing* which I again reiterate that you should read. At 10, I headed out for two tutoring sessions discussing photosynthesis. Awesome, and possibly my least favorite thing to talk about, considering that plants are stupid. I am not a vegetarian because I like animals, etc. I decided to stop by the grocery store on my way home, and called my Beck accordingly; she answered neither phone. The usual non-despair-inducing possibilities raced through my mind: she was out on a walk, or maybe at the very grocery store sans phone reception to which I headed. She was doing neither of those things. After I bought a lot of diet soda and lean pockets for tonight's rock n' roll affair, I came home at 1:15 to find the Beck STILL IN BED. Bum! Get a job, Lebowski! She rumbled from her slumber to join me in a trip to the gym; we were better looking and more fit than everyone else there (because we rule). We came home and I wrote some more; Beck headed to Natick Mall for a thoroughly unsuccessful attempt at purchasing wedding accoutrements.
Beck headed home, smilingly repaying me for my patience at the Middle Eastern restaurant the night before, and offered to get pizza for tonight. The PGOAT then called, having been abandoned by her hubby and another friend, informing me that I was her third social choice. Huzzah! Just call me Plan C. Through a mass of confusion, Ali got a hold of Beck and escalated, I'm sorry, augmented the order to include her. Ali came over, we chilled and listened to Hair and ate pizza. Good times! Then we watched the Big Lebowksi, which I will review accordingly:
The Big Lebowski: 95
For all my low-art ramblings I made against film in my musing (seriously, read it already!), this film is just awesome. It's in a category that a precious few movies in mind are in, something I would call a "Scene-Saturated Flick." Every scene of this movie is funny; every single one. Beck said she would go the bathroom at the first non-awesome scene, and she never went! It's amazing, there's never a low moment, and the humor hits the entire range of witty, slapstick, subtle, visual, musical, absurd, ironic - it's just a postmodern sort of homerun on all fronts. In other words, it is what it is - there's no wonder this has become such a fixture in my Tufts-friend lexicon: it's in its own realm of brilliance. That's all I got; no real analysis, just a toe-sucking account of how much I enjoy the infinitely re-watchable film.
(Ed: It should be noted that there are several movies that I love for various reasons that don't fall into my normal movie-rating continuum, and TBL is one of them. All scene-saturated flicks are going to score in the 95 ballpark regardless of their other artistic, more film-snobbish merits. i hope you will forgive me - but when others like The Princess Bride and Wayne's World show up in my all-time faves list, this is why. You have been warned).
So eventually Ali headed back to her grinning option A, and Beck and I watched a little more TV and then retired for the evening. The snippet of TV that I watched was MTV's "Two-a-Days, and I think that Texas HS football players have, if it's possible, gotten even bigger. Will we reach a day where today's nickname of the 6'5" person, "Tiny," will cease to be ironic. Everyday, my assessment of my own athleticism, or whatever peak it ever achieved, dwindles more.
Enjoy the SB today - no calls here, but I will continue to ridicule all that I find stupid without suggesting reasonable alternatives. Oh, and here's your enticing "Tomorrow on The Ballad:" outro...
Mike NTPB is on assignment in San Antonio, TX, attending our 10th year high school reunion. He will surely report back to me, and I will give an account that will surely only make sense and/or be funny to the select view who have CHS '96 as part of their memory-horizon. As a questionable wise man once said, "We're excited 'bout it!"
Friday, February 2, 2007
hujan dan mimpi tentang pangeran
akhirnya hujan tiba juga. hujan yang tidak setengah-setengah seperti bulan lalu. kali ini hujan seperti merasa inilah waktunya. waktu bagi membasahi bumi lagi. akhirnya aku bisa bercumbu dengan hujan lagi. merasakan setiap tetesnya jatuh di kulit kepalaku, turun dan perlahan mengalir di kepala dan kemudian membungkus tubuhku dengan basah. sampai akhirnya dia kembali ke tanah untuk menjalani satu proses yang panjang lagi. untuk menjadi hujan berikutnya. banyak orang yang marah dengan hujan. mengapa? mengapa kalian marah? bukankah hujan itu indah? bagiku tidak ada yang sedamai langit hitam dan kelam. ketika mendung sudah sangat pekat. dengan desau angin yang mendamaikan. ditambah lagi pekikan guntur yang seolah-oleh menjerit kesenangan di atas sana. damainya waktu ini. inilah saat terindah bagiku. ketika kutahu hujan tak lama lagi akan menjumpaiku. bagiku hujan sendiri bagai perasaan yang menyiram semua dosa. ketika dia membasahi ku, saya merasa bersih. ketika semua menjadi sepi karena hujan, kenapa kalian menghindar darinya? bukannya dia membersihkan bumi ini dari kotor? ada banyak momen yang sangat saya ingat ketika hujan berlangsung. yang paling berbekas yaitu ketika setahun yang lalu, di radio-kau-tahu-apa selesai saya kelar siaran malam, saya mendapat marah yang hebat dari bapak. tapi apa salah saya? dan sekali lagi dia tidak mau menjelaskan dengan cara yang masuk diakal. saya hanya bisa menebak dimana salah saya? dan sekali lagi ternyata hujan yang mendamaikan perasaanku. jam setengah 12 malam, jalan di tengah gerimis. masih ingat semua orang menoleh ke saya. tapi apa salahnya? hanya saja ketika tetesan air itu turut membasahi kepalaku, rasanya marah meluap juga entah mengapa. dan yang masih jadi impian saya sekarang adalah, menikmati hujan di tepi pantai. mudah-mudahan suatu saat saya bisa merasakannya.
hujan di mata ojek payung di depan beberapa kampus. hujan menjadi berkah buat mereka. buat orang-orang yang lupa membawa payung. menunggu dengan bibir kebiruan, melihat seraup rejeki. dari mereka yang turun dari angkot. saya tidak bergembira dengan ini, bukannya seorang anak mestinya menikmati hujan yang datang dengan riang gembira? bersepeda atau berlarian bersama temannya. mencari ikan di got yang meluap, atau sekedar mencari bedengan air yang menumpahkan hujan sebanyak-banyaknya dari atap. tapi ternyata kenyatan berkata lain buat mereka. hujan di mata supir pete-pete. dia mengeluh, hujan mengurangi penumpangnya. katanya orang malas keluar karena hujan deras. entahlah, saya tidak ingin men judge beliau. karena menurut saya toh, rejeki memang tidak akan lari kemana, tidak ikut hanyut bersama aliran air. hujan di mata mace yang ada di pasar sospol. entahlah mengurangi jumlah pembelinya atau menambah. karena pelatarannya menjadi becek dan lembab. menjadikan orang malas berkumpul disana. tapi hujan juga membuat perut meminta terus pengganjal. dan salah satu alternatifnya yah, gorengan yang ada di pasar. hujan di mata tukang parkir. hujan membuat mereka susah, karena harus berbasah-basahan. membuat mereka menjadi harus ekstra hati-hati ketika mengarahkan mobil ketika hendak keluar dari parkiran. apakah ada perasaan lain di dalam kepalanya? entahlah saya tidak mengetahuinya.
tapi satu yang pasti, hujan menjadi teman mereka dalam mencari rejeki. seringkali hati ini menjadi berat juga ketika ingin siaran dan hujan datang menerpa. saya cuma tidak ingin kerjaan saya terganggu dengan dingin yang meraja di tubuh. karena saya ingin memberikan yang terbaik buat yang mendengarkan saya siaran. mereka tidak perlu tahu apakah saya kebasahan atau tidak. dan inilah yang membuat saya untuk tetap pergi. melihat begitu banyaknya orang yang rela basah untuk mencari sedikit rupiah. untuk dijadikan penyambung hidup mereka, lantas mengapa saya mesti mengeluh?
hujan juga menjadi teman saya untuk bermimpi. berbagi cerita. karena saya tahu dia selalu menemaniku. dengan mendekap sepi dan dingin, angan ini dapat melayang jauh. ketempat yang tidak dapat kusentuh sebelumnya. membuatku ingin mengajak kalian kesana dan melihat hujan dari sudut yang berbeda. menjadi orang yang berbeda. saya adalah sang pangeran yang berkendara hujan. mencari seseorang yang sedang menungguku. dengan tidak merasa keberatan dengan hujan yang datang. yang akan menerima semua tetesan yang jatuh dari atas. karena saat itulah saya tahu saya telah mendapatkan seseorang. yang mengerti diri saya.
Let the rain fall down
And wake my dreams
Let it wash away
My sanity
'Cause I wanna feel the thunder
I wanna scream
Let the rain fall down
I'm coming clean, I'm coming clean
(Hillary Duff - Come Clean)
Thursday, February 1, 2007
kuliah (lagi)
akhirnya semester yang baru dimulai juga. setelah sebulan penuh kerjaannya cuma keluyuran sekarang sudah bisa beraktivitas lagi. secara unhas, satu semesternya sih hanya dihitung 4 bulan saja. mulai kuliah di bulan februari sampai mei, trus sudah itu libur 3 bulan. capek deh, ngeliat banyak liburnya. tapi ini bisa jadi keadaan yang menguntungkan buat mereka yang hobi banget mudik. seperti saat ini, kuliah sudah mulai beberapa hari tapi masih belum nongol juga di kampus. malah, ada beberapa yang baru ngambil KRS, halah!!! untuk semester 6 ini (gila, udah tua juga yah umurnya di kampus. perasaan masih kemarin deh, kita diospek di baruga) saya mengambil 8 mata kuliah. anjrit!! gara-gara semester kemarin saya cuman ngambil 21 SKS doang (dengan alasan banyak aktivitas, padahal nyatanya nggak) sekarang harus digenjot deh, supaya nanti semester 7 bisa agak nyante. mata kuliah untuk semester 6 ini adalah...
1. Komunikasi Antar Budaya
2. Teknik Presentasi dan Negosiasi
3. Antropologi Perkotaan (yang ini jamnya bertabrakan dengan KAB, soalnya mata kuliah lintas jurusan... entah bagaimana nasibnya, mudah-mudahan bisa diurus deh!)
4. Dasar-dasar Komunikasi Pemasaran (yang ini diambil cuma buat mencukupkan mata kuliah pilihan yang harus 12 SKS)
5. Komunikasi Kelompok (yang ini diambil gara-gara IP semester 2 jeblok, jadi pas semester 4 gak dikasih sama PA kuw)
6. Produksi Media Format Kecil
7. Produksi Media Audio Visual
8. Produksi Siaran
mampus!!! semua mata kuliah produksi numpuk di hari kamis, begh...nampaknya semester ini akan berjalan dengan sangat berat. dan agak aneh sih soalnya beberapa mata kuliah yang saya ambil kuliahnya sama anak 2005, atau kalo nggak sama anak Public Relations doang, jadinya sepi banget. gak bisa teriak-teriak kayak dulu lagi. gak bisa sama-sama nggak tidur karena kerja tugas bareng. dan rencana sih udah mau KKN di semester antara nanti (wakz? KKN trus skripsi?? aargggggghhhhhh!!!!) jadi kalo emang bisa ngambil banyak mata kuliah, drop aja yang sebisanya!!!
untuk minggu pertama kuliah juga, yah biasa lah. dosen juga masih pada malas masuk (kecuali mami Jenny tentunya) dan anak-anak masih belum datang semua. dan di minggu ini juga saya sudah merasakan (ngerinya) menginap di Sospol. buat ucchank, mokzz, acap, teganya kalian menjebakkuw!!! kirain disuruh ama Pace a.k.a ketua jurusan buat nginap di Lab, karena emang peralatannya udah pada datang semua (aset baru ceritanya). jadi saya mengiyakan saja. toh saya memang lagi siaran juga sampe malam di radio. tapi ternyata... mimpi buruk yang saya dapatkan. suramnya sospol emang gak bisa dibandingkan dengan FK. kalo di FK mah enak, ada p'syahrir yang jaga. nah kalo di sospol, buset.... gelap banget!!! mana tu anak-anak gak ada yang pada tidur lagi!!! semuanya asik main game sampe jam 3. wahai sodara-sodara, saya ada kuliah jam 8 pagi!!! tolong tidurlah!!! setelah memaksa mereka untuk tidur di lab radio, ternyata penderitaanku belum ebrakhir juga. ubi goreng laknat baru menunjukkan keperkasaannya ketika saya sudah mau tertidur, dan itu terjadi di jam setengah 4 subuh!!! gak ada anak-anak yang bangun... terpaksalah dengan hati dikuatkan saja pergi ke WC sendirian. agak parno juga sih, soalnya belum cukup seminggu berita bahwa Pam-pam dan teyunk denger suara orang menangis di Wc tersebut. tapi mau ditahan, mau gila?? setelah itu saya pun bisa terlelap (sedikit) karena baru saja tertidur alarm henpon ku bunyi, kalo udah jam 6. ucchank udah mau balik, jadi saya di drop di kamarnya baqir saja. untuk mandi, plus ganti baju. setelah itu... siap kuliah lagi deh. dan kenapa kuliah saya hari selasa dan hari rabu hanya satu?? tolong atur jadwal yang baik dong!!! supaya gak sia-sia ke kampusnya. well, dengan status sebagai duta hemat listrik pln+siaran+asisten di lab radio+proyek dari promedia tampaknya semester ini akan membutuhkan perjuangan yang keras. fight!!!!
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