Rainy good day

Today we had ambitions to revisit the undergraduate tailgating days we never had and use our free tickets to the Owls’ homecoming game, but last night our in-law’s reminded us that they were hosting a welcome get together for our church’s new minister (one of 13 manageably sized gatherings that the she has planned over the next few months–I guess she was pretty serious about that whole getting to know you thing). So, in order to fit in the fairly massive amount of homework I needed to get done today to keep my head above water, we got an early start and were in Miami for breakfast. We brought down a batch of brownies, delightfully underbaked  to contribute to the socializing cause and a dozen Krispy Kremes to contribute to the breakfast cause. We had enough time to leisurely munch our way through most of the dozen and a guzzle pot of coffee, and time left over for me to get in a couple of pages before the guests started arriving. Then they did start arriving, and filling the kitchen with hot enchiladas and goat cheese and raspberry salad, filling the back yard with kids and dogs, and filling the air with conversation about Navy v. Notre Dame and law school v. med school for the high schoolers in the crowd. Oh yeah, and a little bit about church too.

After the afternoon feast, I dug in to my sewing room hideaway for a few hours working on something for Creative Nonfic and the Moby Dick paper, and having met my goals, I am enjoying a pause on the couch before revving up my appetite for the steaks and corn on the cob my SIL’s bf has cooked up for us. We are also singing along to Garrison Keillor and Bonnie Raitt’s rendition of “You Are My Sunshine” on Prairie Home Companion, which seems like the perfect way to end a rainy day in the family compound.

In other good news, the Owls managed to whomp their opponents 29-0 even without the cheers of D&L. Not that they would have had us for all that long anyway. I talk a tough game and I’ve watched every episode of Friday Night Lights so far, but my American football attention is always shorter than I think it will be.

Fear for the lives of pigeons

A couple of weeks back, Frida reminded me how utterly awesome the NPR program This American Life is. Normally I catch about the last twenty minutes of it on my way to church on Sunday morning, except when I am running really late and then it’s about five. In any case, I am often astounded, moved, and made to laugh out loud by what I hear. It was somewhat gratifying to hear someone outside of my family circle agree, so it got me thinking that I should get serious about taking advantage of this gem of American radio culture while it is still free online. Plus, I’ve got this internship rotation where I spend large amounts of time doing mindless things with my hands in a room all by myself. So bookmarked this page, the complete TAL archive. You can stream anything for free, download the most recent episode, and pay 99 cents an old episode if you find something you really need.

I’ve been exploring episodes pretty much randomly, clicking on the titles that seem interesting and reading the synopsis to see if I want to commit to the full episode. Pretty much everything I’ve listened to is wonderful, but a couple of things have really stood out.

First is this piece (part of the episode “Say Anything”) in which “Michael Bernard Loggins, a developmentally disabled man in his forties, tried to battle his fears by listing them, and came up with a list 183 items long.” The piece is an actor reading directly from the list Michael Loggins came up with, which he eventually published in book form and then wrote another list, which also became a book. This piece stopped me in my tracks. First of all, I thought Mr. Worry was the only man who really understood me. I was wrong, because he might have well have been reading from my head. Just substitute “Friday Night Lights” for “Rugrats” as you listen and you will pretty much have a good idea of the things I worry about. Especially the part about the pigeons. And not only what he wrote hit home, but how he wrote it. His mangled grammar expressed the primal workings of fear better than anything most of us could come up with. I listened to it twice on Monday afternoon, and that night, as I got into the car to drive home, guess what was on the radio? A special pledge drive episode of TAL that included this very piece. Synchronicity much? Probably not actually, just proof that I am not the only one who has been affected by it deeply.

On Tuesday, I stumbled across the pet episode titled “In Dog We Trust.” It starts out with a David Sedaris piece recorded live that will make you roll on the floor. It ends with a story that I remember hearing in the car one winter afternoon in Michigan. It is in the top 3 most wrenching pieces I have ever listened to, and it isn’t even true. It’s a short story. But it will still get you. Otis the armadillo will make you feel something.

So those are my recommendations, at the moment. I realize that it is a little weird to listen to a couple of shows a day of a program that is meant to be consumed at the rate of one a week, with good reason. The lives of ordinary people get intense from time to time. I might be a little overdosed on the deep meaning of human experience. I still think that deep down inside, we all fear for the lives of pigeons, and it can helps to realize that as kooky and private as most of us are, there are little flecks of things we’ve lived and thought floating through others’ lives and minds as well .

This is my long sleeves happy dance

Oh snap! Cold snap that is. I’m supposed to be writing my Melville response paper right now, but I couldn’t resist a little cruise on over to the Weather Channel. 59 degrees people. Say what you will, but that is legitimately cool, and in my blood thinned state, it’s pretty much, well, cold! If I leave for work early, I might actually be able to wear my windbreaker.

Makes a girl think

Last night, as I blew out the candle on my molten chocolate lava cake, Diego evoked the memory of Marilyn Monroe, referencing these lines from Some Like It Hot:

SUGAR
You know I’m going to be twenty-five
in June?

JOE
You are?

SUGAR
That’s a quarter of a century.
Makes a girl think.

(More musings on the birthday time of year after the break.)

Not worth the wait

Adding to LCB’s and Frida’s commentary below, I concur: the results of PR this season are a massive pit of wrongness. See Salon’s incisive article on the subject. Although the author doesn’t go nearly far enough, in my opinion. I wish the barb wire tattoos around Jeffrey’s neck would turn real in a freakish act of Japanese ghost story haunting and strangle him.

The wait will soon be over

Project Runway finale in progress… I knew they were just pulling my leg about kicking Jeffrey off. And since when is Uli is best friend? All of a sudden he’s hugworthy just because he’s pretending to cry? Grrrr.

Anyway, I’m interupting my DVR’d viewing to report this priceless comment. This is D on Michael’s blinging gold lamé bikini:

“Look! It’s She-Ra.”

My kung fu is strong

This evening, I went on my first outdoor run since April, and I am pleased to inform you that I was not attacked by one single alligator. Best of all I didn’t even see any alligators, only the weird red-headed ducks and a few rougue SUV’s. Not that my neighborhood is particularly alligator prone, but like most Floridians I have seen them in the general vicinity. By the general vicinity I mean within the state. Once, when my sister and D were training for this crazy 150 mile bike ride thing, they decided to do a few loops around this 15 mile circle known as Shark Valley. I can tell you that there were no sharks, but there were more alligators than I could count. Big ones, little ones, little nests full of baby ones, right there by the walking path for all to see. I was easily within five feet of an alligator during most of my walk there. Yes, I was walking, because you will not catch me on one of those crazy bikes. Looking back, I can hardly believe that I was the same person. Sure, there were tons of other people walking on the path right alongside me. Sure, everyone assured me that because it was February they were all too cold to move. Sure, I didn’t see one actually move the whole time I was there. But they could have! I can’t believe I let myself get suckered in to what could have become a death march just on the basis of air temperature. Even though I have renewed confidence in my kung fu powers of alligator avoidance, I think in the future I will not be walking in such places as contain multiple toothed beasts.

Okay okay, I’m actually just rationalizing my irrational fears of an animal that generally stays away from people and has killed very few relative to say, cars and American presidents. Still, I think my days of carefree strolls among them are over. Sometimes confidence is just stupidity. I guess LC “I jump out of planes” B might beg to differ. In this case, though, I really don’t feel like my enjoyment of life will be compromised in any way if I take care to live an alligator free life. Just like I hope to lead a grizzly bear, piranha, and army ant free life.

D just walked in the door. He informed me that he was so “cold” on the way home from his class just now that he had to turn on the heater in the car. For reference, it’s currently 79 degrees.

Hoot!

32-7 over Southern Utah for my Owls! Sadly, I had silly class last night so I couldn’t drive down to Lockhart Stadium and watch this miracle happen, but seeing as an envelope full of tickets for the rest of the season’s home games arrived in my skinny little mailbox yesterday I might just have to pretend that I actually watch football and go one of these days. So let’s see, that makes them 1-3 for the season… well, let’s just focus on that 32-7, shall we?

Hold on–in the interest of science, I just checked out where we really stand. Turns out I was being a bit pessimistic! We are actually 116th, not 117th, and that’s out of 119 teams not 118. So that means there are three teams worse than us! And here’s the best part–one of them is Florida International University. So there. And Miami of Ohio and Duke, you better watch your backs, because we are some fighting owls and your 115 and 114 slots might not be as safe as you think. Hoot, mother$%^&er, hoot!

Breezy General Updates

1) I am officially no longer reading books that aren’t on my various and sundry syllabi. Of the 7 or 8 critically acclaimed and artistically acomplished books that I have checked out from the library in the past month, only one of them has actually been read. (Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman– which was actually kind of assigned because it was on a list of books we could read for our book reports in Creative Nonfiction. It was excellent and I spent all of a Sunday night devouring it despite the looming of the White Whale. It was one of those experiences I hadn’t had in a while–staying up really late to read something amazing and somehow not feeling tired when my alarm went off at its usual time the next morning.) The unread books have included LCB’s recommend Delta Wedding, the unrecommended Special Topics in Calamity Physics, and a book I have waiting six months for the library to get called The Book Thief by Marcus Zuzak. All eagerly anticipated, all left to gather dust as I attempt to stay on top of both my homework and my television habit. So I’m not sure how much hope there is for my most recent library reserve item, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Although I am a sucker for a good post-apocalypse.

2) If you don’t start watching Friday Night Lights, we can’t be friends. I don’t even care if you like it. You must watch it long enough to get it the ratings it needs for a healthy multi-season lifespan. If that takes away from your valuable novel writing, house cleaning, and aerobic exercising time, I am not sympathetic. This is a higher calling. I’m hearing vague rumbles of low ratings and (highly sensationalized, I hope) murmurs of early cancellation. This seems entirely unfair as it is competing against shows that debuted two or three weeks earlier and may have found a toehold despite their mediocrity because we were all so desperate to watching some other than reality TV. I don’t even like football and I can’t get enough of this one. Great acting, great writing, already a few small peeks at the darker side of small town family life–there is much to love here and if you don’t do the right thing and start watching I may get no chance to love it. So watch.

3) Conveniently, OPEC is gearing up to cut production…. oh that would be the day after election day. Just thought you should know.

4) Speaking of the football of which I am not a fan, tomorrow night is the home opener for my newest school team, The Owls. Unfortunately, they rejected my suggested rally cry of “Hoot, motherf%*#er, hoot!” I figured we need all the help we can get, being ranked around #117 out #118 Division 1 schools .

5) Daniel thinks that I am going to go out canvassing for votes with him on Saturday. He has got another think coming. While I consider myself highly political and love to write about conspiracy theories on my blog, I feel that I’ve knocked on enough doors and called enough people on the phone that I don’t actually know to last a lifetime.

6) Today is the 11th, so that makes 9 days before I hit the big… oh still can’t say it.

Yawn… let the productivity begin?

I’ve done nothing but slack off this week, so why am I still tired? True, I have put in solid 11 days working and doing homework and going to evening classes, but instead of soldiering boldly on for a couple more hours of reading and attempts at writing once I get home after class as was my former habit, I have reached for the Corona and the lime and started giving my DVR and my remote a workout. This after a weekend in which I skipped church and slept in two days in a row. It’s like I decided to take my own October break like the one’s we used to have at Kenyon, even though I now attend Large State University. Mostly, this break has involved television. It’s as if I’ve never met an hour long drama I didn’t like, including that weird one about nuclear holocaust and a failed stab at trying to pick up Lost. (And that was an utter failure–I was mystified in less than five minutes.) My little mid-semester vacay has also involved sleep, which I seem to have been getting copious amounts of and yet still have a hard time keeping my eyes open long enough to stumble toward the closet when I wake up. To top off this general laziness, someone stole all of the treadmill televisions out of the workout room so naturally I haven’t been back there. How can I be expected to sweat without at least a little TRL or E! True Hollywood Story? Not happening. Although I did make a return to yoga class after skipping last week for the poetry reading that didn’t happen after all, and that made me even more tired and sore.  Yoga: the exercise that bites you back.

Well, today’s Friday, my free day, and I’ve got a reading to go to tonight (um, English Department, who schedules readings for 8pm on a Friday night?) so that means I need to grab some coffee and get started on re-building the momentum that I have squandered with a week of popular culture and sloth. I’m one of these Libra types, so maybe this laziness has just been part of the balance that my delicate constitution naturally seeks. Or maybe I’m just dreading the upcoming turning of… I can’t even say the number. In any case, I’ve got a library science literature review due that just will not be denied, so honk if you love particle physics online pre-print repositories!