Wanton and Forlorn

More Stamina Is What I Need Up in Here

2006-12-14T11:14:00.000-05:00

So now exams are over, and I've somewhat surfaced. It's not really that much of a relief, though -- the actual drowning has been replaced by feeble water-treading while I feel the inexorable downward pull of the NEXT crushing deadline. Or two, actually: I have a huge cite-checking assignment AND about fifty pages of heavily-footnoted text to generate before the end of Christmas break. Whee! This is so fun, y'all.

Pretty much, what I've learned so far is that (a) I suck at law school when I'm miserable (see: most of last year), and (b) I'm fucking AWFUL at it when I'm happy (see: most of this year). I mean, I still prefer happy, and things are infinitely better than last year regardless of my performance. And actually I don't think I'm doing worse, substantively speaking. But man, I'm tired of it.

Ok, in fairness, I'm operating under maybe a little sleep deficit here. And by "little," I mean "borderline hallucination-inducing." Also, I've been living on Diet Coke and cigarettes for the past two and a half weeks. So there might be a tad more Eeyore in the previous two paragraphs than the situation in fact warrants.*

Anyways. Going home today. Good times. Perhaps next time I'll actually tell a funny story or something. I doubt it will rise to the level of actual Solace and Sentence, but hey, there's always hope.

*Wait, hold on -- Eeyore's a pimp. More Eeyore is always good.

...glug...

2006-12-12T01:30:00.000-05:00

"Oh...and is curling up into the fetal positition and sleeping a lot a normal symptom of law school finals?"

YES. Often accompanied by feeble sobbing.

Last one is tomorrow morning. Totally effed. Massive paper is due Wednesday afternoon. Up the ass on that one too. But there's Wild Turkey waiting for me after.

Went to confession tonight, though. Yay. More on that once I claw my way to the surface. Prayers, yes?

"UND-ah PRESH--ah!!"

2006-12-03T17:00:00.000-05:00

...is a little duet that my bile duct and my stomach lining are singing right now.

My brother and my dad spent a recent evening (possibly a couple of evenings) setting up a WiFi network at our house . Predictably, this resulted in what may be the most egregiously scholarific set of network authenticators ever compiled. I wish I could list them in their glorious entirety, since come on, the signal doesn't even make it outside of the house, but they'd probably get all shirty about it. Suffice it to say that they managed to hit up Alaric the Visigoth, famous catchphrases from Augustine's Confessions, and half a line of the Iliad. In Greek.

Well, ok, it may be funnier if you actually know my dad and my brother. Because I can just see them sitting there, wrestling with the network settings, all profanity and classical references. Anyways. I miss home. Technically, I can go home in like 10 days...but I've got a fuckload of big scary projects to do over Christmas break, so I'll probably have to stay here for a while. Not that here is bad; it's pretty awesome, in fact, what with the apartment and the roommate and the boy. But I'll be under pressure the whole time, because there's this huge-ass paper that I need to finish (it's technically half-done, but really it's more like two-thirds to go), and a massive cite-checking project, and I have to get both of them done during Christmas break because I sure as fuck don't have time to work on them until then.

Speaking of "until then," I'm up to my ass in exams right now. Holy shit, there is so much I have to get done in the next 10 days, before I even get to Christmas break. One exam done (didn't go well at ALL, but fuck it, it's over), two more regular exams, a take-home exam (requiring 12 consecutive hours), and a 6000-word paper to (mostly) write, all before December 13. If I concentrate, I can actually feel my stomach start to produce more acid as I'm reading those words.

So basically, I'm utterly fucked, especially since I've never been more paralyzed in the face of looming obligations. If I were magically transformed into the passive voice incarnate, I'd still be more take-charge and go-get-em' than I've been for the past couple of weeks. But today's been better. I've actually gotten concrete work accomplished on a couple of things, and I've got hopes that this trend will continue. Lord knows it needs to. Sigh.

We're all so alike it's scary, in my family

2006-11-24T14:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, after a massive Thanksgiving dinner, we spent a good two hours shrilly discussing the spiritual and temporal faults of basically every vague acquaintance we've ever encountered. Right after that, we spent two and a half hours silently weeping while watching It's A Wonderful Life.

We are nothing if not mercurial.

Return of the Prodigal: Still in Love with the Parenthetical Aside

2006-11-18T11:21:00.000-05:00

Hey, so I spent the summer in Prague, did I tell you? No, of course I didn't, because I haven't posted since the middle of July, for fuck's sake. I don't know what was wrong with me, seriously. I mean, yeah, I've had shit to do. This semester has been the hardest I've worked in my entire life (and yet strangely I'm still fucked, now that exams are two weeks away), not to mention the fact that I'm now dating a boy (eee!), i.e. in an actual healthy relationship, which also requires some time and effort exerted. (Who knew?) But anyways, none of that explains why I've all-of-a-sudden gotten the urge to post again now, with finals bearing down and a 6000 word paper to pretty much get done this weekend (and another huge-ass paper to do over Christmas break, and a major cite-checking assignment also to do over Christmas break, and...ok, inhale). Oh hey-- I think I just answered my own question. This is always how it worked in college, too; most of my nerdy little journal entries were written on paper weekends, in between pounding my head against the keyboard because I couldn't make myself focus on the Ethics or the Summa or whatnot. Also between bouts of throwing up my hands all "Who wants to go DRINK?!?" and heading to K-stein or wherever; I don't know when I found time to actually write the papers. But they always got done.

Damn. At most about 2000 words to write per semester, no research to do, and only one book to consult (hello, Joe Sachs). Man, I wish I'd appreciated that more at the time.

Ok, anyways, I originally titled this entry "Tales from Prague," but clearly navel-gazing won out yet again. I'll probably get bored and write-y again this weekend -- I really am going to try to update regularly again.

Oh yeah, also I'm gonna put some more pictures up on Facebook, from this summer and so on. That whole thing has really taken off -- when I signed up on there like a year ago, hardly anyone from TAC was on there. So it was good for stalking my law school classmates, but I don't know them well enough for it to really be interesting. Now everyone's on there. Facebook is officially the New Blogging. Less trainwrecky, but more participants.

All right, all right

2006-11-17T12:52:00.000-05:00

Let's see if I even remember how this thing works...

The hiatus ends NOW

2006-07-05T06:35:00.000-04:00

Ok fuck this shit, I am going to post again. Yes. Dammit. Anways. Prepare yourself for several posts in which I combine "What I Did On My Summer Vacation"-type newlettering with heretofore undreamed-of levels of introspection. Because this is my blog, where it is All About Me.

So yeah. Life's been marching on. The first two weeks of May I had exams, which were not all that bad, amazingly enough. I can't even express how much difference there was between this time and the two and a half weeks of dark bloody hell first semester. Not that it was, like, a walk in the park this time. It was two weeks of pretty much continuous labor, punctuated by occasional three-hour sessions of super-intense typing while my body released all the adrenaline in its possession (aka the actual exams). The whole two weeks, I basically consumed nothing but Gatorade, energy bars, and half-assed banana smoothies (take a sixteen ounce cup. Mash half a banana therein. Pour in vanilla yoghurt and milk. Mix; consume). And I didn't eat very much of that stuff, even, given that somewhere near the beginning of the experience I developed the Canker Sore of the Century on the inside of my cheek, right beside my next-to-last molars. It measured a full centimeter across at its worst, and believe me I wish I was exaggerating there. While I had the canker sore I also thought I was developing cavities in the upper and lower molars on that side, and also that the joint in my jaw was going to fucking disconnect from my head, it hurt so bad, but it turned out later that these symptoms were just the pain of the canker sore radiating all over that side of my head. Man, that fucker hurt. So eating was basically an entirely medicinal activity consisting of trying to get enough calories into my stomach without letting them touch the inside of my mouth with their assorted sugars and (ohhh the pain) acids.

Then came the last day. Last motherfucking final of the accursed first year. I was just completely drained afterwards, as was everyone. Didn't have much of the "oh fuck this let's start drinking NOW" of the end of last finals. Maybe because it went so much better this time; last time was fucking bleak despair that means all you can do is be inordinately filled with empty jubilation that just at least it's over, at least you get a few weeks rest from fucking it up.

But this time after the last exam I had a different feeling. Calmer, less frantic. I was tired, and I did have the kind of adrenaline-letdown exhaustion that makes your mind go all quiet and blank and your movements slow down. But it was peaceful, at least somewhat. Because I knew: this time I'd done the best I could, or at least much closer to it. That's a misleading way to put it; "the best that I could" is said in many ways. I did the best I could first semester, too, in the sense that I sure as fuck tried as hard as I could. But the whole time, I had this despairing knowledge that trying as hard as I could wasn't doing any good. Like being stuck in neutral, or one of those dreams where all your motions are agonizingly slow. But this time was different. It wasn't perfect. I've still got a long way to go; there's a learning curve to knowing how to use your will once it actually has something approaching effective control over you. But still...the difference was like night and day, or like a dream and waking.

But so anyways. I did go out that night, and ended up having a really good time. I don't hate the other law students; they're way different from me, yeah, but that doesn't mean they're bad people. Or even people that I have nothing in common with, especially when we're all getting pleasantly intoxicated together after finals. So it was a really good night.

Anxiety Dreams and the Sweet Relief of Waking

2006-04-27T09:42:00.000-04:00

There's just nothing better than having a really vivid anxiety dream wherein you totally get a DUI in front of lots of your friends.*

Because: then you get to wake up, and it wasn't real, it never happened, and your criminal record is still clean. The wave of pure sweet relief that washes over you is one of the best feelings ever.

Although, being mildly superstitious as I am, I did wait until after breakfast to tell you, The Internets, about my dream. Because of what my mom always said, which is that if you tell a dream before breakfast, it will come true. And that shit I don't need. Knock on wood.

Hey wow, I posted something! That wasn't so hard! Maybe I'll do it again sometime.

*And in the dream, I had only had like two beers. And then the brakes failed on the car, and when the cops came I was all "No, really, breathalyze me, I'm fine!" And then I blew like a 1.4, which I don't even know if I've ever been that drunk...and then....and then...yeah, I've got some anxiety in my life right now, can you tell? Say a little prayer for me, because this is going to be the worst Finals Fortnight EVER.

Netflix rolls onward: Dark Blue World

2006-04-09T00:06:00.000-04:00

So it's not like I don't have anything to write about but my movie-watching adventures...I do, lots of things, but quite frankly I can't be fucked. It's way easier to just write about my reactions to movies. The movie I saw tonight was called Tmavomodrý Svět, i.e. Dark Blue World. It was about the Czechoslovak pilots in World War II who escaped from the German occupation and flew for the RAF, and how all of them who went home after the war were sent to forced-labor camps by the Communists. The movie itself...well, I enjoyed it, because pretty much anything that lets me hear Czech words and watch lovely Czech boys is ok by me. But as a film, it wasn't all that good. It could have been. It had all these good elements, and good acting, and Lord knows a good director and screenwriter. But it didn't come together. It seems like that happens in a lot of Czech movies...the same thing was true of Horem Padem, another lauded Czech film. As a slice of life, it was excellent. But it didn't end up anywhere. It all goes back to the Poetics...bad things happening to a good man out of all proportion doesn't bring you a catharsis. And likewise bad things happening to a bad man. There's a middle path where the catharsis lies, and no light can show it to you. But the artist finds it, and it's no virtue or skill of his own that does so.

Anyway. I liked the documentary about the movie better than the movie itself, maybe. It was mostly Jan and Zdeněk Svěrák talking about their movie, and about what they really wanted to say about the Czech RAF pilots. Jan and Zdeněk are the father-and-son team that did Kolya, which is at least Number 3 on my list of all-time favorite Czech movies, and high up on my list of favorite movies of any stripe. During this documentary, they talked about heroism and the reasons men are willing to fight and die for their countries, more openly than any Czech I've ever encountered. Jan said, If you ask someone now if he would fight for his country, he'll say, I don't know...perhaps, maybe. But if you asked him if he would fight for his brother, for his family, for his dog even, he would say Yes! Without question, yes! And Zdeněk Svěrák said, You see? It's because people have forgotten what the word "country" means...

So that's the news from Lake Drowning-In-Law-School this week. I'm now working on finding a place to stay and plane tickets to the CZ this summer, which is exciting. I'm also trying my damnedest to try to prepare for the Big Bad Thing that lies between me and this summer, aka Exams. Dear Lord, give me strength.

Anyway. That is all. For now.

This is totally about nothing

2006-04-01T00:20:00.000-05:00

So yeah, the only thing I have to write about lately is the movies I've seen, the most recent of which was Wedding Crashers, on DVD at your local friendly Blockbuster. The movie was ok, although it was slight in the sense that it felt subjectively like it was about thirty minutes long. But then again, it had Vince Vaughn in it...ohhh, Vince Vaughn. Why must we hide from each other like this?

But anyways. It was ok, but only barely worth the five bucks. From now on, I swear I'll wait for Netflix to deliver a movie before I go out and rent one. But the thing is, the last movie (In the Bedroom) was so underwhelming that I lacked the gumption to put it back in the mailbox early Monday morning, which would have been necessary in order for the next film to have reached me in time for Friday night, i.e. now.

Then again, I have a concert to go to tomorrow night. The Minus 5. I've seen them once before, at the very beginning of junior year. They were opening for Wilco at the John Ford Theater, and it was the best or second best concert I've ever seen. Good memories, regardless. Oh, and plus Elf Power is opening for them....double good times.

And here I've typed an entire post while pretty much having to backspace every few characters. This courtesy of a beer-and-pizza party that the law school gave my section at lunch today; it was not well attended, so I got to gank more than a six-pack of Heineken and other. Hells yes.

In other news, I'm going to be a Maid of Honor, and I am so excited. On the other hand, I really have no idea what the hell a Maid of Honor is supposed to do. But it's cool. I'll figure it out somehow.

Odds and sods

2006-03-28T22:34:00.000-05:00

--Over spring break, my dear brother Troll lent me his copy of The Life Aquatic, with Steve Zissou, because I'd only seen it once and felt I required another viewing to digest it fully. So this evening I settled down on the couch with a comforting beverage, and...discovered that he'd lent me his copy of the case, but apparently not the DVD itself. Color me crestfallen.
Ah well. That's what Netflix is for.

--I am getting MORE and MORE excited about this summer, which I will spend in my beloved Czesko. On the other hand, there's an assload of things I need to get done before I go. So many things, in fact, that I'm not doing any of them.
Then again, it's not like this is shocking, for me. It's more like, it would be shocking if I were on top of shit.

--While making a soft-boiled egg this evening I discovered:

PROOF THAT THE FORMS ARE INTERNAL

This Proof lies in the fact that the Pepper always comes out too slowly for me, while the Salt always comes out too fast. And yet there are only two of them.

If you try to argue with me about this I will seriously punch you in the brain.

Chronicles of Netflix: Meh

2006-03-25T22:53:00.000-05:00

I watched a movie called In the Bedroom this afternoon. It had some good scenes and some good acting. Really good acting, in some places. But I don't think it stood up to the hype that it had when it came out. Mostly it might as well have been called White People Being Mean to Each Other. That was the defining characteristic, anyway: WASPs in Maine being terribly polite and bound-up inside. I myself was born and bred a WASP, and my conversion to the Roman persuasion has not altered my sensibilities much. But this movie was WASPy to the point that even I was looking at the screen like, for fuck's sake, people, unclench. I mean, damn.

The river has changed, but I've changed more

2006-03-17T14:28:00.000-05:00

So I'm sitting around in my college roommate's apartment in San Marcos, after a five-day stint at the College. It was strange and good and culture-shock-filled, and now here I am away from it again. Wavelet is off teaching middle-schoolers, and I'm amusing myself by looking through her books. Right now I'm thumbing through the Mechanics, Waves & Optics manual from Senior Lab. That year we were in sister sections, so we used each other's books a whole lot, making for a compendium of notes inscribed therein. Mine aren't too enlightening...mostly what I wrote down were the lyrics to the various songs playing on the walkman in my head. That and unprintable calumnies about certain tutors, certain other students, and frequently the author of the work in question. So basically I spent most classes being either bored or frustrated as shit. Wavelet's are awesome...mostly they're snatches of mad mad conversations between her and Joe-ey. Clearly the two of them were not being challenged enough in Lab class.

Anyway, there's one particular page with my handwriting on it, and I've been trying to figure out what incident it refers to. It's at the end of the manual, and the page is annotated in this wise:

In pronouncement-style block letters:
Still buzzed the next morning.

In wobbly cursive with my [non-dominant] right hand:
When I shut my eyes the world spins.

In small block letters at the bottom of the page:
Note to self: At some point, find out what the fuck happened last night.

If this were a junior year textbook, there'd be quite a few mornings that it could refer to. But since it's in a senior year textbook, and given its placing within the book, I'm pretty sure these notes were written the morning after we all turned in our theses. Which, yeah. Whoa. I'm still not too sure what happened that night.

So that was kind of cool, finding a concrete reminder of the murky and melodramatic past. Exactly two years past, in fact, since I just watched the current seniors finish up thesis-time on Sunday night. I watched them all celebrating, and left them to their party, and went off and drank beer out in the cold elsewhere.

Which sounds like about what happened the night I turned my own thesis in. It wasn't just the same thing, though. I'm a different person now. In a good way, I'm pretty sure. Things change, but you keep coming back. The same things keep happening, but you've changed, so you bring better endings out of the same old shit going down. Different, anyway. That's a start.

Fears from within

2006-03-10T13:04:00.000-05:00

When you’re afraid of heights, you’re not afraid you’re going to fall. You’re afraid you’re going to jump.

Why is that?

Pride cometh before

2006-03-08T23:45:00.000-05:00

In the spirit of Lent, since I still can't think of anything to give up that wouldn't throw my existence into disarray*, I present this episode from my past, wherein I look Mildly Foolish.

It must have been almost exactly two years ago. We were sitting there in class about 2pm, me and Mel at the far corner of the table, with Grandpa Jack and the Summa droning away around us. Writing notes on a sheet of paper between us, as was our wont. Graduation was bearing down, and I was lamenting my employment prospects:

Ridley: (histrionically) How the fuck am I going to get a job, dog?? Here's my entire resume, every bleeding line of it: "My name is Ridley. I have not mispelled a word since the 8th grade. Please hire me."

Mel: Dude, I hate to tell you. But the word is 'misspell'.

I was a tad crestfallen. I'm pretty sure it was the first time since 8th grade, too. Then again, it was also a pretty awesome example of The Joke Is On Me, so I think it was worth it.

Man, being a senior was so scary. I wish I could go back and tell my then-self that everything would be ok. But then again, there've been lots of times between now and then that things weren't ok, particularly. It's probably a good thing that you just have to muddle through it, without knowing what's coming next.

*my life is a precariously balanced system of sticks and carrots and self-medication, ok? don't be judgin'.

Late at night, with no regard for narrative structure

2006-03-04T01:44:00.000-05:00

So, the bitter (sort of) end to another 'meh' (sort of) night on the town. It was fine, really...hung out with my law school buddies at this charity auction type of thing, and then moved on with various people to other places with no real guiding purpose until about 1:30, when I was tired enough to leave and sober enough to drive home. And so now I'm sitting at home drinking more beer and typing without regard for sentence or solace, really. Enjoy.

Earlier, before my friends called and I went out, I decided to pop in Thelma and Louise, because I knew it was a film that would not be impaired by interruption. I did in fact purchase said film; oh be quiet, it was 8 dollars at Kroger and I wanted something that was not by any stretch of the imagination Intellectual or Deep.

Well, within the first 30 minutes, I pretty much loathed Thelma, and was on the road to loathing Louise just for continuing to put up with Thelma's damsel-putting-herself-in-distress bullshit. Then my people called and I took off...the rest of the movie will no doubt be an equally bumpy ride. Oh well. It has Brad Pitt in it at some point, they say, and while this is not the draw for me that it is for some women, I am not entirely immune to his charms. Although Legends of the Fall was quite possibly the worst movie I've ever seen, on any level at all. Really, it just sucked.

In other news, my future flatmate and I have pretty much laid claim to an awesome apartment. It's in a brick building from 1928, with all the glorious impracticality that that entails. The place is like Prozac in apartment form, seriously, and I can't wait to live there. There are oak trees and magnolias on the lawn, and little shops around the corner. It has radiators. And the doorknobs are cut glass. It just could not be any more suited to me. We just found out today that they're giving it to us, so it's ended up being a damn good week, really.

Bear with me, I almost never wax philosophical

2006-03-01T11:01:00.000-05:00

Basing your system of morality on the principle of avoiding pain (whether to yourself or others) is destructive and ultimately incompatible with its own goal.

Which is not to say that it isn't tempting.

AAAARRGGH

2006-02-25T21:15:00.000-05:00

Fucking DAMMIT.

Diary-x hosted my sister's site. It was one of my favorite things to read; her writing is so damn articulate and bittersweet and awesome. It was freaking inspiring. Intimidating, too, considering the kid's only sixteen. I've never linked to it here, because I'm fairly sure my parents read my blog, and I didn't want to blow her cover or whatnot. But...geez. It was so good.

Her site was really nicely designed, too. It had an Exploding Dog motif, all wavery lines and wistful stick figures. Minimalist, but not bare.

So yeah. I hope she gets another site going soon. I promise not to out that one either, kiddo.

I really shouldn't be posting right now, but how could I resist?

2006-02-25T16:52:00.000-05:00

From deep in the belly of the brief, I surface to bring you this factoid: someone actually brought a products liability suit for injuries caused by a sports bra.

I was totally intrigued by this (what, did she put an eye out while running?), so I looked up the case. No, turns out she was sunbathing in 100+ degree weather while wearing a black sports bra, and she got third degree burns on the areas traditionally covered by that kind of garment. To which I say: ouch.

She didn't win, though. Which seems fair...I mean, how do you not notice that happening?

Anyway, back to the brief.

My Brain Chemistry Is Fucked and SO AM I

2006-02-22T23:07:00.000-05:00

Caffeine makes me sleepy. True fact.

Well, ok, the evidence also admits of another hypothesis:

Life makes me sleepy, and caffeine does not change this fact.

Either way, it's not helping me write this buttmunching thing. Which is bad, because it means I have to fall back on my inner resources of concentration and stick-to-it-iveness. That's right: I'M FUCKED.

Untergang des Abendlandes

2006-02-21T14:27:00.000-05:00

I was half-way through a post that started out bitching about this huge fucking appellate brief assignment that's due on Monday, and devolved into introspective reminiscence about literary history and criticism in general and my thesis in particular, but it got kind of out of hand and pulling it together is frankly the last thing I should be spending my time on right now.

Suffice it to say that in German, at least if you're speaking old-fashioned German with its disdain for imported Latin derivations, the word for the West as in the Western Canon is Abendland. Which, being interpreted, means Evening Land. Awesome.

So someday when I have time and inclination, two things that rarely coincide for me, I'll tell you all about Erich Auerbach and his book Mimesis, which is the best book-about-other-books that I've ever encountered.

*Subject line: Decline of the West. See? So much cooler in German. Oswald Spengler knew what he was about.

You know...for kids!

2006-02-18T12:47:00.000-05:00

I watched The Hudsucker Proxy last night. Awesome. That whole movie was an example of what Tim Burton tries and fails to do.

Also, it contained a dance sequence that was nothing short of inspired. After my buddy and I finished watching it, we replayed the dance scene twice. It was that badass.

We so funny

2006-02-16T21:57:00.000-05:00

This is an excerpt from a GoogleTalk conversation I had today with the awesome Catherine, girlfriend of my brother Troll. I can't think of a good alias for her.

ridley: so i've got a date with this czech guy saturday...
Catherine: cool, give me details! name, age, how met.
ridley: roman, 26, met on the internet.
Catherine: (gasp)
and how do you know it's not Chester, 61, has a shotgun??

Hee.

And the answer is, well, in that case Chester speaks some damn good Czech, and language practice is really all I'm looking for. Plus, it's time we all came out of the closet about the internet dating. We all do it, we all pretend we don't, and we all judge others for doing it. So really, it's just like many other areas of life, such as nose-picking and making inappropriate romantic choices while drunk.

I should probably try not leaving glasses of water around at foot level

2006-02-08T22:08:00.000-05:00

So I knocked over a glass the other day and spilled a bunch of water on my keyboard...not my actual laptop keyboard, thank the lord. No, this was the separate keyboard that I have so I can plug it in when I'm home and pretend I'm a normal person who sits at a desk with a keyboard and a mouse, instead of someone who slumps on the couch with my laptop actually on my lap. Anyway, it was lying on the floor at my feet while I was doing said couch-slumping, and I knocked over a glass of water onto it. The water glass was also on the floor, because, well, that's where I put things. Don't judge me.

Since it wasn't plugged in, I figured it was no big deal, and I just shook it off and set it aside.

There it sat until a few minute ago, when I needed to use the 10-key number pad. When I plugged it in, there were no immediate sparks or anything, and the keys seemed to work ok. But the action was kind of mushy, and -- here's the deal-breaker -- the whole thing smelled pungently of ancient wet Berkenstocks. And not in a good way. If there even is a good way for something to smell like Berks.

Bottom line, I'm pretty sure I'm out 20 bucks for a new keyboard. I could try spraying the crap out of it with lysol..but I can't imagine that would be good for all the delicate bits in there. The same goes for all the other conventional bacteria-killing methods. The little bastards are tougher than computer parts on every level, I'm pretty sure.

Well anyways. Yeah. There...there wasn't really a point. Sorry.

Memories of Times Gone By

2006-02-06T23:32:00.000-05:00

About four years ago, I wandered towards the smoker's patio, the Old School smoker's patio, in front of the commons like the Lord intended. There were a couple of people sitting in a group, gazing catlike at the glass doors to the commons. Pretty soon, someone walked along the front of the coffee shop towards the commons entrance. The watchers' attention sharpened. As the guy put his hand on the pushbar, one of the watchers yelled "HI!" with focused energy. The walker's head jerked back towards the noise, his hand failed to engage the bar, and he crashed shoulder-first into the door. They exchanged muffled cheers while he slunk away, and settled back to wait for the next victim; another watcher was at bat now. Whether by experiment or accident, at some point they'd pinpointed the exact moment when a hail from behind would pretty much inevitably cause someone to fuck up that most basic of skills, the door-opening process. And now they'd made it into a sport.

As I watched them watch the door, two feelings divided my soul: on the one hand, these were blatantly awful people, and they were being awful whilst treating people like bowling pins. Because they thought they were so great. But on the other hand, why hadn't I invented this game, dammit?

Ok, thinking back, I think fuming jealousy really had the upper hand in my soul. Alas.

All the way to Buttfuck, Asia!

2006-02-05T13:59:00.000-05:00

Holy fucking shit I know what I absolutely have to do someday: The Mongol Rally.

Check that shit out! It's a race from London to Ulan Bataar, the capital of Mongolia. You can use any kind of car you like -- as long as it's a model that's "generally considered to be crap" and has less than 1000 cc's engine capacity. Like a Trabant or a Fiat. Or a Geo Metro.

Holy shit, yo. How much fun would that be? It only takes, like, 3 or 4 weeks, assuming you actually make it all the way to the finish. Their advice for the Mongolia leg of the trip is just to drive from yurt to yurt, asking directions, because it's apparently been experientially proven that every single map of Mongolia is wrong.

I'd need a co-pilot. Crashboxing would be pretty much perfect. He'd have the mechanical end of it covered, and I could deal with languages and navigation and whatnot. Plus I think we'd both be pretty handy with a tire iron if it came to a fight with the locals. It would be awesome!

So. Another thing to put down on The List, along with doing the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, and crossing an ocean in a sailboat. I'm excited.

Allow me to introduce you...

2006-01-30T08:10:00.000-05:00

...to the coolest thing I have ever seen.

And really, I'm not making any kind of political statement with this. It's just...you can pick him up! And fling him! He's just so...flexy!

I am officially entranced.

The Landbound Man

2006-01-28T20:42:00.000-05:00

Na konci vesnice
v malém domečku
přebýval velmi
velmi starý pán
Ve světnici měl svíčku
starý gramofón
který si večer pouštěl
a zpíval:

At the edge of the village
in a little cabin
there used to live an ancient
ancient man
In his room he had a candle,
an ancient gramaphone
and evenings he'd set it going
and he'd sing:

Jó jó moře mý
je dávno ztracený
jó jó moře mý
a slunce červený
jó jó moře mý
je dávno ztracený
teď jsem suchozemský muž
-- já to vím

Oh, oh, the sea, the sea
is long since lost to me
oh, the sea, the sea
and the sun all red-shining
oh, the sea, the sea
is long since lost to me...
now i'm a landbound man
--and this i see

--Znouzectnost, "Suchozemský muž"
Loosely translated, 06/01/28.

It's these little differences that make foreign language study so rewarding

2006-01-19T17:43:00.000-05:00

Holy crap: I just discovered that in Czech, the same word* means both "classical" (as in music) and "serious" (as in serious relationship). Man, I'm glad none of our tutors at TAC were aware of that little factoid...it would have injected an extra element of judgy-ness into their condemnation of everything unMozart.

Huh. So I guess by that rationale, all of my relationships have been rock-and-roll to the bone. Verging on experimental noise-rock, in a few cases. Well, fuck it. Punk rock, represent!

*The word is vážný, in case you're interested, which, ok, probably not.

A big bright spot right there in the future

2006-01-17T22:29:00.000-05:00

Ohhh man. I just got into a summer program in Prague. You have no idea how happy this makes me. I still have the get the funding and so on arranged, but...holy shit. It's not even real to me yet. And ok, there's still a right bitch of a semester to get through. It just makes it so much easier, to be able to think about being there after I get through this shit, and not just "after I get through this shit" meaning fucking years from now. Oh yeah. This is good.

It's especially cool because I just watched a Czech movie and realized that, whoa, I've learned a ton of Czech. I could understand it so well that it was actually distracting, because my attention was bounce back and forth between the voices and the subtitles.
And the movie itself was awesome. It was one of the most subtly religious films I've ever seen. It's just amazing, especially for my sardonic irreligious Czechs to have made. Go seek and watch: it's called Divided We Fall.*

In other news, I've spent so much time on the couch with the laptop that I now actually prefer the way it sounds with my wrists covering the speakers. Sort of warm and muffled. Comforting.

*The Czech title is Musíme si pomáhat, which means "we have to help each other."

This week just will NOT END

2006-01-12T21:28:00.000-05:00

So it turns out that IF you rip your little sister's copy of OK Computer over Christmas break, and add the resulting mp3's to a 970 song playlist, and then you let it play on shuffle, THEN Winamp's little electronic mind will choose one particular song off of OK Computer four times in the space of two hours.

Or rather, it will try to, because you (if you're me) will hit next within four seconds of hearing that buzzy little robot voice, and will continue hitting next until you get to something more appropriate to your state of mind, preferably something by Billy Bragg about the disaffected youth of the British underclass.

Fitter, happier, indeed. More productive. For fuck's sake.

Oh, it's ONE OF THOSE WEEKS, all right

2006-01-11T21:37:00.000-05:00

Dammit to HELL.

I just opened a beer and spilled it before I'd taken the first sip. And this was my first beer of the evening, so don't look at me like that. I have to say, I've never seen a beer spilled that impressively before. I caught the neck of it with my elbow as I was turning, and it made a complete rotation before it hit the floor, where it bounced up into another half-rotation. I grabbed it, but almost all of it had already chugged out. So basically the beer was distributed onto the circumference of a vertical circle bisecting my tiny kitchen; in non-mathematical terms, that means all the fuck over the kitchen and me. It was pretty freakin' spectacular, really.

Hence, I was more bemused than irritated. Right up until I reached into the fridge and realized that that had been the last beer. Then I was right pissed off. Oh well. The Lord sends us these things every once in a while, to remind us that the Earth is not our home.

Apparently this is the kind of week it's been

2006-01-11T10:46:00.000-05:00

I just glanced at an email I sent yesterday to a former student, and realized that I had cheerily requested him to "say high to the other students for me."

This will undoubtedly be taken the wrong way. Alas.

In other news, I'm back at the lawyer factory, and deep in a funk. Somehow it was easier to ignore the grim reality of this shit when I was lazing my way through Christmas break.

Anyway though, I really am going to try to start posting again. Maybe posting will make me feel less like wet cottonwool. If that makes any sense, which, yeah, not much.

I'm making a law-related in-joke. Please shoot me now.

2005-12-11T22:37:00.000-05:00

If asked to come up with a two-word phrases that will someday be very important in their lives, pretty much the last one most people will come up with is "international shoe."

Some of these people will eventually go to law school, and there they will discover that they were very very wrong.

In totally related news, the Civil Procedure exam is tomorrow, after which I will offically be Fucking Through With This Shit. Until late spring, at least. I cannot wait.

2005-12-10T13:01:00.000-05:00

A redeeming feature of Southern boys is that occasionally, even when you're just standing around at a bar and no one's hitting on anyone, their sense of manly duty inspires them to buy a girl a drink.

This is quite refreshing, especially compared to the boys at college, whose manly duty inspired them mainly to make us drive their drunk asses home.

It's like Eggs Benedict, minus all that Benedict crap.

2005-12-08T20:30:00.000-05:00

Get out 2 eggs, some butter, 2 slices of bread, and some lunchmeat ham.
Put a skillet on, highish.
Put the bread in to toast.
Put two slices of ham in the skillet; turn them when they look like they need it.
Take them out and put them to the side. Preferably on a plate rather than the empty Domino's box, you walking health violation.
Put some butter in the pan and fry the eggs. Try not to break the yolks.
Arrange the sandwiches, toast+ham+egg, from bottom to top.
If you want, you can pierce the yolk and let it drip onto the bread before you put the ham+egg on there. Egg yolk butter, mmmm!
On the other hand, if you threw up in your mouth a little at the thought of yummy liquid yolks, you probably should have fried the eggs longer anyway. Or pierced the yolks while they were still in the pan, that works pretty well.

Even better: add in mustard and tomato slices. Oh hell yes.

A final warning: don't eat this in front of someone that you're trying to impress with your suavitude. It's on the drippy side. Then again, the right kind of person will be impressed anyway, and now is as good a time as any to find out which it's going to be.

How are exams going? DON'T EVEN ASK. Contracts. Breach. Remedy. Searing pain.

"Empfindlich" is a German word that's translated as sensitive but actually means you're easily injured

2005-12-06T21:00:00.000-05:00

So I'm shotgunning a Coke because I've hit the WALL on Criminal Law but THAT CAN'T HAPPEN because it's nine p.m. and I've miles to go before I sleep, if I sleep, but while I'm drinking it I have to keep my tongue glued to this one spot on the roof of my mouth because I've got pizza burn there from dinner because why can't I ever wait 2 minutes for something to cool off? And the thing is that lifting my tongue up like that means the icy and prickly beverage gets down around my bottom teeth where it's sensitive, and holy crap I am a hot-house flower if ever there was one.

Plus pizza burn always makes me think of Krakow and sitting on the Glowny Rynek on Holy Saturday and biting into a kielbasa that turned out to have the same interior temperature as the sun, and then walking around on the banks of the Vistula watching the punks with their mountain bikes and JPII's first parish on the other side of the river, all with actual weeping blisters on the roof of my mouth.

And really the only reason I'm sharing this with you is (a) it's a prime example of my wussitude, plus a chance to once again shoehorn Eastern Europe into every damn thing I write, and (b) I wanted to think about something other than MOTHERFUCKING LAW for four straight minutes.

Ok. Back to work.

Go home, pointy head!

2005-12-04T19:41:00.000-05:00

To the gentleman on the bongo drums at tonight's Mass*:

If you're going the mohawk route, you have to own it. Make it skinny enough. Shave the sides. Consider dying it a primary color.

But what you've done is gelled your normal haircut into a widdle tiny hawkie-poo on the top of your head. This does not qualify as a mohawk. It qualifies as lame.

Therefore: gel it down again or man up and mohawk it, but stop this foolish play-acting.

Anyway. Now that I've dealt with young 2MySpace4U. The question you've all been dying to ask: how are exams going?

Well. When you realize that you're kind of wishing you had less time until the exam rather than more, so you could fucking stop studying for it already, this is when you realize that you might have sort of a Motivation Problem. And also an Attitude Problem.

(Hi Mom! Just kidding! Doing great!)

No, seriously. Doing great. Dandy, in fact. Eight days from now, and it's all blessedly over.

*and yes, the very fact that I am able to address him that way is a sign of deeper problems. Bongo drums, forsooth.

Anatomy of a Take-Out Disaster

2005-11-29T15:54:00.000-05:00

Pick up a cheesesteak sandwich on the way home from the Law Factory.
While enjoying the steaky goodness, notice that it's sort of causing your nose to run.
Crack open the helpfully included cutlery-salt-pepper-napkin package.
With the napkin in position, take a nice deep breath preparatory to blowing.
As you inhale, realize with mounting horror that the little pepper envelope apparently did not do its pepper-containing job.
It is now way too late for this information to help you.
Don't even think about using the Napkin of Evil to blot your streaming eyes.

I believe I sneezed out a significant portion of my frontal lobe in that little incident. Ow.

In other news, exams are kicking my ass from here to China, and they haven't even started yet. I am so fucked it's beyond belief. Life is not good right now.

The Netflix Chronicles continue...

2005-11-22T23:23:00.000-05:00

I just saw a pretty damn good movie: Kontroll, from Hungary. It reminded me a lot of Miller's Crossing, in certain ways, and more distantly of Hard Eight ...all filtered through something like Run Lola Run.

And, like Miller's Crossing but even more so, the main character* in this movie is severely, breathtakingly attractive. Albeit somewhat blood-streaked by the end. And maddeningly familiar, somehow...I kept thinking I've seen this guy before, but I haven't seen any of his other films, and if I'd actually met someone as desperately good-looking as that, you'd think I'd remember, right? It's a mystery.

Also, very gratifying to find out: kurva is a naughty word in nearly every Eastern European language. Even a heathenish non-Indo-European one like Hungarian.

*Sándor Csányi

2005-11-22T16:48:00.000-05:00

It's unfortunately indicative of my thought patterns that it took me years to realize that the acronym BFF does not stand for Best Fucking Friends.

I mean, come on. Best Friends Forever is not the first thing that comes to mind.

Does the group you're referring to have their own army? No? Then DON'T FUCKING CAPITALIZE IT.**

2005-11-22T12:13:00.000-05:00

You know what really pisses me off?

Well, yeah, "everything," fair enough.

But in particular, the subject of this morning's Two-Minute Hate: people who inappropriately capitalize words. Yeah, that seems a little strange coming from me, considering that I randomly capitalize All the Damn Time. But when I do it, it's With Irony Aforethought, for literary* effect and shit. What pisses me off is when people capitalize perfectly normal group designators for no damn reason. For example: "It is hard for me to understand what these Liberals think..." "I like all types of music except for Country music, its crap." This irritates the living fuck out of me.

I think what makes it so infuriating is that it's overcorrecting. It's why people say "He gave it to Brad and I..." when there is a fucking OBJECTIVE CASE CALLED FOR THERE. Saying "Me and Brad are here" is also incorrect, but it's a hell of a lot less pretentious.

Man, can you tell it's a struggle to write these days? At least I can always fall back on spewing bile at total strangers.

*well, ok, for "literary" effect. Heh.

**Obviously there are exceptions to this. I mean, we still capitalize Czech. Haha! I'm kidding -- the Czech Republic does in fact have an army, but all they seem to do is Look Sexy on the Metro. But they do that very well indeed...keep up the good work, čeští vojáci!

The Queen of Things Better Left Unsaid

2005-11-16T22:26:00.000-05:00

...is how someone addressed me in an IM conversation recently.

I am SO PROUD.

From a recent conversation with my brother

2005-11-16T22:19:00.000-05:00

"How did the monkey get there?!"
"I don't know, but it's tragic!"
"Exactly!"

When you know all the same songs, your conversations become somewhat opaque to the uninitiate.

Ray is an idiot, and also high

2005-10-29T13:44:00.000-04:00

Oh man I love Achewood. I've really been getting into the character blogs lately. Téodor's in particular is fucking awesome:

I was out back watering our new herb garden today (basil, thyme, oregano, mint, chives) when Ray called my cell phone. I almost didn't take it, but you never know what you're going to get with him. Being on Ray's speed-dial is kind of like playing the Lottery: 99.999% of the time he's just calling because he wants to know if Kevin Bacon and Sissy Spacek have ever been in a movie together, but there's always that off chance he just accidentally won a new 63" flat-screen TV he doesn't need and wants to give it to the first person who's home.

TÉODOR: Hello?

RAY: Ray? This is Téodor.

TÉODOR: No it’s not. This is Téodor. Ray?

See, it's probably not that funny unless you're really into Achewood. But I am, so I don't give a shit.

Most of my posts these days seem to be links to other places, or movie reviews. If you concluded from this that my own life is an empty wasteland of despair, well, you would be correct. That's right: I'm EMBRACING the goth teen act. So there. It's only a matter of time before I switch my blog to gray text on black, and start posting overwrought poetry that involves a lot of unnecessary line breaks.

Osvícení means enlightenment

2005-10-26T22:52:00.000-04:00

Ok, I think this picture is completely badass.

There are words, I know, to pin down what it is that makes it so good: framing, shadow, light and dark. Composition. I don't know photography well enough to express it right. All I know is I can't stop looking at it.

And the amazing thing is, I've been there. That's my town. I've stood exactly there, in the white light of morning. It's in Harcov, out on the northeast side of town; those buildings are student dormitories. I'd go out there and drink with my friends and with my students, and stay out until dawn sometimes. Easy enough to do anyway, and waiting for the transportation to start up again saved the cab fare. Ride the 15 bus back into the city, change to a tram all the way out west to the foot of Ještěd, where I lived. Wash up, change, and go back into the city for work. It was so good.

The other pictures on this guy's site are excellent too; he's a student at the university, but not in my department. One of the Faculty of Mechatronics dudes...I hung out with a lot of them, mostly friends of the Big Sexy Hockey Player, but I didn't know this guy. He seems to be very into buses. And hey, buses are cool.

O špatném filmu, or Netflix Fails to Come Through

2005-10-21T20:38:00.000-04:00

Ok, I just watched the most depressing movie ever. It's called Zurek, and I seriously do not recommend it, at all. There was not one single redeeming feature to this movie. It wasn't even a tearjerker -- it moved past the point of poignancy, right into the territory of they're beating up a retarded girl, for fuck's sake. Hell, it was past saving in the first five minutes. Also: ugly Polish people having ugly, ugly sex. Ulch.

And it's not like I don't love a nice dark Slavic movie. But damn. This was not a movie. It was just a succession of Bad Things Happening to People You Don't Identify With. Jeez.

Also, the whole thing was filmed in very low light, and the colors were all washed-out. I know, arty, but in this case it just accentuated the despair, like what, have they never heard of a sixty watt bulb in Poland? And dammit, I've lived at that latitude, or thereabouts; it's not that dark in winter. It's...lovely. But that's beside the point.

Also beside the point is the fact that the Polish itself made it more of a downer for me personally. I love Poland, and in fact have had only awesome experiences there, but after a year and some of Czech immersion, Polish sounds to me like a Czech speaker who has been repeatedly punched in the mouth, so that the words are basically running down the speaker's chin. Not pleasant listening. (In fairness, I should add that my obsessively Pole-ophile comrade last year, Depressed Michael, asserted that Czech sounds to Poles like the speech of little children, all high-pitched and squeaky. And I can see that. But I still prefer it.)

So. Not a feel-good movie of any kind, even for me, and I love dark movies. Hell, I thought Requiem for a Dream was good, even though it put me into a three-day funk. This wasn't even dark, though. It was plotless. It was just pain, with no reasoning or justification.

Ok then. Now I need to drink more beer. And watch Tender Mercies, or possibly All the Real Girls. To get the taste out.

Also, during college I owned a movie called Raising Victor Vargas. And now I no longer do. Give it back, dammit.

O dvacet tři a filmu

2005-10-09T22:36:00.000-04:00

I turned 23 yesterday. It was very low-key, especially compared to last year...although, since last year’s birthday resulted in the worst stuck-in-a-public-place hangover of my career, which I had to ride out in a corner booth at Bohemia Bagel with the long-suffering Clara, I think it may have been a little too festive.

But anyways. I went home and hung out with the ’rents, and it was just the three of us since my little sister was out of town. So we cooked dinner, drank Löwenbräu, had key lime pie instead of cake.

The cool thing, though, was this Czech movie we watched, Želary. It was...just fucking amazing. I'm not totally sure about the ending, I guess, but in general...so good. And it was respectful and even reverent about religion, which you really don’t expect from a Czech film. Man. I think I need to watch it again.

Oh yeah, and as a side benefit, they speak beautiful clear Czech for most of it, so it’s good for practicing, if that’s what you’re into.

Oh, it's queer all right

2005-10-07T18:02:00.000-04:00

During the course of some research I was doing for a post I might finish one of these days, I actually read (or at least scanned) all the way through a long and truly stultifying article on Queer Theory. This thing was just...wow. At one point, boyfriend used the word “recuperate” as a transitive verb, and I thought my eyes were going to roll all the way to the back of my head. I guess “rehabiliate” or even “revive” would just be too damn straight for him.

But it was all worth it for this absolute gem I found: the term homosocial. As in, “Last night was ok, but you know it always turns homosocial when those dudes get together.” And, “Huh, this college we went to sure did emphasize compulsory homosociality. No wonder the boys never came out of their dorms.” It’s like another word for a penis party, which is an excellent mot juste for a fairly common phenomenon, except I was never able to keep a straight face when I said “penis party.” Plus it has the added (or maybe just increased) overtone of seething latent homosexuality, which is always good to have.

More stuff that only Jedno understands

2005-10-04T22:55:00.000-04:00

A small side-effect of this whole Czech endeavor is that I'm now constitutionally unable to make the right choice between the 'z' key and the 'y' key.* As demonstrated by the fact that I fucked up not one but both of them while typing the previous sentence.

*because they're reversed** when you have your keyboard on the Czech settings.

**because, whether they like to admit it or not***, the Czechs got everything they have from the Germans, including this keyboard foible.

***and they don't. at all.

I'm not used to this thing where it's a long way to the end of the sentence

2005-10-04T21:59:00.000-04:00

I've made several quantum leaps in my Czech ability within the past few months, but I made the somewhat depressing realization today that I can come back to an article on the internet and find the exact place I stopped within a sentence. Think about it...you don't do that in your native tongue, or in any tongue that you're anything approaching fluent in. No, you read to the end of the freaking sentence and then go get another beer or whatever.

But to nevadí. I'll push on. This method* of learning Czech is actually working pretty well for me. I'm pretty sure its efficacy is limited to me, though, because it's based on a genuine overwhelming interest in what they're actually saying in obscure Slavic rock songs, which few Slavs even share, and an endless fixation on text that is written down where I can fix my eyes on it and read it, all day long. In very related news, I read 700 pages of text this weekend in five hours all together. It was in the form of two semi-trash novels**, on the other hand, which mitigates the achievement a bit.

*the method being, find something on the sweet interweb that I want to read, this being mostly lyrics to songs that I love, and then slog through it with the dictionary.

**From a Buick 8, by Stephen King, and Shadow Puppets, by Orson Scott Card. Oh all right: so one of them was all trash and one of them was mostly trash. Well, it was ok, but Ender's Game was way better.

2005-09-30T19:07:00.000-04:00

A PSA for those who are interested: on the label of JW Dundee's American Pale Ale, it says "Full Flavor" in small type. But apparently what they mean by that is "tastes like feet."

Of course, I finished it anyway, and I fully plan to drink the remaining five* My taste buds have been through worse; I drank nothing but Milwaukee's Beast (and lots of it) for the entire 2003-2004 schoolyear. In sharp contrast to 2004-2005, during which I drank vats of beer, and not a single half-liter of it was anything but fucking brilliant.

Well, ok, Svijany 13° does kind of taste like feet. But good feet.

*well, probably not tonight.

2005-09-26T14:53:00.000-04:00

HahaHAH! Die, Insert key, DIE!!

Holy fuck I'm tired.

In other news, when I left the apartment this morning, the ant count was not zero. Doubtless when I get back this afternoon, it will be very much more not zero. This is not ok with me.

I'm punchdrunk. I'll lower the bar if I want to.

2005-09-26T04:38:00.000-04:00

"This may take a few minutes, if you have a large blog." Heheheh. Large blog. All-riiight!

Eight bleeding pages of legal analysis, DONE!

2005-09-26T04:34:00.000-04:00

Hey, what time is it now? Four-thirty in the fucking morning, that's what time it is. Not a time I like to see through sober eyes.

It's not like I've been drinking, but I have been alternately combatting The Ant Invasion and Writing a Memo, aka reading a bunch of made-up shit and extracting from it The Fact Pattern, reading a bunch of cases and extracting The Rule from those cases, applying The Rule to The Fact Pattern, and mashing it all into a highly stylized format, until the ass-crack of dawn, i.e. now. So I guess the word is "punchdrunk." It wasn't as much work as it sounds like...I could have been done way before now if I had a single none-idle bone in my body, and hadn't chosen "Sunday night" as the optimal start time for this project. But that's not the world we live in, is it?

Also, I've been walking barefoot across ant-poison sprayed carpet...i know, i know, genetic anomalies, but what am I supposed to do? I can't wear my sandals all the damn time. Plus I just realized they stink. Man...the concepts "just realized" and "footgear smells like wet laundry left in a pile for a week" really shouldn't ever be in the same sentence, should they.

Yeah, this is pretty much the level of coherence I'm capable of right now. Come on, wind down already so I can go to sleep. For three hours. And then, y'know, "brush up" on the ass-long readings for the ass-long tomorrow.

Wind doooowwwwnn, damn you... y'all are all so lucky I'm not calling you right now. That's pretty much what I feel like doing. Hey, it's daytime in Dan's world! But I don't think he has a phone. Bollocks.

Because this is a perfect time to resume blogging

2005-09-25T23:58:00.000-04:00

Why is the Insert button even on the keyboard anymore? Who the hell uses it?? What do they use it for? And why the fuck is it right next to the Delete button, which I do use? Every other second, in fact?

And why did my apartment get attacked by ants? Tonight, of all nights, when I have an eight-page memo due tomorrow? And why can’t I for the sweet love of Pete end a sentence with anything but a question mark?

Very very picky about very small things

2005-09-04T13:28:00.000-04:00

Oh shit. Ohshitohshitohshit. I can't find my nail-clippers.

No. NO. You don't understand. This is serious. I've looked everywhere, and I can't find the fucking thing. I did find a ruler, and I was able to confirm that my fingernails are, rightnowaswespeak, over 1/16 of an inch long. That's right, fucking Howard Hughes length. I am twigging. If Jedno and I were both still in the CZ, I would so totally be saddling up for the five hour trip to her place so I could use her clippers. She saw ample evidence during our travels of my complete inability to deal with this kind of thing.

I can practically feel them growing.

That's it. I can't take this. I'm going home, back to the ancestral seat of the Mylastnames, where the ratio of fingernail clippers to people is upwards of five to one, like a decent Christian household. What, you mean your family doesn't sit around the room twitching and obsessing about fingernail length?

Plus, they're having bratwurst tonight, and apparently my dad just went on a particularly egregious run to the fancy-ass beer store. That alone is worth a trip. Even if my fingernails weren't threatening to grow right the fuck through my palms.

So I'll, ah, be hitting the road now.

Stereotyping the people I love

2005-09-03T12:07:00.000-04:00

I got Chinese takeout last night, with the pretend money on my credit card. They included three fortune cookies, which highlights another thing I can take comfort in about being back in the US, i.e. yummy Chinese food. You can get get Chinese food in the Czech Republic, yeah, but (a) it kind of surks, and (b) there ain't no fortune cookies. Which is too bad, because I'd love to see what Czechs would consider appropriate fortunes. "Your life sucks. But at least you're not a Gypsy." "Even when it's not raining outside, it's still raining in your soul." "No one loves you. If they say they do, they must be stupid. Or evil. Or both." And in Liberec: "There's only three kinds of weather in this town: rainy, windy, and uphill."

(Heh. That one's an actual saying from the Liberec, where it is indeed mighty hilly.)

Man, this is fun. Now I'm imagining Slovak fortunes: "Your life sucks. But at least you're not Czech." "Unhappy? Don't blame us, it's the Czechs' fault."

Hungarian: "You speak Russian in here and we will cut you."

German: "You might speak German. But you'll never be German. And don't eat with your fingers, you barbarian."

Russian: "How the fuck did you get in here? Vlad, increase the visa requirements!"

I can't think of one for Poland, though. Well, I can think of ones that the Czechs would make for the Poles: "Oh yes! I am Paweł! I am optimist, because I do not understand reality of situation!" But, uh, the Czechs have a little tendency to be hatas. Which is probably why I love them so much.

New wheels, new discoveries

2005-09-01T22:36:00.000-04:00

I have just made an amazing discovery --
the Po' Man's Hydraulics!!*

What you do is, you put the car in first and get it going about ten miles an hour, and then you start gently tapping the clutch! It's awesome!

Plus, if you do it a lot, you probably get a new tranmission sooner than you were expecting to. I'm telling you, this trick is all sorts of fun...

*although I do realize that poor man's hydraulics are in fact...actual hydraulics.

2005-09-01T22:25:00.000-04:00

Hooo-kay...one post, three spam comments within half an hour. Word recognition...ON!

fuuuuuck

2005-09-01T21:57:00.000-04:00

You know what sucks?

Realizing you've run slap out of girl stuff, and it's ten o'clock at night.

Well, that's why the good Lord gave us a 24-hour Kroger five minutes away. Pass the Advil, we're goin' to the sto'!

Come to think of it, if I was in this situation back in my beloved Bohemia, I'd be totally fucked. I know any number of places to get a beer or a hotdog at all hours of the night. But a tampon? Not as much. Liberec seriously needs to get itself a 24-hour Tesco...I mean, there's one in Karlovy Vary, for pete's sake. Freaking Jihlava even has one.

Anyway, the point is, I'm trying damn hard to focus on the positive about being here and not there. And it's ok. I'm keepin' on.

Written about 30 seconds before heading out to Friday Night In A College Town

2005-08-26T21:01:00.000-04:00

You know what I just realized? I'm never going to get drunk again! Never again!

And this is not because of some new-found moderation; oh no. This is because there will never again be a night as long as I live when I don't have to fucking drive myself and others home. Never! It's just not gonna happen!

I'm not even talking about blissful reason-losing shitfaced here. I'm talking about the normal, pleasant, able-to-interact-with-near-strangers type of wasted. I'm talking a four beer buzz. This is the whole reason I never went to bars at TAC! Not because I was stony broke, although that too -- it was because I'd have to twist someone's arm behind their back to get them to drive for me!

See, in the Czech Republic...and I shouldn't even start this, I know...in fucking Bohemia, I could take public trans home. Or I could freaking walk, pretty much without fear of getting raped. Here, not so much. FRUSTRATION. How am I supposed to make friends with these pod people if I can't get my swerve on?? I ASK YOU.

Ok, gonna post this and drive off into the night, cursing my stone-cold sobriety.

We're not hemophilic. Not quite.

2005-08-24T15:07:00.000-04:00

So I'm sitting here, surfing my wireless broadband connection, idly scratching a vicious mosquito bite on my ankle, when I feel something tickling my foot. Oh hey...it's a fucking STREAM of blood coming from the afore mentioned bite. DAMMIT.

And thus, as I staunched it with a paper napkin, I pondered, once again, all the things that my beloved brother and I have in common: our worldview, our deep love of music, our ability to talk over anyone, and...our tendency to bleed like stuck pigs at the slightest laceration suffered by our milky white skin. Must be the Romanov blood.

what is this self-discipline you speak of?

2005-08-22T15:57:00.000-04:00

And here I am again, surfing aimlessly instead of studying, about get myself well down the road to serious butt-fuckedness as far as law school goes, all because I remain congnitally incapable of exerting effort for more than two minutes continuously. WHY IS THIS?? Why must I arse around until late at night? WHY HAVE I NO GUMPTION?!?

If gumption's the word I'm looking for. I think maybe it's not...I tend to associate it with informing someone that These Boots Are Gonna Walk All Over Him (i.e., the someone). But I dunno.

Ok, Civil Procedure, here we come. Or...maybe I should start with Torts. Or...hey, look over there! Shiny!

Sigh.

It doesn't have to be in Latin -- anything but English is fine, really

2005-08-21T14:42:00.000-04:00

Well yes, I suppose it is true that Our Blessed Lord "took the fall for us." Nonetheless, I'd rather not hear it expressed in this way right after the Consecration. Particularly not by a pimply-faced youth wielding an electic guitar.

Also, I'm not sure what the deal is when some chick stands up after Communion and gives a twenty second "message." Is that even part of the service? All I know is, the silly bint managed to (a) pronounce the word "rigid" with a hard /g/, and (b) encourage us to work on accepting ourselves and others just as we are, because really, everyone's good inside -- after all, that's what Christ was trying to show us when he forgave Peter for his betrayal.
Yeah, ok, everyone's good inside...everyone except for me, that is, because I'm still trying to decide whether it was (a) or (b) that cheesed me off more.

But all things come to an end at some point, even ill-conceived recessionals with clumsy drum solos. After it was all over and and I'd staggered out into the Georgia evening sauna, I figured out it was a Life Teen Mass, which explains why I could feel my throat closing up the whole time. So maybe next week we'll check out the en Español options.

2005-08-13T20:07:00.000-04:00

I feel like such a perv...I'm driving around and parking next to random apartment complexes to feed off the unsecured wireless networks of those inside.

Ah shit, I broke the silence, didn't I. Oh well, at least it wasn't anything substantive.

Desperate attempts to make one's intelligence not a liability in the eyes of the opposite sex

2005-06-23T10:36:00.000-04:00

Ok, here's me in college:
"Hey! Hey, if you go out with me, I'll do your homework for you! Oh... Oh -- okay. I'll just...do your homework anyway, then. If that's ok."

Which, hey, it's college -- if there's ever a time that you're allowed to be a total mark for stupid boys with pretty eyes, it's then. But the thing is? I'm 22 now, and I still do this. It's like nothing's changed at all.

Well, ok, it's not totally the same. Different boys, different subjects, different continents. Nobody's in college anymore, at least undergrad, and no one's in danger of getting bounced because Descartes' locus prop has No Mercy. And really, a lot of things are different: I'm...well, I'm something approaching happy and secure, which is a far fucking cry from the college days.

But even now. These boys. They come to me with their articles they've written for scholarly journals, and their presentations that they have to give in English, the whole thing, and they're panicked, and their big brown eyes are pleading...I'm not made of stone, how can I say no to that?

"Try this thing called 'growing a spine'," one might suggest, and one might in fact have a point there. Nonetheless, the fact remains that no matter how many times you discover that half a loaf is in many cases totally not better than none...no matter how many times and in how many ways you're forced to confront that truth....you...you just...but...they're...but...brown eyes...

Exactly.

Oh well. At least I have more clarity about it now. And they're pretty good about buying me beer afterwards, which is probably more than I'd get if I were getting actual romantic attention from them.

Plus...I like doing this shit. I read their articles and presentations and whatnot, and I whip them into shape, y'all. It's amazing to me that these guys can reach Ph.D. candidate status without figuring out that when you write something, or give a speech, or whatever, it's a good idea for it to maybe have a point. I don't know, maybe they had easy teachers all along. Or maybe they just got smart chicks to do their homework for them. It's a mystery.

And the universe is shaped exactly like the earthIf you go straight long enough, you'll end up where you were

2005-06-21T14:56:00.000-04:00

--Modest Mouse, "3rd Planet"

So like a month and a half ago, someone asked me what I missed most about America. And...I couldn't think of anything. I mean, ok, I miss my friends, but I won't really be much closer to most of them when I'm stateside. And I guess ready access to cheap sushi would be nice, but...really? There wasn't a single thing I could point to that I missed about living there, or that I'm looking forward to now that I'm going back in ten days. Which is bleak as hell, and kind of made me sad, since it's not like I loathe the U.S.

But I was listening to this song, 3rd Planet, and all of a sudden I came up with what I do miss about the States...and it sounds almost bleaker than missing nothing. What I miss about America is: the atheists. That seems strange, given that atheism is pretty much the norm in Europe, especially in the Czech Republic. Pretty much everyone I've met here is a mild and unexamined atheist; when they find out that I'm Catholic, on more than a purely ethno-cultural level, they react not with hostility, but with mild amazement. It's like I've just announced that I've made it my life's work to collect antique paperweights; they're not judging at all, they're just kind of mystified as to why I would remotely care about that stuff. God is just not...something that occurs to them even to wonder about, it seems like.

Whereas almost everyone in the U.S. is a mild and unexamined "believer in a Spirit that moves through all of us" or some such shit. It's at least somewhat rare to find an American who flat-out doesn't believe in God, at all. And...this doesn't seem to me to be much closer to the truth than the European attitude. Plus it's more annoying. Shut up with the fucking angels, America. People talk about angels like they're little cute God-substitutes, with the fun powers but minus the scary judging thing.

But. The point is. The corollary to this American attitude is that those who do take that stand, that God doesn't exist, take the position more seriously. At least for some of them, it seems like the fact of having to consciously choose that belief makes them more aware of what a tragic discovery it is. They're not comfortably at peace with it, they're full of resentment and grief. Like people who've realized they're being cheated. And not because they thought there was a god and there isn't. It's because your soul needs God, or something, like a drowning man needs air, and you can sense that, even if you never articulate it to yourself on a rational level. And so what kind of a bullshit world is it where you ache for something you can't name, that doesn't even exist? If there is no God, then we're children abandoned by parents we never even saw.

Which is why I started thinking about this just now. Because I'm listening to Modest Mouse, who embody this attitude more than anyone else I can think of. Their songs are like all of Flannery O'Connor's characters rolled into one: the tragic bitter atheist, who doesn't believe, and faces up to the full bleak reality of what that unbelief means. There is no God, and it's a fucking tragedy. There is no God, and why is there anything at all? There is no God, and we'll never forgive him for not being.

And now for something even shallower, albeit somewhat cryptic:

2005-06-21T13:41:00.000-04:00

Written while drinking Svijany 11°, shortly after grading 67 individual three-page Phonology exams.

Such a beautiful short tough word. Starts with a fricative, voiceless of course. Voiced consonants are pussy -- it would be /v/ if it was voiced, and how would that sound? Exactly: gay. And it's a fricative, for maximum catharsis: a fricative is like the perfect combination of the force of a consonant and the flowing air of a vowel. Your upper teeth dig into your bottom lip as you hiss your way into the word. Then to the vowel itself, a grunt almost, the back of your tongue lifted to within a fraction of the soft palate. Your whole tongue's close to the roof of your mouth, so it's an effortless move from the initial consonant: all you have to do is widen your lips and you're there. And then the finish, the final consonant: hard and gutteral and voiceless, yes, and where's it articulated? The soft palate of course, just a millimeter away from that unobtrusive little vowel sound! A brilliant finish: whether left unaspirated or given that extra push of breath at the end, its plosive force cuts off the air and then releases it, like the sound you make when you get punched in the stomach. It ends the word like a full-body hit in a mosh pit, that leaves you gasping for breath, and slamming back for more.

Yeah, I'm...not sure where that came from. It's in the same format as one of the answers I was looking for on the Phonology exam: take a word and dissect it, discuss the articulation of each phoneme in order. Despite the fact that the word above is, needless to say, not one of the ones I asked them to analyze, I would have been absolutely thrilled if someone had turned in the above paragraph. Because, mark you, it gives all the relevant information for each phoneme, and! It uses complete sentences! You wouldn't think it'd be that hard! But the little twits cannot get it straight.

I'm...gonna go lie down now.

A posting drought this long can only be broken by something deeply deeply shallow

2005-06-21T13:26:00.000-04:00

A conversation from at least three years ago, with my girl C.B.:

R: I like some ass on a guy.
C: Ok, now, do you mean "I like some ass on a guy," or do you mean "I like some ass on a guy"?

And I must admit that it was the latter. Still is, in fact. I can't help it; some boys can seriously rock a ghetto booty.

Beautiful beautiful crazy talk

2005-06-04T08:22:00.000-04:00

This was part of an anonymous comment on this blog. It was prompted by a reference to the practice of waxing one's pubic hair.

Creating pedaphilic minded spouses is not a goal in life - Heaven is!

I mean, damn. I don't even know how to explain what's so mindbendingly funny about that comment -- the term "cognitive disconnect" comes to mind, as does the term "spit-take," and possibly also "Bitch crazy." But other than that...I'm kind of speechless here. Speechless, but grateful. It's moments like these that give me true appreciation for the Interweb and the joys that it brings.

My new favorite phrase

2005-06-03T06:38:00.000-04:00

It's kind of too much, you know? It would be like if the Queen woke you up every morning. Too Special.

--Raymond Smuckles

Sometimes I have a hell of a lot of work to do for my job. (Jedno's rolling her eyes and heaping calumny on my head right now. Um, sorry.)

Then again, other days I get paid to sit in my office and read Achewood all the live-long day. So good.

2005-06-03T03:30:00.000-04:00

Since I'm in the process of grading EIGHT GAZILLION phonology exams, I thought this was appropriate. I got to it from Donzilla.

Your Linguistic Profile:

55% General American English

40% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

0% Yankee

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

It's pretty accurate...I don't have a very strong Southern accent, being from Atlanta, the motherlode of Whiny Expat Yankees. But my accent's definitely there somewhere...at some point we were all in the car, and my parents called my cell phone. So I shoot the shit with them for a while, and when when I get off the phone, the other people are all like, "Damn, girl! You just started talking like Dolly Parton!"

And I was all, "Hell naw, she from Tennessee. Georgia accent's way different." And it is.

Good luck abstracting the universal from this one

2005-06-02T14:29:00.000-04:00

Being a teacher has been bloody enlightening in a number of ways, especially since I spent so many years being taught. For one thing, I now understand the hostility that teachers tend to direct at smart(ass) kids: because the little bastards are fucking with your lesson plan. You do not want to fuck with the lesson plan, shorty. The lesson plan is all that stands between the teacher and a classroom full of bored 18-year-olds with 40 minutes to go in the lesson and there's just been a memo about not letting them out early and there's nothing up your sleeve sweet heaven what are you going to do? This is the kind of existential crisis that leads my lamer colleagues to play Hangman for upwards of forty minutes, when by rights Hangman should not be "played" by anyone who's mastered the multiplication table.*

But that's not what I do. I'm far more sophisticated: I write the word "Sexcapades" on the board, and say, "In groups. Discuss." Because come on, that's all they want to talk about anyway, that and beercapades. Come to think of it, that's pretty much all I want to talk about, and I'm, hey, almost four years older than some of them.

This has all been a long tangent on the way to revealing: I am a really unfair grader. Well, I'm not, according to my lights...it's just that the test formats I've painstakingly come up with turn out to be kind of subjective when I actually get around to grading said tests. This can be blamed to some extent on the fact that I do the absolute minimum required to meet each successive deadline as it comes upon me...my motto is, fuck the stitch in time, let's have a beer and we'll just do nine tomorrow at the last minute! And then I curse my lazy ways the next day, but whatever, I had a good time the night before.

Speaking of procrastinating...I haven't posted anything, or answered emails, or anything for the past few days because I'm so damn busy. But this current flood of eloquence? Is because there are literally fifty phonology exams on my desk, that I should really grade before tomorrow. And it's 9pm now. Whoo.

But so anyways. I'm realizing, as I grade the fairly subjective sections of the phonology exams, that the grade I give the kid is largely dependent on how much I like the kid. This isn't as unfair as it sounds; I like a lot of the kids, but especially the ones who speak English well and participate in class actively. And, um, laugh at my jokes. Hey, it shows comprehension! And knowing what side their bread is buttered on!

And this makes me realize that probably most teachers do this. Not on, like, strictly math exams, I guess. But exams like the ones we took at the college? Totally...I don't even think you can help it, to some extent.

I'm not sure what point I was making with this. I'm just going to hit Publish now. And then I'm going to grade those bleeding Phonology exams. Yeah.

*except for the time we were driving back from Berkeley in toque's tiny little no-AC VW, all the way down the 5 in July, and I was in the backseat next to clara, and we seriously thought the skin on our legs was going to meld to the seats it was that fucking hot, and so after we got bored of trying to get bauble to flirt with girls in other cars,** we played hangman on the back of an envelope. the first word was "buttcheeks", and it was downhill from there. and then when it finally got cooler, we tried to roll up the windows some, and then we discovered exactly how much we'd all been sweating, and we rolled them right the hell back down again....good memories.

**and it worked! he smiled at them! and several of them smiled back so hard they almost ran off the road!

Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space

2005-05-31T12:40:00.000-04:00

So I just spent three and a half hours swilling wine with my colleagues in the department, and it just about rocked my face off. Those of you who know me are now cringing, but no! Apparently, at least white wine doesn't make me puke anymore! Good shit! Anyways, we've had quite a few of these little staff get-togethers in the departmental secretary's office, and usually they're somewhat gruesome...all of us sitting around, sipping wine and thinking about all the other places we'd rather be, and trying not to cross streams with the No Tact Freight Train that is my beloved boss. (beloved, seriously, I love this woman. It's not just the wine talking, I swear. She's awesome, she just doesn't have the tact gene.) But this time, despite the fact that we're all seriously fucking busy with exams and everything, we ended up having a blast. They started telling stories about the wild old days in the department, where departmental parties usually ended up with the (fiftyish) secretary dancing topless on a table. Fucking hilarious, I'm telling you, especially if you know these people. Anyway. It filled me with the Love.

Come to think of it, maybe it was because we're all busy out the ass right now. We were talking about something like that this afternoon; that when you're supposed to be doing something, something that has to get done by a certain time, that's the time that you find the most creative and worthwhile other projects to do. I know it's true for me; the best personal writing I've ever done was mostly done on weekends I had papers due. And it was the same with this thing today: we knew we all had other shit to do, and for some reason it made us able to chill the fuck out, relax, let the walls down a little. Sit around and tell mildly scandalous stories on a fucking gorgeous late spring day, until the lowering sun lights up all the roofs and the gables and the pigeons wheeling.

All these times that live in my memory, all these golden drinking experiences, and as of now one of the best is the time I sat around with two fiftyish Czech women and a 32-year-old Czech man and drank wine all through the afternoon. How the fuck am I going to leave this place? How the hell am I gonna do it?

You can so tell that we're related

2005-05-30T06:55:00.000-04:00

An recent email from my mom:

"...your Dad took the girls to see Star Wars, and I went to see a French movie at the same theater. It was ok, I guess, but there was no skin at all! I was very disappointed."

Ok, maybe I am looking forward to going home. Just a little bit.

2005-05-25T08:27:00.000-04:00

Insecurity is the certain knowledge that there is a hole in your jeans in a location that is not remotely appropriate, and that this hole is widening at a considerable rate. For added thrills, ponder the fact that it's at least six to eight hours until you can get home and change. And during this time, you'll probably have to hang out with people.

On the other hand, you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that you're in the Czech Republic, where strategically placed holes in clothing are always in fashion. Now pass me my stiletto boots, I've got a party to go to.

Hoooo-oomward...ah fuck this.

2005-05-19T11:33:00.000-04:00

So I now have an actual real live plane ticket back to the US. July 1, British Airways. Prague to London, London to New York. Of course, I don't live in New York, so I still need a ticket to the ATL. But that shouldn't be very expensive.

There's only one tiny snag: the Prague to London flight lands at Gatwick, and the London-New York flight takes off from Heathrow. You have to go to baggage, get your shite, get on a shuttle bus, and ride for an hour to an hour-and-a-half across London. The minimum suggested connection time is three hours. And the actual time between when I land and when I'm supposed to take off? Three and a half hours. The three-and-a-half hours of rush hour, to be specific. I'm so not making this flight.

And to add insult to injury? The bus to Heathrow costs fifteen pounds. Fifteen fucking pounds? Do you know how many crowns that is?* JEEZ.

So the bottom line is, I may be spending that Friday night on a bench at Heathrow, or I may be spending it doing Lord-knows-what in New York. May the fates be merciful.

And the second bottom line is, someday I need to learn to read things very carefully before I buy them. Don't hold your breath on that one, though. [Taco knows this all too well. I swear I thought his train ticket had the right date on it.]

*15 GBP=670 CZK, or 18% of my average monthly income.

2005-05-18T15:00:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling uncharacteristically full of the charity tonight. For one thing, I had to go have a heart-to-heart with my fire-breathing Boss Lady today, something I'd been dreading and postponing for weeks. I finally went in and did it today, and you know what? She was so nice about it. I take it all back about her; sure, she has a little tendency to hear what she wants to hear rather than what you actually say, most of the time, and her people skills leave a little to be desired...but actually, deep down, she's a kind and understanding person. It's just the everyday outward persona that could use work.

Also, something happened right before the boss talk that made me feel the love for my fellow man: I have this student, a girl about nineteen. She's taller than me, and kind of big, which is tough for a 19-year-old girl anywhere, but especially here in the Czech Republic where every girl is a glossy size 2 and was born with a boyfriend. She's in my writing class, and the essays she writes are beautiful, so well-written and eloquent, despite the grammar mistakes. But from what I read in them, it seems like she feels pretty damn bleak about life. One time I was walking towards the door of the classroom and she was outside talking on her cell phone, and crying. I didn't know what to do...I mean, it's been like eight years since the last time I cried in public, and at that point all I wanted to do was burst into flames and incinerate anyone who so much as asked me if I was ok. And I fucking hated the teachers that tried to get all touchy-feely guidance counselor on us. So I walked by like nothing was happening, and I didn't say anything when she came into class fifteen minutes late. With tears on her cheeks still, poor girl. It made me feel so powerless...I mean, she was speaking Czech on the phone, so I couldn't even tell what kind of shit was going on.

Anyway, so her essays. They're so damn good. And they're in a foreign freaking language. Every time I grade one of them, when I give the little comment next to the check plus she always gets, I have to think of new ways to say 'Your writing is AWESOME, and YOU are awesome for writing it.'

And thus to the point: today after class she comes up to me looking really shy and happy, and hands me something. It's a four-leaf clover. And she gave it to me.

That made my week, y'all.

If you can't say anything catty, get the fuck off the smoker's patio

2005-05-16T05:37:00.000-04:00

A conversation from two years ago.

"So I see Blah and Blah finally hooked up."
"What's that, like the eighth person he's gone out with this year?"
"Something like that...she's just another notch on the bedpost."
"Heh. More like another notch on the dashboard."
"Another notch on the brushpile."
"Another notch on Mr. Kelly's desk."

[....]

"Yeah...can't top that one."

Public Service Announcement:

2005-05-13T04:49:00.000-04:00

Attempting to self-medicate PMS symptoms by drinking a vat of beer will result in Satan's Own Hangover the next morning.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go put my head down on my desk again.

The Czech team beat the crap out of Belarus, 5:1

2005-05-11T04:16:00.000-04:00

Last night I went to the Irish pub with Depressed Michael to watch some hockey, Czech Republic versus Belarus. The Irish pub is about a kilometer down the road from the place we live, and it's become my favorite place to drink. When we walked in last night, the bartender nodded to us and handed us two pints of Budvar before we'd even made it up to the bar. Oh yeah. They know us. So we stood around and watched hockey, random chit-chat, whatever. After a while Martin the bartender got us a place to sit at a table near the TV.

The pub is full tonight, the usual crowd of Czechs, getting bleary-eyed drunk after work. They do this every night, most of them, and so cheerfully, too. Big red-faced men with mustaches, buxom women who can still rock a halter top, slender spike-haired teenagers. Buying each other shots, flirting in a ham-handed way, drinking beer like it's water. This isn't a restaurant, strictly speaking, but like most pubs here it serves classic Czech beer food. Nothing Irish, thank the Lord. There's no menu; you just have to know the things that pubs serve, and ask for something in that category. That category is awesome, by the way. Say, for example, you order a klobasa, the Czech version of a Polish sausage: you get a plate on which is arranged a freshly grilled klobasa, a whole bunch of chopped up tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers, a scoop of mustard, and a scoop of horseradish sauce. And four or five slices of rye bread in a basket on the side. So yummy. I get pizza burn on the roof of my mouth several times a month from those things.

The pub is smallish and pleasantly dim, with heavy wooden tables and benches, and wood panelling on the walls. This is a step above most Czech pubs, which tend towards the flourescent lights and white-washed walls type of interior decorating. Sometimes we hypothesize that the bright lights are a scheme to sell more beer, to put the beer-goggled hooking-up a few more pints down the line.

So that was the evening...we'd planned to go back after the game was over, on the last tram to save walking uphill back to the dorm. Ended up staying on, though, like we always do, until 1 or so. Enough time for four or five beers and a music discussion. Chatted with the ever-present drunk guy who speaks "some" English...there's one in every pub. When we paid up, my bill was about $3.50.

It was a good night. Nothing special, just good.

Huh?

2005-05-10T06:13:00.000-04:00

It's fucking snowing. What the hell.

The Use and Abuse of Bullet Points

2005-05-06T14:31:00.000-04:00

Last night, circa 1:30am:

Come home from drinking up with the students.
Enter apartment, feeling the siren call of the five-pint munchies.
Dish up a bowl of cold pasta and yummy tomato-basil-pepper sauce.
Leave the room, locking the door because the Czechs have infected you with their lock-everything-always paranoia.
Go down the hall to the kitchen. Do the microwave thing.
March back down the hall to room, gingerly holding the VERY HOT ceramic bowl.
Fumble with keys in the entrance hall of your suite, feeling flesh sizzle from contact with the bowl.
Does this one even need to be spelled out?
Ok, ok: drop the motherfucking bowl of hot and tomato-covered fusilli.
Ceramic pasta bomb! "OW! SHIT! FUCK!"
Suddenly recall that you're standing directly next to the door to the probably-not-sleeping-anymore Suitemate of Silent Disapproval. The suitemate who always cleans the bathroom, and gets his ass to bed at 9:30.
shit! fuck! ouch! in a hissing whisper.
At the top of the hour: "The Dance of the Mildly Inebriated Mop-up Job," the lead single off your triumphant new album, Pratfalls of a Native-Speaker Teacher.

This afternoon, circa 4 pm:

Sit around in the afternoon sun after hanging up the wet laundry.
Notice the proverbial call of nature.
Stride purposefully into the entrance hall, on the way to the bathroom.
"OW! SHIT! FUCK!"
Stand on one foot to gaze at the smallish but pointy shard of ceramic impaled in the ball of your foot.
Remove the bloody shard. Little bastard.
Hop back into the bedroom, one hand beneath your foot to catch the blood.
Wow. That is some bright red blood there.
Grab your washcloth; alternate between clamping it onto the wound and wiping up the drops that have spilled.
Hey Einstein, your washcloth is yellow. That's gonna looks super when it dries.
The bleeding's basically staunched. Hobble to the bathroom on one foot and a heel.
Huh. When you put a bloody washcloth under hot water, the blood gives off a really nasty smell.
Like rust getting cooked, really.
Wonder to yourself if it's karmic retribution for your many sins against the Suitemate.
Yeah, probably.
Oh well.

Losing my shit in so many ways

2005-05-04T13:51:00.000-04:00

Ok, I have to say: rolling with Taco and Jedno was fucking awesome.

And I really do mean that, despite the fact that the various festivities of the past three weeks have cost me several valuable things. And I'm not even talking about the assorted dents put into my dignity and my immortal soul.

Let's have a look, shall we? Since April 15, I have lost:

The aforementioned cell phone.

A grey wool sweater. I loved that thing, even though there was a big-ass hole in the elbow and several incipient ones under the armpits, making it the epitome of what my mother refers to as "Throw that damn thing away, you look like Please Send to Care." Alas, I foolishly left it hanging from the strap of my backpack, and it fell off during one of our mad dashes to make a train. You win, Berlin Ostbahnhof, you win.

A fucking awesome black cord jacket.Such a good jacket; next to my combat boots it's the item of clothing I've worn most this year. Tragically, it was a casualty of a severely intoxicated Dresden jaunt, somewhere between the Nintendo playing with the hash-smoking bartenders*, and the inebriated trying-to-find-our-hostel. Taco went back to look for it the next day, but no dice. I'll miss it a lot, particularly since it contained, in the left breast pocket:

Every single little plastic card in my possession. You know, the ones with stamped lettering and magnetic strips and all. Those plastic cards. Yeah. What I'm sayin'. Just to savor the exquisite pain a little more, let's enumerate them:

My debit card.
My credit card.
My Czech Republic health insurance card.
A 10 Euro phone card, which is a minor but annoying loss.
My key card, which I need to open the front door of my apartment building.

So...yeah. I'm kind of not upset about it; it's one of those 'oh SHIT' moments that's of such staggering magnitude that you're like, hey, whatever. What happens, happens. And I did manage to cancel my cards before anything Truly Bad happened to my bank account or my credit rating.**

*The bartenders were smoking the pot! Not us! Just in case you're reading this, Mom! Which I hope you're not!
**I hope. Ixnay on the empted-tay, Fate.

Witches' Night, seven beers down

2005-05-04T12:54:00.000-04:00

Jedno: [camera in one hand, full cup of beer in the other] Ok, hold it up so I can get a picture...almost...
Camera: *Splunk!* [falls into beer]
All in unison: Oh FUCK.

Five minutes later; we've moved from the outer darkness to the fireside to do camera first aid.

Jedno: Well maybe we can dry it off some and...hey, where IS it?

We retraced our somewhat staggering steps, and found the camera nestled in the dewy grass. The next morning it smelled like rich malty lawn clippings. Here's hoping it's just the battery...on the other hand, if the memory card is fucked? It just might be for the best. Some SERIOUS shit-talking was recorded on that thing. Beautiful calumny all night long, y'all.

In haste

2005-04-28T10:55:00.000-04:00

Much earlier in the year, I posted something about looking out my window and seeing blue sky through the falling snow. Right now, I can do the same, except this time it's gentle rain. Seasons. Yeah.

And in approximately 2 minutes, I'm going to give my Culture Talk, aka Ridley BS's About the Civil War. I don't know if anyone will even show up. So hey, win-win situation.

2005-04-21T09:02:00.000-04:00

Went to the Irish pub last night[ed: er, last week, forgot to post it till now.]. It's not all that Irish, thank heaven, it's just that they serve Guinness and Beamish as well as the holy trifecta of Gambáč, Budvarek, and Plzeňek. We go there because the wait staff is nice. We drink Budvar.

My two (male) American colleagues were discussing their students. Specifically, their female students. And how damn hott some of them are. "We're 25-year-old males, Ridley, and it's really tough. Sometimes we have to teach entire lessons sitting down, if you know what I mean." And I did...um, unfortunately.

I couldn't really relate, though. Not just because of the particular...problem, but because 22-year-old chicks just don't have the same instant attraction to 18-year-old boys. Kind of the opposite, in fact.

Although. Some of the physical education students? Mmmmm. In a purely theoretical way, of course.

My Own Personal Afterschool Special

2005-04-20T12:46:00.000-04:00

So I'm with the Mexican and several of my pot smoker Prague friends, sitting outside on the very small terace of this Italian place, in a winding alley a few meters off of Old Town Square. We're finishing up our food, shooting the shit, whatever, and the waitress comes over. I assume we're going to settle up; in fact, the Mexican and I start laying our money on the table like good kids. But my friends smile sweetly and wave her away. At this point, I realize that what they've been discussing at their end of the table is: Walking out on the check. And their spur-of-the-moment plan to do same.

Ohhhh shit.

Immediately, I am fucking terrified. This feeling is prompted not by my religious principles, but rather by my conventional upbringing and my ensuing deep-seated phobia of doing things that get one into BIG TROUBLE.

But look! It's too LATE!! My friends are FLYING THE FUCKING COOP!!!

So I grab my shit and run too. We tear through the winding streets towards the square, so pumped with adrenaline that we narrowly miss making a complete circle back in front of the same restaurant. And I feel all the exhilaration of running with the bad kids, of cutting class in high school, and smoking cigarettes behind buildings, and getting disastrously drunk off wine coolers. All the things, in other words, that I never fucking did in high school, not once, not ever, until I was in college and almost nineteen, in fact. Because I'm a square.

And before you start getting all afterschool special on me with the Say No to Peer Pressure talk...come ON. What the fuck else was I supposed to do? If I'd stayed there, I would have had to pay for their meals too, as well as endure some angry Czech talk, which...no. Don't like grown-ups yelling at me. Also, see above -- Aztec and I left money on the table. So we're not gonna burn. At least not for that.

And yes, as you can tell from the somewhat testy tone of the above paragraph, the Hounds of Guilt have indeed been having their way with me. Or at least, they would have, if not for:

The REAL Afterschool Special part of the story:

Jump cut to two minutes after the Heist. Watch us congregated on a street corner, trying to catch our breath between the adren-fueled giggling. Watch my hand descend in slow-mo towards the pocket where I keep my phone...and the pocket where I don't keep my phone...and all other pouches or receptacles in my possession.

Cold fingers grip my heart as the truth dawns on me: I had left it on the table at the restaurant.

Sweet. Bleeding. FUCKBALLS.

So that's the lesson for the day, kids. When circumstances force you to, y'know, skip out on the bill, please for fuck's sake make sure you've collected all your personal belongings first.

No, I'm kidding. Children, you need to pay for what you eat. Or else the Lord will humiliate you with your own stupidity.

Postscript: We tried various schemes to retrieve the phone, including persuading the innocent latecomer Jedno to call my phone and tell the people that drunken Americans had stolen it, but it didn't work. I'd estimate that it took the restaurant about 15 minutes to turn it into cold hard cash. So I did indeed pay for our meal. Dammit.

On the other hand, I bought a used phone the next day and got the same old number put on it, so we're all good. On the mutant third hand, I don't have any of your numbers anymore. So if you send me a happy text, please put your name on it. That is all.

2005-04-13T01:08:00.000-04:00

The Czech Republic: where the women are hot, the men are conceited, and the children...well, there aren't too many of them.

What the fuck, Google?

2005-04-12T01:09:00.000-04:00

How does it happen that I look at a website, notice a cool quote, copy & paste it into the Google search field, put quotes around it, and Google returns NO FUCKING RESULTS?!? Come ON, Googlebot, I got that text OFF A WEBSITE, there's at least one result that I can find ON MY OWN. And I'm not a bleeding search engine, am I?

There's only one conclusion I can draw from this: Google is not omniscient. The very fabric of society is disintegrating.

This tMGs song should be on everyone's top 5 list of Songs That Reference Kurt Cobain Biting It

2005-04-10T10:03:00.000-04:00

Raskolnikov felt sick
But he couldn't say why
When he saw his face reflected
In his victim's twinkling eye

Some things you'll do for money
And some you'll do for fun
But the things you do for love
Are gonna come back to you one by one

The Mountain Goats - Love

Last night there were several options open to me...could go to a club with a couple of Americans; could go drink beer with other Americans; could beat my head against a wall slowly but firmly for a nearly indistinguishable experience.

I'm proud of myself: I chose...none of the above. Instead, I put some music on, cracked open a beer, and started a book my dad bought me when he was here, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. The first few pages were ok. And then, at some point...holy fucking shit. Next thing I know, it's eleven o'clock, my first beer is still half-finished next to me, and I'm half-way through the book. And I can tell it's just going to get better. It's one of those books that's so fucking good I'm charging through it like a freight train, and yet I don't want it to end. It's so good I have this urge to skip ahead several pages at a time, so I can get more goodness.

And yet right now as we speak, I'm arsing around on the internet instead of reading it. Hey, you can't be intellectual all the time...or in my case, more than a tiny fraction of the time. It's all good.

By the waters of the Neisse we sat down and wept

2005-04-03T12:00:00.000-04:00

I was in Poland when the Pope died. Well, that's not quite true. It says in the news that he died at 21:37, and I was in a Polish town on the German border then. But I didn't find out about it for 23 minutes.

We were about half-way across the river Neisse, on the bridge to Germany, and all the bells on the Polish side started ringing. My friend had said earlier that he couldn't be dead yet because the bells weren't ringing. But I looked at my watch, and it was 22:00 exactly...I clung to the hope for a couple of minutes that it might be normal for bells to ring at 10 o'clock at night. They went on and on, though, long after you could still reasonably believe in any other explanation. So that was it then. John Paul's dead. My friends were quiet and subdued, a little unsure how to act around me, The Catholic One. Michael cleared his throat and said, awkwardly, "Well. Heaven's a better place now." And I don't think he himself believes in God or heaven. So I loved him for saying that then.

We walked on into the quiet streets of the German town. All I could think about was how to get back to Poland, away from the silent Lutheran churches on this side of the river, away from my companions who don't understand, no matter how nice they are about it. But they wanted a beer, and I felt the pull of the Leader Complex that oldest children have, so we wandered around, tried to find a place we could get a beer. It's Germany, for crying out loud, you'd think it wouldn't be hard. Finally we found an ice cream place that was open. I drank my beer in record time, willing them with every fiber of my being to do the same. Headed back to Poland, got our passports examined and stamped yet again. At the door of the hostel, I paused and said, all casual like, "So. I think I'll go stop by the church." There wasn't really anything they could say to that.

By myself finally, I walked up the hill. The streets were dark and quiet, but it wasn't scary. My muscles ached in the way that comes from walking a city from morning to night; my left bootheel creaked with every step I took. I knew where the church was from earlier in the day; it was a newish building, seventies to the bone, all blond wood and track lighting, with a big nature photo in front of the tabernacle. We'd eaten lunch at an outside stand across the street from it, and watched a steady stream of people going in and out of the church, praying for him.

When I reached the top of the hill, all the lights were on in the church, and it was packed, standing room only and spilling out onto the steps. A priest in red vestments was saying the homily; two others sat behind the altar, along with twelve altar boys at least. I stood there listening to the Polish words, and hearing only his name over and over, Jan Paweł, Jana Pawła. The Poles around me were weeping, some of them. I was crying too in a half-assed way, wiping the tears against my shoulder. It felt good to cry...it seemed like I was letting out grief that I can't release for people I knew much better. He seemed like such a good man, and he had such a long life, and with the grace of God he's in heaven now. So it's good sadness; pure, without regret or rancor. Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt...There are tears for things, and mortal affairs touch the heart.

When Mass was finished I didn't want to leave the church. It was one of those times when the inside of a church feels like being at home, or like home is supposed to feel and rarely does. I didn't want to go back outside. You get a moment of certainty, when you know what's right, when you know what your home is and how to get there, and then you go back to your ordinary life and the certainty fades again. Like Alexei Karenin: he has an earth-shaking epiphany at Anna's bedside; his whole being is changed and lifted up. And then...life goes on. The clarity that hit him like a lightning bolt diminishes with time, gets confused with other things. I thought it was the most tragic thing in the book, watching his pure recognition get faded and muddy.

But they were turning the lights out, so I went back outside. It wasn't really that cold, just the clammy feeling you get when it's dark again and you've been in the sun all day. I walked on down the hill past the park; the heel of my backpack chafed against my lower back a little. The bells stopped ringing a long time ago. It's 12:30; my friends are asleep. In the room, I change in the dark so I won't wake them.

Hey, look...

2005-04-01T07:21:00.000-05:00

I found such a pretty song: "History Lesson (Part II)" by the Minutemen.

this is bob dylan to me
my story could be his songs
me and mike watt
playing guitar

Go listen to it.

Teenage FBI

2005-03-30T00:13:00.000-05:00

So last night I'm strolling through Hypernova with a few crowns to burn, picking up groceries here and there, and all of a sudden I spot a bottle of Jim Beam. On sale! Score!

I grab it and head to the register.

"blah blah blah too many consonants" says the cashier lady. Me: deer-in-the-headlights.

"Uh...um...ješt' jedno, prosim," I finally manage. (once more, please)

"blah blah blah osmnact let blah," she says. Osmnact...ehh...eighteen. Why is she...holy shit. She actually wants to know if I'm over eighteen so I can buy this whiskey. The fuck? They never ask you that here.

"Uhh...ano, dvacet dva!" (yes, twenty-two). I realize now that it might have been more convincing if I'd remembered the complete expression for "I am 22." Shut up, it's harder than you'd think: Je mi dvacet dva let, which is literally There are for me twenty two of years. Crazy language.

"blah blah blah obcansky prukaze blah blah." (citizen's pass...I didn't write it down right, but I can recognize it when I hear it.) Whoa. The woman wants to see ID. What am I, fourteen? This isn't America, dude -- learn the rules!

Luckily, I had a copy of my passport in my coat, and was able to point out where it said "1982", i.e. been legal for four fucking years, ma'am. So off I went with my whiskey, marveling.

I was mildly astounded by this incident for several reasons. First of all, I got carded. In the Czech Republic. This is completely unheard-of. Second, the lady thought I could conceivably be under 18. Which is...nice...I guess. Oh come on, no it's not. I'm not jailbait, dammit.

Well, ok. I was wearing ratty jeans, a t-shirt that could be kindly described as "vintage" and truthfully described as "old", and a parka that has seen better days. And a backpack. Granted, everyone wears backpacks here because they use public trans, but yeah...my general appearance did sort of scream "I'm 16, and I'm gonna drink this here Jim Beam out back behind the dumpsters! With boys who objectify me! While smoking CIGARETTES!"

Hey, fuck it. I'll dress like a gutter punk if I want to. I got my whiskey, and that's what counts.

Bitchcakes

2005-03-20T10:43:00.000-05:00

In my family, losing is by far the most effective form of winning.

No, seriously. The loser gets to be the one that gives in, the one that's a Christian Martyr of Fortitude about the whole thing. The one that gets to sulk in a perceptible yet plausibly deniable manner. The one that gets to lay the guilt trips for weeks afterwards. And let me tell you, laying guilt trips is our favorite thing ever.

My, um, aunt is the reigning world champion of the winning-by-losing thing. She's got it down to a fine art...it's almost worth the psychological scarring to watch her in action.

In fact, she's actually taken it to a whole new level: she can actually win by losing while winning. Here's how it works: you have a dispute. She wins the dispute. Then (and this is the part that nearly caused me to put a fist through the wall several times during high school), then, you know what she does? She turns around and makes you feel guilty for making her feel down because you're feeling down about having lost. So not only did you fucking lose the argument, you get to feel bad for making her feel bad that you feel bad about motherfucking giving in to her. You don't even get to mourn your loss without undergoing the Guilt Trip of Doom. And yes, I realize that's too many italics for one paragraph, but tough shit. It's that annoying.
See what I mean:
"Do this! Do this!"
"But I don't..."
"NOW! Lest I unleash the Hounds of Guilt!"
"Ohhhh okay, if that's how it has to be."
"Why are you sad about it?! You know it makes me sad when you're sad! Why would you want to make your aunt sad? Whyyy??"
"ehn...ehn...ehn..." [pounds head against wall]

Note: I'm not talking shit here. I'm in awe of her mad skillz, in fact.

2005-03-19T09:10:00.000-05:00

I will go where I will go,
And I will jettison all dead weight,
and I will use these words for kindling,
and I will sleep by the garden gate.

--The Mountain Goats, "Island Garden Song"

The Church of England: the triumph of aesthetics over substance, yes, but those were some fine aesthetics

2005-03-18T08:11:00.000-05:00

One of these days when I'm in confession and the priest tells me to say my Act of Contrition, I'm gonna bust out with this shit:

ALMIGHTY God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men; We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, By thought, word, and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent, And are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; The burden of them is intolerable. Have mercy upon us, Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; For thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, Forgive us all that is past; And grant that we may ever hereafter Serve and please thee In newness of life, To the honour and glory of thy Name; Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Tell it, brother. Thomas Cranmer was a whoreson rebel, no doubt about it, but holy shit that man could write an English sentence.

The quote is from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

This post brought to you courtesy of me reminiscing about my Anglican days.

And bathed every veyne in swich licuor...

2005-03-18T04:52:00.000-05:00

...of which vertu engendred is the flour.

Holy shit, it's spring. There's still three feet of snow on the ground, but it's been sunny and 60 degrees for the last two days. Depressed Michael swears it's just temporary and that winter's not done with us yet, but I have trouble believing him. The birds are singing again, something that I didn't know I had missed until I heard it again. It gets light crazy early now, by which I mean ASS EARLY IN THE MORNING CONSIDERING IT WAS ST. PATRICK'S DAY YESTERDAY. Ow. Anyways.

So the spring is making me happy even though I wasn't nearly tired of winter yet. It's true, there's something in the air...I loved winter so much, snow and ice and all that shit, but still, this spring feeling is good.

The college didn't have spring. I mean, sure, it had the Ugly Dry Time and the two months of Very Green Time, but it was more like the annular fusion cycles in Infinite Jest than what you'd actually call Spring. This has been said before, I know, but seriously: it's so damn good to live in a place that has seasons. I have a lot of trouble separating my hatred of all things SoCal from my hatred for life at the college, but I'm pretty sure I would have hated the area regardless. I'm the girl with the un-California soul, to paraphrase the artist formerly known as sinnerman.

A side note on St. Patricks day: went out last night with two hundred crowns ($8) in my pocket, woke up this morning with three hundred. Score! Ok, I know what you're thinking, but I swear: I did not 'earn' that money.

2005-03-18T04:38:00.000-05:00

Update: Quite a few people asked to hear the absolute rock-bottom foulest thing I've ever heard. Out of charity I will not list their names here. And you know what? The almost universal response was, "Oh come on, I've totally heard worse than that." But the anecdote in question squicked me right the fuck out! I swear! I'm starting to question my own earthiness*.

Then again, maybe it was the fact that I heard the anecdote in person, and I know both of the people involved. Ohhh Lordy. The guy who told it to me actually apologized for saying it a couple of days later, which I thought was gentlemanly of him.

* If that's the word I'm searching for here. Just to clarify, I mean the quality of thinking that butts are inherently funny, not the quality of making your own granola and knowing way more than anyone should about the Miracle of Birth.