Wednesday, December 07, 2005



There are times, man. There are times.

Last Friday, I sat in a sports utility vehicle converted into a limousine drinking champage, dancing from the waist up to hip-hop music mixed without imagination by a local dj, and pondered if I would be able to make rent by Monday.

Tonight, I sit in a computer lab on campus listening to a stranger's iTunes and strain my psychic abilities to envision a future in which I have finished a term paper and a final exam by 9 am. I will give up ten minutes from now ashamed at my extra-sensory impotence but pleased that I am still able to time-travel very short distances into the future.

Yesterday, I laid on the futon my brother Mulk sold me. It was still in couch-mode and with quiet resolve I swore to keep it that way. In the antiseptic yellow light of my Batman alarm clock I dreamt that I was tumbling down a crevass and as I fell my teeth fell out, one by one by one.

I think it would be funny to drop a few pieces of bacon into the coffee filter of your friend's automatic coffee maker. A boullion cube might have the same effect in respect to the flavor, but not the same effect on your friend's face when he/she looks inside and finds raw bacon.

Thirty minutes ago, I stood in line with Brian Y. and a morass of other hungry students at the campus cafeteria for free food and drink that was being distributed in celebration of late-night studying for final exams. Final exams may or may not be final depending on the year of the student, but no one seems to care to think about that. I sat and ate and didn't think about that with everyone else.

It's right now again. Arcade Fire begins to play. Last time I heard this song I was working 9-5 at an insurance company. Last time I heard this song for the first time at a friend's apartment. Last time I heard this song I was making love.

Last time changes. The song doesn't. I want it to be an immutable marker in a tempestuous sea of memory. But it isn't that. A bit of music can't hold the world on its shoulders even if it can sing in French. I believe I shouldn't worry. I believe I shouldn't strain against the mast and try to re-create the conditions that even now give Probability and Hindsight cause to shrug their shoulders and quickly change the subject.

Good song, though.

Monday, December 05, 2005

I can't pull up my blog right now so I'm blogging in the dark. The technological equivalent of shouting into the wrong end of a megaphone. Dang, and I had it set to make my voice sound like a robot. It would have been useful earlier today when Molly and I were walking around like robots in the bank. And the parking lot. And on campus. Instead of robot voices we used pseudo-Strongbad voices. It worked out pretty well.

This evening should be interesting. I have to "significantly revise" a short story I've written based on "workshop feedback." I am disappointed that the teaching assistant made no provision for the possibility that everyone else is a fraggin' idiot and I'm a genius so the story is perfect the way it is.

Not that I would ever use that provision. But I would feel better having it, sames as I feel having a spare tire in the trunk of my car even if it is flat.