This Lopez hasn't been getting behind the ol' blog much lately, but the rest of the family certainly is. Miguel with his tech advice, Barbara with her future-pondering, and Luis with his...political analysis? Hmm. That's unexpected.

Not a lot has been going on with me. Jake and Heather became husband and wife on Saturday, which was awesome. I had the opportunity to try my hand at being a Best Man. I didn't do too badly. If I were to grade myself, I'd be waving around a solid B-.

Speaking of B-'s, I passed my English 102 class. I guess the fourth time really is a charm. I received my grade in the mail, which I promptly sent to the Educational Assistance people at work so that I could be fully reimbursed. Not a bad gig, really.

The wedding was good, though. I'm proud of both of them. I had to give a toast during the reception. I had known about it but I had still been caught off guard when the lady shoved a microphone at me.

I had been trying to prepare something to say since I had arrived at the church that afternoon. I had my little notebook out and was scribbling away, crossing it all out, and then scribbling some more. By the time the wedding started, I had a handful of ideas I was very uncertain about and one good idea that I planned to close with.

I had been forced to use my closing much sooner than I hoped.

It worked out in the end, though. After floundering through the first half of my impromptu speech, the ending sounded that much better. I think it's called juxtaposition; following something bad with something good to make it seem better.

What else, what else? Oh, I got pulled over by the police twice last night on my way home from school. That was fun.

One of my headlights was out. The police officer gave me a paper to fill out and mail in once I repaired it (which I can fix myself) and then sent me on my way.

Less than a minute later, I see red and blue flashing lights in my rearview mirror. I pulled over again and sighed as I tried to count how many times I had found myself on the shoulder of the highway in the past month.

It was the same cop. "Hey, I forgot to give you back your license," he said. "Sorry about that."

I thanked him politely. As he walked back to his car, I pulled back onto the road and cut across three lanes of traffic and a Gore point so that I wouldn't get stuck on the highway to East Mesa. The police officer didn't follow.

I've been tired lately. Today at work, I crawled under a desk, buried my head under the jacket Nicole had lent me, and went to sleep.

It's too hot to sleep in my car without risking heat stroke.

School is going well. In my biology class, we're reviewing all the chemistry I never learned. I was almost completely lost during the lecture and it didn't help that I was hallucinating from my lack of sleep.

Today I had the lab portion of my class, so after lecture I trudged along after my professor. He broke out little models of molecules. They were like Legos; I put them together and pulled them apart and had a great time. I was able to grasp the concepts much better than from listening to the lecture. By the end, I was even able to make my own molecules and simulate reactions. It was like a molecular puppet show. I even made a pretty sweet alcohol molecule. I was very proud of it.

So there's a lot of learning going on. So far, so good. However, at the end of next week, my online literature class kicks in. My workload right now is about what I think I can handle, but I'm trying to be optimistic. How hard can the class be? It combines two things I love: Literature and the Internet.

Now I'm off to find a class that will give me credit for sleeping.

"Deeds, not words shall speak me."

-John Fletcher

(Sounds much more profound than just saying "I'm too tired/busy to write," eh?)

Ah, the magic of office e-mails.  I received this question from Beth (who was also working very hard in another part of the city) after I mentioned the delightful menu offered by our own company cafeteria.

"my coworker bryan, being as clever as he is, wants to know if the crap sandwiches should actually be called crapwiches??"

Dear Bryan,

There is no rule requiring a sandwich to alter it's name to reflect the properties of said sandwich.  Having said that, there is precedent:  Note the "Spamwich" (the name indicating the sandwich contains Spam, or contains some other filling and Spam has been substituted for bread) or the "Manwich," (another trademarked foodstuff that has become colloquial, usually in more urban settings.)

Both of these examples display the tendency of proper nouns and common food names to amalgamate.  Foodstuffs in a sandwiches that are not proper nouns do not display this property.  A ham sandwich does not become a "hamwich," an egg sandwich does not become and "eggwich," nor does adding cheese to a Spamwich and grilling it result in a "GrillcheeSpamwich."

Also, the word "sandwich" is an arbitrary name.  It is incapable of being broken down into a root word, suffix, or prefix (which is unfortunate for you medical types.)

Finally, there is precedent for my choice of "crap sandwich."  A closely-related term still in popular usage is "shit sandwich," and in cleaning up the language I have chosen not to meddle with the phrase any further.  

But hey, what's in a name?  A Spamwich by any other name will still make your bowels clench tighter than Oprah's hand on a turkey drumstick.  

Or would that be a "turkstick?"

Love,

Guillermo

P.S.  Hey, why don't we capitalize the phrase "proper nouns?"

When winter nears she'll sit and ponder
Why absence makes the heart grow fonder
Are days more short or nights more longer?
How long 'til she stops getting stronger?
Is there just this world to wander?
The answers seem a step beyond her


(Just wanted to remind everybody that they're not missing anything.)

The subdued chatter in the office and the click-clack of typing had the effect of a mother's lullaby on Palermo as he struggled to do his work.  Every night this week, his precious dream-time had been whittled down more and more by all the mundane tasks that accumulated during the 12-13 hours he spent away at work and school.

He half-rose from his seat with the intent of defying convention and purchasing a cup of coffee from the vending machine.  A paper cup on the corner of his desk caught his eye and he settled back down with all the grace of a perplexed sack of potatoes.

Oh.  He had already purchased a cup of coffee.

He reached for it slowly, as if the cup was a mirage that might disappear when he came too close.  It remained real.  He was glad.  He wouldn't like it if he had spent 65 cents on an imaginary cup of coffee.

He peered into the cup and saw his own face staring back from the inky, black swirls.  The quality of the vended coffee reminded him disturbingly of machine urine.  He took a sip.  It was no longer steaming, but just warm enough to make his analogy even more accurate.  He grimaced.  His ink-self grimaced back.

He downed half of it.  Grains of instant-coffee-mix that had stubbornly defied the dissolving process staked a claim at the back of his throat and made themselves comfortable.  

Palermo almost wondered why he was taking such great pains to stay awake when all he really wanted in the world was to go to sleep.  Fortunately, he was able to suppress the thought before it surfaced and wholly depressed him.  

He lifted up the cup in a silent toast to the coming respite of the weekend.  He suppressed another thought about how busy he would actually be during the weekend by downing the rest of the bitter coffee.

If life is rounded by little sleep, then Palermo's life was going to be very well-rounded indeed.

My day began, (as I see it) after I left work. I hopped into my trusty Tercel and sped despondently in the direction opposite of my home. No, I had an Italian class to attend on a campus I had never been to before.

The class was being taught on a high school campus. I found the school with relatively little trouble. Er, I found it with relatively little trouble after I had called Beno and he had gotten online to find directions.

I pulled into the parking lot. Shading my eyes against the sunlight, I could see the sihlouette of a cross atop of a small, domed building. I made my way towards it to investigate further.

Shortly after stepping through a gate painted the color of rust, I was hailed by a small, wizened man. He had the uncertain bearing of a campus security guard. A badge shined dully from the shirt of his unkempt uniform. "Excuse me sir, where are you headed?" he asked.

"I am here to attend Italian 201," I said.

He seemed to relax. He pointed out a building and told me class was in there. I thanked him and continued on my way. I noted that the only footsteps I heard were my own. I approached the classroom and through the large windows I could see that a class in session. Not my class, though. I had arrived very early.

I turned away. "It's right in there!" the little security guard yelled, pointing again. He hadn't moved from the spot where we had spoken, as I had assumed, and was still watching me.

Annoyed, I looked levelly at him. He continued to point. I turned away from him and walked over to a small, concrete amphitheater, where I sat down and began to read my copy of Starship Troopers.

A half-hour later, I stood up. I stretched and returned my book to my satchel. The nagging guard was nowhere in sight.

Time to affirm his fears.

No, I had no desire to wreak havok on an unsuspecting preporatory high school. I was merely curious.

As I walked among the cluster of small buildings, I noticed a sign that read "Christ Is The Reason For This School." I walked on. The next sign I came upon read "Landscaping Donated By..." and then listed the names of a presumeably generous couple.

Passing by the parcels of well-manicured grass, I noticed more signs. Posted to each tree was that disheartening sign of civilization: "Keep Off The Grass."

* * * * *

Class began at 7:15. Almost every student that walked in the classroom door was greeted with shouts of greeting and surprise; camaraderie not uncommon among language students.

I sat quietly, feeling very out of place seated among this large family.

I remained quiet, listening. I could picture the little bursts of light in my brain as old, atrophied synapses struggled to understand this very strange, very familiar pattern of sounds.

To help everyone become better acquainted (i.e., myself and a couple of others that didn't already know everyone) the professor asked us to write three sentences in Italian. Two sentences would be true and one would be false. Heads went down and the familiar song of frantic scribbling filled the air. I took longer than I thought to produce sentences shorter than I hoped.

The class went around reading theirs aloud and guessing. My turn came. I read out loud.

"One: I don't remember much Italian." There were murmurs of agreement. "Two: I anger very easily." A few people looked skeptical. "Three: I hate cold mornings," I finished.

I avoided their eyes and looked down at my paper.

There was half-interested discussion about which was the false statement, if only because I was a stranger to them. In the class was a guy who called himself "Santiago." By the way the other students would dismiss most things he said by smiling and saying, "Oh, that's Santiago!", I guessed he was the class clown. Knowing this, I waited for the inevitable.

"Number 2!" Santiago shouted. "It's number two!"

I jerked up at him, halfway out of my chair, and shouted "WHAT?!"

Even though he was safely across the room, Santiago still jumped back. The rest of the class reacted in a similar fashion. I lowered my head again. "Yeah, it's number two," I said softly. There were chuckles around the room. Either they liked my rather lame joke or they thought I was manic-depressive. Neither would be too far off, I guess.

I made it home from class around 9:30 pm. Just another day.

As it stands, I'll have three nights a week in which I'll be at work by 8 am and return home at 9:30 pm. I'm wondering why I chose this insane schedule in the first place. I suspect I know the answer.

I've been reading Starship Troopers. The book goes on about military life. The tediousness, long hours, abuse, sleep-deprivation. All the stuff I used to do. Used to be pretty good at enduring, too.

The single greatest external influence for me has always been whatever I'm reading. Smoking because Spider Jerusalem does it. Drinking because hell, all the best writers were alcoholics. (Movies have their place, too. I know that if I ever lose a hand I'm going to replace it with a chainsaw. (Oh, and music. Once I quit my job because I had been singing along to Monster Magnet ("I'm never gonna work/another day in my life")))

The problem is that I'm almost finished reading this book. If I'm not careful about what I read next, my whole plan could collapse around me. We'll see. For now, I had better stick to my work.

Starting...now.

As of this moment, I have officially overcome all the technological obstacles that have been preventing me from utilizing Blogger's e-mail posting capabilities.

I've figured out that I have to enter the correct "address" for it to be "sent."

At least, I think I've figured it out.