Emily. Shock and Awe.

Phil. Just Like In the Movies.

Wendy. Ski Bum and Adventuress.

Rachel. Dancing Queen.

Julie. The Littlest Elf.

Chris. There Ain't No Party Like a Marching Band Party.

Cyn. Just a Pink Haired Girl.

 

I'm going through Indoc here in Washington. It is a great process in which those of us in the Navy for close to two years are treated exactly the same as people that just left boot camp. I say to "Fuck you!" to that! You just trusted me to drive across the entire United States by myself. Bullshit that I need a "buddy" to go into town. Sign out to go eat? You can probably see me wave at you while I am. Thankfully, this weekend the 12 o'clock curfew is over.

Some stats of my trip across the country:
Number of states visited: 14
Number of households visited: 9
Number of homeless hitchhikers picked up: 1
Number of homeless hitchhikers that tried to kill me: 0
Number of "Oh shit" moments in my car: 3
Number of times pulled over: 1
Number of times lost: 1
Amount of gas spent: Way too much

posted by Christopher Comments [] 9:26 PM

Sunday, October 30, 2005

 

Academia

This Friday we had a sort 0f mini-conference-like event where two of the other grad students presented short papers. The were pretty good. I got to hear words like "polysignatory" & "antiallegorical," & sentences like "the fish engages with its own identity through the agency of blood." During the Q-&-A session afterward someone remarked that "Metamorphoses is a very moist poem."

At the opposite end of the spectrum, of course, are Ebay auctions, where no undue gifts of fluency are displayed. Here is a particularly fun one that caught my eye recently. If you shop on Ebay, you get the opportunity to peruse a lot of wildly enthusiastic prose just like this: "OH GOD...THIS IS 100% AUTHENTIC OR YOUR DOUBLE MONEY BACK!!100% PAIGE DENIM MOST POPULAR CUT LAUREL CANYON! STRETCH !!! IN AFTERHOURS DARK WASH FALL LATEST WASH !**THIS IS THE HOTTEST AND BEST CUTTING PAIGE JEANS EVER!!" Right you are, crazy Ebay woman, right you are.

P.S.: It is a beautiful, sunny autumn day outside so, to adopt the Ebay patios, **"WHY?!?"** do I have to be inside writing a paper? It makes no sense!

posted by Emily Comments [] 12:27 PM

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

 

My God, I am exhausted. I just finished writing a paper & now I have two more to finish before a brief lull sets in. I thought I would tell you about some of the entertaining things I have seen & heard. The night before last, I went out to see the band Wizzards, who are a Lightning Bolt side project. They were totally bitchin' & wore masks that I found deeply, deeply disturbing. P.S. Lightning Bolt is still awesome. Also saw some music/performance art by Auk Theater and Mudboy that featured incense, smoke machines, strobe lights & various electronic instruments.

Sometimes, instead of doing really cool stuff like that, I have to go to Starbucks to study. (You have no right to judge me. DO I JUDGE WHAT YOU DO??) The disadvantage of that is that Starbucks is a popular hangout for well-to-do middle-aged couples. They're really smug because of how well-off and well-preserved they are. The women are always wearing stupid shoes & carrying their ugly Coach bags, & the men think that they are so important that they need to talk loudly at all times. The result of this is that I can hear at least one half of all their conversations. So Mr. Smug Middle-Aged was in there the other day talking about some relative of his who had chemotherapy & was pronounced free of cancer. "He just has to rebuild his body now," we were informed. & then: "He still may die, but he doesn't have cancer." Well! What a relief!

After that I started writing down everything he said. Conversation moved on to a different relative. Mr. Smug: "I don't have much compassion for her in terms of her future financial needs." IMAGINE HOW SELF-IMPORTANT YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE TO EVER SAY A SENTENCE LIKE THAT.

Yesterday on the phone Chris told me about a guy who told his girlfriend "If I was having sex with you, & there was a motorcycle in the room, I would look at the motorcycle." This someone elliptical remark was intended to prove how much he likes motorcycles. I thought this was a great surrealist insult, so I tried it on my boyfriend.

Emily: Steve, if I was having sex with you, & there was a motorcycle in the room, I would look at the motorcycle.
Steve: If we were having sex, & there was a motorcycle in the room, I would insist that you look at the motorcycle.
Emily: Ah, touche.

posted by Emily Comments [] 2:25 PM

Thursday, October 20, 2005

 

If you are ever driving and see a homeless hitchhiker walking along the highway, and you stop to pick them up, here's some helpful advice:

1. Don't ask them if they "have a plan" for what they are going to do. They are probably homeless due to the lack of a plan.
2. You may not have much to talk about. Be prepared for silence and don't try and fill it with awkward questions. (See tip #1)
3. If they want you to drop them off at a shelter, make sure that YOU are the one that gets the directions, NOT the homeless guy that isn't driving!

posted by Christopher Comments [] 2:19 PM

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

 

While here, I realized that Pelican was playing Monday in LA with Opeth at the HOB. Sadly, the concert was sold out. Yesterday, I got an email, saying that Opeth is having visa problems, so their tour is cancelled, but Pelican was still in LA, and decided to put on a free show! So, I wait for Jon to come home, and off to LA we go!

The show started late (normal). Three acts before Pelican. Only one band with a vocalist, and they were better when they were not singing. I saw my future self playing a iBook and a beat-sequencer. Pelican was awesome.

On the way home, got pulled over, due to being a little sleepy and weavey in the car. Flash-flash of the old military ID, and I'm on my way! Thanks for the wake-up, CHP!

posted by Christopher Comments [] 3:27 PM

 

Update

Remember I told you guys about that cat lady across the street from the governor's house who found a cat that wasn't mine? So about 3 days ago the woman who was catsitting for the original cat lady called & told me she had caught the unknown Siamese cat & penned him up in a room. So I went over there & got him, & he's mine now. (I think it's a he, but maybe not.) He spent a very long time hiding under the sofa, which concerned me. Also, Siamese cats howl & howl all the time, so that you think that they're dying or have a horrendously painful injury, even if nothing is actually wrong. What's the deal with that?

posted by Emily Comments [] 3:15 PM

Friday, October 07, 2005

 

Our United States

I took a trip from my home in Indiana all the way to San Diego earlier this week, and I now offer to you a rating of the various states I travelled through. Being from the Midwest, I really love flat, open fields full of corn, so my rating has Indiana being a 10, and South Carolina as a 1. (Because South Carolina sucks.)

Illinois: I've been to this state all my life, as the rest of my family lives there. It's a good, strong Midwest state. Lots of scenery that I'm used to. The only thing that it could do to be better is to rename itself "New Indiana."
Rating: 9

Missouri: I got to see the St. Louis Arch. It seems to be a pretty state. Low gas prices. I did get stuck in a traffic jam in Kansas City after the Chiefs lost, which hurts it's overall score.
Rating: 7

Kansas: Kansas is the vanilla of the US. You know you have problems when Nebraska is trying to lure people 130 miles north to see a "Pioneer Village". Didn't get to see the "World's Largest Prarie Dog" due to poor marking of exits. Driving through Kansas is like watching the first hour of "Dances with Wolves" on repeat for 5 hours, but with Kevin Costner, the Indians, and Two-Socks digitally edited out.
Rating: 4

Colorado: The east half of Colorado looks very much like Kansas. I got lost in Denver due to poor detour directions. (Emily helped me find my way back) First experience with mountains was in the pitch dark. Stopped at a hotel where they had this on the bed:





This blanket single-handedly increased Colorado's score.










The next morning I finally got to see mountians. Colorado's score must be averaged between east and west, due to the great difference between them.
Rating (East Colorado): 4
Rating (West Colorado): 8
Rating (Overall): 6

Utah: Utah and I got off on a bad foot. Between the dust storm warnings and the tumbleweeds hitting my car, I was ready to give it a scathing review. However, it turned out to be the best part of my trip. Utah has the most amazing scenery. My drive through Zion National Park was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I can't say enough about it. Everyone should see it at least once in their life. From here on, Utah can also be referred to as "The Indiana of the West."
Rating: 10

Arizona: I was only in it for 30 miles, and it was too dark to see anything. But the highway was the best on the entire trip. Well paved, no holes. That's all I can talk about.
Rating (Arizona Highway Department): 10

Nevada: After the solitude of Utah and Arizona, Nevada came as culture shock. Lots of desert, interspered with garish lights and obnoxious people. Sorry, but one city does not a state make.
Rating: 5

California: Got a trucker burn in the desert. Lots and lots of desert. The rest of California looks like a mini-golf course. The weather is great though, and California drivers are not as bad as people have said. Maybe the rating will change after I go north to Seattle.
Rating: 6

So, I've discovered a great new state, and still maintain that South Carolina should be burned to the ground, as no state came close to how bad it is.

posted by Christopher Comments [] 2:49 PM

 

right. the guilt trip worked on me. i don't really have any excuses, after two weeks in the internetless wilderness, i am back home without a job or a damn thing to do. i'm probably suffering from some intervacation drepression. it's hard to be even remotely excited when one returns from an incredibly fun rafting trip and then will leave for a month in new zealand next week. poor me. all of which is fine as i've been catching up on some reading (i finished reading several books which i got last christmas)and some knitting, probably also started last winter.

i hosted a dinner party the other night to look at photos from the rafting trip. because i'm unemployed, the plan was to spend the whole day shopping, cleaning, making homemade pizza, and organizing a slideshow of photos. over the course of the day, the 10 to 12 people who i'd invited multiplied into 25-30 people. i felt a bit like mrs. dalloway, in the grocery store yaking on my cell phone freaking out about how much cheese to buy. but the party turned out fine, of course there was too much food, and too much beer, tequila shots were taken, and the whole thing finally wrapped up at the downtown bars around 2am.

posted by Wendolyn Comments [] 1:08 PM

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

 

Hey guess what you guys, I'm back to the world of blogging. I feel bad about not having had anything to say for such a long time, since the blog goes all to hell without me & Chris. It is not that, moving to a new state, going to a new school, & meeting about one thousand new people, I have not had any interesting experiences. What happened is that we didn't have an internet connection in our apartment for a long time, & it somehow didn't feel the same to do it not at home. Things are going pretty well here. I have been reading The Madwoman in the Attic & Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison. It is only the middle of October, so as you might expect, it is STILL hot as hell outside (there's no point telling me that's what the south is like -- people tell me it's the same all the way up in Maryland). I have still not been to Graceland, the Country Music Hall of Fame, or the Parthenon (I told you guys that Nashville has its own Parthenon, right?). I guess I am too lazy.

Yesterday in class we were talking about Keats' letters & I pointed out this letter he wrote to his girlfriend where talks about spilling black currant jam on his friend's copy of the works of Ben Jonson. Keats tries to lick off the jam ("I have lick'd it"), but it still leaves a purplish mark. Keats was mad at his friend for flirting with his girlfriend all the time, so spilling jam in the book was probably an act of subtle hostility. My professor was like "huh, I didn't notice that," & ended up concluding that the passage was surreptitiously about oral sex.

My cat, Jude, has run away (several weeks ago). I feel very bad about this. I put up posters all over the place but didn't hear anything until yesterday. This lady called & said there was a siamese cat hanging out in her yard all the time. I went over there to look at it, but it wasn't Jude. She doesn't want the cat around because it's fighting with another stray cat that comes to her yard, so of course I said I'd adopt it. Jeez, I'm so soft-hearted. I suppose it would be better than nothing to re-enact the plot of Vertigo by replacing the missing cat with another cat that looks just like him. So then we tried to catch the stray but he ran & hid. I left my giant cat carrier with her & I was like "if you can catch him in the future, I will come & get him." This lady lives across from the governor's house, by the way. What a crazy life I lead.

I hope you're all well, I miss you all, & I will try to keep you updated at regular intervals. Oh, Chris, you should blog about that thing about "a waste of a relationship."

posted by Emily Comments [] 12:32 AM