Thursday, March 31, 2005

'It my body, I do what I wan'

After a day like I’ve had I am going to cut the shit and stop pretending that this post has any cohesive thread. Or for that matter, complete sentences. Just think of it as random thoughts…or blurbs (one might say).

1) Who invented the word ‘blurb’?
2) The back of the knee-caps is a very bad spot to get sunburned.
3) For a long time, I have thought that someone should come up with a chart that rates the expense of light bulbs against the cost of electricity. This person could figure out how long you should leave the light off (and save $ on electricity) so that you would counteract the wear and tear on the tungsten filament (and the $ of light bulbs). And yes, I know I am huge nerd.
4) Rachmaninoff is good for loud bangy music/lyricism. Nothing in between.
5) An abacus is basically like having several hundred fingers.
6) Who ever invented snorting crack? I mean seriously…if they came up with that…Maybe some drug addict somewhere is like, “Maybe I should put the smack in my ear/urethra/anus.” Just a guess.
7) Why does Fox News hire blonde porn star/new anchors? And why doesn’t every one else do the same? News Flash: I am seeing no job future for Connie Chung/Katie Couric.
8) Why don’t they make wild berry skittles come in larger packages. Like maybe tanker cars. That would be nice.

Sunday, March 27, 2005

the longest post in the history of the world

So Spring Break was fucking awesome!!! Well, maybe not ‘fucking awesome’ but it had a modicum of awesomeness to say the least. I left Tuesday morning and drove 13 hours (with 2 breaks thank you) through Jonesboro, Memphis, Meridian, Biloxi to glorious, glorious Pensacola beach.

I slept under a giant water tower painted like a beach ball in the backseat of my 1985 black Lincoln town car the first night (I was so tired). In the morning I walked to the beach and put my feet in the water and just looked at the ocean. Well, I guess it wasn’t really the ocean; it was the gulf…but close ‘nuff. It was breezy and the skies were crystal clear…I was so mesmerized by the sight of the green/blue ocean (with white capped surf) that I forgot vampire Anglos like me get sunburned. So I looked like a lobster the rest of the trip.

Camped out in an apartment parking lot because (unbeknownst to me) a gigantic hurricane destroyed most of Florida recently. So of course they closed the campgrounds due to that and I couldn’t spend the night at Big Lagoon National Park (my original plan) …because they were too damaged to camp in?

The last day I decided that 2 days alone on the beach was enough alone time, and so Thursday I decided to leave. But before I left, I got enough courage to swim into the surf of the sea. And let the salt wash over me and get in my ears, and let the current pull me under. It was totally liberating to know for sure that you could be so close to death…and
couldn’t do anything about it.

While planning my trip I overlooked the fact that I would have to drive through a large portion of the south. Although secretly I long to be a normal southern boy, it was still a totally gross experience to experience so much of the south at once. I think I threw up a little in my mouth.

Things about the south I noticed:

1)They actually don’t have any grocery stores. They have similar entities, labeled ‘food marts’ but they are actually snack stores that have an extensive liquor stock. I could learn to like that.

2) It is goddamn filthy—they have more cars on cinder blocks and old out buildings than even Missouri does. It is like a dirty person’s house where you have to wipe your feet off on the doormat before leaving so you don’t contaminate the rest of the world.

3) It is still very poor. I think Dave Barry once said it best, “Most of Georgia was actually burned during the filming of Gone With the Wind.” Seriously, what excuse do they have to be indigent….the Civil War was a really long time ago.

4) Southerners are refreshingly bigoted. I actually heard on Christian radio, and I quote, “there isn’t a genetical reason for homosexuality, I think it is all environmental.” He said ‘genetical’. I mean, when will the ignorant rednecks learn no one gives a flying fuck what they think? How long will we put up with the GIGO hearsay, knee-jerk reactions of the fundamentalists? I mean seriously, WWJD?

Oh well, for all the shortcomings of southerners (and how we all think they are flaming bigots), they sure do a good job of getting themselves elected. There is just something we as Americans trust about them. Maybe it is the personal magnetism or the accent. I like to think that we like electing marginal-retards to make us feel better about ourselves.

I told Rachel I want to end up like the French. They are so resigned and indifferent. Nothing things to get them really pissed off. I would take a sip of red wine, or a puff of a long cigarette. And then say to my friend in the café, “How could someone rise above the muck? Life is a hard thing…a performance in a play that lasts a lifetime. C’est la vie.”

And I would drink to spring break on the ocean (I mean the gulf).

Saturday, March 19, 2005

That thing (that thing)

I decided to clean my filthy room. Found old Pixies tickets, pistachio shells, $3.26 in pennies, and several letters from my little sisters. My god, I have lived in such squalor for the past 2 weeks. Wearing the same dirty clothes, eating ramen in my room, and forgoing showers because I would rather study. No more! I am dirty, a layer of dead skin coats my body, but I will drive to the ocean and let the waves wash me. And I will lie on the beach and let the sun burn me.

With my luck, the ocean is probably some stagnant gray, festering, cesspool. Polluted by the menagerie of 6 billion people who have continually burned their dead, thrown away their trash and defecated in it for 5,000 years.

Oh, well, it’s got to be better than Columbia. (Hopefully pictures will follow.)

Have a good spring break y’all.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür!

So the last couple months I have been having some serious doubts about whether all this singing is worth it. It makes me take 18+ hours/semester—and that causes several things:
I don’t take care of myself
I don’t take care of my friends (especially my friends that I don’t live with…and Rachel)
Makes me too busy to enjoy what should be my youth

My voice teacher once said to me, “Well, you have to ask yourself every day whether it is worth it or not. And if it isn’t, then you have to stop. But, then every day after that you have to ask yourself when you get up in the morning if it is worth it that day.” Pretty good advice.

Through all the practicing and rehearsals (JESUS-TAPDANCING CHRIST), I tend to lose sight of what made me do this in the first place. As trite as it sounds, I did it because I love singing and music. Now I am just doing it because I am too much of a pussy to change anything in my life.

And I don’t really think of myself as being talented enough to sing for a living. And sometimes if you don’t believe in yourself, no one does. As tragically romantic as it is, I don’t want to die from syphilis at 32 like Schubert or go insane like Wolf or Schumann. And I don’t want to die in the gutter, a sad alcoholic singing waiter, like Francie Nolan’s dad in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Tonight I had a really good musical experience though. I was thinking of the song “The Vagabond” by Ireland…
Don’ know ‘bout life, it’s just a tramp alone, from waking sun to dust…”
It seemed particularly appropriate to sing it to the moon.

Monday, March 14, 2005

Portrait of an addict as a young man

An addict is someone who thinks nothing of sliding across the floor (with years of accumulated lint stuck to his face) in front of strangers…all in the hopes of finding a nickel under a vending machine so he can buy some wild berry skittles. Hey, I ran out of change. I can stop whenever I want to.

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Sunday reflections...

So what I am going to say will probably come back and haunt me for the rest of my life.

The apartment building I live in is full of foreign (read: not from ‘Merica) grad students. They smell weird... but not always bad, like the friendly Asian guys down the hall who smell of noodles and oil. But the East Indian guys smell like curry and ass. I mean, they have showers in their rooms too…why choose to smell like 3 months worth of BO?

Rachel and I even thought of bottling the smells emanating from the doors and trying to identify them. I am sure this has drinking game potential. Room number 123: marijuana smoke. Room number 126: rice/soy sauce/man sweat. Room 128: incense and peppers. Room 129: burning.

Thursday, March 10, 2005

I need the sweet sweet cash of plasma money

How sad is it when you are reduced to buying the cheap ramen noodles?

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

I am a druggie (part two)

So not long after my last post, I broke down and bought a coke. I was going to try and tough it out and make it through today—but the lure of the caffeine drew me in. Lo and behold, the cap on the bottle I bought said, “you win 1-liter coke product.” There is a name for that. Those bitches are enablers. My caffeine habit continues.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

my vice is 3,7-dihydro-1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6,-dione

Have a horrendous caffeine withdrawal headache. God gave it to me to let me know two things:
1) I am addicted to coke
2) and caffeine is a drug

Monday, March 07, 2005

my weekend (part deux)

Monica, Lane, Matt and I had a very deep conversation Friday night. And by deep I mean we talked about the possibility of the antichrist being a monkey—a really badly behaved monkey at that. Like the ones in India that steal children and shiny things from tourists.

But how would the antichrist-monkey communicate with its minions you ask? By voice synthesizer like Stephen Hawking. Lane expressed a wish that the monkey would wear people clothes. I also voiced my concern that the monkey should wear make-up.

So when I was sitting upstairs in the library tonight, I saw some hilarious graffiti. Scrawled on the desk was “I love sex.” And sex was scrawled out to say, “I love shitting in frat boys’ mouths.” I don’t personally have anything against the principle of fraternities (I even know a good kid that is in a frat). The fact that someone else is so spiteful and pissed off really made my day.

Sunday, March 06, 2005

Back seat, windows up (that's the way I like to fuck)

Saturday night Rachel and I went to Katherine’s house for a (grown-up) cocktail party. Since Katy did the inviting, it was mostly theater people…and we all ended up singing show tunes. They basically sang the entire score for Into the Woods. Read: pay attention to me.

Friday, March 04, 2005

science is fun and useful

So I started writing this post with the intention of making a list of bad and good things that happened to me today. But, there weren’t any really bad things that happened, so I can’t list them…(I can’t remember the last time that happened). So here goes:

Good things that happened to me today:
1) I got to do some really cool stuff at work today i.e. play with Red-TAQ and ethidium bromide, cast, load and run some gels, and then take 3D pictures of them (all by myself) with our totally sweet UV camera (who cares if the negative control had some DNA in it).
2) My aural training class was canceled because Herr Freund (Mr. Friend) was sick…;)
3) I experienced the giddy caffeine high of a small house coffee while sitting in class
4) I woke up next to my girl Rachel

no title needed

One of my favorite scenes in All About Eve is when Margo and Karen are sitting in the front seat of the car on a winter afternoon. Margo is reflecting on her life as an actress, and how it is ultimately unfulfilling-- and that Bill is more important to her than her career. She says to Karen, “You know, there is one job all females have in common. Being a woman. If you don’t wake up in the morning to see his face next to yours…you aren’t a woman.”

Rachel is sleeping in my bed tonight.

Thursday, March 03, 2005

With malice towards all and charity towards none

So I have now achieved internet fame…anonymous posts appear on my blog. Most recently, a 15 year old Libra (with “interests in cutting and suicidal thoughts”) from Michigan (I don’t blame her) told me that my site was “kool”. I checked out her page; it is mostly about breaking up with her boyfriend and how “crazy” her life is.

Reading this snapshot from the life of an angsty teen reminds me of my youth. Actually, no it doesn’t. I skipped the suicidal/depressed part of my adolescence and went straight to jaded/bitter. Did I miss out on something?

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

guilt is a rope that wears thin

I have made a resolution. I will no longer feel guilty for being ambitious—(and this includes much more than just professional ambition). I know what I want and everyone else can kiss my ass.