Month: October 2001

October 30, 2001

ode to john locke

I found my phone card. It was behind my printer, under my bed… laughing.

Today’s challenge: Finish an entire buttered popcorn sucker without vomiting.

Meanwhile:

Doug came home with an air freshener for the bathroom. It claimed it was ‘scentless’, but of course that was a lie. It smells like air freshener. Doug said I should be happy he didn’t pick up ‘fresh-cut flowers’ or some equally wussy smell. But this got us thinking: why don’t they make manly air fresheners? Why is it assumed that everyone wants to fill their nostrils with country garden, or floral mist or peach-cranberry-creme surprise? We guys want guy scents.

“Mask offensive odors with our new collection of air defresheners! Choose from motor oil, mesquite barbeque, or pound-of-beef. Coming soon: morning woodchips and diesel fumes.”

Seriously.

I finished the sucker, but now the room keeps spinning. I need to lie down.

Hmm. I just scanned in my Emergency Department Record and I noticed a box that thankfully was not marked as one of my afflictions. It read ‘vomiting diarrhea’. It would take one hell of a screwed up digestive system to allow that condition. I really hope it doesn’t result from buttered popcorn suckers.

After listening to two punk cds and getting my blood all hot and roiled, it is time that a big “fuck you” go out to John Locke. The way this guy writes, I can carefully read the same sentence four times in a row and still have no idea what the hell he is talking about. I am not stupid, but Locke makes me feel like I’m towing the line. It’s like someone is jabbing their thumbs in my brain.

You may notice the fragmented nature of Blithers lately, most entries consisting of half-baked, partial thoughts that jump around more than a surly gang of kangaroos on a hypnotist’s Jell-O trampoline. As soon as I collect myself enough to compose full thoughts again, we will return to the regularly scheduled program.

Until then, please be mindful of the vernacular spoken by the thirteen porcelain cherubs. Their Jamaican Jiffy-Popper is not quite up to par with common household detergents, and requires much effort in priming. Planned alterations to local infrastructure will be implemented in a timely manner, granted that the overseer does not fall ill with blindness and scurvy. We need limes, people. Limes.

October 29, 2001

the great sun ra

Is it bad when getting dressed in the morning seems like too much work?

Later:

Grargh. It’s 11:00 at night, and I still need to read 20 more small-font, tissue-paper-thin pages of Walden for class tomorrow. And John Locke. And lab exercise #11.

Today was Halloween at the climbing wall. I dressed up as a Wooch! member. They accepted my piss-poor costume, and I climbed for free… with my new mack-daddy Eye of Ra climbing harness. Auuugghhh yeeeaaaah!

This is all for tonight. I need to read/sleep/murder.

October 26, 2001

lose crap. reduce threat.

My phone card has gone missing. Of course, it’s no great loss, as it only had 453 MINUTES REMAINING. This trend of losing stuff is really starting to anger me, and I think I need to start nailing anything of importance to my body. I’ll end up looking like one big jingly keychain, with credit cards hanging from my nipples, a shaver glued to my back and all sorts of unimaginable things stuck in my hair.

“Ha ha, what are you for Halloween, a junk drawer?”

“Leave me alone. This was the only solution.”

The Star Tribune seems to be quite proud of all the crap they’ve snuck through security checkpoints at the Minneapolis airport. They even showed a picture of the items in question. It seems that some cunning reporters hoodwinked national security by smuggling a tire gauge, ruler, toothbrush, cell phone, camera, hair dryer and a Bic Safe-T Razor.

Am I supposed to be concerned that a reporter was not harassed for having a toothbrush? I’m actually proud of the Tribune’s display of patriotism; showing the terrorists that they cannot change America’s attitude towards dental hygiene no matter how many planes they crash. A toothbrush is a toothbrush, and I’ll be damned on the day that we all consider it a weapon.

As my friend Mark said, and a sentiment that seems reflected in most people, “Anything can be considered a weapon.” If I want to kill the pilot with nasty papercuts, I could do that. I am unclear on the Star Tribune’s intentions behind running this article. Do they want more security? Well, hell, then. They should just set up an airport checkpoint that is nothing but a burly man with a pair of pliers. Everyone lines up, and he yanks out all your fingernails and breaks out your teeth so that you pose no threat to your fellow man.

October 25, 2001

everyday oy vey

I felt like dressing up today, so I threw on my tuxedo. Doug asked me what I was doing, to which I curtly replied, “Studying.”

“Oh, so do you always study in a tux? ‘Well, time to study, better put on my bow tie and coat!'”

Hmm… I now realize the illogic I am operating on. Well, it’s not like college was designed to encourage rationality.

I’m listening to Dave Matthews’ Everyday, which is a CD that I am not very partial to, yet I still find myself enjoying it every once in awhile. It reminds me of our Colorado ski trip last spring break. Listening to it I can relive not just the trip, but my whole emotional, psychological, and philosophical make-up of the time. Just a month prior I had decided to change majors, and it felt like thirteen blazing suns had been lifted from my scorched shoulders. I could leave on vacation, almost free from the gnawing guilt of not practicing saxophone. I could embrace my philosophy class as a helpful well of knowledge, and not just a hindrance that took up precious time from my music responsibilities.

It was good and poorly documented time of my life.

Everyday irks me in that it doesn’t provide what I’ve come to expect from Dave. All the songs are so similar that I have trouble discerning one from another. None seem to share a particularly poignant view on existence; just some general blatherings on love and accomplishment, thrown haphazardly on a heap of ho-hum chord changes and musical mediocrity. Nevertheless, the CD piques certain areas of my brain; enough that I can listen to it and feel my time was spent well.

It’s windy and cold today, and it has stopped snowing. I’m ready for summer, now.

Matt’s Milk Challenge. Yikes. Everyone lost, and made quite a mess outside.

October 24, 2001

all you need are sleds

The leaves are well past their autumnal color changing peak, but no matter. I’ve been following the progression of hues in my numerous bruises. They’re lookin’ good, covering a wide range of yellows and purples. What a spectacular show.

It seems that someone turned the slut dial up to eleven on campus, today:

“Break out the glitter, the strumpish pastel mascara, the plunging necklines! Let the color and brand of your bra not be left to question! We’re gonna give these testosterone-laden men a visual taste of all that their tiny brains deem Holy! If they aren’t staggering into each other like headless chickens, squirming like a handful of leeches, averting their eyes like a horde of schizophrenic Madagascarian chameleons, we aren’t trying hard enough!”

I mean, I’m not entirely complaining; I enjoy the view as much as the next guy… but I get off a bit more from a shred of dignity than from a shred of cloth… or the general lack thereof. These poor girls seem unaware that Halloween isn’t until next Wednesday.

I had forgotten how cool Happy Apple is. Damn I feel refreshed. No sleep for me. Ever again.

We carved pumpkins over at Mark’s place tonight, and everyone had a great time wielding knives and making threatening gestures. We threw down tons of newspaper on his porch, and I ended up with the front page of the Star Tribune from September 13th. It was an errie juxtaposition, to say the least.

Then it snowed. Finally. Everyone was ecstatic, and we danced around Mark’s front yard catching snowflakes. Just a matter of time and we’ll be cursing the heavens, but for now… boundless excitement.

Time flows on, the seasons knit together, and eventually we look up from the ground and realize we all need sleds again. It is not trivial. It is life.

October 23, 2001

trappings of mindlings

Today’s Office Game Mind Trap Question:

Which of the following words doesn’t belong, and why?

ORIEL

ORANGE

MONTH

OIL

Well, how easy is that? Month, of course… ahh, but it is Mind Trap, and they want us to think it’s month. So what the heck could it be? We sat in the office for ten minutes trying to figure the damn thing out, finally read the answer through the back of the card… OIL. The RA said that if we could give the reason why without cheating, we could get five points. We couldn’t figure it out and finally read the answer outright:

OIL. It is the only word of the four that rhymes with other words in the English language.

Lame, but the RA said that if we could prove it wrong, we’d get ten points. Lo and behold, some casual research conducted by our in-house word major discovered that the word ‘boreal’ rhymes with ‘oriel’. We recorded the spoken Merriam-Webster pronunciations on MiniDisc and brought it down to the RA.

Ten points, but more importantly we proved Mind Trap wrong. Even if we don’t win Office Game, we win the self-fulfilling Warrior Game.

I listened to Phish’s Sugarbush show in its entirety tonight, and I cannot believe how absolutely amazing that set is… they are so tight, so wild… their subtle acoustic shenanigans are stunning. Precise. Energy. WHA! It’s so good! WHA! My face hurts from smiling so much and I can’t stop shaking. I feel as weak as a kitten. It is the greatest feeling ever.

October 22, 2001

trans-dimensional can opener

Doug made a few enemies on the Porkies trip. He cunningly destaked some girls’ tent, but it was the freestanding kind so that didn’t do anything. Not to be deterred he later depoled their tent, which was much more mischievous. The quote “Doug is the devil!” was coined at that time. This morning we opened our apartment door, and it was covered in hardcore pornography.

Yikes.

Not just porn, skat porn. With “Doug is the devil!” written on it. Lazy, we left it up, and when the maintenance guys came by to recore the doorlock (please note lost keys entry) they had to move the porn out of the way. It’s gone now.

I went grocery shopping at Mount Royal instead of Cub Foods today, and I don’t think I’m gonna go back to Cub for a long time. The place makes me feel paranoid, jumpy and irritable… I feel as though the great savings are going to sneak up behind me, break my neck and silently drag me into a back room where I’ll be ground into all sorts of meaty things and put on sale the next day. Not so at Mount Royal. All sorts of comforting old people milling about, low ceiling, narrow aisles, grocery baggers, small shopping carts that track poorly and run into shelves… I love it.

Everyone is in an absolute daze right now. It’s like those head gnomes went around Duluth with little hammers last night and gave everyone concussions. The Wooch! lounge was oozing a confusing stupor. We’re all stressed out about various things, but Mark says we should all be back to normal next week… after we’ve failed our midterms.

Personally, I feel like I’ve lost some footing in reality. Things are happening around me, but it all feels distant. What do I need to do? I have no idea. We’re in the usual Monday doldrums, but it feels different today… as though everyone is going through the usual social and academic motions, but that’s it. Motions. There’s no governing thought, no meaning. Write when brain says write, speak when spoken to, but hold reality at arms length. Hopefully Mark is right, and we’ll all draw our hands back in soon enough. Currently mine are still working the can opener in some zany alternate dimension.

October 21, 2001

porkies evacuation

The Porkies trip was swift and exciting. My friends hit me with a tree, which threw my skull and body at the cliff wall.

“I guess I am mortal.”

Fearing a concussion, Erin, Luke and I hiked the three miles out, got in Erin’s car and drove to the hospital in Ironwood, Michigan. The doctor was quite the nut, and they did a thorough examination. I walked out of the ER with no concussion, no bruised kidney and no broken ribs. We then went to the dollar store and got a Fabio exercise video. Upon returning to Duluth we watched him… the entire hour of him. It was great. That night I managed to not go unconscious, so that was a good sign.

Today my parents and my dog came up to visit and made sure that I wasn’t worse off than I said I was. Eventually my car returned home; everyone that was on the trip accounted for. Then I got a phone call from Mark saying that the northern lights were going wild, so we drove down to Gitche Gammi park and watched ’em. It was exciting, beautiful, intrinsic.

Please note: I actually wrote this entry on the 22nd, and I’ve got so much to do that my heart isn’t into the whole writing thing right now. A more detailed account may appear under Life at some point… may.

October 18, 2001

fate leads by 70 points

Office Game is getting out of hand. Our worst enemy is D107, which happens to be about 70 points ahead of the next leading room… Needless to say, we are not the next leading room, nor the one after that, nor the next. But Doug is bound and determined to win Office Game, and if it be by legitimate play or sabotage (more likely) it will happen. Stealing the plant did not hamper D107’s efforts, and locking the front door during Office Game hours just made them angry. They’re like hornets, where anger simply makes them much more efficient at finding their teleological end. The ultimate purpose of a hornet is to sting, and the purpose of D107 is to win this damn game.

We are not at war with another room, we are at war with Fate herself.

So logically we harrass the girls with the megaphone, a tool that seems to be generating a lot of animosity toward our apartment.