October 22, 2002

is it hot house corn?

VodkaPundit summed up my doldrums pretty damn well.

It’s one of those nights when the world glares, stomps its foot, and flat out refuses to do anything interesting for me. I’d love to entertain you with some quick wit, or more of the vicious humor you keep coming here for, but the Earth is sometimes a Prima Donna, locked in her dressing room because there are too many yellow M&M’s in her bowl. She just won’t come out and play, and you just can’t understand why.

Not that I’m complaining, mind you. The ’90s were, except to scandal mongers, a pretty dull decade — but I’d happily settle for another stock market bubble, another phony peace, and some more seriously unserious politics. I’d take another Florida Presidential election brouhaha over our real world, any time. Al Gore demanding a semi-recount, weeks after the election? Remember when Maureen Dowd seemed relevant? How delightfully quaint.

It’s a strange time when we’d ‘settle’ for some not-really-so-good times.

Things haven’t been very funny around here for awhile, and I don’t like it that way. I’ve been doing a lot of digging and reading and hand-wringing and plotting, and none of these things give me the time to space out and focus something long enough to tap into its humor. I don’t really want to be a political commentator (or a whiny doomsaying teenage wasteland were-blogger) at the current point in my life. I want to have fun. I want to make fun. I want to make fun of things.

Today I saw a Green Giant cardboard box that boasted it brimmed with “Niblets”. Under the word was its equivalent spelled out in Chinese, and it made me laugh.

it would be nice to see things the way they were before the real world came back…
This reminds me of an article in The Onion I saw on September 26th, 2001. “A Shattered Nation Longs To Care About Stupid Bullshit Again”.
It’s right, you are right too. I remember when I was 17, and registering for selective service was a joke.
I remember when I was a bit younger and watching friends and relatives ship off to the service academies. They all figured they would have some fun, fly some F-18’s and then retire and work for Northwest Airlines till they were fat and old.
One of my best friends signed his contract with the marines in Feb. 2001. By August, he had finished his basic training, and by September, he was scared shitless.
you can see that onion article at this address:
http://www.theonion.com/onion3735/a_shattered_nation.html

Yeah. When we were at camp it was like reality was suspended for a couple months. Every once in awhile a newspaper would drift by, but all it did was hint at a world beyond. It was like hearing the busy din of a city from far off.
Now that I’m back in the thick of things I feel like I’m floating around in this strange dream. The things that used to be important to me still are, but they all seem trivial.
So what if my computer’s slow, so what if I need to write an essay, so what if I turned in my philosophy worksheet late? At least I have my life, liberty and freedom, and there are people out there fighting for it. This is the way I should feel; I should feel gracious and honored and fortunate, but it doesn’t work that way. I respond to what’s around me, what’s in my current experience, and right now it feels like I’m sitting on a really pointy chair with my head in my hands.
Two of my roommates are in the ROTC, and the other one is in the National Guard.