December 16, 2002

get out of bed, she’s on the telephone

Today I woke up to an amazing sunrise and felt those collegiate pangs of wanting to fall asleep at that time, not wake up. Oh well. A sunrise is a rare thing for a college student, and seeing as how my earliest class next semester is at noon, I may just start greeting them from the other end. Go to bed at 6 am, wake up at 11.

Oh, I talk big, and I know it’s not going to happen. I like daylight too much. Darkness was made for trolls and programmers. I don’t live under a bridge, and if things pan out the way I plan, I won’t ever have to… unless I want to live under a bridge, which might be kind of cool. I could eat goats.

Or I could just move to Puerto Rico and be poor and not pay taxes.

I whipped it out on a philosophy final this morning. 8:00 in the bloody morning. The professor handed us a pile of Blue Books and a pile of essay questions and I took out my Aegean Shovel and went to work. Now my brain feels numb and dull and I’m trying once again to grease the wheels with the blood of the Ancients. I’ve got one more final to take this afternoon, and then I need to hoof it out to the backwaters of northern Minnesota for a spunky jazz gig of Christmas Might.

Seriously. I have nothing to say now but dumb blather. Plum Lather. Al just got a muffin. He was thinking, “I want a muffin,” and then she popped in and tossed him a muffin.” I should probably be studying or sleeping or buying Christmas present right now.

That’s the problem with being in college… it’s all you do. College. You go to class, you study, you go home, you study, you fall asleep. The days creep on and on at their petty pace as you receive immunizations to the world at large. You fold inward and inward until you are a tiny spot, a microcosm amongst yourself. You are surprised when hailings from the outside world fall upon you like the tinkling bells of the season. Where the heck did the season come from? you wonder. It was just November the other day, just October, just September, just last May and you were sitting on a rocky beach with a bunch of Woochers and a fire and a bottle of wine.

Just the other day you had an 8:00 final and instead of studying the night before you hung out with friends on the shores of Lake Superior. Just the other day you took your philosophy final. Just the other day you were greased with the blood of the Ancients. Where do they go as we spin around and around in this swirl of galaxies and orbitals and epicycles and tides and brains?

Where do the days go?

Puerto Rico?


Puerto Rico, Dane, that’s where. From what I hear, one could do much worse then live in a slum drinking all day long, indulging in the native flora, and of course hasseling rich tourists for money, or drugs, or drug money.
Anyways, I say nuts to school, nuts to America, let’s move to the Rico. I mean, what are we learning with our 10k a year education, nothing, nothing at all. A wise man once said “School gets in the way of education.” So I say we take his advice, and head for the sand.
Puerto Rico, where the rum flows like water, and the only thing easier than finding a good beach down there is finding a good time.

yeah…i heard that they built a big bridge. better yet, let’s hitch-hike and gather a group of friends. we can start a rico commune.

Are there big hairy spiders in Puerto Rico? It sure sounds like a spider infested country. In one of them southern countries, theys gots spiders that weigh several pounds and eat birds. hmmmm, thank god for alaska.
and big rocks.

Sadly man, even us poor PuertoRican people pay taxes. Sorry about that.
Rum flavored water ???
Spiders???

Rats. All of our fantasies and dreams dashed by a cold, cold splash of equatorial reality.
Welcome to the babble of the Great Wide North, Eliacin.