Conundrum

Things went well today. Swine flu has hit and terrified every living being in school. A global plague is upon us, gloom and doom, etc. Whatever. Class was cancelled today because the Professor had flu like symptoms and stayed home. That is nice, but given that it is just the flu and the majority of people are virile young adults, shouldn't we all just get it, build our immunities, and carry on?

I just got over a head cold, so I am a little bitter. It is the middle of mid term examinations, and I am not totally prepared for them. I inherited a pair of sweatpants that give me the most severe mangina I have ever witnessed. Surprisingly, it's pretty comfortable.

The wife leaves for Denver tomorrow until Friday night. I have a midterm Friday afternoon and I think sometime between the end of the midterm and picking her up at the airport, I might be able to squeeze in a viewing of Zombieland. One can hope for the little decadences, right?

My family is coming up for a quick visit in two weeks, and I have to say that I am little homesick. Going back to whence I came from is now a pickle though, seeing as how most of the family has either moved, or is in the process of moving, to Alabama. I daydream of going home for Christmas, then remember that no family will be there. It makes me sad.

What a downer am I. A bright spark to my week is a Woody Harrelson vehicle. If I was doing lines of coke off a stripper's backside, I'd have the depression trifecta.

It could be worse though. It's cold outside, but the heat in the apartment is free. The wife has put up with me for the last six weeks like a real trooper. I am almost starting to understand the law. Then again, minimum wage factory work looks more and more appealing every day.

Godlike Powers

Last night, the wife and I had our date night. It began with her pulling me out of the leather recliner with the voracity and sound effects of a mother pulling the day old bandaid off of a child's skinned knee. We then went and saw a movie, did some shopping at the Target (because we will never, ever bow down to those cotton pickin' so's and so's at the Wally World), then home for me to retire to the basement with all of her laundry and her to make the bed and watch numb3rs.

We went and saw the movie 9. It was visually stunning. For ninety minutes. If I had just smoked a big fattie behind the theater with my addiction counseling wife before seeing it, it would have been better than even fucking Highlander. unfortunately, I do not smoke fatties and enjoy movies with a plot that can go from asinine to compelling but not the other way around.

Jesus, what kind of balls do you have to have to make a picture more action packed than a Steven Seagal movie but with a less legible plot and dialog?

Apparently, regular balls. But seven more than usual.

So, in a fit of benevolence, I have decided to save all the competents and gentle readers of this blog $8.00. See this movie at your own risk. The only redeeming qualities are the visuals and the creepy post-apocalyptic backdrop. If you find the urge to waste money and 90 minutes of your life, I have a live action substitute that you can probably get through netflix and thus avoid any human contact at all...

Synchronicity

Between classes this afternoon, I was reading a friend's blog about how nothing has really changed in the past few weeks. Great, nothing happening is better than than dam breaking and the village meeting its great reward under a billion gallons of water. I went to class with a little brighter demeanour, but that was all.

Class was, as usual, informative and wholly overwhelming. So it goes with new material. Stay positive. I am going to school to gain the tools and knowledge to actually make a difference in this world. I know, the world needs ditch diggers too, and without them we would be waist deep in our own shit, but no one remembers Diamitus Shitterius, the first guy to start digging the Cloaca Maxima. People think of the Romans and it gives them a warm fuzzy to think about all the neat inventions they made that allow us our modern basic conveniences of toilets, fresh water, and hedonism.

I got on the bus for the ride home with several points of contract law going through my head and colliding with each other in a scene reminiscent of Scanners. I instinctively said "Good Afternoon" to the shuttle driver, and plopped down in the back of the bus. The seat was warmer than my posterior. I had sat directly in a seat occupied by someone not a minute before me.

I immediately inhaled deeply through my nose. For some reason, I relate the heat of a freshly vacated seat to the ghosts of farts past being released upon disturbance. If there is such a haunting, it usually stinks and I get blamed, or at least judged. Why I inhale in expectation of the event, I can only think that maybe if I filter the air around me via my nose and lungs, the fallout from a previous occupants transgressions will be lessened. It's purely a selfish way to preserve my dignity.

But I digress.

The point is, barring a fart from the past, that I am taking the heat from some stranger for no other reason than I randomly chose to sit there. It's a feeling that is creepy in one respect, but mildly reassuring in another. By existing and sitting, someone before me helped me keep warm by transplanting their heat to a seat that I quickly occupied. Even passively, people help other people out. I find that comforting.

Terms of Art

The top (and only) three Google searches that will lead you here:

Facebook Goddess

Wookie bush

Children sad brush

Guess which one was a search from Germany?

Things are heating up for me. The initial shock has passed and reduced itself to major panic in the classroom. Lethargy holds sway when I come home, bordered by sudden fits of productivity about every hour or so. Only 93 more weeks of actual classroom time. That's less than two years....