Been a Long Time Gone

Things are changing again. The wife and I are moving to a bigger, more lascivious apartment. I am doing the packing since I am done with summer school and she has to support my student ass. Oh woe. I was packing up delicate ceramics (my collection of authentic classic literature action figures) and was wrapping them in old coats. I pried my vinyl fubu action coat off of the clothes hangar and felt its heft. I didn't remember it being so heavy.
Being a student, I could smell money in it. I did a pat down of all of the pockets and felt a match book in the secret pocket on the lining. I pulled out the matchbook, which just happened to be wrapped in a five dollar bill along with a condom that expired in January of 2006. I don't remember the last time I wore the coat, but judging from the smells of bar and schenanigans that erupted when I shook the coat out, I probably had a good time.
I am currently jamming out to the Flogging Molly's and trying not to shed a tear for the destroyed brain cells and fuzzy memories of yore.

Uh Huh

So, I was walking by an on-site chair massage place, taking in the scenery, when I swear, from behind the reception desk, a man dressed in denim and black leather, looking like an actor portraying Sam Eliot in a spoof porno of Mask, locked eyes with me. With absolutely no emotion, not a cringe or a squint, he winked. You know, like when dogs wink at you. It was creepy.

Sorry for not posting. Real life is complicated enough without sharing it with the world via pseudo-anonymity.

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....

Vivid Dreams of Protean Venues

So, the wife made a red curry dish last night that, while delicious at the time, has left my cinnamon ring a vermilion shade of burning. Maybe that was the cause of such vivid dreams last night. What do I remember?

I remember it being a get together with my two best friends. We were going out for drinks and then to a French movie that we had all seen before. Something totally frilly and un-macho, but really, really good. Probably the French version of Say Anything or somesuch. Regardless, we started the evening at the first incarnation of a bar that we used to frequent.

When you dream of familiar places and spaces, do these turn into a whole new landscape while still retaining their familiarity? They do with me. The weird thing is is that they are always consistent. I have a warped mirror world in my dreams, at once familiar, but so totally alien as to make me wonder about past lives and my subconscious affinity for hair metal.

Anyhow, the bar was uneventful. It was the beginning of a going away party for me (ah subconscious, are you finally accepting the move?), but I had to pay for everyone. I went across the street to an ATM to pay the bar tab, and was assaulted by an old woman on a pub crawl. She kept berating me with questions about where to go next. I finally sent her to a martini bar. I knew I was running late, so I skipped out on paying the tab and went to the theater.

My friends were already inside, so I got a ticket, was assaulted by a trio straight from the J Crew catalog with their asshole knobs turned all the way to eleven. After spending forty dollars on Milk Duds, I found my seat, meeting vague people from my past as I walked down the aisles of the theater.

Suddenly, a Springer worthy fight broke out during the trailer for a Stomp the Yard esque movie. A man no taller than my knee slowly walked up to me as the theater erupted into a full scale riot all around me. He was slow, deliberate, and looked exactly like R.L. Burnside in miniature. I threw up my hands in defeat as he slowly pulled a butterfly knife the size of his leg out of his jacket pocket. My fight or flight instinct kicked into fight and I pulled a chair off the floor and beat him relentlessly. Then the movie came on.

The riot ended instantly, Burnside disappeared and I sat in the dark, bored and wondering if I should buy more Milk Dudes. I woke soon after.

Weird, huh? Well, enough time wasted. I have to read another 100 pages before Monday. Best get started.