What in the fuck am I doing here? What kind of sick and twisted life did I fall into that would cause me to spend some of the best hours of my life in a cryptlike room full of cameras, hot lights and fearful politicians debating the guilt or innocence of Richard Milhous Nixon?"
- Hunter S. Thompson, "The Great Shark Hunt"Here you will find a sometime humorous or pensive recounting of my daily life as well as occasionally my thoughts on current events, and whatever I'm reading, watching, or listening to lately. The title, if you haven't figured out, comes from the Hunter S. Thompson quote above and is something you may find me saying if I ever actually end up as a political journalist.
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« May 2005 | Main | July 2005 »
I just found a reference to the late, great Oregon Trail game in a Toothpaste for Dinner comic:
Get Paid in Oxen.
If I didn't have to go serve sopapillas to ungrateful tourists, I would be enjoying a binge session of that game right now.
Well, I'm not sure it would be wise to detail my exploits from last night. But let's say, I need to learn my lessons about doing certain things when I haven't eaten. Also, I should not try and walk halfway across Lakewood at three in the morning, and I'm lucky that I have friends who prevent me from doing some of the stupid things I want to do.
With these things in perspective, I think I may consider giving up drinking. Even though I haven't really started "drinking" like most people do, the good experiences don't seem to make the bad ones worth it.
Also, I had a weird dream where Katie and I were in Colorado, but somehow in Mark Twain at the same time (How I love the logic of dreams.) and we were drinking, and Rob (who happens to be my manager at Casa Bonita) appeared to be my Hall Coordinator and caught us and wrote us up, but we kept protesting that we were in Colorado, so it didn't count and it was all very nonsensical and confusing. However, for some reason it jsut gave me this horribly bad feeling about drinking, so I think it's time for another "Wow, that was fucking stupid. Let's not do that again," break from drinking.
In other news, Casa Bonita is going to be the death of me. When I showed up to work this morning, the last thing I had eaten was a bagel at lunch the day before, and the first thing they did was give me a group of twenty-five school children. How I made it through the morning without passing out is completely beyond me.
Also, my bill for this blog, which is probably not even worth the money, caused me to overdraw my checking account. How terribly sad is that? Luckily my Credit Union just takes the money from my Savings account, otherwise, this would be sad, sad times.
The New York Times has an interesting article on what the age of the internet is doing to our conception of "truth." The author also does a good job of pinpointing exactly why it is I loathe The Da Vinci Code.
The Interactive Truth:
It used to be that the longest unprotected border in the world was that between the United States and Canada. Today it's the one between fact and fiction. If the two cozy up any closer together The National Enquirer will be out of business.
More than 60 percent of the American people don't trust the press. Why should they? They've been reading "The Da Vinci Code" and marveling at its historical insights. I have nothing against a fine thriller, especially one that claims the highest of literary honors: it's a movie on the page. But "The Da Vinci Code" is not a work of nonfiction. If one more person talks to me about Dan Brown's crackerjack research I'm shooting on sight.
I enjoyed everything about Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse, except for the perpetual nagging thought that Hesse's writing style reminded me very distinctly of some other author, who I have yet to recall. Actually, even though I believe I finished this book over two weeks ago (I've been a bit behind on updating the blog this summer, if you haven't noticed), I'm still bothered by the phantom style similarities.
Steppenwolf is the story of Henry Haller, who is rather miserable with life, because out what he perceives as a struggle between the wolf and the man in him. (Hence the title Steppenwolf, a steppenwolf being a wolf of the Steppes.) Henry meets a wonderful women named Hermine, who teaches him how to enjoy the frivolities of life, and drags him out of an intellectual stupor. And then the whole experience basically descends into madness. Now who can resist a book like that?
Truly, I enjoyed this book, and I identified, almost unnervingly so with Henry, but this makes me feel a bit superficial. As in the new introduction Hesse wrote for the edition I read, he mentions that he felt that young people who read the novel identify with it for all the wrong reasons and tend to miss his point entirely. So maybe I missed Hesse's point, but it's a good read anyway.
I have survived the first weekend back at Casa Bonita. So far I have NOT:
1.) Cried
2.) Dropped Anything
3.) Had any of my customers complain to a manager
4.) Actually, had any customers complain at all
5.) Burned myself (which is remarkable as that restaurant likes to keep their plates at roughly a million degrees Fahrenheit)
I have, however, gone three entire lunches without getting a damn table. It seems like it's been really slow, lately. Of course, I haven't done that badly money-wise, considering how slow it's been. I'm hoping for a moderate amount of rain, as that tends to result in more customers, but only a moderate amount, as I am not yet prepared for the mad summer rushes that will invariably come in July.
Other than that I am just waiting for this summer to end, now. It's not that I don't enjoy being home, but at this point I'm hardly going to have time to see my friends anymore, I don't know how I'm going to learn to drive, and I'm spending most of my time at a job I despise.
In other news, Darcie and I rented Hitch and Motorcycle Diaries. Hitch was cute, but becomes a little heavy-handed towards the end of the movie. I thought Motorcycle Diaries was quite good which led Darcie and I to determine that we both believe that foreign movies are of a much higher caliber than anything that comes out of Hollywood. Also, the scene where they shoot the duck led to me repeating, "Pato, pato, pato," quite a few times, as "pato" (which is Spanish for "duck") remains one of my favorite Spanish words.
Speaking of Spanish, working at Casa Bonita amongst a high ratio of native Spanish speakers, has made me realize that my Spanish skills are woefully inadequate. I can rarely understand even parts of conversations, much less a whole conversation. However, I am determined to use this miserable job to better myself by trying to work on my Spanish, even if it involves making a complete ass out of myself. However, Michelle would be proud to know that I actually heard someone use the phrase "Que Onda?"
On yet another tangent, I just got up to make myself a psuedo-lunch (somehow food at home isn't nearly as good as I'd remembered it being), when I noticed that the headline on The Rocky Mountain News is "War on Christianity," to which I would like to say, "Way to be incindiary, stupid-obnoxious-local-paper-I-hate-more-and-more-with-each-passing-day." Admittedly, the congressman who said this is also an incidiary asshole, but I'm getting tired of all this secular/religious bickering. The whole reason the puritans settled here was to avoid the sort of persecution both sides of this debate is infilicting more and more on each other. Whatever happened to preaching love and tolerance and good will towards man? I think we all need to work on some good inter-faith alliance. But, you know, I'm a democrat so all I could possibly mean by "inter-faith alliance" is "Die christianity, die!" (That was sarcasm, please don't hurt me.)
So, you all thought that jsut because it was Summer there might not be any columns for your reading enjoyment. Fear not! Here is a nice little column I had to write for a summer issue of The Maneater.
I decided to rebel and instead of pandering to the freshmen (who I'm sure will get enough pandering) I complain about Bush and work in a Lewis Black joke. Here it is: Put your money where your mouth is.
It's official, after over a month of fruitless job-hunting, I have given my soul back to Casa Bonita. Rob eagerly re-hired me and then I ended up scheduled for doubles ever day this weekend. Great. Wonderful. I can't wait.
So, this means I get to come in on Friday at noon, try to remember how to do my job, without any re-training whatsoever, and work until close. I can't wait. I just keep trying to remind myself how nice the stack of cash is going to look on Friday evening. I'm trying really hard.
The one upside of this is that Brendan's training this week and is going to be serving with me. So at least I'll have company in my misery.
I just keep telling myself that I will only be working about seven weeks, six if I take a week off to go to Boston and it can't possibly be that bad. Only, I know it can be that bad. Of course, from the Secretary's comments it seems like they fire people just as often, if not more often, than they used to so maybe I'll luck out and escape that way.
Then, this morning I got a call from Darcie. Her mom's secretary (or equivalent) got on a plane and basically abandoned her, so she needs someone to work on things. I ended up agreeing to do it, so I went from no jobs to two, apparently. But I guess her mom pays ten dollars an hour, which isn't bad, and I'm definitely broke enough to need the money.
Still, all this job-getting business has made me miss school a lot more than I ever thought I would. I miss the routine of it mostly. It keeps me from getting too wrapped up in things, and I've been doing a bang-up job of getting too wrapped up in things lately.
I leave with a quote from Brendan: "Saying about Casa Bonita, 'Well, a job is a job.' is like describing hell as, 'It is the afterlife.'"
BoingBoing mentions a New York Times article on a woman who knitted a cozy for a missile: Make Frills, Not War.
Hmm. Maybe I can use my newfound crocheting skills to make a cover for a Tank or something.
In the past I've always been fond of my uncanny ability to avoid sleep. It made finishing projects and papers at odd hours and pulling all-nighters a breeze, but lately I would kill to just be able to go to sleep. Typically I relish the few hours I get to myself in the early, early hours of the morning, but I've just felt so tortuously bored lately. I've watched nearly all the movies on cable worth watching and television in general tends to leave me painfully bored these days. I can only read so much and spend so much time on the internet before I just need something else to occupy myself with. Unfortunately, options can be rather limited at two in the morning. Of course, this problem will surely disappear as soon as I find a job, but for now I'd like to be one of those people who can climb into bed at any hour and fall asleep within twenty minutes.
Other than bemoaning my slight insomniac tendencies, I've spent most of these days doing a lot of nothing. I went out with Jenn, Tyler, and a few of Jenn's friends Friday night, which resulted into running into and sharing a table with a lot of people from high school I didn't particularly care to see ever again. Despite the vague "I'm trapped in high school" feeling, I actually had a pretty good time.
Tonight I went to Dinner with Scott, a couple of his friends, Joe, Mwema, and Darcie and then, of course, we headed to Paris, but somehow none of this is significant enough, nor lasts long enough to ease the slow, painful pace of my days. At this point, I just want a job to have something to get up and do, not because I want the money.
Brendan is finally coming home at the end of the week and I can't wait to see him because I miss the way the two of us can talk about nothing, something, and anything for hours on end. I'm hoping that he can offer something to at least ease the anesthetic feel of these past weeks.
I'm almost starting to think that I really should've just stayed in Columbia and gotten residency this summer, but I know that I needed to have one last summer with these people. It's not that I don't love my friends, but I miss the constant distractions of high school. I want to push again, to see how much I can do in so many hours, and instead I have ended up with the complete and total opposite.
The New York Times Book Review has published online A Literary Map of Manhattan which features "where imaginary New Yorkers lived, worked, played, drank, walked, and looked at ducks."
I've actually read quite a few of the books on here at one point of another. I only wish this had been published a couple years earlier so I could've made use of it when I visited New York. Still, it's fun to play around with.
The Time Traveler's Wife By Audrey Niffenegger gives The God of Small Things quite some competition for my favorite book read so far this year. Of course, The Time Traveler's Wife is a completely different sort of book.
The story centers around a relationship between a young woman, Clare, and a usually young man, Henry. Of course, the catch is that henry time travels against his will, a condition Niffenegger has dubbed "chrono-impaired". So the first time Clare meets Henry, she's about six and Henry is an old man who has just shown up in the fields surrounding her house without any clothes on. Sound complicated enough, yet?
Despite the weird, half science-fiction, half romance plot, this novel is brilliant. It's alternately narrated by Clare and Henry, a technique that usually annoys the hell out of me in books, but works wonderfully here. The plot is one of the unusual ones that breaks your heart but still leaves you hopeful. Really, Niffenegger just does an outstanding job and I'd recommend this book to everyone.
Of course, I still need to convince a male friend to read this so I can decide if the appeal is equal to both genders, because while I think the romantic plot is a universal one, I can sometimes give in to girlish romanticism.
There's a video floating around of a three-year-old playing a complicated xylophone piece.
What? This is considered genius? Just look at her techniue! All arms, completely uncontrolled heights. She has no dynamics, no tone. And where are the accidentals in the song she's playing? So, she's cute, I thought we asked more of a child geniuses these days!
While I'm sure I'm not the first college student to have a complete breakdown in ideal in the middle of June, I have a feeling I may be among a slightly smaller crowd facing ideological inconsistencies.
This all started when I hand one of my short, startling profound thoughts. Sometimes I just think these things that strike me for one reason or another. This particular thought happened to be, "I want to write a book men will read." (Which makes more sense if you've, like I, had been seeing mentions for days of some article about how men don't read books written by women.) This thought caused me to start thinking about a creative writing class I saw in a Mizzou catalog, and for some unknown reason I looked the class up online. As it turns out, with a miniscule bit of pruning (i.e. moving my economics recitation I probably won't be attending, anyway), I could easily fit the aforementioned class into my schedule.
Of course, this brings up a host of other questions. What class do I drop to replace it? Do I simply replace my humanities class? (Of course, you have to understand, completing the honors college humanities sequence is something that gives you a certain amount of intellectual bragging rights.) Should I drop International Relations and give up on this idea of a political science double major and just give in and double major in english? Maybe just a minor in english?
And all this thinking leads to the, "What am I doing at Mizzou, anyway?" train of thought. I like journalism enough, but I only got into journalism because it was a more practical outlet for writing, but all of a sudden I'm finding myself thinking that maybe teaching English wouldn't be the horror I sometimes make it out to be. Sometime I can't help but feel that I would be much happier as an English major. But if I'm going to major in English, why waste a quarter-of-a-grand at Mizzou?
Where are those goddamned academic advisors when I actually need them?
Well, life continues here in Colorado, but at a slow incomprehensible pace. I did not get hired by Macaroni Grill, sadly, and the only other call I've gotten was from Old Navy who wanted me to work for three days a week at five in the morning, to which I easily said no. I think I'd rather go back to Casa Bonita than unpack shipments at ungodly hours.
In other news, I am nineteen after somehow surviving the miserable night that was my birthday. I can't explain why that night was bad, but for some reason everything about it just seemed off. Of course, all the birthday wishes were greatly appreciated and I did manage to get Garden State, the new Garbage CD, and a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble out of the night, so not all was lost.
Yesterday I met up with Kerry, Joe, Josh and David Koch and we ended up at Burger's Plus to play Risk. We also encountered about half the band since the high schoolers only had a half day. Afterwards, I hung out with Kerry for a while and she tried to teach me to crochet and I still failed to make anything but a chain. However, I am resolved to learn to crochet before school begins again, as I want to have as many diversions as possible when I work the desk.
Still, I desperately need a job, and at this point I don't even care so much about my financial situation (which is pretty dire), but I just want something to do. I haven't slept this much in years, but I just don't see the point in getting out of bed when it just gives me an extra three to four hours to waste. Also, it's looking more likely that I'm going back to Casa Bonita as every day passes, but I just don't want to do it. The thought of just being back there creates an overwhelming sense of dread. Maybe tomorrow I'll go try and weed out every last place in Lakewood I haven't applied to already. Send good job karma my way.
While I may be one of the few people who care, Chuck Palahniuk has been popping up all over the media recently, and I just can't pass on Chuck coverage. First, Chuck has an interesting essay in the Guardian entitled Slaves and saviours about One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest:
I just didn't recognise how this is everyone's story, in a two-party democracy. Even now, especially now, in America where an almost equal number of people must follow the will of their peers. No matter how democracy holds them responsible for their government, no matter how much they protest, the minority is still the minority. Saviours or slaves.
Harper's published Ready-Made Rebellion, an essay on transgressive fiction that uses Survivor as an example:
The first-person narrator of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Survivor, by contrast, succumbs to the trope of numbness, to the belief that an undefined existential boredom is sufficient motivation for even the most extreme behavior.
Finally, watch the New York Times critic tear Haunted to shreds in Gore Values:
In case the Times review hasn't convinced you that my taste in fiction is horrible, Yankee Pot Roast offers the satire piece Chuck Palahniuk Mows the Lawn:The curious weakness of Palahniuk's neo-brutalist aesthetic is how hermetically sealed it must remain from anything that might challenge it: the air of hard-core debauch must be wall to wall or else crumble to nothing. Palahniuk's work has a tone of snarling X-rated confrontation, but reading his stuff is uncannily like being buttonholed by your younger brother and led up to his bedroom so he can show off his book of Weegee photographs. Palahniuk's work feels raw but insular, angry but self-coddling, like a teenager's moods. The single most horrifying fact about ''Haunted,'' though, is that his publishers have called it ''a novel,'' which turns out to be a cunning euphemism for ''a collection of short stories.'' The stories all follow much the same course. Palahniuk digs up some disgusting factoid; he devises a narrator to deliver the disgusting factoid; and then sits back to watch him or her deliver it. End of story.
I swear he's just misunderstood.Imagine vacuuming. Now, imagine the vacuum weighs 350 pounds. Now, imagine this 350-pound vacuum has a rotating blade that can take off a man’s hand. Imagine that it does, only sometimes it’s not a hand. Sometimes it’s a leg. Sometimes it’s something worse.
Oh, and as a side note, The Cult, the official Chuck Palahniuk website is offering free content for the month of June. You know, in case my incessant mentioning of Chuck Palahniuk has convinced you that Chuck is a god. Because he is.
I'm going to spare you the details of this book because The Weight of All Things by Sandra Benitez is bad. Horrifically bad. It's poorly written and the setting is described poorly. And it includes some frivolous, bad lessons in Spanish on top of that. Despite the blurbs on the back this book does not make me feel like I've been transported to another country and nor does it make me feel for the humanity trapped in war. If that's what you're looking for, read For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway instead. It serves to illustrate the evils of warfare brillantly, and it's much better written than this drivel. The only reason to read this book is if you're stuck proctoring for four hours, as I was, and there really isn't anything better to do.
Of course, I feel somewhat bad for judging this book so harshly as it was a graduation present from a friend, but I just don't like it. However, I read it, and so it counts towards my goal of fifty books this year.
