How I Spent My Thanksgiving Vacation

One long post, in lieu of a dozen short ones.

After I dropped Jonas off in the tiny Stuckeyvilleian town of Waupaca, I had about seven hours of driving time left.

I spent five of those hours with The Satirist, a quiet, stolidly cynical, previously-unbedubbed girl who's been in a few of my classes. I don't especially like The Satirist, but I don't dislike her either; the only feeling I have towards her is one of genuine unadulterated goodnatured ambivalence. We sit next to each other in class, chit-chat, and never dream of socializing afterwards. I approve of her existence, and she approves of mine.

This isn't to say that The Satirist doesn't have any good qualities. After all, she is cynical (which I take to mean "negative, but in a smart way"), and when she's not dividing the world into fools and knaves, she's silent. I can't tell you how much respect I have for people with the good sense to be quiet every once and awhile. I think I have already, though.

Five hours of intermittent conversation and surprisingly comfortable silences later, I dropped The Satirist off a few blocks from Hamline. She's supposed to call me tomorrow about a ride home. I cranked up the music ("here's your problem," Matt said later, turning up the treble and bass) and drove home without incident.

Waking up in my own bed Wednesday morning, I knew that waking Josh up and kicking him out of my room had been the right choice. For one thing, when I'm at home, in the huge ergonomic bed, I seem to dream more. Interesting dreams, too, not just regurgitated images from the day before.

I think it's just that I've got so many memories here. This place and these people played such a huge part in making me the person I am today that I can't help but think I'm losing a bit of myself whenever I leave.

I don't have to be around Graham and Manney, but where else is the "justification one" joke funny? I don't need to be around Matt and Josh, but who else knows the proper reply to "phone's ringing"? Where else do I have so many old issues and repressed memories, so many friendly acquaintances and familiar inside jokes?

I was glad to leave Brainerd behind, and I'm still glad I went far far away, but part of me couldn't leave this town. Lawrence Dan is, undeniably, a different person than the Dan who merely wanted to escape; not by choice or out of any conscious effort to "reinvent Dan", but simply because all the old associations that created Brained Dan are needed to sustain him. Outside of context, I'm like some poorly translated Japanese novel.

Wednesday night, Jenna, Graham, Manney, Amelia and I congregated at Amelia's (a safehouse for rogue Green Party members) for a casual reunion. Since prettymuch everyone except me either goes to Hamline or dates Manney, they'd all seen each other before. But even the Hamlinites enjoyed being off campus- we could (and did) put down minorities with nary a non-ironic thought, safe from dimwitted p.c thugs.

I suppose that I should apologize for all of us by saying that what I find offensive is not the inability to say something offensive, but the implication that we believe the offensive things we're not allowed to say. If I believe Jews are plotting to use Krispy Kreme donuts in a devious scheme to take over the world, then I'm a moron. If I'm pretending to believe the same because I think it's ludicrious, and downextremeright hilarious, then anyone who has a problem with that is a moron, or a liberal arts major, or both.

This hamfisted restriction on speech seems to be more of a problem at Hamline than at Lawrence, thankfully, but the reaction to last year's "Better than Hitler" campaign posters proves that it's our problem too.

That first night seems to have been spent in random conversation and giddy slurs, until we left to see Friday After Next at the little theater.

We didn't know it was there, however, and by the time we figured out were Manney and Amelia had gone Graham had convinced us to ditch the happy couple and go bowling.

I tried to flake out, couldn't, and ended up at the bowling alley demonstrating a technique rarely seen outside of the Special Olympics: The Wrist-Flick (which, as some Lawrentians can attest, I practice whenever bored or nervous).

It was a veritable Graham's-older-friends reunion at the Paul Bunyan Bowl, but I knew J. Lo pretty well and the rest of the people were vaguely familiar (Sam Bedard was much too familiar, in every horrible lap-sitting sense of the word) so I didn't feel like Graham's tag-along, always a fear. After a few successful frames and some lighthearted mockery from the skilled 100-bowling bowlers, we went to Perkins.

After years of being the only guy not to go pheasant-hunting on Thanksgiving, I'm almost over the implied immasculation; sleeping in for hours and hours on Thanksgiving morning certainly lessens the blow. My mom and I got to my uncle's farm in Avon around two, just as everyone was getting back from hunting.

My aunt Bernice and my Gramma still like me as much as they like chocolate. My cousin Danielle still idolizes my brother Matt in a way that always makes me think she has a crush on him (until I remember that everyone there is related). My aunt Bonnie still seems to have an unspoken grudge against me- she hasn't forgiven me for my behavior on our trip to Michigan five years ago.

My uncle Mark encouraged me to succeed and whatnot- odd when you consider that, in a family of socialites and business majors, I'm somewhat of a black sheep. A rebel, if you will (but I wouldn't).

It seems like someone has been working behind the scenes, having (ah, there's one of my dreams! I remember typing this!) everyone get behind Dan's ill-thought-out plans. I think it's just that someone (my dad, perhaps, from what I gather from Matt) has been thinking about what exactly I'm going to do after college, and mentioning the subject to others. Hence the attention.

I drove home with Matt and Josh. I'm glad I'm related to Matt; we've had some pretty good conversations of late, but if we didn't share the same parents we might never have met.

I have no idea what I did Thursday night. Probably some of the stuff I think I did Friday night, but, truth be told, I seem to have spent most of some evening or other at home, playing Halo with Matt and Josh.

Friday morning Jenna and I braved the Day-After-Thanksgiving-Day crowds to do some shopping at Target and Best Buy. Though surrounded by bargains, I saw only one thing I wanted: the Blade DVD, on sale for $10. After about an hour and a half, we went back to Jenna's and watched said DVD, then I headed home.

We all (Jon, Graham, Jenna, Manney and I) ended up at Graham's again that night, then went to the 371 Diner, Brainerd's shiniest diner. After we'd finished our meals, Graham and I decided to become men the only way we knew how: by eating food as fast as possible. The victorious glutton?

On the way back from the 371 diner, I was encouraged to use a word other than "dastard", one which "wouldn't cause people to judge you so quickly." That certainly rankled, especially since I'm perfectly aware (and, for once, have always been aware) of both what that word means and what it means to say that word. It's a funny, tragically ironic little word, and until I get tired of it (inevitably: remember "curses" and "proverbial") I'll keep using it. Egads…

After downing medically-unacceptable amounts of delicious batter bites, we went all went back to Graham's and sat and digested. We watched television and probably would have continued to do so had not an obviously-bored Jon (he doesn't like Seinfeld, the inhuman monster) got the proverbial hookup to a party in North Brainerd.

At any successful party there's something a little different going on in every room. This party had one room devoted to cribbage and one devoted to watching L.A. Confidential, and while I was content to sit in silence and watch the movie for the third or fourth time, Graham got antsy.

We saw Die Another Day, starring Halle Berry as Jinx. We somehow managed to both enjoy the movie on its own merits (it was better than the other recent Bond movies) and make fun of it with what Graham called our "unbearable wit." I showed Graham a measurement-related move that Ann or Jinx or
Meg(h)an taught me and he spent the rest of the movie resisting my invincible come-on. I didn't dare try the other line.

Well, that's about all. Tonight was quiet- dinner with my parents and a game of Trivial Pursuit with two Koreans; tomorrow, it's back to Lawrence.

Home

There's nothing like sleeping in your own bed. Josh, like some kind of forest creature, seems to have set up a nest in my room after I left for college -I kicked him out last night, because after an 8 hour drive I was going to sleep in my own bed, or else.

Later…

The Usual Attempt At Postmortem Irony

Well, I'm leaving in about an hour; I hope I don't die in a tragic auto accident. That would be bad. Yep, sure won't be expecting that.

I pulled a literal all-nighter last night. I know I've used that phrase before, but I didn't really know what it meant. Now I do: never again. I'm going to take a nap before I go.

Later, maybe. Bwahaha and all that.

One Couch, One Dream

I saw Kiss Me, Kate a few nights ago; I sat between Jinx--who laughed at jokes that weren't there--and Andy--who seemed to be missing the jokes that were--but even though I didn't sit by any normal people, I think that they enjoyed the musical too. As far as I'm concerned, any song with "dastard" in it has a special place in my heart. Ann, meanwhile, is still waiting for an explanation of some of the subtler sexual innuendo…

On a tangentially related and perhaps equally embarassing note, Fort Makeout, Room 201's less animate chick magnet, was finally occupied overnight by a girl. Nothing uncouth occured, of course, and no romantic intentions were entertained by any of the involved parties, but nonetheless, Fort Makeout is one step closer to its teleological purpose, and, presumably, some sort of couch nirvana.

On a non-mojo-related note, Jonas now knows how to play chess. I like to get myself a little credit for this new foray into geekdom- of course Jonas is, like me, already a geek, that much is obvious. But now he's more of a geek, and that's good. I won't be happy until he's playing RPGs, collecting Magic:The Gathering cards, and evaluating the hotness of various computer-generated women, but this is a start.

He beat me in chess, too, which I wasn't expecting. I still have my Statego skills, though.

On a completely unrelated note, I have an essay to write, and I'm finding it difficult to care about said essay, on Milton though it be. I may have said this before, but after some pretty heavy doses of paper-writing-related stress back in junior high, I've become immune to deadline-related stress, which is usually great. Some people worry way too much about papers.

Of course, now the only thing that gets me actually writing is the realization that I may not have the time to finish, but that's the price you (or in this case "I") pay. In a few hours, finishing an essay before tomorrow will seem more necessary. For now, watching Jonas play Metroid is more interesting.

Prof Fritzell the Obscure, the God of Semantics and Meaning, might not agree with all these assertions, but they seem true enough to me. And that's enough for now, in either case.

Later.

Communication Skills

Mr. Spartz taught me a big word and a bad habit I guess I'll have to lose.

Still a great English teacher, though. Back in 10th grade, he made the children cry, and I was delighted. Also, he taught us the parts of speech. And let's not forget the singing.

I watched the first Harry Potter tonight with Jeremy and The Politician. Maybe it was just the presence of Jeremy, who is H.C for J.C, but the Christian symbolism late in that movie seemed unusually visible. A white bird, let up into the sky? A boy marked (and, quite literally, "saved") by someone who loved him enough to sacrifice herself?

Well, whatever. I'd seen that movie before, anyways.

Night.

Bush Warns Saddam to Obey U.N. Plan

It seems that Saddam has no respect for the U.N or its resolutions. Well, the U.S. will teach him. Teach him good.

On another, poltical, note, since when am I Republican? Larson, for one, seems to have gotten that impression…

Well, Look At The Time…

Jonas is back. He's a fan person too, apparently; it's November, and he's using a fan.

I just don't understand fan people -I'm the only non-fan person in my house, and when I talk about how creepy the air feels and how much better it is to be waaaay too hot, no one seems to understand.

They installed an air conditioner in my room. And let's not forget the fan in the bathroom.

The all-nighter continues… I just finished an E.A Classics essay that was very Fritzellian (meaning that it paid unusual attention to the process of writing and the actual meanings of words) but not very good. I outlined, which I despise doing, and that sucked what little excitement paper-writing has right out of the process. I've never taken so long to do nothing, or been so bored doing it.

I don't think I'll make it to my 9:50 class. Goodnight.

Sound and Fury, But Mostly Sound

So I've been at the library, or in the room, actually reading, for almost the entire weekend. I've read three chapters of Paradise Lost, half of C.S Lewis' A Preface to Paradise Lost, and all of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, my baptism-by-fire into the world of cyberpunk.

As I was explaining to Carrie, one of the few people my nonsocial activities have brought me into contact with, this seems to go against the whole anarchic spirit of reading period.

The very concept of reading period is a point of contention at Lawrence, as the increasingly brilliant Representative Man, fellow writing tutor and cultist at the Church of Fritzell the Obscure, recently observed.

What's a student to do? Study? Leave, as Ann, Jonas, The Politician, and hundreds of other guilty souls have done? Listen to Weezer's "Across the Sea" at full volume, as if from Iowa? The point is to study and catch up--profs and deans remind us of that fact well in advance--but the real point is to relax.

There's such a conflict between the letter and the spirit of reading period that it's impossible to obey both… though, excepting the The Simpsons marathon, there isn't much going on on campus anyways.

So, rather than go home after work on Friday, I've been here. Reading and blogging and cranking up Flogging Molly whenever someone downstairs tries to play that annoying piano. I've got an excruciating amount of free time (which shows how much time Jonas and the Gamecube and I waste, with our powers combined), but it's not all that bad, actually.

Yes, I've been pretty asocial, but I've felt like some twisted revolutionary, like Dostoyevsky's Underground Man, working in seclusion on my secret little projects. I've felt that thrill of the righteous outcast whenever anyone vaguely annoying is nearby. Giggling! How dare they, the bourgeoise scum!

Eh, it's all in fun. As cryptic as Ann's warning was, I'm nonetheless resolved not to "Go through [my] whole life like [Prof] Dintenfass" -just sitting there while people talk in the quiet study areas of my life. I've had enough people yell at me for being passive-aggressive, and fewer (but still enough) chew me out for being antisocial; besides, both of these attitudes seem like they take a lot of effort, anyways, if you're going to do them well, and I'm not about to put effort into something. So I'll rejoin society, if I can find it during reading period.

I went thrift-shopping yesterday with Jinx and Rock Show Girl, both of whom seem capable of finding hundreds of dollars of "cool" clothing in a relatively tiny "Thift Shoppe". Jinx spent most of her time in the little boys section, which reminded me of shopping with Jenna. As usual, after sifting through the various sections I found only one somewhat-cool shirt, a black-and-white number featuring historic Thurber, Texas: 1886-1933.

There was also a shirt for a baseball team named "The Vampires", which would've been great had my name been Dylan or my number 3.

Such excursions aside, I really have been working, not drinking and shouting obscenities at passerby. I ran into a passage today by C.S. Lewis that gave me a familiar feeling- that cold chill down my neck which means that Graham Lampa could be right about something. It's a big quote, so sorry, but it applies to more than just "poetry" and "poets".

The idea of a poetry which exists only for the poet--a poetry which the public rather overhears than hears--is a foolish novelty in criticism. There is nothing specially admirable in talking to oneself. Indeed, it is arguable that Himself is the very audience before whom a man postures most and on whom he practices the most elaborate deceptions.

I agree, now, with Graham's conception of the talented poet/writer who writes for no one (there are rumors that J.D Salinger is doing exactly that, right now) as inherently full of crap. Writing will always require the audacity to believe that your opinions are worth hearing- by a contemporary audience, after you're dead, by future archeologists, whatever.

That said, Dear Reader, I still have respect for the journalist who never shows anyone his/her journal, simply because I respect people who can keep things like that to themselves. But, in some half-remembered conversation, when I told Graham that Donne's poetry was great because he never showed it to anyone (he did, but I hadn't learned that yet for some reason), I was wrong.

Poets and authors and writers in general don't just spirit things away, and if they do, they're disobeying the very spirit that led them to write in the first place. Go on, Bloggers, go on writing your "private" blogs for "no one". Maybe you're writing for practice (which is the ostensible purpose of this very site) but if that's true, why are you posting all this online?

A narrow little tangent. Well, Jonas' friend Jeremy is coming over to abuse the Ormsby printer, a weekly event, so I'll duck away before you realize I have nothing more to add.

Telecommunication's "Malfunctioning Phone Theory"

Well, that was anticlimatic.

Ed Johnson's "Incompetent Stalker Theory"

I just got back from the 100-hour Simpsons marathon in the Plantz basement. I went largely because someone kept calling my room and then hanging up. I was trying to read. After my fifth attempt to talk to the mysterious caller, I became justifiably annoyed and contacted the powers that be downstairs, who told me to contact Security.

When the caller didn't leave a message for me (I let the phone just ring a few times) I started to suspect that this wasn't just a series of failed attempts- and if I'm wrong about that, I'm sorry. It must have been very urgent and I probably let you down.
In my opinion, it was someone trying to be funny and annoying, and failing.

I can't remember the last time I pissed off anyone enough to warrant any more sinister intentions, but it certainly wasn't at Lawrence. In any case, I'll do my best to find out who called--Security said to call Telecommunications tomorrow--and figure out why they called so many times. For all I know, a perfectly reasonable explanation will surface on its own.

The Simpsons marathon, by-the-by, was only o.k. We watched some of the funniest episodes out there, but there were too many people in the room who were trying too hard. I don't like the phrase "trying too hard" anymore than some people like hearing "sell-out", and I don't think that these are bad people.

I just wish I knew how to tell them that I think they're being huge phonies. Maybe they really don't have anything to offer, socially, but the overstated and overzealous behavior I saw tonight couldn't have been genuine. The laughter was too loud, too poorly timed, the entire search for approval (from other Simpsons fans? from that room?) too obvious.

In fact, these are all guys with plenty of friends (albeit admittedly straightedge ones) around campus, so they can't be socially maladjusted or anything. Why do bad personalities happen to good people? Why then? Why them?

Arrg… so many malfunctioning people tonight.

Just Ignore It, Then

Things That Lose From Growing Old

Twenty-somethings
Pizza, both delivered and refrigerated
Murphy Brown
Textbooks
Dashboard Confessional
Major television networks
Dungeons and Dragons RPG
Idiot savants
Radicals

Things That Gain From Growing Old

Barbers
Prolific moderately-talented authors
Cartoons
Professors of Classics, Greek, or Philosophy
Arguments about magnetic "rocks"
Anecdotes that involve pain or nausea
Wizards
Confederate Money
People who wantonly carry around The New Yorker

And with that, I'm ready to actually write something. I have a feeling that I'll get progessively shriller (not to mention bombastic: I haven't written in a while), though, so be forewarned. This past week hasn't been too rough, midterms notwithstanding, and now that Jonas is home for reading period (we get today and tomorrow off, ostensibly to "read") this weekend should be productive and sedate.

I beat Timesplitters 2 earlier this week, and according to the game itself, I've wasted about 30 hours of my life trying to stop the vaguely evil Timesplitters from doing whatever it is they were supposed to do. It's a testimony both to my hypocrisy and to my addictive personality that I bothered to play through the boring single player levels… I know I swore off single-player videogames over a year ago (back then I was in the habit of swearing prettymuch everything off, it seems), and, even worse, the game wasn't very fun, but now that I'm done, maybe it's really over.

Ann, Jonas, and I watched Rushmore a few days ago- of course it was good. Jonas' old roommate, Andy, claims to be the real-life equivalent of Max Fischer. I'm still thinking about that one.

Anyways, Saturday was Jinx's 20th birthday and, social butterfly that she is, Jinx surrounded herself with well-wishers for dinner at the Taste of Thai. Even Jinx's Sister visited Lawrence for the occasion.

I have yet to have good Thai food, by the way -this restaurant was supposed to be especially good, but I barely finished my "Evil Jungle Prince". Everyone else seems to like it; I feel like I'm in an arthouse theater watching a movie I'm not intelligent enough to understand.

Over at the second big table, with Kat and Meg(h)an and Sadie and Luke and the eternally droll Meredith, I was far from the hurly-burly hurdy-gurdy of Jinx's antics, and since she wasn't there to regale us with allusions to Clarence Carter and stories of Mexican porns gone hopelessly awry (and yes, she does, and yes, we were missing out), I got a chance to get to know some people I'd thought uninteresting.

Kat, whose name I forgot around thirty times last year, shares my dislike of non-Catholic Catholic-bashers. We're both lapsed Catholics, and that, along with years and years of confirmation classes and Wednesdays spent at church, gives us the ability to criticize the failures of the Catholic Church and (to a lesser extent) Catholicism itself.

Lapsed Catholics, even if we believe in absolutely nothing, are still Catholics, with the Catholic thought-patterns burned into our apostate brains.

Pat Buchanan once said that "Anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of the intellectual", and while we can't be persecuted as a race, what's left of that sentiment seems prettymuch accurate. Yes, we are the Institution, we are the The Man of the Christian world, and we have a huge amount of problems from the Pope on down the Great Chain of Being our hierarchy still preserves.

But we are not a punching bag for intellectuals who need a religion it's politically correct to bash. It sounds Coulterish of me, I know, and I'd love to prove that I don't possess any even vaguely Republican beliefs, but it seems like the people so quick to support, buy into, or otherwise defend exotic religious beliefs are just as quick to mock, criticize, or otherwise attack Catholicism. Like the French, we've become something it's o.k. to look down on, and I don't ever want to be in the same category as those snail-eating word-nazis.

I don't agree with Catholicism, as far as I can tell, but the people who attack it are often ignorant. Yes, we Catholics (especially the failed Catholics) see problems with the church, but while we say "nigga", your criticism is still hopelessly "nigger".

--Speaking of which, yesterday I was waiting at The Grill, and this lady came up behind me, asking if I was "on line". I told her that this wasn't the east coast, that it was "in line", that I wasn't about to let "on line" fly at my college, and that yes, yes I was. We form the line, we don't stand on top of it.--

I can't stand someone who doesn't know his own religion, the set of beliefs he supposedly agrees with, and people who weren't Catholic and presume to understand our (former) beliefs well enough to judge them, who don't know about Vatican II, who think that they know exactly what's going on in Catholicism when we aren't really sure ourselves (the "Glorious Mysteries" spring to mind), well, those people need to argue with someone.

Since there isn't ever any more qualified candidate around (this school is swarming with Lutherans, reeking of bibles and potato salad) I try my best to ensure that there's depth behind criticism. Partially though, I have to admit that my defense of Catholicism comes from force of habit.

Kat does the same, if you remember how I got started on this particular tangent. We expressed our lapsed Catholic solidarity together, then turned to talk of torturing small children. Really!

I temporarily gained the nickname "Lame Dan" over the course of that night, because too many of my witticisms sucked. I deserved it, yes, because I was being very lame, but I tried to destroy that particular nickname before it spread.

My brothers are on my MSN list now; that's a little weird.

The third floor of the library is supposed to be the quietest place on campus, a place where people come together to sit in silence and squeeze as much productivity out of every hour as possible. A few days ago, while I was in the library reading about Satan's war in Heaven, these jock-fratboy-econ-major types started talking.

Naturally, I did nothing to actually quiet this group, which was probably disturbing everyone on the floor. There's no actual authority that enforces the third floor quiet rule, and I was far too yellow to take the initiative, so this group prattled on, first talking about economics, which would have been bad enough, then moving on to talk of bullying.

Before now, I'd've thought that people who pick on other people were, deep inside their protohuman brains, too ashamed of their actions to actually discuss them with others. This isn't the case, obviously -with his girlfriend gone, one of them told the old "blowing snot in the hair of an oblivious and no-doubt nerdy girl" story, to the amusement of all the other jock-fratboy-types.

I was blown away, and not by the narrative skills of the jock-fratboy-type. I'm still twitching inside, waiting for humanity to make sense again.

That's enough, in fact, it's more than enough.
Great heathen gads… Later.

Cellar Door

I just saw Donnie Darko again, at a midnight showing sponsored by F.L.O.P, one of the film clubs associated with The Lawrence Hedonists. I sat next to Rock Show Girl, and behind the Amazing Clarifier. I'm assuming that this girl was drunk, or something, but she'd update her date on recent movie happens at key points, long after everyone else understood what was going on. Near the end of the movie her belated gasps of understanding amused us.

In "English and Welsh", J.R.R. Tolkien wrote that cellar door, independent of its meaning, is the most beautiful phrase in English. Ask Arno- I'm sure that lanky German knows.

There was a jazz concert, starring Dianne Reeves, about here.

For Halloween, Miss Bates wanted to see The Ring in theaters, but we protested, refusing to sacrifice potential cool-Halloween-activity time. Of course, we didn't plan anything, so we ended up watching Ringu, the older Japanese film on which The Ring was based.

Ringu was simpler than the remake, and still achieved the desired effect, but It didn't really explain everything, whereas the American version was more nuanced and, well, better attuned to the sensibilities of it's audience: us. Mino thought that Ringu was the better movie, and none of us said a word, afraid to criticize his culture.

Later… tired.