All The Action: All Offstage

The Senior Streak is tonight.

Finished reading The Tempest yesterday, just in time for class. I wasn't too impressed, I'm sorry to say.

I read the play as the denouement to a fairy tale, as a romance with Prospero as the empowered hero. My least favorite critical interpretation: The Tempest as a "meditation on colonialism."

Also, I was late for class again. I can never ask Prof Bloom for a recommendation for anything.

Prof Bloom… she's quite the mystery. Either she's a swinging betrothed bisexual hyperfeminist or some of the rumors about her just aren't true. I've got an agent working on it. It's none of my business (of course) but I find all of this incredibly interesting.

Still waiting on my Freiburg packet. Still sitting on my summer housing apps.

Went to the Co-op House's house party last weekend.

Jubb and I killed the rest of the Tequila (a delicious, but not delicious, revenge) while watching a Family Guy and waiting for Jonas. Once my roomate had got back and finished an unhealthy amount of Gin, the three of us finished the Amaretto. There is no longer any alcohol in our room.

The Co-op party was good, maybe even great. With the exception of The Cheerful Cynic (who is uncircumcised, as I learned all-too-firsthand), there wasn't an annoying person to be seen.

The only irksome part of the night was my inability to enjoy alcohol. I wasn't even buzzed after all finishing four or five shots of stuff in the room and some cheap beer at the party. And every time I drank my stomach became very angry; my body wanted me to stop.

When I finally got where I had been trying to go, I was elated. Vodka and lemonade taste great (or like nothing at all) and I drank enough to get a nice buzz just in time: In line for the bathroom, I had to tell some confused Connies who Mao Tse-Tung (or "the weird guy on this poster") was.

Good times, good times.

Scant Update

Went to the co-op party this weekend. Watched a few movies. Going to sleep now, though.

Another Email

Going to Freiburg; I should get the official packet soon.

Jacques in Arden

Feeling sentimental.

Thinking about the past and that old idealistic Dan who wanted desperately to create something, thinking even lately about an older Dan, the religious Dan who believed in something. Thinking about a time that was littered with somethings and someones.

Where is my great creation? Still inside my head, or perhaps worse, perhaps already carelessly bastardized to meet a deadline.

Where is my invisible means of support? Nonexistant, replaced by a half dozen imperfect, self-centered caretakers.

What do I have? What have I gained, by losing all that?

Truth? A noble sense of Rightness?

This is no flattery: these are counsellors…

Ideas, concepts, principles used to be everything, people used to be more than the events and times that now accompany them. I had emotions, important emotions that colored everything. They were wonderful; I hope, Dear Reader, that you can understand that.

Words used to mean so much. I save a few, the usual ones, and try to store meaning in them until some vague unpleasant day should force them out of me, but diction cheapens over time, like everything else. The restrictions I place on my vocabulary are suspectible to the same tragic attrition as everything else I see.

Once, I wouldn't have blogged this at all. There are still things I won't blog, and for that I'm grateful, I suppose.

But every meme, every morpheme will be pimped out, sooner or later, for attention or profit.

It's the evil of banality. Everything has gotten so banal, or, rather, it always was…

I made a world for myself that wasn't so cheap (it took a dozen notebooks but I did it) and I've long since thrown all of it away. I've discovered since that the real world is a hedonistic, haphazard, ugly place, unless you work very very hard at it.

I guess I miss the days when everything seemed possible. Forgive the midnight sentimentalist.

Internet-Guided Introspection

Jonas and I picked up his moped today and, though it let him drive home, it still has some weird problems and probably won't be going anywhere for a while. We played a quick night-game of F-golf and I got a frustrating but excellent +7.

After we got back, I took the Purity Test again because I was bored and everyone else was doing it.

I seem to go down about ten percentage points a year. This year I'm sixty-eight percent pure.

My roommates for next year are all around forty-something percent pure. The odd thing is that I now feel myself in competition with them; even though I don't want to do the things Jubb did to get his score that low, part of me wishes that I had. Well, not really. Not those things.

More disturbing is my result on the Empathy Quotient Test. With a 22, I'm in the lowest possible range, next to the autists and all the those kids with Asperger's syndrome.

Of course I think the test is bunk. Like Jubb (who tried to steal my empathy last weekend) it assumes that sad little embittered types such as myself have no understanding of the bulk of humanity. But in the immortal words of Homer: "Just because I don't care / Doesn't mean I don't understand."

A Casual Socialization Test I'd bomb; a Sympathy Quotient Test I'd happily fail. I know that I've become (perhaps unhealthily) self-centered/aloof since I came to Lawrence (look at my Freshman ID picture! So young! So well-groomed! So idealistic!) but I think that, for the most part, I have a pretty good understanding of what others are thinking/feeling.

I usually don't like it, is all. That Empathy Test thinks very highly of the emotions and thoughts of the average human, whereas I, a (perhaps too) judgmental type, am very quickly annoyed by a great many of those thoughts.

I'm working on tolerance, because it's a necessary skill when you're not around the same five or six people all the time, but I'd be much happier if some people fixed their horrible personality flaws and saved me the trouble.

There's probably a special place in hell for people who think like me.

Quad selection went pretty well. We got the third-to-last quad left in the New Dorm, but a quad in the New Dorm (it has no other name, at present) is good enough for me. Plus, we're not sharing a floor with the now-homeless Delts (encamped, for the most part, on 1) or with the Hall Director (stationed on 3).

I'm moderately excited. Jubb is really excited. Jonas is being pressured into being excited. And Ned, well, he's probably sleeping, at this hour. I can't wait until I know more than one aspect of his character; there's only so much I can do with "sleeps often."

After the 29th (the end of Housing Selection) I'll feel a lot better about the quad situation; but I've already decided that the Housing Department won't be foolish enough to inconvenience three people just to punish one. And there's still uncertainty. I might not have the deposit, right when/if I get into Freiburg.

Actually, I might not, really. I'm going to blow through so much money this summer and this fall… it's going to be quite the hit to my bank account; at this point I think I've spend all the money I earned last summer at Giovanni's.

I sat with my head bent over the computer on my desk, and my right hand on the mouse, and somewhat nervously hovering over the mouse buttons, so that immediately upon the completetion of the Alien turn, I could proceed with my Xcom: UFO Defense business without the least delay.

In this very attitude did I sit as Jubb sat down on the couch, rapidly stating what it was he wanted to do—namely, to get out of the dorm and do something. Imagine his surprise, nay, his consternation, when without taking my eyes off the screen, I in a typically bored, apathetic voice, replied, "I would prefer not to."

He repeated his idea in the most decisive tone he could assume. But in quite as decisive a one came the previous reply, "I would prefer not to." I aimed Clarence King's Plasma rifle.

Had there been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in my manner; in other words, had there been any thing ordinarily human about me, doubtless Jubb should have violently dragged me away from the computer in his wrestler-way. But as it was, he should have as soon thought of separating Jinx from a movie or The Politician from his girlfriend. I sat at the computer, wasting time.

Jubb sat gazing at me awhile, as I distractedly went on with my computer game, hunching over at my desk.

This is very strange, thought Jubb (no doubt). What had one best do? But the prospect of a night of ska and reverie hurried him. He concluded to forget the matter for the present, leaving me to a leisurely night alone.

Or, to abandon this almost-entertaining conceit, I didn't do enough this weekend. I went F-golfing in Kaukauna with Colin and Jubb, and we watched Se7en and Raiders of Wu Tang last night, but that's not enough: I feel pretty boring.

I need to make better, more enjoyable, snap decisions; I thought I'd been doing just that, but I obviously haven't gone far enough.

Denouement

"Consider yourself interned (or embedded) at SHNS"
-Peter Copeland, Editor, Scripps-Howard News Service

Alles wird gut, as they say.

I got the Scripps job, if you can call an unpaid internship a "job." I'm nervous, having had no real journalism experience, but I'm also moderately excited. The job sounds cool, and I'll be right in D.C., living at "Catholic University" if my summer housing app is accepted. If it's not, I can sublet for about the same price.

I finished my Freiburg app, and it's sitting at the International House, waiting for Prof Lanouette to check some boxes she didn't notice. It'll be there until Monday at least, and the longer it sits there the longer confirmation will take and the better my chances of slipping underneath the housing department's radar and getting that quad. May inefficiency prevail.

My procrastination seems to have worked in my favor, Prof Dintenfass' world-weary chiding notwithstanding. The more punctual applicants, a little more desperate every day, keep sending mass emails to anyone gone opposite terms.

Another victory, albeit an unintentional one, is Prof Peterson's new emphasis on politics in my Contemporary German Culture and Politics class.

He seems to think I skipped class twice out of protest, not because I needed to work on my Freiburg app, as he well knows. And since the dearth of political discussion in what should be a Culture and Politics class has been my only official complaint, he made some kind of inexplicable connection.

Yesterday we went over the notable German political parties; on Monday we're talking about the current situation. I feel kind of guilty, because this seems like a concession and not a coincidence.

(Note: one girl, an excellent German-speaker who once complained that she couldn't find "Glasnost" in her German-English dictionary, is outspokenly anti-politics. I hate people who say they "hate politics" and just dismiss the whole system: it's the laziest kind of anarchy.)

So it seems that, one way or the other, the sad little details of my life are working out. Time to do some homework.

The 1,247th Matrix: Reloaded Review

Well, this sentence should be enough of a warning: stop reading here if you haven't seen the movie.

I don't give too much credit to second installments, I have to say. Movies like The Matrix or The Fellowship of the Ring usually accomplish much more than their sequels- they set up the characters, premise, setting, tone, and style that the series will carry over. The sequels are like those popular comic strips taken over by ghost writers: they're so indebted to the original that its hard to do more than just carry the momentum of the first.

Reloaded, of course, does what you'd expect. It brings back the great characters and premise established in the first movie and then kicks everything up a notch. You liked Agent Smith? Here, have fifty.

This is often a bad thing. I felt like the standard characters were pretty invincible, especially Neo. Nothing that Neo did really surprised me. Though it was nice to see Trinity and Morpheus having trouble with normal agents.

Reloaded pandered to the audience, but so did the first and we enjoyed it then. The very premise of the movie leads inevitably to the kind of pornographic fight scenes these empowered computer-geeks get into.

I like Agent Smith's dialogue, now that I think about it; but the fights between him and Neo weren't as good as the fights with unknown less-omnipresent enemies like the twins or the rogue program's other henchmen.

I was expecting a werewolf, by the by, after seeing ghosts and hearing talk of silver bullets. The exiled programs all rocked pretty hard, right down to The Keymaker, but I would have liked some casual explanation of their functions. The Architect and The Keymaster had the most obvious jobs (and the most explanation), but what did Persephone do? Or Seraph? Or Mifune?

As for the end of the movie, I'm expecting some sort of Thirteenth Floor scenario to play out in the final installment. Neo couldn't stop the machines outside of the Matrix… and he and an Agent Smith clone are still in a coma. Agent Smith's words seem to mean more than… I need to watch the end of the movie again.

The first, long-seeming part of the movie can wait. And I might skip over the reaction-shots of the new operator, who doesn't seem to add much to anything once he leaves Zion.

Well, it was money well spent, in any case. And there's still two hours worth of explanation left, come November.

Anger and Ennui

A long-overdue recently-completed German essay, sixty pages of reading (German), an application due in two days, a missing Director of International Studies, fifty pages of reading (Satire), an illegally-parked Deathtrap, a potential housing dilemma… and I'm not motivated to do anything. These are the obstacles between me and complete enjoyment of the Matrix.

Pretty frustrated and lazy right now.

Why We Buy $1 Hotdogs

It was Dollar Day at the local stadium, so I went and saw about half of a minor league baseball game with Jubb and Jonas. The Lansing Lugnuts vs. The Appleton Timber Rattlers. It was a pretty sloppy game. I had to leave early to practice a scene from Hamlet (great play, now that I've read it) with my group, but I was somewhat glad to have the excuse.

I saw The Poet's boyfriend at the game (he explained the health benefits of not being circumcised), and worked with her tonight (she explained why her letter from Hogwart's is late). I think I like both parties here, but that relationship only makes a little sense to me.

I think that The American Scholar, my old coworker, offered to buy us dollar beers at the game. That was weird.

In other news, our room is one controller away from the perfect Secret of Mana setup. That game takes me all the way back to Konstanz; the difference being that, this time, I know what everyone is saying.

I won't finish that German homework (I'm behind, again, still) but I will see the new Matrix tomorrow, a sure sign that my priorities are in working order. I need to get my act together. I've got to turn in my Freiburg application tomorrow. Vague concerns about housing flicker in the back of my mind. No matter.

Later.

Head West Head West

I took my chances and drove home; there was nothing going on here, so all in all I'd say I made the right choice.

No trip home, of course, is complete without a stop at Hamline, the wayfarer's rest.

Socialization at school may be confusing, socialization at home may be frustrating, but right in between, at Hamline, I'm on solid familiar social ground. Lover of ruts that I am, I can't help but take pleasure in a somewhat familiar one.

I met Graham and Jenna at her place and we walked over to the Mirror of Korea, where I discovered that good Korean food is just as mediocre as great Thai food. I want to like both, but my stomach and taste buds refuse. I'll try it a few more times before I give up, I guess.

Speaking of taste, Graham dislikes Modest Mouse, apparently. They "just yell," and part of him has a problem with discordant-sounding music (presumably not the part that likes/d Operation Ivy). He's also not up on the Animatrix and the new Matrix movie. Well, at least we still have Manney to copy.

Graham spent most of the time talking about the Oracle and Hamline's outrages-of-the-month and such, but since I actually find that stuff interesting it was an enjoyable conversation. Graham was understandably burnt out, what with everything coming to a head.

That's right: "a" head, not "an" head. And if I ever hear the phrase "an heroic hippo" again I'll beat the offender to death with my copy of Joseph William's (brilliant) Style. You think I'm joking.

Jenna and Graham are done in two weeks, and that (combined with the constant interplay of ideas at Hamline, something Lawrence can't quite emulate) makes me wish I'd picked a certain cheaper, more liberal school. Well, at Lawrence we are (I hope) getting a better education. And whenever I talk to a Hamline student I wonder whether there's a Gender Studies prof hiding somewhere, an armed prompter in the shadows.

I tried not to begin to many sentences with "Well, at Lawrence…" but I failed. I can't wait to get back from Freiburg- then I can go back to saying "Well, in Germany…" instead.

I need to finish that application. Soon. But not too soon. If I was King of Housing last year, this year I proclaim myself Thief of Housing. I'll be sharing a quad with Jubb, Jonas and a sweaty 400-pound disco-loving narcoleptic named Ned, provided that I slide "going to Germany first term" under the housing department's radar.

Careful, careful. As Fritzell used to say.

Anyways, after dinner Jenna went off to look at houses with her housemate Kevin while Graham and I visited Carly, a friendly Hamlinite eerily reminiscent, at times, of Jinx. Well, Jinx on elephant tranquilizers or some kind of heavy sedatives, but still.

Next to the incomparable Alyssa, Carly is the best of the Hamline friends-of-friends; we talked about something or other, I forget. Probably Hamline profs. I tried to throw a waterballoon out the window and failed, distracted by a picture of Aaron Carter, recording "artist."

Upon the discovery our mutual Backstreet brother fandom, Carly and I exposed Graham to some Carter mp3s.

We left Carly (she went to see Bowling for Columbine like a good independent-thinking Hamlinite) and hooked up with Kevin and Jenna. After an episode of Ducktales and some brainstorming, we decided to visit the Gondola Creamy, or Randall's Creamy, or, as it's actually called, the Grand Ole Creamery.

The Grand Ole Creamery, sadly, doesn't have a website for me to link to. But it does have the best $4 ice cream cones you'll ever talk yourself into buying. I had Black Walnut and Caramel Pecan, I think.

Our next stop was a big Barnes and Noble. I love bookstores, but Barnes and Noble has bookstoring figured out. Walking into that store was like walking into some kind of Church of Books.

Suddenly, being well-read seemed very important; I was surrounded by people who wanted only to buy books. I almost became one of them, but Barnes and Noble's siren song only gave me the urge, not the resources, to buy and read a book.

After a while at the bookstore, we drove back to campus and, sans Jenna, met up with Hamline's answer to Casey Jones: The Mole King. He took us adventuring, down into the steam tunnels beneath a small Midwestern college we knew pretty well.

We snuck past a guard. We found old files and class banners, a hidden entrance to a faculty member's office, a caved-in tunnel, and other stuff that was all-the-cooler because we found it while sneaking around where we weren't supposed to be.

We (or, at least, I) connected with something mythic and important, down there in the steam tunnels. We were the Mole People.

So that was really cool. If I'm home this summer, I'll do that kind of thing any day. The search for the fabled KGB weapons cache begins…

Saturday morning I drove home and surprised my mom, using my surprise visit as an excuse not to get a Mother's Day card. There's something diabolical about the invention of Mother's Day. The greeting card companies know we can't just say we won't celebrate it.

I ran errands while the rest of my family caught dozens of crappies and bass out in the new boat. I finished Decline and Fall, a great academic satire that lost momentum at the end.

It turned out that, besides Manney (who I didn't contact; I wanted to, but I assumed he was bonding with his g/f) there wasn't anyone in Brainerd. So I spent the whole day with my family, marveling at how well Matt (who Jinx calls my "Hot Brother") has turned out and keeping my dad's statements in check. We ate at The Green Mill for a few hours and then went home.

I slept in my own bed and left early the next day, after a drawn-out Mother's Day breakfast.

Sunday I stopped to visit Dylan, in the cities. I haven't seen him in months, at least, so it was nice to catch up. We're always enthusiastic to see each other, and I consider him a good friend, but looking back I have to admit that our conversation was pretty trivial, mere millimeters away from the banal "how's school" talks I sometimes have with my parents. Maybe I've forgotten how to talk to people, but I think it might have always been that way.

Still, Dylan is the only person I can fight and sometimes beat.

Yeah, I got back to Lawrence and watched Survivor. Going home was better than staying here and doing all that homework I never finished, that's for sure.

Back

Watched the last Survivor at The Politician's house. I can't believe that annoying model won.

I'm not really worrying about homework. I should be writing a German paper right now, but I can't get motivated… it feels like reading period hasn't even started.

More on this weekend and its crazy adventures later. For now, I think I should do some reading; I've got a pile of work for tomorrow.

Later.

West, Midwest

So I think I'm going to Minnesota today, some time in the early afternoon. I'm reluctant to leave Lawrence during any break--Brainerd is, sadly, rarely more exciting--but I've had bad luck the past two reading periods and, if comes down to it, I don't see the harm in being bored at home instead of here.

100 Holes

So I didn't finish the First Annual 100 Holes Frisbee Golf Invitational, our latest brainchild. Andy, Jubb, and Colin went on to Telulah Park and finished the last of five courses, but I was sick of the marathon and, if we're going to be honest, not in serious competition with anyone. Jonas and The Politician had their errands as well, so maybe we'll do Telulah soon.

(I can't tell why I'm not still dubbing new people; I thought I had conceptual reasons but now I suspect it's laziness)

I was outdoors playing Frolf for about eight hours, all told. I think I got a little tan, from all that unusual exposure to natural light.

As far as socialization goes, I got a little annoyed, but I didn't get frustrated by people who were frustrating or people who were frustrated, despite ample face time with both categories.

That in itself is a triumph, a true test of endurance: I don't know how to handle people I don't like.

As I was explaining to The Politician the other day (in one of my all-too-frequent self-absorbed rants) I ignore people who annoy me and stew silently around people I dislike. It's rude, and, worse, it creates horrible spiral of hatred and despair.

But I don't mind those little side-effects. It's inconvienent, is the thing. I don't like changing my entire pattern of behavior to something so less-enjoyable (i.e. sitting silently) just because someone else has a glaring personality flaw.

So as part of my self-improvement kick, I've resolved to learn tolerance. I'm not the one with the problem--these people are--but I shouldn't let people I don't care about influence me in any negative way.

I used to have tolerance, by-the-by. But I've become more cynical, so that's gone. I can't confront the world honestly and not be put off by millions of its residents.

Souljacker Revisited

Souljacker, now that I listen to it again, is a great Eels CD. When I first got it, I skipped over quite of few of the tracks… but now I just can't understand why. How could I not like "Dog-Faced Boy" or "Bus Stop Boxer"? It's just inexplicable.

Shootenany! should be incredible.

Up and Running

Well, this webpage seems ready, now. It still doesn't look great, but it's easier for me to work with. I hope you like it, and I hope the white-on-black text doesn't hurt your eyes. I'm working on a way around that…

Evening Dispatch

Saw Barbershop on wednesday. Saw X2 on thursday. Went Frolfing three or four times.

Tonight I watched Battle Royale, the main attraction at the sorriest excuse for a party our room has ever had.

(The partiers: Jubb, Jonas, The Politician, Our Bold Hero, Jinx, Rock Show Girl, The Cheerful Cynic, Jonas' former roomate Andy, and The Politician's childhood friend Lisa. The Politician took some digital photos, so maybe I can post some of those later.)

Anyways, the film itself was good and visceral. But, oddly enough, no one else seemed to like it. I don't see why…

I mean, it was low-key for a supposedly ultra-violent movie, but it did have kids killing each other in a sort of Lord-of-the-Flies-on-crack situation. At worst, it's a cult classic or a better-than-average B movie.

The rest of the party was so… blah. Maybe it was because I wasn't really drinking, but I was either bored or frustrated for most of the night.

The Cheerful Cynic and Andy make an odd/apt team.

Everything about tonight felt really disjointed, and I can't quite pin down why. But there were edges everywhere. Even The Cheerful Cynic, who took three hours to realize that we hadn't invited him, seemed to sense a weird vibe.

My weapon, if I were in Battle Royale? A hammer. I've been thinking about a hammer all night. But, following Manney, a gatling gun would also do the job.