There’s lots more where these came from.
Those people who need a heinous beating, that is.
Meanwhile,… back on the bipolar ranch.
I woke up Sunday morning. Hap had already made his breakfast. I think he’s had the same breakfast every day for the last 148 years (okay, maybe forty,… still,… that’s a shitload of time for consistency in a morning food eating habit, don’t you think?). One egg, over medium. One piece of wheat toast, lightly buttered. One cup of coffee, just a little cream…. Me?…. I’d get bored after, oh, about two weeks into it and have to shake it up with a bagel, or a waffle, or grilled turtle penis, ANYTHING! Jesus Christ, Happy,… egg, toast, coffee? For forty years? That’s like having sex with the same woman for,… never mind,… scratch that.
My mother was already up, too. She hates flying, and I would imagine it was going to be no fun flying to Illinois to go to a funeral. She probably hadn’t slept very well through the night either. She looked tired. She looked like shit, to be honest. She looked like I felt.
They asked me if I wanted breakfast,… I wanted coffee,… that was it.
Then the checklist started,… “this is where the dog food is, I left the key to the car here and the key to the front door there (I never have them on the same key ring in case they get stolen),… (of course you don’t, mom, because the guy who stole your car knows exactly where your house is,… or the guy who came to rob your house just fucking WALKED there knowing he had a ride waiting for him in the garage), there’s coffee in the cabinet but I ran out of cream, the grocery st—(“I know where the grocery store is, mom.”), I wrote down Gary-the-neighbor’s phone number, garbage comes on Tuesday but it comes really early so you’ll have to take it out Monday night,…. The pizza place up at the corner is pretty good, but their crust isn’t thin enough,….” And that’s when my head exploded.
“Is it time to go yet? Can we just go?”
Over that god damn Sunshine Skyway bridge we headed. Crystal clear June 27th. Maybe nine in the morning. I didn’t care. I kept having to stifle tears in the back seat of the Camry as we drove the fifty-or-so minutes to the airport. As we passed the 38th Avenue exit, the tears became harder to manage. I was literally seven minutes from home. And I wasn’t going there.
Hap read all of the bumper stickers as we crossed the bay on the Howard Frankland bridge and make little remarks,…. “How’s My Driving?.... You’re doing okay, partner! (hyuk hyuk, hyuk)…. Hooters,…. I don’t like their food, honey…. Social Distortion,… what does that mean?” No music,… just Hap and his bumper stickers…. I would have jumped off this bridge right then, but being only twenty feet above the water, all I’d get is wet. So I told him to shut up. (Respect my elders? Fuck you.)
We made it to the airport, and my mom pointed out the remote pick-up lot,…. They have arrival times on great big billboard-size LED displays. About fifteen minutes after it shows your flight has landed, you drive around to baggage claim, and there are your passengers. I would have marveled at the innovative thinking of the people who run the Tampa airport if I hadn’t been so depressed.
We stopped at Ticketing and Check In, and I got out of the back seat hugged my mother and drove away. I needed some music finally. What? No satellite radio? What the fuck is this?
I’ve had satellite radio for years,… since just after it came out. It wasn’t the novelty of being able to drive from Miami to Seattle without having to change the station. It wasn’t the proliferation of every kind of musical genre you can think of. (Why the fuck am I going to listen to Salsa? I don’t listen to salsa, I eat it…. Think of a different name for your shitty music,…. Or come up with a new name for salsa—Jennifer Lopez sounds good,…. Would you like some chips and Jennifer Lopez? Why yes,.. yes I would!) To be honest it wasn’t even the fact that they had “Fifty channels of commercial-free programming.” Honestly, I just wanted to be able to TELL people I had satellite radio. It was status for me. (See how shallow I am?) I was late to the dance when it came to cell phones. People waiting for fucking busses had cell phones before I did! I wanted friends and neighbors to get in the car, so I could say, “hey,… look at that,… satellite radio!” I did it for completely the wrong reasons,… like a lot of things I’ve done in my life. Satellite radio worked out for me,… Prince Albert piercing, not so much. Nowadays I couldn’t live without satellite radio,… terrestrial radio sucks asspipes.
Of course, today,… I had no satellite radio.
I was supposed to go down to the 22nd Avenue exit,… turn left and go to my sister’s house to pick up my daughter (she had spent the night with her cousin on Saturday). I didn’t. I got off one exit earlier,… I was going home,…. NOBODY wanted me to,… but fuck ‘em, I was going…. Fucking dogs went nuts when I pulled into the driveway. We can always tell when someone pulls into the driveway,… before they even get out of the car. That’s because of the younger dog. The older dog (a beagle-spaniel mix named Otto) never used to bark at cars or people or bicycles or anything. Then we got the puggle. Now Sheldon is a cute motherfucker, don’t get me wrong. But there are times,… I’m guessing four times each day,… that I want to kick that fucking noisy bitch to Orlando. Sheldon is the only dog I’ve ever known that can howl and bark at the same time. It’s a painful sound,… it’s like someone grabbing you by the testicles and depositing you forcefully into an industrial-sized fan. (For those of you who don’t have testicles,… I’m looking at you, ladies,… and you too, Clark,… I don’t know how to explain it,… I mean,… I don’t have woman parts,…. Does it hurt when someone kicks you in the labia? And what is the singular of labia? Is it labium?) So now,… when the puggle starts his bullshit, Otto has to jump in too. He’s only forty pounds, but his voice is so low, he sounds like he’s gonna fucking eat you,… as soon as he’s done with his doody,…. Anyway,… the point is,… the wife knew I was home before I opened the door.
She was sitting at the dining room table. Looking at her laptop screen. Doing homework. We just sort of looked at each other for about a minute before she stood up and walked toward me. There wasn’t much we could say to each other,… it was really awkward. I felt like shit for having been such a douchebag to her for the last several months, and she felt like shit because she thought it was her fault that my mother had to get involved.
“Do you wanna go have lunch,” I asked.
She said, “I guess.”
She had a beer with lunch—actually it was Happy Hour, so she had two. I had water. We spent about forty-five minutes at that shitty little restaurant where all the servers used to wear fucking suspenders with the buttons all over them until management realized that it made them look like fucking assholes. We said maybe twenty words to each other the entire time. We just weren’t fitting together. And that’s when it struck me,… we were going to have to start all over,…. And that put me at an extreme disadvantage because she already knew how much of a bucket of shit I really am. .
Somehow, I made it through that lunch without crying more than three times. As we were driving back to the house I realized that I had to just drop her and go,… the kid was waiting at the cousin’s house. I started tearing a little bit. I was able to muffle the sound,….
And she reached out for my hand and held on to it.
Back in the driveway,… with the dogs going fucking ballistic,… I hugged my wife,… for the first time in seventy-two hours. We promised to talk again that afternoon or evening.
And I drove to Snell Isle to pick up the kid.
If I were going to be stuck an hour away from home, at least it was going to be with her. It was going to be just like the old days when I was a stay-at-home dad—the second time I was in college. It was gonna be just me and her.
And then,… it wasn’t.
Next Time,… The Days of Reading, Pools, and the Worst Music You Could Imagine
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
People Who Deserve a Heinous Beating, Volume I
“And that’s how I ended up banging a goat.”
I’ll tell you one thing. If I ever hear those words, somebody’s gonna get a foot in the ass. Hold on,… that’s not exactly true,…. Somebody will get a foot in the ass after I’ve laughed for about four hours….. Come on, goat fucking isn’t funny? What are you, high? Goat fucking is hysterical,… but then also serious enough to earn you a heinous beating.
Which brings us around to the topic of this new blog installment. Free entertainment for you, fuckers! I hope to shit you’re fucking appreciative.
Wait,… hold on,… I have to throw out a caveat…. A lot of college professors, especially when you get into like senior-year and graduate-level classes, require students to “read critically,” and “synthesize the material,” and then—“write a commentary.” A commentary, we as students are told, is a carefully considered analysis of the material we’ve read in the past week—which, by the way, doesn’t grow in an arithmetical progression once you get into graduate school,… it’s more like exponential progression—committed to paper. They are generally informal and usually very brief,… one or two pages at the most. Commentaries are not reviews of the works we’ve read; rather, they involve discussing the historiographical school of thought in which the piece is written, its thesis, its source material and evidence, the methodology of research and writing the author used, literary style, and a lot of other shit. More than one professor has told me that when writing a commentary I should “imagine [myself] sitting down with the author and having a conversation with him or her.” So that’s how I write my commentaries,… except I always add the word “naked” to the end,… in most instances. There are exceptions,… believe me,… nobody wants to see E.P. Thompson naked,… especially since he’s been dead for seventeen years.
So here are my instructions to you for reading this blog: read critically, synthesize the material, DON’T write a commentary, and DON’T imagine yourself having a conversation with me—naked or otherwise…. I don’t have a problem with you imagining me naked,…. I just have neither the time nor the inclination to imagine having a conversation with YOU—naked or otherwise,…. Although if we are going to have a conversation, naked would probably be better,…. However, I might get distracted (some of you guys out there have hogs big enough to block out the sun,… seriously,… it’s like a penile eclipse)…. But the real point is,… DON’T IMAGINE YOURSELF HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH ME. You crawl inside this mind, you may never find your way out,… it’s like fucking IKEA in there. Also, there is the damage,… it’ll remind you of Vonnegut’s Dresden.
Anyhow,… let’s get back to the subject at hand,… with one more small caveat,… this episode of the blog is meant entirely to entertain. I am neither inciting nor even advocating the actual physical thrashing of another human being at the hands of some dumb fucker who reads this blog. If you do, indeed, take my words too seriously and go out and pummel some asspuppet from the following list,… you will be Target Number One in “People Who Deserve a Heinous Beating, Volume II.”
Furthermore, I have decided to intentionally NOT include people who OBVIOUSLY need heinous beatings: terrorists, rapists, kiddie porn collectors, Michael Vick, and the dude who played Principal Rooney in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”…. I mean,… come on, give the kid a break, he just wanted to go to a Cubs’ game…. Plus, I think he fits into that third category, anyway.
And so, without further delay, I proudly present to you the beginning of what will be a continuing series: People Who Deserve a Heinous Beating, Volume I. (What a long introduction,.… Who do I think I am, Michener?)
You know who deserves a heinous beating?.... Ex-wives…. Tell you what, let’s expand that to all ex-spouses (see ladies, I got your back). I mean how can that relationship (between two people who used to live together and then thought it was so awful that they go into a courtroom and have legal paperwork written up that says they no longer have to live together) ever be any good ever again, or even mildly tolerable? Seriously,… if my ex-wife had wheels, she’d be a bitchcycle. And it’s even worse when you have kids,… ‘cause kids can be manipulated. Case in point: my ex-wife, knowing that I am a card-carrying atheist (we actually have cards,… I’ll show you mine if you want to see it), sent my then-four-year-old daughter to me for the weekend with explicit instructions to sing as many of her bible-day-care songs as she could remember. All I could do was say, “that’s tremendous, sweetie,” when what I really wanted to say was, “you sang very well, but don’t fall for that indoctrinational bullshit.” Ex-spouses stink, and I don’t like them!
Here’s another group of fucks who deserve to be strangled with barbed wire: people who say they GET ALONG with their ex-spouses. Hello? Dumbass? You are divorced for a reason. Either she got a credit card in her own name without your knowledge and got you so far into debt you had to get that shitty “credit counseling,” or he played golf four times a week and ignored you, or she blew your brother in the back seat of the minivan that YOU bought. It happened. And nothing in the world should ever dislodge that loathing from that little place in your heart where it resides. Hold on to that animosity. Own it. Wear it on your sleeve,… or your taint,… or wherever it’ll fit. Believe me, it’ll save you some day.
This is another guy who should fall in a puddle of AIDS: Phil Collins. Don’t get me wrong on this one. I was a huge Genesis fan,… “No Reply at All,” “ABACAB,” “Home by the Sea,” “The Cage.” I even liked a lot of his solo stuff: “Against All Odds,” “I Missed Again,” that duet he did with Phillip Bailey of Earth Wind & Fire, and that song “I Don’t Care Anymore,” that everybody says was about Phil Collins actually witnessing a dude drowning—by the way, if you believe that shitty story, you probably belong on this list too. But now he’s gone and released an album of eighteen covers of,… wait for it,… old Motown songs. That’s right,… the greatest rhythm-and-blues songs from the 1960s have been remade by a sixty-something, balding white English dude with a disturbingly awkward nose shape. You shoulda stuck to what you knew, Phil. Then again, you’d probably still make this list just for “Sussudio.”
Here is a group of dillweeds that I wouldn’t mind coming into speedy contact with the wrong end of a claw hammer: dipshits who don’t know the difference between identical and fraternal twins. Identical twins are the result of one sperm meeting one ovum and germinating,… and then splitting into two,…. These two new germinated eggs now have the same identical genetic makeup. That’s why they look so much alike—although in some cases it’s really very easy to distinguish between the two,… like Gigi and Jackie DiManio when I was a kid,… Jesus, I haven’t thought about them since I was like thirteen,…. I wanted to put it in ‘em both back then,…. That would have been a story I told forever,… to anyone who wanted to listen,… and quite a few people who didn’t…. Fraternal twins, on the other hand, are the result of two entirely different sperms (is that the correct plural form of “sperm”?) meeting two entirely different ova and germinating independently of the other. These twins do not have identical genetic makeup. They might as well be coming out of the mother years apart. They are completely different people. I,… you see,… am a twin…. I have a twin sister. Now,… obviously, we have two entirely different genetic codes (remember that two-sperm-two-ova exposition from above?). But if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard, after introducing her as my twin sister, “really, are you identical?”, I could buy a fucking island (not a big one, but an island nonetheless). It used to really annoy the piss out of me,… until I came up with a retort that lets the asker know what a complete fucking simpleton he is: “Yeah, we’re identical,… except for that whole penis thing.” Dipshits.
Another bunch a shitbags that deserve to die in a fiery-yet-highly-avoidable car accident: restaurant servers who say they’ll be “taking care of you this evening.” I go out to eat fairly often. I try to stick to places that either have tablecloths or those paper table covers so that kids can draw on the table with crayons and still not ruin the tabletop. I scoot my chair in as far as I can before the server gets there, and keep my hands in my lap. And I wait for the server,…. As soon as he or she gets there, I’m just waiting for that introduction,… again, with my hands in my lap,…. “Hi, folks. How ya’ doin’ tonight? My name is Candace and I’m gonna be taking care of you tonight.”…. ZZZZZZIP! That’s right,… the junk comes flying out. Wait,… you said you were “taking care of me!” When someone says they are “taking care of me,”… how am I NOT supposed to add the word “orally” to the end of that sentence? I don’t care if your name is Candace,… or Mai-Ling,… or Gladys,… or Bill. If you’re gonna “take care of me,” I can guarantee you a tip of at least thirty percent. If you tell me you will and then you don’t, I might cause a ruckus so big that it ends up annoying this whole side of the Waffle House. I actually got slapped for doing that once,…. By my ex-wife,…. We don’t get along.
There’s lots more where these came from.
Next Time: I Guess I Should Clean up the Whole Bipolar Thing
I’ll tell you one thing. If I ever hear those words, somebody’s gonna get a foot in the ass. Hold on,… that’s not exactly true,…. Somebody will get a foot in the ass after I’ve laughed for about four hours….. Come on, goat fucking isn’t funny? What are you, high? Goat fucking is hysterical,… but then also serious enough to earn you a heinous beating.
Which brings us around to the topic of this new blog installment. Free entertainment for you, fuckers! I hope to shit you’re fucking appreciative.
Wait,… hold on,… I have to throw out a caveat…. A lot of college professors, especially when you get into like senior-year and graduate-level classes, require students to “read critically,” and “synthesize the material,” and then—“write a commentary.” A commentary, we as students are told, is a carefully considered analysis of the material we’ve read in the past week—which, by the way, doesn’t grow in an arithmetical progression once you get into graduate school,… it’s more like exponential progression—committed to paper. They are generally informal and usually very brief,… one or two pages at the most. Commentaries are not reviews of the works we’ve read; rather, they involve discussing the historiographical school of thought in which the piece is written, its thesis, its source material and evidence, the methodology of research and writing the author used, literary style, and a lot of other shit. More than one professor has told me that when writing a commentary I should “imagine [myself] sitting down with the author and having a conversation with him or her.” So that’s how I write my commentaries,… except I always add the word “naked” to the end,… in most instances. There are exceptions,… believe me,… nobody wants to see E.P. Thompson naked,… especially since he’s been dead for seventeen years.
So here are my instructions to you for reading this blog: read critically, synthesize the material, DON’T write a commentary, and DON’T imagine yourself having a conversation with me—naked or otherwise…. I don’t have a problem with you imagining me naked,…. I just have neither the time nor the inclination to imagine having a conversation with YOU—naked or otherwise,…. Although if we are going to have a conversation, naked would probably be better,…. However, I might get distracted (some of you guys out there have hogs big enough to block out the sun,… seriously,… it’s like a penile eclipse)…. But the real point is,… DON’T IMAGINE YOURSELF HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH ME. You crawl inside this mind, you may never find your way out,… it’s like fucking IKEA in there. Also, there is the damage,… it’ll remind you of Vonnegut’s Dresden.
Anyhow,… let’s get back to the subject at hand,… with one more small caveat,… this episode of the blog is meant entirely to entertain. I am neither inciting nor even advocating the actual physical thrashing of another human being at the hands of some dumb fucker who reads this blog. If you do, indeed, take my words too seriously and go out and pummel some asspuppet from the following list,… you will be Target Number One in “People Who Deserve a Heinous Beating, Volume II.”
Furthermore, I have decided to intentionally NOT include people who OBVIOUSLY need heinous beatings: terrorists, rapists, kiddie porn collectors, Michael Vick, and the dude who played Principal Rooney in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”…. I mean,… come on, give the kid a break, he just wanted to go to a Cubs’ game…. Plus, I think he fits into that third category, anyway.
And so, without further delay, I proudly present to you the beginning of what will be a continuing series: People Who Deserve a Heinous Beating, Volume I. (What a long introduction,.… Who do I think I am, Michener?)
You know who deserves a heinous beating?.... Ex-wives…. Tell you what, let’s expand that to all ex-spouses (see ladies, I got your back). I mean how can that relationship (between two people who used to live together and then thought it was so awful that they go into a courtroom and have legal paperwork written up that says they no longer have to live together) ever be any good ever again, or even mildly tolerable? Seriously,… if my ex-wife had wheels, she’d be a bitchcycle. And it’s even worse when you have kids,… ‘cause kids can be manipulated. Case in point: my ex-wife, knowing that I am a card-carrying atheist (we actually have cards,… I’ll show you mine if you want to see it), sent my then-four-year-old daughter to me for the weekend with explicit instructions to sing as many of her bible-day-care songs as she could remember. All I could do was say, “that’s tremendous, sweetie,” when what I really wanted to say was, “you sang very well, but don’t fall for that indoctrinational bullshit.” Ex-spouses stink, and I don’t like them!
Here’s another group of fucks who deserve to be strangled with barbed wire: people who say they GET ALONG with their ex-spouses. Hello? Dumbass? You are divorced for a reason. Either she got a credit card in her own name without your knowledge and got you so far into debt you had to get that shitty “credit counseling,” or he played golf four times a week and ignored you, or she blew your brother in the back seat of the minivan that YOU bought. It happened. And nothing in the world should ever dislodge that loathing from that little place in your heart where it resides. Hold on to that animosity. Own it. Wear it on your sleeve,… or your taint,… or wherever it’ll fit. Believe me, it’ll save you some day.
This is another guy who should fall in a puddle of AIDS: Phil Collins. Don’t get me wrong on this one. I was a huge Genesis fan,… “No Reply at All,” “ABACAB,” “Home by the Sea,” “The Cage.” I even liked a lot of his solo stuff: “Against All Odds,” “I Missed Again,” that duet he did with Phillip Bailey of Earth Wind & Fire, and that song “I Don’t Care Anymore,” that everybody says was about Phil Collins actually witnessing a dude drowning—by the way, if you believe that shitty story, you probably belong on this list too. But now he’s gone and released an album of eighteen covers of,… wait for it,… old Motown songs. That’s right,… the greatest rhythm-and-blues songs from the 1960s have been remade by a sixty-something, balding white English dude with a disturbingly awkward nose shape. You shoulda stuck to what you knew, Phil. Then again, you’d probably still make this list just for “Sussudio.”
Here is a group of dillweeds that I wouldn’t mind coming into speedy contact with the wrong end of a claw hammer: dipshits who don’t know the difference between identical and fraternal twins. Identical twins are the result of one sperm meeting one ovum and germinating,… and then splitting into two,…. These two new germinated eggs now have the same identical genetic makeup. That’s why they look so much alike—although in some cases it’s really very easy to distinguish between the two,… like Gigi and Jackie DiManio when I was a kid,… Jesus, I haven’t thought about them since I was like thirteen,…. I wanted to put it in ‘em both back then,…. That would have been a story I told forever,… to anyone who wanted to listen,… and quite a few people who didn’t…. Fraternal twins, on the other hand, are the result of two entirely different sperms (is that the correct plural form of “sperm”?) meeting two entirely different ova and germinating independently of the other. These twins do not have identical genetic makeup. They might as well be coming out of the mother years apart. They are completely different people. I,… you see,… am a twin…. I have a twin sister. Now,… obviously, we have two entirely different genetic codes (remember that two-sperm-two-ova exposition from above?). But if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard, after introducing her as my twin sister, “really, are you identical?”, I could buy a fucking island (not a big one, but an island nonetheless). It used to really annoy the piss out of me,… until I came up with a retort that lets the asker know what a complete fucking simpleton he is: “Yeah, we’re identical,… except for that whole penis thing.” Dipshits.
Another bunch a shitbags that deserve to die in a fiery-yet-highly-avoidable car accident: restaurant servers who say they’ll be “taking care of you this evening.” I go out to eat fairly often. I try to stick to places that either have tablecloths or those paper table covers so that kids can draw on the table with crayons and still not ruin the tabletop. I scoot my chair in as far as I can before the server gets there, and keep my hands in my lap. And I wait for the server,…. As soon as he or she gets there, I’m just waiting for that introduction,… again, with my hands in my lap,…. “Hi, folks. How ya’ doin’ tonight? My name is Candace and I’m gonna be taking care of you tonight.”…. ZZZZZZIP! That’s right,… the junk comes flying out. Wait,… you said you were “taking care of me!” When someone says they are “taking care of me,”… how am I NOT supposed to add the word “orally” to the end of that sentence? I don’t care if your name is Candace,… or Mai-Ling,… or Gladys,… or Bill. If you’re gonna “take care of me,” I can guarantee you a tip of at least thirty percent. If you tell me you will and then you don’t, I might cause a ruckus so big that it ends up annoying this whole side of the Waffle House. I actually got slapped for doing that once,…. By my ex-wife,…. We don’t get along.
There’s lots more where these came from.
Next Time: I Guess I Should Clean up the Whole Bipolar Thing
Friday, September 10, 2010
A Short Aside
Yeah,… I am,… you’re still reading, so what am I supposed to do?
(This is actually a defense mechanism. It’s a weird night.)
I’m confused because I normally have this really cool transitional phrase from the end of one episode to the beginning of the next. (Those of you who are brilliant enough to have figured that out from the reading thus far,… you,… you’re almost as smart as me for having written them.) And I can’t very well just traipse off to an entirely new subject and be expected to incorporate the last sentence of a completely different story into the first thought of a story I just thought of writing about, can I? (Holy shit, was that a long question!) Well,…. I’m gonna do it anyway.
And I had a plan.
That’s actually bullshit. I had no plan. I just decided to do this. It’s late, and I felt like writing this shit. Just appreciate it and move on.
There was this one time,… when I was in college,….
The second time. The first time was a complete waste of everyone’s time. Everyone involved totally wasted their time,…. And in the instance of my parents, their money, too. I mean WASTED! That first year I went straight from high school into college. Seriously,… straight in. I graduated on June 6th, and I started the Summer B session at college June 25th. I had two-and-a-half weeks of Summer before I had to be back in school,…. Who the fuck thought of this schedule? Did you do this to yourself? You did,… You DID do this to yourself! . . . You’re an asshole!
But that was my first time in college,…. I said I was gonna tell you a story about my second time in college.
I was twenty-seven and I had re-enrolled in school. Eckerd College had a program specifically designed for older-than-typical students returning to school on a night-time basis. The classes were one night per week,… for eight weeks,… and you were assigned about fifteen hours of homework every week,… for each class you took. (I took two classes at once for five terms and three classes at once for seven terms. It’s a school that really sells (and really buys into,… and for the most part, supplies) a liberal arts education.
And let me say,…. I buy into the liberal arts education too. I think it is incumbent on the student to be exposed to all of the various disciplines. I think it provides the student with the one ability a college SHOULD provide,… you learn how to learn. You leave after four years with the grey matter it takes to adapt to any situation,… in nearly any profession,…. RAH! RAH! RAH! (But seriously,… I like it.)
So,… the people who run the school tell you to go to a few early-in-the-program classes,… get re-acclimated to studying and incorporating it into your schedules,… take classes from a variety of disciplines,… (math, literature, history, organizational studies, information systems, blah, blah, blah),…. (Long sentences tonight, Johnny,… what’s up?),…. Learn a little of everything before you decide what you want to know a lot of. So, I did. Sort of.
The first term I took the first required class (one of only three required classes for ALL graduates). The second term I signed up for two classes: on Monday night I had Film and Literature,…. On Tuesday nights I had to go to Survey of U.S. History 1877-present. I was infinitely more excited about the Film class. Like I said, we met for eight weeks,… each week (including the first one,… we watched a film relating to a piece of literature. We watched the films in the actual theater of the college…. Great big, 250 seat auditorium for about fifteen fucking students. And we watched some cool movies,… “Hiroshima, Mon Amour,” Godard’s “Breathless,” “Citizen Kane,” “Dubliners,”…. Just a very cool class.
I was far less excited about the History class. I had done well in high school history, much to the surprise of my teachers: Mr. Lee, Coach Miklautsch, and One-eye Potter. I made up these nicknames myself,… uh, except for Coach Miklautsch,… he was actually a coach (does girls’ basketball count?),… and “One-eye.”…. My sister made that one up,…. So,… if you’re following, I made up NONE of those nicknames. Mr. Lee taught tenth-grade World History. I learned nothing. But I got As. Coach taught eleventh grade U.S. History. I learned the Colombian exchange and that Grover Cleveland was a president and Grover Cleveland Washington was a baseball player. One-eye taught me that radical, left-wing teachers can get jobs teaching high school.
So I walked into this sophomore-level survey of history class not expecting much. I was still working as a restaurant manager, so my schedule would sometimes make me late for the 5:30 start time. This first night of class was one of those nights. I didn’t get there until about fifteen minutes into the class. The teacher looked at me a little sternly. He was short,… and a little thick,… and rosy-cheeked,… and the sweatiest fucking bastard I had ever seen in my life,…. It was all I could do to keep from laughing in his face, the short, fat prick.
He handed me a syllabus and motioned for me to sit down,… (he had just begun discussing it). I looked at the syllabus,… wanted to see what readings were due and when,…. He started talking to the class again. I wasn’t listening,… I was reading.
He saw that I was reading and cleared his throat to get my attention. (I get it, you fat, sweaty motherfucker,…. I get it.) So I listened to him speak about the class and the term and what it was that he expected,… and everything I thought would be blah, blah, blah.
Except for this,…. He was fucking amazing! He talked about the topics the class would cover each week. He told us about the two exams and the paper we would have to write. He said he was going to have one guest speaker and one film during the term…. And he got so caught up in the thing that I couldn’t stop listening. He was so excited, that you couldn’t help but getting excited along with him.
During the required class the night before, I could see people getting tired and yawning and mentally just checking out—some even fell asleep during the film. The teacher finally let us leave after four hours—the classes were supposed to be five. The history class was different, for me at least. I was just riveted. Couldn’t believe this guy was this excited about this history shit,… couldn’t believe I was either.
So, I busted my ass in that class and got an A…. I also declared History as my major…. So much for the whole liberal arts and taking a bunch of different classes shit.
So,… here I am in graduate school,… and when I sometimes wonder how got myself into this mess, all I have to do is think of that original history professor,…. Then it makes sense.
I might get back to my original story next chapter,…. I may come up with something else,… who knows? But,… since I start off every installment with the last line from the previous one, why not make it difficult on myself,….
And that’s how I ended up banging a goat.
Next Time,…. Who really knows? This Blog Stinks!
(This is actually a defense mechanism. It’s a weird night.)
I’m confused because I normally have this really cool transitional phrase from the end of one episode to the beginning of the next. (Those of you who are brilliant enough to have figured that out from the reading thus far,… you,… you’re almost as smart as me for having written them.) And I can’t very well just traipse off to an entirely new subject and be expected to incorporate the last sentence of a completely different story into the first thought of a story I just thought of writing about, can I? (Holy shit, was that a long question!) Well,…. I’m gonna do it anyway.
And I had a plan.
That’s actually bullshit. I had no plan. I just decided to do this. It’s late, and I felt like writing this shit. Just appreciate it and move on.
There was this one time,… when I was in college,….
The second time. The first time was a complete waste of everyone’s time. Everyone involved totally wasted their time,…. And in the instance of my parents, their money, too. I mean WASTED! That first year I went straight from high school into college. Seriously,… straight in. I graduated on June 6th, and I started the Summer B session at college June 25th. I had two-and-a-half weeks of Summer before I had to be back in school,…. Who the fuck thought of this schedule? Did you do this to yourself? You did,… You DID do this to yourself! . . . You’re an asshole!
But that was my first time in college,…. I said I was gonna tell you a story about my second time in college.
I was twenty-seven and I had re-enrolled in school. Eckerd College had a program specifically designed for older-than-typical students returning to school on a night-time basis. The classes were one night per week,… for eight weeks,… and you were assigned about fifteen hours of homework every week,… for each class you took. (I took two classes at once for five terms and three classes at once for seven terms. It’s a school that really sells (and really buys into,… and for the most part, supplies) a liberal arts education.
And let me say,…. I buy into the liberal arts education too. I think it is incumbent on the student to be exposed to all of the various disciplines. I think it provides the student with the one ability a college SHOULD provide,… you learn how to learn. You leave after four years with the grey matter it takes to adapt to any situation,… in nearly any profession,…. RAH! RAH! RAH! (But seriously,… I like it.)
So,… the people who run the school tell you to go to a few early-in-the-program classes,… get re-acclimated to studying and incorporating it into your schedules,… take classes from a variety of disciplines,… (math, literature, history, organizational studies, information systems, blah, blah, blah),…. (Long sentences tonight, Johnny,… what’s up?),…. Learn a little of everything before you decide what you want to know a lot of. So, I did. Sort of.
The first term I took the first required class (one of only three required classes for ALL graduates). The second term I signed up for two classes: on Monday night I had Film and Literature,…. On Tuesday nights I had to go to Survey of U.S. History 1877-present. I was infinitely more excited about the Film class. Like I said, we met for eight weeks,… each week (including the first one,… we watched a film relating to a piece of literature. We watched the films in the actual theater of the college…. Great big, 250 seat auditorium for about fifteen fucking students. And we watched some cool movies,… “Hiroshima, Mon Amour,” Godard’s “Breathless,” “Citizen Kane,” “Dubliners,”…. Just a very cool class.
I was far less excited about the History class. I had done well in high school history, much to the surprise of my teachers: Mr. Lee, Coach Miklautsch, and One-eye Potter. I made up these nicknames myself,… uh, except for Coach Miklautsch,… he was actually a coach (does girls’ basketball count?),… and “One-eye.”…. My sister made that one up,…. So,… if you’re following, I made up NONE of those nicknames. Mr. Lee taught tenth-grade World History. I learned nothing. But I got As. Coach taught eleventh grade U.S. History. I learned the Colombian exchange and that Grover Cleveland was a president and Grover Cleveland Washington was a baseball player. One-eye taught me that radical, left-wing teachers can get jobs teaching high school.
So I walked into this sophomore-level survey of history class not expecting much. I was still working as a restaurant manager, so my schedule would sometimes make me late for the 5:30 start time. This first night of class was one of those nights. I didn’t get there until about fifteen minutes into the class. The teacher looked at me a little sternly. He was short,… and a little thick,… and rosy-cheeked,… and the sweatiest fucking bastard I had ever seen in my life,…. It was all I could do to keep from laughing in his face, the short, fat prick.
He handed me a syllabus and motioned for me to sit down,… (he had just begun discussing it). I looked at the syllabus,… wanted to see what readings were due and when,…. He started talking to the class again. I wasn’t listening,… I was reading.
He saw that I was reading and cleared his throat to get my attention. (I get it, you fat, sweaty motherfucker,…. I get it.) So I listened to him speak about the class and the term and what it was that he expected,… and everything I thought would be blah, blah, blah.
Except for this,…. He was fucking amazing! He talked about the topics the class would cover each week. He told us about the two exams and the paper we would have to write. He said he was going to have one guest speaker and one film during the term…. And he got so caught up in the thing that I couldn’t stop listening. He was so excited, that you couldn’t help but getting excited along with him.
During the required class the night before, I could see people getting tired and yawning and mentally just checking out—some even fell asleep during the film. The teacher finally let us leave after four hours—the classes were supposed to be five. The history class was different, for me at least. I was just riveted. Couldn’t believe this guy was this excited about this history shit,… couldn’t believe I was either.
So, I busted my ass in that class and got an A…. I also declared History as my major…. So much for the whole liberal arts and taking a bunch of different classes shit.
So,… here I am in graduate school,… and when I sometimes wonder how got myself into this mess, all I have to do is think of that original history professor,…. Then it makes sense.
I might get back to my original story next chapter,…. I may come up with something else,… who knows? But,… since I start off every installment with the last line from the previous one, why not make it difficult on myself,….
And that’s how I ended up banging a goat.
Next Time,…. Who really knows? This Blog Stinks!
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