A Momentary Lapse of Reason

I always end up doing this, just like my journal.

I write an entry or two, I get really excited about it, then I completely fall off the blog-train and fail to update for AGES.

Anyway, so I'm sitting here trying to think of something interesting to say, and failing a bit again. Maybe I'll complain a bit more, since I seem to do a fair amount of that, and for whatever reason, people find it funny. Or maybe I'm fooling myself there, too. I think I'll tell you about my crazy-ass history prof. 

I probably shouldn't mention this, in case somehow she might manage to stumble across this little post and decide to hate me a little more for it.... So I'll give you a hint instead. She shares a surname with a certain medical doctor who got into a bit of trouble over that whole assisted-suicide thing... You know...

Well, she teaches a class on the Renaissance, which I have a sneaking suspicion 

she knows nothing about.

For those of you who do not consider yourselves scholars of this period, the word "renaissance" literally means "rebirth." In this case, it means a rebirth of Greco-Roman ideas and traditions.

(Basically, these guys thought the ancient Greeks and Romans were absolutely the shit, so they copied everything they had done.)

Like... making statues and stuff out of materials such as bronze and marble, in particular. There are a couple of famous ones you might know...

"STFU, Dave."

"Hey, didn't I just see a remake of a film about you..."

Well, I figured that they liked bronze and marble because the Greeks had been fond of the stuff. So I asked the prof, "Why did they use bronze and marble in particular, was it because the Greeks used them a lot?"

I've forgotten the exact response because my brain exploded a little when she gave it to me, but I can tell you that she ranted a bit about how bronze was probably easier to work with than marble, you could get more definition in a bronze casting, and bronze was shinier. Also, they could probably make things bigger in bronze than marble.

Um.

You know, the Greeks and Romans built entire FUCKING TEMPLES 

out of marble, and

WTF happened to my actual question?

Did it wander off somewhere?

Did I randomly start speaking French?

Je ne comprends pas.

On another occasion, 

my boyfriend, Oz, asked about something that came up later in the textbook. The concept is that England, at one point during the 1500's or so, bullied France into only using English ships for their exports, which seems like kind of a dick move. But also interesting. So Oz asks the professor, "How did England manage to control France's exports of wine, as it mentions on such and such a page?"

The prof glances at this page, talks for a few minutes about England's wool trade, and finally manages to get on-topic when her oversight is pointed out to her.

Eh?

The question is repeated to her, and when she finally seems to understand, she splutters for a second and finally answers:
"Uhh, well, you know, they did."

(A classmate then leans over to Oz and mutters, "They did it with guns." This is the best answer we've received thus far. )

The more I write about this, the more aggravated I become. So that's all for now. More to follow on this one, I assure you.

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Crazy Shit My Grandma Says

Now, don't get me wrong, here. I absolutely adore my grandma. But she is a little nuts.

She's not very old for a grandma, because all the women in my family seem not to understand the idea of birth control (at least, they didn't), and she is a shopaholic. She is also a star-class worrier, which means all the little things in my life that go bump or get bruised seem to be automatically a concern for her.

One of these, as I divulged to her recently, is that there is a chance my boyfriend might be sterile. This is completely irrelevant, as we are NOT considering reproducing at this time (or probably any) and honestly, I'm thinking the likelier his sterility is, the better off I am, because unlike the older generations of women in my family, I know for a fact that pregnancy is a common result of unprotected sex, and that fact scares the crap out of me.

Moving on, I mentioned this to her, and she promptly went off on a quick tangent about how that is something that I should really consider before...I suppose she meant choosing him... Because I might not want babies right now, but I don't know that I won't want babies sometime in the future.

Mind you, this was just a couple months after a very deep discussion about how I have some serious genetic deficiencies that she thought could be serious detriments to any spawn of mine, so I should probably consider not having children, because I might pass something truly awful down to them.

Interrobang

So... I'm not supposed to have kids, but I should find myself a mate who could still give them to me. I guess?

She also told me recently, when we discussed the fact that I have decided I do NOT want to reproduce and that my boyfriend doesn't either, that that is also something I should consider doing, because apparently I should have children because then I will have someone to take care of me when I'm old. I told her that was a really shitty-ass reason to have them. She said, well, but it's true.

AND, she essentially told me that I should consider my choice of life-mate carefully because if I'm too close to the person I choose and he dies, I will be devastated. I told her that was a really shitty-ass reason not to be with someone. 

Mitch Hedberg

I think of Mitch Hedberg's comedy:  "I love red wine. Somebody once asked me, doesn't red wine give you a headache? Yeah, eventually. But the first and middle parts are amazing! I'm not going to stay away from something just because the end part is bad. Do you want an apple? No, eventually it'll be a core!"




Sometimes I wonder if it's a generational thing that's causing this rift in understanding. The most confusing part, I think, is that she really likes my boyfriend, so I don't know why she keeps advising me to question these things about him.

I told her, I really prefer dogs to babies anyway. 

Baby dogs are fine.

Naiveté (Crap I Remember)

I suppose a little background info is going to be necessary here. I am 21 years old, female, and a sophomore in college after taking a 2-year hiatus from intellectual life after high school. Okay, so that gives you a time frame. Now for some people. My 3 best girlfriends are important to most of the stories I tell, and for the sake of their own sanities I am going to give them nicknames. The first is going to be Disney, who I met back in middle school, and is a FABULOUS cartoonist, and a little bit obsessed with all things pertaining to animation (of pictures, not corpses or anything like that).

 The second I am going to call Antics because she has got lots of them, and I really can't think of a more meaningful tag name for her, and the third I will call Draper after Mad Men's Don Draper, because it's somehow suitable.


BTW, I apologize if this story gets convoluted.


Well, I've actually known Draper since kindergarten, where we used to play pretend together and romp around the playground all livelong day. You could say we have a history. When Draper was very little, she had a stuffed unicorn she used to carry around with her, whose name now escapes me. When she was in preschool, a little asshole who I shall call Abs (for reasons to be explained) threw that unicorn down a muddy hill. Now, Draper has a habit of holding grudges, so when Abs turned up and continued to be an asshole through part of elementary school, she told me about this little incident, and we started a sort of kid-vendetta against him. I mean, he deserved it, he WAS an asshole, but after he disappeared partway through elementary school only to turn up again in middle school, she still hadn't let the thing go. To make matters so much worse, he also blossomed in the time he was gone from our sight into a handsome, sarcastic, artistic, sultry person. It sucks, trying to hold a years-old grudge against someone to whom you are suddenly and vehemently attracted.

Well, needless to say, that grudge died fairly quickly, but we still didn't get very close to Abs. Eventually, he started dating another friend of mine (at the time) who I shall nickname Tickle-Me-Freud.
Tickles is a tiny little thing whose entire hand literally fits into my palm. At the time she had a little emo haircut, and was entirely obsessed with Freud, as if she were channeling the old fucker (at least she seemed to think so). Anyway, Tickles and Abs dated for years, but I suppose he finally tired of her, because he broke up with her during high school. I have never known another human being to be so held up over a lost love than Tickles after that. I mean, she obsessed over him for 2 solid years. She'd call him at weird times, send him crazy IMs begging him to take her back, cry during school because she happened to see him in the hallway. It was INSANE. Then, to make matters all the more awkward, she started dating Abs' best friend. Now, that little detail is important, remember that.

For those who are not up to date on your "girl rules," this is where you run into a really big rift between guys and dolls. Girls DO NOT date their girlfriends' exes. It's just not done. Guys seem to take a certain pride in sharing some women, but girls---no. Tickles thought it was totally cool to go ahead and date Abs' friend, but when Draper showed interest in dating Abs, Tickles really went off the deep end. (Guys, imagine another dude coming into the bathroom while you're already in there, and using the urinal right next to you. It was like that. But way worse.)

Tickles dropped the whole "I can't be friends with you if you do this" threat, to which Draper replied with a debonair "I don't even like you, fuck off."



So here's me:  when the gloves come off, I'm siding with Draper. But I always seem to gravitate toward the middle in exchanges like this, and they ARE both my friends (at the time), so I am trying to mediate all this bullshit. One day, I'm walking with Tickles down the hallway wasting time after we got back from a sort of special field trip thingy, and she's spouting her usual load of tripe about how it's such a "terrible idea" for the two of them to date, and it's "just a mistake," and he's "just going to regret it, there's nothing good that can come out of this." I did say I'm trying to mediate. I'm not solely giving in to Tickles' insanities, I'm trying to help her snap the fuck out of it. So I take this time to impart a few words of what I believe are wisdom, hard-won products of a harsh upbringing where fate keeps waiting around corners for me with her foot held out. I tell her something along the lines of "Well, Tickles, maybe it isn't a bad situation for him. Maybe it's what he really wants. And besides, any circumstance can be turned into something worthwhile, as long as you learn something from it, and walk away a better person."

Good response, wasn't it? I was kind, I was motherly-- Just the right blend of gentle but honest.

What does Tickles say?

We're walking down the hallway, and she bows her little head just enough for her little emo hair to fall across her face like fucking Charlie's Angels or something, and she says in a little voice, "I think you're very naive."

I think my jaw hit the floor. Seriously, I think I made one of those horrible little incredulous-choking noises and spluttered for a minute. I had no idea what to say. I mean, really, what do you say to that kind of pretension?


This is one grudge I still hold, to this day.

An Introduction

I've never done this before. Never hosted a blog, never really even kept a journal with any regularity, so this might start out a little sketchy, but we'll see where it goes. I admit, it was one of those crazy ideas I woke up with this morning, dead set on doing it, damned if I didn't see it through. Plans like these tend to end in disaster for me...

Let's hope this one goes a little differently.

The idea of starting a blog does go back a little beyond this morning's fog, however. I kind of lazily read a variety of blogs across the web, and when I do I generally start thinking to myself, "You know, you could do this. You're funny. You think of weird stuff all the time. I just doubt anyone would actually read it." Well, I'll take the chance and waste my time. It's not like I've got anything better to do.

Also, this is partly for my friends, who suggested that I should keep a blog or at least just start writing some stuff down, because I have an almost eidetic memory, and I remember way more crap than they do about things like childhood, high school, and the last party we had after the jello shooters got passed around. So thanks guys, you really inspired me. I may end up humiliating you in return, for which I apologize in advance. Maybe.





Thanks for the photos: http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Everyone%20Else/pages/Spanish-plane-crash-leaves-racists-alive-Scrape-TV-The-World-on-your-side.html
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