tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44480491464123933112024-03-14T03:47:29.920-05:00O Yossarian Where Art ThouLast of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-57648723420274207742009-03-28T01:05:00.002-05:002009-03-28T01:29:33.398-05:00He decides to write some haiku becuase it's supposed to be peaceful and he's supposed to be peaceful. So he writes this:<br /><br />Ringing in my ears<br />Stinging in my eyes<br />Try not to flinch<br /><br />because fuck them. Because he doesn't give a damn what the fuck he's supposed to be. Except that he does. He's supposed to be successful, and it hurts like hell that he's not. There's honor in fighting the good fight, he hears, in plodding along in stalwart, Victorian good cheer. His is apparently not to make reply, his is but to do or die, but by God, if it's the last fucking thing he does on the face of this materialistic, judgemental, hypocritical, self-serving, hopelessly egotistic planet, he's going to reason the fuck why. Why that superior, pompus, pseudointellectual, hyperbolically anti-fashion, condescending motherfucker gets recognized every goddamned year for having a master's degree in self-importance and a PhD in bullshit and a goddamned smirk on his face in lieu of an original thought while <em>he</em> gets chastized for not lying about what paperwork he's turned in and what paperwork he hasn't, and gets shoved from open job to open job because he simply doesn't have it in him to stand the fuck up and say no. He used to say, see, that he was too kind to stand up, too tolerant, too accomodating, too blah blah blah, but the reality is that he's not capable, and he wonders. He wonders. He wonders if maybe they're all right, that it's the assholes who get rewarded, which is no fucking secret, but that it's the assholes who get rewarded and that they deserve it. He wonders if Somerset Maugham was on to something when he wrote "The Ant and the Grasshopper" and that it's time to man the fuck up. Man the fuck up.<br /><br />And then.<br /><br />And then.<br /><br />And then he prays. He prays that he's fucking wrong, and wishes he didn't need an answer, that his faith was that strong, that he had Faith instead of faith, but what he has is Doubt.<br /><br />So he waits.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-9954953114488807912009-03-17T23:21:00.002-05:002009-03-17T23:36:35.401-05:00It's Been a WhileI have a girlfriend and I'm going to a Kurdish New Year's celebration this weekend. And I have a beard again.<br /><br />I love having a beard.<br /><br />My grad school professor liked my idea for my contemporary lyric poetry seminar paper. I plan to discuss Plumly's manipulation of tense and the subjunctive as an effort to subvert the traditional notion of temporality.<br /><br />I love being a nerd.<br /><br />I now own two signed McMurtry first editions.<br /><br />I have a number of students with whom I would be more than pleased to spend extended periods of time in conversation. I can't think of another job which would involve my getting to know such a diverse range of personalities and talents. Some of my students are just stunning people. I can't wait for them to get away from the shithole they've grown up in.<br /><br />I have stacks of books in my apartment because I don't have enough shelf space for all of them. I like the aesthetic effect.<br /><br />I have mastered the use of the comma. I am confident enough with the English language that I feel comfortable rebelling against grammatical rules which I find counter-productive.<br /><br />I am alive.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-86128998590201178022009-02-15T20:21:00.002-06:002009-02-15T20:55:05.941-06:00Ay, there's the rub(s)So here's the thing. I actually really like her. I did not expect to. When I told her to call me if she found herself in need of someone to buy her dinner on Valentine's Day, I was mostly thinking that it would be nice to be a gentleman to a young lady for a night. I in no way expected her to be what she was, which was terrific company. I had no clue that my sister's friend she had introduced me to at the bar the night before, who was smashed and absolutely threw herself at me, would be anything other than a kinda fun but shallow and dingy (and slutty, based on her behavior at the bar) way to spend Valentine's Day. But, lo and behold, she's actually intelligent, nice, much more reasonable without like eight shots in her, a Democrat (what?!), a reader, and a grammar nazi. So what I expected to be a short, diverting evening capped off with some xBox and a glass of wine ended up being an eighteen-hour date. (I did not sleep with her. Literally I did, but not euphamistically.) I actually really like her. It's like Ron Livingston says at the beginning of Swingers: Somehow they know when you're really over it. You can't just act like it. But when you are, it somehow just happens. At no point in the decision-making process which led up to my asking her if she'd like to be asked out did I think about my divorce. Which only occurred to me later. Not that I'm fully over the divorce, but it's no longer in my mind all, or even much of, the time. It's not behind my decisions (as far as I can tell). Which feels really good.<br />So here's the thing. I did only get divorced in June, though it really ended more like in March or February, which makes me nervous. I feel pretty good, but you never know. And I'm really not ready to go from single guy to full-blown relationship guy. I'm just not. I have space issues, people. And probably trust issues. And probably other ones too. So that makes me a bit uneasy. But then, there always has to be a first time. Or, rather, a first time after the other time.<br />So here's the thing. She has multiple kids. All by the same father. She's not a Jerry Springer episode. I'm not looking to rush headlong into anything serious, which I told her. But then we had an eighteen-hour date, which didn't exactly drive the point home, and I feel badly about that. And I think she might REALLY like me, which makes me a bit nervous, because I only really like her. There will be no meeting of the kids. I'm not that guy. Right now, I just want to hang out with her, but the kids are looming in the background. Do I have to buy into becoming a father at some point in order to date her? Or is it okay to <em>just</em> date her? Hm.<br />So here's the thing. My sister hates when her friends date/make out with/hit on/etc. her brother and her ex. She flips out about it. And she's nuts anyway. And when she loses it, she drags my mom down with her. And then I get phone calls from my mom about how she's "not telling me what to do, but..." Which are the most enfuriating phone calls ever. Oh, and I work with my mom. Awesome. So while, as a general rule, I try not to allow my family's dysfunction to dictate my behavior, sometimes it's just not worth it. This one isn't really a so here's the thing, though, because I'd never let my sister's instability ruin things for me. I'm just saying.<br />So here's the thing: I really like her. People date all the time. Almost every single time they eventually break up. Does that mean you don't date? Do you only date people you see yourself marrying? How do you know if you don't try?Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-7202227074513847182009-02-09T22:47:00.002-06:002009-02-09T22:52:37.609-06:00Quote of the Day: Life's tough in the aluminum siding business. -Sam Seaborn<br /><br />Poem of the Day:<br />Postscript by Seamus Heaney<br /><br />And some time make the time to drive out west<br />Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,<br />In September or October, when the wind<br />And the light are working off each other<br />So that the ocean on one side is wild<br />With foam and glitter, and inland among stones<br />The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit<br />By the earthed lightening of flock of swans,<br />Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,<br />Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads<br />Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.<br />Useless to think you'll park or capture it<br />More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,<br />A hurry through which known and strange things pass<br />As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways<br />And catch the heart off guard and blow it openLast of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-9971119078837109172009-02-04T19:34:00.003-06:002009-02-04T19:53:31.334-06:00A day off, a day off, my kingdom for a day offBoy, do I feel better. (Except for feeling like crap, thanks to the ducking and weaving of this hybrid alllergy-cold thing that has me trading off between like 6 kinds of medicine in an increasingly futile attempt to find an effective treatment.) I'm finding myself thinking about things -- money, career, dating, identity, etc. -- and realizing that I no longer have the ominous specter of the divorce floating in the background. I didn't really realize how much I was allowing the divorce to define me until I stopped doing it all the time. It's awfully liberating not to have to use it as the starting point for everything. I'm not clear of the whole affair, of course, and won't be for quite some time, but, oh, <em>this</em> is what moving forward feels like.<br />Also, boy do I feel better drinking less. I didn't really realize how much I was drinking, and how it was affecting me, until I cut back. The whole thing just kind of snuck up on me a bit at a time, a couple after work, a couple after work again, three or four turns into a six-pack on Friday, and so on, until I looked at my recycle bin and had to blink a few times. So no more drinking during the week, and all of a sudden, I'm in a better mood, less tired, more alert, and feeling miles more responsible. An entire trip downtown to see my friend perform and I stop at two beers and get home at a reasonable hour. It's like I cleaned my windshield and realized how dirty the damn thing was and how badly I was driving as a result. So, whew. That's much better.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-30877109363019537612009-01-26T22:23:00.002-06:002009-01-26T22:30:13.121-06:00Quote of the Day: <span>The road to hell is paved with adverbs. -- Stephen King</span><br /><span>Poem of the Day: Goodbye to the Poetry of Calcium by James Wright</span><br /><span>Dark cypresses--</span><br /><span>The world is uneasily happy;</span><br /><span>It will all be forgotten.</span><br /><span>--Theodore Storm</span><br /><span></span><br /><span>Mother of roots, you have not seeded</span><br /><span>The tall ashes of loneliness</span><br /><span>For me. Therefore,</span><br /><span>Now I go.If I knew the name,</span><br /><span>Your name, all trellises of vineyards and old fire</span><br /><span>Would quicken to shake terribly my</span><br /><span>Earth, mother of spiraling searches, terrible</span><br /><span>Fable of calcium, girl. I crept this afternoon</span><br /><span>In weeds once more,</span><br /><span>Casual, daydreaming you might not strike</span><br /><span>Me down. Mother of window sills and journeys,</span><br /><span>Hallower of searching hands,</span><br /><span>The sight of my blind man makes me want to weep.</span><br /><span>Tiller of waves or whatever, woman or man,</span><br /><span>Mother of roots or father of diamonds,</span><br /><span>Look: I am nothing.</span><br /><span>I do not even have ashes to rub into my eyes. </span>Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-24662806692399471842009-01-22T21:48:00.000-06:002009-01-22T21:49:03.127-06:00"Breaking forcefully with Bush anti-terror policies, President Barack Obama ordered major changes Thursday that he said would halt the torture of suspects, close down the Guantanamo detention center, ban secret CIA prisons overseas and fight terrorism 'in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals.'"<br /><br />I. Love. America.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-83344497586805891012009-01-20T23:07:00.002-06:002009-01-20T23:20:43.833-06:00I almost cried today. I was absolutely amazed by the ability of one man, whom I have never met, and never will meet, to inspire me. I worked out harder at the gym. I did an extra twenty minutes of work before going home. I'm going to bed at a decent hour. I want to do better, to be at my best, so that I can meet the challenges set forth by our president. I'd forgotten, after eight years of torpid intellectual languor and myopically self-serving cultural prejudice, what a leader looks like, and to be reminded gives me hope -- a word that has been bandied about for months, tossed around until it became a catch phrase more than an idea, but today it was redeemed and its power to inspire and heal restored. For the first time in years, I want to say, to pronounce, to declare with a voice stentorian that I am an American.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-28527789933414525072009-01-19T22:52:00.003-06:002009-01-19T22:59:34.359-06:00Quote of the Day: Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. -- MLK<br />Poem of the Day: Another Time by W.H. Auden<br />For us like any other fugitive,<br />Like the numberless flowers that cannot number<br />And all the beasts that need not remember,<br />It is today in which we live.<br /><br />So many try to say Not Now,<br />So many have forgotten how<br />To say I Am, and would be<br />Lost, if they could, in history.<br /><br />Bowing, for instance, with such old-world grace<br />To a proper flag in a proper place,<br />Muttering like ancients as they stump upstairs<br />Of Mine and His or Ours and Theirs.<br /><br />Just as if time were what they used to will<br />When it was gifted with possession still,<br />Just as if they were wrong<br />In no more wishing to belong.<br /><br />No wonder then so many die of grief,<br />So many are so lonely as they die;<br />No one has yet believed or liked a lie,<br />Another time has other lives to live.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-342738169684624572009-01-19T00:41:00.003-06:002009-01-19T01:11:21.220-06:00How odd... People actually read (or at least have at some point read) this blog. That was unexpected. I can't possibly imagine why anyone would want to read this. Scanning old posts I always feel like I'm reading the ramblings of a malcontent teenager. I'm one whiny bastard. But if I've got that stuff floating around in my brain, best to unleash it on the spectacularly anonymous blogosphere and keep my public identity as a grown-ass man intact. If nothing else, it's an excuse to practice typing without being on a deadine.<br />I can't figure out why I sleep on my couch. I don't remember the last time I slept in my bed. Not that I pass out like the ne'er-do-well antihero in a cliche cop movie, mind you. I've moved my alarm clock (which is about to go to the great Kohl's in the sky and I can't wait because the thing was poorly designed in the first place and it was a gift from my ex-wife but on the other hand I don't want to have to buy another one) to the coffee table, along with the bulk of my bedtime reading (which consists of about seven books at any given time -- I like to have options). I make "the bed" every morning, and keep the room clean. I thought about sleeping in my bed a couple of times, but it just didn't seem right for some reason. Perhaps it's that by sleeping on the couch, I streamline my life just a bit, eliminating the bedroom, and I'm all about streamlining; perhaps it's that I bought the couch right after I moved into the apartment, because almost all the furniture in the house was my ex-wife's, and, dammit, it's mine; perhaps it's that the TV is in the living room and I can go to sleep watching DVD reruns of West Wing and Studio 60 and Californication; or perhaps it's that it saves time and money not having to wash the sheets, and I'm all about streamlining. Maybe when I move to Austin I should just take the couch and easy chair and rent out a room rather than taking up a whole one-bedroom or efficiency. That would be a terrific excuse to get rid of almost everything I own, which would be so fantastic that the mere thought gives me goosebumps. Not sure how the owners of the abode would take to the guitar(s), though.<br />My coworker keeps trying to find word games on Facebook at which she can best me and I keep carving her up like a Thanksgiving turkey. I'm starting to feel a little badly for how obnoxiously I beat her high scores. But it's AWESOME to be a bad-ass at something.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-63779011571670191822009-01-15T19:29:00.003-06:002009-01-15T19:45:54.247-06:00I am witty. I am educated. I am usually flippant. I am foul-mouthed, but would never, ever swear at someone because I'm upset with them. I am reticent but not shy. I am reserved but not insecure. I am introverted but not anti-social. I am, generally, quiet. I am a good listener. I can be passive agressive but I'm okay with that because it's less harmful than being physically aggressive. I like to get to the point. I am patient. I have learned to (almost always) defuse my temper. I love diversity and react to homogeneity with a degree of judgementalism that I find a little disturbing. I am attracted to brainy girls. I think glasses are sexy. I choose the path of least resistance as long as it leads to where I want to go. I have trouble following through, but I'm okay with that because when I'm on, look out. I love how introspective I am. I am uncomfortable with polish. I could never date someone who didn't like "The Princess Bride." Seriously. I don't say the pledge of allegiance. I detest Robert Browning. I want less. I hate being angry. I refuse to be an emotional crutch for my family. I will never get there, and thank God for that.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-82077415483880341282009-01-07T00:05:00.003-06:002009-01-07T00:28:40.779-06:00Lines written a few feet beside by loud-ass neighborsBook recommendation of the Day: The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz<br />Explains the four agreements you make with yourself to achieve fulfilment. Very empowering. Useful for tearing down old constructs and building new ones.<br /><br />Well that holiday season sucked. I drank too much, wasted too much time, wrote, worked out, and read too little, frittered away most of my alloted sixteen days doing I don't know what, and did almost no work. Hence the three hours of work a night all this week to catch up. I hope I've learned my lesson, young man. No more stretches of unstructured time for me. Apparently I can't handle it. New Year's resolution: impose order in my life when none exists. I suppose sixteen days of depression is worth it if it means I learn never to go down that road again. I feel like I survived some sort of crucible, which is an invaluable experience, but only if you never repeat it.<br /><br />The silver lining, it seems, is that I've knocked something loose, and for the first time I really feel like I'm grieving the loss of my marriage. I thought I had, but really, in retrospect, I was angry, or sad because I was lonely, or feeling like a failure, or impatient to move on, or frustrated. But now I feel grief. Good old-fashioned healthy grief. I feel like I'm just now realizing that I'm divorced, and that that means that I have a new life. I feel like I've come from a funeral, like I'm honoring a loss, honoring all that was good about what was, respecting the cyclicality of life, and accepting that all that comes must go, and go where I cannot. Like I'm no longer tethered to my marriage. Which works out nicely, because my ex-wife is finally taking over the mortgage and the house officially. All that's left now is to strike out for greener pastures, and find the new me.<br /><br />Or maybe I'm just not getting enough sleep and it's making me a bit loopy.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-8919456038475252032009-01-01T00:58:00.002-06:002009-01-01T01:04:51.627-06:00Okay, enough. Really. I'd like to go back to being married and having money and having friends now please. I'm not sure I deserve this. Does resolving to move to Austin count as showing enough sack to get some kind of karmic payoff? Because apparently fighting the proverbial good fight teaching public school doesn't cut it. All I wanted was to drink beer and smoke cigarettes in a bar with a couple of friends surrounded by other people who have nothing better to do than go to a bar on New Year's Eve. But, alas, I ask too much. So here I sit, alone on my first New Year's Eve alone, which is painfully poetic. I'm out of words, which is monumental for me. I have nothing to say.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-29249183193593420512008-12-30T22:45:00.001-06:002008-12-30T22:47:09.064-06:00Quote of the Day: Into each life some rain must fall.<br />Poem of the Day: Apologia por Vita Sua by Samuel Taylor Coleridge<br />The poet in his lone yet genial hour<br />Gives to his eyes a magnifying power :<br />Or rather he emancipates his eyes<br />From the black shapeless accidents of size--<br />In unctuous cones of kindling coal,<br />Or smoke upwreathing from the pipe's trim bole,<br />His gifted ken can see<br />Phantoms of sublimity.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-10307390845076262282008-12-30T02:05:00.005-06:002009-01-07T00:29:43.074-06:00I feel like a failure. I keep thinking that I'm more or less over the divorce, save some residual anger and frustration, but an evening with six college friends who all have houses and marriages and babies, and all I can think about is how I have a failed marriage, failed finances, and a completely unimpressive job. It did get me to the gym for a couple of frustration- and self-loathing-fueled workouts, though the irony is of course that I want nothing to do with a woman to whom I appeal because of physical attractiveness. I guess it's more that I try. Hell, I don't shave, I cut my own hair, and I buy my clothes on the clearance rack, so I don't really think I can be categorized as superficial. That doesn't really matter to me anyway. What I really want is to know who I am. I used to be Kelly's husband. That was my identity. I know now what it means to really put yourself out there, so to speak. I based my existence on putting her first, and she disappears. It's not so simple as a feeling of rejection, or even of failure. It's a complete obliteration of the universe. Not an obliteration of existence, but of the world itself. It's like closing your eyes and opening them and finding yourself in a world you've never seen before, with totally new laws of physics and survival. Or like renting a video game and not getting the instruction manual. And not a simple video game, either. A real-time strategic war simulation, where the only way to learn is to jump in and play and start clicking on buttons, while you get attacked from all sides by enemy forces, all of whom know the rules, so your only option is to sit there and get pounded and hope to pick something up here and there. That's what it's like.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-75320813170047233332008-12-16T20:30:00.004-06:002008-12-16T20:41:41.441-06:00I have $600. At least after I get done paying my entire checking account to fix my car I will. That's it. I think that was how much Will Smith had in <em>The Pursuit of Happyness </em>before he ended up homeless. I'll get paid Thursday night, but for now, I have $600. If my car breaks again I can either afford to go to school or to fix my car. Meanwhile, my mother, who rolled about $30,000 of my student loans (that I didn't know I had) into revolving credit, says that she will use her bonus at work to remodel her backyard. Which she already remodeled. Instead of paying down her delinquent debt. Or, failing that, paying down the portion of my credit debt that she still pays because she made such a mess of it that I can't make all the payments on my own. I think I need to be reminded that there are worse things than being poor. And, for that matter, that I'm not poor. But it would be nice not to be tethered to debt.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-9425028540402906022008-12-15T22:39:00.002-06:002008-12-15T22:46:56.771-06:00O Melville Where Art ThouI think I'm moving to Austin.<br /><br />Now what to do about my job?<br /><br />Ha! That's a totally (well, okay, not <em>totally</em>) new train of thought. Ha!<br /><br />I'm also going to begin reading <em>Moby Dick</em> in a few minutes. I'm terribly excited. And I love that I'm a big enough nerd to be excited about reading Melville. A person who gets excited about reading Melville has no business living in New Braunfels, Texas. I should be living in a city where people know who F. Scott Fitzgerald is and the streets are paved with books. Or at least the Fitzgerald thing. And I'm still going to buy the three bottles of liquor. *crosses fingers* But it'll have to wait until after payday, because apparently blowing a head gasket is a little on the expensive side.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-53591720000911377502008-12-14T23:23:00.003-06:002008-12-14T23:25:24.621-06:00Quote of the Day: First God created idiots. That was for practice. Then he created school boards.<br />Poem of the Day: A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes<br /><br />What happens to a dream deferred?<br />Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?<br />Or fester like a sore--<br />And then run?<br />Does it stink like rotten meat?<br />Or crust and sugar over--<br />like a syrupy sweet?<br /><br />Maybe it just sags<br />like a heavy load.<br /><br />Or does it explode?Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-75191465687071999962008-12-14T22:55:00.003-06:002008-12-14T23:23:22.359-06:00Lat pulls, Moby Dick, and Ally McBealScatter-shooting while wondering what happened to certain highly-paid Dallas Morning News sportswriters. . .<br /><br />I think I'm moving to Austin.<br />(beat)<br />Has the cycle finally been --<br />Or maybe not.<br />Dammit.<br /><br />Now that my grad class is over for the semester, I finally have enough time to get back to the gym. And I am sore as crap. I have every intention of getting in two ass-kicking hours at the gym every day over the break. I have come to terms with the fact that I flat-out suck at working out, and will <em>never</em>, for a variety of reasons, have anything even resembling an impressive physique, but going to the gym regularly does insure that my pants will continue to fit and that I can take off my shirt at the pool. Most importantly, however, it gives me a bizarre boost of mental energy. I assume that for most people this manifests itself as sustained energy throughout the day, getting up more easily in the morning, etc., and I enjoy a modicum of those benefits as well, but mostly I suddenly find myself with the gumption, the pluck, the audacity, really, to, say, attempt to conclude the semester in my literature elective, the one filled with random students who needed a second period class, by teaching <em>Othello</em>. Take that, teenagers. Do your worst. And also to read <em>Moby Dick</em>, so as not to have to look embarrassed every time one of my literature professors says during class, "I assume you have all read <em>Moby Dick</em>?"<br /><br />There was an episode of <em>Ally McBeal</em> once in which, at the beginning, Ally is caught by a co-worker buying some sort of prophylactic. The rest of the episode is comprised of the office speculating about <em>why</em> she might be buying prophylactics, and <em>with whom</em> she might be using them. She explains to a friend at the end of the episode that when you buy a lottery ticket, you have no intention of winning the lottery. Yes, technically someone does win the lottery, each and every time, but the odds are so astronomical that you'd have to be delusional to think that you would win. But you buy it anyway, because it just feels good to act as if you have hope. She bought the prophylactic because it was her lottery ticket. In that vein, I'm going to buy a bottle each of red wine, white wine, and, I don't know, vodka (and some cranberry juice or something to go with it). You know, just in case someone happens to want a drink. It'll be my lottery ticket. *crosses fingers*Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-88085678576328790762008-12-13T23:38:00.002-06:002008-12-13T23:47:05.565-06:00Quote of the Day: To plainness honor's bound when majesty falls to folly.<br />Poem of the Day: The Code -- Heroics by Robert Frost <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/265/127.html">http://www.bartleby.com/265/127.html</a><br />(It's long, see.)Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-86960399159153087352008-12-13T23:04:00.003-06:002008-12-13T23:38:06.894-06:00A Humble RequestI think I'm going to move to Austin.<br /><br />No wait, I've changed my mind.<br /><br />No wait, I am.<br /><br />All I want for Christmas is to be able to have a train of thought other than the above, say, once a day. It's terribly inefficient to have your mind perpetually preoccupied with a complete lack of decisiveness. It's the opposite of efficient, actually. I'm enamored of the idea of living in an actual city, with actual places and things to do, and, I'm nervous mentioning this because I don't want to jinx it, <em>books</em>. The idea of being able to browse a bookstore that stocks something other than James Patterson, <em>Twilight,</em> and Ann Coulter is enough to make me feel guilty for entertaining such indulgent thoughts.<br /><br />But the idea of losing my departmental seniority and having to teach freshmen, or sophomores (or "freshman," as I like to call them) is enough to make me google "hermitage."<br /><br />But I taught the current sophomores in third grade, and I have to get the f out of town before they get up to me. Their souls are as black as the night itself.<br /><br />But I have the current advantage of working for incompetents, which makes it terribly easy to get away with pretty much anything I want.<br /><br />But I have the current disadvantage of working for incompetents, which makes it terribly easy for me to drink a lot.<br /><br />But the thought of being in a community with intelligent, educated single people makes me think I'm dreaming about, well, a community with intelligent, educated single people.<br /><br />But the thought of having to deal with I-35 makes me think I'm having a nightmare about, well, having to deal with I-35.<br /><br />But I have the current disadvantage of living in what is, according to my unsystematic and thoroughly incomplete eleven minutes of research, the most conservative county in Texas.<br /><br />But I have the current advantage of living in a county where I get to feel superior.<br /><br />It's Amy Poehler's last show on SNL. Et tu, Baby Mama?Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-37651944575554072152008-12-07T22:03:00.003-06:002008-12-11T23:12:43.394-06:00An actual musingI'm having trouble with my identity. I can't find it, see. I used to have one, and was moderately fond of it, work in progress though it was. But I seem to have misplaced it. I swear it was right here, and I can't imagine where it could have gotten to. Those pesky identities. Take your eyes off of them for one second, and they up and disappear. I seem to have become the type of person whose kitchen table is cluttered with books and bills and unopened mail and notes. I remember tacit tolerance of such pointless clutter as being quite contrary to my identity. But I don't have it right in front of me, so I can't check to make sure. I could get a new one, and in fact many people suggest that in that respect this is more of an opportunity than a conundrum. But it's one of those catches (not a catch-22, which is, in reality, an extremely specific kind of catch, and is reported to be the best catch there is) in which you have to have something to get something. It's easy to search for identity when you know that at the end of the day you've got one waiting for you at home. It's like a job that way, or a car. And it's terribly annoying. I find myself, in the interim, having to construct a makeshift identity out of whatever happens to be handy, like putting up printouts of paintings by Egyptian abstractionist Farouk Hosny, or sleeping on the couch for no reason other than that I can, or reading poetry by Dylan Thomas and Mark Svenvold. But sometimes all that is handy is something horribly un-useful, like staying up too late or drinking beer or buying pizza, and those things are very cheaply made and don't last very long at all, and I just end up having to replace them. I think that maybe my identity ran away and I need to go find it. I think that maybe it ran off to Austin, because that was its first home, or it might have taken off to Seattle, because it always talked about one day moving there. Sometimes I get the weird feeling that it's hanging out in Dallas or Portland or New York, or Houston, but it would only go there to make me mad because it knows how much I hate that place. I wonder if I should go after it, but I would really hate to go to all that trouble just to find that it's not really there after all, or that it had already moved on by the time I got there, or that while I was going out to find it it decided to come back. What a comedy of errors that would be. Maybe I should just wait, you know, to play hardball with it, or set it free because that's what everyone says to do with something you love. But that advice has always sounded suspect to me, because what kind of a way is that to show that you care about something? I think it sends mixed signals. But then, what kind of a position am I in to be giving advice? I can't even keep up with one little identity.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-41954314577553466222008-12-07T21:47:00.005-06:002008-12-07T22:46:09.752-06:00Quote of the Day: Once or twice a day I find myself enveloped inside what I like to call the Impenetrable Shield of Melancholy. This shield, it is impenetrable. Hence the name.<br />Poem of the Day: The Emperor of Ice Cream by Wallace Stevens<br />Call the roller of big cigars,<br />The muscular one, and bid him whip<br />In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.<br />Let the wenches dawdle in such dress<br />As they are used to wear, and let the boys<br />Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.<br />Let be be finale of seem.<br />The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.<br /><br />Take from the dresser of deal.<br />Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet<br />On which she embroidered fantails once<br />And spread it so as to cover her face.<br />If her horny feet protrude, they come<br />To show how cold she is, and dumb.<br />Let the lamp affix its beam.<br />The only emperor is the emperor of ice-creamLast of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-34675501387135135382008-11-20T23:05:00.003-06:002008-11-20T23:13:14.978-06:00Quote of the Day: We who are young are old.<br />More Profane of the Day: I kinda want to fuck her but I kinda want to punch her in the face.<br />Thing I'm pissed about: Getting a C on a bullshit test<br />Poem of the Day: He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by William Butler Yeats<br /><br />Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,<br />Enwrought with golden and silver light,<br />The blue and the dim and the dark cloths<br />Of night and light and the half-light,<br /><br />I would spread the cloths under your feet:<br />But I, being poor, have only my dreams;<br />I have spread my dreams under your feet;<br />Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448049146412393311.post-89279166422248927042008-11-11T22:00:00.002-06:002008-11-11T22:05:17.184-06:00Quote of the Day: The ordinary can be like medicine.<br />Insignificant thing to do for no reason other than there's no reason not to do it: Learn to type<br />Poem of the Day: In My Craft or Sullen Art by Dylan Thomas<br /><br />In my craft or sullen art<br />Exercised in the still night<br />When only the moon rages<br />And the lovers lie abed<br />With all their griefs in their arms,<br />I labor by singing light<br />Not for ambition or bread<br />Or the strut and trade of charms<br />On the ivory stages<br />But for the common wages<br />Of their most secret heart.<br />Not for the proud man apart<br />From the raging moon I write<br />On these spindrift pages<br />Nor for the towering dead<br />With their nightingales and psalms<br />But for the lovers, their arms<br />Round the griefs of the ages,<br />Who pay no praise or wages<br />Nor heed my craft or art.Last of the Fauxicanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06280206278950482152noreply@blogger.com0