August 30, 2002
Last one today, I promise.
Hotmail started threatening to delete my inbox stuff, so I took all the messages I'd been saving from my Allen and KTV and Maggie correspondences and set up new hotmail accounts and sent them there to be dealt with at a later date.
Hotmail deleted them.
These three are brilliant writers of letters, and so am I, occasionally, when writing to them. That's a year or so of really good reading, gone. Why do I keep trusting computers and the WWW not to eat my soul?
Goddammit. I'm going to go bark at the dog for a while until I calm down some.
Posted by didofoot at 02:52 PM | Comments (8)
Orrrr...this one!
The landlady just spent ten minutes asking me what classes I'm taking and telling me about every closet in the place, "in case you have a shoe collection like mine." I think we will get along fine. Provided she likes me, and what's not to like, eh?
Posted by didofoot at 01:22 PM | Comments (6)
"And the book includes some of my own poetry..."
"Let's just sit and meditate for a few minutes until everyone arrives," said my yoga teacher yesterday. A few more people straggled in; I tried not to wish I had a wall to slouch against.
"Okay," said Lawrence-call-me-Lar, "let's begin. First of all, I always teach with all the lights off" (turns off the lights in the windowless little yogabasement) "because yoga is not a competitive sport. Although sometimes it is. Second, I'd like you all to get hold of a copy of Yoga: The Spirit of Union. Now, this is a book I wrote, blah blah justification of pointless purchase, blah blah I want all you young things to see pictures of me wearing spandex and an uncomfortable position when I was in my thirties, blah blah celestial universe blah. Yoga is very healthy for you. Please disregard the fanatic gleam in my eye - I'm just eager for the moment when I can come up behind you to correct your position. In the dark. When your eyes are closed.
"Now let's all close our eyes again..."
Posted by didofoot at 11:12 AM | Comments (8)
August 29, 2002
Hey, I just washed that hair.
We all know smoking kills you deader than a bask of crocodiles, right? Folks who smoke are one hundred percent victims of good marketing. There is nothing that says "dumb as a bag of hammers" to me like seeing someone light up, so I'm a little disturbed by how many of my people are doing it all over campus. I mean they are everywhere. And it's not just the dotty frosh either - my friends do it, the Pentavirate does it, hell, even I've done it, and as you know I am real real smart.
It's not like drugs, dig? Drugs have a clear benefit, in that they make you briefly and excitingly stupid. Cigarettes just make you smelly, and p.s., don't tell me they relax you because, son, they are uppers. And if you really need an excuse to hover around that cute girl for fifteen minutes while you work up the nerve to talk to her, why not try a method that doesn't involve ruining her clothes, your teeth, and the air quality for your fifteen stammering bros?
But, um, ranting aside for a second - school is so fun. There are all kindsa people there who aren't caucasianasian, and lots of them are smart, and my teachers care what they're talking about, and I get to write papers and wear a backpack and be not dogmeat anymore. It's like the air I breathe has turned to gold, except in a symbolic, pretty way rather than an actual, death-inducing way.
Posted by didofoot at 04:58 PM | Comments (8)
August 28, 2002
"Wow," I thought, "this skirt is so cheap!"
I got slammin' threads at some lovely little stores called Forever 21, The Gap, and Victoria's Secret yesterday.
Oops.
Here's a fun thing to do: Go to Google and type in the name of your favorite store/clothing brand. Then type "sweatshop." Sit back and let the fun begin! Suddenly your closet is filled with angry Latin Americans. (Though if you're Michele, they were probably already hanging around.)
In a less depressing theme, KTV wants us to start a west coast guerilla poetry movement. I am somewhat interested in the performance aspect, but more intrigued by the graffiti idea. Interested? Tell our fearless organizer, or just come to baseball tonight and let us convince you.
Posted by didofoot at 10:08 AM | Comments (4)
August 26, 2002
No spring chicken
Been talking to my uncle on and off for a few days now, as he's here briefly from Hawaii. Talks like a pirate, some favorite expressions being "aye" and "auh?" What with my preferred affirmative of "yarr," we are like a whole crew of suburban buccaneers. (Or, spastics.) Yesterday he was telling me about how the weirdest part about turning sixty is suddenly being invisible to the objects of his ogling, aka women in their twenties.
This made me think again about these older-younger pairings one so often finds, wherein a man in his thirties or so will hook up with a woman who is hovering around eighteen. Or in some cases younger. I was the May to a December one time - or maybe the April, or March - and I have to wonder, how young does she need to be before he's officially a pedophile? Is it a matter of the age difference between them? Or the specific mischief they get into together?
I know a girl who dated her high school track coach. Granted they waited until just after graduation, but still...shouldn't that give you a twinge of ick? Or do most men just shrug and turn on the latest Kirsten Dunst movie on HBO?
Posted by didofoot at 06:15 PM | Comments (8)
August 23, 2002
ARRRR!
All the day long, I am as dogmeat.
From the grad students: "I need a key to my office, dogmeat, and a code for the copier, and a mailbox."
From the professors: "Dogmeat, fax this for me and also I want a copy of my evaluations from the last six years."
From some staffers: "DOGMEAT! DOGMEAT! DOGMEAT! ARRRR!" (The noise of them taking the back of my shirt between their teeths and shaking me around the room.)
Only Tracy, Erica and Jennifer are sweet and kind. For them, I take away the food trash and run errands with a smile. But all day, dogmeat. I am battered and bruised.
Next blog: unemployment makes for cheerful dogmeat.
Posted by didofoot at 04:48 PM | Comments (1)
August 21, 2002
Oh I just told the biggest fly.
Overheard this yesterday, from a Happy Couple:
GIRL: So are you coming over tonight or not?
BOY: Not sure yet.
GIRL: Well I need to know, so I know whether to dress up or not.
BOY: (Amused) You don't have to dress up for me still.
GIRL: (Convinced) Oh yes I do.
BOY: And why is that, again?
GIRL: Because you catch more flies with honey and you are the biggest fly.
The biggest fly. Hoo. I love it. Elliott Smith is rolling over in his gra - er, bed.
I used to get so mad at boys. I would spend hours steaming my brain over what to wear, and even though I would wind up almost inevitably in jeans, tanktop and boring hairdo, I still put a WHOLE lot of thought into it. I suspect the same was not true for them. To be fair, they probably did do the sniff test on their shirts (although not always successfully, the stinking rodents).
Am I wrong though? Are there straight men who actually get pre-date appearance jitters?
Posted by didofoot at 11:22 AM | Comments (25)
August 20, 2002
Crimson in clover
Fucking clit-tease Irishman GSI needs to quit going around having the attractive accent all the time and stay in his bloody lounge where he can't drive innocent receptionists into lust-crazed frenzies. Goddammit. "Ohh, I'm SHANE, I'm from DUBLIN, potato potato shamrock pub." Teasing BASTARD. Mrmrmrnmrnm. Mngm.
No hot freaking Irishmen were harmed in the making of this blog. Now get over here, Blarney-boy.
Posted by didofoot at 03:35 PM | Comments (24)
Who wants to be a jobless fucker?
Friday is my last day at the French department. Aw.
BUT, I cannot start at my new job on Monday or Wednesday, due to the strike. Friday's no good as it's the last day of the month and the department will be crazed. So it looks like I have a week off.
Whatever will I do with myself?
Posted by didofoot at 10:35 AM | Comments (6)
I could live here.
Gulp. Looks so clean, so shiny and clean...
Posted by didofoot at 09:46 AM | Comments (4)
August 19, 2002
Pork fried blog
I'm sitting at my desk eating potatoes in an underhanded manner. I have to hide it because a big pile of potatoes with dill doesn't seem like the kind of snack that Boss would approve of. It's not a tidy secretarial gnosh, it's a full-fledged meal.
Ooh busted, Boss #2 just caught me shovelling in a forkful. "Is this a late lunch or an early dinner?" he said in a stentorian voice, making me feel like a small Irish child caught with two gerbil-cheeks full of bangers and mash.
"Bowthf," I said meekly. He stalked on.
In other root-vegetable news, I got another e-mail from the Sicilian. Apparently his roommate has taken my cat away for good. Also, he appears to have a website; nothing's on it yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. And no, I'm not telling where it is. Like any of you give a flying ferret anyway.
Also got a few e-mails from Allen, our sly little friend in South America, mainly of the "I'm alive, don't panic, politics down here are dreadful" variety. So if you read this, and you know him, and you didn't get an e-mail, and you DO have a flying ferret for this cause, well, rest assured the peacock is alive and strumming.
Posted by didofoot at 04:24 PM | Comments (2)
August 17, 2002
TMIF?
I appeared to have signed myself up for Applied Calculus, rather than the painless Math For Poets class I was aiming at. The sane person, knowing she damn near failed every math class she ever took and only passed Physics by copying all the equations from the hapless Jason Fong every day at lunch, would take this opportunity to drop the class. Me? I bought the book.
There's a blank white card in there somewhere, and I think it goes like this:
MATH FOR POETS IS FULL.
THE GEEKS IN APPLIED CALCULUS EAT YOUR LIVING BRAIN.
MINUS 60 POINTS FROM YOUR G.P.A. AND 60 DOLLARS FROM YOUR BANK ACCOUNT.
SUCKA.
Posted by didofoot at 05:48 PM | Comments (19)
August 16, 2002
Who's the cutest?
You's the cutest!
Posted by didofoot at 09:09 AM | Comments (14)
August 15, 2002
Swimming in Soup, Hair Sticky
Found in my e-mail archive, from a letter to KTV:
It's raining. It gives me a warm feeling inside. I look out the window into the parking lot and think to myself, "It's raining. God is washing my car."
It just started to hail. I looked out my window again. "God is throwing rocks at my car," I thought. "God hates me."
I got a job. You'll all be relieved to hear it, I know. In the staff meeting this morning, Boss looked at me kindly and said "I'm SO glad you found a job that's right for you!"
"Well," I said. "It's less money. And it's mindless idiotic work. So yeah, I guess I found my level."
"I just wish we could keep you," said Boss.
"You can!" I said, brightening. "Don't you remember? I applied for this job! Remember, you had my resume, and you said we would talk about it?"
"Mm," said Boss.
"And then we never did talk about it though," I said, darkening. "You just handed me a stack of resumes to schedule for interviews and mine wasn't in it."
"Ah," said Boss.
"You did interview my best friend though," I said.
"Urm," said Boss, and that was the end of it. In my fantasy staff meeting, where I spoke my mind.
Posted by didofoot at 04:21 PM | Comments (4)
August 14, 2002
We'd Make Great Pets
Okay, but my replacement receptionist has abnormally straight teeth. Her top teeth just go straight across in a perfectly-engineered line, like a little kid's drawing where teeth are just gridwork. It was this perfect line of teeth flashing at me as she talked which helped me to understand that she is an alien.
I will behave accordingly from here on out.
Don't you worry.
Posted by didofoot at 02:23 PM | Comments (8)
August 12, 2002
Three Days to Lad
There were little white flecks in my coffee. The grad student in the office peered into my cup in a myopic kind of way and said "That's disgusting. I can't believe you would actually put that in your mouth and swallow it."
"Oh," I said calmly, "I'll swallow anything."
Pause.
Big smile.
The song I'm singing is the Two Weeks Left song. Then I go to another job. Do you know of one? I need it.
In State and Main, there's a heart-stopping car crash. Afterwards, one of the ubiquitous Baldwins crawls out of the car, stands looking around, then very calmly says "So that happened!" DING! Check that off my list. It is a brilliant line, something totally believable, and I wish I'd written it.
Something else I wish I'd written: Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. I hate the plug - who reads something on the strength of recommendation? - but here, I plug. *plug*patchett*plug*. Do it, Rockapella.
Posted by didofoot at 08:41 PM | Comments (18)
And no birds sing
ME: It's wrong, it's wrong to go to war, it's wrong.
DAD: Well what choice do we have, then? I just don't see another option.
ME: Yeah, but isn't that what YOUR parents said when you were protesting the 'Nam?
DAD: That was totally different, they agreed with us.
ME: Grandad, what'd you think of the 'Nam?
GRANDAD: Well I think we had to go, to stop communism.
DAD: *blink.* ...Really?
GRANDAD: Yep.
ME: Zing!
Posted by didofoot at 04:01 PM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2002
What Michele Found
We're on the web!
Posted by didofoot at 03:15 PM | Comments (5)
Warning: Gooey Lad Talk Herein
It's settled. Freshman Composition, Creative Writing, and either Women in Government or Statistics.
"Oh," said Michele knowledgeably, or was it Erica? "You're taking graph graph monkey graph."
"No," I said, confused but firm. "I am taking statistics."
"Jason took statistics," said Michele. "Apparently one of the questions on the test was 'Which of these things does not belong?' And it was pictures: A graph, a graph, a monkey, a graph."
"Hm," I said.
"He circled the second graph."
We all talked to the lad last night. He's on the same coast now - it won't be long. It's making me giddy, like he's in the next room and if I yell he'll hear me. It's not so far, really. He and I have done that drive, often enough. If I really needed to, I could whisk up to Seattle and there he'd be.
Apologies to Jason, Michele, Erica and Jacob, all of whom deserve to tell the graph monkey story much more than I.
Posted by didofoot at 10:15 AM | Comments (3)
August 09, 2002
WOO-HOO!!!
ALL HAIL THE LAD!
THE LAD IS RAD!
Posted by didofoot at 06:54 PM | Comments (1)
August 02, 2002
So bored I might die from it.
I don't know if this is funny. I do know I'm just bored enough to post twice today. Anyway, yesterday Nuala and Michele and I were discussing how Nuala's cousin, Jenn, who has a show on Canadian MTV, is considered cool and glamorous by the rest of her family. Next after her on the glamour train comes Nuala's sister, Adrienne (no website alas), who's living in NY hobnobbing with movie stars. Probably. So here is a conversation you would get at a typical reunion:
NUALA: "Yeah so I'm dating this guy Sumit..."
GRANDMA: "Jenn, was that the NAKED CHEF you interviewed last week?"
JENN: "Yep! In't he dreamy?"
NUALA: "He's an Indian. From India, like. Not Irish or Catholic."
GRANDMA: "Oh my lord! I would like to lay that naked chef down and beat his batter!"
NUALA: "A heathen, you might say."
JENN: "I know! I'd like to curry HIS chicken!"
NUALA: "In fact, we've had premarital sex numerous times."
GRANDMA: "Oh, Adrienne's here! Tell me, dear, how is the glamorous New York scene?"
NUALA: "Sigh."
Later...
GRANDMA: "I find the naked chef strangely attractive."
JENN: "He's a dish all right."
GRANDMA: "He IS a dish."
JENN: "Yep."
GRANDMA (To herself): "A delicious dish."
JENN: "Grandma?"
GRANDMA (To herself): "A delicious dish to have with some pie."
JENN: "Hello?"
GRANDMA: "Mmmm."
Posted by didofoot at 11:53 AM | Comments (7)
In the snogg
When I woke up this morning, the sentence streaming over and over again through my brain was this:
'Fraid to put your meanie and crockett in the snogg???
It sounds like spam, doesn't it? Now even my brain is registered to receive junk mail. Here's what else I woke up thinking:
On a street across campus from here, a teenage girl stops walking to look at herself in a dark window. She thinks she looks okay. Three steps later she stumbles and knows that God is punishing her for vanity. A seven year old boy is sitting in Circle at the YMCA summer camp, waiting to hear what the day's activities will be. He rubs his index finger against his thumb over and over. He knows the perspiration he creates is magical and if he rubs his fingers together often enough he won't have to play kickball today. In a house in North Berkeley a toddler screams every time his mother leaves the room. Every time she steps out of his sight she is dead forever and he'll have to get used to the new mother They send in. He finds the endless adjustments exhausting.
Don't be afraid. Put in your meanie. Crockett too. There's plenty of room here in the snogg, plenty of room for everything.
Posted by didofoot at 10:22 AM | Comments (3)
August 01, 2002
And another thing...
"Good morning," says the professor in a heavy French accent.
"Good morning," I say, in just my plain old voice.
"You see," he says, "people are so rude." And he reads me a note one of his students has written him. I agree that it is rude. "But language comes from the body, you know?"
"Mmm," I say, wanting desperately to say something intelligent, sensing this could be the best conversation I'll have all day, but having at the same time no idea what he means.
"Well we are all so disconnected, "he says.
"Yes," I say. "It's the new self-sufficiency."
"The illusion of self-sufficiency," he says.
"Yes, because we're connected through the phone and the computer. People feel they have a license to be ruder when speaking online."
"And this becomes the new standard of conduct in face to face transactions. We are more connected and therefore less."
"And that's what reality TV is," I say, and he says "A new, cruder mode of connection between people, because we've lost that delicate structure."
Pause. Thoughtful nodding. He has lovely feet in his loafers. He looks around. "You have a lot of space here," he says. "You could hold dances. A different troop every week."
I am reduced to "Mmm" again.
"Of course, that's what's needed. More dancing. People become tighter and tighter here, their bodies. The terrible illusion of the mind."
Ohhhh. Language comes from the body. I get it.
I know, it's not profound. But it sounds profound when you hear it in a French accent. And it really made my morning. Plus, how often does a Faculty Emeritus look at me like I'm a person with a brain, rather than a retard who is occasionally allowed to work the copier? But only never. So I share this, my triumph, with you, my apparently poorly connected readers.
Posted by didofoot at 11:13 AM | Comments (5)
Viking in the sack
Outside my office window I'm watching a boy with no arms. He's dressed pretty nicely for an armless boy. His shirt has all its buttons fastened and he's wearing shoes with laces. Is it possible he put all this on using only prehensile toes and strong teeth? Then again, he's walking with his girlfriend. Maybe she helps him. Would it be hard not to pity someone who couldn't dress himself? How can you have a relationship based on pity? Maybe he's a viking in the sack though. What happens when they break up? How much harder would it be to be alone if you're that guy?
I've got it good, I'm sitting here thinking. I've got all my arms. No one is looking out their office window at me wondering how I get my buttons fastened. No one looks the other way when they see me walking down the street, except if I have food on my face or am talking to myself.
Yep, I'm sitting here thinking, good is how I have it. It's great to have arms and be able to play baseball and write a blog. Then I look down again at the boy, who has pulled his arms out of his sweatshirt where he was warming them and wrapped them around his girlfriend.
Stupid bastard. I wish I was in a relationship. Some people have all the luck.
Posted by didofoot at 09:22 AM | Comments (6)
