December 22, 2003
A Citrus-Flavored Threat
I was just copied on an interoffice memo warning me that the nation (of the U.S., not of the Me) is currently at an Orange Level Threat Alert. Here are some of the precautions that the memo suggests I take:
"Report all suspicious activity and persons to UC Police at 911 e.g. conspicuous or unusual behavior, persons taking photographs of critical facilities, asking detailed questions about physical security or dressed inappropriately for weather conditions." [Emphasis added.]
Posted by didofoot at 01:53 PM | Comments (5)
The Old Navy Rides Again
My cowboy-boss on why the professors have to work so hard on their research:
"The problem with the world is that we've all gotten complacent, and now the Old Navy will no longer bring us things. See, back in ancient China, I mean we're talking 800, 1000 B.C., the Old Navy used to come all the time. They would sail around the seas and possibly the larger Universe, we don't know, and when they landed all the Chinese would come to greet them and the Old Navy would bring technological innovations which had never been seen before. This is how mankind acquired the concept of calendars, for example."
"And fleece vests at 2 for 1?" I inquired.
I really don't find his beliefs any weirder than those of the average Christian, and they are a lot more interesting. So it's not that I'm mocking him. (Except with the fleece vests comment.) I respect him. After all, the man could put a Chinese gypsy curse on me that would make my eyes fall out of my head.
Posted by didofoot at 12:51 PM | Comments (0)
December 19, 2003
A Big Antenna
My cowboy boss, now sober, explained the way of the world recently. "See, the Chinese believe that everything that has ever existed is still around. I mean, not modern Chinese - the ancient Chinese believed it. Thoughts, words, everything is still there, floating around. When you think you're having a creative thought, you're really just recycling someone else's thought. Your creative ability is way, way smaller than your receptive ability. So, when I was learning to read ancient Chinese, I just got a big antenna and laid back and received all those old thoughts and then it was real easy. But I know darn well those aren't my thoughts. I never had a creative thought in my life. Anything I create was created by someone else first, and me, I'm just nothing." Pauses. Looks mournfully at the ground. "This knowledge is the reason why I've got low self-esteem."
Posted by didofoot at 09:30 AM | Comments (2)
December 17, 2003
Elves
I began to present my cowboy boss with the time travel theory, but as soon as I got to my first premise (you cannot just JUMP through time; you have to travel through every second of it) he began to argue with me.
"Listen," he said, "the theory that time is divided up into these supposed measurements, they are infinitely smaller and smaller, and seconds are just, and see people like me don't believe in that."
Pause.
Me: "Okay, but the units that we're splitting time into are kind of irrelevant to my argument. See, I'm saying--"
Him: "In the beginning, the world was filled with elves."
Silence. He stares at the carpet.
He was drinking at lunch, so that accounts for the incoherency. Sort of. Except a few days ago when he was sober, I asked him what Christmas present I should get for my friend who is Asia-obsessed (this is you, Michele) and he said that a must-have for every Asian household is a screen in the bathroom to keep out the walking dead.
Posted by didofoot at 01:54 PM | Comments (6)
What I Learned in Astronomy
The fact is, this time machine that I built is never going to work until I get the super computer running.
Consider: when you travel through time, you stay in one place spatially and just move through years. But it's not like a tesseract or a jump: you have to move through every second of time that happens in that spot before you get to the moment in time that you are aiming for. Just like you have to move through every inch of space between you and the place you're walking to. Granted, this move will seem to happen instantaneously, because that is what time travel is all about; nevertheless, you're passing through all that time. And don't you think that somewhere in the hundred or thousand or million years you just moved through, someone walked right through where you're standing? Meaning you are dead as soon as you hit that moment. (This might explain spontaneous combustion: if some time traveler just happened to be where you are for a single instant, what else could you do but explode? Wait, I guess that only explains spontaneous explosion.)
Anyway, the super computer will avoid all this, because it will be able to identify every movement of every atom in the Universe from the theoretical beginning of time right up to the theoretical end. So you will know where to stand when you are time traveling, because it will identify the spots where no one else is standing during the period in question. (But you would be wise to pick a different spot for the return trip.)
So, even though I promised a lot of people rides in the time machine as Christmas presents, I think it would be better to get it as your Groundhog Day present. The computer should be working by then. I just have to hack into the mainframe and download the access codes.
Posted by didofoot at 11:21 AM | Comments (18)
December 15, 2003
Feature Presentation
All day today, the only sentence I can think is this one:
We're only afraid of Christopher Walken.
Posted by didofoot at 04:56 PM | Comments (7)
December 12, 2003
Unexpurgated Me
My best friend Anais Nin says that "truth is coarse and unfructifying." She says this in Incest, which is one of the unexpurgated volumes of her journal.* Anais Nin lied to all the people in her life because she believed in the necessity of illusion and imagination and beauty and D.H. Lawrence; these beliefs are the source of her woozy, circular prose which Allen found so irritating. She made each man in her life believe that he was the true recipient of all her intimacy, but the only one who truly got to know her was her diary. This is very similar to the way I operate, except that instead of only giving my true self to my private diary, I give it to this public blog and everyone gets to know me.
But that's not actually true. I hold back some. And after we are all dead, I am going to publish my unexpurgated blog and then the world will know the truth about my life. I am certain that the world will be interested, because I find it so very interesting myself.
*It's great fun to read on the subway, with the word INCEST written in huge letters on the cover, but it sure isn't making me any friends. Even I am sort of offended to find myself reading it.
Posted by didofoot at 09:04 AM | Comments (3)
December 10, 2003
Covered in triumph, glory and Nutella (tm)
I got an A+ on my Shakespeare term paper. I actually feel a little goofy admitting it. If you get an A- or even an A you know you did a good job. But an A+ just means you've got the teacher snowed. Now, snowing authority figures is perhaps the most marketable of skills - just ask Ferris Bueller - but it's not what I went to school to learn.
. . . But really I am pleased and proud. My professor, whom I admire immensely, told the class that my paper presented him with ideas he had not thought of before, and the man is no Shakespeare-come-lately.
In other news, I voted but Matt Gonzalez still lost. I don't really see the point of voting if my guy is not going to win so I am looking into ways of somehow rigging the system in my favor. Surely, a girl who got an A+ on her term paper is capable of anything.
Posted by didofoot at 11:43 AM | Comments (9)
December 08, 2003
You will know a wise man
"The ancient texts say that you will know a wise man because he is running through the forest, flapping his arms, chirping, and slapping his own ass," my boss explained seriously. "Everyone assumes that this is philosophy, but really it's just aerobics."
I stopped and looked around at my life and it was boring. I hold down a job, I make slow progress towards graduation, and my boyfriend is going to work for my father. I cannot continue in this line and must fuck shit up in order to be happy.
My feet are itchy. My Christmas vacation is looming. My bank account is more or less full. I need to do something new and difficult, or the last anyone will see of me is my retreat into the forest, chirping and slapping my own ass.
Posted by didofoot at 01:11 PM | Comments (13)
December 06, 2003
The Wind in the Ward Street 2.0
Maggie and Christine and I were sitting around late last night (I swear there was studying done at some point yesterday evening), and, as is common among young women in the twenty-first century, we turned our talk to the inevitability of homosexuality outbreaks amongst our male acquaintance.
"The worst part," I said, "is that if the Lad ever leaves me for Jack, their relationship will be so sweet that I won't even be able to object."
"It's true," said Maggie seriously, "they have a beautiful relationship. They are Frog and Toad."
Posted by didofoot at 04:27 PM | Comments (1)
December 05, 2003
The importance of being Frank
I had dinner with Frank tonight, because there he was and I also was there as well. He has a boat now - I mean, he had a boat when we were dating, but now he actually knows how to sail it - and is soon to be sent to Belgium to work and live. Where was all this shit when we were together and he was homeless and I paid for dinners? I ask you. But I still had a very nice time and he did buy me some soup.
"I think my favorite thing, of everything there is to do, is reading," I said, sort of incoherently. He looked at me silently for a minute.
"You are a big dork," he said finally.
"Whoa, buddy," I said, "why don't you take a second look at those fringed loafers you're wearing before you start getting all personal."
Posted by didofoot at 09:01 PM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2003
I want to eat pie. Still.
When you see a coworker in the hall, you have to make a disparaging comment about your job. It's like a drinking game, in that the rules are simple and it isn't very fun. You have to say "I sure am glad it's Friday," or "Wish that weekend was longer," or something on those lines.
Well, I got tired of it. Now when I see people in the hall, I say in an intense, serious tone which cannot be interpreted as anything but sincere, "God, this job is great; I love it here." Then, as they're passing me, I grab their arms and lean my face in real close and whisper, "Don't ever leave. Or you'll be sorry."
Posted by didofoot at 01:34 PM | Comments (12)
Not for long, Pie Man.
Not since the J. Peterman catalogue have I been so tempted to buy merchandise just for the sake of its fantastic copy. Or maybe this isn't that good, and I'm slipping. Either way, I am the world's best grandma and I want to eat pie.
Posted by didofoot at 12:41 PM | Comments (5)
