The Active Soul

Nothing Smells Quite Like Your Own Singed Arm Hair. Also, Goodbye.

2006-04-23T16:24:00.000-06:00

Okay, so it's been over a month since I last posted. I've been busy and generally awful about updating this blog. More on that in a minute.

Yesterday we had an "all-hall" program during which we cooked burgers and hot dogs and I volunteered to be a chef. While prepping my grill, I lifted the lid a wee prematurely; I thought the lighter fluid had all burned off and closed the lid to increase the heat. This is the kind of grill with a lid that hinges at the back, so in the process of lifting the lid your arm naturally stretches out over the top of the grilling surface. As I did so, there was a minor explosion which promptly engulfed my forearm. "Explosion" is perhaps too dramatic - it was just a quick flare up that resulted in my arm smoldering for a few seconds like those cartoons where a bomb goes off in a bad guy's face. The skin itself is fine, but the hair on my right arm is significantly shorter than the hair on my left.

After cooking burgers for an hour or so I got hungry, so I naturally ate a couple of burgers - and I usually avoid red meat. Within half an hour I was feeling acute G.I. issues and headed back to my room, where I lapsed into delirium for several hours (I'd missed my coffee that morning and had had a vicious headache to boot).

Woke up at 9ish and talked to K for a while; fell asleep and woke up at 2am in my clothes. This morning I felt completely fine.

I'll be shutting this blog down soon. I've never liked this blog very much at all; its name, layout, and sheer existence has bugged me pretty much since day 1. I'll start another one just as soon as I feel like I can dedicate the time and effort to updating. So long, suckers.

Oh the Pain!

2006-03-19T16:02:00.000-07:00

My beloved Fighting Illini lost to Washington yesterday, and I still haven't recovered.

Back on the Sauce

2006-03-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

Yours truly found himself in the breakroom last week with a headache and plum out of tea. What's a man to do? Why, head for the coffeepot and stained mug left by a random stranger eons ago. And so I'm drinking coffee again.

It's Spring Break, but you wouldn't know it by the weather. The plan had been to hang out in Steamboat Springs for the first half of break and then head back home for the second half (although Spring Break is in effect for both Job A and Job B, Job B requires my presence during the second half of the week). While I was busy falling off the wagon, however, Willie was busy having quite possibly the worst week of anyone I've ever known, short of truly tragic things like death.

So I came down to K's place in Denver instead, which has worked out fine. All roads to Steamboat Springs have been walloped by snow, and overnight I-70 turned into a speedskater's dream. Instead of navigating that crap, K and I have spent quality time watching basketball and baking cookies. We also got to hang out with her family, some of whom live here, and some of whom came down to Denver to pick up a truck for their place in Wyoming. REI, meals, flak about The West Wing, a sappy romantic comedy that made K cry - good times all around.

K's at work right now; I'm sitting around the apartment reading, surfing, and fending off a wicked case of cabin fever. Soon we'll have lunch at a Mexican place a block or two from her apartment which, incidentally, is supposed to have amazing chile rellenos. The weather's clearing as I write this, and according to the news the roads are improving hourly. I'm heading back home tomorrow morning after a great start to the break.

"And the nominees are..."

2006-03-05T09:51:00.000-07:00

At some point soon, this blog will get a facelift. Meantime, here's what's up in my life:

I think I passed the certification exam, but I won't know for sure for another four weeks. And even if I didn't pass, I can take it again.

On Friday I sent off applications, resumes, and cover letters to some folks in a cool town in which I'd really like to work. On Saturday I realized I had a minor typo in each cover letter – hackmarks on each "e" in "resume" instead of on the last "e" only. Crap. But that's kind of how my life goes.

Last night a local movie theatre let college students in for free with their IDs, so a bunch of RAs went to UltraViolet, which is quite possibly the worst movie ever made. The movie was bad. Really, really bad. And it would have been worse without the booze we snuck in. Although I do think Milla Jovovich deserves a nomination for "Best Ass in a Science Fiction Film," a category added to the Oscars ever since Carrie Ann Moss's ass's performance in The Matrix.

At 11 or so, we headed up into the mountains for a bonfire. After collecting some rather large chunks of wood and staring at the fire I wandered off into a clearing. It was very cold and clear last night, and lying on my back in the snow, smoking a Cuban cigar, I saw more stars than I've ever seen in my life. It was one of those profound moments that each of us should experience more often. Weirder still, we were precisely 11 minutes from our dorm parking lot.

Today I have more job hunt stuff to work on, then a desk shift, and a ton of prep to do for this week. I can't wait until Friday, when I head to Steamboat to spend a long weekend with K at Willie's place.

Busy. Really Amazingly Busy.

2006-02-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

Rumor has it this blog might receive a brand new masthead soon, in which case yours truly should probably start writing more. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. Ultimately I really don’t have a whole lot I can write about these days. So instead of funny stories about my life, how about a preview of the coming week?

Friday, 7:15am to 3:05pm – a half day at my new job (henceforth “Job A”). Well, a half day for the younger crowd anyway. We older folks have a half day with the younger crowd and then a full day … in a great big meeting! Yeah! Wooooooo!

Friday, 3:06pm – Drive to K’s place in Denver.

Saturday – Buy a suit, buy a portfolio that’s all professional-looking and shit, hang out with K. Study for licensure exam.

Sunday – Return home. Work at Job B from 4-6. Continue studying for licensure exam.

Monday – Job A until 4. Job B until 8. Study for licensure exam.

Tuesday – Job A until 4. Study for licensure exam. Job B from 8-10.

Wednesday – Job A until 4. Study for licensure exam.

Thursday – Job A until 4. Job B from 6-10. Study for licensure exam, somehow, while at Job B.

Friday – I might take Friday off from Job A to … you guessed it… study for licensure exam.

Saturday – Take licensure exam. Turn attention to job hunt.

Oh, and while all this is going on, I also have to prepare daily activities and stuff for Job A, write up some assignments related to Job A for my advisor, and get all my job-hunt-related stuff together, which is nowhere near ready to be presented in an interview. Ugh.

On Yelling

2006-02-04T14:19:00.000-07:00

Folks, it's been a hell of a few weeks. The new job is keeping me busier than a bunny in spring, and the old job, the job I have come to hate but cannot quit, has added a new dimension of stress. Perhaps that's why I yelled at someone this morning.

RA's cannot plan on anything. This is because RA's, by definition, have residents under their charge, and dormitory residents aren't exactly the most docile bunch. So this morning, when I was just about to take a small nibble out of a mountain of errands, one of my residents made me, as we used to say at Amazon, "lose my shit."

We here on 6th floor, the top floor of the building, expect a quiet living environment. The folks on 5th floor don't necessarily see things that way. Sometimes my floor, especially my guys' wing, reports noise complaints on the stereos, TV's, and power tools being used on the floor below us. Sometimes those complaints are valid, sometimes they're not. Negotiating that validity is one of the hardest aspects of the RA job.

One of my residents - we'll call him Daniel – is the Jungian archetype of "computer geek." Remarkably obese, disgustingly hairy, and 37 years old, Daniel has lived in the dorms for 6 years. No one knows what degree, exactly, Daniel is pursuing. No one, in fact, is really sure what he does with his day. The one thing everyone can agree upon, however, is that Daniel is the single most annoying person in the hall, if not on the planet.

You don't hold a conversation with Daniel, you endure one. When he's not chortling at his own jokes, he's sharing is encyclopedic knowledge of whatever it is you're talking about. Daniel needs power. Daniel needs to tell people how to do their job, and in my case, his lengthy experience as a security guard lends special insight into the more investigative parts of the RA gig. Not that there are many investigative parts of the RA gig.

He has a cadre of friends, all non-trads, all overweight, and all are probably Lord of the Rings fans. One of them, a female resident on my floor, often communicates exclusively by meowing.

I refer to them as the Know It Alls, or "K.I.A.'s" for short. I avoid them when possible, but as a staffer, that's not always possible.

There is a long and complicated back story leading up to my yelling this morning, but that's far less important than the fact that I realized something about myself: when I'm speaking with any authority, I don't like to be interrupted. And the fact of the matter is, the kids at my new job are remarkably good at listening to me and quieting down when I need them to, while the K.I.A.'s generally and Daniel specifically are not. My new job is stressful but fun, whereas the RA job is just a total pain in the ass.

So when I confronted Daniel about him sticking his snout somewhere it shouldn't have been, and when Daniel interrupted me, I just totally lost it. My door is separated from each wing by a fire door, but I really wouldn't be surprised if other residents heard me ripping into Daniel. No profanity; no personal attacks. Just an extremely irritated RA who'd had it with people who think they know my job better than I do.

Nothing to See Here

2006-01-21T10:02:00.000-07:00

Seriously. I feel like I should update because, well, I know at least two people check this blog fairly regularly. But honestly, nothing too exciting happened in my life this week - nothing that I can write about here, anyway.

So.

What are you up to today?

Damn You John Mayer! Damn You and Your Grotesquely Large Hands!

2006-01-14T11:06:00.000-07:00

The Active Soul has been playing guitar again for the first time in a good long while. I've been trying to get my scales straight on my Stratocaster while reviving my folksy roots on my Taylor. My fingertip calluses have pretty much disappeared, and the past few days have been an exercise in pain management.

Now, I'm not a huge John Mayer fan but I am a big fan of The Police, and the first time I heard Mayer's live rendition of Message in a Bottle I pretty much fell in love with it. That song is one of those gems from the '80s that really holds up well – Sting may have ventured dangerously close to Michael Bolton territory in his later years, but when he was on top of his game, he was unquestionably a genius. So after hearing John Mayer's version of it, I wanted to get the fingering straight.

I can play by ear. I figured out the basic chord structure of the song years ago; besides a tricky progression there are some remarkable underlying rhythms – not to mention a brilliant extended metaphor in the lyrics. But Mayer's version distills the song down to a raw purity that really appealed to me, and after a close listen I was able to tab out the main riff:

---------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------
--------8---------4---------6---------------------
-----6----------2---------4---------6---------6---
--4-----------0-------0-2--------4---------4-----
--------------------------------2---------2-------

The problem here is that I have small hands, and John Mayer apparently has large hands. I can't play a complete bar of this song without spraining my palm. And that, my friends, is frustrating: knowing I'm intellectually capable of playing the song, but physically unable to do so. Sure, sure, there are other ways of playing the same chords – but in the meantime I'm bitter that the gene fairies gave me an ear for music and hands for needlepoint.

Sometimes, Pinky, You Defy Even Yourself

2006-01-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

So the other night I'm working the lobby desk and a resident comes down to buy something from the vending machine. These machines aren't the most cooperative or reliable products ever made and are in fact prone to, well, not work. So I'm sitting there at the desk and the resident, a young man in his early twenties or so, comes over to the counter.

Resident: Hey. That machine, like, ate my money.
The Active Soul: Okay. I'll need you to fill out a form and we can send it via campus mail over to Vending Services.
Resident: So you can't give me another dollar?
TAS: Um. No.
Resident: So what do I do now?
TAS: Normally we'd fill out a little form, but I can't find one, so you can probably just go over to Vending Services and tell them what happened. Unfortunately they're not open right now, so you'll need to wait until tomorrow.
Resident: Why can't you just give me a dollar?
TAS: [blank stare]
Resident: You mean I have to walk all the way over there just for a dollar?
TAS: Yep.
Resident: Will they give me extra money for, like, pain and suffering and whatever?

At that point yours truly became a little curt. I mean, I'm real sorry about your dollar and all, and I know tort reform hasn't yet reached the local backwaters, but I really don't think you deserve extra reimbursement just because you couldn't get your soda at 9:00 at night.

My Girlfriend is a Culinary Genius, and Warren Carter is Probably a Good Basketball Player

2006-01-08T12:22:00.000-07:00

The Active Soul likes to drink port. Hell, I received three bottles of the stuff for Christmas. I'm also transitioning to tea after nursing a serious coffee habit for ten years or so; green tea in the morning and a mug of Sleepytime or Chamomile at night. Yes, I know green tea contains caffeine. But not as much as coffee.

Now, I have it on good authority that the coffee gods are some vengeful bastards, and I'd assumed they would curse me with headaches for rejecting them after years of appeasement and devotion. Oddly enough, I have been getting minor headaches – but only in the afternoon, and only after seven hours under fluorescent lights. So I can't tell if it's the coffee gods or the lights or the teenagers.

Anyhoo, K and I somehow got to talking about tasty ways of improving tea, and she suggested sweetening not with sugar nor honey but port. Perhaps a nice berry tea, she said. I tried it and it was more or less awesome.

In other news, one of my resolutions this year was less a resolution than it was a plan that's been a long time in the works: buy a bike trainer for my room, so I don't have to schlep to the gym only to be stuck on some crappy cardio machine because all the good machines are taken. With a bike trainer in my room, I'll be able to get great cardio on my terms – without the walk to the gym and without the weird social dynamics inherent in all health clubs.

So yesterday I was cleaning my bike chain and gears and watching my beloved Fighting Illini play Iowa. My beloved Illini played like a junior varsity squad in their first scrimmage after Thanksgiving. Dee Brown? Horrible. James Augustine? The top scorer on the team, but that's like saying I'm the best guitarist in my room. That kid Smith who shoots threes like a sniper? Well, he buried a few and played hard on defense – good job, Smith. Warren Carter?

Ah, yes. Warren Carter.

For a long time, Warren Carter was my least favorite Illini. At 6'9", Warren Carter is a rather large man. And the problem with being that large is that one often moves as if one's limbs are not appendages but rather garden implements. To put it bluntly, Warren Carter sometimes has about as much defensive hustle as a sloth. And if there's one thing that really irritates me, it's a lack of defensive hustle.

Now, Warren Carter is probably a good athlete. If Warren Carter and I played a game of one-on-one, Warren Carter would probably win. But as a fan, I won't tolerate a lack of effort on defense.

So during the semester break I learned that Warren Carter is not only a good athlete when Warren Carter hustles on defense, but also that Warren Carter has overcome a whole friggin' lot of adversity in his life and is well-spoken and funny to boot. So while I have more respect for Warren Carter, I'm still waiting for him to have a monster game. Which, like all the other Illini yesterday, Warren Carter didn't have.

And my least favorite Illini of all time is now Nick Smith. Fuck you, Nick.

The Thing that Went Well

2006-01-07T08:43:00.000-07:00

The Active Soul needs to apologize to his readership for not updating recently, or even all that much, for the past several months. This mostly had to do with being a very busy guy, and between school, my school-associated live-in job, and road trips to Denver, blogging lost its status on my list of priorities. If you're one of the three people who actually read this blog, I'm sorry. Did I mention I got another 4.0 last semester?

So, a quick overview: I'm dating someone and it's awesome (more on that in a sec), I'm transitioning out of school and into my new career although still living in the dorms, I'm making significant progress toward being healthier, and did I mention I'm dating someone?

A good while back I wrote about things that went poorly last semester, and muttered (can one mutter while writing? one can now) something about writing about things that went well. I never got around to upholding that promise – and although I may be a pervert, scoundrel, and Democrat, I am above all else a man of my word. So I've been thinking for many weeks now about how, exactly, to approach this topic.

(I should note here that the Active Soul's bestest manfriend called him up and yelled at him for the post about things that went poorly. The manfriend pointed out, accurately enough, that the Active Soul actually has a great life and needs to stop whining. Interestingly, we had the same conversation 13 years ago or so in the living room of our first rathole apartment, during which the manfriend said something to the effect of, "Listen, things could be much worse – you could be a Bangladeshi street kid who instead of eating food, sniffs glue made from horse hooves." This, too, is accurate enough, and lately I've distilled it down to "Things could be worse – I could be on fire." The manfriend has never had a whole lot of patience with the Active Soul's emotions, though, and that's a whole 'nother post.)

So besides being fortunate enough to be born into white middle-class America in the late 20th century, what went well last semester? Mostly, my personal life, and mostly, it was because of K. Sure, sure, I had a few good times in my classes and obviously I worked hard and got good grades as a result. But school pretty much annoyed me, my job really annoyed me, and I was nervous as fuck about whether or not my new career really would be my new career. So the things that went well all revolved around my personal life, and I really didn't have a personal life other than K.

We met over a year ago. I was working the lobby desk for my previous live-in job, and had been working that job all summer long. Other live-in staffers for the fall semester were checking in periodically throughout the day, this being two weeks before the semester started. So I'm sitting there at the desk and in walks this brunette (long hair, which was cool, and glasses, which was hot) who asks if our boss is in. B-diddy, as we called him, had an office right next to the front desk, and I sent the brunette around to his door.

And of course I'm having those dumbass fantasies people have about other people. Not in any sexual sense, just imagining, in fewer than ten seconds, how our lives would work out in minute detail: we'll live in a smallish town, we'll have a dog, I'll cook breakfast for her on the weekends, we'll have an awesome cozy little living room with no TV but games and puzzles and pictures everywhere, we'll have one car (a Subaru Forester) because we'll be able to walk to our respective jobs, I'll teach her how to play guitar, our cat will be named Captain Jack Aubrey, our wedding will be really awesome...

"And how's J?" B-diddy asked. K stood in his office door, updating our boss on her summer.
"He's fine, blah blah blah..."

I didn't hear the rest because J was obviously the boyfriend, and all those dumbass fantasies made a little "poof" sound as they vanished.

Later that night we had our first staff meeting and I had to be careful about not ogling too much. But I mean, goddamn. Brunette, smart, the skirt suggested a hint of hippie, and holy Jesus, she has a tattoo on her leg. Goddamn.

K and I became pretty good friends over the course of the school year. We cracked each other up at dinner or at the lobby desk, and by spring semester I came to a Zen-like peace with her fairly serious relationship with J. But obviously I still liked her a lot.

Toward the end of the school year I finally just told her outright how I felt after consulting with her little sister, a freshman last year, who incidentally despised her older sister's boyfriend (no ulterior motives there, A!) K gave me a really sad look, said she always wanted to remain friends regardless of what happened with her other relationship, and we hugged.

And that was it.

She moved to Denver right after graduation, we emailed a little bit, and I saw her once or twice over the summer, but I'd pretty much given up hope. And shortly into training this past fall, almost a year to the day after we'd first met, the little sister (who by this time joined our ranks as a live-in staffer) vented to me at dinner about K.

I'll skip the rest out of respect for K – and besides, there's enough drama and detail from one weekend this past September to comprise a novel. But we wound up together, finally, and it's the best relationship I've ever had.

Is this a function of me finally getting my head straight? Would previous relationships have worked, had I not been an emotional weeble-wobble? Maybe. But probably not. I think this relationship is a function of two people establishing a friendship and coming to realize how well they get along, and eventually admitting that they really are attracted to each other.

And that's the main thing I've learned – a steady relationship isn't and cannot be about having butterflies all the damn time. It's not about finding someone who meets your huge checklist (although meeting a few important qualities helps). It's about finding someone with whom you can spend time, in conversation or in total silence, and it's about compromise, and it's about work. To quote my man Leonard Cohen, "Love is not a victory march / It's a cold and it's a lonely 'hallelujah.'"

And that, my friends, that is what went well this past semester.

Full Throttle to the Bottle and Full Full Clout - And I'm Out

2005-12-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

Name that tune, ladies and gents.

The semester is over. I just got out of my final exam in Literature, and now I'm sitting here in my room waiting for some other work stuff to happen - this entails waiting for other people to get their acts together, and in the meantime I may just indulge in some pinot noir and smoked Gouda with peppercorn crackers. Deee-lish.

More later. Right now I'm just going to soak in the moment.

Spork Envy

2005-12-15T14:09:00.000-07:00

On our final day of Methods II, we post-bac types delivered presentations on our graduate-level coursework. Mine was a high-falutin' manifesto inspired by Postman & Weingartner's Teaching as a Subversive Activity, one of the most important books about modern education ever written. Seriously. Pick up a copy.

Anyway, as is tradition with this instructor, our final day of class was also a stuff-yourself-silly potluck. We'd been told that bringing utensils might be a good idea so I showed up with my titanium spork. I bought it for camping but you'd be amazed at how many opportunities I've had to deploy my titanium spork. I even have a motto: "You got anything needs eatin', I'm your man." I should name my titanium spork, it's that important to me.

So as I'm sitting there in class about to deploy the titanium spork into a stuffed cabbage, I start catching shit from some fellow post-bac students. "That's a serious spork, there, hardeeharharhar." Or, "Who the hell buys a titanium spork? Hardeeharharhar." Or my favorite, from my instructor: "Wow. That's kinda dorky. HARDEEHARHARHAR!"

You people are just jealous.

Near Misses

2005-12-15T14:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday on my way to a final "exam" (which was in fact a final "sit around and joke and fill out a fairly informal class evaluation"), I was bopping along with my iPod to the Grateful Dead's "China Cat Sunflower" – the version on Hundred Years Hall, a phenomenal take – and stepped into a little street that runs in front of the sorority and fraternity houses. This street is lined with parking spots and traffic is usually very slow. At the last second I happened to glance to my right only to see a gigantic Dodge Ram shitbox bearing down on me, very quickly. I jumped back and the truck missed me by, oh, four feet or so. No horn. No brakes. Just a cloud of exhaust and a muffler loud enough to vibrate in my sternum.

Before going to my final "exam" I had to drop off a final project for a Special Education class. I located my instructor's office – a little closet area in a dim corner of the building – and slid my paper under the door. Voila!, I thought to myself. This morning I got an email from her asking, nicely, why in the hell I hadn't turned in a final project. After doing a spit-take with my coffee, I emailed her back, told her when and where I'd put the paper, and included an electronic copy in the response. She very graciously accepted it, or I would have been – oh what's the term I'm looking for here? – effed. Yes. "Effed." That's definitely what I would have been.

After running some errands this morning I came back to a voicemail on my cellphone. A very nice woman from the Office of Teacher Education informed me that she'd tried to enroll me for next semester (when you get to my level you no longer have to enroll yourself – besides having our own crack staff of office lackeys, we also get weekly private dinners with the university president), but there was some sort of hold on my account. Now, I'm usually fairly good about paying bills on time, with the exception of the phone bill for my room, which is of course billed through the university. After a quick jaunt by the cashier's office the hold was removed and I am now safely back on track for next semester.

Number of Rough Draft Pages Written for Seriously Consequential Final Paper: 5. Number of Good Paragraphs: 2 or so. Best Line So Far:

2005-12-10T16:11:00.000-07:00

"Teachers, then, are solely responsible for negotiating, on a daily basis, the curricular and interactive territory between mandated standardized tests and ideals of civic virtue as shaped by serious inquiry. "

I may need to tone down the revolutionary rhetoric in this sucker, but in the meantime I'm actually enjoying the writing process.

What, Exactly, is Going On

2005-12-08T19:15:00.000-07:00

It’s not a stretch to say the Active Soul has had a rough couple of months, with a few important exceptions, and that he hasn’t been updating his blog as often as he’d like. Yes, yes, I know some of you rely on my blog to keep updated about my life. And yes, yes, I know some of you don’t know me from Adam - if Adam did, in fact, exist – but stop by this blog every now and then to leave hilarious comments. And I’m aware, perhaps more acutely than certain relatives I could mention, that the key to building and maintaining a faithful readership is … you guessed it… updating the blog frequently. I mean, people can only read about clever Harry Potter titles so many times before they start surfing elsewhere.

But the fact remains that the past three months have been ugly. And before I get into the ugliness, I should preface this whole thing with a disclaimer: it’s going to sound whiny. It’s not my intent to whine, obviously, just to kind of vent and get this crap out there so that my non-updatingness can be put into context. Still, it will sound whiny. And as I tell other people when they whine near me, “Maybe if you keep whining about it, it’ll just fix itself.” I can be pretty obnoxious sometimes.

So anyway, here’s the abridged and edited-for-primetime rundown.

1. School. It sucked this semester. More often than not I felt disengaged and generally uninspired by all of my classes with the exception of my afternoon Methods class (one of my career-prep classes that will, when all is said and done, also count for graduate credit. More on that in a minute). Compound that feeling with open antagonism for some of the other students in my program, and every day was pretty much a struggle to keep from exploding in a blue streak a la Steve Martin at the rental car counter in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. So even that afternoon class was spoiled by people whose abrasive personalities – not to mention approach to our profession - just pissed me off.

The good news is that tomorrow is the last day of class, next week is finals week, and then after two weeks’ vacation my life gets really interesting.

2. Work. Some of you know what I do, and that I can’t very easily separate work from school and vice versa. Sure, it pays the bills, but the vibe and camaraderie we had last year has been sabotaged by a level of managerial ineptitude rivaled only by the Bush Administration.

3. The Bush Administration. I’ve had it with these idiots. The only positive thing they've done, in my opinion, is help me understand where I stand on various policies - and it's not with them. If the Republican Party ever wants to court my vote again (not that I voted for Bush, but I did consider registering as a Republican), they’d better pony up a candidate whose lips, unlike this president’s, aren’t simultaneously glued to the religious right’s ass and corporate interests’ pocketbooks in an astounding display of labial dexterity. I love this country, but if we continue down this self-righteous, arrogant, and reckless path, I can very easily see myself living in Canada. And if we don’t pull our collective heads out of our asses about education’s true purposes, goals, and assessments (hint: it’s not and can’t be standardized tests), I can also see the end of our democracy within a century.

4. Schoolwork. My writing has sucked this semester, most likely as a direct result of #1 above. I have a rather important paper due on Tuesday, so important that graduate credit depends on it, and what writing I’ve done so far is choppy and forced at best. And one of my things is, there is simply no other alternative but to be a perfectionist when I write. Sentences either completely convey exactly what I want them to convey (ignoring, for the moment, the problematic nature of signifiers) or they suck.

5. My various neuroses. The perfectionist thing is really starting to take a toll. I get freaked out about fairly minor stuff, whereas other people just kind of recognize it as minor stuff and move on. I also compare myself to other people. A lot.

6. My pickup. It was a great vehicle for Seattle; I don’t live in Seattle anymore. My life has literally been constrained by the inability to safely go anywhere outside of town. Pretty sure I’ll be buying a new car (helloooo Subaru Forester!) when I get my first job.

7. Flab. I’m out of shape and for several weeks (months?) my diet has been remarkably poor. Part of it’s cafeteria food, part of it’s just plain lack of willpower, and part of it’s the fact that I don’t get any exercise. I have some agency here, and plan on making changes after the holidays.

Whew! I feel better. There will be another post – no commitment on a timeframe – outlining the things that went well for me this semester. Meantime, I need to get some reading done.

Harry Potter and the Thanksgiving Vacation Summary

2005-11-27T10:32:00.000-07:00

Our story begins with a meeting required by his department, on Tuesday afternoon, when all anyone wanted to do was leave...

Harry Potter and the Mandatory Waste of Time
Harry Potter and the Deserted Dormitory
Harry Potter and the Incompetent Gas Station Customer
Harry Potter and the 4 Cylinder Pickup Going Uphill
Harry Potter and the Front Range Traffic
Harry Potter and the Happy Reunion
Harry Potter and the Box of Surprises
Harry Potter and the Wicked Caffeine Addiction
Harry Potter and the Excursion to Hobby Lobby
Harry Potter and the Bourgeousie Hippies at Whole Foods
Harry Potter and the Cheese Cooler
Harry Potter and the Red Wings' Victory Over the Mediocre Local Team
Harry Potter and the Delicious Dinner He Didn't Cook
Harry Potter and the Neighbor's Excitable Chocolate Lab
Harry Potter and the Luxury of Sleeping in a Real Bed
Harry Potter and the Unimpressed House Cat
Harry Potter and the Day of the Feast
Harry Potter and the Hopeless Football Team
Harry Potter and the Feast Fit for a King
Harry Potter and the Pie
Harry Potter and the Bottomless Glass of Pinot Noir
Harry Potter and the Loss of Consciousness
Harry Potter and the Slow Morning
Harry Potter and the Day of Leftovers
Harry Potter and the Nappy Headed Hostess
Harry Potter and the Homegrown Roast Beef
Harry Potter and the Port Shakes
Harry Potter and the Harry Potter Movie
Harry Potter and the Gastrointestinal Violence
Harry Potter and the Night on the Futon
Harry Potter and the Shooting Back Pain
Harry Potter and the Depressing Departure
Harry Potter and the Tailgating Shitbox
Harry Potter and the Very Unhealthy Breakfast
Harry Potter and the Irresponsible Motorcyclist
Harry Potter and the Boring-ass Stretch of I-25.
Harry Potter and the I-80 Headwind
Harry Potter and the Deserted Dormitory
Harry Potter and the Sole Resident's Loud Stereo
Harry Potter and the Pile of Neglected Homework
Harry Potter and the First Shift After Vacation

When Muses Quit

2005-11-16T17:40:00.000-07:00

The Active Soul keeps an academic muse on retainer. Asexual, pedantic, and inhumanly calm, this muse – we'll call him/her Pat – carries around a leather briefcase containing an encyclopedia, thesaurus, and a random quote or two. Pat has bailed the Active Soul out of several academic scrapes: though completely worthless in math and science classes (Pat refuses to keep a calculator in that briefcase, the fucker), Pat's insight and wordplay consistently nudge essays and research papers into "A" territory.

"Pat," I'll whisper over my shoulder, "what's another word for 'complex relationship'?"
"'Dynamic'," Pat will whisper, and step back into the periphery.
"Pat," I'll ask, "how do I explain the context of the Debarges' wine shop in A Tale of Two Cities?"
"The wine shop," Pat will say,"is not simply in a bad neighborhood, it is in a deplorable city, and although the shop itself is 'better than most others in its appearance and degree' (p. 23), its appearance is acceptable only when illuminated against a background of despair."
"Pat," I'll say, "you totally fucking rock." At which point Pat will bristle at the profanity and go back to reading a dictionary.

Now, as long as I buy Pat a breakfast of carbohydrates and an I.V. of caffeine, s/he shows up for work. Usually.

Pat ditched me this morning. There I was, heading into an essay exam for my literature class, and Pat was nowhere to be found. I'm not sure where Pat goes when this happens; perhaps lost in a Derrida lecture, glued to a captivating exchange on CSPAN, or gallivanting with homosexuals. Regardless, I was left in the lurch.

This really isn't a big deal. I have a strong A in that class due mostly to memorable performances by Pat on the previous essay exam and research paper. Pat's little stunt this morning probably won't cost me the A in the class and certainly won't put me in danger of a C. But I'm still a little concerned about Pat. S/he's been whining all semester about hating work, so now I'm wondering if s/he has quit, finally and irrevocably. I hope not.

Finally! Gosh!

2005-11-14T13:34:00.000-07:00

I like snow. I moved back here partially because of my affinity for the white stuff. Snow separates those who know what they're doing on the road from those who do not. Snow is Mother Nature's code for "always remember I'm tougher than you, shnookums." If I ran for office, it would be on a pro-snow platform. I like snow.

Snow arrived this morning. Sure, sure, it's snowed a little bit already this year, but mostly it took the form of little frozen pellets, until this morning. Throughout the morning and now into the afternoon, we've been getting showers of genuine flakes. The wind is also blowing. I'm not such a big fan of the wind. But snow? Oh yes. I like snow.

K came up this weekend and we had a good time: a bonafide date on Friday night (I had the crabcakes, she had the catfish, we shared a tasty bottle of pinot because, yes, "I'm not drinking fucking Merlot!"), followed by a Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer concert (I had no idea a banjo could do that), followed by a football game Saturday afternoon against our religious wackjob conference rival.

The game was cold. Very cold. So cold I busted out my Carhartt jacket and insulated pants (motto: "Some people have to work in this weather") because it was scrotum-freezingly cold. I also wore my rabbit fur bomber hat, and I only break out the rabbit fur bomber hat when it's really cold. We split after the first quarter even though we were tied and walked to a local restaurant, where the game was on TV. We lost. No bowl game. Big whup. Today it's snowing.

Warfish and the Bestest Manfriend

2005-11-12T09:27:00.000-07:00

The Active Soul has known his bestest manfriend since the 9th grade, when we were in Social Studies together. While it's taken the Active Soul roughly 15 years to get his life together, his bestest manfriend has spent that time pursuing his career as a science genius with a penchant for political commentary.

We regularly engage in an online version of the boardgame Risk called Warfish. For the uninitiated, Risk/Warfish is a strategic game of world occupation. Each continent is subdivided into territories, and in the course of the game you invariably take territory from each other. It is strangely exhilarating and/or aggravating, depending on how the "dice rolls" go. And there's often a very odd correlation to real international crises, as evidenced by the following chat exchange from earlier this week:

T.A.S.'s Bestest Manfriend: howdy
The Active Soul: hey
BMF: sorry about that warfish. nothing personal
you were clearly intending to take australia
T.A.S: i'm surprised it took you so many turns
BMF: and i suspected you of having a WMD program
hope that was true
T.A.S.: well no, it wasn't.
but i understand. and so do all my muslim friends.
No.. .wait... no they don't. In fact, now they intend to make your occupation a fucking living nightmare.
BMF: well, if you hadn't flown planes into my buildings, i wouldn't have attacked you
T.A.S.: I DIDN'T FLY THE FUCKING PLANES INTO YOUR FUCKING BUILDINGS.
THAT WAS ANOTHER MUSLIM DUDE
BMF: sorry... you all look the same

Another Quick Update

2005-11-09T19:34:00.000-07:00

The Active Soul has a nasty little headache again tonight, so he'll keep it brief: the title of this here blog comes, obviously, from the eminently quotable yet ultimately contradictory Ralph Waldo Emerson. I've always hated the Romantic poets, but I find his take on "value" pretty interesting. Nevermind that he waxed about naively shallow notions of manual labor while sitting in a comfy study funded by his deceased - and very rich - wife. Also nevermind that he emphasizes that genius is situated wherever the genius says it is, which is, you know, a handy way to approach life when you're a yutz who considers yourself a genius. Finally, nevermind that our man R.W. Emerson encourages dissent for dissent's sake, which gives us honest dissenters a bad name.

Alright. Enough. Stuff to do around here, and then an early bedtime.

And Away We Go

2005-11-06T07:56:00.000-07:00

Well, gang, this is me, posting to a blog again. Without further ado, here's a quick update on the Active Soul's life:

College is sucking. At least, the studying and writing and homework-doing part is sucking anyway. I'm just sick of it and am ready to rejoin the real world.
My love life is not sucking, for once. The Active Soul will refer to his ladyfriend as K unless otherwise noted. K and I became friends last year when we worked together and now we're dating - despite the fact that she's gotten to know me better. Wonder of wonders.
Winter has arrived in the West. The mountains 25 miles outside of town were completely enshrouded by clouds yesterday. Meanwhile the sun shone here even though it was colder than a meatlocker in hell the morning after a Cubs World Championship.
This blog will protect the Active Soul's anonymity at all costs. Any links or references to the Active Soul's real name, location, or future occupation will be disposed of by a contingent of hired goons.

Onward!

Invitation

2005-10-23T10:25:00.000-06:00

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer . . .
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!

- Shel Silverstein, Invitation