The Bliss of Ms. Blossom

My science & society seminar gets out at 9pm every Tuesday, and I've made it a habit the last couple of times to walk home. Walking home in the hot sun at 2 in the afternoon is not so much fun, but after it is dark, the air is cool and the shadows hide all of the trash and imperfections. It is refreshing to be able to wander home among the treeshadows and hulking architecture.

Tonight as I was leaving I noticed that I had a missed call from 763-5409, not a number I recognize. A man answered, and I got the impression he mumbled something about the army, and, sure enough, he did. Apparently the army recruiting office accross the street from campus calls numbers in a huge database (so says a man named Chad). I was convinced at the beginning, however, that it was a prank call. What kind of recruiting office lets their staffers drink lots of alcohol and have access to a phone? The highlight was the slurring man in the back (alias Chuck) who would yell things into the phone like "Anna!! Are you in a sorority?? Kappa Kappa Gamma Theta Phi, Anna!! This is a prank call!! I'm a pornstar!!"

I ended up talking to Chad for the next 15 minutes until I got back to my apartment.

G.I. Jane. Apollo 13, NASA, and astronauts. Push-ups and how they aren't really necessary to join the army. All Tech students are tree-huggin' vegetarians who protest the military. Chad knows a Mexican named Ishmael who went to Iraq, converted to Islam, and now likes to blow things up. I should teach Ishmael English since he only speaks Spanish. Chad won't teach Ishmael himself because Chad would rather Ishmael to continue to mow Chad's lawn.

At this point, I called Chad an asshole and he put me on speaker-phone because I'm a hoot.

Some people claim that people, especially young women, should not walk accross the campus alone after dark. I can't remember ever being scared, but now that I know that we have people like Chad and Chuck and Ishmael imbibing lots of alcohol just accross the street, I feel more secure.

Roland Son (real person) and Phoebe Buffet (character from Friends) were flirting inside of a video game. Roland was merely a spectator, but Phoebe was kicking some major ass. Phoebe defeated the last alien-robot-insect and begain flying in circles around the globe as a hippo while Roland commented on how sexy she looked.

Earlier, I was dreaming about going to all the different fast-food chicken places (Church's, Popeye's, and KFC's) in order to buy one or two menu items from each. Apparently I was trying to create the Ultimate Mega Chicken Dinner and was no longer worried about the negative political ramifications of eating at KFC.

This is what happens when I fall asleep watching Friends instead of eating dinner.

P.S. I had sleep paralysis yesterday morning for the first time since I moved into Alaska. My sleeping patterns are erratic and possibly influenced by an incubus fiend.

I like to line up my Skittles and eat them one by one as I am reading. I like to listen to Joni Mitchell or Beethoven.

Today in class Prof Williams brought up Noam Chomsky and commented on how Chomsky is neo-liberal politically, yet his linguistic theory is pretty elitist and imperialistic (Chomsky is interested in how language should be spoken and concentrates more on standard forms of language than how they are actually used in the field). Williams even went as far to say that some anthropologists don't even read Chomsky's work on linguistics for precisely those reasons. To ignore a great intellectual because of a personal dislike for his work is "not science," as Williams put it. We have to give Chomsky credit for being pretty revolutionary at the time in his cultural context. Williams brought up the contradictions in Chomsky's linguistic theory versus his political opinions and someone (who has an annoying habit of responding to my questions in class with irrelevent answers when they were specifically directed to the prof... you know, the actual linguist) pipes up with...

Yeah, all of the liberals that I know seem to talk about a bunch of CRAP and then not know enough to back it up with anything. [Not word-for-word because I try not to commit anything this guys says to memory.]

It's as if you were having a conversation with someone about pumpkin pie (the best food ever, I might add) and someone interjects with "yeah, Halloween is a terrible holiday because pumpkin-carving is tedious and not worth the effort" You might respond, "yeah, I guess we were talking about pumpkins so I see the tenuous connecting thread. BUT you're a moron."

The girl next to me and I decided to stuff him in a garbage can after class. I love bonding with people.

The moral of this story is: always be prepared with a barbed come-back, because telling someone to "be nice" and a solid hour of scathing glares (even from an entire class) probably doesn't have much of an impact.

Perhaps not the worst, but one of the worst, songs ever recorded is by Charlene. The lyrics are so sappy and... strange. Apparently Charlene has been to Georgia and California, Nice and the Isle of Greece, and danced like Harlow in Monte Carlo, persumably because she was postulating that these locations would rhyme nicely when set to music. She has also been "subtle[y] whoring" with a "Preacher-Man" and been "undressed by kings." I don't know where Ryan H. Tatum (as he likes to be known) found it, but he sent it to me and I thought at first that it must be satire. Because it is THAT BAD. And it invades your thoughts when you should be watching out for pedestrians on campus.

The most outrageous part is the spoken section, but mostly because of the way she talks:

Hey, you know what paradise is?
It's a lie
A fantasy we created about people and places as we like them to be
But you know what truth is?
It's that little baby you're holding
And it's that man you fought with this morning
The same one you are gonna make love to tonight [soft, yet knowing chuckle]
That's truth
That's love

All I have left to say is that I can damn well undress myself.