three a.m.

I read in a BBC article this morning that something like a third of high school students think the 1st amendment goes too far in guarunteeing speech liberties, that half think the government should be allowed to approve articles before they’re published, and that 2/3 believe that flag-burning is illegal.  There were other equally frightening (and unsurprising) statistics as well, though I can’t recall them at the moment.  It’s probably also a bad sign that I find it harder to get excited about this stuff than I once did — I just shake my head and say, Man, How weird!  Anyone else out there feeling completely paralyzed?

Speaking of immobility, I just got 50 channels of cable tv yesterday after having lived without TV for over a year.  Predictably, I parked my but on the couch for the duration and watched the worst movies I could find.  Sweet Home Alabama, Mystery Men.  God, Why am I admitting this?  Anyways, I feel strangely more human than I did before I had cable.  It’s doing something to me, probably something bad.  I only got it b/c they waived the installation fee for my cable internet — one of those weird set-up deals where it’s actually cheaper to get the cable for a month.  It’s only been a day, but I’m already contaminated. 

This week in books, I recommend Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake for those of you who want a fun dystopian novel.  The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles is a nice, offbeat novel if you’ve got time on your hands.

Right now, I’m listening to Robert Johnson singing Dead Shrimp Blues.  Why haven’t I listened to this before?

Man I’m all hopped up on the cold medicine crack and coffee and I cleaned holy hell out of the kitchen and dining room today.  Got up all the blood from the cat war that apparently took place when I was in Little Rock a couple of weeks ago (blood on the wall, the floor, my computer, the kitchen table, the fridge — man I’ll be glad when my days as catsitter are done).  Anyways, decided what my apt really needs is something on the walls.  I want a big old abstract painting for living room for everyone to ignore.  Yeah.  Maybe I’ll do it me own self.  Plus some photos.

Thanks Luke & Liz for showing me around Brooklyn this weekend.  Opened my eyes to patterns of consumption hitherto unknown — had to hold my nose to keep from breathing in the big city money stink.  Good times.  I recommend Andy’s Chinese restaurant for the best cheap Chinese food in the world.  Went to Coney Island and got a little pink, but don’t worry ma, it went away the next day. 
The lameness of our farmers’ tans was offset only by our frighteningly hip swimtrunks.  Yeah we had more than a few admirers.  Safe to say that pretty soon the hipsters will be wearing DRAGONS and working on their own farmers’ tans.  And here’s Luke & Liz on one of those rides with swinging cages on a huge revolving wheel, which was pretty neat, but don’t be fooled — you can’t seem much from the top. 
In conclusion, Brooklyn is neato; It’s the kind of place you can feel 100% in love with one minute, followed by a minute of pure revulsion.

And book talk: Just finished Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink and The Tipping Point in succession.  Actually, I probably just read about 50-60% of each book — I really like that guy’s ideas, but his essays are usually about twice as long as I’d like.   So I skipped the repetitive parts.
Allison– I did finally read Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.  I had a hard time with it.  I don’t know if the prose was deceptively simple or just simple, but either way it was pretty good, in a boring sort of way.  But the whole story just didn’t quite make sense to me — I have a big enough problem with the paranoid premise, but even within the scenario, the characters just didn’t make sense.  Seems like more of them would do crazy stuff.  I think he rushed through it.  (Probably doesn’t help that I just saw The Island.  Bad Movie.)
I’m currently reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and an oddly compelling debut of hyper-neurotic short stories by Courtney Eldridge.

Not Really.  Even though my friends have scattered here there and yonder.  Really, I’m so excited I just can’t hide it, because as of two hours ago I’m through teaching tech writing, hopefully for all eternity.  And I’m going to Brooklyn this weekend, and I’m going to visit Coney Island for the first time.  There’s babies being born and magazines being reborn, houses are being bought, people are getting married, people are moving on to better places, really, it’s a good time in life.  None of my friendsters have yet fallen into utter despair, past the point of redemption.  Or if you have, you’ve kept quiet about it, which really is classy of you.  Thanks for not bringing the rest of us down!

The routine of summer is almost over, thank god. I didn’t realize what a stranglehold it had on my brain.  I just realized that I haven’t had a single thought all week.  Well.  I’ll be back some day soon with something to say.  Just you wait

I flew to Little Rock to see two old friends get married this weekend.   It was the best time ever.  Not boring at all.  How awesome was this wedding?  So great that I’m dedicating this entire post to it. 
    The night before the wedding, we stayed up until 4:30 in the morning playing poker in the groom’s hotel room, even though he lost out and went to bed around three something.  I won 12 dollars.  Then at the ceremony, Amanda said the reason she married Eric is because he can talk to squirrels.  Then they held hands and stared into each other’s eyes while a song played.  I don’t think I knew the song, or maybe it was just that I was sitting in the back and couldn’t hear, but the point is that three minutes is a long time to stare into someone’s eyes while a bunch of people stare at you.  It was unexpected enough to make people uncomfortable in a healthy sort of way — but it seems like a pretty good way to declare love to me.  Like hey, we can look at each other and not get sick — isn’t that awesome? 
There was also a very good dinner buffet with mushrooms stuffed with artichoke hearts.  I wish I had a picture of them cutting the cake, because they cut it with a big sword.   Then there was beer and tequila all around.  (If this isn’t a picture of true love, I don’t know what is.)  We danced and did karaoke, and it was that there was a glut of Courtney Love but no beastie boys. Did I dance and sing?  Like a fool, but you’ll find no pictures of that here.  Eric (the groom) packed everything up himself, because the rest of us didn’t want the party to end, but I guess Eric had some other stuff he wanted to do. 
I can’t remember the last time I had such a good time.  Congratulations Eric and Amanda.  I would gladly go to your second wedding, but I think you’ll stay married forever, or until there’s a global shortage of cereal.