The Death of Enthusiasm

I have now moved into a new apartment for the school year, which I am actually quite ready for. (Working 8 hour days in a job you can barely tolerate will do that to you, I guess.)

I think I'll remember my old apartment forever, because:

A) I lived there for over a year

B) It was a social black hole, and all the doors were kicked in

and

C)It was here where I had a late night encounter with evil encarnate

Let me explain.

One night about a week ago, I was about to go to bed when I heard some strange noises coming from my windowsill. I pulled up the blinds to investigate and all of the sudden a HUGE, GREEN, TERRIFYING DEMON OF THE NIGHT flew directly at my face. I know it is "just" a Katydid, otherwise known as a "bush cricket" in the UK, but I was already half asleep, and the sight of it flying directly at my face was more than I could take.

The problem was, the thing would not fly out my window no matter how much I tried to direct it there. It was more interested in eating my eyeballs, apparently. I was forced to make a grim decision. I closed the window. Only one of us would survive the night.

At first I tried to whip it to death with a dirty sock, but this proved too harmless. (I should have filled it with quarters.)

Searching for a more effective method, I found my weapon in the empty room across the hall. It was a gleaming golden samurai sword of some sort. (See image above).

I silently stalked my prey and found it perched on top of my closet door. Taking a deep breath, I swung my sword as hard as I possibly could, only about 30% percent sure that I would actually strike the target.

After I swung I looked around to see where the devil-bug had gone to, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I had become Darth Vader, and I had sliced right through my own personal Obi-Wan Kenobi, making him more powerful than I could ever imagine.

It turns out the bug was wedged in between some of my shirts, it's wings splayed out like a freakish, tiny green turkey.

I flushed down the foul beast down the toilet and went to bed knowing that I had made my room safe for freedom loving people everywhere.

I went to my friend Robbie's wedding the other day:




It was nice, and I think he and his wife will do very well together. Earlier this summer a few more friends of mine took the plunge as well, and I am equally happy for them. All these weddings lately have made me naturally think about my own life and how it would change if I were, in fact married.

(I know this seems unlikely at the moment but I take solace in the fact that people much uglier, and much less interesting than I have successfully gotten married. [Not my friends that just got married, though. They are usually better looking and more interesting])

For example, today I got up at a late hour and (since all my close friends were either out of town or with their girlfriends) spent several hours in bed reading. Then I went to Borders for a long time and looked at more books, and searched fruitlessly for a new CD. Afterwards I went to the grocery store, and then read for several more hours, watched a movie, listened to This American Life, and tried to organize my digital music collection. Now I am typing this post. The only thing that could reasonably be called productive about my day is the grocery shopping, and that was only due to an extreme and incurable biological need to eat everyday.

This is not the Saturday of a married person, I imagine. If I were married I assume that I would need to get up much earlier, do more cleaning, pay more bills, spend less money on books and music. These are all probably positive things, but it fills me with unspeakable terror to think about it. People who are married tell me that being married is just "so much better" and so "worth it." I guess I will remain unconvinced until I meet the right person, someone who would change my whole set of priorities, so giving up lazy idle Saturdays would not be a sacrifice, but just part of life.

Didn't mean to get too heavy there.

Here are some fortunate things that have happened lately:

-I found my long lost "Jew's harp" this week. I can spend literally minutes having fun with that thing. I'll have to find a way to feature it in a song.

-I discovered that Vanilla Coke Zero is the best tasting diet cola there is. (I was not paid by Coca-Cola to say this, I just really like it.)

One unfortunate thing:

I drew an unflattering caricature of a co-worker, and somehow it got back to him and he was understandably offended and I got in trouble (kind of). In my defense, my drawing skill is not to the point where I can drawing a recognizable face without exaggerating some attribute. This means that if you have a big nose, sorry buddy I'll have to draw a really big nose on there so it looks like you. No offense dude, you just have a large nose.

Labels: marriage, music, random

1) I once had a dream that I was running for President of the United States, and it was not going well. I was stumping in St. George (standing on a baseball field surrounded by the red rock cliffs) and a large crowd had gathered to listen to what I had to say. My platform consisted mainly of the fact that all the other leaders and politicians in the country were "fat-cats" and "out of touch" and "old." The crowd began to grow restless and then started chanting slogans about how I was "just a kid" and much too young to know anything. I was forced to end my speech early. Then a 16-year-old kid got up and started speaking and they cheered wildly. What a bunch of hypocrites.

2)In one dream I was hired to be a stand-up comedian at a gas station. I stood outside by the pumps and told jokes to the customers while they pumped their gas. I was generally successful, as I remember. The bit that got the best reaction was about how people had "neutral faces." You know, when you're not making a happy face or a sad face, but just a face that has no expression tied to it? What's the deal with that? All the customers thought this was very funny. I seriously considered a career in comedy for the first 5 minutes after I woke up.

3)The idea to market a full line of silverware made of plastic. In my dream the idea seemed revolutionary. I remember a meeting with a group of investors where someone remarked, "These plastic spoons will outlast us all."

Labels: random