The hour badly spent

As I was on Claflin this afternoon, walking back home from the Housing building (why is it way over on the very edge of campus?), for a minute, I was a few yards behind some girl. A silver 700-series Beemer drove up on the street, slowed next to the girl, and honked. Then it took off. But before it did so, I could see the driver and his passenger, two red-faced guys who looked equally fratty and rapey, bobbing back and forth in their seats with laughter.

I try hard to be smug and indifferent about this kind of behavior, but I was really offended for the girl. I mean, every single time I’ve seen a BMW on the road, the driver absolutely cannot help but act like a huge douche. It doesn’t matter what year or model he has. It could be a rusty ‘83 with the muffler dragging on the ground and the driver still cuts you off like he’s got a brand new Porsche (Porsches are allowed to cut you off. You should really just expect it). And what with all the supercharging and the sport-tuned suspension, you must feel like the absolute King of DoucheyFrattyRapeyDrivingLand.

The thing is, I never pull lame stunts like that to get attention. I don’t even tell people that I’m Knight Rider. If word got out, all my loved ones would be in danger.

I picked up a vial of mystery pills standing in line outside of the Electric Daisy Carnival. It was a rave! Fifty thousand of Los Angeles’ most annoyingly young, all in one spot and dressed like the X-Men.

Woody, Silly Question and I had been standing in line to get into the actual party for about two hours, intending — along with Fernando (yeah, who are these fucking people anyway? Don’t worry; it’s not that important, and none of us dressed up) — to meet Solomon and Manuel at the V.I.P section, then run away before a bouncer could kick our asses.

While we were in line, Fernando disappeared.

Woody, you’ve got his number. Call him. Good thinking, no?

It won’t work. I’ve got his phone.

Why in the world would you have his phone?

He asked me to hold it.

Why in the world would anybody even ask somebody else to hold his phone?

Why, indeed. He produced it from his pocket: an iPhone. It was silver and liquidey. It looked like a jewel.

You should let me hold it. I’ve got better pockets.

I was wearing my corduroy hipster jacket. It makes me look dashing and protects me from the Hulk. Plus it’s got a bunch of pockets.

So there we were, still in line, not even technically at the party yet and already we’ve lost someone. The line hadn’t moved in thirty minutes. Around us, ravers were getting out of line and rushing somewhere else. That’s when I saw the bottle of mystery pills and, anticipating a pocket check at the gate, stuffed them into my sock.

Silly Question made as if to swat the bottle out of my hand, gave me her hand-wringing screed about ingesting foreign objects, and assured me that I wouldn’t have to resort to popping mystery pills. She had some X and intended to share.

Great! So when can I have it?

Just wait.

Wait for what?

I waited.

Silly Question’s shoulder was getting tired. "Hold this," she said to Woody, handing off her spinach-green satchel.

Rumour held it that off to the left, another gate was actually open and that the line was actually moving while ours wasn’t.

Hey, I’m gonna just go check out the other line; see if it exists, divine its true purpose. Wait here. I’ll be back.

I found the gents’ then checked out the other gate. It did exist, it was moving, and it brings a message of peace and compassion. When I went back to the old line, Woody was gone.

He went to look for you.

Why? I took a leak and was gone for like three minutes.

He also took my bag.

"…"

It had my wallet and stuff in it.

Naturally. Why would you even have handed it off to him in the first place?

She explained.

Yeah, your back hurts or whatever, but so what? You can’t just switch shoulders?

After twenty minutes he still hadn’t shown up, so fuck it, we went to the mythopoetic alternate gate, where we got in after five minutes (I survived the pat-down with my mystery maybe-poison pills). We wandered around for a while, looking to and fro, hoping for Woody to materialize. An hour later he texted: I’m at the front gate.

Can we, umm, take the stuff now?

I wanna wait til later. Meet up with everyone and then do it all together.

Life is short. Why wait?

We met up with Solomon and Manuel, but still no sign of Fernando. He had gone missing hours ago, far back in line, so we circled the front area hoping he was just now reaching the entrance and he’d just happen to notice the rest of us as he finally trudged in, dejected and alone. That plan sucked and didn’t work. Sol had a new one.

From now on we gotta stick together.

Be realistic. There’s six of us. Well, five of us. And fifty thousand people swarming around like desert sands. At some point we will get separated. We need a backup plan. A meeting place.

Right here. Front gate.

Front gate?

Front gate.

Front gate it is.

The vodka I had been sipping out of a Gatorade bottle while we were in line was starting to wear off.

Losing buzz, gimme drugs!

Not yet.

It’s already ten. What are we waiting for?

We decided to go into the Coliseum and do the thing. After we popped the pills Solomon wanted to head back to the VIP lounge and I wanted to hit the football field, which was packed wall-to-wall with naked gyrating hipsters. We agreed to split up and meet back in the cheap seats, and if we didn’t see each other there, we’d fall back to the Front Gate Backup Plan.

Silly Question and I maneuvered our way down into the field, shoving our way as close to the stage as we could. There was also a woman dressed like the Amazing Spider-Stripper threading her way up, down, and all over a big steel cage in the middle of the field. At midnight, we headed back to the cheap seats, as planned, and seeing nobody there, made for the front gate. At some point along the way, Silly Question made a left while I went straight, or vice versa, and we lost each other. FRONT GATE: that was the plan, right? I made it there and waited. Silly Question didn’t show. While I was chain smoking, Solomon and Manuel showed up, grinning and sweating like — well, we don’t make that kind of simile on this blog, but you get the idea.

Where’s Silly Question?

We got lost. I’m waiting for her to show.

The pills work?

No.

That sucks. I am feelin pretty good right now.

Then they left: we’re going to the bathroom, we’ll be right back.

Later on, talking about this with the Poetess, she observed that a rave probably wouldn’t be fun if you weren’t high. She’s right. I was getting pissed. If we’d hit the X earlier, I would have known before one in the morning that the shit wouldn’t work. Then I could have made contingency plans. I could have made vodka plans. In Russia, vodka plan YOU!

Silly Question finally texted me; she was standing out on a hill beside the Coliseum, under a floodlight. Christ, what ever happened to "THE FRONT GATE!" When I found her I let her have it. FRONT GATE FRONT GATE FRONT GATE I said. We went back to the FRONT GATE to wait for Solomon.

A half hour later it was pretty clear he wasn’t gonna show. And I was STILL NOT HIGH. Fuck it, I said. We headed back into the Coliseum to try and dance with the raging hordes. What was the point of coming up with a plan nobody would follow?

We stood near the top of the stadium, facing down the same midnight-black soup of naked hipsters we had been wading through hours ago, peppered gently with their glowey, spinney accessories.

Sorry I yelled at you about the front gate. It’s just that we made a plan. A simple plan. If you’re lost, do this. I thought you, of all people, would just follow it. There are fifty thousand people up in here. Of course we’d get separated! My own effing parents could be down there having wild koala sex and I’d never even know it. That’s why we made the plan. Front gate.

She nodded.

Look at them now! Fifty thousand skanks, with their fishnets and their glowsticks. Elbowing their way through spikey-haired tweakers. Tripping over lovers and empty water bottles. Making out with each other. Look at them now; here and there one lights something up and makes it spin. They have all come together, not knowing how beautiful they look from up here. But you and I don’t matter to them one bit.

Dude, I think your pill is kicking in.

Hm. I guess it must be. Yours isn’t having any effect?

Manuel is holding mine.

Jeez, how long ago did we go through this? You’re gonna thrash this high that I only became aware of mere seconds ago. Happiness is fleeting, like glitter in the moonlight. I know, right? That’s the drugs talking. Mostly.

The night was finally picking up. And yes, I still have these:

A Blockbuster Customer who had kept a movie so long enough that it was automatically sold to his account brought it back to the store to complain to my friend, the Intimidator, who listened and quickly tired of Customer’s whiney bullshit.

At that point, the Customer — who is always right — punched the Intimidator in his shoulder. Intimidator reached under the counter to that space where the can of whoop-ass was kept, sprung it open, grabbed the Customer’s punching arm, elbowed the Customer — who is always right — then knocked the Customer down with a counterpunch.

"I’ve been wanting to do that shit for so long," reported the Intimidator. He cracked his knuckles and let out a belly laugh. "They always expect us to take their shit."

"Aren’t you gonna get in trouble?"

"No. He punched me first."

Thing is, the Intimidator really does think he’s a superhero.

When I worked retail, I thought I was a ninja. Things like this never happened to me. I was so cool, so in control, so handsome and muscular; incidents always just fizzled out, like a fart in the wind. Stuff would happen during other peoples’ shifts; shoplifters, credit card fraud, back-room blowjobs; but I always miss the good shit. Except for the blowjobs. I never miss a blowjob, unless I’m in Kansas.

Long ago, my mother told me the origin of the word "jazz." Early in the 20th century, white people slandered the art form by calling it "ass" music. When it started actually catching on, everyone had to call it something else, less ass-ish. Add J, change the SS to ZZ. And quit being so square.

As part of my journal project for Development of the English Language, I checked up on my mom’s story and looked up the etymology of jazz in the OED. Turns out my she was mostly right. In West Africa, "jas" or "jass" was a word that meant "hurry up," having a strong sexual connotation. When black people in America started to play the type of music we now call jazz, mainstream musical culture wanted to deride the style by calling it "jass," with emphasis on the sexual connotation. But it caught on. So instead they did the thing with the ZZs.

I dutifully reported my findings to Dr. Potts (legs!) one afternoon after she had showed the class an educational film on jive talk. The next class period, she talked about the word jazz. Exactly what I had told her!

To emphasize her point, she wrote "jazz" on the board.

Then next to it she wrote "jass."

But she put a space between j and ass.

Then she underlined ass.

Then she said something else.

Then she said "ass."

Okay, yes, I know that was a lot of buildup for a minor payoff. But I am, like, really immature. Scope it: later on that day Dr. Potts solicited our input on the origin of the word cockroach.

"Where do you get that word? Does it have anything to do with roach? Or cock?"

All right, ya got me. All semester long I’ve been making fun of Blake Osborn’s weekly articles, calling them "irrelevant," "outdated," "out of touch," "illogical," "asinine," "fucking pointless," "self-congratulatory rubbish," "osbornish," "like getting peanut butter in your hair," "like getting a papercut while reading the Collegian," "like listening to your grandpa rant about loud music," "like being stuck in traffic behind a douchebag in an Escalade who can’t drive," "like being flipped off by an illiterate manatee," etc.

And I was all set to make fun of him again, when I opened Monday’s paper to his column, Higher education vital for succeeding in United States (duh), and read this:

Today, as observed in The New York Times article, having a college education is vital to attaining a middle-class lifestyle.

Every 26 seconds a teenager in the United States drops out of high school. According to the the U.S. Census Bureau’s Web site, "85 percent of adults age 25 and over have completed at least a high-school degree."

The first time I heard these statistics, I was shocked.

I can only assume that "I’m shocked to find out people drop out of high school" is self-parody. Either that or he’s actually mocking my mocking of him. That’s so meta! But I refuse to believe that his message is meant to be taken at face value. Even in Kansas, nobody’s that dense. Right? Right? In other news, compact discs: they’re not just for music any more.
 

The Frowny Townie texted me late last night, urging me to come to Auntie Mae’s to celebrate the waning hours of her 22nd birthday. When I arrived, she was sitting at a booth, across from a guy named Johann, who was not saying a thing. Seriously, he placed himself just so the light could cast dark circles under his eyes, and spent all night sitting there and looking menacing while Frowny Townie talked.

And talked.

And talked.

That girl can fit the word "I" into a single sentence 58,000 times. Is this what passes for conversation these days? But with charmingly brooding fellows like Johann - good for nothing except inarticulate indifference - I guess it’s the best anyone can hope for.

Ever and anon more of her friends trickled in. Her brother. Her brother’s girlfriend, Caitlin. Jen. Jessica. Cassandra. Michael. They all sort of segmented off, not bothering to say hi to anyone they didn’t know. If she remembered to, Frowny Townie occasionally introduced people, but what’s the point; why introduce me to people who will neither talk to me nor remember my fucking name? Then they even actually migrated to the next booth and ignored the people left at mine. Exclusion is the new inclusion. I tried striking up a conversation with Johann; what’s your major, how do you know The Frowny Townie, what else can you do, but he just grunted and looked sullen. Why do people come out to bars if they’re just going to sit there and sulk? But at least he had the polite inertia to sit across from me. No one else even looked in my direction. Even when I stood there and said something like "Hi, I’m The Hour Badly Spent, how are you?" Nothing. As if a joke just flew over their heads.

These are annoyingly young snerts. Try introducing yourself to one and you get a cattlesque stare, a neutron star of civility. Try to strike up a conversation and they whip out cellphones to text-message old boyfriends. No wonder I feel all stabby whenever I hang out with people. For the longest I thought it was because I was somehow repulsive and inept, but no; it’s because they actually do just plain suck.

Whatever. I decided to sit back and see where their conversations led them. Frowny Townie and Ryan, my RA, swapped judgements on their classes. Ryan has taken American Survey courses; Frowny Townie has taken the British ones. I haven’t taken either yet, so I listened closely to those two, and actually learned some things in the process.

I had hoped that British Survey 2 would talk about some 20th century authors, like Dylan Thomas, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, et cetera. But the course is apparently full of Victorian Lit, which Frowny Townie seems to be convinced is somehow relevant and "cool." Get the knack. Victorian everything is depressing. Nobody looks back on those good ol’ days fondly. George Eliot went out of style before your great-grandparents were born. Unfortunately, my only other option is American Survey; I would rather take a bath in a blender than slog through Moby Dick. So Charlotte Bronte, pucker up.

The subject of religion came up. Jessica chimed in, with an excitingly subversive syllogism to share.

"If you’re a Catholic priest, then you’re married to God. Therefore, God is gay."

Ryan took it and ran with it. "No, God loves everyone. He’s bisexual!"

"No he’s not," I piped up. "My church always made it pretty clear that God hates women."

Then someone called me a misogynist.

A while ago this would have sent me into paroxysms of shame and apologies. But fuck it; I’m no longer going to cave in to someone else’s earnest, numb-skulled missing of the point. If you’re too full of your own misguided indignation to understand what a pithy, brutal assault on sun-belt religious mores actually looks like, then you’re way behind on drinks, to say the least. While I’m at it, to hell with sun-belt religious mores. Wow, that was cathartic.

Frowny Townie continued. She had this story about how it was so hawt that she made out with her gay friend! On New Year’s Eve! She repeated it every time someone came into the bar with birthday wishes. By the fiftieth time I’d heard it I called bullshit.

The Hour Badly Spent:  Nipple tweak or it didn’t happen.
Frowny Townie:            No, he didn’t touch my boobs. He’s gay.
The Hour Badly Spent:  What difference does that make?

Friday night at Rusty’s Last Chance, Arianna celebrated the hell out of her 21st birthday. Carolyn, Cate, Cherry, Jordan, Marco, Brandon, and Johnny all showed up to toast the occasion.

Johnny was wearing all black, with a black fedora, black leather jacket, and sunglasses. At midnight. Only complete assholes wear their shades indoors. True to form, he kept trying to grope all the single girls.

"I’m sitting over here," said Carolyn. "Don’t let him find me."
"You can’t really hide from him," I warned. He’s got special nightstalkerey powers. That’s why he’s dressed like a vampire. Who will be the next to fall for his hypnotic charm?"

At some point, after Jordan whipped out a camera, Cherry and Arianna started making out. A few seconds later, Cherry remembered the camera was still going and started getting really into it.

I’m pretty sure those two assumed this would be the highlight of everyone’s night. I, for one, still had the fabulosity of the English department - Chris Kennedy, Anne Longmuir, Erica Hateley, Tony Doerr, et al, on my mind; liquor-laced hilarity sans spectacle. Next to that, watching these annoyingly young snerts ham it up for the camera all over each others’ faces was as much fun as seeing your spaniel lick its own crotch. You take one glance and you’re like, "Muffy you are so stupid," then you go back to something more interesting, like the newspaper. Woman beats off burglar with gnome, page 8.

Yesterday Anthony Doerr visited K-State and read a short story from his latest book, The Shell Collector. That reading was the best K-State’s had this year. Afterward, the English department got together at Rock-A Belly’s. I was midway through my second G&T when the Saucy Aussie made some idle comment that ended with "vagina." I remember precisely what she sad: "Crikey! Kangaroo Kylie Minogue sheila dingo boomerang bushwhacked VAGINA!" The table went silent for a second, and Saucy Aussie seemed embarrassed, probably because she thought she had crossed some comfort line.

Well, that’s not why we were quiet. The word "vagina" is actually a great source of comfort. Hearing it is like having a cool breeze roll across you on a summer day. No; we went silent because each of us had hoped to be the first to say "vagina" that evening, and when she beat us to the (kitty) punch, no one was ready with another clever vaginal follow-up. Personally, her awesomeness made me feel like a slow-witted prude.

I lamely tried to break the silence. "Thanks! I’ve been waiting for someone to say ‘vagina’ all day," I ejaculated. But ‘vagina’ doesn’t roll off my tongue as nicely as it does from hers. OR DOES IT?

After dinner, Rhymes With Visa drove a few of us - Imad, Tony Doerr, Saucy Aussie - to the top of the hill that overlooks the city. We had to get out and hike a little ways to reach the summit, from which we had a beautiful view of Best Buy. Then Rhymes With Visa drove us back to town. Not til much later did I realize how pathetically funny the whole scene actually was: we were basically all guided up to the top of Makeout friggin’ Mountain, and yet it never occurred to anybody to cop a feel. Lame.

Vagina! There; our reputations are safe.

The sensibilities of Southerners are such that because some otherwise ordinary words carry sexual double meanings, their usage is heavily stigmatized. Dr. Potts presented us with a short list of such words:

• bed
• tail
• stocking
• piece
• maiden
• bag
• cock

In my notebook, I scribbled Dr. Potts is super-horny.

In "U.S. surpassed by other nations connecting," Blake Osborn rides the cutting edge of some new trend, globali-whatsit or something, all made possible by teh Intertubez. "This unprecedented collaboration that makes geographic distances irrelevant is something to think about. No longer are students competing with people of the same nationality." Really? Better double up on that border fence!

Thomas Friedman, columnist for The New York Times, wrote his book "The World is Flat" in 2005. He observed how, as a result of the Internet and other wireless communication devices, the playing field is being leveled between nations - and this is how the world is being flattened.

Nations from around the world, Friedman wrote, can now "plug in and play;" they can innovate without having to emigrate. In the U.S., the issue is what we look up to. "In China today, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America today, Britney Spears is Britney Spears — and that is our problem."

"Americans’ obsession with celebrities and the next winner of "American Idol" is in sharp contrast with the developing momentum in other countries like China. In a March 30 article in The New York Times, Roger Cohen pointed out how the baton has passed to Asia, where there is a "confidence and a burning desire to succeed. Asian business leaders are rock stars."

"According to an article from the March 24 issue of Time magazine, the Pope created a new list of seven deadly sins. They extend beyond the individual and end up creating voids in society. This "social resonance" of sin resulting from globalization shows how much we are connected as a world, without any frontier or Manifest Destiny to carry us westward." Manifest Destiny; those were the good old days. We didn’t measure our progress as a nation by the same bullshit we go by now; "social justice," "sexual prowess," or "the OLD Book of Proverbs."

"The competition has crossed even the oceans, and Americans are now part of a bigger game. So travel abroad, read the newspapers and get to know people from other countries." I’m so confused. What ever happened to ‘innovate without having to emigrate?’ And if the foreigns’ magazines are full of Bill Gates pics, I think I’ll take my chances at home, where Marilyn Monroe and Lindsay Lohan converge into something so wonderful and beautiful that it fills me with "confidence and a burning desire." Heh. To succeed, you pervs.

As usual, everything’s going to shit, according to Blake Osborn’s latest column. Whatever, just read on.

The fixation of the authenticity in politics and in food is a result of the overarching homogeneity in U.S. culture, according to a recent article in Time magazine. Legendary business consultants James Gilmore and Joseph Pine II, who together wrote "Authenticity," said in the article that America has "toxic levels of inauthenticity." As a result, they claim it is essential for businesses, if they want to thrive, to "start selling experiences" instead of products.

No longer are buyers concerned with only price and quality. Instead, they respond more to the product or the person as an experience. Companies must be "transparent," meaning they are what they claim to be, or they can openly fake their authenticity by offering cheap substitutes blah blah blah."

Then he meanders on to his favorite target: teh Internetz.

The "virtualization of life, with friends meeting on Facebook.com and the increasing popularity of blogs, increases the desire for more authentic experiences with others…"

Meeting on Facebook? You can do that now?

But he may have a point. There was that time I went to milfhunter.com and since then I’ve been jonesing for Kylie Minogue. I just can’t get her out of my head. Her loving is all I think about!

Oh, right, I was supposed to say something about online degrees, wasn’t I? Well, how do you get access to education if you’re, like, ridonculously busy, can’t make the commute to class, but really need that extra certification?

Online classes are "not in par, in my opinion, with traditional classes at top-tier universities," a source told Osborne. "The general ambience of the class provides a better experience."

I would have to agree…in regards to education. I would prefer the interactive atmosphere of a classroom to the computer screen. Technology has its limits.

We must not forget the true meaning of authenticity, which is more than a blank computer screen or an ATM.

1. Observe a disturbing "trend" among the young’uns. Examples:

    a. Drinking diet soda.
    b. The interwebz.
    c. Fellatio.

2. Google or use Lexis-Nexis to find evidence documenting the spread of this trend.

    a. News flash: lots of us drink diet soda!
    b. News flash: lots of us use Facebook!
    c. Lexis-Nexis didn’t have much to say about this. I had use a different site for my research.

3. Keep quoting the articles until 80% of your column is really someone else’s column.

4. Use your last two or three paragraphs to decry this phenomenon as the downfall of civilization as we know it. Examples:
    
    a. Diet Dr. Pepper does not, in fact, taste more like regular Dr. Pepper!
    b. Facebook is the Diet Dr. Pepper of human activity.
    c. Speaking of Facebook, this really oughta be a Superpoke.

There! Next step: type it up on your mom’s old Smith-Corona (because computers destroy your soul. Not Macs, though). Have your "copyeditor" run spellcheck, and you’ve written Blake Osborn’s next column!

I love it that Facebook now sifts through your dugout of friends, compares it to other people on your friends’ lists, and nicely lets you know who you might have met at that party two weeks ago but were too drunk to remember last names. Either that or Facebook went to the party too, and saw everything. Even the pervy grin you flashed when the tattooed girl walked by in a miniskirt. Good thing they didn’t make that into a status update. OR DID THEY??

In "Hopped up: Mixing energy drinks, alcohol common despite health risks" - a thorough, nuanced article in today’s Collegian, Jonathan Garten provides the recipe for a Jager Bomb (Jagermeister, Red Bull) and then, bafflingly, warns us not to drink it!

"Energy drink cocktails…can cause a lower perception of intoxication, heart complications, and dehydration."

According to Dr. Priyantha Ranaweera, cardiologist at Mercy Regional, "mixing energy drinks and alcohol can cause people to drink for a longer period of time than they normally would. The caffeine in a can of Red Bull or Monster could offset drowsiness brought on by drinking alcohol."

What - you expected some smartass commentary? I’m taking notes! Please doctor, continue:

"It doesn’t make sense for people to mix alchohol and energy drinks," Ranaweera said, apparently unaware that she just explained it.

"I mean, how far are they willing to go to get drunk?" she ponders.

One presumes this question to be rhetorical; but really, in these trying times, I find it takes more effort to be sober.

Another Collegian columnist recently decried lazy Facebooking young adults as the corrosion that will soon make all of society crumble.

"We could spend our money in better ways," said Mark Wampler. We just need the vision to see those ways — clothes for the homeless, food for the poor and child support for single parents are just a few ideas." Guess he didn’t read Monday’s front-page story about students volunteering in New Orleans, building houses and taking care of stray animals. Seriously, how could you miss it? There was a photo of a hot chick with a newly-adopted dog right with the article. But I digress.

"How many people have "drinking" (probably not bottled water)…as one of their Facebook.com hobbies?"
As far as I know, alcohol predates writing and even Facebook as a staple of civilization. For a good reason: drinking is and has always been the best defense against self-important judgementalism.

At least Mark is doing his part to stem the tide of cultural decay. He sculpts figures out of chicken nuggets! Maybe he even does it while the poor press against the window and look on! And that’s not all! "You might have seen my friends and me a couple Saturdays ago, handing out ‘green party water’ and green cookies in Aggieville. We had a lot of fun trying to be creative by hanging out with people who we felt weren’t making the most imaginative choices with their lives. The most common resonse we got was, ‘Wow, it’s so cool you guys are doing this."

When I think of someone who just met me two seconds ago me passing judgement on my unimaginative life choices, I know without a doubt that person must be the absolute coolest! Thank you for emitting your artistic farts among the peasants, instead of hording them away in the newsroom. They smell baroque, pregnant with technique and dadaism, twinkling like fresh shrapnel on a summer afternoon. They are like nothing we’ve ever experienced before.

Blake Osborn in Students should be concerned about, fix unhealthy habits: We all spend too much time surfing the intertubes and eating pizza and it’s making us fat, unlike Blake, who “has learned how much willpower it takes to maintain a nutritious diet.”

Well, I always I worked off the calories by stumbling around hungover to class. Staggering in awkward semicircles is twice as aerobic as making a direct, efficient beeline. Other than that, this is another work of DUH brought to you by a self-promoting windbag. Why not come up with something relevant and topical for your next column? And for fitness’ sake, write it with a quill, on parchment, and then physically walk over to the newsroom and hand it in. If you send it by email, it will just go straight to your thighs.

Hannah Blick offers more evidence that college is the new high school: Parents of new generation more involved in college students’ life decisions.

Running with a report from CNN regarding “hovering” parents, Hannah details the constant contact and influence of overinvolved parents on students. Biweekly phone calls, attempts at frequent updates from the registrar, and even negotiating job contracts.

According to K-State’s office of student life, “This is only crippling the [child] from achieving success on their own.”

Wasn’t it better when you’d flee home angry and bristling with resentment for a distant authority figure and young and dumb and full of come, then return years later still adrift and goalless? It builds character. Not that I know anything about character.

Since I haven’t blogged in a few days, that chart shall serve as a benchmark while I recap the week:

Monday: really don’t remember much, except for a couple of bloody marys. That is not a euphemism.

Wednesday: I made a new friend! A supercute 28-year old redheaded geek girl. No, not that supercute 28-year-old redheaded geek girl. Come to think of it, "romp" makes the whole thing sound way more sordid than it really was, which entailed going to Auntie May’s for happy hour, where we bought each other beers and made small talk. Then we walked around for a little bit. The great big city’s a wonderous toy, just made for a girl and boy. We turned Manhattan into an isle of joy! Okay, she walked me to the Digital Shelf, where we drooled over the anime section. One day she will appreciate Ranma 1/2 as much as I do. One day.

Later, I called the Poetess to tell her I made a new friend. She was feeling blue, and wanted company, so I obliged. I drank her box wine and had a long talk with her about the true meaning of friendship. As it turns out, hippies can love after all! Before I left, she let me have one of her uppers.

Friday: I asked Arianna to go a semi-formal dance put on by the Association of Residence Halls. It was held in the Union Ballroom, which is a pretty big place. Because of that, I was expecting to wall-to-wall hotties gyrating in slinky, knee-length dresses. So OF COURSE we arrive and it’s like 15 kids, awkwardly twisting around to the Spice Girls. No, we are not leaving, I told Arianna. She wore these incredibly pointy black shoes that mangled her feet and made movement difficult, but looked terrific. I was deeply moved by her suffering. She and I sat in the back of the room, not-so-silently judging everyone, and talked about the ungodly horror of high school dances, while waiting for the D.J. to play something slow and romantic because that’s why you go to dances in the first place. It didn’t happen, so after an hour, we left to hit up a better party. And OF COURSE as we were gathering our coats and our purses and our, ahem, man-purses, the Old Man Controlling Everything We Hear finally put on a slow number. I might have been able to talk Arianna into staying for three more minutes, but it was a country song, and by then my heart just wasn’t in it.

I had never been to the casa de supernerdy English Major Jimbo; so when I got to his basement, which had a bar and a bigscreen TV and and a bunch of geeks talking about Baldur’s friggin’ Gate and a wall full of action figures and computer circuitboards and a ceiling plastered with movie posters, I didn’t know whether to love Jimbo for having an awesome place, hate Jimbo for having an awesome place, or hate myself for loving Jimbo for having an awesome place, and the whole thing got even more confusing and beautiful after I pulled out the bottle of cheap whiskey I brought.

I met lots of new people, most notably a blonde girl from the theater department, who I thought was cute and intelligent. She was the lead actress in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, wherein she did this amazing thing with her voice that made her sound like a domineering 1930s WASP. She got bonus points when I found out Cherry hates her. Nevertheless, I am definitely leaving that one alone. Actresses are terrifying.

Saturday was Fake Patty’s Day in Manhattan. The real St. Patrick’s day falls during K-State’s spring break, so Aggieville celebrates it a week early while students are still in town. I fully intended to start the pubcrawl at 9 in the morning, when the bars open, but I was too hung over. I ended up lounging around all day long, then, at midnight, crashing a get-together at Madeline’s in celebration of the coming-to-town of her childhood friend Megan, who has apparently developed into a cute, aloof hipster.

A moment after I arrived, Jenna, Maddie’s awesome roommate; Jenna’s boyfriend Graham, who is also awesome, and Megan, decided to hit the bars. Despite the fantasticity of Jenna and Graham, along with my typically asinine outbursts of wit, we were unable to stop Megan from sitting around, pouting, and looking bored. Thankfully she left and returned to Madeline’s place on her own, before she completely killed my buzz and ruined my life.

Someone really does read this thing! The Sexy Communist Spy recently pointed out the following: “enough weepy Romantic poetry. You didn’t even finish the story about the birthday bash.” Well, of course I bailed on the story when it was about to get boring and weepy. But, by popular demand, here’s the rest of it: I didn’t really revoke Sexy Communist Spy’s roommate’s pimp card. At her own birthday party. What I did do was ride with her to the hospital and sit in a dark lobby while Communist Spy and Hannah took turns trying to calm down the Birthday girl. In the waiting room there was also a football player and a woman with teeny tiny jeans shorts. When Megan was in the room I think I managed to grunt out a conversation, but when it was Hannah, she just kept text-messaging someone(s), leaving me no choice but to stare at that other girl’s legs.

At 4 I left. So that’s the complete story of last night’s party (from three nights ago). Of course, the complete story sort of gives a portrait of this blogger as a nuanced, compassionate drunk with some sort of caring streak. However, notice that if I leave the story half-finished, it makes me look impatient, shallow, and kind of snotty, which is how I really am. Watch:

Yes It’s Cherry: you can’t stop me. you can’t stop me.
Cheeky Hipster: i will CUT you
Yes It’s Cherry: :-) whatever
Yes It’s Cherry: happy monday, cheeky hipster
Cheeky Hipster: happy monday? no such thing.
Yes It’s Cherry: it is.
Yes It’s Cherry: just not today…
Cheeky Hipster: well, maybe next week then.
Yes It’s Cherry: hopefully
Say It With Wit: i’m gonna disappear into the night and reappear at Hale in 15 minutes
Cherry signed off at 10:55:58 PM
Cherry signed on at 10:56:15 PM
Yes It’s Cherry: be damnd
Cheeky Hipster: i forgot how moody you are
Yes It’s Cherry: :-)
Cheeky Hipster: moody/ whuttt
Cheeky Hipster: well, your internet connection. you yourself are a paragon of stoicism and apathy
Yes It’s Cherry: that’s correct
Cheeky Hipster: ….and on that note, time for me to duck out for the night
Yes It’s Cherry: eh
Cheeky Hipster: ttyl
Yes It’s Cherry: ya

Wheee! Leaving early! Wasn’t that fun? Did you notice her nonchalant “eh” at the end? Do you think she was wondering where a man of intrigue like me would be heading at such an hour? Or was she, as usual, just flashing that vast indifference popular pretty girls radiate so well all day long? Which one, eh? I’ll leave it for you to decide, because I’ve got better things to think about.

I was invited to the Sexy Communist Spy’s roommate’s birthday bash (in Russia, Party throw YOU!). This one had a theme: "thug party," which meant there were a bunch of dry-humping, ass-smacking, half-drunk, red-state 22-year-olds dressed like Missy Elliot. True to form, I showed up late wearing my Super Mario Strikers jersey (I fucking represent!), a pick in my hair, and I threw up lots of gang signs (I don’t actually know any gang signs). K-fed came by too.

An hour after I got there, the party died down. Umm, it wasn’t my fault. This time. Birthday girl was still juiced and wanted to hit the bars, so we did just that (in Russia, bars hit YOU!). I danced and barhopped and met a super-superhot townie and got to mackin’ to this bitch named Sadie (Sadie!) and generally made merry while Birthday Girl zigzagged from table to table, friend to friend, stranger to stranger, nizzle to nizzle, so proud to have people watch her turn 22, but she was also - I dunno - pretty stressed out?

It was obvs she missed her boyfriend pretty badly and no one in these bars could have possibly made up for that. I wanted to tell her to stop, be cool, roll down the street smoking endo sipping on gin and juice, laid back; just chillax and enjoy yourself. It’s YOUR birthday! Tha homies are supposed to come to YOU! But she never really got the chance, because not five minutes after I inhaled the sandwich she got me on her maxed-out Visa, as she dashed off to say hi to a familiar face 10 yards away, she tripped, fell, and busted her lip. While she sat there, crying, bleeding, and ashamed, I promptly revoked her pimp card.

My kewgrish Spanish teacher let us know that her novio, on occasion, lovingly calls her "Gorda."

Every single girl in the class - except the 6-foot athlete - gasped deeply with indignation. At this, Ms. Diaz had to actually explain, to a class full of grown women, the difference between an insult and a term of endearment; that in Hispanic culture, "fat girl" falls into the latter. Bravo! At this point, when women fly off into paroxysms of rage over the F word, I get more annoyed than apologetic.

The girls weren’t hearing it. They were BAFFLED that such an explosive term could casually denote intimacy between lovers. In an attempt to step up and get some action, I told both Jessicas that they were hot, skinny, sexy bitches. But I guess my timing was off, because the blonde one unloaded three rounds into my chest. Nevertheless, the question persisted: is vanity really more important than intimacy?

At this point, when women fly off into paroxysms of rage over the F word, I get more annoyed than apologetic. Like, what is so special and so powerful about that one word that reduces everyone to quivering middle-schoolers? I asked the Sexy Communist Spy about it.

"In Russia, fat girl insult YOU!"*

What for; just because I have a freakishly short, slender penis? My left hand doesn’t mind one bit. But seriously, what’s the BFD? Your boyfriends really couldn’t care less. Single gorditas can easily find non-Dbags who are attracted to them. I feel like the indignation is false vanity. Help me understand, Spy!

"Women are insecure and paranoid and need reassurance about men’s affection. I mean, if you’re joking and she knows it, it could be a little different, but it would still hurt a bit."

- Right. But isn’t the point of relationships that you can overcome paranoia and insecurity through, ahem, love? Could it be that so many girls have no idea how to love? Why do I sound like Carrie Bradshaw?

"My theory is nobody has a good self-esteem and those that ‘do’ are just too stupid to realize they shouldn’t"

Wrong there! I have poor self-esteem AND I’m a moron! Explain that one!

 ————————————————————————————–

*[ed. note: this quote was manufactured by the Ministry of Truth]

As detailed in Residents ‘Plunge’ to raise money, Manhattanites and members of Phi Beta Sigma dove into the ice-cold waters of Tuttle Creek Lake as part of a fundraiser for the Special Olympics.

Doesn’t Scrooge Mcduck do this exact same thing, except instead of water, it’s gold? We should try it that way next year.

52nd-annual KSU Rodeo thrills contestants, viewers
To win 2008’s Miss Rodeo title, sophomore Janae Skelton "had to go through a pageant process which consisted of a written rodeo-knowledg test, a horsmanship contest, a personal interview with the rodeo’s judges, a modeling competition and speech."

A model dressed up as a cowgirl, eh? Why in the world did I miss this? Oh, yeah.

Latin is not a dead language, sharpens vocabulary skills
I couldn’t agree more, Blake! In fact, after reading this article, I felt inspired to take a crash course in Sanskrit, because it’s so close to Indo-European - widely considered the origin of so many Western language families. Now, I like totally have a much broader appreciation of modern culture. For example, I can understand the elusive LOLatin tongue:

"I’m in ur Sennit, stabbn ur Seezr!"

"Almust invaded ya…
wit mah invizible leejun."

"Tha die…
I haz cast it!"

Now, if only your column could help me translate the brutal language of love. Ha ha! Thank goodness for Annette Lawless’ advice yesterday: Sex secrets can be damaging, yet add touch of mystery to relationship.

Today in the Fourum, someone predictably called Annette a "prude" because she dumped the grown man who sleeps with high school girls and videotapes it. I had no idea R. Kelly reads the Collegian! Someone else also left this servicey nugget: 

"Hey, Annette Lawless: if you’d like to learn more about mysterious sex secrets, you should come by TKE this weekend."

Determined to meet other, better English majors and silently judge them, Friday night I hiked to downtown Manhattan for a poetry reading at the Streckler-Nelson Art Gallery.

What’s more sad: that this kewgr leers down at me on my way up the stairs to the gallery, or the fact that I kind of wanted her? Just kidding! These are both cause to celebrate! I’d never been here before so I gave myself a quick tour. It seemed to be about the size of 10 dorm rooms, all full of paintings and pottery and plants. I would have taken better notes but I was too busy prowling for grad students to hit on. After a minute of this I remembered I don’t know anybody and made my way to the room full of chairs. I sat two seats down from a Pretentious Literary Douchebag who had his nose in Penguin Classics’ Medieval Literature. Jonathan Holden, a poetry professor with furious, leonine eyebrows sat in front of me with his wife. Apropos of nothing, I like to secretly sit behind my professors and snap photos of the back of their heads whenever I see them at some function.

See, I snapped this one of Donald Hedrick - perverted Shakespeare professor - last week at the violin concert:

Meanwhile, the grad students around me made small talk:

"Aren’t we having fun?"
"Fun fun fun!"
"By the way, I put arsenic in your club soda!"
"Great! That way I won’t have to see your douchebag face anymore!"
"Super!"
"Grand!"

Once we got started, the rule was that anybody with poetry of some sort should just walk on up to the podium and show off. Lisa, the first reader, was boring. The guy after her, Joe, wore a button-down shirt two sizes too small, and no matter what he did, he was showing off his triceps. He had taken a passage James Joyce had written about snot and copied it onto a roll of toilet paper. After him, a hipster cutie presented her "Studies in Prepositions," poems consisting of the same preposition repeated musically for entire stanzas. "It does neat stuff in your head," she explained, which I took to mean when she’s done I won’t know whether to hate her for thumbing her nose at conventions I continually fail to get the hang of, or to love her for her playful, impish mastery of the quirks of language. I put this dilemma to rest the instant I realized that this chick was probably kinky enough that if I could give her a really clever pickup line, she might tie me up and ride me so hard I couldn’t stand up straight for three days. In that context, her poems were pretty rad. Her last one was somewhat more traditional. "This is where we move past morphology into syntax," she said. Hot!

Next: until now, all the poets had the common decency to read TWO or THREE of their favorites and then sit back down (Joe: "I’m gonna share a couple of these and then stop ruining your life"), but this particular reader, Nelson, had written a bunch of Really Deep poems about birds and the night and vegetables and breasts, earnestly challenging us to ponder things like The Night and Love and Curiosity and Truth and Beauty and Birds and the size of his thesaurus and, well, Breasts. He must have used the word "breast" every stanza and the thing is, well, the thing is I have NEVER IN MY LIFE WANTED ANYBODY TO STOP SAYING THE WORD BREAST LIKE I WANTED HIM TO STOP FUCKING SAYING THE WORD BREAST but he just went on and on (like this sentence), with these awful mosaics, so many of them, their roman numerals crashing against my BREAST like kamikaze pilots, a sickening montage of VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI…… until finally he was done.

It is my secret wish to become the school’s Pretentious Literary Douchebag. But the guy sitting two seats across from me, his nose in Penguin Classics’ Medieval Literature, had me completely outclassed. He was a slender man, with a strong chin, gold-rimmed glasses, hair like a field of sun-kissed Kansas wheat, eyes as blue as swimming pools and flowing with erudition; he wore an oxford and a blazer that had a gold star pinned to the collar, as though he had just stepped out of Dead Poets’ Society and materialized in this very room, Streckler-Nelson Gallery in Manhattan, at 7pm this Friday night in February. He got up and introduced himself.

"Those of you who know me know I’m rather fond of medieval literature," he smirked, leading me to reflect wistfully on James Joyce’s snot. While he read, I got up to get some wine.

The lady after him was excellent; she recited from memory a poem about having an orgasm (or was she really just having an orgasm right before our very eyes?). Climax notwithstanding, she used a lot of muted synechdoche and really managed to craft a good poem. Some other people recited some other stuff after her, but I wasn’t paying attention because an orgasm is kind of a tough act to follow. Then the thing was over! I probably should have stuck around to meet people, but true to form, I had a better party to go to, so I bounced. But not before snapping a pic of Lit MILF Elizabeth Dodd:

Hot pants, Liz! I mean, Ms. Dodd. Ahem.

It occurs to me that I’ve gone slack on shitpicking at this paper. I haven’t paid attention to the ambiguous headlines, the typos, and the other mediocrity on these pages. And picking on you guys always makes me feel better about myself. So without further ado:

Just kidding. There will be some ado, regarding the candidacy of Pirates and Ninjas: Elise Podhajsky’s interviews cleared a lot of things up for me. While both sides have put forth excellent candidates, and either of them will most likely reinstate the right to duel at dawn, anywhere, I’m gonna have to throw my endorsement behind the Pirates. Ninjas, although you’ve got mad skillz, your ultraconservative anti-rum rhetoric bothers me a lot. Additionally, although you believe ninjas can offer students the best security, I don’t think you’re in any position to fend off the invincible Armada. There; it’s done. Now go disembowel yourselves with honor.

No more bra-burning: Movements have progressed much since 70s. Seriously, as a reader, all the information I need is right there in the headline. Had I known that beforehand, I wouldn’t have had to snooze through "The types of organizing that typefied social and political protest in the 1960s and 1970s have been supported and sometimes supplanted by technological advances and increasingly complex cultural identities."

I say the types of organizing that typefied social and political protest included more fucking drugs, which made everything look more colorful, and color is exactly what this article needs.

K-State Rodeo starts tonight at Weber Arena
"…K-State will compete well in goat tying, barrel racing, and calf roping, and….there is a member of the team that is good at the team roping event. The girls are in really good shape as far as being where they need to be."

They sure are.

Coulter uses shock, biased language to remain in spotlight
A minor objection: Coulter hasn’t been in the spotlight for some time. Why don’t we discuss someone more immediate and relevant to K-Staters, like Brigitte Brecheisen - the Ann Coulter of this very campus? Yeah, call her out and get right up in her grill and put the smack down. What, are you scrrrd?

4 local restaurants lend support to cancer-research fundraiser

"Booyah" is the term chosen to represent the recent community effort to combat cancer, according to Amanda Keim.

Amanda’s loose, fluid writing style is a dollop of pure in-your-face exuberance, which is exactly how a word like "booyah" feels. Sort of like hearing Robocop explain nipple rings. Please Amanda, go on.

"Booyah is a term that represents feelings of euphoric celebration upon fighting through extreme adversity and overcoming daunting obstacles, and we’re using it in this context to emphasize our belief that we will conquer cancer in our time," said her source, who could barely contain his own feelings of euphoric celebration.

I think what Amanda’s trying to say is that Booyah is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warning. Garroting. That’s what Booyah is, when we’ve all got to be tough enough and rough enough to fight cancer. From the hip. Get it?

This morning’s conversation with the cute girl I sit next to in Spanish class:

Heart of Bubbles & Gold:    "Your gum smells really strong."

The Hour Badly Spent:       "That’s not my gum. It’s my pheremones. They’re grapity-fresh. Later on they become wine."

Heart of Bubbles & Gold:    "Well, I’ve also got morning sickness. So it could be that everything just smells stronger."

I pondered this for 0.000000000000003 seconds.

"Pregnant?"

"Mm-hm."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

I started to say "oh congratulations" or something like that but I think it came out as "I’d still hit that." 

Just lie, she once told me.

"That’s what acting’s all about." She would know. She’s been in theater productions here three semesters straight.

Of course, she’s not telling me much of anything these days. She’s inexplicably ignored my texts, ignored my calls, and ignored me. I like to think that at my core is a boundless zenlike patience, but one can only take so much shit before you just say fuck it and realize ya gotta move on.

So I did.

Well, I took the first step.

I spent about 37 hours a day refreshing Facebook to see if I had messages. From her. Or from you. Or from everyone else. Thirty-seven hours! Not mathematically possible, you say? Fuck off; nobody likes a math geek. At any rate, I was spending way too much time on that thing. I had become a parody of myself, desperate for hollow virtual attention, dishing out hollow virtual wisecracks like some sort of minstrel persona.  What did I expect, really? Recognition of my Wit and Genius? Any "conversation" was generally of the "let’s repeat an inside joke" variety. Meaningless. So I dumped Facebook and went quietly into the night.

Last night I got a text from Cate, of all people. "Are you okay."

I suppose, at this point, I should have been grateful for the scrap of human contact extended here. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but seriously: a text message?

What else was I supposed to say?

"Never better!"

Instructors sacrifice comforts to teach in Afganistan
Sacrifice comforts? Of Manhattan? Holly Campbell, are you serious? This place fucking sucks.

U.S. should appreciate life free of forced-child warfare
No kidding, Blake Osborn. Way to make the issue of forced-child warfare really hit home. Now I feel bad, as though the "violence we see in our movies and video games" somehow encourages forced-child warfare in Africa. Wait.

Feminists should reach beyond U.S by Aubree Casper, and while I’m at it, a note on reading comprehension: so-called "hippie-feminists" know that "feeling pretty is something some truly enjoy." The point of books like "Beauty & Misogyny" - which, by the way, I have never read - is that many of us have been bred to accept only a heavily made-up, pornified ideal as the face & body of Beauty. As a culture, we should grow up and expand our understanding of beauty so it reflects something realistic, something that includes real women, not just big boobs and Holy Oil.

Pirates vs. Ninjas in the SGA Election: Together, these articles left me with a deep and thorough understanding of the political process. Perhaps they lack insight into a few key platform issues (Pirates: what will you do about the menace of scurvy? Ninjas: where can I get one of those Naruto headbands?), but overall, this is what political reporting should be! Good work, Rebecca Perez. Willow: superb and amazing! That is all.

I volunteered to go on-stage for Fred Winters’ hypnotism show last night, and it was so educational! He sat the volunteers down on stage, 18 in all, in a semicircle. He talked with a pleasant kind of authority to his voice, and played some 80s music to relax us while he spoke.

It was nice! It was working! I was relaxed - not as deeply as the other recruits (the kid sitting next to me - dressed like Mystery - fell asleep with his head in my lap) - but I felt completely at ease. I didn’t feel the stage fright I usually feel, oh, all the time. I knew the audience was out there laughing at me, but that didn’t seem so important. "Nothing you feel is wrong," said Fred, rightly. They were still laughing, but it was like they were far off, behind a glass wall, up in space. Their volume was turned way down. Everything was fine. There was only music and the Voice of Fred. My feet were on the floor. My hands were in my lap. My eyes were closed. The Voice went up, it went down, it stayed the same, all at once. He counted to ten.

Suddenly, "Sleep!"

The way he said it, fast and powerful, like getting socked in the head; the same jolt, the same flash of white light at the moment of impact, but no aggression, can’t hit back, don’t even want to, just wanna sink into the chair.

"Sleep!" Pow!

My breathing was slow, steady. My head tilted forward toward my lap. Everything was so heavy. Everything just wanted to stay put. Everything was fine.

At first.

My arms and legs felt like cinderblocks, just like he said they would. That was nice. But the part of my brain that connects dots, articulates nuances, makes jokes, appreciates art; that part was turned off. Shut down. Out of reach. As though I could touch it, but the part I could touch was only a memory. I get that same stupid feeling from weed, which is why I hate being high.

After that his suggestions got hairy. Deep down, I didn’t really wanna dance, I didn’t really wanna see Fred naked, and I didn’t wanna act like Fred was invisible. He commanded us to forget our names. Yeah, right. He went to each recruit and asked them, one by one, "What’s your name?" Some were silent. Some stuttered. They even bantered with Fred about shit I’ve forgotten. But they. Just. Could. Not. Say. Their. Names. What gives? I could remember mine, "Hyper-literate Bastard," but it was distant, like the audience, up on a high shelf. I could just reach up and grab it - that’s all! Fred kept going. Students kept forgetting. Until Jeff.

When Fred asked his name, it came out right away, not even missing a beat. "Jeff." Suddenly the spell was broken for me, too. The microphone came down in front of me. I reached up to the shelf and gave Fred what I found: "Hyper-literate Bastard."

These things happen, he said.

From then on, the audience and the lights still had that same distant quality, but not as much so as before. The spell was broken. I didn’t feel like dancing anymore. Earlier, Fred told us that all he does is suggest; that hypnotism won’t work if we don’t open our minds and just let it happen. Well, it wasn’t happening. Maybe I had other things on my mind. Or maybe it’s because I was waltzing with a fat lesbian (Actually, I didn’t mind that so much. By the way, what is it with me meeting all these gay girls? Last semester I couldn’t meet a minority to save my life. Now they’re multiplying like goblins). At any rate, when he told me to act like I had laid an egg, I faked it.

The awesomeness of my physics lecture soared to new heights today. Professor Sorenson, an old-fashioned raconteur, likes to pepper his lectures with cunning insights ("Homework: it’s a good way to learn shit") and instructive metaphors ("Atoms are ticklish, and start to pair up because of chemical desires"). But today, he finally went the distance and just blew shit up.

He filled up a steel bulb with water and let it sit in a vertical cylinder. Then he doused it with a vat of liquid nitrogen. "Watch what happens," he said, ducking out through the emergency exit. "I’ll just wait over here," he snickered.

So we waited.

And waited.

Pow!

As the water in the bulb froze, it expanded. And expanded some more. At last, the steel - notoriously weak compared to my pecs - couldn’t take it any more, and the bulb exploded (a metaphor for my heart on Valentine’s Day!). The tube shat steam and shrapnel up 20 feet. It was pretty rad. Sorenson let me keep some of the bomb fragments. I took them home, melted them down, and forged Excalibur.

Hyper-literate Bastard,

I worked very hard with you last semester and helped you when you were new at the Collegian. I stayed at the paper one too many times too late waiting on your content to come in. I did my best to work with you and how am I repaid? With rude blog comments about my reporting and writing, which I pour my entire heart and soul into. Did I ever insult your writing and reporting? Nope. I respect your decision to exercise free speech via your blog, but realize that your words are hurtful. I’ve worked my ass off for four years at K-State and at the Collegian, and while I’m not perfect and not even a "real" journalist yet, I don’t appreciate your words.

-Frustrated Editor

————————————————————————-

I believe all the problems with the Fourth Estate are right here in this self-indulgent "complaint." To illustrate:

1.    I didn’t criticize her personally. I didn’t even criticize her overall writing style, which is so bland it makes me want to slit my own throat just to make sure I can still feel. I criticized a specific element of a specific article she wrote. I also criticized other specific elements of other specific articles other Collegian staffers wrote. BFD. Yes, my tone was breezy and irreverent. Hello? That’s my writing style. She’d know that if she exercised any reading comprehension skills on the rest of my post; all my remarks were made in a catty, condescending voice. I’m not trying to tiptoe around the tender feelings of these so-called "writers." I’m trying to make fun of them. I won’t flinch. And I’ve got A LOT of material.

2.    She tried to work hard with me? That’s up for debate. Yes, I was extremely late on several articles. Not that she cares (she made it quite clear that her own crankiness is The Most Important Thing In The World), but when deadline came around, I was also studying for 18 credits worth of midterms AND working on ways to scrape up enough money to, you know, stay in school (out-of-state fees are a bee-hotch). I’m fairly sure this has happened to lots of Collegian staffers. Whenever I tried to talk to her, she’d act like she didn’t have time (BTW, impatient supervisors are a real pet peeve of mine. You sign on to a position of authority only if you have enough patience to sit down and engage other people. If you’re gonna sigh like you’re too important to be bothered with the paeons, well, grow up. "Working with people" implies a certain measure of patience and helpful, friendly advice, not arrogantly forcing people to pussyfoot around your frazzled nerves). She’d edit the story without reading it; moving chunks of text here and there, changing the flow of the story to make it suck, then leaving me to clean up and make new transitions so it did not, in fact, look like it was edited by a careless snob. The best part: whenever I turned in a story early and left it there for editors to review at their leisure, the next day, the story would appear in print with EXTRA GRAMMATICAL ERRORS (We copied and pasted but left out the prepositions! Oops!) or factual errors (copyeditors should probably not work their "magic" on numbers and figures).

3.    "Free speech?" Don’t be so dramatic. Make no mistake; this is not the Washington Post. This is a dumb blog nobody reads.

Fact is, there was nothing wrong with my specific criticisms. The problem lies in the newsroom. I want to stress that this is not the fault of any one particular editor. They all believe that They Are The Deciders. Therefore, they put out a rag full of dull, misleading headlines, factual errors, grammatical mistakes, op-ed columns made of moronic drivel, and STILL THINK THEY’RE DOING A GREAT JOB! They have no capacity for criticism - from themselves or from the hoi-polloi - because in that newsroom, when heads go up asses and don’t come out, they start to think their stuff don’t stink. But when the rest of us actually read the paper, we can smell it just fine.

Today truly is a day for lovers. A lady pulled up in front of Marlatt to deliver a Valentine. It was a card with a silver heart-shaped helium balloon attached. The lady handed it off to the front-desk clerk, who blandly informed her that Marlatt could not accept the item, because - no, really - although it was addressed to "Alex" in "room 00X," it did not include a LAST NAME; because of that glaring omission, there was no way to be certain that "Alex" was the intended Alex. No way!

So listen up, you moronic red-tape drone: it was a VALENTINE. These things tend to take a somewhat informal tone. "Dear Alex, I wuv you vewy vewy much, love, Huggymuffin" is stylistically preferable to "Attention Alex W. Smith: Thank you for your romantic attention. Regards, Huggymuffin Lee, Esq."

You could always go the extra mile and contact "Alex" in "room 00X" to verify whether he is, in fact, acquainted with a "Huggymuffin;" when he screams in joy because he was, in fact, expecting a Valentine from a certain "muffinly" individual, that seems like it ought to be enough proof (unless you’re a Terminator). But don’t turn back a Valentine delivered by COURIER just because you’re a fuckwit.

It almost makes me want to believe in love. Just to spite people.

Dear Collegian columnists:

Why bother?

Collectively, your recent spate of indignant finger-wagging strikes me as lazy and dull. Last week Kelcey Childress "reviewed" movies it was pretty obvious she hadn’t even seen; this week pretentious literary snot Blake Osborn whined about how all his peers are hyperactive Youtubers and Facebookers, then he proceeded to - no kidding - name-drop his grandfather’s reading list as though it was his own (Tolstoy! Fitzgerald! Hawthorne! Aristophanes!). Today, Mark Wampler reminded us all of how we don’t "care about the issues of our world blah blah blah," and pretty soon Brett King will vomit more right-wing claptrap about how we’re not doing enough to crush minorities and the poor, just like he always does. Then he’ll probably shake his fist at some newfangled "horseless carriage" as it putters by.

At least your fifth-year advice columnist is fresh and topical. I can only assume it’s because he sits down with a fifth of gin while he’s writing, like I do. The rest of you: get with it. Get off your soapboxes, get out of your rocking chairs, cut out the newsroom navel-gazing, and give us something upbeat, personal, and specific. And for the love of all that is sweet and holy, PLEASE have a drink before you pull up to the keyboard, so that I don’t have to.

Very truly yours,

Freshman English major douchebag columnist Blake Osborn enlightened us on the plight of our generation, cunningly pointing out that Everyone Else is a bunch of illiterate Youtubing toddlers, and we should all read more Proust or something, like he does.

“The Age of the Internet, which appears to be the new medium that has united the world blah blah blah.” Seriously: did this guy actually apply to come here, or did they just thaw him out on the 5th floor of Hale?

We know he must be, like, super-smart, because of the name dropping. Tolstoy! Fitzgerald! Hawthorne! Aristophanes! Wow! We’ve never read anything they wrote, because we’re too busy Facebooking or whatever. Then he went on talking about some “horseless carriage” thing. Then he poked us with his cane and fell asleep in his rocking chair.

In Kelcey Childress’ takedown of the recent spate of comedies involving pregnancy, she takes them to task and pronounces disapproval of these movies for mocking pregnancy. In attacking the supposed premise of the movies, however, she completely misses the point.

The point of the movies wasn’t to mock pregnancy. Pregnancy is not "funny" and no one is trying to make it so. When Kelcey thinks of comedy, she thinks of slapstick. "Juno" and "Knocked Up" are not slapstick. It’s the characters, not the situation, who bring the funny; characters who, not being prepared for the event that lies before them, are forced to grow up fast and, in doing so, bring a unique perspective to the sitch, a perspective that is not parrotted ad nauseum by happily married couples on soap operas and furniture commercials, a meme that is not rammed down your throat by all those shitty Lifetime movies, wherein some innocent wide-eyed country maiden gets impregnated by some cad with 10 kids by different mothers and has to learn the hard way that, except for the handsome, gentle, patient, avuncular white knight, ALL MEN ARE ASSHOLES!!!1!!1!! OMG!!!!!1!1!!

The point of the movies was that pregnancy is an impactful event; it doesn’t happen only to certain people, and it’s not just certain types of people who deserve the honor. Given the right circumstances, it can happen to any of us, and in the end, the characters demonstrate, through their maturity and grace, that they can handle it. To know that, Kelcey would have had to watch the movie, listen to the dialogue, become familiar with each character’s style, and treat them all the same way you should treat people in real life: with compassion for their flaws, and awareness and respect for their capacity to develop and learn. Neither memes are more or less realistic than the other; but Juno and Knocked up provide a new way of thinking about it, a way that refuses to demonize people involved just because they don’t fit the molds you’ve been accustomed to seeing; a task that, perhaps more than anything, is the entire point of art. You narrow-minded clod.

So, the other day, I was talking with the scriptwriter I had been interning for. About girls I’ve dated. She mentioned, quite politely, her disapproval of miscegenation. That, in a general sense, because of the racial divide, a white girl won’t ever "truly understand where I’m coming from."And she’s right: from a racial perspective, a white girl will never understand me.

Then again, maybe no one ever will.

I’m in a unique position. I’m obviously black and white people know it. Black people, however, love to kvetch that I’m too white. Whatever that means. They LOVE it. Many of my brothers and sisters treat blackness like some sort of club, at which they’re the bouncers.

There are so many ways to understand me. Race is just one element. Frankly, it’s not even on my mind as much as the Community Authorities tell me it should be. Those Elders are, frankly, real downers. The Authorities love nothing better than to maintain cultural purity, to look down their noses at non-compliance; to sell their own brand of racial kitsch. I’m just not buying it. I don’t shop there.

That’s what they’re doing. They’re selling a brand of blackness. Where I lived and went to grade school, as black women grew up, they develop a certan unapologetic materialism; an ethic of the conspicuous consumer, an identity based on brands of clothes, types of cars, and material status symbols. It was really not attractive at all. To be fair, this trait is present in women of all races, but in the black women I’ve met, it always feels excessive. And hollow. And to be fair, yes, there are white women who buy into this gaudy consumerism. Guess what? I don’t date those chicks either.

I should avoid white women and make more of an effort to seek out like-minded black women, They say.

It’s not fair to expect that of me. Meeting someone I like who likes me back is hard enough as it is. It’s not like I’ve got throngs of chicks beatinga path to my door. I’m lonely enough as it is. Why make it harder for myself? Human nature opposes it. And therein lies the crux of this issue: my Nature is not what the Community Elders say it is. They are not the Deciders. I am. I decide what it means for me to be black. Not them. Not you. Me.

I don’t mind explaining this to someone who’s willing to listen. Not surprisingly, those who buy into the racial kitsch are the least willing to hear me out. Those with open ears and open minds are the ones I gravitate towards. Simple as that.

I thought I had put this discussion to bed years ago. One summer I was interning at the Los Angeles Sentinel, a black weekly alternative paper. At the time I was in a horrific and extremely painful long-distance relationship with a white girl I met in Syracuse (I didn’t discuss the painful part much, though). Anyway, the subject came up, of course, between me, my editor, and the other interns. What’s your girlfriend like? Why are you dating white girls? Why not find a sista?

And then, my editor, Marsha - an incredibly wise and perceptive woman, pointed something out about herself and all the other ladies in the room.

"If I think about the kind of girl I was at that age," she said, "I wouldn’t have gone out with Jelani. I think most of you are the same way."

And there it was. Simple. Insightful. True. Even the ones who think they need to fix me up wouldn’t give me the time of day. Not that I blame them; I was, and remain, ever a big dork through and through. I completely dig it if that’s not your type. But then, you can’t fault me for going after my type either.

The best and awesomest relationship I ever had was with a bisexual Jewish redhead. I explained the racial stuff to her. She explained the femiladyism stuff to me. She was really good at that shit. Sometimes we’d even fight about it. We also got dirty looks everywhere we went. The cashiers at Target, unfriendly black hotties, gave her dirty looks when I turned my back. The old Jewish ladies in our condo gave me dirty looks when I turned my back. And we got bad service at every single restaurant we went to. Also, predictably, the folks at my job - an alternative black weekly rag - Disapproved and made no secret of it.

What kind of nonsense is that? Knowing absolutely nothing about me or her, they expected to drive some sort of wedge between us, with their 1930s segregationist dogma. Guess what? It didn’t work. The 1930s ended (I forget exactly when). That bullshit doesn’t drive people apart; it brings them together. Dirty looks and bad service became a shared experience that strenghtened our bond. We’d feel it happening and squeeze each other’s hand a little tighter and pull each other a little closer, and when we got home, we had sex. Sometimes we’d pretend it was exciting and taboo. Afterward we would crack campy, vaguely racist jokes. Her sense of humor turned me on and so after that we’d do it again. That’s how I roll.

How’d we hook up in the first place? I liked her sense of humor and she liked mine. You haven’t known true despair til you’ve been with someone who does not Get The Joke. She and I got each other, intuitively, even if the race thing was not second nature. That one thing, along with the spicey stuff we’d do in bed, was always waaaaaaay more important than our differences.

Confidential to you who still say I’m not black enough: there’s nothing wrong with the way I am. If you think there is then to hell with you.