The hour badly spent

Exhibit A:

I sort of wish I didn’t know this about Karin Westman. How many others in the department are also infected?

I knew, after our talk, during Friday’s annoyingly poetic thunderstorm, that eventually you would get bored or curious and click on that link (I don’t mind that anyone finds it; it’s right out there in the open on my Facebook profile). Then you would read back and see "how I really felt," how childish and petty I really was, how prostrating and selfish I really was, how arrogant and judgemental I really was, how lonely and bitter and embarrassed I really was, but mostly how drunk I really was.

So I knew you would find The Hour Badly Spent and that you would tear through all those posts, and I thought of how easy it would be to just make them private, but then why did I put them there in the first place? Also: I am extremely lazy, so much so that I can’t even be bothered with extra mouse clicks. Also: it’s not really a big deal anyway. Nobody reads this shit except for a few people to whom I’ve given obnoxious nicknames [ed. note: I’m tired of trying to amuse my readers — all 3 of them — with with creative monikers. We’ll be on a first name basis. Except for Professor Potts and Doctor Dodd, because that sounds like they teach at Hogwarts. And Doctor Hately. She went on and on about how hard she studied for that title, la dee da, and if the rest of us don’t damn well recognize or whatever, she is not afraid to shank us. Then she downed a shot of Vegemite with horseradish and yelled "Huzzah, beehotch!" at Princess Glitter Bunny, which was utterly terrifying but also kind of hot*].

This stupid blog was not meant to be some sort of cudgel. So, about all those verbal swipes; umm, my bad. Skimming back through them, I’m actually terribly embarrassed. They weren’t really about you; they were about me: a tabloidey chronicle of what the f, exactly, I am doing here, because otherwise I’ll forget. And if now, I am sometimes disturbingly quiet, it is not because of you or any you-and-me stuff. I had a pretty bad summer, during which I made a terrible mistake and now I’m a thousand miles away and cannot fix it. I don’t mean to play the mystery man but I also really don’t want to talk about it. However, it’s on my mind a lot, and at times it will make me kind of withdrawn and surly until I can think of a witty declaration of some sort, which will usually come in the form of a Russian reversal ("In Russia, declaration think of YOU!"), because those are cheap and easy. Everybody knows how I feel about cheap and easy.

Anyway. So. Not to be all "the only emperor is the emperor of ice cream" over this but it really is all kind of old. A month in blog time is like two years of reality. I’ve aged TEN YEARS since, you know, back then. Which makes me forty-fucking-six. And not to diminish what happened, either, because we did, in fact, have a good time.

It was a good time because you took me to Lawrence in the winter, which was beautiful and white everywhere, and to that party full of Lawrence hipsters — who are much better than Manhattan hipsters because in Lawrence their dresses are smaller. It was a good time because of that morning we laughed together for five straight hours, even though I know you are not that funny and neither am I. It was a good time because we drank way too much and spent nights together and all that other stuff, and perhaps there was just not enough "other stuff" but whatever; you get the point.

Let this be the last of these pretentious livejournal-ish rants of mine. And I’ll try to cool it on the Sonnet 30 references. The Collegian is out! Let’s go make fun of it. And maybe while I’m at it I’ll write more coherently.

*This never actually happened. But it definitely should have because isn’t it awesome? Plus you can totally picture it.

Right before Grey Lady, friend of this blog, left Facebook earlier this week, she poked me one last farewell.

See how it just hangs there all half-done, no "poke back" option? It’s the three-legged puppy of Facebook pokes. And much like a dog needing extra love, I will cherish it forever and never click remove, partly because I’ve got such a big heart, but mostly because my intertubes haven’t been working so well lately and I can’t get online much, so why waste valuable bandwidth on that? I know: I’m a terrible Facebook friend! And a bad blogger! And an awful person! But here’s the kicker:

She left a message on my wall, but since she termed her account, the comment’s gone and I’ll never know what it is. Ahem, was. It would be irresponsible of me to speculate as to its content. Nevertheless, I’m going to assume it was pithy, clever, and saucy, and probably makes me look bad — which is not difficult, so I guess it’s for the best that no one can read it.

We just found a new way to stalk you on Facebook. And "you" know exactly who we mean, COUGHCOUGH*sexycommunistspy*COUGHCOUGHCOUGH. Apparently, if you go to the search box and hit the [down] key update: hit the [period] key — Gawker.com), you get a list of five people. Who are they? The following prowlerey theories are circulating.

• five people you’ve searched for the most.
• five people who have searched for you the most.
• five most recent people who have searched for you. Juicy! (we probably show up for The Grey Lady, Saucy Aussie, Princess Glitter Bunny, and Atomic Fireball Candy, and that girl you all thought we would hook up with the other night but didn’t. Did we leave anyone out?).
• five people Facebook thinks you like. We could be wrong, but based on some tinkering and some guesswork, we think they use the following snippet of basic fucking arithmetic to figure this out:

Of course, that’s pure speculation. Just, umm, make sure you throw (= 5) somewhere up in there. Calculus is whatever we want it to be.

Go ahead and scope out ours, just for shits and giggles.

Who’s in your five?

Over Xmas break I worked for this lady — a professional screenwriter — doing odd errands for her and getting no pay in return, a relationship known as an "internship." I thought it might be nice to get the experience of being around an experienced writer blah blah blah, but the more she talked — and she loved to namedrop — the more I realized she was a self-centered drama queen. This weekend I got a Facebook message from her. Things like this make me avoid Facebook.

1. I took A DAY (OMG!) to respond because (A) I had shit to do, and (B) I didn’t feel like resolving a 40-ish-year-old woman’s ‘crisis.’ Since she’s messaging me on Facebook, she must have seen my status update: "I just don’t give a shit." I really don’t.
2. "Negro?" I know we’re both black and therefore we have that unspoken camaraderie that enables us a certain familiarity. Nonetheless, not even my own mother talks to me that way, and you don’t know me like that.

The reason I addressed her like that is because when a boss is acting like a childish wanker (did I use it right that time?), said boss should have his or her twittery vomited back with a clear explanation as to why it’s coming. As a bonus, I like to throw in a middle finger.

And I wasn’t kidding about the apartment thing. She called me one Sunday afternoon, from Los Angeles, while I’m in Manhattan Kansas — which she knew — and told me she wanted me to find her an apartment by Monday morning. The reason? She had a psycho roommate (her 2nd or 3rd this year — I don’t bother keeping track) and COULDN’T TAKE IT ANY MORE and somehow this was suddenly my problem too.

Part of being a grown-up is learning how to negotiate with the people around you, instead of throwing a shitfit when someone takes a sip of your orange juice or smokes your weed. Right?

See? We’re getting her GOOD SIDE here. Don’t you feel lucky? In her defense, she really did endure a severe personal tragedy last year. Which had absolutely nothing to do with me.

It’s tangential, but this conversation reminds me of an episode of Blind Date I saw years ago. A guy from New York was on with a girl from a small Texas town. The texan was superhot, not a ditz, and she seemed to be putting some effort into the outing. The New York asshat wasn’t having any of it. The whole time, he was all "It’s just that you’re from this small town, where everyone’s so narrow-minded. I’m from New York, where there’s so much going on, so many people from so many different cultures, and it’s really broadened my horizons. Blah blah blah blah, New York is soooo great but your podunk town sucks, ipso facto, you suck and always will." The irony was not lost on the Texan, who kept going "Well, what do you mean? How can I make this date better?"

Of course he couldn’t say what he meant, so I will. "Broadening horizons" doesn’t actually give you a deeper understanding of other people; it just makes you more condescending toward them. In New York, you don’t mix with other cultures. You mix with New York culture. So here’s the question: what is it, exactly, about the Big Apple, that brings out the douchiest in people? That is, of course, rhetorical; I don’t give a shit.

A new reader admires The Hour Badly Spent’s willingness to get out and go places, with or without a date. That’s right: nobody here but real troupers!

The Grey Lady: I’m glad I’m not the only one who goes to shows, events, whatever with or without friend accompaniment. I think its a sign of independence (or just bum friends)

The Hour Badly Spent: Hope your weekend’s going great too! I’m still enjoying the "independence;" I played a computer game and went to bed early. What are you up to?

The Grey Lady: Oh no! don’t say it that way. It ruins the sham of independence vs. loser friends. Tonight is closing night, strike, then cast party. I can’t imagine it’ll be anything like mud river stone’s party.

Sorry to burst the bubble, but independence really is a sham.

See, some people become the center of attention just by stepping into the room. Like, all they have to do is show up and suddenly throngs of fervent suitors are tripping over each other with icebreakers and devilish smiles. Because of this, sometimes these superstars just need a few hours of alone time to get away from the spotlight.

"The pressure," exclaims one superstar, to a preppy, winsome engineering student, as the student recites his best pickup lines. "It’s just too intense sometimes!" Then the student excuses himself. At last, some precious time alone for the superstar! Freedom! Independence! Exuberance! And I know exactly how that feels. Ha ha, just kidding.

The sham is that the human being is by nature a social creature. One cannot even declare independence without having somebody from which to declare it. What I have isn’t independence.

See, here’s independence:

Cheerleader A:     So, there’s a new collection showing at the Beach museum. Wanna check it out with me?
The Hour Badly Spent: While I do fancy myself quite the art connaisseur, I’m afraid it would be best if I saw it alone.
Cheerleader A:     [pouty face]
The Hour Badly Spent: Don’t get me wrong. I lrrve your company! But the contemplation of art, an inherently subjective experience, is best accomplished free from another’s intrusive presence. Get me?
Cheerleader A:     I understand….that you’re a pompous windbag! Zing! But call me later, K?

Cheerleader B:     Hey stranger! It’s Friday night! Wanna catch a movie?
The Hour Badly Spent: While I’m sure that would be quite diverting, I feel that your company would undermine the aesthetic experience for me. Therefore, I must decline your generous offer in favor of my own independence.
Cheerleader B:     [pouty face]
The Hour Badly Spent: Nice ass though.
Cheerleader B:     [blush]

Cheerleader C:     So, I’m not busy tonight. Wanna hang out?
The Hour Badly Spent: What did you have in mind?
Cheerleader C:     Maybe I could stop by your place?
The Hour Badly Spent: What would we do there?
Cheerleader C:     [blank smile]
The Hour Badly Spent: [shrug]
Cheerleader C:     Hanky-panky?
The Hour Badly Spent: [another shrug]
Cheerleader C:     [Makes a circle out of her index finger and thumb. She "dips" the index finger of her other hand through the circle. She repeats this motion three times.]
The Hour Badly Spent: [shrugs again]
Cheerleader C:     Sex. I’d like to have sex. With you. Like, tonight?
The Hour Badly Spent: Oh! [Thinks about this for a moment.]
The Hour Badly Spent: I feel that doing such a thing would cheapen what we have You’d lose all respect for me. You don’t want to lose all respect for me, do you? Great. Super. Well, I’m supposed to give a motivational speech to high-school underachievers, and then I’ve got yoga, but you should totally give me a call later! Kthanksbye!

Cheerleaders:     Wow, he’s so independent, so rugged! If only he’d open his heart [sigh].

This is closer to what it’s really like:

The Hour Badly Spent: I really like what you’ve done with your hair!
Minerva Magestica:     [pulling out her cellphone, reading a text message].
The Hour Badly Spent: There’s a poetry reading this afternoon. Wanna catch it together?
Minerva Majestica:      [phone rings]
The Hour Badly Spent: Then afterwards maybe we could go for dinner?
Minerva Majestica:      What? Sorry, I’ve really got to take this.
The Hour Badly Spent: [Hangs out for like 15 minutes, then when no one’s looking, fades into the wallpaper].

The Hour Badly Spent:         Like, I, uhh, wrote you a love note.
So Hot It Hurts Your Face:   What is this tripe? Everything’s misspelled!
The Hour Badly Spent:         I, uh, well….
So Hot It Hurts Your Face:   Well, is that it? I’m kind of busy, soooo.
The Hour Badly Spent:         Uh….

The Hour Badly Spent:  Let’s hang out tonight! I’ve got movies!
We’re All Size Queens:  I can’t. I’m so tired and I’ve got all this, errr, homework.
The Hour Badly Spent:  But it’s Friday. And it’s 7p.m.
We’re All Size Queens:  What is this, CSI? Quit stalkin’ me.

The Hour Badly Spent:   Let’s go out!
Sic Transit Gloria:          I look kind of grubby today.
The Hour Badly Spent:   I like you just the way you are.
Sic Transit Gloria:          Whatever.
The Hour Badly Spent:   Fine. I’ll come over, bring clothes, apply your makeup, and braid your hair.
Sic Transit Gloria:          I don’t have any money.
The Hour Badly Spent:   I’ll pay for everything.
Sic Transit Gloria:          I don’t like any place within a five-mile radius, and neither of us has a car.
The Hour Badly Spent:   I’ll carry you wherever you want. On my back.
The Hour Badly Spent:   I’ll even get on all fours and gallop, like a horse. Girls like horses, right?
Sic Transit Gloria:          That sounds kind of creepy. I bet that if I asked, you’d even–
The Hour Badly Spent:   Gloria, you do not wanna know the lengths I’d go to.

P.S.: A pox on that Mud River Stone party!

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??

As Madeline and I left Auntie Mae’s we noticed Cherry and her new boyfriend (What, I didn’t mention that?) in the window. In the three seconds it takes for Madeline to hop back in and say hi, I realize that I cannot imagine a circumstance under which Cherry would go three seconds out of her way for me. So I sort of linger outside. Jordan waves me in and I shake my head. Then Cherry waves me in. Then Jordan, again. What for? A moment of awkward, hollow hellos does not appeal to me in the slightest. I don’t budge.

When I woke up the next morning afternoon, the first thing that popped into my head was "You know what would really shake this hangover? A mindfuck. Yep, nothing like a slight mindfuck to remind you that the sky is blue and water is wet, etc."

Ipso-facto, meenie-mo, magico! A message on Facebook: "i missing hanging out with yoooouuuuu."

Oh, why didn’t ya say so earlier? Let’s see; maybe we should get together for a movie or something. How does six weeks ago sound? Does six weeks ago work for you? Super.

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.

-You sure it’s her? She looks so different without wheels. Like being naked.

-Exactly. I’d know that ass anywhere.

-Is that so?

-No, actually. I’d just be guessing. Is that a crime? If memorizing by ass-ociation is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

-Yeah, well. Stay classy.

Potterhead: I’m having caffeine withdrawal. I saw a guy playing bagpipes today. And last week I saw a guy on a unicycle.

Too Prolix: Glad you feel better. I’m not seeing any bagpipes or unicycles here. I haven’t left my room in a month. I’m crouched in here in the same bathrobe I’ve worn for 4 days, etching emo poetry and mathematical equations on the walls. On the plus side, I think I’ve discovered hyperspace.

Potterhead: D’ya think you can forget about the emo poetry one night and totally go to the Wizard Rock Concert next Saturday at the Union? The tickets are free and you can get them at the UPC office in the Stuni. :D
Hyperspace? Cool.

Too Prolix: Why am I up so late? I’ve had coffee too! Except it wasn’t really coffee; it was vodka, the coffee of the gods! A rock concert, you say? The idea of a “concert” or a “dance” or a “get together involving music” takes me all the way back to high school, where I always used to sit on the sidelines, forlorn and miserable, looking on while all the cute girs had fun with all the guys who were more muscular and less nerdy than me, and who wants to relive aww fuck it who am I kidding - Saturday, eh? but I don’t hafta like it.

Potterhead: Not like Wizard Rock? That’s ridiculous. You have to like it because I said so.