The hour badly spent

The Disgustingly Self-Absorbed Couple arrived at Friday’s Visiting Writer lecture at four on the dot, right on time. The Dodd had already begun her introduction of memoirist Meredith Hall.

Hall explained, before reading, that she had lost a tooth on the plane on the way to Kansas. "It seems to me the only thing people can notice about me. I wanted to tell you that writers from Maine don’t always have teeth missing." Charming! The Olds have the best comic timing!

Hall was ostracized from her small New Hampshire town at age 16, when she got pregnant. Even her parents wouldn’t have her any more.

"It’s a powerful story about being a girl in a world where people don’t want you," said Susan Rodgers. Susan was the head of the creative writing program last year; she abruptly left K-State in August, after she and her husband got jobs at Oregon State Uni.

Hall read chapters from Without A Map, about the months after she was kicked out of her father’s house. She wandered around Europe, broke, stealing and selling shit to get by, relying on the kindness of strangers for the occasional place to crash. She met other families, other drifters, all sorts of people who didn’t speak English.

There was a real sense of disconnection between her and the people and places around her. This was partly due to the difficulty of communicating with people whose language she didn’t speak; much of the process consisted of pidgin sign language and heavy, rigorous observation, in addition to picking and choosing which truths she wants to reluctantly reveal depending on the person listening; but it was mostly because she was in exile. She was hugely depressed. She never missed a chance to remind us of that! It was like an eternally dissatisfied wine-taster, sampling and spitting out everything, all snap judgements and no intimacy. She was romanticizing her isolation. Five minutes into it, the Disgustingly Self-Absorbed Blogger was getting bored. He started passing notes to the Disgustingly Self-Absorbed Hipster.

Blogger: I hate memoirs. I will never, ever read one.

Hipster: Aww…I like them! I like this. You don’t at all do you?

Blogger: Is it that obvious?

Blogger: It’s starting to remind me of Huck Finn

Hipster: How?

Blogger:

1. i can’t quite figure out where she’s going with this.

2. this is almost exclusively her inner life - little interaction with the outside world except to observe it and move on. not quite like Huck, but it’s getting monotonous.

3. the present tense has NEVER EVER SOUNDED MORE ANNOYING to me

4. sorry; only 3 things

Hipster: haha i do agree that it is getting monotonous

Blogger: it’s a travel blog. It feels like IT MIGHT NEVER END

Hipster: yeah I know, and damn you for mentioning the present tense, because now that is bothering me

Ha ha, he’s sorry he ruined it for her, but he really wonders whether she expressed her guilt to him.

The book was originally a collection of autobiographical essays that had been printed individually in various trade publications. Publishers know how to market "memoirs" but they don’t know how to market "a collection of autobiographical essays." Hall didn’t know how to convert her "autobiographical essays" into memoirs, so she called around and spoke to some other authors for help. In the end, she took the title of each of her essays and added "chapter X" to each of them. Clever!

So the reading was kinda dull. Afterwards, at the House of Dodd, Hall was the belle of the ball, still charmingly toothless, warmly engaging everyone including the Underminer but especially a Pretentious Literary Douchebag chatting her up. The Disgustingly Self-Absorbed Couple split up and floated around. They shared a Disgustingly Self-Absorbed glass of white wine, passing it off when their paths crossed. All in all, this soiree was much more fun than expected, except for one glaring omission.

Normally, if Erica Hateley is at an event, all the poorly-dressed slackers have a leader to inspire them. But her absence left the slackers feeling empty, adrift, and pathetic. When the Disgustingly Self-Absorbed Couple stepped out for a smoke with its Underminer, Emily Kennedy stepped up to the plate to lead us.

It turns out that Emily is just as awesome as Erica, except no quirky accent. Except! She also does a pretty good Saucy Aussie impression. "I’m not down with the vag," Erica once told Emily, "but if I were," blah blah blah (we were still processing the confirmation of Erica not being down with the vag so we didn’t hear anything after that, but we know we want to hear Emily do Erica’s accent some more). It was great! Now the slackers have a new punk-rock-girl crush, and Erica has her very own underminer!

After that the Disgustingly Self-Absorbed Couple left to go see the Laramie Project. The Underminer left too, not only so she could go see the Laramie Project but also because she needed to broadcast some more underminerey sweeping generalizations.

This scene was unseemingly heartwarming, which NEVER happens. Elizabeth Dodd, Karin Westman, and Meredith Hall are all talking as though they are actually BFFs. Also, Tanya’s husband lurked around and Kim Baltrip sat back in the foyer. Dr. Westman has this way of craning her neck and tilting her head when she’s listening to someone, and she did just that with Hall. It was cute! The Hour Badly Spent was deeply moved.

So there was this Visiting Writer thingie on Friday, and lo, it appeared in the local rag with a few copyediting inaccuracies, but there it is.

What struck me at Sugi Ganeshananthan’s reading was that, although the story was not particularly suspenseful, everyone in the audience was on the edge of their seats, quiet as housecats. I sat at the back of the room so I could pass notes to the well-dressed and cutely accessorized Hipster Elf, and the only thing that came to mind is ’someone should belch.’

I wrote that down and showed her — I had to be very careful because with no one else fidgeting in their seats and checking the clock I couldn’t just conceal my own fidgeting in the general shuffle. After that I decided to just sit back and listen.

Sugi’s prose was clear and brief, expressing feeling beautifully without making us wade through overbearing complexity. After the reading, someone asked her about the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

"It’s nice to be in a place where you can say ‘I’m a writer’ and not have people ask you ‘what have you written that I might have read?’"

I mouse-ishly tried to get the commentariat’s reaction.

"You can interview me," said Tanya Gonzalez, bouncing down the hall on her way out. "It was fabulous!"

I guess that says it all.

Since I was trying to commit as many journalistic ethical violations as possible, I took the Hipster Elf with me to the Cathouse to interview sources. The English department and the Visiting Writer were hanging out, in a circle, by the window.

I sat around, trying to overhear and sift through ambient conversation; Saucy Aussie, with her typical aussome, made a boo-boo and dug around in her bag for a bandage (she apparently carries around a first-aid kit everywhere? And weeps at the sight of her own blood); Sean discussed something lofty and English-ey with the Visiting Writer; Jen was being an exceptionally charming and cogent drunk.

"The way that she [Sugi] played with the theme of hurt reminded me of Midnight’s Children," she said. That was the second time in as many days an English major recommended that book to me. Everything is foreshadowing.

I also spoke to the Visiting Writer herself, which felt weird strange because she’s a real journalist and I’m, well, me. And besides the tender, intimate prose, "Love Marriage" — which I have not read — apparently has something important to say about the play of good and evil in a post-9/11 world.

"There is an idea of who is ‘good’ and who is ‘bad,’ but the truth is not always obvious," Sugi said. "There are so many different ways to be wrong and so many different ways to be right. The people who probably think of themselves as good, with a slight turn of their lives — maybe five degrees west, could probably be bad." And with that, the conflict between human and Cylon takes another angle. Nerd.

Anyway. Read "Love Marriage." Go ahead and buy it and then I’ll borrow it from you.

[K-State Collegian]

Okay, not really. But. whether you’re for religion or against it, at some point you just have to come to terms with it. Mark Erbacher, noticing that the institution has come under assault in recent years — perhaps unfairly? — put forth his defense of religion, giving me a chance to heartily keep up the heathen assault.

According to Erbacher, in Germany, "government has realized that religion is not something to be feared but rather to be embraced, if for no other reason than the amazing things a faith-based group can do for a community." Ha ha ha ha soap made of Jews.

Religion has been given a bad rap in the U.S., but we should take a moment to consider that by its own nature, religion cannot be a bad thing. It is an absolute moral good that brings us together.

A personal Jesus can justify anything. Religion does not "get" a bad rap; it has earned it by empowering self-righteous hypocrites who believe, unquestioningly, that their own values are "absolute moral goods." You can tell when you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out he hates all the same people you do.

As Mahatma Gandhi said, “As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion overriding morality. Man, for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side” [ed. note: unless WMDs are at stake].

In trying to end on this laughably false note of hope for true believers or whatever, Erbacher leaves me unconvinced. This essay just doesn’t have the fiery, brimstoney awesome that would really help me make up my mind.

"The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood."

Okay. Now I’m convinced.

[source: K-State Collegian, Anne Lamott at Salon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God]

The Poetess recently gave voice to the existential horror of attending an informal gathering of English professors: "I’m not smart enough."

Well, yes you are, and that’s really no big deal. English professors are just like the rest of us. Nobody comes to a party to be outsmarted. They just want you to listen to them, get their jokes, seek explanations for what you don’t understand, and squeeze their asses when no one else is looking (Professor Dodd will use colourful pants to indicate her receptivity. But do not try this with the Saucy Aussie. I saw her first!).

Your best strategy is to figure out what everybody thinks of everybody else, which you can use for leverage when you ascend to the top of a multinational crime syndicate. This exercise is all about self-effacement. You are not here to show off your resplendent panoply of grace and charm. And if you have enough grace and charm to impress the English professors then I hate you already.

So don’t name-drop, like I did with Princess Glitter Bunny ("Oh of course I know what you’re talking about. Unlike the other undergrads, I’ve read Derrida! Har har har!") That’s just wankerish. Rather, just ask questions. Find an old man, with a bow tie and bushy eyebrows, who is already drunk. He is the best place to start. He is a font of experience, good humor, and as a bonus, he is actually kind of awesome. Ask about what he’s written, what he likes to read — Milton, apparently — where he’s travelled, etc. Let him do the work. He’s just itching to unload some jovial backstabbey nugget about one of his peers. Just wait. I promise it will be funny. You should also probably try to make yourself as drunk as he is.

Do not sit next to Rhymes With Flan. You did not dress well enough for that, and this fact will gnaw at you every second you are there. She is tall, slender, blonde, stylish, and her diction is flawless. If she were your age, she’d be a wholesome sorority frenemy. You, by contrast, mumble and stutter (which is partly why you’re listening and not talking); your sartorial contribution is a wrinkled green docent shirt your ex gave you seven years ago. You wore it today because you really don’t have a windbreaker, but next to Rhymes With Flan, you look like you’re homeless.

Eventually, something underminerey like this will happen:

The Hour Badly Spent:  Do you mind if I smoke?
Rhymes With Flan:       Oh. Please, don’t. Ew [shudders].
The Hour Badly Spent:  Oh, okay.
Rhymes With Flan:       Yech.

You’ll see the Perverted Shakespeare Professor. In class, he’s so upbeat, almost cheerleaderey; this evening, long after class, he might seem somehow jaded and weary. We suspect the production of ‘Tis Pitty Shee’s A Whore must have been stressful, what with all the preparations being made during those weeks after spring break where everybody goes through a ceaseless gauntlet of exams and term papers and projects. That is why the cast only met for their first full rehearsal a day before curtain time.

I don’t know shit about Jacobean drama. Or any type of drama, for that matter. But I’ll talk about it anyway. The performance — Saturday night, wish you were there! — was fun and celebratory, and slightly campy; just like the Professor conducts his classes, except with slightly more incest. My favorite actor was the Roman soldier: his uniform was a polo shirt with some pinned-on medals.

You might hear about studentfucking. Kind of interesting, but it’s really to be expected, and it’s only juicy if you actually know either of the parties involved, which you don’t, because you don’t know anybody, which is why you’re drinking with English professors on Thursday night and the following Friday afternoon. So put the hearsay out of your mind, because (A) you don’t want to get anyone fired, and (B) you’re not an earnest do-goodey cockblocker. Also: don’t shout out "studentfucker!" in the middle of a lecture (Sorry about that! It was noisy! How was I supposed to know the dean would hear me?).

You might also hear of dumb stuff the students have said — about ethnic minorities and such. It won’t be so bad. All the real wingnuts either go into engineering or polisci. Don’t worry about who, exactly, said what; there’s a good chance you’ll find out soon enough who this person is, based on your ability to stereotype better than she can (a gender neutral pronoun would be really nice right about now!). She will get a column in the Collegian. She will bring guns to class. She will run for student government. She will meet a soldier who will love her for her "values," and they will marry young and have lots of little douchebags, who will attend K-State.

You, however, will not find love. You will find rum, which is just a different kind of love.

Speaking of which, in time, the Most Annoying English-Major Couple will make an appearance. They really are cute together. They will sit next to each other, of course; bemusedly chatting about their plans for the future. They will lightly stroke each others’ arms, but not excessively; they will smile at each others’ literary puns, but not excessively; and one of them will drink. Excessively. And that is the real secret to shmoozing with people who have more intelligence, class, and wit than you.

The Poetess tries to peek at my diary journal every time I’m out with her. Thursday night I finally just said what the fuck and handed it over for inspection.

"I won’t judge you for anything I find in here." Not that it’s human nature or anything.

So, as she paged through, I felt the nerves and vessels under my skin getting all twisty. I drummed my fingers on the table. I fidgeted with my beard. I wiggled my leg up and down, insanely fast, like a meth-addled hummingbird. I noticed she was lingering on one page.

"Find something interesting?"

"It’s kind of sad."

The passage under scrutiny: I’m an optical illusion. That’s my secret. Look away and I disappear. Turn off the light and I don’t exist.

Breaking: when no one’s looking, I write reams of angsty, self-indulgent prattle. I’ve also apparently jotted down fragments of Pablo Neruda poetry. And that is definitely the worst of it what was in there (the prattle, not the Pablo). No sordid PILF fantasies (none that I’ve written down, anyway). No shocking gossip. No chronicling private embarrassing habits (I masturbate. A LOT). Am I really so dull that I have nothing to hide? Apparently so.

Therefore, the next night, chain-smoking at a party with Ariana and the usual frenemies, when Limitless Are Leaves asked about taking a peek through the big black book of secrets, I had no objection. And when Brandon, too, wanted to see it, I didn’t mind, although he did sort of seem like he was actually studying it and not just surfing pages.

The party room was so full of Swear Not By The Moon’s laughter that it spilled out through the windows and into the parking lot where the smokers were hanging out. Did she do coke again? No, she’s just always like that. Maybe she’s always high on coke.

I honestly think she is always high. Coke — so I hear, mind you — makes you feel hyper and really important, a perfect party drug. Swear Not By The Moon is a party girl. She’s got the look: annoyingly thin and blonde. She is sometimes fun but she also kind of sneers at you when you talk to her. She powerless to curb her ways. Because of the drugs, you see. Although I’m probably just mad because she never offers me any.

I and Limitless Are Leaves really only came to drink, not to party, so we sort of kept to ourselves and our vodka and let the cool kids do their thing (which, again, may or may not have been coke). It’s a good thing I was really drunk. It’s the only way to deal with certain situations and certain people. Or in my case, all situations and all people. It also somewhat explains why she and I ended up making out on the floor.

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?

While I was having lunch with the Sexy Communist Spy and her friend Darcy, we discussed whether all women really do hate each other.

Darcy and the Spy stopped eating their soup and began to dry-hump each other to discredit my theory. While they did advance an interesting point, I feel that ultimately they didn’t prove anything. Being wise and discerning, I can tell the difference between true love and a hatefuck. Plus, I’m pretty sure the Spy was only trying to get on my blog.

The Spy bragged about her fancy blog nickname. "Tell her."

"Communist Spy."

"You’re dropping an adjective."

"Sexy Communist Spy." It was difficult to say because it’s true.

Darcy considered this carefully. "There aren’t many Darcys, except for Mr. Darcy, and that’s lame. If we go out places together, will you make up a blog-nickname for me?"

Whatever, Slender Starrypants. You’re not even The Hour Badly Spent’s type, and you obviously don’t understand what The Hour Badly Spent is all about. This is a medium for social debate and artistic review, not a rehashing of some non-erotic drunken ramblings. This blog is a well-mannered, avuncular fellow, amusing itself with a glass of chardonnay while it reflects on The Sorrows of Young Werther. You’re young and superhot, struggling to reconcile your small-town upbringing with your secret wild side. This blog spends its evenings at home wearing an ascot; its only delight lies in illuminating the hidden beauty of the world with its pearls of cheeky wisdom. You, however, often surround yourself with even more superhot women, and you take delight in sexy escapades with brash young musicians. So you see, complete opposites; there’s no way that awww fuck it we’re free whenever you are, and dammit wear something low-cut.

I have no idea what an assistant stage manager does. However, I know that the assistant stage management of Dancing at Lughnasa was excellent, because that was pretty much the talk of the town after the play was over. I thought I was the only person impressed with the assistant stage management I know nothing about until I overheard two of my friends raving over it:

"What did you think of it?"
"The stage was unbelievably well managed. Assistantly."

Whatever, so I’m inept. Back to Lughnasa: a snapshot of a 1936 Irish family holding together long after the passing of its parents; the turmoil of five lively sisters staring into a canyon of spinsterhood that’s staring back at them; and the return of their brother, a wild-eyed barely-there misfit, after 25 years of missionary work in Africa.

The dialogue felt fresh and immediate. Much of my enjoyment came from hearing the accents; the nearly-rolled Rs, the brisk Ts dotting word endings; the long "I" that glides into an "o-i" dipthong ("cider" sounds like "soyder"), the overall birdlike, musical pep of conversation.

Each sister’s inner tensions were barely held in check, always balanced against the concerns of the other siblings by the pious, heavy-handed oldest sister, Kate.

With that dynamic, another strength of Lughnasa, even better than the cute Irish lilts, was the sisters’ interior tumult. It came out most strongly twice. Second, when Kate, distraught over the apparent disappearance of the flighty Rose, angrily demanded that Agnes confess information Agnes have. So angry, she slammed Agnes against the furniture.

But it came out first when they boogied.

They sang and danced at every chance, devouring music like it was soda bread. Would that they could just dance their cares away forever! They really gave it their best shot during an early-on, more joyful outpouring of passion. For a brief time, during this hasty portrait, during a few minutes of music belting from their moody radio, they were all fluid like the sea, all crashing against each other and coming together again.

Michael, the seven-year-old son of Chrissie (the hottest sister — for real, homegirl’s a ringer for Rachel McAdams), largely observes from the periphery, but occasionally interrupts from the point of view of a grown-up narrator to reveal flashes of information on the fate of the family. Despite his upbeat delivery - Michael is genuinely excited about his family and all its quirky, tragic characters - it’s all kind of a downer for everyone, which, as more is revealed, sharpens the nostalgia, the value of this snapshot, the desperate importance of this summer, 1936, in a house on the Irish countryside. This summer is the last time the family is a family before people up and leave, people lose jobs, people die, peoples’ Peter-Pan father figures jaunt off with unsatisfying explanations then it turns out (spoiler!) all along they had another family way down south in fucking Wales, and general disappointment and failure set in for everyone.

It’s all hinted at during the play. Underneath obligations, bickering, the soothing chirp of a Marconi wireless, smoldering behind it all lies an inability to share each others’ sorrow, and deep yearnings that will simply. Not. Pan. Out. But for this one last summer, Time would let them dance and be Golden in the mercy of his means. **

You somehow managed to hail mary right over my trenchant social analyses and hone in on the *other* posts. Those in which I invoke defense mechanisms and feed my delusions of grandeur with alcohol; the posts in which I am pompous, childish, desperate and whiney; petty, self-indulgent, shallow, obnoxious, and worst of all, too prolix (my bad). And in so doing you found that secret thing which unravelled me. Umm, sorry about that whole business, by the way.

And what, exactly, was it? That business?

Yes, there was a party, months ago.

She noticed me. Asked me questions. Got my jokes, even the sly, insiderey one I threw out just to see if anybody was listening. And yes, whatever, I know it was mind-numbingly awful, just like 95% of my "jokes."

Where’d my drink go?
Oh, was that yours, on the table? I finished it off. Forgive me. It was delicious; so sweet, and so cold.
I know what you’re talking about, she said, looking right at me.
Do you now? I tilted my head.

And then, another night, she visited. Said all the right things. The sort of things you secretly always wanted someone to say to you? Those. "But how did she know?" I wondered afterward, dazed and smiling idiotically.

We partied in Lawrence one night. She invited me over some more; parties, get-togethers, studying, until by and by she didn’t. Then it was all missed phone calls, all sorts of excuses not to make dates, and then all of nothing.

As time wore on and the thing ran its course, I grew more ashamed angrier and angrier still with myself. I withdrew, even despite your kind efforts. Yours too, Sexy Communist Spy. Again, my bad.

In hindsight, this experience has helped me decide on something of great social imprtance which I’ve been mulling over for some time; I will no longer hit on any women under 40.

Except Dessa, of course.

Dunya Mikhail, an Iraqi-born poet who sought asylum in the United States after being threatened in 1996 by the Iraqi regime, gave a poetry reading at Hale Library this afternoon.

She read an hour’s worth of poems, all about war and love in Iraq, to the packed Hemisphere room; about 150 people or so - mostly professors, grad students, and womens’ studies majors (which explains why I never see any undergrads I know at these English majorey events).

Mikhail said that when she was younger, her poetry was laden with metaphors, multiple meanings, multifaceted imagery; since she came to the U.S. and started writing in English, her prose has become more direct. I found her poems to be clean, beautiful narratives, offering slices of life and imagery that connect people.

Coffee cups. Emails. Keys. Harps. Bones. grass. And so on. "We need a second life, for love only," she said.

Near the end of her reading, she let us in on a personal link to her themes (you know, in addition to having grown up and lived there during several wars or whatever).

Long ago in Iraq, she had a fiance. He became a soldier; she moved out of Baghdad, then later back to Baghdad to be a reporter, then in 1995 she left the country and went to Jordan. In 1996 she emigrated to the U.S.

Before the soldier vanished into unknown parts of the world, he had been sending letters, but Iraq’s mail system wasn’t really set up to get mail to Mikhail in case she relocated. So all the letters vanished somewhere, behind wood, or dust, or whatever it is that eventually swallows up all lost secrets written down.

All but one. After ten years, it wound up in the hands of a friend at the Baghdad Observer, who forwarded it to Mikhail, in Michigan. It was from Australia. It was from the soldier.

Today, Penelope and Odysseus are married.

Don’t look at me like that.

I know what you’re thinking: "Finally! A real post! None of that "collegianism" wank we’ve been choking down since you got back from L.A. three days ago!" It’s taken that long for my spring break afterglow — more commonly known as "jetlag" — to subside. How long is that shit supposed to last, anyway? To be honest, though, I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in a while. Saturday I packed. Sunday I flew back to the Isle of Joy and promptly emailed the redheaded cutie I met weeks ago.

Geek girl,
How the hell are ya? Have a relaxing, uneventful spring break? Or did you go wild in Cancun and get caught on video? You don’t have to answer that. Wanna get together again one of these days? Soon? :-)

-Cheeky & Geeky

Then I promptly went over Madeline’s for no good reason, where we self-destructively watched Romeo & Juliet into the wee hours of the morning.

Monday I stayed up til four doing the homework I should have finished some time last week. Tuesday I went to a Writers’ Circle meeting - kind of an informal workshop for English majors - led by Jimbo and attended by Madeline, two guys I didn’t recognize, and one dude who read some wonderful, if depressing pieces at Poetry on Poyntz a month ago.

I passed around some of my doggerel, which I wrote by lighting up a cigarette at three in the morning, remembering a pretty girl, making up the prettiest run-on sentences I could think of about her, then inserting line breaks wherever the spirit moved me to do so. Jimbo said it felt like slam poetry (confession: never been to a poetry slam, have no idea what it is, will forget to google it by the time I finish this post), and they all seemed to like my submissions. Twenty minutes of relief from the inferiority complex!

Madeline read her work as well, but much too quickly. Sitting next to her, I noticed she paced herself by wagging her legs as fast as butterfly wings. She did her poems a supreme injustice; I think everything she writes is graceful and beautiful and brilliant, really; but it’s all paratactical, full of fragments. It’s like she’s describing a dismantled stained-glass window. A listener would need a moment to reflect, to thread each fragment in with the others, or else it’s impossible to make the whole image cohere.

"I can’t read poems out loud," she told me afterwards, over one of my Parliaments. I’m the same way. I learned from public speaking last semester that I should never speak in public again.

"Yeah, you were nervous."

She said she’d rather type up her material beforehand, send it to the other members, and have them critique it without having to read it.

"Absolutely not. If I’ve got to read, so do you." Justice for all, I say.

Today I am so tired that the room’s spinning weirdly (I haven’t drank since I was bumped up to first class on my flight Sunday). It’s kind of cool and kind of scary at the same time, because it could be a breezy altered state of mind, or it could be the beginnings of a brain tumor. Meh.

It took a few days, but the redheaded cutie finally wrote back:

Don’t worry; no one will be seeing lewd videos of me on the internet anytime soon. ^_^ [Editor’s note: Foiled again!]

Spring Break was awesome, although it was followed immediately by a wicked stomach flu. (Sorry I missed your call the other night; was busy vomiting.) This week, I need to chill out, and it looks like I have some stuff going on this weekend (game-intensive, I do tabletop every other weekend) but we should totally chill out sometime next week/weekend. I got the new remastered Blade Runner–have you seen it? It’s fucking phenomenal.
Hope you had fun on the homefront. We’ll chat at ya later!

- Redheaded cutie

What’s suspicious is that this exact thing happened years ago when I went to Mexico: a week of good times punctuated by Montezuma’s Revenge. Maybe my diarrhea has spent ten years migrating eastward from California and is finally proliferating throughout the Great Plains (Take that, red states!). What’s also suspicious is that when you translate "we should totally chill out sometime next weekend" from cutie to nerd it comes out as "I’m just not that into you."

Seriously, why is it impossible, when I ask, to get this response: "Sure, let’s hang. How’s tonight?" My theory: I don’t bathe often enough and smell like loser. "We know your kind," they are thinking. "You are socially inept!" Hence the lucrative offers: tepid promises of future phone calls that are never made, and vague references to getting together that never materialize! Well, with no girls to distract me (pornstars don’t count), now I can really focus on studying.

 To recap:

I drank a lot.

"Movies" were "viewed."

I borrowed my friend’s car and managed to avoid a moving violation.

I played rock band for the first time and was not impressed.

I hit the bars! Then I hit them again.

I quit smoking. Then I quit nonsmoking.

I had a blog smackdown! It was even more boring than it sounds.

I read some of Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay, and it’s pretty good. I didn’t get around to reading Twilight. Don’t tell Heather.

I revealed the presence of this awesome blog for the viewing pleasure of the teeming masses. The masses said "meh," then went back to listening to pop music and making out with each other.

And now, my hair looks different.

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?

I’ll never be one to get up and dance
but I like to watch.
And if you look closely, you might
see me sitting here
swaying to
the same tune as you.

And if you could
meet my lingering glance
halfway
with your own eyes

And if you
could follow
the tip of my smile, like a faded trail on a crinkled map

And if you could feel the tug of my heart, invisible, lovely
like the tides

And if you see my lips, locked up tightly, and if you could read between them

You might
discover me so
by these faint
indirections.

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.

My financial hold was finally cleared on Monday! What followed was a mad dash to enroll in classes I need. My advisor and most of my professors were receptive and understanding of my plight. Here’s what I sent the Intermediate Algebra professor: ——————————————————————————–

Professor Hawkinson,

My name is Hyper-literate Bastard; I am a K-State undergrad English major who would like to enroll in the intermediate algebra course (MWF 10:30, rec W 12:30) this semester. A financial hold prevented me from doing so earlier, but that has been cleared up, and now I would like to meet with you and possibly obtain permission to enroll in your course. Do you think we could make this happen? Thank you very much!

Hyper-literate Bastard, Kansas State University

Hi. You have been successfully added to MATH010 Intermediate Algebra. 15860 REC T 9:30 CW 023 LEC M W F 10:30 CW 101 Please visit the following web page and acquire a copy of the syllabus. Regards, Dale P. Hawkinson dph@math.ksu.edu <<< Note Email address… KSU Holton 101E Manhattan, KS 66506 USA (785)532-5386

Professor Sorenson,

My name is Chain-Smoking Atheist; I am a K-State undergrad English major who would like to enroll in your Physics 102 course this semester. A financial hold prevented me from doing so earlier, but that has been cleared up, and now I would like to meet with you and possibly obtain permission to enroll in your course. Do you think we could make this happen? Thank you very much!

Yes, I’m here til 430 and have a meeting at 200. Pick a time within these constraints. CS

Professor Copple,

My name is Nihilistic Alcoholic; I am a K-State undergrad English major who would like to enroll in your MWF 8:30 am Spanish 4 course this semester. A financial hold prevented me from doing so earlier, but that has been cleared up, and now I would like to meet with you and possibly obtain permission to enroll in your course. Do you think we could make this happen? Thank you very much!

Hi Alcoholic,

You’ll need to speak with the instructor, Sandra Contreras, to see if there is room in the class. Her email is: sandrac@ksu.edu . If you don’t contact her before class on Wednesday, then attend class and speak with her there.

Mary T. Copple Assistant Professor of Spanish and Spanish Language Coordinator Modern Languages 005 Eisenhower Hall Kansas State University Manhattan, KS 66506 785.532.1924 mcopple@ksu.edu "Live simply so others may simply live."

Professor Donnelly,

My name is Snarky English Major; I am a K-State undergrad English major who would like to enroll in your British Survey course this semester. A financial hold prevented me from doing so earlier, but that has been cleared up, and now I would like to meet with you and possibly obtain permission to enroll in your course. Do you think we could make this happen? Thank you very much!

Major,

I am sorry to say that the course is full to room capacity, and there are people on the waiting list. Even if that were not the case, adding a course with as heavy a reading and lecture load as this one after two full weeks of the semester have passed would probably be suicidal, academically. We’ll have finished Beowulf and the whole body of Anglo-Saxon literature studied by this Friday, and with on-going assignments, anyone adding this late would have to read hundreds of pages a night to catch up–not to mention that having missed the lectures and discussions would deprive such a student of much essential synthesis which will figure in the exams.

I’m sorry, but surely you will be able to find some class that has room and would present less of an impossible challenge as a choice to fill out your schedule. M.D.

I suppose his response was, however, much better than my brush-off from Intro to Fiction Writing professor Mohammad Rahman, who - I just found out - has apparently gone to New York without leaving a note outside his office or a means to contact him. It’s not like they have e-mail in New York anyway; that’s probably just a San Francisco thing. Text messaging is where it’s at. Duh. So I hit up Screenwriting.
———————————————————————–

Professor Reckling,

My name is Soulless Bricoleur; I am a K-State undergrad English major who would like to enroll in your screenwriting course this semester. A financial hold prevented me from doing so earlier, but that has been cleared up, and now I would like to meet with you and possibly obtain permission to enroll in your course. Do you think we could make this happen? Thank you very much!

Professor Reckling,

Is it still possible to get into your screenwriting course? I’m a creative writing major and I would really like to talk to you sometime soon to discuss the class. Thanks!

Hello,

I’m afraid you’ve missed too much of the class already to join us now. We’re completing our first text book tomorrow and having the first 20% exam. Our syllabus is in place for all the workshopping, as well, based on the enrollment of these past two weeks. I encourage you to think about the course for next spring, and to be sure to sign up earlier. Sincerely yours, Professor Reckling

Professor Reckling,

Please, there must be something I can do. I’m completely willing to skip a whole lotta sleep to do make-up work, if necessary. A financial hold is what kept me from enrolling earlier - I’m from out-of-state and it’s kind of tough. Are you sure there’s nothing that can be done? I’m both eager and desperate. Seriously.

Dear Bricoleur,

Okay. I wondered why you waited so long to decide on this course; now I know. You’ll need to purchase the course packet at the Arts and Sciences Copy Center, which is on the basement level of Eisenhower Hall, just up the hall from our classroom (EH 21). You’ll also need to purchase the two text books in Varney’s. Bring the Smith book to class tomorrow. We’re finishing it, and I’ll be handing out an overview of terms to know for the exam next week. The other book is by Ian Gurvitz, and you’ll need that for later in the course. We’ll be viewing an episode of 30 Rock tomorrow. You will have the teleplay for this episode in your packet, and you’ll be doing work on this teleplay for next week. That work will be much easier work once you’ve seen the teleplay. I don’t generally add anyone this late. If you miss class tomorrow, I won’t add you. I’ll be sending the syllabus on listserve, and other information, as well, so you’ll need to be sure that your e mail address is officially registered with the university (if it isn’t already). The course, as I hope you know, is screenwriting for the small screen, and the focus is on the architecture of comedy in the sitcom. If you’re looking for film or for production, this is not where you’ll find it. If you want to learn how to analyze the elements of comedy in Seinfeld, News Radio, Will & Grace, Frasier, Arrested Development, 30 Rock, and their ilk, and to write original material for 30 Rock, this is the right course for you. You’ll have a lot of catching up to do, and you’ll have to do it rather quickly. We should talk tomorrow after class. Welcome aboard. Sincerely yours, Professor Reckling

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.