Preparations

It's raining and I've been reading travel books all day (I realize that was a run-on). It seems hard to believe that in less than a week Europe will no longer be seen only through the media of guidebooks, hostel websites, and Ricola ads. After booking so many hotels and reading so many travel logs, it seems as much of a created world as Middle Earth or Dune. By creating an itinerary, I have compiled, from snippets of other people's experiences, a set of presuppositions about what we will experience. I hope it is something entirely unexpected.

Disconnect

There are three types of people: those who like to rule, those who like to be ruled, and those who like to be left alone. People in the first two categories understand one another other. People in the third category resist those in the first and despise those in the second.

Looking in the Mirror

This is what I will look like when I am old, I say
As I glance in the reflection across the room,
Greyed and obscured by the lowered shade,
So that only the tired stress lines around the mouth
Really show.

And the large black eye sockets
That get larger with coffee
And other artificial life stimulants.

The smooth translucent skin of youth is hidden by the dark
And in imagination the many wrinkles of age fill the blank
The wrinkles that will suit the deep lines of apathy
And the bitter jaw set that alone shows in the dark reflection.

Downsizing

hermit-crab
Originally uploaded by DeaSuperba.

Hermit crabs do not form their own shells but instead use the cast off shells of other animals. On some beaches, where shells are scarce, a crab may be forced to live in a shell that is too small for him and his grotesque, bristling body protrudes from its crowded prison.

Like hermit crabs, people do not make their own organic reputations, but must conform to pre-made categories, which fit their real selves with varying snuggness. In our democratic society, there is an abundance of shells and we are all encouraged to dwell in the largest ones we can carry on our backs. This leads to discomfort, as we drag our inflated reputations behind us, or the loss of our shells, as they slide off our backs.

Slogans like "you can do anything" and "be all that you can be" are destructive. While we thankfully don't have to live in uniformly small shells, our culture creates new misery by pushing mediocre people to live in oversized shells. Stop and consider yourself--your natural abilities and your true desires--and find a shell that fits.

10 Reasons Why I Shouldn't Be a Man

rex harrison
Originally uploaded by DeaSuperba.

1. I would forget flowers and things and all women would hate me.

2. I would be a misogynist.

3. I would be like Henry Higgins.

4. I would be five inches taller with broader shoulders so all the guys would be jealous of me.

5. THEREFORE...I wouldn't have any friends.

6. I might have to live in Red Hill (ick).

7. My brother would have killed me by now.

8. I couldn't be a feminist without being weird.

9. I couldn't listen to Sinead O'Connor without being really weird.

10. I couldn't wear red scarves and flared pants without being gay.

From the Miasma of My Mind to Yours

It is 11:40 at night. Normally, being the sluggard I am, I'd be in bed. But I'm not. I'm writing a paper. Yes, the night before it is due. I have a minor stomach ache and a major buzz from the several servings of Starbuck's Java Chip icecream that I've consumed. A lot has happened. We've solved certain ladies' marital problems. We've eliminated Brianna's Armenian heresy. Emily's play has been a success the first night. And I learned a new word - MIASMA.

Yes, miasma, from the book I'm supposed to be reviewing, The Myth of Rome's Fall. The OED defines miasma as: Noxious vapour rising from putrescent organic matter, marshland, etc., which pollutes the atmosphere; a cloud of such vapour. How lovely! Hopefully the excitement will keep me awake for the next three hours....

The Omniscient OED

...where I can always find a new and useful word....

wanrufe - [f. WAN- + rufe var. RO n.]: disquiet, unrest

c1480 HENRYSON Robene & Makyne 28 Bot I haif mervell incertane Quhat makis the this wanrufe.

I was filled with wanrufe this morning after seeing the little apartment off campus with a miniature gas stove.

She's Back!

Allis Emily Me
Originally uploaded by DeaSuperba.

The only person who also likes Huxley, who will make a pact to go on a mescaline trip with me in ten years, the most tolerant, most gullible, most chic ALLIS WEBB!

Reason 27 why I hate politics: The Republicans sent Allis to Medina, Ohio so she's been gone all semester.

Leaves in a Stream

ems17
Originally uploaded by DeaSuperba.

Parts of our lives touch and cohere for a second until a whirlpool pulls us apart and reorganizes the relationship. There is an appearance of intentionality and permanency in the arrangement that is false. Some of us are delayed as we encounter a rock and the rest hurry down an eddy. We're still bright and waxy. We're not brown and soggy yet, not porous and slowly absorbing the water until we sink below the surface and become part of the muddy river bottom.

The Umbrella Monster

umbrella1
Originally uploaded by DeaSuperba.

Emily has seen fit to retract her comments of my last post in her blog. I'm sure we are all thankful to learn that she does not, in fact, hate intellectuals. Perhaps she merely has an inferiority complex about serious thinkers. Indeed, someone who wears umbrellas may be presumed to have many inferiority complexes. One can only conjecture...perhaps she got frustrated with her business casual wardrobe...perhaps she's been watching too much MTV...perhaps she has fantasies of being a male bullfrog.

Emily: Prolific Writers Are Boring

I: "Calvin wrote the first draft of Institutes when he was twenty-six!"
Emily: "What a boring man."
I: "You think creating a system of theology and studying under the two greatest legal humanists in Paris is boring?"
Emily: "He must have done nothing but write."
I: "So you would have preferred that he go out and impregnate his lover and get himself castrated like Peter Abelard?"
Emily (unconvincedly): "Oh, fine - Calvin wasn't boring."
Moral of the Story: Don't write too much if you want Emily to think you're interesting.

Killing the Gypsies

Sometimes I get tired of the same faces on coins, the same name on Sharpies, the same publishers of books. Even going to Canada or England is a small relief because the chocolate bars are different. But there is nowhere to go on this earth that can really satisfy someone with wanderlust anymore. Everywhere there will be Jeeps, Adidas, and someone will speak English. Every mile of desert, jungle, or tundra has been photographed by some supercilious satellite.

Dona Anna and the Goats

I had owned four goats before. The first one was the runt of a set of twins that belonged to my neighbor. I bottle-fed him KLIM until he grew up into a friendly but sharp-horned billy goat that hung himself while grazing on the hillside. I wrote my first tragic poem and thought I had a broken heart. I still remember my dad desparately pushing the goat's chest, trying to get him to breathe again while I stood behind him and sobbed.

My next goat was a big, brown, bossy nanny. I used to lie against her warm belly as she chewed her cud. Then she got sick and died. Our brown, shriveled, jibaro neighbor, Don Julio, said she had eaten a praying mantis.

Next came Chocolate Milk and Butter Milk. Butter Milk was a tiny white kid. I gave her a bath every day until she caught a cold and died. Our neighbor lady Dalia said goats weren't supposed to have baths. Chocolate Milk was a bigger goat that belonged to my brother. He gave her to me as consolation for Butter Milk. She probably lasted the longest, but then she got into the sweet feed pellets, gorging herself until her stomach burst.

So by the time Goodness and Mercy came along, I was experienced with goats, both living and dead. I knew, when we got back from Christmas in Michigan, that Dona Anna, the 80-year-old woman in the tiny house with the large pen of goats, was trying to give me a different Goodness than the one I left in her yard a month ago. This Goodness raised her triangular head into the air and rolled her rectangular yellow eyes in an odd fashion. But Dona Anna was adamant and we took the same Mercy and different Goodness home.

In a short while they were pregnant by the next-door long-haired billy. Being very good goats who didn't climb on any of the cars except the rusty old Nova and rarely charged mom's flower bed, they were allowed to have the run of the neighborhood. One day they didn't come back. Dona Maria said that goats often disappear when they are ready to give birth, but I always thought the new Goodness was a foundling who had led Mercy astray and Dona Anna was a twinkle-eyed, mischeivous gremlin.

The Sole, True and Entirely Accurate Account of our Trip to VA Beach

Friday: 8:00 am: *drowsily* "my mom said there was a hurricane headed this way." "oh well, let's go anyway - it'll be fun." "hope they have a roll-away bed."
Friday: 4:30 pm: "You mean you don't know how to check your oil? Do you know how to pump gas yet?"
Friday: 5:30 pm: *after politely being asked whether she was ready to go* "MICHAELA!!!! Will you STOP nagging. You sound like my MOTHER"
Friday: 6:23 pm: "Do you have any nail clippers?"
Friday: 6:35 pm: *three cell phones ring simultaneously* "Yes, mom, Michaela is driving - I'm sure it'll be fine...I think." "Maria did WHAT????" "That's fine, Brooks, just don't make out on campus."
Friday: 7:00 pm: *blabbering in the back seat* "Is that my exit?...um, is that my exit? IS THAT MY EXXIIIITTT?"
Friday: 10:35 pm: *quiet, small, extremely deserted intersection in the middle of nowhere* "There were too gas signs back there." *four voices* "MICCCHHHHAAEEEELAAA." "OH SH***" "D*** IT." "WHAT ARE YOU DOIINNGG?"
Friday: 11:00 pm: "did you say there was a continental breakfast?" "it's a Days Inn?" "Yuck"
Saturday: 12:00 am "there's no roll away?" "look - my knees hang of the edge of the bed." "maybe we should let the two little people sleep in one bed so we don't crush them." Friday: Saturday: 12:03 am: "MICCHHHAEEELAAA - you can't go out there - you're in your pajamas!!!!"
Saturday: 7:30 am: "oh look - they have donuts!" "MICHHAEEELAA - what did you do to the coffee maker?" "can we stop at Starbucks?"
Saturday: 9:30 am: "gosh, there sure is a lot of SAND everywhere."
Saturday: 10:00 am: "MICHHAEELLA - don't you dare take a picture back there!!!!!"
Saturday: 1:00 pm: "Are those kids feeding sea gulls? I HATE sea gulls."
Saturday: 5:00 pm: "I KNOW there's a Haggen Daz around here somewhere....." "Can we just stop at the Dairy Queen." "NOOOO."
Saturday: 5:20 pm: "Can we stop at Starbucks?"
Saturday: 6:00 pm: "Ouch - my AASSSSS is burnt!!!"