Beepboops’ blog

I am walking slowly to my car. It is raining and my hair is drenched. My tears might be inseparable from the rain, but I know, oh yes, I know that they are there. I stick my key into the lock and turn. It breaks off, with the stem of it stuck in the keyhole...probably forever. I fall to the ground and begin sobbing even harder than before.

But this is not the first time this has happened.

Once again I face rejection, once again the external world has changed and no one had bothered to tell me.

Arby's has, once again, changed their specials around.

Seriously, what the hell Arby's? Five-for-five was great. In fact it was genius, and it made me care about you in the first place. But then you went to the four-for-five, which was still alright. As soon as I get used to your latest gimmick, you yank it away from me, like a mother who has found her child playing with something he shouldn't supposed to be. Is me enjoying mediocre food at a mediocre price so unnatural Arby's? Must you dangle these treasures in front of me so often?

Right now you have the doubler combos. Fine. I'll eat them. I'll be cautious, but I'll eat them. I'm be watching you Arby's--your windows to make sure the doubler signs are still there. But I am prepared this time, prepared for loss, prepared for a view into your depressing and empty restaurant where my precious doubler poster used to be.

Tomorrow I am returning. Tomorrow I hope for the world remains the same.

Is there nothing worse than a medievalist nerdwad? I mean, besides rapists, murderers, thieves, liars, Eastern Europeans, politicians, people who own big trucks, opponents of Scientology, proponents of Scientology, coaches for competitive youth sports, television news anchors, fundamentalists, chess players, fraternity brothers, fans of vinyl, readers of Pitchfork, anarchists, Carnegie Mellon students, porn aficionados, commercial air pilots, combat mercenaries, and cat owners, I am drawing a blank.

There is nothing more disgusting than knowing the kid in my European history course has a massive erection from talking about how infected corpses were catapulted into castles. I just know he does, ok? The same goes whenever siege weapons are mentioned. Siege weapons are stupid and boring. This might be hypocritical for someone who spent at least three hours in a Home Depot helping find lumber to build a trebuchet, but I stand firm on this ground nonetheless.

And what's up with the love of medieval torture? This macabre fascination of human suffering requires some serious dehumanization. I mean, granted, I love suffering, but, you know, it's justified, because...satire and shit. The lesson of the Medieval period isn't "oh shit, rats eating people, awesome!" it is "oh shit, humanity sucks." In fact, Medievalists shouldn't even exist, they should all become so depressed with the world they study that they kill themselves.

I do not mean anything I just said.

Today I mocked pretentious indie rock magazines and then I downloaded the music they told me to.

I do mean that.

I spent some of Saturday helping my parents remove all of the bark from our backyard in order to eventually change it to a rock landscape. It was the first time I've been in the backyard in a really long time, and it might not be an exaggeration to say that it's the first time I've been on the northeastern side of my house in years. Then while raking those little pine needles up, I took a long look at my house. It was one of those moments when you look at something that has been with you forever and you just realize how odd it looks. The same thing has happened with my parents; I once looked at my dad and realized, "oh shit he's old and has a mustache." Quite bizarre.

Speaking of, my dad spends a lot of time talking about his chiropractic work. Often it's about how his patients think of him as a "miracle" worker, which he believes is nonsense and that he is a man of science (although not the same science as medical doctors apparently.) But sometimes I get a Death of a Salesman vibe from his stories about how much he's helped people, although as a kid I spent many summer days dicking around at his office and have heard similar exclamations from patients with my own ears.

Some of his patients are pretty nutty though; they're often members of some cult, moderately obscure religious sect, or have some shared national identity. Lately it has been Armenians from California coming to see him. I think this happens because he only accepts patients who have been sent in by other patients, walk-ins aren't accepted. This leads to knowledge of him spreading among these bizarre and close enclave populations. I admit to not knowing much about chiropractic practices. I should do a paper on the history of it and the feud with medical doctors. Would be bomb.

I played SimCity 3000 for maybe 10 hours this weekend, it's the first time I've played a game in a while. Jeffersontown is flourishing, especially with my awesome highway system and well-placed industrial zones. Kevinland keeps offering to give me water even though it's quite clear that I have absolutely no water shortage, I'm not sure what's going on over there... I pay Brohemia money to take my trash so I don't have to waste time dealing with landfills and I don't talk with Anthonyville, which just seems to want to keep to itself.

I bought shoes today.
 

Surrounded by a snoozing Michael and a greedily snacking Patrick, I had several (one) profound realizations today in Bones, Stones, and Human Evolution. I am clearly not interested in biology, even though I totally thought I would maintain some level of interest in learning about the subject matter. Today's lecture consisted going over characteristics of the Platyrrhini, Strepsirrhini, and Haplorrhini suborders. Wonderful. However, in this course my attention will be sustained somewhat because there are pictures of cute animals doing or saying silly things. This has inspired me to print out tons of pictures of this Tarsier all over my room, saying words of encouragement to aid me in my daily life:

    DO IT!!!!!!!!!

Or

 NO EAT MOLD!!!!!

Thank you you wide-eyed Haplorrhinian; I owe you.

But seriously, besides what I just repeated, I didn't bother to learn much more from the class. I took shitty notes and let my mind wander. Although I'm sure I'll do fine grade-wise (and I suspect my interest will peak when we dive more into human evolution), I won't explore biological anthropology too much farther after this course. However, this course at least makes me even more grateful for my interest and enjoyment of history (and English to an extent).

Also, Bushbabies and Aye-ayes have cute names.

A few days ago while walking towards my parked car with a father-son Sherpa duo to guide me over Mt. Blizzard, through the Sandy Dunes, and around the forbidden Green Forest, I was unfortunate enough to cross paths with a crow. "Pay your parking fines!" he squawked. I ran screaming and arms flailing, leaving the sherpas behind to be torn to pieces. Don't worry, I'll be sure to send their wife/mother a sorry card that has a picture of a cute dog with mournfully drooping eyes ($.99 at Walgreens).

That might be enough embellishment right there. However, I did cross paths with a Crow: Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University. He was talking with a well-dressed Asian man, yet the only word I caught from their conversation was "biotechnology." Now, either the well-dressed Asian man was an investor and President Crow was explaining some of our innovative departments OR the well-dressed Asian man is his personal assistant and "biotechnology" is code for "kill them." This is no exaggeration, once a pesky student from The State Press came, lump in throat and all, into Crow's office and started asking too many questions about bureaucratic mismanagement of funds.

"You're pushing my buttons, Adam. I don't like it when people push my buttons."

"Huh?"

"When my buttons are pushed...I push my button."

Then he starts laughing obnoxiously and slams his fist on a big red button that is labeled "Big Red Button" and is right next to the raise tuition button that is labeled "Verizon Wireless Presents the Raise Tuition Button." My school might have a problem with over-commercializing certain aspects of a university that should not be. Anyways, he hits the button and the kid goes falling down through the trap-door into the furnace which is right next to the philosophy department; occasionally students enter the wrong door but it's not like being burned to death in a furnace is that much worse than majoring in philosophy.

I just parked my car and am sallying forth towards my looming destination with excitement that I can barely contain. The neon sign above the automatic door advertises "BOO MANS." The "K" is flickering on and off. God bless used bookstores. God bless this used bookstore, which is like my heaven, but surrounded by used car lots, a QuickTrip, and numerous homeless people idling near the entrance.

Saint Peter, with filthy clothes and hair that resembles the electricity in a plasma ball, approaches me.

He mumbles something.

"What's that?" I ask, "Oh no, I can't spare any change, sorry. Only carry plastic."

I just lied to Saint Peter in front of the gates of heaven. He mumbles incoherently and all I can understand are the words "jack" and "car". I smile. What a silly man, he must have my mixed up me with someone else—my name isn't even Jack. But it's too late to correct him as he meanders slowly in the general direction of my car.

No time for wasting time though. I continue walking and thank god, the pearly white gates open for me and I enter heaven. It smells a little funny—an odd mix of really old books, people who don't shower regularly, and mold. Can't say that it's entirely unpleasant though.

In my hands is a stack of my mom's books that I'm going to trade in. They are mostly trashy romance novels and atrociously written novellas that she probably purchased for .99 cents while waiting in the supermarket line. There's also a Sandra Day O'Connor memoir. Normally I'd be embarrassed to be hauling these around, but eh, I'm at a used bookstore that often caters to Dungeon and Dragons tournaments (obligatory: not that there's anything wrong with that).

Earlier that day, thanks to many montages of me intensely reading, I had finally caught up with all the books I had. The feeling that I experience when finishing all the books in my possession is similar to a runner finishing a 26 mile marathon, except I'm not all sweaty and close to death. At the end the runners get to relax, drink water, and call their wife/husband/loved one to exclaim, "I did it honey!" Instead of that, I go shopping for more books.

And shopping for books is something I have gotten better and better at. I immediately go to the hot spots in Bookman's that I have memorized to see if they have anything from authors I consistently check for. Matt Ruff? No. Orwell? No. Klosterman? No. Austen? No—thank god. At this point I am fearing that my great Sunday night solo bookstore trip might be futile. But no—Yes! Something useful: The Time Traveler's Wife. Wait, no, I already have that book. I just finished reading it. There's no reason to buy another copy of a book I already have. Not falling for that trick again.

I am disappointed and my eyes are locked onto the credit receipt I got for the trashy books. "$23" it tells me. But what value are you really when all I can use you for is the purchase of Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton novels? Worthless!

Regaining my composure, I continue my treasure hunt through the nauseatingly colorful bookshelves. Around me are mostly 30-something mothers who look depressed and have to come to Bookman's of all places to escape whatever meager existence they usually occupy. But no time to reflect on the misery of life, I've got literature to find god dammit.

It takes time, but eventually I do find gold. It comes in the form of Nabokov, Kafka, and Virgil. Nabokov's Pale Fire is only eight dollars, and in excellent condition so my obsessiveness about the condition of books need not become inflamed. The Kafka book is a huge collection of his short stories and I figured that it's about time to finally read The Aeneid.

Eventually I find myself in the history section. It is devoid of people and I'm not too surprised. The few who do maneuver themselves into this area, unfortunately, are mostly lost but looking for Hubbard's Dianetics. It's in the religion section which is on the opposite side of the history bookcase. My eye comes across a history book that might be of some use to me. J.M. Roberts' large History of the World. I figure that I'm a history major so I should probably learn a bit of history. Unfortunately with this addition, I have overshot my $23 limit. Damn. Nabokov has to go. But don't worry you Russian bastard, I'll come back for you sometime.

The store will be closing soon and I checkout, completely content with myself. I have found glory and treasure at the bookstore tonight. Tonight was good. Perhaps I won't be so lucky on my next literature purchasing odyssey, but for now I cherish my luck. The guy wearing a skirt rings up my books. I exit through the pearly and automatic gates.

Hm. Where is my car? I could've sworn I parked it here.