Category: minutiae

This week I discovered the wonder that is: freeze-dried coffee; and it has completely changed my life.

What else. Oh, I’ve been meaning to read the The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe for a few weeks now. I finally have the book, but I keep telling myself that I don’t have the time.

What else, ah my tooth. This requires a little bit of a preface:

When I was a boy, I was in little league. One day a baseball smacked into my front-tooth, and it landed in my hand—the tooth that is. This was my second front-tooth, and I knew God wasn’t going to give me another. Nervously, my Dad drove me to the dentist and they called it an “emergency session” (I think the dentists were excited– they never get emergencies). Eventually they did a root canal on it (whatever that means).

Now, 9 years later, that front tooth has started to lose its color– let me not mince words here, it’s turning black. I got scared, and I was afraid my tooth might make me start looking like those bums outside my work that routinely ask me for change, or like some witch, or some Ferengi, or lil’Jon. I don’t want to be Lil’Jon. So this week, I’ve been getting my tooth bleached and insurance is calling this “cosmetic”? Cosmetic! Is preventive care from looking like Lil’Jon “cosmetic”?

Long story short, this is going to cost me a fortune. Don’t expect any great gifts from me this Christmas.

HOW embarrassing. Today, I dropped my keys down the tiny gap between the elevator door and the ground floor. There was at least 5 seconds of silence before my keys finally splashed onto the hard concrete.

Mr. Building Manager, a surprisingly pleasant and affable chap, said it’s quite a process getting my keys back. He needs to call the elevator people. The “Elevator People”?

Anyway, it’s 3pm right now. No word yet from the Elevator People. Still no keys.

Overall, it’s been kind of a Monday-like Wednesday.

This enchanting scent has been following me all day. “Is it me?” I ask myself. Well there is no body else here, it must be me. Could it be my cologne? But you know, it doesn’t smell quite like my cologne, and I’ve been wearing the same cologne for a year now: Davidoff Cool Water–and it’s redolence is somewhat fading. But evenso, it can’t be my cologne; I distinctly remember forgeting to put it on this morning. I take in another loud full whiff of the air around me, smells absolutely divine. Why do I smell so great today? I assure you this is not pretension. Whenever I’m surprised at a smell I’m emitting it’s almost never something particularly agreeable; but today, quite the contrary.

Eventually as the day progresses I discover the source of this alluring scent. My underarms. It’s the new deodorant I purchased: Old Spice Fresh Gel.

It may just be deodorant, but it’s Heavenly.

I noticed that after my post on Sadie and Maud (which I thought no one would read), I started to receive dozens of search engine referrals for that post. I assume they’re all from English students looking for a critical analysis or essay of some sort on that poem. Hey, honestly, before I even started to write that essay, I plugged away at a few websites myself towards the same end and I think I left the internet disappointed from finding nothing. So, for posterity, and particularly for other desperate English Majors out there looking for an essay to steer them clear on John Donne’s cryptic little poem Death Be Not Proud, I leave you the essay I wrote for class on this poem. Keep in mind, it’s another last minute hack I put together, but hey, it passed, whatever.



Analysis on John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” (doc | html)

Death Be Not Proud
by John Donne
(1572-1631)
DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Imagine this: For next class, you have to give a presentation on two Greek plays: Electra and Philocetectes.

Now imagine this: Almost a week has passed and it is now 5pm, the day before your presentation, and you still haven’t read these two plays. But, there is still time. Class is not until 9am the next morning, and you still have the rest of the evening to read and come up with something to present—piece of cake/cup of coffee.

But then…(donnt-da-daa) your roommate tells you that his sister is having an off-campus house-party at the ol’alma mater. What do you do?

Stupid question, I know. You go to the party; but impose a stricture limiting how long you will stay. Say it’s 6pm now, being back home at 10pm would be worst-case-scenario, and even then you may have enough time to read 100 pages or so, and get a decent night of sleep.

So, now you’re at the party, and you’re having fun and time sprints past you. It’s already 11pm and past your self-imposed curfew. The thought of dropping the class skirts across your mind. But guilt overwhelms you, so you leave. Home is an hour away so you get in close to midnight.



You’re exhausted, too torpor to think about them Greeks and there twisted drama, but you persevere, you muscle it through. And you finish your reading and it’s now 2 am. Class is at 9am, but you haven’t quite finished yet. There is still the matter of preparing a presentation. Do it in the Morning! You set the alarm to 6am, (4 hours, that oughta do it).

**********

The piercing shrill of the alarm wakes you up 4 hours later, which seem like 4 minutes later. It’s cold, the sky is still dark, but you again, persevere, shower, and make tea alongside a small repast. Your mind is clear and you start jotting notes, and come up with all sorts of crap to talk about for your presentation.

You go to class on time, and nail that presentation.

Moral of this story:

Learn from experience. Whenever something needs to be done, wait till the very last minute, and then hold off for a few more seconds. Or as Mark Twain more eloquently puts it “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.” Wise man.

I just discovered that “Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me”, the absolutly hilarious NPR news quiz-show, has all their past shows online for free download.

Here is the link:

Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me



(If you’ve never heard of it before, I recommend you check it out. It’s quite a riot.)

(Thanks Dorothy!)

(alt. title: emesis by words)

September is the cruelest month, not April.

Front yards are sordid and unkempt, frazzled, for the fight to maintain a verdant lawn is out-muscled by the sun. The nights are no longer wholesome, save December, and the air begins to chill and thin and the blankets are summoned from the closet.

School begins to reopen, a non-pejorative condition, however its influence on the honest faces of children is infectious, turning smiles into a pale sense of foreboding.

Who was this man who held such a bleak estimation of April? April is optimistic; it’s fresh. It awakens the sleeping, and tears down the old, and bathed every vein in swich liquor.

But September is portentous.

Gas prices rise unchecked. H3 hummers run over the elderly. Storms come and quickly rattle the nation–except in Washington where there is a slight delay.

Summer is on its final lap. Fall is near. The leaves will fall. The temperature will fall, so will the forlorn summer spirit.

September is the cruelest month! Never April.

The following takes place between 11 pm and 11:15 pm

My roommate is watching that show 24; he bought one of the seasons on DVD. I’m sitting in my room so I can’t see the TV from here, but I can hear it way too clearly. And you know, the show sounds so corny and melodramatic, and just plain bad, when your hearing only the audio.

The following takes place between 11:30 pm and 12 am

So, the two of us are leaving for a flight to Arizona tomorrow morning–early morning. We’re going to visit a mutual friend, Mardigan (who’s a tool).

The following takes place between 12 am and 1:15 am

We have to wait till 12:01 to print-out the Southwest boarding passes. Sigh, Southwest, “where every seat is cattle-class.”

The following takes place between 1:15 am and 1:30 am

Okay time to bed. Off to Arizona in the AM. Will take plenty of pictures! Goodnight.

The following takes place after 1:30am

A thought: someone shoot the man that put 24 on DVD.

I was third in line at the checkout at Michael’s Crafts, with no cart, and my hands full. There was a young girl at the head of the line, a cute girl, in the strictest sense of the word. She had on a brown printed skirt, and a very modest top, that accented her innocent and decent appeal. She was not carrying any items to purchase. Instead, she had a folded piece of white paper, with printed lines and handwritten pen marks, which I immediately recognized: the archetypical Application Form.

She was asking the cashier whether it was possible for her to speak to a manager about getting a job. Allie, the cashier (I read her name from a name-tag), muttered something through the store’s intercom system, and another woman, who looked like a manager, since she was dressed well and was missing the tacky red Michael’s apron, approached the girl. The conversation was loud enough for anyone within 10 feet to hear.

So, what my intruding and nosy ears gathered was that this girl already had a job, and was looking for another to help pay for college. The conversation brought back some of my own memories, the days when the only thing you had to offer was your time and labor to make a few dollars, and I couldn’t help but sympathize with her situation. Working and trying to go to school; there is something ineffably charming and noble in that–and all too personally familiar.

But I could no longer relate. I could only reminisce, and sympathize, and be happy for her.

I’m just getting out, and she is just getting in.

And I’m tired of hearing it, and tired of saying it, but I sure felt it this time: “I’m starting to feel old.”