Posts by Jonah

I’m sitting up here in the computer lab at school.. we recently got a
connection though maf here. Makes browsing the web neato. Especially when I
STILL don’t have netscape at home… I was up here chatting with Gandalf and
Lorax and some other wizards earlier. Rivendel is such a cool place…

Anyway, I just came back from the library where I watched a video about
African religions that i missed while I was out of town and couldn’t attend
world religions class. I also was trying to read John Locke’s first treatise
on government because I asked Dr. Schaefer a question in class today and he
told me to go find out. But the people nearby in the library were making
weird noises, and I really didn’t feel like finding out what was going on, so
I left. But I had to check out John Locke first. That’s when I noticed who
was manning the front desk.

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking back from the dorms or the cafeteria for
some reason, I’m not really sure why, when I saw him running toward me. It
was the freak. I think his name is Larry. He’s the guy who asked me for a
cigarette that time and then insisted I smoked later on. That’s when I
discovered I had a double on campus. Anyway, he was hauling butt for some
reason, so I smiled as he swept past me. That’s when he said, “Hey,
gorgeous,” and ran right by. I dunno. That was one of the last things I was
expecting him to say.

Anyway, he was there at the library counter. I could see him from the table
where I was filling out a card to check my book out. I dunno why we still do
the card thing. It would be much more efficient to have a scanner for the
books. Instead we have to fill out a card for each book we check out, writing
down the library of congress number, the ascension number, title, author, and
our name, social security number, and phone number. I thought for a second
before I filled out the box entitled “name”. Finally, making a decision, I
penciled in “Brenner, J.” Then I walked up to the desk, planted the book and
card on top of it, and waited for the freak to look up. He did, his eyes
betraying a glimmer of recognition. “Hi,” he said quietly as if he hadn’t
seen a friend for a long time, “How are you?”

“Fine,” I possibly smiled slightly.

He eventually grasped the meaning of my visit by looking down at my hand on
the book. I slid it toward him. He picked it up and looked at the card.
“What’s the J for?” he asked slowly. I stared at his multiple earrings and
lone eyebrow ring above his left eye offsetting his acne scarred face..

I’ll finish this later..

I was sitting at my desk doing Greek homework when I noticed something was
buzzing in my room. A wasp was hovering nearby, so I returned Stalin to his
cage, walked out, shut the door, and ran downstairs for a fly swatter,
fogetting that, due to the current construction on our house, everything that
was once in the laundry room is now in boxes distributed around the dining
room and the floor of the new laundry room. Instead, I picked up the front
page to today’s newspaper and rolled it up as I went back to my room. I
opened the door, and peered around, newspaper at the ready. The buzzing had
stopped. The wasp could be anywhere. Then I spotted him. There. On the
lampshade. I walked slowly towards him, lifting the newspaper. I’d have to
hit him hard because the lampshade was thin material and wouldn’t offer any
resistance. And my only weapon was the newspaper, which was flimsy at best.
Calculating the distance and speed I’d need, I raised my arm and wanged the
wasp really hard. Then I laughed as I watched the bulb blow and the lamp
topple down.

The room was now much to dark for homework of any kind, so I went back
downstairs to search for a light bulb among the contents of the laundry room
that were still distributed in the dining room and the new laundry room. The
only one I could find was a three way bulb. I hate three way bulbs. When I
turn the knob on a lamp, I want it to come on. When I turn it again, I want
it to go off. But I don’t seem to have much choice in the matter, so I’m
sitting in the glare of a hundred and fifty watts.

And I’m still not doing my Greek homework.

Couldn’t go to sleep last night, whether it was feet were still cold even under two extra blankets or the cat kept purring in my face, or something else.

Having the cat in there does make waking up in the morning easier. Especially when I have to get up around 7 to throw him in the closet.

I only have two classes today, three classes on TT. I feel like such a slacker.

I have to get THING today. I guess I’ll have to come home and go back out, because I can’t take the van, and the other one is parked at the airport.

In the desert you can remember you name….

I was walking to the bathroom just now when the some of the most vivid colors I’ve seen in nature appeared through the window in the corner of my eye. I stopped, transfixed, gazing out at one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen. Its hues drew me for a better look toward the window and then through it to the roof outside. My feet walked along the shingles, my eyes locked on the purple tones and other living pigments that mere words can never adequately describe. I sat on a gableand stared at the sky. The cirrus clouds in the west hovered above the horizon, changing tone by the minute.

As I sat there, I realized what it’s all about. I experienced my enlightenment, except unlike Buddha and his bo tree, I was under a live oak on top of a roof. My eyes drank in the beauty before me as my optic nerves delivered the information to a cynical mind that asked, “So?” And itwas then that I realized that it didn’t matter what life threw at me… as long as I had someone to share it with.

As the last shades of pink slipped away and I got up to leave, I noticed that an oddly shaped cloud farther above was moving slowly to my eyes but undoubtably very swiftly at its high altitude. It almost looked like a jet trail, spread out long after its originator had disappeared. But it wasn’t straight like an airplane’s path should be. It curved up and came down to a point. I frowned and stepped back to get a better view. The rest of it appeared from behind one of the oak’s limbs. Then I laughed. “The dang thing’s heart shaped!” I almost said out loud. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was as if one of those sky writing planes had drawn a huge valentine in the sky. Maybe one had, I don’t know. But the sides of it blew slowly outward like nebula from a supernova, leaving Venus shining much too brightly from inside. I laughed again, climbed back in the window, and slammed it shut.

So happy Valentine’s Day, everybody. Or something.

I got mine.

As I was gathering my books strewn across my desk in preparation for school this morning, I caught sight of my mouse standing up on the cardboard tube in the aquarium where he lives (I call it the “mousepad”), with his forepaws leaning up against the glass, and shouting “Take me with you!” Well, okay, maybe it was more like, “Come and get me!” I haven’t quite mastered rodent-speak.

A few minutes later he was perched in my collar, happily gnawing at a crumb from my bagel as I ate while driving on the way to college.
My Greek instructor never noticed him, even though Stalin kept squeaking from inside my shirt, where he’d gone to take a nap. My next class was Public Administration. My professor kept calling my mouse “Satan”. “Stalin,” I’d correct him. “Whatever.” The girl who screamed when she was sitting down next to me in class last time I brought my mouse to school almost did again when she walked in the door. Only this time she was on the other side of the room. I kept him in my pocket with his lump of mouse food while entering psych class. But the instructor wasn’t there yet, so I pulled him out and shouted at my friend Chad on the other side of the room. A dozen people turned around and gasped. The lady nearby started squirming violently. Another girl announced that she wasn’t in the least scared and came over to touch the confused Stalin. I stuffed him back in my pocket as the class started, and he went to sleep as I learned about the hypothalamus in the brain. Afterward I took him over to another friend and introduced them. My psych teacher, who habitually ignores me, actually came over to see my mouse. I told him that Stalin was a behaviorist.

Stalin slept some more while I fooled around on the World Wide Web on our school’s newly acquired Internet connection. Then this guy named Martin came in and decided to take Stalin downstairs “to scare people”. I grabbed my book bag and hurried after him. My theater friends Stephen and Elizabeth were downstairs and tried to engage me in a conversation while I kept one eye on Martin showing off his rodent-connected bravado. That went fine till I heard, “Oh, sick!” I guess Stalin decided that was a good a time as any to answer the call of mother nature. I retrieved him from an all-too-willing-to-part-with-him Martin and accompanied the theater people back to the fine arts building, discussing money making schemes and assassinations with Stephen.

They went upstairs as I continued to my car. But I was interrupted by several people I know who became instantly fascinated by my mouse. Stalin did his best to crawl down the shirt of the girl who asked to hold him as we discussed rodent upkeep. One of the teachers stopped by but then quickly left when Stalin accidentally got loose. Not like he’d go anywhere. “What’s the difference between this and something you trap when it gets in you house?” someone asked me. “Well, he is genetically inferior,” I answered.

About then my English professor came by. I presented my pet to him, and Stalin immediately crawled up onto his shoulder. “I should go into my freshman class like this,” he remarked. “Yes!” we agreed. So the crowd that had formed followed him down the hall. He strolled into the classroom and walked to the head as the room erupted into exclamations. One girl stood up and moved to the back of the room, her back against the wall. “I’ll give you an A on your next paper if you come up here and hold him in your hand,” Dr. Allums offered her. Nothing doing. Those of us in the back laughed. Allums returned the rat to me after letting several students pet him. “It’s like show and tell in kindergarten,” someone commented. I waved goodbye to the class withthe hand I was holding my mouse in to the effect of several more gasps before grinning and walking away.

I had to stop by dad’s office to make some copies on the way home. I neared the office at about the same time as three people coming from the parking lot. They greeted me as I reached down my sleeve and groped around, frowning. “What’s wrong?” “I’ve got a mouse in my shirt,” I said, still struggling to get him out. They looked on in amusement until I finally pulled Stalin outof my sleeve. That’s when their eyebrows shot up. We walked into the office as the receptionist cowered behind the front desk. I continued on back to the copier with Stalin on my head. After meeting a couple of other people in the hall, I headed home, leaving a note on my absent father’s computer screen about how many copies I’d made. Stalin slept, exhausted, in my collar all the way home.