Our Dumb Blog

Stephen made a point about no true altruism existing in the world last
night in the B&N parking lot. I pulled my wallet out of my back pocket
and pulled out a dollar bill and handed it to him. Neither he nor Karen
would take it, but Cris Hyatt did. Then she tried to give it back to me,
but I wouldn’t take it.

I’m entirely too generous. I leave large tips wherever I go. Last night
my bill for my tea and the cheese fries I split with Hyatt was $4
something, but I left a two dollar tip. I guess I’m trying to make up
for giving the waitresses a hard time. Flame was complaining about being
out of coffee, so Maynard said we’d say something about it. At that
point I yelled rather loudly, “More coffee!” “I thought we’d wait till
she came BACK,” said Maynard, “But oh well.”

I’m up at the computer lab at school, BTW. I carefully read the new
signs tacked up about how EVERYONE using the lab has to sign in and then
went straight back to the room with the internet connection without
signing anything. The work studies at the front desk never tell anyone
to sign in unless they want to give them a hard time. And I’m a senior.
I’m invincible. Most of the work studies are little freshmen and
sophomores who haven’t learned that they can make a pile more money
elsewhere than the lab.

I get asked if I’m a workstudy up here in the lab, which is hilarious,
since I know very little about IBMs. I actually know a heck of a lot
more than I did when I started hanging around the lab (like how to
restart the computer, although that doesn’t take much knowledge, just
confidence that you won’t get into trouble doing it). I was talking to
Hedge in the lab on Tuesday, and a chick in there asked me, “Are you a
workstudy?” “No,” I replied, “But I play one on TV.” Hedge started
laughing at the thought of me being a workstudy, and then it took some
convincing that i WASN’T one. “You aren’t Hilda?” asked the girl.
Funny, Nathan called me Hildegard once. In the lab, I think.

I feel like a Josta, but I’ve got an hour car ride to the gulf shores in
a few minutes. I’m riding with Hyatt and Robyn and probably someone
else. Cris said last night, “You know, you have to go to the spring
banquet.” That set me off glumly saying, “I have to go to the spring
banquet,” all night. Till Karen called us bizarre.

Cris suggested we resign as SGA officers and leave Robyn (the secretary
of the senior class) to plan the spring banquet herself. I thought that
was incredibly humorous. Stephen called me a worthless human being for
saying I was going to be doing homework instead of going to the spring
banquet with the guy who asked me my freshman year.

Well, I best make my way over to the dorms. I may go out with Hedge and
company when I get back on Sat. They’re going to this Thai restaurant, I
think. I’ve never really had the Indian food experience.

Don’t get caught between the disgruntled letter carrier and the press.

“Yesterday was weird,” I said.

“How so?” asked Andy.

“Well, it all started, I suppose, when the Pepsi machine started spitting out free drinks.”

It was true. I walked into the fine arts building yesterday to find Stephen and company coming into the hall from the stairwell. “Jonah!” he exclaimed, “You want to steal something, don’t you?” My eyes lit up. “The Coke machine is giving free Cokes. Just hit a button and it’ll give you what you want. For free!”

“But I don’t drink soft drinks.”

“That’s okay! They have other things as well!”

“7UP, you like 7UP?”

“Do they have any juice?”

“Mountain Dew!”

“I would, but I don’t drink soft drinks,” I said, “So what would be the point in stealing one?”

“It doesn’t matter; it’s the principle of the thing!”

Instead, I went into Russian Lit class having not read the material and tried to BS my way through discussion. It’s always a challenge in her class to be able to get through without saying, “I haven’t read it.” Afterward, I was discovered by Cris and Karen, who entertained me with their list of Politically Incorrect Barbies. We went looking for Maynard, who was trying to choreograph the Christmas musical on the floor next to the copier in the hall. He needed a dancing partner to try to figure out one
part, and somehow I got volunteered. He knows how to lead. He makes it very obvious, pushing and pulling quite violently sometimes, but always graceful. “I love being a woman!” I exclaimed. “That way I don’t have to lead.”

Eventually, it was time for my Medieval Lit class. I found Greg down in the stairwell, feeding the Pepsi machine quarters. “You don’t have to do that, you know,” I said. “It’s giving them free.” A guy came by and hit the Diet Pepsi button, the only one with its OUT light unilluminated. A few seconds later, I white can crashed down into the hatch.

Well, Steph hit the phone in her room on accident, and it looked
a lot like a phone call, so I hung up. Then the phone didn’t ring.
Steph had asked me earlier if I were online, and I’d said yes. So I
yelled at her to see if she wanted to make a call. I had to yell loudly
because I’m downstairs and she’s upstairs and down the hall. “STEPH?!”

“Oh, Joanna! I’m so sorry!” her panicked voice came from upstairs, “I
didn’t mean to, I promise!”

“I know. Did you want to make a call?”

“Well, yeah?”

“Then go ahead.”

I stupidly told Bishop I’d go to a concert in P’cola this Monday when I
actually have class that night. Duh. I wrote him last night but wanted
to call him to apologize. I had class today till 7:30 and then came
home, ate supper, and then had Bible study with Denise, Steph, and Mom.
By the time that was over, it was 9:45, too late for me to call. Well,
it may not be too late, but I don’t call anyone after 9:30 on principle.
I was expressing my dismay at my scheduling problem this evening. Denise
goes, “I swear, you need to get yourself a watch and a calendar and a
sticky note to put on your FOREHEAD to remind you to look at both of them.”

Now mom is ragging me about feeding and watering my cat. “Did you get
any cat litter?” she asks me. “No, mom, I came straight home for Bible
study.” “Oh.”

Anyway, Denise suggested we get on maf to see if Bishop was on. I
nodded, and she dialed. Then she got on finally and started reading who
was on. “Paul’s on,” she said. I nodded. “And Berckums…”
“Berckums?!” She took too long reading her mail, so I made her move.
“Can you believe it?” she asked my mom, “knocked off the computer.”
“Just think of it,” I said, “as call waiting from the opposite direction.”

Steph is still on the phone, I guess. I’m sure with Nathan. They have
to talk every night, you know. And if I hadn’t let her talk, I’m sure he
would have called. In any case, she probably thinks I’m mad. Which is
fine with me because she’s been upset at me for the past couple of days.
Denise went upstairs and came back down a few minutes ago. “She still on
the phone?” I asked. “Yeah. You mad?” “Nah.”

I don’t know how I’m going to get everything done this semester. I
started the second semester of my junior year about as impassively as
possible. I’ve started my senior year bouncing off the walls. I guess
sleeping all summer helped. It also helps not having class till one
three days a week. That means I’ve been getting a good 9 hours at least
every other day.

I’m building a horse out of cardboard for my Three Dimensional Design
class. The instructor, Bertice, called from the other end of the room
yesterday during class, “Now that’s a horse!” Which means she likes it,
I think. She hasn’t yelled at anyone else’s sculpture. I’ve had to redo
almost every part of it, kind of like erasing, except with a knife and
tape. I redid the legs. Front two yesterday during class and back two
today on my own. It really looks good. I mean, it looks like a horse,
except that it’s way too skinny. I dunno if I’ll change it though. I
mean, I can add more cardboard to the sides and fatten him up, but the
thing about art is that it doesn’t HAVE to be an accurate
representation. I’m not sure what to do about the tail. The tail isn’t
a part of the horse for me. It’s just a bunch of hair at the end of his
butt. But I’m used to real horses, not pictures of them.

(started) Tuesday, September 10, 1996

I’m sitting here in front an open word processing document at Natasha. I almost always open American Online if I want to write something, but there’s not much point to that this time. You’ll read this in another media, just as I’m composing it in something different than normal.

I was afraid I was dehydrating yesterday. I’d been drinking nothing but tea and coffee all weekend. Today I had a glass of water with my late lunch (leftovers at 3 pm), but my head is starting to be uncomfortable, so I poured myself the last of the sweet tea. Got to come off the stuff slowly.

I had a Josta for the first time yesterday. For the same reason my hand hurts today. I was running back into the house to get a pie I’d forgotten yesterday on my way to take my cat to the vet when something stung me on my right pinky. I yelled and then muttered something quite unladylike, but I didn’t have time to nurse my wound. Mom followed me to the vet and asked them if I could have an ice pack, an antihistamine, and some topical ointment, all of which they gave me gladly, as well as checking my cat (who is in my lap right now.) The antihistamine made me very sleepy a while later, so I bought a Josta from the snack shop. It’s that new soft drink with guarana or something from the jungle in it. It actually tasted pretty good, although it did turn my teeth red. I sipped it while working on my cardboard horse we’re assigned to make in sculpture class.

Then it was time for Medieval Literature. Allums passed out several handouts to read and gave us a couple of 20 minute breaks to read them. The class only meets once a week and goesfor almost three hours. I sat outside reading the first one because it was so cold in the classroom. When I came in, Stephen accosted me.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said.

“I’ve been reading Cicero,” I answered. He then tried to take away my fall break by saying he wanted me in his play (the one the theater department will do during the Pow Wow during fall break).

“It will be sort of vaudeville, requiring some ad lib,” he said, “Your name came up, and I immediately latched onto the idea.”

Only problem is that Denise and Steph have been planning this backpacking trip for us to take during fall break in northern Alabama. Although the backpacking for a week sort of dissolved into maybe driving up there for a couple of days and pitching a tent near the car. I came home and told Steph and Denise about my offer. Denise said, “Well, if you don’t go, I doubt Mark will go.”

To which Stephanie added, “If it’s just the three of us, then I don’t want to go because Denise and Nathan will kill each other, and I’ll have to come home alone.” I mentioned something about not really looking forward to spending a week in close quarters with Nathan anyway. The two times we’ve gone camping, he and I fought the whole time.

So I come home this afternoon and mom calls from the dentist office saying, “You know, you really hurt Stephanie’s feelings last night when you said you couldn’t stand being around Nathan…”

“I didn’t say that!”

“…and Denise is upset too. You discouraged both of them.” Great, I think. Everyone’s mad at me.

The cast list for the Wizard of Oz (the big show the theater dept. is doing this fall) was posted today, and I got a part. A buttload of people tried out too. I’m “Emerald City Denizen,” which, evidently, is a speaking role.

I’m now eating a piece of pear pie I made on Sunday night. I made four pear pies on Sunday, two of which got eaten that day by my family and all the other people who show up. The third I took to school and gave to the boys in Cuyahoga (the six guys who live in house 12A on campus: Mark,Andy Hedge (the guy who gave me my mouse Stalin), Eric, Andy Watson, Wyatt, and Jeremy. Jeremy and Watson are both freshman theater majors and accompanied Mark to “church” at our house Sunday. So it’s really their fault I got stung by a bee or wasp or something, I didn’t see what it was, and now have been keeping my hand above my head to try to stop the swelling. I was missing two knuckles yesterday; it’s gone down a good bit since then. Fortunately, I haven’t had to take too many notes. I did go run my hand under a water fountain during sculpting class because using my hands to cut and tape cardboard was really wearing on my pain comfort threshold.

I read several pages of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus in God and Suffering class this morning. I had to alter between Oedipus and the chorus, most of it one line at a time, reading aloud for the whole class to hear when Dr. Mashburn told me to. I thought I did a fairly decent job. Why do I mention this? Well, who else would I mention it to?

I might have written something out by hand, but my sting is really bothering me. I played the piano yesterday without using my pinky, which made it fairly interesting. Odd how I can play the same thing using different fingers. I used to cheat all the time when I was supposed to be reading music. I’d use the fingering numbers instead. Now I hardly pay attention to what fingers I’m using. I just do whatever feels comfortable.

I ought to buy a pack of Camels and carry them around with me. Then if I get stung again, I can put some tobacco juice on it. The lady who sits next to me in one class suggested some meat tenderizer. I said I didn’t really like the idea of putting meat tenderizer on my flesh. Paul was trying hard to control his laughter.