Our Dumb Blog

Warning: There’s at least one “bad” word in this post. I make no apologies for it. Sarah, if you’re going to be bothered by bad words, don’t read this post.

Work has been boring lately. There was a huge push to get the students done, but there hasn’t been much going in the past couple of weeks. There’s been a constant string of people leaving for Pueblo where there’s the same job for more money. My application is certainly in.

I went to Florida for Sydney’s graduation. Overall, not as bad as I thought it might be. Sydney neglected to wear a funny hat, but at least she didn’t walk naked. I discovered that I’m squishycore. You heard that right: I’m squishycore. I’d still like to know just who drinks a dozen cans of New Castle (did ya catch that? Cans of New Castle), dances on the platform, sings along with skater boy and stays out on Palm Court until the sun comes up, yet is *still* squishycore? By the time the sun came up, the hundreds of New College freaks had mostly evaporated, leaving some sludge on the bottom who insisted that we couldn’t get breakfast until the sun comes up. And I stuck with it. Passed out on the wall, I might have been, but squishycore I was not.

If anyone wants to tell me the name of the band with the chick who rocked as lead singer, I’d be glad of it. Not for any good reason, but I’d like to know. I listened to them for quite some time, but if they ever pronounced their band name, I never heard it. I did managed to hear the name of the chick who rocked: Katherine Kelly. Whose girlfirend (wearing a Gutentag Berlin shirt and fuck-me boots) once dated a girl I know. She definitely rocked. I decided to find her and tell her so at some point, but by then there was no sign of a band ever having been in the building with the bathroom when I looked. At the time, in a bit of a drunken haze, I figured I could Google them. At the time, it didn’t occur to me that there are a zillion appellatory permutations for the chick who rocked.

The band with the chick who rocked was worlds better than the band out in Palm Court. Whose name I did know, but don’t remember now. It was a weird name with fusion. Synergy, even. (In a non-corportate sense.) I think it started with a J and involved primates. In any case, they were only mediocre until the lead started singing. Then they sucked. It took me a long time to realize that the reason the vocals sounded so bad was not some sound guy mixup, but because he was singing into a telephone. Yes, a telephone. Which had been hard-wired into an amp. This was an interesting schtick, but produced less than interesting music.

All of the girls of New College are shaped the same. Or at least they appeared that way. My cousin Kyra and I were discussing this phenomomen, and were unable to decide whether it was a matter of shape, clothing, or far-left liberalism, but decided that these were at least the factors which should be investigated. Girl’s jeans have become so low, that they no longer really have wasits. They consist of two legs held together with a belt. As a result most girls are sporting a plumber’s crack while seated or bending over, which while not as bad on a girl in her early twenties as an actual plumber, still isn’t attractive. The girl with the lowest jeans of all was wearing a “bomb the blogosphere” t-shirt, which I loved. Until I found out that it’s a Questionable Content reference, which made me realize that I’m just not in touch with the ‘net these days.

In other news, the K girls have all turned out to be rather amazing people. I detect within them some hint of a promise for the future which I think that I too once possessed but have since squandered.

In even other news, my father is sporting a beard. Which means he is no longer allowed to complain about *my* beard should I choose to grow one. And I choose. His actually makes him look a bit relaxed, and (despite it being mostly gray) younger. (I, on the other hand, look much better without a beard, but I really detest shaving.)

With so little going on at work, now is a good time to take time off. If I take time off while we’re flying, I’m losing money. If I take off when we’re not flying, I’m not. Joanna couldn’t take off until Friday, which compressed things a little bit. So we’re going to drive somewhere Friday morning and return Wednesday evening. I’m not entirely sure where yet, but we’ll be departing on a northwesterly heading.

Poetry, by the way, should be heard, not read.

Forgetfulness
by Billy Collins (fast becoming, possibly, my favorite poet)

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

And we just now had this conversation, too.

Most of that isn’t true. She seems to have some issue with Clapton and Hendrix and can’t tell the difference between the two. I certainly know the difference between Bob Marley and Hendrix. I never said Hendrix sang I Shot the Sheriff. Good grief. This from the woman who thinks that “alternative” music was actually. And I didn’t claim that Clapton wrote I Shot the Sheriff either– I just mentioned that both Bob Marley and Clapton sang it and I didn’t know who wrote it.

My husband apparently has no memory.

We went to Chick-fil-a the other day for breakfast. Berck ordered the chicken breakfast burrito. I was kinda surprised because he had ordered it the last time we went to breakfast there and had decided it was okay but not worth giving up a chicken biscuit. He got the salsa with it, and as expected, Chick-fil-a does not specialize in salsa.

The clerk asked if Berck wanted salsa with his new burrito. “It’s Chick-fil-a salsa,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” said Berck, declining the salsa.

We sat down, and Berck took a bite of his breakfast burrito. “This is really good!” he said. “Here, try it!”

“I tried it last time,” I said.

“What do you mean ‘last time’?” asked Berck. “I’ve never had this before!”

“Yes, you got it the last time we had breakfast here!”

“No, I didn’t! I’ve never had this before! Try it!” So I took a bite. “What do you think?

“It tastes exactly like it did the last time I tried it.”

Ask Berck. He’ll insist that he’s only had a Chick-fil-a breakfast burrito once in his life. (Unless, of course, he replies with, “Chick-fil-a has breakfast burritos? Sweet!”)

So a couple of days ago, Berck was talking about guitar music and mentioned how reggae Jimi Hendrix was.

On our honeymoon, Berck had said the same thing. I played every single Jimi Hendrix song on the MP3 player to try to prove that Hendrix was in no way reggae and that he was confusing Hendrix with Bob Marley.

I couldn’t believe we were having this same discussion again. “Hendrix isn’t reggae!”

“I Shot the Sheriff??” declared Berck. “That’s reggae!”

I’ve never heard Hendrix play “I Shot the Sheriff,” but I’m willing to accept the possibility that he played it at some point. “Yeah, because Bob Marley wrote it!”

“Bob Marley didn’t write it! He covered it. Hendrix wrote it!”

So just now the MP3 player randomly played some Hendrix song (I don’t know which one). “Nice reggae beat,” I said faceciously, nodding to the rock song.

“I’m telling you, Hendrix did a lot of reggae!” insisted Berck.

“Why are we having this discussion AGAIN?”

“Because it’s true! Eric Clapton did a lot reggae!”

“ERIC CLAPTON? We’ve been talking about Jimi Hendrix!”

“No, I said Eric Clapton!” insisted Berck. “He wrote ‘I Shot the Sheriff.'”

Fortunately, we were sitting at our computers this time around. Two seconds later we were both reading from the Wikipedia entry. “Like I said, Bob Marley wrote ‘I Shot the Sheriff’!” I said.

“Like I said, Eric Clapton did a lot of reggae!” said Berck.

“Except you didn’t say Eric Clapton! You said Jimi Hendrix! You’re mixing up a white Brit with a black American!”

“You think Jimi Hendrix is black??” (He’s African American, Caucasian, and Cherokee. And Tiger Woods is half Asian.)

Berck also can’t remember how to get out of the liquor store parking lot. Granted, it is confusing. If you exit from the street entrance, you can only go east and have to drive all the way up to the next light to make a U-turn to go west; whereas, if you go through the Advanced Auto parking lot to the light, you can turn left. But we go there once a week, and he has yet to remember.

Now if he could just be as forgetful about the last time I forgot to turn off the car headlights.