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.

I decided tonight. I can’t go to law school. I don’t have it in my heart.
I mean, I probably wouldn’t mind it, I might even enjoy it. But it’s not
what’s burning inside of me.

It’s too practical for one thing. Dad asked how I was going to put food on
the table when I came home late tonight if I didn’t do something practical.
“I don’t care about that,” I said, “I don’t care if I don’t eat. I don’t
care if I don’t have any posessions. Do you understand?” He said, yes, he
understood. He used to be like that. Then he got a family.

I have to study truth. I have to pursue the good. I have to learn. I have
to find wisdom. I have to search for the answers.

Tonight, I had Medieval Literature with Dr. Allums. Afterward, he and Paul
and this guy named Greg and this fifty year old grandmother named Adele and I
all went out to Waffle House for coffee and discussion. I love being with
people who think. I love to ask something and not have the other person give
an unconcerned “I don’t know.” I love the chase, the pursuit of truth.

When we were getting up to leave, I turned to Allums and asked, “Will we find
the answers?” Paul spoke up, “It’s not about getting to the answer. It’s
about the questions. It’s the journey.”

As I thought about that on the way home, I realized that I couldn’t go to law
school.

Instead, I want to go to the University of Dallas. They have a political
philosophy department.

Unless I can find some place out west…

In other news, we’re going to have the giant head from the Alabama
Shakespeare Festival’s production of Hamlet in our production of The Wizard
of Oz. YES!

Jonah (is way too wired after some chocolate covered coffee beans, three cups
of coffee, two syrup covered pecan waffles, a couple games of Quake up in the
computer lab with Nathan and Mark, and some intellectual discussion at Waffle
House)

Insult to injury. That’s what it is.

I was talking to someone else when Stephen came into God and Suffering class
yesterday morning and sat on the other side of me. When I finally paid
attention to him, he was busily drawing a chart on a piece of notebook paper.
“This,” he said, looking up, “is proof of the conspiracy that they’re out to
get me.” I raised my eyebrows. “My favorite shirt is missing,” he pointed
to where he had written “shirt.” A line led upward to a question mark.
“It’s been missing for two weeks. I don’t know who took it.”

He lifted his finger for emphasis and pointed to the next item, “white van.”
“I was planning on arriving early this morning in time to eat breakfast
before class. But I got stuck behind a white van, and so now I’m hungry and
will remain so until after I’m through with classes. Who drives white vans?”
his finger led up a line, “The NSA. The NSA drives white vans.”

He paused once more before pointing to the last item, “macarena.” “For the
second time in a year, my radio station has changed. Before it was 92 Zew
that’s now 92 Rock. This time it’s New Rock 107. I woke up this morning and
my radio station is now playing nothing but Macarena. Whose fault is that?”
he asked rhetorically as he traced the line leading from that item upwards.
“The FCC.”

“You see? They’re all out to get me. The NSA, the FCC, and whoever it was
who stole my shirt.” All three were connected to lines that led to the top
of the paper where “Stephen’s misery” was written. “Their mission is my to
make my life,” he insisted, tapping on his chest, “miserable.”

He was right about the Macarena. My alternative station started playing
nothing but the Macarena song for at least 36 hours straight. All half a
dozen versions of it, over and over again, interrupted by a deep-voiced
prerecorded announcer, saying things like, “The family that Macarenas
together stays together. Good clean fun for the whole family to enjoy.” Or
“In the hustle and bustle of today’s modern world, there’s a place that
stands apart from all those confusing stations that play lots of different
songs. Radio Macarena. One world, one station, one great song.” Or, “No
Rock. Alllllll Mac.”

But when I got in my car this evening after class, I turned on the radio to
find a new oldies station on 107.3. Cool 107 or something. They were
playing 12,000 oldies in a row. “Call us and tell us what you want to hear!”
the same announcer said. I wanted to call and demand “I want my alternative
music back!”

I think half of the younger generation in Mobile is pissed off that their
radio station is gone. New Rock 107 was a great station. We already have an
oldies station, a couple in fact.

At least the new station has “oldies” sounding identification bumpers.
Although some of it still has that stupid fast dance drum stuff that doesn’t
sound the least bit oldieish.

Jonah (drove home screaming to “Born to be Wild”)

In other news, I finally got a telnet program to use through our new internet
provider. The bad news is that I crashed Windows on my brother’s 396.

Insult to injury. That’s what it is. I was talking to someone else when Stephen came into God and Suffering class yesterday morning and sat on the other side of me. When I finally paid attention to him, he was busily drawing a chart on a piece of notebook paper. “This,” he said, looking up, “is proof of the conspiracy that they’re out to get me.” I raised my eyebrows. “My favorite shirt is missing,” he pointed to where he had written “shirt.” A line led upward to a question mark. “It’s been missing for two weeks. I don’t know who took it.”

He lifted his finger for emphasis and pointed to the next item, “white van.” “I was planning on arriving early this morning in time to eat breakfast before class. But I got stuck behind a white van, and so now I’m hungry and will remain so until after I’m through with classes. Who drives white vans?” his finger led up a line, “The NSA. The NSA drives white vans.”

He paused once more before pointing to the last item, “macarena.” “For the second time in a year, my radio station has changed. Before it was 92 Zew that’s now 92 Rock. This time it’s New Rock 107. I woke up this morning and my radio station is now playing nothing but Macarena. Whose fault is that?” he asked rhetorically as he traced the line leading from that item upwards. “The FCC.”

“You see? They’re all out to get me. The NSA, the FCC, and whoever it was who stole my shirt.” All three were connected to lines that led to the top of the paper where “Stephen’s misery” was written. “Their mission is my to make my life,” he insisted, tapping on his chest, “miserable.”

He was right about the Macarena. My alternative station started playing nothing but the Macarena song for at least 36 hours straight. All half a dozen versions of it, over and over again, interrupted by a deep-voiced prerecorded announcer, saying things like, “The family that Macarenas together stays together. Good clean fun for the whole family to enjoy.” Or “In the hustle and bustle of today’s modern world, there’s a place that stands apart from all those confusing stations that play lots of different songs. Radio Macarena. One world, one station, one great song.” Or, “No Rock. Alllllll Mac.”

But when I got in my car this evening after class, I turned on the radio to find a new oldies station on 107.3. Cool 107 or something. They were playing 12,000 oldies in a row. “Call us and tell us what you want to hear!” the same announcer said. I wanted to call and demand “I want my alternative music back!”

I think half of the younger generation in Mobile is pissed off that their radio station is gone. New Rock 107 was a great station. We already have an oldies station, a couple in fact.

At least the new station has “oldies” sounding identification bumpers. Although some of it still has that stupid fast dance drum stuff that doesn’t sound the least bit oldieish.

Jonah (drove home screaming to “Born to be Wild”)

In other news, I finally got a telnet program to use through our new internet provider. The bad news is that I crashed Windows on my brother’s 396.