Keeping it going

Still posting every day so far. This one will probably be relatively short because it's going to be tomorrow by the time I finish up.

Anyway, my roommate Chris wanted me to write this down, so I will include it here: he wanted me to mention how Irish and English pubs specialize in advertising (all over the walls, on huge mirrors, etc.) things that they don't have. Beers, whiskeys, etc. Why they do this (and why this is acceptable) is beyond me. I don't think you'd go to any other kind of bar and see that they were advertising a beer that they didn't have and never intended to have. Especially when pubs tend to have larger beer selections than other bars.

Posted by a man who pretty much stopped drinking over 6 months ago.

I also am giving myself a mental reminder to write about our future Freakonomics-type study that - if done right - would make us billionaires. But that's for another day.

As we left the bar tonight, some drunk-ass girl walked up and tried to bum a cigarette from my roommates. When that didn't work, she asked us to "start a new conversation" because she wasn't enjoying the one she had just been in. And so Matt began, "Grape Nuts are neither grapes nor nuts. Discuss."

Her reply was some stupid gobbledy-gook which led to her saying that she was lactose intolerant. And this is where it got interesting. She said, "I'm a WHITE person that's lactose intolerant!!! I mean, ASIAN people that are lactose intolerant - that's fine. But I'm a WHITE person that's lactose intolerant."

Now, I'm not exactly sure what that all was supposed to mean, but had I had my shiv on me, I might have thought about helping her become a bad-ass. Hmmm - I suppose that warrants some more explanation.

In the time-honored tradition of guys having ridiculous debates, the three of us were trying to determine whether being stabbed in a fight made you a bad-ass. Matt (and Chris, to some degree) was of the opinion that, no matter what, if you got in a fight and ended up being knifed by your opponent, you were a bad-ass simply because you could tell everyone about how you were stabbed.

I, on the other hand, contend that that is more or less saying that being mugged at knife-point automatically makes you a bad-ass, which, of course, isn't true. I believe that one has to have a post-being-stabbed fighting response to be a bad-ass. For example, I get stabbed in the ribs, and my response is to beat up the other guy with a knife sticking out of me.

This led to further "bad-ass" scenarios that don't need to be repeated at this time (most of them involving some sort of stabbing yourself to prove how little being stabbed means to you before continuing the fight). Right.

Point being, we decided that - if we were those types of guys - we could go around stabbing people simply to let them become bad-asses. Thus, my offer to make the stupid lactose intolerant girl into a bad-ass. Which brings us to the moral of this post:

Stupid people shouldn't drink alcohol. Unfortunately, stupid people DO drink alcohol quite often, and that is why - on a general level - it is good that I don't carry a shiv.

Coming soon: a post about how appropriate it is to share conversations that would just make my parents worried and/or disappointed on a blog that nobody but my parents would ever read.

Theme of the Week

I went hiking today, but I don't feel like writing about it. And since I don't want to turn this into a "Dear Diary" daily journal, I have decided to develop my writing chops by addressing a "Theme of the Week." This theme will be randomly selected (unless somebody actually reads this and has a suggestion) by the tried-and-true method of randomly opening a page and sticking my finger in an English-Swahili dictionary. If that doesn't seem to work, I'll change it up and go with my Swahili-English dictionary.

So are you ready for this?

Dictionary?

-check-

Finger?

-check-

And the first "Theme of the Week" is . . .






"Motivate"

In Swahili, the infinitive verb is: "kuletea kusudi" which directly translates to "to bring a purpose."

Aren't we all learning, now?

Okay, so now I have to write a story that has something to do with "motivate."

Hmmm. Do I have to use the infinitive verb tense, or can I use variations like "motivation" or "motivational"? And if I'm not using quotes for dialogue, do I still have to put my sentence-ending punctuation within the end-quotes?

Anyway, what can I write about "motivate?" About "motivate"? -they both look wrong-

How 'bout this theme does NOT "motivate" me to keep this idea going. Maybe this "Theme of the Week" idea is stupid. Or perhaps the random selection process is the problem. I guess, to be true to my word, I should go to my fall-back plan of using the Swahili-English dictionary. Here we go:

"Ubahili: avarice, miserliness"

Alright, alright - I can do this one. Ooh, and it even relates to my day. Damn, I'm good:

If I was filthy rich, I would definitely have a waterfall at my house. I was talking to my roommate Matt about this today, and he had an even better idea of having all water in the house be on a constant flow. For example, I take a shower, but I don't actually turn on the shower, because it is always running. The water that runs down the drain from this running shower then flows into some sort of filtration system where it flows into my waterfall, which then flows into my stream, which flows into my house and through some indoor channel into my sink or bathtub or whatever. And that water drains into a filtration system that goes to my waterfall . . . Got it?

It would be so damn calm and peaceful in my house at all times with all that water-flow. I might need to have my own private water treatment plant on-site to make this work, but I don't care. My AVARICE is strong enough that I would have no qualms having my own water treatment plant just to have constantly flowing water (and a waterfall) at my house.

You like how I so smoothly worked the theme into that sentence?

While I'm at it, I would also have an indoor forest glade in my house. There would be no real floor, just dirt with sod and a huge f-ing tree growing up through the roof. I would keep it really well-watered (with my constant-flow system), so we had all sorts of epiphytes and moss growing all over everything. I'd have some other shorter trees growing in my glade, too. And the walls would be giant sun-lamps that would be on a timer that slowly came on in the morning and slowly dimmed at night.

That would be tight.

And that's me getting better at writing on a Friday.

The First Post about Nothing

I welcome you to my first post about absolutely nothing. In this post, I will summarize my day and tell you about being a teacher of middle school students and running into them out of context.

Today, I did nothing of note. I wandered around aimlessly, producing nothing and having inane conversations about the same. That is why you should religiously check this blog every day - because of the distinct possibility that nothing may continue to happen EVERY DAY. A true self-important blogger, however, would disguise this truth with clever writing and BLOCK LETTERING!!!! So this may be the last time that I reveal my secret in such a blunt fashion.

Anyway, running into a student out-of-context is always a wonderfully awkward exercise. It's not always the EXACT same, but most run-ins follow a similar script to that of today's remarkable event:

I am standing at the cross-walk downtown, talking to my friend Fred and probably saying "Fuck" loudly a few times. As we are about to cross, my name is yelled loudly from right behind me, and I look to see one of my students with a few of her friends (NOT my students) also preparing to cross the street.

Caught off guard I throw on an overly-big smile and say - with that high-pitched voice that only people running into people they didn't expect (or want) to see use - "Hey! What's up? How's your Spring Break!?"

She looks at me suspiciously and tells me that it's fine, then turns to her friends and, in the same way you would tell your roommate that his dog shit on the rug, says, "This is my math teacher." They all stare at me in confusion (probably wondering if they are supposed to make fun of me right now, or wait until I'm out of earshot).

Not knowing what else to do, I turn to Fred and introduce him, "This is my friend Fred. Fred, this is my math student." I'm not sure if I referred to her specifically as "my math student" to be a smart-ass or because I'm strange; but Fred must have presumed the former because he immediately begins making sarcastic comments about how happy she probably is to see me, all the math she must have been doing over break, etc. Without saying another word, her and her friends walk past us and away.

And so I'm left wondering (as with every time): am I supposed to just say hi and then completely ignore her, so that she doesn't have to be embarrassed in front of her friends? Should I chat more and ask about other things? Should I TRY to embarrass her like that obnoxious parent (and more or less like Fred did for me) for my own self-amusement?

These are the difficult questions teachers must ask themselves when they run into students outside of school. And there is no handbook with easy answers to help us when it happens.

Tune in next week for more tough questions such as: ˆwhat if the student is smoking when you run into them?ˆAND ˆwhat if you're drunk when you run into your student?ˆ

So I have a blog - now what?

So my friend Becca told me that I should start a blog the other day. She said it would be a good thing for me to do because I am so bad at keeping in touch with people, and this would give them a way to feel a little more connected to me. She also said that it would be good practice for me if I want to become a better writer.

My response? Like anybody (even my friends in far-off cities) wants to read this crap. I don't have anything interesting enough to say on a regular basis to make it worth anybody's time to check up on this. But maybe that's why I should do it. My sense of humor seems to be slowly (or not-so-slowly, depending on your personal point of view) deteriorating into finding myself hilarious no matter other people's responses. Actually, I find myself more hilarious when other people have a NEGATIVE response. So - if nobody is actually reading this, but I am writing and being hilarious with absolutely NO audience, then it makes me even more hilarious. Not to mention I COULD use the practice . . .

So okay - I'm sold, Becca. I'm going to start a blog. What are the chances I will keep this up for more than a week? Slim to none, no? But it's worth a shot.

And YES, Gate, your advice was very influential, as well.


ENJOY!

Sincerely,
Count von Triloquism aka Faux Deep