THE MISADVENTURES OF AN ESOTERIC INVESTIGATOR

During and argument about teaching creationism in school, I said:

For our second writing assignment in French, we had to tell or invent a story about a time when our preconceptions were challeneged and we had to change our minds about someone.  So, I wrote this:

    Il était une fois, j'ai rencontré Le Diable. J'ai pris un bus pour visiter mes grands-parents en Géorgie et il s'assit à côté de moi.  J'avais entendu beaucoup d'histoires au sujet du Diable dans la Bible.  Le Diable a toujours rendre les gens font des choses mal.  Il était Le Prince des Ténèbres et qu'il voulait me voler mon âme.  J’ai décidé qu'il ne le pouvait pas avoir, alors j'ai été très prudent quand je lui ai parlé.
    “Bonjour,” il a dit.
    “Salut,” j'ai dit avec prudence.
    “Quel est votre nom? Je suis Le Dia––”
    “Je sais qui vous êtes.  C'est les cornes.  Euh, je suis Jeremy.”
     “Salut, Jeremy.  Où allez-vous?”
    “Pour visiter mes grands-parents.  Et vous?” J'ai essayé d'être poli.
    Le Diable a dit, “Ma sœur va se marier.”
    “Je ne savais pas que vous aviez une sœur.”
    “Ah, oui, elle est très agréable. Je l'aime beaucoup.  Elle est se marrier un prédicateur.”
    “C'est gênant.”
    Le Diable a dit, “Très! J'espère que personne ne s'enivre à le repas de mariage.”
    J'ai ri beaucoup et Le Diable rit aussi.  J'ai reçu un flacon de ma veste.
    “C'est le whisky. Vous en voulez?”
    Le Diable répondit, “Oui, je le veux! Merci!”
    Nous avons bu tout mon whisky.  Nous avons dit des histoires drôles sur nos familles étranges toute la nuit.  Dans la matinée, nous avons mangé le petit déjeuner à un dîner.  Enfin, il est allé chez sa sœur et je suis allé chez mes grands-parents. Je me souvenu toujours que Le Diable est un homme très gentil.  Avec des cornes.

I took my first Shakespeare exam.  I have no idea how well I did.  Probably not an F, which is good.  I have zero confidence this semester in all of my classes, except my writing workshop.  Maybe it's because I don't care about scratch marks on 3.1 million year-old bones or how Shakespeare used iambic pentameter in this one scene to portray a lofty sentiment.  And I find myself increasingly uninterested in being bilingual.

The only thing I'm enjoying so far is my writing workshop and after I get my first critique tomorrow, I may change my mind about that.  Not really.  I'm intensely aware of the failings of that particular piece and can take some solace in knowing that most of those failings are caused by the fact I took a novel-length plot and theme-set and contracted it into a nineteen-page story.  Why yes, I would love to explore that theme more, I would love to get into the background of that character?  You'd like to know more about that crazy father?  Sure – read the book in a few years.

I'm sitting on a patio in the back of the Education building.  I am surrounded by trees and dried leaves rushing through green grasses and the smell of the lake comes through with every gust.  Sometimes the sound of the wind and the chalky shifting of longboard skaters blend into one seismic frequency.  Behind me, teachers and future teachers are talking about how teachers are expected to perform larger and larger functions for our children but are afforded less and less resources to do so.

A Chinese woman just came up and asked me to read her petition to the courts concerning her divorce from her husband.  Her English was very good, but she was uncertain about her written language, particularly the legalese.  She was concerned with sounding proper and professional.  She did.  I didn't have to change anything she was worried about.  A few tense changes, but otherwise, it was a solid request for appeal.  Apparently two months after he brought her to America, he started beating and abusing her, and kicked her out after she called the police.  He got a restraining order against her, claiming that she was threatening to kill him and his family.  When she went to court for the divorce, her lawyer was abusive and yelled at her and would say things like "Go back to China!" and "You can't fire me!"

I talked to my sister today.  She too is dealing with an abusive ex and today her court order against him was denied because there was only one documented incidence of violence.  There were many more, but it took her a long time to build the courage to call the police on him.  They have a new born little girl together, so she has no choice but to deal with this guy, who has a long and violent criminal record, for two more months until her case comes up at family court.

Listen up, men.  What the fuck is wrong with you?  Knock it off.  Seriously.  This bullshit is so old.  You know why women say things like, "All men are assholes."?  Because of people like you, you fucking dick.  Fuck you.

I designed a preflyer for an event coming up in January:

( Polite Conversation )

I also designed another label for my friend's homebrew:

( Honest Washington )

Otherwise, I am awash in French and Shakespeare.  I'm going to run my first official 5k on the 16th.  I am equally dreading and anticipating Monday when my story, "The Strange Case of Samuel Mathers," gets workshopped and I have to sit silently while seventeen other people critique my writing.  I want to read some modern novelizations of Shakespeare.  I'm finding I totally love the plots, but my brain just shuts off after about five lines and I find myself looking for something to procrastinate with, so much so that I'll even procrastinate by doing French homework.

I am studying for a French test and I saw that the French word for Christian is chrétien which I thought suspiciously sounded like 'cretin' and I thought that was kind of funny. So, I looked up the etymology of 'cretin' and found this: "From "chretien," French for "Christian" or "Christlike," because those affected were so mentally handicapped that they were considered incapable of sinning."

By the way, this is what my brain feels like when I study French:

I met up with my sister Candice today to take eighteen-month pictures of her boy, Donavan.  I've been doing this every six months since he was born. We always go to the same place, Olbrich Gardens, which is free and amazing and beautiful.  I hope we keep doing this regularly as he grows up.  It's been pretty cool seeing how he's changed in just the last year-and-a-half.



While we were there, a hawk landed nearby, which was pretty awesome.



Okay, kiddos.  I have to get back to reading The Taming of the Shrew.

My name is a dactyl followed by a spondee.
According to Aleister Crowley, this is the best combinaton to have a well-known, famous name.

REM just broke up.
It's the end of the world as we know it.

George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree.
He did, however, grow hemp.
It was for rope and paper.
No, he wasn't getting high.
Or at least, I have no proof he was getting high.
I also have no proof he wasn't getting high.
Russel's Teapot, anyone?

Think about how you communicate with people who are not in front of you.
You can call them on a telephone.
You can use the internet in a variety of ways.
You can use the postal service.
That's about it.
So, let's privatize the post office. Or let it fail.
That means the only forms of communication are owned by private corporations.
And a private corporation has no responsibility to allow you to say what you want to who you want.
There is no freedom of speech in the corporate world.
You think you can't be silenced?

I didn't have a single wedding dream in the entire stressful year of planning. Since the wedding, I've been having a few per week. And they're not post-wedding dreams - they are I'm-not-married-yet, going-to-get-married dreams. Which is funny, because the wedding was as close to perfect and flawless as is possible.

In general my dreams have been more vivid and crazy lately, which means I'm processing a lot subconsciously right now. The wedding, school starting, Ethan moving out. This all happened in two weeks and apparently it's too much and I've got a lot of work to do while I'm sleeping.

I've also had other weird dreams, like a documentary about evil scifiish fascist police taking over small towns all over America. The ones I remember most vividly were a pair of brothers, but one of the brothers was just a head attached and kept alive by this cybernetic/organic steampunkish box.

Last night, Rush Limbaugh was trying to steal a video game that a friend designed and I got into an argument with him about ethics and the free market.