Responses, or: An especially poor excuse for a post

And then I thought, hell, it's not like I ever blog. I'll just reply to the previous post's comments in a new post. How sad. And yet:

to Adam875 -- I like the idea of standing on the front stoop yelling, "Beer! Come back! I'm sorry, we'll never fight again!" Having a beer garden across the street makes this image work particularly well. Plus, Chicago's a friendly enough town that somebody might just bring over a bottle. Bless them if they did. In my imagination.

to Moth -- Interesting that that would be the first kind of punishment you think of. However... I am happily back to reading and briefing cases, with a goal of catching up in one class every day. I've been close to on track so far, which is reassuring. Lots to do; I was up at 3 am last night reading copyright statutes. But is that gainful punishment? It's a pretty good set of codes.

Progress is...

...rather than pulling an all-nighter the night before a big paper's due, pulling an all-nighter the night before the night before.

But what did I have the next morning? I wouldn't call it a lump of coal to be edited into a diamond; it was more like a pile of dung to be wrapped in tin foil.

And so, progress is not... Pulling an another all-nighter the following night and still handing in the damn thing late.

Which I'm fine with. Somehow I still feel better than I than I did about the previous writing assignment. My biggest regrets are missing lunch with a professor and losing any high ground I had to complain about the assignment itself, which I considered a disaster (outside of my performance).

The past week has been punishment with little or no reward, made more frustrating by the fact that there's perfectly gainful punishment that had to be put on hold.


Assorted notes from the past few days:


Weekend listening focused on...
Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Louis Sclavis, L'imparfait des langues
David Torn, Prezens

(All are awesome.)

I'm reasonably certain that community aspects of struggling through this train wreck of a project will ultimately be more valuable than the writing experience.

Okay, the research experience was worthwhile too.

Around 10 pm Sunday I had cause to think, "Brief 1, me 0, silverfish -1." Even if I yelped when the bug came at me.

I have fallen far and quickly down the coffee rabbit hole. A year ago I despised it. Now it's a companion, and I don't need half & half. Next up, no sugar.

Floyd has been my furry little study buddy. He snores.

I miss beer. Oh G-d how I miss beer.

Happy birthday to my brother, who doesn't read this blog.

What's Undone

I just realized haven't shaved in a week, nor have I tied my shoes in the past two days.

Reasons to worry?

Times like these...

When I'm especially stressed and it leaks... I dream about not being able to play the clarinet (or bass clarinet, or both). I've had two of these in the past two nights.

They're awful, I wake up. Afterwards I can't fall back to sleep or shake the feeling that something was taken from me or, possibly worse, lost.

I mention this here because putting this into the world (in whatever bloggy, tragic way I am) helps me realize they were just dreams, or stress.

So, any other tellingly recurring stress dreams out there? I can't be the only one. Please don't say naked in high school -- it's been done, and anyway you're probably just a latent exhibitionist.

Friday Observation (One day delayed)

There's something immensely off-putting about wearing both a suit and a backpack.