Got the Ebb/Got the Flow

I've been absent of late. My apologies.

Suddenly I'm back on the train, and it's moving faster than before. There are days, such as yesterday, when my every movement is fraught with meaning, where the simple act of eating lunch gives way to an impromptu speech to the entire dining hall that was supposed to be made by someone else, where I make fourteen phone calls to three time zones in my "spare" time, and where making my way to the car after class takes an hour and a half, and requires "touching base" with no less than five people, and a great many exchanges of paper. Where did all this responsibility come from? I signed nothing, there was no campaign. I didn't even pay my dues or attend any meetings.

And then there are days like today. When I run myself ragged only to be denied again and again. Find the card so you can get the contract, unbox the work, find the slides, re-box the work, e-mail the dean, don't forget to get the contract. The person with the contract is out until two-thirty, race to class, class is cancelled. Contract? Who told you you needed a contract? You don't need a contract until next fall. You only found one slide? What about digital images? Could you burn a disk.? No, nevermind, looks like we missed this one. You should be concentrating on your own work. The work you keep dropping on the floor in front of the glory hole. Yeah, that work. Oh, and the dean's e-mail got returned somehow, so we need to do it again. Hotter, faster, more direct.

At least I can count on my trusty Margarita and bath at the end of the day. My Margarita will never make me un-official co-president of the Visual Arts Society, or train as an alternate for the outreach program, or ask for a full list of pros and cons of various colors and tools, or engage me in a heated debate about sandblast resists. No, it will simply get a little saltier with each sip, until it puts the sea to shame. My bath will temporarily ease the burden of gravity, and winter, but it will turn cold soon after, and I'll pay special attention to how my body sinks as it drains away, and lie there heavy and freezing, until it occurs to me there might be something better.

Landlocked Lighthouse

January is hard. Happy birthday to Adam, Ross, and Xian, in that order. And happy MLK, just for good measure. Also, my Wu-name is Half-Cut Skeleton. Chew on that for awhile.
For those of you who keep up with these things, Ross is fine, and I don't think he'll be drinking 8 shots of whiskey in rapid succession again anytime soon. But tomorrow is another day, and also the day of the actual whiskey party, so I may be underestimating 3-day weekend birthday boy.
Currently, I'm wondering if three of my favorite people who were drinking shots at my house, and are driving home across the snowy plateau in a car with brake problems, are lying in a ravine somewhere. Life will not be worth living anymore if they are, so I hope someone will call me when they arrive home safely.

Highlights of the weekend: Punching Randy in the eye with my glass ring during a heated (read drunken) bit of thumbwar....Mike-wrestling in nice clothes in the mud...Mike-wrestling in nice clothes out of the mud...free Cracker Barrel breakfast for six...hanging out with Kyle and Rachael for the first time as a couple and noticing they seem to be making each other really happy (or maybe it was the whiskey?), thus changing my outlook completely...the philosophic stylings of 3-day weekend birthday boy from the bathroom, in between hurls...snow...and a few lucious moments of unmention.

Lowlights of the weekend: Giving Randy a black and bloody eye...mud on my nice clothes...busting my ass, audibly, on the stairs in the wee hours...more bruises than I like to have at one time...having to play naggy bitchy girl...earning free Cracker Barrel breakfast for six...an absolute inability to have the right keys at the right time...pathetic, sickly 3-day weekend birthday boy (BTW, he's very very very very very very sorry. I know, because he said it, a lot)...and the unbearable mindfuck of a few lucious moments of unmention.

Thus ends your humble narrator's 30-day bender. It's been swell, but the swelling's gone down. Planning for Old Crow Medicine Show at the Tennessee on February 26 will begin in 5....4...3....2.....

Listening to: Radiohead- Backdrifts (The Honeymoon is Over)

Slugabed, Baby

In the interest of jumping back in to the swing...
Team Grudge emerges victorious! After many long and agonizing months living with the sting of inital defeat, Sewell and I have recaptured our Cranium crown. We did not merely win, no, we ruled with such authority that the game ended with a glorious "awww, fuck this, let's go to Vic and Bill's."
Happy Birthday to Anna!
In honor of the occasion, we luncheoned at West Side Tavern this afternoon, mainly because they give you a free lunch on your birthday. Then, Anna went to class, and Randy and I decided to make for Morningside Park to take advantage of the I Can't Believe It's Not May weather, and remind ourselves why we don't play disc golf anymore. If I'd spent half as much time in class as I spent at that park, I might have made it to my sophomore year at UT. We had to walk there, having locked both our keys in the apartment, and thus having no access to any of our cars, and we saw some very interesting Knoxville sights along the way. Did anyone else know the road between the police station and the civic auditorium was called "Support Our Troops Drive?" The park itself, I'm sad to say, has gone severely downhill, which is saying something of an abandoned park cum trustafarian playground on the edge of the ghetto. It is trashed, and that makes me sad, because I have a lot of happy seven-over-par memories of that place. We found another monument to Knoxville's Winchester House brand of urban development, a carefully built, double-wide sidewalk along "Historic Preservation Drive", that starts in the middle of the park, and goes absolutely fucking nowhere (but ends, hilariously, at a sign that says "wrong way"). There is nothing I could see that was Historic or Preservative about the road, which is really just an on-ramp to James White Parkway. Knoxville....awesome.

Nemluvím Český

This isn't news, but I'd just like to point out Jesse rules. I'd marry him, but I heard he's gay, so I'm thinking of starting a messianic cult. He is my rock and savior (sorry, Jesus, but you have shitty taste in films, and your alliance with Mel Gibson is distasteful, given your position). This site is now devoted entirely to the the worship and praise of His Holy Lunchiness.
Alright, probably not that last bit, but today I do give my thanks to him for being there even when he's not, and I felt like shouting it from the virtual rooftops.
Děkují za pomoc. Na zdraví!

Withdrawl

Faithful as they came, they went. It's never enough time. Suddenly it's quiet, and empty, and the gravity starts to catch up, and rips the tears out of your reluctant ducts once more, for old time's sake. You thought you'd evolved past that, but there they are. Not so much a flow as a slow drip, but stupid nonetheless. You've been unable to shake that eclectic mix of people for whom the word "friend" does no justice over the last week, and in the space of a morning they're mostly scattered to the wind again. There were words you forgot to say, because there were so many that needed saying, and the one person you really wanted (needed) to see didn't make eye contact or speak to you in two whole days, and you returned the favor, knowing you both deserved it, devastated by the realization it would probably always be that way, and angry you're both such stubborn-ass knuckleheads.
But it was all good, until that last bit. You typed a lengthy paragraph, attempting to outline events of the past week or so, but words failed, and you scrapped it, because you're in a crappy mood. Then you wondered what got you on this second-person narrative, and began to annoy yourself. You wished everyone a brilliant 2005, and promised them you'd go cheer up, or get drunk trying.