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November 2003

November 30, 2003

Chris and Sarah came to Sandusky to visit with me today. It was a nice treat, talking for a while at the house and then going to Friday's for a late, light lunch. They were here for about two hours, and we talked about all sorts of stuff, but I missed them already not long after they'd left.

It's like this a lot, and sometimes I have to wonder if I'd be better off just locking myself away in isolation. Then I wouldn't see hot guys that I can't have, and I wouldn't have a good time that gets cut all too short. Of course the better option would be to have a boyfriend or at least the kind of friend that I would see once or more every day - but neither of those things seems like it's likely to ever happen again at this point, so I might as well consider what's the least uncomfortable situation to spend the rest of my existence.

Damn, am I the poster child for Prozac or what?

Posted at 8;30 PM

November 29, 2003

I'm not going to go into details on this one because if I do I'll end up getting pissed off and nasty and say things that will hurt certain people, but I fucking can't believe that people judge other people who they don't even know, even when they have a mutual friend between them who thinks highly of both of them.

I, of course, am the mutual friend, and I am sick and tired of being told some bullshit, opinionated lies about someone I know but who the accusing person has never met or even seen. What the fuck is wrong with people to do shit like that? Isn't there enough judgmentalism and hate in the world already, even justified shit? Do we really need so much more of that fucked up shit that people need to make it up? Does that make them feel superior or some fucked up shit like that? It's bullshit, plain and simple, just bullshit.

Posted at 11:38 PM

November 28, 2003

Damn! The first snowfall to cover the ground in happening right now. It's incredibly pretty, actually, and the temperature is just right so that the snow melts on any pavement, like streets and sidewalks, so I can appreciate the snow completely, without having to worry about shoveling it or driving on it. Of course I sort of realize, now, that it's not going to be long before I have to drive on this shit, but for the moment I can just see it as pretty. This is what's so wonderful about snow; Even the cold doesn't bother me. If it always melted on pavement, I would always love snow, so for the moment I'll enjoy it while the moment lasts.

Written Posted at 11:48 PM

November 27, 2003

Gobble, gobble!

That was me earlier today at the Thanksgiving buffet at Sawmill Creek Resort. That was our treat for supper, for my grandma and I, and it was quite tasty as usual. The harp player was wonderful as well, and there were enough cute guys around to provide a visual feast better than any foods that could be provided.

The meal itself was early, just after 1:30 PM, and I had the rest of the day to try to get some schoolwork done. I haven't been very successful. I've been tired with that overfull, holiday sleepiness that keeps you slowed down incredibly but isn't enough to put you to sleep. But what can I say - I could probably have tried harder to work; I just didn't.

So, I'll pay for that later. I'm tired, there's much still to do before the weekend is over, and I'm not looking forward to any of it. But what else is new?

Posted at 2:58 AM

November 26, 2003

Damn emotions, always getting in the way. As if I'm not already far enough behind in my classwork ...

Posted at 1:07 AM

November 25, 2003

Yes, Virginia, there are still sane (and liberal) newspaper columnists out there. Of course the Washington Post is a great source of news that hasn't been dominated by the conservatives that now own most of America's media sources, and it would certainly be good to see more articles and columns like this as a balance to the preponderance of conservative bullshit that pours out of so much of the news media, but I'll take a great column like this regardless of where I find it. I couldn't have put the case more clearly:

The Patriotism Refuge

If patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, as Samuel Johnson said, then it is the first refuge of politicians. That at least is the case with the Republican National Committee -- and by implication the White House -- which has started running a television commercial defending George Bush's handling of the Iraq war, saying the president's various Democratic opponents are attacking him "for attacking the terrorists." Not really. It's for doing such a bad job of it.

This despicable attempt to muffle criticism by throwing the flag over it may or may not work. Whatever the case, it does not change the fact that the United States went into Iraq for reasons that now appear specious and so distantly related to the war on terrorism that the connection seems merely rhetorical. Saddam Hussein lives and Osama bin Laden lives and yet somehow the Bush White House wants nothing but congratulations. Mine will have to wait.

More to the point, none of the reasons the administration gave for attacking Iraq -- and none of the reasons cited in the congressional resolution authorizing the war -- have proved to be true. As of yet, the United States has found no connection between Hussein and al Qaeda and no evidence that Iraq had an extensive WMD program, particularly one that was about to go nuclear. It remains true that Hussein was a beast with an appalling human rights record, but as bad as he was -- or is -- that was not the reason the administration gave for going to war.

I would like to believe that some well-intentioned people simply misread the intelligence data and concluded what they already thought they knew -- namely that Hussein posed such a grave threat to U.S. security that he had to be dealt with pronto. After all, it's not as if former Clinton administration officials who had only recently seen some of the same intelligence were jumping up and down demanding to know where the Bush administration was coming from. On the contrary, many of them supported the war.

Yet, as Thomas Powers, an expert on intelligence, points out in the current New York Review of Books, Colin Powell "made 29 claims about Iraqi weapons, programs, behaviors, events and munitions" in his United Nations presentation, and none of them have yet been borne out. His was the best and the most detailed case the administration presented, down to the tonnage of chemical weapons, and I found it convincing at the time. I now feel taken. If Powell feels the same way, he's entitled -- but he ain't saying.

If there was merely an intelligence failure, it was massive and inexcusable. Yet, from CIA Director George Tenet to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, every high official has remained on the job. They helped lead the United States into a war that may not have been necessary and may ultimately prove a debacle. Still, not a single administration official has been held accountable.

The other possibility is that they -- the top people in the Bush administration -- knew the stated grounds for war were bogus. If that's the case, then we do not have a thrilling exercise in presidential power but an abuse of it that makes Watergate look as trivial as Richard Nixon's defenders said it was. The two GIs whose bodies were mutilated in Iraq the other day -- just to cite two American casualties -- may have died for a lie.

Mistakes can be rectified, although the consequences of this one are hard to exaggerate. But an abuse of constitutional power is a different matter, and it is this we must all begin considering. It is possible -- actually, more than possible -- that a clique of defense intellectuals either snookered the president into going to war or did so with his full cooperation. If this was done, then it represents a grave and reprehensible breach of faith with the American people. We cannot now pull out of Iraq. But we can and we must determine how we got there.

And about the only way to find out what really happened is through the political process. This is especially the case because the Senate has gone from being the world's greatest deliberative body to the world's greatest rubber stamp. Naturally and predictably, the White House would like to avoid any accounting whatever and is likely to respond to criticism with demagogic appeals to patriotism. I hope it doesn't work. I love my country and I love the truth and I always thought the best thing about being an American is that you don't have to choose.

Posted at 11:15 PM

November 24, 2003

You might think that I'd be a bit excited knowing that today is my only day of classes this week, Thanksgiving vacation starting Wednesday and running through the weekend. You might think that even if I didn't look forward to resting and relaxing (Ha! Like I have time for that!) that I might look forward to the uninterrupted days I could apply to schoolwork (which assumes that I won't be interrupted by my grandma or fixing meals for her or driving her somewhere or balancing her checkbook or telling her to just throw away the junk mail she receives rather than contemplate giving money to some scam ... well, you get the idea). You might think that I'd be able to go back to the last two weeks of class feeling that I had a chance of completing stuff for just about all of my classes. "You might think I'm crazy, but baby it's untrue. You might think I'm crazy - all I want is you."

In truth, though, I am more tense and stressed today than I've been for weeks. I'm surprised my neck hasn't snapped off, it's been so strained and tight. I had to spend some time this morning to get some last aspects of classwork done - the final details on the website design for my online portfolio and the final work on my poem for today's workshop. I got those things done in time and even finished writing the paper for my Fiction Workshop that analyzes a collection of short stories (in this case Jayne Anne Phillips' Fast Lanes).

At some points it was even a fairly pleasant day - my poem went over better than I'd expected, and I had a nice dinner with Sara, Erin, Jill, Jonathan, Manny,and Sara's boyfriend Matt, all of us joking around quite a bit.

However, between the extreme cold of the day, being whipped around on the road by the high winds, the rush to get things done, the problems with the new website (it displayed differently on a PC than on my Mac; I managed to resolve this, but it took a while) - with all these things going on, added to not as much sleep as would have been good for me, I was tense and tired.

And then it got worse because that paper I had finished for Fiction Workshop was lost through a mistake I made in updating files between my Zip drive and the harddrive on my Mac - so that's gone and will have to be written all over again, as if I'm not already far enough behind in my schoolwork as it is.

So excuse me if I'm tense and tired and achy and none too pleasant ... it's been a long day.

Posted at 2:34 AM

November 23, 2003

Yeah, it all sucks.

Posted at 8;50 PM

November 22, 2003

I've spent most of the day designing the overall layout for the online portfolio website I'm creating as my final project in my Online Documentation class. I still have a lot more to do, too, and it sucks that it's taking so much time to put this together. I'm sure the migraine I had yesterday and most of today has slowed me down immensely, and I've had trouble getting the images in my mind into a working form in Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I've made a lot of progress, though, so I'm pleased with that; I'm beginning to doubt I'll have time to teach myself Flash, though, before this project is due, and that's disappointing because I really have this great, albeit fairly simple idea (or at least I think it will be fairly simple, even though I've never done anything in Flash before), I just have to have the time to play around with it and get it working. This may be one of many things that gets set aside in one of my my big old 'Do this when you have time <laughs with tears in eyes> between semesters' plans.

I still have a lot to do with the overall layout before it's ready, and I need a full mock-up (at a minimum) to turn in for class on Monday. I also have to do some serious revisions to a poem for Monday (which I like less and less the more I work on it); and I have a bunch of other schoolwork that I had really planned to get done this weekend but which is not near being touched.

The stress of all of this is finally taking its toll on me: I ache; I have migraines; I'm surly; I'm not sleeping well; and all of these stress effects just end up making me struggle even more to get things done, and that makes me even more stressed. Convenient how that works, isn't it? It's like the stress is self-renewing. Well, I'll survive it, and somehow I'll get things done - not everything, probably. This time I think it's honestly quite impossible to finish everything off in time for this semester, so I'm seriously hoping I can talk a couple of professors into giving me incompletes. Not that having incompletes will be a great thing - I'll end up having to finish up schoolwork over my quite short winter break, and that just robs me of time I could have used to catch up on everything I've been putting off and even having a chance to relax a bit (maybe). I'll just have to deal with it all as it comes, but I sure wish I could get through this better. It's not very pleasant right now.

Posted at 10:34 PM

November 21, 2003

It has disturbed me more than I can express to have learned that Jonathan Brandis has died of a possible suicide. This article was the first that I read, and most other news sources say about the same things, and I was instantly upset when I read this early in the morning.

'SeaQuest DSV' actor Brandis dead at 27

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Jonathan Brandis, who from an early age appeared in a string of roles on television, commercials and film, including the starring role in 1991's "The Neverending Story 2: The Next Chapter" and two seasons on Steven Spielberg's "SeaQuest DSV," has died. He was 27.

The county coroner's office is investigating the November 12 death, which was reported by the Los Angeles Police Department as a possible suicide, Lt. Ed Winter of the coroner's Investigations Bureau said Thursday.

The coroner performed an autopsy but the cause of death will not be announced until the results of blood and toxicology tests are returned. The investigation could take as long as four to six weeks.

Police said a friend of Brandis called 911 from the actor's apartment just before midnight on November 11 to report Brandis had attempted suicide. Paramedics transported Brandis to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, but he died the next day, police Detective Gene Parshall said.

The office of Brandis' agent at Innovative Artists refused to comment.

Brandis started his career in commercials and on television, landing a recurring role on the soap "One Life to Live" at age six. After moving with his family to Los Angeles at age nine, he made guest appearances on such shows as "L.A. Law," "Who's the Boss?" and "Murder, She Wrote."

Other film credits included the Rodney Dangerfield comedy "Ladybugs," and the martial arts comedy "Sidekicks" with Chuck Norris, and a small part in the 2002 film "Hart's War," starring Bruce Willis.

Brandis also starred as crew member Lucas Wolenczek in the underwater sci-fi series "SeaQuest DSV," a role that garnered him a Young Artists Award in 1993 and helped turn him into a teen idol.

Jonathan Brandis was always amazing to me, for his astounding beauty, his acting skills, and his natural likeability. I loved watching him in his movie roles, on 'SeaQuest,' and in other tv guest roles, never tiring of seeing the same movie or episode again and again. He was nine years younger than me, but I was seriously hooked on him, and I can't think of any star who ever captivated me so much except for River Phoenix. His death comes with some sadness simply because I'll never have the pleasure of seeing him in other roles and being able to appreciate his acting or his appearance again, but it pains me even more to find that he may have committed suicide. For such a beautiful person, with so much talent and so much life visible in his every move, to be unable to find any reason to live any more ... it terrifies me. He had so much going for him, so much to offer, and so much he could still accomplish, and he saw death as the only answer. It bothers me that there was nobody there to show him how wrong he was and how loved he still was, and it honestly bothers me that I never had a chance to know him or help him.

And it bothers me most of all, selfish though it may be, that Jonathan Brandis couldn't find a reason to live even with all that he had going for him, and I'm still here, alive, with nothing to show for my existence and very little promise that I'll ever even have anything to offer in the future. Maybe it's just that he was more brave than me and had the balls to actually go through with suicide, but I can't help seeing myself and my life as completely inconsequential and hopeless in comparison to him and his.

His death is a truly sad loss for the world. We will never again see his beauty and his spirit, and we will be weaker for his absence. I can only hope that he has found peace.

Posted at 10:47 PM

November 20, 2003

The first of two Senior BFA Creative Writing readings for this semester was tonight, and it was, as is usually the case with the BFAs, the best reading of the semester - better than the visiting authors and certainly better than the MFAs. Readings were from peers of mine from various classes: Ebani, Rachael, Erin, Carl, and Jonathan. They all did a spectacular job. As good as the readings were, I was supremely disappointed in the event.

There has been a running argument for most of the semester about how BFAs are limited to only 15-20 minutes for each reading since the program only allows about two nights for the seniors to read. This not only makes for a long night, even at this shortened individual length, but it makes it almost impossible for a fiction writer to tell a story of any length in that amount of time. Up until last year, the BFAs were on their own for arranging various nights to do their readings, but the Creative Writing program decided to pull the BFAs into the Thursday night series, ostensibly to make their readings more appreciated and better attended. The halving of their reading time was deemed less important than making their readings part of the formal series.

Well, that might hold weight if the Creative Writing program actually showed some support. When seniors have complained about the limited amount of time they are allowed, they have been ignored. When the BFAs read, the MFAs are not required - or even encouraged - to go, even though the BFAs must go to the MFA readings all semester. And the worst, in my mind, is that tonight, at the reading, the primary heads of the department did not even show up: not Lawrence Coates, the head of the department; not Wendell Mayo, the former head of the department (who is on sabbatical all year); not Larissa Szporluck or Sharona Muir, the only other tenured professors in the department; not John Wylam, until recently the BFA advisor for Creative Writing and a fixture for the program. Yes, Theresa Williams, Karen Craigo, and Mike Czyzniejewski were there, each instructors for the program, but they are all minor parts of the program who are never even certain if they'll have a job at BGSU from year to year. For all of the primary professors to be absent was a huge slap in the face to these seniors on the one night that caps their four (or more) years of study. I am as disgusted with the Creative Wiring program as I have ever been.

After the readings, I joined Manny and helped him put together ideas for classes he can schedule for next semester. It looks like he'll get a pretty good line-up and have some classes he'll really enjoy while still getting a bunch of required things out of the way. The registration system was shut down for the night by the time we got together (they shut it off at 9 P.M. for some reason), so Manny will still have to make sure that he isn't closed out of the classes he wants, but I made sure that he had enough alternatives to cover for any possibilities. It was nice to be able to help somebody; I miss doing that. And helping Manny let me wind down a bit from being so angry at the directors of the Creative Writing program for letting down the BFAs so much. I'm still pissed off, but I'm rational about it now, and that's a much better place to be.

Posted at 12:31 AM

November 19, 2003

I take back my enthusiasm from yesterday. It would appear that the best we can hope for is "separate but equal." I guess the next thing will be gay and straight drinking fountains and gay and straight restrooms (and of course the gay versions will be cheaper and dirtier, just to stay in step with past methods of discrimination).

Democratic Candidates Oppose Mass. Marriage Ruling

None of the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination support Tuesday's Massachusetts court ruling on same-sex marriage.

While they all said they support the right of same-sex couples to receive the same benefits as married couples, only the three candidates at the back of the pack, Al Sharpton, Dennis Kucinich, and Carol Moseley Braun would come out and support gay marriage.

"As a society we should be looking for ways to bring us together and as someone who supports the legal rights of all Americans regardless of sexual orientation, I appreciate today's decision," said Wesley Clark.

"As president, I would support giving gays and lesbians the legal rights that married couples get."

However, Clark said he did not support the right of gays and lesbians to marry.
John Kerry and John Edwards issued statements Tuesday restating their opposition to gay marriage.

"As I have long said, I believe gay and lesbian Americans are entitled to equal respect and dignity under our laws. While I personally do not support gay marriage, I recognize that different states will address this in different ways," said Edwards.

The Kedrry statement said: “I have long believed that gay men and lesbians should be assured equal protection and the same benefits – from health to survivor benefits to hospital visitation - that all families deserve. While I continue to oppose gay marriage, I believe that today’s decision calls on the Massachusetts state legislature to take action to ensure equal protection for gay couples. These protections are long over due.”

Howard Dean would support civil unions, such those enacted while he was Governor of Vermont, but not marriage.

"The state should afford same-sex couples equal treatment under law in areas such as health insurance, hospital visitation and inheritance rights."

Sen. Joe Lieberman said that while he opposes gay marriage, "I have also long believed that states have the right to adopt for themselves laws that allow same-sex unions."

Dick Gephardt, whose lesbian daughter is working on his campaign, also would go no further than supporting domestic partner rights.

Like the other candidates, Gephardt is opposed to amending the Constitution to permanently bar states from legalizing same-sex marriage.

"It is my hope that we don't get sidetracked by the right wing into a debate over a phony constitutional amendment banning gay marriage," said Gephardt.

"I strongly oppose such an effort as purely political and unnecessarily divisive at the expense of those who already suffer from discrimination."

Posted at 1:11 AM

November 18, 2003

Well what do you know, there's hope for the world yet.

Massachusetts High Court OKs Gay Marriage

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled Tuesday that civil marriage licenses in the state must be made available to same-sex couples in 180 days.

Five out of seven justices wrote separate comments, including Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall, who wrote for the four-member majority. Justice John Greaney wrote a concurring opinion, while Justices Spina, Sosman and Cordy each wrote critiques of the main decision and joined each other's dissents.

The opinion, issued roughly four months late by court standards, explicitly cited the June 10, 2003, judgment of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, Canada, which changed the definition of civil marriage to include "two persons," rather than a man and a woman.

" We concur with this remedy," wrote the Massachusetts majority. "We construe civil marriage to mean the voluntary union of two persons as spouses to the exclusion of all others. ... We declare that barring an individual from the protections, benefits and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a member of the same sex violates the Massachusetts Constitution."

The court then stayed its ruling: "for 180 days to permit the Legislature to take such action as it may deem appropriate in light of this opinion."

Providing a six-month window for vaguely defined legislative action is a far cry from the Vermont civil union ruling, which dumped full responsibility for equalizing marriage rights into the lawmakers' collective lap. Here, the court has explicitly legalized same-sex marriage, and given the Legislature some time -- not to fine-tune the remedy -- but to come along for the ride.

Tuesday's opinion was wrongly compared by the Associated Press to the 1998 marriage opinion by the Vermont Supreme Court, which led to the establishment of civil unions in that state. In that case, Baker v. State, the court went out of its way to avoid legalizing same-sex marriage. Instead, the justices made a fine distinction between marriage "rights" and marriage "licenses."

"While some future case may attempt to establish that ... the denial of a marriage license operates per se to deny constitutionally protected rights," wrote the Vermont court, "that is not the claim we address today. We hold only that the plaintiffs are entitled ... to the same benefits and protections afforded by Vermont law to married opposite-sex couples (and) we do not purport to infringe upon the prerogatives of the Legislature to craft an appropriate means of addressing this constitutional mandate."

Within an hour of the Massachusetts ruling, GLBT rights groups hailed it in a tumble of press releases. "The court today recognized that a constitution that protects individual rights does not allow government to say that only some families will be protected," wrote Matt Coles of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Today, the Massachusetts Supreme Court (sic) made history," exulted Elizabeth Birch of the Human Rights Campaign.

Lambda Legal's David Buckel, who is leading the legal charge for marriage in New Jersey, called it an historic day. "The court has said explicitly that civil marriage can't be limited to different-sex couples. The state Legislature will now look at how, not whether, Massachusetts couples will have equal marriage rights."

And from their Boston headquarters, the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) trumpeted the news: "We Won!" GLAD's Mary Bonauto, one of the lead attorneys in the Vermont case as well as the Massachusetts case, called Tuesday's decision "a momentous legal and cultural milestone. The law caught up with the reality that gay people and families are part of the fabric of our communities. At long last, gay and lesbian families and their children will finally be equal families in the commonwealth."

As a state matter, the court's ruling is not subject to appeal. Nor can the state Legislature amend the state Constitution in time to prevent same-sex marriages from taking place next May. Although an anti-marriage constitutional amendment is under discussion in the Massachusetts Legislature, its passage would require two successive majority votes by the combined Legislature, followed by a public vote in November 2006 at the earliest.

Posted at 6:13 PM

November 17, 2003

I had an enjoyable time at dinner with Jon, Sara, Jill, Erin, and Manny, and it's a good thing, because my Fiction Workshop wasn't very fun. We workshopped my final story today, and while I knew that it was a bit complicated and experimental, I had hoped that most of the class would get it. It's odd, really, because everyone liked the story and was intrigued and impressed, but only one person really got what was going on. A lot of people were close to full comprehension, but they just weren't there. That's not really good enough, though, and that means that I need a lot more revisions to really make it work. I guess I should be happy that everybody did indeed have such a positive reaction, but I somehow wanted more.

Maybe I ask too much out of life: I want my stories to be great on the first try, I want to be happy, I want a boyfriend - what's wrong with me anyhow? Who needs that stuff?

Well ... I do.

Written Posted at 1:12 AM

November 16, 2003

My sister called tonight, and we talked for quite a while. We talked about how her classes are going for her PhD, and we talked a bit about mine, mostly about how behind I am on my senior thesis - she could relate, having similar problems with her proposal for her dissertation. We talked about alot of other things that are going on in our lives, including Christa's recent birthday (that's my niece; she was five and had a party at the zoo) and how much she liked my present (heck, I ended up sending a $35 gift card for Toys-R-Us because I couldn't find anything I thought she'd like (partly because she already has just about every toy known to man), and I had felt like it was sort of a copout, so I'm really glad she liked it (apparently she liked it a lot). We talked about Hunter (my nephew) as well, and plans to maybe get him to try little league baseball in the spring to see if he likes it. Eventually, though, we talked about the family, as always.

One thing my sister said, as she has on other occasions, is that she thinks my grandmother is much happier and healthier since I moved in, both physically and mentally. I've actually been told this by a few people, some even going so far as telling me that they're glad I'm here because she is so much happier without the abusive treatment from my parents. I don't feel like I'm really doing all that much myself, a lot of the time, but I can easily see where my grandmother is decidedly benefiting from not having my mom and my father (my father most notably) yelling at her, belittling her, or telling her to do things their way or else - all of this in her own house! My grandmother abhors arguments and confrontation, and she tries to be as nice and accommodating as can be, and my parents took full advantage of that and went further by treating her horribly. That sort of treatment is one of the most important reasons that I was concerned about her moving to Florida with my parents, to their house, because she would be treated miserably. That reason is why I offered to move in and take care of her and the house so that she didn't have to move, and she jumped at the chance. I'm glad to see that she's so noticeably happier and healthier, but it's hard to feel like I've done anything to deserve praise - I'm just a decent human being whereas my parents are not.

The other big thing that my sister and I discussed was something I've wanted to talk to my sister about for a while but have been unsure of how to handle. When I was nine, and for a number of years after that, my father sexually abused me, unbeknownst to the rest of the family. He was very careful to be sure we were alone, and he was very good at terrifying me into silence (he was 6'4" of solid muscle compared to my less than 5', scrawny form, and he was a nasty, violent drunk who already terrorized me verbally, mentally, and physically). To this day, nobody else in the family knows, although I have lingering suspicions that he may have done the same things to my sister. Anyhow, it has bothered me for years, as I have watched my nephew grow up and adore my father, that Hunter (my nephew) might become a victim himself. I felt comfortable that nothing would happen until he was at least 9 or older (I started puberty at 9, strongly, and I think that's why my dad started then), and Hunter turned 8 earlier this year, so I've realized I have to talk to my sister and somehow get her to not leave Hunter alone with my father - ever. Usually, my parents have had Hunter spend a week with them (without my sister) in the summer, and then my sister would come to join them. This has happened for a few years, but my sister called it off this year because my parents had moved to Florida and things were just too unorganized for her to feel comfortable sending the kids (my parents had wanted both kids for a week alone). Now my sister is looking ahead to next summer, and she told me she wasn't sure she wanted to send the kids for that week without her. I quickly agreed with her and supported her decision, and although I still didn't tell her about my fears directly, I made clear that I had very strong worries about Hunter ever being alone with our father at any point, and that I had wanted to discuss this with her for a while. She told me that she was glad I felt the same way because it supported her own feelings, and she wasn't sure if she had been making the right decision or not. I reinforced my insistence that neither child be left alone with my father, ever, under any circumstances, and she agreed that, even though it was likely to cause a fight between her and my parents, she would not send the kids again without being there herself. That's a huge load off of my shoulders, and while I'll still keep my eyes open and watch out for my nephew and niece, I think the biggest hurdle has been overcome.

Posted at 10:28 PM

November 15, 2003

Andromeda, the sci-fi television series created by Gene Roddenberry and starring Kevin Sorbo is on Saturday afternoons, and with the complete lack of just about any decent morning cartoons, it is my one moment to relax and enjoy a little entertainment for the day. Sadly, it has just sucked this season, and I'm losing any faith that it will turn around and be anywhere near as good as it used to be.

I had really come to like the show, seeing it as very well-written and very well-acted, with the plus of decent special effects. The first and second season were really involving and creative, but this third season just continues to disappoint me. It seems like they're trying to change the direction of the show from where they were going last season. They did the same thing last season, and while I didn't see any reason to change from where they were headed from the first season, they created a great new season based on the new changes. This season, though, has had no redeeming episodes, and the changes they're making are very disappointing. The show received awards during its first two years as best sci-fi show on tv among other things, and I just can't figure out why they keep retooling the show when it is apparently succeeding as it was. It's simply beyond my understanding.

It wouldn't be so frustrating - I can live with seeing yet another tv show being turned into crap and just stop watching - but it's frustrating to have the one show out of the whole day of Saturday, a day that I used to use to relax and recharge, taken away from me, leaving me with nothing. Saturday used to be my favorite day to watch tv, and now there's nothing there. It's so unfortunate.

Posted at 11:35 PM

November 14, 2003

I'm making my way through a whole list of class assignments, both yesterday and today, and it's pretty kick-ass. It's not like I don't have all sorts of shit still to do, but it's very rewarding to be knocking things out and moving forward. If the rest of the weekend goes like this, I could actually be caught up in one more class (I've stayed caught up in one, my Online Documentation class, all semester) - so I could be caught up with my Fiction Workshop. Next up would be catching up on my Poetry Workshop, and after that would be Modern Fiction. Technically, I'm not exactly behind in Modern Fiction because I've caught up to where I'm supposed to be based on what Phi has assigned each week, but we're not exactly keeping up with what we had planned for the class, not only in terms of texts to read but in regards to essays as well. All I can really do with Modern Fiction is just keep staying on top of it and hope that Phil feels we've accomplished enough at the end of the semester (and I have no idea what he'll decide to do for the essays; he'll probably make the final essay double-length to make up for the mid-term essay that should have been assigned. We'll just have to see).

All of that still leaves me notably behind on my Senior Thesis, but I'm hoping to work on that some next week. The only real problem with that is that I say I'll work on it some every week and other schoolwork and obligations around the house come up to make me push it aside. Consequently, I'm seriously in trouble on the Senior Thesis, and I have to wonder if I can have a hope in hell of getting it done in time to turn it in.

I guess I should be happy that everything else is coming together, but I don't want to bomb out on the thesis either. I think it's going to be a busy last few weeks for this semester. Wish me luck.

Posted at 11:47 PM

November 13, 2003

Tonight, after the WORST POETRY READING EVER, I headed over to Big Boy for a quiet get-together with Chris and Laura. I think we're all pretty worn out from the semester, and although we talked and joked about a lot of things, were were all pretty quiet and calm. It was good to see both Chris and Laura, quiet or not, because I have been becoming more and more depressed as the day has gone on, and fortunately they were able to, albeit inadvertently, make me feel happier (or at least better).

I spoke to Christiana for a while afterward, as I drove back to Sandusky, and that was uplifting as well, although I lost the connection when her power went out again (the storms and high wind have apparently caused a lot of power outages in the Washington area). Even though we only talked for about forty minutes, I got a lot from our conversation.

It's sort of sad that I'm only getting out once every two weeks and that I have such a reduced circle of friends nearby, but I do take a lot of pleasure in seeing them when I do. It makes me think that Spring semester is going to really suck since Chris will be away in New Zealand. Sure, Laura will still be here, and maybe I'll even see Manny now and again, but that's not a lot of people. Even the people I've been having dinner with now and again, my creative writing classmates, will be few and far between as many of them actually graduate at the end of this semester. Spring semester is going to be daunting in a few different ways, but this will be by far the most significant. I'm not anxious to see how it goes.

Posted at 1:12 AM

November 12, 2003

I like this guy already; check out this article:

Soros's Deep Pockets vs. Bush

NEW YORK -- George Soros, one of the world's richest men, has given away nearly $5 billion to promote democracy in the former Soviet bloc, Africa and Asia. Now he has a new project: defeating President Bush.

"It is the central focus of my life," Soros said, his blue eyes settled on an unseen target. The 2004 presidential race, he said in an interview, is "a matter of life and death."

Soros, who has financed efforts to promote open societies in more than 50 countries around the world, is bringing the fight home, he said. On Monday, he and a partner committed up to $5 million to MoveOn.org, a liberal activist group, bringing to $15.5 million the total of his personal contributions to oust Bush.

Overnight, Soros, 74, has become the major financial player of the left. He has elicited cries of foul play from the right. And with a tight nod, he pledged: "If necessary, I would give more money."

"America, under Bush, is a danger to the world," Soros said. Then he smiled: "And I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is."

Soros believes that a "supremacist ideology" guides this White House. He hears echoes in its rhetoric of his childhood in occupied Hungary. "When I hear Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans." It conjures up memories, he said, of Nazi slogans on the walls, Der Feind Hort mit ("The enemy is listening"). "My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me," he said in a soft Hungarian accent.

Soros's contributions are filling a gap in Democratic Party finances that opened after the restrictions in the 2002 McCain-Feingold law took effect. In the past, political parties paid a large share of television and get-out-the-vote costs with unregulated "soft money" contributions from corporations, unions and rich individuals. The parties are now barred from accepting such money. But non-party groups in both camps are stepping in, accepting soft money and taking over voter mobilization.

"It's incredibly ironic that George Soros is trying to create a more open society by using an unregulated, under-the-radar-screen, shadowy, soft-money group to do it," Republican National Committee spokeswoman Christine Iverson said. "George Soros has purchased the Democratic Party."

In past election cycles, Soros contributed relatively modest sums. In 2000, his aide said, he gave $122,000, mostly to Democratic causes and candidates. But recently, Soros has grown alarmed at the influence of neoconservatives, whom he calls "a bunch of extremists guided by a crude form of social Darwinism."

Neoconservatives, Soros said, are exploiting the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to promote a preexisting agenda of preemptive war and world dominion. "Bush feels that on September 11th he was anointed by God," Soros said. "He's leading the U.S. and the world toward a vicious circle of escalating violence."

Soros said he had been waking at 3 a.m., his thoughts shaking him "like an alarm clock." Sitting in his robe, he wrote his ideas down, longhand, on a stack of pads. In January, PublicAffairs will publish them as a book, "The Bubble of American Supremacy" (an excerpt appears in December's Atlantic Monthly). In it, he argues for a collective approach to security, increased foreign aid and "preventive action."

"It would be too immodest for a private person to set himself up against the president," he said. "But it is, in fact" -- he chuckled -- "the Soros Doctorine."

His campaign began last summer with the help of Morton H. Halperin, a liberal think tank veteran. Soros invited Democratic strategists to his house in Southampton, Long Island, including Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta, Jeremy Rosner, Robert Boorstin and Carl Pope.

They discussed the coming election. Standing on the back deck, the evening sun angling into their eyes, Soros took aside Steve Rosenthal, CEO of the liberal activist group America Coming Together (ACT), and Ellen Malcolm, its president. They were proposing to mobilize voters in 17 battleground states. Soros told them he would give ACT $10 million.

Asked about his moment in the sun, Rosenthal deadpanned: "We were disappointed. We thought a guy like George Soros could do more." Then he laughed. "No, kidding! It was thrilling."

Malcolm: "It was like getting his Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval."

"They were ready to kiss me," Soros quipped.

Before coffee the next morning, his friend Peter Lewis, chairman of the Progressive Corp., had pledged $10 million to ACT. Rob Glaser, founder and CEO of RealNetworks, promised $2 million. Rob McKay, president of the McKay Family Foundation, gave $1 million and benefactors Lewis and Dorothy Cullman committed $500,000.

Soros also promised up to $3 million to Podesta's new think tank, the Center for American Progress.

Soros will continue to recruit wealthy donors for his campaign. Having put a lot of money into the war of ideas around the world, he has learned that "money buys talent; you can advocate more effectively."

At his home in Westchester, N.Y., he raised $115,000 for Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. He also supports Democratic presidential contenders Sen. John F. Kerry, retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.).

In an effort to limit Soros's influence, the RNC sent a letter to Dean Monday, asking him to request that ACT and similar organizations follow the McCain-Feingold restrictions limiting individual contributions to $2,000.

The RNC is not the only group irked by Soros. Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, which promotes changes in campaign finance , has benefited from Soros's grants over the years. Soros has backed altering campaign finance, an aide said, donating close to $18 million over the past seven years.

"There's some irony, given the supporting role he played in helping to end the soft money system," Wertheimer said. "I'm sorry that Mr. Soros has decided to put so much money into a political effort to defeat a candidate. We will be watchdogging him closely."

An aide said Soros welcomes the scrutiny. Soros has become as rich as he has, the aide said, because he has a preternatural instinct for a good deal.

Asked whether he would trade his $7 billion fortune to unseat Bush, Soros opened his mouth. Then he closed it. The proposal hung in the air: Would he become poor to beat Bush?

He said, "If someone guaranteed it."

Posted at 1:24 AM

November 11, 2003

So.
Damn.
Tired.

What can I say, I'm extremely tired today. That, unfortunately, hasn't made it any easier to read all of the remaining short stories that I had to get through today (although I did manage to finish them). I don't know what's wrong with me, but I am really beat. SO without further ado, I'm off to an early sleep (which unfortunately will be followed by an early wakeup tomorrow, but we can't have everything, now can we?).

Posted at 11:45 PM

November 10, 2003

Today actually went pretty well. I got up early and finished revisions on my two reports for my Technical Writing class, revised my poem some for my upcoming Poetry Workshop, finished revisions on my 22-page sci-fi short story, and finished my short essay explaining the story (a requirement with every story we submit). Thanks to my early start, I got a lot done, and I got to school early enough to print out the 15 copies I needed of my short story, the copies for my classmates to critique before my story gets workshopped next Monday.

I had some relaxing talks with various classmates between classes, and ended up having dinner with Jonathan and Sara, and it was really good for me to be around people and just make jokes and have fun.

My Fiction Workshop, my last class of the day, ended up being cancelled because our professor was sick. That let me get back to Sandusky a little bit early, and I was in time to catch the phone call my grandmother was having with my niece. My niece's birthday is tonight, and she is five years old. We talked for a little while, and I talked for quite a while to my sister, checking up on how she's doing with everything. My sister is an executive in DuPont's worldwide polymer division, and her job seems to keep her quite busy. She amazes me because she not only has the job but two young kids, and she's also getting her doctorate in a program that meets over the weekends. As I see it, she never has a moment to rest, and while I know that she is trying to set herself up to become a college professor and get away from working in industry, I still can't figure out how she doesn't go crazy from all she has to do. She has two great kids and a loving husband, and I know that having that kind of love and support would do a lot for me if I were in a similar situation, but I'm not sure if I could keep working non-stop at a more-than-fulltime job and a demanding college courseload at the same time. Maybe ten years ago, when I was still more ambitious, less jaded, and more hopeful - maybe I could have pulled it off then, but I don't think that I could do it now. I'm not the person I was ten years ago. In a lot of ways that bothers me, but in some ways I'm a better person, and the big difference is that I have no illusions about the world now. That's both a good and a bad thing, but it's also something that can't be changed. It's too late for me to go back to that person I used to be; it's just not possible. Hopefully, though, I can find happiness as the man I am. It doesn't seem like it should be so impossible, but sometimes I have to wonder.

In any case, my interaction with people today, both at school and by phone (and with my grandmother as well, for that matter) was very uplifting and was a well-needed change from my too-often depressed state. Here's to hoping for more days like this.

Posted at 1:17 AM

November 9, 2003

I have finished project after project after project today, but I still have more to do to be up to speed for this week. I'm still working at reading assignments tonight, and I'll be up early tomorrow to try to finish my story, my story background, my poem, and my three reports for my tech writing class. That will still leave five stories to be read and ten short essays to be written about those five and five other stories that I read earlier this weekend. And then I can finally get to work on my Senior Thesis.

I'm amazed that I've gotten this much done, but it's not enough. It's a good thing that I already have no life and no time for myself or this would really be frustrating.

Posted at 9:24 PM

November 8, 2003

I drove my grandma to a wedding in Maumee today. She had a great time; I read in the car while I waited for her. Around everything else, I've been reading and reading, and there's still more reading to do.

I did have a nice talk with Christiana, though, which was nice since we have been missing each other with our back and forth phone calls for more than a week. It looks like she'll be spending five days in New York City for her Thanksgiving Break, and she's pretty psyched. I'm be trying to catch up on massive amounts of classwork, and I'm pretty psycho; so you see, weren't not really all that different.

BUt now, back to reading ...

Posted at 11:00 PM

November 7, 2003

Somehow, amazingly, I finished writing my story today - 22 pages and quite unusual for me, a sci-fi story that really requires the reader to think - maybe too much, in fact, but we'll see if it's too complex when I workshop it a week from Monday. I still have some revisions to do, but it's done, for better or for worse.

I finished that story and the critiquing of the stories that we'll be workshopping during next week. I also ran my grandmother on errands, bought a carload of groceries, and managed to break the garage door opener - it's been a full day.

I still have all sorts of projects and readings to complete before the end of the weekend, enough to take up every waking minute. But I'll be driving my grandmother to Maumee (a suburb of Toledo) for a wedding tomorrow. I'm glad to take her, because it is a big event for her, but it's a huge chunk out of my available time. Juggling everything is often driving me crazy, and I'm obviously not doing it all that well. I'm doing the best that I can, and I keep telling myself that that's the best anyone can expect, but it's pulling at me to struggle like this, and it gets worse as I get closer to the inevitable end of the semester.

Not all is sad and dreary, though. Check out this hilarious cartoon, suggested by my friend Chris in Lafayette. It's the perfect comment on why someone should be a vegetarian.

Posted at 12:21 AM

November 6, 2003

Hell, this new short story I'm working on is coming together incredibly slowly. I have the full idea (mostly), but it's hard to write. It's a sci-fi story where the characters are all crystalline forms, like silicon-based life forms but one step further. It makes for somewhat complicated ideas of description, setting, and body language. It's interesting, and even somewhat fun, but its taking forever, and I really don't have any time to fuck around this weekend - there's simply too much to do.

To top it off, the reading tonight was a crappy fiction reading by Robert Olmstead, a published author of some renown. There seems to be this expectation that we're all supposed to be in awe of a writer (or poet) just because they've been published, but I have a hard time applauding someone with a boring story filled with all sorts of cliche lines. In fairness, this is my only exposure to Robert Olmstead's writing, but it would seem to me that he would choose one of his stories that was at least half-way decent for reading to others. Based on what I've seen, I'm not impressed, and the poor guy would get ripped apart in one of our Fiction Workshops. I'm pretty disappointed with this not just because it was somewhat a waste of my time but also because I always hope for a decent fiction writer to come and read since the whole Creative Writing program (and the Poetry and Fiction Reading Series) are dominated by poetry and don't have very solid support for fiction, comparatively. I guess you get what you pay for, but it's still my right to bitch about things.

Posted at 11:43 PM

November 5, 2003

There was a lot of last minute scurrying around today, trying to get things done before they were due in class. I didn't succeed fully, unfortunately, but I was on top of most things. One of my projects was a new poem for workshop; it got ripped apart in the workshop - there were things people liked by just as much and more that they criticized. I suppose I shouldn't feel too bad about that considering I wrote the poem in about 45 minutes this morning, rushing to get it together. I shouldn't feel bad, but I still do. It's rough to get ripped on something you created. And there's not any reason for me to be so sensitive because I've always said that I'm a fiction writer, not a poet, but it still is quite unpleasant to have any of my writing so poorly received.

I scheduled for classes today, and barring any unforeseen weirdness that would change my classes, I should have everything set. I'll have long days on Tuesdays and Thursdays, having to leave Sandusky around Noon or soon thereafter and then getting back, following my day of back-to-back classes, sometime after 9 PM on Tuesdays and sometime after 10 PM on Thursdays. I'll also have one long class Wednesday nights from 6-9 PM, meaning I'll have to leave around 4:30 or earlier and getting back around 10:30 PM. That class, particularly, concerns me; having any class that late isn't great, considering my best learning times are earlier in the day, but the fact that it's a lecture and three hours straight doesn't help either. I'll make it through, I guess. It's a history class on Modern Mexico, and Sarah has told me that the professor who's teaching the class is really interesting and pleasant. That will be the key - if she's a good lecturer, interesting and enjoyable, then I'll be okay. If she's not as good as Sarah thinks, that class could really drag.

The other classes, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, start with Advanced Technical Writing, the 'capstone' class for the Technical Writing program, and it is likely to be quite hard. The prof is supposed to be a great teacher but very demanding and hard, so that will likely keep me quite busy. The class following that is another history class on Slavery in the Americas. Sarah also feels that this professor is quite good, and she thinks the class itself will be interesting if it's anything like a similar course where she was recently a Teacher's Assistant at American U. Following that class is the junior level Fiction Workshop, which I'm taking a second time. I don't need to retake the class, having gotten an 'A' before, but I can take each of the workshops up to two times, and I figured more workshop time will be good for me, both in poetry and in fiction. This particular workshop will be taught by Lawrence Coates, the new department head. I've had Lawrence in a lecture class and liked him very much, and I've been told he's great at running workshops, so this should be interesting. In addition to all of these classes, I of course still have the Poetry and Fiction Reading Series on Thursday nights; at least I won't have to drive in just for that alone on Thursdays - it will make it seem like less of a waste of my time since I won't be driving longer than the actual reading.

So if my schedule holds, that makes for a busy three days in the middle of the week, and while I have a similar three day schedule this semester, the fact that those class days will be all in a row and not spread out may help me to get more done - at least that's my hope. The other thing is that this schedule helps me out when it snows, and it is supposed to snow quite heavily this year. Since my days of class are in the middle of the week, that helps since snow removal is always slower on weekends or on Mondays; it also helps that I won't have to leave until Noon or later, giving time for the sun to come out and for road crews to have cleared the snow. My only big concern is driving back at night each of those three days. It will be late, dark (there's no light on U.S. Route 6), and it's just a simple two-lane road. During worse snowfalls, I might have to follow a different route over Interstate 75 and across the Ohio Turnpike to get back to Sandusky, and that, while safer, would pretty much double my travel time. I guess I'll just have to see how that works out. The bottom line is that I'm set up pretty well, I should think. It will be a busy set of classes with a lot of work, but it seems more achievable than what I had expected. I'll be extending my undergraduate work through next year to finish everything off this way, but I won't have an unachievable overload to wade through next semester as a result. It seems like a fair trade.

Posted at 2:21 AM

November 4, 2003

I really like reading F. Scott Fitzgerald, but you can only read so many of his early short stories without a break. Consequently, reading various stories of his all day has been interesting and, to some degree, entertaining, but tiresome. I still have to write about each of those stories, unfortunately, and I still have to write a new poem. Goody.

I'm surprised with Fitzgerald's early stories - they are not as cleanly written, don't have the same smooth language, and aren't as realistic and believable as his later works. They're still good in their own ways, but they aren't as polished as later short stories or even his novels. Still, I think it's been enlightening to me as a writer to see his more humble beginnings.

As a completely unrelated comment, Eggo waffles are not all they're cracked up to be.

Posted at 9:56 PM

November 3, 2003

I have been running late all day, it seems, and not getting as much done as I had hoped (and you'd think that after a few months of running behind and not getting as much done as I'd hoped that I would be used to this, but no ...). As it turned out, I got a lot of things done, even things I hadn't planned upon, but I didn't get much reading done, and that had been one of my hopes for the day since I still have a few short stories to read and write about for Wednesday (and that's with the assumption that I won't get just about anything done on my Thesis, even though I should be working on that.

There were some very good points in the day, though. the first will seem sort of weird; I had the best oil change of my life. As it happens, I am a month behind in getting the oil changed in my car (based on the 3 months/300 miles rule), and it's been driving me crazy, but I haven't had time to get the work done. Part of the problem is that my preferred oil change place, Grease Monkey, has gone out of business throughout Northwest Ohio. The one here in Sandusky is gone and all of the ones in Toledo that I often used are closed. I don't know what the deal is, but that screwed me up since I was used to going to the same place. This happened a while ago, actually, and I had to choose from a bunch of different places when I had my oil changed the last time; I had ended up deciding to use Valvoline Instant Oil Change in Toledo but they were just closing, so I went down the street to Jiffy Lube. Within the past month, I've been trying to find a place to go, but the 10-minute oil change places in town are all no-name local businesses, and I like the idea of using a place with a corporate reputation to uphold, so I kept looking. I didn't want to go to someplace like a dealership, either, because you have to schedule an appointment and wait much longer. So I finally went today to the Valvoline Instant Oil Change in Bowling Green, before class. I had noticed the location a week ago in passing (I was in a different part of Bowling Green that usual), and I didn't even think much about it. I went today, though, and the service was fantastic: quick, clean, professional, courteous, and uncomplicated. Everyone there was as nice as could be, and I really felt like they appreciated my business. That's so rare any more that I really feel welcomed by that. And they did a good job on the oil change, too, so that helped.

I'm sure you're thinking, "Well what could be better than a great oil change?" Right? <laughs> Okay, so maybe you weren't thinking that. Maybe you were thinking, "Are you seriously so fascinated by an oil change? But whatever you were thinking, I'll tell you that I had an even better experience later in the day. I ran into Manny just as I had bought my dinner, and he joined me while I ate. As it happens, Jon, Erin, Sara, and Jill all ate dinner with me again as well, so we all chatted away as Manny took in this new group of people. Manny seems really happy; he has a new girlfriend that he really likes, and even through he's struggling to keep up in his classes, he's doing well. He showed me some poems he's written lately, too, and he still has a very distinctive talent. Manny was particularly amused by everybody else joking around. They were (most of them) critiquing my short story in preparation for our Fiction Workshop, and Sara was joking around about all of the phallic and sexual references she could find in my story - but then, Sara could find sexual references in a speech by Henry Kissinger, so don't put much stock in that. She got everybody going on the joking around, though, and it was quite amusing. Manny was certainly entertained. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but Manny's been a cheerleader at BGSU, and has enjoyed it (even though it's playing havoc on his knees). It's taking up a lot of his time, so he's a bit less enamored of it right now, but he still has fun. Well, while we were talking, one of Manny's fellow cheerleaders came by - one of the male ones. Damn! He was simply gorgeous! I told Manny that he had no reason to ever be less than incredibly enthusiastic for being close to somebody (emphasis on body) like that. He couldn't disagree.

The whole dinnertime deal was amusing, particularly when this young girl came over to the table, moments after we had loudly been joking about sex (because of the things Sara kept somehow finding in my story); this girl gave us each little flyers and invited us to join her little Christian group that night in the Union - I'm sure she thought that we all needed desperately to be saved or something. We all found it quite amusing.

After a while, we had to head to class. I made Manny promise to call me for help scheduling his classes for next semester, but I don't know if he will or not. In any case, it was good to see him. It's been a while, and hopefully we'll see each other again soon.

Posted at 12:12 AM

November 2, 2003

I watched the new Simpson's episode tonight, the 14th Tree house of Terrors. I also watched the season premieres of Malcolm in the Middle and this new show, Arrested Development. After a day of dragging around, tired and achy and somewhat depressed, I was really looking forward to a little light-hearted comedy. Heck, FOX was billing this as a side-splitting, laugh-yourself-silly line-up. Well, I was quite underwhelmed. The Simpsons always appeals to me for its intelligent wittiness, but the big laughs that I so often enjoy with the show weren't there. The same with the other shows as well - everything was just sort of disappointing, not being very funny at all. In fact, Malcolm in the Middle and Arrested Development were really quite lame. Maybe I expect too much, hoping that a tv show will be amusing enough to make me laugh out loud and forget my troubles for a while, but it's worked in the past, and I'm just disappointed not to have that little emotional lift that I had hoped to receive. Oh well, buck up little camper. Things don't generally work the way you hope they would.

Which, of course, is exactly the case with my schoolwork; it definitely has not been completed in the way I had hoped. In fact, it's far from near the hoped-for stage and not even near the basic-expectations stage. I'm okay with what I need for today, but I still have to write a poem and read a book of short stories (as well as write about said stories). That's all without even considering the work I want and need to get done on my Thesis or the start I wanted to make on my critical paper for Fiction Workshop. Oh, and I have to have another short story written in a week but haven't got any solid ideas. So yeah, I'm pretty fucked. With the exception of the Thesis, I've kept up on things that have to be turned in (amazingly enough), but a lot of things that I'm supposed to be working on over the course of the semester and turn in at the end - well, those things just aren't being done at all. It's all pretty fucked. Does that add to my depression? Hell yes. Can I change it and get caught up? Well, no. There's just too much. But that doesn't stop me from being stressed about it.

And all I was looking for as a relief was a couple of laughs from the Sunday FOX lineup. I guess that was too much to ask. Come on, FOX, get your act together and make these shows as drop-dead funny as they used to be. Please? I could use some laughs.

Posted at 11:49 PM

November 1, 2003

I hate yardwork. And home repair. And home maintenance. And all of that crap.

I'm somewhat achy right now, having put in a long afternoon of work on the yard and home, and I'm still washing laundry (although this is finally the last of the loads). I've barely gotten anything done on my classwork around all of this work in and around the house, and that's bothersome since it seems like I barely get anything finished in a given day (maybe that's just because there's so much left to do, comparatively, but it still seems like I don't get as much done as I should on any given day).

While classwork is still rather behind, I did have time to figure out what classes I want to apply for in the Spring semester. Registration is next week, and I've been thinking about this a lot, and today I finally got it all laid out. I'm going to actually extend my graduation another year so that I can get everything done without killing myself to finish it all next semester (which would just, realistically, be too much). This also will allow me to take a couple of classes I've wanted to take but haven't had the time to schedule, and it will also let me take more poetry and fiction workshops and thus push me to generate more writing and get some feedback - that could be a big help as I get ready to head to grad school. And grad school is part of this equation, too; taking another year gives me the time to properly fill out applications (I haven't had time to even look at them yet) and, more importantly, spend some decent time developing a decent writing sample to send in. There's more reasoning behind this, too, based on considerations of my obligations here with my grandma as well as a bunch of other curriculum-related issues, but the final decision is to take that extra year. I'll still be taking a pretty hard semester in the Spring, but it won't be as completely impossible as it had looked to be earlier. I won't know for sure if I'll get these classes until Wednesday, but you'll all be the first to know what my actual schedule turns out to be.

At least I got that figured out. Now, back to classwork.

Posted at 11:53 PM

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