stoic in the face of robbery

I usually have a lead in to a rant, tonight is no exception. It is the night of the day before the week of finals. Believing I can reproduce a term's worth of mathematical knowledge by scanning a few tests and selectively staring into my notes is easy. Justifying my enrollment in an electrical engineering major at age twenty-four takes some work.

I engaged a hockey player in conversation over some stuffed manicotti and mashed potatoes in the 'caff' this afternoon. Though completely noncompetitive in tone, it revealed our ultimate reasons for being here. He wasn't completely sure of the feasibility of his plans. And I of mine, less so. He dreamt American: of his own business. Responsibility isn't my strong suit, and I want time for other pursuits.

I'm putting my ass into this education thing, but what gets me wondering is if it'll be half gone when game time comes. Electronics are fascinating in their application. Ultimately I'd like to be working on medical equipment or sound reproduction. Upon hearing this, a friend asked, "Why not a doctor or a rock star?" I'd like to be a paperback writer, but I know what I can chew.

As I walked in from a cigarette, the television lounge blared something about plasma televisions. I remember being intrigued by the concept of a wider, clearer picture. It's kind of faded now. Maybe it's the times. I remember thinking those little toy rockets with real propellant were the greatest thing when I was a kid. Now, the idea of working on a cruise system that sends an explosive cargo several hundred more miles to its target doesn't excite me in the way rockets did when I was a kid. It excites me more in the way that I'd like to immediately take to the streets with yardsticks, tagboard and markers.

Is my interest in specific applications of electronics indicative of a thriving interest or a growing disinterest? With one major-related class in next term's scope (to this term's none), it should be revealed. Would transferring to an arts college confirm that I'm wasting my time here, or would itself be a waste? It would be romantic to drop school all together and try to write for a living, but I decided against that in the shower earlier. I decide a lot in the shower.

What scares me about universities of a more intensely intellectual curriculum is the kids. My friends would probably agree that I'd fit in just fine. These people bug me, though. I hear them at the coffee shop analyzing poetry at a volume deliberately set to preside over the smoking section. With my houndstooth slacks, rock t-shirt and smart spectacles I stick out at this school of visual normalcy. But there's something to be said for that.

to be continued

pangea in solstice

Old Fart Winter is blowing hard from the north in Milwaukee tonight. From inside a building, it often sounds like a woman screaming. On the outside, like a crowd of billions cheering at the rock concert on Doomsday. Continents of leaves collect in the gutters and in front of buildings, following some higher mathematical pattern. They are dispersed by the howling gales into smaller colonies that then grow just as dense. The gibbous moon moves against the breaking cloud cover while cyclones raise dead leaves tens of feet from the sidewalk into the air. If only I could find my way to the core of one of the air columns and be tossed carelessly into the night like one of them.

preamble to previous

A friend and I share a fascination with the dark alleyways and grimy corridors of adjacent large cities. I am reminded of the autobiographical account of her young life she shared with me when I shared with her my first pale attempts at fine literature. I am reminded because I would be using time more wisely in completing a paper on the safety on campus than coaxing these words back from last night's crash of this, and the previous, post.

Her account was but a few paragraphs and in a freer form than I work. I recall it being rich in sensory description and, at times, being self-cynical. The hardcopy, or e-mail (I don't remember which) is lost now. It would be nice to be able to reference it now. At the time I read it my medically-hindered comprehension skills required an explanation. There was a city train scene, where she seemed to feel she belonged, and a fruit plate convention at a cafe, where she seemed to not.

The sadder side of beauty is often only found in the observing participant. In conversation, the other party will try to direct sunlight in the form of, "You've come so far," on one's dark or prideless past. When the carefully constructed catharsis is written, the reader may not interrupt. The fact bleeds from the page that the writer's period of uncertainty wouldn't be traded for a body of the bluest blood.

The previous post is written imperitively to myself. I think it bears some similarity to my friend's autobiography in its flat truthfulness.

(previous)

Every once in a while I come here. Every once in that while Blogger loses my entire post before it reaches publication. This night is that every once in a while. I had planned (and written) a preamble to the following madness. I might be able to reproduce it to some extent, but my memory has left me with not even the title much less the crucial adjectives. It was good, but I won't paraphrase it because you would just have had to be there.

Assorted things to do today:

• Search for the list of things to do yesterday. You will know it by its total dissimilarity to a scheduler or daily planner. Look for a small piece of notebook paper with bits of spiral-binding artifact hanging off one side. It will be contrastingly scrawled in black Pilot V5 Extra Fine Point pen. Once the list is found, try to remember the things you had meant to add to it. Don't forget to panic.
• Choose an album from the bookcase half-filled with cds. Spend the first two tracks justifying your selection based on the state you have been put in by school, people you know, and your current neuroses. If you must leave the room, have a hard time deciding whether to stop or pause the music, or to just leave it softly playing for whomever else may wander in.
• Take a shower. Allow the near-scalding water to run while no activity involving soap occurs until the heat is sickening and it would feel better to be out of the stall.
• If you are sick, take pleasure in the fact that now your smokers' cough actually has something to work with.
• Compose in your mind a letter of longing to a lover no-longer.
• Try to remember a clever saying you thought of. Realize it is less clever in print.
• Pass by the hordes of plain old college students and wonder how much avoidance in your young life it would have taken to achieve that kind of inobtrusiveness.
• Come up with yet another theory about the afterlife.
• Based on whether you have classes early or late, throw on one or two blankets respectively, and sleep it off.