Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes (Turn and face the strain)

Well, this is the last post of the year. In the big picture, 2005 was an awful year. National and worldwide tragedies, disasters everywhere. Personally, though, it was pretty damn great. Maybe the best in my life. 6 months in Spain, summer in Cambridge, good times at home in Indiana, and the like. White Sox World Series. That alone...dayenu.

There were also some pretty terrible things, though, such as getting my wisdom teeth pulled two days before Christmas. All four of them were impacted, and one of them was impacted, and deformed, and sideways. 1 out of 1000 chances type deal. So I was in major pain, but the pain medication worked pretty well. My uncle also took great care of me, and it's nice to have an excuse to boss people around. The best part was that it gave me an excuse to stay home with family and just lounge with my grandma uncle and mom.

2005 was also the beginning of things that will make 2006 just plain awful. First off, the thesis. Yuck. That alone is enough to sink 2006. Then there's the job hunt. Can't even think about that one. Like I mentioned earlier, Marshall Field's is turning into Macy's this coming new year which is a tragedy, and a few days ago, we found out that another Chicago landmark, the Berghoff is closing in 2006. The Berghoff is a German restaurant that has been there forever. A real institution. It even brews its own beer and root beer. It's the kind of place that you go to every year. I'll be going in January over intersession before it closes in February. I have some great memories of that restaurant, going there with friends and family before going to see lavish broadway musicals such as The Producers, before it was a Broadway musical...just a musical on its way to Broadway. Ugh, I don't know what I'll do without it. What is with Chicago surrendering its sentimental landmarks? Next it'll be Uno's. They'll probably make the decision to stop making the pizzas there from scratch and just start throwing in those shitty imitations that they make at the chain restaurants. If that ever happens, I don't know what I'll do, but it will probably involve hostages.

Last night we went to Shaw's, another Chicago culinary institution. Seafood. God, I love seafood. Afterward I stayed the night at my brother's and today we went out for Japanese, not at the usual place, but at some other place that is pretty good. I got my hair cut at Milio's, which is really the only place I trust to give me a really cool euro haircut. As a result, I now have the American equivalent of the protomullet that I donned in my last few months in Spain. It's pretty damn cool.

Tomorrow night I'm skipping the madness of Chicago...I would like to, but we have plans for Purdue. It'll be cheaper and looser. It probably won't be as destructive as last year with its legacy of rockstar hotel vandalism (actually dorm apartment vandalism), but it should be fun regardless. I'll see some high school folk that I haven't seen since, well, last NYE.

That's it!

Sympathy for the Frying Pan

Like Beulah a week or two ago, the temperature control has gone haywire. The radiator cap broke at some point this semester, and now we are completely at the whim of the superintendent. It's spewing steam into the room, and right now I don't have a thermometer, but I would bet it's over 80 degrees. I don't really have a problem with this. I like the heat. I can just drink cool water. The problem lies in the fact that it's cold outside, so if I have errands to run and am constantly in and out of the room, I'm constantly shedding and putting on layers. In my room, I cannot wear any more than a tshirt. Jeans are pushing it. I sleep in the bare essentials, because a flannel comforter is really more than enough. I can't even really keep it all over me. It's kind of bunched around.

Also, yesterday, after lunch I went with some Quincy kids to go see Brokeback Mountain. It's really excellent. I'm not one for romances, but this is pretty damn good. I think the key to its success is that it doesn't really pull at the heartstrings too hard. Watching the movie and immediately afterward, I was pretty drawn in, but not sure about its greatness. Afterward it sticks around. I think that's the proof. Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams break through. Ledger's Western accent--Dayenu. After that, the rest of the movie could have been an afterthought. It wasn't.

I'm watching Andy Rooney now. When are they going to put him in a home? Have they already? Will he even know the cameras are gone? Does he know they're there now? Some worthwhile thoughts to ponder the next time you watch 60 Minutes. I'll miss him when the day comes.

Everyone has plans for next year except ----------. Yup, you guessed it. Well, maybe not everyone...just everyone in Adams.

I go home on Tuesday. I'm not sure how. The room is a mess, and I still have so many errands to do. Maybe we'll have visitors when we get back. Help me come up with names for my future pet mice/cockroaches.

That's all for now.

Masterpieces of the Western Canon

The Creation of Adam:


The Birth of Venus:


Judith and Holofernes:


Random Lactation Painting from the Prado:


10 Points! (Cupid peeing on Venus from the Met)


Crucifixion:


The Annunciation:


La Pieta:


The Last Judgment:


Girl With A Pearl Earring:


The Last Supper:


The Third of May:


Arnolfini Wedding Portrait:


American Gothic:

Plateau

This is probably the first entry in a very long time that I haven't written to escape the mental box that is writing a paper. There's not much to report. Except that when Mamá said that the devil he can be man, priest, or even little boy, but devil he can no be woman, she should have also said that devil he can be open bar. Adams formal is this weekend, complete with open bar. I will be very careful, and not overindulge like at the Quincy Formal. This was really my first experience with open bar, and afterward people tell me that open bar is the devil. I wish someone had told me earlier, because I was under the impression that it was the Messiah.

Speaking of, Christmas is coming. I'm not really that into it. I never really feel it until I get home, because my dorm is always a trashy mess, and we haven't even plugged in the syphilitic Christmas tree.

I'm also very happy that Beulah will not be one of the official readers of my thesis. Or my Athens paper.

My new interest is getting a Harvard travel grant. My friend the Haitian is trying to get one to go to Spain and join the circus underground subculture where she wants to learn that weird thing where people hang from pieces of fabric from the ceiling. It has a specific name that she told me, but either forgot or didn't hear because I was laughing too hard. Damn I wish I could come up with something as cool as that. But that only delays the problem, doesn't it? Well, procrastination is my forte! Maybe I could study the secularization of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage. Mmmm, sounds delicious.

It's a Girl!

After much time and consideration,I've decided to name my thesis Tania. The sad thing is that I can't refer to it in a violent context without me sounding like some four-toothed hillbilly beating up his girlfriend after losing in a barfight.

Where does Tania come from (put your hand down Beulah, teacher's going to explain). Well, after Patty Hearst was abducted and decided to join the SLA, she changed her name to the deliciously menacing Tania. Menacing in the way only a bruised stripper with cigarette burns on her shoulder can be. Wow, I"m really buying into this whole white trash thing, aren't I. Maybe I should trash Tania and just name it Brandee. After all, it's probably going to marginally resemble the work of someone with an IQ of 95.

Tomorrow Baby Huey's going to be Mary Sunshine in Chicago. I'm so excited. Should be good. Saturday formal season continues with the Quincy Formal with the one girl that thinks I have an overpowering Chicago accent. It's funny. I think I have one, but whenever I mention it, people normally say "You don't have a Chicago accent." I guess it's not as thick as the Lush's "Ooooh my Gaaaaahd, Howww aem aayy goooing to get a jaaaaaahb? 'Dis year is going to suck." Haha, I love her accent.

I'm also eating latkes, potato pancakes for the goyim, and my god, they're noisy. I'm sitting here, and my intestines are crying. In the library, normal digestion can be pretty loud. Tendick (my new favorite nickname for my Tibetan friend, accomplished by combining the first two syllables of her names) laughs every time my intestines squeak and she says it sounds like sex. She should know, she shares a wall with an Albanian nymphomaniac.

Liveblogging from Hell

I'm updating again, and once again, that can mean only one thing...yup, I have a bigass paper to do and no desire to do it. Oh, and it's really late.

I'm currently in the Adams House Library at 3:35pm. It's just me in here with another guy who's sleeping with his head on a table. He's cramping my style. In the words of the Hoosier Lush, "He stole that from ME."

So my thesis breakthrough that I had over break ended up being a millstone around my neck. Sure my thesis will probably be better, but what this really amounts to is WAY too much homework in the short-term. I'm drowning here. I think I'm going to take the Beckster's advice and name my thesis. The problem is that I can't come up with a good name for it. What do you think? The best I've got off the top of my head is George or Barbara. Whoa, they're both Bushes, that's weird. I guess it works, because this basically serves as a mechanism for me to bitch about my thesis without seeming pathetic. Like for example--George and I are not on speaking terms. I hate George. He thinks I have nothing better to do but spend every hour obsessing over him. Fuck George. Nothing I ever do is good enough for him. I love you George, take me back. Ahh, the horribly unhealthy obsession the thesis provides every senior stupid enough to write one.

Saturday was Schnocone's birthday. Fun times. We pigged out at the Kong, and then Schnocone grossly ate ramen noodles after we'd already eaten way too much. In other news, he's got a completely sweet job lined up in NYC, and the Lush and I have already declared an open door policy a la China in order to slice our pieces of his earnings away. What we've come up with is this: We all live in a three bedroom apartment in the city on Schno's largesse. She and Schno share a room. Huey and Bighead share a room because they're hangers-on, and we got in on the ground floor. And I get my own room (a suite really) all to myself. And when the Lush gets sick of Schno, she gets to stay in my anteroom. How suite is that?

Thursday night I went to the first formal of the summer with Wubulu. It had a cash bar, and I'm poor and not willing to pay a lot on drinks (we're talking 6.25/beer bottle), so basically the little Chinese glutton and I would wait for a drink to be abandoned and then swarm like some kind of military squad team, and steal it. It worked out really well. Who cares if I get date-raped? Nobody wants to daterape me. Besides, at this point I'm pretty sure I'm immune to Rohypnol.

OK, I really should go get a bagel or something before I take a nap and continue writing this piece of shit, I mean the greatest contribution the study of the historical novel known to man. No wait, I had it right the first time.