Why do I like cheese so goddam much? Why does my mouth water whenever I see cheese? When I wanted to go vegan, why could I give up milk and eggs, but not cheese? Am I addicted? Is that it? I'd rather not live than be a slave to cheese! I will not give up my fight. I will become free! Unless . . . perhaps I'm being too rash. Perhaps it's not that bad to be a slave to cheese. Maybe I should just bow down to my master and serve him better.

Grandparents here. So very, very hungry.

I wrote a letter to the Washington Post last night about the Supreme Court's decision in Michael Newdow's "under God" case. Now that I type it here, it occurs to me that, in the letter, I probably referred to "in God we trust" by mistake. Oh, well. They'll fix that if they want to publish it, right?

The letter responded to an op-ed on the 21st by William Raspberry, who is generally liberal, and who nevertheless supported the Supreme Court's ruling. He compared the ruling to a "no call" on a slightly questionable play in a basketball game. The idea, he says, is not to interrupt the rhythm of the game for an issue that doesn't necessitate it.

I tried to present the view that "under God" is one of several disturbing customs in government which infiltrate public life, such as swearing on the Bible in court and for inaugurations, and the habitual statements politicians make about their religious faith. These are symptoms of a subtle but wide-spread religious (read: protestant christian) influence on our government's worldview. It may be small, but I think it is significant and a good place to start in bringing this issue to light.

Did you know that Tom DeLay has a sign in his office saying "This could be the day," referring to the Rapture? How does a man like that become the House Majority Leader? John Ashcroft compares himself to the biblical Daniel, saying that he doesn't let public opinion influence his decisions, and instead looks to his religion (which, by the way, is Pentecostal). Bush chronically refers to evildoers in his speaches, and describes the world as a struggle between good and evil.

It's a lucky thing none of these people are in positions of power; not being Jews, they are not allowed into the real decision-making. They're just a bunch of troublesome goyim. Public elections, after all, are just illusory, and have no influence on policy-making. Nevertheless, I long for a day when running for public office doesn't necessitate reassuring voters that you are religious; when the debate over social services doesn't center around whether it should be the church, and not the government, to provide them; when reason, and not religion, rules the people's opinions on abortion; and when public schools don't even consider prayer, posting the ten commandments, or having students hear "one nation under God" every weekday, nation-wide. It's a bad sign that a majority of the country is opposed to the smallest of these changes.

I have recently found out that my house is bugged. We've had the typical ants every summer, and the front door lets in moths and spiders rather regularly, but this sort of bug was different, more insidious, electronic . . .

I contacted the government, asking them what to do. I got an e-mail from Karl Rove, in which I was informed not to panic, that this sort of thing happens all the time, and that the best thing I could do was put on a twenty minute press conference with an advisor whom the public seems to like, but not to appear myself.

I present to you my Secretary of Whining Noises. Ask him any questions you like.



Ladies and gentlemen of the press, you have twenty minutes.

How the Mustache Club won last night

Roger, though awesome, is a bad communicator. I might dub him The Weak Communicator, but he would still compare favorably to Reagan. He sent me four e-mails since January, each one containing, at most, five lines. However, since he is awesome, this means he usually includes the most important information anyway. His last e-mail told me that he was no longer planning to get an apartment in Maryland with me as his roomate; he's moving to Houston. He left no phone number. When I tried his old Baltimore apartment a month ago, I left a message and got no response. I called again two weeks ago and his number had been disconected.

This Friday, he responded to my last e-mail in a manner that I would not characterize as timely, giving me his "dear old granny's" phone number, and saying that it was the easiest way to reach him right now. He was in Ocean City, and told me that he would be returning home Sunday at 9pm. He didn't say where home was.

At about 8:30, I called his granny. She told me that he had just left to visit a friend, in Eldersburg if she remembered correctly. "Ellicott City?" I asked, and she said yes, that was it. Not too much later, while I was on the phone with Eric, I saw Roger's white Altima through the window, and a very long-haired Roger getting out of it. I went to the porch to greet him, no longer processing what Eric was saying to me. We grinned at each other and I let him know what was going on with the phone. I sat Roger in the kitchen, said goodbye to Eric, and got my most important possesions: a purple lighter and a pack of cigarettes.

My father currently believes that I don't smoke. I told my mother that I still do, and even submitted to silly questions with varying levels of answerability ("Why?" "How many do you smoke a day?" "Where do you plan to get them?"); my father, however, has threatened to stop paying for college the few times he's become aware of my smoking, after which I convinced him that I'd quit. So he gave me an equally silly rueful acceptance that I was going with Roger, whom he considers a health risk.

I returned to the kitchen, where Roger was playing with Mulder. He was wearing a black Harley-Davidson t-shirt with a colorful swooping eagle on it, and a dark pair of blue jeans. It's impossible to see Roger without thinking, "that man is awesome." I suppose even his family members are not immune to his charisma. As humans, it is our birthright to walk upright; for Roger, more-so. His hair is immaculate, and seems more like a rockstar accessory than dead skin cells. His voice insinuates itself into your consciousness, causing you to immediately trust him for more than he's worth. Mulder, who already likes everyone who walks in the door, swooned and said, "Dear sir, if I ever have the honor of accepting a scrap of meat from your hands, I shan't forget it." Roger didn't seem to notice.

As we got into his car, we asked each other catch-up questions about school and plans. He's told me before that he felt like he had no one to talk to when I went back to St. John's, because he mostly hangs out with blank-minded hipsters. I recognize a repressed glimmer of intelligence in Roger, but he doesn't make any definite use of it. Our conversations about the present, which should be the most fluid material for conversation, peter out after a few blanket statements. I let it go for now as he asked what I wanted to do.

"Would you like to drive to Annapolis, see if we can get Scott?" I asked.

"Sure."

We drove a bit and I asked questions about how he's living his life, what he thinks about it, how he might be more ambitious. He responds fairly well to this sort of thing, and I suppose it's what he means when he says I'm someone he can talk to. He's the opposite of my brother Jeff, who doesn't even understand the intent of my prods to get him moving, out of the basement, more mentally active. In the background, the stereo played Et At It, a meandering trickle of experimental guitar and keyboard.

Once we got to Annapolis, Roger manuevered around the many West Street detours and found a parking garage that was free for an hour. Then I called Scott from a pay phone on Maryland Ave. His father came on.

"Hello?" he said in his nervous Jimmy Stewart voice.
"Hi. Is Scott home?"
"Who's calling?"
I told him as Roger said, "twenty-one and they still ask who's calling . . ." I waved my hands in resignation and heard the affable Mr. White calling out, "Sco-att!"
Scott sounded like he was on sleeping pills as he said, "Hello, Gregsford."
I told him we were on Maryland Avenue and asked if we could pick him up. I had woken him up from a nap. "Why are you there?" We could come, he said, but he'd be wearing his bedclothes.

A little bit later, we pulled up by his driveway and saw a light go off in the living room. Scott came out wearing a white t-shirt and plaid shorts. I had instructed Roger to lightly joke about the bedclothes, hoping that Scott wouldn't take offense. Instead, Scott returned to the house to don his pants, and we were off.

We went back to Annapolis, listening to Crispen Glover's oddly intoned rap about masturbating, and parked by St. John's. We got out and looked at each other; Roger and Scott have only seen each other a couple of times, and I never know how they'll interract. They always do pretty well, though. We went uptown to find a bar. The first place we passed was hosting some sort of porch party. There was drunken and exuberant shouting, loud lounge music, bright lights, Annapolis twentysomethings. Obviously not the place. As everyone knows, it's not cool to be loud without an explanation. We went on, and as we approached West Street, we were accosted by a group of maybe a dozen very drunken celebrators, clapping and chanting, who called out, "our friend just got married!" We applauded and said congratulations, and then the group grew closer. A woman stepped out and said, "Are you guys in a band?" One of us, I don't know who, said yes, and she asked, "What band?"

"We're The Mustache Club," Scott said. "Our motto is, Gotta Have a Stash."

"Oh, cool," the woman said. "Are you headed for that bus?" She pointed at one by the Ramshead.

"No, we have our own bus."
"Yeah," Scott said, "The Awesome Bus."

"Yeah?" She smiled. "We're on the other awesome bus. We're going barhopping. Do you guys wanna come with us?"

We glanced at each other, and before we had consulted beyond shrugs and bemused grins, we were following the drunken revellers. Roger moved up ahead toward a group of the guys, and the woman who had invited us along talked to me and Scott. The group continued to clap and chant, and occasionally called out, "Yeah, Mustache Club!" "Mustache Club!"

The woman's name was Brienne, or maybe Rienne. Scott was talking to her openly, and I was too bemused and embarrased to say much to anyone. Brienne, we learned, was the bride. She was wearing casual white clothing, and looking bony. How were we supposed to run this? What if they found out we weren't a band? What the hell were we doing, anyway?

As we went along, a bulky guy wearing a grey shirt asked our names. Scott told him, and he said, "No, man, your moniker, not your real name." I forget what Scott told him, but we all laughed. "That's Roger, and this is Gregsford," he said, pointing at me. Brienne and another girl, probably her sister, came up to me. "What's your name again?" the sister asked. "Greg, but some people call me Cicada." They both laughed and made a chirping sound. "Greg's the shy one," Scott told them, and Brinne swept over to me, put her arm around my shoulder, and shouted consolation about how she's shy too, and most people don't know how to react at first, but eventually, etc.

We got to the first bar, where a post-rock band was playing. Scott, who had been recording the conversation and calls during the walk, passed his tape player around asking if anyone had words for posterity. I didn't hear what people said. The guy with the grey shirt handed us all beers, which was the first tip-off that we were getting a free ride tonight.

Roger and I sat in a booth near the bar. Scott stayed with the tape player for a while and came over when he got it back. We drank and asked each other what the hell was going on. Scott was grinning and looking elated. Roger seemed used to this sort of scene, although from what he said later, his thoughts were pretty similar to mine: "What are we supposed to do? How are we going to get out of this?"

A few of the guys came over and chatted with us, though I couldn't hear them over the music. One of them brought us more beer, and we thanked him. The man silently clapped me on the shoulder and went on. Scott passed his tape recorder around, asking for our thoughts. Then he asked for a cigarette and told the mic that he was smoking.

Brienne came and sat at our booth, looking happy to see her band. I couldn't hear much of what she said, so I probably had very inappropriate responses. I was overwhelmed by the group, most of which was dancing right next to the real band with some bizarre hands-in-the-air-hips-gyrating moves.

Then Scott and I went to the bar and got two shots of vodka, because they didn't have ouzo. It went down very smoothly; since it cost Scott $4 a shot, it had better go down smoothly.

Not much later, the group started to leave, so I quickly finished the third free bottle of beer and we went out. "Let's hear it for our band! Mustache Club!" We began walking toward another bar, this one by the market. For the first time, I noticed that two guys in the group were talking with British accents. Scott asked where they were from, and the younger of the two said, "We're from Kent. It's in southern England . . . just south of London." They commented a bit on our area, saying it wasn't like in the movies, where each section of America was stereotyped. I didn't know whether to believe they were in England, thinking: if they believe we're in a band, how do I know they're not trying to impress us by "being from England"? I gradually became convinced as they had realistic and identical accents, which they never "dropped," and their responses to questions about England seemed immediate.

In the second bar, Scott and I sat on stools, Roger on a baby chair. We shouted conversation to the two Brits over the average bar juke music. The wedding group kept smiling at us whenever they saw us, and giving us free bottles of beer. We still had no idea why they were bringing us along, but we asked no questions. They were treating us like VIPs.

I asked the younger Brit why he thought the Darkness was so popular over there, and he said that they were the only group with any style. He talked to Roger about what kind of music we played, and Roger told him that we were not, in fact, in a band together, but that he played keyboards in a group called Tra La Log and D.I.G.I.T.A.L., and that Scott and I were in separate bands as well. No one else in the group found out, at any point, that we weren't actually The Mustache Club.

After a bit of conversation, most of which I couldn't hear, we began to leave this bar too. Scott found Brienne near the entrance and began apologizing for recording without her permission. I had missed some comment abaout it, apparantly, and Scott was very upset. Brienne looked tired and seemed less excited than she had been before, but she said that it really wasn't a problem; she had just been drunk and emotional when she confronted Scott. She told him not to worry about it, but Scott apologized again. "Really, it's all right."

We went to one last bar, which was the first place that carded us. I didn't have my wallet. "How old are you?" the bouncer asked. "Twenty one." "Twenty one on the nose?"

He told me to wait outside so his manager could ask me a few questions. Once the group was all in the bar, the bouncer just asked my birthday and the place I was born, and then allowed me to go in. He didn't need his manager, apparantly. "I hope you're not lying to me, man."

In this last bar, a white band with steel drum and guitars played a song for the new couple, something about how "you've never looked nicer," and we all got more beers. The group still grinned whenever they saw us, murmering, "the band!" Roger danced with Scott for a bit, and then The 'Staches sat on the stools and watched. I wasn't aware of how long we were in this bar. I was getting very tipsy: I think I was on my seventh drink. I was smiling, but starting to feel very insecure. I wasn't alone, apparantly, since we looked at each other, briefly decided that it was time to go before they got mad at us, and said our goodbyes. The group responded as if we were close friends. We got firm handshakes, offers to sleep at their house, pats on the back, hugs from the girls. As we left, Brienne pulled me close and repeated what she had said earlier about shyness. I understood no more of what she said this time, but smiled, nodded, said something strange. She kissed my hand, an odd new trend among girls; I kissed hers back and left.

We walked back to the car badly in need of a business lot, but instead made use of the beautiful St. John's campus. In Annapolis, the world is your bathroom.

Scott, as usual, took up the voice of our subconscience. "I hope those guys don't see us again. That was really weird. What do you think they wanted? Did they really think we were a band?" We didn't know the answers to these questions. I attempted a few of them, saying they were just looking for a good time and it didn't matter to them whether we were a band or not. They got to extend their generosity and have young companionship on their bar hopping.

We went to the Double TT, which is the only appropriate end to any night.

I don't wish it were the sixties, but I do wish something would happen.

My parents came home last night, and they took me clothes shopping. I got more threads than a tapestry factory. I got more threads than a 50x50 American flag. I am now the best dressed man since Morrissey. It's a good thing, having parents. I doubted it before, but damn if they didn't buy me more outfits than are in the army. Shame I couldn't smoke in front of them, though. By 8 pm I was getting a splitting headache from lack of nicotene. I began to have hallucinations of cigarettes. I would close my eyes and see smoke curling into knots and drifting off to attack a nun. By nine, my stomach started to revolt. I could swear its grumbles were saying, "Hey, man, what do you think of Joe Camel?"

My parents retired at midnight, and I went to my room and listened to my $2.99 copy of I (thanks Scott for having Dustin sell me a demo. I don't think I tell you you're cool enough. You're really cool). After about a half an hour of waiting for my parents to fall asleep, I got my cigarettes and went for a walk.

By the time I had gotten to the bridge at the end of Main Street, I had smoked at least six cigarettes but I still wasn't satisfied, so I continued walking. A man approached me from behind and asked if I wanted to walk with him. He fumbled witht the cork on his bottle of wine and only managed to break it, so he got a pen out of his bag and pushed the cork in. We kept walking, passing the bottle, and he began to talk incessantly. He took me for a musician, because of my sterling Malkmus hair, I suppose, and asked if I knew any of his friends.

"You don't know Bobby Dent? You look like the kind of guy who would know him. How about James Trenton? No?"

He told me about getting beat up on the streets of Baltimore, first by two guys who were pissed at him, and then by the cops who came by to break it up. They put him in jail for five days because they thought he was on acid, he said. He told me about being the only member of his family to graduate college, which he had just done at the age of 27; about his truck driving Republican father; about how all the women in his family had been raped; about his plans to move to England and teach at a school for retarded six year olds; about how he was writing music that would properly fuse rock and hip hop, "not like that Limp Bizkit shit . . .". We were getting into Catonsville, so I told him I had to turn around.

It took me about forty minutes to get back to Main Street. After the shops, as I started heading back up the hill, four guys passed me going the other way. "Hey man, you're a fast walker. We passed you about twenty minutes ago." I grunted and kept on going.

Message to Bridgie: Man, I'm sorry I didn't read your comment until just now. This is the first time I haven't checked that every day, believe me. I just haven't been in houses with internet access. I wrote the last two messages in the Evergreen library, which wasn't open when I was typically awake anyway. It would have been really cool to hang out.

Also, this must mean I have more readers than I thought. How did this happen? I suppose there's just that much boredom in the world that my blog is considered readible. Perhaps there are millions reading my blog! If so, I'm really sorry there isn't more content. I'll start trying to lead you all, soon, and maybe we can create something really cool; like a geodesic dome, or a preservation chamber for people like Billy Corgan and Robert Smith so we can have them in their fallen, awesome state forEVer.

So, I'd just like to give a shout out to Bob Dylan, who, for all I know, has been reading this thing for over a year. You're really cool, Bob, and it will be a sad day when you die. I will morn Jewish style, only instead of a year and a day, I'll just found Highway 61 again and bum up and down it for the rest of my life, screaming to passerby about your genius. And I'll start a tribute band called The Whining Poets, which will include Morrissey, John Darnielle, and Stephen Malkmus, and we will rock your songs to massive bar gig success. It will not be fitting tribute, either option, but then there is could be no fitting tribute. So please don't die.

Boogie times in Olympia. Watched Eric's Shakespeare class perform A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is actually better with bad acting, as I would not have guessed and you would probably not have guessed either, but Shakespeare knew it. I've been riding around on city buses, the 41 line, going to and from Evergreen State College to see what the art fags are up to on both sides of town. People here buy some strange, diverse cars, and they commonly sing on the streets for themselves and play odd-looking instruments. Eric often plays his harmonica and sings Dylan.

And there is a lake called "Capitol Lake," usually referred to as The Lake or My Lake. There are seals in the lake, who come out mainly at four a.m. and flip around in the water. The town is full of majestic views from on high, looking down great hills and over bridges with epic movie shots onto house tops and lush forests and deep brown dirt. This is essentially Maryland but more compact.

Yet, according to Eric, this town is Death. He still searches for cool people, but so far whenever he's found one it turns out the person is from Maryland. The residents are very wigged out, wear hipster clothing and slouch around being local. Lots of smiles and vacant conversations about happenings. The bars have stylish neon designs and are the kind of place chronicled in indie movies and internet hip-posts. Eric's classes are laughably, cryingly bad. His Blake class has seminars that remind me of the early months of freshmen year, when no one knew what to do and so spouted theories and spoke authoritatively to the open air without conversing. The teacher is a real flake hippy willow chick, who mainly teachers poetry workshops with exercises that mix high school and party games. She doesn't talk much, just nods encouragingly.

I wouldn't mind living here, though. I rather like death. I thought that's what hipsters are supposed to exonerate, anyway.

So I'm totally in Olympia, Washington right now. I had a fifty-five hour Amtrak ride up from Albuquerque, which should totally be a band name, totally, Up From Albuquerque, I like it, I totally do. I rode first the Southwest Chief, great name, and then the Coast Starlight, not such a good name, and not such a good train, either. Amtrak rents Union Pacific's lines, and are thus forced to stand aside for all of Union Pacific's freight trains, which unionpacific their fannies on down south with dull regularity. Our train spent half the time sitting by the side of the tracks, and the passengers got to stare out the widthy windows into small patches of trees and rocks and little round bushes you in the east would not recognize. We were staring at the sort of place I've dodged away from trains into. Not much goin' aaahn. And so, over night, while I was adjusting and readjusting the seat, trying to find a comfortable sleeping position, not finding it, and sleeping somehow anyway, and waking up smelly, the train lost SEVEN HOURS.

The next day it moved in spurts up the coast, literally on the coast for some beautiful stretches, and as my odors grew, I read and tried to avoid the loud mother and her louder four year old. Their usual schtick was to run back together from the café with soda and buckets of grease stuffed into the form of hamburgers, the mother chiding the girl and the girl crying "Mommy, how can I make it up to you, how can I be good for you" and the mother saying, loudly, "do you have to be so loud? Why are you so loud? loud, loud loud!" The girl also played "Baby," a game which consisted of her shrieking in a mimic baby cry repetitively and the mother saying, "Whay are you crying like a baby? You're not a baby." (I'm not being sarcastic, mind you. This really was a "game" the girl played.) The girl was mildly overweight, dressed in tight pants and ill-cut shirts with miss-matched colors, crooning at every other little girl that passed, "You my friend!" and the other little girls running away. The mother was monstrously fat, kind of like Jabba the Hut only bigger, and wore a tank top that had a "provocative" hole in the back, and which displayed her blue bra.

I was seated near the connection between trains, and my car had a door that slid closed as if it were retarded, squeeking shut as slowly as possible, taking about a minute and a half, leaving revealed the banging and rattling and clinking and huffing of the space in between cars to shout at us as we tried to sleep. The attendents made maximum use of this door between the hours of midnight and eight a.m., and courteously made no announcements, so that no one would know what station it was, or if we could have a cigarette break.

Ah, cigarettes. I've made up with you since I got back on the ground, now haven't I? In two days I was able to get maybe one cigarette every eight hours. There was no smoking car. There had been on my previous Amtrak ride, which led me to believe this trip would be better than a Greyhound. And maybe it was for all that. Next time, however, I will get a sleeping car, which even has a shower and paid meals. As it was, my underwear were fused to my ass by the time I got off, and I mainly ate microwaved Gardenburgers fused together with grease.

And now I am in the home of American Indie. Eric has grown progressively weirder. He now wears a head scarf, a bracelet and rings; still has a shaved head, and still wears clothing much too big on him, for he is still bone thin. His apartment has two identical cats, a mother cat and her son cat. Both are black and bug-eyed and huge. The mother cat has nine distinguishing features on her belly, but otherwise they are a perfect pair. The mother is called Salome, and the son Babylon. My brother never managed to get his Nebiru cat. It's ride kept falling through.

Eric has five very tiny rooms: two bedrooms, kitchen, living room, and the nonesuch. The apartment's probably intended as a single, but he has a roommate, whom I've not met yet. He's fed me mainly peanut butter so far, which is what he generally eats all day. He has found no job yet, but makes some money modelling for thirty six bucks a pop, which he gets roughly twice weekly. (No, it's true, really. Everything I've said.)

I'll be leaving here next Tuesday on a plane for Chicago, and then will drive with crazy Will back to Maryland. See you soon, Scott; Anne, don't drown; Noah, I don't believe you exist anymore, but if you do, shalom. If I don't write again soon, huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugs.

I had my don rag today. I got my junior essay back, and my tutors commented on it. One seminar tutor said, "I was impressed by Mr. Green's understanding of Kant's logic, and his clarity was excellent." The other said, "I thought Mr. Green was very good at coving up the parts of Kant's arguments that he didn't understand, and he did this particularly with the logic." I don't know who was right.

My language tutor noticed that I was separated from the other students socially, but said that when I entered the conversation, we talked to each other well. What he doesn't know is that I despise the other students . . .

My lab tutor gave back my paper on James Clerk Maxwell. You may think I meant "Clark", but indeed, his middle name is Clerk. This should be a lesson to us all. My tutor thought my paper was incomplete. Perhaps this is because the paper is incomplete. I lost some sleep over it so I could say I tried. It was written between 3 and 5 a.m. Wes was able to give me just enough insight into the electro-magnetic theory of light for me to produce three pages on a treatise thousands of pages long.

And math.
And math.
And math.

It's surprising. I did well in math. I was told that I ought to trust myself more on the complicated proofs, as in Newton. This despite the fact that he only thinks I would do well because I understand calculus, which is like thinking that because I understand how to govern a flashlight, I should trust myself to be a Senator.

Oh, and then the ship finally came to dock, and walking off the deck came Bob Dylan. He lit a cigarette, donned his sunglasses, and smiled. I have no more classes, and the Dylan in me is happy.

"The film features a singer who joins a rising band, only to accidentally cause their deaths. After making a pact with the devil, the band returns from the dead, and become highly successful."

Has anyone here head of Emir Kusturica? Director of Time of the Gypsies and Underground, two of the most awesome movies ever made? One does wonder, one does wonder.

It is getting tired here. I am one of the last hold-outs of the original credo, sworn in blood, that we will never die. Weariness has rendered me even more useless than I ever was. I am awake every night at two a.m., frantically attempting to correct my amassing and horrible errata. My face looks like that of a losing boxer's. Even getting a small bit of food is a daunting effort, and I think I might soon question its necessity.

The college has replaced the edges of every table with shards of glass, razors, cactus needles and salt. I have not been able to lean anywhere, on anything, for weeks. The legendary dust of New Mexico, second only to the hills of Idaho, and followed closely by the volcanos of Montana, has collected under my window, and so every time I try to air out my maggot infested room, I must prepare to whoop and bellow and cough and hawk and wheeze.

The library fired me on Monday, and then rehired me as jester. It is now my job to entertain the board of visitors and governers, putting on a smile with red paint and pretending that the wrinkles are made out of putty so that I don't disturb the childish minds of the my customers. I am forced to dance on pained feet, and wave my strengthless arms in the air, to turn my death thralls into a caper, and make mirth with lungs that are tired of breathing. My tears usually erase my painted smile, but the ignorent bourgeois audience assumes that I am converting from jester to clown, and calls out innocently, "yes, show us your misery and your foppery, make us laugh by causing yourself pain!" And so I do, and when they see me, they begin to sense the destitute and exhausted plight of the Student. As the realization, such as they are able to understand it, drizzles over the heads of my imbecilic audienc, some of them throw money at my feet and cry for my forgiveness, but the money is always fake, given them by their handlers to make them pride themselves on their riches, of which they are in fact being swindled daily, and so I am left with nothing.

There is a new regulation in the dining hall that, after every meal, all students must vomit up what little they were able to eat. This is collected and turned into dog food, by which Aramark, our contractor, turns a significant profit. I lose nothing from this decree, as I never ate there anyway, but still, the injustice rankles in my breast, and brings tears of outrage to my already wet eyes.

As I left my room to write this, my one allotted missive to the world, which I intended to use by begging for charity but instead have filled up with nothing but complaints, stern-faced men were carrying my bed sideways out of my door. They said they would replace it with an iron bar fastened to the walls and draped over with canvas.

The hope of Maryland is now all that keeps me from complete despair. If anyone has taken my cats, or removed the moisture from the air, I hope that what I have written above is enough to make him want to reverse his deeds. Please pet Flagg for me; rub him well and with diligence, for he is and has always been very dear to me. Give him whatever extra scraps of meat you can scrounge, and try to keep him free of flees. Glance with kindness on Mulder once in a while, too. He may not deserve it, but he has made himself mildly less disgusting to me by means of his loyalty. He has written to me every day, although most of the content of his letters has been removed by the auditors. Still, it has provided me with my only news for these many long months. Perhaps you might spare him one or two kicks a day on this account.

As a last entreaty: I have found it necessary to sell all of my possessions, including my beloved collections of curtain fabric and car decal stickers, in order to buy my passage home; and this small income proved to be insufficient. If any of you could find it in your hearts, or perhaps in your purses, which is more likely, please send me a few pennies. It would be the work of divinity if I don't have to sell my ass somewhere in Tenessee to pay for the final leg of my trip.

The seminar was on Smith. Adam, that is. Every one was a bit jittery, but we were all pretty sure, because the seniors hadn't doen Lola's yet. That's where they make their money, right? They can't do it before they make their money! So it can't be, could it? Of course, there are balloons in the freshman seminar down the hall . . . and somebody saw seniors mixing drinks in the faculty office twenty minutes ago . . . and a bunch of seniors were seen driving down Camino Cruz Blanca in the back of a pickup truck porting a keg of beer . . . but still, Lola's hasn't happened yet, so how could it be?

We talk about sweatshops, with an air of absurdity, because there was nothing in this particular reading that would lead one to talk about sweatshops. Tairiffs, yes, how much France sucks, yes, but not child labor or Nike. I tell them all this, but they don't listen. They almost never listen to me. I make a comment and the conversation stops, my tutor says something like, "But isn't he also talking about how we should have no qualms about importing, as long as the price is cheaper?" And I say, like, "Yes, but it's in reference to developed countries. Last I heard, there weren't any sweatshops in Holland." And she says, "But it's not such a leap to apply it to a debate that's still going on today, is it?" And I say, "No, but we would have no support from the text if we want to talk about it. If we want to talk about it anyway, fine." And she says, "That's understandable. But suppose--"

And then a phone rings. People look around to see what asshole forgot to turn his phone off, but we soon realize that everyone is looking around. Finally, the guy in the corner (the prematurely balding blonde Texan with freaky jaw bones, as a matter of fact) opens the cabinet and takes out a tiny gray cell phone. "Hello? . . . He wants to talk to Mr. Green." The class laughs, and the phone is passed to me.

"I thought I told you never to call me here."

"Camm autsihd," I hear Jess Castle say. "Ant tell suh clas to continyu see conferzation."

I leave the room and there is Jess, dressed all in black, with sunglasses and a blue neck scarf. His friend Angus is also there, wearing the same get-up. They pull me into the corner and say, "Take ov your shirt and your chaket, hmm? Ant put on zis sun dress." They instruct me to put my arms through the neck hole. "It iz sleefless, yah. Klaus, look at the big girl!" "Yah, he is zo pretty! Now go back into see classrohm and tell zem to continyoo see confersation. Ve'll be there in a few minuten."

I go back in. The seminar is talking about machines and labor. I sit down and people laugh nervously, explosively, still trying to control themselves a bit. "Hey, pretty lady!" "Mr. Green, what are you doing later tonight?"

"It's becoming increasingly obvious. They said to continue the conversation."

Amazingly, people actually did continue to talk about Adam Smith, though in the silliest possible manner.

After a few minutes, my shoulders were getting very cold and I was wondering if Jess and Angus were actually coming. I was looking down at my lap and Mr. Coker-Dukowitz looked over and said, "It's showing, but don't worry, it looks good." Hmm.

In come Jess and Angus. "Hello, seminar. Vee are prospective tutors, and ve're goink to be takink ovah your seminar tonight. I am Klaus, and this is my partner Klaus. Vee are gay lovers from East Berlin. Hm-hm-hm-hm! Olt tutors, please go to Lowah Commons. Come on. Get aut."

"Do you mean 'old tutors,' or 'legitimate tutors'?"

"Vee ahr Cherman. Vee mean 'olt'."

And there was much drunkeness and spilling of baby formula.

Nobody told me, but apparantly Earth Day is now a celebratory holiday. Campus food service put out plates of barbacue fare out by the fish pond, and everybody is just sitting around and chatting. There are banners, and a band is out on the balcony. If our voice mail were working, we doubtless would have received a chipper message about it from Vivian Duran, the consumptive switchboard supervisor. It is like croquet, only small and pathetic, and it doesn't make me want to cry quite as much.

A message to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: Why do you have to suck so much? Everybody else makes sense, so you're obviously just not trying hard enough. Although it might be better for you not to try harder. I sure wouldn't want to see what shit you come up with.

What's all this crap about a "critique," anyway? Are you a movie review? I mean, Siskel already got a replacement, so it's not like you're going to make any money doing it. Or are you going to bring in your obvious old-time Chrisitain values and say that money is bad? Maybe you should get out more, talk to some other books and get some perspective on things. Epistemology will only get you so far, and in my house it'll just get you kicked out. Maybe if you weren't so "in German" and everything. But no, you had to go and sprach Deutch. Really mature, you putz.

Are you aware that you serve no purpose? Nobody reads you to learn anymore. You are certainly rather heavy, and usually bound with stiff blue covers, so I could use you as a weapon if it came down to it, but then, if I had to, I could use my ass as a weapon.

I used to keep a picture of you by my bed. I used to snuff in the fumes from between your pages, rub your blistering protective plastic library layer, and reach my ecstasy. I used to respect you, look at you as my equal. You seemed to solve so many problems, and now you just keep making new ones. Please die, and take your foul-smelling transcendental logic with you, priori I break your nose.

Did you know that your are badly written? Yes. Your paragraphs, though seemingly full of meaning, crumble under any scrutiny. It may take six perusals to pin you down, but once you're down, boy, you don't have too much to say. Figuring you out is like learning Ugandan just so I can talk to the guy in the dry cleaning store. You drain most of my time, and in the end you're just a regular guy. Now I know why Hegel hated you. Why don't you get a job filing insurance claims?

And if you could be so kind, Critique, would you give me a topic for my seminar essay? It's getting desperate here.

Lecteur, c'est peut-être la haine que tu veux que j'invoque dans le commencement de cet ouvrage! Qui te dit que tu n'en renifleras pas, baigné dans d'innombrables voluptés, tant que tu voudras, avec tes narines orgueilleuses, larges et maigres, en te renversant de ventre, pareil à un requin, dans l'air beau et noir, comme si tu comprenais l'importance de cet acte et l'importance non moindre de ton appétit légitime, lentement et majestueusement, les rouges émanations? Je t'assure, elles réjouiront les deux trous informes de ton museau hideux, ô monstre, si toutefois tu t'appliques auparavant à respirer trois mille fois de suite la conscience maudite de l'Éternel! Tes narines, qui seront démesurément dilatées de contentement ineffable, d'extase immobile, ne demanderont pas quelque chose de meilleur à l'espace, devenu embaumé comme de parfums et d'encens; car, elles seront rassasiées d'un bonheur complet, comme les anges qui habitent dans la magnificence et la paix des agréables cieux.

-Compte de Lautémont

Reader, it is perhaps hatred that you would have me invoke at the outset of this work! Who told you that you wouldn't sniff it up, bathed in innumerable pleasures, as much as you could want, with your proud nostrils, wide and thin, upturning your belly, like a shark, in the beautiful black air, as if you understood the importance of this act and the equal importance of your legitimate appetite, slow and majestic, the red fluxes? I assure you, they will delight the two unformed holes of your hideous muzzle, O monster, if at first you always set yourself to inhale three thousand times the horrible awareness of the Eternal! Your nostrils, which will be limitlessly dilated with sublime contentment, with unmoving ecstasy, will ask nothing better of space, having become embalmed as with perfume and incense; for, they will be satisfied with a perfect happiness, like the angels who live in the magnificance and peace of the pleasant skies.

-Compte de Lautrémont

Word to the wise: Anton Chekhov

These Camels are causing all of my problems. Not the living ones--those are cool. It's those tubes with tobacco in them, the little orange filter with white splash-pattern specks, the curling paper as the cinder rides against gravity, and the smoke, oooh, the smoke . . . all my problems. Why am I running out of money? I spent hundreds of dollars on cigarettes in the past year. Why am I always tired? Smoke is fucking with my oxygen intake. Why do I nevertheless stay up later than midnight? The seratonin is confused. Why don't I care about anything? It's not as good as a cigarette.

This is also why I have nothing to say, ever, when I'm writing: I'm inside, and thus not smoking.

I don't want to be in school right now. I don't want to be in school right now. I don't want to be in school right now. I don't want to be in school right now. I don't want to be in school right now. People, I'm not kidding. I really don't.

"Look at me, I'm a blog entry."
-The above blog entry was written by Dave Eggers

I should very much like a snort of Adderal right now. How delightful would it be to blow congealed blue powder out of my nose for a few days, to grind my teeth helplessly despite the water I might drink, to experience distate in regarding food of any kind, and to have great bouts of wonder at the spectacle of ants like Euclidean points turned into a spectacular diagram of Maxwell's equations, bursting from all points onward to infinity, scrambling over the tiny grooves in the pavement, getting bogged down in the dusty pebbles, staring blankly at their perverse existence with a quietly posed question on their rapidly twitching mandibles, for crushing. La.

Behold speaks the sign, and it is too late to heed its message in any useful way. It really says, "you are a jackass." It was designed by Russian surrealists in an ironically ironic statement protosting the Danish pop invasion. They trusted in numbers and were disappointed. Freaky Wedding by a good five paces. Bland up to his ears, but a good runner. Reports have come in from Athens, they've decided on the shape of the phantom letter and it looks something like a mouse on fire. Twist, kneel, revive. Then suddenly a pair of disembodied sunglasses, pure reflecting surface and no frame, floated over and crashed the party, drinking more punch than most men can without becoming punch. The guy in the overalls gave them the nod, and they danced most appropriately, given their social standing. All were delighted. The clock struck three, and it was time for the night watchmen to poke his head in. The flashlight struggled to get a grip on the mass of vibrating slime in the south-east corner, then inverted and blinded the poor man, who was advised to mediately seek a doctor. The draperies combusted, having previously been dipped in sulfur to celebrate the occasion, and the Spaniard contingent rejoiced with great plosives and weirdly accented vowells. The mailman threw a missive through the parlor window; though a great partier himself, he didn't like the looks of this scene; and the letter sank diligently, aware of its duty, and landed slyly and precariously on the least crowded edge. "Check it out," cried Lady DeLaune, "he's barracking." And indeed he was.

There were, however, a few more vapid guests, who had never heard anything played without a hot mama beat, and they missed the reference entirely. The soirée ended nonchalantly on an unharmonious chord.

I have eight weeks of school left. I don't know where I am. There are old ladies in all of my classes, and they like to bring me cookies and teach me physics. By studying their wrinkles, I get ideas about erosion; by examining their hair, I notice the nature of the wavelengths; the light reflected from their oversize glasses teaches me about electro-magnetic fields. A different one accompanies me back to my room after each class, and I have to show her how she could get home. Don't read that the wrong way. I'm watching you.

If there were a way to change your structure such that you could be the biological parent of puppies, would you do it? They would have some resemblance to you, but would definitely be puppies. But maybe there are risks involved. There are usually risks involved.

A word to the wise: Leonard Cohen. (And girls, in case you didn't know, he's from Canada! Isn't that cute? He jams sometimes with Sarah MacLachlan and Joni Mitchell! Isn't that fun! Neil Young and three members of The Band went to high school with him! Isn't that great? Radio stations called him occasionally in the mid-nineties and asked him what he thought of Barenaked Ladies and Our Lady Peace! Isn't that just amazing? It's so fun I might just bust a gut when I hear him say "about" in "So Long, Maryanne", oh me oh my, yes. Well. I've done soiled myself with laughter.)_

I woke up this morning dreaming of vampires. I blame Martin's server.

They only had to touch me and I was infected. They had gravelly hands. They were, perhaps, ninjas.

Telegram Sam, you're my main man.

This Dylan lyric (upper left) and the next one (tomorrow), by the way, can never be topped. The job of poetry was done once they were written. Don't believe me? That's your problem.

Another word to the wise: Joan Miro. With a little grave accent over the "o" of "Miro" which I can't reproduce here. But if you're wise, you already know what I mean.

I am editing Noah's essays and feeling that great optimistic idiosyncratic ball of love that is Noah. This man wins like no other. He has more truth than an encyclopedia. I want whoever taught him to play to be my teacher as well.

A word to the wise: Paul Klee.

The failure wakes up just at dusk, so that the sun is sinking over the mountains, even farther west than he is. Some nights are crazy, minor epics in themselves, but most are like caverns. Life falls into them and looses its way. Small actions, amounting to nothing in themselves, reverberate against the water and the stale air and waft back in little puffs of doom. Thoughts ram themselves against the looming walls everywhere pressing in, in, they just go up forever, those walls, no opening, no ceiling, they have nothing to hold up so they become loads pressing down and toward and against and upon. And then there are the zombies. Sometimes I hear them bumping into things and calling to each other about beer and dance clubs and pool. Every so often, they catch me and hold me down and commence eating, sapping, but I can escape them when I want to. Usually they just make a spectacle of themselves.

It is spring break. I am now at the library, working for $8.50 an hour, and God only knows how I got here. There is a man who was in my seminar last semester, sitting at a desk ten feet away from me, reading. He has several books open. It is doubtless intellectual stuff, stuff I ought to know by now and probably never will. He is trying to show me the Way, but I doubt that I can follow. He has been here since nine o'clock this morning. I wonder how much of his life he's devoted to learning. I have failed to complete any of my projects. Perhaps this is because I always took on too many, but perhaps I never had a chance. Variety is bad. Distractions are bad. It's just me with my ambitions, and that should be enough, but I'm all alone and lost. I've been reading old e-mails and getting wistful. I never knew these people, and I don't know them now. It is particularly interesting when they are replies to my own e-mail, and they neglected to delete my writing. I've said everything and nothing in the past five years.

Faulkner had it figured out, but then again he didn't. Kerouac never had it figured out, but sometimes he did. And Kant. Ah yes, Kant. Even now I haven't shamed myself enough to actually work on Kant. Anyone for Latin flashcards? Do you know how to play Go, and would you like to teach me? Isn't sunlight strange, the way it beats everything into submission?

The Moon Pays Cash Money
In the back alleys and barroom brawls
Where everything happened I once thought real
One night a chimney puffed gray bricks
And the sad faces stared at the dart board
Pierced it every once in a while
Three men sat at a broken table
One in a cheap suit with torn pockets
One in what used to be a pea coat
One in soot stains and charcoal beard
They drank hard liquor in succession and grinned
It might have been pain but I think it was show
They were looking nowhere in particular
One winced and waved his hands and opened his mouh
And after a pause for effect said,
"There's a guy in my building playing anti-brain-waves.
They come out of his speakers at two in the morning.
It makes no sound but it wakes me up somehow."
There was a wait and then another man spoke
(This time I believe it was the one in the suit)
"There's a place in New Jersey with unlimited parking.
I drive out there each Sunday and have a look.
After a couple of hours I drive back home."
For a second I think the guy in the pea coat looked up
Then he caught himself, had some liquor, and grinned.
"My mother yelled at me often when I was young.
One day I stood in front of her with empty pockets.
She took a long look at her shoes and never yelled again."
Then the man with the soot or maybe the one in the suit
Put some money on the table, tied his shoe and left.
The other two sat for a few minutes more
Then followed suit, or soot, payed and got out.
I go back there now for a few hours each Sunday
Sit on a bar stool and think of my empty pockets
Then go back home and wake up at two in the morning.

How does one react upon realizing that one knows, has always known, "I am not a genius"? It's such an obvious thing to realize that it shouldn't have any effect. Nevertheless, I am aware that I will never be inspired to write anything special. I might write good books, but I will never produce a classic. I'll never be a masterful songwriter, either, or a genius at playing an instrument. I'll never be part of a brilliant group of friends who say such witty things that everyone listens. I'll never revitilize science, or anything much that doesn't relate directly to me. There's no chance I'll become a brilliant artist, whether I start training myself or not. I won't develop a system of philosophy, probably at all but certainly not one so radically new that people want to study it. I couldn't become a brillaint chess player, or get rich off the stock market, or become a worshiped national figure, or make perfect movies. I don't have the potential for any of this.

This shouldn't require much of a realization. People like that must just know what they're capable of, whether they do it or not. I only feel special when I'm around miserably poor people, such as many of the juniors on this campus. Even there, I'm judging based on too little information to know that I am verifiably smarter than any of them, more capable of grand action. It is likely that I'm not.

Is there a support group for people without creative passion? Wannabes Anonymous, perhaps? But then, the "anonymous" would be too cruel. Aspiring Creators United. Mediocre National.

Still on some level I believe that if I put enough time into it, I might get there. There's a level of work required, and no one is necessarily excluded. Ah, puritan work ethic, come back to me in a perverted form. Maybe, though. It's possible that I could decide, willfully, to become capable of great art. The fact that I haven't yet made this decision, and that most people make it when they're young, and unconsciously at that, the fact that it doesn't seem like a decision at all . . . that's nothing! You can do anything you want, right? Shit. Didn't they teach you that in Elementary School? Originality is just premeditated passion. Great work not only can be willed, it must be. Talent is undefinable, and probably along the lines of fortunately stumbling upon a certain kind of brain activity which which everyone is potentailly capable of.

Yes. Tomorrow, we win.

Yesterday I received a hand-addressed package from Athens, GA. Cloud Recordings had sent me the two Olivia Tremor Control albums. Suddenly the world rocks a whole lot harder; classical music is that much less cool.

Last night an old woman with brown, wrinkled skin cried in a garden in Combray as the rain broke over her gray hair. I have started The Big One.

Haiku written at Beethoven string quartet concert this Friday:

I. poor innocent bows
dragged by players tired of life
dhoking on music

II. each laxly held box
spits up notes like a baby
nauseous with cholic

III. four bored, slack faces
intent upon sheet music
like factory workers

IV. they bounce up in time
excited to ease the pain
of their flattened butts

V. poets of the note
they burn with all the passion
of a Rent-A-Cop

VI. sat through two quartets
watched two forced rounds of applause
had a cigarette

VII. dear first violin
either resign from your chair
or learn how to play

VIII. with such subtle squeeks
why are they not recognized
as the avant garde

IX. shake it for me now
rock me like a hurricane
kill that Beethoven

X. were it up to me
this last one would rip your soul
right out of your throat

XI. juxtaposition
of unimpassioned faces
and stunning music


Notes: X spoken by Englishman townie who sat next to me at previous quartet concert. He then turned to his wife and said, "Brecht was right."

VIII was perhaps due to the fact that the instruments used in the concert were constructed in the seventeen-hundreds. Regardless, they were getting some sounds uncomfortably close to the Kronos Quartet.

Do not hold my Haiku to the classical standards, e.g., "aren't Haiku supposed to be about nature?" They're supposed to be in Japanese, too. Take the aesthetic and run with it.

Aphorisms:

1. Let's all get together and track deer back to their nest or lair or whatever deer have. Then we'll take pictures of them licking each other and sleeping, and post them online for a small fee, and make a million dollars.

2. The snow knows when you're under it. The tree knows when the snow knows. Don't look up.

3. People in small groups enjoy penis jokes much more than they do on their own. This is because when people congregate, they get high on phemones and, also, marijuanna.

4. Frankly, I never really loved you. I was just putting on a show for your father. Now that he's dead, I can finally go back to St. Louis.

5. You can rate a band by the quality of the bassist's hair. Malkmus was wrong about the drummer. The drummer's hair is merely incidental. It is the bassist who picks up the karma waves of the band's relative goodness or badness, and manifests this physically in his locks. Look at the Beatles. Paul had a pretty stupid hair cut, no?

6. An epiphany may come at any moment. Most commonly, however, it comes while listening to My Bloody Valentine.

7. The French word transir, to chill, is very useful when you're making Cat Stevens jokes.

8. Scott's lists always were better than mine.

I spent an hour today piling watermelon rinds, banana peels and leftover lettuce on top of a compost pile, then covering this with leaves, then shoveling dried horse manure on top of everything. This was one-tenth of my penalty for missing six lab classes last semester. Shouldn't they make me study the material I missed, or put me on probation, or ask my tutor if my performance was satisfactory, or find out why I missed so many classes? A week ago, I walked around Uppers for two hours picking up assorted detritus, broken bottles, candy wrappers, and the like, and staring at the sky and the dry brown hills. Then I swept organic matter away from the stairs, onto the ground by the tough trees and persistent little bushes. I didn't think about much of anything while doing this. I examined, which is my primary mode of cognition; I examined growing things, land, and the effects of two generations of unthoughtful students on their surroundings.

I can't put this into a context. I can find no connection between my six missed lab classes and my ten-hour introduction to Buildings and Grounds. Somehow, I don't mind this. I don't take it as absurd. It is, to be sure, Puritan and inexplanable, but it makes a kind of sense in the back roads of my logic.

Four weeks ago I shovelled snow. It snows here with frequency but not much quantity. Matt Aranoff, the young alumnus who runs Buildings and Grounds, gave me an ice breaker, two snow shovels and a bucket of salt. The ice-breaker worked best if plunged perpendicular to the plane of the ice. The shovels proved ineffective for most of the work. After scattering the ice, I returned to the office and worked for another forty minutes shovelling the parking lot outside B&G, which Matt counted as an hour toward my ten. When it snowed again that night, the areas I had salted remained clear of ice. Salting the ground, usually, has the connotation of cleansing it from evil and preventing anything from growing. It is an image which shows up occasionally in old tales of the supernatural.

I usually feel revulsion at the expression of the concept that exercise somehow improves the workings of the mind, clears the soul. I would say simply that physical action provides satisfying relaxation on a cognitive level. The mind does no thinking; I don't think it regenerates while it rests. There is, of course, a satisfaction that you are doing something, accomplishing necessary work, improving, rearranging, purifying, whatever. This appears largely to be imaginary, although not false. This work is frequently unnecessary, and creates only minor aesthetic pleasure or benefit to the community once it's done. It thus seems unrigorous to claim that it is even community service. I would not call it punishment either. It seems almost a form of meditation. There is, of course, also no connection between meditation and missed classes . . .

I don't mind that people aren't reading my blog. That's fine. I just mind that those people who aren't reading it also post no comments. Is this some practical joke? I don't get it. Why have I gotten no responses in over a week? You know as well as I do that the only reason people write blogs is to have people respond with comments. I'm not writing this for my health. If I cared about my health, I wouldn't smoke, or eat M&M brownies. This is about verification, proof that people I can't see still exist. You people better start verifying, or I'm going to stop believing in you.

Is it something I've done? Should I stop talking about metaphysics, for example? Because I can do that. No problem. You just tell me what you want me to write about, and I'll put it down, and everyone will be happy. I will sell out for you.

Are you people going through some sort of slump? Are you, maybe, involved in something else, like bein' sad and stuff? Because, hey, I'd like to read about it if you are. Why? Because I'm just that kind of guy.

I can only cry so many tears before the pain from my rejection turns to rage. Better watch out, mothas. Ever wonder how I got the name Dr. Dark? It wasn't shifty-eyed Dan. That guy wasn't poet enough to create a shopping list. Eat my appendix.

My mind is currently occupied with Latin, French, German, Kant, Newton, Proust and Rosenzweig. It used to be occupied with music. I have been listening of late mainly to The Basement Tapes, Louder Than Bombs, and Yo La Tengo, and these only infrequently. It helped quite a bit to have music playing while at the computer, and this is now impossible. That is why my writing has been uninteresting for the last several weeks, in case you were wondering.

Right now, even, writing this rather trivial post, I am aware of how uninteresting it is. There is no excitement, no content bursting to get out. I am doing it mainly to keep up appearances.

I would like to leave. Not in any real sense: I have already decided rather firmly to graduate next year. Yet although I am, for the first time, starting to enjoy it here, I cannot help but wait impatiently for college to end. I have never experienced so distinctly the constant engagement of my subconscious mind on school work, reading, philosophy, call it what you will, to the extent that I have nothing to say when I try to write. It's a dismal feeling, even though most of the time I'm pretty pleased and excited. It is strange to be truly excited about academic material. I feel as if I'm writing like a high school student here, but there's no other way to say it. I allot almost no time to "relaxing", a term I scorn, and yet I rarely feel stressed. When I wake up, I learn twenty Latin words before showering. Then I exercise and go to class. Every class has become interesting, and I've surprised myself by talking of my own will. When I get back to my room, I usually do my seminar reading (I've actually started trying to read them at least twice) before dinner.

I'm not sure what I'm saying in this post. I'm not sure why I'm writing at all. However, since this is the only thing that comes to mind to write about right now, I am. At any rate, it's starting to make sense to me why so few people do anything special while going to this school, although I still wonder why so few alumni do anything, either. I feel like I'm cheating myself somehow by not developing my writing, but there's not much I can do, and when I consider it, it seems perfectly reasonable to wait until I've finished this education. Whatever it's doing, however it's doing it, I am definitely beginning to learn something of real value here.

Oh, and Scott, that post was awesome, and I've often felt the same way, but didn't know how to express it. You're really getting at something.

I talk to Will Jensen every Sunday. This is by his request. He lives in Chicago with no friends, goes to a school he hates, and until this week, had no job. His parents are divorced, his mother doesn't like him, and he gets depressed when he talks to his father, who has tenuous employment; he's never had a story accepted despite trying since high school. He is twenty three and has never had a girlfriend, and he tried to kill himself at age five. Even though I don't enjoy talking to him, it's hard to say no.

This week, I had to tell him I don't have enough money to travel with him over my spring break. It's true, anyway, so what the hell. "Hey, if anyone understands not having enough money, it's me." (Here's the general course of our conversations: we trade stories about anything we did that week. For my part, there's a lot I don't tell him, because I don't think he'd understand; for his part, he usually hasn't done anything at all. Then we make whatever possible comments there are to make, which usually peters out after about three minutes. This is followed by seconds of true abyss as the phone makes audible our lack of similarity.)

"I'm gonna have to drive down there myself some time. But anyway, I was thinking, how about this summer you and me just drive around, not doing anything, see the country. We'll swing by the coast, you know, maybe stop off in Nevada at the Bunny Ranch. I was thinking, you know, all my friends back home are married or practically married, engaged, you know; you're really the only free friend I have left."

I was, for a moment, too surprised at his casual reference to getting prostitutes that I didn't say anything. Then I explained that when I said I didn't have enough money to travel over spring break, that would go doubly for the summer. That I had a couple of options as to places I'd stay, but the'd all involve either working or taking a course. I added to this that the fifties are over, and it is no longer possible to travel cheap like Kerouac. Will is aware, on some level, that things really have changed since the fifties, but he persists in wanting to live in them. His favorite authors, it should be noted, mostly died under bad circumstances.

After an hour, I was able to break off the conversation. Kant proved too much for me in the state I was in, so I tried Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space to see if it made more sense. It did.

During "Electricity," Jess knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to go to 10,000 Waves, a local spa which seems to be a rite of passage for Santa Fe students. I hear about this place at least once a week. So, being the follower I am, I went with Jess.

My readers (you guys are still there, right?) probably can't imagine me in a spa. I'll keep my description brief. The hot tub was too hot, and I wasn't wearing my glasses, so I couldn't see the topless girls. The cold plunge made it a little more pleasant, but then it was once again too hot. The sauna, how surprising, was too hot. We stayed for about an hour and a half, and I was most relaxed just sitting on the edge of the tub, not touching the water. I doubt that it would have come up, but nobody buy me a spa gift cirtificate for Christmas.

Self-awareness sometimes fades for me, and frequently heightens. At both of these times I feel like I am becoming aware of some truth, and then I promptly realize that the very idea is absurd. I'm considering a Junior essay on the concept of wanting out of your skin. A great piece of obvious and already known knowledge was given to me two days ago. For these essays, people should first think of what they want to write about, and then pick the work. The tutors here won't tell us this, because they think it heretical. "What? You can't find an honest topic? Why don't you write on Descartes? You seem to like the study of knowldege. Or how about Hume? He's post-modern, right?" Now, perhaps no one reading this will care, and quite understandably. Sometimes considering this college is boring to me even while going here. But generally it remains a powerful paradox which bears sorting through.

Why are so many students drunk all the time, and stupid even sober? And yet some of the most impressive people I've met, I've met here. What could I make of the persistent vulgurization of all culture? Particularly when I am aware of its influence over me. Is it possible to affect someone who lives in the unenlightened manner of the great mass of humanity, who is bigoted, unaware, resistent to change, and content with a stupid life? But then, maybe I'm not qualified to judge such people, and maybe I'm wrong about the quality of their lives; maybe mine is not better.

In the development of philosophy (and why should I care?) the trend in the last two hundred years has been away from the dogmatic confines of logic and toward something much more complicated and less seemingly applicable. It is as if philosophy has been examining its own subconscious mind, and has found great depths of mystery about what had been seemingly the simplest of concepts. And yet, if it remains mystery, why should I trust it, and what could I hope to gain from it? What could my role in such a thing possibly be?

Writers seem to stuggle to remain relevant. What, then, is relevant? Why does this generation seem to me to be incapable of great art, to the extent that we cannot even judge ourselves?

Oh, and why did I write this blog?

Went down to Career Services to pick up my check, had to go to the Treasurer's. Found there two checks in addition to the expected one. Now have $416. Am very happy.

Yesterday, for twenty minutes, the cold went all away. The ice stretched out and fell into the sidewalk cracks and disappeared. The rabbits and bears came out of their holes, looked at each other, and started playing together like children. It looked very silly, but also wonderful. Lou Reed showed up and stared dancing, and nobody seemed to know who he was, so I danced with him. The snow turned into summer clothes, molecule by molecule; then the summer clothes melted. Then the earth, cracking open from such a sudden change in temperature, sucked the entire Santa Fe campus down, and Lou Reed cried.

In an ordinary-seeming conversation last night, I discovered the meaning of my life. It is deceptively simple. The packaging resembles that of a Pokemon action figure, full of bright blues and pinks, swarming with love and cuteness and obviousness. I am, you see, simultaneously attracted and repulsed by everything. I am no sooner stirred up by new realizations than I am depressed by the dullness of the posibilities. This is because everything reminids me of death. Scott, you were right.

Also, it is fucking dry here. But you knew this. And my heater is always on. Always. I have it turned down to 50, but it persists in blowing hot, steam-heated air into my room at all hours. Which makes my room something like the inside of an oven that is baking mud. I've been hanging out in the bathroom a lot, because it is the only humid area in Santa Fe. I'm considering whether I should sleep in the bath tub. I have sounded like I have a cold for a week and a half. If anyone has a humidifier, (wipe it on your dress and) send it to me.

Last Sunday I was talking to Will Jensen (long story) and just before he hung up, he mentioned that his roomate frequently played the Flaming Lips, and that Will always made him turn up "Do You Realize?" and rocked out, going "Yeah!" to lines like "Everyone you know some day will die." For those of you who met Will, you know what tone the "Yeah!" had. For those of you who haven't, don't worry about it.

Then, a few days ago (for the sake of being specific, I will say Tuesday, but I'm not sure it was Tuesday) I got up from listening to a CD (for the sake of interest, I will say it was Little Richard, and although it probably was Little Richard, I'm not sure) and walked over to the door (for the sake of interest, I will specify that the door is brown, because it is). Just before I got there, I noticed a CD someone had slid into my room through the crack. I picked it up and read, "Dear Greg, hope this song puts a smile on your face. :)" The CD contained only "Do You Realize?" by the Flaming Lips. It did not put a smile on my face, for musical reasons, but regardless, I was terrified. "Oh my God! Is Jensen here? What's going on, is this an acid flashback or what?" You get the point.

So I called Jess, and Wes, and other people who's names end in "ess". They had not sent the CD. Polewach, who would not touch the Flaming Lips, who probably gets mild stomach aches thinking about the Flaming Lips, who likely uses "Flaming Lip" as a derogatory term, did not have to be asked. I had no other friends here who would make even mildly likely candidates.

Several days went by (beautiful narrative device, that. Did anything happen in those days? Of course. I'm just not telling what). I was standing outside having a cigarette with Wes when a guy named Tom Gallo (my next-door neighbor, and a non-entity) walked up. I asked him if he liked the Flaming Lips. He smiled broadly and said, "No, but I know who does."

"Who?"

"I can't tell you, but I'll tell him to come to you."

"Eh."

I found out nothing for days. I saw men with long hair in white suits playing guitars out of the corner of my eyes, but when I looked it was only snow-covered trees. Fuzzy dancing animals greeted me as I got out of bed, and I knocked them over to get to my washcloths. No one came. I didn't want anyone to come. What if it was some guy trying to pick me up? What do you say to something like that?

Eventually, I asked Tom again. "You know Josh?"

"Yeah." He was another non-entity Annapolis transfer Junior, only in addition to being opinionless, he was oblivious. This made him the perfect comic straight man, as I could use him to set up as many jokes as I could fit into the space of a meal. I would not consider this talking to him. I did not greet Josh outside of the dining hall, any more than I greet the dog, Boston, who is constantly bouncing around Lowers, barking and looking ugly.

"It was him."

"Oh."

Then, later, when I told this to Jess, he said, "huh. You know, he seems like he's in the closet."

"Because of this, or you got that impression before?"

"I thought that before. He seems way inside the closet."

"Jesus."

"I wouldn't worry about it."

"Jesus."

My life is boring. My thoughts are boring. Why are you even reading this? Shouldn't you be in bed recovering from nervous realizations about the inner workings of your mind? And why are you afraid of them just because they're "inner"? This is a sex thing, isn't it? Stop bringing these stupid problems to me. I'm not a psychologist. I'm a doctor, goddamit, a medical doctor. You want pills? I'll give you some fucking pills. Just please, please, stop whining about your mother!

Hmm . . . this is pretty boring without the music.

3

2

1

The plants rule me. I have given myself entirely to their desires. Their little faces look at me full of need, begging me to feed them. But I can't feed them. I spent the last of the money two weeks ago on a lighter to burn my records, because it was all I could offer to feed my plants, and the ash itself is almost exhausted now. Here, far from the sun, far even from the memory of it, the day has slowed to a crawl. There is nothing I could really call a day. My clock battery is almost exhausted, and when it is gone I won't have any way of telling so much as the hour, let alone whether it is before or after noon. Once the clock stops moving I will finally have to admit there is no such thing as motion or hope. There will be just me and the plants, and they have long since stopped growing. Once upon a time I had a memory of a sound so pure it could strip away the rust from what I used to call life. Now, if I think for a long time, I call still remember words, but the voice eludes me like a coquette, slipping away into the recesses of carbon dioxide even my plants are now choking on. This voice, if there is such a thing, used to say, "death came calling today. I heard the gentle grace of its cadences. I couldn't say no." I think maybe this voice was God. I think maybe . . . yes, maybe if I strain . . . I can hear . . .

I no longer think about Stuart staying in. Ever. Such things don't exist for me. You'll find that once you quit the demon, modern rock songs, life begins to be sweeter in all its aspects. The sun, not concerned with the musical choices of simple beings like you, continues to shine in the sky, sending down its brilliant rays as if just for your little garden. The color green stands out everywhere, even in the winter, time's darkest and bitterest hour, when the soul shrivels up to the size of one of Pascal's fleas, and reels at its own insignificance and worthlessness. The smell of the air is fresh and sweet, like smoke from a crematorium. And your ears, no longer clogged with that horrible modern rock, are open to the sound of whistling at midnight, coming from the dark center of the universe. It took a lot of work to be the clear, content gardener I am, but I'm pretty sure, pretty damn sure, that anyone can equally easily quit listening the demon music.

Here are some good cures for slugs in the garden:

1. Set a few magnets (natural magnets do best; perhaps a lodestone or an rubbed brush of horse hair) near the affected plants. Then, the slugs will occupy themselves by playing with the magnet, and will forget about eating your plants.

2. With a small knife, make a half-inch slit on the stem of each plant. Once the plants dry up, the slugs will have no recourse but to go elsewhere.

3. Violently stab at the garden once a week with a hoe, or whack it with a hammer or shovel. Within a month, the effect will be the same as if a minor nuclear weapon had localised itself on your garden. Bye-bye, slugs!

4. Set up a battery-operated transistor radio at the edge of the garden and set it only to MOR adult contemporary stations. If there's anything slugs hate more than salt, it's Phil Collins. (Ear plugs are recommended for this operation.)

5. Run a moderate electric shock through your garden every fifteen minutes. We recommend hooking the ground up to a car battery or, for those do-it-yourselfers, attaching it to a fallen live wire. This will singe the plants to such an extent that the slugs will most likely leave the garden, probably entering the house to find food.

6. With a standard-issue blow torch . . .

Music? Music music! Fucking music! Why don't I listen to any good music? Good Christ, what music? There is no "music"! Who ever even thought there was music? Who comes up with this shit? Do people really get paid for this? How does anyone stay alive going around telling people such tremendous lies as "there's this thing called 'music'?" No one's so stupid as to believe them, and there's gotta be a least one guy big enough to beat up the lying bastard! There are songs, I guess. I've heard plenty of songs. Then sometimes the CD skips and I wonder if it's intentional, because it might as well be part of the song. So songs, yes. I've made songs before. I make them all the time. But music? That's ridiculous! The very idea is ridiculous! We all need to get over ourselves real quick, because we're dying soon and it's not a good thing to rejoin the All Soul with the idea that we create music. I've tried it before. That's why I'm still here. Next time I'll know there is no music, and I'll have a better shot at oblivion. Are you listening to me? Somehow I doubt you're listening to me. You're probably listening to songs right now and thinking it's music, aren't you? I see you! You have headphones on! They're not so small that I can't see them! Well, take them off! I'd say music is dead, but that's a logical impossibility, seeing as the concept of "music" ever having even existed, let alone lived, is absurd. Go find another web page to read. This is no longer a modern rock blog.

The river has gone mad and is donning its lapels for the new look of the century. The river is dressed in spats and an attractive cotton tie. The river has a date with pop culture and is taking pop culture to a concert in a conglomerate bookstore to see how the other half lives. The river is grinning and its hair is slicked back with aromic oils. The river has teeth like a picket fence. The river looks back at you from your computer screen. The river only wants your money. The river has hit upon the massive fashion statement of draping its soul on the outside of its body to show the world what it isn't feeling. Tout le monde aime le fleuve. Jeder liebt den Fluss. Tutto ama il flume. The river is the newest dance just sprung up at the downtown clubs, and you better know it. The river will not let you drown; the river does not want you to escape. You might as well stay on the shore.

It is almost New Year's Eve and it is supposed to be cold. I feel like Matthew Thompson (a.k.a. Matty T-Rex) on a rainy Easter a couple of years ago. He said, "It's supposed to rain on Good Friday. And then Easter's to be sunny and nice." Almost New Year's Eve and it's about 55 degrees out. I need it to be bitter and dreadfully cold, because I usually spend the night inside laughing to myself about how cold my high school marching band is in the stupid parade they go to every year, and which I ditched without fail. I want to be able to savor every moment my army-trained former band leader and his troop of snotty jocks (my band had jocks, go fig) have to pain their feet and chap their wet lips playing in the malicious cold.

The leader of my high school band is Mr. Johnston, Mr. Bob Johnston, known among his ass-kissing desciples as "Mr. J." I didn't call him "Mr. J" even once, because he asked us to. I used to have a mild respect for this man. I wouldn't have, say, defended him in a knife fight, but neither would I have kicked his dog if the opportunity presented itself. Over time I developed a surpassing dislike for the man and his disciplinarian policies. He acted like a drill seargent, and didn't even make up for it by teaching us to play. When I became a senior, I expected that he'd at least award me the privilages he routinely gave to seniors. When I was an underclassman, nothing irked me so much as his allowing seniors first pick of any candy he brought in, special recognition at concerts, more authority as section leaders, priority seating, and a more personable attitude. He gave me the final insult by being inconsistent about these things toward me when I became a senior.

I spent most of my time in his marching band as last chair, because he didn't inspire me without enough enthusiasm to practice (my three former band teachers had all done this, and I had always been first chair). Toward the end I would sit in band at the end of every schoolday, frequently after school, and even over the summer--it was like a football team in terms of preparational intensity, because all he cared about was winning parades and performance contests; I would sit there in a mild haze, drunk with alienation, boredom and contempt for Mr. Johnston. He shared a name with Bob Dylan's producer, which just drips with irony.

I fell into joking with the kid in the chair immediately above mine about Mr. Johnston's closet homosexuality, inbreeding, physical and spiritual ugliness, and fanatic need for control. I would write vulgar comments on the sheet music he had given us. I was, incidentally, a trombone player in this band, and you can only guess what I did with the word "trombone." It's probably not what you're thinking. At the end of my first semester, senior year, I was absent on the day everyone passed in their music, which would have afforded me anonymity. When I showed up the next day and he asked those who still had music to pass it in, I handed it to the flugelhorn players sitting to my right. It passed down the row, producing giggles from some, looks of horror and surprise from others (mainly freshman girls or effeminate guys). Finally, it reached the tyrant himself.

Mr. Johnston called for me to stay after. My ride (who was about to take me to tryout for his ska band--I failed) stayed with me. We sat there, showing a mixture of sheepishness and defiance, as Mr. Johnston made the usual show of disgust, betrayed confidence, and intolerance (he read some of my comments, which were very witty if I may say so myself, with such a tone of anger that I thought he might pass out from so much blood in his head and bile in his chest). I sat there with my ugly chin beard (my nick name among a few members in the band was "ball sack"; I hadn't yet learned to trim my peach fuzz) and keep my eyes down, my face sardonicaly smiling. "Stop smiling, goddammit! It's not funny! And look at me!" He called my parents, at about eight in the evening, and told them all about it. He also assigned me to sensitivity training with the school counselor, which was kind of like forcing Churchill to take a crash course in rhetoric. I will admit that I am extremely insensitive when it comes to conversation, because I'm always trying to make jokes I know people will take as insults. However, as to the reason he gave for sending me to a counselor--insensitivity to homosexuals and other ethnicities--I can only say he was a bit inaccurate.

I couldn't get to sleep easily for a few days becuse of a new, strong source of anxiety he had shoved down my throat. Later it would be because of Napster, which kept me up until 3 a.m. nearly every night my second semester, causing me to fall asleep in the middle of many A.P. European History classes. Thus, although I still remember many of the terms (Warsaw Pact, Maginot Line, Citizen Genet) I forgot most of what I learned about modern history.

Anyway, point is, I want that bastard to freeze his ass off this New Years in whatever show-off parade he forces his students to perform in this year.

If anyone has not gone to the Elephant Six website and downloaded the mp3s and listened to them, do so. It's the most amazing thing I've heard in a while. (And Jeff Mangum really is inspired, as his commentary makes clear, and Aeroplane somehow really does relate to the life of Anne Frank, whom Mangum really was obsessed with, and so on.)

Nothing has happened in my life lately; I have also been thinking about nothing. Thus, I will write about someone else's life and thoughts, in the first person, just for fun. Perhaps a nine year old Japanese American boy in Ohio. Here we go.

I don't understand why my parents won't buy me a samuri sword. They keep telling me to "be attuned to my heritage," and yet they won't buy me a samuri sword. I just don't understand. I'll keep asking them. Something might happen if I keep asking them. I've never even seen one, except on TV. There was this one show where a guy had a sword and he was screaming as he jumped out of a window, "banzai!" I wonder what he meant, sceaming about a tree. Maybe he was jumping out of the window because of a tree. I don't understand it. They keep pushing me about my school work, too. They make little deals with me, like I can have a samuri sword when I'm fifteen, but only if I agree to take pre-calculus next year. It's boring is what it is, but what can I do? It would be terrible if I still can't have a sword by the time I'm fifteen. Maybe if I take calculus instead of pre, they'll give me the sword this year. Gonna go ask them.

Christmas. I get a warm feeling just from saying it, in the area of my groin. The warm feeling then seeps down my pants and leaves an uncomfortable odor. Christmas. It comes on like a friend with promises of shiny objects and musty paper and sweets, and it leaves me with that feeling you get after someone has driven over a puddle and sprayed you. Some got in your mouth.

My brother put on Van Morrisson today. We were sitting in the living room and discussing the relative virtues of each brilliant song while my grandfather (we call him "Papu" as a joke) mimiced his high crying tone on "Who Was That Masked Man?" and laughed with the insidiousness of trans fat. "He soun's like he's cryin'," he said with a sailor's accent and a shit-eating grin on his face. The kind of grin that could wilt roses. "You're right," I said, "that's what he's going for, actually." He responded, if you want to call it a response, "The music's good. I got no problem wit da music. Guy don't know howta sing, doh." "Well, he's not Frank Sinatra, but maybe that's a good thing. And he wrote the music, you know." "Guy don't know how to sing. 'Eeeh-eeh-eeeh.' Like he's cryin' or sometin'. Heh-heh-heh," he croaked.

I really don't go for it when people say, as this ghoul's second daughter did over dessert, with the heaviest Bronx accent there is, "Van Morrisson is a little better than Bob Dylan, but I just don't like his vo-wace. Other people sing his sowngs and they're gowd, but when he sings . . . I don't really like it," she said ironically, with a huge shit-eating grin (runs in the family) as if the person she was talking to would agree. "Who do you like?" I asked. I should have refrained. "Barbara Streisand, or Celine Dion, Frank Sinatra, they have real voices." I won't go on. My heart died today, as a little bit dies every day. Soon it will be gone, and then the world will be sorry, let me tell you. Or, alternately, the world will go on just as it does.

And now, in the same vein as Scott's blog, the top 10 albums I bought this year (because the albums I bought that came out this year were all disappointing, with few exceptions, and the exceptions aren't worth mentioning); there should be absolutely no surprises on this list. I could have included plenty of other albums (I bought hundreds) but it would be lying. So, truly the best albums I bought this year:

Morrissey, Bona Drag
Yo La Tengo, Electro Pura
Yo La Tengo, I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
Belle and Sebastian, Lazy Line Painter Jane EP collection
Modest Mouse, Building Nothing out of Something
The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground
Spiritualized, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space
Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
The Magnetic Fields, 69 Love Songs

There is no tenth, because I can't think of one without looking at everythng I bought this year, and that's probably a good way to judge. These albums are the ones which have stayed with me, which I have listened to for longer than the week after I bought them, which I will continue to listen to for a long time. It's a boring list, but it's as accurate as I can make it. I would most likely have been able to include the Beat Happening box set if I hadn't lent it to a friend soon after getting to Santa Fe. I really haven't spent any time with it.

This blog is now officially once again active, now that I have lost each and every last one of my readers. I only ever had three, so I'm not that concerned. This just means I can spend more time with myself. And, by the way, for anyone who doesn't know (because Scott fucking knows), I am back in Maryland. I will be here until the middle of January, unless I can find some way out of here. This state does nothing to fill the hole. Instead, it rips it open and makes it a bit more gaping every hour.

The night I got home, my father said to my brother and me, as he was going to bed, "No walks." I imagine everyone who reads this (all three of you, god bless you) knows what this means. I'll elaborate for my own benefit anyway. It means, "don't escape from my evil grimy clutches; I've had you for twenty-one years and I'll be fucked if I'm letting you out now. You are not permitted to leave my cloying, soul-killing house, because when you do so, the only thing you do is smoke, which makes you morally disgraceful as well as offensive to me personally. I cannot legally kill you physically, so I will do so mentally. Wallow in the psychological pit of boiling blood which I have created for you. Good night." That 'good night' I just threw in there to remind you that this is, after all, my father, and that's what a normal father may reasonably be expected to say. That's what my father presumably considered, only to replace it with "no walks."

Oh, and Eric is home too, and today we both took a bus to Manhattan. I found out that we had this ability just the day before, when my mother called and asked if we wanted to go with her coworkers to Manhattan because someone had given up two tickets. I haven't slept for about thirty eight hours, and I have seen altogether too much to even remember, but here are some poems I wrote in the Klee room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

On "Portrait of a Yellow Man":

Although you might think
Dignity is expensive
You ain't seen nothing

My lips are bovine
My features are painted on
I am still a man

On "Small Portrait of Girl in Yellow":

Do you like my smile?
I am not looking at you.
Like it if you must.

I spent centuries
Sitting with my gaze just so
Can I get up now?

On "Collection of Figurines"

left
Fear is perverse in the face of so much indifference. Keep half an Eye on everything and cook it in your glowing blue third eye opening inward and outward, rising like an ecstatic cold sun. Eating fire only leads to a frozen stomach. Material is interconnected, but spirit spills all over the place. Nothing stays still.
opposite
Jumping blind leads to unmitigated joy. You might as well laugh at danger because nothing bad is possible or even conceivable. What would "bad" mean when the world is you? Play with yourself. It's fun. Whee! (splash)
center
The senses are limiting and unnecessarily stern. Experience everything that exists with a single simultaneous sense organ at the center of your being. Knowledge is neither subjective or objective; truth is meaningless, if beautiful, but sensation is an endless shot of whiskey burning everything with sheer all-encompassing intoxication of knowledge, like a circular angle. Which do you choose?

On "The man under the pear tree"

Fruit hangs like boobs practically forcing you to pick it, so you do. Glaring vulgar sexuality of desirable juices which proves you are not innocent, because if you were you wouldn't understand. A single inch of earth produces a mile of flowing plant energy. Man sees spot for self in universe, takes it. Even if the fruit never falls, he's satisfied. Tree thrusts growing limbs to eagerly dispelof its masterpieces, so readily it must have a slave mentality.

Some other one-liners:
"My bellybutton is the only proff that I, too, was once human."
"I gaze at the constant spectacle of nothing going on."
"My head is a melting former ice sculpture."
"My tadpole body slithers down the chair of myself while you politely suppress peals of laughter."
"The sun falls beneath my knees to fully illuminate my sordid, unhappy genitals."
"Slothfully, we will devour your oozing, suculent enthusiasm with fishlike gracelessness."

Klee is awesome.