Quixotica

I was privileged to reclaim my first submitted article from my professor today, with a bevy of helpful hints thrown in free of charge. The usual commendations regarding an expansive vocabulary, proficiency with the language etc. rang a little hollow; I'm 23 and finishing my upper-division coursework in a class that is widely touted as the "boot camp" of the department. The capability to string two cogent thoughts together with the aid of our friend the semi-colon ought to be expected at this stage of the game.

Also, I was chastised for "overwriting."

What the fuck is overwriting? That's like berating the pizza delivery guy because your pizza got there too early. "Hey man, what the hell are you doing here so quick? I barely had time to finish burying the dead hooker out back! You got a serious problem with overdelivering, and I don't tip for that shit."

This post was originally conceived as an earnest attempt at extolling the virtues of Skippy. Honey Roasted Super Chunk in particular, though when it comes to peanut butter our apartment provides a lavish smorgasbord of decadent delights for even the most discerning palate. No lie, we've got no less than five opened containers in the kitchen, and a freshly discarded one in the bin. Other students amass enough cold pizza and half-empty cartons of dubious Chinese food to feed a small army; we hoard nut butter.

Unfortunately I've got two case briefs to prepare and another couple of chapters to burn through in order to get abreast of the class discussion regarding Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. That, and another fifty-plus characters to memorize for a kanji quiz on Thursday. Good times.

Had to start a local neighborhood blog for one of my courses, check it out if you're bored and have an unquenchable thirst for information about the San Francisco peninsula.

Hey, so I trekked into town to get a comprehensive blood test done today. Doctor thinks I might have hepatitis A. That or liver failure.

Good times.

On the upside, going to a barbecue with my roommate tomorrow. Also, made a really kickin' sandwich today. Toaster ovens are ridiculously under-appreciated in modern culture.

Ho hum.

Rocked the house with my classroom court presentation today, arguing the merits of prior restraint cases when dealing with threats of imminent danger to human life. Feelin' pretty good 'bout my grade, and it's 15% of the class so when it comes to Comm. Law my knickers are feeling warm, comfy and fresh-out-of-the-dryer toasty.

Unfortunately, I totally bombed my kanji test which only served to immediately return said knickers to their hideously twisted state. Gonna relearn the Japanese writing system this weekend, plus another 50+ characters. I'm actually kinda happy about that; with no classes Friday to Sunday are the loneliest days of the week for me. Hopefully I'll meet some interesting people soon; clubs start up next week, and my roommate was cool enough to invite me to a barbeque on Sunday. I have no doubt sumptuous heaps of hot dogs, hamburgers and (hopefully) attractive and interesting women will be available. My roomie's Japanese, and you know what they say about Asian women and tall white guys.

They buy platform shoes? I'm sleepy, fuck off.

Also, my grandmother (who's in her mid-90's) while wandering around the house delirious early yesterday morning managed to fall and break her neck. She then promptly got back up and wandered in to my uncle's bedroom to complain of soreness. Apparently she fractured some vertebrae, and she went through surgery today to fuse something important to something even more important to keep something vitally important from being severed. I guess she's been kept paralyzed and unconscious after the surgery, and they're hoping they can wake her up tomorrow. She'll probably stick around for a little while longer, but I doubt she'll ever leave the hospital.

Cranked the page down to one post at a time for comfortable reading, don't forget to check out what came before.

1711 Holloway Avenue.
San Francisco, CA 94132.

Life is good.

Well, life is pretty much the same. I spent the last month or two champing at the bit to get up here and get started, and now here I am and class is in session. I'd like to relate some sort of jarring epiphany heralding my touchdown at SFO, but so far all I've got to show for my trouble are sore feet and an empty bank account. I hold out hope for a life-changing revelation to strike me in the street; I'll let you know how that goes.

Still trying to develop an engaging style; my roommates both left for the weekend, so left to my own devices I've been idly researching job opportunities in the Bay Area. Turns out I made the right choice in moving here, but it would be premature to mention anything more. Coincidentally I've spent some time becoming familiar with the state of New Games Journalism and how it relates to the media at large. This article is a bit dated but has served as an intriguing starting point, and I encourage you to poke around and take a look at anything that interests you. Racism, politics and religion are aspects of innate human perversity, and we invariably impress them on any medium we get our hands on.

Haven't had much in the way of notable photo opportunities, but here's some highlights:



A cozy little two-story across the street from campus, replete with complimentary shrubbery. Truly, we are as princes among men.



The theater building from our dining room table. How close are we to campus? Too motherfuckin' close.



Found these on display at the campus convenience store. Squid jerky is delicious.

I just spent an hour fiddling with JavaScript, and I need a break from digital media. More later!

That's the only picture I have of Jackie with her mouth closed. Just sayin'.

My camera died (permanently) about five minutes into the ceremony, so all the interesting pictures come courtesy of Verizon Wireless. Take it up with them.

Updates only seem to come when I’m at work bored out of my skull; this is a positive sign for neither my employment nor my dedication to personal journalism.

Had a great time at Jackie’s wedding. Had a horrible time getting there and back; Sonora is the kind of place you want to retire when you’re old, because it’s incredibly beautiful and so mind-fuckingly difficult to get around in that you never want to go anywhere more than a mile from home. I got lost both arriving and leaving, and received a traffic ticket from the only highway officer I’ve ever met (and I’ve met more than a few) who managed to be both demeaning, derogatory and downright dickish in the span of a few sentences. I confess, he may have been naturally talented; that kind of inbred discourtesy cannot be learned. He was like an autistic asshole savant, the Dustin Hoffman of fucktards.

I might have been less than courteous.

I was all riled up to spin fanciful discourses regarding social conundrums vis-à-vis the human maturation process, but I find that committing that bit of hate-filled slander to record has been remarkably calming. Don’t worry; when it comes to criticism, I always persevere.

Jackie’s wedding was a ridiculous and depressingly mundane experience, and I loved every goddamn minute of it. I arrived late and was immediately recruited into a sort of improptu volunteer workforce, an informal extension of the wedding party that in action resembled a surly Southern chain-gang more than anything else. We spent a few hours dragging the reception area into some semblance of order (under the hawk-like gaze of the blushing bride) and retired to a cramped and stuffy home a few blocks away to lick our wounds and prepare for the coming festivities. Sonora has a booming hospitality business (due in large part to the fact that if you manage to find the place, chances are you won’t be in any hurry to face the highway clusterfuck that leaving entails); thus I was forced to bed down in a tiny two bed one bath with seven other people, five of them female. The events of that balmy August evening were fairly mundane, and the night passed in a blur (though I distinctly remember vowing to chase down one of the resident canines, at one point doggedly exclaiming that I would “skin that motherfucker and wear it like a hat.”)

The next morning brought a renewed frenzy of activity, and after ransacking Jackie’s supply of sterilized poultry embryos we returned to ground zero and haphazardly threw the last bits of pomp and circumstance together. I ran back to the house to shower and groom myself to a level concomitant to my respect for this most sacred of ceremonies; arriving at the wedding site fifteen minutes early, we then proceeded to wait twenty minutes for a few straggling yokels to arrive decked out in shorts, flip-flops and weathered purple polo shirts. The wedding began only five minutes behind schedule, which I’m told is roughly equivalent to a man parting the Reed Sea in terms of modern miracles. The ceremony itself was wonderfully short, and with all the unimportant filler excised it lasted less than fifteen minutes.

The reception went swimmingly; good food and better company made for an enjoyable evening that demands more detail than I can afford to give at the moment. Office clock proclaims it’s time for lunch; I’ll see if I can post pictures and a less jumbled narrative later.