No Pigs on the Futon
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Pope William T Wodium" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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02:38 am
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Forty minutes, now.
Pungenday the Thirty-Fifth of Aftermath in the Year CUT
It is the twenty-third of November and my twenty-third birthday.1 These things are numerologically significant by Discordian reckoning, and they feel significant to me. Or, they do tonight, at least, on the large couch in my uncle's house in Carrboro, while the rain makes rhythms on the gutters outside and I keep glancing at my computer clock to check the number of minutes that have elapsed since I realized that it was technically the morning and spontaneously sang Happy Birthday to myself.2
I'm bringing back the footnotes, by the way, out of nostalgia. It's a sort of self-reference to my old ways of doing things.3
I noticed that not many comfortable things rhyme with "job" and fit into a Happy Birthday tune.
I'm staying in my fourth house this week, making my peace with my third and fourth cat in that same period. Cats are social, territorial creatures, just as we, and I like to think of my impromptu tour of North Carolina as a cat-seeing tour as much as anything else. I've cleaned out a greenhouse, attended a play festival, won the Question Game in a three-story stairwell wherein no two stories were alike, and driven a few hundred miles in between. I feel as though gathering the pieces of an intangible Triforce - not noticing each piece I acquire, moving on when I have what I need.
I'll cross my own path this evening when I head back to Charlotte, hopefully arriving in time to have a piece of my own birthday cake. I'm lingering here to visit the campus in its waking capacity, with the buildings full of faculty and the offices full of staff. I was there yesterday - Saturday - but the place was dormant, the only residue of life lingering in those places exhaling steam or excreting coffee and bagels.
This will be an important year, I think. My uncertainty as to how only underscores that supposition in my mind. I want this to go well.
We'll see.
1I suppose I ought to go ahead and add my age to my profile information now that I've let that little secret slip, eh?
2Eighteen, at present - that is, 2:16 - but the clock changed precisely as I typed "at present," bringing my fears to fruition and rendering that count an inaccuracy.
3That seems as though it ought to have been a footnote, somehow.
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03:25 am
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It's a number, too
Boomtime the Sixty-Sixth of Confusion in the Year CUT
Tonight, I read a sentence in which the author wrote "too" when he meant the numeral. Somewhere during my moment of pained shock, I realized that I had never actually seen this particular error before. It was my first time.
It was painful.
I thought I would share.
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07:17 pm
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Health Care
Setting Orange the Forty-Ninth of Confusion in the Year CUT
Via ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) en_ki, this.
I have things to say and announce that are important to me, but this is more important to everyone else (in the US).
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01:54 am
[Link] | Sweetmorn the Fifty-Fourth of Aftermath in the Year CUS
My early morning, as I work on my last final paper (not redundant, read it again), has been considerably brightened by the discovery that UNC's Frank Porter Graham Student Union, in which I have logged many an hour of caffine-addled productivity and many more of psudeo- or just plain non-productivity, actually contains (and presumably has contained, all this time) a Lactation Room. It says so beside the door.
_______________
Lactation Room
3200
[Sign-style pictograph of a woman with a deep
(and decidedly lopsided) V-neck collar,
holding to her chest what might be an infant
(or possibly an oversized Parcheesi piece)]
_______________
Why was I not informed?
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03:27 am
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Done
Pungenday the Sixteenth of Aftermath in the Year CUS
It's late and I'm tired and I have things I should do before tomorrow (that is, before sunup) instead of writing here, but if I don't do it now I likely won't, because, y'know. Busy.
So there I was on the couch in my on-campus apartment, watching the final few minutes of the Stewart-Colbert coverage, when two things happened at once: A giant picture of Obama's face appeared on-screen as Jon Stewart called the election for Obama; and my cell phone rang. Answering, I was greeted with the Latin (which I have since forgotten) for "All hail the Caeser!"
Outside our fourth story window I could hear yelling and screaming from the students that had begun to flood the street while I tried to get an explanation of the Latin from one Ms. Barkley and pay attention to the last bits of the Indecision '08 finale at the same time. I felt a strange, subdued elation - subdued because I've been confident in Obama's victory for the past two weeks, but strangely still powerful, affecting. Of course the real issue at stake was the size of the new Senate majority; of course the only real uncertainty was whether my home state, reliably red North Carolina, would finally do the right thing and go blue for Obama as the polls seemed to suggest it might. But still. And yet.
A little later there was champagne, courtesy of a flatmate. I purposely avoided watching the news network coverage of the election this year, resolving to replace those mindless hours of obsessive speculation with a single one-hour slot hosted by my two favorite satirical newsmen. I still ended up check Yahoo's "political dashboard" more than was healthy (i.e., more than once in twenty minutes), and I was too worked up to fix dinner until after the announcement. It took an hour to wind down, too, so I wasn't cooking 'til twelve nor eating 'til one. Such is life.
There was some political discussion in the apartment during that wind-down period. I felt a certain glee at not having to care at all about what was said. "Well I guess we'll see," I said. "Too late now," I said, "he's in office.
"Bitch."
Current Mood:  recumbent
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02:51 am
[Link] | Boomtime the Forty-Third of Bureaucracy in the Year CUS
On September nineteenth, for the fourth or fifth year,
I've writ up a verse an' I've posted it here,
So hoist the black flag an' let out a stout cheer,
Fer today be the day what we speak Buccaneer!
Ahoy, me maties! An' ye like it or nay,
'Tis International Talk Like a Pirate Day,
So wheree'er ye go an' whate'er ye say,
Be sure and ye do it the pirate way!
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03:29 am
[Link] | Prickle-Prickle the Thirty-Sixth of Discord in the Year CUS
I learned a new word! Watch:
"The Force can have a strong influence on the pusillanimous."
You're welcome.
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08:14 pm
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Son of 2/31/CUS
Setting Orange the Thirty-Second of Discord in the Year CUS
I'm hungry, so I won't be writing long. Consider this a follow-up to yesterday's entry.
The exam went well, mostly thanks to my special privileges as one of the Brain Addled (said privileges amounting to Time-and-a-Half, in this instance). With ten minutes remaining of an originally seventy-five minute period and with three of eight questions yet to be answers, I was permitted to flee to [A Secure Testing Location] where I could finish my exam in something approaching peace. What peace was lacking was made up for by access to a vending machine. (Extra time is nice, but entailed in that is a test which is extra long. Strength must be kept up.)
And that drink from last entry? I kid you not. Down to the frosting, that stuff was a red Froot Loop in cool, refreshing liquid form.
I'm off to eat and purchase a burrito in the opposite of that order. Don't fall into the sewers and die.
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12:22 am
[Link] | Prickle-Prickle the Thirty-First of Discord in the Year CUS
I just returned from Time-Out, a restaurant, where I had the disturbing experience of drinking a beverage with the consistency of cold water and the flavor of a red Froot Loop. The resemblance on both counts was so precise as to be uncanny.
Time-Out is a good restaurant if you like chicken, biscuits, and mashed potatoes and gravy. It's certainly convenient, at least insofar as it never closes. (24 Hours a Day, 365 Days a Year!, the sign proclaims.) It's a block farther to walk than other places, but nowhere much is open at 11:40 on Mondays here. Monday is the worst; it's easier to get a bite on Sunday, which is a little odd in some ways.
I'm incorporating naps into my weekly sleep patterns, and I'm also hoping that the place I found will be suitable for holding class outdoors on Thursday. The class in question is my poetry-of-everywhere-and-forever Engl 390, and the final exam for it is in about twelve hours. We'll still have class twice after the test though, and I just remembered that there's no class on Thursday, so they'll both be next week. With hope, the weather will be a bit less cold then. I'd say "warmer," but if you get much warmer than it was last week, you shift out of "warm" and into "hot." I'll be happy if it just stops getting chilly every time it rains. Rain is good, but warm rain is nice, and that's not at all the same thing.
Good. That's done, and now I'm moving on to the other things I'll do tonight. Mostly I just wanted to share about the Froot Loop drink.
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05:11 pm
[Link] | Pungenday the Sixty-Third of Chaos in the Year CUS
Gary Gygax dies at 69
A moment of hush for Gary Gygax
For dragons in dungeons, a dwarf with an ax
For skeletons, dire rats, funny-shaped dice,
For pencils and paper. You know, it was nice
To sit in our basements, garages and churches
Pretend to be elves being blood-sucked by stirges
And all the while know that beside Lake Geneva
Dwelt Gary Gygax: that grand make-believer
Who cared so much more about wizards and prophets
Than stale business models and end-quarter profits.
Here's to ol' Gary, beloved cavalier
Who gamely gamed on through his sixty-ninth year;
He mangled the myths and distorted the past
But you have to admit - the great Gygax had class.
- Scott William T W Horton, on reading of the death of G. Gygax 3/4/2008
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01:00 am
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Answer the Question
Pungenday the Sixty-Second of Chaos in the Year CUS
How much bound round ground could a bound round ground hound hound if a bound round ground hound could be found bound to hound bound round ground (for a round pound of round ground round)?
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12:37 am
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Who encompasses the compass-maker?
Pungenday the Fifty-Third of Chaos in the Year CUS
I have experienced the miraculous.
When I was walking away from campus to see the eclipse last night (it was cool, in that celestial way, but fell just short of spectacular; I expected blood-red, and I got a cloudy tiger-orange, like a sunset without the pink, red, or purple), I pulled my compass out of my jacket pocket and discovered it was broken. I didn't even know they did that, but there it was, quite thoroughly broke. Something I'd done to my jacket had been just a little too much for the poor plastic device and the needle had come off the base and it was so long, Columbus. Oh, well. I'd wanted to use the bearing to the moon for reference once I'd left familiar territory, but as it happened I didn't really need to.
Still, it was a bummer that it had broken, so I mentioned this to my roommate a little while ago ("I didn't even know they did that,") and pulled the compass out of my jacket pocket to show him.
It wasn't broken!
It un-broke.
What?
I have lost my faith in objective reality. I am wondering if the next thing is to start a religion. Help me.
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06:32 am
[Link] | Setting Orange the Thirty-Third of Aftermath in the Year CUR
Hey, everybody, I'll be twenty-one years old in a couple of days. I'm a free man as of a couple of days ago.
This means that I no longer work at the Unnamed Dine-In Restaurant and that the United States of America will consider me all the way an adult soon, not respectively. Also that I will eat a turkey tomorrow, just as I will the day before my birthday four times every twenty-eight years, assuming I'm capable and inclined to celebrate both holidays for the rest of eternity.
Last year my birthday was on Thanksgiving. That won't happen again until I turn thirty-one. This is because of leap year.
I leave you with Yankee Doodle:
Yankee Doodle went to Georgia, driving a Ferrari
Just to see a girl he knew to try and say he's sorry
Yankee Doodle, keep it up
Yankee Doodle driver
He's a man of business, yes
But not a nine-to-fiver
Yankee Doodle found religion stuffed into his dresser
Took it to the Catholic church and told his new confessor
Yankee Doodle, keep it up
Yankee Doodle sinner
Tell our Lord that you repent
And fry some fish for dinner
Yankee Doodle went to Egypt, just to see the pharaohs
Took the girl from Georgia with, and they made quite a pair! Oh,
Yankee Doodle, keep it up
Yankee Doodle trav'ler
Nothing gets her blood to pump
Like cent'ries old cadavers
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04:47 am
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Beans
Boomtime the Fifteenth of Aftermath in the Year CUR
I just had my supper.
A supper of beans.
But, beans are alright. Beans are important.
I like beans.
Though, they're not musical. And they're certainly not fruit.
They're actually seeds.
They're exalbuminous.
I forget what that means.
They may not be fruit,
but they're sure as hell beans.
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07:16 pm
[Link] | Pungenday the Forty-Fourth of Bureaucracy in the Year CUR
In honor o' the occasion, here be a sea-shanty I wrote some time ago, concerning some friends o' mine:
First Mate McGraw is missing an eye
He won't tell you how, he won't tell you why
I hear that it sits in a jar on a shelf
An' I can't shake the notion he did it hisself
. . . Yo ho ho an' a hiddley-hee
. . . Drink in the breeze an' the salt o' the sea
. . . Yo ho ho an' a hiddley-hum
. . . Pieces of eight an' a bottle o' rum!
Murderin' Tom's a first mate as well
He sailed in that night on the Mistress o' Hell
Came to this tavern in search o' McGraw
That hideous grin meant he liked what he saw
. . . Yo ho ho an' a hiddley-hee
. . . Drink in the breeze an' the salt o' the sea
. . . Yo ho ho an' a hiddley-hum
. . . Pieces of eight an' a bottle o' rum!
Barnabas Crupp's a terrible sight
His fingers are black, his pupils are white
I'll tell ye the tale how his fingers turned black:
That's all that touched Hell 'fore Ol' Scratch threw him back
. . . CHORUS
( First Mate McGraw is missin' a hand . . . )
Yarr.
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12:10 pm
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ITLPD, CUR
Pungenday the Forty-Forth of Bureaucracy in the Year CUR
Ahoy, me maties! Though me own arse be late,
'Twas that International Talk Like A Pirate Date
So wheree'er ye went an' whate'er ye ate,
Ye better've talked talked like a pirate, mate!
Arr. Yer good captain, Smilin' Scott Silver th' Splenophrenic, spent the better part o' yesterday slavin' away in the galley, so he did, scrapin' the bunghole-leavings off o' landlubber's plates. Not a happy pirate was he, mark me words. So, seein' as I missed all the plank walkin' and timber shiverin' yesterday, I'm declaring International Talk Like A Pirate Day today - for meself only.
Yarrr!
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09:36 am
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Apologies to the Beadles
Setting Orange the Thirty-Sixth of Bureaucracy in the Year CUR
In the town where I was born
There lived a man who cured disease
And he told us of his life
In the land of diocese
So we joined the Holy Church
And obeyed the Pope's decrees
And we lived among the priests
In the Catholic Diocese
We all live in the Catholic Diocese
The Catholic Diocese
The Catholic Diocese
We all live in the Catholic Diocese
The Catholic Diocese
The Catholic Diocese
And our friends all love the Lord
They serve the clergy for room and board
And the organ starts to play
We all live in the Catholic Diocese
The Catholic Diocese
The Catholic Diocese
We all live in the Catholic Diocese
The Catholic Diocese
The Catholic Diocese . . .
So let's all give an Apple Corey welcome to rexx Morgan, KSC, newest and bluest of the Furst Church of Ripley the Cat! Like a few other Members Good at Standing (xkcd, des_demento, I'm looking at you), he was drawn to the Church by the enigmatic presence and cataclysmic sexiness of our very own Lord ripley_the_cat, Brigadier Saint of Eris Discordia and Feline Fire Chief (Soporific Subdivision). I get the feeling he prefers Robert Anton Wilson to Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, but we all have our flaws. (I hear gin_and_satori still thinks the Joshunortonian dating system is heretical, the heretic.)
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01:49 am
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A Hypercharismatic Telepathical Knight
Pungenday the Ninth of Bureaucracy in the Year CUR
Made cheese
Not war
Used a plow he'd made out of a sword
He never knew what busts of saints were for
He was a post-iconoclastic agricultural lord . . .
Made love
Not peace
While he was home, every meal was a feast
He baked a scrumptious loaf with help from yeast
He was an aphrodisiactic culinarial priest . . .
Nine lives
At least
Brewed a potion that revived the deceased
He wore those bright white slacks that never creased
He was a hypo-allergenic pharmaceutical beast
So a couple nights ago a girl told me my eyes made her think of a husky's, they're so light. I told her that was the best compliment I'd ever gotten (but meant it was the best one I could remember getting, at that moment), and she asked if I was being facetious. Well, no, but at that point you start wondering what her opinion of huskies is.
I've got a phone now, one that's not broken. Its name is Oak. It has a Qwerty keyboard, which tickles me to bits, and as soon as I get around to installing the synch software I'll post the entry I wrote on it while I was at the beach.
Work still sucks, school will still be in the spring. Someone's asked me for a picture of myself, and I like fiddling around with the camera enough that I'll likely put one here sometime soon. I'll probably handle that the same way I did last time.
(--0#0--)
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03:51 pm
[Link] | Prickle-Prickle the Sixty-Eighth of Confusion in the Year CUR
Whoever says you can't taste anything in dreams is either a bald-faced liar or sadly misinformed. There was a distinct difference between the long salty french fries that had been dipped in the bottle of A1 steak sauce and those which had not, and I immensely preferred the latter (though my opponent, a fierce rival of mine in the - invisible, flying tent races, apparently, held indoors in narrow hallways - anyway, my rival liked steak sauce, so I made sure to eat all that up first so there wouldn't be any when he got back to the quartermaster's supply room, which is where I was. Not sure where i got the fries.).
( Another Dreidl Ditty )
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05:06 am
[Link] | Sweetmorn the Twenty-Fifth of Confusion in the Year CUR
So I was just talking to someone about things we don't do anymore, and one of those things for me is writing here. Truth to tell, that wasn't enough to get me started; I also had a few minutes to wait for my video to finish downloading, but I think I ate all that up trying to calculate the Discordian date without using a calander. Three seconds left.
I'll finish the entry anyway.
So most of my life now takes place in the cracks between work shifts. Some cracks are larger than others, but there's still that feeling that the time is between, somehow. I've taken to watching entire television series via download. I'm still amazed at how quickly these things can be done. By the by, Samurai Champloo is highly recommended to anyone who liked Bebop, and for anyone who's lazy and asks (somewhat contradictory criteria), I can show you where I got them.
Is it wrong to want to live one's life as though one was immortal, rather than as if one was dying?
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