I also thought that summer school classes would be easier than regular quarters… I don’t know why I thought that. Probably because my friends in undergrad who took summer school classes were drunk 24/7. Evidently they’re not trying to support that kind of lifestyle in grad school. Come on, College. You used to be cool.
My one class this quarter is Proust. Just Proust. If you don’t know who Proust is here’s a haiku describing him:
Proust was a Frenchman
He wrote seven giant books
That now ruin Tedd
I haven’t taken a literature class since the Fall of ’06 (Sidenote: I’m enjoying now being old enough to refer to sections of my life by season and year.) so this is a huge switch for me. After I graduated high school I thought to myself “Okay, I’m smart enough to be able to read anything.” Then I read Joyce’s Ulysses. Then I finished undergrad and was like “I’m pretty much smart enough to read anything.” But then this summer Proust (He would be French!) came out in his twisted verbiage and kicked me in my critical reading nuts.
I literally have no idea what is happening most of the time in these book. It’s not really because they’re so difficult in terms of content, but they are just so boring… He will write pages of tiny print that are six sentences long, with a plethora of semi-colons, that talk about trees or the milkmaid that he hopes will come out of the trees and bang him.
The milkmaid is actually a full page in the book.
But I have to read 200 pages a week, of which I roughly retain 2%. So by the time I get to class and people are like:
“You know what I found fascinating. The bridge/whippoorwill incident.”
Too which everyone will shake their head in pretentious acquiescence and I’ll be like “Was that before or after he wanted to bang the milkmaid?”
My professor is actually really cool though. He’s got the gift of breaking down the boringness of Proust and making it easier to swallow. I thought he was good until this week when he compared one of the characters in the book to Don Johnson at which point he was raised to greatness in my mind. He’s almost forgiven for making me read Proust in the first place.
To be fair my summer hasn’t been that bad. Basically I work from about 11-11 every day Monday to Friday and then cram in one day of weekend fun.
Fourth of July was great, I went down to St. Louis and partied with my crew down there. There were copious amounts of Stag drunk and there were many fireworks. The weekend was crazy. I got off of work at 6 on Friday, drove to St. Louis, got in at 1, went immediately to the bar for shots and drinks, went to bed at 4, woke up at 9 and read Proust (EFF!), went to the matinee showing of Wicked at 2, went to my friends’ BBQ, went to Toulainia’s a dance club that’s playlist featured the entire song list from Jock James Vol 1-5, went to bed at 4, woke up at 10, went to a water park, left the park at 3, went to fireworks downtown STL at 8, watched the fireworks, then we all went to my friends apartment and died. Best. Weekend. Ever.
The perfect end to the weekend was the next day when I drove home. After the weekend of craziness it was like I was caught in suspended animation. My mom made an awesome meal, we ate, watched TV, ate again, watched TV (Well…my parents and grandparents did…I…sigh…read Proust), then we all went to Denny’s. It was glorious.
One of the funniest things that happened all weekend was at Denny’s. One of my grandma’s was telling a story and it went something like this.
“So I was at the grocery store the other day and I came outside and found a woman opening my car!”
She just kind of stopped there, and me, being a creative writer, filled in the holes where I thought they were needed. My step-dad wasn’t so satisfied though and was actually concerned so he started asking questions.
“Wait,” he says, “so she tried to break into your car?”
“No, she thought my car was her car.”
“But she opened it?”
“Her remote opener opened it.”
“So she opened your car.”
“She tried to.”
“So…”
“So she was opening it and I stopped her, and she told me that she thought it was her car so she was trying to lock it.”
“…That doesn’t make any sense.”
“That’s what she said too!”
I didn’t know where the miscommunication was coming in, but that was the best way to finish a story ever.
Bang Watch! (Picture Update Below):
It’s Week 9 of the Bieber Hair Bet – 4 more left! My buddy who made the bet said I could have one haircut all summer, which I took advantage of last week. For some reason I told the haircut guy the whole deal and he felt the need to sass me during the entire haircut. Why would you make fun of a 25 year old man whose friend bet him he wouldn’t grow out his hair for 10 weeks to look like a teen pop star in order to get a keg of nice beer for a housewarming party?
Some people…
Last story for this time is about that b*&#h Mariah Carey breaking my window.
So my roommate moved out last week and…I don’t own anything in the apartment so basically now I have a bed and a giant living room with nothing in it… My friends who lived down the street had just moved out and also left me with a beer pong table. This seemed like a great time to have a party because… You can’t ruin anything if there’s nothing to ruin. (This is the joke from the first paragraph.)
So I decided to have a faux wine and cheese party with Franzia, crackers and Easy Cheese. I really didn’t expect anyone to come, but quite a few people showed up. It was quite the conglomeration of my friends from college, grad school and Nana.
I actually spent very little time in my apartment that night – between beer runs, helping people find my apartment, and walking people to the El Station, I was MIA for a large part of the party. I returned from one such escapade and discovered that a group were in my room in the first stages of making out, my window was broken, and there were two other dudes I didn’t know that well just hanging out in the corner.
My buddy pointed out the window problem. Evidently one of my friends has merely stepped back and leaned against it and the contact caused it to break. Whatevs, it happens. But for some reason the most important part of that problem that came to my mind was that we needed to turn off the air conditioning to save electricity. Or that we needed to shut the storm window so that we could leave it on. That was it. So basically I was upset for ten seconds and then I played a game of beer pong against those guys I didn’t know very well with my friend.
The next morning my friend posted a status message on Facebook that she had fun at the party but wished more Mariah Carey had been played. Logically I concluded that the real reason someone had broken my window was because some of the attendees had gone into a rage that Mariah Carey’s collected works didn’t appear on my iPod. Sure, I had “Heartbreaker” and “Always Be My Baby” but what about “Don’t Forget About Us”?
So I blame her and her 8 octave range for my window being broken. I’m coming for you Mariah. And your little Nick Cannon too.
Lastly, I want to send a shout-out to one of my main homegirl g-funks. I wrote this song with no music (some would call it a poem) for you. It’s called “We Love Bumbles”:
Ooooohhhh (Ooooohhhhh)
Bumbles (Bumbles)
Girl you’re the Queen of Vegas,
Ride the monorail hope cheap booze will save us.
Everyone thinks you’re the magic school bus –
But we all know you’re a bee with stardust
In her eyes (Oooooh)
Queen of the night (Yeeeaaahhh)
Bumbles! Rockin’ out with her homeboy Gare-bear
Bumbles! School Bus costume makes a homeboy stare!
Bumbles! Cross this girl and she’ll get into a rumbles!
Bumbles! Give her a cocktail and watch her stumbles!
Bumbles! Bumbles! We love Bumbles!
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