January 30, 2007

A is for Apple, for Eve ate one naked
B is for Butchery and other entertaining sports
C is for Caroline, who was struck by an axe
D is for Dunces, for they never get a mention
E is for Eric, the small, yellow, plastic pencil sharpener
F is for Fuck
G is for Gallantry, as evil deeds done gallantly earn respect
H is for Happiness when tears subside
I is selfish
J is for Jelly and organs that wobble
K is for Kameroun, that is not spelled that way but should be
L is for Laughing at other people's expense
M is for Making love with your socks on
N is for Neville, the naughty colour
O is for Surprise on a little girl's face
P is done within the lines
Q is for Quirky, as if you had any doubt
S is for Steve, a sausage that means business 
T is for Topazium, the fifth element
U is for Unctuous, a word with too many vowels
V is for Valhalla, an afterlife to die for
W is for Wallace and his seven mystical accountants
X is for X-Ray because Xylophone just won't do
Y is a question on a young lady's mobile phone
Z is for Zulu according to an ancient mariner

I've been having some writer's block problems lately, and in conjunction with the dwindling number of daylogs (as seen in the chatterbox), I figured it would do me well to write about my day. In "real life" I'm a student working on a degree in maths and philosophy — which is about as uneventful as it sounds. My current schedule is an eight-hour block of classes on Monday, and an eight-hour block of classes on Thursday, with everything else pretty open. So for a lot of the time I'm in my dorm room (I live alone) either surfing the Internet or reading books or — as of late — writing lots and lots of philosophy essays.

At the moment I'm taking two philosophy classes: one on metaphysics, and another on German idealism. These classes both have one man in common: Georg Hegel. If you're not familiar with Hegel, the sort of underlying thematic tone of his work revolves around a sort of organic synthesis between a thing and its opposite. The "easiest" example of this sort of foolishness is in considering the category of Being. According to Hegel the opposite of this category is Nothingness, so the Hegelian synthesis of Being and Nothingness (besides being an excellent book by Jean-Paul Sartre) is the category of Becoming.

Anyway, once Hegelian dialectic makes sense, pretty much the rest of his philosophy becomes a matter of isolating a thing and applying the technique. Taken to extremes, everything starts blurring into everything else, and eventually you end up with what Hegel calls the "Absolute Idea", which is yet another philosopher's euphemism for God.

So that was about four hours worth of class in two paragraphs. Afterward I rented Blackadder from the library to watch in the break stretching from now into Thursday. I have a bunch of essays to write — one on Fichte, another two on Hegel, one on Heidegger; a research project on the history of the dialectic, and a final paper in metaphysics — but to be honest I just can't be arsed into caring enough about any of it. I've been seeping with Hegel and his overbearing, arrogant German nationalism to the point where I've actually become sort of antagonistic towards German philosophy itself.

I think I need to relax with some Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, and Rowan Atkinson. I also think I require some alcohol, but that would require scraping the snow off the car and driving down snow-covered streets in the dark. I'm not sure the local drive-thru even carries vodka... well, drat, it doesn't. I spent about an hour discovering the fine art of opening a wine bottle without a corkscrew, which happened to entail spilling a good quantity of it on my DVD player. Bah.

January 31, 2007→

Same old, same old

My friend, who has been through a lot lately, woke up one morning last week and came into the livingroom. There was a certain spring in his step.

"I have a dreadful cold", he said; "... and a nasty headache. I have slept on an air mattress again tonight. And I feel wonderful. Look at the sky. It's blue. Blue with pink clouds."

It was, the sky. Nice and blue-pink. Imagine that. The day before he had received the final word on his new apartment, and this meant that his sleeping on an air mattress on my dining room floor would soon be but a memory. Bound to put a man in a good mood.

He moved out yesterday, and I am going to miss having him around. We had a good time, all things considered. We humans are such adaptable creatures.

I have something to remember him by, though: a dreadful cold, and a nasty headache. I have this one eye that is very red and irritated, which means I can wear only one contact lens - so I see double. One very blurry and one fairly sharp image. This does nothing to alleviate my headache (yes, I do have a pair of glasses somewhere, but I can't seem to find them. It's not easy to look for something when you can't see properly).

I have been made an editor as of January 4, 2007. I am still pretty much feeling my way around, trying not to screw up. Haven't yet, really. Hope to keep it that way. On one hand being an editor is different from what I expected - and on the other hand it isn't. There's a lot of responsibility involved. Quite a lot of frustration. Much fun is had too, of course, e.g. in talking with people, some of whom does not want to be talked with. Most of the time it's very pleasant, though. It's all good.

This whole Nodermeet-thing has turned out to be way too much fun. My first two meets - bar the Copenhagen ones where liveforever, andersa, and I pour beer down our throats - were on October 14 and 20, 2006, in Washington DC. And now I am going to Dublin for a bit of holiday fun (and a nodermeet). I have also found out that The Netherlands are pretty close to Denmark (I knew that, of course, but now I actually thought about it), and so I am going there for a nodermeet in September too. I am travelling more now, in my late forties, than I have travelled my whole life. That rocks.

Another friend of mine kinda disappointed me lately. And I need to get my head around the fact that this feeling of disappointment is really nobody's fault but my own. My friend didn't do anything wrong as such. It was more a question of not being who I thought he was. If people fail to live up to my expectations, well... that's not their fault. My bad. Not that it makes it any less frustrating. He's still my friend; I'll just have to lower my expectations, I guess. Friends and lovers alike should be loved for who they are, and not for who I want them to be.

Oh, and to all you sweet people who sent me nice and encouraging messages when I was whining about my dislocated jaw... Thanks! It has taken quite some time, but it finally seems to be okay again.