This page was born of Kari's desire to fill in the blanks while waiting for Brenda to produce her first batch of recipes.  It really consists only of Kari's random thoughts.  In the beginning, the random thoughts were all about food, but Kari now seems to be moving away from food and towards Life, the Universe, and Everything.  However...if you like blog-like documents about nothing in particular, keep reading.

The page will be updated whenever Kari feels like it.  She may feel like it every Monday, but she's not really sure about that yet.


Monday, July 20, 2009:  Shoes, Glorious Shoes

So.

About a week ago, the back-strap on one of my sandals broke.  The sandals in question have been on their way out for a while; it's really only a matter of time before they are reduced to slabs of rubber with bits of leather flapping uselessly from them.  However, though I do realise that the broken strap is an indication that I should, you know, buy new sandals, I am finding it difficult to do so.

I tried the duct-tape solution first.  It worked...sort of.  Every few days since my first attempt, I have had to spend way too long cutting away the mangled and useless duct tape that has stopped binding the shoe together and replacing it with fresh duct tape.  The alternative, however, is finding size-11 sandals in Calgary at the tail end of the summer shoe season.*  Sandals are on sale right now.  That would be fantastic if any store carried a pair larger than size 9.

Tallcrest, a store that specialises in shoes for people with huge feet, may have some sandals in my size.  It's hard to tell.  Google Maps lists only two Tallcrest locations in Calgary, one of them an "unverified listing."  The "verified" Tallcrest is way out in Boonieland and will probably take me an hour to reach via transit.  The "unverified" Tallcrest doesn't seem to exist.  It is supposedly in a certain mall.  The mall contains many shoe stores, none of which carry sandals in my size.

I just want some bloody shoes!  I have heard that there are women out there who enjoy shoe shopping.  Hell...on Friday, I met some.  They were trying on shoes and deciding on them depending on whether or not they looked good!  Meanwhile, I visited about five different stores in ten minutes and couldn't even find a hideously ugly pair of sandals in my size.  It's not.  Freaking.  Fair.  All I want is not to have to get through the next month in shoes constructed entirely of duct tape.  Damn it.

Dear Women With Normal-Sized Feet:

Yeah, you be smug.  Go right ahead.  I hope one day you accidentally stumble into a speciality store and become painfully confused when the clerk looks at you condescendingly and sneers, "I'm afraid we've nothing in...your size, madam."  Perhaps you might also learn the pain of never having pant legs or shirt sleeves that are long enough and not being able to find shorts not made for ninety-pound teenagers with no butts.

I may just be in a slightly bad mood right now.  I wonder why that is...

*Why the bleeding hell does the summer shoe season end in mid-July?


Monday, July 13, 2009:  The Rain in Calgary Falls Mainly on the Everything

I've been in Calgary for over a week now, and I've noticed a decided lack of summerness here.  It doesn't particularly bother me; I don't deal well with heat.  However, it's a little odd.  I thought the weather in July was only like this in Vancouver.

It has rained just about every day, sometimes torrentially.  I think we're supposed to get a high of 16 C today.  Yesterday had a high of 25 C, but that's as warm as it's got so far.  Looking at the forecasts for Toronto and Vancouver, I notice that they're stuck in the low twenties as well.

Am I going to have to write a letter to Mr. Summer?  I like this weather, but it's kind of freaking me out.  It's almost as if summer has decided not to be diabolically evil for a change.  Something's going on.  It's a conspiracy, I tell you.

In other news:  I bet you don't know what a bad idea it is to try to carry a digital piano, a piano stand, and an amp six blocks, then drag them all onto the C-Train during the Calgary Stampede.  Until Saturday afternoon, I didn't either.  Okay, there were two of us, and the Stampede traffic wasn't too bad, but I'm not sure either of us will ever be able to use our arms again.  Er...does anyone in Calgary own a truck?  Could we have it?


Monday, July 6, 2009:  Bloody Put the Bloody "Shift" and "Enter" Keys in the Bloody Same Place on Every Bloody Keyboard, Bloody Computer Manufacturers!

Due to the fact that my three-year-old laptop now refuses to turn on for more than three seconds at once, I have acquired a new computer.  It is medium-sized and shiny and technically fairly okay, except for the fact that the "shift" and "enter" keys have been shoved aside to make way for two completely useless backslash keys.

Can I get used to the new arrangement?  No, I cannot.  I am constantly backslashing when I should be shifting or entering.  My documents become littered with extraneous backslashes.  Even when I remember to stretch way the hell over to the "shift" key, I often overcompensate and hit "caps lock" or "ctrl" instead.  My typing used to be really quite fast.  Now it's not.  Someone needs to stop me from throwing this computer violently at the wall.

The computer has other quirks as well.  For instance, the version of NVU I am typing this document in will not let me change the colour of my text.  I therefore cannot make the title of this Rant all green, as I usually do.  I do not know what the problem is.  The "Help" function does not help me.*

I would also like to note that Vista itself counts as a quirk.  Actually, it is beyond a quirk.  It is an absolute freaking disaster, and I hate it.  Nothing is where it should be.  Why the hell do I have to go to the desktop to access "My Computer" or the control panel?  Who thought this stupid operating system was a good idea?  Everything takes twice as long as it should, and I do believe that every program I own has frozen on me at least once.  I have had the computer for a week, please note.  And don't even get me started on the fact that I have to download new drivers for every.  Single.  Piece.  Of hardware.  I own.

Oh!  And then there's my USB headset.  The mic works; the headphones don't, even though the computer claims that they do.  What the hell?  Why do computers hate me?  Why does my computer tell me every goddamn time I boot up that Office Power Point has stopped working and will be shut down?  It hasn't been started up!  I'm not using Office Power Point!  Argh argh argh argh argh!

I think I shall spend a while inserting red-hot needles beneath my fingernails.  It will be more fun than using this computer.

*I have "fixed" this problem by abandoning NVU entirely and going with Kompozer, which is just like NVU, except that it actually works.  However, Vista is doing other horrible things to me today as well.  Specifically, it has decided that it will not let me upload files to this site from my Pictures folder.  I have had to put the relevant subfolder in a damned awkward place, just so that WinSCP will acknowledge its existence.  Computers hate me.


Monday, June 29, 2009:  It Appears to Be One of Those Days

I'm tired.  I'm devoid of inspiration.  I think the Apocalypse may be happening.

Seriously...as I write this, the sun is setting.  It is a deep fiery red in colour, something that would seem slightly less odd if it weren't also pouring rain.  I just heard thunder, too.  Toronto is bathed in a) a sinister red glow and b) water.  If the tripods turn up and start vapourising everyone, I won't be the least bit surprised.

To add to the surreality, I have been writing a lot of songs about murder lately.  They are for a play about murder, so it actually does make sense, but it probably seems a little odd to people when they ask me what I did with my day, and I reply, "I wrote a song about murder."  You've got to wonder how long it's going to take for someone to call the cops on me.

More surreality:  to an outside observer, my apartment is currently the coolest place ever.  I am recording songs for a musical while working on a comic; I have an uber-creative workstation (keyboard, tablet, geekiness) set up in front of my computer.  The rest of the room is heaped with DVDs, comics, and books about Anglo-Saxon monsters.  Okay, when I said "coolest place ever," I meant in the "I grew up in a comic-book store" way rather than the "I am totally Brad Pitt" way.*

An inside observer might note that the apparent coolness is offset by the fact that I do not get paid for any of the creative stuff I'm doing right now.  Actually, I don't even get paid for the non-creative stuff I'm doing right now...not for several months yet.  I hope to make money again someday.

There is a little stabby Ringwraith standing on top of my TV.  I wish he would stop looking at me.

This concludes the most random Rant ever.  Enjoy the torrential downpour, Torontonians.

*I can't stand Brad Pitt.  There you have my opinion of that kind of coolness.


Monday, June 22, 2009:  An Open Letter to Canada Freaking Post

Dear Canada Freaking Post:

Thank you very much for your attention to the parcel containing the keyboard case I ordered at the beginning of June.  Your august institution, responsible for the movement of most Canadian mail, did, indeed, perform the task for which you exist:  you moved this parcel from point A to point B.

However, I would like to draw your attention to a few tiny issues.  They are not serious, of course; you are incapable of doing wrong.  You're Canada Freaking Post!  I do not mean to criticise you.  I would simply like to make some comments.

I am, first of all, a little concerned that you may not know what "expedited" means.  I here provide the Concise Oxford's useful definition for your enlightenment; to expedite, the dictionary tells us, means to "assist the progress of; hasten (an action, process, etc.)" or to "accomplish business quickly."  Note, dear Canada Freaking Post, the idea of speed inherent in both alternatives.  Note also the implication that an "expedited" process actually happens.  My parcel was shipped on the ninth via expedited post, and your extremely useful tracking service informed me that it would probably be delivered the very next day, thus allowing your "expedited" service to conform to the definition above.

Alas, I waited until the seventeenth with nary a word from you.  I finally contacted you and the sender and inquired as to the whereabouts of my "expedited" parcel.  You finally "expedited" the process on the eighteenth.  I am a wee bit confused as to why the "expedition" of my parcel's arduous journey from Mississauga to Toronto could not have happened, well, expeditiously.  It is possible your employees need some intensive vocabulary lessons.  Please look into it.

On the morning of the eighteenth, I received an e-mail (so helpful!) informing me that you had attempted to deliver the parcel at 8:15 a.m. but had received no answer and had gone away, leaving a pickup card.  Dear Canada Freaking Post!  You are my rock and my inspiration; why do you feel the need to fib to me?  1)  I was home at 8:15; 2) no one knocked at my door or buzzed me; 3) there was no card left.  The card did turn up nine hours later.  If you cannot be bothered to try to deliver a particularly annoying parcel, why not simply admit the fact?  I would forgive you.  I always do.

Unfortunately, the parcel was nearly as big as I was and not exactly light; it was too big, in point of fact, to fit in the trunk of a taxi or be carried by myself alone.  I had to ask the kind people at the Canada Freaking Post Office to let me leave the box behind so that I could get the (wheeled) keyboard case home without killing myself.  The problem was that I really could have used the box, as I have to ship my keyboard halfway across the country in a couple of weeks.  Oh, Canada Freaking Post, your laziness has made my life terribly, terribly difficult.  I do still love you, but I also want to shake you violently back and forth and scream in your face.  Is that strange?

Again, thank you for more or less delivering my parcel almost to me.  I was happy to get the case, which I ordered a month before I needed it because I bloody well knew something like this was going to happen.  May your days and nights be filled with joy, Canada Freaking Post.

Yours truly,

Kari.


Monday, June 15, 2009:  I Don't Know When or If Anyone Will Ever Read This

As the alum site is down at the moment, there isn't really any use in me attempting to finish this Rant on time; however, I'm doing so anyway.  There's something seriously wrong with me.  I am unable to force myself to do the actual work for which I am being paid, but fling a deadline at my head--even one that currently doesn't apply--and I start panicking.  Moreover, I am actually going to be finished this Rant two whole hours ahead of the time at which I would normally post it.

I was talking to my sister today, and I told her that the job I had right now didn't involve deadlines.  "Oh no," went my sister.  See?  Even my sister, who lives on the other side of the country and sees me once a year for an average of three days, knows that I can't operate without deadlines.  Why can't I?  Why do I have to have terror and/or the spectre of unemployment breathing down my neck in order for me to get my butt in gear and finish stuff?  And why does it have to be terror?  Why can't it just be slight anxiety?  I can deal with slight anxiety.  Perhaps that's the problem.  As I can deal with it, it doesn't force me to action.  Slight anxiety just makes me descend into denial and indulge in unnecessary repeat viewings of every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ever filmed.  I may not have got very far on my creation of an online course, but by God, I'll memorise all the music from "Once More, With Feeling" if it kills me.

So here I am, virtuously finishing up a Rant no one is going to be able to read while I callously ignore the mound of work I should probably be doing instead.  I would claim I was under a curse, but that would probably just be the Buffy talking.

If I eventually move on to Angel, which I don't even like, someone needs to hit me very hard with something spiky.


Monday, June 8, 2009:  More on Holmes

Last week's Rant seems to have provoked several comments.  Those of you who think I'm exaggerating about the upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie should check out the trailer here.  No, it isn't a joke.  Yes, Sherlock Holmes is Iron Man (in so many ways).  No, I am not happy.

I expect I've mentioned this before three or four billion times--in particular, in connection with Beowulf and Harry Potter--but I'm not particularly fussed about "accuracy" as a mark of a good adaptation.  As far as I'm concerned, the best film version of Jane Austen's Emma is Clueless.  It is nice if the film bothers to capture the spirit of the original piece, but even that is optional; an adaptation that ignores the spirit of the original can easily be a damned good movie (think of Stephen King's The Shining, which is a good book, and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, which is a good film; the two works share a title, a rudimentary plot structure, and very little else).

However, there are limits.  A director who changes the direction of an adaptation in order to make the work his own but still treats it intelligently is on the right track; a director who goes, "I am going to film this story, but no one will want to watch it because there are no explosions in it; I shall put some explosions in it," needs to be slapped.

I may be being unfair, of course.  It's entirely possible that Guy Ritchie's film will be much less harmful to the reputation of poor Holmes than it seems from the trailer.  Still, the slow-motion explosions worry me.  The genre of detective fiction more or less owes its existence to Sherlock Holmes,* and it seems a little odd to take a series of stories that rely on the hero's logical, measured pursuit of truth and turn them into action-adventure extravaganzas.  There is plenty of interesting stuff in the Holmes stories.  What would be wrong with a quieter film?  Does everything always have to blow up?

If the film turns out to be okay after all, I shall eat my words.  However, I'm a little grumpy about it at the moment.

*Yes, Poe came first, but Conan Doyle cemented the hell out of the genre.


Monday, June 1, 2009:  The Adventure of the Spiffy New Film Thing

When I was at the movies last week, I was treated to a trailer for a film, opening in December of 2009, entitled Sherlock Holmes.  I was intrigued enough by this trailer that I went hunting around on the Internet and discovered, posted almost unnoticed on an obscure and mysterious site, a short excerpt from the movie.  The site's host claimed that the scene in question was one that had been left on the cutting-room floor, in part because of a certain bit of improvisation by Jude Law (who plays the character of Dr. Watson).

The site had vanished by the next day, but I had, in the meantime, managed to create a transcript of the excerpt.  I have reproduced this transcript below.

***
Scene:  a dismal alleyway in late-nineteenth-century London.  Holmes and Watson are advancing cautiously into the shadows, pistols at the ready.

WATSON:  I don't like it, Holmes.  There's something wrong here.

HOLMES:  Nonsense.  My dear Watson, I have laid the facts of the case before you; the solution is perfectly clear.  According to my calculations, our culprit can be nowhere else in London at this moment.

WATSON:  I know you are a champion of deductive reasoning, Holmes, but it seems to me that you are jumping to conclusions this time.  I--

HOLMES:  Excuse me.

Holmes reaches behind a pillar, pulls out a scantily-clad woman, and kisses her passionately.

WATSON:  What the devil...?

HOLMES:  [Through the kiss.]  A moment, Watson.  I am indulging in a spot of lust, you see.

WATSON:  But Holmes--

Three men leap through a nearby doorway and begin firing at Holmes and Watson.  Without turning from the woman, Holmes shoots all three men, who burst into flames and explode.

WATSON:  Good Lord!

HOLMES:  Hold off the others for a moment, will you?

WATSON:  What others?

Six ninjas and a mystical being made entirely of flame drop from the sky and attack.  When Watson simply stands and stares, Holmes reluctantly takes leave of the woman and indulges in an exciting martial-arts battle that ends with the ninjas mangled and decapitated and the mystical fire being blowing up in such a way that it levels the nearest three buildings.  Holmes ends the fight by somersaulting backwards and in slow motion through a crumbling doorway as he fires an improbable number of bullets from his gun, aiming at nothing in particular.  He then returns to the kissing.

WATSON:  Holmes!

HOLMES:  [Unruffled.]  Yes, Watson?

WATSON:  What on earth is going on?  You're Sherlock Holmes!  You love no woman!  You are cold and calculating and rarely very violent!  You represent logic in the face of the chaos that is crime...logic not accessible by Scotland Yard, whose members follow too many rules!  You leave the romantic fantasies to me and get on with the only thing you have ever really cared about:  finding answers to riddles no one else can solve.  You are a hero, yes, but not an action hero; as a detective, you are an outsider, someone peering at humanity as through a magnifying glass.  You eliminate the impossible; you don't cultivate it.  What have they done to you?  What the hell have those bastards done to you?

At this point, the footage is interrupted by someone yelling, "Cut!", and a hand appearing from off-camera and smacking Watson upside the head.  The clip breaks off here.


Monday, May 25, 2009:  What the Bleeding Hell?

A couple of days ago, I received a message informing me that someone had signed on to follow my updates on Twitter.  Now...I had received other such messages in the past (three of them, apparently).  One actually came from my cousin.  I had ignored these messages, possibly thinking they were spam.  Until a few months ago, the name "Twitter" didn't really register with me; I wasn't entirely sure what it was.

However, I--along with the rest of the world--am now aware of Twitter, and the latest message confused me.  I went to Twitter's website, typed in the user name the e-mail had claimed was mine, entered a password I thought was likely, and rediscovered the account I had apparently signed up for in September of 2008.

I have no memory of creating this account.  I have no memory of deciding to "follow" five other users.  I am not sure who four of these users are.  Signing up for Twitter is not something I would generally do; Twitter is sort of like a mini-Facebook, and I haven't even signed up for Facebook.  I am profoundly creeped out by the fact that I apparently opted into Twitter in my sleep.*

My current theory is that Twitter is the Devil.  How else could it have managed to control my mind so successfully?  Perhaps I can't remember signing up because fiends from the vasty reaches of the Inferno were involved in the process.  I mean, come on...a site that encourages people to post sub-140-character comments about what they're doing at the time they post?  This is my idea of Hell.  It's as if the Internet is stripping every moment of privacy from us by demanding that we stop in the middle of what we're doing and tell the world what it is.  The ultimate nightmare is not far off:  a dystopian website on which every member posts the message, "Right now, I'm Twittering," over and over and over and over and over...

I shall stay on Twitter for now.  After all, I apparently signed up eight months ago.  However, the whole concept scares me.  I do not think I can express the depth of this fear in fewer than 140 characters.

*I very well may have done so.  A hunt through my e-mail inbox tells me that I received a welcome message from Twitter at 11:49 p.m. on September 20.


Monday, May 18, 2009:  Culture is a Funny Thing

I saw the new Star Trek movie this Saturday.  Don't worry; I won't give anything vital away.  I very much enjoyed the film, but what intrigued me about it the the most was the way it acted as a measure of Star Trek's influence on popular culture.

You see, I am not a Star Trek fan.  I didn't grow up with the show.  My sister watched it, but it never interested me; I saw the odd scene every once in a while, but I tended to leave the room if Star Trek was on TV.  The same went for the later incarnations.  I have zero knowledge of anything after Next Generation.  The only one of the films I have seen is Star Trek:  Generations, admittedly not the very best possible example (and I watched it for a class).

On Saturday, I probably caught only about 25% of the in-jokes in the film.  However, that 25% took me pretty far.  I could giggle as knowingly as anyone at lines such as, "Damn it, Jim!  I'm a doctor, not a physicist!" and "I'm giving her all she's got!"  I recognised the names of quite a few of the characters.  The film was pretty obviously made to be accessible to non-fans, but the odd thing was that even as a non-fan, I got a lot of the references.  It was kind of disconcerting.

I know this is all just popular culture being popular culture, but I sometimes can't help feeling that these weird bits and pieces of utterly useless knowledge are taking over my brain.  Why on earth do I know or care that Leonard McCoy's nickname is "Bones"?  Why do I get chills when I hear the theme music from a TV show I never actually watched?  Shouldn't I be kicking out this trivia and making room for something useful, like words that rhyme with "George"?*

Ah well.  It could be worse.  It could be The Brady Bunch.  That would be very, very bad.

*Okay...maybe slightly more useful than that.


Monday, May 11, 2009:  Damn It...I Can't Decide

So here's the thing:

I've had a story kicking around in my head since December of 2007.  It is an extraordinarily complex and detailed story that I have hashed out almost from beginning to end over the course of the last year and a half (actually, I had most of it figured out within two weeks of my first dreaming it up).  The one thing I have lacked is time to write it.  This summer, I may actually have that time.

The problem is that I can't decide what bloody form it is going to take.  When it first came into being, it did so as a prospective long-form comic.  Then I thought maybe it would be better as a novel.  Then I went back to the comic.  Then I decided it would definitely be the novel.  On April 1, I posted a page of a comic version of this story:  a version I was no longer planning on writing.  I still wanted it to be a novel.

This weekend, I went to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, and the damned panels gave me a bunch of damned ideas, and now I think I may be back to the comic again, only not quite in the same format as the April 1 page.  I don't know!  I want to do both!  It would work in both forms, albeit in radically different ways.

I'm used to not being able to decide stuff, but now my lack of decisiveness is impinging on my creativity.  I think I need someone to shake me very hard.


Monday, May 4, 2009:  One Day More

As I sit down to mark my last eighteen exams, an endeavour that will last me the rest of the evening and possibly part of tomorrow morning as well, I am brought to reflect upon my inability not to leave everything to the last minute.  I mean, in this particular case, I technically haven't; I've been marking frantically for what seems like months now.*  However, it is impossible for me to deny that I was much more likely to take long, useless breaks two weeks ago than I am now.  Now, I am unable to take long, useless breaks, even though I always have a headache and my vision has deteriorated noticeably (the text on this very page seems more subject to my astigmatism than usual, for some reason).

Why am I constitutionally unable to get things done early?  Okay, so I hate marking.  Who doesn't?  (No offence, Any Students Who Read This Rant.  Just you imagine a hundred and seventy of your friends handing you their midterms, term papers, and essays, then going, "Mark these up and leave detailed comments at the end of each one."  You may understand how I feel.)  But...y'know...if I did a little marking every day, I wouldn't find myself in these fixes.  Instead, I get overwhelmed by the hugeness of the piles and convince myself that I have to tackle them all at once.

Over the past six days, I have marked sixty essays and a hundred and ten exams.  For four of the days, I had a vicious cold.  I have discovered new and interesting kinds of head pain.  Occasionally, there have been tears.

And the next time I'm handed a huge batch of marking, I'll do it all over again.

There is really something wrong with me.

*It has, in fact, been months now.  I think I shall cry.


Monday, April 27, 2009:  Well, This is Disappointing

Dear Mr. Spring:

Heretofore, when asked about your quality as an employee, we would have ranked you as exemplary:  professional, competent, and patient enough to put up with the sulks and histrionics of your colleagues Mr. Winter and Mr. Summer.  You rarely, if ever, have let this company down.

However, yesterday's little hissy fit has made us think twice about how you fit in here.  For shame, Mr. Spring.  Allergies?  Not a problem.  The occasional torrential downpour?  Helps the flowers grow.  Potholes in the bike lanes?  Mr. Winter's fault.

Winds screaming at 115 km/h through a wild storm of hail, rain, and lightning, all with such violence that high-rise apartment buildings actually started to sway?

Mr. Spring, control yourself.  What on earth is wrong with you?  If you have a grievance, you should bring it before the Official Grievance Committee in a timely manner; it will be dealt with in a matter of months.  If the problem is in your personal life, you should not be expressing your feelings while you are meant to be doing your job.  Go mow your lawn with unusual vehemence.  Pick a fight with your wife.  As long as you keep the vitriol out of the office, we truly don't care.

We are grievously disappointed in you, Mr. Spring.  We really expected better.

Sincerely yours,


Toronto


Monday, April 20, 2009:  STOP...PROCRASTINATING! (or:  I Think This Just Turned into an Excerpt from Grad School! the Musical)

I have a scary amount of marking to do.  Why can't I stop procrastinating?  Why can't I force myself to put down the kids' book I am currently ploughing through?  I've read it something like ten times.  I've frickin' memorised it.  I would still rather read it than pick up my goddamn huge pile of marking.  Damn it.  Damn it!  Why can't marking be fun?  Why can't I approach it with a song in my heart?  Why, in fact, can't it be like this?:

The animated university instructor, full skirts aswirl, dances through the forest as little birds twitter around her head and butterflies  float through the air.  A blue bird of indeterminate species lands on her finger.

INSTRUCTOR:  Oh, little bird!  What a wonderful day it is today!  The forest is green and filled with only the most conventionally beautiful varieties of animal and insect life, and I am to be allowed to spend the whole afternoon marking!

BIRD:  Tweet.

INSTRUCTOR:  How I love marking!  It is better than anything!  I only wish...

BIRD:  Tweet?

INSTRUCTOR:  [Singing.]  I wish I could be a marker always!
            I wish I could mark the whole day through!
            When I am not grading,
            I feel that I am fading,
            Or wading very slowly through a vat of stinking goo.

            I wish I could mark until my fingers
            Wore down, over time, right to the bone.
            Oh, the vast elation
            That comes with the sensation
            Of grading eighty essays on my own!

            Sure, my students have a lot of problems.
            Yes, it's true they don't know how to write.
            Some of them are lazy.
            Their stuff should drive me crazy,
            But hazy as it makes me, I could work on it all night.

            Spelling errors thrill me awfully deeply.
            Sentence fragments bring me naught but bliss.
            Every little blunder
            Just causes me to wonder:
            Could anything be quite as nice as this?

            The loveliness of nature holds no great appeal for me
            When weighed against the happiness of handing out a "C."
            I'm sad to think that in a week I'll once again be free
            From marking, for I doubt it will be half as fun without it.

            I wish I could mark from dawn to evening.
            I wish I could mark from night to dawn.
            I love every letter.
            The worse it is, the better.
            I'm debtor to this marking; it's what keeps me holding on!

            I wish I could mark while I was sleeping.
            I wish I could do it in the dark.
            Please do keep on bringing
            Me marking.  Thus I'm singing:
            Everything's amazing.........
             ......When I mark!


Monday, April 13, 2009:  Man, Am I Ever Tired

It is twenty minutes to four on Monday morning.  I am too tired to do a real Rant, and as tomorrow I have to write a three-hour lecture and mark twenty papers, I vote we take the week off.

I leave you with one observation:

Too many Cadbury mini-eggs make one's mouth really, really sore.

That is all.  I hope a modicum of normality has returned to my life by next week.


Monday, April 6, 2009:  An Open Letter to, Surprisingly, Mr. Winter

Dear Mr. Winter:

Mr. Spring, whose tenure began just over two weeks ago, has brought it to our attention the fact that you intend to stage a coup this week.  Shame on you, sir.  We had thought that you had, for once, retired quite gracefully, allowing your successor plenty of time to move into the office and settle in before the official beginning of his term.  Now we discover that you have been plotting behind our backs to inundated us with snow, freezing rain, howling winds, and a general return to misery.

It is April, Mr. Winter.  It is April 6.  How dare you impose on us in this insolent way?  Everything has its place, and yours, sir, is currently nowhere on earth.  Go down to the southern hemisphere and prepare for your term there to begin; we certainly don't want you here.  In fact, we are thinking of holding you in breach of contract.

Mr. Spring and Mr. Fall have complained numerous times of you and your partner in crime, Mr. Summer.  The two of you are, frankly, becoming liabilities.  You cause snow when there should be daffodils; you bring on heat waves when half the leaves are off the trees.  Are you both out of your minds?  Who has given you the impression that you can run roughshod over this company, which has employed you when few would have given you a chance?  If you don't learn to control yourselves, we will have to punish you.  Mr. Summer we will deprive of ragweed season; you, Mr. Winter, will be forced to give up black ice.

We are taking this issue very seriously.  Please cease and desist from your current course of action.  If you proceed, there will be consequences.

Sincerely yours,


Toronto


Monday, March 30, 2009:  Behind on Marking Again

My Marking Behindness necessitates another deliberately bad poem today, mostly because deliberately bad poems don't take long to write.  Here we go:

I did not have time to take a walk today
because I was busy marking the whole world
and accidentally falling asleep
during breaks, damn it.

So I went outside and juggled for twenty minutes instead.
I wish my apartment were bigger
so that I did not have to stand in a field
in order to hit myself repeatedly in the face with plastic clubs.

People walk by and laugh at me,
Which isn't surprising, as
I can't keep the clubs in the air for more
than five seconds at a time.

Perhaps my juggling is
a metaphor for my marking.
I kind of hope it isn't,
But I wouldn't be surprised if it were.


Monday, March 23, 2009:  Manufactured Endings

Battlestar Galactica--or BSG, as it is known to its legions of fans--ended on Friday.  No, I shall not be posting spoilers, though I do have plenty to say about the finale, which, in my opinion, ought to get the show rechristened Deus Ex Machina (DEM to those same legions of fans).  I would rather talk about the simple fact of the end of the show.

Or is it a simple fact?  Or is it, in fact, an end?

The producers of BSG have been hyping this finale for years.  Unlike many shows, BSG was not intended to run until it went hurtling gracefully over the shark and everybody lost interest; it was going to take the story all the way to an actual ending and conclude four seasons in.  The writers' strike necessitated that the fourth season be stretched over two years, but still, the show managed to complete its story arc and go out with a bang rather than a whimper.  Hurrah, quoth many, for the integrity of BSG.*  It's over...

...except for The Plan, the two-hour movie set just before the beginning of the series.  Except for Caprica, the spin-off series set fifty years before the beginning of the series.  Except for the possible feature film based on the original series of which BSG is a remake.  Except for the comic books.  Except for the card game, the board games, the role-playing game, and the Xbox games.  Except for the limited-edition BSG Cylon Toaster Set.  Except for the action figures.  Except for the plastic busts.

"Nothing ever ends," says Dr. Manhattan at the end of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen.  I think Dr. Manhattan is presiding like a less-than-benevolent god over our approach to stories here in the early twenty-first century.  Granted, this sort of thing has been going on for a long time.  You like that Odysseus guy who turned up in that story I just told you?  Well, I just happen to know another story about Odysseus.  Oh yes...and another one as well.  We don't want to let our favourite characters go; even when we claim we're ending some story or another, there's always another story waiting in the wings.  The Arthur romance started as a sparse bit of pseudo-history involving an early British warlord and expanded to a tragic tale of destiny with hundreds of spin-off stories; fifteen-hundred-odd years after Arthur supposedly existed, it is still growing and changing.

Yet the BSG thing is setting my teeth on edge, somehow.  Maybe it's the way the people promoting it are virtuously insisting the story is over even while they add bits to it (and, of course, sell toys based on it).  Maybe I'm just jealous because I didn't dream up Cylons myself.  Maybe I would be less petty if the pretence of an ending were dropped.  You're not ending the damned story, guys.  You're expanding it.  You're filling it out.  Why shouldn't you?  Just don't claim you're doing anything new...or that your "fresh" starts aren't simply continuations that are just as likely to go hurtling gracefully over that shark as BSG inevitably would have if it had dragged on.  When Bill Watterson claimed he was going to end Calvin and Hobbes, he actually ended it.  It has remained nice and ended ever since.  The comic never had a chance to jump the shark.

Admittedly, King Arthur still hasn't jumped the shark.  Maybe BSG--or its shadowy continuations--will prove similarly resilient.  We can only wait and see.

*So...say...we all!  So...say...we all!  Sorry.


Monday, March 16, 2009:  CLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICHÉÉÉÉÉÉÉÉÉÉ!

I've been wondering about the Big No* lately.  It helps me procrastinate on my endless marking.

The Big No is that moment in a film or television show (or, every once in a while, a piece of prose fiction) when a character raises his or her eyes (and occasionally hands) to the heavens and screams, "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"  Occasionally, Big No-ers will fall to their knees.  Some get dramatic music and a rapidly retreating camera.  It's all very dramatic.

The Big No is a trope that has been lampooned so often that even when it is played straight, it is very hard to take seriously.  When Luke Skywalker had his various Big Nos back in the late '70s and early '80s, they seemed to fit right into the deliberately cheesy atmosphere of the Star Wars films; however, when Darth Vader tried the same thing in The Revenge of the Sith, audiences burst into collective laughter, then went home to mock the scene on the Internet.  Doctor Octopus got away with his Big No in Spider-Man 2 by virtue of hamming it up to an extraordinary degree, raising not only his two ordinary arms but his four mechanical arms as well towards the sky.  Spider-Man 2 came out in 2004 and The Revenge of the Sith in 2005; no one blinked at Doc Ock's overstated screaming fit, possibly because it didn't take itself particularly seriously, but Vader's straight application of the trope was just really, really funny.

A week and a bit ago, the Watchmen movie came out.  I am not really giving anything away to say that it has a Big No, as the moment appears in all the trailers; I would be giving something away if I explained when Nite Owl flings himself to his knees and howls in anguish.  Suffice it to say that it is the least appropriate moment humanly possible.  I laughed aloud.  I did hate myself for it, but come on:  a Big No?  Without irony?  From an Alan Moore character?  Are there drugs in your cereal, silly writers?

I am puzzled by the continued popularity of the Big No.  It has been derided for so long that it should really never be used again.  Even Big No mockery is getting rather old.  Hell...I used it (ironically) in a webcomic, and I knew better.  But we keep coming back to it.  Just glancing down the list on the TV Tropes page linked above--the page I really hope you didn't visit, for your own sake--I recognise all sorts of recent serious Big Nos, among them the ones from Battlestar Galactica, The Lord of the Rings (more than once), and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (though Harry's voice is not heard over the soundtrack, we certainly see him screaming the word),

Do we have a strange kind of sentimental attachment to the Big No?  Are we somehow unwilling to let it wander off and become the caricature it clearly longs to be?  If so, we're just going to create more Watchmen-like absurdity, where what should be a devastating scene is made ridiculous by the gratuitous Big No-ing.  It's already hard to take anything produced by Hollywood seriously.  Soon, it will be downright impossible.  We may all have to start reading the books that inspired the movies in the first place.

......Noooooooooooooooooooooooo......

*Unless you want to spend the next two weeks glued obsessively to your computer, following fascinating reference after fascinating reference until your eyes bleed, do not click on this link.


Monday, March 9, 2009:  There's Also a Chorus of Dancing Cylons

Should I have been marking when I wrote the following?  Why, yes...yes, I should have.

This song can, if necessary, be sung to the tune of "Good Morning, Baltimore" from Hairspray.  People who are a bit behind on their Battlestar Galactica viewing should note that there may be a few mild spoilers therein.

"Good Morning, Battlestar"

Kara Thrace trips through the corridors, followed by cheerful, industrious Galactica crew members.

KARA
Oh, oh, oh,
Woke up today
Feeling the way I always do,
Oh, oh, oh,
Angry at everything that I see.
I’m sure you’ll agree
When everyone’s sad
‘Cause Gaeta’s gone bad,
I lose my temper and kill a lot.
Oh, oh, oh,
I’m good with guns.  It’s a
Bonus that Lee finds that hot.

Good morning, Battlestar.
Every day I head to the bar,
Watch some guy putting on a show.
Is he real?  I’m suspecting no.

Good morning, Battlestar.
And I know when I’m beating the tar
Out of twenty Cylons we’re free...
This Battlestar and me.

Oh, oh, oh,
Earth was a bust,
Too bad it was just
Our only hope.
Oh, oh, oh,
I think I’ve doomed the whole human race.
We’re stuck here in space!
The plot’s getting dense.
It doesn’t make sense,
And there are two episodes left to go.
So, oh, oh,
Don’t hold me back
‘Cause I’m tempted to sing even so:

Good morning, Battlestar.
The finale will be bizarre.
Who cares if you don’t get it now?
It’s all destiny anyhow.

Good morning, Battlestar.
And I know when I’m beating the tar
Out of twenty Cylons we’re free...
This Battlestar and me.

I toss in my bunk,
Obsess over Sam,
Experience angst about what I am.
I see all the nebulae shining ahead.
Too bad I suspect that
I’m already dead!

ENSEMBLE
She’s already dead!

KARA (& ENSEMBLE)
So, oh, oh,
Give me a gun.
Then you’d better run, ‘cause I just can’t stop,
Oh, oh, oh,
Myself from shooting at everything,
And that’s why I sing!

Adama says no,
But my brain tells me go!
I’m a delusional nut at heart.
Oh, oh, oh,
Don’t make me wait
One more moment for my life to start...
Again...

ENSEMBLE
Good morning, good morning,
Waiting for her life to start...
Again...

KARA (& ENSEMBLE)
I love you, Battlestar.
Thanks for getting us all this far.
Your reactor’s about to blow.
It’s too bad we’ve nowhere to go.

But we’ll show them, Battlestar,
‘Cause I know when I’m beating the tar
Out of twenty Cylons we’re free,
Twenty Cylons we’re free...
This Battlestar and me.

ENSEMBLE
Yes, more or less we all agree.

KARA
This Battlestar and me.

ENSEMBLE
Some brave new world
Is gonna see

KARA
This Battlestar and me!


Monday, March 2, 2009:  Trapped in Markingworld

It's Marking Time, boys and girls.  That must mean it's time for another DEAR-LORD-I-HAVE-NO-TIME poem-like construction!

To wit:

I finish the last midterm
in the first pile
of three
at two o'clock a.m.

What bliss
to have got through a third of my marking;
what sorrow
that so very much remains.

I cannot decipher
this handwriting.
I weep for the student
who tells me that scir dkloons tnh prt hoolsysanr.

Into the tunnel of mercilessness I go.
It is so angry here,
so full of vengeance
against legions of sentence fragments.

I finish the first midterm
in the second pile
of three
as my clock ticks on into forever.


Monday, February 23, 2009:  I.  Want.  More.  Time.

Dear Whoever Is in Charge of This Sort of Thing:

I want more time, please.  Six extra hours per day will do.  I am tired of scrambling to finish everything and always feeling guilty when I'm not slaving over something work-related.  Even my sessions of procrastination are frantic; I have to procrastinate a lot, now, so that I can rush back to my marking.  Mondays and Tuesdays are hell on earth, Mondays because I spend the day scribbling out the seven hours of lectures I should have started on the weekend and Tuesdays because I spend the day giving those seven hours of lectures.  Lecturing can be fun, but eventually, you start losing your voice.  My Tuesday evening students find it amusing that I go through about two litres of water per three-hour class; if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to speak.  Tuesdays leave me physically exhausted, as if I have been laying bricks all day.  I guess seven hours of standing, pacing, talking, and socially interacting counts as hard labour.

I don't consciously leave everything until the last minute.  In fact, I consciously plan not to do so...but my subconscious wins every time.  Curse you, subconscious.  I know you would rather be writing stories.  Stop being such a jerkwad and help me finish constructing this midterm.

I would write more, but if I don't mark something right bloody now, there is going to be hell to pay.

Yours in misery,

Kari.


Monday, February 16, 2009:  Wow...I'm Unable Not to Be Grumpy Today

I don't know whether Valentine's Day genuinely destroys my sense of humour or what, but I'm sitting here all by myself on Saturday night, completely incapable of not writing something self-righteous and un-funny.  I need to get away from the pinkness.  I need to...to...

*Casts around desperately for something to write about*

I need to complain about ceilings!

They're too low.  Honestly, Ceiling Creators, what were you thinking?  I haven't been able to juggle clubs all winter because I haven't yet got to the point at which I can actually control where the clubs go 90% of the time.  I know I shouldn't be flinging the things to ceiling height, but I still occasionally do...whereupon the clubs rebound enthusiastically and hit me very hard in the face.  I can't do poi either because the walls are too close together.  Ceilings should be higher!  Walls should be farther apart!  I want a  phone!

It is fun to complain about things that are never going to change; it allows a certain freedom of expression.  If I rail against the CN Tower for being too tall, people just tap their heads and turn away, leaving me time and opportunity to tie their shoelaces together or tip itching powder down their backs.  If everybody thinks I'm completely mad, I may very well be able to accomplish...why, just about anything.

I'm therefore thinking of introducing legislation to raise the height of all ceilings in Toronto by ten feet.  Imagine the space, my friends.  I could juggle clubs, and you could breed cockatiels, as you have always dreamed.  Bunk beds could be fifteen feet high and include sleeping room for five people.  Mad scientists would be able to create extremely tall monsters instead of having to keep them to six feet or so.  Bookcases could be so huge that people would need ladders to negotiate them, and they could put the ladders on wheels and do those song-and-dance numbers that always seem to turn up in musicals with libraries in them.

Join me in my crusade for higher ceilings.  I feel very strongly that the cause is worthwhile.


Monday, February 9, 2009:  Just Another Love Song

As the putrescence of Valentine's Day draws steadily nearer, it is time once again to reflect on how idiotic our society is about the whole love thing.  I've dealt with Hollywood in past Rants, and I believe I've at least touched on love songs, but the latter invite a closer look.

It isn't that there's no such thing as a good love song; it's that no one seems able to write one any more.  It probably isn't terribly surprising.  After the first fifty times a singer croons about gazing at the moon in June or explains that love is descending from above or attempts, disastrously, to rhyme "baby" with "crazy," one starts to realise that there simply isn't much scope for creativity in the whole love-song genre.  Just about every love song out there can be summarised as follows:  "I love you."  There are, of course, variants--"I love you, but you don't love me"; "I love you even though you cheated on me with my best friend"; "Loving you has driven me completely around the twist"; "I used to love you, but I don't any more"--but the whole "I love you" thing is pretty central.  If a love song has a catchy tune, one can ignore the trite lyrics and hum along; if it doesn't, it's hard to see why on earth it even exists.  Even more annoying is the fact that the people writing and singing this dreck likely also think it is garbage.  We've constructed this stupid myth that the only way to be happy and fulfilled is to be the subject of a badly rhymed song about a social cliche, and when cynics question it (often by writing "dark" love songs that turn the hackneyed imagery inside out), they are derided as "bitter."

My friends...let us take a journey through the lyrics of a love song that was sickeningly popular when it first appeared on the Robin Hood:  Prince of Thieves soundtrack in 1991.  I have chosen it mostly because it's one of the only love songs I can actually remember; they do sort of merge into a throbbing pink sameness after a while.  Below, I reproduce the lyrics of the song and, at intervals, whale the tar out of it in an attempt to demonstrate that the world would be infinitely less silly if ninety-nine percent of love songs did not exist.

"(Everything I Do) I Do It For You," by Bryan Adams

Look at that:  Mr. Adams starts lying to us in the title.  Everything you do, you do it for me?  Do you pick your nose for me?  Do you read the obituaries in your morning newspaper for me?  When you stop at the mall for a bagel, are you doing it for me?  This title should make it onto the list of the world's worse pickup lines.  Honestly:  "Hey, honey.  Everything I do, I do it for you.  I just went to the bathroom for you.  Wanna come check it out?"

Look into my eyes; you will see
What you mean to me.
Search your heart...search your soul...
And when you find me there you'll search no more.

I've got to admit that I've always been a bit suspicious of writers who have their characters gazing deep into each other's eyes and somehow becoming psychic.  Eyes are pretty, but they are not magical.  Faces have expressions; eyes don't.

The rest of the verse is even more maddening.  You start off talking about what I mean to you, and now you're going on about you somehow being deep inside my heart and soul?  Nice segue to selfishness...and lovely implication that you are the only thing for which I could ever wish (why should a woman have interests outside her beloved, after all?).  Oh...and "soul" does not rhyme with "more."  I'm just saying.

Don't tell me it's not worth tryin' for.
You can't tell me it's not worth dyin' for.
You know it's true:
Everything I do, I do it for you.

What isn't worth tryin' for and dyin' for?  You haven't said.  Are you talking about love?  Why not mention the fact instead of meandering through the fields of ambiguity?

Yet again, I would like to note that you do not do everything for me.

Look into your heart; you will find
There's nothin' there to hide.
Take me as I am; take my life.
I would give it all; I would sacrifice.

You already told me to look into my heart.  Apparently, I was supposed to find you there after a fairly vigorous search.  Now you're saying there's nothing in my heart to hide.  Aren't you hiding there?  How would you know what was hiding in my heart, anyway?  What does it have to do with anything?  You're just pulling meaningless lines out of your rear end, aren't you?

Yet again, you move from talking about me to talking about you, here in a particularly nonsensical way.  Take you as you are?  Fair enough...but how are you?  Take your life?  What does that have to do with me taking you as you are?  Why do you think "find" rhymes with "hide" and "life" with "sacrifice"?

Don't tell me it's not worth fightin' for.
I can't help it; there's nothin' I want more.
You know it's true:
Everything I do, I do it for you.

You don't want anything more than what?

There's no love like your love,
And no other could give more love.
There's nowhere unless you're there
All the time, all the way, yeah.

Are you talking about you or me?  You keep making these gestures towards the great love I am supposedly feeling, but you always return to yourself.  You should also note that there probably is quite a bit of love like my love.

Your second sentence is rather Zen, but it makes no logical sense and causes you to sound like a stalker.  Filler lines are still lines, Mr. Adams.  They do need to consist of more than a bunch of random words.

Oh, you can't tell me it's not worth tryin' for.
I can't help it; there's nothin' I want more.
I would fight for you, I'd lie for you,
Walk the wire for you, yeah, I'd die for you...

You would "walk the wire" for me, would you?  Of what would that consist, exactly?  Is this a specific type of wire, or are you just consulting your Big Book of Love-Song Cliches?

You wouldn't die for me, by the way.  No one capable of writing such self-centred lyrics would die for me.

You know it's true:
Everything I do, I do it for you.

Congratulations, Bryan Adams:  you have written an entire love song without once engaging your brain.

I know honesty can be overrated, but I'd quite like to see some in love songs for a change.  These songwriters wouldn't know love if it bumped into them in the street.  They should write about what they know; then we would end up with songs with titles such as, "I'm Not Especially Into You, but Our Relationship is Convenient," "You Remind Me of My Last Three Exes," "Though I Slept with Your Sister Last Night, if You Leave Me, I'll Accuse You of Betrayal," and "I Mock You in Front of My Beer Buddies."

And that would be perfectly all right with me.


Monday, February 2, 2009:  Objects in Space...

Massey alumna Julie Payette is going back to space, and she wants to take a piece of Massey with her.  Her request that current Masseyites help her figure out which Massey-related object to honour with temporary weightlessness has generated a great deal of debate; you may read about at least some of it here.*  Suggestions have ranged from the irreverent to the deadly earnest.  Public opinion seems to be leaning towards Hanah Chapman's idea to launch a letter from Robertson Davies explaining why women can't belong to the College, though some seem to be more in favour of providing Payette with the College flag or a Vincent Massey-related memento.

I think we're missing an opportunity here.  Massey just held a very successful talent auction that raised nearly $8,000 for two Toronto charities.  How much more money could the College raise if it allowed people to bid to send unwanted items into space...not so that the items could eventually be returned, but so that they could be flung out into the void and never seen again?  I'm expecting we could match that $8,000 easily.

Some items that Massey fellows and alumni may like to tie to rockets and send out past the moon are:

1)  Thesis supervisors.  When one has been writing the same damned document for six years, and one hands a copy of it to one's supervisor, waits three months, sends a tentative e-mail asking if Prof X has read it yet, waits three months more, sends another e-mail, receives an automated message that claims Prof X is out of the country and won't return until 2015, cries, goes to see the department head, watches as the department head rolls her eyes and explains that profs are people too and don't need to be constantly pestered by their grad students, and no, they are under no obligation to leave forwarding addresses, so why do you ask?...lights one's thesis on fire in a moment of uncontrollable rage, and quits grad school to join a monastery, one may come to believe that one's supervisor deserves to be ejected into vacuum.  I can't imagine why.

2)  Theses, completed or otherwise.  I think this one is self-explanatory.

3)  Raisin cookies.  They look like chocolate chip cookies, but they aren't.  *Shudder*

4)  Tuition fees.  If they were in space, no one would have to pay them.  ABD Ph.D. students forced to fork out seven thousand bucks for library cards and intermittent access to supervisors who wished they didn't exist would be happy and carefree, and they might even be able to afford rent every other month.

5)  Celine Dion's Order of Canada.  If we can't see it, we can pretend it doesn't exist.

6)  Plagiarists.  I don't know about you, but I think "If you plagiarise, we shall wag our fingers at you and tell you not to do it any more" is a less effective threat than, "If you plagiarise, we shall launch you into orbit."

7)  Robarts Library.  It's obviously a grounded mothership; we need to help it fly again.  My theory is that when it finally takes off, all the books that the database claims are in but that no one has ever seen will tumble out of a secret compartment in the bottom of the building.

8)  Reality TV.

9)  Academic job applications.  Sooooo...you want a cover letter, three reference letters, a writing sample, a teaching dossier, transcripts, a current CV, and six thousand dwarf-forged mithril coats, and you're probably not even going to put me on the shortlist.  The same to you, sir.

10)  Toronto's current weather.  'Nuff said.

*Until the Star decides the article is old enough that it can charge you to read it, that is.


Monday, January 26, 2009:  When in Doubt, Do Lyrics

My brain isn't being very creative right now, so I'm recycling (and slightly modifying so that all names are removed) a song parody I wrote a year or so ago when everyone was popping out babies.  As everyone is still popping out babies--or, at least, dealing with the repercussions of the baby-out-popping--I shall claim it is relevant and even makes a half-decent precursor to my annual attack on Valentine's Day.  I hereby dedicate the ditty to pregnant women and their smug, smug spouses.

The song can, but probably shouldn't, be sung to the tune of "Agony" from Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods.  Let us pretend that the characters singing it are called Kate and Bob.

[BOB]
Here comes another
One. Isn't that great?
Everything's happiness.
You'll be a mother!
(Again.) This is fate;
Let's revel in sappiness.

Progeny!
What a wonderful thing
When the children appear
One by one; I'm so glad I could sing.

[KATE]
Bob, have you noted
That I'm getting bloated?
I can't see my feet.
Stop with the blurting
Out bliss. I am hurting.
What joy to repeat:
Aargh-ah-aargh-ah-aargh-ah-aaaaaaargh...

Progeny!
Far more painful for me.
All my time is spent eating stuff
Or else longing to pee.

Progeny!
Oh, the torture they teach!

[BOB]
What's as intriguing--

[KATE]
Or half so fatiguing,
And so like a leech?

[BOB]
Are they not
Precious and clever,
Quite cute when they're learning
To talk, sweetly charming,
And lovely to cuddle
When they fall asleep?

[KATE]
They are everything parents could wish for.

[BOB]
Then why no--?

[KATE]
Don't I know!

[BOB]
You don't understand.

[KATE]
You know nothing, you cretin.
When you're walking about
With your gut sticking out
And you're trying to
Stop all your crying, too:
Aargh-ah-aargh-ah-aargh-ah-aaaaaaargh...

[BOTH]
Progeny!

[KATE]
Misery!

[BOB]
Oh?

[BOTH]
Though it's different for each.

[BOB]
It gives me a warm glow--

[KATE]
And yet, as for me, no--

[BOTH]
And they're still out of reach.

Progeny!
What a change to my life!

[BOB]
How I envy my wife!

[Kate chases Bob from the room with a hatchet.]

***

P.S.:  Babies are delightful creatures with extraordinarily lovable drool.  I'm just not convinced that being pregnant is hugely fun...that's all.


Monday, January 19, 2009:  It Does Kind of Make Sense, In a Way

Here is an example of the sort of stuff that goes through my head when I'm searching desperately for anything besides work to do:

Most of the time, people studying history will assume that earlier texts are more factually reliable than later.  Oh, there are many exceptions to this rule; a text can be written by someone who is lying, getting things wrong, or just cheerfully making stuff up.  However, older is generally more likely to be closer to the truth...or, at least, to one perceived truth.  The more time goes by, the more likely it is that details have been fudged or invented, or that bits and pieces of other stories have ended up stuck to the "histories."  For example, we can't know the "truth" about King Arthur because all the material we have that deals with him dates from after the (supposed) fact.  The oldest material is extremely sparse and basically just tells us that there was this guy who fought these people, and maybe his name was something like "Arthur," but maybe not.  This material could itself be a fabrication.  Even the core of the Arthur story is suspect; the later bits of the story that everybody knows can have no basis in actual fact.

Except what if our supposition that the old information trumps the new is false?  What if, for instance, we accept the existence of either time travel or immortality?  If there is a possibility that people who witnessed a certain historical event could have had contact with the writers of later texts, couldn't the later texts be more accurate than the earlier?  What if the crazy, obsessed people who put together the enormous French romance that eventually gave rise to Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur had access to interviews with Lancelot?*  What if the old history is the made-up stuff and the newer history the stuff based on eye-witness accounts?

Of course, in order to prove this hypothesis, one would have to identify either one genuine time traveller or one genuine person who had outlived the ordinary human lifespan.  As such identification is not likely to happen, I shall remain content with writing seriously screwed-up stories based on completely insane premises that I dream up while I should be writing lectures about Edgar Allan Poe.

*One of the most obviously made-up of Arthur's knights.  Or is he?


Monday, January 12, 2009:  Anatomy of a Weekend

Friday Evening:

1)  In view of the four courses for which you need to prepare, you note thankfully that you have tonight and all of Saturday and Sunday to get on top of everything.  You have Monday too, but you would like to take Monday off.  "Brilliant," you say.  "I'll get straight to work."

2)  You spend six hours goofing off, then go to bed.

Saturday:

1)  You have planned to have brunch with some people at 11:00 a.m.  At 10:15 a.m., one of them phones you in a panic to tell you her baby is ill, then explains that you'll be having brunch the next weekend instead.  She calls the other participants to advise them not to show up.  You are sad that there will be no brunch, but..."Brilliant," you say.  "I'll get straight to work."

2)  You spend twelve hours goofing off, then go to bed.

Sunday:

1)  "Today," you say, "I shall get stuff done.  I am going to have some free time tomorrow.  No matter what, I shall take bits of tomorrow off!"

2)  You spend eighteen hours goofing off, then go to bed.

Sometimes, I want to hit myself upside the head with my own stupid brain.


Monday, January 5, 2009:  No Resolutions for Me

You know those comic strips that have been running in various newspapers since the first half of the twentieth century?  You know how those comic strips always start off their Januaries by portraying a couple of characters sitting around having some slight variation on the following conversation?:

X:  It's a whole new year.  What resolutions are you going to make?

Y:  I am going to resolve to [lose twenty pounds] [ask Z out on a date] [never get angry] [always be kind to people] [turn into a monkey and fling poo at your head].

[Situation arises in which X is tempted to break the resolution.  X immediately does.]

Reader:  Ha ha!*

The concept of the New Year's resolution has always bothered me a bit, possibly simply because I can't keep a resolution to save my life.  Even in ordinary circumstances, I am always breaking my resolutions.  One example is the way I get upset with myself for being the most appallingly disorganised person alive on earth today.  Every once in a while, I march into a stationery story and proudly purchase a brand new day planner.  "This year," I cry, "I shall not write my appointments on random scraps of paper that I then use as bookmarks and lose!"

I don't believe I have ever made more than two entries in one of these day planners.  I'm not entirely sure what happens to them all.  It is highly probable that I use them as bookmarks and lose them.

Even the comic-strip cliche** of making a resolution that you are in no danger of breaking (e.g., "I shall eat a lot of chocolate cake") is fraught with dangers.  What if you resolve to wear socks every day, then suddenly and mysteriously run out of socks?  What if you resolve to wake up in the morning, but the mere pressure of having made a damn resolution prompts your internal clock to reset itself and keep you asleep until 3:00 p.m.?  What if you resolve to be really, really disorganised, and you can't?  No...it's easier simply never to make any resolutions at all.  You can't disappoint yourself if you have no expectations.

The problem with resolving to make no resolutions is that this is itself a resolution that, as a recent comic strip points out, you are breaking at the very instant you make it.***  The comic strip sees this as a good thing.  I'm not so sure.  What if your paradoxical resolution ends up trapping you in a space-time anomaly that eventually tears the universe in twain?  Someone has to worry about stuff like this.  You hear that, cartoonist?  You hear that?

It is now time for me to stop procrastinating and start preparing for classes next week.  I made a resolution on that one about a month ago.  Ha ha!  Ha...

*That is a sarcastic "Ha ha!"
**There are a lot of comic-strip cliches.
***I intended to link to this recent comic strip in order to prove that I always cite my sources.  Unfortunately, I can't remember which one it is.  I thought I could, but apparently, I was wrong.  Now it's driving me crazy.  Which cartoonist is just as cynical as I am but actually gets paid for it?  Damn damn damn damn damn!


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