Shelley and I had the verbal exchange to end all verbal exchanges last night. I think it's finally over. I'd rather not go into details about it.
Kate's sick. I feel bad for her, so I opted to cheer her up by sending her a link to the Zappa Krappa photo. Hopefully she'll get a kick out of it.
Last weekend I was too busy with visitors. I apologize for not keeping up with this better. I will, though, I just had to get into the swing of things as the school year got started. Anthony and his girlfriend Kendall came up Saturday morning to see the Vonnegut exhibit, then we went out to lunch together; right as they were leaving Bill Bowser called to tell me he was 20 minutes away. Three minutes after my shower he was here. We had a great night, walking around town, watched a Woody Allen movie ('Take The Money And Run', which was much better on this second viewing), and hung out with a random-ass girl we met downtown. All in all, fun day. Sunday I slept in after Bill left in the morning. After I got up in the mid-afternoon, literally a half hour after I woke up, I get a call from Eric (my brother). He and Maddie were in town and wanted to see the room etc. So we hung out from around 4-ish until nighttime.
Another week of classes...Prof. Hollinden hooked me up with a vinyl rip of 'Cruising With Ruben & The Jets' by The Mothers of Invention, which is kind of a big deal. The only legit CD edition out there is this God-awful remix FZ did in 1984 in his DIGITAL RECORDING STUDIO. The overdubs were mainly bass and drums, though some tweezing of the tracks themselves (pitch, reverb) was done as well. I'm sure you can imagine, digital drums and what I call Seinfeld bass on what was originally a doo-wop album from 1968. (Could be worse: he did the same to his anti-hippie masterpiece 'We're Only In It For The Money', but fan hatred was so much that the original vinyl mix came out in 1995.) I got the CD from Hollinden on Tuesday, just three days after Eric (Condon) called to tell me he picked up the original vinyl.
Strange how these things work out. Never mind how strange (and annoying) it is that there are quite a few Erics in my life.
This weekend wasn't as thrilling as the last, not at all. But you know something? Given my Charlie Brown-esque stroke of luck in life, I've got a running bet with a friend that I'll get at least two offers for each night of this upcoming weekend...which I'll have to decline, as I'm going home. Mom's side is having the yearly family reunion on Saturday, and as she mentioned in an email there's a home football game at SHS so I can see the marching band if I want, and Sunday at church the choir is putting on a mini-concert with patriotic songs as the focus.
"Looks like I picked a bad day to stop smoking!"
No, but seriously - arrive late Friday, leave early Sunday. I know they enjoy seeing me and all. I enjoy seeing them, too. I was both a little shocked and happy earlier this week when I had a desire to call home just to catch up with what's been going on. It's just:
1.) I hate sports.
2.) Football is the worst.
3.) The marching band's bit is for all of 10 minutes out of however the Hell long the football games are.
4.) I don't like seeing people from high school and pretending I don't hate their guts. This includes faculty. It's mainly faculty, actually.
5.) Church. Come on.
6.) Patriotic songs.
7.) Patriotic songs in church. Because we're living in a country that wasn't founded by free-thinking proto-humanists, but by religious fundamentalists who used the Bible as their guide as they drafted their laws. They did this because all governments that function without the tenets of Judeo-Christian beliefs as the core are doomed to fall. (Are you picking up on the sarcasm? I don't mean to sound like an ass by asking, I seriously do NOT want you, the reader, to think I meant a thing I just said above.)
The family reunion shouldn't be too bad. Free food. Dad better have the day off, though. The poor guy is overworked at CVS. Oh, and here's to us not bringing Lily and Jasmine to Louisville on Saturday! (I only say this because two years ago we took Jasmine down...and she's not the friendliest dog with the people she lives with, let alone strangers and kids.)
Way off topic, but...as of sometime this weekend, my driver's side window doesn't roll down anymore. I look at it this way: I am WAY less inclined to smoke in the car now, so I see this as a step in the right direction towards my campaign to stop smoking. (Which, by the way, is a so far, so good. I've gone down to literally one yesterday and the day before. Beats six or seven, right?)
I dropped my Sixties History class. I couldn't balance a schedule where one day my first class was at 5:45 PM and the next day I had a 9:30 AM class, then a solid block from 1PM to 9 in the evening. We'll see what happens with the history minor, I'm replacing it with a 2nd eight-week course through Central Eurasian Studies on Modern Mongolia. It's upper 400-level. Is it sad that that's my idea of an elective?
For sure, I know next semester I'll be doing Intro To Russian Culture and a class on Polish Film, meaning 4 out of the 5 classes for my Slavic Studies minor will have been film classes. Not too shabby. Most definitely another science class will be in the mix, astronomy maybe...if there's a class on the dynamics of sound I'm totally doing it what with all my experience tinkering with sound-waves on the computer.
So that's three classes.
I'm sure I can squeeze in two more history classes. That brings me up to five. Being done with CMCL next semester means no shot-by-shot scene analysis...and I'm breathing a sigh of relief. Not that I'm bad at them. Not at all...even if I'd started off sucking at them I can write them in my sleep by now. I'm just sick of writing "Next comes a medium shot depicting..." and then analyzing how the formal elements of a scene contribute to the overall piece.
I'm sure somewhere, some way, I'll find a three-credit elective course that's right up my street.
Summer I'm doing math during the first session and one other class (TBD) during the second session. Then...I'm done. (As an undergrad, anyway.)
Lord knows once I'm done with school I'm not going to be writing inch-thick books on the dialectics of Sergei Eisenstein and the pathos of Charlie Chaplin. More like the dialectics of Frank Zappa and the pathos of Ray Davies.
Almost forgot: Jimmy Carl Black. Tonight. Even better - Eric's coming up from New Albany, with his vinyl of 'Freak Out!' for him to sign. I am truly excited about this.
Expect a picture or two.
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