July 7, 2000.  Friday

 
    Jed and I went up to Prospect Park yesterday after work to take advantage of the nice weather.  Despite myself, I found myself discussing weather and climates on several occasions yesterday. But that's ok, since it was out of a general interest in meteorological phenomenon, and not some form of small talk.  Not that I have to justify myself to you.

    Anyhow, we were tossing the frisbee around for a while, and this older type guy asked we if wanted to play ulimate frisbee if he could get a game together.  So I says to Mabel, I says, "Sure."  So jed and I threw for a while longer, then sat down and read for a while.  Then about 10 other guys showed up to play ultimate.  They looked pretty intense, and possessing an endurance the likes of which I haven't had in at least 6 years.  But I was fairly sure I could at least be competitive. Of course, we never found out, because I never played.  These guys were a wee bit too intense for me.  They all brough bags of gear with them. All of them brought cleats, and one of them even had on some stupid gloves.  Who actually wears gloves to play fucking frisbee? I was hoping for a friendly game.  Some people take sport way too seriously.  Then again, most were at least 5 to 10 years older than me it seemed.  There's a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip from where Calvin's asking his dad what it's like to be a grownup, and he says something like "Don't grown ups ever just play?"  to which his dad answers, "Yes, but they can only justify it by calling it 'excercise'."  And these guys really personified that.  It was actually kind of disappointing.  I hadn't played ultimate in years, but these freaks just sucked the fun out of it.  Anyhow, by the time they started playing, it had started to drizzle, which sealed the deal for me.  By the way, you can see a live image of where I often played ultimate, the Washington and Lee Colonnade.  It's reeeeeeal purdy...
    Anyway, it looks as if I'll be going home to PA this weekend.  I wanna get out of the city.  I'm looking forward to driving my car.

    I'm still working on this Fitzgerald book, This Side of Paradise.  I like it a lot, but I'm having to stop every few pages and look things up.  Which is totally weird to me.  Never mind the fact that I'm actually reading books these days, but I can't believe I'm stopping to try and understand things that aren't clear.  I think it shows an incredible amount of maturity and growing on my part.  I'm only saying so because this is probably a habit I should have started around 6th grade.  Anyhow, I started to think about what a good educational tool books are.  A revolutionary thought, I know.  But I mean, beyond the obvious literary and sociological elements.  But it's a great way of learning a good amount of history too.  There're a lot of terms from history that i used to know or seemed vaguely familiar in this book that I've had to stop and look up.  And it occurred to me yesterday that this was actually something we used to do is school.  I'd completely forgotten.  Whenever I think of highschool reading, I always think about the sheer drudgery. I never remember that at times we had to study term and names and places that we'd come across in the books.  What a good way to learn.  How odd.  I guess i don't give those damn teachers enough credit. And maybe I shouldn't since it's a habit that I'd so easily forgotten.  Surely, the fault lies with them.

    Anyhow, beside my burgeoning literary awakening, other aspects seem to be ok.  I finished my assigned tasks here at work around, oh, Wednesday, and yesterday I actually asked  for work to do.  Another monumental step for me.  I just kind of felt like a bag of shit, just sitting here. Although this is what i've needed for months.  All during May and June, sitting around in depressing unemployment, I thought what I really needed was an office.  Just a place to get out of the house and work.  And right now, that's what I have.  I have a phone, computer, and internet connection.  Just my own little office space, where i can sit, read, listen to music, and work on my own personal little projects.  Unfortunately, old work habits are flooding back quickly.  The donuts and coffee trend made quite a smooth transition back into my life.  As has absolutely pointless web surfing.  And what's worse, my main sources of reading, online journals, have been pretty slow.  If some people would only update more often.  I actually read more than i used to, but no one really updates frequently anymore.  oh well.

    I had quite a long entry in my guestbook yesterday about yesterday's entry.  I only rarely get guestbook signings. I've discovered that the type of person who bothers to read my page is usually the sort who tends to send a little email rather than sign the guest book.  I've gotten at least twice as much email as guestbook signings over the last year.  I'm wondering why that is.

    And of course, there are still a host of things keeping me up at night. Just little fucking stupid shitty things.  Like the bathroom faucet.  it was fixed about two months ago, and it yet again clogged up for some reason. And guess who's going to have to fix it?  And still no check for the phone bill.  And the nightly what-the-fuck-am-I-gonna-do-after-getting-my-fucking-Master's Degree!? freakout continues.  At least Howard Stern seemed more pleasant this morning.  No race war riots.  Just some laughing.    By the way, I find it extremely funny when "edgy" or really fucking opinionated radio people recite their little commercials, like it's all impromptu. "Hey, Band-Aid brand bandages! Hold on, let me just tell you about this here wonderful product I stumbled across!"  This morning when I got out of the shower, Howard was doing a little pitch for Heineken.  "Really. I love Heineken beer.  It is so good."  What a fucking whore.  Rush Limbaugh, who my mother occasionaly listens to, does the same thin. (I usually hear it while I'm sitting in the kitchen while she's fixing me lunch, so I don't complain).  He's always going on and on about how tasty Snapple is or something.  It's really the stark contrast that's so weird to me.  It's just so funny to see how these guys rant and rave about the 'establishment' or whatever, or try to be so extreme! and outrageous! in one way or another, and then two seconds later are like "Boy, lemme tell you, friends,  there's nothing worse than jock itch. And when my jock itches, there's nothing like Dr. Jock'sú  patented Jock Itch Powder 2000®.  So go pick some up today and your local Target, Wal-Mart, or other fine retailer, or your jock will itch."  You sons of  bitches...
 

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