Aw Crap

Bad Poetry

Long, long ago [more than six years ;) ], in the Time of Legends, I was the Vice-President of my college’s English Club.

This was not a inherently heroic position.  I did not win it by destroying all comers at a poetry slam (actually, I don’t think the term poetry slam had been invented yet), or by challenging the existing Vice President to short-form literature at fifty paces.  It was conferred upon me because the staff of the college English Club was synonymous with the staff of the college literary magazine, Vitae, and the year before I had volunteered to join the staff of Vitae, at a time when that staff consisted of exactly two people.  One of them, a tall, thin, soft-spoken guy with dark eyes and dark hair, was the President.  The other, a short, passionate, beautifully urban Spanish girl (the term Spanish hadn’t been invented then either) was the Vice President.  She, unbeknownst to me, was scheduled to replace him the following year, the year in question.  So that year, when I showed up for the first meeting (late), she, as the new President, introduced me to the handful of newcomers as the Vice President.  And I, being an articulate sort, said to them:  “Hey.”  (The guy who had been the old President was not only gone, but dead.  And yes, I also became the President in my own time.  Separate story, on both counts.)

After the initial shock, I immediately set about making the Vice Presidency a heroic position, as best I knew how.  I wrote a lot (much of it awful), and critiqued a lot (much of it level), and drew fliers for our various events with artwork that wasn’t very good, but was the best I was capable of producing at the time.  I also talked us up as a force on every occasion I was able (of which there were not too many) to anyone who would listen (who counted few).  And I took myself very seriously, which I was prone to do anyway, although not so godawfully seriously that I was unable to occasionally poke fun at the entire affair, as I did when I wrote for my fellows a brilliant piece simply entitled “Bad Poetry”.  It read as follows: Read the rest of this entry »

A Man May Do Both

“‘Halflings!’ laughed the rider that stood beside Eomer.  ‘Halflings!  But they are only a little people in old songs and children’s tales out of the North.  Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?’

‘A man may do both,’ said Aragorn.  ‘For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time.  The green earth, say you?  That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!'”

– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

The Scarlet Letter

There are still white dog hairs from Nipper left on my brown winter scarf.

Random Neuron Firing

“There’s a happy place where it’s just geometry and women singing in Latin, and that’s where I am right now.”

-me, a long time ago

Overheard

on the bus, among four African-Americans

Man 1 (to Man 4):  Obama’s in the White House, fool, you ain’t in the White House.  (laughs)
Man 2:  Yeah, he representin’ us.
Man 3:  (correcting Man 2) He representin’ AMERICA.
Man 4:  Yeah. (thinks) He half white, you know, you don’t never hear no one talk about that.

Entropy

There is a flashing yellow sign I have never seen before in the status bar of Windows, warning me that the hard drive of my mainframe is about to give up the ghost.

Not only is Magic dead, Science is failing!!!

In a Bacon and Egg Sandwich

… the chicken’s involved, but the pig is committed.