I do not sleep.

I do not sleep. This is the name of my post. I am sick. I am less sick now than I was. I hope this means more sleep. I read 'toothpaste for dinner.'

Oh no.

Dominick Lawton and I are hanging out, talking about how we think we might be postmodernists.

Fuck.

In Honor of Exam Week

Excerpted from a curmudgeonly essay I wrote instead of working on a response paper that I ought to have spent more than an hour on:

Try and imagine this. It is the week before winter break. All our papers are coming due. I spent the night before last writing my first-ever twenty-page paper for a class on the North American landscape. It had twenty-five pages. I took a two-hour nap after class and then finished an entire problem set for my economics class in one evening. It helped that I don’t care about the class, so none of the answers had to be right or anything. I made an outline for a research paper I have to write tomorrow morning and then went to bed at four-thirty am.

BBRRRRRRRRRRZZZZZZZZZRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAARR
RRRRRRRRZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZRRRRRRRRRRRR
RRRRRRRRRRRBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAA
AAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAA
RRRRbbbbbbbbbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I have slept for five and a half hours out of the last forty-two and have just woken unexpectedly to this sound. I do not know what the sound is or where it is coming from. Maybe we are under attack. Maybe someone is drilling into our basement with one of those big drill tractors that they use in mines. How am I supposed to know? My eyes won’t even open all the way. The little muscles in my cheeks and temples and eyelids are squinty-squinchy. I slouch up in bed. The room is still half dark because it’s winter and only just eight, goddamn it, I realize when my straining little half-eyes finally find my clock-radio. I meant to wake up at nine-thirty so I could get a full five hours.

Now my ears are working again and I can sort of tell that the sound is coming from the direction of the window. Going to see what it is will require me to get up and stagger fifteen feet across a cold hardwood floor. The noise keeps stopping and starting and every time it starts it opens with this plaintive whine, like someone is abusing a puppy. Maybe they are torturing a puppy down there. This, I simply will not tolerate. I throw off the covers and practically fall across the room, since I’m so dizzy I can’t stand up straight.

I think I am hallucinating when I first look outside. They have got one of those trucks set up like the trucks the phone company uses to fix a problem with the telephone wires. That’s the kind with the arm that stretches out towards the sky with you cradled in its basket like it’s delivering you up into the clouds. This one is right up next to a tree that has its top branches about twenty feet away from our window. There is a guy in a hooded sweatshirt in the truck’s basket. He has the hood up, which always makes you look like a gang member or a serial killer. The guy is also clutching a massive chainsaw. This makes him look more like a serial killer than a gang member. His friend has the driver’s side door of the truck open and is messing around with something on the dashboard that is making the arm move the little cradle up and down. The man with the chainsaw just stands there with the damn thing held inches from his chest while he and his little basket move a couple of inches up and a couple of inches down for practically a whole minute. Eventually the basket stops moving and the guy takes his chainsaw and slides it into a big thick brancheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeeeBBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
RRRRRRRRRRRZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
ZZZZRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZRRRRRRRRZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZbbbbbbbbbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I am deeply unhappy. We were not informed that this work would be occurring today. No notice was tacked to the proctor’s bulletin board. No message was posted to the Pennypacker listserv. Stupor has been replaced by irritation verging on hauteur. The university couldn’t send us an email? They couldn’t wait another two hours to destroy this tree? My head probably would have hurt anyway this morning, but this feels like someone has inserted the bit of a power drill into my ear and flicked the on switch.

Now my roommate is awake. She’s a heavier sleeper than I am, but even she cannot sail blissfully through this. “Mmmmmmfffgggfffgggddisthaaaat?” she gurgles. I do not answer. Instead I stalk back to my bed, rip off the comforter, and cannonball onto the middle of the mattress, allowing the blanket to float slowly down and cover my rage-quaking form. I try to clench my knees over my ears to block the sound, but they don’t reach up that high. Where the hell are my earplugs? Gone, probably, vanished on moving day.

“MMMMFFFHHWWHHHAAT?” she asks, this time with an angry force that is not softened by her cotton-mouth.

“The motherfucking grounds service is doing a tree-fucking-removal and I’ve slept for five hours in the past two days and I want to die right now,” I retort.

“Whattimesit?”

“It is eight. I went to bed at four-thirty.” Where is the sense of decency? Does this institution retain no trace of gentility from its illustrious past? Were Theodore Roosevelt and T.S. Eliot jolted out of bed at the crack of dawn by the sound of a cannonade? Did they stand at the windows of their apartments in their dressing-gowns and caps and watch a pair of madmen re-landscape Harvard Yard with dynamite?

I am not a complainer. I do not return spoiled foods to the supermarket for a refund. I do not send back my dessert when the waiter brings me chocolate ice cream instead of Rocky Road. But right now I am angry. I could throw dignity out the window and lean out after it, red-cheeked and hollering like a 19th-century English fishwife, my semi-transparent t-shirt flapping wildly with every gust of cold morning wind.

...Yadda yadda depressing yadda, but I think you get the idea. Merry finals week, all! And to all a good night!

(If it makes you feel any better, we in Cantabrigia have our finals after break. It's even worse if you're in the humanities: you also have a volley of papers due before you leave for vacation. It's like two exam weeks ("exam month"? Oh dear God), and I don't even want to think about it. In fact, pretend I never told you that. One day of classes-- lovely classes, but still-- left in the fall semester!)

Julia il topo

"Topo" means "mouse." In Italian.

So as you know, I live in a ridiculous building. Our latest adventures, besides the bird that was stuck in the fireplace of the room next door, involve the mice that have decided to make our suites their homes.

My suitemate Sage is terrified of them.

The Harvard-Yale Pierson tailgate went really well. We had a bunch of brownies left over, so we left them shrink-wrapped in a cardboard box in our suite over break. There was nothing else to do with them, really.

So last night, we were all in the suite (except for Sage, which is good, because she would've hated this), and Sharon and Rhia, my roommate and other suitemate, heard scratching noises coming from the box of brownies. I ran upstairs to our friends' suite, where Riley was doing homework. 

I asked him, "Want to go on a mission?"

He did want to go on a mission.

We grabbed a plastic storage tub and went back to my suite, where we held the box above the tub and lifted trays of brownies up, one by one.

He was hiding underneath the last tray, of course. When I saw him, I jumped, and we dropped him into the tub.

He was tiny, and fuzzy, and really pretty cute. Sage has nothing to worry about. She's still worried.

Everyone gathered around from all over our entryway to see the adorable mouse. We were all talking about how he was so cute, and how he was probably scared to death, and trying to figure out what to do with him.

Then Vicky asked, "How do you know it's not a girl? I think her name's Julia."

So now we have Julia the mouse. Now that she's got a name, we can't just get rid of her. So we stole some cereal and carrots from the dining hall, and we put a plate of water and some shredded paper in the bottom of the tub for her. And we moved the tub upstairs, so that Sage didn't have an aneurism. 

The whole gender issue is a really big concern, but we've decided those that feel that the mouse might suffer permanent psychological damage from gender misassignment can just call it Jules.

Thanksgiving

So I was talking to Laura Kling the other day, and we both mentioned that we compulsively check the blog on a weekly basis. Sometimes daily. Usually daily. Anyway. Laura has convinced me that it's just stupid to keep checking the blog, hoping someone will post something new, and leaving without writing something of my own. And so came about the decision to write this post.

I don't have much to say. I never do. I think this is generally what keeps people from posting on the blog. I certainly don't want to waste anyone's time with my ramblings. But I will. I think it's more likely that we just want an acknowledgment that the TASPers still exist. So I have less qualms about the meandering style of this post.

Thanksgiving is upon us. In 2 hours and 41 minutes, American Thanksgiving begins. I don't know how all of you feel about Thanksgiving, but it's one of my favorite holidays. I really like eating. And not cooking or cleaning. Usually, my mom does the last two, and I do the first one. We'll see how I feel about this whole 'adult' thing once I have to clean up after myself on Thanksgiving. Anyway, I'm eating my Thanksgiving dinner with some friends who live in the dorm. I'm too poor to be taking a jaunt back to Chandler for a four day weekend. It may be a sad and awkward Thanksgiving. I hope not. I really like Thanksgiving.

Okay, so, I'm done wasting space. What is everyone else doing for Thanksgiving? When is the next time we can all see each other? Plans for winter break? Spring break? Summer? Non-break visitation? Let me know.

Wax Attack!

Back in the '70's, my mom was commissioned to sculpt the political and religious figures for Ireland's National Wax Museum. She used to teach sculpture classes at the community college here, but made money doing crap in wax for Madame Tussauds, Ripley's Believe it or Not, and a bunch of other random museums (if you're ever in Wall, South Dakota, go to the Wild West Museum to see my dad appear about 80 million times as a background character at the OK Corral, a bartender in a saloon with Billy the Kid in it, and so on -- hilarious).

Anyway, my brother stumbled on an article today about the National Wax Museum:

Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Franklin D. Roosevelt are missing their clothes and Fred Flintstone and the Teletubbies are just plain missing after a raid on wax figures owned by Ireland's National Wax Museum.

At least 50 figures were stolen or wrecked several weeks ago, the museum reported Monday. The wax museum, closed since 2005, has been storing its 400 figures in a warehouse while it works to reopen this fall.

Police say they suspect a door was left unlocked and the warehouse was used for an all-night rave party but museum officials discount that theory.

Also stripped of their clothes were Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and rebel icons from Ireland's war of independence with Britain, including Michael Collins and Padraig Pearse.

Most figures stolen came from the Children's World of Fairy Tale and Fantasy section; others were taken from the Chamber of Horrors. Gone are Bob the Builder, Frankenstein's monster, Fred Flintstone, Gollum from "Lord of the Rings," a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, "Silence of the Lambs" killer Hannibal Lecter, and all four Teletubbies.

Guitars adorning the figures of U2's The Edge and Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott also disappeared. Others, including Elvis and Madonna, suffered lost hair, limbs or jewelry.

The museum has been shut and searching for a home since 2005, when its run-down north Dublin base was razed to make way for a hotel. Dublin city officials vetoed one popular location, citing the wax museum's lack of cultural merit.

Museum manager Kay Murray said Monday she expects to announce a new location and reopening plans next month, although she said she did not know where the money to fix all the damage would come from.

She estimated the uninsured loss at $1.4 million and said some clothing _ particularly the authentic rebel uniforms _ was irreplaceable.

The warehouse was ransacked in mid-June. Murray said she spoke out now because the national police force, the Garda Siochana, had not arrested any suspects. She said she doubted the police theory that partying youths had been responsible, because nobody had seen kids carrying away the wax figures.

"Whoever did it was looking for uniforms, because most of our uniforms were stolen," Murray said, adding, "It's not going to stop the museum reopening. It will just delay us."

Surreal, eh? For what it's worth, Kay Murray was one of the investors' mistresses. *thumbs up*

The bell tower here sometimes plays The Final Countdown. And the Tetris song.

David Tidmarsh just said, "You can't spell fashion without fascist."

This is our super speller, guys. Take his word for it. 

Olivia just gave me a really weird smile, because she's talking to Mac Krumpak about an experiment that made lots of people starve, and how "interesting doesn't make it good, so I'll give you that."

God knows what "that" is. I guess Mac made a good point.

So guys. It's super silly that we all obviously check this blog all the time, yet none of us post. Silliest thing in the world.

So let's chat. For Halloween, what did you guys do? I was Peter Pan, and a bunch of my friends were Lost Boys and Tinkerbell and Captain Hook and Tiger Lily. Amir wore a beard and a bedsheet, and was occasionally supposed to be Jesus, Moses, or straight-up God. David T borrowed my roommate's private school uniform (yes, he totally did), and I can't for the life of me figure out what Dom was supposed to be. Maybe some kind of Peruvian? He wore a beard and not much of a shirt. Good thing it wasn't too cold. I don't remember what Tyler was, but I think his hair was gold.

We just watched William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, and my gosh, it reminded me so much of the beginning of that Hamlet movie, the one with the hotel and the yellow sunglasses and the awful.

Also, I'm supposed to be writing a paper, and Olivia should be doing calculus, and David T should be reading the Bible. Guess what we're not doing.

Apparently on Olivia's bus yesterday, a creepy older guy with no teeth called her "Princess" and said she reminded him of his parole officer.

That's so sketchy, guys. I'm glad she didn't die.

Dom's at orchestra practice, and Amir left yesterday. We had a couple of adventures trying to find the right bus stop, interspersed with watching the food network in David T's suite. He's got a really nice suite, but mine is definitely better, despite the smallness and the brokenness of the bathrooms and lights and doors and walls and everything.

It's so social. I love it so much.

Guys, I have the biggest inferiority complex EVER about my housing situation here. But they fixed the locks on the doors, and put a new cover on the light, and worked to clean up the scorch marks on the ceiling.

I think I'm just going to post pictures on facebook at some point.

Liv says the football players in her writing seminar always make connections and comparisons to Disney movies in class. She says it's weird.

Guys, I really have to write my paper. I watched a silly Shakespeare movie instead of doing it. And I think I might fail out of college as a result of too much Mario Party and Super Smash Bros.

I miss each and every one of you so, so much.