Hey you guys, sorry for the delay. It's been an eclectic mix of trying to study for finals, late shifts at Applebees, surfing at five am, putting Christmas lights up all night and beyond down here. Sorry, I'll expand on it a little.
I helped put Christmas lights up at Applebees after work a week or so ago. Only it took all night. We all left at about seven in the morning. I was in charge of the staple gun I brought. It probably wouldn't have taken as long if we didn't bring alcohol. But nevertheless, it looks good and I didn't staple my hand to the restaurant.
I also, decided to put up Christmas lights at home a couple nights before the Applebees event with the help of my coworker Becky. After a few beers though, I sent a staple through the wire of the second to last strand of lights I had put up. So I had to take them all down and start over. My neighbor walked by and asked what I was doing up at four in the morning putting up Christmas lights. My reply? "Learning early in life not to drink and attempt working around the house."
Finals are next week. I have a lot of studying to do. My Admin of Justice class is finished, all I have left is Sociology and Math. Sociology can go kick rocks, I have to pass this math class.
Surf has been sweet down here. We had a big west swell this week that came from Hawaii. A surfer drowned in NorCal but they received 30 foot waves. We only got 10 foot ones. If you paddle out on a 30 foot wave, I think you're just asking for it.
I finished a book. Here's a review on it.
Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut
B
My buddy gave me this book for my birthday along with the other Vonnegut book I reviewed earlier. I was interested in reading this one because unlike the other, this one is an actual novel. It's about an old Armenian artist with one eye, one that now collects abstract expressionist paintings and hides the fact that he's an amazing artist from everyone he meets. He inherited a beachside estate in Rhode Island from his late wife while describing his years boozing it up with Jackson Pollack and Terry Kitchen in the local bars, not to mention losing his eye in world war II. A young, pill-popping novelist shows up at his door and convinces him to face why it is that he hides his artistic potential from everyone.
I hate The Great Gatsby. I cant stand reading about the roaring twenties. It's boring. And even though this novel was narrated after-the-matter with bits of the Great Depression in it and contemporary culture, it still felt like I was reading The Great Gatsby. How interesting is it really to read about some shmuck prancing around his waterfront estate in New England, talking about his servants and cooks and taste for all things fancy and proper? None to me. But I'm being too hard on it. This book wasn't completely The Great Gatsby and I think there are a lot of things to take from it that might warrant another read through it from me.
First, I think it being a sign to me or some sort, is the issue of man's ability to create, destroy and hide what he creates from everyone. It's the main premise of the book and I really don't feel like I really comprehended what Vonnegut was trying to say. I think, since I've been working on my novel, it would be optimal that I read through it again to truly comprehend what he was trying to convey. The notion I got was that people tend to believe that what they are capable of is never good enough, so they hide it. Definitely something I've been battling with myself over this novel I have been working on.
Second, Vonnegut has an unparalleled sense of humor in his narrative. Sort of a daffy, old grandfather sort of humor he injects at the last line of every paragraph. The storyline may be dull, but the amusing interjections were enough to get me to finish the book.
I gave this one a B only because I really don't think I've fully grasped Vonnegut's writing style. I know there's good in it but I'm just not seeing it in it's entirety.
So, in regards to Bluebeard, I have decided to throw in an excerpt from my novel, because I've decided to not be afraid of it. A contemporary, semi-fictionalized autobiography not unlike a thousand others that have shown up in the last decade, but I'm convincing myself that this is mine, and mine alone. In this chapter, our hero is only a teenager, I'm sure that you guys can figure it out. The names have yet to be changed, the grammatical errors haven't been fixed. But I thought it would be nice to let you guys know how it's going. It has become a nightly activity within the last four months. Enjoy....
{begin}
Another moment that never left me.
The latest epidemic-turned viral headlines at the time was the coverage of the Asian-born SARS outbreak. Someone in some industry-ransacked part of Asia contracted it, hopped on a plane and flew to the United States, blew his nose in his hand and then touched a doorknob, I think. For the entire duration of SARS-apalooza and the media instigated insanity that followed, people dawned surgical masks, sterile polyurethane gloves and didn’t breathe. I don’t even remember what it was or where it was spreading the fastest, you just knew that it was bad and that somehow, someone, somewhere near you had it. Their eyes would explode out of their orbital lobes like cherry bombs, flames would erupt from their auditory canals, they would vomit poison, soil their pants and die. Or something to that extent I guess. Walnut didn’t miss a second of it and the next day, little Asian women driving giant Mercedes SUVS, brawny construction workers and even a sheriff or two could be seen driving around looking like a dentist.
Adam, Lindsay and I were looking around the garage one afternoon trying to find something or other when we found the package of surgical masks your mother had bought for Adam and I to use while we mowed the lawn. Lawn mowing days back then were the worst, we would end up choking on shaved Cocoa poop and grass clippings for the rest of the afternoon without them. Upon finding them however, next to the gun safe and your father’s tool chest, they dawned a newfound purpose and one that received much rejoice from the three of us: SARS-free Baskin Robbins Ice Cream. Finally!
So Adam, Lindsay and I piled into in my Civic and headed towards the Baskin Robbins next to Renatos, utterly stoked on the freedom to finally enjoy chocolate chip cookie dough and orange sherbet ice cream, clear of any threat of popping our eyeballs and crapping our pants. In the parking lot we dawned our white, paper gas masks and stood at the cash register, snickering and waiting for someone to help us.
“What can I get for you?” Our help was in the form of an elderly Persian woman, completely indifferent to our hilarious little ploy
“Which ice cream doesn’t have SARS?” Adam mumbled, muffled from the mask. We giggled.
“SARS? Ice cream doesn’t have SARS. What do you mean?”
Lindsay piped in, trying not snort, “Are you sure? Anything can have SARS. Its everywhere.”
The woman stood silent, looking at us blankly.
I don’t know what we expected to be so funny about going to Baskin Robbins and asking for SARS free ice cream, but it sounded like a genius idea before-hand. At the moment though, it lost all of its steam until a younger girl working in the back poked her head around the corner and burst into laughter.
“Here, the rocky road is fine. Three?”
“If there’s no SARS in it, please!” I exclaimed, bits of laughter punctuating it.
The younger girl scooped three cones and handed them to Lindsay, the older woman still staring blankly at us. I paid her and there we stood, unmoving next to the cash register with our ice cream cones, trying in vain to eat ice cream with surgical masks covering our mouths. The entire store was silent, staring at the three morons who had just bought SARS-free ice cream.
The next morning I walked across the parking lot to the mathematics building, up the stairs and through campus wearing my SARS mask. Random students laughed and looked puzzled as I walked by and soon enough, I rounded the corner to the side of building B, the English buildings, where our lockers were and where we would hang out in the morning before school. Alex, Devin, Ian, and Eric burst into uncontrollable laughter. Tommy yelled out “What the hell?”
“SAR-ry I’m late you guys.”
{end}
Hope you all have a great week. I'm sorry I have to work all day next Saturday. Hopefully we can work something out.
