Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

I really have little, if anything, in me to say about the NYC bombings this weekend.  Yet, parts of me feel the urge to pontificate . . . of course, there's also the questions from a couple of close friends wanting to know when I'll ponder. When 9-11 happened I was teaching a course--we were covering the Comstock Laws--and when Saddam Hussein was captured I was shoveling my car out of a blizzard.  When he was executed I was in rural Virginia for a holiday and packing, as I was headed to my first trip to Turkey that January.  When Osama Bin Laden was captured I was doing laundry in an urban, city 'hood fashion.   I pontificated here, probably one of the better ones . . . or not.   When bombs, of pressure cookers and burner phones, went off in NYC I was home . . . reading literature on Chinese American restaurants, blaring some "empowered women's mix" from Apple radio, and rotating with edits on a grant application to finally finish my Aegean Sea cultural st...

Nearly a month has gone by, and I'm sorry.  Life has been busy, as they say, and  . . .  well I had in-laws in town, my own parents two days later, and then  . . . then I got the stomach flu.  Dear lord.  That aside . . . grants and pages written aside, ambles of note always occur. I cabled a scarf sans cable needle, in a flagrant copy of the Sex in the City scarf .  And I have a hat for it too . . . it just got cold enough to don it, and honestly  . . . My black and white hounds-tooth coat in the making will look spectacular with it. My folks came to town, and my Dad went to the Green Market . . . he was awash with the people, as it was the weekend before Thanksgiving.   Mom stayed in with Ripple, as she was too tired . . . but she came too.   There was a spectacularly soothing sunset on the ride home.   Kringing came to the apartment . . .  And planes are confused from the buildings...

As life would have it, life has been busy and stressful as of late...so I preface this post by saying that perhaps my mind its screaming for a rest, a day off, a night with nothing but me and my devices of thought and pen. Okay...maybe I'm just fried from working so much, writing more, and smashing my head against my computer while grading. Earlier this week I dreamed that scoops of ice cream–– vanilla, of course––fell from the sky, gently exploding into smaller balls as they fell. Through the course of this scene I could see The Empire State Building upload and The Chrysler Building. I could see the cracks of concrete and flecks of dirt on the window panes. Throughout this scene of a cerebral slow– timed tango, I said those buildings are "my Manhattan." Then, as the best chaos of dreams does...I awoke to lie in bed in a state of confusion half between slumber and consciousness with a literal dream memory seeping around the corners. At thirteen, or so, I a...

A decade ago I was in grad school, working toward a Phd, and I was teaching my first class at Hofstra.  It was my first semester adjuncting, to supplement my stipend from TAing . . . those days are always filled with many things, ideals, and outright fears.  My 8-o-freaking-clock classes passed on, and I came to know my colleagues . . . Perhaps I should note that I am not the "famous" adjunct who got arrested that term.  In class. Yea, a favorite professor brought in a civil war weapon, and some shit called the Nassau poe poe saying there was a sniper on the Hofstra campus.  John was hauled off in silver bracelets.  *Excuse me while I laugh--like a retarded jackass--at the very fine memory of the chair telling me to not bring weapons to class . . . at John telling me the tale of having to the call the chair to bail him out . . . at the talk on campus.  Good times.* None-the-less, to this day I get jitters when giving my lecture involving the Comstock La...