Doth my eyes Deceive?

I had a good weekend. What it lacked in excitement it made up for in reading time and long walks. I've been trying to take an hour long walk every day. I even have a route. Yesterday, I was behind Holmes Hall, the gates of Hell itself, in the Sanford Wilderness Area. I used to go there a lot to follow the river and let my mind wander. I still do, in fact, even if it is sort of far from me now. Anyway, I was walking through it yesterday after the football game when I spotted a hoodie on the other side of the river. Damn, nice hoodie, I thought. Then I noticed that it was standing straight up from the ground! That's pretty weird, I mused. Then, I saw a mortified expression peeking out of the hood. Someone was squatting next to the river and taking a shit. I can't really remember a more awkward exchange of glances. Like, what the hell was I supposed to do? Yell, "Hey, want me to toss ya a roll?" ? So I just kept walking, laughing to myself.

Met a kid I like. The kid is exactly like me, and it's really starting to freak me the fuck out. Same music, movies, books, cities, sports teams-the works. The guy is even HUNGARIAN! I thought I was the last Magyar on this orb. I've only met one other Hungarian person in my LIFE. I watched a Dream Theater Live DVD in his room, which was amazing. Dream Theater is the best.

Walking out of Shaw the other day, I almost bumped into a rather shifty guy talking to two tense college kids about "the lord Jesus Christ" and his infinite acts of mercy and all that. Looking behind me, I saw the kids pull out some money. I've always been divided on things like this. There's a lot of inner turmoil to face when people ask you for a handout. For starters, you wonder if your money will go to anything else besides rum. For guys calling for donations on behalf of a church like the one outside Shaw, you wonder if they're legit. Do they really represent the church? Normally, I might have turned around and gave the guy a five, but my qualms won out and led me past his benedictions and blessings to sit on the dorm's back porch. Thanking the kids, he started walking in my direction, so I lifted my book to cover my face. NO one would pull a guy's book out of the way to ask for money. Three seconds later, "The Wizard and Glass" is wedged between my legs, and I'm face to face with moral, religious, social, philosophical conflict. Well, he was convincing, and that whole business of heaping praises on me just for sitting on my fat ass and hearing him out made me feel terribly guilty, of what I don't know (that's why he was good!). So, I dug in my pocket for some spare change. "This is all I could dig up. I guess I could have searched for more but here...," I said as I handed him 2.50. "Well," the man started, "I wish you WOULD search for more. But God bless." Haha. Was I a bastard for the lousy contribution, or was he an ungrateful jerk? Ah, I can't tell. The blame probably rests mostly on my shoulders. My wallet was submerged in my pocket, and the 2.50 was right at the tips of my fingers; The 2.50 was just an impulse, I guess, since it was so close and ready, but I could have given him more.

I was watching T.V. in the bathroom yesterday when a Charmin commercial came on, you know, the one where the bear poops and then uses the magical toilet paper to floss its ass cheeks. What the hell were those ad guys thinking? There is NOTHING cute about bear shit. A realistic ad would have freaking squirrel femurs and camper genitals pumping out of the bear's ass hole and falling into a knee-high grave yard, not stars and sprinkles. Why not get something else, like a gerbil, to endorse their shit? Their poop is so wonderful, they'll eat those little pellets again and again and again, even over pet food.

I saw Anne-Sophie Mutter at the Wharton Center a couple weeks ago. It was incredible. I don't want to come off as some sort of sophisticated wannabe or anything, but I just have to say that there's nothing like a good violin.

Nick caught me jamming in my underwear today, "Risky Business" style. Instead of surprise, or amusement, or confusion, horror was on his face. I mean, it was like he caught me chanting around a fire, boiling over with frog legs and newt tails. In the words of Ferris Bueller, "if you shoved a lump of coal up his ass, it would come out a diamond." I haven't seen this kid sing, dance, jump, or run. He hasn't high-fived anyone, hugged anyone, called anyone, or ANYTHING. Jokes, sarcasm, exaggeration- these things go over his head like a 747. He does laugh, from time to time and at God knows what, but I'd say that 99% of the things he says start with "this fucking asshole is making us do ____" or "McCain is a fuck." Politics and school -those are the two files that you can store just about everything and anything that passes through my roommate's eyes or ears. Christ, when this election is over, 100% of his vocalizations will be devoted to complaining. I'll be putting these Bose noise-cancelling headphones to the test soon.

Surprisingly, I want to fill out one of those dopey questionnaires that kids used to stick in their live journals. If boring, they are good exercises, at least. Writing about yourself is so useful. After all, what or who do you know better? Also, when looking at yourself from the perspective of objective questions, like what's your favorite band or what are you doing right now, you DO gain a certain knowledge of yourself. It's like when people say that there's things Americans can only learn about their country from foreigners, or Satre's "The Look". If I find a good one, I'm putting it in here.

My mind is pretty placid today, these last three or four days, really. Again, I can't really think of any deeply personal thoughts or feelings to relate to the blog, but I'll keep writing until they come! Something is guaranteed to piss me off soon.