Brain's Batteries Are Dying

Yeah, I know, I'm posting on a Tuesday despite the fact that I usually update on Wednesdays. The thing is that I have to be up at 4:30 AM tomorrow to get on a bus that will take me to a plane, et cetera, and I'm not interested in waiting for 'ol Mr. Time to make it be midnight so I can post. Please enjoy Hair Guy - Early Edition!


Caligula - Living the dream of a hedonocracy...

Today, I took three exams in the course of four hours. You know how in the fall the leaves all turn beautiful colors, and for about a week your street is like a Norman Rockwell painting, and then one night there’s a huge wind and rainstorm and all the leaves get blown off the trees and get all soggy and clog up the storm drains, and then the water backs up over them and starts to flood your driveway, and then halfway through 30 Rock your Dad looks out the window and says, “Fuck!” and he and Mom go put on boots and raincoats and stand in the ankle deep mini-Lake Michigan in front of your house and rake all the gooey leafy paste out and into the middle of the street, and then the next day it’s sunny and the gooey leafy paste bakes in the sun and stays in the middle of the street as a crust until June?

My brain is that stuff right now. Scratch that; my brain is less than that stuff. At the time of this writing it could probably beat me at chess. I had to take three tests in so little time because I’m leaving for the Pac Ten Men’s Staple’s Center Zebracopter Basketball Championship on Wednesday, and will thus be missing a week’s worth of non-final midterms (that count as finals). This played hell on my schedule today: I skipped journalism to go to my Spanish professor’s office hours to take my verb exam (Conseguir, anybody? Anybody know?), and then I met with my oral exam partner to do my Spanish oral exam (I get so few chances to say Spanish oral in a politically correct context), after which I skipped my humanities class to take my journalism exam, where I sorely wished I hadn’t had to skip the review earlier in order to take my Spanish verb exam. My journalism exam finished, I managed to make it to the last 20 minutes of my humanities class, wherein my brain received a sensual verbal massage regarding systems of government* and resource control.

*For the record, my preferred form of government is the hedonocracy, where currency is based on the Sexual Favor Standard and prostitution is so legal that it’s practically required by law.

My hair is sort of like a mood ring and a barometer, because depending on my overall level of mental anguish and/or humidity it will either fluff up and stand tall like a majestic Texas Horned Lizard or flatten out and cling to my head like a frightened child. Based on the sort of day I’ve had, my hair is more in frightened child mode than majestic lizard mode, and I’m forever indebted to the people I know for pointing this out to me. Never will I or anyone else have a physical characteristic that can be so readily praised one day but then so honestly and brutally degraded the next. “Truman, your hair looks great today!” My friends will say to me in passing when I’ve got an easy schedule ahead and there’s a minimal amount of moisture in the air. But then that same person can say only a day later, “Wow, Truman, your hair doesn’t look so good today!” You know, thanks, really, because tearing down my one attractive characteristic is really going to bolster my mood to the point that my hair will stand proudly again. How would you like it if I did that to you? “Hey, Cynthia, your breasts look great today!” Huh? Yeah, how about that? No, you’d call me a pervert. “Hey, Cynthia, what’s with your breasts today? They’re not half as firm and proud as they looked yesterday!” No, no, that would be even worse, wouldn’t it? It’s a double standard.**

**Cynthia, if you’re reading this, please don’t take offense, I’m just using your name as an example – to be honest, you deserve a medal for those things. Good show.

And so, tests finished, hair tucked firmly between my legs, I prepare for my trip to Los Angeles. It will involve many things I dislike: Getting up early, air travel, and being in Los Angeles. Tonight, though, will be my first night all term that I don’t have some brand of homework to do. I might just start randomly conjugating things out of habit. Starting with my laundry.

Truman Capps was really grasping at straws for that ending.