Exhausted

It’s been a busy two weeks. Here’s a partial list of what I’ve done.

Graduated. Sort of, anyway.
Turned thirty.
Co-hosted a large-ish graduation party.
Graded finals (for a very grueling, demanding lecturer).
Flew to Burlington. And discovered that I may be allergic to Burlington.
Found a place to live in Burlington next year. It is an old mil.
Drove to Philadelphia to visit college friends.
Bused to Washington D.C. for a wedding.
Had a dissertation defense panic attack.
Read three Nick Hornby books.

Those are the highlights. It ended up being a lot of things to plan simultaneously. I was left unable to devote enough attention to, among other things, the Brangelina baby. Today, I will catch up. And watch the French Open for many, many hours.

Maybe it’s the Hair?

Condi Rice has clearly been the most likeable member of the Bush team for quite some time. She seems at least a little reasonable. And she’s probably the most powerful black woman in the United States who has not had the privilege of seeing CrazyTomCruise jump on her couch.

And yet… there’s always been something a little off that I haven’t been able to put my finger on.

There was that weird time when she kept accidentally calling Bush her husband.

There’s that strange list of her favorite songs: a bizarre mix of classical and overplayed, inoffensive rock.

There’s her hair.

There’s her willingness to engage in the whole Bush disconnect-from-reality thing.

There’s the weird fake-laugh she does every time someone asks whether she will be running for President.

And now, there is another piece of conclusive evidence. She pronounces the word “allies” like this: “a…lies”. And she says the “a” as if it were the article, not as if it were in the word “cat”. I heard her on Meet the Press. She said it over and over again. And it was strange.

Still, I just don’t know quite how I feel about her.

An Exercise in Pain and Stupidity

6:30: “Lovely day. Indeed. I should go for a nice, refreshing run.”

6:37: “Drat. I left my running shoes at the gym. No run for me.”

6:39: “Wait a second! I could just use one of my old pairs of running shoes. My brilliance knows no bounds.”

6:44: “Look! Ducks!”

6:46: “You know, I realize that I haven’t run more than five miles in quite some time. But it would feel really nice to run around Lake Monona. I think I shall.”

7:01: “I wonder if the Brangelina baby has been born in my absence. Or if Karl Rove has been indicted. Or if we have invaded Iran. Or if Rush Limbaugh has been arrested again.”

7:30: “Hey! I’m almost exactly halfway around the lake. Only a little over six miles to go.”

7:31: “Hmmmmm…. a thought just occurred to me. Might these have been the running shoes that I stopped using because they gave me such bad blisters on my heels? And because they always cut off the circulation in my toes?”

7:34: “Ow. Blisters. These are the shoes. Ow.”

7:48: “OOOOWWWWWW.”

7:53: “Thinkaboutanythingbuthowmuchyourfeethurt. OwOwOwOwOwOwOw.”

8:20: “Bloody Band-Aids. Lovely.”

F***, The Hippies Won

Oh, how I hate the Hippies on The Amazing Race. I hate their “we’re keeping it real” faux-titude. I hate their “T-Tow!” catchphrase. I hate the fact that they’re proud about not wearing underwear.

And they won.

And that fool Taylor Hicks is probably going to win American Idol.

Reality TV really has betrayed me this year.

What Year Is It Again?

1. A serious movement is afoot to build a great big wall around the United States. Because walls have proven to be very effective means of isolating and protecting oneself. And because walls are historically such strong symbols of the freedom and democracy that we care so deeply about.

2. Dick Cheney is concerned that the intelligence on Iran’s weapons capability is overly cautious and is not an accurate reflection of the immediacy of the threat. Because that logic has never led us astray before.

3. The Senate is taking up the crucial issue of flag burning this term. Because that’s really the cutting edge of free speech and national interest.

4. To get an Amtrak ticket from Burlington to Philadelphia, one must order 11 days in advance. So that the ticket can be sent. In the mail. As in, with a stamp. Because I should be grateful that purchase doesn’t require utilization of the Pony Express.

5. Al Gore is the current Presidential frontrunner.

I don’t know when or how that last one happened. But I think that it is the case.

For Shame, Self, For Shame

Against all semblance of better judgment, I saw Mission Impossible III last weekend.

I know, I know. I should subject myself to several lashings. I didn’t even have the good sense to formally purchase a ticket to something else and thus avoid contributing to the [dismal] MI:III coffers.

Let me save you the trouble by saying that despite some non-terrible reviews, the thing is indeed quite terrible.

Where to begin?

Well, there’s the whole bit where I kept being all, “Why are they calling Tom Cruise ‘Ethan Hunt’? And why is his child-bride someone other than Kati[e] Holmes? And why aren’t more people beating him up?” It’s just hard to take CrazyTomCruise seriously on-screen anymore, and it didn’t help that his home-life in the movie eerily imitates his home-life at home. Although with [presumably] more guns and disguises and fewer fascinating/scary Scientology rituals.

And the plot was really stupid, of course. Philip Seymour Hoffman [I am unsure about the correct number of l’s, f’s, and n’s in his name, but I don’t feel like looking it up] is… up to no good, I guess? It’s never really clear what he’s doing exactly. And CrazyTomCruise decides to come out of spy retirement to go get him. Then some other stuff happens.

Oh, and it’s completely obvious by minute ten, of course, what each of the upcoming plot “twists” will be. Have you ever seen a spy movie? Or Alias? Or any of several sitcoms? Then you will know exactly what is going to happen and would be better served by catching an Everybody Loves Raymond repeat.

Even my man Kanye let me down. His closing credits theme song… ain’t great.

Overall, I think it’s going to be a dismal movie summer. In fact, there isn’t a single movie that I’m actively looking forward to with anything approaching passion. The DVD releases of Season Two of Battlestar Galactica and Veronica Mars, though? MUCH PASSION.

Seriously? A Big Perch?

Doesn’t Bush’s big perch answer just nicely sum up everything that’s problematic with the dude?

If you’ve missed it, Bush was asked by a German reporter to name the best and worst moments of his presidency. The worst? September 11, of course. The best? Catching a 7.5 pound perch in his Texas ranch lake.

I hate this answer on so many levels.

On one level, he’s clearly trying to be “just folk.” As in, “I may be the most powerful person in the world, but all I really want to be doing is sitting by my fishin’ hole and talkin’ a spell.” The folk thing is just so fake and trite and horrible, and to me, it leaves the impression that he’s not taking the enormity of his job seriously enough. I hate it.

Furthermore, I think it’s ridiculous to be in the midst of your second term as President of the United States and not have a better answer for this question. I believe that any genuinely reflective person [as in “reflects on life,” not “is really shiny”] will be able to name at least a few real proud professional accomplishments. So either Bush ain’t reflective or he realizes that all of the alleged “successes” of his presidency (“freeing” Iraq, lowering taxes…) come with A LOT of baggage.

Finally, isn’t it a little hilarious that his best moment comes from catching a fish from his own very well-stocked lake? This is, after all, a lake filled-to-the-brim with big perch whose only purpose in life is to be caught by Bush. Is catching one of them really a big accomplishment and “best” moment? To me, it brings to mind Bush only speaking before pre-screened audiences and having a bunch of yes-men as advisers.

OK. End political rant. Back to CrazyTomCruise shortly.

Clearly, This Says Something About Something

Today my students were completely incapable of telling my ANYTHING about the IMF (International Monetary Fund), which we had covered in great depth just a few weeks ago.

However, they remembered absolutely every detail of a brief story I told during one of the first weeks in the semester about my time spent in Cairo. Their re-telling of my telling of black snot was especially vivid.

Again, this says something about something. But I’m not sure what the somethings are.

"It's a World of Laughter, a World of Tears..."

There have been requests for the weird Tale of the Necktie Dude. I will give it a go. But I warn you that, although I think it is supremely strange, I haven’t yet found a way to tell the story that adequately captures the strangeness.

So I’m in Chicago for the annual Midwest political science conference. One guy on my panel discusses the usefulness of Darwin for international relations theory. Another panel deals with the relationship between Harry Potter and the 9/11 commission. All of this hilarity is par for the course at the Midwest.

When I can take it all no longer, I flee to the streets of Chicago. About a block from the hotel, though, I am accosted by this dude who runs up to me and grabs ahold of my tie.

“Nice tie, dude. Is this it? This is it, right? This must be it. Where did you get it?”

Some of the above statements were directed at me, others at the woman shamefacedly pushing a stroller beside him. I tell him that I got it at Marshall Fields, and I quickly run away from the crazy person.

That would seem to be the end of the story. But it gets much weirder.

So after a bountiful CD exchange the next weekend, J-Bro, H-Gob, Spice, and I head out to eat at Roman Candle Pizzeria. Yum.

A maitre d’-type comes by to take our names, and as soon as he heads inside, J-Bro spins around and says, “Whoa. That’s weird. The guy that just left totally accosted me at H&M last weekend in Chicago.” [Admittedly, J-Bro may have said this with less of a Southern California phrasing.]

“What do you mean, accosted you?” I ask.

“Well, he grabbed my tie and asked me where I got it.”

“Was there a woman with him?”

“Yes. And she had a stroller.”

It quickly becomes clear that the same dude grabbed the ties of both J-Bro and I at separate places in Chicago last weekend. And that dude works at the Roman Candle Pizzeria in Madison. And we found out later that his father is a political scientist in Texas.

Not only is it weird that it happened, but it’s weird that the stars aligned such that we figured out that it happened.

And that is the Tale of the Necktie Dude.

Stick to Acting, CrazyTomCruise

It should come as no shock that my first real post-hiatus post concerns the one-and-only CrazyTomCruise.

But I will not be discussing his alleged eating of the placenta. Or my strong disappointment with the relatively normal name of “Suri.” Or the fact that we haven’t heard ANYTHING from Kat(i)e Holmes-(Cruise) in quite some time.

Instead, I will discuss his prose.

If you haven’t heard, CrazyTomCruise has written a “piece” on J.J. Abrams (who directed him in Mission Impossible III) for Time magazine’s silly 100 People Who Shape the World thing. [Side note: the list includes Tyra Banks and Howard Stern – “silly” is an understatement.]

The whole thing is hilarious, of course. It reads like My First Day with a Thesaurus, and includes such choice phrases as “an insouciance that promised anything was possible” and “laying waste to specious barriers.”

My favorite part, though, is the following: “It's hard to convey with brevity the extraordinary experience of knowing and working with J.J. Abrams. First of all, is there anything in a name—J.J.? Look at the Jays we have now—Jay Leno, J. Lo, Jay-Z—but he's got two Js. He was born to impinge and invade pop culture.”

I think CrazyTomCruise was born to impinge my sense of humor.

Happy May Day

So, I'm back to blogging. After a month-long respite, I believe the creative juices are close to re-filled.

This is just going to be a teaser post for the moment, but I will soon be expressing as best I can my hatred of Deal or No Deal, my love of Tom Cruise's continued insanity, and the twisted tale of the neck-ties.