I'm on break during Women Writers of the West.
It's interesting.
It's fun being in a sort of women's studies, feminist type class. This one isn't aggressive or anything, but I love the perspective.

Okay, a frantic 3rd entry.

Last night was the first meeting of my Composition Theory and Practice class.
I got there a little late. I'd worn boots all day and I have a toe that's been in quite a bit of pain off and on for about two weeks now and it couldn't take a few more hours in boots, so I stopped off at home and changed into some Chucks. I walked into class and the chairs were all drawn into a circle. I recognized a few people in there from other classes, including a couple "schoolfriends." "Schoolfriends" are people that you would probably hang out with outside of class, and inevitably run into now and then at Target or the coffeeshop or a show or something, but to actually take that next step and say "wanna hang out sometime?" seems a bit forward. I know at least a couple occasional readers know Joe Beard. He's in my class. He and I talked a bit about the new Over the Rhine album after class. I guess he and his wife are going to see them at the end of September. Also in my class is Shana. She was in Rhetoric with me and we both took the Online Astronomy over the summer. S. and I saw her and her boyfriend at Target about a week ago or so. Anyway, our Rhetoric prof is teaching this class and she made Shana and I tell everyone about our Simpsons project we did this past spring for the class. The prof (Joan Latchaw, for UNO readers) still digs the project and it's nice to be part of a memory. Anyway, the class went pretty well. We went around the room and each told our names, what our major or whatever is, and made a couple comments about the class subject. Prof is a big discussion type person so we ended up going on for about 2 hours that way, discussing and arguing and point-counterpointing and all that. It was a good time, really. I am not quite sure what I'll learn in the class, but I know it will be quite a bit.

Thanks for the comments, all.

YES, we do cover Ginsberg and of course, "Howl" is a beautiful wonderful piece of classic American poetry, but also definitely needs a disclaimer if taught in Nebraska.

I wish you could be in there with me, Kelly. You would love it. I ended up getting an A in History of MassCom. I recall Prof. Allen digging my paper a good bit. Maybe I'll post it here when I think of it. I'm a bit wary of kids stealing it for their own projects, but I suppose I'd have to give them credit for good taste.

Today I made a stop in Council Bluffs. It's only fitting, considering I just read Sal Paradise's comments about it again last night in a re-read of On the Road. Those of us in the Omaha area refer to it as "Counciltucky," for those wondering what the locals think of the place. I dig Council Bluffs, though. For one, while the cheapest gas in Omaha is $1.65/gallon right now, I found a QuickTrip over on the Iowa side of the border that had it for a buck forty-eight.
Today's great Iowa sighting (besides the usual class-cutters that can be seen starting in mid-September): A rather flabby woman in her mid-fifties wearing a pair of loose (but not loose in the caboose) cotton shorts with "Heartbreaker" stitched across her rear end. It was pretty classy, you know, because it was in cursive lettering.

My first night at the Beats & Hippies class, written while in class:

The professor is a wiry cat with a beard that is somehow scraggly but neat. His gravelly tone is poetic in rhythm. The class is full - a wide assortment of students glace at each other with first day curiousity. As the prof was rattling down the roll, a young woman named Molly, I think, sat down right in front of me. I was hoping the desk would stay empty but she had little choice. She's wearing some sort of shirt that leaves most of her upper back bare. I'm not physically drawn to it, but I have this urge to softly draw and write here and there across the skin. Prof is now discussing how and why some of our text may be found offensive. He just told us that in that time period, there was no AIDS; that if we are going to copy some of these characters, he says, use intelligence and use a condom. After that, he mentions about drug use in the reading. We all end up signing a statement saying that we acknowledge but don't necessarily endorse such content. We also watch the first section of a documentary called Making Sense of the 60's. Tonight's portion was the "Seeds of the 60's" and very fascinating. I want to rent this and watch it with S. sometime. Hopefully I can watch the whole series...prof says we'll watch some more of it in class later.

Anyway, class was really great and I'm excited for the whole semester. My professor said he was the first in the country to do his doctoral thesis on the Beat Generation and has studied under various Beat authors and authorities.

replies to comments:
Becca: That actually sounds like a lot of fun. Perhaps it should have gone down that way. At least I wish we'd run into pasta. We both love it.

Tonight for dinner: a dish called Rasta Pasta.

Jeremy: I'll do my best. I won't exactly write down a synopsis of each class or anything, but I'll try to post a note here and there about cool things I've learned.

Thanks for the comments!

This past weekend was crazy/busy/great/nuts/tonsofun.

Friday night:
S. and I journeyed to Lincoln and hung out with Jason (Morehead, of Opuszine fame), Liz, Jill, and a couple others. We went to Yia-Yia's, a pizza spot in the downtown. Actually, S. and I parked by Jason's house (he lives a few blocks from the capitol building) and the three of us walked over. Anyway, the pizza was good as usual and it was a good time despite being in a noisy place.

Saturday:
We went to the Nebraska State Fair. I had never been to a state fair before and S. loves fairs, so we were pretty excited to go. She's quite a bit more into animals than I am, but a fair offers quite a few interesting things, including the animals, and we both had a great time. We wandered several hours in scorching, humid heat and it tired us out quite a bit, so we ended up sitting in a grandstand, watching part of a llama show. We also wandered around and looked at the goats. My brain got a little fried, so I forget most of the rest of the time (or perhaps just don't feel like getting into details), but we enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. Pigs are scary. Not just the cops, but the actual animals. Pigs and ostriches are perhaps the scariest creatures on earth. S. is more convinced than ever that someday we should get a goat, and llamas have now been added to the list. She also fed a giraffe.

Saturday night we drove downtown and checked out the Santa Lucia festival. It's an Italian festival here in the Big O. It was all right. A mediocre bar band was playing on a stage and we couldn't really escape them. We ate breadsticks and a funnel cake with strawberries. We were hoping to run into some pasta, but couldn't find any to be had (though I heard rumors that it did exist), but that turned out to be fine in the long run, I suppose. We also were somewhat intrigued (that's a fairly dishonest yet positive term for our feelings in regard to this) by a young lady who was wearing a bikini top and apparently had lost her sandals while turning tricks (this is only speculation) behind the meatball sandwich cart or perhaps on the ferris wheel. While the details of where all she had been are sketchy at best, she had definitely gone down the giant slip-n-slide, an inadvisable move for someone wearing see-through white shorts as she was. She kept flirting with a couple of guys who appeared to be on vacation from their usual Saturday night routine of chain-smoking and trying to pick up women in the Super Wal*Mart parking lot. S. asked me which one I thought she would go home with. I told her that I'd bet my money on "both."

Most of Saturday I'd had a pretty nasty headache. I attributed this to the fact that I hadn't had any caffeine all day and as time went on, I knew that walking around in the heat couldn't be helping. Still, we had a wonderful time and enough energy to be making fun of people even late at night at the downtown festival. We went back to her place to watch some television and have some sort of snack or something, just regular winding down stuff. However, my body decided it was just plain unhappy and I spent most of the next couple hours in her bathroom, eventually allowing my stomach to toss up whatever was causing all the discomfort. I just sort of collapsed there that night and that was that. Despite the fact that her kitten has no real concept of "sick" and therefore kept wanting to play with me, this was the best idea as my place features two steep staircases between my bed and the bathroom and hadn't been air-conditioned all day. I was exhausted and sadly, missed church the next morning, but was feeling pretty decent by the afternoon.
We took it pretty easy most of Sunday. I did some cleaning around my house and we watched the Cubs game (well, I watched while S. used the computer and took a nap I envied). Sunday night we ate breadsticks and watched the first half or so of Pulp Fiction.

And that was my weekend.

And now starts the craziness of full-time work and 3 classes each for both of us.

Tonight...my literature Beats & Hippies class. I'm excited.

Almost September and the Cubs are in a tight 3-team pennant race. Today they're only a 1/2 game back of the other two teams. This is exciting.

More to Come.

current song playing: "Back in Black."

current newfound love: Goodrich's "Peanut Butter Fudge" ice cream. Chunk me up.

current little thing that likes to bother me: smudges on my glasses.

current "this is a news item?" news item: apparently Snoop Dogg has announced that his retirement from smoking weed is over.

current Angry Shouting Match in the making: the university I'm attending apparently has invented new fees on top of new fees. They now charge a $20 "Enrollment Services" fee. In other words, we charge you a fee for the privilege of processing your transaction with us that brings us money.

Straight out of Office Space, it would seem...

I hate to be a whiner, but it's quite difficult to get done a whole lot of work when:
1. your computer is low on RAM and quite slow (as in, if i have 3 things open, I can count on it not having the memory to play a CD for very long);
2. people are having a meeting in an office 10 feet behind you, talking loudly and laughing a lot (hey, I like them and am glad they're having fun, though!) with the door open;
3. email and the internet have been on the blink (going out for hours at a time sometimes) for 3 days now.

Some of us were joking that this has us all getting up for coffee more often, going to the restroom more often, thus making us healthier. Sort of.
Then again, this is havoc on mental health.

Today is the big Faculty/Staff Picnic on campus. They have free food, give out prizes, etc. I'm not going today, though. For one, I'm doing really well at being a vegetarian right now and free chicken or something would be a big temptation. More importantly, next week S. starts working and lunches together will be a rarity (and really, supper together will only happen on Friday night and weekends, too) other than Sundays. So we'll go eat a sandwich or something.

Quick Note: There's a Tilt-A-Whirl on the street next block over. Someone said it's for the Santa Lucia Festival this weekend. Between maybe going to that and the State Fair in Lincoln, I think we've officially found stuff to do this weekend.

It's about this time (mid-afternoon) that I'm either hungry again after a light lunch, or I'm desperately pinching myself and drinking ultra-cold water to stay awake. Some days I attempt to solve both possibilities at once by eating sweets and drinking coffee. Mid-afternoons have given me pudge and a craving for sugar that I never really had before.
Today was a light lunch...this is definitely the more preferable of the two.

re: Comments...

hehe...yes...FATALITY.

Listening to:
Over the Rhine, Kings of Leon, Neil Young, Atmosphere, NWA, Jesse Eubanks

Nothing too new to report here. I’ve had quite a few thoughts, but little opportunity to tap them out and get them on a screen.

At the moment, our department at work is having excruciatingly painful IT issues – our email and internet have both been down all day (and were much of yesterday afternoon).
The guy on campus said that the backbone is down. All I can picture in my mind is a scene from the infamous Mortal Kombat video game series where one of the characters, urged by the crowd to “Finish Him,” reaches into his opponent’s body, rips out the spine and proudly waves it for all to see.

Obviously this was written earlier, as I wouldn't be able to post it if the internet were still down.

I've been pretty busy...since the last entry (well, besides the one earlier today), S. and her family have moved her into town. I loved hanging out with them and she and I have spent a lot of time together since. She starts her job next week and I start school then, too (her school starts week after that, I believe), so very soon we'll be very very busy; I'm not used to being able to just relax on my evenings, much less spend time with her, and it will be awhile before I'll be able to again regularly, so we're really enjoying this week. Nothing like staying up late having undisturbed conversations. We've also enjoyed renting the occasional movie. Last night we watched "Steal This Movie," a biographic film about Abbie Hoffman. Fascinating, Inspiring.

We've been "officially" together 6 months as of today. So the schmoopy blather is allowed. : )

In other news, I'd just like to say that Carter is great with the Vagrant Cafe web design.

Response to comments:

Kelly: Exactly. I get irritated and frustrated by telemarketers...who doesn't? But it's a part of capitalism, albeit a sometimes ugly part. People have options like Caller ID and answering services.
I will say that at what point telemarketers start calling my cellphone, I'll be a bit more aggressive in my attitude, since I have a limited number of total minutes I can use and I have to pay significant fees if I go over.

Carter: Several times, actually.

Bweka: Hi. : )

I don't know anyone who enjoys getting spam. I do my share of grumbling about unsolicited ads, that's for sure.
Now the government is promising (and beginning to deliver on) anti-spam legislation. We're working on shutting spammers down.

Yet...is this a good thing?
OF COURSE, you tell me, as if I'm crazy.
However...someone out there gets paid to spam. Companies wouldn't spam if there weren't a return, if people weren't responding to the ads. So...spam helps further the economy...does that mean, then, that less spam will reduce income for some, thus becoming a well-intentioned blow to an already crippled economy?
I have no idea. Just something I was thinking about.

************ASTRONOMY UPDATE*******************
Well, on my fourth and final test, my grade equaled the score of the second test, which had been my worst of the three.
My final grade? B-
I think the prof noodled with things a bit to boost us all just a little bit. God bless him.

I have a lot to do tonight. The Cubs are on, so after 7:05pm, it'll have to be done while watching them. I think I can manage.

Wheat pita is where it's at.

Stacey & family should be arriving sometime tomorrow. No one really knows when...which makes it exciting, I suppose.

You know, it's really great to live in an age where we can blog. Someday maybe I'll actually take advantage of it. Well, you know, more often.

Tonight I finished my last chapter of my Online Astronomy course. Now just the test tomorrow. Then I have a couple weeks off until fall semester. This week will still be very busy, but next week hopefully I can get some relaxation.
It's Sunday night and I'm finally done with the very necessary work that had to be done...and have a little time to write...but my mind is too tired. This is how it's been for far too long now. I'm really very sorry, I apologize to myself.
The past couple weekends have been crazy busy but fun. Last week a group of us went to see Unwed Sailor in Des Moines. It was quite great to spend time with old friends again. I miss times in Chicago. I went to Des Moines with Liz, Jason (aka Mr. Opuszine) and Jared, a friend we've all recently made. He's a really sharp guy, as my dad would say. A really good guy and lots of fun. That was Saturday night and the night after that, some of us went to Jared's because a farmer friend had given him lots of corn. So we sat around and ate corn on the cob. That's the kind of fun we have here in Nebraska and Iowa (where he technically lives).
This weekend Kevin from St. Louis drove up. Friday night was a birthday part of Jill, which was a good time. Then Saturday Jonathon Smith and Katy (a wonderfully happy engaged couple, I should point out) came up. We attempted a cookout--my veggie/soy items turned out all right, but the rest of the (meat) stuff didn't quite get done. I'm the worst griller ever. Well, I shouldn't say that...technically I'm still not a griller, so I'd be making progress just to be the worst griller ever. I grew up with a gas grill, what can I say? Anyway, after that Jonathon played a set on his guitar in my living room. I'm not going to give a review, but it was a blast. I really do love his songs and they're interesting both lyrically and musically and you should all really give his tunes a listen. I'll link later when I'm not lazy. I forget what else we did except I watched the Cubs lose their second in a row in L.A. (they won today, though) and we sat around listening to music and we ended up going out for a latenight ice cream run. They came to church with me this morning, we ate some lunch, and they had to be on their way. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening working on that Astronomy, watching the Cubs beat the Dodgers (then later, the Cardinals beat the Braves) while I studied and mumbled and scratched my head. Kevin and Liz and I all got a kick out of the neighborhood kids. Now that they know I have a scooter, they ask to borrow it all the time but are VERY impressively good about returning it to me. One boy came and rang my doorbell and knocked to return it to me tonight. Anyway, there's the report on my weekend. Oh, and we got some decent rain this evening.

I'd make comments about how much I'm dreading going into work these days, but who knows, someone from work may read this, so I'll save it.

A quick note and a mostly empty promise for an update later.

Anyway, today ended up being one of those days at work that makes me really reconsider my policy of not having a couple drinks for lunch or between work and class.
Thank God for:
1. Stacey -- she listened to my whining and was just wonderful as always.
2. Uncut magazine compilation CDs and The Zombies' BRILLIANT album, Odessey & Oracle.
3. Blimpie's sandwiches.

This is summer session finals week. Only one more week of Astronomy.

I think I'm going to mass tomorrow night. There's a special one commemorating the Transfiguration. I've missed the last couple Sundays due to sickness and to being out of town (more on that later, if I remember) and I've really missed mass.