Turns out there is usefulness in being a teacher who loses her voice.
NO, it is not staying home, because who would do that for anything short of death?! Rather, it is the whispering.
Try it. Turns out that when you whisper to people, they get shifty eyed, lean in close, and they whisper back. After a spell, they sometimes whisper,
"Why are we whispering?"
To which you rasp,
"Well, I am whispering because I lost my voice and have no choice. I have no idea, really, why you are talking like this."
This generally causes them to snap straight up, "Oh."
And yet they keep whispering. Coooooooool.
Turns out there is also a limit to the usefulness of the lost voice. The limit of people caring about your lost voice is.... 48 hours. Then it is yesterday's news like the Gore-Bush voting problem. Dull. And to be ignored.
Spring Break Spring Break Spring Break. If I whisper it, will it come?
3.20.2007
Slowly pickled in a barrel of poetic monkeys*
(*thanks BW)
The assignment: Write something frivolous and fun and decidedly mediocre
The result: Deeply despairing poets eat too many Samoa cookies and
(1) Concur that this assignment was indeed "the most challenging ever. I declare, I just couldn't do it."
(2) Use the feedback phrase "palindromic tonalities."
(3) Write poems, seemingly all every single one about sex.
(4) Write poems that begin with love and end with kittens being eaten in an effort to get attention, as a snack. A kitten. As a snack.
(5) Scream out, "Laura Bush is a Bitch."
The assignment: Write something frivolous and fun and decidedly mediocre
The result: Deeply despairing poets eat too many Samoa cookies and
(1) Concur that this assignment was indeed "the most challenging ever. I declare, I just couldn't do it."
(2) Use the feedback phrase "palindromic tonalities."
(3) Write poems, seemingly all every single one about sex.
(4) Write poems that begin with love and end with kittens being eaten in an effort to get attention, as a snack. A kitten. As a snack.
(5) Scream out, "Laura Bush is a Bitch."
3.19.2007
Holistic Health, Making Me Feel More Ill Each Day
The invite I received to the departmental open house included this part on the agenda...
430-7: Developing Meaningful Conversations -
Part of National Conversation Week, March 25-31
430-6: Conversation Cafe
And since I could not resist, please enjoy the First Question under the OPENING QUESTIONS right side bar:
Opening Questions
"What do you think is the most important question in the world now?"
If anyone ever asked me that question, it would be the opening and closing question in that conversation, thanks.
430-7: Developing Meaningful Conversations -
Part of National Conversation Week, March 25-31
430-6: Conversation Cafe
And since I could not resist, please enjoy the First Question under the OPENING QUESTIONS right side bar:
Opening Questions
"What do you think is the most important question in the world now?"
If anyone ever asked me that question, it would be the opening and closing question in that conversation, thanks.
3.18.2007
Iʻm just a gal whose intentions are good, oh lord, please donʻt let me be misunderstood
I wonder if those founding father types back in the day of the U.S. said to eachother: "Dude, I'm totally manifesting conquering that group over there. I'm just manifesting my destiny, dude." "Yeah, dude, that is why it is called Manifest Destiny and all." "Dude."
If so, that word? It needs to be retired.
This weekend, I learned that I am tired of the following Weekend Sponsorship words:
* Intention
* Manifest
* Burner, the Burn, The Playa
* Sparkle
I will spare y'all the sordid details of the whole thing, but here's what I will share....
1. I sat in the corner of this party this weekend, listening to the music and staring at the scene with eyes saucer-round, feeling the antennae grow til they wove around me like snail eyes.
2. A fella we'll call Anthony happened upon my corner. I had to bury myself in his coat, it was so furry and lovely. He allowed me. Good guy, pretty chill, dressed up a la Great Gatsby, wearing fer reals golf shoes at a dance-focused party. Interesting.
3. A fella happened upon us, introducing himself as “Hi. I’m Bryan. With a Y.”
Me (S): I’m Sara, with an h.
A: I’m Anthony, with a Y. Otherwise it would be Anthon, which would be weird.
(Pause. B makes first frowny face of the evening)
B: The Y is very important.
S and A: Why?
B: Because if you are Brian with an I, people switch the letters in their heads and call you Brain.
A: Why?
S: (think to myself…. Er… now, I am highly dyslexic, but, er… I would WRITE Brain, but even I would not call a Brian Brain, although I am slightly Tourettic, so now actually I might… at least this Brian)
S: So, um, if you are Bryan with a y, don’t people call you Brany then?
(Pause. Second frowny face of the evening)
A: Oooh, I love that. I am so going to call you Brany. Hi Brany.
(Frowny face becomes creasy)
B: So (throat clearing, body shifting to change conversation and block Anthon with a Y), I believe in creating intentions each time I attend an event. I find it allows me to manifest my desires. I always manifest my intentions.
You, the Reader: (uh-oh)
S: (eyes roll like pinwheels). Howʻs that manifesting going for you right now, Brany? (Blink) What are your intentions at this event? Because you know if you tell someone, it is more written in stone and that might make a person more accountable and less likely to shape-shift their intentions in retrospect at the end of the evening. So it might be easier to test your hypothesis that you manifest every one of your intentions and all. So what are your intentions?
B: What are your intentions? Hmmm?
S: I’m totally anti-the-intentions-and-manifesting. Not to yuck your yum – you keep having those intentional manifestings. Power to you and bye-bye.
B: So you come to a party with no intentions?! And look at you - you are just going to hole up in a corner and no one is ever going to talk with you and nothing will ever happen to you! (Storms off, taking creased brow brooding with him)
S: (Blink) Weird.
1 hour later
4. Passed by Brooding Bryan with a y talking to another female. He sees me, glares at me, and plants a fat kiss on the girl while staring at me. Charming.
5. Confused by the hostile act of kissing, I consult the Great Gatsby Anthon y, who informs that B was flirting and, while I am not a burner, I burned him. I missed all that.
Several hours later
6. Recount tragic boo-boo story to the Smurf, who recognizes the person, which allows me to learn that this particular piece of work has managed to manifest himself a whole agency which gives workshops to men on how to converse with females. Whaaaaaaaat?!
My latest intention? To manifest an infestation to eat those two words alive.
If so, that word? It needs to be retired.
This weekend, I learned that I am tired of the following Weekend Sponsorship words:
* Intention
* Manifest
* Burner, the Burn, The Playa
* Sparkle
I will spare y'all the sordid details of the whole thing, but here's what I will share....
1. I sat in the corner of this party this weekend, listening to the music and staring at the scene with eyes saucer-round, feeling the antennae grow til they wove around me like snail eyes.
2. A fella we'll call Anthony happened upon my corner. I had to bury myself in his coat, it was so furry and lovely. He allowed me. Good guy, pretty chill, dressed up a la Great Gatsby, wearing fer reals golf shoes at a dance-focused party. Interesting.
3. A fella happened upon us, introducing himself as “Hi. I’m Bryan. With a Y.”
Me (S): I’m Sara, with an h.
A: I’m Anthony, with a Y. Otherwise it would be Anthon, which would be weird.
(Pause. B makes first frowny face of the evening)
B: The Y is very important.
S and A: Why?
B: Because if you are Brian with an I, people switch the letters in their heads and call you Brain.
A: Why?
S: (think to myself…. Er… now, I am highly dyslexic, but, er… I would WRITE Brain, but even I would not call a Brian Brain, although I am slightly Tourettic, so now actually I might… at least this Brian)
S: So, um, if you are Bryan with a y, don’t people call you Brany then?
(Pause. Second frowny face of the evening)
A: Oooh, I love that. I am so going to call you Brany. Hi Brany.
(Frowny face becomes creasy)
B: So (throat clearing, body shifting to change conversation and block Anthon with a Y), I believe in creating intentions each time I attend an event. I find it allows me to manifest my desires. I always manifest my intentions.
You, the Reader: (uh-oh)
S: (eyes roll like pinwheels). Howʻs that manifesting going for you right now, Brany? (Blink) What are your intentions at this event? Because you know if you tell someone, it is more written in stone and that might make a person more accountable and less likely to shape-shift their intentions in retrospect at the end of the evening. So it might be easier to test your hypothesis that you manifest every one of your intentions and all. So what are your intentions?
B: What are your intentions? Hmmm?
S: I’m totally anti-the-intentions-and-manifesting. Not to yuck your yum – you keep having those intentional manifestings. Power to you and bye-bye.
B: So you come to a party with no intentions?! And look at you - you are just going to hole up in a corner and no one is ever going to talk with you and nothing will ever happen to you! (Storms off, taking creased brow brooding with him)
S: (Blink) Weird.
1 hour later
4. Passed by Brooding Bryan with a y talking to another female. He sees me, glares at me, and plants a fat kiss on the girl while staring at me. Charming.
5. Confused by the hostile act of kissing, I consult the Great Gatsby Anthon y, who informs that B was flirting and, while I am not a burner, I burned him. I missed all that.
Several hours later
6. Recount tragic boo-boo story to the Smurf, who recognizes the person, which allows me to learn that this particular piece of work has managed to manifest himself a whole agency which gives workshops to men on how to converse with females. Whaaaaaaaat?!
My latest intention? To manifest an infestation to eat those two words alive.
3.13.2007
At least we aren't taking ourselves too seriously
It's mid-semester, practically, meaning the class honeymoon is over. It is like the Real World in here, right around the time people stop being polite and start being migraine producing. The recent outbreak of Name Drop Syndrome has become an epidemic, resulting in the distinct feeling that though there are technically only 14 of us in the class, it feels like everyone has grown second heads and there are 40 or so voices-opinions present at any given time, more than half of whom are famous poets ... of whom I have never heard. It reminds me a bit of when I didn't have a TV and everyone related things to Brady Bunch episodes. [Yep, I was ignorant then and, well, now .... so be it.] Though I wonder, is it good or bad to have announced each poem as containing cosmic twins in the universe of Apparently Brilliantly Famous Unfamiliar Names? Hard to know, since all such pronouncements are unerringly followed by the omnipresent class choral hmmmmm.
Concerned our class is becoming too big for our britches, the quite adore-worthy Professor Palm-Sweats-On-Both-Sides has us read for our opening poems (kinda the equivalent of the sacrificial poet at a reading - but published and not present, etc.) a selection of amazon.com reviews done by some well-known San Francisco writer Kevin Killian (whom I'd of course never heard of because I apparently came of literary age in a metaphorical cold wet cement tunnel.... refer back to the Brady Bunch childhood 'problem' if I have lost you). So this Kevin Killian fella had had a heart attack and pulled himself back into writing just for the love of it by writing amazon.com reviews, inadvertently (perhaps) building himself some funny cult following for reviews on such things as Alien Green Belly Button Rings or Doctor Zhivago or Khaki Shorts with Yellow Stitching. Deeply unhelpful reviews that seemingly at best 1 out of 1 people found helpful. Which mostly served to show me that Poets should maybe not write reviews and post them and eventually have them bound into a book because (1) those reviews are sometimes not so much buyerly helpful (not that I care so much) as they are aurally interesting and (2) poets lie for the sake of their writing, which is decidedly not helpful in a review and (3) the presence of such work serves to enrage a certain test group of MFA candidates, who become inspired to debate what "constitutes" poetry ad nauseam for an hour or so while I grow hungrier.
And it really didn't help that for our assignment we had to write from a "controversial" piece of art, which turned out to be weirdly specifically interpreted to mean artists seemingly known by everyone in the class but your resident M.Ed. alien, who as usual missed the unspoken subtext of the assignment and wrote from this absolutely grotesque french ceramic piece that really looks like what a midwestern grandma giant would collect as a little porcelain figurine for her living room hutch. It was a poorly glazed life-sized 'one amber glass-eyed goat walking its way up another goat to get tall enough to see whatever it was looking at' item. I was informed that I'd missed the "controversial" part of the project, though I'd argue that such a hideous, neither artist-associated nor functional piece should be controversial in the sense that really should it be called art at all because wasn't that a slap in the face to artists, ceramicists, children who play in clay, sculptors, and goats everywhere or should it just be quietly hurled from a large building in which you could still open the windows?
So, in keeping with particular amazon.com reviewers, Teacher Palm Poet has sought to deflate our class by assigning us the task of creating frivolous, fluffy, superficial, and mediocre poems for next week. Flabby, dull poetry with no hidden subtext? No problem! 'Tis, of course, my area of expertise.
Til then...
Concerned our class is becoming too big for our britches, the quite adore-worthy Professor Palm-Sweats-On-Both-Sides has us read for our opening poems (kinda the equivalent of the sacrificial poet at a reading - but published and not present, etc.) a selection of amazon.com reviews done by some well-known San Francisco writer Kevin Killian (whom I'd of course never heard of because I apparently came of literary age in a metaphorical cold wet cement tunnel.... refer back to the Brady Bunch childhood 'problem' if I have lost you). So this Kevin Killian fella had had a heart attack and pulled himself back into writing just for the love of it by writing amazon.com reviews, inadvertently (perhaps) building himself some funny cult following for reviews on such things as Alien Green Belly Button Rings or Doctor Zhivago or Khaki Shorts with Yellow Stitching. Deeply unhelpful reviews that seemingly at best 1 out of 1 people found helpful. Which mostly served to show me that Poets should maybe not write reviews and post them and eventually have them bound into a book because (1) those reviews are sometimes not so much buyerly helpful (not that I care so much) as they are aurally interesting and (2) poets lie for the sake of their writing, which is decidedly not helpful in a review and (3) the presence of such work serves to enrage a certain test group of MFA candidates, who become inspired to debate what "constitutes" poetry ad nauseam for an hour or so while I grow hungrier.
And it really didn't help that for our assignment we had to write from a "controversial" piece of art, which turned out to be weirdly specifically interpreted to mean artists seemingly known by everyone in the class but your resident M.Ed. alien, who as usual missed the unspoken subtext of the assignment and wrote from this absolutely grotesque french ceramic piece that really looks like what a midwestern grandma giant would collect as a little porcelain figurine for her living room hutch. It was a poorly glazed life-sized 'one amber glass-eyed goat walking its way up another goat to get tall enough to see whatever it was looking at' item. I was informed that I'd missed the "controversial" part of the project, though I'd argue that such a hideous, neither artist-associated nor functional piece should be controversial in the sense that really should it be called art at all because wasn't that a slap in the face to artists, ceramicists, children who play in clay, sculptors, and goats everywhere or should it just be quietly hurled from a large building in which you could still open the windows?
So, in keeping with particular amazon.com reviewers, Teacher Palm Poet has sought to deflate our class by assigning us the task of creating frivolous, fluffy, superficial, and mediocre poems for next week. Flabby, dull poetry with no hidden subtext? No problem! 'Tis, of course, my area of expertise.
Til then...
3.07.2007
Once I Loved Velasquez's Venus
How is it that when a fellow who was clearly a cheating lying woman-using pig when he was younger becomes essentially a dirty old man, suddenly everyone has empathy for his character and attributes to him a quiet beautiful power for being the personification of age-stereotype bashing? Isn't that just ageism? Dirty young man becomes lecherous old guy, which somehow makes him sympathetic as a character? Whatever. Yes, the film has its points. But whatever anyways.
And on top of that, I adored that painting.
But alas, another piece of childhood innocence was stripped away tonight by my trust in the Balboa Theater's reliability as the source of All Things Good.
Not even the Bear Whisperer could save me from O'Toole's egomaniacal soft porn Lolita fantasy, so it must really have been a nightmare. Not even a de-pigmentizing full-body-emersion bleach bath + brillo + lye could fade the emotional scarring. Next time, I will at least familiarize myself with the movie's purported overall purpose. Next time.
And on top of that, I adored that painting.
But alas, another piece of childhood innocence was stripped away tonight by my trust in the Balboa Theater's reliability as the source of All Things Good.
Not even the Bear Whisperer could save me from O'Toole's egomaniacal soft porn Lolita fantasy, so it must really have been a nightmare. Not even a de-pigmentizing full-body-emersion bleach bath + brillo + lye could fade the emotional scarring. Next time, I will at least familiarize myself with the movie's purported overall purpose. Next time.
3.06.2007
Really, I am Learning So Much
Tonight, I learned how to write a poem. And not a mediocre poem (although, luckily for you, the poem I wrote is still decidedly mediocre). A deep poem. A poem so deep the bends are gotten. A poem so profound it is, well, unintelligible.
And since I am a sharer, you get to learn, too.
The Assignment: Write a Poem Using 'Found' Language
MFA Candidate Approach:
1. Select the first paragraph of a short story you have written in your 7,000 years identifying as a writer. It doesn't have to be any good. No plot is necessary. Don't worry about all that.
2. Copy and paste it into on-line translation service.
3. Turn it into a Romance Language.
4. Turn that into Japanese.
5. Then maybe German.
6. Then back to English.
7. Preferably repeat process with Swedish, etc. until it has become almost isotope-like in its instability, even in the 'bizarre and nonsensical' world of words strung together.
8. Cut and paste result into a word document.
9. Pinky-finger-tap that Return or Tab key with abandon to visually shape paragraph into a poem.
10. Make 15 copies to bring to class.
11. Pass out to colleagues. Listen as other MFA candidates focus on the power of image twisting and rhythmic vibrations. Ignore the non-MFA candidate as she attempts to quietly massage the "huh?!!!" headache throb out of her temples and replace her confusion with her happy place.
12. Receive 14 painstakingly critiqued copies back.
Example [Minus the ever-essential formatting, because I am too computer illiterate to format a poem to be justified, centered, right-justified, etc. on the blog...]
And this one actually makes comparative sense. Sorta.
What's funny is that THAT is apparently the standard way of creating a found language poem. It is almost anti-private-writers-club/egalitarian.
So I missed learning that whole technique, as usual. Maybe I was late for the previous class or something. Or maybe I missed an entire CW class prerequisite known as the MFA-Candidate Brainwashing. But, left to my own devices, I found my language from the titles of Craigslist missed connections. Because anyone who knows me knows that, true to my polyamorous nature, second to my profound love affair with the 22, I have a fatty crush on CL's MC section. I could eat that for breakfast with saag paneer and die a happy girl.
So, minus of course the actual poem layout, here's the SB-MEd-candidate approach to found language poetry writing:
1. Panic that class is coming and homework as usual as a concept has only just begun to be a scratch on the brain.
2. Take refuge in the tear-producing hilarity of the MC section of Craigslist because secretly you are a romantic of sorts.
3. Cute and paste every title from one day, preferable some morning-after weekend day, into a word document.
4. Shuffle them about for nine minutes into some internal logic mediocre poem shape before falling asleep with the computer open.
5. Wake up, wipe chin, print poem, work all day.
6. Pass out 14 copies to class.
7. Get told, "Well, this clearly is from her project rather than her found language piece, because the narrative is clear and the opening conversation purposeful in its tone."
8. Get told, "This piece is just SO reminiscent of O'Hare."
9. Wonder and eventually get to ask, "Um... who's O'Hare?"
10. Realize after saying this how interesting it is that MFA candidate eyes can both bulge and roll at the same time. [As if proving my ignorance for having grown up literarily in the equivalent of cement tubing, it has since been brought to my attention that the fellaʻs name is OʻHara.]
11. Get no feedback about image twisting and rhythmic vibrations.
12. Get passionate and diametrically opposed feedback that must have come out through an MFA candidate on-line translation machine because it is lyrical and rhythmic and makes no sense.
13. [NOTE: THIS IS AN ADD-ON ACTIVITY TO FURTHER YOUR LEARNING, BUT NOT NECESSARY] Laugh and laugh at break at the level of disdain in the room as classmates kvetch about how bourgeoisie a certain private school's writing program is, how COMFORTABLE their facilities are, what with couches and heat and coffee and copies provided and private writing rooms overlooking nature, because really WHO could possibly WRITE anything of value under such comfortable conditions. [Good thing we public schoolers are not snobs.]
14. Laugh at own poem because really this alternate universe is ultimately at least entertaining and not the worst way to spend three hours a week.
15. Despite a little embarassment, post own poem on blog so as not to protect yourself or pretend that you think you are better than these folks (truth be told, actually some of their found poetry was really quite interesting. Uh-oh, maybe the class thing is wearing off.)
(enjoy more of S's mediocre poetry):
And since I am a sharer, you get to learn, too.
The Assignment: Write a Poem Using 'Found' Language
MFA Candidate Approach:
1. Select the first paragraph of a short story you have written in your 7,000 years identifying as a writer. It doesn't have to be any good. No plot is necessary. Don't worry about all that.
2. Copy and paste it into on-line translation service.
3. Turn it into a Romance Language.
4. Turn that into Japanese.
5. Then maybe German.
6. Then back to English.
7. Preferably repeat process with Swedish, etc. until it has become almost isotope-like in its instability, even in the 'bizarre and nonsensical' world of words strung together.
8. Cut and paste result into a word document.
9. Pinky-finger-tap that Return or Tab key with abandon to visually shape paragraph into a poem.
10. Make 15 copies to bring to class.
11. Pass out to colleagues. Listen as other MFA candidates focus on the power of image twisting and rhythmic vibrations. Ignore the non-MFA candidate as she attempts to quietly massage the "huh?!!!" headache throb out of her temples and replace her confusion with her happy place.
12. Receive 14 painstakingly critiqued copies back.
Example [Minus the ever-essential formatting, because I am too computer illiterate to format a poem to be justified, centered, right-justified, etc. on the blog...]
Behind the breaks[Total time from conception to birth: 13 minutes. Original paragraph: See #11.]
external to colleagues
to truck others, candidates
of the AMF
of her
concentrated , the vrillage
of the illustration
of the energy
the shocks
of the rhythmatics
hear itself
MFA of the candidate
as its inconsciemment
that does not try, calm, collect
them "huh?!!!"headaches
beat to the breaks
external one, his one, his handsful
its disturbance with being happy
the place I replaced.
And this one actually makes comparative sense. Sorta.
What's funny is that THAT is apparently the standard way of creating a found language poem. It is almost anti-private-writers-club/egalitarian.
So I missed learning that whole technique, as usual. Maybe I was late for the previous class or something. Or maybe I missed an entire CW class prerequisite known as the MFA-Candidate Brainwashing. But, left to my own devices, I found my language from the titles of Craigslist missed connections. Because anyone who knows me knows that, true to my polyamorous nature, second to my profound love affair with the 22, I have a fatty crush on CL's MC section. I could eat that for breakfast with saag paneer and die a happy girl.
So, minus of course the actual poem layout, here's the SB-MEd-candidate approach to found language poetry writing:
1. Panic that class is coming and homework as usual as a concept has only just begun to be a scratch on the brain.
2. Take refuge in the tear-producing hilarity of the MC section of Craigslist because secretly you are a romantic of sorts.
3. Cute and paste every title from one day, preferable some morning-after weekend day, into a word document.
4. Shuffle them about for nine minutes into some internal logic mediocre poem shape before falling asleep with the computer open.
5. Wake up, wipe chin, print poem, work all day.
6. Pass out 14 copies to class.
7. Get told, "Well, this clearly is from her project rather than her found language piece, because the narrative is clear and the opening conversation purposeful in its tone."
8. Get told, "This piece is just SO reminiscent of O'Hare."
9. Wonder and eventually get to ask, "Um... who's O'Hare?"
10. Realize after saying this how interesting it is that MFA candidate eyes can both bulge and roll at the same time. [As if proving my ignorance for having grown up literarily in the equivalent of cement tubing, it has since been brought to my attention that the fellaʻs name is OʻHara.]
11. Get no feedback about image twisting and rhythmic vibrations.
12. Get passionate and diametrically opposed feedback that must have come out through an MFA candidate on-line translation machine because it is lyrical and rhythmic and makes no sense.
13. [NOTE: THIS IS AN ADD-ON ACTIVITY TO FURTHER YOUR LEARNING, BUT NOT NECESSARY] Laugh and laugh at break at the level of disdain in the room as classmates kvetch about how bourgeoisie a certain private school's writing program is, how COMFORTABLE their facilities are, what with couches and heat and coffee and copies provided and private writing rooms overlooking nature, because really WHO could possibly WRITE anything of value under such comfortable conditions. [Good thing we public schoolers are not snobs.]
14. Laugh at own poem because really this alternate universe is ultimately at least entertaining and not the worst way to spend three hours a week.
15. Despite a little embarassment, post own poem on blog so as not to protect yourself or pretend that you think you are better than these folks (truth be told, actually some of their found poetry was really quite interesting. Uh-oh, maybe the class thing is wearing off.)
(enjoy more of S's mediocre poetry):
My Craigslist MC
I was eating cake when I met you
I was eating a late lunch and I think you were too
I am in love with you
That sounds creepy
I think
grey girl silver Chevy
our eyes lock across Canvas Café
bicycle Bell Lady
off rack of Geary’s Goodwill
hammocks and hot tubs
paganbeautyjew
hushed next to you
by the sea
you turn to me, say
it’s ok to use the bridge
Dreamy Ms. Margo
small drip please
crosswalk compliment
fell peets KT
You wore a short curly red haired lady
I cannot remember your unusual name
This is a serious question:
Why am I so afraid of you
3.04.2007
Screw the Ides of March: Truncated Diatribe #2789
Honestly, I don't know why everyone hates March so much. Now, February? I understand that. Even in a leap-year, February has a short-guy complex of Napoleonic proportions. There are some kerjillion potential Holiday Mondays in February that could further chisel away at this Farcockteh February that's farshlepteh krenk, but to no avail. Might as well end of Daylight Savings Time during February while you're at it and take away one more hour of February. S.F. was bone-cold damp, teachers looked like the cast of Shawn of the Dead, whippersnappers were snarkier and more V-Day sugared-up than ever, the honeymoon was over, and poor lunar new year was really just starting to crawl backwards, so it could not defend itself. Thus it is my political position that at least north of the equator, we should make some changes:
1. There should be 11 principal months, all with 33 days in them. No prime numbers, no musical-learner rhymes or knuckle counting to figure out when to manually roll-forward your old watch's date function into the next month, no more variations in answers to extra credit math problems such as, "LeRoy bought 17 oranges to ensure he got the same dose of Vitamin C every day. If he wants the pile of oranges to last three month, how many oranges can he eat each day and how many should he refrigerate until he is ready?" And the system would take care of 363 days of the year.
2. Then there would be 1-2 days of February. Any day that falls in February would be a holiday. February would become Festive February. People would be disappointed if it was a "short" February rather than a "long" one. This change in February's self image would be healthy, despite the unfortunate caveat of "excluding the month of February" from any and all math word problems remotely resembling the aforementioned example.
In the meantime, I wriggle in delight at the balmy sunshine of S.F's March arrival and embrace the Ides with open arms while such a thing still exists.
Post-It Note: My friend Mistry pointed out that I could push my agenda on the various candidates running for particular federal offices and see who will take it on, offering the promise of my vote in return. Why not? Issue focused voters are all the rage these days.
1. There should be 11 principal months, all with 33 days in them. No prime numbers, no musical-learner rhymes or knuckle counting to figure out when to manually roll-forward your old watch's date function into the next month, no more variations in answers to extra credit math problems such as, "LeRoy bought 17 oranges to ensure he got the same dose of Vitamin C every day. If he wants the pile of oranges to last three month, how many oranges can he eat each day and how many should he refrigerate until he is ready?" And the system would take care of 363 days of the year.
2. Then there would be 1-2 days of February. Any day that falls in February would be a holiday. February would become Festive February. People would be disappointed if it was a "short" February rather than a "long" one. This change in February's self image would be healthy, despite the unfortunate caveat of "excluding the month of February" from any and all math word problems remotely resembling the aforementioned example.
In the meantime, I wriggle in delight at the balmy sunshine of S.F's March arrival and embrace the Ides with open arms while such a thing still exists.
Post-It Note: My friend Mistry pointed out that I could push my agenda on the various candidates running for particular federal offices and see who will take it on, offering the promise of my vote in return. Why not? Issue focused voters are all the rage these days.
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