Notes from the Quarantine

I wanted to update you more on my activities yesterday, my little mini-muffins, but for some reason Blogger wasn't working. So here's a run down of what I did.

5 hours--watched Law and Order (4 hours of vanilla, 1 of SVU)
2.5 hours--watched Surreal Life
1.5 hours--watched The True Hollywood Story of Full House
1 hour--watched Crossing Jordan
1 hour--watched The Simpsons
.5 hour--watched The Office

So yeah. For 12.5 hours yesterday, I watched TV. Sad, huh? Yeah it was. It wasn't even really that fun. There's aa big difference between wanting to veg out, and having to veg out because you feel like absolute shit.

And now I'm watching The Ashlee Simpson show which is barely entertaining but which in my extreme durress, is watchable. But here's my questions for Miss Ashlee:

1) Is your dad gay? Are you sure? Would you swear that in a court of law?
2) Exactly what Wal-Mart did you pick up your mother from? Did she work in women's apparel or hunting supplies?
3) Are you blind? Listen, I don't care if you sing your own stuff or not. But seriously. Can you see?
4) Speaking of, how's your acid reflux?
5) Do you know a guy named Pee Wee Johnson? He seems like someone you might know. If you do, tell him Morgan from the band said hi. That was me with the clarinet. And no, Pee Wee, I won't go on a double date with you and your brother, no matter how big the wheels on your truck are.
6) Is your sister an evil genius? Is she owned by a corporation? Wait, a minute. Don't answer. They might be watching. But, again, seriously. Is she?

Why doth this box torture me so? Damn you cathode ray tube. Damn you.

10:34--So this is why people work...

I have determined that 10:00 is officially the worst time to watch TV. There's nothing on. It's repulsive. Here's what I have learned:

1) Home movies of Eminem's child--not as interesting as one might think. And, maybe, just maybe, that should be considered child abuse.
2) If I were Macauley Culkin, I would be a crack head. Seriously. First, his dad takes his money and then he sleeps with Michael Jackson? Talk about your shitty luck. So comparatively, this mono thing is not that bad.
3) Billie Joe Armstrong....yummy. Is that sad? Yes, yes it is. No self respecting woman should ever feel sexually drawn to a man in eyeliner who is named "Billie Joe." Sigh. He does live in Berkeley. Hmmm.
4) Even a show as genius as The Golden Girls is bad in clip show format. Can we say "jump the shark"?
5) Al Green is a Rev. So now, when you're getting it on while listening to him, you can imagine him giving you a Bible and a little silver cross and telling you that Jesus loves you. See? Homemade birth control, and you don't owe me a thing.

More to come. Love you more than Eminem loves Hayley, without of course, tatooiing your image into my flesh.

8:25--Gwen Stefani is Giving Pirates a Bad Name

Has anyone checked to see if Gwen Stefani is suffering from scurvy? She looks rather scurvy-ish. I mean, it could explain the rather unfortunate fashion choices made in her new video (argyle tights with hot pants anyone?), and also could explain those bony, scary collarbone shots in afforementioned video. Eat a sandwich, Gwen. Geez.

And, if she's having to pay for medication, it could explain the sell-out. I mean, there's got to be a reason for going from punk/glamour girl to emaciated pirate thug by choice.

God, why did you take Gavin from me and give him to this abomination. You are a wrathful, vengeful God, you are.

7:57--A Running Log of My Worthlessness

I was sleeping a wonderful, infected sleep and my boyfriend woke me up (probably rightly) to take my medicine, which is some sort of steroid that makes me feel like I am mainlining espresso and Red Bull cocktails. So I am up for the morning. Shit.

This is going to be a running log of my infected activities. It will mostly concern the TV shows I watch, because that is probably the only thing I will be doing. I feel wretched: I don't see me moving a whole lot.

Currently I am sort of half watching "American Morning" on CNN which I thought might make me more intelligent but which is narrated by these drones who think bombs dropped on Japan make good satirical fodder. Why do people watch this shit? I think this is making me sicker. So much for self-improvement.

Have a good un, my little breakfast burritos.

Ok. So I found out why I am feeling depressed, why I have trouble staying up past 10:00, why my throat hurts, why I am grouchy and why I have an aching desire to spend my life watching television.

I have mono.

Seriously. I just got back from the Health Center. I am sick. I really am. I'm not depressed, I'm not having an existential crisis, I'm not just incredibly lazy. I, in my last semester of school, have an infectious disease.

And what makes this worse is that I have mono before. When I was 13. The doctor assured me that there are very, very few people who get mono twice, but that (GUESS WHAT?) I am one of those lucky souls. Sad, huh? So totally fucking sad.

So here's what I am going to do. I am going to sleep. I am going to watch TV. I am going to document the things I watch for posterity's sake. I am going to live a sad little life.

Fuck William and Mary. Fuck them all. I'm sure they gave me this somehow. I am miserable and sad and I hurt all over, and I'm going to have to lay in my bed and listen to goddamned Randall Terry because he is on every goddamned channel talking about who should live and who should die, when in reality, it is him who should contract syphilis from a male prostitute named Earl and who should get to the point of madness and be killed by Hannibal Lecter. Seriously. Now what the fuck was I talking about?

Oh yeah, I am sick. I don't know what this means academically, but really, I don't care. I will just lay here and ponder my shitty luck, and maybe someday I will reach some stage of enlightenment and it will all make sense.

Ho hum.

I am feeling very depressed as of late. From what I have been reading, it must be the weather or the water because everyone seems to be that way. I'm just blah. I wish I had more to say, some better way to describe it, but I don't.

And it's all weird because I should be at my most happiest right now. I'm getting ready to move to a new, exciting locale. I'm getting married. I'm graduating. But I just feel tired. I'm tired of functioning. I'm tired of moving. I just want to lay down for a while and not have to get up, no matter who wants me to and why.

At the Health Center, they say I am stressed. Stressed? I don't know. I'm something, but I don't think it is stressed. I am tired. Just really, really tired. I just want it all to stop. It shouldn't be that hard.

I am rereading The Bell Jar, and shit fire if it don't make sense this time.

I miss people. I miss my Kathleen and my Katie and my Bob and Amber and Rachel. But I swear to God, if I saw them right now, I don't even think I could talk to them. Isn't that weird? I want to talk, but then again, I just want people to leave me alone and just let me stop. I just want to sleep.

Why I Love "Full House"

Since Matt and I returned from the Bay Area, announcing that it truly will be our future home, we have been devouring anything and everything having to do with it. This includes watching Full House, which I hadn't seen since I was around 9 but now comes on Nick at Nite. In one way this makes me feel very, very old as when I was a wee youngin' I Dream of Jeannie and Mr. Ed were standard Nick at Nite fare, but it also makes me feel good, because, well, my little breakfast burritos, I love me some Full House. Seriously. It is so incredibly bad that it is incredibly good. From the music that plays with every special lesson learned to the fact that John Stamos rocked that mullet like no other, Full House is an exercise in escapism. If only my life were like that...there would be lots of cute children, lots of sticky rolls, lots of hair gel. And nobody talks about postmodernism on Full House. Ahhh, heaven. Full House is concerned with a world where a fancy meal is anything that concerns pesto sauce and goat cheese and a good book is anything that has raised metallic type on the cover. And that's a world that, at the moment, seems like a pretty swell place to spend your time.

Sigh. So you're wondering why I am writing at 9:48, when I should be in class (actually, you're not, but I'm going to tell you anyway). I have strep throat. Seriously. I have an honest to God infectious disease. So I feel wretched, but I am getting to watch TV all day, no questions asked, so it is ok I guess. I have to go back to the old grind tomorrow as my get out of jail free card says that I am only excused from classes on yesterday and today, but for now, I can be miserable outside of the confines of Tucker Hall. How lovely.

Have a good one!

Reason #554 to Move to New Zealand and Become a Sheep Farmer

I am back, and the trip to Berkeley rocked so hard, you have no idea. I loved it, and my only solace right now is that at this time next year I will most likely be living there (provided I haven't swallowed a gallon of little pills by then).

But Williamsburg is still here and everything sucks so incredibly bad. I am perhaps more depressed than I ever have been, and have good reasons too--too many to put on here. I just have so many things that I am supposed to be doing, and that I'm not. I'm just so goddamned tired, and I just want to write and tell everyone to fuck off, but sadly, one cannot tell one's Milton professor to fuck himself with a cheese grater, no matter how much one wants to.

The world is a woman and Williamsburg is a festering genital wart on crotch of said woman.

Stinky Cheese and Stalking--Two of My Favorite Things

So I'm up. It's the first day of Spring Break (for me, as I have no classes on Friday). I'm eating a bread end dipped in feta cheese spread. It is divinely stinky. I am watching The Golden Girls. Every bit of knowledge that has been forced into my body has seeped out. And it feels good.

I want to bake something, I want to read, I want to sleep. I want to be perfectly lazy. It is so weird that this year, the year when I actually have somewhere to go for Spring Break is the year that I wish I could lay around like the ugly Baldwin brother. Seriously. But I'm sure it will pass. On Sunday, I am leaving for New York, then returning on Thursday, and then leaving for Berekely on Friday. It's going to be busy, but, very, very, very fun. But, God, I'm a lazy person.

And I want to internet stalk, which with the aid of all manner of blogging mechanisms, is delightfully fun. I can't really find out anything about people that I was really close to, but all the stories of these minor characters are great. And I'm constantly on the prowl for more info...I think I have this weird psychological problem where I just want to know everything about all these people in my life. It's just strange that lives seem to move on, even when you don't care anymore. It's a hard thing to wrap your mind around. And it beats the hell out of driving out to Farm Fresh to get your jollies, if you know what I mean.

Well, I should go. If I find out any more interesting tidbits, I will post them. Seriously people. If you are a person from my past, and you are reading this, you better get all incriminating evidence off of the ole worldwide web. You might find your life reduced to a few sarcastic sentences on here.

Hide your Blogs, Kiddies! The Internet Stalker is in Town!

Yes, you heard right. Yo soy un internet stalker. It is 1:00 in the morning, and I am digging up dirt on the most random of random people from my past.

What I've found out:
1. My bestest cousin is locked in a loveless marriage, but enjoys scrapbooking.
2. Her younger sister (who, it follows, is also my cousin) is a small-town cheerleader with an impeccable knack for indie music.
3. A girl who I heard through a door losing her virginity (I was young, she was young, let's leave it at that) is now a respiratory therapist and Miss Lonesome Pine Raceway. She is also an increrdibly bad poet, and goes by the name "Shooter."
4. The guy who she lost it to, and who is just the bee's knees as far as I'm concerned (at least in my high school memories) graduated from West Point, but for some unholy reason, is in Iraq.

Shit. I mean, seriously people. You couldn't make this shit up. Seriously.

So how far I've fallen intellectually? We're only one hour into spring break. I'M DUMB, BITCH!

In Praise of Misogyny

They are soooo going to take my feminist id card away from me....Oh well. It's probably been in the making since I bought a copy of The Dirt.

Ok, so I got pissed off at my American Women Writer's class last night. Really fuckin' pissed. And it wasn't a calling-names, talk-shit-about pissed. It was a good old your-logic-is-so-fucking-wrong intellectual pissed which is a million times more volatile. Anyway...

I have a hard time accepting a feminist critical view at every piece of literature I am confronted with. Moreover, I have a hard time believing that women hold a monopoly over writing talents in this world. And perhaps most importantly, I have an extreme problem with people who think that war/hardship/whatever is all good because it gives us such HOPE. HOPE IS BULLSHIT! THERE IS NO HOPE! I mean, for crying out loud people, there should be no way that you can take an event like the London blitz and try to say that it is a positive occurence because it brings a community together and gives them hope. If you buy this argument, you are playing with a fucking tinder box--if you allow that something good always comes from something bad, you are accepting that there can really be no bad occurences--that it's all good in the hood. And I think we all know, no matter how fucking idealistic you are, that there is bad stuff and it happens and no amount of good can change that. To believe that good always comes from bad makes you pretty naive and pretty stupid. Damn.

But enough on that. Here's an idea: Sometimes when writers are forgotten about and covered by the sands of time as it were, it's for a reason unrelated to their sex. MAYBE THEY WERE BAD WRITERS, guilty of pithy poetry that is as naive as it is incoherent. Sometimes writers who are read and canonized are treated that way because they are talented. Perhaps the reason we all read The Wasteland is because it is good, not because it was written by a man.

And finally, feminist criticism asks us to develop an opposition stance to anything we read. I don't buy it. Some books and writers are wonderful, no matter what their sexual politics were. I mean, Hemingway probably wouldn't be the kind of guy that I would hang out with, but he's a great writer, and I love his stuff. No woman should have to defend her love of Faulkner to a bunch of crazed radicals who see only his misogyny. And don't EVEN get me started on what these people do to Tolstoy.

Now, don't get me wrong. I still consider myself to be a feminist, albeit a cynical, unorthodox one. But, there is a problem when an ideology colors your readings, your view of history, your whatever. Ideology is dangerous because it asks for total alliegance--no lukewarm here. When you start making broad generalities (like women represent hope and men represent bleakness!), the ideology has gone too far. I firmly believe that no one should align themselves as being totally something or totally something else--we should all take from the giant salad bar of life, choosing what we want here and there and not just eating a shit load of radishes. Do you get what I'm saying? If one is given to feminism all the time, there is no time to taste all the other condiments (or John Milton's) around. A tired metaphor, I know. But I just preach moderation. The other trail--there lies the way to fanaticism, and fanaticism is scary no matter what mask it wears.

I guess that's enough on that. I am technically done with academia until week after next, so this is probably the last coherent argument you'll here from me in a while. Tomorrow I'll be stupid and worthless once again, because as long as there are midgets drunk on TV, I'll be there watching them. And that, my friends, is the stuff of life--not feminism, not colonialism, not anything that ends in a suffix. Just good old pop culture, brought to us by the American dream and godless corporations. And what could be wrong with that?

It's funny because it's true...

I just took an online quiz that says that I am a "tortured intellectual hipster" and that I wish I could die and return as Jack Kerouac. Interesting...

Yes, I have too much to do to be writing this. Yes, I should be thinking about Conrad and terrorism and colonialism and all manner of -isms. But I'm not. Why? I seriously do not feel like it. I just wrote a response paper on an imagist poet that is about as coherent as an episode of Saturday Night Live. Seriously. I've intellectualed out. No more. Please, massa, no mo.

So, because of this, I'm going to be up until God knows what time, writing and rewriting and whatever, and all of the time consoling myself with the fact that on Sunday I will be on a plane headed for NY and all will be ok. And then I will be on a plane headed to San Francisco, and things will be even better. Sigh...

But the present sucks. Totally sucks. I wish I could be like my lovable fiance who always has 1.75 eyes planted firmly on the future. Seriously. The man lives on half-baked plans, and what-could-be's, and doesn't seem to let anything bother him. Like last night. I was laying on him and we were talking and I said something like, "Why do we have to talk about this now? I mean, it's not happening yet, so what's the point?" And he says, "Well, Morgan, right now you are breaking my arm, but in the future, my arm will already have healed. So it's a matter of pain management." Seriously. Leave it to Matt to make unpractical idealism seem logical.

But it just sucks, because I am the writer, the creative person, the whatever. I should be idealistic. But I'm not. I grow more cynical with each passing day. It sucks. I blame Milton, and Graham Greene and The Decembrists (why is it that good bands these days insist upon having a definite article in their name--sheesh).

I should go. I want Prof. Anemone to still think I am cool, so I must write and be analytical and whatever. Have an idealistic un!