Friday, March 21, 2008

5 Thoughts on a Thursday Afternoon/ Evening

(1) I should write a children's book entitled, "The Adventures of Spike, The Angry Pomeranian."

(2) I stayed up until four o'clock last night, writing my last final paper for this quarter. I got out of bed today around eleven. And you know what? I'm going to do it again tonight. This is how my body works, and really, has always worked. It's eight at night right now, and I am just now starting to feel up and alert, and able to be philosophically coherent and/ or intelligible. If I ever get a real job, it will have to be something that will work around my hours, like a security guard, or porn star, or jewel thief. No 9 to 5 for me.

(3) It was a beautiful, early Spring day in Chicago today, cool and sunny. Or, at least, it looked cool and sunny. I haven't left the apartment in forty-eight hours now, writing. I'm developing my own butt-mold in the carpet, and my body is staring to grow that wondrous, sweat and stale coffee scent.

(4) Have you seen Obama's speech on race yet? If you haven't, I highly recommend it. I don't enjoy talking about politics. And it has taken me a long time to warm up to Obama. I have been generally skeptical about Obama's campaign and his message. I kind of agreed with Clinton's point that it is all well and good to talk about hope and to talk about change, but at what point does that translate into accomplishing real things for real people? But then I saw this speech, and it kind of felt like a light bulb going off in my head. Senator Obama is raising the stakes of the game here. He is asking us to look deeper into the problems of this nation, and to confront them head on. It is stupid and naïve to believe that electing him is going to fundamentally change the problems of America - but that isn't really what he is asking us to do. He is asking us to raise the stakes (that's the best and only metaphor I can think of right now) of our own citizenship, of not allowing the present discourse that is, yes, I think this is true, that is dominated by fear, to continue. Do I think he will succeed? No, not really. But if he doesn't succeed, the failure will be ours, not his.

(5) My girlfriend and I are seriously considering getting a cat. We have it all figured out, too: She'll wake up at six to go to work and feed it and give it things in the morning. Then she'll leave, and the cat will be able to lord over the apartment for a couple of hours until it gets bored and decides to break into the bedroom and sit on my face until I wake up. Then I will feed it and give it things for a few hours until it's time to go to school. Then the cat will have the place all to itself, and it can eat my books and shed all over my clothes until we come home in the evening to feed it and give it things. And then, after R. A. goes to bed around eleven, me and the cat will be able to stay up for hours. It'll even be able to walk across my keyboard and sit between me and my computer screen when I am typing, because if there's one thing that cats absolutely hate, it's words. Then I'll go to bed, and the cat can spend the rest of the meowing, shredding up papers, and puking in the corners of the room until R.A. gets up at six again to feed it and give it things.

Some possible and potential cat names:

Mr. Bitters
Big Sleepy
Beasty
Jones
Little Luki
Cicero
Mr. Guppy
Professor Genius
Marzipan Madeline

And, God forbid, should we ever have three cats:

Swift, Milton, and Kafka
Smittens, Smuckler, and Pumbles


I have the hunch that, if we get a cat, I'll just call it whatever I feel like calling it for a while, and then eventually one name or another will stick. I mean, it's not like it's a dog or anything. Cats don't care what you call them, as long as you feed them and give them things.

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