I’m trying here people. Honestly I’m working at posting more regularly, I promise. Unfortunately, my pursuits into higher education are not good for the concept of free time. Apparently last semester was really just the padded introduction to lure blindly into the world of graduate school. There is screwing around this time, folks. Nope, three classes each assigning well over fifty pages a week to read and papers to write applying the knowledge we garnered from said reading. I know, I know, it’s not like I’m in law school or med school or any other school that actually promises a job and an income at the other end. The English degree really is the haven for the pompous, lazy people of academia--we sit in our chairs and write our essays and spout these great ideas like we’re the best thing since Aristotle when in fact we are just philosopher wannabes.

But enough of that! I don’t know what’s wrong with me, honestly. It isn’t like I didn’t walk into this willingly. And it isn’t like I didn’t know what being an English major would entail. I think maybe I just like to bitch. But hey, everybody’s got to have a talent.
So what is more fun to talk about than school? Why boys of course! Or men, in actuality, but I think I say “boys” because when one is drooling over hot men it’s hard to view them as people. Really at that point I’m objectifying. And that means that I have become that which I hate most, a shallow, useless human being who looks at others only for what can be used and taken. Dammit, that makes it all entirely to complicated. What if I promise never to let said object of my affection know I’m drooling and in all real encounters not judge the book by its cover? Does that work? I figure since we’re all catty to some degree its okay to enjoy it a little bit so long as you don’t hurt another human being in the process. I’m rationalizing, I know. This whole blogging thing, I’m still working my way back up to it.

So now that I’ve beat the ever-living fun out of sex lets go back to talking about my favorite subject--men. I would say penis, but unfortunately it’s the men that make the penis so much fun so I can’t separate the two. Believe me, I’ve tried. Anyway, I’ve taken to watching “Charmed”. It is a truly awful t.v. show I have got to admit. I mean, they couldn’t write an original plot line to save themselves; and Shannon Doherty (whom I’ve always had a soft spot for since Mallrats) doing Matrix-moves is not okay. And when I say not okay I mean that in the strongest way possible. Be that as it may, however, they do have a penchant for casting extremely attractive men in the supporting roles and that is really all I’ve ever needed to enjoy a good show. By the bye, if anyone reading this hasn’t bought Firefly and Serenity and watched them multiple times I urge you strongly to do this. Both are stories with significant substance and well worth your time. (And I made that jump because both also include hot men, if you follow.)

So the point of this useless story is to say I think I have a problem. All the characters in books, t.v., movies, comic books, take your pick, that I fall in love with have serious mental problems. Darth Vader, the Phantom of the Opera, Cole Turner, Jean Claude (vampire from the Anita Blake novels), and so on. The only thing these men have in common is that they are mentally unstable and kill people. Coming to this realization has not allowed me to sleep any easier at night. Oh yeah and they all end up with some grotesque physical defect too, Darth Vader and the Phantom’s being most obvious, but the half-demony and vampire folk aren’t exactly smoking-hot when they’re all fanged out either.

I suppose there is no real point to sharing all of this except that should I ever disappear please start the search for me with whatever recovering serial killer is running loose in the area. And I am the future of the academic community. That is a truly frightening thought indeed…

Well son-of-a-bitch. Do you know what our government is up to now? Actually, I believe they’ve been up to it for awhile, but I’m just now learning about it. A “fat tax” is what they’re calling it. It’s actually a one penny tax on foods considered to be low in nutrition and high in calories and/or fat. Some senator is also proposing the tax to be on video games as well. The full story is on MSN if you want to check it out. Now, a one penny tax on soft drinks can bring in a lot of money and it doesn’t change the price that much so my first impulse wasn’t to be overly dismayed. But then I started thinking about it. Why does the government get to decide what’s good for us and bad for us? Why do they get to tax certain items to “encourage” us not to buy them? I understand the need for taxes, I am democratic afterall, they are a necessary part of the world. But where do you draw the line? At what point do you say, “hey, I get to decide what I want to spend my money on and you don’t get to charge me more because you don’t approve!”

I find this all very irritating. My life, my fate lies in the hands of men I don’t know anything about, not really. The government is incredibly complicated and I have not made nearly enough of a study of it. Now, obviously it has to be complicated and there are significant variables to be dealt with in legislation, but doesn’t it strike anyone as a little odd that the average American knows so little about it? We choose to know so little about it. We get confused and give up. We ignore high school civics classes and sleep our way through political science 101 (if we even take it). Meanwhile, other people make a lot of money off our ignorance.

This is not something I am happy about and I do hope to take a more active part in my government in the future. But I implore you, anyone who is reading this, to take an active part yourselves. We need to converse amongst ourselves. Help each other find ways of being heard. Give each other ideas. And we must hurry. Soon the government will be taxing ideas as well as going to war over them.

Here I go again on my own/ going down the only road I’ve ever known

Yes, I just quoted Whitesnake. I have no pride. I admit it.

So how ya’all doin’ out there anyway? It’s January, I haven’t posted since June and I would apologize about that except well, you all have better things to do than read what I have to say so really there isn’t any need is there? I’m in Massachusetts now, have been for sometime and I absolutely love it. L-O-V-E it. There are mountains! And I see ocean every time I drive to school! And trees, lots and lots and lots of trees. Everywhere. Have I mentioned I love it? I am truly a nature nerd; well, I am truly a nerd and nature is just one more obsession among many. I love the comforts of home, don’t get me wrong, air conditioning, indoor plumbing, these are all good things. But nothing beats being able to drive 15 minutes and go for a walk on a mountain. There is no greater feeling than that, for me at least.

What else have I got to say? I do miss my friends terribly—they were all wonderful people, after all, and missing them is therefore only natural. But I think it’s good that I’ve gone. In some ways it reminds me why I love them all so much and gives me something to look forward too when I settle down in the next decade or so.

That’s really about all I’ve got right now. I’m attempting to get back into this blogging thing slowly but surely. I will attempt to be more humorous and my normal pompous self at a later date. I will try to think of something suitably inflammatory to write next time.