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I had one of the oddest dreams I’ve ever been able to remember last night. John Goodman and I had been hired by Lisa Marie Presley to track down a disowned uncle of hers, who was reportedly roaming the countryside attacking children and livestock. We caught up with him outside a horse corral in the country somewhere. He was huge, probably four hundred pounds, and crawling on all fours. He looked like an Elvis impersonator (sunglasses and all), and was wearing a bright purple silk jumpsuit, like a clown’s outfit, only without the makeup and shoes.

John and I tried to corner him, but somehow he slipped past and got in with the sheep. I don’t know exactly when the horses turned into sheep, but that was the least of my worries at that point. He pounced on one of the sheep and started gnawing. Lisa Marie was standing outside the corral screaming for us to stop him, and we pulled him off, only to realize that he had no fingernails or teeth, so he wasn’t doing any damage. She ordered us to kill him, but we realized he was mostly harmless, if a little disturbed. We took him to a large field with a rolling hills and a few stands of trees, a preservation of some sort, and let him go free.

–

I’m thinking perhaps the dream was my brain’s way of apologizing for the surprising bout of depression it put me through last night. I was driving home just after midnight and saw a bunch of fireworks being set off from central campus. I realized the fireworks were announcing the end of the mass campaniling, an ISU homecoming tradition where hundreds of students gather together at midnight and kiss their beloved under the campanile as it strikes twelve. I was suddenly very depressed to realize I had nobody to kiss, and simultaneously annoyed with myself for making such a big deal out of it, because I probably wouldn’t have remembered what I was missing had I left just a few minutes later. I got home to an empty house (my roommates were out partying) and spent half an hour sitting at the bar, staring at nothing, trying to pull myself together.

Ups and downs, eh? Sorry for not keeping this ‘un cheery, but I wanted to get that last bit off my chest to help me feel better. Hopefully, tonight will be happier. If all goes according to plan, I should be partying at Matt’s house, surrounded by people I like. In the meantime, I’ve still got twelve papers left to grade and Jebus knows how many pages of theory to read. Adieu!

By Monday morning, my head was starting to feel a lot better. As such, I managed to bruise my ass once again by Monday evening. I was playing racquetball with Nick Recker of the Soc department at the time. I smacked the ball fairly hard but also fairly straight, meaning I had to backpedal like mad to get out of Nick’s way. Turns out, my shoes were untied. Neither of us has any idea where the freakin’ coffee table came from, though. *grin*

I observed Adrian’s English 104 class on Wednesday as part of an assignment for English 500. The class seemed smaller than mine (I’m guessing around 16 students, though I could be wrong), and 50% of the students were international. I walked in, sat down, and started taking notes. A kid on the other side of the classroom, Jeremy, smiled and waved at me.

Is there a single freshman on this campus I haven’t partied with?

Speaking of parties, a fellow TA by the name of Matt is having one this Saturday night. Though I have an ungodly amount of homework (God, I believe, rarely has homework), I’m still considering going. The theme is “party like undergraduates.” I’m beginning to wonder if I should take that as an ill omen.

I got slightly less than five hours sleep last night (which means I woke up around 11am, for those counting), and I just set my alarm for 5:45am. Am I stupid? Maybe, but you smell funny.

I set my alarm so early for one reason: At 6:00am our time (8:00am PST), SpaceShipOne is scheduled to ignite its rocket in an attempt to win the ANSARI X Prize and further secure SS1’s position in the history books. The X Prize website has a live webcast set up, and I plan to watch. I haven’t heard if Mike Melvill is flying this time too, but I sorta hope so. He seems like a really nice guy, and he deserves that honor. Plus, his name is pretty easy to remember.

I was up so late last night because I was watching movies with Alicia. First, we watched Real Genius, because she’d never seen it and such things simply aren’t acceptable. Then we watched Love Actually cause ~I’d~ never seen it and she felt I needed to. I ended up liking it, even though it was sad in parts, so that’s cool. British humor (well, humour) rules because they’re so damn ~witty~ all the time.

Then we watched a couple infomercials. Ron Popeil was trying to sell us something like a hundred knives for twelve bucks. I decided that the knives really aren’t all that sharp; Ron Popeil simply has superhuman strength. That man could probably power a spork through a foot of concrete if he thought he could sell it to me for a profit. Maybe he’s a cyborg or something. Hrm. I would like to say for the record that I, for one, have always been a huge fan of RONCO, our new robotic overlord.

After RONCO relinquished the airwaves, we watched Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. It wasn’t anywhere near as good as the first Mortal Kombat movie, which is something like saying “now this here is the really nasty flesh-eating virus.” Seriously, it sucked. It would have been made a lot better with Christopher Lambert still playing Rayden, and I know there’s enough Lambi-haters out there for that to be significant. :) If it were a few years older, it would have been on MST3K without a doubt. As it was, we had to ad-lib. I think it worked out okay.

After Mortal Kombat was done annihilating itself, we watched part of Contact. But it was getting sorta early, so I went home. Yawn.

My sleep-deprived mind wasn’t too mean to me today, which was nice. The only weird thing I did was try to make coffee without the coffee filter (with the coffee grounds, mind you, just no filter), and I caught myself before that became irreparable.

The bum-wound feels healed, which is good. Of course, I gave myself two head-wounds this weekend. The first was a doosey, and was witnessed by office-mate Lisa, so the rest of the office should know by tomorrow afternoon. I was seriously concerned I’d given myself a concussion, but I was starting to feel better the next day, so I didn’t worry overmuch. Suffice it to say that the story involves the same freaking coffee table that gave me my butt-wound and I still don’t feel like talking about it. :) The second head-wound wasn’t as bad. I nailed myself with the trunk door of my car pretty good in the temple and gave myself a lump.

Seriously, dude. Take a shower.

Random things to follow (cause I’ve been unfocused all day, and it’s too late to fight).

I got out to the bar last night for the first time in manyplus weeks. It felt good to get out of the house, you know, when it was dark outside and for purposes other than grabbing a book I forgot at the office. Before the bar, I watched a movie (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) with Alicia. I’d forgotten how sad that movie makes me, but the cinema is original and the company was good, so I’m not complaining. I ran into tons of people I knew at the bar: ex-Englishite Laura, co-TA’s in English Julia and Matt, ex-floormate Joe, ex Debra (who is still a Debra and also still a friend, but you get what I mean) with bar-buddy Doug, bar-buddy Mark, old friend Ben Kirk (who ~still~ has more hair than me!), and others I’ve probably forgotten. And since Alicia came with, I knew her too.

I left the bar shortly after midnight with the intention of going home and getting some sleep so I could start homework early the next morning. Unfortunately, when I got home, there was a mini-party of sorts going on, and I got talked into playing Texas Holdem until around 2:30am. I would’ve been playing for quite a while longer, as I’d just won a big hand and had a fair share of the chips, but I wanted sleep, so I gave my chips to Sammie since she’d gone out the game before and looked bored.

I woke up hazy this morning. Just… muddled. And I’ve stayed that way all day. I do funky stuff while in that state. For instance, I tried to make oatmeal this morning. I admit the act alone isn’t particularly peculiar. But for some reason, I poured the oatmeal in a bowl, and then somehow poured the milk ~outside~ the bowl. And on my feet.

Did I ever mention the weird stuff I’m capable of when sleep-deprived? Last week was decidedly worse than this morning. Remember that day I only got a couple hours sleep? That morning, I tried to stir sugar into my coffee… with a paper towel. I think I was going for a spoon, opened the wrong drawer, got confused as to what I was doing, and grabbed what I thought to be the most logical thing I could have been looking for. When I turned to my coffee, I apparently remembered what I had planned to do, just not which utensil (or lack of) I’d procured. After cleaning up that mess, I took my coffee up to my bedroom and opened my bedroom door. My bedroom door squeaked, causing me to set down my coffee and answer my phone. Mind you, my phone currently plays a rap melody by 50 Cent when someone calls. To those familiar with the subtleties of rap music, 50 Cent sounds dissimilar to a rusty hinge.

Guess what I learned last week? Old people used to be funny. :) They may even still be, but the evidence I’m using for this assertion isn’t sufficient support for that claim. Sometime last week, my roomies and I watched a good portion of The Seven Year Itch (circa 1955. My grandma was 13), and I found it hilarious. And not just because Marilyn Monroe isn’t that great of an actress. Some of the stuff was funny because the other people in the movie ~were~ great act(ors and resses). Now I wanna see it all the way through, cause I think we started watching about ten minutes into it and I want to know what I missed.

I still don’t feel like talking about my sore bum. Suffice it, for now, to say that my bum is still feeling bruisey, and there is a coffee table downstairs with a crack down the center.

The funniest headline I read on Fark today: This week: Sex advice from cosplayers. Next week: BBQ tips from vegans.

I’m going to have a niece! :) Sandy let me know via text message last night, which I got while I was in the bar. I got really excited when I got the news and decided to tell people. I turned to Alicia and said, “I’m going to be a niece!” To which she replied, “What?” Luckily, her question was because she didn’t hear me, not because she’d always (accurately) assumed I was more a nephew than anything else. So I replied carefully, stating that I was going to ~have~ a niece, without reiterating my gender uncertainty of a few seconds prior. After that, I decided the news could wait until my tongue was behaving itself.

Words! I have lots of them. Did you read them all? I hope you weren’t searching for The Point or anything.