To my other, now kidnapped, Christmas goose cup, I offer this:Thank god I have an innocent eye for nature.
I was born to remember a song about love - on a hill a butterfly
I am always up for learning new and interesting things, especially as I am trying to study for comps. Why would I need all the room in my brain for just history? There are all sorts of things out there for me to discover, and it makes a fellow kinda squishy inside to think that they might learn something new, each and every day.
I don't know why, but this makes me laugh hysterically at the same time the anger swells within. To be sure, why should I care? I mean, rabbits are jumping animals. It's not like they are trying to make them swim or wear little Star Trek themed outfits. They're just making them jump, competitively. Nothing wrong in that, I suppose, but I smell a future doping scandal in the works. And, I guess, therein lies the problem for me, because something so innocent and pure and silly as rabbit jumping will likely decay into a celebrity driven festival of emptiness that will make us all want to eat Drano and get it over with, and that makes me angry. I don't understand where it comes from, but it feels like the same kind of anger that I experience when I think about the new WB show, Gossip Girl, which the mere sight of the commercials drives me into an insane rage little seen in this hemisphere. How many f%cking more television shows do we need about rich, vacuous white kids with too much money, too little sense, and the sex drives of speed-addicted howler monkeys? I HATE THESE SHOWS! And the next thing you know, on a very special episode of Gossip Girl, we will be introduced to the dark back-alley side of competitive rabbit show jumping! Jesus, please come back to us real soon! We need you!
Several of the advising folks, including myself, dressed up as interesting characters. Surprisingly, none of the other graduate advisors really decided to dress up except for me (not sure why) - I wore my hippie dress thing and a knitted hat and a psychedelic funk gleam in my eye that could be perceived through my righteous shades. Not sure why none of the other advisors dressed up... maybe I need to act like someone who is actually older than I act. Or...The Hell with That!
Here were the best costumes of the front office:
Rachel(above) was the old lady in curlers in her housecoat that grumps at the kids for playing in the yard and screams at the trashmen for banging the cans!
Leapin Lizards! Anne (above) WAS Annie, down to the dance moves, the swell singing, and the plucky personality! Sandy, however, had apparently gone rabid, as Anne was forced to pierce Sandy's spinal cord with an old coat hanger to keep her doggy at bay!
And meow Stephanie (above) was a meow-meow cat woman, who went meow above and meow the call with meow her dangerously applied fake eyelashes meow! Damn, we need to dress up more often, so that I can have an excuse to wear women's clothing (like I really need an excuse).
Dear Variegated Brainstem:
Love your site...
Later!
Julian
www.ijulian.blogspot.com
(his blog address)
But then the psychic wall of doubt and despair kicked in, especially because I've been burned once too often, especially by those fawning Portuguese-speaking Brazilian spammers! How 
was my blog found? What did it mean to have this newcomer enter my world and, by extension, my brain (stem)? Should I let it go to my head (brainstem), more so because they seem much more hip and with it than myself, a man who thinks pictures, like the one I offer here, might be amusing? How will I function knowing that West Coast intellectuals may be examining the ranting raves and the raving rants of some yokel living in the heartland of Tennessee? Even though the picture confirms my ownership of shoes, I'm not wearing them! So, they might say, "A-Ha! See, we knew that hillbillies still existed and aren't a Madison Avenue marketing ploy!"
Here's a title for a new book that I thought of driving down the road - The Tragedy of Surviving a Pit Bull Attack on a Collapsing Bridge in Iraq: How to make Americans Piss Their Designer Jeans. This made me laugh; I don't know why. I think it would work well as a graphic novel.
I have decided, after a long long period of inactivity, to begin walking in the morning. I walk around my neighborhood for around 40 minutes, quietly thinking thoughts, singing songs, and farting farts. I say this not to be crude (I'm that way naturally) but to show that actual exercise is being done. Often times, I envision myself as a doughboy marching with his unit, off to stem the tide of the Hun's aggression. When this happens, that usually means that I am still semi-asleep. Hopefully I won't suddenly be roused from my sleepwalking by a barrage of German artillery! TO THE TRENCHES!
Having my ass handed to me in an arm wrestling match with Mr. Wurl at the Bean, circa winter time 2005. Note the long, long hair and the ubiquitous skull cap on me! By the way, had we been using our RIGHT arms, things would have ended differently...yeah, right!
I recently went on a shopping spree of unprecedented intensity! 2 pairs of Levi jeans, a brand I haven't been comfortable wearing for nearly 15 years! 2 short sleeve shirts of a moderate blue-green color! The insanity is almost too much to bear! I was so shocked by my actions that I became far oiler on my T-zone than I usually am, thus requiring an avocado-oatmeal mask and a green tea (see enclosed future blackmail photo).
Could our young hero be swayed towards the ever looming precepice that is metrosexuality? Remember, his barely adequate psychic defenses have little reserve power left! However, take heart, true believers - the peril of moisturizer and kelp skin products is far from being an actual realization for our hero. True, I cut my Samson-esque locks. But that was out of love for balding little girls (not that I have a thing for balding little girls...I just wanted to help them!). Hopefully, with the additional purchase of some engineer boots, I will look more like a fifties street tough than one of the fashionista sect that I fear and abhor with a large degree of my being (at least when I'm not leveled by my anomie). I also don't really like Nazis either...
Paraskavedekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia - the fear of Friday the 13th. Some people won't even get up on this day, paralyzed by their dread concern that something will happen. I don't really have this fear (I've got plenty of other ones!), despite the fact that as a boy I face planted, bit into a concrete curb, and suffered a concussion after flipping over the handlebars of my bike on Friday the 13th. Hell, I don't remember 90% of it and I got a Bulletman action figure as a result! What...me worry? Besides, one of my favorite people in the world was born on Friday the 13th...and they turned out alright!
Here is a shot of me with my new respectable hairdo! Our mild-mannered graduate student is finally looking dashing and debonair...
However, he may no longer be a match for the forces of psionic malevolence posed against him, eager to ambush him and take him back to the Crypt of the Eel Monkeys of Licktrathallia, where they will apply the Hot Needles of Inquisition to his optic nerves! Here is a shot of our hero transformed into an angry kewpie doll, his only remaining ability, with a voyeuristic purple sentient broccoli hive mind waiting outside his apartment to destroy his now barely adequate psychic defenses! Will he prevail?
Stay tuned!
More on this development later...
