What it is: What's written when the booze runs out and when I should be earning my money. 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My Fourth Grade Journal I Teach a Teacher The roots of all evil are exposed after twelve pints of Guiness I am worshipped by a parent... Drunken Resume Personal favorites Because I Said Tso TLProductions ellipsis... DVM Wannabe OTAS: You found it Chaospirals Reclaiming Imogen News/World BBC The Economist The New York Times Greg Palast's Website Cagle.com Factcheck.org Figures of Speech Movies Tso Long Movie Vault ImDB Script-o-Rama Upcoming Movies.com FootnoteTV West Wing Scrubs scripts Rhet/Lit Victor Vitanza's History of Rhetoric Page Figarospeech.com Silva Rhetoricae Aristotle's Rhetoric Bartleby.com Computers and Composition EServer Rhetoric and Composition	The Flannel Diaries 2008 Thursday, May 01, 2008 From today's issue of Modern Woman Magazine Dear Whoever: I am a woman in my thirties, living with a gorgeous, dreamboat sex machine of a man (emphasize "machine" in that last list of descriptions and soft-pedal the "gorgeous" and "sex" parts). I've never been happier, except for a few minutes when I was six and there was a double episode of The Muppet Show one Saturday morning. Oh, and yesterday, I had a killer cheese sandwich. God, it was good. Give me a second here...ok, yes, I'm still happy to be living with this guy. Whatever his name is. Seriously, though, he's always been a tad vain. About his looks, about his intellect (he reads a lot, but he won't show me what, and when I quiz him, he gives evasive answers), and about his skin (he had some pisser acne attacks in high school, or so I've heard). But this is a new wrinkle. He's losing his hair. Not a lot. He's not bald yet or anything. And he probably won't be for a while. But every time I see the top of his head (which isn't often--he's a lot taller than I am), I see scalp. I can't tell for sure, but I think he's picking up on his hair loss. When he stands in front of a mirror, he picks at his hairline and frowns disconsolately. He's starting to collect baseball caps, and this is a guy who believes "professional sports will choke the life out of whatever cultural heartbeat this screwed-up nation has left in it." So: do I tell him? Because he might already know. But if he doesn't know, and he finds out later I did, he'll be pissed. Actually, he'll be pissed no matter what I do, but I'm just trying to minimize the hassle I'll have to deal with. I'm in a band. I have to practice. So, any advice, advice columnist? Sincerely, Dirty Rock Grrl Labels: Full of myself --posted by Digger Blue at 5:24 PM 0 comments thus far Friday, April 25, 2008 Spittoon, IL--There are fewer things finer than sitting in a hotel room in southern Illinois, properly pissed on several pints of Red Stripe, the hallways bustling with adolescent activity (apparently, a tae qwan doe (sp) tournament is tomorrow morning, and what better way to get ready than charging through the hallways yelling "Cubs rule!"?) and your remote to your HD television missing. Trust me. I know what I'm talking about. In my past I've made a career of the half crocked hotel room stay. I'm already half convinced the desk clerk is flirting with me; in another two pints' worth, I'll have gotten a suit filed against me. Just wait. A tumultuous month, to be sure. The last time I posted here, Kim and I were heading out east to vacation and look into job prospects (for her) and recreational diversions should we choose to move there (for me). That didn't happen, but I've had Baltimore on the brain for over a month straight now. Also a career change. Which puts me in a rather large group, I admit: the group that Wants Change but Hasn't Quite Worked It Out Yet. Guh. I'm shopping around graduate programs in history, with vague plans of doing academic work in several American colonial fields. Don't tell my school. But all of that seems more or less a hobby for me these days. Seriously, the past month and a half at school has, how shall I put this? What is le mot juste? Oh yes: Hell. Partly because of my clientele, but mostly because of my own shitty attitude. My colleage across the hall has taken to chanting, "Birth control! Birth control!" during parent teacher night, and while he's ten times the teacher I am on his worst day, his sentiment and mine coincide almost perfectly. It's April. Going on May. We've been at this for almost a month longer than most schools around us, and we'll be back before August is half over. For cripes' sake, enough. Let's call it a year and get another two months under our belt before we go back to wreaking havoc on the next generation with our snotty literature, halfassed compositional theories and moviefests for Those Who Refuse to Teach on a Friday. Maybe Auden had a point: How happy is the lot of the mathematician! He is judged solely by his peers, and the standard is so high that no colleague or rival can ever win a reputation he does not deserve. No cashier writes a letter to the press complaining about the incomprehensibility of Modern Mathematics and comparing it unfavorably with the good old days when mathematicians were content to paper irregularly shaped rooms and fill bathtubs without closing the waste pipe. Oh yes, the grass definitely gets greener on the other sides of some fences, doesn't it? Maybe this was a bad idea. I should catch up Loyal Readers when I'm sober. Nah. I'm here because I've got several kids competing in a tournament. If they win, I give them full credit. If they lose, I take full responsibility. Nobody really gives a shit, to be honest, except them, and me. With such a narrow audience, I find myself playing to my utmost. It's very liberating. You have to think of this sort of approach to a task as a kind of therapy. But my professionalism did not preclude a frenzied trip to the BP for a couple pints of the Jamaican stuff. I would have gotten a cigar, but I suspect the kids are out roaming the streets of this pissant little burg, and all I need is for my exhaled libations to happen upon them in their nomadic abandon, poisoning their lungs and screwing up their performance tomorrow. See? I am nothing, if not selfish. No coherence, not tonight. Rest assured, though, I plan to follow up on these topics, in no particular order: --My new historical theories, as per E.H. Carr and (maybe) Kierkegaard. --My self-realization about my reading binges. They're not as healthy as I thought they'd be. --My revelations about poetry. For a goddam English teacher, they're pretty tardy. --My career plans. Hah. Don't make me laugh. --My disgust with pop culture. That's the x-factor that screws up my job. It's also a factor I myself am abused by on occasion. I think that's it. Was it worth the wait? Don't answer that. Damn. Kids are knocking on the door. Got to hide the bottle opener. Labels: Drinkin';, Working Late --posted by Digger Blue at 9:50 PM 0 comments thus far Thursday, March 20, 2008 I could write an ode to the days gone by. The usual work mess and then some. A hospitalization (everyone is fine now, thanks for asking). Self-medication (I made another trip to the liquor store, thanks for asking). Babies galore visiting. But it's spring break. So your noble blogger is taking a week to tour the East. D.C. Baltimore. Virginia. Nothing but a backpack and a smile on my face. (And some papers to grade, which I may or may not lose in the Potomac.) So long, losers. Labels: Travelin' Man --posted by Digger Blue at 7:18 PM 2 comments thus far Saturday, March 15, 2008 Blogging from John's Blackberry. In a crowded restaurant. With a drooling, burping baby of his on my lap. And they don't even serve alcohol in this dump. Labels: Uncle Blue --posted by Digger Blue at 7:16 PM 0 comments thus far Friday, February 29, 2008 Benny Hill is Afraid of Virginia Woolf Labels: Guilty Pleasures --posted by Digger Blue at 5:36 PM 0 comments thus far Tuesday, February 26, 2008 Numbers for next year are already circulating. Lower amounts of sections. Fewer classes to teach. More kids crammed into the classes. The same old s#%@. Pisses me off good, I can tell you. Labels: Whining --posted by Digger Blue at 12:08 PM 0 comments thus far Saturday, February 23, 2008 Finally, a pep rally that doesn't suck... Winter pep assembly. Maybe one-third of the usual crowd of students for this sort of thing. All of them exhausted. Demoralized. Imaginations and spirits crushed to dust because of a month of no sunshine, grueling projects and oppressive, mean-spirited teaching. God bless us, every one. So instead of throwing stern looks at crowds of pubescents chanting asinine slogans ("Seniors rule!" "No, juniors rule!" "No, seniors rule!" "No, seniors rule!" "No, juniors...wait!" "Ah hah! Got you!") and carting kids to the dean's office for throwing toilet paper, silly string, hats, shirts, pants, and each other to the floor, I got to sit comfortably in the bleachers and make fun of everyone. Grand. Then it was off to John and Sarah's place, to see their spawn. The kid was born in October, but, since we're such losers, we didn't get around to it until February. Whatever. The kid can't even walk yet; what's the fuss? Being the idiots that we are, we forgot the camera. So here's a reasonable facsimile: John, Sarah, if you're reading (and what else would you be doing while at home with a kid on a Saturday evening?), I'll replace it. Provided the kid is suitably adorable in the picture. Labels: A Friend's New Kid; Pedagogy --posted by Digger Blue at 9:48 AM 0 comments thus far Copyright © 2001-2008 Endoxa Productions "My wretched dragon is perplexed." --William Butler Yeats Home	Quotes "Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us." -Henri Matisse" Reading Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky Notes on a Scandal Listening To The Barber of Seville Projects binge reading coming off vacation high background info on French Revolution Labels: Actin' Culture Man Drinkin' Guilty Pleasures Iraq War Learnin' Man Lefty-loosey Media New Car Och, my aching back Paperback Writer Man Politics Righty-Tripe Rockin' Man Stuff I'm Reading Stuff I'm Watching Teacher Man Travelin' Man Tso is an idiot Uncle Blue White Noise Watch Oldboy Down to the Bone Don't Watch Invasion of the Body Snatchers