Inevitable.

1. Being sick for Campus Dance sucks. That is all.

2. More Wonder Boys:

It seemed to me that Q. was talking about the nature of the midnight disease, which started as a simple feeling of disconnection from other people, an inability to "fit in" by no means unique to writers, a sense of envy and unbridgeable distance like that felt by someone tossing on a restless pillow in a world full of sleepers. Very quickly, though, what happened with the midnight disease was that you began actually to crave this feeling of apartness, to cultivate and even flourish within it. You pushed yourself farther and farther and farther apart until one black day you woke to discover that you yourself had become the chief object of your own hostile gaze.

3. Last day at Greenlock was yesterday. Goodbye, Blue (a.k.a. "Jaws").

4. I hate iPods. And iTunes. With a vengeance. I will prevail.

Special Edition: Gay on the Range

I found a site with a number of book covers of gay erotica from the 60s. I feel the highlights must be shared.

First, we have Donnie and Clyde. Note the inexplicable inclusion of "baskets" in the list at the top.

Next is The Family Jewels. I am duly impressed with the correct usage of the word "yen," but remain confused by the mention of Cleve's cleavage. I thought the point was that men don't have cleavage.

The Flesh Mast. No need for elaboration there.

What to say about Gay But Not Happy? Such subtle wordplay. And the implication of existential angst! And let us not forget the ominously-named Rod Manlove.

Gay on the Range. I'm vastly amused by the equivocation in the tagline at the top.

Gay Whore. The simplicity of the title speaks volumes. Their pose reminds me of a poster for some feel-good coming-of-age sports movie. "Go team!"

I think Good Night, Gentle Goy is by far my favorite. Not only are the characters indulging in taboo sex acts, but they're doing so across ethno-religious boundaries!

The title of this one is inconsequential. The illustration is disturbing and baffling enough.

Kept Boy. Note the sign over the building's entrance.

Murder on Queer Street. "You'll get murder every time"? Of course. Because homosexuals are by definition homicidal (or should we say homocidal?) and violent. You'd think these books were written with a straight and/or homophobic readership in mind. Or something.

Adam and Adam, penned by the prestigious Dr. Carruthers. Finally, smut written by a qualified scholar.

Pendergastian.

1. I'm re-reading Brimstone and found this nice quote:

"I am afraid, Count, I never abandon myself to anything." -- Pendergast, p. 103.

And then some smart-ass on the author's messageboard, on the topic of fangirls:

I must admit, I find thin, near albino men in severe black suits dead sexy. You can always spot them in a crowd. The ones who give off the twisted undertaker vibe? Woohoo! And emotionally unavailable? Sign me up!

2. One of the girls on this show is from my hometown (Lee's Summit). She probably went to high school with one of my sisters. Not exactly the kind of celebrity connection I'd want, but I'll take what I can get, I suppose. And the show's premise looks amusingly inane.

3. From an article on E3:

"About one out of eight gamers, youthful gamers who play games, develop all of the patterns similar to an addiction," says Dr. David Walsh with the National Institute on Media and the Family.

Heh. I know a certain someone who spends hours each day in front of a console....

YES!

1. So happy.

2. New Star Wars: far exceeded my all-time-low expectations.

Ewwwww.

1. From the file at work today:

*CHI: yy what is it in your [= my] vagina?
*CHI: who's [?] in it?
*CHI: I think maybe there was poop in it.
*CHI: I think maybe there was stuff in it.
*CHI: I think it was pink stuff.
*CHI: I think it was white.

My job is so glamorous.

2. From the Onion's review of Psychonauts:

You play star student "Raz," (short for Razputin) a spirited cadet called into action when an evildoer steals the brains of all your classmates and teachers, save for a wizened old-timer who appears whenever you lure him with a piece of bacon.

And...

In a suburban neighborhood laid out like an Escher painting, for example, workers drone lines like "Being on the road crew is arduous but rewarding," and "I wear sunscreen while trimming hedges to prevent melanoma from developing on my skin."

I want this game.

I don't even play video games.

3. From an email from Mom:

"Dad and I met with the board of directors at the Methodist Church tonight, and I didn't say fuck even once."

Right on.

Sad.

1. According to SparkNotes:

It all adds up... we feel 8% certain that you are...
A Man!

Compared to others...
26% more male than you — 6% like you — 67% more female than you

2. I've been advised to name-drop in my novella submission cover-letters. Rock.

3. I got a round of applause for my anal rententiveness in today's lab meeting. An appropriate ending note for my career as a student-employee, I think.

How am I not myself?

1. File at work today focused almost solely on potty training. Am now intimately acquainted with the sound of emptying urine from a training potty into the "grownup potty." Relatedly, I formulated the following:

pronoun reversal + "vagina" = hilarious confusion

2. Watched I Heart Huckabees again tonight:

"You can't deal with my infinite nature, can you?"

Wasting away.

1. Not only do I watch bad television. I read other people's smart-ass commentary on bad television.

2. Found this on the "leave a comment" section:

Sarah (Your Blogger display name)
Other
Anonymous
Or you can sign in as a different user.

You mean I can pretend to be not-myself and leave comments on my own blog to make it appear as if I have friends who read it? Intriguing.

Self-Promotion.

1. I have to write a blurb about myself for the Anthro. dept. commencement ceremony:

"This paragraph should state something like why you chose Brown, Anthropology, RI; or you could just thank your parents, grandparents, professors, friends or whomever…..you could also write about how you got here or where you are going from here."

Can they be any more vague?

Ack. I do not want to write this right now.

2. Apparently my bot has absorbed some of my opinions on religion:

OtherBot: I never pray, I wouldn't know.
MyBot: That seems like a wise path to take.

Elitism.

1. Am I an insufferable elitist for not submitting to a contest based on its lack of non-web publishing?

2. Pretty words:

"The midnight disease is a kind of emotional insomnia; at every conscious moment its victim -- even if he or she writes at dawn, or in the middle of the afternoon -- feels like a person lying in a sweltering bedroom, with the window thrown open, looking up at a sky filled with stars and airplanes, listening to the narrative of a rattling blind, an ambulance, a fly trapped in a Coke bottle, while all around him the neighbors soundly sleep. This is in my opinion why writers -- like insomniacs -- are so accident-prone, so obsessed with the calculus of bad luck and missed opportunities, so liable to rumination and a concomitant inability to let go of a subject, even when urged repeatedly to do so." --Michael Chabon, Wonder Boys

It begins.

Done with classes = no discernible circadian rhythm.

Somehow I'm less than delighted. This means I am getting old.