high tops

Sitting in a comfortable chair in the waiting area at the Volkswagen dealership, drinking free Diet Pepsi and eating free popcorn after a delightful chat with the service guy. He was wearing high top leather sneakers that squeaked when he walked and he greased the squeaky driver’s side door while telling me about similar cars that had more than 250K miles on them (good news! ours only has 234K). He was a delight, and then I walked into the customer service area, where a bunch of suits were watching golf on the tv and glancing at my every move to see if I was someone they could gank out of some money. And I started thinking that you have to do that sort of thing, watch golf and be a predator, if you want to replace the high tops with the fancy suit, and I guess I just prefer the high tops.

good times

spent the past week hanging out with my brother, who was here to go to our grandpa's funeral in north dakota. i dropped him off at the airport at 4:50 AM and i've been all out of sorts ever since, like i've had an appendage removed. this is my brother who is two and a half years younger than me; we were best friends growing up, with all of the fun and the fights that that entailed. we haven't lived in the same town in about seven years, but he is talking seriously about moving back here, and the prospect of that sounds so awesome that i'm trying not to get my hopes up for fear of devastation if he decides not to.

for one thing, he loves the twins as much as i do. when he got back to new orleans today, we talked on the phone about how morneau is getting totally jacked in the media coverage of the homerun derby...he won the shit, and all they talk about is that crackhead texas guy. (my brother was even madder about it than i was, which delights me, because he is as loyal to the twins now as he was when he was a ten-year-old kirby puckett worshipper.) so...i'm daring to dream of having a fun companion to attend games with me, instead of going by myself all the damn time. i'm fine company, i suppose, but i prefer the company of my brother, who, when we went to a game last weekend, muttered things like, "jesus, delmon. that's some little league shit right there," when delmon fumbled yet another play in left field.


he also shares my appreciation for things like bike rides, garlic french fries, all-you-can-eat pie at baker's square, happy hours with $2 beer, and hanging out on the curb drinking soda. he's one ton of fun, basically. and i miss him and want him to get the hell back here so i feel like this place is home again.

sports!

Just got infuriated by this article from the Green Bay Press Gazette: Minnesota has 10,000 Fair-Weather Fans

The writer is pissing and moaning about how the MN Twins are doing well this year, and the Milwaukee Brewers are sucking, but their attendance is still better than ours, and blah blah blah...Minnesotans are fair weather fans, Wisconsin is better than Minnesota...blah blah blah

Which is annoying, first of all, because I go to Twins games CONSTANTLY...I was actually at the game he is whining about (getting quietly annoyed by the drunk, screaming Brewers fans behind me and later getting a cup thrown at my head by another one. I didn't say anything, of course. I'm a Minnesotan, after all). And second of all, if we are fair weather fans, wouldn't our attendance be good when the Twins are doing well? Isn't that the definition of fair weather fandom? WTF?

But I felt much better when I saw that the comments section had been infiltrated by snarky Minnesotans. Here are some of the greatest hits:

twinsfan32 wrote: "Wow...Thanks for reminding me how lucky I am to be a Twins fan and not a Brewers fan. God they suck! :)" 7/2/2008 4:28:20 PM


tato01 wrote: "I guess this is one way to look at it....Another way, though, is that Wisconsin fans are IDIOTS...Brewers and Packer fans sound like major league sports wet-dream. I can just hear the boardroom discussions: "You mean we can put out a mediocre product and they will STILL COME?"
Minnesota fans pay for performance. Wisconsin fans pay for anything." 7/2/2008 4:33:46 PM

college

I'm doing some research for work, and coming across several words and phrases that make me wonder why the h- I'm working at a college. That's why I graduated, right? So I wouldn't have be irritated by phrases like...
body politics
African diaspora
modernisms
similitudes
highest distinction
emeritus
AND...
...menstrual hygiene technologies!

art?

I took a writing class in May and I've been a bit stymied with my writing ever since. The teacher and the rest of the class gave me a lot of suggestions to improve my work...a LOT of suggestions...and maybe I should take it as flattery, like if it was bad writing, they would have just smiled and said good job...but the whole thing just makes me feel lazy and uninspired. Add to that the fact that I read some of my favorite writers' blogs today, and they all seemed to be feeling lazy and uninspired, and that didn't even make me feel better, like I was part of a larger movement (or lack of movement, as the case may be...ha ha ha), I just felt like the whole writing about yourself thing can be horribly self indulgent, and who gives a shit if you feel lazy and uninspired? If you feel lazy and uninspired, why don't you do something about it? And by something I mean nothing, because no one wants to hear about your lazy lack of inspiration. Just be lazy. No one needs to know. No one really cares. Let us know when you're inspired again, and then maybe you'll write something worth reading. Jesus. And I do plan to take my own advice. Starting...NOW.