Donut Place Man: How did you know about us?
Me: Uh. I just knew.

Car Place Man On The Phone: You also need a new tail light. You can’t just tape it together.

Car Place Man #1: Which car is yours?
Me: The tiger striped one.
Car Place Man #2: Well- other than being tiger striped, what kind of car is it?
Me: I also call it a Toyota.
CPM 3: A Toyota Corolla.
Me: Yes.
CPM 2: A Tigeryota.
Me: Is that my key?

Classmate: Those are some godawful yellow shorts.
Me: That’s some godawful yellow hair.

Teacher: Rufus* has no self esteem and talks too much about his art. Kevin** does not talk enough about his art and is a megalomaniac.

Person In Line In Front Of Me At Kroger, Carrying Rotisserie Chicken, in Spanish: I don’t know how they get the floors so shiny.
Person In Line In Front Of Me At Kroger, Carrying Loaf of Bread, in Spanish: Me either.
PILIFOMAKCRIS: Go get some forks, spoons, and so on.

Me: So then we discussed Johns.
Her: What? Male prostitutes?

Time: 12:32 AM
Her: (already asleep)
Me: (climbing into bed.) Goodnight.
Frightening Zombie Her: (rolls over and clutches me in deathgrip.) Who wants to know? Why are you useless?
Me: What? Let go of me!

* name has been changed to protect the innocent
** me

It’s been 3 years since we moved to this dump, and the floors inch closer to being completely laid.

Here Mondego experiences this moderately wondrous state of affairs.

Take a bow, Mondego.

Her: And then if you are one of 30 finalists selected, you will be asked to submit a multimedia piece on the theme of, “If you had an audience of millions, what would you say?”

(a moment passes during which I pet the cat)

Me: Hmmm. What would I say to an audience of millions?
Her: What wouldn’t you say to them?

Dog diarrhea in living room: 5 gallons
TV Medical Shows on Netflix DVD: 2 (Scrubs and Gray’s Anatomy)
TV Medical Shows on Netflix DVD that I actually like: 1 (Scrubs)
Presentations to finish by tomorrow: 1
Cars to have inspected: 1
Cars I would prefer to roll into the river rather than have inspected: 1
Reasons I do not roll car into river: 2
a. environmental impact
b. long walk home from river
Local bomb threats: 1
Difficulties encountered in attempting to sign up for fall classes: myriad

The time is 8:45 on Sunday morning. We are having the floors finished today. “Finished,” in this case, means, “completed,” rather than, “polyurethaned.” We have enjoyed three years of not having any floors in the closets or any shoe molding around most of the rooms of the house owing to my own home repairs laziness. The guy who is doing it is coming at 9 which necessitated my fleeing from the house into the barrens of a town where even the college library doesn’t open until noon on Sunday.

I am at Starbucks, the cockroach of civilization, because the local coffee place doesn’t open until 9. Stupid of them, I think. No wonder Starbucks has 13,000 locations and they only have one. They are inefficient.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered there is an NTC hotspot at this very same Starbucks. Well, technically it is for the 5 Guys next door. And I don’t take back anything I have said about NTC. They are the cockroach of internet service providers. But it is convenient anyway, considering that I am already paying them approximately $6,000 per year for slow, spotty ethernet service in the apartment, not to mention all the headaches they have caused and the years off my life.

Here is a picture of my breakfast. It is rife with irony. Note the stack of 5 books beside the preachy quote on the coffee cup.

That’s postmodernism for you.

So, it took me 1.5 hours to drive home tonight. It’s normally a 30 minute drive. Yuck.

Keep your foot off the brake. Steer in the direction of the skid. That is what I kept reminding myself.

That’s hard to do when the direction of the skid is the same direction that will lead you into a line of cars, or into a snowy ditch. But that’s the way it is.

This ice is on the inside of the door to the balcony, which is frozen shut. I am cold. I hate this weather. I hate the winter. I hate these goddam mountains.

Last night we went to see Sugarland, which was boss* because Jennifer Nettles is only my favorite singer since, like, forever, except of course for Shakira.

We had great seats, unexpectedly, since we thought we would be way in the back as usual, but instead we were like 10 feet from the stage among the very rich, and very excited, and very drunk (and also some elderly and dozing) set of fans.

And when I wasn’t being knocked in the head by the flailing arms of my enthusiastic seat neighbor, I broke it down. It was a grizzeat show.

Also, I would like to mention that I am impressed by the clothes that country stars get to wear. Particularly cowboy boots, the purchase of which I think will be my third and probably final** capitulation to Southwest Virginia culture.

Because after cowboy boots, what else is left? Cowboy boots are the final frontier, except for rhinestone belt buckles which I think even country stars do not wear off stage.

*this is a slang term I am popularizing via my groundbreaking blog
** 1st capitulation: listening to country music
2nd capitulation: purchase of climate killing 4WD vehicle and obsession therewith

I spend my entire life trying to write artist’s statements, which is absurd. I have to stop thinking about this before I lose my mind. I have therefore pared down my artist’s statement to the following:

There is already enough bad art in the world, and I do not plan to make any more of it.

Right now, I am not adding the following, which means that my value system is strong:

(Unless by doing so I can make a lot of money.)

I am not, nor have I ever been, what you might call “a morning person.” It is generally best to leave me alone until I am fully awake.

Apparently yesterday morning I participated in the following conversation which involved Yours Truly being awoken from a sound sleep at an ungodly hour.

Time: 6 AM
Location: Bedside
Her: I think I have broken the coffee pot.
Me: AAAAARRRRRRRR!!!!

It’s sad, really. Like an addiction.

This evening we will be speaking with Mr Inman, who braved freakish blizzard conditions all across the southern states to come down to the studio. We understand that he has been enjoying several fine examples of modern day American cultural achievement in the arenas of film and teenybopper literature. And now we will find out his precious opinions on these topics.

Mr Inman, how was The Black Book, Diary of a Teenage Stud Vol I Girls, Girls, Girls?

Katie, it was extremely readable. I think I have found a new love in Young Adult serial romance novels.

And what did you think of Eating Out?

Katie, I thought it was hugely enjoyable. Isn’t it interesting how fag hags in movies always look like Tori Spelling?

And what did you think of Snippet’s medication?

Well, Katie, I have to say I was surprised how readily she ate both kinds of it.

Mr Inman, we’d like to thank you for coming down to the studio today, what with all the inclement weather warnings causing school closures all across the region.

You’re welcome, Katie. Fortunately my 4WD Vehicle to Inches Snowfall ratio was 0:0.

That’s all we have time for, folks.

When I lived in Spain, I wrote a poem called “La vida en la flanera” or “Life in the Flan Pan.” I sumbitted it for a contest for Americans writing poetry in Spanish, and I didn’t win. The guy who did win wrote a poem called “La Bonita Espana” (Beautiful Spain) or something like that and though it was not avant garde in the least he won the sweatshirt.

The moral is obviously: people who wear sweatshirts write bad literature.

All of this is immaterial. In Spain, we ate flan from the grocery store. And that was fine. Because homemade flan tastes like bland, tough eggs, and is gross.

Nevertheless sometimes I attempt to make it, especially on Thursdays when we speak Spanish in the house.

I never know at what stage something is going to go wrong with the things I cook. Needless to say, flan has never gone right in my kitchen.

In this case, it is that instead of caramel, I succeeded in making hard candy, which in addition to being nearly impossible to remove from the pan, tasted burnt.

Student: The syllabus has this assignment due on a Monday, but class meets on Tuesday.
Philosophy Professor: All days are Mondays, except Friday.

Today I talked to the Helpful Secretary, who always has plenty of information about all topics. Here is what she had to say:

Helpful Secretary: Then you go to the left, to the left, to the right, to the right, and her office will be right there by the burgundy carpet.
Me: Ah.

My schedule for today is as follows:

10:00 AM: leave house
10:30 AM: 5 minute meeting re: independent study for photography
11 AM: 5 minute class re: painting
3:30 PM: 5 minute class re: aesthetics (whatever that may turn out to mean)
5:30 PM: 5 minute class re: modern art
6:05 PM: return to house

Oh, Tuesday.