2000-10-19 - 11:44:37

so i was under the impression that all dentyne gum was sugarless. this is not the case. so now i have all this sugary gum, which is unfortunate because i chew gum like chain smokers smoke cigarettes. guess i'll just brush extra to make up for it. (i'll put the top down before i flush, melissa, don't worry about me and the germs.)

ok. so i just wrote the longest, craziest email to my american fiction prof. like, i decided at some point in life that i shouldn't disguise my personality in emails to profs. sometimes i cut out one or two of the 'dude's or 'yo's, but normally i just leave everything the way it is. because like, that's me, right? but in the throes of this mad crazy i-can't-turn-my-brain-off-or-get-my-fingers-to-quit sickness, the email i just shot off to doody was a new high in terms of craziness. it was so frenetic i felt like it was jumping off the screen. and what i could have said in two sentences probably took about half a page. oh well. he'll think it's funny. probably. either that or just plain craziness. and craziness is inherently funny, so hey, we win either way.

the email was basically about how he's got this whole thing with writing how you talk. not with all the like's and dude's and yo's, but you know, in some easy, vernacular style. and not in the overly formal, latinate, academic way we're usually taught to write. so i sorta took this to the extreme, i think, with the first paper. i changed about every single sentence as i typed it to make it "the way i talk." except it wasn't the way i talked. or it was, but the way i talked when i was six. but i got good comments on it, so i wrote the second and third the same way. like, the papers are 1-2 pages. they take me about 20-30 minutes. i wasn't approaching them as any sort of tour de force or anything. but then i got sorta annoyed and when it came to the last paper, i was like, shit, i'm going to write like myself. so i did. and got one comment. "fine paper." so i wrote him this email explaining my whole thought process and wondering which style he preferred and all this like, extra peripheral crap. often in the form of anecdotes. but yeah, so i had to explain my whole battle with the ideal of "artistic integrity" in high school, and how i finally learned to accept the concept of "writing for your audience." i can see him like, printing this email and sticking it on the refrigerator in the english dept. lounge. but anyway. what's done is done.

dude. that was like, the most boring story ever. sorry about that.

ben harper. i'm so pumped about this. i say everyone goes out and buys 'fight for your mind' right now. good music that's socially conscious without being insanely inflammatory. who would have thought?

'my choice is what i choose to do, and if i'm causing no harm, it shouldn't bother you. your choice is who you choose to be, and if you're causing no harm, then you're alright with me. if you don't like my fire, then don't come around, 'cause i'm gonna burn one down.'

oh, it's so simple and so true.

(p.s. the messages get more pointed/explicit. so if you're like, 'uh, that's socially conscious?', he attacks specific issues through the entire album.)

i passed fly high little bunny today and the marquis said "vote for love, man, vote for LOVE." it made me smile.

previous - next