Flames

I often wonder what happened to the old me, the one who was willing to burn bridges with no gumption - I would say something without blinking an eye, not caring that I offended or irrevocably ended a blossoming relationship (I'm using that term in the loosest of terms, by the way). However, now I wonder and contemplate my statements - usually though my girl friend my contest that very statement.

Regardless, I usually try to placate a person's feelings before I puncture their balloon.

I don't know why this particular point has come up, but I was thinking about this today, and I can remember a time when I was talking to Nick, and I was telling him about how I realized I was about to burn a bridge with someone - I can't for the life of me remember who that was at the moment, but I want to say it was a co-worker - thought, what the hell can this chick for/to me, and then burned that bridge without a second thought as to what repercussions could possibly happen to me.

Now that my mind is moving, I think this happened right before I left the previous job, and the co-worker was one who annoyed everyone there. That's right! i am thinking correctly now. This female worker was continually trying - and sometimes succeeding - to get me in trouble, for things i legitimately didn't do. For example, while talking to her about a project we were working on, she, after the conversation was over with, went into her boss' office and told her I was rude. Thank goodness a co-worker saw the entire conversation and backed me up against the claims of this other person.

So, eventually I started to detest this particular person, and decided Fuck It. So, instead of going after her in such a way that I might get into trouble, I decided to be a little more original about it, and went for public ridicule. And how did I do this? I took pictures of her from her Facebook account, photoshop'd them, and then put those said pictures on a poster by her cubicle. And to top this off I then went to the head boss, asked her to come look at something funny, and pointed out what I had done. Sadly, I got the response I was looking for, the head boss laughed, quite a bit actually, which only encouraged me further to do this.

Here's my handiwork:

As you can see, I put a lot of detail into the work.

To be honest with you, I don't know when she found out about this particular piece of work, but it stayed up there for about a day, and then was removed. By whom... I'm not sure, but that information was never got by me.

An Afternoon

I look at you, me talking too much while you stare off into space, us sitting on the porch in the back yard after you've come home from work. There you are, sunglasses on so I can't tell if you're looking at me, or if your head is just tilted to the sounds coming out of my mouth. And I keep talking, talking to the silence that surrounds us, while trying to make you laugh and failing miserably. I can see that you're so tired from the daily boredom of your job, and I can do nothing but talk about my day, you all the while probably wanting me to shut up, so you can relax for five minutes after the storm of the work week, and the daily commute. But I can do nothing but talk, trying to encapsulate to you my experiences; trying to share with you everything that I have done for the day, so that maybe, for a moment, instead of being two people in a relationship we can be one. One person who have shared the same experiences, and are so close together that the silence is no longer deafening.

But all you can do is look into space. And i cannot articulate to you why I try to fill the silence, creating a schism separating me from you when we should be binded comfortably together. Yet for you, you do not seem to mind the silence. Maybe it's at those moments that you feel us truly as one, or maybe those are moments of peace, where you do not have to engage with me and the world, instead letting it take you, like a pliable lover, as it will. Looking at you, while you possibly listen to me, I question what a person like you can find so beautiful and charming in a person like me. And in these moments, I doubt my self.

Maybe one day I will be comfortable with the silence that sometimes surrounds us... but until then, I'm sorry for stealing those moments from you.

Yowls of my Plight

My girlfriend's cat is named Dirty Harriet, and she has been yowling at a stray cat late at night recently. Now, some might say, that sucks, and that person would be right. However it is worse than just suckage, she has been yowling on the windowsill behind our headboard, thus waking us up in the middle of the night. Now one might saw, that is horrible, but one does not have the entire story yet. This cat has been causing much ridicule to be directed my way via the GF, because she seems to think that I scream like a little girl when I deal with the situations the cat creates. So, this is my rebuttal to the GF's statements that I am a wimp.

To begin with, the first time it happened, I had never heard a cat yowl before; I've never owned a cat before living with the GF. So, needless to say, it was quite a shock when I was awoken in the middle of the night to the sound of something that sounded like a combination between a screaming child and a bat from the depths of hell yelling curses into my ear. And then what happened once I was violently awoken? The GF grabbed a hold of my knee, and started to squeeze. Why? She said she was just making sure I was okay. But I know the real reason, to scare the holy hell out of me! And then her response to my screaming? She calls me a wimp, when i thought that someone was trying to get me! What was the appropriate response, I ask you? I'm not sure, but I shot out of the bed like a rocket when she grabbed and squeezed my leg. And thus the ridicules started...

So to not repeat myself, let's just say this type of thing happened a few times, and move on to the next post-able story dealing with a Yowling Cat, an Easily Startled Male and a GF who finds the two interacting to be extremely amusing.

About a week ago, the yowling cat was again in a windowsill in our bedroom. However, this time instead of being behind the headboard, it was in the other window - which happens to be on my side of the bed. So, it's about 5 o'clock in the morning and I hear this damn hellion noise coming from somewhere. First, I tapped the curtain behind my head, because I wasn't able to be cognitively aware as to where the cat was stationed. So, after tapping the curtain, and not getting the desired result, silence, I figured Harriet was on at the other window. I then got up to do the same thing, tap the curtain and tell her to shut the hell up. However, that particular plan did not work as planned.

Here's what happened:

I got out of bed, and went to the window that the cat was on. I did what I planned, I tapped the curtains, hoping to shut the cat up. Didn't expect this though, the cat was quite startled when I tapped the curtains; she hissed at me then proceeded to fall into the close basket pulling the curtains with her and making the curtains land on top of me. At this point, I screamed... the GF says like a little girl. Now granted, I guess I should have acted manly at this point, and been a stoic dude who didn't react at all, however that was not the case with me. So what? I screamed, but do I have to be characterized like that of a pre-pubescent female?

Now granted, maybe not the manliest response in the world. I'll give her that. But I had a curtain fall on me, along with a hissing cat! How should I have reacted? I'm human, I screamed! Possibly quite loudly. And then I had to put the damn curtain back up, which just added insult to injury. But it was not until everything was finished, the cat taken out of the hamper, the curtain rod put back in it's place, and my head laying on the pillow that the girl turns over from her side, looks at me and told me thus: that I'm a wuss.

retractions and reformations

So, i was wrong in thinking that I could actually post another blog after getting back from the job fair (I knew it wasn't going to happen, yet thought what the hell, maybe?). Anyways, let's update the world about the job situation a little more fully, and maybe give you, the reader, a little inside look as to why I think I'm a big deal.

About a month ago, I received an email from the Graduate Chair's receptionist asking me to make an appointment with Dr. Upchurch regarding when I was planning on graduating. Now, I have never met Dr. Upchurch, and am the type of person who always goes to the worst possible scenarios when confronted with a scenario like this, so I initially thought a huge multi-syllabled expletive and then started asking myself what the hell I could have done to warrant a verbal lashing from the chair.

I quickly sent an email saying I could meet with him later that day, and then actually went down to the receptionist's office to see what the hell I did to get into trouble. She said I had done nothing, and that he really did just want to talk to me about when I planned on graduating. Now for the regular joe, this might have ended the worry, but for me, i just thought that she didn't want to be the messenger of bad news, and continued to fret about it for the next 5 hours.

So, it finally gets close to the time when my appointment should be taking place, and I head over to Dr. Upchurch's office. However, there was someone already there, so I decided to wait outside in the hallway on the comfy couch until the guy leaves. While waiting, I actually see Upchurch leave his office, run to the English Dept. Main Office, make a copy and start on his way back when he is stopped by the Director of the English Department. They start to talk about money and funding, and I - this entire time - am looking inconspicuous by pretending to read a book, all the while listening to their conversation and trying to figure out how this might relate to me and why I am being called into the so-called principles office.

So, eventually both go their separate ways, Upchurch goes back into his office, and I followed him in about a minute later. Eventually the guy who was in the previous meeting left (I happen to know this guy, he's a fellow TF and he didn't look happy) and I enter the Seventh layer of Hell that I perceive to be Upchurch's office. Once the introductions were over with, I was asked by Upchurch when I planned to graduate, and I told him that my game plan was Fall '10. He then stated that the university was cutting funding for Master Student Teaching Fellows (TFs), and that next semester, there was to be no MA TFs in the English program.

Now obviously, this should have been devastating news, and for me, my legs started to go out from under me - at least they would have if I wasn't already sitting. I actually wanted to stand up, just so I could fall defeated back into the chair in which I had previously been sitting. However, the next line made me... well, this is mixed company so I won't finish that line. He told me that he had the funds to keep three Masters' students on, and asked me to push back my graduation date until spring '11 and to teach there for another year. Needless to say, I was ecstatic. So, there will be three of us next semester teaching at UNT who are Masters' students, and the rest will be PhD students.

Now, to be perfectly honest with you, I have absolutely no idea how I got tagged for this. Someone somewhere must have been looking, and somehow I got on someone's radar. Upchurch even went on to say that the school thinks I'm doing a great job teaching up here... who know's, maybe I got good reviews from student evaluations last semester (I never got my hands on them) and I'm sure that all those A's last semester didn't hurt me either. However, this is a new feeling for me, I'm not too used to getting great unexpected responses like this. So, I've been very gracious lately for all that I have, and humble for the opportunity that UNT's giving me. However, I have been keeping this news close to the vest, and have only told a few people what it was that Upchurch wanted to talk to me about, because I didn't want to rub it in anyone's face, 'cause that's not very cool if you don't know them... THAT"S WHAT SHE SAID!

the long moans of anxiety

So, here's the deal:

I've got a job for the fall and spring, but not for the summer at UNT. So I've been looking for a summer job, hoping to teach at a junior college around here, because I don't want to work retail, and I enjoy my cush lifestyle that I have now become accustomed to since entering academia. Thusly, I'm now waiting a short time, before going to a job fair for adjunct positions at TCC. And while yesterday I was not nervous, as of getting my shit prepared for it, I cannot say that I feel the same way as I did yesterday.

But that's life, I guess.

Anyways, I'm going to post another blog once I get home - hopefully - but until then, that is all!

little moments...

While talking to my students today, we discussed (it was really me talking to one particular student, while the rest listened about a prompt for a scholarship essay) about defining moments in a person's life, and how it's really the little moments in one's life that characterize a person. And while I was saying this, I found what I was saying to be quite enlightening - that usually how my moments of enlightenment come about, because while talking I am able to associate things more easily than I do while thinking to myself, and I then realize that whatever I was discussing/lecturing upon is an interesting idea that I hadn't really though long upon before.

So, thinking out loud while talking to the class, I was discussing about how it's small moments that define a character. I mean, think about it, how often is our character challenged and we are forced to confront drastic disastrous events? Instead, it's the small decision that really affect who we are as a person, and how we perceive ourselves and others. Instead of looking at the moments of trauma that are supposedly defining our person, we should instead look at how we interact with others, and what we do to define ourselves. In these small moments, where we make decisions upon things that are usually more subconscious than conscious, we are living the moments that define us. Because it is in these moments that we are guided by our rules of life that have been instilled in us by figures of influence and power.

However, despite being aware of these figures of influence pressed upon my life, I am still constrained by their desires and restrictions upon me. In consequence, many might feel that they need to rebel against these very limits that have been forced upon them. Yet, I do not feel that these very things that have been placed upon me have hurt me in any way. In fact, I think many times, by being aware of the desire for not being punished, I have followed the correct paths, and those paths have led me to where I am today. So, regardless of the fact that I have been placed in these shackles by others, these very confinements have set me free - at least to a certain extent - and allowed me to follow a path that none have been able to manipulate or coerce away from me.

The Thesis Concept

For all those who weren't aware, I've started writing my thesis this semester. Sadly, I've quickly become bogged down in post-modernist theory and commentary on Tristram Shandy (hereafter referred to as TS). And while I've been enjoying the whole getting acquainted with the idea of the thesis, I've already come to the conclusion that I am actually quite tired of reading books and am ready to start actually writing. It's just too bad that I've got a long way to go before I'm able to get there; at this moment, I still need to read three books by different leading theorist in the field and also another two books upon TS, as well as needing to reread TS. Now granted, I could be looking at this as a glass half full kind of situation, where I see that there is only this few amount of books left before I get to start putting pen to paper (I've already read about 7, as well as over 20 articles), but I've come to the moment where I just want to get started and can only see these books as more obstacles that I have to maneuver around before I can get going.

Now at this point, you might be asking why not just start, and skip these last few books. Well, here's the dilemma that I face. I feel that I need to situate myself into the conversation that's been taking place with TS, and to do this, I need to read as much scholarship as possible on this topic before I get started, so that I'm not covering other people's tracks, nor am I repeating other's ideas. So, though I feel somewhat prepared and really fed up with TS essays, I have to plow through this shit before I see the bright light at the end of the tunnel, the bright light in this case being my monitor.

As for the theorists, I look forward to the challenge of reading these works, but wish I had already read more of this stuff beforehand. At UNT there appears to be a much greater emphasis on new historical research, and very few of us are using any kind of theoretical based scholarship. So, while I've done a lot of theory in the past, I'm, to a certain extant, one of the few in the English department right now who will be doing his or her thesis with a particular framework in mind. And while I enjoy using this particular method when writing papers, especially while looking at a particular work, I wish that I had been given the opportunity to have taken more of these types of classes while I was still taking classes.

Regardless of this fact, I'm looking forward greatly to putting pen to paper (or in my case, digits to keyboards) and getting started.

Now that I've read this over, I quickly came to the conclusion that this particular post wasn't particularly funny. Regardless of that fact, what do you want for nothin'?! It's free ain't it?

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Wall Post

A while back, I was on FML (or possibly it was TFLN... or some other affiliated website about how fucked up your life is bullshit) and I saw one post where a guy was informed that his girl friend was pregnant via a facebook wall post. After the initial horror I felt at this news bombshell being handed down so whimsically via a wall post, I stepped back to think about not only the negative aspects of this type of information being handled via a social networking site, but also the positive ones as well. Now, before I go any further, I am not going to address the inherent argument about the isolating/embracing of communication between human beings via the web, nor am I (hopefully) going to touch upon any type of discussion about the intelligence of the woman in question relaying this information to some poor sap on Facebook, and the trauma that he might have sustained. Also, I do not plan to broach the subject of him being so devastated by this information that he had to get it off his chest via the world wide web with some twitter like website that limits the amounts of characters that can be used in each post. Instead, this blog will focus on the positive/negative aspects of getting personal info, much like this, via the Internet.

Positive: No longer do we have to make those awkward phone calls to our loved/hated/inconsequential ones that clutter our life. Instead, of calling to say that Aunt Suzy died, why not make it a facebook status, so you can receive false sympathy from "friends" and a shit ton of "likes" underneath your statement.

Also, in the same vein, you could just as easily post your sympathies on a person's wall, leaving "sincere" well-wishes like "if you need to talk, call me" when you know they don't have you phone number, and even if they do happen to have it, you can screen your calls, so you make sure that you don't have to talk to them. I know some might find this is cold hearted, but really, have you ever had to deal with someone crying inconsolably on your phone? If you have, you know this is a positive, not a negative, statement.

Even better, in this day and age, where we've all heard that "we didn't know we were in a relationship, until we saw it on facebook," why not break up with a person by denying/removing their relationship status to you, then writing something extremely nasty upon their wall (like for example, calling into question a person's ability to perform in the boudoir) and finally deleting your friendship (and possibly editing your profile, so you're invisible to them). Isn't this the easier way to break up with someone? No longer do you need to have that final awkward conversation, where things might be said that can no longer be taken back.

Another positive aspect is that the things that used to be private are now open for the world to see. And while the people involved might not like the fact that I now know personal details of their lives, I, on the other hand, am able to gossip about them, and creep around their profile page at my own leisure, without having to call someone to get the scoop. As you can see, for me at least, it's the not having to call aspect that I enjoy most about this growing technological age... because I don't usually like talking to people on the phone; I would much rather get a text or meet a person somewhere. However, now I don't even have to do that, I am able to find out both good and bad news, as well as gossip and judge from the comfort of my living room in nothing but a t-shirt and my boxers while watching A Golden Girls marathon on TV.

Of course there is a negative side to all of this. Yet, while I walked away just a moment ago to organize my thoughts, I just can't seem to come up with any... okay here's one. Sadly, Facebook might tip your hand to your significant other, making for difficult conversations... for example, you've already confirmed a new relationship without first breaking up with your previous partner. So better management of personal details becomes a must have for this new day and age.

Lastly, having to figure out how to take all personal possessions from a partner's home might become difficult as you don't want to raise suspicions before you drop the proverbial shoe... also on that same note, if anyone knows how to conceal a microwave under a pair of jeans, please let me know.

Gone Fishin'

It's been a while since I've done this thing... so let's see how rusty I've become in my blogging hiatus.

Let's start from the beginning and go forward... I was born a poor black man. Ahem, sorry. I've been busy with school, teaching, trying to find a thesis chair and life in general. However, I have been able to check most of those items off my list now, and am still relatively relaxing in my vacational comfort while I await for the new semester.

I got straight A's this semester, so that seems like as good a place to start as any, and one of the many reasons why I have had this long stretch of non-blogging. Also, the teaching went well it appears, but I haven't seen the reviews yet, so I'll wait and comment upon that later. The chair has also been found (I'm going to be working with Deborah Armintor this semester and plan to finish off the thesis in the summer time), and lastly life has been really good, just busy.

So, now that we're all caught up, let's start with a funny topic. I figured, why try to let you all catch up with my life, and also why try to write about everything I've done while away? That would take forever, and by the time I finished writing about the past, new stuff would already have happened that I would then have to write about, which I would also be compelled to write about, creating a Cartesian circle of continually trying to catch up, yet always wanting to stay fresh with my post. So instead, I'm going to just jump ahead into the present, and hopefully allude and talk about the past when things arise that are stimulating and apparent to any story that I might tell. However, regardless of this fact, I plan to stop talking about myself for the rest of this blog and do something that I promised Amanda I would do a while back, that is, talk about the genre that is Chuck Norris.

Now, Amanda was talking to me a while back, and she and I were discussing the ideas of a concept. That is, how it is formed, why it functions, and lastly, what's its purpose. And I said that many different things could be considered concepts, and that these concepts form into genres over time. Inexplicably, I somehow got onto the topic of Chuck Norris and how he no longer is an actor but actually a concept, one that has funny jokes that make absolutely no sense, but nonetheless, I still laugh at. Amanda then went on to say that she has never understood the Chuck Norris joke, and that, that particular craze seemed to pass her by without her getting onto the bandwagon. So, I decided that I would write a blog to help her better understand Chuck Norrise- regardless of the fact that she probably doesn't care about the topic and will probably find me talking about her in this way to be particularly pandering to both her and also the Great one that is Chuck Norris.

Now, we all know the history of Chuck Norris... dynamic movie star... crossed over into TV... made the television show, Walker, Texas Ranger. So, I'm not going to reconstruct old news. Instead, I want to talk about the phenomenon that became Chuck Norris after he reached cult status with the jokes that are so corny a cow might die if told enough of them without also being administered drugs to keep them healthy. With such awful jokes as: "What was going through the minds of Chuck Norris' victims before they died? His shoe." Chuck Norris has cemented his role as genre, instead of man. How? you ask. I plan to explain this to you.

No longer does a person in this society care about the man - Chuck Norris, flesh and blood American hero - instead all we care about is the ability to use the man as a punchline that creates a homogenizing within a group. With the loss of the man, but the recognition of the name, the man became meaningless, but the name remains in the pop-cultural memory, allowing for a sudden outburst of laughter with the association of the ridiculous and the normative. With this association, the myth of Chuck Norris was created, allowing for a subversion of norm and a creation of the fiction. What I mean by this is that once the jokes started taking place - and kudos to whomever created the first classic joke like: There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris allows to live - Chuck Norris the man lost all his value in this society, but his name remained behind and still has an resonance with the public.

With the loss of value, Chuck Norris' name has been inserted with a new value, one that I have created meaning for, along with every other person who has ever made a crack, joke, pun or side remark hoping for a cheap laugh at the hero's expense. And because of these cheap, dirty remarks, the value of the man has decreased, but the name has greatly increased. And because of the association of the cheap with the authoratian - meaning the regal acting skills that Chuck Norris possesses - the laughter have remained while the man has diminished.

But, now the questions which begs to be answered: how long will these laughs continue? Who knows really, but how good is the joke? The fact that one, such as I, can still elicit a modicum of a guffaw means that cheap comedians will still implement them in a situation. All we can hope for is that the myth will die eventually, and in the dying breaths, like a phoenix, society will remember the hard-hitting roles that Chuck Norris has tackled in his day; roles like Silent Rage, SideKicks and Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection, and hopefully forget the awful jokes that have now dogged his twilighted acting years. With the loss of value of the man, the name has also lost all "true" meaning within a society, and has instead been inserted with new meaning, and, sadly, this new meaning is a punchline. However, in the end, we must remember one thing, and one thing only, You can't spell God without Chuck Norris... at least in Chuck Norris' dictionary.