Friday, March 30, 2007 | by nathan

by your wounds, we are healed

I think I just found my favorite paragraph on the entire internet:

"Before attempting fisting, a Christian husband and wife should pray together and ask for divine guidance. The husband should ask that God guide his hand and work through him, and for the skill and patience to fist his wife correctly and maximize her pleasure. The wife should pray for openness and readiness to receive God’s love and grace in the form of her husband’s hand."

That can be found right here. It’s probably NSFW, though there’s little obscene imagery on the site.  

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 | by nathan

Hey, Big Spender

When I was a senior in college, I wrote a rather long honors thesis for my religion major about sexual theology, and homosexuality in particular. As part of my research I conducted a semester-long Bible study on campus about these issues that, while not particularly successful, fed my thesis so perfectly that I felt as if most of the work had been done for me.

I could not have been more wrong, of course, and I realized this when it got to be April 13-ish and I realized I HADN’T WRITTEN A SINGLE DAMN WORD. Yes, I had researched, and made notes, and prepared for the study, etc. etc. But I had not written a single page of the 40+ pages I was expected to have for my thesis. This on top of having both papers AND finals in every class I was taking, which was a lot. It was the single most rigorous semester I had at Wake Forest – or, one of them, anyway – and here I hadn’t done a single damn thing to get the honors for which I had applied and which, because of the credits I still needed to graduate, was now required for me to receive a degree.

So, I wrote the thing. In four days. That’s ten pages a day, plus editing, footnotes, end notes, and additional research I had not completed. Four days.

That same semester I was nominated for Senior Colloquium. This is a program at Wake where seniors are nominated by members of the faculty to write end-of-the-year speeches. These are submitted to a faculty panel, then narrowed down to 15 or so. These 15 students attend a dinner at the President’s house and give their speeches to a group of trustees, faculty, and the President and his wife. From there the students are whittled down to three, each of whom speaks as part of graduation activities. It’s a great honor. I was nominated by one of my favorite people at Wake Forest, Chaplain Ed Christman. It was an honor, but I was so busy procrastinating on my honors thesis that I didn’t bother to write my speech until the day it was due.

It took me 15 minutes. I was selected to attend the President’s dinner, and then selected as one of the three who would give his speech at the colloquium in May. For a speech that I wrote in 15 minutes and did not edit. I reread that speech recently, as I included it in a portfolio I submitted for a job application (look! I can write speeches!). Upon reviewing the work I thought it fairly well written, but it was so riddled with typos and amateur mistakes that not only was I shocked that I was chosen to give my speech at President Hearn’s house, I’m kinda surprised I wasn’t expelled from Wake Forest, or shot.

Now, here I am in my last semester of graduate school. I have three huge projects coming up: most important is my thesis novel, which must be 50,000 words, all of publishable quality (read: not a rough draft like in every class I’ve taken, but hey, thanks for teaching me ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT EDITING). The second is a marketing plan, submission packet and first 50 or so pages of a nonfiction book. I haven’t started this. The third is a large set of revisions to a novel I wrote last year. These are all required for my graduation. 

I’ve got 7,500 words of my thesis novel written. I decided to stay in my cozy, creativity-inspiring little office on campus and work instead of going home, where I would be distracted by my deep need to cuddle with my husband on our incredibly comfy sofa and play with the dog and the Wii. I thought, "It’ll be okay. I’ll get it out."

What have I been doing instead? Watching every single one of these. The second one’s my favorite. 

I am so screwed. You think I can pull off another miracle like I did as an undergraduate? Five years, two inches on my waist and two metric tons of alcohol separate me from that time in my life, but I’ll see what I can do.

Thursday, March 22, 2007 | by nathan

honky tonk women

Anybody wanna start a rock and roll band? Like – like ROCK AND ROLL, with cool guitar riffs and fun lyrics, not that self-important "I’m so deep, look at my tribal tattoo" type stuff, but just fun music – the kind of stuff the Stones used to do, that the Scissor Sisters are doing now but without the glam, and without the dance stuff?

Anybody? Money for nothing, guys for free? Beats working, ya know. No one? Fine. Get back to work, ya bums.

Thursday, March 22, 2007 | by nathan

Vague Little Patches of Light

So, I didn’t get an interview with the very cool arts nonprofit. In order to salvage my fragile ego I’m going to tell myself it’s due to the fact that I submitted my materials literally at the VERY.LAST.MINUTE.

Then, today, I got some potentially exciting job news. I can’t really talk about it for two reasons: 1) I’m the only one who knows about it, and the people who need to know are as yet in the dark. I sincerely doubt they read this little internet rag, but I’m-a keep quiet anyway. And 2) I’m trying not to blog too much about work, as I really like my job, and most of the people at my job, and sometimes – sometimes, not all the time – even the ungodly amounts of work that pile up on my desk every day.

So. Good news abounds, though most of it exists still in potentiality and not actual news. Have I been vague enough for you?  

Tuesday, March 20, 2007 | by nathan

breaking a promise to myself

I know I said I wouldn’t think about it until I graduate, but I have a lot of time to think this week, as I am on spring break – which means little when you work 27 hours a week at another job – but I have come to two very important conclusions about any future education attempts I might undertake. They are as follows:

1) I will never again attempt another degree just because I think it would be useful to me professionally. What does this mean? Never, ever again will I expect education to transform my current professional unhappiness. Luckily at the moment I am not professionally unhappy – at least not in the sense that I hate my chosen field – and so this is not a problem. I do not, however, want to spend the next thirty years of my life working at a desk job just to pay the bills. If ever I return to school, it will have to be because SCHOOL is what I want to be doing for the foreseeable future, not because I think it will help me make more money or rocket me up the career ladder. People at work ask me all the time if I’ve considered law school. Right after I tell them the next bus for Hell is leaving in ten minutes and that they should be on it, I tell them that while I would probably love law school, I have no desire to practice law or to undertake any of the myriad of careers one can have with a J.D. If I go to law school – or divinity school, or go get a Ph.D. – it will be because I want to be taking classes, teaching undergrads, researching, writing papers, and staying up late into the night reading. It will not be because I think it would be cool, one day, to be a college professor or ACLU lawyer or whatever.

2) I will not undertake more education until I have whittled my current student debt down to 0. Once I graduate, provided I get a job I like, I can have this done in a few years according to the plan I have made for myself. I am willing to put off more school until this is done, because right now I have a very large number hanging over my head, and I don’t like having it there, and I REALLY don’t like the thought of it getting any bigger. Also, the next time I am a student, if ever, I do not want to feel pressure to work as much as I work right now, and even though I could have my student loans deferred, I’d just as soon not even have to think about it. Also, after a few years working in my current field I should have a good sense of whether or not I want to continue on course or return to school. No decisions will be made rashly, and that is A Good Thing.

For now, I have a lot of homework, work, and thesis to catch up on, so I’ll leave you with that.

Thursday, March 15, 2007 | by nathan

Dear Apple Store,

Dear Apple Store,

I am writing to you as someone whom you have wooed, completely, since you opened here in the Heartland a year and a half ago. I want you to know that before I jump into the meat of this letter. I want you to know that I love you, but that after what happened today, I just need a little – I just need a little space, that’s all.

See, Apple Store, I have come to rely on you for certain needs that I have. Apple needs. While I do think it a bit grandiose of you to label your workers "geniuses" – I worked across from your current location, at American Eagle, for a summer and was more often addressed as "shetbag" – I do find myself inexorably drawn to you every time I enter the mall, and I find myself thinking of you when I need something Mac-related.

So. Today I was set to take over the lecture for the baby undergrads I babysit three times a week. I had a PowerPoint presentation ready to go, but I realized almost at the last minute that I had no idea where my mini-DVI to VGA connector was. No idea. And see, this is where you should love me, Apple Store – I’m the type of person who, given the choice between tearing his house apart looking for something he may never find and paying $20 to replace that thing, will always – ALWAYS – pay the $20. So, I decided to pay you a visit. I decided to take off work an hour early to pay you a visit, as a matter of fact.

First, however, I decided to call to make sure you had the mini-DVI to VGA connector I needed, because even with an extra hour suddenly in my day, I didn’t have time to hit two stores. I put all my eggs in your basket, so to speak, and I needed you to deliver. So I called.

"Hello, Apple Store, can you hold?"

Anything for you, Apple Store.

So I held. While holding I rinsed out the coffee pot in the office, packed my MacBook and pad and pens and sundry other work-related items into my bag, turned off the lights and left the office. I started the long march to my car, annoying indie-wannabe bands from your on-hold music loop playing in my ear. (Honestly, Apple Store, why do you have to try to act like a hipster? If people are buying your products solely because it makes them look cool, isn’t that kind of lame? Why try to assuage their deep sense of poserness by playing Fall Out Boy and letting them think they’re still one of about 5,000 people in all America who knows who that is?)

See, Apple Store, what you don’t know is that I refuse to pay $100 a semester to park at a university WHERE I WORK. In a lot with big signs telling me that, should my car be pelleted by baseballs from the adjacent baseball field, said university is not to blame. Some things I will pay for. Some things – I will not. Shit, I wouldn’t park there even if I did pay the $100. Which I refuse to do.

So. I have a significant walk to and from my car every day. Specifically, about five city blocks. Most days I just ride my bike, but not today; today I knew I’d need to get my swift on, so I drove, and found myself still on hold while walking – through a construction zone – to the corner where I usually park, in a so-so safe neighborhood. I made it to the car, thinking, "Gosh, I’ve been on hold awhile. I bet they’re really busy at the Apple Store." But it’s fine – honestly, if you’d have picked up while I was taking that walk, you’d have been drowned out by the sounds of the construction. No problem.

Here, however, I had a choice: hang up and just drive, or stay on hold. I needed to know if you did not have what I was looking for; still plenty of time to change the game plan. I stayed on hold, and started the car. I drove from my parking spot at 27th and Residential Street to the mall, at 50-something and Penn; about a mile, but a mile fraught with lunchtime traffic, nine stop lights, an interstate crossing and the busiest, most chaotic intersection in the entire city. So, it took me about ten minutes.

Still on hold. Jack Johnson was singing "Banana Pancakes" when I realized this was getting ridiculous, and also when I decided that I would stay on hold as long as it took for someone to answer the phone. Even if that meant that I would be on hold long after having walked into your store, found and paid for what I needed, walked back out and gone on my merry way, I would stay on hold. I had a bunch of rollover minutes to burn, after all, and at this point it was about principles.

Also, Apple Store, no matter what anybody tells you, AFI isn’t cool. I’m not sure what is cool, but I know they suck.

Finding a space at Penn Square Mall is a bit like finding a needle in a haystack, only the needle is something for which one must basically wage the D-Day invasion, and the haystack is not so much a haystack as it is all of Kansas. I drove up and down almost every row on your end of the mall, finally seeing a spot I wanted after about eight minutes. As I pulled up the row where said space awaited me, a Taco Bell employee crossed the street in front of me and began walking VERY SLOWLY up the MIDDLE of the row, making it absolutely impossible for me to whip into the space. At one point she turned around, looked me square in the eye, then started walking again, this time more slowly.

Apple Store, I’d have fingered you as an accomplice in her vehicular homicide. I swear to God I would’ve. I was still on hold, and what did I have to entertain me but some lame indie-sounding cover of "Wild World." You couldn’t even get some damn actual Cat Stevens? Come on, Apple Store. You’re better than that.

I got in the space after – not kidding – a full minute of waiting behind this ignorant bitch. I walk in the store, still on hold, and get in line at the counter near the back. I don’t want to talk to a genius. I want to see who’s standing next to the phone, baby. And there she was. I made a point not to get her name; I’m not trying to get anybody fired, after all. I got in line; second, in fact. She was ringing some guy up on a $3000 sale, and so I stood, for several minutes. At this point I was hearing music both through my phone and through the store speakers. Frightening.

As the guy in front of me swiped his card, she picked up the phone.

"Apple Store, who are you holding for?"

"Actually," I said, "I’m in line." I leaned over so she could see me around the guy in front of me, smiling sardonically, phone in my hand.

Apple Store, she never even apologized! She asked me what I needed, got it for me, rung me up. End of deal. Would an apology have been too much to ask? As far as I’m concerned, she’s very, very lucky that the person on hold was me, a lowly customer, and not her regional manager, or, say – say Steve Jobs.

You let me down a little, today, Apple Store, and I’m kinda sad about it. I’ll be thinking twice before I come to you to buy the Nike Sport Kit and stop-AIDS iPod nano to go with my new-ish running shoes. I might just go online.

Eventually I’ll come back; I always do. Come back, baby, straight to you. But for now, Apple Store, I just need some space.  

Tuesday, March 13, 2007 | by nathan

obligatorium

I must apologize for the lack of updates. The x365 project is about all I have time for anymore, and I promise I really haven’t played that much Wii. I’m behind on the following:

work

thesis

a class for which I’ve done almost nothing

grading

keeping up with people

working out or getting exercise

blogging

At any rate, things might be slow for awhile until I get caught up, but I do get two three-day weekends in a row coming up – you know, INSTEAD of a spring break – but it’s something, and right now I’ll take anything I can get. Peace out, yo. 

Sunday, March 11, 2007 | by nathan

140 – Marlette

His class wasn’t my favorite, but I much enjoyed the nights we’d walk to our cars together, talking about humor writing, novels, blogging (aka writers’ karaoke).

Monday, March 5, 2007 | by nathan

fucked, screwed, etc. etc.

Brian had a surprise waiting for me in Vegas; or rather, he had some surprise news.

"We have a Wii."

Apparently our buddy Scott was at Wal-Mart last week while Brian was working in Vegas, and there were two Wiis. (Wiii?) He called Bri to ask if he should buy the other one, for which Brian would later reimburse him. Brian said yes. We have a Wii.

Just spent 3 hours playing it. Now – catching up on schoolwork. I have two months until I graduate, but I have a feeling I am just.so.fucked. 

Friday, March 2, 2007 | by nathan

what happens, stays

I’m in Vegas. No further updates this weekend. Further x365 updates are written but will not be posted until I get back.