Look holy everyone!

I entirely forgot Lent is coming up! This means I should give something up. But first, I'm going to re-evaluate my religious life since coming to college. I am going to reserve my spot in Hell for doing this.

While living at home with my mom and sister, I could count on one hand the amount of times I missed mass. In fact, I seem to only recall once, when I was about 8 or so and I was on my deathbed with a cold, when I was probably praying to not die and for the souls of my stuffed animals while my sister and mom went about their business as usual. I also remember one time my mom left me in a huff because I could not find any socks without holes in which to go to church, but you know, some people are just impatient, and you can't show up to church with holey (holy) socks. Or bare soles (souls).

This year however.

When I came to college, my mom would religiously call me each Sunday to make sure I went to church. I did, and she eventually got the point and stopped asking me. But I remember missing the first time last year...it was because I had an insane amount of work to do or something. Then it started to turn into a guilty pleasure. Even when I went, I was sort of a flake about it. The mass starts at 11, and I would get on the 11 o'clock bus to get to mass, so I'd stroll in 15 minutes late while the priest still melodically droned on during his greeting about flowers. Or something slightly more reverent.

This year with the new priest though, I tried winging the same 11 o'clock bus once, and I sauntered in at 11:10 AM with half the mass already done with. This is A Problem. This means I'd have to:

a. Take the 10:30 bus
b. Walk to campus
c. Go at 9 PM. And I don't like evening masses
d. Sleep

I've been to mass an irreverent twice. Guess which option I chose. If my mom knew about this blog she'd send me straight to a convent.

The long and short of it is that I don't know what I want to do for Lent. Give up clubbing small children? Chocolate? Facebook (as seems to be the trend)? Swearing? Tobacco chewing?

What I do know I want to do for the next week or so until my art history paper is due next Thursday is post my progress on here. The goal is 2 pages a day. Realistic, eh? Right now I'm at...one page, without double-spacing the header and minus an intro paragraph. Because I basically have no thesis. I will edit this amount before going to sleep tonight. If I get to sleep, that is, but right now I HAVE to nap.

**Essay Edit**
1:53 AM
Two pages done
Pain factor: Extremely high. Have not studied AT ALL for Egyptian quiz tomorrow. In fact, have not even read the chapters they are over. Shit.

Visual analysis of a "Computer Technician"

I'm an art history major. This means I get to wax lyric about many an obvious and useless thing. Let's do a mini visual analysis together (courtesy of Google's "painting" search...no idea who the artist is):
















This painting was most likely executed right after the Baroque and into Rococo period when France and all the rest of Europe were traveling. The poses and clothing of these Native Americans indicates a growing fascination with The New World, and King Louis XIV would have had something like this hanging in his reception hall as a sign for visiting ambassadors that HE'S the MAN and can control the world if he wants to. The almost other-worldly, ethereal background surrounding the Native American is but a small window into what would eventually turn into full-blown out-of-this-world Rococo when people were flitting around in backgrounds like this without a care in the world.

If I were in art history, I'd have to write 5 pages of stuff like this. I'd go into color, composition, lines, space, movement, technique, history, and so on and so forth.

However, I don't need 5 pages to analyze this:















The two standing figures in the background are students in their dorm: they are dressed for utility, not for fashion, and they have junk strewn around everywhere. Their frantic gestures toward the computer and printers indicate there is something seriously wrong with the technology habitating the room. The figure languishing in the foreground on the ground is the computer technician, lethargically observing the utter chaos developing around him as Mary Kate can only get a sheet like this to print:















Namely, a blank sheet. But that could be because she decided to print her scanned face with glorious results such as these:





























Instead of the thousand paper cranes, we've got the thousand paper faces. That's right. That's the next art form I'll hopefully get to analyze in the future.

What sort of computer technician lets helpless computer users run amuck like this? This all means that the "computer technician" on the floor is not very useful and he should seriously look into fixing my camera so that it would actually upload pictures onto MY computer and not another person's before I throw my computer AND camera at him.

ANYHOW, the esteemed Jared Leibovichivicyivichy(eivchly) had said I should write about what I see myself doing in 10 years.

Easy answer.

Aside from wearing finery such as this:


















I will make burnt, terrible cookies every other day, and on Sundays I will cook a special meal of corn bread and corned beef. Then I will do some visual analysis on my sweater.

Obviously, it is 3:56 AM and I just started my art history paper. Swell.

What the real question should be is where I see myself in 60 years. I hope I will be as sprightly as my host lady the past summer with the "disconcerting eye problem." The only handicap I have now is that I will have to lose an eye between now and then, but no problem, after looking at that sweater long enough I'm sure I wouldn't mind losing both eyes.

Does everyone know about disconcerting eye lady? She had a glass eye. On the description of her, it also said that she "smoked occasionally." Translation: Smoked like a factory's chimney. Was insane. I blame (bless?) her for starting me on a road to utter corruption. So, gracias, Marivi. I remember you and your dirty dog fondly, and I wish I were lounging in the sun right now.

It's just been One of Those Weeks

These are only A FEW of the bad things that've happened to people over the course of the week (not all to me):

1. A very special pet pig died
2. A grandpa died extremely suddenly
3. A paper extension got rejected
4. Oh, I don't know, a good chunk of us ran on about 4 hours of sleep over a course of 2 days to finish papers. And Jen is staying up all night tonight.
5. Various other disappointing things I don't feel like talking about.

The week started off with a blast when I stored my deodorant upside down and on Monday the top of my special (good smelling) deodorant fell into the drain. This means we had a frangrant bathroom sink for about 15 minutes and that I've been wiping deodorant crumbles onto my underarms because I've had no time to go to Walgreens to get some sort of shitty deodorant to replace my old one.

Then I bought 2 boxes of chocolates with a fully admirable and sacrificial Good Samaritan attitude of offering these box of chocolates to my roommates, because, you know, they are semi-delicious chocolates bought at 50% off at the Valentine's day sale of Fannie May's (I've got high standards for chocolates...I've got Swiss friends). Only once I started working on my outline, my greedy big hands became possessed and shot out at the box of chocolates as if they were attached to springs.

Outcome: absolutely no chocolates left to offer to anyone. It's the thought that counts anyway.

So this post is dedicated to everyone who had A Really Shitty Week.

Second pissy post within two days

I'm in the second floor study room feigning productiveness and paper writing.

There is a girl doing math down here who is chewing gum.

Very loudly. And irritatingly.

And she is dramatically stretching her back and neck, as if she is trying to lay an egg, or trying to stretch herself out like her rubbery piece of gum.

I wonder if anyone would miss her if I stuffed her nostrils and mouth full of gum.

And this is why I am going to get nothing done tonight. Because I have evil thoughts.

I don't know where drafts go to on here

Last night's hotly debated topic over dinner was not all the falls all the teams but the Russians and Americans took during ice dancing (Cold War? HA! PUN!), what Keira Knightley will be wearing to the Oscars, or what the next policy it is that will be instated by whatever president it is that we have, but what I should write on my blog. I like to believe my blog is important enough for debates.

It was decided I should write about all my (funny) mistakes to be the guiding beacon of light for generations of clueless, luckless, and loveless students like myself. However, I cannot seem to think of any funny mistakes. In fact, I can't seem to think of any mistakes at all.

Besides for, you know, don't pour your milk into the cocoa powder container.

or

It's more effective to wipe deodorant onto skin and not onto the exterior or your clothing.

or the classic

It's better to take off your clothes when ironing them.

and naturally,

Microwaves do not in fact dry wet books.

There is one mortal mistake, however, that is unforgivable, that's up there along with making Facebook photo albums bursting with pictures of ONLY YOU scantily clad and holding the camera at awkward angles to make sure that the lighting is perfectly situated in order to enhance your normally nonexistent cleavage. And that is making your interests this:

i loooove my best friends : ),
i am in love my boyfriend,
pictures,
sunshine,
giraffes,
rain,
poetry,
purple,
christmas light looking,
snow,
dr. pepper,
listening to music with my best friends,
wearing baggy pants,
candles,
cuddles,
being barefoot,
road trips,
huge hugs,
random cd shopping,
cooking/food,
clear nights,
snowboarding,
music,
clouds,
feeling safe =),
midnight trips to fast food places,
spoiling my brother and sister,
quoatble lover,
any adventure,
slurpees,
working out,
kisses,
licks,
reading,
playing pool,
butterflys (the kind in your tummy when you have a crush),
toe pinching,
traveling,
love,
the guy that works at that hair place,
big sweatshirts,
coffee dates,
stars,

Yes. I know. What a boring post. God.

And yes. Because I am exceptionally dumb, I have actually linked those words to appropriate pictures.

However, when I'm trying to write a paper, and this...this...silly girl's profile comes up as UPDATED, then I get angry. I wasted my time on THIS profile? Did she add in sugar puffs and plum fairies under her interests?

When I encounter things like these, a ferocious growling starts to rumble inside my very being like "Ughhharrrrrrrrrghrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaawrgaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah" that should be understood by all silly girls to mean "I WOULD PUT SUPERGLUE INTO YOUR NAILPOLISH AND SHOOT YOU IF YOU WERE WITHIN 20 FEET OF ME RIGHT NOW."

Maybe hieroglyphs weren't such a bad idea

Last night I had to work at will call for the sold out concert of John Zorn. I didn't know he was that popular.

While working, I decided I hated every letter of the alphabet. But what I hated even more were the people who came running up to the window panting their last name that could have easily started with any letter of the alphabet because really, how am I supposed to decipher: "Gfjdkopqcf"?

"Excuse me, is that a J or a G? OH! an "M!" THAT was my next guess!"

Or those people who came up and had one of those names that could have started with a K OR a C. And they would not specify. Or that had hidden silent letter placed at random after consonants. Much like Foucault. He was not in attendance at the concert last night.

Or the people who had asanine requests.

But I hate the alphabet now.

So, that means I will not use it for a while. For the rest of my entry. But oh my gosh something SO AWESOME HAPPENED! Guess what? I 80967 537 60 986451 6454 05234 ;'6 78..32! 9 70-4 9 30, 918 9 2957 ;'0 208/3 0983 ;'!

Now don't get me wrong

I have entirely recovered from Valentine's Day. I am, however, still wearing festively pink and red underwear just to feel justified in eating exorbitant amounts of chocolate, and to feel festive when prancing around in just my underwear.

I have nothing to really talk about, so I'll just relate my feelings concerning the alphabet.

Since I've been young(er), I've always been annoyed with the alphabet starting after "N," mostly because I've always felt "R" to be such a pretentious letter. I wish I were making this up, that I actually have feelings concerning the alphabet. I always get pissed off with "R" for being in front of "S" and "T," and "L" has also been a problem for me, because I've always felt "P" should go before it.

So when I started learning Egyptian, I was REALLY happy to see that not only was there no "L," but that "P" actually came before "M" AND "N." However, "R" is still giving me a hard time because it's STILL in front of "S" and "T." All different varieties of "S"s and "T"s in fact.

Ugh. SUCH a stuck-up letter.

So, if I were asked to make up the alphabet in the way I wanted to, my alphabet would look something like this:

A B C D E F G H I J K P N M O L Q S T R U V W X Y Z

Responding to "Daniel's" comment in my previous post: If you are in fact DAVID Kaye, maybe I suck at remembering names because I don't spend my time on Facebook when I'm at the library. And if you are really a Daniel, then sorry, you win, I don't know who you are.

I think my socks smell

I've started two entries that wanted to say something to the effect of:

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY EVERYONE! I'm single and I still know all the lyrics to Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called to Say I Love You"!

If my sister would still read my blog, she'd be shaking her head right now and be saying "Oh God, Adrianne."

Here is my Valentine's Day card to you.



















I can't decide on a paper topic. The minute I decide, I start reading some more, and I find ANOTHER topic I might possibly want to write about. So far, all the topics I've recycled in my brain many times include:

1. Ok, so Mongol art has a whole bunch of tiles on the outside of the buildings and things, described as more "ethereal, shimmering," while Mamluk architecture was usually more fortress-like. What I thought about doing was reporting on the architecture was like because of the societies that had existed there before, and Mongols had incorporated more local art and everything.

2. Then, in what I'd coin a Stroke of Marvelous Idiocy, I decided I might want to somehow get Egyptian art into this. I mean, I've slaved over it so long, why not? So, then, concerning Egyptian, there could be how inscriptions on architecture started to function for different things.

3. THEN, I was all, well, hieroglyphs were a sort of abstracted art, and extremely gridded with really complex size things and everything, could I SOMEHOW link that to the geometric forms that come up in Mamluk art? Or, if not that, then go to building decoration or something.

4. For about 3 milliseconds there was the idea that the rugs on the ground and in tents of Mamluks and Mongols really are like the tile designs that are on the walls of permanent structures.

5. Then I went back to an old idea of 'Oh, look at that Hungarian folk art sure is similar to this stuff I'm studying."

Then my brain exploded.

But before you go...

If you're looking for a girl who:
1. Only wants to hang out during the weekend and maybe once or twice for lunch or dinner during the week
2. Has a lot to say when you first get to know her, then eventually has more to say on her blog than to you in person
3. Is extremely irritable, critical, and spends most of her hours in the library
4. Cannot carry on a conversation about politics, world events, pop culture, or feelings
5. Is quite fat and quite ugly
6. But likes hugs and kisses all the same

Then, you know, you've got a Valentine!

Just thinking

Today as I was stumbling around campus, I started thinking about how bricks look like they end too abruptly, since it's just like a side of them is showing and all. All the buildings made out of brick always look like they were cut out that way. So then I started thinking about how neat it would have been if the entire earth a long time ago were covered in different stones (brick, sandstone, concrete, yadda yadda) and instead of building buildings, you just carved them out of the stones there as you went along.

Anyhow. I'll stop talking, and here are a couple of pictures.





























Sears Tower





















































Those last two have been shamelessly altered, but you get the idea.

OK

So I know no one comments on here anymore because, well, "There's always tomorrow," or "She just writes in it so frequently that I'll have a chance to get something in before too long. God, she should just stop blogging because all these entries are getting so boring."

You might get your wish yet!

I'm on the B-level of the Reg because I'm taking a break from Egyptian Future Active Participles and I've been having such outlandish thoughts that I sometimes think I'm possessed. For instance, I read an example of how you can make these constructions of Ntf X "X belongs to him" by using independent pronouns and putting a noun after it. Like ntk nbw, which means, Gold belongs to you. And, even though this has nothing to do with it, I suddenly found myself thinking before I nearly fell asleep sitting up:

Well, if I hung an independent pronoun upside down on a swing set, I'm sure the teacher would want to have nothing to do with the kids afterwards.

I understand you're bored of me and this blog. I KNOW. I'm bored with myself too. I TRANSLATE THINGS LIKE: "What then is it? It is the blood that came forth from the phallus of Ra after he started to make incisions upon his on person" (!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

So, I had a nice weekend, which I'll talk about later, but really. Is ANYONE alive? Because I'm not feeling like I've got any friends lately.

One fun game to play

Last night before going to bed, Julie and I had a blast pretending our alarm clocks were video game remote controls. This means that I set my alarm clock and hour ahead accidentally while I was all caught up with the adrenaline and everything of playing a video game with my alarm clock.

I woke up at 5:40 AM today, and proceeded to get ready like any other day, got downstairs, and realized it was still entirely dark outside. So I just hung out waiting until it was time to go.

I didn't think this affected me until I got my coffee today. While in line, I was debating between coffee or tea...coffee or tea, and decided on coffee. Yet I still had "tea" stored away in my subconscious. So I started steeping sugar packets in my coffee. It was only after I started steeping the third sugar packet that I realized my new innovation for making coffee sweeter was not working.

Too many e-mails

Check out my grandparents on the internet!

MOTHERLAND!

They are the only two people on that part of the site. There are also some select pictures from our house. Namely, that ginormous picture of the Virgin Mary is in the room I sleep, and that one with the table and wardrobe is labeled "a village house interior," is the one where my grandpa sleeps. But you can't see the bed. So basically, second row, middle and picture on the far right, third row, first picture, my great-grandparents, middle picture, last row, grandparents. They've been "married" for 63 years now. Holy mother of God.

What happened is that the town decided to make a webpage, and since they are the oldest living couple in the town, my grandparents probably gave 6 year's worth of income during the 60s to erect a big stone cross at the cemetery, and because they are quite colorful people, they got to be on the website. No. They have never actually seen the website. But they deserve their place.

Instead of writing a response to some sort of silly paper I have to do in the computer lab, I decided to go through some old e-mails to delete them. I saved this part of a conversation with Stacy on Tuesday, May 10, 2005. Evidently, I found this important enough to e-mail it to myself:

piggyluver529: yeah well i'm staying here so mineswell (wow
how do u spell that)
GhibBby: might as well?
piggyluver529: i always just say it as on ebig word

Then I also saved THE EMAIL from my Medieval Art teacher last year. Remember her? Remember:
Frankly, I'm a little shocked you're even asking.

Then I've got some swell e-mails from the summer with such subject lines as:
Julie has aliens in her boobs
in a state of animated suspension...or something
too many friggin' weddings
Adrianne likes it in the butt
Julie's right armpitt
THIS IS AN EMAIL ABOUT POOP

And the first email I have saved on my sbc account is from Sat., Jan 4, 2003. I guess I am a virtual packrat. And a packrat in reality as well.

And because EVERYONE CARES, here are some random sentences from emails.

My life is extraordinarily complex right now. During the week I wake up and go for a nice long hike.

And Adrianne is a stumbling drunk.

This is most upsetting because it means we are no longer spectators to the man-candy parade that he brings up to his love nest.

Honey, can I just see some tits?

I ate cottage cheese the other day and there was a curd the size of your face

I've taken to calling my cat muffin head or muffin face.

As these e-mails progressed, they became more extraordinarily incoherent and random, and if I would have posted some more, had I not been in danger of revealing the authors.

So I like e-mails. I miss getting them. And I miss the summer when I had things to talk about.

Hum

I finished my essay at around 4-ish. Not bad, eh?

Now the computer will not turn on for me to print it.

Just my luck, eh?

I swear, if ANYTHING at all can go wrong, I will experience it. If there is a %0.000000000000000000000001 chance that, oh, I don't know, my fingers will fall off when I'm taking notes, then they will fall off eventually. But if there's a 99% possibility that my computer will turn on when I push the button in the morning, it will not happen.

The Dell representative I've been talking to for...50 minutes and 13 seconds now kept on repeating "No problems" to me with each successive failure to launch the computer. No problems? Yes, from the point of view of a paperweight collector of large, cumbersome, and ugly objects I see no problem. Nor would I see a problem if I were a serial killer and beat my victims to death with laptop computers, my victims who would mainly be Dell representatives. But as it is, I've got a problem of monumental scale on my hands, since, as a student, my sole function in life is to blog, freecell, facebook, and download pictures onto my computer. Oh, and write essays.

I'm pondering all right

Who WANTS to have 213 photos of themself on Facebook?

Yes. On my 4th page of sosc. I am a SOSC WIZARD!

First sosc essay of the quarter. In fact, first essay of the quarter.

I am going to Facebook and Freecell my way through this everybody!

You might be asking what I've been doing the past five weeks if this is indeed my first essay of the quarter. I have been living in BLISSFUL IGNORANCE, everyone, that I will ever have to turn anything in over a page long and pulled out of my....you know where. This means that the next four or five weeks or so will be a veritable cornucopia of wonderfully eloquent ideas and theories spewed out in reckless abandon onto Microsoft word amidst much frantic hair pullings and otherwise masochistic actions.

6-7 pages on Durkheim and Claude Levi-Strauss.

My weekend was, as far as weekends go, as weekend-ish as it could have been with my cold, a million sentences of Egyptian to translate, and research to do. All day Saturday was spent in the library and at 6-ish I decided to partake in some Chinese Fan-ish goodness and go to dinner with him. Walking out of the Reg, I said "Shoot" out loud to remark upon the fact that where we were going was closed when from behind me I heard "Shoot...that's another way to say 'shit,' right?" And that's how I met Lorenzo, the remarkably good-looking and eloquent Italian whose Western outlook regarding clubbing and having a good time was like a breath of fresh air to my stuffy and now entirely wizened heart and soul. On the way we met Joe, some insane French guy, and he came to Noodles Etc. with us, along with the Russian guy was already there. So overall, it was a remarkably international night at Noodles Etc. Many accents.

Which was, ironically, connected the play I had to go see yesterday for Spanish: "Sex-oh." It was a hilarious take of 6 Latino girls' experience growing up and the taboo on "sex." Whenever I see anything like this I always wish my mom would see it to observe if she would laugh or not, since what I've got on my hands is a written for the play script unfolding before my very eyes. The word "sex" is never merely said by my mom, it's more spit out like a filthy disease or contamination. See mom! Other people can deal with it like normal people! In different languages!

Insert long what would ultimately turn into anti-Catholic tirade about latent frustrations involving family and sex HERE.

When did this turn so glum, chums? I'VE GOT A PAPER TO PROCESS! 6-7 PAGES! DID I MENTION THAT?? ABOUT SOSC?

*twitch, twitch. weird, frantic palpitations of the heart*

::EDIT::
This is part of an e-mail I just received:

Dear adrianne,

Flowers and candy are nice, but if you really want to ring your sweetheart's chimes get straight to the heart of the matter with Fresh California Avocados. Start a spark with breakfast in bed. Fan the flame with sensuous appetizers. Take it to the limit with a luxuriant avocado massage. After that, you're on your own. Happy Valentine's Day!

GOD. Avocados sound SO NICE right now.

Dog is God spelled backward

I can't wait until application season is over. I hate how I feel compelled to eat cashews by the gallon, raisins by the tons, and other usually healthy foods when kept in small doses in elephantine portions.

Yes. These past 2 weeks I have been snacking like a...like a...beaver gnawing on a log, and thus, I am now as wide as the dashboard of a Ford Expedition. BEHOLD MY WAISTLINE! I MUST TURN SIDEWAYS TO ENTER ROOMS!

Take the past 3 hours, for instance. My personal statement is half-way done, and guaranteed if I had written a word for each time I got up to check out what's up in the kitchen again, I would have had it done. The result of this is that with each passing visit the inedible food have started to look marvelously tantalizing. That nerd rope that has been sitting in the refrigerator (Julie's doing...she thinks REFRIGERATED NERDS are tastier because they are crunchier? or colder? do not try to follow her line of reasoning. Just accept her as she is) is suddenly irresistible, even though I think nerds are the most boring candy every invented. Even more boring than regular Hershey's Kisses. Who VOLUNTARILY buys Hershey's Kisses? NO ONE! NO ONE goes out and buys those little turds because you only eat them when they're sitting out in a bowl on the desk of the advisor's secretary or at the counter of your dentist. And then you make sure you empty the entire damn bowl into your purse because who knows when you'll need to write your next application essay.

Anyway, so there's no food in our refrigerator, aside from yogurt tubs with best sold dates of I believe around December 21, hardboiled eggs, and sandwich meat. I already finished and entire jar of jam in 2 days. I could have finished it in 5 minutes, only I was practicing self-control.

This is what I want on my gravestone:

Here lies Adrianne Gyorfi
Mildly well bred
Very well fed
Feignedly well read
And much better off dead

I do not want to read my Spanish

Everyone, meet David. (Long "A", like...Ovid.)
















HI DAAAAAAAHVID!

A couple of months back, we had a house auction. I auctioned off cleaning a bathroom. David decided he has higher ambitions than being a housekeeper, and, instead of offering a foot massage, abstract math tutoring, or one uninterrupted hour of cuddling UNDER the covers in his bed (which totally would have gotten the highest price out of all the items auctioned off), he offered his services to write a short story with whatever words the buyer would specify.

So I have nothing to write about. But David did. And I felt like drawing pictures on paint. Here is his story, with accompanying pictures. I have titled it, and I did not change anything, although I WAS tempted to change each indefinite or definite article into a hieroglyph, or to swear word, such as "shit." So, a sentence would actually sound something like: Shit quick brown fox jumped over shit lazy dog.

The specified words were: llama, rational zero test, and some other words I forget.

Dear everyone,

First of all, I'm okay. I know you must have been worried, and I'm sorry I couldn't get in touch with you sooner. The cell towers around Hyde Park are down, and the school Internet connection has been cut. Someone (I can't say who in case this letter gets intercepted) is getting this out for me.

You've probably been following everything on the news, so you probably have a better idea of what's going on than I do. All I see is the little slice of whatever happens around me.
For example: Last night a group of people (probably students, but you can't be sure these days) arrived at the building we're holed up in, about halfway between Shoreland and campus. We're blockaded on all sides, supposedly, but somehow these people got through, riding llamas(!) that were strapped with extra ammo and Gatorade to sell us. Declan, who was also in Michelson (most of us stuck together), seemed to know them, and I think he tried to trade some rare books from our stash for a llama, but they weren't interested.




















It's telling that I didn't realize quite how strange that sounded until I wrote it out.

Do you remember the tower on top of the Reynolds Club? The student radio station used to be there, but now it’s been taken over by a group who broadcast as “Radio Free Science: the voice of reason”, but really they're anything but. They always call for all non-science people to be killed, and start off with WWII-style code words, like 'broken bottle' or 'spider rose'.
The other day they got taken over by some other faction and became “Radio Humanity” for a little while. They just talked about heartless science majors at first, but then gunshots started in the background, and their broadcaster changed tone and said that she wanted to point out to everyone that with the streetlights all shot out or uprooted, we can look up at night and see the stars. Then there was an explosion, and the station went off the air for a few hours.
It's back to being Radio Free Science now. But she was right – we really can see the stars.

This girl from Michelson, Bridget

Alright, I'm back. There's no way you could tell I was gone, of course, but we just repelled an attack; one of the packs of roving math majors. They weren't in the best of shape even before all this started, ever since the Rational Zero Test was disproved, and when they got their hands on some guns – well, some of them just snapped. Jimmy (I think you met him) was a math major too, but he stayed with us. Two days ago, he went out to try to talk to some of them, but he didn't come back.











Listen, there's something I have to tell you. The day they signed the World Peace Accord, there was a celebration on the quad, with a giant screen to watch the ceremony and everything. Before it started (I'm sure you heard all this on the news, or read it in the paper) an army truck pulled up, with a Confederate flag all across the back. A couple of soldiers got out, and started ranting though a megaphone about the evils of general disarmament – what you'd expect. We booed them a bit, but then they opened up the back of the truck, and it was filled with weapons they were offering for sale. Mostly army rifles, M16s that would have just been destroyed otherwise.


















I have to confess: I bought one too. I didn't realize what I was doing. I thought it would just be a souvenir, to show my kids someday from back when the world had armies. I wasn't thinking.
I wasn't at the frat party where the fight which started this war broke out, but I still bought a gun – I kept the violence alive, brought it here. I helped start this.




















We have a hospital bus (remember those?) and we've armored it with all the scrap metal we could find, like they used to do in Iraq. When night falls, we're going to punch through the blockade, get to campus, and try to storm the hospital. If we manage, we can surrender to the government, let them land helicopters on the roof, try and bring things under control.
I know you must want me to get out of here, try to come home. But I can't. I helped start this. And now I have to help finish it. By the time you read this, you'll know from the news whether I managed or not.

I miss you.

All my love,
David

[From 'May this be the last example': Documents from the Chicago Insurrection. Foote & Martinez, University of Hyde Park Press, 2017]
















And this is just for fun from a few weeks ago. When life was still fun.

I did not draw that picture.