Syllabus #243

I'm disgruntled.  I'm disgruntled and I'm never going to get gruntled about this one thing for as long as I live.  I probably say this every year, but Carson Daly and the fine folks at MTV sold us youngs a bill of goods back in the 90s with their MTV Spring Break specials.  Never once in all my years of adulthood has Spring Break found me standing knee-deep in a pool, looking hot, bronzed, and oiled, surrounded by scores of my nearly-nude peers as we bounce to the illest beats.  

Do I actually want that?  Absolutely not!  But it was promised to me as destiny, and I feel cheated.

I'll tell you what I actually want out of Spring Break, and it would make for terrible television, which is why I never thought to want it until well into my 30s.  I want it to be sunny, and just warm enough to go out in a light jacket and pants, not so hot that I'm sweating in my jorts.  That's summer, save it for later, andplusalso I don't want to have to shave my alarmingly pallid legs that thoroughly just yet.  I want several consecutive days of having no chores to do.  My only obligation is to exist.  Eat.  Read.  Go for luxuriously long walks and look at little flowers growing in people's yards.  Discover the perfect microdose* of my pot brownies so I can be high but not so high that I fall asleep as soon as it hits.  

*I have achieved success on this front, after extensive research!  The correct amount is 1/16th of a square, which is 1/16th of a pan.  I am a cheap date.  At my current rate of consumption, which is once or twice a week, one tray of brownies would last me nearly 3 years.  Don't worry, though.  I'm sure they'd be ok in the freezer for that long, just from a food safety perspective, but somebody else eats a whole dang square all at once, which is honestly a little disturbing.  I feel like that amount would put me in some kind of state of psychosis.

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Tommy Orange's new book sounds excellent.  Can't wait for my library hold to come in.  

Show me your kitties!  I might have to try this at the end of the year, but I will have to be very deliberate about branding.  Also, Mr. Homer doesn't speak for all of us.  He might not have a high bun, but you can pry mine from my cold dead scalp.

Mr. Homer said that using cats as the vehicle to forgive patrons for losing or damaging books or other borrowed items could help to soften the stereotype of the stern librarian.

“We don’t really have the high buns and ‘shush’ people anymore,” he said. “We are still book lovers, cardigan lovers and cat lovers.”

Just another reason to not go to the movies!  The idea of shoving my fist into that grimacing plastic orifice only to extract kernels of corn makes me want to launch my body into the sun.

I like big pants and I cannot lie.  I'm here for the ebbs and flows of fashion, but one thing I will never again embrace is the ultra low rise pant.  My hip bones do not yearn to breathe free.  My pubes do not need to play peekaboo with the waistline of my pants.  I have neither a tramp stamp nor the whale-tail of a thong to expose above the back of my pants - just an unadorned, unadulterated asscrack.  I have tasted the sweet freedom of high-rise jeans and I will not be denied.  I will no longer wear pants that have to be tightly belted or constantly hiked up into place lest they fall dangerously low on my woefully scant cheeks.  

Analog Reading:

Finished End of Watch.  Man.  Even though the underlying premise of the story (telekinetic mind control via a hypnotizing demo video on a hacked handheld video game console) was a little bit corny, Stephen King is a masterful enough storyteller that I was able to, if not suspend my disbelief, at least compensate for it and get sucked into the plot.  I just love the Holly Gibney character so much, and can't wait to read the remaining three books in which she's featured.

Read People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry.  It's not the sort of thing I'd usually seek out, but it was fun.  A fluffy counterpoint to any Stephen King novel, that's for sure.  I did get kind of tired of the two protagonists' 12 years of sexual tension buildup, just from a practical standpoint.  Like, shit or get off the pot here, folks!  If you would both just use your words like grownups, you wouldn't be playing these will-they-won't-they games for over a decade!  But then, of course, there'd be no story.  Perhaps better in real life, but not in book form.

Now I've pivoted back to non-fiction with Tripping on Utopia:  Margaret Meade, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science by Benjamin Breen.  Tripping balls in the 1930s - who knew?!