Having a birthday these days is just like having Christmas. You remember when you were little and got lots of cool gifts like the light up fire engine and action figures and a metric ton of chocolate. You get excited but on that special day you do not get cool gifts like a light up fire engine or action figures or a metric ton of chocolate; you get a single gift card. But that’s not really the worst part. The worst part is that you don’t even believe in the concept behind the gift giving. No Santa Claus, no God, and you’re certainly not down with that whole aging bit. .

Oh my God, I’m twenty-three.


Bits and Pieces.

Dipping the image

I went to a Buddhist festival yesterday as an assignment for my religion class. My involvement in the festivities could be best described as “tall gangly white guy gets water poured on him by many different people”. I was hit by water balloons, a hose, and had a bucket dumped over my head. I was told the water represents a kind of purification process, but mostly it seems an excuse to have a giant water fight involving monks and over a hundred other people. There’s something oddly satisfying about throwing a water balloon at a Buddhist monk. I tried it, but the monk caught the balloon and threw it back at me. Really. Honest.

Clean up crew…

On Saturday, I help clean up a park for a local volunteer group. The park was next to an elementary school in an area called the West Valley or West Side by those who want to turn Albuquerque into a sort of miniature Los Angeles (the upper class want the money the movies make, the lower class wants to be gang bangers). A short list of what I found: A large amount of glass from beer bottles both intact and in shards, some pottery sherds, coke-a-cola cans, a used condom, a math assignment, bottle caps, a dead cat (I didn’t pick it up), and a buried t-shirt. We also went door to door talking to people about our work, but since nobody was home I didn’t really have to talk to anybody.

In the land of the dollar bill…

Today I ran across the song “The Night Chicago Died” in Spanish. It’s goofy and I love it.

… Try not to piss the entire site off somehow…

Awww… Sounds like somebody is taking things too seriously. Here, sit down. Have a drink. It’s Hoegaarden , in case you didn’t know. Here’s a few sandwiches, light food to keep your blood pressure down. And I’ve arranged for entertainment. This is Bach’s Violin Sonata in G minor. As an added bonus, Cindy here is going to give you a lap dance to it. I’ll tell her not to spill your beer, because you take that kind of thing way too seriously and I wouldn’t want to make you angry or anything.

Novel…

Third draft is almost done, but I’ve had to rewrite the last forty pages or so. Ever notice when writing you can get caught up in your own little world and not realize that you are writing some really stupid things? Also, I’m becoming a bit despondent with my inability to spell “children” or “curious”. The children one is no biggie, but the curious one keeps me on Google for about fifteen minutes trying different spellings such as “curiosous” and “curius” trying to coax it into giving me the proper spelling.

Third Party Feedback…

Sometimes I think the feedback you receive in writing classes tells more about the critic than the piece. This can be extended to other things like film critics and restaurant reviews. Don’t trust Ebert on romance movies or SciFi. Don’t trust Lindys Corbert of the Albuquerque Journal on Italian.

That Awful Rule…

The never end a sentence with a preposition rule is complete malarkey. Most grammar rules are when they get in the way of an effective sentence.

Adventures in Sign

My sign teacher relates this story:

Once while translating for a business meeting my teacher kept getting odd looks from the deaf people on one side of the room. The meeting was to establish an annual event in London and every time she would sign London everybody would stare at her puzzled. Why? Because what she really was signing was…

“Next week we are taking a trip to lesbian to get the itinerary hammered out. Since it rains in lesbian a lot, you might want to take an umbrella. There will be some free time to sightsee in lesbian…” ect. She also taught me the word for “whore” because “shy’ when done improperly becomes “whore” or “slut” and who wants to say, “My girlfriend is a total whore,” when you mean “My girlfriend is totally shy.”?

Speaking of sing… er… sign… err, both! I’ve got an assignment to translate a song into sign and while I was thinking of “Don’t You Want Me” by the Human League, I’ve decided on “My Alligator Lives in the Cellar” which is probably not the actual name of the song, but it’s one I remember from childhood. I’ve picked it because it is both more challenging than the Human League song (which has very simple lyrics) and is more entertaining.

Trying to order cookies in sign:

Me: ?YOU HAVE COOKIE FOR ONE DOLLAR YOU?

She: YES WE DO. ?YOU LIKE LEMON OR CHOCOLATE CHIP YOU?

Me: ?WHAT? AGAIN, SLOW PLEASE.

She: Y-E-S WE DO. ?YOU LIKE L-E-M-O-N OR C-H-O-C-O-L-A-T-E C-H-I-P YOU?

Me: OKAY. SORRY. ?COULD YOU REPEAT THAT LAST BIT?

She: YOU KNOW LITTLE SIGN. ?YOU STUPID OR SOMETHING YOU?

Deaf people are not polite.


And that’s my world for today. Most everyone and all of you are great. Hope y’all have a good one.

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