pure science with a splash of black cat

She has her bum up on the back of the couch. She’s chewing a toy. I DON’T KNOW.

UPDATE: She is now lying on the floor and just hit Sofia across the face with her toy.

I’m going to eat this in a second, but before I do, I wanted everyone to see that I have a chocolate with Rowan Atkinson’s face on it. It is the weirdest thing I have seen, and indeed eaten, all week.

Yeah, that doesn’t sound completely bizarre. And interesting!

I mostly run into this problem on my iPod when searching for a specific song, but, you know, there has to be a better way to title these things…

"Just as there’s a time to every purpose under heaven, there are times to swear and times not to, and for the studio to embrace the idea that some magical transformation from adult-oriented to family-friendly takes place because you park your finger on the mute button for 45 seconds is profoundly unsettling."

Linda Holmes, NPR Monkey See Blog

What? First you don’t disburse my loan for this semester on time, then you take back $3,733 in loans that I was given last semester? Oh hell no. This better be a glitch, ‘cause I’mma tell y’all right now: no one screws with me and gets away with it. I have a filing box filled with loan paperwork going back to 2005 for exactly this reason.

I ain’t slept more than four hours in a few days and am running entirely on Coke and bitchiness right now. Bad timing, Enrollment Services and/or glitchy computer system. Very bad timing.

I wonder how much reading I actually did this semester.

• Aristophanes, The Frogs
• Aristophanes, The Clouds
• Aristophanes, Lysistrata
• Menander, Dyskolos
• Plautus, Pseudolus
• Plautus, Miles Gloriosus
• Terence, Adelphi
• Petronius, The Satyricon
• Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus
• John Milton, Paradise Lost
• William Faulkner, Flags in the Dust
• William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
• William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
• William Faulkner, Sanctuary
• William Faulkner, Light in August
• William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!
• William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun
• William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust
• Emilia Pardo Bazán, “El pañuelo”
• Miguel de Unamuno, “El amor que asalta”
• Ramón del Valle-Inclán, “Rosarito”
• Arturo Barea, “Argüelles”
• Arturo Barea, “Bombas en la huerta”
• Arturo Barea, “Héroes”
• Arturo Barea, “Proeza”
• Arturo Barea, “Plaza de España”
• Max Aub, “La merced”
• Max Aub, “De los beneficios de las guerras civiles”
• Francisco Ayala, “La vida por la opinión”
• Camilo José Cela, “Don Elías Neftalí Sánchez, mecanógrafo”
• Camilo José Cela, “Don Homobono y los grillos”
• Carmen Laforet, “Al colegio”
• Carmen Laforet, “El regreso”
• Carmen Martín Gaite, “Un alto en el camino”
• Carmen Martín Gaite, “Las ataduras”
• Ana María Matute, “Pecado de omisión”
• Ana María Matute, “El árbol de oro”
• Ana María Matute, “El arrepentido”
• Juan Goytisolo, “La ronda”
• Esther Tusquets, “Orquesta de verano”
• Mercedes Abad, “Una bonita combinación”
• Laura Freixas, “Final absurdo”
• Soledad Puértolas, “La indiferencia de Eva”
• Bernardo Atxaga, “Una grieta en la nieve helada”
• Manuel Rivas, “La lengua de las mariposas”
• Manuel Hidalgo, “Rosita”
• José María Merino, “El inocente”
• Varios autores, “La impostora”
• Ramón Sender, Réquiem por un campesino español
• Bernardo Atxaga, Memorias de una vaca
• Lucía Etxebarria, Amor, curiosidad, prozac y dudas
  

This doesn’t include supplemental readings, research, or the four books I managed to read for fun before my brain leaked out of my ear. Do not mistake this list for boasting; if anything, I am boasting that I am still alive and a semi-functioning human being after reading all of this, much of it simultaneously. I would be more proud of myself if I’d done this much reading without being forced. I am merely attempting to disprove the notion that humanities majors are easy. Dear sir: no.

My plan for when I finish the semester — my final two papers are due on the 21st — is to bake like crazy for the holidays, then sit down and read the 700-page Pulitzer Prize-winning tome, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Now that’s reading. That’s a vacation.

Biography or eighth-grade love note?

Legrand’s opening to “‘Round Midnight” was a complete red herring, Evans’s tinsel-bedecked arpeggios (rendered as if in white tie and tails) defying any notion that Miles was about to enter playing Monk. John Lewis’s “Django” boosted the Gallic content of this transatlantic potpourri, Bill accompanying Miles with semistaccato droplets in deference to its composer’s piano style.

Dear sir: No.

Oh, and the whole book is like this, by the way, lest you think I am overreacting.