4: The Enemy

3: The Aftermath

   Today is a double aftermath- first workday after the Super Bowl and first workday after the memorial for my stepfather.  Obviously, the Super Bowl is of no importance to me other than it signals an opportunity for most students to cut loose and really bro out.  Viewing the aftermath I can pretty easily piece together two likely scenarios:

1. "Bro, dude, bro!  Packers won!  This is exciting for me and validates my need to supplement my lack of personality by associating myself with a group and/or situation that excels over another group/situation! Expletive!  Now I will engage in mindless acts of vandalism with the most difficult substance to clean from any surface: eggs!"
2. "Bro, dude, bro!  No!  Steelers lost!  This is distressing for me yet fortunately it validates my need for personal drama with the appearance of life-shattering disappointment despite any lack of hardship or deprivation in my 19 years of coddled existence!  Expletive!  Super expletive involving someone's maternal relationship!  I provide physical evidence of my duress by engaging in mindless acts of vandalism with the most difficult substance to clean from any surface: eggs"

   If I sound vitriolic it's only because since learning the word vitriolic I tend to feel that way a lot.  The eggs were splattered all over the floor, one was smashed into every nook and cranny of the telephone including the earphone and receiver.  Worst of all, they managed to smash an egg into the outgoing mail slot so that it would drain down onto all the outgoing mail, thus making this a federal offense.  Oh, crazy kids and their hilarious federal offenses!  Here are some pictures before I spent the entire morning cleaning it all up.

   All this aside, I can hardly find the words to talk about the memorial for my step father this last weekend.  So many kind souls showed up that it was almost overwhelming.  I put a video together that told his life story in as much detail as 15 minutes, 4 songs, and 100 some photos and video clips can tell.  I was very happy that everyone responded well to it despite the awkward nature of the family relationship issues and such.  But still no closure.  That term is a verbal unicorn, looks swell on paper, but in reality it's mythical and ridiculous.  The only closure any of us get is eternal sleep, because until then nearly every wound has the potential to be scraped anew by today's unexpected events.

2: The Blackness

    Polishing the handrails on the Titanic.  It's hard not to feel that way right now.  An unexpected death is supposed to put all things in perspective.  What a sad oversimplification.  You gain perspective when you're uplifted.  "A bird's eye view of a bird's eye view" as Gordon Downie put it.  Death doesn't give you that at all.  Not in my case.  More of a worm's eye view of a worm's eye view.  Buried.  Blinded.  Burrowing, tunneling, and when you finally get to the top and feel you're getting somewhere you find you're lost on the pavement with a sense that the birds are circling.  Sorry to be so dramatic, but no one is reading this anyway.
  
   Back to the cleaning routine- upon my return to work I found one of my message boards ripped down by a drunk.  Yet another item purchased with my own money since our department is so "financially challenged" that such things can't be afforded for us.  Yesterday my 8th dry erase marker was stolen, gum spit all over the floor, spit all over the walls, nasal cavity refuse fingersmeared all over the elevator.  This morning I walked into the building to a disastrous mess in the stairwell.  An exploded can of cola was sprayed up and down the walls.  If youth is wasted on the young at least intelligence isn't.

1: The Return

   So today the youth of the nation began filing back into their living quarters.  Most I've talked to did not enjoy the time spent with their families.  This is sad but expected.  The experience of three months of freedom can be squelched with one "Where do you think you're going?"   When you're all caught up in school it can be easy to forget whose footing the bill. 

   Anyway, on my end things appear to be better this quarter.  The monstrous bag of the Dutch persuasion is finally gone.  Just one guy out of 240 students can make my job a nightmare.  And he did.  I'll explain more about that in my next blog. 
Just the sound of that word makes me cringe.  ME! IMPORTANT!