Doctor Frog’s Pontification Pad

The following was drearily typed into my notebook yesterday as I attempted to stay awake between classes:

A few thoughts before the next class.

I’m tired. I have remained awake for the past… oh let’s figure out some math. My brain is coming up with interesting ways of speaking, not to mention typing at this hour.

I got up yesterday around 9:30, on purpose “early” so that I could get this paper done quick. I was being conservative when I aimed for four o’ clock.

What a joke. I was burning through my third page around that time. (of ten minimum required, of the 8 1/2 i would eventually produce. ironic that i had Nothing To Say.) The frantic carelessness kicked in around six when I realized it wasn’t three anymore. What the hell is it with hours? I swear, I sat there, sweated all those hours and couldn’t turn out more than a page an hour average, but the first three took me about four. Which doesn’t sound too bad, except that I’d already spent the day from about three in the afternoon typing on the prep work, of which

SO, some interesting notes regarding the state of the skinny, out of shape, abused late-twenties body I unwillingly haul around.

Most noteable for me is a pain in my knees. My chair, of course is decent quality back home, but simply isn’t designed to be sat on for 13 hours, particularly in the tortured forms I adopted during that time.

Yeah, 13 hours. I got home around 8, and sat at that machine for a long time. I kept turning to SMAC to see how the Hive was running, and I had to uninstall the game to digitally excise the

You know what’s funny? I think I’m writing more coherently than I did several hours ago. But making far more typos.

What’s really funny? I have another essay to work on this weekend. Haw haw!

so yes, digitally excise the frain bart tumor obsess pack that is SMAC from my machine because, go figure, managing an empire in OUTER SPAAAAACE is more interesting than writing a ten pager for a pass/fail class that nonetheless hinges on this paper getting a grade better than ‘D.’ Generally not a problem, but here? Something anal lurks about in the more bohemian-seeming classes at Berkeley. Sometimes its cool, like in Literary Theory, where I understood about a third of what I read, and even less after I read it. A. Surprised the heck outta me, but I did learn some pretty neat things that I might even understand someday. So, yeah, A there. This class, one on Fantasy Film of all things, D on the midterm, some smarmy answers by this Short Shrift grad student about my age with thinning hair. So the widow’s peak gene missed him and he’s going to take it out on anyone who can’t belt out lecture on command, fine. Karmic waves going somewhere as my grip releases on his throat in my dreams.

Not really. I don’t dream about killing people. There is the occasional gun in my dreams, and violence at times, but most people who get the widow’s peak jab are going to know what guns mean in dreams, really. And the fact that mine turn out to be toys most of the time, or simply don’t fire*

*guns in my dreams tend to symbolize power, which, yes, is tied up with virility as well, but guns often point to feelings of power, if they work, and powerlessness, if they don’t.

just saw a book on the shelf labeled “GERMAN EXPRESSIONIST PRINTS.” All black with gold print, the only book I can see on the shelf in English. (I’m in the Gardner Stacks of the Doe Library in UC Berkeley, bottom floor, where the oversized books are. There is nothing more delicious than a library, and I really ought to get some pictures before my tenure as student runs out.

We went over German expressionism as a film/theatre movement briefly in this film class that I hope to pass, if barely. Interesting coincidence.

The book is in fine shape. I might be the tenth or so to have opened it. Published 2003. Contains prints from the Specks Collection in Milwaukee Art Museum.

Mee lee waw kay, or “the good land” said Alice. (Wayne’s World)

Five minutes before a brief trek to a sorority house for the next class. This is beginning to seem like a strange day. The first or second thing I honestly think on days like this is “I wonder if I’m going to die today?” A morbid curiosity, I can’t help it. I am obsessed with life and life going away. It is something I cannot handle not having control over, and I think that it is far less stranger to admit it than to try to repress it, so there it is.

One minute. I am typing so damn much I haven’t turned the page. SYMBOLIC: the attention on the self, ignoring the artsy thing waiting to be adored in front of me.

Its expressionism, it is going to be depressing or vague, or scribbly. And German.

I stopped my watch. I am going to look at pictures now. And scurry to my next class.

I cannot wait to dive into bed at home, but my room is a mess and I know I can’t rest until I get some clarity.

Turning off the laptop.

Turning on the laptop. On the train right now, feeling like your typical nerd prig, fingers chattering away importantly on a small, expensive gadget. Doing something so vital that I cannot spare a moment of peace on the shrieking steel zephyr of the BART train as it speeds through industrial and low-income zones. Although some of these houses, lots of them are much nicer than anything I’ve lived in. OH MY POETIC SOUL

Knees are aching like crazy. At Bayfair station, about to meet Linda at my house I think. I hope we just go to the pizza place and get something stupid and fast and greasy. Its perfect for me right now, with a body that’s dried as atwig, like when I’m hung over.

It’s funny when I’m like this. I’m aware of what’s going on but things are a bit slow to hit me. I don’t catch typos very fast, but I’m not typing slow. Was reading Angela Carter and

sun’s going down in orange over the hills across the bay.

the writing was turning reddish with the movement and my tired eyes. I closed them and there’s this feeling like, “oh yeah, i haven’t slept in almost 36 hours. i can totally go to sleep now.” and it’s like sleep is this new invention i came up with.

At this point, the BART train arrived at the Hayward station and I scrambled up my stuff and dragged myself home. I didn’t get to sleep that night until 2 AM, making a new personal record of being up for 41 hours.