Cruel Fate! Why do you taunt me?!?!?!?

Working the cash register at the Gap tonight, I saw the cutest girl I have seen in a long long time. If I could have taken a picture, I would have used it as reference to answer the question of "What kind of girl are you looking for?" She wasn't there with her boyfriend. She wasn't there with her husband. She stood like two feet away from me, and all I could do was ring up her stuff and watch her walk away.

There's nothing I can do in that situation. She's the customer, I'm the employee. At best I'm the cute guy at the Gap, at worst I'm a loser who's working there when he's 23.

Kobayashi Maru.

Can I get some children's chewable morphine?

I don't admit to being sick, and really am not sick very often. If I do feel less than 100%, I don't let it stop me from doing anything. I hate people who back out of things because "they're sick". Get over it. If I can get out of bed and go through the day without throwing up, I'm not sick.

Nonetheless, for the last few days, I've had a stuffy and sometimes runny nose. I went through what was left of a bottle of Walgreens brand Dayquill, and bought of bottle of Walgreens Nyquill that I have since polished off. Maybe I didn't follow the recommended dosing closely enough. In fact, after taking two doses of Nyquill the night before and a dose of Dayquill in the morning, I think I may have been drunk at the Gap a couple days ago. And right now as either part of the same "head cold" or as a separate symptom, I have a headache.

Not being a fan of science or doctors, and being prone to hasty and irrational arguments, I have therefore theorized that mucus is in fact crushing my brain. If I don't blow my nose, I believe there stands a good chance that my head will implode.

Nothing in particular

I woke up at 5:17 this morning. There was no reason for me to, I wasn't working at the Gap until noon. And yet in this brief moment somewhere between sleep and consciousness, I remember thinking to myself that I should be getting up at 5:17. I am not a morning person. As anyone who has lived with me knows, if left to my own devices, I may not get out of bed until 1:00 in the afternoon. And yet, I would love to have to get up at 5:17 in the morning, because that would mean that I have a classroom to be in that morning.

But I didn't, so I went back to bed until 10:30.

Today wasn't really that great a day. Nothing particularly great happened. But it still felt like a good day. Maybe I'm just bipolar, or maybe I've finally just lost my mind.

Who the Hell is Seymour Hersh?

Here's more crazy conspiracy theories from the media that in no way has any sort of liberal bias.

I'm a bit conflicted on this particular foreign policy issue. On the one hand, I fully believe that the radical Theocracy that serves as government in Iran needs to be totally stripped of any nuclear capability, and eventually removed from power. On the other hand, I worry about our forces being spread too thin. But wherever you may fall on that particular issue, there is a more fundamental problem at hand. Hersh says his reporting is done "in the hope that publicity would force the administration to reconsider."

I'm sorry, since when was it the job of the media to effect the change or creation of policy? When and if I ever get a government class to teach, I guess I'm screwed. I've never heard of the 4th branch of government that checks everything without any sort of balance, so there goes my Division of Powers lesson.

Whether you believe it or not, the CIA and Department of Defense are both made of up professionals who have dedicated their lives to being experts on every imaginable aspect of foreign policy. Despite what journalists like Hersh would have you believe, the government is not being run by members of President Bush's old college fraternity. So when there are plans for intelligence gathering and reconnaissance missions, don't assume that because you watch CBS News and a few Mikhail Moore movies that you can be a fucking armchair Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Addendum...

The Last Angry Man is, as he is more often than not, right about the dangers that may come from being something other than single. So while I may not enjoy my current state of bachelorhood, it does beat being trapped in a cold, loveless, soul-crushing relationship. Been there, done that.

That being said, I still wouldn't mind some female company.

New E-Mail

Alright people, just in case I didn't send you an e-mail saying the same. I'm dropping my umich.edu e-mail address, and jumping on the G-Mail train. If you send e-mails to my umich account, they will be lost in limbo. As for any random blog reader who happens to come upon my post, just keep walking. If I don't know you, I don't want to hear from you.

For those of you I do want to hear from, you can reach me at bdupay@gmail.com

Things I Hate Being...

1. Single
2. Unemployed
3. Broke

I don't see any of these things changing while I'm still in Holland. As to why I don't just pack up and skip town, refer to point #3. I'm stuck here until at least mid-April when the Education Job Fairs start, and even given a best-case scenario I don't think I'll be out of here any earlier than June.

Thank God for Netflix to pass the time.

Bloggity Blog Blog

Sorry, I just couldn't think of a title.

I love looking outside and seeing snow. I'm not talking a light dusting of snow, I'm talking the 8-10 inches of snow we got here in the last week. It's threatened to warm up this weekend and deprive me of this winter wonderland, but last night's weather report promised a much colder week. I was skeptical about the supposed winter storm that did eventually come, so maybe weather forecasters aren't always wrong. But, when your job is to predict the future, what are you gonna do?

(On a related note, I apologize for any inconvenience the snow caused the Captain on his drive to Philly. But since you're spending a week with your girlfriend, at least let me have my enjoyment of the snow.)

It would appear that all the possible windows of getting out of Holland midway through the year have been closed. I applied to 3 jobs in Michigan, calling, e-mailing, and mailing application materials to all 3. Since school's been back in session for a week, I think it's time to stop waiting. None of the out-of-state postings I've looked through have anything in my certification areas, so it looks like I'm stuck here until the career fairs start in April. Having people back home to go out with made Holland livable for a few weeks, but now that everyone's gone it's only a matter of time before malaise and hatred of the world set in again.

On the upside, my mom and I started our Netflix account, and I've been watching TV shows on DVD all week. Right now I'm watching Firefly, and it's as great as I hoped it would be.

I'm Blogging, Dammit, I'm Blogging!

So, Wilson yelling at me (by yelling, I mean commenting using an exclamation point) has got me back in the blog saddle. Really, I've had nothing to talk about. New Year's came and went without a whole lot of fanfare, and there have yet to be any great personal revelations or events to share with the blog-reading public. I will say, though, that I had several thoroughly enjoyable evenings during the course of the Christmas break. Even though only 3 or 4 people I know were actually on something specifically designated as a break instead of just vacation (or unemployment) days, I will always think of this time of year as Christmas Break. And since I'm going to go through both Heaven and Hell until I find a job as one, as a teacher I guess I'll always have a Christmas Break in the same fashion. So, I'll keep calling it Christmas Break.

But anyway, it was good to have people around to go out and play with. The popular destination that I kept being called to (3 times in one week) was The Curragh, Holland's new Irish pub and restaurant. It may not be Ashley's or Connor O'Neil's, but it's a good place. Since I rarely go out to the bar anymore, I made my trips count. While my brother was enjoying the cheapest domestic water he could get, I have developed the expensive need to have good beer. While in Chicago before Christmas I had what may have been the greatest pint of Guinness ever, and I've been trying to follow it up since then.

(On a vaguely tangentially related note, I think I've decided to move to Boulder Colorado. I have been strongly considering Colorado anyway, and when I remembered that there is a second Connor O'Neil's in Boulder that seemed like as good a reason as any to single that particular city out.)

So, while I've really said nothing in this entire post, that's about all I've got right now. I've been in the toy aisles chasing after-Christmas markdowns and doing research for my latest Newsletter Column, and have yet to do anything productive in 2005. Malis and I have been playing a lot of Halo 2, and tomorrow marks my first day back at The Gap all year. I wish I could leave it in 2004, but my bank account is telling me that a crappy job is better than being broke.