A regular dispatch of essays, criticism, and (pop) cultural ephemera, compiled and mixed by Norman Brannon.

posts tagged “this will ruin my neat freak reputation”:

∞

5.19.2010

It’s GPOYW time, but I’m not about to take a picture of myself — because it’s also finals week, and I don’t look so good. So instead, I took a picture of my “desk,” which is in reality, my dining room table. As you can see, I have not dined here in weeks. Here is the anatomy of my Wednesday: 1Vitamin Water. I’m not sure that I eat so well whenever I have this much to do. So I try to balance copious amounts of coffee with placebo vitamin drinks like this one, called “Defense.” The bottle claims that “this combination of zinc and fortifying vitamins can help keep you healthy as a horse,” and I believe everything the bottle tells me. 2Four Hundred Compact Discs. The CDs on this table constitute all that is left of my once thousands-strong compact disc collection. In between writing papers about how brilliant of a teacher I am going to be, I’ve been ripping whatever I need onto MP3 so I can go to the Ipodmeister and trade it all in for a 160 GB iPod and some cash. Some of the better titles in this picture include the one and only Mark Hollis solo record, Nirvana’s Bleach, Steve Lawler’s Dark Drums, and a Kinks anthology collection. Goodbye cruel plastic. 3Bhagavad-gita: As It Is. Once upon a time, I was a Hare Krishna devotee. I became a monk when I was 16 years old and went to India several times in search of something. Ultimately, at 36, I can tell you I didn’t find whatever “it” was. But Indian philosophical concepts taught me a lot about rhetoric, debate, analytical thought, and the tenets of logic, and as my 4.0 GPA will attest, I am grateful for that. I am currently in the middle of a paper about Buddhism, in which I attempt to explain to my professor how a philosophy that accepts the authority of the Vedas without accepting the predominant foundation of all Vedic thought is inherently flawed. I realize this makes no sense to almost all of you. 4 This is where I get all meta! 5 I’ve had this Converse gift certificate since the 20th Anniversary Mergefest last summer. They were giving these to anyone in a band wearing Converse, and my boyfriend — who played in Spent — happened to be wearing a pair of Converse I gave him. So he paid it forward and it’s been sitting on my desk ever since. I plan to redeem this gift as soon as possible, I swear. 6 Introduction to Emptiness. This is the most infuriating book I’ve ever read. Imagine if someone attempted a self-proclaimed “rational” explanation of a philosophical concept by saying something like, “Vitamin Water is wet, so therefore, reason dictates it must be red!” Because that’s the kind of dimestore logic we’re talking about here. The rest of my day will be spent composing four more pages about why this makes no sense. Wish me luck.

It’s GPOYW time, but I’m not about to take a picture of myself — because it’s also finals week, and I don’t look so good. So instead, I took a picture of my “desk,” which is in reality, my dining room table. As you can see, I have not dined here in weeks.

Here is the anatomy of my Wednesday:

1Vitamin Water. I’m not sure that I eat so well whenever I have this much to do. So I try to balance copious amounts of coffee with placebo vitamin drinks like this one, called “Defense.” The bottle claims that “this combination of zinc and fortifying vitamins can help keep you healthy as a horse,” and I believe everything the bottle tells me.

2Four Hundred Compact Discs. The CDs on this table constitute all that is left of my once thousands-strong compact disc collection. In between writing papers about how brilliant of a teacher I am going to be, I’ve been ripping whatever I need onto MP3 so I can go to the Ipodmeister and trade it all in for a 160 GB iPod and some cash. Some of the better titles in this picture include the one and only Mark Hollis solo record, Nirvana’s Bleach, Steve Lawler’s Dark Drums, and a Kinks anthology collection. Goodbye cruel plastic.

3Bhagavad-gita: As It Is. Once upon a time, I was a Hare Krishna devotee. I became a monk when I was 16 years old and went to India several times in search of something. Ultimately, at 36, I can tell you I didn’t find whatever “it” was. But Indian philosophical concepts taught me a lot about rhetoric, debate, analytical thought, and the tenets of logic, and as my 4.0 GPA will attest, I am grateful for that. I am currently in the middle of a paper about Buddhism, in which I attempt to explain to my professor how a philosophy that accepts the authority of the Vedas without accepting the predominant foundation of all Vedic thought is inherently flawed. I realize this makes no sense to almost all of you.

4 This is where I get all meta!

5 I’ve had this Converse gift certificate since the 20th Anniversary Mergefest last summer. They were giving these to anyone in a band wearing Converse, and my boyfriend — who played in Spent — happened to be wearing a pair of Converse I gave him. So he paid it forward and it’s been sitting on my desk ever since. I plan to redeem this gift as soon as possible, I swear.

6 Introduction to Emptiness. This is the most infuriating book I’ve ever read. Imagine if someone attempted a self-proclaimed “rational” explanation of a philosophical concept by saying something like, “Vitamin Water is wet, so therefore, reason dictates it must be red!” Because that’s the kind of dimestore logic we’re talking about here. The rest of my day will be spent composing four more pages about why this makes no sense. Wish me luck.