Top 10 Thoughts (Minus Three) of the Last Few Days

My my my. It really has been over two months since I've posted anything here. To all my loyal followers (I understand there actually are a couple of you), I sincerely apologize. Inspiration has been in short supply lately, but I've got a few things I want to say, so I'm gonna adapt an old Andrew Clark format and just post the thoughts I have in list form. That way I don't have to worry about continuity or transitions in between items, I can just bounce forth to the next topic once I run out of stuff to say about the current one.

GET READY

HERE WE GO

1. In my estimation, the Christmas season begins on Black Friday, but culturally, we've been entrenched in holiday trappings for almost a month now. I call this "Christmas creep," and I actually wrote a post for this very subject for the blog Danny Latin and I started last year (you can find said post here, if you're so inclined). Last year I noted that Christmas music began its 24/7 rotation on the local radio stations on Veterans' Day... this year it started November 1st. I swear, within a few years we'll be getting it just after Labor Day.

2. The deluge of Facebook status updates I got about people going on Thanksgiving break made me realize how much I miss that feeling of relief that accompanies being able to leave school behind for a week or a month. Sure, it's nice to not be in school at all, but there's something about coming back from your last class before break and knowing you won't have to go through that wretched ordeal at all for a little while that you can't quite capture outside of that environment. I always particularly liked it when I my last assignment was due or my last final took place several days before I actually had to leave. That way I had a few days to just chill and hang out with my friends before break, and those were always the best times.

3. On the same token, I DO NOT miss the work that went with the territory. I'll never again have to write another research paper, and that is just fine and dandy with me. The first week back after Thanksgiving break in my singular year of grad school (and really the only week before finals that year) was one of the most unpleasant stretches of time I have ever known. Of course, by the time that Friday rolled around, the hell of trying to complete an entire semester's worth of papers and projects was behind me, and I had nothing but Coffeehouse, Starcraft, and a couple easy finals to look forward to.

4. I am sick of all the blasted rain. I went outside this morning around 6:30 and it was raining... and it was also about 50 degrees out. THIS IS UPSTATE NEW YORK, FOR CRYIN OUT LOUD. GIMME SOME SNOW ALREADY. Granted, snow actually makes my job more difficult, because I then have to vacuum up all the pieces of rock salt that people track in, but I'd rather deal with that than dodging lake-sized puddles and having to put my hood up just to go outside. Man I hate rain.

5. I was taking a nap earlier, and I had this dream that I was interning for some kind of record company, and because of that, Ray Toro and Frank Iero were staying at my house and crashing in my living room. That was pretty cool, except I discovered that Ray Toro was actually pushing 60 years old, and then Kesha was wandering around putting up fliers for her next show. Initially I was like "ewwwwwww get away from me," but she started talking to me and she turned out to be really nice, and I developed an interest in her, which left me with one of those imaginary post-dream crushes on Kesha, and that made me want to vomit.

6. Speaking of Ray and Frank, the latest effort by My Chemical Romance, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, is a very good album. Not phenomenal, like The Black Parade, but very good. If you've never watched the videos for "Na Na Na" and "SING," you should do so, in that order. They tell a cool story.

7. I stumbled upon a striking truth recently: Women are not evil; evil is simply a universal condition of the human heart. I wish I had realized that a couple years ago... I think I screwed some things up. Whoops. This is not to say that they're not emotional and irrational and crazy; all of the above still apply. They're just not malicious creatures, or at least not any more malicious than the rest of us normal people.

I think those are enough thoughts for now, especially because I've essentially run out of things to say. I could use some feedback though; if you are one of those few people who actually follows my blog, or if you're just a random traveler who happened to stumble upon it for the first time and you'd like to compare this to my earlier work, let me know whether you like this list form or my typical essay style better, and I'll see what I can do about that in the future.