Memoirs from a Lackluster Life.

I find it worrisome that it’s only week two and I’m prostrate with worship in front of my Keurig machine.

And now a terrible, terrible, coffee fueled poem for your enjoyment. 

Exigence,

moved to stir.

Hit myself in the face

with the microwave door.

Startled by the beep:

“ENJOY YOUR MEAL.”

Lately, it seems I’ve lost the will to function normally.  A loss of inhibition when it comes to social conduct has left unaware of exactly how awkward and socially off-putting I can be.  In some cases, however, even I realize that a situation has the potential to be highly inappropriate.

A few weeks ago, I was approached by one of my professors — awkward aspect no. 1: I was just coming out of the bathroom, a precarious situation when one happens to run into a socially superior acquaintance.  We exchange a short greeting, but before I can duck into class, he starts to ask me about an email I sent him in reference to becoming a Sigma officer.  Well, at least that’s what he’s trying to do, but he seems a little distracted and the words don’t arrive as quickly as they should, leaving (awkward aspect no. 2) frazzled silences.  As he thinks, he looks at the floor and gesticulates wildly with his hands, stepping closer to avoid the light traffic in the hallway.  Which leads us to awkward aspect no. 3: one of his hands brushes my notebook which is hugged close to my chest.  Suddenly, I am not listening.  He’s still waving his hands wildly and there is the potential danger of him copping an unintended feel.  I quickly decide it would be rude to take a step back, so, instead, I hug my spiral a little closer and immediately begin to think of what I will say should one of his erratically swinging hands make contact.     

When he says he’s sorry, should I say it’s alright?  Because it’s really not that alright, but I can’t say it’s not because no one ever says something isn’t alright, not to a professor.  He grades my papers.  He’s my advisor.  I’ll have him for at least three more classes.  But if I do say it’s alright, he’s going to think I’m a creep.

“Oh, sure, It’s fine that a forty year old man just touched me inappropriately… in public.”   Because I want that A, baby.

Luckily, he remembers what he’s saying and looks up.  Our conversation is finished without incident, but I can’t help but picture what would have happened: the not-so-innocent touch, a few embarrassed mutterings trailing off into frenzied silence, and the both of us looking at the ground as we wave a stilted salute and retreat hastily to the refuge of class. 

I felt pretty triumphant walking away: like I had just dodged a social bullet. 

Today, I was sitting in my mass media class, innocently texting and taking mindless notes, when I remembered I have a blog.  What a startling revelation, considering many of the other crazies in that class have one too.  (If you have a chance, get out of the humanities while you can; Those majors attract the sort of people you purposely ignore because it would be more rude to actually acknowledge their odd and slightly off-putting appearance.)  Of course, I then felt a bit guilty for my hideous neglect of what should be my portal to the world: my outlet and my fountain of knowledge.  Why should I rid the world of cleverly edited kitten pictures and shared wisdom from Raptor Jesus?  Who would I be to take that light away from the world?  The directionless masses need the feed, and what would that make me if I denied them their just deserts?  I am a gatekeeper of information.  A citizen journalist.  Another asinine non-conformist with a laptop and a lexicon bursting with cliche phrases geared to enrage the masses.  I am…

I have to go to class now.   

I shouldn’t expect anything less from a poet named Cleatus.

Subjects covered on first day of class while going over syllabus:

• The weight of football players now as compared to in 1920.
• The murders of six women by an insane man.
• Being asked to leave a high school before a poetry reading.
• His rejection letters.
• Old friends, colleagues, professors, and mentors. (All dead now).
• Being asked about Hemingway during oral examination for his MA.
• The obscenity of Doris Day movies.
• How long it takes a man to die after he’s been stabbed with a bayonet.
• The nature and root of evil.

As usual, I found most of his musings to be hilarious while the rest of the class looked a bit shocked, confused, or horrified.