suck my facebook
This is that "random 25 things" meme and I'm reposting it from the other place.
This is supposed to be about me, but I guess it came out to be more about other people.
1. The Colonel and I grew up together. We were world-weary even as teenagers, and we spent many nights reminiscing about the good old days, back when Spinal Tap was real and Iceland was fictional.
2. Later, when we were grown men with lives and responsibilities, the Colonel and I hiked the Arctic. Before we set out, the Colonel made me swear an solemn oath that I would not, under any circumstances, cremate him.
3. When he succumbed to the cold, I burned his body with gasoline from his snowmobile.
4. Don't judge me. I invite you to take a corpse and a handy accelerant and go sit on a glacier in the full view of the Northern Lights. We'll see how far your civilized values take you.
5. The Colonel's boy was so devastated by his father's death that he curbed all the family possessions and fell in with Trash Gnostics.
6. Posing as a Gnostic from a remote monastery, I tailed my surrogate nephew, vowing that he would not be mistreated or swindled.
7. The Trash Gnostics draw energy from the human love contained in discarded things. Their most potent artifact was Buddy, a corduroy-skinned teddy bear they'd dumpster-dived from an orphanage.
8. They denounced me and chased me off when they discovered I could not not power so much as a cool-burning xmas light with Buddy.
9. Afterwards, penniless, I wandered for a time, until I impulsively applied for work with a crew of abattoir berserkers.
10. I still remember that job interview quite well. "What, would you say, is your weakest quality?" the pretty young HR girl asked. "Sometimes I'm not genuine," I told her.
11. The was much to like about that gig: the 24/7 speed metal, the ritalin-soaked lumber remnants we chewed on, the night jousts with the golf-cart bandsaws, Bacon Pie Night....
12. ...but after I learned that they were a Tory outfit, and that their raids on other slaughterhouses were really just anti-organization thuggery, I felt my conscience rise. I emptied their bank accounts, sabotaged the machines with sugar, and slipped away in the night.
13. Determined to enjoy my riches before I suffered the berserkers' inevitable revenge, I bought a caboose and spent a glorious summer caboosing around the country.
14. The most prestigious train that one can caboose is the 85mph United Parcel Service super-expresses, the ones that carry the Treasury department's critical infrastructure endorsement. These are preauthorized to run down anyone who grosses less than $286,000 annually.
15. On Labor Day weekend of that year, I pooled the last of my fortune with some other enthusiasts and we leased a transcontinental all-caboose train.
16. What I had envisioned as a grant festival of the like-minded was instead an awkward, lonely disaster. The hobby draws solitary people. Many never emerged from their cabooses, prefering to sit inside and read Facebook.
17. To add insult to injury, our train ran barely seven hundred miles over the whole holiday weekend. I had foolishly promised that everyone would have their fair turn as the True Caboose. To accomplish this, our train had to waste many precious hours shuffling around bleak suburban marshaling yards.
18. Glad to escape the railway, I resumed my academics that fall. My new advisor, the Dame Professor, was a coffee drinker and a delight. Outside the lab, she was wonderful enough -- sly, sharp-witted, and playfully caustic. Within the lab, the pure glee that experimental science kindled within her was blindingly apparent -- and contagious.
19. After spending just five minutes in her presence, I knew I would love her forever and that I would rather airdrop a burning supertanker into the last rainforest than risk her disappointment.
20. I believe these feelings were reciprocal. But alas, her academic career had stunted her somewhat. She could only express herself institutionally, as if the University was her exoskeleton. She feasted me with grant money and always shielded me from the capricious investigations of the administration. It was love -- clumsy, poorly-executed love, but love nonetheless.
21. One night, late in fall quarter, she summoned me to her laboratory and told me that she thought I seemed melancholy and lonely, and perhaps lacking something special. As my heart rose and my blood roared in my ears and my mind spawned daydreams of the loving bliss to come, Dame Professor clapped her hands and presented me with my intended.
22. Seeing it, I thought that it could be charitably described as a 'good effort.'
23. Had this observation been spoken out loud, Dame Professor would have suffered an intolerable loss of face. Thinking only of her, I took my intended's hand and did my best to act out the expectations placed upon us.
24. My only consolation during those bleak days -- and I dwelt on this constantly -- was the hope that Dame Professor would someday do more than watch us dispassionately from the window. I tried to subtly invite her, variously turning the blinds open, tying back the curtains, brewing strong, fragrant coffee, and finally leaving a friendly post-it note begging her to join us. She would only observe.
25. On one count, my intended functioned as designed. No matter what combination of lightning bolts and mood tonics had been applied to it -- for Dame Professor was endlessly tinkering -- it sincerely wanted the best for me.
26. After it stepped in front of the poultry euthanization-wand, downswung by a bounty hunter in the pay of the abbatoir berserkers, I mourned it sincerely and left the University.
27. And so, today, being at loose ends personally, with my feelings strangely tangled, my convictions put in question, and my person hunted in earnest, I have signed up for Facebook.
This is supposed to be about me, but I guess it came out to be more about other people.
1. The Colonel and I grew up together. We were world-weary even as teenagers, and we spent many nights reminiscing about the good old days, back when Spinal Tap was real and Iceland was fictional.
2. Later, when we were grown men with lives and responsibilities, the Colonel and I hiked the Arctic. Before we set out, the Colonel made me swear an solemn oath that I would not, under any circumstances, cremate him.
3. When he succumbed to the cold, I burned his body with gasoline from his snowmobile.
4. Don't judge me. I invite you to take a corpse and a handy accelerant and go sit on a glacier in the full view of the Northern Lights. We'll see how far your civilized values take you.
5. The Colonel's boy was so devastated by his father's death that he curbed all the family possessions and fell in with Trash Gnostics.
6. Posing as a Gnostic from a remote monastery, I tailed my surrogate nephew, vowing that he would not be mistreated or swindled.
7. The Trash Gnostics draw energy from the human love contained in discarded things. Their most potent artifact was Buddy, a corduroy-skinned teddy bear they'd dumpster-dived from an orphanage.
8. They denounced me and chased me off when they discovered I could not not power so much as a cool-burning xmas light with Buddy.
9. Afterwards, penniless, I wandered for a time, until I impulsively applied for work with a crew of abattoir berserkers.
10. I still remember that job interview quite well. "What, would you say, is your weakest quality?" the pretty young HR girl asked. "Sometimes I'm not genuine," I told her.
11. The was much to like about that gig: the 24/7 speed metal, the ritalin-soaked lumber remnants we chewed on, the night jousts with the golf-cart bandsaws, Bacon Pie Night....
12. ...but after I learned that they were a Tory outfit, and that their raids on other slaughterhouses were really just anti-organization thuggery, I felt my conscience rise. I emptied their bank accounts, sabotaged the machines with sugar, and slipped away in the night.
13. Determined to enjoy my riches before I suffered the berserkers' inevitable revenge, I bought a caboose and spent a glorious summer caboosing around the country.
14. The most prestigious train that one can caboose is the 85mph United Parcel Service super-expresses, the ones that carry the Treasury department's critical infrastructure endorsement. These are preauthorized to run down anyone who grosses less than $286,000 annually.
15. On Labor Day weekend of that year, I pooled the last of my fortune with some other enthusiasts and we leased a transcontinental all-caboose train.
16. What I had envisioned as a grant festival of the like-minded was instead an awkward, lonely disaster. The hobby draws solitary people. Many never emerged from their cabooses, prefering to sit inside and read Facebook.
17. To add insult to injury, our train ran barely seven hundred miles over the whole holiday weekend. I had foolishly promised that everyone would have their fair turn as the True Caboose. To accomplish this, our train had to waste many precious hours shuffling around bleak suburban marshaling yards.
18. Glad to escape the railway, I resumed my academics that fall. My new advisor, the Dame Professor, was a coffee drinker and a delight. Outside the lab, she was wonderful enough -- sly, sharp-witted, and playfully caustic. Within the lab, the pure glee that experimental science kindled within her was blindingly apparent -- and contagious.
19. After spending just five minutes in her presence, I knew I would love her forever and that I would rather airdrop a burning supertanker into the last rainforest than risk her disappointment.
20. I believe these feelings were reciprocal. But alas, her academic career had stunted her somewhat. She could only express herself institutionally, as if the University was her exoskeleton. She feasted me with grant money and always shielded me from the capricious investigations of the administration. It was love -- clumsy, poorly-executed love, but love nonetheless.
21. One night, late in fall quarter, she summoned me to her laboratory and told me that she thought I seemed melancholy and lonely, and perhaps lacking something special. As my heart rose and my blood roared in my ears and my mind spawned daydreams of the loving bliss to come, Dame Professor clapped her hands and presented me with my intended.
22. Seeing it, I thought that it could be charitably described as a 'good effort.'
23. Had this observation been spoken out loud, Dame Professor would have suffered an intolerable loss of face. Thinking only of her, I took my intended's hand and did my best to act out the expectations placed upon us.
24. My only consolation during those bleak days -- and I dwelt on this constantly -- was the hope that Dame Professor would someday do more than watch us dispassionately from the window. I tried to subtly invite her, variously turning the blinds open, tying back the curtains, brewing strong, fragrant coffee, and finally leaving a friendly post-it note begging her to join us. She would only observe.
25. On one count, my intended functioned as designed. No matter what combination of lightning bolts and mood tonics had been applied to it -- for Dame Professor was endlessly tinkering -- it sincerely wanted the best for me.
26. After it stepped in front of the poultry euthanization-wand, downswung by a bounty hunter in the pay of the abbatoir berserkers, I mourned it sincerely and left the University.
27. And so, today, being at loose ends personally, with my feelings strangely tangled, my convictions put in question, and my person hunted in earnest, I have signed up for Facebook.