isis

andy pink, conjunction junction, vermont —

salute from war!

as i have been watching fox news non-stop (as i mentioned in my previous post) it has dawned on me that this isis threat is just complete made-up bullshit. as far as i can remember, this isis group only emerged — i had never heard of it before — about a month ago when it threatened to climb a hill and kill a couple of hundred folks. i must say, on the geo-political world stage this is not even an event, let alone a news story. these non-stop isis stories seem to be so obviously trumped up — it just doesn’t seem like there is anything there at all. why had no one ever heard of this apparently hitler-like posse until they became the worst of the world? it just seems like the ultimate of obvious military industrial complex propaganda. i can’t see — honestly — how anyone could see this as anything other than as a fairy tale (one presumably without a happy ending except for boeing and ge). my lord, americans are just obscenely stupid. can someone explain why even that is the case?

i had the two philosophy classes this afternoon — two sections of the same course. first, the syllabus for the course is ridiculously long: it is 19 pages. rather epic, i should say. the first section (2 hours) went really well and i just feel really good about it, it’s going to be a great semester for that class, i think. but i was so exhausted after this happy 2 hours that the next section (3-5) completely tanked. i even decided to defer part of the lecture to later in the week because i was so exhausted. the students just randomly talked about some issues that i briefly raised and it all seemed uncoordinated and disarranged. it utterly wounds me when a class session is a bust. it ruins not only the hours afterward but it also seems to ruin days and even the entire week. i have heard from colleagues that this is also the case for some of them, but i should say that it might be time for me to get a life, as a poorly executed class should not be on my mind at 8 at night, other things should emerge to trump a lousy lecture.

i use a gay iphone app for hook-ups called grindr. it’s one of those location devices apps and the sterling feature of this app grindr is that it gives you a picture of the guy and the exact number of feet away from you he is. it doesn’t tell you his address or offer a map, but you know when the guy is, say, 156 feet away from you (and possibly an inhabitant of your apt building). it’s mostly just a hook-up app but i’ve seen that it is trending more toward friends and relationships. not much has happened on my end, i get hit up a few times a day but often don’t respond for no particular reason, and i use it more to gaze at the odd closeted torus-pics even if i am more compelled by the cute faces of these young gay boys. as 37, i’m almost a dinosaur on the app (it’s mostly 18-26, i think), but i still find it enjoyable. i find it difficult to really converse on my iphone (i do not understand the allure of texting, at all) but sometimes i find it fun, if we can get into a rhythm. i don’t have much to say about grindr at the moment, just wanted to mention that it is a weird part of my life at the moment. it is quite awful to see a pic of a student on there, oh griefs.

the bipolar friend i wrote about a couple of days ago has texted me (of all things) and we are to go to the movies i think this week. to be honest, i don’t really find him compelling, i have always thought that most humans can like other humans (at least in the beginning, before their personality actually emerges), it seems like people mostly like other people, at the start, or i generally think that i could be friendly (or even friends) with most people. i am hoping that this will be the case.

i miss my old love. he taught me kindness, i had never appreciated it much before. henry james said that kindness was the most important thing, and what i have read about him suggests that he was not in fact kind, at all perhaps in the end, in sum, i will love once again, but i still hope not. i shall be a spinster and a wench, and i shall die in my stairwell, late for the morning paper.

this apple orchard i stand in is a mess. there are apples lying around everywhere.

i suggest some of you take a trip to baltimore. it is not quite as nice as when i lived in upstate new york, but it has a charm: criminality.

from los angeles, mr pink