Harbor Creek High School Chaucer'd!!

Ok, so Chaucer'd!! doesn't work at all as well as Punk'd!!, and I'm in no way looking anything like Ashton Kutcher, nor am I married to a woman nearly twice my age (nor would I want to be (Sorry Demi)), but today my old High School got Chaucer'd!! and I did the Chaucering. And,
It was a rock n' roll harmony bus ride.

I read three sections from the Canturbury Tales to three different classes of Hutch's 12th Grade English students; I partook in the wonders of school lunch food; I commisserated with my old teacher friends; I had a rock n' roll good time (I said that already though).

As for the Chaucer, I don't think anyone was really prepared for the madness of 10 minutes worth of middle english, but as far as HS! kids go, it was received really well. I read The Pardoner's Prologue, pieces of the General Prologue, and a good chunk of the Pardoner's tale, and afterwards kids in all three classes I read to came up to say how cool it was to hear me speaking in Middle English (which to them sounde like Irish). Also, I came to the very astute realization that, I really like standing up before people and captivating them in literature. Any doubts I may have ever had towards a future in teaching are now pretty thoroughly quashed. (So now all I need to do is graduate, publish a ton of stuff and hope that someone's hiring in about a year and a half).

A bit about the food:

1. Since I graduated, they installed "The FAST Lane" in the caf. No one uses the fast lane, because you needs the funny monies that no one has. I lost my place in the regular line (that stretched for MILES) because I mistakenly tried to jump into THE FAST LANE.
   
2. I got free food...Not that I was trying to cheap-o the HS, but I guess my visitor status meant that I got to eat on someone else's bill. This is a good thing because,
   
3. it was hamburger day and the hamburger looked more like a piece of country fried something. But it was neither fried nor country nor any identifiable form of something. I used a lot of mustard on that bad boy. But on the plus side, there were Tots. No I did not put them in my cargo pocket for later (though I was sorely tempted)
   
4. They had more choices than just milk. This made me incredibly happy; I enjoyed the hell out of my Welches Grape Juice.
   

Old Commisserating
I was an art nerd in HS, and all of my English projects back then had a visual collaborative piece to them, much to the delight of both Hutch and Humes. And so I paid homage to the old art room (now remodeled) and was pleasantly surprised to see that the drawling of Frank Zappa attacking dragons on a ship still hung on Humes' wall (my gift to him on graduating), and that he kept my old Drawling table that I had for my very own through 11th and 12th grade (now the matte cutting table).

Hutch also told me that she still had the Romantic Era painting that I did after that Wordsworth poem about the Reaper. Yeah, I was like a pig in shit today. Everything was shiny and happy with all the good memories of HS and getting to impart some oddity upon the new blood.

Hopefully I can keep such a gig up year over year, because good lord, any excuse to read some Chaucer is a valid and much warranted excuse in my book. So pick up your Canturbury Tales and sing along with me as we wend our way on a jolly pilgrimage chock full of odd ball ruffians and gap-toothed women.

Escape [temporary] from WageSlavery

Yesterday I took a vacation day originally to go to my High School to read some Chaucer, but it got cancelled last minute due to some assembly or what not. And Chaucer reading was rescheduled for this coming Wednesday.

So instead of not taking a vacation day and slugging forth eight miserable hours in the temple of the gloaming, I stayed home anyway. This worked out superbly for me, as I received my 2nd packet comments yesterday and had all day to work, absorb, think, and send out a whole bunch of stuff for potential publication.

If I listened to Rap music ever, I might have said that Ice Cube's "Today is a Good Day" applied for yesterday. In reality, I may have mumbled, "Heute ist ein gutes Tag." or "Kyo wa ii desu yo." But really, no, I didn't do that, I did a lot of printing and E-submitting and coverletter writing, and a little bit of revising.

I sent out the following stories:
"Substrate" -- A story about M.D. Stein, a lonely man in a lonely and rotting apartment that receives [and obsesses over] a strange postcard proclaiming proudly in Sharpie: "HELLO FROM TULSA!"

"Alone at the Top" -- A story about twins, and death of the [other] self--it doesn't really work out how they planned it.

"Downtime" -- A story about Edgar and his mindtrip through all the [im]possibilities of his life that spreads out like the flat Nebraskan tundra before him.

Oh and also, for other folks interested in submitting things these days, Playboy has a very Rock n' Roll cash prize contest going on right now: http://www.playboy.com/magazine/fiction.html
I figured it'd be worth a shot.

So now for me, It's the waiting until I start hearing back from those stories, and the other ones that I'm currently working on are ship-shaped up enough to be heave-hoed out to the smarmiest buyer.

That's the news as I see it. Until next time...

[Medieval] British [High School] Invasion

One thing that I've taken from High School (which now is almost a decade back in hindsight) is the role of Mrs. Hutchinson in 12th Grade Advanced English. She imparted upon me all the things I hoped and dreamed for in the realm of English literature within that year. Culminating in the early part of the semester with Beowulf and then later Chaucer. And later still Samuel Taylor Cooridge and all those other Romantic era poets. At the time, I was all about the Sublime and anything that had anything to do at all with things medieval or remotely medieval.

Of course, you all know that I'm a giant D&D nerd, so this shouldn't be a far stretch of the imagination. But,

The year before, in American Literature, I hated it, (with the exception of Poe). I spent the entire year trying to draw parallels to the early American authors and the English authors--saying that Twain stole the adventure story from the British, and etc and etc. It was a bad year for me and Literature, and truthfully, I've never been able to get into early American lit. But,

Anyway, 12th Grade English lit with Mrs. Hutchinson was the best. And I mean the best. With each unit, Hutch had us do some sort of big project, and the Medieval unit convieniently encompassed the beginning of English Literature up through Chaucer. Our project options included things like: doing a report on medieval times and life, reading additional works and reporting on them, creating/drawing/painting/sculpting something medieval and bring in a presentation based upon that creation, make an antic filled odd-ball highschool movie, etc.

I did all of that save the movie (which I ended up assisting with the following year for my one-grade-below-me friends). I read as much of the Knight's Tale in Middle English as I could (hoping there'd be dragons and fights and other cool things--too bad Chaucer's knight did all his fighting before the pilgrimage.) And then I wrote up this crazy story, in calligraphy on tea-dyed parchment paper. I drew a picture of the story's main character (I was also an art nerd in high school), and when I presented the whole mess, I did so in my best early-impression of an English accent. It was ballsy. I didn't prepare enough ahead of time, nor did I know much about the "proof read your fiction aloud before actually reading it aloud" bit, but I did it all anyways, and it was like a 20 minute read.

The result: A for the year. But I didn't stop there. I painted paintings after Wadsworth poems and after high school, I went out and bought $500 worth of pre 19th Century English Literature from Cooridge to Byron to Spenser. And honestly, I haven't really gone back and read much of it. But,

What I did do was go to college and drop the Chemistry major my mom wanted me to have, and applied myself full time in the English department, fully expecting at that time, to study Medieval literature. Well I did in a way--I took a wonderful Chaucer Class and leared to read and speak Middle English, but at about the same time, I learned about Postmodernism and experimental fiction.... Well that hooked me but good. So,

Coming up this Friday, I'm about to pay homage to my Roots. I'm going back to Harbor Creek and I'm going to do a bunch of readings in Middle English from The Canterbury Tales. It'll be my first time back to Harbor Creek since probably 1999, when I made a couple appearances to visit Hutch and Humes (the art teacher). And I'm very excited (especially since I'll be taking the day off of work to do it).

A not so Random FiRD

So today, being the day that my 2nd packet is due, and also being my second semester at Spalding, I'm required to send a piece of fiction to everyone in my group. And considering my last post, I thought I'd throw that piece of fiction up here as well. The story, formerly called "Four out of Five," and now entitled "Between the Lines," can be accessed in Adobe PDF format, here. Basically the story is a microcosm of action that gets skipped over in another story of mine called , "(Un/Re/I )Do." "Between the Lines" shows the breakdown of Johnny and Stacy's relationship and the build up of the eventual relationship between Johnny and Elise, which happens by the end of "(Un/Re/I )Do." "Between the Lines" itself is a sort of nested story that doesn't really "go" anywhere but constantly inward.

Also, since today is (was) Friday, I'm going to include another story, "Downtime." It's considerably more random and encompasses the other half of the type of fiction that I generally write. "Downtime" is both vulgar and absurd, so don't read it at work , and don't read it if you don't like a profluence of potty-mouth.

I hope you enjoy either or neither of them. In any case, I'm going to go to bed a lot earlier than I expected to tonight.

What I'm working on

Lately the ole blog's been more random than writerly, so here's an insight on what I'm currently working on:

The Big Project: Not an Autobiography -- a collection of linked short stories more or less about yours truly--except better than real life, and very considerably darker. I've recently decided that the book will appear as three parts, now tentatively called: [Dark Erie], [Grey Erie - Dreary Erie], and [Light Erie - Fleeting]. Each section is going to follow the general theme set by its section title with Dark dealing more with the "bad shit" and light the "good shit" with Grey being a repository of shit that doesn't really sift to either side. I'm thinking the Grey section will be more of a morass of snippits and short shorts that are looking for definition of one side or the other but...failing on that endeavor. Dark will be longer than Light in terms of stories, and that's about it.

Current stories in progress:

[Runaway] - A triptych: This contains remnants of the story that kicked off the whole idea for the book. A revisualization of certain aspects of my life through the eyes of a very goth girl going through a period of extreme mundinaeity that gets instantly fucked up by the death of her father that she hasn't spoken to for twelve years because of some bad shit on her behalf during her parents' divorce. The "Left" and "Center" Sections I'm pretty happy with, but "The Right" hasn't earned its ending yet, nor does it really arc well enough as it's own story. This is a "Dark" side story.

[Medieval Weddings and something or the other] - This is a pair of stories written in Middle English originally for Sue for a wedding present. They tell the story of us, and a story about foxes. I'm at a standstill with this one at the moment. I'm still not sure how to wrap the stories into the proper context, since slapping 20 pages of Middle English on the page without any form of translation/explanation is going to go over like a lead balloon. Also the story about foxes needs to be rewritten to be more dynamic, and I'd like to make an attempt to improve the language/rhyme scheme (ie create one), or at least do something so that it doesn't read as choppily as it does. When finished, this will be one of the stories in the "Light" side of the book.

[Four out of Five] - This story is an expansion on a period of skipped time within "(Un/Re/I )Do". It's my newest endeavor, and currently it's scope is waaaay too wide. It's basically about Johnny meeting and working towards dating Elise, but in a very asshole sense. It strips away the hopeless arty victim characterization of Johnny in the parent story, and repaints Johnny as a complete womanizing asshole. This is definitely a "Dark" side story.

And those are the big Key items for the moment.

Stamp out Corporate WageSlavery

I've said it before, and to just about every person I meet, but good god, I [Censored by Corporate America] my job.

Let's not get too far into the logistics that brought about the slow buildup of [Censored by Corporate America] over the last 4.x years, but instead cut to the last few weeks.

At my place of [Censored by Corporate America] employment, I work three jobs, none of which are company sanctioned in the sense of having an actual job title/position/appropriate payscale. But, none the less, I've carved these three jobs worth of activity out of necessity to make the office a better place, and, in all honesty, the work itself is kind of cool--find ways to make the office use less paper and less manhours to make working life more productive and have more time for sluffing, and do all of it on a budget of $0. Turns out I'm really good at this sort of thing. I saved the company something like $786,000 in my first year and nine months of doing this, and the savings by now are probably pushing a cool million--all on my back.

However, [Censored by Corporate America], has decided that since only my boss knows what I do, and no one else in the building can do what I do, that I must, in fact, be doing NOTHING. *angst* *angst* *angst* *angst*.

So in the infinite wisdom of [Censored by Corporate America], I've been returned to my actual job title, in my actual department, and the office is now 100% without any form of tech support, after having me wait on the management and craft folks for 3 years, fixing nearly everything in house for no cost to the company, and now all of that is gone.

Of course, [Censored by Corporate America] expect me to continue doing everything, but I'm not stupid, and so not even two full weekdays after going down to the old department, [Censored by Corporate America] already had to rig up a replacement to cover for me while I fixed a completely useless report that had been misfiring data since Saturday. A report that they know I need to manually fix usually every day for the first 10 days of the month. So instead of having me work on keeping the office running like a well oiled, but severely corrupt, broken, and evil machine, they've decided to see how long it takes for it to grind to a halt.

Between Friday and Monday morning, I identified eight things that needed repaired. After today, I noticed that entire database tables were steadily corrupting themselves, no one had inspected the operators' positions for 4 days, and another host of stuff was broken.

All I have to say is that [Censored by Corporate America]

I just hope I can [Censored by Corporate America]

FiRD - I Was a Teenage Retard

In thinking about the whole Friday Is Random Day (FiRD) spiel that I've started here, it reminded me of The Question of the Week, from days of yore. Days in which I was a massively retarded immature kid that thought he was a badass. In reality, from 1998-2003 I was a dumbass completely, totally and without a clue. Thankfully, Sue pulled my head out of my ass and somewhat painfully showed me what kind of dumbass I had unknowingly become.

Granted, at every milestone stage in my life, I look back on previous times, and say, "God, I was a dumbass. So probably in five years or so, I'll have another random post debunking today's post, but for now, in my head, I've survived dumbassed-ness, and am on some level just a goof, or something akin to that.

But anyways, Back in THE day (that being the days of my first two semesters of college, and being the time between classes spent in the computer lab getting my first true injections of "Teh Intarnets") I immediately founded my first website, which somehow, by stunning luck still remains as a disheveled graveyard of mostly broken links and inane pre-blog-era blogging. Unfortunately, the section that I remember most fondly, The Question of the Week (QotW) is long gone and eaten away by the little bugs and insects that gnash and gnaw upon all the goop that makes up the abandoned webpages floating around on the net.

But the QotW was in fact an edifice of absurdity. The questions, as I remember them, were rambling oddities that seemed like half-formed math questions, but loaded with Monty Python-esque language and silliness. I'd post a question sounding something like, "You have an ice scraper, a quarter tank of gas in your '88 Plymouth Acclaim (with with 3 dents), and you are starving to death. How many Llamas are maimed in your search for food along the strip mall strip? And of those llamas' how many have alpacan relatives, and of which county do they reside in?"

The answers, garnered from my friends, were generally equally odd, and took on the form of a rambling, and occasionally, connected (to previous QotWs) narrative of absurdity. I scored each entry with a random point value and then chose the winner of the week. I think vaguely at one point, I even started giving out real prizes... but they were things like gum wrappers, bits, pieces, and other things that could masquerade as pocket nuff.

I have no punchline for this post, so I'll end with a .