2001-11-03 - 5:23 p.m.
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The Life of a Belmo, 2 days deep
Put some coffee on, this one's gonna take a while.
I've had all sorts of my life turned upside down and shaken about, like one of those snowglobes.
I'll start with today and make my way back, because it's more fun that way.
Last night was fun (which I'll get to). So much so that I didn't bother waking up at 8 am for my Leadership Conference, for being the president of Mason Hall. Instead I got woken up by a phone call and I rushed out at 10 am, already about an hour and a half late.
This means I was running around a day long convention with all of 4 hours of sleep...
I get there and walked in on a speech on how you should have vision...
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...which disturbed me horribly, because almost all of the speakers I heard today were more full of shit than a broke down toilet in a bus station. I sat there as these people regurgitated water cooler slogans upon us and proclaimed them as prophecy. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and the fact that I knew I was in for 7 hours of it...
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and he asked the group to tell him about a goal we had, but describe it as if it's already been accomplished. One kid raised his hand and gave this example of how he wanted a diversity club or something. He went on to describe very We Are the World-ish that he figured he could make the world believe in diversity in only 4 years.
I wish I had a bat with which to crack open this pinata of ignorence and laugh as all the candy of stupidity poured to the floor. I wish you could literally smack the stupidity out of some people. Blind passion leads to being naive and stupid.
Then after that, I signed up for a course on using Humor in leadership.
"God," I thought, "This shit is right up my alley."
That alley was a fucking dead end.
The orator (and I use that term because it reminds me of the word oral, and this guy sure did suck)was not funny at all. In fact, his idea of comedy was photocopied Far Side comics that he slandered to portray a leadership message.
Want an example? How about the one with a scene in hell where there's a guy who, painfully obvious to anyone with 5 or more brain cells, was an idiot pushing a wheelbarrow whistling with 2 devils behind him. One of them is saying "you know, we're just not reaching this guy". The orator believed this as a sign that some people make the best of a bad situation...
THE GUY WAS A FUCKING RETARD PUSHING A WHEELBARROW! Does that mean all leaders must suffer from Down Syndrome? Either that, or a good leader is the kind of person who has no fucking clue whats going on? I was confused, because last I checked, you're supposed to EXAMINE things when you present them to people, especially at a convention designed to promote leadership skills. The one thing this doesn't entail is, oh I don't know, MISINTERPRETING FAR SIDE COMICS TO PROVE A POINT THAT YOUR MISINTERPRETATION DENOUNCES!
...read it slow, it makes sense.
And that wasn't the half of it. He continued to try his luck at jokes. I forget the first one (maybe intentionally) but the second one I had already heard, the one about the kid who self pitches to himself 3 times, missing each time and saying at the end "Damn can I pitch!". I heard that about 15 differnt ways, and his was just slightly more exciting than the way I just explained it.
Not to mention the fact that his hand kept twitching the whole time, which I didn't know how to react to. Either he was nervous or he's got fucking Parkinson's disease, but either way it's hard to laugh at someone who's shaking worse than a heroin addict going cold turkey.
After the jokes, Sir Shakesalot barraged us with more Far Side calendar rip outs on the overhead screen, obviously trying to demonstrate to us how to give a presentation with the least amount of work or imagination.
I felt betrayed by my school for hiring some jerk off with a Far Side calendar, a photocopy machine and too much fucking time on his hands, all the while spouting hackneyed quotes and slogans designed to make Sir Shakesalot look like a fucking genious.
This was only the second part. I had 5 more to go.
Then came lunch, which was sponsered by our food provider, Mariott. You know Mariott. You've slept in thier hotels and motels. Come on, you know you have and if yuo haven't, you've seen one.
Yeah, well they should fucking stick to hotels, because they suck at food.
I'm so glad to see that Mariott doesn't change routine. The "Continental Breakfast" is the same outside of thier hotels as it is inside. I've seen hobos eat a better breakfast. The one real use for thier food is simple: laxatives. They slip laxatives in all thier food so that you don't get constipated...
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..which tells me that the ultimate level of hell must be reincarnation as a Plattsburgh toilet. That would probably be my idea of a perfect hell. Either that, or coming back as someone who has to clean them...
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The speaker that spoke of visions told us of stories of how he almost died on some cruise, which I stopped paying attention to immediately...as a matter of fact, almost everything after that is kind of a blur because my mind escaped out of my nose and came back about 5 minutes before I left. I really stopped paying attention once I realized nothing of true value was going to be said today.
So let's stop talking about it.
Back to 2 nights ago... I was drinking with a couple of friends and we decided to go out and walk the nature trail because it was a full moon and it kicked ass out. There's this tree that arches over the river down there that ends on an island. So, seeing as beer makes you believe you have superhuman abilities (what, never happened to you? you lucky lucky bastard) I seriously belived that I could make it across the river. I made it pretty far, even upside down to clear some branches. But when I tried to straighten myself out, I grabbed a bad branch, which snapped, dropping me into the water head first. I watched it the whole way down...
I followed that up with showing up for my Student board meeting about actually signing my poetry club up not more than 10 minutes after that. Imagine swimming in a river and then 10 minutes later pleading to get a poetry club on campus... yeah it happened.
and yes, I did change, but I didn't have time to change underwear. That was... interesting.
And that kind of leads up to yesterday. I got an IM from Mr. Scott in Lowell and we devised a Lowell Invasion on Plattsburgh. All the Lowell Rawk that this shitstink of a burgh can handle. That brightened my day, only to have my day shit all over me. I was supposed to go to Canada again this weekend, but that didn't go through, so my ongoing feud with Canada still continues to this day. To replace that trip, I went out to a frat party, my first in over a month.
Wow, did I miss a lot... wait, no no I didn't. I missed all of fucking nothing. Just another chance to spill booze all over myself...
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Funny story...actually no, it's not that funny, but it is a story. Here's a sample dialogue from last night:
Belmo:"What the fuck..."
RSG#1: "Ohh I'm sorr...HEY TOM HOW'S IT (drunken rambling to a guy she blew last night)
RSG#2:(looking at Belmo)"Oh you got to love her!"(smiles and raises her glass)
That fucking drink tasted delicious and cost me an extra fucking buck. That was no watered down beer. Got to love her? Not without fear of an STD...
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So after leaving that squealing mess of sexual depravity (which I love, but gets tired real fast) I came back to my dorm and hung out with friends...
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I have to go into the 4 Horsemen at this point. I consider me, my roomate Shpunt, and our neighbors Leon and Fuchs like brothers. I'd do anything for the 3 of them and they'd do it for me too. This whole floor is close but we just hang out so much that I can't see myself doing anything else. It makes me a little happy now to know that I got 3 of some of the best friends I'll have living right with me.
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and actually talked to Jess for a good long time. She is probably one of the only interesting girls here; one of the few that I can actually have a conversation with that wouldn't end with me strangling them.
So that's that. That's the past few days I've had... not that you probably cared, but yeah. To say the least, I've found some good friends and a least a little reason to smile here.
But home is still home, Lowell. I will never forget that.
BMC
What did you just say? - What's he gonna say next?
