July 04, 2005
Was Today Some Kind of Holiday or Something?
In honor of Independence Day (USA, observed) I finished reading America (The Book) from cover to cover sometime very early this morning (like, 1:30-in-the-morning morning). And that's all. I even had Mexican food for lunch, Chinese food for supper, spent the morning moving out of the apartment I share with Koreans (with the aid of Gallagher . . . Irish descent), and spent a good deal of the afternoon and evening messing about with my paper on a book by a British author set chiefly in London and Berlin (no, not the Texan ones). I haven't done a single particularly American thing all day . . . and don't go trying to say that I've spent the day celebrating "The Great Melting-Pot" aspects of our nation, either.
LeTourneau University, in its infinite wisdom and boundless stupidity, is moving apartment dwellers up to the Quads for a few weeks and back again, chunk by chunk, that Physical Plant may have a chance to clean our carpets. And my turn to move fell on July 4th. I had to be out by 11 PM so that Physical Plant can start cleaning at 8 AM tomorrow morning . . . because the apartments really needed that nine hour break in-between, the poor dears. Ironically, my book report on The Spy Who Came In from the Cold is due July 5th at 8 AM in the morning. I don't know what that means, but it must be significant. Or maybe I've just been reading too much spy novel.
I'm not sure I understand why things work out this way. I have had two months of inactivity so total I could have afforded to spend hours finding and cataloguing new and exciting alternate routes between various important landmarks on campus or sitting in front of various mens restrooms and seeing which custodial cleaning crew could set the record for longest "Closed for Cleaning" status (that was a snarky in-joke). But, suddenly and all in one weekend, I am forced to write a paper, move myself and all of my important worldly goods several hundred yards uphill, and attend the Texas Shakespeare Festival with Anna, Scholl, Wilson, Gallagher, and Sharpton.
Okay, so maybe I wasn't forced to attend that last, but c'mon . . . it was important. Anyway, it's been a fun weekend, hanging with the Gallagher and the Wilson for the few days they were in town. And, in a way, I suppose the timing was good in that I was able to get Gallagher to assist me with the move (couldn't have done it without him, as a matter of fact).
And as for The Festival itself . . . Well, that certainly deserves its own post in a few hours, when I've spent some more time on my paper.
Posted by Jared at July 4, 2005 08:38 PM | TrackBack