So, I finally broke down and bought an Xbox 360 last night. Sterling came over, and we were chatting. I decided that playing Rockstar's Table Tennis was just about all I wanted out of a Saturday night, and I went and made an impulse purchase of an aggregious (egregious + aggressive = aggregious) kind. I was not disappointed. Table Tennis is awesome. I haven't been this excited for a sports game since I brought Virtua Tennis home with me for the first time. I haven't been this excited about a game, period since, well, since Skies of Arcadia came out for the GameCube. I kept getting sad about how McKenzie might enjoy this game.
Perfect Dark Zero was kinda fun, but hard. We played until we spent an hour on a single level because I was unable to find a bright orange fire alarm against a grey wall.
Today, I must set down my paddle (Look! Look! Wireless ping pong paddle!) and get to work on all the stuff that I have to do this week.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Followed up!
So, I had my follow up rheumatologist's appointment. She said that the MRI didn't show any erosive bone loss, which is a big plus. She also said that she still thought all my symptoms were suspicious, but that the risk of aggressive treatment far outweighed any possible benefits. She then said I should come back the next time something was swollen and told me to lose ten pounds and wear sensible shoes.
The basic summing up is that she thinks I've got it, but it's not bad, and probably won't be bad for a while. In the meantime, I'm too fat. Which is fair.
McKenzie is in Maryland, visiting her parents and her best friend. That should be good for her.
Meanwhile, the house is very quiet. The cats are moving through the shadows, and their tails occasionally intersect with my skin in strange ways. Tails on the back of the neck when I least expect it--that kind of thing. This morning, after I had dropped McKenzie at the airport and was back in bed, sleeping, Seker (alternate spelling "Sokar") licked my hand. I woke up just in time to see him tear-assing away in fear. Belial blinked at me about thirty times, as if to say, "What can you do? He's a walking cliche," before shutting his eyes with authority and beating me back into sleep by a good three seconds.
The basic summing up is that she thinks I've got it, but it's not bad, and probably won't be bad for a while. In the meantime, I'm too fat. Which is fair.
McKenzie is in Maryland, visiting her parents and her best friend. That should be good for her.
Meanwhile, the house is very quiet. The cats are moving through the shadows, and their tails occasionally intersect with my skin in strange ways. Tails on the back of the neck when I least expect it--that kind of thing. This morning, after I had dropped McKenzie at the airport and was back in bed, sleeping, Seker (alternate spelling "Sokar") licked my hand. I woke up just in time to see him tear-assing away in fear. Belial blinked at me about thirty times, as if to say, "What can you do? He's a walking cliche," before shutting his eyes with authority and beating me back into sleep by a good three seconds.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
A New, Singular Sensation
Do you ever get the feeling that you want to drop out of school and become a mason? Or a cryptozoologist? Or a Zen calligrapher? I do.
On a whim, I went to see An Inconvenient Truth instead of eating dinner tonight. Perhaps it was my low blood-sugar level, but I was actually moved to tears by that big, monotonous mandroid and his moral commitment to his environmental stance. It made me wonder whether I have any moral stances worth speaking of. Any grand, sweeping moral gestures that could even be on the same scale as that of preserving the chunk of rock that is the determining and constitutive foundation (currently) of any possibility of such gestures or stances or postures. I guess it just hit me that when I toy with doubts in the form of playful rhetorical questions like the above (yes, yes, I know you all secretly want to be zombie disposal technicians, or orchid farmers, or bootleggers, or brewmasters, or vintners, or neuro-genetic bio-mechanicists--but, let's face it, we just can't let go of a certain deep connection to culture) those doubts do not serve the function of somehow reaffirming my choice of lifestyle. I guess I realized tonight that every time I think, "I could just go make serious money doing something, anything else...naaah," I am really underscoring a commitment that is certainly politically and, ultimately, morally important in a way that I, perhaps naively, never considered before. I don't want to be a teacher, but I do think that teaching is one of the most important functions that can be. Don't get me wrong. It is not that I am morally committed to teaching because I believe somehow that I will single-handedly transmit that last cultural puzzle piece that will change the world. No, it's rather that my commitment has a particularly cynical flavor. If I am not teaching, then someone else is. And, to be quite honest, I don't trust anyone that much.
On a whim, I went to see An Inconvenient Truth instead of eating dinner tonight. Perhaps it was my low blood-sugar level, but I was actually moved to tears by that big, monotonous mandroid and his moral commitment to his environmental stance. It made me wonder whether I have any moral stances worth speaking of. Any grand, sweeping moral gestures that could even be on the same scale as that of preserving the chunk of rock that is the determining and constitutive foundation (currently) of any possibility of such gestures or stances or postures. I guess it just hit me that when I toy with doubts in the form of playful rhetorical questions like the above (yes, yes, I know you all secretly want to be zombie disposal technicians, or orchid farmers, or bootleggers, or brewmasters, or vintners, or neuro-genetic bio-mechanicists--but, let's face it, we just can't let go of a certain deep connection to culture) those doubts do not serve the function of somehow reaffirming my choice of lifestyle. I guess I realized tonight that every time I think, "I could just go make serious money doing something, anything else...naaah," I am really underscoring a commitment that is certainly politically and, ultimately, morally important in a way that I, perhaps naively, never considered before. I don't want to be a teacher, but I do think that teaching is one of the most important functions that can be. Don't get me wrong. It is not that I am morally committed to teaching because I believe somehow that I will single-handedly transmit that last cultural puzzle piece that will change the world. No, it's rather that my commitment has a particularly cynical flavor. If I am not teaching, then someone else is. And, to be quite honest, I don't trust anyone that much.
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