Monday, January 12, 2009

Tidbit

I like to drunk-blog. I'll get home from the bars late, but instead of just calling it a night, I'll stay up until 3 or 4 am downloading music, browsing celebrity gossip sites, and writing angsty blog entries on this thing. When I wake up the next morning, my first priority is to drink as much water as possible and find some Tylenol. The second is to delete whatever I wrote the night before.

This isn't one of those, though. I just can't sleep.

Friday, January 09, 2009

Hey Jessica

Time to be jealous again.

Today, for the last twenty minutes of class, we turned out all the lights and told each other our nightmares. The student speaking would stand in the front of the room with a flashlight held to their face ghost-story style. Here are some of the creepier ones:

Her parents send her off into a maze, telling her that her aunt's house is at the other end. After wandering around lost for what seems like hours, she finally gets out on the other side. She sees her aunt's house. Unfortunately, there's a dog between her and the house. The dog is partially skeletal, rotting bits of flesh falling off his body. She calls out to her parents as it starts attacking her, but no one comes.

He's on Wheel of Fortune, as the fourth contestant in a game of only three. The others are all guessing letters he's never heard of, and as he shouts out the letters of the alphabet, the other contestants laugh. Vanna comes at him and starts eating him alive, until only his head is left. Just as she's about to eat him up, he's transferred onto Jeopardy. Alex Trebec is totally normal, thank God. But the other two contestants turn on him, finishing the job Vanna started. Wielding wire cheese cutters, they slice pieces of his skull off and eat them while he tries desperately to answer the trivia questions.

She wakes up in her bedroom, and she knows its hers, but she can't recognize anything. She gets up and wanders the empty house, and again, she knows its her house, but there's nothing familiar to justify this. She's searching but she can't find anyone, until she goes into the garage. Her father is hanging by his neck.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

First Day of Monsters

Copy-Paste of class notes:

What is a monster? On the first day of the first Monsters Class in 2004, I asked the students to describe a monster. Here are the words they used:



There is a terrific scene in Finding Nemo in which Dory and Marlin swim into the dark deep sea in search of a diver’s mask. They see a mysterious light that attracts them and almost get eaten by a deep sea anglerfish. How many of the characteristics cited above do you see in the anglerfish pictured below?



I also asked them to name something that really gave them the creeps. Here are their responses to that question:



Okay, Copy-Paste done.

After the class discussion about things that generally creep us out, I went home and watched a few episodes of Planet Earth. And you know what? Nature is very, very creepy. Especially when you're watching out for it.



While in Vallarta in October, my mom found out that stepping on sea urchins is not a good idea. Their spines are poisonous, so it hurts like hell. They're also brittle, so trying to pull them out usually just makes them snap off inside your foot. Then, even better! The tip starts to curl like a fish hook, so it will gradually push itself deeper into your skin while resisting, very painfully, any attempts to pull it out with tweezers. Usually people have to go in for a minor surgery to get them removed safely. And they tend to get infected.
But not only that! They have TEETH! The damn things come in swarms that can level an entire kelp forest in a day. Their five teeth grow constantly, so they're always sharp and ready to gnaw.
And starfish! They climb on top of their victims (sand dollar, smaller starfish, whatever) then suck the juicy bits out and move on, leaving only the creatures' bones behind.
Damn, nature. The whole barracuda thing already had me afraid of snorkeling, but now I think I'm done with all open-water activities. (Except surfing. And only on beaches that are known for not having jelly fish.)