Vomit Comet

For some reason I got thinking about love poems the other day and I realized something. I’ve seen many love poems over the years, and a few of them were even meant for me. some of them are quick, simple and awful, some of them are long, complex, overly drawn out and awful. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve gotten some really sweet ones and hopefully I’ll get a few more, but I find that a lot of the time the writer tries way too hard to get across in words what could easily be expressed in much simpler terms or better yet, with a kiss. But that’s not what I realized, I always knew that.

As I sat here pondering this issue I was struck by the realization that even though I’ve read many love poems, there’s 1 thing I’ve never seen, a love limerick. Why is that? Limericks are arguably the most accessible form of poetry in existence. They’re rigidly formulaic which makes them reasonably easy to put together and they’re not intimidating to the non-English literary set, a group to which I’m fairly sure I belong.

But after giving it considerable thought I think I’ve come up with the reason for the lack of love limericks. It boils down to 1 simple truth, that being that thinking them up is goddamn hard. Seriously, sit down and try it for a little while. It’s not as easy as I thought. Maybe it’s because I’m still a little bit sick and by the time I got to the third line my head was spinning, but it’s not as simple as it looks.

Feel free to prove me wrong, that would make me happy. I’ll keep trying to prove myself wrong too, because I honestly feel that the limerick is a vastly under-rated poetic art form that deserves far better than the beating it takes from the elite of the poetry world who are constantly trying to diminish it’s worth as a style in an attempt to prop up their own overly wordy non-rhyming brand of whatever the hell that stuff is. Let’s show them that the limerick and all of it’s greatness has a place, and a prominent one at that, in the world of writing. Together, we might just be able to do this.

Yep, I’m an unoriginal copycat. So sue me. Well things don’t suck nearly as much in my life as they seem to in Steve’s, but I’m in a rather suckalicious mood, and I have a bit of time to spare, so here we go. Everything sucks for me cause I’m stuck at the school library until well after any sane person should be there. I have to meet with some people in that class that I’m o so fond of. Then I get to walk home in the frigid cold. I actually gave in and got out the winter coat, and the day I break out the winter coat, I’m never a happy camper. And I got a mark back from a class that I thought I was doing well in. Well Guess what, sparticus? Not only does everything suck, apparently so do I! Now all that’s left is to find out that I suck in French too. And I get to do that most likely in about, hmmm, an hour.

So is everybody’s day sucking, or just ours? I am very happy to not be feeling sick, and I did get to see a friend, so that was cool. I just hate hate hate the cold, and the fact that I probably won’t make it home until 9:30 or so. Ick. I should be happy it’s not snowing. Now that I’ve said that, I’ll get caught in horrible snow.

Well I should probably do something productive. Have a less sucky day everyone.

Imagine a day when everything’s the opposite of what it should be. You wake up. You go to do your laundry and on your way out of your apartment you run into your neighbour. he’s an ordinary guy. You always happen to see him leave on his bike somewhere, seems to be keeping rather busy. He’s always offering to help you with something. Anyway, he tells you in conversation that he has cancer, has been fighting it for years, but it has returned and now it’s near his brain. You’re completely floored and after you finish talking to him, you head off to do your laundry. But you’re always bringing the wrong money or you somehow end up leaving without your soap. You manage to get the laundry in the dryer, but you have to go somewhere before it’s done. You leave your clothes there and hope for the best. You run to where you’re going, and a fountain that’s part of the town square, a fixture, isn’t running today! You realize this just before you slam into it, and look like a complete dope. You get to where you’re going, and the people who are usually mean are really nice, and the people who are usually insincere seem to mean what they say today. You leave there a few hours later to catch the bus to meet up with some other people. But you miss the one bus and the next bus doesn’t move its ass for a good five minutes after it’s supposed to. You get up to where you’re going, but the people who you’re meeting aren’t there. Then you meet some people who are really nice, nice enough to run around with you looking for the people you were looking for in the first place. You check everywhere, but no dice. So you go back home. You go to play the “where’s my laundry” treasure hunt, but miracle of miracles, it’s all in the dryer where you left it!

Sound like a weird day? Now imagine that it’s real. You don’t have to. It is. That was my Wednesday.

Wow, I seem to have a lot to say today. Don’t know if it’s of interest to anyone, but here we go.

I don’t know what it is about some blind people who think they’re some how entitled to the moon because they’re blind. I know it’s only some, but they’re a loud little bunch. It disturbs me to see it. They’ll ask for something, like asking to move into a place early, wanting something for free or cut back, wanting special treatment where it really isn’t necessary, and if they don’t get it, they’ll pull the blindness card. I almost expect this conversation to unfold:

Whiny Blink: Is there any cheesecake?
Waitor: No. We’re all out of cheesecake.
Whiny blink: But I’m blind and so I need the cheesecake.

I mean it’s an exaggeration, but I wouldn’t put it past some of them to do something similar. I mean there are some cases where you need to ask for things because of the blindness thing. Like you can’t exactly expect me to hand-write you a note and read print. My eyes won’t heal themselves. But so many take it way too far. I especially see this crap happen if they want a discount. I saw one person actually try and haggle a discount out of a cab driver because he was blind. Dude, that’s not cool. That’s the cabby’s livelyhood, and sometimes it’s just easier to use a cab. But that’s a convenience thing, and you don’t ask for a discount! That’s just wrong! But do they speak up when there’s actually a legitimate complaint? Perhaps something to be done to do with accessibility? Nooo! That’s too much work. it’s only when it looks like they might get something for free that they fight tooth and nail.

This shouldn’t bug me. There are all kinds in this world, so I shouldn’t care. But it does. It does because the whiny blinks always seem to stand out like sore thumbs, and since there are so few of us compared to the huge masses, every single one of us is a representative for the whole group. So when I see them pulling out the “But I’m blind so…” speal, and I can tell the people they’re crying to are pissed off, I swear the pissed off ones are going to think we’re all like that. Stop setting bad examples! At least try to do what you can and don’t expect a damn free ride.

While I’m on the subject of school and gouging, it just pisses me off to see how unbelieveably unprepared universities are around here for the double cohort. For people who don’t live in Ontario, or Canada for that matter, in the good old days, there were five years in high school. Grade 9 through O.A.C. or grade 13 in the real real good old days. But around, hmmm, 7 years ago, the government decided that after a certain point, there would be no more fifth year of high school. But they didn’t just cut it off, ker snap, and leave the aftermath to be dealt with by the universities and colleges. No. They decided that for the grade nines entering in a certain year, and all students after them, they would not have the fifthe year, but for anyone already in high school, they still had it. This means that in a certain year, which happened to be last year, the last group of kids who had O.A.C. and the first group of the new structure graduated high school at the same time and flocked to get degrees. This is what they call the double cohort.

So why is it that the schools still were unprepared. They had at least 7 years to plan for it, and I’m sure there were stats on how many students there were across the province. I mean that wouldn’t give exact numbers, but that would give a general idea, and it would be a hell of a lot more useful study to conduct than the ones I see now coming out of schools on shit like whether or not overcrowding is hazardous to your health. Thanks for the update sparticus. But alass, in September when the new clump arrived, what were the schools doing? Still building lecture halls and residences. I’m not joking. And they tell us not to procrastinate. Practice what you preach.

And now it’s getting worse because this mass of students is getting older. So in first year it’s not so bad because the classes are big anyway. I mean it sucks, but it’s not insurmountable to get everybody herded into huge lecture halls and teach that way. But this year they’re in second year, and next year they’ll be in third! That’s when classes are supposed to shrink. But they’re not, so everybody’s freaking. Classes that usually have 40 students are going to have 90. A zillion courses are being offered distance ed now because they don’t have enough profs. I mean, what were they thinking? That they’d all fail out until we were left with the usual class sizes? Isn’t that just wishful thinking, and an awfully foolish way to do things? “Oh maybe the problem will just go away on its own.” Well no, boss, it’s not.

I’m just really glad I’m getting out when I am. But it makes me sad to see how screwed those kids are, and while everybody passes the hot potato of blame, they all struggle with the consequences of a serious case of administrative procrastination.