"BUT WHERE ARE THE INDIANS??"

A few thoughts on this Dimal Thursday Afternoon, carried over from Wednesday:

-The workmen listening to the radio on the roof; it is turned low and there is lots of static and someone is talking, there is no music. i can also hear a heavy squeaking sound every now and then, which is louder than the radio, and usually accompanied by some light banging.

-Claude balled up somewhere inside the immense, crumpled quilt. I reach my hand in to find him, to make sure he is alive. He is buried deep within it. I make out fur and warmth, and I prod it until I feel him move. I can feel by the way his head is tucked into his body that he is balled up soundly and small, as if he is in a womb.

-The fungus that grew on the side of that pumpkin was actually beautiful even though I thought it was disgusting. I wish I had examined it longer. It's like I was afraid of it. Looking at well-developed fungus can sometimes be like looking at images of space.

-The pumpkin was sitting on a bookshelf, and the fungus only grew on the side that was facing the inside of the shelf, where the light did not hit it. While these things are probably definitely related, I'm more interested in the fact that it endowed the pumpkin with a sort of Jeckyll and Hyde type of quality. Again, I wish I had examined it longer. I spent weeks just staring at the nice side of that pumpkin. I didn't notice that it had begun to rot until a few days ago, and I let it sit there, and was surprised with how quickly the fungus appeared to be developing, taking on more intensified forms which I was only able to detect from the small edge of the fungus that could be seen from the pleasant side of the pumpkin. I could only see a tiny hint of it, but I knew it was growing, and I imagined what it could be like, and perhaps that's why I was so fearful of it, why, when I finally faced it this morning, lifted it down from the shelf to throw it away, I only glanced at it hurriedly, and then held it facing away from me as I carried to to the trash. So that now all I can remember about it are some colours. A deep teal in the middle, seeping out into sprawling patches of lighter blues and greens. Now it sits in the trash, a wall between us, and I still have no idea what it was really like.

-Claude dragging the sock dramatically across the carpet before laying into it. He attacks it wildly for a few seconds, then lies silently and still with it clutched in his mouth, slack-jawed, frustrated with anti-climax. I'd say it makes me feel bad to see him having to resort to hunting my dirty socks in order to express his sense of animalistic purpose, but I'm worse off. What do I get to hunt? Everything's been replaced by words.

-That kid in my class had ~Crèvecœur~ quotes on his phone. First of all, it's been weeks since we talked about ~Crèvecœur~. Second, this is how it went: so we were discussing the importance of laaanguage versus wriiiting in Willa Cather's My Antonia, and he made a point relating it to a passage from ~Crèvecœur~ to which the the professor responded that it was an excellent point and that he should find it and use it. Then he pulled out his phone, literally fiddled with it for like thirty seconds as the conversation carried on, and then when there was a pause and he was like, 'Oh I have that quote here it is guys,' and then read it out in his voice which is just like Hugh Grant's but better, and we are all just like, what a hessian. Like, what went on there? First of all, it's not like ~Crèvecœur~ is so mainstream that you can just find a specific passage that easily and that quickly on the internet, or even in a fucking book. Did he purposely save the passage on his phone because he planned on making that point? Did he have it on his phone anyway? Was it filed away in some easily accessible document that he had the motivation to remember? Does he know exactly in what part of ~Crèvecœur~ this passage is located and thus was able to google the document and locate it effortlessly? Does he have a research assistant to do shit like this for him, ready to strike at any moment? Did he actually have it memorized but was just pretending to read it off his phone so we didn't think he was weird? Is he a literary überhuman? What is most exalted then: him, the speed of the phone, or the passage?

-How did I not know Andy Samberg was doing Rahm Emanuel impersonations?