Notes from the first few days of College, Part 2:
-It still takes a small army to get a tie to look good on a man, especially if that man is Slavic and hasn't tried on his new shirt.
-Shirts that say "Wrinkle Free" aren't.
-Walking down with five fraternity brothers in formal clothes, sunglasses, and slow motion down a hallway while "Little Green Bag" plays in the background and someone flicks a glowing cigarette tip into the bushes is right up there with sex and "The Dark Knight" as experiences you have to be there to understand.
-There's an El Greco exhibit at the local art museum and for one night and one night only they opened it up to students with a nice little selection from the archives and the El Greco exhibit proper, as well as really good cookies. There were armies of nervous little freshmen wearing, variously, legit shirts and ties, Tressel-style sweatervests that their mothers sent them (on the promise that they were now "in"), tuxedos, t-shirts, jeans, slacks, polos, and Superman costumes wander around in large clusters pretending they like art and checking out teh w0menz by swinging their large crane-like heads in their general direction, instead of discreetly using their peripheral vision like upperclassmen do. There were also classy drinks and stuff, and I realized that, for better or worse, this is going to be my life five years from now: lost in a sea of people I don't know, pretending to be gay and a lover of art and wine, and wishing, fervently, that it was football season again.
And now, we have a very special guest sidebar from That Girl, who requested to be included in the blog, since she believes that she has been unfairly represented in her opinions and habits by the author. So, here we present to you (in what we hope will be a regular guest column), the unedited thoughts of That Girl:
That Girl Guest Column #1
Let me explain to you a little bit about The Author, who I have now been dating for some months. After our first date, I cataloged the variety of his knowledge like this:
The Author- His Limits
Knowledge of: Literature- Nil
" " : Philosophy- Nil
" " : Astronomy- Nil (He took me to a planetarium once and tried to act smart; let's just say I've never been so embarassed by color commentary since John Madden first started broadcasting)
" ": Politics- Feeble (He's a Republican, obviously)
" ": Botany- Variable. Well up in peyote, marijuana, lysergic acid, and poison ivy generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
" ": Geology- Practical, but limited. From his constant references to his ability/desire to "tap that" I assume he knows quite a bit about oil drilling and rock strata.
" ": Chemistry- Profound(ly bad). I had never seen such depths of stupidity.
" ": Anatomy- Accurate, but unsystematic. The first time he got to second base he spent about five minutes looking for my- well, anyways, that's a story for a different column.
" ": Sensational Literature- Immense. He seems to know everything there is to know about Lindsay, Britney, Amy, and Miley, as well as their growth in bodily proportions from the age of 14 on in astounding detail.
Plays the viola badly.
Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
Has a good practical knowledge of Mock Trial rules.
See what I mean? Although he says he is quite the Renaissance man, he's actually lying, which, according to all of his ex-girlfriends, is something he does quite a bit of, especially when it would be easier to tell the truth. For example, he tried to tell me that Ohio State quarterback Todd Boeckman is 24 years old. What kind of ridiculous lie is that? I mean, even Greg Oden wasn't that old.
And speaking of his ex-girlfriends, I must say that, having learned to play cards over the summer, I am really excited to join the Ex-Girlfriend's Roundtable bridge club/knitting circle. Those gals look like they know how to have a lot of fun. Which, since they're not dating him anymore, I'm sure they do.
I first learned about Roundtable when we went public on Facebook; a nice girl from Kansas City sent me a message inviting me to Skype into their weekly meeting "as a preview" of the awesome things that lie in wait for me once I dump him. It's actually quite a nice group of girls, and they all told me the same thing over euchre and bridge: they're not really sure why they put up with The Author for any period of time, but they vaguely remember being attracted to him for reasons that they don't fully remember.
I realized *I* didn't fully remember why I was dating him. Is it possible that he was using some sort of hypnosis or drug on me? And then it dawned on me: our university has one of the best fMRI units in the world...
After sticking my head into that thing for what seemed like forever, I compared the image scans of my brain from when I looked as his picture to when I wasn't looking at his picture, and as I had feared and suspected, the entire pre-frontal cortex had been shut down. This is a Very Bad Thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_cortex
Thankfully, due to my brilliant ex-roommate Kim, who was studying abroad over the summer, I was able to take myself to a secret Russian military installation in Murmansk where ex-Soviet scientists managed to use the spent nuclear fuel from Typhoon missile submarines to irradiate and then reactivate my brain. I expect to have this whole situation figured out soon.
And no, I'm not the Sports Gal and I'm not posting picks for football. Go Youngstown State!
