I, Muehlenhaus. U, Riedermaus.

Just received a call from Dr. Anderson of Boynton Health Services (that's BHS to people in the know, and now you are in the know). No more regular beer for me, unfortunately. My blood test came up positive for Sprue -- a disease that is the result of an allergic reaction to gluton and/or wheat or some damn thing that gives me the shits every time I eat pizza, pastries, sandwiches, or pretty much anything other than beef jerky, which is disgusting and I never eat. (I guess tacos and burrito bowls are safe too. Come to think of it, most Mexican cuisine is safe, as long as you don't catch some tropical disease like Birgit did.)

Kurva isten faszat (a classic Hungarian vulgarity insulting God, his penis, and prostitutes all in one)! I love pizza. Oh well... there are worse things. I could lose my arm, for example. Then I would have to write this with only one hand, and I probably wouldn't even bother to write, because I am inherently lazy. But part of my laziness probably stems from the fact that I'm always feeling bloated, because I live off of bread products. Of course, the fact that I live off of such products is likely why I became allergic -- it probably wasn't healthy to eat a loaf of bread with nothing else everyday for lunch my entire freshman year. But hell, at 99-cents a loaf, you couldn't find anything more economical than that!

So that is the big news of today. I'm now busy looking up "associations" to figure out what the heck I can do about this ridiculous disease. Kurva isten faszat!!! Komolyon, egy kicsi merges lettem!

What other news... the Minnesota Twins keep on winning. Luckily I don't have the cable channel with the Twins, so I can't watch, but their win streak is the most unbelievable thing since the Tigers win streak, which is unfortunate, because the Tigers are ahead of the Twins by 11 games. But I digress. I speak of baseball when a World Cup is going on. That is near sacrilegious, I suppose. The problem is, for the first time in three weeks, soccer/football/foci isn't on television. Yesterday morning I was all excited. I finally had some time to just watch without interruption again. I had map tests to grade, etc. I go downstairs and all they have on is some bad telenovella on Univision and four dumb, overweight, past-their-prime jocks on ESPN discussing which team will have the best receiving corps in the NFL next year. (The NFL doesn't start until mid-September for Allah's sake!) So I turned the television off in disgust, went upstairs to my office, and graded the map tests on my floor listening to Interpol -- a CD Colin Flint turned me onto last year at Thanksgiving and that I have largely ignored since Christmas. Brilliant stuff! I then was so irate that I decided to work on my dissertation. I read John Pickles "A History of Spaces," taking a lot of notes, and began formulating an outline and problem statement in my head. I chatted with my neighbor over the fence several times, played with Mette, and then went with Mette and Birgit to her first dog training class. It was a hoot. About 20 dogs running every which direction, all seeking everyone else's attention except their owner's. Mette did really well, as she can already sit, lay down, stand, and shake hands on command. We're going to teach her to roll over this week, hopefully, and teach her to stop pulling on the leash so much. I went out with her this morning and was fairly successful. Class was fun, and afterward Birgit was exhausted -- she actually had to be in the ring with the dog, I just got to look on like a pseudo-PTA parent at a concert recital. There was another middle aged man on the sideline too. His wife was in the ring. We chatted about dogs. God, whoever thought I would want to sit and chat about dogs. I always imagined myself starting discussions about life, politics, philosophy, and religion, but here I was, perfectly content to talk about canines and raising canines. Life is nuts.

My Mum comes today. She drove down from Duluth this morning to see Body Worlds at the Science Museum. It is some art exhibit made out of real dead human bodies. I guess there is one where someone is holding his own skin or something equally disgusting. I get to go on Saturday. Not because I'm that interested in dead bodies, but because Birgit and her sister arranged this double date while I was in Brazil and I agreed from there. Should be interesting, though, I have to admit I am the type that almost passes out when giving a simple blood sample for Sprue.

Yesterday Birgit sneaked away from Macalester for lunch. She came home and we went to Schuler Shoes and bought her some cool shoes that were on sale. (Her birthday gift.) Then we did the unthinkable for educated, health conscious Bobos, we went across the street and wolfed down a Whopper and Double Cheeseburger. Brilliant! Shhhh... It was fun. Felt like a discreet lunch date of sorts that ended with greasy fingers and indigestion. Brilliant!

The World Cup has let me down. No small teams are left. Spain blew it to France, which was nice to see, simply because I will always have an affinity for France. I guess I am forced to cheer for the Ukraine now, simply because Adam was there and enjoyed himself, Ukraine is the last Eastern European state in the World Cup, there are no third world countries with under 50 million people left, and the refs seem inherently biased against teams, other than Brazil, that aren't from Europe. The refs have just been outrageous this World Cup. In fact, most games have become unbearable to watch. I'm constantly just waiting for a ref to interrupt play and make an unnecessary, or worse, incorrect call. Instead I just go downstairs and check up. Ghana was the most screwed of all, I would say. Poor Ghana... I was really pulling for them. Australia might have some complaints too, though, after that pathetic Italian dove in the 90th minute for the winning penalty kick. And what was with sucking his thumb pompously at the crowd afterward? I really hope all of Italy's teams get kicked out of Division I soccer once this corruption trial ends next week. That would be a nice comeuppance. But my anger is showing through. Blame it on the sprue. Or something. That's all for today, Riedermaus. Nothing too inspirational, but contrary to what artists on drugs often opine, modern life rarely is.

I can't believe June is already coming to an end. Shit, if I were a kid on summer vacation, I would be pissed! Hell, as a grad student on a summer sluff-off of sorts, I'm pissed! But I write nonsense... simply because not much has happened to write about. No Twins games. No real wargaming in my neighbor's garage. (Although, I guess I met him and several interesting people to play Axis on Friday night. There was a Ukrainian woman and her husband from New Jersey. She's a real estate agent and he's an engineer or something. I wasn't really in the mood to play, though, having just spent the day supervising a bunch of Vietnam vets cut down our Maple tree. Man, that was stressful. Not just seeing the beautiful beast go, but trying to coral all of these 50-something year old yahoos back into my yard. They had a giant bulldog without any teeth and a twisted leg -- it had stupidly attacked a riding lawn mower once and successfully flipped it over but then paid the price, I was told. It rummaged around the yard sending the neighbor Beagles beserk! This in turn drove the Vietnam vet guy nuts, and he began shouting at me about the neighbors' dogs, which were barking at his goddamn deaf bulldog without teeth, telling me that he refused to work if the Beagles barked all day, because after living next to a howling dog in New Orleans he just couldn't handle it. I was a bit perplexed. I got Nathan to bring his dogs in for the most part, but then his daughter, a five year-old who is cute but high maintenance kept coming over and letting Mette out of the kitchen, who in turn wanted to play with the bulldog without teeth, while branches were falling from the sky every which direction. The phone was ringing and I was trying to find wood slabs to put our logs on... We found some at an Oxygen facility on Pierce Butler Avenue. I took the Vietnam vet's beater truck to get them. The truck didn't have any gas and almost ran out on me. It didn't have keys either -- you just turned the damn ignition switch without and it started. It was a wild ride, because the transmission didn't show which gear you were in and I damn well nearly put it in reverse instead of drive and backed into a container full of oxgygen and liquid nitrogen tanks!


The day ended, and like I said, I went to Nathan's to play in the garage but by about nine o'clock I excused myself and collapsed in exhaustion.

Saturday was a little less stressful. To Ikea for a bench thing and then to Sam's Club for cleaning supplies and bulk fruit. Yes, I hate corporate America, but I'm not one of those that lives in poverty so I can buy overpriced free trade coffee that tastes like shit and pays Brazilian bean farmers $5 per acre instead of $2.50. I just don't see how that is going to change the world for the better -- all I see is that I'm drinking crappy coffee and can't afford cool technology. I totally agree with people that say this is self-centered thinking, but let's face it, the Soviet Union proved there are too many people like me for the socialist thing to work as foreseen by Marx, so I'm not going to change until someone comes up with a better plan than going on strike every other month to be offered less money than one was making before going on strike. What?! I don't know. Fuck it. My French friends would kill me. But one of them even admitted the only reason they went on strike while at university was to avoid taking tests. So the progressive solidarity a lot of the academics go on about here is, in reality, little more than bored, hung over students avoiding school work. That I can respect! But I can't subscribe to it as an ideology worth following. Or something.

Hung out with Adam on Saturday night. Birgit, he and I played a game of Settlers of Catan. Birgit and I were at one another's throats throughout the game, vying for victory. Adam couldn't get a roll to drop for him, so the poor sap ended up getting the short end of the stick for most of the game. Birgit was hyper and giddy when she thought she was finally going to win for the first time ever. Then weird things happened, I got lucky, or maybe unlucky, and somehow won out of the blue. She was pretty livid.

Adam and I watched "La Haine (Hate)" after that. Great movie, though my left eye's vision is still blurry from it. It is a black and white movie with white subtitles. At first it was funny, then it caused a migraine, and by the end I couldn't see straight. I felt kind of bad for not turning it off and making Adam endure the film, but I had really wanted to see it for about six years now after seeing the first half once, and well... I'm still blind. I don't know how I will show this in class without getting bad teacher reviews on RateMyProfessor.Com, even though it is a pretty good flick. I can only hope the VHS has yellow subtitles. Merde!

Sampled some excellent Ukrainian vodka with peppers floating in the bottom of the bottle. Delicious stuff. Very smooth stuff. Didn't help the vision, however.

Sunday, Birgit and I went to Lake Harriet with the dog. Bumped into people we knew all around the lake, which creeped me out somehow, considering we don't live over there and don't know that many people in the Cities. Spent the afternoon reading, went for another walk, then read some more, put Mette to bed, and then we both read until two in the morning, which was foolish I realized as soon as I had to wake up. I'm almost through one of the coolest novels of all time -- Shogun -- and Birgit is almost done with a marathon read of all six Harry Potters, so we were both kind of fixated on finishing. Neither of us did, and I'm not sure if the lights ever really went out or if we both ended up passing out with books on our faces. It was surreal because this is the first time I have ever gotten the feeling that I am becoming the cliched, 1950s television show, content married man. There I was, lying half-naked next to a half-naked attractive person I love and all I felt like doing was reading until I passed out. Yes, I guess I've definitely changed from even a year ago. Peculiar indeed.

But lest I disturb you... today I watched Italy steal a World Cup match from Australia in the 90th minute -- while doing the laundry. I took Mette on a long walk. Spoke with my Vietnam and WWII veteran neighbors. Watched the deserted house across the street have its beautiful, living pine trees cut down by some people that were far more efficient and professional than the people we hired. Played with Mette quite a bit. Put her in her kennel. Walked to the Christian-dominated Caribou Coffee. Read "A History of Spaces" by John Pickles. Took notes fiendishly, as he discusses a lot of things I wouldn't mind doing research on, walked home, struck up a conversation with my poker playing, sport-watching neighbors next door about splitting Twins season tickets next year (bizarre conversation, but for some reason I brought it up... weird), and then came home. I went for a walk with Birgit and Mette and am now writing this while reviewing my PowerPoint slides for tomorrow on Religion and then I'm going to finish Shogun, goddamnit! Yes, that is my day. Not thrilling to say the least, but not deadly either, and therefore, I would argue my karma is safe. I suppose the highlight of the day was subscribing to "The New Yorker" again for two years after receiving a great deal slip in the mail. I miss that magazine, even though I despise NYC. Our weekend subscription to the New York Times, that we never subscribed to but received for two years every weekend morning, suddenly stopped showing up. I estimated the value of the free papers we received and it came to over $1000. So the way I see it, spending $45 for a two year subscription to a well written weekly magazine is not too bad. I don't know... I'm just a man full of contradictions today, but that's okay... I am only human.

In about four minutes I will be without power. I am going to get to experience living like an Amish person for four hours today. I'm hoping I can make it. I stockpiled mineral water in the cool basement. I have a bag of trailmix ready -- though, I don't remember if Amish eat trailmix. And I have a box of tissues at the ready, as today is a funeral of sorts. A massive funeral. Our maple tree, the behemoth that it was, has sighed its last breath. It mysteriously dropped all of its leaves in the middle of August last year. Having just returned from Hungary, I mentioned that this seemed about two months premature, but then thought little of it, instead concentrating on not forgetting Hungarian conjugation. Then, mysteriously, the tree did not bud this year. Or do anything. In fact, after returning from Brazil I pointed out that it seemed quite, irrevocably, dead. Bark was falling off in large swaths, nearly decapitating Mette as she crapped underneath the leafless monster.

So we called a "tree guy." He came and looked. Our prognosis was correct. The gargantuan thing up and died on us. Perhaps we were the worst caretakers it has ever had, although I like to think it enjoyed the sips of bourbon I sneaked it when Birgit wasn't looking on late summer nights. Perhaps it was alcoholic.

In the end, it is coming down today. But in a mashup of technology and nature, our powerlines run right through its dead branches. As do the neighbors'. So the power is coming off today. In about two minutes, as I hear the Beagles next door yelping at the power man. And then the tree is being chopped, mulched, and made into fire wood.

So along with US World Cup hopes and aspirations, our tree is fallen. And this is a really lame way of saying that everything must come to an end. I can only hope Ghana knocks the white socks off of Brazil. And that Mexico avenges North America's otherwise crappy World Cup run. Must post now, before the power is zzzzzzzzzzrrrrrrrrrrrppppppppppp

Well, I said I was taking off, and I wasn't kidding. World Cup Fieber (see song 3 under this link) has grabbed hold of me, and I can't shake it loose! Granted, I haven't been watching games in my neighbor's backyard since early on in the tournament, but I have been sneaking the early games at 7:30 a.m. between playing with Mette and preparing my Europe class. I am a bonafide World Cup junkie.

The first weekend I was glued to the television. When games weren't on, I was playing the US and Mexico on my Gamecube, as though I could simulate World Cup victory for the North American clubs. But then something odd happened... I began teaching again and that consumed me.

Perhaps I have a short attention span. Or maybe I just get bored easily, but once preparing class became a reality, soccer dropped by the wayside, as did rolling dice in my other neighbor's garage -- yes, we've got some kick ass neighbors around us. Moreover, the Twins started doing really well at around this time, so I started following them online again. But let me put some of this in chronological order, before I spill my guts and can't figure out how to put them all back together again...

1 WC (day one of the World Cup)
Friday evening Germany slaughtered Costa Rica and Ecuador proved that they may be the team to beat, not Brazil. Birgit and I went to one of Birgit's former sutdent's apartment for dinner. It was really good food, and interesting to meet the woman and her boyfriend -- who plays soccer, as it turns out. Played a game called Apples to Apples after dinner was over, while sipping wine. The game was different, and I still think Dracula has a better work ethic than roller derby girls, but I digress and this will never make any sense to anyone that wasn't there.

2 WC
Much like the 1st WC. I was glued to the television that morning. I was supposed to be preparing my class which began on Tuesday, but in essence I already am prepared -- having taught it once before, all I really need to do now is refresh my memory, come up with more interactive "group" things, and piece them all together for three hours. So soccer took precedence. Then we went to our friend's Tom and LeeAnne's. LeeAnne is a French instructor at the University. Tom is her boyfriend. They were housesitting for some jetsetter type who lives on White Bear Lake and has a little Shitzu that is more bizzare than even my mother's Shitzu. It must be a breed thing. (This is not the only weird animal I have bumped into since my last blog entry, as Adam can attest to... but I will get to that.) We had a beer, took a six-pack into the speed boat, and set off to buy some gas, as the owner of the house said we should have enough fuel to get across the lake and fuel it up to come home. We drove across the lake, sipping Summit and enjoying ourselves. Upon pulling up to the fueling station, though, it became apparent that it had closed hours earlier. So we opened up the gas tank, took a whiff, smelled fumes, and figured we could run the sucker back across the lake no problem. We got a little cocky toward the end, and I egged Tom into doing a couple of loops to unsettle LeeAnne, and then, with the dock about 150 yards off, the motor sputtered, died, and we were left drifting in a perfectly still lake looking like imbeciles. (Not that we aren't imbeciles, but I think they would all agree that, in general, we are all pretty capable of hiding "the look.") Luckily, there was a short paddle and some weird spongeboard thing, so we paddled the last 150 yards in, waved at the fishermen looking at us from the neighbor's dock, headed up the hill and started grilling brats. We played some game there too -- I forget what it is called, maybe Catchphrase. All I know is you have this timer thing that is random and beeps a lot and basically ensures everyone is on the brink of a heart attack, or has a migraine, and you pass it back and forth, etc. Birgit and I were on the same team and we got slaughtered. Just as well, really, we never work well together in games. We are both a little too competitive, and like a bad soccer club, we blame one another for our team's lack of victory. We aren't much better in one-on-one games, either, as we are both exceedingly vicious and cut-throat to one another, always resulting in one of us being passive aggressive for hours afterward. The way of couples, I guess.

3 WC
Sunday was different. Saturday evening our neighbors, two brothers Jeff and Mike, knocked on our door and asked us if we would be interested in going to a Twins game. Now anyone that has been watching the Twins this year knows that it hasn’t been going too well. Anyone from Minnesota also knows that the Twins are one of about two teams that play indoors, which on a nice summer day is a lot like sitting in the basement and watching soccer on television… wait a second… well, whatever. But we had never hung out with these two, and I can tell they are a cool breed, more small town than anyone else I know in the Cities, and a couple of guys I can relate to. I realized this even more when we started relating and sharing our Superior, Wisconsin, bar stories. They took the cake within one where a Yellow Taxi driver offered them pot while driving them back to Duluth over the bridge. Very authentic Duluth… but again… back to the point.

We said yes, but then Birgit backed out, because she didn’t really want to spend Sunday afternoon inside. That was just as well with me, as it felt good to go out with some beer drinking, Duluth-knowing guys. We had great seats – Mike had scored someone’s season tickets, so we were sitting in the eighth row basically behind home plate. The Twins slaughtered the Orioles. It was a fun game to watch and my interest in them was renewed. They haven’t lost since, it has been over a week now, so my interest is peaked. I say peaked, because the two teams in front of them haven’t lost for the past week either, which is really frustrating, because no matter how well the Twins are doing they remain 11 games back. But I’m confident now… they are back on track and may make the playoffs… I can only wait and see, I guess.

Mike, Jeff, and I went to Grumpy’s bar after the game and met a doctor friend of theirs. We stayed there a little long, and then migrated to their backyard, where they have a cable hookup, and watched the NBA finals.

4 WC
The next morning Jeff, Mike, and the good doctor were in the backyard watching the World Cup starting at 9 a.m. or something. I don’t know exactly. They were there when I left for an appointment on campus, and drinking when I returned from lunch with my friend at the Village Wok at around 2 p.m. In the meantime the Czech’s had slaughtered the US 3-0. I hung out for a bit of the next match, and then returned for the NHL and NBA finals that evening. They sat in the yard the whole time, occasionally one of them would get up, fire the grill and cook some meat to eat. The cooler kept being replenished with alcohol by new people who kept showing up. In the end, there were about 15 or 20 people in the yard, poker games going on, and Birgit’s television – which we seem to have lent to them indefinitely for the summer now – blaring different sporting events or Primus videos (as they hooked up a DVD too). The party lasted well after we went to bed. It was great!

5 WC
I had my first class that evening. Three hours, from 6-9 p.m., in a room with large windows along the western wall. The sun was blinding and nearly melted the chairs. We shut the blinds, but the room heated up like a sauna run by mad Finns! I kept the first class simple. Went over the syllabus, the website, and common definitions, and misconceptions, of what Europe is. I let them out a half-hour early to win them over. Also to go home and take a cold shower. Man, it was boiling in there.

6 WC
My friend Darren had asked me about a month earlier if I was free to go for a bike ride in June in preparation for our Rochester to Lacrosse run that he convinced me might be fun to do somehow. So we set up to meet in Cannon Falls at 10 a.m. on 5 WC (i.e., Wednesday). It all went down without a hitch and we biked halfway to Red Wing before we had both had enough and realized the trail was uphill the entire way back. Somehow survived this 20 mile ride, which isn’t that bad to anyone who bikes regularly, but was hell to me, as “regular use” in my mind means pulling my bike out of the garage about once per year to get a video about four blocks away. The ride really wasn’t bad, and then it was lunch time. So Darren and I settled down at the Cannon Falls winery and sampled a couple of wines, ate some Nachos at a local tavern – perhaps the only tavern in Cannon Falls – and called it a day. It was pretty nice. I was exhausted but it felt good to get my heart rate up for a couple of hours.

That night I met up with Adam. On the phone he told me he was mesmerized by some guy walking his pet iguana outside his apartment window. Perhaps due to my bike ride – I become like a zombie after exercise, completely oblivious to the world around me – it didn’t hit me how odd having a giant lizard walking around outside your window might be. Until I picked him up. While waiting for him to make his way through the maze-like hallways of his complex, I sat on a bench and took in the local scenery. There was some Caucasian dude walking toward me down the sidewalk with what looked to be a cat draped over his shoulder. He got closer. And closer, and then I realized, that was not a cat tail and leash going down his torso but a giant lizard tail. Since I was right next to the doors, he was going right by me.

“Nice iguana,” I said, quite in awe.

The owner seemed to love the attention that the lizard brought to him, so he stopped and thus began my 10 minute interview with Jack and Mr. E – not for Iguana but for “Elizabeth,” which is a long story involving one of Jack’s ex-girlfriends that I won’t bore you with because I wish he hadn’t bothered me with it. While waiting for Adam for those three minutes, and then with Adam there, looking as baffled as I was, for about three more minutes, I learned that iguanas have the mental capacity of a cat, don’t respond when their names are called, climb trees, only eat fruits, like their trapdoor aquariums, and have membrane ears that you can tickle. I also found out that iguanas have teeth as sharp as razors, claws that scar one’s face and hands for life – this guy basically had a freshly created cleft lip from the damn thing scratching his face and his hand was pussing with puncture wounds. Jack invited Adam and I to stop by and hang out with his iguana any time, over in apartment C2 or something. We can just rap on the window if we want in. As Adam dryly noted later: yeah, I’m going to have to do that – go hang out with him and his iguana. The guy did seem pathetically desperate for non-reptilian friends.

Birgit and I invited Adam over for some Noodles & Company. Or is it Noodles? I’m not sure. Whatever… drank a few Pilsners and caught up on things. Good time, but then suddenly I was about to pass out from biking, eating, and having a couple of socials, and we never did get to sample his fresh, unopened Ukrainian pepper-honey vodka. Next time.

7 WC
The second class… basically I spent the day preparing and watching the dog. Watching the dog is a bit tiring and grueling, particularly when she doesn’t want to go outside – because it is so damn hot – but she wants to be entertained inside. Entertaining our dog inside isn’t that difficult, basically it means hurling Mr. Lucky, a stuffed pig, across the room and dragging her by her teeth across our wood floors like a mop. She eventually gets all riled up, goes nuts, and chases me at full speed, chomping at my heals and barking “Red Rum, Red Rum!” I don’t know what the barking is all about, one too many pirate films as a pup perhaps, but eventually she wears down, does a circle or two, and then—thump! She collapses and passes out. She snores a bit. Rolls a bit. But basically you can leave her where she lies for a good hour or two.

The class went well this day. I am really hitting on Peter Taylor’s World-System scales theory, because: a) I think students really like it, and I think it really grounds the class as geography, rather than cultural studies; b) though students like it, I don’t think I explained it well last time I taught this course or referred to it enough to make it worthwhile, whereas this time I am making them do exercises every class, using examples from European current events, to really pound it into them that scale is crucial to understanding political conflict; and c) I really like the theory, I think this department sucks at political geographic theory and is very narrowly focused on strict Marxist and post-modern interpretations, and I like exposing students here to theories that are fare more applicable than the mullarky the UMN department generally espouses and teaches. (Not that I’m opinionated. Ha!)

8 WC
Friday came and I had every intention of getting a ton done for Tuesday’s lecture, but nothing got done, because I became glued to the television again watching the World Cup. I wrote the afternoon off, as Birgit got home early. I was insanely grumpy, actually, because I hadn’t done anything and had wasted the day. But in reality, I think I was just coming down from my first full week of teaching. Teaching is kind of interesting. The first week is harrowing, because you can only prepare for it so much. You can’t predict who your students will be, what the class atmosphere will be like, and how they will react to your different topics. It is like an awkward blind date – the entire first week. It sucks. And like a blind date, you are relieved when it is done and you need some time to come down and analyze how good it was. Unfortunately, unlike a blind date, you are committed to at least 40 more (in the Fall, only 14 more in the summer) dates with them. This class is a good one. I’m looking forward to the entire summer. I got lucky. I got lucky last fall too. But still, my nerves are always a little shot after the first week of class.

So to overcome my grumpiness, I sat in the cool basement and watched Kill Bill – both volumes. Birgit had never seen them, and for some reason she was actually game to give them a try that evening. I was shocked, actually. And not only did she watch the first, but asked for the second. And in the end she thought they were hokey, dumb, and not that great, but she agreed that Tarantino can really film well. And I guess that’s all one could ask for from someone who primarily enjoys European romance films. I have to admit that I didn’t like these films at all the first time I saw them, was converted to their brilliance upon second, inebriated viewing with my friend Steve, and now… I don’t ever have to see them again. They aren’t that good. Some great fight scenes, etc., but Sin City was much tighter as a film all around. And Tarantino’s dialogues, though funny at times, become awkwardly contrived after five-plus hours. But this is just my humble opinion…

9 WC
We went to Maple Grove to check out a kennel for Mette when Birgit and I travel to Montreal in August. I then went to the in-laws for coffee. I had forgotten that the US was playing at that time, and Mike and Jeff invited me over to watch the game in their backyard but it didn’t work out. So I watched it with Rolf. The referee was appalling, but it was the best match of the Cup so far! Incredible to watch. My in-laws saw a side of me they haven’t seen since I skipped Christmas Mass to watch the Vikings-Packers game. Rolf wasn’t as involved in the game as I was, even though he is a rabid soccer fan. Partially because he had just been stung in the lip by a wasp while riding his bike and his lip was swelling up. (Poor guy!) Their puppy played with our puppy, and our puppy played with their puppy, and when all was said and done, Birgit and I were home by five and our dog was dead tired. We put her in the kennel and decided we felt cosmo. So we dressed up and drove downtown to eat cosmo style. We spontaneously went to some seafood restaurant on Nicollet Mall (McCormick and Shits), ordered great dishes, ate too much, came home, let the dog out, and passed out.

10 WC
Sunday, bloody f*cking Sunday! I hate Sundays even though they don’t mean anything to me. Birgit is normally in a foul mood because she has to get up early and go to work the next day. I normally want to work, but don’t really get much done.

This Sunday was slightly different. I actually got my lecture slides done for Tuesday. It felt great. I also watched the World Cup, took Mette for a long walk with Birgit, and… shit, I don’t know. Sundays suck.

11 WC
Here I sit. The plan was to run into campus and drop off some readings to be photocopied for a K-12 teacher summer workshop I am working on with Roger in July. But then my Mozilla Thunderbird stopped working. I spent an hour trying to fix it, reinstall it, trick it, and eventually… I gave up. Blasted open source! ;>) So I went to the bus stop 15 minutes early, because I didn’t want to miss it. It never came. After waiting 40 minutes I walked up to Caribou. I sat and edited a rather lengthy letter to my brother. Then came home to let the dog out. Started writing this… if you have read this far, you are probably even more bored than I am. I highly suggest not wasting your time on this blog to instead watch the World Cup.

Actually, I’m flattered you read this. I’ll try to keep more up to date now that the field is narrowing for the trophy! Prediction: Argentina takes the Cup. Brazil is playing like the Yankees right now – a bunch of bloated millionaires.

Picture
Sam, Alicia, and Ian (1994). The US had just tied Switzerland in its first World Cup match in forty years or something. And we were all leaving Hungary and our shitty AFS experience within several weeks. Thus, we were all overjoyed! Fast forward to 2006... the US lost to the Czech Republic 0-3. Sam joined the Kiwi army and blew his head off in frustration -- dead. After initially getting out for a year or so to live in England, Alicia is stuck on the South Island of New Zealand with children. And at 30, I'm still in school. I'm not sure who is laughing now. Probably the Czechs.

The World Cup is coming on, and hopefully, if I can find ESPN2 at a watering hole or cafe nearby, I am going to be glued to the television for the next couple of days before my short attention span gets caught on something else -- i.e., my dissertation.

Going to one of Birgit's student's house tonight for dinner. Should be fun. Then tomorrow we are off to White Bear Lake for a house party of sorts. (Some friends are housesitting, so I suppose it's not a party as much as a yard party.) That's all she wrote...

Learning from experience, I've decided that what one ought to do is promote her/his children to despise everything they stand for, believe in, and do, so that one's children will be determined to do things better and not screw up as badly as her/his parents. (After all, since we are all human, except in this case I am substituting my dog for a child, we all make mistakes that can be remedied in future generations, right? I totally agree... with myself, so I guess that isn't really a consensus. But it is good enough for me. At least right now... though I should probably run my philosophy by Birgit before we ever think about having a human child, I suppose. I can see where she might not agree with my philosophy. Perhaps I don't even really agree with it, but am only stating this to make this picture work. Hmmm... I'll have to get back to myself on that.)

Essentially, that is why I don't really like business -- my dad is a sleazy business man selling Chinese child labor. I therefore grew up mistrusting corporations, father figures, and businessmen of all stripes. I decided to do things differently -- steal on the black market rather than legally. But I digress... The reason I bring all of this up is that I fear that because Birgit and I are spoiling Mette with attention and dog treats and alternative music, she might end up thinking that our way of doing, seeing, and visualizing things is the proverbial, yet truly non-existent, "way of the world." To try and stymie brainwashing our child, I have begun feeding her maps for lunch. Everyday I toss out one or two carefully selected maps and let her devour, destroy, and drool on our socially constructed way of the world and the essential tool of Birgit's and my profession. (As cartographers we have an abundance of maps that we never actually use, so we're always lost anyway. Ironic.) Here she is tearing into Chicago. She ripped the loop right out of its heart and spat it out on my foot. Iceland, with its capitalist adverts bordering the map lies underneath in waiting. She is a terror of the terra! She knows no boundaries. And somehow this really does help me relinquish any passive aggression I have against my discipline as a whole.

For indeed, I want her to mistrust geographers. To feast on their excesses and their errant generalizations. And to try to make maps better. To critique and be suspicious of human constructions of space around her.

I am not sure she gets the whole critiquing and mistrusting bit yet. Hell, she can only understand about three words of English -- "sit," "shake," and "kennel." But hopefully her cognitive functioning will develop with an inherent taste for good maps, as she certainly does enjoy the taste of multi-colored, inked paper. And she loves to rip stuff. Better our boxes of old National Geographic maps then the couch. (My dad owns an antique shop. I worked there through high school. Once he did an estate sale for a dead guy with 50,000 books. The dead guy was 85 at the time, back in 1994. He had every issue of National Geographic, with the maps still in them, from 1908 or something. National Geographics are worthless, a dime a dozen. They were all thrown into the dumpster outside his attic window. But not before I stripped them of every map. I have boxes of old World War II maps, Cold War maps, etc. So I have an ample supply for Mette.)

This afternoon I am going to feed Mette a 1939 map of the Japanese Empire -- Korea and Munchiko, their puppet kingdom in Manchuria, are included on it as belonging to Japan. Should be interesting to see how she realigns these historical borders...

So there it was. After tearing the house apart, digging through the recycling bin, combing through rotting banana peels in the garbage, and even debating analysis of Mette's stools, the $140 I lost after Brazil turned up. Or under? It was on top of a high bookshelf underneath a potted plant. I must have put it there while zoning out to Atmosphere or thinking about the role that Rush Limbaugh can still play in Republican propaganda even after his drug addiction... or something. At any rate, I don't remember moving it there. I did remember it was under something; so I thought I had flipped everything over about fourteen times. I was wrong. I found it while finally dusting our office for the first time since Mary spit Christ out... or sometime around then. (Yes, I'm still promoting my amendment suggested yesterday; today I am taking a more aggressive stance by being overtly sacreligious.)

Of course, now that I found the money, it is going toward a new camera, so in a way I lost the money upon finding it. But well... still, what a relief. And I can stop eyeing Mette suspiciously now -- as after the money went missing I ordered 24-hour surveillance of that cute little cretin... assuming we had an enemy in our midst!

***

Spent last night putzing. Ended up playing a couple of games of FIFA soccer on the Gamecube, trying to get myself revved up for the World Cup this Friday. Of course, the first games of the World Cup are on ESPN2, which is the one ESPN channel I don't have. I used to have it, but then the cable company switched the channel it was located on. You see, we don't pay for cable television. I just offered the cable guy a Fresca and told him I like watching sports, blah, blah, blah, while my in-laws were wandering around the house, chatting in German about where to put the bed in the bedroom, etc. I offered him a beer, because it was the end of the day, and vented with him about outsourcing, and though he declined the beer, he nonetheless went outside and hooked us up with Deutsche Welle, all the ESPNs, TNT, OLN, and a bunch of other channels that we would never ever get otherwise. Plus, we found out upon buying a cool television last winter to watch DVDs on, that he also hooked us up with about 20 high definition channels for free. We pay nothing for this -- just the cable modem price. It is pure genius! Seriously, always offer your cable people beer. It worked in State College too. We had 40 channels for free back then.

***

More soon. I've got to plan my first two lectures for next week. Two sets of three hour lectures. Can I even talk that long before I want to crawl into a cave and hide? I'll find out.

Hungary, 100 years after the first uprising against foreign occupation.

Tore down some ugly paneling on our basement stairway today, and to our surprise we found a secret compartment! Unfortunately, there was no pot of gold or even a loose $20 bill in there, but it is pretty big and was definitely put there to hide stuff. Now that I'm posting this on the web, I suppose hiding stuff there wouldn't make any sense, and we don't have anything of value to hide in there anyway -- Birgit and I both think diamonds are gaudy and gold isn't our color. (Although, it's been suggested that I invest in gold before... ;>).

We're going to tear out all the paneling and try our first small-scale construction project together this summer. We want to put up drywall, so the secret compartment will be gone. Again, it's not worth robbing our house unless you want a bunch of unwanted baseball cards.

Yes, yesterday I sold my baseball cards for $120. But they wouldn't take about half of them because they are worthless. So now I have three boxes full of "worthless" cards. I hope to chuck them onto a bonfire this summer up at the cabin... burn my unhappy childhood memories away. I'm glad I scraped up some money for my collection. When I sold an '89 complete set of Score cards, the guy laughed, pointed at the '89 price tag on the box, $25.00, and said, "I hope you paid for this in pennies." It is only worth $6 today. And considering the dollar has gone down in value, I suppose that means it is worth about two 1989 dollars. Hell, a pack of cards cost 25-cents and then 50-cents back in the day. Today? A back with fewer cards will run you $3. Merde! Like I said, I should have collected comics.

But this $120 comes in light of the fact that I seem to have misplaced or thrown out $140 I had left after returning from Brazil. I had set it aside to help buy a new camera. On my bookshelf. I think. Well... it's not there anymore. I've dug in every book, under every manhole cover, and even in the secret space we found today -- just in case supernatural forces were at work here. Nada. It's gone. Did the dog eat it? Did I throw it out while weeding through the mountain of paperwork that had piled up while I was off galavanting in Brazil? Did I stuff it in my short pockets only to have it fall out, unbeknownst to me, while stuffing my face with donuts at Toby's in Hinckley last weekend? Is some busboy now incredibly happy, playing three new video games on his PS2 because I stupidly left a wad of cash laying on the table at a Chinese diner? Who knows? I don't. All I know is it isn't in the freezer, wrapped up in tinfoil, with $89,860 worth of other bills, unfortunately. I doubt even the FBI could find this money. Merde! Merde! P-Merde, if you know what I mean.

deHydrated: how I am feeling this morning...

Well, another morning at home with the pup. It's getting kind of old. I think I have post-puptum depression or something. But she is still cute. Just starting to teeth. Blood on my nose, hands, and feet. Rug burns on my elbows and knees. Holes clawed in the wood floors.

Off to Mapps today to get wired and clear my mind. Spent last night at Bullwinkles throwing back cheap pints of Grain Belt with some geography grad students. Not a bad time. Short but good. I really like that pub. It kind of reminds me of a slicker version of the Anchor Bar in Superior. Essentially the Anchor sans drunken, herpes-infested sailors and prostitutes.

Not feeling like writing today. The dog just crashed for a second -- helps I slipped it a half-tablet of Benedryl this morning... doctor's orders, though. Maybe more later. Maybe. And people argue I am non-commital... ssshhhhsssshhh. Whatever!

Went to an appointment this morning on campus. Birgit had to get up butt early to go to some conference at the Hubert Humphrey Center on campus this morning. She left at 7:05. I couldn't afford to sleep in, though, even though she had taken the dog out, etc., because my appointment was at 9:00 and I had to catch a bus. I was even more rushed, after waking up at 6:50 because about twenty minutes before the bus came, and two minutes after walking outside to take Mette to the bathroom, I realized that I didn't have any money to pay the bus driver with except a $5-bill. Now, I realize the dollar is essentially worthless these days. And I am not so frugal as to think that I couldn't afford paying $3 more than the fare, but... the problem would be that I wouldn't have money to get home if I spent $5 on the way in. And the last thing I want to be these days is stuck on campus! So I put Mette in her kennel and raced up to the local strip mall -- as in the U.S. you should never be more than a good 20 minute walk from a strip mall, unless you live in the suburbs, but even there it is never more than a five minute drive, which equals about the same distance. It only took me 10 minutes. I debated about where and how to cash in my $5-bill. Taco Bell looked open already, the thought of which nearly induced vomiting at 7:55 in the morning. Keyes Cafe was too. I spotted a newspaper machine outside from the front door -- I had an alibi. I went in and asked for change to buy a paper, and a kind, chubby Minnesotan hostess, who was reading a paper herself behind the bakery counter, kindly obliged. I ran to the nearest bus stop and just caught the bus. Dripping with sweat. It's muggy as sin here this month. Or last month... but it is carrying over into this month, if you know what I mean.

I just missed my transfering #3 bus, as it whirred by me at the speed of sound while I was approaching the stop. (No problem, the driver had no chance of seeing me.) So I decided to walk to Boynton, which is only about a mile and a bit away. The trees were bright and green, the morning rain clouds had dissipated to California blue, and I was content. I hustled along and made it to my appointment two minutes early. Ah.

The way home was less timely. I missed my 3A bus by 30-seconds. I was starving and so I overcame my earlier nausea stemming from the thought of fast food and purchased two cheeseburgers at a McDonalds next to the bus stop. (Do you see a theme here? They place fast food joints right next to bus stops to sucker starving fools like myself!) I then caught a 3B bus on a transfer and got off on Hennepin Avenue in a frenzied industrial center. I missed my connecting bus by seconds, as it too whirred past me when I was only about 40 feet away. Again, I was down the avenue, and there was no way for a bus driver going 30 m.p.h to see me. Damnit!

I had grabbed a free copy of the City Pages outside the McDonalds and was reading about lesbian firefighters in Minneapolis and how they all sleep around and hit on each other and now the fire chief, who is a woman, has been suspended because she slept with so many coworkers on her way to the top that they are all lambasting her and saying she sexually harrassed them. Fascinating, reverse psychology stuff... who to believe?!?! She does look like a mean woman, though, and a similar problem occurred up north on UMD's women's hockey team, only that time involving the Chancellor who is also a lesbian. Moreover, all this reading got me thinking back to one of my former committee member's at Penn State, whose research centered on female firefighters. She hung out with them all the time in this formal group the women have set up. It got me wondering, was my committee member a lesbian, as after all I was never really sure. I had my suspicions, but then... I didn't really care as long as I got out of there. Some of the firefighters in the Twin Cities have labeled the group my committee member participated in as a "big lesbian dating organization." Now that is investigative social science! Cool! I wonder if she is working on something like "The Tea Room Trade" of female firefighters?! "The Tea Room Trade" is a book that anyone wondering about social scientific ethics and/or how to hook up in a gay cafe should read. (For the record, at Penn State we were all forced to read it in our methodology class to learn how NOT to do research. It was a disturbing read... not so much for the ethics but for what men do in public washrooms. I'll never stand at a urinal in the same way again! But hey, I'll probably make my students read it someday just to shock them. Keeping the cycle of academic hazing alive, I guess...)

I kept reading while walking. I stepped into a pot hole and damn well nearly tore my ankle off. The sun was beating down full force now, and still no sign of another bus. I finished the lesbian newspaper article while walking and realized that I was drenched with sweat and thirsty as all hell. I went into a convenience store and attempted to buy a mineral water. They told me I had to spend at least four dollars to put it on my Visa/Bank card. I decided not to debate, as I remember being a store attendant and people complaining to me. It's fruitless. It only entrenches the sales clerk even more. I found honey roasted peanuts, 50-cents a bag, and bought a half-dozen of 'em. I got my damn water, went outside, caught the next bus, got off, sat on our back stoop, finished drinking my water while reading a scathing review by a progressive of the Dixie Chicks new album, and went inside to face my fate... two hours of playing with a caged animal!

She finally passed out. I came up here and wrote this. A day in the life of nobody. And you just read it. Suckaz!


Caption: The empty chairs photo represents my worst fear -- on a day I am supposed to teach, no one bothers to show up. The picture is from Penn State during my second semester there. I was early to a Friday, 8 a.m. recitation -- that's why no one was there. I'm digging through my digital photo archives, I guess. Man, I am bored this summer...