Milwaukee drinking.

So, the other night me and my one 40-year old Canadian roommate from the Latin program went out drinking.

We had done trivia night 1st with some other people from our program (we had thought that we would clean up, but we came in like 4th), and then he asked me if I wanted to go to this place that sold baby deepdish pizzas that me and another person from my program had been telling me about since we had wandered in there like a week earlier when hammered and got this great pizza, and another beer, so, I went again.

At the 1st bar, though, somehow we had started talking about puns and witticisms, and he was saying that they have this one guy on the job named Bruce, and they always tell him, "There's no I in TEAM, but there's a lot of Us in 'Shut the fuck up, Bruce.'"

He also was saying that there's one guy on the job named Blue who's a cameraman, and everyone calls him "Blue the Cameraman", and one time someone was talking about another coworker named Amber and was like, "And then Amber came, and Blue the Cameraman."

He also was telling everyone about one time he decided to make popcorn and put some salt and honey on it, and it was really good but he had to eat it with chopsticks.

Anyhow, at the bar/pizzaplace we pulled up some stools next to 2 hispanic-looking women, one of whom was older and fatter and the other who was younger and had really short shorts on and these tattoos of butterflies down beside her eyes, and we started talking to them about and somehow we got on the subject of Benadryl.

"Ooh, Benadryl fucks you up," said the young one, with a thick Puerto Rican accent, and started telling us how she gave some to her kid once and he was like high or drunk or whatever for two hours. "Like he drank this pitcher and 2 more," she said, tapping the pitcher.

I started telling them then how I was on pain meds a little a few months ago and the one made you really high but you couldn't sleep, and the older fat Puerto Rican women (they were from Puerto Rico) started telling me that that did that, but she liked Oxycontin, that that had no side effects at all.

"Oxycontin, Norco, [a couple other names of drugs]," she was like, "Anything you want, I got," she said, tapping her purse.

Then, somehow we started talking about Puerto Rico and how much everyone talks on cell phones, and the younger one was like, "They come out of you and they are already talking on a cell!"

At some point, too, this Bacardi commercial came on, and my Canadian roommate told me that he filmed the last shot of this ball floating in the ocean, but none of the other footage they shot got used, the rest of it was shot somewhere in Cyprus, with sand imported from England.

Some time after that, the Puerto Rican women left, and left us their pitcher of beer, which was 3/5 full, since they hadn't realized you got so much beer when you ordered the beer-pizza special.

Shortly after that, my roommate left too, so I stuck around with the pitcher to talk to the bartenders, who told me stories about how much people in Milwaukee drink.

The bartender, this mid-30s white guy who's worked on and off at the place for like 8 years, says recently that parents have tried to drink and party with their kids to bond with them, and that this couple from California kept buying round after round after round for themselves and their kid and their kid's friends, and it was like $200 of Jaeger Bombs alone.

"The dad was outside holding a lampost in one hand a Solo cup in the other and throwing up," the guy was like. "You see that a lot."

He also said that they had 50 incidents of indoor vomiting this last senior week, and also this one mom from California who was obviously a trophy wife with new tits and wanting to try them out who started making out with her daughter's friend, in front of her daughter.

"Her daughter was all crying and embarrassed," the guy was like. "I can get that."

"And," he was like, "To tell you the truth, she was a lot hotter than her daughter," and he proceeded to tell me how her daughter was one of those sorority girls that would be cute, but she's a little bit too fat.

After, the waitress started telling me about how this past week she had to throw 2 drunk girls out who were trying to pick a fight with some rugby team members...

After that, I was talking with this young (white) navy guy who was in town and who was originally from Michigan, and we talked about how the economy is shit, and he started saying how Detroit was a great city and would be again.

Later, these local (black) guys came in, and when there was something about the World Cup and the Netherlands, I started telling them how I was hoping the Dutch would lose, because of the shit they just go off and say about immigrants/minorities in their country, and after I told them a couple anecdotes from my visit, the one was like, "That is just out of order."

When I was leaving, the waitress also started telling me something about the annoying 19 year olds that come in, and she kicks them out just because of their attitude. "They think they are such hot shit because they now have their first fake ID," she was like.

The structure of Latin language learning.

So, the priest thinks that if you learn Latin, you should learn Latin from all eras, and that differences between eras are overblown.

"And I know that in modern times that it's only the church that's writing," he said, "But that's just the way that it is. I hate it too!"

I said that the trouble was where were you going to get teachers who were conversant in the quirks of Latin from all eras, since people just weren't set up to be trained that way.

And, that it's hard enough to get clued in to the historical background of texts from one era, let alone those spanning from across 2200 years.

He agreed, and said that it's a shame that you have Latin in Classics, and then Medieval Latin in the History dept. or maybe Religious Studies, and Renaissance or Reformation somewhere else entirely.

"Some of it's good, and some of it's bad, but people should read some of all of it!", he was like.

I started to try to ask him if he thought Classics Depts. as they are currently composed are a help or a hindrance to his dream of how Latin should be taught, but our conversation got interrupted and then it was time for the next session to start.

...from the priest, starting with LeFebvrites...

I asked the priest who runs my Latin class about the LeFebvrites (sp.?), and immediately, he was like, "I don't know what they want to preserve, but I guess there are people in South Carolina who want to bring back slavery."

Then, he started saying that he doesn't even talk to those type of people, and if there was an open debate tomorrow, he wouldn't take part, but there's no use talking to them, there's no changing their minds.

He then said that the church is in bad shape, and the only way to get people back was for them to "get with it"... He said that things were so bad, that people don't even protest or are against the church, but that they just don't care, and they drift away.

As proof, he said that everyone in the assisted living home he talks with is Catholic, but they haven't been to church in years, and their kids don't go, and their grandkids aren't even being baptized.

He also said that he hates how Latin is always identified with the most conservative element in the church. "That has nothing to do with anything!", he was like.

...Class update...

The one young (white) (blonde) guy who pals with the conservative catholics and is going to seminary has said he would wear his cassock if he could, he does all the time at seminary.

Then, permission came in from the local bishop, so now he's wearing it every day.

And, when the priest was talking about a text that referred to jansenists etc., he said as an aside in front of the entire class, "You know, the church's problems have always come from the right."

From my one friend with the cat...

She and her family used to go to this one hot spring spa in West Virginia for a weeklong relaxing vacation every other year or so...

One year when she was like in late middle school or early high school she was getting a massage from this late teens/early 20s WV native who she had a conversation rapport with, and the WV masseuse girl started going off on stereotypes about WV and how she hates them, like how everyone was uneducated unmotivated etc.

"And the incest jokes!", the girl was like. "Will they ever stop? You know, it happens other places too!"

Yet another black woman story...

I was talking with a Latin teacher from my program and she was saying how she went to D.C. public schools for a while but had a horrific experience and ended up making her parents put her in a private school.

And, to illustrate, she told a couple stories, including about this one (black) teacher who had emphysema (sp.?) and didn't smoke in class or anything like that, but was severely sick and would come to class a couple days a week and didn't teach, but just showed up so she could keep her health insurance.

"The only thing she ever taught us," the girl was like, "is that one day she said, 'let me tell you the three most important things in life'" - and at this the girl telling the story counted off on her fingers and imitated the teacher in a very serious and enunciating voice, nodding her head emphatically - 'Stay black, stay black stay black.'"

"Wow," I was like, "That's awesome," and when my fellow Latin program student looked at me funny, I was like, "But there's a lot to that!", though I don't think she was convinced.

Another (black) woman story.

At the grocery store in Milwaukee, I was talking a bit with the (black) (female) cashier, and mentioned how the area where I lived (college campus near the ghetto) had no major foodstores, but a ton of liquor stores where you can buy cheap, highly-processed, unnutritious foods, so I had to bike like 15 minutes to get to the grocery store where we were at.

"Yes," she was like, "That area is funny like that."

"I know," I said, "It's one of those food deserts that you hear about," and I went on to say how I saw people doing all their grocery shopping at a Walgreen's.

She agreed and was glad I was recognizing that, it seemed, but we didn't seem to connect...