Gym Story (1 of 2): Gym reading.

Like a couple months ago, I was reading "The Ethical Slut" on the elliptical, and after I was done, I was holding the book in my hand and wiping the machine down, and this (white) girl comes up to me.

"Hey, I saw you were reading that book," she was like.

After a pause, she was like, "I've read it too."

Then, after another pause, "You should really read [name of another book]. It covers the same territory, but I've found it to be more helpful."

Then, we made small talk, and she left.

A friend's on-campus interview...

A friend from school's on-campus interview was at a rural University of Wisconsin campus, and they set him up at a bed and breakfast, where he had a bedroom across the hall from the head of the search committee (?).

Also, the head of the bed and breakfast was skinning raccoons, and explained that he had trapped 3 himself, but "this fourth one, somebody just threw it in the driveway this morning, must of known I take the pelts."

Oddities of Studying Hebrew.

How weird it must be to be a speaker of modern Hebrew. Not only are you like Greeks, in that people who are studying "Hebrew" are actually studying the dead form of it, but they're also probably a different religion from you and think that Judaism has been permanently superceded and you're some sort of weird holdover.

When Israelis are disappointed that I'm not studying modern Hebrew, I offer to translate for them when they hold seances.

Wow, I'm still happy.

For almost a month now, I've been thinking back time and again to Almodovar's most recent film, "The Skin I Live In", and it makes me unbelievably happy.

I almost didn't go because it got bad reviews and is based on a horror-movie premise that I thought would be too gruesome for me, but it ended up being oddly affecting and unexpectedly wonderful.

I do admit it made me cry, towards the end. The last movie that did that to me before this one, was "True Grit".

Perspective on Romney.

My mom was looking into Mitt Romney's bio, to see if he was born in Michigan, how long he lived there, etc.

"Do you know he want to Cranbrook?", my mom said. "I wonder if he went there to board or not. That always hits me a little funny, people whose parents send them to boarding school."

"Yeah," I was like, "Why would you want someone for your president, when their own parents didn't even want them around?"

BARS // MICHIGAN PRIMARY.

So yesterday made 365 days of bar project, which means -

523 bars within city limits within 365 days.

1.43 bars per day.

10.03 bars per week.

I think I'm going to try to keep up the 10/week pace, though that might be hard because I've started to dry up a lot of areas in the city.

The one thing I'll do differently, though, is that I now am going to try to clean up areas in the city, so I can know confidently that I've been to all the bars in the area. This Tuesday, I'll start in the far northeast corner of the city. I think I might start transferring my list into dots that I make on a very detailed free bikemap that the city gives out.

. . .

On another note, the Romney and Santorum campaigns have been calling my parents' house in Michigan a lot. It's all been robocalls, but the other night at like almost 9pm a real person called the house, and when my mom answered, he introduced himself as calling from the Santorum campaign and asked, "What do you think of Rick Santorum?"

My mom blurted out, "I think he's scary."

When she told the story to me, she said she was tired and the guy's question caught her off guard. She said it through the caller off his routine, and in the pause she thanked him, but said she was "all Obama all the way".

Bar perspective, from my one modern Czech literature professor friend.

My one modern Czech literature professor friend once said to someone who asked why would I go to all these bars, "Because it's fun, and a parody of consumer capitalism."