Okay...

So I finally got around to writing my paper. Hell, I even got an A. But my professor said I needed to lay off with the semicolons; despite my technically correct usage, she said I was in imminent danger of losing their narrative "punch".
I loves me a semicolon. You can string together phrases without worrying about comma placement or awkward conjunctions or coordinating clauses. You can babble endlessly with a few well-placed semicolons; and the best part is that my paper was on Jane Eyre. Read some Charlotte Bronte one of these days...that kid was totally obsessed with the semicolon. I mean, it's totally rampant, especially in her dialogue.
So, to my Seminar in English Literature professor, I want to give a big old Colonel Klink shout-out.

Valentine's Anomie

That's my old Paladin on the right there. Yes, I am such a geek that I used to draw my own character portraits. And let's talk about geekiness...
I have a seven-page paper to write on Jane Eyre and Victorian society, but I can't get moving. It's due tomorrow night; I have a nice thesis statement, a rough idea, sources lined up and citations highlighted for use...but I can't get writing.
I'm in the proverbial funk.
Profoundly less than satisfied.
Do you think that, maybe (work with me here)...do you think maybe growing up as a total book-worm can ruin somebody's life? Maybe lead to some inflated ideas about how things should be?
Blame it on my middle-school obsession with Tolkien, followed by Robert E. Howard, followed by Michael Moorcock, Frank Herbert, Harlan Ellison, John Bellairs and Ursula LeGuin...all of that followed by another thirty years of voraciously reading every book I could get my hands on: real life falls a little flat, don't you think?
Where's the dramatic climax? Where's the heroic sacrifice that saves the day? Where's the love that topples kingdoms and lasts for all eternity?
Real life just kind of...goes on. No structure. No plot. No denoument, no climax.
Blah.
Even better:
meh.

What's on My Nightstand?

What with work, school and mr. mom duties, my real genius these days lies in tagging along in the reflected brilliance of the wise Strumpet ( www.strumpetslife.blogspot.com ). No end to the clever idea hooks and creative sparks therein, yo. Thus, I steal this from her.
What's on my nightstand? Well, that's a long and funky story...y'see, I live in a house of mess. My wife is a clutter-magnet, as are my kids. Me, I'm Mr.Mom...I spend my time picking up after the brood. I'm no anal-retentive neat-freak; far from it. But I hate seeing shit laying all over the house. I can Lysol and disinfect the whole house; but when there's piles of toys and clutter shit all over, it still looks like a pig-sty. A germ-free pigsty, sure...but still a pigsty.
I have one place where I relax my guard, and that's my side of the bed. Since I was a wee nipper, I've always been nicknamed 'the Nester', because I tend to make nests. I like blankets, and I like to read. So my side of the book is knee deep in piles of books. Literally. Notebooks full of bad poetry and short stories well started but never finished; comic books; D&D books (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, and 4th editions); textbooks, magazines, and most of all, plain old books.
So here's a quick sample from book-stack 1a, the one closest to the actual bed:
Jane Eyre (for school); Norton Anthology of English Lit (vol D and vol E); the ubiquitous TS Eliot; TX Hamme's the Sling and the Stone; 4th Edition Player's Handbook; Mencken's Treatise on the Gods; Jung's Man and His Symbols; Chris Hitchens' God is Not Greatand finally, capping off the stack, several issues of Guitar Player magazine.
It's not pretty. Obsessive, compulsive, eclectic, sure. But not pretty.
Oh yeah, there's an empty Yuengling lager bottle precariously balanced on top. Not only do I read in bed...sometimes I drink beer in bed.
I'm such a redneck sometimes.