Spoiler Alert Thursday: A Very Dexter Christmas

Christmas Eve seems like a perfect time to discuss what I passed over in silence last week: the season finale of Dexter.

Friday Afternoon Confessional: Lateness

I confess that staying at The Girlfriend’s place has thrown off my blogging schedule, resulting in later and later confessionals. I confess that I’m getting sad that we won’t be able to spend Christmas together, and even more sad that my sojourn here will end the week after. It’s gone well.

I confess that I’ve made great progress on my translation the last few weeks, finishing a full draft and tracking down a good chunk of the quotations I need. I confess that now I can tinker with it endlessly without really doing anything concrete, meaning that in a weird way, the translation has become procrastination from itself.

I confess that I’m gearing up for a depressing Christmas, as I appear to have used up all the good fortune allotted to my family for this year.

Monday Movies: Julie and Julia

This movie was much more entertaining than I thought it would be, but its main effect was to make me wish that there was a movie solely about Julia Child, with Meryl Streep playing her.

Friday Afternoon Confessional: Cabinets

I confess that earlier this week, The Girlfriend claimed that I habitually leave open cabinets. I texted my former roommate Mike to tell him this, as he had often accused me of the same thing — and when he got the message, his girlfriend claimed that he also left open cabinets! It’s a miracle that any cabinets were closed while we were living together, apparently. Anyway, this morning, The Girlfriend was going to walk the dog and said she wanted to show me something in the kitchen. When I got in there, a cabinet was open. I defended myself by pointing out that I was in the middle of making coffee and would close it when everything was put away, but then she directed my attention to the silverware drawer — ALSO OPEN! It’s a sickness.

I confess that last night, I condemned myself to walking several blocks in the cold when I could’ve taken the bus, all so I could avoid an ATM fee. On the way home, I thought about getting a cab, but then I “reasoned” that I was already so invested in being cold to save money that I should just take the bus.

I confess that I’m getting close to having a full draft of my Agamben translation. I confess that I am nervous about the tedium of finding all his quotations (the publisher wants me to use a published translation where available, and obviously Agamben isn’t citing page numbers to English translations) and that I mention it much too often.

I confess that I just got way too frustrated about a pen that wouldn’t write.

Spoiler Alert Thursday: Open Thread

I haven’t been watching as much TV lately — the only comment I’d really like to make is that this season of Dexter continues to get better, though I’m aware that they still have one episode left to break my heart. I may drop in to comment on the Glee season finale (or time-period finale, I guess?), which I am tentatively planning on watching over lunch.

Oh, one other thing: we watched an episode of Parks and Recreation, and it seemed to be The Office but more boring. I’m not sure why it’s supposed to be such a big deal.

A Monger Proposal

The suffix -monger should be used more often. In the US, it’s mainly limited to the idea of a “warmonger,” but one also finds such things as a “fishmonger.” I believe that these two usages point toward two directions we could take things:

1. Append -monger to insults — so, for example, one would have “douchemonger,” “assmonger,” “fuckmonger,” etc. The Girlfriend and I have given this a testrun, and it does provide that baseline level of satisfaction of being fun to say that we expect from insults.
2. Rename every type of store to be a -monger form — Walgreen would then become a “drugmonger,” for instance. The loss of specialized stores for different types of foods might seem to limit the scope of this direction, but one could easily envision going to the “meatmonger” area of a larger “grocerymonger.”

Please begin implementing both immediately. Thank you.

Friday Afternoon Confessional: Haircut

I confess that my lack of a car and my busy weekend schedule in Chicago have conspired to exacerbate my tendency to put off getting a haircut. I confess that I finally went to the barber shop after the following IM exchange:

Adam: Why am I so incredibly reluctant to get a haircut?
Anthony: You like having Seinfeld hair?

The Girlfriend, on being told of this exchange, said that perhaps Kramer hair would be more descriptive. I confess that at the barber shop, the guy getting his haircut next to me overhead my conversation and wanted to talk to me, but I didn’t really follow up on it because I didn’t feel like I could really turn my head at will with the haircut in progress.

I confess that there’s what one might call an Unhealth Foods restaurant near The Girlfriend’s house, which makes pretty good gyros. This will probably help my health levels considerably.

I confess that I’m feeling overwhelmed because of the arbitrary goal I set for myself of completing a full draft of the translation by Christmas. (I don’t need to submit anything to the publisher until March.)

I confess that I’ve submitted grades for the fall quarter, thereby wrapping up my first full term of teaching.

Spoiler Alert Thursday: Disappointment

I think it’s fair to say that the current season of 30 Rock has been disappointing.

Ambiguity of spelling

We’re all familiar with errors regarding “you’re/your,” “its/it’s,” and — most problematic of all, perhaps — “there/they’re/their.” An interesting question that occurred to me is whether it is possible to construct a sentence where there would be any ambiguity as to your meaning if you used the wrong spelling, i.e., a sentence where it could potentially work both (or all three) ways. The Girlfriend has come up with one possibility: “Anthony and Hayley are on vacation, there/they’re in Chicago.” Can we think of any others? I know people don’t like leaving comments except on Tuesday or Friday, and even then they’re hesitant, but I thought I’d give it a try.

Friday Afternoon Confessional: Not prewritten

I confess that I did not prewrite this confessional, thus depriving my readers of the shortly after midnight posting time to which they are accustomed. I confess that I sent a text to my friend Mike yesterday asking if he wanted to go to Kuma’s today, hoping to time it perfectly so that he would be the most overstuffed possible and unable to think of further gluttony; he did not respond.

I confess that I am apparently the only person alive who still writes down all his transactions in a check register, according to The Girlfriend. I confess that last night I met someone who had met January Jones on a cruise and “befriended her.”