All My Gettings

My gym membership expired. And I can't bring myself to renew it. Mostly because it seems ridiculous to pay 300 bucks when there's a perfectly good (ok, an acceptable) gym on campus. That is free. Or rather, that I've already paid for in that mess of student fees. (And, if we're being picky, I haven't even paid for it. Uncle Sam's paid for it. I'll be paying him back at some point, though).

At any rate, I'm torn by losing my gym membership. The treadmills there are nicer. It's part of my routine. I could, theoretically, take to swimming again. The people who go there are more in my fitness level than those that use the university one. But, my main problem is this: they have a parking lot. right. next. to. the. entrance.

I realize this is absurd. I'm supposedly going there to exercise, so parking close by shouldn't be a concern. I should be willing to walk and boost my workout a little. But, it's so handy. And I'm so lazy. And, if I do have to park somewhere far away and trudge to the gym on campus what, precisely, am I expected to do with my gym bag all day? Cart it around? What does the universe think I am? A mule? Somebody with a reasonable level of energy?

The problems I face are so overwhelming. But my stinginess-slash-debit-style-living really make the purchased membership not an option. So tomorrow, I'll be trying out parking far away from the gym. And, I'll even try not complaining about it. It's times like this that I really miss those regular, substantial paychecks that whole working full-time thing leaves you with.

I've been moaning for a long time that I haven't been blown away by a book recently. Granted, my reading was curtailed dramatically. So I guess I shouldn't have expected the few ones I did manage to read to blow my mind. But nothing stuck.

Dear Jeannette Rankin,

My whole house smells like corned beef. I have green jello chilling in the fridge. In one class I went to this morning, somebody already smelled like beer. And I'm sporting a new tie picked out with the help of a friend last night.

The distinction of a degree in the humanities is something everyone should aspire to. While other fields might actually prove useful, none prove as capable of making everyone uncomfortable. For instance, at your next family reunion, inform your extended family that you’re about to get a degree in art history and just watch them writhe and try to come up with something non-condescending to say.

But, why waste thousands of dollars and several years toiling at it to end up with little more than piece of paper and a crisis about what to do with your life? Instead, everybody can have all the benefits of a humanities education without ever taking a single class! All you have to do is the following:

• Memorize Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. It forms the basis of everything critical anything.
  
• Become passingly acquainted with Freud. We humans want sex. And death. And we’re messed up because of our parents. And cigars are not, in fact, ever just cigars.
  
• Understand, glancingly, feminist theory. Men oppress women. And have always. Women must reclaim their own space. You should probably read “The Yellow Wallpaper”, too.
  
• Embrace postmodernism. Truth doesn’t exist. There’s no single, secret meaning to be found by all. Everything can be broken to its constituent parts.
  
• Know some stuff about Jesus. People wrote about him. And then painted him. And set up a church to him in Rome. Uh, then some other stuff happened.
  

There are some things that are just bad ideas. For instance, if you are driving to Vegas on Friday, it's probably not the wisest to completely break the side mirror on your car a few days prior. Just probably. I mean, in one sense, it would make the drive more entertaining. Not that I'm speaking for experience or anything...

Brothers are great*. I have two of them, both of whom are the awesome. Though, for totally different reasons. My younger brother is hilarious and knows everybody (seriously, you can't throw a stone in this town without hitting somebody he knows). And was voted Prom King for goodness' sake. But this post isn't about him. It's about my older brother.