Going to the movies last night was great fun. We took in The Grudge, and as I was seated between a skittish lesbian and an even more skittish gay man I ended up with a nicely matching set of fingertip-sized bruise marks on each of my biceps. I actually considered all the grabbing and squeezing to be a high point of the evening, as it made me feel terribly popular.

Afterward, though, grr. Our group of four decided to go for coffees, and for various reasons we’d arrived in three separate cars and so departed separately to reunite at Bad Ass. I got caught by a train and so arrived last at the coffee shop.

When I finally made it, I saw the rest of my group had joined with five or six people I didn’t know. I greeted my people, excused myself to buy a drink, and when in and waited quite a long time indeed for the terribly cute, terribly slow barista boy to pour me some java. I was at last given a cup and returned to the group outside.

Now here comes the ooky bit:

I pulled a chair up to the table, all the existing seats being filled, and prepared to settle down next to the people with whom I’d gone to the movies. I put down my coffee so as not to spill any of the precious brew, wrangled my chair into place, and before sitting down leaned across the table, beaming at the unknown youths already seated, and said, “Hi! My name is Matthew.”

Had it been a cartoon, the sound of crickets chirping would have taken over the soundtrack. In reality, there was just awkward silence.

After many unpleasant seconds, a young woman at the other end of the table mumbled her name. None of the other half-dozen strangers said a word, although some of them did give me the ol’ hairy eyeball.

Now, here’s the sad, strange thing: Being around groups of The Youth of Today here at school, I’ve seen variations on this behavior over and again. In my more fearful moments I suspect it might be some horrid new generational attribute; it’s certainly rampant in the Queer-Straight Alliance, explaining why I didn’t bother going to the last meeting and likely won’t be attending any future events.

The attitude of which I’m speaking, in short, seems to be some widespread and firmly held notion that one has to be polite only to people one might want to fuck.

Now, maybe I was hanging out with a better class of people in my younger days, but I swear it never would have occurred to any of us to ration out social graces on the basis of attractiveness. Here, though, I’ve seen it over and again, and not only being used against myself.

Is this an actual trend among today’s young adults, or is this just a pathological campus? I truly am curious, and a little bit concerned.

Well, not really. Even if there are no Republican hijinks during the vote counting–and that’s a huge if right there–pre-election poll results are so close in so many states that I can easily see multiple precincts being validly challenged and re-challenged. When the difference between candidates is less than a poll’s margin of error, we’re guaranteed fun times ahead.

But still, I’m ready to get the votes cast and start the final round of squabbling. The anticipation is killing me over here, and I’m afraid that statement may be a wee bit more literal than I’d like. It’s just so terribly frustrating to realize that, beyond any reasonable doubt, the majority of Bush supporters really and truly are living–willfully, I have to imagine–in some world other than the real one.

It’s almost enought to make somebody want to give up, but it’s too late for that. Giving up the fight, giving up the spirit, at this point in the game is tantamount to treason.

Rah.

Here’s a laugh.

Speaking of puerility, a perennial fave topic here at (…), we had a great presentation in class Wednesday. Several different persons who’d graduated from our program came in to tell us what they were doing with their library-studies degrees; one of the speakers was a fellow who works as a librarian in a public middle school.

Our professor had him speak last, almost certainly out of respect for the “play ‘em out with music” dictum. The guy told several anecdotes about relating with parents and students, each tale a little bit funnier than the last. Then came the climax of his speech, over which I’m still giggling.

I’m not going to try summarizing the story here, as there’s no way I could do it justice. I’ll just say it involved a twelve-year-old, an illicit foray into Mommy’s Secret Place, and a battery-powered sex toy of unusual size getting loose on a school bus. A battery-powered sex toy of unusual size with bunnies in, no less.

He kept on and on, introducing detail after detail, rendering us helpless with laughter. It was a great time, the perfect marriage of smut and didacticism.

If only he’d stopped there…see, the guy thought he had an anecdote that could top the vibrator saga, but it turned out to be a possibly racist and definitely unfunny story about a special-needs student hurling inappropriate racial epithets at his principal. I have no idea what the speaker found amusing about the story, but I do know that every student in class was confused and uncomfortable and at least a little irritated.

The Slacktivist on people not exercising their franchise:

“One reason I think that a lot of these people aren’t always motivated to vote is that the ballot is a simple multiple-choice question and the answer they’d prefer to give is in essay form.”

Noble, apt, and pithy, what more could anyone want? I am in *heart*.

Go take a look at this.

Then laugh and laugh and laugh.

(Oh, and the Nat’l Geo. is also currently reporting on the discover of Hobbit remains.)

It came to me last weekend while I had Comedy Central’s South Park marathon running in the background.

The university mascot, as I’m sure none of you know, is a pachyderm named Big Al. I thought it would be a gas to, on Halloween, wear an elephant mask, a UA t-shirt, and carry around a rainbow flag and go out costumed as Big Gay Al.

The only downside to this costume, as I see it, is that it could very well get me killed. Hmm.

…but nothing’s coming. I’ve already done the Jedi mind trick gag, so I’m at a loss as to how to repair this double post.

Oh, you ask why I don’t just delete it? That’s a great idea, but WordPress won’t let me. It tells me I have to enable referrers first, but then it won’t tell me how to go about doing that. I tried some code modifications I found in their help fora, but that was no use.

Just imagine something witty here, mkay?

Not only is he a brave, brave man and a terriffic filmmaker, he’s a charming fella, all charisma and wit.

He’s also the first actual-factual director whose hand I’ve ever shaken, so I may be a little bit biased. But, hey, his movie’s made millions, and after the screening he did Q&A for a good solid hour and then stuck around meet-and-greeting in the auditorium for another half hour. He’s a good’n.

This has been something of a hellish week class-wise, but it’s all worth because tonight, out of nowhere, director Morgan Spurlock is going to be in town presenting his mega-hit docco Super Size Me. Isn’t that awesome? This’ll be the first time I’ve ever attended an event by an actual well-known filmmaker, and I’m about as stoked as you would imagine.

So, not only am I going to see a acclaimed piece of Lefty samizdat, which by itself would make for an awesome evening, but I’m going to see it for free! This is a university-sponsored event, and they’ve decided to present it at no charge.

Best yet, it’s being shown not in the on-campus theater but at the gorgeous Nouveau-esque Bama Theater down the street. Huzzah!

I’ll be going with Marnie, and I’m pretty sure Angela and maybe a couple of other people from the library-studies program will be attending. W00t!

I was a bad boy and didn’t have my TB screening or vaccination confirmation doen before classes started, so the big bad registrar put a hold on my record preventing me from registering for spring classes. It’s a fair cop, keeping me from becoming Typhoid Mattwan and all, but it’s still annoying.

I went by Russell Health after class this morning to set up an appointment to have the TB thingy done. The nice woman in the office told me I didn’t have to make an appointment at all, that I could just fill out a little paperwork and have it done this afternoon.

I figured I would go ahead and take the plunge, but I gritted my teeth as I saw at least thirty people ahead of me in the lobby and I, thinking it would be Thursday at the earliest before I’d have to do any serious waiting, hadn’t brought a book along.

Somewhere along the way, though, a miracle happened, or the Triage Fairy smiled down on me, or something. After turning in my paperwork, I didn’t even have enough time to sit back down before my name was being called. Then it was all greet, poke, gauze and I was on my merry way, in and out in–get this–under twenty minutes.

To say I’m impressed would be an understatement. I’m friggin’ amazed.