The Deception of the Thrush

Hi.

So, one factor that has played a large role in my reduced blog output lately has been the fact that I am often without a computer. There is but one personal computer in my life, the laptop that I use at both work and at home, and as of late I've gotten annoyed with transporting it. It's a fairly hefty laptop. I ride an insanely crowded bus route that favors the thin individual, and with my laptop along I become quite wide and clumsy. That and it's impossible to transport on a bike. And, I have come to like the quiet, low-tech life I return to in my apartment when I leave the laptop behind.

But tonight I have it with me. I decided that I was getting no work done in my office -- the start of the Fall semester is accompanied by people, lights, and noise -- and that I would likely benefit from spending at least part of tomorrow at home, in which case I would need to have computing capability. So, here we are.

What can I tell you in this brief stint of blogging. Well, first off, a new Dostoyevsky quote:

"It's just the same story as a doctor onoce told me," observed the elder. "He was a man getting on in years, and undoubtedly clever. He spoke as frankly as you, though in jest, in bitter jest. 'I love humanity,' he said, 'but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams,' he said, 'I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced crucifixion if it had suddenly become necessary; and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he's too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.'"

Ok, and what else. I have always wondered about men and spitting. Have I talked about this before? Why do men find it necessary to spontaneously spit when they are outdoors? Do they really have that much more saliva than women do? I saw a guy at the bus stop today spit like, I don't know, five times for no apparently good reason. The most common reason for me to spit in public is if I am running and a bug flies into my mouth. Which I think is a pretty strong justification. But even in that case, I at least try to be discrete. So when is it in a young man's upbringing that he is taught to spit conspicuously and often? Or do men just have a natural desire to do so?

I am feeling in a constant fog these days. I have some kind of allergies. This is strange because I haven't had allergies since I was, I don't know, maybe 11 or 12 and even then they were restricted to the Spring. Now I'm having this strange bout of Fall allergies. It also makes me feel, well, kind of gross, this snot-nosed kid walking around the halls of academia.

That is all. Hope it was interesting.