Climb Inside My Head

I can't study deductive logic anymore. I just can't. It might actually be physically impossible. Some very talented grad students at Harvard are looking into the possibility right now in fact. Julie is clomping around the kitchen. Really, clomping. She is wearing big, dramatic, black boots and lifting her legs about a foot higher than necessary with every step while painting a scary scowl on her face and bringing each boot-clad, high-lifted foot down with a loud thump. It's a little bit funny. Wendy is eating those Pillsbury biscuits from a one of those exploding cylindrical containers (which I had to open because both Julie and Wendy were too scared) as her entire meal. She just said "toss me another one would ya?" I feel like we're in a bar or something. I have a strong desire to tear off the cheap (yet oh so expensive) cardboard cover of my philosophy book right now. Probably I shouldn't do that. Probably.

No one seems to be able to figure out how to regulate our apartment's heating system. It is either freezing cold or way too hot -- although I think the latter might just be a result of a spurt of hyper activity that heats up your body, thus giving the apartment the illusion of warmth. You know, like when you suddenly decide to run around the apartment screaming and jumping up and down and sneak attacking Wendy, obviously. Also, our utility bills are ridiculously high. Though originally hypothesized to be a result of the winter furnace use, we have since determined that it makes absolutely no difference whether we keep the house at 40 or 80, the bill is the same. There is probably some sort of extortion scheme going on with big apartment owners living off the sweat and pennies of poor college students. I say we storm the Bastille. Life, Liberty, Fraternity! Or, to avoid the whole guillotine fiasco we could just keep sending them our money.

As I need to dedicate the remainder of my night to figuring out how to write truth-functional proofs, I will just end by letting you all know that in the Christmas village Jessica has displayed on our shelf, the outhouse is the most prominent feature and about three times the size of any other building. If anyone has any thoughts as to why this is, please, enlighten me.

How Did You Die?

Did you tackle that trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful?
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven soul and fearful?
Oh, a trouble’s a ton, or a trouble’s an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it.
And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it?

You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what’s that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It’s nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there -- that’s disgrace.
The harder you’re thrown, why the higher you bounce;
Be proud of your blackened eye!
It isn’t the fact that you’re licked that counts;
It’s how did you fight and why?

And though you be done to death, what then?
If you battled the best you could;
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why, the Critic will call it good.
Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he’s slow or spry,
It isn’t the fact that you’re dead that counts,
But only, how did you die?

--Edmund Vance Cooke