Bin Whinerybaby. Crybaby Bin Whinerybaby

Huzzah, Huzzah! The t-shirtedcentaur turns 601 today! You know, I was, initially, really bummed out about it. See, I recently found out that a friend of mine is off to Rutgers to start his phd while I’m further entrenching myself in this white bread, white collar, all nine levels of dante’s hell wrapped up in tasty granola shell, fucking government town doing a whole lot of nothing.

Wow. He’s just another in a long of friends that is going on / has gone on to bigger and better things (in and around the world of academia). I would love to say “I’m pursuing my phd at Harvard/Yale/Rutgers/Brown/MIT/Oxford/Cambridge/etc.,” but I’d hate virtually every other aspect of the whole endeavor. I love the idea of being a graduate student, I just hate the reality of graduate school/graduate students.

You see, your beloved t-shirtedcentaur – aside from his exploits as an investment banker – is currently enjoying a leave of absence from a philosophy ma. Yes, that’s right, someone is stupid enough to pursue philosophy at the graduate level in a Canadian university! Did I forget in was the 21^st century? Didn’t I realize that money would, at some point, become an important commodity? No and no, respectively. I guess that makes the ole t-shirtedcentaur a bit of a paradox: smart enough to understand Hegel, but too stupid to realize i need money to live.

I valorized grad school to such a degree that I, oh-so mistakenly, believed that once I got in, my life would be perfect, that everything would take its course. Wrong, wrong, watching your mom flirt with the bag boy wrong. Yes, that’s exactly how incredibly wrong, a young t-shirted centaur was. You know what I learned as a philosophy graduate student? I hate academics. I hate the whole pretentious machine that is academia. It’s such a bullshit enterprise. Look, there are some genuine academics out there – the kids that really believe in what they’re doing, but academics are, for the most part (at least in the arts), a bunch of pretentious assholes incapable of recognizing the application – or lack thereof – of the theories/systems they’ve waxed on about for YEARS in their everday lives! They are sad, sad, little people, taking pleasure in minutiae of system whose very import they negate in so doing. I believe it was Foucault (please forgive the name drop – especially this name drop) that rallied against the “Egyptologists” in philosophy; those that would kill thought/ideas in order to study them (dated, i know but come on, it's 3 in the fucking morning).

The worst part of it all, is that even if my program, if my school, if academia were more to my liking, I don’t think I’d pursue it. See, I went to my office today – to clean it out – only to discover that they had moved its contents to storage. Thankfully, Sandra (aka Sandy: the best and coolest office administrator in the world) spotted me wandering the halls oh-so woefully and brought me to room in which my wares were being stored. While surveying the box containing the remnants of my office, Sandy explained that she threw some items away but kept those she was sure I’d want. Here’s where it gets interesting. See, I went through the box and found a variety of books, some scholarly articles, and a can of bean salad; none of which I cared the least about. What I really wanted, what I was so desperately hoping was there, was a critique I wrote in response to a colleague’s impromptu art piece (he took a butter tart tin, folded it in half, and named it tinfoil smile No17). I can’t recall the critique but James loved it and, being the genius he is, he’s hard to please. I loved that critique. It was witty, it was urbane, it was …hilarious and it was the only thing I wanted from that office; a joke. Sadly I recall is that I signed it “D. Dilemma – Hobo Times” (not the suave part).

Two years, two years (in a two year program) and all I cared about was a joke I’d written in fifteen seconds. Maybe I can comb a clue out of this event as to why I hated school so much that I essentially went the last year without reading a goddamned thing (I still did alright, albeit pathetic by grad school standards). Look, I’m definitely not the best writer, granted, but I believe that’s, at least, in part due to the fact I just can’t seem to give a shit. All I want to do is laugh and make other people laugh.

ARGHHH! Existential crisis!! I don’t…. arghhhh! I’m an angsty clichéd baby. “Oh, I could’ve gone to an ivy league. Oh, I could’ve been in the entertainment industry. Oh, I could’ve fucked *** ********!” Boo hoo, hoo. Maybe you could’ve. Maybe you could’ve, but you didn’t. Now I feel to old to do anything which is patently false and the quitters way out, but I’m a crybaby bitch. Arghhh! Such a goddamned cry baby. Get it together centaur, get it fucking together. As if I think I’m that fucking special! The nerve, the hubris, the unmitigated narcissism.

Please, I’m begging someone to come find me, put a nice warm bottle of milk in my mouth, then shoot my whiny horse ass. Maybe a near death experience will get my sorry ass in gear (note: any psychopaths who may read this and know who I am, do not, I repeat, DO NOT attempt to shoot me!).

Here it is, 3:00 fucking am and I’m writing a blog that I can’t even post because I don’t have internet (I figured the internet would fold, like acid wash jeans)! Arghh! How can a grown man not have internet! I don’t even have access to porn; I have to watch those phone sex commercials and French t.v. after midnight (thank you blue nuit). So, sooo sad.

Uggghh! This post is making me ill. I guess it’s a pro/con type of thing. Pro: I’m actually pretty well rested and am relatively coherent while writing this entry. Con: I’m coherent enough to want to edit this and realize that I’m the whiniest of whiny babies. I will not edit, I will not edit, because that’s part of this whole goddamn blog experiment- sure, I’ve edit some blatant errors but fuck it, it’s a goddamn anonymous blog and I’ve really got to let go of my bizarre insecurity concerning all things grammatical. I’ve got a hilarious story detailing my literary insecurity that includes an earlier attempt to riff without editing, a famous actress, and noam Chomsky. Since it will only appeal to philosophers and linguists, not to mention the fact that it is way to embarrassing to ever recount, I will not post it but I will reveal that the hilarity hinges on my insane belief that my intellectual superiors are forever trying to ensnare me in subtle yet Byzantine word games that are meant only to demonstrate our respective places in the intellectual economy - them on top, me on the bottom. This of course, is rarely, if ever, the case and I end up acting like a blithering idiot. It’s a phobia borne out of the kind of neurosis and insecurity that would make woody allen blush. urpose of making me look like an idiot, which I invariably do all by myself.

BLAH! Happy fucking birthday. By the by, I refuse to grow older. I will, and this I swear, remain 18 forever. I will not age, I will not mature, I will not die, I will only grow better, stronger, faster – like the six million dollar man but five million, nine hundred and ninety nine dollars less.