The Despairing...est Despair.

I don't know how to respond to you and your despair, Matt Smith. In fact, I'm not even sure it was despair in that last post. It was something like despair... like playing an entire scoreless game in the rain against the Miami Dolphins until Jeff Reed and his centaurian legs kick a field goal. Like having a brainless, motorcycle-crashing, helmetless, twitchy quarterback on your team. Like not having a reason to live.

Oh. Wait. That is despair.

My despair is twofold. One, it snowed last night and this afternoon, which was a plus. But then it got warm and most of the snow turned to slush, which was a minus. Then it got really cold again, also a minus, and the slush turned to ice. Another minus. All the minuses really add up (or subtract down?) to despair. Especially when you live on a hill. And by you, I mean me, because I don't know whether you live on a hill or not.

Second, graduate school is hard. The first semester of the second year is the definition of despair. I despair because I have so much work yet to do, and I despair again when I realize how little time is left to do it. I despair when I don't have time to buy groceries, I despair when I'm hungry, and I despair again when I finally go to buy the groceries and I discover that because I've paid rent, I cannot realistically afford to eat this month. I despair when I think of changing my cat's litter, and I despair when I change the cat's litter. In short, there's a lot of despair...ing. Despair...age...ment. Despair. There's a lot of despair.

I'm reading this book about cadavers that Emily lent me called "Stiff." The woman who wrote it spent a lot of time chatting with anatomists and students at medical schools about what happens to a body after it's done being a person. I find that it's pretty fantastic. I'm a little worried though, because in every chapter that I've read (I've skipped Chapter 5 - the one about airplanes and dead bodies - because I might never get on a plane again if I read it), I find that there's a lot of things that I already know about dead bodies. As if I've done research on that sort of thing, which I haven't, I swear. I'm not THAT interested in dead people. I just... sort of... like them. In a good way. A good, completely innocent way.

You asked how all the homeless crazy people divvy up who gets what Starbucks? The answers are hard to come by, because, as you've noted, they're crazy. A lot of what they say doesn't really make much sense. I'm sure I've probably told you about Eddie Joe, my Starbucks homeless man. Eddie Joe used to frequent our store, bringing with him his various shirts, coats, bags, and sundry items, such as pens, gum wrappers, lighters, cigarettes, batteries, whatnots, and whosiwhatsits. Eddie Joe seemed to many of us to have been -- at one point -- a highly intelligent individual, who perhaps had a career in mathematics or engineering or some sciencey thing. He used a lot of big words that he seemed to be familiar with, but wasn't using in the right context. Also, he would tell stories about how he got this Bic pen on his college graduation day from the mayor, or about how batteries grew on trees and that's how we get batteries.

I could tolerate a great deal of Eddie Joe, but I had to find ways to get him to just... stop talking. I established my standard-Eddie-Joe-answers. These were as follows: "yeah," "uh-huh," "of course," "sure," "no," "don't do that," and my personal favorite, "that's incorrect." Eddie Joe would say something like, "This wallet is my wallet because I got it from the president of the United States," and I would say, "Of course." And then he would say, "I'm going to ditch this town, I'm getting out," and I'd say, "Uh-huh." And then he would say, "Batteries grow on trees," and I would say, "That's incorrect."

I'm not sure if that answers your question, but it was interesting for me to type it all out and see what Eddie Joe language looks like in Courier New.

I hope you enjoyed Pittsburgh in all its spectacular dampness.