garmana::blog

Cracking open the nut

So I've been gone for awhile. I don't have an excuse, really. School has me drowning this semester -- my last "real" semester before graduation! -- but that hasn't stopped me before. I'm a little mentally and creatively drained right now, and nothing has struck me. Not that I was changing the world before, but at least I was inspired to write something.

I often get asked what's going through my head, and it's typically hard to explain. Usually it's everything. That's the only way I can describe it. My consciousness has always been a windstorm of free associations and I have to concentrate to keep it in check when I'm not interested in the situation I find myself. Instead of focusing on the issue at hand I'll be thinking back to Rome, which leads to the song "The Promise" by When in Rome, which leads to Napolean Dynamite since that's the song played as the closing credits kick in, which takes me back to tetherball, which becomes the ratty, weathered yellow tetherball in my grade school gym with the blue stage curtains draped closed and Jenny Roake making fun of me for walking like an ape. Now I'm self conscious about how I'll look walking out of the meeting, and... I'm back to the meeting. What was that? Strategy? Hmm... stragety. Bugs Bunny. I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque.

My Quality Management class this semester is killing me. Watching paint dry for 75 minutes would keep me better occupied and be much less painful. I'm studying for a test in that class tomorrow, and as I flip through my sparse notes the margins tell the tale. I find these doodles and phrases scrawled down the sides of the pages.

• "So... We meet again, Dr. Jones."


• A sketch of Leonardo drawing his katana (yep, the teenage mutant ninja turtle)


• "Please Hammer, don't hurt 'em!"


• The Fibonacci sequence up to 144


• "Bruno don't shiv." (commonly overheard in "The Dark Knight Returns" by Frank Miller)


• "Mark riggity rox the hizznouse" (I'm not proud of that one, but I'm inclined to share it)


• "Susan yanked her suit coat tight and scanned the hallway in both directions. Empty. Her face gave away that she was flustered, but she smiled grimly when the door clicked shut behind her. He would never hurt her or anyone else ever again."


• A sketch of the next design for this site


• "Sven! How's that fresh schnitzel?!?"

We'll see how I do on that test tomorrow.