I’ve Had a Perfectly Wonderful Evening. But This Wasn’t It.

You said it, Groucho. Brother, did you ever say it.

Had my first seminar of the new term. Three hours sitting with some of the dullest people on the planet trying to act like I (a) know something about ritual studies, (b) care at all about ritual studies, and (c) am thrilled to be sitting through my whole evening in the “M&M Meat Shop Room” (no word of a lie, that’s who sponsored the room, and there’s a big sign on the door announcing that as the room’s name) while the world passes me by.

I also had to pretend that I wasn’t horrified at the presentation component. We can’t just deliver a paper, mind you. We have to perform something – script, dance, a routine of some sort. All the while I’m thinking that if I could do that kind of crap, I wouldn’t be a scholar-in-training. When he asked if there were any questions, I said yes: “When is the drop date?” He laughed. They always laugh. (See entry from January 3rd.)

Despite that, it was OK, I guess, and Grimes is a doll, but I just don’t feel like going through yet another term of school… I think of Woody, who got thrown out of not one but two colleges, and he’s famous. Groucho Marx dropped out of high school to hit the vaudeville circuit, and he is a hero to mankind. Charlie Chaplin had something like a fourth grade education, and he is a god. Even the guys who collect the garbage and run deliveries on campus seem to be having more fun than me. Man, sometimes I think the joke is one me.

If only I had one, single, solitary skill… I don’t, so academics is my last hope.

Oh, Brother.