Van Goal

We need to fly kites or something

For a brief moment in time, the Mason Men's Soccer team had a free weekend. So what did we do? Eight players crammed into the kitchen of a student apartment, huddled around a television. Two of the eight sat on a dilapidated couch sweating intently, thumbs flashing frantically over the joysticks of a Playstation 2 console. We were playing FIFA '08, or virtual soccer. For six hours we sat there, transfixed. It wasn't the layman's video game experience mind you. Our "virtual" games are spattered with real physical contact. It is not uncommon for you to be shoved, smacked, and or kicked to the floor while playing a game in the apartment, which has been dubbed, "The Lounge". It's serious business, playing in The Lounge. There are rules: Winner must stay on the controls until he is beaten. If you turn off the game while playing you are never allowed to play again. And to play, you must contribute chips, gatorade, candy, or a pizza to The Lounge's snack stash.

But after six hours, your thumbs blister and you get hungry. So off we ventured through halls of Tyson's Corner. I've never been a big mall guy and I've never understood the pleasure of spending endless hours spending endless money. But I played along, I bought a jacket off the clearance rack and a sweater. Then I watched as our big bad center back and others transformed into 16 year-old girls. The day's shopping can be paraphrased with this sentence, uttered by a 190LB Jersey boy: "Fossy, look at these jeans...they're nice right, but my ass is just too big."

It was time to get out of H&M. We wandered into the movie theater. As if we hadn't spent enough already (the day's top spender will remain unnamed, suffice to say he spent more than $449 and less than $451). After our awesome student discount, we each paid $10.50 to see American Gangster. Of course, of COURSE, you need popcorn and a soda when you're at the theater. I saw something in line that left me absolutely stunned. The theater was offering combo deals on popcorn and hot dogs at the concession. A popcorn or hot dog with a soda, $11. Now the price didn't surprise me - movie theater food is outrageous. What was amazing was the fact that a soda without food was $4.50 and popcorn and the hot dog without a drink were $5.00 each.

I needed to make this discovery known.

"Hi can I help you?" The popcorn guy asked.

"Yeah, see your soda/popcorn combo for $11?" I questioned.

"Umm, yea." He replied.

"Well, if I just order a soda and popcorn without the combo, I actually save a dollar fifty." I pointed out.

"Yeah."

"Sooo, why would anyone ever get a combo?" I wondered.

"Uh, I dunno." What a very astute popcorn guy.

After the movie we drove back to campus, but not before stopping at Ike's, the all-night diner. Ike's is a funny place. Especially at 2am. There is some change in students, I believe on the molecular level, when out in public at 2am. No matter what your BAC happens to be, you are required to stagger around the room, throw your arm around someone's shoulder and slur, "Whut Uppp?" After several whut ups and a few staggers, we made our way back to the apartment. Another two hours of FIFA with a break in between to watch these two webgems (That Ticking Noise, Cosmic Rays) and we were ready for bed....but not before another meal. Back to Ike's (stagger, whut upppp?).

Only 67 more days until Spring training.

The fact that it is Halloween and the poem is called, "The Frankenstein Poet" is purely coincidental...Halloween is the dumbest holiday ever.

So there is a sex toy party coming to my dorm hall next week.

Yes, this is how I come back to you after a month of silence. I come bearing sex toys. I don't really feel like this party warrants more than five or six sentences so I'm going to let my astute roommate have the final words, “That’s just nasty – what kind of creep goes to that sh*t?”

Well said, Parker. Who does go to that sh*t? Some questions just don’t need to be answered. Who goes to sex toy parties is one such question.

Moving on.

Good morning, America! Or I guess good late evening, at 12:38. This has been a bleh week. Have you ever had a bleh week? You know, when you get up on Monday feeling like someone bludgeoned you with a shovel the night before? Unfortunately, the assailant and his shovel disappeared before your professor could see him so he doesn’t know why you are in his class glassy eyed and complacent. For best results, rinse and repeat.

Thankfully, today the bludgeoning has subsided. So under the influence of Mucinex, Emergen-C, Echinacea, Tylenol, and some Sudafed, I’m feeling extremely proactive. I’ve been catching up on papers and homework and reading and now I’m blogging! Yay for blogging! Yay for Sudafed!

I’ve been reading Billy Collins again. Actually, I never stopped reading Billy Collins. I read this today:

The Frankenstein Poet
Pursued by the mob of townspeople
And the shaky glow of their torches,
He finds refuge crouching under a mossy bridge

He takes a notepad from his huge jacket
And feels inspiration arriving
Like a forking of electricity

I really need a mossy bridge here. I kind of feel like this place has really shot my creative flow. At home, my room was under the mossy bridge, designed to make me feel creative. And by designed, I mean it was cluttered, messy, chaotic, and grotesquely unappealing to everyone else. There were clothes strewn about the floor, newspaper clippings and photographs taped to the walls. Then there were the sketchbooks – good lord, so many pieces of paper with adorned with charcoal figures, notes, poems, and reminders (like, “pick up your room”). It made my mom nuts how disorganized my room was. But it was mine and for the most part she accepted the role it played – except when guests came and had to stay there.

So my quest to find a new mossy bridge. It certainly does not exist in my dorm room. Poor Parker would lose his backwoods mind if I started taping random phrases and drawings to the walls. And let’s not even think about leaving clothes on the floor. I wandered around the Fine Arts building, and the library. Both certainly had the Thomas’ English muffins recipe: all the nooks and crannies of home. But those crannies have been claimed and the nooks are filled. Onward and upward, through all four floors of the Johnson Center I searched, only to find countless grad students cracking under the pressures of….Grad Studenting?

And then I found it. Not quite a mossy bridge. A piece of twisted medal next to an oak tree rather. The rusty sculpture of a Metalworking I student two years ago. The aluminum luster has tarnished and the deep orange and red of disuse has set in. I like it. I’m not sure what it is – I want it to be a pair of prescription strength eyeglasses with a frame that has broken, but that is surely to simple an explanation. I position myself now, with my back against the oak tree and the soles of my feet gently rested on the sculpture. Only a few people pass during the day, and at night no one at all.

Here I am, under a mossy bridge. Not quite. Here I am, in the corner where the dance studio meets the printmaking building. Under an oak tree, pondering Billy Collins and why the world needs a sex toy party, I sit, alone, only the glow of my computer screen keeping me company. It is a truly great feeling. To be surrounded by nothing. To be completely absorbed in pure thought is an exhilarating exercise. I need more of these moments. We all need such moments. Just to be quiet and hear what is said when life is sleeping.

I think I hear something now:

“Seriously what kind of creep goes to that sh*t?”

Never mind. That’s just Parker