I was dying of ennui today in class. It wasn't the class; it was me. I was absorbed in critiquing people's poems (which we're supposed to do at home) and writing some poems of my own (oh my stars, it's a miracle) and I had absolutely no desire to listen to a word my professor said.

I can't really listen to her, anyway-- she kinda freaks me out. She wears four watches on one wrist, and I'm not sure any of them work. And she says "you know" all the time, but she says it so fast that it sounds like "y'o." "Giotto painted this fresco, y'o, and frescoes must be painted very quickly, y'o, because the plaster dries in twenty, y'o, minutes." And every once in a while she'll voice her disagreement with a critic by saying, "Most critics say blah blah blah." Pause. "BULLSHIT!!!" All loud and emphatic like that. And for Valentine's day, she and her boyfriend are going dancing to industrial-electronica music.

She's a little scary. Y'o?

I was talking to Bruce about the right amount of time to wait before you call a guy. (The only rule I know is the Swingers rule: two days is industry standard, and three days is kinda money.) Bruce's rule is, definitely no more than four days, because after four days they forget about you.

It was only later I remembered that Bruce is from the Gay Man, Short Attention Span School of Dating. Of course in that world, they forget about you after four days.

I'm surprised the expiration date on gay boy phone numbers isn't something like four seconds. Or even shorter. From what I've heard about some clubs, by the time you drop to your knees, they've already forgotten your name.

I just went with the three-day rule, by the way. Gay man or not, I don't want to be forgotten.

I went for a ride today (more than ten miles; somebody give me a cookie) and noticed for the first time this random art deco chicken sitting on a fence or something. On the way back, I saw that the chicken even has a companion art deco chicken, facing the other way. For some reason, this made me very, very happy.

Maybe it was the endorphins, come to think of it.

In the meantime, I've renamed the bike path the Way of the Holy Chicken. And I also may have said, "Hail, mighty chicken" as I sped by, but you can't prove anything.

I finally got some lines in class on Wednesday. (We're still reading A Midsummer Night's Dream.) I got to read the part of Titania the fairy queen, when she is enchanted to think she's in love with Bottom, who has been given an ass' head. My professor actually ended up reading the part of the ass and really got into it; it was a funny scene.

My professor is notorious for never shutting up when anyone asks him a question, so I particularly liked the line, "Tie my lover's tongue and bring him silently." Meaningful on oh-so-many levels.

Of course, the next time parts were assigned, I got to play Peaseblossom. I got one line, which was, "Ready!" I'm not optimistic about next week.

It's probably obvious by now that I'm a bit of a ham. I can't help it-- even if I feel silly sometimes, I love the little bit of acting I'm getting to do.

And here's the Quote of the Day, from my father, who works in a hotel. Keep in mind that he is incapable of irony and meant this 100% seriously. Oh, and also, he calls the members of every ethnic group "mamas":

"A group of Japanese mamas were in the hotel, and I think they were a bunch of homosexuals. They got up in the morning with their hair all strange and they just walked around like that. Either they were in the movie business, or they were all gay people. They were weird, let's put it that way."

Oh, my god. Either they were in the movie business, or they were gay people. I could not run fast enough after he said this to write it down.

"First, she said that I should try to become attached to the poem that is not yet written-- the poem that wants to be there."