My pal Imj (aka Bobo the Wandering Pallbearer, aka The Most Optimistic Man in America, Inc.) recently blogged concerning ten great reasons to hate him. It's not a list I endorse, because it's not my list of reasons to hate him. Him and his damnable Miata.
So, seeing as how I've already bathed, and am waiting to become sufficiently dry to clothe and oust myself into the wide world in my spanking new Jetta (probably to be named "Fast Eddie," mainly for the nickname "Eddie Jetta," based on a private joke between my loveliest and self, to wit, the Weird Al Jankovic song "My Baby's In Love With Eddie Vedder"), and seeing as how I can't make this sentence too much longer without completely bollocksing the syntax (frankly, I think California's syntax is way too high, but I'm also against regressive taxation schemes in the first place), I thought I'd make my own list, about myself.
There follows then Ten Great Reasons to Hate Doc Nagel
1. I don't look my age. I don't act my age. I don't live my age. In fact, I don't know my age. I have to consult my driver's license. Hold on... No, that can't be right. Forget it.
2. I am a spectacular cook. I mean it, really, fan-freaking-tastic. I specialize in French food, mainly provençal, because it's got spices in it. My favorite sauces are two I've created and one of the grand old Frenchies, called sauce Robert (you say it without the t, you know, to appear sophisticated). Tonight, I think I'm gonna cook boeuf bourguignonne, one of our faves, as my loveliest is coming home from a visit to LA while I've been trying to write the confounded food paper. I now am in a spot in writing the paper where I literally must cook boeuf bourguignonne to be able to continue.
3. I do what I like for a living. I teach philosophy. You have no idea how much fun that is. I grouse about grading, about administrators, about the occasional crummy student, but basically, every day I go to work is playtime.
4. I'm hilarious. That's not really a reason to hate me, but my knowing I'm hilarious might infuriate some people. In fact, the occasional crummy student despises the fact that I'm funny, especially in class. See #3.
5. I am happy. Again, you'd have to be fairly unpleasant, or hold a massive grudge against me, to hate me for being happy. Those people exist, and it is in part to give them something to take away from this list that I include being happy as a reason to hate me. Then again, they're probably mostly angry about the reasons I'm happy.
6. I have cool stuff. Not only the spanking new Jetta, but also an almost as spanking new iBook, and a USB-port pre-amp and software to record my own tunes. Those are the coolest things I own, with the exception of my 12-string Seagull (whose name is Maggie).
7. I am personally acquainted with four people who live in Finland. That's no reason to hate me, either, but it's true, so I thought I'd toss it in here. Only two of them are Finns, and one of the two Finns is half Swede (I think it's his left half, but I'm not sure; it's kind of a personal question).
8. I play guitar. I dunno; some people just hate that about a person.
9. I have long hair. Lauren just cut it for me a couple weeks ago, which was the first time it was cut in two years. I always used to have long hair, then I cut it short while I was finishing my dissertation, under the absurd assumption that having shorter hair would make me more marketable. It might, but frankly, I always wanted my hair long. It's a very sensual thing.
10. I am in love. My lover/girlfriend/partner/s.o./shorty Lauren is beautiful, sexy, talented, charming, sweet, sensitive, kind, and a host of other superlatives. In fact, the main reason people hate me is that I'm in love, and that she's in love with me. Or, more to the point, that we so thoroughly enjoy being together, and are happy together. (See #5) She likes my cooking, too. We eat practically every meal together, sitting at a table, conversing and sharing food. We play music together, sometimes playing guitar, sometimes I play and she sings, sometimes we work out changes to songs we like on piano and guitar. We spend every possible instant together (including stuff like union meetings and conferences), which is a wonderful way to live.
But wait! Here's two bonus reasons to hate Doc Nagel
11. We have quite possibly the world's greatest cat. His name is Lancelot, though he's most commonly called by one of his indefinitely many nickmanes, e.g., "Stinkertoy" or "Lanceapotamus." He doesn't act his age, either - nor does he know it. He thinks his age is "one," but that's because his only number concept is "one." He's not brilliant. But he does know how doors work.
12. I'm having peanut butter toast and an orange for breakfast. And you're not, are you? So there.
So where did you learn to cook French?
ReplyDeleteAnd here all along I thought you were a spectacular kook.
ReplyDeleteWell, ultimatewriter.com had asked about where I learned to cook French. I was going to clarify that I cook French food, not the French, and that I am self-taught, having learned in my kitchen, with the help of Julia Child and Auguste Escoffier.
ReplyDeleteThen there's Bob's comment, and of course, he would know. He was there for the birth of Krazy Kooks Inkorporated, which used to send him junk mail.
Just so you know, I've posted something about this on my own blog . . .
ReplyDeleteWell, I used to like you.
ReplyDeleteBut now, feh!
It was the peanutbutter toast that did you in!
Of course, there was the one time we cooked up the French. But hey; it was college, we were experimenting, and they were just exchange students anyways. Still, I did then, and still do, doubt the wisdom of preparing Parisien au Provencale.
ReplyDeletephilosophy teacher, eh? I thought I might be interested in philosophy as a college student so i decided to take the class. Prof Momeyer was severly unimpressed with me. Our relationship was like that of Homer and Mr. Burns. I introduced myself to him about 45 times that semester. He finally remembered my name the day I recomended after spending most of the morning proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that God doesn't exist using the St. Thomas (or some other saints) definition of God that we change the definition in order to make our conversation more interesting or slightly longer instead of just sitting in silence until we could find another way to disprove the definition. (If he is all good, than how come there are forrest fires?) Momeyer promptly yelled at me as if I had just shot his cat in the head execution style, "HOW DARE YOU!" It was quite the overreaction. He thought I was about to go all Joel Olsteen on him, I guess.
ReplyDeleteDecided to stop taking philosophy after that.
Well, I should like to point out that I never had a philosophy professor anything like that. I have to admit that, as a class, we're only slightly less liable of dogmatic, arrogant, closed-minded, over-reactive pricks than anybody else. But shit, man, I try to help people think and talk rationally about their disputes with other people. It's not whether or not somebody digs St. Tom's proofs that's really at issue, for me; it's whether going through the proofs helps them understand what it means to think.
ReplyDeleteThat's the joy, that and the gags.