Notes from my Moleskine during a UIL Competition Conference (Saturday 9-15-07):Sitting in the student union at the University of North Texas in front of a 'Mean Green for Obama' poster reading "The Dharma Bums" while listening to Coltrane on the iPod feeling a bit like a college student...but those days were long ago.
Now I'm outside because inside can be so stifling and its beautiful outside. I'm sitting on a bench under trees facing a gazebo with a fountain splishing and splashing nearby. I'm next to the Independence Hall looking admin building and the trees have been planted in rows like that scene in 'House of Flying Daggers' where a cool fight takes place. The benches are all lined up like the Central Park ones where George Peppard sat on in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" when he confronted the Barnaby Jones Bev Hillbilly guy. (turned out he was Holly Golighty's husband).
It's nice until three of my students spot me and want to gab but they let me use a cell phone to check on the fam in Forney and all's well. I get rid of them by convincing them to splash around in the fountain. They're relunctant at first but I appeal to their inner 'Rage Against the Machine' Zen lunatics. So they're gone now and it's so quiet that when I sneeze (one time!) a butch coed feminazi soldier a few benches up whirls around and gives me a if looks could kill glare. I just smile and say "Hey...how bout a God or whatever you believe in Bless You?" She's not amused.
I saw two guys, one faintly south Asian with a digital camera, taking action pics of a pasty white dude with a taliban beard carrying a black furry stuffed monkey as he walked up the hill with the massive screaming eagle statue.
Others doing Tai Chi or somesuch in unison on a mean green lawn. I love college campuses cause weird stuff's normal and on campus weird is not weird...it's normal. I also love college book stores but I need to stay out of them because I can't afford anything.
