Breathing

...despite the fact that I cannot find a single interior space with an air temperature below that of hell. Sigh. Cannot figure out whether I'm feverish or if the KSU library and Social Sciences building are hella hot.

Enough about the underworld...

...and on to a few tastes of hell on earth. Or just a few examples of human banality:

1. Just walked by a guy wearing red skinny jeans and an Abercrombie shirt. One of these items alone on a guy would be enough to earn a scoff...but the two combined just make me wonder what statement he's trying to make with his clothes. PUNK + PREP = trying too hard. Not to mention the fact that both items of clothing were purchased at a knockoff store. HOT TOPIC is not punk, people. And Abercrombie is not Ralph Lauren or Nautica or Lacoste. I do not attempt to follow fashion--hell, I'm blending into the background with my KSU t-shirt, ratty blue jeans, and New Balance tennis shoes--but people just IRK me soo much sometimes with little things.

2. I am not against buying clothes from Aeropostale or Old Navy (though I have been unable to find anything with an attractive pattern, let alone made out of quality material in the last 5+ years at ON) or any of the "trendy" stores in the mall (though I have been harrassed for my frugality-at-all-costs philosophy). And I cannot sit here and tell you that I have never been caught up in the river of group-think or joined one of those "cults" with identical clothing/music taste/attitudes (grunge/Hanson/politics). BUT, whenever I find myself swimming against the river's current, I cannot help but harrass those who are pulled beneath the water's surface by the undertow. If you allow me this much, I allow you all the opportunity to harrass me when my convictions color me a fool. (As I am sure will happen time and again...)

3. Another clothing choice I find particularly engaging/amusing/ridiculous: an embarrassing/questionable high school t-shirt. (We all had them; don't hide from your torrid past, people! I'll pull mine out of the dirty laundry in the coming days and share the silly details with you all soon.) As I have spent a great amount of time harping on red-Abercrombie putz from before, the offender has evacuated the premises...but the back of the shirt in question showcased a "fun" phrase whose words traditionally begin with E-X. The "ingenious" creator of the shirt decided to omit the E's in the phrase which was something along the lines of "extremely exceptional." (For my own sake, let's say the shirt read "XTREMELY XCEPTIONAL.") I chuckled at the phrase, considering the contradiction inherent to the words. My inner devil jabbed the "stylish" individual in the eye, cackling, "XTREMELY XCEPTIONAL" XCEPT when it comes to spelling, you jackass!"

4. I don't care if you don't find #3 amusing. I do.

5. #4 should be read in a tone approaching that of a cheeky 4-year old: "I don't care if you don't agree with me, poopyhead!"

6. I must make the observation that my blog has shifted from an overabundance of ellipses to a preference for slash-constructions (with a sprinkling of sarcastic quotation marks throughout). What can I glean from this shift in punctuation...how shall I interpret these tendencies? All I know is I am a evil S.O.B. (that happens to be a D).

7. It occurs to me that during my last two visits to the building, I have been treated to doormen (and women). There are no uniforms, no movie-esque utopian Mr. Belvedere/Geoffrey hybrids (as I envision true doormen)...

** Just wanted to interrupt to make a note on my brain's retarded idea of laptop functionality: I was trying to pluralize a word in the middle of the paragraph...so I moved my mouse to the desired point of insertion (Yahtzee!) and began typing S's...but nothing appeared. I was baffled for a few seconds before I noticed a case of snake onomatopoeia (which sounds quite uncomfortable) at the tail end of the text box. I pressed the S-key two or three more times before finally using the mouse button to actually move my cursor to its desired location. Apparently, some part of my psyche believes that I can control this laptop with the power of MY MIND!!!**

7. ...but there was a slight smile from each person at the door as I expressed my gratitude and passed by. My question is this: Are these people just doing a little "community service" between classes? Or are they slyly performing a social experiment (it is the SOCIAL SCIENCES building, after all)? The first seems hardly worth the energy/time and a little laughable, considering an equally minimal effort could be applied to a more laudable pursuit (i.e. donating a can of food for the Haitian food/supplies drive on campus, dropping an old pair of eyeglasses into a GLASSES FOR AFRICA dropbox, giving some old books to the less fortunate, etc.). In fact, such an act would almost earn them my ire rather than my appreciation, after some introspection. I don't need you to hold the door for me when there are people suffering from the natural disaster in Haiti!! Shouldn't you be studying?? But even this line of thinking leads me to feel a bit ashamed...why should I be butting into someone else's activities? Perhaps holding the door makes them feel important and earns them smiles from strangers on campus (which some people get off on, but I digress). Perhaps they are trying to cool down the hot interior of the building by creating some air flow? Perhaps it doesn't even fucking matter in the least?! And it is here that I have created my own experiment and analyzed my own reaction to a simple stimuli...whether or not it was intended.

8. I think that's all I can take. And my computer surely agrees.