*OLD* November 16th, 2005- Would You LIke Fries With Your Repatriated Remains?

I`m pretty sure this will be the first question I hear when I get back to the United States. Reason being I´ve also decided that the steaks here in Argentina are so good that it´s worth trying to bring a backpack full of uncooked steaks packed in ice with me on the airplane and trying to explain to the customs officer that it´s actually my pet cow Betsie who I brought with me to Argentina. Ever since Betsie was a calf she´d love to frolick in the open fields. About six months ago, she frolicked in the pasture of a Texan rancher and was about 5 minutes away from her last frolick in a Texan slaughterhouse when I found her and decided to go to the wide open Pampas of Argentina. Unfortunately after romping about for a couple minutes, she got hit by lightning and died instantly. So I decided to chop her to pieces and pack her in ice. This absurd story led to two conclusions. First, from the absurd I came with the absurd "profound" question: If your life went in reverse would yours have a surprise beginning? Second, from the story I came to the conclusion that I want to be a storyteller or rhymster. My first conclusion was quickly dropped (only after I came to logical end that if life was indeed played in reverse and put on a record player would it have a demonic message like some 60s songs supposedly have and is touted in the recent movie Skeleton Key starring Kate Hudson? and that supposition obviously leads to CS Lewis` conclusion in the Great Divorce that one day we´ll, depending on where we spend eternity, look backward on our life and declare we were always in heaven or always in hell) and I followed my second to the next paragraph.
Storytelling is going to be my passion for at least a couple months. I`ve been inspired by Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian, who by the way is a much better travel writer than Paul Theroux, and a recent discovery of homemade videos by Jason Mraz to get into storytelling- weaving imagination into reality for entertainment, catharsis, or for telling my grandkids one day like my grandpa did for me with Cowboys and Indians back in the day. It will now be my resolution to become a great storyteller/impromptu rhyme master by May. Which leads me to the next paragraph.
My last resolution so proudly announced in last weeks email has been shot down beyond all repair in the last five days. At the time, Friday night, I´d woken up at six thirty and decided that if I stayed up all night and went to bed at a reasonable hour on Saturday night, everything would be fine and dandy again. Wrong. I went to bed at a reasonable time and immediately woke up at 930 on Sunday. Unfortunately it was 930 PM. Well, maybe since it was late enough to be tomorrow (a topic so profound I won´t go into it...yet. okay I will, I just read a 500page book about a guy shipwrecked onto an abandoned ship anchored 500m away from the International Date Line which runs through an Island that is continually in Yesterday while he is in Today. and he can´t swim) I thought I´ll just do it again for Monday and be all set for Tuesday, fit as a fiddle. Wrong again, but at least this time I was ready for it. I woke up at 630 pm after falling asleep at midnight (which is reasonable because our family didn´t start to eat dinner until 1030), thus giving me an astounding 41 hours of sleep and three allnighters from Sunday at midnight to Wednesday at midnight. I guess one good thing came out of this loss of innocence regarding my firm resolution making ability...the next paragraph.
I had an insight into the loss of innocence from three different sources during one of the "dead zone" of allnighters (or daynights as I dub them), the 3am to 6am timeframe when everything is closed...everything except the imagination. The loss of innocence is that moment when our life ceases to be real and begins to feel like a dream, like what we are and/or what we´ve experienced just can´t be real. First source: Mystic River (movie) from the car incident. Second source: Band of Brothers TV series, episode 3 with the conversation between Spiers and Blithe and how the former thinks he´s already dead and thus is able to fight like a real soldier. Third source: an article online about the premiere of the 4th Harry Potter movie that talks about the whole book series being about Harry´s relationship to the magical world and how it gradually goes from rosy to scary to real or unreal depending on how you look at it. And, you guessed it, leads me to the next paragraph.
Preregistration for classes for next semester happens for me during last week and this week and on this one I am ahead of the game. My classes for my last semester (unless I don´t get into them) will be an English course called Harry Potter to Knights of Old (a class about the loss of innocence, growing up, and whatever else), Muslim/Christian Relations throughout World History, Comparative Political Systems, and African Politics/Governments or Religions of the Ancient Near East. If you want to chill with me in any of these classes, please pay 25,000 dollars to Georgetown University, sign up and hope you get in to the courses you pick, and prepared for the time of your life...at least during those five months, I can´t guarantee anything past that which obviously segways into my next paragraph.
This email can be interactive, if you haven´t figured that out by yet. However, seeing as response to the last email was mediocre at best, I feel that this one can be a little get a little bit more than mediocre. but only a little, ´cause remember the tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the lawnmower (strive for mediocrity...which Dictionary.com helpfully informs us is 1. The state or quality of being mediocre. 2. Mediocre ability, achievement, or performance. 3. One that displays mediocre qualities. Any of which definitions one of you would clearly see as mediocre seeing as they use the word as the definition.). To make this long email a bit more exciting, I am offering several options for you to become interactive. They are the following, in a very particular order (numerical):
1. Give me advice/suggestions/demands/comments/concerns/witty remarks on what I should do for at least the year after my college graduation. I´ll post the winning (quantitatively) one in the next email, but may or may not do so depending on how I feel or make resolutions in the near future.
2. I am giving y´all the never before seen....CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. But Josh, you may say (meaning you´re talking to your computer again...tsk tsk), that´s already well-known as a mediocre book series. I understand but this is in 3D and real. Based on whatever response I get, you can choose whether I go to the Moreno Glaciar and Patagonia, Paraguay, or neither in two weeks time. Voting closes in exactly one week (11/23). Three things to consider: MGP means going to Patagonia and seeing one of the greatest natural wonders in at least South America and it´s most expensive. Paraguay means another country for my belt that I´d have a hard time getting to in the future, a riverboat through the jungle sleeping on hammocks, and medium expense. Neither means saving money, maybe doing homework or other useful things and money for more souvenirs for you if you name the best thing you want and i agree that it fits you and/or is ridiculously imaginative or cool.
3. I can call you if you give me your number. This has several repercussions. One, you and I can have a chat about whatever (exciting! exclamation point!). Two, you could see how many numbers show up on your cellphone (lots!). Three, you could copy these numbers, call them back, doubtfully reach me (it´s your number in the phone), but there is a chance that somehow you´ll connect to the Argentine phone system before calling the number which will be your house meaning, you will get to talk with your future (by two hours) self and learn all the secrets of the future (endless possibilities! think Biff from Back to the Future 2!!!)
Two final observations before I go, tactfully put in front of my salutations so that they aren´t relegated to the PS section, which has somehow become a place to mock. First, Andruw Jones didn´t get the MVP award and from this I deduce that my vote doesn´t matter, Jayson Stark from ESPN.com will never be read by me again (he´s really mean and complains after everything (read his response to every award this season if you don´t believe me, even the ones or more like one he got right), and I will never read the Houston Chronicle again because of their bad mouthing of Jones after he loses. Two, I was reading my notes from earlier this semester and I thought this one was worth sharing. It´s dated November 1st, 2005 and it´s my only note for my Transition, Crisis, and Reform class that day. "I zoned out but WAS there . just to write this apology."
Cheers
Josh Bull

ps A young boy age 8 stopped me in the street Saturday and said, "Young man, remember that gray hair isn´t always a sign of wisdom, but rather old age."

pps Now he did say it in spanish which means it could´ve actually been anything.