Or eight days, technically.  I sort of collapsed there last week, inexplicably.  All my efforts to convince myself to do anything resulted in nothing more than reading a bunch of old issues of Batman and Detective Comics.  And after a three hour nap yesterday afternoon (which was actually really nice--I woke up and there was a cat curled up next to me!  A cat!  A Kaylee cat!), I decided that, really, this isn't the summer where I can afford to remain in a perpetual slump.

Back to the grind, I s'pose.

This is the funniest thing I've seen in a while.  Stick around to the very end for some bad bat puns.  chiara_suzuka, the very very last bat pun, I am certain, is just for you.

All right, folks--the verdict is in.  Counting all answers provided (even those that don't provide detailed outcomes), the final score is Captain Tightpants 3(chiara_suzuka,  otakumeep, readingirl), the Dark Knight Detective 2 (KED, nikeshizu).  I was hoping to be able to use the Batman icon, but I need to celebrate the democratically elected victor, just so you all know that I'm not bitter or anything.  As far as the answers go, chiara_suzuka gets the gold for best response/most creative scenario, but otakumeep wins the gold for best one-liner (Jayne wanting to go back for the utility belt).

Now, for my scenario (again, not the right one--just how I think it would happen)....

( ULTIMATE BATTLE ROYALE )
The next Ultimate Battle Royale will be sponsored by chiara_suzuka after a word from our sponsors.  Yes, I promised her the next one--and what a doozy she's got planned for you folks!

I'm pretty sure the Venerable Dr. Black Jeans [DON'T USE THE ABBREVIATION, PLEASE! I IMPLORE YOU!] told me I should apply to BU just to become a mole in the English Department.  However, since moles have notoriously bad eyesight, I think I'll just be James Bond--who is suave, has good eyesight, and is Sean Connery, to boot.

So why am I posting?  Well, that's a good question.  Here's a note I was going to email out to everybody.  Commence note:

"Dear Lovely Ladies,
"Thank you for being intelligent, wonderful people who do not attempt to pressure me into doing things that I do not wish to do, like playing games of beer pong at a graduate student picnic.  I believe that's conduct unbecoming of a grad student, and those people who engage in it ought to be sacked.  All of you are way too cool for that stuff, and if we were in the '80s or middle school, I would commence telling you all how much you rock my socks off.  Nowadays I'll just have to figure out to write it in 733t.
"Your friend,
"~pH"

Also, I'm engaging in my own forms of stupidity--like having a tomato for lunch/dinner, running up three flights of stairs, and then wincing like Peter Griffin once I sit on my tufon.  And no, chiara_suzuka , this isn't me trying to get you to follow through on your promise of driving forty miles to punch me if I do anything stupid--I think I'm just naturally this stupid.

And let's close this off with an episode of Ultimate Battle Royale.  I thought of this one just this morning, and it could result in the end of the universe...and I'll give you my answer next time as well as selecting the best explanation of those provided.  Now, the rules are:  Of the two parties presented, pick which one you think would win, and then explain why.  You are allowed one super secret option during a round of Ultimate Battle Royale, where you can make up your own results by literally picking a winner (doesn't even have to be in the original proposition) and a rationale from, literally, any outside source.  But since we're doing this on LJ, I'm going to turn off the super secret option.  So it's only the characters listed in the original prompt.

Nathan Fillion, Captain Tightpants, vs. Batman, the Dark Knight.

Okay go.  And now I have to staple 16 copies of a story for workshop, then go to workshop class, then photocopy a bunch of stuff.  Woot.

Greetings, friends!  Now that I have acquired wireless broadband, I can access the power of the Internet almost anywhere!  The broadband adapter is this black little gadget that I stick into the USB port and can use on any computer--I'll refer to this device from here on out as the Obelisk of the Internets.  The upside is that I don't need to get something I'm not going to use--like a phone line or cable--and pay all of those extra charges.  I've been out in Lewisburg (which I'm going to rename Yuppyshire) since Saturday, had a terrible moving experience (everything that could go wrong, in fact, did), and I've spent the past few days taking care of odds and ends, meeting with the professors who I'll be TAing for, and unpacking the last few things in the meantime.  The garret has fast become a quality establishment; all that's missing is the futon (the one thing that my parents ordered for this whole operation, most everything else has been on my hands).  I'm finally getting my sleep schedule back together again, so by tomorrow morning I should be able to resume my writing schedule.  While I was waiting for the one professor today, I plotted out most of a story in my pocket notebook.

The presence of academia makes me feel alive again.  There is a fire across my mind, synapses sparking brainwaves and stoking a fire of thought--it is a baptism in my mind.  A few weeks ago I was feeling mostly despondent.  With my books surrounding me again, with my typewriter again controlling a desk (the wonderful rolltop that I'm borrowing from the generous and benevolent readingirl), I'm starting to feel a little bit like myself again.  Tea and literature in the morning, work all the livelong day, distract myself from reality with intense and philosophical literary discussions...that's my life, and I think I forgot that somewhere in the past few months.  But I'm feeling all right.  Which is always good news.  Or so I've been told.

The downfall of the garret is that it's rather quiet unless I have iTunes or a movie on in the background to provide some sort of noise.  Listening to six hours of Batman:  The Animated Series makes me wonder how they can keep writing [essentially] the same plot, with the same stories, with the same tensions, and still keep it remotely interesting.  But aside from that pondering, there isn't much going on.  Already, I've taken up talking to myself, talking to a dragon puppet, and imagining how I would tell other people about my experiences--which to date have been a bunch of errands.  Exciting to the max.  Woot.

I'm also getting back into some bad habits, such as lining up tons of work for myself before the semester even begins.  When I spoke to Miss Arnold on the phone during the Mighty Fine Shindig o' Books in Gettysburg, she said that I overworked myself to the point of potential insanity.  I'm being serious when I ask this, but...is this a recurring habit of mine?  I never feel unduly stressed or overworked.  Maybe I just don't have any sanity at all.  Or maybe I'm just susceptible to feeling useful somewhere in the bowels of the Ivory Tower.

Yes, I'm a tool.  For more details, call your local hardware store.  Or me.  Calls are always appreciated.

I've also done a little bit of exploring on Market Street, too.  Of course, I thought of my girls because there's a place called the Celtic Exchange, a store that has Bleach posters in the window, a store that sells Japanese collectibles and the like, and all sorts of other neat stuff.  The only problem is that this is Yuppyshire, and one must therefore play a fierce game of dodge the yuppies who are some how ignorant of the fact that this is Pennsyltuckabama and that there are biker gangs herding along Market Street (aka PA-45).

But now that I have the Internet, I can employ it with Batman-like ferocity.  I can drive around in my Patmobile and use my Patcomputer to find information anywhere, anytime.  (I've checked ZIP codes--allegedly, I should even have coverage out in the boonies where chiara_suzuka lives).  I fear that I may have given Lappy too much power with this unbridled access to the Internet; I hope that she doesn't abuse it.  The world will never again be the same.  And sure enough--it'll make staying in touch much easier, and I won't have to worry about getting on and off within five minutes so that my parents or sister can use the computer.  Ah, the joys of freedom!

So yesterday, after a delightful little pizza lunch and a happy-birthday-to-readingirl screening of Batman, the parents came up to turn my room into a white space slightly reminiscent of a psychiatric ward, except without the padding.  Lots of white, though.  During the course of packing up Marsha's SUV (named "Shadowfax," after Gandalf's horse--we're all a bunch of dorks) and Al, the Deathtrap Skylark of the Apocalypse, I think that Beardilocks the Viking was trying to knock me off.  It all started when I joked, "Hey!  In a few months we get to move my twenty boxes of books again!"  Then the beatings commenced.  He kicked the doorstop out every time we left the room.  He shut a door in my face.  He smashed my knuckles between a bookshelf and my bike when loading the Marshamobile.  Back at Bellwood, he hit me in the crotch with the bike, and then he knocked a sixteen ounce can of tomatoes onto my wrist, which is somehow not bruised.

The honors defense?  Rocked.  Quality Time.  I'd do it again if it didn't require writing another novella.  Now that I'm finished with everything, I think that tomorrow calls for pulling out MacGregor and getting back to the short story biz.  Gotta get myself published now, that's the real test.

My favorite part was...the entire thing.  Actually.  And then the entire defense was riddled with compliments and then ended with lots of compliments and praise.  chiara_suzuka, do me a favor over the next few years and hand me at least a good insult a week.  Between all of the praise I received at Bucknell for my fiction writing and this afternoon, I'll need somebody to keep me grounded.  Anchor me to the earth, if necessary.  I'd rather that my self image not turn into a hot air balloon.  If it does, shoot me down.  Hailstones, cannonballs, harpoon gun.  Turn off the fuel jets.  Whatever.  Gotta keep the ego in check.  Can't turn into a PEZ dispenser.

One incredibly fun moment was channeling Batman and Dante in, as the beloved advisor to English Club described it, "a single breath."  He commented that it was something truly postmodern, if indeed anything can be described as such.  In hindsight, there are probably 8000 additional references that I could have made, but the 8000 I used were, I think, sufficient.

When asked about it as an experiment and if it really mattered, I channeled Batman for the second time of the afternoon, saying, "What good is a dream, if not a blueprint for courageous action?"  A blueprint, indeed.  Hopefully, all blueprints for courageous action will be so rewarding.

But major props to the venerable Dr. Black Jeans and the support of the Grand Old Man of Fiction--they were, really, great helps in this entire process.

But I think I might have finally managed to chuck the explosives somewhere.  I'll consider this to be a triumph.  The grand old man of fiction sent me this email just now:

"Pat,

"Don't know what I was thinking. Enid Shomer is here today.

"Why don't you stop by tomorrow.  I have lots of conferences, but we ought to have a chance to speak.

"Frankly, I'm just overwhelmed.  I probably an not going to be able to do a close line by line edit of all this.

"But I think you're good to go. 

"Just put the essay first.

"Okay?
"t"

Of course, the quotation marks weren't in the original email.  I added those to make it clear that I was quoting.  There it is, in its entirety.  It's finished!  So now it's just time to let things run their course.  I'll still need to read the novella once through, but you know what?  No big deal.  I've read novellas before.  I'll just have to pretend to enjoy something that I wrote.

But this is over, none too soon.  I think that all of the girls have probably heard me say too many angry things about this novella.  Perhaps that's because this has been...particularly trying.  The entire process has felt a lot like the following clip, and who better to express my feelings on the matter than...BATMAN!


Thank goodness that it didn't blow up in my face.  But...I'm at work.  So...I should probably get back to that.