I Voted.

I voted early today, since I could do it on campus after class. The line was a block long, all students as far as I could tell. That's a good sign, huh? Next Tuesday, we caucus. We get two votes in Texas primaries. (Even the votes are bigger in Texas.)

Wednesday night I went to a review session for my geology exam (I have three exams next week -- I feel like all I'm doing this semester is taking exams, and I'm not loving it) and afterwards I strolled over to the south mall where I thought I might catch the end of a Hillary rally where Bill Clinton was speaking. It was 6:40 and the thing was supposed to start at 5:30, but he was being introduced as I walked up. The crowd was small, I think, at least much smaller than I would have expected for such an event. There was a core of screaming kids near the stage, but most of the crowd was hanging back with their arms folded, obviously not there to rally for Hillary but to see what old Bill had to say.

The president of the student Democrats gave him a very strange introduction: "We know him from MTV! We know him from playing the saxophone on Arsenio Hall! He's the first rock star president this country has ever had!" My guess is that most of the audience, the speaker included, was about 2 years old in 1991. I doubt they even know who Arsenio Hall is.

Anyway, his speech wasn't particularly interesting. ("I love my wife. But even if she wasn't my wife and she asked me to stand up here and endorse her, I would do it. Because she's more qualified to be president than anyone I've ever known." What an idiotic thing to say. If she weren't your wife, she wouldn't be running for president. If she weren't your wife, nobody would even know who she is. And she is your wife, so how do you know how you'd feel about her if she weren't?)

I stayed for about 20 minutes and then went home. One thing struck me. Not really a new thought, but a clear example of why I don't like Bill or Hillary Clinton. He was talking about how one of the points that is brought up to argue against Hillary as president is that, because of who she is, she would stir up the Clintons vs. the Republicans fighting of the 90s. And Bill said (I'm paraphrasing), "I don't know about you, but I thought the nineties were pretty good. I don't know what's wrong with fighting. I'd like to see someone in the White House who's willing to fight. Fight for jobs, fight for prosperity," etc. Now, everybody knows that's not exactly the fighting Hillary's detractors are referring to. Sure, there was a lot of squabbling over real issues, over legislation, but the fighting that we're talking about is the personal, partisan bickering that colored every issue. Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky. Instead of either ignoring or addressing the real objection, he distorts its meaning and then responds to that because it supports his stance. All with a wide-eyed innocent expression. I guess you'd call it passive-aggressive behavior. It's insulting.

Maybe she learned it from him, but it's their favorite rhetorical tactic. It's not exactly lying -- though they do plenty of that as well -- but it's false.

J and I went to a neighborhood block party for Obama tonight. Free pizza. Kids. White people and black people, together. It felt like the future.

La Tarea.

Here's a treat for my Spanish-speaking readers. La tarea de esta mañana:

El verano pasado, mi sobrino (el segundo hijo varón de mi hermana y su esposo) estuvo muy enfermo. Se contagió de E. coli. Primero, el tuvo un dolor de estómago. Por supuesto, con frecuencia los niños se enferman, así que mi hermana y mi cuñado no creían que era grave, pero un dia comenzó a sangrar. En ese momento, supieron que era grave. El pasó trés meses en el hospital. Sus padres pasaron todos los dias con él, y mis otros parientes lo visitaron frecuentemente. Yo no pude ir, pero mi hermano mayor (el otro tío de mi sobrino) podía visitar porque vive más cerca. Muchas veces, mi sobrino casi murió. Sin embargo, mi familia y yo nunca perdimos la esperanza. Finalmente recuperó y fue a casa.

(The assignment was to write 100 words about an important incident in my life. My friend Z, who, in addition to having vast knowledge of botany and horticulture and various other life sciences, speaks fluent Spanish, helped me with this.)

Double Life.

I arrived in New York for the reading in the nick of time. Actually I was a bit early -- my flight left on time, arrived early, there was no one in the taxi queue, and eerily no traffic on the BQE to Manhattan from Queens. We rehearsed for a little over 2 hours, which, even if you have nothing to compare it to, I'm sure it's fairly obvious isn't a lot of time, but all the actors were quick and focused and did a great job. It was rough, but we expected that. The reading itself was in a rehearsal space in Chelsea that I knew immediately I'd been in before, back in my rock and roll days, one of those big stinky band practice buildings divided up into dozens of little rooms that are never soundproof enough.

Afterwards T and I went to a bar nearby for drinks with the producers. We were happily all of one mind regarding what needs work: mainly two narrative holes, one in the first act and one in the second act. They're problems T and I knew were there, and we were waiting for the reading to see it from a wider angle. The producers are going to fly me to New York again in two weeks (my spring break) so that T and I can do some more writing together.

That evening and the next morning after the reading, feeling inspired, T and I hashed out some ideas. We're writing a new song for the second act, for the trial, which contains the climax of the story. I came home and -- instead of doing Spanish homework -- threw together a rough draft in GarageBand and sent it to T on Monday night.

Okay, now back to Spanish (and Geology and History...) for two weeks.

Whether Weather.

I woke up this morning to an email from JetBlue letting me know that my flight to New York had been canceled because of snow there, which was disorienting because it's been quite summery here. My first impulse was to check Amtrak, but the earliest I could get to New York by train would be Monday night, because I'd have to go all the way up to Chicago and then on to New York. Though I love the idea of a 4-day train ride, I have to be in New York by early tomorrow afternoon, so that wasn't going to help.

I talked to T on the phone, but there didn't seem to be much we could do, so I went to school and felt more and more resigned as the morning went by that I wouldn't be going to New York this weekend for the Lizzie Borden reading.

When I got home from classes, T had emailed suggesting I try to fly to Philly or Baltimore or DC tonight or tomorrow morning and take a train. First I called JetBlue to see if they had a flight in the morning. They didn't. But while T and I were looking for flights to other East Coast cities, a single seat opened up on a JetBlue flight tomorrow morning at 7:30, so the agent snagged it for me and I'm back on for New York, barring any further natural calamities.

Honeymoon's Over.

I don't know, I may have spoken too soon about how great all my teachers are this semester.

I had my first geology exam last Friday. It's a basic geology for non-majors class. The professor is a little odd, but I usually like odd people. The material right away seemed pretty advanced, but I felt confident after getting an A in Biology of AIDS last semester, which, if you don't remember, was very hard.

I have a heavy course load this semester, and I've been a little overwhelmed with the amount of reading, but I studied, I thought, adequately for the exam. There were a few questions that totally stumped me, but I thought I did well.

Except that there were three questions that I didn't like at all. One asked for information that we were specifically asked not to worry about memorizing. (We were to remember the Eons, Periods, and Ages, but not the Epochs. The answer to one of the questions was one of the Epochs. Fair?) Another asked for the age of the universe. The correct answer, on the test, was 13-14 byo. Our textbook says 15. Okay, maybe there's a little play in the age of the universe.

But this is the one I can't let slide. The question was, "The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter represents ______. (a) a disintegrated terrestrial planet, (b) a disintegrated gaseous planet, (c) remnants of a large comet that orbited the Sun, (d) fragments that never aggregated into a planet. The textbook for the class very clearly supports "d." The answer he wanted for the test was "a." I looked this up in several sources and all of them point to "d." Some of them say that the disintegrated planet theory used to be what scientists believed but that now the consensus is that the asteroids were never a planet. (I chose "d" on the test and got it wrong.) Here's a little math: I got an 86 on the test. There were 50 questions, so, without the three fucked-up questions, I would have gotten a 92. Which is an A. Which is better than a B.

I emailed the professor, because I thought it must be a mistake in the exam key or something and he would want to know. He emailed back and said that the asteroids contained mantle and crust material which proves they were melted at some point, so they must have been a planet. He also said, "You should chuck your source." I wrote back and said that my source was the textbook for the course (which I'd already told him, and quoted in my email) and that all the websites he'd referred us to for information on the solar system also contradicted his answer.

That was two days ago and he hasn't responded. I don't know what to do at this point. I'm not going to let it go. I don't want to be a dick, but I want to know what's up. Either the test is wrong and needs to be fixed, or I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, he's the teacher and he should explain it to me. I didn't let lazy teachers off the hook when I was 7 years old; I'm sure as hell not going to do it now.

Thank God for Claritin D, Thank God for Texas.

Cedar Fever came back stronger than ever yesterday. It's hard to even describe how unpleasant it is, it's like a little worm boring through your sinuses. A friend recommended Claritin D, and I decided he was probably to be trusted on this because he's, as J said, not someone who likes to suffer.

On Fridays I have Geology lab at 9:30, Geology lecture at 11, and then I'm done. We had an exam today. I studied, but not as much as I like. I feel a little stressed about all my classes this semester, I'm just barely keeping up with the reading there's so much. I like to stay a little ahead or I get nervous. But the Geology material was pretty straightforward (except for the stuff that wasn't), so I felt okay about the test. It's always uncomfortable on test day because everybody is there and every seat is filled. The lighting is poor, and the little swinging desk things are usually all right-handed. On top of that my nose was running like a spigot.

Except for two questions, the exam was not too hard. I have a bone to pick with the professor about those two questions. One included material that we were specifically told not to memorize. And on the other one, about the age of the universe, none of the available answers corresponded to the figures in the textbook (figures which I did memorize).

After the text, I went to the university pharmacy for the Claritin D and hydrogen peroxide for my breath. We get a good deal at the university pharmacy. I felt like crap when I got home. I've barely slept the last two night because my nose is running. I took a Claritin D, and the decongestant kicked in about an hour later. The antihistamine didn't do much, but I didn't expect it to. Nothing can touch the devil pollen. But if my nose is going to be running constantly, I appreciate being able to breath through it. (The D stands for decongestant (pseudophedrine), so maybe I should just take generic pseudophedrine, since the antihistamine doesn't work -- hm.)

At 2, I had a conference call with T (my Lizzie Borden collaborator) and the lawyer who is negotiating our option deal. That went well. We're close to finalizing that, which is good because we're doing a first reading in two weeks.

Then, I had an appointment at the MAP Eligibility Office, to find out if I qualify for a health care program for low income people. The program is funded by the Travis County Hospital District, which I'm thinking is a sort of a pseudo-governmental entity along the lines of a water district or the Tennessee Valley Authority or one of those things. Anyway, I qualify and I'm enrolled! I get $10 doctor visits, $7-10 prescriptions, $25 emergency room visits, and there's also a dental clinic, which is what got me to apply in the first place. I can't wait till Monday morning when I can call and make an appointment to see a dentist!

It was about 85 degrees and dry and sunny today. Kind of surreal.

One Toke Over the Line, Sweet Jesus.

I know how you feel.