So my computer is dead.
It's on its way to Texas to get fixed.
...it's not really dead, just in need of some hardware repair - the screen kept freaking out.
So here we are.
Computers are going to need to be borrowed, so...
...expect less frequent checks and updates and fun stuff like that.

Fresh asparagus, carrots, red peppers and yellow squash, all sauteed in butter. Penne pasta with cheesy pesto sauce. Tofu cubes sauteed in rosemary. Spinach and grape tomatoes with raspberry dressing.

Food is a heaven unto itself.

"Let's pretend we don't exist."
Life is crazy. There's beauty all over the place here. Today I saw the exhibit of VOOM Portraits by Robert Wilson. He is a genius/god/guru and deserves to be worshipped for pulling hundreds and hundreds of people into the art museum today. I can't wait until word gets out.

"Let's pretend we're in Antarctica."
It's cold-ish, and the ground is slushy here in the city. I walked a lot today, over the pedestrian brige - which spans the mostly-frozen river - to the museum, to the noodle place downtown, that kind of thing. I felt dizzy, I felt nauseous (my roommate is sick)... but the walking was good. And once I saw VOOM... I just felt better. But 'tis still chilly, enough to warrant a blanket or snuggling or something of that nature.

"Let's have bizarre celebrations."
My mother and sister are spending the night. They watched Pride and Prejudice in my room while my roommate and I went upstairs to a boy's room (complete with actual TV) that we frequent. We watched Boondock Saints; for some reason, Jess (roomie) and I both felt like watching people get the shit kicked out of them, and Shawn (boy) probably just wanted to see some boobies [his term, not mine]. Shawn's roommate, Dan, probably just likes the company. He seems like a lonely person. But who knows.

"It seems too lovely to be true..."
Fighting, now. Always fighting. I love him; truly, I do. But constantly. He suggests I do things, or don't do things, it doesn't matter. If I want - or need - to do the opposite, I will. I gotta do what I gotta do. His cautions and urgings as to what I should do displease me; I am one headstrong bitch. So I tell him. And he apologises.
The second time he does it, I tell him. And he apologises.
The third time...
The fourth...
By now, I don't want his apologies. I want the nudging, the trying to control (no matter how well-meaning) to stop. I'm not doing anything destructive. Most people would agree that Facebook deactivation is a positive thing to do in order to achieve higher grades; I'm not drinking or smoking or having sex or even snogging. I'm being faithful to him, which is more than can be said of any of his predecessors.
And I do love him.
I have serious issues with trust. Serious, serious issues. And yet I trust him enough to be completely open with him. And the result of that trust is something uncannily beautiful.
He is too good for me. I fear the day he realises this; on that day, he will either leave me or lie to me. Either way, my heart will break.
Even now, I'm waiting for his phone call.

I'm creating an alter-ego, one with no connection to me. Yay the internet. I can be Supergirl if I want.

You don't know how it feels
How the flush on my cheeks
burns inside me, too,
Every time you pass me in the street.

Each time I see you, I think
of your dick, unwelcome within me
waiting until I slept to violate
No permission
You didn't respect me enough to ask

At first, I tried to convince myself
it was only a dream
but your seed on my skin
Told a sadder story

In class, you wouldn't meet my eye
Could you not stand the pain there?
The disbelief?
That says to me, you knew what you did
was Wrong.

So now
Every time I see you,
I want to pull those stupid buds out of your ears
And scream in your face what a bastard you are
I want to tell them all what you did to me
And how it still burns inside
How scared alone violated angry hateful I was,
and still am
But I don't.

A Parody: "The Ballad of Jimmy Pop" (Based on "The Ballad of Chasey Lain" by the Bloodhound Gang)

Dear Jimmy Pop
You write disgusting slop
And it turns me on
I just wanted to ask
Would you eat my ass?
I want you Jimmy, come on.

I’ve had a lotta dick
Had a lotta dick
Now I’m down on all fours
Down on all fours
I’ve had a lotta dick Jimmy
Now I want yours

Dear Jimmy Pop
This silence needs to stop
Ya never wrote me back
How could I let you eat
My ass when ya treat
Horny college girls like that?

I’ve had a lotta dick
Had a lotta dick
Now I’m down on all fours
Down on all fours
I’ve had a lotta dick Jimmy
Now I want yours

Dear Jimmy Pop
I’m writing in a strop
This verse is my last
I have no vibrator
College has made me too poor
You better eat my ass.

I’ve had a lotta dick
Had a lotta dick
Now I’m down on all fours
Down on all fours
I’ve had a lotta dick Jimmy
Now I want yours

P.S. Mom and Dad this is Jimmy
Jimmy this is my mom and dad
Now show 'em them testes
Now show 'em them testes
P.S. Mom and Dad this is Jimmy
Jimmy this is my mom and dad
Now show 'em them testes
Now show 'em them testes

Would ya fuck me for smack?
:D

Notes.

Edward Norton has really beautiful nails in Fight Club.
It's storming.
College is soon.

Posting this from Pennsylvania.

This week has been one of extensive travels. First to a suburb of Chicago, then overnight, then taking the train to Chicago, walking to the Art Institute.

Monday: Drove to Chicago with Mom and Ellen. Fairly quiet; Ellen sleeps in the car. Get to my aunt and uncle's house in the burbs; go to the movies with my cousin and two of his friends, then sleep.

Tuesday: Woke up early to catch the Metra train. Uneventful trip to Union Station; walked a few blocks to the Art Institute. Spent four hours there (could have spent days). Basked in masterpieces; cried as I stood in front of Jackson Pollock's Greyed Rainbow, my all-time favourite painting... and I saw it, in the "flesh" (I suppose one should say canvas, or something). Grabbed subs from Jimmy John's and hopped the train back to my uncle's suburb. Roared over to a suburb of Cleveland, where another uncle lives; met some friends of relatives, stayed the night.

Wednesday to be posted later; time to leave the coffee shop and go visit some long-lost relatives. Ciao for now!

"Boom, boom! You broke it down, you broke it down, now build it up, build it up, build it up!"

I wish I had dreams of David Bowie.

I'm hungry.

I hunger.

I am.

Hunger.

Hungary?

Nope.

Sugary.

That's better.

Yeah, changed the screen name.
It needed it.
I needed it.

I'm bored.
Cassi and Paul are out of town.
I should be packing, or cleaning, or generally getting organised.
I can't.

So I sit here.
And type.
And watch Flight of the Conchords on YouTube.
I check my e-mail constantly - all five.
Nothing, nada, zilch...
Except the occasional "Adam Limkemann has poked you on Facebook".

I type LOL when I'm definitely not laughing out loud.
I type smileys when I'm not smiling.
The only realities are the ellipses.

...

I'm set away on MSN.
I'm not away.

I'm only blocking one person on MSN.
I'm only blocking that person because I don't want them to be able to re-add me.

"I drank your poison 'cause you told me it was wine. Shame on you if you fool me once; shame on me if you fool me twice. What good am I to you if I can't be broken?" -- P!nk

...that's why that person is blocked.

There are sixty-one American dollars in my wallet. Dunno where they came from.

"She's so hot... I wanna tell her she's hot, but she'll think I'm sexist... she's so hot, she's making me sexist!" - FOTC

Well... I'm gonna... collapse. And maybe call 'im.

"You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice sonmebody else's life. They're plenty loud and they talk all the time. You can find them in churches and schools and newspapers and legislatures and congress. That's their business. They sound wonderful. Death before dishonor. This ground sanctified by blood. These men who died so gloriously. They shall not have died in vain. Our noble dead.

Hmmmm.

But what do the dead say?

Did anybody ever come back from the dead any single one of the millions who got killed did any one of them ever come back and say by god I'm glad I'm dead because death is always better than dishonor? Did they say I'm glad I died to make the world safe for democracy? Did they say I like death better than losing liberty? Did any of them ever say it's good to think I got my guts blown out for the honor of my country? Did any of them ever say look at me I'm dead but I died for decency and that's better than being alive? Did any of them ever say here I am I've been rotting for two years in a foreign grave but it's wonderful to die for your native land? Did any of them say hurray I died for womanhood and I'm happy see how I sing even though my mouth is choked with worms?

Nobody but the dead know whather all these things people talk about are worth dying for or not. And the dead can't talk. So the words about noble deaths and sacred blood and honor and such are all put into dead lips by grave robbers and fakes who have no right to speak for the dead. If a man says death before dishonor he is either a fool or a liar because he doesn't know what death is. He isn't able to judge. He only knows about living. He doesn't know anything about dying. If he is a fool and believes in death before dishonor let him go ahead and die. But all the little guys who are too busy to fight should be left alone. And al the guys who say death before dishonor is pure bull the important thing is life before death they should be left alone too.. Because the guys whos ay life isn't worth living without some principle so important you're willing to die for it they're all nuts. And the guys who say you'll see there'll come a time you can't escape you're going to have to fight and die because it'll mean your very life why they are also nuts. They are talking like fools. They are saying that two and two make nothing. They are saying that a man will have to die in order to protect his life. If you agree to fight you agree to die. Now if you die to protect your life you aren't alive anyhow so how is there any sense in a thing like that? A man doesn't say I will starve myself to death to keep from starving. He doesn't say I will spend all my money in order to save my money. He doesn't say I will burn my house down in order to keep it from burning. Why then should he be willing to die for the privilege of living? There ought to be at least as much common sense about living and dying as there is about going to the grocery store and buying a loaf of bread."

 -- Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, pp. 114-116

"He thought here you are Joe Bonham lying like a side of beef all the rest of your life and for what? Somebody tapped you on the shoulder and said come along son we're going to war. So you went. But why? In any other deal even like buying a car or running an errand you had the right to say what's there in it for me? Otherwise you'd be buying bad cars for too much money or running errands for fools and starving to death. It was a kind of duty you owed yourself that when anybody said come on son do this or do that you should stand up and say look mister why should I do this for who am I doing it and what am I going to get out of it in the end? But when a guy comes along and says here come with me and risk your life and maybe die or be crippled why then you've got no rights. You haven't even the right to say yes or no or I'll think it over. There are plenty of laws to protact guys' money even in war time but there's nothing on the books says a man's life's his own.

Of course a lot of guys were ashamed. Somebody said let's go out and fight for liberty and so they went and got killed without ever once thinking about liberty. And what kind of liberty were they fighting for anyway? How much liberty and whose idea of liberty? Were they fighting for the liberty of eating free ice cream cones all their lives or for the liberty of robbing anybody they pleased whenever they wanted to or what? You tell a man he can't rob an you take away some of his liberty. You've got to. What the hell does liberty mean anyhow? It' sjust a word like house or table or any other word. Only it's a special kind of word. A guy says house and he can point to a house and prove it. But a guy says come on let's fight for liberty and he can't show you liberty. He can't prove the thing he's talking about so how in the hell can he be telling you to fight for it?

No sir anybody who went out and got into the front line trenches to fight for liberty was a goddam fool and the guy who got him there was a liar. Next time anybody came gabbling to him about liberty - what did he mean next time? There wasn't going to be any next time for him. But the hell with that. If there could be a next time and somebody said let's fight for liberty he would say mister my life is important. I'm not a fool and when I swap my life for liberty I've got to know in advance what liberty is and whose idea of liberty we're talking about and just how much of that liberty we're going to have. And what's more mister are you as much interested in this liberty as you want me to be? And maybe too much liberty will be as bad as too little liberty and I think you're a goodam fourflusher talking through your hat and I've already decided that I like the liberty I've got right here the liberty to walk and see and hear and think and eat and sleep with my girl. I think I like that liberty better than fighting for a lot of things we won't get and ending up without any liberty at all. Ending up dead and rotting before my life is even begun good or ending up like a side of beef. Thank you mister. You fight for liberty. Me I don't care for some.

Hell's fire guys had always been fighting for liberty. America fought a war for liberty in 1776. Lots of guys died. And in the end does America have any more liberty than Canada or Ausralia who didn't fight at all? Maybe so I'm not arguing I'm just asking. Can you look at a guy and say he's an American who fought for his liberty and anybody can see he's a very different guy from a Canadian who didn't? No by got you can't and that's that. So maybe a lot of guys with wives and kids died in 1776 when they didn't need to die at all. They're dead now anyway. Sure but that doesn't do any good. A guy can tink of being dead a hundred years from now and he doesn't mind it. But to think of being dead tomorrow morning and to be dead forever to be nothing but dust and stink in the earth is that liberty?

They were always fighting for something the bastards and if anyone dared say the hell with fighting it's all the sam each war is like the other and nobody gets any good out of it why they hollered coward. If they weren't fighting for liberty they were fighting for independence or democracy or freedom or decency or honor or their native land or something else that didn't mean anything. That was was to make the world safe for democrecy for the little countries for everybody. If the was was over now then the world must be all safe for democracy. Was it? And what kind of democracy? And how much? And whose?

Then there was this freedom all the little guys were always getting killed for. Was it freedom from another country? Freedom from work or disease or death? Freedom from your mother-in-law? Please mister give sus a bill of sale on this freedom before we go out and get killed. Give us a bill of sale drawn up plainly so we know in advance what we're getting killed for and give us also a first mortgage on something as security so we can be sure after we've won your war that we've got the same kind of freedom we bargained for.

And take decency. Everybody said America was fighting a war for the triumph of decency. But whose idea of decency? And decency for who? Speak up and tell us what decency is. Tell us how much better a decent dead man feels than an indecent live one. Make a comparison there in facts like houses and tables. Make it in words we can understand. And don't talk about honor. The honor of a Chinese or an Englishman or an African negro or an American or a Mexican? Please all you guys who ant to fight to preserve our honor let us know what the hell honor is. Is it American honor for the whole world we're fighting for? Maybe the world doesn't like it. Maybe the South Sea Islanders like their honor better.

For Christ sake give us things to fight for we can see and feel and pin down and understand. No more highfalutin words that mean nothing like native land. Motherland fatherland homeland native land. It's all the same. What the hell good to you is your native land after you're dead? If you get killed fighting for your native land you've bought a pig in a poke. You've paid for something you'll never collect."

-- Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, pp. 109-113

"The trouble with you is that you think you're too good for all the conventions of society. You probably think you're too good for me too, just because I arrived at puberty late. Well, do you know what you are? You're a frustrated, unhappy, disillusioned, undisciplined, maladjusted young man!" Major Sanderson's disposition seemed to mellow as he reeled off the uncomplimentary adjectives.

"Yes, sir," Yossarian agreed carefully. "I guess you're right."

"Of course I'm right. You're immature. You've been unable to adjust to the idea of war."

"Yes, sir."

"You have a morbit aversion to dying. You probably resent the fact that you're at war and might get your head blown off any second."

"I more than resent it, sir. I'm absolutely incensed."

"You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don't lkike bigots, bullies, snobs or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate."

"Consciously, sir, consciously," Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. "I hate them consciously."

"You're antagonistic to the idea of being robbed, exploited, degraded, humiliated, or decieved. Misery depresses you. Ignorance deresses you. Persecution depresses you. Violence depresses you. Slums depress you. Greed depresses you. Crime depresses you. Corruption depresses you. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if you're a manic-depressive!"

"Yes, sir. Perhaps I am."

"Don't try to deny it."

"I'm not denying it, sir," said Yossarian, pleased with te miraculous rapport that finally existed between them. "I agree with all you've said."

"Then you admit you're crazy, do you?"

"Crazy?" Yossarian was shocked. "What are you talking about? Why am I crazy? You're the one who's crazy!"

Major Sanderson turned red with indignation again and crashed both fists down upon his thighs. "Calling me crazy," he shouted in a sputtering rage, "is a typically sadistic and vindictive paranoiac reaction! You really are crazy!"

-- p. 312-313, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

"So many things were testing his faith. There was the Bible, of course, but the Bible was a book, and so were Bleak House, Treasure Island, Ethan Frome and The Last of the Mohicans. Did it indeed seem probable...that the answers to the riddles of creation would be supplied by people too ignorant to understand the mechanics of rainfall? Had Almighty God, in all His infinite wisdom, really been afraid that men six thousand years ago would succeed in building a tower to heaven? Where the devil was heaven? Was it up? Down? There was no up or down in a finite but expanding universe in which even the vast, burning, dazzling, majestic sun was in a state of progressive decay that would eventually destroy the earth too. There were no miracles; prayers went unanswered, and misfortune tramped with equal brutality on the virtuous and the corrupt..."

--p. 295, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

"Well, frankly, I don't know how long America is going to last," he proceeded dauntlessly. "I suppose we can't last forever if the world itself is going to be destroyed someday. But I do know that we're going to survive and triumph for a long, long time."

"For how long?" mocked the profane old man with a gleam of malicious elation. "Not even as long as the frog?"

"Much longer than you or me," Nately blurted out lamely.

"Oh, is that all! That won't be very much longer then, considering that you're so gullible and brave and that I am already such an old, old man."

"How old are you?" Nately asked, growing intrigued and charmed with the old man in spite of himself.

"A hundred and seven." The old man chuckled heartily at Nately's look of chagrin. "I see you don't believe that either."

"I don't believe anything you tell me," Nately replied, with a bashful mitigating smile. "The only thing I do believe is that America is going to win the war."

"You put so much stock into winning wars," the grubby iniquitous old man scoffed. "The real trick lies in losing wars, in knowing which wars can be lost. Itwaly has been losing wars for centuries, and just see how splendidly we've done nonetheless. France wins wars and is in a continual state of crisis. Germany loses and prospers. Look at our own recent history. Italy won a war with Ethiopia and promptly stumbled into serious trouble. Victory gave us such insane delusions of grandeur that we helped start a world war we hadn't a chance of winning. But now that we are losing again, everything has taken a turn for the better, and we will certainly come out on top again if we succeed in being defeated."

Nately gaped at him in undisguised befuddlement. "Now I really don't understand what you're saying. You talk like a madman."

"But I live like a sane one. I was a fascist when Mussolini was on top, and I'm an anti-fascist now that he has been deposed. I was fanatically pro-German when the Germans were here to protect us against the Americans, and now that the Americans are here to protect us against the Germans I am fanatically pro-American. I can assure you, my outraged young friend" - the old man's knowing, disdainful eyes shone even more effervescently as Nately's stuttering dismay increased - "that you and your country will have no more loyal partisan in Italy than me - but only as long as you remain in Italy."

"But," Nately cried out in disbelief, "you're a turncoat! A time-server! A shameful, unscrupulous opportunist!"

"I am a hundred and seven years old," the old man reminded him suavely.

"Don't you have any principles?"

"Of course not."

-- pp. 254-256, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

“Appleby was a fair-haired boy from Iowa who believed in God, Motherhood, and the American Way of Life, without ever thinking about any of them...” (27)

“...live forever or die trying.” (38)

“Do you know how long a year takes when it’s going away?” Dunbar repeated to Clevinger. “This long.” He snapped his fingers. “A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you’re an old man.”
“Old?” asked Clevinger with surprise. “What are you talking about?”
“Old.”
“I’m not old.”
“You’re inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age? A half a minute before that you were stepping into high school, and an unhooked brassiere was as close as you ever hoped to get to Paradise. Only a fifth of a second before that you were a small kid with a ten-week summer vacation that lasted a hundred thousand years and still ended too soon. Zip! They go rocketing by so fast. How the hell else are you ever going to slow time down?” Dunbar was almost angry when he finished.
“Well, maybe it’s true,” Clevinger conceded unwillingly in a subdued tone. “Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it’s to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?”
“I do,” Dunbar told him.
“Why?” Clevinger asked.
“What else is there?” (48)

“Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they [pennants and medals] signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.” (81)

“Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.” (93)

“Neighbors sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise.” (93)

“Because he needed a friend so desperately, he never found one.” (95)

“He was polite to his elders, who disliked him. Whatever his elders told him to do, he did. They told him to look before he leaped, and he always looked before he leaped. They told him never to put off until the next day what he could do the day before, and he never did. He was told to honor his father and his mother, and he honored his father and his mother. He was told that he should not kill, and he did not kill, until he got into the Army. Then he was told to kill, and he killed. He turned the other cheek on every occasion and always did unto others exactly as he would have had others do unto him. When he gave to charity, his left hand never knew what his right hand was doing. He never once took the name of the Lord his God in vain, committed adultery or coveted his neighbor’s ass. In fact, he loved his neighbor and never even bore false witness against him. Major Major’s elders disliked him because he was such a flagrant nonconformist.” (95)

“Since he had nothing better to do well in, he did well in school. At the state university he took his studies so seriously that he was suspected by the homosexuals of being a Communists and suspected by the Communists of being a homosexual.” (95)

“He was not really surprised that it [telling lies despite being a chaplain] was good, for he had observed that people who did lie were, on the whole, more resourceful and ambitious and successful than people who did not lie.” (107)

“’I used to get a big kick out of saving people’s lives. Now I wonder what the hell’s the point, since they all have to die anyway.’” (119)

“’That crazy bastard may be the only sane one left.’” (120)

“’The important thing is to keep them pledging,’ he explained to his cohorts. ‘It doesn’t matter whether they mean it or not. That’s why they make little kids pledge allegiance even before they know what ‘pledge’ and ‘allegiance’ mean.’” (123)

“People bled to death like gentlemen in an operating room or expired without comment in an oxygen tent. There was none of that tricky now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t business so much in vogue outside the hospital, none of that now-I-am-and-now-I-ain’t. There were no famines or floods. Children didn’t suffocate in cradles or iceboxes or fall under trucks. No one was beaten to death. People didn’t stick their heads into ovens with the gas on, jump in front of subway trains or come plummeting like dead weights out of hotel windows with a whoosh!, accelerating at the rate of thirty-two feet per second to land with a hideous plop! on a sidewalk and die disgustingly there in public like an alpaca sack full of hairy strawberry ice cream, bleeding, pink toes awry.” (176)

“He [Yossarian] could start screaming inside a hospital and people would at least come running to try to help; outside the hospital they would throw him in prison if he ever started screaming about all the things he felt everyone ought to start screaming about, or they would put him in the hospital.” (183)

“Yossarian also worried about Ewing’s tumor and melanoma. Catastrophes were lurking everywhere, too numerous to count. When he contemplated the many diseases and potential accidents threatening him, he was positively astounded that he had managed to survive in good health for as long as he had. It was miraculous. Each day he faced was another dangerous mission against mortality. And he had been surviving them for twenty-eight years.” (185)

“Be thankful you’re healthy.”
“Be bitter you’re not going to stay that way.”
“Be glad you’re even alive.”
“Be furious you’re going to die.”
“Things could be much worse,” she cried.
“They could be one hell of a lot better,” he answered heatedly.
(189)

“’And don’t tell me God works in mysterious ways,’ Yossarian continued, hurtling on over her objection. ‘There’s nothing so mysterious about it. He’s not working at all. He’s playing. Or else He’s forgotten all about us. That’s the kind of God you people talk about - a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?’” (189)

“’When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering. It’s obvious He never met a payroll. Why, no self-respecting businessman would hire a bungler like Him even as a shipping clerk!’” (189)

“’Of course you’re dying. We’re all dying. Where the devil else do you think you’re heading?’” (192)

“There are no atheists in my outfit! Atheism is against the law, isn’t it?”
“No, sir.”
“It isn’t?” The colonel was surprised. “Then it’s un-American, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure, sir,” answered the chaplain.
“Well, I am!” the colonel declared. “I’m not going to disrupt our religious services just to accommodate a bunch of lousy atheists. They’re getting no special privileges from me. They can stay right where they are and pray with the rest of us.”
(203-204)

“I just assumed you would want the enlisted men to be present, since they would be going along on the same mission.”
“Well, I don’t. They’ve got a God and a chaplain of their own, haven’t they?”
“No, sir.”
“What are you talking about? You mean they pray to the same God we do?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And he listens?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
(204)

“’The one I picked out for you was married for a short time to an elderly schoolteacher who slept with her only on Sundays, so she’s really almost as good as new.’” (244)

“America,” he said, “will lose the war. And Italy will win it.”
“America is the strongest and most prosperous nation on earth,” Nately informed him with lofty fervor and dignity. “And the American fighting man is second to none.”
“Exactly,” agreed the old man pleasantly, with a hint of taunting amusement. “Italy, on the other hand, is one of the least prosperous nations on earth. And the Italian fighting man is probably second to all. And that’s exactly why my country is doing so well in this war while your country is doing so poorly.”
Nately guffawed with surprise, then blushed apologetically for his impoliteness. “I’m sorry I laughed at you,” he said sincerely, and he continued in a tone of respectful condescension. “But Italy was occupied by the Germans and is now being occupied by us. You don’t call that doing very well, do you?”
“But of course I do,” exclaimed the old man cheerfully. “That Germans are being driven out, and we are still here. In a few years you will be gone, too, and we will still be here. You see, Italy is really a very poor and weak country, and that’s what makes us so strong. Italian soldiers are not dying any more. But American and German soldiers are. I call that doing extremely well. Yes, I am quite certain that Italy will survive this war and still be in existence long after your own country has been destroyed.”
Nately could scarcely believe his ears. He had never heard such shocking blasphemies before, and he wondered with instinctive logic why G-men did not appear to lock the traitorous old man up. “America is not going to be destroyed!” he shouted passionately.
“Never?” prodded the old man softly.
“Well...” Nately faltered.
The old man laughed indulgently, holding in check a deeper, more explosive delight. His goading remained gentle. “Rome was destroyed, Greece was destroyed, Persia was destroyed, Spain was destroyed. All great countries are destroyed. Why not yours? How much longer do you really think your own country will last? Forever? Keep in mind that the earth itself is destined to be destroyed by the sun in twenty-five million years or so.”
Nately squirmed uncomfortably. “Well, forever is a long time, I guess.”
“A million years?” persisted the jeering old man with keen, sadistic zest. “A half million? The frog is almost five hundred million years old. Could you really say with much certainty that America, with all its strength and prosperity, with its fighting man that is second to none, and with its standard of living that is the highest in the world, will last as long as... the frog?”
(253)

How may I be of assistance?
(P.S. James, you're rather attractive.)

Hannah Kane
Compare: Book and Movie
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Individualized Reading
Term 4, Block 1

a) Classify the book and movie.
Thriller, fiction
b) When/where was the film made?
1971

Seventeen.
What does that mean to me?
R-rated movies in theaters... FINALLY.
No more sixteen-year-old driving curfew. Stupid graduated driver licensing.

But really...

Why do I care?
I can drive myself to Perkins at 3 a.m.
Why?
To do it, I guess.
So seventeen... it's... just... because it's inevitable.