Today was an important day in the story of Brad Bolman. Facing a mounting crisis of clean-clothiness, which operates in a closed but mounting dialectical struggle between lazy ineptitude and horrendous stench, I broke down and did laundry for the first time at college.
I should note, before continuing, that I have quite a stupendous collection of t-shirts, dating back to an early-life obsession with collecting, so I haven’t actually been wearing dirty clothes for a month. Do people use the word stupendous ever?
A lot of people will tell you that college teaches you self-sufficiency. They’re right in a sense: you’ll learn that sometimes holding back your own hair and vomiting into urine-stained men’s toilets is the only close-to-positive choice you have. But in most ways, the Self-Sufficiency Thesis is the wrong explanation. What I really learned tonight is not some “Now I’m a big old adult who can wash his own clothes”-type garbage that my mom is always using as an excuse for me to do tasks around the house that I’ve never once cared about. (True story: She once told me that after I successfully watered her plants while she was gone, she could feel confident I could live on my own. PLANTS?) “I’m an adult, I can do my own laundry!” said a friend of mine. But that’s crazy: if your status as “adult” can be confirmed by this singular ability, that gives pedophiles a whole new avenue I’m not comfortable with them having. After all: she may be 13, but she knew how to do laundry. She can do laundry and the dishes, happy now, society? I didn’t think so. No, instead I’ve experienced the profound truth that out of desperation, humans will be willing to do almost anything, even when it runs against the dominant normal operating procedures. Isn’t this also really the lesson of Oldboy? A man gouges out his own eyes out of desperation to escape the reality of a terrifying truth. I haven’t done that yet, but since I’ve always been fond of the idea of a six-word novel, here’s a six-word story to explain my prior situation:
Wearing shoes. Lacking socks. Death decay.
When you have so much dirty clothing that one entire large load of laundry can be filled only with the gradient of dark blue-to-black — none of which include your shirts — you have to admit you have a problem. Or a petite issue. To call something a petite issue really removes nearly all of the significance. “Hello, Mr. President, we have a petite issue in Afghanistan.” Probably because it’s nearly impossible to take the French seriously. Honestly, they gave us Deconstruction and the Statue of Liberty. You can have them back, France. We gave you the effing Marshall Plan.
I always wanted an epithet. I guess “Smelly” has been at least momentarily taken off the docket for possibilities.
I can’t totally figure out which Harry Potter house I would be in, but these days I’m really leaning towards Hufflepuff. Just to say I did it before it was coo– ahaha I get myself every time!
Halloween is coming up. You know how I know? Because nearly every conversation I’ve had over the last week has involved at least one person lamenting that they’re having trouble finding a costume. Others, fortunately, seem to be having no problem: “I’m going to be ‘Drunk’ for Halloween.” Frankness, honesty. Let’s stop kidding ourselves though, Halloween isn’t about costumes: it’s about the same thing that every other holiday is at college. That thing? Boozing. It’s also about eating rotten-colored shit with sugars that have never heard of “organic,” scar[r]ing the shit out of our vulnerable roommates, and dressing like skanks (Men included). It’s fun either way, but the pressure to repetitively explain why you aren’t wearing odd clothes — which is also, ironically, the same explanation you have had but never used to explain why you didn’t join the drama club in Middle School: that you have frankly never found enjoyment in weirdly fitted shirts and face paint — can get a wee bit frustrating. It’s not that I judge other people for dressing up. Only a little. “SLUTTY MERMAID!” Ok, sometimes quite a lot. It’s just that some of us handle the holidays differently.
Speaking of which, here are some costume ideas for those having trouble (Nautically themed for no reason apparent to me). No explanations or justifications here, take the list as you will:
1. Perturbed Seahorse
2. Moby’s Dick
3. 1000 Leagues Above 1000 Leagues Under the Sea
4. Choral Reef(er)
5. Hyper-Marine
6. AcidVacation (Ironically, also the way you’d probably spell “Acidification” on an Acid Vacation)
Went to brain break tonight. Ate another stale, un-toasted bagel. Seriously, cafeteria, I want to level with you. We leave Brain Break. More specifically, I love Brain Break. Why? I honestly don’t have a good reason. But if you could just let me crisp up this bagel to a golden brown before I smear on that fatty cream cheese, I’d be yours.
Shamelessly lifted from my Facebook for those of you who are not actually my friends there… maybe you exist? I keep getting told you do:
A tourist turned his back to my building and coyly dropped a piece of trash. He thought he got away with it. Then he noticed my stare and knew his trick was up. He picked up his trash and went on his way. Environment? This one’s for you.
Last night, following a day where I accidentally slept through an appointment and woke up around 2pm, I decided I would turn over a new leaf on my life and my sleep schedule: waking up early, getting fuller nights of sleep. So I turned to the internet, where I learned that a healthy amount of fresh air at night can drastically improve the quality of your sleep. So I opened my window. Unfortunately, I forgot that the Harvard Grounds Crew would be assembling planks of birch wood directly outside my window from 6am to 10am. This means, for those slow readers out there, that I was awake for those hours, and when I finally got back to sleep, I would continue doing that through my first alarm and almost miss a class.
I should know better. Why? Because those cave trolls do this ALL THE TIME. There is not a week that goes by where the Harvard Grounds Crew isn’t assembling some peculiar structure of wood or metal outside my window. I’m quite convinced that most of these projects are utterly unnecessary, but continue getting green-lit purely to make my life a living hell. “Oh yeah, you want to build a toddlers play park? Sure, sure, you can have a grant, but you gotta do it outside of Thayer, between the Church and the handicapped ramp.” “No, no reason really.”
Tonight, I’ll be sleeping with my windows closed.
The movie 13 Assassins is super notch. Sometimes I arbitrarily decide to not do my work and instead indulge in cultural — culturedulgence. Give it a whirl. It makes conversations like these a little awkward though:
Friend: God, I hate being up this late.
Me: Why are you up this late?
Friend: Doing orgo work.
Me: (thinking: I’m watching a violent samurai film) Oh, yeah. Sucks.
My name’s Brad, I’m a little tired, confused by Republican Presidential candidates, and reading some books I probably don’t understand. Bye.
