beware!

...the ides of march. whenever the hell that is.

in the spirit of repeating stuff that was probably only funny at the time. and i mean really funny (at the time) i'm going with a few recent gems from my no-nonsense recent gem machine, the girlfriend.

[if i had readers i would apologize for not updating more recently, it has been exam time here. but the only people reading this are those perverts who skim from blog-to-blog at random and vast legions of anonymous people of the future who will have this as required reading in high school. someday blogs will be recognized as an important form of literature and i as its pioneering voice who died well before his time. of course, to them i apologize for the apology, since, as they are no doubt learning in their classes, that kind of thing is poor form.]

on the 9th i mentioned to the girlfriend that it was the "nones of march," explaining the roman calendar and feeling proud of myself for remembering that it was the nones. "beware the nones of march," i joked. no reaction. "you know, like 'beware the ides of march' but with the weirdo day that no one remembers?"

"what are the ides of march?"

"you know, like, caeser?"

"huh?"

"caesar? the guy said to him 'beware the ides of march' and then he got killed? and 'ides of march' because like a metaphor for ambition? did you go to school?"

"public school"

"oh...well it's common knowledge."

"no it isn't"

"go up to anyone and ask them. any one of these tables here." (we were in a food court).

"ok, i'm sure that no one will. it's so obscure."

at this point she gets up, looks around the room for the scraggliest, most ill-kept hippy-type individual she can find and asks him when the ides of march is. oh, he knew it. and he didn't even have to give it any thought. bam! like some big hippy almanac of classics knowledge. or, come to think of it: regular knowledge.

the other beautiful moment came when we somehow got onto the topic of those huge carnival celebrations that they have down in south america. i said something about how i would love to go to one but hadn't tried on my humongous imaginary frog suit recently and didn't know if it would still fit. then something about how badly out of place i would look at one of those carnivals.

"oh, i'm sure if you worked out for a year..."

i cut her off. "a year?! one full year?

"oh yeah, well people down there take it really seriously."

"where did you come up with that? just how out of shape do you think i am?"

so apparently my girlfriend thinks i need a year of exercise before i can be seen in public. incredible really. why she's going out with me with such high physical standards i have no idea. i mean, i'm no fitness champ, but i'm also not the 500-pound man. i think that the body-type most suiting me is "baseball pitcher." i've got the height, the sort of unwieldy arms and legs, and the abdomen with absolutely no chance of seeing a sit-up in the near future. its the classic baseball physique. it would be nice to be actually good at the sport but i'll take what i can get. the important thing is that i am well suited to play the young curt schilling body-double in the upcoming movies.