Parents just don't understand.

School has been pretty gnarly as of late. A few large projects to finish up (one which I miscalculated the due date of by a week). A couple of tests. One inept instructor. I've been putting in work. So a class cancellation because of snow offers a nice reprieve, even if it cuts into break.

While I was working on one of the aforementioned projects, I happened to be jamming The Smith's Meat Is Murder via iTunes (Morrissey - the unassuming badass - helps me plow through the tedium of documentation). I step away from the computer for a lunch break and let my mom check her email. From the kitchen, I hear the volume of "Barbarism Begins at Home" gradually increase. Christ, is she vibing to this shit? I then flashback about five years to a scenario involving Iron Maiden's "Run to the Hills" and my mom galloping to the tune of "this has a great beat!" I should be mature enough to deal with this overlap in taste. Maybe even pleased that there has been a bridging of the gap. But since this is a woman whose musical sensibilities include Fine Young Cannibals and the Flashdance soundtrack, my insecurities over defining "awesome" are stirred. Mom, I love you. But I can't be guilty by association.

Allow me to hand out a little self-love. Within the period of one night, I dropped knowledge on Facebook concerning the classic nature of both French cinema and Ice Cube. I'll be the first to admit that I'm much better suited to teach a course on the latter. But taken together...who does that? Who else can wax on entities from realms so disparate? Besides Spike Lee, nobody. I'm just too next level. Can't stop. Won't stop.

Been on something of a Converge binge lately. No big surprise (you may recall my gushing proclamation that Jane Doe was the best album of the last decade). I don't know what else to say about them or if I really need to say anything about them, but whenever I hear a C0nverge track I feel the impulse to tap you on the shoulder say, "Do you hear that? That is the sound of annihilation. Beautiful, isn't it?" I had that reaction ten years ago when I first got into them and I still get it today. No less intense. That is timeless power. The closest thing to a spiritual experience I have. It sounds silly, but it's true. "Annihilation" is extinction. And here it's the extinction of my senses. Senses that are prone to registering desire and suffering. "Annihilation" leading to the transcendence of economic materialism that is this modern life. Dudes, I'm talking about a basic Buddhist principle here: nirvana. No, I didn't just lose my mind. It was all just a ploy to post another Converge song.