William Mims

            On Wednesday morning I memorized the second verse of "De velours et de soie" (The Silk and the Velvet) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished posting "The Interview", which is my translation of "No Comment" by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I'll start learning his song, "I'm the Boy". 

            I discovered yesterday that I didn't have my 1990 and 1991 journal documents on the new computer. I'd thought that I'd transferred all the files but I guess not. I found partial versions of both on an old usb drive but I had to wake up my old computer to get the full versions. 

            I weighed 84 kilos before breakfast. I had coffee for the first time in a month. I also had my first protein when I put some horrible coconut yogourt on my bananas and blueberries. It was tolerable with honey. 

            I worked a bit on my essay but I was feeling tired, so I alternated that with going through my lecture notes to harvest the ideas that I voiced during the seminars. I gathered those onto a separate document to give me ideas for what to write on when I do my online test next Tuesday. Before lunch I was able to add a bit to my essay intro: 

            Society is symbolized by Victor Frankenstein, who tries to draw a direct line between external characteristics and internal qualities, thereby imposing restrictions on learning and existence. Existence in society depends upon learning and I will begin by pointing out, with the help of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, that the creature's secret process of achieving literacy is analogous to the difficulties faced by women who strive for education. 

            I weighed 83.9 kilos before lunch. I had avocadoes, tomatoes, mushrooms, and barbecue flavoured sunflower seeds in a salad with balsamic vinaigrette. 

            I tried to take a siesta and I might have dozed off briefly but I was mostly awake for an hour and so I got up half an hour early. When I did it was raining hard outside, then there was thunder and then there was suddenly a snow shower. Early spring always has an identity crisis. The precipitation didn't let up until a little after 16:00, so by then it was too late to get ready and go for a bike ride. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 16:35. 

            I weighed 83.7 kilos at 16:40. 

            I spent more than two hours on my essay and a bit of time on writing down ideas for the test. Here's the rest of a tentative essay outline that I started earlier: 

            I will show further that the connection between women and the creature goes deeper than their common educational limitations. Both are judged by appearance and rejected when there is an absence of beauty. These aesthetics based criteria are imposed by society, which I will show to be personified by Victor Frankenstein. I will then give evidence that these criteria of aesthetic judgement are based on something akin to the pseudo science of physiognomy, which believes that physical features reflect the inner nature. This judgement as applied to Victor's creation leads to him being called a "monster", which ironically begins the process of the creature becoming a monster. I will then illustrate with the help of Michel Foucault that the conclusion of monstrosity is equivalent in society's determination to criminality. When society creates criminals it plants the means of its own destruction and I will show that this is exactly what Victor does to himself by building a monster out of his creature. I will conclude by returning to the comparison between the monster and women, ending with a warning from Mary Wollstonecraft that society is in danger of making monsters of women by excluding them and is therefore sewing the seeds of its own destruction. 

            I steamed the rest of the broccoli and had it in a salad with avocadoes, cucumber, scallions, mushrooms, tomatoes, sunflower seeds, and balsamic vinaigrette. I ate while watching season 6, episode 13 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            This story is a continuation of the previous episode. Granny still believes the Civil War re-enactment is a real resurgence of the war between the states. She, Jethro and Elly go to the Culpepper plantation to help the Confederates fight off the Union soldiers that have the place surrounded. The actor who is supposed to play General Grant is hungover and on top of that he doesn't know how to ride a horse to lead the charge. He keeps falling off his horse and then Granny shoots him off. He doesn't seem hurt and Granny concludes that she must have shot Grant in his liver which has been fortified by 150 years of drinking. He gets up and pulls out his pistol to charge for the plantation house. Granny shoots him in the back with a shotgun barrel full of Elly May's rock hard lady finger cookies. She comes and administers first aid to him by giving him some moonshine. They get drunk together and become the best of friends. 

            Grant was played by William Mims, who co-starred in The Day Mars Invaded Earth. He performed on stage and had supporting roles in movies and guest appearances on several TV shows. He founded the Hollywood Hackers Celebrity Golf Club. 

            For the twenty-sixth night in a row I found no bedbugs.