I caught Dolly daintily dabbing her paw in her water bowl and licking her paw today. I think she just likes drinking without sticking her head in something.

On Saturday we ended up at the Highlander Pub, apparently the only place in the city to get good haggis, as a belated birthday celebration for Aaron. We convinced the manager, a black man in a kilt with a brow bar, to give us three tables. We took part in the homeland toast, in which the waitresses hand out free shots of scotch every day at nine and everyone drinks to the ring of a bell.

Trolley, Nick, and Aaron participated in some speed drinking competitions. None of us are heavy drinkers; rather, we’re on the heavy side of casual drinkers, so being able to down a mug as quickly as this was worthy of a OMGDIDYOUSEETHATWHERESMYPROPS?!?

I ended up losing all my matches yesterday. Out of 18 games, I won three. Two matches should have been easy wins, and one was tied at 2 games, 12 points. I get too nervous when I’m playing new people. I’m not quite used to the entire idea of competing, especially for rank, especially with other people depending on me. My teammates told me that it was noticeably affecting my performance because it seemed as if my shoulders were stiff and I was trying too hard. I’ll be accustomed to everything eventually.

I have another five hour league meet today. My team is matched up against two other teams of intermediate players. When I first played in the league at the beginning of the year I had no hope of beating these people, but now I’m not sure. I think that if I can concentrate well enough, and play smart enough, I’ll have a good chance. The problem is that being nervous always puts me at a disadvantage; I usually only win when I’m calm and focused. I’ve only played two of the seven players, so there’ll definitely be some styles that I’m not used to, and that’s what scares me. Either way, it’ll be good experience.

There was this one time I was on the phone with John, when I walked through the basement hallway on Daly, past Jonathan’s drum kit, and paused at the frame of his door.

“You’re so megalomaniACal”, I told him.

“No, no, Jeff, it’s megalomaNIacal”, he curtly responded.

And I knew. And John knew. And I knew that John knew that I had simply thrown more fuel on the fire, I had somehow added to his limitless ego. I could see the smirk on his face through the phone, as if Anderson himself was there with one of his close ups in my brain.

When approaching anything new, as a human, aside from bias, there is always the danger of relating even the furthest idea to the self. Everything is subject to interpretation, of course, and I’ve always strongly believed in the importance of interpretation. However, when interpretation stretches too far, the entire learning process can become perverted, an understanding based on nothing.

An example: after the Nietzsche’s death, his sister secured the rights to his publications. She later married a leader of the german anti-Semitic movement, and made distorted publications of his works. The Nazi’s welcomed his ideas, eventually building a monument for him. Yet Nietzsche himself wrote about his strong opposition to racism, and his contrast with the German Nationalistic movement.

And such is how we, as humans, see ourselves in almost everything. I admit that at times I’m guilty of such a thing myself, when I see my life in the characters of movies, when I read my stories in other peoples books. So I start Thus Spoke Zarathustra with trepidation, with the hopeful awareness that I will be able to be open-minded in what I learn.

It’s ironic that Nietzsche had paresis when he wrote his book, and was most likely suffering from delusions of grandeur at the time, although how much it actually affected him is debatable.

Perhaps the best that one can do is to keep a work in mind as inspiration, and not as an influence.