What ho what ho what ho!

Never fear, old sports; this period of neglect is OVER. I have nine hundred things to blog about and I will never leave you alone again. Well, that is not even a half-truth. I have three things to blog about, one of which I can't remember right now, and I will leave you alone again tomorrow because it's an even day and I'm not a blogging machine after all. But there's still no reason to fear, because we have nothing to fear but fear itself, and mushrooms.

You may recall that we left off with library graffiti. I have a good deal more of this, and the supply is constantly replenishing itself. In honor of today's frigid temperatures, I offer this sentiment from the stairwell in the old stacks:

This is at the bottom of the stairwell. At the top of the stairwell is the first half of the sentence, but I didn't see that part at first because it's poorly lit. So I thought someone had hit upon an all-purpose excuse and decided to share it with her fellow students. Professor nagging you for a paper? But it's the dead of winter, you've been hibernating. Accidentally got addicted to ritalin? But it's the dead of winter, you've got to stay awake somehow. Crashed your car? Of course you did; it's the dead of winter. You can't be blamed for anything in the dead of winter because, come on, it's the dead of winter. Just let it go. We need to concentrate on survival.

Here's the first half of the sentence, and someone's rebuttal:

So the first half of "but it's the dead of winter" is, "It smells like spring." And then someone argues that it smells, instead, like Rochester, which I get the distinct sense is meant as an insult, although I'm not sure how the entire city of Rochester could smell bad. I can personally attest to the stairwell smelling, looking, and feeling like the innards of an interwar passenger liner, but I've never once walked outside in the city and thought to myself, "Boy, smells like Rochester all right, phew!" So I don't know what that's about, but I guess for the situations in which the "but it's the dead of winter" excuse doesn't work, you could use "smells like Rochester." Being peer-pressured into imbibing something foul? No, thank you, smells like Rochester. Rode your bike through a flower bed? Got disoriented due to the smell of Rochester. Late for work? Woke up, smelled Rochester, lost the will to live.

I was going to say that you never know, one of these brilliant minds might cure cancer someday, but then I realized the ones that will cure cancer probably aren't hanging out in the humanities library. Which makes me want to go check out the graffiti in the science library and see what's happening over there . . .