Category Archives: College Survival Guide

Published: August 8, 2010

Ultimate Chalupa

So I’m driving by Taco Bell the other day, and the sign outside says, “Ultimate Chalupa.”

Naturally, I’m intrigued. Not just any old chalupa, not even a Really Good Chalupa. They’re selling the Ultimate Chalupa. The end-all be-all of chalupas. How can I pass up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

So I lane-change across three lanes of traffic and hurry inside. “Do you still have the Ultimate Chalupa?” I ask.

The guy behind the counter gives me a blank look and nods.

I’m so relieved. “Thank god. I’ll take it.”

So I pay my two bucks and change, and step to the side, waiting to them to complete whatever terrifying alchemy is required to produce the Ultimate Chalupa. It takes almost two minutes, so I’m guessing something pretty complex is going on back there.

And all the while I’m thinking: Wow. Ultimate Chalupa. This thing is going to be awesome. It’s going to be the Chalupa equivalent of Optimus Prime.

But just as they’re finishing, someone else steps up to the register behind me. She orders the Ultimate Chalupa too. I felt a little guilty, but also a little smug as I wait for the guy behind the register to explain to her that they’d already sold it.

But get this. He nods and rings up her order! I look over at him, pissed, and say, “What the hell are you doing?”

He gives me a blank look. I think this guy specializes in blank looks.  “What?”

“I already bought the Ultimate Chalupa,” I said. “It’s mine. You can’t sell it to her.”

Another blank look. He buys them in bulk at Costco. He got his associate’s degree in blank look at the local tech. “There’s your Chalupa.” He points at a tray being slid across the counter toward me.

“That’s not the Ultimate Chalupa!” I said, pointing at the woman. “Now she’s got the Ultimate Chalupa!” I slam my hand down on the tray. “This is just the Penultimate Chalupa! That’s not what I ordered! I didn’t pay $2.79 for some fucking Penultimate piece-of-shit Chalupa!”

The conversation spiraled out of control from there. The woman left in tears, and the guy behind the counter eventually used up his vasty store of blank looks, and was forced to use other looks that he wasn’t nearly as skilled with, like confused, irritated, and exasperated. He even had one that might have been flummoxed, but I’m not sure. He wasn’t very good at it, and I don’t think he really knew it was for.

Eventually I produced a Webster’s dictionary and proof that I did, in fact, have a Masters degree in English. This left them with no choice but to throw my ass out of Taco Bell yet again.

I stood in the parking lot and cursed them for a while. Then I climbed up on the sign and found out that someone had left the box of letters there. So I changed the sign to read, “Rather Good but by no means Ultimate Chalupa.”

Unfortunately, that used most of the letters, so my options were limited for the other side of the sign. All I could spell with what was left was, “Taco Bell – Everybody Masturbates on Us.”

Then I left. All in all, I’m counting the experience as a moral victory.

pat

Editor’s note: I actually wrote this back when I was doing the College Survival Guide, but I figured I’d post it up here so people could get a cheap chuckle out of it while I’m busy with revisions.

Also posted in small adventures, the wrath of an angry god
|posted by Pat 75 Comments
Published: August 2, 2010

Closure

Those of you who have been reading the blog for a while might remember several months ago when I posted up a general call for help.

The short version of the story is this. A reader sent me a very polite invitation to her high-school graduation party, and since I was going to be in the area anyway for Wiscon, I thought I’d stop by and say hello.

Of course I failed to take into account the fact that I’m an idiot. So while I remembered the party was over Memorial Day weekend, I didn’t make note of anything else, such as the address of the party, the person’s contact information, or even her name.

Needless to say, it was not my shiniest moment.

So I posted up a blog asking if anyone could help clue me in.

The bad news was that I did miss the party. The good news is that I did eventually get in touch with the reader. (Her name was Breanna, by the way.)

The weird news was that over the last couple months, I’ve had at least fifty people ask me if I ever managed to get in touch with her. It was kinda strange. I’d be doing a reading in California, and when I threw open the floor for questions, someone would ask, “did you ever make it to that girl’s party?”

So, in the interest of giving everyone the closure they so desperately desire, I figured I’d let y’all know what happened.

This last weekend we finally managed to get together. We grabbed coffee and hung out for a little bit.

Awww…. (Yes, she’s taller than me. No, I don’t have a problem with that.)

I also finally got to give her the graduation present I meant to bring to her party. A remnant of my checkered past: a copy of my College Survival Guide.

I’m including this picture mostly so y’all can make fun of my handwriting.

That’s all for today. Just a little closure on a story I started a couple months ago. See? I can do it. It just takes some time….

Love,

pat

Also posted in fan coolness, small adventures
|posted by Pat 45 Comments
Published: April 12, 2010

My Fictional Nature

It’s strange to me, knowing that if I write a blog, thousands of people will read it. Thousands and thousands. A ridiculous number of people, really.

It was less strange when I wrote the College Survival Guide for the campus paper. With the column, I knew what my job was. I wanted to make people laugh, and maybe, occasionally, slip a bit of reasonable advice to my unsuspecting readership.

Pure advice is unpalatable. It’s preachy. But if you make people laugh a little, they may not notice you’ve slipped them a little bit of truth. And even if they do notice, they’re more likely to forgive you for it.

I was a tiny bit of a local celebrity when I wrote that column for the campus paper. A few hundred people read it every week. On rare occasion people would recognize me as that-guy-who-writes-that-column. Once, the guy delivering a pizza to my house looked at my name on the credit card receipt and said, “Are you THE Pat?”

I laughed. “I didn’t know I’d become superlative,” I said.

I haven’t done the column for a couple years. These days I channel my humor writing into the blog instead. But there’s a difference. Back then I was a little bit famous because people read my column. Now people read my blog because I’m a little bit famous.

There’s more to it than that, of course. People read the blog because it’s amusing, or because they’re interested in news about upcoming projects and appearances. They tune in because they’re curious about book two, or because they’re looking for writing advice.

But mostly, people read the blog because they read my book and were curious about the author.

So I tell stories and post pictures. I screed and opine. I post up little pieces of my life. Then y’all take those pieces, fit them together, and you form an impression of me in your heads.

This is the interesting thing. It’s something I think about a lot. That person you create in your head out of these bits and pieces. That Pat Rothfuss you get to know from the blog, he’s fictional.

(It’s true that you could say the same thing of anyone. You could say that you don’t really *know* any of your friends or family, you just have flawed impressions of them based on your limited perceptions and experience.

This might be true in some small theoretical way, but in a bigger more practical way it’s pure bullshit. You know your friends. Let’s not become hopelessly meta here. If you follow that line of reasoning too far you end up in the pointless philosophical morass of relativistic solipsism.)

Anyway, my point is this: I think about this fictional Pat Rothfuss sometimes. I wonder what he’s like.

I expect in some ways, fictional Pat is pretty much like me. I’m honest to the point of blinding stupidity, and I talk about things here on the blog that any sensible person would keep quiet about. Anyone who’s ever seen me speak in public can attest to the fact that I can’t help but express myself freely and clearly, even if it’s not entirely appropriate.

Still, I can’t deny that I present an edited version of my life on here. The blog lies by omission. I talk about my signings and answer fanmail. I post a cute picture of my baby and talk about the new foreign edition of my book. I link to an interview and do a fundraiser for my favorite charity.

Given all of that, fictional Pat seems to have a pretty swank life. He seems really nice. He seems kinda cool.

And that makes me feel dishonest, because it’s not really true. You’re putting together the fictional me without the grubby bits. The truth is, I am at times a contemptible human being. The truth is, I have deplorable habits.

For example, when I go on Facebook, I post status updates talking about Dr. Horrible. Or I joke about the dream where I ended up in bed with Willow and Spike. I don’t mention what happened the other day with Oot.

You see, right now Oot loves my beard. In terms of desirability, beard ranks #3 in all creation. Boobs hold the top spot, of course, and the telephone is currently a strong #2. But other than that, he loves nothing more than to clutch at my beard.

I think gripping it appeals to some primal, monkey part of him. He gets his sticky little hands tangled up in the beard, and some piece of his primal baby brain thinks: “Good. I’m safe. If we’re attacked by a predator and forced to run to safety, I won’t be left behind.”

The problem is this: if you don’t have a long beard, you have no idea how painful it is to have it pulled. He could swing from my hair from all I care. He’s even managed to kick me square in the junk several times in an ongoing  campaign of sibling prevention. Those pains are nothing by compairison. Having your beard pulled hurts as much as when you’re walking around barefoot in the middle of the night and you stub your little toe really hard against a table-leg.

Usually I’m able to head him off when he grabs for it, but his motor skills have really been developing lately. So the other day, before I know it, he has both drooly little hands in it up to his forearms, then he yanks on it for everything he’s worth.

“Ahhh!” I shout. “Stop it you little fucker!”

Oot doesn’t seem to mind in the least. For all he knows I’ve just called him by one of his other countless names, (Thunderbutt, Prancibald, The Dampener…) He just laughs and tugs the beard some more, happy to be safe from prowling lions and packs of hyenas.

Still, it’s a shitty thing to say to your baby, and I feel bad about it.

The point is this: I suspect that fictional Pat would never refer to his adorable baby as, “you little fucker.” I suspect he’s better than that. I expect he’s a nicer person than I am.

Part of me thinks, even as I write this, “Of course you don’t talk about those things on the blog. Why *would* you? That’s not why people read the blog. You’re supposed to be putting your best foot forward….”

But then I think about that fictional Pat again, and I feel dishonest. There’s a difference between putting your best foot forward and subtly misrepresenting yourself.

The thing is, professionally, I should be careful here on the blog. If I was going to be smart about this, I’d never talk about sex or politics or religion, never make any jokes that could offend anyone, never tell you a story that makes me looks like the idiot I sometimes am. The smart thing for me to do is carefully groom and maintain this fictional Pat and use him as a promotional tool.

But the truth is, the thought of maintaining that sort of professional persona makes me distinctly uncomfortable. Given the choice, I think I’d rather be too honest and have you like me a little less. I’d much prefer to look like a bit of an ass, because… well… I am a bit of an ass.

So tomorrow I think I’ll post up a story of one of the countless times I’ve made an fool of myself in public. Maybe I’ll tell a few of those stories. I don’t know if they’ll help round out the fictional Pat some of you have come to know, but I expect it will make me feel a little bit less like a poser.

Barring that, it should be good for a laugh or two.

See y’all tomorrow….

Pat

Also posted in a few words you're probably going to have to look up, blogging, emo bullshit, ethical conundra, things I shouldn't talk about
|posted by Pat 111 Comments
Published: April 5, 2010

Concerning Circumcision

Any of you who have been to my book signings know I tend to move back and forth between reading my stuff and doing Q&A.

I do this partly to break up the potential monotony of an hour of straight reading, and partly because I really like to answer questions. Any sort of question, really. That’s part of the reason I became a teacher, I think. And it probably factored into my decision to keep writing my College Survival Guide for about 10 years.

I even, believe it or not, wrote a sex advice column for a while. Under an assumed name.

When I do Q&A at a reading, there are some things that get asked a lot. Things like, “Where do you get your ideas?” or “Do you base your characters on real people?”

Then there are the questions that don’t get asked very often. Like, “Do you like cats?” or “How do you feel about circumcision?”

This last question got asked when I was down in Lexington. Strangely, wasn’t the first time I’d been asked. I actually wrote an column on it back when I was doing the Survival Guide. As luck would have it, I had a copy of that column with me. So I read it.

After the reading when I was signing books, someone said, “You should post that one up on line.”

“I probably should,” I said.

So here it is…

***

Dear Pat,

I’m in a weird situation. Normally I pride myself in minding my own business. I keep my nose out of my friends affairs (literally) and generally keep my opinions to myself.

But recently I ended up doing some research into circumcision. Not female circumcision, which everyone in their right mind generally admits it barbaric and creepy, but good old fashioned guy circumcision. The type that’s done to almost all newborn boys here in the good old U S of A.

I found out not only is it totally unnecessary, but it’s generally bad for the little kids. Despite the fact that it’s the standard thing here in the US, where almost 90% of guys are circumcised.

My problem is, I have a friend who is about to give birth. Maybe to a little boy. Now that I know all the horrible things that can result from Circumcision, I feel like I should try to tell her about it so she won’t do it.

But isn’t this kinda sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong? I can’t think of a good way to approach her. I mean, I don’t have a penis myself, so I can’t really speak from experience. I have been with guys both cut and uncut, and I was surprised to find out how much I liked the unedited penis. But again, I doubt that’s the right way to approach things with my friend.

How can I mention this to her without offending her for getting in her business?

Student Not Into Penis Slicing.

Your College Survival Guide, the place to go when you really need to learn the finer points of dick discussion etiquette. I’m like Miss Manners with tourettes.

Alright, SNIPS, I’m going to glide right by a few too-obvious jokes about your nose, and get right to the business of answering your question. Back when I was younger I would have taken this as a golden opportunity to make a lot of wang jokes.

But I’ve matured since then. So, instead, I’m going to slide as many innuendo-laden puns into the column as humanly possible. Also, just to make it a challenge, I’m going to use a new euphemism for the male member each time I refer to it.

First I feel like I need to correct one of the statements you made in your letter. Uncircumcised fellas are more common than you make them out to be. Back in the 1960’s about 90 percent of baby boys got the chop, but the circumcision rate these days is closer to 60%, as more and more people get clued in to the situation by helpful folks like you and me.

Secondly, the proper slang term for an gent’s uncircumcised dangle-bob isn’t “unedited,” it’s “director’s cut.” Occasionally it’s even a “special edition director’s cut,” but that’s very rare.

Hmmm. You’re right though. This is a touchy subject. But there’s a big difference between being pushy, and just giving your friend some valuable information. Still, it should be handled delicately. Here are some opening lines you might want to avoid:

“Jenny, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about your baby’s penis.”

“Have you ever thought that hacking a chunk off the end of your newborn’s wing-wang might not be the best way to welcome him into the world?”

“Y’know, if I was going to have sex with your son, I’d prefer him to be uncircumcised.”

The more I think about it, maybe you don’t want to try to get a rise out of her. Instead maybe you could just try to bring it up casually instead.

Maybe quoting a few facts would be the way to go. Don’t be accusatory, just point out why, exactly, chopping someone’s fireman off isn’t cool. Point out that since the foreskin actually has about a third of the penis’ nerve endings on it, cutting it off it pretty much the same as a partial clitorectomy. In plainer terms, it’s like cutting off a good chunk of a little girl’s clit. As you said in your letter: barbaric and creepy.

Think of it guys. You know how you think your Johnson is pretty awesome now? Imagine if it was 33% more awesome. Yeah. I know. It boggles the mind. I expect some manner of radiant light would constantly be emanating from my pants. Most of us would never leave the house. The fact that a piece of my winkie was torn off without my approval leaves me feeling a little bent out of shape. Figuratively speaking.

You could also direct your friend to a good website or two, so she can gather her own facts. www.notjustskin.org has a remarkably well-researched and easy to read FAQ on the subject. Including some information about how the surgery might be seriously traumatic for the newborns involved.

In closing, for all my fellow fellows out there, if your parents gave your special purpose the snip, don’t hold it against them. Because, y’know, that would be pretty weird.

***

It’s interesting to note that I wrote this a couple years before I became a dad. It was nice, actually, having done this research ahead of time. Because I knew from the beginning that I didn’t want to circumcise the baby if it was a boy.

But even if I hadn’t done the research, I probably would have been convinced when I saw The Circumstraint:

That’s really what it’s called. It’s the plastic thing they strap your baby down onto so he doesn’t struggle around too much while they’re trying to cut off a piece of his dick. The nurses thought I was kinda weird for wanting to take a picture of it.

While part of me, the scientific part, can acknowledge the fact that something like this helps keep the baby safe during the procedure. The rest of me is filled with a mute horror at the thought of someone tying my baby down onto this thing so they can cut him. Not because he *needs* it. Just, y’know, because. Tradition. And stuff.

A lot of times when people meet Oot, they say things like, “He’s such a happy baby.” Or “He’s so friendly and trusting.”

Sometimes I want to reply, “Well, we got things off on the right foot by not cutting off a piece of his dick.”

Can you imagine what sort of an introduction that must be to the world? There’s a big, long squeeze, then suddenly everything is really bright and cold. Maybe you get a bit of a cuddle and a taste of breast. Then you’re strapped down and someone cuts off a piece off one of the most sensitive areas of your body. Welcome to being alive, little guy.

[Edit - There has been too much ass-hattery in the comments. So I'm turning them off because I don't want to deal with it.]

That’s all for now, folks.

pat

Also posted in my oracular impulse, wang jokes
|posted by Pat Comments closed
Published: February 12, 2010

From the Archives: V-Day

I’ve had several people e-mail me in this last week asking for Valentine’s Day advice.

Unfortunately, I’m at the end of a long stretch of revisions right now, and it would break my stride to write an appropriately frothy, bile-filled screed about this most abhorrent of qua-holidays.

Then I realized I didn’t need to write a new screed. I probably had an old one on file from when I wrote a weekly advice column for the college paper.

So I dug around in my files a bit and found one. Actually, I found several, but here’s the one I liked the best.

Share and Enjoy:

*****

Dear Pat,

What are your feelings towards Valentine’s Day? Personally, I believe it is just another Hallmark holiday in which consumerism reaches its ugly hand in the picture, forcing couples to exchange gifts and singles to feel like crap.

By the way, what are you getting your girlfriend/sister? Teehee.

Jessie

For those of you who missed last week’s column, the last line of Jessie’s letter is a reference to a joke I made. Just so nobody is confused let me re-state again, for the record, that I am NOT dating my sister.

Not that there’s anything wrong with my sister, mind you. She’s great: smart, funny, and hot. It’s just that we’re really good friends, and I worry that getting into a relationship might jeopardize that.

*ahem* Okay. Moving on.

Honestly Jessie, I’d all but forgotten that Valentine’s Day is coming up. You see, I don’t pay much attention to crap like that. And that’s what VD is: a big, steamy pile of crap in a shiny heart-shaped box.

You were right in your letter. As a holiday, it’s made-up bullshit. But Hallmark didn’t start it, Chaucer did. He wrote “The Parliament of Fowles” back in the late 1300’s. I tell you, there’s only one time in history that more crap has been spawned from bad poetry, and that’s the musical Cats.

Now I don’t want to get a bunch of huffy letters with people telling me VD all started with St. Valentine, the priest who was imprisoned and fell in love with the jailer’s daughter. If it were true, February 14th would be Go-Fuck-A-Priest day. A holiday, I might add, that I would wholeheartedly endorse.

But no, what we have is Valentine’s Day. The day designed to convince you that if you don’t spend money on someone, right now then you’re not really in love. Prove your eternal devotion through a four-dollar greeting card sporting some freakishly deformed bug-eyed puppy on the front. Go ahead and give someone the severed sexual organs of a plant. Diamonds are forever. Every Kiss begins with Kay.

(You can tell it’s an older column, because Brett’s illustration
is in B&W and optimized for newspaper printing.)

Now I’m not just saying this because I don’t have a girlfriend and I’m frothing at the mouth with bitter loneliness and rage. Contrary to what you might think, I do have a girlfriend.

I know, it seems to go against all the laws of god and nature. But not only do I have a girlfriend, not only have we been in a happy, healthy relationship for almost six years, but Sarah is sweet, kind, smart, funny, and almost unfathomably hot.

I know, it boggles the mind.

There are many theories among my family and friends as to why someone like her would take time to smile in my direction, let alone date me for six years.

Some of my more religious-minded friends used to believe that she was working off a hefty karmic debt from a previous life. But this theory lost credibility when one of my calculus-savvy Buddhist friends did the math for me, showing how much bad karma Sarah was actually burning off by dealing with me on a daily basis.

What it boils down to is this, if Sarah had, say, beaten a nun to death with a bag of kittens in a previous life, she could have worked that off in about three weeks of putting up with my endless bullshit. In fact, after six years of living with me she’s built up so much good karma that she’ll most likely reincarnate as a transcendent being composed entirely of white light and multiple orgasms.

Other theories held by my friends and parents include: blackmail, Truman-Show style conspiracy, and the suspicion that she is performing a prolonged psychological experiment.

What does Sarah herself say? I’ll go ask….

In response to the question, “Why the hell do you love me, anyway?” Sarah responded thusly:

“Some part of my soul recognizes part of your soul as being really awesome. And sometimes you take out the trash.” Sarah then made several sexually explicit comments that cannot be reprinted here. Suffice to say that apparently I possess certain skills that shall remain nameless.

Lastly, she gazed rapturously at me and said that I was “gorgeous.”

All this seems to confirm my personal theory, that she has some kind of brain tumor that makes her love me. Really, it’s the only thing that makes sense.

The only other explanation is that I treat her with kindness and respect. Or because when I give her a gift she knows it comes from a sincere upwelling of emotion, not because it’s National Buy-A-Gift Day (TM). Maybe it’s due to the fact that I make a habit of not taking her for granted, and I tell her I appreciate her, rather than buying a card that says it for me once a year.

Yeah. I know. Too crazy. I’m sticking with the tumor theory myself.

*****

That’s all I’ve got for now, folks. I hope each of you end up enjoying V-day in your own special way. If that means drinking a pint of rye whiskey and cursing the unfeeling sky, more power to you.

pat

Also posted in Fanmail Q + A, Sarah, v-day
|posted by Pat 61 Comments
Published: September 14, 2009

My Personal Spring….

I’ve spent most of my adult life going to college in one form or another. I spent nine years as an undergrad, two years getting my masters, then another five years teaching.

About two years ago, I stopped teaching because it was taking up too much time and headspace. I decided that the grown-up thing to do would be to leave my day job and focus on my writing.

And so I did. What I didn’t realize was how much college was part of my life. I’ve really missed it over these last few years. I miss taking classes, and teaching them. I miss walking around campus and meeting new people. I miss getting into arguments about philosophy at the campus coffeeshop.

And I miss writing my silly little advice column for the campus paper. I wrote it for almost ten years and gave it up for the same reasons I stopped teaching. It was taking too much time away from working on the book.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some parts of college I don’t miss. Writing the papers, for example. Or grading them, for that matter. I don’t miss having to get up for classes, either. Believe it or not, back when I was a student, I sometimes had to be awake by 11 in the morning.

Yeah. I know. There should be a law…

One of the many strange things about being in school for so long is how it changed my perception of time. There is an ebb and flow to the semester. Everyone is tense around mid-terms, irritable two weeks before finals, and giddy by the time finals actually start.

But the beginning of the semester is a magical time. The beginning of the whole school year doubly so.

This time of year has always been spring for me. Yes, yes. I know it’s really autumn. But my personal clock, influenced by over 27 years of schooling tells me that this is when the new year begins. It’s time to to back to school.

For obvious reasons, I’ve been thinking about this for the last week. I live in a college town, and when school starts up it’s almost like Stevens Point is waking up after a long sleepy winter. Students are wandering the streets again, looking for house parties and curbside couches. The bars downtown are full. People are moving furniture around, hanging out in the coffee houses, and jogging on the sidewalks. I don’t need a calendar to tell me that classes are starting again.

This is also the time when I would write my first column for the new school year. It was tricky because I didn’t have any letters to answer at the beginning of the year, so most of what I did was introduce the concept of the column to the new students and make a call for letters that I could mock. (Or give advice to, depending on my mood.)

So in honor of my personal springtime, here’s one of my favorite introductions that I wrote for the College Survival Guide a couple years ago:

* * *

I love this time of year. After three months of vacation everyone is fresh and rested. All the Professors have forgotten how much they hate teaching. They smile and chat with each other in the hallways. They cluster around Xerox machines like lame, tweedy gangs, pretending they’re cool despite the fact that they’re doing the equivalent of selling encyclopedias door-to-door while all the other gangs are pushing lapdances, PS3s, and cherry-flavored crack.

Returning students are glad to be back too. Mostly because your summer jobs were tedious and degrading. Three months of summer vacation is long enough so that you’ve forgotten that most classes are tedious and degrading too.

This means that you’re full of hope. You’re sure your new roommate won’t be like the last one who wore tinfoil socks and had a tendency to occasionally urinate in the refrigerator. You’re sure you’ll pass Math 106 this time around. You’re determined to actually join some clubs this year and not just sit around in your dorm eating spray cheese from a can and watching youtube videos about cats.

Sure you will. And while you’re at it you’ll have plenty of time to map out your future career, find true love, attain nirvana, and develop a high-tech cybernetic arm that dispenses an infinite supply of orange PEZ . Sure. You’ll have time for all that. After all, you’ve done the college thing before. You’ve got it all figured out… Right?

But you freshman are my favorites. I remember what that first semester was like: you’ve got a new haircut and some of mom’s money in your pocket. You’re on your own for the first time ever. You have so much freedom that you can hardly keep from shitting yourself with sheer delight.

And you express your near-infinite excitement the same way every freshman has done for the last ten thousand years. You buy posters for your dorm. You order pizza at unseasonable hours of the day and night. You touch yourself *down there* in a decidedly impure manner, repeatedly.

Well kids, cherish that delightful innocence for as long as you can. Because soon the horrible truth with start to dawn. You’ll realize freedom isn’t all nachos, whippets, and wicked touching of the bathing suit area. Freedom is also credit-card debt, STD’s that would blister the paint off a car door, and scholastic performance so shoddy that your professors have to invent new grades to accurately represent how profoundly you are sucking in their classes. Something like “Triple F-minus” or “negative B plus.”

Some of you, the smarter ones, are already starting to realize how dangerous all this lovely freedom is. Truth be told, your freshman orientation package should include a coil of industrial-strength nylon cord with a label that says: “Welcome to college. Here’s a whole lot of rope. Feel free to hang yourself with it.” Unfortunately, the effect would be ruined by UWSP’s legal department, which would make sure the rope was actually too short for anyone to really hang themselves with. And they would attach a second label, larger than the first, with bright red letters saying: “We mean metaphorically. Dumbass.”

Truth is, I can’t keep you from metaphorically hanging yourself. And honestly, I wouldn’t want to. College provides you an unrivaled opportunity for you to fuck up in a largely consequence-free environment. This is half the fun of college. If you don’t make at least one or two really nexa-level mistakes while you’re here, you’re really not getting your money’s worth.

What I can do is this. When things get weird, or stupid, or broken, I can offer some advice on how to minimize the damage to your tattered life. If that doesn’t work, then at least the rest of us will have a good laugh at your expense.

So e-mail your questions, sob stories, and mewling pleas for help to [e-mail no longer valid]. I’ll do my best to answer them. Exceptionally good letters will be rewarded with fantastic prizes. I promise.

* * *

Oh my beloved survival guide. How I miss you.

While I’m busy working on book two and getting ready to be a dad, I’ll probably post up an old column or two on the blog here. There’s a few pieces of good advice buried in all the humorous bullshit.

Also, because I’m feeling nostalgic, those of you looking for advice can mail in questions using the contact form here on the webpage.

That said, be aware that I’m busy, and just because you ask a question doesn’t mean that I’ll answer it here on the blog.

But maybe… just maybe…

pat

Also posted in my student days
|posted by Pat 62 Comments
Published: February 11, 2009

My Funny Valentine

One of the side effects of working on the book intensively is that everything else tends to fade from my awareness. I fall behind on e-mail, miss scheduled appointments, ignore Sarah, and tend to let the blog slide.

So yesterday, as I hauled firewood into the cabin, I thought, “Is it February? Isn’t Valentines Day coming up?”

Then I thought, “Won’t I be up here in Hayward, shackled to The Wise Man’s Fear over Valentine’s day?”

I realized it was true and went inside to call Sarah. I asked if she was cool with that.

She was cool with that.

I went back to carrying firewood and found that I couldn’t remember when I’d last posted a blog, or what it had been about.

Then I thought, “I’m pretty sure I’ve written a Valentine’s day column at some point in the past. If I could find it, that would save me some time.”

So, after I was done schlepping in the wood. I dug through my files and found I was correct. I had written a Valentine’s Day column. In fact, I had written several of them over the years.

Then I found this one. A column I had written several years ago and forgotten about until now.

This, my friends, is what we writers refer to as serendipity.

[Editor's note. For a few of the references in this column to make sense, you have to understand that by the time I did this column, I had been writing it in the local paper for over seven years and actually had a sponsor who underwrote the column. This provided me some much-needed ad revenue, and let me offer prizes to people who wrote in letters. Usually a gift certificate from a local coffeeshop.]

[Editor's note - This isn't really an editor, by the way. It's just me. But "Pat's note" doesn't sound nearly as official.]

Dear Pat,

A friend gave me a copy of your College Survival Guide Collection for Christmas and I spent all break reading it. It was awesome getting to read all the columns from back before I came to School here.

After reading those old columns, I realized your newer columns are a little… angry. Compared to those earlier ones. They’re still funny, but they’re also kinda grim.

I was just hoping we could occasionally see the kinder, gentler Pat. The Pat that gave advice to the girl with all the scars back when I was a freshman, or wrote the Christmas column in your book. Focus on the positive.

Kaitlin

*****

Pat,

My girlfriend keeps talking about you. All the time. She’s all like, “Pat Rothfuss is the funniest guy! OMG! I can’t believe the things he says!” Honestly, I’m pretty sick of it.

It’s gotten worse since you put up that Myspace page. She read more of your stuff and found some pictures of you and thinks you’re “the cutest.” So now I’m officially pissed. I’m her boyfriend, I’M supposed to be CUTEST!

So I was thinking I only have two ways to solve this problem.

You could go out on a date with my girlfriend. It would be like a Valentine’s day present to her. AND I’m guessing after she meets you she’ll realize you’re not all that.

We could trade girlfriends. Mine is obsessed. And I’m guessing yours is probably pretty sick of you.

Sad About My Inappropriately Excited Girlfriend

Well SAMIEL, flattered as I am by your proposal, I find myself skeptical. Lately, people have been writing in fake problems just to get free coffee from the Mission. So I suspect that this letter is pure bullshit. Well, maybe not *pure* bullshit, but at least three-nines fine.

First off, there are no photos of me up at myspace, only illustrations. Secondly, nobody says: “OMG!” And lastly, I have a hard time believing anyone would offer their girlfriend a date with someone else as a V-day present.

I expect it’s much more likely that this is a blatant attempt to get close to my girlfriend.

While my cynical nature inclines me toward the first possibility, I’m going to take Kaitlyn’s politely-phrased suggestion and focus on the positive in this column. I’m going to assume that you’re smitten with my ladyfriend, and, with V-Day coming up, you decided to make your move.

No offense to your girlfriend SAM. She’s obviously a woman of impeccable taste. But she can’t hold a candle to my girlfriend.

My girlfriend’s name is Sarah. She is, to put it plainly, the best of all possible girlfriends.

Some of you might remember the V-day column from a couple years back when I bitched about how girls get to cash in on Valentine’s day, while guys got screwed in the deal? Well, last Valentine’s day, Sarah bought me flowers and candy, took me out to dinner, and gave me a backrub. How’s that for cool?

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. She’s hella smart, a great writer, and better at math than me. She does community service, keeps up on current events, and makes awesome banana bread. Her hair smells really, really, good.

Sarah is also hot. Beyond hot. I’m not even kidding here. You know when you see a geeky guy walking around an absolute bombshell and you think, “The hell? How did he end up with her? She’s a thousand times hotter than him!” Well Sarah and I are like that, with the main difference that I’m pretty damn sexy too.

It’s like a story problem: if Sarah is a thousand times sexier than Pat, and Pat is fifty times sexier than you… Do the math: (Damn sexy x 1000 + boobs = Sarah.)

Shes so sexy that Homeland Security is worried about her falling into the hands of the terrorists. Fema has passed a special set of laws requiring her to always wear at least three layers of clothing whenever she’s in public. If she wears only one layer, she causes car wrecks. If she wears a tank top, men without protective eyewear have grand-mal seizures and passing women become suddenly bi-curious.

When she gets naked, the sexiness she throws off is like the radiation from a nuclear bomb. If we hadn’t lined the walls of her bedroom and bathroom with three inches of lead, no man in Stevens Point could wear tight fitting pants, and every woman in Central Wisconsin would be gay.

I’m running low on space here, so I can’t go into details about the sex. So let me just say this: Damn.

Perhaps most importantly, Sarah is sweet. I have a tendency, as Kaitlyn pointed out, to get a little grim. I tend to waver back and forth between a raging inferno of furious anger, and a chilly pillar of bitter cynicism. But being around Sarah is like a drink of cool water. When she’s nearby, you realize that the world is a pretty nice place after all. Sometimes her influence is all that keeps me from turning into a cussed, crotchety old bastard.

Love ya sweetie, happy Valentine’s Day.

*****

Awww…. Isn’t that sweet?

If you’d like to leave a comment for Sarah telling her how lovely she is, feel free.

That said, don’t get too fresh. She is, after all, My Girl.

Unless you are lady-types, of course. Then you can get as fresh as you want. Be my guest.

Later all,

pat

Also posted in Sarah, lusty snugglebunnies, sexy
|posted by Pat 41 Comments