For You, It'll Only Be A Daily Dose of Absurdity

But for my friend and favorite blogger Scott Eric Kaufman, it has been three years of absurdity. Okay, in this instance I will permit the use of "Kafkaesque."

Seriously, not that I am a competitive type, but Scott always, always beats me in the drama olympics. And I thought my weird immigrant upbringing was enough! Alas, growing up poor under a strict Asian father (SAF, enough to get "ohhhhhhhhs" from most people) and in a dysfunctional family is not enough. Maybe if I had actually done the perilous boat crossing thing with my other siblings, I might have had an edge. Alas, I was born here, and there were no complications during my birth, and I was not a gimpy child. Thus, I have nothing on one of the chosen people. And in Scott's case, his "chosenness" is particular; but his god is not the god of his chosen brethren. No, his god is pretty messed up, and a pretty unloving, "I smite thee for kicks' kind of god.

Go to the link for the full autobiography (with links to the stories as they happened!), but to briefly re-cap:

1. SEK gets cancer.

--> SEK starts a blog, to vent anger at his already wrathful god. I did not say that Scott didn't ask for some of this.

2. SEK walks in on two students having sex in his office.

--> SEK blogs about this. Millions of people laugh, but disbelieve him. His god decides this is funny, this so-absurd-it-can't-be-true-thing.

3. SEK gets harassed by a Troll of Sorrow who threatens to kill Scott's wife, accusing Scott of defamation for calling him a Troll of Sorrow.

4. SEK gets hit by a car.

5. SEK gets plagued by a crank who emails his entire department at UCI saying that Scott is anti-Semitic for arguing for context in criticism. Note that Scott is Jewish, which makes this truly and delightfully absurd.

6. SEK tries to pay his registration fees to UCI, but somehow his check for fees and his check for library overdue fines get mixed up and so the library has blood money.

7. SEK is expelled from UCI for letting his registration lapse.

8. SEK is still alive and blogging. (this is the most absurd)


One time I did this whole list of absurd drama in my childhood and early adulthood, and really, it almost made me laugh. Almost!

For now, I concede that I have lost the drama olympics to SEK.

Scott, I bow to you. The better man has won.