November 28, 2008

Thankful for many things, above all that God is personally engaged in helping me build my little family. Grace.

April 19, 2008

Snow day

Started snowing today, and my daughter is almost one so she can a) see b) point c) smile. There were days when we thought she wouldn't a) arrive b) sleep c) live past her first few days. She was napping when it all happened, so B woke her up to show her. I tried to get home fast and drove by only one family out in the yard being unabashed. The other house with people outside was my house, and both were bundled up and looking lovely, perfect, painful, comforting. There are times that I am simply struck - knocked around, punched out - by the fact that I have a family - beautiful, colorful, interesting, priceless - my family but not mine at all.

Snow is amazing, I think of mana from heaven each time I see it, but have somehow gotten used to the rain.

January 28, 2008

So I've been acting like a cyclist this winter and not pedaling much but over the last few weeks I've been ramping up and for some reason been pining for a new bike (a track one at that). Looking through catalogs, sizing, etc. for a week now. I haven't taken my current bike out since this obsession began but I did today.

I will never doubt you again. I had simply forgotten how quick you are, how absolutely perfect for the type and style of riding that I do and how you were perfect for my budget and overall attitude. I had forgotten of the century day and especially the day after when we dropped the hammer hard and almost dropped some folks on fancy carbons. Remember that time we blew that guy on the red bike out twice?

I am loyal to you - you of no back pain somehow. You have the Trek Discovery Team paint on you which throws people off - they don't know they are getting their ass kicked by a 230 pound man on a $699 bike because sometimes - only sometimes - we act much faster, stronger, harder to handle.

June 20, 2007

Dear self part 2 (part 1)

- She is very small now, 5 months and smiles and grabs her hands like she is playing or praying and sometimes just stops and stares at them seriously now, then looks up and studies your smile for about 5 beats then returns it and then turns away grinning, shy, beautiful
- Work is work and you work too much. Attempts to cut down on it have met with some success, and you are slowly getting your feet underneath you as some sort of PM while building out some technical skillsets as well.
- Your commute is not that busy anymore, and just not busy enough to annoy you that you can't ride your bike. You ride a lot now, and just finished your first organized ride (3 days of brag in which you did 45/102/47 and did very well; first century and kept up with some big boys on the other days for 30 miles and then a 10 mile 18-21 mph sprint that suprised even you)
- You are wondering - around books, around faith, around what to do with spare time, around getting healthy, around your career, around money management, whatever. Lots of learning going on.
- Your parents are suddenly aging fast. Your mom had knee surgery that put her away from the caretaker role for your dad and you finally realized what the next few years might be like and don't even know what to say about it; you can't even think without getting angry and sad and lashing out at someone; you say extreme things - verbalize the end a lot and it bothers B.
-

May 19, 2005

Some bluebirds moved into our birdhouse today and we both cried.

May 01, 2005

Happy Black History Month

One of the things that I should say first is where I am coming from. I am almost 26 and live in a "white" suburb in northern Atlanta. Well, maybe I shouldn't say "white" suburb because my neighbors on either side are black. Well, the family on the right is West Indian, well one of them is, the other from New York. The woman across the street is also black, but the rest of my street is white I think although nobody really talks to anybody else. The two Hispanic guys across the street may or may not be gay, but I don't know because I haven't really gone over and introduced myself really. Of course right when we moved in we were shaking hands and meeting everybody in the neighborhood like Anthony (who is from New York and black and lives way up the street) but the people across the street weren't there then - the land was just a lot back then. The family on our left is black and she is divorced with a son. We don't know anything about anyone else in the neighborhood. We are all middle class and our parents are proud.

Also let it be said that I am from Macon which is a medium-sized city in Georgia that is about 50-60% black or at least that was my impression because that is how all the schools I went to laid out. Well, once I got up to high school. Elementary was more like 20% then Middle was like 70% then High School 50% then college 2%. Funny how that works sometimes. I understand the drop off from Elementary to Middle because the Elementary school that you go to is in your neighborhood and everybody seems to live with people who look like them. I remember when I got to Middle and High I met people from parts of town that I had never even driven past.

Our neighborhood had one black family and we only knew this because the son, who was about 9, was always in the front yard looking like he was going to run in front of a car at any moment - drawing attention just sitting on his steps staring at you. My parents live there still and there are a few more now, but it is still mostly 90-year old white women watching Oprah (now Ellen DeGeneres - funny how that works).

As additional background please note the following. When I got to high school I was in an "advanced" program that brought students from the whole country to one high school apart from normal jurisdictional rules. A lot of these kids were black but by the end of the four years only three were left and they were all women. I was friends with a couple of them early on and we used to play basketball together. We used an old neighbor's court up the street and the ball was always rolling down the hill into the Brannon's or else going over the fence on the other side into the McClure's yard. Neither of them seemed to mind at all except when I brought David and Greg over, and then Mrs. Brannon (who had one eye and went to our church by listening to it on the radio) complained to my Mom about the niggers killing her flowers with the basketball.

Everybody in the neighborhood was very nice to us since we were the only kids in the neighborhood other than that kid down the street trying to get himself killed by running into traffic. Halloween was the only time I realized that there weren't any other kids around - nobody was ready for us so we got apples and not-so-shiny nickels. The Glenns, our next-door neighbors on the right, were an old sweet couple. Mr. Glenn used to play minor league ball for years and like always we never knew what he did for a living before he retired. He seemed really happy and used to watch us from inside when we would play wiffle ball in the front yard. We never actually saw him but he just came right out and told me one day that he came from a big family and that he loved to watch us play and laugh outside his window. He must have been in a giving mood that day because he also told me that day about how much fun he had on his honeymoon trip driving down to Florida. He had never really driven that far before and his new bride and him had the windows down while they flew down the southern part of the state where there just isn't much of anything to see. As they were driving along they saw a young black man walking alone along the road and swerved to hit him just to see what he would do. They were coming up from behind him and aimed to narrowly miss him which they did, sending him jumping in the air. Mr. Glenn's eyes lit up at this part and told it over and over: "That nigger liked to have jumped out of his coon skin".

Happy Black History Month

Of all your household appliances your answering machine is the most afraid.

All of your other ones are about you and it; no connection with other people (even the TV), but the answering machine knows that it can get thrown across the room very easily and very conveniently when your boyfirend calls.

November 17, 2004

Every once in a while you just have to type something, and that is all that really matters - it is the key to the whole thing.

First of all, when you first show up you need to work very, very hard - make sure that you work much harder than other people and that you become much more familiar with all the systems than anyone else. After awhile you will then be respected and you can slowly start the incompetence.

One benefit is that while you sit around all day other people will work very, very hard and yet you will still be the one they go to for answers to certain sticky situations in the system that require your experience.

Another benefit is that eventually you will realize that your work life has no meaning, and begin to question the general meaning of the rest of it.

[Things that I know about myself]

I completed a list of the 50 states in 20 minutes once.

I was always very bad at remembering people, but can cross-reference actors like I ate imdb.com

I was never very good at thinking about the future, but now do it more.

I had a long series of regrets, hopefully none of which matter.

I like surpising people with what I can do - and I especially like suprising myself.

I like to laugh, but am getting worse at making other people laugh as I get older.

I keep my head down in awkward situations, which is no good because I am not learning people's little signals and am not learning how to hide mine.

I have a career sort of but am not really sure how I feel about what I do for a living.

I am fascinated by weddings and funerals.

I like to read and don't do enough of it.

I don't believe in myself or am really arrogant depending on which time of day you talk to me.

November 12, 2004

I have this dream where I am in an enormous library, and I start go up to a book that I recognize and realize that I wrote it. I am pleased and pull it open - I then realize that I can't read it and start tearing out pages until there is a huge pile on the floor and all that is left is the binding.

I then move on to the next one.

November 04, 2004

Why do Democrats like water? Or, why are cities on the water and why are democrats in cities?

(I think this wrapping over the text on the right is quick striking...)

Oh, and the truth is science.

October 26, 2004

I try not to read. I try not to listen.

But I can't, because I care about my country, about my family's future, about my safety, about my military friends, about my military future. I follow the campaign not as a fan but as someone who is terrified of the outcome and terrified by the fact that most of us may stop paying attention once a winner is declared (hopefully by math and not by a court).

I am afraid. I am afraid that most of this country does not pay attention to anything that does not agree with their own views. I am guilty of this as well - I read Newsweek, The Nation, online blogs that are all liberal, etc. I tend to search out things that criticise the current president rather than his senate challenger.

But knowing that I do this I look critically at this weak opponent, and I listen carefully to those that support the president. I see them at work, in bible study, at the store, on the radio. The country is a great mass of conservatives now, and I feel like I simply cannot speak up because all the arguments have been made deftly by Rove, and I am not interested in trading fucking taglines that we have all heard on TV.

We cannot back out of Iraq and Afghanistan now that we have created them as terrorist incubators - there will be no peaceful future for either. We cannot continue to spend like we have been, we cannot continue to destroy our education system, our health-care system.

Bush seems like a good man of faith, but I doubt that he has the intellectual capacity to lead this country. You are either the master of your cabinet, or you are controlled by it. Bush is clearly controlled by his love of delegation, and those beneath him appear to be leading this country into risky situations with his unchanging support. Bush has systematically catered to industry (including in particular my industry), and he sees nothing wrong with this in his personal morality.

Kerry is a senator, and he talks like a senator and debates like one. He thinks critically and changes his mind when presented with new information. But this isn't a fucking discussion, this is a series of little tiny lives that can be ruined. I doubt that Kerry can bring a peaceful end to Iraq and he certainly cannot do all the things that he has had to promise to do in order to make a run at an incumbent president.

What worries me the most is that neither is a great man, and to save us we need a great leader to lead this great nation. But I simply hope that it is a great nation - because day to day all I see is ignorance, weakness, and selfishness.

I am comforted by something that I overheard the other day. If there is any sort of attack near the election, we will not roll over and not have them. We are not France or Spain - even if Americans don't intend to vote - we will not allow anybody else to mess with our elections. We can fuck them up on our own.

October 04, 2004

Let's please just try to remember that the nobility of the soldier is separate from the nobility of the war. War and warrior are two different things. I thought that we had learned that, but all the feelings towards soldiers in Iraq and constant protests of Civil War reenactments don't suggest that we remember.

There are some things that you simply cannot imagine. I cannot imagine what it is to be black and to read something like the below from an encyclopedia:

The mental constitution of the negro is very similar to that of a child, normally good-natured and cheerful, but subject to sudden fits of emotion and passion during which he is capable of performing acts of singular atrocity, impressionable, vain, but often exhibiting in the capacity of servant a dog-like fidelity which has stood the supreme test.

October 01, 2004

I bought the complete Borges about two years ago and am just now really reading it. I read at least one story right before I go to sleep which makes for some interesting dreams. I have found myself skipping over the longer pieces because I don't have a good deal of time normally, and so I have read about half of the anthology, in no particular order. This has lead to a series of intertextualidades including the night when I read The Man on a Pink Corner and then the protagonist's view of it on the same night but from different books after some flipping of pages.

I am not sure if Borges himself would love or hate my approach.

September 24, 2004

The lastest obsession is running, and I am going at it strong. I read, I study shelves of merchandise, I talk to 'runners' and 'joggers', and just keep looking, looking - hoping to find something on the trail, or on the court, or in the office, or at home, or at church, or in a book, or in the machine, or with new friends, or at a new place, or with a new look, or with a new interest, or with myself - that makes everything fit and not feel foreign. I am etching out my definition one failure at a time until all that is left will be what I never tried and failed.

Sticks

September 23, 2004

Why I love/hate this country (at times)

I am a Democrat, and I work, live near, and listen to rabid Republicans. They ask me how I am going to vote, they wait in line with me to vote, they vote right along side me. I don't have to reveal who I am voting for or why to anyone, and for that I love this country. It makes me feel like I have an independence, non-forced opinion that this country cares about.

But, to put it quick simply, I live in a state that has been dominated by one party, and my vote is therefore shit because of the winner-take-all system that we use to elect presidents. And I hate this.

September 21, 2004

My legs are burning and my breathing is a 2-to-1 pace - every time a foot hits the ground I am exhaling, never feeling like inhaling. The t-shirt is sticking to the top of my chest and to run my hand across my lower leg right now would be like sliding a wiper blade across a wet window. The back of my head is equally moist, and I am trying hard to keep it up like they say to do. My keys are in my left hand with my watch, and so I try to pump both arms equally - don't want any more injuries stopping me this time.

I listen to my body carefully - some days while I am starting up my shins feel stiff while others my calf muscles complain unevenly about the bouncing of 220 pounds. Most days I stop because my hamstrings feel tight and yet stretched out at the same time. On the long days this is all that stops me and on the short ones I fear a sudden shooting pain down my leg that makes me want to stop and forces me to.

But most of the time - in the middle - I just run.

August 17, 2004

Requirements for me to write:

I am drinking coffee or alcohol (this pretty much narrows my chances to early in the morning, at 2:30pm each day and every other time.

I must have just finished reading a bunch of shit

I have a computer near me

I have some fingers

July 15, 2004

Things that I regret about my weekend

I regret having not said all that I wanted to say during my toast - I got chocked up and couldn't get some stuff out that I wanted to.

I regret having trashed his room in the way that we did - he will forgive us and hopefully she will also

I regret still worrying about it now (3 years later)

July 01, 2004

Notes on Christianity
(notes that I took at Church)

The argument is rather simple really - prove that what is in the gospels actually happened. (The exercise of proving that this means something is left to the reader)

There are 2 main arguments: the stories were made up, or they were an accurate record of a legend written later.

In order for the stories to be true, they have not be made up. In order for the stores to be made up, you have to find the people who made them up, criminal-style: they must have had a motive.

You have to gain something from your crime in order to have a motive. All of them were killed for what they wrote - this removes their motive.

Also, if the stories are made up, then they are very precise in that all four books records the same events with varying emphasis, etc. based on the personal memories of the 'witnesses'. So, there must have been a conspiracy. The motive factor comes in here again, and also makes you wonder why they would have added the inconsistencies if they in fact were conspiring - perhaps they were intelligent. But you still have to deal with when. If they made up a bunch of stories then the stories never would have gone anywhere because people who witnessed the events would have called them out. So, the conspiracy happened much later, after all the witnesses were dead.

This moves us to the legend argument. This says that the stories were made up much later as a record of popular oral histories of a popular man. This is when we get secular. There have been studies that say that for a typical oral history to become a legend it takes two generations. Also, roman historians record that the emperor of Rome burned the city and blamed it on the Christians around 50 AD. So, in order for there to have been a group of people large enough to blame it on 2 things may have gone on in the emperor's mind - a) He had heard of them b) They were unpopular. In order for them to be that large, that fast it must have been written down by then.

So unless it was a different group of writings, and then all copies were destroyed and years later a group of people risked their lives to tell a carefully made-up story, it appears that a large number of people saw the events happen, some recorded them and they are the gospels.

Interesting point - The teachings of Jesus were not radical in many ways - they are simply good moral philosophy. They did not agree with Judaism at the time, but that alone is not enough to set the fire that it caused in so many people and to lead to his death. Not that many people would have followed him around and listened to him talk about being nice to people except that he was healing people and bringing people back from the dead. These witnesses are what is important, and what most don't want to stomach when they read the Bible.

So, this leaves us with Christianity as the truth, which is interesting because of its differences from the other religions. The main difference is that you must accept Jesus - according to scripture it is the only way to heaven. People say that this is not fair, dramatic moment: What is more fair than this: a) All are accepted regardless of background, nation, sin b) Your way has already been paid

June 23, 2004

Related

I recently went on a coffee-induced spending frenzy of Beastie Boys albums via iTunes, including their new album "To the 5 Boroughs". I find this album to be a complete lack of strange new hip-hop buzzwords - the thing about beastie is that it might be cheesy when you first listen to it, and the vocals may sound strange when you realize that you are listening to 3 almost 40-year-old white guys, but there is something pure about a group that is so obviously something true, original. They make their albums like it is 20 years ago and they don't care if they do well. Old school is what some would call it.

I have also started rereading "One Hundred Years of Solitude", a masterpiece that I read (I suppose) when I was in high school. Things I remember about the book from then: a) Lots of sex b) Some old guy trying to take a picture of God and then using his failure to do so as proof that he doesn't exist c) A bunch of people named the same name which I can't pronounce.

I was reading last night and was having trouble "mind-pronouncing" one of the names and realized that in between my readings of this book I have learned and then forgotten how to speak Spanish.

Anyway, it is nice to be reading again, and it is nice to be reminded to be who you truly are.

April 26, 2004

Signs of a year's passing

• Music midtown is back; we had to take 285 around with the uhaul to avoid it last year.
• My brother's birthday, which was my first day.
• The corvette show down the street, which was in full-swing the weekend that I moved in.
• Good Friday's passing, which was my last day at my old job.

A year's accomplishments

• Flown on 4 planes.
• Learned about SQL Server and other technical items enough to know that I don't know shit.
• Read too few books.
• Stopped being depressed as much.
• Stopped being as intimidated by people.
• Stopped writing as much.
• Learned to be professional.
• Learned how to not be professional in a professional way when needed.
• Worked very long hours; let everything fall through the cracks.
• Realized that marriages take work.
• Bought a house.
• Got life insurance; found out I am 'Premium Rate' and not 'Super Premium Rate' due to my weight.
• Began running again.
• Started thinking about having children.
• Thought about leaving my job to work at a church.
• Got a raise that I felt that I had actually earned.
• Found God again; he wasn't hiding - I'm still hiding from him.

April 24, 2004

Lessons learned while at Epcot

• Every society has invented the canoli.
• Eating at the 'America' world is for deuche-bags.

February 02, 2004

"From an evolutionary point of view, aging is an irrelevant process. Once an animal has reproduced, it is, evolutionarily speaking, of no further use, and natural selection can have no effect on it."

Buying life insurance is freaking depressing.

January 27, 2004

Life insurance

There is no single event in your life more strange than buying life insurance, and no stranger industry than one in which they make money betting that you will live. Also, there is no single moment more depressing than realizing that you are not 'prime rate' because you are out of shape.

December 23, 2003

My grandmother, more beautiful in my memory than here.

December 22, 2003

I am not myself, but am a series of influences and teachings passed down to me from my family, who have lived before me and who watch patiently as I struggle ignorantly against the same forces that they have met and overcome.

November 28, 2003

Thankful

I have been working very long hours recently and have found myself unable to find the time to do anything: watch a movie, spend time with my wife, see my family, etc. All I do is work. Coming up on Thanksgiving I only took one day off and only saw my family for a little while. It was a little hard to feel thankful this year, but someone slapped me in the face so now I feel better:

• I have a secure job.
• I have a great wife and family.
• Sure I have to work long hours, but I have a 'mental', 'inside' job not a 'physical', 'outside' job where I have to work long hours.
• I have my health.
• In a few months I will have a house.
• I have everything I could ever want, and I don't deserve any of it.

Thank you.

November 19, 2003

Driving home in the dark and it is pouring.
When you hit large puddles it sounds
like running over gravel
the pieces hitting the underside of your car
slowing you down.

November 10, 2003

I am sitting in my cubicle, surrounded by people talking on telephones, listening in but trying not to, not coding, not typing, sitting.

November 07, 2003

Working late.
It is dark when you get to work.
It is dark when you leave work.
So you sit in your car at lunch with the windows down.
Just breathing.

October 28, 2003

As often happens to me, I have been watching bits and pieces of a movie over a number of months. Last night I watched about an hour of 13 conversations about one thing to follow up on the 15 minutes that I was able to catch last week. I rewatched the 15 minutes last night as well, but this time in a different context since I had a rough idea what the film was about. It is a tribute to the film that despite not knowing many of the important plot details, I still cried like a baby at the end.

October 27, 2003

Dear you-know,

I am not the person that I want to be. Instead of being the relaxed, comfortable, kind-to-all, grown-up, together, strong-in-faith, protector, provider, loving, funny man that I want to be, I am instead a child in a big, big world.

You have overwhelmed me with the details; before when things were simple I could get by on what I thought was my own: my own knowledge, my own smarts, my own luck, my own will. Now, the details are overwhelming. There are 401Ks, there are car payments, there are future plans outside of this weekend, there are other people depending on me, there are decisions that have consequences outside of a semester's time, there are so many things that can go wrong. And as I grown, I see the great wave of experience washing away the dirt from my sight and breaking down the rocks that have prevented me from letting go.

There is not a division of labor like I had always thought: there are not some things like buying groceries or dealing with details at work that are better left to me down here. There are not things like keeping a job or having food on the table that are better left to you. You are my friend first, and you care about all of it and help me with all that I need help in. The division is thus: you do it all, and I see it first-hand.

I love you.

October 23, 2003

Evidencia cada vez mayor de una obsesión profunda con café

October 20, 2003

A coworker just came up to me and said, in response to me asking him about his weekend (which involved a trip to the northeast U.S.), something that was completely incomprehensible. Instead of trying to figure out what he said, which always drives me crazy, I have decided to change my own future within my own power and just make up something and act like he said this, and that I understood him.

He said: "Hostage situation - made it out alive though - how was your's?"

October 15, 2003

An aptitude test:

Do you prefer hard facts, or personal opinions?

• Hard facts
• Personal opinions

Which of the following do you value more when forming your opinions?

• Numbers and evidence
• The views and experiences of your peers

Which of the following would you rather do for the rest of your life if you had to choose?

• Add up numbers
• Paint with your eyes closed

Would you rather be in a group or alone?

• In a group
• Alone

Are you stupid enough not to see right through this test?

• Yes
• No

October 08, 2003

• Feeling sleepy all the time, despite starbuck's best effort
• It being dark when you get there and dark when you leave
• Spending your lunch hour just sitting in your car underneath a tree, listening to the traffic and hearing the wind
• Getting angry at your coworkers because it is all their fault, dammit
• Feeling as if you own the place
• Almost like you are part of a conference; you go back to the hotel to sleep only
• Let things fall to the floor; errands aren't even on the todo list
• No traffic, get to work easily - to and from, to and from

September 22, 2003

Things to do while taking a 'break' from work.

• Stare at your desk
• Read tales about far-away places like the suburb on the other side of that hill
• Jot down small observations about yourself: Likes cake.
• Spend entirely too much time on small things, like reformatting documents using cool fonts
• Imagine yourself high above your office staring down at all the people working like idiots
• Read up on web stuff at various hip websites, all of which copy each other's style.
• Organize your web bookmarks
• Clean off your desk
• Walk around the building
• Go outside and call your spouse
• Organize the documents on your desktop
• Do pushups in your cubicle, then stop right before somebody thinks you are masturbating
• Think about what led you to waste your life without so much as a fight

September 14, 2003

It did not feel real to me until we actually got there and I saw here struggling to breath; only able to move one arm she would alternate between putting it over her head and laying it across her chest. There was a small cart of sandwiches at the entry of the room; it was put there by the nurse who knew the sequence of events that would occur.

Her breath was a painful background, and her face was marked with her struggle not to panic, not to be afraid. Never one to complain even after hip and knee surgeries back during a time when they were less sophisticated - never one to complain even after fighting off pneumonia multiple times in her 80s - never one to complain despite losing the ability to read, write, and hear converstations (her favorite things) - she was crumbling, and she would look up at whichever face was nearest and try to say something. Unintelligible to us, we interpreted it as 'water' and gave it to her on a sponge; a few times it sounded more like 'help' to me and I struggled to hold it in.

The nurse who spoke with us was calm and followed procedure: a little dose of a strong pain killer, and then a morphine patch, and then a stronger dose of morphine up until the body relaxes enough to let go. She was the one who gave us distance and calmed us down, and she was the one who was actually there when she passed.

August 25, 2003

• The people I work with are professional, smart, and humble.
• The project I am working on is interesting, important, and going well.
• My car does not need some sort of work to prevent it from sounding like a fucking prop plane when going at greater than 10 mph.
• I am not a 24 year-old man with acne.
• I am still in shape.
• My good friends all live in the same city as I do.
• What I do for a living makes a difference.
• I did not just buy a house, thus ensuring that my life will be very similar to what it is now for a long, long time.

August 22, 2003

Buying a house, or talking to people who are involved in you buying the house, means that you get to learn that everyone is motivated by money. The real estate agent gets 3%, the seller's agent gets 3%. The builder makes a small margin (5%) on the house, but marks up the upgrades (85 of them) by 200%. You put down 5%-20%, then pay 4-6% in order to use the money (150-200K) for a few (10-30) years. You pay the insurance people (life, homeowner's, car), mortgage insurance people (1.5%), financial planner (10-85 basis points, or .10% - .85%), homeowner's association ($100), teamsters (as much as they want), union (whatever your representation gets for you), etc. You then go down to the liquor store, where you purchase a case (24) of beer (5%) for a few bucks (.003% of monthly gross income) and get fucked up (3 times/week).

August 21, 2003

Things I am learning as we prepare to buy a house

• It is pretty rare for people to have yards anymore, even in the suburbs. Most people just stay inside all day anyway. Yet every neighborhood has sidewalks all over the place, which you would think would foster a sense of community as people met each other on the street and started talking, but it doesn't because they all just talk about what is on TV.
• Real estate agents have no sense of humor.
  • Can the study be converted into a sex dungeon?
  • We want a soundproof basement for when the children are bad.
  • Would an old person have trouble climbing the stairs to the attic if, theoretically, forced to do so?
  • Do you think that the homeowner's association would have trouble with a sex swing on our front porch?
  • How about a barbecue pit near our mailbox?
  • We will need to put a fence up because we have two cute young velociraptors.
• Buying a house with four bedrooms gets you thinking about children very quickly, and therefore makes you feel very young all-of-a-sudden instead of old as you would expect.
• With that spare bedroom and possible basketball goal outfront there are no more excuses for me not trying out for the Atlanta Hawks this year.
• Cows are not considered 'acceptable' pets, inside or out.
• Just like getting married, getting a house makes you think long-term again only this time you only worry about money.

Editor's note: I originally typed: theorectically above, which gave it a similar meaning but on a different level. We aplogize to any bots that may have picked this up and been offended.

August 19, 2003

I don't want to be in control anymore.

You don't have to be, and you never really were anyway.

It is just too hard being a man - I am responsible for my wife, our future family, 401ks, interest rates, down payments, job security, terrorism...

I was once a man.

Yes, I suppose you were, you were a 30 year-old man.

Yes, and now I am here with you on this very plane, and it is going to be ok.

August 15, 2003

• A lot more people fly during the week than I thought, and about 80% of them are flying alone.
• These people drink while waiting on their flights and they talk to each other a lot.
• Taking off from an enormous plane is paralyzingly scary if you are familiar with elementary physics.
• From the air, most towns are very pretty and sincere-looking, with a splash of loneliness added in at the last moment.
• Oil fields are very lonely places, and you can smell them from a long way off.
• Living in a big city you get the impression that most of the country is crowded just because you think what you experience is the norm, but most of the country is empty.
• One could say that a lot of people are empty as well.
• Small planes can turn more easily, and scare you half to death when they turn quickly and drop altitude for the landing.
• It is very difficult to control your own mind - when the body is put in a stressful situation in which it thinks it will be harmed or die, you end up fighting your own nerves more than the actual danger.
• The smell of your own sweat is familiar, but when it is sweat that is created because of fear, it smells different - intoxicating after the fact.
• Jesus will come to you if you call him, and he is all that can calm you down.

August 06, 2003

My grandmother died Saturday before last - July 26 at 12:30. My wife and I drove in to see her and were able to before she passed.

I have spent the last hour looking online for a passage that was read at her funeral, during which I was sobbing uncontrollably, because I thought it would make me feel better:

Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.

Book Of Common Prayer, The. Burial of the Dead, “First Anthem,” (1662).

This is derived from:

Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.

Job 14: 1-2

Normally a discussion of the amazingly wonderful complexity of research would follow such quotes (and she would have enjoyed that), but instead I am just going to say that I loved my grandmother very much for who she was to me. After her death I am left feeling that my life is small, short, and meaningless, but particularly small in comparision to her's, which was large in the smallest of ways: she touched a large number of people just by being kind to them.

A few days after her funeral my brother and sister went to see a friend of the family's who is over 100 years old. I wasn't able to go, but my sister said that she was just sort of dispensing advice as people of that age do sometimes without proding. One of the things that she said was that you didn't need to worry about the big things, but that you only had to do the little things - being loving towards your siblings, being a kind husband to your wife, etc. - and that the rest would work itself out.

My grandmother was a master at getting the details right - she was kind to everyone from her grandchildren running around her house full of delicate antiques (or more like racing around in her wheelchair and running into walls) to the nurses and visitors that she saw when she, an intellectual her entire life, had lost her sight, hearing, ability to walk, and memory. She was somehow able to entertain people up to weeks before her death despite the fact that she was unable to remember who they were most of the time.

I will miss her, and I will also miss the place that I now realize she held in my life: what she represented, or better yet was, since she did not represent something but instead was something that other people weren't. And I am empty.

June 04, 2003

Quiet at last

Last Sunday night, I had to work from home. I had just picked up my wife from the airport, so I waited for her to go to sleep before starting to work since I hadn't seen her in weeks I didn't want to greet her over the top of my laptop. Our new apartment has two bedrooms, so I was able to work in another room with the door closed. I hate to admit it, but it was fun to work in the middle of the night again, it reminded me of college in its purity. I was alone in a quiet place in the middle of the night working under a deadline. No cubicle, no distractions, no dependencies on other people, motivation. I worked for maybe 3 or 4 hours, from about 2 until about 5 in the morning when I got done and emailed the result and then went to bed. I did maybe a full day's work in that time - everything just worked on the first try, which is very rare. I hope I never have to do it often, but it was a fun experience

Racial revenger

I am the racial revenger. Whenever anybody says anything racist or seemingly racist around me I spring into action, verbally and sometimes physically lashing those that say things that they can normally get away with. My punishment is shocking, quick, and effective. Here are my methods:

1. If I do not know you I will stare at you for 25 minutes after you say something racist until you look away, leave the room crying, or continue with your sermon until the kicks to the face begin.

2. If I do know you I will look at you with an expression that says: "Hmmm. That's weird, I thought that I was talking to a friend but suddenly a pile of shit has replaced him, a pile of shit that I will now destory." At this point I will begin making you feel guilty for what you said through a series of logical arguments which end with you urinating all over yourself, going to confession, and apologizing personally to Jesse Jackson.

3. If I barely know you, I will not ever know you. This includes job interviews, dates, and other social gatherings. If you say something racist, I disappear.

4. If you catch me in a bad mood there is a chance of me feeding you your own medicine depending on how effective I estimate this to be. For example, "simple inbred redneck fucker" rolls off my tongue like poetry.

May 29, 2003

Grand jury

I got called to jury duty today - not here, but where I used to live. I called up the woman, the court clerk and told her, and she looked up my name and then said "You were my grand juror, and you moved" with the same tone as when you call up to cancel a vacation and the woman on the other line says "Sorry about your sick goat". Now suddenly I am very sad that I will not be having jury duty, because this is the third time that I have been called and I have never actually gone yet. Always a bridesmaid... My mother was on a jury of a very violent crime and she never talks about it, so I doubt that it is an pleasant experience, but it must be an experience, and that is, I am beginning to realize, the entire point.

Priorities

I entered my time into our system at work today, which adds up the amount of time you are working on different projects and sees where you are billing your hours. I printed out a report and was a little shocked to see a small field at the bottom that reported the amount of money that could have been invoiced if all my time had been billable to clients. This amount - little of which I see, little of which my boss or his boss will see directly - is from working little over a month. This amount is more than my wife will make in a year working at her job, which can most easily be described as helping people who are victimized, dying, or in pain. My job can most easily be described as typing and making common-sense decisions. My reaction to seeing this amount is more similar to sadness than any other emotion, sadness and a little shame - not just at being overvalued - but of living in and supporting a world with priorities that cause this sort of unequality.

May 25, 2003

My loneliness

-Is the strange paradox that occurs when I want to leave work early so that I can get home, and then when I get home and get over the initial relief of sitting down and relaxing, find myself bored to the point of utter frustration, and I want to go back to work.

-Is reading books in crowded coffee shops because it feels good to be around people.

-Is the look on the checkout clerk's face when they see my grocery items:
-frozen pizza
-ice cream
-lots of beer
-hot sauce
-a magazine
-doughnuts
because somehow they know, in their 15 years of life experience, that I will consume these items alone.

-Is the fact that I set out to the grocery store in search of these particular items because I knew that they would fill up my belly in a way that would make me feel better for awhile, and that they didn't.

-Is the little sound that the TV makes when you cut it off at 11:30 because you have to go to sleep and hear nothing.

-Is watching a lot of TV where there are groups of people and laughing, and then one day reading an email from a friend and laughing so hard that you cry, and realizing that it is because you haven't laughed out loud at anything that you have watched on TV in weeks, and that your body is making up for it now.

-Is designing my entire day, my entire life, around small pleasure-seeking activities in a quest for something that feels like a warm blanket.

-Is suddenly feeling a little more doubt, and little more shame, at small things that I do because there is no one who is around that I know respects me.

-Is talking to someone at work when you go to lunch and realizing that the last time you talked to someone was yesterday at lunch.

-Is realizing that you are meaner to the people that love you than you should be.

-Is a silence that seems to follow you into crowded rooms.

-Ends tonight at 9:10.

May 20, 2003

I'm tired of giving everything a title

I try to stay away from the personal here, because I wish to have a place to dump out anything that I want here without having to worry about consequences. But in doing this, I have found that instead I am not really talking about anything - this site was supposed to be a creative outlet for me - not some sort of todo list or list of stupid little fucking observations. (although if they were observations about fucking then they wouldn't be stupid, and if the observations themselves were fucking (amoungst themselves) then that wouldn't be stupid) Anyway, more revelation coming.

May 14, 2003

Family man

When you work at a place that admires the kind of ambition that causes you to work very long hours, there are always some people in the company that are known as 'family men' (or women) because they normally work normalish hours compared to everyone else, but it is seen as ok because their family's are very important and that takes priority. While I agree with this viewpoint, I think that it is stupid to think of this kind of devotion as an exclusive right of those with children. If I were to avoid working long hours with the excuse that I wanted to spend more time with my wife, it wouldn't make any sense based on these unwritten rules, but when we have kids it would be ok. So, no working on the garden until after something sprouts.

May 02, 2003

Paths

Now that I have turned my life upside down and change jobs and moved, I can look back on the paths not taken with a very different perspective. For example, I chose where to live based on about a week's worth of research over the web and word of mouth from friends in the area. If I had talked to a few less people, or researched in a slightly different way, I would have lived in a different suburb, met different people, had a different commute, lived a slightly transformation of my life right now.

This different angle haunts me, and I don't really know why since I love it here; I just feel as if I made some important decisions without all the information. But the more I think about this pretty much every decision you make is like this, and important decisions even more so. The more important the decision, the more things are affected by it, and therefore there is simply more things that you don't know about when you make it. It is amazing to me how you can make the right decision for the wrong reasons.

May 01, 2003

Unspeakable

There are things that you talk about to everyone because they are on your mind and you have to work them out. There are other things that you keep to yourself and only tell a few people in certain calm situations. There are other things that you tell no one, sometimes including yourself, because they are so fragile and important that merely suggesting of their existence can break them. I am afraid now I have done just that.

April 30, 2003

Thanksgiving

Today as I was shutting everything down at work I noticed that it was April 30th and I had a nice quiet moment that I should have had a long time ago. A few months ago I was very worried about me finding a job, the war, my wife, my current job, money, etc. I have much to be thankful for. The war is basically over, I have a job, my wife is moving over soon, we have an apartment, we are ok. Thank you. I should have thanked you everyday instead of asking for your help and then just putting my head down and working as if you weren't even there until I got to the top of the hill and relaxed, forgetting that you were the one who made the hill, made me capable of climbing it, and allowed me to do so.

April 28, 2003

Thunderstorm

There is nothing like a very dangerous thunderstorm to remind you that you are small and fragile, that your
shelter is temporary, that your possessions are fragile and fleeting, and that your relationships with people are the
most real things in your life.

April 23, 2003

Phones

I was talking on the phone with my wife today and I realized how different it is to talk to someone over the phone when that is the only way that you are communicating: little changes in tone turn into arguments, little arguments turn into big arguments; you are only as happy as your last phone call was pleasant. The thing that really bothers me is that all the little things that happen to me each day – my stories – can get lost because she isn’t there to hear them in person when I get home; my retelling of them after the fact is a watered down replacement just as our phone conversations are of what we really want to communicate to each other.

But this reminds me that this move was the right thing to do since it puts us near family and friends that we normally just call.

April 18, 2003

Leaving

It is very strange to say goodbye to people when you move. The ones that you are closest to you keep in touch with you, but the ones on the outside - the people at work who you know by name and shared experience - are difficult to leave because you are basically saying: I will never see you again ever, I am dead.

April 09, 2003

Tops ten things

I am moving very soon - next weekend really. To get my mind used to this fact I have compiled some lists:

Things I like about Columbia, SC:

1. The Vista area.
   
2. All of the small, independent coffee houses.
   
3. My job.
   
4. The part of Shandon behind the church where I play ball.
   
5. Eric San Jose's.
   
6. Our apartment.
   
7. How no matter where you are in the city you are about a mile away from a ghetto and a middle-class suburb.
   
8. The way the Adluh flour sign blinks on and off all day and all night no matter what is going on in the city below it.
   
9. The light that paints the water near the dam when the sun sets.
   
10. Never before have I felt so in the middle of things - where we live - where I work - what I do at work - where I am in life.
    
11. We will probably never live within walking distance of a pool hall and bar again, so now is the only time we can get really drunk and just walk home.
    
12. No one would ever target it.
    

Things I hate about Columbia, SC:

1. It is lonely, like everything happened here in the past.
   
2. It is overall very conservative (read: racist).
   
3. No Starbucks.
   
4. No opportunity for what I do.
   
5. No friends, family, nearby.
   
6. She doesn't like it here.
   
7. Landscape is too flat, monotonous, and even worse: we have gotten used to it.
   
8. No excitement, crowds.
   
9. People don't come here, don't tour here. We aren't a stop, a place to go.
   
10. No professional sports, shows, etc.
    
11. Both professionally and socially living here for a long time would feel like giving up, getting out of the game, hiding.
    
12. The computer book section at the local Barnes & Noble is 3 rows.
    
13. It would not be entirely unrealistic to say that I am the only democrat in the county I work in.
    
14. The racial lines are drawn very boldly here, and it feels like they were drawn in the past - the past that the rest of the country is trying to forget.
    
15. All of the 'new', 'exciting' stuff here seems like they are just copying somebody else's idea; that they are catching up.
    

Things I like about Atlanta, GA:

1. 99x.
   
2. Starbucks, Caribou Coffee.
   
3. Lots of places to explore - a lifetime's worth.
   
4. The computer book section at the local Barnes & Noble is like 7 or 8 rows, and there are small technology-only bookstores.
   
5. People have heard of wireless internet access.
   
6. Adventures in capitalism are better. (i.e. better shopping)
   
7. More inspiration, experiences, life.
   
8. Diversity of people.
   
9. No systematic, geographic, or cultural depression.
   
10. She will like it.
    
11. Wider variety of jobs, professional opportunities for both of us. They have Technology conferences here that aren't centered around that fact that there is no technology economy here.
    
12. The challenges and opportunities of a big city.
    
13. Closer to family, including extended family that we will probably get to know better.
    
14. When friends come to visit us we have a lot of cool places to take them to; places that aren't in Generica; places they haven't seen before in another city.
    
15. The future of race relations in the South will be decided in Atlanta and places like it, not in places like Columbia.
    

Things I may hate about Atlanta, GA:

1. Traffic.
   
2. Cost of living is 10% higher - just enough to drive you slowly insane.
   
3. More competition.
   
4. It may be so large you can't wrap your hands - or your mind - around it.
   09:12 PM

April 02, 2003

Sheltered

You know, you have got a nice little system worked out for yourself. You are an immature, know-it-all, little shit who hates being wrong. You hate being wrong - hate the feel of it, hate the temperature that it turns your face - so much that you avoid it at all costs - at the cost of being nice to people, at the cost of professionalism, at the cost of most things.

But here is the brilliance of your sheltered little system: you are so unpleasant to people when you are wrong that they avoid you being wrong as well. You lash out at contradictions from others by verbally abusing them and then laughing at them (literally) and figuratively (to other people when they aren't around). This is so annoying to people, and you are so small as to not be worth it, that people just don't tell you when you are wrong; they avoid it as much as you do.

This, however, does not mean that they think highly of you or respect you. Instead, they see that you have messed up (no big deal) and that you are now trying to cover it up by blaming the discoverer of the problem or anyone nearby. They then route around your problem. They buffer their efforts with the full knowledge that your would rather cover up a mistake you made then admit it and fix it.

But you don't know any of this - safe in your self-built shelter from criticism; your prison.

Peeling

My face, neck, and arms are peeling. Sometimes I forget this, and I reach back and scratch my neck to find a slightly moist potato-chip sized slab of flesh greeting me when my hand returns. Other times I try to scratch it off; standing in front of the mirror I look for weak spots and root them out, making some progress. Sometimes I just wait and let it dry up completely and fall off.

I am changing. Sometimes I forget this, and find myself reacting to new events and old friends differently than I did before. Other times I try to change; standing in front of the mirror I look for weak spots and root them out, making some progress. Sometimes I just wait and let things fall into place.

Either way, I am changing and my new, true face is slowly making its first appearance.

March 31, 2003

Sunburnt

As I mentioned earlier today, I am sunburned/burnt. It makes me wonder when the last time I was in this state - at the beginning of college. It took much more sun then, because I walked between my classes, ran, etc.

Now I am just outside when I am in my car or walking at night. It is very rare for me to spend the entire day outside, which is why I am original-recipe right now.

In a very obvious way this is sad to me - sunburned used to be a small penalty for a day of fun, now I am embarrassed at work and the penalty is very easy to receive since I am so rarely outside.

Whaaa...

Two days ago it was hot and I got very badly sunburned; today it is in the 40s and all the blisters on my forehead are frozen. My body is like: what the fuck happened here?

Pop quiz

When was the best christmas ever?

One year I spent it in the hospital. Asthmatic Bronchitis; I had it throughout childhood and had to be rushed to the hospital by my dad in the middle of the night sometimes to get adrenaline shots so that I wouldn't slip into a coma or something in my sleep.

I was young, and I remember how they called me on Christmas and told me what everybody had gotten. I am sure that they actually came by later, but I don't remember that part. I only remember talking on the phone and hearing that we had all gotten a tape recorder, and I was genuinely happy for us. We would later use it to record a variety of sounds, most of which revolved around the bathroom simply because our side of the duplex was very small and the bathroom was the centerpiece. We recorded Dad taking a shower, talking to himself in the mirror; we may have even caught that time he punched the mirror and shattered the glass on tape. He came out bleeding and feeling stupid, but still angry at his imagined boss, who he was constructing a future conversation with just moments earlier in our personal recording studio.

It must have been hard for my parents to manage; with a child in the hospital they couldn't both go either place so they split up. They also had to make sure that I got presents so that I wouldn't remember it badly; as if the shots and food weren't bad enough. They had to be apart Christmas morning, but they pulled it all off, and we were happy.

March 26, 2003

Progress

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Slide

This morning while waking up I had a sort of daydream/daynightmare (daymare?) in which I was in a plane which was going down. For some reason I was very calm and called my wife to tell her that I was about to die. I wanted her to know that I loved her and that it was going to be alright, and that death was not the end; that I had reached a calm point at the end.

The way that I explained this to her is that I said that my entire life I had been climbing steps up to some unknown place, and that now I was at the top and could see the playground, and that I ready to slide down and start playing.

Kill them all

I made the mistake of reading a story about the POWS, which includes a woman with a broken ankle. This bothered me, and it bothered me that another prisoner was hanging limply when they tried to stand him up; he was seriously injured. It also bothered me that they asked him if he came to kill Iraqis and he had to say no; they want an excuse to kill him. I didn't realize that the situation upset me until the very end of the article in which they said:

The Coalition has taken over 2,000 POWS.

and I thought to myself: kill them all.

March 25, 2003

Dear drive thru attendant,

I will use the term 'Biggie-size' to mean that I want larger fries and a larger drink. Do not correct me if I am not at McDonald's with 'Value-size', 'Super-size', 'Engorge-o-size', etc. or I will spit into the intercom receiver.

Thanks.

March 20, 2003

Hate

I was in a bookstore yesterday and I saw a large group of youngish people assembling and talking in excited tones about the war. I was just out of earshot, but found myself getting madder and madder at what they were saying. It sounded to my ears like ignorant shit spit out by people who just don't get it.

I then realized that I couldn't tell from what they were saying whether or not they supported a war. I hated them either way. I got mad either way.

Any reminder of this war, the effect it will have on the world, my world, my friends, my family - makes me mad enough to hate.

March 15, 2003

Dear self

I know you well and I know that you will forget this time in your life, the last year mainly, and so I wanted to write you a letter to let you know what you should remember. Read this letter later in life.

Most of all I want you to remember what it feels like to be you right now, what your view of the world is, and what your view of yourself is. Since I can't very easily do this, I will instead list a number of things that I feel are important in recreating a shell of your current self.

I know that without this list you would forget and mangle what you felt, saw, and did over the last year, so here it is in no particular order:

• Remember what it feels like to drive to work on your 30-minute commute past a small suburb in a rural area and then through the country past literal cotton fields with Mexican workers who are there when you drive to and from work, summer, and winter.
• Remember the music that you listened to - this is my best hope seriously of recreating this time - and just let your body feel your former self come out.
• Remember what it felt like to have a birthday this year and start to feel old, not because of a number, but because you are just now starting to think about the future for the first time in your life, and in the last year - the time since the last number - how much you have changed your view of yourself.
• Remember how it felt like a beginning and an ending all at the same time.
• Remember what it felt like to work with your hands for a few weeks with manual laborers who had spent their life doing it. After you quit this job and got a 'real' one doing what your degree was in, remember what it felt like to see those trucks go by or how it felt to see people out in the sun when you walked to your car. Remember also how you lost this feeling quickly.
• Remember the people that you met, and that hopefully have changed you (this is, after all, the only way to change?)
• N, who you met and talked to for 12 hours on the way back from training and then didn't wave to when you made eye contact through a window at TGI Friday's.
• Charles, who always trapped you and talked for hours about everything and was always so purely honest with people that it was refreshing and amazing - he would talk for hours about anything and given that you do this also entire days were wasted jumping from tangent to tangent until you looped back around to something technical and then started talking about work again.
• Tony, and the way he made you feel when he joked and criticized you and the way you handled it - by being nice because you had to. Remember how angry you would get at him and then how much you liked having him around sometimes when things weren't going well. Remember how you were disgusted by but recognized the way he lived his life. Don't forget how you realized that you have never gotten along with people with his personality and how you traced this back and learned something about yourself and then were able to get along with him more easily. Remember how it was anger and pity all rolled into one when it came to him, and remember how you had that dream where you beat him into the ground and then felt guilty when you woke up - but not in the dream. Remember how you thought that you were stupid because you didn't understand the way he thought and then you realized that he is like you but with no sense of beauty.
• Al, who was at times your unspoken mentor and inspired you in many ways but at the same time scared you as an example of how much work it takes to be as good as him - and remember how B and T were in contrast on many things and how that affected what you thought of them and of your future.
• Steve, who suprised you with his attitude about family and was rather clever at doing the right thing at the right time in order to do well.
• I would like you to remember how miserable you were when you first starting going to talk to somebody - how you were actually depressed but not depressed as in suicidal or anything. I would like you to remember how suicide as an idea (for other people) made sense to you finally at this time. And I want you to remember how you feel now so that you can feel the difference, but hopefully you are now so far away from that place that it will be too foreign to even imagine.
• Remember how it felt to live where you lived - in the middle of it all - and feel so lonely and at the same time like you were missing out on something.
• I want you to remember what it felt like to be at the beginning of a phase of your life when hopefully you got it all together.
• Remember how good it felt to finally discover - to reallly know - that you can change yourself.

March 09, 2003

Downstream

I read somewhere that pebbles in a stream are unaware that they are altering the entire flow of the river because they can't see downstream. While this seems poetic (at least in its original form) I never really "ah-ha" got it until yesterday.

I was driving home from work and I was in the right lane with about three cars behind me. I was slowing down for a red light and noticed that the car behind me had on his right turn blinker, so I got over into the left lane.

He was then able to take a right on red at the light along with the three people behind him. I, however, sat at the light for two entire minutes. During those two minutes the three cars that I had set out into the world would have been sitting behind me at the light.

Whatever I end up doing in life, nobody really knows if I have changed the world more by moving over and letting them past than any other action that I will ever do.

Because I just know - I can't see downstream.

March 08, 2003

Libraries

I grew up, in a way, in a library. We lived in a small duplex with two bedrooms for the five of us. I think that at that time our family owned maybe a full room of books, newspapers, and magazines. Both my parents are teachers, but of a different type so none of their books overlap - my mom has scores of children's books while my dad has shelves of political science and history books.

When I was a child we lived about five minutes from the local public library; it would have been about thirty seconds away if it hadn't been for the interstate that separated us. During the summer my parents would take us there almost everyday and we took part in the summer reading club, which was basically a clever way to get children to read by bribing them with coupons to Baskin Robbins and other treats such as putting their name on the wall of the library.

Well, it worked. When I was in high school I used to go to a local college library when I needed to study and I would just usually browse around before I sat down to study, which meant that I never actually did. There weren't a lot of students there and it was sort of like a tomb so some of my friends were freaked out by how lonely it was. But here's the thing - it wasn't lonely at all. I could walk up and down the aisles all day and never feel lonely because I was surrounded by the ideas, the work, the passion of thousands of people that I had never met. It was sort of like a really casual dinner party to me.

In college I worked at the main library there - a mammoth building with secret passages, freaky special collections, and a wide cast of characters. I must admit that some amazement at the simple order of libraries was lost when I was the one sorting the books, but I soon grew it back after I graduated.

There is something magical about libraries. They remind me of a story by Borges in which all the answers to every question are contained in an infinite library that is the world. If you stay and read enough in a library and just be quiet you might just doing something amazing - find yourself.

March 06, 2003

Marriage

Does marriage mean anything to anybody anymore?

A series of things have led me to believe that the answer is a resounding 'no':

• The damn 'Married by America' show.
• My memory of 2 other shows like it.
• A serious list of things you should do to protect your man and keep him from cheating that was on the radio this morning (number 8: Put a picture of you and some of your underwear in his suitcase on long business trips. Number 9, in my opinion, should have been: Marry a man.)

In the movie Mi Familia one of the characters would rather return to her home country and face certain death from the government than have a fake marriage to a citizen in order to stay and live. Why? Because there are some things in life that are more important to you than your life, and to some people the sacred nature of marriage is one of those things.

In other words, fuck all y'all.

March 04, 2003

How to expand yourself

March 01, 2003

Wasted grey matter

I remember the state of everything when I learn something - so much so that sometimes I can't even remember the thing outside the context. For example, when I mark something in a book as being very interesting, later when I remember this little bit of knowledge I remember what coffee shop I was in, where I was in my life, what the book smelled like, what chapter, where on the page.

Sometimes when I find myself searching for something mentally I feel like I am wandering the earth, looking around for a place and time and not a fact, a tidbit.

My brain feels that the state of the world at the time of my learning is more important than what I actually learned. And maybe it's right .

War

Here is how I deal with an upcoming war: I don't think about it.

Here is the other thing: It doesn't work.

February 27, 2003

Turning point

Getting out of my car to go into the bookstore I saw a mom and a middle school child in a minivan - they had pulled over after she picked him up from school and she was comforting him as he appeared to be starting to cry.

This scene was very sad, heart-stoppingly so, but I found myself indentifying with the mom more than the child. What do you say? After living through whatever torment that he is experiencing, what do you tell them?

February 24, 2003

Versions

There are different versions of me. Depending on who you are you will see me at different angles, in different lights, differently. Part of this is you, but mainly it is my reaction to you.

With you, I am all-knowing and serious. I get the job done and am aware of all that goes on around me. I am constantly learning and ahead of the curve.

With you, I am bitter, quick to anger, annoyed constantly, on the verge of physical violence often.

With you, I am young and inexperienced, feeling my way around without knowing what is going on; looking for advice but never asking for it.

With you, I am smart and funny. Healthy and relaxed in a nice sort of way. I am closest to my version of myself, what I am like when I am alone, when I am with you. But maybe this version with you is a little better than when I am alone, because of you. I like this version of myself best, and that is why I like the version of you that I see so much.

February 21, 2003

Job Interview

Name a situation in which the odds were against you and you prevailed?

Well when I was working at my last job we had a very important project that required me to put in at least 80 hours a weeks for long stretches of months. We successfully shipped the product and I was commended on my hard work, with the CEO saying that they couldn't have done it without me.

[Well when I was working at my last job I was widely considered to be a drooling idiot. Despite all the negative press if you will, I still willed myself out of bed every morning, got in my car and drove towards a sort of slow mental suicide in which I willingly had the spirit sucked out of me like some sort of self-for-money swapping program.]

So would you say is your biggest weakness?

Well, I have been known to work too hard sometimes, losing awareness of those around me and falling into what can easily be described as a 'genius trance' wherein all problems and their solutions are seen swirling around in my cup of coffee. During this time I am sometimes rude to my coworkers, since I feel my time when I am in this state is better spent solving problems than talking to dickwads such as them.

[I can't concentrate and I hate myself. Well maybe that is a bit too extreme. I don't hate myself, I hate the person that I am at work and my life in general sometimes. I think that my greatest weakness is that my job sucks the life out of me like juice out of a slurpie - leaving only the cold, colorless, tastless, waste of a full but empty cup which is discarded and forgotten.]

How did you find out about us?

Well, I have a very good friend who has a friend who worked here and said that it was great. I have also seen your products in action.

[As I mentioned a moment ago, my life is effectively over. I would enjoy being clothed and fed while I rot slowly, twitching in vain while I await death. This is why I am here giving you a psychological blowjob - because I need this job like a I need a working toilet.]

Are you a team player?

Oh yes, I have worked on many successful and unsuccessful projects with a wide variety of people where I learned how to work with others in an effective and stress-free way to get the job done right the first time.

[Well, of course I am you little fuck. Who told you that I wasn't? Was it that little shit Martinez! I shoulda cut that prick down when I had the chance.
I am very good at working with others. Here is the way it usually pans out: I don't know what I am doing, so I hang around with people who do until I am comfortable to contribute a little. When I do get any criticism I curl up like a little girl and cry myself to sleep in my cubicle over lunch. So rest assured that I am quite the team player - much in the same way that the team mascot is.]

What do you feel is your greatest strengh?

I am a genius who is very creative and good at seeing the big picture.

[The other day I was looking at the big picture and it seems to break down something like this: I hate you, I hate myself, and I would rather die in a blaze of glory than rot in a windowless cubicle - a mythical shoebox on this enormous wasted shell of a planet. I would rather throw this cup of coffee in your face, flip over your desk and run out past security, who would shoot me down in my tracks a few feet from the door to the outside promise of an interesting life.]

When can you start?

Today.

[Today.]

February 19, 2003

Prejudice

As I walk towards the intersection I see a figure in one of the inlets where a shop door is a few feet off the street. He looks like the homeless man that spoke to me earlier. I am uncomfortable, and try to look not so as I walk quickly past. I turn my eyes to him as I pass and realize that there are four of them. They are having a bible study and discussing 1 Timothy.

February 11, 2003

Aptitude

I put down the Borges collection to go watch American Idol.

After it is over I take an aptitude test but find that I can't answer any of the questions. Am I artistic or technical - do I prefer working with people, setting goals, working alone, being creative. Do I like blue or red? Am I independent, do I like being left alone, am I sociable? Do I like working? Am I an immature little shit? These don't seem like fair questions to me. Do I like aptitude tests? Would I enjoy giving career advice to lost souls? Am I judgemental? Not as much as you are. Do I like to solve problems? If I were to have a guaranteed 50K a year for the rest of my life in a job that I sort of hated (didn't love), would I take it? How do I deal with the knowledge that if I were attacked by monkeys I would yell at them to stop but if I were attacked by birds I wouldn't? Do I enjoy long walks on the beach and slow dancing in the rain? Am I determined, how much stick-to-it-ness do I have? Am I aware that the aptitude test takes 4 hours?

Do I enjoy IQ tests? Am I aware of the fact that this IQ test (that you have just finished taking in just under an hour) is graded in large part based on the time it took you, an idiot who does not read directions, to finish? Are you aware that the average time it takes to finish the test is 12 minutes? Are you aware that your personality type is chameleon? Are you haunted by the life not lived in the first person? Well, are you? Then come to beautiful Jamaica and fell alright.

Corner racist

Right off a road that I travel often there is a corner in the middle of a very large black neighborhood, the blackest in the city. By 'blackest' I mean the number of people who live in this neighborhood that are black is very close to 100 percent, not that they possess qualities that are somehow 'black'.

At this corner is a Church's Chicken fast food restaurant. Across the street from this there is a KFC and a Bojangles, both chicken fast food places. There is a small shopping center with a bus stop in front of it and two chinese restarants, a barber shop (All haircuts $5), and a check-cashing place. Down the street is a Rentway and a Food Lion, General Dollar, and gas station.

Everytime I drive through I wonder why there are so many fucking chicken places. It almost makes me mad that the stereotype of black people liking chicken is being confirmed by thousands of white people driving past this corner everyday on their way downtown. It seems to me to be a disgrace in some way.

But here's the thing, do these restaurants exist outside of my mind? Do they confirm stereotypes to other people or am I noticing them only because I am aware of or somehow believe these stereotypes? Do people really think that blacks are chicken-eaters, or is this supposed widely-held stereotype simple a stereotype itself?

Did the management of KFC base their planning on this? Do they target black communities? Do I simply notice them more when they are in black communities?

February 10, 2003

I am superman

Everyone around me is sick, throwing up, sleeping all day, screaming in pain when air hits their hair. I am immune somehow to it so far and am planning to go for a walk later today, hoping to get this feeling of superiority off of my skin with some fresh air.

February 06, 2003

Mantra

1. Intelligence
Not the book smarts, or the street smarts, the general intelligence that is both. The ability to learn from mistakes, to recognize and avoid mistakes seen outside of your own life. To constantly be learning, but more importantly to be open to learning from anyone, anything, anytime.

2. Hard work
A good work ethic in the sense that something is important and that it should be done right, to the best of your ability. This is not blind ambition or the belief that with enough long hours you could paint the moon, but that some things are worth the effort. There are bounds, you do not sacrifice yourself, those that you love, the truly important things, for most goals.

3. Creativity
Never stop thinking. Try to create something new everyday, whether it be an idea or a viewpoint, or a change within yourself. Explore other people, what makes them tick, but explore yourself as much or more. Never create boundries for how you think, don't pigeonhole yourself and what you can do.

4. Attitude
Not the cheerleader mentality with no rational backing, but recognize the fact that believing in something means you are more likely to do it. View yourself, the world, and your place in it realistically, but with a slant towards optimistic views of change and of your ability to create. Disasters are challenges and opportunities to learn after all, and they are when you really discover.

Gone

I don't want to be gone. I don't want quality time, or on the weekends when I am not working. I want to be a fixture, a part of the background, an equal team member. I don't want to never be home enough that you notice when I am.

I want to be there so often that you don't even think, that they are bored with me being around, that they are so used to my presence that they want to grow out of it later. Because me sacrificing, me working, is not worth the cost.

Haunted

I am haunted this morning by the memory of a passion in a dream. It was a girl, looking very familiar, and I was talking to her and laughing, everything was great. No sex or the option of, just conversation, me trying to impress, her playing the game and impressing me.

I wondered off and came back and met her boyfriend. They started to leave and I continued talking to her, asking questions like where are you in school, etc. I asked her what she was studying, what she wanted to be, to achieve, and she told me again; I realized that I had already asked her this before, and I was embarassed and didn't listen while she told me again, too ashamed, I had messed it all up.

Then they left and I went back inside, taking a long slow drink from my glass.

February 04, 2003

Blind Date wisdom

The other day I was watching the Blind Date show and had a mildly life-changing experience.

But first let me say that watching a show about people going on a blind date is a very sad thing. It is sort of like watching someone play video golf: you are so many layers away from actual activity that it doesn't even resemble the core properties of the activity. For example, watching someone go on a blind date is nothing like a date, relationships, or love - and watching someone play video golf is nothing like sports, golf, or movement outside in general.

Anyway, this girl was a little guarded and anti-male, anti-intimacy. She was very cynical and kept insulting the guy as a defense mechanism (or something, my mail-order pyschology degree should arrive any day now). Anyway, they are actually sort of comfortable with each other and he finally says something to her after she is done making fun of herself and the situation:

"Why are you such a grouch? I mean, what is wrong anyway, why be so cynical about everything anyway?"

To which she responds:

"Well, because that is just me, that is how I work. It just works for me to be down and cynical".

But the thing is, that it just doesn't work.

What you don't understand

What you don't understand is that nobody believes it. Most people that you meet are able to see through your little game. Some still like you, sure, there are plenty of types of people in this world.

But given enough time most types will hate you. Give enough hours of forced conversation with you, of small little insults from you, of you choosing 'being funny' over 'being nice', of you talking about yourself all the fucking time.

Most don't care how you got your little complex - god complex - but they know that it just doesn't add up. You simply aren't that smart, aren't that good-looking, aren't that nice, aren't that likeable to justify it. And if you were, you probably wouldn't act like it, right?

But maybe this is how it happened. You grew up in a small place, a rural place, but with natural intelligence and a little money. You were just smart enough to think that you were smarter than everybody - the teachers, the parents, the friends.

So when you went out into the big bad world you thought you were a big deal. Turns out that you aren't. But this wasn't going to stop you, after all, you are pretty smart, and so you developed mechanisms to maintain your image. There are ways to appear to be wickedly smart without actually using whatever you have for anything - to make people happy, for example - or to have success. Don't go to class, insult others, know a little about everything, talk a lot about stuff that you do know, you look at people like they are idiots when they say something that you don't understand (they must be wrong, right?), hang out with people who are non-academic and shy, etc.

Then move back into your small world and spend the rest of your life there. By this point it is so ingrained that you can't be corrected, it is almost physically painful for you to experience new things, to learn new things after you have been found lacking. You seek out the familiar, the comfortable. You do a lot of little things.

But here's the problem. In your small little world, you miss the real lessons, the real experience that occurs outside it. Most of life is lived when you aren't in charge, when you don't look good, when you don't anticipate, when you aren't looking out for yourself. When you aren't you. When you live in a world without criticism, without input from the outside, you don't grow.

And one day you will realize this. But for now you irritate, you drive away, and you add to the hate in this world.

January 27, 2003

Dreams

From my apartment complex's on-hold voiceover:

Come experience a type of living that you thought could only happen in dreams.

I am guessing that this dream is the one where I am drowning in my own apartment due to an unfixed roof leak.

You

I am sitting in the dark in a large place with hundreds of people, watching a Christmas pageant. As Frosty the Snowman makes his much anticipated appearance somebody starts to cough, then another, then someone right behind me.

My first thought is not of allergies or of them coughing up tears, but of gas. Nerve gas, mustard gas, tear gas brought upon by you.

January 24, 2003

Snow

Driving along a familiar road.

"There's a house there, what the fuck?"
"With a lake! It's only like fifty feet from the road!"

January 22, 2003

At Lunch

I am at lunch.

I take a bite of the spinish orzo dish that has been prepared lovely for me. I am taken to the apartment of my now sister-in-law but then just my brother's girlfriend. It was in a bad neighborhood and my parents didn't want them to live there; she was alone and it was dangerous. "So close to the river!" they said - visions of the swamp thing danced in their head? I went there twice, and ate there the second time. The first time they had baby rabbits, and I remember them being cold and lying next to their space heater. We didn't know that they were both living there so she was pretty safe since my brother was trained in the killing of the various river creatures that might appear - salmon was his specialty. It is very strange to see them there in that tiny apartment, smaller even with the bathroom and kitchen than their living room now - the one with nothing in it but the old rabbit cage (and rabbit).

Take another bite.

I am alone, sitting in my apartment at two in the morning. It is a large studio and very quiet - like a tomb almost. It is raining and every twenty minutes like clockwork I hear the bus go by. I open the window to hear the rain, taking off my headphones - not sure what noise prompted me to experience real sound. On my way back to my desk I smell the couple next door's cooking. They don't speak very much English but are very polite. We have never spoken really, I can just tell by body language. I wonder if they think that I can't either since I walk the same way - with my head down - avoiding.

Again.

We are all sitting at my Uncle's table, the cousins and us. He has cooked and since he is a chef it is something very simple - pasta with butter it appears to me but I am too young to understand. This was before the divorce so his kids were there and happy to be there - a strange sort of memory this one, so foreign now.

I wish I had more.

January 21, 2003

Without

I want to live alone on the top floor of a large apartment complex overlooking a park that always has somebody walking. I would place my laptop down next to a huge bay window and write or code. I would have no friends. Most of my days would be spent looking out the window watching people walk around. In the mornings I would get up and run through the park and then go get a coffee downstairs in a very large friendly coffee shop with many attractive customers who were always in a hurry. I would never speak to anyone but just sit with my screen and look out the window.

If someone wanted to speak to me, especially a woman or employer, I would respond with riddles and refer them to my website. I would be a mystery, and very attractive to some, who would peer at me from across the street with silly-looking FBI binoculars that look like bazookas. I would act like I didn't see them and then go for a walk through the park.

When I walk I would put on headphones and a hood over my head. I wouldn't play any music, but would just look around at people's faces.

January 19, 2003

Adventures in capitalism

We made it! Our little buzzer goes off, vibrating and lighting up frantically to show us and everyone else that we are now the chosen, the ones who makes it to the show. We wade through the crowd and proudly hand it over. Number 52. A proud moment. Prouder moment still as we move past the people waiting for space around the bar. What fools! Our method may be conservative, it may play by their rules, but where is your fucking table? Now I can allow myself to be hungry.

Later, in a bath store, we come across a large area full of pillows. All sort of pillows: feather, down, cotton, human hair, etc. All on display and ready for touching. A Pillow petting zoo. We take them down and lie down on the floor to try them out. Do a lot of people do this? I hope so, it is quite fun. Who uses the 'pure' feather pillows? I mean really - you can feel the end of the feathers like little freakin' razor blades in your head. SM people? Are there cameras recording pillow petting zoo behavior?

Later still we are waiting in line at an ice cream shop. The protocol is simple, step up and order. French Vanilla Yogurt with Oreo. What is the Oreo topping protocol? Do they buy Oreo's and then break them up at the store? Probably not, they buy them like that: from the Oreo people or from a third party? Do they have the cream center in them smushed up with the other stuff or is it just the delicious outer crust? If there is no cream then Oreo has two lines of business: cookies and parts. There are then separate managers for each. Hi, I am Bob Robertson, Director of Oreo Crumbs. Huge factories creating the crumbs. Are they smushed up in the same building that regular Oreo's are made? Are there division rivalries? I hate those crumb people, they aren't like us. They have no soul; no creamy center. Or maybe it is just a couple of janitors sweeping the floor of manufacturing. VP of Crumb Acquisition and his Assistant. Any way you get them they are quite good.

January 13, 2003

Between sleep and dreams

All these days are cloudy, dangerous, soon.

Last night as I was falling asleep at a very late hour I was in that state where I was asleep but could be woken up by sound or interesting thought. My interesting thought, which woke me up enough to make me remember to think about it today, was the above - and at the time it seemed like a nice way of describing my life right now although maybe a little more harshly than needed.

January 07, 2003

Guide

As part of my never-ending community service I bring you the latest installment of my guide to social situations in the middle class:

How to talk about race around your middle-class friends

1. When describing a small story be sure to mention each black character. White characters can be referred to as 'guys' and 'girls', etc. but all black characters must be specifically referenced as 'black guy', 'black girl', etc.

Example: This black guy ahead of me in line at the post office said that he had been waiting twenty minutes already.

2. To save time during descriptions use 'black', 'chinese', and 'mexican'. Please note that 'chinese' and 'mexican' are used to describe every asian and hispanic person on the planet.

Example: You know, Mary, that black girl who sits near the back. No, not her - the big one, Mary.

3. Use the term 'big black guy' to mean scary, violent, large, angry person. This term is so common it could almost be abbreviatted: BBG as in BBW: big bad wolf.

Example 1: As I rounded the corner at full speed I slammed into somebody, sending us both to the ground. I was ok, but when I looked up I saw that I had run into a big black guy (BBG)

Example 2: Yeah, I used to play a little ball. We used to go down the street and play with these big black guys (BBGS).

4. Feel free to use the term 'black neighborhood' in place of 'high crime neighborhood' or 'low-income' neighborhood.

Example: So we were lost, right, and after driving around we ended up in this huge black neighborhood and we were like oh crap now we better just forget the map and try to drive our way out somehow.

4. Pepper your language with the term 'ghetto' to mean cheap and bad.

Yeah, we went to the play, but it was really small; they all had these ghetto costumes on - it was really sad.

5. Never use the N-word. If you feel as if you have crossed over the line be sure to say 'you know what I mean' and 'not like that', but don't feel too bad about it, because you are a liberal and one of the good ones - you just slipped up while joking around.

6. Feel free to say whatever you want because, after all, you can.

January 04, 2003

Life lesson

When I was in the first grade my teacher told us that her niece had almost died about a week ago because she swallowed a hard candy, which had gotten stuck in her throat blocking her airpipe and causing her to pass out. After she told the story she lectured us to always eat Life Savers candy because they have a hole in the middle so that if this happens you can still breath a little as opposed to the solid hard candy that almost caused her niece to choke to death.

At the time I was somehow aware of the strangeness of all of this and the fact that Life Savers was suddenly a very strangely appropriate name for the candy. I wasn't sure if her advice was wise or the dumbest thing I had ever heard. I'm still not sure. Perhaps she worked for Life Savers candy.

Here's the interesting part - I don't remember anything else from the entire first grade, including the teacher's name or face.

December 26, 2002

Notebook

Education has taken many things away from me: my self-esteem, my bliss, my creativity, my fashion sense, my innocence about addiction, my car. But most of all I miss my notebook. That prick stole my notebook.

December 20, 2002

Recollection

I remember the first time that I realized that my memory was fallible. As a child I watched 'Flight of the Navigator' and at one point a very large man says something funny outside of a gas station where the alien spaceship is stopping for gas. I watched the movie again at some point and was suprised to find that the man was not very big at all and was wearing a plaid shirt and overalls, not a white shirt like I had remembered. What he said was different as well. I can't remember when I saw the movie the second time, or where I was, or how long after the first viewing it was. I don't remember the scene from the movie or what the man said or what any of the characters are named. In fact, the white versus plaid shirt is only an example; I don't remember the real difference that allowed me to realize that not everything I actually recall happened as I recall it. I only remember that I didn't remember very well. This realization could, in fact, have been retro-active. Somebody could have told me as a child that you don't always remember things as they are and I could have thought "Yeah, like in Flight of the Navigator''. I don't remember.

December 17, 2002

Tasty

I wonder what my first impression of books was. Ah, yes, that they were delicious.

November 25, 2002

Connection

I do not want the loneliness to be institutional, no more highways cutting large polygons of nothing. I do not want small islands semi-connected - houses filled with television-watching children learning about the world through red, green, and blue. I do not want separate buildings as evolutionary forks, across the street as the other side of a great canyon, people only seeing strangers in restaurants during special occasions, amazed at how they are the same as you.

I do not want one way streets of ideas all leading in. I do not want a collection of beliefs - political, social, geographical blinders, passed down at coming-of-age with every generation. I do not want a systematic ignorance of importance in this world; a false view of size in relation to it. This constant sense of 'catch up' makes me want to 'throw up' change.

I want diversity; the non-plurality of rurality infects me - I feel dirty with the systematic fear and doubt of reconfiguration.

I want connection.

November 04, 2002

A callarse

A callarse

Ahora contaremos doce
y nos quedamos todos quietos.

Por una vez sobre la tierra
no hablemos en ningun idioma,
por un segundo detengamonos,
no movamos tanto los brazos.

Seria un minuto fragante,
sin prisa, sin locomotoras,
todos estariamos juntos
en una inquietud instantanea.

Los pescadores del mar frio
no harian danio a las ballenas
y el trabajador de la sal
miraria sus manos rotas.

Los que preparan guerras verdes,
guerras de gas, guerras de fuego,
victorias sin sobrevivientes,
se pondrian un traje puro
y andarian con sus hermanos
por la sombra, sin hacer nada.

No se confunda lo que quiero
con la inaccion definitiva:
la vida es solo lo que se hace,
no quiero nada con la muerte.

Si no pudimos ser unanimes
moviendo tanto nuestras vidas,
tal vez no hacer nada una vez,
tal vez un gran silencio pueda
interrumpir esta tristeza,
este no entendernos jamas
y amenazarnos con la muerte,
tal vez la tierra nos ensenie
cuando todo parece muerto
y luego todo estaba vivo.

Ahora contare hasta doce
y tu te callas y me voy.

Pablo Neruda
(Estravagario)

November 03, 2002

Transcending

Transcending

Escher got it right
Men step down and yet rise up,
the hand is drawn by the hand it draws,
and a woman is poised
on her very own shoulders.

Without you and me this universe is simple,
run with the regularity of a prison.
Galaxies spin along stipulated arcs,
stars collapse at the specified hour,
crows u-turn south and monkeys rut on schedule.

But we, whom the cosmos shaped for a billion years
to fit this place, we know it failed.
For we can reshape,
reach an arm through the bars
and, Escher-like, pull ourselves out.

And while whales feeding on mackerel
are confined to the sea,
we climb the waves,
look down from the clouds.

Marvin Levine
(Look Down from Clouds)

November 01, 2002

Education

I found a videotape of myself giving a bunch of presentations when I was in the 7th and 8th grades. The first things that struck me were that I was wearing my brother's clothes - especially the comically oversized jeans that I had 'cinched' with a belt making me look like I had 40-year-old-woman hips - and that I had a very strong southern drawl. I was cracking jokes and generally comfortable in front of the camera, but it was so painful to watch myself with my strange haircuts and awkward body.

The real thing that struck me was not how I looked or acted back then but how I looked and acted when I saw this video. I feel that in a way I am the same person in the video although I have made some improvements - I have shaken off the clothes of my brother, although not completely - and some mistakes - I feel awkward about how I looked back then probably because I still feel awkward about the way I look and act now. But at the core I was the same person: I was nervous and awkward in the 7th grade which I didn't like and then comfortable and cracking jokes in the 8th, which I did.

And I don't really even want to think about where I lost my southern accent, but people have told me this before over and over. Education changes you. People think that you simply learn some facts but are the same person but you transform most of your views of the world by going to college. In an excellent book by a very successful man who grew up as a poor hispanic immigrant (the name escapes me despite the fact that I remember a lot of detail from the book) the contrast is striking: he learns english and starts becoming more 'american' and less 'spanish' by becoming educated. Even a child from a middle-class educated background changes when they go to college - it simply transforms you into a more historically- and internationally-aware version of yourself, and this can change major things like the way you talk and minor things like the way you think.

Keep it to yourself

I have this freakish ability to analyze literature. A few minutes after reading a poem or story I can describe complex layers of meaning, expose subtle symbols, and list various alternate interpretations of the work. I hardly ever use this despite it getting me into various 'honors' programs over the years. Many of my former teachers and classmates saw me while I was in college and were suprised to learn that I wasn't majoring in English or History (capital letters mean something). I never liked using my ability simply because very early on - from the first time I ever used it - I realized that what I say about a poem or story absolutely doesn't matter at all to anybody. Sitting around listening to other people tell their little theories about stories is a fucking waste of time - you have to feel the meaning when you read it yourself - the rest is just intellectual masturbation.

October 21, 2002

Whippersnappers

I think I am getting old. I see all these high school kids with letterman jackets and nice cars and I think to myself young punks, which is the generational equivalent of whippersnappers.

My wife and I were going to church one day (and by church I mean Wal-Mart) and we were waiting for a woman to back out of a parking space when these three teenage guys pulled right up and acting like they were going to cut us off and take the space. Their windows were down and I could hear them joking around about cutting us off. My wife and I yelled at them in some primitive language and they drove off laughing. We parked and walked inside, where we stopped to talk to a local newspaper salesguy (it is cheaper to get all week than to just get Sunday. Why? Because we also own the recycling company).

So I'm sitting there waiting right inside the automatic door and the three teenagers are walking from across the parking lot and they see me. We have a few dozen seconds of all of us acting like we aren't looking at each other and then they walk through the door. I look up and see that they are scared out of their minds, which suprises me.

From their point of view they think that I have been waiting for them right inside the door, and for some reason they think that I am a threat. This is hilarious to me. I have only been in one fight (6th grade) and am horribly out of shape. I suppose there is an advantage to being 250 pounds, even if at least 30 of that is pure fried chicken. As they pass by I tried to not laugh at the young punks that haven't seen enough of the world to know that I am not who they should be worried about.

Money, money, money

Money, money, money. Poverty really is a cycle, and I am just now beginning to really know it. I read a lot and reading in a way is simply a shortcut to knowledge not wisdom - you learn about things outside of your experience but sometimes you are forced to really learn later on. Parental advice is like this too. No matter how many times my parents give me simple advice I only really learn after getting burnt by making a wrong move. Reading is expanding, don't get me wrong, but at the end of the day you have to live a life you are proud of instead of reading about one. Maybe someday I will really know that.

October 16, 2002

Here on Gilligan's Isle

I used to be a big fan of Gilligan's Island; it came on every afternoon and my sister and I would watch it together. A couple of years ago I saw the movie where they are actually rescued and now everytime I think of Gilligan's Island the memory is of that instead of the normal setting on the island. I have lost the ability to see that gang still stranded.

I wandered around some of my old stomping grounds this weekend in my hometown and then where I went to college, and things have changed like they always do. All the people I knew are gone and there are small but important changes in structure - my favorite Mexican restaurant has closed and the building has been demolished, they added to the stadium, those new dorms are coming along.

About halfway through driving around I just turned around and drove home; I didn't want my memory to be tainted anymore. I want to be able to close my eyes and imagine myself back on the island.

Home

It is so strange to go home sometimes. I see my parents every few months, but they are different everytime I see them; my dad seemed a lot older this time, and it is hard to deal with. I am 23 and it is hard to have to care for my father when it comes to basic things - he can be so childlike when it comes to simple self-preservation. He can't relax; the entire time I was there he was worried about getting his taxes done (got an extension) and work, and he was berating himself for having messed all of these things up. It got me thinking - I can't remember a time when my dad wasn't very worried about his job. I don't know which is harder, seeing his body wither away or realizing that he is flawed in other ways and always has been.

October 11, 2002

The South

That phrase evokes different images for different people. Having spent my entire life in the south this is home to me, but over the last few years I have considered moving away. As a technology worker who through the web is aware of the opportunities in other parts of the country, I have at times felt that the south is behind the times and that I could move to another place that is more modern in terms of race relations, technology, education, and simply overall economic development.

In much the same way as Miami and New York are the benchmarks of how Hispanics (please excuse the term) will get along in mainstream America, black/white relations over the next generations will be determined in the south. The painful history of racism, war, and death which are washed over in other parts of America are clearly visible and even celebrated (and certainly debated) here. Living in the educated middle class here you have a sense of generations; you meet people who could live in very 'liberal' 'modern' places such as San Francisco and be comfortable, and you also deal with people who seem like they are from another time (anywhere from 1865 to 1960).

Being educated and living in the south offers a perspective that I would miss if I were to move.

For example, when I was in college I lived in a nice apartment complex near the edge of a rather small college town. Over the course of the year that I lived there I learned that this side of town used to be an old mill community named Princeton - this was further evidenced by the small rural church by the same name, a series of run-down shutgun-style houses and very large plantation home overlooking a dried-up factory below it on the river.

Our apartment backed up to the highway and there was only one residence that wasn't college apartments on the street. There was one black family that has lived there for generations as seen by the way the house is built into sections like my grandmothers house was. There is one main room on the house that had a custom aluminum roof, and other rooms were built off of it as the family expanded. The carpentry, plumbing and construction is done by the family piece-by-piece. The family did not have a car, a washer or dryer, or any money. On the other side of the interstate the road continues and there are dozens of families like them; their grandfathers or fathers worked at that mill and went to that church. Generations before that they were sharecroppers working that same land, and before that they were slaves.

The contrast was striking: on one side of the road a bitterly poor family with generations of no education, on the other college students with apartments and cars.

There are too many reminders like this in the South for you to ignore issues like affirmative action, class conflict, and oppression. Many see all the confederate flags, civil war fanaticism, black pride parades, and calls for reparations as reminders of a history that America should just forget; I see all these are strong influences that keep us debating, keep us trying to work out a future in which historical oppression doesn't mean that your family is doomed to a life that you don't want for them.

And this is why I will live my entire life here.

October 09, 2002

Chilling

It is really cold today, and it is raining. This feels like a completely different place. I stepped out to go to my car today and I was taken back to my first quarter of college. It was almost midnight and I was working on a paper. It was freezing outside and, as it tended to do that year, it was raining. It rained all year when I was a freshman - it was the first year of a stronge el nino and being in the direct path of the jet stream doesn't help either. Now everytime it is raining and cold I am once again a freshman, riding my bike in the rain at midnight trying to find a place to print out my first english paper.

My wife is a supporter of the growing perfuming and lotion industry. She has quite a collection in a very large drawer under our sink (it has to be forklifted in when we move from place to place). She has lotions dating back years, and she switches what she wears every once in awhile. Yesterday she switched to a scent that she used to wear when we were first dating in high school; it made me feel warm and vulnerable at the same time. My mind was replaying whatever I was feeling at that time at a level too low for me to even understand, but I still felt it.

All I seem to remember is emotions. My memories from childhood are of when I was really mad or really unhappy, not of what my old house used to be like. I only remember the details of my old house when they are important to those emotional times; I used to climb that tree, that is where I hurt my foot, those neighbors hate it when I jump off of their blue boat through the bushes into our yard.

October 08, 2002

Coffee distributor

This morning I arrived to work to find that my coffee-ring project had been sabotaged. Everyday I get about one-and-a-half cups of coffee and put them in this Nissan stainless steel flask (no airbags included) from which I dispense coffee throughout the day to a small blue mug. I drink different amounts of coffee each day, rarely drinking a full one-and-a-half cups. Everyday I let the coffee sit in the blue mug and flask and then throw it out the next day by transferring the coffee back into the flask and then refilling it there. When the coffee sits in the blue mug overnight it leaves small rings of dried coffee around the edge of the mug. My first few months of doing this through sheer laziness I found that the patterns this forms are quite pretty and that it makes the coffee taste better each day (it gives it a nice burnt taste). For the last three days I have been trying to form a cool pattern intentionally.

This morning during the blue-mug-to-flask transfer I happened to look down into the flask before emptying it. I saw what looked to be a large bit of dried coffee floating on top. It turned out to be a very large roach that had somehow wandered into the blue mug overnight and drowned. I had to clean out everything and the coffee rings are now reset.

I am guessing that drowning in anything is not fun, especially a small pool that you can't climb out of, but didn't the roach by definition drink some of the coffee right before he died? He looked a little fat when I threw him out, and given his size it looke like the equivalent of me drinking about a gallon of coffee. If he did he was probably too high on life to care about breathing. I threw him outside and the ants out there will probably eat him and absorb some of this very stronge coffee as well - I hope they don't get really psyched and bring my car back to their nest or something.

That's me - distributing coffee down the food chain.