broken.pooter

mikedickens.com

2009-07-16T20:18:00.000-04:00

from one phase to the next.
the pooter is being retired.
and life will continue on at mikedickens.com!

everything from here will move there,
but this blog will no longer get updated.

and so it was...

from kundera's "the curtain"

2009-07-12T19:15:00.002-04:00

Now, are great dramatic actions really the best clue to understanding human nature? Are they not, rather, a barrier that hides life as it truly is? Isn't "insignificance" actually one of the greatest problems? Isn't that our fate? And if so, is that fate our good fortune or bad? Our humiliation or, on the contrary, our solace, our escape, our idyll, our refuge?

-Milan Kundera, The Curtain

wowww, holy shit, when i read that line i went searching for a pen, i had to underline it, and after underlining it and reading it again, i couldn't move forward, and now, 15 minutes later, i'm still not ready to move forward. the line compelled me to write, it has so much power and speaks to me in such a way that i was and am defenseless.

if you think about it, say, a wedding, is that truly a summation of the relationship between those two people? how about a divorce? how about a fight? or a series of fights? i know nearly every fight i've ever been in with a girlfriend either directly or indirectly stemmed from something in the past. look at the podium at the end of the tour de france, does that glimpse at the conclusion of the race really give you an indication of the significance of the race? is the drama in life really about the large things? is it about the birthdays and christmases or the birth of a child or finding a soul mate? and sure, bringing a child into the world can be a beautiful event, but isn't the beauty of raising a child when she's running around the kitchen, high on juice boxes and stops dead in her tracks, says, "i love you daddy," giggles, then runs off? where is that in the movies? or in novels? we're always given the big events, the milestones. life isn't a rolling wave of culminations, we're not always working toward our next big thing, sometimes the big thing falls from the sky. the drama is in the minor, amazing events of the day. the sun so bright in the morning we have to squint. that's amazing. that's life. when it rains for a few days and the grass is greener than normal, the leaves are stronger and happier. that's amazing. that's life. that kiss when you walk in the door from work. or opening the door at 6:12pm and smelling the smell of your house, the house you bought and built, that houses your wife and kids, painted by your hand and full of your dirty clothes. that's amazing. that's life.

that's the story i want to write and read. the stories that bring to light the significances of minor occurences. we live an insignificant life. it's true, and it's ok and it's wonderful. we simply have to open our eyes and realize how wonderful it is. artists help us do that.

txt from greeley square park

2009-07-09T21:34:00.000-04:00

tired from a new york city night of grand marnier and rick's, i was alone in greeley square park in chelsea, i guess they call it the fashion district. the city was moving and beginning to smell like the summer streets, the chewing gum pasted to the tarmac and the hot dog stands selling chicken and pork and the taxi exhaust, it all blends together in a menage of mess and beauty. my friends were taking two hours too long in the apartment we were crashing in, i wanted to be home, and if i couldn't be on my way home, i wanted to see the city. so as they packed and talked and laughed and cleaned and remembered the night, i sat in greeley square park with 30 strangers and watched the sun reflect off the buildings. i had my backpacker backpack at my feet and i imagined being in barcelona, of hearing spanish all around me, and smelling the barcelona air, more dusty or dirty than manhattan, different. actually, i didn't imagine the smells. and as i sat there, i texted a friend, "i'm not in the mood to laugh, i'm in the mood to be tender." i wanted to be there with someone, and to feel their closeness and quietude, that sort of peacefulness i've only experienced when there's no need to talk. and i didn't send the text to her because i wanted to be tender with her, but because she knew me when i was tender and what it means for me to be that way. about a year and a half ago i called a different friend and told her i wanted to take a nap with her. i was sort of seeing someone at the time, but didn't want to lounge around with her because she would expect something of me, expecting me to be witty or loving or sexual or funny or sensitive or want me to listen (for god's sake we know women love when men listen! haa) but, sometimes i don't feel like being that. it's too much to ask, and yet despite not being willing to be that for someone, i still want to be around someone, be close to someone, but not have to worry about the complexities that occur laying in the bed with someone that doesn't understand my heart rate.

what does that say

2009-07-09T21:16:00.000-04:00

i wrote, or started to write, three posts in june that i didn't publish, what does that say? it's a month of incompletion, of lostness, or, maybe not lostness, but misdirection, i was moving, just not getting anywhere.

i feel sort of drained. i need a respite. some time to get back on track. i've slacked on my workouts. i've slacked on some of my fun projects. i've slacked on thinking. i'm moving, but i don't have a direction.

i've got some interesting ideas for work that i want to flesh out, but haven't made the time. then there's my music blog, which is a genuine opportunity to build a community, and we've already got people interested, but i haven't made the time to set it in motion. i have about 400 books waiting for me to read, and 300 movies waiting for me to watch, and a family that hasn't seen me in a while or spent quality time with in months.

i have the most amazing friends a man could want, but i'm skipping out on a bday party this weekend and another the week after, i haven't talked to one of my best friends in a couple of months (he's got a new gf, which explains some of it, but it's mostly my fault) and i have someone new that wants more of my time, and i'm not willing to give it to her, and i haven't spent enough time at the pool this summer, or enough time researching barcelona, or enough time walking to get breakfast at the diner on saturday mornings when the sun's angle is sharp and the shadows are long and my disconnection only feels like a moment in time, only feels like another mood or another fleeting inconsistency. two weeks ago i went hiking with friends, and we jumped around like idiots and talked about women and their complexities and about adventure and seeing things and doing things, not just talking about doing things, i ended up jumping in a waterfall, and there's a lot to be said for my need to feel the rushing water over my head.

life probably sounds awful, but the greatest comfort is my existential philosophy, is the thought that i make this life what i want it to be. if i want to talk to my friends more, i pick up the phone. i don't wait for someone to call me and help me feel connected or special or wanted. i do it. if i want to get out in nature, i get up and go hiking, or i sit out on my patio and watch the lightning bugs flicker as the taxis drive into the madness of dc. if i want to meet her, i walk up to clarendon and get a drink and say hello. if i want to see my mother's face and my father's mustache, i drive 45 minutes. life really is a series of choices set before us, we have to choose, i have to choose to call elizabeth and hear her amazing voice and her tender laughter. i have to choose to workout and jump rope and play basketball and go to the golf range. i have to choose to fall in love and tell her she has centered me. i have to choose to write. and i have to choose to think. and cry and laugh and be afraid. i have to choose those things.

right now, i'm not choosing much. i'm letting the waterfall rush over me.

barcelona

2009-06-27T10:10:00.002-04:00

tree of life and so on

2009-06-26T21:41:00.000-04:00

i wrote to my mother a month or so ago sort of apologizing for not seeing her more; i wanted her to feel that i wasn't actively avoiding anyone, and i know she wouldn't suspect that, but i felt that my absence needed to be explained to some degree. i told her i had slightly withdrawn over the last few months, focused on work and tried to spend my free time relaxing my mind. she replied by advising me to be careful not to distance myself from my friends and family too much, she wanted me to maintain my strong relationships because she knows their value in my life and told me she doesn't know anyone that has as many friends as i do. i read that and froze. do i really have that many friends?

i guess i do have a large group of amazing people in my life, all serving one purpose or another, all active in my life in some manifestation that works for what our friendship requires. i have friends that i only talk to once a year, or once every 5 years, but i think about them all the time, and they are active members in the shaping of my present state. there's a guy i worked with a few years ago that i've seen twice in 5 years, and every time we see each other it's like seeing a brother that was in the peace corps or something. we're off doing our own things, but he's instrumental in the person i am. i bumped into a girl i haven't seen in 6 years last weekend and nothing was missing and there was an immediate comfort. we spent a lot of time together for a couple of years and built an interesting friendship, two young, awkward artists rambling through life trying to make sense of it, and we bonded through that wandering. i have another friend that i haven't seen in two years or so, but she and i write little inspirational texts to each other every couple of weeks. she's an amazing person that has directed me to places and states of being i wouldn't have arrived at by myself. i have another friend that i talk to every couple of months, and she and i have the most bizarre, intimate conversations. we understand each other's pace, and at times need to be questioned and offered another reality, but we always get off the phone feeling lifted. and i have a friend that is great for those sort of life talks that guys need to have on occasion with other guys, those, "girls are annoying assholes" kinda talks. he's been in a long-term relationship and he has a perspective about relationships that i don't have, he's an insider. and i have a single guy's take, something he appreciates. he and i have 45 minute talks every couple of weeks and it's really strengthened an already strong friendship. another friend pushes me to be more active, is the greatest Doer in all of humanity. he just wants to Do Stuff. why plan it out and allow a greater possibility of not doing it? let's just do it and make it work. everyone needs Doers in life. i went to baltimore to hang out with a friend i haven't seen for a couple of years, he introduced me to punk and i had a great time. it was an opportunity to do something different, to see life from a different angle, and it was amazing. i wouldn't just get up and go to a punk show on my own volition, but because i have a "punk friend," i was able to get that experience. for the 4th i'm going to nyc and staying with a friend's family and then at her apt in manhattan. another friend, one i've already mentioned, also offered her place in harlem. how fortunate am i that i can say i already have a friend offering her place to stay? when i heard her vm saying my friends and i could crash there, it took my breath away. i realized at that moment how lucky i am, how amazing it is that i built and maintained such incredible friendships with people that they are willing to let me sleep in their home when they aren't there. and when i step back, it's not about having the most friends, it's about having the greatest friends, relationships with people that hit all sorts of levels, add all sorts of layers and have shaped me into the person i am. it's something i take very seriously and value beyond belief, something that i don't express to them often enough.

all of this comes about because i just lost my best friend. she and i can't be friends for a while. it's something that doesn't make me feel great, but something that she needs and something i respect. it won't be easy without her actively in my life, but what i've learned from reviewing my other friendships, out of sight doesn't mean out of mind. she'll float in and out of my thoughts for a long, long time, whether or not we talk or see each other.

be by myself

2009-06-25T06:28:00.000-04:00

i've only listened to this song for a week

2009-06-19T22:40:00.000-04:00

mos def - no hay nada mas

the title translates to there is nothing more

lessons learned on a road trip to trafalgar square

2009-06-10T21:19:00.000-04:00

i wake up some mornings, and it's different, you know the moment you open your eyes the first time for the day, well, sometimes i awake without opening my eyes, the awareness of a new day hits me before the new day itself, i lay unstirred, the sun hits my face through the blinds, i hear the morning birds, loud and alive, i smell the smell that's me, and i breathe, more than anything i breathe, slow meaningful breaths, patient breaths, and then i open my eyes.

i see my room, that's how i live, i still say my room, i don't have a house, and my apartment is shared, but my room, well, my room is my room, and when my eyes finally say hello to the morning light, i see my room. the walls unadorned, utilitarian as it is, it's beautiful, and comforting and exclusive.

showers on mornings like these make me feel cleaner and last a few minutes shorter, i need to get out there, be out in it, start the day, start moving in that direction, get to where i'm going. i feel lighter, my step is bouncier and less encumbered by my dreams, by the spinning madness that hypnotizes me every night.

on mornings like these, my walk from my apartment to my car feels new, like a high school kiss, and dawn is still that pinkish blue that only dawn can be, it rises into my courtyard, hits the maple tree and spreads out against the branches, and sometimes, on mornings like these, i stop in the courtyard, i stop and stand there, i look up, the clouds are there, or maybe they aren't, it doesn't matter, i'm alive and i have another day of life and i have another shot at finding happiness or experiencing joy or accomplishing something or meeting someone or having a conversation that i didn't expect to have.

on my education

2009-06-08T22:06:00.000-04:00

it's really a source of discontent in my life, a struggle i deal with all the time. not a struggle like cancer or a dying kid, so no, it's not something i lose sleep over, but it's something i have to deal with considering all of my workmates have a degree and some of them have masters, and yet, if i were to get promoted, some may feel slighted because they have more education. i can perform better, be smarter, more efficient, more innovative and all those other business terms, but when you don't have a degree, people have room to question.

when i was in school the whole enterprise felt empty. i didn't feel like i was getting educated, certainly not receiving a complete education. a few classes brought me joy, made sense, appealed to my intellect. others were led by professors that needed to teach to continue to get research funding. most classes felt forced, students forced to take the classes, professors forced to teach. there was very little education, mostly it was repetition and memory and very little critical thinking. read two chapters, take a quiz. read two chapters, write a 5 page paper. listen to me talk, take a test. that's not challenging and certainly not sufficient preparation for the world i encountered after school.

so why is it a struggle? well, despite feeling that school was a waste of time, i'm now pressured into believing that it was valuable and holds merit in my current job, and maybe that pressure is solely inflicted by me, it's not something that i necessarily feel at work, but it's something i know is a factor at least to be considered. and in all reality, though it really shouldn't be, i'm honest with myself in knowing that it is. i would prefer the level of work i do or the level of expertise i bring to my position or my team or my company as the defining judgement, and it is, but it's only a part of the whole. and so what am i to do? go back to school and take classes in topics i'm not interested in? how would i justify my work paying for classes that i'm interested in but won't necessarily help my career? and the follow up question to that would be, wouldn't any class i take that i enjoy and that increases my cognitive understanding of the world help my company?

so i watched a video today on TED about rethinking the liberal arts in america. i've never thought about what constitutes liberal arts, what it means or why it has value, but after watching the presentation embedded below (not a very exciting presentation by TED standards, but informative none the less) i realized that i got a liberal arts education. i started with a major in information systems, took computer classes and learned to organize information, or at least was supposed to learn that. then i decided i would major in philosophy and history, and took a ton of those classes, studying taoism and kant and plato and descartes alongside learning the techniques of war throughout history and about vietnam and ancient asian cultures, i remember being bored in some of those classes and writing haikus and poems in a big yellow spiral notebook. then i decided i should major in education, get a teaching gig and have the summers off to explore and think and live. i studied facilitation and lesson planning. then became disenchanted with that and decided i should drive to california because that's where happiness was. and in all honesty, my education deepened there, felt more real there, i read 12 books in 2 months, watched amazing old films like the bicycle thief, and i meditated and sat in the park and cried while reading a poem traveled down my arm and wondered if it was stendhal syndrome, or if the history of my life and all that i've ever experienced combined with the weather and the time of day and the angle of the sun so that when i read those words i had no choice but to cry, that i had no option but to react to something that i found beautiful with tears. that was my liberal arts education.

i touched a lot of different disciplines. i soaked up what i thought was valuable, put it in my back pocket, and carried it with me. the education that i got while in school really and truly was invaluable, but not in the sense that most expect from it. i learned a lot in those years, how to be away from my family, what it feels like to come home to a family that loves you, and to actually understand that love, you know, sometimes you have to step away to realize how important something is, and college allowed for that. i broke up with a long-time girlfriend and learned to fall out of love, a lesson that i'm still perfecting (rather reluctantly) and tried to deal with the aftermath of being shunned for the first time in my life. it was an amazing period of self-actualization, but most of that is unaccounted for in the records, there's no piece of paper to be seen, there's no official document that certifies that i learned anything while being there. and it feels blasphemous and disingenuous and rotten. and it feels worse that i have heaped pressure on myself to go back and get that official document now, when i'm in a completely different place in my life.

aside: i remember sitting in the library shelves at umbc reading artaud, i was studying poetry and thinking about it in abstract ways, and artaud was fairly insane, but ingenious, and he also wrote plays, so i sort of combined the two and conjured up a play that would essentially take place in a huge well, it would require a one-of-a-kind set and whatnot. so i walked over to the theater section and looked for books on alternative theater, or abstract performance and found very little, but decided i would reach out to someone that might know more, and being in such an institutionalized place in my life, i contacted who? a professor at columbia. what response did i get? none. he was probably doing research.

my "liberal arts" education is the only reason i am where i am, and my education didn't stop when i left school. i worked construction for a few months, a plumber's assistant, carrying pipe and fittings and getting lunch and telling stories and taking direction and watching, more than anything, watching. i watched our foreman run the site, how he handed out criticism, how he spoke to us, how we all wanted to be his friend and do good work for him. i remember walking to lunch one day, i worked across from the world bank building, there were always lots of foreigners around, this english man noticed my "don't bush it" shirt (in reference to the 2004 election) and told me he approved of my sentiment, i had my hard hat strapped to my belt and looked dirty and the shirt seemed out of place to him, so he asked about it, and i lied, told him i was sort of doing a social experiment, i was interested in seeing how different the environment in construction was compared to corporate america, and he said he could tell i wasn't a typical construction worker, and i bumped into him a few more times over the next couple of months and we always said hello. but, what's funny is it really wasn't a lie, i was experimenting, only without a plan, i didn't take the job to experiment, i needed money to get across the country, but when given the opportunity i took away as much as possible. when i was a waiter for a summer, living out of my car at the beach, i learned a lot: multi-tasking, working under pressure, working under exhaustion, working under deadlines, determining expectations, team bonding/building, all sorts of business type terms that people go to b-school for. then i got a job in IT and learned the ins-and-outs of computer systems in four months. then got another job in IT and another and now i'm more business-oriented, with a twist of IT. my point is, without my diverse, liberal education, i wouldn't be able to perform at the level i do now, i wouldn't have the facility to do my job.

and now at work, increasingly, i feel that in order to ensure my spot, i have to have an expertise, i have to be really good at one thing, which is what higher education attempts to do, and what the presenter in the video below bemoans. i don't want a single focus, it's boring and predictable and not something i'm at all interested in. i'm fortunate to work on a team that is incredibly diverse and is tasked with incredibly diverse projects that really allows me to not only use the talents i have, but also develop the skills i severely lack. and though i think both my boss and company see my talent and trusts my ability, i still feel the gaze of higher education looking down on me, chastising me for not finishing, telling me my discontent in those college years should've been swallowed and i should've toughed it out and labored through it and walked out of there with a big white piece of paper that people frame behind glass and talk about at bars and on dates and at conferences.

is it ok that my education is unconventional? is it ok that i study more now than ever? that i'm more engaged in learning both at work and at home more than i've ever been? is that quantifiable enough?

something to say for positivism

2009-06-05T22:06:00.000-04:00

i'm a half-full kind of guy, life is difficult and tedious and complicated and tiresome and...wonderful and intricate and tender and light and interesting and arresting. i choose to see life as being good. now, it's not great, or, at least it's not always great, but that's not to say that it's not damn good. i don't always see the bright side, i'm not ignorant. i don't always expect the best, i'm not naive. but, i don't think the world will implode if something doesn't goes as planned or someone doesn't arrive on time. life is such a silly endeavor, is it critical that i show up at 5pm if we can get to dinner at any time?

lately i think i've been around a lot of negative people, or people that are sort of on the half-empty team; it's wearing on me. people that don't see the flippancy in it all, the evanescence of life, we live such short lives, and to take it all so serious and to see it so dark depresses me. maybe these people think their lives are of the utmost importance, that when bad things happen they happen only to them or more often to them than other people. or, something else i've been considering, would it be safe to say that when a person has the ability for above average complex, critical thinking, that that person will be more likely to be on the half-empty team? you know, do dullards really think their lives are all that bad? i don't know, but i think it's far more likely that someone with the ability to not only see the awful events in life, but think about them in abstract and complex ways would end up concluding that life is not too good. i mean, if we look at the news, the economy is failing, we're in two wars, our last president spied on his own citizens and his administration approved torture, every news channel swears we'll all die from bird flu, swine flu or SARS. if you can wrap your brain around how awful some of those things are, i guess you're sort of susceptible to being a bit of a pessimist. but wake up! snap out of it! life isn't swine flu. it's just not. sure, people get hit by lightning, but i'm not going to live my life trying to actively avoid being struck, it doesn't work for me, i don't live life behind hand sanitizer.

when i think about a long-term relationship, a half-empty person will require too much of my energy, will tamper with too many free thinking sessions. i'm not always optimistic, so i'll no doubt need a teammate, and am a willing teammate for the wife i'll one day have, but joining a team that can't appreciate the sunset because it's too early in the morning or doesn't want to get caught in a rainstorm because her shoes could get ruined or doesn't want to hightail it to the mountains for the day because it's too far a drive, well, that sort of life, it's just too strenuous for me, i only have so much energy, and investing it in trying to make someone smell the flowers is not how i intend on spending the rest of my days.

i wonder what the wine tastes like in spain

2009-06-03T20:27:00.000-04:00

in another email to a friend, i sent this:

and now i'm planning a trip to barcelona. i'm sort of infatuated with spanish culture, and have a sharp desire to see europe, so i'm planning a solo trip to barca to begin my world travels. i've been all over the US, and now want to explore the world. my mom isn't too thrilled that i'm going by myself, but i want the experience to be Mine, i don't want to have to consider other people's wants. as selfish as that is, i think it's the only way i can truly enjoy it. i'm not a scheduled person, not detail-oriented, so i think i'd feel suffocated if i had to stick to a daily schedule that requires i be at Museum A and then Exhibit B and then Park C and then Restaurant D. i want to wander the city and feel like i live there. people always say, "you better see it all while you're there, you'll never go back." but, i don't think that way. even if i don't return, it would be less of an experience if i just went to see stuff. i want to watch the city and the people and see them go to work and take lunch and go out to eat. all the normal stuff people do, i want to see how they do it, and how they feel about doing it, or how they carry themselves doing it. i've only watched americans or american culture, so to get to see another flow will be interesting. i'm more interested in that than seeing cool buildings or art exhibits (though i'm hoping to see that stuff too!)

i guess i've been emailing a lot lately, reconnecting with old friends and interesting people. i'm craazzzy excited to see barcelona, she'll always be my first experience abroad! i plan on taking a ton of notes and will document as much as i can while over there. i should get some interesting fodder for this space.

king of the new world

2009-06-03T20:07:00.000-04:00

i emailed a friend recently a thought i've been playing with:

ok, so i was thinking,
when you were a kiddid you ever wish you were a queen?
i used to dream about being a king or prince
and being on top of the world
maybe it was about control
or being able to have whatever i wanted
i'm not sure
but the idea of being a king
was more about controlling my situation
more so than controlling the villagers
it wasn't a power thing
and i've been thinking lately about my current situation
where i live
where i work
what i have
what i've done
where i've gone
how i feel
(you know, all those things i think about all the time)
buti recently realized how lucky i am
out of the 6 billion people on earth
the luxuries i have in my life
the decisions i'm able to make for myself
the things i buy
the things i see
the things i enjoy doing...
i'm in the top 1% in the world
and you are too
and most of our friends and family are too

so i did some quick research
there are 6.53 billion people on earth
there are 65 million people in the upper 1%
that's not a lot of people
i got worried we might not be in the 1%
so i looked up the number of millionaires in the world:3 million
we're definitely in the top 1%
we are the kings and queens
we have luxuriesand Choiceand the ability to decide our futures

how amazing is that?
how fortunate are we?

it really helps to think that we are more privileged than more than 99% of the inhabitants on earth
so when work isn't going well
or i feel boring and completely uncreative
or lonely
or insecure
i have to realize that i have opportunities that most people don't.

slacky slackerson

2009-06-02T14:12:00.003-04:00

wow, i've been a bit removed from writing here. i was working on a short story for a friend and have been reading and watching movies more than usual. i promise to dig into this more often. prommmmisssseeeee.

i have a few posts in this lil brain of mine about being king of the world, seeing the Catalan way of breathing, my new pseudonym: mudcat and life after dying.

until then, enjoy this:

tuesday dots

2009-05-12T22:11:00.001-04:00

on love: over the past year or two i've thought of love as a project, a managerial undertaking, expectations have to be set and met and manipulated, and deadlines are negotiated and project schedules are constantly being rearranged. it seemed like something to be managed. it seemed like work. but lately i've been thinking about the art of love and the magic of finding someone that Makes Sense to me and understands my ridiculous idiosyncrasies, it's really an amazing idea and journey and a far more inherently beautiful endeavor. if it's a project, it's an art project, something to be proud of, something that requires creativity and goofiness and sincerity and the imperfection of art. see, that's the biggest difference, in a manager's project, when something goes wrong, it's wrong. in an artist's project, when something goes wrong, it's a miracle. i want love to be art, not work.

i texted my dear friend in new york on a whim: just know it's ok to be happy or sad or angry or embarrassed. it's always ok. i think a disproportionate number of people in the world recently needed to be told, "it's ok." i think it may have been a universal spat of self-degradation or something, people didn't think it was ok to be mad or sad or happy or free or lonely, and maybe i was one of those people a few weeks ago, and with my new eyes i was able to see people that looked like me. i went through a lonely lil spell, wishing i could share experiences, guilty that i haven't found someone i think is the bee's knees, but also guilty because i was able to still find happiness in being alone, in being able to have fun and experience life without a woman, without a wife or a girlfriend or even a rather minor companion. i didn't need anyone, and that didn't feel right, or i guilt'd myself into thinking it wasn't right. but it's ok. and i know that. and i was able to pull myself out of that nastie mood by smacking myself in the face and choosing to simplify this complicated mind. when you understand, let that understanding stand. if you feel sad you haven't treated your wife the best, let that sadness be the emotion, not guilt and embarrassment and anger. don't complicate the sadness. and then when you understand the sadness, just know it'll be ok. life is ok. it's actually pretty damn good. it's not great, or, it is in brief, minuscule flashes, but overall, it's not really that great, but damn if it aint good.

for the first time in my life i'm talking to all my ex's. the circumstances behind each lapse of communication is completely different, and there's no trend between our ex communiques, but it feels good to be connected to these women that have greatly shaped my life.

my first ex wrote this at the end of an email recently: A true beach bum, an LA bound star, a lover, a poet, the novelist, graphic designer, the futurist, a manager, the traveling man.... Mike, you've got a lot of stories to share. i want to believe i have that story to tell, but it seems like someone else's story. when i get in my "i haven't accomplished shit" mood i think about my insane life experiences and realize i've done a lot, a lot to be proud of, whether for actually accomplishing something or just having the balls to not be normal, i can still be proud. i still want more, i need more from life, it has such great potential, or, to say it differently, i have such great potential to experience a great life, that i only want more and more. (hence my planned trip to barcelona in the fall)

i'm reading the mystery guest by bouillier, and it's devastating. this guy is breaking my soul in bits. i want to be able to express myself with his clarity at some point in my life. i've only gotten more and more eloquent and clear-headed as i've gotten older, but i have a long way to go to understand all of life's beautiful connections, or the art of creating life's connections.

i'm getting lost in the chester french album. it's a great, light spring album. a lot of driving trips this summer will feature many tracks from this album.

elevator speech

2009-05-04T21:40:00.000-04:00

at work a couple of weeks ago someone asked me what i want to be when i grow up. he wasn't being an ass, just curious to know where i wanted to take my career, what i wanted to do at the company i'm with or how i fit in with the growth. i didn't know how to answer. i was lost for words. i stumbled through a circuitous response, hoping to sort of saying everything and nothing, and he interrupted and said, "because i think you have a sense for things." i tried to take his words and make them mine, but they were too new, i didn't know how to structure that idea into something that would make sense.

i think you have a sense for things

when i'm being immodest, i like to think of myself as a renaissance man, someone that knows "stuff." stuff about art, literature, music, movies. i can carry a fairly in-depth conversation with anyone about those subjects and never feel out of place, i know just enough to make someone that knows more than me comfortable about talking about these things. so, for instance, i could discuss modern architecture with someone because i know just enough to get them to run with it, which is something i truly enjoy, if i can have an audience with someone that really knows their stuff, i want to hear what they have to say, and, it doesn't help that most people that Know, enjoy telling people what they know.

but knowing isn't enough. one of the primary traits that amazes me about chomsky or hitchens or dawkins or rushdie or any of the incredibly smart people i've listened to is their ability to converge information. so, not just knowing this or that, but knowing how this is similar to that. convergence mystifies me. the way hitchens seamlessly moves from talking about jesus to world war 1 to roger federer is intense and beautiful. now, i'm no where near the people i've mentioned, but i do have the ability to make sense of something through the understanding of something else. in fact, it's how i learn best. without a frame of reference i feel lost. the trick is to have a large frame of reference. if you can pull in a ton of information, sift through it and match up the pieces that fit, you're converging.

having a diverse background and interests helps. i've had all sorts of jobs. some pretty technical, others not at all. i like everything. i'm a computer geek, sports jock, book reader, outdoorsman. and i guess when someone says i have a sense for things it means i'm able to understand something or someone because of my relevant history.

elevator speech

an elevator speech is a 15 second pitch, you're supposed to be able to explain everything you can bring to the table in the 15 seconds it takes to get to the next floor on an elevator, something like that. the elevator can be anything really. if you bump into a hiring manager at a dream-job company at a conference or restaurant or whatever, you're supposed to be able to sell them on how badass you are. obviously, my elevator speech needs a lot of work.

but what would i say? what does someone that has a sense for things say? how is that a marketable trait? when i was talking to the guy that asked what i wanted to be when i grow up, i told him i like to be involved in diverse projects, the more i know about, the more useful i am. and i guess that's not true for everyone. some people want to focus on something highly specialized and dominate in their field. i don't have a field. i don't think i really want a field. but because i don't have a field, what is my primary marketable trait? isn't society becoming more specialized? isn't it not enough to be a lawyer or a doctor or a technical writer? don't you have to be an IP lawyer and a podiatrist and contract document specialist?

i'm not sure what i would say, but i won't be unprepared next time. i'll have to figure out a way to make it seem like what i bring is absolutely indispensable to a business. (i think it is, but i want to make sure my audience does too!!)

report on myself by gregoire bouillier

2009-04-26T21:18:00.000-04:00

i can't rave about this book enough. brilliant, intelligent, entertaining, intense, awkward. it's a full experience. gregoire bouillier's memoir tells the story of the menage a trois between his father, his mother and their lover that brought him into this world. but it's not solely his unique circumstances that make the book, what really brings it to life is his amazing ability to draw meaning from anything and everything. he can extract meaning from the most minor and obscure thing and give it purpose. his playfulness with the meaning of life and the symbols and convergences we can tap into reminds me of saul williams' writing. the following are some of the most devastating quotes from the book:

"And later, I enthusiastically kissed the girls I encountered, imaging that I'd finally awaken them; but they weren't asleep at all, or else in another fairy tale, belonging to them. I didn't understand. I couldn't conceive that those to whom I was attracted weren't in a certain way asleep."

"What I owe to such a smile. It tells me I'm not to blame, nothing is ever lost, beauty is a source of goodness, existence is bliss, the unexpected the only approbation of life, and so much more, about which Madame Fenwick couldn't have any idea, but which refutes the fate that society and my family are already reserving for me."

"I didn't even try to explain to them that my ambition wasn't to exist in this world, but to make a world exist."

"On that day, I understood that life began where images ended. At the place where I'd had to improvise and had been left to myself, without any description coming before my acts to tell them how to proceed. In a bedroom, the adventure became mine for once; it was about invention, starting with the self, whatever your state of mind might be. Finally being present, in body and mind, wholly daring. I've never perceived sexual adventure as either a social practice or a formality required by nature, but as one of the rare possibilities that I had to devote myself with someone to a human experience that goes beyond me (in times of peace.)"

summer reading book list

2009-04-26T20:54:00.000-04:00

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl - i'm about 50 pages through this already and it's pretty intense. the author is a world war 2 concentration camp survivor, and he analyzes the ability for humans to define the meaning of their life, very existential and right in line with my thinking.

The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger - i've read this before, but i have to read it again. there's something that smacks me in the face about holden caulfield's voice. pretty much everything i write aspires to be as intensely human as the thoughts and interactions salinger creates in this book.

The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac - again, i've read this, but i need to revisit. i remember when i first got into kerouac i devoured a lot of his works in a short span, i needed to get close to his use of language. in a similar way to salinger, he uses a natural language in his writing that i aspire to. and the dharma bum tale coincides with my desire to get out into nature this summer, rock climbing, camping, hiking, etc...

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn - i know very little about this book, but understand that it's a modern classic. it fits my goal for my summer reading: sort of short and diverse. i want to get through a lot of books over the next few months, so reading something like Infinite Jest and it's 1000+ pages just doesn't fit that description. i've decided my winter months will be for larger material, summer for the shorter, poolside stuff.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri - she's the hot thing in literary circles, everyone of her novels received rave reviews, so i figured i would start out with her pulitzer prize winning book first. i just read the back and found out it's a collection of short stories, i thought it was a novel. well, short stories are cool, they feel like a one-night stand, exciting and new, but not a big commitment.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - i've started this book at least three times, but never finished. it's supposed to be an american classic, so i'm not sure why i can't get into it. it's never grabbed me, never held me hostage. the character that apparently sweeps most off their feet, gatsby, i've never connected with. but this summer, i guarantee i'll get through the whole of it and build a fully realized view of the book. the first 20 pages or so of The Fountainhead didn't grab me, but i stuck with it and it was one of the most pleasurable reads to date. so, i'll give it another try.

Why I am not a Christian by Bertrand Russell - my atheist ways have brought me this book. a friend a few months ago sent me Mere Christianity by cs lewis, he thought it would be an interesting read for me, so i told him the only way i read it is if he reads a book that comes from an opposing viewpoint. he agreed, so i did a little research and came to this. a lot of prominent atheists refer to this, and betrand russell's reputation in the philosophy/thinker community is very high. another reason i want this in the mix this summer is to continue reading varying categories. i read mostly fiction, but lately i've been into history and business literature.

No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July - i've read about 1/3 of this one already, but want to finish it. she's such a goofy person and writer and her way of thinking never ceases to amaze me. she is more quirky than anyone i've ever read, and it's a genuine, smart, wonderful frivolity that isn't pretentious or demeaning. it seems like she can still access the wonder that children experience, every day new and fresh and exciting. really fun reading.

so that's my list. maybe a bit ambitious, but it shouldn't be anything too tough to get through. i'll report back later in the summer for a mid-season report.

49 women

2009-03-30T21:43:00.004-04:00

i have 49 songs that start with the word she.

here are the highlights:

this one was named incorrectly on imeem,

the actual title is she's still here.

a lil dooooodle

2009-03-30T21:41:00.000-04:00

insane presentation

2009-03-29T21:49:00.000-04:00

i've been interested in the dynamic of presentations lately, how they're laid out, how long they are, the visuals, the text, how to use the presentation as a tool to get a point across, whether or not to even use presentations. when the presenter and the presentation are aligned it's amazing to watch. the presentation i embedded below is about comics, i've never read a comic, may never read a comic, but this presentation is amazing. i want to watch it again. he delivers a complex topic in a format and style that makes it more approachable, his presentation makes it easier for us to understand his point...if the goal of every presentation is to have your audience walk away with an understanding, he got there.

where the wild things are

2009-03-28T15:51:00.002-04:00

spike jonze is one of my favorite directors, i'm working on a post about him and some of his american contemporaries that i hope to post in april. but, here's a trailer for his latest movie, where the wild things are. it's based on children's book, and supposedly he had massive issues with the studio to get it finished, they said it was too dark and didn't cater to kids enough or something. but, it looks like it's finally going to be released soon. check out the trailer:

pooter of the future

2009-03-28T14:57:00.000-04:00

in my position as a futurist, it's incumbent upon me to predict future realities. fortunately, i've got a lil voice in my head that tips me off to the delicacies further along this path.

i saw a post by gina tripani about her ideal computer, and tho i respect gina a good deal, after a brief brainstorm i think my pooter of the future blows hers and anyone's out of the water. in fact, i probably shouldn't even discuss it, it'd either get stolen by apple or the us government. but steve jobs has patrick swayze disease, so i think my idea is safe.

1. ever seen of this thing? iphone

yeah, it's the start to the greatest computer ever created. so maybe steve jobs is going to steal my idea, but i had to start by stealing his idea first. i won't go into what the iphone can do, i think it's fairly well documented, but it's important to remember that this will be the basis of our computer design. no laptop, no big stupid monitor, no physical keyboard. none of that. throw it all out the window, this is all we'll need. (i may interchange the terms computer and phone throughout the post, they're the same thing, the phone is the computer and the computer is the phone, got it?)

2. ever seen this thing? boxee

i know, the video is sort of long, but it's good. watch it! stop being lazy! so what does boxee mean? did you know you can watch teevee through the internet? there's hulu.com, cbs.com, fox.com, nbc.com, netflix.com, amazon.com, etc, etc, etc...a lot of scattered sources for all the shows we pay directv or comcast $80 a month for, well, this boxee application aggregates all those websites into an amazingly fluid interface. instead of channel surfing on your teevee you can surf through your computer. the important innovation over the next few years is going to be vast digital libraries of every movie or teevee show ever accessible over the internet with one-click. if you want to watch the 3rd show of the 4th season of curb your enthusiasm, search and click.

what's important to remember is that our computer is the iphone, and of course the iphone can connect to the internet, so of course our iphone can connect to boxee and every teevee show ever made is now accessible through our phone.

3. ever seen this thing?

well, what is it? it's a cell phone with a tiny, tiny projector built in. i've watched movies or teevee shows on the iphone and it's actually not that bad, but it's not great. what would be great?? a 6-foot image on my wall projected from cellphone.

currently the technology is sort of trifling, the image isn't very big, or of great quality, but as the hardware matures, you can easily foresee a tiny cell phone being able to project a 96" high def picture. you put this lil guy on the coffee table and you have a home entertainment system.

so we have the iphone with every teevee show ever projecting a massive, super-high quality image on my dining room wall.

4. ever heard of this thing? nikon d90

this is maybe the best digital camera available these days, and maybe by the time my pooter of the future is released this thing will be like one of those nastie kodak disposable cameras. but the key is to condense this massive thing into the svelte iphone. but just taking pics isn't enough, we'll also need the ability to take video, and of course the video has to be high def quality. i mean, if you're going to take a video of your friend puking from too many yager bombs we want to make sure we see what was for dinner, right? high def will give us that detail.

5. ever heard of this thing? wifi

ok, you probably use this one every day. every time your laptop connects to the internet without that "internet cable" you're using wifi. but the big push is going to be connecting everything through the internet. we're going to need a surround sound system for our iphone movie projector, and, whatdya know, our speaker system will connect to the phone using wifi. our lights? they're connected too. so when i hit play on my phone the lights have been pre-set to slowly dim to black. did you forget to flush the toilet? the pooper is wirelessly sync'd to my pooter, i can flush it from my iphone.

6. ever seen this thing? smartboard

one of the biggest benefits of this pooter of the future is it's your everything, your home computer, home entertainment system, work computer, presentation tool, etc...so you're working at work, manipulating data projected from your phone, the phone will capture all the conversation between you and your co-workers and auto-email you the meeting minutes.

that's as far as my geekiness will go today. i'm bored with this idea. maybe i'll come back to it at some point and cram more crap into this pooter of the future. what do you think about my idea??

mr. gittins says it best

2009-03-17T12:43:00.002-04:00

twitter expansions

2009-03-15T19:47:00.000-04:00

i want more analytics in my life. eg songs i listen to most by month or by time of day.

how great would it be to use a service that provides all different types of lifestyle analysis? on the ride home from work the beats per minute (bpm) of the songs i listen to are 110, compared to the 92 bpm of songs i listen to in the morning. this could easily be pulled from itunes and apple really needs to get more analytics into their products. google has been the leader on this sort of service. in google reader i review the "trends" section to determine what blogs i read most and what blogs i seem to ignore. the blogs i ignore are put on the chopping block. why keep information feeds around that i've chosen to ignore? but the first step to determine what i'm ignoring is to get the analysis. some other possible analytics: map all my consumables to the time of the month or year to determine how weather affects my spending, or whether mood affects my buying. determine what times of the day i'm most likely to buy something online and prevent myself from being on the computer at those times. the first step is looking for a pattern, then the next step is determining how to use the pattern or prevent it in the future.

when i was thinking about this yesterday morning i realized: damn, i'm still fascinated with myself and i wonder when i won't be. i don't know if it's selfish or arrogant or egocentric, but even after 28 years i still think my life is fascinating. no more fascinating than your life or her life or his life, but everyday i'm amazed at how interesting my life is to me. i enjoy all the struggles and thoughts and successes and failures and tedium. it's all so difficult and yet the greatest, most rewarding project i've ever been a part of.

instead of a paycut of 5% i wld ask to work 5% less

i've heard a ton of employers talking about asking their employees to take pay cuts, but i haven't heard any reporting on workers working less hours. if the issue is money and you'd like me to work for less, how about i simply work less. if you think i'm going to work at the same level now that i'm making less, you're crazy. instead of having a pissed-off employee, how about letting me leave two hours early on friday? and you know what, i may end up working harder with the 38 hours than i did when i worked 40. we all want to make more money, but we'd all love to have to work less. just as valuable as money is time. if you give me more time to be away, i'll probably work better when i am there.

"we can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." --einstein. and why did we give the banks billions of dollars without asking to first listen to their vision???

i don't know where i found that quote, but i immediately connected it to the current global economic situation. i'm reading a lot about the need for innovation and problem solving and the answer the administration has come up with doesn't seem to ask for innovation. it doesn't seem to ask for anything really. we hand over billions of dollars to institutions that failed without asking them what they intend on doing with the money, what's the vision, where's the innovation, what are they going to do Differently. i thought obama would inject more innovation into his stimulus package, but it seems to be more of the same stuff. take the opportunity to address the education system and it's failures or the energy crisis. we need a manhattan project-scale effort to come up with a reliable alternative energy resource. bring the smartest people in the world together and make change. there is a lot of money being thrown around, we're putting the country into such great debt for what? lending fluidity? do we need every large bank to survive? what are the benefits? where's the analysis of alternatives? i'd love to bitch and say the republicans influenced the democrats into a traditional stimulus package with zero innovation and with no mind for moving the nation forward when we're in the midst of a pitfall, but i'm not convinced obama has the vision. i want to believe he does and the innovation will come, but i'm not convinced he's different than our previous leaders.

thinkers & doers

2009-03-09T21:35:00.003-04:00

i watched vicky cristina barcelona tonight, an amazing movie, woody allen was able to balance out his eccentric woodyisms with the beautiful cinematography of spain, an intriguing country. i need to get there before i'm too old to experience it in a real way.

but there was something that struck me, (it seems like i'm getting Struck by the arts in a more tangible way these days, there's something really hitting me right now, i can reach out and Feel the messages) scarlett johansson's character expresses a happiness to be in europe, she feels european, they associate better to her, she's a thinker, someone that appreciates the arts and the Movement and asks more of life, wants it to be different, her's, she wants to experience it in a way that is wholly her's. as i was thinking about that and its associations to the european continent, i realized something that americans are extremely proud of: we're doers. we do things. if you want to make a million dollars, get up and do it. if you want to run a company, do it. run a marathon, do it. everything i'm reading right now (look down the left-hand sidebar for the titles i'm reading) is about doing, not talking about doing it, not thinking about doing it, not dreaming about doing it. Doing It. that's american.

to even populate this continent with the motley crew of movers and shakers, our ancestors had to Do. they sailed across the sea in search of something, they left their homes and their extended families and immigrated to america. we're a country full of doers. when the doers landed on the east coast, they were so hopped up on Doing, they did it all the way across the continent to the west coast. there's something innate in our american spirit that asks us to Do.

that's a contrast to what i imagine france to be (i can only go by imagination, i've never been there, never really studied it, and have only read small bits about the cultivation of culture and the prestige placed upon its philosophers.) france is a country that appreciates thought. there's a tradition of philosophy and mindfulness. it's a country invested in thought. from descartes to sartre to foucalt and proust and duchamp and genet and artaud. great minds dedicated to thought and expression.

i seem to struggle with doing. maybe i should expatriate, relocate in a european city and feel comfortable just thinking. javier bardem's father in the movie is this skinny, tanned spanish wizard that is supposedly an amazing poet, yet he won't publish his poetry. his reasoning: the world does not know how to love. he's happy enough with the creation, thinking poetry, living with these wonderful lil lines flitting in and out of his head. he doesn't feel a need to share.

i wonder if i moved to a small village in spain if i would be satisfied with thinking all day or would my american spirit constantly tug at me, begging me to Do Something.

outstanding 'this i believe'

2009-03-06T22:47:00.000-05:00

if you don't know what 'this i believe' is then you better get your shit together. this is one of the best i've heard:

LINK

tuesday's dots

2009-03-03T21:37:00.000-05:00

t-shirt idea: the shirt will only be black letters with the saying:

i hunt. i vote. 1 true. 1 false.

i turned into a crackhead

if caffeine were cocaine, i'd be a crackhead. i've drank redbull for a few years now. it tastes good. i enjoy the pick-me-up and unfortunately need it most mornings. but in these trying economic times (i have a whole post about people using that phrase abusively) i need to get a cheaper caffeine fix. i've turned to coffee. i never thought i'd do it. the smell of the bean is amazing and scintillating, but the taste was always dreadful, very bitter and awful. i've grown to sort of like it. in fact, just recently i've decided i don't need sugar any more. so, no more sugar, just two creams. i feel sort of sophisticated now, i now how i take my coffee. if an english butler ever asks me how i take my coffee, i'll gently respond, "with two creams, dear sir." but the main reason i'm on to coffee is it's free at work and only $1.25 at 7-11. can i really justify spending $3 on a redbull when a coffee is half the price? coffee is my crack. it's a more concentrated version, an americano at my favorite coffeehouse will keep me zipping along for hours. a redbull tastes good and "gives me wings," but doesn't leave me whirling around like a six-year old drinking soda and eating birthday cake. i don't know how all this happened, but at least i can face the facts, i'm a crackhead and i suspect my road to recovery will be long and winding.

i could never be a fat kid

i stopped working out a couple months ago. i sort of got lazy, and as the weather chilled and the sun started setting earlier and earlier, i lost hope. and for whatever reason, when i stop working out i stop watching what i eat. i really should do the opposite, if i'm working out, eat like a pig, if i'm not working out, eat salad or whatever people that think they're fat eat. but no, i eat in places where only fat people eat. i was at mcdonald's the other day and realized i was the only skinny person there, and, not just that, but the only non-fat person. for a couple of weeks straight my breakfast was coffee and three donuts. THREE DONUTS!! what a fat ass! every morning! they taste so good, especially when i allow myself to get a redbull too. it's like starting the day off with desert. of course, by about 930, i feel like shit, my stomach feels like its gargling tequila. so how much do you think i've gained in the last couple of months?? 0 lbs. i may have actually lost an lb. i had a dream the other night that i had a nasty worm in my body eating all my food. if i eat like shit and don't gain weight, doesn't that mean i have a worm in my body? seems logical right??

someone else in the world like me

2009-03-02T19:37:00.000-05:00

the following scenes are from "out of africa," a movie starring robert redford and meryl streep. these two scenes define me more than anything i've seen on film or heard in music. if you know me, you'll see how and why these scenes took my breath away.

an almost penelope cruz

2009-03-02T11:39:00.000-05:00

on saturday we went out to georgetown, i haven't been out in that part of town in a while, i've never had a lot of fun there, it's too dorky, too uptight, but we went because we've been sort of doing a tour of the city, going to each section to revisit the experience, if it sucks, we're not going back for a few months. the crowd was very college, something that is interesting to be around, there's a different energy and annihilation to it, but it's also annoying and wearing if i'm not hammered, and i wasn't hammered, i was mainly people watching. i always seem to notice foreign chics first, not sure what it is, maybe i've seen so many white chics, i'm blind to them, but there was a girl there that looked like penelope cruz: a strange, long, graceful body. but, penelope's angular body, animal-like in its weirdness, is very unique, and though i instantly associated the girl i saw on saturday with penelope, the girl wasn't very attractive, she was certainly pretty, and i think she could be a model, and may actually do some modeling, but she just looked funky. there's always been something wrong about penelope's beauty, and in that wrongness there is something incredibly right. she's gorgeous and graceful and fresh. the girl from saturday was almost those things, and in her "almostness" she wasn't any of them. in fact, it makes me wonder if i'd be freaked out by penelope cruz if i saw her in person.

insane gnarls performance

2009-02-28T17:34:00.002-05:00

a bad omen causes world destruction

2009-02-24T00:27:00.000-05:00

i have a mos def ticket in my pocket.

mos is one of my favorite artists, his live shows are wild, weird experiences. he's an old school showman that really explores what it means to enjoy being on stage. great live show. a great live show i didn't get to see tonight.

two shows tonight at the 930 club. the early show sold out, doors opened at 630, he'd probably go on around 730, 8 at the latest. the doors for the late show, which ended up selling out too, were set to open at 930. last mos def show i went to at the 930 club was a double bill like this and his first show went longer than it was supposed to and we didn't get in until around 10 or so. i think the show wrapped at 1230 that night.

i got there tonight at around 915. it was butt-cold, so i didn't want to stand in line for too long. the line at will call was decent and the line for the 930 show was starting to build, but i noticed a lot of people hanging around outside. something didn't seem right. there were tons of people just floating around. not in line, but not inside. as i got closer to the will call box office i heard someone say:

"he's not even here yet."

the early show didn't even start until a bit after 930. the late show wouldn't start until around 12. at 930 i knew what lay ahead but life is never as easy as a simple decision.

it's a monday night, do i really have any other plans?? i could sit in my car and wait it out, play on my phone or call someone. so i called a friend and we ended up talking for awhile about life and relationships and the slow drama of this wonderful life. so that knocked off about an hour. now it was 1030. i could tell people were being let out of the early show. he only played for an hour!! what a miserable waste. a one hour show???? awful.

i stood in the back of the line, a line that wrapped around two buildings. it's below freezing, the wind chill is ugly, and the cold coldness got me thinking: what time does this place shut down? will they cut the show short because of sound ordinances? i got out of line and talked the doorman, he said they didn't have a curfew, they had to stop serving alcohol at 2, but they could keep the place open all night. the idea of mos being ashamed of arriving late and having to play an abridged set for the early show and therefore playing a three hour set of anything and everything for the late show audience floated around in my lil head. i've heard about jazz cats (there's no other way to describe jazz age musicians in smoky bars on the eastside of manhattan than calling them jazz cats) playing sun-up sessions, seven-hour sets, spontaneous, playful, experimental. mos, knowing the history of jazz, would take this opportunity to sing etta james or wu tang classics or marvin gaye or just dance to his favorite roberta flack songs. so i returned back to the heat of my car to wait it out longer.

as the wait extends deep into this weeknight all i can think about is work tomorrow. i'm leading an important project for my company, i have several vp's on my team and in the meeting i plan to introduce a new route for the project. this lovely meeting is scheduled for 9am. i need a clear brain to make sure my strategy is accurate and well-prepared. i need to be able to articulate. (i've quickly learned that executive management appreciates conciseness more than anything, if you can say something that makes sense in an easily understandable manner they'll go with you.) if i stay for the show, a show that's looking more like ending at 2 and getting back home at 230, and allowing me to get to bed at 3, is that a wise decision??

what is wise?? not living life? i've just realized (for the tenth time in this lifetime) that i want to say i've done things, not that i have things. i want experiences, not products. seeing mos def, even in this manner, especially in this manner, is Doing something. certainly going home isn't doing anything. in fact, if i go home, all i have is a thing i bought. a ticket.

can i really live my life worried about meetings in the morning? is that what i want? should i consider the fact that i work on really cool projects and am constantly challenged at work and recognized for doing a good job?? should that make me feel better about being worried about my morning meeting? is ok if i enjoy it? is that really the life that i've signed up for? and if it is, shouldn't i be happy for being responsible?

there's an entire post in my head about living life, taking risks and making different decisions, but i'll hold off on that now.

the point being: if i leave, will i regret it? at one point, sitting in my car outside of the 930 club, i imagined driving home in tears, a full, hard cry, ravaged by the idea that i just gave in to Corporate America, how symbolic this decision is, how i just succumbed to everything i've never been fully committed to, this was the night, feb 23 2009.

but as i pulled away, i didn't feel much. i drove around the block to see how long the line still was. two buildings deep. i wouldn't be inside until 1130. the show wouldn't start until 1145 or 12. i wouldn't get home until 2 or 3. it's ok to leave. it's ok to leave.

was it ok to leave?

(i forgot to explain why i titled this post "a bad omen causes world destruction"...i burned a special mos playlist just for the ride to and from the 930 club, i stopped at 711 to get a coffee to keep me warm while waiting in line and to keep my mind sharp tonight, when i bent to get out of my driver's seat the cd snapped in half!! that damn cd breaking made mos late for the show, thus requiring me to forfeit a musical experience and wrecking all of time's continuum.)

suprise by gnarls

2009-02-22T11:20:00.000-05:00

It's cool being the only one

but it's lonely

I could have fallen in love a thousand times before

if only someone had known me

They say there's someone for everyone

Oh plus the work will be never done

When all you need is to be met halfway

but nobody tries...

Don't be surprised

Don't be surpriiiiiiiiiised!

one of the primary contradictions to my life is my need to communicate, yet my reluctance to open up to people and allow them to understand my weaknesses or insecurities. it's very easy to confuse communication with connectedness. i wrote about this last year when (LINK to previous post) i was dating a lot, conversations at dinner always come easy to me, introducing myself and my world is a very easy proposition, i don't feel uncomfortable or awkward, as long as the format is story-telling, i'm cool. there's no introspection involved. to me these stories aren't really even all that personal, i would tell anyone i lived in a car for five months, or i drove across the country by myself and truly felt american for the first time. it seems personal and it seems like i'm opening up, it seems like we're connecting, but we're not. i could sit in front of anyone and listen and nod and take your anecdote and bring in a piece of relevant information, i can keep nearly any conversation going. but these conversations only make women feel closer, they don't actually make them closer.

the gnarls song "surprise" hits me every time i listen to it, the first verse i quoted above is so accurate it makes me sort of uncomfortable. i've always felt a little different, i wouldn't say i have exotic tastes, but i think i have a very unique mix of widely varying tastes, from the books i read to the music i listen to and most importantly the ideas that i come to. and yes, it's cool being the only one, but sometimes it's lonely. yet, my uniqueness doesn't necessitate loneliness, my reluctance to open up is the cause of my singularity. when we open up we learn that we're not the only person that struggles. there's real connectedness in that level of communication, not in my beach bum stories.

the song stokes interesting thoughts about my last relationship, a relationship in which i never communicated. i fell madly in love with someone that i couldn't communicate effectively with, whether it was her defensiveness or my insecurity, i don't know, and i'm not interested in those answers anymore, i gave up trying to understand our difficulties long ago, but what i do find interesting and incredibly valuable is my ability to fall in love with someone without communicating. she accessed something else, there's another area to my love that asks for something other than communication, an area that i was unaware of until i met her. despite not feeling secure, i always felt comfortable. despite being frustrated, i always arrived with a smile and left with a smile.

i gave a lot to the relationship to make it work as well as it did and often felt like the energy wasn't reciprocal. she never met me halfway, as the song says. and when i think back to other relationships i've been in or some of my recent dating experiences, i'm the one that didn't meet halfway. a successful relationship truly takes a lot of work, which makes the line, "oh plus the work will never be done" painfully accurate. nothing comes easy, a line my parents have said to me a thousand times, is most appropriate for relationships. they didn't offer that bit of wisdom thinking i would apply it to relationships, but it fits this as much as my career or my writing life. i don't hold it against my ex for not meeting me halfway, she went through a series of boyfriends that didn't meet her halfway, and i probably only lasted as long as i did because i was willing to do anything and everything for her. and i hope the women i didn't meet halfway don't hold it against me for not being more proactive, active and reactive.

take a listen to the song:

surprise by gnarls barkley

what an awful baby these two would make

2009-02-20T19:42:00.000-05:00

bill o'reilly is a dick. in the video below, it's interesting to see how much more of a dick ann coulter is. she has a book to sell, so of course she's going to take the opportunity to play it up, but this was excruciating to watch.

the futurist

2009-02-20T13:50:00.000-05:00

i emailed a friend about and idea i have for a national geographic show (i want to recreate walden, henry david thoreau's classic; live out in the woods, alone, for two years and video it for a show.) i understand the specialized audience for a show like that, so i asked her if nat.geo had a web video production unit. i've been thinking that the major television networks will need to focus on web video content as more users turn to the web for entertainment. the web could offer far more specialized content for very narrow target audiences. the ads generated for those audiences would be highly specialized as well. an example: CodeWars, a show that would pit two teams of engineers against each other and require them to complete a program in the allotted time. the two systems would be compared at the end and a winner would be selected. now, who would watch that on teevee?? not many people. so the cost wouldn't outweigh the benefits. however, the cost of creating web content is far cheaper. the ads presented when the show airs on the internet would be for dell computers or macs or companies hiring engineers. more specialized, more targeted.
i didn't go into that detail with her, but i asked if we could talk about the future of teevee soon. i want to get an idea of where it's going from someone that's on the inside. similarly, i have a friend that's a teacher and i ask her all the time about the modern education system, methods being used, the kids' skills, etc...i want to understand where it was, where it went, and where insiders think it's going.

at the end of this email i asked my friend if my job title could be futurist.

what do i read upon sitting back down at my computer?? from 3quarksdaily, an amazing Amazing AMAZING blog:

In 1909, pamphlets were dropped over the town of Milan containing Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto, the centennial of which we are celebrating. Everything about this piece was exciting, its pace, its over-the-top scenery: We had stayed up all night, my friends and I, under hanging mosque lamps with domes of filigreed brass, domes starred like our spirits. . . . An immense pride was buoying us up, because we felt ourselves alone at that hour, alone, awake, and on our feet, like proud beacons or forward sentries against an army of hostile stars. Nothing is slow in this manifesto of speedy Futurism: “‘Let’s go!’ I said. ‘Friends, away! Let’s go!’” I love that kind of exalted certainty about a showy (manifest) endeavor. Of course, we have the right to ironize about the over-the-topness — who among us would so exaggerate the style and so magnify the substance as to make a larger-than-life-size poster, pointing at itself as a deictic genre? Look! Here! Now! Tristan Tzara, Papa-Dada himself, lays down the rules in 1918, and not just for Dada: “To proclaim a manifesto you have to want: A.B.C., thunder against 1, 2, 3.”

strange how the world seems to converge on ideas and they appear side-by-side or overlaid. i haven't seen or used the word futurist in a long time, and yet, the day that i ask if i could call myself that, the manifesto appears!!

the death of charles taylor

2009-02-18T21:29:00.000-05:00

i've been wearing chuck taylors for about six years, i started out with the traditional hi-top blues, and then went with a pair of whites that ended up with clark and i've never seen them since, i then switched to blacks with black, fat laces. i've been wearing that pair for nearly four years. i found a pair of patchwork pinks that for some reason were screaming at me, i bought 'em and nicknamed "the new dangers," in honor of mos def's album of the same name. then about two years ago i bought some low-top browns with some leather highlights and whatnot. i've only worn them sparingly. at one point i planned a path in life that would require me to only wear chucks, whether at work or a funeral, all chucks, all the time. that never came about, as most things i plan don't.

well, on this day i announce my retirement. no more chucks. ever. again.

i was walking in my neighborhood the other day and something hit me:

"i'm wearing the modern hipster uniform!!"

sportcoat, skinny jeans, chucks and raybans. every williamsburg hipster in brooklyn wears that same outfit, some sort of old t-shirt, or old looking t-shirt, old sport coat and expensive jeans. it didn't feel right anymore. i think i may have come to that look a lil different than a traditional hipster. i've been wearing a sportcoat for a long time, i noticed the coolness of raybans in a bob dylan documentary a few years ago, and i've added the pieces over several years, but they sort of came together recently to represent something that i didn't want to portray. i don't know if i could be considered a hipster, but i know i don't want to be considered anything (except hot!! haa) i looked like i was trying to be someone. i don't need to be someone. i'm ok with what i am.

over the last few years i've grown aware of what i call "classics," certain styles that seem to never go away. chucks fit that mold. they've been cool for decades, and every time they almost seem dorky, they hold onto a gravity that many other shoes simply can't match. so it's with a heavy heart that i say farewell to my beloved chucks.

R.I.P.

fresh air treatment

2009-02-17T10:41:00.001-05:00

i've been thinking about this sort of things for a while, not just for air purification reasons, but for aesthetic reasons too. plants promote an image of vitality, and the following slideshow from a TED Talk discusses which plants to use to accomplish both air purification and visual splendor.

How to Grow Your Own Fresh Air - TED 2009 Talk

View more presentations from jaymeattle. (tags: plants greenhouse)

i love life

2009-02-13T15:59:00.001-05:00

twitter expansions

2009-02-06T21:08:00.004-05:00

what's a strong person anyway?? I think we need to reassess "strength"

at a funeral: the quiet one, composed, steely, she's supposedly strong. after a breakup, the one that doesn't act out is supposedly strong, the one that doesn't send the spiteful email and the awful latenight text messages or voicemails. i don't know what is strong, but i know it's not the steely mourner or the quiet brokenhearted lover. strength comes from knowing yourself, being honest with yourself and the situation and accepting the events that have befallen you, or that you created or nurtured, communicating your emotion in a mature way. strength is evident through action.

how do you "settle down" and not become boring and predictable??

i'm slowing down, not really settling down, but i remember my last relationship finding a smooth pace, becoming a steady, predictable experience, and that's boring. and that's not an indictment on my last relationship as much as it is of most relationships. my ex isn't a boring person, i think our interaction became predictable and formulaic. the only way to prevent predictability is to inject spontaneity through free, playful means, which requires a special kind of relationship. there has to be outlets that allow for new experiences or newly packaged experiences. i guess it's like sex. how do you not get sick of having sex with the same person for 50 years? you have to find tiny ways to make it interesting and both people have to be into it. i think malcolm gladwell was an absolute genius when he compared relationships to improv comedy. i googled "improv comedy rule" and this is the first rule listed:

1. don't deny: denial is the number one reason most scenes go bad. any time you refuse an offer made by your partner your scene will almost instantly come to a grinding halt.

if that's not the greatest rule for a relationship, i don't know what is. don't refuse the offer, take it on and see where it takes the scene.

has anyone ever whistled when they were mad?? I can only whistle when I'm happy

isn't whistling a blissful act? but does whistling make us happy or is whistling a result of our happiness? i've read that even if the action wasn't caused by a specific event, the action itself can bring the emotion associated with the event. ok, so in simpler terms, if you were to sit around and make yourself smile, even though you aren't happy, if you smile that fake smile long enough, you will be happy. the physical activity of smiling is wired in our brains to translate to happiness. my friends and i used to fake laugh, we'd start laughing like idiots just to throw people off or simply to be retards and we'd end up laughing for five minutes, full out laughing, ab-crunching laughter and ended up feeling a dizzying happiness. and i guess on the opposite end of the spectrum is what i think happened to heath ledger, or what i think happened based on the reports of his death. he spent months acting, for hours a day, as a sicko, a psychotic maniac, contorting his face and body, finding a place in his mind where he could embody the joker. the lows that sort of acting could take someone are lower than most people understand. he probably took himself to such a low place that he found it difficult to get back up.

in order to assuage my consumerism I go to goodwill

we all have consumerism hardwired into us, we've watched millions of commercials, seen millions of advertisements and passed millions of marketing tools asking for our consumption. buying shoes makes people happy. buying a new dress makes people happy. buying anything makes us happy. new things make us happy. we're constantly being sold new things, so when we get one we are happy. it's not an affliction easily cleansed. i've slowed down to a snails pace, and have never been entirely covetous, but lately i've been going back to my former safe haven, goodwill. it's such an amazing experience. i bought an old '70s suitcase, it's the most intensely wonderful color orange. it cost $5. i bought this weird heart-shaped, cardboard box. on the lid it says:

with love from nebraska...

and on the underside of the lid:

i heard you were out...

can't wait to see you!

enjoy your cookies

and think of me : )

miss you!

love you!

<3>

i immediately thought: jail. i heard you were out..?? it has to be jail right? then, maybe, it's the military. what else could he have gotten out of? maybe a marriage? or did he even get out? it doesn't say he got out, only that he is out. whatever the case, i'm sure he enjoyed his cookies.

i remember when...i went to a dermatologist

2009-02-06T20:07:00.138-05:00

i was in 7th grade going through my first mid-life crisis, my voice was cracking, i was looking at girls longer than i had a couple years prior, and i was concerned that they were looking at me longer now too. i was trying to adjust to new friends, to a new body and to a new way of seeing the world, a world with tits and makeout sessions and uncomfortable parties in basements. i was the friend that didn't skateboard, everyone else did, but it never made sense to me, and the friend that would rather listen to snoop dogg than nirvana and pearl jam and weezer, and the friend that played basketball rather than soccer or baseball. i've always been a bit different, and always found ways to get people to buy into those differences, to accept them and to somehow convince people that maybe i was the only person like that. but dealing with those slight differences (it's not like i was a black rocker kid in a suburban, majority white school, you know? i mean, i didn't really have anything to overcome) wasn't always easy. at times i became really self-aware, i went through a spell where i coveted attention in very subtle, socially acceptable ways, but coveted it nonetheless, at the end of my middle school years i won two class superlatives: class clown and most outgoing (i think there were only four superlatives, i was the f'n man!! haha)

along with the cracking voice and the pubescent awkwardness came acne. every kid got pimples, i don't know if you can avoid it entirely, some had oily faces and got it bad, others would have the random pop-up and would work to develop ingenious ways to hide it, and there were a number of varying levels between that. i remember the awful smell of those oxy pads, wiping my cheeks and forehead, looking down at the ruffled pad soddened with dirt, feeling a strange satisfaction, "hey, these things work, they suck up the grime, i'll never get a pimple again!" i think those things may have caused more pimples.

i didn't have bad acne, i don't know if what i had could even be considered acne, is a few pimples every month acne? i was far too aware of every inch of my face, i could spend hours examining every pore, is that a pimple? why's that red? i'd stretch and pinch and smush my face in all sorts of contortions looking for the next issue, i didn't even like saying the word pimple or zit, and still don't really, they just sound dirty and awkward and uncomfortable.

i don't know how the visit to the dermatologist came to be, i think i expressed my concern to a sufficient degree that my amazing mother suggested a visit, she has always been great about being tender with our insecurities. one day, we head to see this specialist, the room was brown and beige, i remember how forgettable the room was, how anti-septic the atmosphere felt, it didn't feel like a happy place, but not a sad place either, a Nothing Place, a place i didn't really want to ever see again. the lab coat lady walked in after several waiting rooms. she stretched my face a bit and, looking non-plussed, said, "yeah, it's maybe a mild case of acne, we have something for that."

a MILD..........CASE.....for THAT.......

what the fuck? i really have acne? it was like this lab coat lady confirmed everything i never wanted to believe, she made it real to me, i really had acne? she was going to give me something for that?? i had a for that!! no one wants a for that, especially not a 7th grader hoping devon would want to hold his hand or take him in a dark room with a stereo playing the cranberries and kiss in sloppy ways.

i think these sorts of visits are supposed to make people feel better, make people feel more secure, there's a cure, there's medicine. it made me feel awful. i got confirmation of an infirmity that no one wanted to have: acne.

my mom later tried to convince that it was cool to have the creme the doctor prescribed, mothers get their children to go to the dermatologist and get prescriptions then take the creme and try to ward of wrinkles, it was cool to have this stuff, but, "mom, i'm not an old lady, i don't have any wrinkles, i have acne." so she tried a different tact, she went through the whole thing:

mom: she said it was mild, she probably only said mild because that's the lowest level
me: wouldn't no acne be the lowest level
mom: i think it goes mild moderate medium severe
me: there has to be a no acne level, if i had a clear face, absolutely clear, she'd say, "get outta here you handsome young man, look at those beautiful blue eyes."
mom: you're crazy kiddo

she always says that when i make her laugh.

obama

2009-01-23T18:59:00.011-05:00

i couldn't write about it before now, for some reason i couldn't get it, i couldn't hold it, i couldn't wrap my head around this movement i've been a witness and participant to, i wasn't ready, but now after inauguration, i understand.

why obama?

i donated to obama's campaign last january after his loss to hillary in new hampshire, i've been excited about him for a while and was happy he decided to run, but i wasn't sure if he was ready, if he had his shit together to the point that he could actually pull it off, and after the iowa caucus victory i was convinced he had something Real, he had plan that could get him elected against one of the most difficult last names in the democractic party, so when hillary won the new hampshire primary i sort of got worried and donated to obama's campaign. i've never felt compelled to donate before, and i'm willing to bet that a majority of his donors were making their first donations too, we saw an intelligent, accomplished, compassionate, reasonable politician, someone that i'd like to hang out with, someone that could be a great mentor, someone that was willing to listen. people of my age have never seen someone like this, not with all these qualities, at least not in a politician, we've become accustomed to bush and cheney or the karl roves of the world, or even the omnipresent political nature of bill clinton, i mean, who could look into his face and not think he wasn't withholding something. obama represented an alternative.

was his black skin an issue? if anything i saw it as a possibility, as a chance to make history, but his victory never would've come if it was just that, if black skin was enough to win the presidency jesse jackson or al sharpton would've won the office long ago, there had to be more to the man. democrats have been left with mediocre choices the last few elections, there's nothing regal about gore and kerry may be even more stiff, smart men without question, worthy leaders, but they were never able to truly stir americans in an effective way, i mean, after bush's first four years it should've been a simple hand-off to the democrats, but kerry wasn't enough. when obama spoke our ears perked up a bit, we saw a different face with a similar message but delivered in such a way we thought no politician in history had ever told us we needed change or hope or less washington insiders, we thought obama was the first candidate to ever look us in the face and ask us to trust him, and because we bought this "new" message, we turned out in droves to hear him speak, and yet at no point did we go to local rallies to hear the black candidate speak, we went to hear the new message, the new possibility, the new solution to our damaged international image, my generation wanted and needed something different, and luckily older generations bought in as well.

election night

election night i went to a fancy schmancy party in dc, we had a feeling we'd win, everything was looking good coming down the stretch. for as much as obama did right, mccain did wrong and that spiraled into an expected victory, but as my first election in 2000 taught me, anything's possible, even when a president is popularly elected it can still be taken from him, so no one in the building felt entirely secure with our position. as the results rolled in people would cheer and i'd like to say the anticipation built, but in reality, there was a silent hesitancy in the place more than anything, we cheered the state-by-state victories, but we didn't allow ourselves to fully commit to the idea, so when keith olbermann came on the screen behind the bar and said, "barack obama is projected to be the next president of the united states of america," we stood still and sort of stared blankly, we didn't believe it, we couldn't accept it yet, we thought maybe they'd take it back, maybe they'd projected wrong, but we continued to read the closed captioning and msnbc was sort of celebrating and discussing the magnitude of the event, and finally, at that point it clicked and we flipped out!! we hugged, we hi-fived, we took victory shots, we smiled & smiled & smiled, and then we left, we had to get out in the streets and see the city's reaction, share our happiness, share our accomplishment, share our victory and it really did feel like Our Victory, i remember back to obama's acceptance speech after being named the democratic candidate, he said, "this election has never been about me, it's about you," and on election night we were celebrating Our Victory!

we went to china town, there were people dancing in the street, people honking horns, hugging and laughing, acting like happy children, the exuberance was intense and satisfying, we felt a part of something, something that could truly be Felt, this wasn't what we understood politics to be, we'd never been so happy about an election, most of us had never cared enough, and to be rewarded for participating in a civic duty often neglected, well, let's just say that if we would've lost on nov4 there would be a lot of young people that would never vote again.

from china town we walked down the u street corridor, a walk i will never forget, people hanging out of their cars, black people, white people, latins, asians, everyone, people dancing on cars, we gave hi-fives to anyone within arms distance, we thanked people, we chanted, "yes we did" and "o-ba-ma" with thousands of other people, all in the streets, no one with a destination, we'd already reached our destination, Our Victory was our destination and we had arrived, upon our arrival we wanted to party. we ended up stopping near a mass of people on a corner, there was reggae music playing from a window above a corner market, people were dancing and we got right in the mix, we took pictures with strangers, we told our stories, we explained how it happened, how we won, how we ended up on this corner dancing with each other. i called my friend chris and told him to come down and dance with us, i've only seen him once in the last five years, but he's one of my favorite people in the world, he was the only person i could think to call. he and his brother showed up fifteen minutes later, he was wearing this goofy dashiki and told me he was reverend wright, we hugged and looked at each other in astonishment, it was a statement saying, "can you believe we've done it?" he thanked me and i thanked him, but he was persistent, he looked in my eyes and said thank you, you did this, we couldn't have done it alone. he's a black guy and he wanted me to know that even if all the black people in the country voted for obama it wouldn't have been enough, and i told him he's as good for you as he is for me, he's great for this country not a particular color of people. he said he cried when it was announced, and though i can't fully understand the depth of what it meant to him, i could easily see how deep it went, and when i looked into the masses dancing and celebrating it was even easier to see how deep it went. towards the end of the night we sat on a step in a doorway, his arm around me, mine around him, and we said, "i love you, man."

do you feel this too?

the connectedness we felt that night has been palpable ever since, there's something different in my interaction with black people, maybe i'm just looking for it, but i feel this new bond, this wonderful confidence between us, as if obama's election has verified black people's status as full blown citizens, i don't know what it is, i can't know, but without question i feel a beautiful understanding, i've past older black women recently and they have this beautiful glow and kindness in their step, older black men have this wonderful gentleness to them, maybe black people have let their guard down a bit, maybe they now believe in white people, maybe more than any of obama's promise for hope, black people are actually living with more hope, more hope for justice and equality, again, i don't know what it is, i can't, but i know there's something.

inauguration

i couldn't miss inauguration, i had to go, i didn't care how cold it was going to be or how many people were expected to be there, i live so close if i didn't go i would feel less of a person, i would have one less story for my kids and one less amazing memory. we woke up at 415 to get ready, throw our layers on, get my napolean dynamite boots prepped and walk to the mall. we'd heard the metro was going to be packed, buses would be packed, no cabs or cars into the city, so we decided to walk the 4.5 miles over the memorial bridge onto the mall and into the hordes in front of the capitol. the walk was brisk but light, we felt a purpose, there was a goal and no one complained about how cold it was or how eerie it was walking in the pre-dawn slowness of dc. there was a rush of people getting to the mall when we got there, people of all ages, people from all over the country, huge groups, small groups, there were thousands of volunteers exciting the crowds, welcoming everyone to dc, starting the obama chant and giving hi-fives. i think what struck me most was the number of older black folks, it was a cold morning and it was looking like it was going to be a long, cold day, yet these amazing folks decided no matter how damn cold it was going to be they had to be a witness to history, they had to be there, they had to see it with their own eyes.

we found our spot amongst the masses and stood there, playing lil games with ourselves to keep warm. in the early morning hours on the jumbotrons they replayed the inauguration concert held the day before at the lincoln memorial, there were a lot of famous singers and actors speaking and showing their support for obama, we danced and sang, and i noticed there was only one song universally loved, a bob marley cover of One Love sung by sheryl crow, herbie hancock and will.i.am, there's something about bob that makes everyone smile and move their ass. as the day grew and as the dignitaries filed in, the swearing in couldn't come fast enough, the anticipation was excruciating, not to mention being cold for hours on end was exhausting, it broke the body down and it took all the energy i had to stay alert and active and moving in my little spot. as the proceedings pushed forward and the swearing in started we had been there for five hours, had been outside for six and a half, and my attention span was dwindling. for most of the proceedings i had my head down, there were two reasons, it was cold and to lift my head opened up tiny passages for the cold to penetrate, but the primary reason was the jumbotron was out of sync with the pa system, so we'd see obama say something, but wouldn't hear until a few seconds later, and if you've ever watched something under that effect, you know how difficult and disconcerting it can be. i found i couldn't concentrate on what people were saying, so i lowered my head and listened to the words, listened to their cadence and rhythm, their delivery. obama's patience in his speeches is unparalleled, he's got the rhythm that all great speakers have, nothing's forced, all the pauses in their proper spots, people will show future generations of speakers video of obama, no question. the one thing i took from obama's inauguration speech was its inclusiveness, never before have i heard a politician at that level mention non-believers, i know bush would never insert the term non-believer in a speech. i felt he reached out to people of all backgrounds, he set a precedent that he is willing to talk to anyone and everyone to get to the root of the issue, it's no longer enough to get word from this resource or that, go to the root of the conflict and ask your questions to the players, not spectators. another theme that i picked up on was a total rebuke of the bush way of doing things, much of what obama said seemed to be in direct opposition of what bush thought, and i couldn't help but think we were witnessing the rebranding of america.

after his speech we trekked out of there and headed up to dupont for drinks and food, we walked down the middle of 20th street, there were very few cars moving in the city, pedestrians dominated the day. we reflected a little bit at dinner, but we mostly tried to warm up and fended off sleepy eyes, we all wanted to celebrate the massive nature of what we'd seen, but simply didn't have the energy. after dinner we lost some of our party, but a few of us ended up partying until the morning hours, taking shots for energy and smiling big, over-sized smiles randomly throughout the night.

what does it all mean?

i explained my experiences to a friend recently using a super bowl analogy: election was winning the super bowl, inauguration was the super bowl ring ceremony months later. no one expects to win the super bowl, you want to win it, you prepare for it, you visualize it, you seek it, and then when it actually happens you go ape shit, you celebrate the victory, it's an intense release, it's spontaneous and beautiful, euphoric. then, a few months later when you get your super bowl ring in a ring ceremony, it really becomes official, you have more than a feeling to show for it, it's Real, but it can't compare to the feeling of having won it, of that night, when the unexpected happened. that's obama's election for me. election night was my super bowl, inauguration was my super bowl ring. it's official now, it's real and now i hope with all the hope i have in my body that he provides the leadership that our country desperately needs.

this election has changed my life, the experiences i shared on u street will never be taken away from me, if race relations between blacks and whites ever worsen, i'll remember the hugs and hi-fives we gave each other on nov4 and i'll know there's a better way, i'll always remember the equality i felt that day, and the equality i saw in everyone's eyes, we were just a bunch of people, a bunch of americans dancing in the street, our revolution wasn't violent, wasn't oppressive, no one died to make change, we used our democracy to affect change, and it worked. that's freedom.

her flaws

2009-01-18T16:30:00.003-05:00

at the end of revolutionary road starring leo di caprio and kate winslet there's a shot of an old man listening to his wife disparage someone, she's talking bad about someone that he actually thinks is a nice person, it seems to be her nature, she likes to gossip and talk bad about people, and as she's going on about why this person is awful, he slowly turns his hearing aid down.

he doesn't ask her to stop or try to correct her, he just tunes her out, literally. that hit me hard. of all the strong statements made in the movie, that hit me in a really strange way.

relationships aren't easy, people are complex and it's a multiplier when two people come together, complex becomes very complex. sure, relationships can provide a steadying force and balance out imbalanced people, but for the most part a relationship is two people learning to effectively deal with each other, some never learn, others try to change their lover, others compromise all that they are. there's no hard-lined equation that makes sense, every relationship is different and i'm certainly no expert, i've never come close to mastering the equation. but, what this slow moment at the end of the movie says to me is:

i'm not going to like certain things about my future wife. i should learn to accept her flaws and tune them out.

i've always wanted to be a guiding force, to be a rock and a stabilizing energy and help my lover get where she wants to go, or where i think she wants to go, but in striving to be that i think at times i can be patronizing or come across as being a preacher. maybe i think i know more than i do, or, as i've learned in recent years, my tone indicates i think i know what i'm talking about despite the fact i'm just postulating, brainstorming, trying to find answers with her, and that tone makes people become defensive. a friend told me she read that women don't always want a solution, most times it's enough for me to listen, JUST LISTEN, and what's unfortunate about that is i think i'm a great listener, but when i listen to a problem i immediately start to develop a solution. if dealing with women's issues is a two-part problem:

1. listen
2. SHUT THE FUCK UP

i pass the first part with flying colors but fail miserably with the second. it's difficult for me to listen to someone present an issue or overestimate the importance of an event without going into problem-solving mode, that's what comes naturally, if i listen, and listen well, then i should be able to process the issue and return some sort of advice or assessment. yet, that's not what's wanted, and what's worse, when i've done this in the past i've been attacked, as if i've taken on the characteristics of the issue being bitched about, i end up being the bad guy.

this brings me back to my point, in the movie the old man tunes his wife out, he knows he loves her, he knows she's like this, he knows he doesn't want to battle her because he knows he won't change her, so he simply exits. if i'm being asked to listen and not respond, to not provide a solution, and yet i'm not capable of withholding my thoughts or assessment after having listened, the only solution is to not listen. i've got to learn to turn my hearing aid down.

management material?

2009-01-18T15:51:00.000-05:00

i've been slow to post in the new year, been sort of a lazy ass, no excuse really other than pure laziness.

so, lately i've been thinking about management, being a manager, managing people, projects and all that stressful stuff. i'm getting to a point in my career and at my job that i think it's going to be an option soon, so i began assessing whether i would even be good at it. here's what i came up with:

i'm a good leader, but not a good manager.

i communicate effectively, have a good reputation, good rapport with co-workers and upper management, people respond to my leadership, people listen and take my point of view into consideration. i lead well, but struggle when i have to manage.

only recently have i been in a situation where i've had so much work i've had to effectively manage my schedule. i don't know if that means i have a high threshold or i've never had a lot of work, it's probably the latter. this past year is the first time i've really been challenged at work, or in school, or maybe in life. i've always been able to use my ad hoc way of doing things to handle everything given to me, but that's just not working any more. i've had to work on developing systems to get work done, to plan my day, to determine if i'm making progress. i've struggled. i don't have experience managing my workload, it's not something that comes easy to me, i'm not the most disciplined person, so this process has been difficult. if i struggle managing my own workload, i certainly would struggle managing multiple projects and people.

but, here's the second piece: it's easier to teach someone to be a manager than it is to teach someone to be a leader. when i figure it out i could be a really solid manager, a good mix between someone that can relate to employees and get shit done. this year is all about managing.

new years resolution

2009-01-03T17:43:00.000-05:00

most of the resolutions i've made in the past were for fun, sort of a way to challenge myself, no soda for a year, vegan for a year. but this year, i've chosen something more serious: i will not lie to family and friends. i'm a typical liar, nothing exceptional. i don't lie about big, important things, but i do lie. most times it's a matter of convenience or a means to protect someone, but ultimately these lil lies distance me from the people i care about. every time i lie, i miss an opportunity to open up to someone. the main theme of 2008 for me was communication, developing strong connections with friends by opening up and talking about real things, the real events and emotions in our lives that affect us. this resolution works toward creating more communication, to let people in on those moments that i've been keeping from people, moments when i don't want to be my typical, outgoing self, when i turn inward. i thought about opening the "no lie" principle to everyone, but i quickly realized how stupid that was. on new years eve i had a stalker, she spotted me early and slipped her way into our group, within 10 minutes she pulled me away from the group and was close-talking. every time i spoke she'd act like she couldn't hear and would put her ear to my mouth, almost cheek-to-cheek, really awkward. i wasn't attracted to the girl, she was pretty and thin, but just wasn't my type. she asked if i was married for some reason, i think she could sense that i wasn't into her and assumed the only reason i wouldn't be interested was if i was married, so she asked and when i said no she said, "i always seem to be attracted to married men." i sort of laughed and told her it's not good to be attracted to married men, and she got a serious face and asked, "are you not attracted to me?" whaaaaatttt?????? how'd she get that from what i said? so i restated what i said and she still took it as if i was saying i wasn't attracted to her. i started drifting away from her and she went to marty and started asking him why i wasn't attracted to her and most white guys like asians and why did the one guy she likes not like her, a bunch of weird stuff. for the rest of the night she sulked around with a pouty face, it was ridiculous. but later in the night she grabbed me and asked why i didn't like her, i could've been honest, but for some reason i said: i'm sort of seeing someone. i lied. i lied so i didn't have to tell her i didn't find her attractive or that she wasn't my type or that she was acting crazy and i'm not in to crazy chics. i lied because it was convenient and i didn't want to deal with the aftermath of the truth. so i quickly realized that i'll keep the resolution to family and friends, besides, the resolution is based on letting people know more about me, and i don't care if strangers know more about me or not. a lot of people don't think i'll be successful, it's too easy to lie, but it's a challenge i look forward to. happy new year mofos!!

heartbreak

2008-12-12T20:05:00.006-05:00

i think kanye west is a genius for many different reasons, but his musical direction, witnessed in songs like heard 'em say featuring the dude from maroon five and flashing lights to love lockdown from his latest album, only confirms it for me. he's gone pop, which is to say mainstream, which is to say White. he's making music for white kids. and why is that genius? well, the goal of nearly every mainstream artist is to be heard by as many people as possible, and kanye knew in order to do that, he had to move away from straight hip hop, and not because white kids don't listen to hip hop, because we do, but he recognized that there's been a shift the last couple of years. white kids aren't listening to gangsta rap anymore. why do you think his last album outsold 50 cent? it had a ton of crossover appeal. when you buy a 50 cent album, you're buying all gangsta rap, but when you buy kanye you get pop music (though, come to think of it, 50's most successful song from his last album was ayo technology featuring justin timberlake, a crossover song if ever there was one.) gangsta rap just doesn't sell any more, the only hip hop artists really selling anything are lil wayne and jayz, (with maybe jeezy being the lone gangsta rapper selling volume.) pharrell williams has ventured into this same market with his NERD outfit, but never with the same success as kanye because he didn't have the commitment to the idea. kanye lives for pop music now. he's a michael jackson descendant. he wants to rule the world, not just the hip hop world. his last album toed the line, but with 808s & heartbreak, he's completely jumped into the hip pop world.

i'm a huge fan of kanye's first two singles from the album: love lockdown and heartless. i've never liked the auto-tune singing style, the weird robot vocalization that t-pain has made his career off of, but kanye pulls it off, and i sorta forget about it after a couple of listens. the album, in my first go through, didn't completely floor me, but the same could be said for his last album, graduation. in fact the only song that really floored me from graduation was drunk and hot girls with mos def, and the same applies here, i think the only song that really struck me was amazing. but now, two weeks in, i can't stop listening to the album and love nearly every song.

it's a sad album. kanye lost his mom last year and broke up with his fiancee, so you can only imagine the sort of anguish he expresses. but most of the album has a beautiful resurgent quality: he feels like shit, but knows he's got everything it takes to find happiness. the line from streets lights sums up the entire album:

i know my destination

but i'm just not there

the album should accomplish everything kanye has sought out to achieve. it not only has crossover appeal in the us, but i can foresee a few songs from the album being worked into interesting house remixes by international djs, and if he could squeak his way into that genre one way or another he could truly rule the music World.

three of my favorite tracks

amazing featuring young jeezy: this track has a relentless beat, the drums sound tribal and the sparse piano in the background is insane. i hate young jeezy, he brings nothing the track and i would've preferred someone like andre 3000.

paranoid: i got kanye's album at the same time i got the new killers album, and one day when i was listening to both albums in a playlist i realized how much this song sounded like a killers track. it has a wonderful 80s dance club feel and just danng makes me happy.

coldest winter: this follows the love lockdown sound, a tribal drum hitting almost like a metronome, pulsating and standing alone at times. it's not packed with sound, the beat and the lyrics float around each other and create a short, amazing song.

can a dream direct my entire day

2008-12-05T06:58:00.001-05:00

i'm reading blink by gladwell, and throughout the book he talks about how our unconscious can cause us to act certain ways, for example, black students were given tests that asked for them to first input their race. they overwhelmingly did worse than if the question of race wasn't at the beginning at the test, and to take it a step further, if, at the beginning of the test, there was a reference to a famous, achieving black person the students did better than if there was no mention of race at all. there's a strange, unconscious priming that causes us to behave or achieve in certain ways.
i've been thinking about how this could apply in all sorts of places in my life. should i write a note to myself on the side of my bed: you're awesome!! would that lead me to have a better day? could i start out a presentation at work with something extremely positive to get buy-in more readily?

i dream like a madman in the mornings, from about 530 until 7 i think i'm dreaming non-stop. i'll wake up and look at the clock, see how much more time i have to rest these blue.eyes, then go back to sleep and inevitably fall back into the same dream sequence. it can be fun, almost a way to keep the story going. but this morning was different, i woke up at 537. i don't ever wake up that early, or, i don't ever actually get up that early. but this mornings dream was sad and uncomfortable, and i knew if i went back to sleep, it was a dream powerful enough that i'd end up back in the same sequence. i laid in bed for a couple of minutes trying to decide what to do, eyes closed, and i couldn't get the imagery from the dream out of my head. i had no other option really but to get up and get going, get this brain in action.

but a question struck me, even before i hit the shower: will that dream now affect my day? if i'm to believe the priming examples from blink, couldn't this direct my day? couldn't my day now be more introverted, more solemn? couldn't this put a twist on all my interactions or whether or not i achieve?? i was presented with a sign and now i'm unconsciously being affected by it? could this be different because i'm aware of it? if i'm conscious of the sequence could i find ways to circumvent the associated emotions?? blink says i won't be able to, it's not that easy, we react in certain ways whether we're conscious of it or not. is it hopeless??

i'll post again tonight, let's see if i am affected the entire day.

update
you know, if it weren't for this post, i would've gotten the idea out of my head altogether, i don't think the dream affected my day, i didn't feel lonely or disconnected or disengaged. i didn't even think about the dream or the thoughts associated until i was about to leave work, and at that point the emotional strength had been lost. but, i did think about it for the rest of the night, i went to a movie tonight and it popped in my little brain a couple of times, but instead of the dream or imagery from the dream, imagery that this morning felt painfully real and close, too visceral, tonight that imagery was replaced with the thought of having to write about this Thing that could've affected me all day, so it wasn't the sequence that stuck with me, but the idea that i was going to write about it at some point, and even at one point during the movie, i thought: as soon as i write about this it'll be gone forever. so there, now it can float with the wind.
oh, and don't see Role Models, it wasn't my choice, but sometimes you have to take one for the team.

all in a year's time

2008-11-25T19:10:00.006-05:00

i've changed more this year than i've changed in the last five. on all levels, i've grown up and found a happiness that i haven't known, i've accepted much of what i've struggled against in my career, i'm in a job that is diverse and challenging both professionally and personally, and i finally feel that my intelligence is being put to use and being recognized, i got over an unsatisfying relationship and now understand why it didn't work and have found peace with that, i don't blame her or myself, it just wouldn't work, i live in a city that i'm in love with, the comforts and accessibility of pretty much everything that makes me happy is a walk away, my main hobby has become my city, i have amazing friends that i really care about, that i want to see do well, the connections that i've built this past year will last forever, i've communicated in a way that i haven't before, and we're all better for that, my family is finally back to a normal place, my mother and father have their home back, they have the silence of their companionship, and there's nothing that makes me sleep better than knowing my family is happy, i drove across this beautiful country for the third time, i found one of the most amazing cities i've ever experienced: new orleans, the people the music, the smell, the food, i can't wait to go back, and i've started to understand what it takes to live a peaceful life, i'm getting closer to actually being happy, not just getting high on happy moments, but living happy and being satisfied and mystified and finding a closeness with other things and other people and, maybe, more importantly than anything else, this life is bigger than me.

death & its followers

2008-11-25T18:50:00.000-05:00

i get anxious when i haven't slept, or when my blood sugar is low, i feel like i can't breath, or can't breath correctly and i have to concentrate on every breath to ensure i'm actually inhaling. i feel like it could all end right then and there, like death is on the other side.
and it ends up making me think about the proximity of death, how soon i'll die or reminds me of stories of young people that died of cancer or leukemia or whatever other lil malformed bits that could cause me to drop dead. i get nervous that one of these unseen ailments is growing in my gut and the fact that i haven't had a physical in a couple of years only worsens the nervousness.

but the other day, in a wonderfully horrible moment, in the middle of one of those nervous sprints, i stopped and really looked at Death, the big D, not the lil d, and realized that it's nothing. nothing. that's it. life's over. everything that exists in this life, will not exist after. so the fear that i have of dying, will no longer be. if there's pain, there won't be any more pain. it's a void, a nothingness, it's not human, it's not a sunny place, or a dark place, it's no place. and to some that could instill intense fear, but when i think about what i'd like to call the silence despite that not being correct either, if there's nothing there can't be silence, silence is the absence of noise, in order for there to be silence, noise must exist, noise doesn't exist in death, therefore, neither does silence, nor does anything else. so the madness that we live with, we certainly don't die into.

this idea has calmed me. i used to be fearful of what awaits, of it all being over, of my last breath coming and having a feeling that i didn't do everything i wanted, but you know what, i'm dead, nothing matters, and only nothing matters. it's a peaceful thought. i think something like this is what old folks may come to before they die, all the pain and complexity, that all slips away and we're left with what's after, this is gone and that's to come. i believe nothing comes, they may believe everlasting bliss and peter's gates await, and for me it's nothing, but hey, at least we come to the realization that it's all over, and that's not a bad thing.

the detriot decision

2008-11-24T09:12:00.000-05:00

i can't understand the breadth of the economic condition, i just can't, i'd have to quit my job and study it every day just to be able to Start to think about it in a realistic way, that's how complex i think it is. everyone thinks they know what the government should do, as if they know more than the experts that have studied the past, helped form the present, and are planning for the future. i'll be the first to say i don't know enough to appreciably add much to the conversation. now, having said that, i am smart enough to know, as an american consumer, that the american auto industry doesn't build compelling automobiles regularly enough. they seem to be behind the curve and rarely push out innovative designs or deliver new technology.

i don't know if it's healthy or not to allow the Big 3 to go bankrupt, i don't know how close they are to actually being bankrupt, and i don't know if being bankrupt means your business collapses (haven't there been companies that went bankrupt and then rebounded somehow??) however, i don't think it makes sense to give money to a failing company simply to prevent bankruptcy. if the company is run poorly, a cash infusion won't be the cure-all.

the only way i would give a company that is run by idiots a bundle of cash is by forcing them to build what i wanted from an automaker: more green options. a stipulation of the bailout must include deadlines: a mass-market, fully-electric vehicle by 2011. this could be an opportunity to stimulate innovation in companies that are stagnant and increasingly less daring. we see amazing concept cars every year at the different auto shows, but those designs always get dumbed down. take a risk, build interesting designs with innovative technology and recapture the american imagination. there's always risk involved in building anything that we aren't sure the public is ready for, but that's what the technology age is all about, that's how apple and google have been successful. maybe we should give billions to them and ask them to build a green car.

for a better take on the subject, read this link.

my new favorite person

2008-11-19T17:27:00.002-05:00

(i used to be opposed to favorites, now it seems as if every other day i'm proclaiming a new favorite. maybe i've turned a new leaf on favoritism.)

ted turner owned cnn, tbs, tnt, the atlanta braves, the atlanta hawks and a bunch of other things. he owns the most acreage of any private citizen, over 2 million acres of land, he's gonna give it all to the park system when he dies. he's a really interesting guy. i saw him in a 60 minutes interview on sunday and then a couple days later on cnn, he's hawking a new book about his life. i'd love to smoke a cigar with this guy on a porch in montana. he's the kind of guy that likes to talk at you, and i'm the kind of person that likes to soak in those kind of people, specially when they actually have a story to tell.

the great thing about the internet, i can share the exact clips i watched a few days ago. the first video makes you watch an advertisement, sorry!!

what is this?

2008-11-18T21:43:00.003-05:00

i'm working on rebranding this blog, i got a layout i like, but i want to sort of make this more like a website. so i've been thinking about website names, i tried a bunch with robot in it, for some reason i've had this thing for robots the last couple of years, i don't even like robotics or artificial life or sci-fi movies or star wars or any sort of advanced machinery, but i do like the idea that we're sort of programmed to act a certain way through years of influences and nature's harrassment. so a name with robot, something like robotlove? i think about love and life and relationships and all that wretched mess a lot, but robotlove doesn't have a ring to it. robotlife? roboticlife? i don't know about this robot thing.

so i started playing around with an old myspace name i gave myself: dirty.romance. i've always like the way that flows. so i looked on godaddy.com if it was availalbe. of course not. some porn shark snatched it up, and has some dating ads on the site as placeholders. so that's out. so i sort of had the idea to combine the two: dirtyrobot. i like that. it sounds good. i don't know what it really means, but i like the sound of it.

well. i looked it up. it's taken.

but the site is kind of creepy. this may be the weirdest site i've ever stumbled upon.

matches the name, i suppose.

dirtyrobot.com

gladwell's blink has me thinking

2008-11-18T19:25:00.001-05:00

i'm reading malcolm gladwell's blink, it's been on my list for a while now and it's time, it's just time, and the whole opening section is about the ability to judge a relationship, a marriage, based on a 3-minute taped interaction. there's a doctor at the university of washington that has a love lab, he invites couples to partake in an experiment, they are asked to discuss for 15 mintues a conflict in their relationship, the severity of the conflict is completely up to the couple. he reviews the tape and records the emotive responses by each participant, every second is tracked, reviewed and scored. after tallying the score he arrives at a number. based on that number he's been able to successfully predict, with 95% accuracy whether a couple's marriage will succeed. 95%!! based on 15 minutes!! that's insane.

so, another professor decided to use his tapes and cut it down to 3 minutes. he built a computation that allows him to predict with ridicuolous accuracy the success of a marriage. in a small, 3-minute window into a relationship the long-term success can be determined. remarkable.

thinking about this has sort of hurt my head. if a complete stranger could look at the relationship i'm in and determine in 3-minutes if we're going to be successful or not, i think i'd pay them a lot of money. to know you're not right for each other, based on micro-interactions, the small response to a comment or the roll of the eyes or defensiveness, would be incredibly helpful, don't you think???

one of the professor's came up with a ratio: for every 1 negative emotion there must be 5 positive emotions for a relationship to be successful. wow!! what about people that just seem to be negative in general?? will they never be able to sustain a happy marriage?

this ratio and micro-interactions made me think about past relationships, whether the relationship was as light as i'd like or if i was defensive or if my facial expressions were translated as positive or negative. i know some of the faces i've been given or the small, lil baby interactions i've had with ex-girlfriends wasn't nearly at the 5-1 ratio. people generally take life more serious than i do, or take our interactions more serious. i'm not too concerned with much of the frazzle of life, i love conversations about our daily life, the wonder of this beautifully complex world, but i become easily disinterested when someone wants to tell me their frustrations with a client or class or subordinate or family member or friend or whatever else women seem to bitch about. i'm a good listener, and i'll listen, but i can't say i'll be interested. and i understand to be a good listener i have to be interested, but i think, in those situations, the most a woman is asking from me is a nod and a "it'll be ok, babe; f' your boss." i typically don't talk about work unless it's something challenging or cool or new. the bad parts of work are left at work. i don't like dealing with them, why would you want to??

i got off topic. so the book made me think about past relationships and signs of failure and why things didn't work out, but it's also made me think about future relationships. i should be able to tell fairly quickly if something is going to work or not. one thing i've done in the past is tried to make things work, despite all the things that definitely don't work, i would tell myself that it'll get better. and maybe it did or maybe it would or maybe it could, but better isn't good enough, right?? better meets a breaking point. and that's what happens to these married couples. most of them don't get married thinking they'll get divorced. and in one of the examples the professor noted the way the guy was handling his partner's contempt, he was very jovial and seemed to let things slide and laughed most of it off. but in 5 years, after having laughed it off for so long, he won't be laughing anymore.

so, if it doesn't seem right, if the relationship isn't easy, not to say it has to be perfect, but if the relationship feels to difficult, it's not the right relationship. specifically when conflict does arise, if we can't handle conflict well, the evidence suggests we will never handle conflict well.

hmmmmmmmmm....just another thing to think about!!

i don't know what to think of this nastie-ness

2008-11-18T10:28:00.000-05:00

recent events in my art life

2008-11-11T20:29:00.001-05:00

last friday i saw a movie i've been anticipating for a year or so, synecdoche, new york, a charlie kaufman film. i heard about it on aint-it-cool.com, it was just a quick write-up, something like:

kaufman has written a script about a playwright that aspires to create a monumental new play based on his life, the playwright casts an actor to play himself and during production ends up dating the woman that is playing his wife.

some of it ended up being true, some of it may just have been my interpretation of what the author of the article was trying to convey, which leads me to the crux of the movie, this film is nothing more than a reflection of our own subconsciousness, each individual subconscious, or, maybe it'd be more accurate to say our subjective consciousness, i don't know, and that's not really the point either. so what the f' is the point!!!!!!!! hmmm, well, i've read a bunch of reviews about the film and hate them all. everyone is trying to understand and interpret the film, why does this happen or that happen, and i don't think that was kaufman's intention, he didn't have samantha morton's character live in a burning house to indicate her passion or to symbolize anything, he didn't change the main characters hair at the end of the movie to match the actor playing him to depict a man completely the lifecycle and returning back to mother earth, or whatever else someone could think up with our enormous brains. this movie makes me think of some of bob dylan's greatest songs, something like "a hard rain's gonna fall":

the song could mean something if someone wanted it to, but i don't think bob sat down and tried to make this apocalyptic song that could stand for an entire generation of wanderers. kaufman just wanted to create something original, something magical, something personally significant and appealing and fun, and i think he pulls it off beautifully. now, that doesn't mean the movie has to make me feel good, because it didn't, i felt awful walking out of the theater, it's a heavy movie, it hits your every sense, and when the screen went white at the end, i took a breath and looked around, and i swear this has never happened at a movie, no one moved, everyone sat there looking into the whiteness of the screen, searching. to walk away from this film and not feel your mortality would be amazing, it's surreal presentation of life's events i somehow related with and felt crushing waves of mortality throughout, which isn't hard to do considering there have to be about 4 or 5 funerals in the film, we're constantly reminded that death is inevitable, and despite our complications and desires and fits of happiness or rage that distract us from the fact, we're all going to die.

so is it a good date movie?? no. is it a good movie if you're worried about dying?? no. but it is a charlie kaufman movie, a special and rare and significant event that only happens once every 5 years or so.

last night i went to see my favorite band of 2008, the felice brothers, they opened up for conor oberst and the mystic valley band. conor oberst has another band called bright eyes, and i've wanted to see this talented singer/songwriter for a couple of years. his music is tender and sincere in a way that is difficult to find:

but the main reason i was going was to see the felice bros, they're this amazingly raucous folksy rock band from the catskill mountains in upstate new york. they put on a fun show, a lot dancing, hollering, it's just a loud happy show, everyone smiles and sings and most of their songs feel like irish songs in that it's easy to imagine everyone in a bar singing along with them. one of my biggest pet peeves about musicians: lack of crowd engagement. the best performers i've ever seen always get the audience involved in personal, intimate ways, whether through self-deprecation or story telling or actually talking with the audience. we want to feel connected to the music, if we just wanted to hear it we would sit in our cars and listen to it, we want to really Feel the music, so we spend money to See the band Play the songs we Love to Hear, and in appealing to all those different senses, the cycle is completed when they reach out and engage with us. the felice brothers always do this, they're constantly asking for crowd participation and telling goofy lil stories, or are having such fun on stage i find myself laughing and having fun with them. i think i've seen them 5 times this year and every show blows me away, they're that much fun to see. this video is a good introduction:

the video doesn't capture their sound, it's far more BIG, not bigger, more BIG, it's a huge sound, they fill the room with music and swims into the rafters and off the walls in the back. they played a great set last night, several songs i'd never heard, and several others from their latest album that i hadn't heard them play live. i can't imagine having to play after them, their energy is so tangible, to follow that would be one hell of a task.

conor oberst and the mystic valley band were solid if nothing more. they didn't really bring it until well into their set, they cranked it up and got the crowd excited, but what a weird crowd it was. i didn't realize how young conor oberst's audience is. i figured that this folksy emo type character with difficult, yet beautiful lyrics would be more for the college set, but i'd say 50% of the crowd, if i were touch them in their warm parts, i would be put in a jail and have to introduce myself to my neighbors for the rest of my life. young idiotic kids, trying to impress each other, forging their unique paths through life, it annoyed me. they bounced around too much. and that means i'm an old asshole.

oh, and last thing, i think i've finally got a concept worth writing toward: next year, in each month, i'm going to write a chapter, the book will be composed of 12 conversations. the conversations will be both fictional and factual, blending the two is the easiest way for me to write, the most sincere way to get closer to how i feel about things, yet the best way to cop out and not be completely honest. i'm going to take the next two months to finish the formula, then next year, each month i'll finish a chapter. what'dya think????

i've been listening to this song on repeat all night:
http://www.last.fm/music/Kris+Kristofferson/_/Sugar+Man

new favorite sonnnnnggggggg

2008-11-11T14:14:00.000-05:00

i've got a post worked up that will breakdown some of my new favorite songs (i have a pile of posts awaiting final touches or, in some cases, initial touches, i've been reading more often at night, instead of wrapping up this stuff) but this song is killing me right now, so i thought i'd post the video. kanye has always been one of my favorite artists, his egotastical mind is hilarious and he's a marketing genius, i mean, a majority of his rants and ridiculous behavior is to drum up media hype, and there are few people in music or entertainment in general that can put the media in fits. his new album is coming out either this month or next, we're going to start the new year with some great new music from great artists: kanye, common and mos def have albums coming out in the next couple of months.

maya angelou on obama's election

2008-11-07T09:14:00.000-05:00

Watch CBS Videos Online

the revolution

2008-11-05T20:57:00.000-05:00

i have two posts i want to write regarding the election, one laying out the reason i voted for obama, and the second describing the emotion that i experienced on november 4th. i want to take my time with both because i think it's important to capture this momentous time in both my life and the life of our country. but i do feel i have to give a snapshot of what i experienced last night, so here goes: this is what it must have felt like to live in the 60's. we cared. everyone cared. i was at a huge election party in dc and with every new state won by obama the bar would cheer. when it was announced that he won, the place erupted. you could genuinely see in everyone's faces that this mattered and we participated in it, we brought this about, we chose this course of events. during his speech everyone huddled around the teevees and got quiet. we were transfixed, by politics of all things!! the electricity that obama creates was the driving force of his candidacy and will be his legacy. he electrifies crowds and he obviously electrified voters. after the speech we went to u street and masses of people of every color were literally dancing in the street. the whole street shut down, there was music playing, cars passing by with people hanging out the window chanting "obama, obama, obama"...it was insanity. i must have given 10,000 high-fives. it felt like one community, one village, one voice. i've never felt as connected to fellow americans in my life. i felt proud to be an american, proud to have made change. only one other time in my life did i truly feel an overwhelming pride to be an american, and not just typical pride, overwhelming joyous pride, that was driving across the country from los angeles to maryland, seeing the vistas and mountains and buffalo of this beautiful land. but that's the thing, the pride was for our american beauty, the beautiful country. it was more for what existed within the boundaries of america, than the people within those boundaries. last night i was proud of these people, my people. i was proud of what we accomplished. i felt connected like i've never felt before. last night there was no color. it wasn't white black brown yellow or red. it was a single force. my friend chris ended up meeting me in the streets and we hugged and danced and thanked each other. he said he cried when obama won, said it's going to change things for black people, but i took it a step further and said it's going to change things for everyone, everyone will feel like the sky is the limit. it felt like a revolution, we had changed government, not through war, but through the means our founding fathers gave us, a vote. i get the chills thinking about what i experienced on u street last night. i'll carry that with me for the rest of my life.

the beatification of skyline

2008-11-02T17:39:00.002-05:00

skyline drive is majestic, and i vow that as long as i'm within driving distance, for the rest of my life i'll go up the first weekend in november to see the countryside burning in autumn colors.

i woke up nice and early today after recovering from my halloween madness and drove up to the mountains. this is the first time i've been up there by myself, and to be honest, it wasn't as fulfilling as it has been in the past, but being there gets me away from the whirl of the modern world and helps me reset, and despite having to do it by myself it was still satisfying.

there were a lot of people out today, and everyone cavorted about happy as could be, a lot of couples and families, there was this old couple eating lunch on the stone barrier between us and the wilds, i immediately associated with them and imagined that'd be me in about 50 years. they had this quiet serenity and to see that their curiosity and vigor for life still pulled them out was refreshing and helped me get over the fact that i was the only person on the mountain that seemed to be by himself!!! well, except for this one hiker, he was walking along the road looking down into the Piedmonts, i saw in him the same sort of lostness i see in myself, like we're both searching for ourselves by returning to nature, the answers that nature provide are calming and always feel appropriately timed and forgiving. i remember rock climbing a couple of years ago, a couple of weeks after the massacre at virginia tech, i felt so alive on the mountain and told one of my buddies: if only that viriginia tech kid would've gotten out here, how could you want to destroy life out here?? everytime i return from skyline life feels more important.

here are some pictures from the trip, it felt kind of ridiculous taking pictures of myself, but i wanted to remember what i looked like, so don't laugh at me!!! click into the slideshow to go to the actual web album.

haalllllloooowwwweeeeennnn

2008-11-02T16:44:00.000-05:00

the most ridiculous day, i was in walmart earlier in the day grabbing some final touches for my costume and this lady in a fairy costume is pushing a cart, talking on her cellphone, and no one paid her any mind. if it was a tuesday in february everyone would be like what the f??? society has given us a pass to be idiots for a day, release from all the restrictions placed on how we dress and how we act and let our imaginations run. i've only missed one halloween in the past 10 years, and that was partly because of a botched fishing trip and partly because i didn't want to piss off my gf at the time by going out without her, and now in retrospect, i should've gone, i forgot how much fun it is to be retarded and not have to worry about people's reactions.

i wanted to act nastie, i didn't necessarily have a costume in mind, only a frame of mind, i wanted to be the nastiest nastie that the world ever did seeeee, and one way to be allowed to act like that is to match my costume with my actions, so i dug into my closet and pulled out some of the gear i wore to the jean jacket party i threw this past summer. nastie jeans, nastie mesh tank top, nastie leather jacket, nastie shoes. i got a mullet wig, a fannypack and some blazing sunglasses from walmart and i completed the 80's beer-drinking, out-of-control idiot look to a T. throwing on the full ensemble turned me into the person that i wanted to be: disgusting, awful, nastie, crude and rude. i did some nastie dancing in the mirror and couldn't stop laughing, i absolutely love being outlandish and trying to take it to the next level.

we went to mr.days, it was the only decent bar without a line wrapped around the building. i walked around most of the night with a beer bottle hanging out from my unzipped pants, doing outrageous dances and showing off my highly impressive ass, my friend julie actually asked if i stuffed it with something and kept touching it to see if it was real!! no one could believe that i had a beautiful momma's ass, which completely convinces me that having a well-formed ass is 90% jeans and 10% actual ass. i took a bunch of pictures with random people that wanted to get close to the nastieness. appropriate to the character i acted incredibly nastie with any and all women that were within arms length, or even out of arms length: from across the bar i saw a group of girls so i started giving them the nastie eyes, and then did the awful two fingers to the mouth thing with my tongue out!! they laughed and luckily didn't have me arrested. with the girls in our group i kept grabbing their hand and putting it on the beer bottle in pants, or when dancing i would rub it on their butt and sort of give em a shocker.

it was a good time, innocent good fun. i didn't piss anyone off and made it home in one piece. one of my buddies said it's like i waited all year to put on that nastie costume and act like that, and he's probably right, and now i'll have to wait another full year.

i'll post more pictures as i get them from mis amigos.

gnarls video

2008-10-30T16:46:00.000-04:00

i saw this video a couple of months ago and it blew me away, the conversation in the video is ultra-real and sort of hurts to even think about.

new wax video

2008-10-30T16:36:00.000-04:00

wax is the shinnnns!! this video is ridiculous!

dave eggers at TED

2008-10-29T13:28:00.000-04:00

TED is an amazing program/conference/gathering of enlightened minds. LINK. every year a couple innovators are chosen to present their TEDwish. The following is dave eggers, a writer connected to our generation far more than most, presenting his TEDwish.

morning love

2008-10-29T10:19:00.003-04:00

I've been working on this idea for the past couple of weeks: morning, directly upon awakening, is the only time we can really feel love, love unconditional—unfiltered. I wrote this lil thing, I wouldn't call it a poem because I didn't really think about it in that sense, but after reading it I could imagine being onstage and dishing it out to an audience, and when I was reciting it in my car the other day I started tearing up a lil bit, the idea was so beautiful, it felt so right, it's what I remembered of love and what I miss most, but I wasn't tearing up because of what I didn't have, more so because of the feeling that I once had, and that was a nice thing to recognize and remember and feel and be associated with.

Here's what I've been working on, it's meant to be read as if I was talking to you:

I have this theory:
we can only love someone in the morning
it's a new idea, nothing thought out or anything, but it goes like this:
every morning is a New day, some kind of reset
whatever happened the day before
that's yesterday's nonsense, that's not Today
& through that dark, subconscious place we enter every night, something happens
we awaken with a new sense, I can't say what sense really, but we start anew
& with this resurrection or rebirth, whichever is more accurate,
we look at the world from a different angle
with more benevolence, more patience
more serenity, all those kinds of words
& through refreshed eyes we look over at our partner

I look into you

I see your possibilities, your tenderness

I feel your warmth beneath the covers

I relearn your smell & your forgiveness

every morning I fall in love with you

goooood weekend

2008-10-27T10:32:00.002-04:00

i went out on thursday to a trendy bar in clarendon called eleventh to have some drinks with a friend looking for some advice, she just started hanging out with a guy and was hoping to get closer to understanding his intentions, she figured i'd been an asshole to enough women to know whether he was going to be the same. the conversation was hilarious and intriguing and vacillated (my new favorite word) between serious and completely irreverent, and i think our honesty with each other about very personal things sort of shocked each other, isn't it always a lil shocking to talk about very personal things with a friend of the opposite sex?? i also think we sometimes open up to the opposite sex in a more complete way, at least men do, or at least i do, my emotional sensitivities and vulnerabilities seem more forgiven, and for women, to open up about physical misadvenutres and yet feel a guy's understanding or support can be reassuring, and this sort of distinction between men and women was a primary topic. we talked about sex and our gender differences, the emotion involved, or lack thereof, the significance of a sexual act and the emotional repercussions. then, to get to someone's intentions, we talked about ways to broach the subject or whether to bring it up at all, how to bring it up, and what will most likely be the outcome if something like that is brought up so soon. but the conversation expanded to more topics and we ended up sitting there for 3 hours talking about life and some of its complexities. it really strengthened our friendship, i was glad to have someone to talk with in such a beautiful honest way, and i think she was excited to get advice about her situation but also have someone other than her girlfriends to bounce ideas off of.

earlier that day i called my mom, i don't call my mom too often, and when i do it's normally to let her know i'm coming to the house that weekend, but this call was a bit different. in previous relationships i've come across at times as not being supportive, i have a solid baseline on what i believe and how i want to treat people and what i expect from people, i rarely feel slighted or disappointed by friends and family, i try to understand why ppl act in hurtful or harmful ways, and at times being that way has caused problems. i called my mom to ask her how she's been able to navigate through a successful relationship knowing that she and my father had to have had disagreements on events or things or philosophies, and she started with a light-hearted comment: "after a long day at work you call about this? making me think??" i told her that's everyday for me, and to stop dodging the question, so we talked about some of the situations she and my dad have gone through, she said disagreements in the way in which we deal with something doesn't necessarily mean we aren't being supportive, in fact, the disagreement can be more supportive than agreeing on something you don't feel is right. in previous relationships i tried to make the case that disagreements can actually strengthen a relationship, but that argument never seemed to stick, and, considering the romantic ideal is that you and your loved one should agree on most major philosophies i can understand why it was a hard sell, but when it comes down to it, i don't think there are too many things in life that are so immensely critical to my worldview that i would think if my loved one didn't agree i couldn't be with them. maybe religion, i couldn't date someone that was entirely devoted to a christian god because of the lifestyle implications that that belief could incur. but the point of the question wasn't necessarily the major beliefs, it was more about interactions with friends and family or even strangers, i don't want my gf/wife to think i'm not being supportive of their malcontent for someone when it's not in my nature to have malcontent for anyone, i simply don't act that way to people, someone would have to really hurt me or mistreat me for me to not be cordial, and yet i've felt in the past that i'm not being supportive if i don't replicate their sentiment toward someone or something, when actually what i'm hoping to do is to show how insignificant the situation is and support moving on, recognizing the frivolity of the situation, life's too precious to worry about what people think or certain people's intentions. i only let a small group of people into my world and hurt caused by them is excruciating, everyone else doesn't matter, they're floating points in my life that come and go and haven't allowed them enough access to really cause damage. so, that was a good conversation with my momma, she's always fun to talk to.

friday i went to a houseparty, i haven't been to a houseparty in about a year or so, and before that it had to be several years, there's something more intimate about a house party, it's completely different than a bar, everyone is more comfortable, the interactions are different, girls don't have their guard up and everyone just loves meeting everyone else. lots of flip cup and beer pong. i haven't played beer pong in forever, needless to say i still got it. stevey and i got progressively worse, and ended up matching up against some douche bag that had this insane shot, his 30 seconds of aiming and posturing somehow worked for him, but he looked like a douche doing it. it was fun meeting new people and being in a different environment.

saturday night i went out for a friend's bday, she lives near adam's morgan in a cool, old apartment, i ended up being the only guy in the group, but they're my girls and i somehow always seem to fit in even when i'm the only male representative, we drank champagne and talked about birth control for a while and guy's being assholes, i certainly didn't dissuade the group from thinking men are idiots, but i did field questions and propose possibilities. we talked about the book club that i started and why some of them aren't participating and decided that we all need to be more active and the group should do more, so next saturday i'm hosting a halloween horror movie showing in my theater. we ended up at bourbon in adam's morgan, a decent bar with good music, the dj actually played mostly danceable music. a friend from work showed up with a few of her friends. the crowd at the place was sort of older, but there were some hot older chics dancing around looking for attention. any time i hang out with the girls it's sort of hard to meet someone, it's not that they are protective, though they might be and i just don't feel it, but them being out changes the chemistry of the evening, our group is more inward, and the focus is internal, as opposed to when i'm with all guys, there's really no internal focus, everything is focused outward. it was fun, i got home kind of late and sent a drunk text to elizabeth, the weirdest, coolest person i know (in a response to an email i sent her recently she wrote: I have such a love for you. only she would word it that way.)

the leaves are changing and life is good, the season makes me happy and brings a different emotion than any other. i can't wait to get up to skyline and look out to the virginian wilds and be blown away that life is this real and amazing and tangible.

what am I doing???

2008-10-24T11:49:00.000-04:00

I don't go back and read too many of my posts, but I have a feeling Ive been sounding like a sad-faced, woe-is-me pansy, which just doesn't tell the full story. I think I've allowed this space to be an avenue for my turmoils, but my life, in it's totality is amazing and intricate and joyous, but difficult and painful and laborious and tedious. it's really a balance that I'm constantly trying to maintain or attain, depending on what's going on. I've decided I want to construct a happier home here, so I'm going to post more abt the fun things I do or the conversations I have that are rewarding or new things I've learned. this space is going to be more of a celebration than a conduit into my overly critical mind. I'll still be dissatisfied that I don't have someone to build memories with and struggle with the fact that life is a complicated blur of madness that I can't pause to assess where I am and how to proceed properly, and some of that will be here, I can't filter it all out, but at least if i present a more complete story someone will read this stuff and not think I'm walking on a ledge.

i made the news!!

2008-10-24T09:49:00.000-04:00

trust & commitment & love

2008-10-21T22:05:00.000-04:00

it's just a dark period

every time i go through this i come out a more exuberant person

i enjoy life's nuances more

i appreciate my friends and family more

i get closer to understanding Love

i emailed that to a friend tonight, i've been in a weird extended funk for the last few months, i don't have the same joie de vive (i've always wanted to write that!!), it's football season, the weather is crisp and amazing, the leaves are turning and the sun is shining from an angle that makes earth seem so soft and motherly, yet i've felt inward and lazy and wasteful and inconsiderate and overwhelmed. life's complications are so densely layered that sometimes what normally is a beautiful convergence somehow transmogrifies into a burdensome derangement.

but the point of this whole thing is the outcome of these periods: getting closer to understanding Love. last time i went through this i came to an understanding of the trust and physical commitment necessary to love someone. i used to be a hedonist, i did what made me happiest, no matter what pain it caused, to myself or others. understanding trust and physical commitment (and yes, just physical, i'll get into why i'm qualifying it as just physical in a second) made me a much better person. it's made me more open to all of humanity, not just lovers, i have a freedom of interaction with people now, i trust their nature, and though i have gotten burnt by trusting, i still can't say i shouldn't have trusted them, if i'm to let a few untrustworthy people cause me to forgo the extension of trust to others, then i'm letting myself down. and because i could trust them, i could now trust myself.

where i'm heading this time around is toward spiritual commitment. i've always been able to commit the emotion necessary, so emotional commitment has never been an issue, but early on i couldn't commit to being with one person physically. i came to understand the importance of physical commitment and what additional securities that brought with it. but where i've never been sufficient is what i'm calling the spiritual side, it's hard for me to commit all of my being to someone, the way my brain works, it doesn't lend itself well to this level, i observe and think about too much and dissect and analyze and re-analyze and then grab the re-analysis and analyze it again! if you keep doing that how can you ever be satisfied with your lover????? i think about projects at work, if i were to go through this sort of examination and re-examination, nothing would ever get released. i've been thinking a lot about this level of commitment and its significance and what it's going to take for me to get there, but how valuable and rewarding the experience can be, it's almost a pep talk: just open up and give all of yourself and you'll be happy forever after.

twitter explanations: two

2008-10-08T19:50:00.005-04:00

the guy next to me a the diner counter has a mason tattoo on his hand

i had breakfast at the diner in clarendon, and i noticed this guy smoking outside as i walked in, he had a jean shirt on and glasses, and i thought this guy could be someone from my family, very bluecollar sorta guy. whe

n he sat next to me at the diner counter, i noticed that he had a tattoo on his hand. after some careful glances i realized it was the mason symbol!! this isn't exactly the most discrete way to show off your affiliation to a secret brotherhood!! i wanted to ask him about it, sorta let him know i Know, but i thought it might be awkward. then later that day while driving to the thrift store i saw a big mason symbol on the side of a brick building on road connecting to glebe, this must be the lodge for my part of arlington. maybe i'll have to make a visit before the year's out.

i'll be 30 & she'll be 23

that has to be the ratio

& she'll be of Latin descent

i was getting tipsy at a club in dc when i started putting some things together, and after review, these things that ended up being put together were caused by a confluence of factors:

i was in a highly ethnic club
there were a lot of younger women

so yeah, i imagine that i'll marry younger, i doubt that Sh

e'll be that young, most young women don't cast a wide enough net, most aren't interested in enough diverse things to keep me on my toes the way women my age or older women could, so she'll have to be of another ethnicity, that's the only way i'll k

eep interest, she'll have to be from another culture, i'll soak up as much as i can and find interest in her the things that make her who she is, or so

goes this scenario that i now think is absurd. and of course she'll be of latin descent, some of the most beautiful women i've ever seen are latina!!

we chose the wrong place... i need more

"i want u to be sexy for me"

u bring a hot chic here, i won't meet her here

i rarely "make the best of it"

these statements were made that same night, and yes, we chose the wrong place, i put our name on a list down in the city, but we decided to not go down there and instead stuck around where we started, and it just wasn't the same, i know where to go, and i don't know why i didn't make it happen, i was bitter the rest of the night, which is w

hy i later say i rarely make the best of it, a statement that is actually not true at all, i'm good at making the best of whatever the situation may be, i think this night i knew this wasn't the spot to be and this wasn't going to give me everything i wanted, and if i would've been with more friends instead of just stevey i probably would've made more of it, but i just wasn't in the mood to make busted chics laugh or talk over loud music if i wasn't interested in her. but i did see something i really value, there was a hot chic sitting on this g

uy's la

p and she was sort of dancing for him and being sexy and all i could think of is a scenario like this:

me: come here

[i grab my gf by the hand and lead her into my lap]

me: i want u to be sexy for me

gf: what does that mean

me: dance for me

[she doesn't even look around to see if anyone is watching, she knows what she's doing

isn't dirty, but she likes that it sorta feels risque]

and that's why i say i would bring a hot girl there, not meet one, i would love to go on dancing dates where just my gf and i get all did-up and go dancing and act like 21 year olds and maybe have one too many drinks, it would just be she and i and no one else in the world would matter

i need more from life, after that statement the ? must be How

i wasn't satisfied with the night, so i told myself that i needed more, but extending empty statements like that doesn't really bring an action into existe

nce, so i asked myself HOW, how would this statement be brought to life??? and i don't know, and i can't say, but i feel like i'm getting closer to understanding how to make myself feel productive even if i'm not necessarily being as productive as i should be. (i realized after writing this that i guess i associate "more from life" with productivity, i feel the need to Produce, and i remember when i was a stuntguy, chris wright and i had lil idea notebooks, he'd write raps, i'd write poetry or play ideas or conversations and at the top of each page in big sharpie-fied letters i wrote: PRODUCTION )

i wonder how many macaus are flying arnd in America, wild as a starbird

i thought this lil thought on my way to get breakfast on the sunday morning after staying up till 330, i was a bit tired and let my mind wander off, i heard some chirping birds in the trees lining the walkway to clarendon and i wondered how many wild birds had escaped and were still hanging around in the trees in our cities or countryside, how magical it would be to just be strolling down the street one day and see a macau flying by!!

wow, just saw the "mason symbol tattoo on hand" guy from yesterday's brkfst

so i'm walking to get breakfast, after thinking about these wild/domesticated macaus i saw the mason symbol tattoo on hand guy outside of whitlow's, smoking a cigarette and wearing the same outfit, i don't think he noticed me, but if he looked at me he may have noticed my face slant, i was sort of baffled that i'd see the same guy on back-to-back mornings, this guy was getting around my town and i liked that i was sharing life with someone.

her face changed from hard to soft as soon as he showed up

i was at the world's greatest cafe, murky, and while reading The Stranger and sipping on my americano outside on the patio on a beautifully amazing autumn sunday morning i took the opportunity to Observe, i normally check out who's out and about whereever i go, i love Observing, and this is one of my favorite places to do it, there's always a smattering of funny looking people or cool people or interesting people or all of the above, but i noticed a girl standing near a light post looking dissatisfied, she was waiting for someone, but it felt like she was leaving, felt like she was getting picked up and would be leaving this place, which isn't a reference to murky, more this place in time, that feeling goes back to my observation that she seemed dissatisfied, this, whatever it may be, wasn't enough or didn't live up to her expectations, and that this may very well have been the person picking her up, who knows??? but as soon as he showed up her face transformed from a granite slate to a bubbly, smiling, satisfied lil bird, she immediately turned chatty and i don't think she chastised him for being late, if he was even late at all, she may have been early for all i know, and now that i think about her again for the first time in over a week, i imagine she'd be very dependent gf, she didn't seem to be content by herself, only happy in his company, that's a difficult person to be with.

the gorgeosity of this day is as finite as the distance to the sun

this is a line i used to repeat to myself anytime i was happy and wandering around through life, i don't think gorgeosity is a real word, but it's a real word in my world.

"don't i know that they don't know"-- Hendrix, who knows

i was listening to some jimi hendrix and this line stuck out, i sometimes think i know what other people don't, and tho i know that just can't be true (other than knowing my inner world better than anyone else) i like to think i'm special!!

isn't there sometimes a line to get in line??

sometimes i feel like i could run and get to the front of the back of the line, sort of beat the people walking toward the line to the actual line, but society kinda forces me to think that doing that might be inappropriate or rude, if i'm faster, why should i not use my speed to save myself 15 seconds??

me observing someone observe someone

walking back from the gym i took the scenic route into clarendon square and did some people watching, and when i say people watching, i'm basically looking for hot chics, not because i'd introduce myself to her and tell her we should hang out sometime, i guess just to verify that they exist and are walking around, and even sometimes without a man attached at the hip!! but i was walking down clarendon blvd and i noticed this guy in front of me observing a woman in front of us, so as i watched him observe, i looked over to see what he was watching, i didn't see the wonderment, but someone watching me watch someone wouldn't have seen the wonderment either because in some sort of 4th dimension this could've been happening:

i was watching him watch her watching her2 watching him2 watching her3 watching her4 and so on....

no matter the contrivance there's never no strings

this is all about thinking you can get something for nothing. it's impossible, Absolutely Impossible to have sex with no strings attached, the actual act of sex is a string, it's a connection more primordial than we can understand consciously, it connects us on a level that is completely irrational, we can try to make sense of the situation or the relationship or the interactions outside of the sexual encounters, but ultimately the unconcsious madness that is spawned from the touching of two bodies in a pleasing way (and actually if the sex isn't satisfying sex with no strings may be possible, but if even one party is satisfied complications will inevitably arise, and if both parties aren't satisfied with the sex those two probably won't be having sex!!!) causes complications outside of what is even possible to understand. it's one thing that can't be rationalized, just like love, which is one reason it's not surprising someone decided to label the act of sex Making Love.

just heard of more newspaper job cuts...is it we read less OR rely on fewer sources??

we don't read less news, we get our news in different ways, and maybe read less local news because of the new mediums we've turned to, but we certainly don't read less news, in fact, i'd say that our society is more information hungry than ever before, we've all been google-ized and constantly search either google or wikipedia or imdb or facebook/myspace, etc... to get more information. we need information. we may not feel the need for news, only because we feel we're sometimes inundated with sources throwing it at us, we'd rather pick and choose what news gets to us, we want to filter it, but i don't think we want less news. but the trend of cutting newspaper jobs and jobs in general in the newsworld is alarming, that means fewer sources, and normally fewer sources means sources from the large conglomerates with the money to send people to iraq, and it also means that the few with the ability to send people places can Develop the news that sells without too many dissenting voices or opposing viewpoints. freedom of speech and open media go hand in hand, it's absolutely critical to freedom that our ability to report the news accurately and thus receive accurate news reports maintain intact. with less people reporting from a broader array of sources, the less likely we are to have an open media and the less free we'll be.

does that make any sense?????????

i just ran into the "mason symbol tattoo on hand" guy at the bookstore...is he following me??

i mean you've got to be kidding me right?? it can't be true! it can't be him!! i was in b&n on tuesday night last week and i'm floating around looking at all the purty new books, i start heading back downstairs after grabbing a book by david foster wallace on the 2000 mccain campgain and as i get to the bottom of the escalator i look back up the moving stairs and see the mason symbol guy!! i can't remember what he was wearing because i sort of scurried to the side of the escalator and hung tight to the wall so he couldn't see me, i don't truly believe i was being followed, but i felt like the coincidence was too much handle and didn't want him to see me and feel overwhelmed too. i got a rush from the experience and felt like this world is grotesquely connected and reality was playing with all the concepts i'd built up over time, actually i'm lying, i didn't think those last two things, i feel that now when i think about it, but damn!! i bump into the same mason symbol guy three times in a week, it was odd enough that i noticed his tattoo from day one, a tattoo that really shouldn't even be on his hand, but to bump into him over and over gave me the creeps, it freaked me out!!

idea for a restaurant: family style dinners prepared en masse & u email or txt to inform ur coming

i keep thinking how stupid it is to be single, i pay out the ass to eat, if i were dating someone we'd be able to split meals and split costs and whatnot, it's just not economical to feed a single person, specially a single person that thinking cooking is for chefs not web designers like myself. so i keep thinking about how i could setup a successful restaurant or business model to feed the tons of people in this area like me, and here's what i came up with: when i was younger i didn't get to pick dinner, i came home from practice or from playing in the neighborhood or from the community ballpark and dinner was either on the table or was being prepared, basically i had no choice, except on bday's and i normally just picked cereal. so extend that to this point in life, a restaurant that is serving one dinner. example:

Monday: Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, steamed veggies

so you either text or email the restaurant and let them know you're coming, they'll need to know how much to prepare, you can't text or email past a certain hour or maybe it would even have to be a day in advance. so there's this family style restaurant and what better seating than big dining room tables?? this dovetails with another thought i've had a lot lately, i love my neighborhood, i love the resources it offers, but i can't say i Know my community, you know?? they're two different things, and it would be interesting to combine the two, and what better than to do that over food the most common of all interests. each dinner would cost $5. it'd be economical and community-driven, maybe there'd even be movie nights or it would serve as a coffee shop in the mornings too. i sort of see it as a hangout, a family atmosphere where in place of your family of 4 or 5 you have a community of 500.

butter from low end theory is outrageous!! even 20 yrs later

the debates have been so boring, i can't believe these things actually convince ppl one way or the other

every debate has been the same, same catch phrases over and over, i can't imagine being persuaded by this nonsense, no one truly wins, all the facts are skewed to make your party either sound better or their's worse, factcheck.org does a review of the debates and points out the lies. it's interesting. i'm an obama guy, and i'll soon be posting why, so i'm only watching the debates to see how he handles the immensity of the situation. he hasn't dissappointed, but just because he hasn't folded doesn't mean it's not boring.

i can't fall for the Concept of something, i have to accept the realities and either grow with it or remove myself from it.

i just wrote this one today, and i need to think it through a bit more, i have a path the idea can go down, but i haven't thought it through yet.

well sorry for taking about 30 minutes of your life, most probably didn't even get down this far and dropped off 25 minutes ago. if so, good for you. but if you stuck around and read all the wonderings, good for you too.

update coming

2008-10-08T11:23:00.000-04:00

i think it is a bit ridiculous to create a post about the fact that i will soon be creating a post. but sometimes i feel it's necessary to write that i will be writing in order for my mind to accept the hard fact that i have to write something soon. it sort of brings it into being.

i have some good twitter updates that i'll get to tonight. some funny and ridiculous stuff.

i didn't update last night because after a business dinner i got caught into two things, the second being the presidential debate (i thought these would be more interesting, but it's the same stuff over and over again, no one saying anything new) and the first thing, watching an hour of basketball instruction by one of the top training programs in the US. i literally sat for an hour at my computer watching several different videos of instructors taking participants through drills, if the debate didn't start at nine and if there were more videos, i could've watched longer. i sat there thinking, who else would do this???? maybe a person actively pursuing the enhancement of their basketball skills, like a high school or college player, or someone interested in starting their own training academy. i watched the drills to learn the nuances of the game and pickup some pointers, but i also enjoyed watching the trainers, how they were conveying highly technical basketball moves to novices, how they critiqued them: congratulating mainly for the effort and adding advice in a very positive tone. the camp was for nba reporters to get a feel of how the pros train and to get more insight into what it takes to make it and what's involved with making it. it was amazing to see some of the ins and outs. in fact, after watching one of the videos i scrolled down to the comments and saw that there was a comment by the academy with a link to more information on how to get into a similar training camp. i think the price was about $1400, and i actually thought about how i could drum up the money (and justify spending that kind of cash) and head out there for a week.

so now i have to decide if i want to go to the IMG Academy for a week of intense basketball training or go to Tom Brown's Tracker School for a week of survival skills!!

book club success

2008-09-27T11:20:00.000-04:00

yeah, i'm a dork, i started a book club.
chuckle it up you idiots.

our first meeting went well. i chose The Unbearable Being of Lightness, as i've mentioned several times here, and the book didn't disappoint. the book follows four people, two men, two women and the love mixings that occur amongst them. there's no true central character, or antagonist/protagonist complex in the traditional sense, no real plot, it's basically a book to espouse the author's complex understanding of relationships.

everyone was civil and at no point did it get too silly or too serious, no one was trying too hard or pressing, it was an open conversation and everyone respected the environment we were in. we spoke for about 1.5 hours about all sorts of things. the book lent itself well to this sort of thing. i'm sorta worried that the next book or the next few books may not be as robust. i want to pick them all!!!!

twitter expansion one

2008-09-27T10:17:00.001-04:00

the latest idea to pop out of this head is to use the twitter updates i send to the blog (twitter updates are on the right sidebar) and expand on the ideas, how it came about, why i thought it was significant enough to send it, etc... so this will be the first post expanding on that running list and i'd like to think i will do this every week, but i willingly admit that i'm not good at keeping to a schedule, so we'll see how many weeks i keep this going.

i think i've finally settled back into my single ways
i realized this a couple of weeks ago when i washed my bedsheets, and instead of putting the sheet on correctly, covering all four corners, i was tired, so i just covered the area i sleep on. but that act alone wasn't the cause of the thought, i left it like that for a week!!!! i think i was driving to work one morning and was like, "shit, i'm comfortable being single again." where in the past it felt like an absence, almost as if i was waiting for someone to fill the empty side of the bed, now i don't even think about the empty side. could i say the bed was once half empty, and now it's half full??? haha

"we all need someone to look at us." --kundera
this is a quote from The Unbearable Lightness of Being, my book club book of the month. kundera goes on to break down four different categories of the manner in which we want others to look at us, but the main premise, everyone needs someone to look at him/her, is powerful, and if we grant this as a truth i think we can connect with people that are obvious attention seekers, their method to attract the eyes of others may be different than the route i choose or you choose, but we all want eyes on us, and can i really denigrate her for acting like a fool??
life is a complicated entanglement of thought and emotion, and one powerful bit of wisdom i pull from this quote is this is another conduit to connect to people, to relate to people. we are all so damn similar, yet the slight deviations cause what appear to be huge, glaring differences. i'm hoping to attract women the same as the big, hulking weightlifting idiot, but i've chosen a different route. ultimately, we both want someone to look at us.

lifes complexities are beautiful & hideous all at once- that rush is burdensome at times
i hurt one of my best friend's feelings on saturday night, miscommunication is always the culprit, but i feel like my miscommunication is more troubling or i pay more for it, or something, i can't quite put my finger on it yet, but my point is i promote communication as the key to all relationships, friends/partners/lovers/spouses, and when i don't communicate effectively shit blows up in my face and i'm left feeling like a pile of poo, i blame myself and end up spiraling downward. sunday i had to wake up early to head to the redskins game and as i was walking with my tired, hungover mind screaming through the previous night's events, i had david foster wallace slaloming through my head, he's a famous author that's highly acclaimed for being able to grab the pulse of a complex society, for being aware enough to take in all sorts of maddening stimuli...but he killed himself recently. i associate with dfw, he loves the complexity of human dynamics, there's nothing greater than observing something and Getting It, but that process is difficult because we're aware of awful things too, her face on saturday night was different than i've ever seen it, and that hurts, it hurts to see that and know i caused it, and though life is beautiful for it's complexities, it's also intensely hideous, and to have all that floating around in my head is burdensome. i can understand dfw's need for relief, and i also understand drug addicts and the like, i guess that's their only answer to relieving that burden. i don't know what my relief is. there are times during the week that i float around not really doing much, busying my mind with blogs or fantasy football or videogames. if it's a way to calm my mind, i guess it can't be a bad thing, but after a night of not getting anything accomplished i'll look at the clock and see that it's 11pm and i have to wake up in 7 hours and go back to work. that cycle can't be what life is about.

the more complex life becomes the more lonely i feel
through these complexities, finding more connections or greater connections, relating to more people or relating more to a person, wouldn't it stand to reason that i'd feel less lonely??? i almost feel alienated at times, i remember taking a spirituality survey that asked if i ever get lost in the moment, and i can't really remember a time that i have, completely lost and oblivious to the whirling world, it just doesn't happen, and i think at times because i can't get lost in it i feel like an observer, standing from the outreaches, taking notes like an evolutionary biologist. that's a lonely feeling.
one wld imagine observing the complexities that bind us together wld make me feel more connected
the simple act of seeing the connection doesn't make me feel more connected, unless it's with someone that it seems unlikely i would have that kind of connection with, i feel more connected when i relate to people from other cultures or backgrounds, it emphasizes how much we're all the same, we all feel sadness and happiness and mourn and have hopes, but connecting with my friend's sadness makes me feel like an asshole, a failure with the people i care most about.

it's fun to be single in summer, but when the leaves start turning colors, i want someone to hold
skyline drive is one of the greatest places i've ever been, but to go by myself would be awful, and to go with someone that i didn't truly care about would feel empty. the summer months are filled with insanity, no clothes, tan bodies and big smiles. in the winter we hide our lust behind layers of clothes and need to ask for permission to see the same nakedness that's freely provided when it's 90degrees.

the guy next to me at the diner counter has a mason tattoo on his hand
he had the square and compass with a G in the middle on his left hand. i thought it was a bit egregious for a member of a "secret society" to wear his colors on his hand, and he wasn't the kind of person i would associate with the brotherhood, but what do i know??

a love story without a love interest?????

2008-09-16T20:54:00.000-04:00

thinking along my walk home from the cafe the other day, how much everyone i know is obsessed with love, finding it, being close to it, losing it, forsaking it, all that, love is a central theme to my life and to the lives of most of my friends, it's pervasive and forces its way into every moment, at the grocery store i can think about nothing other than seeing someone attractive and formulating an entryway into her world, or when i see a couple walk past i assess their beauty quotient, you know, if they are in the same beauty range, and how they found each other, i guess, at this stage in my life, i'm sort of mystified by how people find each other, i don't know how i haven't found someone or why someone hasn't found me!! so these are the thoughts that are rolling through my head when i start thinking about a film that is about all these love things, the inability for some to find it, how some forsake it, how others don't know how to nurture it, it'll be entirely about the complexities of love, yet the main character will never have a love interest and will never seek one, will never be put in a Compromising position, he'll engage with everyone, he'll talk to people about their love problems, but he'll never turn it inward, he'll never vent about not meeting a cool chic, he'll never discuss his thoughts on marriage and how he thinks he'll be a great father and love his kids, he'll be completely asexual and a-amorous (sure that's not a word!!), you'll see he cares about his friends and it'll be evident that he's engaged in life, but there'll be an absence in the movie, an emptiness people will walk away with, "how could someone be surrounded by love and not want to participate??"

whatdya think???

upon that river with its water so white

2008-09-12T21:11:00.000-04:00

the upper gauley and its virginal waters were just waiting to be man-handled.
and dang did we handle it.
the rafting was easy. our guide put us in great positions and any time he called out a command we were quick to respond and get the raft in the right spots, so we didn't hit anything that caused any of us to pee our pants, well d pissed his pants just for the hell of it, seeing that nasty pee drip out of his boardshorts into the raft wasn't a highlight of the trip.
we were a bit nervous heading into the river, maybe 30 minutes before we got our rafts we heard from another group that was on their second trip of the day that three of their group weren't able to make the second leg because 1. broke his arm 2. separated his shoulder 3. busted his face. imminent danger was down that river and we had to face that possibility. we were all a bit antsy heading into the first class 5 (rapids are rated on a 1 - 6 scale, a notable class 6 rapid is niagra falls, so class 5 is really serious stuff), we paddled in sync like a locomotives lil grinders and slammed into the rapid, we bounced around a bit and got through with no problem and did a group headbutt to celebrate, the next class 5 was supposedly the toughest on the river, so again we were antsy, but we hit it with our combined force and whooooooped that lil things ass. again, no problem. so by that point we started realize that this wasn't nearly as dangerous as we thought it would be, with that fear lifted, now knowing we'd survive, we started acting up a bit, i stopped paddling midway through most rapids, every time we came upon the group's videographer i turned to him and started jabbing my paddle at him and saying awful things that would embarrass my mother, d kept slapping the water and stabbing at the rocks with his paddle, we turned into the idiots we are, after every rapid we'd do a nasty lil dance and celebrate unlike anyone had ever celebrated on the gauley.

at the end of the trip our guide asked what we thought, and we kind of shrugged, one of those "it was cool, but not enough" responses, and the guide kind of got pissed and told us some stories about how dangerous the river is and how it f'd people up and whatever, and then when we got into the bus to head back to camp he asked the entire group, all 40 or so people, if they had fun and then said something like, "i know it was exciting enough for some people, but hey, at least no one got hurt, we'll coming back in one piece." he hated us!! d saw him at the bar later that night and started talking to him and he made another baby comment, something like: next time you guys come how about we give you a rookie guide and he puts you in bad spots and you end up getting fucked up. something a baby would say. we clearly stated that he was a really good guide, he put us in all the right places and guided us out of trouble in every spot, but we asked for the craziest trip possible down the river, and he didn't deliver, we didn't take the tough routes or smack the rock or go into the box (some of that is rafter talk!!) d and i wanted the sickest, most insane trip possible, and this just wasn't it.

later that night, after drinking for about 4 hours we wandered back to camp and our neighbors, about five old dudes, were playing the guitar around the campfire and singing some songs. we decided a lil kumbaya would be good for the soul. we ended up hanging out with them for three hours!! their guitar guru, pete, was insane! he knew every song ever made, and if he didn't you could give him a basic lil beat and he'd pick up what it was probably supposed to be, it was amazing. we sang some bob dylan and beatles and rolling stones, but also sang some sublime and nirvana and bob marley and pearl jam. they even had some of the fun side instruments, the maracas and the lil ridged tube thing that you run a stick up and down on, yeah that thing. we sang until the police shut us down, it was about 3 in the morning and we had every intention on running until the entire group lost their voice. i can't say we were talented singers, in fact, we'd all hope one member of the group knew the words so we could piggy back, and then at the chorus everyone sang because for most songs that's all we knew, or we were so drunk that's all we could deliver.

we woke up at 8 the next morning and d and i spent about an hour trying to blow up cans of spaghetti-o's. then kb and i drove home and cooked up an amazing trip. the details of that will follow in the months to come, but i think we have something special.

is our country ready???

2008-09-12T20:56:00.000-04:00

listening to NPR the other day a reporter was interviewing people in the south to determine the political climate down there, we have a black guy and a white chic running this go 'round, things 'gon change. and the question came up: is the country ready for a black president??
and the only answer i have is: we'll find out soon.
i know my generation is ready. in obama's acceptance speech at the dnc he said, "this election has never been about me, it's about you." and a post i've been planning (and an idea of been telling everyone that has ears) is our generation is the first american generation that feels like we truly have choice, everyone has choice, and in that vein, we chose barack, his personality and character resonated with my generation, and we did everything in our power to get him through the primaries, and it worked. now we'll do everything in our power to ensure he gets elected president. the only thing in our way is the older generations and it'll come down to the group that shows up to the polls. either way, voting records will get shattered this year, everyone's going to vote, people that are convinced obama is the answer, and people that are convinced they don't want a black president. i know it's more complicated than that but that's essentially the debate.
i hope our country has the balls to elect a very intelligent, articulate person that believes in democracy and the power of diplomacy. i don't care if he's green, if he's smart and has presence and character i want him to be our president. oh, and the same applies for a woman, but she has to be at least a large b-cup.

whitewater rafffffting

2008-09-10T08:13:00.000-04:00

i haven't had a chance to post about my rafting trip this weekend because i've been working 12 hours a day on a proposal at work. as soon as i get a chance to breathe i'll throw down the west virginia madness from this weekend.

what better than....

2008-09-03T22:15:00.000-04:00

a lil bit of conversation.
i hung out with some friends on friday night, we went out for a couple of drinks and ended up talking about all sorts of things: obama's speech and what we perceive his vision to be, told stories about our youth and ridiculous family stories, and about some of the differences between men and women. it was strange to hear about what women go through, and of course, all men sorta know this but i didn't realize it was to this degree, but we talked about how men look at women and ass grabbing in bars and the way women, from a very early age, feel men's eyes on them, and how it normally starts with family friends or relatives. i think the whole conversation got started because michelle and i started talking about how to meet people, every time she and i get together we seem to talk about how impossible it is to meet hot, cool, intelligent people, we know they have to be out there, she and i are two examples, but we just don't know where to meet Others, so i asked her and tiffany how to approach someone at a grocery store or the bookstore, i've never been one to approach, i feel like the whole ordeal is too staged, it's too awkward and almost anything will seem retarded, and how am i to know if she's dating someone? i know at a bar because the chances she's at a bar and dating someone is about 30%., they said the best "technique" is to be witty, but even that feels staged or pressed or corny. i didn't get a solid answer, but it turned into a conversation about some of the awful pickup lines they've heard and then how guys look at them and ass grabbing and drifting hands in the crowd. i ended up hanging out with the same girls and some of their friends on saturday night and i saw some of it in action, a guy walked by and ran his hand across michelle's lap and around another girl's waist, all in one movement!! the dude acted offended that they said something to him, claimed he didn't do anything and then ended up calling them bitches because he touched them and they didn't like it!!!
saturday i got to see tracey and three of her babies, kay, shy and jaiden. he's getting bigger and was really fun to play with, i thought he may not open up to me, but within two minutes he was laughing in my arms. kids generally respond to me quickly but i wasn't sure how he'd take to me because i hadn't seen him in a few months. there's something about seeing my family that reaffirms my place in this cold world. i leave feeling more important, seeing the joy i can bring to their lil faces, i know i have a place. when i left my brother's house on the tail-end of my roadtrip last month, i felt great. friendships are great, but there's something stronger about the bond that my family has developed, and we're not nearly as close as we could be.
monday i chilled at the pool with stevey, michelle and kimbo. we talked more politics and got into some relationship talk. we're all still trying to wrap our heads around the complexities of life and love and sharing worlds with someone else. i asked them if they needed a challenge in a relationship, then asked if they needed someone that made them better. then last night, talking to another friend i asked: is it worse to feel lonely when alone or when attached?? and her initial response was attached, but after we talked about it for a few minutes i think we both kind or realized that everyone feels lonely at times, it's inescapable, to feel lonely when you're with someone, at least you have that person there, even if you feel alienated or cold or feel a distance between you two, at least there's a direction that loneliness can be directed or can come from, when you're alone, the loneliness is empty, and like a flashlight directed into the sky there's no response.

communication is the only means i know to truly understand each other. a lot of times we can't communicate effectively because we're afraid of being hurt. what's amazing about the group of friends that i've got is we all can speak without fear of repercussion or judgment. i don't get embarrassed, we ask questions and expect an honest response. i think we're all still adjusting to the freedom of communication, sometimes we ask questions that we don't ask other people and surprise ourselves that we asked them and are surprised that they get answered.

this weekend was a great way to end the summer.

near death, yes

2008-08-28T11:35:00.000-04:00

twice in the past week i've been run off the road by idiotic drivers, and both times, as i'm steering my car into the gravelly shoulder, i've fumbled with my steering wheel, trying to find my horn, i'd rather worry about showing my displeasure than ensuring my safety!!!! at some point, normally as i'm just coming back onto the road, i find my horn and lay on it, now that the near death experience is over, and now that neither myself or the idiotic driver can do anything about what just happened, i let this idiot.fool know that he frightened and pissed me off by holding my horn for longer than normal, and the last two times this has happened to me, i've wanted to tailgate the idiot.fool and ride his ass to show him he was wrong and this is his punishment, i haven't done that, but daaang if i didn't want to.
these near death experiences have also made me reconsider the greatness of my car, these numbskulls didn't see my tiny car, if i had a huge retardo truck they'd feel my presence, but i'll never get one of those monsters, i sort of feel ashamed of people when i see them driving those hulking firetrucks on their way to work and the only person in the 8-passenger ride is him/her.

diving bell and other things

2008-08-27T13:17:00.000-04:00

i've been watching the diving bell and the butterfly the last couple of days and it represents the magical french cinema i really respect and admire, there's an amazing sensitivity and imagination to it, it makes me feel good to watch it.
i'm not sure where my exuberance came from last nite, my post yesterday seems more optimistic than i feel, today i feel like a zombie
i need to post pictures of my summer adventures: beach weekends, boatdays, cross country madness
i don't like when other cars are on the road at the same time as i am, it's frustrating
i will hopefully get to see my friend elizabeth in september, she recently broke up with her girlfriend and when i emailed her about a month ago i felt like i shouldn't wish her and her girlfriend well, only wish her well, i had a feeling that maybe they weren't together anymore, tho i didn't have any reason to think that, and she told me a few days later that they split, she didn't seem at peace with it
maggz and i talked about whether it's important to date someone that challenges you, and i asked some other friends, and i think the more important question came to me the other night: does the person you date make you better??

a hard reset

2008-08-26T19:28:00.000-04:00

i'm in a really weird place in my life, i sorta feel like i'm entering a new stage, something i haven't felt for about four years, back when i accepted the fact that i was going to have to sustain a career and enter the working world and be responsible, and all that Adult type stuff.
this new movement is based around making my life mine, whether it be complications or inconsistencies or connections, i have to make all that come together, i have to devote the energy to making all those things come together, i'm the naked chef in a kitchen of my own making, when the world seems complicated, i've complicated it, when i feel lonely, i carry my loneliness on my shoulders and sing my own song, it must be true, there can't be any deflection, when i haven't read in two weeks, it's my books i haven't read and it's me who suffers, when i haven't communicated with my loved ones, it's my silence, when i haven't watched the foreign movies that move me, it's my stagnancy.
i've thought about the next stretch of my life, and the last stretch, and i'm thankful i've done some of the things i've done, regret other things and regret not doing some things (why didn't i move to montana and work on a ranch for a summer??) and look forward to the next 15 miles, moving into a more well-formed mental place, moving forward with love and happiness and all that stuff, moving forward with my interests under my arm like the morning paper, fresh ink smudges on my fingertips, the mystery of yesterday's news bubbling within.

only i can make my happiness.

sometimes, we just don't know

2008-08-26T18:50:00.000-04:00

it's strange to think...that some of the closest people in my world don't know me, and it's true for all of us, i don't know my mother's romantic eyes, or my brother's tearful, insecure side, or my boys' sensitive moments when they're completely vulnerable. we don't display our vulnerabilities too often, and i think that's unfortunate. i've had some discussions with friends recently that have been sensitive, and of course it's uncomfortable, but that sort of drifts away when we realize that it's safe, and with most of my friends i feel safe, i certainly feel safe around my family, but family dynamics sometimes interfere, i would never fear telling any of them something, but i'm not as close to my family as i am to some of my friends, at least in that way, and i think that's true for many of my friends as well, we'd rather cry to other friends than to our families, and i don't think that's an indictment of our family, more so an indicator of how important our friendships have become.
it's strange to think...that someone that's been in my life for 10 years has never seen my vulnerable, romantic side. and it's just as strange to realize that i showed that to someone i hadn't known for more than month. and it's even stranger to realize that i couldn't grasp the significance of that emotion and reveal the rest of my vulnerabilities to that person, i couldn't be vulnerable enough to cry in her arms or explain my fears or my dreams, i couldn't tell her what i wanted and needed. i've never given Anyone Everything, only revealed pieces, and sorta hoped she would be able to pull them together and pull out that which i hid as well, whomever She may be.
it's strange to think...that i may have been hiding within myself my entire adulthood. whether it be fear of being hurt, or fear of having to hurt, i've never really opened up and looked Her in the eye and been Everything i am. and that may be the truth that a lot of us are living with, but just because there are numbers in my corner doesn't make it more comforting, in fact i wonder what the hell we're all doing????? love should be easier than this, when you're honest with yourself and the person you're with, it should come easy, but who am i to talk??? i haven't been very successful, but have a greater focus now, a better understanding of the whole thing, of what i need and want, or at least i do for this 28th minute of 7o'clock pm on aug 26, 2008.

their vocabularies would have come together

2008-08-19T09:14:00.000-04:00

i chose "the unbearable lightness of being" for the introductory book for the book club i started. it's written by milan kundera, a critically acclaimed czech-french writer (wikipedia LINK.) i'm a lil over a third into it and the layers presented are impressive, everything overlaps and everything connects. but here's a quote from the book that really struck me:
"When she told him about her cemetary walks, he gave her a shiver of disgust and called cemetaries bone and stone dumps. A gulf of misunderstanding had immediately opened between them. Not until that day at the montparnasse cemetary did she see what he meant. She was sorry to have been so impatient with him. Perhaps if they had stayed together longer, Sabina and Franz would have begun to understand the words they used, gradually, timorously, their vocabularies would have come together, like bashful lovers, and the music of one would have begun to intersect with the music of the other. But it was too late now."

i think this is a problem for a lot of couples, it takes time to "understand the words [we] use," often we misinterpret what our partner says because she doesn't say it the same way, with the same words, the same intent is there, the same concern or the same vision, but the vocabularies aren't the same, they can't be the same, different families and cultures use different words, individuals develop specific ways of expressing themselves. it takes time for our languages to come together, but in modern society we don't often allow for the incubation stage. we write-off anyone that doesn't say what we want to hear using the exact words we expect in the message, i've done this several times, when someone asked "will i ever be your everything??" i misinterpreted the words being used, i translated it as "from when you wake up in the morning until you close your eyes at night, will i be the center of your world??" and that's not what she was asking, she wanted to know if i'd ever get to a place that i couldn't live without her. due to the misinterpretation i answered no, when the reality was i couldn't live without her, she had become my everything, but i misunderstood her vocabulary.

there's no patience anymore for this understanding to develop, and as ridiculous as it sounds, i actually highly respect arranged marriages. there is room provided for understanding to develop, there is patience from the outset, they start with marriage, and get to know each other with the binds of marriage holding them together, we try to get to know each other, with nothing other than lust binding us together, and the first instance of miscommunication is a sign that we shouldn't be together. we run. it's amazing that anyone gets married!! but it's also an explanation as to why we wait longer to get married: we wait to find a person that speaks with a similar vocabulary so we don't have to expend too much energy interpreting. this person may not be right for us, but because she uses some of the same words we think we understand each other. i think the opposite is true, when we have to be patient and really understand what each other says, when we use different ways to say similar things and finally get to a place where it's all understood, we grow closer and our bond becomes more significant and more singular. have you ever been in a relationship that you know for a fact that you could duplicate with almost anyone else??? that's not a signicant and singular relationship, and in most relationships like that the words being used by each individual are not understood.

new twitter.log

2008-08-18T10:24:00.002-04:00

on the right-hand sidebar i have a new lil thing called the twitter.log.....i can send txts from my phone to a service that will populate it here, they're small lil notes or reminders or ideas for posts in the future.

“supperiority”

2008-08-13T16:52:00.001-04:00

in a spat of thought on my drive home yesterday i figured out why i don't like fancy-schmancy restaurants: i don't like feeling superior. here's how i described the feeling to my amiga elizabeth: i'm no better or worse than anyone, why should i want to go somewhere that i feel like i'm being served?? i'd rather feel like i'm hanging out at your restaurant and you'd like to fill my belly with some good food and i'd be willing to compensate you for your ability.

i don't like stuffy, overly formal atmospheres, the air of supremacy does nothing for me, i'm not important!! and even if i made decisions that affected thousands or millions, why would i act like a pompous ass at a restaurant or go to a restaurant that stimulates pomposity?? we're all stuck on this planet bound to breathe oxygen and drink water and these sorts of things, how could i think that the waitress is my server??

so then, today, thinking about this thought of mine-- (the philosopher kant said the most human activity is to think about thinking…side note: i just emailed my philosophy professor from college asking him if this idea is attributed to kant. i haven't talked to the professor in maybe 7 years, but i remember some of his lectures vividly)-- i asked myself if actually do enjoy superiority, i took away the negative perceptions and just plainly asked if i enjoy it in any aspect of my life, and of course i want to be superior in some facets of my life. when i play basketball i want to be superior to the other players on the court, even if my team loses i want to be the best player out there, and winning doesn't necessitate superiority, i've won several games in my day and known i wasn't superior, and, conversely, i've lost many times and known i played better than everyone. so to say i don't want to be superior is incorrect, but i'm not sure if i want to feel superior. i could be the best player on the court, but i don't need or want the other players to celebrate my performance, i don't derive satisfaction from their recognition of my superiority, i'm satisfied with recognizing it myself, which comes easy to me because i have high self-confidence. i certainly don't mind praise, but i don't need it to help me understand my superiority or reinforce it.

i kind of got off target a bit, i used basketball as an example of a situation that i enjoy being superior, others may enjoy being superior at earning money or being a father or making people laugh or lying, whatever it is that they want to be really good at doing. the issue i have is when someone thinks their superiority example is better than someone elses

[i'm going to leave what i wrote, but i don't know what the hell i'm saying. i thought out the first couple of paragraphs over a couple of days and i think it makes sense and is somewhat coherent, but the post devolved into rambles and i don't think it has much value. if you've made it this far, congratulations to you, i've stolen four minutes of your life!!!]

i gather Time like your kiss

2008-08-11T16:18:00.001-04:00

I don't have the awareness to appreciate my Time, I feel it and I experience it and sometimes understand it, but I can't say I really appreciate it or have grasped my Time, in the blink of an eye I'm 27, in the next blink I'll be 34, the next blink I'll have two kids, and the next I'll be 50, and the blink after that will be my last. I haven't learned to truly be aware of my Time, I know how to exist, and sometimes I even know how to experience the moment for all that it is, but there isn't this elongated moment that contains everything and nothing, or if there is an elongated moment my attention span won't allow me to appreciate it, there aren't many times in life that I have truly appreciated Time, and most occasions I appreciated Time because of how awful it was, in getting over my last relationship I understood Time, it felt like a shadow standing above me or around me asking me annoying questions, hoping to not be forgotten, all I wanted to do was zip through Time, to get away from this shadow, I appreciate Time when I have to piss really badly or if I'm stuck in line or in traffic or in any other situation I want Time to speed up, I am aware of Time's slowness and the pressure of the moment, but when things are beautiful and I don't want them to end, I can't appreciate it, when I'm happy the world blurs, life is enrapt in the speed lines behind a cartoon, it's a dream sequence, something we remember but doesn't feel tangible, I can't hold my memories, though they are mine, and I can weave a story to tell you about the Times I remember, but that won't do the moment justice, we can even remember together, but there's no way to Feel it together.

I'm getting older, I'm not a kid anymore, life is more significant now, I've built the person I'm going to be, now I need to figure out how to be aware of every moment.

a sunday in pictures

2008-07-27T20:33:00.003-04:00

here's a link to the presentation: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=ajgtt4f7ws2f_130cd5ccpj7

it's probably easier to view than from the baby window below,
and for some reason the inserted presentation cuts off some of
the words at the bottom.

generation why

2008-07-21T11:03:00.000-04:00

i have this post in mind to address what my generation wants and needs in life, i've been thining about it a lot lately due to a confluence of events: 1. a work project 2. my age 3. the book reading lolita in tehran. i started something yesterday morning when i was sitting in murky coffee, the world's greatest coffeehouse, but the thought isn't fully formed (most of my thoughts on life aren't fully formed right now, i've been so focused on my work project that i haven't had a chance to "walk through the woods" and put it all together.) i think i'm getting close to being able to articulate what my generation feels and wants, why we aren't married, why we're confused about our jobs, why we have no attention span, why we're not religious and when we are, we're really not.

next month, after this project is over, i'll have about 6000 posts lined up. until then, i'll have floating ideas that i can't articulate.

parisian persian

2008-07-14T12:34:00.000-04:00

i didn't really intend on dropping another post today, but i have to get this interaction out of my head.

last wednesday i went to a nats game with the booros sisters and madella, baseball games are boring, but we had three foul balls pop into our section, so we had some action. afterwards we went to a smarmy bar in glover park, a neighborhood in dc just north of georgetown. girls in leotard dresses, you know those dresses that completely hide every curve in a woman's figure and feel like they are made out of soft leotard cotton, and guys in pale blue khaki shorts, hair swooped over their foreheads and belts with whales or anchors or some other boating motif. in one word these guys can be described: d-bags. and actually you were either one of these dbags or an eccentric emo looking kind of guy with dark rimmed glasses and long sideburns, a meager frame and black jeans. strange to see these factions mix, and all going for the same girls.

so i took off, hopped in a cab. the cabbie was an older guy, maybe 50's, was bald but had long scraggily hair draped over his neck. i knew he was foreign, but i'm not good at identifying ethnicities, i've gotten pretty good at identifying persians, but i wouldn't claim to be proficient. so we're driving along and i ask how his night has gone, if it's been busy or whatever, and he goes into weekdays being slow, we talk a bit about the 4th of july, he had a few days off and got a chance to relax and get things done around the house, this is typical conversation. his skin made me think he was middle eastern, i wasn't sure from which country, but his accent sounded french, he had this amazing drawn out speaking style that reminds me a lot of a new orleans patois, i asked:
me: are you french?
him: persian
and i'm not sure if persians say persian and not iranian because of the current political situation between the US and iran, or maybe it's a way for iranian americans to sort of distance themselves from a regime they don't support, i'm not sure. i asked when he came over because in reading "reading lolita in tehran" i have taken in a bit of iranian history and know that the revolution started in the late 70's early 80's. he said he came over in '78. so i asked him if that was just before the revolution, and we went into an extended dialog about the changes the country experienced and why he never went back, but throughout the conversation i smiled anytime he said a word that ended with -ion,
revolution, communication, anticipation--or when he said renaissance
he talked about persian art and the lengthy history of persian culture. he seemed like a wiseman. i told him about my ex's father, he came over around the same time and never went back, and i could imagine a conversation between them being something that would make both of them laugh. he wasn't as smart as my ex's dad, but i think he could make him laugh and they would have memories in common that only a persian that grew up in iran before the revolution would have.

i'll always remember that remarkable accent and his delivery, as if he had worked on his accent to better pronounce 'revolution' for greater impact.

not all cab rides are awful.

slow postings

2008-07-14T10:23:00.000-04:00

my work-life is hectic, i'm working on a huge project that requires a significant portion of my brain power, and considering how i live life a bit unorganized, this project is all about organization and project management, and i can't say those are my strong points, so it goes without saying, i'm expending large amounts of energy in this project and have had little time to think of other things. i have two posts in the works, one on the current generation of american directors, and the other a "day in the life" sort of thing, i took pictures of everything i did on a sunday a couple of weeks ago. these posts are longer than most of my postings, more detailed and more thought put into it, not just a typical stream of consciousness kinda thing. neither are ready, but i'll have both of those posts up soon.my work project isn't over until july 31st, and then i go on vacation the following week, so i may not post too much in this space over the next couple of weeks. but i am still living life (in case you were worried!!), every weekend seems to be booked, and i'm the asshole that double-books and ends up letting friends down because i have prior commitments i forgot about. i have an iphone and blackberry, yet still can't get my schedules straight. there's a play i want to go to this week, but probably won't get a chance, there's a professional women's softball team in the area that i want to go watch, there are a bunch of hotties on the team from arizona and they have to be lonely out here!!! it's midsummer and i'm stuck with this work project!!!! three more weeks!!!

favorite song right now

2008-07-02T15:41:00.005-04:00

i don't know where i heard about this dude, and in fact, when i first heard about him, after looking at a couple of pictures i wasn't even sure if he was a HE, and with a name like brett dennen i thought maybe this was a case of a chic with a dude name, like shawn colvin. regardless of brett dennen's image, this guy is craaaazy talented. he reminds me of 6000 musicians, and yet not one musician. he's sort of like jack johnson, but not at all. he's sort of like the hippie version of jamie cullum, or a more ruralized bright eyes, but not really. he's fragile, but not weak, and smooth, but not highly conceptualized, organic and refined, but still able to play in the middle of tennessee in front of a crowd of po'dunk hicks.

brett dennen - desert sunrise

in translation

2008-06-30T22:08:00.001-04:00

i decided to jot down a bit in my notebook tonite, something I used to do more regularly when I wasnt writing here as often as I am now, and here's the last section of tonite's entry, my first in what appears to be abt a month:

my thoughts aren't formed in poetry any longer,I dont hear couplets or reach for grandeur,I only want to get the voice in my headout on paper

I remember driving across the country with a tape recorder in hopes that I wld be able to capture my thoughts as I headed into the darkness of a New Stage, but as I drove and 10000 thoughts cycled through my noggin I realized that I cldnt capture my voice, I tried the whole trip, but cld never articulate the lil bubbles that brewed, but I was so focused on poetry and prose and delivering thoughts with a paint brush that I cld never translate the inner into the outer, but now, with the focus on getting the floating madness in my head out in my own language ive come closer to interpreting my voice, that same voice that ive heard since 4th grade.

are you a philosopher?

2008-06-27T12:09:00.001-04:00

a friend recently told me i should go back to school and study philosophy, and i think it was more of a way to say: you think a lot, you should study other people that think a lot. or i guess it could've been a way to tell me: you don't know shit, if you're gonna walk around thinking you do know shit, you should go back to school to learn about the shit you talk about. i think is was probably more the first, but i wouldn't put it past her to mean the second!!

i was a philosophy major for a semester back in the day and quickly changed it to something more ridiculous i'm sure, i think i had four or five majors in 3.5 years, and that happened to be one of the worst. here's who i am: i enjoy people and thought and writing and movies and experiences and music and adventure. ok, big deal. well, when those things start to get broken down into scientific study or are taken on with a technical approach, the interest quickly fades. some of the most amazing movies i've ever watched are the brilliant humanistic stories of people communicating and loving and interacting without added intricacy, life and communication and love and thought is already intricate enough, i don't need a winding plot that convolutes the intensely complicated connection between two people. same applies for books, i love salinger's ability to "talk" with his writing, and kerouac, they have the ability to convey really amazing nuances in natural language, no heady scientific babble or complex 1000page tome to tell people that two people fell in love, so stuff like pynchon and david foster wallace just don't do it for me, i can appreciate some of the prose and can certainly appreciate the genius involved in constructing something that complex, but i'm with howard roark, a character from ayn rand's the fountainhead, he thinks everything should be functional and natural, he was an architect that thinks implementing gothic design, or any other predated form, into a modern building transmogrifies a simple, beautiful design.

in the philosophy classes i took we'd spend two hours on three paragraphs and still no one understood it, in fact, in one of my more enjoyable classes the professor said just a couple of years ago he realized what kant was saying, this is a philosopher he'd studied for nearly thirty years, he'd even learned german so he could read kant's own words. thirty years after writing his dissertation on kant he understood what the guy was saying!! insanity!! and you know, that's ok, it was almost his religion, he invested his being into understanding this guy and one day he finally got it, he probably did a backflip and then had sex with his wife. but that's not for me, my investment is in this world, in the world around me, in trying to understand what i'm aware of, and in doing so trying to be more aware, i have to always be aware, and sometimes taking in so much confuses me or makes me overload, i'm a robot that takes in too much data and goes through a series of small implosions!! i'm not the kind of person you'll talk to while i'm watching teevee or writing something or listening to music and i'll block you out, completely not realize you were talking to me, that may have happened a handful of times in my entire life, i'm always aware of the people around me and my environment, but to be honest, i sometimes envy people that can do that, i'm glad i'm aware, but i also think it's powerful to be able to focus in on something like that, place that much energy in one direction, i almost always have my antennae probing the outside world for activity and rarely get so deep into something that i lose awareness of the world around me.

so, no philosophy classes for me.

tantalizingly tall

2008-06-24T10:20:00.003-04:00

i recently met someone a shade over 6feet tall, a beautiful english chic from mexico, strange mix, she's kind of tan, but not dark, speaks spanish fluently, yet grew up in england, thus the amazing english accent, and tho i love the accent, there's something about the height, and i've been thinking about it the past few days trying to understand what's special about a tall chic, and here's what i've come up with:

i'm a confident guy, i don't think there's too much out of my reach, if i'm interested in someone, i like to think in my lil pea-sized brain that if i choose to pursue that chic that something will come of the situation, barring some strange fetish with guys larger than cars and strong enough to pick one up, i think i always have a good shot, but tall chics, a lot of times they won't date someone shorter than they are, i'm at a disadvantage out of the gate, something i'm not used to, so it's sort of a challenge, there's a chic at my pool that's hot and kind of tall, she's probably 5'10 or 11, not as tall as the other girl, but tall enough to make me think it's a challenge, tall enough to make me think she'd only date guys taller than her, which would be taller than me, and i'm not short!! i'm average height, it's not like she'd be walking around with a dwarf, but for some reason i think she's more likely to want to date a taller guy than someone of equal or lesser height.

i've never dated someone taller, so i have no idea if these notions are idiotic or not, i know a friend from high school that's about 6'2" wanted to date tall guys, she would even hookup with busted dudes simply because they were tall!! why neglect the shorter, more attractive people just because we're shorter!!! but i guess the keyword is attractive, maybe some tall chics don't think people shorter than them are attractive, no matter what. i hope that's not true.

friday’s dots

2008-06-20T16:12:00.001-04:00

in memory: on the side of a big hauling sort of truck was the cursive inscription, "in memory: junior jones". i don't understand what the memorial is, is it the truck? is it the duty the truck provides? is it just a place that this guy decided to honor his friend?? is junior really being honored by having his name on the side of a truck? i understand a statue or a monument and the statement: in memory of…but how is a quick cursive splat on the side of a dump truck a memorial?
- but i do like the idea of using cars/trucks that are on the road all the time as moving billboards, why would verizon or comcast or mcdonald's not use these automobiles as running advertising?? even if the truck was owned by bob's towing, why would bob not sell space on his big stupid truck to a company? or uhaul for example, they have a fleet of what could potentially be a huge avenue for advertising monies (i just like using the plural form of money!!)
who created the phrase "get off work"?? are we really on work? one would have to be on it in order to get off it. we're on the clock, so when we get off the clock, is that like getting off work?
i saw this guy walking around clarendon a couple of weeks ago with the most outrageously hideous hair cut in all of humanity, he was a black dude with what looked like a white guy military haircut, sort of the flat-top, but he had put a ton of relaxer in his hair to look like white dude hair, and then with the white guy hair shaped it into what could loosely be considered a flat-top, point is the haircut was awful. he was walking somewhere with a guy friend and all i could think about is: what would i do if one of my friends had a busted-ass hair cut like that?? would i tell him it's awful? would i ask him to cut it? would i be embarrassed that he looks so damn foolish? i know i where some funky clothes, but i'd like to think it's considered progressive, not retarded, this guy's hair was retarded!
there's a skinny guy at work that will eat anything, and he'll eat a ton of it, basically anytime there's leftovers from a potluck everyone gives it to this guy, it's a running joke. i wonder if we would joke about it if he was fat? would it be in the same context??
when you speak of the past do you use the number of years or the actual year? for instance: i bought a new car in 2005 or i bought a car three years ago. i've noticed some of the older folks i've worked with over the years seem to use the actual year, this guy that was training us a couple of months back kept saying in 1994 i did this, and in 98 i did this, and in 2001 things changed so i did this. i don't think like that, i don't have a direct recollection of the year an event occurred, i can normally find it by associating events that i know happened in that year to the event i'm remembering, but i don't associate time with a specific year, i more associate it with eras: elementary school, middle school, high school, college, post college.
i saw a store in rehobeth beach called the electric banana, i realized that any word associated to banana works: mortified banana, banana tuesday, banana priest, urban banana would be a cool website focused on trendy urban designs and fashion, ionic banana, banana hatfield, banana whitman.
the other day at 7-11 i witnessed something rarely seen in the wild: a homeless man thinking about what he was going to write on his sign. he stood behind the trashcan with his marker and bit of cardboard propped up on the can, he had the marker hand down to the cardboard and the other hand to his temple conjuring up a magical statement that would invoke the masses to drop their quarters and dimes into his cup. i guess i never considered that those signs require some thought, or maybe i thought that a homeless guy has all day to think about his next great sign, i guess i was a little surprised that some are procrastinators and wait until the last minute to come up with their catchy phrasing.
paperless life: my company professes to be paperless, or we're trying to get there, and i think at some point when technology catches up to what we demand, we'll be there, but to say it now seems a bit inaccurate, tho i try to find ways all day to work as a paperless employee, why use a notepad when i can use onenote, i have two screens and try to use that as often as possible to view information, instead of printing it out and reading it or organizing it physically, i try to organize as much as i can digitally, and this thought process has begun to affect my life: the other day i noticed an article on the front page of usa today about major talent agencies signing youtube talents, it's something i'm intensely interested in because i know now is the time to capitalize on the video craze and potentially sign a lucrative deal to work with production companies on ways to make money off youtube or similar online video outlets, but i wanted to read the article so bad i bought the paper, instead of waiting to get back to a computer and reading the article for free on the web, the perfect paperless alternative. i felt bad, it was going against everything i've been doing at work, it goes against the efficiency i've started to gain with online banking and bill payment and all that stuff. i think being paperless is nearly possible with the iphone, it's basically a small computer that can render web pages perfectly, the display is small, and large swaths of displayable data aren't viewable, like a big spreadsheet or something, but it gives me access to the entire web in my pocket.
how does abortion affect the election? every election year the candidates are forced to explain why they believe in pro-life or pro-choice or why they changed their view fifteen years ago or whatever, and yet, very little legislation has been passed over the last 30 years changing the law and most of the changes came at a state level. i don't see the relevancy in discussing an issue that will never be addressed while the candidate holds office, and any major change would come from the supreme court, not the president. and yes, i understand the president nominates the supreme court justices, but all of congress has to approve the nomination, so it's really not consequential to determine if the candidates are pro-choice or pro-life.

the traffic jam construct

2008-06-20T10:39:00.001-04:00

traffic is stupid, bumper to bumper madness makes no sense to me, despite the fact that i've chosen to live in one of the top 5 most congested areas in the country i typically never have to deal with it, my drive is fairly innocuous, i go against traffic, which i think is a term only people that live in highly congested areas would even understand, i mean, would someone in birmingham alamaba understand "going against traffic"???? but anytime i have to get somewhere outside of my typical drive, if it's not less than three miles from my apartment, then i'm in trouble. a couple of weeks ago i got caught up in some bumper to bumper action and got to thinking: what the hell causes this mess?? the obvious answer is an accident, but there are times when the cars involved will be moved to the side and traffic still creeps at a sloth's pace, or the accident will be on the other-side of the highway, why would traffic in my direction be mangled?? as i thought about the complexities of wretched traffic here was my thought process:

physics à sociology à psychology

physics: stop and go traffic is maddening, i don't understand the physics of it, we go 30 mph, then we all stop, then we go 5 mph, then we all stop, then we all get back up to 30, then stop. what's the deal?? how do the physics of that work? what causes us to be able to go 30 in one stretch and then have to stop when nothing appeared to change in that stretch? and i've noticed that a lot of these sort of traffic jams simply disappear at some point, sometimes they look like they were caused by a bend in the road!! the procession gets past the bend and we all hit 60!!

sociology: after thinking about the physics of stop and go i was lead to the sociology of the event, what happens in the community's minds that causes this, how did we allow this to happen?? i wanted to understand the thought process of the group.

psychology: and lastly, after considering the physical stop and go, then the community's thoughts, i broke it down to the individual, what am i thinking when caught in this mess and how did i personally assist in creating or propagating this retardedness????

unfortunately i don't have answers, i only used the 10 minutes i was stuck in traffic to think about it, and as soon as i got back up to a consistent speed i threw all these thoughts away, in fact, i never would've remembered this thought process if it weren't for my iphone, it's been the greatest aid in collecting the random thoughts that appear in this blog, every time a lil thought runs through me i try to jot it down in my iphone, something i could do with my older phone, but the interface wasn't as conducive to building notes as my new junx.

note for father’s day

2008-06-20T10:07:00.001-04:00

pops,

i've wanted to write you a lil note for a while, i don't think i've ever expressed my appreciation for you and it's far far overdue, and i know i've told mom on a few occasions how much i appreciate the both of you, and in those times i think she needed to hear something like that from the kids, but i haven't told you personally how much you mean to me. i hope this changes that.

you're the rock in our family, no matter how hectic our family's world has gotten, and it's gotten pretty crazy throughout the years (i mean how'd you raise two crazy daughters and two fairly normal sons????) you've always been the calming, steady force, and, granted, behind doors you may have vented your frustrations to mom and asked her who's children we were, but i've never seen you even crack, and considering how emotional mom and the other women in our family can get, you're the perfect balance this family has always needed.

you've been an amazing example of what a father should be, going back to balance, i've learned in the relationships i've been in that balance is critical to success, if i'm married or dating someone that's excitable and emotional, i have to balance the relationship, i have to be the calming force. you've complimented mom well throughout the years, and that's something i've noticed and i know our family has appreciated, we may say mom's the crazy one, but she only looks crazy because you always appear so collected. and i don't think you're perfect, i think you could've done different things at different times, but i don't need you to be perfect and i know that you've always tried to do the best for the family, that's the one thing i'll always take away from our relationship, you've always tried your best. and in retrospect, you may even look back and say, "i could've done things a bit different," but ultimately you did what you did with our family's best interest always as the priority, i mean it's not like you chose to work weekends or work late, you didn't choose to work 12 hour days, but you had to, that's what the family needed. and of course i wish i could've spent more time with you when i was younger (I wish we could spend more time now too, but now I'm the one working!!), but i understand why that didn't happen, so now looking back on how much you and mom ran me around to practices and friends' houses, and how you came straight from work to coach my football team, i understand how tiring that can be and how much energy it requires, and i'm eternally grateful that i had a father that did those things.

when i look back on my childhood, i don't have a single bad memory. i never felt inferior to anyone because i didn't have the cool shoes or didn't play sports or whatever a kid classifies as being important. to think i went through the formative years of my life without a single bad memory is amazing. i had a perfect childhood and that's entirely attributable to you and mom. i wouldn't be the person i am today, or the father i will be someday if it wasn't for you. thank you.

so on this father's day, i want to say i love you and respect everything you've done for this family, you've been an inspiration and role model and i only hope to be as steady and supportive as a father as you've been to me.

lovemike

father's day 2008

ohmmmmm & a lifetime

2008-06-13T11:38:00.002-04:00

music is at the very base of all that i am, to hear a new song by one of my favorite artists is christmas morning as an eight year old, before i knew santa didn't exist, when my eyes wld lift open for the first time on the 25^th and it was still dark out and i wld look around the room without moving to see if anyone else was looking around without moving, and if someone was that meant we could get up, power in numbers, but if not i had to act like i was sleeping, and some years i would do that for an hour, eyes wide open, laying in bed, looking out the window, watching the sky shift from night to day, and waiting to see what santa brought down from the clouds. same feeling when i listen to music, whether it be the first time, or the thousandth time, knowing every motion to a song is empowering and spiritual.

for a while now i've known that i don't have lyrical recall, i've listened to the tribe called quest low end theory maybe six-thousand times, but i don't know how a single song starts, actually, i just went into my lil memory bank and can remember that check the rhime starts with "back in the day on the boulevard of linden", but that's the only song, and there may be others that after really digging in deep, i can pull it out, i listen to songs over and over throughout the years, and i actually know nearly every word to a lot of them, but they aren't easily summoned, if summoned at all, strictly from recall.

the other day i was singing along to mos def's lifetime, and i thought about the fact that i couldn't sing a single line of that song without the music, without listening to it, and then i thought about how it used to make me emotional when i sang it, when i was dating my ex there was something about the song that made me emotional, i would listen to one section and get choked up, i think it was the feeling that i could spend a lifetime with her, or maybe i was getting choked up because i couldn't see myself spending a lifetime with her and the prospect of that happening was very real at the time, i don't know, but as i thought about getting emotional with a song without really understanding the lyrics or being able to sing them independently of listening to it, i thought about chanting and then remembered what this wiggan dude said to my ex one day when we were in the mountains, he said the spell a witch uses is only to bring the spirit to a peaceful and focused place, very similar to a buddhist mantra.

i read some buddhist texts when i was in college, i sort of got into it for a couple of reasons, i found the idea of god being within much more appealing than god being a man that judges or makes things or lives in heaven, it seemed more realistic, or as realistic as god could be, so that and then reading kerouac and the beats and seeing how deep they got into it, i figured it couldn't hurt to learn more, so i read a few texts and stayed intrigued for a year or so. one of the things i've always taken away was from an interview with allen ginsberg, he said mantras aligned with the soul, the sound we made in repeating a mantra could alter the body, heal the mind, make us stronger or more focused, could bring us to a place of peace, as is true with ohm when we meditate, it's a tool to soothe the soul into tranquility, this repetition of sound brings heightened states.

so i'm driving along listening to mos def and i'm thinking maybe this is like chanting, especially considering i don't even know the words to a lot of hip hop songs, i just know the sound, i rap along with the artist, but only spit out sounds, i mean who knows every word to a lil wayne song?? common is one of the easiest to understand, and i still don't understand every word, it's like i'm singing a dharmic mantra, i repeat the sounds, and supposedly part of the power of church is singing en masse, singing a hymn in church with other parishioners is far more powerful or can be than singing alone, and that's what i get every time i sing in my car, i always have an artist to guide me.

i thought that idea was interesting, songs as mantras, and then i remembered my answer to this question: what makes you happiest in the world?? my friend elizabeth asked, and i may have posted something about this before, but my answer was: i love when i can sing with a song, when i know a song in and out and can move with every note, i know the tempo and the rhythm, i feel each vibration. and then after remembering that conversation i realized that i used to say i saw Buddha when i would drive into work when i was a stuntguy, if i was up late the night before hanging out i would be exhausted and hungover, but the summer briskness wld rush into my chest when i'd rock out with the windows down and the mantra would float up into everything and i'd feel completely happy, as if i could drive forever with that kind of intense inner-awareness, i'd come into work and feel no weight, and sometimes i get that same experience when i leave work, i'm back to being weightless and i crank the music, rock out and slip into some other state.

below is the mos def song lifetime that i used to get choked up without even understanding why, and the section that would get me is in bold:

lifetime

the summit, the peaks, the plains and the valley
the ballad, the fog, the bank with the alley
the waking hour, the moment, the dream
the moaning, the murmur, the laughter, the scream
the thrilling beginning, the quiet finale
ee ee ee ee
lifetime, lifetime
keep keeping on
maintain the rock, keep up the rock

the lights in the plaza meant there's something fantastic
the moment i met you, the first look was like magic… yeah
there's the way that it is and the way that it feels
there's the distance between the ideal and the bills
yet, i see all the numbers; i still root for the dreamer
i thank god for the dreamer
lifetime, lifetime
keep keeping on
maintain the rock, keep up the rock
maintain the spot, keep up the block
maintain the rock (don't stop), keep up the rock (keep on)
ehhh

i know this much is true, we don't wanna be lonely
whether kind or you're cruel, be you noble or lowly
the riot is easy and the silence is loud
you can build yourself up by just turning things down
we were fashioned in love, so why should we feel lonely?
when forever is only a…
lifetime, lifetime
keep keeping on
maintain the rock (don't stop), keep up the rock (keep on)
maintain the rock, keep up the rock
lifetime (keep on)
lifetime (12x)

[aside: there's a poem by saul williams called ohm that combines many of these elements that i just mentioned and i never really connected the dots until this very moment.]

terrific times

2008-06-02T11:49:00.001-04:00

what a terrific world we live in, and before i get into why this world is terrific, i want to take a look at the word terrific. it's based on the latin word terrere, which means to frighten, and the first definition is "very bad: frightful," the second definition is "extraordinary," the third is "unusually fine: magnificent," so the word terrific means frightfully bad, yet magnificent and extraordinarily fine. if that doesn't describe life, i don't know what would be more appropriate. the balance of life in one word.

now, why would this world be terrific???? well, when i was in a relationship, the last thing i wanted to talk about was work, it was boring and monotonous and it usually dealt with people and my interactions and how people frustrate me or how the 43yr old dude likes american idol, it wasn't valuable to anyone, even tho my x wanted to hear it, i just didn't think there was a reason. and of course this terrific life delivered a new job where i'm being tasked with interesting, fun projects that are stressful and demanding and worthy of being talked about!!! sometimes i start talking to my roommate about it and i stop half-way through or leave out 75% of it because i know he doesn't care, why would he want to hear i'm primarily responsible for the direction of our company's branding??? it's not something he gives a shit about, but it would be something my x would want to hear about, or most partners in a relationship. it's not day-to-day drudgery, it's stuff that i think is interesting, and it takes a lot for me to get interested in work things, i've never been interested in hearing about the work-social milieu, so i don't care when workmates bicker or have problems with other workmates because of x or y or z. i definitely don't want to hear about normal work events, the stuff that's done every day, that's stuff boring to experience first-hand, let alone hearing it second-hand. but when there is something interesting going on or a new project or a stressful situation that needs to be discussed, i'm all in for that.

so here i am, finally doing work that is worthy of discussion, but have no one to discuss it with!!! terrific!

first escape from the whir of the modern world

2008-05-31T22:22:00.001-04:00

when i drive, sometimes i'll look into the car next to me and hope to see the driver crying, well, it's not that i hope their life is miserable, but i feel a connectedness to people that cry while driving, i think i do most of my crying when i drive, crying in bed or in my room or in a bathroom as chics do sometimes, seems too dedicated to the sadness, you're in bed crying, not doing anything but crying, your sadness is so strong you can do nothing but go to a place in your house or in the world and cry, and for some reason i think my place, the car, is better than your place!!! and i feel connected to others that choose the car over the overindulgent bathroom tear session, so yesterday i was driving and saw someone crying and i wondered how many thousands of people were crying their eyes out while driving on roads in this country at that very minute, i hypothesized that because it was rush hour in several time zones more people were crying than a few hours later, and it's significant to think that all of our sadness are connected, maybe it was a song on the radio that made her cry, and he was listening to the same station and heard the song and started crying, and someone in nevada would maybe hear that same song on a different radio station and cry too, or maybe a blue jetta made one guy cry, his ex-girlfriend drove a blue jetta and he thought every blue jetta that wizzed by him was hers and he'd check the license plate, but it was never her and he knew it never would be her, and this blue jetta was the reason he cried today, or maybe the sign to indianapolis makes her cry, he moved to indianapolis, three hours away, and it was never the same, she wants to hop on the highway that would take her out there every time she passes that sign, but she knows it wouldn't help, she drives past it at 70mph and starts to cry, she wants to exit, sometimes it might even just be the stirring silence of a car ride, his first moment alone, his first escape from the whir of the modern world, his car is his last bastion, he feels safe there, he can listen to any song he wants, he can play it excruciatingly loud or listen to nothing, there are times he wants to hear nothing, he's heard too much, in his car silence is ok, it's his silence, he's orchestrated this silence, he's allowed to be whatever he wants there, and sometimes that leads him to crying, he knows it's ok, no one will find out, if his eyes are bloodshot from crying so hard he'll blame it on his allergies or contacts, this is why we choose to cry in the car, we can be our honest selves, we'll even peek in the rear-view mirror to see that we are actually crying, this is a real event, the sadness that's surfaced is real and tangible, emotions are never more real than when a tear drops down your face, the physical manifestation of a mental condition, and sometimes we like to see what that looks like.

i look for the crying drivers; i want them to know we're all on the same team.

where would happiness be found??

2008-05-31T21:49:00.003-04:00

in yoga class today, as my arms tingled from blood coursing to neglected regions and as i struggled to insert my entire body between my legs while standing, i thought about the last time i took a yoga class, the summer i lived at the beach i would take classes with this old school guy, a pony-tailed hippy of yore type, i was the only person to ever take the class, he would push my scrawny lil muscles and explain all the ancient positions in a consistent, peaceful intonation, after class we'd talk about costa rica and windsurfing and all these sorts of things, he was a genuine guy i suppose, certainly an easy fella to learn the standing dog from, but when i think back to that time in my life i realize how happy i was, i was essentially a loner, i was living all over the place in oc, staying with friends from work or sleeping in my car, a vagabond looking for peace, on nights i didn't work i would sit on the umbrella box on the beach and look out into the atlantic, i'd wonder if there was anyone else in this tumbling world doing the same, many times in life, when i'm experiencing something by myself, i wonder if someone else in the world is experiencing the same thing by herself (it's always that romantic ideal of a woman wanting and doing the same thing, when i drove across the country by myself i was hoping to meet a gabriella or an estelle with pennsylvania tags at a gas station and when i asked her where she was headed she'd say la, and we'd smile at each other and eat breakfast at ihop and after we finished our second coffee, as we walked through the glass door and headed back to our vehicles we'd make eye contact and promise to commit the rest of our lives to each other), i can remember taking naps on the beach and wondering around town with no pressure or any real responsibility, i can remember being happy, even without love or real companionship, i found a beautiful inward peace, and in class today i wondered if i was more happy now, i have more things, i have a real job, i live in a great place, i'm doing basically what i want, i don't have a lot of responsibility, but the responsibility i do have is ok, it can be a pain in the ass at times, but overall i'm happy, i get lonely, but i got lonely that summer too, being single necessitates being lonely at times, but it's also very liberating and not having to answer to someone is conducive to having peace, at least in this lopsided life, so those thoughts led to considering what others are doing with their life (aside: i hate when people say what are you doing with your life, life is doing, even when you're not doing anything, you're doing, or so says lao tzu) and i realized that happiness is tricky bastard and if you find it bartending or washing cars or in construction or at a bank or in a datacenter, be satisfied with it, don't feel guilty that your ok with being a bartender, don't feel guilty thinking you're wasting your degree or not using your intricate understanding of roman history, don't feel guilty you're just a plumber or cut hair for a living, if this is what makes you happy you've gotta hold on to it and not feel guilty about it, happiness is intensely elusive, so if you've found it be thankful.

the national v. feist

2008-05-31T21:19:00.003-04:00

i was lead to The National by a girl friend, she said i would probably like the poetry in their lyrics, on first listen i wasn't wowed, and even after several re-listens i haven't completely fell for it, i don't like the singer's voice, his deep, steady tone doesn't hit me. lately i've been listening to feist on repeat, i can't get enough of her, i thinks she's the bee's knees and always makes me feel Better, not always happier, but she allows me to be sad sometimes, and after being sad and feeling ok about it i always feel better. then it hit me:

feist's feminine voice and softness allows me to feel sensitive, it gives me permission, for some reason men need permission, she grants that. and i think the national make my girl friend feel secure, his sonorous crooning is even-handed, yet gentle, never forceful, and it makes her feel comfortable, takes her to a place of warmth, he's a tender father figure.