I am Helen of Troy

My home is somewhere in an airport, I think. It's traveling, my sense of home. It has already packed its things and dropped a dramamine because of nausea, nauesa, naseua. It's uncomfortable with the new idea of self. It wants to hunker down, give up, and fall in love with the first city it sees,
but my sense of home is a wanderer. And she Hates commitment.

So, Portland, there you are. You look more like a ghosttown with the bare branches and shallow pools. Lewis and Clark at night wasn't even frightening. Five in the morning, you are dead.

I locked myself out of my house last night. I stood on the porch for ten minutes figuring it out.
Yep, I did. I slept for an hour and a half in the purple Honda and called my mom.
The government calls me an adult?

I hate being Helen of Troy, in love with two warring factions. I used to privately support the Achaeans, but I am torn. Illusion never changed into something real.
I have the power to pack up and leave, or I had the power. I left. I'll keep leaving if you're lucky.
I can't stand between you.

I've got an agenda.

I'm my Father's Son (Buh Bah, Buh Bah, this is the sound of)

I decided that a snow storm is without question the best time to go to a movie theater alone. Up in the Air directed by Jason Reitman is a powerhouse. It was So good. I put forward the most extreme aspects of my personality when I am alone. I laughed louder than any other theatergoer. There wasn't a contest; it's something I think I've been trained to do. My Dad does that. I resented in public places and Here I Am laughing up a Storm in a crowded theater.
I was part of a collective review at the urinals, too.
"This movie was really depressing."
"Especially because of the sensitive subject of the recession."
"This is definitely not a holiday film. Last year around this time, my wife and I saw Valkyrie."

I agree with Max about Criticism. There is good in every piece of art. There's a point. I like being critical because it puts me, really without merit, in a position of power and influential subjectivity. It's Stupid, though. There's no reason that my opinion should count for more, or that you can't experience something beautiful beyond my clever critique. And there is my haphazard criticism of criticism.

The movie last night made me want to be different. George Clooney is a terrible person. He's laid brick for walls that surround him. He's close to no one. It's life for him. He's a great talker and he can make friends with most (that charming grin!) but he's got nuffin to lose but darkness and shadows.
I haven't been him. I'm not him. I'm connected to a lot, but I have a habit of getting up and leaving when a threat of emotional pain (or commitment, frankly) comes along. There's a girl or two somewhere in Oregon that laugh when I write that I'm sorry because it's over now and it doesn't matter. I missed the mark.

I'm trying to turn a new leaf. I'm trying to uproot myself. I don't want what I wanted before. Ms. Blum, I don't think I've made that clear. You'll get to know me.


One of my other friends wrote something that reminded me of the Intelligence versus Faith debacle. The smartest have the hardest time believing, just emptying their briefcases or backpacks and walking into something unknown.

Well, it doesn't stop with Faith. I can throw down some statistics (some fictional) and personal experience that will disprove idealism, but there's something beyond this masonry. I've had a hard time putting myself into anything that's stable. Something better might come along, right, but if you (Yes you) spend your whole life searching and correcting, criticizing, you'll miss out on everything.

The Monotonous shouldn't speak Chinese

Finals that are easier than the quizzes are the best finals.
She must have thought we not only didn't listen, but also are stupid.
Unstoppably stupid.

"¿Cómo se significa de 'agua'?"
Yo creo que agua, en íngles, se significa Water.

This holiday makes me smile. I smile regularly, but this season, I make sure
to make eye contact as I smile.
It comes as really friendly,
or creepy, really creepy.
That makes me wonder to whom I'm smiling.
Just with averages, I've got to be smiling at a crook or a grifter every day.
("Even in Manhattan?" someone in the back asks.
"Especially in Manhattan" I say, fixing my cuffs.)

So what does that Crook do with a smile?
Is he aware that he's batting for the other team?
"Oh, I bet that small unshaven man thinks I'm a good person."
or "I feel regret for living an unfulfilled, dishonest life because of this enthusiastic smile."

Who knows? We're only playing with averages.

You'll meet all sorts of fun people when you come to New York for some months.
I was making sure where Shakespeare and Company was located and I saluted a woman with "Hey Man," followed by an unhelping explanation about how I salute most people similarly.
That's how I met Tatyana from NYU.

There was a street musician at Union Square West and 17th. He was, I think, a rapper selling his cds and I told him I didn't have cash (without an introduction, I was out of the blue), and I would prefer giving him money for his art. He thanked me for the fresh of breath air. He described the earlier assaults he had incurred and then a Public Service Announcement:

"I haven't always been like this. I used to be clear in the mind when the world was brighter and I could think clearly. Remember that commercial, man? It was like," sternly, "'where did you get this from?'" Softer, pleasantly, "'and the kid is like, I got it from you? You did it twenty years ago.' You remember that, yeah?"

I must look older than I am because I remembered nonesuch commercial.
I said I did and we laughed together. What a habit it is to lie!

I walked home and spied two painted black fire escapes on opposite sides of a building. Unobstructed. It was stark. The escapes were like two twin black spires, raising up towards the turrets for the Kingdom behind. It was gothic and royal.

"What I read right now in the eyes of Japanese children is curiosity,"

is a quote from Sans Soleil.
The closing line is also a quote from the Chris Marker film.


A man was walking past as I snapped pictures of the tops of buildings.
"It's beautiful," I said.
"I see it every day and I never get tired of it," he replied.

Or maybe, sir, you don't remember the day before.
If you focused on yesterday, you would see stills of a time that was, right?
The highlights of your day, the memorable moments of your significant other,
of the ketchup on your sleeve,
of the support of your boss to move forward,
of Bette Midler song that blasted out a coffee shop in Chelsea,
and probably six dozen or so nagging images that were caught in your grill.

I think I don't look up enough to make it mean something.
The skyline is just a feature of everyday life, ignorable, ignoble, simple;
you can cast it away.
With that, every time you look up,
a pleasant surprise.

It makes me wonder what I will think of yesterday when today becomes yesterday.
And what will the images of me be tomorrow for that man?
For every man?
It's ridiculous to forget all of yesterday, right?
Right?

“The partition that separates life from death does not appear so thick to us as it does to a Westerner.”

Where have the souls gone?

I can write research papers. I have the ability. I wasn't so sure of myself, say, a week ago, but putting your mind to something, reading until you dream of the topic and not eating dinner for a week out of forgetfulness can do a lot for a person.

In my psych class today, the first of the last three classes,
up sprouted an argument about cultural sensitivity and Hmong versus Western medicine.

This class has been a hayride for group therapy. It's a required course for psychology majors and it inscribes a yearning to make change. It's a good class, but we are indeed prone to arguments.

Today was vicious. Half of the class was red in the face from either shame or anger.
"It's about the placebo effect; if someone believes it will help them, then why try to stop it?"
(This was the focus of the conversation. Western medicine doesn't have all of the answers.)

"Yeah? Well, my brother died diagnosed from leukemia. They used those crystals and they didn't do jack shit."

My hand sprung up. I was grinning. Man, do I have a rebuttal. A smile had appeared on my face. I was going to win this argument.

"My sister also had cancer," I said triumphantly. "And chemotherapy didn't save her."
There was a disquietude. I was proud for a couple moments and then my pondering mind reminded me that

I had lived that. This is my life. It is not some argument point, Joel.
Come back down to Earth.

There's a meeting at 5, so don't show up at all

I get really antsy when I'm writing papers. Every half page or so, I pour myself a glass of orange juice, scratch my chest like a bear, and strip off a top layer (It's too warm inside for three layers, anyway. MAN, it is cold during the winter season. Why did no one tell me this about New York?).

I'm just afraid of commitment to the point that I want to stop writing papers as I write them and I make jokes instead of statements. Only.

I need to work my ass off. I decided that as I stared at my reflection holding the orange juice.

He told me, "Jole, you need to work your ass off."

I asked him why he spelled my name like that.

He told me that he was testing me and that I should get back to work.

Well, I knew that.

I probably expect too much from my reflection.

I'm interested in becoming reclusively Indie, but I also want to be a weathered dictator of classical music knowledge.

There aren't enough days in the week, right?

Megalomanic Affirmation

I am Godly.

I am omnipotent.

I rule with molten fists.

Tremors in me run through the world.

I am the reason for existence.

Cheetahs can get surgery, can't they?

I should be doing all sorts of things.

I have two research papers that need to be written or refined. Oh, big whoop, education; you beckon and you grasp for my attention, but you are catcalling for nothing. I'll come to you if you weren't always looking for me.

Let a man breathe, education. Give a man space.

I should be writing myself silly. That's what I should be doing. I should be working on my first novel, or something. I don't know. Nadie sabe hoy o en el futuro. Nadie sabe.

I saw a video on Tuesday regarding The Conversation we must have. The Conversation against colorblindness and against racism. It was from the early nineties and there were some giggles about the staging and attire, but the message was so pure.

One man erupted at a White man that was a product of the blind society.

"You are holding yourself back. Why can't you just think of yourself as a person?"

"BECAUSE I CAN'T BE JUST A PERSON, THAT'S WHY!"

(Here I am, pleading with the masses to be empathetic, and the problem the whole time is sight, and not sensation. Understanding and not philanthropy. Man, have I been wrong.)

He went on, the exploded (emploded) man. He said that to be American was to be white and to be American was to give up his ethnicity, his color, but that is not allowed because he is treated as a black man. He is inextricably tied to his color.

"Why can't you just think of yourself as a person" meant, "Why can't you be white?"

Because you won't let me, that's why.

Because I can't change myself, that's why.

Because skin color doesn't change.

Because sexuality doesn't change.

Because gender doesn't change.

Because faith doesn't change.

But what of transcendence? What of Becoming something better?

Then what of Racism, Homophobia, Sexism and Faithful Ignorance?

In this country, Straight White Protestant Males who hold the power are Better. They have everything at their fingertips and they don't even realize it.

Well, Straight White Protestant Males who have the power, there's a world about and it wants to be reckoned.

There are some people that you're stepping on. You might want to mind them.

One must consider the final result

The more I am around New York and the dollarbill mentality, the more I wonder why people think the acquisition of wealth will help anyone more than themselves and (maybe) their families, especially in the long run.

I'm at work right now. I'm securing the building to my full extent. I need money to survive in this society of affluence and wealth by the dollar and not by the experience. So I'm at work. I even like it. Celebrities drop by and my coworkers are on their way to Broadway. It's comforting, working here, for I am stuffed with influence of those that are choking their dreams, putting their dreams into a dominated submission. It just warms my heart to see people, young people, know what they want to do and do it. Probably, I support them even more because they are performers and they want to perform, not to live in the Upper West Side and throw bricks of gold out of their windows.

What's the good in living if one only wishes to catapult himself?
I'll tell you what, a baggie of cocaine and a flashbulb with a paparazzi grip seems sweet, and OH, it is, but there is some conventional wisdom in living a long, fulfilling life instead of one seeping with depression and addiction is the way to go.

Life as you will, and someone will follow.

And with that, CapeCodsGiving was a smashbang success. AJ, Abby, Corey and I feasted on food just short of divine and I am recharged, enjoying their company, breaking from my academic existence, and talking about the musicality of art in front of the Atlantic Ocean as the sun dives further and further into obscurity.
I wish you all the best.
(I'm actually annoyed when I watch videos and read memoir-esque articles in which an audience is referred. "Hey everybody, I hope you checked out my new beatboxing video!" So to fix that:)

I wish you, and only you, the one person that reads this sentence, all the best.

SO!

We're going to die. It's inevitable. I have a hard time accepting that in a hundred and twenty years the world will have a new cast. Do what you will with your time here. Your faith probably says you should be better than you. Mine sure does, or Mine do, depending on my mood and quality of conjugation.

I don't know how magnanimous I want to be with my life. I think about altruism and money-making in similar light, but I don't just want to be a guy that has a memorial scholarship named after him. That would be great, leading my life in a community, sure, but I would like to build great structures while I'm here. I want to do something that will be studied and will last.

I want to be referenced in pop culture, dig, yeah?

Don't you want to do something that you aren't doing?

"Just do something, Class of '09."

SO!

I was typing and suddenly, and I mean, OUT OF NOWHERE, my c, t, h, and v stopped working completely.

No, I need those, actually. Those are my common letters. My v letter has been nude since early october, and that's fine. I'll fix it some other day.

I think I'm going to teach instead of pay for education next year. I'm putting thought into it. I want to do it. Yes.

There are Many organizations that pay you to teach English around the world. We might as well, right?

Grammatical New York (It's probably just Symbolic)

Before I came to the city, it was a quote.

The New Yorker would say,

The Times would say,

Bruce Vilanch would say... "New York."

But it was really just a high tilde. I knew it was on the keyboard, but I had no use for it.

When I arrived, the Taxi Driver with his mohawk and song of redemption only gave me an ellipsis...

I was begging for something more.

Was I left with anything more than questions?

I travelled ^Up and was met with FLASHES! and CELEBRITIES!

Exclamations and slurs [in brackets, for context].

I kept moving around the city, in tiny expanding circles. .oO

finding the $money tied to the percent of stock% quotes and digit@l interaction.

But my classes were telling me to be a CAPITAList & have more than one identity/understanding\of the world. I can be more than one thing.

I = so many things, but where am I? Do I need to be here?

Why is there so #much death. and focused melancholy if this place is the end-all, beat-all?

Where do I go from here?

Is this place a period.

No, I can leave.

sometimes it's a comma or a semicolon.

A pause is domestic, so that's LaGuardia,

but a harder pause is international, so that's JFK;

I'm still not excited, though. As if the Giants and Yankees fans were saying with a big colon: New York. That's the answer. That's the example, por ejemplo.

I'm +ing all of this up, I'm taking it in from an m — to an n – to a -

But, I believe now that I understand this place.

this place is an asterisk. (*You do what you want with it.)

I can drag my feet and sing the blues

There are at least a thousand lives on the street at any given moment in New york City.

This is an addendum to the teeming masses:

I round the corner and there is the saxophonist. He's playing a variation on a jazz standard but who knows where his hands have been? A passerby watches and weeps to himself, letting only his woman by the arm know that he has emotions, to the rest of the world, he's as brittle and as hard as ice. The policeman strolls down. She's aware of the complaints against her kind, the boys in blue, and she doesn't want to lose her badge, but where else is safety? Where else, in this damn city, is security but with the police force.

Two men are smiling. They aren't facing the hate that they faced back home. Now they're just faces.

John Mayer is playing at the Beacon this very moment, Fuse is streaming the feed over its doors and windows. It makes the man standing and staring at the screens feel like he's missed the world. He has a family, but the pictures are in his wallet, and that's far away.

The young woman glides in her heels, she can't smile. She's been trained not to.

And the homeless man in the wheelchair gasping out pleas for his brothers and sisters to lend him a helping hand, almost a croon. It's common to see actors like him on the street. He used to be off-Broadway, he used to sing at all the functions, but like all actors, now he's just playing a caricature of himself.

Vignettes never tasted so Sweet

I think the funniest thing I have ever written is "Drugs are for stupid potheads that smoke 2 much weed."

It's not funny that Scott and I fully believe Yishia in 5F1 is a Jedi.

There was a floral ceramic bull somewhere on 7th, when I was walking home. The revolving door was not locked, but there was a sign lodged in, securing the security guards shooting the shit inside. I stared at the bull. It can't be from Portland. No. That's silly. It's a bull, too. This is the other side of the world. There is a ceramic bull inside an office building. Masculinity, ignorance, futility. This is the other side of the world.

Chase Bank was in lights on 7th, too, except 'as' was blotted out by broken circuits. Chase Bank was then labeled "CHE." I laughed uncomfortably loudly.

I wonder if people that are used to New York take it for granted. No, know they do, but I wonder how many people do. There are unscalable buildings all around me. We have built buildings taller than mountains, just glass edifices covering metal skeletons like Reese's Cups. We have made a competition of building garbage higher and higher. Our nation is probably in the lead. This city is in the lead.

You are in the lead.

Midnight Running Club

At one in the morning, Troutdale has put a wet pinch on the wick.

The light is above porches or

streaming out of windows,

the illuminated television turned down low as to not wake up the parents

(or the children).

A stray flashlight is carried with blue batons,

dancing around in the pitch and puddles,

waiting, watching for any disturbance.

"We don' wan' any trughble 'round here"

ol' timeys in charge of the police force would say.

I bet I could read about me in the reports in the Outlook, if I wanted.

And Gresham! Lo Gresham!

She turns off at the drop of a hat. She's a gateway

to the East!

and to A&W

and to the Mormon Temple...

But she shuts her eyes in hope that a bagel store will open open them,

or an office complex on Stark.

All hopes, she says,

but tonight, I was not rambling with Joseph in the center of streets,

no we were not Boogie Eyes

like my mother, in her yore days,

I was alone,

or as alone as possible.

All the Mom and Pop Rite-Aids and coffee shops have a light on in front,

reminding you that you are not alone,

that How could you think you were alone?

that You are confronted with opportunity!

that How could you think such a thing?

No one is sleeping, it seems, the boroughs do not turn off,

the crowds shift from one building,

from one business shirt

top buttoned and belt looped

to unbuttoned and belt loosed.

The night is a dazzle, or would be if I was north twenty-odd blocks.

There is no facing the faceless many,

the hurried bunch,

for it's pleasant to hear "Run Forrest,"

because some languages translate fluidly.

Endorphins have done me a load of good

to not forget things like this.

I miss you, too

I've tried to miss no one, Fire on the Mountain, but Brittany resounded a high pitch and I felt the need to remind myself that I am human, and you are a restaurant. I miss what you held, when I was there, it was my friends, or my Dad one time. You had Jerry Garcia on the wall and you housed a country folk band once and I enjoyed them.

Taylor told me about you and I thought you were a mediocre idea, I'm sorry to admit, but you were spectacular, your name was true to your taste. You often left me begging for water and more of your goods.

I miss the atmosphere that surrounded you. It was the good, bike-riding idealist indie, and not the indie that looked like the Kings of Leon but worked at a coffee shop. You left me wanting more of you.

You gave us a better goodbye than the Airport did. I was in the middle of you and I knew exactly what I wanted. I hope you know that we were all sharing a drink. I hope that's okay.

And now, Fire on the Mountain, you are one of the places that is stuck in the back of my mind as a warm representation of Portland, Oregon. I thank you, for that FotM, you are eternally bonded with Tom McCall and The Decemberists and weird donuts and my family and most of my friends and a sense of home that I can tell myself exists everywhere, but truly was invented by you.

Thanks.

Here's a New York moment, for you

There's a Chinese place around the corner to Rite-Aid, above which I live. I dropped in the other night and ordered the spiciest entree, General Tso's chicken. I waited around and read King Leopold's Ghost because Golden Wok is mostly a take-out place so I had time to read. When my food was ready, they asked if I was eating in (at one of the four tables? Are you kidding?) and I said no, but I proceeded to unwrap the bag and sit and to scarf down the food.

The first couple bites were so filling, but right out of the wok, they were, and I pretended to burn my tongue. I started yelling; I started crying and pointing fingers, garbling through hot chicken and broccoli that they meant to burn me. They made me leave and gave me my cash back as I forced tears onto the pork fried rice. I gladly left.

I feel bad, though, because I'm bulimic now. I ate the rest of the food when I rounded the corner back but I didn't keep it down.

I've got to keep my figure somehow.

Cancer Weekly

Cancer is a threat to everyone. Though heart disease, diabetes, and gout will more likely be diagnosed because of my genetic disposition, I can’t be sure. On the upside of the cancer fight, I am more prepared for an overabundance of cells than most. I have heard stories like Rhio O’Connor’s and they remind me of the tenacity and dedication of my father, Michael, and my late sister, Aurora, who were both diagnosed with cancer.

I gawked, as a child, at Aurora’s fight. She had Hodgkin’s lymphoma and decided that chemotherapy was the best weapon against metastasis, and for years, she pressed on, growing her hair and letting it fall. It was too much, though. The chemotherapy didn’t let her live as a person and she gave up on the chemicals. She died not long after.

My father, on the other hand, had two bouts of treatable, removable cancer when I was nine, and then again when I was sixteen. It was expunged out of his bladder first. The second round, though, was harder with half of a lung removed and chemotherapy on top. He lacked energy and nearly the will to live. Surgical recovery is nothing compared to suddenly not having the ability to taste. He’s still standing, my father.

Rhio O’Connor is a shining example of knowing the facts while ignoring the myths. He outlived his incurable cancer, mesothelioma, by six years and did so with an optimistic fervor, a nose in the books, and an earpiece to the doctors he thought he could trust most. His, Aurora’s, and my father’s fight, I have had to figure my game plan ahead of time. Cancer can strike at any time, as I’ve learned. Preparedness be thy name.

I have health insurance. I am diagnosed with cancer and it’s terminal. Here’s my plan:

First, I’ll find out what kind of cancer it is, how long I’ve had it, what I did to get it, and which are the most common treatments. This information will be most likely found during the initial diagnosis, or a several weeks after.

I will mourn for a week to get it out of my system. All disorders are psychosomatic, in the sense that if one believes that one is sick and helpless, a hormonal imbalance will be created and symptoms could worsen. I will therefore tell myself every day that I will be alive the next day and I will do all I can stay alive, focusing daily on the fact that I exist and how grateful I will be for seeing the sun and smelling the leaves.

I will then find out if there is an easy fix. I will consult my general practitioner for any colleagues he has or had that specialize in the type of oncology that relates to my cancer. I will consult this (or these) doctor(s) about my diagnosis. If I can have it excised, I will, immediately.

My new oncologist will be my center for information until I branch out, elsewhere. The doctor will inform me about the best clinics and hospitals, the medical journals and quarterlies that are most trustworthy, and the names and address of other oncologists. The doctor will also be the first reliable opinion regarding my chances of survival. With names and titles and places, I will begin to make calls to other doctors with a list of my symptoms always at hand. I may travel, but depending on the cancer, the action may be ill-advised.

According to the advice of the doctors, I will begin to look into which treatment will fit my cancer best. Radiation and chemotherapy are not out of the question, but if I can work with my immune system, or use angiogenesis inhibitors, I will. I will try any trial drug, as long as it is advisable under the consideration of my oncologist crew.

I will look into alternative medicine and dietary guidelines to be used as complementary while Western practices are administered. I will read as many articles as exist on the subject of negative synergy between nontraditional and Western medicines so I will be sure that I will not do more harm than good. I will also start praying more.

At this point, where I have intensely educated myself about my cancer, I will have reflected upon why I have this cancer. If my behavior can change so that I will not get the cancer a second time, if I survive (when I survive), I will do all I can to live better because of it. That’s one of the things I’ve noticed about cancer: it has the ability to change the way in which people live and see life. It is the same for many near death experiences, but I believe cancer is a more potent, more powerful wake up call, I will make sure that I change myself.

I will have chosen my treatments and my diet by this time, two or three months after my diagnosis, and I will have much haste to begin. If the quality of life changes for the better, I will continue my regiment until the cancer is gone or I am bankrupt. If I lack the money to support my medical needs, I will write letters to philanthropists, in hopes that one does not take pity, but instead sees the benefit of human life.

If the diagnosis does not improve, or worsens, I will restart the process with my oncologists. If I die from trial drug or a poor synergy or uncontrollable malignancy, it will be recorded so the next person to be diagnosed will know what not to do. I will not die of a lack of hope though. I have no reason to accept that I will not live forever until I die.

My sister died because of not knowing about her cancer, first, and second, not knowing about the other treatments. Chemotherapy is not a be all and end all medical miracle and neither are any of the other treatments. Rhio O’Connor, in spirit, and my father, in body, live on to the testament that rigorous study and edification about one’s disease or disorder can elongate a life. It’s the more one knows that beats cancer.

Life is like a really dark version of Toy Story

SO! I'm glad I don't drive in this town.

I saw a car on fire today. The embers were burning beneath it like faulty fireworks but the smoke billowed too wildly. I could barely breathe, or shouldn't have kept breathing, truly.

I walked away, closer to the Post Office (it's the Post Office), and when I turned around, the hood had exploded in flames. I tried and tried to get a picture with my tiny cameraphone, but no luck, I was breathing volcanic ash, like May 18th.

Also, there was this older gentlemen, some would say 'silver fox' walking in my direction, and I him, as I headed to work. He was cocking his eye at me. I cocked back, wondering how strange I must look for him to cock his eye. Pues, the closer I came to the man, the more aware I was of the fact that his cocked eye was a permanent state.

He was slightly disfigured.

On one level, I feel Awful, and on the other, Nope, I still feel awful.

I have a whole set-up for a novel. I just need to write it.

Isn't that always the issue?

If I didn't know and love you, I would resent and hate you.

The last couple days of Memory, Testimony, Archive have been punctuated by leaves outside flying upward. The class is on the sixth floor and I have absolutely limited knowledge of jetstreams, but in both class periods last week, up they flew. It was beautiful.

When I think things are falling and hopeless, here are these leaves praying for the sun, quiet Icarus, quiet.

I think Bleu Cheese is the worst thing to come out of cows.

It tastes like garbage.

"It's an acquired taste."

Acquired garbage. It's mold to begin with, but then it isn't just mold, it is living, breathing, amoxycillin. Sick, man. Even Dean and Deluca fell short with their cheese selection: they included the banish colored cheese, Bleu.

If you're sad, Bleu Cheese, I know why. You are worthless.

But there's a market for everything.

I was really impressed with Carry that Weight and The End on Abbey Road (definitely the best music by the Beatles, Rolling Stone; there is consensus among me). Those two songs are the last recorded by the Beatles, all four of them. They kicked it off beautifully and fully with Carry and then, "Guys, this is it. This is the final song we will put forth as a group. The tensions are too high. The junk addiction is too powerful, that creep Yoko is too here, and we're done."

And it was a book end to the most successful band of all time.

I like being around drunk people until the drunk people start generalizing and categorizing me with the tiny scope of knowledge and reason they hold at that moment.

Sleep on that, That's all I ask.

Joyous occasion, this day

I'm so glad I haven't received many comments on my earliest blogs, transfers from myspace days of ignorance and self-pity.

Man, weren't we all wrecks back then?

Well, I'm sure was.

I'm a father now. I'm a father of two beautiful girls, Haley-Rose and Josephine. I'm just proud to be alive. Fatherhood sure has brought the best of life into me. "Everything seems so trivial" since fatherhood hit me like a rock.

At first, I was against the notion. "No, honey, I don't think we're ready," but she sure does have me in her palm!

Sometimes I write papers and hide them from myself, only to find them when they are no longer in context. I wrote a sweet paper about and to Senator John Kerry. Load of good that did him. Bogus.

I love knowing I should be asleep. I make my alarm clock less and less visible when I feel the morning creeping. The wan reflection (of probably the laundry room on the second floor whose unneeded light trails into the windows) dims, but it feels too close.

I don't feel like I should have whole discographies. I don't need the whole thing. I'm struggling with this and I want to delete much music that I shouldn't have in the first place, but The Fruit that Ate Itself is So Good! I can't decide.

I felt like life happened today. I was in a friend's sisters and cousin's loft in Gramercy Park North and I saw the city lights and ate tuna pasta. I feel like everything can fit into place if I wait for it and do my best to be in position.

It's funny to think all I knew about New York before was from the Spiderman 2 video game.

"I want to ingenuous all over her face"

Scott says things like that. He didn't know what it meant.

He also said, regarding my facial hair, "If God gave you the power to grow a handlebar mustache, who are you to spit in his face?"

I feel like a kid today. I listened to my recorded self and it's awful. I'm so young-sounding, and the words, my choice of words even sounded like Buster trying on Daddy's pants and slippers.

Aw, how cute. Look at Buster try and run.

At what point am I supposed to take myself seriously? At what point do I expect others to?

It's a process, though, it isn't simple. You're right, Orit. You're right.

History isn't simple.

And you know what? Orit is right about something else. To what I am testifying? What memory do I have that's of any use?

I wish I had some perspective that was different, but gee Golly, I can't prove that I do, and if I did, it would be proof of one in six billion other proofs.

Well aren't we all different and special in our own way?

I thought about writing names before I used names in this entry. Because who are you, reader, to know about whom I'm referring? I could just be writing, Alionka (Ah-lee-áhn-ka), right? I could just be writing. Right Hannah? Right Brenda Smalley and Jennifer Crooks?

I could, and you never can tell.

A Tramp is sitting on my Doorstep

Vitamin Water is pretty cocky, marketing their products as Revitalizers or Focusers or Provocaters. As if Hellman's Mayonnaise couldn't have exactly the same marketing campaign?

Hellman's Synergy

Best Foods Rise and Shine Mayo

Heinz 57 Energy Ketchup

It's a trend in marketing, I think.

Do you know that there is a site just for people named Scott Walker?

The site is called worldwidewalker.com and it's under construction, but it will be.

Coldplay doesn't get enough credit for inventing music.

Just shy of sixteen ounces of brown sugar

is on top of the first toilet. It shouldn't be explained. Some questions will always lack answers.

Today was Halloween. I was Superman at work (and at play).

No, there was no play, EXCEPT where I walked in Times Square scouting out other superheroes. I gave them an earful, I'll tell you. Batmen knew that they were useless, rich, pompous magnates when I was done with them.

The Pope laughed. He couldn't fly. I can fly. Superman can fly.

I shouldn't have joked with all of the Policemen I did, but it was so worth it.

"Great costumes, gentlemen."

To all of them.

To the Joker, I was just disappointed. "Come on, man. You have your own city. Go back to Gotham. We have enough trouble here, anway."

"I'm just taking a break. Lay off."

Some stranger muttered hate slurs about me in my getup. They were baseless and wrong, and yet I was still offended. I talked to a couple of policewomen about slurs and they asked why I was offended, if it wasn't true.

"You're right. Someone yelling, 'You are an abstinent and ethical straight man without a criminal record' doesn't sound imposing at all."

I love seeing people let loose. This is a holiday of choice for forgetting guidelines and requisites. Tomorrow, that's another day, but today, I'm Superman.

*No, this is all too much

I am having some cognitive dissonance right now. I can't be the bad person that I'm made out to be. I'm inherently good, but my mouth is so large, and so gaping, that no doubt some dreary, judgmental things will fall out, unbeknownst to me.

(At this point in the writing process, I tried to drink my tea that I had spilled on the ground minutes before, but it was too hot to drink, far too hot. It spilled out of my mouth and onto my designer jeans. At least I bought these on an outrageous sale.)

People still have lapses of sense-making. I've encountered some big egos bulging past some skulls. Last night was a blowout. Also, I can't speak for the life of me to people who are from different cultures. I'm too open. I'm too honest. I'm too forward.

I'm too much*, I've found.

I feel so old.

The city is gorgeous, though. I will go to the High Line and read for awhile, I think.

Or outside.

I'll go outside.

My pants are still wet from the tea, but there is some shine.

I enjoy work, at least. Hell, when I take a step back, I enjoy all of it.

I'll be able to write better standup after this.

That was uncalled for (to be)

I am walking down the street with a 14" by 28" poster of Laurence Fishburne dressed as Thurgood Marshall because the former is playing the latter in a new off-Broadway show (16 WEEKS ONLY!). It was free at work, so I nabbed it, grabbed it and advertised, nearly a sandwichboard, down 8th avenue. I received many looks and stares of all sorts, but only two verbal recognitions. One was friendly. Thanks Khonsu. The other was:

"What's this?"

"Thurgood Marshall. It's new."

Realizing, "Oh! Clarence Thomas doesn't observe that hideous fucking Communist idiology."

The last sentence was for clarity's sake, apparently. It was like he had planned out a sentence about Marshall for weeks, but didn't know where to place it, or he learned this somewhere and was simply repeating it. He was angry, too.

And then he was gone.

¡Lo encontré! (Suddenly I see)

I saw some ugly people on the street today. I thought they were both attractive, but I realized I was looking between them. See, one of them had a jagged, squat face and the other had a overly long face, just shy of horse. I thought, maybe if they had children, the problem would be solved,

but no, of course not. The baby would get features of both sides in all the wrong places.

So, I smile at ugly people, I mean I smile at attractive people, too, but I make sure to smile at ugly people, and I usually receive coy grin in return. Perfect!

Or sometimes, probably, they were thinking, "I'm going to smile at this ugly young man walking towards me. He deserves it." I think I'm the originator when the ugly people already had me marked.

We're all ugly, aren't we?

On the related note, I like to pick up on one or two pieces of minutia about someone's personality or features and make a nickname out of it. Peter, Max and I used the Irish setup, most often.

Look at the Mousey McMouserson or Loudy McHairysmith.

We tried to use the German arrangement, but Smellsy Von Bigarmsheim just lacked the rhythm.

The Village used to be cool. It has pockets of truth, of opportunity for any and every dream, but there are just too many people looking for what was, what could've been. I want everyone to smile back when I walk home.

I'll make an effort.

Pero tengo drogas, Señora...

Es un chiste. Nunca puedo tener drogas, Señora.

There are too many pretty faces in this city. I can't make my mark and sow my seeds with just one! That is like only eating one kind of chocolate, or marrying only one woman, for one's whole life.

Ridiculous, right?

I learned much about the Village this weekend.

The place is full of assumptions, most of them positive.

Por ejemplo:

- If one wears a suit, one must be an adult.

- If one has facial hair, one must be an adult (This is the same in England, I've learned).

- If one is walking, one must enjoy comedy (That's really just a lesson of comedy clubs in general, put forth strongest by Times Square).

- If one doesn't drink, then there must be something wrong.

And you can say anything to pretty much anyone and it doesn't matter whether it's true or not.

There are so many people in this city that it is unlikely that you will see them again unless they frequent your work or home. Facebook and a phone and a pad of paper can only do so much.

I should be researching and taking notes, but here I am, again, old friend.

Shouldn't we always be more productive than we are?

"NO! False assumption! You've spent too much time in the Village, thinking, Joel."

Well, I would say (hablaría), It's already tomorrow and the day is done, so we can just give up on giving up and work for the sun.

Es Pablo,

I saw Justine again.
I saw her earlier this week, but I didn't have time to say anything. I had forgotten her name, so I just let her pass and it was like watching sand drop in an hourglass. Today I talked to her, she had forgotten my name, and in all honesty, I only remembered because I wrote it down, thinking she was going to be an important figure.

It meant less today. It means less. She is another person.
I have decided that for a couple years it's just handshakes and earnest conversation.
The more the merrier.

Cafe Esperanto had tasty food. I recommend it. I need to be in the Village more.

The longer I stay, the more I know that I can get anything I want here. If I want to smoke, if I want to drink, if I want to snort, to eat, to thrive, to die, to be a face in the crowd, or boost my ego, I can have it all,
except for sense of belonging.

I'll keep looking.

Wallfllowers no pueden ayudar

Walking down the street, trying to see through the eyes of the passing people, I was distracted. I didn't have time to warm my waffles. It was a day like that, you know.

I round the corner of Rite Aid, strolling back to my apartment complex (simplex), I spot a woman ambling in my direction. I don't feel special, I know whe isn't walking towards me. She is struggling, though. The closer I get, the more obvious this struggle becomes. She is walking slower than a mile an hour, with a cane in one hand, and another hand searching, searching for something to hold.

I should help her, I think. I should lead her somewhere, or at least offer my help, but here I am, again, stuck in a city of judgemental glances and helpless people. What do I do? What can I do? What could I do?
Nothing. I did nothing.

After I passed her, I held the door for one of my friends. He keeps glancing and can't decide either. On the elevator, we agree that we wanted to help the woman, but,

"But," my friend said in the elevator, "you don't know about her." He laughed, lost somewhere.
I agreed.

From Point A to 6 in Two Hours (Why are downloaded songs all lowercase?)

Joel Arken
Fellow Joseph Plourde
Freshman Seminar
5 October 2009
The New School Reader: The Vices and 1964
Post-Modernism is dead. It started off dead and here we are, 2009. It’s still dead. Erich Fromm’s “Our Way of Life Makes Us Miserable” was a quick, concise accusation of modern man. It echoes Walter Benjamin’s theses of distraction from “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Representation.” We are a diverted, disturbed people. Fromm’s piece was written in the beginning of an overhaul of commodity and consumerism. He weathered the ‘50s, but if he only knew what was to come.
That is to say, Fromm didn’t know how right he was. He wrote that “our present way of life leads to increasing anxiety, helplessness and, eventually, to the disintegration of our culture.” Most negative aspects that plagued “This Modern Era” of the sixties, the overabundance, the use and abuse of toxic intoxicants, and the alienation of man through technology, have all grown to newfound, extraordinary versions of their previous selves.
We have become the fattest and most grotesque nation because of the overabundance of food, and poverty has stricken the poorest of us with the least healthy food, leading to obesity in the ones who can fight it least. We have an abundance of medicine, but only those working, and Not even All of those, have access. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, over 30,000 suicides occurred in 2006. I myself bore witness to two in my high school, within a year. We have abundance of therapy, self-help books, life coaches, but the amount of those identified with neuroses and disorders is growing.
Physical abuse is still common. Drug abuse is more prevalent than it has ever been. Meth has replaced heroin in the war on drugs. Pharmaceuticals have replaced cocaine as the drug of the affluent. Marijuana and alcohol begin to be abused in middle elementary schools. Culture-bound syndromes of eating disorders, shopping disorders, attention disorders and the like are finding their place in the American lexicon.

Anything can be found online. Books can be sold, bought, downloaded, ripped, stored, stolen, and read all without thinking about stepping near a library. Information is everywhere. Where the internet was a military operation, it is now a poorly-sourced book of all information one could ever need. Advertisements are on every medium, save public broadcasting.
Machines that once were used and implemented by man have made some jobs, careers, futures obsolete. Computers buy, sell, steal, or give. Automation is the new feature in supermarkets, in theatres, in workplaces for security. Everything is faster; everything is more efficient.
Maybe it’s that nothing has changed that bothers us nostalgic types. The symptoms are worse, the diagnosis, more severe, but if I know one thing, it’s that cynicism is dead, too. Hope is the new black. We are the new “I.” Community is coming back in a new way. Thousands want to dedicate themselves to enrichment of life, to art, to ‘super-lienation.’ We are becoming constant and perpetual machines of interest, of power, of influence and interest. Testimony is the invention of this new century. I’m no Buddhist, but there is balance out there, it’s the duty to find it, share it (for free, of course), exploit it, gain it, and become it.

We have inherited death and dying and internalized it, externalizing hate and greed and doubt, but so self-consciously. We are the new dead, but we don’t know otherwise.

Just a comparison, Don't fret, Don't panic

I was running to work this morning.
I apologized when I was in the way of someone.
Knowing that everyone else's time is worth just as much as mine, I try to not stop anyone from going on with their business.

A car was stuck in the middle of an intersection, many started to cross, and he honked and sped into the street. I gave him a sarcastic thumbs up, thinking that he was taking away from my time and all of the time of these other people, but
I FORGOT,
his time is just as worthy.

It's hard to be self-aware and be right at the same time.

Everything needs a clever title

I'm struggling here, God.
I was praying earlier. That's new for me. I felt like I had to. I directed toward one omniscient, invisible being rather than mumbling and grumbling and laughing to myself like I usually do.

I really want to be fully monk. I want to be suprahuman. I want to transcend and care only with empathy, but WOW do I get mad.
I get SO mad. I get disgusted, I get hateful, I get bitter. I want to work past this.

There are always people that inspire this. They will hunt you out, if you aren't aware of them. They become apparent. Life is an off-white background with a lot of shady characters making indents.
There is this one small guy with a growing adolescent moustache and long, unkempt hair. He makes me mad. He scrounges like a rat and wears a backpack and a jacket when it isn't cold. I want to disagree with him. I want to hate him.
I was at an open-mic and he read some stuff and it was a funny, sick book and I saw where from where he came and I understood him, a little. I was settled with that. My blood didn't boil. I just was.

There's this girl in my dorm. She's funny and pretty and enjoyable, but she doesn't like me when she's sober. I was walking late and I ran into her (and twelve others that had fought sobriety and won). I said something like "You've got shit on your teeth,"
When I meant, "Your teeth look blue in this light."
Now she won't like me when she's drunk, either.
I can only laugh sometimes. That's the only answer.

There's also a guy that lives VERY close to me that reminds me of my friends from years ago, from when I was angry with ignorance, condescension and immaturity. He embodies that. I call him a child sometimes and I stoop low, and that solves nothing. He isn't recycling. I told him it bothered me and it was irresponsible. "Okay Joel," he said. "Bye bye now, Joel."

Christ, I know you have a plan and all, but right now, I'm struggling.

I took note, and here I am

Work was medium-rare for the first half. It was simply not well done.
I was in a new position in the theatre. High stress, lots of mistakes. I thought deeply about what I was doing and made choices based on information provided in training.

I understand work now. We have basic rules and functions explained and then we work, trying to make the best of the exceptions to the rules. One shouldn't be reprimanded for dealing poorly with problems for which one has not been prepared. I mean, what's poor if there is no point of reference?

The second half is great, though.
I know people eventually tire of my humor, but this is fresh. I am appreciated in this new environment. I'm an unshaven newbie and it's great.

College kids get into Hide and Seek.

I need to work on being condescending. I need to work on being passive-aggresive. In an hours-long game of monopoly with one of my suitemates, seven yelling matches occured and we were both angry for half of the game, blitheringly. I lost, too. That was the worst part. I had hotels on the purples, and nothing else. My opponent had a couple of houses on the reds and nothing else. He had no money and I had a fat wad, I'm talking $5,000, here. One of my other suitemates, that loathesome Jhonathan brokered a deal that led me to have hotels on the first three sets, and him to unmortgage and own the other half of the board. Eventual, but thorough loss.

I was left with nothing. I was seven dollars off from the $1,100 I owed. I was close, but even then, I had no spending cash. I couldn't visit Ventnor on a rainy day.

Probably, also, I should say my peace and then be done.

To a Crawdad, we are God

Isn't it funny that we think there are only five important senses in the whole world?
We're human. We are the epitomy.

"But what about Echolocation?"
Shut up, nay-sayer, that's just sight and sound mixed together. Silly.

But to sightless, soundless creatures, wouldn't our presence be like that of God? Present, but indescribably so. Nearly incomprehensible.

Also,
We waste our minds like litter in the gutter
(That was going to be the title, if I hadn't remember the Crawdad bit).
We take advantage of the fact that we can time-travel with our memory and our imagination.
"Time-travelling? But you can't change anything?"
Right. You can't change anything in your past, or the fabric of your existence will shift, correct.
You can, however, pretend something hard enough that it becomes real to you.
So you can reimagine your past and that will dictate your future.

So we can time-travel, essentially, but this feature comes standards in most models of human, so we forget about it like a dialpad.
It's just there.

Well isn't that a care package? (Thank you, Amelia)

Today is a big day.
It's a Tuesday. That means really one thing worldwide, Tie-dye.
It hardly has any bearing here, but that's the unenlightened for you.
They'll jump on the hippest of band wagons soon enough.

It's just a Tuesday.
I have my Culture class and my Archive class on this day.
I usually read articles for the class and write and read striking dystopian novels in my spare Tuesday moments.

Today, though, wasn't just Tuesday,
Today was part of my life.

No, I didn't try Coke for the first time.
I'd like to think that would mean less than my actuality of Tuesday, today.

I met her. She's some great figure in my life.
I didn't meet her through some squashed orientation where we only knew each other's names because they were on tags beneath our lapels, we met in a building. It was a school building, sort of zapping the destiny, but... regardless!

We smiled at each other, I printed something, stuffed in the disorganization of my backpack, and she smiled at me. That's two. I wasn't counting then, I just have a vivid memory of this moment. I felt light-headed. I probably hadn't eaten enough. I have food; I need to remember to eat.
She smiled at me and took an obliging step towards me and then recoiled. I thought nothing of this cat and dog play. I spoke in Spanish about the elevator. She responded in English.

Why does this seem so serendipitous?
The elevator ride down was trying not to make eye-contact. They are very small, the elevators. We were on the ground floor, again enveloped in silence, but this will change. I was focused on making conversation with this girl.

I walk West and South, altogether the wrong directions for going back to the apartment, but there I head, because that's where she's going. Two, three fluid moments of nothing.
I was somewhere else watching me. I approved.

She looks at me, smiles and we talk about so little. I know her name is Justine, she's from Oakland, lives at Loeb Hall, and it's her second year at Lang.
We were at the main building in no time, she followed her classmate inside, announcing to me that she didn't remember where her class was.
I'll talk to her again.
I have a purpose.

She's either my future girlfriend, or a forward conversationalist that will be one of my best friends. I know this going in. I knew that when we left the elevator.

It's funny that we place importance on these pieces of circumstance.
I was probably too light-headed from not eating enough breakfast to really comprehend the interaction, but I've eaten now, and it bears the same.

A part of my life happened today.

(After reading, I hope you'll understand my frame of mind. This was quick to write, though it'd been on my mind for an hour. I was listening to to

Bright Eyes - First Day of My Life
Arcade Fire - (Antichrist Television Blues)
Audrye Sessions - The Crows Came in
- (Early in the Morning)
Thrice - The Sky is Falling
Radiohead - Knives Out
Alexi Murdoch - Orange Sky
some ancient Death Cab, some City and Colour, Amiina and Minus the Bear

This was not mood-altering, but mood-enhancing)

Where have my friends and allies gone?

I made a joke today in Spanish.
Nos Hemos descubierto la clima (We described the weather).
My classmates were making small jokes about it being cold in the city or being very hot in the mountains, their tone as the punchline. I, not knowing this was the regular comedic sense, described the Apocalypse. The room was silent.
La profesora felt awkward, too.

I'm usually pretty funny. I have high regards for myself, and there I was, letting the joke die.

When did the Apocalypse stop being funny? Never.
I am lost in an analog sea.

My friends are gone. My old friends, geographically. I have to continue making impressions and live like that, probably unendingly.
Home is such an easy place. I can make this place home, maybe! I don't know.
It'll be a fight.

I'm a big fan of stereotypes,

But that's common knowledge.

I should be sleeping. Isn't that a Beatles lyric?
No one can be original with John and Paul in the mix.

I heard that this city was full of assholes.
That's true. I was assaulted, mildly, in my first fortnight here. The guy shoved into me in midday. I didn't know from where it came. It was an elbow from left field and I was scared. I bellowed, "I didn't do ANYthing," as I passed.
In that moment, though, I was bellowing to some guy I met on the street. We were discoursing on perspective. He said it's wasteful to not smile, to not laugh, to love the only life we've been given. He's damn right.

I was shoved in an ephemeral moment that I shared with a stranger. We spoke about how this city was full of assholes and he agreed. He's from here.

Portland is full of assholes, too.
They work in coffee shops and they care more about image than substance.
I mean, they work other places, but this is a statement about stereo(and mon0)typing.

There are the same people everywhere. And I think that's the thing about this place, the humbling effect of the city.
This place is the best Congress. There are representatives from every culture looking for everything.
This place is everything to everyone.

The word on the street are that the city's dirty and capitalistic. The people were mean, vengeful, and crime-hardened. The kids grow up with smoke in their face and go to college with white in their nose.

And that's true.
It's also not true, though.

That's just a overrepresentation of a small group that fills this place, and with that, New York is the world. We see the world as dirty and the people as mean and the kids as victims.
Have you read about the Nacirema?

An assignmet for the French speakers.

How Lang Will Fit into My Life
I was nervous. The haze scaled the modern architecture and the clouds covered the moon roughly like crayon on paper, the moon still visible but its brilliance obscured. The cold humidity of the night air smelled of piss and death at too young an age. I was comfortably nervous. It was hours before l’heure bleue, the wind lifting compostables from the gutter and carrying them like ghosts through the town. Doors were shut, streetlights dim, voices (where there were voices) low.
I had mere blocks before home. Most ghettos are shady, but the innercity of this Parisian suburb made Brooklyn look and feel like Chelsea or Burnside out West.
I tried to smile to every roaming couple or transient I passed, no matter how sordid their character seemed, my humble hometown American sensibilities still glimmering under my bearded, burly physique. A crowd of gentleman spoke quietly, but confidently, sounding garbled from yards away. I passed the men, each adorned with dark clothing and looking as if their ambitions matched their dress, and as I passed they spoke to me, all in French, roughly translated as:
“Chic, my man,” the ringleader of this motley gang said.
“Merci,” said I, praying for compliment, anticipating distress. I let not my pace quicken as to alert the men of my fear. My acceleration stagnated with uneasy glances and grins at the men. Quickly, one of the dark men was in front of me, coup d’etating me backwards. I tripped with heavy awkward steps, spilling my café au blanche. One man brushed my coat and helped me up, only to join his compatriots in shoving me to an alley eclipsed by tall piles of garbage and stolen electronics.
I shouted “Aidez-moi!” for help but the wind ignored my calls for help and instead investigating the old, yellow newspapers left on the ground. One of the men of the gang answered, “They m'en fous about you!” I froze.
I was left standing on facing the twilight of streetlight. Behind me was brick and neo-classical tapestry. They shoved me to the ground and gawked with laughing wide sneers. “Give us your goods, you sheep.”
“But I’ve nothing to give,” I said with blood falling through my rust beard and onto my fitted plaid corduroy shirt.
The leader glanced to his friends in disbelief. “He must joke.” They laughed together in thick, annoying chortles. The leader rushed towards me with the gait of a speed-walker. His fist flew like one over a cuckoo’s nest and landed straight on my nose. Tendrils of snot and blood shot onto my Marc Jacob’s t-shirt á la mode. The young suburbans chortled as the French do and the leader, joined by his aide-de-camp, continued to pummel me as was the couture.
I wept and vomited on my side with my arm shielding my face from the beating until suddenly there were no blows and the air was froideur.
“Is your shirt from the most recent collection?” asked the concierge of the group.
“Yes, yes, yes it is,” I managed to stutter through the mouthful of blood.
“It’s very nice,” the leader said. “Yes, it goes well with the pants,” said the scruffiest of the bunch. He nodded his head and smiled.
“When did you start buying Jacobs’ clothing?” one of them asked. I couldn’t tell who was who in the daze of the beating. I felt as if I had papier over my whole body.
I rubbed my eyes and glanced around. The men suddenly looked like adolescents, apologetic, looking at the ground meekly and wringing their hands.
“We’re sorry, sir. We didn’t realize you were wearing nice clothes. We’ll give you all of our money and leave.” And there they did. All was comme il faut.

Lesson I learned at The New School: Dress well. It pays off.
Lesson I didn’t learn at the New School: How to speak French.

Because Sometimes Things Are Just That Simple

I forget that I have an emotional connection to a public option. I don’t pretend to have a new political view on the subject. I don’t want to make false impressions about my idealism. I am a pragmatist, but I’m also a humanitarian. At rare times do complex puzzles slip into simplicity, like a key into a lock. I have this clarity.
When I was a child, I knew a woman that did not have health insurance until her mid-to-late twenties. Because of her lack of coverage, she did not have symptoms checked when she felt ill. This story is common, I know. “She could have risked it,” they say, but in all honesty, she couldn’t have covered the co-pay.
She would have been cheering on President Barack Obama’s speech tonight, had she not died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma after a long battle. She was diagnosed late, spent sad, sickening years on chemotherapy, and finally gave up, the cure killing her as much as the cancer. I remember this well because she was my sister.
The pieces didn’t really click until this year that, had she been covered, she would have been diagnosed and she would be alive.
A friend told me, after watching the speech on healthcare reform, she contended with one of the points of the speech’s topsoil because she has an emotional connection with the issue. The President stated, or implied, that there will be a move for everyone to have health insurance, regardless, in the same fashion as the states that already require auto insurance coverage for licensure. Her parents are of such poor health that they can neither receive coverage nor afford health insurance. I felt for her cynicism because I too would certainly feel as she does. Affordability is the critical point of contention because of her experience, and she won’t support the plan, accordingly.
I declared sympathy and assured her that there was a solution somewhere. I thought hard, though, about sharing my experience with coverage. I relented, but thought harder. This issue, between us, is not a battle for worst story, it is simplicity in stories. The plainness of coverage lies in the terrible ends that have befallen our families. My friend’s family falls in and out of debt and an elementary school student had to attend the wake of a sibling because of something changeable, malleable: health insurance.
Both are terrible stories. I wouldn’t wish either of them on enemies of the state, but simply put, what is worse, debt or death?

I wasn't hungry, but if I don't eat, I'll waste away

There is a all-purpose van in my way. Between gyros, muffins, and hot dogs, I pick the latter.
“Do you guys have hot dogs, already?” I meant to say still. They run out at midday.
He nods and turns around. This white van is run by two tanned, baseball cap businessmen. A loud, tall man, gawking and thinning, walks next to me and yells at the men. “What do you got for 75 cents?!”
Scanning, “Coffee or tea is 75 cents, man,” I say meekly.
“Yo! Whattaya got for 75 cent?!” “A bagel or a roll,” adding few decibels.
“Thanks, man,” he says. A couple levels beneath a yell now, “I want a bagel!”
“Cream cheese?” one of the businessmen asks.
“Yeah, cream cheese.” He’s eyeing the situation wildly. The other owner of the van is arranging my hot dog.”
“That’ll be $1.25,” the vendor says to the agitated man.
“What?! This guy said it was 75 cents!” I’m in this now.
“It says 75 cents on the menu,” I argue.
“That’s plain. With cream cheese it’s $1.25.”
“Shit, man,” downtrodden. He turns to me, “can you spare some, man?”
I stopped giving a couple weeks ago. I have a budget and I scrounged for cereal last month. “I can’t give now,” I say.

He’s disappointed in me. He’s disappointed in everyone who doesn’t give. “Nah, man.”
“It’s on me, says the vendor. “What kind do you want? Raisin? Plain? Cheese?”
“Raisin, man.”
I pay for my hot dog and pick up to leave. The man looking for some change says, “I thought you were a brother for a brother for a brother.”
What can I say to this? What can anyone say to this axe-wound? “I just can’t give today.”

“Nah, man,” he says, dropping his cents in the hand of the vendor and ambling away with wild eyes still facing me. He speaks slowly, “I thought you were a Brother for a Brother… for a brother.”

"Well, here's the lobby. You would be spending most of your time in here, or in the kitchen, depending." She was a long-haired, stout, middle-aged woman and looked and spoke like she had a warm, loving family at home. She probably had an old, comfortable chair near her front door in which she sat with a calico cat that has a French name. She smelled of lilac. "You are familiar with Word and Excel, right?"

"Yeah, I've used both," I answered.

"Great! Well that will help you as you..." Her voice trailed off as she led me to a white, key-guarded doorway. "Because of confidentiality and HIPAA regs, I can't show you the hallways or the living quarters, but if you decide to work here, you will of course see them. You can take a peak, if you like. I don't see anything wrong with that." I maneuvered to the window. The hallway lacked vibrance, but was full of stapled-down rugs and glued pottery. It looked homey.

"I'll lead you down to the storage room, now." We walked back to the lobby and took a left turn to a well-lit hallway with a key-guarded doorway at the end and an opening on the right to the kitchen. As we passed, we heard an old voice,

"Oh, no, not this one. Hmm."

"Who is that?" I asked, stopping and stepping back to the doorway.

"Who is who?" She responded.

"There is a man in the kitchen. He didn't sound like a worker."

"Klaus? Are you talking about Klaus?" She walked to the opening and we looked onward. The man slowly moved three spice jars to a large array set on a counter and grabbed three more spice jars from a cabinet. He unscrewed one of the jars and wafted it. He looked concerned and looked at the label. "Oh no, I don't like this one."

In an even tone, she said, "Klaus is a patient here."

I was puzzled. "Why is he allowed to be out here? I don't mean to sound alarmed or rude, but the most of the doors are key-guarded and locked."

She was quieter, "Klaus is a long-term, Alzheimer's patient. It has become part of his routine, for about a year now, to come into the kitchen and sniff the spices for about half an hour.

"He doesn't remember which ones he likes or not."

"I don't think I would like to work here. I'm sorry for wasting your time." I left.

Of(f) myself

Suicide is such a touchy subject.
"I want into heaven," one could say. Sure that's fine. You live your whole life with that goal in mind and, before you sin (in Spanish, sin means 'without') again, you could die and go straight to heaven.
Uh, oh. You have to wait for death the come over you!
Too bad, because I'm pretty sure angel wings would be a cute accessory with your new haircut.

"I don't want to live!" many have said. Well, quit then, you drab drag.
My coattails only have so much room.

I think the Suicide Hotline is a wonderful idea. When they off themselves, does someone fired?
What's the failure policy of the last line of defense against a lifeless corpse?

Maybe Christ was a idealistic scientist, ahead of his time, like Newton.
Or maybe he was an alchemist.
How many of his superpowers were not listed in the Bible?