T.Ruby

PATruby.com

2010-08-10T13:40:00.002-04:00

lets hope the Globe stays alive.

2009-05-04T08:51:00.006-04:00

It's possible The Boston Globe will announce that it's shutting down operations today, which of course would be very sad. However, as soon as I read that, I found this cartoon (click for larger):

from here.

Where the Wild Things Are!

2009-03-26T09:59:00.001-04:00

I have to wait until October for this?!

oh. em. jee.

2009-02-20T13:43:00.002-05:00

Wow. Everything in that is amazing. Unfortunately, Bango tore his ACL, and didn't mean to go through the hoop at all, which is kind of surprising to me.

Story here.

Griffey!

2009-02-19T18:41:00.002-05:00

Griffey Jr. is heading back to Seattle, and that's cause for celebration. Even though living in Boston means I'll get to see about 6 Mariners games this season, it's still gonna be nice to see that sweet swing in blue and white. After the awful season Seattle had (Mariners, Seahawks, Huskies were all terrible. Oh, and the Sonics became the Oklahoma City Thunder), this is good news for the city's sports situation, even if he has lost a step (or ten). Ultimately, people will be very very happy to see him there.

Because I'm Bored and John Tesh is Funny

2009-02-12T11:35:00.001-05:00

Zzzzz

2009-02-04T13:27:00.004-05:00

I am tired at work today, and I wanted to take a nap during my lunch break. This school sucks as far as any kind of campus space goes. I miss sleeping here:

which is inside here:

Inauguration.

2009-01-21T20:08:00.003-05:00

There isn't much to be said about the inauguration of Barack Obama that hasn't already been said, so I will try not to say much. Yes, I am proud of our country, and I am hopeful for the future. More than anything, I love the way Obama turned his inaugural speech - a time when most gathered in the capital to celebrate - into a call for action, sacrifice, and selflessness. Regardless of any one person's religious beliefs or political affiliation, answering that call should make the world a better place. I will try to answer that call myself, somehow.

For full text, audio, and video of Mr. Obama's speech, click here! You can also find pretty much any great American speech here.

Barack and Michelle Obama as King and Queen of the biggest and best prom ever. For some reason I imagine there was punch and Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" involved here.

In my opinion, aside from his final press conference, W. has been rather gracious in his departure from the White House.

Craig Robinson, Michelle's brother and Oregon State University men's basketball coach, represented the Beavers again with a nice orange and black scarf.

You can take da boy out da island, but you can't take da island out da boy.

Boston.com's Big Picture has great, high-resolution pictures from the inauguration. This really says more than any pundit, talking head, or writer could ever say.

*1st photo: Susan Walsh, AP
**2nd photo: Jason Reed, Reuters

Football Championship Weekend!

2009-01-16T13:58:00.004-05:00

This is is the first time I'm making picks for the NFL's conference championship games. Why? Because why the frick not? Before I do that though, I'd like to share a fantastic clip from Jeopardy.

Anyways, here goes.
Baltimore Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers: This one's easy, I'm going with the Ravens. Forget all the talk about the Steelers' defense and the Ravens have no running game and all that garbage. That's all too technical for me. I'm going with the Ravens because they're named after Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven," since he kinda lived there and all that. (A nice subplot to this is that someone from Pittsburgh wants to exhume Poe's body and move him from Baltimore to Pitt, which, in my opinion, is total BS). Not only do they have a raven mascot, they have three ravens mascots, and they're named Edgar, Allan, and Poe! Also, they have a marching band: The Marching Ravens! Now that's cool, because more NFL teams should have marching bands (I guess the Washington Redskins have one too). It's also cool because the band is older than the actual football team! So yeah, I'm picking the Ravens for all the wordnerdy and bandgeeky reasons. Plus Ed Reed will keep the Steelers passes in front of him which means they won't be able to stretch the field, Pitt can run all they want but even if that happens, the Ravens won't give up much in the redzone.

Philadelphia Eagles at Arizona Cardinals: Eagles. For no other reason than Arizona in the Super Bowl = boring. Also, if the Phillies won the World Series and the Eagles can win the Super Bowl, maybe Boston will shutup about the Red Sox, Patriots, and Celtics owning the major sports.

Land of Ports, Land of More

2009-01-13T20:25:00.012-05:00

It's winter for sure, and Boston has pretty much looked like this going on about a month now. It's snowy, slushy, icy, and cold as hell. While I admit, it's kind of a pain in the ass having to walk over piles of ice and snow everywhere, I kinda like it. I've always liked winter and cold weather, probably because of moving from Hawaii to Seattle when I was nine and suddenly being able to see my breath in clouds of smoke. Before that, breath-clouds were to me like snow, a romantic impossibility that happened only in movies or cold weather football games (not only did we not have cold weather in Hawaii, but no, we did not have professional football, and no the Pro Bowl doesn't count). Anyway, so I like the cold weather. I like the tingly shivery feeling of holding my coat closed. I like the way my face feels in the cold, and the way it feels when it warms up indoors. I like getting into a warm bed after a cold day. It's all nice. I like Boston because really, it doesn't get this cold in the Pacific Northwest; even though it did snow before and during our trip to Washington and Oregon (the snow in Seattle was nothing compared the amount of snow we got here in Boston). That being said, I've been thinking a lot about Portland. Rachel and I want to move back to Oregon and to Portland whenever we finish school and the other stuff we have going on out here.

That's Moreland Hall up there, home of the English Department at Oregon State University (Go Beavs!), and a picture taken near a covered bridge in Corvallis. Yesterday I wrote about Powell's City of Books over on the Vernacular Blog, and that got me started wanting to go back to The Land of Ports. Then Rachel and I started looking at houses in Portland, and that of course made me want to go back even more. Who cares if buying a house is pretty much impossible right now? That doesn't make me miss Oregon any less. The two years I spent in Corvallis were pretty damn fantastic. Sure, Hawaii is a nice place to visit, Seattle is a beautiful city, and I like Boston a lot, but those two years in Oregon are the only time a place has really made me feel truly and totally at home.

New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-08T19:48:00.004-05:00

Every year around this time I get the itch to shave my head. It's a weird sort of physical manifestation of a clean start. I think I'll try to hold off this year, even though my hair always feels uncontrollable no matter what it's doing. It's been a few years since I've made any New Year's Resolutions, mainly because I think they're pretty stupid, but who cares right? Any opportunity to improve yourself seems like a good thing. So, here are my New Year's Resolutions:

- 500 words a day. At least. I don't write nearly as much as I should. I've tried putting time stamps on tasks like this before (30 minutes of writing every day!) and it always fails. 500 words seems less intimidating than 30 minutes, probably because I know what 500 words looks like.

- Be more disciplined. That's pretty broad and vague, and that's the way I like it. It's meant to encompass a lot of things. Don't eat that extra cookie. Procrastinate less. Focus on getting shit done. Be cleaner. Organized. The lack of specificity, I think, will help me stay conscious of it 24/7.

- More creative outlets. I haven't painted in a few years, even though I love the feeling it gives me. I've always felt that I wasn't that talented or creative, which made me stop in the first place. But now I feel like, who cares? Just do it, right. Especially now that Rachel and I have this pretty awesome apartment set up. That creates the opportunity for creative outlets to be put to practical (and not-so practical use). Also, do more photography. I bought that fancy schmancy camera because I wanted a fancy camera to play with. I made a poster for our bedroom, which has been framed and has yet to be hanged. More of that stuff!

- Hang that poster.

- Read more. Sure, I probably read a lot, but never enough. I can think of many hours that could have been spent reading instead of watching TV or sleeping or something. This probably falls into that discipline thing, but my bookshelf tells me to focus specifically on that. To start off, I bought the lotsa books for my novel class and also spent the $50 Powells giftcard on some books that have been sitting on my wishlist far too long.

- Say "Why not?" more often. I'm pretty damned good at finding reasons to not do something. That's something I'd like to change for sure. Instead, I'd like to be able to just jump into action, whatever it is. That sounds pretty awesome to me.

So, we'll see where I am a year from now.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T19:32:00.003-05:00

From National Geographic Photo of the Day, which is almost always amazing.

Covers of the Week

2008-12-19T11:46:00.009-05:00

Here are the covers of this week!

First is 1940 by Jay Neugeboren, second is Peace by Richard Bausch. If I'm not mistaken, they're both World War II era novels. I don't know too much about them; I've never heard of either writer and I didn't read the flap copy when we got them in the library. They're not extra fancy, but they are striking images, as well as simple and effective designs.

The New Yorker's "Minimalist Christmas" cover which features Christmas colored Mondrian Squares gets an honorable mention, mainly because Mondrian Squares always make me happy for some silly reason.

Sneezing Panda!

2008-12-19T09:33:00.002-05:00

Because why not?

I have watched this video over and over and cannot stop laughing. I love the huge panda looking down incredulously at baby panda.

Trent Reznor Kicks Ass (Still)

2008-12-16T11:33:00.003-05:00

Honestly, I haven't listened to Nine Inch Nails since The Fragile, but I've always been impressed with Trent Reznor's music. To prove how oblivious I've been to new music for the past forever, I'll just say I was shocked to find that NIN has released approximately eleventy-billion albums since The Fragile. Enough babbling. I stumbled across this interview with Trent Reznor, which included this gem of a quote:

They’re full of bullshit. They don’t care about music; all they care about is selling little plastic discs and that’s it. They don’t care if it’s timeless art that’s being put out, as long as they sell that disc—even if it means you wearing your pants backward or whatever it might be. That’s all that matters to them.

I love this for a lot of reasons. First of all, because it's true. It's also nice to see someone who has the power to take even a little bit of control away from the behemoth corporations. Lastly, because even though he's talking about record labels, the same can be said of the publishing industry. I highly recommend reading that interview, so you can read Trent Reznor talk about how nerdy he is and encourage you to pirate his DVD.

Cover of the Week!

2008-12-05T13:38:00.009-05:00

This is probably going to be harder than I thought, since I haven't seen a whole lot of cool covers again this week. I'll blame it on another short week though. That being said, I'm still giving you two covers of the week. I know, nonsense!

First is McSweeney's #29, because well, it's pretty, as McSweeney's usually is. Second is The New Yorker again, because dogs are cute and it's funny and they're getting a puppy and if I need to explain why I think it's funny then what the F.

Update! Apparently, I jumped the gun on this post. I just got the daily load of mags and found this gem:

Come on! Even if that picture isn't photoshopped and that really is his body, it's still fucking ridiculous looking.

Cigarette Books

2008-12-04T16:50:00.003-05:00

I haven't had a cigarette in a few years, but still, these are pretty damn sweet if you ask me.

That's just good design by Tank Books!

Gold Cadillac?

2008-12-04T09:05:00.004-05:00

If you've never seen Exploding Dog, I suggest you click on that link and blow off any kind of productivity you may have planned.

Thanksgiving!

2008-11-26T11:29:00.010-05:00

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, so in the spirit of the holiday, I'm going to go ahead and do a short list of stuff I'm thankful for.

1: The Internet- Of course! Who could've guessed we'd have this much access to information about anything and everything? Sure the internet allows us to remain connected to our family and friends and all that, but the true genius of the internet is stuff like puppy webcams (You gotta click that, for serious). That and being able to watch any Michael Jackson video whenever you want.

2: Dinosaurs- Just because.

3: The Great Gatsby- Seriously, I think more of my outlook has been shaped by this book than I could have imagined. Every time I see these great big, old New England houses here, I'm reminded of the references and characterizations of new/old money in the novel. Plus, it has that amazing ability to envelope you within it, that quality that all really good writing has to provide that comfort of simply knowing the next word, phrase, sentence, and so on will be perfectly placed. (Joyce's "The Dead" also does this, probably more so).

4: Civil War week!- Yep. This Saturday is the Civil War game between University of Oregon and Oregon State University. Even when I went to OSU, I wasn't that into the Civil War rivalry, but then some middle-aged lady with UO flags on her car gave me the finger on I-5 after seeing my OSU hat. Since then I've been pretty into it, yep. Not to mention, OSU wins and the Beavers go to the Rose Bowl! GO BEAVS!

5: Them people that love me- Of course. This is a no brainer. But my parents fly into Boston today, and Rachel and I will be cooking for them, cause they're awesome parents. Rachel is the awesomest girl in the history of everything. All my friends and family, believe it or not, I love you all.

LIFE photo archive

2008-11-24T11:35:00.005-05:00

In an attempt to make me totally unproductive, Google has made the LIFE photo archive available via Google's image search. Go to this page to search the archives. Pretty much every picture there is amazing. I've spent a good portion of my morning browsing through the photos, but this is one of the most fantastic pictures I've found so far.

The photo's caption reads: Jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald performing at "Mr. Kelly's" nightclub w. audience dimly visible in bkgrd. I found it while looking for pictures of F. Scott Fitzgerald, of which I found many. I'm sure it's only one of many that will eventually find it's way onto this site.

Cover of the Week!

2008-11-22T13:54:00.003-05:00

My plan to do a weekly Friday post on the best covers from my librarianizing failed this week because there was a serious lack in well-designed magazines and books to come across my desk. Sad. So in an attempt to keep this thing going, I'll just point out some cool new hardcover books.

These purty things are designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith for Penguin books. More info on the awesome Book Design Review blog, and more pictures on Penguin's flickr site.

Everything's Amazing, Nobody's Happy.

2008-11-19T16:40:00.002-05:00

Mostly the barrage of videos is a result of my discovering Fark.com's video links.

Of course a comedian can provide some perspective.

Animaniacs!

2008-11-19T13:29:00.002-05:00

Rachel and I have recently been watching a few episodes of Animaniacs. Yeah! I remembered their song with 50 states and capitals and the one with the nations of the world. However, I didn't remember this until I came across it today after a bit of boredom induced internetting. I love these silly educational songs, but the end of this song was a bit surprising to me.

Very educational!

Stand by Me!

2008-11-18T18:57:00.002-05:00

Because sometimes you just need a little pick me up, right?

from www.playingforchange.com

Writing Sucks. Nike Too. Sorta.

2008-11-16T14:47:00.010-05:00

I should be reading and writing for class right now, but somehow my short-short story class has managed to suck out the pleasure of writing. Wah wah wah.

On an entirely different note. I can't stand Nike. Part of it has to do with the amazing prices Nike charges for just about everything. Another part of it is Nike's desire to make EVERYTHING ugly (for example, their college basketball Unis, which they've dubbed "System of Dress"). However, Nike still does a few things that bring me small pleasure. One of those wonderful things is continuing to make University of Oregon look ridiculous.

This is UO's latest uniform combination, and yes, those are wings. I'll admit, I kinda like the black helmets, but really, wings? At least it looks like one of those guys liked them.

The other thing I like? This commercial.

Woo! That's good storytelling.

Cover of the Week! New Yorker!

2008-11-14T11:41:00.007-05:00

I've written before about my love for good cover design, so I have to admit I have been very pleased by this week's cover of The New Yorker. With every other magazine plastering giant photos of Mr.Obama's face on their covers, I appreciate the more minimalist approach here. That's just a solid piece of artwork with more than a touch of timelessness, an homage to the past while celebrating the hope for the future. The image and effect is haunting in a good way, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. Also, The New Yorker has made the full issue available online HERE! I especially recommend James Wood's close reading of Obama's victory speech, in which he says Nov. 4 was "a very good night for the English language."

On a different note, I like this idea of a "Cover of the Week." Maybe I'll make this a recurring Friday thing, finding the best book or magazine covers I come across during my week of librarianerizing.

Thoughts on the Election

2008-11-09T13:01:00.004-05:00

I said I would write more once the election passed, so here I go. I can't, however, let the election pass without saying anything about it. I voted for Barack Obama, so needless to say I was very pleased with the results. What I didn't expect was such a personal, emotional response. Maybe I didn't want to think forward to what an Obama victory would mean as a way of shielding myself from the possibility of a letdown. Obviously that didn't happen.

I watched the election results at home with Rachel. A friend of mine had mentioned the possibility of an election party, and for awhile I thought that could be fun, but in the end I was more than happy to be at home with Rachel. The emotional response of watching normally composed pundits transition into giddy, rosy-goggled rhetoric, the tears of Jesse Jackson, and the concession speech/return of the real John McCain who I wish had shown up at the beginning of the campaign run, it seemed that with these and all the other images and words of election night, and the crescendo of Obama's victory speech, made me and everyone else feel their emotions more acutely. After thinking about the multiple meanings behind Obama's election (I say thinking because I'd be lying if I said I have fully realized or understood what this all means), I was sure that I wanted to be nowhere else than with her.

Tears have been everywhere following the election. They showed up in the giant Grant Park victory party, on the TV screens, in living rooms, on the trains to work. As I said, I can't begin to explain what this all really means, but I can say that Obama's election has forced me to imagine a different world. While there may not be any tangible change yet - George Bush is still president, our economy still sucks, plus a never-ending list - there has been an emotional shift. Possibility is a reality. Yes, children will probably believe they can become anything they want. Yes, people working off student loans (like myself) might fully understand what they are working for.

I look forward to a Barack Obama presidency not with rosy-eyes or believing that he'll fix the whole world. I do however, believe he will be a good president and a great role model. What we have in him is a man who doesn't conform to stereotypes. A wonderful role model as a father, husband, and person. My complaint about the talking heads' discussions of Obama is that they too often jumped to the importance of electing a black man while neglecting to note that America elected a man that just happens to be black. For all the people for whom the issues trumped Obama's race, there are all the other people for whom Obama's race never entered the discussion.

I look forward to a Barack Obama presidency because to me, he has proven his ability to be a leader through his writing, his thinking, and his understanding of the law. During the debates with Hillary Clinton and John McCain, his willingness to say "That's the right answer" to Clinton and "John is absolutely correct" illustrates a simple, seemingly overlooked fact: that he was listening. Speaking of why his skill as a writer/orator are important, Michael Chabon said it best:

Ultimately words were all we had; that writing and oratory, argument and persuasion, were the root of democracy; that words can kill, or save us; something along those lines. "You can only say what you can first imagine," as I heard Tobias Wolff (the short-story master, not the Obama campaign adviser) explain to a group of people at an Obama fund-raiser. It was a mark of Obama's fitness to lead, to me at least, that he possessed sufficient natural reserves of imagination to kick oratorical ass.

I believe in him simply because of his speech, "A More Perfect Union," regarding Jeremiah Wright and racism in America. I have listened to this speech over and over for the past few days or weeks, and it is impressive in so many ways. For everyone who says he's all style and no substance, I suggest listening to the speech again and notice the style is the substance. Unlike most politicians, he took that opportunity to raise the dialogue about racism in the country, asking people to recognize truths they may have been reluctant to face. He didn't force you to do anything, he asked you, the same thing he's been doing throughout his run and in his victory speech. It also showed his status as a constitutional scholar. He understands the law, its changes, and its legal and social ramifications. Listen to the speech here.

Lastly, and maybe most importantly, I believe in him because of of the campaign infrastructure he built. His campaign resembles a more modern, glorified version of the grassroots NAACP structure, a structure that relied on people getting involved, being selfless, and caring about a greater good. This carried Barack Obama to victory the same way it carried the civil rights movement. This is important because it gave power to the people, and now he must serve the people because, should he fuck up, the people have the power to tear him down as quickly as they built him up.

**
All of this hope for a new future of possibility is unfortunately tainted by the fact that three states voted to ban gay-marriage, and another state passed a law banning unmarried couples from adopting children under the knowledge that same-sex couple cannot marry. That's right, in 2008, on the same day a country elected a black man, some of those same people voted to revoke rights from a group of people.

Thriller!

2008-10-31T12:29:00.005-04:00

Happy Halloween everyone! I love Halloween because people dress and do fun stuff. Occasionally people pass on the "Slutty (fill in the blank)" costumes and do something creative too. Anyway, these "Thriller" videos are my small bloggy celebration of Halloween. Now, anytime you might be reminded of how absolutely crazy MJ is now, remember, he made "Thriller." (Dave Chappelle's "Thriller Defense" should apply to everything).

Awhile ago, this video showed up on the internet:

Now this, a video of some dude recording an acapella version of "Thriller":

found on Geekologie.

And of course, the original is online here!!!

Update! Apparently the Huffington Post did the same thing with some other videos. Click here to see!

Monkey!

2008-10-29T15:26:00.009-04:00

This is why Shorpy is awesome.

And you can order prints! Rachel and I have this poster in our apartment.

Pause

2008-10-07T18:36:00.002-04:00

Yes, I haven't written here in awhile, and I keep saying I'll be back, sometime. I'm sure I realized it before, but maybe never really admitted it until I read my friend Andrew's blog post: I don't want to write here because all that's going on is the election. At work, we keep receiving books about the 24 hour news cycles and the media's role in politics/elections and how they've clogged the channel that used to bring people actual information. Anyway, I expect I'll write a lot more in a month. Now that is hard to believe: election day is less that one month away. Yes, I am taking the election seriously and attempt to keep myself informed, but I'm burnt out. I'm sure a lot of people are too. Plus, it gets a lot harder to take this whole thing seriously when only one party seems to be think this election deserves to be treated as the significant, historical event that it is. The whole situation is depressing, and at times I feel as if I'm teetering on the edge of breakdown.

That being said, there are happier things going on, like Nina Katchadourian's sorted books.

Pirate Day, Funny Ads, Nice Pictures

2008-09-19T14:33:00.004-04:00

Today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Pirates are cool and all, but I'm not celebrating because pirates have been ruined for me ever since I heard the lady who started Talk Like A Pirate Day tell my lit. class about how she wanted to be present for her husband's vasectomy because she thought he and the male doctor would simply go into the O.R. and joke about the fast one they pulled on the old ball and chain. Those were her words.

So instead, I'll just show you something I found funny. Energizer (the battery company) has a sense of humor, and they're not afraid to show it in this ad.

More of these funny funny things can be seen here.

Also, if you like looking at pretty pictures, check out Boston.com's Big Picture.

Absent

2008-09-17T17:32:00.002-04:00

I haven't been writing here much, but I will soon. In the meantime, enjoy this:

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

More cool stuff here.

New Books

2008-09-02T20:24:00.002-04:00

Marilynne Robinson's new book, Home was released today. Buy it. Buy it because Robinson can write, because her last novel Gilead nabbed her a Pulitzer, because her novel before that, Housekeeping, was just as good, and because damnit you should be reading good books.

Rachel and I were talking about this trend in people not reading anymore, but when we take the train anywhere, people are packed like sardines with their ipods in their earholes and books in front of their eyeholes. This is just another reason cities should have better mass-transit (coughSeattlecough): reduce traffic, reduce pollution, create jobs (?), lotsa other stuff, oh, and people might read a little bit. Maybe that's just a side-effect of all the schools here in Bostonia, but anyone who's been to college will tell you going to school doesn't necessarily make you a reader.

Also, issue #28 of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern was released a week or so ago, with eight tiny, separate books that fit together to make two gorgeous pictures. The best part: each book contains an illustrated fable. This only makes me want a nice copy of Aesop's Fables even more.

My Thoughts on Summer in Boston

2008-08-20T15:06:00.003-04:00

Boston is much prettier when it's covered in snow. It's also smells better. Seriously, when it's sunny, Boston Common smells like shit.

Neat Books!

2008-08-18T19:59:00.006-04:00

Awhile ago I wrote about the Penguin Classics deluxe edition of Kafka's Metamorphosis. Well I've just finisihed the Penguin Classics version of Candide, and I'll say that it trumps Metamorphosis in book illustration and design. (I won't compare the translations or the stories themselves, because really, I just don't want to.) This picture doesn't show the nice detail of gold leaf in the center of the cover, and even though you can see the cartoon strip of the story's plot, you can't see nice little cast of characters on the inside flap. My favorite part of the cover though, is the very back, which reads "The Satirical Scourge of 1759 - Now in Paperback!" around a stick figure of jolly old Candide. Rachel picked up One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which, with its foreword by Chuck Palahniuk and illustrations by Joe Sacco, paired with Ken Kesey's novel, is a neat sort of trifecta of Oregonians. I support that. That puts the count of these Penguin editions up to three in the Rachel-Patrick household, and that number may be on the rise soon.

Library Book: The Art of the American Snapshot

2008-08-12T12:05:00.006-04:00

It's been awhile, but that's not my fault. Blame it on the library not ordering many interesting books. We did, however, just receive The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888-1978. I'm sure I've said before that I like pretty pictures, and of course this book is full of them. The best part about this book is what makes it different from most other photography books: like the title says, these photos are snapshots. It's not full of artsy pictures from pro photographers, but instead it shows normal people taking pictures of themselves, their friends, and their families, just like everyone on Facebook and Flickr now. The chapters are broken down by decades, and you can see the cultures changing simply by looking back at these pictures. You'll see it in the clothes the people wear in the photos, and it's even as if you can see the attitudes changing as time progresses. You'll see a strange sense of discomfort mixed in with the humor of the 1950s, like two women sunbathing with gasmasks on. Then in the 1960s it seems that discomfort is gone, and, we are greeted by someone's grandmother enjoying her birthday cake with a smile and a monolithic middle-finger. Worth checking out for its cultural eyewitness factor and, of course, lots of pretty pictures.

This Just In...

2008-08-11T10:28:00.003-04:00

American politics has been reduced to a VH1-esque top ten countdown. Today's headline: 7 worrisome signs for Obama. Basically Gleen Thrush's story tells us that there's a presidential election race between Barack Obama and John McCain, in case you didn't know. Has our OCDish quest for knowledge become so bad that we needed someone to tell us what we already know?

Lazy Weekend

2008-08-10T20:04:00.010-04:00

I finally got myself the digital SLR I've been wanting for so long, but I haven't really had much time to play with it. I have however, taken some pictures around the house and whatnot (I also used it at a baseball museum exhibit, but I'll spare you those pictures). Anyway, it being a Lazy Sunday and all, I figured I'd take a few pictures. Turns out today was a pretty good day for that.

Last weekend Rachel and I went to a crazy antique mall, where we found a first edition of Pearl S. Buck's The Patriot, a crazy set of plates and teacups with triangles on them, and these literary lowball glasses.

Those are great, and they also go with these crazy lowball glasses.

There is something nice about having glasses like this on the rare occasion I need some whiskey to aide my writing.

Rachel cut some flowers and colorfied our kitchen.

The crazy part about today is that it was a beautiful clear day for most of the day, and then later it turned into a beautiful thunderstormy day. I love our back porch, the view of the houses and clouds it provides, and the funny little birdhouse Rachel and I got. Well, I was waiting for some birds to come visit our little house, and even though I scared them all away, I got some nice pictures of what is becoming a normal day in this summer.

Early in the day.

And late in the day.

In Oregon and Washington I joked that the weather there was bipolar, but seriously, this is getting crazy here. Sunny and 75 one minute, lightning, thunder, and rain the next. Although, lightning storms are pretty cool.

Olympics in China

2008-08-08T18:08:00.010-04:00

I've never been excited about the Olympics, not that I can remember. What I do remember though, is Greg Louganis hitting his head on the diving board in 1988. The reason I saw that is because my family was gathered in my Auntie Helen's living room watching those Olympics. I may have been too young to realize it then, but now it's clear to me that the Olympics then were an Event, capital E. Sure, I saw Kerri Strug carried off with a busted ankle in 1996, but even then it was because some cousins were at my house and had monopolized the TV. Since then, the Winter and Summer games have passed with very little notice. Really the only news to me was that U.S. Men's Basketball actually had some competition and Shaun White started kicking snow and skateboarding ass the way we all expected him to. Unfortunately, I didn't see Derek Redmond helped across the finish line by his father until VISA chopped it into marketing material.
(Sorry about the video quality, but it was the only one I could find without Creed music). If you can watch that without tearing up even a little, you're probably dead inside.

For some reason though, I'm pretty excited about these Olympics (even though NBC will decide which sports we want to watch), and it's not just because the U.S. Olympic team is looking rather dapper for the opening ceremony (which they do). There really is a simple explanation for my interest (and a bunch of other people's too): these Olympics are in China. As many people have written, maybe it's right that the Olympics in China feels so wrong. Also, as much as I'm getting sick of ESPN and it's barrage of "news," ESPN page 2 writer Jim Caple's article about the Beijing Olympics points out that the Summer Games could and should put China's faults into the world spotlight. To be sure, a lot of other writers have made the same claim, but I linked Caple's story because of this quote:

And not to sound like an apologist for China's government, but before we get too high and mighty with our moralizing, we should pause to look in the mirror. Yes, China's policies in Tibet and Darfur are contemptuous. Then again, there are many U.S. policies and actions that draw international ire, as well.

While that isn't the most damning critique of some current U.S. policies, this was one of the few articles I found that didn't seem to blast China and praise the U.S. He does expand on it, but I'll let you read it for yourself if you want, and I think you should. I don't know if it's possible, but there is something about the controversy about these games that has me feeling the world might witness another Tommie Smith moment, a moment where an athlete or athletes uses the world spotlight to take a stand and send a political message. Of course I'll watch for the sports, because in all sports, anything can happen, but I'll also be hoping to see someone send their message.

Because Writing is About "I"

2008-08-04T20:01:00.000-04:00

The August 3 edition of the New York Times magazine's "On Language" section featured a story titled "Me, Myself and I," by Caroline Winter. Winter's story is interesting because honestly, how often have you thought about the reason we capitalize this one letter? She points out "There’s no grammatical reason for doing so, and oddly enough, the majuscule 'I' appears only in English*," and "the solitary 'I' towers above 'he,' 'she,' 'it' and the royal 'we.'” Of course she goes on to explain that whole transition from spoken language to a written form and those silly Old and Middle English times where really anything passed for written language. She even throws in some sociological and political affects of the capital "I." Personally, I found the article interesting when Winter hits on the narcissistic value of the monolithic "I," because the act of writing is in itself a pretty self-centered act. I won't argue that writing can never be selfless, but I tend to agree with Margaret Atwood's claim that "all writing of the narrative kind, and perhaps all writing, is motivated, deep down, by a fear of and a fascination with mortality." So yes, for me, writing is an almost entirely selfish act, almost, because I want of that weird haunt of mortality and the desire to have something outlast my days. And narcissistic too, because maybe I believe that you really wanted to read this.

*I could be wrong, but I think Winter may have neglected the Russian Language, who I think does capitalize their form of "I."

x-posted at Vernacular.

A Moment of Musical and Lyrical Genius

2008-07-30T15:38:00.003-04:00

My "Prince" Pandora station is pretty awesome. It gives me basic nonstop Prince, Michael Jackson, and Marvin Gaye. Then it throws in Terence Trent D'Arby, which isn't so bad, and "Bad Mamma Jamma," which even without its funkitude is pretty good for a much needed laugh, since I basically listen to Pandora at work. Well today my Prince station opened up my world to the lyrical stylings of T-Pain. Here's a sample from the song it played, "Bartender."

Ooooh, she made us drinks, to drink
We drunk 'em, Got drunk
And then I think she thinks I'm cool
She gave me a wink, I winked back
And then I think that, we headed out something proper like...

I like the bartender
Ooooh, If you're lookin' for me
I'm at the bar with her

So this song has probably been out for awhile, and I'm just showing how out of touch I am. I'll have to admit though, while I normally reject a song I don't like as soon as possible, I did decide to listen to the whole song before I gave it the "thumb down of death." There was too much potential for hilarity, and it didn't disappoint.

On a totally unrelated but sort of related note - yeah I know, I'm tired ok - there are the likes of Jurassic 5 who, way back when, gave out grammar lessons while proclaiming their own hip-hoppitude. As "Quality Control" goes, J5 is "the most celebrated for connecting it (Word!) Like verb subject to the predicate." The song even goes on to say, "You gots to get up on your vocab, you gots to have vocab.
Letters makes words, and sentences makes paragraphs."

Who says rappers don't care about the kids. He's practically telling kids to read! Well, that's how I'll choose to see it anyway.

Colorful Library

2008-07-22T13:28:00.006-04:00

Part of my job includes sometimes processing books, which involves putting on those pesky call number labels which are just kind of ugly. In true nerdy form, I sometimes feel like I'm defacing books when I put the call numbers on. I will however, admit that sometimes I really don't care, like when I'm putting labels on books where I'd just like to cover up the whole book (The Uncommon Wisdom of Oprah Winfrey). Anyways, this can get pretty boring at times. One thing that could help is if we started putting call numbers on books this way:

Ok, well, maybe my job wouldn't be a whole lot more fun, but the end product would be much more aesthetically pleasing right? More pictures and info here - Yanko Design: Don't Judge a Book By Its Color.

How Long Until "Burn Notice" Goes Up In Flames?

2008-07-10T13:21:00.010-04:00

While eating lunch at Emerson's cafe, facing the window and looking out on the sidewalk, I noticed a guy standing in an empty parking spot. He dismissed three cars attempting to parallel park there in less than 5 minutes. My initial thought was, "Ok, this is probably one of the many Emerson students who need to drop off video, audio, or other production equipment." It happens enough to expect that. So when a white van pulls up and 5 girls and 2 guys wearing rollerskates jump out, a little confused. They stand around, handing out frisbees, blocking the sidewalk, pretending it's not already difficult to move in front of the Emerson College buildings. When a blind man tried to walk past them, you would have thought they were the idiots who couldn't see a thing. So what's this all about, you ask? Burn Notice. Now, I'm not oblivious to current "creative" advertising methods, and I'm not any kind of prude - I think women can go ahead and dress how they want - but isn't there some kind of creeper-factor to have a bunch of girls who aren't old enough to vote rolling around in Daisy Dukes and tube-tops, carrying huge bags of frisbees to give away with "Burn Notice" plastered all over everything? And with guys who at least appear 10 years older? And all this in the name of Burn Notice?

You might be saying to yourself, "But that's Don Johnson from Miami Vice," and you would be correct. Judging from the previews, commercials, and print ads I've been assaulted with since "Mr.Burn Notice" began wearing summer suits, the only difference is the replacement of Tubbs (pictured) with some generic looking female...um...partner? If you can't tell, all these Burn Notice advertisements have only made me want to watch Miami Vice.

Back to School & The Principles of Uncertainty

2008-07-08T23:49:00.006-04:00

Yesterday I had my first class of my summer term. I should have definitely have expected to have story collections to read along with the workshop stories, but I didn't, and there will definitely be some story collections to read. Unfortunately, this means an even bigger hindrance to my slow trudge through The Brothers Karamazov. I'm a slow reader, and The Bros K proved to be an even slower read than usual because it forced me to read differently. I've already gone on about Mr. Dostoyevsky's wonderful work longer than I planned.

The real focus of this post was supposed to be this: Maira Kalman's The Principles of Uncertainty. I needed a short break from The Bros K when I found out about this book in the I.D. Magazine annual review issue. The book is beautiful and personal, and at times it feels honest and vulnerable, like someone decided to reveal their secret diary to the world. For information and pictures of the book, visit Book By Its Cover. To see the contents of the book, visit Kalman's New York Times blog by the same name. Even though you can see and read the whole thing there, book lovers will appreciate the feel of holding the book in your hands while soaking in the words, paintings, and vast range of emotions in such short spans.

Back from New York

2008-07-08T17:39:00.004-04:00

Hi. Returned. We were able to see it.

Weekend

2008-07-03T13:18:00.004-04:00

Rachel and I are off to New York for the weekend. Hopefully we'll be able to see this:

More info here.

Library Book: George Flett

2008-06-30T13:31:00.009-04:00

I don't know much about George Flett, and in fact hadn't heard of him until checking in George Flett: Ledger Art for the library. This book comes in a blue canvas box, and all of the artwork is gorgeous. Check it out.

This book is every bit as beautiful as the artwork inside. I don't have much else to say about it, but take a look at the book and his artwork, and they'll all speak for themselves I'm sure.

Fan Love

2008-06-29T10:45:00.005-04:00

Boston fans love their sports teams, just in case you didn't know. I did know, but I was still a little surprised when I passed this little scene celebrating the Celtics recent NBA Finals victory on my way to work:

Sorry about the awful picture. Clean windows on sunny days aren't usually very conducive to photographing, though I do kind of like seeing Tremont Street and Boston Common across the street.

Anyways, how about that? I'd love to see the wedding where the bride chooses a makeshift tube-top celebrating her favorite team's recent championship. However, I think she could get in on the act too. I mean, the Celtics have white jerseys.

Stairs = Shelves

2008-06-24T21:32:00.007-04:00

So I spent a decent amount of time looking at blogs today at work, instead of, you know, doing actual work. Anyways, during that time I happened to stumble across this little bit of awesome amazingness, courtesy of Geekologie:

That's pretty damn sweet. I also like the tabbed stairs. While it might get annoying should you be stumbling half-asleep up or down those stairs, I think the tabs are a very nice touch. Plus, how could you walk anywhere near those stairs and not be totally amazed at them? Right. So I'm pretty sure you'd never be drowsily navigating them.

If you didn't click on the Geekologie link, I suggest you do it. Not only does it include more pictures, but it includes a link to a bookshelf fort. Yes. That's right, fort.

Perks of the Job / The "ew" List

2008-06-20T17:49:00.015-04:00

Some days my job can be pretty boring, like when I'm killing time filling in Tables of Contents for marketing books. On other days though, like today, the job just throws interesting things at me all day. First, I spent a good portion of the morning reading I.D. Magazine. This magazine was so interesting that it will get its own post in a day or so.

After running around, researching marketing stuff (in 2007, 1,486,836 Bostonians owned DVD players), and doing other biblioteque-ish stuff, I got today's serials. Being in charge of serials is pretty fantastic when someone accidentally sends two copies of Zoetrope: All Story, which is a fantastic magazine. Mark Mothersbaugh of Wes Anderson movies fame, yes plural, is the guest designer, which provides for numerous fantastic paintings and a funny rambling rant about design.

Also, this job allowed me to read Entertainment Weekly without dropping the $4 or whatever it is (technically, I was getting paid to read it, now that's a perk!) This issue focuses on what they called "The New Classics." This is an attempt to tell us what the best movies, albums, books, etc. of the past 25 years were, but really it's just a print version of VH1's "Top 100 (blank)". Regardless, lists are fun because they automatically trigger most people's agree/disagree switches, myself included. Here are my highlights and lowlights:

Best TV shows - Really, I was just happy to see Freaks and Geeks make the list at number 13. If you've never seen it, check it out. Judd Apatow knows what's up, and like The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Anchorman, etc, Freaks and Geeks is proof. Freaks and Geeks shows that Apatow knew how to create real, interesting people from the very get go. Some of those faces look familiar, yes? Also, Arrested Development comes in at 16 and Saved by the Bell at 100.

Best Albums - Now this, I can totally get behind. Number 1 album of the past 25 years: "Purple Rain!" Purple Rain! Yes! Listen to that album, and I dare you to not go crazy when Prince says "Let's Go Crazy!" Lots of people joked that Prince's Super Bowl halftime show was stupid, but remember how a whole stadium of people who weren't there to see Prince sang along with him and his guitar during Purple Rain? Right. "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" comes in at number 2, which is pretty bold only because I expected to see Thriller there, but Lauryn Hill seems like a decent choice. I liked seeing Kanye West's "The College Dropout" at number 4, but I have a hard time with that being ranked so high but Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" is 66. Seriously? The College Dropout doesn't happen without The Chronic coming before it. No way. Also, "Siamese Dream" at 91? That's a perfect album. Perfect. Starting with the album's opening drumroll, through the peaks and valleys of guitar and Billy Corgan's vocals, to the last note, every twist, turn, and sound is perfectly orchestrated.

Best Books - Of course I'm going to have a gripe with this category, though I shouldn't have expected much from Entertainment Weekly. Their website says it all: "ew" dotcom. Number 1 is The Road. I've never read it, but I've heard it's not even Cormac McCarthy's best book. The Goods: Stephen King's On Writing (21), Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies (39), Lois Lowry's The Giver, and John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany (73). I for one think all of these books should be higher, but especially Owen Meany. The Bad: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson ranked at 85. Really? 85? Maybe the good people at "ew" were distracted by that gold sticker on the cover. (Though, to be fair, both The Road and Interpreter of Maladies also won the Pulitzer, but Gilead is better than every book I've listed here.

Best Movies - Now that I've gotten worked up about Gilead, I feel like making this brief. Pulp Fiction is number 1, which is kind of stupid. I was happy to see Rushmore at 22 and Waiting for Guffman at 79.

That's that. Other funny things from the issue include Rainn Wilson dressed as Xena. I later checked in new books, of which included The Branding of MTV: Will Internet Kill the Video Star? by Paul Temporal. Sorry Mr. Temporal, I'm afraid MTV killed the video star. Also, McSweeney's again publishes a pretty book, with One Hundred and Forty-Five Stories in a Small Box (pictured), with three collections by Deb Olin Unferth, Dave Eggers, and Sarah Manguso. What this picture doesn't show is the beautiful gold leaf highlights. When I publish my book (that's right I said "when!"), I hope it's beautiful like some of the McSweeney's books and journals.

Father's Day

2008-06-14T22:39:00.005-04:00

More and more as I've gotten older I've found myself increasingly seeking out and rummaging through bookstores. I've never been sure as to why I find such pleasure in bookstores, but the more I think about it, the more I'm sure it's because of my father. I've never known a lot about my dad, and it wasn't until the past few years that I've become close to him in any way. We never did any of that stereotypical father/son stuff like playing catch and him showing me how to hit a baseball; I have three older brothers who took care of that. Only two nuggets of advice from him come immediately to mind. First, he told me that smoking is the most awful thing a person can do to his body, and that I should never ever start. This one came after I'd been smoking for a few years. (I should say though, that though I didn't recognize it then, his approach to the rhetorical situation was fantastic, and I can't imagine I could've realized that then, before all those writing center/writing pedagogy classes and meetings I've been through; he told me a story about how when he tried smoking as a kid, he couldn't concentrate on anything, especially not hitting a baseball. It just messed up his hand-eye coordination. He told me this when I was in high school, when the one thing I did most of the time and enjoyed most of all was playing baseball, which I did a lot. That's just good parenting). Second, he told me I should always open the door for a lady. "Just do it, because you're supposed to," he'd said. Again, good parenting.

Anyways, back to the book thing. My dad is kind of an awkward person. Ever since I got too big for him to play-wrestle with, I started to notice his awkwardness. He doesn't seem to know what to do with himself when we're out in public most of the time, and he'll get lost in his own world, pacing back and forth no matter where he is. (This kills my mom. She absolutely cannot stand this). There are two places, however, where my dad seems always at peace*: in his designated chair in my parents' living room and in bookstores. 99.9% of the time he's in his chair, he's accompanied by a beer and a book. When we moved from Hawaii to Washington, I discovered Barnes and Noble (no, there were no B&Ns on Oahu then), and my dad could get lost in there for hours. Sometimes I'd go run around with my mom while he was alone in there, other times I'd stay in the bookstore and shop for myself. Shopping for anything with my dad was impossible, but he could never say no to buying me books. ("Sorry son, I don't want you to read!") I think it made him kind of proud to see me reading, even if what I was reading was garbage (and it was - for awhile I read crazy science fiction about ghosts ruling the world and stuff like that, with no allegory for anything).

Now, I can't go into a bookstore and not think of my father. I don't think he's the reason I became an English major or want to become a writer, but for me there will always be a connection between my father and the general idea of books.

*I have to write this, because it is necessary. I absolutely love the way my dad has aged. He has absolutely eased into the role of the grandpa. Now that he has grandkids, (and my cousin's daughter) to be around, he has become a giant kid. Sure, he still has awkward moments, but not with the kids around. Children LOVE my dad, probably because he can be a grown-up child without trying. I hope I can manage that as I get older (Rachel does a fantastic job of helping me maintain a childlike joy while becoming somewhat of a grownup, plus she appreciates her beer and books as well so she gets along famously with my father. How awesome is that?)

Library Book

2008-06-08T19:46:00.006-04:00

One of the perks of my job at the Emerson College Library is that I'm the first person to see all the new books we receive. Every so often we get really cool books that I probably wouldn't otherwise know about. The first* featured book is:

War Posters: Weapons of Mass Communication by James Aulich.

Yes. I love books with pictures. I also love when art is used to reach out to people and at least attempt to change the way people think about important topics, in this case war (obviously). Aulich gives equal time to both propaganda and anti-war posters such as these Uncle Sam images.

Most of the better images are from France and the Soviet Union, but I didn't take pictures of any of those. I did, however, take a picture of a more recent poster.

I have to say, the older posters are much more clever.

*This is actually the second featured library book. The new Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Kafka's Metamorphosis was first brought to my attention when I checked one in for the library.

Bookshelves?

2008-06-06T21:19:00.003-04:00

I'm currently looking for a new apartment. I've seen a billion pictures of different apartments in Boston it seems, and I've recently come across this photo:

I'm not sure why, but I actually kinda like the stack of books and just the table in the middle. Very neat.

*This post is a total copy of A Cup of Jo's "Home Inspiration" posts, only completely less cool.

Minesweeper

2008-06-06T20:19:00.007-04:00

Rachel is an incredible Minesweeper expert. I am totally awestruck and jealous, and now addicted.

In my younger and more vulnerable years...

2008-05-23T16:09:00.005-04:00

Recently I decided that instead of listening to the comedy stations on Itunes radio or any of my music while working, I would listen to the The Great Gatsby audiobook I bought for my drives from Corvallis to Seattle. This version is read by Tim Robbins, whose soft, melodic voice matches perfectly the lyrical prose of Mr. Fitzgerald. I've told people before, in only half-seriousness, that Gatsby is the reason I became an English major and then later decided to pursue an MFA. It was half-seriousness because this book represented the first time I really dug into a book enough for it to dig into me, there was never any conscious thought process about wanting to be the next Fitzgerald or write the next Gatsby. Anyways, I listened to Tim Robbins guide me with his sing-songing voice past the eyes of Dr.TJ Eckleburg and onto the shore of Gatsby's lawn, staring at that unreachable green light, knowing what would happen next until before I was ready for it, I heard him reading:

"It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...And then one fine morning-
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

I was startlingly close to tears at my desk. At first it was a sort of shock at the beauty of the words themselves. Even though I've read and heard them many times before, there was something cutting in my unprepared state. Then the more I thought about it, I realized something: this is why I want to write. Fitzgerald was somehow able to capture hope, failure, and beauty in the span of two sentences. Yes yes of course the rest of the book is quite perfect (even though Fitzgerald wrote in his letters that the Gatsby has its flaws that he simply covered in "blankets of excellent prose"), but come on, two sentences! That's my American Dream right there.

My high school teacher that taught Gatsby to me was also my high school coach, a gruff, mean-looking softie who totally knew his literary shit. During a discussion of the importance of Dr.TJ Eckleburg's eyes or why Daisy was always wearing white, a girl asked him, "Do you think he really thought about all this, or are we just reading too much into it?" After a brief and intense moment of silence, Mr. Nickerson simply pointed at the door and said, "Out."

Neat Books!

2008-05-19T23:02:00.000-04:00

I'm a huge nerd. I like books. I like good books even more, and I like good books with awesome cover designs even more than that. Which brings me to this:

What this picture doesn't show is the awesome cartoons on the back cover and interior flaps that illustrate a sort of table of contents for the book. Beautiful. Apparently this specific edition of Kafka's Metamorphosis was published this year, so I think this is a new thing in the Penguin Classics series. After looking through their website, I discovered they've released a bunch of other books with great cover designs. Here's a small sample of my favorite designs.

Candide. Fairy Tales. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And while this may not be the easiest image to look at, I think this cover may be one of the most effective and beautiful book covers I've seen - The Jungle.

Book Review

2008-05-16T11:14:00.004-04:00

I'd read a few of Englander's stories before, and each one had been about antisemitism. What was most interesting about the small selection of those stories was the way the characters somehow embodied generations of struggle. A quick example is the group of Jewish boys in "How We Avenged the Blums." I was so impressed I decided I had to read his novel, The Ministry of Special Cases, which is about a family struggling through Argentina's Dirty War. I don't know much about antisemitism and nothing about the Dirty War (except what I learned in this book), but I'm a sucker for generational stories. Practically every character, no matter how large or small a role they play, is given a full family history in this book.

I wasn't sure about this at first. I wasn't overly impressed with the writing itself; there didn't seem to be any poetry in the prose, if that makes sense, but getting deeper into the story I realized any rhythm or lyricism in the words would seem inappropriate to this type of story. I ended up swallowed by the story. For awhile I wondered how the novel would end, and that kept me reading, until I realized there was only one way it could end. Then that kept me reading. It's at that point Englander's prose takes over. I felt pulled along, compelled to finish, if for no other reason than to witness the emotion of the novel's main characters, Lillian and Kaddish Poznan. To say I identified with the characters would be wrong, because I've never been a Jewish person in the middle of an unsafe military state. That being said, Englander portrays them so well that I seemed to feel what they felt; I hoped when they did, had faith when they did, and lost both when they did as well. What's amazing is how the story makes the reader have hope and lose it all simultaneously. I finished it on a train ride/walk home from work, and I think I was almost hit by a car because this novel creates its own world, surrounds you with it, and makes it seem as if nothing else exists but the words on the page.

Ramble

2007-12-28T20:23:00.000-05:00

I’ve been trudging through the snow for the past few weeks. The Charles River – near Harvard, where I cross it – has frozen over and is covered in snow. I’ve never seen anything like it. A few days ago the temperature was mid-30s, and I found myself outside in a sweatshirt telling Rachel it had warmed up a little bit. That struck me as a strange moment, one where I realized I was adjusting to life in a new place. New snow has been piling up over old snow in a series of snow flurries, parks are covered in white, benches are buried, and trees poke from ice like stiff wallflowers pushed onto the dance floor.

I’m reminded every once in awhile that I live in Boston, that I live in a whole new world. A month or so ago, Rachel and I went up to Concord and visited Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, Nathanial Hawthorne, and Herman Melville are buried. We also visited the Little Women house, which in true American fashion has been turned into a gift shop with a paid tour. Emerson’s house was closed that day, but like true literature nerds, Rachel and I peaked in all the windows, and Rachel ate a few of the wild grapes growing in his yard. The house that Hawthorne, Alcott, and a few other writers lived was closed as well, and of course Rachel and I played the peeping toms.

That small town is full of incredible history, including a trail marking the path of Paul Revere’s ride. There seem to be ghosts everywhere. I spend most of my time in Harvard Square, where the oldest church in Massachusetts stands. One day as I was taking the train into school I discovered part of the Redline was closed, so the MBTA had setup a series of shuttles to take passengers to the other side of the closure. When I got off the bus, angry from the inconvenience, I noticed a small cemetery that seemed to be a tourist attraction. Of course I went in and discovered Paul Revere’s headstone, along with Benjamin Franklin’s.

This could never happen in Seattle, of course, because Washington’s history goes nowhere near as far back as New England’s. Part of the reason I left Seattle was the lack of motivation, feeling, connection. I never felt like part of the city or that I had a place in it. Nothing felt right, and it never felt like home, though I guess that’s what it is. Oregon gave me a purpose and a focus and a strange sense of camaraderie Seattle lacked. Every time I take the train to school or walk around the city, I feel like there’s something larger going on, like I’m just a fragment of a great big world. It’s humbling and encouraging at the same time.

The Music Video Era!

2007-11-25T22:29:00.000-05:00

It's officially dead. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Over this wonderful Thanksgiving weekend, Rachel and I waxed nostalgic about music videos and wondered if bands still make them. Remember when Michael Jackson or Madonna videos were premiered on ABC or NBC news? Or M.J.'s fantastic "Remember the Time" video starring Eddie Murphy, Iman, and a hoard of people in some crazy version of egyptian clothes dancing around like they were trying to raise King Tut? M.J. had it right, his videos were events! I worry about the people who've never seen the full "Thriler" video and the making of it. Today in the car some local radio station announced that it played "The best songs of the Video Music Era," as if the time of music videos is long gone.

I can't remember the last time I saw a legitimate music video on MTV or Vh1. Maybe that's because I don't watch those channels, but I think what made me stop watching in the first place was the replacement of music videos with awful reality shows. And who can blame them? Who needs an artistic, well-directed 3-minute visualization of your favorite song when you can watch a woman poop on the floor of a mansion? (So I caught that episode of Flavor of Love).

That reminds me, is TRL still on? Or Vh1's Top-20 countdown? Are those the last remnants of the music video, or are they gone as well? I'm afraid those wonderful wonderful videos have been replaced by Beyonce's shitty DirectTV jingle, complete with dancing choreographed by the cartoon cat from Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract" video. Except that cat could dance.

I miss music videos. I don't really want to see Fergie "dancing" to her "music." But I guess that raises the question of the status of music now, which I won't talk about because I don't feel like my head should explode at the end of a nice holiday weekend. I miss Busta Rhymes' crazy costumes and yelling "Wooooohaaaaaa!" And A-Ha's journey into combining animation and video in "Take On Me." The Smashing Pumpkins once redid the classic "Rocket to the Moon" with their "Tonight" video. More recently, Incubus's lead singer followed A-Ha's lead by animating himself in "Drive" or whatever that song was called.

Maybe there are still music videos around and I'm getting old.

Darn

2007-09-21T23:36:00.000-04:00

In The World According to Garp*, there is a scene where Garp writes a short story about a man who can do fantastic things like play piano so long as he has gloves on. Without them, he can't do even the simplest things, like touch his children. This of course leads to drastic action and drastic consequences. I love the idea behind this story because I love stories that present otherwise competent (and even heroic) people with human (and of course ironic) flaws. Dr.Jones' flaw, of course, was his fear of snakes.

Right now, I feel like I'm trying to be a writer who is unable to find words.

*I'm referring to the movie here, since I have not read the John Irving novel of the same title.

2007-08-28T01:34:00.000-04:00

I’ve been in Boston for a few days now, and tomorrow my parents leave. I get to sleep in my bedroom, on my own bed, for the first time. The apartment is beginning to look like a home, at least my bedroom is. David will be here tomorrow, but I don’t think he’s staying the night yet.

As the time to move approached, people constantly asked, “Are you getting excited?” or something like it. Never failing, they were always surprised when I said “I guess.” The truth is, even though I’m here, it still hasn’t sunk in that I live in Boston. The closest I’ve come to realizing it was yesterday, looking up at the Boston Public Library. For a second I almost felt something rising up in my throat, something thick and heavy, something stopping in the center of my throat before sinking back down and taking the elusive feeling of home away with it.

Rachel will be here in a week, and I’m sure this place will feel like home one we’re in bed together.

Other than that, I’ve felt sort of numb. Ironically, maybe I’ve been too caught up in getting settled and making this city and apartment feel like home to really think about the fact that I now live in Boston.

* * *

Driving with my dad was interesting. I didn’t really learn as much about him as I hoped I would, although I did finally learn where he was born. We almost drove through the town, but it as out of the way and he didn’t want to drive to it since it was the middle of the night and we probably wouldn’t be able to see much anyways. I still don’t really know where he grew up, although I know there was a town in California that he said was swallowed by a larger town and doesn’t exist anymore. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of it, and I didn’t write it down because I didn’t want my dad to think I was interviewing him or that I had some sort of agenda while talking to him.

We talked about a lot of nonsense; we talked a little bit of sense, but mostly we stuck to nonsense. We joked about the unfortunate names of towns like Smelterville and Plainville. I have the same sense of humor as him, so he’s easy to get along with for me. That shouldn’t be surprising since he’s my dad and all, but after not really getting along with him for such a long time, I myself sometimes don’t believe it.

I listened to a lot of his Irish drinking songs and country folk music. While we talked about James Joyce, he explained Finnegan’s Wake and how the cyclical nature of the song shaped Joyce’s story, and I listened to his explanation for the 15^th time or so. Then without warning, he began reciting the words to the song. My dad mumbles, and it’s usually pretty difficult to hear him, but while reciting the lines, he locked into a rhythm in no way similar to the song – which we listened to later – but one all his own, articulating the syllables and the words he felt were important. I got the impression he was trying to teach me something he felt was important.

qwerty

2007-08-18T01:36:00.000-04:00

Back at my parents' house for a few days before leaving for Boston, staying in my old bedroom that isn't really my old bedroom. I always feel fat and lazy here no matter what I'm doing. The days have been clear, just the way I like it. On days like these you can see for miles and miles, and in every direction, mountains guard the horizon.

I have muddled thoughts on Oregon. Too muddled for a QWERTY keypad to make sense of.

Unfinished Business

2007-08-09T18:13:00.000-04:00

In less than two weeks I begin driving from Seattle to Boston, and in less than a month I begin graduate school in a creative writing program. I'm supposed to become a writer, I think. Normally, even if I don't write, I have these thoughts going through my head about weird situations that could crawl into my stories or characters I want to learn about and develop. I haven't had any of that for the past 2 months, since the end of Spring term. Even the instructor evaluation I'm supposed to write by the end of the month hasn't gone past the second sentence. Needless to say, I'm incredibly frightened about the upcoming months, all of it - the moving, the new place, new people, new city, new school, new life.

While packing up my apartment, I came across a number of journals I'd attempted to keep over the past few years. The first entry in every one is pretty much the same. It reads something along these lines: "I have to start a new journal now, because I feel like every new journal represents a new phase of my life." Ideally, that means I could take these journals and break them down into chapters and write a book about them right? Instead they read like a bunch of unfinished juvenile business. "Today I went to class. I like it." Or "Yesterday she gave me her love in the form of baked goods." Each book ends suddenly, with no declaration of a final entry. Instead I just start up something new, and - this is how I've felt with each change of scenery - never finishing the last thing.

Except now I've actually graduated from OSU, so at least I finished something right?

Today was also the last class of my TAship, the first classroom experience I've had as a pseudo-instructor. I guess I could say I finished that as well. As they were walking out of class, one of the students came up to me and said, "So you're going to be around during the term if we need help?"

Drivetime Salute!

2007-07-17T00:26:00.001-04:00

Every time I drive between Eugene and Corvallis I discover a new sort of calm in the rows of trees and shrubs or whatever it is growing out there. There's that certain angle in each field where you can stare down the row, and the countless lines reveal themselves like the fragile teeth of a comb. In a car that angle is visible only for a brief moment, but in the next moment the next row appears, then the next, and the next, like the gentle and endless arrival of a new wave on wet sand. The rows of trees are the same but different. At ground level you can see their trunks poking through the dirt like the long arms of nature in an entirely unnatural grid pattern. At the tops of each of these skinny brown arms rests a ball of green clenched fist. What is most amazing, however, is the way these fists mingle and mix amongst each other, creating the illusion of one giant treetop.

It reminds me of this incredible piece of artwork I saw and walked on at the Seattle Art Museum a billion trillion years ago. It's called "Floor" by Do-Hu Suh.*

On to something new.

I'm moving to Boston in just about a month. I have the troubling task of balancing spending time with Rachel and getting settled in Boston. And now another dimension has made its way into the picture. My dad and I have talked about driving across the country, possibly and probably stopping in Indianapolis to see my two-year-old twin nieces. I also just started reading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, and the connection (or lack thereof) between the narrator and his son reminds me that there is so much I don't know about my father. This fact is made all the more frightening by my slow but consistent evolution into that man. Robinson writes with an incredible and simple beauty that seems to have made my emotional senses more intense and acute (I hid a tear from Rachel as a keystone character in Ratatouille remembered a moment of his childhood). But now more than ever I really feel that I not only want to drive cross-country with my dad, but I need to, to talk to him and learn about the history I don't know. I need to know what his father was like beyond the shriveled, weak man that couldn't remember my existence or how my Filipino mother somehow got so tan. It's important to me to know where it was that my dad decided it would be a good idea to put a small piece of a railroad track in his bicycle basket and ride as fast as he could down a rocky hill, or why he spent his 16th birthday in jail. All I know is that he flipped his bike over, and his response to the birthday behind bars was "I lived in a small town, so that was a little different." This drive could possibly reveal a lot I don't know about the man I should probably know the most about, and if not that, I'm sure it will at least give me some stories to write about.

*Photos taken from http://www.democratici.sm/appuntamenti/venezia/venezia.htm without permission.

Chameleon.

2007-07-13T18:48:00.000-04:00

When I lived in Hawaii, up until I was nine years old, I went to Saint Joseph's Catholic School. Boys from kindergarten up to 8th grade all wore the same thing - blue slacks, white button-up shirt, and white shoes. Girls wore blue jumpsuit looking dresses with white collared-shirts underneath. The higher grades, 6-8, were allowed to wear the blue St. Joseph's windbreakers. I envied them, no matter how hot it may have been, especially during P.E. time, which consisted of lining up in equally spaced rows and doing jumping jacks and other exercises led by one of the jacket-wearing kids. I wouldn't have called them kids back then, even though one of them very well may have been my brother.

The school didn't have a playground, so during lunch/recess, we'd eat our food as fast as we could then run outside to play tag on the school grounds, which was little more than a large parking lot. On especially wild days, some of us boys would bug the jump-roping girls, and they'd chase us around pretending to be angry but not hiding their smiles or giggles. I remember though, one relatively calm day, when my best friend "Bubba" (nicknamed for his skinny, miniature stature) and I used the oversized Smarties candy and pretended to give and receive communion. Our first communion wouldn't be until the next year, so we were too young to know what really went on during the Eucharist. Honestly, I still don't completely understand the ceremonial first communion. On that day, under one of the few covered areas of the school grounds, which only now do I remember being surrounded by chain-link fences, Bubba and I took turns giving and receiving the pastel colored, sugar based body of Christ. I don't recall much about Bubba, whose real name was Jeffrey, but I do remember his goofy dwarf-like face giggling and smiling, trying to hold back fits of laughter. I also remember on that day, we called our little game "Chameleon."

bostonia

2007-06-27T23:27:00.000-04:00

We just got back from Boston, and I have nothing but fantastic things to say. The city is beautiful, from the subways underground up to the streets, and all the way up to the 27th floor hotel room that looked out over the rooftop decks and gardens. During an evening thunderstorm, Rachel and I watched the lightning flash through the clouds and down into the sky over the lights in buildings. We had great food and met awesome people. I'm sure we hoped to meet nice people, but really, I think everyone we met was beyond any expectations I may have had - we even learned about the Great Molasses Flood during an impromptu historical tour from a realtor. The only exceptions were the two people we met from New York, and both of them were real bastards.

2007-06-09T00:32:00.000-04:00

Today I proved that, no matter how badly I want it or how much I might try, I still can't be counted on.

Comings & Goings

2007-06-05T02:57:00.001-04:00

This weekend, Rachel and I drove down to Grants Pass to visit her parents. In the car, both going and returning, we talked about where we've lived and where our parents have lived. She again pointed out how weird it is that I don't know where my parents are from. I know, it probably seems weird, but I don't. I love my parents, and I'm very close to them. Hell, I realize every day that I'm turning into my father. The point is that I know my parents; I know their personalities, their characters, what makes them laugh and smile, and what makes them angry and frown. For some reason it's just not that weird that I don't know where they were born or where exactly they grew up.

This, of course, might explain why I feel like I don't really have a place I would call home. I've written stories about the house in Hawaii where I spent the first nine years of my life in, but, as the aforementioned story says, the house has been gated off with a tacky display of black bars and failed ornamentation. The other house I grew up in, just north of Seattle, holds almost no hints of my having once lived there. My old bedroom has been converted into a guest bedroom, and only at night, with all the lights off and the room pitch-black, do the final remnants of my occupation reveal themselves: glow in the dark star stickers. Since moving out of that house, I've lived in a crappy apartment in Seattle, my gramma's house in Hawaii (which, the land it sits on holds another strange treasure chest of stories), an old, red-bricked house in Seattle, a crappy apartment in Oregon, and the current not-as-crappy apartment in Oregon. In a few months I'll be venturing out to Boston, adding another location to my list of wanderings. I'm not sure I'll call that home.

Because of all this, I feel devoid of any real sense of history. My mother's parents came from the Philippines during their lifetime, and my father's family came from Ireland to Canada 200-some odd years ago. All I really know about my mother's family is that her dad loved Budweiser and died when I was too young to even realize that he was sick but not young enough that he wouldn't sneak me the occasional taste of his beer. Oh, and he had the kind of smile that really made you feel the happiness behind it. Her mother didn't like me because I'm half Caucasian. My dad's mother died when I was two or three or something, and his dad had dementia or alzheimer's so bad he forgot who I was. He did remember my mom, surprisingly, yet he never forgot to ask her how she managed such a dark and even tan. Oh, and when his family came over from Ireland, they tried to cross the great lakes and a great many of them drowned. Oh, and apparently, somewhere down the line, some males named Homer, which was apparently a common name in his lineage, was put in some sort of crazy house but still managed to procreate. Yes, I'm proud.

That's a sort of history, I guess, but I'm not sure where I'm left or where I'm going.

Bicycle, Bicycle!

2007-04-04T19:46:00.000-04:00

My father believes everyone that rides a bike as their primary means of transportation is only doing so because of a DUI resulting in the suspension of their driver's license.

Hooray?

2007-03-17T17:34:00.000-04:00

"Congratulations," she said, her hand extended and open. A handshake. Her face wore a smile and that's it.
I expected some surprise, some shock. An "I can't believe it" or something like that. Nothing, and that's the best part. As I get more and more stressed out about the upcoming process of getting myself to Boston and trying to find a place to live, getting to know new people, convincing myself that I can write, all that crap, one of our creative writing professors extended her hand, shook mine, and plainly said, "Congratulations, that's a great school."
"I'm scared, totally excited, but scared as hell," I told another professor.
"Trust me, you're ready. Boston is great. You'll have a ton of fun, and you're totally ready."
I don't feel ready. I just hope that when the time comes, I will be. I am frightened at the possibilities in front of me, of the things that I may or may not accomplish. I am excited for all these things, but I am scared as hell.

Typewriter

2007-03-16T12:39:00.000-04:00

I could listen to the click-clack of the keys all night. My head throbbing, pulsing with the crash of each letter as it imprints itself on the page. I just sit and listen, watching every letter appear like magic behind the weird metal foot that presses the ink. This is the power that I have, a power that is completely reliant on other forces. The paper, the letters, the words sentences paragraphs pages narratives stories truths lies dreams fantasies emotions anxieties that lay buried beneath each thin sheet of paper.

I could listen all night, and I could watch the letters appear and the words form to the flow of my fingertips. But when the night shuts its eyes, I haven't found a truth and I haven't made any sense of these crazy things that makes my head throb. That is the power that has me.

the shakes

2007-03-14T23:07:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I feel a slight shaking beneath, maybe inside me. I look around and no one else seems to notice. I wonder if it's an earthquake, or the beginning of one. Maybe the earth is settling beneath me, exhaling a breath it's been holding in for so long that it finally needed to get out. Maybe the subtle trembling is the hint of something larger to come. Nothing happens though, and no one seems to notice.

Nonsense and Freewrite

2007-01-23T02:23:00.000-05:00

My grandfather's house had this room, at the front of the house, that my brothers and I, as children, were not allowed to enter. Looking back, it's completely possible that we were allowed to go in there, but there was something secret and pure about it. It was the only room in the house that seemed to ever have light, this due to its location facing the street, looking out over a southern California suburban paradise. The rest of the house was dark and cold. I can't even remember the colors of the living room, except the gray. The gray smothered everything. Brick walls, cold tiled floor and ugly Grandpa rug, stone fireplace, all gray.

The kitchen countertops were all a tacky green marble, a remnant from the 50s or the 70s or some other time where people must have been color blind. An empty space between the cupboards and counters created a bar area, and at the end of the kitchen was a small hallway through a washroom to the door that opened to the backyard. The small rectangle window on the door was the only window in the kitchen.

In the backyard was a swimming pool, shaped like a lima bean or a kidney, surrounded by decaying grass. The pool shone pristine and blue, bright as a diamond, bright as the forbidden room. In the deep end, 8 feet down, bolted to the bottom, was a bronzed seahorse.

We - my parents and three brothers - would visit my grandfather in the summertime, excited for the chance to swim in a pool. Growing up in Hawaii, you would think swimming wasn't a big deal. We could go to the beach whenever we wanted, but to have a pool all to ourselves, where no one could bother us and we could ignore the rest of the world, that was treasure.

My grandfather, Harry, watched from the patio, protected from the sun by a beige awning. Every once in awhile he'd walk up the pathway toward the pool only to stop halfway there, at a weathered sundial. The stone of the thing cracked and it had lost its color ages ago, but the grass at it's wide circular foot flourished and each blade hung over itself, pulled down by its own weight. He'd stand there with his hands on his hips, fingers stroking the corduroy in search of stimulation, eyes fixed on the gnomon.

I was afraid of my grandfather. I was 9 or 10, maybe 6 or 7, shit I don't know. The fact is years would pass between seeing him; he was nothing more than a stranger I was related to.

As he stood before the sundial squinting his wrinkled gray eyes, watching so hard it seemed to hurt him, I walked over and stood next to him.

"What are you doing Grampa?" I asked.

He looked down at me with those gray eyes, reached his hand out to touch me, dropped it on the back of my neck. I froze under his leathery palms, tried not to imagine the thin hairs growing from the back of his hand. He lifted his hand and looked at it, inspected the moisture that clung to my neck from the swimming pool and now clung to his palm. He rubbed his hands together and looked at down to me again.

"Trying to make the shadow move faster," he said.

Short Writing Assignment

2007-01-16T02:31:00.000-05:00

My grandfather’s days had been reduced to staring at, not watching, daytime television on the faded blue couch in his living room. He kept the curtains drawn all the time. With the sun shut out, shadows colonized every surface, and the house seemed to exist in a perpetual state of gray. The once vibrant mountain scene, painted and hung above the fireplace by my grandfather, had long since lost its color, just as his thin, wrinkled body had lost its pigment. When he lifted his arm to aim the remote, his body trembled with the effort and the loose heap of cotton and corduroy would shake and dance like flags at half mast.
If I looked hard enough, I felt I could see right through him. In fact my brother and I would be playing with Hot Wheels or GI Joes on the cold hardwood floor and would forget he was even there at all. His voice was almost inaudible; a wandering whisper that tickled our ears then passed on and faded away. The television would get louder or the channel would change, his way of reminding us that we weren’t alone. I hesitate to call his existence living, but, as a six-year old, I couldn’t understand there was once more to this haunt of a man.
The only hint of a former life was a police badge, framed and mounted on a small portion of wall just to the left and perpendicular to the front door, a place suitable for a coat rack or an umbrella stand. I remember looking up at it, wondering how it maintained its shine in this house of ghosts. Now I couldn’t tell you the numbers, or if there were any at all, and I couldn’t testify to its design, or the city and department it came from. All I can say is this: looking back, my grandfather failed to block the panes of the semi-circled window on the front door, and occasionally the Pasadena sun forced its way through the small opening. When it did, the gold police badge lit up, illuminated amidst a dull haze, and became a reminder of a man I never knew.

Noteworthy

2006-10-19T16:21:00.000-04:00

I've written many times that I never feel like I have a home. Especially living in Seattle, and how bad I wanted to get out of it. Numerous times, I've said I felt like I've never belonged in Seattle, and I still believe that.

But when I try to write a story, it all comes back to the city. Characters live there, know the ins and outs, the backstreets and the bars, the underbelly and the underground tunnel, neon lights and bus numbers, pioneer square and people.

The past few weeks have been rough for me. A rollercoaster of emotions, not because a lot has been going on, but because I've been feeling every ounce of it. Each moment passes and I've been enveloped in the moment.

In the writing center, I've helped many students on the same assignment: Write about the transition from high school to college. So the writing hasn't been all that great, not bad, but not great. But a few have brought me to tears because here are these people who are forced to come into the writing center and have some stranger read their paper. And here they are. Shamelessly reading aloud some of the most personal experiences they've had. One student wrote "My parents and I never said 'I love you,' but we never had to. It was always implied. We knew it in the way we hugged when we said goodbye." And yes, this is a writing assignment, and yes they are required to go in there, but think about this: How comfortable would you feel, having a conversation with a complete stranger and saying something that personal?

Incomplete Post

2006-10-16T00:12:00.000-04:00

I had the dream again. The one where I'm floating in water on a lifesaver, and just before the horizon is a dot. Other than ocean in all directions, it's the only thing that exists and therefore, my only hope. I swim to it, and as I get closer it starts to flail. It's a person, a man, and he sees me.
"Help!" he shouts in a vaguely familiar voice. Arms raised, spread, agony in each extended finger. Then he goes limp, and I see him floating. Rising and falling at the mercy of open-sea waves.
I swim towards him.

Each time I have this dream, the clouds I painted on my ceiling torment me in the dark.
When I first moved into the apartment, I asked my landlord if I could paint a light blue sky with huge cumulus clouds on the bedroom ceiling. He reluctantly agreed. They were supposed to make me feel like a child, and sometimes they do. After the dream, I lay flat on my back and stare up at the ceiling, turned gray and black in the dark of the night. I pretend not to cry, though my bed seems to sway back and forth with an ocean underneath it.
I rub my eyes, and reach over to his warm body. The rise and fall of his breath dries the ocean. I rest my hand on his chest until I am asleep again.

As I struggle towards him, features begin to stand out. Long black hair sticks to his face. His skin is pale and softened from the water. Soon I am able to distinguish a well-groomed beard that conceals his mouth, and thick bushy eyebrows. Eyes as blue as the ocean scream from beneath the brows.
"I'm coming!" I yell.

"Bob...I'm...coming...Bob..." I only call him Bob after the dreams, while the subconscious ocean is still rocking the bed pendulously. Normally I call him Robert, even Robbie when I'm feeling playful.

Muddleded.

2006-10-08T02:41:00.000-04:00

Two or three weeks into the quarter, and I'm still not adjusted. My brain is murky. Muddled. I'm nostalgic; not for childhood days when I put HotWheels in the street with a trail of hairspray that I'd light on fire and pretend the car was going really fast. No, instead I yearn simply for a day when the head-fog fades and I can see clearly. Maybe nostalgia isn't the correct word, because I'm not sure I can remember a day when I knew exactly what I wanted.

Nonsense

2006-10-06T00:19:00.000-04:00

I find myself between the train tracks where they run straight. The night envelops me, devours me in its cold bronzed air, pulling the hairs on my neck straight up. Taking off my shirt, I succumb to the chill, because you shouldn't fight it. No matter how hard you fight, the world will have its way. So as much as I can fight the tears back, I can't battle the breeze or the weathering of my skin, the wrinkles under my eyes, or the pull of gravity on my body. Much like I can fight the weight of my eyelids, but eventually they will close for at least an hour or so.

2006-10-03T21:56:00.000-04:00

There is no such thing as "not enough time," but instead "I don't want to."

!

2006-09-27T19:48:00.000-04:00

someone is purtifying this site for me

2006-08-26T13:23:00.000-04:00

I believe that you never really know how much you care about someone until you can't help them.

Absence

2006-08-21T23:45:00.000-04:00

I'm excusing my recent absence because of my studying for the GRE, which I took today and profoundly bombed. Guess I'm kinda dumb.

There may be more absences coming, since I'll be homeless in Oregon for a little bit.

Anyways, I thought I've finally been able to be friends with females without becoming intimate with them. Then I woke up next to her.

Life Raft

2006-08-18T18:11:00.000-04:00

Sometimes when I'm laying in bed I feel like I'm floating in the middle of the ocean on a bunch of thing logs tied together with torn sheets. There's an endless ocean surrounding me, and I'm clinging to the bed for life and hoping to spot land soon. Meanwhile, I'm not sleeping on this bed.

Recurring Dream

2006-08-18T02:16:00.000-04:00

When I was little, I used to have a certain dream over and over starting when I was 4 or 5.

It must be said that, like every little boy, I was in love with dinosaurs. I still am. Anyways, I was an intelligent kid and was enthusiastic about learning. However, I was also incredibly hyper and pretty uncontrollable. My family called me Taz. Once I learned to read, my parents would buy me dinosaur books to keep me quiet: the bigger the book, the longer I was quiet. Dinosaurs arrested me.

In this dream, I'm walking along a serene beach. The beach was a circular bay with no features - just sand and water. Water until the horizon on one side, sand on the other, and a bland blue sky. The only feature was a long wooden pier that stood a foot or two above the still seas. I walked out onto the pier and noticed a bunch of Apatosauruses. The exact number of them varied each time I had the dream, but they were always almost perfectly still. Their big backs protruded from the water and they cuddled each other with their long necks. Obviously, I'm awestruck. It's like I've discovered a secret land and its all mine. Suddenly, and I'm not sure how it happens, but I'm in the water trying to swim back to shore. The current is too strong. I'm pulled out towards the dinosaurs. They see me; they stop necking and look right at me. By the time I reach them, I've grown weak and I can't fight the current. But they just watch apathetically with their big cow-eyes as I float past them. I wake up just before I fall off the edge of the horizon.

I had this dream again last night, the first time in maybe ten years.

2006-08-17T00:37:00.001-04:00

Imagine my surprise when, after countless years, and without explanation, Anthony asked me to drive with him to Fishers, Indiana. Even when we had been on speaking terms, we were definitely not friends, and maliciously joked that the only thing our fathers had in common was leaving our mother. This tormented her, and she wished until her last breath that he and I would somehow become friends.

she said

2006-08-16T00:45:00.000-04:00

"You're just a talented person. You could probably succeed at everything you do."

If I could, I'd have blushed. I wonder if I believe it.

Is apathy worth writing or reading about?

Last Night

2006-08-15T00:22:00.000-04:00

The words woke something inside. Tangled in chocolate-colored pillows and blankets, I stared at the darkness behind my eyelids, waiting for peace to settle in. But the words burrowed deep, content to eat away at my insides and dig dig dig. When the sun forced its way through my windows and forced my eyes open, I wondered where Al Jolsen is buried.

French Assignment.

2006-08-13T19:24:00.000-04:00

Oui oui, je sais le grammaire est tres mauvais.
Si j’étais le dictateur d’une petite île, je m'amuserais bien. Je vivrais dans un géant château, sur une grande montagne. De mon château, je pourrais voir toute l’île. L’île s’appellerait , et je la gèrerais avec un poing de fer. Si je ne gérais pas avec un poing de fer, je ne serais pas un dictateur, non ? Mais, j’essaierais d’être gentil, donc mes sujets m’aimeraient.
Il y aurait beaucoup d’animaux sur mon île, et ils courraient librement. Peut-être j’expérimenterais les animaux et les gens, comme dans L’île de Dr. Moreau. Je créerais une créature qui était la moitié tigre et moitié d’homme. Je pourrais jouer Dieu ! Il serait un plaisir si je créais des dauphin-hommes, et je pouvais promener avec eux dans l’océan.
Je passerais tout mon temps à la plage ou dans mon château. Je boirais souvent et serais souvent ivre. Mais personne ne ferait rien parce que je pourrais les pénaliser.

1 word.

2006-08-13T02:06:00.000-04:00

Liquid.

day 2

2006-08-11T19:32:00.000-04:00

I've been temporarily living in my parents house for the past 2 months, and am getting ready leave in the next week or so. While it's weird sleeping in my former bedroom - which has been converted into a guest bedroom and consequently resembles nothing of the living space I created for myself when this was my home - that's not the strangest part. The most uncomfortable aspect of living at home is the countless pictures lining the rooms and walls of the house. At the top of the stairs, across from the entrance to my bedroom, is a poster of pictures my parents made for my high school graduation party, covered in photos of me at various ages. It's sort of haunting, frightening even, to look at those pictures. If I could, I'd go back and tell that kid to smile more, and try harder. But life is about finding these things out right?

I hope to not write about myself very much, but like I said the photos are haunting. They follow me around, and everytime I come home, the photos are always there waiting for me.

2006-08-11T01:49:00.000-04:00

The goal here is to write every day. I don't care what, it may be a story, a page, a paragraph, a sentence, or even a single word. So long as I can get myself to type, to write, to think, and to write write write. There may be pictures, but mostly I want words. This is my beginning, because I'm tired of saying "I'll start tomorrow." Tomorrow turns into the next day, then the day after, then the day after. Yes, I know, that's the same old story. I'm OK with that. I'm not saying the writing is going to be any good, it's just going to get done. I hope.

Cheers.