SLICKAPHONIC.WORDPRESS.COM

2010-01-23T21:23:00.000Z

If you don't click on THIS, I will find you and throw up on you.

2010-01-23T18:02:00.003Z

i have decided to view my time here as an artistic retreat. it's kind of like a sensory deprivation chamber.

i've always wanted to try one of those out. see how long it takes to see snakes again. i used to see snakes everywhere in illinois. i would try to fall asleep but after closing my eyes i would see snakes of light in my eyelids. when i opened my eyes, the snakes flew out of my eyelids and grew into space.

last night was fantastic. i made friends and influenced people. we were under the influence. i told tom he was taller than i thought he should be. just that when i pictured this person in my mind, he was not as tall. he had only been in my mind for five minutes, but it was a very strong impression.

***

my pal sent me a speech by david foster wallace. this is water. it is a great thing to remember. that this is water. or maybe this is air. possibly toilet paper. you can't have egyptian cotton for your ass at all times.

2010-01-22T17:31:00.004Z

for work, i have to somehow code a lot of free responses to a survey. i did a find and replace for key words, changing, for instance "achievement gap" to a 1. next, i'll extract the numeric info from the variable in a stat program.

in the meantime, these are the goals of our schools:

reducing 8
closing the 1
improving 3s scores
preserving 5
stay 8ly solvent
provide quality 11 development
improving the success of 3
modernize 10
maintain a balanced 8
exceed 7
purchasing new textbooks and 13
be accountable for 2
create a 6 going culture

2010-01-22T05:07:00.004Z

i had not lived in my own world for 387 days. it is a strange thing to live in someone else's brain.

for instance, i forgot all about ambulatory. and was able to rediscover logjam. jesus that word is satisfying. i imagine the impact, the resulting crashing sounds as log rams up against the jam. that word could punch a bitch out.

2010-01-22T04:11:00.004Z

B B
U B U
I U B I
L I U L
D L i D
I D L I I d
N I d N L L R g
G N i G I S And B e m
S G N SH a
s g y
S b
e

B B

U B U b

I U B I b u

L I U L u i

D L i D I l

I D L I l d u I d

N I d N L L i i R g

G N i G I S And B e m

S G N SH a

- s g y

- - S b

- e

2010-01-22T02:02:00.006Z

we have been burdened by impossible dreams of effectiveness for too long. our grandmothers can no longer carry the lumber. we should excoriate the wind and fill our cups with gravity. the universe cannot hold out for infinity.

it is useless to be angry with the sidewalk.

the rain is starting to erode my sense of well-being. i imagine gullies and craters in rock made by nothing other than drops of water. it has been raining for 48 years now. the neanderthals were the last to see the sun. we saw cave drawings and wondered what it was all about. i am not yet sure where my gullies will be, but i know i will give the cat no more catnip.

my boss told me about her nightmare caused by the rain. we were on our way to a briefing at the capital. the sea came up out of itself, overfilled and gushing forth. there was a family with a small boy. she said she somehow could feel some sympathy for the boy, even though she was clearly not in danger. there were sea monsters and vultures waiting for the dead bodies of the family. normal animals of the sea had become engorged and swelled to terrifying proportions. she noted that even in her REM state of terror, the yellow sea monsters with polka dots were only half-assed, and probably not really monsters. questionable monsters. disney sea monsters that were laughably un-terrifying.

i cannot tell if i am becoming more crazy or more sane. i have no evidence that this is a unidimensional spectrum. i feel expansive. if i were walking through a village, i would have a jolly laugh.

2010-01-21T04:08:00.004Z

i don't think you understand. I get sad when I visit gas stations on highways with no real towns or cities in sight. when i see old men with hybrid mullet-rattail hairdos working in the post office. there are three of them here. one wears those tacky circular glasses that darken in the sunlight. i can barely bare to visit suburbs anymore. i want to weep. that's dramatic: "weep." i mean, i never shed a tear, but i always feel like the atmospheric pressure has risen. things constrict. i can't help but to imagine living that life. handing people packages or cigarettes. driving home through the fields of traffic and scorn to your trailer or edward scissorhands house. turning on your television while you microwave a pasty burrito with chemical names in the ingredients. the horrible television people must be watching. there's scientific evidence. are you imagining this now? i remember the sickness of going to pizza hut and walmart and driving around and around to try to get lost but you know every fucking stalk of corn like a good neighbor's house. i remember how sad my ankles were in that town.

2010-01-20T21:54:00.002Z

being human really just means seeking out confirmation of your view of the world. we want our thought machines to be similar enough to others. otherwise, we feel incredibly alone.

Favorite Sentences

2010-01-20T19:48:00.009Z

If you're a super-attentive reader, hanging on all of my words (what a precipitous thought), then you'll know that I have found particularly pleasing sentences of late. I decided this should be an on-going collection. Each day, I will gather up my favorite sentence and splay it here. It cannot be something I have said, but something I have read, heard out of context, or found on the street.

You are welcome to play along in the comment section if you are so inspired.

1/19: Where it is introduced into a family I need not say how sad the consequences are, both to the furniture and the morals.

1/20: Send me a bill for your failures.

1/21: I was in the kitchen; the year was fall.

1/22:Her husband, Kurt, an engineer and federal employee, sometimes seems to be baiting her by placing plastic yogurt cups in the garbage.

1/23: Just sitting still will earn you these points because you are receiving Spanish passively.

1/24: You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs

2010-01-20T04:19:00.004Z

strenuous selection period of a
german graduate
capable of disdain and distance
awkwardness to glimpse
inefficiency machine giving materials
will need weeks for jars of jam
memory produced proper dinner
motivate lady-like demeanor
overcome resentment and go home.

OR

strenuous selection period of
awkwardness visiting inefficiency
week four's challenge
jar of jam and difficulty color-coordinating
the catchphrase
unable to maintain lady-like demeanor
Grand prize of $3.00

2010-01-20T04:02:00.002Z

To the sensitive wedding on
central triumph
life
which must experience
terrible pay of sex

this point, actually anticipate beware
advantage forgotten
give little give otherwise
orgy of the other hand

painful beginning home
cases forgeo sexual initiation
ideal offspring
average man

men permit months of frequency
feigned arguments late seduction
clever denying reduced methods
end of the fifth

2010-01-20T03:46:00.001Z

what you need is
a nordic man-bride.
it's clearer than ever
what is the heart of this matter

2010-01-20T03:33:00.003Z

i used to have a recurring dream. it recurred.
i would pass out and wake up on the subway as
an older black woman
always wearing polyester and a downturned expression, an afro with blurred edges
what happened was
we had switched bodies while i passed out.
i still had my education in my head, but she had my diplomas
i had clothes and friends but she had my closet and their phone numbers
i think there were three or four kids waiting for me back at my new rundown apartment
i was trapped and i knew i couldn't ever have my life again.
i think i was a grocery worker. something that would numb your mind like arctic saltwater
it was terrifying
i feel like i'm using a lot of 'i's here and also that i'm waking up in someone's body
there is very little polyester involved, and there's no public transportation here

2010-01-19T03:07:00.015Z

this is how my intestines fell out: i found a hole in my stomach. i could see in that small misshapen and sticky oval an off-white and pink rubber bulge. this does not happen everyday, an off-white and pink rubber bulge poking out of one's stomach.
i immediately began looking for answers on the internet. Search terms I used included:

rubber stomach hole worms
oval with things poking out stomach
why does my stomach hurt hole what pink bulge oval explanation
history abdominal holes feminist
michael jackson cause of death

i thought maybe if i opened the hole a little wider, i would have better search terms. michael jackson died of an apparent homicide. acute propofol intoxication, aka magic milk.

i began to finger the bulge. i could press it back in. it felt foreign, like adulthood. my nails were long. i did not want to puncture this bulge in case it was not actually rubber. or worms. i also do not own a brush with which to wash my nails. to have rubber bits under my nails, this would have disturbed me. a propensity to swear.

anyway. you know what happened next. i met a boy. it was awkward, but on our second date, i asked him to gnaw away the hole so we could get a better look. this was preferable to watching anything on the television. we had already discussed our childhoods.

he took this as an indication that he was going to get lucky. he tried to lick my mouth. look, i said, i just want to have better search terms for this hole in my stomach. do you have intimacy problems? if you were interested in me, you would gnaw away the skin surrounding my hole. i mean, i am ready to gnaw on you. this is what people do when they like each other.

i meant it. i looked at his skin and knew that if he ever asked me to, i would eat his wounds.

he was reluctant. he had never gnawed on anyone before, and he wasn't sure he was ready. couldn't we just take things slow and poke at your stomach for a while?

what an idiot.

after i made it clear that this wasn't going to work out unless he was willing to put 110% into eating my stomach for me, he made an earnest attempt. i lifted up my shirt so that the hole was exposed, we nodded at each other, and he moved to his knees. he began lapping at my hole like a kitten, tonguing the off-white and pink bulge.

of course it wasn't enough. i had made it very clear that he needed to use his teeth. we were gonna make this work, we just needed help. so, we went to therapy to get help for his inadequacies. i thought it might have to do with an ex-girlfriend or maybe a repressed childhood event.

while we went to therapy to address his fear of hole-gnawing, my hole grew bigger. it began to look like sausage casing squeezing out of a glistening red round hole. it was somewhat yellow around the edges. it was clear this had nothing to do with my mother's aloofness or the incident at the pier.

what an idiot.

my intestines were coming out, that's all.

2010-01-19T02:29:00.002Z

it feels like something has been unlocked in my brain. i have all sorts of projects and stories and worlds swimming in my brain. i want to write more, construct more, paint more, imagine more. my arms are unstuck from my sides. i am no longer bound by the rules of grammar or the clicks of the san bushmen.

Poetry Spam

2010-01-18T19:06:00.003Z

I find these in my mailbox at work often. I actually read it today, and I will no longer be quickly deleting these.

Enjoy (my favorite line is in bold):

Cophagus'--and, partly to make their acquaintance, partly from a natural aptitude for crime, Sackville Maine followed them, and became an adept in the odious custom. Where it is introduced into a family I need not say how sad the consequences are, both to the furniture and the morals.
Sackville smoked in his dining-room at home, and caused an agony to his wife and mother-in-law which I do not venture to describe. He then became a professed BILLIARD-PLAYER, wasting hours upon hours at that amusement; betting freely, playin

**
I also enjoy that this Sackville became a professed BILLIARD-PLAYER. Are the caps to express disbelief that Sackville could stoop to such an occupation? Who is professing this change? Oh, thank you spam.

2010-01-17T20:48:00.004Z

it is strange to think about someone who does not think about you. i mean, it's like wondering about Tom Cruise. No one really knows Tom Cruise. Who are we to think about him and his life. This is what we've become, voyeurs in participation, there's no i in teamwork. but there are two in television. there are no real rules for i. it sometimes comes after 'e', even with no 'c' involved.

weird.

at the new years party, people were giving hints about who they were. we were guessing. One guy started yelling, "She's a ho! She's a ho!" He was pointing at her and he struck me as very compelling.

2010-01-17T16:16:00.005Z

i want to sell my furniture. i've been selling books. it is a relief when i can take something to the post office and send it away. someone else has to put that book in a box now and carry it up to their new apartment.
i've had most of my stuff for at least 7 years. i'm literally a new person now. science tells me so.
i'm going to move again in a few months. i don't want to bring everything with me. it doesn't seem like it fits me anymore. a nesting phase is what my dad called it. that was forever ago. now i envy those sleeping in hammocks with no shelves for their books. there's so much possibility when things are empty.

i liked it better when we had secrets.

also, i told a pal who wanted to read something i wrote about this blog. i told her i don't post here very often anymore. it's okay things are allowed to change.

2010-01-17T15:46:00.002Z

someone submitted a secret to postsecret saying "venice beach is where my brother buys his heroine." someone else commented that they knew it was a typo, but they loved the idea of buying a heroine on venice beach.

"yeah, she's going to have kill a few ninjas. but don't worry, they're the bad kind. So, uh, can I get a free Lifeguard t-shirt with this?"

I like mistakes. That seems to be where anything interesting ever happens.

2010-01-17T15:15:00.000Z

i wish my brain was made of only one type of cotton
then i could move to the center of space and become

dominant

there would be no need for water
or
conversations about how things should be going
we could effect normalcy in dance clubs by wearing big hair and lots of makeup.

2010-01-17T14:23:00.002Z

i have to be incredibly reasonable. it's the only way really. i have no magic. my hands are just made of hand materials. not even high-quality hand materials. they had a sale, i took what i could. i had no hands at the time so it made things slow.

it turns out, i am not a cat person. it's okay, the shelter has a return policy. in the meantime, we've constructed nets of wire and hung pictures of chicken intestines. i think we can safely assume things are going to shape up round here.

another joke is gonna die in this world. it's okay, i was having difficulty laughing with you anymore anyway.

2010-01-17T14:04:00.000Z

at the end of the day, the golden rule is the best we can do. it used to upset me. flawed logic. really, you should treat others how they want to be treated, not how you want to be treated. but that determination still filters through your brain. you do the best you can. are we done being horrible to each other yet? probably not. it's probably for the best.

thinky post

2010-01-17T02:18:00.001Z

phew. busy week for my brain. i found this article in the NYT: The Americanization of Mental Illness. It gave me a lot to chew on. My favorite line was about Americans' peculiar habit of psychologizing every day events. We do it to each other, we do it to ourselves, we isolate the individual and attempt to break him or her apart into blocks, some which should be fixed, viewing these blocks like dry skin that needs lotion; a cough that needs some syrup.

I am so unbelievably guilty of this. For the first time maybe ever in my life, I feel completely normal. I am America!

But I think this article was fascinating because it points out the harm in doing this, in isolating individuals, in isolating certain behaviors or neuroses. But damn if I feel like I'm solving a really fun puzzle. I have been doing this incessantly with the writer, with whom I finally had a huge blow-out. It went horribly. I sent an email to him, brimming with my analyses of his behavior, in case he wanted to think about these things in the future. Of course, while sending it I couldn't entirely convince myself that it wasn't entirely presumptuous and, well, a not-good thing to do. but all the conversations in my head had to go somewhere, didn't they?

Nope. And now I feel kind of icky about it. People are whole. Perhaps they should not be nitpicked and analyzed to death. He likes hostile and reluctant women and he can't sexually perform; these are a few traits, and i of course immediately link his inability to have sex to his preferences for hostile women. But why would I assume these are things to fix? First, I love quirky, strange, not-normal people. I have never dated a normal. Second, it is obvious that we're just not going to match given these traits. But I no longer know how I have thought it was perfectly acceptable to break apart his person and identify certain aspects of his abnormal-ness that should be changed to appease me.

Anyway, now I wonder just how badly this habit is interfering with my life. I spent an embarrassing amount of time "figuring out" the writer. Aside from the futility of figuring out a historical figure (as he now is), it deceived me into feeling I understood him better than I probably did. Rather than just having a reaction to the whole situation and behaving accordingly, I spent months trying to pick it apart and assess the probability of X benefit and Y cost and total net enjoyment in a world parametered this way and then the other. I wasted a year going through a time loop no less than three times. THREE TIMES! We had the same reactions, the same behaviors, the same emails in the same order three times in a row. And each time, I picked the situation apart, analyzed it, offered my analysis, and was told to go to hell. And then a few months later, we would wash, rinse and repeat. I was no less than horrified to read through old emails and discover that almost nothing was new. no new words. no new feelings. same ol', same ol'.

God, I wonder if i can ever successfully re-direct my mental energy away from this type of analysis. It seems as bred into me as my eye color. It's also just feeling increasingly un-human of me. to interact with people by breaking them apart like radios and trying to put them back together again. human-looking, but no more than a collection of important experiences, insecurities, and desires i feel competent in disassembling and re-assembling at my whim.

It is time to date a robot. Clearly that is my conclusion.

huh

2010-01-13T19:39:00.000Z

I rebounded surprisingly quick from this one. I was starting to think it was all due to my happy pills. Getting scared that my brain could no longer do anything for itself.

turns out, i had been taking allergy pills instead of happy pills the whole time.

clear sinuses=happiness.

2010-01-07T10:36:00.000Z

i really hate feeling depressed. that is the most logically true and obvious statement ever written. maybe.

i hate feeling desperate and naked and small. i tire of reminding myself this is temporary. i wonder if this is going to follow me forever. there's always something horribly wrong. not always. only in months ending in "er" and "y". there's something wrong and i tell myself that when that something wrong is over, when i don't live here anymore, when i'm not doing that anymore, i'll be perky again. i'll say witty things and people will crowd my facebook page with wall posts and send me handmade things and my metabolism will work again and i'll be able to sleep before 3 in the morning and i won't have reasons to dry heave myself to sleep after my body's too exhausted to cry.

but then another month ending in 'er' arrives, and despite the very reputable chinese astrologists who assure me this will be a great year for me, i am fighting through another day. i feel like i am clawing through sand to be able to get to the dessert. i am using awful analogies. my brain isn't working like i want it to. i have bursts of okay-ness, where i don't mind that his world didn't need me in it to keep spinning. it is a good thing i do not date often; every time it doesn't work out it feels like i'm spilt out onto the floor of the state fair.

Edit: It turns out that spilling things out onto the floor was a huge relief. Freedom is very un-depressing.

2010-01-05T05:33:00.000Z

My apartment reminds me of the scene in that julia roberts movie--something about sleeping with the enemy--is that it? huh. moving on, where julia walks into her new house in iowa and all of the furniture is covered with sheets and there's dust everywhere. my shelter rescue cat had worms, so the laundering and draping began.

moving on again.

i've decided the thing that sucks about breaking up with someone is that you stop feeling special. there's this massive influx of "you're special and awesome" into your life when you start dating someone. this someone didn't get snatched up by previous someones. this someone likes you better than all the other someones he/she knows currently. you're the new shirt that comes home from the store and gets worn every night for a week.

then you get shoved to the back of the closet and some new shirt is going out every night of the week while you stare at the fat pants and that sweater from the weird aunt.

i hate knowing that when he's with a new someone in the future, i'll be a part of her calculus, the other someones that are no longer there. they might talk about my flaws, where i didn't measure up, how prone to measurement i was, how i liked him more than he liked me. i might end up in a funny story. maybe i'm baggage. a learning experience. a neighborhood character.

***

moving on one more time, it felt very strange to blog this evening. it's like i'm headed to a high school reunion that wasn't scheduled. i have no idea whatsoever if anyone reads this thing anymore. at least there's progress in the world.

But wait...there's more!

2009-04-14T02:52:00.000Z

So a few hours after receiving naked pic guy's email, i update my profile to explicitly warn guys not to email me if they want random hook-ups, live more than 30 miles away; to refrain from sending me pics of their upright body parts, etc.
i get an email from the cute, granola-y, campy smart guy. wants to let me know upfront that he's happily married in an open relationship and would like to do something sly and flirty if "that's what I'm into."

I'm so confused. I have never had this many offers for sex from paying personal sites ever. this isn't craigslist. these are sites that Dr. Phil recommends, or where i met the awesome guy a few months ago. what is happening? is there special pollen on the east coast that's infecting boys out here? it's like horny zombies are crawling out of their offices and into the eastern metropolises, in search of one thing: human flesh.

And now...

2009-04-13T19:59:00.000Z

I received a message today on the onions personals (fastcupid/salon/nerve whathaveyou). It was from a man in NY who will be in DC today for business. He wanted to know if I would like to get together with him tonight "to see what happens. Chemistry permitting, of course."

Included with this message? a picture of his erect penis.

wow. THANKS CREEPY DUDE!

Is is possible that my profile contains some sort of subliminal message which says "I am all about the f/ucking"?

Sigh.

Dating Woes.

2009-04-03T14:12:00.000Z

B-Baltimore told me I should be blogging more. All of the recent bad dates? Total blogging material, he says. So here I am, back to writing my on-line journal of sorts. Aren't you so glad I'm back? By the way, B and I started a new blog, Dealing With Normals. It might prove useful for some of you.

Back to this one, though...

The writer and I broke up last month. and the month before. i met him on-line a few weeks after re-joining that world for the first time in a few years. so lucky so quick. wonderful guy, amicable breakup...it gave me a bit of (false) hope that other wonderful awesome guys were just waiting on the internets for me to appear on their screen and in their lives. i am on three online dating sites currently, but the one which has given us the most fodder for today's post is match.com. Holy hell. And here we go.

1. The Cokehead. I answered his email because his profile was funny; he noticed the recurrent theme of many of the profiles about which my friends and I had bantered on numerous occasions. "Likes to travel," "Laid-back," "Likes to have fun." So, after a few emails back and forth, he asked me out to an Eritrean restaurant and drinks afterward at a nearby bar.

Breaking my cardinal rule of biking to the date location, I let him pick me up near my house. He was well-dressed, very fashionable, driving a practical but nice car...no white van missing windows and looked like his profile picture. Already off to a good start!

I get in the car, and he seems pretty amped. I mean, he has WAY more jitters than a first date might normally induce. And his nose is pretty runny. But hey, you already know my nickname for him, so you can probably tell why already!

The Eritrean restaurant was delicious, but my stomach didn't love all the spices as much as my mouth did. Nice jittery guy got us a cab, hopped out of the cab at a CVS and got me sum tums.* We got out of the cab, started walking toward the bar, when my date admitted his nose was running so much because he had "partied with a friend" earlier that day. Oh, and I'm gonna go ahead and have a few bumps more, would you mind? A true gentleman, he offered me a few lines as well.

Awww.

I of course declined, and I'm no prude--I've had pals in college whose noses ran, too, so I wasn't necessarily shocked that my date's nose would run, but THIS WAS OUR FIRST DATE. maybe keep the coke at home until we know if we hit if off...make it a TINY bit more difficult for me to completely write you off.

2. Sack Guy
So I started emailing a few days ago with Sack Guy. He's finished law school, passed the bar, and is now in medical school. He's a smarty pants, with degrees from all our finest universities. Also, pretty funny profile. Avoided all of the match cliches, and looked kinda cute in his profile pic to boot.

Yesterday, we moved the emailing to our regular email accounts as his subscription was running out that day. We started chatting on gmail, and about an hour into the chat, started talking about what blows about match...namely, the uninteresting homogeneous pool of potential dates. After talking about the "fun-lovers", Dr. Sack tells me another thing he hates is cockblocking. I expressed confusion...how does one cockblock on a dating site? He explains that it's the in-person cockblocking.

Me: Huh? you're on a date and your DATE cockblocks you?

Sack: Yeah, your date isn't into you and doesn't want you to hit on others...

*At this point, I'm already thinking about the increasing odds that this guy is an asshole.

Me: I would probably be a little offended if my date walked away mid-sentence and slid his arm around a stranger at a bar.

Sack: It's sort of like, we're on date 5, and it's not going to happen. That's the usual way it comes up. I think they're usually banging other guys and want me to buy them shit and give them attention.

Me: Huh.

Sack: God I haven't been laid in a while. My sack is heavy.

--End of Transmission--

Now I see why a cute, funny lawyer/doctor is single. Because he's really a giant walking penis with degrees dangling like penis earrings.

3. The Leg Man.

I was contacted by a cute professional in Brooklyn. Italian.

First email: Can you elaborate at all on leg-wrestling? I'd also like to read your explanation as to why your calves are your best feature.

I mention in my profile that I was an undefeated leg wrestling champion until recently. And under best feature, it says calves. So, sure, this is all harmless, right? RIGHT?

Indulging the request, I explain the mechanics of leg wrestling (not really a sexy sport...it's like thumb wrestling for legs). I talk about riding bikes. Rather, I kind of brag about riding bikes. It's my thing, I'm good at it, and as we've read over and over again on this blog, I have unusually strong man-like legs with girl ankles.

A few emails in, he asks for a picture of my calves. I'm still thinking at this point that he's joking about being so into my descriptions of winning races with my "raw awesome strength." I'm joking as I write it, he must be joking as he responds. the request for a calf picture must be just another round in the game.

Then I heard "my sack is heavy" from Dr. Sack, and think, "Maybe all guys ARE really creepy..." So I email Leg Man and tell him that I need to know more about him before I send any pictures along...at this point, he's earned a wrist.

The reply I get is the most desperate thing I've ever read...he thinks I'm lording my calves over him like some prize because he's divulged what most turns him on and now HE FEELS UNCOMFORTABLE. He'd already offered to take a train down to DC, what more do i possible want?

HOW ABOUT KNOWING YOU BEFORE SHOWING YOU THE SEXUAL EQUIVALENT OF MY NIPPLES (for him, anyway).

4. Frisky. Cute, mature-looking guy talking about how he's now in his thirties and is ready for the real thing (not his exact words, but I'm summarizing for you). Talks about how he's grown and probably screwed up a lot of potentially good relationships in his twenties, but remember, we're in our thirties now. Also, talks about wanting someone who can teach him stuff he doesn't know--clearly interested in brains!

I wink. He winks. I email:

the romans rounded pi to 3. it's an architectural marvel that the colosseum held up so well.

David Foster Wallace loved the first terminator movie.

macguyver's first name was angus.

If you know of a good place to watch blues/jazz, I'd love to have you show me!

Cheers,
Slickaphonic

He responds back telling me where he lives, asking if we'd like to get a drink soon. I tell him my neighborhood, and ask, "maybe this weekend?"

That's when Mr. 30's decides to go back to Mr. 20's. "I just opened up a bottle of wine and I'm feeling frisky! Want to come over?"

Me: "Sorry, I'm busy tonight, but if you'd like to go out this weekend..."

Him: "okay. Well, here's my number...give me a call if you're frisky."

WHAT IS UP WITH THE FRISK, DUDE? No, I don't feel frisky. You want a prostitute, not a girlfriend. they're frisky All_the_time!
***

I had talked about the Cokehead to the Writer, and he explained it like this: "you're a freak. you're going to attract other freaks. and some of those freaks are going to be cokehead freaks."

I guess in conclusion...

PLEASE HELP!

bah

2008-12-18T23:15:00.000Z

i feel a bit frozen. both figuratively and literally. (ha;).
inside jokes don't belong here i suppose.
whatever. best word of this century. WHATEVER.
that is how i feel about my job prospects currently. dear president obama, please find me a job. i will buy things like fancy clothes and multiple belts and purses, and maybe a car for funsies. no, i won't buy a car, but i'll rent a car for a homeless child--a minority one--and we'll stimulate the economy and spread the wealth. but first, i'll definitely need that job.
why isn't the academic market more protected than this? i thought i could shun academia one day and feel puffed with pride and such. ha ha! i eschew your tenure and monastic existence! instead, academia shunned me this year and it kinda hurt. mainly my ego, i guess, but it's hard to ignore ego pain. it's not like pulling a tooth.
oh, and obama claus, i would also like you to forgive my student loan debt. actually, you could choose--a job or loan forgiveness. either will work. or let me declare bankruptcy on student loans. that'd be swell. stupid doctors.
elsewise, i'm realizing more and more that i might be defective. like when i'm cold if you offered me a blanket i'd wonder why. don't you want the blanket? is there a better blanket upstairs in the closet? why do i care about the hypothetical blanket upstairs when there is absolutely nothing wrong with this blanket anyway? i even like this blanket. and i was cold. and it was very kind of you to give it to me. i promise to try to wrap it around myself, i promise to try. dear president obama, please give me a catalogue of all possible blankets.

homesick

2008-12-14T16:02:00.000Z

ride a raindrop every lottery you win. i wrote that once. it comes around again, now and then, like a shadow that chases the light. i miss the taut little tummies and arms with ink stains swirling around. burritos with heaven inside. long stretches of pavement with sun melting my face. his beard was bushy and his glasses round. you don't have to wait any longer. i'm so sorry. her eyes were asian. it caused confusion at the german hospital. and there were swirling tutus with cupcakes on trays and earlobes stretched and displayed at the checkout lanes. i fit like a whale in a goldfish jar. i didn't go to the beach enough. but we sat on the cliffs once with pbr and let our thoughts drift over the waves and trickle down our throats. you dried my tears with the chain grease off your bicycle. we sat in a cemetery with your grandfather and a pack of parliament lights. but maybe everyone was there.

she had a great rack. she looked like a thirteen year old boy. her teeth were slightly crooked and bucked in the front. i'm a being of higher intelligence. meep. there's crayon on the walls and the cat has no hair. she has huge blue eyes with lashes that lick the sky. so tiny, put her in my pocket. her bike is named baby blue. she couldn't ride anymore, her girl bits were broken. please don't dance anymore i can't take it. his nose was broken twice, and he wore glasses he didn't need. skinny jeans are morally offensive. do you wanna escape all of this. i couldn't move his arms from around my hips, he had narcolepsy.

she thought she was a witch. a real one with magic. the rose hunt and the dead bird, he touched it and brought it close to his smiling mayan face. she jumped into the pool with striped tights, a bumblebee. goddesses and gods, and oil that burns my nose but is supposed to smell pretty. a corncob up his ass and popcorn out of his mouth. singing and dancing and making pancakes with too much confetti inside. needles going in here and there, don't worry, it's chinese. don't worry, we'll make it. those fucking sunsets are pretty.

2008-12-01T22:31:00.000Z

he told me he is weird. no, really i am he said. it sounded wrong. i told him weird means you want to fix something to make it normal. i don't want to fix him.

it took a moment before gravity brought that back down to us.

notes from the tour

2008-11-29T18:06:00.000Z

her sister died and became a tornado. the dead tornado's sister took the last spot at the campsite that night. is it okay if they sleep here, Laura? sure, she told the park ranger. and give them that hand-rolled cigarette, Bill. neither of us really wanted it but it seemed rude somehow to refuse. like she had offered us a freshly slaughtered guinea pig in peru and we would be insulting her people to snub the gift. she's homeless and sleeps here and other sites along the coast for $3 a night. up and down the beaches with a yoga mat and her crap...she surveys it and shakes her dirt-thick, dirty blond hair. "i have too much stuff. I need to get rid of some of my clutter."

she can fit all of her belongings into a small shopping cart.

Time! Now you know.

2008-11-29T17:54:00.001Z

there's something strange about the distribution of time. there are supposed to be 24 hours in every day, measured in the same way the world over by factory-inspected clocks.

clocks must be a part of the conspiracy.

lately, i feel like my time has shifted--jumped off the tracks it was on. as though i were a person once, became a character in a book, and am now a person again--but without a past. all of that got trapped in the book's chapters, in that track of time.

there are globs of time, dense little pockets that you have to purposefully work yourself thru. everything sticks, cement-like in your memory. molasses in the winter. then, patches as light and thin as new ice on a fall pond. you can't trust anything, the experiences are moving too quickly to get things properly underfoot. memories don't form as cleanly...a thin fur covers the conversations, blurring what was said, how you felt. i've been ice-skating through the last few weeks. but things are starting to firm up a bit.

funny. "Time" by rolling stones came on as i typed this.

Notes from the Tour, 1.

2008-08-26T04:26:00.000Z

We had been biking at a pace which quickly became grueling for my body, which was not just putting forth the effort to cycle 60-80 miles a day in headwinds and through the California coast's numerous hills, but also to mend a still-broken bone. On the morning of our eighth day, my touring partner assured me that we only had sixty miles to cover, a relatively short stretch. Around mile 15 or so, I realized that this sixty miles included all of Big Sur along the Pacific Coast Highway (the 1). There are a lot of steep hills along that stretch, folks.

Around mile 40, I began to curse my partner, who I had not seen for 30 miles. I had no cell phone reception, and no maps. I wasn't sure about which campsite we were staying at that night. And I was tired, angry, and mostly, scared. I began to fight back tears every other mile. Each hill filled me with dread; I would pause, look behind me and survey all of the terrain and all of those hills I had already conquered and wonder, how would I make it up yet another climb?

I knew I needed to let go of my fear. I would tell myself in my most motherly voice, "Just let go. You're afraid of the next ten miles, but you only need to pedal for this instant. You are not at your limit yet. This is only fear!" As I reached mile 50, I began to become encouraged again. "It's only 10 more miles! You can bike any 10 miles, no matter how hilly! You can always do ten miles!

This worked until about mile 60. Then, I began to argue with that motherly voice, "Yes, but what about the pain? How do you let go of the pain? That is not just in my head, that is aching through my body!"

And then, I hit mile 65. I had arrived at the Henry Miller museum, closed, of course, by that time. It was not the campsite just like the three other Big Sur attractions I had recently passed were not the campsite. There were still no signs for the campsite, and the strangers I had asked along the way had been telling me "five more miles" for the last fifteen miles. I no longer believed them. Further, I no longer had numbers to play with; I had passed the 60-mile mark, and had no idea how far that campsite actually was from where I sat.

I pulled off into the parking lot of the museum, leaned my bike against a tree, sat down in a wooden chair, and sobbed. I had indeed reached my limit; perhaps not physically, but emotionally. The games I played with myself were no longer working, Yo La Tengo could no longer distract me, and there was another small hill to climb if I was to leave that museum. I could no longer tell myself, "It's only sixty miles!" It had already been 65.

After about 20 minutes of heaving, self-pitying, all-out wailing, a man drove his car over to where I sat. His window down, he leaned out and said, "Ma'am, I haven't heard someone cry like that in a long time. What's got you so upset?"

I explained that I had been biking for quite some time, had no cell phone reception, didn't know where my touring partner or the campsite was, and just could not bike one more mile. He then explained that he knew the owner of the museum, would go talk to him, and that I could probably just camp at the museum that night. After he introduced himself, Todd told me to sit right there, settle myself down, and wait while he went and spoke with the owner about my camping prospects.

I'll admit, while I was somewhat creeped out by the idea of sleeping by myself in a closed, empty museum, I was also quite intrigued. It would certainly be more interesting than the hiker/biker sites we had stayed in up to this point.

While Todd was gone, a 20-something, sporty couple approached the closed front gate to examine the literature regarding the museum's and Henry Miller's history. I asked them if they knew of a campsite just north of the museum. They responded that they did know of one--20 miles north.

I began sobbing again.

The girl began rushing toward me, asking "Why are you so sad? No, don't cry! What's wrong?" I hic-upped my story out to them, and they offered to put my bicycle (Frank) on their car's bike rack and drive me to the campsite.

The only other time I have ever hitchhiked was during a high school spring break vacation in the Cayman Islands, where absolutely everyone hitchhikes. But I had absolutely no hesitation at that point in taking this ride from strangers.

While we began unloading my bags from Frank, a tall, shaggy-haired man in a short-sleeved polyester shirt arrived at the museum. He sauntered over, pointed at the three of us, and asked "Which one of you met Todd?" I raised my hand, and he said, "Well, my name's Peter. Now if you want to walk right up that hill there, I live just at the top. You can stay with me tonight. Let's go!"

"Well, thank you so much for the invitation, but these nice people here have a bike rack and they're just going to drive me over to the campsite."

"No, no! I'm just right there, you can get a shower, have your own room with a bed, and I can walk your bike for you!"

At this point, the girl from the couple interjected on my behalf, "No, she can come with us."

I couldn't believe it; three strangers were arguing over who got to take the hitchhiker. I clearly had a preference for who won, and eventually succeeded in politely telling Creepy Dude that I preferred to be reunited with my tour partner, but thank you very much.

The campsite ended up being, finally, actually, only five miles away. Of course, if I had known this, I would not have pulled off to the side of the road and sobbed. I would have rallied and climbed that last short hill, and then enjoyed the massive and unbelievably fun (I'm sure) downhill which followed. But alas, my fear of the unknown, coupled with my exhaustion, and tripled with my frustration at having done "only 60 (Big Sur) miles" broke me. I broke me. I was so worried about total number of miles ahead of me, the total number of miles behind me that I psyched myself out of grinding through one more pedal stroke.

This summer has not been easy. In fact, more shit has happened this summer than in any other five month stretch of my life. And keeps happening. I've had to change flight plans three times in the last three weeks, all attempts to leave this coast and move to DC. This morning, I missed my flight (a first for me) and have been delayed until tomorrow. And I cried, but I also remembered Big Sur, and pulled myself together after only a few minutes. I can't worry myself over what tomorrow will bring, I just have to figure out how to proceed in this instant.

2008-08-19T02:22:00.000Z

I wrapped him up in the softest blanket we could find. It was the only favorite thing of his left that he could still enjoy. He had stopped eating anything a few days earlier, while I was on a bicycle riding through Big Sur. I had tried popping some popcorn, one of his favorite snacks, but he was either too weak or too sick to eat any. He refused the broth I offered, the fresh tuna, and any of his other favorite treats.

He had lost 5 pounds since I had left him a week and a half earlier. He was coated in fleas, despite two treatments of the expensive flea medication. I was angry at the fleas as they crawled over his nose. They were invading my best friend, making his last days miserable as they fed off of his weak little body. But he no longer seemed to mind them, or at least, he no longer had the energy to mind.

I lifted him up onto the bed so we could snuggle on our last day together. He tried to jump down and his front legs gave out beneath him as his face smashed into the floor. He tried to walk a few steps, but his hip was giving out on him after 15 years, and he stumbled and collapsed. I moved him over to the rug in front of a sunny window, always a favorite spot of his.

Wrapped in his blanket, my friend sped us to the vet. It was an appointment i really didn't mind being late for. He slept on my lap, and let his face fall into my heaving chest as tears fell on his head. I carried him into the vet's office and a man rushed in front of me to the counter. i didn't think such a person should be allowed to have any pets. And then a lady went to the counter and said we could be seen first. She then sat down next to me, my cheeks wet with tears and my lip wet with snot, and asked what was wrong with him. I told her he was old, and could no longer walk, and was nearly blind, almost deaf, and hadn't eaten anything for a while. I didn't tell her how guilty I felt that my move to DC had probably overstressed my little guy, that the multiple moves and an unexpected stay at a pet sitter probably hastened his demise, that I wondered if maybe his little bed's absence through the last two stays had made him felt abandoned...

I will always remember stroking his little body, still wrapped in that soft blue blanket, as the doctor injected poison into him. I was telling him what a good little boy he was, and how much I loved him, and how sweet he was to stay with me for so long. I was looking into his huge brown eyes as the light left them and there was nothing but a furry body left on the table, but not the friend i had had since I was 14 years old.

I will also always remember one of our last walks to the pet store together, a few months ago. I had already paid for his food when I looked down and saw that he had quietly taken a pig's ear from the bin below the counter. He looked up at me with those huge eyes and began wagging his tail. I told him, "But I've already paid, sweetheart. Give it here, babe." I only weakly tried to take the treat away, and saw how happy he was to have it. I dug around in my purse again, paid the $1.79, and he carried that pig's ear all the way home with such pride. it was one of the quickest walks we ever took together. Precedent set, he got a pig's ear with his bag of food almost every time from that day forward.

He liked apple cores and the rind off of my brie. When he was a puppy, I would sit crossed-legged on the floor, cradling him like a baby, while he ate the apple core like it was his bottle.

He was fond of humping. Though he was fixed, he would become excited every time there was a party or a date over to the house. If the guests weren't accepting of his advances (and they usually weren't), he would find a blanket to hump across the length of apartment...looking up every once in a while to pant with satisfaction. I often told my guests, "Don't worry about it. I mean, listen, if you weren dependent upon someone else to masturbate, wouldn't you hope they would help you out?" Once, though, my friend's boyfriend was laying on the floor watching tv when of a sudden, he yelled out, "what the fuck???" Suki was humping his head. i think I might have peed my pants a little from laughing so hard.

When he caught frisbees, the wind would usually catch the frisbee and turn my little Shih Tzu into a kite. He ran into a screen door once, and never trusted patio doors again. In the wintertime in Indiana, he would often get stuck out in the snowy yard, one paw raised in an attempt to warm it. he couldn't bear to put that paw back into the snow to come inside. He could also jump onto pool tables, over the back of couches, and of course, over any child gates we set up during his potty-training phase. In the last months, of course, he needed help getting onto my couch--in any way. He was pretty excited about the sleeping mat arrangement I had during the last weeks of our time at the apartment in San Diego.

We could communite so well. Location+cry type let me know what he wanted, and motion+voice command let him know I wanted. If i wanted onto a chair he was on, I simply said "Down" and he jumped down. Or, I would pat the spot I wanted him to move to, and he would sweetly oblige. if he wanted to go outside and i was in the middle of some task, i would say "in a minute sweetheart," and he would wait up to five minutes before reminding me that he did, in fact, need to pee, and dude, I'm a dog, so let's step to it, shall we? Once outside, of course, when I needed him back, I had to yell "TWEAT!!!" and he would sprint to me. I think he probably couldn't hear that these last few years.

When they began to put the actual poison into him, I fought every desire to wrap him tighter in that blanket and take him home. But i didn't want him to suffer for me; I didn't want him to be hungry any longer and unable to eat, to want to move into the sunshine but unable to walk there. he didn't close his eyes and go to sleep, but he didn't suffer any pain or stress. I wish I could have saved my sobbing for afterward, and just let him see me smiling back at my very good little boy.

ouch

2008-05-28T03:59:00.000Z

i broke my collarbone at track class (velodrome). be gone awhile.

Observations

2008-04-18T22:44:00.000Z

I met a boy last weekend who is recently divorced. He's only 25, and got married when he was just 21. On his ribs, he got a tattoo with a knife piercing a heart upon which was written "forever." He explained that it was to remind him never to make any more "forever" decisions.

I wondered if his ribs caught the irony which clearly escaped his brain.

As I sat on my balcony last night, a tiny silver sports car parked on the hill out front of my building. A rotund man rolled himself out of the driver's seat and into the street. He was almost out of breath from maneuvering his large body out of such a small car. I began to wonder why such a car is called "sports." The sweat on his forehead came not from driving athletically, but from the thermal blanket of fat wrapped around his body. It's cruel, but I thought to myself, "When you speed down the road, it's a rush; when I speed down the road, it's an accomplishment."

And then I remembered that if I hadn't rolled my body onto a bicycle two years ago, I would be heaving my large body out of cars, too.

Odds and End.

2008-03-30T22:29:00.000Z

I saw an emergency storage container on campus the other day...in big bold letters on a trashbin-looking metal container, it stated "EMERGENCY STORAGE CONTAINER." It was a few steps from the parking lot. I would love to know what one might put into an emergency storage container. I tried to think of emergency storage situations I, myself, have had in the past--instances where I would have benefitted from an emergency storage container. I could think of none. But I did enjoy picturing myself holding something which needed storage immediately..."Quick! I need to store this NOW!!!" Or imagining myself in the commercial for an emergency storage container: "Has this ever happened to you? You need to store something in an emergency and your tupperware are all dirty? We have the answer."

I saw a lone shoe on my way to work on Friday. We've all seen the lone shoe on the side of the highway, on the sidewalk, etc. Will someone else find its abandoned mate? Are there pairs of shoes out there, alone and useless, waiting for someone to reunite them? Or are there really that many frustrated one-legged individuals in the US and this is their statement against society's insistence on selling them TWO shoes when they only require one? How do you lose ONE shoe? This question has burned in my psyche since I was about two years old...how do you fail to notice that one of your feet is suddenly naked? A flip flop, maybe, but we're talking an abandoned tennis shoe, one red stiletto. How far could you really get before this information confronted you and you retraced your lopsided steps back to your shoe?

A Guide To Recognizing Your Assholes

2008-03-29T20:28:00.000Z

Yes, this post has been ruminating for some time, a research project in the archives of my head. I've thought a lot about which characteristics actually work to form an asshole's nature; it is not the simplest task. The world is not divided into Michael Myers and Mother Theresa clones. The person I was seeing earlier this year was not a sociopath, was not malicious, did not put "Screw Slickaphonic" on his daily to-do list. I don't believe he is evil, or an inherently "bad" person, but he is indeed an asshole. So, my archival research has led me to conclude the following about assholes:

1.) Poor Theory of Mind
-The asshole is unable to conceive of emotions not felt by the asshole, him/herself. Therefore, the asshole will appear reckless in his behavior toward others. For instance, PIDE (person I dated earlier) knew I still had non-platonic feelings and was not completely okay with our new platonic relationship. Two weeks after the abrupt breakup, PIDE invited me to a house party where everyone in the house but me knew that he was sleeping with a very, um, not awesome person. The odds were outstanding that I would learn this completely unanticipated information in public, among and from his friends. He did not invite me to the party hoping to hurt me, but he, being quite okay with our platonic situation, could not conceive of my feelings in that situation. Nor could he comprehend how very terrible such a public setting would be for me to learn this information, given my, ahem, "issues." Again, not malicious, just a very poor theory of mind.

2.) Narcissistic Tendencies
-I've also recently learned to make the distinction between "Cares About Me" and "Cares About My Opinion of Him/Her". This subtle distinction implies very different behavior. Assholes generally do not actually care about a person; rather, they care about that person's opinion of him/her. For instance, after behaving badly, an asshole will not ask whether you are okay or what will help you to actually feel better, but will instead ask what you think about him/her. The asshole will most likely attempt to explain his or her behavior noting how very sorry they feel that you are upset. However, the asshole will not actually take responsibility for his or her actions and will instead attempt to assure you of his or her good person status. Note: assholes' apologies are frequently attempts by the asshole to gain assurance that he or she is not, in fact, an asshole. Assholes will pursue your affection despite being incapable of responsibly caring for your feelings. Your opinion of them is important; your well-being is not.

3.) Technicality Players
-This one most irks me. An asshole will hold you to all conversations which may have been relevant to the social contract you have been writing together. If there's a loophole, the asshole will seize upon it and claim awesome person status due to technicalities. Perhaps you have discussed monogamy with regards to intercourse, but did not specifically discuss oral sex. An asshole will truly believe that he or she is a good and honest person if he/she abstains from intercourse with others while blowing the Brazilian soccer team. Rarely is someone awesome by technicality.

Slickaphonic: Technically awesome since 1978.

Embrace Your Crazy.

2008-03-24T16:59:00.000Z

I've posted on this before, my fear of being emotional or girly in "My Gender Bothers Me, or Yes I'm Messed Up". Sometimes I feel like I should print out that post and send it to all potentials: Listen boys and girls, make me feel and I will have a rage for you which you will not understand. Actually treat me badly and make me feel and a fury you thought died in biblical times shall reign down upon you. (Most likely in email format.)

I am emotional.

I have hated that fact for almost as long as I can remember. I say almost because I can remember a time when I wasn't ashamed to cry in public, or have feelings in general... I hurt my arm when I was about 6 years old. I ran to the church across the street with tears streaming down my dirty face, where my parents were lunching, where sympathy would most likely be found. Instead, my father told me rather sternly, "That's enough." For a week, I was told to stop being so dramatic about my arm, to stop crying about the pain. Finally, after my school teacher wearied of consoling me, I was taken to the hospital and officially declared broken by non-dramatic experts. It was now okay to cry, apparently. But only a little.

My father, of course, apologizes frequently for this, and especially lately as I suffer through feeling. The arm healed, but I still hate myself for feeling so emotional about experiences that my rational self declares trivial. I hate crying when I am in physical pain--it's gone so far that now I either hysterically laugh or angrily curse when I am in extreme pain. But I will not cry. And any time I do succumb to emotion, it feels as though my brain cleaves into two selves; Thinky Self hates Feely Self for being so fucking dramatic about everything, which makes Feely Self ashamed and even more emotional of course. And now all of us just feel outright crazy because I've officially given names to two personalities in my head. But I digress.

My absolute greatest fear in life is to break down in front of people. I can't remember a time I had a face-to-face screaming match with someone, or let the tears flow in front of the person who opened the floodgates. When I am upset, I become outwardly ice-cold while the emotions begin to boil inside. Only my eyes flash what's seething beneath. I leave the situation as quickly as possible. The only form of communication I allow myself with people when I am upset is the most impersonal of all: email. I will write to tell them I am hurt or upset or angry, but I will not let them see me in that state. Letting Times New Roman convey my message with proper grammar and complete sentences gives me some sense of safety--safety against others viewing me as an overly emotional, dramatic, weak GIRL. Safety against others seeing Feely Self. I realized that except for two individuals in my life (ironically enough, one being my father), I am actually unable to cry in front of others. My voice may tremble, but I cannot even force tears out (I tried both times I was pulled over for speeding).

But I'm beginning to see the problem with this strategy: Others know Feely Self is in there, but they don't know how big or terrible she is...They know there's a monster lurking in the water, but having only seen its tail as it retreats, they cannot gauge its true size. Every boy or girl who has broken up with me (with the exception of "Sebastian") has told me the same thing: "I'm terrified of dating you." Sure, they all choose their own special word combination, but it's the same cryptic message. What a relief it would be to hear "I'm just not attracted to you in that way", or "This just isn't working out" or even "I got someone else pregnant." And the breakup speech always contains the "I like you so much" and "you're so amazing" phrases for added frustration and consternation.

I have a hard time believing that I am *just. that. awesome.* I'm starting to wonder if perhaps some of my intensity peaks out, and my attempts to stifle this intensity make it appear all the more menacing. It does feel menacing to me--even though my emotions are rarely inappropriate, I just feel the intensity of those emotions is outright crazy.

It's time to embrace my crazy, folks. I am not a robot. I am not even a moderately emotional person. I am an extremely intense, highly emotional and sometimes jealous individual. I am passionate about almost everything. I am lukewarm about almost nothing. I will still use Thinky Self to make sense of things, but I need to let Feely Self socialize a bit more. After living with Real Crazy for eighteen years, I suppose I doubted anyone would want to be with an emotional person. But I don't think I've been fooling anyone, I've just been scaring the hell out of everyone. I'm not my mother, I'm not Real Crazy, my rational self does not turn off when the emotions turn on, but I do feel everything much more intensely than most. And my selves are trying to be okay with that...

I'm embracing my own crazy.

hey, it's not all dark!

2008-03-19T04:08:00.001Z

from mcsweeney's lists:

Brews
to Accessorize
the Modern Hipster.

BY KEVIN SCHEITRUM

- - - -

I Liked These Guys Before Anybody Else Knew About Them English Bitter

Boys Don't CrIPA

Oh Fuck My Rent Check Didn't Come in the Mail Bock

Fixed-Gear Bicycleweisse

Essentially Empty Yet Always Present Messenger Baggleywine

Almost Stout of the Closet

All My Friends Are White Ale

So What If I Messed Up Your Starbucks Order Porter

Rummage Sale Pale Ale

I Don't Really Like This but I'm Drinking It to Get Back at My Parents and/or Friends With an Overt and Crass Display of Being Cultured Lambic

I Am Entirely Fucking Done With Society Because It Is Run by Corrupt and Criminally Exploitative Man-Machines Who Don't Give One Shit for Anyone or Anything Except for Money and Power Light Lager

Sleeping Pillsner

2008-03-19T03:38:00.002Z

There's dirt in his veins, and i know this. that's why i'm here.
to be caressed and loved by muck.
he promised that when it got too violent behind our eyes we'd stop sleeping and we would walk through gas stations and truck stops instead, picking up more muck for our love.

and when he cuts his wrists on the bone of my hip, i'll let him cry and bleed for all of those promises he made but will never keep.
i'll take the crushed lightening bug off of my finger and press it to his lips, whispering for him to keep quiet.
it doesn't matter any longer.

he'll want to scream, of course. he always does.
but i'll slip on my suicide blue dress--the one as soft as cancer
and tenderly dry his tears with my kneecap
and leave it on the bathroom floor where it ever belonged.

The Toothbrush

2008-03-04T19:31:00.000Z

I only meant to take my own toothbrush out. I didn't even touch his, but the rubber on mine must have grabbed the rubber on his and out they both came. I saw it happening, but couldn't react in time. His toothbrush fell to the floor--behind the toilet where the shit-glazed plunger resides. It fell to shit. God, how it fell to shit.

My first instinct was grab it quick, clean it, try to salvage the brightly colored, $3.50 piece of plastic....try to make it useable again.

Then I remember, he hasn't used that toothbrush in two weeks.

It's still there, I need to throw it away but I don't want to touch it right now.

But I Didn't Mean To...

2008-02-18T18:39:00.000Z

Accidents happen. I'm a klutz--both physically and socially, so I have much empathy for the spilled wine glass, or the joke that comes out poorly and unintentionally offends. I vowed long ago to never yell at anyone who spilled, broke or otherwise accidentally despoiled any items in my household. I always try to take comments with the best possible context from those I trust or care for. Intention matters--even our courts acknowledge this and mete out lighter sentences for manslaughter than murder, even though a person is dead at the end of both crimes. So, when uninformed pals make jokes about mental institutions, I do not hold their ignorance of my mother's frequent visits against them. If someone is late because their bike got a flat, I will not be upset at their tardiness. And when red wine is spilt all over my nice rug, I try as hard as possible to alleviate any guilty feelings the other party has (while pouring salt on the spill, of course...).

However, there are occasions wherein "I didn't mean to" just doesn't cut it. If you knock a glass over and break it because you didn't see it, I won't be angry. If you try to take the tablecloth out from under a fully set table and all of the dishes crash and break, then we're going to have words. In neither case does the individual "mean to" break something, but in the latter, the offender knew there was some probability of breakage and proceded anyway, hoping to land in the "happy" tail of the probability distribution--hoping to "get away with it." In the courts, we call this negligence. If you own a pit bull and build a ten foot tall impenetrable fence and the dog escapes, you are not held liable when Fido bites someone leg off because you took reasonable actions to guard against such misfortune. However, if you are a pit bull owner and built a 3 foot tall shrub around the back yard, you are liable under the law for negligence. Further, even if you are the responsible fence-builder, the second time that dog escapes, you're in trouble. Almost every known set of laws from Hammurabi's Code to the Laws of the Old Testament lay out punishment for such negligent behavior.

I have recently broken up with a pal. One evening, pal and I walked a mile to a local bar, reached the door and were phoned by her love interest--to whom I had introduced her a week earlier. Love interest had unexpectedly come back into town a day earlier than planned, and wanted to see "us." I begged my pal not to invite love interest; further, I said they could make out all they wanted to after we left the bar, but I had zero desire to feel like a third wheel for the next two hours, and really would not gracefully handle being ditched. Pal invited love interest, and then the two waited about three minutes before leaving me alone in the bar by myself.

My pal was confused as to why I was so upset. "I would never intentionally hurt you. Really, I did not mean for you to feel ditched."

Uh-huh. This felt to me like she tried to pull the tablecloth out and the dishes fell to the floor. I have no doubt there was no malice involved, no pre-meditation, no ill will. However, she knew before taking said actions that there was a very real possibility of my feelings being hurt, and she decided to take her chances. We did not land in the happy tail of the distribution.

There's also the problem of cumulative emotional neglect. When you see that someone has rolled the emotional dice with your feelings and their actions, you begin to question their innocence for past transgressions you might have assumed at the time were cases of true accidents. I have the problem that until some transgression really pisses the hell out of me, I smile, rationalize their behavior for them using much better excuses than they could ever contrive, and sweep it under the rug and out of my mind. It's like putting the raging pit bull back in the yard without telling the owner it escaped. When the dog finally takes a bit out of my hand, I'm out of grace and understanding and am ready for the pruning scissors.

We all know how I feel about conclusions by now.

9 out of 10 Dictators Can't Be Wrong!

2008-02-16T20:50:00.001Z

I sometimes wish I lived in "communist" Russia (hey, I'm a political scientist, I get to use quotes around "communist"!). Really, any socialist country which offers only one brand of anything, and you stand in line for a few hours, relaxed because, the choice made for you, you know that you could have done no better.

I tried to buy toothpaste today. As per my usual routine, I was trapped in the oral hygiene aisle for about 17 minutes.

That's a long time to look at toothpaste boxes.

Some are gels and some are pastes. They all promise to clean my teeth--some "naturally", some with baking soda, some with fluoride, some with tiny elves with pickaxes. The fact that there is a choice seems to suggest that one might be better suited for my teeth's needs. What if I pick the toothpaste only recommended by 3 out of five dentists? What do those last two dentists know that I don't?!?

I just feel overwhelmed. And the fact that there are so many choices means there are so many opportunities to choose unwisely (I did this once when I bought the 'natural' toothpaste. "Natural", as far as I can tell, means squeezed out of Tom's rectal region and straight onto your toothbrush).

anyway. Some people think our society is full of depressed people because we have too much time on our hands, we don't have to hunt the wild boar and shuck the corn for dinner, anymore. Our houses come built by other hands; our clothes, by the good people of Taiwan. But I think it's a bit more subtle than that. I think so many first-worlders are depressed because we are given choices at every turn, and we must accept responsibility for most of our lives. If we don't like where we are, it's because of some choice we made at the beginning of the game tree. And knowing that every choice has the potential to ripple far into the future makes the breadth of options overwhelming and, for me--many times--a bit terrifying.

When do you stop trying to get 'the best' and settle for 'the good enough'? Given that you will never know for certain, will you ever believe you succeeded?

So, sometimes I wish I were in my Indian friends' sandals and could just leave the matchmaking up to the parents and the astrology charts. I could leave the toothpaste choice up to my dictator (or his sprawling bureaucracy). Or, ideally, that there was some sort of probe which could map all of my preferences and choose the best option for me given those preferences.

Of course, there would probably be 14 different models and brands of mind-probe machines to choose from.

My One-Month Boyfriend

2008-02-02T03:34:00.000Z

My one month boyfriend will be like my other one-month boyfriends, only he will know his title. Knowing this, he will take me on the the trips we plan within a week. He will talk about important matters with the urgency that comes with a solid time table. My OMB understands that there will be much passion in that month, and he will make love to me as though every time were his last...because in a month, it will be. We won't waste time getting to know about each other's families. We don't care about those peculiarities which will irritate in the long-run, we're only in this for four weeks. We won't interview each other to see about the other's fitness for marriage, how much our friends will like each other, where we want to be in twenty years, how many boys or girls each wants, what kind of genes the other will pass on, or how much income we can expect to bring in. My one-month boyfriend will not care about dating anyone else; we only have thirty days with one another, the others can wait. My one-month boyfriend and I will not have "The Talk."

I want a one-month boyfriend. He'll last as long as the rest, but he'll know his expiration date at the outset.

Bleh.

2007-12-28T03:47:00.000Z

A friend told me recently this would always be her home. I responded that I had none...not to be pathetic, but to explain my reality of perpetual foreignness: my family was never from where we were living--and living in a stream of small towns, my Otherness was quite palpable. Fleeing to cities and ignoring invitations to ten-year reunions, I realized how utterly free I am. I'm moving to D.C. in less than a year, and it's as easy to me as moving apartments. Moving comes naturally; transition comes naturally; being a stranger comes almost dishearteningly easily...But staying still, moving to the center from the periphery, becoming familiar: these things, they horrify me.

And now, I wonder if I'll ever feel the reverse freedom: the freedom of being tethered, of being comfortable and entrenched...
I kick and struggle against the lightest of reins--my commitment to a graduate program for 4 years has come with anxiety attacks--and I wiggled out of a final year by winning a fellowship relocating me to DC; my commitment to an occupation was only made palatable by the realistic possibility of complete job-switching within five years. I clearly have not yet found a similar fix for a commitment to a person.

I suppose it's all the same experience, but perhaps from the other side of the mirror. But it really can be quite lonely over here.

My Beefs with Fruits and Vegetables.

2007-12-23T21:05:00.000Z

First up: Cauliflower.

I think this is the most worthless vegetable ever grown. My research leads me to conclude that it was created in a lab by suburban mothers hired by Kraft Cheese to invent a "healthy" conveyance for cheese sauce. And white veggies--unhealthy anyway--always seem to require further unhealthy accoutriments to become tastey (see cauliflower's pal, Potato, for reference). Who munches on raw cauliflower? Future serial killers, that's who.

>But what about the water chestnut, Lexi? It is white, and I have never seen one fried or buttered.

>>Fuck the water chestnut. Those things have been ruining salads and green beans for far too long.

Next up: The pink tomato.

Listen up restauranteers: if it ain't red, it's not a real tomato. Perhaps that crap flies in New Jersey, but goddamn, we live in California; can't we grow a decent fucking tomato? I went out to dinner last night and was served up some pink, pithy rounds masquerading as my beloved tomato. Anatomically, I suppose they were correct enough, but their sad, pale faces told me the truth. Would you serve me pink ketchup? Or pink spaghetti sauce? Nope. Because you all acknowledge that, in theory at LEAST, tomatoes were meant to be red. That's why we have a crayon called "tomato red"...not "tomato pink".

Stop trying to fool me!

Lastly: Iceburg lettuce.

I just don't get it. Would't it be easier to just chew your water?

>But Lexi, why are you ranting about fruits and vegetables? Don't you have anything better to do?

>>Yeah, I have 40 exams and 40 10-page papers about the theory of law to grade. Makes sense, now, no?

I didn't own it, but I sure did rent it fair and square

2007-11-12T23:09:00.000Z

I wish I were more lyrical sometimes, or that perhaps a language could be reserved for truly spectacular sights and experiences...y'know, when a new yogurt flavor is described as "awesome", I can't very well use that word to describe the ocean transforming into shifting gray granite under the moonlight as I ride my bike through the silent dusk. I can't use "amazing" to describe the Los Angeles river channel at dawn, filled with ducks and rusting shopping carts both floating easily through the mirror stretching out below, the concrete playground of a psychotic child's mind, the graffiti melting and softening in the light which seemed to be coming from the earth rather than the blue-gray sky.

My muscles are strangely not sore. I abandoned any hope of training, ate a lot of bananas the week before, drank a lot of water, and quadrupled my longest single-day bike ride: 130 miles at a 16.3 mph pace (and that included hills that dropped my heart as they rose to the sky). I was not the strongest rider, but not the weakest either. As I spent my birthday this year cycling through Southern California's hills, I thought of myself two birthdays ago--God if I could buy a bike for everyone, what a beautiful world this would be...

Scissors, no threads.

2007-10-31T21:19:00.000Z

I know how to cut people out of my life
You simply guide the scissors about the outline of their memory
careful to cut as closely as possible,
the fewer the scraps you'll deal with later
clean-up can be a bitch.

It's difficult cutting people from your fabric
as certain threads are sure to have become knotted--
entwined with the fabric of other people
people you wish to keep in your cloth.
It's never as clean as you would wish for
But this is an art, not a craft.

You must dispose of the unwanted sections as quickly as possible
lest they fray and leave threads hanging about your daily life
cast over the chair in your living room,
clinging to the rug on your floor
waiting to pop up on your new sweater the next time you step out

that first cut was so terrifying
i was afraid of the scissors, so sharp and pointy, you see
i did not want to damage the person being excised
But then my cloth looked so much better after she had gone
and pruning season had begun.

I know how to cut people out of my life.

How to Become Vulnerable

2007-10-09T00:43:00.000Z

I wish I had a better answer to that title. Quick to share stories from my life, I rarely share the emotions that swim beneath them. I remember being shocked when a man I was once dating told me how very invulnerable I was; he thought he was giving me some sort of strange compliment, telling me how refreshing it was to find himself dating someone who wasn't baring her soul. I was horrified that to learn that my stories didn't translate into vulnerability...
I've only been in two relationships that could possibly be called "long-term", and in replaying conversations, I realize now that I was loath to share any hint of the intensity of my emotions. I suppose much of myself is still trapped in junior high, afraid to reveal a crush to the wrong person, allow someone to seize upon the weakness of such a revelation. I have no difficulty attracting people, but keeping them around seems to be a task for which I'm ill-suited. It's not that they learn of skeletons in my closet, it's that I never let them past the front door. Sharing "shocking" stories from my past serves as sustenance enough for some time, but after the appetizers, people want real food. And I always leave them hungry.

So, any tips on becoming vulnerable, blog people?

there's no checkbox for this.

2007-09-05T20:58:00.000Z

So, to update the three (?) people that read this thing, I am currently dating a wonderful person who makes me laugh and gets me all sorts of hot and bothered. And this person happens to be female.

Many people thought I was straight--I suppose for convenience purposes, I did, too--though I really didn't think having 7 male crushes qualified me as such. I'm also completely asexual much of the time, though there's rarely a box for that on marketing surveys. I'm not more into women now...I appreciate beauty wherever it crops up and always have, but I no more want to make out with every pretty flower I see than every pretty girl I cross. I am "mesexual." I don't think sexuality actually exists in discrete terms; I believe that for efficiency purposes, languages tend to divvy up the world into nice, finite, discrete boxes and you sort yourself as best you can. But most of reality is full of infinite shades of gray--and so is sexuality. I don't consider myself "bi" now--or even mostly straight with a slight bend. But trying to explain this to people--including the woman I'm dating--is a bit difficult. There are issues--I'm not a "real" lesbian; am I going to Anne Heche her in a couple of months? Does it matter that I can't predict my sexuality a year in advance? I can't commit to boys I like that I'll still be hot for their man-stuff in six months, why does it matter that I can't commit to be hot for general female stuff for that length of time? Do I have to "come out" to people? Hell, if they could tell me which closet, exactly, I've been in, I'd write them a thank you note.

My longest relationship was with a "mesexual" individual; he mostly sleeps with males, but he was very attracted to me and we enjoyed two wonderful years together in college. His current roommates assumed he was gay and upon a visit from me last year, were shocked to see us kissing one another. His boyfriend at the time--with whom he had an open relationship--was very uneasy with the new info; it didn't matter that my ex was making out with someone, but it did matter that it was with a female--as though THEIR relationship and physical intimacy were somehow called into question in light of my ex's non-strictly-gay preferences.

I'm not sure this unease people experience upon learning of mesexuality has to do with sex so much as identification and classification. Our relationships with one another depend heavily upon our ability to categorize one another; discrete labels are handy here; friends, friends with benefits, lovers, etc. And if you can't neatly define another's sexuality, this becomes a bit more difficult.

Perhaps I shall write more on this later, but right now, know that though others may be confused, I am happy and excited!

The Hits Just Keep on Comin'!

2007-07-26T02:43:00.000Z

I read today that he would pull the metal from my wrists and crumple my loneliness in a paper cup forever.

God if that were true, i’d birth him that 50 pound baby he wants, or maybe help him adopt the fat kid in the yellow t-shirt he saw standing on the corner.

But you know it’s a long way down

So on your trip to the bottom, you marked the descent just to see some fucking progress

Thinking how nice it would be the next time

But it’s all relative.

And the rotting wooden crosses in the back yard smell just like a pile of sugar-sweet shit

You’d burn them but you don’t want to associate with the KKK.

So you try to burn your memories instead,

The hotel room where he left you like a stain on the bedsheets

Setting fire to the white hair domes of the church ladies with clucking tongues and prickly mustaches and used Kleenex wadded and stuffed into their over-perfumed bosoms, funny you'll never forget the feel of someone else's snot wiped across your face

The jars and tubes of makeup scattered all over her bathroom, the ones that made her bright red lips seem so pointy and unfriendly her eyes golden and purple and more frightening than any bogey man especially when she began to spit from that pointy red mouth and you knew what was coming next

Singing on the porch swing

Go tell it on the mountain

And over the hills and right there in the grass on a bed of crushed leaves that crackled and scratched with every thrust

But there are no saviors anymore

No one has a paper cup

And my wrists are still full of metal.

I Should Have Known Better

2007-03-15T21:24:00.000Z

My friend set me up on a blind date last night. My friend has a big, wonderful heart, but his thoughts just aren't running on all cylinders. He is one of my artsy friends. And I value him, but I am frequently frustrated when he misuses words, or makes statements such as "British actors just seem to be deeper, you know, more intelligent." (Except when they lose the accent for an "American" part, right?)

So, I should have known better when he tried to set me up on a blind date: "AH, I've got the perfect person for you! I just know you two are going to click. I'm sorry I'm pushing this so hard, but when I know two people that are just so...so perfect for each other, I just want to make it happen."

Date came over.

Scrabble board came out (I'm still poor).

Words my date tried to use on said board:

totel (total)
nosel (nozzle)
tech
diggin

and for the grande finale, three-fourths into the game, he tried to put three tiles at the top of the board, unconnected to any other word, and actually started to count up his points.

I was finally successful in wrapping up the game and politely sending him away, and immediately called my friend:

Me: "Why in the hell would you think that we would be perfect for each other??? That was painful!"

Friend: "Well, you both like jazz music a lot."

Me: "Really? That's it? That was this mysterious connection which destined us to be together forever and ever? He liked jazz???"

Okay, so I wasn't that rude to Friend...I mean, he tried to do a good thing. But the experience served to reinforce that with each friend I have, I emphasize one or two interests/characterstics, etc. I emphasize music with Friend, because he's no brain-child, but we do have similar musical tastes. And we have fun getting drunk together. So there, music and beer. I'm sure he saw his friend and thought, "Hey, HE likes music and beer! I gotta get these two kids together!!!"

totely.

Depression is Depressing.

2007-03-09T20:37:00.000Z

I have somehow escaped its clutches again, but depression is really the Big Suck. It's so difficult to deal with because it does not arrive on the scene in one big grande entrance, rendering its condition plainly noticeable. It is not like stubbing your toe. Or suddenly coughing up blood or radioactive green phlegm. No, depression sneaks up gradually, and it slowly changes your baseline so that until you are thoroughly unable to sleep through the night or cry for hours on end, you don't even realize that something might be wrong. Further, I've had tangible reasons lately to account for my miserable mood...it's been quite difficult to disentangle sucky circumstances from sucky brain chemistry.

But then there are moments that shine a bright light onto the situation. For instance, I apparently have "ticklish seratonin levels." My doctor, in prescribing birth control to me, warned that I should not try to quit smoking, or change anything in my routines, so that if I did become depressed, we would know it was the birth control and not some other factor. After two months of taking said pill, I went off it for my week of feminine fun. The first day off, I realized how happy I suddenly was, and further, how miserable I had previously been. But it had happened so gradually that I was unaware of the side effect at all. Now, I knew that getting my period was not a source of newfound joy for me, so I went back to the doctor to get a different prescription.

I hadn't been eating well lately, and this last weekend, was positively catatonic. I wanted to call someone, but getting off of the couch to get my phone and then, ugh, having to punch in numbers and utter sounds seemed too overwhelming. I finally had to take my dog outside, and decided, while out, to pick up something protein-packed for dinner. Immediately, my mood elevated along with my blood sugar, and now I'm eating nuts like they're magic beans.

I wish there was something to be learned here, but the whole point is that until I somehow stumble onto a change which is responsible for my depression, I don't even realize I'm depressed. And that is why it is the Big Suck.

Perhaps I should change this blog's title back to "Conclusion Free Since 1978!".

Asymmetry of Experience

2007-02-11T16:15:00.000Z

I am always uncomfortable when two or more people are present for the same set of objective events, and yet have wildly different experiences regarding them. For example, for those of you who read *The Story*, Sebastian and I read the same emails, heard the same conversations, were on the same weekend-long date; he ended up being the impetus in my life for an overhaul in my thought processes and the starting point on a journey of self-reflection and change. I, to him, am probably a funny story to be shared with friends and future girlfriends.

There's a friend of mine here who has been present for every conversation we've had together, has not blacked out during any of our outings, and yet thinks that we have something *more* than friendship; I know with certainty there will never be anything more than what there is--and I wonder if what we do have can survive this asymmetry.

I went on a first date with a person after exchanging about two emails. We met, I mainly amused myself during the hour-long brunch, and then forgot his name on my fifteen minute walk home. I received a minor tsunami of emails about a month later from said boy asking me why I hadn't returned his emails or phone calls (in truth, my phone hadn't worked, but I probably wouldn't have returned his calls anyway at that time--and I didn't remember having read any of his emails before). He thought we had shared a fantastic date and, further, should and would be having many more. I wondered whether we had, in fact, been on the same date.

My much younger cousin recently contacted me after about six years of absence. The nine-or-so times we saw each other as children, she made my life consistently (and purposefully) horrible. She was manipulative and deceitful--but she was also a child. I am not, therefore, maintaining that she is still the devil's spawn, but I was a bit surprised to read her email: "I've missed you sooo much! I love you and really want to get together soon!"

I have not missed her. I do not love her. I do not want to get together, anytime. She is a stranger, at best, and a source of old irritations and misery, at worst.

It always makes me uncomfortable when this sort of asymmetry arises because it just serves to underscore the fact that humans, by and large, create their own reality. One could not exist in this world if he or she did not have a filter for every single sensory input--be it words or sights or feelings. So how can we ever hope to understand another person when we have not only no true common history, but no common present? Is that the real goal in finding friends or sig-o's? Just finding someone who uses a similar filter? Who might possibly interpret the same events in a similar manner?

love you all, and have missed you soooo much. (note: this last line was just funny to me, but I have actually missed my exchanges with you all).

Hi, Gang

2007-02-02T06:23:00.000Z

I'm still alive, but also with a cold. And a craptastic advisor who is stressing me the f*@& out.

I promise I'll be back someday...

Yr pal,
Slick.

I Got the Good Stuff

2007-01-21T22:36:00.000Z

I don't blog about music, normally (well, I often meta-blog on music, but rarely on actual albums) because there are much more qualified and enlightened individuals than I already doing so. To that end, I recommend earfuzz.com and soul-sides.com, both of which break_it_down for all of you jazz, funk, soul and 'world'-heads.

I had to share today, though, because I just received the soul compilation from soul-sides.com, and it's that rare compilation that continuously widens your eyes as yet another killer track comes on...you know, that rare comp with no filler tracks. Just the most beautiful soul sliding straight from your speakers to your ear, leaving a lingering 'ah' on your lips.

It makes me sad that the bigger outfits pushing out comp after comp do not share the discerning tastes of the master craftsman for this album, Mr. Oliver Wang.

Two more comps which have really flipped me lately are Brown Sugar and Freakoff--both are latin boogaloo compilations, a genre which has somehow mysteriously slipped into obscurity. It's a combination/infusion of soul and funk into the pulsing rhythms from Latin America, and mixed in the streets of Harlem circa 1970-1980. Gorgeous stuff.

The New Dissertation Topic

2007-01-16T18:30:00.000Z

I admit it: I'm pretty jazzed about this topic, and, perhaps most importantly, so is my advisor. To set it all up for you--to let you feel the jazz--I explain a few things first:

1) I was a cultural anthro major as an undergrad, and grew quite interested in economic development--more for damage control vis-a-vis the World Bank--and thus picked up economics as my second major. I worked as a research assistant for a famous-y anthro professor who ran economic experiments in Africa, US cities and US rural areas.

2) In the anthro classes, we reveled in poking fun at the economics/business/development folk who claimed that the backwards cultures of Africans prohibited their economic success. Many an anthropologist's study proved that these backward cultures were usually rational behaviors given the different environment or context in which they lived. For instance, the very ornate and 'religious' ceremonies directing Bali's irrigation system (The famous Water Temples) were actually not religious schmreligious hullaballoo, but rather a finely tuned and intricate system which had taken into account a vast array of parameters, such as the different insects to be restrained, the different crops to be yielded, etc. Though they may have taken on religious language (a "high priest" who directed the water, the "temples", etc), they were actually amazingly efficient at maximizing crop yeild given all of these various parameters. The Green Scientists then came in with the mission of "modernizing" the temples in accordance with Western farming practices--the crops were ruined, fishies died, and took a few farmers with them. The Green Scientists just hadn't taken into account the different environment--the different physical environment--in which this farming was to take place.

3) People look at Iraq or Africa today and scratch their heads about why people would choose to vote down ethnic lines. It is generally assumed that these regions will always vote down ethnic lines because it is in their culture to 'stick' to their own, so to speak. The first gross misgeneralization of Iraq is that Saddam only gave pork or goodies/jobs to his Sunni compatriots; in fact, Saddam was more interested in giving stuffs to members of his tribe, which, of course, happened to be more Sunni than Shia or Kurdish. However, if one drew out the Iraqi geneology chart, one would see that the amount of stuffs given to an Iraqi citizen depended on the number of genes shared with their leader.

4) People use heuristics when making decisions; that is, you use an information shortcut. This is why many Americans vote down party lines; it lowers the cost of gathering information about candidate platforms. It's a rough measure of a candidate's actual preferences, but (and especially in polarized times such as these) it seems to work well enough given the 'stakes' of choosing one's House member.

4) Rural Africa is a low-information environment. That is, there is not free and easy access to newspapers, television news, etc. For many weeks in the rainy season, there may be little to no contact with the surrounding areas, as the roads are easily flooded and many areas operate without electricity (low infrastructure capacity). One heuristic which is easily attainable at the voting booth is the candidate's ethnicity. This is a heuristic which is used in America to some degree (it's called voting on descriptive characteristics--"I'm black, so I will vote for a black person if one is running." "I'm a woman, so I will vote for a woman if one is running.")

5) In early America, there was no choice for descriptive characteristics--to be a landowner (and thus to be eligible to both vote and run for office), one was going to be white and male. Most likely, you were also going to be British, so you can't use a last name to help narrow down your choice. When voting rights were extended to other groups (first black males, then women, etc), the political elite were still, by and large, constrained to the same homogenous set of faces (male and white). So, even though you had other groups voting, they were still little able to use descriptive voting to make their choices. So, the heuristic remained party label, or actual party platform.

6) In Africa, upon decolonization and in those nations that chose democracy, you have candidates for all ethnic groups and voters from all groups. Without pre-existing parties to absorb a mix of different groups or to provide an information shortcut to individuals, ethnicity becomes a quick and ready heuristic at the voting booth. Elites (candidates and politicians) then begin to form their platforms on this basis (feedback effect).

So, my dissertation will be this (the above stuffs) and also experiments run in Africa (most likely, though comparison experiments in Latin America or the Middle East may be appropriate, as well). Specifically, I hope to examine the effect of low information or high information on ethnic voting, as well as the effect of ethnic voting (if you're Yoruba and vote Yoruba in Nigeria, do you get more stuff if your guy wins? What if your ethnic group has no chance of procuring a majority? Do you 'absorb' into another group forming a tacit coalition government?)

So, yeah...Jazzed as hell.

I'M GOING TO GET TO TRAVEL AND STUDY SOMETHING INTERESTING! DOES IT GET ANY BETTER????

It's Time for Marshmallows.

2007-01-09T00:34:00.000Z

Do you remember eating sugary cereals with marshamallows as a kid? I believe there had to be three strategies when consuming your Lucky Charms:
1) Eat all the marshamallows first, then slog through the actual "cereal" part.
2) Ration your marshamallows throughout so that every bite has a treasure.
3) Save your marshmallows for the end, so that you can leave the table on a glorious high-note with five spoonfuls of marshmallow magic.

Although option 2 prevailed occasionally, I was a 'saver'. I just couldn't bear the thought that I would have to finish off a colorless cereal at the end, so I suffered through the plain cereal up front.

Oh, but where are you going with this, Slick?

The topic preoccupying much of my brain's time these days is what to do with myself...how to make a living, so to speak. I'm currently the proud owner of quite an impressive amount of student loans--I won't give you a number, but I will tell you that most game show contestants win less than I owe. (So professional game show contestant is out for my job). This has, understandably, narrowed my options for the next few years, at least. Yes, I'm still on track to become a professor, but to be honest with you all out there in blogland, there's an awful lot of bullshit in academia. Yes, I know there's a lot of bullshit elsewhere, too, but the size of the egos with whom I have to work, not to mention the seemingly high rate of mental illness among the senior faculty, combined with the high stress level and lack of an official 'off-time' or holiday really up the bullshit stakes. Further, when I go for my first job in a year or two, the chances are really excellent that my choices will be Kansas, Nebraska or Kentucky (or some such other exciting locale). I was willing to do this for a very long time---eat the plain cereal for a few years, and then move to Marshmallow Land (tenured position in academia, preferrably, a city). I'll travel later, I tell myself, because I'm poor right now, but one day, I'll cruise the world on my paid year-long sabbatical. Of course, Ibiza at 40 is probably not quite the same as Ibiza at 21, but goddamn, those marshmallows will taste good later. I'll accept the offer at UCSD rather than NYU because SD has the better program---of course I would have preferred NYC to SD twice every day and three times on Sunday, but that's like...sixteen bites of plain cereal---so that's at least 5 bites of marshmallows later, right? I'll study something a little less interesting because it will get me a better job--and move me one space closer to the mallows; I'll get my piano compositions down later--I actually turned down a full free ride to a music conservatory thinking that I could compose all I wanted once I was retired.

I'll live later, once I've pre-paid for all of my fun.

Perhaps this was a wise strategy once upon a time, but I'm really friggin' sick of eating plain cereal. But once I leave this track, there's no hopping back on; I can't leave academia for a few months or years and 'figure out' if this is what I want to do. Sure, I could have done that after college, but now it's too late--I'm too far down the path to 'go find myself in Europe' before committing firmly--or rejecting outright--this future.

Sadly, to get tenure, once must basically live a monastic existence, full only of papers and lectures and conferences, oh my! So I'm not just around the corner...I'm just getting onto the street. And I just can't reconcile myself to the fact that I should wait another 8 years before getting to live.

So yeah, I really really really want some sugar.

Now.

my deep thought for the day

2007-01-05T03:02:00.000Z

I have a cold, and it occurred to me, the amount of sex in my voice is inversely proportional to the amount of sex in my pants.

just thought I'd share.

My List

2007-01-03T18:06:00.000Z

Ttractor wrote down her list of fears, rational or otherwise...my list was too long to post in her comments section, so here you are:

1. Everyone will find out that I have a great vocabulary but very little actual substance.
2. I will end up just as crazy and alone as my mother.
3. Deep down, I am just as religious as my father.
4. My longest relationship will continue to have been my first *real* relationship with my college boyfriend. Who is now gay.
5. I can't find happiness because I'm more comfortable being miserable.
6. All of my perceived personal growth is really just a sham constructed of cliches and wallpapered with to-do lists.
7. No matter how hard I exercise, I will always be the possessor of huge, muscular, man-like legs.
8. I really am big-boned.
9. No one would care if I died.
10. People would care that I died, but never took the time to tell me when I was alive.
11. Dying in the middle of sex so that my father would know with certainty that I am no longer a virgin.
12. Living a life never having loved another the way I know I could, never being loved the way I know I should.
13. Similar to ttractor and her thai delivery men, I pretend to talk to someone in my empty apartment while ordering so that the pizza delivery men do not think I am ordering a large pizza for only myself.
14. When I come home every day, I wake my dog up from his sleep immediately because I am afraid he is dead. He is just old and tired. So far.
15. I will miss the shuttle by one minute and have to wait for half an hour for the next one to come. I end up arriving 15 minutes early every day.
16. I am going to fail in academia.
17. I am going to succeed in academia.
18. I am going to stay in academia.
19. I am going to leave academia.
19. I will write a book which will be read by exactly four other academics who study the exact same thing.
20. My life's work won't help one other person.
21. My credit card and student loan debt will never be erased.
22. None of my friends actually like me; but rather, feel sorry for me.
23. People say horrible things about me when I am not around.
24. These horrible things are true.
25. It wasn't their fault it didn't work out, it was mine.
26. My relationship with my dog will be the longest and most stable relationship I ever have with another male who is not my father.
27. My laugh is annoying to others.
28. It really was my fault.
29. I look like a writhing white whale when I dance.
30. No one has ever had a secret crush on me.
31. I will never get to travel the world.
32. I won't live up to my potential.
33. I never really had any potential.
34. I am increasingly becoming a socially awkward hermit crab who will one day be the crazy cat lady. but with dogs.
35. nope. with cats.
36. My perfume/smokey smell bothers people just as much as their cologne/hairspray/nail polish/perfume bothers me.
37. I am one dentist's visit away from a complete set of dentures.
38. I will never exist in reality as I do in my fantasies.
39. I really do look like that (pointing at pictures of myself in my head).
40. The Mayans were right and the Apocalypse is coming when I am 32 years old.
41. That economics guy my friend talked to was right and we're headed for a major depression.
42. That homeless guy was right and there really are people bugging us, watching us, plotting.
43. Schizophrenics aren't crazy, they just see and hear better.
44. I am not as cool as my friends.
45. My friends know this.
46. I am condescending and mean.
47. There's a reason they didn't like me in high school.
48. No one will ever be completely honest with me.
49. If they were, I'd never trust them.
50. People think I'm much smarter than I am.
51. People think I"m much dumber than I am.
52. People don't think about me at all.
53. I don't really get it at all.
54. I will wake up one day and find that 300 spider babies have hatched and are coming to me for their first meal.
55. Moths do bite, and I will provide proof of this with my swollen limbs.
56. Insects take note when you kill one of their kin and come back for revenge.
57. I will pass out and die because I had to go see a scary movie drunk.
58. I will never stop editing and adding to this list.

Painting

2006-12-26T02:25:00.000Z

I like blank canvases. A lot. I like to stare at them and think about all of the paintings I could do. Again, I'm in love with potential--perhaps more so than reality...

But I have begun painting. This is my painting so far. But I must warn you all, I have painted over about 5 images. But tonight, as I finished off the last of my Single Wine*, I decided to start posting the pics, because I think it will be fun to look at the stages of progression. Maybe you will also be entertained.

Hey, it's free! I get to post whatever I want on this damn site.

*Ttractor knows the deal.

**Oh, and that flower is just in the front of the painting. That is how I see it on my balcony.

Why I don't tell family or most friends about my blog

2006-12-21T18:36:00.000Z

I should clarify below's post for you. I am not a sado-masochist. I am not horribly depressed. I am simply dealing with feelings from a recent one-night stand. Though aware that guilt is not a logically appropriate response, I can't help feeling that I've done something wrong, demeaned myself in some way, given away the milk for free when I should have held out for a pasture, or something. Puritanical upbringings suck. I'm trying to cope with the imprint left on me by a religion in which I no longer believe. Parsing out one's self from the teachings, histories, and beliefs of others is no mean feat. I was not raised in a hellfire brimstone religion, we were not a God-fearing family, we were a God-loving family. But there was still a high, sometimes absurd, moral code by which we were all expected and striving to live. Face cards were not allowed, as those were symbols of idolatry--we played Rook and Uno instead. Chess slowly eased its way into the families adhering to this belief set, but the more devout still shun this in favor of Checkers. We had not even a drop of cooking alcohol in our house. (My mouth about dropped to the floor when I saw my dad drinking win this Thanksgiving). Dancing was not prohibited that I know of, I just never saw any growing up. Anywhere. Anytime. Dirty Dancing was my first exposure to dancing, and I immediately made the link between dancing and sex--if I were to stop and think about myself mid-dance now, I would probably feel ashamed at my lascivious writhing. Thankfully, music drowns out most of my thoughts, so this rarely happens. It seems the only feeling truly free of guilt is pain. Really, listen to your gospels, read your bible, attend any Protestant church. It's the only time you're really not enjoying yourself, and it seems that what is enjoyable is most likely a sin--ah, to be home-free!

Further, while I now happily and fairly guilt-freely drink down my own wine, and play chess and poker with abandon, the attitudes regarding sex are reinforced everywhere in society. The Women's movement/Feminist movement of the 1970s did less for empowering women than the free love movement of the 60's. If your power lies in your gender, it lies in your body, and if you share your body with someone, you've shared your power. I didn't know the guy well enough the other night to be sharing my personal power...I was just enjoying making out with him. Then there are absurd psychologists and authors telling us about The Rules; if you like a guy, you should never never never go home with on the first date. Or the second date. Or fuck, until you're good and married and already pregnant with his child through some non-sex method. And why? Fuck the double-standard shit, why should it matter to me if a guy takes me home the first night we meet and vice versa? I also have the horrible feeling that it really does matter to some guys. Some? Well, most. And the guy from the other night seems to be among this set. I didn't think our sleeping together meant an upcoming walk down the aisle, but I thought my invitation to a movie was about the right pace. He freaked out and wrote immediately that "I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page-I am not looking for any kind of relationship at all right now..." To see the total turn-around from flirtation and fun and having a relatively easy time of getting to know one another to...well, a complete absence of the above...Are these stupid people right? Does it matter that their arguments are logically flawed? If they've hit the coordination game, and I haven't, though I might be "right", I might as well be holding out for Betamax to beat VHS.

So, I'm tired of feeling guilty for actions I don't truly believe are sins. I'm tired of a Puritanical mindset crowding out any pleasure I might derive from my body (or someone else's). I'm tired of these issues popping up and into any relationship--or one night stand--I might have. And I'm tired of repeated confirmation that having sex with a guy really does ruin your chance to get to know him--even as a pal.

And it's woefully difficult to separate out these 'moral fibers' from the tapestry that is myself. Hell, I wonder how much would even be left of me if I could.

So, I wonder: How long does it take to wash away the sins of the church from oneself?

Sigh.

2006-12-15T16:36:00.000Z

My Advisor, Joy Killer Extraordinaire, shot down my new topic..."Interesting, yes. Do-able, no." Fair enough. I have to say that I'm still pretty excited about not studying agenda control in the Senate any longer, though I am now staring down the barrel of three weeks in which all of my friends are gone off to their families, and I have nothing to do. I feel slightly excited about the prospect of a guilt-free vacation, but slightly unnerved that I'm losing three prime weeks for work to the Black Hole that is "Lack of Dissertation Topic". Hmmm. Maybe it's time to crack the white of my blank canvases, or write the story that won't pry its fingers from my brain. I just can't get the first lines out of my head:

"Shh. Eeet weel be fahn-TAH-steek. You weel lahve eet. I prroh-mees you."

Seriously. I sit at home whispering this to myself. In that strange, unplaceable accent.

If you have any burning and interesting questions about politics/political science/political economy, and you would like me to consider working on answering them, send them along, willya?

Thanks.

Oh Happy Day/ I Shall Be Released

2006-12-08T23:11:00.000Z

both are excellent gospel songs, which now succinctly capture my emotions. I am being released from studying the Senate, a topic which held my interest only about as much as a crossword or sudoku puzzle, but really never held my passion. this is why i very very very rarely blog about my work, because it was boring to me into a severe depression.

i'm defending my prospectus the first week of january--the prospectus being the 60 page monstrosity on the Senate, will then crank out a few papers using the data I have toiled over, and THEN...well, I get to choose a new topic!!! My advisor is letting me choose a new topic!!! I get to study something I like!!! My brain is brimming with possibilities right now, but the sheer giddiness of the whole affair is overtaking any serious thought today. I do know that work on ethnicity, religion and politics is 'hot' right now, and both these topics are subjects I've long held dear...(or at least thought an awful lot about). good lord, send a winning lottery ticket my way and I'll just plain die of joy.

I'll keep you posted!

Fun with Old Pictures

2006-12-02T07:00:00.000Z

My dad recently gotten into scanning pictures...and he has bequeathed a whole disk of his childhood to me. If you didn't know, he grew up in Africa, and these are the "cool" pictures...tomorrow, I will post the "creep-me-out-with-how-frickin-Return to Laughter -imperialistic my family looks here" pictures.

My Aunt, eating papaya.

That's my Dad to the left of my Grandma, having to pee. This has got to be the coolest family picture ever.

Sugarcane is the Nigerian Snickers...and my uncles are about to take this kid out if he doesn't share the candybar soon.

You know, most family pictures of this era are taken in front of the family car...almost all of my Dad's pics are taken on or around the family motorcycle. Which my Grandma rode. That kicks ass.

More baby pictures should be taken on motorcycle seats.

Snippets from the Train

2006-11-28T22:31:00.000Z

I don't have the coherence to structure these snippets--or remember all of the very funny comments--overheard during my 60 hours on Amtrak this holiday, so take this as a smaller, less entertaining, one-time installement of Overheard in New York, but On the Train:

**Welcome to the Train**

Conductor: "...We will be training for the next 3 hours until our next stop in Santa Barbara."

9 year old kid: "We're training!!! We have to SIT DOWN!! Mom, what does training mean? We're training! Please, please please sit down, everyone!!!"

**And Where Were Barb and the Trumpets in Santa Barbara??**

Old woman: "Feels like we're going around another turn."

Her older husband: "We must be in Bend, Oregon."

Old woman: "No, dear. Just because we're going around a bend doesn't mean we're in Bend."

**Foiled Again**

Hick Drunk Dude: "Damn, I can't wait 'til the next smoke stop. Hey, let's go open the train window downstairs and smoke there."

Hick Friend: "Naw, man. I just saw them kick off a woman with one leg in that fucking freezing last stop because she was caught smoking."

Hick Drunk Dude: "Fuck. I've got both my legs."

**Sharing Means Caring**

Mother to her extremely irritating and loud 3-year old: "I'm sick of your whining. You need to stop!"

2 seconds pass

Mother to the Porter: "How many glasses of wine can one person buy at the cafe?"

**It's Funny 'Cause it's True**

Porter to the long line of people boarding: "Couples! I need couples first! Any couples?"

waits a few seconds, scanning the line for hands in the air...

Porter, incredulously: "You're all SINGLE??"

Me, audibly and blurtily: "It's a sad and lonely world."

**

As You Lay Frying*

2006-11-18T09:22:00.000Z

All of my heroes are dying
cracked like eggs in the frying pan
soft yellow bellies exposed

All of my thoughts are mashed
hashed and such
did you know my shell is not so hard in fact

as you all lay frying
in my thoughts
oh why didn't you stay whole
for just a bit longer

*Thank you to ttractor for the most excellent Faulknerian title.

My Gender Bothers Me, or Yes, I'm Messed Up.

2006-11-15T02:15:00.000Z

I read an excellent post (to which I can sadly not link, as I do not recall whose blog it was, nor what series of magical links took me there) from a woman who wondered if she were a 'bad feminist' because she hated all things womanly, all things 'girly'.

This problem I know well.

My mother is bi-polar and also has borderline personality disorder just to make life a bit more interesting than the normal mood swings associated with bi-polar. My father is a rather stoic, unemotional man, save for the few fits of rage brought on by malfunctioning household appliances, bad drivers, and "oh, c'mon!" ref calls during the Bears' football games. He was also the rational, logical counter to my mother's extremely creative, hair-brained, overly emotional personality. So, as a child, I sought to fully emulate my father to the exclusion of everything 'girly.' Girly, to me, meant taking everything personally, worrying waaayyy too much about one's appearance, and worrying waaayyy too little about others. It meant my mother. And I did not want to be anything like her.

As a child, I had little ability to consciously sift through "womanly" traits and pick the ones which were not repulsive--rather, everything female was terrifying to me. So, I played with the boys, became morbidly depressed when forced to wear dresses, steeled myself to physical pain, and excelled in math and science. I was also horrified when it turned out that I would not be a waify tomboy in appearance, but would, rather, have (ARGH!) curves.

But now, I'm an adult female, and while I am proud that I am better than most men on the pool table, and certainly at taking a derivative or inverting a matrix, I find myself consistently repressing emotions in an attempt to avoid becoming the image of my hysterical mother, or any hysterical female, for that matter. So, when someone elicits feelings from me, I feel self-conscious and angry at myself for feeling an emotion. My inner monologue goes something like this:

"Don't be such a friggin' girl about it!"

But I am one. And that shouldn't be terrifying, but it still is. I still cringe at the thought of showing my emotions to others, or admitting when I love someone, or telling others that they've hurt me. And because I'm angry at feeling something, I usually lash out at the person because they've inadvertently forced perceived feminity--perceived weakness--onto me.

And anger is manly, so anger is fine.

So, as I try to sort through my feelings about femininty and emotions, I feel like I'm wandering around in a friggin' forrest of confusion. But since I haven't yet determined if confusion is feminine or masculine, I guess I'm okay here for now.

Our Ritual

2006-11-14T00:51:00.000Z

We lie in bed together, and slowly and innocently begin to trace out one another's bodies with our fingers. Arms and hands and earlobes and eyebrows, as though we were blind, we seek to recreate the image of one another through touch. In a soft but persistent wave, every particle and nerve ending awakens and we are in love.

We walk down the street together, and slowly and innocently begin to offend one another with our words. Hurts and feelings and histories and old wounds, as though we are oblivious, we blindly recreate the past through careless assumptions. In a painful but familiar wave, every past emotion and transgression flows over me and we are hurting.

We think of each other distantly from remote locations, and slowly and innocently begin to paint over the wounds with the pigment of wonderful memories. Beauty and laughter and lightness and warmth, as though we were simply old friends, we seek to recapture our past glory through tactile communication. In an urgent but joyous wave, every fiber and quark of my being wants to see you so that we may trace the other's body in our innocent way...

The Political Post

2006-11-07T16:15:00.000Z

Yes, I am a political scientist. And I happen to study American politics. So here is your political post on Election Day.

First, I am not going to urge you to vote. You know why? I think abstention is a perfectly fine way of sending a signal in a 'consolidated' democracy. What do I mean? Our system is not going to crumble if we continue to have low turnout. It does not mean people are not interested in what's going on. It means, most likely, one of two things:

-->You don't like either party and are sending a signal to the Dems and Reps that you would like a "real" choice

-->You have a job and if the Reps or Dems would like your vote, then they need to make Election Day a National Holiday like so many of our European friends enjoy in their countries. Australia has gone the extra distance and, along with giving you a whole day off to pull that lever, actually impose a fine on your ass if you don't use your free vacation day for its intended purpose.

At the very least, let's keep the polls open for 24 hours! Are politicians really so out of it that they don't realize some people might possibly be busy between 7 am and 6 pm?

Now if you are a Democrat and really prefer them to Republicans, then for Gods sake, go vote! Republicans keep winning not with overwhelming support, but overwhelmingly better turnout. If you don't vote, don't bitch. So there. Vote for the right to bitch.

So, now that we've covered turnout, let's consider the actual lever-pulling.

There are a few propositions on the ballot here in Sunny (really really really sunny and despicably hot) California. Let's consider one, which seems to be a "no-brainer", Prop 89, which among other things, place limits of the contributions of lobbyists.

This is a.....BAD IDEA! Unless you're going to cap the amount of money a candidate can actually have, en sum, in his campaign account, this proposition is only going to obscure the trail from lobbyist to candidate. The campaign finance reforms in the House, perhaps you know and love it as the McCain-Feingold bill, has not dissuaded lobbyists or corporations from reaching for their wallets, but rather, has encouraged them to be a bit more clever in their deposits. Now, instead of being able to pull out the list of contributions for your candidate, you have these uber-PACS which run a shell-game for their pals' contributions, thus making it nearly impossible to track donation to candidate. Think of it as a hydraulic system--you push your finger down on lobbyists, and the money just rushes to middlemen (on their way to your candidate). The only way to actually limit contributions to candidates is to cap the amount they can spend on a campaign. Good luck on that one.

Another proposition being considered in CA: Prop 86--which would raise taxes on cigarettes by $3.00 per pack. This is a....BAD IDEA! Why? Listen, I smoke and would like to personally grab each child by the shoulders and scare them into never trying the disgusting things--e-ver! Smoking is already pretty un-fucking-cool, cigarettes are already $5/pack, and it is mostly the under-educated, over-poor working class which puffs away. I am over-poor, over-educated and thought I would surely be able to quite smoking when I moved from the Midwest (at $2/pack) to CA. Nope. I just don't eat as much. This is, in reality, a regressive tax. Most working class people who smoke (think your waiter or waitress, factory workers, etc) get additional breaks if they're a smoker (I sure did in all of my many suck jobs)-->that's where they get hooked. Unless some of this funding is going to go to free hypnotheraphy sessions or free patches (super expensive in the short-term, and we're mostly running hand-to-mouth here), then this just makes our poorer population poorer. It's not going to make them quit. It's already expensive! It's simply going to take a larger portion of an already small budget. And why is only 10% of this tax going to tobacco-related causes??? Dude, let's tax expensive whiskey or fine wine or fancy cuts of beef--heart disease ain't just for smokers.

***
Non-prop stuff:

I'm not going to tell you how to vote if you've decided to pull the lever today and don't know for whom you should tug. I also don't want to know how you voted. This is one of the great aspects of our election system--we went through a bit of a battle to get the Australian ballot so you didn't have to walk in today and ask in front of everyone, "I'd like the Democrat ballot, please". So take advantage of it.

Not Just Another Year

2006-11-07T03:12:00.000Z

The age field on all of my many profiles are about to change over to "28 years old" in a few days. I'm not sure I can express the aging which occurred this year here in one tiny blog--wonderful aging of which I am proud and growth which I earned the hard way, the authenetic way. And lately, I find myself thinking back to last year's birthday at a bowling alley with friends. I snuck away from everyone to the concessions counter to secretly buy myself a non-alcoholic soda from the 60-year old, weathered woman with fried orange-blonde hair. I wished with all of my heart her name was Marge.

Marge had inferred that it was my birthday, "How old?"

"Twenty-seven tomorrow!"

"Oh, 27 is a good year. That's the year you'll discover who you really are."

I suppose anyone can be a prophet.

To My Friend

2006-11-06T21:02:00.000Z

Just like Jesus Christ
She walked out of her sunlit room and into the shadow of the hallway
Wearing only overwashed, overworn underwear
her limbs and torso a delicate image of carved ivory
ribbons of scarlet flowing from her wrists
a name dropped on the floor, a promise broken, drowned in that flowing scarlet
a fragile question mark sliding down her fingertips and into the puddle of blood gathering at her feet
She looked just like Jesus Christ
and I knew I should be bandaging her slender arms
whispering new promises, new lies
but I am transfixed as she stands without her crucifix
beautiful and repulsive at the same time

my blog is hungry

2006-11-04T22:23:00.000Z

and it is eating my posts. so, every time i post a new entry, my blog swallows the last one. i don't know what to do here.

i'll keep you 'posted'...

More On Hall-ho-ween

2006-10-29T18:52:00.000Z

I just remembered that I forgot to tell you all this: There were fifteen minutes in which I considered going as a Bolshevik. So, I searched google images for "Bolshevik" to get a picture of the flag, ideas for details, etc. I found this. Yep, Sexy Bolshevik.

Hall-ho-ween

2006-10-29T18:17:00.000Z

Last night was linguist-rockstar Eric's and his wife Karen's annual Halloween bash. I had been told by several friends that the costume was not really optional...ugh. My first problem with Halloween is that I feel like I'm wearing a costume every day--some days I dress straight out of the 50's, with rolled up jeans and vintage shirts, some days I dress up like a hipster, and wear my big $3.00 sunglasses from the gas station, other days I'm meeting with the advisor so I pull out one of the three "nice" outfits I own--so I find it confusing to have a day set aside especially for costumes.

Second, I don't want to have to spend money on a costume. As I've blogged earlier, I frequently do not eat the last week of every month--or, I have "peanut butter and black beans" days. So I surely don't want to buy a witch's costume rather than half of another 'nice' outfit...or even a few loaves of bread. It just seems extraordinarily wasteful to me.

Third, and here's the money gripe, I'M TIRED OF SEEING 'SEXY NURSES' OR 'SEXY NUNS' OR 'SEXY TURTLES'!!! Seriously, why is everything so slutted up on Halloween? Are people repressing all of that inner sluttiness the other days of the year and just need a release? The Mrs. Clause suit just couldn't satisfy their exhibitionist needs, the turkey costume was too unweildy, and they never got to wear their Valentine's 'costume' in public...so Halloween became the holiday home of 'bringing sexy/slutty back'?

I rebelled last night. I was looking through all of my clothes, my art supplies and my hardware drawer, looking for possible costumes--and I happen to have a lot of librarian clothes. But I would be damned if I would be 'the Sexy Librarian.'

So, I washed my face clean of any makeup, then drew in a unibrow, used eyeshadow to give myself a little mustache, greased down my hair, put it into a straggly pony tail, clipped my bangs to my forehead, put on some black wool kneesocks with a blue shirt and wrapped my glasses frames in a bit of masking tape.

My costume? The UNSEXY LIBRARIAN. I think the people who didn't know me just thought I had poor taste and a nasty facial hair problem... And to my great relief, I don't think there was one 'sexy anything' there last night; sure, there were a few ladies with kitten ears and tails, but I saw nary a nipple and neither a cooch. A good Hall-ho-ween in my book.

Favorite other costume at the party? a boy came in wearing a cardboard, markered mask and a white t-shirt which said, "I too am a Moon Monster."

Oh that Smell.

2006-10-27T06:53:00.000Z

His scent on my pillow has now faded into that vague male odor
musky, husky, full of testosterone and brimming with promises, lies and quickened heart beats
the face next to mine blurs and melts into the Next
and I laugh
I laugh because it's getting better
I'm getting better
He's getting better
That scent lingers and reminds me of tender caresses and harsh words and tear-stained pillowcases, crumpled sheets and the hope that spilt every time
but I come back for more
can't wait to breathe it in again, fully, deeply

I still believe.

Existence

2006-10-19T23:57:00.000Z

I know you saw a part of me, but you didn't see the Self I carry around every day.
You robbed me of a piece of my existence, stealing off with it, locking me away in your mind
a half-formed truth, at best
but now that half-formed truth lingers Out There
where I can't touch or affect it.
No longer dynamic, it remains deformed, trapped, static and unwhole.
Tiny deformed fragments of myself, relegated to neurons firing, neurons dying
I wonder if that fragment is part of me now, if it counts toward my Existence
I release it to you, it's yours
I've no use for it anymore.

Astrology--GIVE ME YOUR COMMENTS!

2006-10-16T19:31:00.000Z

sorry to be so demanding of you all, but this is a subject on which I'd really like to poll my blogosphere pals.

I've always prided myself on being a fairly logical gal. Spock-like, really. You'll all remember my post on being a life-long cynic. I'm not religious, I don't believe in 'soul-mates', I'm a bit unclear on my beliefs on love.

So I am embarrassed to admit it, but I believe in astrology. I certainly do not check my horoscope for 'today's plan', but in terms of personality characterstics, the descriptive accuracy of the signs are really quite intriguing to me. Cheese aside, I can't help but to wonder if the ancient Egyptians might have been onto more than pyramid-building techniques...

I am a Scorpio, and am described thusly:

Passionate, vibrant, magnetic, perceptive, emotional, sensual, alert, willful, determined, resourceful, purposeful, directed, dominant, ambitious, fearless, committed, intense, but can be obsessive, extreme, vengeful, jealous, spiteful, unforgiving, bully, menacing, possessive, arrogant

Famous Scorpios:

Ted Turner, Bill Gates, Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Manson, Billy Graham, Pablo Picasso, Jonas Salk, Martin Luther, Marie Curie, Roseanne, Richard Burton, Price Charles, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Calista Flockhart, George Eliot, Pablo Picasso, kd lang, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jodie Foster, Larry Flynt, Jane Pauley, Dan Rather, Bonnie Raitt, Demi Moore

(If you would like to see your full astrological personality profile, check this site)

Every time I read through the list of Scoprio traits, I am just taken aback at the accuracy--one of the problems Scorpios face (apparently) is procrastination: "At the other extreme is the procrastinator, the man or woman who is capable of so much that they do nothing and become indolent and self-indulgent, requiring extravagant praise and flattery from those whom they make their cronies."

Yep. The vices and 'negative traits' of Scorpios? check. Good stuff? check. Habits in relationships? check.

I also routinely check out the signs of sig-o's, potential or realized, and their signs have always made sense, too--to an eerie degree. It's gotten to the point that I may start actively searching out those individuals with signs deemed compatible with mine. (and y'know, it seems just as helpful a search tool as my educational standards might have formerly been...)

And, just to do a completely unscientific study, I researched my friends whom are happily married or coupled up--their signs match and they have a good shot, astrologically speaking. The few relationships I know about that are in trouble (real trouble, not "I can't believe you said that yesterday, but "I can't believe these two ever got together in the first place"), their signs just ain't compatible.

Now, I always stop at the personality summaries. The day-to-day predictions seem like a steaming pile of dogshit, and it also seems highly implausible (even more so than the personality prediction) that the location of sun, moon and stars when I was born can tell me whether or not I'll lose my keys today.

I know the arguments that "anyone could read any sign and find a bit of themselves in that sign's description", but I have to counter that they will not find nearly as much in another's sign as they will their own. Really, I can't find much at all in an Aquarius that describes me, Scorpio though, has always been right on. Further, one might argue that the descriptions are so vague that people simply project themselves onto the signs--i.e., if you want to believe, astrologers make it pretty easy. I have to disagree again. The more detailed the description, the more I'm creeped out about how accurate my sign is.

So, what are your thoughts on astrology? Do you fit your sign? Do you think there's anything to this? All chicanery? Think I just like it because my sign is more likely to be a genius?

Dear Fiona

2006-10-12T07:39:00.000Z

That was my chosen alias. Though it might end up being Liza...

I got to be Dear Abby--but for sex questions--for www.nerve.com. Check it out at the bottom of the page! My sage answers to the scintillating questions should show up this morning some time.

Question: Can I put this on my CV as a publication? Sadly, this would double my published articles...

UPDATE: here's the actual link: http://www.nerve.com/regulars/sexadvicefrom/phdstudents/

Also, they have edited out what I think is funny. Maybe it's because I'm not actually funny. But here are my complete responses:

> Which department's students would you most like to have sex with and why?

Oh, this is a tie between math department boys and art school boys. The
artists are certainly more likely to be hipster hot, but they're also less
likely to be showered clean. On the other hand, the math boys have all of
those hot hot hot math brains, but are less likely to be into sex.

> I'm having trouble focusing on school with all the hot girls
in my class. I've heard taking anti-depressants can help curb your libido.
Should I look into this?

First, that trick only works for the first few weeks or months; the side effect
WILL wear off, leaving you hotter than a dirty old man at a junior high swim camp.
And that will come right around exam time. Second, I’m sure that lopping your fun stick off would also help curb your libido, but you wouldn’t consider something so drastic, no? Antidepressants change your brain chemistry—learning to concentrate despite your surroundings might be a better strategy.

> My boyfriend has this little girl fantasy, which is disturbing me. He
likes me to wear catholic school uniforms or little pink socks when we
make love. Is it weird that he's into that? Should I worry that as I
get older he's going to lose interest in me because he's
youth-obsessed?

Are you disturbed because you don't enjoy this fantasy? Or because you're
afraid he'll stop enjoying you once you can no longer affect the visage of
a 12 year old? If it's the former, ask him to play a different game, mix it up, have him wear a tweed jacket with elbow patches and dark-rimmed glasses… If
it's the latter, I'd be more disturbed that he_actually_wants_to_do_a_12-year-old, and you're the closest thing to legal pedophelia he can get.

My girlfriend is terrible at oral sex. I've been trying to prevent her
from even attempting it but she seems to think I'm just being shy.
Should I try to teach her a few lessons? Or is that insulting?

She's probably not down there to please herself, so the next time you exchange presents, ask her what SHE would like beforehand…then, give her one pointer (no pun intended) when she’s under the tree.

>
> I know I'm not gay but looking at pictures of male underwear models
> kind of turns me on. Is this normal?

Everyone appreciates aesthetically pleasing images, so I wouldn’t worry too much. If giving a guy a blow job kind of turns you on, then it might be time to start questioning some things.

> I'm getting married in 4 weeks and I'm panicked thinking that this is
my only remaining time to sleep with someone else. Shouldn't I get it
out of my system before it's too late?

Would it be okay with you if your sig-o ‘got it out of his/her system’ now? If you are both on board with a last hurrah with a gang of hookers, then go, sow your oats, plow a few fields. But if you’re hoping to sneak a last roll in the hay under the Law of Pre-marital Amnesty, you should be picking up a set of divorce papers along with that marriage license.

> How can I let my boyfriend know that even if he has an orgasm and
can't continue having intercourse that he can still get me off? He
seems to think that once sex is over, it's all over.

Do you both speak English? I suggest words.

My guys friends talk about sex all the time but I feel like it's a
betrayal of my girlfriend (whom I've been with over 5 years) to spill
the details, but then I wind up feeling like the prude at the table.
Should I just make stuff up?

Yeah, I’m sure she’d much rather have you telling your friends about all the sexcapades you’re not having together…Ask her if she minds (she may not, and is perhaps telling details to all of her pals); if she would feel betrayed, then you’re limited to talking about pornos or other guys’ stories.

> My girlfriend hates my ex, whom I'm still friends with and whom I
dated a thousand years ago (in high school). We're just friends now
and we're really good friends but my current girlfriend gets mad when
I talk to her or see her at all. What should I do?

She has to realize that you existed before you met her. You have a past, filled with people who have accompanied you into the present. If this ex were an inconsequential friend, I assume you would have dropped her a while ago to ease tensions with the current girlfriend. Hang out with Exelina in a larger group, and tell Nowawana whenever you see Exelina. You don’t expect her to drop everyone you don’t like, do you? Neither should she.

Win Some, Lose Some

2006-10-05T20:56:00.000Z

The dissertation is increasingly plump, full of literature reviews and data and delightful graphs and greek letters dancing around in a swirl of theory. This makes me happy.

I failed at my attempt to quit smoking. This made me sad.

But not as sad as I started to feel when I no longer had my little paper crutch. After biking home the other day in a mere t-shirt and jeans, I was soaked in sweat and the stale salty grime of walking the campus earlier that day. It clearly says October on my calendar, and yet, San Diego refuses to conform to my conception of fall. Palm tree fronds don't change colors and fall to the ground. The sun beats down on my pink and freckled skin just as cheerfully and obstinately as it did in July. The air is still warm, and that smell---that smell of fall that I have so longed for and once loved--is nowhere to be found. I still remember it well--that cloying, disgustingly sweet smell as the fallen leaves begin to decay mixed with the crispness of the cooling air, perhaps smoke from a nearby leaf fire. God, I miss that smell.

So, coming home as I did the other day, I began to sob (and as those of you who have fallen into the nicotine trap and have tried--successfull or unsuccessfully--to extricate yourselves know, when one quits smoking, one goes a bit nutty). But deprivation-induced insanity aside, I feel like I'm trapped on vacation. Imagine going to the Bahamas and, instead of flying home two weeks later, you are forced to stay for five, six years. The beach isn't fun after the first month, you begin to recoil in disgust at the sight of yet another bikini or midriff-baring top, another backwards-turned baseball cap, another sunny day in your beautifully bright prison cell.

So I smoked. And although I wish it weren't true, I feel much much better now.

Perhaps I will just have to suck it up--it being nicotine--until I can go home. Back to four seasons and decaying leaves and blessedly cloudy days and smells on which I'd happily become high once again.

Academic Update

2006-10-02T23:06:00.000Z

It looks like I'm being nominated for the Brookings Fellowship--which would mean that I get to live in DC next year!!! (Four whole, distinct seasons here I come!!!)

I'm gladly accepting wishes of luck (and of course, surliness and such, T).

Great Expectations

2006-10-02T01:22:00.000Z

are not warranted right now--well, not concerning the bloggity blog...I'm actually making progress on, gasp, what I get (meagerly) paid to do! Yes, I am writing a dissertation. I am riding this swell tide, as this tide rarely swells...

And I have quit smoking again...so I am antsy and increasingly taken to strolls around my fair neighborhood to relieve the overwhelming urge to spark flame to that pernicious cylinder of noxious myth.

So. I promise to continue the Whiskey Bin later, and I might perhaps share the novel I am (type) writing on my loverly remington in between dissertational bursts of productivity.

Fare us well.

Intermission--Pics from Pittsburgh and The Hideaway

2006-09-28T22:14:00.000Z

Click on Images To Enlarge!

Good Things Are Coming.

2006-09-25T03:15:00.000Z

I apologize for not posting earlier; but I'm now beginning to map out another short story for you--aren't you excited? It's based on characters at a karoake bar in LA, about whom I scribbled many notes on several coasters (my friend told me that taking pictures would be rude...sigh). AND, I now have a typewriter with which to begin writing that novel.

Isn't she lovely?

Oh, yes. Good Things are Coming.

If Only Tantrums Weren't So Passe

2006-09-20T04:33:00.000Z

I was outbid on my lovely little Corona typewriter with 5 seconds left on the auction clock. After a few mouseclicks, I learned that an on-line typewriter store bought my typewriter (for $41.00--$1.00 over my bid) to re-sell it for the non-bargain price of $350.

I am sad.

that is all.

Beauty

2006-09-17T22:16:00.000Z

I have recently rekindled an old love: antique typewriters. I think the machines can belong to that set of most beautiful things I've ever seen. Take, for instance, this lovely little beast from 1936 to your left. Is not one of the most gorgeous things you've ever seen? I'd probably buy it, but sadly, my typewriter collection will have to wait to be built until much later--perhaps then I can happily click $400 over to ebay in exchange for such loveliness, but for now, I will simply froth at the mouth and grab this little beauty (for the bargain price of $25) instead:

I also think Vanilla bicycles are among the most beautiful items to ever catch mine eye. And perhaps one day I may start a VB collection; until then, I have my beautiful Bessie to carry me from A to B.

So, why this post then? Well, I am still learning about myself these days, and I thought my new obsession with typewriters odd--why do I find this little machines so thoroughly attractive? Why do I feel the need to possess so many of them?

I believe that these machines, just like bicycles and tables (with which I also harbor a desirous obsession), hold tremendous potential in such an aesthetically pleasing manner.

Perhaps I might type a novel on that wondrous Remington 5; where might I travel on my beautiful Vanilla? What conversations, loves and heartbreaks might unfold at my table?

Oh, potential. You are so beautiful.

I Never Believed in Santa Clause (or "I Feel Cynical")

2006-09-17T18:36:00.000Z

It's true. I remember being a youngin' and wondering how all of the other kids could believe in such rubbish. Every year until I was around eight years old, I heard my classmates talking about what Santa would bring them for Christmas, getting excited to sit on Santa's lap and tell him in person what they'd written in the epic letters. I was busy looking in the trunk of the car, the basement, the attic, my dad's church across the parking lot...anywhere my non-Santa parents might have hidden away my presents.

I also remember wishing desperately I could belong to their faith--believing in magic, the Easter Bunny, fairy tales and unicorns. Wanting so terribly to be one of those children, I invented an imaginary friend, a mouse named Alex. I hoped that perhaps once you had created such a thing, like a chia pet, over time it would grow and become more real.

To my great disappointment, I was always painfully aware of Alex's non-existence. But pretending to believe in him made me feel like I belonged. And I realize now that I used this strategy in a great many arenas: Perhaps if I pretend to believe in Jesus, someday I'll feel that spirit moving inside me which struck a great many old ladies around Easter time. Perhaps if I pretend to believe in love, one day I'll feel that magic that seems to strike an increasing number of my friends.

But I haven't yet felt it. Instead, I feel like I'm living in My world and moving through Theirs--those enchanted idiots with secret smiles spreading across their lips as they meet others who've been struck, baptized--other believers.

And still, some part of me still hopes desperately that it does exist, and I'm simply a cynical creature for whom it's not too late. I'll raise my arms and shout ten thousand hallelujahs if only it will one day reveal itself to me, if I can only one day join their kind.

But, really, when's the right time?

2006-09-15T05:26:00.000Z

I'm sorry--I had started a couple of actual, prosey entries (one of which, dear ttractor, was written as a full-on reply to your "I feel cynical" comment)...but alas, I found this, and just had to wonder, when is the right time to divulge to your date that you're a violent alocholic with herpes?

(from daily dish)

Gest Wants Judge to Void Minnelli Pre-Nup

Music producer David Gest has asked a New York City judge to void the prenuptial agreement he signed with Liza Minnelli because she didn't tell him she was "a violent alcoholic with herpes."

During a court hearing on Friday, Gest's lawyer called for Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Harold Beeler "to set aside the prenuptial agreement" with the singer because "there was substantial nondisclosure of several material issues."

According to court documents, Minnelli accuses Gest of having tried to "poison" her, while Gest alleges she kept her medical condition a secret until well after they were married and had "unprotected sexual relations."

Minnelli's lawyer, Israel Rubin, insists the court documents should have been sealed: "This whole thing is ridiculous."

***

I mean, you want to give the best impression on the first date, right? And then, well, it's just kind of awkward that second date. And then, after you're married, you just kind of figure that the window's passed, and now you have to wait until you get him good and drunk, but then you're the alcoholic, so you're usually the drunk one, and wow, that's a toughy.

And it's not even Thanksgiving

2006-09-13T20:51:00.001Z

On a day in which my senses feel overwhelmed by the terribly too brightness of this world, my ears full of windchimes and churchbells and sirens and car alarms, an oppressive heat wrapped snuggly about my limbs, I recall a story which makes me rejoice in this onslaught of sensual attacks...

My cousin, born deaf and isolated from the usual social contrivances, experienced the world through books, moving lips and nimble flying fingers, her vision hungry for the communication her ears would not provide. After two decades living in her world and moving through ours, her hearing was surgically restored. I cannot comprehend her existence during those first few months, years, while she learned to interpret this new sensory information, learned to decode the sounds buzzing all around her.

One morning, as we began to prepare a picnic with uncles, aunts, and cousins of all ages, I witnessed her attempts to understand this new world. She was hearing some sound and begged us to tell her its source, its meaning. We were baffled, as none of us heard anything, and wondered if perhaps her ears were failing her...until the youngest cousin, her six-year-old self beaming with secrets we adults had long-forgotten, announced, "It's the wind."

Okay, Story Part XVI: Post-Grand Finale Wrap-Up

2006-09-11T02:47:00.000Z

It's true. I gave up on the story. In writing the last few chapters of this tale, I felt like I was going through another break-up. Surely this break-up was less painful than the real thing, but somehow, I felt deflated. So, again on the advice of Mr. B-Baltimore (our schlumpy genius friend), I am here at my keyboard in an attempt to properly finish this tale.

In my first turn at a relationship with Sebastian, I was still operating as though suffering and stoicism were required to earn a relationship; further, the success of the relationship was little more than a competition to be won. And I had always won in the past--though there were few prizes I sought, I proudly stacked my trophy case with all of my desired conquests. And once a trophy lost its luster, I simply moved out into the world on a quest for a larger, more dazzling prize. Because I rarely shared much of myself--a few dimensions at most--leaving each relationship was quite easy. True, realizing the trophy on my shelf was not the most perfectly crafted prize I once thought I had held in my hands was frequently painful, but I rarely lingered long.

So, when I failed despite having had suffered and trying to win, I was crushed. And because I never placed this trophy on a shelf, I had little opportunity to investigate it for flaws, cracks, dents and dings. My lingering feelings for Sebastian were, in reality, my feelings for the fantasy Sebastian I had built so long ago.

This last 'relationship' (using that word oh-so-loosely) inadvertently allowed me to investigate that prize--and I learned I had no desire for it. In my final letter to him, I of course did not share any of these thoughts, for I knew that the revelation of my identity would most likely preclude him from receiving them...

While I am sure my letter reads as though I would welcome him back should he 'offer me grace', I can tell you, dear reader, that my heart held no such invitation. In reality, I know that I could never be the dream he had created and with whom he had fallen in love within one week. And surely, he was not falling for me or Emily, but rather, the anonymous stranger whom he was fitting, stuffing, twisting and forcing into his fantasy lover's mold. That so much of her initially fit surely eased this process, but I wonder, if he had really been falling for Emily, would my true identity have mattered? And as for myself, I realized that I had no need for him to substantiate--to verify--my existence.

So though I spoke of grace for myself, I wonder if he, or you, dear reader, understood that the way in which I wrote that letter was an act of grace for him? An act of kindness for the undeserving. Yes, I knew that revealing my identity would make him reel, perhaps drop his stomach like he had once dropped mine, but I also knew that letting him believe Emily existed and that perhaps he had written a wrong word, or had approached too quickly and frightened her away or simply repulsed her in some mysterious way--that this would have been poetic, but unduly cruel justice.

In the end, I strive not to be poetic, but to be graceful. To exist in reality as I do in my fantasy. To trust in my own hand--to hear strength enough in my own voice that I need not shout, for a whisper spreads my truth:

I exist.

Story Part XV: Grand Finale

2006-09-08T05:01:00.000Z

I had tried three times at this point to gently reject Sebastian, and each attempt had failed. It was time to try something new.

I believe that from this point on, I will just allow you, dear reader, to form your own conclusions from our correspondence.

"Sebastian,
How do I refuse to reply to words soaked in such sincerity? Obviously, I cannot. But if we are to persist, then I must make one humble request of my own: that you begin to see me not as a profile--which seems to me to be a mere distillation of ourselves, suitable for one serving only--but as a more complete person. A human being with the flaws, embarrassments, hang-ups and obsessions I count as my own.

So, in an unprecedented move, I now begin to offer you a more complete self-portrait, so that you can begin to assess the worthiness of all of this.

I have not always been patient. I decided some time ago to begin working on this, and began a series of rituals I continue to this day: I choose the longest line in the grocery store. I look for older people, fists full of coupons, or mothers, hips laden with unruly children. I then stand behind them with my small basketfull of items. I use this time to mentally compile lists of books I would like to read, or what I might paint when I get home. Sometimes, I simply try to think of nothing. This is no small feat. I have become more patient as a result, but now, like a pigeon, I am locked into this ritual whether or not it remains functional.

I have at times been very mean. When I was in academia, I found that I could be quite cutting. This made me feel very uncomfortable, and in an attempt to justify myself, I began to perfect my insults. I realized finally that I had no need nor desire to continue in this vein. I spent six months whispering "shhh" to myself as I walked the campus and city whenever a cruel observation entered my mind. Now, I rarely say a cruel thing about or to others, but can still be heard whispering 'shh' to myself on occasion.

I am a process, and feel confident that, if I do not possess an established garden, I at least can claim a marvelous tool shed. And in my search for that hand of which you spoke so eloquently, I look for inspiration, not validation. The hand that pulls me at times, restrains me at others, and lays comfortably and still when I just need a rest from the marvelous strip club of a world in which we live.

Emily"

***

"Emily,
Thank goodness that we get down to it. You were fast becoming more fog than specter, what with your profile now turned off. And I really wasn't sure how much longer you would indulge my dance by being amused. So thank you for making this a little more tangible. These messages have become surprisingly delicate to write as you continue to respond.

I do read an awful lot into your profile, but I am excited far more by your responses. I don't imagine this is a surprise to you, which doesn't ease my intrigue. So I am coy when I should not be because it is not safe to act otherwise. Or, far more accurately, it is terrifying to capture you only by a thread. And it makes me agonize over your reception of every word I write, such as capture--and thread.

I know you are mean and how easy that is. I know how aware you are of it and how hard that is. I know you seek patience, because it is the healthiest reaction and it requires both acceptance and will. I know you are obsessive because it takes all your determination to contain those spirals of thought, that raw intelligence. And I know the quiet satisfaction of a system like I know the frustration of a maze.

And, Emily (surely it's not a cheap device to use your name), I know my role is not to tell you all this, to sum it up so glibly, but to lift you off the page with imagination and delight.

But I first have to contain my thoughts of everything we might share. What is far more tangible than however dreamy I have made you to be is how acutely aware you are of my meaning, intentional or not. That is something I can be a little more objective about, and, far more importantly, is where I have always known I would find my own inspiration, not just my solace.

If we could walk and talk down these streets far into the night, I would be at your door. I want to know all about your flaws and your beauties, but right now I will patiently smile over your shhh's and hope you will think well of me. I am not sure what else to do from here to show my hand is skilled, whatever the use.

Sebastian

Ask! I want to tell."

***

"Sebastian,
I apologize for my mild disappearing act. I've re-activated my profile for your obsessing pleasure. And now, find a seat, because the liberties I'm about to take with metaphors and imagery are surely illegal in Kansas, Utah and perhaps West Virginia.

Our correspondence and a recent conversation with a friend have my mind working overtime on the nature of relationships and complexity and time and chance. My friend, who has known me almost three years told me that he was always intrigued by me because I presented so many different personas to him. First, he met the Midwestern girl, who laughed at most everything he said. Then, he met the scholar, who spoke with such passion on things considered morbidly boring to most. Then he met the musician, who had such passion for the music of those whose blood she's gladly drink if only to understand a bit of their genius. He kept wondering when he would finally meet the real Emily. And, in an epiphany borne of a drunken stupor, he finally realized that he had met me. I have many dimensions, and I'm always curious how path-dependent relationships can be, the end is almost always a consequence of the beginning, which level we first offer and which we first accept.

I'm trying to say this: You've been extraordinarily lucky to have happened onto this dimension first. Under a mere fistful of sand, you found that spring for which others dug in vain--some for years. They began digging elsewhere, and finding nothing with which to quench their thirst, wandered off to other deserts. But it's been here--I've been here the whole time. I just try so ardently to preserve my carefully constructed world--if I feel judged, or pressed too quickly, or overwhelmed by the infinite possibilities, I quickly retreat and close off from view all of those traits--all of this vulnerability--which you have so easily elicited from me. You are the only person in the world who knows what 'shhh' means when uttered by my lips.

So, I'm asking--what are your most precious, secret systems and mazes? Do you think you've ever started digging in the wrong place and wandered off too quickly? And now that you're here, do you tremble with anticipation every time you bend to take a drink?

I do.

Emily"

***

I know I promised to let our correspondence speak for itself, but I must add a brief note here. I realized after writing this that I had invited him to open up to me, to become vulnerable, and that this would only cause more pain when the conclusion--whatever it was to be--would occur. So, before I received a response, I deleted my profile...I realized this would also hurt him, so through a few bureaucratic turns, re-activated my profile. I then wrote the following email.

***

"Sebastian,
I apologize for disappearing again. I read over my emails and yours, and it just seemed too intense. Maybe I feel comfortable sharing myself with you because not only are we similar, but we are anonymous. And, your writing is beautiful, and perhaps I became carried away with potential, myself. But you don't know me, and I don't know you. For all I know, you're a lesbian who has become frustrated with the lack of interesting lesbian women to date in the Ohio area.

So. Perhaps we could go back to mild amusement?

Emily"

***

" Emily:

Well, you certainly substantiate your claims of unavailability. However effective, it was not altogether necessary to contrast it in succession with a rare admittance of vulnerability. But this is probably the appropriate check and balance to my too my selfishness in grabbing your hand and pulling you into this world of words without considering the pace of your gait. Discretion is always a better strategy than boldness. You are, again, my counterpoint, and, again, that only makes you more attractive. And again, I am twisting to my courting advantage your sincere protestations. I am sorry for that, but should I try to curb them, perhaps you will allow one with a smile now and again.

I have often thought that you might be the workings of a devious and mechanical imagination, capable of catering to my perhaps too transparent blueprint of attraction. And knowing full well such a thing could barely exist, let alone succeed, you are a figment created to show how susceptible I am to the trappings of my own imagination.

Nonetheless, I believe that you exist, as I have faith in my own ability to determine my path to love. And, as amusing to me as is the idea that I am a lesbian's ruse, I assure you I am another fumbling male.

But the only way you might gain confidence in this fact would be some sort of more substantial contact. So I propose that you call me sometime, just so that we do not remain anonymous. I know you will protest, but at least keep the number: 775 555 5792. In this context, I am wildly amusing.

And although six months may seem a long time to span with these messages, I know that in the mundane world, it is going to pass in the swiftest of frames. Which is why I am already starting to pack, and it is why I don't think it is foolish to begin thinking of meeting you.

Sebastian."

***

" E-

I realized there was no reply marked for this message from you in my box. I imagine you did receive my original response, but it was not included in your subsequent message, so I am resending, if only to have it on record. S

Emily,

I do know I was fortunate enough to catch your eye from a distance, and you so quickly steadied our approach with what I will simply call grace. But, just grappling with your fundamentals, never mind your particulars, I could only be ignorant of how elusive your gaze might be to maintain, as you explain. Understanding this after the fact makes me reel with caution but recover with my own acceptance and joy.

I put tremendous trust in my perception, probably foolishly so. But I have also been far too eager to
maintain hope in someone perhaps with only fleeting potential. It is nearly always my perception, not my dogged optimism, that informs me in the long run most. So I have learned not to linger where I cannot find what stimulates me readily. Where I cannot find kindness in actions and thought that is daring. If it were hidden from me, I think at least I would know. And I have no history to allow a prediction of how such a challenge might end.

I want to say that people know me as they know you--dependent on circumstance. I blend too easily with my surroundings. It is one of my systems: let everyone have their way, surrender your will, thereby not valuing one choice over another. And it happens to me in relationships just as you describe. And I quickly learn to resent this false routine.

And this is why I am attracted to you. I decided to find someone like me, someone's will to which I could surrender, because it was my own. And in these circumstances, I can only be brave, accept I have no camouflage, and act for myself, whatever the risk. But, my support, so wisely chosen, would often enough voice agreement, or offer valuable perspective if in dissent. And I am able to reciprocate. It is my grand plan, and it makes me a little bit of a madman, but it goes a long way toward explaining why I like you.

And to substantiate such claims of madman-dom, I will offer one of my ways through this world: When I was young, my father, working for courage by operating on fear, told me of Jesus being tempted by the devil. Jesus said, "Devil be behind me," and his choice was enough to keep the devil back. A simple story, certainly misremembered, and one that might encourage independence. But for me, I imagined that every scenario became a bargain with the devil. The devil was always ready to offer me my desired result in any situation. To ensure that the outcome would rely on my own actions or the inevitable fits of chance, and not a deal for my soul, I would silently repeat, "Devil be behind me." I still do it today, but not like I did when I was young. It is under my breath, it is not a story I tell, it is not a chain of events I dare spend too much time piecing together in my mind. I can somehow say from a distance what was before impossible to whisper in an ear.

And I'll now borrow your imagery to multiply this voice: I do tremble, in the quietest moments when I can glimpse the vastness of this desert while never losing sight of the glisten in your eye.

Sebastian."

***

It was too much. I realized, after much reluctance, that he had begun to fall for me--or rather, fall for Emily. If we had woven webs before with our words, I had now created a tapestry, and every thread threatened to break his heart. With head and pulse throbbing, I went to my keyboard and typed this, my final letter:

"Sebastian,
Perhaps it is because I am drunk I have decided to tell you this.

I had not received your response to my ‘desert’ email. I found your confession tremendously moving, and terribly sad for some reason. So, in an attempt at parity, I now confess not a maze or system, but a sin I have committed. If you choose to offer me grace, then I promise to become more substantial to you. Though I’ve long felt I deserve no redemption here.

I was dating a man with whom there was tremendous potential, and at the time (as will come as no surprise to you), I felt tremendous excitement and fear. I knew I was nowhere near complete as an individual, and so when the opportunity for a relationship presented itself, I balked. Not consciously, but subconsciously. I was so petrified that I might not have the chance to become comfortable with myself, to learn about myself, to become me. I had been feeling more like a leaf in the wind than a tree, carried in whichever direction there was the slightest nudge.

I have also always been tremendously fascinated with the possibility that individuals are so driven towards false goals they assume whatever character necessary, numb whatever emotions could prove a hindrance, and proceed at all costs to obtain those goals. In short, they prostitute themselves for meaningless, but perceived treasures.

So, for our first date, we decided to immerse ourselves in a fantasy. We took a three-day vacation together. He was a gainfully employed man, and I was a poor student at the time. So, of course, he paid for everything. It killed my pride, my spirit, each time he reached into his wallet to pay for me. I suppose I could have used your chant, “Devil, be behind me.” But I had no such chant, and I responded instead by using this time to investigate how it would feel to actually be a prostitute, rather than offer him any reason to pursue a relationship with me. As a punishment to myself, I made sure to gaze into his eyes as we were physical with one another so that I would be acutely aware of the complete lack of intimacy. And I made sure to thank him for each injustice.

For years now I have searched for a suitable definition of grace. I finally determined my own: to perform an act of kindness for the undeserving--that is grace.
****

Yes, it is me. And while I know you will instantly presume I did all of this to hurt you or get even, I promise I did not. In fact, I was shocked when you found this profile. I enjoy writing fake profiles not to mislead others, nor is it for other nefarious purposes, such as stalking, baiting, or what-have-you. The fake profiles I write are mostly me, but I change the occupation listed to one of my several dream jobs (photographer, artist, baker, writer, etc). I change my location to a city in which I would like to live (NYC, Chicago, SF). Then, I use photo-shopped pictures of myself. Once I have created my fantasy life, oddly, I am more at ease discussing myself. When I had a "real" profile on-line, I was pithy, sarcastic, witty, and closed. I believe this is quite rational given the audience. However, when I am writing as a dream, I become more real...I divulge my quirks, my awkward personality, my flaws. "A way of sending myself out into the world without suffering those anticipated consequences." And with that one magical click, it felt like I was creating a person--bringing into existence a me from another dimension.

I have been utterly tormented since I first 'hotlisted' you back. That is why I have tried repeatedly to extricate both you and me from this situation. though you never replied to the email, I wrote that I wished I had met you under different circumstances--this is true. Yet I don't regret meeting you or the pregnancy scare of any of it. The truth is that I have, for all intents and purposes, become Emily. I spent six months learning about myself, my flaws, my weaknesses, my quirks, all of it. I hated the way I had treated you, and the way I had treated myself. So, for six months, whenever I thought of you, or, as I said, a cruel observation of others, I shhh'ed myself. The emails are all true; if you read through them, you'll see that no 'prior' information was used to manipulate you. The profile is almost entirely true. It was not written to bait you; in fact, you hotlisted two of my other fake profiles, which I deleted soon thereafter. I suppose curiosity got the best of me this time around.

I hated receiving the email of you opening up, not because I didn't wish you could share with me, but because you were doing so under false pretenses. I hate that it got this far, and if you read over my emails, I hope you'll be able to use your powers of perception to acknowledge that I tried to gently allow you your dream without hurting you.

The tragedy in all of this is that, had I not met you, I would not have been who I am today, I could not have written that profile because I would not have known enough about myself to do so; however, now that you know it is me, I can assume no other response than hurt, anger, and betrayal. And I am sorry for this. Throughout, I wrestled with telling you, and surely hurting you and your dream, or breaking up with you as Emily, which also would have hurt you, or disappearing (which I tried to do, but knew that also must have hurt you). In short, this progressed away from me and I still don't know if this is the best way, but I simply do not know how to handle this.

I can only hope desperately that you knew all along, and were instead toying with me, though I feel I am not to get off that easy.

And I can only end in saying that I do exist. I am not a baker, I do not live in Chicago (again, both wishes).

But I exist.

Lexi"

***
As I finish typing these last few lines, Jeff Buckley serenades me with a more perfect ending than I would have ever provided:

Well Baby I've been here before
I've seen this room, and I've walked this floor,
You know, I used to live alone before I knew you
And I've seen your flag on the marble arch
And Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Well, maybe there's a god above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
It's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

And that, dear reader, is the end of our tale.

For now, at least.

Story Part XIV

2006-09-08T04:08:00.000Z

I should have known better than to label this a short story...I also should have known better than to email him back. I've never played hard to get, so when I answered his emails so cautiously, I believed I was holding him at bay while I figured out a new way to extricate ourselves from an impending disaster:

"Dear Sebastian,
Compatibility and shared passion are indeed rare and tremendously exciting. Your nod to Oscar and Lucinda was not overlooked. However, I should explain promptly what terrifies me about this prospect: We seem to have a library of commonalities, but I'm also searching for those precious gaps which leave room for new and amazing things to grow. I fear our commonalities might overwhelm that chance for growth. Further, we hermit crabs are primarily observers, filing away details for our collections of humanity. The idea that I might meet you and be merely filed away is disconcerting, to say the least.

I hope I don't sound too presumptuous, myself. I simply feel that patience might be best.

So, feel free to mildly amuse me. I might surprise you with a bark of laughter.

Emily"

I had been careless. I had encouraged correspondence, and this was certainly not in my initial plan. I still didn't want to erase my dream self from existence, but I certainly did not want to encourage Sebastian to continue corresponding. So, I simply turned my profile off, believing that one could not message a person whose profile was no longer active....I was mistaken.

" Emily:

The things that you say, they make me wonder if you could be that elusive person around whom I would be comfortable to grow. I have no trouble with challenge, it is the hand in mine I know and trust that I crave. But I concede. I am too eager with potential. And my healthiest balance of will is patience.

And accepting the wisdom of another, perhaps you will agree, is always complementary.

As is conceit, I hope, when delivered with sincerity.

Sebastian

You are the first person ever to get the Oscar & Lucinda reference, never mind understand it so succinctly. It is jarring to hear a response to such soft words spoken."

***

Yes, I was feeling increasingly tormented. I was also feeling increasingly amused...fascinated, really. While this story takes place in an on-line dating site, in which people are based on profiles depicting their favorite media choices, clothing, and sex scenes, the truths about human behavior and relationships were beginning to unfold and spill out into a much wider context. Those first impressions--those first words exchanged have the ability to entirely determine the path of a relationship. The profile I had written here, Emily's profile, was me--in the guise of a baker living in Chicago, of course, but it was filled with more truth and honesty than my former, "real" profile...the brutal honesty of my self-description was guiding our exchanges into an entirely new territory. But I knew the truth--reality--would soon have to intervene, and I still had no idea what to do.

I responded.

"Dear Sebastian,
I think this is what terrifies me most: to most people who click through my profile, there are but words on a screen. You, in being so extraordinarily similar, understand perhaps everything I've written. I feel terribly naked and exposed right now. though I suppose that's exactly what I sought when I first joined this odd world.

I have quite the busy weekend, but I look forward to your next response.

Emily"

***

I spent the next few hours agonizing--again, this response was not careful, it encouraged him to be hopeful. It was not kind, it was not thoughtful. It was selfish. So, that evening, before he had a chance to reply, I send another email:

"Dear Sebastian,
I apologize, but this just isn't the right time for me. I wish I had met you under different circumstances, but I did not. I hope you understand.

Emily."

I suppose this is how one plays hard to get. I had no idea.

A day later, he replied:

" Emily:

We, both being terribly diverse and dynamic creatures, must have countless experiences, passions, obsessions, inexplicable pleasures, traits minor and major, embarrassments, hang ups, loves and beliefs to share with each other.

It is when fully clothed, layered and obscured, that what is profound in us both may simply evaporate into small talk. But when I can speak to you directly, like a familiar hand, palms up, gliding across another's skin, so much, so simply, can be said. So as vulnerable as you may be naked, it is trust drawn from shared experience that draws you closer, as breath, like you say, forms with the one beside you.

And that, dear friend, is as much liberty as I dare take with my imagery today.

I hope your weekend has been busy is the best of senses.

Sebastian."

***

Well, if backing away was failing to create a bit of distance, perhaps running full speed, arms flailing, might do the trick...

Story Part XIII

2006-09-07T19:02:00.000Z

I knew a year ago, before I had taken time to really know myself, that we had so much in common...but the circumstances had prevented me from sharing my inner-world. While this profile certainly had a few falsehoods, I was laid bare--more exposed than I would ever have allowed without that precious cloak of certain anonymity. But, my curiosity having been satisfied, I had no desire to enter into another round of cyber-relations with Sebastian. I also had no desire to hurt him, and it was this wish to be gentle, to be kind which ultimately pulled the situation out of my hands...

After a day of thinking, plotting, reasoned arguing with myself, I wrote my reply:

"But what do we say? I will agree that we have copious amounts in common. This both excites and terrifies me. I think the scales may tip in your direction once you live here. I'll wait to meet you until you've got your very own Chicago address and then--you may find me again. To ease your fears that I'll be whisked away by some other hermit crab, you are the 4th person to ever hotlist me.

Emily"

My plan, so carefully constructed, was to wait one month, and then erase another self from cyber-existence. I thought that my reply held the potential to both reject Sebastian and simultaneously allow him to feel hope--to feel unrejected...

Of course, I know now that one cannot properly reject another without inducing some small bit of pain on that person. And perhaps, in hindsight, a swift and more straightforward rejection--or even an outright refusal to reply--might have been kinder. But these were new waters in which I found myself treading, and I was entirely unsure in which direction lay the shore.

He waited about one hour before sending his reply:

"Emily:

Well, I certainly won't attempt to argue with caution. But I would like to make a few humble submissions:

1. I hope, if we are not to meet, you might entertain the idea of corresponding. At times, I can be mildly amusing.

2. If you throw caution to the wind, I will be in Chicago September 15-18. You could make my weekend with something as innocuous as a coffee meeting.

3. Hermit crabs strike quietly and quickly. Just look at me. Should one emerge, at least give me a fighting chance. Compatibility is a rare thing, never mind shared passion.

4. This is said with head bowed, but I believe myself to be the real deal. And I think you just might be, too, which compels me to make such a bold declaration.

And perhaps I have done just what I said I wouldn't do. But, should these points fall short, I at least have the blessing of both patience and perseverance to fall back upon.

Sebastian"

****

Oh, if only he knew! But my pride prevented me from admitting the truth to him, and until I figured out a new plan, I began to bide my time by cautiously responding to his increasingly bold requests...

Story Part XII

2006-09-07T03:54:00.000Z

As I said at the beginning of this "short" story (which really has seemed to stretch on a bit...), the fake profiles I've written of late were not constructed to bait anyone, and certainly not Sebastian. I just love filling out those little forms, changing certain realities to fantasies, and then weaving in recently discovered truths. And as I wrote in one of these profiles, it's just another way of sending myself out into the world without suffering those anticipated consequences. I certainly do not generally respond to winks or emails--but I enjoy discovering who has been substantiating my dream life by viewing 'me'. And when I saw that Sebastian had viewed and expressed interest in two of those dream selves, I immediately deleted the profiles. I suppose I had grown a bit tired of erasing myself...and I admit, I was curious what the man who had inadvertently spawned all of this growth would say to me this time around...

So, this was me the fourth time Sebastian found me:

Location: Chicago
Occupation: Baker
Education: Some grad school
The last great book I read
history: Guerilla Prince
autobio: Miles Davis
non-fiction: Goedel, Escher and Bach
fiction: Invisible Cities

My most humbling moment
This will sound trite; but I'm actually trying to answer this question honestly. I feel humbled whenever I listen to certain musicians, walk before certain artists' paintings in a museum or finish reading certain authors' books. I realize where I'm currently positioned on the scale of human potential for greatness.

Damn.

Favorite on-screen sex scene
A scene which shouts in my mind: Clive Owen yelling "What does a person have to do to get some intimacy around here?!?" in the strip club.

just priceless.

If I could be anywhere right now
Florence, 1420 Paris, May 29, 1913; NYC, 1948 Cuba, 1973

Five items I can't live without
"hobbies", music, laughter, stories, mojitos

Fill in the blank: _____ is sexy; _____ is sexier.
Intelligence; intelligent compassion

The word or phrase that best describes my personality
The best animal to describe me is the hermit crab. I stay safe in a little cave, and periodically venture out into the world to bring tastey morsels home with me.

My personal style
I think of clothes as costumes. I also value consistency. So, I wear librarian, hipster, yuppie, punk, and sporty costumes. lately, i wear as little as possible. because it is swelteringly hot.

What I like - or dislike - about what I do for a living
I like working with my hands, having a task which is easily completed and the instant gratification I feel every day I bake. I was in graduate school (sociology) for two years before I realized that I really felt uncomfortable in that environment. But my coworkers are great, and I still get to talk about Levi Strauss from time to time. But without all of the snarky interruptions.

The type of family I come from
Three sisters, all of us very close. Dad and Mum are great, but not great together. It was a real inspiration watching how they both handled themselves with dignity throughout their divorce.

The amount of fame and fortune I've achieved in my life is...
All the kids on my block know I bake the baddest bread.

Why You Should Get to Know Me

I have an obsessive personality which I've channeled into various hobbies such as baking, collecting, painting, playing and listening to music and reading the histories of dictatorships. I'm trying to collect enough hobbies so that it appears as though I lead a normal life--though just one could so easily absorbe me fully.

If my books could carry on a more complete conversation, I'm not sure I'd be here. Would you if Gogol were speaking to you? I love people but I don't like spending much time with them. That may sound odd, but I am a bit of strange one. I am a strangest.
I don't like small talk and I'm too self-conscious to enter into a full conversation with new people, so there it is.
This does not read like a warm invitation, does it? Well, I firmly believe that to someone who understands, I will appear as though I simply understand myself. And this is mosty correct.
Sometimes I feel as though I'm too sensitive to all that surrounds me and that I'm one harsh note away from losing my mind. But I've become quite skilled at filtering out the world's demands for my senses, and focusing on all of the beauty I see every day.

I write awful poetry and insert it into books I sell to the used bookstore. On occasion, I have inserted pictures of my feet. A way of sending myself out into the world without suffering those anticipated consequences.

So, I am a thoughtful, calm though passionate, sensitive, generous and happy individual. And I have every confidence that I will find someone to share my world with...

More About What I Am Looking For

I would like to find someone who challenges me creatively, intellectually and emotionally without entrapping me in competition.

Someone intelligent, but not patronizing (to me nor others).

That gentleman who is kind to the waiter in the small diner on a road trip when no one is looking.

The guy who notices how heartbeats and breathing tend to converge to one rhythm when you're lying next to the one who understands you--the person that even your lungs trust.

Perhaps the man whose laugh fills the room faster than cigar smoke.

And most importantly, he neither fights me for the last roll, nor refuses to touch it--he offers me half.

******

If I wrote in all of the fields from this profile here, there would be exactly 6 differences between my true self and the self created here. And so, imagine my amusement when I received the following message from Sebastian:

Subject: What We Write, What We Wear
"I would only feel presumptuous attempting to outline the hierarchy of our similarities from fundamental to minute, even when my initial and only hope remains that they were already as readily apparent and exciting to you.

But I will say that I feel much more comfortable in your words than I do my own.

So, no small talk. I am moving to Chicago in April; I would like to meet you far before then.

Sebastian."

Story Part XI: Emergence

2006-09-06T16:41:00.000Z

I had never been so thoroughly embarrassed in my entire life. Although it might be reasonable to assume the primary source of my embarrassment was being caught writing a fake profile, in reality, it was actually my reaction to said capture. It's interesting--if someone mistakenly believes you are boring, you can persist and show them your adventurous side...if a person believes you to be meek, you may persist and show them your bold streak; however, if someone believes you are obsessive or desperate (and how could he not?), persistence will only bring into focus their nascent view of you--re-enforcing their initial beliefs. Had I really become a desperate neurotic mess? Was I really so in need of a relationship I was willing to thoroughly embarrass myself and chase after one who had rejected me so cooly? And finally, had I really become so fragile that a rejection could send me into such an unhealthy spiral?

Sadly, I had to answer yes. To all of it.

But that by no means implied I was destined to remain as such. The day after I broke the world's record for most emails sent within an hour to a single person, I attempted a new record: most tears cried within one hour without physical pain, death of a family member or exposure to onions. After my sobfest, with eyes still red and swollen, that dull aching post-weep headache begining to creep through my brain, I sat down to my computer and typed out a to-do list. The list was not filled with menial tasks, but rather goals to get my life in order--to get myself in order. First, I decided not to date for a year. As I've said earlier, when I was dating, I felt my dimensions were of less than full rank. I also wanted to ensure that my growth and reflection during this time were not teleologically inclined toward another individual's tastes.

It's odd, but I've never really tried to figure out what I like for myself. Even as a child, I was not encouraged to discover what I enjoyed. Rather, I was encouraged to be the best at everything. There were no punishments for coming in second place, it just never happened. And I was praised for succeeding--for being special, showing the most talent in art, music, academics.

How sad is was to find that I couldn't even tell when I was enjoying something or not! I only derived pleasure from activities if there was some feedback telling me that I was doing well, I was “winning.” There’s no one to do this with respect to what music I should listen to, which books I should read, which artists I should enjoy, which hobbies I should pursue. There’s no “winning.” So, I had been setting up false competitions—Look how close to your tastes I can come! Look, I can appreciate this! I can win!

So, along with discovering my own tastes on everything (at nearly thirty years old), I began to thoroughly investigate my world views, my relationship habits. A derivative of my inherently competitive nature was the way in which I had come to view people. It's as though I was walking around with a set of inequality signs--I hadn't really been aware of it earlier, but every person I encountered or even saw from a distance had been immediately branded with "better than me", "less than me" or "equal." Further, I realized that I had become quite fond of binary distinctions: intelligent, not intelligent; attractive, not attractive.

In a word, I had become shallow.

I also came to sense that my own judgemental behavior had worked to make me feel less secure. Surely if I carried inequality signs in my pocket, others were doing so as well...As harshly as you judge others you perceive yourself to be judged. And I had become absolutely Draconic.

Further, my obsessive nature led me to constantly replay conversations, reread emails in my head, relive painful events. My photographic memory was being wasted on memorizing trash.

So, I began to shhh myself whenever I began to mentally judge another person, think of Sebastain, or ruminate on some past event. I wanted to look forward...I needed to look forward.
I pursued an education in my preferences on music, literature, movies. I traded a few meals for a few paintbrushes, oils and a canvas. I embraced activities which seemed inefficient, irrational before, such as writing poems and inserting them into returned library books.

I became me.

*****

And then, about a year after Sebastian's visit, I wrote a few profiles of me, working my dream jobs in my dream cities...Sebastian found the bulk of them and 'winked' at each slightly fictional character. And every time he found one, I deleted the account.

Well, except that one...

Story Part X

2006-09-05T21:44:00.000Z

Aside from the benefits of throroughly analyzing and articulating my feelings and actions throughout this whole ordeal, writing this story has also been a wonderful opportunity to re-familiarize myself with the Roman numeral system. And it is entirely appropriate that this segment of the story should fall under X.

It is the lowest point indeed; treasure was later found, but X did not quite mark the spot...

Before receiving Sebastian's descriptive and hurtful email, I had finally worked up the courage to take the Test. I must say, if I could only impart one lesson to all of my readers, it is that you should always spend the extra few dollars on a quality pregnancy test. It simply isn't the time to scrimp... After the first, generic pregnancy test came back indeterminate, I had to once again summon all of my will to march back into the pharmacy and buy another test (this time, I went with a name-brand). Upon seeing that most wonderful little negative sign, I immediately drank to my own happiness. And then drank a bit more.

Then, I received his email.

I immediately responded:

"No, she wasn't angry. She was confused and didn't feel you had been entirely honest in your explanation. So, she wrote a fake profile to see if the boy with razor-sharp perception would ever figure it out. Yes, she's a bit mean, though perhaps she wouldn't be if boys like you didn't keep coming into her life.

I truly didn't know how to respond when you didn't figure out it was me immediately. But I suppose you're willing to believe anything when someone is saying all the right things. I know I did.

Lexi."

Exactly three minutes later, I received a response which flushed my cheeks redder than a fresh-picked cherry, dropped my stomach to my toes and raced my heart like a mad jockey:

"I knew it was you all along. No woman enjoys that music. If she did, I would marry her. I must say, you far underestimate my music sensibilities. But also, a meta relationship? That one made me laugh out loud..."

The email went on to depict all the ways in which I had made it obvious that it was me; I suppose those 'mistakes' were borne from those periods in which I proceeded as though it were a joke. Or perhaps, in my rage, my rejection, my fear of being pregnant, my confusion...I simply didn't have the patience required of such a task. And to be truthful, I'm quite glad I didn't.

My responses to those emails are now hazy at best...they ranged in content from "You got me!" to "Wow, we're both a little crazy, don't you think?" to, finally, "I'm sorry." I know I sent quite a few...all of the swirling, contradictory emotions which had been seething in their dammed resevoir broke free in a torrent of words and mouse clicks. Send, Send, Send!

I know now that I simply hated the fact that I had absolutely no control over the situation. It was not necessarily Sebastian over whom I was obsessing, it was my compulsion to maintain control over the ways in which every person sees me; if I felt a person's impression of me was horribly wrong, I couldn't resist the temptation to try (repeatedly, if necessary) to correct those views. That flood of emails was an attempt in this vein.

But, no dear reader, I no longer write fake profiles for these ends. And this profile was not the one of which I spoke in Part I. But first, I will have to weave you through those intervening months. But breathe lightly, dear reader, this story is about to rise again from these, my most dark and insane depths.

You are about to find the treasure.

Story Part IX

2006-09-05T06:17:00.000Z

To be entirely honest with you all, I am still not sure if the fake profile I created then was a joke or an actual revenge plot. I do know that I was in a volatile emotional state, and at times, proceeded in both veins. The profile, itself, was written to be ingratiatingly obvious; the profile name was taken from one of his favorite albums. Under the prompt "If I could be anywhere," I wrote in the date and location to a concert of his favorite musician, from his favorite era. My fake person's location was San Francisco, her occupation, an editor. Everything was tailored to his tastes. I winked at him and then waited for the joke/revenge plot to unfold.

I suppose I wanted him to out me right away--after all, during our brief courtship, we enjoyed regaling each other of our adventures writing fake profiles. When he didn't, I vascillated between wanting him to fall in love with the fake person so that I could hurt him and wanting him to fall in love with me again so that I would stop hurting. I know it wasn't exactly sane, but neither was I at this time.

The first few emails were innocent enough; I asked about what music he listened to, rambled about abstract concepts. Again, unsure if I wanted him to actually know it was me, I tried to change my signature writing style. I told him I never wanted to speak on the phone or visit him--I wanted a "meta-relationship."

Oh, yes. That's what I told him.

I just kept waiting for the hammer to fall. I wanted confirmation for what I already knew: That I had become an emotional wreck, stooping to new and amazing levels of desperation and obsession. And I was hoping he would release me from this charade by either ceasing communication or asserting my true identity.

He did neither.

After about two weeks of navigating this river of insanity, I threw my oars overboard and headed for the rapids:

"Dear Sebastian,
Just so we can remind ourselves why we're engaging in this meta-relationship, please describe your last two relationships. Make me laugh so hard the neighbors furrow their brows; beg borrow or steal liberties if you must, but please make it funny.

Sophia."

That's right dear readers. Yours truly had dreadfully morbid curiosity. I was desperate to know why, how I had managed to screw up such potential in a mere three days. What was so wrong with me? How could I possibly have deserved to be written off so succintly, so entirely, so coldly?

He responded. And those words are now burned into my brain like a permanent neural epitaph:

"Phd Student. 28. Genius, sad she's not a supergenius. Smoked a lot, laughed a lot, too, which went a long way toward redemption. Quite funny, but I feared a little mean. I think she was quite angry I wasn't as interested as I was supposed to be.

There. You've been indulged.

Sebastian"

And that's when my little fraying thread just snapped.