the inner workings of a swiss cheese brain

untitled.

2011-06-30T00:25:00.002-04:00

I have been having this feeling recently. It feels like the end is near. I don’t mean this in a morbid way. I don’t mean that I am going to kill myself. I just feel like there isn’t much left for me to do around here. I have done a good deal in my life. Not nearly as much as other people. But I have done enough for me. What I have done is enough.

Perhaps the reason is because I feel so stagnate. Its easy to no longer be able to view the future when you cant move any further into it. Or perhaps its the music being played. Or the music I fear I will never make.

Perhaps it is because no matter where I turn, it seems that there are no new human beings worth anything. All the friends and love I will ever need--I have been feeling--were left in my hometown, and in Oneonta. Who knows.

Perhaps it is because it is slowly starting to sink in the my grandfather is dead. And that the rest of my life now--underneath all of the good times spent with family--will be this ugly feeling that their clocks are all ticking down, too. One by one, they will all go. And--one by one--I will have to bury them all.

As my father drove me from Albany to the hospital room where my grandfathers brain was randomly shooting electricity everywhere--because that is all it could do--he told me this: that after the first of his immediate family passed away, life wasn’t fun anymore. It was just a waiting room for inevitable deaths.

Life isn’t fun anymore.

50 years

2011-06-05T13:25:00.000-04:00

i apologize for my lapse in writing. i’m not apologizing to you, the putative reader, for you do not exist—nobody reads this junk, anyway. i do—however—apologize to myself, for the output of my writing is positively correlated with an elevated mood and sense of accomplishment. thus, over the past 3 months, i have often felt lousy and unaccomplished. i suppose—for now—that that feeling may end. at least for as long as it takes for me to finish this.

where to begin? life is as stagnate as ever. i have finished the abomination that which is my second year of graduate school. and to hell with it. i passed my second qualifying exam. and to hell with that. i am now in the lab permanently, learning and executing new techniques. and i suppose that that is ok.

still no friends. still no women. and i suppose that that is ok. i have grown increasingly lonely, as i’ve mentioned, since last fall. that has not changed. however, my few forays into social situations have left much to be desired. i suppose that i just can’t get into that as i did when i was a child. i still am a child. but i meant, a younger child.

i am currently home, which is to say, in frankfort. i certainly had some motivation to visit with people and hang out, but i’ve been a combination of both exhausted and sick. what a waste of time.

and of course the reason behind my whole weekend visit to this forsaken valley is for my grandparents’ 50^th wedding anniversary this evening. sure. that sounds fun. heck, even my uncle from california is in town for the event. and this is nice. he came over and visited with my mother, my sister’s boyfriend, and me this morning. he brought his girlfriend. she was nice.

unfortunately, my father is insisting on bringing his mistress to this party—to commemorate this most glorious occasion. 50 years. that's a lifetime. or more. depending on who you’re considering—or where they’re from.

anyway: he is bringing his mistress. i call her that, because that what she is: he was fucking around with her before he got separated from my mother. the conflict in my own mind is this: i know that as far as my father was concerned, he was separated long before it was made official. he wanted out, but the family begged for him to stay. and so he did. this was a grave mistake. things might have been different now if he just left when he wanted to.

but he didn't. so now his girlfriend of 3 years is referred to as a mistress, and everybody in my family arbitrarily hates her; my father—until today—hasn’t been able to bring her around anywhere, and its putting a hell of a lot of pressure on my poor grandfather. i don’t feel any sympathy for my father. its just that a lot of this could have been avoided if he just left when he wanted to.

so why didn’t you, dad? you’re always so eager to do what you want to do when you want to do it. that's where i get it from.

anyway. this is bound to be a disaster. although it is my grandparents’ day and it is all about them, it will be a disaster. how can it not be? my mother and her brother are going to be there.

fortunately, there will be alcohol there, too.

and then i am going back to albany tonight. back to my shell.

tomorrow is orientation for the summer students. we will have lunch with our lab’s student. i cannot imagine any group of young people as cool as last years’ bunch, but i am hopeful that i will befriend them all as i did with last years’ group, and hopefully have a group of friends to hang out with this summer. that would be nice.

i am finished. i do not feel accomplished.

as always: this is crap.

rosebud

2011-03-24T23:08:00.001-04:00

thursday, march 24, 2011, 10:45 pm

last night, i spuriously made a rather large list. spurious in that i did not plan on doing it last night. however, i had been thinking of doing it for some time.

the list is comprised of groups of things that, when thinking of one thing in the group, it reminds me of all the other things in the group. and so on.

i have referred to these groups in the past as ‘mental boxes’. i think that this is an appropriate expression.

i was aware of at least a few of my mental boxes, but i did not think that i would end up identifying to many. it was enlightening.

of the many things i learned about myself from constructing this list was that i seem to always be looking for my childhood somewhere. which is to say, many contemporary things in my life that could possibly find their way into or generate a brand new mental box, also bring along many things from my childhood as well.

i do not find this alarming and instead i find it to be entirely natural—a very human thing to do. as i age, i cannot help but feel like my childhood memories—old, rarely every thought of, collecting mental cobwebs—are fading from known experiences into transient dreams. and this is sad. although it is not a surprise.

even last summer seems only like a dream to me. which is to say: my past experiences—solidified and known—are quickly eroding from memory and into dreams—transient, wispy, and of an uncertain source and nature. and this is sad.

i think i keep trying to find my childhood everywhere because—like most human beings who had a mostly pleasant childhood—i am finding that being an adult is too damned hard and too damned competitive and too damned painful all of the fucking time. i think i keep trying to find my childhood everywhere because—like most human beings who had a mostly pleasant childhood—it was the last time in my life that i can barely remember where i had no responsibilities whatsoever. and everything and everyone seemed to get along fine. and nothing hurt. and—so it seemed—most of the human beings who surrounded me at a predictable frequency seemed to be living solely for me. i was the unselfish center of their little universe. and everything was grand.

and now everything about life beyond those years lives in the looming shadow cast by a pleasant past. there is barely anything to look forward to that has any long-term merit. no real human success. no love. no friendship. just money. slave. a job. slave. an education. slave. bills. slave. taxes. slave.

i can get more out of my life than this, for sure. but it saddens me to think that stripped down to the bone—this is what life has become about. not love or music or art or dancing. none of the simple things anymore.

none of the simple joys of being a child. clad in nothing but diapers. running around the den. no more. none of the home life in which an infant (that which i still am, of course) can—if it is lucky enough—find itself to be raised in: grandfather, father, television and chicken noodle soup. no more.

this is not coming out right. i have been typing this mostly while sleeping. i will give it another go soon.

still, i think it is ok.

concluding statement: there has got to be more to life after childhood than this. but i find that adults are just big babies anyway. and so, in that case, why in the fuck are we taking everything so seriously?

the real babies aren’t.

ga ga goo goo.

last night on earth

2011-03-12T01:37:00.001-05:00

it had been a fitting last night on earth, nearly two years ago. but prior to then—since the end—and thereafter, never the outcome i can now only dream of.

oh well. it was still all—and always will have been—worth it.

worth it.

stahtcrahnch

2011-03-08T21:50:00.001-05:00

tuesday, march 8, 2011, 9:32 pm

today i had an exam in my statistics class. it was easy. so i probably did awfully.

i left the exam just moments after another student—who i had never spoken a word to or heard speak anything—had left.

as i came up behind him, i said something along the lines of this: “it was either one of those exams that was so easy that it was a joke, or so easy that you must have fucked it up.”

i don’t remember precisely what his response was, and it’s not important. what is important is from the moment he opened his mouth, i knew i loved him.

it’s not a homosexual thing. quite the contrary, i am as straight as they come. however, at this point in my life, i am probably what kurt vonnegut referred to as a neuter: someone who is neither straight nor gay, and has no interest whatsoever in physical or intimate contact. i am open to that changing. though i have no opportunities. thus, intimate contact, after years of sparse opportunities—to me, in my apathy, loneliness, and entirely fucked up view of everything else that nobody else seems to give a second thought to—still translates into a $3.00 load of laundry and taking out the garbage. get it?

i digress.

i did not love this person because i am gay, for i am not. i loved this person because when he spoke to me, it sounded as though he had been waiting his entire life for someone he did not know to just start a conversation with him—regardless of the conversation’s premise. i might be wrong as to whether that’s how he felt. but that’s what it seemed like. and in my pity, i felt love.

i think i also felt it because i could tell in his voice that this may be a human being who had never wronged anybody, and who maybe had been fortunate enough to never have been wronged. he seemed pure and innocent—not because out of the perpetuation of ignorance he chose to be—but simply because life never offered him a taste of the dark side.

he reminded me almost of what we were all born into—before our hippocampuses started working and we remembered all the lousy things, which always seemed to be preferentially remembered over the wonderful things.

it was refreshing. it didn’t give me hope, but it gave me a smile. and it was nice.

i sound like a complete fucking nut right now. and i do not care. in fact, i hope that anybody reading this has the same chance that i had.

it was nice to see a human being that didn’t have shit all over him for once.

anyday

2011-02-27T10:45:00.002-05:00

wake up to cat scratching my face. throw cat off bed. yell. check time on cell phone. if its past 4 am, i take a pill. and then i take another pill. i try to fall back to sleep. success rate variable. if returning to sleep was successful, either wake up to cat scratching my face (repeat: throw cat off bed. yell), or to alarm. turn off alarm. get up. get out of bed with likeness of old, old man. change. spray on deodorant. wash hair and face. fix hair. pak lunches. make bed. make pot of coffee/warm up cup of coffee. drink coffee with desperate fervor. go on computer. no wall posts. only work emails. check out the news. shake head. make breakfast whilst getting ready. eat breakfast. wash dishes. dry dishes. put away dishes. mouthwash. brush teeth. put long sleeve shirt on. put hoodie on. put scarf on. put coat on. check pilot lights. lace or slip on shoes. shoo cat from door. exit apartment. lock door. check door. exit building. ask myself if this is really what i want to be doing. walk 0.9 miles to the lab. ask myself if this is really what i want to be doing. ascend five flights of stairs. ask myself if this is really what i want to be doing. go to office. remove outdoor attire. put lunches in fridge. ask myself if this is really what i want to be doing. go into lab. do lab stuff. ask myself if this is really what i want to be doing. eat lunch while reading papers. ask myself if this is really what i want to be doing. leave prematurely to catch bus to east campus for class. ask myself if this is really what i want to be doing. play on computer through class. ask myself if this is really what i want to be doing. catch bus to go home. get off at bus stop. walk to apartment building. enter through front. check mail. only junk. walk downstairs. unlock door. enter apartment. cat is there to greet me. it is cute. moments later, cat evolves into hell’s gatekeeper. sigh. put shit away. make dinner. listen to news. eat dinner. wash dishes. dry dishes. take shower. make a drink. get on the couch. watch tv. spray cat with water to discourage from eating pushpins off the wall. get another drink. watch tv. continue to reprimand cat to no avail. eat a snack. give up on reprimanding cat. pass out on couch. wake up. get in bed. stare at the wall until i fall asleep.

repeat.

from winter brings the spring again

2011-02-14T15:10:00.000-05:00

it is happening again. today is the first warm day of the year. it is currently 51º in the city of albany.

though i am not currently in albany. i am currently in an executive conference room on the top floor of the cancer research center in rensselaer, new york. half of the room is floor-to-ceiling windows. i can see nearly 180º around. the catskills look beautiful in the haze of humidity. the clouds are large, white, and puffy, and dance amongst the blue sky—the particular hue of which today always makes me indescribably happy—and through the rays of sunlight.

the way i feel now is how i expect to feel often as the weather improves and my little piece of planet earth thaws. the way i fee now is how i expect to feel often, as the sun becomes more of a staple in the albany sky.

i cannot wait for spring.

so happy i could die

2011-02-03T22:56:00.004-05:00

i have been having that feeling again like i am completely unhappy with everything that is going on in my life.

i am unproductive in the lab; partly due to an unrelenting course schedule, partly due to my own laziness, i am sure. the feeling of stagnation in the lab, and utter boredom in my classes has me feeling again like i am not sure if i am supposed to be doing this anymore.

i am not sure i am supposed to be doing anything anymore.

i am not great at anything. nobody can say that i am brilliant, etc. i am simply good—or—halfway decent at some things. i am sick of not being great. my skills are unlike van der waals forces: a bunch of things i can half-ass does not result in an overall strong skillset.

there are so many loose ends in my life that need tying up. for the most part they involve me overcoming the activation energy, as it were, to allow for me to go from a high stress state, to a low stress state. all i have to do is pick up a telephone.

and i have no idea what has gotten into me that i have become so under-motivated and so under-achieving.

i need a reboot. of everything. my social life. my career. my relationships. my sense of talent. my sense of purpose. everything. i need a change.

i need spring. no matter how difficult it may be to relive each season—i need it. and maybe this year i can live spring anew with a new life.

“i am a mess.”

i need to get back on track. and it all starts with me.

so get going, ryan.

tomorrow, it must begin.
thank you for reading.

snowpocalypse 2011

2011-02-02T09:00:00.002-05:00

i feel like i have been here before. “and yes, i know this seems to happen to me a lot.”

the snow piles up outside. i am hunkered down inside. there is beer and food in the fridge—wine, too. there is coffee brewing. my video game console is primed for use. billy talent is playing on my stereo. the only thing that is missing is my ex-roommate. the only thing that is different is that i am in albany, as opposed to oneonta—and i have plenty of cream for my coffee, this time.

this is yet another pleasant trip back in time as the same electrical patterns that made up my brain then, are recreated now. that’s how memories work. and i am convinced that memories are simply vehicles for time travel.

my body may be in my apartment right now, but nothing else is.

and that goes for my sex drive, too. it took off—without my knowledge or consent—to the fourth dimension. i asked my sex drive why it felt the need to leave this perfectly good space. it replied, “i wanted to get put to some use.” that’s as good an excuse as any for me. “you are no saint,” it said, “but i may as well be.” noted.

anyway: three years ago, upstate new york was hit with a snowstorm that cancelled classes for three days. it was an important week. and as we get hit with another class-canceling snowstorm, i cannot help being reminded of that time and be filled with the desire for imminent activity and change that i had back then.

my life needs a reboot.

night of the living

2011-01-30T00:44:00.000-05:00

part i: kilgore’s creed

passion. i feel like i have none of it anymore.

i used to be a very passionate human being. i was passionate about a few girls. i was passionate about a few bands that i was in. i was passionate about a few friends. i was passionate about my education and my future career. all gone now, it would seem.

the girls i once loved are strangers to me now. in my mind, they are ghosts that only briefly haunted my dreams at one point in time or another. thoughts of those dreams only conjure up shells, templates of what it was that i once desired. the bands that i was in dissipated long ago, and my own solo project flounders in my excuses for my laziness. my friends have dispersed across the state and across the country. i feel so disconnected from all of them, who i love dearly—i feel so distant. once, we were all so tightly connected and our lives intertwined. now, we are merely aware of one another’s existence—but entirely unaware of what that existence is experiencing. this is what life does to human beings and i realize this, but that doesn’t mean that i can’t complain about it. the education i was once so involved in and the career that i was so excited about now seem bland, a waste. i know that this is not necessarily true, but it certainly feels that way.

i am dead. or perhaps by definition, i am undead. i feel nothing. i feel like i am thinking nothing. i merely exist and continue to exist only because of the instinct to eat, sleep, and keep my financial and professional responsibilities. otherwise, i don’t feel like my consciousness is making any decisions anymore.

long ago, i decided that thinking was no longer a good idea, and that i would turn off my consciousness for a while, and go on autopilot, and let my subconscious take care of everything. what was once supposed to be a break has become a lifestyle that my consciousness grew dependent on.

this reminds me of the book “timequake”, by the late author kurt vonnegut, jr. briefly, in the book, a “timequake” has occurred and jolted everybody back ten years in time. they can do nothing differently than they did the first time around, so everybody is basically working on autopilot, because there is no point in trying to think about anything or make any decisions, because there is nothing that can be changed. when everybody catches up with the origin of the timequake, people are so used to not doing anything that they don’t do anything when their free will is restored, and all hell breaks loose. the protagonist of the semi-autobiographical work was always aware of the timequake. so when time catches up, he goes about trying to make people aware that it is time for them to use their free will again to make decisions before total chaos emerges. as total chaos emerges in my mind, shattering the serenity i felt whilst on autopilot, i think it is time for me to say to myself what the protagonist, whose name is kilgore trout, said to everybody who was still on autopilot. and this is it: “you were sick, but now you’re well again, and there is work to do.”

part ii: the city of the hills

today i went on a road trip with one of my best friends from college, who was born, raised, and still resides in west albany. the plan was to drive through several catskill ranges and make our way back to oneonta, where we attended college. i have been to oneonta once since graduation. it made me happy, anxious, scared, and confused all at the same time. i decided that i never wanted to go back. i was unmoved when i was made aware that i would be going back to oneonta today. i was also unmoved when i became aware of the fact that afterwards, i would be seeing my favorite band in clifton park. this is not normal for me.

as we entered the city of the hills, i am not sure what i thought or felt. maybe i wasn’t supposed to feel anything. i did not feel like i had been away for 16 months. i did not feel like a stranger. but i also felt distant, in concordance with the fact that i no longer live or study there—that not many of my friends still live there. one of my dearest friends does, and i surprised her, and spent time with her and her housemates, and it was nice. we then went to a local, famous bbq joint east of the city. and it was delicious. prior to all of this, we drove around downtown, and we drove around the campus. that evoked at least some thoughts and feelings: flashes of images of a past life—a dream, now—filled my mind as it gazed upon these places with modern, tired, confused eyes.

when it was time to leave oneonta, i think i felt then as i do now. and it is how i think i feel about much of my life, as of late: i feel like i am never actually acknowledging that i am living—that i am actually doing anything. i am never fully aware of where i am or what i am doing. my mind is always on a past that i long for or a future that i am hoping for. i feel like luke skywalker on degobah, when yoda is rattling off his distaste for luke’s tendency to “look away at the future—toward the horizon”, and to never keep “his mind on where he was—what he was doing”. that is how i feel. i think i need something meaningful to be happening in the present to keep my mind from wandering into the past or merely dreaming of a future—and not working toward one. but what? its up to me to find that meaning.

and here we are back at me rescinding a prior life view: i didn’t want my life or my work to have meaning anymore. i wanted to exist above and beyond anybody else’s demands or expectations—i wanted to exist without responsibility. and now i am finding that life without meaning has assumed the form of the life of a zombie. eating and moving. eating a movie. that is all i ever do. it cannot be all i ever do.

this is all crap.

the show was amazing. i did not drink. i sang loudly. i danced a little. but i listened. and i watched. and i got goose bumps. the kind that i know that i get when my brain is happy for reasons that i cannot explain.

that kind of happiness is one that derives from passion. a deep, indefinable, unconstructed mass of pure passion. i must delve into this mass again and find myself again. or something.

this is all crap.

today was a good day. there is no denying that. i need humans and love in my life so that i can feel again. i know when this all started happening to me. and i sort of understand why. but i don’t. and here i am rescinding a prior life view: i was fed up with love. and as stupid as i feel, and as stupid as love is, i know that it can reanimate the dead. and that’s something.

here’s hoping.

death

2011-01-23T18:30:00.002-05:00

The morning of Sunday, October 17, 2010, I received a phone call from my mother, early in the morning. I missed the call, as I was doing laundry across the hall from my apartment. However, when I saw that she had called, I knew something was wrong. And so I called her back and asked, “What is wrong?” But I already knew the answer before I even redialed. I knew it had to be about my grandfather. Perhaps another fall, like he did during the summer.

He was in a coma. He had had a massive intracerebral hemorrhagic stroke sometime between 5 AM and 7 AM that morning. Surgery would only relieve the pressure—not relieve the damage. He had at most, a week to live—at the least, less than a day.

So my father came to get me, so that I could be there with my family should the worst happen. When we were on our way to back to the Valley, I did something I don’t think I have ever done: I asked my father a personal question. I asked him about when his grandfather died of Alzheimer’s disease. I don’t recall his answer, but what he said next, unbeknownst to me, would become very relevant to me. He said something along the lines of this: “When the first member of my immediate family passed away, life stopped being fun anymore, it just became about wondering who I was going to lose next.”

We got to the hospital an hour and a half before my grandfather’s heart stopped beating. I think the most difficult part of that day was being around my family. I don’t mean that derogatorily. Its just, I expressed no emotion whatsoever. When he passed, one tear escaped my left eye. That is it. I was just empty. I don’t know if it had to do with all of the other nonsense going on around me and in my head at the time that left me completely apathetic, or if that was just a mental defense mechanism against knowledge of the fact that I just watched my grandfather die. And so, I was patient and quiet and just standing there while everybody else went to pieces. I felt bad not only because I pitied them, but because outwardly, nobody would think that I was feeling absolutely nothing. And truth be told: I really wasn’t.

I was the last one out. I kissed my grandfather on his forehead before leaving. It was still warm. And so the rest of the week ensued. My grandmother stayed with us the entire week that I was home. We all ate every meal together at my mother’s house and my aunt and uncle’s house—food made and sent to us by friends of the family.

My father always told me as a child that I was not to go to wakes, because he didn’t want that to be my last memory of distant aunts and uncles. As an adult, my father always told me that I should go to wakes so that way the first one I ever went to wasn’t for someone from my immediate family.

So later that week, I attended my first wake. It was difficult seeing my grandfather put on display like that, but I guess that’s how it goes. I had to stand there and shake the hands of 500 people who came to pay their respects; it was awkward and unbearable and the most uncomfortable I had been since being a giant tissue for my family in the emergency room after my grandfather took his last breath, but I guess that’s how it goes. [Again, I do not mean that derogatorily—being there for my family is my responsibility, and I am honored and proud to have it.]

I was a pallbearer. My grandfather could have knocked off a few pounds. And the sky could have decided not to rain. And my grandmother could have decided to just have the funeral where every other funeral is held and not up a tight, steep staircase to the church. But such was the situation. The funeral itself was not difficult. The military ceremony at the cemetery was not difficult. The most difficult part of that day, honestly, was everybody asking me if I was OK and saying how sorry they felt for me. I think I just wanted everybody to leave me alone with my non-thoughts. And I think I still do.

And so that was that. A week after the wake and a day before what would have been his 81^st birthday I got two tattoos in his honor. I will not discuss them.

I still have not thought much about any of that. I don’t think there is much to think about. He was old. He had been suffering from dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease for 5 years—all of which I had been away for at college and in Albany. I think somewhere in there, I had already let go of him, and had already had had years to deal with it. I don’t know if that s necessarily true, but it certainly is plausible.

May he rest in peace.

I have noticed recently, however, that I am beginning to realize what my father was well aware of after the first passing of an immediate family member: that life isn’t fun anymore, and that I am simply waiting for when I have to go through this all over again for the next family member or friend. I think of my dear cat, and think of when he will no longer be around to greet me at the door, or wake me up in the middle of the night with a barrage of claws to my forehead. He is my best friend, I have finally acknowledged, and when I think of his passing someday, I finally feel something: I am emotionally ripped to shreds. I literally feel awful, and have this unshakeable feeling of despair. The same goes for when I think of my mother. Or other family members.

I had a conversation today in which I revealed these fears. I was told not to look at the people I love in terms of how much time they have left, but in terms of how much time I can possibly spend with them. I have previously thought this over, as well. The life I chose was supposed to keep me as busy as possible and as isolated from friends and family as possible. I just wanted to be independent and alone. I got my wish. And now I cannot help but feel like the last two years where I could have been living in Frankfort, I would have had more time to spend with my grandfather—and could have more time to spend with my mother, and others.

[This has no easily foreseeable place in this writing, so I will just say it: over the past 3 year and 7 months especially, I have become incredibly close with my mother. I now fear losing her and anything ever happening to her more than I fear my own death. I love you, mom.]

But in this conversation that I had today, it was pointed out that that is what life has dealt me, and phone calls and visits are still better than nothing. And this is true. And I need to appreciate this more. But I must say: spending the holidays at my mother’s house, with my grandmother staying with us—it certainly makes me feel like living there again. I could never move back to Frankfort, but I certainly hope (or fantasize) that my mother will move with me when I move out of New York in three years. I think it will be very difficult for me to live further than driving distance from her.

Death is all around me. I just need to find it in myself to try and live with the life I have chosen, and make the best of time that my loved ones and I get to spend with each other, while we can.

For all I know, I’m next.

america, the beautiful (epilogue)

2011-01-15T16:54:00.000-05:00

flying at a tremendous velocity, kilometers above the surface of planet earth, i gaze upon the land below me: the united states of america.

from way up here, a stranger to this nation—or this planet—may feel that this plot of land, comprised of hundreds of thousands of square miles of rock, dirt, grass, trees, and water, truly is united. from way up here, there are no discernible borders. from way up here, as the sun sets and the ground turns to gold, it truly is america the beautiful.

but it pains me to think that at ground level, this country above which i am flying, is anything but united. we are strongly divided based on our beliefs, political affiliation, class, and social and economic status. and these differences—instead of being celebrated—are met with disdain, hatred, and violence.

this—however—is not limited to the united states of america: this is the story of mankind.

i imagine that someday, when the shit really hits the global fan, someone will be flying up here—just like me, now—to escape whatever cruel fate mankind has bestowed upon itself down below. and they may be thinking, as i am right now, “if only we got along better, maybe we could have avoided this mess.”

i am not inclined to pray anymore, but if i had to say a prayer for the united states of america, and for the rest of the world, this would be it:

I pray that the people of Planet Earth will soon realize that we are all in this boat together, and that this ship is sinking, and that nobody is helping anybody by dancing for rain. I pray that the people of Planet Earth can come together in unity and enjoy this beautiful, blue-green wonder, while it still lasts, and maybe do a little housekeeping now and again. I pray that the people of Planet Earth will put down their arms and join their hands, and get as much beauty and wonder out of life as they can—what else could anybody want?

to get where i am going (the end)

2011-01-14T20:30:00.000-05:00

tonight is my last night in florida. my vacation has nearly reached its end. i have done what i set out to do: i have written. i have written a lot. i have written candidly. and i have written unrestrained. tomorrow, while plane-hopping back to my dear albany, i hope to reread what i have wrote, and reflect on all that i have thought about, dwelled upon, and expunged from the mental queue in my brain. inevitably, i will make minor edits along the way—but i want this project to be as raw as possible, though i know i will never be content with first drafts. and i don’t think i ever will be: there is nothing that i have ever done that i was pleased with the first time around. i suppose that stems from me either being a perfectionist, or just being plain lousy at everything i do. any semblance of success in my life—i suppose—will be the judge of that.

i look out my window on the 15th and topmost floor of the aquanique condominium. though i gaze upon the evening lights of fort pierce from my altitudinous throne, i feel like such a small part of a large world that i am curiously feeling myself wanting to be a part of. this notion has persistently—in one way or another—been nagging at me for the past year or so. i have been saying over and over again that ‘it is time to do something about it’. last summer, i took a small step. now, i think its time to do something more. inexorably, i will—it’s all just a matter of cutting the bullshit and making the time. read on.

i described several things the other evening that i had been meaning to do, that i wanted to do. one was to make plans to actively seek out the remnants of the relatively minor relationships i have, scattered about the city. and so i have. my entire week is booked. this is uncharacteristic of me as of late, and it is a change that is beyond welcome, and is well overdue. i hope that this reemerging social side of me finds it well to stick around awhile. i am so much more fun that way.

the other was to place a phone call to my dear friend k. and so on tuesday night, i did. she was unavailable as she was climbing an ice mountain of death with my friend and fellow summer intern, who i will call d. he—unlike myself—was able to make it to her hometown this winter. i plan to make that trip later this year. i hope that i can.

coincidentally, they placed a phone call to me as i was writing this very document. we all talked for a while and it was nice: d and i about cell phones and books—k and i about life, as always. and it was nice. for a half hour, a part of my brain, un-stimulated since their departure, became active again, and a rusted tongue was put to use. i cannot help but feel like my inadequacy with verbal communication subsequent to five consecutive months of perpetual solitude is blatantly obvious in conversation—it is to me—but it was still nice talking with friends that i had made and shared experiences with during a time in my life that was immeasurably better—though not lacking its own unique peculiarities. i will never tell.

at this moment, as the smell of what glade calls ‘french vanilla’ air freshener permeates my nasal passage and excites my olfactory nerves, which—hardwired into my limbic system—pass along electric messages that cause my brain to question yet again, “where am i?” i have finally become at least somewhat lost for words. let me think.

today, for the first time in what must be months, i was thinking of my future, and not of my past—not recreating the environs of the past. i was entertaining a fantasy i used to have wherein i progress successfully through graduate school, and am on the precipice of the next stage of my life.

inevitably, i will make it to california, specifically, orange county. i am a child destined for the sun and sea.

and so, in my fantasy, i am a postdoc at the university of california, irvine, working in the laboratory of dr. suzanne sandmeyer, ph.d., and living in a beachfront apartment in laguna beach; a laser blue mini cooper s convertible is in my designated garage space. this is not entirely unrealistic; it is—in fact—highly probable.

someday i must leave my beloved albany—i have come to terms with this. the oc is far different from albany, and it makes me feel far different than i do in albany. in albany—especially in the summertime—i am overcome by a persistent feeling that i will never be able to describe fully. i cannot help but feel like a creature that a manifestation of albany—organic, and sentient—could discern from the rest of its residents, and have a unique respect and appreciation for. i feel at one with the city, as though it were my mother, and i were its child; the rest of its inhabitants, merely coincidental. during my brief stays in california, i feel entirely different, but i am comfortable with this feeling.

it is important to me to feel at one with my natural surroundings—nature and ecological aesthetics are important to my mental health and general wellbeing (bare with me). i was exposed to albany during the summer of 2008. my life changed there. i became inexplicably drawn there—it became my home. i would be unable to move anywhere else in this country—or this solar system, for that matter—where i did not feel at home, and did not feel like a child of the ground upon which i walked—the air which i breathed. this may seem intuitive to some people, but it is paramount to me. california—though i have only spent a total of 23 days there—feels like home. and i feel like i could very easily develop a similar relationship with orange county as i have with the city of albany.

time will tell.

until then, i will try to focus on my present—and make the most of it—so as to build toward this potential future. nothing ever works out the way one has planned, but for the past three years, on a global scale, it certainly seems to have. i can only hope i can make the most of the opportunities that greet me in the next three years, and end up in a place where i am happy.
i think that this is what i have learned, this week. there is much to be done, so that i can get where i am going. and along the way, i must make the most of every situation that i find myself in—good, bad, or indifferent. this is not news to me—it is probably a deep-held philosophy of mine. but in the midst of the maladies to which—in my weakened state—i could not help but succumb to this fall, i lost sight of all of that. it would seem—and it is not surprising, and is somewhat humorous—that i had to come all the way to the beaches of fort pierce, florida, to find it again.

i guess you never know what you will find buried in the sand. 

time machine

2011-01-12T18:20:00.001-05:00

i am watching the sun set from my penthouse suite in flattened fort pierce, florida. it seems to be lasting an eternity, quite unlike those of mostly-flattened albany, new york. and it is wonderful.

albany sunsets—like most things in life—begin—as we know it will—unexpectedly—as we know it does—and are beautiful—as we know they certainly well can be. then—without warning—they disappear into the night. albany sunsets—unlike most things in life—return—predictably—some 23.5 hours later; most beautiful things in life—if repeatable—rarely repeat with such predictable consistency.

but this is not the subject of this little rant—it is merely an observational aside as i open a new document—blank, full of opportunities.

as i spend this week in sunny—though now, cold—florida, i cannot help but be reminded of california. perhaps because the last time i was here, my next destination was not albany, but california. also, it is undeniable that i miss california. i miss placentia, where my best friend lived. i miss his girlfriend, and talking about gaga. i miss downtown fullerton, where the girls—though often horrific in appearance—are as talkative and persistent as albany bros. and that is a nice change.

as i listen to gaga, and watch the sunset, i cannot help but reminded of this glamorous nightlife of which i often find myself fantasizing. wearing a casual, well-fit suit from h&m. at some vegas casino, or some socal club. cocktail in hand. loud music bumping. sun going down. i know not why sunsets and certain music conjures these images in my brain, but they do. i know not why my brain instinctively desires such experiences, but it does.

this here has no point. i am simply exploring a thought aloud. this has achieved nothing that i can detect, though it is nice to finally get this peculiarity out. its been poking in and out of my consciousness for months now.

achievement!

today, i continued to feel like i was in a different place and time, as i have consistently felt during my stay in florida thus far. i believe it is california, circa january 2010, that my brain feels i am. i believe it thinks this because of the warmth, the angle of daytime sunlight, the music i’ve been listening to, and not to mention, tonight’s sunset.

this condition is something i have been more or less afflicted with since july of 2008. i don’t necessarily call it an affliction in the traditional sense—although it certainly could become one, as i discuss below.

i have written of this before in a different place, and i will be brief. during my internship in albany, i went to one of my most favorite, restorative locales in the region as a part of what i will call a mini ‘field trip’ implemented by the program director. while at this place, sights, words, and sounds all came rushing back to me. i literally felt like the chemical environment of my brain was drained and replaced with one from a previous time—circa july of 2007. this was a bad time in my life, but the time i was reminded of in particular was not so bad. this experience set in motion my eventual discovery of some of the fundamental things in my near-to-everyday life that are essential to my wellbeing, happiness, and basic motor and nervous function. and i had no idea, at the time, that all of these things would be discovered via being reminded of a time a year prior in which my life as literally crumbling around me—as i drowned in expensive rum and cheap beer. irony.

since then, i find that—more often than not—i am commandeering any semblance of natural ambient stimulation and replacing it with a carefully crafted collection of sounds, images, and places—one perhaps complimenting a physically encountered other. which is to say, for example, i will go to certain places at certain times of the year and listen to certain music while there. sometimes, new places and sounds are associated with certain times of year, and those will be included in my arsenal of ‘whatevers’. sensory blasters? experience augmenters? experience repeaters?

i know not what to name it, but the last suggestion gets back to where this could be an affliction. you see: for the most part, it is comforting. although all things change at an awfully unpredictable rate, i can make my own little, silent rituals and implement certain ones at certain times in order to give some sort of comforting repetition to my life. comforting in that where i am and what i am listening to are comforting, and comforting in that repetition can be relieving when life is falling apart, revealing the ever-present backdrop of stagnation and unpredictable depravity.

however, what of when life decides to progress? will these little comforting rituals—routine, by now—impede the development of new relationships, new directions? is it possible that always recreating environments of the past—though for comfort—are preventing me from taking the initiative to create something new and move forward? i do not know. though the thought occurred to me today when i acknowledged that i am on a vacation in florida, but feel like i am in california, a year earlier. though the glimmer of comfort (and this time, i know not for what reason) is nice, it would be great to actually feel like my mind is present where my body is—and not just along for the ride—and is registering the time as new memories of a recent vacation, not just as a rapidly dissipating cloud of dreams.

i could be overanalyzing this because i am thinking about this for the first time. alternatively, i could be actively debating a potential flaw in my mental design—which would be one of millions, i can guarantee you.

i have no eloquent way to end this.

until next time, kiddies.

fall 2010, explained

2011-01-09T18:39:00.001-05:00

human communication.

i remember as a young boy who had just discovered the internet that i would talk for hours and hours to friends online. some were friends that i had rarely talked to in school, but ended up talking to for the sake of talking to somebody on the computer. others were friends that i had made via chat rooms or some damned thing. but the thing is, i remember that i would come home from school, do homework or whatever, and just talk.

as college ensued, i still talked often with friends online, though this gradually dwindled as my college career progressed, as i made more friends in closer proximity that i ended up spending time with. but even before that, during my first year of college, i made a lot of friends on my floor, with which i spent many hours talking about simply whatever. my sophomore, junior, and senior years, that list always contracted and expanded again, as all collectives of friends do. the point is: i was constantly and consistently interacting with others.

nowadays, i find that i rarely talk to anybody about anything. this is most likely because there isn’t anybody online or around to talk to anymore. everybody from high school is either far away living their lives, or—for the most part—living at home still, and—more often than not—nurturing both spouse and child. all of my friends from college are out trying to make it in this shit world. and here i am—doing just the same—all alone, with barely anybody familiar around.

i chose this life—preached it—almost three years ago now, and the story of how this all came to be is common knowledge among most. [if you—the reader—are unaware, just poke around here—around my swiss cheese brain—for a little while, and i am sure that you will come across something. i promise you: the holes in there are large enough for even the tallest person to navigate them with ease. just watch out for the cobwebs and empty beer bottles.] i chose this life of being alone (i refused to ever call it loneliness, because that’s not what it was). the simplicity of being responsible only to ones self, freed of the drama and problems of others.

curiously, i thrived on the problems of others as the meat of most conversations in my early life. it would seem that i was drawn to people in distress. i liked to try to help people as best i could, despite the fact that my own young life, so innocent, mundane, stagnate, and stale, did not afford me experiences from which to gain knowledge that could be passed on to them to assist with their current situations. nevertheless, i was good at helping others through their tough times, and it was through this that i developed friendships—this was how many of my young relationships with people began.

i began thinking about this because i was thinking of my conversations with my grandparents over the past two days. mostly, beyond just inquiring as to how everybody has been, conversations are comprised of situational observations, and the like—there is no meat to the conversations—no depth. and who says there has to be? i don’t. but it made me realize that i rarely have conversations anymore with anybody with any meat in them or depth to them. these types of conversations—i have always believed—are paramount to developing strong relationships with people.

the fact that i am thinking about any of this (most of which is being thought of as it is being written down, which is to say, that none of what i am writing was premeditated), would suggest that i desire these types of conversations and relationships—desire what i had as a child. this is in direct contrast to my staunch position over the past three years. after a summer alone in albany, i just wanted to graduate, and live alone to be able to develop my new life in my own way away from people, who, through observation of their activities and beliefs via a variety of media, i grew to detest. yet here i am, three years later, feeling quite unlike i expected: i am no longer just alone—but lonely; i have very few friends in albany. aside from my friend joe, who truly treats me like a friend that i feel i could never be in return, all of my relationships with acquaintances are, for the most part, very superficial. i love them for who they are, but there is nothing really there. this could be my fault for i have not made an astounding effort to get to know anybody well. the latter stems from my distaste with people in our society, as well as perpetual exhaustion. i’ve been aching to change this. and so i think that i will.

anyway: i have not made an astounding effort to get to know anybody new, except for one girl, this summer. i don’t believe that i have really alluded anywhere or to anyone that i think the majority of my near mental collapse this fall was due--in part--to a series of conversations that i had with her.

toward the end of this summer, i finally ended up spending time outside of work with the summer interns. i had been meaning to all summer long, but had not. that summer, i was feeling particularly sociable, and had already made several new friends. but much of that fell through, as it always seems to. i digress: they were a spectacular bunch of fun intellectuals with whom i spent a good deal of time. in a short amount of time, we hung out a lot and did all sorts of things all over albany. i immediately felt accepted and at home with them. finally: i had a group of friends with whom i could consistently spend time. i became close with one of the interns in particular--i will simply refer to her as “k”. if the feeling of closeness is not mutual, then i will say that i, at least, felt very close to her, for the reasons described below. read on!

at that point in time, she was at the stage of her life that i was at when i came to albany as an intern two years prior. come to find out, we had much in common. and she made an effort to hang out with me and talk to me, and we always had something to talk about. as alluded to above, many of the things discussed had a large impact on me and how i viewed my life and the world around me--this is human communication at its best--this was a welcome deviation from the often boring and useless communication i was having with anybody else. and inevitably, speaking with someone in that way in a consistent manner will always lead to the development of some friendship, and an underlying bond of some kind. i don’t think that kind of bond has a title or definition; more often than not, it probably goes unacknowledged. but there is the understanding between two people who otherwise had no idea who each other was, that they 'get it', so to speak--when others seem incapable of doing so--and respect and appreciate what they have to say. up until then, i don’t think anybody felt that i had anything particularly noteworthy to say. i don’t think that i have anything particularly noteworthy to say. why are you reading this?

moreover, she did the one thing that it seems i simply would not do myself: challenge me to accomplish the things that i had been saying for so long that i wanted to do that i was “too busy” or “too tired” to do. and so i made time to finally do some of them—if anything—because i felt like i had something to prove. preservation and augmentation of dignity is a strong motivation for getting things accomplished. i greatly appreciate her for challenging me, and it made me respect her even more. i like to think that her knowledge of my meeting these challenges caused the respect to be at least someone mutual.

so at the conclusion of the summer program, when she and the rest of the interns left, this small slice of time in my life where things were finally coming together—this time came to an end. an infinitesimally small, yet spectacularly significant chapter of my life ended. at least in consistency.

this was devastating to me, as i said above, because i finally had a group of friends that i felt a part of—finally could share the thoughts and ideas that make me me with people who understood.

i tried to keep in touch, at first, but all of them were starting up college--again, and i was starting up graduate school classes--again. staying in touch became difficult. i have been meaning to get in touch with them. and so i think that i will.

my memory is not what it was, so many years ago. perhaps it is not that i cannot remember things as well, but because i do not take the time to relax and dwell on fond memories of my past in as much detail as i could. at any rate, the time i spent with them went by fast—there were a lot of memories cram-packed into one week. yes. one week. and i find it difficult now to recall them. what i need to do is as i said above: relax and dwell. whether i can recall them or not, i know that this time in my life was one i wish i could relive a thousand times over and over and over again—not changing a thing. some periods of time in life are like that.

i realized early last year that i needed people in my life again. and so last summer, i had met and spent some time with them. people unlike those i became so fed up with. after the interns left, however, i found myself quickly crawling back into my shell of solitude. i became so close with the interns that i did not want to be around anybody else. unfortunately for me, two catastrophic events occurred this fall that i should not have gone through alone, which just exacerbated my situation. one, was the passing of my grandfather, the greatest man i will ever know. the second was a pervasive and growing sense that what i was doing with my life was meaningless, useless, and not getting me anywhere. this thought that i was just wasting my life away as a student was inescapable. and it made me painfully angry, scared, confused, and downright miserable. i have since overturned this mindset, did some work and some thinking, and realized that what i am doing is what i want to do. but i also realized that i need a family of friends around me in order to do it. i realized that i needed to take the time to separate myself from my work, and from school, in order to take time for myself to be able to engage in my hobbies, and so forth.

as previously mentioned, my class schedule this past semester sapped me of all my energy, motivation, and happiness. i simply could not do anything with my free time but sleep. i have been done with class, and my two vacations have given me the opportunity to entirely revitalize myself. my class schedule next semester, though demanding, will still afford me the freedom to sleep and wake as i please, and hopefully, be energized enough to be able to pursue my hobbies in my free time.

i need to do something with my music. i have been saying this for so long now and have barely done anything about it. k got me to do something with it, albeit briefly. and i hope that when travelling with a musical instrument becomes more feasible (i.e. once spring comes along), i will find the strength and motivation to start performing and recording again. it needs to be done.

also, i have been silent for so long, barely writing or publishing anything. as i have said, my goal during this week in florida was to take the time to reflect, and write again. already, i have written several times each day. and this is good. i will not have the freedom to keep this up once i return to reality next weekend, but it is my hope that by spending so much time writing, that it will become something that i engage in more often. more often than not, my brain becomes a prison for ideas, lamentations, exclamations, and the like. just getting things out has been unbelievably relieving. hopefully, i can keep this up, too.

here is an account of a brief thought that turned into three and a quarter pages of reflection on this past fall. i did not mean for it to be. described here is what i knew i would have to think about and write about in order to accomplish what i wanted to this week. that is not to say that i will stop writing, but that the hardest thing to write has been written. [and i will tell you: this has been fairly easy and unbelievably relieving to write, although, it will probably be difficult for me to feel comfortable publishing—public honesty can be a difficult thing, especially if you fear people will misunderstand you, when its counts that you’re understood.]

i believe that the reason for my near mental collapse this fall was because of the departure of the interns. the reason i became so skeptical, and then violently fed up with my career was because of a conversation k and i had one night, atop the new york state museum as the sun went down. we both agreed that, despite being scientists with undoubtedly successful futures, we both had a passion for writing or music, and that it might be difficult to live a life in which we gave up the time to pursue our passions in exchange for job security—for money. [note: i have always said, since my ‘rebirth’ in the fall of 2007, that science and research were a passion of mine. they still are. but, music and writing are two things, my relationship with, i simply cannot describe. they are my life force, whereas science—though a passion—is something i like to do, and a way in which i like to think. it is rational. music and writing can be irrational. one could say, then, that music and science are my yin and yang.] that thought frightened me to no end, made me feel, as described above, a though i were living this drab, prescribed life. i know now that that is not that case, and that i can continue on with my education as i was (i can even say that as a result of this experience, my desire to learn more about what it is that i am doing greatly increased). but i also learned that i must take the time also to pursue music and writing, for, even if i cannot spend the majority of my time engaged in these passions, at least i can say that i am still doing my best to immerse myself in them. and this week, i have engaged in writing. when my guitar gets fixed, i will engage in music. i will.

and i will do everything, i have promised myself, that i wrote down here that i would do: i will get to know my albany friends better, i will get in touch with the other interns, i will reflect on my time this summer and i will smile, and i will continue during this vacation and thereafter to put my thoughts on paper, so that they may live free, and not imprisoned in the awful environment that which is my brain, and i will get my guitar repaired, and i will play out and record the songs that i have wrote, and then write even more (hopefully based on some of the topics i write about this week). these are the goals i have set for myself, and i hope that some day soon, i can say aloud that i have achieved them.

as we now come to the beginning of page five, i can say with confidence that i have not felt this accomplished, relieved, certain of myself, in tune with myself, or proud of myself in a very, very, long time.

thank you for your attention.

"listen: billy pilgrim has become unstuck in time."

2011-01-09T17:36:00.000-05:00

my goal over this vacation was to reflect on the past few months and figure out how in the hell i wound up this way. thus far, i have been only dwelling on where i am in time. which is to say, right now, where i am, feels like another time in my life—a common occurrence for me—and i don’t know where it is that i am. i hope i can figure it out, because it feels nice. and i would like to know the temporal source of this feeling. the only thing i can think of right now is my first trip to california—perhaps because of the music i decided to play when i was de-boarding the airplane at palm beach international airport yesterday.

i also feel like i am envisioning my future—things i want to do to make me feel the way i am feeling right now, again. it is all free association, of course: the things i see in my mind right now in response to how i am feeling—both past and future—have nothing to do with where i physically am right now, but how i am feeling. and my mind takes off.

this is all still a bunch of crap because i am doing this more as though i were writing a journal instead of approaching this as a project. but at some point this week, i am sure i will feel like writing something that is more project than description. we shall see.

at least i am writing.

delirium

2011-01-08T23:06:00.001-05:00

i am deliriously tired. i have been awake since 3 am. day 1 of my trip is complete. tomorrow, i will hopefully have some more time to think and to write.

as soon as i landed in florida and entered the terminal, i could feel a stark difference in the air. it smelled, tasted, and felt different. i put on the split nfg/ishc ep, because that is what the air made me feel like doing. it was very nice.

at the condo, the smell of the tap water is familiar and calming—and it always seems to be. i do not understand why.

i need sleep. to bed. i will get some things done tomorrow.

peace.

30,000 feet

2011-01-08T06:55:00.001-05:00

the world looks so simple from 9144 meters: there are clouds below, and sky above. the horizon in between turns orange as the sun rises, yet again. it is all so simple, yet it has taken billions of years of physics and chemistry, and billions of dollars and a collective of human minds advancing our understanding and application of physics and chemistry, to create this very opportunity. i think this may be a universal trend: an aesthetically simple event is the result of a fantastic amount of complexity. so it must be.

there is a very large, bright star on the port side, about 45o above me. i have no clue as to what celestial body this is. nevertheless, there it is: watching.

bare with me as i begin my journey into myself by describing what my body must go through—what my eyes will see—as i go on my way. eventually, we will get to the really good stuff.

i am reminded at this very moment of my first trip to florida with my family—when it was still whole. it was during a school week when i was in fifth grade. as a homework assignment, i had to keep a daily journal of my vacation. i loathed that i had to waste my time doing that—perhaps that bitch just wanted to see if i really went on a vacation, or if my sister and i were just going to play hooky for a week. either way: it is funny that now, that is exactly what i am doing.

strange.

bon voyage! (prologue)

2011-01-08T05:14:00.001-05:00

i was not expecting to be sitting where i am right now any time soon. where i am sitting is in terminal c at albany international airport. i did not have enough money to make my annual trip to california to visit eric—or so i say—however, i did have enough money to go visit my grandparents in florida, yet again.

and so here i am, having just cleared security, waiting to be whisked away by a small commercial aircraft to a state far, far away from new york. i love albany, but i just needed to get away from everywhere i have been since early august. it was at that point in time that any semblance of happiness and sanity that i had dissipated into thin air.
but more on that later.

i decided shortly after having booked this trip—this second winter vacation of mine—that, even though i needed a break from work—in the sense that i just needed a break from doing anything professionally proactive—that there was work to be done, and moreover, could be done with the free time that i would have.

i have been silent for nearly a year. not all of that year was horrific. but i will not say that it was a cakewalk, either. nevertheless, i have barely spoken about a thing—written down a thing. eventually, the shell i made for myself this past fall cracked and i just had to talk to people—friends and family—as everything seemed to be crumbling around me. and it has been helpful, i think.

but, there is still so much that has only been given the freedom to bounce around the cobweb-filled recesses of my consciousness—and probably my subconscious, too. and so, i decided that while travelling, i will write down as much as i can possibly remember that i wanted to—needed to—need to—talk about. and it is my hope that with the free time in a different climate, in a different state—in a different state of mind—that i will be able to write uninhibited and have the courage to discern and expel the true nature of my mental and social collapse these past few months, and return to new york—to albany, my home—with an entirely different perspective on life and an entirely renewed opinion of myself.

this will not be easy, and i had no notions otherwise. it can be ugly, transforming thoughts in the mind into words on a page—discovering the degree of ones own major shortcomings, self-depravity, and global negligence in a way that is wholly and entirely retraceable and—to a point—un-editable. which is to say, when writing freely, everything comes out, and when going back and reading it, it can be edited as much as desired, however, writing it all down in the first place serves its purpose: you learn in disgusting detail how you truly feel about yourself and everything around you.

this all reads like crap—i am out of practice. but for once, i refuse to label what i hope to accomplish as “crap”. i think that this is a very important goal i have set for myself, and i sure hope that i can achieve it—if not in its entirety, then at least to some substantial degree.

apparently, the plane will be boarding soon.

here i go.

bon voyage!

men are pigs

2010-12-16T22:19:00.003-05:00

men is the plural form of man, a slang term (essentially) for male, which is a species of animal harboring external reproductive organs that generate bazillions of motile seeds, at practically no cost to that organism (talk about economic potential!). specifically, this use of male is used to describe a species of homo sapiens (also referred to universally as man by human beings from centuries ago, and today by those who believe that some old man in white robes with a crown sitting up on a cumulonimbus cloud created 'man' to dominate the earth). homo sapiens true role is not to necessarily dominate but to annihilate planet earth in more and more technologically clever ways as fast as scientifically, medically, and militaristically possible. this is not what natural selection had in mind, but this is what natural selection got for creating the human brain. way to, natural selection.

i would like to say that men are not pigs, but thats only because human males have a significant amount of differences from pigs, genetically. the male species of homo sapiens, however, sure can be dicks!

but pigs can be men, too. they like to eat and fuck like the rest of us, but they do just enough to get by. never will they take more than they need nor destroy planet earth with their goings on. and they will be around here a lot longer than we will--when is the last time you saw a pig drop a nuke on another pig because that pig had lots of what the pig wanted?

circa survive quotes to describe my life right now

2010-09-22T17:38:00.001-04:00

this is a bizarre thing for me to do, but i feel as though my most favorite band on planet earth--one of the imperative elements of my life that are responsible for me still being alive--have already said it best.

"infinite silence rolling right in with the dawn/this is wrong/this is wrong/and i cannot sleep without the radio on/and we fall asleep again with ties to mend/so please let the cleaning begin/evolution"

"if i could get this feeling to end/trembling idle hands holding me there"

"this is paralysis with no time at all to let go/dont call me by my full name//all this is temporary...dont talk about it/write it down but dont ask for help/i cant be honest with even myself/do you ever wish you were somebody else? move one inch at a time/youll be just fine/they pull me in but accomplishments are transient"

never forget

2010-09-11T07:31:00.009-04:00

kurt vonnegut did it best when he organized his novel galapagos into two halves, and i will now use those same headings.

part I: the thing was

9 years ago as i begin to write, it was a beautiful, sunny morning--not unlike the one sneaking its way past my heavy, brown curtains this morning.

i felt like garbage, and was just getting on the bus--attempting a full day of school at the behest of my mother. at 8am, i was sitting in mr. adaseks 9th grade social studies class. about 15 minutes into class, me & the rest of the advanced math students in the 9th grade were called out of class to take a beta version of the new 8th grade math exam. with the completion of each question, i grew sicker. i completed the exam, and went to the nurses office, and shortly thereafter--i received my clearance to go home. as my mother made her way to the high school, i went to the guidance office to make them aware of my leaving such that they could distribute a memo to my instructors that day indicating that i was legally excused from school and that my homework assignments were to be sent to the guidance office. but as i entered the guidance office, i was hit with some news by mr. cook: that the world trade center had been hit by a bomb. in my young ignorance, i thought he meant a US embassy, and so i asked him a question that still made a lot of sense: "which one?". he said that he didnt know--if i recall.

my mother showed up, and i asked her if she had heard of the news that which i had just received. i forget her answer. she drove me home. the construction workers of dave holleran were working on the siding of our home. they had the radio on. they were well aware of the disaster. i went into the house, put on my pajamas, and got on the long couch in our living room. i turned on the television. and inevitably: my life was changed forever. i watched as the north tower bled flames, smoke, infrastructure, and desperate human bodies, whilst insets showed recently-acquired footage of a plane flying into the north tower. i forget if the south tower had already been hit by then. but what i do know that i saw was both towers collapse. and all of the terror that ensued. all of the panic that ensued. all of the interviews that ensued. and the presidential address from the oval office.

i remember mass mobilization of us, nato, and coalition troops. remember the invasion of afghanistan. skip to 9 years later, and i still see my brothers and sisters in uniform in a desert half-way across planet earth. i see a nation transformed by fear, hatred, and paranoia--a nation that is barely identifiable with the great & prosperous nation of pre-9/11 america. and it is sad.

never forget those who were lost that day. never forget those who were lost in the subsequent war. and never forget what our country was before it was consumed by fear, hatred, and paranoia.

part II: the thing is

the terrorist attacks of 9 years ago today turned this country into a land unsafe for muslims & those of the islamic faith--a peace-loving demographic who are separate, and who do not associate and who do condemn those extremists who kill in the name of their god. and it is sad. there are extremists of beliefs--be it religious, political, ideological, moralistic, etc. if a roman catholic rapes a woman, does that mean all roman catholics are rapists? no. if one feels the absolute need to make the association, here is the correct one to make: a rapist also happens to be a roman catholic. here is the incorrect association to make: roman catholics are rapists.

but unfortunately, the majority of this country's citizens are so stupid and blindly follow their political and religious leaders that when considering the orchestrators of the terror attacks on 9/11, they eagerly make this association: muslims are terrorists--the islamic faith preaches terrorism. NO. this is absurdly incorrect. if you must make the association, this is the correct one: the orchestrators of the terror attacks on 9/11 are muslims, and they justify terrorism by twisting the quaran until it spills out a message of hate--despite the fact that the quaran is in fact a book that preaches peace, and charity (coincidentally, it was in that very same 9th grade social studies class in which my classmates & i were taught the peaceful messages within the pages of the quaran.)

this enrages me to the point where my blood boils and my skin welts. there should be no question about the building of an islamic community center near the site of the world trade center. it is their constitutional right to establish a religious community center on private property. what is disturbing is that those who would be the first to throw the constitution in ones face are also the first to say that the imam responsible for the building at this site cant do it. wrong. they can. read your constitution before you chuck it at somebody.

pastor terry jones is a bigot. a bigot who has no understanding whatsoever of the religion nor the demographic that he is so stupidly & violently attacking. let us revisit the aforementioned logic: terrorists are muslim, and use the quaran to justify terror, even though that is NOT the message of the quaran. so to say that "islam is the devil" is such a ignorant thing to say. because it is not, pastor jones. it is even more ignorant because he admitted on national television to having not actually read it. how can you classify a holy book as "the devil" when you havent even read it? bigot. and then go and decide to burn the quaran--an unquestionably violent act--drops one to the same senseless, violent level on which all terrorists representing any ideals slither. and not only that: it feeds into what terrorist organizations like al-qaeda want: they want us to become violent. they want us to fight. and by inciting violence--not only against terrorists, but in your ignorance, against all of the islamic faith--you are helping them, and NOT this country, mr. jones. you are a mindless, soulless bigot who--like the terrorists behind the 9/11 attacks--is using your god to justify violent action against an entire demographic of peace-loving people. by definition, sir: that makes you a terrorist. and even though youve called this off, i know deep in your black heart you hate all who followed the islamic faith, and believe that all of them are terrorists, and believe that your god has enlisted you to mobilize this country against not only international muslims, but its own natural-born citizens & immigrants. you sir, are stupid, brainless, heartless, gutless, and downright evil. i am an atheist, but i still leave you, sir, with this: may you rot in hell.

muslims are not evil. those who are of the islamic faith are not preaching violence. but our country will blindly follow the naive, and our own religious extremists right the doorsteps of mosques nationwide, and deliver their own message of hate.

and that is sad.

its been a summer

2010-08-29T20:17:00.001-04:00

for the past three weeks i have been attempting to put this summer and its many memories into words. but every time i feel ive succeeded at doing so i become convinced that these words are for me only. that being said, i will disclose nothing of the past four months.

suffice it to say: ive learned more about who i am, and who i want to be. i have become ever-more motivated to do some of the things i have kept saying i will do but as of yet have not done. i have utterly confused myself and enlightened myself all at the same time.

i have grown.

several days ago i felt the chill of fall upon me. thoughts of dark beer, flannel, orange leaves, and fireplaces came to mind. and i was welcome to it. but upon reflecting on this summer and all of its memories, i am sad to see it go, and might actually give anything to get it back to do all over again--not changing a thing.

as i reflect on all that was and all that might of been, i can only quote new found glory: "its been a summer".

peace.

Jeffery's Folly

2010-06-29T18:25:00.002-04:00

Jeffrey was a peculiar fellow. His peculiarity was exemplified when transplanted into social situations.

During times of his life, he was as inept as a boy rose by wolves—and even appeared as such. During other times, he was a socialite not unlike any popular celebrity. And other times, he was in between the two. Regardless of how he was performing socially, Jeffery still had a habit of missing certain social cues that if picked up, had the potential to advance his life in any number of aspects. Thus did Jeffery miss out on quite a lot—he wasn’t what you would call “privileged”.

Take—for example—a phone call he received from a new friend of his that he had recently made during a stint of social competence. This was a friend with whom he often got very drunk. She was a pretty girl, and not only did Jeffery enjoy getting sloppy with her, he also genuinely enjoyed her company, and soberly, too—something he had not known for quite some time. She was also a stagnate girl, who’s life—she felt—had become monotonous and boring—limited by her home and hometown.

Anyway: Jeffery was in his mothers house during a weekend visit to his hometown back in the country—he had moved to the city in search of some larger life, and he had yet to find it. His mother lived on a hill—his father used to live there too, but now he lived on another hill.

Life happens.

He was down the hill in the village at his friend’s parent’s house, where a fire was roaring in the backyard. He was sucking down beer in silence as he was eaten alive by mosquitoes and the like, listening to the racist comments of his friend’s friends and family.

Finding it difficult to stay awake any longer, he decided to walk back up the hill—beer in tow. There was a full moon that illuminated the village around him, and the hill as he ascended it, and the cornfield and the farmland adjacent to his mother’s house. He liked that.

He made it indoors, and cleaned himself up—scrubbed hard at those damned bug bites. After drying up and getting dressed, he received a phone call. It was from his new friend. She was drunk too.

“I want to do bad things to you,” she said.

“Um.”

“If I were there right now, I’d do bad things to you.”

“Well,” Jeffery began, “maybe if you tried doing nice things to people for once, you’d find yourself further along in life!”

Jeffery’s friend spit like a rabid animal—she hissed like a cat. “You are a little fucking weirdo!” she exclaimed. She hung up the phone. Jeffery didn’t know it, but back at her own house, she threw her cellular phone out the window—she pulled at her hair.

From that day forth, Jeffery never heard from her again. And to this day, he could still not figure out exactly why.

Johnny's New Shoes

2010-05-29T22:29:00.002-04:00

Johnny was an impressionable young man who—because of his stubbornness and lack of sufficient funds—always found himself one or two years behind the fashionable styles of the day that he was mislead into thinking he needed to conform to feel cool—or get laid. Whatever.

He had sworn once—when younger—to never own a particular brand of basketball shoe, because it didn’t fit in with the scene with which he most closely identified. Lo and behold: several years later, they became all the rage in his scene. But in his stubbornness—he resisted.

But after some time had passed and he felt as though his life could be augmented by a new pair of shoes—thus began his search for the perfect pair of that brand of shoe—the one he swore never to purchase, let alone wear.

He searched high—he searched low. He scoured the internet. Flew through shoe department stores. His hopes for finding that magical pair that would clearly lead to his becoming maddeningly popular were diminishing.

All until one day—when browsing a store in which he had not for some years—he finally found them. And on sale, too. It took only seconds before he fished into his back trouser pocket to retrieve his wallet. Out came the plastic. Swipe, went the plastic. Back into the wallet—its bed—it went.

It was a sunny day. And when Johnny got home, and he laced up those shoes. He put them on. And he went for a walk about the city in which he resided. He was so proud of those damned shoes. His face was beaming. Surely: everybody who saw him walking tough with those shoes must surely be jealous—that they didn’t own a pair of shoes like that. Surely: they must be thinking that this Johnny is quite something else.

That’s not what a group of what some people would call gangbangers thought, when they saw Johnny gallivant through their territory. The head honcho, a fearsome man, saw those shoes. And—just as Johnny thought when he first laid eyes on them—he wanted those shoes.

He and his cronies followed Johnny around the corner of a quiet side street. They caught up to Johnny. They knocked him down.

“Those shoes—I want them,” the head honcho said.

Johnny merely looked up in disbelief. He was a weak young man, not capable by any means of defending himself from the hoards of gangbangers encircling him and the head honcho.

But those damned shoes that made him something special, also gave him this: a sense of toughness. What he falsely associated with bravery.

He said no.

He tried returning to his feet, only to be knocked down again—this time with a pair on brass knuckles.

Seeing double—triple—quadruple—he attempted to return to his feet again. This time, not to brashly stand up to these men—but to flee.

He was allowed to his feet this time—he attempted to run. Attempted to break through the group around him.

Not wanting to bother with this worm anymore, the head honcho reached into his jeans. He pulled out a 9mm pistol. And he blew Johnny’s brain out all over the quite side street.

People are easier to search when they’re dead, he thought. And what did he care? Now he owned those shoes. And get this: not even one drop of Johnny’s blood—not one blob of his brains—stained those miraculous shoes.

The head honcho bent over to remove Johnny’s shoes. He kicked off his own. He unlaced Johnny’s shoes—his shoes—and slipped his feet into them.

His toes barely passed the tongue. He tried shoving—ramming—his feet in at any angle to get those shoes on. All to no avail.

So Johnny’s shoes didn’t fit. And if he wasn’t going to be wearing them—the head honcho would be damned if anybody else was.

The head honcho was done with this situation. So he called off his gang. They returned to their home.

And on the way, the head honcho put his gun back into his jeans. He lighted a cigarette. He took a long, deserving, accomplished drag.

And he tossed those shoes into a dumpster.

And he didn’t look back.

absolution via recognition of hypocrisy: an overdue crock by yours truly

2010-05-10T00:08:00.002-04:00

I have been meaning to discuss this for some time now. But as with many things these days—I haven’t had the time to do it. And so now, as I drift to sleep on a Sunday evening—it would seem that I have found the time. Here goes.

Everybody is a hypocrite and this is not news—I know that I certainly am one. But I feel as though those who openly acknowledge their inherent hypocrisy are absolved of that black mark—I know that I certainly am one.

I am a humanist, a freethinker, and a socialist. I do not believe in an afterlife and so perform the civic duties that I do for the sole purpose of contributing to the overall wellbeing of the community in which it is that I act. I believe in egalitarianism, and engaging in any action—political, governmental, social, etc.—that will contribute to those ends.

I am not religious, and I am not a capitalist. I believe that religion is a tool designed in ancient times to control people with promises of a utopian afterlife and the fear of being denied that reward based solely on how one leads both ones social and personal life, the same way parents control their children’s behavior with promises of Santa Claus bringing presents on Christmas morning, or the Easter Bunny bringing candy on Easter Sunday, or the Tooth Fairy retrieving ones extracted teeth in exchange for pocket change and the fear of being denied these gifts. I believe that capitalism is a tool designed in not-so-ancient times to make the “deserving” rich richer and the “undeserving” poor poorer, and to hell with the middle class. If you’ve got the cash, why mess around?

That all sounds pretty legitimate though, right? Here is where the hypocrisy comes in:

I am scientist, and so believe to the very core of my being in Darwin’s concept of Natural Selection—believe that those organisms that are beneficial enough to have the genetic and phenotypic adaptations required to survive deserve to survive, and that those that are not do not deserve to survive. If I were talking about humans, say, that would sound a lot like capitalism to me. Hypocrisy!

But before exposing further hypocrisy, allow me to offer an explanation—the glue, if you will, that holds all that I am writing together. It its through installing this glue, so to speak, that I will expose more hypocrisy. And then I think it will all make sense—we shall see.

My belief in natural selection and my feelings towards it are at the species level—not necessarily the level of the individual. Which is not exactly what natural selection addresses. I believe bacteria, yeast, and other unicellular organisms deserve to survive, because they have been around the longest, and show incredible capacities to mutate and adapt. Same goes for everything up to and including chimpanzees. I do not believe that human beings deserve to survive. We do not mutate or evolve in order to survive—we instead blow to smithereens (in one way or another) anything standing between survival and us. Developed nations have completely eradicated any selection pressures required to evolve and thus, will be swiftly eradicating pending some vicious plague—you name it. For goodness sake: the reason most people over a certain age have neurodegenerative diseases is because the stupid human brain wasn’t made to last that long. “well then lets just jazz them up with some meds and some pills and you can live more than three times longer than a human being should! What does it matter if you can't remember what you ate for breakfast! As long as you are wasting precious resources! Fun fun fun!” Undeveloped nations—the inhabitants of which still have to kill with their bare hands in order to obtain nutrition—will certainly be far better off than we will be. That and, their lives more closely resemble those of our ancestors—bless them and their mental simplicity. The overdeveloped human brain is the bane of this planet’s capacity to support life. Shame on us.

But we are all here, and we cant help that—I know I certainly didn’t ask to be born on a planet where countries own other countries, and will turn lush ecosystems into craters if they cannot achieve otherwise. And here we have a vast spectrum of religions—the majority of which preach something like this: treat each other well, and you will live forever in paradise. I know that I will live at least a few more years, and will inevitably become worm chow—the atoms that make up my very existence, that have assembled into me over the past 22 years will once again be released back out into the universe to do what they will. There is no paradise in store for me. But I also know that despite religion being mostly bunk designed to turn wild animals into robots, the message of universal kindness and equality certainly is beautiful.

Which brings us back to humanism. If we’re all here, we may as well make our stay pleasant for everybody. It doesn’t and shouldn’t matter what it gets you—in this life of the next. Human beings are so adamant about this concept of morality and right and wrong. It’s a stupid thing to be sure—in the face of natural selection, which is so harsh on other organisms, which lack the nuclear weaponry required to easily get what they don’t have—but if you can’t beat ‘em—join ‘em. Which is to say: it doesn’t and shouldn’t matter whether your prophet or god or preacher or anybody says you should be nice and receive a just reward—you simply should be because “it’s the right thing to do”. That alone should be gift enough.

Which brings us back to capitalism and socialism. Religion is still tossed in here too. Most people who will eagerly throw a bible in your face also seem to be associated with the conservative party. They tend to be ultra-patriotic and will just as eagerly throw the United States Constitution in your face, as well. What they don’t get is that our Constitution supports making life one hell of a joyride for those who can afford it—and straight up hell for those who can’t. What they also don’t get is that contained within the Christian Bible is one of the most ancient, socialist documents ever recorded in writing: the Sermon on the Mount. You know the story, so I shall not repeat it here. But Jesus—whether you believe in his divinity or not—certainly said some wonderful things. His message: treat each other well. Capitalism says—in effect: “suck it, Jesus”. Oh, if only they knew! The hypocrisy! No absolution for their ignorance!

What’s the take-home message here? The human brain is the worst outcome Natural Selection could have provided. We have improvised the means to turn this green rock into a wasteland in the event one group of people without those means who have what those with the means wants doesn’t want to give that up. Bully for them. We have also devised a form of government that allows those who already have more than enough money to effortlessly extract it from those who barely have any—and in this world we have created, currency is everything—what does it matter if you’re a nice person or not? We have also devised this illusion of divine magic that confines the human race to a set of rules that—if followed—will have you sucking down Pina Coladas up in the stratosphere for all eternity and—if not followed—will have you getting poked by a trident repeatedly by a man with red skin for all eternity. But this illusion of divine magic masks an idea that is illusory only because a majority of human beings fail to recognize it or exercise it, that which is this: be nice to everybody—we’re all in this together. We have also devised a system of government that caters to this idea—but most people find it a bad idea because they don’t want to share what they have with everybody else or, because they don’t want to share what it is that they expect to get with everybody else.

When a meteor could turn this planet into space dust at any minute, does it really matter who owns what and how much?

This has all been a load of shit.

“I thank you for your attention.” - KV

from winter brings the spring again

2010-02-21T15:04:00.001-05:00

at this very moment, i am in a state of indescribable, curious peace, whose origin is debatable. i cannot explain how i feel except with the word, “ethereal”. and yes. i know this seems to happen to me a lot.

my best guess is that this peace results from the current state of my immediate environment, and the immediate circumstances of the day. it is sunny out, with intermittent clouds. how wonderful is that? moreover, it is nearly 40 degrees outside and the wind is barely strong enough to generate a light breeze. because of these meteorological conditions, i have decided to open the windows—and to keep them open.

as the cool, fresh air pours into my apartment, the thick, stale air of a winter passed is forced out—and it certainly is welcome to. as the cool, fresh air pours into my apartment, the particular scent that is the city of albany fills my nostrils for an extended period of time for the first time since the winter chill forced me almost permanently indoors for the season. i detest being stripped of the freedom of being able to go outdoors and take a walk, sit out in the sun and read—to enjoy that fresh air.

it is with a heavy heart that i accept the coming of the winter each year, for i suffer tremendously from seasonal depression. the sun bids us good night before the working day even ends. the air is chilled so low that everything organic seems to slow to a molecular halt. it is all so disheartening.

but now, with daylight savings a mere three weeks away—and the spring equinox only a week beyond that—the sun stays up later, providing that skin- and sprit-warming light. and it is of a survivable temperature outdoors.

keeping in mind the beginning of the transition between winter and spring, i think it is the feeling of the breeze through my windows, the sound of the outdoors flooding my ears—the smell of the fresh air—that has got my brain all abuzz. abuzz with the knowledge that warmer air and longer days are upon me. abuzz because this scent that my brain is encountering for the first time in a long time has it delving into and swimming through all of the good memories that this air reminds it of—be they of springtime or not.

this has no witty conclusion. there was no wit in this post. i was merely motivated after months of perpetual silence to deduce in typed words why i was feeling how i was—and i felt like sharing it—why not?

and i have come to that conclusion now.

and i am happy.

identity crisis

2010-01-10T23:14:00.001-05:00

part I: pacific sunwear.

it would seem that in mere hours, every reflective surface i peer into is contaminated by things that i thought would work—things that were supposed to make me happy—content with both myself and my surroundings. i try too hard—far too hard, i know i do—to assimilate the images forced down my throat. i am never an original construction. my existence is a haphazard assortment of items that i can barely afford—slapped together with vanity.

i am a fool.

part II: the death of cynicism in exchange for a tired heart

i have been a champion for some time now of anti-relationship notions, and pretty much anti-anything-having-to-do-with-other-human-beings notions. but nothing ever lasts half as long as you hope that it will. this—too—is no different. some may call it natural for a lone human being to desire human contact—human contact of a particular kind. oh certainly—i have finally started making friends in albany and am enjoying my developing social life there—but that is not quite what i am talking about. admittedly—and painfully so—i am talking about the peculiar desire one may feel when they long for a friend. a mate. a significant other. a girlfriend. call, it what you will. it comes with great scathing to my immense sense of pride in my independence that i say this—bring this up—even dare to think about it. i try not to, for i had myself convinced for a very long time that it was hopelessly and inexplicably irrelevant. it still is. but apparently that doesnt seem to matter anymore. i am doing nothing to remedy these desires in way of satisfying them—that is more hopeless in and of itself than its very existence. it is pointless. and therein lies the problem. it is a problem one has no control over because one cannot—hard as they try—govern the way in which human beings bounce around planet earth and into each other.

thus, i am left to contemplate these odd desires while not being able to do anything about them except wonder where i have recently went wrong that i am no longer satisfied being entirely alone.

i betray myself.

and whats worse: i dont even have the capacity to engage even if it were right in front of my face.

so what the fuck.

welcome back

2009-11-21T15:34:00.001-05:00

ive been so busy with graduate school that i havent had time to think about my life which—miraculously—is proceeding forward—bit by bit—with the passing of every examination.

now that ive taken a step back to look at where i am right now, i find myself in an environment characteristic of a planet unlike that of the one i have spent years building for myself.

i have no idea what is going on.

everything that was months prior, now is something entirely different—or something that is now lost.

missing?

where am i?

discombobulation.

2009-10-12T20:40:00.001-04:00

everything has felt unusually odd lately. could it be the changing of the weather? absolutely. could it be the rediscovery of alcohol? absolutely. could it be that ive realized that graduate school leaves me with the life i wanted—which is to say without one—when i am now discovering that sometimes itd just be nice to have a shittyass 9-5 job that i can forget about at 5pm and not be expected to be some supergenius who i to become trained to save the word? absolutely. could it be that no matter where i settle down i always find my life being less than what i wanted it to be? absolutely.

do i find this to be the most infantile of rants?

absolutely.

but it feels nice to say.

2009-09-27T02:13:00.001-04:00

garbage day

2009-09-18T11:19:00.001-04:00

i am expecting a visitor this afternoon. so what do i do? i do what anybody else would do—clean the bathroom. clean the kitchen. vacuum.

take out the garbage.

i extract garbage bags from the various trash cans around my apartment. i put on my shoes. i exit the back door of the building to the back parking lot, where the dumpster is located.

i ascend the steps from the lower level. and as i hit street level, what do i see? i see a homeless man picking through the dumpster into which i was about to deposit my trash.

i was only steps away, and so was committed to the act.

and the fact that i was accomplishing this in the unnerving presence of a homeless person—desperately looking for food and clothing—was nothing short of humiliating.

i approached quietly, with the gravest of faces, and tried as gingerly as i could to throw my garbage away.

as i turned to go back into my apartment, he wished me a good morning, and ravenously tore open my garbage bags.

i have never felt so undeserving in my entire life.

all moments are transient but the universe is cyclic and so we will find ourselves back here again

2009-09-15T17:16:00.001-04:00

moments ago i may as well have been mute. but now ive so much to say. about so little. with no words. and no time.

time.

and so i will be blunt: with the changing of the seasons comes the changing of the sun. it is now shining through the kitchen window into my basement studio apartment in a way it has not done in the almost-four months that i have been living here.

and i really like it.

peace.

rip van winkle

2009-09-06T21:08:00.001-04:00

welcome back ryan.
welcome back to reality.
you have slept long.
and you have slept well.
you have awoken from a 24-hour dream.
you have experienced many wonderful things in your dream.
and it is hoped that you enjoyed them.
go, now, and return to you life.
it has been patiently waiting for you.

but worry not:

you will sleep again.
you will dream again.

if the above was truly spoken to me in a thundering voice from the clouds as i crossed the albany city limits, i would not have been surprised in the least. and i would not have disagreed.

the past 24 hours have been as surreal as a dream, as only experiences as wonderful as those can be experienced in dreams—at least thats what i believe, now.

i will not share with you the electronic recreations in my brain. suffice it to say, the hypothetical decree above is a satisfactory substitute for any detailed explanation i may offer.

just know that the dream was as good as any dream that makes you never want to wake up again.

and i lay my head down. and i close my eyes. and i go to sleep.

but i do not dream.

not tonight.

the city of the hills

2009-09-06T02:56:00.001-04:00

if you were hoping for something remotely coherent, then i’d stop reading right now, if i were you.

if youre up for a trip, then keep reading. because this will be nothing short of that—one hell of a trip.

the young—they cannot possibly comprehend where we—the elders—have been. what we’ve done. where we’ve done it.

they can only be told and make images in their minds. but thats all that memory is anyway.

i am currently writing under the influence. most importantly is not the state of mind in which i am writing, but the location—always, the most important quality of anything is where its taking place. everything else is irrelevant. mostly.

i am currently sitting on a couch. i am in my underwear. and gym shorts. and black socks. i am comfortable. but i look up from my computer screen and am simply in awe of my surroundings in such a way that i cannot possibly be comfortable but such that i cannot possibly be uncomfortable.

so what do i feel?

your guess is as good as mine.

i am in a house, of course. a house in the city of oneonta. which is a mindfuck in and of itself. this is the first time i have been here since i so cloudily graduated from here a mere 4 months ago. it is a dream. really: i will wake up tomorrow to a waking dream. i will float through more dreams of seeing friends—loved ones—and i will only awake from it when i enter the albany city limits. i am sure.

more about the house: i am currently sitting on a couch in a house located at 27 church street. 3 years ago—which may as well be a lifetime ago—27 church was where anybody who was somebody went to party in the city of oneonta. like all things long gone in my life—they are not long gone—so long as i remember, because memories are simply electronic recreations of past experiences. which goes without saying—if my mind can recreate something, then it must still be happening. which is to say—all moments occur indefinitely.

right now—i am still being born. my father still loves my mother. and the world is at least slightly welcoming to a newborn baby.

happy birthday, ryan—baby boy.

i see ghosts about me—because thats what my electronic recreations appear as to me. i can see myself walking into this place—many years younger. i am 18. damn. i am dressed so peculiarly because in my young age i cannot possibly know how to dress. but it must have worked. i am surrounded by my entourage. i am drinking keystone. it tastes fine now but little do i know—i’ll learn that there are far better alcoholic beverages out there to consume. i am dancing like a fool but totally enjoying myself. and thats the way to do it. in this day and age—when i feel like it—i still do the same thing. for the same reason. and its all justified by the same reasonings.

human beings moving in ways that cannot explain due to stimuli they cannot possibly comprehend—this certainly is a beautiful thing.

i see this all—but then i blink my eyes several times and im returned to the present. it is quiet here. it is cool. there are fans. there is no party. no beers cans strewn everywhere. nobody is getting laid in the shower, and there is no loud music. i am 3 years older. and i am about to lie my head to rest in this party haven of years gone by. it is now a quiet little home to my dear friends.

and i just cant get my head around that.

walking the streets tonight was unreal. ive been away from here—as ive said—for 4 months. a small amount of time. but considering the change in my relationship with this city—which is to say, i am no longer a resident of this city—it was nothing short of a dream. as ive said.

i have run out of brilliant things to say. that is—of course—if anything i have said was remotely brilliant to begin with.

the point of all of this is: i dont want to grow up.

i would rather be…?

2009-08-23T09:27:00.001-04:00

more background for the old and for the new readers:

after straightening myself out in the fall of 2007 with my education—and probably more booze—i got myself an internship with the wadsworth center for laboratories and research at the center for medical sciences in the city of albany, ny. shortly after i found that out, my father admitted to having an affair, gave my mom the old heave-ho, and moved out to what used to be—what will forever ‘used to have been’—the family camp. and hey presto—life became hell again. especially at home. luckily for me, the three months i spend every summer there would not be spent there, but instead, in the city of albany, ny.

talk about a summer vacation.

ah yes, and let us not forget: there was a girl in that story too, who pretty much disappeared off of the face of planet earth right before that vacation. it was frustrating. she reappeared in april of this year for about two weeks, and then disappeared again. thus my prior frustration is immensely justified. [i hear she got a boyfriend about a week or two after she disappeared, and that she is doing well. good for her.]

and so, while there in albany—while effectively living on my own—i learned for the first time in my life that i could be entirely self-sufficient and self-reliant. i did not need to depend on anybody else to keep me alive or get things done. i also realized that i did not necessarily need people around—least of all a significant other—to entertain myself and be happy. i was particularly content to entertain myself, and to have a good time—by myself.

for the first time since june of 2007, i had felt pretty much on top of my life again. i had everything figured out: go back to college for one more year and graduate at the end of it, take the GRE, apply to and get accepted to and choose a graduate school, find a studio apartment someplace, and all the while to hell with women. and, by-and-by, i accomplished exactly all of that. success!

essentially, i became a champion of singularity, of independence. if one of my friends became downtrodden due to the loss of a significant other, or hell—even a prospective significant other—id tell them rather violently to suck it up—they didnt need anybody else to be happy and thus, they should not be unhappy with their apparent “misfortune”. as far as i could see, they were fortunate to be spared the bullshit that seemingly comes with relationships (and this opinion is not derived from the relationship that i was in during the winter, spring, and summer of 2007).

thus ends the background.

but during the course of this summer that i have spent entirely alone in my studio apartment, my feelings have changed, somewhat, on the prospect of being on ones own. being able to be self-sufficient and self-reliant are great skills to have, for it allows one to be able to survive with the barest of essentials. however, i have learned that friends are important. i miss my oneonta family. i miss my frankfort family. i miss my blood family. and i have realized that although i do not need to be submerged in friendships and family all off the time, i certainly most need them to survive.

but that was all warm and fuzzy for me to come to realize. the next is incredibly, and painfully hard for me to actually acknowledge and write down here.

the other evening i boarded the number 7 bus from the glenmont lowes back to downtown albany. i was seated in the back and noticed a row of seats forward, across the isle, an older gentleman of probably his mid-60’s to early-70’s was seated alone with his collapsible shopping cart. as has become a peculiar observational habit of mine, i glanced at the ring finger of his left hand and noticed it bare. i thought to myself, “good for him! he’s doing life on his own.” and then i thought to myself, “but, he really has done life all on his own. he may be a widower but otherwise, he has gone his life without the love that i had once felt [that i am convinced i will never feel again], without children, without building a family.” and then i thought to myself, “this could be me in 45 years.”

a years worth of ardent cynicism was somewhat touched by this man, and the story of his life that i had created for him in my head. i realized that, although at this point in my life i am still cynical about the relationships of my generation and am very suspicious of love subsequent to having lost it, at some point, i will find a female who may break through that cynicism entirely, who will show me that not everybody is full of lies, deceit, and a talent for conniving. [and the following i cannot believe i am saying—i may edit this out later.]i will want to spend the rest of my life with her, and start a family with her, and i must realize that that is an entirely human thing to do, and an entirely human thing for me to someday want to do. and although at times i feel so detached from this planet that i may not even be human, i know deep down that i certainly most am, and that there is no sense in trying to convince myself otherwise.

i hate myself for having just admitted that.

the diamonds in the rough

2009-08-23T08:57:00.001-04:00

i will not discriminate between people who follow my blog, and those who may be simply searching around blogspot for something interesting to read for want of anything more entertaining to do. thus do i recount a tale told so many times over, to set the stage for the point of all of this—a point i know i have made somewhere before.

two and a half years ago i pretty much had life made. i didnt give a damn about my education and i was dating a wonderful girl. i was far more of an alcoholic then than i am now. several months later that was all shot to hell and it got the best of me. i hit rock bottom.

some story.

what i didnt realize then—and what i dont think many of us realize—is that when things are really bad, theyre not that bad. or, perhaps they are that bad, but every single moment of every single day isnt that bad. i think back to the fall semester of 2007 and for some reason i find myself missing the misadventures of those first few months—before i started to straighten myself back out again with my education. the certain hell i was going through had a particular flavor. and perhaps it is because i am a masochist that i find myself missing that particular flavor. and i think it is also because deep within the depths of all of that hell, there were still plenty of perfectly wonderful things going on.

for example:

- most of the friends that i have who are still at oneonta and cannot legally purchase alcohol yet—i met them in those first few months. and i love them all to death. they helped me tremendously and became good friends in the process.

- the girl i so loved and was so betrothed to and i were still on speaking terms. we were civil. out friendship was patched up relatively quickly if memory serves me correctly. there were the ups and downs that come with being a poor ex-boyfriend trying to cope with the fact that we were friends—and nothing more—and all that that implies. but all of that was overshadowed by the fact that the girl i still cared about most on planet earth was still my best friend. i couldnt have asked for more than that.

- dr. nigel mann’s animal behavior class. dont ask me why, but for some reason unbeknownst to me, that class was probably the most satisfying i ever took at oneonta. and the utica zoo field trip—though important in my brain for other reasons—was what got me starting to think about altering my career path and becoming a research scientist. without that class, i dont know where id be on planet earth right now.

and i think—again, masochistically—some part of me just misses the time. a lot of it was malevolent, yes, but things not only felt bad, but in retrospect, they just felt different. and it is a feeling i know i will never get back. because i will never be in the same place at the same time with the same hell exploding around me. and it is in my nature to be curious as to how it would feel to relive something again.

no matter how bad it was the first time around.

move-in day

2009-08-23T08:30:00.001-04:00

the time at which i begin to write this is 8:19 am. the date on which i begin to write this is sunday, august 23, 2009.

originally, i awoke sometime around 6 am, before forcing myself back to sleep. but i feel that it is no coincidence that i was wide awake at that hour.

every last or second-to-last sunday in august for the past four years has been marked with a dawn journey—my life packed into boxes and bags, stuffed into back seats and trunks—to the state university of new york college at oneonta.

and that is not what i am doing now.

and some part of my brain and my heart feels as though that is what i should be doing right now.

i am not in the right place.

i should have pulled up to the service door of some dorm about 22 minutes ago now—i would have picked a dorm room as close as possible to the service door, to the laundry room—just like last year.

but i am not.

i should be greeting RAs i may know as we go through the obligatory paperwork upon the completion of which i get my room and mailbox keys.

but i am not.

i should be a sweaty mess, carting things from my mother’s and father’s cars, and beginning to unpack them whilst barking orders at my parents to put this here, or that there.

but i am not.

i can close my eyes and look around the room, a collage of all of the images from all of the times that i have done that on move-in day. i can hear the rain fall outside, as the windows would be able to relieve the heat of unpacking. i can even smell what an unoccupied-for-three-months, empty oneonta dorm smells like.

but i am not there.

i miss my old life.

a reply from grandpa

2009-08-20T21:32:00.001-04:00

so my grandfather had this to say about my spiel:

so it sounds like the reason we are the greatest country this world has ever known is we were lucky. not because people who have the money and invest in new technologies to create jobs has led to our greatness.
if we tax the hell out of people who have wealth, where does the incentive come from to create more wealth and more jobs. if you make more money the government will only take it from you. I think this is called socialism.
evidently cuba and russia (communist) have and had the ideal governments where everyone is equal.
yes there are inequities in our government(and some of them can be corrected) but if you destroy the incentive to accumulate wealth, this country will be destroyed.
there is no perfect government but history has proved the usa has the best so far.

to which i had this to say:

well said my dear grandfather, well said!

I think that if a government is intent on actually governing (as it seems, every aspect of a country) then the government should also play a prominent role in economics, etc. russia, for example, had such a prominent space program during the cold war, because all of the scientists involved were all government-hired scientists (as I understand it). and they were all probably making somewhere around the same amount as the local garbage collectors, say. now, sure its far simpler to be a trash man than to go to school for 10 years to become a scientist to get paid the same amount. but the point is, would you rather go to school for 10 years and become a scientist, or wade through a city's filth all day long, removing trash and (essentially) bettering the community? some would choose the former, others would choose the latter. but thing is, the scientist who goes to school for 10 years still needs to somebody to take his trash away to a facility that processes it--and he certainly isnt going to. and the garbage collector still needs scientists to develop medicine for when he gets sick, say. the point is: all jobs in a society are equally important, regardless of the degree of intensity of training involved. thus, should not everybody have a relatively similar wage and living conditions?

as far as innovation and so forth, I believe that a country does not need millionaires to invest in innovation (and how many of them really do? some: certainly. most: probably not.). what I do believe is that the government can foster this innovation as the need arises (this is a perfectly horrendous example but, look at the manhattan project: would anybody in the united states really be that mentally dysfunction as to develop and atomic bomb unless somebody had given them incentive and financing--in this case, the US government?). so, lets say everybody has similar wages and are taxed equally (or in the case of the US, "tax the hell out of the rich"), and the government has this whole big chunk of money it didn’t have (hi ho!—surplus!). not only can that money go into improving the various aspects of the country (health care, etc.), but it could also be used to finance certain projects. for example, the same way entrepreneurs go to big businessmen and banks looking for financing for some contraption, scheme, or whatever, they would instead go to the government (like we scientists do), a certain committee composed of people from all sorts of various backgrounds would determine whether that would be a sound investment or not (like the national science foundation does), and then the person going to the government would either be granted a financial award, or not (like us scientists are, or are not).

the point: its not that their cant be investment to create jobs and provide incentive to innovate, its just that it could and should go through better channels (I.e. government, not private). I think that I would have far more trust in the government (which I have apparently voted for and apparently represents me) holding the majority of the country's money, than the rich holding onto it. because what are they really doing with it? a majority of them? not improving the economy, I will tell you that much. that’s why there is this economic crisis: a minority of the citizens of the united states of america hold onto a majority of the money, and they don’t want to give it up (trickle-down does not work when nobody at the top wants to trickle down). so the upper class becomes the upper upper class, and the middle class becomes the lower class, and the lower class well, theyre already at rock bottom. thus, as corporate greed increases, the disparity between classes increases--soon, there will be no middle class. and the poor arent going anywhere--theyre the majority. its going to be up to the rich to let go of their greed--and their money--or up to the government to tax them more heavily, to get the majority of the country's money out of their hands, and spread around to everybody else so that people can start buying things and investing in homes and cars and so forth. that’s going to get the economy going again.

it doesn’t necessarily mean the rich wont still be rich, it just means that the poor wont be as poor anymore.

and: its not that there should be an incentive to increase wealth--instead, there should simply be a desire to be the best human being one can be (the Word of God comes to mind). in the dog-eat-dog market that capitalism fosters, there is no hope of that. in a perfect economy, there would be an overall understanding that not one component of society (that is to say, one particular specialization) can function without all of the others (which is to say, all of the other occupations). thus, no one person should be rewarded more than the other for their contribution to society (or at least not by definition).

the unfortunate thing is that human beings--by their very genetic nature (see richard dawkins' "the selfish gene")--are incredibly greedy organisms, which is why capitalism works. it is surprising that capitalism--a dog-eat-dog economic system--flourishes in a mostly christian country, a religion in which the Word of God is certainly most is not the following: do your best to out compete thy neighbor and come out on top of him. you would think that in a country whose main religion and whose constitution (despite "separation of church and state") is based on the aforementioned religion would be more egalitarian. thus, it is not surprising that the beautitudes--Jesus' sermon on the mount--are not referenced more often than the ten commandments (for example, "blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth": this sounds like a millionaire's nightmare).

you get the point im trying to make: america (and many other countries with capitalistic economies) could be said to have an overall "morally" corrupt society (which is to say, everybody simply insists on everybody being nice to each other--which is to say, be moral--but many people are not, they're simply looking out for their own skin, which is supposed to be immoral, or so I understand it--and it certainly most is genetically and evolutionarily favorable in nature) simply as a result of our own genetic ("human") nature (e.g. social darwinism), and thus, we can only have a corrupt economy.

only in a utopian society where everybody rejects their genetics and does behave as morally as people say we should act could an egalitarian society flourish.

I am a dreamer. so be it.

love,

ryan

an e-mail from grandpa

2009-08-20T14:52:00.001-04:00

i received the following e-mail from my grandfather just now. it contains therein a quote, which i share with you below:

You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

- Adrian Rogers

and i now share with you below my response (for which i am sure to catch hell; at least i didnt ‘reply all’)

my response to the statement by the questionable adrian rogers:

why does any one person need to have--and better yet, why should they have--more money than they need to survive, when the poor--who didn’t ask to be born into the first place, or be born into a poor household, or have unfortunate circumstances that prevent them from holding a triple-digit job, or who live in a country where nobody can get a job--are surviving on the pennies they receive from bottle-and-can returns--the only humbling job they can possibly get in this country that simply has no jobs. why are there no jobs? because most of the small business owners don’t have the money to employ them. who does have all the money? your corporate CEOs, your stock brokers, your wall street-shysters--the very same people who seem to need--and certainly most have--more money than they could possibly ever need to survive.

case in point: those who have more money than we humble, hard-working americans have (and for that are we not owed six figures a year?) probably don’t even deserve to have it in the first place. whereas we make our money supporting the elderly in nursing homes, broadening the depth of scientific knowledge, assisting special-needs children in elementary schools, etc., they get their outrageous sums of money through inheritance (the prerequisite to which is simply being born with the right last name), or through swindling others on the stock market, through bribes--through all manner of business practices to which one could attribute no other adjective than this: immoral.

so my question is this: why not tax the hell out of the minority that which holds the majority of US currency? does that not mean lower (or at least, not increased) taxes for us--the middle class--the working class? does that not mean more federal tax dollars to overhaul our health care system? our dying social security system? our childhood and secondary education programs?

and another question: why should the rich be able to practically burn money for fun while some of us are struggling to pay rent each month whilst engaging in entirely humane forms of labor? answer: they shouldn’t.

hows that for a "profound paragraph"?

dog food

2009-08-08T13:44:00.001-04:00

its happening again.

my brain is going absolutely bonkers.

listen:

i want to sleep, but i cant keep my eyes shut.

i am perfectly comfortable, but i just cant sit still.

i am hungry, but i have no appetite.

i am in pain, but i feel no pain.

i want friends and family to come see me, but i just want to be alone.

i want to make music, but i dont pick up my guitar.

i want to read, but i dont pick up a book.

i want to watch a movie, but i dont turn on the television.

i want to go outside, but i keep the door shut—i do not put on my shoes.

the one thing that i do want though, without contradiction, is to go swimming.

why?

containment

2009-08-07T19:21:00.001-04:00

have you ever wondered: why was the US—why was the world—so hell-bent on preventing "the spread of communism", a form of government—to my understanding—where the working class makes the rules, where the standard of living is equal for everybody?

answer: because the rich aristocrats in political offices the world around were so insulted by the mere thought—the mere suggestion—that those less fortunate should have the same standard of living as them. or: that their fabulously well-to-do living situation should be reduced—reduced to a level that would be affordable for everybody else.

oh yeah, and theres this: they didnt want to give up at least one of their fifteen yachts, or 100 mansions, say, and and a small percentage of their money through taxes, say, to help everybody else out who were simply less fortunate than them for one reason in particular. maybe its not that they didnt have a job, or fail to look for one, or work at least a low-paying one. but the reason they were less fortunate was simply this: the aristocrats had all of the fucking money.

until this past wednesday, i had $39 in my entire bank account. and not a whole lot more in cash.

shove that up your ass hyannis port.

a tale of two species

2009-08-05T18:35:00.001-04:00

i love squirrels. nobody i know even fancies squirrels. but i love them. i find them to pathetically entertaining.

“look! theres a morsel of food!” one may think to his or herself. hop hop hop. stop! look around. “is there anybody else who has spotted that delicious looking morsel? is there anything bigger than me that wants to eat me? doesnt look like.” hop hop hop. stop! “here it is!” he or she might think, as they triumphantly stuff it in their mouths for safekeeping.

what a smart idea.

and then—theyre off! they bound to the nearest tree or building and—! up they go! they climb the damned thing like it were nothing.

i dont know about you, but to me—that seems like just about the coolest thing.

and what a smart idea: what in the hell is going to eat you 80 feet above the ground, concealed by branches and leaves? answer: not a whole lot.

most people probably dont like squirrels for the very example presented. they consider them varmint, as every morning, they wake up—just like everybody else—and jump from garbage can to garbage can, from dumpster to dumpster, from junk pile to junk pile—doing anything they can to find food.

how disgusting this must seem to most people.

and as i turn my own sleepy eyes from these delightful creatures—who didnt ask to be born anyway, who are simply doing what darwin suggested they could only do, which is fight, forage, and fuck—i observe another urban species waking up—just like everybody else—going from garbage can to garbage can, from dumpster to dumpster, from junk pile to junk pile—doing anything they can to find food.

what is this other organism, you ask? here is the answer: homo sapiens.

homo sapiens—meaning, ‘wise man’, an utterly stupid scientific name to give to such an utterly stupid organism—are the very same species—in fact—that put this particular subclass of homo sapiens in that particular occupation.

classes—of course—being defined by what one has, and what another does not have. homo sapiens richus have oodles of money that they could burn for fun—if theyd liked—and not be anymore poorer than before the demolition. homo sapiens poorus have not a cent—not a morsel of food—and are reduced to that darwinian definition of an organisms’ sole purpose in ‘life’: fighting, foraging, and fucking.

fucking outdoors where simply any passerby could see you has got to be so exciting.

it would seem that the former species—homo sapiens richus—has dwindled in numbers, or, evolved from your ‘everyday’ homo sapiens—a species that at one point owned only what it needed—as there are simply very few of them in existence, at least in the united states of america.

does this mean that soon homo sapiens richus will become extinct, making way for homo sapiens poorus? i dont think so.

the aforementioned—however—is not true. it is simply that homo sapiens richus appears to require the absolute minimum number of additional members of its species of the opposing sex to promote the cycling of its species. thus—evolutionarily—it makes sense that their population has indeed remained miniscule.

or is that how it really works?

it would seem that the latter species—homo sapiens poorus—are either increasing in number, or are at least more reproductively active than homo sapiens richus, because there are so damned many of them, at least in the united states of america.

this however, is not true. it is simply that because the population of homo sapiens richus is so absolutely tiny that the population of homo sapiens poorus has been able to grow to its current gargantuan size.

or is that how it really works?

maybe it is. its called ‘density-depended population growth’. and i never thought id use a term i learned in general ecology ever again in my life, subsequent to graduating. i shudder.

i dont think that is how it really works.

keep reading:

it is interesting to note, though, that homo sapiens poorus may be as close to the original species of homo sapiens as one could get in this day and age in the 21st century, as they are doing exactly what their ancestors did: woke up every morning, and did what they could to find food, a good fuck, and theyd fight to the death for it—if necessary. they are not slaves to free enterprise—to capitalism—but are instead at the whim of natural selection.

homo sapiens richus—on the other hand—are hopelessly reliant on capitalism. and here is where the true tale that explains the origin of and the current populations sizes of the two species in question is told:

homo sapiens richus require a boss to tell them what to do with their life—which could be spent doing many other far less servile things. they do what their boss tells them to do with their life, and then they get paid. they take that money and buy the very services they provide, thus giving their boss even more money, and he becomes evermore power-drunk off of green paper. eventually this addled employee—hopelessly dependent on his boss for instructions and money—becomes an esteemed employee. he moves up the social ladder—whatever that is. he starts getting more slips of green paper biweekly. next thing you know it, twenty years go by, and hes the power-drunk boss. he is god. eventually him and his former boss—now a cohort—end up owning so much of the money in circulation and the ground underneath everybody’s feet, that there are no more green papers to go around for anybody else—there is no place for anybody else to stay.

and thus was homo sapiens poorus born, as the result of all the fucking around homo sapiens richus were doing. what an invigorating, motivating tale.

what a sad tale. we cant all be successful. and what is success anyway when somebody else is suffering?

maybe homo sapiens richus are more darwinian than i originally thought.

for fucks sake: a little boy—who by no means asked to be born into the shitty circumstances he is most certainly living in—was picking through jefferson streets’ garbage last week.

give me a fucking break.

cameras

2009-08-01T03:08:00.001-04:00

they are fascinating—cameras. they capture things that only the most magnificent of brains can recapitulate.

they remind me of lives i once had that i thought i had not forgotten—but i am wrong.

for all that i remember—ive forgotten. repressed. recovery.

moving on.

they are fascinating—cameras. they produce immortal recollections of lives ive once loved. lives ive now lost.

moving on.

but.

no one can ever take them away from me—lives ive once loved—now lost. repressed. recovery.

moving on.

for all of the pieces of developed plastic that are now burned—thrown away—forgotten—i will shed tears.

they are times that my most magnificent brain will recapitulate indefinitely.

lives ive once loved. lives ive lost.

lives i wont forget.

respressed. no.

recovery. yes.

moving on.

never.

thatd be a tragedy. a rejection of my very life.

chaos.

peace.

no.

when the flash goes off before my eyes—the past is closer than it seems.

clicks away.

close my eyes.

the past is as close behind as memory allows it to be.

tomorrow may as well be three years ago.

i am a fool.

or at least--

i am human.

so be it.

waiting rooms

2009-07-29T09:03:00.001-04:00

i am currently comfortable. the most comfortable—in fact—that ive been in twelve days; during which time my insides and mental stability have been wrenched and burned as the result of an as-yet undiagnosed medical condition resulting from some complication in my cholecyst—my gallbladder.

it is expected. my mother had choleliths (gallstones) and a subsequent cholecystectomy (removal of the gallbladder). her grandmother also had similar complications. what exactly—i dont know.

the aforementioned train of thought was just interrupted by my name being called by a doctor at the boundary between me and where the real fun is. i just got an IV in my arm. and—hence the title—i am currently in a waiting room.

sitting here writing—for the first time about my life in what seems to be forever—awaiting a hepatobiliary imino-diacetic acid scan. it will test the functioning of my liver with respect to my gallbladder and small intestine, and it will subsequently test the functioning of my gallbladder with respect to my small intestine.

and so all of that other stuff was just history. whatever. point being: after being pained for consecutive days on end, for what is at least the third time in four months, i basically got mentally fucked up enough to say, "enough is enough" and start getting the medical ball rolling, so to speak.

and so it is.

the point of this particular written monologue has to do with the title itself: waiting rooms.

most people dread them: the wait. the other patients. the wait. the paperwork.

the wait!

but in the past three years, i have found a particular peace in waiting rooms. typically because it was never the case that i was in there for my own personal health. in the past three years, it was always me escorting my beloved residents to basset healthcare in cooperstown, or basset healthcare in herkimer, or the slocum-dickson medical group in utica, or saint elizabeth’s hospital in utica, or saint luke’s hospital in utica, or some damned place in syracuse. and so on.

and while they waited, i got to take what could certainly be called a well-deserved break from the seeming nonstop craziness back at the nursing home—which i so thrived on—and could still thrive on.

and though i enjoyed every second that i ran around that nursing home—making beds, ambulating residents, escorting residents to physical therapy, passing nourishments, running errands—going on a transport typically meant a scenic drive, reading vonnegut in the waiting room, learning things in the examination room, and a scenic ride back to the nursing home.

it was a peaceful oasis in the middle of a busy day.

and i suppose thats why yesterday, while waiting for a putative diagnosis (which i already suspected, mind you), and now, while waiting to get jazzed with technetium 99m—a radioactive tracer—i am entirely at peace.

i dont even feel any pain.

oh the mysterious ways that the past can comfort the present.

story of my life the for past three months.

home—we’re coming home again

2009-07-09T11:48:00.001-04:00

a bit of a history: so one best friend flies across the country from the west coast to the east coast yesterday. meets up with other best friend back in frankfort. and the two of them drive to albany for a night of mayhem. it was a blast. but before it even got off the ground, talk of this one night led into talk of the subsequent night. and as my experiments are obligated to sit at least until friday, i decided to pack up and come back to frankfort with them this morning.

before we even got on i90, something felt weird. not a bad weird. but. just weird. it wasnt like when i became unstuck in time and went back to my high school graduation. it was nothing like that. this was just a feeling. i think it is because i have not been anywhere near frankfort during the summertime since that fateful summer of 2007. and even as i sit here now, listening to an ep by the now-defunct band named the stickup—and ep i luckily bought on a whim during the summer of 2006—i just feel immersed, almost, in this feeling. like i am swimming through a different world.

but this always happens to me no matter where i go. i am always living in the present. looking towards the future. and sensing the past.

my house has always smelled different in the summertime. and i guess despite my previous summer living here being so traumatizing, my brain has repressed the bad and can take in all that it is sensing around me and simply cause me to enjoy being in my house and in my hometown during what always used to be such a relaxed and fulfilling time of year—namely, the summer.

ive missed this smell. ive missed this house. ive missed this town.

its good to be home.

the few, the proud…

2009-07-06T08:15:00.001-04:00

observation: it would seem that despite overall international displeasure with war, young men and women fresh out of high school or college or the breadline are still lining up to be turned into unemotional, unfeeling, hopelessly obedient robots day after day after day.

question: what if everybody just said the hell with the peruvian air force or the hungarian army or the united states marines or the japanese navy or the insurgency and on and on, and there were no more soldiers left to fight anybody’s wars?

dare i say: war is perpetuated by the mentally defunct young men and women of planet earth who at the ripe young ages of 18, 19, 20, 21, 43, and on and on, must somehow find it amusing to run from defilade to defilade, from trench to trench, otherwise turning fellow members of the human race into so much hamburger meat. and somehow—bless them—they are able to aide their fellow countrymen by translating that unimaginable mess into terms that must be far more easy for civilians to understand.

this is it: defending ones country. or: defending ones religion.

give me a break!

schlachthaus fünf

2009-06-22T20:35:00.001-04:00

the way that i feel write now is so bonkers that i am being driven to write it down. i have no idea what i am feeling, and thus no idea what it is that i am about to say. your guess is as good as mine.

the way i feel right now may be the way one feels as they are about to die. i feel like parts of my life are flashing before my eyes. better yet: i feel like i am literally, physically, mentally, and emotionally living out parts of my life all over again. better yet: not living out again but, watching, almost like a movie, from behind my eyes, just like everything happened the first time. its like i am sitting in the skull that was, watching everything on two oval-shaped television screens that are placed side-by-side. not only can i see these things but i feel like my limbic system is plugged into the limbic system that was, and i can feel everything as though it was really happening.

and like that, its no longer just television. i get up from the couch. i look around me. i am no longer in my apartment. i am in my mothers house—my fathers old house—and i see them both there. it is night. the pool is open. somebody is swimming in it. probably my sister. i hear lawn mowers in the distance. the sun is setting behind joslin hill. it is still as humid as a lung outside. i hear bugs. but im not outside. im inside. walking through the kitchen. my cat is probably watching intently what is going on in the pool area—as he always does—waiting for somebody to begin their approach from the pool area to the back door—giving him an opportunity to escape outside to eat some grass—roll around in the dirt. i can hear the fan upstairs. i feel the fan blowing on my legs now.

i am currently describing what i literally feel and see. i am sitting down. i am walking through the kitchen. the fan is real. i know that much. i turned it on to dry my clothes because the dryers in my apartment are atrocious.

i get a text message from my girlfriend, probably. i answer it. i am probably in a bathing suit—never taken off after an afternoon outside. i will start work at the high school soon. as soon as i graduate this upcoming weekend.

i smell like chlorine. my skin feels dry.

i go upstairs and the old wallpaper is still there—the bookcase with all of my sister’s and my old books from childhood. that big book of fairy tales my meem got from i-dont-know-who. i will read tales from there soon—i am sure—as i do every time summer begins. i am not too old for it.

if there is one thing that i find to be most sacred and most important, it is this: that i never ever forget how to be a child.

i have the physics regents exam coming up this week. im not even going to study. im not going to study because i know it all like the back of my hand—and who studies for cumulative exams like that anyway? what a great class this was. i am going to miss mr. frye.

i shower now. wash off the pool water and chlorine. the smell of outside. i get into whatever evening wear ive been sporting. probably some pair of cotton shorts with a drawstring. a white t. i go downstairs and dish out a bowl of ice cream. im sure ive gotten another text message by now. ‘i love you too, amanda.’ i devour the ice cream. it probably isnt mint chocolate chip but more something along the lines of cookie dough—or cookies in cream. something vanilla, im guessing.

so ive just gotten skewered by my hair stylist—my hair is as short as i am tall. so i try doing it a different way. it works. i dont know it yet but this is how i will wear my hair for the next year and a half. time flies. its friday and i havent shaved in days—there is barely any hair there. but i like how it hides my babyface. amanda and my mother agree—i look horrible. so i go to the graduation rehearsal. tonight my right ankle will start acting up. i think its the weather aggravating it—i had sprained and fractured it 6 years ago. i dont know it yet but cracking it will become a bad habit i wont break until it becomes so routine that i forget to do it. i go to sleep.

i wake up and apparently my life is supposed to be on the brink of a major ending—and another beginning. i actually dont look half bad in my cap thingamajig. mom takes pictures. i go do my hair. i go to the gym. we’re all excited. for the first time in 6 years i am not playing pomp and circumstance at the high school graduation—im walking out to it. only a month earlier i was walking out to that stupid ‘i’ll be your crying shoulder’ song with amanda on my arm. and damn did she look beautiful.

to this day: she looked beautiful.

so i walk out and cant believe it. i sit down. and graduation progresses. i get awards. i get my diploma. i almost botch my photograph with whoever-he-was. i sit down again. someone talks again. i throw my cap where i can easily retrieve it. i pick it up. graduation is done. there are lots of hugs, tears, high-fives. etc. my family approaches me. im sure theyre crying, too. and theres amanda—bless her: she sat through the whole, sweltering 2.5 hour ceremony, just to watch her baby graduate. arent i lucky or what?

so now theres more photos being taken and i still have them on this very computer. we go home. amandas mother is there, i think. amanda apparently went graduation shopping for me. a belt buckle i will never wear. one of those white stone surfer dude necklaces that i will wear every single day until we break up. i think. a green shirt that i dont know where it ended up—its probably in good condition but id swim in it, im sure. a pinstripe sport coat from hot topic that sits in my closet next to me. i wore it to my graduate school interview for ualbany. and ive worn it to many other important functions as well.

some things you just never lose use for.

i get into comfortable clothes—i cant even breathe from my shirt and tie. i drive amanda to my grandfathers down the street and around the corner—hes got beagle puppies. theyre adorable. i go home. get all of my graduation party invitations. get in the car. my parents drive me to party number one. they drive amanda home. i go to some parties. i go home. my family comes home from my despised cousins graduation party. my mother and sister—some other family members, im sure, go down to the vfw on acme road. they begin setting up for my party.

‘i love you too, amanda,’ and i go down into the cellar to play my new video game that my mother bought me for graduating—the only material gift that i got.

and now that i think of it, this is where we arrive to the beginning of my tale. or maybe it was the end of the next night. in which case i wasnt in the pool all day--

i am getting dolled up. into my suit. with this new off-grey shirt and snazzy tie. ive lost the tie now—somehow—i will always regret losing it, too. i get dropped off by my father at glenns graduation party. its kind of awkward. dad picks me up, and we go to my party. i have photos from this, too. on my computer. this one.

my friends came. my teachers came. amanda stayed for the whole damned thing—again. bless her. and now everybody is leaving. i take the car, stuff it full of my friends, and drive to nicks party. this is nice. and i hit somebodys car as im backing out. not too badly, though. just grazed it. whoops.

somehow everybody gets where theyre going. my house is dark inside. the windows may or may not be open. my graduation balloons are everywhere. the big ones are deflated—are taped to the back of my bedroom door in my old house. my fathers old house.

it happens.

and here i am. i think i am back in my apartment. it doesnt smell like my apartment—it doesnt smell like anything. the fan—the one that was real—its still blowing, from the opposite side of the room than usual—over where my closet and now-dry clothes are. i like how it feels from this angle. i might just keep it there.

i really, truly feel—maybe even believe—that i just did all of that all over again. maybe not over again—maybe its always happening. still happening. right now. why not? i cant do or say anything differently but, so long as i remember it—if im only remembering—then it must still exist. the way everything looked, smelled, tasted, felt. if i remember it all—if i can sense it all—then it must still be there.

and i am glad that it is. that was a good time in my life. that was a good summer.

these are things i have not sensed—and i will now use the word ‘sense’ instead of ‘remember’—in a very long time. i have had glimpses—but never like this. i cant even imagine what my brain activity must look like right now on an fmri—i have described here details that i could not have possibly remembered otherwise. otherwise what? i dont know. details that i could not have possibly remembered unless i were describing everything in such detail like this? details that i could not have possibly remembered unless this actually just happened again?

i dont know.

i know i didnt actually physically go anywhere. but i sure felt like it. and thus described it as such. it was a nice ride, anyway. didnt you enjoy it?

the point is this: something in my brain snapped this evening and my conscious was sent somewhere. somewhere i have been before. and done things before. maybe it was a dream. maybe it was a memory. or maybe our brains are truly able to walk us through times in our life in such detail as we could have never consciously tried to remember it—that is to say, we simply did. and we dont know why.

i told you from the get-go that i had no idea what i was about to say. i still barely remember what ive just typed. i have nothing stellar or spectacular to end this trip in time with.

none of this was revised. i will re-read it now and content myself to make no revisions. how can i revise what has already happened?

and here, now, the author is stripped of his freedom to edit: whats done is done.

frankfort

2009-05-21T19:00:00.001-04:00

the other night, i came across a message that said that the frankfort middle school/high school band concert would be that night. having felt lazy all day, and recognizing that this may be the last band concert i ever attend, i came to the conclusion that i should go. if anything, it would be nice to walk amongst the warm, late-spring air that has been mostly absent this whole season. i walked with a smile on my face as the warm sun set behind the baseball field. the football field. route 5s. circa survive blaring in my ears. i entered the high school for the first time in two years. interestingly, the only thing that felt out of place was the fact that everywhere were banners and papers proclaiming “congratulations graduating class of 2009!”. even i didnt feel out of place. i knew which rooms belonged to which of my instructors. i could point out my senior locker. i floated through the senior hallway—through the auditorium—like a ghost. nobody recognized me. have i really changed that much in two years—four years? i was not offended by this. i was able to walk through a place still so familiar to me unseen—invisible. not under the watchful eye of teachers or administration.

the soloists and high school band performed amazingly.

the younger of my friends—seniors now, only 8th graders when i graduated—they recognized me. said hello briefly before being whisked away by their parents—bedtime. one of the custodians i worked with during the memorable summers of 2004 and 2005 recognized me. we talked. it was nice. and surprise surprise: i dont remember his name. frank is the best i can come up with. i think i am wrong.

i stepped into the band room—ms. asher barely recognized me. we talked for a short while. she congratulated my having graduated from oneonta—on my acceptance to graduate school. it was so odd seeing a younger teacher now from the perspective of somebody as equal as her: a college graduate. almost like we could be best friends if life allowed for it. it was an interesting idea to toy with in my head. i said goodbye to her for the last time, and began to walk home.

despite my likeness that evening to a ghost amongst tombstones, it was on that walk home—as i passed the tennis courts—that i realized that, no matter how much i sometimes dislike being here, no matter how much i sometimes dislike the people here, no matter how much i want to get the hell out of here already and move to albany, i will always have a home here, and at least a handful of human beings who love me. its a comforting thought.

it is beautiful here in the spring. when it warms up.

heres to you, frankfort.

ghosts

2009-05-21T18:49:00.001-04:00

recently, ive realized that i have been wandering through memories and have been causing them to physically manifest themselves. partly my fault. its the month of may. the feeling of spring turning into summer. its happened last year. i think may will always feel weird.

with all of these graduation things going on, my brain cant help but mosey into depths of my hippocampus—wired inexplicably to the limbic system—to reproduce how i felt—how my environment felt—four years ago at this time, as i prepared to graduate from high school. wants to just test the old waters. for the hell of it. who knows? my life was so much different then: my parents were together, i was infinitely more innocent, and infinitely more ignorant and naive—i had no idea what was out there. and i had a girlfriend, too. her name was amanda.

surely as a consequence of my poor, confused, hijacked brain, i got in touch with her a week or so ago, and she ended up bringing me to this party she was at. it was nice to see her—for sure. but it was the same as the last time i had seen her—20 months and 6 days beforehand: some part of me felt—and i feel that at least one ex of a relationship will always feel this way regarding their corresponding ex—that of everybody in the room, i should have been getting the most attention from her. its not that i wanted it, per se. some unknown part of me just desired it. (maybe i’ll find that part some day. i dont think i care to.) maybe because at one point in time, i was the the only person in that room filled with people getting that attention. i dont think that those are things anybody will ever get past (notice that i didnt say “get over”. see the difference?). and i feel as though because of how the final breakup went down, and how i handled it, i was the one who felt more scorned. i dont know. but that is how i felt last night. i felt almost invisible. it is not her fault—why should i, an ex of four years, give a flying fuck? and why should she? it shouldnt matter. but it does. for some reason. and i feel as though it always will. she was my first girlfriend, after all. and we were together for the better part of a whole year. again: i think that is all a reflection on how i handled everything subsequent to the breakup. i was bitter. i didnt want to talk to her. it was torture. i just wanted to be left alone. after nearly a year of that, i realized that it was pointless. and i apologized. we made amends. fin. there hasnt been much to add to the story since then. the whole point is though: with all of this graduation stuff going on, i miss when i was a senior in high school, and miss the time i spent with her, and how my environment felt around me—how it sounded and smelled, how it looked and felt. and i dont think she feels the same.

and i guess some part of me thinks that that is sad.

i would rather remember every detail then forget or deny a whole year of my life.

thats just me.

again: why should i give a flying fuck?

onward.

and by the simple fact that it is may, in which the beginnings of a very difficult summer two years ago was founded, some part of my brain cant help but wander through the memories and ghosts of that time—im listening to the same music, reading the same books. some part of my brain is trying to recreate the environment of two years ago. yet again—i dont know why. maybe my brain is trying to test me—figure out how i could have handled things were i then who i am now. i dont know. i know simply that it is happening—nothing more. and wouldnt you know it—last week, i saw dana, too. but her and i are a different story. we broke up. we still talked. we were still best friends. things got increasingly difficult for me towards the end summer—to put it lightly. but we started talking again once we returned to school, fortunately. thankfully. there were rough times in there too, but basically, we remained very good friends. and still are. she came to visit me in albany last summer. and when she found me at the senior class picnic last night, she latched onto me—wouldnt let me go. if that wasnt nice, what is? she attended the bar crawl, and we talked here and there when we could. i didnt feel like i did around amanda. i didnt feel starved for her attention. again—its not that i necessarily wanted it (in retrospect of what i just wrote here and above: i am lying—we all want attention from our exs. plain and simple). it could be because i was getting attention—whenever we ended up being at the same bar, we’d wave, say hello, talk about whatever. it was nice. and we ended up spending our last night as oneonta undergraduates drinking in the dorms. talking about our lives. about life—like we always do. singing and playing guitar. bar hopping until 3am. and if that wasnt nice, what could be? i am very thankful that her and i are still friends. i wouldnt want it any other way.

again: i think its the differences in how ended relationships are handled that defines how you will feel around that person for the rest of your life.

i panicked when i got home saturday for reasons known to me that i will not share with you. sorry. but i am fine now. the ghosts have disappeared. despite what im hearing, reading. i only see the walls of my house around me. i move to albany (hopefully) this weekend or early next week. and i will walk amongst the beautiful ghosts of last summer, i am sure (this is not a bad thing, as you know—albany changed my life in ways i cannot explain). for no matter how far you exceed the past, you cannot deny it. it will always catch up to you.

in retrospect of what is written here and above: writing this thing—i feel—has served no purpose. but i had to get it out.

thank you for reading.

the final annual end-of-the-school-year blog

2009-05-21T18:09:00.001-04:00

NOTE: this was written over the course of thursday, may 14th; and today, june 21st.

hello babies. its that time again.

i am not writing to you from an empty room, whilst waiting for my family to come and pick up my belongings, and bring me back to frankfort. i am writing to you from a partially empty room—the soley resident of matteson 013 still here. i go home in two days—i graduate in two days—not two hours. but i fear that i will not have the time in between now and then to write—as i always do—and so, here i am, writing to you. from a partially empty room. the keys of my laptop echo out of my room and through the living room. i clap my hands—the living room claps back. i am not alone, after all.

clap.

this has been as difficult a year as it has been easy. in the fall months, i was becoming increasingly frustrated with who and what i saw around me. people being so shitty—people giving a shit about things that obviously did not matter. their insolence and immaturity made me sick. i shrunk away. as i was prone to do, considering i had basically lived alone since june. eventually, i found even more ways to entertain myself. better: i found out what all of the things in my mental box labeled ‘unparalleled happiness’ were—the books, albums, movies, places, activities, food that all made me happy—and i took refuge and comfort in them when i couldnt stand even having to share air with the human beings around me. eventually, though, i think those feelings subsided a bit.

winter break was okay. i worked at VHS—for the last time. today i said goodbye to my nurses, and to the adult daycare crew, and handed in my badge. i am no longer an employee there. though i will always have a place there, and people who love me there—it is no longer where i belong. it was the first time in a long time ive had to say goodbye—to say, ‘im not coming back—this is the end’. ive been doing that a lot lately. and i will be forced to continue to do so. christmas was okay, too. everyone seemed to be okay with my father being around—except my uncle (mothers brother), still. my father was not allowed at that particular christmas party. but. whatever. things seemed to run smoothly. it was better than the last time he had come to some sort of family function that i was present at (easter of last year). its my sister—it seems—who is now making this the hardest on everybody. she loves my father. she hates me. shes cool with my parents being civil. she wants them to hate each other. she wants them to be back together. or so it seems. or so ive been told. she hasnt quite said any of that to me. but thats how my mother makes it out to be—who, by the way, my sister thinks is stupid. apparently. i dont know. she doesnt talk to me much.

clap.

i came back to oneonta in january with a bang—i was ready to get back in the lab and get back to work and crank out my last semester of my undergraduate career (did you get the joke? we all do it at least once—hence the name. confused? good.). shortly thereafter i went to california with glenn to visit eric—again. and it was one of the most memorable weeks in my life. not only did i have a good time, not only was it great to see eric after 9 months, but i think all three of us learned some important lessons in those 8 days. we learned that you only live once, and that you should never let opportunities pass by you because youll regret it in the end if you do. ive lived everyday since that trip mumbling that mantra to myself everytime i feel like im letting opportunities pass by—you only live once. i came back to oneonta from that trip refreshed. i was ready to give humans beings a shot again—i think—because i just wanted to get out there and have fun with my last 2.5 months in oneonta. bioclub has been my savior when it comes to faith in human beings because theyre such a legit group of people. at the end of our first week back to school in january, bioclub went to boston—which was another great trip—and a good sized group of us got really tight after that. wed have parties. go to the bars on tuesday afternoons. we had another camping trip (we had one in october, too, which i have previously wrote about as being a rebirthing experience) several weeks ago. that was—yet again—an absolute blast. i will miss them dearly.

as will i miss all of my friends. the past few days, every time i leave some sort of party or gathering, it seems like theres a new set of people to say goodbye to—never to see again, maybe. i get used to this when i work at the nursing home, because i meet people in month A, and have to say goodbye to them in month B, or C. the thing is, when they get discharged, when they die—when you watch them have a stroke in their bed, or hear them drowning as their lungs fill up with fluid—or when i left for college, yet again—i knew id never see them again. they get hurt—wed make them better. they get sick—theyd die. and theres no coming back from the dead. i have met countless people—i know—who i will never see again in my life. and these are people i grew to love. they hadnt been around the socially elite of this day and age enough to become as shitty as they are—that is to say, the socially elite. but this is different, now. saying goodbye to people i have known for four years, three years, two years, a few months. people that ive spoken with and partied with and had lunch or coffee with. who i may never see again. the relationships are tighter or—at least—more established. to those of you at suny oneonta who have stuck by my side for the past four years, three years, two years, few months—i love you and i will be seeing you soon—i hope.

to those from frankfort who i will surely see sometime soon—i love you all as well. i thank you all—and you know who you are—who helped me through the tough times—the summer of 2007. i would not be here without you. and i thank you also for all of the great times playing pong on a sunday night, or piling 30+ beers on a small table in the bowling alley while totally sucking at rock-n-bowl. these are things that i will never forget.

to those from the valley—i love you all as well. and i apologize that in the past 4 years i have not been as easily accessible as in high school—a consequence of going away for school (a decision i will never take back) and short, interspersed breaks. i know there are a few of you who have seemingly thought i have abandoned you—abandoned me in return. for this i am not sorry—i cannot help the circumstances of my life. and i am sorry that you cannot see that.

“i thank you for your attention, and im outta here.”
kurt vonnegut, jr.
April 27, 2007

clap.

think about this:

2009-04-28T00:06:00.001-04:00

denial is a blasphemy against one’s own qualities.

the gentleman from tralfamadore

2009-04-27T20:36:00.001-04:00

“’nobody likes to think hes being used,’ said rumfoord. ‘he’ll put off admitting it to himself until the last possible instant.’ he smiled crookedly. ‘it may surprise you to learn that i take a certain pride, no matter how foolishly mistaken that pride may be, in making my own decisions for my own reasons.’”

– winston niles rumfoord

kurt vonnegut, jr.
(1959) the sirens of titan.
chapter 12, p. 285

the greatest lie

2009-04-14T00:03:00.001-04:00

most children are lied to by their parents almost routinely. its a security: lie to your child, and they will be happy, and you will remain in control. its a common way to raise a child it seems and most parents must find that this is sufficient and that it works. peace.

eventually that child grows up. and the lies no longer work anymore. for example: we know that we arent going to turn into a cow if we eat too much ice cream. and so on. thats just silly. and by challenging that lie, one is then free to eat as much ice cream as he or she desires--the control is gone, the bar has been lifted. nothing can be done or said to stop them now.

thats the thing about lies that are used to control (all lies are used to control)—once they have been defied—exposed—that control is dead, and freedom (chaos?) may take its place.

there are some lies—however—that a child will hold onto until the very end—until the credits begin. like a lover who just cant believe that their significant other wants to call it quits. probably the greatest lie to a child is the one about that jolly fat man in a red suit who flies around the world with his sleigh and reindeer and plethora of presents for the children of planet earth: santa claus. heard of that one? it was a sad day when i finally understood and was told by my parents that santa claus was not real. christmas would never be the same. i could never be excited about it again. one of my greatest childhood excitements was gone, and would be gone forever.

but it was a form of child control: youd better behave yourself in church and around the family or youre getting shit in a sock for christmas! same with the easter bunny. and the tooth fairy is such a crock of shit: be a good sport about daddy ripping your teeth out, and youll get a quarter under your pillow in the middle of the night. whoop-dee-doo. and then we learned that this was all bullshit, and then we could act like brats again on the holidays. chaos.

peace.

there is another form of control that is slightly more subtle, yet easy to pick up on if youre secular enough. that ladies and gentlemen—of course—is religion.

religion is a terrible thing—at least the roman catholic religion as i understand it from 20 years of having followed it. youd better go to church! had better go to confession! had better go to sunday school! had better take communion! had better behave yourself! had better not eat meat on fridays during lent! had better dump 10% of your monthly paycheck into a basket every week! or else!

or else some dude sitting up on a cumulonimbus cloud in a white robe with a big golden crown who made everything in the universe because he felt like it and apparently cares about what 6.705 billion human beings are doing down here—which is farting around and making way too much whoopee with way too many other human beings and combustion engines—is going to condemn you to spend the rest of eternity in the center of the earth with another dude with red skin, horns, and a trident who is his sworn enemy and was defeated in a galactic battle for the ages who has also been condemned to the center of the earth. guess he should have fessed up a little more cash on the sabbath day. naughty naughty.

and we wouldnt want all of that for you now, would we?

and it is lies of that kind that are so dangerous. they scare little boys and girls into being good little boys and girls—that is to say, overly and ridiculously moral. my definition of moral is this: defying everything that makes you a human being by instead being unarguably obedient to your parents, schoolteachers, and government. that is whats called being a slave—an object, a piece of machinery.

and we wouldnt want all of that for you now, would we?

whats even more dangerous is when those lies are dumped into the brains of somebody who may have lost some of their marbles along the way (anybody who believes in god must have lost their marbles somewhere along the way, i think). because there are lies not only to intimidate—to control—but to offer comfort in times of hardship. god loves you. god is there for you. god is listening to you. god wants to help you. there are some people who are sick and dying; who may be sitting in a bathtub filled with red water and razor blades, who will hold onto this lie until the very end—until the credits begin to roll—who truly believe that they will be saved from their torment—which is apparently caused by some dude with red skin, horns, and a trident, who chills out in the center of the earth—and will someday find themselves in better circumstances.

and then they die of cancer; and then they die because there is no more red water to go around inside of their plumbing; and then as their conscience goes kaput, that persons family is left to wonder why why why?

why did god take grandpa with colon cancer? why did god make my daughter turn her wrists into hamburger meat? why didnt god save them? well the easy way that religious types and horny clergymen get out of that one is with this: god deemed it so. it is his will. it is what he wants. and thats what we should want, too. and then everybody gets angry at that poor old guy chilling out on a cumulonimbus cloud up up in the sky, in a white robe with a great big golden crown.

a lot of people have got to be angry at him these days.

and then life goes on and god gets forgiven—lucky him—and then everybody goes back to loving him, yet again. until he decides to fuck somebody elses life up, yet again. chaos.

quite a vicious circle for somebody apparently so loving. but hey, if youre the commander in chief of the whole fucking universe, why mess around? besides: its got to get boring watching everybody get along all of the fucking time. got to fuck some shit up somehow and watch the world burn. now THATS entertainment!

the point is this: religion and ideas of a god can certainly be used to scare the hell out of you—it scared the hell out of me. and thats the point, apparently (thou shall fear thy lord). but other ideas about religion and a god can be comforting, too. but it can only be just as comforting as ideas of santa claus, the easter bunny, and the tooth fairy. and just as transient. god is not there. there is nobody listening. and nobody is going to help you.

and just as one-by-one, i felt let down as the ideas of the tooth fairy, the easter bunny, and santa claus went kaput, it is when i defied that final—that greatest of lies—that i felt let down most of all. for, despite my endorsement of loneliness, it was when i acknowledged that i was truly alone in this universe that i understood how much religion had comforted me when i was feeling hurt and alone—just as much as any lie could—and how much i relied on it, and how there were times where id believe the lie to the very end—until the credits began to roll.

fortunately, upon rejection of this carefully conceived and crafted lie that i had been born into with no choice whatsoever—however—i realized that i could never be let down again.

there were no more lies left to believe in.

peace.

you are now entering the city of brotherly love

2009-04-07T13:34:00.001-04:00

“but his head no longer sheltered ideas of how things could be and should be on the planet, as opposed to how they really were. there was only one way for the earth to be, he thought: the way it was.

“everything was necessary. he saw an old white woman fishing through a garbage can. that was necessary. he saw a bathtub toy, a little rubber duck, lying on its side on the grating over a storm sewer. it had to be there.”

kurt vonnegut, jr.
(1973) breakfast of champions
chapter 12, p. 103

hitchhiking with kilgore trout

2009-04-06T19:44:00.001-04:00

“‘i cant tell if youre serious or not,’ said the driver.
“‘i wont know myself until i find out whether life is serious or not,’ said trout. ‘its dangerous, i know, and it can hurt a lot. that doesnt necessarily mean its serious, too.’”

kurt vonnegut, jr.
(1973) breakfast of champions.
chapter 10, p. 86

hoarding disorder

2009-04-06T01:21:00.001-04:00

“…but outside—i never feel lonely. even if nobody is around—just the birds, the creatures, the trees, the sun, the moon. at night, it is so peaceful, with the stars…”

“if you were stranded on an island…”

2009-03-29T14:17:00.001-04:00

if somebody were to lock me up in a lowes home improvement warehouse with the novel “breakfast of champions” by kurt vonnegut, the film “indiana jones and the temple of doom”, the album “on letting go” by circa survive, and a limitless supply of arizona green tea bags and chinese food, i would be happy for the rest of my days.

tattoos and social interaction 101

2009-03-24T16:07:00.001-04:00

so you dont have any tattoos, and are in the general vicinity of somebody who does. perhaps youre being introduced, or perhaps youre both at a social gathering, and theyre simply standing near you. and the simple fact is this: youre not quite sure what to do. what should you do? what should you say? should you say anything?this example-based approach will teach you—who do not have any body modifications, or who got them to impress your friends—how to interact with other human beings who do have body modifications, and take quite a bit of pride in them, such that everybody may feel respected; such that everybody may have a grand old time; and such that you dont look like a total doucheass.

1. lets say, for example, a person who has some calligraphy tattooed onto them walks into a party, and their ink is clearly visible. should you:

a. not do anything.

b. stare at them.

c. demand of them, “whats that say?”

d. comment on their artwork, and then inquire as to what it says, and perhaps follow that up with, “what does that mean to you?”

e. none of the above.

if you selected choice “a”, thats a pretty good start. what the heck does it matter if somebody has got ink or not? if you selected choice “b”, that would make you pretty lame. if you selected choice “c”, then that would make you look like quite a doucheass. if you selected choice “e”, then perhaps you should take the introductory 100-level course. however, if you selected choice “d”, then you clearly understand that it takes quite a lot of thinking and commitment for somebody to get something tattooed onto them (that is to say, on them for forever), and you want to respect that person and be respectful of something so very permanent, like somebody’s own child, say.

2. lets say you know somebody who has got some tattoos, and youre introducing them to your friends from home. do you:

a. introduce your friend or acquaintance this way: “hello, id like you to meet my friend; hes got tattoos.”

b. introduce your friend or acquaintance this way: “hello, id like you to meet my friend.”

if you selected choice “a”, then, that would simply make you look like a fool to everybody around you, and as though that wasnt enough, that would make you look like a major doucheass to your friend or acquaintance. however, if you selected choice “b”, then you clearly understand that whether somebody has tattoos or not should not impact an introduction, nor should it necessarily be a topic of discussion. perhaps you understand that it is your friend or acquaintances choice as to whether or not to bring up their body modifications in conversation, and that something like that shouldnt necessarily be called out by you. for example, it could be said to be as inappropriate as saying, “hello, id like you to meet my friend; they have a feeding tube because they have acute digestive system failure and are pretty much near death.” its just not necessarily something your friend or acquaintance would like announced to planet earth, im sure.

that concludes todays lesson. hopefully you are now better-equipped to handle what seems to be such a difficult social situation for some people: interacting with those who have respectable body art.

i dont ever want to forget again

2009-03-17T19:59:00.001-04:00

so saturday night at a party, i sprained my ankle pretty bad. what can i say? i dont mess around. so my friends took care of me until my dear friend carrie and her roommate came and picked me up. shes an EMT. so they brought me to their house, she inspected my ankle, put some ice packs on it, and wrapped it up. the next morning, her parents arrived to visit and pick up her kitten. her mother iced my ankle, while carrie cooked me eggs and toast. she then took me to the ER where i got an aircast, crutches, and a prescription for vicodin. she took me back to her place to get some of those fancy ice packs, and then she took me to fill the prescription, which for some reason, she paid for.

later that night, my roommate andrew helped me with laundry. my dear friend shelly bought me dinner and snack foods. yesterday afternoon, the SCI1 secretary activated the SCI1 elevator for me; dr. vogler activated it again so i could go back up to the first floor after class. the PSCI secretary instructed me as to how to use the elevator in the PSCI building. the mills staff instructed me as to how to use the mills elevator; they also helped me carry my lunch to my table. last night, glenn bought me some more food, and he did this morning as well.

over the past three days, i have been helped by many people. i do not like asking for nor do i like accepting help from others. i am too proud of my independence. however, i cannot say by any means that i am not appreciative of the aforementioned help during this trying time. because i am. incredibly so.

however, i think that i got too used to this. not the treatment, or the help—per se—but the fact that people were around. i think being able to have people around to talk to and check in on me helps the depression that follows receiving a debilitating injury. it keeps your mind off of it.

and now, my friends are out partying it up all night long. but me? i am alone, stuck in bed with my leg propped up, coked up to the ears on narcotics. at first this depressed me further. part of me didnt want to be alone. i wanted my friends around. i wanted to be out enjoying my favorite ‘holiday’ of the year. and im not.

but, after giving this some thought, i reflected upon how i felt and realized the aforementioned—that some part of me simply wanted people around so i didnt have to be alone to have the time to think about being injured.

but fuck that. i know that i am truly happy when i am alone, when i am taking care of myself—no matter how difficult it may be. i know that were today any other day, id just as soon be alone working in my lab, or alone in my room reading, etc. or even if i were perfectly healthy today, i wouldnt care if i were out at bars drinking with everybody, or alone in my room drinking irish coffee, say—as long as i had to opportunity to ‘celebrate’ (sad, but true. dont judge me).

and when i keep that in mind, i realize that someday im going to break my face or something, or start puking my brains out with some stomach bug, and nobody is going to be around to buy me food or clean my dishes. and although it is wonderful to have such great friends offer to do that for me, it doesnt mean that i should want it, or be upset when that commodity is not there—because it is not always going to be.

over the past couple of days, i got so caught up in my misfortune that i forgot about what was truly important to me—my independence, my seclusion. and ive been doing a lot of complaining and bitching about how on this most glorious ‘holiday’, i am stuck in bed. but now that everybody is out for the evening—i have exactly what is truly important to me—once again. peace.

ps. a saint by the name of dr. allen anderson—my physics II lab instructor; a person i visit often when i am bored on campus and trying to kill time in between classes and experiments—has found his old cane that he used when he had a leg injury last year, and has stowed it in his car. tomorrow, carrie will retrieve it for me so i can get off of these damned crutches that have ravaged my underarms. hopefully, my ankle will have healed enough such that the cane is suitable for walking. at least then i could finally get around and carry my own meals. i cant wait.

march [on]

2009-03-06T18:27:00.001-05:00

this time of year always seems to get me a little bit. and with good reason. the past has never given me much of a break when it comes to the snow melting. but despite whatever my stupid brain thinks, i refuse to let years past taint my enjoyment of the scent of melting snow and cigarettes. not worth it.

i am tired this afternoon.

i will fight.

2009-03-04T00:04:00.001-05:00

this isnt over yet.

back the fuck up.

2009-03-03T01:36:00.001-05:00

okay. lets get one thing straight. you dont know me. i dont care who the fuck you are. understand that.

second of all: dont tell me ive fucking changed. and dont you dare tell me ive changed for the worst. want to know what it is?: your perception of me has changed.

you claim that, ‘im not the ryan palumbo you knew.’ yeah. the ryan palumbo you knew was a weak dumbass who drank himself into the front seat of a car every night with the hopes of getting the drunken balls to ram it into a tree or telephone pole. what fun! the ryan palumbo you knew had no ambition in life. how impressive! he was restless and anxious and lived everyday in the hopes that the next one never came around. how exciting!

the ryan palumbo i damned well fucking know i am is someone who is not suicidal, thank you very much. and who is incredibly ambitious despite any hardships that come my way. and i shrug them off. they are nothing but hurdles no taller than a curb. i am strong. i am happy. i can hold my own.

protect the hive from enemies. be careful—love with caution. i would rather lonely along the way.

ring a bell?

i am also an adult. i am finishing up college. i am graduating. i am in the midst of transferring to a graduate school (hopefully; my confidence in that area has been reduced dramatically). i am in the lab every morning. i go to class. i am in the lab until late at night. i am close to contributing data to a new type of antimicrobial defense system against gram-negative bacteria called a bacteriostatic, which could significantly impact public health and the battle against the growing number of resistant ‘superbacteria’. what does that mean? it means that you might see my face on the cover of time magazine by june as the person who universally cured bacterial infections. wouldnt that be something?

and what else does that also mean? it means that i cant be slaving away on aim, or myspace, or facebook, or on the phone talking to every human being i know telling them all about my life like i could when i was a bored kid in high school with nothing to do but masturbate and sit around with my thumb up my ass. so, dont accuse me of being a bad friend or wanting to lose all of my friends or of not caring about my friends. my true friends understand that i am busy doing what it is that i do. and most of my friends are just as busy as i am doing what they do. and id like to say that most of my friends understand that you dont need to be in constant contact to be best friends. being best friends means you can go years without talking, and pick up right where you left off like you had been separated for mere minutes. a person of utmost importance taught me that long ago. that belief is religious to me now.

best friends are people that you have for forever. they are relationships that need no cultivating, because they exist ambiently. yes i made that word up. but it fits. best friends are just there. floating around. they will float into your life. they will float out. and so will you. but the beautiful thing is this—while the two come together, it will be magical while it lasts. that doesnt happen to fair-weather friends. you have them for a while. and then they disappear. never to be found again. best friend will always meet up again, somehow. because thats just how it works.

and if you think im a fair-weather friend, then it was nice knowing you. and im sorry you that dont believe what i believe. and im sorry you wont be floating my way someday. and im sorry that you wont let me float back yours.

and if you think im a best friend of yours, then theres a good chance that i feel that youre a best friend of mine.

and we’ll be back together sooner than you know. and it will be magical.

rejected.

2009-03-02T18:52:00.002-05:00

if there is one thing that i have learned, it is that its no use thinking about or pondering ways to change the unfortunate circumstances that i sometimes fall into. and so today, when i received my official rejection letter from the university of california irvine’s molecular biology, genetics, and biochemistry department—aside from starting to panic—i decided that i will put the letter into an 8x11 frame, and hang it on the small wall perpendicular to my bench in my laboratory. and i will do the same with the rejection letters i am most certain to get from the university of pennsylvania and the tufts university sackler school of biomedical graduate studies (if i dont make it into a state school, how the fuck could i think id make it into private schools?). and they will serve to remind me over the next 2 and a half months that despite any optimism i have about my ability to think, question, and conduct research, that i must surely know nothing about the aforementioned (the uci mgbg departments words: the committee attempts to determine the likelihood each applicant has of becoming an independent scientist. if they—the learned doctors—dont think i can, how can i?). and those letters and those words will also serve to motivate me to continue to try to expand the skills required to do what i love to do, in the hopes that i may someday become what it is that i want to become.

i have an interview and tour at the state university of new york at albany next tuesday. i have about as much confidence for that as a piece of shit in a suit would—which is exactly what i feel like right now. except that i am far less dressed up. and when i bomb that and get that glorious piece of paper telling me to take a hike, theres only one other question left for this so-called ‘scientist’ to ask:

now what?