| I have no idea what I'm doing here |
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| 08:13pm 29/09/2006 |
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music: Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Sleep
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1. props to emily for mentioning g!ybe on her lj, because i'd forgotten about them and have rediscovered them and this kind of layered building-up music (aside from being incredible and uplifting and having this oddly religious wonderful visual sense to it) is actually improving my attention span to read and generally distracting me from my other thinking in the best way possible.
2. i've started to develop this conception of people as fitting a few very general and overlapping types thats basically rooted in neurology...like, visual, philosophical, whatever. thats not the important part. the important part is that i think it appeals to me because its tangible(ish)..and bothers me because its a bit resigned or defeatist or determinist or what have you. mostly i'm just trying to figure out which of my thoughts i should be lending credence to (isn't that an odd phrase?) and which I should be dismissive of. sure, the occassional odd thought is interesting, but to entertain it to the point where it has legitimacy and influences the way one thinks just because you thought about it too much? eh. that could be bad.
3. I guess in general i have difficulty distinguishing between what's real in my head and what i've manifested in my head, and then I try to think about it and get confused trying to figure out if there's any difference in all (and i don't mean hallucinations, i mean introspection and self-perception and whatnot).
4. I guess I feel like I'm intellectually changing a lot - its a bit arrogant, but I feel like with almost anything I approach these days, I have a much better sense of understanding than I ever did before. By that I mean, whereas in the past I would've compartmentalized the thing I was looking at/considering, and understood it in terms of itself, I'm getting better at relating things and forming more general ideas. Meanwhile, I'm trying not to buy into these shroomy notions of all-unifying oneness...because I think that whole postmodern/PCliberal impulse to see uniqueness and incomparability/incommensurability in everything is a bit overblown, but to some extent, true. All the same, I'm pretty sure breaking things into successively more general chunks and categories is a natural human mechanism for understanding things, and if we didn't do it, we'd be in childlike paralysis and inability to deal with anything more complex than the answer-back questions on Blue's Clues.
5. I wonder how many of my revelations/realization of the past year have been genuine. I don't pretend they are unique and I'm any kind of great philosopher - in fact, for that reason, I question it. I assume that the procedures and experiences of life mean that everybody sets up some kind of system of understanding thats a bit more concious like the one I feel I might be arriving towards/developing/refining. Its just that my elitist education has given me some intellectual jargon (has it?) to couch it in (or at least an intellectual framework to legitimize something thats otherwise annoyingly intangible and difficult to articulate).
6. Of course, maybe I'm just a philosopher type of brain. I mean, I'm an anxious person. I always have a layer of thought going on above whatever it is that I'm doing, wondering why I'm doing it, what it is, etc. I have a lot of trouble mentally disengaging from things. The worse is when I realize that I'm doing that, I toss another layer on top of thinking about why I'm thinking and why I can't disengage from overanalysis/unnecessary analysis...which ultimately distracts me from the task at hand. Maybe I prefer to call myself a philosophy type person because its a whole lot more comforting than being an anxious person. Of course, its good to indulge in philosophy, and bad to indulge in anxiety.
7. I wouldn't have used the label philosophertype until I started reading Sartre's Age of Reason a few days ago. I'm not even halfway through, so I won't pretend to understand existentialism (in fact, my inability to understand most types of philosophy from actual philosophers leads me to think I'm not actually a philosophyminded person)...but the protagonist can't disengage reasoning and consideration from the things he does which apparently is 'sterilizing' life for him. For him its a pursuit of freedom....that's way too abstract for me.
I think my main mental pathology is a pursuit of understanding, because I've been raised / I've become arrogant enough to presume I could ever understand everything.
I bought a 700pg history of anarchism. I think after a few years of learning more and more about concrete events and economic theory, I de-radicalized...probably out of what started as an attempt to understand the enemy. Now, I think (since I always did split my politics into the categories of utopian and near-term pragmatic), I'm ready to go back to more radical thinking. If nothing else, pragmatism is a lack of ambitious ideals.
Last night I was sitting on our covered porch on cromwell rd, across from the museum, around midnight. It was pouring rain and I was reading my book under the light from streetlamps and the general night-time glow that permeates busy cities. I could barely read...I was distracted by the scene of it all. Not the noise of the cars, just the unlikeliness of the picture, and how I somehow didn't belong there, and needed to take advantage of everything. I already feel like I will miss London when I leave. I'm worried its my chance to understand/be/do/see something greater, and I'll probably miss the boat.
But shit like that never happens when you wait for it or try to make it. |
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| 07:55am 13/03/2006 |
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When I stay up all night, despite being on my computer a lot of the times, I just get cut off from the world.
So everytime I decide its finally time to go pop cnn or the times open at 7am or whatever
i kind of expect or wait for or want the screen to load a picture a big explosion
then i expect to stand up and see it outside my window
i don't know why.
i think i just really like the idea of my all-nighters being some kind of alternate reality
or prolonged away state, that i return to a completely changed world
or maybe its just a little egotism
to be the last person on earth
(apparently besides the guy updating the cnn website but technicalities shhhh)
on top of the martyrdom that i claim just because I stay awake for a couple days in a row during finals.
In ten minutes, I will have failed to complete by final paper for European Democracy on time.
I've never had more trouble writing in my life.
Probably because I actually give a rats ass for once what my prof thinks of my writing, and for once, I am answering a question open-ended enough to express my ideas, not regurgitated theories
well, if thats why i have half of my outline typed into paper form
at a messy and bumbling 1800 words
and a complete 3000 word essay is due in 9 minutes
its kind of ironic.
I don't know if its real ironic or alanismorisette ironic. I forgot the difference.
I don't really care.
my paper starts with two quotes. the stupid thing is about whether or not the events of 9/11 caused a turning point in european politics, and my answer has to do with historical path dependence and the mediating effects on institutions and comparative analysis to past watershed moments in history and then predicting just what it would take to really change things up
“Men make their own
history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under
circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly
encountered, given and transmitted from the past"
-Karl Marx
“May you live in
interesting times.”
- either Kennedy, Confucius or some anonymous chinese proverb writing guy, or a 1960s sci-fi writer, or somebody else.
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| not dead yet |
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| 04:34am 07/03/2006 |
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mood:  If your journal entry doesn't clearly convey your mood, then improve your writing. music: Azure Ray - Don't Make a Sound
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I watched Hustle and Flow yesterday after 3 6 mafia won their oscar. It was quite good.
I spent the weekend slaving over an econometrics program, and I'm typing this while I take a break from reading "Contemporary France: A Democratic Education"
I'm on page 2. of 300.
Its fine though, this is how finals works. I worked all day (kind of), took a break to see Of Montreal (fucking incredible)
I guess nothing and everything changes.
I still think I'm terrified of the same things in the future, except I don't see why I should allow myself to get bummed about a pessimistic and relatively uneducated paranoia/insecurity-motivated guess.
Besides, I have no fucking clue what I want to do with my life, I have less of a clue every day, so who knows whats going to happen.
Maybe I'll be a political economist. It's not really a career, but it has a nice ring to it. Its just a meaningless phrase.
I like her, I think she likes me, and she likes gin, and I like gin, and neither of us are especially keen on the idea of relationship. Well, perhaps not. More importantly, neither of us are keen on the idea of talking about it. Which is good. Because expectations are, well, unnecessary. If things go in a good direction (and that could be relationship but honestly I think quasirelationshipsortof is a better direction) then hey, well thats fucking great. If not, there's a let down. If you don't have expectations, you're never disappointed.
Of course, thats all a lot of bullshit because we'd never know how to behave the next second without expectations, and so what that really means is that I advocate low expectations, which I don't advocate because low expectations are bad for your ego, and a little bit of ego is a good thing, and during finals a little more ego is nice to help soften the blow of well, oh my god do I have work to do.
I had to use up all the money on my mealplan, so I bought evian, and when I changed Liquor's (my goldfish who lives in a handle of Bombay Sapphire) water today, I poured the evian in.
Liquor seems to like it and god knows I'll never drink the shit.
I can't afford conspicuous consumption, but I can let my fish have his bling and whatnot, so thats fine.
I'm not sure if I'll leave right after finals, or a few days or a week later, and I'm not sure what I'm doing when I go home for springbreak.
I should go back to reading but what I really want to do is drive across Utah again. I want to drive further than my gas tank looks like it will let me with no gas station in sight, through alien moonscapes in the shape of mountains, with ridges and spines that wind and drop and look like geological monoliths but are really the height of telephone poles.
It's impossible to hang out with a girl from the local highschool without people thinking you're a complete sketchball. I am no sketchball. Next time she comes on campus, Janet has to introduce her to people, that way the whole, we are all friends and I am not predatory thing is abundantly clear. Besides, highschool shmighschool. I think I'm only a few months older than most high school seniors.
Oh this is terrible rambling. Who stole all my poetry?
Economics, thats who.
Its unsoulful. |
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| 03:39am 17/02/2006 |
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music: Nada Surf - Blonde On Blonde
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Sometimes I catch myself wondering, why the fuck am i so happy?
There must be something wrong with me...
Fuck that. Sometimes thats just how I am. Thats how it is. Its fucking great.
Its a great fucking change of pace. And so what if I can't sleep.
That makes me happy too.
Anyone who says hi to me tomorrow is on my good side. |
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| I used to |
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| 01:27pm 14/02/2006 |
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music: The Mountain Goats - Balance
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update this thing compulsively, in high school. I guess I just don't really care as much these days, or, maybe I'm too cool for my livejournal. Anyway, I felt like posting, so here I am.
There is a blood drive down the street, and so the guy in the blood-drop suit just came in, started dancing a bit, moonwalking (I'm in commonground, pretending to study). It made me pretty happy. Like, you kind of have to be amused by a man dressed like a happy drop of blood. I almost want to donate blood. But it takes an hour, I have work to do, and besides, I'm AB- and not very useful. (That's universal recipient right? and yeah, I know thats bad logic)
Its V-Day, so if I ever finish this midterm (its only 800 words but its gonna get graded pretty harshly), I'll go see the vagina monologues. I don't have a Valentine or anything, which is mostly because that shits lame, but also because I don't have a girlfriend type thing going on right now.
This past weekend was Winter Carnival, which was a pretty insane streak of parties and perpetual drunkenness, and I'm kind of missing chunks of time where I did all manner of hilarious ridiculous things, like loudly proposition one of my friends in the library, for a half hour, and run into Food Court, yell at townie-ben to make me mozz sticks and then dissappear, and who knows what else. I'm not used to that happening, usually my memory escapes my drinking unscathed, but whatever.
I've been a little bit crazy these days. There was this article on the Dartmouth website, some profs tracked a group of freshmen last year in an fMRI study, and it was basically about how we're going through a pretty significant period of brain development, restructuring and pairing off neurons and what have you, in a way that ultimately affects our cognition and how we interpret the world for life.
I saw an ad at the Hop that Dick's House (the infirmary) is loaning out sun lamps for Seasonal Affective Disorder. Not that I really have SAD, but my room isn't well lit, and fuck, it can't hurt, so I have to go pick my lamp up today, and I get to keep it for a week before I report back to them.
Well, I'm wasting time. So off to write my midterm.
And oh! I talked to Danielle (of cty) sometime saturday morning when I was drunk or hyper or both...kind of interesting, kind of a short conversation.
And Andrea drunk dialed me and said something really heartwarming about not liking babies...well it was heartwarming anyhow.
ok. midterm. |
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| dear god, i use to be an atheist, but don't let me become a sellout |
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| 03:23am 18/12/2005 |
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music: Okkervil River - Song of Our So-Called Friend
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1. High-school Me might hate right-now Me. Not only am I (mildly and with huge reservations) pro-globalization, but I don't understand feminism anymore (did i ever?) and I just ordered a blazer from the gap online.
2. i just wasted 2 hours i could've been sleeping to watch a movie about meg ryan and time travel. in the 19th century, hugh jackman is the only man without muttonchops, which is absurd, because in xmen, he's the only man with them.
3. I've been approaching a really poetic mood and just feeling peaceful lately, but that got shattered by a stupid phone call that was hard to hear over whatever music she had blaring in the background and this indignant "why do i have to call you?" right before i hung up. I think since I've been stumbling and struggling with poetry for years that I've decided I can only do it if I dodge reality, and maybe thats why this fucked up my peace of mind. Or maybe it just got me agitated. Or maybe I've been listening to the decemberists and okkervil river too much and so I'm seeing poetry differently.
4. Or maybe its just that relationship drama is a little too cliche to help someone produce anything interesting. Maybe I should date someone interesting. Like Sarah Silverman. but she wouldn't go for me. she's a chubby chaser. I think she's with Jimmy Kimell.
5. I've been working out a lot lately. Its not really satisfying enough usually for me to keep going, but since I go to a real gym now, after a pretty exhausting workout I swam for quite a while, and I think stinking like chlorine and being physically drained and walking out into the cold triggered really fond childhood memories of being on a swim team (even though I really quit because I hated cold water and speedos) and now I feel good. I can bench press (more than) my own weight, and although I'm sure I'm building muscle, my muscles actually look a little less defined, and way more importantly, since I haven't had a haircut in months and months my head is large and is making my body look proportionately smaller. I'm the strongest man in the world and when I get to Utah I'm sure to take twice as long to collapse from altitude sickness this time. |
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| I take you home |
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| 05:36pm 13/12/2005 |
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music: U2 - Sunday bloody sunday
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This is my music collection
This is what I actually listen to
According to my audioscrobbler, I've only listened to 12.703 songs since January. The thing is, I now have 9849 songs in my collection.
The audioscrobbler count is way low though, because a good deal of my listening is with stuff I burn and take in the car with me, especially over the summer.
Still, there is a lot of shit in my collection - shit I won't delete because I really liked it in 5th grade (like 311), and occasionally feel like listening to it.
I'm running out of space and need an external hard drive, and at some point I'm going to have to make a choice and archive a good chunk of my collection off of my laptop...
anywho, back to the downloading.
i mean, the perfectly legal creation of personal copies of shit. |
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| I make you fishball soup |
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| 04:40pm 13/12/2005 |
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music: RJD2 - Good Times Roll Pt. 2
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Okay, so long time no update. I'll cover the second half of the term...
The Holdsteady was Friday, the 18th. Before the show we had a Pong Tourney for the progressives, and then I actually made it to the show on time and didn't soil my duties (working bar). When they came on, I was front and center, like face to face with Craig Finn. And I fucking mouthed along/screamed every single word with him. I haven't been that into a show in a while.
I thought I recognized the keyboard player - afterwards me and Franz Nicolay talked a bit about World Inferno. The band wouldn't be coming to the afterparty, cuz Franz had to go back and sell raffle tickets or something to cover someone's prison fines...Kyla's friend, perhaps? Small world...
The next saturday was whiskey school at bg. So they made me drink a lot of whiskey, and that sucked, I guess. I went downstairs, played pong and got slaughtered. Then me and fugee/bagelstein (Aaron Gleiberman, our refugee from Tulane) stepped on the table. I was like passing out and shit, but i'd wake up and hit or save or whatever- we held table for 5 games. At some point I went out to take out the trash and climbed on top of the dumpster and fell off backwards...somehow only skinning my knee.
All sorts of other shit happened too, I guess. I don't really remember. I cut my nose up when tj threw an axe at my face. After getting a 59 on my first econ midterm, I got a 104 on my second. (wait now i remember. that was actually the monday after holdsteady and whisky school. I was up until 5am studying, and then couldn't sleep, so i just stayed up till the test. i think i was up for like 48 hours that time). I kind of flaked out on classes towards the end of the term, but my final grades (for the 2 classes i have them in) are really good, so far so good. I went skiing with kelsey last wednesday at killington. Thursday I had my first meeting as a member of the ACIR, and after that I drove home with my dad. I averaged like 80 the whole way, so including our delicious one hour break at UNOs at the holyoke mall, I got home in 5 hours.
Oh, lets rewind a week. The week before, right before finals started, pledge term ended. Now, frats are for tools, and whatever. But, ridiculously harsh pledge term aside, i'm at what is generally acknowledged to be the most laid back house on campus, and its why i joined. Actually, better yet, i'm done justifying this. the shit's fun. I like boozing. I like it a lot.
That tuesday was "health night" - all sorts of horrible happen, and afterwards, you are done being a pledge. I won't go into the all sorts of horrible, except for saying that, its mostly about your mentality and how you go into it. I managed to have a decent time through a lot of it, by bitching and moaning constantly.
Wednesday was waaaaaaaay better. HO FUCKIN HO. Gontijo was Santa, eypper and alex dressed like elves. Everybody was assigned another brother: you tell a nasty nasty fucking poem about them, and then give them a christmas gift. So I fucking tore dwyer a new asshole, and then gave him a fifth of Jack and a copy of Thus Spake Zarathustra (he's an obsessive nihilist...which is oxymoronic...but anyway i found this original 1935 printing of the book in the used book store and knew he'd appreciate that shit).
So now I'm home, with not much to do. I play guitar a lot, download music a lot. watch tv a lot. sleep a lot. I leave for utah on christmas eve, which should be damn good fun. I'm trying to get in shape so i don't pass out from the highelevationoxygendeprivation thing...again. I've got pictures on my brand spankin new cell phone (same number), but haven't emailed them to myself yet. pictures of killington, people diving into trashcans, and oh...my face!
So like, last tuesday i think i was going home and decided to attack..no it was monday. So monday, after a long long day afternoon and night of boozing i was walking home. The christmas tree was glowing...I think i was jealous? Anyway, I sprinted full speed across the green to run into it, but tripped about half way there and skinned my forehead and cut my nose up a bit and even got a bit of a concussion. i have pictures of that too.
This winter will be, academically, probably the most difficult term I ever have, at least until i write a thesis. Econometrics, Economics of Poverty and Development, and European Democracy (with the Dept. Chair as my prof...). But, on the other hand, my rooming situation should be good (its me and TJ again....Kannon is moving in with Hil in the native american house), and I have a season pass to killington, which will kick ass.
ok. I wrote this mostly because it was an obstacle to getting around to writing other things i've been meaning to write about. now we're all caught up.
also, if i haven't talked to you in a while, go online/email me/call me, that way i know you're not dead. comments are good for that too. |
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| 01:17am 01/11/2005 |
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music: The Offspring - Get It Right
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I might be breaking out of my demotivation slump.
Its yet to be seen.
I'm going to read catcher in the rye over the next week, just for the fuck of it. |
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| 05:31pm 07/10/2005 |
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I skipped international law class to have lunch with former ambassador to greece Monteagle (what a sweet name) Stearns, and then skipped that to drink 18-year-old glenlivet on the balcony of zetes.
Then i went longboarding with bennet and maryanna.
its my last day to decide whether or not i'm pledging. |
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| well your breasts are nicely oiled up |
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| 03:09pm 17/09/2005 |
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music: Neva Dinova - Yellow Datsun
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the room is coming together.
last night was charlene and john vanderslice
and i met some FNR '09s from new orleans and shit.
kannon moved in thursday and tj got here today.
people are starting to filter back onto campus, and you know, the life is returning to this place.
I climbed into my room through the fire escape last night, this thing is amazing.
I wrote an article on the hurricane, totally bitching those cons.
I'm not productive at all but I make and drink a lot of coffee.
I'll get my shit together. I kind of have to.
We bought a ruberrplant and a plant called 'the purple wandering jew' and thats pretty badass.
I used the lint brush I bought last year for the first time ever and thats kind of magical.
we hung the jew up with christmas lights. the plant that is.
john vanderslice is a bit goofy and looks like dana carvey. He pulled andy on stage and andy picked up a guitar and they played together and andy nailed these harmonies. it was sweet.
i can hear the football game through my window. its sounds like we might actually be winning. but i'd be lying if i said i cared.
i don't care.
underwear.
pubic hair.
all that shit rhymed. |
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| what the fuck |
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| 01:15pm 15/09/2005 |
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A squirrel just climbed into my room from the fire escape, up onto my desk, like 6 inches from me, up my shelf, stole the kudos bar (still wrapped) that I was about to eat, and fucking sauntered back out. Goddamnit. Fearless little bastard. |
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| my faith in government |
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| 07:23pm 05/09/2005 |
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music: Bright Eyes - Waste of Paint
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I'm researching my ideal caffeine deliverance strategy for this year via wikipedia. I think I've settled on a $50 espresso + cappucino maker. I'll be sure to keep good quality coffee beans and whiskys on hand.
The President said to FEMA chief Michael Brown, you're doin a heck of a job brownie. Apparently Brownie's only qualification is being the former roommate of the former head of FEMA, and head of the International Arabian Horse Association.
He responded quicker than on 9-11, I guess. Because as far as I know, he didn't go on reading "My Pet Goat" or whatever. Within a few days, he managed to do a flyover of New Orleans. Just for the occassion, they grounded all other air traffic including several supply and food drops that were getting ready to go. His father golfed in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew. Condi went shopping. Karl Rove has gone on a spree of blaming local officials for the failure.
He did manage to respond real quickly to Rehnquist's death, choosing his unconfirmed nominee to replace O'Connor, Roberts, to be the new Chief Justice. As a sidenote, Roberts has been a judge since 2003. He would've been appointed in 1992, but Congress rejected him for being unqualified. Good job georgey. Our current congress is right on top of their priorities however, concentrating on repealing the so-called death tax, which I call the "oh no, now you will only inherit 50% of your fathers billion dollar estate you little pampered trust fund fucker" tax.
wikipedia also says that meditation is essentially the opposite of ADHD, and that the significant control over brain waves only appears after 10 years of meditation, making me question whether I should really put in the effort.
I am filthy and in need of a shower. |
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| unicorns are people too |
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| 11:50pm 04/09/2005 |
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music: Elliott Smith - Speed Trials
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I got home from watching Red Eye around 11.30 tonight. I saw it with Ray and Chelsea. When I got home I walked up the hill in front of my house (my mom locked me out of the basement as usual). The grass was grey and the trees down the street were black. Like a Coloseum, it kind of opened up into a ring of white clouds around the trees and then this dome of remarkably light sky. I could still see the stars too. And then, for some reason, the phrase "don't eat the yellow snow" popped into my head. And then, I thought, I don't really mind being here in holmdel. Voices echoed up the hill, they sounded happy.
Today was a barbecue at Rays house. The parents of all these kids I went to school with were there.
The dads got drunk and did bad karaoke.
And before that we opened all the gifts from the engagement party, which was nice and whatever. The engagement party was alright. I danced some, acted somewhat indian, tried to play host, had dozens of awkward encounters where I didn't really remember people's names and generally had a good time.
A girl who I had once met but then forgot meeting but then remembered way later (way awkward) who I am semi-related to through distant-family-divorce-ex-therefore-no-longer-relatedness put her hand on my arm and emphasized to me that we aren't related. Superbly subtle.
Thursday I went to Manasquan. Water was Cold. Waves were Big. I ate at Surf Taco and satisfied a craving I had had all summer. At 11 we went into the city and played poker and drank with joe. Scam and I that is. We also tried shopping at brave new world but couldn't afford anything. Trendy surf kids are apparently ridiculously wealthy.
I just wanted me some fish taco.
I talked to Kannon and he is well. I'm kind of set to move in. I've made all sorts of promises to go to Rutgers/Loyola/NYU and visit people. I'll try to deliver.
But I've promised myself some beachtime as well.
I've been playing my guitar so much its ridiculous. I've repeatedly stripped my callouses off and grown them back. I've been playing red right ankle a lot, and elliott smith as always. My Unicorns and TV on the Radio mix, which makes no sense as a mix, has been in the car.
I drive around with the strobes on my dash, and I'm always itching to hit the button and pull someone over. I don't really need them. I think I'll start responding to more calls. Last week I watched the hurricane approach and make landfall, and saw it crash into new orleans at 5am or whenever. sucks. its kind of spectacular too. It reflects quite poorly on human nature...the aftermath.
Oh, I FINALLY handed in the draft of my op-ed, and between submitting it and driving home, I got glowing praise for it in my email, which is good, because I built it up to a big deal (the op-ed wasn't, but it was like the magnum opus of my internship) and then kept getting stuck on minutia.
I leave in 10 days. Ready to go back to dartmizzle, for shizzle. Oh, and I'm pleased to report my self-esteem is doing well, not that it wouldn't be, but you know, its significant. Its the effects of live post-Marvin's Mountaintop. |
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| 04:08pm 31/08/2005 |
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whoa. long time no post. oh well.
shits been interesting, i've traveled the country, become temporarily obsessed with a girl and then forgotten about it, and...whatever
check it out
"Niral,
This email is to bring you up to date that as of August 31, 2005 you owe $-207.66 in your Administrative Fees and Fines Account and therefore you have been placed on Fall 2005 Registration Check-in Hold."
who hates dartmouth?
dfp wants me to write a column on what freshmen shouldn't do.
writing an op-ed is a lot harder when you have to political and not offend people. I can't even accuse the supreme court of blindsighted bastardy. I appealed, saying that the alliteration vindicated the profanity, but no luck. |
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| Oil and Sudan |
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| 06:15am 10/08/2005 |
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music: Sunny Day Real Estate - How It Feels to Be Something On
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so now i finally get to sleep. after 2 calls at 2am, getting back at 4am, and writing the report i've had all summer to write.
i have to be at work in less than 4 hours.
( Somebody please shoot me. ) |
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| ben kweller still sucks |
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| 10:14pm 04/08/2005 |
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music: Ben Kweller - On My Way
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on the way home, my dad and I got into a bit of an argument about whether or not NASA should go to Mars. It was my opinion that NASA is mostly useless, that the Hubble and satellite launches are worthwile, but the shuttle isn't, and instead of blowing trillions on a thoroughly useless endeavor such as going to Mars, there are domestic programs that could use the money, or at the very least, the shuttle could be replaced with something less obsolete.
His main argument was that its a challenge, and that men should pursue challenge. I told him it would be a challenge for me to fit my head in my asshole, but that doesn't really make it a worthwile pursuit. woo awkward moment.
 Dopey, the addict of the 7 dwarves
So I've been thinking about chemicals, primarily the ones that reside in my brain, but also the ones that mess with the balance of those neurotransmitters.
I read a little blurb the other day which said that a bunch of Parkinson's patients had gone on a new medication, and many of them had quickly developed a gambling addiction.
Okay, so this is how it works, dopamine is produced by the basal ganglia but Parkies lose that ability, and so by taking L-dopa type medications they up their dopamine and stop that goddamn shaking. Incidentally, spazzoids like myself take CNS stimulants which up our dopamine (and to a lesser degree norepinephrine) in synapses, and this ups our motivation and attention.
So, there are two dopaminergic pathways in the brain if I remember correctly. The mesostriatal pathway is really important for the Parkies. The mesolimbocortical pathway is really big for the ritalin kids. The way these Parkies got addicted to gambling was that the increased dopamine in the mesolimbocortical pathway created such a giant reward for every gambling victory, that they could disregard the losses essentially and get one hell of a reinforcement for their gambling behavior.
So I think when I do day to day tasks, organize myself, wake up, assignments, whatever, my brain basically provides insufficient reward for that behavior, and lots of others. I think, maybe, I have an excess amount of dopamine in the mesostriatal pathway, or something, giving me my crazy motor control hyperness, and not nearly enough in the other "motivation/activation" pathway.
Nothing revolutionary there. Emily and me talked a bit about the amazing feelings that the brain is capable of generating. There's nothing absurdly unnatural about these experiences, even if they were drug induced, because afterall, its just slightly different levels of the chemicals that you've always had moderating mood in your mind. At some level, there is capacity to slightly alter these things.
haha, i just realized I lost all interest in following this idea through. lets blame the dopamine.
anyway, for a while now i've been thinking meditation, if it can get you control of other supposedly autonomic processes, maybe, just maybe.....
update: it took like 4 listens over the course of 8 months, but i actually like ben kweller now. |
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| because this is life and thats how it is |
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| 03:10pm 03/08/2005 |
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music: The Mountain Goats - Dilaudid
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On the way home today, my mom (who I think is far more superstitious than religious) pulls her umpteenth example of obscure hindu ritualism out of her ass, and demands that I must shower before I go to work, or there will be dire consequences. Because, if I don't shower after the funeral, we'll lose another loved one. I shot back, with equally ludicrous melodrama, if thats how god decides who goes and stays, god's a petty jackass, but this is all besides the point, because there is no god.
She doesn't argue me about this anymore. I don't press it because I'm not sure what I believe, it ranges from apathy to ambivalence to agnosticism to atheism, mostly depending on my mood.
Hemang (my uncle....my mom's cousin who is referred to as my uncle) was 42 years old. He died sometime Friday morning, we figured out, almost exactly one year after his younger brother.
( God? He's the biggest bitch of them all. )
So, my faith in God has hit at an all time low, and yet, my interest in meditation and the non-religious (or at least, unorganized) aspect of spirituality is maybe stronger. I'm going to look into meditation a little more.
I stood up and tried to read some comforting words out to the crowd of people gathered in that muggy basement. I spoke more or less on autopilot, supressing the urge to tell people that death is a blunt reality, and no amount of posturing and framing is going to change the simple fact that somewhere in the great schemes of God or the chaotic coincidences of the Universe, we lost an incredible, loving, selfless human being who wasn't anywhere close to done enjoying life. |
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| 06:32pm 31/07/2005 |
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1. So my uncle is missing. He was supposed to visit us last weekend and then go to India. He called to say he couldn't make it to our house, and that was the last we heard. His family from India called to say he hasn't shown up, he's 2 days late, and nobody knows whats going on. If I don't hear from him in the next hour or so, I have to call the police I guess, who can use his name to get his credit card to figure out what flight he was on and whether or not he actually got on the flight. So, I'm a little bit worried.
2. There's been a lot of mention of Santa Claus lately. I'm not sure why. Like, the international santa convention. Really it just makes no sense. And what would you do the rest of the year if you were this guy. Or this guy?.
Certainly, there isn't a lot of sex, champagne, or glamour in the world of professional santa-ism.
3. So I got fed up with the kids doing boring things and went out to a party full of people I don't know that well. Sweet. It was alright, I guess. I mean, its something new to do.
4. I'm going to start riding my bike a lot. I mean it this time. I re-discovered this trail in Hartshorne where I can just carry my momentum and fly down this little ribbon of single track going faster and faster, until I have tunnel vision on the trail and the lush dense green at the periphery flies by in an imperceptible blur. And its sweet.
5. The expression "needless to say" shouldn't exist. Like, if you don't need to say it, then don't say it. If you don't say it, you don't need a disclaimer for how you don't need to say what you're about to say.
6. Poetry is totally gay. I've started writing some.
7. I went to ozzfest and found metal scenesters to be more repugnant than hippie music festival scenesters (aka hippies) for a whole bunch of reasons. First of all, the look is really preposterous, you know, the demeanor is really unchill, most of them are pricks. I dunno. I'm too lazy to articulate this, but hippies are nice, fun, and seem genuine. Anybody who shops at hot topic, gets dropped trying to crowd surf, and then, when questioned on whether or not that hurt insists, "oh i didn't even feel it because i'm so numb,' well, kill yourself.
8. I guess thats it.
9. Oh yeah! I've been thinking really seriously about joining the army. The reasons against are starting to stack up (killing people, uncool foreign policy, i'm too lazy, authority figures, time committment). But then there's the tuition break, the curiosity, and the limited interest in "serving" (serving what? why?) in some form. I most likely won't. But I'm checking out the deal with ROTC.
10. So I guess I'm becoming the man, but the intentions are still the same. I listen to leftover crack to keep myself in check. Liberal dosing of 14-year-old-anarchist-naivete will cure all.
11. and also, ( iamcharmingohsocharmingitsalarminghowcharmingiam ) |
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| part 1 |
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| 02:22am 20/07/2005 |
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music: The Hold Steady - Hornets! Hornets!
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So I hopped on my train tuesda and peaced out to DC, with a bottle ofvodka in my backpack and big dreams of shmoozing, networking, and getting laid. (not really on the last part).
Day one was me wandering around DC, throwing my shit down in a shitty dorm room in GW, meeting my grad-student from long island roommate Stan, and then heading out with Janet. We went to some hookah bar where her and her friends bitched incessantly about work, and I thought it was pretty funny. After I lost interest in the office drama, maybe 2 hours into it, I just started people watching, and thats always good too.
I got back, met some of the kids in the dorm, did a little mingling, probably some drinking, and passed out.
I woke up late for day 2, when the conference began, and took a cab, with the driving punching the accelerator and the brakes alternately while my head throbbed like shit.
There was some panel discussion on progressive framing and shit...my enthusiasm about that part has diminished a lot honestly. Fuck it. Clinton spoke, I should have a picture of him walking in. John Lewis (60s era civil rights leader) was an amazing preacher-style speaker, his voice boomed across the room of 500 people or whatever.
There was a lame as shit afterparty, so me and a few of the kids I befriended just walked out.
We walked to the White House, which is kind of surreal to look at, and even though I've been there enough before, its still disappointingly small. We talked to a well dressed crazy middle aged homeless woman, who was likely paranoid schizo, and we promised her we would use our newfound power of effective activism to fight the oppressors and bullies that had caused her to flee to Europe. As we left, one of the local cops came by and talked to her. "I think I've been out here longer than you today, lady." It was jovial, and amusing.
And then we walked. and walked. The monument, the capital, the ww2 memorial, vietnam, lincoln, blah blah blah, and then walked back to the dorm where we probably talked intensely about something.
The cool kids i met: Chisa, black girl who goes to Spelman. Mikey, radical florida kid going to Denver. Chad, black kid from tiny arkansas town who quietly told me he was bi and otherwise tried to convince people we were brothers from another mother. Jordan, anarcho-green UT kid, really cool. Also, Mark Oliar, 37 year old musician of some kind....i'm not going to explain this one.
Day 3: Journalism.
The people who talked in the morning were amazing, a 29yearold who had already been Time's Baghdad bureau chief, this guy David Brock who was a really prominent conservative author who then came out against the right, the guy who founded the center for public integrity....blah blah. and then in the afternoon some important folk like David Corn from the Nation and Yglesias and Amanda Fazzone (i think?) from the New Republic critiqued our shit.
The point is, I have a lot of really big ideas for the dfp and I'm taking journalism a little more seriously.
And then I grabbed the train out to Alexandria. |
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