5/29/07
I haven’t been writing much lately. I have been legitimately busy, no doubt, but still that really offers no excuse for me not to write. Instead I’ve been choosing going out after work to replace the late nights that I used to spend writing.
I’m not really happy how things are going in my life lately. I haven’t been faithful to the goals I set for myself. I realized this today as I sat out in front of the garage after our Memorial Day BBQ.
I’m off track. Like a lot of things in my life, I had such great momentum going in, but I failed to see things through. My writing has tailed off, I haven’t been running much lately, I’ve been falling back on bad habits, drinking too much. I got so many ideas in my head, but never do I really see them through. For me, starting is never hard. It’s finishing. It always has been my Achilles heel.
I realize that that is the biggest difference between my brother and I. Professionally and perhaps in life as well. Why he has succeeded, where I have failed. You see, Andy sometimes takes forever to start something. It’s an annoying attribute at times, I suppose. But then when he starts something, he always sees it through to the end. He’s wired that way I suppose, and in the end, I think that’s what makes him such a great project manager.
For me, it’s easy for me to start a million side projects all at once. Take in a ton at a time, but instead of finishing any them, I just start on another project, and another after that. I give excuses to myself writing because I just say that I’m out of ideas for the time being, which really isn’t a legitimate excuse. I’m never really ever out of ideas, I just sometimes don’t have the patience to write them all down at once. And that frustrates me. I guess at the first sign of difficulty that I find, I want to just jump ship.
In essence, I think that’s why I started writing. I would always use writing as an escape for any work or studying that had to be done. Not anyone surprise, but frequently my best writing periods often came at deadlines and finals. Now that I’m trying to write as profession, I guess therapeutic value is lost, and I’m trying to find my next escape as soon I hit some rough waters.
But I’m realizing that I don’t have that many luxuries in life anymore. I guess I’ve jumped out of too many ships.
I don’t drink anymore to get drunk. I realize I stopped doing it a long time ago. I guess I consciously realized it recently. Although lately I’ve been drinking with increasing frequency, I’ve been only drinking two to three beers a night. It’s almost a daily ritual to let myself unwind after working a full day at two different jobs. Lately, I’ve been working with a lot of younger people. Not even really younger in age, just younger at heart. They egg me on to drink more, stay out later. I don’t know how they do it; they live there lives twenty miles above the speed limit. I hit cruise control a long time ago. The days of me getting fucked up are few and very far in between.
I’m going to write more. I need to. I just needed a quiet moment to gain some perspective in my life again.
Sex on the Beach
1 oz. vodka
1 oz. orange juice
1 oz. cranberry juice
1 oz. peach schnapps
Now there are about a billion varieties to this drink and every one of them is right, dependent on who you ask. This is just my version, and its one that whenever I make it, people seem to like. It basically just a good drink for those who really, really don’t like the taste of alcohol. Because it really has not alcohol. Heh.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
unfinished piece
5/25/2007
……..What am I doing here?
It was a question I found asking myself as I stood in a corner of the cramped apartment last night. Shuttered away by the random pieces of art that lay strewn around the room, I did my best impression of a wallflower as I stood by a cracked window, mesmerized by the glowing embers of my cigarette.
There was a temporary break in the music. The silence was a relief from the blaring music of rappers now long slain— lyrics of smoking weed, alcohol, and scantily clad women laid over beat and a pounding bass destroying what was a peaceful summer night.
“What are you doing over there?”
My attention turned back to the room. The speaker was a Korean girl that I had met only thirty minutes before. I had already forgotten her name. We had spoken earlier about our mutual Korean heritage. Nothing memorable was said, just small talk to break the ice. From the way she floated from guy to guy across the room, I got the sense that she was looking for attention. As she approached me, I secretly wondered how many more beers I would have had to drink before I was more willing to give it.
“Just smoking my cigarette…” I answered. I smiled at her as I took another drag. She smiled back.
“Well, quit being a loner.”
I nodded my head and she headed to the refrigerator to get another beverage. I leaned back and resumed my perch on the windowsill. I took another drag from my cigarette and as I exhaled out the window, I found my looking to the ground four beneath me, and precociously I sat against the open window. As my attention turned back to the people within the room, I wondered if any of them would have noticed had I fell. As I decided that I would not test fate or my inebriated friends’ perceptions, I flicked my cigarette out the window and returned to the living room, where everyone was gathered playing a game of kings. With my beer cup in hand, I crumpled down next to the couch.
As I sat quietly next to the couch, I absorbed the scene before. It was a coworker’s apartment that we had all gathered in.
……..What am I doing here?
It was a question I found asking myself as I stood in a corner of the cramped apartment last night. Shuttered away by the random pieces of art that lay strewn around the room, I did my best impression of a wallflower as I stood by a cracked window, mesmerized by the glowing embers of my cigarette.
There was a temporary break in the music. The silence was a relief from the blaring music of rappers now long slain— lyrics of smoking weed, alcohol, and scantily clad women laid over beat and a pounding bass destroying what was a peaceful summer night.
“What are you doing over there?”
My attention turned back to the room. The speaker was a Korean girl that I had met only thirty minutes before. I had already forgotten her name. We had spoken earlier about our mutual Korean heritage. Nothing memorable was said, just small talk to break the ice. From the way she floated from guy to guy across the room, I got the sense that she was looking for attention. As she approached me, I secretly wondered how many more beers I would have had to drink before I was more willing to give it.
“Just smoking my cigarette…” I answered. I smiled at her as I took another drag. She smiled back.
“Well, quit being a loner.”
I nodded my head and she headed to the refrigerator to get another beverage. I leaned back and resumed my perch on the windowsill. I took another drag from my cigarette and as I exhaled out the window, I found my looking to the ground four beneath me, and precociously I sat against the open window. As my attention turned back to the people within the room, I wondered if any of them would have noticed had I fell. As I decided that I would not test fate or my inebriated friends’ perceptions, I flicked my cigarette out the window and returned to the living room, where everyone was gathered playing a game of kings. With my beer cup in hand, I crumpled down next to the couch.
As I sat quietly next to the couch, I absorbed the scene before. It was a coworker’s apartment that we had all gathered in.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
father's day
My dad just called me today. He rarely ever calls me. I was surprised when I saw his number on my caller ID.
I don’t really have a great relationship with my father. I love him and I know he loves me. That alone is more of a relationship than I know some of my friends have with their fathers, so I am appreciative.
But that really is the extent of our relationship.
When we moved back to Korea, my father took the role of provider very seriously. He always worked. His career really consumed his life. Six nights a week, he was at business meetings or job related functions. If he came home early, he usually just watched tv.
We hardly talked. He never knew what was going on in my life. He knew the big stuff, like school, but if you asked him who my friends were or what I enjoyed doing or what dreams and aspirations were, I’m not sure if he would’ve had the faintest what those answers were.
When I told him recently that I didn’t enjoy programming and I wanted to be a writer, I think that was the first time he even knew I loved to write.
Because I had such a minimal relationship with my father, I always sought for his approval. I chose my major because it was what he did and I knew that he would be happy knowing his son was following in his footsteps. I went to Purdue because that was where he wanted me to go among the schools I got accepted into. Even when I realized that I wasn’t happy within my major and what I saw if I continued, I kept with it. I kept with it because I knew it would make my father happy.
In our phone call today he asked me how I was doing. He heard from my mother that I am bartending now. I know he doesn’t approve. The last couple of times we’ve talked about it, he’s called everything from a loser to a disappointment and hung up on me because he was too angry to continue talking. He asked if I could see myself bartending for the rest of my life. I told him no, that’s not my plan. He told me he was afraid of that.
He asked me why don’t you get a full time job. I told him that I didn’t want to. He then just sighed and asked to talk to my brother.
I feel guilty painting my father in such a negative light. He was there for the big things in my life. He came to my everyone of the plays I was in, all the concerts that my brother and I played in, and I even remember one time he came out to watch me play soccer.
He wants security in my life. He wants me to work for some large corporation that will provide me with a 401K and two weeks paid vacation. He worries that I will fail in my dreams. When I told him that I wanted to write, he asked for proof that I was a good enough writer.
As I sit here and write this, I know what he wants for me isn’t something horrible. He isn’t asking for me to kill someone or destroy something. I know he only wants assurance that I will be able to survive and prosper, even without him in my life.
Life is hard. And I know the path I am choosing for myself is harder than others. But I’ve found the thing that makes me feel the most alive and happiest. I wish I could show him that. Even through this all, as bad as things have gotten, I still harbor a need for his approval of my life. Maybe someday I’ll be able to show that to him. Maybe someday he’ll know the answer to the question of what makes his son happiest. Maybe.
I saw a bottle of Galliano sitting at a bar the other day so it got me thinking about this recipe.
Harvey Wallbanger
Ice a Collins glass
1 oz. vodka
Fill the glass with orange juice
Float Galliano on top of the drink
I don’t really have a great relationship with my father. I love him and I know he loves me. That alone is more of a relationship than I know some of my friends have with their fathers, so I am appreciative.
But that really is the extent of our relationship.
When we moved back to Korea, my father took the role of provider very seriously. He always worked. His career really consumed his life. Six nights a week, he was at business meetings or job related functions. If he came home early, he usually just watched tv.
We hardly talked. He never knew what was going on in my life. He knew the big stuff, like school, but if you asked him who my friends were or what I enjoyed doing or what dreams and aspirations were, I’m not sure if he would’ve had the faintest what those answers were.
When I told him recently that I didn’t enjoy programming and I wanted to be a writer, I think that was the first time he even knew I loved to write.
Because I had such a minimal relationship with my father, I always sought for his approval. I chose my major because it was what he did and I knew that he would be happy knowing his son was following in his footsteps. I went to Purdue because that was where he wanted me to go among the schools I got accepted into. Even when I realized that I wasn’t happy within my major and what I saw if I continued, I kept with it. I kept with it because I knew it would make my father happy.
In our phone call today he asked me how I was doing. He heard from my mother that I am bartending now. I know he doesn’t approve. The last couple of times we’ve talked about it, he’s called everything from a loser to a disappointment and hung up on me because he was too angry to continue talking. He asked if I could see myself bartending for the rest of my life. I told him no, that’s not my plan. He told me he was afraid of that.
He asked me why don’t you get a full time job. I told him that I didn’t want to. He then just sighed and asked to talk to my brother.
I feel guilty painting my father in such a negative light. He was there for the big things in my life. He came to my everyone of the plays I was in, all the concerts that my brother and I played in, and I even remember one time he came out to watch me play soccer.
He wants security in my life. He wants me to work for some large corporation that will provide me with a 401K and two weeks paid vacation. He worries that I will fail in my dreams. When I told him that I wanted to write, he asked for proof that I was a good enough writer.
As I sit here and write this, I know what he wants for me isn’t something horrible. He isn’t asking for me to kill someone or destroy something. I know he only wants assurance that I will be able to survive and prosper, even without him in my life.
Life is hard. And I know the path I am choosing for myself is harder than others. But I’ve found the thing that makes me feel the most alive and happiest. I wish I could show him that. Even through this all, as bad as things have gotten, I still harbor a need for his approval of my life. Maybe someday I’ll be able to show that to him. Maybe someday he’ll know the answer to the question of what makes his son happiest. Maybe.
I saw a bottle of Galliano sitting at a bar the other day so it got me thinking about this recipe.
Harvey Wallbanger
Ice a Collins glass
1 oz. vodka
Fill the glass with orange juice
Float Galliano on top of the drink
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
untitled piece i'm working on
This is a short story I wrote a couple of months ago. I let it just sit around a while and reread and did some major revisions to it. Please respond if you like it or don't like it. Basically critique. And by critique, I mean respond about any emotions evoked by the piece or any confusion you have. I'm not looking for people to proofread for me.
-njh
All I could see left of what I wrote was the blinking cursor, only for it to be blurred as I felt tears slide down my cheek. It had just happened. As quickly as it began, it ended. Without any screamed words or possessions being thrown out, it ended.
All that remained were memories and the blinking cursor on an IM chat box. I thought the first night we met in person and spent together. She had managed to pin me down, and straddled my stomach as she looked down on me. She looked beautiful right then, with locks of her hair streaming over her face. She took my right hand and pushed it up against her left breast.
“You know most of this is yours, don’t you?” she had whispered as she looked down on me.
I wiped another tear from my eye and reread the last question that I wrote to her. If I didn’t want to be around anymore, would it even matter?
It had been a couple minutes since she had last written anything. Over the summer she had grown distant; she responded less to my messages, stopped answering my texts and phone calls. At first she would apologize and try and explain, but as more time passed these apologies less and less frequent.
My eyes lingered on the blinking cursor. No answer appeared. I leaned back and closed my eyes. I remembered the first time she had texted me. I had been out a bar with a friend and received a message from a number I didn’t recognize. All it said was I need to talk to you. There was never a question of who it was in my mind. I ran out of the bar and to my car and called the number. Within the first few rings, she picked up. It was the first time I heard her voice. We didn’t stop talking till we both were too exhausted to stay up.
But those days were long gone. It had been over a month since I had last received a phone call from her. My messages over the computer were rarely responded to and her answers were always so deliberately slow, if they came at all.
The familiar chimes of an incoming message shattered my reverie. My eyes quickly returned to the message box. Eventually. It was all she wrote.
She knew my disdain for single word answers. Yet, lately, she chose to solely answer with them. I continued to stare at the screen, hoping something more would come. My patience was answered by silence on her part. I scrolled up to a previous part of our conversation.
Because you want to be. As I read those words for the second time, they seemed to reverberate within my body. I had been in denial for so long. I made excuses for her, when she offered no explanation. I told myself she was busy with school when she had no time to talk. I told myself she was busy with her family, when she had gone home after school had ended and still found no time to talk to me. But her words were right there. I could no longer deny what I saw.
It had only been till five minutes since I had finally found the courage to ask her. Her answer was like a blow to the stomach. I wanted so badly to read that she needed me. Instead, she said the truth. Why was I still around?
Because you want to be.
I knew if I could have seen her eyes at the moment, I wouldn’t have seen the warmth that I saw in them the first time we kissed. I had made a bet with her that she would kiss me first, a bet that I knew I would lose the moment I first saw her. A bet she made sure I lost. And as I leaned to kiss her later that night, she turned her head away slightly, then mischievously whispered in my ear, “you lost.” But when she finally turned her head back and I brushed my lips against hers, I whispered back, “I wanted to lose.”
None of that would be there. None of the smiles or giggles, or jokes we shared. She had already walked away from that. I realized I had nothing to say to her anymore. I waited for a few minutes to see if she would write anything. She didn’t. I logged off my computer and headed to bed.
I tried to sleep. I tried not to dream. I tried not to think about anything. I tried. After tossing in bed for most of night, my phone went off. A text. From her. Her dog had died.
I’m sorry, I wrote back. Do you want me to call?
No, I don’t want to talk right now.
Well, I’m awake and around if you need me.
I received no response after that. I really didn’t expect to. I still waited though, hoping. I fell asleep with my cell phone in my hand. When I woke up, I found my phone had fallen to the floor beneath me. I didn’t need to check to know she hadn’t written me back.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you…” she had said to me the last time I saw her. We were in her car. There was a snow storm around us. Flakes of fluffy white snow threatened my drive home to northern Virginia and hers to Tennessee. I never wanted to leave that car. I just sat there in her passenger seat, leaning over to kiss her. She stopped me and looked into my eyes. For previous couple of days beforehand, she had been questioning our relationship. During the weekend we spent together, we had decided to try and give what we had a chance. She cradled my face with her hands and brushed her fingers against my lips. I kissed the palm of her hand. She then whispered those words.
It was the last time that I saw her. It was the last time I touched her. It was last time I held her. It was the last time I kissed her.
As I climbed into my car to drive to work for the day, I remembered how I felt on that winter morning driving away from her. I carried so much hope of things to come. I opened up my phone to the last text message she sent me and read it again. My mind drifted to last night and the conversation we had.
“Nothing but memories,” I whispered. With trembling fingers, I deleted the text message she sent. My eyes focused on her name in my cell phone directory. My thumb pressed upon the delete button. The next screen appeared and prompted me if I was sure. I pressed down on the yes button. Gingerly, I laid my cell phone down on my passenger seat like it was a volatile bomb ready to explode. I stared at the phone for awhile. “Nothing but memories,” I whispered again as I started my car and shifted to reverse.
Sangria
6 oz. of red wine
1/2 oz. of cranberry, mango, and strawberry infusion
2 oz. of strawberry concentrate
1 oz. of mango concentrate
1 oz. of lime juice
a splash of sprite/7 up
Add everything to a mixer, shake and pour into a iced schooner/fishbowl.
-njh
All I could see left of what I wrote was the blinking cursor, only for it to be blurred as I felt tears slide down my cheek. It had just happened. As quickly as it began, it ended. Without any screamed words or possessions being thrown out, it ended.
All that remained were memories and the blinking cursor on an IM chat box. I thought the first night we met in person and spent together. She had managed to pin me down, and straddled my stomach as she looked down on me. She looked beautiful right then, with locks of her hair streaming over her face. She took my right hand and pushed it up against her left breast.
“You know most of this is yours, don’t you?” she had whispered as she looked down on me.
I wiped another tear from my eye and reread the last question that I wrote to her. If I didn’t want to be around anymore, would it even matter?
It had been a couple minutes since she had last written anything. Over the summer she had grown distant; she responded less to my messages, stopped answering my texts and phone calls. At first she would apologize and try and explain, but as more time passed these apologies less and less frequent.
My eyes lingered on the blinking cursor. No answer appeared. I leaned back and closed my eyes. I remembered the first time she had texted me. I had been out a bar with a friend and received a message from a number I didn’t recognize. All it said was I need to talk to you. There was never a question of who it was in my mind. I ran out of the bar and to my car and called the number. Within the first few rings, she picked up. It was the first time I heard her voice. We didn’t stop talking till we both were too exhausted to stay up.
But those days were long gone. It had been over a month since I had last received a phone call from her. My messages over the computer were rarely responded to and her answers were always so deliberately slow, if they came at all.
The familiar chimes of an incoming message shattered my reverie. My eyes quickly returned to the message box. Eventually. It was all she wrote.
She knew my disdain for single word answers. Yet, lately, she chose to solely answer with them. I continued to stare at the screen, hoping something more would come. My patience was answered by silence on her part. I scrolled up to a previous part of our conversation.
Because you want to be. As I read those words for the second time, they seemed to reverberate within my body. I had been in denial for so long. I made excuses for her, when she offered no explanation. I told myself she was busy with school when she had no time to talk. I told myself she was busy with her family, when she had gone home after school had ended and still found no time to talk to me. But her words were right there. I could no longer deny what I saw.
It had only been till five minutes since I had finally found the courage to ask her. Her answer was like a blow to the stomach. I wanted so badly to read that she needed me. Instead, she said the truth. Why was I still around?
Because you want to be.
I knew if I could have seen her eyes at the moment, I wouldn’t have seen the warmth that I saw in them the first time we kissed. I had made a bet with her that she would kiss me first, a bet that I knew I would lose the moment I first saw her. A bet she made sure I lost. And as I leaned to kiss her later that night, she turned her head away slightly, then mischievously whispered in my ear, “you lost.” But when she finally turned her head back and I brushed my lips against hers, I whispered back, “I wanted to lose.”
None of that would be there. None of the smiles or giggles, or jokes we shared. She had already walked away from that. I realized I had nothing to say to her anymore. I waited for a few minutes to see if she would write anything. She didn’t. I logged off my computer and headed to bed.
I tried to sleep. I tried not to dream. I tried not to think about anything. I tried. After tossing in bed for most of night, my phone went off. A text. From her. Her dog had died.
I’m sorry, I wrote back. Do you want me to call?
No, I don’t want to talk right now.
Well, I’m awake and around if you need me.
I received no response after that. I really didn’t expect to. I still waited though, hoping. I fell asleep with my cell phone in my hand. When I woke up, I found my phone had fallen to the floor beneath me. I didn’t need to check to know she hadn’t written me back.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you…” she had said to me the last time I saw her. We were in her car. There was a snow storm around us. Flakes of fluffy white snow threatened my drive home to northern Virginia and hers to Tennessee. I never wanted to leave that car. I just sat there in her passenger seat, leaning over to kiss her. She stopped me and looked into my eyes. For previous couple of days beforehand, she had been questioning our relationship. During the weekend we spent together, we had decided to try and give what we had a chance. She cradled my face with her hands and brushed her fingers against my lips. I kissed the palm of her hand. She then whispered those words.
It was the last time that I saw her. It was the last time I touched her. It was last time I held her. It was the last time I kissed her.
As I climbed into my car to drive to work for the day, I remembered how I felt on that winter morning driving away from her. I carried so much hope of things to come. I opened up my phone to the last text message she sent me and read it again. My mind drifted to last night and the conversation we had.
“Nothing but memories,” I whispered. With trembling fingers, I deleted the text message she sent. My eyes focused on her name in my cell phone directory. My thumb pressed upon the delete button. The next screen appeared and prompted me if I was sure. I pressed down on the yes button. Gingerly, I laid my cell phone down on my passenger seat like it was a volatile bomb ready to explode. I stared at the phone for awhile. “Nothing but memories,” I whispered again as I started my car and shifted to reverse.
Sangria
6 oz. of red wine
1/2 oz. of cranberry, mango, and strawberry infusion
2 oz. of strawberry concentrate
1 oz. of mango concentrate
1 oz. of lime juice
a splash of sprite/7 up
Add everything to a mixer, shake and pour into a iced schooner/fishbowl.
Monday, May 7, 2007
something i forgot i wrote
While I was transferring stuff from one computer to another, I found this old entry I wrote earlier this year. Just decided to post it since I've been suffering from acute writer's block lately.
Why do we so easily settle for mediocrity when we get older? Why do our dreams plummet from impossible to the plausible and quite often enough mundane? What is it in our genetic code that drives me, as single man in his mid twenties to search out a nine to five job that will never come close to bringing me any sense of satisfaction in my life?
Andy asked me the other day, ‘is it bad that I have no new years resolution’? I didn’t answer, but I think it’s a little sad. We have confined ourselves to dreams aren’t distinctly ours. The dream of the model home with the two car garage and the flat panel TV and the 2.5 kids with 1.5 dogs and 2.25 cars. Is that what we dreamed of in childhood? Or in our adolescent years?
I find the idea of goals to be sometimes funny. I will do X by X days. We so willingly give up the ability to live in the here and now to sacrifice for an indeterminate future that might not even come to fruition. I don’t know why we do it. As youths, we never needed some benchmark within our lives to judge the progress we’ve made. But I guess in the end, I’m the one clamoring for my days of youthful innocence. This responsibility thing is just not what it was cracked up to be. It kind of scares me.
Am I jaded by a life marred by goals that didn’t come into fruition? Or have a clung to tightly to an innocence that is no longer mine to bear? Maybe I just have grown enough to have the dreams of the ostentatious nothingness that has been sold, bought, and marketed, and sold again for a slight profit by every vendor thought imaginable.
I dream of happiness. I dream of fulfillment. I dream of one day waking up and finding that my voice in the head is the voice that everyone else hears. I dream that the person that I see every day in the mirror is just a reflection of the man I aspire to be.
And I dream of sex. Copious amounts of sex. Hahahahaa. Only if that weren’t so true.
I wonder if the path I chose for myself is purposely hard. I wonder if this battle that currently manifests my life is not some intricate chess game between my id and my superego, where my life is the board that they play on. Morbid, no? And fate hovers over, gleefully clasping her spinster hands and she anticipates each move on the board, as if it was carefully scripted by her and each essence of my subconscious mind is an actor in her play.
Outside circumstances that always give me an excuse to take an easy way out. It’s too easy. I can’t really write these days. The characters that I think of, they just seem to be lifeless dolls that are made to feel and look human, but are cold to the touch. They haven’t come alive yet, except in the deepest recesses of my imagination, in some untapped corner of my brain.
I hope this is only writer’s block.
I talked to an artist about criticism today. This is something that I really need to work on. Accepting criticism, at least. In real life, I have a hard time being told I am wrong. It’s a mixture of desire to showboat and insecurities. I am insecure, especially about my intellect now. Fat jokes aside, my academic career has become the fodder of most of the jokes I tell. It’s crazy, because it makes incredibly insecure about it. I look around to my peers and see countless others that have face experiences like mine that have succeeded. And then doubt creeps into my head. I used to be confident of my abilities. But later in life there are no longer aptitude tests that you can take that can confirm to everyone how smart you are. No state wide board exam that will place your reading, writing, arithmetic, and scientific knowledge well beyond your own grade level. No SAT test that you hardly really study for to testify about your ability to do well on standardized tests.
The greatest leap from college to adulthood is there is no longer any grading scale. For sixteen plus years of our lives, we are rated on a grading scale. One free of personal opinion, concerns of hygiene or office politics. Just a pure number. A is equivalent to excellent, B good. With the loss of criteria, it’s almost as we lose a measurement of where we are in our lives and how we are performing. I guess that is the definition of being an adult. Sure, we have a year end evaluations given by our employers, but that, more than any other time in our lives, is more of a popularity contest and testament of one’s charisma rather than a true reflection of one’s abilities.
We grow up with the structure of a grading scale. Take that away and some of us will crumble.
Everyone has advice about how to write. Base your characters off your friends, write about what you know. Can writing be really taught and learned? Or is it truly just an expression. I don’t know. I don’t know. I wonder if those people that have had years of schooling and education about writing have a heads up on me. But then I wonder if my imagination is something that is quantitatively measured. And in the end, isn’t that the key to the worlds that I create? Keep trucking, my boy. Keep trucking.
Pometini
1 oz. of pomegranate concentrate
1 oz. of Vodka
a splash of fresh lime juice from a lime wedge
a spash of grenadine
1/2 oz. of sour mix
1/2 oz. of grapefruit juice
Add everything into the shaker with ice, shake, strain and pour.
Why do we so easily settle for mediocrity when we get older? Why do our dreams plummet from impossible to the plausible and quite often enough mundane? What is it in our genetic code that drives me, as single man in his mid twenties to search out a nine to five job that will never come close to bringing me any sense of satisfaction in my life?
Andy asked me the other day, ‘is it bad that I have no new years resolution’? I didn’t answer, but I think it’s a little sad. We have confined ourselves to dreams aren’t distinctly ours. The dream of the model home with the two car garage and the flat panel TV and the 2.5 kids with 1.5 dogs and 2.25 cars. Is that what we dreamed of in childhood? Or in our adolescent years?
I find the idea of goals to be sometimes funny. I will do X by X days. We so willingly give up the ability to live in the here and now to sacrifice for an indeterminate future that might not even come to fruition. I don’t know why we do it. As youths, we never needed some benchmark within our lives to judge the progress we’ve made. But I guess in the end, I’m the one clamoring for my days of youthful innocence. This responsibility thing is just not what it was cracked up to be. It kind of scares me.
Am I jaded by a life marred by goals that didn’t come into fruition? Or have a clung to tightly to an innocence that is no longer mine to bear? Maybe I just have grown enough to have the dreams of the ostentatious nothingness that has been sold, bought, and marketed, and sold again for a slight profit by every vendor thought imaginable.
I dream of happiness. I dream of fulfillment. I dream of one day waking up and finding that my voice in the head is the voice that everyone else hears. I dream that the person that I see every day in the mirror is just a reflection of the man I aspire to be.
And I dream of sex. Copious amounts of sex. Hahahahaa. Only if that weren’t so true.
I wonder if the path I chose for myself is purposely hard. I wonder if this battle that currently manifests my life is not some intricate chess game between my id and my superego, where my life is the board that they play on. Morbid, no? And fate hovers over, gleefully clasping her spinster hands and she anticipates each move on the board, as if it was carefully scripted by her and each essence of my subconscious mind is an actor in her play.
Outside circumstances that always give me an excuse to take an easy way out. It’s too easy. I can’t really write these days. The characters that I think of, they just seem to be lifeless dolls that are made to feel and look human, but are cold to the touch. They haven’t come alive yet, except in the deepest recesses of my imagination, in some untapped corner of my brain.
I hope this is only writer’s block.
I talked to an artist about criticism today. This is something that I really need to work on. Accepting criticism, at least. In real life, I have a hard time being told I am wrong. It’s a mixture of desire to showboat and insecurities. I am insecure, especially about my intellect now. Fat jokes aside, my academic career has become the fodder of most of the jokes I tell. It’s crazy, because it makes incredibly insecure about it. I look around to my peers and see countless others that have face experiences like mine that have succeeded. And then doubt creeps into my head. I used to be confident of my abilities. But later in life there are no longer aptitude tests that you can take that can confirm to everyone how smart you are. No state wide board exam that will place your reading, writing, arithmetic, and scientific knowledge well beyond your own grade level. No SAT test that you hardly really study for to testify about your ability to do well on standardized tests.
The greatest leap from college to adulthood is there is no longer any grading scale. For sixteen plus years of our lives, we are rated on a grading scale. One free of personal opinion, concerns of hygiene or office politics. Just a pure number. A is equivalent to excellent, B good. With the loss of criteria, it’s almost as we lose a measurement of where we are in our lives and how we are performing. I guess that is the definition of being an adult. Sure, we have a year end evaluations given by our employers, but that, more than any other time in our lives, is more of a popularity contest and testament of one’s charisma rather than a true reflection of one’s abilities.
We grow up with the structure of a grading scale. Take that away and some of us will crumble.
Everyone has advice about how to write. Base your characters off your friends, write about what you know. Can writing be really taught and learned? Or is it truly just an expression. I don’t know. I don’t know. I wonder if those people that have had years of schooling and education about writing have a heads up on me. But then I wonder if my imagination is something that is quantitatively measured. And in the end, isn’t that the key to the worlds that I create? Keep trucking, my boy. Keep trucking.
Pometini
1 oz. of pomegranate concentrate
1 oz. of Vodka
a splash of fresh lime juice from a lime wedge
a spash of grenadine
1/2 oz. of sour mix
1/2 oz. of grapefruit juice
Add everything into the shaker with ice, shake, strain and pour.
Friday, May 4, 2007
sick days
Lately, I’ve been feeling numb, contrary of what I’ve written before of me feeling hollow and/or empty.
I think it’s almost that I don’t have time to process everything I go through in a day. Anger, happiness, self doubts, disappointments, triumphs, sadness, depression, joy, laughter- they all have to be stifled and internalized to finish what you were doing and move onto the next task. Slowly, but surely, you’re trading in your individualism and creativity for that hallowed paycheck that you receive at the end of the week.
So I called in sick to work yesterday. I wasn’t really sick. I mean my nose was running, my throat tickled, but nothing that would really require me to stay home. I felt a twinge of guilt as I spoke to the manager at the restaurant as I called in. Then I really thought about it. No company, well especially the restaurant that I work for, really pays me enough money for me to feel guilty from allowing me the pleasure of playing hookie. Go ahead, question my loyalty. To them, I am a business asset. Likewise I view them as a ways to a means. They would show the same amount of remorse in firing me as I do in calling in sick. Sad, but true.
Revelation. My loyalty can be bought. My tolerance for inconveniences can similarly by bought. Shit. My pride can be bought.
But I will still revel in sick days even when I’m not so sick.
I’m going to cut this short. I can’t really think of anything else to write, and I’m probably going to write something more when I roll off work tonight.
Madras
1 oz. vodka
Half cranberry/orange juice
Ice a highball cup. Add vodka. Fill with cranberry and orange juice to the rim.
I think it’s almost that I don’t have time to process everything I go through in a day. Anger, happiness, self doubts, disappointments, triumphs, sadness, depression, joy, laughter- they all have to be stifled and internalized to finish what you were doing and move onto the next task. Slowly, but surely, you’re trading in your individualism and creativity for that hallowed paycheck that you receive at the end of the week.
So I called in sick to work yesterday. I wasn’t really sick. I mean my nose was running, my throat tickled, but nothing that would really require me to stay home. I felt a twinge of guilt as I spoke to the manager at the restaurant as I called in. Then I really thought about it. No company, well especially the restaurant that I work for, really pays me enough money for me to feel guilty from allowing me the pleasure of playing hookie. Go ahead, question my loyalty. To them, I am a business asset. Likewise I view them as a ways to a means. They would show the same amount of remorse in firing me as I do in calling in sick. Sad, but true.
Revelation. My loyalty can be bought. My tolerance for inconveniences can similarly by bought. Shit. My pride can be bought.
But I will still revel in sick days even when I’m not so sick.
I’m going to cut this short. I can’t really think of anything else to write, and I’m probably going to write something more when I roll off work tonight.
Madras
1 oz. vodka
Half cranberry/orange juice
Ice a highball cup. Add vodka. Fill with cranberry and orange juice to the rim.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
+ C
Breathe.
The very moment that I think I have my finances straight, something happens that just knocks me back to square one.
Like a 3000 dollar car repair bill.
I suppose that gives some insight to why I had such anxiety about driving my car. I grimaced when I saw my mechanics number appear on my caller ID. I cringed as he listed the litany of other repairs that my car required. I wanted to cry when he told me the total estimate.
Its amazing how quickly that you can go from a prince to a pauper in a single phone call.
I suppose I should be relieved that at least I had the funds available to pay for this repair. I guess this is a crash course into adulthood. Welcome to the real world. Where all the money you make is someone else’s before you can even contemplate using it.
Over dinner, I had this great conversation with a friend about C. I don’t know how we really got started talking about it, or how our conversation went tangentially (oh the puns) to math but it did. But it got me started thinking about C.
You see C is a constant. Let’s rewind back to calculus 120 (at least it was 120 for me). Let’s begin with a basic definition for differentiation. Basically when you find a derivative or an equation, you’re finding the slope of that equation at a given point. Now, why derivatives are so interesting and fun is that this slope doesn’t necessarily have to be constant, which graphically is represented as a straight line. Instead, you can find the slope of a curve (or rather a line tangential of the curve) at a given point. Why do we care? Well, say if something is accelerating, using a derivative, you could hypothetically find the speed of an object at a given time, even though just a second before and after it won’t be at the same quantative speed.
Have I lost you yet?
So anyways, now let’s go back to geometry. The equation for a line is y = mx + b (that is just one equation for a line. There are also several other forms of that). m in this case is the slope of the line. b is a constant value, or in this form, know as the y intercept (I might be wrong on that, might be the x intercept), essentially at what y value the line crosses the x axis. It doesn’t really matter anyways.
So basically when you find the derivative, you find a value or equation to compute the value for m on a line. b is eliminated because it doesn’t contribute to the value of m.
However, integration is the opposite of this process. Just like multiplication and division, addition and subtraction, integration is a reverse derivative. You start with a slope, and calculate all the potential curves that could produce this slope.
Now this is where C comes into the picture. Remember b? b was negligible in calculating the slope of a line, however the multitude of values for b is what distinguishes each separate equation that could potentially produced the derivative that you began with. All these collective values that could be b, are thrown into a generic variable called C.
C can range from being nothing, to being some incredible huge and greatly influencing the value of an equation, no matter what its input. I find it amazing that something that is so easily dismissed can be the most influential part of the equation.
I admit, I was the math student that always neglected to include ‘+ C’ in my integration solutions and got a point or two nicked off my grade. Now when thinking about it, I have a new appreciation with C.
We can live our lives according to formula and by the numbers. Go to school for x number of years, find y job, save z amount of money. But its always the ‘+ C’ that we cannot anticipate, cannot expect, cannot plan for and ultimately what differentiates success from failure, lucky from unlucky. I realize that this is a hypothetical of a hypothetical and the relation between math and real life is tenuous at best, but I think C represents that even math is not completely logical and clean. Just like life.
Right now my C is definitely -2,817 dollars.
Champagne cosmo
5 oz. of champagne
½ oz. of triple sec/contreau
Splash of cranberry
I got this recipe online, and it’s a twist on a traditional cosmopolitan recipe, except you use champagne as your base alcohol instead of vodka. It’s a great summer drink and something that can easily be used to cover the taste of mediocre champagne.
The very moment that I think I have my finances straight, something happens that just knocks me back to square one.
Like a 3000 dollar car repair bill.
I suppose that gives some insight to why I had such anxiety about driving my car. I grimaced when I saw my mechanics number appear on my caller ID. I cringed as he listed the litany of other repairs that my car required. I wanted to cry when he told me the total estimate.
Its amazing how quickly that you can go from a prince to a pauper in a single phone call.
I suppose I should be relieved that at least I had the funds available to pay for this repair. I guess this is a crash course into adulthood. Welcome to the real world. Where all the money you make is someone else’s before you can even contemplate using it.
Over dinner, I had this great conversation with a friend about C. I don’t know how we really got started talking about it, or how our conversation went tangentially (oh the puns) to math but it did. But it got me started thinking about C.
You see C is a constant. Let’s rewind back to calculus 120 (at least it was 120 for me). Let’s begin with a basic definition for differentiation. Basically when you find a derivative or an equation, you’re finding the slope of that equation at a given point. Now, why derivatives are so interesting and fun is that this slope doesn’t necessarily have to be constant, which graphically is represented as a straight line. Instead, you can find the slope of a curve (or rather a line tangential of the curve) at a given point. Why do we care? Well, say if something is accelerating, using a derivative, you could hypothetically find the speed of an object at a given time, even though just a second before and after it won’t be at the same quantative speed.
Have I lost you yet?
So anyways, now let’s go back to geometry. The equation for a line is y = mx + b (that is just one equation for a line. There are also several other forms of that). m in this case is the slope of the line. b is a constant value, or in this form, know as the y intercept (I might be wrong on that, might be the x intercept), essentially at what y value the line crosses the x axis. It doesn’t really matter anyways.
So basically when you find the derivative, you find a value or equation to compute the value for m on a line. b is eliminated because it doesn’t contribute to the value of m.
However, integration is the opposite of this process. Just like multiplication and division, addition and subtraction, integration is a reverse derivative. You start with a slope, and calculate all the potential curves that could produce this slope.
Now this is where C comes into the picture. Remember b? b was negligible in calculating the slope of a line, however the multitude of values for b is what distinguishes each separate equation that could potentially produced the derivative that you began with. All these collective values that could be b, are thrown into a generic variable called C.
C can range from being nothing, to being some incredible huge and greatly influencing the value of an equation, no matter what its input. I find it amazing that something that is so easily dismissed can be the most influential part of the equation.
I admit, I was the math student that always neglected to include ‘+ C’ in my integration solutions and got a point or two nicked off my grade. Now when thinking about it, I have a new appreciation with C.
We can live our lives according to formula and by the numbers. Go to school for x number of years, find y job, save z amount of money. But its always the ‘+ C’ that we cannot anticipate, cannot expect, cannot plan for and ultimately what differentiates success from failure, lucky from unlucky. I realize that this is a hypothetical of a hypothetical and the relation between math and real life is tenuous at best, but I think C represents that even math is not completely logical and clean. Just like life.
Right now my C is definitely -2,817 dollars.
Champagne cosmo
5 oz. of champagne
½ oz. of triple sec/contreau
Splash of cranberry
I got this recipe online, and it’s a twist on a traditional cosmopolitan recipe, except you use champagne as your base alcohol instead of vodka. It’s a great summer drink and something that can easily be used to cover the taste of mediocre champagne.
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