Krispie Kreme Cometh

Krispie Kreme Donut shop grand openings are *the* place to be (as Krispie Kreme has informed me). Having previously never been to one, I was given the chance this morning to fill the void that I had never even known existed. At 5:30am today, Krispie Kreme opened up shop at its newest location on Dupont Circle (colloquially known as "The Fruit Loop"). The first person in line was to receive a year’s supply of free donuts, the next 100 get free t-shirts...etc., etc.: I kinda skimmed over that info in the paper; I have a firm grasp of my condition of not being able to get up at 4:30am or earlier to get in line for free donuts that will just make me fat anyway. "Oh, but then hey!" They’re giving out free donuts all day. That I can do. That I must do.

I walked with Becca to the Foggy Bottom metro (she needed to leave for Philadelphia for a conference) at 7:00am and then set out on my holy quest: free food. Mmmm....donuts...(gurgle...).

As I got closer to Dupont Circle, I saw the occasional pedestrian eating a donut. As I got closer and closer to Dupont Circle, the donuts in the hands of those I passed became less and less eaten. I was gettin’ closer, baby.

I found it, just where Mapquest said it would be (my journey was planned during my laborious two minutes of preparation the prior night). Although the actual store wasn’t open (and this was a scary two minutes for me) they were handing out free donuts on the other side of the store on the street. A lady just had her donut cart out there and was simply whisking them out to passerbys. "Hello, the store opens at 10!" she told me, but I had already gotten what I came for. Actually, I found out where the donuts were being handed out when I saw the TV cameras covering the event just as I got on the circle. Mmmm....my chocolate icing-ed glazed gooey goodness....(gurgle). Capitalizing on the donut-hungry crowd was a stew of miscellaneous interests which thrust pamphlets in my hand as I walked away: Re-elect Harold Brazil, Jews for Jesus, Violet Garden Chinese Restaurant, etc. Might I add: the Jews for Jesus girl was a total cutie...I almost was swept under her hypnotic spell. (though, I’m not Jewish so I don’t think they’d want me). Oh, the vile tactics employed by that sinister cult!!!

Krispie Kreme has a pretty sweet seat there on Dupont: it’s right at the exit to the metro station there. Who wouldn’t stop in for a donut? They’re gonna hit all those commuters. It would be quicker to just have a machine injecting lard into people’s arms as they passed by. I think when I come back to visit D.C. the next time, there’s gonna be a lot more of it to love.

The Cable Guy(s)

I’m getting cable de-installed Wednesday (and might I add very happy to paying a future monthly cable bill of $15 where I’m going opposed to the $115 I’ve been paying). Having set the appointment up about a month ago, I was a little hazy on when the appointment was. So, I called up Starpower and made inquiry, and then understood why I couldn’t remember the scheduled appointment time...there never was one. The company guy could stop by any time between 8am and 8pm. I’m basically a prisoner in my room waiting for him to show up. Um, it’s not like I’m moving out this weekend or anything, ya know, not like I have things to do. Does that suck or what? Stereotypical cable company-ness. When they were originally installed my cable the also gave me a similarly loose time to stop by and I was likewise stuck in the room (but happened to be busy putting together furniture so it wasn’t too bad). The kick is the guy never showed up that day...his blowing me off got me a free first month of cable, which was good, but if Starpower is a no-show on Wednesday then someone is gonna be SOL because T.J.’s not dealing with a 8-8 possibility for Thursday or Friday and I won’t be here Monday - I’m taking off and @#%& their cable equipment.

Unfortunately, as they have my debit card information, they’ll probably make me the screwed one if it comes to that.

Unbreakable

Unbreakable bubbles are very breakable. They’re also less like bubbles then floating blobs of goo, which is all the more apparent should one break on you. Should you happen to blow a bunch while inside you’ll be finding them all over the ground for the next hour, and as the hour passes you’ll be finding them in increasingly deteriorated states, slowly dissolving into shinny shapeless puddles, not unlike a salted slug.

I prefer regular-breakable-bubbles. My brother and I would when we were younger would play a contest with who could catch the most in his mouth. Ah, the rewarding taste of soap. We were also too young to understand whether to look for toxic vs. non-toxic bubbles. I’m sure they were all non-toxic. Afect not brane mI not it did.

The people in my neighborhood; the people I see each day

Today was probably the last time I'll ever do major shopping at the Safeway in The Watergate, my local grocery store. I'm personally happy at the possibility of now doing my food shopping at a store with fresh meat and non-rotting produce. Besides groceries, that particularly Safeway happens to be a good place to go star-gazing and possibly catch a glimpse of one of Washington's high-and-mighty (although it always baffled me why Washington's elite didn't shop at a nicer place...you think they'd go someplace that was clean). So, without further adieu, I present:

The List of People I've Seen at Safeway

1. Anthony Williams, Washington D.C. Mayor
2. Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor

Disappointingly, I've never seen (former) Senator Bob Dole, whom I've heard from friends is very much the regular down there. I guess Bob gets his microwavable popcorn some other time than when I do my shopping.

Back where I belong

I am a student again. I have been since 4:30 yesterday afternoon.

This isn't just a weekend; it's my summer vacation (altogether I do only have a week or so of it). Earlier today I was making plans for winter break. Oh, that brings me back. I'll actually have one of those. Perhaps tomorrow I'm going back-to-school shopping: new pens, notebooks, etc. All fresh and new. My new "job" will be self-improvement: learning.

No more 7-4:30 days. No more commuting. No more wearing ties to work. No more incompetent boss.

Yes, I'll have homework, but also more free time to do it in, and the work I'll be doing will actually be productive; it'll be helping to make me a better, smarter person. I'll have more time to go to the gym. Actually, I'll even have a gym to go to. I'll be interacting with people my own age.

I'm am no longer a government employee, I am now a student. I think it's time to write my congressman and demand that taxes be lowered; I can cite many examples of slack and inefficiency that could be picked up.

After seeing what the "real world" is like, I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to go back.

Ah, the last day of work...

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red
Cryin's not for me'
Cause, I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'...


Because I'm free
Nothin's worryin' me

Olympic viewing

I haven't watched as much of the Olympics this year as in the past (though judging from the empty stadiums on TV, neither has the rest of the world). Last night I decided I had better finally watch just to say that I did and placate a potential future guilty conscience in case I totally miss the games and then find my self with a longing for some Olympics but with four more years to go. The events I saw were fun to watch. I think it'd be overkill if I spent the full two weeks watching, but I'm going to try and catch a few more nights' worth (when NBC conveniently air the main draw events). Next week I'll be done with work so I can watch later (primetime footage runs 8-12) without worrying about having to get up at 5:40am the next day. The downer to that is that this week, the one in which I have to go to bed early, is gymnastics, which I really like. They had footage on last night but I couldn't stay up to watch floor routine, which is my favorite event in the Olympics. I did get to see the vault and uneven bars, but then had to turn off the TV, as it was getting late...it's like they show the popular event last, as if to make you watch the whole thing...why on Earth would they do that? Perhaps it has something to do with all those Super Bowl-funny TV commercials...

My morning commute

I hope to leave my room at 6:20 latest in order to catch the subway train that will still make me tardy to work, though inconspicuously so. I walk down my hallway cursing the faces I've never seen behind each of the doors I pass, believing they're comfortable in their beds - I imagine smiles on all of their dreaming faces. When I reach the elevator I say a quick prayer that the elevator will not be broken and so I will not have to take the stairs down. Riding or walking to the basement I feel like the only person in the whole world; I've never seen anyone in my building as I leave to go to work. As I reach the back door to my apartment and prepare to step out I say a second prayer that it will not be raining and so that I will not be forced to fumble in my sling-bag for the umbrella that's too small the keep me dry, anyway. I pray it's not raining but I hope it has just recently rained - the damp pavement outside shimmers in the moonlight and it's one of the prettiest things I'll see that day. When it was winter Rebekah was in New Hall and as I crossed 24th I could see her closed window and I knew she was laying snug in her covers just past the closed blinds. I thought of her and of seeing her later that day. Sometimes Orion was visible directly over her dorm. As I walk toward the metro entrance people in lab coats or scrubs or both are hurrying into the hospital. I pick up my Express newspaper from Ernest, the wheelchair-bound distributor, who when seeing me coming perks up and folds my newspaper to give to me. He always greets me with a cool "What's up?". I hope he truly remembers my face out of the crowd of other people he must give papers to but I can’t explain why. As I head towards the elevator there is often a crowd heading out of the station; I wonder how much earlier they must have gotten up than I did. Sometimes the blind man I see each morning is in front of me on the escalator or on the metro platform standing stiff as a sentinel. I see him, take a breath, and am thankful for my slight, yet at the same time am filled with admiration for the man who is able to function seemingly so well despite his handicap. I walk down the platform until I come to the air-conditioning vent and stand by it (although it blows only a faint whisper of a breeze). There are sometimes college-aged couples in embrace saying “goodbye” in those early mornings; in a slight way their sight makes me depressed and I wish they didn’t have to say goodbye. I never have to wait more than a couple minutes (barring the occasional fifteen minute track delay) before the train comes. Uncountable commutes have taught me just where to stand for the train’s door to stop right in front of me. Dismal faces file out of the train; no one seems to have any song or happiness in them. Nine times out of ten there will be an empty seat for me to sit down on. If it's an older train, after my first nose-inhale I remember to only breath through my mouth. I take out my folded Express and begin to read. The captions are often humorous and give me a much-needed chuckle on the monotonous ride. At each stop some people get off the train and some get on though I never lift my head off to see. I am just to the entertainment section of the paper when the train stops at L'Enfant Plaza, where I must transfer to the Green Line. I knew just where to get on the train so that I would be put right by the escalator going up to the next level when I got off. Timing counts here: if I see people coming down the escalator then I've already missed my train and will have to wait. At the top of the stairs I turn and begin walking towards the platform. For Yellow Line trains, the next stop is The Pentagon, and there are usually many uniformed servicemen waiting. Last summer the scantily dressed blonde would regularly be there, too. I sometimes watched the rest of the crowed; almost surreally every male head would turn as she got on her train. I chuckled to myself. I assume she was an intern; since last summer's end she has not been back there. My train soon comes and I realize I am in the homestretch of time left before I am in work. I try to savor the taste of freedom. I pull out my paper and continue reading. I am sad because when the paper ends my journey is almost over; I almost feel that if I could read more and even read forever I could just go on forever reading and never go to work. As the train moves along and since our destination is out of the city we lose more people than we pick up on the train, and the cars slowly empty out. I finish the paper around the Southern Ave. stop, just as the metro comes above ground. As we leave the stop we past over what I like to call "the forest". Passing over the trees we also pass over a fairly wide stream. On occasion last summer I'd seen deer drinking from the water there. Everyday I strain looking for another but haven't seen one since then. I never know how long "the forest" goes on for because then we briefly go underground again. I’d like to think of the forest as endless, and that far back in those trees there are whole groups of deer grazing. On our emergence there is a field to the right of the train. It is often misty in the morning. Though for no particular reason I imagine a revolutionary battle being fought down in the mist. The right side of our train faces towards the East or South. As we approach the Naylor road stop, on the rarest of occasions - if I'm very lucky - the sunrise paints the whole sky a multitude of colors: pink, purple, orange, and red. The times I've seen this I could count on one hand. The image could appear on any postcard. I find this one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen though as I then look around the train I feel as though none of the other rides (most of them census employees at this point) see the artwork nature has created. Rather, they just stare down sulkily. We continue on and we reach the cemetery where I first thought on the trip to my second interview at the Census, "I can never work here because this commute is just too long!" - and then we continue on. We keep going and finally reach the Suitland platform. We file out of the train and up the escalator, passing those rushing down to catch the train we just got off. We keep walking up, over the walkway, where that station's Express distributor is kindly greeting commuters by him. Near him are two young boys shouting "Washington Times! Twenty-Five cents!". I've only seen them make one sale. We keep in a mob as we walk through the parking garage, out the other side to the Census gate. I show my badge the first time and walk through. Before the construction I could walk right across the street but now I must walk through a passage lined with spiders and their webs, which runs a good hundred yards around the construction. I think about how, while keeping my eyes peeled lest I walk into a web, that I will never see the end of this construction. At the building I show my badge a second time. I drag in, walk the two wings to my office, drop down my stuff with a plop and think about how I won't see the sun for nine and a half more hours, and all I'll have to show for the day is being nine and a half hours older.

Competition

We love to team up with others and go head-to-head with some other group of people. We just need a justifying characteristic in forming the group. Then, two former enemy groups may join to face some entirely other group. It could be any characteristic that defines any of the groups. Here are personal examples: At my high school, freshman, sophomores, juniors, and seniors complete against each other all through "Spirit Week" and finally on "Class Night" (Oh, the faculty participates in Class Night too - I think Mr. Anderson is undefeated in Jell-O wrestling). Then, the whole school comes together and root for the high school as its and BMHS's football teams go and get it on each Thanksgiving. Norwalkers all over will then come together to mock people from Darien or New Canaan but then most of those people will likewise come together to cheer the New York sports teams and jeer the Boston teams and the "Massachusetts-side" Connecticut residents who support them. Two Connecticut people from both of those halves of the state would support each other in defending the state against another state, and more broadly the Northeast in contrast to other sections of the county. Back in the day it was East Coast rap vs. West Coast rap. Even more back in the day it was North vs. South, blue vs. gray, Union vs. Confederacy, Yanks vs. Rebs. The whole country is together now in cheering on our American athletes in Athens. In the Olympics it is individual counties against each other, but then countries team up against other groups of countries. For example there is even the constant riff of "The West" vs. "The East". Oh, and if you saw "Independence Day" (and I know you have) you saw the whole planet come together to whop E.T.'s ass.

Growing up the kids on my street would always play touch football. Through the countless games we played we had all been both teammates and opponents of each and every other one in some point in the past, multiple times. For the duration of each individual game our supreme allegiance was to each other of our teammates, even though previously we had not only all been opponents with each other in sport, but we had even all gone to fist-fights with each other as well (in that we were always quick to forgive; the next day we’d need the other guy to make two even numbered teams). The most fun game I can recall was day when a bunch of unfamiliar kids from some unknown place stopped by our block and somehow it became a football game of all of them versus all the kids on my block, united. We all finally got to be teammates against a common "enemy".

We always classify ourselves. It's "I'm with 'us' and you're with 'them'", and that's all it takes for a bitter rivalry. I don't know the cause of this phenomenon. It could be the combination of humans as social animals and our underlying aggressiveness that adds up to this. I couldn't really say.

There are endless lines that we may draw, be it men and women, old and young, democrat and republican, and all the ethnicities, races, religions, etc. I wonder how much conflict has been caused simply by “I'm in this category and you're in that one”. In the Middle East, I don't think they're fighting simply because the other guy believes so and so and that offends me (at least not any more). I think it's now because he's one of 'them' and I'm one of 'us'. Look, at one point most of the people in the region were inter-competing tribes of people. People fought against others from different tribes. Now the tribes have united under a common religion, and they're fighting others from different religions. Former foes are now allies as conflict has simply shifted to new "lines". As long as the lines of distinction remain, well, distinct, and as long as interaction among the opposing sides is prevented or limited (interaction that would allow each side to see those on the other one are underneath it all kind, decent, and good people) I question whether there will ever be peace in the region.

Moving Day I

My mom is currently on the way down to DC to help me ship out the first of two loads of my stuff. In this past week I've slowly been getting stuff organized, though the next three hours will be extra busy for me as I get everything ready, and then tonight will be even busier.

Slowly but surely this past week, my walls have become whiter, the clutter everywhere is now less cluttered as items have fallen into organized boxes. The room is less "mine" now, and is losing it's hominess. It's all really depressing and it reminds me of how my bedroom in Norwalk was as I packed up everything I owned to come to college (I didn't have my own room to come back to, I took everything I had with me as my youngest brother moved in my bedroom). At first I was reluctant to leave my life was it was just so pathetic being around I didn't want to anymore. Not that I want to leave now but I don't want to be here specifically, anymore. Perhaps the un-cozification of my room is necessary for the easiest possible transition out of here.

My earliest memory

My first memory: I recall my father leading me out of the house by the arm towards his car parked on the sidewalk. It was dark out. We got into the car and he began driving. We started going around the block, but that's when my memory "changed" from what it should be. In my memory, my street melts into another one - I'm attributing this to either that my memory is jumbled or more likely I fell asleep and then woke up again, which is more probable because it was nighttime. I then remember walking into a building, which I was told was the hospital. My memory isn't totally fluid in these images and it flashes now to me in the hallway with my dad and some other adults, I think hospital staff. I'm given a Matchbox car (I loved playing with those in my childhood), which was an ambulance. I recall "driving" it throughout the air and making vrrrmmmm noises. My dad then comes and tells me that I have a new baby brother and takes me in to meet him...and I recall my mom and the baby.

That was more or less twenty-one years ago to this moment. Happy birthday, Eric.

[Note: I found it interesting while J.K. Rowling's biography that her first memory was going to meet her baby sister. Popular trend!]

Let the games begin!!!!!

The Battle Royal begins today; the great contest that will unite the globe as we all root for our favorite combatants that we have been waiting years to see. You know what I'm talking about: "Alien vs. Predator". Oh yes, oh yes. Who will prevail? Whoever wins, we lose...or so I've been told.

Wait, I think that movie just might suck. Actually, I know it will suck and it sucks that they're whoring out both franchises, although that is just continuing the tradition of whoring out by making the last two "Alien" movies and that “Predator 2” thing. I wonder if Arnold is going to go see the new movie: "I could take dem boff...."

BUT REALLY - the Olympics start today!!! I LOVE the Olympics. They're so fun. I love them! I love cheering America and shouting "USA!!" I want our men and women to win every medal and I don’t care if we’re already a superpower and have so much anyway. My veins will run red, white, and blue the next two weeks. Furthermore, as in games past I just may be moved to do cartwheels around the room during commercial breaks from gymnastics’ coverage. This year, the games are back in Athens. The baby has come home all grown up.

The ancient Greeks, who brought us the tradition we use for out modern-day games, loved sports. Races, throwing stuff like discs or javelins, boxing; maybe not so much synchronized swimming or bobsledding, but I suppose those are just athletic strides we have made in the millennia. With the Greeks, anything was an excuse for games. If you've read the very good Iliad or seen the very very bad Troy you know that they even had days of games as part of the funeral process. I don't know that I'd be in the mood for that I was mourning ("Oh no, Patroclus has died! Let's strip down and wrassle!!!") but I shouldn’t judge; the Greeks were likely the most rational of all civilizations there have ever been.

I've read that with the Hellenic-Ones, love of games actually got to be too much of a problem: when on duty Greeks would rather compete in athletics amongst themselves than be disciplined soldiers, so often the commanders had to restrict games. We have similar stirrings in our society today, where many kids would rather play basketball than do their homework. On the other hand, I suppose that's a lesser evil than of another problem segment of our society – the growing numbers of obese - of whom there are some, sadly, too lazy to either play basketball or do their homework.

Countdown

We loves us our countdowns: four shopping days left 'til Christmas or fifty more days left of school. This morning as I walked into work I counted that I only have six days left! Of course, one countdown is never enough so I then figured I only had eleven accursed more metro rides to or from the Census. Tomorrow it'll be five days and nine rides...sweet! Then in the hallway I was talking to a lady that works in my office when another lady who works across the hall walked past and just said, "two days!!" It was pointed out to me that in two days she was getting married. I guess her happy day comes a bit before mine, but we both are counter-downers.

My first semester in college especially (and sometime after) I always ended e-mails to my mom with "see you in __!!!", with like, “57” or whatever. That first one was a long countdown. I went from move-in to Thanksgiving without being home, which ended up being like ninety or so days.

Besides just not being home I really didn't have contact with my family outside my mom. She was the only one I talked to on the phone. Since I didn't have a cell phone or any way of making long distance calls all I could do was call her at work, because her office had a 1-800 number. I called her maybe once a week tops, if that often. When she had gone to college they wouldn't let anyone call home the first week (to curb immediate homesickness), and I did the same thing voluntarily before I called the first time. The only time I did call home actually was when I bought a small phone card to make a birthday call to my little brother, late September. Grrr, I hated those typical GW students with their cell phones all calling each other and I had to go and use a payphone just to make calls around the city to set up appointments with the DNC/RNC, which were required to complete a term paper. Grrr...anyway, so my main contact with my family was an e-mail every weekday from my mom. Once in a while I'd see my brothers on IM, but except that one time calling Scott I didn't hear their voices or have any type of contact with my father, period, during those first ninety days. That's ok, though. I really wasn't homesick.

So why was I counting down, then? Eh, I wasn't homesick but I was sick of school, of course. I just needed a break from the work, that life, the dorm with those loud people being drunk at 2am on Saturday when I was trying to sleep, etc. I wanted to taste real pizza, not fake D.C. stuff. But really, I just wanted a break from the stress, and so to bring me comfort, I counted down.

Crazy ≠ Evil

Terrorists and dictators are often labeled in media as "crazy" or "insane". I can't help but question whether that's true or an insult from a biased source. "Crazy" is wearing shoes on your feet. Targeting children and innocent civilians with bombs is evil. An emotional reporter might report such as an act committed by “insane” criminals, but I'm pretty sure they knew what they were doing. As much as it sickens me to say it, they're economizing. The terrorists aren't a sovereign nation with access to planes and bombs, so they're seeking to do the most damage (or get the most attention, at least) they can with their limited means. Their methods are immoral, but clearly calculated.

I'm uncertain whether a dictator who rose to power could have truly been insane, either. While I've learned never to underestimate the stupidity of large groups of people, especially in the case of those who rose from humble beginnings I feel as though at least some rational people, somewhere, would have protested contesting their freedoms to a literal lunatic, and prevented that assent to power. Joesph Stalin was born into poverty, a far cry from where he ended up. I confess I'm not educated enough on to history to know the full details of his rise to rule. He must have had a good deal of charisma to reach his position. On the other hand, I have heard of his paranoia. Lenin himself wrote that he was not to be trusted. Maybe his rise was the result of freak circumstance. It is unfortunate he wasn't stopped somewhere, and curious because he had a long road from the bottom to the top - he wasn't born with an army under him. Caligula was, and he really was insane. Many medieval monarchs born with armies under them were also insane, what with the inbreeding and all.

What kills me is when people say that Adolf Hitler was the most evil person ever...AND he was crazy. I just find that to be inconsistent. The state of insanity grants clemency by removing one from the responsibility of their actions - indeed, it's a legal defense (in this country, anyway). I feel that in naming Hitler "insane" he is (at least partially) exonerated of the atrocities he committed against millions. I believe that sanity is a necessary condition for sin, and I believe it's a condition met by most terrorists and dictators. That should be considered before the individual(s) be named "insane". True evil is knowing what you're doing is wrong and then doing it anyway.

Courage under fire

Becca left for Florida early yesterday morning and won't be returning until next Wednesday. At approximately 2:30 yesterday afternoon she called me from home and her first words were, "T.J., your [room] keys are in my bag!" I thought, "no way" and reached over to my sling bag where they should be attached to the key chain to confirm her error and that they were really there...but they weren't. Suddenly, every sweat pore on my body opened up: Becca has my keys. Becca is in Florida. My keys are in Florida. My keys are in Florida until Wednesday. I am going to be locked out of my room, and indeed the building, for a week and a half. Even if I get let into my room by my landlady I'll have to risk leaving the door unlocked and basically be a prisoner in the room anyway, as I'll be relying on sneaking into the locked building by chancing that someone comes out as I need to get in. Oh, that's a dilly of a pickle. This instantly flashed through my mind and then I took a breath and calmly said, "It's fine, let me call the landlady" without even a quiver in my voice. I called and coolly explained the situation. She said “no problem”, that she would leave the office copy of my room key and a building key on my bed, and that she'd leave the door unlocked for me. The only condition was that I'd have to go out that afternoon and get copies made of her office keys in case of an emergency. It was good I caught her when I did as she was leaving at 4:00 on the dot - an hour before I usually get home - so if I hadn’t caught her before then I really would have been crushed testicles. After I got off the phone with her I called Becca back and soothingly promised that everything was fine, because in fact, it was.

I think yesterday's hurdle again illustrated to me that I have a talent for remaining calm and clear minded in the face of an imminent problem. The classical example I give (and have given on job interviews even) is the time I got lost in the Moscow subway system with the tour bus about to leave. Communist inefficiency gave Moscow the most beautiful subway system and stations in the world while the rural peasants starved. That famine was water under the bridge in 2001, and having heard that the Moscow subway system was not to be missed, I made it a point to see it if given the chance while in Moscow. My group was finishing up lunch with a larger group of touring students and we were given some free time before the bus left. A bunch of students took off to see the world's largest McDonald's (which I admit would have been cool) but two friends heard there was a subway station in the area and grabbed me to come along. We thought we'd just ride the escalator down, take a peek, and then come back up. However, at the bottom of the escalator was a long tunnel which as we walked along was eventually joined by *many* other tunnels leading to the platform. Past the point of no return it became clear to us that we were very lost. You'd have to be a mole person (or able to comprehend Russian) to get out. We figured we'd just keep going, find the platform, and hopefully follow some people out to some opening somewhere. We did find the platform, and it was so-so looking (the tunnels themselves actually had some good-looking carvings). It turned out we weren't even at one of the nicer stations. Anyway, at that point we were not thinking at all about the artwork but rather that our bus was leaving in fifteen minutes and we were lost! We finally made our way above ground by following people...but it didn't turn out to be the entrance we had gone in to! The three of us had no clue where we were. We had only minutes to find our group. Semester at Sea had made if very clear at that point in the voyage that no one would be waited for. If you weren't there when the bus (or ship) departed then you were on your own. I'll save Russia stories for another day but I can tell you now that to be on our own in that country would have been a bad thing. It was beautiful and possessed a rich culture, don't get me wrong, but crime was rampant. I was one of the lucky ones who didn't get pick pocketed, for example. Moscow was an overnight train ride away from St. Petersburg where our ship was, and I honestly don't think we could have ever made it back trouble-free. Thoughts of that first night alone were scary enough. I was sure daylight would find me lying in a gutter and my two female friends as sex slaves in Siberia. I don't think my soul would have gone to Heaven if I died in that country. I'm kidding, but just slightly; there really was legitimate cause for alarm. I was still calm (at least outwardly…I was *very* concerned), and as my panicked friend insisted she knew the way, I looked up and saw a familiar building. I instantly oriented myself, determined we were in fact going in the opposite direction we should be, and then quietly explained the situation to my friends. They finally relented and I got to go my way, still calm but secretly with fingers crossed. It turns out that I was right, and we by a few minutes made it to the bus. As I sat down I was still quiet though I could feel my heart bursting out of my ribs. If I panicked I never would have seen that building and who knows what would have happened.

So, I can remain calm while working under severe pressure. What I need to work on, I’ll admit though, is remaining calm without stress! It might be February and I'm sweating that I'll never figure out my tax forms in time, or fretting that I won't find anyone to take to the senior prom….as a sophomore! Maybe I just need tension in my life to feel normal. What the heck is wrong with me!?!

Going away to college

I remember that hot August day, 1999: move-in day of my freshman year of college. Having moved in early in the day, I was then free to escape the chaos occurring on my floor and wander around worrying about where my next meal would be coming from.

F Street outside my dorm was a bustle of activity. 1000+ students would move in during that weekend, and with family/friends brought along for the move I could easily guess at least 4000 people passed through the doors, if not more. For most if not all of the students moving in, this would be the first extended time away from "the nest". The street was full of hugging families and the air full of “goodbye”s. I was one of the least homesick, but I can understand how it would be tough for many.

A scene on F & 19th stuck me and I remember it vividly even five years later. There was a guy and a girl embracing each other and bawling their eyes out. Three or four of one of their family members (I'm assuming) where standing a few feet back sobbing just as hard. With the situation on sight and what moans I could hear them saying to each other it was pretty obvious that of this boyfriend/girlfriend one of them was coming to school at GW and the other wasn't. Their tear-soaked goodbye, I can only imagine, was the end of days together back in the hometown and the beginning of some at least temporarily, and more likely substantial, time apart. The couple was trembling and shaking with emotion. "It's like a fairy tale..." observed one of the family members.

Being in a "macho" phase at the time, I mentally gagged myself. I didn’t think it was like a fairy tale. Actually, I still don't think so. I will concede that there were genuinely sad, though. For whatever reason that first year I sometimes thought back to that couple, and as is apparent I still am. I suppose the couple is on my mind because I wonder after all the theatrics if they're still together. I know maybe one high school couple that is still together at the present, and also so many couples going into college that didn't even make it through the first year. So, I find the situation ironic because those two wailing kids that were so sad to be away from each other probably didn't even stay together. I wonder what happened. Was it mutual? The common story is that one develops feelings for another and breaks it off. Alas, I'll never know how that little drama played out.

Again, I am just interested in noting the irony of the situation. I don't think they're losers or anything for showing emotion. Indeed, another reason I think the scene popped into my head again because I am preparing to say goodbye to my girlfriend of almost two years in about three weeks for a least two months' duration; we’ll be apart at least one year intermittent total (actually I just said goodbye to her this morning as she left home for a week and a half). I can tell you now I'll be sad during the goodbye scene, but there won't be a repeat of what I saw move-in day by either of us. I think we're both very confident that the distance won't be a problem and that after the next year we'll be together again. We're both leagues more mature than those two college freshman and I think thoughts of the future will be able to lend us sufficient hope and happiness in the upcoming year.

Extra-Ordinary

For the longest time I've had a problem with the word "extraordinary". In English it means "super", though if we break it down it's "extra ordinry". Like it should mean "boring".

"Man, this house ain't just ordinary, it's extra-ordinary".

In the middle of writing this I looked up the etymology...."ordinary" is Latin-based equivilating to the English "order" (think "ordinal"). So, "extraordinary" is "going beyong the normal order (of things)." Well, I suppose everything is just wrapped up in a neat little package, then! (It really is!)

Satiation

With the big move in about three weeks I've been trying to use up as much food as possible that I've stored up. Last weekend I brilliantly figured I'd use up both my sugar and vanilla by making ice cream...however, getting halfway into the cooking I realized Iwas short on both, so I ended up having to run out to the store and buying more of each just to finish. Now I have practically a full package of sugar and jar of vanilla extract - much more than when I started. Ayi yi yi!!! Now I’ll have to use those up as well. Iguess I'll be eating a lot of dessert these next three weeks. I suppose that's OK.

Thai_____

Last night I ate at a Thai restaurant named "Thai-Tanic". My previous Thai-food outing was at Thaiphoon. Very witty those Thai people are, no? What’s next? Thai-coon? Thai-Dye? Thai-me-up?!?

Product Paranoia

There are many examples of substances previously thought to be safe that are now considered deadly poison. Cigarettes were passed out to soldiers in World War II. I've seen 1950's footage of lineups of young women in swimsuits being sprayed with DDT and then the fumes being sprayed over a swimming pool of children in order to make a statement of the confidence in the chemical's safety. I even remember my 4th grade teacher telling us to ask our parents to break a thermometer at home so that we could play with the mercury, though I never did (and even now I have an internal struggle going on - that would have probably been really fun!).

I don't even know when mercury was declared unsafe. I think I was talking about buying my own thermometer to have some liquid-metal fun when Becca said, "Are you crazy? Mercury is poisonous! They don't even make thermometers with it anymore!"

Well, what else is out there that they're going to find is harmful? I thought of all the chemicals I regularly apply to my person: Is Listerine slowly dissolving my teeth? Is DCT going to give me lip cancer? (I don't care if it does, by the way; I'm a total addict) Will my deodorant do...something bad?!?

With uncountable potential dangers lurking out there, the only sane choice is to hope what's bad isn't what you're using, and thus continue to keep using what you're using. I'm not sure the lifetime of B.O. is worth the risk that maybe the deodorant isn't healthy.

Q-Day

I've never really quit anything before. I hated playing little league baseball yet I finished the season out, and then I even went on for one more miserable season that I also finished out. Going away to college was the reason I left part-time jobs; Stew's was fun but I hated Pro Golf. I only stopped my paper route because I was literally unable to do it, with football practice and then band I didn't get home until 8:30pm and I'm pretty sure that would be a little late for a certain old man in a certain red house whose afternoon highlight was the newspaper delivery. I was an altar boy until I was too tall to fit in the robes. I've never dumped anyone before. In general I have a hard time saying "no" to people. Finally, today, August 4th, 2004, I am giving my two weeks' notice to my direct supervisor to officially declare that I will be leaving the Census Bureau.

I'll be handing in my resignation letter in about twenty minutes. As I write this I'm tingling with excitement. As soon as I saw Columbia's '04-'05 academic calendar I learned when fall term classes would start, so I then planned out when my last day would be, and so subsequently counting two weeks before that day I marked when I'd let them know “two weeks from now I'm outta here” (I'm actually giving them two weeks plus one day, not because I'm nice but just for a buffer/extra-safety day in case I couldn't find anyone tomorrow). I've been counting down to this day for the past month, crossing off the days on a calendar I printed out. Turning in my notice is going to be the highlight of my week. Yesterday felt like Christmas Eve.

In all honestly, however, I think it's going to be very anticlimactic. What I'd like to do run into my boss's office, knock all the other stuff off his desk, slam down my letter of resignation, flip him two fingers, and then turn around and run down the hall screaming "I'm %&#$ing outta here!!!" Instead, I have to inform my new direct supervisor (a lady who herself is leaving two weeks after me - why I was assigned to her is beyond me) that I'm leaving (I'm still going to tell my old boss just for fun...mwuhahaha). The anticlimactic part is that I’ll have to hang around and sit on my tush for two weeks, as I doubt they're going to give me anything substantial to do knowing I'm leaving. It's OK, though...I've been sitting on my tush since I've gotten here over a year ago, which is one of the main reasons I'm leaving, anyway.

This is going to feel really good...

Midsummer daydreaming

LYSANDER
Ay me! for aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth; But, either it was different in blood,--

HERMIA
O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.

LYSANDER
Or else misgraffed in respect of years,--

HERMIA
O spite! too old to be engaged to young.

LYSANDER
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,--

HERMIA
O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.

LYSANDER
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentany as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!' The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion.

HERMIA
If then true lovers have been ever cross'd, It stands as an edict in destiny: Then let us teach our trial patience, Because it is a customary cross, As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs, Wishes and tears, poor fancy's followers.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 1, scene i

On location

This past weekend I went to see Michael Moore's documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11" (I wasn't going to go originally, but last weekend I rented "Bowling for Columbine", also by Moore, which I heard was good, and was actually so impressed I decided I was then going to see "9/11", too). Like "Columbine", I thought it was very well done: didactic and entertaining. However, it seems since the movie's release much criticism has come out against Moore seeking to damage his (or more specifically, the film's) credibility by implying that he "twisted" truths, etc. Well, fine, but perhaps the ones calling him “liar” are themselves lying, or rather “twisting truths” to defend against Moore’s criticisms. Maybe everyone's lying. I'm so confused now and I really just couldn't say. I do believe it to be unlikely that Moore flat-out lied, so there must be at least some truth to what he says. Taking that in mind, at many points during the movie I believed that we as a nation should seriously look at the Iraq situation and reevaluate if we're over there for the right reasons.

I don't really want to talk politics. I would like to discuss about when I got most excited during the movie...when I saw footage of places I practically lived! The Hyatt, Watergate, Kennedy Center, Saudi Arabian Embassy, State Department...etc...they're all in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood. I told my friend, Zach, I was going to see the movie ahead of time. He said as I watch it I'll go "oh wow, I was there, like, yesterday...” He was right!

I was passing the Watergate on the walk back from the movie theater and I didn't think, "Oh, here's the place from the movie!" I had excited because they used clips of landmarks in the area that I lived. I then thought how funny it was that I placed ownership because I "saw it" first.

In contrast, back home I'd often see footage of Rockefeller Center in New York (NBC has their studios there). Whenever I go there now I think, "Hey, here's what they show on T.V.! I'm really there!" On the other hand, if for some reason I lived in a cardboard box there my whole life and finally saw NBC Nightly News television footage I'd think, "Hey, that's where I live!" and then get all excited.

OK, it was a pointless observation.

The movie also made me thing about something else: Some of the movie was focused directly against Saudi Arabia. Now, the film mentioned the Saudis have heavily invested in Citigroup, which owns Citibank, which has a close partnership with Columbia University (my future school) and is actually giving me the loans that will help me get my graduate education. So, apparently I'm (and everyone else attending are) in league with the terrorists...?!? Gee, I hope that doesn't get out. When I'm campaigning for president or something some "truth-twisting" documentary maker or more-likely reporter trying to get a quick buck will point that out….! If that bit of information in “9/11” is correct, then I suppose there technically would be a money trail…no matter how much of a stretch it would be. It is ludicrous, but that’s “truth-twisting” for you.

A final correspondence from Monte Cristo

"...Live and be happy, beloved children of my heart and never forget that,
until the day comes when God will deign to reveal the
future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these words: Wait and
hope!"
"Your friend,"

"EDMOND DANTÈS, Count of Monte Cristo"

Gordon’s Love Story

I spent an hour and a half after mass tonight chatting with an elderly gentleman named Gordon. I met him about three weeks ago and this was our second encounter. He had asked me last time if we could find the time to chat (his wife is working in NYC now and I think he’s a little lonely) so tonight we found a park bench on Pennsylvania Avenue and began chatting. After the conversation had covered the story of how I met my girlfriend, Gordon described to me the circumstances in which he met his wife.

He was living in New York City and wanted to take an art class (art was a minor hobby of his). He found a teacher in Greenwich Village whom agreed to accept him into the water coloring class that he was going to teach. On the first day of class, Gordon saw that the classroom was setup with 8-10 easels in a circle, all facing inward. Whatever the class was painting was in the middle of the circle of easels. Gordon said that as he was painting during the lesson, he at one point looked past the subject from around his watercolor and he noticed directly across from him the face of a beautiful woman peaking out from the side of her canvas and looking back at him. As the lesson progressed he continued to see the attractive face peaking around from her canvas, smiling back and even winking! (I suppose that means he was doing a fair share of peaking and smiling himself! - oh, Gordon, you flirt, you) After the lesson he knew he had to go over and talk to that gorgeous woman. He did, and from brief chatter on walk out he acertained that she was a very nice lady. Rather than split then, he asked her to coffee, and the rest is history (that history being that he married her).

Awwww..... <3 <3 <3 :-)

Later in the conversation he said to me, "T.J., I’m a really sometimes a hard-nosed SOB and indeed many people around the world fear me professionally...but I think I’m really a nice guy deep down. I’m going to give you some advice: stay romantic throughout your life. Keep that part of you going forever." He told me about the time he asked his wife to be back at a certain hour. While she was gone, he attempted to make for her a chocolate soufflé...usually impossible for beginners but by some stroke of luck it came out perfect just as she walked in. He had laid out candles everywhere and they ate the soufflé on a blanket with flowers on the floor that he had also laid out. Afterwards he said they walked out on to the deck and enjoyed the view while embracing each other. Finally, with a chuckle he told me how they then made their way back indoors to the couch, where as he put it they had "dessert". Although it creeped me out that this sixty-something year-old stranger used such a euphemism for sex with me, I must he with his experienced years have left me some sound advice. I shall be a romantic for as long as my heart beats. Cheers, Gordon.

IMF Weekend ‘00

The International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank protests have become something of an annual tradition in Washington, and the event was known to us at GW as “IMF Weekend”.  Protesters from all over the country converged on DC to demonstrate against as what they saw as the World Bank's unfair treatment towards third world countries during an annual meeting of the bank's leaders.

I'm not sure if my freshman year was the first year the protests took place, but I recall a lot of concern on our campus and in the city.  Many of the groups that were expected to come to Washington to protest had been involved in violent protests that had done much damage recently in Seattle.  In the time leading up to the weekend, GW crews put protective plastic over all the street-level windows.  Mailboxes were removed from the area and sewer covers were sealed to eliminate potential bomb drop sites.  What I haven’t yet mentioned is that the World Bank headquarters is right next to GW's buildings and even among, as its a very urban campus.  E.g., my dorm was on 19th and F...the main World Bank building was also 19th and F, right across the street!  We were at ground zero for where the protests would take place.  $#%& would be going down outside.  My administration-plugged-in roommate told me that if the same damage that was done in Seattle occurred on the Foggy Bottom campus, the school would have to shut down.  I'm not sure if that was true or not, but the weekend was late April (16-17) and I didn't want the last three months of the semester to have had been for nothing.  Many students were leaving town for that weekend (two out of three of my roommates did, me and my remaining roommate, Joe, promised to try to hold the fort if the protesters stormed our dorm).  Some students were planning to get involved in the protest (a *weird* floormate asked me if I would like to join her at the site of an illegal protest - the legal one was too “soft” for her - I declined, also she was later arrested).  My American Studies professor said she'd be out there protesting and encouraged us to join the protest as well (the legal one, of course).  Finally, some students just saw the whole event as an inconvenience and were planning to protest the protesters for interrupting their weekend.  At least one frat draped a huge blanket over their house reading "PROTESTERS GO HOME"!

I woke up that Saturday morning at 8am to the sounds of helicopters and drums.  I knew that It had begun.

My roommate was gone; if I remember he had slept in his friends room that overlooked the corner of 19th and F (my room didn't face the street).  I got up and flipped on the news.  It really had already begun.  Protesters had stayed in big abandoned warehouses the night before to organize and get an early start.  Police had slipped in spies and were able to know exactly when many illegal activities were to take place.  At 8am there had already been hundreds of arrests (by the end of the weekend there would thousands - so many RFK Stadium had to used as a holding area for those arrested).  The news showed footage of protesters physically clashing with police: protesters trying to break through the police line, fighting with police, police pushing them back with batons, and there were even a few incidents were the protesters got so out of hand that tear gas had to be fired into the crowd (some protesters had brought gas masks, I guess they were experienced...when that gas went off the footage showed a stampede running the other way, boy).  These were mini-confrontations that took place along the long police line in various parts of the city (no footage was shown of what was happening outside my window).  We at 19th were very close to the White House (staring at 17th) so for obvious security reasons there was a long police line.  Suddenly my roommate burst in with videotape in hand.  He had recorded the street scene down below at 19th and F from his friend's room on the 6th floor in the room on that corner with his camcorder.  He popped the tape in to show me what was going on. There was huge mob of police and protesters, people deep on each side.  There were shouts and chants and I was so surprised how many people there were.  We thought, "Hmm, shall we work on our papers or check out a large-with-riot-potential- sized crowd?"  We'd never seen anything like that and so it was exciting, I'll admit.  We prepared to venture out.

Outside I saw where the drum sound had come from.  About 100 people were sitting on the steps and grass of the dorm next to ours banging on buckets or anything that would make a noise.  The noise there was intense with all the shouting and chanting.  We weren't the only GW students out there and many were taking pictures.  We didn't want to get to close to the police line and in possible trouble so we stayed on our side of the street and pushed through the crowd.  We were so amazed that in one morning our quiet little corner had become a nexus of activity, the epicenter of this huge occurrence.  We wanted to venture out further into the city so we walked down 19th with plans to go to the White House to see the situation there (and make sure that President Clinton didn't need to be saved by us).  As we walked past the alley between the two dorms we saw a crowd of protesters in the dumpster doing who knows what (later we heard they overturned that dumpster).  Fortunately as we got further away the crowd thinned out and we were able to walk more freely.

The spectacle at our corner was nothing compared to what was at The Ellipse (the park in front of the White House).  It was like Woodstock.  There was a stage set up by the protesters and what looked like a small fair going on from the booths.  We went in to check it out.  On the way we walked past the long line of stone-faced police officers who were standing shoulder-to-shoulder around the White House.  They wouldn't answer even when some guy asked them where a pay phone might be.  They had brought these guys in from all the surrounding counties to have enough manpower.

At The Ellipse, it seemed there was just a miscellaneous protest for various topic.  Many other protesters (of other fronts) had latched on with their own causes to the main “event” – the World Bank protest.  While the main stage was focusing on the IMF, other booths had messages such as "Legalize Marijuana!".  On guy was standing on a soapbox shouting, "Free Political Prisoners!!!  Free Mustafa!"  I never did find out who Mustafa was and I'm not even sure if he was even in an American prison.

Later that day we overheard some protesters with radios say the police line had moved to encompass all of the GW campus...that meant since we couldn't cross the line we'd be stuck outside of our dorms until whenever the police left...as it was only Saturday that could have been at least two days!  We ran back planning to flash our student IDs and to beg to get let through.  Back on campus the line-moving rumor turned out to not be true and we were able to get to our dorm, but we acknowledged that the line moving as a very real possibility and decided we'd had enough excitement and to stay inside the rest of the night (our wonderful dorm had a cafeteria in its basement, so we were set!).  The situation was tense with the crowd outside, though.  Even my own RAs who happened to be standing post inside the doorway demanded I show my photo ID!

The next day was a bust, it rained and no protesters showed up.  I finally got to work on my paper, and without the constant beating of plastic drums.  Friends returned that night and we were able to tell stories of all that happened.  The whole weekend was no Seattle; there really wasn't any damage to the University.  Mass arrests seemed to quell all problems.  My friend, who was honestly acting innocent, was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was arrested.  She had stories of her own with that experience.  Since I'd never want to have two police officers watch me while I use the bathroom, I resolved never to be arrested.

The protesters kept coming back each year, but it was never as eventful (for me, anyway) as that first year.  By my senior year I was thoroughly sick of all protests.

These memories popped in my head this morning when I read in the paper that Ben & Jerry – yes, *THE* Ben & Jerry - were arrested yesterday while protesting outside the Sudanese embassy.  I'll be eating some Chunky Monkey ice cream tonight, thereby doing my own part to help contribute to their bail.

Dirty pants of my dirty past

Here's the story of the most dirt I ever had inside my pants:

My Pop Warner football practice was cancelled early due to a sudden, torrential downpour.  Since it was early and a bunch of us were left waiting for our rides home, we headed over to a nearby baseball field that had since become flooded in the rain.  It was raining so hard that in parts of the field the water was actually a couple of inches deep.  The situation there soon became a group of pre-teens sliding/swimming in the mud/mini-lake.  That was my second favorite (if not first) time in a rainstorm.  We didn't want our parents to show up and take us away from the excitement.  The thunder was booming, the rain was pouring, and I guess there might have even been some lighting as we played in that slightly open-field while in a huge pool of water.  We didn't care because we were young and stupid, and also wet, muddy, and happy.

 When my dad finally did show up he almost $#%& a cupcake when we saw the two mud-covered boys he had to take home.  My brother and I were ordered straight down to the basement to take off our football gear, the easiest place to contain/deal with the mess.  From sliding around in the muddy water, our tight football pants had become full of mud (and muddy water), and as the water had evaporated we were left with just clothes full of dirt.  As we took off our padded football pants the soil came out in clumps.  It was pretty bad.  My cup had become filled with a solid ball of earth.  I was laughing the whole time.

A world less beautiful than it looks

After I graduated from "Choose your own Adventure" books, my primary literary involvement was with comic books.  I mainly read Marvel, so “Spider-Man”, “X-Men”, etc.  I think I bought a "Batman" once, just to say I owned one.  They were fun and brainless reads.  A part of me even saw comics as an investment; that in thirty years or so I'd be able to sell them all and retire early, assuming the 3000% appreciation of value of the some older comics (I check ebay every once in a while and all those comics now are not even worth the paper they're printed on...but I still have twenty years to go for the price to shoot up!).

I can remember the exact moment when I realized the fallaciousness of what I was reading.  It was an issue of X-Men, and I turned to a page featuring a large drawing of Professor X.  Professor X is the X-Men's leader...he is an older man who is without the use of his legs and so confined to a wheelchair.  The image was of him sitting in some lab wearing a tight shirt.  I was immediately struck by the fact that this crippled man had the body of an Olympian.  The guy could have modeled for Abercrombie.  I find it inspirational that in his immobilized condition he was able to do daily crunches.  You could have scrubbed your laundry on those abs.  I thought, "Give me a break!"  The comic book world with its idealized human bodies was then shattered by the ridiculousness of what I saw.  I stopped reading comic books shortly after (though for multiple reasons). 

Comic books are an extreme in distorting reality.  In superhero comic books, every female has Barbie's measurements and, as I've mentioned, even a cripple could model briefs.  Other forms of media are less cartoonish in their exaggerations yet are still deceptive, and the subtlety makes them even more dangerous.  Friends of mine pointed out a bad airbrushing job on a Britney Spears poster that, uh, someone must have placed on my dorm wall because it certainly wasn't mine...right, so anyway…that airbrushing was evident, most other paint work isn't, and there’s a lot out there.  We're constantly bombarded with images of beautiful people and now it isn't even enough to have the one-in-a-million genes; you'll never be able to compete with a treated/enhanced photo of a swimsuit model.  I can understand the pressure on young girls and how they’ve suffered due to their perception of how they believe society wants them to look.  Furthermore, I argue that females are not the only victims of this.  The effects of males bombarded with images of these Adonises are increasingly being talked about.  Guys are relatively more reluctant to discuss their feelings so in that way I think their concerns have taken a back seat to the girls’.  I can't say who deserves more sympathy.  As time goes on I think more consequences to both sexes will be brought forth, such as the "reverse anorexia" guys are now diagnosed with (obsessively working out because they think they're too skinny).  Advertisers have deep pockets, and I'm sure the pictures of the beautiful people will inundate us even more just so we buy a car or some drink. The prudent course of action, in my opinion, is to recognize that many of these images are not even reality, and that even the untouched ones feature people who are the products of genetic miracles.  Documentaries on airbrushing I've heard are also very informative.  The image facilities that are presented to us everyday are very real and many of us have been dealing with it our whole lives.  Remember He-Man?  That guy was jacked.

Professional Athletes

Stan Taylor (football star): … Ned Flanders saved me. I used to party all night and sleep with lingerie models until Ned and his bible group showed me that I could have more.
Homer: [murmuring] Professional athletes, always wantin' more...
-The Simpsons

We hate professional athletes because of their greed, but really we all want to be them.  Who wouldn't?  They get paid to play a game.  They make far more than most Harvard graduates who studied every Saturday night for doing basically what elementary schoolers do at recess.  Then, while they argue $19 vs. $20 million on their contract we're hating our job pushing papers of sweeping buses or whatever and would kill to just sit the bench for even a tenth of what they make (though we still go back and watch them week after week).

I've heard theories explaining the phenomena of wanting the extra million when you're already set up for fifty as that the athletes are different people than us.  For most of us there's a diminishing marginal return of utility on each extra dollar of income.  Athletes (and people like them) actually instead get increasingly excited with each dollar.  Maybe that's just fancy talk for "greedy".  It’s a pretty abstract theory and I don't know if I should believe it.  What I do doubt is if their value to society is reflected in their paychecks.  I don't see anything inherent in sports as a profession that would mean the athlete deserves millions of dollars.  On a side-rant, the same goes with pop music-stars...I be crying for anyone who can't buy ten cars or a phat crib because CD sales are lagging.  Aren't artists supposed to be stereotypically starving, anyway?  Oh well, with music and sports I suppose this is the wage our market economy has settled on, and far be from me to argue a better way of determining wages.  And hey, this society really likes its sports.

Now let me defend the athletes on, although a trivial point, a pet peeve of mine none the less.  I hate it when somebody says, "That guy/team sucks!"  No, they don't suck.  They're actually very good.  Maybe they're “relatively less gifted” than those that win the Super Bowl, or even those that have winning records, but they're still good enough to get paid millions just to play a game.  Tens of thousands come to see them play and millions watch them on TV.  No one cares about you sitting in your living room eating Fritos in your dirty t-shirt, and with your beer belly who are you to talk anyway?  Growing up back in their hometown they undoubtedly dominated the field and were the MVP every year and dated all the pretty cheerleaders.  Honor students moved out of their way in the halls.  All the middle-aged men who peaked in high school would stand around at their games drinking coffee and cheering loudly for them.  All the old men townies would say to each other "There's never been one like him in Podunk".  Now, you don't become suckier going from Nowhere-ville jock-god to the NFL.  OK, they don't suck.  What if you found yourself against someone you called “sucky” at a pickup game down at the park?  Dude, they'd walk all over you.

Age & Weight Disclosure

Why are people so hesitant to divulge their age or weight (by ‘people’, of course, I mean ‘women’)? I could understand for example if the person not wanting to name their age or weight was a pen pal, but when admitting your age/weight to someone who has seen you there is rarely a surprise. If a morbidly obese woman told me that she was in the upper 300’s, I’d think, "Yeah, OK, I expected that." It wouldn’t be a shocker.

Age and weight are simply numbers. I would think for most people appearance would be important than whatever the person weighted or their age. OK, I’ll make it personal. On paper, I’m fat - that is, my weight is high. Though cooking for myself has caused me to waste away over the last year, at my peak the year before I was 190lbs. (and 5’10"). Considering only my height and weight, I’m obese. However, I wasn’t (and am not) really fat. I had a high muscle mass, and since muscle weighs more than fat, it put my weight up past what looks "normal" on charts. People trying to peg my weight would always guess at least thirty pounds too low. I told them my weight and no one believed me! In my case my weight (the number of pounds) was meaningless. Rather, it was my appearance that spoke. Actually I just got my body tested about two months ago and I was under the ideal my males my age...yikes! I need more ice cream in the diet!!!

My point is that if you lie about your age and/or weight (or just won’t say) it’s not going to change what your appearance is. If a non-fat person gives a high weight, it’s not like everyone’s opinion of their appearance will suddenly change to think, "Oh, there goes Bob the chunk-monster." Likewise with a heavy person...if a heavier person drastically lies about their weight, well, no one is going to believe them anyway. If they won’t say, people are still going to think they have a high weight, because they’re not blind. Appearance is what matters. This is why they tell dieters to look in the mirror and not the number on their scale. It’s just a number.

Of course, there’s a politeness factor. Asking age and weight is a rather rude question. Even if we could make a good guess, I suppose it’s proper that uncertainty is left. The Census deals with confidential economic data, and there are people working there whose sole jobs are the make sure that confidentiality is kept. People are very careful in dealing with disclosure, even to the point of checking that all the ways a single company’s information that could be systematically determined in other ways are prevented. Everyone in America could guess that the big companies make gajillions, but no one knows precisely how much an individual company makes, at least from Census data. With companies or people, sensitive information might be better left to the individual. We know Miss Daisy is old, but never precisely how old, and if that leaves Miss Daisy at easy, we should leave it was such.

I suppose there are some surprises. With the plastic surgery wave that’s sweeping the nation I imagine there will be more and more people who are actually much older than they look, and I would guess it would be embarrassing to admit that you’re "fake" when your age and appearance don’t match-up. Likewise with weight a person might wear baggier clothing, and so it would be harder to truly know the person’s body type. In these situations since the outside world is prevented from surmising the situation I could see how the person would be even against saying their age or weight.

So, for the sake of politeness, let’s keep it "don’t ask, don’t tell". But please understand that most people already know. I’m sure we all have more skeletons in our closet than that what would just confirm what anyone with two eyes could plainly see, and I suggest focusing our energies on keeping those secrets under-wraps.

Conversion

Stories of people whom had converted to their religion has always interested me. Let’s face it: most of us are the religion we are because we were born that way. We didn’t "shop around" for our religions. We accept the faith we were raised, often blindly. Converters, on the other hand, also believe in their faith, but their distinction is that they had previously rejected another religion. Given two options (in reality much more) to believe in which nothing can be proven as the ‘true’ selection, the choice seems arbitrary. Yet, it is captivating to hear the stories and reasons explaining the reason the converted chose the way they did.

A large part of the ‘credibility’ a person has for their religion is that it has been handed to them; they were raised up from childhood with that religious instruction. I don’t know enough theology to know if any religion can be logically proven to be correct, but I doubt there is or the matter would be settled and we could all flock to the correct one. There is no ‘proof’ in religion, that’s why it’s often referred to as ‘faith’. It’s just that: ‘faith’.

With all the religions in the world, I don’t think that more than one can be right. I suppose one tops, and more probably none of them. For all we know some undiscovered native tribe could possess the "real" religion, and we spend the afterlife holding up the sky with the giant Turtle-god, As-k’in-aron.

As I rationally find it so easy to be wrong, I suppose after my own religion Agnostism would come as the next best choice (Atheism is just a blind faith in itself). If my religion is true, is it 100% true? Maybe we got most of it right but are off on a few points, due to human error. I’m not sure. I believe it’s all true, but fmy aith is the spackle plaster in the holes of reason of my belief.

Where I’m going with all of this I can see how it’s easy to lose one’s faith, yet difficult to gain another (or even grow deeper in your own) as the growth of faith takes place in the absence of proof. This is what makes the story of conversion to another faith all the more fascinating to me. Why do people choose religions other than what’s been given to them? Are they more appealing? Does the new religion and associated moral code allow more "Thou shall not"s? Is it rebellion against...whatever? I’ve heard of visions that appear to individuals that are the cause of their conversion. Be it apparition or not, I imagine that all conversion stories stem from an interesting cause.

Shoe Laces

Walking down the street with your shoelaces untied is truly a double-edged sword.  You look like a dork walking with your shoelaces untied and you also look like a dork bending over to tie them.

Pay Phones

Yesterday I was repaying someone the cost of my lunch; she had put our office luncheon on her credit card. When I paid her she (to my surprise) gave me back change, even though it was very little. I joked that now I’d have enough to make a pay call.

Or would I? We couldn’t decide what that cost of a call is anymore. I want to say I feel like it’s up to fifty cents...I’m pretty sure it was thirty-five cents around the time I stopped using them, as I recall the inconvenience of not being able to use just a quarter anymore (as I had for most of my use of pay phones). I bet our grandpas will tell us that they cost a dime or even a nickel even way back when. I would research how much a pay phone call is but I don’t even know where one is around here to look up the price on...and I live downtown!

I’m not all that sure anyone even uses pay phones anymore. Cell phones are killing them off. The lady from my office’s theory is that now pay phones are only used by those with bad credit. I’m sure some people do use them in places like airports and such, and also of course times they’ve forgotten their cell phones at home.

I think pay phones had a "golden age" in the pre-cell phone days of The Beeper. I never had a beeper (or even a cell phone until two years ago) but I remember being out with friends when suddenly they’d jump up saying, "Oh, I just got beeped! We have to go find a pay phone!!!" What was happening is that as people were getting pages (as they hadn’t before the beepers were around), they were now specifically seeking out pay phones in order to purchase a call when they got their beeper they wouldn’t have because they wouldn’t have known anyone was trying to call them without the beeper; there were now just more reasons to make a call. On a side note, that’s one of the things I found rude about beepers: if you were out with friends you would stop what you were doing to get in touch with other friends (which never was for anything important)....little did I know the inconsiderateness that would come about with cell phones...but I digress. Anyway, there must have been big pay days for the pay phone companies back then. When cell phones came about they eliminated the need to find those pay phones, or use of them at all. Cell phones killed beepers as well.

I remember my own uses for pay phones. As caller IDs were getting more popular, if for whatever reason I didn’t want a person to know it was me that was calling (I’m very sneaky), I would go get in my car and drive to a nearby pay phone and make the call from there. That way it wouldn’t be my last name showing up in the caller ID.

My most popular use for pay phones would simply be calling home if I needed a ride. I get nostalgia everytime I drive past the certain rest stop on the highway that the wrestling team bus would stop at on the way to the high school to call home and tell our parents that we were now at the fifteen minute point from the high school and to come pick us up. (On another side note, there was a McDonald’s in that rest stop and once in a while some fat kid would buy the forbidden fast food and *try* to sneak it past Coach - always with humorous results!) One time instead of stopping coach let us all use his cell phone...it was the first time I had ever used a cell phone...I thought it was broke; God, I didn’t know you had to hit "Send"!

For the most part we stopped at that rest stop to make calls. I had my own little method with my mom (and I know I’m not the only one). I’d call 1-800-Collect, and when it came time to say my name, my name was "mompickmeup". Or, I would say my name but when she heard "T.J." she would just reject charges and know to come get me. With tactics like these, 1-800-collect, and not just cell phones, contributed (or should I say are contributing...there are still some) to the demise of the pay phone. Blame Carrot Top.

Blackheart's Deal

I'd be able to devote everyday to "The Simpsons" if I wanted.  No other cultural phenomenon has given so much to my life; nothing else would be referenced in conversation with friends with such frequency.  I wish they'd never stop making episodes, but I know that day is coming.
 
The middle-old episodes are clearly the best.  Say, seasons 4-5ish.  Those are the classics, and contain so many beloved scenes.  One of my all-time favorite images is Homer shouting out the open window, "That wasn't part!!!" outwards to the open air.  Ring a bell?  Here are the scenes leading up to it (in case you've been living under a rock): Bart had won an elephant, Stampy, in a contest.  The family, unable to afford care for the animal, had been looking for someone to give Stampy away to and finally found a buyer...
 
 
Man: Mr. Simpson, I think you'll find this amount more than fair.
Lisa: Dad, I think he's an ivory dealer!  His boots are ivory, his hat is ivory, and I'm pretty sure that check is ivory.
Homer: Lisa, a guy who's got lots of ivory is _less_ likely to hurt Stampy than a guy whose ivory supplies are low.
Lisa: Mr. Blackheart?
Blackheart: Yes, my pretty?
Lisa: Are you an ivory dealer?
Blackheart: [laughs] Well, little girl, I've had lots of jobs in my day: whale-hunter, seal-clubber, president of the Fox network, and, like most people, yeah, I've dealt a little ivory.
Bart: Dad, you can't do this.  Stampy is my friend.
Homer: Don't worry, son.  I'll get you a new elephant.
Blackheart: I'll take that one too.
Homer: Done!
 
Blackheart: All right, I'll be back in the morning to pick up Stampy.
Homer: Here's the keys.
Blackheart: Elephants don't have keys.
Homer: Well, I'll just keep these then.
----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Bart: Don't worry, Stampy.  I won't let Homer sell you to that ivory dealer.  You and I are going to run away together.  We'll keep to he back roads and make our way south.  Then, if I know my geography, it's just twelve miles to Africa.  OK, bud, very quietly: let's just sneak through --
[Stampy brushes him off and tromps off]
Stampy! [walks through the Flanders' yard]
Ned: [gasps] It's the four elephants of the apocalypse!
Maude: That's horsemen, Ned.
Ned: Well, getting closer. 
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
[Lisa runs into her parents' bedroom, clearly distraught]
 
Lisa: Mom!  Dad!  Bart and Stampy are gone!
Marge: Oh my Lord!
Lisa: I bet it's 'cause of that horrible ivory dealer, [accusingly] Dad.
Homer: He took Bart, too?!?  That wasn't part of our deal, Blackheart. [yelling out the window] That wasn't part!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why is it better to be worse off?

Everyone likes to think they have it worse than everyone else (many like to say it out loud even more than they like to think it).  There are those who think they have the hardest teachers, classes, or major.  There are those who think their sports team trains harder with practices more physically demanding than any other team or sport.  Everyone seems to think his or her own race or ethnic group went through the cruelest oppression throughout history.
 
I suppose success may be measured by the obstacles that one has overcome.  I'm assuming that this belief is at least loosely held with the masses.  Those that are lamenting about their hardships are actually attempting to assert their success as defined by their difficulties.  I've often seen students in different classes after discussing grades received fall into an argument with each other about whose teacher was harder.  I believe the general attempt is to raise oneself by recalling how hard their road has been, or how many hindrances life has thrown at them.  It even gets so absurd as to be taken to the point of bragging rights?  “Look how far Coach pushes my team in practice, but you wusses on the track team have it so easy!”  That's another thing, it comes as an insult to say, "your _____ is easy."  I feel very few of those that live on Easy Street would like to admit they do.
 
This mentality is all a bit narrow-minded.  The first line in the above paragraph is itself a paraphrase of a quotation by Booker T. Washington, who was born into slavery.  Slavery was pretty tough, or so I'm assuming.  No one currently living in this country has ever been an institutionalized slave.  I think Booker might have been a tad bit worse off at one point than most of us are today.  I think slaves have legitimate clout to gripe.
 
Those who truly have it bad don't have school courses at all; they're not able to complain which one is tougher and would likely be happy with any education.  Those who truly have it tough don't have sports teams that are difficult; they also don't have good health at all.  In regards to race and ethnicity, the groups who have truly had it the worse aren't around anymore to complain that they have had it so awful, be it any of tribes and people on at least five continents of which I'm not educated enough to name (and in some cases written history itself has forgotten about).  The people who have truly had it bad are now extinct.
 
Maybe it's all relative.  Yes, I know: "We're not under the slave-driver's whip anymore but the Joneses are still much richer than me."  It really is all relative, however, and we should consider the bigger picture, as we possibly have imperfect information.  For example, why do many view themselves as middle class?  They likely are the middle class, given their immediate geographical area.  If you widen that area to include outside of what is immediately visible, that might not be the case anymore.  Look, the median income of Beverly Hills is a bit higher than Mississippi's, but chances are a family in either location is just an average family, however of two very different areas (with a big difference in averages).  Go further still and look outside the U.S. borders.  Just by being in this country the odds are you are in fact fairly well-off.  There are people in other countries that would commit crimes to possess the standard of living of even the poorest American has.
 
Let's really put things in perspective.  We have it pretty good, just given the technology of age in which we exist.  Even the richest kings of medieval Europe didn't have flush toilets, and the Emperors of Rome didn't have air conditioning.  Those men were the rulers of the civilized world.  I've been to Rome in July...it gets pretty hot.
  
 I propose we stop being drama queens, whiners, and complainers.  I’ll admit I am guilty of the same, though I will resolve to quit as well.  It’s important to recall from where you may have come (figuratively speaking) to keep things in perspective, but immature to throw a pity party with woes and absolutely ridiculous to brag about them.

"COPS": Live and in-studio version

This morning I stood as usual at the platform level of the Foggy Bottom metro station waiting for my train.  As I was waiting, a train going in the opposite direction stopped and riders began to get off drearily, a routine scene in my morning commute.  Suddenly, from the other side of the upward-bound escalator, I heard a voice yelling, "Stop!"  A man about in his later 20's came running around and escalator and started heading up the escalator, knocking people on the escalator every which way as he passed them.  A policeman was on his heels the whole time.  He tripped him once on the escalator by grabbing his ankle, and finally caught up to him and tackled him at the top, where the policeman worked to wrestle the man to the ground.  It looked to be quite a struggle from where I was standing.  Eventually, the policeman gained the upper hand and as he was still working the guy to the ground the guy the guy started bawling "Give me my shoes, man, I need my shoes!"  I'm guessing his shoes must have come off.  The cop clearly didn't care and expressed that with "F*ck your shoes!  Get down!"  Their “conversation” continued in that manner for the next moment.  What glimpses I saw as they moved into view in the escalator staircase was the policeman forcing the guy's head down and shouting "Get down!  Get on the ground!"  Other metro riders were on the upper level and it looked like one rider even taunted the guy on the ground before he turned and walked away.  I wonder if there had been some type of altercation between the two at the start of all this.  My train arrived shortly thereafter and I tried to get what last glimpses I could.  At this point it looked like the station manager was looking on, at least one new policeman had arrived, and the original policeman looked like he was punching the guy hard, possibly in the head.  I also looked around in the station and saw that all eyes were on the event.  As it was all taking place right at the top of the escalator, I wonder how riders disembarking from the train I got on managed to get up.  If I wanted to really be nosy I could have let a few trains passed and stayed to watch the way this little drama played out.
 
I had never seen that type of police action in real life before.  Most "live" police work that I had seen was the sort of directing traffic or writing traffic tickets.  The most "exciting" thing I had ever previously seen was at Veteran's Park, where a car was being searched, some illegal drugs already having been found.  OK, there was the time where a much younger me was yelled at for being too close to the railroad tracks, which was "exciting" for me in a more embarrassing sense, so we're just going to forget about that.  I'm not going to count GW's UPD ganging up to beat up homeless people many times my freshman year.  Playing on the Raider's for Norwalk's Pop Warner, all my coaches were by coincidence police officers, either local or state.  The difficulty of practice each day depended on how tough the previous night had been for them (they all worked the night shifts so our late afternoons were their mornings).  For example, one day we showed up and Assistant Coach Whiterben was looking mean and had a busted-up hand.  "Some punk-@ass motherf*cker thought he could take my head off last night, but I put him on his f*cking back!  Now start running!!!"  And we ran.
 
Anyway, back to this morning.  What stuck me was the robotic, glazed of stare I observed on everyone in the metro station during the struggle.  I found it odd because to me, they all seemed emotionless.  There wasn't any concern on anyone's face, just passive attention to what was happening on the top of the stairs.  I'm going to say "pod-people-like".  Why is this?  Has the violence in our culture, especially on TV and movies, numbed us to sights like this?  I could flip on a DVD and easily see something even more graphic.
 Do motorists on the highway who slow down for accidents share the same dull stare with those in the station this morning today?  Were those in the station merely calm externally, acting their age and keeping in decorum, whereas they in their younger years would have gone running to witness a schoolyard brawl?  I suppose internally we are all wired a bloodthirsty species.  We love those fights at school, the WWF, and action movies.  For whatever reason the scuffle in the station this morning did not cause the spike in excitement it once might have in our lives, but it commanded everyone's attention and is likely going to be the most exciting thing in the workweek of us desk-jobbers.  I’m not sure if I’m making the police takedown of that man a bigger deal than it was, or if I’m correct in saying that the incident was of greater significance than to be relinquished to mere water-cooler banter in the upcoming day of those who witnessed it.

The results are in

I just might have a place to live next year.  Apparently Catholicism is a religion that pays off.
 
None of the things I worried about in Saturday’s post happened, and I’ve concluded I worry too much.
 
With last night’s two dinners/two desserts, I have become filled with nostalgia for the days of yore when I would have two dinners/two desserts.  I think it would be proper to institute a second Golden Period where I dine with said schedule.

My two good deeds

I'd like to say I do a good deed every day.  Sometimes I don't get the opportunity to, though the right thing to do is probably to seek them out.  Anyway, I might not get the chance today with my trip to NYC, but to make up for it I did two good deeds yesterday, so on average that works:

• On noticing that our home computer was running very slowly while online, with popups regularly, um, popping up, I downloaded and installed Lavasoft's Ad-Aware program.  I think the most recognized malicious objects a run has ever detected for me has been like eighty-something.  The computer here had 1969.  I can attest, the Internet has been running much smoother.  I did a good thing.
• The push-out window in the bathroom does not want to seem to close.  It causes the house to heat in the winter and cool air in the summer (well, definitely cool air in the summer, I'm not sure that it had been broken in the winter).  So, I went outside, braved wild spiders in getting the ladder (which involved stuntman-like maneuvers), and managed to position the ladder in the difficult space between our deck and bathroom window.  I then plopped myself off the deck into the former garden there (now a barren plot of terrain) and began the grueling climb to the window.  On reaching the ladders end and fortunately the window, I determined that the window was broken and couldn't be pushed in.  Although I didn't fix the window, I did try, and the thought should count.

OK, the window is at least half a good deed.  I suppose I should try and do at least half a good deed today to make up for it.  I fortunately have many examples of people only halfheartedly doing good deeds (and work in general in today's society) so the effort should be easy to duplicate.

Pessimism

The weather forecast for tomorrow gives a 90% chance of rain, so it’s going to rain all day tomorrow as I wander the streets of New York City.  I have no place to go and my plan was to wander, so as I walk the streets with a poor umbrella my clothes and all my belongings will likely get soaked.  Because I’m dripping wet I’ll likely make a poor first impression on people I’m trying to impress for housing. 
 
I’ll get on the wrong train again and end up on the wrong side of Manhattan like the last trip to New York, or I’ll miscalculate the time it takes to walk to where I’m going from the train station, so I’ll end up late for my meeting with the chaplain.
 
His accent will be too thick for me to understand him and it will be an awkward conversation.  He will finish the interview quick and I will be bored and also wet for the next three hours.  If I bring a change of clothes that will also become wet.  Reading books I bring to pass the time will become ruined.
 
The graduate housing director will be late and I’ll have nowhere to go.  Her lateness will also worry me because I will be worried about going home.  Throughout dinner I will checking my clock as I will be worried the whole time about getting a return train home.  Dinner will be bad but I will have to choke it down to not be rude.
 
The house/rooms will be in poor condition or the rent will be out of my budget.  The people will be weird.
 
I will leave the house far later than I wanted to and have to walk in the dark back to the train station.  Walking through south Harlem I will get mugged in left in a gutter.  If it’s still raining I won’t get mugged but I’ll get soaked again and have to ride the train home in misery.  If I take the subway to the train station I will get lost and end up in the Bronx.  If I take a cab it will be more expensive than I can afford.
 
I will mope on the ride home about living in sub-satisfactory conditions or realizing I’ll have a three-hour round trip commute every day I need to go to class and will have to suck up the lesser evil.  I will get home too late for anyone to pick me up and will have to walk home from the East Norwalk train station – assuming I even get on the right line.  When I get home I will see than Kobe peed on my bed and Mikey on my pillow. 
 
I will not get the sleep I need because I got home so late.  I will not have time to do the things I need to do in the morning, like collect my weather data.  I will sit next to a smelly person on the plane.  When I get back to my room it will be too hot and also all the posters will have fallen off the wall.
 
I will have forgotten something important at home in my sleepy-eyed rush to leave early Monday morning.
 
Finally, around Tuesday, a mango reaction-rash from mangos that were in my kitchen and whose oil may have rubbed on something I touched will appear on my hands, and every part of my body that my hands had touched.

A stranger in my own land

I'm going home tonight, “home” as in Norwalk.  “Home” as in the place that actually hasn't been my home in the last five years.  However, there is the potential that I may be moving back there.  While the possibility of living in Manhattan is, um, somewhat more appealing, I can't rule out that I won't be moving back to the place which I was born.  It's heads or tails and the events of this weekend are going to determine where I'll call home for at least the next year.  I should know by next week.
 
That being said, in many ways I don't feel that moving back to Norwalk would be coming home to the same place I left.  While there has been new development, it's not like the area is recognizable.  Far from it.  It still looks the same place.  What I am talking about are the people who inhabit the town.  In many ways I suppose anything other than a BIG city is defined by the people who live in it.  Most of the people I grew up with aren't there anymore.  Most of my neighborhood as I grew up consisted of elderly people; most of them have sadly passed away or moved to Florida.  A few of my friends growing up never left my street but only because they're losers and never left my street.  If they're still there I don't see myself hooking up with them.  I've gone a very different road compared to them since I phased them out about a decade ago, and we're very different people now.  I suppose we always were, but now we don't have touch football or kill-the-carrier as a common bond anymore.
 
Friends I would like to see again, unfortunately, I won't necessarily be able to, as they may have left Norwalk themselves.  Friends of mine are actually today moving out of Norwalk down to the D.C. area, ironically.  I'm sure that of the people who didn't leave during or immediately after graduating college, there has been a slow drain away from the city, if anyone was even left.  As I continued to go back there it was always rarer to see a familiar face.  Still, I do know for a fact there are several friends of mine still in Norwalk.  It would be fun to rekindle those old friendships and also to explorer who is still around that I'm not aware of.  Perhaps I'll even meet new people, though I'm not so sure Norwalk is a draw of people my age to move into.
 
 Although I can't meet old friends at the Wesporter Diner anymore, both because the friends and the diner are now gone, there are some old constants; I can still get that ice cream cone at Stew's.  My family is there, and I'm certain old friends and acquaintances to have an occasional social outing.  Norwalk will always hold memories for me.  I am somewhat branded with its mark, as my biography will always read, "Born in Norwalk, graduated NHS 1999, etc."  I fully understand that the crowd I left for D.C. will never all be there again, and even in some ways that's good.  I've learned in the last five years who my real friends are, and I will be staying in touch with them regardless of distance in case they have moved, just as they have stayed in touch with me when I moved.  I can't really be truly sad anyone has left, as I can't blame them - I myself had left.  Through my travels and with the vast number of people I've met, I'm better off in that I can choose my friends based on their qualities rather than geographical convenience as I may have before I left home.  So, although I may not see all the same friends I had known in Norwalk, or Washington D.C., for that matter, it's nice to know my friends are still out there.  It's also nice to know that even if no one else I knew is left in Norwalk, Kobe will always be waiting for me at home.