Staying in

The Bronx is a ten minute walk from where I live. I've yet to go there. I haven't visited the park near my apartment. I haven't eaten at the highly rated restaurants in my neighborhood.

Mostly I work or sleep. I'm a bit of an insomniac, so when exhaustion eventually drags me prostrate, I remain there as long as possible. Often I find myself waking up at noon or one. The only thing that lifts me from bed is work or outings with friends. The outings with friends are rare, so I get up for work.

Not to say I'm unproductive: during my sleepless nights I read good books and write.

Literature. I went to the Nuyorican Poetry Cafe on Friday night. I basked in the movement of people back and forth -- the men tended to slam about politics and the women about social injustice. I've just flipped through my music collection, looking for an artist with the passion or honest eloquence I saw on the Nuyorican stage. Bright Eyes may be the only comparison; but for his whiny scrawl, substitute the cursive rhythms of east coast rap.

Here's the poem I sketched the next night about one of the poets:

this is the persuasive
sermon ... this diatribe
from the bottle of this
Atlanta acreage, bared
like this woman's chest -- with
that honesty of address.

this is the finally
ill invalid facing
her demise with shocking
regard for these invalids.

her upheld hand cups a
lucent mantel ... and a
white knife she drives through her
leather coat. Her black-skinned
blood salves bored cancers -- red
coughs do not enrage by
vague triviality.
Her blood punctually
succors small kids and plants goats.

not for the lack of tithe
in her other hand, not
for the lack of glory
in blueprints and plans, not
even for my poems of
her anonymity
she slides to her knees, casts
the mantel of light -- she
crescendos. We, all and
I, hear as she bares her
palms righteously, holies
the mic. Her eyes beg. Her
tongue heaves. She breathes -- to old
tenements and invalids.

Random collisions

The day after I visited the Pig and Whistle Pub in midtown I explored an entirely different part of the island. A door opened in front of me and one of the bartenders from the pub walked right in front of me. I was so shocked to see him that I didn't even say hello.

With the vast, anonymous movement of people throughout this city, for strangers to chance upon each other twice requires serendipity. One kind girl I met on the subway rides the same train I do every day, but the chance of us actually crossing paths is very low odds. Our train runs every ten minutes, most of the day. Our schedules differ daily. Even if we happened to end up on the same train, each train has maybe twenty cars. Each car holds maybe 60 people during off-peak and upwards of a hundred during rush hour. We could be on the same car and never see each other.

But even with the improbability of accidently happening upon the same person twice, it's happened to me twice already. There is a social network that links people. Besides running into the bartender two days in a row, I met one of my roommate's old coworkers when Andrew and I went bar hopping. Then, when I started work today at the place Andrew manages, the old coworker came in to eat. Even that occurance required chance, as I could have worked a different shift and it may have been weeks before the coworker came in again. Yet, it's clear our connection through Andrew made it more likely we'd meet again.

My friend Emily explained New York as a big city made up of small communities. Likewise, one of the bartenders at my new job mentioned she liked working there because the community was full of locals who were regulars. Perhaps people go to the same places repeatedly for the familiar faces. Perhaps it's the way to make friends.

I tried out the local bar on my own tonight, which was blocks away. I felt so uncomfortable walking into what was obviously a close knit community that I left immediately. Bar hopping on my own was not a success. I couldn't get up the nerve to actually sit and wait and order drinks alone. I forgot how draining it is to make friends.

digame

On my first night in New York my roommate Andrew took me bar hopping.

On the way down I noticed talking on the subway is like watching silent movies: you can see their lips move, but you can't hear the syllables. It's an eerie disconnect. You have to shout, even face to face. If you don't, your words are garbled by the clunk and gimbling of the car. I dart my eyes between eyes and lips to try to read what I can't hear.

Sociology students should be required to take trips on subways. I rode the A train from JFK to my stop. At the last Brooklyn stop a young Chinese man hopped aboard. As he silently took a seat, I noticed he was the only non-black person on my car, besides me. However, the first stop in Manhattan, a few Slavic whites got on. By midtown the car was evenly mixed. By my stop, the car was predominantly Hispanic and Irish white. It wasn't the race that through me off, but the progression. Is the city ghettoed? Or was it the time of day? In a city so diverse, the delineations seemed too stark.

Not that race dehumanizes much in New York. Here, the divider between people (and there seems there's always a divider) is language. In my neighborhood you'll see very dark skinned people speaking Spanish to very light skinned people. The same will happen between those speaking English. There are white people dressed in the same attire as black people, and Hispanics dressed in the same attire as Irish or Jewish people. But it seems that two people speaking a Slavic language are set apart from the three speaking French and the two chatting away in Hindi or Swahili. Race doesn't make people inaccessible, but it seems language might.

Speaking of language, I went to the UN today. Not interesting at all. I imagine it would be fascinating if you could do more than stand in the lobby or examine the gift shop.

It's a lonely city, this city is. I walked for six hours today, yet I only spoke once briefly to passers-by and once to a girl on a subway to ask for directions. When she found out this was my second day in the city, she said, "Oh that's why you look wide eyed and innocent." We chatted for a bit and her advice to me was Don't tell people where you live. You don't know who you can trust, here in New York.

off guard

I arrived at 8:20am. The weather at JFK reminded me of Oahu -- balmy and sunny. On the subway, ten stops apart, two men boarded with umbrellas. I decided it was a fashion statement. Just this morning my Dad and I talked about my ability to predict the weather. Needless to say, it's hailing now and those two fashionable men are the dry ones.

I was going to go out for groceries. I didn't even bring a raincoat... or an umbrella.

The ineffable inner cheer

John Nemo Galt posted a response to my post which decried our correlation of economics and happiness.

If you read Galt's response you probably noted he sought very precise, objective answers to questions about measuring success. Is success making friends? What kind of friends? Is it not cutting in line? Is it children sharing? Is it the depth of conversations?

All of his questions were in response to assertions I made in my post. I listed alternative methods for measuring happiness. Galt's questions forced me to reconsider. I admit, he caught me saying something I didn't mean.

In attempting to fend of economic measurements I missed the core issue: it's not how we measure, it's measurement itself.

Success is subjective. To Maslow it was scaling a heirarchy to attain self-actualization. To Freud it was acknowledging the subconscious. For Nietzsche it was discovering one's will-to-power and chasing it down. To Aristotle it was achieving an end one was designed for -- the entelechy. Mill saw success as the most happy people possible, which depended on means of measurement. To Frankl success was the demand society or individuals placed on a person -- not fulfilling the demand, but merely a person realizing they are necessary. To Marx it was reconnecting the laborer to his product. To Gandhi it was living in harmony with people and environment. To the Hebrews and to Jesus it was a similar harmony with all beings and circumstances. To Carson McCullers, Albert Camus, John Steinbeck, etc, success was in the struggle.

Some of these subjective concepts of success can be measured objectively, especially Maslow's, Mill's and Marx's. However, many others are immeasurable.

In consideration for the various ideas of success, perhaps all measurement should be eliminated. The heralding of economic growth as success does not appear as success to me, nor perhaps to many others.

I would be saddened to see someone who held harmony as their success be disregarded because their success was not profitable. The trend is changing, as more often, successful harmony with our environment is lauded. The end results of the Green movement are measurable -- the temperature or the concentration of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere -- but the human element of collaboration and innovation is not.

I find myself identifying with Frankl, Nietzche and Gandhi (ironic, no?). I think the Western world identifies itself with Mill and thus we measure the economy to measure success as it provides the most good for the most people (theoretically, capitalistically, at least).

Friends don't count money

How come a country's measure of success is its economy? What makes one country more successful than another isn't the economy; it's the happiness of the people. Newspapers should have headlines like, "Mexicans make more friends" or "Moroccans don't cut in line" and "Chinese children share more." Economic headlines give a false impression of success. "The economy rallies" has no bearing on the quality of our friendships or the depth of our conversations.

yes! let's chat.

In response to Matt's comment (this felt too long for a comment box):

Matt noted the complexity of the immigration issue and insisted the dichotomy of "leave them alone" or "kick them out" is too simplistic.

I'm agreed, of course. These issues are incredibly complex.

However, we need to aim for the highest possible goal: fair, humane, just treatment of every person. Which to me means letting more immigrants in legally, and offering amnesty to those who apparently are desperate to live here.

Perhaps the largest population is Mexican, but there are other nations to whom we are not offering amnesty. For instance, Iraqis. This article in the Boston Herald notes that Iraqi's who have helped Coalition troops in Iraq are threatened, yet the U.S. is not offering them visas for entry to the U.S. Last month we offered one Iraqi a visa.

If we start with guiding principles that hold all humans as irreplaceable and equally valuable, instead of arguing from standpoints of "profit" and "anti-terrorism", I think we'll discover our goals and the goals of legal and illegal immigrants are similar and could benefit from collaboration.

I take my main issue with the devil-saint model of immigration: illegal immigrants are not enemies. They're future citizens.

Immigrant bill could break up families

Immigrants Learn of the Impact of the new bill in Congress

The new immigration bill will separate families, according the the Seattle Times article linked above. I'm growing more and more concerned about how we treat immigrants, both legal and illegal. They're people too. And generally beneficial people. More on that if I can find the article I was reading yesterday.

Any thoughts on how to convince congress AND the general US population that mistreating immigrants is just poor sport?

Like kids with crayons

A Border Runs Through It

Obviously, national borders are arbitrary.

Fictionating words

"Mussine"

A set of sounds without definition. I like it though.

How to go about making this mis-read word mean something?

Editors of dictionaries would insist if I can get enough people to agree that a set of sounds means something, then they do.

What should "Mussine" mean? Here is the context I misread it in:

"Michael Wesch speculates that the accessibility of the internet to add and receive content is leading to a mussine paradigm shift in human thought and society."

It seemed to me to bear connotations of "novel" "ineffable" "chaotic" "capricious" "uncontrolled" "active" "self-motioned" without being able to be defined concretely.

It's as if we know there is a gigantic change occurring but can't imagine what shape this change might take.

Mussine: adj. impredictability, as in an unimaginable result of a currently occurring change.

Things bloody fall apart

Supposedly in Chaos there's a strange attractor -- a point of gravity around which all the random particles coalesce. In my life I think the strange attractor is non-leaving-America. Every time I try to get out of this country, something breaks down.

I was going to study in Finland, but a professor advised me against taking that much time away from my friends at school. During my enforced year off I attempted trips to Greece and Costa Rica. Greece ended up being too expensive. I couldn't find anyone to go to Costa Rica with me and I wasn't comfortable traveling alone yet. Most recently I've been planning summer trips to ireland, scotland, england, france and morocco. But I just found out my job might actually be a volunteer position, based on my financial aid award. I might not have work study, and so might not be earning the $400 a month I thought I was. Soo... if I am volunteering and not earning... I need to either get another 10-20 hour a week job, or I need to can Europe.

I was reading an old journal entry and it noted that things have always fallen apart like this, usually with better results. Something better usually comes up.

Here's hoping. I really want to learn about other cultures and people. It's too homogenous around me. Unstimulating really. It's been time to go for two years now.

Haiku not about nature

There is that mystery
If all you told me was a lie, I'd
trust you

snowfall between the bars

breath through ruffled skirts escapes me
like contentment the earth whispers bedded in snowfall.

people, this cavalcade, a parade of kids with flags, calendars marked with names
of friends, blankets, winter coats, cashmere, wooing me to sleep.

all is right now.

a life intermittently examined and enjoyed is worth living.

and life as it is once we find our diseases are permanent and benign

For those who find their concern overwhelming: i'm not dead.

Even better, the drugs I'm taking have far more side effects than the disease. so i'm going to figure out how to wean myself off of them. I'll take temporary facial paralysis over constant insomnia, obesity, moodiness, high blood pressure, possible diabetes, weakened bones (read: yes men can get osteoporosis), decrease in my body's ability to produce steriods and hormones, and a weakened immune system. A major warning on the MayoClinic was, "Don't take this if you have a virus or infection." Yes I have a virus. Which is why I'm on anti-viral drugs. So while the drugs go on fighting each other, I still can't smile or close my eye.

I'm not bitter. It's the steroids. They make me moody.

Your love and concern have made me feel the richest of all men. If I really were dying, it'd be an honor to have each of you present at my cremation and sprinkling. For the record, said sprinkling should be on a certain secret beach, where last days are suns setting.

In other news: to end the contest for best pet, which has been between dogs and cats, I nominate the new best pet in the world: electrons. Tricky little buggers they are, and so poetic.

Speaking of which, poetry's grandeur astonishes me by the lack of detail it conveys with such succinctness. I mean that in a good way. I appreciate the way it doesn't propose to have any data for the unexplainable, instead leaves it out in lieu of foolishness. I started 6 poems today. That was a release. Not yet. You can see them later. They're still half-dressed.

Rilo Kiley, Johanna Kunin, Bonnie Prince Billy, George Winston.

It's 3am and less than 0.

hypochondria

i think something's wrong.

i have a constant headache. my skin is ultra sensitive. my upper lip won't close, on one side. i can't close my right eye without my left closing as well, and the right eye doesn't close when i blink. the tip of my left ring finger has been numb for over 24 hours. my eyes hurt.

i don't trust doctors though. the last one tapped my lungs, prescribed me drugs and sent me home. two weeks later, i'm still coughing doc.

bad timing really. but aren't all illnesses inconvenient?

I fell in love tonight

with these:

• George Winston's version of Pachelbel's Kanon in D
• Ordinary People, a 1980 film by Robert Redford
• Pablo Neruda, especially his poem, "I'm explaining a few things"
• My family's house, finally a home.
• Friends who smile, haunt, hug, humble, reflect, champion, commission, cheer and snuggle me with their lives
• The aural properties of the Charlotte's Web soundtrack
• The steps I take which, tracks across a page, appear, in hindsight, poetry.

You, probably.

I'm excited for the next two days of drinking fine beer and discussing and reconnecting.
For the Jan-term I've anticipated for two years
For the lofty visions and folly of our own optimism
For a year without resolutions, yet a year of resolution

My future is vague and unsafe, like emotion and poetry. That makes sense. Poems confuse me at first, until my heart beats quicker and my mouth opens, and my body language tells me that I understand something my mind cannot. The vagueness is like that. I have one confidence: I am getting closer. The hair on my arms is standing on tiptoe, to see what impends.

Here's to 2007 and a bit of aesthetics mixed with our practicality. Cheers!

This is post 200

Is it fair to elude reality, to wonder, when the billions are fighting to survive? Is it just? Can Joy co-exist with genocide?

Can I conscienciously lose myself in poetry and stars and neverlands when my little brother is off to prison?

This is my dilemma. Does the law of moderation apply here? Or should we escape to our hundred-acre woods? Or leave them forever for the dust of sub-Saharan Africa?

I'd really like your considerations.

A sigh of an oppressed creature

Dear scientists, skeptics, rationalists, atheists, civil-libertarians, philandering priests, and Nietzsche,

Give us back our opiate. These [porn, parties, doubles, dimes, stress, success, sex and cigs] other drugs are killing us.

Your friends,
The masses

in the nicholas of time

just caught the Christmas spirit. finally. almost too late.

Dave Matthews - Christmas Song

At least one Christmas song is about Jesus. As in Jesus of Nazareth, not Jesus of Pop and Politics.

Gamblers and Robbers
Drinkers and Jokers, all soul searchers
Like you and me
...
Drinkers and Jokers all soul searchers
Searching for love love love
Love love love
Love love was all around

Other good songs re: Jesus of Nazareth?

Friends wrapped up in boxes

I've lately been reading Native Son by Richard Wright. One of the themes in the story is how everyone sees what they want to see and is blinded by their stereotypes/prejudices. For example, in the story, after Bigger, a black boy, kills a white girl, no one suspects him because it is assumed a black boy wouldn't dare kill a white girl.

Applied to my friends, this makes a lot of sense to me. Often times the only way I know what's going on in Matt's life is through his blog. I take him for granted and assume I know what's going on with him. Updates feel like talking to relatives: all facts, and basic facts at that. When I think about him I see him how he's always been, and I assume he's not changed. So when he posts on his blog, it often blindsides me. If I saw him one on one with a girl I'd assume he was a friend doing something nice for her, not a guy on a date. Chances are, since he's surprised me so much lately, that he'd be on a date.

I'm a little tired of not knowing my friends anymore. Being surprised by the changes in them. I feel like I see each of them so rarely. My daily interactions are with other friends; I miss my dear friends from Cheney.