Not Again...

Today, when I left work at the reasonable time at 5:30, it was dark. Not sun-setting, not dusk, dark. Maybe I'll get to see the sun again in February. Goodbye, old friend.

sigh

Delusions of Fame, Delusions of Wealth: The Pleasures of Entourage

This weekend, the twisting of my rubber arm caused me to watch tons of old episodes of Entourage. I love the show, but I find it to be dangerous -- and not just dangerous because it’s so addictive and one half-hour episode can easily turn into ten half-hour episodes and five nonrefundable hours of my life -- dangerous because I get sucked in to forgetting that I’m neither rich nor famous; nor is there any reasonable potential for me to become so.

I find myself thinking, even long after I’ve left the glamorous glow of the TV, that there’s really no reason I shouldn’t drive a Maserati, date A-list actresses, and indulge in the ritzy pleasures of Hollywood. Is the life of a civil engineer really that different from the life of a movie star? Sigh.

A man doesn't say "Autumn," a man says "Fall"

There’s the hint of a chill in the air these days. It’s only in the first breath I take when I walk outside in the morning. In another month New York will be cold, but for now the weather is satisfyingly pleasant. Outdoor seating at cafes is at a premium again as the heat and humidity have finished vacationing in the City. The sun still has a few more weeks of leisured sightseeing before it flies south for the winter -- no more late nights and early mornings trying to fit a full day. The new relaxed schedule and relaxed weather suit me just fine.

Yesterday on 57th Street I passed Carson ‘Queer Eye’ Kressley. He was dressed to the nines in cufflinks and pinstripes. He had a cell phone glued to his ear and he marched importantly down the sidewalk. In a related story I think I also passed an Olsen twin on Hudson Street. She looked rough. Rough.

My Mind's Eye

I realized as I was typing that last post that I'm only able to think about career/life paths metaphorically any more. I actually conjure these images of roads, paths, or streams complete with bends and curves, forks and bridges, trees and signs. I seem to have lost the ability to approach this subject analytically without the use of mental visual aides.

I tend to be a visual thinker, so maybe seeing these metaphors is the easiest way for me get my head around something. Or maybe I'm just losing my mind. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Sequitur

I've finally changed the name of my website and this blog. Smooth like Butter was never intended to be the title per se, just a fun non-sequitur. Mostly I was just surprised to find that the domain name was still available and that I could have an at-smooth-like-butter-dot-com email address.

In each of us I think there's a person who is focused, motoring compass-in-hand down a clearly marked road. There's also the companion wanderer, staring off deep into the weeds for some other path less traveled by, ever skeptical that this one is the right trail. Sometimes these two internal guides work well together, taking turns at the helm when it's most advantageous for the team. Other times, though, one takes control and the other feels ignored and shunned, adding doubt and strife to the mix.

I think The Wayside is a much more appropriate title for what I want this website and blog to be, namely a place where our conflicting sides can get together for a bit, have a friendly drink, and share a laugh at each other's expense.

If you were hoping for some instructions on how to be smooth, you're definitely in the wrong place. Sorry to mislead or disappoint, but I think it's obvious at this point that I'm not qualified to give advice on anything except wandering about aimlessly.

Changes are in progress on the actual smoothlikebutter.com website, and I hope to have everything updated soon (noticed how I used the ultra-vague "soon" instead of coming up with a legitimate time frame). Happy wandering, everyone.

A Rich Tapestry of Profanities

Janey, here's a radar image of the profanities which are still largely intact and floating above the interstate. I remembered it being much more of a solid mass, but I guess it has dissipated over the course of the week. For some reason it shows up as being pink on the radar, but it's actually more of a bilious green-gray color.

Stupid Adventures in Moving

I just drove a truck full of my stuff from my parents’ house in North Carolina to my new apartment in New York. I knew it wouldn’t be fun, but I couldn’t have predicted what a painfully annoying ordeal it turned out to be. Thank god it’s over.

The drive, composed of stretches of Interstates 77, 81, and 78, is about 675 miles, which should take around 11 hours. Everything was progressing swimmingly through NC, Virginia, and in to West Virginia when I hit a 20-mile wall of traffic. It seems there was a car fire earlier that blocked the road. I’m sure if I had left on time I would have missed it. As the game played out, though, I arrived in Brooklyn at midnight, a solid 14 hours after leaving NC. There were also torrential downpours though Pennsylvania.

Gas is expensive: $130 for the trip, and that’s with stumbling upon an unheard of $2.50 per gallon in Virginia.

The toll for a truck through the Lincoln Tunnel is $12; not to mention not being able to take the infinitely-more-convenient Holland Tunnel due to commercial vehicle restrictions.

Parking in Brooklyn is neither fun, nor easy, nor convenient; especially parking a big-ass 15-foot truck.

Unloading a truck in the rain is also not fun.

While trying to return the truck this morning to the depot in Brooklyn I endured extreme grogginess, traffic, congestion around the depot, and long lines, only to be met with “The tank’s not full” from the attendant. I had driven probably 15 miles since filling up. I think I replied with “You’re effing kidding me” before snatching the keys, driving a half mile (literally 30 minutes), and putting ONE AND A HALF GALLONS of gas (out of a 30-gallon tank) in the truck. I was irate, and very late for work.

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An inspection of my wares revealed that I had lost some wing nuts and washers necessary for attaching legs to my coffee table. I went to the local hardware store and was informed that I need metric wing nuts which they – of course – don’t carry. The salesman suggested a few very out-of-the-way places that might carry metric hardware like that. Since I had originally bought the table from IKEA a couple years ago, I went to the IKEA website hoping to find a place to buy replacement parts. A quick search of the site yielded nothing, so I clicked the Ask Anna link for the IKEA help center, a little ray of automated customer service sunshine!

Me: where can i buy replacement hardware?

Anna: If you are missing anything from your purchase, all you need to do is return to your local IKEA store. Just go to the "Returns and Exchanges" desk with your original purchase receipt and a friendly co-worker will be happy to assist you.

Me: it’s not missing, it's lost.

Anna: It's not always possible for me to fully understand what it is you mean. This is one of those times.

Me: i want to buy some wing nuts.

Anna: Find here a quick guide to help you maximize your IKEA experience.

Me: where's the quick guide?

Anna: I can't really say, to be honest. Maybe you should consult a map.

Anna from IKEA combines the effectiveness of reasoning with a toddler, the satisfaction of having your hand slammed in a door, and the pleasantness of a condescending, jaded telemarketer - and all of this in one little pop-up window!

The good news is that I'm sure I'll get to go through all of this again next year!

I Want One!

Dear Santa,

Yeah.

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Since mere words fail to capture the sheer magnificence of the above picture, please go to the source for more pictures and read all about it, straight from the man himself. And thanks to the kind folks at SevenPack for pointing this out.

Maybe I should have been a mechanical engineer. Or maybe I just should have been smart.

Worthless

I always suspected this might be the case:

My blog is worth $0.00.
How much is your blog worth?

*sigh*

All for Naught

I had been so good! Resist temptation left and right, but one quick lapse is all it takes for that hard work to come crashing down like a house of cards.

I had been in some book stores and record stores to kill some time, bask in the air conditioning, and see what had been popping up on the new music, movie, and book fronts. I was just browsing, though. I carried a few books around the stores while debating a purchase, but in the end I decided I didn’t really need them and was proud of myself for putting them back on the shelves. This scene had repeated itself a few times in the past week or so with clothes, DVDs, CDs, and groceries; each time my better judgment prevailing to leave the unnecessary items behind.

But then I cracked. I was having a bad day. Nothing dramatic, just a long day and I wanted some fiction to read (see below). I went to the Strand Bookstore (18 miles of books!!) near Union Square, found a cheap used copy of the book I wanted, paid, and started back toward the subway.

But the slope had been slipperied, and as I passed Virgin Records I remembered an album had just come out that I wanted to hear. I went in, listened, and decided to that if buying a book had made me feel better some new music would definitely help my mood. I ignored the CD sale racks on the way back to the register, but strategically situated next to the checkout line was a rack of $10 DVDs and I of course saw several movies that I had been meaning to watch. At this point I really had no choice but to pick at least one up. Movies in the theatre are $11 in New York, so a $10 DVD is a bargain, really.

I did well to go home with only one book, one album, and one movie, but I was shocked to see with what speed and ease the swipe of a Check Card annuls the efforts of the discerning consumer.

Making the Most of the 5 to 8

One would think that someone who has been living in a constant state of flux for the past several years (changing careers, changing countries, never living in the same apartment for more than a year, etc.) would eventually get used to shifting gears, could adapt to the varied routines and transitions, might even enjoy the changes in scenery and perspective. I guess I’m getting there... I do really like the variations that bouncing around affords me and I even like the transitions pretty well, but I just can’t get a handle on the pre-transition stages. If “On your mark” and “Get set” were followed by five to ten minutes of silent waiting before “GO!” we might read a lot more stories about high levels of hypertension in sprinters (and fans).

I’m not saying it’s time to plant myself. The ebb and flow for me is preferable to backwater any day. I need the change, but I would prefer the change without having to wait around for the all clear.

I only bring this up because while 90% of my career, education, and life-in-general prospects have been firmed up for the near future, I can’t really do anything on a lot of other fronts until the last 10% of those prospects are more concrete. I’ll have a full update as soon as I have everything solidified enough to share. Just getting a little restless again, that’s all.

--

The daily grind has been taking its toll on me. Actually it’s not so much trudging though the 8-5 that I find taxing, but rather trying to balance sleep and the huge mix of things I really want to do between 5 and 8.

I’ve also been feeling a little lost lately, especially regarding careers and what might be considered contributions to the greater good. I’m ultimately very happy with where I’ve ended up and how I’ve been spending my time, but it’s hard to feel like I’m pulling my weight when I look at friends who are doing humanitarian work in Sudan, taking the bar exam, embarking on an album release tour, and so on and so on. There are really too many friends for me to list whose education, careers, goodwill, and determination I’m in awe of. Keep up the great work, guys.

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I’ve had the book Principle-Centered Leadership in my reading queue for quite some time now. It came highly recommended by my uncle – I figure Army Generals probably know a thing or two about leadership – and I’ve wanted to dive in for a while. Well I finally got around to picking it up, reading the first five pages, retaining 0% of what I had just read, and putting it right back down again. With everything that’s going on in real life, I just don’t have the stomach or the mind for a book on leadership. My on-train and pre-sleep reading blocks are currently reserved for escaping reality – not for self-improvement – so I went out today and bought another Murakami book: Kafka on the Shore. I can’t wait! Soon I’ll have the right mindset for becoming a principle-centered leader and I’ll give non-fiction another try.

Sorry for the ramble. I’m trying to get my head around a lot of stuff.

I Guess the Beard is OK, but the Pointy Hat?

From an (edited) email from Mom:

Sammy asked Quin what he had on his leg. It was a tattoo of a wizard - long flowing beard, robe with stars, hands outstretched. He's now attending the Church of God and feels that it is blasphemous to have this wizard on his leg. He said he has asked for forgiveness and has been forgiven. Then he said he thought he'd have a little more work done on the tattoo and turn it into Jesus. :) Couldn't have made up a better line!! He said his minister told him that the tattoo just enables him to be a witness to a different kind of people. See, aren't you sorry you missed the reunion?!

I long for the day when the religious and magic communities can embrace one another, put their bickerings aside, and live in peace with each other’s symbology of bearded men.

Great Minds

me: how about i email it to you for now?

J: just email it to me
J: wow great minds think a lot

me: a lot?

J: LoL
J: yeah
J: that's what makes them great

Cooler by Material Association

Weee! MacBook! Weee!

Engineering Offices

Engineering offices are strange places, primarily because they are inhabited predominantly by engineers. I suppose every profession has its quirks, but math and science fields seem to appeal to the quirkiest among us. Perhaps a gathering of TV meteorologists or college professors could boast a greater per capita count of quirks, but it would be a close contest.

Working late one night this week I was able to walk around the office and see what it was like without people. I’ve been in the office alone before, but I’d never really looked to see what the work spaces revealed about their inhabitants. Some cubes are neat and organized, others complete disaster areas. The young guys all have their computer screens turned away from the aisles, but the older guys’ screens face directly into the aisle (so their backs are turned to any potential distraction, or so I’m told). I think it is possible to determine someone’s age by the angle of their computer screen to the aisle.

A lot of work spaces have pictures of significant others and kids. There are quite a few work-related pictures, like a guy climbing on a bridge. Most of it is standard fare: tons of books, blueprints, and office supplies. But then there are the quirks, the sides of people you really don’t get to see in office life but that is hinted at by clues they (knowingly or unknowingly) leave.

One guy, amid stacks and shelves of design manuals and specifications has a calendar with crop circles on it. His neighbor has a small, framed picture of Betty Boop. His neighbor has pictures of what appear to be an outdoor Jacuzzi and a little garden in his yard. In another cube hang team pictures from every company softball game over the past several years. One guy has an unusually high number of hanging plants. Another has tons of pictures and paintings of Italy (his home).

How much can you know about someone by what they have on their desk? What does my work space say about me? I hurried back to my desk to inventory the clues I leave for my coworkers to find and make assumptions about the real me.

At first I didn’t find anything too quirky or revealing. Mostly just papers and blueprints from the project I’m working on, a couple of design books, tons on highlighters, pens, and pencils. On the cube walls hang a company phone directory and a magazine clipping about my project that my boss gave to me and I hung up out of diligence. No pictures or real decorations. Granted I’ve only been here for two months and came to NY with a very light load of things I might use to ‘decorate’ an office space. Some other – possibly revealing – clues I did find were a copy of The Economist I had bought earlier that day, a little black notebook/journal I keep in my bag, and a half-finished bottle of Vitamin Water. Mostly a very plain, non-descript, even boring cube. Maybe the lack of quirky paraphernalia is revealing as well…

Me? Bitter?

I recently went back and read over some of the things I had written while traveling through Asia at the end of my year in Korea. A few comments:

*SO sorry for all the spelling mistakes and bad grammar. I was mostly in internet cafes and trying to type quickly. It has nothing to do with being a terrible speller and not having had an English class since high school (or a grammar class since middle school). Honest.

**Pictures would have been nice. I’ll work on that.

***Man, I sound bitter in a lot of those stories. Sure there were fits of frustration and plenty of short-fuse days, but those were the exceptions rather than being the overall themes of the trip. What I love about traveling are the unexpected annoyances, abrupt changes, think-on-the-feet reactions, and interesting (yes, sometimes annoying) people. It is life magnified, fast-forward, set in exotic locales, and with a very different set of responsibilities and worries. That’s why I travel. Plus, I like to complain about stuff.

Wound-Up

I’m currently reading Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which is a delightful change of pace from the engineering safety manuals (for work) and books on US foreign policy (for “fun”) I’ve been reading lately.

I’m in love with Murakami’s style and captivated by his story. I find myself devouring page after page on the train to and from work, completely lost in his cadence and imagery. I have to force myself to stop reading at night. I like that the story envelops me as I’m turning pages; that I’ve been able to develop such a deep relationship with the characters in such a short time, but it’s starting to haunt my non-reading hours as well. Yesterday on the train to work Toru (main character) and I began to suspect that his wife had left him. As evidence confirming our suspicions began to amass, I felt increasingly lonely; increasingly betrayed. I spent the rest of the day at work feeling utterly empty, like whatever part of me that’s capable of trust and feeling had been ripped from my chest and left a hollowed out shell where I used to be. This book should come with a warning label.

--

PS – wound is a funny word to say over and over

Hurricanes, Hipsters, and Freebies

One again I have a little backlog of half-finished stories I’ve been starting and stopping for the past week or so. I really need a job that allows more time for putting around on the internet and typing up little stories of banal minutia.

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Hurricanes win 1st Stanley Cup
Carolina comes through in Game 7 with a 3-1 win over Edmonton, bringing the trophy to land of NASCAR.

That was a headline and teaser from USAToday. First of all, congratulations are certainly in order to the Carolina Hurricanes (pronounced Herr-i-cuns if you’re from the NC coast) for winning the Stanley Cup. I’m mostly a fair-weather sports fan, and even though I appreciate hockey I rarely follow it except for the odd playoff series/ excuse to go to a sports bar. I definitely love to see Carolina teams do well for themselves, though, and I’ll back any team from NC in competition against any team from any other state*.

*Not binding. Certain restrictions may apply.

But the ‘Land of NASCAR?' Come on. Surely the Tar Heel State has contributed more to our union than just advancing the pursuit of driving REAL fast in a circle. The Wright Brothers, Great Smokey Mountains, Carolina Panthers, Outer Banks, a hornet’s nest of rebellion, Duke Lacrosse! I would have even accepted “Bible Belt” for half credit.

A few more gems from the USAToday article:

“Defensemen Aaron Ward scored … and that seemed to ignite the loud Carolina fans, many of whom had been out tailgating before the game. Carolina fans tailgate like they are going to a college football game.”

“One sign in the crowd simply said: ‘Redneck hockey.’”

Way to reinforce the stereotypes, sports fans (although I must admit the tailgating quote makes me rather proud of my fellow statesmen).

On the other hand, the Carolinas and the Southeast in general seem like natural hockey markets, if only in their similarities to Canada. Carolinians and Canadians each have bizarre accents, like driving pickup trucks, love drinking beer, and are especially fond of mullets. Hockey has found its home away from home.

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So hip…ster.

I live on the fringe of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the heart of which is the New York hipster Mecca. For those of you new to the hipster scene, I suggest this article from Wikipedia for a quick, if somewhat brusque, intro.

Sometimes I love the area. Galleries, music, cafes. It can be a very lively, stimulating place full of Ars Gratia Artis and interesting characters. I’m finding it’s also a very easy to place to become disillusioned with the whole scene. In social settings where hipsters herd I'm often struck by the superficiality of it all. The conversations seem to focus on how great it is to like independent art and music, not how great independent art and music actually are. Hipster Gratia Hipstis.

I’m taking guitar lessons from a guy in Williamsburg who is also a newbie in the area, though he blends more hipsterishly with the patchwork than I. He was looking for an apartment (then renting couch space from a friend) and asked about the area where I live, which is, again, out on the fringe.

“Are there a lot of…” He paused ever so slightly, digging for the right word. “…artists?”

I had to keep from laughing. It seemed too much like how Liberals started adopting the new moniker “Progressive” once the former became such an effective tool of vilification and derision during the 2004 presidential campaign.

To be fair I think he genuinely wants to be surrounded by artists of all walks, immersed in a place where new ideas and artistic creations abound; where there’s a communal rising tide of ART! Maybe it’s just the skeptic in me, but I don’t think he’ll find his Eden here.

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I’m excited about all the upcoming free stuff that New York offers in the summer. I’ve made a big calendar of events I want to attend and have even penciled in a few really expensive concerts or shows (just in case). Free movies in Bryant Park! Free concerts in Central Park! Free movies at Hoboken Pier A! Free outdoor drama all over the city! Free book readings and poetry classes! Free museum days! So much culture and entertainment for shoestring budgeteers! Or $35 for Ani DiFranco in Central Park? $55 for Fiona Apple and Damien Rice? Hmmm….

The Woman of (in) My Dreams

I had a dream last night that Ani DiFranco and I were hanging out sharing stories about traveling in Cambodia. I don’t know if she has ever been to Cambodia, but if so I’d really like to hear what she might have to say about it.

A Few Mini Updates

-I have World Cup Fever, but work keeps getting in the way of watching games.

-My left shoe has developed a squeak and I can’t figure out how to make it stop.

-Sunday was the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York. In my neighborhood P.R. flag waving was up 250%, horn honking and yelling were up 500%, and whistle blowing was up 1,250%. The Cumulative Annoying Noises Index (CANI) was only up 2%.

-I’ve decided I’m not abiding by casual summer. I’m not abiding by casual Friday, either.

-I haven’t yet completed any of my 101 tasks. Only 989 days left!

Congraduations!

A good friend of mine just graduated from law school (congrats, Janet! Time to start paying back those loans!) and I was fortunate enough to have been invited to attend the ceremony. It was held at Lincoln Center in New York, which is an impressive venue to see a show or concert, much less to hold commencement. I think every single orator and presenter joked about how it has been their life’s dream to perform on stage at Lincoln Center, but that they would spare us the torment of hearing them sing. It was funny the first couple times.

Both my high school and college graduations (though I didn’t attend the latter) were held in the gym, which seemed adequate enough at the time. In light of now having witnessed a REAL graduation, though, I feel like I’ve missed out, for it has been my life’s dream to perform on stage at Lincoln Center. I’ll *chuckle* spare you the torment of hearing me sing today *chuckle* … But seriously, folks…

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There was a guy stage left translating the proceedings in sign language. I tried to follow along at points but he was hard to see from up in the third balcony where I was sitting. In much the same way that seeing [MUSIC PLAYING] on closed-captioned TV makes me smile, I was happy to see that there is a way to sign for *applause*. Hold both hands out about a foot in front of your body and make small, slow, swishy circles out towards the audience. Now wiggle your fingers to give it an even swishier feel. *applause*

Signing names, though, seems a very laborious task. Ideas can be expressed through a simple gesture or the wave of a hand, but names have to be spelled out, letter for letter. There were about 380 students in Janet’s graduating class, who all filed across stage, one after the other, cued by the reading of their names. There were two or three people that alternated name reading duties, but there was only one sign guy who had to spell out the names of all 380 students by rapidly contorting his hand into sign letters. He switched hands a couple times, but there was no substitute sign guy to give him a reprieve. My hat’s off to you, Ambidextrous Iron Man Sign Guy. I’m signing applause to you.

--

Behind me was a very large, very loud family. They belted forth a tremendous roar when their graduate was named. As the cheering eventually died down, the youngish daughter of a smaller, quieter family in front of me stared back wide-eyed at the Noisys, leaned over to her mom, and whispered, “Can we do that?”

“Absolutely NOT,” was her mom’s reply. “That’s disgusting. It makes me sick when people make a scene like that.” The mom then brooded with her arms crossed for the rest of the ceremony. The daughter sulked, and there was only a muffled applause from the family when their graduate crossed the stage.

101 in 1001

A while ago a friend told me she made a list of 101 things that she had to accomplish in the next 1001 days. I'm not sure where she had gotten the idea or where/ when/ how the 101 in 1001 thing started, but I really like the idea. I especially like making lists of things, so it's right up my alley.

I’m still in application limbo as I’ve been waitlisted at two schools. With no deadline for when I might get an answer, I’m going to give the wait lists another month to come through before I have to start settling into a plan B for the coming year. But the 101 in 1001 is a good exercise for mapping out where I want to focus my energy in the near future, grad school or no.

I had a couple of rules to which I tried to adhere when making my list:

1) Completion of the tasks should depend solely on whether or not I invest enough time and effort. In other words, chance and luck shouldn’t play a role in how much I accomplish. I had to leave “win the lottery” and “catch a homerun or foul ball at a baseball game” off the list for that reason, but there are still a couple of tasks that will definitely be aided by a fortuitous alignment of the stars. Finding 101 things I really wanted to be proactive about was actually quite hard.

2) I tried to avoid equating purchases with goals. I’ve been meaning to buy a nice TV for a while, but that doesn’t really seem like a great goal. I am, however, going to allow “buy (and enjoy!) a motorcycle” and “buy (and enjoy!) a $100+ bottle of Scotch” since those are more about the lifestyle associations than the purchases per se. There are actually quite a few tasks centered around saving money, which I really need to do, but there are also a lot that will require a significant inve$tment.

A few of my 101 in 1001 are
-Drive cross country
-Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge
-Get a story or article published
-Write a (good) song
-Stick to a budget for a month
-Learn enough Spanish to watch movies sans subtitles

I plan on adding this to my webpage, complete with updates, once I get to work on that again. So my 1001 starts today, June 1, 2006. It will end on February 26, 2009, if Excel calculations are to be trusted. Time to get to work.

Catch-up

I had started and stopped a couple of stories/ updates in the past weeks that either weren’t coming together like I wanted or that kept getting pushed down the priority ladder by real work. This is a quick catch-up.

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I have a website that I started when I left for Korea. As is the case with most of my projects, the webpage has been in a constant state of heavy construction with no foreseeable completion in sight. I’ve been planning a major clean up/ update/ streamline/ restyle/ overhaul of my site since I’ve been back in the US, but my computer died and I don’t have access to any of the pictures or webpage files I was working with. So… until I (hopefully!!) get a new computer this summer my webpage will have to stay in the planning phase.

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I confess I have some guilty listening pleasures and indeed some horrific musical skeletons in my closet, but I typically shy away from all things MTV and Top-40 or New Rock Radio. I will watch the first few episodes of American Idol to catch all the really bad singers have their hopes, dreams, and egos decimated on national television by the judges, but I never stick around for too long after that. This season, however, I was compelled to follow the season for the pool of talented North Carolinians making their way into the latter rounds of the competition, and of course, for Taylor Hicks. Twenty-nine, gray-haired, goofy-as-hell, and with this gritty, soulful voice he’s hardly Idol material, so every week that he stayed in the competition I was more and more excited about the show. He’s definitely talented and could very well put out an Idol-backed CD that I would buy, so I was elated when he actually won. He’s a breath of fresh air after Clay Aiken et al.

I must admit that Taylor’s first single, the one debuted on The Idol, is bad. Really bad. Typical IdolPop. I think his first CD will be more of the same, I’m sorry to say, but I think we’ll get some good stuff out of him before too long. It’ll take them a while to calibrate the HitMaker3000 song writing machine that cranks out the radio-worthy Pop singles. Or who knows? Maybe they’ll actually let him write some of his own songs.

Heed the Cookie

My fortune cookie just told me, "Love is the only medicine for a broken heart." It failed to consider Scotch.

Lucky Numbers 6, 8, 11, 14, 16, 43

What a Cool Name!

"...The former colonial ruler of East Timor - Prime Minister Jose Socrates..."

What an awesome name. I mean, seriously.

City Sidewalk Scenes

On the sidewalk in front of where I’m standing, waiting, two women speak a language I can’t place and pass two men of a different unrecognized tongue. The women are young and attractive. Their clothes skirt a fine line between provocative and professional. Both wear large designer sunglasses and bounce on purposeful, staccato steps. The men are an older, suspect pair. They slink untucked and disheveled along the sidewalk. One pushes a cart full of kitty litter bags and the other’s laugh reveals missing teeth behind his three-day stubble.

As the pairs pass the men suspend both conversation and stride, turning in sync to regard the bouncing female forms walking away. After a quick but thorough study, the men turn slowly back around, pause briefly to exchange knowing looks, and return to slinking untucked and disheveled along the sidewalk.

What's the Good Word?

I just realized how much I like writing the word 'diaphragm'. The consonant combinations effuse a strangely captivating visual aesthetic.

Retraction

Hey, so remember how I said the weather up here is great? Yeah… Well perhaps I was a little too premature in making that assessment. After five mornings of waking up to gray skies and fits of rain, I can safely say that the weather here is, in fact, not great.

I am not a morning person. Waking up is hard for me even under the best of conditions, but I can usually peel myself out of bed without too much trauma if I have something to do or a schedule to keep (and want to keep). This morning I sat on the edge of my bed for 15 minutes staring through the window at a charcoal sky, listening to a steady rain fall on the awnings, and trying to psyche myself up for a run. I eventually relented and left for an abbreviated and miserable jog, but only because the same internal debate the day before ended in a quick retreat under the covers.

Patches of sunshine redeemed what could have been a very depressing weekend, and with nothing but rain in the forecast, I’m very protective and appreciative of any blues skies I might find overhead.

Inconvenient

New York is the supposed city that never sleeps. Brooklyn, then, is the borough with a lot of accounting to do for its whereabouts between the hours of 6PM and 8AM. The dry-cleaners, grocery stores, and laundromats are all closed by the time I get home from work. Brooklyn is also the borough that doesn't take credit or debit cards. I'm going to have to run errands in Manhattan and lug everything back on the subway. Pain.

Summer in the City

May in New York is the best. I just recently moved back to the city to engineer for the summer while my grad school applications are pending. I've been spending my free time falling in love with the city again.

Restaurants along Hudson Street have their sidewalk tables set up and full of people. The fashionable are out walking their accessorydogs. One dog looked like a boot-size Ewok. I named him Wicket. The West Village is very trendy, eccentric, and a great place for people watching. Why is there an engineering firm here? Summer is also cleavage and back tattoo season, which are two of my favorite seasons.

My apartment is a quick ride on the L train into Brooklyn. It's noisy and I love it. East Williamsburg on the Avenue of Puerto Rico. There's a lot of Spanish around, so I should have some good chances to practice. My roommate and I went to get Mexican food last night. She ordered in Spanglish and Pointing and her order was repeated back to her in Spanglish and Pointing by a girl whom I suspect speaks English pretty well.

I can't sleep for the noise outside. My second-floor window hears everything. Snippets of walk-by conversations and arguments. Motorcycles racing at night. Busses, garbage trucks, and sirens, all with their own insomniating sounds that set off car alarms as they pass. The bright side is that I've been getting to work really early and have been going for morning jogs to explore the neighborhood. The more in-shape I get, the deeper into trendy, Hipster Williamsburg I'll be able to venture. Came across a great park today, but was tired and started back towards home. The gentrification has already started around my apartment, but is still a few good years away.

Gorgeous woman on the L train. Stood next to me as I sat. Looked like Angelina but trendier, with bigger eyes, and without kids and Brad. We have the same iPod. I'd love to know what she was listening to. I bet nobody has ever heard of those bands, but that for once they really are the greatest bands ever. Mesmerized by her thumb ring as it tapped on the metal handrail to an inaudible beat. Copper, gold, and silver. There was a horseshoe but I couldn't make out the rest. I checked my watch to see what she would do. Her bag brushed my leg.

**The spellchecker suggested “inseminating” as an alternative to “insomniating”. Sometimes fake words work better than real ones.

Home and Adjusting

Putting a fancy dress on Procrastination, calling her Inspiration, and sending her out into the world to do some PR work for the night might seem like a gross misrepresentation, but I assure you she’s a quick study and does the job well.

Everyone, I'd like you to meet Inspiration. Inspiration, Everyone.

Now that we’re all acquainted I wanted to try purging the two-month backlog of writing I’ve neglected since being back in the States. The good news is I haven’t really been doing a whole lot that might be worth a story. The bad news is that means I’ve been treading water for two months and have been a very boring person (more so than usual, if you can believe that…).

The majority of my time has been spent productively, though, I must say. I’m in the middle of applying to grad schools which involves the tests and applications for both law and business schools. One test down with satisfactory results, but I still have a lot of work to do. Next week, for example, I have an interview, law school applications due (I should be writing the essays now), and the LSAT to take. I have a lot on my plate right now, which is why I’m procrastinating…. I mean….which is why I’m inspired to write.

I wanted to talk, though, about treading water and getting caught up in a place where going forward isn’t really an option, because that’s the place I find myself these days and it’s starting to get me down a little bit. I thought maybe I’ve been trying to focus too much on long term big picture goals at the expense of the short term instant gratification kind and have been forced to play the waiting game while applications are pending and long term scenarios are a long way from happening.

For example, it’s great (I think) to work towards getting into a JD-MBA program. And it’s even greater to work towards getting accepted into a JD-MBA program so you could just decline their acceptance and blow off academia knowing you COULD make it IF you wanted to, thus leaving the road free and clear to explore a promising career as a rodeo clown or motorcycle racer. You know; long term goals. And initially I thought I had been focusing too much on being a too-cool-for-law-school motorcycle racer and not really focusing on anything short term from which I could garner any immediate satisfaction. But the more I thought about this, the more I realized that I DO have short term goals, both in the form of important milestones on the road to getting accepted into grad school (LSAT, GMAT, buy a motorcycle) and as stand-alone short term goals (bartending school and job). These short term goals and milestones have required a lot of work and have yielded a significant amount of satisfaction, so why then the discontentment?

What I’ve come to realize is that sometimes it’s simply a matter of being caught in a current where swimming as hard as you can is just enough to keep you in the same place relative to the shore, and that it’s important to distinguish swimming against the current from treading water. When the stream you want to take and the stream you’re forced to take don’t flow in the same direction, the choices are either to tread or swim. If you swim, the current can push some of your upstream goals towards you and eventually you might find yourself able to make some progress as time passes and the current starts to change. Simply tread water and wait it out, though, and who knows where you might end up.

Thoughts anyone?