Secrets

I keep many secrets. Earlier this year a friend of mine sent me an article that was published in the New York Times titled "The Secret Lives of Just About Everybody." I found it most interesting, for a variety of reasons, though right now one paraphrased quote sticks out in my mind. It was something to the effect of "everybody has secrets, because without them people lose their ability to distinguish themselves from other people."

Moreover though, I find that I keep different secrets from different people. This doesn't come really as a great surprise, in that obviously I will tell my friends different things than I tell my family. What's more notable is how among my peers, there seem to be these unacknowledged subdivisions. I've never really sat down and thought about it and tried to classify how I regard all the people I know, but in my actions, I am nonetheless segregating people into different knowledge classes in how much and of what information I choose to share about myself.

Why is it that I will tell one person one thing and another person who is a mutual friend something else entirely? I think usually I don't, as in cases like that, I could never hope to fabricate a sufficiently elaborate and well thought out web of lies that wouldn't fall apart when people talk to each other.

I do not like the way my thoughts have progressed here. I will leave this for another time.

Smoking

Cigarettes fascinate me.

This may seem a strange thing to say, and don't misinterpret it for me being a fan of smoking. I think it a pretty unpleasant habit, mostly on account of the way it colors and odorizes things. But still many facets of the idea of smoking fascinate me.

One thing that makes me think are athletes who smoke. Now, I'm no smoker, but I will confess to having smoked a bit while in China. When I was in China, for the brief period I was smoking semi-regularly, I felt like I got out of breath a whole hell of a lot easier. True, it could have just been the air, and just breathing smog or whatever, but I don't think it was. So it confused me to think that people who were trying to be competitive in something such as running cross country could at the same time be regular smokers.

Another thing is relationships where one person smokes and the other doesn't. I'm not saying that this is unfathomable to me, just a bit perplexing. I mean, I'd find it really frustrating if somebody was smoking around all my stuff and getting it kind of gross. In these cases does the non-smoker think that they're capable of changing their significant other's ways? I don't want this to be taken the wrong way, but it can be pretty irksome when I feel like somebody is trying to get me to change these longstanding habits of mine, which so far as I can tell are mostly only affecting me. This isn't in reference to smoking so much, since I can see how that would have more of an effect on others. But I'm digressing here.

There was more I wanted to touch on, but I'm tired now, and I don't feel like opening those cans of worms now anyway.

quizzing

As if I needed some silly internet quiz to tell me this:

trait snapshot:
does not make friends easily, secretive, introverted, reclusive, observer, dislikes leadership, somewhat socially awkward, does not like to stand out, dislikes large parties, values solitude, solitary, avoidant, ambivalent about fitting in, not dominant, unassertive, suspicious, prudent, unadventurous, worrying, weird, intellectual, frequently second guesses self

I particularly liked when my highest scores were a 90% in paranoia followed by an 83% in avoidant.

EDIT: I did it again so as to provide the whole table, for reference. I got more self absorbed and vain the second time through. My traits also seem to have become a bit more polarized and extreme, I think beyond the reality of the situation this time.

Advanced Global Personality Test Results Extraversion |||| 16% Stability |||||||||||||| 53% Orderliness |||||||||| 33% Empathy |||||| 30% Interdependence |||||| 30% Intellectual |||||||||||||||| 70% Mystical |||||| 30% Artistic || 10% Religious || 10% Hedonism |||||||||||||||| 63% Materialism |||||||||||||||| 63% Narcissism |||||||||||| 43% Adventurousness |||||||||||||| 56% Work ethic |||||| 30% Self absorbed |||||||||||||||||| 76% Conflict seeking |||||||||||| 50% Need to dominate |||||||||||| 50% Romantic |||||| 23% Avoidant |||||||||||||||||||| 83% Anti-authority |||||||||||||| 56% Wealth |||||||||||||||| 70% Dependency |||||||||||| 50% Change averse |||||||||||| 50% Cautiousness |||||||||||||||| 70% Individuality |||||||||||| 43% Sexuality |||||||||||| 43% Peter pan complex |||||||||||||| 56% Physical security |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Food indulgent |||||| 30% Histrionic |||||| 30% Paranoia |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Vanity |||||||||||||| 56% Hypersensitivity |||||||||||||| 56% Female cliche |||||| 30%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Stability results were medium which suggests you are moderately relaxed, calm, secure, and optimistic.

Orderliness results were moderately low which suggests you are, at times, overly flexible, improvised, and fun seeking at the expense of reliability, work ethic, and long term accomplishment.

Extraversion results were very low which suggests you are extremely reclusive, quiet, unassertive, and secretive.

trait snapshot:
introverted, secretive, messy, depressed, does not like leadership, somewhat nihilistic, observer, does not make friends easily, unassertive, feels invisible, feels undesirable, hates large parties, does not like to stand out, leisurely, suspicious, submissive, abstract, unpredictable, intellectual, likes rain, likes the unknown, negative, weird, not a risk taker, unadventurous, avoidant, strange

Deception

This much is true: This is the last of my notes that were saved as drafts for things I wanted to respond to having read a bit of somebody else's blog. In particular, this recent entry's first paragraph.

This got me thinking a bit about how I don't really feel any particular thrill about lying. Sometimes it is a bit interesting to do, and sometimes it feels like a burden because I quickly realize how I'm going to have to start weaving a good story to make that lie mesh with the other truths and lies I've told people to account for my time, motivations, or what have you.

It's easy to make up plausible stories. Or rather, I find it easy, and though I can't be sure, I think I find it easier now than I did a few years ago, due largely in part, I suspect, to the fact that I've made up a lot of stories. They're not really elaborate fictions about my life or anything like that, merely slight embellishments or excuses invented to fill in a gap in a story that I'd rather not tell the truth about.

I mean, suppose somebody asks me why I've got this three-foot length of copper .5" diameter pipe in my closet. I've got this sort of bank of answers to the question. I suspect I'm going to regret making the full truth on this one known, but there are worse stories out there already anyway.

Anyhow, the reason is because during this game of assassins in our house last year, I needed a "gun" that could deliver a shot of water farther than my piddly little water pistol could, so I thought up a way to make water-tipped darts, and it's basically a blowgun.

That seems to me a totally absurd story. Doesn't it seem pretty absurd? I mean, what kind of weirdo gets so involved with a game of assassins that he makes a blowgun to shoot at people from great distances? Actually the story is pretty much totally false, at least as a reason. Sure, I did try to make water tipped darts and use it to do one of my assassinations in that game of assassins, but that's not why I had it in the first place. The blowgun was in my possession long before that I'm afraid.

The real reason is far more straightforward, and though I don't know for certain, I suspect to portray me in a much worse way (if that's really possible): I was browsing this web forum, and there was this thread that some guy made about how you could easily make a blow gun that could shoot paper through soda cans. I was intrigued, and since it involved an investment of about five bucks (not even, actually), I thought to try it myself. That's the complete and true story. I read about on the internet one day during my first year when I was bored, and decided it'd be fun to shoot paper darts through soda cans, and so, that's precisely what I did.

I'm imagine if I didn't feel like telling either of those stories, I could make something else up, or simply refuse to provide an explanation, but hopefully this short and unflattering anecdote has served to illustrate a little some of the thinking behind when I so often lie.

I don't like the tone of this post. I sound like I'm patting myself on the back for lying so much, which is not at all what I'm trying to convey. If I were somebody else, I think I'd probably trust me a little bit less now, just because I'd always be suspicious that I'm getting some excuse lie. But then, I'm a suspicious and paranoid person, and assume everybody else is to, in spite of having been repeatedly shown that is not really the case. I'm done.

internet strangers

Internet strangers know more about me than some of my very good friends.

Now does this suggest that I am not particularly close to my friends, or that I'm extremely open with internet strangers? Really it's a bit of both.

When I say internet stranger, I mean just that, an anonymous, totally disconnected person from me. It's not somebody I could ever feasibly expect to meet in person because they don't know my name and I don't know theirs, similarly for where they are, what they do, and so forth. I only know as much as they put forth to me, and similarly they only know about me as much as I put forward for them to read.

I once kept a "secret" blog that I'd fill with me venting, but never told anybody I know about it. As far as I know, the only links in to it were from the recently updated section. In spite of this extremely low accessibility, the hit counter told me people were reading. Not many, and not often, but they were there. And a couple of them left comments for me, which prompted me to leave comments for them. On that blog, I said things I never could or would say on a blog like this one. When I created an aim account to talk with them continuing this alter-me, who is in every way me except in name, they'd be privy to far more private thoughts.

It's not really anything new. Though I'm not certain, it's a sentiment I know is shared among a bunch of people I know: total strangers are easy to confide in.

From time to time, we still say hello to each other on AIM and still nobody knows anything necessarily real at all about each other. I guess this might come across as very strange to some, but having an outlet like this has been invaluable in keeping me sane.

So that's why I liked it better when you were still an internet stranger. I didn't feel quite as restrained. Say what you will, but half of those people on the right are people I rarely see in person any more because they're in other states. And the other half, that is, other students here, are people I can't say I ever really knew too well. So while I feel slightly less concerned about saying things I'll regret, it's only a matter of time before more people I know click that link in my aim profile.

I'm not really thinking this through very much, and it seems kind of counterintuitive to me that as I get to know people, I simultaneously allow them to know more about me, and distance myself further. Only after a very long time do I seem to really let down my guard. Paranoia and skepticism at times rule my social life.

Disclaimer

I think I need to find more friends with blogs so I don't look like I'm focusing on any single person I know.

That or just lay off a bit and allow for more interesting things to happen.

Words, in three parts

This is pretty long, so I've broken it up into three mostly distinct parts. They're in the order, loosely speaking, that I wrote them in, but by no means does that mean the most compelling bits are in the beginning. The parts are like this:

1. Yesterday's Activities: Fine Dining
2. Some quick remarks on AIM
3. on blogs

And it should be noted that all of this is incredibly self involved and at times maybe a bit pretentious.

Part the first: food

So my sister is in town for a couple days, and as she is an aspiring chef (that is, she works on the line in a somewhat higher class place, but it's not some 4 star super dining establishment), I get to eat really well when she visits because she wants to take me out to fancy places. Last night, for example, we went out to this place called Kevin's. It's at 9 W Hubbard I think, just north of the loop proper, and I really really liked the food. I ordered this Tuna Tartare appetizer and this bean-sauce glazed rack of lamb for an entre, then finished with an Apricot and some other fruits and nuts strudel, with apricot-chamomile ice cream. Oh man, it was amazing. I also had a sampling of all the dishes that my aunt and her friends who brought us there got as well. I don't remember exactly what everybody else got, so I'm going to not bother listing them.

So, yeah, last night I had an amazing dinner, and tonight she's taking me out to Topolobampo (I think that's how it's spelled) because she admires Rick Bayless and this is one of his restaurants. It's a 4-star place, apparently, so, I'm going to be totally outclassed. Holy crap.

One thing that was kind of funny was when we were talking about how my sister is considering moving to Chicago, these two people I didn't know, who I guess are Neurology bigwigs at some other university around here (they live in Oak Park I think?), mentioned how me being a student at U of C must mean I don't get out much. I started to protest, and realized this was the second time I've stepped out of Hyde Park this quarter. I used to get out more, but this year I've become really sad on that front, I think.

After dinner last night, we went and saw Ep. III. It was pretty impressive but I generally have to agree with a bunch of critic's reviews: Action cool, dialogue not cool. I also kind of liked the pacing and tension of the old saber-duels, rather than these new ones which are much more frenetic and have far less talking. Whatever, I do not want to sit here and nitpick star wars. It was a very fun movie to watch, and I suspect I'll probably get dragged (not dragged as I will go willingly) to see it again in the near future.

Part the second: AIM

So having just recently realized that I was in a dialogue with somebody I actually know, rather than some anonymous internet stranger, I went ahead and skimmed over some random selections from their blog, because rather than do the personable thing and talk with them, it was easier this morning while I munched on cereal to page through some entries online. Anyhow, one of the entries had this remark about the drawbacks of one's parents learning to use AIM. I found it really amusing actually. See, the thing is, my parent's use AIM a lot, because it's much easier, cheaper and often more convenient, than phone calls or email, as they are in China. So while at first I worried about what kind of things I left up in my away message or profile, I got over that really quickly, because I fast realized that they didn't seem to care too much, if ever they even checked. The thing that made me briefly worried again, was when my grandparents started using AIM. At the behest of my parents, they got it installed, with some help from my cousins I think, and learned how to use AIM, and one day my grandmother im's me and I had some away message up with some movie quote I think, which might have been interpreted in an entirely bad way, and were it not for the quotation marks which I often omit, probably would have been. As it was, she simply asked what that meant, and eventually signed off (I only saw all this after the fact, clearly). So later I caught one of them online and explained that often I will leave up away messages that might normally be cause for alarm, but they shouldn't worry about it, or ever take it seriously. As they've all got an understanding of this now, I don't really think about who's reading it anymore.

It's also kind of funny sometimes the reactions I've gotten when people discover that not only do my parents use AIM, a lot, but that my grandparents do as well. As I understand it, my parents' use of AIM puts them in a fairly select minority, nevermind my grandparents.

Part the third: blogging

This section is going to be pretty rambly, since I don't really feel like organizing my thoughts beforehand to make this more readable. So recently I discover this blog of this person I know, and sort of through it reinitiate contact with them. Then I later discover that this person is in fact good friends with this other person I know, pretty much totally unbeknownst to me. And so I'm commenting on this person's blog and this other person I know is also commenting there, and there is in some sense this dialogue going on but I have no idea it's somebody I know. Then one day, that is to say, this morning, I click a couple times, skim a few paragraphs and am totally surprised to discover just who this internet stranger is.

Anyhow, that's just sort of vaguely related to the remarks I wanted to say. I had some well thought out motivation I was going to provide for justification for these remarks, but I can't remember what they were and they weren't really terribly meaningful as I don't really have any real motivation save for an interest in passing time.

I started a blog when I was in 9th grade. And it, like every blog I've tried to start maintaining since, got me in trouble. In 9th grade, it was just this dumb experiment with HTML, more than anything else. I made silly remarks about stuff I did, and I don't even have an archive of it anymore. Much like every incarnation since, I used it as a place to randomly vent frustrations of mine. Actually it may have been 10th grade. In any case, that year, MA was testing a new standardized test they were going to institute as a requirement for receiving a high school diploma. So anyway, me being totally polarized against more testing in schools, only because as a student, I did not like taking tests (though in retrospect this makes little sense since I tested better than I perform GPA-wise (still true, really)), I decided to lambaste the test on my web log, to a readership of me, maybe a couple friends, and whoever happened to see it because it was the home page on a couple of the computer lab's computers, in a silly and stupid and entirely reasonless attempt to boost my hit-count.

Now, here's what happened: There was this question on the science section, and it was something about the water cycle, short "essay" format (that is, maybe 5 sentences). Since it was being tested on me, and I didn't really care at all, I entered what I thought to be a hilarious joke answer about some little kid peeing in a pool and it evaporating and so forth. Then I posted as much on my weblog. And this is where it got messy. Some teacher went to use a computer in the computer lab, and was greeted by my weblog. Then they saw that I had posted the prompt for the question and my "parody" answer. They then reported me to the vice principal for "cheating" on the test. See, what I had failed to consider, among a great many other things, was that the test is administered to high schools all over the state over the course of a few weeks, and not all schools are obligated to be on the same schedule. That is, some schools hadn't yet taken the science section. So I was sitting in World Geography class I think, and there's a call and the teacher is like "Russell, you've been requested to go to the office and talk to the Vice Principal." And I'm like "uh crap" and the class is like "oooooooooooooh." So I walk down there and she's like "I hope you realize what you've done, this is serious business. I've already printed and faxed your webpage to the Dept. of Education. It's in their hands now." She explained how I wasn't supposed to do that, and how it could invalidate the results of the whole school's testing and it'd be all my fault and to be honest it scared the crap out of me, though I think at the time I kept a pretty good straight face. Ultimately, nothing came of it, but it got me to shut down and purge my website from existence damn quick.

Ok that's a really long and pretty silly story. Anyway, I've since tried multiple times to start and maintain blogs, and they always fail because I say something stupid, and somebody calls me out on it, and it ends with somebody being pretty upset at me. I imagine with time I'll manage that here as well, or I'll just stop because I might get bored. Who knows.

Oh right, so the point is, through high school I kept it up and I was really really angsty and depressed and angry and ranted a lot, but I found it to be extremely cathartic. I think in lieu of going and actually seeking professional help, in many ways writing down all that depressed and high-school-angst filled crap did for me what I understand something like talk therapy is supposed to do for people.

I really did not enjoy high school much at all, as an aside.

But I made it through, about as fast as I could, and left, and life after high school has been substantially better.

I need to learn to restrain myself. I feel like I'm just pumping out an absurdly large number of words, so much so that it's probably very cumbersome to read.

Home

Just a quick remark before I head off to class: Somebody's away message had some remark about how "all these places feel like home" and while I have no idea what that is intended to mean in the context of the song it was presumably taken from, I just thought about how nowhere really feels like home.

I keep moving around and I'm no longer even really anchored in MA anymore, what with most of my friends and all of my nuclear family having moved away. It never really bothered me before, and I doubt it will continue to bother me in a few hours, but right now, I just feel really displaced.

Summer Breeze

This weekend was pretty fun. And in what I believe to be stereotypical self-important blogger fashion, I'm going to recount it for what little audience, if any, I may have.

The weekend for me began in my mind at least Friday afternoon, when I was notified that in spite of the change of Sushi destination, Annie still wanted to go do this double date thing with Kim and Jeremy. I have no idea how to spell Jeremy so I hope that's right. Anyhow, I was told that we'd be trying to leave maybe around seven, maybe earlier. I had wanted to watch the Animation Show at Doc and so my only real protest was that I have enough time to do that as well.

I got out of work at 5, and thinking I still had some time headed over to Crerar to pick up my Physics textbook to get an early start on the homework. As it happens, I never actually made use of them until the following morning, because I was told that we might try and go earlier since we didn't really have any reason to delay and everybody was hungry enough, or something. So I walked home, changed clothes and we headed out to the bus.

Now, since this was a Friday, I hadn't actually eaten anything the whole day since breakfast, for which I had two pieces of apple pie, and that's it. Maybe a bit of water through the day but nothing more. So when we headed out I was pretty cranky, and apparently it showed, a lot, but Annie reassured Kim and Jeremy that I was just cranky and not actually upset about being dragged out or something like that.

We got to Fullerton, which is really far away, and started looking for Clark street, which proved to be a bit more difficult than I think was really necessary, but I'm as much to blame as anybody for not bothering to have looked at a map first. We wandered around a bit, asked a bunch of strangers to point us in the right direction, and eventually found our way there. We noted a few eating establishments as we searched for Hey Sushi! which I, at least, considered returning to on the way back to the train later.

Eventually we found the place, and walked in to be greeted with what was kind of a outrageous atmosphere. I thought the decor to be pretty crappy, and the music annoying at best, but then, I have some pretty silly notions about how I expect a sushi place to look to begin with, so, who knows.

I'm no good at reviewing food or service or anything, so I'll simply say that while a bit pricey, because I am poor and nearly incomeless, I did think it very tasty. I ordered a tuna avocado roll, tonkatsu roll and california roll, and a house salad. The salad was kind all right, though the ginger dressing stuff was uncharacteristically salty. Still tasty to eat, but not nearly as tasty as other places I've had.

The "sunset" roll, which was smoked salmon and stuff, as well as the unagi roll that Annie had were both very tasty as well. And though kind of strange, I really liked the tonkatsu roll.

After we had all finished, we paid and headed out. K and J were both pretty full, having ordered a freaking boat of sushi, and Annie was as well, on account of having been eating apparently the whole day, well, snacking, rather.

I however, was actually still kind of hungry, because I hadn't eaten anything, so, as we were walking, I noted this austrian bakery and suggested we stop by. We did, and while I was perusing their variety of croissants, K and J decided to get some dessert. I'm not a fan of tiramisu but apparently it was very good, as was their fruit tart. I enjoyed the croissants and hot chocolate though.

Walking further, we stopped in this gelato/bubble tea joint and Annie picked up a cantaloupe/strawberry freeze with tapioca. I'm not the hugest fan of cantaloupe, but, nonetheless, it was good. Finally, due in part to me seeking to sate my stomach, and in part to the demands of some bladders, we made a stop in McDs and I had a double cheeseburger because it was on the dollar menu. It seemed kind of a shame to finish an evening of nice food with a grease sandwich but, it was at the very least enough to make me stop feeling hungry.

We got back on the train, and headed back towards Hyde Park. K and J got off downtown to go see star wars, and I hope that I too will be able to see it soon as well.

Upon getting back to hyde park, we rushed over to Doc, to come in a couple minutes late to the 11:00 showing of the animation show. I wasn't as impressed as I remember being last year, but there were a few really amusing ones. I particularly liked this one called "Ward 13" which has a really hilarious wheelchair chase scene.

While there, we ran into Cassie, James and Pete, and then had some brief conversation while walking back to our respective abodes. And that's about the end of Friday. I went to sleep pretty early because I had to return those damn physics books to the library by 10 AM.

Saturday was sort of the most interesting part of the weekend, on account of Summer Breeze. I woke up at around 8:30 and began preparing. When I say preparing, I mean filling my hydropack thingy up with ice, orange juice, tonic and vodka. It was rather quite tasty actually. I also brought some paper and a calculator so I could do my physics homework before the festivities really got underway around noon.

I arrived at the library at about 10:05, a bit late, but nobody seemed to mind, at which point I renewed the loan and did my physics homework. At about 11:30 I finished up, and headed over to the other library to deposit my homework and other unneeded stuff in a locker. I ran into Pete there, as he was working. He was the first person in my day to remark on the strange tube filled with liquid running from my back to my right shoulder.

After dropping off my stuff, I headed over to the "carnival" that was the Summer Breeze activities. At first I just sort of wandered around as they were still setting up. I sipped on my nice chilled beverage and saw what was being set up. I ran into a few people I know, most of which gave remarks on my backpack, ranging from telling me it was a very cool idea to that it was without compare in nerdiness. Among them was James who was running the roommate game, which I watched the beginning of, but ultimately was more interested in the pie eating contest being run by the culinary club.

Last year, I was a contestant, though this year, they pulled me in last minute as a volunteer to help serve. I was in charge of keeping three contestants plates constantly filled with pie. This is in my memory perhaps the peak of my weekend, though I'm not sure why.

The pie eating got underway and this one guy who I was serving was downing pie like a champ. I mean, he was fucking blazing through his first pie, and I was encouraging him as I shoveled more pie onto his plate. Around I think perhaps the 4 or 5 minute mark, he had basically consumed 1.5 pies. I think they were maybe 9" pies, to give an idea of the size. The first was blueberry, the second was apple. But about then, he just sort of stopped. I was like, uh oh, I think he's pushed himself a little too far. And then he gagged. Now, I think in retrospect I should have been a better person and encouraged him to stop, but, no. I just told him something about burping to feel less full and keep stuffing his face with pie.

Well, a minute later, maybe only 30 seconds, he goes for another few bites. But then he just sort of stops and is holding his hand in front of his mouth, looking kind of queasy. Then out of nowhere his face erupts with this liquefied pie goo, which was surprisingly not blue, given that he had just eaten a blueberry pie. I mean, it wasn't a lot of vomit, but it was coming out at high speed, and there was splashing onto the other two guys I was serving (the puker was in the middle).

Now for some reason, I found this hilariously amusing and could not stop laughing as I continued to serve pie. I suspect that this may have had more than nothing to do with having been drinking a bit beforehand.

Besides that though, I just sort of meandered around. I got a wax mold made of my hand, which was both really cold and really hot, both to the point of being mildly painful. I "jousted" with Dennis, wherein I successfully tackled him once and proceeded to be demolished due to poor strength and coordination. In the bungee run as well I was bested 3-0. Though, in a singular act of vindication, I managed to "win" not just one, but two, bottles of water (we were thirsty and I had decided maybe it'd be a good idea to have some water too) from the student care table. Dennis however was unable to muster up the throwing skill for even one. This is not actually important and entirely trivial but this is how my memory went.

After that, I think we headed over towards the climbing column thing set up in the Harper quad and climbed up that. After this, Dennis headed off (we'd been hanging around since I ran into him before the pie debacle) and Annie who had since joined us, and I got some food and wandered around some more. I got a Strawberry Lychee tapioca freeze and I think that was about when we decided to head off. This was around 3:00 or so. I headed to the library to grab my bag, she went to pick up one of the extra pies.

We headed back and I took a nap before the concert.

Oh, but before that, I did discover a way for me to get rid of this huge quantity of extra deodorant I've got, and in a charitable way to boot (that is, opposed to a dumpster).

Right, so, at around 5:30 we headed over to Reynolds to attend the Summer Breeze concert. The first act, Julie Roberts, was met with a less than enthusiastic and somewhat lacking crowd. I'm neither a big fan nor terribly familiar with country music, so, I spent a lot of time wandering around, talking with people I knew. During this time, Jess came and joined us and in a very very limited sense I caught up a little. Hardly at all though, which is a shame because I must admit, though somewhat late, I am curious about her time in Thailand.

Anyhow, after Roberts finished, a few more people started showing up, and as Ted Leo took to the stage, we stood from our muddy seats on the ground to stand in front of the stage. By this time, my neck had started to bother me (from having landed on it while being yanked backwards by the bungee run thing) but alas, too bad. I was also still chugging away at my 2.75 liters of considerably diluted (due to melting ice) beverage, which I think perhaps added to the experience.

Nas' performance was great, I think. I mean, I haven't really attended a rap performance before, so, what do I know, but, it was a lot of fun, in spite of this raving bitch behind me. She wouldn't shut the fuck up and was screaming "fuck you nas you fucking pussy" for hours. I also came to the conclusion that Ben later shared with me that rap concerts are more fun if you know the artist's songs beforehand. So while I knew a couple, I didn't really know that many and while it didn't detract from the experience directly, I feel like it would have been more fun if I knew more of them. Who knows though.

Anyhow, it was a lot of fun, and apparently Yana who runs special events at Doc also volunteers for MAB. This is only notable because I remembered that I never replied to this email she sent after the last Doc special event, because I still have yet to figure out what I'm doing over the Summer.

And I think that's about it for Saturday. I know I'm leaving out huge chunks of how things happened, but I feel that there are enough words here as it is, and any further verbosity is just going to be that much more of a pain to write and read.

Before going to sleep though, I realized I had made an error in telling my roommates about when my sister was coming, and it wasn't today, but tomorrow. (That is, not Sunday, but Monday.)

So this morning, I woke up and it was pretty early, and actually nothing of note really happened. I can't remember anything at the moment at least.

At about 2:00 we headed over to Mahjong. Mahjong was amusing. Talked to Mike (mickey preferred?) for a bit, which is actually kind of strange given the banter that has in some sense developed between us online. I'm not really sure what else I can remark about it... er I actually won a couple rounds, which was a first though. The cookies Teresa baked were pretty tasty as well.

I was entertained, well, not entertained, but I enjoyed being witness to the way some other people interact with each other, because it struck me as so different from the way most of the people I know interact with each other. I feel as if I have perhaps stagnated.

After mahjong, I came home, cooked up a bunch of bacon wrapped dates, which were delicious. I ate some vegetables Annie had cooked up in oyster sauce and planted myself in front of the TV to watch Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy like the hopeless TV-addicted boob I am. But apparently everything bad is good for you, so said that book some guy talked about in the Maroon. I don't need excuses though. It was the season finales of two shows I'd watched the whole seasons of. How could I miss it?

After that, I wrote a bunch of emails I'd been meaning to write, including giving directions to my sister who will be arriving tomorrow, as well as following up with these people in NYC who are interviewing me later this week, and hopefully if that goes well, I'll have something to do in NYC, which I've almost committed myself completely to by default at this point.

Ok, I think I've said about enough and I'm going to go to sleep now. It's going to be a busy week, what with my sister visiting, and many others as well.

just kidding buddy

I feel compelled to preface my remarks with the following: It would be downright Pecksniffian for Ani to teach the next generation how to hate -- and whom to hate. One of the first facts we should face is that if the past is any indication of the future, he will once again attempt to push our efforts two steps backward. I could accuse him of using effrontive nudniks to get his way, but I wouldn't stoop to that level. Take this example: Let's say that unlike his hariolations, my own prognoses are not vague and undefined. Now let's say that if stated outright, Ani's harangues would be manifestly unpopular. Does that mean that he is entitled to detach individuals from traditional sources of strength and identity -- family, class, private associations? No, because some people think I'm exaggerating when I say that the magnitude of Ani's lies should disgust anyone who has an even moderate education. But I'm not exaggerating; if anything, I'm understating the situation. Ani says that he is known for his sound judgment, unerring foresight, and sagacious adaptation of means to ends. What he means by this, of course, is that he wants free reign to damn this nation and this world to Hell.

We have come full-circle. For proof of this fact, I must point out that perhaps one day we will live in a world where good people are not troubled by fear of the most pigheaded converts to egotism I've ever seen. Until that day arrives, however, we must spread the word that life isn't fair. We've all known this since the beginning of time, so why is Ani so compelled to complain about situations over which he has no control? Any honest person who takes the time to think about that question will be forced to conclude that Ani is extraordinarily brazen. We've all known that for a long time. However, his willingness to overthrow the government and eliminate the money system sets a new world record for brazenness. I see how important Ani's execrable sermons are to his proxies and I laugh. I laugh because we could opt to sit back and let him crush the remaining vestiges of democracy throughout the world. Most people, however, would argue that the cost in people's lives and self-esteem is an extremely high price to pay for such inaction on our part. What is the milieu in which the most complacent amnesiacs you'll ever see rewrite and reword much of humanity's formative works to favor barbarism? It is the underworld of conspiracy theory, a subculture in which self-righteous mountebanks share fantasies of fighting heroically against a huge conspiracy that will redefine humanity as alienated machines/beasts and then convince everyone that they were never human to begin with eventually. If I hear Ani's toadies say, "The federal government should take more and more of our hard-earned money and more and more of our hard-won rights" one more time, I'm indisputably going to throw up. Ani does, occasionally, make a valid point. But when he says that his opinions represent the opinions of the majority -- or even a plurality -- that's where the facts end and the ludicrousness begins.

If you need proof that he is a small part of a large movement that seeks to resolve a moral failure with an immoral solution, then just take a look at him. If I understand his diatribes correctly, then many authoritarians have an intense identification with morally repugnant Luddites. So what's the connection between that and his bons mots? The connection is that Ani wonders why everyone hates him. Apparently, he never stopped to think that maybe it's because I, hardheaded cynic that I am, want to give people more information about Ani, help them digest and assimilate and understand that information, and help them draw responsible conclusions from it. Here's one conclusion I honestly hope people draw: Ani wants to defile the present and destroy the future. It gets better: He believes that he understands the difference between civilization and savagery. I guess no one's ever told him that he would have us believe that it's okay to exhibit cruelty to animals. Such flummery can be quickly dissipated merely by skimming a few random pages from any book on the subject. Ani's litanies all stem from one, simple, faulty premise -- that the kids on the playground are happy to surrender to the school bully. Many people respond to Ani's self-absorbed, libidinous protests in the same way that they respond to television dramas. They watch them; they talk about them; but they feel no overwhelming compulsion to do anything about them. That's why I insist we speak out against behavior and speech that is intended to wage a clandestine guerilla war against many basic human rights. Although we must shake off our torpor, ignore the siren songs of voyeurism, and do something about the continuing -- make that the escalating -- effort on Ani's part to control, manipulate, and harm other people, we are here to gain our voice in this world, and whether or not Ani approves, we will continue to be heard.

Yelling

One time, I was feeling angry, and a friend sent me this picture, and then I was very amused.


[click for fullsize]

I am censoring myself, the first.

I have removed the contents of this post because I feel that they were written at a very emotionally charged time and therefore are inadmissible.

[For reference, I removed this 4:46 PM on Thursday, the 19th of May, 2005.]

Honesty

Mostly here's something I found amusing from over on Ani's blog:

If you are honest with yourself, you already know your own flaws. If you think I'm writing about you, it's likely that I am. If this bothers you, feel free to let me know, and I'll have one more thing I don't like about you for next time.