Confessions of a Dramamine Queen

Liminal

2011-12-27T21:58:00.003-05:00

What microbial thoughts
reside in the seams of each day,
overlooked and fertile,
driven by a force more primal than will?
As a child, my mother taught me
how to crack open the bones
that lent her hearty soups flavor.
The smooth, gray, curving armor of each rib
split easily from end to end,
its splintered edges offering up
the soft marrow residing within,
the medulla ossium ruba,
an interstitial secret
bringing warmth to our daily needs.
The same warmth pulses
within the recesses of the darkest nadir,
the deep of the Mariana.
Her fissures are the conduit,
umbilical cord to our molten Heart that sustains
and attests, "Revelation comes in not a flood,
but a trickle."
Wednesday afternoon -
these days are preset, each hour
molded by the heavy hand of intent.
Interwoven are the minutes,
mere and precious, between purposes,
between points, undefined,
when suddenly
I am in the primordial state myself,
thoughts teeming and subliming,
luxuriating in the richness of free-form,
until the rift
closes up again.

Season Poems

2011-09-17T19:07:00.020-04:00

Season Poem 1: Fall

Some days in autumn,
the season is tugged along by
strong gusts whose fingers catch in the foliage,
and loosen leaves that have ripened to a rich red,
or yellow like the soft peel of an apple,
speckled like an egg

on tempestuous afternoons,
clouds roam across the celestial plain,
the herd kicking up a soft flurry that touches down
on our faces, heavier than mist

morning arrives in the gritty leftovers of a storm.
With the rhythmic cadence
of a cat's tongue against milk,
wandering sandals
slap the ground's grainy detritus
onto dry soles
in search of a daily coffee

the slate of the sky reflects each
slick slab of asphalt that
daily collects another layer of the shedding season,
a tessellation
of the reds,
apple peel yellows,
and the specked eggs
that march on until November.

Season Poem 2: Fracture

There is a time of stripping away,
when we get to see
the structure underneath.

In spring,
the spine of each leaf
lengthens
and bisects, lengthens
a bit more,
and continues to split
and elongate at a snail's pace
until it is broad like an open palm
and ridged like a coastline.

In fall,
the retreating crawl
of lush coverage
reveals the spidery lattice from which
life sprang,
months ago -
knobby fingers are hardy as
veins in an infinite cycle,
begetting capillaries,
always birthed from arteries,
thicker than water swirling
in a subtly numbered,
dedicated loop.

I can't say
it doesn't bring me to tears
to see nature's ellipsis camouflaged
against the cloak of each season,
as summer beats slow,
lub-dub shuffle drags long,
like tree branch shadows
at noon in winter.

Identity in a New Land

2011-06-26T10:59:00.007-04:00

Hot on the heels of the busiest three months I've had in a while, I'm finally taking a huge - HUGE - breather and escaping to the Pacific Northwest with the hubby. YES, two months after tying the knot, we are finally going on our honeymoon!! For the first time in a long while, we are really getting a chance to spend some together outside of the shroud of familiarity in which we've wrapped ourselves...no kitties (sorry, Grundton & Nicholas), no Philly students, no stifling summer sweat of the east coast - hell, even the beer is different up here.

Actually, lots of things are different. There is an undefined, unsettled quality about experiencing a city like Seattle when you've just come from a place as stereotyped and easily labeled in the collective American mind as Philadelphia. My subjective, uninformed impression of Seattle is limited to a few key facts - rainy, near Canada, setting of Frasier, and birthplace of Starbucks and grunge - that are limited in their connotative reach, paling in comparison to the public impression of Philadelphia as dangerous, rough around the edges, blue-collar, and unrefined. Granted, Chris and I spent a handful of hours in a limited part of the city, after an exhausting day that began at 4:30am eastern time and ended with a three-hour time difference; nonetheless, as powerful as first impressions are, I certainly came away from our first day in Seattle distinctly lacking one.

Atop the Space Needle yesterday afternoon, the presence of the groups of teens loitering around Seattle Center prompted a discussion about identity that Chris and I had left off over a year ago, at a time when I was struggling with my own religious identity (or rather, nonreligious identity, as I had previously identified as atheist). The process of learning relies on the honing of extremes - we take in the rules of the world first by polarizing complex ideas, and only as they become more familiar to us do we learn the exceptions that add nuance to our understanding, in effect creating more finely-grained bifurcations of what we take in. I believe that the process of self-discovery follows this pattern. As tweens and teens we take on oversized personalities and try on the costumed labels created by society to see what fits. We clumsily turn outward to begin that attempt at finding ourselves, leading to those cringe-worthy phenomena (and lucrative commercial niches) like black lipstick, spiked chokers, and, on the other side of the hill, pink polo shirts with the collars popped and plaid shorts (both unisex looks, natch). As we mature, the identities we try on become less clownish, but I still believe there is a very fine line at which we stop looking to external dictates to tell us who we are, and actually start examining fully inward. Truly, I think this is a difficult journey requiring a lot of self-awareness and courage, and as weak creatures as we are, no doubt there are many who are never able to fully get to cross this line in their lifetimes.

(To be continued...)

Supermoon, Hello & Goodbye, and other Spring Things

2011-03-20T09:50:00.008-04:00

The arrival of spring has nothing to do with the date on a calendar - it is a weekend that entices you to emerge from your winter-worn niches with great exuberance, with the treat of good humor that promises to beget more good humor. Last year it came the first weekend of March, and I still remember that Sunday, how Chris and I drove up from Maryland after visiting my mom. Our winter coats were laid over the backseats of the car, and we zoomed up 95 feeling such lightness, having shed the weight of winter from our minds and our own bodies.

Perhaps in anticipation of this feeling, for the last month or so Chris and I have been looking for a new place to live in Philadelphia. We were ready to emerge from our five-year hibernation, on City Avenue, in this apartment that's absorbed that many years of growth, change, clutter, and routine, feeling as much physical wear as that restless, gnawing sense of sameness. We looked forward to starting our married life in a new place - somewhere bigger for the cats (for Grundton to explore, and for Nicholas to hide from Grundton's shenanigans), and embedded in the city, not just by longitude and latitude, but by elevation as well.

I liked apartment hunting! Although sifting through craigslist postings got tedious at times, I enjoyed harnessing the excitement of envisioning a new life, and molding that vision to the places that seemed (even if only on paper) like a good fit. We whittled down bookmarked postings to a handful of places that we saw in person... On the "likely" end was a 3-level rowhome a few blocks away from Johnny Brenda's, with the 3rd floor being a "penthouse" master bedroom. The owners had really given the place a lift - installed surround sound, built-in bookshelves/entertainment center, added a chandelier to the kitchen, etc. We also debated a place in Art Museum that had a really gorgeous redone kitchen and living room, with a new fireplace, floating stairs, and a sunlit backyard. On the bottom of our list was a trinity home in Washington Square West that we dubbed "the creepy house". Photographs of the home were quite alluring, with exposed brick walls and a wide, slightly convex 3rd floor bedroom window, as was its proximity to about four different cupcake shoppes with impressive window displays. Then we toured the place, and realized it was cramped, a total fixer-upper (broken window panes, among other things), and totally creepy. I guess these "trinity" homes mean they're 3 floors tightly stacked atop one another...the stairs to each floor are a set of steep, rickety, and narrow spiralling wooden steps that pose a Mt.-Everestian feat for any person who's had one too many drinks. I imagined Chris, after a night of drinking, slipping on the stairs, knocking himself out, and wedging his unconscious body in that narrow spiral staircase, entrapping my own feeble self on the third floor with no way out.

Finally, last weekend we found a place in Northern Liberties that I really fell in love with right away. It had plenty of space, was in a great location, and had lots of the criteria we were looking for (spacious kitchen for Chris to do his cooking in comfort, hardwood floors that didn't absorb kitty messes the way carpets do, lots of storage space for our crap, etc.). After checking it out a second time yesterday and negotiating on the rent, we signed papers (woohoo!!) and celebrated by walking four blocks next to North Bowl and getting lunch at Dos Segundos. We'll start moving our stuff out gradually, but the big move will likely come in May after the wedding is no longer a priority.

Of course, no big change - even a happy one - is without giving something up. Leaving apartment 1115 in Executive House means saying goodbye to some pretty sweet things as well as things that just have become a part of our lives, like being regulars at neighborhood restaurants where the staff knows us (Shangri-La, Ginza, Primavera, Sangkee), having a plethora of nearby parks and lush neighborhoods for frisbee-tossing and Saturday morning strolls, and most of all, our 20-foot balcony and its accompanying view of the Philly skyline and (sometimes even better) different sky moods:
(dawn in January) (impending storm in May)
(after a storm in late summer)
(Supermoon last night)

Of course, it also means saying goodbye to sharing a building with college students (hearing the tail end of an elevator conversation that ended in "smelled like vagina" does not happen when with real adults), having to deal with driving on Lancaster any time I'm heading into West Philly (3-mile-an-hour trolleys, ungodly traffic, fresh potholes daily, the intersection at 52nd that is pure hell), and the omnipresent roving groups of giggling, suburban teens ("oh my god, I can't believe he said that!"). I can live with saying goodbye to all of that.

I'm looking forward to shedding all of winter's weight in the next few short months. Stay tuned for more updates on the wedding, moving, and life!

Are you there, Freud? It's me, Amy

2011-01-27T06:30:00.004-05:00

This is the dream I had last night. Why my brain made me dream this, I don't know. Here's the dream:

*cue chimes and wavy, distorted dream transition sequence*

I am walking down the street. A car going in the opposite direction pulls up next to me. The driver leans over and asks, "Excuse me - where are the Gilman steps?"

I pause and think. Ah, yes, I know where they are. I point ahead, in the direction that the driver came from. "It's over this way - I'm heading near there right now. If you actually make a U-y right now and want to drive along with me, I can lead you over there." I beam and feel warm and fuzzy. What a good person I am! Just like the kind of person I am when I'm awake. *smile*

The driver agrees. He pulls past me to make a nice, wide U-turn. My back is turned as I wait for him.

I turn back around and urge the driver onward. I suddenly notice that he is now no longer in a car but in a wheelchair. The other side of the street that he's U-turned onto is no longer a smooth stretch of asphalt, but heavily under construction as a gradually descending set of concrete steps. Still incomplete, in the place of the middle set of steps is a rocky, dark, yawning chasm that has yet to be filled. The man is rolling himself down the steps, per my instruction, oblivious to the gaping hole awaiting him.

I panic as I process this new scenery and connect the dots of cause and effect. Oh. God. "STOP!!" I start screaming - "Don't go any --!!"

TOO LATE.

The poor man doesn't hear me in time. As the last step disappears under him, wheelchair and all, he plummets into the chasm and dies. Shock grabs a hold of me and I turn in utter horror, unable to watch. Simultaneously, the weighty reality of guilt rushes in, and I'm paralyzed with the realization that I was the proximal cause of an innocent man's death.

*cue chimes and wavy, distorted dream transition sequence*

WHAT IN THE FUCK IS MY BRAIN TRYING TO DO TO ME?? THIS IS TRAUMATIZING! THIS IS REALLY FUCKING TRAUMATIZING!! In the middle of a busy work week, in the midst of planning a wedding, I do NOT need to wake up first thing in the morning with the blood of an innocent human being on my hands, dream or not. I am really fucking mad at my subconscious - where does it think up this sick shit?!? This is really a sick joke.

And what pisses me off is that I can't do anything to get back at it. This is really the truest form of guerrilla warfare - while my big lumbering consciousness is asleep, the subconsciousness emerges from the mist like a pack of poop-flinging chimpanzees and forces me to watch a human being - a CRIPPLED human being, no less - fall into a giant hole in the earth and die. Read this definition of "guerrilla warfare" from Wikipedia and tell me that's NOT what my brain is doing to me (emphases my own):

Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians (or "irregulars") used military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and less-mobile traditional army, or strike a vulnerable target, and withdraw almost immediately.

MMMMHHMMM.

To add insult to injury, the dream continues like this:

*resume dream sequence*

...and I'm paralyzed with the realization that I was the proximal cause of an innocent man's death. As I begin sobbing, shaking, and otherwise turning into a soppy, goopy emotional mess, two figures emerge out of the air. It's President Truman and Anonymous, Non-Descript Old-Timey President from early American history (you know, they all kind of looked the same), except since there were no photographs of presidents before Polk in 1845, the Old-Timey President appears to me as a cartoon character.

President Truman and Old-Timey Cartoon President proceed to comfort me, rubbing my shoulders and cooing soothing words in my ear, that Wheelchair Man's death wasn't my fault, accidents happen, etc. etc. Gradually, I'm swayed by their words. The dream concludes with my arms around their shoulders, hollering, "Hey, Chris! Can you get a photo of me with the presidents?"

*end dream sequence*

So my brain causes me to murder a man, begin to suffer the moral consequences, and then just tries to smooth everything over with a comical presidential pardon. NO!! It doesn't get let off the hook that easily!! Fucking little imp.

The last time I got pissed off at my brain when I woke up, it had made me dream about making out with Michael Scott. I woke up disgusted and confused.

I remain disgusted, confused, and angry to this day.

Femme Fatale: Part I

2010-12-05T11:15:00.006-05:00

I have discovered that I am a fatalist. In this realization, I feel not only that I have come to a certain philosophical "checkpoint" for a burgeoning idea from since my teen years, but also, in a welcome breath of relief, reconciled a gnawing, uncomfortable pressure I've lived with for much longer that keeps me on constant alert for making the "right" decision at every crossroads. It is a variation of Kundera's einmal ist keinmal, the recognition of our own insignificance not in the face of a vast physical space, but under the churning wheels of a temporal one, where cause and effect move but in one direction. However, instead of being pained by the inconsequence of existence, I am set free by it.

This entry tells the story of my arrival at this "checkpoint".

I: THE MICROCOSMIC ILLUSION

When I was in 10th grade, I was exposed to Calvinism and the role that predetermination played in its doctrines through Ms. Seabreeze's American History class. Up on the third floor of my high school building, I remember our class collectively struggling to understand a belief system that sprang from the Christian roots of doing right to get into heaven, while simultaneously stating that God's mercy was the sole determinant of the fate of one's soul. How, we protested, could a religion promote predetermination without seeing its followers, lacking incentives to follow God's decree, lapse into chaos and sin? "Think of it this way," we were prompted by Ms. Seabreeze, "You still have the freedom to make a choice about your actions. It is just that God already knows what choice you're going to make." The fact of God's knowing the outcome of an event didn't negate the freedom possessed by an individual to impact that event.

Although this idea was but a drop in the bucket of our course, and we moved on quickly from Calvinism to other 16th century developments that would impact the earliest years of American history, I was intrigued by this idea that, although counterintuitive, was not self-contradictory. A comfortable atheist, I sought to test this concept against the laws of logic by removing the element of religion in a thought experiment; I replaced the role of God with a fortune teller who always accurately foresaw the future, and imagined that this clairvoyant laid out 5 playing cards before me: a king, a queen, a jack, a joker, and an ace. I was tasked with picking out any card of my choice, and she, with her back turned, would aim to make a prediction about my selection.

Well lo and behold, because she was a true fortune teller, she correctly predicted my card selection 100% of the time. She therefore saw the future not as a series of diverging paths, each one leading to a different outcome, but as a singular path that held only one possible consequence. However, the paradox that emerged was that from my perspective, as a humble seer only of the present, my freedom of choice was never in doubt. I always had the capacity to choose any card that I wanted; the only pressure I felt was my own internal decision-making process, over which I seemingly had complete control. Predetermination, or "fate" (for those inclined to use a more romantic term), could exist hand-in-hand with free will. It is only the shift in perspective that affects the perception of reality.

For a little while, the logic of this pleased my 15-year-old mind. But, naturally, ideas beget ideas, and I soon was faced with overcoming the obstacle of this fortune teller's theoretical existence, a pound of flesh that I had essentially concocted out of thin air, and who sooner or later I had to pay back to the stoic gods of reason. For my conclusion to be more than the bastard child of an adolescent thought experiment, I had to answer the question, In the physical world, just what does this fortune teller represent? What, in tangible form, is all-knowing, would observe the actions of every individual, and could foresee the decision of every traveler who came upon two roads diverged?

The answer I came to - an idea that has only grown more nuanced and ingrained in my mind over the last ten years - was the Universe. The Universe, including all its physical manifestations, is the system that encompasses everything that ever has been, is, and will be, and therefore the perfect candidate to play the real-life role of the fortune teller*. The Universe is the only entity from which the perspective of all physical dimensions (AKA all events that may occur at any given moment in time) and all temporal dimensions (AKA the timeline from beginning to end of any particular event) can be seen. Although this perspective does not invalidate the perspective of the individual human being (or a bacterium, for that matter), it is the only one that takes into account all other perspectives that exist, and therefore the only one of the two that is complete**. Given this trump card, the second conclusion I arrived at - one that, this time, held water beyond the theoretical confines of a thought experiment - is that the microcosmic, individual perception of control over one's decisions does not exist in the holistic context. In other words, free will is an illusion.

Although by the time I was a junior in college, this was a "gut-feeling" belief I held to (still being utterly unfamiliar with the bodies of work of Howard Bloom, Douglas Hofstadter, Daniel Dennett, and other authors who would come to illuminate my understanding...including Albert Hofmann, if I may get cheeky***), my intellectual understanding of it was still tenuous, and it took another five years for it to develop into the fuller (albeit still very skeletal) idea that I've just presented. It had even further to go in terms of trickling down into my pragmatist views on living. That second half of this story, shedding light on why Kundera's "lightness of being" for me is not unbearable but one of life's saving graces, and why fatalism represents a falling into place of still more puzzle pieces in this existence, will have to wait for another time.

*Although I was incapable of making the connection at the time, of course this meant by extension the Universe is also God. But that is for another blog entry.

** Because of its completeness, according to mathematician Kurt Godel's Incompleteness Theorem it is therefore also inconsistent. This holds in my analogy because the complete perspective of the universe necessarily encompasses a multitude of conflicting (inconsistent) perspectives by individual human beings.

***...which I may, because this is my blog!

September is the busiest month...

2010-09-21T21:00:00.007-04:00

I am exhausted.

I am trying to make the most out of my weekends now. And what a month for that to be happening - September is just a complete breath of things starting to die and grow at the same time, a month so dynamic I feel like I could burst. I really think my three-year rut of giving in to inertia at every free minute is over. Each moment can be one of three things: downtime, maintenance, or life to the fullest. Spring of this past year I devoted a tremendous amount of mental energy to make "maintenance" the floor and not the ceiling ... I don't feel ready to let go of that momentum. I wonder how long it will take to exhaust this extreme of the pendulum swing? And how long after that until I can expect to reach equilibrium?

*sigh*

For now, Mondays in September are quite the day. It's a thin wall that's tasked with containing all my visceral highs and lows within a mere two days of seven.

I'm hanging in there.

A LOVELY Labor Day Weekend

2010-09-06T09:58:00.017-04:00

For over a month, I had been looking forward to the weekend of September 3, not because of the lure of the long weekend, but because I knew there'd be the possibility that it would end with this:

...which it did! For those inferentially-impaired, the above-mentioned "measurements, color, style, price, and size" are that of a wedding dress. My wedding dress. Tee!

I'd scheduled a Saturday afternoon appointment at Lovely, a bridal boutique in the West Village, for myself and my mini-entourage of women: my mom, Chris's mom Maureen, and Chris's sister Kate. Like the rest of the wedding planning process, I wanted dress-shopping to be low-stress and fun, something that wouldn't overshadow the wedding itself, yet would be remembered fondly. I had stayed true to that philosophy thus far - the first time I walked into a bridal shop was completely on a whim, with my best friend and maid-of-honor Jen who was in town for the month. Sans appointment, we stepped into a Main Line boutique, and just like that, I tried on a handful of gowns and found two that I could have been happy with that only barely stretched my budget. No pushy sales women, no opinionated gaggle of bridesmaids, no drama.

But drama or not, what would a dress-shopping experience be if I'd stopped there? And so, with the help of my sister-to-be Kate, I organized a day out for the Chen/Canary women in New York, a metropolis I hadn't set foot in in three years (and which, to my knowledge, still lays claim to my Cloud 9 wallet and Maryland driver's license from my last visit). It was a gorgeous afternoon kicked off by a late brunch of Eggs Norwegian and a mimosa at Pastis in the meatpacking district, followed by a stroll through the shady and lush residential streets before our arrival at Lovely, an unassuming boutique nestled into the brown brick of West 4th Street townhouses. We almost missed it, as the only sign of its presence from the street was a simple chalkboard slate with the store's name written in script, hung from a black iron gate leading to its basement entrance.

From there, I loved every single moment of the dress-shopping experience. From the calming but quirky robin's egg blue walls covered in pleats of folded newspaper, to my mom telling me which dresses caught her eye, to examining trays of bejeweled hair pins and netted veils, to the three racks of draped, corseted, and feathered gowns that we could browse on our own, with no other customers to compete with ... and to being led upstairs to a sunny private salon with couches that stood on curved wooden legs, into which my family plopped comfortably as if they were at home. Oh, and I loved my salesgirl too! Melanie with her knowledgeable but yielding recommendations, earnest tone, and practical knotted turquoise flats put me right at ease and in the perfect mood to pick out a wedding gown.

For any brides-to-be reading this, I recommend creating an Oohs-and-Aahs rubric for any family and friends coming along with you. I could easily gauge the collective reaction of Kate and the moms - which were pretty in sync, mind you - by the sharpness of their

breath intake as I emerged from the curtains of the dressing room each time. The obvious "no" was a lace deep v-neck A-line; the lace made me look too old-fashioned an elicited only a restrained "awww". The more sure-footed dresses were accompanied by more chest-clutching and slower-paced sentences. "That. looks. fantastic." The dress that I ultimately decided on was collectively preferred for its wearability and movement, stylistic complements to the venue, and its overall Amyness. Although it competed neck-and-neck with a Grecian deep-v with a silver-beaded empire waist, I decided that the latter was of a much more common cut that I could find anywhere and wear anytime. The accents on my dress would only be fitting for a single day.

And that - was that! After just over an hour, we made our way back downstairs with my contract and credit card in hand, to find the next set of customers having just arrived and beginning to browse. In under four months, I'll be back at Lovely to pick up and take home the perfect dress, in my size, for my wedding.

Tee!

For more photos, click here.

Last photo courtesy of PRCouture.

Been locked up in my cell...

2010-08-23T20:44:00.012-04:00

Q: How long does it take a dunderhead to figure out how to send a cell phone photo to an email address?

A: I have had this cell phone for three and a half years!! The hell is wrong with me... If a million monkeys hacked away at my cell phone for a million years, they would have written War and Peace in a text and I'd still be figuring this one out. *sigh*

Here is the thing with my phone. It's got two amazing features: a slick reflective screen that's great for checking makeup, and a kickass camera. Other than that, I use it for texting and phoning, don't see no other purpose for it, and those fast-talking smartphone salesmen ain't gonna tell me otherwise, dagnabbit. BUT! I've never been able to unlock the magic of Amazing Feature #2, for you see - I know how to take the photo, but I've never known how to get it out of my phone...

Until today.

Ahh, yes. In celebration of this historic moment, let's collectively take a stroll through the masterpieces that have been hidden from human eyes. (Other than mine.)

"Number 1 Bun" January 2007

Note the contrast of dark and light. Also note the newly retired phone by the tissue box - size of a pea but no camera feature! If you extrapolate from this the rate by which I upgrade my phone, I'll own an iPhone by the 50th anniversary of my death. This was the first photo I took on my current phone.

"Giant Sack o' Bras" March 2009

I'm struggling to add any qualifiers here. It's pretty much a giant sack o' bras from when I worked at Victoria's Secret. Disney sack, to be precise. Net worth: over $2000. How do I know that? We caught a few thieves trying to steal it. They dropped it and ran away when we called the cops, who then asked us to tally up the retail cost. My Aldo bucket bag is resting right behind it, for size comparison. Yup. Giant sack o' bras.

"Grundton in Repose" March 2009

One of the many in the "Grundton in Repose" series.

"Phillies v. Nationals" April 29, 2009

There is simply not a bad seat in CBP! Lately, I don't even sit anymore - I stay in the 100-level behind the wheelchair rows and get a damn good spot. We lost this game 4-0. We are terrible, just terrible, against the Nats. Stay tuned for some payback...

"Do I look flat in this?" April 2009

This was a period during which I became increasingly paranoid about the state of my car, even though there was nothing wrong with it. Not a thing.I took this photo and messaged it to Chris in a panicked frenzy after driving down to the TFA office to interview for the Program Director position with Mike Wang, freaking out that my car was going to fall apart while I was 76. Turns out the churning in my stomach I attributed to non-existent car problems was just interview nerves. This is what a normal car tire looks like. (Forgot my dramamine that day.)

"Good Luck Amy" May 2009

My last day at Vicky's was marked by a sweet ass cookie-cake from Vicky (the human, not the corporation). Thanks Vicky, and much luck to you as well!

"Einstein's Lappy" August 2009

This statue fucking rocks!! I found it with my mom when we were walking around D.C. Note my strategically placed hand. He gave to the world the photoelectric effect, the theory of general relativity, and the equivalence of matter and energy. But I will always love him for his giant bronze lappy. God bless you, Einstein!

"Homies versus Couchies" December 2009

Winter in the warehouse is bitch, but so is anyone who tries to test their billiards skills against the Homies (Android not pictured). They know their way around the Hungry Hungry Hippo. 'Nuff said.

"A Dooey Pile" March 2010

OK, I see these trucks all over Philadelphia. They really couldn't have found a better name for the company that "brings the highest global standards of safe and secure chemical transportation"? I don't want to associate chemical handling with a dooey pile. On their website they call all their employees "Pyle People", which just sounds bizarre and makes me picture a bunch of tiny Lego men for some reason. It's not just me, right??

"An Asshole" August 2010

I have to share a parking garage with this asshat.

OK, we're almost done. Stay with me, here.

"Phillies v. Nationals, Part 2" August 22, 2010

We are all caught up in my life in cell photos. This was yesterday. We were 4-0 in the 7th inning when the long-anticipated scattered thunderstorm of the day finally came. Geoff, Jule, Chris, and I got to see the groundscrew unroll the tarp, and for the hour-and-a-half delay, we watched people in the 100-level gradually leave the ballpark while we plotted to steal their seats. After four hours of standing behind the wheelchair row, my dogs were barking! Patience, my pups... One of the ushers will be turning away any minute now...

"Phillies v. Nationals, Part 2b" August 22, 2011

Our coup de grace!! After being foiled once, we finally nabbed some sweet seats right by the first base line as it stopped raining. Cosmic justice for our patience was doled out almost immediately with an Ibanez two-run homer once the rain delay was lifted, and we ultimately shut out the Nats, 6-0. Of course, cosmic justice for our thievery was just as promptly handed down - as soon as we left to start the trek back to our car in FDR park, a sunshower broke out and completely doused us.

So there you have it! Three years' worth of cell phone photos crammed into a single blog entry, culminating in a kickass view of Citizens Bank Park. Much love to my dinky little phone, without which you wouldn't have wasted the last five minutes of your life reading this.

Until next time :)

I Will Not Even Dignify It With Its Proper Name.*

2010-08-01T22:28:00.008-04:00

The bowling alley on the corner of City Avenue and Haverford Drive is, hands down, the most ghetto bowling alley I have been to in my life. It is seemingly manned by a single individual behind the shoe rental counter. The bowling ball racks were about 20% filled, and one of the balls that Chris encountered had all 3 finger holes parallel to each other. Halfway through our first game, a mysterious, unidentified object appeared in the lane gutter and wobbled like a seal trying to shimmy itself up a hill. Our keypad was held together by a piece of duct tape, and the leader of the group three lanes down from us kept yelling, "FAGGOT! FAGGOT-ASS!!" every time he bowled poorly. And there are no concession stands, so one is required to experience the evening completely sober.

I am ashamed to type these words, but this is the bowling alley that Chris and I took our friend Geoff to on his birthday. Had we taken him to the Sizzler it probably would have felt like the Ritz. If you read this, Geoff, please accept this very public IOU:

We, Chris and Amy, owe you one night of bowling-until-your-fingers-die at North Bowl or another swanky bowling alley of your choice.

For everybody else reading, please consider this a public service announcement of the perils of the bowling alley at the corner of City Ave and Haverford.

That is all.

*Center Lanes. You have been warned.

The lessons I've learned...

2010-07-22T07:44:00.008-04:00

"Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns,

so each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry." ~ Richard Feynman

Since I have learned how to look, I have consistently and without fail found the most mind-boggling patterns that recur in the universe. Once I learned how to look, I couldn't not see them. Just as the human brain has the biological tendency to find a face where there is none - in an electrical outlet, for instance, or a car - I feel like I am now wired to find the manifestation of these universal rules in the way that a trained "seer" cannot avoid seeing a three-dimensional shape mysteriously emerge from a purely two-dimensional Magic Eye poster. Even this phenomenon itself is not a purely anecdotal one. It is subject to the same universal rules but arises in many different forms. Escher eludes to this in "La Mezquita" (left). Look at a series of arches from one perspective, and it is a random lot of pillars and horseshoe curves...but move a few steps to the left or the right - switch your point of view - and as Douglas Hofstadter eloquently writes, "beautiful regularity emerges. You've reordered the same information by changing your way of looking at it." This phenomenon also becomes familiar to anyone who has sorted data in an Excel spreadsheet. Look at a 10,000 KB document of pure raw data, and it is nothing but a messy soup of stuff. But once you learn how to filter, order, and graph, there is again that beautiful regularity, and meaning emerges.

"Since I have learned how to look..." These seven words hold an experience that is indescribably dear to me - possibly one of the things I treasure most about being alive. Just as all learning is, the experience is an ongoing one, and I can only imagine how exponentially more meaningful those seven words will be to me, in ten, twenty, or (if I'm lucky) fifty years from now, perhaps when I am on my death bed. As with all human beings, since being born, it has taken me roughly 21 years to acquire the most basic information necessary to serve as the foundation for this kind of search for meaning. As the Empiricists will tell you, understanding does not occur in a vacuum, and I believe that the richer one's library of experiences, both academic and worldly, conceptual and concrete, the more one is able to get a glimpse of the mammoth yet delicate processes that drive the universe and everything that has ever sprang forth from it, including oneself.

In this developmental vein, there are countless learners whom I have looked to to teach me, but the two figures who have touched me the most - just masters of finding these elegant, recurring patterns - are the aforementioned academic Douglas Hofstaedter, and the comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell. I will not go into detail about their life work and the conclusions they have drawn, as I simply cannot do them justice at this humble point in my life, much less in this humble blog, but Hofstadter has found nature's infinitely long threads weaving through what seem to be the most disparate, unconnected topics - number theory, consciousness, Zen, modern art, genetics, artificial intelligence, and the list goes on. For Campbell, a thread of a different material ties together possibly every human culture that has ever existed, and he finds that the similarities that exist between the mythologies of the aborigines, Christians, Jains, Navajo... again - the list goes on, are too significant to chalk up to randomness. Like Hofstadter, there are fundamental patterns to the universe that Campbell spent his life understanding.

I need to pause this post at this point, because it has already developed a life of its own that will take over my day if I do not put my foot down, temporarily. If anyone is still reading up to this point, I must first thank you for staying with me for so long, and secondly ask for your extreme patience as I continue to develop my thoughts. What I have written here is a first attempt at a synthesis of my inchoate reflections over the last five years or so (since I met Chris, basically - I will let you connect the dots there). I apologize if things are muddy, and in this initial stab many ideas are probably redundant. (Also - apologies to both academics named above for such a coarse-grained representation of their genius.) But I have more to say, and as always, more to learn, so we'll see next time, how I pick up where I left off.

I'll end this post today with one last little recurring pattern for you. In the opening of this post, I quoted Hofstadter, so it is only fair to end on a thought from Campbell. In looking at the tapestry of human experience, and how to reconcile the extremes of human tragedy with the ability to laugh, here is the mythologist's take on learning how to look, and his conclusion:

"The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man. The objective world remains what it was, but, because of a shift of emphasis within the subject, is beheld as though transformed. Where formerly life and death contended, now enduring being is made manifest - as indifferent to the accidents of time as water boiling in a pot is to the destiny of a bubble, or as the cosmos to the appearance and disappearance of a galaxy of stars. Tragedy is the shattering of the forms and of our attachment to the forms; comedy, the wild and careless, inexhaustible joy of life invincible."

Amy Getting Married?

2010-07-17T10:59:00.017-04:00

Although it causes me physical pain to do this, I'm going to refrain from giving more minute-by-minute updates on my plants and instead devote a post to something almost as important - the planting of my wedding. I mean planning.

A few months ago, in the initial stage, Chris and I made a trip to Baltimore to scope out a few wedding venues. The locales that ended up leading the pack were the Baltimore Aquarium (pros: holds special memories for me and Chris, great evening view of the harbor, unique wedding venue, guests would have an hour to tour the aquarium), and Chase Court, a 200+ year-old former church that is now privately owned (pros: in the absolutely fabulous mid-town neighborhood of Mount Vernon, blocks away from Peabody Conservatory, has a garden so the ceremony could be outdoors, and has an easygoing but romantic atmosphere that I had previously envisioned.) We ended up going with Chase Court and decided that the Aquarium could always serve as an outing for guests on the day after, and I moved on to researching caterers and ceremony officiants.

Having good food at our wedding is one of the more important
"must-have" factors for me and Chris, and given that caterers are typically charged with rentals from tables to linens as well, we wanted to make sure to devote real attention to finding a good catering outfit.That encompassed making a mini-trip down to Baltimore, which we are almost never hesitant to do.

We stayed smack in Mount Vernon with my good friend from college, Ryan Carroll. (He literally lives two blocks away from Chase Court, so he would have the option of log-rolling up the street to attend our wedding, if that is his want.) I love Ryan's place because not only has his landlord decorated the curving stairs and walkways of the apartment halls with bowls of candy, but Ryan owns the cutest damn little girl cat I've ever met, a bug-eyed, three-legged little hobbler named Mariah (whose tail is about half the length of Grundton's). Not only was it great to have the chance to catch up with a good friend, but it was such an added to bonus to have a kitty to wake up to, as Chris and I are quite used to. I root for Team Ryan and Mariah.

We had three appointments on Friday that took us from Hunt Valley, about 15 miles north of Baltimore, right back to Mount Vernon. The catering meetings gave us quite a bit to talk about, and for the first time Chris became really invested in the planning of the wedding. After hearing a chef draw up a completely customized menu for us, and seeing fabric options and styles of tables and chairs, there were enough details that Chris finally had something concrete to latch on to, and most of the decisions we were pondering were ones with some depth, not just a back-and-forth of invitation wordings and polka dots versus filigree. In the afternoon, between two of our meetings, we ate a late lunch at Donna's by the Washington Monument and got to discussing seating arrangements, and figuring out how to best allow the different groups of guests from our lives (family, friends from the office, people we met at Hopkins, people we knew since before we met each other, friends we made in Philly, etc.) get to know each other. It was a hearty conversation about which guests would have what interests in common, and which were the personalities that would be the "glue" between strangers. For anyone who has planned this sort of thing, it's the type of question that would come up on the "Analytical Reasoning" section of the LSAT. (For the record: real-life - interesting; on a test - not interesting.)

So thus far, we have our venue and are nearing confirming a caterer. I've tried on a few dresses at Bijou Bridal on a whim with Jen (Sherman, in Philly for the summer to work at Institute!), and was delighted to find that not only did my mental "ideal" gown look great on me - strapless sweetheart neckline with a whole crapload of ruffles - but there were a whole lot of them to choose from and after an initial visit I already found two that I would be happy to wear. Both Chris and I also just "booked" our bridesmaids and groomsmen, which has been the most exciting part for me (because it's the most personal!). Once I find an officiant, I will consider the "Big Three" of wedding components to be complete (location, food, ceremony). After that, all the planning will be in the details and I get to wrack my brain over polka dots versus filigree. Stay tuned! :)

(Pictured above right: Chris and his groomsman, Mike!)
Chase Court photograph courtesy of Jason Putsche Photography.

All in the (Plant) Family

2010-07-14T06:48:00.004-04:00

I know. I am a big dork. I don't care. The threat of social ostracism isn't going to make me not love my plants. Or not take a family photo of them. Or not spend the bulk of my evening learning how to use the "callouts" feature in Word to add captions.

Happy 234th Birthday, AMURRICA!

2010-07-05T13:56:00.009-04:00

Today is day 4 of my 4-day weekend! I am having a beer at 1:30 (Ballast Point, Big Eye!) while simultaneously recovering from a late July 4th night and gearing up for my intense 3-day workweek. How freakin' great is the summer?

Random plant update from 2 posts back:
In the name of humanity, I've induced physician-assisted suicide on my pansies from March and stopped watering them because they were looking pretty worse for wear (from the summer heat). On the plus side, check out how much the basil have grown since June 14!

So...oh, yeah, Independence Day. The patriot in me decided to celebrate by not staying at home and watching King of the Hill all day (although if there is anything more Amurrican than Hank Hill, I don't want to know about it). Chris and I spent the evening in the Art Museum area, where we were literally right under the fireworks and got to observe the migration of the Philadelphian people, coming out en masse to commemorate the most historical of American holidays, in arguably the most historical of American cities. As familiar as I am now, through attendance at countless Phillies games, with the feeling of being a component entity of a dynamic superorganism, it was still a somewhat foreign sensation to simultaneously observe and participate in a community activity of tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of my genetic and cultural peers. At the corner of Pennsylvania and Fairmount we all stood completely rapt as we watched, necks craned, the explosive ascent of fireball after fireball shattering into millions of golden specks and arching comet tails, trailing willowy fingers of smoke that showered onto the tops of our heads and into the streets. Interestingly, it was not altogether different from feeling the smallness of oneself when staring into the abyss of the night sky, alone. The same liberating feeling of being but a speck on the map comes also, somehow, when sharing a brief 10 minutes with a sea of strangers... After the grand finale of fireworks, almost like magic, all the block parties and patio furniture folded themselves back up, tucked back into alleys and hallways, and we all retreated to the nooks and crannies we came from.

I'll end this July 4 post with just the best, best vibes to my dear friend Jeff King, who is serving abroad. Once you've been through employment at the Rockville Library together, you are bonded for life;) We are thinking of you back here in the states, so keep yourself safe until we see you again!

Relaxing!

2010-06-19T09:41:00.009-04:00

It's a gorgeous Saturday morning! The view from my balcony in the summer is one of lush, lively greenery, and after a long week of work I am content to let Chris sleep in, and just sit outside and let the feeling of having no obligations wash over me with the morning breeze. Grundton is out here with me too, alternately relaxing and rolling around, massaging himself against the rough concrete of the balcony floor, and exploring the sight and sounds of the outdoors - poking his head through the railing to identify the mild sounds of construction workers and car engines below, and following flittering bugs with his eyes, letting little agitated meows erupt from his throat. It's a very different kind of stimulation from what he usually gets indoors, and it's rare for him to be allowed to just hang out on the balcony. Occasionally I have to get up from where I'm sitting to keep a close eye on him - although I'm pretty relaxed about him interacting with the outdoors and I trust him to know not to do anything rash, I am cautious when he pokes his body just a tad too far out over the balcony. He knows this, too! When I call out with a coaxing "Grundton!" he meows in slight protest at my interjection, but always pulls his body back from the railing instinctively. But there is no denying it. We both love lounging outdoors!

Growing...a Green Thumb, Part I

2010-06-15T22:17:00.019-04:00

Mid-April, during the last semi-cold-ish spell of the 2010 spring, I bought a pot of pansies. I was determined to green up our barren balcony. I was determined to keep a plant alive. This plant. Any plant.

I learned that pansies are a cold-weather plant, which was a bit disappointing because I knew the weather was only going to get warmer. But it was a lush, beautiful pot, and I figured if it was going to die as the weather got warmer, I might as well make the most of it and develop the self-discipline to take care of a plant. I developed a routine of watering it everyday and turning it periodically so each side of the plant got adequate sunshine. When it was excessively windy, I moved the pot indoors so the flowers wouldn't get too harsh a beating from the wind. I learned to pinch off the flowers that withered to give the other flowers more resources to grow bigger.

As the weather got warmer, experience taught me that the pansies would wilt from the heat, but would re-straighten with a good watering. I kept up the watering through May, but as of now, with the weather pretty consistently warm and periodically humid, the pansies are a little worse for wear, with one side of the pot pretty much dead yet the remaining portions inexplicably thriving. There is a lopsided look to the plant but I'll try to keep them alive as long as possible! I'm encouraged by the fact that I've kept a plant alive for 2 months now, which is certainly a record for me.

About a month after getting the pansies, feeling excited about my new balcony accessory, I got an herb-growing kit for $7 from, of all places, Bed Bath and Beyond. I was skeptical, but figured that for a few bucks, it was worth a shot to add some more greenery that was edible to boot. The herb-growing kit included a growing "tin/bucket", some soft dirt (looked like chocolate cake mix), liquid fertilizer, and seed packs for basil, parsley, and chives.

Here are the seedlings just starting to sprout. I was such a proud mama! As you can see from the first picture, the basil came up first, and the other herb sprouts are barely identifiable, although I guess you can tell they're chives because they just look like little grass blades.

The second photo above was taken a mere day later, so you can get a sense of how quickly the plants were growing! Although the parsley were definitely late bloomers - at this point they really hadn't come up at all and I was afraid the seeds were duds. Magic beans, so to speak.

A week later, though, the parsley definitely caught up! The sprouts were going into toddler-mode. What's interesting is that the parsley was NOT recognizable - instead of the jagged, maple-leaf like shape, their leaves were more like pointed ovals. In fact, Chris was pretty convinced that the parsley was actually the basil, but I'm going off on a tangent.

I watered the herbs daily and gave them liquid fertilizer about once a week and was really excited by their growth. I kept the tin pot on our windowsill, and had to rotate it once - sometimes even twice - a day because the herbs grew so conspicuously towards the sun. If you check out this photo, you can see that most clearly in the parsley (on the right side).

Towards the end of May, I made the heart-wrenching discovery that keeping the herbs indoors had one huge drawback that had mysteriously eluded me for the entire time since I'd had them - GRUNDTON. One afternoon, I caught him chewing voraciously (as much as a housecat can with a houseplant) at a few blades of chives, with several of the chives and a few of the parsley uprooted. Although I was hesitant to expose the herbs to really windy days, I decided they were grown up enough to start keeping them outdoors on the balcony with the pansies (and a completely wilted, dried up pot of dahlias that didn't take to my care).

This past weekend, I decided that the herbs were getting too big to still share a pot, so I transplanted the heartiest of the 3 - the basil (as the chives didn't seem to be recovering too well from Grundton's marauding, and the parsley were only so-so) - into its own container. The leaves are HUGE now! I was really nervous about the transplant and I tried to be really gentle as to not damage any roots. Now, a few days later, the basil seems to still be growing steadily and the leaves look healthy. Woohoo!! No plant murderer here. (Although I'm crossing my fingers on the chives and parsley. Although technically the murderer there would be Grundton.)
The newest member of the family is a couple of begonias I purchased at the same place I got the pansies - P. Spinelli & Sons, a landscape and nursery joint in Narberth. The begonias on the left (with the smaller flowers) enjoy a full sun, while the larger type of begonias on the right thrive in partial shade. I decided to go with begonias because we're getting into the heat of summer and I figured frost-averse flowers would last the longest at this time of year, and they don't require as diligent watering as the pansies.

I'm hoping that they continue to do well, and if they survive into mid-July, I'll definitely be looking into some new additions!

More plant updates to come...

Crossroads

2010-04-24T11:26:00.013-04:00

So I've had this business idea since college...

I think it would be really cool to open up an art gallery that turns into a lounge in the evening. The art would still stay up, but the mood of the lounge and the kind of music played would correspond to the style of the artist(s) displayed in the exhibition. They could rotate out every 2-3 weeks to keep the mood fresh.

I like to imagine that people who are attracted to new, interesting art also have tendencies - or at least, an open mind - toward non-mainstream, experimental music, and vice versa. Speaking as someone with synesthesia, I have always attributed images and colors to sounds, moods, and words; the numeral "4" is green, Nelly Furtado's voice is magenta, Autechre's "vose in" is a dark textile of a repeating filigree...like wallpaper. You could say my brain has a built-in universal translator that encodes all incoming sense perceptions as images, even if a bit fuzzy. It's a cool effect. Trust me.

But anyway, back to the original idea. A huge part of its appeal is the routine mental challenge I would get in mating visual art and music; not only would I be interpreting the creators' messages, but I would be doing so through another medium entirely - and a firsthand sensory one at that for the sake of the audience. I wouldn't be creating anything from scratch, but the reciprocity of what each medium can give to the other creates ... an Escher-like back-and-forth, if I were to paint a picture for you, that takes on an experience of its own. A polygon becomes a crane. A shuffling beat looks like a brushstroke. In marriage, they become something just a bit different.

I'll conclude this with an example of what I mean.

Enjoy.

Muscial Artist: Alva Noto
Album: Transform

Francois Morellet. "6 chance divisions of 4 black and white squares from odd and even numbers generated by Pi." 1958

Sol LeWitt. "Serial Project #1, from Aspen 5+6." 1966

Richard Serra. "Path and Edge #12." 2007

Singularity

2010-03-08T18:22:00.001-05:00

I feel a vivid joy soaking into me,

being whipped out of me, fooling me

into thinking they are sensations different altogether.

I let the roiling afternoon clouds rile me up.

On the balcony, eye level is where those translucent

ombré fists – bright white, graying smudge, dirtied cotton –

nudge their way into the oily greens of the tree line,

intruding gently without guilt,

rippling verdant scales with

an infectious, tittering flutter.

Glissandos fan, its keys perk up my skin,

as liquid as the sky is blue.

Leaning into the edge, I feel the railing

restrain and hold me back from that saturated, maddening bliss.

It is the lure of being dashed into a million pieces,

joining a million leaves, back into the earth.

(August 2009)

Winter, Kiss My Giant Ass

2009-04-07T07:58:00.003-04:00

This week I've been seized by the paradoxically titillating and paralyzing thrill of baseball beginning and Star Trek on the horizon.

First things first -

Yes, the Phillies are defending World Champions, and no, they still can't win a non-post-season game that's broadcast nationally. It's not that we don't do well under pressure because last September we ripped it up pretty damn hard. But pretty much unless Harry Kalas is speaking directly to local fans through the t.v. screen, it seems like the game is going to go to the other team. Also, as Manuel pointed out, the pre-game WC celebratory hoopla was a big distraction for players that thrive on consistency.

Bottom line is: good for the Braves that they looked good on opening day. For the first time since helping the Dodgers lose hold of the postseason last year (and to the Phils, no less), Derek Lowe gets to smile and feel like a big boy again, Smelly Johnson didn't commit any cringeworthy goofs, and Jeff Francoeur's hip swivel changes from last season were all that the ESPN commentators could talk about. I don't give a crap because winter is really over (unless you're in Chicago and your opening day got snowed out), and baseball is baaaaaack.

OK, now for the other thing that's really getting me in a tizzy.

Have you seen the trailers for Star Trek?

Have you?!

It's like God took all of my secret unmentionable fantasies and wove them together with his dextrous surgeon fingers into a visual (and I'm sure excellent storytelling) orgy that, come May 8 for $9.50, I can request to have explode directly into my face. And the fact that J.J. is directing this - J.J. of those Alias nights when I fell to my knees screaming his name in frustration over another edge-of-my-seat cliffhanger, J.J. of a little show called "Lost" known to about 99% of the U.S. population - is just enough to make me go completely, out-of-my-mind, on goofballs, crazy.

It's too much. All this in one week, it's just too much.

It Was a Very Good Year

2009-01-02T11:47:00.013-05:00

Possibly my last complete year in Philadelphia, 2008 will always be remembered as one of the first fullest years in my memory. Replete with historically long-awaited events, new beginnings, travel, and my first true appreciation and awareness of the short-lived moments of one's life, my 2008 is documented here with photographs of the highlights.

Spring 2008

This photograph does not do justice the freshness and potential of spring, but it was one that I had been itching to take for weeks when the weather started getting warm. For me, the strongest sensation brought by spring was the gradual but tangible excitement of the children in my kindergarten classroom. Their restlessness was infectious, and it was an upstream swim to keep them focused. Especially when I knew that this would be my last season in a classroom.

In March, Grundton was afflicted with a serious bladder infection that luckily was caught and dealt with before its damage progressed. After weeks of antibiotic treatment and worry, the infection finally went away, and Chris and I were able to enjoy the season again, both indoors

March 2008, Caribou @ Johnny Brenda's
April 2008, Autechre @ Transit

and out.

Spring 2008, Narberth & Ardmore (Philadelphia suburbs)

It can be easy to take for granted the ephemeral beauty of the transitional seasons. I don't know whether I was truly touched by the lushness of the Pennsylvania arboreal landscape, or felt that something in me would be lost along with the delicate petals of spring as the heat of summer swept in. Whatever the reason, for the first time, I felt obligated to take photos of a season.

April also kicked off baseball season. It was an unsettling feeling to watch a team that I only marginally recognized. With Jimmy Rollins injured at the start of the season, Eric Bruntlett played shortstop and Geoff Jenkins and Pedro Feliz would be new fielders. Aaron Rowand had gone to the Giants, who would barely make a blip on baseball's radar that season. Of course, the fruits of the 2008 season for the Phillies would not be enjoyed for several more months.

To be continued...

The 10th Player

2008-10-24T10:51:00.004-04:00

"[Phillies fans] are not front-runners; they come out. They come out and support their team. Watching the playoffs against Milwaukee, it was quite a sight. And I told our guys if they thought [the Chicago fans were] bad, they're in for a rude awakening [in Philadelphia] , because it's not even close."
~Larry Bowa, Dodgers' 3rd base coach

I cannot wait for the Phillies to come home for the World Series, and I'm slightly embarrassed to say that my love of the game is only part of the reason. The other, possibility bigger, part is to see again what I call that indomitable beast in the stands - the Philadelphia fans.

As I've already said in a previous post, the ardent fervor of Philly sports fans knows no bounds and is not lost on any American who tunes in regularly to ESPN. But our fanhood is not simply a spectacle to be gawked at out of context, despite the pieces of evidence floating around on YouTube. When channeled constructively, it is an impregnable roar that can turn the tide for any away team on the hottest tear and help the home team win key games.

The first time I truly came to appreciate this phenomenon of group behavior was in the NLCS, when the Phillies hosted the Dodgers, who were hot off a surprising 4-game sweep of the team-to-beat in the regular season, the Chicago Cubs. Sitting at home with my eyes glued to my high-def flatscreen, I became aware of the coming together of roughly 45,000 fans in Citizens Bank Park into a singular, cohesive unit. It was a red-and-white-speckled monster come alive - you could actually see and hear the heaving of its breath flush with the moments of the game; the moments of tension during a Phillies pitcher's wind-up, the moments of release with a Dodger error or a home team hit. The crowd's synchronous chanting of "Beat L.A.! Beat L.A.!" was incarnated as a voracious bellow of "EE-OOOH-UH, EE-OOOH-UH" that - even from my couch a dimension removed from the game - intimidated. Imagine the psychological state of a Dodger's pitcher faced with an entire stadium of practically insane people out for his blood. The Phillies won the first 2 games of the NLCS at home.

Am I saying that the fans won those games? Certainly not. The Phillies was the better team and showed it by trouncing the Dodgers soundly in 3 more games on the west coast. But that level of intensity of fan support certainly turned a baseball game into a war in which the Phillies arrived armed to the teeth. I was lucky enough to be a part of that during Game 2 of the NLDS against the Brewers, in which Philadelphia witnessed the reigning NL Cy Young winner C.C. Sabathia completely crumble under the pressure of pitching against the Phillies and, by extension, Phillies fans. So far in the World Series, seeing the games played at Tropicana Field has been a far less satisfying experience. St. Petersburg, FL is not a baseball city, and the baseball fans there simply haven't had the experience to know how to be truly fanatical about their team. While I am certain that the Phillies have what it takes to win the Fall Classic whether they play in a stadium or in a dome, I still eagerly await the return of the team to a fanbase that truly appreciates what they are an audience to, and shows it by being as much a part of the game as the game itself.

Hua Er

2008-09-17T09:29:00.003-04:00

I've started a new art project! It's a pop-art-esque portrait of my dad's dog as a Christmas gift for my dad. I definitely had my reservations about it at first since it's not really my style to do...you know, pet portraits (studies of Grundton are one thing - the angles and linearity of a cat do wonders for developing sketching skills; a fluffy, doofy shitzu is another story entirely), but after the first hour, I'm starting to really get into it.

I started with a rough sketch just to get a feel for the shapes and proportions, and then I looked at some pop art paintings online to get a sense of the look I was aiming for.

I'm really excited about continuing with this painting. My new job at Victoria's Secret definitely gives me the time to do some art and writing routinely. More updates to come!

Hua Er, the cute but doofy subject of "Hua Er".

Come Again, Jimmy?

2008-08-26T23:47:00.002-04:00

No Philadelphia sports fan denies the infamy of his or her reputation for the out-of-towners. It's a tough town in which to be an athlete - any 76er, Flyer, Eagle, or Phillie knows that they have to earn our love. But, at the same time, it's a zeal worth having on your side, and its something for which no Philly sports audience is apologetic.

Of course, it's much easier to put down Philadelphia fans than to find the silver lining in our tough love. In fact, I think that is precisely the reason behind Jimmy Rollins' recent acerbic comments about his most ardent supporters. Finding himself in a season with numbers far from his previous MVP year, Rollins no doubt has been frustrated with his significant offensive slump. What easier way to live that down than to put the national spotlight on the infamous Philadelphia fans for whom the general public has little sympathy? Certainly Rollins was shrewd in making comments that few could disagree with (does fan action affect athletic performance? yes; do Phillies fans boo you if you don't do well? yes;), but he did nothing more than defend himself to those to whom his performance matters the least. Rollins has been with Philadelphia for eight years - his entire career. His fans have always loved him and even more than that - he knows and has always known just how Philadelphia fans are. I think the fact that he chose to speak out against us when his own performance was weakest shows who the real front-runner is. What hurt the most is that he made his comments during an away game, across the country in opponent territory, to media strangers.

I won't ever boo Jimmy Rollins because I love the Phillies and I support our reigning MVP. But I also know that his slump was on him, and I don't believe that Phillies fans have anything to be apologetic for. This is a city that still gives Jim Thome and Aaron Rowand standing ovations after other cities have claimed them. Maybe now that Jimmy is hot at the bat again he will rethink his comments. I hope he does, because it will be the closest he comes to taking them back...at least to this fan.

Bun, Run*

2008-08-15T21:01:00.004-04:00

*You'll get this if you're Chris Canary or John Updike, respectively. Maybe you have to be both? Whatever.

I officially exercised for the first time in over two years today! I’m home for the week in Rockville, and at my mom’s request I went jogging with her in Rock Creek Park (or as I like to call it, “Murder Park”), which happens to extend right into her own backyard. Having not been in touch with the physical condition of my body for a while - in fact, avoiding it, I was picturing a very embarrassing kind of worst case scenario in which my 50-year-old mother was going to show me up by running the length of the path to Aspen Hill while I was still catching my breath 20 steps from our front door. I opened our excursion with several disclaimers to my mom (who has a tendency to get on my case about my couch-potato way of life) about how I would probably need frequent stops and how she should feel free to jog on without me should I lag behind...you know, in the tradition of “Can’t...make...it!! You...go on... ... ...without me!”

My trepidation was not helped by the fact that I am slightly hypochondriacal. I completely freak out at anything out of the ordinary with my body, including any kind of tiny bumps or indications of pain. Again, worst case scenarios present themselves when these abnormalities appear, and I end up arguing with myself over whether or not I have early stages of cancer. (Somehow it’s always the Big C. My medical lexicon is quite limited - probably to my advantage in this situation.) When the occasional bumps or pains disappear on their own (and they always do), my more sensible side feels tremendously vindicated, and yes - there is a huge feeling of relief.

So the image I had of my heart as I began jogging was not a pretty one. It’s huge, bloated - I envisioned it slumping lazily in my chest cavity (padded with pillows of smooth yellow lard), barely able to keep itself upright by its own volition. It beats erratically, struggling to keep pace with the not-that-demanding physical activity of its host. If my heart had a face, it would have that uncomfortable, awkwardly desperate look of constipation. It looked forward to the moment when its forced servitude came to an end. I thought of my childhood friend, Kaity, who I knew (through Facebok) to be an avid runner and a frequent participator of races and marathons and the like. According to a recent blog entry of hers, she had just run 17 miles. I thought about the way her heart must look when she runs. The discrepancy was not encouraging.

Whether or not this was actually the case, I was greeted with the pleasantly surprising sensation of...normality. Jogging felt the same as the last time I did it (which I do not remember). There was no melodramatic heaving of breath nor odd, searing pains in expected places on or in my body. Instead, the unusually cool air felt good on my skin and the primordial and refreshing smell of the surrounding woods enveloped me. It was very quiet and peaceful, with a small handful of occasional passerbys (none of them rapists or murderers) who smiled as they passed us. I became aware of the thoughts in my head - always a good feeling. Mostly, I missed my students very much.

By the time we turned around to head back home, my mom and I had slowed to a brisk walk. She showed me the dance and yoga moves she’d been learning in her classes. (She could definitely show me up in any physical activity.) She told me that our outing was really nice and made no mention of the couple of times that I stopped running and needed a break. She was right - it had been an enjoyable experience.

So I guess my heart is okay, considering my appalling lack of exercise. I’m secretly thankful that bodily organs aren’t capable of spite. Now that I know I won’t die from putting on an exercise bra, I’m more motivated to make myself healthier. I won’t be joining any races anytime soon (unless it’s MarioKart), but maybe I’ll start moving enough to associate exercise with feeling good, and having the time to gather my thoughts for writing. So far, I’m one for one!

My First Adult Think-Aloud

2008-08-11T22:36:00.002-04:00

Is it acceptable to be your own inspiration? I don’t know if this is too egoistical to admit, but I really get off on reading my own writing. I brag about what I’ve written on this blog a lot...primarily to myself, but I really do believe every word I say (it’s witty, it’s incisive, it’s relevant, etc. etc.). And while I’ve been meaning to jump back on the horse and blog regularly again, I wasn’t quite sure when to go about it until I read an article in a back issue of The Washington Post Magazine in which Terry M. Shine delivers a self-deprecating, funny, and painfully honest narrative of being laid off (“Terminated”, May 25, 2008). What really reached me about the piece was...how much it reminded me of my own writing. (Surprised? Or just disgusted?) So voila, here I am again, trying to recover my voice and make it simultaneously louder and more mellifluous.

Erm...so...like anybody trying to be brought back into the fold, I suppose I’m a little bit rusty, not to mention lost about what or whom to commentate on. I’m not feeling particularly witty, incisive, or relevant right now, and I’m anxious to know what I’ll be doing to get over that feeling. It’s been about a year since my last entry, and in rereading my previous pieces I’m reminded that that was the time when I pretty much had the Phillies, and only the Phillies, on the brain. Now I’m not quite so single-minded, but that comes with its own difficulties when it comes to blogging...how do I tackle a year’s worth of developments in a sitting? Do I even try? Or do I just start anew?

I’ve got another year until grad school, and so far, no plans for the year. Tentative plans, but that doesn’t really mean anything. The only thing I knew I wanted to do in this interim year was to write, and write a lot. And even though that has been my only sure thought, I know I’ve already lost sight of that at times; I’m also looking for a job, trying to figure out how to parse out my summer salary from Teach For America (of which I have one more paycheck), wondering how long I can go unemployed and still pay the bills. Maybe I need to become single-minded again - and this time, not about baseball.

Check in to see how it goes. If it's an incentive, I probably won't be so egoistical and self-assured. At least for a little while.

October

2007-10-16T20:24:00.000-04:00

Hypothetically, if my blog had any loyal readers, they would no doubt be thinking, the Phillies became the new NL division champs two weeks ago! Of all things October, how could this have gone unblogged by one of the biggest Phillies fans out there?

Well, I am admittedly a little late with the news, but do not doubt that I lived the ups and downs of a phan in the first week of this holy month of October. I could go into the exhilaration of seeing Jimmy Rollins' early season "team to beat" comment come true in the east on the last day of September, or the humbling fall back to earth after the red-hot Rockies' 3 game post-season sweep; but after all this time, what I wish to relay to the reader is the coming together of that mixture of emotions on October 11, just before Colorado's first NLCS game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Just minutes before the game started on television, I fell into a funk that I was not expecting to come on. All through the last days of summer I had been fearing baseball withdrawal - or, rather, Phillies withdrawal. And I thought I was lucky to have avoided it, as bland as the feeling was after the defeat by Colorado. But it hit me last Thursday evening, and as the opening of the Rockies/Diamondbacks game showed clips of the Phillies defeat, I found myself utterly unable to watch Colorado battle on.

Oh, how I hated that team at that moment. Suddenly, their underdog status, their young players, their uphill battles against the giants of baseball, all fell to the wayside. All I could think of were my beloved players in red pinstripe, of whom I think I've spoken quite dearly on this very blog. I wondered if Carlos was already back in Panama. I wondered if I'd see Aaron Rowand in our colors again. I thought about looking over our balcony for the next six months and seeing blackness in the evenings where the Citizens Bank Park lights had been. All this came out in a little tantrum, and yes, I cried. I mourned. I realized that while I had feared an offseason of no baseball, what was lonelier was the postseason without the Phillies.

But this last 2007 baseball season entry can only end on an up note, for - at the close of all this - it is not even an option to cement into writing any memory or feeling other than the pride to have known a team that played hard, honest ball, and came out on top in their division. After all, I was there the whole season, from the freezing opening series, to an hour-long rain delay against Chicago, to the ubiquitous white rally towels in the last week of September. While the citizens of Philadelphia have waited 14 years for this Phillies victory, I was lucky enough to be welcomed with it in my first year in the city. And there could not have been a better team to help me settle into baseball in a new place. Rollins, Howard, Utley. Hamels, Kendrick, Moyer. Carlos.

You are the 2007 NL East Champs, and don't think I'd ever forget it.

Why My Job is Difficult

2007-09-03T18:03:00.000-04:00

The supermarket can be a pretty strange place if you go when it's busy. You're basically in a confined area for up to an hour, running into the same people aisle after aisle. And not only are you running into the same people, you sometimes get uncomfortably close to them, squeezing between a pair of wide-load buttocks and the ethnic canned goods shelf. It's a good place to check out the demographic of the area in which you live (for Merion, that would be Jews and upper-middle class white families).

It's also a good place to see how kids are raised to behave, especially in an environment that is not specifically designated as kid-friendly. This has become particularly interesting to me as a kindergarten teacher. I kind of like to scope out what parents have to offer me. Today, the results were not particularly encouraging.

One of the Acme customers that I kept running into was a woman and her son, who was probably around 6 years old (prime kindergarten age). For a while, they did not particularly catch my eye, but when I did happen to glance in their direction a few times, the little boy seemed pretty annoying, grabbing at his mother's hair when she was stooping to get some bread and bouncing it up and down. But that I was able to chalk up to antsy little kid stuff. (Yeah, when I was a kid, bread was boring too; I liked Trix.)

But then, a bit later, I was walking up the snack aisle when that same little kid came running towards me and carelessly knocked over a few boxes of Ritz crackers. He glanced up at me for a moment, before darting past me toward his mom who was further down the aisle. This pissed me off immediately. One of my classroom rules is about cleaning up after oneself, especially in a communal space, and this kid had obviously never been spoken to about personal responsibility. (Trust me - kids are never too young to learn about it.) So I said to him firmly, "You should put those boxes back, especially since you knocked them over."

Well, the little #!%&er completely ignored me, which wasn't completely unexpected. Upon hearing what I said to him, his mother kind of half-assedly asked him to put the boxes back (because I was still within earshot), but when I started walking away she just dropped the issue and started walking away with him! There was no reprimanding her son, no asking him to clean up the mess he made. And I'm sure there will be no whupping when they get home. That's right, young people of America - somebody else will always cover your ass; Mommy and Daddy will always be there to make sure everything is okay. That was basically the lesson the woman just taught her son in a simple minute.

And what that kid learned in a quick moment of lazy, irresponsible parenting is what will take a teacher months, or even years to undo. And if that doesn't do the job, think about what kind of person that kid will be when he enters society as an adult, or as the parent of another child. Am I being overly dramatic? Well, that is for you to judge. But I know that every person who reads this knows at least one inconsiderate jerk who is a drain on the people around him...and his mom probably never made him pick up after himself at the supermarket.

Even More Baseball...

2007-08-30T22:24:00.001-04:00

You're cringing now as you find yourself reading yet another baseball post. Don't worry, the season will soon be over...

But in the meantime, I have to brag about the Phillies’ amazing sweep of those kings of the NL, the filthy New York Mets. Each successive game in this series just got more and more intense, and I swear I almost peed myself tonight (I taped the 1:05 day game) when Chase Utley hit that walk-off RBI that sent Iguchi home for the win. Game 1 on Monday was a blowout, Game 2 was tight but low-scoring. Game 3...well, don't think we didn't catch you trying to cheat, New York (*cough* Reyes and Wright *cough*), but you lost anyway. As for tonight, all I have to say, giddily, is: Billy Wagner, you sucked, and bad. You forget that when you are an ex-player, we know all your secrets, and that really came back to bite you in the butt tonight. Enjoy the ride back up I-95, suckers (as well your cross-town rivals’ sweep of the Red Sox)!

Aug. 28: Wright, Heilman, and Lo Duca stare in disbelief at a swinging bunt that's rolled fair.*

Aug. 28: Ryan Howard after his winning homerun.*

Aug. 29: Marlon Anderson freaks after interference is called on him and the Mets lose.*

Aug. 30: Shane Victorino jumps on Tadahito Iguchi after Iguchi comes home for the win.*

In other baseball news: Yes, I am still madly in love with Carlos Ruiz. In the exciting aftermath of today’s game, I imagined Carlos rushing into the dugout and, in the heat of the moment, kissing me passionately. I sent the rookie catcher a fan letter a few weeks ago (no comments please), in which I suggested that sending back an autographed picture would be good karma for the playoffs. Now that the Phillies are behind the Wild Card and division leaders by only two games, I think Carlos has no choice but to show me some love. (Picture at right: "Bay and Carlos")

Last but not least, I have decided to….quit my job and aspirations and become a professional baseballer. After going to the batting cages for the first time in my life this past weekend, I now see the light. And it has nothing to do with educating little black kids or winning a Pulitzer. It’s all about bending your knees and wiggling your butt in the summer sun, and swinging a bat to the euphonious crack of a well-hit liner. No matter that I was just facing the slow-pitch softballs – that feeling is pretty damn good all the same.

*Photos courtesy of Yahoo! Sports.

...Most Verdant?

2007-08-21T21:02:00.000-04:00

While watching the Phillies take out the Dodgers tonight (let's go Wild Card!), I started pondering: Who would win if MVP stood for...

Most Voluptuous Player:
Rod Barajas. By far the fattest player on the team. Guy, you lost out starting catcher position to a rookie, and during your single at bat in the last several weeks you strained a groin muscle. Weak.

Most Vivacious Player:
Shane Victorino. Be it his shaving-cream-pie-in-the-face antics or goofy but lively run-garnering trips and falls, Shane is not only fun to watch but just plain fun.

Most Vociferous Player:
Jimmy Rollins. "The Phillies are the team to beat this season." Comments such as this have earned JRoll the honor of being the team's most outspoken player. Sure, it pisses off our rivals, but he just tells it like it is.

Most Versatile Player:
Carlos Ruiz. This is the rookie player who replaced Barajas. He's got a 100% fielding percentage, 40+ RBIs, 5 homers, and is an overall dependable player. Ruiz is also my personal favorite (hubba hubba), which counts for more than all his stats combined. I love you.

Most Visible Player:
Ryan Howard. This one's a no-brainer. Being last season's actual National League MVP and winner of the Homerun Derby, Howard is the household name of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Most Victimized Player:
Chase Utley. I wish I could give the closest thing to a Philly hero a more honorable title, but the man is the most hit-by-pitch player in the National League! As is, he's on the DL for having a hand broken by a bad pitch.

Most Vigorous Player:
Aaron Rowand. I'll lay it out for you: May 11, 2006. Rowand voluntarily smashes into the center field wall at high speed and comes away with a broken nose, lacerations to his face, and Xavier Nady's deep fly ball. That's one more home run robbed by AaRow. He embraces the hustle.

Most Villified Player:
Pat Burrell. Once nicknamed Pat the Bat, Burrell is on-and-off the most hated Phillie for his shameless womanizing and inconsistent at-bats. On this team of beloved players and all-around nice guys, that's all it takes to get a homecrowd to boo.

Most Veteran Player:
Jamie Moyer. At 44 years of age, Moyer has been with 7 different major league teams and is the Phils veteran pitcher.

Most Virginal Player:
Kyle Kendrick. On the opposite end of Moyer, this is pitcher Kendrick's rookie season with a 6-3 win-loss record. Not too shabby. Add to that the fact that he's the Phillies youngest player (22 years of age as of today). I'm glad to say that his MLB cherry was popped by Philadelphia. I'm sorry, that wasn't necessary.

Most Vindicated Player:
Brett Myers. Myers started out as, well, a starter for the Phightin' Phils in 2002. And the last few seasons, he has...sucked pretty bad. You'd think it was the end for this distinctive Bert look-alike, but after being placed in the bullpen this season, we made the amazing discovery that Myers is a hell of a closer. That's 11 saves out of 12 opportunities. That's routinely striking out the side. Watch out, Rivera and Papelbon.

Most Virulent Player:
Tom Gordon. I have little to say about this, except that he was placed on the DL for half the season for an unexplained illness. That is all.

Most Vermillion Player:
Kyle Lohse. Stop reading now if you are easily offended. Not the most PC thing to say, but as a person who recognizes minorities who step up, I have to call out Lohse for being one of only four Native American players in the MLB. Plus, he's hot.

Most Victorious Player:
Cole Hamels. Of course I had to save the best for last! This kid is a phucking phenom, no questions asked. The ace of the team, Hamels is giving the best NL pitchers a run for their money. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I love the Cole Hamels strikeout montages on CSN.

Honorable Mention:
Tadahito Iguchi. Okay, so I couldn't find a V-word for the clutch player, but I just want to say that when we lost Utley to the dreaded DL, Iguchi filled in like no one could. Excellent fielder, just excellent.

Did I leave anyone out? Leave a comment if you can think of anything other players, Phillies or otherwise, that would satisfy the MVP with a V-adjective I haven't yet used.

Back to School

2007-08-21T18:20:00.001-04:00

Work started yesterday. I have been avoiding August 20th all summer, and was successful for a couple of weeks. (I know that wasn't really funny, but it's what work does to me.)

So it's one more year at West Oak Lane Charter School. I've yet to mention my teaching experience on my blog. It's difficult to know where to start talking about it, since it is a very broad and farreaching experience with a plethora of accompanying attitudes, but I will say now (for those who don't know) that at the end of last year I did join the union at WOLCS. While I enjoy teaching and love my students, dealing with the school's administration and jumping their hoops is one perk I - along with the rest of the WOLCs faculty - do not enjoy. Take the current school year, for example. The first two weeks are a slow and painful trek through hours after hours of "Professional Development", sessions which are meant to improve us as teachers but really just waste time and demean our intelligence. Today we spent upwards of 4 hours practicing analyzing student data to inform our teaching. Have we not all been to college? Do we not know how to interpret a graph? My group accomplished our data analysis in 30 minutes, and the rest of the time was just wasted as we sat around "learning" things we already knew.

The plus side to all this is that being really bored allows me to create some fun doodles. These are Alien Astronaut Kitty and Hipster Snake-Man.

But back to the union.

We have 7 or 8 members of the administration (yes, that many, and no, they are not running a small country, just a school) who enjoy pretty loaded paychecks while the teaching staff is left to subsist on a below $40K salary with a measly 2% yearly raise regardless of teaching experience or education level. The excuse we are given for not getting better pay is that the money goes into maintaining our facility as it is newly painted and does not smell like urine. (Quite a bar, huh?) While our Chief of Staff rountinely gives us lectures about how lucky we are to be at WOLCS and how teacher retention is a big part of maintaining stability in a school, in the same breath she will turn around and remind us that she sees a teacher's time at WOLCS to be a stepping stone to bigger opportunities. (Let me remind you that it is cheaper to constantly hire new teachers than to keep an experienced teacher happy with pay raises.)

This list of offenses continues, but suffice it to say that the teachers last year were unhappy enough that the union membership went from 5 to the 30s, a solid majority of the teaching staff. While the school day tomorrow will only bring more mindnumbing hours of "Professional Development", I will be looking forward to the results of the afternoon contract negotiations, in which our union rep will be bargaining for a step-scaled salary and paid maternity leave. Wish us luck - we friggin' deserve it!

Review and Then Some: The Simpsons Movie

2007-08-14T13:31:00.000-04:00

Congratulations, Simpsons - you are finally legal!

What I mean by that is that having been the most well-known television family in history and having pervaded every aspect of American culture (pop, humor, comic, commentary, and whatever else you've got), the Simpsons have become so much more than what they started out as, to the extent that it is easy to forget that they premiered 18 years ago, in 1989. While the opinion of this reviewer (and hardest-core fan) is that the show peaked in the late 1990s and has gone steadily downhill in quality since, one must nevertheless keep in mind that by this point, it is difficult to simply think of the show as, well, just that. Even though creator Matt Groening has said that there is seemingly no end in sight for the yellow-skinned fivesome, I think it does no harm to think of The Simpsons: The Show as having come to a comfortable and dignified end by season 10 or so, and the remaining seasons as simply an extension of The Simpsons: The Phenomenon, something that has taken on a life of its own. Accordingly, then, the writers and producers more than deserve to rest on their laurels. And with The Simpsons: The Movie, they have done so.

Is The Simpsons Movie perfect? No. But ask again if it is hilarious, epic, well-written, and satisfying, and the answers are yes, yes, yes, and yes. More than just a long episode, the film definitely has a full, "movie-ish" feel to it, and it does justice to the Simpsons family that has grown and developed over the past two decades. The plot is ambitious without being ridiculously over the top (for a cartoon, at least), and with the main characters more than filling out their roles, it coheres better than expected. The celebrity guests are kept to a bare minimum (one musical group and one actor) to prevent the movie from being a sell-out extravaganza, and this helps give it a cozier, homey feel. While the jokes are certainly not as clever as they were in the early seasons of the show, they are without a doubt laugh-out-loud funny. Bart's brief full-frontal, easily the funniest part of the movie, is a good example of the writers' attempt to keep things fresh without being gratuitous. Another high point is the only curse word in the film. Once you see it, you'll see why it's funny. In short, The Simpsons Movie does a good tribute to the show without unnecessarily seeking to take it to a whole new level. And let's face it - The Simpsons have done more than their share of breaking from tradition. The writers are smart to let the movie just be itself.

So what keeps the movie from being perfect? Only one minor thing for this reviewer: not enough inside jokes. As a longtime fan who can recite quotes from heart and recognize self-references within self-references, I would have appreciated some more nods to the diehard demographic. There are a couple, but a few more subtle winks would have really been a delicious reward. Of course, the flipside is that if you've never seen the Simpsons before (is this really possible at this point?), you won't feel that anything is going over your head.

Once again, Simpsons, congratulations. You arrived over a decade ago and your self-homage is the glaze on an already tasty doughnut. Nobody else could have done it better. Kudos.

What did you think of The Simpsons Movie? Leave your opinion in the comments section.

Lightning Round: Part IV

2007-08-11T10:07:00.000-04:00

I haven't done the Lightning Rounds in over a year...enjoy the easy reads:

For the 1st Time: Grundton and Nicholas
Haven't introduced the cats yet on the blog. Here are some pictures. Don't snicker at me. I know it's ultralite and you know you love it. Grundton is over a year old and in the marble stripes; Nicholas is almost 10 and looks like an owl.

Absurd Thoughts on Baseball
They say that baseball is a gentlemen's sport, but it's also the only major sport* in which the players are required to wear caps and they chew and spit.
* * * * *
If I were the commissioner of baseball, I would definitely create some kind of yearly game - just for fun, of course - in which all the players take other player's positions...a kind of switcheroo, in effect. So you've got the regular batting lineup doing the pitching, and the regular starters and the bullpen would become batters and fielders. Just imagine, in the National League, the weak part of your lineup would be every player except for the pitcher! I don't know how it would translate to the American League; either the DH becomes obsolete or you have eight of them. Anyway, I just figured that this way, everybody's bad at what they're doing, and it would just be a hilarious time for me. But of course, you'd need to truncate the game to about 3 innings or so, because otherwise it would probably go on with no end in sight.**

*I do not consider golf a sport; it has no offense/defense.
**If you do not understand this, then you need to watch more baseball.

Coming Soon...
I am currently working on a piece about racism in humor. It's not as black and white (or Asian - har har) as you think. Check back before August 20th.

People-Watching Creates Coincidences

2007-08-06T17:32:00.001-04:00

Chris and I were downtown today for about three hours because I had a craving for Chinatown pho, and I also wanted to take him to the Mutter Museum of medical anomalies. It was a pretty good day for this, since the trip required a moderate amount of walking and it wasn't too hot outside.

After the Mutter Museum, which is a few blocks from 30th Street Station (west side of downtown Philly for the out-of-town readers), it was pretty much a straight shot to Chinatown (east side and a mile and a half away) to get our pho. Now I really enjoy walking, and the business district of downtown Philly was a prime place to stroll and observe people walking by. Chris and I saw and commented on several unique personalities, including a strung-out looking man with rubber bands tied at five different places on each arm, and a middle-eastern dude who gawked at a handicapped guy zipping by in a scooter. But there was one person who especially caught our eye. Imagine a tall, relatively good-looking guy in his mid-20s, walking in a normal fashion. Now imagine that he's wearing...vertical black-and-white striped leisure pants with a poofiness factor approximately 2 notches below that of MC Hammer's parachute pants. Much zanier now, huh?

Okay, it wasn't supremely zany, but the story doesn't end there. After passing this guy by, we continued toward Chinatown, stopping at the Reading Terminal Market to admire exotic foods. Then we got and ate our big bowls of pho and caught a train at Market East Station to go home.

So we got on our train, and the door's open for a few more seconds waiting for the stragglers to get on. Then, at the last moment, the final Market East passenger boards right at our door, and who should it be but - yes, you guessed it: Stripey McPoofpants! As if this wasn't enough to tickle Chris and me pink, Stripey McPoofpants gets off with us at Overbrook Station, and proceeds to walk into our building and share an elevator with us! At this point, you'd think the odds that he lives on our floor would be higher than a hippie in a hot air balloon, but he actually got off on the 12th floor, one level above us.

(And yes, I was able to, inconspicuously, snag a photo of the incriminating pants after getting off the train.)

Chris wove this whole event together perfectly: the fact that some random guy we saw downtown happened to live in our exact building is much weirder than the black-and-white striped pants he had, but without those black-and-white striped pants, we never would have recognized him as the same guy we saw downtown! There's a stoner moment for you. The universe is full of such beautiful mysteries, where oddness begets oddness.

Anyway, I henceforth dub this the McPoofpants Paradox, and encourage all readers out there to keep a sharp eye open and embrace the weird things that happen in the world. Next time you encounter a jibbering derelict, say hello - he just may be your neighbor*.

*Not responsible for derelict-related injuries.

Come Home Safely

2007-07-31T13:51:00.000-04:00

Last Thursday, the Phillies' second baseman and all-around best player Chase Utley suffered a broken hand during the Phillies' last game against the Washington Nationals. When this happened, and with the Phillies' previous string of injuries fresh in my mind, I started writing a very angry post that inadvertently turned into a rant against Nationals pitcher John Lathan (whose pitch broke Utley's hand), and against the opposing city in general, saying some unnecessarily cruel things (the basic effect of which was that D.C. is not a city that understands - or even cares as much about - the pain of sports in the same way that Philadelphia does). When I calmed down, I realized that the words had all tumbled out in anger, and that I wasn't ready to lambast and turn against my former home so easily. That is why the post you are now reading is - well, a different post.

But I do not wish to stay silent on the slew of injuries my beloved Phillies have suffered this season. Chase Utley's placement on the DL at the time seemed to be the peak of this pattern, but I was mistaken to assume it would be the final curtain. After Chase went down, our best reliever Ryan Madson was placed on the DL for the second time this season, and then last night against the Cubs we lost our two fastest men, Shane Victorino and Michael Bourn, to ankle strains. That's 4 valuable players gone within five days.

But once again, the story's not over. All in all this season, we have DLed ten men for 11 different injuries. Here they are in chronological order from earliest to the most recent:

1. Tom Gordon, closer
2. Ryan Madson, reliever
3. Ryan Howard, overall superstar (and 2nd baseman)
4. Brett Myers, star closer (injured as soon as Ryan Madson returned)
5. Freddy Garcia, expected ace (his injury turned him from our best expected starter to our worst)
6. Jon Lieber, starting pitcher
7. Jayson Werth, relief right fielder
8. Chase Utley, 2nd baseman and possibly the only superstar to eclipse Ryan Howard
9. Ryan Madson (again)
10. Shane Victorino, right fielder with the best arm in the league (and base stealer)
11. Michael Bourn, relief outfielder with the best base stealing percentage in the league

I am impressed with the way our team has pulled through in times of crisis, but enough is enough. I used to anticipate every game; now I have a persistent fear of injuries that gnaws at me more and more. In the evenings, during home games, I can see the reassuring stadium lights of Citizens Bank Park from my balcony. With the team now in Chicago and the injuries seemingly endless, all I want is for everybody to come home safely, and to see those stadium lights shining again.

Harry Potter and Who Gives a Shit Already?

2007-07-21T21:10:00.000-04:00

When I first heard that J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books were being attacked by far-right religious conservatives for promoting the occult, black magic, and general evilry, my initial reaction was one of relief and approbation. No matter that the reasons behind our opinions were vastly different; I was assuaged simply by the fact that finally, somewhere, amid the blind, orgiastic bloodlust for Harry Potter (more! more!), my sentiments were being echoed:
Harry Potter sucks.

The last of the Harry Potter books was released today, July 21, 2007. Just like its predecessors, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was snatched up by jonesing fans that ranged from the very young to the very old. The fanaticism over Rowling's series is nothing new - it has been surging ad nauseum with each release of the seven books. Yet seeing the media coverage still elicited in me a very real sense of disgust. A Yahoo! News article describes a parent of two grabbing a copy while shouting "Mine! Mine!", while apparently in Britain, "a phone counseling service for children expects a surge in calls when readers learn who is killed."*

As a way of categorically delving into just what is wrong with this scene (many, many, things, and all overlapping with each other), let me break down my arguments.

First of all, and at the root, the books are mediocre at best. To any Harry Potter fan who questions my judgment, let me assure you by saying that I have read every single word of the first third of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, before putting it down and never opening another Harry Potter book again. Of what I read, I found the writing to be stylistically bland, while the story and characters themselves were unsubtle and formulaic. The whole idea of wizards and curses and evil caretakers just smacked of mass appeal and unoriginality. I cannot even believe that Rowling has been compared to Roald Dahl, which is just pure blasphemy. The magic in Dahl is wit, brevity, and invention; in Rowling, it comes from hundreds of pages of wands and flying broomsticks. In short: read a bad book once, shame on the author. Read a bad book and its sequel(s), shame on the reader. I learned my lesson quickly.

This point, however, seems lost on those who look to Harry Potter as the savior of tweens and adolescents who are more web- and game-savvy than well-read. It is they who hailed R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps books in a similar fashion, saying, At least it gets the kids reading! But if you are going to get technical, isn’t scouring the latest issue of TV Guide considered “reading” as well? Those who truly value the importance of books will understand the difference between reading for the sake of developing literacy and reading for the sake of developing one’s mind and one’s capacity for higher thinking and knowledge. (And then there is reading for fun, which innocuous but no better or worse than watching a movie just for the special effects.) The former is acceptable for new readers who are still acclimating themselves to the world of the written word – that is why the Babysitter’s Club and the Boxcar Children books are abandoned (hopefully) after 3^rd or 4^th grade, and a more rigorous reading curriculum is adopted in schools. I simply do not believe that the popularity of Harry Potter leads to a rise in quality reading by young adults any more than watching reality shows leads to a love of The Newshour with Jim Lehrer. Are we imbedded in such a state that any book passes as quality reading?

This all leads to my last point, which is the dumbing down of our society at large. Let's face it - it is naive to even discuss Harry Potter solely as a book. Its enjoyment by its readers has been heavily supplemented with accompanying movies, promos, gear, and even a video game. Whereas buying a book once led to the solitary pleasure of enjoying a book, it has now become another means of subservience to mass media and commercialism. As Ron Charles describes further in his Washington Post article, "Harry Potter and the Death of Reading", reading has now become latching on to the latest (inter)national craze, being caught up-to-date with the rest of the nation, or the world. In other words, if millions of people aren't reading it, it probably is not worth reading. What a shame for the unread worthwhile reads out there. An even bigger shame for the unpublished authors whose submissions are judged by publishers as incapable of turning a buck.

I'll end this last point on a funny little news story I read - you can google it easily. A writer, frustrated by constant rejections by publishers, decided to submit some Jane Austen chapters (changing only character and chapter names) just to see what would happen. Of 18 publishers, only one recognized his submissions as being Austen replicates, and the rest either rejected or ignored the submissions.

Such is the state of literature, and readers, today.

*Collett-White, Mike. "Spoilers and Hysteria as Harry Potter's End Nears." 21 July 2007.

A Year and Counting...

2007-07-18T21:39:00.000-04:00

So it has been over a year since I've posted anything. It feels weird to be typing this...right now...

I have to confess: I have not written anything in a year. Emails and lesson plans aside, I have not written anything in a year. Mostly due to a lack of time, but I also think that that is an excuse too easily used. It is far scarier to face the actual truth, which is that I have doubted my own relevancy as a writer. And my skills.

So while I'm in the confessing mood, I should reveal that I have lived part of my life in a very ignorant way this past year. There is a part of me that became a teacher and all the responsibilities that come with that - and I think I did that job very competently, if not more so. But there is also a part of me that used teaching to escape from the things I have been afraid of, and as a result I have - more voluntarily than I would have liked, lived in a bubble. And that is the ignorant part of my life. I haven't read (neither a book nor the news), I haven't explored, I haven't even opined. Living in a bubble requires expending very little mental energy, but also has the unpleasant side effect of draining one of the confidence and practice required for a skill such as writing. If you know nothing about the world around you, then you have little to write about. But then again, if you do not write, you cannot fail at writing.

So after reading all this you may understand why it feels weird for me to be writing now, in my blog, over a year later. I have good memories of this blog, and even in my deepest moments of seclusion I have not felt right about abandoning it. Nor has it abandoned me (thank you, blogspot.com, for teaming with Gmail and not erasing unused accounts). But more than that, I need to see this post I am typing as a clearing of the slate for myself. See this as a swift kick in the ass, from me to me.

So once more, blarm.blogspot is open for business. It will fill your needs from the most superficial to hopefully the less superficial. Wish me luck!

TFA Philly

2006-06-26T20:48:00.000-04:00

I will be here until July 29th, making snarky comments with Grace, Brooks, and Jonathan.

Update and More

2006-01-02T21:13:00.000-05:00

Quick Updates
As most of you know, my laptop was stolen on my birthday. Despite having other access to the Web, I've been slow in updating because I no longer have an AIM profile in which to advertise this. But I've ordered a new computer, so all should be back to normal soon. Meanwhile, I am in California visiting my dad, and I will return to Baltimore on the 7th. I hope everyone had a good Xmas, and Happy New Year!

Kiefer Gets Bumped Off...
Kiefer Sutherland, AKA Jack Bauer of 24, clearly enjoyed a better New Years' celebration than most of us. And I hope it was worth it, because that embarrassing display just cost him his space in my heart.

uvexpressionx7: are you utterly disappointed at your man right now?
o0 freelancer 0o: yeah
o0 freelancer 0o: i mean, that's kind of a turn-off
o0 freelancer 0o: this is akin to peeing your pants in public

I'm sure there are those of you out there who will dismiss Kiefer's antics as carefree and badass, to which I have this to say: Yes, there are worse things than body slamming a Christmas tree in a hotel lobby, but Kiefer - you are a grown man with a successful career and a teenage daughter, not a meathead frat boy who has had one - no, make that more like five - too many drinks. You are about a cheap penile-enlargement away from being the middle-aged male equivalent of Tara Reid. Don't do that to yourself. Don't do that to us.

...And is Replaced By Fragmaster
Kevin "Fragmaster" Bowen of Doom House fame (and writer for Something Awful, site director for Planet Stacked, and former writer for various gaming websites that are nerdy beyond even what I can handle) has taken time out of his busy schedule being an Internet god (or something like it) to acknowledge the existence of mere mortals like myself. And for that he totally rocks! Kevin writes:

Dearest Stalker,

I don't get a whole lot of marriage proposals, so thanks a lot! Unfortunately, I live on the West Coast... so I don't think we can get hitched. Shucks. It's a shame because I can cook and if you were nice I would cook for you sometimes :(

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
-Kevin

Kevin is a sweetheart to offer and I am not deserving of the genius that birthed something as great as Doom House. Along those lines, Lowtax Kyanka has my props too, but there's just something about the blank-eyed sexiness of "Reginald P. Linux? I heard you needed a cop" that can't be matched.

How High Are You?

2005-12-20T00:04:00.000-05:00

How High Are You?
A Short Quiz*

Answer the following questions "yes" or "no." Multiply the number of "yes"' by four to determine your highness percentage.

1) You have eaten an entire pizza in less than 10 minutes.
2) You have forgotten where you were going at least three times on the same road.
3) You know what "IDM" stands for.
4) You frequently solve the mysteries of the universe, and then forget what they were right away.
5) You have spent at least seven hours in a single day watching cartoons.
6) You have ever believed you had discovered the secret to eternal happiness.
7) It takes you 10 minutes to read the first sentence of a book.
8) You own two or more objects that glow in the dark.
9) You smile every time you see a can of cream of mushroom soup.
10) You understand the potential consequences of not moving out of the Doom House.
11) You get the joke in Super Mario Brothers.
12) You own a Grateful Dead poster.
13) You own a Jimi Hendrix poster.
14) You know where the name "Autechre" comes from.
15) You know how to get wet without the assistance of water or some other liquid.
16) Orange is your favorite color.
17) You know more than one definition of the word "windowpane."
18) You find musical value in random noises.
19) You're really into fractals.
20) You have ever had a conversation with a tree.
21) You thought the tree had more interesting things to say than your friends.
22) You can recall at least one physical sensation you cannot begin to describe verbally.
23) You immediately recognize the smell of oregano.
24) When you're by yourself, you think you're a really good dancer.
25) You wish Timothy Leary were your teacher.

*Quiz courtesy Chris Canary

In Other News...
If you are still at Hopkins, make sure to pick up a copy of the winter issue of J.mag! They are available at MSE, the Mattin Center, the Hut, and various other locales.

Random Poking Fun

2005-11-26T01:19:00.000-05:00

Before we jump into the chapter of my life called "Thanksgiving Recovery: The Day After," I must share something that I found while surfing the 'net. It takes itself so seriously that it well crosses the boundary into the kingdom of cute absurdity, where "cute" is taken in the most condescending and demeaning manner possible. The following is from ConservativeMatch.com, an online dating service for conservatives seeking conservatives. (I'm not predicting a lot of "BiDBM seeking same" on this particular dating service...) Anyway, here is the introduction to the site.

So far, so good. I can't say I'm thrilled about the prospect of Republicans reproducing, but that's well within their right, and personal ads with political bents are nothing new. However, I did do a double-take when I saw the following:

Now to be completely fair, the word "exciting" does mean "to elicit an emotional response," and I suppose if you're living the lifestyle of a 70-year-old man on dialysis, things such as the daily arrival of the mailman and dressing yourself could count as "exciting." Hearing about Paris Hilton acting like a vacuous ninny can be considered "exciting" as well, in that the emotional response elicited is constant seething rage. So yes, the English language is a diverse and colorful tongue, but even that still doesn't explain why anyone would call a pro-life prayer group an exciting conservative event, much less attend one on a date. I think your chances of getting on base are pretty much shot when the majority of the night is spent talking to God about fetuses.

So ConservativeMatch.com may be for you if you're into really fun stuff like guilt-ridden sex, followed by "Breakfast with the GOP" the awkward morning after. Good luck with finding that special someone!

Top 24 Reasons Why...

2005-11-22T23:45:00.000-05:00

Dear Kiefer:

Wow. Just...wow. I'm almost a little speechless. Really, congratulations - you've made an incredible turn-around. You've gone from the B-list actor about whom I knew practically nothing to the living, breathing embodiment of the most badass federal agent to have ever graced television's neon kingdom. Fox Mulder and Sydney Bristow would consider it an honor to fetch you a coffee and cherry Danish.

But seriously, though, Kiefer. Two decades ago, you weren't more than what Wikipedia calls an "auxiliary member of the [Rat] Pack." You made two films with Corey Feldman. You were lucky - lucky! - to have escaped the embarrassment of VH1's "Where Are They Now." I present, as well, Exhibit A:

That is a photo of you with Richard Marx. His 1997 greatest hits CD currently sells on Amazon for $7.97. I'm sure no one reading this has any idea who he is, possibly yourself included.

But now? Holy shit, Kiefer, now you are fine. You are damn fiiine. You're my desktop background. On a slow day, I'll watch you for six to seven hours straight on back episodes of 24. I'd gladly spend the rest of my life as one of Jack Bauer's undershirts if it would mean clinging to your sweaty, sculpted, and at times, bloody, chest. And your overflowing sex appeal is not just limited to the fairer sex either. I know a slew of straight men who would strip away their claim to heterosexuality without a second thought for a bedroom romp with your gun-toting alter-ego. Do you understand this, Kiefer? Everbody wants you.

Anyway, if you're still reading this in the hopes of finding some deeper insight into your acting, I should say now that the whole point of this letter was to talk about how hot you are. I'm sure you've got a lot of wisdom to share about the whole Hollywood experience and being Donald Sutherland's son and all, but I really don't think that will be necessary.

A big fan,
Amy

Saturday in D.C.

2005-11-20T19:48:00.000-05:00

To: archives@corcoran.org
Subject: Painting Identification?
Message:
Hello-
I'm not sure if this is the correct email address to send my inquiry, but this weekend while at the Corcoran, I saw a painting hanging on the wall of the main museum stairwell, of a bear about to stone a sleeping woman. I can't remember the artist or name of this superb masterpiece. Hopefully somebody can help me with that.
Thank you,
Amy Chen

Update:
"Mother Mother I am Ill"
Ida Applebroog

Chris and I went down to D.C. on Saturday and we hit up the Corcoran, where there was a pretty cool Andy Warhol exhibit that dealt with his central themes of celebrity iconography, death and pain, power, and of course, Mao. Also on exhibit were the draped canvas paintings of Ron Gilliam. His contemporaries are Color Fieldists like Morris Louis and Helen Frankenthaler, but I think his art combines elements of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism as well. Some of his paintings are reminiscent of artists like Jackson Pollock and, oddly enough, Roy Lichtenstein.

Also graced with our presence was Idle Time Books, a used bookstore in Adams Morgan. I picked up a book on Art Nouveau, "Problems" by John Updike, and a really old edition of "Godel, Escher, Bach." If you believe what Chris says, my interests are incredibly predictable. Well, you know what else is predictable, Chris? You...sitting in a bookstore...reading....

Yeah, take that.

And last but not least, we had dinner at a sushi/Thai restaurant where the decor consisted of this sculpture, located right by Chris' head:

If we didn't know we were in Dupont Circle before, we certainly knew then.
All in all, a good day.

SFA? More Than OK

2005-11-11T01:56:00.000-05:00

When I heard about a month ago that Super Furry Animals was going to perform at the 9:30 Club, my biggest fear was that I wouldn't be able to find anyone to go with me. Given that even my own knowledge of the band was purely incidental, it wasn't an unfounded doubt, and I wasn't surprised when person after person responded to my invitations with a half-hearted, "Never heard of them." Ultimately, though, Chris gamely stepped up to the plate and decided to give this 12-year-old Welsh psychedelic/experimental/electronic rock band a chance. For everyone reading this who spent their Tuesday night trudging through campus in the rain or bundled up with some light bedtime reading (say, on data structures, psychopharmacology, or Foucault), I think it’s safe to say that my biggest fear undoubtedly became everyone else's greatest loss.

But not one to be haughty, I must confess that going into the concert, my familiarity with SFA’s particular brand of techno-tinged rock was minimal. Granted, my love for rock music has been longstanding and my ear for electronica, while still amateur, is developing healthily (thanks to some whole-hearted immersion and excellent tutelage over the last few months). But really, how many people out there can say they’ve heard of bands like Thirdimension and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, much less are familiar with their repertoire? No, not me either – I’m more comfortable comparing SFA to more mainstream groups like the former Beta Band (mellower and more restrained) and the Flaming Lips (not quite as cheeky and irreverent). The truth is, we’ve all been force-fed the same musical tripe for most of our lives, so bear with me as I try to make some sense of the untested waters I’ve steered us into.

Returning to the concert, it should first be said that whatever credit is given to SFA for a rockin’ (or trippin’?) performance, the same must be given to the opening band, a Canadian outfit called Caribou (formerly Manitoba) whose artistic efforts were as spirit-rousing as their talents were unique and unexpected (think two drum sets, no bass, and occasionally, a…flute??). Their performance, equal parts visual art and music, was an hour-long electronic jam session that told, in various “movements”, a roughly-sketched story of several characters whose fates come full circle by the last song. Instead of lyrics, Caribou instead cleverly opted for the frenetic and childlike animations of Dublin-based artists Delicious 9, projected onto a huge screen behind the musicians. It was truly something one-of-a-kind and larger-than-life, injected with a subtle blend of comedy, caprice, and, at times – gravity. My personal favorite showed the Sisyphean efforts of an old man dragging a suitcase up a flight of stairs. Played to the haunting and spidery melody of “Pelican Narrows,” every tumble he took back down the stairs was made all the more heartbreaking by the accompaniment of a delicate descending cascade of notes, indifferent and unmoved by his plight.

Although any hour-long jam session threatens self-indulgence and excess, Caribou did two things that may have made the audience forget that they had paid to see a different band (and made me and Chris feel that this was the best opening band we’d seen to date). First, they remembered that slippery basic tenet of all good art: substance over style – and rarely did they lapse from that. Too many times have I seen opening bands with lots of noise and lots of attitude – but little else.

And secondly (maybe even more importantly), they really fuckin’ performed to please. It’s not easy when you’ve got a narrow fan base and the venue is barely half-full, but Caribou jumped into their gig whole-heartedly and left us satisfied but craving more.

By the time the lights re-dimmed around 10 o’clock in anticipation of Super Furry Animals, 9:30 was comfortably packed. I don’t know whether or not I was surprised that SFA’s key demographic was heavily male, primarily ranging in age from the mid-20s to early 40s. Standing next to a few guys with graying hair made feel – even in the dark – mildly self-conscious of the deep-blue stamps branded on the backs of my hands, letting the bartenders know that I was no good to buy a beer. But if there’s ever a good time to practice patience, it is that antsy half-hour before a band for whom you have high expectations.

It didn’t take long after our first glimpses of the SFA band members for the audience to erupt into enthusiastic applause and cheers. No matter that the stage was still empty – a video projection of the four musicians, clad in identical glow-in-the-dark hooded cloaks and driving a golf cart from around the back of 9^th Street into the backstage, was enough to make the audience feel that the time for a sharp and inimitable performance was at hand. SFA sure knows how to milk it with style. By the time they finally made it on stage, live and in person and to a trumpeted fanfare fit for royalty, I wouldn’t have been surprised if balloons and confetti began falling from above, preparing us mere mortals for the best two hours of our meager lives.

And for the most part, they made good on that. It was not hard to see where the audience’s loyalty and love for SFA comes from – the show was a well-balanced blend of their sophisticated and mature sound combined with the quirky and eccentric oddities that could only accompany a group of guys with names like Gruff, Huw, Guto, and Cian. (All right, I know they’re Welsh, but that only makes them more endearing.) They started off with newer and more hypnotic songs off their latest album, Love Kraft. The playfully agitated Zoom and the more laid-back Atomik Lust reminded us that they could be simultaneously brassy and subtle. (A testament to the former was lead singer Gruff Rhys’ occasional donning of an oversized motorcycle helmet that reminded me of last year’s Viktor & Rolf fashion shows. And I know at some point both Chris and I both turned to each other with the same thought – specifically, Wow, this is like salvia.)

As the night progressed, SFA moved into some of their older and more catchy songs, and it was at this point that I felt like the band could have flexed their stage presence muscle a bit more (helmets and cloaks aside). Mainstays like Juxtapozed With You and Something 4 the Weekend could have elicited much more participation out of the already jumpy and excited audience, but they came and went without much incident.

But far be it for me to say that the night didn’t end with a bang. The high point of the last half hour of the nearly two-hour-long show was undoubtedly the unforgettable performance of Man Don’t Give a Fuck. “All governments,” the background screen told us in bold white letters, “are liars and murderers.” SFA’s leftist roots, suddenly projected so brazenly and repetitively, seemed slightly out of place amidst Rhys’ usual crooning. But as the screen bombarded us with the relentless black-and-white images of Bush and Blair’s various facial expressions while Rhys reminded us (through song, of course), “You know they don’t give a fuck about anybody else,” the political message quickly evolved into another one of SFA’s catchy, off-kilter props. Whether they intended it or not, the real message being sent was WE ARE HERE TO ROCK YOUR FUCKING SOCKS OFF. The song’s techno-ish rock beats gradually spiraled and unraveled into a euphoric cacophony, and even now, a full two days later, I still can’t get that whole infectious atmosphere out of my mind.

So Hopkinites out there, take note: there is only one way to properly end a Tuesday night, and that is with your senses slightly battered while pondering if the last few hours weren’t just an injection of hallucinogens straight into your auditory cortex. Congratulations, Furries. We got your message. Loud and clear.

It's About Time!

2005-11-06T22:07:00.000-05:00

Valentine's Day is coming late next year, but when the reward to be reaped is one of history's most acclaimed - and, well, BEST, dammit! - shows on television, it'll be well worth the wait. Yes, after over a year of waiting and having my hopes dashed, Fox Entertainment has finally given the word for the official DVD release of NYPD Blue, Season 3. The day to be counting down to will be February 21st (107 days to go, as of this writing). And frankly, if I may say so, as long as I've got Sipowicz and Simone dancing on my screen, this will be one V-Day weekend that I won't mind spending alone.

The Y Chromosome

2005-10-18T04:34:00.000-04:00

There are two ways men can warp my sleep schedule:

I can stay up all night having sex with them, as exemplified by the following men:
1)
2)
3)
4)
...

OR

I can stay up all night learning from them, as exemplified by these following men:
1) Thomas Aquinas
2) John Finnis
3) Lon Fuller
4) John Austin
5) H.L.A. Hart
6) Karl Llewellyn
7) Duncan Kennedy
8) Ronald Dworkin
9) Robert Cover
et al.

I'm in for one sexy night.

Addendum:

o0 freelancer 0o: i want you to come over to the carlyle and, when i'm not looking, throw me out a window.
nihil2501: aw, why
o0 freelancer 0o: i have spent the last three days reading philosophy of law, and i still am, and...basically, just come over and get it over with.
o0 freelancer 0o: okay?
o0 freelancer 0o: i'll see you in like what, 15 minutes?
nihil2501: if i werent doing homework i swear i would murder you

A New Low

2005-10-17T04:53:00.000-04:00

Jubilee251: i don't think i'm going to get any ass soon
o0 freelancer 0o: i'm not either
o0 freelancer 0o: it's because my standards are too high
o0 freelancer 0o: i don't wanna shack up with some random drunk guy
o0 freelancer 0o: that's my standard.
o0 freelancer 0o: above random drunk guy.
Jubilee251: i think it's because i'm not drunk enough

I really need to get laid. Bad.
*lowers standards*

Bruce Chen Really Is My Brother

2005-09-29T05:34:00.000-04:00

There are three potential explanations for the glorious events of last night at Camden Yards:
1) The Amy Chen curse has finally been broken.
2) The Amy Chen curse never existed.
3) The Amy Chen curse still exists, and I'm a closet Yankees fan.

We can sit here and debate the options until the cows come home, but really, it doesn't matter. What is important is that the Orioles finally ended their trillion-game losing streak and completely CLOBBERED the Yankees (17-9) in a sweet, victorious (albeit drawn-out) miracle for which I was present to observe in all my drunken glory. With me were two Yankee loyalists, Sex Coldren and Birdman, who -- despite their allegiances -- are great guys and were impressively tolerant of an effusive and inebriated Asian girl rooting loudly for her home team. I ask: are there no better friends than those who will feed you beer at a sporting event, and not look away in embarrassment as your "whooos!!" become more frequent and, quite possibly, more obnoxious? No. There are not.

Sex Coldren and Birdman, my favorite Yankees fans.

Even without the win, last night would still have been one of the most memorable nights I've had in recent history. It's not that I haven't enjoyed the past few weeks of Beirut and 2am IHOP trips. And I always had a good time at Nationals games this summer at that fixer-upper of a stadium they call RFK. But finally getting to see the O's play again at Oriole Park - especially with good company - was a refreshing change. Also, Javy Lopez is hot.

What did kind of blow, however, was the horrible O's fan turnout. I mean, I know that this team kind of went south of cheese over the summer, but it is still sad when the chants of "Let's go, Yankees!" emanate so clearly and even Phillies and Red Sox caps are popping up all over the place. *sigh* Isn't it so endearingly contrarian of me to root for a team whose fan attendance at a home game was far outnumbered by that of its rival? As I've said before, being an O's fan is kind of like owning a 16-year-old dog that's riddled with degenerative diseases. The going gets tough and things get frustrating, but even when it's on its last breath and the vet is about to put it down, you're still going to be there, holding its paw.

But all that aside - what an awesome night. The cherry on top came with Boston's defeat by Toronto, which means that I got to see my team win without having the Yankees fall behind. Come this weekend, I will hopefully see a few crushing Red Sox defeats, and finally get to cheer at the same time as Sex Coldren and Birdman. Rock on!

This is not how it looks, I swear. Let me explain...

Brian Roberts (in the sling) is acknowledged before the game. What a guy! At least he can say he got fucked up by someone named "Bubba".

Me and Drew.

Top of the 7th, score is 13-8 Orioles.

For Real This Time!

2005-09-27T05:15:00.000-04:00

My apologies.

To say the least, I have not been keeping up with my blog obligations (blogligations? blobligations?) since I've been back from the summer. I wish I could say that my time of late has been spent on productive, community-oriented goals such as literacy programs for the blind or herpes public service announcements or the like, but to be honest, I've really just been doing a lot of drinking.

But seriously now, it's time to get your window into my life back on track. Whatever that means. I know classes have started for everybody, so I'll try to keep this entry simple and straightforward. Any questions you have, come see me during office hours.

International
China was really awesome.

Domestic
Nina moved out, Stawek and the previously unknown Brendan Costigan moved in. Brendan graduated from Hopkins a year ago and now he's back to work in the area. Very cool guy and makes a wicked fajita. Stawek is still the Polish lush we've known and loved for three years and counting. We're going to polish this place up and paint a mural and do some other crazy crap. Welcome to Buddytown, Mid-Atlantic Chapter.

Entertainment
At this point, my main concern in the entertainment department is to not let Stawek or Chris Canary spiral into alcoholism alone. I know some of my friends have approached my drinking and five-day-a-week inebriation with concern, but to them I say: know that I do it for those who need me. And to stay on top of my Beirut game.

In other entertainment news, I've been recently exposed to a lot of crazy electronic music, and it rocks my socks.

Education
Within the next 30 years, keep an eye out for the book, Well, Back to the God Thing, and you'll know what I've been filling my head with these days. Of course, I could also just tell you right now, but then none of you will read the book.

Sports
Let me make my stance on team allegiance very clear for those who seem not to get it: I am an Orioles fan. They are the only team I care about, and my love for the O's extends farther than my hatred for any team. So, for example, when the O's are playing the Red Sox, I will NOT root for the Sox just to spite the Yankees. When the O's lose 11 to 3 to New York, I will NOT don a Yankees cap just to feel that elusive rush of victory. Those who thought I abandoned the O's for the Nats: you're outta your fucking mind! The O's are my team, and I'm going to be with them until the bitter end.

In an unrelated matter and just as a point of clarification, I don't care much for the Red Sox and it wouldn't break my heart to see them get killed by NY.

Moving on to football, the game I know nothing about, I've decided to jump on the Just-Can't-Quite-Make-It-Teams bandwagon and and root for the Eagles. If nothing else, it will make my good friend Ryan Carroll very happy. Since I'm still slowly learning about downs and positions and...player's names, if anybody wants to sacrifice their Sundays or Monday nights molding their favorite Asian girl into a football fan, call me.

* * * * * * * *

So there you go - you're all updated on my life again. Goody.

15 hours until I see Yankees v. O's at Camden Yards!

Just Repeat This Mantra...

2005-09-21T17:27:00.000-04:00

To my relief, the idea of me becoming a Yankees' fan clearly does not sit well with the masses. I thank them for their concern while we all continue hoping for the best.

Auto response from o0 freelancer 0o: I swear to god - one of these nights I'm going to buckle down and start doing some work instead of becoming an alcoholic and allowing myself to be converted to a *shudder* Yankees fan.
Really, I swear.

XPhyIe: i dont even know you anymore

Airman C81: try not to become a yankees fan, but if you do know that we can perform an exorcism on you. being a yankees fan is pretty much the same as being possessed by the devil or some other evil entity. do not fear, your soul shall not perish because of those pinstripes

ShaddamVII: Drink away!
ShaddamVII: But drink away and BERATE the Yankees' fans.
ShaddamVII: Goddamnit!
ShaddamVII: Go Indians!
ShaddamVII: Go White Sox, Go A's, Go Red Sox!

AmbiSanchz: YOU BETTER NOT BE A YANKEES FAN
AmbiSanchz: CAUSE IM IN BOSTON NOW
AmbiSanchz: SOX FANS CANT INTERMINGLE WITHYANKEES FANS
AmbiSanchz: AND I MISS THE CHEN

6 days until I see Yankees v. O's at Camden Yards!

w00t w00t!!

2005-08-16T01:50:00.000-04:00

There's way too much to say about the trial and there's no way I can blog it all up in a short amount of time. I have to go sleep and wake up tomorrow at 4 am. So I'll leave that entry for when I get back from China. Meanwhile, here is a photograph of the ghetto Dream Team (me, Anya, and Sach):

Last Minute Wraps

2005-08-15T03:05:00.000-04:00

Dear Readers:

As most of you know, starting Tuesday morning (very, very morning - getting up at 4:30 am, to be exact), I will be in China for three weeks. I don't know if there will be anymore updates before I leave, so if not, I want to take this time to say adios! and that I'll be looking forward to seeing most of you again come September (with armloads of presents from overseas).

Since this may very well be my last post for a while, I want to give some of you readers out there closure on my summer. As you can all tell from my various entries, Sachin and I have become really tight and have shared many an interesting adventure. I will definitely miss him a lot, but as he reminds me - he is just a Chinatown bus away!

Recently, we have also gone to trial on a very big case. Our client was charged with APO (assault on a police officer - more specifically, a US marshal), and this was Anya's first jury trial. The closing arguments will be delivered tomorrow (Monday), and hopefully I will be able to report back to you with a verdict and a blow-by-blow of what unfolded during the trial. It is my hope that if our client is acquitted, I will no longer be (unfairly) known as the "narc" amongst some of you.

Also, much love to Casey Cohen for being a great friend during the summer, giggling and gossiping together behind everybody's backs. Remember, Casey: Ben may be married, but in our hearts, he will always belong to us.

Casey's last day...you rule, girl!

And as for my Hopkinites, I miss you all so very much. I can't wait to see you guys again, and I'm sure senior year will be a blast.

Lastly, thank you all for your loyal and generous support! Although most of the stuff I write is for myself, knowing that you guys are out there reading and loving this stuff really means so much to me. If I ever end up writing that critically-acclaimed novel, you all will be the first group of people I thank in the acknowledgments section. And if not, I'll take you all out for cheeseburgers and sundaes:)

Lots of Love and Hugs,
Amy

P.S. Check out the "Links" section at right to keep you busy during your hours of boredom or insomnia.

* * * * * * * * * *

Rach11rpi: hey Amy, so I feel like a total aim-stalker (which i guess i am), but i've been reading your blog for a while tonight ... and it's totally awesome
Rach11rpi: you know, most people i know who keep blogs have super boring ones and can't write for shit... you've always been a good writer though

McIrishJHU: this shit is hilarilous
McIrishJHU: it had me on the floor laughing one paragraph in
McIrishJHU: and i'm now on the edge of my seat waiting for more
McIrishJHU: last night i was reading an essay by mark twain on how to write a humorous short story. you nailed it.

Thanks! :)

Operation Clammy

2005-08-10T13:51:00.000-04:00

Today, for the first time, Sachin and I put our investigative skills to real-life use when we finally ventured into the may-ne'er-return realm of The Church of Scientology. After passing by the D.C. chapter of the CoS in Dupont Circle several times over the course of our internship, the joke of going in to take a firsthand look at its innerworkings finally materialized into an actual plan. I wouldn't say the execution was either as hilarious or earth-shatteringly revealing as we had hoped, but all in all, I'd say Operation Clammy was a success.

*Disclaimer: The following is for entertainment purposes only. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and what follows is just my personal experience and observations. Having said that, do some research on Scientology and judge it for yourself. You don't have to take what I say at face value.*

OPERATION CLAMMY: PART I

The Preparation
Sean: "Man, I'm so nervous."
Gloria: "Don't be nervous. Just pretend like we're going to the bank or something. But instead of asking about...you know, interest rates, we're just going to..."
Sean: "...be horribly brainwashed!"

Okay, Sachin and I were both really nervous. I think our biggest fear was that we wouldn't be able to control our stifled laughter at the idea of taking Scientology seriously, subsequently blowing our cover. That is, of course, the cover of curious students acting as investigative agents of Operation Clambake. Also, I think a very small part of me - maybe one percent - was really scared that I'd actually get converted somehow during this very first meeting. To completely ensure I wouldn't allow myself to get roped into anything like a retard, I left all my cash and credit cards in the car. You can never be too careful in an op like this.

First order of business was to pick aliases, because like hell if we were going to let them know who we actually are. After considering "Sak Crasto" (I'm not kidding) and various Indian names, Sachin finally settled on "Sean Shah." (Good thing, too, because nothing induces giggling more easily than being called "Sak.") And by courtesy of Chris Canary, I was "Gloria Jean", which I later discovered to be the name of a mall-based retailer of specialty coffees.

Lastly, we had to figure out just what we were going in there for. We ditched the idea of role-playing (Sachin being gullible and I being skeptical), because it seemed too fake and kitschy to pull off convincingly. We decided to just be as normal as possible, act realistically interested but slightly questioning, and most important of all, whatever we do: Absolutely no laughing!

Through the Looking Glass (okay, the door)
The D.C. chapter of the CoS is located at 1701 20th St. NW, a few blocks from Dupont Circle. It is housed in a large, historical, and attractive red brick house that we later found out is called the Fraser Mansion, built in 1890 as a residence. The inside of the house is decorated very formally, with austere but interesting wood carvings and decorations. I was kind of expecting a sterile, boring office environment, but it definitely wasn't like that. My first impression actually that it felt a little intimidating because it was so serious and grand. The walls were covered with framed photos and articles about L. Ron Hubbard. Apparently he had atteneded GWU, studied engineering, and later became some kind of boating/navy aficionado. However, nowhere was included Hubbard's quote, "If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."

Sach and I were greeted by the receptionist, who was young, pretty, and very nice. She had us fill out some log-in form, and of course we put down our aliases and Sach put down a fake address. I was doing okay at this point, but every time we made eye contact I could tell Sach was on the verge of laughter. Not helpful, Sach. Maintain cover.

After a few minutes of waiting, we were greeted by a bright-eyed young man, probably around our age. He was dressed very sharply in khakis and a white shirt and tie, and was also very friendly and good-looking. He seemed fairly enthusiastic about us expressing interest in Scientology, and introduced himself as Jackson. Sach and I introduced ourselves as…Sean and Gloria. Jackson offered to set us up with their advertised free stress/personality test, to which I immediately asked if it was just a written test. Sach and I had previously agreed (slightly paranoidly) that if this stress test involved any type of probes or electrodes, we were so outta there. Of course, it would just be a multiple choice aptitude-type test. Nothing too creepy or suspicious so far. Jackson then led us downstairs to take the test…

OPERATION CLAMMY: PART II

The Personality Test
Sach and I were taken to a large room downstairs where a few other people were taking the test. We were set up at separate tables and began taking the two-hundred-question test called the Oxford Capacity Analysis, an exact copy of which can be found here. For each question, I was to answer always, never, or maybe/uncertain. It was not unlike some of the online personality tests of Tickle, although I think it's more fun to find out what my shopping style is.

First off, I found that some of the questions were designed to be difficult to answer. For example, #40 asked: Are you rarely happy, unless you have some special reason? Hmm... Which answer sounds more coherent: "Yes, I am always rarely happy", or "No, I am never rarely happy"? Maybe they should have asked, Do you not like answering questions with no double negatives? Other questions seemed straight-up irrelevant or out of place on a personality test, such as whether or not I think more money should be given to social security (#9). And some questions were just plain creepy or ominous. #6 asked if I get involuntary muscle twitches, and #52 wanted to know if I'd buy on credit with the hope of keeping up payments. Good thing I left those credit cards in my car, right?

I finished the test pretty quickly, and gave it to Jackson, who fed it into a computer to get a print-out of my results. He then disappeared to tend to other tasks. Since Sach was still working on his test, I took the opportunity to look around the room to assess my environment. I saw a few doors leading off to various other rooms, and the first thing I noticed was a sign pointing to one door that said "Purification Center." There were also shelves and stacks of books around the room, all written by L. Ron Hubbard, mostly about therapy techniques and self-betterment. (I considered swiping a book on Dianetics for my friend Con, who would appreciate the humor of this whole situation - the way he appreciates the humor of creationism.) But what most caught my attention was a small "machine" similar in appearance and shape to a bathroom scale. It had a few dials on it and was connected to two metal rods shaped like toilet paper rolls. I would find out later that this was the E-Meter.

The Dianetics Video
While I had been working on the personality test, a Scientology member started showing a video in the background on Dianetics. After I handed in my test, I tuned in to the video while waiting for Sachin to finish. For those who are unfamiliar, Dianetics is a type of regression therapy that L. Ron Hubbard discovered (invented) that is supposed to purge an individual of stress, uncomfortable thoughts, and physical pain. Here is what the video is supposed to teach people about Dianetics:

(Disclaimer: I watched less than ten minutes of the video, and the following is just my - perhaps flawed - understanding of what the video entailed. I may have accidentally misinterpreted or left information out. Judge for yourself whether it seems legitimate or is just hinky-dinky bullcrap.)

Basically, all humans possess a "reactive mind," which is the source of all physical, mental, and emotional distress. The way the reactive mind causes such distress and discomfort is through human memory "engrams" unconsciously registering painful or harmful perceptions. Throughout our lives, our reactive mind is constantly logging such perceptions of which we often are not consciously aware. However, these perceptions or memories often surface and manifest themselves as stress or pain, and may even cause us to act irrationally and unpredictably. Consider an example given by the video. A sick girl, while being asleep, is told by her mother "I will never leave you." The girl's reactive mind logs this statement, but it is implanted into her subconscious as a manifestation of the girl's illness. Therefore, this simple statement made by the mother will increase the chances that the girl's condition will not improve (as the illness "will never leave" the girl).

This is where Dianetics comes in. Through sessions of Hubbard's therapy technique with a trained "auditor" (Scientology term for a Dianetics therapist), a person can slowly learn to purge themselves of these harmful engrams and "clear" themselves of their reactive mind.

Honestly, at this point I thought this was the craziest thing I had ever heard. It definitely was kind of amusing, but the hilarity factor was far eclipsed by how seriously the video was taking itself, which made the whole thing a bit frightening. It was a lot like the kind of informational videos you watched in middle school health class, except in a different universe where logic and scientific evidence take a backseat to hare-brained pseudo-knowledge.

A few minutes after both Sach and I turned in our tests, two middle-aged women came to the room with our test results. "Sean" and "Gloria" then split up and separated for their personality/stress test consultations...

OPERATION CLAMMY: PART III

The Personality Test
I met with a woman named Vicky, and the first thing we did was go over the results of my personality/stress test. The test is graded on 10 factors: stable/unstable, happy/depressed, composed/nervous, certainty/uncertainty, active/inactive, aggressive/inhibited, responsible/irresponsible, correct estimation/critical, appreciative/lack of accord, and communicative/withdrawn. Each factor can be scored at a maximum of +100 (desirable) to –100 (unacceptable).

According to my results, I am stable, happy, and act with certainty, but it also revealed that I could stand to improve my composure as well as more aggressively follow through any plans of action. (Although if you ask me, I did a pretty decent job in executing the Infiltrate-the-Church-of-Scientology plan.) However, the test showed that the real cause for alarm is that I am often in discord with people I am close to, and have difficulty communicating my thoughts or feelings. This is a load of horse doo-doo. I never hesitate to let people know when they need a swift kick in the ass.

I told Vicky that I didn’t agree with the results of my communication “problem,” as I am opinionated and love friendly debates. However, in order to not seem like a total skeptic bitch, I conceded that perhaps I disliked being confrontational and may be overly critical of people at times. And here came the sell. Vicky informed me that in order to better myself in these problem areas and improve my interpersonal relationship, I could register for courses right there at the Scientology center. And that is how they hook you – by first getting you to sign up for relatively inexpensive classes. But as you get more into Scientology, they get you to fork over larger and larger sums of money in order to keep you involved. Classic foot-in-the-door technique. I do have to admit, however, that Vicky was not as aggressive as I had expected. Like everyone else I had met, she was very friendly and personable. Although she was not pushy, however, her enthusiasm for Scientology was clearly evident.

I turned down the courses, saying that I would come back at another time. But in the name of investigation, I did ask about the Oxford Capacity Analysis – who developed it and whether it was utilized by other organizations and institutions. I was slightly surprised to learn that it actually was not developed by Scientologists, but although Vicky did say that it is used by other groups, she could not recall any specific ones. (A subsequent Google search on the OCA turned up only Scientology-related websites, with the test either being promoted by pro-Scientology sites or debunked by anti-Scientology sites. It is not affiliated in any way with Oxford University.)

I also asked Vicky about her take on why Scientology has come under such fire from the media and…well, society in general. I showed my congenial and diplomatic side, and said that from what I had seen that day, Scientology seemed just like a philosophy of self-betterment – and what’s the harm in that? (That’s Socratic irony in its purest form, right? I’ll wait while you look up “Socratic irony.”)

Vicky must have been used to dealing with that question, as her response was immediate and seemingly well-constructed. She brought up Tom Cruise’s recent anti-psychology comments (although omitted his radical behavior and blatant self-promotion). The field and industry of psychology had so firmly established its roots in America, she responded, that it is unwilling to share the spotlight with any new forms of therapy. Since psychology has so successfully embedded itself into American society – it is taught in schools, plays a vital role in the judiciary system, and is connected to the pharmaceutical industry – new methods of psychoanalysis such as Scientology will naturally come under intense attack and be prone to criticism. On the surface, Vicky’s answer seemed logical and made sense, but she did not mention or counter any specific arguments made against Scientology. I debated whether or not to tell her I was a psych major, but decided to err on the side of caution and not rock the boat.

Sachin's Consultation and the E-Meter
During my meeting with Vicky, Sachin met with a woman named Monica, who – when we later compared – we realized to be way, way weirder than Vicky. Sach found out that Monica had been working for the CoS for – brace yourself – thirteen years!! That was before my parents divorced and I was still reading Frog and Toad books! I think I still had a bowl-cut back then. Apparently, at Monica’s very first Scientology meeting, she turned to her husband (who worked as a veterinarian), and said, “I’m quitting my job to do this.” And she has been there ever since.

Even more creepy (in my opinion) is when Sach asked Monica what Scientology encompassed beyond Dianetics. Since so far in the consultations we had only heard about therapy and self-help methods, Sachin wanted to know if that was what Scientology was – or if there was a bigger system of beliefs beyond just the courses and auditing sessions. Monica’s response? “Yes, but the world isn’t at that level of understanding yet – it’s not ready to know more about Scientology. But once the rest of the world catches up,” – cue Twilight Zone music – “we will reveal more.” Is that not so cryptically delusional? I wonder if the reason they wait so long to reveal the Truth is because their Truth involves an intergalactic ruler called Xenu who deals with overpopulation by killing his subjects on planet Earth – formerly called Teegeeack, of course. Telling someone something like that at the first meeting may turn them off slightly. Just ever so slightly.

At this point, both Sach and I kept glancing at each other because we felt as if we had milked Monica and Vicky for as much information as we could without being rude or acting suspicious, and we were getting antsy to leave before they started pressuring us to buy or sign up for things. Also my parking meter was about to run out. Vicky was pretty understanding about me having to leave (maybe she was confident I would return?) so she started walking me out. Poor Sach, on the other hand, was still trying to wrestle away from Monica’s iron grip. As Vicky was walking me out, my eyes fell back on the odd-looking little metered machine, and my brain raced because I knew that there was no way in hell I was ever coming back to this CoS again, and this would be my last chance to find out about the machine…

“Sorry, Vicky, but one last thing – what is this?” I mustered up my most disarmingly inquisitive tone of voice. “Oh. That’s the E-Meter,” Vicky responded. “It measures your thoughts.” Oh brother. I rolled my eyes in my mind. I bet it does. I wonder if it can tell that I think it’s a piece of sh—“What you do is you hold these rods gently but firmly in your hand.” Here, Vicky took the two metal rods that were attached to the machine by wires and placed them in my hand. She instructed me to not squeeze the rods, but to just hold them comfortably so they wouldn’t fall. Then, I was to think of an emotionally difficult moment in my past, and the E-meter was supposed to be able to “read” this and measure my level of discomfort by how far to the right the arrow on the meter falls. I tried to recall something traumatizing and failed, since my life has been nothing but rainbows and butterflies, but of course the meter went crazy anyway. Apparently, the proper way to use the E-Meter is during auditing sessions, when the “patient” is sitting down and relaxed. The arrow on the meter also moves back and forth when your body is moving, or when you are applying pressure to the rods. Or when it just damn well feels like moving, from what I could see. “Very cool!” I told Vicky. I was so ready to get out of there.

When Sach and I finally returned to the blinding sunlight of the outdoors, safe and successful in our mission, we exploded into laughter and related to each other the oddity of our shared experience. “Holy crap!” I kept saying at every turn. “Holy crap!” The whole trip back to Georgetown, we just couldn’t stop talking about everything – the tests, the books, L. Ron Hubbard’s past, the Xenu thing. There was no way we could describe the experience as anything but weird. Well, also funny. All right – really weird, and really funny. But what was best about it, I think, was knowing that we didn’t get sucked into anything. And driving down Massachusetts Avenue, being back in reliable old Earl, listening to music on the radio, we were the same Amy and Sachin that walked into the Church of Scientology over an hour and a half ago. We were lucky enough to get back to reality, unharmed and with our bank accounts untouched. There was no more need for Gloria and Sean - we hadn’t been converted, we hadn’t been brainwashed, but rather, we came out alive with a story that would never stop making us laugh. Not to take a jab at Tom Cruise, but mission impossible this wasn’t. Teehee.

* * * * * * * * * *
EPILOGUE

The following was an AIM conversation between Sachin and I, two days after Operation Clammy:

S A K 84: scientology is scary
S A K 84: and i think i'm going to have nightmares
S A K 84: i made sure my door was locked
o0 freelancer 0o: what? why??
S A K 84: because i saw monica on the street today and she almost dragged me back into that place
o0 freelancer 0o: WHAT?
o0 freelancer 0o: holy shit
o0 freelancer 0o: are you serious?
S A K 84: well i was walking from my g/f's aunts place (which is on 18th and riggs which is between R and S). the church is on 19th and R
S A K 84: and i saw monica
S A K 84: well more like she saw me
S A K 84: and she said sean
o0 freelancer 0o: omg
o0 freelancer 0o: keep going
S A K 84: a couple times i guess
S A K 84: but i obviously didn't respond, b/c my name isn't sean
S A K 84: but then she yelled it, and i turned around cause i heard somebody yell
S A K 84: and i was like, “ohhh hey”
o0 freelancer 0o: continue
S A K 84: and she said, hey how's it goin etc. etc.
S A K 84: then she asked me if i was busy
S A K 84: i said well i was going home, and i asked her what she was up to
S A K 84: and she said she was going home as well, but she said that if i had some spare time
S A K 84: i should come inside the church, and she could explain more stuff to me
o0 freelancer 0o: and you went, right?
S A K 84: and i said no, i was really hungry and i should get home
S A K 84: and she said, that's no problem we have food at the church
S A K 84: she said she could give me dinner
S A K 84: i was like uhhh
S A K 84: then i said well no i should because getting home ‘cause i have a lot of stuff to do
S A K 84: and then she was like, why did you come in the first place
S A K 84: i said i was curious
o0 freelancer 0o: holy crap
o0 freelancer 0o: you didn't reveal the secrets of our mission did you?
o0 freelancer 0o: was she like, getting upset?
S A K 84: and then she said well weren't you impressed by the techniques and motives of the
church
S A K 84: and i said yeah i guess, but i told her that i read some things that don't sound that great
S A K 84: and she asked me what
S A K 84: and i was like uhh i don't know, just some things on the internet, i really don't have that much time right now
S A K 84: and then she said...and i'm not kidding, like this sweet old lady said this...
o0 freelancer 0o: holy shit
S A K 84: "Don't believe any of that horse shit on the internet, they all just don't know what we're about"
o0 freelancer 0o: SACH - are you making this up? cuz you know i'm gullible and wanna believe crazy things i hear about scientology?
S A K 84: no i'm not
S A K 84: but it was like in an aggressive tone
o0 freelancer 0o: wow...
S A K 84: i said, ok, but regardless i'm busy now
S A K 84: she said, ok sean, but i really expect you to be back at the church. I could tell that you could really improve your life from our teachings.
S A K 84: then she asked for my phone number
o0 freelancer 0o: HOLY CRAP
o0 freelancer 0o: my goodness!
o0 freelancer 0o: you didn't give her MY number, did you?
S A K 84: haha no
S A K 84: i said, i'm sorry ms. smith, but i can't give that to you
S A K 84: then she said ok, i understand, but stop reading those things on the internet
S A K 84: they can really put dangerous thoughts into your head
o0 freelancer 0o: wow, really? you'd better stop then.
S A K 84: i said OK?
S A K 84: she said, alright sean i hope to see you soon
S A K 84: please keep in contact
S A K 84: freaky right?

For more information about Scientology, please click on the following links.
Official CoS Website
Operation Clambake
Scientology Kills

It Never Ends

2005-08-07T06:17:00.000-04:00

HOLY FUCKING SHIT-type Media Updates
Charlie Murphy of Chappelle's Show leaks that the show ain't returning. I don't really care because I've seen like, one episode, but I figure CS fans (and there are lots of you out there) might like to be kept in the know. Looks like it's back to UPN for black comedy.
News link.

Spoilers*Spoilers*Spoilers*Spoilers*Spoilers*Spoilers*Spoilers
According to a source and a half, Michael Vartan (highlight) of Alias will be K.O.'ed (or at least written off) at the beginning of Season 5. Details were not forthcoming, but even with this early warning I foresee myself screaming, "J.J.!! WHYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!" on my knees with clenched fists in the air at the end of the episode.
The source.
And a half.

And Back to our Regularly Scheduled Programming...
In science it only takes one case of a theory not being true to disprove that theory. Following that logic, the Amy Chen curse still holds water. Friday night, the Padres defeated the Nats 6-5. Even from the view of free $35 seats, it was not a pretty sight.

I swear this is the last baseball photo I will post. Until I return to Baltimore and get to some O's games.

Moving on...
When it comes to matters of civil liberties versus security, I'd like to say that random searches really are not a trifling matter. While driving near the Capitol on Louisiana and C, I experienced the pleasure of being stopped by two cops and having Earl's trunk examined. It may not seem like a big deal to get stopped for less than a minute to pop your trunk and have some stranger look through it, but afterwards I felt shaken up and extremely violated. Whoever says that if you've done nothing illegal, you've got nothing to worry about is completely missing the point.

And last but not least...
Next week, Sachin and I are going to stop by the Church of Scientology center in Dupont Circle to get their advertised free stress tests. Because I want to get my soul in alignment, and because it's too hilarious to pass up. I mean, you think the tests ever reveal that you're not stressed out? "Our examinations reveal that you're in a state of pure relaxation. Would you like some pamphlets on Hinduism?" Come on, now. We decided that I would play the skeptic and Sachin would play the sucker. On the flip side, they could use their mind-control techniques and totally sell us on Dianetics and the OT III enlightenment. That would so not be funny.

Stay tuned.

Bad Cops, Bad Cops

2005-08-04T15:38:00.000-04:00

I saw Marshal Marshall today! It was the end of the day and he was leaving the courthouse, and it was weird because he wasn't wearing his US Marshals shirt, and what was even weirder was that even though he was getting off work he still had that ice-cold, hardass I'm-a-US-Marshal-therefore-I-can't-smile stare in his eyes. He was probably going to the gym to work his biceps a little more, before heading home to eat his Hungry Man dinner for one and practice choke holds for the rest of the night. That guy needs more lovin' in his life...

In other internship news, the manager of the Subway by the courthouse definitely thinks that Sachin and I are an item, since we always show up there together after we finish our investigative duties at the court. In a related matter, I dreamed last night that that Subway manager named a sub after me since I go there so much. I'm telling you all this because it is such necessary information.

In most important news, I had dinner with Yahya Radman tonight! Yes, the Yahya Radman I went out with in middle school. The Yahya Radman I have not seen in seven years since I started high school. That Yahya Radman.

After seven years, Yahya and I rekindle our 2-week middle school romance.

Seeing Yahya tonight was like reliving middle school, which was the two greatest years of my life. I can't believe people back there even remember me! Although I guess I have people like Yahya keeping the spirit of Amy Chen alive. (Funnily, apparently most of the people actually remember me as Daria, for which I was nicknamed because of my monotoned sarcasm and big round glasses.) Conversely, it was also interesting to hear what happened to everyone in the years since I left Bloomington. Jacob Pearson got shipped off to Jamaica for making threats on Bush's life in an Internet chatroom. Richard Smith plays soccer for Manchester United. Other stuff I can't remember because people's names are getting mixed together.

It's slightly strange (but also amazing) to see people again that you haven't seen in such a long time. It feels unreal - not for any sentimental reasons, but because something in the past that has been put away suddenly resurfaces, and it just seems incongruous for the past and present to exist at the same time. It is kind of like finding an old memento, or looking at a yearbook, but much more tangible. You get that slightly weird jolt, like part of your brain is telling you that this can't actually be happening, but at the same time it is fantastic because you get to relive something that by definition cannot be re-experienced.

Anyway, enough of the philosophical analysis. Middle school was the fucking best years of my life, and those were the best friends of my life, and Yahya rules for stopping by D.C. to see my part of the world.

Booze-lia is Back!!!!!

2005-07-31T22:20:00.000-04:00

Julia is one of those people who I absolutely adore but don't see enough. We met during high school because we both happened to work at the Rockville public library. This is embarrassing to recall, but I believe our first conversation took place after she saw me on one of the computers in the staff room and I was looking at a Star Trek Voyager website. She went, "You watch Voyager??" And I went, "Ohmygod yes!" And she went, "Ohmygod so do I!!!" and everything else is history.

We actually made a Voyager website back in the day, and I have to give us a pat on the back for that, because it really was very, very funny. It was called Captain Proton's Interstellar House of Pancakes, and since neither of us had any computer skills back then, we used Geocities. It's a pity that it's no longer up (due to lack of upkeep), but it was a testament to the close bond that only nerds can share over the common interest that is Star Trek.

So to return to the present, Julia recently came back from a summer session in Florence as an art student, and we had a chance to have one of our Amy-Julia sleepovers like old times. We made s'mores and roasted marshmallows in her oven, she showed me her latest art work, and we watched a few episodes of Voyager before going to bed. The great thing about Julia is that we can be totally lame and do things I don't think anyone in their right mind would ever choose to do with their time on a Saturday night (like drive around following a Fire&Rescue vehicle on their nightly route for about a half hour), but still have a great time.

This morning, we were talking about having a Voyager marathon (if only we could somehow dish out the $600+ for all seven seasons). We calculated that there's probably around 140 episodes at an hour each...so to watch all of them we would have to stay up for about six days straight with no sleep or bathroom breaks. "Oh my God," said Julia, "I think I would puke. But it would be totally awesome."

Yep. Those are pretty much my sentiments too.

Yes, roasting marshmallows in your household oven really is this exciting.

You can see Julia's artwork here.

Mundane Updates

2005-07-28T22:27:00.000-04:00

Carry My Joy On the Left
Holy shit!! Ryan sent me a present from Indianapolis, and it's a pink Corona cowboy hat! If I was never the life of the party before, I will be now. Thanks for not making it a bong, Ryan!

I lost my "Question Reality" button I always have pinned on my purse a little while ago, but I found another one online. w00t. Also bought a couple of CDs to add to my collection (Gorillaz, Mark Knopfler, Refused, and Sonic Youth).

My homegirl Julia is back from Italy!

The lifeguards at my pool get hotter each year. Where are they finding these guys?! Each summer I think, "Wow, the people hiring are really outdoing themselves this time," but then the next year rolls around and they manage to get lifeguards of an even higher physical caliber. Are they models in their free time? Do I need to fake a drowning? I think the answers are, respectively, yes and yes.

Carry My Pain on the Right
My car Earl died on the Capital Beltway a few days ago on my way to work. Poor Earl! He gave me quite a scare. But we sent him to the hospital and they patched him up (needed a new fuel pump), and now he's good as new. Welcome back, Earl!

I got chewed out by a US marshal last week for attempting to deliver an "imperfect subpoena." The bastards. There was nothing wrong with the subpoena, and they knew it. I used to think the marshals were great eye candy in the courtroom, but I don't know if I can be a fan of them anymore. I'll never again look at Marshal Marshall in the same way.

We urged one of our clients a few days ago to take a plea bargain from the government in his case. I feel bad for the guy because he could go to jail for up to over two years for something that so easily could have been avoided. It was entirely his fault for getting himself involved in the incident, and I don't deny that he did a stupid thing, but it just sucks that now he has to pay for it with potential jailtime. He's not a bad guy at all and I am sympathetic towards him. But he's done jail time before, and I guess he can (and will) do it again.

Internship Entry 3: Down Time

2005-07-22T02:02:00.000-04:00

This past week has kind of been a joke at the office for Nick & Casey and Sach & me. We're running a little dry on work to do, and that's the understatement of the year. Well, we all need a little down time. Or, a lot.

7/20 You Only Hurt the Teams You Love
Want your favorite baseball team to have a chance at the play-offs? Here's a piece of advice: don't get me tickets to any of their games. The Amy Chen curse continued unabated Wednesday night with the disappointing defeat of the Nationals by the Rockies, after a 4-0 win the night before. What's the Amy Chen curse, you ask? Well, it's shitty, is what it is. When every single baseball game you've gone to has resulted in the defeat of the team you rooted for, it's natural to come to the conclusion that you are cursed, that your team will never have a fighting chance in a game where you have a seat in the stands. So what do I do in a predicament like this? Do I leave halfway through a game, knowing that my absence will consequently garner my team a mind-blowing win, albeit one that I will never get to see in person? Or do I stay and cheer until my voice gives out, only to watch the game end with my team's painful, ignoble defeat? This is the kind of dilemma that needs to be discussed more in philosophy courses. I'd like to hear Kant's take on this little quagmire.

So the night ended with the Nats losing 3-2. In addition to that the O's lost to Milwaukee, and the Yankees came out on top against Texas. The curse is cruel. But at least Nick, Casey, and I made a lot of noise in the stands. Half the stuff we yelled made absolutely no sense, and the subdued (and annoying!) silence of the people around us only made us that much more obnoxious. But we worked up a good sweat and wasted our voices, so in the end it was a good night.

Casey, Nick, and me at the Capitol Brewery before the game. I got to take advantage of Happy Hour without getting carded. This never happens.

Casey and I after the game. We were very sweaty at this point. The Washington humidity doesn't quit after dark.

7/21 The Many Faces of Sachin
At work, this has been the Week of Nothing. As in: What work did we do today? Nothing. What's next on our to-do list? Nothing. How much are we getting paid? And you get the idea. While Matt & Karen and Mike & Naomi seem to still be consistently knee-deep in work, Nick & Casey and Sachin & I have been spending the vast majority of our time either playing HORSE in the intern office or humming that over-caffeinated Six Flags commercial ditty ad nauseum. Here, Sachin and I spice up a phone call to the nincompoops at the witness voucher office:

Sachin annoyed by the incompetence of the witness voucher office.

Sachin sad, also sleepy.

Sachin high; drugs taken from client.

Sachin worried, about to wet himself.

Sachin practicing for his role in an off-Broadway musical.

I don't know what the fuck is happening in this picture.

Internship Entry 2: D.C. is full of neat stuff!

2005-07-12T01:43:00.000-04:00

June 28:
Casey and I took a walk around the Capitol after work. It was overcast and drizzled almost the entire time we were out, but we barely felt the rain. We walked by all the congressional offices, the Library of Congress, and the Supreme Court. It's a liberating feeling to be surrounded by all these historic and important American buildings, while at the same time being able to just be totally giggly and carefree with a girlfriend. In your little world, all these symbols of power and grandeur are relegated to the background, and all that really matters is having a fun night. There were pictures of me and Casey hugging a palm tree outside of the botanical gardens, but they were a little blurry so I left them out. These photos are less humorous.

The Capitol.

Some flowers in this garden-thingy we walked through by the Capitol.

A fountain near the Capitol.

July 8:
Sachin and I were in Adams Morgan to investigate an incident that happened outside a bar called "The Reef." While walking through an alley to the back of some bars and stores, I saw these little "cave paintings" on the building walls. I snapped a few shots of them with my camera phone.

And the day before, while waiting for one of our interviewees to arrive, Sachin and I took a detour to Adams Morgan and stopped by Meridian Hill Park, on the corner of 17th and Euclid. This isn't a good photo (again, taken with my camera phone), but it gives you an idea of how expansive the park is. (This is just one section of the park.) I never even knew this existed.

Internship Entry 1: The Blue Wall

2005-07-07T22:32:00.000-04:00

Some days doing this job, you just feel like you have accomplished nothing the whole working day. Case jackets filed at the courthouse mysteriously go missing, and you leave empty-handed. Searches for an individual's contact information turn up nothing. Clients for whatever reason don't keep their appointments. Nobody ever calls you back when you ask them to.

But compared to most situations in which you go home at the end of the day wondering where all your time and effort went, I don't think anything feels as fruitless and aggravating as trying to find a cop.

One important job of defense investigators is trying to interview possible witnesses for the prosecution. The goal is to take down a signed, official witness statement, thereby locking them into their story. Therefore when they take the stand, they can be impeached by the defense attorneys if there are any inconsistencies between their testimony and the statement they've given to the investigators. This is very valuable in case witnesses try to change their story, and it is also helpful in casting doubt upon a witness' reliability.

Unlike a lot of other people who might take the stand for the government, cops hold two valuable pieces of information that make them incredibly frustrating for defense investigators. First, they know exactly who you are and what you want from them the minute you pop onto their radar. Therefore, the minute cops hear that you are looking for them (which investigators try to keep under wraps as best they can), they - and all their fellow men and women in blue - will give you the run-around like there is no tomorrow. What else explains why Sachin and I have been unable to interview an Animal Control officer for about three weeks, despite the fact that a) we know when she works, b) we know where she lives, c) her supervisor has already given us the go-ahead to talk to her. Take another example in which while trying to find two cops to talk to who arrested our client, their co-workers have already given me and Sachin three different times of day for when their shift starts. A typical attempt to reach them goes like this:

"We're here to see either Officer A or Officer B."
"A or B? They're already out on the streets/not working now."
"Can you please check? The last person we talked to told us they'd be just coming in to work right now."
"Oh nooo....They come in at [insert yet another time of day] ."

This happened today, again. Very defeating.

The other thing that cops know that makes them virtually useless to interview (much less take a statement from) is that simply they don't have to talk to you. Unlike your average person who feels like they want their side of the story told, or will talk simply because they are asked, cops know that talking to you - even if it doesn't hurt - will not help the government's case. And since dealing with defense investigators is inevitably a part of a cop's job description, they have plenty of practice shutting you down without a second thought. Sachin and I had an "interview" with a U.S. marshal a few weeks ago that lasted about a minute. Aside from their general unwillingness to talk, it also doesn't help that you're face-to-face with a man who could snap you in half.

But the great things about us investigators is that we're incredibly tenacious. Although Sachin did not seem too keen on this idea, I have vowed to set up a small tent outside Officers A and B's district station and embark on my first stakeout. But seriously, though - they're wrong if they think we're not going to keep going back there (and this goes for the Animal Control officer too). Sometime this summer, it will be a glorious moment when Sachin and I finally find them. And then, it will be the shortest interview ever as we wait for those soul-crushing words: "I'm not going to say anything about the case."

Lightning Round, Part III

2005-07-01T01:58:00.000-04:00

My blog entry ideas have been backlogged for weeks. There have been so many things I've wanted to write about but just haven't gotten a chance to do so. I still want to get to all of those topics, so I'm kind of trying to figure out a way to organize everything so I don't just have one giant overwhelming entry that covers way too many things.

Well, let's get the quick, superficial things out of the way first, shall we?

* * * * * * *

According a Yahoo! Insider News article today, Bennifer II have officially wed secretly in the Caribbean. The article also confirmed Garner's pregnancy, which will no doubt be intricately weaved into future Alias episodes. I hope it's not something corny like Sydney's eggs being harvested to create a baby, like they did on the X-Files. But I'm sure it will be.

* * * * * * *

The recent Supreme Court ruling on the issue of public displays of the Ten Commandments caused at least one D.C. citizen to publicly express his dissent. While driving with Sachin on a routine investigation run today, we spotted a comical monstrosity on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and North Capitol Street. A man had turned his truck into a protest van of sorts, covering his vehicle with sheets of wood bearing various hand-painted political slogans. Homosexuality is a Sin! Abortion is Murder! End Judicial Injustice Now! No, it was not Bill O'Reilly driving the truck, just a disgruntled-looking old man. However, I do have to give him credit for the construction of the whole thing, which was quite competent-looking despite resembling a Mexican fruit-stand. I will regret for the rest of my life not having a camera with me.

* * * * * * *

Speaking of Sachin, bless the man for introducing me to the Flaming Lips, especially their song Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Hopefully I will scrape together some money to purchase their album of the same name, but I fear this plan will go the way of The Office (it's been 3 months since I've intended to by that DVD set, and no I still don't own it).

* * * * * * *

And thus ends Lightning Round III. Tune in again soon for highlights of my awesome internship, of which I've written practically nothing about so far. Also, I will finally get to writing my response to an article Matt David sent me entitled How Psychology Majors have Corrupted America's Youth. And lastly, I may say a word or two about a children's story idea I have in mind; or at least, a story done in the style of a children's book. However, copyright infringement may be a slight obstacle...you tell me: do you know what a magic bullet is?

Another Democratic Defeat

2005-06-25T02:47:00.000-04:00

To follow up our first guest entry, all I have to say is: for a 47-year-old religious nut, Rick Santorum sure knows how to play ball.

That's right - yesterday was the 44th annual congressional baseball game at RFK Stadium, something I did not even know existed (I'm a terrible Washingtonienne) until my Republican liaison and fellow Hopkonian Joe Lin offered me a free ticket. Despite having to sit with Joe's slew of conservative interns from the American Enterprise Institute (just kidding, Joe...or am I?), and despite the GOP landslide (19-10, ouch) it was a great time enjoyed by all.

A staged photo-op between conservative and liberal. See how strained our smiles are?

The Republican win was hardly unprecedented, as they have won eight times in the past decade. And that outcome was foreshadowed yet again this game very early on, when by the end of the first inning the Reps already had five runs. But that didn't stop me from cheering my little bleeding heart out everytime the Dems got a hit...or more likely, when they got a walk. (So we're horrible ball players, but John Ensign of Nevada is an even worse pitcher.) Since I was really the only lefty in our section, it was pretty hard to miss my obnoxious cheering and clapping and jumping up and down every time the Democrats got a hit, or caught a fly ball, or you know, managed to find first base without falling over or having their hands held.

Yikes! And it's only the 3rd inning.

By far the best-known player was Santorum. I really had no idea who the other congressmen were. (Remember, people: I'm a psychology major! I have an excuse for being under-informed!) He actually turned and waved at our AEI section because all the interns were yelling his name and basically getting giant erections every time he turned around. To give him his due credit, he did hit a couple of doubles...

Senator Rick Santorum's butt gets some face-time. I'm sure he finds this photo morally reprehensible.

I do have to make it a point to say that RFK is no Oriole Park. Not by a long stretch. But all in all, still a very fun and Washington-esque night. Nex year, let's try a little harder, no?

Guest Column I: Ryan Carroll

2005-06-21T15:57:00.000-04:00

THE LESSON TO BE LEARNED FROM SENATOR RICK SANTORUM

The only thing worse than coming in second in a two-man race is not being able to hate the person who came in first. For me and my fellow members of the token runner-up in today’s political arena (also known as the Democratic Party), the effect of this feature is roughly akin to having cancer slowly devour our spleens over the course of a four-year election cycle. In short, the Republicans have consistently managed to make themselves less detestable to us—their mortal enemies, and that more than anything else has been fueling the bitter political discourse in this country. With Helms, Thurmond, and Lott all gone, it has become harder to see the GOP as a bunch of racist bigots (even though the highest ranking elected minority official in the Republican Party is the Lieutenant Governor of Maryland). Since we out-raised and out-spent them in the 2004 election, it has become harder for us to paint the reigning right as a conglomerate of bloated, corporate and special interests. Facing this dilemma, all that I’ve been able to say for the last two years is “Thank God for Rick Santorum.”

As the self-appointed spokesman of the Religious Right in the U.S. Senate, the Republican senator from Pennsylvania has come to be viewed by me, and many Democrats over the last few years, as the new object of our hatred. For meddling in the Terry Schiavo case, sponsoring the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, championing the Gay Marriage Amendment and tacking on funding for faith-based initiatives to every OMNIBUS Bill in sight, Santorum has become the sworn enemy of all who still treasure the Separation of Church and State clause in the Constitution. Yet my hat is off to the good people at New York Times Magazine for throwing me a moral curveball in the dirt and making me reconsider a man who is so easy for my liberal mind to hate. I find myself now grudgingly admitting that even I might learn something from the honorable Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

The problem with Santorum is that he is a political absurdity that does not come about very often in the modern political age. Radicals have always existed and have always been detested on both sides of the isle, but usually their vastly different areas of pomposity can all be linked to one overriding feature: namely, their own self-promotion. In the age of CSPAN and the 24-hour news-cycle, holding office and being psychotic at the same time brings with it considerable benefits, ones which said radicals are typically all too eager to exploit. They have become good sport, and while hated by the opposition, they are often respected as well. Sure he’s a crook, but what Democrat wouldn’t want a bloodthirsty Tom Delay fighting for the Democratic cause instead of a more moderate, popular, respected, and altogether more spineless Joe Lieberman.

Where Santorum begins to complicate things, though, is when one realizes, as the NY Times Magazine did, that he is not out to advance himself. He doesn’t meddle in life termination matters and champion faith-based initiatives because is playing some political angle. He does this because he feels that he is right, and he cannot simply stand by and let what he believes to be the wrong decisions continue to be made. Santorum is a man with six children, one car, no money, and no family legacy, yet for virtually no foreseeable political gain, he is willing to risk the very position that he has fought so hard to gain against so many more privileged individuals. When public opinion strayed away from support of the Nuclear Option and the Schiavo involvement, Santorum stayed put, content to put his life’s effort on the line and stoke the Religious Right because he felt they were correct, not because they are the voting block that will one day elect him President. Ironically, despite all the friends I have in the PA political circles who will be injecting Red Bull directly into their veins in an effort to beat him next year, Santorum is in many ways exactly the kind of person that we should all be glad can still succeed in American politics. He is proof that there is still an open door on the hill for the Mr. Smiths of America to enter, and that everyone’s 15 minutes of fame is not an event, but an audition, with another 15 minutes coming in the next news-cycle if only one can get enough people to listen.

Anyone who knows me knows that I often speak of the two processes in American politics and how the one drives the other. There is an electoral process and a policy process, and for all intents and purposes, the policy process no longer exists. It comes into play only when a law is broken down into the fine details and legal requirements that ultimately determine whether a law will be effective, or even implemented at all. Senators and Congressmen don’t write these requirements and they seldom even read them. Often it is merely enough to support bills that say “Child” or “Patriot” in them and back that support up with the talking points of “accountability” and “national security.” Elections drive American government, and there is no policy decision, smart or stupid, that is made without its electoral value first being considered.

Santorum seems to have virtually no comprehension of this duality, and by conducting himself in such a manner, he has shown not only that he has the political instincts of a small-mouth bass, but also that he very well might not be in Washington much longer to champion the actions that he does. His reelection bid in 2006 will effectively be a fight for his political life, and the left’s insatiable desire to silence him before he can assume even more power is as universal as it is concerted. He has strayed so far from the moderate Pennsylvania constituency that elected him that he has made himself not only a target, but a vulnerable target—something the 3^rd most powerful man in the Senate should never allow himself to do. (Seriously, outside of the testicle-deficient Tom Daschle, who would ever allow such a thing to happen?) This situation begs the questions: 1) Why has Santorum done this to himself? and 2) What lesson could anyone possible learn from this behavior?

The answer to both questions is perception, a hard-to-define trait that ultimately forms the cornerstone of the ideological split in Congress. Santorum possesses two things, faith in God and faith in his interpretation of that God, and this has endowed him with the enviable quality of being a politician who wants to be right, not one who wants to remain a successful politician. This makes him a formidable foe because even when all is lost, as in the case of the Nuclear Option, gay marriage, the Schiavo case, and quite possibly the 2006 midterms, Santorum will fight on because he has nothing to lose. This has set him on a course of perception wherein his utmost desire is to be a good servant of his God. This might seem foolish in the complex world of politics, but why else would the Democrats throw a man who is for all intents and purposes a Republican—Bob Casey Jr.—at Santorum in ’06? The perception might be foolish, but it is also attractive.

But what is far more important is the perception that Santorum has regarding the policy process, and I must admit, this viewpoint of his is starting to change my own electorally-driven religion. If we are to make an assumption that the 100 Senators in Washington are all there because they want to help as many people as they can, Santorum’s perception actually begins to carry some weight. Faith-based initiatives are small change as political angles. They don’t stir up the Right the way abortion does, and only over time are they able to gain enough power and support to penetrate the bureaucratic stranglehold on social services. Yet Santorum has recognized something that Democrats have not yet come to grips with: that Liberalism had its shot during the 1960s and it failed, and that government just might not be the proper mechanism to cure poverty, crime, and other social ills. In this light, Santorum’s willingness to back billions of dollars in appropriations for faith-based marriage incentives doesn’t seem so crazy. Welfare hasn’t made the poor better off, but when one is married, they are statistically less likely to be poor. So why not simply get people to marry?

It is a small example, and it doesn’t come close to touching the whole realm of faith-based policy in the federal government (a measure that now accounts for ¼ of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s budget and 1/5 of the Department of Health and Human Services). However, it is something new. Something that hasn’t been tried, and something that Santorum seems to be willing to attempt if it means more people will be better off. Should he bite his tongue more on Schiavo? Absolutely. Should he consider contracting out funds to non-religously affiliated organizations for these social services and thus save the church-and-state separation? Probably. Should he look at the whole picture more and see that school-sponsored prayer is inevitably going to result in a lot of non-Christians getting beaten up in the school yard? Definitely. But should he conform to accepted norms and practices that have failed in the past, and now for the first time lack the political muscle necessary to prevent them from being overhauled permanently? Most likely, not.

If I lived in Pennsylvania, I would want to take Santorum down right now, and I will still readily lend whatever support my PA friends ask for to help accomplish the task. But I can’t help but think that by removing him, though it is a political necessity for the Democratic Party, we might end up killing a great deal of what we love about this country in the process. To replace him with a man only six inches more to the right, who has succeeded on the back of money and legacy that was given to him at birth, is not saying a great deal for the American Way, much less the treasured Mr. Smith. Beating Santorum won’t win back the Senate or revive the Democratic Party from its 2^nd place slumber. We are going to beat him merely because he’s the only top-tier guy that we can beat. By 2008, the few remaining scraps of the New Deal (Social Security, Medicare) will have been eaten away and in such dismal times, beating up a vulnerable icon is sometimes all you can hope for. But to see Santorum’s defeat through Santorum’s perception, all we have done is commit treason against the highest principles we hold. All that the honorable Senator from Pennsylvania cares about, in the end, is his family and his faith. We are going to sling mud and defeat an impoverished Senator who is only doing what he feels is right, and we are not even going to replace him with someone who can demonstrate the same character with our own ideals. This is a dirty business, this democracy we cherish, and the Honorable Senator from Pennsylvania, who we all may hate but must be forced to respect, is likely to be our system’s next blood-soaked casualty.

Ryan Carroll will be spending the summer as an AFL-CIO intern. He has been assigned to work in Indianapolis, IN, to help the SEIU Local 3, currently on strike.

The original article, "The Believer" by Michael Sokolove, can be found in the May 22, 2005 issue of the New York Times Magazine.

Dear Readers:

2005-06-21T02:32:00.000-04:00

you may notice that the updates have become more scarce as the summer progresses. I am keeping very busy with my 40-hour a week unpaid internship! On top of that, I do have a wide range of side projects that I am loathe to abandon. Primarily, right now I am working on a particular project that should be done within the week. It is my hope to return to maintaining this blog upon the project's completion. At least until the next project comes along.

In the meantime, I am trying to rope in some guest writers for this blog to mix things up a bit. Just as Dan Savage (of the sex advice column "Savage Love") knows to call in a pinch hitter from time to time to keep his column from going stale (although that doesn't seem to be a problem when you're dealing with diaper fetishists and penis shock toys), I too can understand the need for an occasional change in tone or opinion. Hopefully, a guest writer once in a blue moon will do the dual job of keeping this blog active even while I'm busy with other tasks, as well as injecting some new flavor into your weekly read.

Oh, who am I kidding? It's summer. You're all out playing frisbee on the beach or backpacking through central Europe. Life is hard for the lonely keepers (and guest-keepers) of blogs.

Love,
Amy

It's cool, man! I'm a detective!

2005-06-15T01:17:00.000-04:00

Slawek thinks that in the future, there should be a new TV dramedy based on me called "Asian Female Detective." The premise of the show is that by hiring an Asian female (yours truly) to be a detective, the police force succeeds in filling their quota for minorities and women. Unfortunately, said Asian female detective is hilariously underqualified for the job, and fucks up every investigation she embarks on. Her tagline, or response to every fuck up - unabashedly stolen from ATHF - is, "It's cool, man! I'm a detective!" Actresses currently lined up to portray Asian Female Detective are...no one. 'Cause seriously, who's gonna be cool enough to play AFD?

Yeah, I know, I should stop there.

Anyway, to get back to reality, I am playing my own version of Asian Female Detective for the summer as a defense investigator for Georgetown Law's Criminal Justice Clinic. After years of watching cop/investigator/lawyer shows, this is finally a culmination of all of those eclectic TV characters come to life. I'll have the slow-witted guise of Matlock, the alcoholic benders of Sipowicz, the out-there, crack-pot theories of Mulder, and to top it off, the freewheelin' badass-ness of Kojak*. That's right - none of the other interns will want to work with me, and my own defense lawyers will probably turn me in to the cops my first week on the job.

"Your crack genie can't help you now, Kenny!" No, but he can get hooked up with a fine Georgetown defense lawyer.

Seriously though, I think this is going to be the most kickass (unpaid) job ever. For those who aren't in the know, defense investigators basically do the same thing that Detectives Briscoe and Greene did on Law and Order every week, except on behalf of the defendant and not for the government. We gotta get our asses to the DC ghettos (okay, it's not always the ghetto, but our clients are largely indigent) and just do some basic detective work - canvassing crime scene areas, questioning witnesses and taking their statements, serving subpoenas, testifying on the stand, and the like. There are 7 other interns (4 boys and 4 girls - all together now: AWWWWWW!!!!!!) and we are partnered up and paired up with one or two attorneys in the Georgetown Prettyman Fellowship. And the rest of the summer we just help our lawyers investigate cases and try to keep our clients out of jail.

My investigative partner is Sachin. I'm glad that my supervisor kept the Hopkins' flava alive by pairing me up with an Indian kid. It'll be Team Asia in the 'hood, like Law & Order meets Harold (Harriet?) and Kumar. Sachin is great with directions and has kept us sane (and well-directed) in the labyrinth of winding streets that is L'Enfant's design of D.C. He might take a bullet for me someday. I am lucky to have him.

The lawyer that Sachin and I are working for is Anya McMurray, who is great. She is really passionate and enthusiastic about defending her clients, and I'm really siked to be working with her for the rest of the summer. The great thing about the office is that everyone is super-laid-back, and are fine with everything as long as you're on top of your work. (It's great to have a job where you can wear a t-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops.) And they recognize that it's supposed to be an educational environment, so nobody gets yelled at or guilt-tripped for mistakes. For example, Anya actually gives a shit that Sachin and I have a life outside of the internship (I don't tell her that mine consists of Minesweeper and writing in this blog), and makes sure that we get days off and don't have to stay too late.

And the last great thing so far is that I have finally made real girl friends with somebody! W00t! One of the other interns, Casey, and I have bonded and I'm looking forward to having an actual girl to hang out with for the summer**. She is not fake or pretentious in the least, and doesn't seem to be weirded out by me so far, which are all very promising signs. Also, we spend the few minutes we see each other everyday making jokes and giggling - really middle school, immature giggling. I know this is hard to believe, but I just can't get that with my guy friends. (Although some come disturbingly close...)

So aside from the blisteringly hot and muggy days, the forecast for the summer is good. I'm going to be all over D.C., so I'll try to take some photos of the places I go, regardless of whether they're scenic or depressing. And if you're ever in need of a great story, hit me up, because I'm sure this job will supply me with a plethora*** of things to write about.

*To be fair, I have never watched Kojak, but I hear he is prolific on the Daily Jolt.
**Again, to be fair: Julia Melograna, I have not forgotten you. No one will replace my StarTrek/Goldeneye/breaking-into-her-own-house-cuz-she-doesn't-know-how-to-use-her-house-key sister.
***Did you know this word also means: "a bodily condition characterized by an excess of blood and marked by turgescence and a florid complexion"? Gross!

* * * * * * *

A friend of mine (a real adult, actually) sent me the link to this website, and I just fell in love with it. It reminds me of something I used to like...

Because the truth is, we all have secrets that nobody knows. Sometimes we don't realize it, because they're so personal and part of our everyday lives that we don't really even consider them secrets. They're just things that make up a part of us as individuals, and we don't really feel the need to share them with anybody. I think it's nice to have secrets like that.

Creationism Redux

2005-06-08T02:21:00.001-04:00

My last post about creationism has generated a lot of IMs from people* (some legitimate, some just funny quips), and since writing it I have come up with some more things to add...

In the Style (D) section of the Sunday, May 15 2005 edition of the Washington Post, there was an article called Doubting Rationalist by Michael Powell that discussed the history of "intelligent design" and its current state. Primarily, the focus was on the leading proponent (and the man who birthed the idea) of intelligent design, a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley's law school, Philip Johnson. What is unique about Johnson and his followers (who consist of "microbiologists and geologists and philosophers") is that in the current atmosphere where creationism is viewed by many liberals or atheists as a political tool, they are a group of intelligent, academic intellectuals who believe in creationism primarily as part of a search for truth as opposed to a quest for political power (although it is undeniable that politics will always be a barnacle on the rock of such religious debates). Evolutionary biology professors enjoy debating with Johnson. The director of the Institute for Biocomplexity at the University of Calgary believes Johnson and his movement "are asking terribly important questions" about the legitimacy of evolution. Basically, this group is engaged in deep discussion with the scientific community without being brushed aside as religious crazies.

So what is my problem with this intelligent design movement? Sure, these proponents may "debate in the language of science" and don't simply spew fundamentalist rhetoric, but ultimately, they are not presenting a view with any kind of scientific evidence or backing, which is a death knell for any theory that purports to be part of the scientific field. From what I gathered from the Powell article, Johnson and his followers have only pointed out weaknesses in the theory of evolution (some of which have already been countered) without coming forth with any solid proof of the soundness of their own intelligent design theory. For example, they emphasize the dearth of evidence for the "large-scale mutations" necessary for prokaryotes to evolve into man. In response I ask - how does this shortcoming of the evolutionary explanation translate to a strengthening of the creationism argument? It doesn't. If all Johnson's followers can do is to poke holes in the theory of evolution - holes that may be patched up in the coming years or decades as we inevitably gather more knowledge - without offering any scientific evidence for their own ideas, then creationism does not stand a chance in a world based on molecules and strands of DNA.

And ultimately, it is because of this that creationism does not belong in schools. No matter how much Johnson and people like him can intellectualize the creationism argument - legitimize it with academics and "important questions" - they can never transform it into a a scientific theory. As long as the principle of separation of church and state still holds in this country, creationism should not be taught because it simply has no scientific backing. Go ahead, say that evolution still needs to work out some kinks, say that we have yet to find the end-all key to why mankind exists, but for Pete's sake, don't tell me God is the answer just because we still have some questions.

*
St Vorph: now creationists have come up with the "intelligent design" proposal
St Vorph: which sounds like humans were devised by general motors

Auto response from MattDMan14: i am noah's ark, and insomnia is the dinosaurs

stereopatheticSM: I know I would pay money to see dinosaurs attack noah's ark

* * * * * * *

I know I keep saying this, but thank you guys for actually reading this blog. Whether you come to it for entertainment, for some weak semblance of intellectual debate, or just to snoop into my private affairs, I love that you guys deem it worthy of the few minutes you have to spare. You are all wonderful for supporting freelancer-redux, and I love writing for you!

Creationism > Evolution

2005-06-06T03:23:00.000-04:00

Until recently, I regarded creationists with the same reaction I exhibited when I heard that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes became engaged - a slight gagging noise followed by a spittle-projected you have got to be kidding me. But I've now realized how wrong I was about creationism (I stand by my TomKat reaction), and how sometimes when we consider ourselves to be enlightened and intelligent, we misjudge other belief systems that on the surface seem to be so outlandish.

The piece of literature that opened my eyes to the superiority of creationist beliefs? It's right here.

How could I ever have overlooked a belief system that pits the Angel of Evil against the Angel of the Lord by way of dinosaurs? I mean, look at the picture for Scene 1! Those dinosaurs are fucking pissed!! Even the herbivores like the triceratops are out for sacred blood! This has really made me feel like a daggone fool all these years, putting all my faith in the slow, booooring process of evolution that involves random mutations over hundreds of thousands of millions and trillions of years, when really, a Braveheart-type dinosaur showdown was the answer all along.

But speaking seriously now, I am getting really sick of all these creationism/evolution arguments that this country is still having. This post is not about being anti-religion* or anti-God, but you would think that after over a century since the publication of Origin of the Species**, the Christian fundamentalists would have allowed us to put this behind us so we can move on to the next God-versus-science debate. It boggles my mind that this - THIS - is still an issue (and a big one at that) that is given time and energy in this country. At the very least you would think that more people could incorporate elements of evolution into their religious beliefs (crevolution?) and not completely denounce scientists as godless heretics, but no. That is too much of a hell-bound consideration.

What really burns my bananas though, is that the author of the dinosaur-showdown theory had the gall to use us Chinese as evidence of his crackpot ideas. This made me cry. Did he really have to taint our word for "boat" (the explanation of which is incorrect, by the way) just to implicate the rest of us in his the-Bible-speaks-truth belief system?

The pro-creationism arguments keep coming back to the same old points, which I think are addressed wonderfully in this article at Scientific American dot com. The one point that has really been vocalized by the religious...enthusiasts (to use a friendly term) is that evolution is only a theory, not proven fact. There was a great article in the Washington Post several months ago by a researcher countering this point, and I regret that I can't post a link to that, but the Scientific American article does a decent job explaining the same ideas. Please take a moment to read the SA arguments, if not to convince yourself then to educate yourself so you can convince someone else.

But I have to admit, dinosaurs attacking a giant ark is pretty fucking cool.

*I considered adding the AIM conversation between Chris Canary and I in which he suggests that we ship all creationists to a deserted island, and I add that following said exile we should explode the island, but I thought that might be in poor taste, so that conversation will not be included.

**See "10 Most Harmful Books" link in previous post.

Lightning Round, Part II

2005-06-02T03:40:00.000-04:00

* * * * * * *

I fucking hate the Carlyle. When are they going to be done fucking me over and my bank account as well? I am now almost 500 fucking dollars in the hole, and I'm waiting for more overdraft charges to accrue. All because the Carlyle couldn't stop a check when I fucking asked them to. FUCK!

* * * * * * *

Human Events (The National Conservative Weekly since 1944) came out with their list of the ten most harmful books of the 19th and 20th centuries (plus runner-ups). I guess I have my reading list for the summer. What? Ann Coulter wasn't on the panel of judges?

Good to see that my fellow countryman from the Motherland, Chairman Mao, landed an impressive #3 on the list. Also kudos to Alfred Kinsey (#4) - never let it be said that nothing sexually controversial came out of the Midwest (Indiana, and Indiana University, no less). And of course, a shout-out to my fellow psychologists, B.F. Skinner and Freud, who were honorable mentions. I'm sorry lazy-ass college students like myself turned your field into a laughing stock for engineers and mathematico-bio-chemical physicists. And even some economists, god help us.

* * * * * * *

Further congratulations are in order: this time, to Paris and Paris on their recent engagement. I'm speaking, of course, of Paris Hilton and her fiance, Paris Latsis, a Greek shipping heir. May your future together go the way of Britney and K-Dog's, and continue to amuse us all. I'm guessing the honeymoon video will come out shortly after the wedding?

* * * * * * *

So I'm snacking on mushrooms yesterday, and I reach into my mushroom container, and HOLY SHIT WHAT IS THIS??!?!

Is that - is that a...conjoined mushroom!??! YES! YES, it IS! OH MY GOD!! Look at it! Isn't it neat? Look!

PSA: Testicular Torsion

2005-05-31T02:20:00.000-04:00

THIS IS THE FACE OF TESTICULAR TORSION.

What is testicular torsion?
In a nutshell it's when the spermatic cord does a 180 and the blood supply gets cut off to the testicles and other structures in the scrotum. It affects 1 out of 4,000 males and more commonly afflicts infants and males during puberty. Some individuals are genetically predisposed to this condition, while for others this may develop after severe trauma to the scrotum...but far be it for me to question how a 21-year-old guy like Josh Druck gets testicular torsion, so let's move on, shall we?

What does testicular torsion feel like?
Pain. Excrutiating, neverending pain. It is like all the murderous atrocities committed in the history of the world, but concentrated in the affected testicle.

Besides the atrocities thing, what are symptoms of testicular torsion?
Swelling on one side of the scrotum, nausea or vomiting, lightheadedness, various lumps and bloodiness, we won't invade Josh's privacy by going into details about that.

Can testicular torsion be treated?
If you are afflicted with testicular torsion, you have 6 hours to get yourself into the hospital for emergency surgery before your no-no's die a withering, undignified death (although God knows why anyone would endure that kind of pain for up to 6 hours). The surgery is called an orchidectomy. If you are unable to go to a hospital, you absolutely should perform surgery - some kind of surgery - on yourself. A rusty steak-knife may be your testicles' last hope.

What's the prognosis?
If all goes well, you and your balls will be romping in the meadows in no time. Otherwise they may atrophy or become severely infected. Looking at Josh's stone-faced expression in the picture above, I'm not exactly sure how positive his outcome was...

Did Josh really have testicular torsion?
This is entirely possible.

Are you for serious?
...Yes?

For more information about testicular torsion, just Google it, you fucktards.

Spectacular Views

2005-05-30T15:13:00.000-04:00

It's a good thing I keep a listing of all the prosaic discoveries of my life, no? If I can refer you, dear reader, to my April 10th post in which I pronounce my new love for the band Rilo Kiley, you will see how quickly I have been lured into their sublime music (which ranges from uplifting to cuttingly bittersweet) as well as lead singer Jenny Lewis' sugary but substantial voice - which is just inescapable. Never in my life have I stumbled upon a new band, fallen in love, familiarized myself with roughly 90% of their repertoire, and then saw them live within the short span of two months.

But that is exactly what happened, and the culmination of that love was consummated with my attendance of their performance at the 9:30 Club on Saturday night. I find it only appropriate that my very gracious guest - the erstwhile Stumpy McNoleggs - also happened to have dropped into my life the very same day I first listened to "Portions For Foxes" and thought, Damn, this is some good music. Who can complain about good music and good company all in one night? Throw in the worn-in, slightly ragged but still lively atmosphere of the U Street Metro stop surroundings and you'll have possibly the three great loves of my youth. (The fourth - dirty, empty construction sites - comes later in the night.)

The 9:30 Club was packed, and for once in my college life I was at an event where there were more girls than boys. Rilo Kiley came on a little after 9:00 and broke right into their single, It's A Hit. I fell into it immediately, and I think from that point on the feeling just cemented that this was going to be one of those nights where you can only be happy - effusively, uncontrollably so. They hit on some of my favorite songs like Portions, Ripchord, and With Arms Oustretched, and it was especially great when guitarist Blake Sennett - who I think has a more charismatic stage presence than the slightly shy Lewis - switched up the feel with lead vocals on Ripchord and So Long. My only disappointment, ironically, was with Spectacular Views, which on the CD is nothing short of vibrant and breath-taking (listen to the lyrics and it's like seeing every natural formation of the earth - trees, cliffs, the ocean - unfold before your eyes), but fell flat and lost its vivacity and effervescence when rendered acoustically. Although the set ended a bit early for my taste (the blame likely falls with 9:30), they did leave us with a nod toward Pete Townsend with a cover of "Let My Love Open the Door" that got the whole crowd singing and clapping to the beat. I love that RK can project such a vibe of intimacy and coziness - if they ever do get really big, they need to harness and retain it. I hope they never do lose that touch.

The rest of the night was spent walking with Stumpy through D.C., primarily Dupont Circle and Georgetown. And I have to say - despite the fantastic weather, the polished sparkle of Georgetown and the Waterfront, the pulsating feel of DC on a Saturday night - it was all just a backdrop for conversation. Random conversations, good conversations, deep conversations, funny conversations, risky conversations. Are we ever going to return to Baltimore in our lives? What kinds of friendships do we treasure most? I love 24-hour CVS, and Stumpy has never been to the Waterfront. And there's the Arlington skyline right across the Potomac. It is a rare case for something to grow so well when you take it out of its structured context of familiarity. Walking, conversing, laughing, exhausting yourself - none of these things are new, but once in a while in the right settings, with the right people, you still get a rush, and very much so. The best thing about Saturday night is that whereas some may say that we didn't really do anything, I still think it's great to mine for so much pleasure out of just walking and talking.

And of course, I have not forgotten - my fourth love.

There is a small dirty construction site on K Street along the row of restaurants and shops. It seems like they had knocked down two of the buildings and dug out the foundations. It is just a giant hole in the ground, littered with two-by-fours and various pieces of machinery. It is cool because it is the only spot along all of K Street in Georgetown that is completely quiet, empty, and ignored on a Saturday night. You can see the sides of the buildings that surround the site - their brick walls probably hadn't seen light in years, or maybe in decades. Spectacular views, right?

Painting My Collar Blue

2005-05-23T04:49:00.000-04:00

Over the past few weeks, I've come to the realization that there is no longer any use in denying it: I am just one of the guys. When I think about it, I realize that this has pretty much been the case since I've been at Hopkins, where my close-female-friend count more or less plateaued off at a low 3 after the second day of college. After meeting my new roommate Nina (female friend number 1), I met the girls across the hall from us: Lael (female friend number 2) and Kristen (female friend number 3, later to be replaced by Cathleen Hamel towards the end of sophomore year). And...it's pretty much just been those girls that I see regularly for the past three years.

This point was only emphasized this past weekend when I spent three solid days being Blake's only female recruit helping his mom fix up their old house to be sold. Despite my incessant giggling and the occasional complaint about having to wash my hair with soap instead of shampoo, I think I did a decent job in keeping up with the nonstop poop jokes (courtesy of Big Marco and his junior-year legacy) and wrestling with Chris in the backyard. (Technically he never really pinned me...but I guess he could argue that technically I'm not supposed to bite my opponent.)

But to segue into the weekend, I have to say it totally rocked. Basically Blake drove his recruits (me, Luis, Chris, and Mike Mueller) out to Fredneck where we spent three days taping, painting, tearing down, spackling, sanding (and whatever else) Blake's old house so his mom can get it on the market. I know - working on a house doesn't seem all that great, but when you do it with your friends and all food expenses are taken care of, it definitely starts looking up. Paint fume inhalation was at an all time high, the Big Marco poop jokes never got old, and we ingested a digusting amount of free food, the top prize for which goes to Chris for eating 4 or 5 plates of crab legs at Rick's Chinatown Buffet while the rest of us looked on with a mix of awe and weirded-out-ness. (I think I saw the owner of the restaurant sobbing like a little baby as we were leaving.)

Here is a photo of Blake before spray-painting the bedrooms. The torn Chuck Taylors confirm that yes, it is Blake in that bunny suit:

WHERE IS THE PICTURE?!?!? OKAY PEOPLE, I'M WORKING TO GET THE PIC BACK UP, BUT I'M NOT WORKING VERY HARD.

And in the evenings, we rested our heads at the very ghetto Econolodge, where Chris' sheets had stab-holes in them, Luis was stopped by a cop for being Hispanic, and Blake and I awoke to the sounds of "we have to get away from the cops!" outside our room.

I still can't decide if this is the best part, but walking away three hundred bucks richer definitely was a boost. And just so you all know that despite all the "male-bonding" I'm still a girlie at heart, I came home and promptly spent a small chunk of my paycheck on some new clothes.