5.31.2002
I've been working for three days on a new template for this page, and it's literally one step from completion. Annoyingly, I can't figure out the last step, hopefully Adam Conover might have an idea. Yesterday I woke up and immediately began working on it. I literally crawled out of bed and began working, I never even changed out of my pajamas. In fact, I wore my pajamas until long after sunset. It was 9:30 at night before I showered, and after 10 before I stepped outside for the first time. And where did I go? For a walk, perhaps? Stargazing, maybe? No, I went to Blockbuster, to sacrifice another $4.84 to my terrible addiction.
In the last seven days, I've seen, in chronological order:
Insomnia
Spiderman
The Wizard of Oz (w/ Dark Side of the Moon)
About A Boy
Shallow Grave
The Man Who Wasn't There
Waking Life
Alice in Wonderland
Safe
"It's your turn, go ahead."
"Hello everybody. My name is Ben, and I have a problem. I watch too many movies."
"Thank you, Ben. Who'd like to go next?"
5.29.2002
When I'm at school I don't eat very often. I generally just don't get hungry all that often. Most times I'll go to the cafeteria simply because everyone else is going and I'm a lemming. I certainly never go to breakfast. At about eighty paces, my dorm is among the closest to the cafeteria, but it's still too far for me to walk unless I'm genuinely starving for a meal; the food's not that great and the atmosphere isn't much better. Bard is a school marked by insecurity, so common dining is emotionally problematic. I don't know how many countless meals I've choked down my corrugated pizza to a soundtrack of people talking shit about someone on the other side of the dining hall. Not that I don't like talking shit just as much as the next guy, I just don't like to do it under bad lighting to the smell of veggie burgers.
When I'm at home, I eat like it's my job. And, the status of my employment being what it is, which is not much, eating might as well be my job. I get bored of hanging out in my room, so I wander down into the kitchen, where some shiny packaging inevitably catches my attention, and before I have time to consider whether or not I really need to eat an entire can of peanuts, I'm rolling on the floor in pain. This process repeats itself every hour-and-a-half, it's appalling.
My father asks me at dinner, "So, what'd you do today?"
"Let's see...two peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, a package of beef Ramen, six potstickers...the chicken ones with the vegetables, two glasses of Coke and a glass of root beer, a bowl of raisin bran, half a bag of--"
"Okay, what else did you do."
"Oh, well I also ate a can of peanuts."
"And?"
"That pretty much brings us up to date."
I eat because I'm bored. I eat because the food's there. I eat for the novelty of not having to swipe a card though a machine. So, I guess my new hobby is gaining weight. Like the beginning of every past Summer, I recently promised myself that I would use the next couple of months to get in better shape. Do more pull-ups. Do more sit-ups. Start using the exercise machines in the basement. The problem is that to get to the basement I have to pass through the kitchen! I'm a sucker for shiny packaging, and the walk to the basement is just that many more paces than the walk to the kitchen.
This isn't something that I feel like talking a great deal about, for some reason this doesn't seem like the time or the medium, but Keelin and I broke up the other day. When school ended, really. And it was fine, it was perfect as far as break-ups go, I'm sure that she and I will be able to remain close without there being issues or unnecessary ackwardness. She's still one of my closest friends, if not the closest. It's a strange time though.
Keelin and I met on the first day of school. She and Janaya came into my room to introduce themselves while I was installing my ethernet card (I'm not even sure I looked up while I shook their hands, I really wanted to download music at what I assumed (incorrectly) would be an incredible speed). We clicked almost from the moment we met. She slept in my bed the third night of school, and every night after for the next two years. I'm going to miss that a lot. Consider the college mattress. They're these tiny little things, unreasonable, really, and unsuitable even for a single person. She and I mastered the art of sharing a single mattress. The art of synchronized turning. And as you read this, as you slide your eyes from picture to picture and think, "Yeah, I could date her," just let it be known that she grinds her teeth in her sleep. She has her flaws and this is one of the more notable ones. It's an awful noise, all friction and scraping, squeaking and smashing, like a rock tumbler with a family of mice inside. It would wake me up at night and I would have to hold a pillow over her face until it stopped. Such a terrible noise.
We lived together this past year, shared a fair-sized double in South Hall. And for everyone that told us not to do it, not to move in with each other, we had a good time, and I don't regret it. I wouldn't necessarily recommend that you move into a one-room apartment with your girlfriend, either, but I don't regret it. We've always had a lot of fun together -- we've always lived together -- and it makes me somewhat sad to think about not living with her next year. I suppose things are going to be different from now on. I hope they're not that different.
5.26.2002
I'm back in Connecticut for the summer, or at least until I can navigate my way out. Being back here, where my parents live, where I went to high school, is...interesting. Or, more like, the way I act when I'm back here is interesting. You know how you can feel nostalgia for a place? How warm aspects of memory can permeate time and influence your disposition? It's strange, while I generally find myself comfortable in most situations, contented with most any environment, I feel an unmistakeable, negative nostalgia for Connecticut. The prospect of seeing most of the people that occupied my high school life provokes a nonspecific yet all-consuming sensation of dread. And I say nonspecific because it's not like anything particularly terrible ever happened to me here, I have no specific memory to which I can attribute these strong emotions. But they're here, and I can't really avoid them.
How to relate the sensation. Put your palms tighly over your ears and make the lowest, most ominous humming noise you can make. Hold that hum for about ten seconds. Now superimpose that noise over your experience. Like the moment in movies where the protagonist realizes something is terribly wrong. The noise you'd hear if you could see dead people. But these people, these unwitting mongers of dread, the ones that seem to carry it with them and unleash it in my ears like a siren, they're not actually dead. But they were dead to me, dammit. Not for any wrongdoing, not for having broken a vow or anything ridiculous like that. They were just...gone -- which is the same as dead in terms of experiential consciousness. And so was the person that I was in high school, dead and gone, and I guess it perturbs me to be standing amongst all these ghosts.
I went to the movies the other night. My strategy for crowds is different here. While normally I would relish the smiling faces and sift for someone familiar, here I dodge through groups, push over children, cut through crowds to curb confrontation. It's unsettling, really. But, despite my quick pace, I was caught and stopped by a group of kids I knew from high school. It was amazing, who knew these people still existed! Not that I literally believe that unified reality is a measure of my personal experience, but I am always a bit surprised to see how people have changed, that they have changed. That their hair grows even when I can't see it. That these people still exist.
5.21.2002
This has happened three times now. In between the dining hall and the library, I have to pass a grouping of trees. And lately, more often than not, there has been a squirrel in the front-most of the trees, on a specific branch. And he is always yelling at me. The first time I was with Keelin. We were walking home from the library, when he started screaming at us. Incoherently, really. It didn't perturb Keelin in the least, she kept on walking, but naturally I had to stop and see what all the commotion was about. This squirrel was looking me in the eyes and yelling at me! Or at least yelling in my general direction while staring me in the face. I'm not sure what about, but he was serious.
The next time was a couple of days later, again coming from the library. Trees. Branch. Yelling rodent. I think this is a good time to describe what exactly a yelling squirrel sounds like. Make a recording of yourself reading the Gettysburg Address. Then turn down the volume and listen to it in rewind. That's what a yelling squirrel sounds like. The second time I tried to reason with him, I stopped, again, and begged of him to be more reasonable, to enunciate. Because he's clearly quite upset about something, but I can't possibly help him if he won't relate what the problem is.
For a while I suspected that maybe his problem was that he couldn't get off that branch, he had awoken from sleep to find himself the ackward recipient of a crippling fear of heights. But alas, today he was on an altogether different branch, lower than the times before, he can in fact move around. And the anger in his face! It's unreasonable! I've talked to him, multiple times now, but to no end. You have to step back for a moment and imagine me standing on the path to the library, books in hand, staring into a tree, talking reason to a loudly chattering rodent. Tree-rat, really. Neurotic tree-rat.
What's bothering me is that he's yelled at me three times now. Three times hardly seems like an impersonal coincidence, I'm starting to think that his problem is specifically with me. So, I'm going to try to establish a better relationship with him and work from there. Feed him, maybe. Whatever our problems are, I'm sure we can work them out, if we're both willing to make the effort.
5.20.2002 Small things 1. A girl I know and share five classes with stopped me on the way to breakfast this morning.
"Are you still taking chemistry?"
"Uhh, yeah. Of course. Why?"
"Oh. Well, do you come to class anymore?"
"Yeah. Well, most of the time. Yeah."
"Oh. Okay, just wondering."
And I walked away wondering what the hell was going on. I'm still not sure. But there are several possiblities:
A. My presence has absolutely no impact on my classmates. Granted, I tend to sit toward the back of the room, but I didn't think that made me invisible. At least now I know I can wear whatever the hell I want to class and not be "the creepy guy with the duck-skin shirt." They can't even see me.
B. Maybe I've been going to the wrong chemistry course. Maybe I've accidentally been attending "Impossible Rocket-Chem 806" instead of my scheduled, mildly-introductory, "Inorganic Chem 102." I like this theory, it's cute, and it affords me the credit of having understood 12% of a genius course instead of the same proportion of a class that is, by comparison, Drawing Pretty Pictures 102.
C. I've actually been imagining my going to class. Or, more possibility, dreaming. This theory actual carries some weight, as it accounts for my poor understanding of chemistry.
2. Earlier this week, while house hunting in nearby Tivoli, we stumbled upon a group of young elementary kids playing four square in the street. "Stumbled upon" sounds wrong, "stumbled upon" sounds like we literally walked all over these kids. Well, no, we certainly didn't do that. Except for in four square ability. These kids looked shocked and mildly terrified when I asked if I could play with them. I represented their collective weight. But I have to give it to them, their games were much more friendly than ours. And it's not really fair to compare our game with theirs, one of the girl's arms were too small to actually hit the ball into an adjoining square. Their father eyed me from a nearby porch. "Don't worry, sir, it's alright, I play professionally." I didn't actually say that, I was terrified of their father.
3. I'm going to spend July in Paris, taking some creative writing courses and blindly pointing to nonsense on menus in the most American way possible. Every time I tell my plan to any of my writer friends, their immediate reaction, regardless of their personality, is always a scowl.
One girl: "So wait. Ben Popik decides one week he's going to be a writer, and the next he's taking courses in France?" Most people seem to think that I made this decision and then started writing, an idea I like because it makes me sound romantically spontaneous. But if I was just going to make decisions completely blindly I would have chosen something far more exotic than writing. Bilingual astronaut. Famous male escort. Pirate. Ooh...pirate. There was a short period after an eye surgery I had as a child that I actually wore an eyepatch around town. As much as I went around town when I was six. Anyway, my friends are jerks.
4. You know what I'd like? What would make me really happy? I'd like more people to send me the Klev virus. Because honestly, three or four viruses a day is not enough. My antivirus program is winded.
Other recent nonsense search referrals: 1. Existential clothing photo. I let that guy down.
2. Quotes from Mike Tyson testicles (#1, baby!)
3. interviews with women unless I fornicate with them. This whole Mike Tyson theme is just not cool with me.
4. The rest are pornographic, I'll spare you the details. But if you came here looking for pictures of nude children, please leave. Especially if you're Mike Tyson, because Mike Tyson is just not cool with me.
5.15.2002
Check out my schedule for next semester!
1. Advanced Fiction Workshop
2. Creative Nonfiction Workshop
3. English Literature III
4. Existentialism
5. Schroedinger's Cat and All That (Theoretical Physics)
Now compare that to my schedule from this semester. I'll be much a much cooler person next year, which is definitely exciting.
The other exciting part about next semester is the arrangement of my classes. Purely by accident (well, with the exception of Eng. Lit.), it just so happens that I don't have classes on Mondays or Fridays! Fourdayweekends. Well, that's what I thought anyway.
"Hi. I'd like to sign up for your English Lit III course, is there still room?"
"Yes, there are still a few spots. But the second class has been moved from Thursday to Friday, is that going to be a problem?"
"Problem? Oh, no, no problem at all. I just won't come to the Friday class. Ever. Probably not even once."
"Hi. I'd like to sign up for your English Lit III course, is there still room?"
"Yes, there are still a few spots. But the second class has been moved from Thursday to Friday, is that going to be a problem?"
"What? WHAT? How fucking dare you. That's some fucking nerve you've got there. Man, you're lucky I'm feeling friendly today or I'd burn this building to the ground. Ask the architect if he'd have a problem with that and get back to me."
"Hi. I'd like to sign up for your English Lit III course, is there still room?"
"Yes, there are still a few spots. But the second class has been moved from Thursday to Friday, is that going to be a problem?"
"Uh....no. No, I guess not." I added my name to the list. "Alright. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I can do that. Thank you."
And so, my four day weekend was struck down. But I'm still exceptionally pleased with my schedule. Let's celebrate with a happy song: Nina Simone - Little Liza Jane
Has anyone seen a movie called Waking the Dead? If you've seen it, send me a review. If you haven't seen it, study the picture below and from it infer a plot summary. Describe this plot in detail.
Thanks!
5.14.2002 It was the weirdest e-mail I'd ever received. It was one of those letters where even after I'd read it over twice, I still needed to turn to the person next to me and ask, "Wait, what the hell is going on?" Was I honestly supposed to believe that the government of Nigeria was urgently requesting my help in importing funds into the United States? Top officials were writing e-mails to random college students, begging them to open offshore accounts? "Wait, what the hell is going on?"
REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
Firstly, I must solicit your strictest confidence in this transaction.
I am a top official of the Federal Government Contract Review Panel, I am currently on official assignment here in The Netherlands. My local partners and I are interested in importation of goods into our country with funds which are presently trapped in an interest bearing Federal Government suspense account for which we need a foreign account that you have absolute control over in your country or a third country other than Nigeria to receive the funds.
It was when the new civilian administration in Nigeria set up this panel to review all contracts/ oil licenses to determine their authenticity, propriety in the light of the economic and political realities of my country that we identified a lot of inflated contract funds which are currently floating in our Apex Bank. At this moment we have worked out modalities within ourselves to transfer the sum of US$ 8,500,000,00 (Eight Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) only, for our personal use.
However, by virtue of our positions as civil servant and members of the Contract Review Panel, we cannot acquire this money in our names. Consequently, I was delegated by my colleagues as a matter of trust to look for an overseas partner into whose account we can transfer this said money, hence this letter to you.
Furthermore, my colleagues are willing to transfer the total sum of US$8,500,000,00 into your account for disbursement. Your areas of specialization is not a hindrance to the successful execution of this transaction and the account required for this project can either be PERSONAL, COMPANY or an OFFSHORE account, you have total control over. Needless to say, the trust reposed on you at this juncture is enormous. In return, we have agreed to offer you 20% of this sum while 5% shall be set aside for incidental expenses between the parties in the course of this transaction. You must however, note that this transaction is subject to the following terms and conditions:
(1) Our conviction of your transparent honesty and diligence,
(2) That you would treat this transaction with utmost assistance and confidentiality.
(3) That the funds would only be transferred to an account you have absolute control over.
Modalities have been worked out to the highest level for the immediate transfer of the funds within 14 working days subject to your swift response and satisfaction of the above stated terms. Our assurance to you is that your role is RISK FREE!. To accord this transaction the legality it deserves and for mutual security of the funds, the whole approval procedure will be officially and legally processed with your name or the name of any company you may nominate as the ultimate beneficiary. Once more, I want you to understand that having put in over 13 years in the civil service of my country, I am averse to having my image and carrier dented. Therefore this matter should be treated with utmost secrecy and urgency that is why I have given you my Amsterdam fax number for contact. Kindly expedite action, to enable us include this transfer in the batch of payment to contractors which is usually carried out on quarterly basis as scheduled.
Yours Sincerely,
Dr. Abdul Kadiri
The first thing I did was print out copies for a couple of my friends, immediately breaking rule number two of the aforementioned terms and conditions. But what did it matter? I would be a millionaire within 14 working days, I could buy their silence. It actually took us nine hours and a Google search before we figured out the exact nature of the scam. But just to be safe, I wrote them an e-mail:
Dr. Kadiri -
I have read over your proposal several times, and I am unquestionably
intrigued. Naturally, I will need to know more about the proposition before
engaging in any sort of binding financial investment, such as that presented
in your letter.
More importantly, I will require a check in the amount of $8,000, made
out to Benjamin Popik, before I will even consider opening the
aforementioned account. Naturally, you must understand that e-mail offers
regarding money transfers are rare and potentially fraudulent, and the
comparably small deposit I require, which, of course, may be deducted from
the portion that you would presumably allocate for the payment of my
involvement, will serve to validate the sincereity of your proposal. The
offer you make is a generous one, 20% of $8,500,000.00, and I'm sure that
the payment of such a comparably small amount should serve as no problem. I
have been involved in money transfers before, such is standard etiquette,
and I'm sure you understand.
The check can be addressed to:
Benjamin Popik
1 Annandale Rd.
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
12504
It was the next morning before Adam and I discussed the ridiculous scam. He'd actually heard of it before, so we did a search.
Interesting facts about this particular scam: 1. "All you have to do is give them a checking account number and fill out a form with some simple questions. Once you've filled this form out then they will use the info, including your signature to drain your account of any money that is in that account." Is that it? We figured that much out. Of course, if one were serious about being involved in any such money transfer, he'd obviously need to give these "government officials" access to an empty account. But I guess most Americans are stupider than that. I however, instead of giving them account information, asked the sender for $8,000, a couple-thousand less than the amount than the amount the IRS is legally allowed to investigate you for depositing, attempting to scam not only the scam artists, but also our own government. (Legal disclaimer: If you're an employee of the FBI and/or this is being read in a court setting, this document and everything else I've ever said is fiction.)
2. "[The perpetrators] may ask you to come to Nigeria to finish up the paperwork. If you go to Nigeria, you will be picked up at the airport and taken some place where you will be robbed, held for ransom, and/or killed." Well that's good, I did send them my address. I figure it's a matter of days before some Nigerian men show up at my door and attempt to ransom me to the kids down the hall, who will no doubt smoke cigarettes and laugh at the knife in my back..
3. "If you really want to do business in Nigeria, although I suggest you look elsewhere, make sure that you get a guarantee from the U.S. government or a bond or an insurance policy that if something should happen, you will be compensated. Of course, if you're murdered, and that is also likely, make sure that you have a life insurance policy with your family as beneficiary." It's likely that you'll be murdered?
4. "Such scams are the third-largest industry in Nigeria." Well jesus. That doesn't speak very well of Nigeria
And if you've made it all the way through that post, write me, and I'll cut you a portion of my millions. Oh, unless of course I've been murdered, at which point you can only hope that I've named you a beneficiary.
"Hey, can could we do that again? I know we haven't met but...I don't want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continuously on ant-autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival, all communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. Here's your change. Paper or plastic? Credit or debit? Do you want ketchup with that? I don't want a straw, I want real human moments! I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be an ant, you know?"
5.13.2002
No, I'm not kidding, Mike Tyson actually said these things. From an ESPN article:
"Tyson, usually calm but at times hostile, opened with a lewd response to a female reporter, who asked him about the upcoming fight ("It's no doubt I am going to win this fight and I feel confident about winning this fight. I normally don't do interviews with women unless I fornicate with them. So you shouldn't talk anymore ... Unless you want to, you know.").
Some of it was graphic, some unsettling, some incomprehensible. Among his thoughts:
On his fans: "I think the average person thinks I'm a (expletive) nut and I deserve whatever happens to me. That's what I believe."
"Sometimes you guys have no pride, so no matter what I say, you guys ... it doesn't affect you because you don't care about nothing but money. So every now and then I kick your (expletive) ass and stomp on you and put some kind of pain and inflict some of the pain on you because you deserve to feel the pain that I feel.
"I wish that you guys had children so I could kick them in the (expletive) head or stomp on their testicles so you could feel my pain because that's the pain I have waking up every day."
On the "real" Mike Tyson: "I'm just like you. I enjoy the forbidden fruits in life, too. I think it's un-American not to go out with a woman, not to be with a beautiful woman, not to get my (expletive) sucked ... It's just what I said before, everybody in this country is a big (expletive) liar. (The media) tells people ... that this person did this and this person did that and then we find out that were just human and we find out that Michael Jordan cheats on his wife just like everybody else and that we all cheat on our (expletive) wife in one way or another either emotionally, physically or sexually or one way.
"There's no one perfect. We're always gonna do that. Jimmy Swaggart is lascivious, Mike Tyson is lascivious -- but we're not criminally, at least I'm not, criminally lascivious. You know what I mean. I may like to fornicate more than other people -- it's just who I am. I sacrifice so much of my life, can I at least get laid? I mean, I been robbed of my most of my money, can I at least get (oral sex) without the people wanting to harass me and wanting to throw me in jail?
"That's just who I am. I want to have a nice career for my children. I want them to have a great education I want to fly my birds. I want to live my life. I want to have a drink every now and then. I want to have a charity event every now and then. And every now and then, I want to fornicate and that's just being a human being."
5.12.2002
Remember the fable about the beautiful woman who always wore a scarf around her neck? Well, I don't remember all the details, but she mysterious, and she commanded her husband not to touch the scarf, never telling him why. So, of course, he waits until she falls asleep, probably the first chance he has, and decides to see what it is that she's covering with the mystery scarf. A scar? A tattoo? A necklace she hates with a clasp she can never seem to reach? He pulls the scarf away from her sleeping neck, and off falls her head, rolling from the mattress to the floor.
She really should have told him why to leave the damn thing alone, problem solved.
Well, anyway, to get to my point, that woman is on the third floor of the library right now. Every time I see this girl, she's wearing a scarf around her neck. And every time I see her, I want to tug at it. It's not that I feel any ill will toward this girl, she's quite beautiful and she's never bothered me, I'd just like to see her head fall off. You know, for the experience. I would tell everyone that story. "Hey, did I ever tell you about the time that I beheaded this girl for no reason at all? Yeah, she was one of those scarf-neck girls."
I think this is a good time to point out that I've become exceptionally wary about writing about people at the library. The more people that approach me and go, "Oh, you're the guy with that God website," the more fearful I become of posting even the vaguest bits of most obscure strangers. Only eleven people go to my school, and I've already written about six of them. Sigh...
5.10.2002
I spent my night crammed in a small campus theatre, watching the ten-minute movies of various Bard film students. I vowed to show up early, I've been to the moderation films every year, and every year I've had to sit on the floor, craning my neck up and resting my scalp in the lap of some uncomfortable stranger. But, of course, I had to get a calzone at the last minute, and I ended up showing up just as the last seat was being consumed like a cold, Italian, cheese-filled pastry. Oh, the floor.
I really enjoyed the films this year. There are a lot of background characters in my life at Bard, people I see on literally a daily basis but have never spoken to. Some of them I have a miniscule relationship with, usually satisfied by a headnod. But mostly there are just a lot of people that I see over and over, and am quite familiar with, but that exist to me for only minutes at a time - standing around at the bagel toaster, walking on the wrong side of the path to the campus center, hunched over books in the library. For all I know, they don't have voices at all. So it was terribly interesting for me to watch their movies, ten-minute segments of their perspectives, because it gave them, the background characters of my life, another dimension. One boy (who I didn't know could speak) spoke for ten minutes about the evolution of abstract film. I watched them depict attraction. I listened to a girl have a five-minute conversation with her mother about Jesus. These people have mothers! Fantastic! Over two-and-a-half hours, these characters I've known for years by strange mannerisms and caricature nicknames took form, took life, if only in my mind, and it was fascinating.
I hate this graphic for so many reasons. I may take it down, it's making me upset.
It's been a while since we've had a list 1. Keelin cornered me today, "Do you think I look thin?" I would have paid my last four dollars for a photograph of my face at that moment. I know that question well, we're old friends. It's the cousin of a phrase I dated for a while, you probably know her as, "Does this dress make me look fat?" Yikes. What a question. And the worst part is that there's absolutely no correct answer. At least with the dress girl, if I said no, she'd become upset, already having looked in the mirror and decided that something, either the dress or her body, was making her look fat. When I told her no, she took that to mean "Well, it's not the dress making you look fat." I learned that quickly, she was a strong one. At the same time though, it's not like I could ever say "yes." No man in his right mind would say yes.
2. Room draw for next year was Tuesday. So, in my usual leave-it-to-the-last-minute-and-do-a-half-assed-job style, I used Tuesday afternoon to tour the various dorms on campus. I took little notes in the margin of my room-draw slip. The hallways in McVickar are dark and narrow. I got a bad vibe from the lobby in Potter. (A lot of my decisions were based on really superficial whims or things left in sinks). I wandered the halls of Shafer, one of the dorms on my "worth keeping" list (I didn't have a "worth keeping" list, I lie to you guys all the time). Wanting to see the dimensions of a single, I knocked on the door of a girl named Sarah (not her name! lies! lies!).
She opened the door, "Hi, I know this is kinda strange, but I was wondering if I could see what your room looks like, I'm considering living here next year."
"You're planning on living in this dorm?"
"Yeah, maybe. It seems like a nice dorm, and I have a pretty good number."
"This is an all-girls dorm, you actually can't live here." We both just stood there for a second in silence. I didn't even know we had all-girls dorms. Turns out we have one.
"Oh. Well. I was just testing you."
3. Download: Radiohead - Like Spinning Plates.mp3. Sounds incredible with headphones.
Pg. 11 Down the hall came the wife. She was glorious, burning. She didn't know yet that her husband was dead. We knew. That's what gave her such power over us. The doctor took her into a room with a desk at the end of the hall, and fron under the closed door a slab of brilliance radiated as if, by some stupendous process, diamonds were being incinerated in there. What a pair of lungs! She shrieked as I imagined an eagle would shriek. It felt wonderful to be alive to hear it! I've gone looking for that feeling everywhere.
Pg. 12 "Are you hearing unusual sounds or voices?" the doctor asked.
"Help us, oh God, it hurts," the boxes of cotton screamed.
"Not exactly," I said.
"Not exactly," he said. "Now what does that mean."
"I'm not ready to go into all that."
Pg. 140 There was a guy with something like multiple sclerosis. A perpetual spasm forced him to perch sideways on his wheelchair and peer down along his nose at his knotted fingers. This condition had descended on him suddenly. He got no visitors. His wife was divorcing him. He was only thirty-three, I believe he said, but it was hard to guess what he told about himself because he really couldn't talk anymore, beyond clamping his lips repeatedly around his protruding tongue while groaning.
No more pretending for him! He was completely and openly a mess. Meanwhile the rest of us go on trying to fool each other.
I've been awake, with the exception of an hour around dawn, for forty-one hours. But I just played two hours of dodgeball, so I feel surprisingly alive. At least physically. Dodgeball is the second childhood game I've tried to reincarnate from my youth and bring to Bard. The game was different than I remember, we're much bigger now, we can throw much faster and tend to. Their were only two injuries, only one of which required the aid of EMS. Again, we're not children anymore. I become less invincible with each passing year.
I remember a game I used to play in my youth. I called it the stairs game. I wasn't a very creative child. The game consisted of climbing up some arbitrary number of stairs, and jumping down onto the tile landing below. And if I didn't die, which I never did, being young and inexplicably plastic, I would move up one more step and jump again. This would continue until I could no longer clear the bottom steps in a single jump, at which point I tired and quit.
I still have utter disrespect for the welfare of my bones, but these days I can feel the falls.
I'm not very happy right now. It's probably just the lack of sleep, but I just feel so...exhausted, in a lot of different ways. I probably just need to rest, to dream for a while. And if existentialism has taught me anything, it's that I could wake up as a butterfly to learn this exhausted life was a ruse. Such a beautiful idea, so cyclical and infinite, boundless and tragically subjective. Damn you, subjective reality. Even in my saddened state, my world to share my perspective and have it be honestly received.
Have a Coldplay song that you may at least hear what I'm hearing. Goodnight.
Yesterday I woke up around eleven-thirty, picked up and put on the top of my laundry pile, and headed down to breakfast, fully intent on coming back afterward, showering, and carrying out the life of a good, clean human being. But the cafeteria was closed, and we had to eat down at Spring Fling, our campus's big recreation weekend. Long story short, I made it back to my room around four o'clock in the morning, wild-haired and sunburned. This was such an incredible weekend, I couldn't stay indoors.
There are too many stories to tell, so I'll have to pick one for now.
Right now, across an entire wall of the campus center, is a fourty-five foot banner, white with neon green letters, that reads "COME SLEEP WITH JON." The letters are four-feet tall.
Last night during the performance of a band called the Slip, I was thinking about the fact that a lot of Bard parties have really sexual suggestive names and themes and approaches. The Menage. The Drag Race. Comoniwannalaya. I was thinking that four square should throw a big sexy party, but just be really blunt about it. I was thinking we could call it "Come have sex in my bed." Anyway, when I told Jon about the idea, he insisted that we test it immediately. At Spring Fling. And so, we did. I woke up at nine-thirty this morning and helped paint a fourty-five foot banner encouraging strangers to have relations with Jon Capone. Oh, and we brought Jon's bed to the party, mattress and all.
When I left Spring Fling, there were nine people in Jon's bed.
5.02.2002
Ready for a cognitive neuropsychology joke? This is straight out of one of my textbooks:
"Consider a junior executive who has been rudely challenged by a competitive peer at an important meeting. This is dangerous: his chances for promotion may be threatened - or even his job - and his amygdala is activated. This activation could propel him into physically assaulting his rival, Medial frontal cortex, taking into account the social context, comes to the rescue and inhibits the physically aggressive response. However, that does not have to be the end of the story. The amygdala activation can stimulate medial frontal cortex to organize a long-term plan of action that will enable him to surpass his rival by succeeding brilliantly in the complex corporate environment. The old adage, "Don't get mad, get even!" could be neurologized into "Inhibit amygdala-triggered short-term emotional response (via input from medial frontal cortex) and then direct amygdala output to medial frontal cortex and the organization of long-term action plans!"
It actually says that, word for word. I think that speaks pretty well to why I'm shopping around for a new major.
5.01.2002
A lot of people have been asking me lately why I gave up medicine. I guess the main reason is that clinical medicine really isn't a creative genre in any respect. In neurology, a good deal of your day is spent telling people that they have horrible inoperable tumors. Again, there aren't a lot of openings for a sense of humor in a field like that.
Teresa sat alone in the examination room, her bare feet dangling from the end of the large examination table. Her eyes scanned the various posters on the wall beside her, diagrams of different lobes of the brain in vibrant reds and blues. She couldn't focus on them for very long, couldn't hold her attention to the small detail. A lot of things had been more difficult since her stroke.
The doctor re-entered the room. "Mrs. Carson, I apologize for the wait. I'm overbooked today, I've got a group of three patients in the next room that I need to see quickly before we can talk. Again, I'm sorry for the inconvenience."
She smiled, "It's quite alright, doctor, I'm in no hurry.Tell me though, will we need to talk for long? Is everything alright?"
"With me? Oh, yeah, everything's fine, you know, I'm just a little tired. I've been on call a lot lately. Anyway--"
"Actually, I meant--"
"Oh, that reminds me, I have a little something for you to read while you wait." He pulled a small pamphlet out of his breast pocket, handing it to her with his right hand while turning the knob to leave with his left. She could hear him addressing the other group of patients, "Mr. Johnson, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Thompson, could you all follow me?" She had come to like the sound of his voice, he had been a real blessing throughout the days following her trauma.
Fumbling through her purse, she found and withdrew the small box that contained her reading glasses. Without them she could hardly see, but even with them she would have a hard time reading anything with such small detail, the doctor knew that. Squinting, she could make out the larger letters on the front of the pamphlet. "So You've Decided to Die."
"Mr. Johnson, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Thompson, could you all follow me?" The three men put down their respective magazines, Mr. Taylor hesitant to leave the article he was pretending to read about the recent breast augmentation of the latest teenage female pop craze. The men filed one at a time through the narrow door into the small examination room, Mr. Thompson leading the pack. He could hear an elderly woman crying in the next room.
"Please gentlemen, have a seat. Alright, I should ask you before we do this, do you all like games?" The three men nodded in turn, Mr. Johnson already irritated about having to share his scheduled appointment time with two strangers and becoming visibly upset at the prospect of playing games. He'd been awaiting the serious results of a serious examination, he hardly had time for levity, let alone from his neurologist.
"Alright, great, you're all going to enjoy this then. Okay, here we go. Are you ready? One of you has a life-threatening tumor, you decide who it's going to be. Go!"
