A Minimalism

Writing about Death

2012-04-18T23:32:00.002-07:00

Every writer makes the mistake of writing about death. Grandpa, a cousin, a friend, mom, dad, Tramp or Fluffers. And no one ever cares.

Writing is like the proverbially tree falling in the woods. Does it make a sound if no one's there to listen? The tree does. Writing does not. If writing is not for an audience, then it's meaningless or it's practice for the writer.

So if the writer attempts something that no one is going to care about, then he has wasted his time. The death of someone close to you is not important to a stranger. If we know the writer, we might say, "I'm sorry for your loss," but if we're the audience and have no attachment to the writer or the deceased, we scoff at how sentimental it is.

If you were to believe novice writers, every parent is a hero. Every friend is the greatest we could've asked for. Everyone is liked by everyone. None of that's true. Everyone hates everyone or at least gets annoyed by them. There are shitty friends and shitty parents.

So what do we do as writers when someone has died? We want to honor them and cause the world the same grief we feel (I guess we're cruel when sad). But when written a person becomes a character, neither real nor fake, and so someone who stars in a poem about death has been created to be abused for an emotional response from the reader.

That's not the writer's intent and readers can probably assume which deaths are real and created (as created deaths seem often more touching), but it makes the writing bad. The writing is sentimental, pointed from the beginning stab us in the ass until we cry either in pain or outrage.

So what do we do?

My solution is to not write about such things until we're older. When my grandma died, I had a cold. I drove the five hours to home, thinking "I better not hug grandpa or I'll be back in a month for another funeral." I thought this was morbidly funny. I also thought that when I got back to school, I'd write about the funeral honestly.

I could've too. My family, like most family, is full of kooks, failures and phonies. Everyone arrived and said their "I'm sorry for your loss"-es and "she was a wonderful woman"s, then they move into business talk. How are the kids? What's the procedure for the procession tomorrow? Where should we eat afterwards? My sister had separated from her husband the previous winter and divorced that summer but no one told my grandpa, so he said, "Hey, give Zach my best wishes. I hope to see him come Christmas." My sister smiled and looked to me, my mom, my dad, as her gaping mouth tried to shove out the words but she was too surprised. Finally she told him about the divorce and my grandpa felt awful. His wife had just died and he felt awful for the social faux pas!

When the funeral came the next day (as the previous events happened during the wake), everyone lied during their eulogies and the audience, all affected in the same way as the speakers, bought the lies. However, the audience of writing will not readily gobble up the lies.

Instead, we have to characterize the dead and the affected so well that they seem as alive to the readers as they are to the writer.

I, two time winner of Central College's short story contest and Calliope Prize recipient for creative contributions in literature and creative writing, am not a good enough writer to do that in a poem. I am not good enough to do that in a short story. I struggled to do it in my first novel!

I think about my favorite stories, short ones, novella, novels. Catcher in the Rye, one kid dies but no one cares but the narrator. The Sun Also Rises, no one important dies. Jane Austen's work, no one dies. Charles Dickens, no one I care about dies. Thomas Wolfe's "The Lost Boy" someone dies!

Okay, why do we care that Grover, the narrator brother, dies? Because it's not sentimental! We spend three scenes learning about Grover before he dies. He cries and runs home to his daddy because a candy store owner is mean, he's mature and asks questions to strangers, he treats his sister to a meal with his earnings then pukes it all up and dies. But the narrator didn't know any of this before hand. That adds to the credibility of the story. We are learning about it in detail at the same time as the narrator.

But when Grover dies, there's that little "aww, that's a shame" moment but we're not in tears. And the story continues! The death is the middle! The characterization is the beginning and the death is the middle! That's absolutely epic. Novices end the story when someone dies or when someone breaks down and cries. But Thomas Wolfe stuck the death in the middle! Bravo.

So the end! The narrator, now in his 30s and knowing the story of Grover's death, returns to his childhood home. Someone else is living there and he asks to come in and sees the place and he has this little memory. A tiny memory.

The years dropped off like fallen leaves: the face came back again-the soft dark oval, the dark eyes, the soft brown berry on the neck, the raven hair, all bending down, approaching-the whole appearing to him ghost-wise, intent and instant.

"Now say it-- Grover!"

"Gova."

"No-- not Gova-- Grover! ... Say it!"

"Gova."

"Ah-h-- you didn't say it. You said Gova. Grover-now say it!"

"Gova."

"Look, I tell you what I'll do if you say it right. Would you like to go down to King's Highway? Would you like Grover to set you up? All right, then. If you say Grover and say it right, I'll take you to King's Highway and set you up to ice cream. Now say it right! Grover!"

"Gova."

"Ah-h, you-u. You're the craziest little old boy I ever did see. Can't you even say Grover?"

"Gova."

"Ah-h, you-u. Old Tongue-Tie, that's what you are.... Well, come on, then, I'll set you up anyway."

And that's where I cry. It's not some great big memory about him serving in world war two. It's not some great profession of love between brothers. It's not Grover standing up for the brother. It's none of the cliches, but instead a human moment!

And you're not crying because you haven't read the story. So that should tell you that everything before this moment, everything before the death is important.

But young writers don't get that. They think the climax is most important. No, no. The climax matters not if we haven't invested any emotion beforehand. Characterization is most important.

The two have to work in proper proportion. Too much climax and not enough characterization as I've said, the readers don't care. Not enough climax and too much characterization and the readers feel unsatisfied when they put it down. They invested all this time and there wasn't enough of a reward.

Ch. 24: Hug. Don’t Slap

2012-03-16T15:02:00.002-07:00

Ghost Girl and I air-fived (since any contact was like sticking a butter knife in an electrical outlet) and we did a jig through tables, trash cans and the cash register. Then we got to talking and I found out her name was Sylvia Reed and she died in 1963 from a train accident. I preferred Ghost Girl.

“Boy, I tell ya: when I felt the heebie-jeebies I thought for sure you’d go poltergeist,” she said. She took a whiff from the bags of coffee grounds. She couldn’t smell anything, but maybe it sparked a memory of the smell.

“Don’t call me ‘Boy.’”

Ghost Girl pointed to her Mohawk which was standing upright for a change. “This guy was flat in my face and I could hardly see. I probably got hit by a truck or two on my way here but it was like something guided me to ya. Can ya believe it?”

I grabbed the counter and did pull-ups with my feet passing through the tile floor and my elbows going through the ledge. “Nope.” I cranked out twenty pull-ups before I hooked my legs on the counter and did sit-ups. My head went through the floor and it was a bit frightening since everything went black, but I had to keep in shape so my flab wouldn’t repulse all the ladies in life. “You don’t have to worry about me anyway,” I said.

“Right, you’ll be getting you’re life back,” she said and giggled through it so I could hardly understand. She reached in her trench coat pockets for something but couldn’t find it. She pulled out her mirror and set it on the table but it stayed glued to her palm.

“What are you looking for? Did you stuff it in your panties? Maybe your bra? They seem like convenient storage.”

“Too uncomfortable. I should’ve worn pants. You got anything in yours?” she asked. She spanked me and it shocked us both.

“Stop that!” I twitched but she giggled. I stayed on the other side of the hall, by the stairs, so we had to yell to communicate. I didn’t want any more shocks.

I dug in my pockets since I hadn’t before. There was a gum wrapper and a purple pencil with the eraser missing. It was a shame my wallet had fallen out during the accident. I really wanted some skittles from the vending machine. The pencil’s lead was half-in but even when I turned it upside down, it didn’t fall. I shook until I stabbed myself in the lip—and it actually hurt! “I’ve got enough to write the next Great American Poem. But it has to fit on this gum wrapper. Maybe it’ll be a haiku.”

“Don’t forget the kireji,” someone said from behind. I turned around and there was Anita. She had changed shirts and put on pants but she still wore that green smock. Her glasses were in her hair.

“Thank god you’re back.” I went to hug her but she stiff-armed me in the nose. It wasn’t anything like when Ghost Girl touched me—this was like real physical pain.

“I’ve been back,” Anita snapped. “I returned to watch you squirm. Did she pull you from your torture?”

“You mean my visit with Mr. Shadow? It was hardly torture. He was a bit awkward but loners always are.” I wiggled my nose to make sure it was its usual perfect shape but the windows weren’t reflective enough to let me check. “I don’t really know how I got out of there. Bunch of other shadows were clawing at my pants. I told them I’d strip for them if they just asked.”

“It should’ve lasted another twelve hours,” she mumbled.

“Hey, guy,” Sylvia said and walked towards us. “Who’s your bud? Did you seduce a pretty little spirit last night?”

Anita stepped towards her with a glowing hand. She cocked it back as if to slap Ghost Girl but I rammed Anita. I meant to tackle her to the ground but she stood firm and I hung from her arm like a length of string. She only stopped her slap out of surprise. “What are you doing?” she barked.

“Seriously, guy. You ought to learn some manners.”

“Why are you trying to exorcise her?” I yelled at Anita.

“She’s been here for nearly fifty years. It’s time to move on.” She kept swinging her hand but I wrapped myself around her arm like a sloth and Sylvia stepped back.

“You want to do what, Missy?” Ghost Girl said. She floated back to the coffee shop.

Fifty feet and a counter were between Anita and Sylvia but Anita closed that distance in an instant and stood in the counter, ready to slap Sylvia with a glowing hand. I was still on her arm and feeling a little sick from being upside-down, jostled and teleported!

I wobbled in between the two girls. “STOP!” I yelled at the spinning room.

“Out of the way!” Anita shouted and shoved me but I wouldn’t move. Anita lowered her hand and Ghost Girl floated outside. I watched her through the window until she was a dot in the clouds.

“If we had more time, I’d yell at you some more.”

“You can slap me if you want. It might sober me up,” I said.

She grabbed my wrist and yanked me through the window. “Come on. We have to get to your funeral.” We floated in the opposite direction of Sylvia.

Mass Effect 3 Ending

2012-03-13T23:34:00.000-07:00

I just beat Mass Effect 3 and most people hate the ending, but I loved it. Yes, everyone will get one of three endings that are slight variations on each other and the thousand choices made through the series will not impact the end. What did you want them to do? Give you a thousand different endings?

I chose the middle road of synthesis. It wasn't a perfect ending but it was a great capstone for a great series. As much as I like it though, I am not interested in having movies, TV shows, comics, books, etc adding onto it. I know some are already done but they're not really worth it. They're fame comes from the games' fame. Anyway, here are my pros and cons of the ending.

The choices had an impact before the ending. The choices were half the fun of the game. I would spend three hours just wandering around the citadel and exploring space for artifacts and resources before jumping into a mission that involved shooting things. Towards the end, yes, all my time was focused on shooting thing BUT it was also broken up by talking to my crew. The choices affected who I had on my time, who survived, who joined the fight, yadda yadda yadda. But no, none of that had a huge impact on the end. Stop bitching about it. It wasn't going to anyway unless you wanted this game delayed 10 more years so that a thousand endings could be created.

I did all this because I care about the ME universe and characters and my crew members. The characterization is remarkable except James. He's a bit light. EDI could've had a lot more done with her. So could the new Liara. However, the overall story had impact because there were so many diverse characters and none were melodramatic. Everyone had their moments of sentimentality, of depression, but 70% of the dialogue has either plot movement or jokes. The overall seriousness of the story only hits home because at crucial moments characters make jokes. Even just before Captain Anderson dies, he says "It's been forever since I've just sat down."

We only saw about four spectres (two turians, two humans) so it seems like the first game's story wasn't all that important except the Reapers part. The characterization was important especially for returning characters. But the overall story with the Prothean beacon, the visions, etc is ignored except for a brief moment in the third where there's another beacon. Even the Reapers' origin is forgotten it seems. In ME1, sovereign says Reapers are organic and synthetic. But that gets ignored through the rest of the series. It has vague implications when they talk about harvesting organics to make more Reapers. I guess that was the Catalyst's way of moving forward with evolution but it seems a bit screwy to me.

The overall philosophy of the Reapers is contradictory. "We must destroy to preserve order because organics represent chaos." Yet throughout the 50,000-year cycle, organics always follow the same pattern. It's true that in ME1, Sovereign says that organics are given tools to let them move forward along a predictable pattern, but it doesn't account for humanities initial evolution (pre-relay) or for a species' attempt to create synthetics which are supposed to destroy everything. Why can't the Reapers destroy the synthetics and not the organics? Why are synthetics always going to destroy organics? Though the synthetics with the Reapers help, the Mass Effect team has been destroying synthetics with ease. Maybe the geth are too young to be a true threat but it seems hoaky to me. And if the Reapers pushed species to this point of evolution and it always comes out that the organics create these awful synthetics, then maybe it's the Reapers' fault that synthetics end up being evil.

Hmm, it's late and I can't think of anything else. I'm too tired.

Writing exercise sample

2011-08-18T21:52:00.000-07:00

When I can't write in a story I've already started and when I can't think of a new one to start, I turn to writing exercises. Sometimes it's creating scenery that's vivid, new, humorous or somehow symbolic. Sometimes I edit my own stories or edit some of the great writers and try to figure out how I'd say it. Sometimes it's just reading. Usually I try to do character sketches since literature can't survive without a good cast. I haven't figured out a good exercise for conflict, which is also vital, but anyway this is a character sketch turned into micro-fiction or a short short story. It's also summary narrative practice. It's 676 words, about 2.5 pages in my notebook and took about an hour to write and an hour to edit and transcribe.

A Compromised Hidey-Hole

Our black lab Lady didn’t like flies in the house. She was nearly seventy pounds, had lost the tip of an ear in a scrap with my sister’s guard dog and she’d snap at bees in the backyard garden. But even if my mom teasingly mentioned a buzzy-bug or zzzz-ed with pinched fingers wiggling through the air, Lady took cover.

If we spotted the fly before her, we’d groan and chase it about with rolled up newspapers (or during my pacifist years, a cup to trap it). When she didn’t know about the fly she’d be fine and grab a rope toy and when I reached for it she’d run into the next room. If I didn’t chase, she’d peek in and drop it until I walked towards it then she’d grab it again and trot away. And if I ever caught her by her rope, collar or tail, she’d drop it and wait for it to be thrown.

Usually when she fetched it is when she heard the dreaded buzz.

First she’d look around, real slow, hoping it was her imagination. But when it dove into her ear or landed on her rump, she’d hop and turn in midair then jerk her head around. And when she finally spotted it she’d dart into the nearest bedroom and under the bed. If there were clothes or boxes or garbage beneath, she’d plow through. Or she’d head for the couch she didn’t fit under. She’d scrape the carpet, compress her body, try to drag herself underneath. Whoever was on the couch could feel her moving. In those days I could crawl under there with her and try to pull her out or scare her out. Usually I’d just comfort her, remind her of the size difference.

Once the cabinet under our stove was open and most of the pots and sheet pans were in the sink or the dishwasher. So she wriggled inside and knocked over pots and their lids. The whole family ran in to see the racket.

My mom closed the door on her and we all laughed as her tail thumped a frying pan. Lady pushed open the cabinet door with her snout to see if it was all clear. But the buzzy-bug flew by and she jerked back so fast the door slammed.

She stayed in there all night. While my mom prepared dinner, she slid scraps through the door. While we ate, we’d hear the hinges creak as she stuck her nose out or a pan rattle. After dishes were cleaned and the carrots that I usually slipped to her were tossed into the garbage disposal, my dad reached in to yank her by the collar but she growled and kicked. We think that’s how the soup pot got a dent.

So we left the door open and waited in the other room. Whenever someone went in for a soda or a cookie, we’d coax and coo and her tail would thump that frying pan but she stayed there until bed time. I called for her to come night-night with me, but she was comfortable sleeping among the cooking ware.

It was about midnight, my dad says, but I had been asleep for hours so it seemed later. Lady kicked and clamored and knocked out pots that rolled over their handles and stopped at the fridge. Lids spun on their rims until they rested on the linoleum. Lady whimpered, cried and rushed through the dark rooms hitting table legs, a yoga ball, the ottoman, and a decorative goose pot with a dead plant. She stumbled over shoes and the vacuum. She made turns by slamming into the walls then turning and hitting the next wall and turning again until she found a clear path.

I woke up to see my dad open the backdoor for her to sprint through. My mom ran out in her robe to see what was the matter with Little Lady Lou.

The fly bounced from the wooden walls to the pots inside the cabinet under the stove.

Exercise

2011-08-06T11:24:00.001-07:00

Monday:

Jog
Lower Body Resistance
Squats 3x3
Lunges 3x
Calf Raises 5x3
Jog

Break

Running
1 Mile Warm-up 12 Minutes
3 Minute 600s x 4 1 Minute Rest between
800 Cool-down 6 Minutes

Break

Jog
Lower Body Plyometrics
Squat Jumps 10 x 3
Split Squat Jumps 10 x 3
Box Drill with Rings 10 x 3
Zigzag Hopping 10 x 3
Jog

Tuesday:

Jog
Upper Body Power (2-5 Minute rest)
Medicine Ball Bench Press throw 20 x 5
Bent-over Rows
Bench Press 3 x 5 30% max
Jog

Break

Jog
Core (1 Minute rest)
Plank 60 x 2
Side Throws 20 x 4 (2 each arm)
Pelvic Thrust 20 x 3
Russian Twists 40 x 3
Sit-ups 25 x 3
Plank 60 x 2
Jog

Break

Upper Body Plyometrics
Plyometric Push-ups 10 x 2
Slams 10 x 3
Explosive Starts
Single Arm Throw 10 x 4 (2 each arm)
Plyometric Push-ups 10 x 2
Jog

Wednesday:

Running (1 Minute Rest)
1 Mile Warm-up 12 Minutes
800 m 8
600 m 9
400 m 10
200 m 12 x 2
400 m 10
600 m 9
800 m 8
800 m 6 Minute Cool-down

Break

Jog
Muscle Endurance Circuit (5-7 Minutes Rest)
Squats 120 lbs 20 reps
Bench Press 100 lbs 30 reps
Lunges 15 lbs 30 reps
Calf Raises 120 lbs 30 reps
x4 (exercise ends when no longer rhythmic or powerful)
Jog

Thursday:

Jog
Lower Body Resistance (2-5 Minutes Rest)
Squats 5x5
Lunges 5x5
Calf Raises 5x5
Jog

Break

Jog
Core (1 Minute rest)
Plank 60 x 2
Side Throws 20 x 4 (2 each arm)
Pelvic Thrust 20 x 3
Russian Twists 40 x 3
Sit-ups 25 x 3
Plank 60 x 2
Jog

Break

Upper Body Plyometrics
Plyometric Push-ups 10 x 2
Slams 10 x 3
Explosive Starts
Single Arm Throw 10 x 4 (2 each arm)
Plyometric Push-ups 10 x 2
Jog

Friday:

Jog
Upper Body Power (2-5 Minutes Rest)
Medicine Ball Bench Press throw 20 x 5
Bent-over Rows
Bench Press 3 x 5 30% max
Jog

Break

Running
1 Mile Warm-up 12 Minutes
600 m x 4 1 Minute Rests
800 m Cool-down 6 Minutes

Break

Jog
Lower Body Plyometrics
Squat Jumps 10 x 3
Split Squat Jumps 10 x 3
Box Drill with Rings 10 x 3
Zigzag Hopping 10 x 3
Jog

Saturday:
Running (1 Minute Rest)
1 Mile Warm-up 12 Minutes
800 m 8
600 m 9
400 m 10
200 m 12 x 2
400 m 10
600 m 9
800 m 8
800 m 6 Minute Cool-down

Break

Jog
Muscle Endurance Circuit (5-7 Minutes Rest)
Squats 120 lbs 20 reps
Bench Press 100 lbs 30 reps
Lunges 15 lbs 30 reps
Calf Raises 120 lbs 30 reps
x4 (exercise ends when no longer rhythmic or powerful)
Jog

Exercise

2011-08-03T00:40:00.000-07:00

Anyone that stumbles upon this, exit it NOW. Or not, but this isn't for you. This is because I don't have MS word on my laptop and I don't feel like setting up microsoft works processor.

Maximal training

8-100% 1 rep max
3-6 Exercises
1-5 reps per set
3-6 sets per exercise
3-5 minutes rest
Slow
2 - 3 times a week

http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/weighttrainingprograms3.html

3 - 4 Resistance exercise sessions per week
2 Upper body
2 Lower body
85% max weight or higher
6 reps or less
2-6 minutes rest

Hang cleans (power) Back Squats (core) Bench Presses (core) Bent Over Rows (assistance) Triceps Push Downs (assistance)

A second approach is to alternate upper and lower body exercises:

Lunges Seated Rows Leg Curls Reverse Flies Calf Presses Barbell Curls

Finally, the push-pull format is an effective resistance training session structure. For the upper body:

Incline Bench Presses Lat Pull Downs Military Presses Hammer Curls

And for the lower body:

Front Squats Stiff Leg Deadlifts Hip Sleds Leg Curls

strength is how much force your muscles can exert. Power is how quickly that force can be exerted.

Power Training

Plyometrics

2-3 times a week, 48-72 hours of rest between.

5-10 seconds between reps

As much as 5-10 seconds may be required between depth jumps and a work to rest ratio of 1:10 is recommended. For example, if a set of bounds takes 30 seconds to complete, the rest interval between sets would be 300 seconds or 5 minutes.

http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/plyometric-drills.html

http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/plyometricexercises.html

http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/plyometrics-for-martial-arts.htmlhttp://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/medicine-ball-exercises.htm http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/core-strength-training.htmll
Endurance

Below is a sample muscular endurance program for a field hockey player:

Power endurance training uses moderate loads of 50-70% 1RM lifted for 15 to 30 repetitions.

Sets should not be completed to failure but should end when repetitions are no longer powerful and rhythmic.

http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/self-myofascial-release.html

Arland

2011-04-11T10:42:00.001-07:00

    When we talk about heroes, people mention firemen and policemen, maybe doctors or everyone in the military. That’s all true. Or we’ll talk about King Arthur or Luke Skywalker or these very fictionalized icons from history or film, and they fit the definition of a hero, too, however unrealistic the characters are. Or some people say things like “My dad” or “My sister” or some other relative that they love. That could be true, but I’m pretty skeptical of it. No sense bastardizing the word and applying it to anyone that hasn’t screwed up their lives. But I mean, these are answers you give when a teacher tells you to write an essay about what it means to be a hero to you. And you come up with some bullshit, and let’s face it, a lot of it is bullshit, either because it’s so trite and abstract or because it’s mostly fiction or delusions. I did that, too, and I’d get mad when people disagreed that my mom was a hero.

    But these heroes are made-heroes, either through training or exaggerations or some biases. I don’t mean made like their actions turned them from one of us average folk into heroes, but I mean made we made them into heroes. Objectively, they might not be heroes. Let’s take police. Is every policeman a hero? Really? The ones that sit at the desk, the few that are dirty, the few who never see any action or have the potential for action, the ones that abuse their power and hand out traffic tickets to anyone that barely exceeds the speed limit on an empty road? Are they all heroes? Sure, some of them are. And I respect them for it, but I don’t know their names and I don’t know what they’ve done to earn this status. I mean, Hercules had to go through twelve grueling trials to be called a hero. Can every cop say the same? Some of the kids I knew in high school that became a local cop in our town that averages one murder a year are not hero potential. They were bullies, idiots, jackasses, immoral and just plain average. Being a cop for them was about getting a gun and cuffs and a badge and more power than what they had as the kings of homecoming court. They might’ve changed since then, but I doubt it.

    When we call people heroes, we ruin the word, we water it down for all the real ones out there. I was volunteering at an old folks home called Hilltop Manor, and they had a church service from the Calvary church on video. We watched it and the pastor talked about Arland D. Williams, a hero from 29 years ago. A real hero. If you’re like me and aren’t old enough to have seen the footage or you just missed the news that month, look it up. It’s hard to handle but you shouldn’t look away. He dies, I’ll tell you that. There was a plane that crashed into a bridge and plowed into the Potomac, an icy river I’m told. Six people survived the crash, among them Arland. Helicopters came and lowered a rope to save these six, but it wouldn’t happen. The helicopter’s skids were under the water at one point, that’s how close it was and how desperate the pilot was to save them. The rope fell to Arland. But he was trapped under the fuselage. He passed it to someone else. They climbed up and lived. The rope went back to Arland. Passed it to someone else. They lived. Lenny Skuknik, another hero, dived in to rescue a woman who was too weakened to pull herself up. Gene Windsor, the paramedic, stood on a skid and lifted a woman from the water. They were taken to shore because Arland couldn’t hold on to the rope. The tail-end sunk and so did Arland. He died. He saved two others at least. He passed life vests and floatation devices to the others. He was resigned that night. He knew he’d die and he helped the others.

    Maybe he was thinking, like I expect I would be, this is a pretty cool way to go. Maybe he was religious and thought this was God’s Will. Maybe he was just a normal guy and crying his eyes out the whole fucking time because he didn’t want to die either. I can’t tell you. Maybe some of the survivors could, but I can’t.

    This is old news and I don’t give two shits about that. Everyone should know about it. Maybe you didn’t have a TV then. Maybe you were just a plan in your parents’ minds. But you should know about Arland, about Air Florida Flight 90 on January 13, 1982. You just should.

A multi-post story

2011-04-03T20:51:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be ambitious and drag out my day into a few posts, probably one scene today and one tomorrow and maybe a third sometime. It depends on if I still find it interesting after a few thousand words. It'll be short to read, but long to write. It won't be polished, but I hope it'll be worth reading. Maybe I'll publish it someday, but I'm getting ahead of myself

Even now, chilled from the night's wind and finding it difficult to steady my snotty hand, I feel I should recount this. I'm not sure how we got out here, miles past town, past the first cornfield and past a dozen churches to the only spot in town that you couldn't see a church from. The warm day had melted into a cloudy night with thunder in the distance and no more street lights.

"I wish there were stars."

"Yeah," I said. "There's one."

She gave me a look, but I couldn't see any detail because there was no light. She might've raised an eyebrow or yawned. "Those are birds."

"Past them. Right there."

"Ooooh," she said dragging the syllable out then giggled.

We didn't know where we were. We had taken enough turns and gone out past the limits of our knowledge to somewhere where no one was around to help us. We'd have to trace our steps back or just hope to stumble upon the campus.

How did we get out here? Now that I think about it, today had started weird. I went outside.

I'd left the window open all night and it creaked when the wind rocked it against the brick. It was still warm enough for a fan. After dressing, I opened the door and let a draft cool me off and knock my papers to the crumb-top floor. I showered, watched TV, fiddled with my phone, played Solitaire then Spider Solitaire and it was nearly three.

I lay on the bed with my feet wrapped in a blanket, opened Franny and Zooey and continued from where I'd left off, after Buddy's letter. I got about twenty pages in.

"Knock, knock!" she said and thrust a drawing in my room. "You probably slept through Sunday brunch, so I brought you some bacon!" The drawing was of bacon. It had been flapping to wildly with a breeze for me to see that at first. She poked her head in next, sideways so her long brown hair fell onto my dresser. "I figured real bacon would be cold and mushy by now. So this is even better."

"It's great," I kept my finger on the page, hoping this would be a momentary interruption.

"Oh my," she said and looked around my 8" x 10" room. "My bathroom at home is bigger than this." I had a walkway between my bed and the dresser and desk and ended at the mini-fridge. Any parties in here would instantly turn into a mosh pit, which was why no parties were ever thrown here. Yeah, that was why. "How do you function in here? I mean, I figured since you practically live here, it'd at least be nice or spacious."

"It's a lot less messy than it looks. I just don't have the room to spread out the filth."

She walked all the way in and the wind shut my door behind her and she gave me a terrified look. "Do people just randomly shut your door?"

"Maybe they thought I was being too loud," I said, joking. But then it seemed she was serious. "It was just the wind. Or a ghost."

"I've never heard of Hoffman being haunted. Graham is." That was where she lived.

"I thought it was Jordan. Something about an old patient from the mental hospital."

"No, see, the rumor is that Graham used to be a mental hospital. Jordan isn't big enough. Graham is. And there's the penguin lady. Some say she was a nun, others say she had pictures of penguins all over her walls. But if you go up to her room at midnight, and put a piece of paper by the door, it'll get yanked under. It really does."

"Oh good." I shut my book and sat up. I laid it on the covers that my feet had been under.

She leaned her butt against my dress and slung her purse around to the front. "Lovely view," she said after glancing out my window to Pietenpol. The blinds were in the panes and they were all closed, blocking out the daylight, but the windows were up. Some half naked guy with a towel around his waist walked past a window.

"How much time did you spend on this drawing?" I said and examined the border around the bacon, the alternating shaded and blank strips, the bubble letters spelling out "BACON!" It was underlined too.

"I don't know. I was up on the fourth floor, just felt like working on it."

"It's good to see I'm more important than whomever you were with."

"Well, you know." She looked cute when she smiled. She squinted and I could see her discolored but straight teeth.

We spent the next two hours getting to know each other. That's not a euphemism. It was question after question from her. I'd answer, then she'd answer it too.

"People aren't all jerks!"

"They are," I said. I was sweating and it made me more nervous to think she smelled it in my tiny room. My deodorant was on the desk. She could hand it to me. It wouldn't be weird to put it on in front of her.

"No. I like to think that everyone has something interesting about them."

"They do. But we're talking about whether they're bastards or not."

She was still leaning against my dresser. I crossed my legs for the hundredth time, hiding my bare feet and toenails that needed clipping.

"Yes, but most of them try to--"

"No they don't."

"Oh c'mon!" She dipped her head when she said it.

"They don't care. They just do what they want. Take Ethics, you'll see."

"I'm taking it next semester."

"There's this guy, Peter Singer I think, that has an example of a kid drowning in a pond and you're wearing an expensive suit. Most people would jump in to save the kid, ruining their clothes."

"See! They're good."

"Yes, but then you go out to a fancy dinner and spend fifty bucks when you don't need to. You could send that money to a charity where it'll feed five kids for a week instead of you for one meal."

"No, but, no, just no!" She was smiling and squinting.

"He thinks you should give until that dollar you're donating hurts you more than it helps them. He's a utilitarian."

"But, I mean they're not trying to be mean people."

"That's true. But they are."

"They're not jerks though."

"Yes they are." I hugged my knees and wiggled my sweaty toes.

"Well, how do you define a jerk?"

"There's two jerks. The mean people that are obnoxious and malicious, then there are people that don't do the right thing."

"No, I mean, there are good people. A lot of people. Maybe not the majority."

"Maybe five percent."

"No!"

"That's still 350 million good people."

I crossed my legs again and stared out the window at Pietenpol. I could see a dead tree at the end of the building, the branches swaying with every gust.

"You think I could buy your book off you?"

"Maybe borrow it."

"But you're going to Wales next semester and I'm going the one after that. We'll never see each other after you graduate."

"Well," I said and thought about suggesting she could mail it to me. "I guess. Yeah, you can have it. I'll get it the next time I'm home."

"What time is it?"

I leaned over to the desk, across the crumb-top carpet for my phone.

"I keep looking at your microwave, but it doesn't tell me anything." It was unplugged.

"Five."

"That explains why I'm getting hungry. Are you?"

"Not really. I don't get food until about 8 most nights."

"Hmm. So you don't want to go to CUIFS?" (pronounced "kwifs" in the IPA).

"I never go there. It's been two years since my last visit."

"Oh come on!"

"Fine," I said, "But let me put on deodorant."

A prelude to a Goodbye

2011-04-02T17:27:00.000-07:00

This blog was meant to sharpen my writing. I can't tell if it's working, but stories are connected scenes, not essays. This is just a series of essays. So I've rethought my goal for this, but I'm not sure I'll be able to change this. Instead of ranting and reviewing and praising and expressing my thoughts, I need to only report on five minutes of each day or five minutes of a day past. Five minutes is my limit because I won't be writing more than 2000 words and a typical scene of that length shouldn't be more than 20 minutes but for practice, I've limited it even more. When I go to my real writing, I should be able to ease up and have clear, vivid scenes. I can't just concern myself with style, economy and tone. I'm not saying I've mastered those, though I do a pretty good irritated narrator, but my focus should've been on the scene all along.

Last night, before I finished my "volunteer" work at Hilltop, playing Pitch with some eighty year old ladies, my stomach grumbled loud enough that one of the ladies asked if I was getting enough to eat. I explained that with my schedule, classes and work, I hadn't eaten yet, but would fix myself a big meal after I left.

That was a lie. I wouldn't fix myself any meal, but I did get some food. At GCS, the fast food service on campus, there were three guys standing near the counter. I fumbled with my wallet, pulled out my ID card and shoved it back in my pocket. I didn't want to waste a second ordering. I waited behind them until they said they weren't in line and were just waiting for their food. Then why the hell don't you stand elsewhere? Plenty of room! And there are chairs for you.

The place had plenty of empty seats, but it was busy. Or had been. Everyone except the three idiots that were in my way had their food in their bellies already. But they stayed at the tables and talked. And no one was yelling or anything, but the dozen different conversations mixed together and filled the place. It had wonderful acoustics, which is why they had local bands and theater groups play here some nights. But it meant that I couldn't hear too well. And being next to the kitchen, where the dish washer rattled and the deep fryer hissed and everything just seemed louder, I couldn't hear too well.

A dark blonde girl with plenty of curves and a soft belly that showed beneath her tight shirt was at the register. She leaned on the counter with her body parallel to the floor and her tits hanging down. Her head were on her folded arms, like they were a pillow. She saw me and smiled and sighed and I got the impression she wished I hadn't come in.

I glanced around the kitchen for TRC, but didn't see her. So I scribbled my name and order on the slip of paper and X-ed the "Takeout" box. As I wrote it, TRC leaned over the counter and cocked her head, trying to read my order upside down. "Cheeseburger and fries," and then she left for the stove. I slid it towards the curvy girl and fumbled in my pockets for my card. She lifted her head and straightened up and rolled her shoulders back. I handed her my card and glanced at the TV, highlights from the latest college game were on.

Uninterested, I turned back and there was TRC with a smile, leaning against the counter. She had a Coca-Cola sponsored cup in hand that she beat against the other hand. I assumed it was meant for me.

"Hey."

"Hey"

She's such a thin girl, and attractive but not terribly so. The soft girl next to her had more sex appeal because TRC's bones stuck out at the joints and whatever butt she had was hidden by baggy jeans and a long sweatshirt. And when she smiled, her round cheeks rose up and she squinted, though I was sure she wasn't oriental. She plopped the cup on the counter with the opening down.

"Thank god it's Friday," she said, holding my cup hostage. The ransom was one decent conversation, something I could never afford in public.

"Friday, Friday," the curvy girl sang.

"Oh god." She turned to me, who was confused about the singing and reaction. "Someone printed these papers with her on it and all the lyrics and they wallpapered our door."

I chuckled a little. "Oh?"

"We deserved it. Last week, while we were in class we had some Bieber songs blasting through the walls."

"Glad you're not my neighbors," said the curvy girl.

"We get into these wars all the time," TRC explained to me. "They had this picture of Bieber on the door across the hall from ours, and you can't just take things off of people's doors, right? So every time we left the room, we'd have to see it."

"I think he's cute."

"This is why we don't hang out more."

She scooted the cup towards me. Another customer came behind me and I shifted down so I was in front of the curvy girl and not TRC. I gave her a nod and she gave me the chipmunk smile, showing the gaps between her teeth.

I filled my cup at the soda fountain and sat, glancing from the TV to the counter. Every time she was staring at me. When my order was up, a stout black boy, who I had never had contact with outside of GCS but who knew my name, walked it to the counter and handed it off to her.

"It's been a pleasure serving you," she said before letting me have it. "It's nice to see you're as verbose as always."

I tried to make some joke about how I'll keep it down next time, but it was so loud in the place, she didn't hear me. Or maybe it was so trite that she didn't care to respond.

-Cantwhistle

P.S. This is what I'm going to try to do. It won't be a story, but it'll be a recap of an event from my day that might be a part of a story. Just one scene, five minutes.

My Own Sunrise

2011-03-21T07:41:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I missed the sunrise this morning. I was up at about 5:40, because my internal clock and neurotic state of mind always gets me up early. But I looked at the weather and it said cloudy and foggy. And if you just think for a second about watching a heavily obscured sunrise, it doesn't sound like a good idea. That's what I thought in my tired state of mind and turned off the alarm and went back to bed. But I know better than that. A sunrise has nothing to do with the sun. That's just pretty landscape. I'll share this with you since it's no good and I don't feel like anyone'll copy it. But if you do without giving me credit, I'll find you.

"It was our last night on the mountain. From the latrine nearest our campsite, we could look down through the trees and across the desert and see speckled lights from the home base and farther past that a great twinkling from the houses and car lots in Cimarron. It was kind of like a Monet painting in a video our Lit teacher had showed the class to culture us. A thousand separate lights coming together for something.

    The sun had set, dark was near and we decided to get up at four tomorrow morning to watch the sunrise before the final trek. Mr. O’Neal set his watch and all of us Scouts set the alarms on the phones we weren’t supposed to have. No one wanted to miss it. But when we woke up, it was too dark to see any stars or the moon.

    We climbed up the ridge we could see the town from and waited for the clouds to clear off the quiet mountain. We all sat for a while with our camera in our laps. No one said much. A few yawns. Tyler sneezed because he was still sick. Zach slapped the bugs off his legs. And the whole damned place was silent otherwise. No crickets or big-eared deer rustling in the forest. There was no wind either. Just the sound of disappointment as Tony and Andrew headed back to their sleeping bags for a few extra hours of sleep.

    It was half past five. The sun would be up soon. We could identify the trees around us without our flashlights. Poplars of some sort. I wasn’t a greenery expert. I sat on my rock and prayed the clouds away. Aled and David headed farther up the ridge to the peak. It was another half mile trek and I didn’t feel like going. Zach and Tyler did and so the adults did too.

    I stayed on that ridge until they came down, cursing the early morning and lack of light and that the trip was almost over and Zach‘s stupid giggle that echoed down the mountain. I grabbed some pebbles and chucked them at a tree, hitting a branch instead of the trunk. When I was out of pebbles, I scooped more until the dirt around me had only softball-sized rocks. I wasn’t about to hurl those at anything.

    I guess I was pouting that I hadn’t seen the sunrise. It would’ve been great. You always hear how it’s a daily miracle and real pretty and relaxing and all that. Back in Springfield, it’s all ruined by the ambient light from Super Wal-Mart and car dealerships. So even if I got up in time to watch it over the cornfield, it wouldn’t be anything special. I’d never get a chance to see it from the mountains now. This was my last trip with Scouts and I hadn’t seen a good sunrise. I was either up working on breakfast or packing and didn’t enjoy it or I was sleeping.

    Alone, silently sulking, too tired to direct my thinking. A bird chirped. Just one short note. I couldn’t pick out where it had come from until another came. There were a few more from all around then some bugs joined in. It echoed along the ridge. The birds jammed to their own tunes, and the insects hummed along trying to keep a constant rhythm and there were a lot of breaks to breathe or turn the page of their sheet music or write down whatever brilliant melodies they had just belted out, and another would begin and the others would join in and the whole place got louder until it sounded like day time.

    Everything was still shadows and outlines, but I guess I got my sunrise.

    David and Zach came down in the middle of the concert, yakking and running the last slope so rocks slid over my ridge. David said I needed to see this. I tried to refuse politely so they’d leave me alone, but they insisted I come and I tried to explain why I wanted to sit there. They told me I was acting depressed and only by joining in would I get my therapy. So I just sat there and didn’t say anything until David said “You’re missing out” and climbed back up."

So that's my made up experience at Philmont, the last trip before I was officially done with scouts. And I could've had something similar today but I didn't think about it. I even wrote that last night.

The real experience was that I saw the sunset and we all took pictures and thought it was so pretty and I said it looked like a nuke went off. Then everyone went to the top to take pictures and have the adults take pictures of the scouts with the sun in the background and all the sons and dads went except me because I was angry with my dad. But I got to sit there and listen to the forest wake up and that was special for me. Not some nuke-ish light on the horizon.

-Cantwhistle

P.S. I might put up another post later today since this wasn't one of my ideas and if I don't double-time it I'm sure I'll forget about that list in lieu of current events.

Spring Break

2011-03-20T19:26:00.000-07:00

Over spring break, I didn't have a working laptop and I wasn't about to pack up my desktop (which is what I'm usually on). My laptop worked for the first day (Saturday) but the screen went black when I was checking my email and no amount of ctrl alt deleting, restarting or swearing would fix it. It was still on and humming and I could see something on the screen but it might've just been burned into or something. I don't understand computer screens a whole lot, but I know our work computer has the icons burned into the screen so they always appear even over the current program but they're faded. And that's sort of what this looked like. I have a lot of stories (all started but few finished) that I want to get somehow so I think I'll try some trickery with hooking the RGB cable from my desktop to the laptop. The computer might be completely broken though. I really only need it to work for two days (I think that'll be enough time to transfer everything) but if it doesn't, it's no great loss. Most of the better stories I have in my vault (my memory) and only two or three were ever written to any great detail that I'd like to have them back. Those weren't good, but they took a lot of time. And I have one short story that I finished that I could enter in the school contest. It's not great, it's not even good. It's cute, it's amateur, a nice try, entertaining but it doesn't do a whole lot of characterization and the plot's a bit thin. I need to caricaturize the antagonist more and add some cuteness to the pup and some personality trait to the vet. It was about this woman coming to drop off her dog at a vet for euthanasia because he got big and barked too much. And I, as the narrator, am schlepping for the vet in the backroom declawing a cat and dealing with this bitchy woman. I think it's kind of like when people write about the death of a family member. Readers are so sympathetic that they can't tell you that technically the writing isn't that special.

But that's all of the blog entry I'm going to do. I want to get up early tomorrow before the sunrise to try and relax a little. My nerves are getting to me. I slept in 7 of the 10 days of break (the three being today, yesterday and Friday when my sister, her dogs and her boyfriend/new fiance were in town) but getting to bed at night was awful. I probably got seven hours of sleep each night I slept in. I'd go to bed early, like midnight or one but I wouldn't be able to sleep until 3 or 4. The only reason I stay up late is nerves like that.

Shit, I guess I added a bit more to the entry. But the rest will just be my next few blog ideas that I wanted to do over break. They're not in any order. If they were, I'd've numbered them.

-Running story (I need a team and a whiteboard like Dr. House to see if I actually like the idea)
-"Scholarly" writing
-Moby Dick
-Dragon Age 2 review
-Shaving
-Memory and recent problems with it
-Charlie Brown humor vs Will Ferrel Humor
-Losing weight
-My crush on my German professors and certain fantasies that I've had because of it (They're about as adult as fantasizing about giving her a high five)

-Cantwhistle

P.S. Anyone unfortunate enough to read this should use double contractions. (I'd've is my most common one. I think it's why people mistake "I would have" contracted as "I would've" as "I would of" when writing.)

Translating American Poems

2011-02-25T07:39:00.000-08:00

Today I have a German test and before it, our professor collects our work books where we do a lot of the homework for practice. But I've never seen grades on them, or her looking through, and she hands them back the moment we finish the test. There's probably 20 pages per chapter and with about 15 of us, that's 300 pages! So I've been toying with this idea of how to confirm if she does. I thought about writing a love poem or saying something flirty in it, because that would both admit to her my very real crush on her and get some sort of reaction, but then I thought it might be creepy or just inappropriate. I mean, we have a good student-professor relationship as is, and I'm not really in love with her so I'd rather keep that for now. But then I thought I'd do something to pique her literary interest, like writing a poem. But I'm not a poet, so that would be option Z. I could copy some famous poem into it and that might get her attention, but maybe she'd only silently smile without any sort of comment and that wouldn't help my goal. Then my friend suggested I write a poem in German. It was a good thought, one I wish I had, but my German isn't good enough to confidently ask if they speak English so I can't really express anything with poetic diction.

UPDATE: Nothing. I figured I'd be able to tell even if she didn't write something, but I just got her usual smile which could win awards, but it didn't tell me that she'd read it or anything. I'll assume she didn't.

-Cantwhistle

So what I did was translate a few short parts of famous poems into German.

Emily Dickenson has a poem:

I'm Nobody
Who are you?
Are you--Nobody--too?

There's a bit more to it but I like that part.

Auf Deutsch:

Ich bin Niemand.
Wer bist du?
Bist du--Niemand--auch?

It doesn't have the same charm in German, but it's alright.

The second was by Robert Frost:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep.

That's the end of the poem (I did these from memory so forgive that they're incomplete) Auf Deutsch:

Die Walder sind schon, dunkel und tief,
Aber ich muss Versprechen halten
Und Meilen fahren vor ich schlafe.
Und Meilen fahren vor ich schlafe.

So that one didn't turn out real well, but I actually like the first line of it. It sounds very similar (an extra syllable, but I think the rhythm is kept. I'm not very good about rhythm though so maybe not) and retains the same meaning. But I scrawled them in big blue sharpie across sections we didn't do, so she should see them and hopefully because it's in German, she'll scribble "Sehr Gut!" on it or correct it or something. I'm sure others have translated it better than I have and she's certain to have heard at least one of them.

Arguments

2011-02-22T09:45:00.000-08:00

If you don't know what an argument is, or think you know but have never taken a logic or philosophy class, watch this Monty Python video. Maybe it'll just be a review that you can laugh at, maybe you'll only take from it that these folks are weird or that they have some funny things outside of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but whatever. Watch it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WVuXQLNpjo&feature=related

To summarize, an argument is a collected set of premises aimed at proving or supporting a conclusion. For example, this guy is stupid (conclusion). Today I had someone confuse an argument with a debate and either way he would've lost because he had only a rudimentary understand of the subject.

It's not a very strong argument, but it's a quick example. I'll explain it more here.

In German we were learning the difference between wissen and kennen. Both mean "to know" but kennen is used with direct objects and wissen with clauses or pronouns, adverbs or negation. The sentence was ,,Das weiB ich nicht" (fun trivia, in German punctuation, quotes are done with two comma looking things and then backwards quotes usually used to start a quote in English). And we had to circle weiB and underline what it was modifying. Negation, adverb, pronoun were our choices since there is no other clause. He wanted to underline just nicht for the negation. Then I explained to him that it should also be das because that was a pronoun (meaning that). So what does he do? He underlines ich nicht. I said, "No, no, no. Ich is the subject. Otherwise it would say 'That doesn't know me,' which wouldn't make sense in the context."

"Yeah, but, it's like negation, look, see? Nicht" then he did a stupid laugh to disarm me.

I wasn't even in my "You're an idiot, just listen to me" mood. I was legitimately trying to help him understand. I pointed to other sentences and said, "Yes, it's negation but it also has a pronoun. WeiB is modifying both," which might've been wrong but it was DEFINITELY modifying das. So he gives in and is like "Whatever, let's just move on."

Then we're writing a trivia questions for Illinois (in German), and I suggested "Did you know that Lincoln wasn't born there?" which in German vaguely looks like this ,,WeiBt du, Lincoln ist nicht in Illinois geboren?" But he wanted to say ,,WeiBt du, Lincoln war nicht in Illinois geboren?" I don't think anyone cares enough to go into the grammar of this, but war is used for things like "I was tired," or "I was there." Ist...ge- is used to say "I have run a mile," but more commonly would be translated to "I ran a mile." Both are past tense, but ist (more often haben) is required to say "I have..." so that people know you're talking about something you did in the past and is used in conversation. Ist is used for condition changes like birth or death, location changes, or some other things I forget. I only explain this because that was how I explained it to him. I gave him a refresher course on past tense and how war wasn't used with a ge-verb because it'd be like in English saying, "I was drove to the mall." It sounds ridiculous.

But here's his response. "Sure, let's go with it," fine, at least he's submitting to my superior knowledge. Then he adds "I don't wanna argue."

Really? You have to add that so I know that you don't agree but you're too stupid to explain your point which isn't a point at all? Everyone in that class is an A-student unless they don't do the daily work or are just god awful at tests and oral exams or don't show up. It's not a difficult class, but let's differentiate between my A and his. I get A's because I get 99/100 on tests and I only lose a point because I mixed up my bin and habe for past tense, or I forgot an obscure word in German like Abschluss. He gets A's because he's a suck-up and always shows up to class and always drops by the professor's office with little questions like "What's this word?" and it looks like he's trying hard, but he doesn't remember the answer for more than a class period.

But he's not the only one who "doesn't wanna argue." People like to argue politics, and religion, and love and court cases. They like the big topics, giant overarching truths, or something controversial that makes them feel important even if they have shitty arguments. And when you corner them with an intelligent argument, they'll either spout off the rhetoric they heard someone else say, or they'll say "That's your opinion." GOD I FUCKING HATE THAT! Caps can not properly express my disdain for it. I nearly threw a shoe at the window just thinking about how people say it.

We live in a world where opinions "matter." Not to anyone else, not to reality, but to ourselves. They make us feel good inside. They raise our self-esteem. Forget that we're completely incompetent and ignorant. We have good self-esteem, so, yeah, hooray. No one likes to think that maybe they're wrong and maybe there is a right answer or a few good answers, and a shitton of bad ones. If you read The Gorgias by Plato, you'll understand. Rhetoric, as he uses it, means tricking people into believing you over the experts because you speak well. It doesn't matter that you don't know better than the experts.

Here's another example of people not wanting to argue because they have no intelligence. I was talking to a friend and I asked her if she'd ever get the bridge of her nose pierced or maybe the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. She, being a good Christian and very conservative except when it comes to sex, said "Ew! Gross!" as expected. I then asked, why that was gross when ear piercings aren't. I was legitimately interested in the subject and hoped she could provide some insight like "Earrings draw people's eyes to your face whereas a nose piercing draws it to just the nose," but instead she just kind of waved off the subject and said "Certainly people can overdo it, but I think one earring in each ear is pretty."

"No, it's not. Men that I know don't really likes earrings and you're not a lesbian so who are earrings supposed to attract?"

"I didn't say they were for attracting people. They're just pretty."

"But pretty implies attractive. The point of pretty is to attract someone. Women look pretty to attract men. Cars are painted pretty to attract buyers."

"Whatever. I just like them."

"But why?"

She doesn't have an answer for any of this and tries to derail me from the conversation. Then she started saying "Okkkkk!" or "Alright," "Mhmm," "Sure," etc. So I called her out on it, I told her she was an obstinate child with no mind of her own, hoping to invoke a little passion so maybe she'd continue the discussion. It definitely aroused her anger, but instead of providing some premise, she said "It's a dumb topic and I don't really care."

A lot of you might agree. This is a dumb topic. It's certainly small, but how else do you argue something like having a mind of your own than through examples and generally examples are small. You think it proves that you have original or fresh thoughts by spouting off something about love and God and all this other stuff that you've been fed since you were two weeks old? I don't even disagree about God or love. I think there's love, but I try to have a fresh take on it other than just the bullshit quotes you get from sappy chick flicks that are about as realistic as fake boobs. But it's a lot easier to point to these habits people develop as a result of environmental conditioning than it is to sift through their grand theories on things they know nothing about. So yes, unless you get your ears pierced for a legitimate reason that you can explain to me that you have thought about and considered, I'm going to think you are just a product of your environment and another drone.

That's a bit harsh since most girls get their ears pierced as a child when they can't understand the effects of environment, and men seem to have better reasons for piercing their ears (e.g. they're gay and some gay men like ear piercings, women that the man is attracted to are easily distracted by shiny things), but women and girls, and I don't mean this as a sexist men are better than women thing, I mean this as an honest observation, women get their ears pierced for no reason and it's stupid and they should stop.

I didn't have anywhere to stick this, but I like saying it "Opinions are what the uneducated call their shitty arguments."

Thomas Wolfe is why we're not any worse than you

2011-02-04T22:56:00.000-08:00

Vast majority of this post was deleted for the sake of coherency. It's okay to regret your midnight or later mistakes.

Literature, more so present day, uses very little melodrama. Hollywood loves this crap. Many of you love this crap. I'm sorry, but it's crap. Sometimes it's so well done that it's believable when you're watching for entertainment, but upon examining it, putting yourself in that position, you'll probably realize "Uh...why the fuck are you crying, (wo)man?!" There are exceptions to this. There are times when crying and other heart-jerking scenes are appropriate. I'll list the ones I know, but there are probably a few more. Death of someone close to the narrator, rape or some other traumatic event, and failure to achieve something the character worked really hard for, and children.

Children (I'd go with pre-puberty as a general rule) tug on our heart strings for some psychological reason. Probably because we've all been there and children cry a lot easier than we do and when we see children cry, we want to cry. We've had similar experiences as these children, some difficult or possibly trivial event that shattered our happy world.

The best example in Literature that I've found is Thomas Wolfe's "The Lost Boy." Content-wise, it might be the greatest story. Simple, relateable but still sort of novel, and vivid characters. It's about Thomas Wolfe (he uses another name for his character in the story but I can't remember the name) and how he lost his brother, Grover, when he was three or four years old. He doesn't remember his brother, so he asks his dad for a story about him (which is told through first-person through Grover's eyes), then his mom for a story about him, then his sister. Dad tells a story where he stood up for his 12 year-old son who was always acting like an adult but came to tears because of some mean shopkeepers. Then his mom brags about how mature he was and how he could talk to adults like an adult. Thomas Wolfe was the most successful of the family, but if 12 year old Grover hadn't died, he would've been twice the man of Thomas Wolfe. His sister tells him about how her little brother always acted like the older one and he would treat her to a meal and ice cream every now and then and it was so special, but then at the end of one, he threw it all up and a few days later died. And none of this is too hard to handle for a cynic like me. It's touching and it's well-done and realistic, but it's not enough to make me cry. Then it goes to present day, in the mid 1930's, where Thomas Wolfe is going back to the home Grover died in and he's asking the lady who lives there now to see it and he reminisces about it and it's implied that he's sort of lost himself. Again, it's not too much. But the tears are definitely coming. The final scene, about a page long, is the one memory Thomas Wolfe digs up of Grover. Thomas Wolfe is three or so. Grover is eleven.

The years dropped off like fallen leaves: the face came back again-the soft dark oval, the dark eyes, the soft brown berry on the neck, the raven hair, all bending down, approaching-the whole appearing to him ghost-wise, intent and instant.
"Now say it-- Grover!"
"Gova."
"No-- not Gova-- Grover! ... Say it!"
"Gova."
"Ah-h-- you didn't say it. You said Gova. Grover-now say it!"
"Gova."
"Look, I tell you what I'll do if you say it right. Would you like to go down to King's Highway? Would you like Grover to set you up? All right, then. If you say Grover and say it right, I'll take you to King's Highway and set you up to ice cream. Now say it right! Grover!"
"Gova."
"Ah-h, you-u. You're the craziest little old boy I ever did see. Can't you even say Grover?"
"Gova."
"Ah-h, you-u. Old Tongue-Tie, that's what you are.... Well, come on, then, I'll set you up anyway."

And this might not mean much to you, since it's only an excerpt, but this is what gets me. Even now. It's not what's sad that makes me cry. It's a sad set-up and a happy memory that does it, in that order. It's the bittersweet effect. The scene of him dying and Thomas Wolf's own issues have hardened you and suddenly you're hit with this happy end (there's a little more but it's not important right now) that comes from the past. You're not ready for it and you cry. Or at least I do.

Disclaimer: I by no means think English, Literature and writing are harder majors than other fields. Simply that it requires more care when reading because secondary sources aren't going to tell you anything more than what you could find out from the book. The only secondary sources that are worthwhile are the ones referenced in the book like, Northanger Abbey referencing The Mysteries of Udolfo. You need to read both to get the full effect. And other fields, it's different. And for those of you thinking "I've taken literature courses and skimmed the first half of the book and still got an A! Don't give me that shit!" those are introductory-style (maybe not level) courses with professors who have eased up on their demands for folks like yourself. That would be like me taking a Calc course and getting an A after not trying or a Chem course and immediately declaring that they're easy so all of those courses are. That is called a hasty generalization and is a fallacy.

Sidenote: I don't praise too many living people for their skill. Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half would be one of the exceptions, but the second is Tiffyiffyiffy. She's the girl from the youtube video I linked in the last post. She just put up a new video and it's amazing. It's an original track and I want you to listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX2Jqs6vPLc&feature=feedu

Edited, but all of this is still meh. I apologize. Still listen to that girl.

-Cantwhistle

Sexy Ostrich twitching for Philosophy

2011-02-04T09:44:00.000-08:00

I'm observant. It's not some natural talent I've had since birth to spot things. Or whatever talent I did have only took me so far until I started trying to be observant.

In my Contemporary philosophy class, there are seven students including me and we sit at an oval table in a small (like ten feet by fifteen feet) room. Usually Professor Ray sits at the head of the table with me on his right and the Sexy Ostrich on my right. Yesterday, he didn't.

He sat on my right, which blocked Sexy Ostrich's perfume or deodorant or natural wonderful body odor. So now the set up is Professor Ray on my right, to his right Sexy Ostrich, then Middle Aged Lady, Idiot at the end of the table, girl who pays no attention, shaved head girl, and the philosophy major that uses his coat as a blanket for all of class and sometimes naps in his chair. I'll get to describing each more, but for now I want you to realize my unique position. Generally in a class, I'm in the back corner and I can see the back of everyone's head and the professor's face. But because everyone was to the right of Professor Ray except for me, I could see the back of his head and everyone else's front side. If everyone focused on Professor Ray, I could've gotten away with murder. It'd have to be quiet murder, but whatever.

So he was talking about Eliminativism (possibly the hardest school of thought to say because of all the damn i's) and I scooted backwards every time his hand flailed in my direction and threatened to backhand me. He likes to gesture while speaking. And I wasn't close to him to begin with, but I eventually was about four feet away and safe from his powerful theatrics. And I really was watching him and paying attention, but past his strong chin and wind-ruffled hair, I could see Sexy Ostrich brush her hair across her forehead so that her bangs had a swoop. I think I've mentioned her before, but I'll explain it again. She's from Austria, and in German Austria is Osterreich which looks like Ostrich. And she's sexy.

Her mouth opened and she stared at the table but it didn't look like she was interested in the cement-colored speckled tabletop. She was thinking. She had a loose grip on her pen and if it wasn't already pressed to her notepad, it would've fallen. Her eyes jerked like she had watched a cricket hop away. When Professor Ray paused to breathe and wiped spittle from his lips, she asked "So is Eliminitavism saying low ontologically ranked items don't exist or..." she trailed off and Professor Ray answered, "Sort of!" and went on to explain somethings I don't feel like repeating.

So she jotted down what he said, and she looked up at him out of the corner of her eyes. This isn't some new ground-breaking observation. People are very aware of the eyes' tell. Professors use it to track who's listening and who has something to say but is maybe unsure of it or too shy to raise their hands. House M.d. directors use a close-up on Hugh Laurie's face about once an episode where he's talking about something irrelevant with Wilson and suddenly the Epiphany horn sounds in his head and he rushes off. So it's not uncommon, but still amazing to see the eyes in sync with the thoughts churning. There's also quite a bit of eyelid action, but it's mostly just twitching. If you ever have a chance to see it, and haven't already, watch and you'll be able to tell pretty quickly when someone's reached a conclusion.

A little later, Sexy Ostrich heard something that piqued her attention and again her eyes are turning with whatever arguments are working themselves in her head. And I waited for her to open her mouth a little wider and prepare to say something, but she didn't. Instead she leaned back in her chair and folded her hands over her winter-soft tummy (my polite way of saying she had gained some weight which isn't at all bad. It was well distributed in the proper areas).

Middle Aged Lady is a piano teacher with kids and she's kind of pretty. But she spent the entire lecture scribbling furiously and scowling at her paper. She'd write down the definitions, the quotes, the key ideas, the analogies, and even the drawings that Professor Ray did on the whiteboard. She'd stop every so often and glance just above her notebook. Her arm was on the table and the notebook laid on that. Her eyes did similar things to Sexy Ostrich's, except she never said anything. And she didn't make eye contact with Professor Ray and so he didn't notice her suppressed ideas.

Then Idiot. I hate him and he is an idiot. It's why I hate him and call him Idiot. His eyes were fixed on Professor Ray at all times and his hand was to his bearded chin. This guy looks like a serial killer/pedophile/rapist. He's got the trifecta going on. He wears glasses, like me, but his rest on the end of his nose like he's a geezer. He wears casual-dressy shirts all the time, but they're open and beneath he has a v-neck white T-shirt. I haven't and won't see him today, but I guarantee he's wearing that under his black zip-up hoodie. He always wears jeans, which isn't weird, but his look like they haven't been washed ever. His opinions are always stupid. That's right, stupid opinions. But I don't blame him for being stupid. I blame him for not knowing he's stupid. Anyway.

In class he interrupted Professor Ray. Not with some insight into the working of Constructionists, who we were now talking about, and not to ask a question for clarity or discussion. No. He said, "Sounds like they're tripping on acid." What? Constructionists say that Justice, God, Morality and other such intangible theories are just a matter of peoples' opinions and that they don't really exist except in our mind. It's wrong or useless or whatever, but it's a valid approach to the world. And then he snickered. If you've ever seen a good production of Charlotte's Web the play, directors often have Templeton snickering in a devious way. Idiot's snicker would've guaranteed him a role as Templeton.

Professor Ray just moved on and so will I since I don't feel like dragging Idiot's reputation through the snow and mud until I look like the asshole.

Next around the table was the girl who wasn't paying attention. She gets no fun or descriptive nickname like the others, because she's not that interesting and I don't know her and I don't want to call her the fat girl. But she was fat. She wore glasses and had her notebook on the table, but she wasn't writing. She instead spent all of class twisting the cap of her blue highlighter, around and around and around and around. And her pink and green and yellow highlighters were lined up next to her notebook. But she wasn't listening. She wasn't even looking at Professor Ray except when her eyes darted upward because he had asked a question of the class.

"So how can anyone say Justice really exists and it's not just a product of our feverish imagination! I can say stealing is bad, but if everyone said and agreed that stealing was good, would it be?"

Only then did her eyes convey to me that her mind was scrambling to squeeze out whatever it had just subconsciously soaked up. Luckily, he didn't call on her because Idiot made another stupid comment.

"Only on the weekends." Can I kick him?

Next is Shaved-Head Girl. She is about five feet tall, in heels, but she'd never wear heels. She is a lesbian, but not the kind you see in pornos. She is round and on the ground, as in fat and short. But she's very nice and has the occasional worthwhile insight, which if you've ever been in a philosophy class you know is pretty rare. She'd write things down whenever Professor Ray raved about it, but occasionally Professor Ray would just say, "And well, there's nothing else that we can say at this time about the immaterial Mind moving the material Body." Which is a fine statement, but not something note-worthy. But she'd write it down! Why? I could tell. Her eyes were sunken in and hard to read, but if I had to guess, she wasn't writing what he had said and instead something that had occurred to her. Since she stared at her notebook or the table or glanced at the clock, it never seemed like she focused on the class and instead let her mind go where it may. I understand that. I do that.

Then there's the Philosophy Major. He was across the table from Professor Ray. He has long brown hair, lots of zits that have been popped and scraped. Sometime they bleed. He looks like he hasn't shaved because he doesn't need to. I'm baby-faced as well, but his skin looks teenagery. But he's well-read enough to bring up other philosophers' opinions and relate them to the topic at hand. Like we were talking about Quietism (first we spoke of Realism then moved on to Quietism). "What I hate about Quietism with Ludwig whatever," an Austrian Philosopher whose last name is impossible for me to remember even with my year of German and Sexy Ostrich crush. Philosophy Major couldn't remember it either though. "and Descartes, is they say just shut up when they could be proven wrong! I mean I want a theory. Explain it to me, man!" After he said this, Professor Ray responded, but Philosophy Major took his coat off the back of his chair and draped it over him like a blanket. He had his hands underneath and his head slumped to the side. Professor Ray spouted more and more about Quietism, but to the whole class so Philosophy Major took a nap. For the rest of class, he seemed asleep. He'd twitch, a myoclonic jerk I think it's called.

I think I will too

Tangent Alert!: Descartes (I think it was him) proved that mathematically it is impossible to touch a wall. Wherever you start from, before you can get to the destination, you have to go through the halfway point. So You're 8 feet away, then 4, then 2, then 1, then 0.5, then 0.25, 0.125, 0.0625, etc, until you are infinitely close to 0, but you can never reach 0 because no matter how often you divide something in two, it'll never be zero. I like this idea. You can apply to people, how you can never really know them or something.

More unrelated stuff: Listen to her. I'd like her to be famous and on the radio so that all the trash currently on the radio can realize they're trash by comparison. So I'm spreading her goodness to my corner of the internet, which is about as big as the corner of the house of a mouse of low income. I probably listen to this song five times a day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0NCJslBkss&feature=related

-Cantwhistle

Elementary School to College: Perceived Maturity

2011-02-03T09:37:00.000-08:00

I made some charts for you guys. We were talking about maturity in my Psych class and it got me thinking about how mature everyone thought everyone else (and themselves) was at certain ages. So this is my best estimation of what I've observed and it's in no way scientific and the numbers are arbitrary. The X-axis, which is unlabeled because I'm no good at Excel, is the years in school from 1st grade Perception on until your Upper Classmen years of college.

You start off in the pre-6th grade years, which was elementary school for me. It's pretty linear, with the older you get the more mature you are, something common in all of the age groups. Obviously the big kids are more mature than the little kids. It just makes sense!

Then you get to 6th grade and reassess that view. You've been through some harder stuff. No more recess and you're separated from friends. All of this conflict leads to personal growth. So you imagine that you'll continue to grow through high school, too. But you have no sense of college and you may not even realize what it is if you don't have older siblings. So maturity peaks, in your idea, as high school seniors.

Then you get into 8th grade. You're the king of the school! And every year below you is just a bunch of babies. You're no high schooler, you get that, but you're not that far behind them! You've already had two courses of sex ed and you can confidently tell the difference between a depantsed woman and a depantsed man. You see girls wearing bras and you're sure their B-cups are huge and stuffed with boobies! Only through time can you get more maturity, but you've done the majority of growth already! You're practically an adult.

Then you get to high school and realize how fuckin small your pubescent body is compared with other fuckin bastards in the grades above you. Shit, you recognize that you grew an ass-load between 7th and 8th grade, but goddammit, maybe you overestimated it a little. It's certainly not as much as you grow in mother fuckin 9th grade. And again, with age comes more stupid maturity and soon you'll be just as awesome and fucked-up as the seniors. They only discriminate against you because of fucking ageism.

Then you're seniors. Kings of the school once again. Pretty much everyone below you is a fucking idiot, always standing in the hall and so worried about getting a detention that they usually rush to class. You know you can walk in a few minutes late and charm your way out of a tardy. Or you'll accept it like a man and not bitch and moan. What're they gonna do? Stop you from graduating? Pft! You're the real king. They're just advisers as far as you're concerned. And until this time, Yeah you thought you had it tough, but really!? 300 word essays and college applications?! No one has any clue the pressure that puts on you. Certainly you don't usually text that much throughout the Calculus lecture. And you're not like those goddam freshmen, cussing sentence. When you do it, you do it to make a mother fucking point. Really you do.

Then college, as you anticipated, arrives and you wisely realize, Okay, maybe I overestimated my status in the world. But now! I'm one step closer to being an adult. You can vote at the proper time and place and buy cigarettes at your discretion. You could even enroll in the army and shoot some Iraqis if you so desired (Don't). But you choose to attend college because that's how you'll become affluent with a corporate job and high school didn't perfectly prepare you for anything. You showed up and you passed. You are basically a self-taught scholar up to this point and now they'll be pounding some real knowledge in you. But you can endure. You are not dubious of it in the least. And because you're adults, you have the right (fuck being 21!) to chug as many fucking beers as you want and not concern yourself with the day of the week that it is! This is what adults fucking do! And if you don't wish to grace the class with your presence, you don't have to. Your professors are all pretentious cunts anyway. You'll attend enough and on test days. You perform sufficiently and the school isn't kicking you out. If your parents ask about your grades, discuss with them the finer points of your education's mission statement.

You're an upper classman now. You've printed off 500 pages of notes and essays this semester alone. Maybe you've been abroad. You can legally drink, but only do so before exams because you know it's the best way to blow off steam. You've stopped showing up to some classes because you're only taking them because the college says you have to. And they're easy for a guy like you. You've interned at the local bank! You're a real businessman. So you can make the proper decisions when class is and isn't appropriate. You only have two classes to worry about: your seminar and the one with the cougar professor. If you do well in the seminar, you graduate. You do well in the other one, maybe she'll give you a good graduation present. She knows you're an adult. She can see that you're no longer concerned with your looks. You didn't even bother getting rid of the freshman 15. You aren't some neurotic kid any more.

The reality is none of these are accurate. Maturity peaks around 10th grade when you get your license to drive. But you're so caught up how great you are, you let yourself slide when you should be trying harder. You berate the freshmen for crowding in the halls when you and your friends do the same. You say they have no consideration because they don't move out of your way. They dare to sit at your table? And when you graduate high school, you're pretty confident that college is going to be great. You've heard all these stories about how it's one big party. You go in believing that but also thinking you're a real intellectual. You show up to classes the first few weeks, then you see others are occasionally gone. I can miss a day, too, then right? The professor doesn't say anything to you when you do. These freshmen level classes are just like high school so you figure all of college is like this. You miss more and more and parties are happening every night so you think you're required to attend all of them. And this new group of friends is going out to eat, and even though you went out a few nights ago with your other friends, you feel obligated not to favor anyone over the other.

Then in your second year of college, anxieties about your future begin. Will I have a good job? Will I ever get married? Is that girl I'm sleeping with really so slutty? Should I get tested? But rather than change your future by seeking the advice of professors and working hard, you drown yourself in booze, pot, fast food, friends, anything to keep your mind off the worries. But third year comes around, and things are looking real. You've declared your major and everyone knows your latest intended career. You have to put a conscious effort forward. And you do. And you continue to do so, as well as maintaining your fun side-life. You're not quite up to snuff as far as maturity goes, but it'll come in graduate school (I'm told) or after, when you actually start being an adult.

However successfully, I tried to do each explanation of the graph and the perceptions in the voice you might use at that age group. Some I did better than others. I forget how I explained things before 8th grade.

-Cantwhistle

2011-01-28T09:26:00.000-08:00

I'll start this in the morning, 9:36 AM, and finish when I have time or fee like it but sorry if the style, ideas, and overall tone change. I can be cranky in the morning and my German professor is sexy enough to cheer me up even though I can't understand her.

So, I want you to think about this while you read. It's something my philosophy professor said and you might want to get out now if you don't like thinking deeply. "Truth is the correspondence between the way things are and how we understand them."

A little background is needed so you can see the philosophical schools this comes from. We're reading Simon Blackburn's book called Truth. He's a modern philosopher reviewing older philosopher. First he attacked Williams James and defended R.K. Clifford (those initials might be wrong). James is a pragmatist, but also a relativist who gives people the right to believe anything that's believable. That might sound great if you're not a philosopher and have never thought about Truth, but it's pretty crazy if you do think for a second. "Wait, you think that tree is possessed by a bear's tormented soul because you once saw a bear peeing on it before it died? So its last urination is where its soul will spend all of eternity?" The correct answer is no. Clearly a crazy belief. It is one that has no evidence behind it. This is why I'll often tell you "Opinions are the uneducated call their shitty arguments." It is a belief that they came up with without thinking about it, based on nothing but their limited view of the subject, with nothing to base it on. Blackburn calls it "soggy relativism" and "a distraction."

Then the next chapter is about Absolutism and Socrates and therefore Plato. If you aren't familiar with the Socratic method, it's asking a bunch of questions until your opponent realizes a fallacy in their argument. He does this with Gorgias and with Protagoras and probably every other person he met. But Blackburn is not backing him up. Instead, Blackburn says that this little judo-flip of his can easily be avoided if the relativist is crafty by saying "It seems to me that..." and when you respond with a logical argument, he'll say "Yes, that's how it seems to you based on what evidence you have at hand. But you can't say that's the truth because other evidence that is later discovered will disprove you," as often is the case with science. This is something that's kind of hard to argue with, but at the same time irrelevant because if there is no truth except how it seems to me, then we're not really saying anything. "It seems to me that peanut butter is made out of bee vomit." "Yeah, well it seems to me bee vomit is not a real thing." "Well we don't agree so that's that." It's ridiculous and I realize now that this is less about Absolutism as the next chapter is.

Absolutism and Realism are two schools pretty closely related. Absolutism says that there is a Truth and we have found it. Realism says, "We haven't found it, but there is a Truth." And Blackburn agrees with the relativist on this point saying that whatever Truth you find might easily be wrong. It might be reasonable based on the evidence at hand, but in later years Copernicus is going to come along and say "Tolomy, you were wrong." This is when we come to Minimalism, which says "There are truths. Small truths. Not giant overarching Truths to explain reality." An example would be "It is sunny." That will always be true that at this time, in my area, it is sunny. It's not some giant discovery, but it's true. No relativist can say "That's just how it seems to you," without looking like a moron. Minimalism professes the belief that overarching beliefs, like religions but not science, are irrelevant and we can't argue against them and you can't argue for them, but they're unimportant enough that people shouldn't care. I like this idea.

Then our professor gives us the statement above. "Truth is the correspondence between the way things are and how we understand them." I don't like that. I don't even know if that's a minimalist idea, because he said it while talking about Absolutism and Minimalism. But I don't like it because it admits that things are a certain way. That's reality. But then it adds "...how we understand them." What? Since when does my piss-poor understanding of yoga change the way yoga actually works? How am I suppose to argue that "This is how I understand ionic bonds and therefore it's the truth."

But I wanted to come up with a good example before bringing this up in front of the class, professor and the sexy Ostrich. So I looked around for things to argue about. My Blackburn book. Okay, my book is a certain way. It is full of certain words, made up of certain paper and cardboard and all of that. It is this way. But it's a book. It wouldn't have been written if people didn't understand it a certain way. Language is just convention and if he had written "Sprachenwissenschaft ennui smorgesborg 7qteen" and convention had said that it was a legitimate sentence, then I'd have to accept it. The truth is the book says this, but those are just ink blots that we turn into sound and only through the mind do we understand them. So is it true to say the book says everything I posted above? I mean, I'm paraphrasing it based on my understanding. But I could be wrong about it. So then how is truth wrong? That bothers me!

So I chose something else, something not open to interpretation. The table. The table is made up of wood, weighs a certain amount, is cold, has gum under it, yadda yadda yadda. But its purpose is to put things on. There's no truth that says we have to put our books on it. It's only convention that we do that instead of sitting on it or coloring on it. So that's out.

So I looked over at Silvia, the Austrian exchange student who I call the sexy Ostrich (because in German, Austria is called Osterreich). She was probably creeped out by my intensive study of her. I wanted to argue that Silvia is certain way, whether I understand that or not. She is blonde, she is large chested, intelligent, multi-lingual, Austrian. Right? I couldn't think of a good counter-argument for that, which usually means I haven't thought about it enough or it's a good argument. But then I came to the conclusion that words and their meanings are just convention, as stated above, so no matter what I say it's going to be about understanding.

I'm not admitting defeat. I'm admitting it's a worthy opponent. Is it because these words express concepts that are intelligible, regardless of the language used? It is a necessary evil that through convention we express these concepts.

-Cantwhistle

Aminimalism

2011-01-27T22:32:00.000-08:00

My blog url Aminimalism looks like I switched the "m" and "n" in animalism and added an "im" because I got confused with which syllables I'd already said and came up with a new word. Animalism isn't a real word either. It sounds like a word. Like a philosophical belief that animals are the most moral creatures, and we should be like them. But wait! We are animals. Science says so.

AND! After some googling, I've found that George Orwell used Animalism in his classic Animal Farm as an allegory for communism. Also it's a band's album. I don't care enough to find out which band, what other famous people have used this word I've mangled, so I'll get on with it.

This is about my 50th blog, including livejournal, xanga, myspace, and even blogspot. But I've forgotten the names of them, email addresses and passwords and feel maybe I don't want to be associated with those ideas. I'm sure it was a rant. That's my usual reason for expressing myself: to complain.

I like complaining. Not about big things like the drug problems in South America, or popular things like the president, or even things that are important like the aliteracy of people. I like to complain about my flat soda. Or not having tacos. Or that I sweat too much when I'm nervous. Or the squeal my dorm's bathroom's faucet makes when you leave the water on for more than three seconds.

That last one, I'm sure, is a conspiracy of my college. They're pretty pragmatic and like to make shit up so you'll be more environmentally conscious. They told us that TVs suck up the same amount of power off as when turned on so long as the cord stays plugged in. I know it still sucks up a lot of power and we should unplug unused shit, but no sense exaggerating it.

And so the faucet. We have three faucets, two stalls, two showers and no urinals for an all-guys dorm that has always been an all-guys dorm since the early 1900s. It's not very big, so I understand that urinals aren't necessary but it seems odd. I'm conditioned to pee in urinals and feel effeminate somehow just peeing in a stall. Maybe not effeminate, but like I'm a nervous pee-er. And I'm not. The shower curtains get replaced every summer, the bathroom is cleaned twice a week, the shower head is replaced the day or the day after it stops working properly and spraying every which way. If a pipe under the sink is leaking, someone comes in to fix it.

My point is, they take care of us pretty well. But in the three years I've been using this bathroom (because I've had the exact same room for three years running), they've never fixed the two faucets that are more obviously broken than the other things they fix. The last sink has water fountain attachment so you can drink out of it more easily than sticking your head in the bowl to catch the running water. But it doesn't have any pressure. You have to suckle that attachment if you want to use it. I assume no one does. I don't. The middle sink squeals, as I said earlier. No matter how much you turn it on, so that just a little trickle comes down or a downpour, the thing squeaks. It's loud enough that I can hear it from my room at the other end of the hall (three 8' x 10' rooms away) and it often wakes me up in the middle of the night. Or it'll give me a dream about someone keying my car and I'm so pissed i have to track them down and rip their lungs out. I don't even care that much about my real car. But my dream car, which is the same type, age, and with the same damage of my real car, is very precious to me--apparently. And this faucet sprays. It doesn't reach me unless I turn it on all the way, but it's not an efficient use of water. I'll hold my hand under it, expecting gravity to take over, but it's like FUCK GRAVITY! and goes all around and hits the side of the bowl before my hands. And it's not consistent with its aim. I'll compensate and move my soap hand to where the stream was, but then it'll switch and aim at the back of the sink. Sometimes it'll even shoot upward so that it hits the faucet and then trickles down and there's no way I'm getting my hands rinsed.

The "good" faucet works perfectly and after the cleaning ladies clean it every Tuesday and Thursday, I am in there thanking it for surviving in pristine condition. But that only lasts for a night. College boys are disgusting, as many assume. They're worse than your imagination. We have these two Chinese boys who are real polite, but they like to cut their hair themselves. Just a little trim from time to time. And they do it over the good sink. Usually, it's not so bad. It's a few hairs they missed when rinsing it out. Sometimes though, I don't think they rinsed it at all! It actually has led me to the assumption that they never rinse and sometimes only cut five hairs at a time and leave them for the rest of us to admire. It is rather silky hair, I guess.

But they're not the worst of it. On top of the hair, we always have eco-friendly people who don't like to waste water. They follow the rule "If it's brown, flush it down; if it's yellow, let it mellow" (a disgusting rule because piss after marinating for a day or two reeks. And our dorm isn't big enough that my far-corner room can escape that smell). But with the faucet, they will spit their toothpaste on top of the hair and not rinse either. THEN, someone, who I assume is the same eco-friendly person as before, doesn't want to waste paper towels or toilet papers or tissues to blow their nose. So they do a farmer's blow. Do you know what that is? You close one nostril and shoot a snotty torpedo and hope your aim is true. And, as you can probably guess, they don't rinse this either.

I'm all for being environmentally conscious and saving Tasmanian Devils, polar bears, pandas and other cute but probably dangerous animals from extinction. But some of the sacrifices are too much. You want me to turn off my computer at night and unplug it? Fine, whatever. You want me to donate money to your cause? Sure, I can go without groceries for a week. You want me to donate my time? Well, I guess I don't need to sit in my dark room and watch Law and Order marathons. But hygiene is something I never want to sacrifice! If I've wiped my ass and there was no breach and no obvious smell from my finger tips, I'm still washing my hands.

But my college, I theorize, has left these sinks in the condition they're in, because it forces us to avoid the bathroom. To dehydrate rather than waste a cup of water.

By the way, Aminimalism was the result of TheMinimalist (I think that might've been my other blog's title), aMinimalist, Minimalism, and every other version of the word without adding numbers or an x or two or o's or whatever to make it unique. "A Minimalism" is weird grammar. Not necessarily wrong, but it does imply there are multiple minimalisms elsewhere and I'm just one of them. Maybe that's true. I haven't dabbled in enough philosophy to know that.

-Cantwhistle (I'll always sign it like this)