Q: Et tu, Jonathan? A: Read. Read some more. Buy Red Bull.
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| The Patient Etherized Q: Et tu, Jonathan? A: Read. Read some more. Buy Red Bull. |
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Friday, November 26, 2004 Alexander Before I get all up in reviewing this movie's grill, I thought I'd post a quick random thought: Philotas (pronounced in the movie much more like Fell-ow-tayz) was a hilarious character. He also prompted me to think about the possibilities of Alexander the Porn movie. Ah Fellatees, how I have missed thee. I was a bit upset they glossed over the battle in India against Porus on the River Hydaspes. If I learned anything in my History of Warfare course freshman year (the class began at 8:45 so my attendance was not, shall we say, stellar), it's that Alexander was a pretty clever general, much better tactically than Caesar, whose skill was mainly in battle preparation. They didn't have many hoplites and slingshotters in the movie, but it was pretty damn good nonetheless. Wait, I'm getting into a review! Egad, the furies have beset me and made me testify to the hotness of Anjelina Jolie and the general nakedness of Rosario Dawson, who plays a Persian dancer, but is apparently of "Puerto Rican, Cuban, African American, Irish and Native American descent." Racial distinction is both distorted and rigorously imposed in these movies. Witness the numerous blond men -- like Brad Pitt and the youthified Patroclos in the abysmal Troy -- who are supposed to be Greeks. Now I may be wrong, but most Greeks I've met are swarthy and black haired, closer to Semitic origins than the numerous Scottish, English, and Australian actors cast in Alexander. Martin Bernal's book Black Athena exposes the whitewashing of the classics at the hands of 19th century racial theories, but I think the recent media blitz of heroic movies like Braveheart, Gladiator, and Troy have created a new wrinkle in the history of the racial and cultural presentation of Greco-Roman societies. The Hollywood star system is just not built to showcase African and Asian mixed actors. I am skeptical also that there would be such a distinction between the Greeks and their neighbors in Asia Minor. posted by Jon | 8:57:00 AM Thursday, November 25, 2004 Happy Thanksgiving And on this day, let us pray for the plentiful food that has made our country so fat. Thank you, McDonalds, thank you, Wendy's, and no thanks to you, Jared Fogle and Subway! Really, I mean there is a problem if people start to spend money to lose weight. I think on this Thanksgiving we should decide to go back to hunting and gathering. Screw this late capitalist bullcrap. I want to club a few buffalo and roast them on a spit. And, yes, I know from Oregon Trail that I can only carry a certain number of pounds of buffalo back to my wagon. I give thanks to the plentiful prairies and high mountain passes -- and if they fill it with wild animals, the Mall of America. posted by Jon | 5:25:00 PM Tuesday, November 23, 2004 Random Thoughts Of all the drinks in the world you could steal from Asia and make millions off of, how did Dietrich Mateschitz decide that Red Bull would be a success? Granted, it does taste like ass/Robitussin, but for some reason I also drink it obsessively, particularly during late night writing sessions. I often wonder if the Bangladeshi clerk wonders what's wrong with me when I drive over to the 7-11 at 4am like some drug addict getting his fix of Red Bull (and a package of Pepperidge Farm cookies). -- Apparently Burberry initially supplied "untearable" fabric that "didn't obstruct air" to farmers and agricultural workers who needed water resistant clothing. Clearly this was before Gore-Tex. In an unrelated note, I went to the Wrentham Outlets and purchased a leather coat and duffle coat. I now can alternatively look like the Terminator or Gandalf the Grey. So while I was in the store there was a rather overweight, unshaven man buying clothing for his girlfriend (I eavesdropped and heard him ask the salesman if he thought she would like some neon green and beige pleated skirt). I forgot about Mr. Hobo King of Queens for a minute...until he passed within two feet of my ear and started speaking in some language I couldn't quite recognize. Initial guesses as to the language: hmm, Greek, Russian, what? Then I saw that he was speaking to his girlfriend, who could have been Japanese, though I didn't get a close look. I didn't want to be rude and stare, which doesn't usually stop me. Is it just me that's retarded for thinking that it's weird the guy was speaking Japanese to her? (Ok, it may have been another language too. As they say on SoSH, I didn't have a sufficient sample size here. At least distinguishing languages is not as hard as the evil All Look Same website.) It's so easy to pass judgment without even knowing much about the situation: all the usual bad thoughts were in the Kohler toilet of my mind (hey, at least my mind is a high quality toilet) -- fetishes, japanophilia, etc. -- What insect is more disgusting, the centipede or the cockroach? I had an encounter with a particularly disgusting centipede yesterday while vacuuming and I'm inclined to think the centipede is nastier, especially the hairy kind found in houses. 
Cockroaches may be harder to kill, may have nastier innards that come out when you kill them, but as long as they don't fly I'm fine with them. And if they do fly I'll just empty a can o' Raid on their asses. 
Basketball: --Bob Ley must cream himself every time a major sports controversy like the Pacers-Pistons brawl comes up. --The hot rumor to spread: Darko started it. Clearly he was talking smack to Artest, causing Ron Ron to push Ben Wallace from behind. So where was Darko during the brawl? I think he should have been suspended for at least 40 games for his non-activity. --It's a good year to be a random scrub on the Pacers' bench. Someone there is guaranteed serious playing time and will make some serious bank. David Harrison, I'm looking your way. posted by Jon | 3:16:00 AM Saturday, November 20, 2004 The Doldrums (good thing we have motors in this day and age) That's what this blog is in, as the sailor that is Jonathan Schroeder has killed the albatross and made his blog intensely, hideously boring. I was just reading through old entries and they are infinitely more interesting than these recent ones about T.O., B.O., and my boredom (Bo being the only interesting thing in my life now :-). I lack the sheer vitriol and proximity to annoying people that college provided. Much of the old relationship drama is gone too and I have ceased blogging about interesting day-to-day occurrences, mainly because they only happen in large chunks that are difficult to record without taking up 2,000 words, i.e. my weekends in New York. Here's for a return to the little things that bother me, interest me, and all around make me bitch. Tastelessness: asslint, giant shits that clog the toilet. (So I took a shit three days ago that was easily over a foot long -- amazing. Rob was quite amazed as well and wanted to emulate my scatological success at his workplace toilet. Of course I took the shit in the smallest toilet in the house, which didn't flush as a result. By accident and because I didn't have a plunger I forgot about it...for two days. When I returned yesterday the stench was overwhelming. I swear that mold was growing off the spidery wetness -- and it still barely flushed! I was thinking about calling Guinness on this one, but decided against it.) Annoyances: People that act like they're 35 and work sensible jobs for government agencies or defense contractors (oh wait, most Georgetown graduates!). Interests: My growing obsession with the free agent pool on Sons of Sam Horn (actually this is a means of putting off editing my writing sample and SOP). Gilles Deleuze. Jack Kerouac. James Baldwin. I haven't done much academic blogging, curiously enough, even though I've written 40,000 words in the past few months (half of which I had to cut, but who's counting). I think if I begin to blog about my paper I may be able to generate some interesting ideas for my paper. And, Christ almighty, I am reborn. I am Saved! (I just saw the movie today -- it was like a poor man's Election, with promise but ultimately no -- cough -- redeeming ending.) I finished a draft of my statement of purpose today. I think the beginning may be a little maudlin, but I needed to add a little fire to make it interesting. The opening paragraph: I wear the medal of St. Anthony, patron saint of travelers, around my neck as a reminder of the stories my mother used to tell me about her childhood in So that's how I sound these days. The professor I talked to last week about Stanford gave me some solid advice about the personal statement so I hope it tells a coherent message about what I want to study in graduate school. The problem that annoys me is that I can't say I want to follow in the American Studies tradition (I loved Leo Marx's The Machine in the Garden!) because then they'll just say "Why aren't you applying to an American Studies program?" The answer is easy enough on the practical level: because no one gets a job from those programs! On another level, I don't think I want that same mixture of history and literary studies. If I'm going to go interdisciplinary I want to see what anthropology and philosophy can do for how I interpret literature. Deleuze and James Clifford might make somewhat strange bedfellows, as I find the meta-anthropologists to be a bit fruity in their use of theory (Writing Culture, Routes, and Imperial Eyes all sound nice in theory but seem more geared toward changing the dominant metaphors of academic language than affecting real life change). Similarly, I find that it takes a lot of straining of Deleuzean theory to bring it back to literature. But I digress... Listening to: DJ Cash Money n Marvelous, "Ugly People Be Quiet," Reminisce over the '80s, Vol 1-7 Blogging from: My bed (woohoo wireless range extender!) posted by Jon | 4:52:00 AM Set Sail For Singapore "If you don't release your movie at roughly the same time all over the world, the video of your movie will be sold on the streets of Singapore within days of its first release," Jacobson explained. Quotes like this offend me, even more than the Tom Waits song, "Singapore," which, it may be argued, is set in colonial times and isn't even set in Singapore. Somewhere along the line, however, people got in their heads that Singapore is still a dangerous outpost filled with pirates (and in this case, pirated CDs). At the same time, these amnesiacs believe that it is also a futuristic wasteland (witness William Gibson's Neuromancer books and the architect Rem Koolhaas' book S, M, L, XL). The truth, as Alfian Sa'at would love to tell you, is somewhere in between. When I was in Paris this summer a Singaporean friend of mine said that some of his classmates asked him if he took showers on the side of the road when he was at home. E.G. USC. When I was staying at Ash's house junior summer we actually went on a few adventures to try to find pirated goods. Now Lucky Plaza does have a few shops with overpriced copies of CDs, but we eventually had to take the MRT all the way out to Pasir Ris -- end of the line -- to White Sands Mall to get PS2 games for a reasonable price. Pirated goods sellers aren't exactly assigned booths next to every chicken rice stall, though Nina Jacobson, president of the Buena Vista Motion Picture Group at Disney, doesn't seem to realize this fact. The government does crack down on this activity, as any worker in Sim Lim might know. The times at the end of the 19th century when a high percentage of the population were opium addicts are over (the Asian Civilizations Museum has some statistics on addicted coolies that are quite remarkable). posted by Jon | 1:40:00 AM Thursday, November 18, 2004 Monday Night Media-ocrity What they should have said, though, was something like this ... "We have heard from conservative America whose shallow take on our country lends more importance to lost family values and media images rather than the real issues of the world. We realize how the bare back of an attractive woman might upset them. But we don't apologize; we aren't sorry and no matter what the media says, we know there are plenty of people out there who agree that this whole thing is ridiculous." Personally, I would have been more upset if it had been John Madden jumping naked into the arms of T.O. The above quote is from the usually banal ESPN Page 3. However this time the writer (Jon Warech) gets it right. This controversy is much ado about nothing. However, I'd like to expand on the things he can't say due to his affiliations with Disney. Basically it boils down to that old adage: bad news is good news. There's a huge incentive for Disney/ESPN/ABC to make a controversy out of a mildly risque commercial because they control the rights to both Monday Night Football and Desperate Housewives. If I were Stanley Fish I might say that the media is predisposed to find controversy in anything to do with T.O., and therefore they write their usual narratives in order to continue to portray him as the flashy, celebration-prone, primadonna WR (I'd just like to see what happens when someone stops him and McNabb has to find another target -- so far 12 of his 18 TDs this year have been to Owens). After the Super Bowl in January I was one of those people who thought that Janet Jackson was happy with the coverage because it might help her career. The difference here is that institutions are at work, not just a publicist and singer or two. I hope that TMQ points out, as he tends to do ad nauseum, in his next column that Monday Night Football begins at 9pm, which is late enough for most small children to go to bed and for a few women's backs to be shown. I agree that race is an unspoken factor in the brouhaha. T.O. is a rather voluble black man and Nicollette Sheridan is as blonde as they get. It has been a stereotype (one that is both racist and sexist, I might add) since Jim Crow and before that the black man is passionate, irrational, and violent, and will seduce and/or rape the easily-tempted white woman. Sad to think that this stereotype still exists, but a little trolling through the murky waters of sex stories would testify that many racial fears are alive and kicking, to the contrary of conservative belief. Tony Dungy's rather diplomatic, watered-down comments that it is "not about race" mean of course that he probably thinks that it is most certainly about race but is afraid to say it. Freud would be proud of the repression that has spread under this variant of political correctness -- a new P.C. derived from the moral values of the Bush heartlanders. Here on the edges of America, we salute you, oh easily offended, hypocritical, bible-thumping moral majority. Listening to: Eminem, Encore; John Coltrane, The Heavyweight Champion: The Complete Atlantic Recordings posted by Jon | 8:51:00 PM Wednesday, November 17, 2004 What the world needs... PEDRO Salsa! 
posted by Jon |
4:40:00 PM
Jokes that may only interest me You so Baroque you can't even get in to the Romantic recital. P.S. I have $18.58 in my ATM account right now. posted by Jon | 5:20:00 AM Tuesday, November 16, 2004 JSchroed03 (3:52:09 PM): so you hurt your chances before you have even tried Robert M Schmidt (3:52:19 PM): that's right, just like Roy Hobbs JSchroed03 (3:52:44 PM): how's the book? Robert M Schmidt (3:52:53 PM): who missed 15 years of his baseball career after being shot in his stomach, which symbolizes his greed Robert M Schmidt (3:53:00 PM): it's very good Robert M Schmidt (3:53:03 PM): I'm almost done JSchroed03 (3:53:21 PM): he got shot as divine punishment for his greed? JSchroed03 (3:53:24 PM): how was he greedy? Robert M Schmidt (3:53:29 PM): more narcissism Robert M Schmidt (3:53:53 PM): he thought he was god's gift to the world and he expected to have everything JSchroed03 (3:53:59 PM): and why did getting shot make him miss 15 years? In today's NBA you'd miss about ten days Robert M Schmidt (3:54:07 PM): it didn't work out like that Robert M Schmidt (3:54:34 PM): it was a silver bullet jon Robert M Schmidt (3:54:43 PM): you can't recover from that in 10 days JSchroed03 (3:54:46 PM): was he a vampire? Robert M Schmidt (3:54:52 PM): of sorts Robert M Schmidt (3:55:01 PM): a werewolf, you mean Robert M Schmidt (3:55:07 PM): vampires are killed by stakes JSchroed03 (3:55:11 PM): haha right. Sorry JSchroed03 (3:55:21 PM): OOOH WEEE Werewolves of London Robert M Schmidt (3:55:26 PM): that is a good song JSchroed03 (3:55:46 PM): do you realize what kind of comic gold we've just strung together? Robert M Schmidt (3:56:04 PM): it's just another day in the office for me posted by Jon | 3:56:00 PM I pulled into Nazareth... I have returned from the Land of Nod, New York, having gone to one too many birthdays in the past few weeks. This Friday, we went to twoof Bo's friends birthdays, uniting the different schools in one stuffy, crowded Gaelic bar called Sin Sin. Much drunkenness ensued. Weekend three in a row in New York was actually more fun than the previous weekend, and I pillaged Bo's DVD collection to the tune of seeing Bridget Jones's Diary and Good Will Hunting (I've now seen four of her many DVDs in all). It's funny that the movie's called "Jones's" since the apostrophe is the kind of awkward writing that always bugs me -- awkward and endearing like Renee Zellweger herself I guess. (N.B. while I do not want to have Colin Firth's babies like a certain someone, I do think he did a good job in the movie.) We went to see Carmen at the Met on Friday, saw puppies and got Jackson Diner food and bubble tea in Flushing on Saturday, where I also played Halo 2 with Chao and Rob until the wee hours. Sunday was filled with more eating, including a bad brunch and a compensatory gorging at Veniero's, our third time there. Like last week, I was easily convinced to stay until Monday, but this time just for Sunday night. I took the bus back and forth, which was a lot more economical. Was feeling 'bout half-past dead... I don't really have the energy to go into everything in detail. I did have a minor anxiety attack on Saturday night around 3am on the subway coming back from Chris's apartment (there goes that apostrophe again!). I felt like I wasn't concentrating on what was happening in my life and I was letting the present evade me. I had that drifting sensation where you just let things happen to you passively and suddenly you realize one day that you've missed out on all the things you always wanted to do. In my case part of the anxiety came from having a new relationship and not actively promoting its health. I immediately just now thought of a plant metaphor, but I don't think that I'll use that cliched idea. By actively promoting a relationship, I mean that I believe it's possible to think about what's going on in a relationship and make it successful. That's not to say that you can change yourself very much or the other person (even less). Rather, if you have it within you to get along with someone, then it's possible to make plans that let you make the most of your time with another person. In my case, this is important because I only have two or three days with my girlfriend each time I see her, which is at most once every week or two. It's possible to make plans on the run and fall in love with someone, but I think it's more likely that you have to engineer your own successes, without making the plans seem contrived or artificial. And, ironically enough, I am too tired to edit this post, so I am in some twisted way contradicting what I just said and being a hypocrite. posted by Jon | 1:23:00 AM Thursday, November 11, 2004 Are journalists failing the Ar-test? 
I'm surprised that no one has made the connection -- correct me if someone has -- between Ron Artest and Ricky Williams. Ricky's bouts of depression are well-documented, but maybe we can add Artest to the prozac-popping population. From seeing that damn interview about ten times today, I think that Artest has some problems that he's dealing with and he's using the R&B album as an excuse. I don't think this is a case of an egotistical basketball player, though there are scores of those types too. Sir Charles just agreed with me on TNT, saying that Artest has some "psychological problems" and Larry Bird wouldn't stand for any of that. Meaning of course that the Celtics will willingly trade for him. Thank God that Isaiah Thomas will always pick the transcendental headcases off waivers. Let's see what we can find after a cursory five minute search: from the ESPN the Magazine article I linked to above, we find out that Artest's parents separated after his father abused his mother, that he saw his sister Quanisha died at 10 weeks in 1992, that he nearly went broke giving out money to a huge entourage during his rookie year, and he still has a terrible fear of failure. And journalists wonder what's going wrong with this man? Of course, journalists are constrained by deadlines and hence are consigned to write the same thing over and over again, but you'd think that some of them could write something a little more insightful than the tripe that writers and talking heads like Stephen A. Smith have been spouting out through their usual mediot sources. posted by Jon | 8:04:00 PM Wednesday, November 10, 2004 When is a fight a good thing and when does it hurt more than it helps? And when did my posts start sounding like they came straight out of Sex and the City? In connected news, I need to start doing some reading to get my brain moving a little faster. I promised myself I'd read 100 books this year and I've been stuck in the 70s for a while now. The book I've wanted to read for a while, Parables for the Virtual, is dense and hard to read. posted by Jon | 11:48:00 AM Friday, November 05, 2004 Mr. Carter, I presume Listening to: Don't Let Me Die (Jay-Z and R. Kelly), Unfinished Business Jay-Z is a weird guy. He seems to have a thing for olde English. Jay-Z, you say? The rapper/music mogal/rumored new president of Island who bangs Beyonce and occupies the East coast equivalent of Dr. Dre's power? Yes, him. Him: 
(what do you think Don King, Chris Rock and Jay-Z did after this event? And why does Don King look so damn respectable?) I swear, he's into the Olde English, and this time not that kind of Olde English (that would be more of an Eazy-E type of thing. (According to Modern Drunkard Magazine, that kind of Olde English scores well by their standards: Flava: 9, Street Cred: 9, Power 5). Here's the evidence, which is by no means thorough. Here's the beginning of the new album with R Kelly, Unfinished Business. "Hark, who goes yonder?" "It is I sire, Tone from Brookland." "Well speak up, what is it?" "News from the East, sire, the best of both worlds has returned." Now those who are bored enough to check this reference might say that this is just a skit with Slick Rick (I think it's him) and Jay-Z, and Slick Rick has never been known to say anything in a normal voice. So, to the skeptical, it's time to kick it back a few years to the MTV Unplugged album (2001) where Jay-Z opens the taping: "Welcome to Jay-Z's poetry hour...Hark, who goes there? It was the winter, it was cold, it was the cold winter." He tries to distance himself from being a poet by using archaic language like "Hark," and then tries to make fun of poets. And yet you see him putting in the segment at the beginning of his new album. Is Jay-Z secretly harboring poetic impulses? Even though the new album gets terrible reviews, I kind of prefer it to the new Fabolous album. Funny how I'm in a mood where I'm listening to a lot of rap. At this time last year I was into my 1930s blues phase with Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Blind Boy Fuller (yes, you can see that loss of sight was virtually mandatory for becoming a great blues musician back then). Since I'm not sleepy, I'm going to watch the short, first film of John Cassavetes, Shadows (1960), about an interracial relationship. I'm beginning to wonder if there's a connection between Cassavetes and Kerouac, who also wrote about similar themes. I'll have to see the movie first I guess. After seeing The Motorcycle Diaries last week I've been thinking that Walter Salles would also do a great job making a movie out of On the Road. posted by Jon | 4:45:00 AM Thursday, November 04, 2004 Tomorrow ... and the melodramatic title stolen from a Nina Gordon song from the early '90s For some reason, that song (and the one hit by Sophie B. Hawkins -- As I Lay Me Down) always reminds me of the color blue. That link to Sophie B. Hawkins is really funny by the way, as she seems to enjoy lying around naked in the wilderness. FEELING: Heartburn I think I'm getting good at this blog-before-I-sleep routine. I do it for a couple of reasons, namely that I don't want to do heavy lifting work (i.e. do another draft of the article); second, because I'm talking to Bo so incessantly such that I worry that she will eventually stab her eyes and eardrums with sharp objects to get away; and third, possibly because I like to give some closure to my day/night. I initially started blogging because it limbered up my mind and helped my thesis writing, which was often not nearly as fun as writing about my life (which, as most fun writing, is only fun for the writer). My day, like most days recently, went like this: 1pm: Stumble over to the alarm to press snooze, then bring pick up the alarm (it's battery operated) and put it on my bedside table. Today I even broke something when I pressed snooze! And I still went back to bed. I broke this small ceramic candle holder that we were given the night before graduation when we all lined up and walked to the BEMA to sing Dartmouth songs. ("Dear old Dartmouth give a rouse, for the candle that did spill!") 1:15pm: snooze again. 1:30pm: snooze. 1:45pm: turn off alarm altogether. If your name is Bo, you will disembowel it with a pitchfork. 2:30pm: FUCK. Wake up and think about showering. Walk to the kitchen and turn on the computer. 2:45pm: Talk to Rob and Bo. Get a bowl of the weird maple pecan cluster cereal that my mom bought from Trader Joe's. Open Microsoft Word and the MTLStatement3.doc file and stare at it blankly, uncomprehending of what needs to be changed. UPDATE: Today I actually finished the draft of my personal statement and a draft of my Mellon fellowship writing sample. I also notified electronically my professors about their recommendations. 6:30pm: Talk to my mom when she comes home. Tell her you've sat in the same chair the entire day. Feel uncomfortable when she tries to read something over your shoulder on your computer. Aside: My mom is trying to beautify me these days. Tomorrow I have a dentist consultation for my teeth, both to see if my lower teeth need to be straightened (they were fucked up when my wisdom teeth started to come in) and if they need to be bleached (apparently because every Hollywood star has bleached teeth, it is necessary that I, a future professor, need to get my teeth bleached). I've also started taking this drug, doxycycline, so that my skin stays clear. So far the only results I have is a tightness in my chest that possibly means I am getting acid reflux. Clearly I need some prilosec to counteract the other drug. And if that drug causes another problem, I'll just try taking heroin. 7:30pm: Eat a microwave dinner or dig up some other edible part of the house. Hammy is not for eating. 2:45am: Say goodnight to Bo 4-5am: Leave the kitchen and go up to my room and go to bed, wishing I had been more productive and that I had found the heater for my room on the third floor. posted by Jon | 3:35:00 AM Wednesday, November 03, 2004 F O R Y O U Suppose, then, it were possible, not only to swear love ''forever,'' but actually to follow through on it - to live a long, full and authentic life based on such a vow, to put one's alloted stake of precious time where one's heart is? I know that I need to figure out what to do about this situation with you. When I started to think about it, my mind flashed to a time when I was reading these lines (from a review by Thomas Pynchon of Love in the Time of Cholera). I still remember crying as I wrote a 5,000 word email at 5am one night during my senior spring -- all the pain I felt when I recognized these lines as the words of an author and a man who had suffered trying to live up to a promise. I wanted to make the same vow, to become a martyr to the love I had for a person, even if that person would never respond to me. Funny how she didn't believe me after I sent that email. I think perhaps she was smarter than I was and she had known me for too long -- over two years of constant togetherness. And I'm sure I did love her, even for more than a year after it was over, but I guess that feeling has left me. And you know what? I kind of miss that pain, that longing for someone who no longer wants you. I miss wanting to make a lifelong vow to keep loving someone, waiting for them like in Marquez's novel until the end of your life. Because once you've got no one to care about, you miss even the pain of remembering what you once had with someone. I tried a few times to find that feeling again. The first relationship began and ended miserably. I just couldn't muster up any feeling in my heart the second time. For a little while I thought that sex could help create a bond between two people, because lots of sex seemed to have helped out when I first dated her my sophomore year. But I found that sex just tells you about the personality of a person. It is a manifestation of her personality, not a cause of love of and by itself. You can't force love into a bad situation. So maybe I've acted badly since I've known you. I know I should have been mature and settled my old scores before I even talked to you. I want you to read this entry to know how I feel, because I know I can express myself better in writing. This is not going to be a sappy paean or plea for your affection. I am telling you my hopes and my misgivings. You worry that I am dating you just to date someone. I suppose I understand this fear. Yet what I keep learning is that your "precious time" is something I cherish more and more with each of our visits. Maybe when we meet a person and start to date that person, we always begin by dating "someone" and only later get to know you. If that is the case, I felt happy talking to you as a someone from very early on. I do know that you are the first person in two years who has made me happy to be with, and that you are the first person I have associated those words I quoted above since I was a miserable wreck of a person. Now maybe I have just let enough time pass and I have just regained my wholeness. Maybe we just met at the right time for me. But I don't think so. I did meet you at a time when I was dissatisfied with the state of my romantic life. I am angry with myself for letting that situation with my ex-girlfriend become messy and ambiguous. Baggage, as you say. I remember when you said you would be upset about how much of a waste it would be if an ex-boyfriend stopped talking to you. I think I agreed with you at the time -- probably too abruptly and thoughtlessly. I don't agree with you anymore. Not on this account at least. Baggage is always there, the more people you date and the more experiences you have. Not talking about it hides it away, but it is still there. There are only two things I think that I can do about baggage. The first one is that I cannot let it enter your life. Not physically, not palpably at least. And this is the reason why people do not talk to their exes when they are dating someone else. The trials and tribulations of a past relationship is something you and I can talk about, but it cannot be something that involves another person. The second thing is something that I can only promise I will provide and only ask you to. And that is to give up your impatience as I will, to give up your intolerance as I want to, and to pretend something for a little while. Pretend that the vows we make to each other in a relationship will be honored at all times, pretend that no one, especially you and I, will hurt us or each other. Just like in the quote, I want to maintain the belief that between us there is the possibility of a full life together. As Pynchon says: without the darkness and the finitude there might not be love. Thinking of you. Always... posted by Jon | 6:38:00 AM Tuesday, November 02, 2004 Bellwether Precincts, as of 2pm: Not too bad (Kerry comes first) Florida: 52-48 Ohio: 52-48 Wisconsin: 53-47 Michigan: 51-48 New Hampshire: 53-47 Pennsylvania: So good that there may be a mistake posted by Jon | 5:11:00 PM Cartoon in the Projects? It's been done, and I don't mean the PJ's. I'm talking about Badman is Robbin, a rap song by UK rap act Hijack from the 80s. Think of the possibilities for a pimp wandering around in animated form! Think of them. posted by Jon | 2:30:00 PM Demarcus Faggins -- Pro football player of the week. Robert M Schmidt (1:47:45 PM): He'd better be good if he's going to get by with a name like that. posted by Jon | 1:48:00 PM Monday, November 01, 2004 New York, New York (cubed) I just got back from an extended journey up to Dartmouth (Thursday and Friday) for Christina's birthday and then down I-91 to New York (to visit Bo and have fun). In the getting shitfaced category, this weekend was a success. In the waking up before noon and getting out of the apartment category, definitely a giant failure. Ahem, cough, now whose fault might that be? I didn't get to meet with the professor at Dartmouth, though I didn't try to do any serious stalking either. I think I can do the work myself, though without the expediting that I could have gotten from even a ten minute meeting. I think I used up most of my top-up balance while driving down to New York, which I got to after only a little more than four hours. I talked to Justin for a long time which was good since he's usually too tied up at work. Ironically Milan, Saad, Imran, and Faris were all headed in the direction of Homecoming at Dartmouth while I was leaving to visit Bo and heading in the opposite direction. I suppose my priorities have always been geared toward a relationship rather than lots of socializing, ever since sophomore year in College. And I'm not sure if I can say if that's a bad thing or not, at least if it stays relatively balanced. And now for a materialistic burst of decadent, exorbitant materialism, in which I detail the things I did this weekend by numbers (hooray for non-narrative blogging): Number of miles driven: 630 Sex and the City episodes watched after being stolen from hungover roommate: 3 Movies: 1 (The Motorcycle Diaries, Friday at midnight) Soul food diners in Harlem: 1 (Sylvia's, Saturday 5:30-7pm) Near death food experiences: 2 (smothered pork chops, collard greens, black eyed peas and iced tea for me; fried chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, and candied yams for Bo; peach cobbler a la mode for dessert) Chi chi bars: 2 (The Coral Room, Saturday 10-2am, The Park, 2-3am) Drinks at aforementioned bars: 3 long islands and a vodka cranberry. Belligerent and drunk girlfriends: 1 (dammit, last weekend it was 3! I must be losing my mojo) Quote: "She can't come in here. She's had too much to drink. Let me call Jamal. Yo Jamal!" Amazing burger joints: 1 (The Corner Bistro, Saturday 3-4am) Blocks walked: 29 Pastry shops: 1 (Veniero's, Sunday 3:30-4:30pm) Sucker punches to the stomach: 5 Pinches on the arm: too many to count, dammit. Quote of the weekend: "Juuuusssstttin, where the fuck are you? And where are the fucking cabs?" posted by Jon | 1:11:00 AM |
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