The Journal

[2000] [1999] [1998] [1997]

File? Life?

It's Sunday morning, and I must return to work tomorrow. There aren't enough hours in the day or days in the week to change my feelings about this. I might be less despondent if the work I did had more relevance to my training, but pushing paper seems to pay well in this society -- and there is an abundance of these sorts of jobs.

Waiting is. Again.

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Octogenarian

Whether or not I spelled it right, octogenarian is the word that has been stuck in my head all day. I already knew it meant "80+ year-old," but I had to ask Kristen just to make sure I wasn't making it up.

Excerpt from my codex:
"Okay, here's the next update on my life so far: Living in Seattle, just moved out of a very unhealthy apartment and into the Queen Anne High School Apartments. I'm starting my second day of work as a temp for United Way of King County. They have me working in the Human Resources office, doing basically everything. I hope to get a real job soon..."

I just finished putting together that wooden cricket my sister brought me from China. It's a little maladjusted -- feet don't hardly touch the ground, walkin on the moon. Put pictures in all those wooden picture frames finally, so now our friends smile at us from the ample windowsills. Did I mention that we have 14 foot ceilings, 10 foot windows, and plenty of room? You must come visit sometime.

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Welcome to the Kingdom

We have an apartment. Unfortunately, we can't move in because it's already occupied -- by no less than 14.77 Billion cockroaches. There is no question that we will be moving out in a week. I refuse to share my life with those impudent bastards.

I often lie awake at night and wonder what the headquarters of cockroach operations must look like. Do they all report to some uber-roach? She lounges in the center of a great hall, The walls decorated with the carapaces of those who have gone before, a grim fumigation shield.

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Cityless

Here I am, back on the western coast of the country, a mere hour's drive from the Pacific Ocean. Good, in a way, to be back among the trees and mountains. I am finding that this place has changed -- or is it me who has changed?

Let me get you all caught up on the last month. Got my wisdom teeth yanked -- it hurt, took drugs, drugs made me puke, was miserable for two weeks. Then, on August 1st, Kristen and I once again packed our lives into boxes and crammed them, along with our bodies, into the car and left DC for good. Seven days later, we arrived in Seattle. The last two weeks have been spent visiting friends and family, shopping for and obtaining an apartment in Seattle, gathering furniture and housewares for the new place, and just trying to enjoy ourselves.

I'm sick of traversing the I-5 corridor between Seattle and Eugene, but such is the nature of a three dimensional universe -- distance = velocity * time. Which brings me to my plans for the coming months. Take more calculus, some computer classes, possibly some physics. Get a job, make money to pay for school, and so on.

There are a few songs running through my head that describe how I feel right now, but listing them would take too much effort.

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Extraction

One hour from now, I shall be in a dentist's chair, waiting to have the oral surgeon remove my wisdom teeth. I don't look forward to it. For the next three days, I'll be eating baby food, pudding, smoothies, and soup.

Wish me luck.

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Next

Wait for it. Wait for the ball to drop, for the tick of the second hand, for the little bar on your screen to get to 100%. Wait for that clock to rush toward 5:00pm, for that elevator to open, for that car to get to the next stoplight, for that stoplight to turn green, for that car in front of you to get moving, for your car to accelerate, for your lungs to breathe, for your heart to beat. Wait to wait.

Hope for it. Hope for the next best thing, for the new bicycle, for the new apartment, for the city on the other side of the continent. Hope for that check to clear, for that computer upgrade, for that new album, for that application to be approved, for that smile to cross her lips, for your eyes to close, for your mind to drift into sleep, for that dream to begin, for that dream to never end. Hope to hope.

It will come. It will stay. It will linger on the horizon, always far away. It isn't easy. It is not that hard. It is on the other side of the fence, exactly where you are.

Only two more days and I will sail on the Chesapeake Bay. Only one more week and I will have my wisdom teeth out. Only one more month and I will be able to see the Pacific Ocean from the shores of Neahkahnie Beach. Only one more term and I will be learning physics at the University of Washington. Only one more year and I'll be able to register as a resident. Only one more decade...

It will linger on the horizon.

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Penultimate

There once was a great and wise prophet named Noyup. Regarded by her people as an evil witch, Noyup was forced to live in the sweltering heat of the dump at the eastern edge of the city. She would stand atop the burnt stump of a once great cactus and preach her dismal message to all who could hear.

Those who could not hear tried to read her lips, but, since Noyup had bad teeth and constantly chewed anise root, the only wisdom they gleaned from her mouth was "Noyup, noyup, noyup, noyup." In fact, this is how Noyup was named. As an orphan, she would wander the streets, chewing on anise root she had dug up in someone's garden, mumbling to herself. "Noyup" remained her name, even when she was adopted by the city's venerable resident philosopher, Guronthamis.

Under his diligent tutelage, Noyup learned all the intricacies of idle thought and illusory reasoning, hoping to someday invent a philosophy of her own. After forty years of deep meditation and anise chewing, she achieved enlightenment. It all happened suddenly -- while she was emptying her tosspot into the nightsoil repository. Noyup felt faint (most likely from the fumes) and rested for a bit on the cactus stump that would become her pulpit. She realized at that moment that she must devote the rest of her life to encouraging others to achieve enlightenment in the same manner as she. Thus, her career began.

Now, her simple philosophy, which I will not take the time to explain right now, is taught the world over and has amassed a huge following of anise-chewing tosspot-dumping cactus-sitters. Fortunately, none of them are deaf.

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Homeword

Just 26 more hours and I will begin my quick jaunt to the West Coast and back. Kristen left a week before me, and Oksana, Kairat, and Jennifer have all left town for the summer. It's just me and the District.

In the meantime, I have yet another evening of uninterrupted silence and solitude in which I shall go to a cafe and be ignored by everyone present. Don't get me wrong, it's not that DC folks are ill-willed. They simply fear the unknown, and everything and everyone is unknown in this city. Thus, they stick closely to their companions and never return a glance. We all do this.

But I am now one of those lonely people who stare at people like a poodle begging for scraps, who scratch illegible notes in the margins of books and glance about furtively, fervently aware of their singularity. I have wasted so much money on tea, italian sodas, steamed milk, and smoothies this last week to keep up the illusion that I am in a cafe for the atmosphere and food. Fortunately, nobody pays any attention to me, except for those like me. I saw this guy yesterday who pretended to read a book while keeping an eye on every person that walked by. He would smile desperately and try frantically to drum up some conversation. It made me sick, because I had been doing the same thing all week. I was just like him, except I didn't look quite so stupid...maybe.

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On moving on.

Hey. It's Friday. In two days, we're moving across the street. Don't make me explain the details. All I'm going to say is that we have 2.5 hours to get out and get in. Then they're going to replace the carpets after we move in, so they'll have to put all our stuff in the hall. Then they're going to remodel the kitchen. Basically, we'll be living in the car for a while. Of course, we have no place to park it...

In other news, Phil Hartman died, Barry Goldwater died, NASA found an extrasolar planet, Bill Clinton's in deep poo, and India and Pakistan are about to nuke it out. What a great week.

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Window

Here's my life, filled with little gems, little marbles. Each bit of colored glass and precious stone is a tiny hope that someday I'll do something worthwhile, that my life will have meaning, and that I will be remembered. The rest of my years are a furnace. The glass will melt and engulf the rocks as some plans mix together and create structure for the jewels seated in the pane.

Time will not be kind to me. I will grow old and cynical, my fragile dreams will shatter, and those gems will be lost in the deep rolling dunes, dunes formed from the sands of a trillion billion crushed hopes of the countless billions that have lived and died before me.

I know, it's a little pessimistic, but at least reality will seem slightly better than I expect.

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May showers

Yeah, it rains here.

Just a little. Each drop screams through the misty corrosion, strikes the street with an explosion, scatters its death with a final sigh. Paint peels; hair falls; newspapers left in the street melt into the pavement, which runs black with the blood of a million automobiles.

Halfway between north and south, this, my cage, shivers its uneasy gargantuan mass. We itch. We fleas, scrabbling in the muck for our next bargain, our next meal. The sap we draw from this earth through our long transparent probosces is green; we drink it sparingly and are thirsty always for more.

Excerpt from my angst journal: Intense hurting filled my head eyes with sour petals rotting forth fourth fifth furth glow ing bowl ing bleed ing What is the price of your stable? Man. Man. Manage your mutual funds, scream at the top of your hairy black lungs Oh, you are a piece of work. Mean old mean old world full of heathens. Be my guest understated Be my rest underestimated Fu** the long short feather bed Are you bending in my absence? Retire your words under pencil Click off Click off Click off Chicken gravel peas of water drop from my nostrils I am inexorably reduced reduced to anything but something.

I really do not remember why I wrote the above drivel. It must have been one of those "bad" days, where random word associations and nonsensical clanging seems incredibly therapeutic. Nonetheless, I am only three months away from escaping Disappointment City forever. I shall return to Cascadia and be content.

[NOTE: Happy birthday to my journal. It's one year old this month!]

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Remember, Darling.

I know my life has only been a short twenty-two-and-a-half years, but this Virgo feels extremely old. I figure I'm one fourth of the way through my life, with sixty years to go. The last ten will be spent drooling all over myself in a nursing home in Suburbia or a log cabin in the wilderness, so I've really only fifty years left. The next ten years will be spent getting my advanced degrees, so I won't even get started until I'm thirty three. After that, I'll have thirty years to amass enough wealth to die without debt and leave my beneficiaries with a little something to remember me by.

Kind of sobering. It's nice to know that I'm going to die soon (soon in Geologic time, of course), because it just gives me a timetable on which to calculate when and how I should live my life. By the time I'm 80, I hope to have completed all my little projects, made many new friends, lost many old enemies, and planted my footprint in every country on this planet -- and perhaps some other planet.

Then again, Earth could be struck by a giant asteroid. But I'll be reincarnated as some other slap-happy manic-depressive artist/scientist underachieving overachiever in some future generation. Worry not.

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Weak End

All brains of all the weekday white collar workers of Washington have one thought on their mind: "Today is Friday." This thought is immediately followed by, "Tomorrow is Saturday, and the next day is Sunday." Then they slump their shoulders forward over their off-white plastic keyboards and click their mouses dejectedly. "Then comes Monday. Again."

The phones trill triumphantly, suddenly, and the workers of Washington sigh in the same way that they sigh every time the phones ring.

Meanwhile, time plods on as the Earth spins 'round two, three, five, twenty six, ninety one, three hundred sixty something times. Comets make their lazy ellipses around their stars, and a galaxy whirls about a singularity, which eats the clouds of light, thousands in a chomp.

So don't worry, all the Mondays in your life will never add up to the kind of destruction black holes can wreak on a solar system.

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April's Full

She never thought she'd actually reach the planet alive, especially with Gregorio Miantolino at the helm. However, after the dust had cleared and the shuttle had finally rumbled to a stop, Renate Ungala wished that something horrible had gone wrong en route, due to the inhospitability of the natives.

Gregor was, of course, nowhere to be found when they pried open the bulkhead doors and burned through the cockpit window. He was also not present when the police -- she assumed they were police -- began rummaging through her belongings and hauling them away. Gregor was absent, as always, when a lanky, high-collar robed dour-faced ambassador clapped his hands and the police scooped her up pushed her into a vehicle of some sort. Gregor was going to pay, thought Renate.

She was sandwiched between two armored officers, each with a weapon of some sort and a firm grip on her arms. Renate recalled awaking out of cold sleep with 48 hours to recover and prepare to scout out the surface. Gregor had already been up and about, deploying cartographic satellites and preparing the shuttle for the first of what was to be many landings. He could be responsible at times. He was going to be responsible for abandoning her after she passed out from that rough landing, responsible for allowing her to be captured by aliens, responsible for not fully defrosting those eggs which still were not getting along with her stomach. Mr. Miantolino would definitely pay.

In the meantime, she would simply listen and learn from these aliens, who looked exactly like the pictures they had sent to Earth so long ago. Her Muingek was rusty -- as was everything after cold sleep -- and she concentrated to understand the words that had been flowing so copiously from the ambassador's mouth for the last five minutes.

"...Fortunately, you have arrived at the perfect Imbalu of Ochingeh, for we are celebrating our festival of the Setting of Ngehr Zhulaihu..." Renate had no concept of the subtleties of Muingek moods, but this ambassador seemed bored. She tried to smile feebly and nod occasionally. He droned on until Renate could not keep awake any longer nor muster up the energy to translate his singsong language.

* * * *

When she awoke, he was still speaking, and they were no longer moving. In fact, she realized as her vision cleared, she was comfortably surrounded by gigantic pillows and soft sheets. The ambassador was not nearby, but the droning speech continued. Someone who seemed to be a servant was wandering about, cleaning and dusting and arranging the furniture of Renate's guest suite. The maid fished an elegant robe out of a wardrobe and hung it next to the bed, talking all the while about this holiday, the festival of the Setting of Ngehr Zhulaihu.

Renate propped herself up on one elbow and waited for a pause. She ventured, stumbling over her words a little, "What is the Setting of Ngehr Zhulaihu?" The maid stopped her busy cleaning and looked at Renate with a sardonic smile.

"Do you want the official version? The ambassador's version?" She asked. Renate shook her head, then realized the Muingek did not recognize such a gesture.

"No," she said. "I've already heard the ambassador's version." The maid grunted in approval.

"Well, we all know how the tradition started. Back in the days when electrons were free to wander as they pleased, some vagabond freak crashed an aristocrat's party and made some horrible gesture to the lady of the house. He was disposed of in a most innovative manner, and, to this day, the last suns set of Ngehr Zhulaihu, this scene is repeated.

"For the impoverished thousands, it is both a day of celebration and of grieving, since they are allowed, once an Ochingeh, to send their most offensive and frightening representative to insult the aristocracy in his or her or its most basest fashion. And then be killed in the most gruesome way. The proletariat meet in secret to elect such a member of their society and to formulate an insult so repulsive, so disheartening, so morally appalling, that the entire ruling class would fall to their knees and beg the forgiveness of every generation of the lower classes just to hear it. The chosen one would practice. Likewise, the rich would mill about in their lavish celebrations of superiority, discussing creative ways to relieve themselves of this putrescent soul. And they would sip their perfumed spirits and breathe their malodorous narcotic vapors and dance with their noses hooked fast to the firmament, dreaming of a life exactly like the ones they were living." The maid shuddered with disgust and continued polishing the furniture.

"By the way," she said, "this robe is for you. How fortunate you are to be able to observe this ancient custom."

* * * *

The ballroom was bathed in the deep red glow of the setting suns, and everywhere Renate turned, another lord, ledu, lady, baron, baroness, or baroneus haughtily introduced themselves and reminded her how fortunate she was to be able to witness this day of days.

As the evening plodded on, more liquor was served, more food was consumed, more drugs were distributed, and Renate tired of greeting her alien hosts. Their almost human appearance and too-human behavior made her nauseous. Her stomach growled, reminding her of Gregor's eggs and of his unfailing ability to annoy her. Still, it would be nice to have some human company on this silly planet.

Suddenly, from the other end of the banquet hall, a cheer went up. The vagabond had arrived. Clothed in filthy rags and flinging mud with every step, the dishonored guest rushed into the center of the room. As the vagabond drew nearer, Renate sighed with relief.

"Gregor, you moron!" she shouted. "Where have you been?" Finally, she thought, we can sort this all out and get off this silly planet and get back to work. But Gregor didn't seem to hear her. He opened his arms wide and shouted, with a guffaw:

"M'Lon gek bewlengka turiru diu tuleng ma nopguihara schlow langogek biu!!"

And the entire crowd gasped in horror and anticipation.

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Mental and Physical Feats of Mediocrity

I've been reading too many stories of extraordinary people doing extraordinary things, ordinary people doing extraordinary things, and below-average people having extraordinary things happen to them. Most of these stories are fictions. However, the frightening fact about this planet is that extraordinary people and events actually exist -- or, at least, history has transformed ordinary people and events into legends.

Example: Albert Einstein. How the heck did this man see beyond reality and create theories with very little experimental evidence that accurately described the very fabric of space and time? I am continually amazed at the amount of respect physicists hold for this man. His theories are regarded as gospel. Another example: Marc Andreesen. This guy was a complete poser who stole someone else's code, sold it to a California businessman, and made millions with Netscape. The American Dream has come true for the suburban hacker, and this story is told over and over again every day as the internet continues to slip its prickly fingers into every part of modern society.

Do you know what I want out of life?

I want to be happy. If we assume that life on this planet will remain mostly stable for the next one hundred years, money is required to survive. And survival is a requirement for my happiness, unless I live in the wilderness, eating roots, berries, fish, and fowl -- and there isn't much left of the wilderness, and I couldn't live there unless I owned it, and I couldn't own it unless I had money, and we're back to square one. So I must work.

I'm sure that every person has reached a conclusion such as this. That is why they work to survive and be happy, not necessarily to work to be happy. Most people in this country do work that they do not necessarily enjoy because they cannot make money doing the things they enjoy. This is why I am not a career artist or author. Not only am I not good enough or rich enough to sit around all day and draw/paint/write, who says I can produce artwork or books that people would want to buy?

SO -- this is what would make me happy: To get paid for doing something I enjoy. This way, I can survive and do things that make me happy.

Okay, back to the mediocrity thing. Number one, I'd like society to remember me well, as we remember William Shakespeare or Emily Dickinson or Marie Curie or Jimmy Stewart or Mother Theresa. I also would like, when I reach the end of my life, as I float away from my still-warm corpse, to remember my own life with satisfaction and to have no regrets about what I did or did not do. Then I shall dissipate into the aether with no argument.

Otherwise, I'll just hang out on this planet and annoy the hell out of people until someone notices me.

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Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Reunion?

As if my waking hours aren't weird enough, I had to go to sleep. I know most of you out there really don't want to know what I dream about, since this is obviously not the time nor place for such a discussion, but this is truly weird -- and this is my web page. So there.

I once again dreamed I returned to Salem, Oregon, for my five-year high school reunion, if there is such a thing. This time it was not in Tolkeinland. It was not in a subway station. For once, this reunion was back at my old high school, and things were working out normally.

Old friends drifted in and out of the rooms of Sprague, catching up with acquaintances, reliving the bad old days with glistening eyes and heavy sighs. They were all surprised to see how I had changed. Fortunately, I was me, not some crazed trumpet-playing stilt-walking Santa band director. Nor was I a video game character fighting Death to the death. This reunion was going just fine.

They had us all sit down in our old classroom, in our old desks, while Mrs. Brantley stood at the front and spoke to us like adults, which we all had become by now. I even said hello to my old debate partner.

Then someone started handing out pencils and half-sheets of paper. It had to be some sort of questionnaire or survey, asking us what we had done with the last five years of our lives. Entirely optional, right? For some reason, I was overlooked in this circulation. Then the lights dimmed. It was so dark, I could only make out the silhouettes of my former classmates, who scratched away furiously on their half-sheets of paper. I asked someone what was going on, and they refused to answer -- had to finish whatever they were writing. The minutes ticked on, and I grew more and more anxious.

Suddenly, one by one, people started slamming down their pencils and raising their hands. When most of my former classmates had finished their frenzied scribbling, the lights slowly came back up. I quickly grabbed someone's pencil and found a blank half-sheet of my own on the floor.

It was a test.

The test had only two questions. The first dealt with biodiversity -- something like: "Explain how the different natural and anthropogenic effects on populations of species affects biodiversity and species composition. How do these factors change over time following a catastrophic destruction of environment? etc." The answer to this question had to be general, since the question was general. I scribbled something about forest biology, primary vs. secondary vs. old growth habitats, and incorporated some of my general genetics knowledge into my answer.

By this time, the tests were being handed to the front. I scanned the second question. It was a paragraph in Latin, which I have absolutely no education in, followed by something like this:

[chordata[phylo[arcuriae[diptho[tretigid]]mephisto]genupylori]aphleboto]]

[ascomycete][plaque[hydrohaline[keto-carbonic[gamma][[]muon[subset][

and other such nonsense.

Then there was a table with some blank cells. Above it said "Fill in the blanks." Some of the table headings were words like "Toxicological Analysis," "Chemical Composition," "Concentration (M)," "Mass (g)," and so on. I looked up to see how much time I had to decipher this mess and realized that everyone else had turned in their papers. Then I smelled the fog. Men in red hats and red coveralls were walking toward the front of the room, strolling between the desks in a very organized fashion. They were all holding what looked like garden pesticide sprayers -- the kind you have in your garage at home. They were pumping out a fine mist of what smelled like RoundUp.

I held my breath until I woke up.

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The Sleep Museum

Just when I thought my brain was done with marching band, I had this exhilirating dream about a parade, a Christmas gala, where Santa Claus was seated on the front of this float that resembled a train. The enormous marching band was standing on, marching around, and running before the Holiday train. The drum majors, of which I was one, stood on stilts and directed with arm extensions, so they could be seen by all.

It was cool. In preparation for the parade, we were served a gigantic buffet of bagels and muffins and fruit and salad and cinnamon rolls and chocolate milk and sandwiches and various other cafeteria foods. As we were preparing for the parade, I was running around checking to see if the float was ice-free and ready to roll. There was also something about retrieving Garfield (that fat, annoying cat), but I don't remember that part. Once the parade was underway, I was tromping around in a floppy clown suit that covered my fake arms and legs, keeping time to one hell of a drum cadence.

Then I dreamed about being in some bus. I was in the army, it was raining, and we were about to go to war. I had smuggled my trumpet on to the battlefield with me -- for what reason I know not -- and was trying to clean it before my platoon was sent out to die. When I woke up, I was immediately reminded of Jacopo Belbo from Mr. Eco's book, for those of you who have read it.

Anyway. Back to cleaning. Gotta get this thing ready before the big parade.

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Thump, O Migranous Temples!

I just wrote a whole bunch of junk about my life and my future that ended up sounding incredibly. . . lame. So here's a story which I shall now compose extemporaneously.

Lilting through a musical selection written by long-dead druids, Malchisidek the Matronly Musical Mountain Monk picked his way nimbly through a patch of gorse and scattered herb-steeped goat droppings and ashes to celebrate the passing of winter. The exasperated sun shivered its long golden tentacles between the barren crooked oak branches, stippling Malchisidek's freakishly serene face with a leopard print of ever-shifting flourescence. The crumbling fecal matter sifted through the hermit's fingers, floating upon the breeze, fertilizing the thawing soil with a heady aroma of well digested foliage and smoking oregano. The forest animals, their eyes encrusted with the salty seasonings of sleep, crept from their burrows to ogle, salivating, at the chirping naked bipedal morsel that skipped so cheerfully through the briars.

Malchisidek emptied the dusty remnants of his satchel and began yodeling the chorus of "How Sweetly Doth the Morning Pass," an incantation for the coming of noon. At his yelping, a burst of feathers and squawking erupted from the brush along the Matronly Monk's path, and the sky was filled with the frenzied swirling of annoyed wrens.

Noon passed, Spring came and went, and the brother of the mountain sang in and out each passing moment. One hundred thirty nine years later, the hills still echoed his maddening melodies when the forest was suddenly decimated by a large, silver, cigar-shaped object.

The end.

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Time to Earn the Browning Horizon

You can't always get what you want, and you rarely ever get what you need. This is my blanket statement for the last four months of my life. Finally, it seems that the funk has broken. I now am blissfully employed at the American Association for the Advancement of Science as an Executive Assistant and as a Freelance Cartoonist. This comes after weeks and weeks of torturous temping at various locations around Washington, DC, all the while fending off the unbearable destructive chaos of this gloomy metropolis.

If I haven't changed this web site in a while, it is for this reason: When humans crowd together in small places, the price of oxygen skyrockets.

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