Hey. I like Marxism.

(Good thing it's not the '60s.)

I should be reading about Marxism.

So I posting on my blog.

Yesterday was my 24th birthday. This is the first birthday that's kind of smacked me around a little. I know, 24 is young, yaddah yaddah. I don't know, though. This birthday felt a little different. It felt like next comes 25 and then 50.

I'm not complaining. I had a great day. Tons of people left me text messages or voicemails or emails. It was really nice. Made me feel loved.

My horoscope said that this year will be one of stark reality. That there will be a lot of big realizations going on. Hmm, I think the first one might have something to do with my writing. That I'm not so sure of myself anymore. Maybe the second realization will be something about what I am good at. I guess stark realizations are good. (?) Sometimes I really want horoscopes to be right (like those "Lucky Days"). And sometimes I REALLY want them to be wrong. Not that I buy into any of that crap, anyway. But, c'mon, Aquarians are usually introspective, artistic, analytical, stubborn people (that sometimes imagine what a person is like only to be disappointed later). How do the stars define that? Actually, I think it has something to do with Saturn returning to Mercury or something. I mean, I don't really buy into any of that crap.

Hey, man. What's your sign? Really. I want to know. I'll give some characteristics of that sign, and you see if it's pretty accurate. Just for fun. 'Cause I don't really buy into it, you know.

[I saw this article after I posted this. "The Best Careers for Your Zodiac Sign." Hmm, mine says I should be a photographer.]

Let's take a vote.

I've written the beginning of my short story from two different points of view. Tell me which one you like the best. (I know it's a lot of reading, but I really do appreciate it.)

P.O.V. #1: (It's been changed.)

“Shoot, Edna. Why you save all them nasty, old plastic flowers for? They take up too much room in my shed,” her husband Ray always complained. Edna usually just ignored him and continued humming her hymns. The flowers often blew into her front yard. After thunderstorms, Edna went into the yard and collected the bounty. Some people would have called the flowers litter, but Edna knew they were gifts from God, sent to give her life purpose.

She hoarded the sun bleached flowers in an unlit lean-to that was attached to their barn. The barn hadn’t been used for anything other than storage in over thirty years. The stench of cows had given way to the fragrance of mildew and musk in the place and part of the tin roof had been blown off by the tornados that had formed from Hurricane Opal in ’95. The same tornados had damaged many of the headstones, laying them flat in the cemetery across the street. Edna herself had spearheaded the operation to restore the monuments to their former glory. Several of the older headstones had crumbled into hundreds of pieces upon impact. Edna had singly funded the construction of identical new ones, despite constant bitching from Ray.

Edna and Ray had built the barn themselves. She easily remembered the feel of the hot tin on her hands, though her hands had been calloused from the time she could pick up a broom or a hammer. When they had begun building the barn, she was three months pregnant. When they finished the barn three months later, she was no longer pregnant. They had only paused for four days after her miscarriage.

Barn’s about as busted up as I feel, Edna often reflected when she was in the cool lean-to. The electricity that had originally brightened the shed had long since shorted out. She figured a mouse had probably chewed through some wires, though she had never found an electrified mouse. Just live ones. After going through countless D batteries trying to light the shed with a huge Coleman flashlight, Edna had bought an oil lamp. She much preferred the flickering, warm light of the fire over the bluish halogen light of the flashlight anyway. She felt the shifting light of the flame inspired her in her craft. And the oil lasted much longer than the batteries had.


Or P.O.V. #2:

I knew my lady was a little batty when I married her but she was always beautiful. Her beauty and the fact that she held out on me until we were married kept me coming back to her. I always wondered what she saw in me. She’s such an optimist — a dreamer, really. And I’ve always been a realist. Some people’d probably call me a pessimist. But I just call it like I see it. And right now I see that my wife has gone off the deep end.

She’s been collecting them damn flowers for months now. Hiding ‘em in the shed where my lawn mower’s supposed to go. I gotta keep it in the barn now. And part of the tin roof got blown off during a tornado a few years back. So when it rains, my lawn mower gets wet. Don’t know why she’s saving them flowers no way. They’re all bleached out from the sun and the wires are poking through the green plastic stems. Can’t nobody call them things pretty or worth nothing. She’s got this idea that they’re her life’s mission or something. She’s fixin’ them up and gonna put them back on the graves that don’t have any flowers on them. She’s gluing all these doodads on the petals. Sequins and shit. And beads. Dyed feathers. Ain’t no bird in this world got feathers as purple as some of them feathers she got. Says she’s gonna “beautify” them and put them on the “lonely” graves, she calls them.

I do love her. Yeah, she’s a little fruity. But she loves people. Her heart is pure gold, that woman’s. Wants everybody in the whole world to love each other. Me, being the realist, I know that that won’t never happen, but it is a nice idea. Wouldn’t be no wars. But then, wars give men purpose. Without wars men’d be walking around without no purpose. They’d have to do the women’s work. And then what would the women do? I guess they’d have more babies.

Edna never had any babies. She always wanted a lot of kids. So did I. But she lost one and she’s never been able to get pregnant again. She’s sixty-something now, and way past her birthing years. Sometimes I wonder if she’d had some babies how different she would be. Like her life would have some purpose. Instead she decorates them damn flowers.


Okay, what do you think? (Sorry about the curse words, Sara. It fits the character.)

Is this wrong?

I saw this link on another person's blog. It's a really fun blog that deals with metaphysical, transcendental stuff. The guy goes to Columbia -- what do you expect, right? Here's his link.

The point is, there's a link that's to this test to see if you can tell Asians apart. I, apparently, suck at this. Here's the address to that test. See how you do. I got 6 out of 18, I think.
www.alllooksame.com. There are some tricky ones on there.

Yuck.

I had a dream last night that Parker, Tyler, and I were little kids again. We were living in the house we grew up in. Parker decided that he was going to save enough proofs of purchase off of the cereal boxes and send in for a prize. When the prize arrived, it was, not one, but two flat worms. In a box with dirt. Parker and Tyler were amazed. They loved those little worms. I was disgusted and tried over and over to explain that they are parasites and, even when the worms latched onto them, they didn't care. They quickly multiplied to about 50 million flat worms all over our house. We couldn't get rid of them. The last image I remember was me burning the sofa to kill the ones that were inside of it. Uhh. It was sick. What does that symbolize? Who's the parasite?

So I'm Rethinking the Creative Writing Emphasis.

If you think that either one of these guys has the face of God, turn away now.

(Vladimir Nabokov: author of Lolita, etc.)

(Kurt Vonnegut: author of Slaughterhouse Five, etc.)

Okay. So I'm a little flaky. So I change my mind a lot. But it's because I try a lot of things, find that I'm not as interested (or good) as I initially thought I was, and move on to the next thing that I think I'm interested in (or good at).

I wonder if it all boils down to the fact that I'm never happy with the final product. I wasn't ever completely satisfied with the photographs I took when I was a Fine Arts major. I've never been completely satisfied with a poem or short story that I've written (except that time in third grade when I got an award). And maybe I'm rethinking the Creative Writing emphasis of my degree because, deep down, I'm really afraid of failure.

But I think I'm also afraid of critique -- be it good or bad. I don't want these pseudo-intellectual academia types to dissect something of mine. (Not that I think I would ever be that revered.)

I just really am not a fan of the kids that are in my Creative Writing class. They spout out lines from Vonnegut (and I kind of like ol' Kurt) or these obscure (mostly highly sexual) authors that they know no one else has probably ever heard of. And (excuse this but I'm going with the sexual theme here) basically, they're trying to decide who has the biggest penis or the most notches on their bedpost. I'm not buying into it. I guess I'm self confident enough to know that the number of obscure authors that I know does not equal the content of my brain or my worth. If my stories would ever be read by kids (and I'm calling them kids because they're all about 19 or 20) like this, I would burn every word I'd ever written. I'm not exaggerating.

Compostion and Rhetoric emphasis coming up?

(Tangent: It all reminds me of this friend of mine. The first time we met, we were talking music. You know, it was the typical conversation,

"Do you like ____(insert obscure band name here)______?"

"Oh, I've never heard of them. Do you like _______?"

"Huh. I've never heard of them. Do they sound like _______?"

You get the point. After a couple of rounds, he said, "You know what? I don't want to play that game." Meaning he didn't want to see who knew the "coolest", "newest", "weirdest" bands. That quickly sealed the friendship. I really liked that he said that.)

Hey! This is 102nd post! I've hit the 100 mark.

I have to turn in my "First Scene" for my short story tomorrow. I just wrote it. Tell me what you think. Even if it's later on in the week. I just want to hear some feedback.

Here goes:

“The neighbors are quiet,” the realtor had joked. And indeed, in the thirty years that they had lived there, they had never had a problem with the neighbors. Mostly this was because they were all dead. The farmhouse was on about fifty acres and across the street was the largest cemetery in the county.
“Aw shoot, Edna. Why you save all them nasty, old plastic flowers for? They take up too much room in my shed,” her husband Ray always exclaimed. She usually just ignored him and continued humming her hymns. The flowers often blew into her front yard. After thunderstorms, Edna went into the yard and collected the bounty. Some people would have called the flowers litter, but Edna knew they were gifts from God, sent to give her life purpose.


That's it. I mean, it's a short story. But what do you think? Do you want to know more? What questions are in your mind? Are you confused about anything so far? (I know it's hard to know since you haven't read the whole story.)

I'm thankful for: Foggy winter nights and a fire in the fireplace. I love it.

Okay, here is my "How To" piece.

I know it's a little long to read on a blog. But please let me know what you think.


How to survive in the Lower East Side with little to no steady income


You’re an artist. A musician. A poet. Or a student. And you think you want to live in the Lower East Side. It is possible. But you must throw out many inhibitions and all frivolous spending habits. Forget the clean suburban life to which you are accustomed. Here is how to survive in the Lower East Side with little to no steady income.


First, you will not need, or want, a car in the city. Sell it. This will pay for the broker’s fee on your new apartment and hopefully will leave you with enough money to pay the deposit and first month’s rent. Expect to pay about two thousand dollars for a five hundred square foot apartment. It will be essential to share this apartment with someone else. Never mind that it is a studio or one-bedroom. Ikea sells bunk beds for about one hundred fifty dollars. The bathroom, undoubtedly, will be about the size of the bathroom in your parents’ Winnebago. But you will learn to love brushing your teeth in the kitchen sink since it will be the only sink in the apartment. Also, you will become very dedicated to washing dishes promptly (or promptly for you anyway).

In the L.E.S., hardly any apartment building exceeds six stories. These buildings will not have elevators. Therefore, look for an apartment on the sixth floor in a walk-up building. There will be a significant discount on these apartments and you will not have to join a gym. (Also, you will be able to recognize other sixth-floor-walk-up butts around the city.)

When furnishing your apartment, walk the streets of the L.E.S. and the East Village. Garbage is set on the curb to be taken off by city sanitation. You will find many miscellaneous treasures – last month’s edition of Black and White Magazine, a U2 CD (“Don’t they know ‘Achtung, Baby’ is a classic?”), paperbacks written by Toni Morrison, Bertolt Brecht, and Kierkegaard, shelves, tables, chairs, desks, lamps. Avoid furniture or items that could spread communicable diseases such as sofas, mattresses, linens, rugs, shoes, or clothing. (Courteously, leave the clothing and shoes for your homeless neighbors.)

Taxis will be completely foreign to you. You will see this mode of transportation as an unnecessary luxury only to be enjoyed when you hit the mother load and either a.) your first novel is published, b.) your band is signed to a label (But not an independent label. One like Capitol or Sony.) or c.) your proposal is accepted by the NEA. Your chosen mode of transportation will be walking. Invest in a new pair of Chuck Taylors. On the odd occasion that you foresee yourself venturing out of the neighborhood over fifteen times in one month, buy a monthly Metrocard for the subway. You save in bulk.

At all costs, avoid any encounters with a particularly furious breed of monster known as the Upper East Sider. While some of these monsters might be harmless and downright amusing, others – predominantly the ones that are twelve to seventeen years old – could be extremely hazardous to your belief in the inherent good of every human being. These creatures may carry a Louis Vuitton handbag and the newest iPod. You will recognize them immediately if you overhear them calling their mother a bitch for only giving them an allowance of five hundred dollars a week. At this point, it is best for you to leave the area and find a cute baby or dog on which to concentrate.

The water in New York is remarkably clean – some of the best drinking water in the country. (Although, the pipes that it flows through are often corroded and rusty.) Though you have never been one to drink from the tap (which you attribute to the widespread outbreak of cryptosporidium in your hometown years ago), convince yourself that if there are any microscopic organisms in the water, drinking them regularly will probably boost your immune system. Initially, you may buy a water filtering system but, without fail, the filter will need to be replaced about the same time that you are struggling to feed yourself. Therefore, you will disregard the faint hint of iron or chlorine in the water. You will quickly realize the benefit of drinking from the tap in the summer months after the six-floor hike to your un-air-conditioned oven.

Though you may love sushi, you will soon understand that the cost of three rolls is equal to about six slices of cheese pizza and far less filling. When food is a commodity, buy a large cheese pizza. A large pizza will be cut into approximately eight slices. Cut each slice in half. You now have about sixteen slices of cheese pizza and, consequently, sixteen meals.

Also, the coffee stand on the corner sells huge bagels for fifty cents. Ration the bagel, eating pieces intermittently throughout the day. This fifty-cent bagel will give you a sufficient amount of carbohydrates for you to function for about a twelve-hour period of time.

Though it may stifle your creativity, a part-time job may be essential to your survival. The list of jobs that you could choose from varies. You could be a nanny. Or a paralegal. Or a dog-walker. If you are a musician, you could panhandle. But be aware that the panhandlers in the subway stations must audition. If you do not have a proper license to perform in the subways, you will be fined and could lose next month’s rent money. If you have the means, print various t-shirts with slogans like “Legalize Marijuana” or some anti-Bush propaganda. You could sell your wares in Union Square, on St. Mark’s Place, or in Astor Place. NYU students frequent these places and are most likely to purchase the type of merchandise you are selling.

You must make a friend that has a steady income. Though you think you may not have much in common with an accountant or an investment banker, this friend will occasionally feel sympathetic to your plights and cook you a warm meal, take you to a movie, or give you a concert ticket. Ideally, this friend would live in Greenwich Village, Soho or Tribeca and would rent the apartment of your dreams. The more time you spend at their place, the easier it is for you to pretend that their stuff is yours. Do not, however, wear out your welcome. They will become your ace-in-the-hole.




Do I need more of an opening and closing? Talk to me people.

And one more thing...

For those of you that care (i.e. ME), Brian Urlacher will not be playing any more football this season.
The Bears lost to the Panthers last night. At least the Steelers are still in it.

I'm posting a lot because...

I should be doing my homework.

That's right, kids. I am officially a student, again. And one that is nervous about my Creative Writing "Workshops" (a.k.a. "The-Author-Is-Silent-While-We-Rip-'Em-Apart" Episodes). So I think that every time I have to turn something in in that class, I'm going to post it here first so that I can:
a.) get a milder form of the criticism from my friends and family and, hopefully,
b.) get some praise before I walk to the Guillotine.

Okay, I'm exaggerating a little. I'm not that worried about it. But I am going to post my short stories on here before they make it to class.

"Back to school. Back to school.
To prove to Dad that I'm not a fool.
Got my lunch packed up,
My shoes tied tight,
Hope I don't get in a fight.
Ohh, back to school."
--Billy Madison

The Best MLK Day Ever (or that I can remember)

Last year, Genevieve, Ian, Brigham, Lexia, and I (I think that's all of us. Ew, if I forgot some folks, I'm sorry.) went to brunch at Markt on 14th St. and 9th Ave. I don't know why that was so great and memorable. But I remember that I was really happy. Maybe it had just snowed? It felt really cozy and comfortable. It's weird how vividly I can recall the feeling. (I guess it was just last year.) I don't know what I did the rest of the day but, man, I'm grateful for that memory.

Update: I found Brigham's post about the brunch. But -- get ready for this -- it was Presidents' Day Weekend. NOT MLK Day. Man, that seriously changes things. Here's the link.

For coverage of the rockin' Strokes concert the other night, refer to Sara's blog. My sentiments exactly.

Man! Ugh! I still haven't gotten the hang of this new fangled "Ipod" thing. I just deleted all of the albums that I already I had on it when I thought I was adding more to it.

It is a pretty little bit of technology, though, isn't it? Shiny.

(Yeah, I don't like how that photo of the Ipod isn't centered, but I can't be bothered to edit a stock photo. Just can't.)

Hey! Look who it is!

Okay, so I don't really know these people. Well, one was a New York City acquaintance. (Ahem. "Let me clear my throat.")

Check out doogin's flickr account. (Who is this "doogin" fella? I know I've probably seen him around. Hmm.)

WOOO-HOOO!

Man. Some Strokes goodness was had last night by all.

(Sara, Lexia, Brooks, and I went to the sold-out Strokes concert last night.)

Details later.

I'm thankful that: My first day of school is over and it went pretty well.

There are a TON of posts on the way. Just saving them up for a day when I feel like typing. Could be later this afternoon.