all the knots undone

Guest Blog: What’s a better song, "Everlasting Love" by Gloria Estefan or "Got to Give it Up (Pt. 1)" by Marvin Gaye?

2011-09-10T09:43:00.000-07:00

Lots going on in Portland. Job changes, guerrilla warfare by a neighbor, bike trips... but unfortunately, no blogging. Updates to come, but for now, a guest blog that is long overdue.

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Guest Blog: What’s a better song, "Everlasting Love" by Gloria Estefan or "Got to Give it Up (Pt. 1)" by Marvin Gaye?

I work for a big, heartless corporation now and have worked for several others in the past. I have also spent time working in government run offices and laboratories. I like seeing how decisions are made in each of these settings. The big, heartless corporation has plenty of faults and is a machine of exploitation for resources natural or human. However, I actually enjoy watching something like this make decisions. It is a shrewd and calculating model of efficiency. If something isn’t working, drop it like a ton of bricks, ask critical questions and reorganize it better to get to a solution. I will enjoy and observe this corporate decision making process with awe until it is used against me to send my job to a more economical place while it leaves me in the dust. The government run settings I was in were quite different in their pacing to solve an issue and they were less effective in my opinion. The status quo was always the mode of the day.

The above paragraph may not have needed to be written because this post is about something else. Human issues and decisions about relationships can never be directly compared to corporate decisions, such as how to squeeze an extra three cents out of a Whopper value meal, ED prevention pill or a computer chip. Yet I often fall into that simplistic logic because it gives me a consistent way to approach and solve a problem I might have. And if those that read this can acknowledge that any sort of logic system may illuminate but will ultimately fail against the idea of a relationship and the concept of unconditional love, the rest of my confusion below may be more understandable.

When is it OK to give up on someone who is important to you? Why is love offered unconditionally to certain people? And I am talking about those who are really important, such as a spouse or a parent. If your dad killed orphans AND those cute endangered slow lorises on a daily basis (youtube those little guys), is it OK to stop loving him? I get the idea of love. I do not understand why it is unconditional.

Let me offer this hypothetical scenario:

My mother is 56 years old and 295 lbs. Her obesity, short and long term depression, inattention to her serious medical issues and abject poverty did not happen by accident. They had their origins in the decades of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of my father. After their divorce a few years ago, her personal test to be on her own was met with a lack of initiative and effort on her part. Yes, she was a victim but when she had her freedom she did not offer even a glimmer of her own effort to change her destiny. At some point, and my three oldest siblings would agree, all of the above made my mom want to die. She has been living and hoping for this for the last few years. And to further fill the reader in, she has further proved this by giving away her guardianship of my youngest brother a few months ago- making him temporarily homeless - as well as weakly attempting suicide just this Monday.

Let’s say the above paragraph is accurate and a fair interpretation of my mother. If someone wants to die- really, truly wants to die- there is nothing anyone else can do to stop her. Most people- perhaps those who are more caring than I- would still do what they can to help their mother. They would still take off of work to drive her home from the mental hospital. They would still give her money so she can buy groceries. That is not what I am doing. From what I have seen and known about her situation, I have decided and behaved in the manner of a big, heartless corporation. I have discontinued that product line of Cal’s Unyielding Love for his mother because one of its love widgets is defective.

This is where you, the reader, may lose compassion for me. It is a shrewd and too-logical choice. You should know that I have offered plenty of love in the past to her. I sincerely did. I made this decision now because I have learned over many years that no matter what type of investment I put into this relationship, my return has never come. I could invest minutes on the phone, $750 on an emergency plane ticket home, $5000 for an operation to amputate her foot due to diabetes or simply just my emotions. No matter what I offer I will get nothing back. Those that know the situation would admit as much.

Would you invest in a stock that guaranteed a negative return on investment? Of course not. Would you spend resources – time, energy, emotions and money- on a toxic situation if you can spend it on one that would actually make a difference? I would hope not. That would be insanity. Why not spend the time, emotions and money in places where they can actually help? Why, oh why, should love be unconditional when the other person can’t ever offer the same to you?

For the record, I think Marvin Gaye’s song struck a deeper chord with me. He had a pretty good reason to give up on a loving relationship with his father.

Signed,

The Hon. Oliver Wendell Holmes, III

I Don't Get Poetry

2011-08-12T20:33:00.000-07:00

Because I'm lazy and need to be at work at 5AM tomorrow, I'm going to introduce this blog post with the first paragraphs of a paper I wrote for school.

*****

The New York Times Best Sellers List is the de facto barometer for a writer's mainstream popularity. For those blessed with the proper blend of talent and luck, it's the achievement of most every writer's dream, to support oneself with one's own writing. Considering how many published authors exist in obscurity, such public reception is as improbable as salmon fry reaching maturity.

Originally, the Best Sellers List divided books into only two categories: fiction and non-fiction. The non-fiction category was broadened with "Advice, How-to, and Miscellaneous," to differentiate the Dummies guide series from biographies. During the height of Potter-mania, fiction authors so feared J.K. Rowling sweeping all the top spots, that a category "Children's Books" was added to allow adult fiction writers to avoid competition with her. More recently, "Paperback Fiction" has been further bifurcated into "Trade" and "Mass Market" categories; an attempt to recognize the efforts of literary-minded writers in a genre dominated world[1].

Despite these changes to accommodate a broader spectrum of writing, it probably surprises no one that the New York Times hasn't added a category for poetry. Though it predates all other forms of literature and continues to be written in all languages and in innumerable forms, poetry simply doesn't sell and there is no mass market appeal for it in the United States.

Reading, however, has grown in popularity as evidenced by online book sales and the blockbuster status attained by popular fiction series such as the aforementioned Harry Potter and Twilight. While an average American may take one of these novels on vacation to read at the beach, poetry seems completely unapproachable to the lay person. The standard explanation for not reading poetry is "I don't understand it."

[1] New York Times Best Seller List, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Best_Seller

*****

First off, don't even say it. I know it's fucking weak to use Wikipedia as your first reference in a paper. It's like starting an essay with the first sentence "Webster's Dictionary defines [blank] as..."

But, anyway, 2 years after writing that paper, poetry sales are still anemic. And I still hear people say "I don't like poetry" or "I don't get poetry." Realize, the people who tell me they don't like reading poetry are not illiterate by any means. They gobble up novels, short stories, memoirs, essays, graphic novels, investigative journalism, blogs (just not mine) and anything that Oprah recommends. So why is the oldest form of writing relegated to high school text books?

For me, saying you don't like poetry is like saying you don't like TV or movies. You're telling me there's not a single TV show you like including premium cable and pay per view? Shall I introduce you to Skinemax?

If you've attained a reading proficiency that allows you to read words without having to sound each one out (and chances are you have if you're reading this blog because I often use three syllable words like Skinemax), then you're capable of reading a poem.

I had originally intended this blog post to be part of an ongoing series that would address various reasons people claim they don't like poetry. I'd pose a common anti-poetry excuse and try my best to refute it. However, thinking about it, I really only came up with two common reasons I've heard people say they were against poetry; and two hardly makes a series. So rather, I'll address these complaints in a couple future blog posts, and would love to hear other reasons why people don't want to read poetry.

Here are two common reasons I've heard:

1) The "I don't 'get' poetry" Excuse.
2) The Modern Art Excuse (i.e. just as people feel like modern art is a scam because they assume the artist is purposely trying to be odd or different in order to be famous, there's a common sentiment that says poets are "duping" readers by coming up with random words strung together that are supposed to be "deep.")

There's no way I'm gonna make people start loving poetry just by logically pointing out why it would make sense to like it, but I think I can make a reasonable argument as to why those arguments against poetry don't always make sense.

Rather than address those two points today though (because as I started writing this post, I realized I wasn't really answering either of those complaints), I'd rather just point out why it's reasonable to think people should like poetry, a la St. Augustine pointing out reasons why God should exist. What follows is completely non-scientific and non-researched:

Most people who don't like poetry also people who simultaneously love music. And I dare conjecture that most of the music they listen to is not instrumentals. Go on, name 10 instrumentals right now that were hits in this century. No, neither "Walk Don't Run" nor "Theme From Hillstreet Blues" were recorded in the 21st century.

I'm gonna go one further. These people who don't like poetry, but like music, not only prefer music with WORDS but music with words in a language they can understand. No, your Ricky Martin album does not count as international music. You obviously can translate the phrase "vida loca."

And to beat this point to death, ask people to name musicians in popular bands. In your average rock and roll band, they'll most easily be able to name the lead singer, followed by the lead guitarist, followed by the bassist, followed by the drummer. The exception of course is when the bassist is the lead singer as well, or the drummer is the lead singer (Phil Collins, David Grohl... sorta). There's a reason the front man is the most recognizable member of a band. Most of us are not expert musicians, but all of us understand language. So it's much easier to connect to words rather than to chords and drum fills.

All this to say that people who listen to music aren't just listening to sounds or melodies. Words matter, unlike Homer's assertion in this classic Simpsons episode. Just imagine your favorite lyrics of all time and replace them with other words.

"I've shitted on an orange cow
and on the seat of the farmer's plow
but now I've only got one call,
the cops are tazering my balls."
-Joni Mitchell

Also imagine all the times you were listening to a song, thought, "This is okay," then realized it was Christian Rock and immediately changed the station. Also, completely unrelated, you might be wondering why I would use a Joni Mitchell quote yet imbed it with a Judy Collins version of the song. That's because the latter is the version I'm more familiar with.

Back on track: Lyrics matter to a lot of songs, to the point where people sometimes carry these lyrics as mantras for the way they should live their lives or to give them courage during hard times. So if you think of your favorite songs, what do they do? Create an emotional reaction? Offer wisdom? Inspire? A singer is accomplishing this connection with the listener through words, performance, melody, tempo and other things I'm not even aware of because I'm not a musician. But a poet doesn't have all those tools at his disposal. It's stripped down. All he has is the words. Remember how popular MTV Unplugged was for a while? People loved it because they were awed realizing the music they loved could be just as (or sometimes even more) effective without the amps and effects. The music was simplified and somehow even more meaningful and expressive in such a bare form. Nirvana's set still gives me shivers. Moreover, when a singer performs a capella, there's this sense that we're enjoying the purist form of the song. There's no where to hide for this artist, no auto tune, no distortion.

Similarly then, a poem ups the ante for this purity of communication. If we're talking about a poem on paper, now even the performance is removed. It's simply these words that have to mean everything the poet wants them to mean without the help of a melody to instruct you how to feel with its minor chords, or even without the help of the poet's own voice teaching you the inflection and pauses of the piece.

So if lyrics have ever touched you, then it's reasonable to believe that a line of a poem could touch you too. You may not have found that poem yet, but with so many out there from so many centuries, it's bound to exist and I'll be excited for you to find it just as I was excited for you when you first discovered Skinemax after bitching about how much you hated all TV ever created.

No Experience Unnecessary: Door to Door Meat Sales

2011-07-17T18:34:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you hadn't heard, but the economy sucks right now. Has sucked for a few years and possibly will suck for the rest of our lives. I'm not an economist. I'm a poet, if even that. Which means, when I go on Craigslist Portland Job, I can't apply to any economist jobs. Well, sure I can apply, but there's only so much bullshit I can stomach spewing. Which makes my 1st job during my 2nd stint in Portland that much more incongruous.

I arrived here in May assuming I'd be handed job offers once I crossed the city limits. For some reason, I'm always very cocky about getting a job even if my track record proves I get rejected far more often than I get an offer. Selective memory, I guess. My first time in Portland, it only took me a few weeks to get my first job, that was as a package handler for FedEx. It's also worth remembering the timing: I had gotten the job in November and FedEx needs a lot more help right before Christmas.

This time around, with a shiny new master degree in my pocket, I aimed higher than FedEx. Started by looking at community colleges for adjunct positions. Didn't think it was that high a hurdle past package handler, but I guess it was. One school told me enrollment was down and they probably wouldn't need me. Another just said I wasn't qualified.

With my first option out, I started shotgunning the resume to any job for which I felt remotely qualified (ie, bachelor degree, clean driving record, no drug convictions). No call backs. Hours spent in a Panera Cafe drinking bottomless coffee, tweaking resumes, stretching any experience I've ever had to make me sound qualified for a job (Horse whisperer? Shit, I've eaten horse. I've got this).

Yet, after sending dozens of resumes and cover letters, the only job that allowed me to talk to a human being was one which did not require anything but for its applicants to call. I quote:

Food Route / Route establishment CASH PAID DAILY!!!!

Sounded like something within my qualifications.

So continuing my series No Experience Unnecessary:

The phone interview for the Food Route posting wasn't particular strenuous. Two questions: 1) Do you have a driver's license? 2) Do you want full time work?

I guess I answered correctly for both because I was told to come in the next day at 8:45am. The guy on the phone did not offer a Q & A portion for this phone conversation and didn't seem to think it was necessary to mention what the job entailed or what the company did (or what it's name was, for that matter).

Next day, everything was revealed. I was delving into the world of door to door meat sales. No salary. No guaranteed hourly wage. No benefits or vacation or sick days. The skinny: I would drive around in a refrigerated meat truck with cases of steaks, chicken, pork, and seafood and try to sell as many of them as I could to anyone I could find. For the driver, the cases of meat cost $126 each. Any amount we sell it for over that cost is money in our pocket at the end of the day. Of course, the customer has no idea that it costs $126 for us. We carry brochures that say these cases cost $389 for steak, $270 for chicken, and $370 for seafood. A trick is to show the customer how much these cases cost retail, but say something like: "If you buy the steak case for $389, I'll throw in the chicken case for free. That's a $270 value." But again, each of these cases all cost the same: $126. So if a customer falls for that pitch, then the driver makes $389 for $252 worth of food. He takes home $137 for that sale alone. Allegedly, drivers averaged $100-300 a day doing this work.

The interviewer, Josh, also said there was no upfront cost (only after i asked, of course), but that's bullshit (imagine! a salesman lying? what has this world come to?). There wasn't any cost for me while I was training, but a regular driver had to pay a daily truck fee, something around $27 that covered insurance. Plus drivers had to pay for their own gas. So you definitely could owe money at the end of a day if you don't make a sale.

Since there was no risk while I was training, besides the waste of a day, I agreed to go on a ride with an experienced driver. They paired me with JJ, a 27 year old ex-con, recovering meth addict who'd been selling meat for 2 months. A big tattooed dude who wore a wife beater to work. Granted it was one of those nice wife beaters with the hemmed edges, but a wife beater none the less.

But he was a perfectly nice guy and bought me a soda and taught me the tricks of the trade. That is, after I helped him move out of a hotel room where he had been living and where he'd set up a makeshift tattoo parlor in the evenings. It was a pretty flexible job in that regard... meat selling that is, not tattooing without a license. Yes, you were expected to get there at 9AM and were expected to stay out and sell until 8PM with only Sundays off, but no one cared if you were knocking door to door or moving out of a hotel room without any home to move to next (I guess his brother was taking his belongings to a guy named Keith's house who really wanted JJ to live with him, but unfortunately, Keith would be kicked out of his own house in a month, so stability was not a strength of this new arrangement).

But once we did get on the road for meat sales, JJ broke down the job for me.

"Keep it simple," he said. "Knock on the door, introduce yourself and say, 'Hey, you like good steak, dontcha? Well, let me show you what I got.' Turn and burn. Don't let them ask questions, don't give them time to say no. Once they say they like steak, then turn and burn back to the truck and grab the steaks to show them."

JJ dropped many pearls of wisdom on me as we drove. Didn't see him sell much, but I was entertained and tried to remember everything he said. Much of the sales pitch was about how to lie best and make sure the customer thought this was a special one time deal just for him or her. Say something like you're doing deliveries and one of your deliveries canceled so you need to unload your truck and will sell the meat at cost. Tell them it's cheaper than shopping at CostCo (i don't think it actually is). If a customer says, "I don't have room in my freezer for all that meat," tell them you'll rearrange their freezer for them and if you can't fit the meat in, it's free.

According to JJ: "You gotta tell them anything that will get them to buy. One day, I told old ladies my wife was in labor but I couldn't see her until I emptied my truck. Ha! I'm not even married. I have a girlfriend, but she's in jail." Then he proceeded to show me her mugshot and since i was surprised to see her mugshot, I didn't know what I was supposed to say.

"Aww, she looks sad." No shit armin, she's in jail. Perhaps he wanted me to comment about how pretty she was (I'm a salesmen, I can lie), but then why would he show me her mugshot? Is that the only picture he has of her?

So from 11-6pm we spent the major bulk of the day looking for lower middle class neighborhoods to peddle our wares. We completely ignored "No Solicitation" signs and were run out of a mobile home park for that reason. But I could handle getting the door slammed in my face and the disgust and vitriol from the people I was harassing. What really bothered me was the 2nd to last house I visited. A ten year old girl answered the door.

"Hello, is a parent home?"
"Yeah, she's inside. Come in."

It freaked me out to be walking in someone's house, especially when it was the kid inviting me in, not the adult. I realize for a salesman, this is paydirt, being invited inside, because it's harder for a customer to say no to you once you're a guest (i was told I needed to position the customer between myself and the door, so it would be harder for them to push me out). I assumed the mom would be furious with this little girl, especially because the house looked ramshackle and disheveled. But the mom, Mary, was perfectly friendly as she was putting away laundry.

"Mary, you like good steaks, dontcha?" I asked.
"Sure, but ain't got no money."
"Well let me show you what I've got."

Turn and burn. JJ took over from that point, showing off the cuts. I was actually sort of giddy, thinking I'd actually hooked a sale. Mary, the ten year old girl and her four year old brother all gathered around the kitchen table as JJ pulled out Delmonico and sirloin and chopped beef. The little boy was extremely excited and kept asking us to bring out more cases.

But as much as Mary wanted to buy from us, she just didn't have any money. JJ realized it was a lost cause and I started packing away the food. But the little boy was so disappointed.

"Why are you putting the food away?"
"Well it's all frozen, so i need to put it back in the freezer so it doesn't melt."
"We have a freezer. You can put it in there."
"The truth is kid, your family is poor and can't afford our exorbitant prices. You're too poor for us to even gouge." I didn't actually say that, but that house made me feel so sleazy for trying to rip them off. It's all a frame of reference. This was easily the most dishonest and awful job I ever tried to do, but for a recovering meth addict and former drug dealer, this is an honest day's pay. If you get paid that is.

We eventually did sell one small box of steaks for $40, which meant we earned $9 on that sale. Since I had initiated that sale, I got to take home $4.50 for 9 hours of work. We had to call it an early day, ending at 6pm instead of 8pm because JJ had to visit his girlfriend in the slammer.

Though I didn't think I could last much longer in the job, I went back Monday morning because there was a sales meeting with all the drivers and, according to the white board on the office, Monday morning meetings involved something called the "Meat Wheel." I saw this Meat Wheel, which looked like any carnival spinning wheel, but with pie slices that said "Free Case of Meat," "$5," and "Whammy!" How could I not stick around for a meat wheel? But for some reason, they didn't spin the meat wheel, just spent the whole morning talking about sales pitches and how we had to beat the Eugene and Tacoma teams. Then I was introduced as a new driver in training and the manager Keith said, "Armin's done even harder work than sales. He went door to door for the Census." Like that gave me some sort of street cred with these recovering meth addicts.

Couldn't stay for a route that day, but told them I'd be back on Wednesday. However, I ended up getting another job before then, so never got to fulfill my full potential as a door to door meat salesmen.

Can I even include this as a job if I only did it for a day and a half? Well, I did earn $4.50 that first day of work, so it was a paying job. And I also got a free Monster Energy Drink from JJ, plus a bar of soap from the hotel where he was staying, so the job even had benefits. And I got to eat at a Jack in the Box, which I'd never done before, so it was certainly a job that offered new opportunities and personal growth.

taint pain

2011-07-09T13:48:00.000-07:00

My health care coverage ended at the start of June, meaning, of course, that I was due to contract something both fatal and financially devastating. So imagine my absolute joy when, instead of a debilitating virus, I was blessed with a tender lump behind my scrotum.

Finally, my third testicle is dropping! Today I am a man.

Before sending a Facebook invite for my bar mitzvah, a quick WebMD search revealed that the medical community is completely in agreement: two testicles is the norm.

Upon closer inspection, with the use of a hand mirror and some yoga contortions, I was shocked to see a zit on my taint. Actually, I was just shocked seeing that region of my body at all (which is more correctly called the perineum... it turns out "taint" is not the term listed in Grey's Anatomy). It's not an area I've explored before, and I'd be okay never having to look at it again. I don't want to run through that wicked garden.

What could I do? Does Proactiv make a taint specific formula? Even if I did have health care, how could I bring myself to visit a doctor about taint pain? I'm sure women love it, but I'm certainly too bashful to lean back in stirrups.

For about four days, I hid this misery from friends and loved ones. Getting in and out of vehicles was torture. I considered buying one of those blow up donut shaped pillows marketed to hemorrhoid suffers. But as comfortable as they look, they certainly aren't built for discretion. The toughest part about taint pain is that it's both excruciating and hilarious. It's hard for people to feel sympathy for you if your ailment is also ridiculously funny. I hid in the dark shadows of my taint.

I can now proudly say that my taint has been zit free for a month, I can ride a bicycle with impunity, and I'm just waiting for the next agonizing, embarrassing ailment to strike. Weepy nipples perhaps or receding pubic hair. It seems my body knows no limits to humiliating me.

No, i did not take pictures of it so don't ask.

DMV

2011-07-05T23:02:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned in the past, I'm pretty adept at small talk. I'm confident I know what questions will be on the social gathering mid term, if you know what i mean.

All adults should be prepared with concise, perhaps cute, or at least interesting, answers to the following, because the answer to these questions guide the rest of the conversation, or stop it dead, depending on what you say:

1. At a gathering for a mutual friend: "How do you know so and so?" (oddly, i've heard second hand from only one person that white people, but not black people, ask this question. Can anybody dispel or support this claim?)

2. "Where are you from?"

3. "What do you do?"

Case in point, for all my fellow MFA poets out there, while in school, when asked question 3, we'd obviously say something along the lines of, "I'm in grad school." Not necessarily poetic, but clear and to the point.

And, since most of us know how to engage in polite small talk, the obvious next question would be: "Oh, what are you studying?"

To which we'd reply, "Creative writing. Poetry specifically."

And then the conversation could proceed in three likely ways (at least for me... I can no longer speak for every single grad student studying poetry):

1) The conversation dies because this person has no interest in talking with a person who goes to grad school for poetry,
2) the person asks if I'm a fan of poets I either do not care for, or more likely, have never read, making me looking quite stupid considering I'm going to grad school for this,
or, the most likely, 3) the person asks, "So what do you want to do with that degree?"

Because education is invariably tied to occupation. You study something, not because you are just interested in it, but because you could possibly make a living wage based on the knowledge/skill you gain in the subject. Sure, we'd all agree accounts payable might be interesting enough for the average person to read about on Wikipedia, but it's unlikely you'd pursue a degree in it just for the orgasmic high of a balanced ledger.

(honesty alert: i had a hard time writing that last sentence because i didn't know who I'd offend with which career I'd choose to highlight. I know nothing about accounts payable and apologize to anyone who feels a real passion for it and would do it for free).

Anyway, while I was still in school, it was easy to shrug off this question with an insouciant blow off:

No, an MFA won't help me get a job necessarily. But, I'm an artist and I'm more concerned with feeding my art than myself.

But when the student loans stop coming in, you realize, shit, that wasn't quite truthful was it? I'm actually very concerned with feeding and drinking myself. I'd shoot my art in the throat for an Italian hero, post degree.

So yes, I still get that "What do you want to do with that degree?" question nowadays, especially as I'm still job hunting. But here's a question that took me more off guard, asked by an acquaintance with whom I've hung out many times:

"So... what are you qualified to do?"

Ummmm.... well, I guess all the things I was qualified to do before I got the MFA, except now I'd like a bit more money for it because I have to pay back student loans. Or actually, I might be a little less qualified nowadays because time has passed and I've forgotten things I used to know... but, yes, I'd still like to be paid at a Master level, please.

Among the many things for which a grad degree in poetry does NOT qualify me to do (along with neurosurgery, semi-pro lacrosse, and cosmetology) you can add "passing the Oregon State driver's knowledge test."

***

Whenever I move to a new place, there's about an eight day window of productivity for me. It's the time when I'm still fresh, still new, and willing to unpack and organize my room, meet neighbors, help the homeless, set up a new daily routine, and generally get settled and become part of my new community.

So enthusiastic and eager was I when I moved back to Portland last month, that on my second day in the city, I braved the DMV to get my license, title, and registration all switched over. I had two proofs of ID, three proofs of address, and my DNA sequence and blood type all handy and ready to go.

Everything seemed to be going way too easy. The lines were short, the forms were simple, and all my documents were sufficient, miraculously. I was being helped by an Asian dude who was all laid back and seemed to love being at the DMV. You could definitely see him being the smart ass, but lovable, partner in a buddy/cop movie, or the smart-ass, but lovable, roommate in a buddy/cop sitcom.

Then, as he was finishing up my title and registration, said, "Okay, my man. All you need to do now is take the Driver's Knowledge test and you can get your license."

I was not expecting that. "Ummm... so what happens if I fail?"

"Man! You gotta think positively!"

Well if this DMV fella I just met believes in me, I guess it can't be that hard, right? I mean, he doesn't seem too nervous about it. And, c'mon now, I had just driven across the entire country, and at least a third of the way, I was pretty much asleep. So I felt confident I knew the rules of the road.

Apparently not. After paying a $5 testing fee, I sat at a computer where I'm sure dozens of 16 year olds sat all day before me and had taken the same test and passed. So many questions, and so much uncertainty. Can a Class C license allow me to drive a fire truck? How far behind an intersection can i park? If I have a green light, but see a man with a cane at the corner, should I still go?

No practical real world questions for me to answer, like "How do you eat corn on the cob while changing lanes on the freeway," or "How do you give a douchebag the finger with your toes?"

I got a little more nervous with each wrong answer, but still that Asian DMV guy seemed completely unconcerned, so I assumed I'd done enough to pass. Right? Again, apparently not.

"Aww, you failed? What happened?" he asked when I came back to the counter with my failing score.

What happened?! You fucking gave me false confidence in myself. Thanks Asshole for the worst test prep coaching in history and taking my $5 testing fee without first perhaps suggesting, "hey you know people do fail this test, so maybe you should grab one of those free DMV manuals, read it over, and come back when you're ready."

It took me quite a while to finally pick up the DMV manual and read it through (it was past my 8 day window of productivity... same thing with finding a real bed, so it's likely I'll be sleeping on a mattress on the floor for the rest of my life in Portland), but I eventually read the whole thing. I returned to the DMV, and while still not perfect, received a good enough score to be granted driving privileges in the great state of Oregon. The same Asian dude was there again, but he had clearly forgotten me because he just sees $5 bills instead of people's faces.

So, even with the very pragmatic Master of Poetry degree in my pocket, there are still things to learn, including how to drive safely. Coincidentally, as I left the DMV, i actually saw a blind man crossing the street, but worry not friends. Thanks to my diligent study, I remembered to let up on the gas, apply the brake gently, and NOT hit the man. Now that's knowledge you can use in real life.

education

2011-06-24T04:01:00.000-07:00

My first memory of being absolutely wrong about everything in the world:

I was maybe four of five and had just learned how to add at day care.

Johnny has two apples, Alice has three... No problem.

Never again would I be caught slack jawed, blindly guessing at the total produce in the possession of friends and acquaintances. I had just acquired the gift of certainty.

As my dad was driving me home, I stared out the car window flush with the wondrous realization that I had pretty much learned everything I would ever be taught. Sure, I knew there were some things I'd learn later, like multiplication once I got to fourth grade, but other than that, I had pretty much learned the last thing I really needed in life.

Later that day, in the garage, i was dribbling a basketball since, remember, I'd accomplished all the education I'd ever need, so I deserved a little R & R. But my dad came in and told me I was doing it wrong. I was slapping at the ball with my palm instead of pushing it lightly with my fingers. As I tried it his way, it dawned on me that, perhaps, there really was more to learn past pre-school.

Twenty five years later, I went to grad school because I believed there was more to learn past pre-school and high school and college. And if I learned anything during my MFA, it was how much I still need to learn regardless of what degrees i accumulate. Also, my dribbling is no better than when my dad first taught me. That's probably not gonna get any better, even if I seek a PhD.

well...

2011-06-24T01:38:00.000-07:00

... those last two years were pretty uneventful, huh? i mean, perhaps something happened at some point between Oct 2009 and now, but certainly nothing worth blogging about.

But I've got a good feeling about the latter half of 2011. It's ripe for bloggable moments. You know the old saying: "Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky at morning, Armin starts blogging." So on with the show, without further explanation or apology for the extended absence...

Not buying it, huh? Do I really think I can disappear for two years and expect people to add me to their Bookmarks just because i felt like coming back? Dude, there's something called Twitter now that makes blogs look like Troglodytes. Who even has time to read full sentences with punctuation? (#straightupcretaceous)

Fair enough. There's no reason anyone should tune in, especially since I allowed this site to be overrun with comments by online pharmacists and purveyors of donkey porn. That's offensive to both real pharmacists who spend many years earning the right to peddle Cialis legally and to anyone who's nauseated by donkey porn (which, between the two categories, would encompass my entire readership, I hope).

And worst of all, it's not even like there's anything interesting going on in my life at this very moment that warrants blogging. Actually, the opposite is true: because I have absolutely nothing going for me at the present (out of school and unemployed) I have oodles of time to blog. My only other mental exertion is the word jumble i tackle while eating oatmeal each morning. My mind is atrophying rapidly and while I'm not a full blown vegetable yet (think summer squash, because it's delicious), my mental capacity can be gauged someplace between an incredibly precocious avocado and a decorative koi trained to respond to a dinner bell.

So, apologies to anyone who has periodically checked this site over the past two years, only to be disappointed by my complete negligence. And apologies in advance for the next time I bail out. At least by then, blogs will be as ancient as papyrus scrolls and Apple will have unveiled a new device that projects youtube videos directly to your soul. #welcomeback.

so sick

2009-10-05T19:31:00.001-07:00

This is disturbing.

Every night I come home to my apartment and open the kitchen trash can.

Let me explain:

I moved into my Newark apartment a month ago. My roommates are perfectly pleasant and conscientious of common spaces (mostly because one seems to never leave his room and the other seems to never leave Manhattan), but if they have a vice, it would be their selective blindness toward a garbage can that has met capacity. Since neither cooks, they don't produce much garbage and probably aren't used to taking the trash out more regularly than the changing of the seasons.

One day, the garbage was full and my roommate, Dmitry, instead of taking the trash out, left the bag from his take-out dinner on the floor next to the trash can.

I am as curious as a kitten born into a world of yarn balls and crippled mice.

Naturally, as I assume everyone would do, I untied the plastic "Thank you for shopping" bag and peeled it back to reveal a paper bag within whose mouth I uncurled as quietly as possible (Dmitry's room is not far from the kitchen and the sound of my foraging). Inside was a styrofoam container which I placed on the counter. I pushed the tabs in and the lid popped open like the hood of a car.

My knees buckled. I suppressed a gasp.

Uneaten french fries! Dozens of them! And uneaten chicken skin! Sheets of the stuff: flabby, cold, salty, and tempting me with its calories.

I love chicken skin.

Armin the Kitten now learns that the yarn balls of his world are laced with catnip and the crippled mice have tiny bluefin tuna swimming in their bloodstream.

I stole away with my treasure so i could enjoy it privately in my room.

Ever since that day, I open the trash can hoping for the same luck. If i find what I'm looking for, I pull the styrofoam carton out, but put the paper bag back into the plastic bag and puff it out a bit before tying the whole thing shut so that it looks untouched and full. I'm well aware of the risk of my behavior. Not disease-wise. The risk that Dmitry will walk in on me with my hands in the garbage and my feet too giddy to keep still. it's as if a part of me wants to get caught with a mouthful of salty, cold fries in my mouth.

Also disturbing is the fact that I'm not even doing this out of hunger. Usually I'm coming back from my mom or sister's place having just had dinner and carrying leftovers for the week. And, if I really wanted half a chicken and french fries, I could walk four blocks down the road and buy my very own sytrofoam carton of it, hot, for $4.50 and tax. I have a sickness.

Last weekend, I took Dmitry out for dinner to celebrate his earning a PhD in math. He loves discussing all varieties of controversial topics and somehow the discussion strayed to gun ownership.

"A person has the right to stop a crime occuring against him on his property, even if that means using a gun," he said.

"Even if it's a non violent crime?" I ask.

"Yes. If a man is in your house carrying your TV away, how can he hurt you? His hands are tied holding your TV. But you have the right to shoot him to stop him."

"What if someone is on your property rummaging through your trash to steal your identity?"

"I believe as the law is written, the garbage is still your property until it is picked up by the sanitation department. So yes, that's a crime on your property and you should have the right to shoot him."

I paused. How much does he know? Are a couple handfuls of fries and chicken skin (and sometimes meat stuck to cartillage) worth getting shot?

I still peeked into the garbage last night, so I think we know my answer.

post racial?

2009-09-20T12:52:00.000-07:00

I recently took a trip to my local CVS to find an anniversary card to send to my girlfriend. I sifted through the displays, but unfortunately, most cards are now of the talking variety and while I love those weird green and purple creatures with the high voices that star in most of the Hallmark cards, they're not always the most appropriate for every occasion.

I live in a neighborhood heavily populated by Portuguese and Spanish speaking people, so there was a large selection of cards in Spanish. I don't think it was prejudiced of me to ignore that section. I wanted to pick a card I could read. However, my prejudice did become harder to defend when I got to the Mahogany section of the Hallmark brand. I found a card that showed a happy young black couple dancing. Jenny and I have gone dancing and enjoyed it. The couple seemed to be in our age range. There was nothing on the card that made it seem exclusive to a religion, culture, or way of life. It was just a happy, young black couple dancing with a background of jazzy colors. It seemed appropriate enough.

And, yet, I just couldn't picture sending it to her. There's no guarantee that if I saw a white version of this card, I'd be more inclined to get it. However, I'm sure that because they were black I was immediately less inclined.

I remember as a kid my mom and I went shopping to buy a birthday gift for my baby cousin. I watched a lot of TV back then and knew all the toys from the commercials. I was pointing out different dolls to my mom (this one can eat and afterward you can clean the poop out of its diaper; this one can suck its thumb and sing the chorus of "Hey Hey, We're the Monkees") and I pointed out a new doll that was all the rage. I don't remember what made it special. Maybe it got good gas mileage and doubled as an espresso machine. Anyway, my mom was appalled I'd even suggest it because the only one left at KMart was the black version.

At the time I could distinguish between race, but I just didn't see why it was a big deal, especially since we're not even white. It's not like Mattel makes a little Filipino doll that sells Chicklets on the street corner and rolls lumpia for holidays*.

*As a complete aside, does anyone else find it odd that the only picture I could find of children rolling lumpia turns out to be a picture of black kids?

Anyway, I guess as you grow older, you notice differences more. I ended up getting one of those cards that shows two little kids pretending to be adults. You know, the kind that has the four year old boy dressed in a suit and the girl gives him a kiss before he takes the train. Isn't a card that implies toddlers engaged in adult behavior and forced to grow up too fast much more disturbing than a card showing adult black people dancing?

I guess I know the answer based on my choice.

worth sharing today

2009-09-12T16:32:00.000-07:00

Here's a poem worth sharing today from one of my favorite writers, X.J. Kennedy.

"September Twelfth, 2001"

Maybe it's even more important to reflect today that it was yesterday.

everybody plays the fool, concluded

2009-09-07T10:09:00.001-07:00

On April Fools Day of 2008 I wrote a post called Everybody Plays a Fool detailing a couple humiliating moments in my life and promised that a third "Armin Plays the Fool" story was soon to come. I assumed everyone would start salivating for this last embarrassing story, like the third secret of Fatima.

But no one seemed very interested, though I was under the impression that "Armin makes an ass out of himself" stories were the bread and butter of this blog.

So here it is, whether anyone cares anymore:

3. I shat my pants.

Is that the proper conjugation of the verb? I shitted my pants? I had shit my pants?

Regardless, the take home point: I lost control of my bowels while still wearing Dockers. Not when I was six. Not when I was ten. Well, actually, I probably did shat/shit/had shit my pants at those ages, but the the story I'm recounting took place when I was twenty four.

I was working as a teacher's assistant at a high school and, as a side gig, I went to the house of a special needs kid in the morning before school started to help him with his hygiene routine. I was supposed to make sure he showered, combed his hair, shaved, and found clean clothes to wear. For some reason, they picked me for this job even though I could use my own minimum wage earning teacher's assistant to help me with all of these things, too.

At the time, I was not a regular coffee drinker, but some mornings were so rough, I needed to stop at Dunkin Donuts before I got to his place at 6:15 AM. This morning, I left his place after drinking a large coffee (probably recuperating from a week day night out, which most likely also aided in my gastric turmoil). Halfway to school and stuck in greater metro boston traffic, I realized I was in serious trouble. My intestines were reenacting the French Revolution.

Worse yet, I got a call from my boss saying a potential new student was visiting. I had just been promoted to lead teacher of my own classroom for the coming school year and a parent was bringing in her son to see if I would be the right teacher for him. You know, the kind of teacher that is caring, attentive, in control of his bowels...

After thirty minutes of agony, a wave of hope flooded me when I got past the traffic, turned into the school parking lot, and began the penguin waddle to the restroom, trying to walk with haste, but keep my butt cheeks clenched simultaneously.

The high school where I worked was like a college campus, comprised of a bunch of separate buildings instead of one large building. The building containing my classroom had a restroom, but I didn't want to risk the students seeing me, so I headed to the cafeteria instead.

I was in the faculty bathroom (private, thankfully), had just enough time to lock the door, pull down my pants, but was a second too late. Disaster. Do you remember that swimmer in the Beijing Olympics who lost to Michael Phelps by a millionth of a second? I know exactly how he feels. I was that close to surviving this ordeal with my pride intact.

The excitement over, I sat in the bathroom pondering my choices. I called my boss and lied saying I had a flat tire. I don't condone lying to a supervisor, but even Jesus and Abe Lincoln would have had a hard time fessing up at that moment. Since the students walked between the classroom and cafeteria, I was terrified that a student already saw me on campus. The next day, one girl said she did see me, but it was easy to convince her otherwise because she's retarded. I don't mean that as an insult at all. She's mentally retarded and it's easy to convince her she didn't see me even though she really did see me walk the horrible walk of shame from the bathroom to my car.

Here's a bonus: that same year, I was living with three other people in a one bathroom apartment. One morning after drinking too much, there was someone in the bathroom and without another option, I took a shit in a Hefty garbage bag in my room, then left that garbage bag on the street because I didn't know what else to do with it.

I don't deserve to be part of the civilized world and I atone for all my sins. But, as a warning, if we're driving in your car and I say I need a bathroom, I'm not just trying to make small talk. You best be finding the nearest rest stop or Arbie's.

worst decision of my life

2009-08-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

I just joined Facebook. I'm not sure how civilization is still functional with FB (as the cool kids call it) in existence. The response time from people's messages are staggeringly fast which leads me to believe that humans who once spent their time working, feeding, and expelling waste, have forsaken all those basic activities for Facebook time. Remarkable.

I know you all told me this already, but I'm still shocked that there's a whole little world in Facebook of which I've been completely ignorant. People I knew in person, people I thought I knew at least, have had these Facebook lives, of which I had no knowledge. Some of my closest friends have had personal goals and aspirations I was unaware of, such as achieving high scores on Bejeweled Blitz.

You think you know someone, right? Then it turns out they're the world's greatest Bejeweled Blitzer or Mafia Warrior and you question whether your entire relationship has been hollow because you were only "face to face" friends who saw each other in person, not Facebook friends who can be in contact 24hrs a day.

Another freaky thing: seeing that two girls you once dates are now friends independently of you and post on each other's Facebook Walls. I have been blind and now, by joining Facebook, the scales have been removed from my eyes and I am sure to fail my first semester of school because I need to update my wall with breaking news such as "I ate a hard boiled egg."

the next episode

2009-08-29T08:42:00.000-07:00

I spent three days of driving with my car seat more upright than comfortable in order to fit everything I own into the back seat. Made it from Portland, OR to New Jersey and now it's time to move on. I think back to the other times I've moved to a new city, but the hard part about those moments you want most to record and preserve for posterity is that they are the moments when you have the least free time to sit and write about them.

I left Baltimore in 2004 after living there only a year. But almost everyone I knew was leaving town, too, so it wasn't too hard to say goodbye. I remember my last day I had picked up a U Haul to help my roommate Mandy move her stuff, then I went to Taco Bell with my friends Tim and Kim. I was younger then, so I was more excited than sad. I was sure I'd see everyone again. Five years later and I realize I haven't seen Kim since 2005 or 2006.

I left Boston in 2007 after three years. My last day, I walked around my apartment with my friend Robbie. He was sticking around for a few more months, but a lot of the people I knew had already left or were in the process of leaving. maybe that made it easier for me to leave. Or maybe I was just burnt out from work and failed relationships and was ready for something new. I don't remember crying. Even though I still knew a lot of people in the city and felt very established there, it felt like the right time to move on.

I left Portland, OR in 2009 after almost two years. The night before I left, my friends threw me a going away party. We made dioramas out of shoe boxes, watched Bloodsport, then went to a bar I frequented often to drink absinthe for the first time. The next day I packed up my stuff and said goodbye. There was a lot of crying this time for me. Part of it was because maybe I wasn't ready to leave this time, like my time in Portland hadn't run its full course. Or perhaps I'm just getting older and the lack of stability in my life is now catching up to me, making me feel lost and tired.

Now I'm back on my native soil, in my new apartment in Newark where my roommates seem nice but keep their doors closed all the time and do not seem like the type who want to have impromptu ukulele jam sessions. That's okay. As Nate Dogg says, "hope you're ready for the next episode."

breaking news, added a half hour after original post:

I just took my first shower in my new apartment and found out my roommate also uses Selson Blue shampoo! I'm gonna be okay after all.

summer jams

2009-08-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

It doesn't matter how expensive gas becomes because people will still drive cars. There's few experiences more relaxing than driving a car at night in the summer, windows rolled down, without any real destination or estimated time of arrival. It makes you remember a time when you could say, "Give me $5 of regular," and that would last the week.

Summer lends itself to long drives and big changes (everyone i know seems to move away in the summer) so it's understandable that the songs playing during the summer are more memorable. Here's a list of the songs that dominate the last ten summers for me.

1999: Break Stuff - Limp Bizkit

This isn't a year any of us should be proud of us. Sure, you can blame the music industry, but really it's our fault that Ricky Martin became so big. I'm not proud of the songs I was humming back then, especially this one.

2000: Gnome Enthusiast - Clutch

I can't really remember which earworm had infected me that summer, I had gotten the Clutch album, Jam Room, from my sister that year. Usually I hate when a metal band goes soft, but Clutch just gets better and better each year.

2001: Whenever, Wherever - Shakira

It was easy to think after first seeing this video that Shakira was not a human being at all, but a family of highly intelligent, well trained snakes taught to move in synchronization.

2002: Complicated - Avril Lavigne

She was almost 18 when this video came out, so that made it a little less creepy that I stayed up until 3am hoping it would play on MTV during this summer.

2003: Remix to Ignition - R. Kelly

Can you separate the love of an artist's work from the artist as a person? Roman Polanski fans have asked themselves the same question for years. You don't have to like R. Kelly as a person. That doesn't change the fact that this song is incredible.

2004: Tipsy - J-Kwon

Many of you would have guessed that this summer would have been dominated by Outkast's "Hey Ya!" But, that song had been in such heavy rotation throughout the winter that by the summer of 2004, it was time for another hit jam. And, I'm just a sucker for songs that involve counting. It keeps my math skills sharp.

2005: Mr. Brightside - The Killers

This was a tough year to decide. I really don't remember a song that stuck out from that summer. But I do remember this Killer's song stuck in my head a lot, especially because of its delightful tongue in cheek rhyme scheme

Now I'm falling asleep
And she's calling a cab
While he's having a smoke
And she's taking a drag
Now they're going to bed
And my stomach is sick
And it's all in my head
But she's touching his... chest?

They got you! They got you good!

But anyone can call me out and say that I was singing Kelly Clarkson's "Since You've Been Gone" much more.

2006: Stars are Blind: Paris Hilton

Make any joke you want. Doesn't matter how untalented you think Paris is. She's smart. She got someone to write her a song that sounds just like The Tide is High by Blondie with the same catchy, upstroke, reggae guitar rhythms that made ska so popular in the 90's.

2007: Beautiful Girls - Sean Kingston

The first song I learned on the ukulele.

2008: Bubbly - Colbie Callait

I don't remember many songs from this year and that's not surprising because I didn't have a car that summer. Despite the lack of competition, it's a cute, vapid song which is perfect for summer time.

2009: The Fixer - Pearl Jam

Here's a surprise. I'm not a big Pearl Jam fan, but I do love elongated vowels. Just ask the Big Bopper.

be honest...

2009-08-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

...do I look more like Wolverine or Bram Stoker's Dracula?

no experience unnecessary: caretaker for morbidly obese man

2009-08-05T01:52:00.000-07:00

It's 2am, August 5th, and I've finished my last day with Northwest Airlines. It went okay--I fucked up a bit by switching someone's seat accidentally--but, no real harm done. How many of us, like Rocky Marciano, can retire perfect? Nineteen months with the job and I think I did well enough, all in all. There have been jobs where I've really just divebombed, and this wasn't one of them.

When I saw the last flight I would ever work leave down the runway, I pumped my fist in the air, gave everyone a goodbye hug, and put a Century 21 For Rent sign on my locker. Another chapter complete.

By month's end, I'll be back in JerZ and searching through Craigslist Jobs once again. I'm not the most confident person. I don't have faith in my ability to pick up girls at a bar or my jump shot, but for some reason, I have the utmost confidence that I can do any job in the world.

Oooh! Shoe Cobbler wanted! I'd be perfect for that!
Make Up Artist for Pornos! Just hand me the tweezers!

Don't get me wrong. I've been turned down for plenty of jobs, even jobs for which I felt well qualified. Doesn't matter. I'll be searching online for a new gig to pad my stats. So far, my resume looks something like this:

Dishwasher for a Nursing Home
Food Critic for Local Paper
Karate Instructor
Waiter at Indian Restaurant
2000 US Census Taker/Crew Chief
Lab Technician
Garden Coordinator
Transcriptionist
Freelance Journalist
Program Coordinator for Deaf/Blind Youth Interest Group
Caretaker for Morbidly Obese Man
Tutor
Mad Science (TM) Instructor
Camp In Instructor at Science Museum
Job Coach/Teacher's Assistant
Special Education High School Teacher
Package Handler for FedEx (TM)
Japanese Cook
Customer Service Agent for Airlines

A few months ago, I was at work on my computer and my coworker asked me what I was doing.

"Just updating my resume. You know how that is," I said. I probably threw in some generic "with this job market, you never know" kind of joke, ha ha ha, wink wink. This was before I had made it public that I was leaving Northwest Airlines.

"No, actually, I don't. I've never written a resume," she said. She's been in the job 30-40 years. That's longer than my life span.

Some people stick with a company their whole lives. They know everything about their job. Their coworkers throw them huge 25th anniversary parties. They make friends and feel secure.

Then, there's me. I don't even know the names of all of my coworkers. That's sad. I'm never around long enough to really get good at anything, to really make an impact. I get restless and I move on.

But, if anything, I get good at interviews and I gather a list of experiences that will serve me in some positive way, I hope. If nothing else, I get a funny story out of it.

Which brings me to the actual point of this blog. I'll try to write what i can rememeber about each of my previous jobs in an ongoing series called No Experience Unnecessary. Hopefully, they will not all be as long as this one.

******

Caretaker for Morbidly Obese Man

Soon after graduating college, I moved from JerZ to Baltimore, MD. But my job there as an AmeriCorps volunteer was only a one year contract. I had broken up with my girlfriend who lived in nearby Delaware and all my friends in Baltimore were also AmeriCorps volunteers for one year and were all dispersing. So I had no reason to stick around and began figuring out where to move next. A very long list was shortened to Boston, Alaska, and Key West.

My friends, Ross and Adam, both AmeriCorps volunteers, were planning on doing a second year of service in Boston and were trying to recruit others in our Baltimore clique to come along. I was hesitant because I moved out of New Jersey because I didn't like the cold. I'm no cartographer, but even then I knew that Boston was north of NJ and therefore even colder.

For a while, I was fascinated with the idea of moving to Alaska and working on a fishing boat. I know what you're going to say: Armin, Alaska gets cold occasionally, too. Alaska just sounds so badass, so the cold would have been a cool thing to suffer through, not like the prissy, yuppie cold of Boston where I had to wear my Uggs every day and hope they wouldn't get salted on too much.

This was before the Discovery Channel show, Deadliest Catch, came out, so I was pretty naieve about how difficult it would have been to work in the Arctic Ocean. Again, I have an unwavering confidence in my ability to do any work, that is, until I actually have to do it. It's more a matter of having an active imagination. I can picture myself enjoying any job.

I had believed all those rumors about jobs in Alaska, how they were just dying to find people to work and would pay them a shit load, and how you could work for six months and take the next six months off because you could make that much money in that short amount of time.

Well, it turns out much of that wasn't true. I went so far as to call a charter boat owner who ran trips for tourists to catch salmon. But, there weren't any jobs for me, which is probably a very good thing because otherwise, I would have been decapitated by broken cable on the first episode of Deadliest Catch.

I was really hoping to move to Key West, Florida. I had visited a friend in Ft. Lauderdale earlier that year and we drove down there for a night. I had this incredible feeling of excitement the whole time. I hooked up with a 40 year old narcotics officer named Karen in a club while dancing to Jessie's Girl, watched the sunset on Mallory Square, and ate conch and key lime pie. It was a great time. Add the fact that Hemingway did a lot of writing down there and it was a great fit for me. I pictured myself working, writing on the side, then fishing and frying up my catch for dinner. I pictured rum drinks in coconuts and never having to wear anything more formal than a beater. It was an idyllic reverie.

I had applied for a position on Craigslist seeking a live in assistant for a woman with Alzheimer's in the Keys. The job didn't pay much, but rent was free and i would have had every other week off. I didn't hear back for a long time and eventually, I was tired of waiting and agreed to move to Boston.

No more than a week after making my decision, I got a call from the daughter of the Alzheimer's woman asking me if I was still available. I haven't thought about this in a long time, but I wonder what would have happened had I moved to the Keys instead of Massachusetts. I probably would have taken up the ukulele and started dreading my hair. There's no future in that.

So when I moved to Boston, I secured a job as a caretaker for a morbidly obese man, Johnny. He was about 400lbs and had lost a leg to diabetes. He needed help with daily living tasks including hygiene. He asked me over the phone if I had any issues with sponge baths. Of course not, I thought. I can do anything. He also told me he was gay and asked me if I had a problem with that. Of course not, I thought. I've seen the movie Birdcage.

My responsibilites were driving Johnny to McDonald's for breakfast, wiping his ass when he took a shit, sponge bathing him, making sure to scrub hard in all the nooks and crannies and being careful not the pull at the catheter when I wiped down and powdered his nether regions, spreading testosterone cream all over his acne ridden back, and helping him put on his prosthetic leg so he could do his daily exercise of two laps up and down the hallway.

We took trips to KMart and he would carry a gun in his waistband of his fat man sweats as I pushed him in a wheelchair. He said he used to be a detective and was just in the habit of carrying it. You know, like how contruction workers forget to take off their hard hats in the shower. Just habit.

Also, Johnny told me a friend of his would come over and let Johnny "do things" to him, then would hit him up for money or take his social security check. Thankfully I wasn't around when this was happening, but i did meet the slimeball. He had very creepy eyes and didn't smile at me.

I lasted two weeks in the job. And to be honest, I didn't quit because I was grossed out or because he told me he wanted to marry me after I cooked him pasta one afternoon. I had just realized that in two weeks, I learned everything I was really going to learn from that job. I could picture myself bathing him every day and I wasn't disgusted by the thought of it, just bored. I lied to him and told him I needed to find a new job that provided health insurance.

I thought he would tell me interesting stories about his life as a PI that I could steal for my own fiction. But he was actually pretty boring. When I wasn't scrubbing, powdering, or medicating some region of his body, I was doing the most boring tasks like helping him rearrange his clutter or taking him to the store for lightbulbs. Another issue for me was knowing that I wasn't really helping him get better. Maybe if I thought I was going to save him and he was going to lose two hundred pounds with my support and discipline, I would have felt that I was accomplishing something. But, really I was just helping him survive until mercy allowed him to die. Driving him to McDonald's every morning made me feel like i was Kavorkian.

Also the only thing to drink in his house was Shasta which I find disgusting. You would think that my brief time with Johnny would have warned me to live a healthier lifestyle, but here I am staying up till dawn writing, drinking PBR and eating Last Call Jalpeno Poppers flavored Doritos. Maybe I should start looking for my own care taker now. One who knows how to be gentle but firm when cleaning a testicle.

cars

2009-08-03T03:09:00.000-07:00

Are you in control of your own life? There are some in this world, who like ancient Norseman, use a combination of their genius, muscle, and sheer will to navigate this hostile world to progress in a direction that they predestined for themselves. Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Kelly Clarkson, those two dogs and cat in the Incredible Journey... just to name a few.

Then, there's me, less a Nordic explorer and more the blob of blue-green algae the Noresman floated over as they sought their destinies. My movement through this world is dictated by currents, tides, and El Nino. If you are a gelatinous mass of algae like me, you tend to attribute and blame all things on luck and the randomness of the universe, because you aren't willing to grow a method of locomotion for yourself.

To be fair, I've had plenty of good luck. While people lament the unemployment rate, I've never had an issue finding a job, even if it meant loading boxes at 3am or burning myself making tamagoyaki. But, when your accustomed to drifting about and not taking the measures necessary to control the factors of your life, you're going to run into some bad luck every now and then. For me, it always comes in the form of a car.

I bought my first car in 2001. It was a Chevy Corsica that cost me $2000. I didn't need a car at the time. I was a junior in college and had no reason to leave campus. If you have ever seen Trenton, NJ, you'd agree. But, I wanted a car because the second Rob Zombie album was coming out and no one could drive me to the music store. A friend of mine eventually gave me a ride to the local record shop, and even though the album sucked, it was a realization of how trapped I was without a car. I enlisted my dad's help, he did some research, and found me a car in southern Maryland which he drove down to get for me.

I don't think any single purchase in my life has made me more excited than that Corsica. At the time, I was wooing a girl named Melissa who lived off campus in a condo in Yardley, PA. The first night I had the car, I decided to surprise her by showing up at her place and taking her out on a date. Of course, blue green algae that I am, I didn't find out what apartment number she was, and since this story predates my having a cell phone, I had no option but to frighten a woman in the condo complex as she was entering her home and beg her to use her phone because I was "trying to impress a girl." As if a Chevy Corsica has ever impressed a girl. Still, I was thrilled with the car.

The car accompanied me the first time I ever moved, taking me and all my belongings to Baltimore, MD, then a year later, to Boston, MA. In 2004, my relationship with the Corsica had soured. I had been rear ended that winter by a woman driving an SUV much too large for her to control in Massachusetts sn0w. Being a nice guy, I took down her info, but didn't worry about getting my car fixed since the only damage sustained was the parking light. Big deal.

December 23rd of that winter, I was back in NJ driving late at night when a policewoman pulled me over for my broken light. I showed her my registration expecting a warning. Much to my surprise, my registration had been suspended. The car was still registered in Maryland and before I moved to Boston, I received a notice saying i needed to take the car in for emissions testing at around fifty bucks. Like the gingerbread man, I thought they'd never catch me. Stupid.

My car was towed around 11pm and I walked eight miles home. The policewoman was very nice and asked me if there was anyone who could pick me up. "No," i said, brusquely even though there were plenty of people I could have called. I just wanted her to feel guilty for impounding my car because I was too stupid to get a fifty dollar emissions test completed.

After much money, a court appearance, and then more money, I eventually got the car back. In the springtime of 2005, though, there was no pressure left in the brakes and I was too fed up with the car to deal with it anymore. I abandoned it at work, hoping I could walk away from it. Non profit organizations didn't even feel it was worth the tow. I ended up selling it to some shady Russians for $200. Could I have spent $10 bucks on brake fluid so I could get it to a mechanic to see how much a repair would cost? Probably. But once I'm frustrated about something, it's all over. There is no reasoning left in my brain. If I were a parent, I would abandon my child the first time he refused to eat broccoli.

My second car was a '99 Ford Escort. Unlike my first car shopping experience, a car was now a real necessity for me and no one was helping me find a car, save my roommate Mandy who drove me from dealership to dealership. After three days of very rushed car shopping, I found my new whip, which, in the end, was destined to be an even more painful experience than the Corsica.

At the dealership, a college aged girl and her father were looking at it before me. I was hovering like a scavenger bird, hoping they'd leave the baby blue carcass of this car for me to swoop upon. The girl walked around it once and immediately moved on to a cute, red Jetta. Her dad said to me, "She doesn't like it because of the graffiti."

He pointed out that the passenger side had been keyed with the words "F U Luis." Without punctuation, it wasn't clear whether the previous owner of the car was named Luis or whether the vandal was Luis, as in

"F U.

Love,

Luis."

Regardless, my heart started beating faster. This was my dream car, but I had to play it cool. It was time to haggle. Even though Lady Gaga was still three years from stardom, I was channeling her poker face.

"How much for this here automobile, Mr. Car Dealer?"
Not even bothering to take the cigarette out of his mouth he said, "Three thousand five hundred."
"How about $2500?"
"Nope."
"That's fine. Three thousand five hundred sounds very fair for a great car like this."

So after paying for the car with a horrible financing deal and a warranty I did not need, I was back on the road. The Escort lasted from 2005 until 2008 when, in Portland, OR, it just refused to start anymore, despite multiple battery and connection changes. I donated it to a non profit who promised me it would be fixed up and donated to a family who would really benefit from it. But, during tax season when I tried to determine how much I could deduct for it, I found out that it sat in a lot all winter covered by the unusually heavy snow of 2008, affectionately called Snowpocalypse by the wusses here in Portland. The Escort would not become anything more than scrap metal. A sad way to end for a car that was loyal. It's like how your aging golden retriever inevitably becomes dinner that one day that you are too lazy to walk to 7Eleven to buy taquitos. I know you've all been there.

Some of the worst horrors I suffered with this car were alreay documented in a previous blog post. However, I think the saddest moment happened right after I moved from Boston. It was june of 2007 and I was cleaning the classroom where I had taught high school special education for two years. In the refrigerator was an open gallon of whole milk we used for cooking class. I put it in my trunk and locked my classroom for the last time.

Let me first explain to you that I am lactose intolerant. I am not good company if I've had dairy. Moreover, I don't even like the taste of a glass of milk, so I'm not entirely sure why I saved the gallon of milk except for the fact that I hate wasting food. I drove back to my apartment and found the milk had spilled in my trunk. I dried it up the best I could, which of course means, not very well at all.

The next day temperature was in the nineties. The day after that was also in the nineties. I do not have a good sense of smell, but knew there was something wrong by the third day. I opened the trunk and removed the carpeting to find the milk had seeped all the way into the spare tire well.

I was a chemistry major in college and though I've forgotten most of everything I learned for that BS, I do know that the matter cannot be created or destroyed and that spilling milk is not a chemical reaction. Therefore, there's really no excuse for my not realizing that a few paper towels probably did not soak up one gallon of milk.

There were grey curds rotting in my spare tire well and the stench infused my back seat upholstry as well. I tried a variety of home remedies:vinegar, sprinkled baking soda (which turned brown sitting in my back seat), orange and lemon wedges. Unfortunately, all that accomplished was making my car smell like vinegar, citrus fruits, and rotten milk. It was never the same.

After the Escort was towed away, I took a break from car ownership as a jilted lover will take a break from dating. It was the era of a New Armin, one who was so Portland, he didn't even need a car. Between March 2008 and May 2009 i relied on my feet, my Trek, and Trimet public transportation to get me everywhere. In the end, I realized none of my shoes are comfortable, I don't like biking nearly as much as you'd expect for someone who biked cross country, and that I'm that jerk east coaster who doesn't want to talk to strangers on the bus.

However, I probably would have gone on without a car, because blue green algae doesn't often try to change the course they are on. My mom stepped in though, and with $7000 worth of help from her, I returned to the trusted GM company for a Chevy Aveo. Some of its more impressive features include an AM/FM radio (no CD player or tape deck), manual roll down windows so you can get a little forearm workout into your daily commute, and enough horsepower to make the girls' panties melt off. How much horsepower is necessary to reach the melting point of panties, you ask? I already told you that I've forgotten most of my chemistry.

So welcome Chevy Aveo, 2009-?. You can start placing bets for how long it'll take me before I'm stranded in Wyoming again. Here's a picture of me posing with it in the most effeminate way possible. It reminds me of the cephalothorax of some crustacean. Or a big, blue choad.

Guest Blog: Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies

2009-07-09T10:26:00.000-07:00

Preface

Firstly, I hate Fleetwood Mac. Not to the level that I hate Journey, but still I cringe any time I hear "You Make Loving Fun," "Don't Stop," or the song mentioned in the following guest blog.

I like "Landslide." But, I'd like it a lot more if it were sung by Karen Carpenter or Phil Anselmo.

Secondly, I sleep a lot. Enough that I am occasionally mistaken for a house cat. Enough that coma victims need Lunesta to hang with me. And if there's a long gap in between my posts, assume that I'm doing something more entertaining than blogging during my few precious waking hours. Trust me, if my only choices were blogging or ironing, you'd get new blogposts from me more often than you get Tweets from Chad Ochocinco.

I'm out there in the world taking Rhianna's advice. No, not her dating advice. Her advice when she told me to "Live my Life, ay ay ay ay ay ay." And during some slow point in the future, perhaps when imprisoned or crippled, I will distill these moments into tidy blog bites for you to read when you are supposed to be working.

Here's a recent six day trip I took to Tokyo, distilled into a cinquain*

"Are you
sure about that
7Eleven brand
sushi?" - "Shit, it's still safer than
hot dogs."

*Armin, why wouldn't you describe Tokyo in the obvious form of the haiku instead of a cinquain? Because 7Eleven burns too many syllables right off the bat and I'm poor at paring down my words. That's why I'm going back to school.

Last thing, never click on my links. They add nothing to the blog and are just an opportunity for me to push my radical viewpoints and promote things I like that I know none of you like. Ooh look, a gila monster! Without further ado, here's the guest blog:

*********

As always, there is a certain wisdom to Fleetwood Mac. Seriously. Think about it. I know some of you think thunder happens at times other than when it rains, but you're wrong. And yes ladies, players only love you when they're playing. Just ask Armin.

Even more important than the link between a static electricity induced atmospheric sonic boom and liquid precipitation is this little nugget: all of us want to hear lies. Yes, sweet little lies. And for the life of me, I never wanted to be a part of this behavior, but the older I get the more a part of it I am. I am not immune.

Of course, no one thinks they want to lie or be lied to. Most of us even choose to lie to ourselves. No one wants full honesty all of the time- even me, though I often claim I do.

Sometimes it is necessary to tell big lies for what we think is the greater good. Other times, which is most of the time, it's the sweet little lies. I will tell you your dilapidated dining room table is nice because I just met you and your wife asked me what I thought. I will tell my overweight mother the make-up she was forced to wear for a wedding looks beautiful when it really makes her look like a clown. I have smiled in pictures I was not happy in. I have occasionally said someone “meant well” or “has a good heart” when I know in truth they were intentionally self-serving and/or malicious.

I thought lying was patronizing and disrespectful. It is... but more importantly, it's necessary. I spent the last couple of years actively trying to be as honest as I could. Now, don't get me wrong. I still told many small lies (e.g. I sent that e-mail yesterday) and even some big ones (e.g. I am happy for you).

But my renewed commitment to honesty mostly translated into being direct, blunt, and, occasionally, a dick. I got good at making people upset, even people I didn't know. This new philosophy meant more awkward conversations with my girlfriend and angrier conversations with my boss.

In short, by disrupting the natural order of things, I screwed up. What's worse, there were plenty of times when people, unaware of my little experiment, assumed I maintained the normal level of discretion with my comments. That led many to conclude that if I said such upsetting things to their faces, that I must be saying much worse things behind their backs! It wasn't true, but I got told that a bit.

So, I learned something: don't screw with the natural order of things. Bad things will happen.

Your boss will want to fire you and will imply that the meager pay you receive is already too much.

Your girlfriend will know how much you lust after the girl who wipes down the coffee station in the cafeteria.

Your brother, who occasionally drives drunk, never pays taxes, and wrongly collects unemployment, will know just how much he has let you down.

Instead, understand the balance between truth and lies in every relationship. Each person is a little bit different. Some of us need a couple of lies a day. Others need mostly lies. From my experiment, I now know that understanding just how many lies each person in my life wants to hear is very important. It has now become my new goal... along with not eating the foods that make me gassy.

But really, why are we like this? Is it to give ourselves some temporary comfort from the constant insecurities we might have? Yes, that new dress does look good on you. No, I have never, ever thought about another woman when in bed with you. Armin definitely looks better with eyebrows. Give out lies like they are fun size Milky Ways on Halloween.

What if normal human interaction meant avoiding all lies at all costs? What if we learned that each lie took off one day of our lives? Aside from having a lot of honest old people, you would have an interesting situation. If the expectation became honesty every and all the time, I think people would adjust accordingly. If we had no lies and every one learned to live in that fashion, I think our reaction to raw, honest emotions would change. We would get used to it and save a lot of time. I think that a lot of the chronic, long term problems many family relationships have would go away. Stupid, unimportant behaviors would melt away. Instead of not talking to someone for three years because he sued your destitute mother for $20,000, just tell your abusive father you don't love him anymore and he's a phony. Understand that no matter how many little lies you tell yourself or your family, that there is nothing you can do to change the truth and make it better.

My guess is that your hatred would turn into acceptance and it would no longer consume you. You could spend each father's day like any other Sunday: working the night shift and falling asleep with your contacts in while reading about Oregon geology and singing the chorus from some Fleetwood Mac song.

Guest Blog: Rants on the Train

2009-05-27T19:39:00.000-07:00

Whoever said "it's the journey, not the destination" probably didn't travel that much. If you've ever been stuck in an airport for ten hours, trying to sleep on a bench with the arm bars dividing your back into thirds, you probably appreciate the destination more than the journey.

Here are the late night travel thoughts of my friend C-DUB, aka Big Willie Style, trapped on a speeding train and somehow still going too slow. For his sake, I hope the train caught a nice tailwind... or derailed, killing everyone, but him.

********
RANT

Say cheese...........generic camera clicking sound.

a minute later....

Say cheese...........click.

and then again....

Say cheese...........click.

Somebody please teach this kid to say something else before taking pictures, so I don't throw him/her off the train.

Say cheese...........click.

For the love of my sanity, shut up.

At this point, I opt for the annoyed over the shoulder look. Only I don't see a 10 year-old taking pictures of her mom. It's a 30-something snapping pictures of the scenery we pass.

I have eight hours to kill until we reach my destination, so I start to think........

Does this lady expect the alpine firs and raging rivers to smile back at her?

Why doesn't she turn off this option?

Better yet, why is this option available?

Is our culture so lazy that we need a computer voice to instruct us to say cheese?

Doesn't saying cheese always make for the worst pictures?

Does anyone over the age of 3 find this saying funny?

Why doesn't this train sell earplugs?

sidebar......

What's the deal with clear Band-Aids? Can you really call them clear when the cotton swab is still brown?

vocab lesson

2009-05-17T20:27:00.000-07:00

Im-prompt-ti-cue - a spontaneous potluck involving grilled food, alcohol, and friends, usually held on Sundays as a relaxing way to end the weekend before the beginning of a new work week

Origin: coined by a group of friends in Boston, MA

Example:

This Sunday was perfect imprompticue weather, making Armin miss his old friends. He hopes you are all doing well.

worth your time

2009-05-14T15:31:00.000-07:00

Tell me, does this happen to any of you?

You get home from work and you crack open a beer to unwind. But our multi tasking society has trained us that we can't just sit and enjoy a beer, so we need to do something while we're drinking that beer. Something mindless. No crossword puzzles or cryptograms. You decide to go to Hulu.com to watch the Simpsons or Family Guy.

Seems fine, but you realize the show lasts longer than your beer. Three fourths through the hilarity, you need to grab another beer. But that second beer lasts longer than the episode and now you are right where you started, drinking beer alone. So you watch another episode, run out of beer, grab a beer, run out of episode, watch another episode, run out of beer... before you know it, you need to go to the 7eleven to buy another case, but end up getting Boones Farm instead because it's so gosh darn colorful.

You know how to avoid this hangover? Go to 1000 Ideas and click on one of these hilarious short movies. The buffering and watching time together should just about equal the time necessary to enjoy a refreshing Old Style, PBR, Genessee, or Lone Star.

Trust me, it's worth your time. My favorite is the "Doorman" episode. Even if you only have five minutes left to live, wouldn't you rather spend it having a good laugh instead of lying in bed making awkward confessions to a priest, hoping it'll get you a walk on spot in heaven?

todd sweeney

2009-05-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

I'm not a fan of haircuts. I just think there are cheaper ways of humiliating myself without wasting $10 plus tip. I don't have hair that is genetically predisposed to looking good. It's just there. You can cut it whichever way you want; no stylists are going to be using the finished product for their portfolios. No one will mistake me for Zac Efron.

Aside from the haircut itself, I also hate the whole experience of getting a haircut. First they ask me to take off my glasses, which, for those of you who are 20/20 and can't commiserate with me, it's comparable to stabbing my eyes out. Then they tie that collar thing around my neck which always itches and I have to make small talk while I'm blind and completely unaware of what they're doing to me, except for the sensory clues of a ghastly buzzing noise and the of fuzzy clumps of black hair raining down.

Then, they spin me around and say, "What do you think?"

"I think I'm nearsighted. You took my glasses, remember?" I never say that actually. I'm meek as a church mouse with social anxiety disorder and acne.

"Looks great. Thanks," I lie, squinting. Then I put my glasses on and recoil in disgust at my reflection.

I do like the little brush they swish around my neck to sweep away the hair. But, i could probably buy a little barber's brush for less than $10 plus tip and swish away at the back of my neck to my heart's content if I wanted.

All this being said, I still do get professional haircuts occasionally, thinking maybe this time, it'll be different. I had a graduation to attend recently and wanted to sexify myself for the festivities. I went to a barbershop near my house where I had been before. I think the barber's name is Scott. He was odd the first time I'd met him, but this last encounter was downright disturbing.

Everything was going as normal. Glasses off. Itchy collar on. Small talk activated.

"What do you want today," he asks.

"Just trim the sides and the neck. I have to look presentable for a graduation."

"Do you go to University of Portland?"

"No, my girlfriend is graduating from pharmacy school."

"Oh, I have a friend that's a pharmacist."

"Where does your friend work?"

"Oh, I don't know. He moved away. I won't know where you are if you move away and change your phone number. Don't you hate when people do that? People shouldn't do that to me. I don't like when people do that to me. People shouldn't forget me." He laughs loudly. Though, I'm usually good at fake laughter, I can't even pretend to laugh this time. The guy is very creepy. Please put down the clippers.

He continues cutting and laughing loudly. I close my eyes. Finally, he spins me around.

"What do you think?"

"Thanks, I look very presentable," I say, unable to see anything. The haircut is the least of my worries. I can't feel any blood dripping, so I'm relieved.

"Yes, you look like a nice guy. Don't you get tired of being a nice guy? I hate being a nice guy. People always say, 'Oh, he's such a nice guy.' I don't want to be a nice guy. HAHAHAHAHAHA." I leave a big tip and bike away quickly so I don't have to witness him take all the hair trimmings from the day and craft them into effigies of people who have wronged him through the years.

With all that said, I'm sure the next time I need a haircut, I'll still go back to him. He only charges $8.99, after all. So yes, I'll probably go back. And the haircut isn't so bad, this time. In my humble opinion, I look devastatingly cute.

myspace

2009-05-02T12:40:00.001-07:00

Dear Facebook,

Thanks for killing Myspace.

Cordially,
Armin

________________________________

Dear Myspace,

Thanks for killing Friendster.

Sincerely,
Armin

________________________________

Dear Reader,

No I do not have a Facebook account. This is not an act of protest. I have nothing against society, technology, or computers. This might surprise you, but at this very minute I'm using the technology of a computer to write a blog post that will better society. Sort of. Not the betterment of society part, at least.

But anyway, for any of you who have sent me a Facebook request, I am not snubbing you. I just don't feel like signing up for Facebook. Back when I frequented Myspace, I'd only check it regularly when I was still hung up on some old girlfriend, checking her profile constantly to see if there were any hidden messages to me.

"Oooh, she's listening to 'Every Rose Has its Thorn.' Maybe she's trying to tell me that I'm the rose... or its thorn."

And if there was no girl to be heartbroken over, then I rarely checked it.

I know what you're going to say, "Armin, Facebook is SOOOOOOO much better. I mean, like you wouldn't believe how much better. Like an All-You-Can-Eat-Tater-Tots-While-Watching-a-Marathon-of-Van-Damme-Movies better! If Facebook and Myspace were siblings, Facebook would be a virgin prom queen going to Harvard while Myspace would be a limbless thalidomide baby flippering around in its own excrement!"

I get it. Facebook is better. I just don't think I'll be that into it.

But back to my original point, if I even had one. Myspace is dying, and though I don't rue the loss, I did have a little known blog on my page called "Welcome to Earth, Spaceboy." So, as a dying civilization tries to preserve its language in stone, I feel the same need to save some of those blog posts and transfer them over to ATKU. And, yes, it's an easy way to toss out a blog post when I really have nothing new to say. Consider it the same as that bail out episode of your favorite sitcom, the episode that just shows spliced together clips of previous episodes because the writers were thin on ideas that week.

Looking these old posts over, they are very dated. The following post from "Welcome to Earth, Spaceboy," has a reference to "My Humps." How quaint! Life was so much simpler in the halcyon days of 2005.

your bff,
Armin

*************
(originally posted 12/20/2005)

Senses
Current mood: sleepy

Sure i've got the basic five: sight, hearing, touch, taste, telekinesis... but I was deprived the most basic of all animal senses, smell. Now it's not like I'm completely devoid of olfactory prowess, it's just that I have to really try hard to smell. The rest of you out there are just sitting around and smelling stuff constantly, having a grand old time, while I actually have to concentrate on it. For instance, i can't smell and do algebra at the same time; it just requires too many neurons to run both programs in this feeble windows 95 virus ridden brain of mine.

I guess it's not really the same as being blind or deaf and I completely understand why no one gives me change on the train when I wear my sandwich board that says "Feed the Smell-less," but there are certainly downfalls to my disability.

When I was a kid and someone would say, "Who farted?" I'd always have to pretend I smelled whatever they smelled. Now in my neighborhood, the rule was "whoever smelt it, dealt it," but I recall at least three occasions when that adage was overruled by the "whoever didn't smell it, dealt it" ammendment of 1985. So seven out of ten times, I was safe by admitting I didn't smell anything, but if some crafty son of a bitch kid would shout out, "Whoever didn't smell it, dealt it!" i was surely going to eat lunch alone. Would you play russian roulette with that bullet? I think not.

The safest thing was to be the second person to say he smelled something. Of course I'd be conservative about my reaction, always a notch less disgusted than the original smeller, and always much more vague about what I was smelling ("yeah,, ewww, what is that? it smells like something, i can't tell what that is"), and hopefully one more kid would agree that he smelled something and I would be safely nestled between two accurate affirmations and could skip home gleefully, my disability (and identity as the flatulator) undetected.

But being the second to affirm the smell had its pitfalls too. Say you were in a large group, one kid says he smells something, you agree that you smell something, but are very vague about it, and the rest of the fifteen kids don't smell a damn thing. Well you are now caught in a lie my friend, and that's called perjury.

In those cases, I'd have to fatten my lie with details to make it more believable. So if little Billy said, "Eww you guys smell that? I think I'm going to throw up!" I'd follow with something like, "Yeah, that is gross. It smells like three to five over ripe bananas floating on a raft of fragrant white pine in the middle of a miasmic Alabaman bayou during a crisp harvest moon night after the rains." Needles to say, this route was never my first option.

The point is, I would dread whenever kids said they smelled things. And this didn't stop until college when I met friends that loved me unconditionally and I felt safe enough one tearful night to come out of the closet and say "I am without smell."

This lack of smell thing affects me in my adulthood too. As we all know, attraction is based on pheremones, so the girl of your dreams has to find the way to your heart through your nasal passage. Of course, mine has a detour sign up. So instead of finding true love based on a girl's pheremones, I have to judge my attraction based on her tits and ass. So ladies, just remember, if you're at a club and some guy is staring at your humps, think first... he might be smell-less. Don't be so quick to judge; he can't smell you enough to know if he thinks you are his soulmate. This is the only way for those of us in a dark scentless world. And would it kill you to drop a damn quarter in his cup?

advice

2009-05-02T00:31:00.000-07:00

Recently, while stranded at the Fort Lauderdale Airport, I was watching TV at the gate along with an older couple, maybe in their fifties, who were the only other people in the airport. A commercial came on for the iPhone (maybe you've heard of this product... it has the popularity--and fleetingness, i'm predicting--of the hula hoop). The narrator of the ad kept repeating, "Yeah, there's an app for that, too."

The fifty year old woman asked the man, "What's an app?" He shrugged.

I interrupted, "It's short for application," startling them both because they didn't realize I was behind them and because I look fairly disturbing when I travel--picture a minority who hasn't showered for days sleeping on benches with his yellow stuffed dog. She thanked me, the way people thank hobos when they clean your windows, then they abruptly left.

I don't know why I did that, interjecting into a strangers' conversation to give my two cents. First of all, I don't even really know if "app" stands for "application." I don't have an iPhone. There's plenty of words that start with the letters A-P-P. For all I know, "app" could be short for appendictomy. That's unlikely. But it could stand for "apple."

"Want to make juice? Yeah, there's an apple for that." Makes sense.

Secondly, I generally hate people who give unwarranted advice or information, your Nicky Know-It-Alls, if you will. Like when you're lifting at the gym and some dude you've never met wearing a tank top with hairy shoulders says, "Gotta do those reps slower, man. Bring it all the way to your chest."

Or that Nicky Know it All that says, "Armin, you can't pour water on a grease fire! That only makes it worse!" Thanks, for your gratuitous trivia, Professor Einstein, but save it for Jeopardy. If you didn't notice, I have a fire to deal with.

*************

Letters

Tricia writes: Just thought I'd share my "favorite" thing about keeping old phone numbers in my phone. It is when I give my phone to my 1 year old niece and she randomly calls only the people I haven't spoken to in 3-4 years. Of course I'm hoping these people don't have my number in their phone anymore, but if they are like me and know it's me calling because they don't delete phone numbers out of their phone they are probably like "why the heck is Tricia calling and hanging up, she should at least say hello.

I have an easy solution for that. I lose or destroy a phone about once a year. And of course, I don't have anyone's phone number written on paper. So i email people for their contact info, but if I can't remember who you are or how I know you, then I don't email you.

My friends Robbie and Julie have another solution: during parties, they engage in drunken, supportive, group phone number preening, usually involving the phone numbers of exes. It's very cathartic, as is vomiting the morning after the party.

hello, it's been a while

2009-04-17T18:50:00.000-07:00

I've been looking through my phone's contact list and there are a lot of old friends who I have not called in a long time. The hardest part of calling someone after a long time of not talking is where to begin. Here's a bit of scripted small talk to help get the ball rolling:

Old Friend: Armin, how have you been? What's new?
Armin: Not much. Did I tell you I'm gay now?
Old Friend: Shut up!
Armin: Geez, (old friend), I would have expected you of all people to be the most open minded about this.
Old Friend: Stop it. You are not gay.
Armin: Tell that to the penis in my mouth.

Why would I reveal this nugget of small talk gold with you all, considering many of you are probably the very same old friends I need to use this line on? Because, I'll still use this joke, even if you already know I'm going to use it. That's just how persistent I am with a joke that is no longer funny.

******

Letters

Anelyn writes: i still don't understand what you have against steve perry and bono.

It's inexplicable. I hate Journey, but love Chicago and Foreigner. I think my dislike of U2 is a little more understandable. I'm pretty sure people who love U2 still sort of hate Bono.

Anonymous writes: do you like fishsticks?

I hope this post answers your question.

more on pandora

2009-04-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

More on Pandora.com:

Again, I love this website. But, just as with my future children, my love will not preclude me from exposing and criticizing all the slightest faults of Pandora. And just like I will do with my future children, I refuse to give Pandora any hugs or words of encouragement until it lives up to my unrealistic expectations, which will never happen.

Pandora.com, in case you have not visited the site (and if you haven't, shame on you) boasts that its program, the Music Genome Project, studies and categorizes every song in the universe using over 400 attributes, thus creating a genealogy for all music, a family tree binding songs and musicians based on similar characteristics. You want to hear the Beatles? Well the smarty pants at Pandora.com will play you a Beatles song, then suggest, "Maybe you want to try some Herman's Hermits, too." Soon, you're supposed to be listening to a bunch of songs you love, or didn't realize you loved until Pandora opened your eyes, and you make a nice little personalized radio station out of it: "Sixties British Invasion." Pandora is replacing that know-it-all record shop owner who always knows what you should be listening to in order to be as cool as him.

I made a radio station called "Death Metal as Droning Background Noise." It is comprised of songs with the characteristics of "a gravelly male vocalist," "an unintelligable vocal delivery," and "angry/offensive lyrics." My "wuss rock" station, on the other hand, is dominated by "easy listening qualities," "a smooth male lead vocalist," and "romantic lyrics." And this works out fine for the most part. Pandora never suggests I listen to Barry Manilow when I'm playing my "Death Metal as Droning Background Noise" station. And conversely, it never plays Dying Fetus after playing Kenny Loggins on my "wuss rock" station. But, sometimes, on "Wuss Rock," it'll play an early Bee Gees song such as "How Do You Mend a Broken Heart?" but then follows it with a later, disco Bee Gees song like "Jive Talkin'." Not the same to me, Pandora. I do not include disco in my "wuss rock" station, regardless of whether the song was performed by a wussy band. I understand this might be confusing because right after saying no thank you to "Jive Talkin'," I'll turn around and demand Mr. or Mrs. Pandora play me "Too Much Heaven," which is a disco-era Bee Gees song. What's the difference? Fuck you. That's the difference. I want to hear "too Much Heaven," and put it in my Wuss Rock station whereas I like the song "Jive Talkin'" but do not find it appropriate for a Wuss Rock station, and would find it more appropriately suited for a radio station called "Armin wants to Get Down with his Bad self" which would also include "Funky Town," by Lipps Inc. I don't need a Music Genome Project to explain the beating of my heart and the instincts of my gut.

If Pandora boasts playing only music I like, then I want the musical qualities to be more specific for my personal needs. Song qualities should include categories like "songs Armin remembers from the summer of '99 when he was graduating high school and the whole world was opening up for him like a steamed clam for him to pluck and dunk in drawn butter." Or "songs Armin once hated, but enough time has passed that he might like it now if you played it, due to nostalgia factor." Or "wussy male vocals, but under no circumstance, sounding like Journey or U2." Or "Elton john, but absolutely no Elton John Disney songs." Four hundred attributes might seem useful, but it doesn't help me for shit when I'm suddenly hearing "Can you Feel the Love Tonight?" when all I wanted to really hear was "Rocket Man."

Don't even make me go through the bother of clicking on the Thumbs Down. Just do it right the first time, Pandora. Maybe then Daddy will hug you, but probably not because you are a terrible, ugly child that we never wanted in the first place.

pandora

2009-04-01T12:37:00.000-07:00

I was out for lunch recently with a half dozen forty to sixty year old teachers, when one of them, a mom of a soon-to-be college graduate, was lamenting how her son turned down two jobs. TWO JOBS! In this economy? The other forty to sixty somethings shook their heads in empathy. The mom then asked the question, "What's the deal with this generation? Are they lazy or do they just feel entitled?"

There was a 21 year old fella with us, the son of another teacher at the table, who was suddenly interrogated by the "adults," picked as the representative of his age bracket to explain the failings of his generation. He was polite, saying that many kids he knows do feel entitled and believe many jobs are below them. He added, "But, I'd take any job if I could," having recently been laid off.

Then, the attention was turned to me, when they realized, despite hiding behind my overgrown facial hair, that I'm probably a twenty something as well. They asked me the same question, "Is your generation just lazy or do they feel they are better than a lot of the jobs out there?"

I could have made a number of arguments against their assumptions, such as

1) growing up, you told us kids that we could be whatever we wanted to be, to follow our dreams, and to not settle for less, but now that we are picky about what we want to do, you tell us just to slut it up for any employer and spread it for any job offer
2) if we don't have kids, we have no one to support but ourselves and so we have the right to turn down jobs
3) most of the older folks who settled on a job when they were young complain about what they wish they had done if they had it to do all over again
4) if you as the parent are supporting your twenty something financially, you are giving him the okay to turn down jobs, and I'm sure if he were on his own, he'd take whatever job kept beer in his fridge and spray cheese on his generic triscuits.

But, I didn't make any of these points because I was busy eating happy hour nachos my friend Sarah got for me.

Maybe it's a natural biological phase all people go through; sometime between "puberty" and "menopause," homo sapiens go through a stage called "wistful," in which nothing current is quite as good as it was in the past. TV shows. Athletes. Music. Especially music.

I always wondered how old people stopped being aware of what was cool at the moment. You know why? Because most of them don't watch TV for 14hrs a day, and if they do, they are not watching the CW for 14hrs a day. So now Armin, who used to go to metal shows and laugh at all the old dudes wearing faded Iron Maiden tees from 1982, is now that old guy holding out hopes that White Zombie will reunite and Dimebag Darrell will return from the dead.

I'm fighting it, though, with the help of Pandora.com which lets me know what the young kids are listening to these days. Of course, as you get older, if you try to stay current, you risk being the old guy that's still trying to be cool, which, aside from rapping grannies, is horrible. Sometimes, you have to let nature happen to you. Let your hair grow grey and lecture kids today on how much more significant Debbie Gibson was to our global consciousness back in the 80's than Miley Cyrus is today.

Here's the first new band I've discovered since 2003: In Flames. That is, with the exception of this spunky, little act who put out the best song of 2007, though, to be honest, I didn't listen to much radio that year and, so she didn't have much competition in my book.

By the way, if you couldn't tell, I just figured out how all the other bloggers in the internet world put links into their text, so I'm putting links everywhere until this blog becomes a virtual pop-up book. Oooh! Look! A snail!

******

Letters

J writes: Your heart of darkness is intimidating to behold. How long will you let it grow?

Until my girlfriend thinks its too scraggly and disgusting to look at.

Shana writes: whaaaat!? boy do we need to talk. i have news of a similar nature!!

Wait, you mean your mom also would rather liquify her food than try driving on roads posted at 55mph or more?

Maria writes: We'll have to have another AmeriCorps reunion... maybe in NYC... since you're making your way back to the East Coast.

Sounds good, let's round up the troops! but I don't think there's much to do in NYC.

Anelyn writes: we'll meet you there (pompton queen diner)! that's our favorite one, second only to park west diner.

I've only had Park West breakfasts, which are solid. But a diner really makes its mark during the midnight to 5am time slot, when they have to prove their dishes don't taste like used grease and pissed off waitress.

Tricia writes: makes me want a doughnut!

The point of that blog entry was to make you not want a doughnut because those damn plain donuts are so bland and dry and boring! Dammit! I've completely failed as a writer and now I'm getting worked up again about those plain donuts!

warning

2009-03-31T16:07:00.000-07:00

WARNING!!!! Do not read this blog if you are averse to unbridled manliness.

I received the best compliment of my life recently when a six year old noticed my new facial hair. Finally, my two months of work growing out my goatee has come to fruition! There was a time to plant, but now is the time to reap. Reap benefits, that is. All the benefits that come from having facial hair.

Now, the only question: What to do with this new look? Join ZZ Top? Stalk women? Wear plaid and deforest the Pacific Northwest? Be mistaken for Hugh Jackman when the summer Wolverine mania hits its peak? Really, the opportunities are limitless when you are bearded, such as myself. See below if you can stand to face ruggedness eye to eye. Careful, though. Not unlike a solar eclipse, such a natural phenomena can devastate your weak, hairless retina.

I shaved the mustache so you could all see the disparity between the desert of an upper lip versus the jungles of the bottom lip and chin. My soul patch has oft been referred to as the Heart of Darkness* by those daring enough to explore it.

*My soul patch has only been referred to as the Heart of Darkness in this blog post alone.

mama, i'm coming home

2009-03-25T12:39:00.000-07:00

After a six year, self-imposed exile, I'll be returning to my native, if not highly contaminated, soil of New Jersey to attend grad school at Rutgers Newark. The choice was easy... I haven't gotten into any other schools. But, sometimes you know it's time to go back. I called my mom this morning to tell her the news, but she was out buying a blender, she says because her bridgework is broken and she's too afraid to drive on highways to see a specialist to get it fixed, so she has to blend all of her food now. That's as good a reason as any to go back. Oh, and getting to watch every single Knicks loss on TV, instead of just the couple of times a season they lose to Blazers. So open up those dirty gates, Garden State, your boy is back. I'll see you all at the Pompton Queen diner at 2am for a gyro.

strip clubs

2009-03-12T16:56:00.000-07:00

I don't like strip clubs. I'm not a feminist. I'm not religious. I don't have any moral objection with women taking off their clothes for money. Call me strange, but it doesn't turn me on to pay a woman to pretend to like me. Also, I don't like the fact that most of these strippers look pissed off because they are working at a strip club. Maybe I don't have a problem with strip clubs so much as I have a problem with poor customer service. Same thing at Denny's. I don't want my waitress looking pissed off when she brings me a Grand Slam. I mean, why are you so pissed off? You are an integral member of the company that makes the best hash browns in the universe. What could be better than that?

If I'm that upset that the woman serving me a Grand Slam looks unhappy--even though she gets to bath in the delicious aroma of hash browns every day--you can understand why I'm even more upset when I'm surrounded by women who look unhappy even though they get to be surrounded by the delicious aroma of sweat and dirty, old man every day.

Somehow, despite my aversion to strip clubs, I have been to more than one and will probably see more than one more before I die. Here's a history of my strip club experience.

1. Feb 2000

I'm a freshman in college and it's my friend's birthday. It's also the first time I see a girl naked. I'm not a smoker, but I end up smoking an entire pack of cigarettes on my own because in a strip club, you really need to do something with your hands.

2. April 2003

It's senior year of college and my birthday. However, it's Easter, so no one is on campus except my friend Cal who is an atheist and hates his family anyway, my jewish friend Scott who doesn't believe, or is ungrateful, that Jesus rose from the dead for our sins, and Scott's roommate who is the only student from our college who comes from another state and therefore, can not go home for the holiday. Cal asks me what I want to do, and then, without waiting for my answers, tells me, "Nudie bar!" We're in South JerZ and we're poor college kids, so we search the phone book for cheap topless bars. We find one in rural Pennsylvania with no cover. Those two things, 1) Rural Pennsylvania and 2) No cover should be a clear warning that you are better off playing Pictionary in your dorm room.

3. May 2003

I've just graduated college and am in the Philippines for a two week vacation with my dad and my buddy, Cal, the aforementioned friend who loves strip clubs. Our entire trip has been planned out by my aunts and uncles and is filled with exotic foods and once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Then, we come to the day marked on the calendar "Boys' Night Out." I had been secretly dreading this day all vacation. My aversion to going to strip clubs with friends is quite mild compared to the nausea I feel going to a strip club with my dad. And in the Philippines, you really don't know how old these girls are. So we are at a table watching possibly underage girls looking pissed off that they have to survive by being ogled by old men, while other girls their age are on MTV bitching that their Super Sweet Sixteen isn't quite super enough.

The waiter is giving Cal a shoulder rub, we assume because Cal is white and American, which to a Filipino, ostensibly means he has money. I spend the evening drinking soda (I don't even like drinking with my dad, let alone drinking and comparing stripper tits with him) and talking with some guy about the future of VCRs and whether they will be able to survive the evolution of DVD players.

4. March 2004

It's Mardi Gras weekend and I'm in New Orleans with my AmeriCorps friends and my girlfriend. All the girls have called it a night, but the boys are still staggering along bourbon street. One guy in our group suggests a strip club. "Look! There's no cover." Instead there's a three drink minimum, with each drink being about 7 bucks. Even drunk I don't find it particularly fun. And how stupid is that, to pay a three drink minimum in a club when we could be drinking on the streets watching college freshman (whose bodies are still supple and have not yet been devastated by hard living and c-sections) getting naked for free? We were young and stupid.

5. February 2009

I'm back in the Philippines. I've somehow survived the last five years without going to another strip club. Again, I'm with my dad and another friend, Dice. My cousin, Ronell, and his wife take us to dinner. She drives in a separate car. That's a bad sign. After dinner, his wife goes home and it's just the boys cruising Subic Bay, a one time U.S. Naval base. And you know what sailors love? Strip clubs. Ronell likes one called Chichiquita. "It's classier than the rest of the clubs on the strip," he says. Inside, there is a guy passed out at his chair. Three bouncers pick him up and drag him out the door.

We sit at a table right by the stage and I have to physically grab Dice to make him sit in between me and my father. No soda for me, this time. I want to get drunk and make this night disappear. Another San Miguel, salamat.

The strippers line up on stage like lobsters in a fish tank at a fancy seafood restaurant and you pick the one that looks tastiest. "Go ahead, pick a girl," says my cousin. "No thank you. I'm fine with my beer."

Maybe Ronell interprets my refusal to pick a girl as American shyness or just plain indecisiveness. So he picks a girl for me. Her name is Andrea, she's 20, or so she claims, and is not particularly attractive. I shake her hand. Ronell, on the other hand, has his nose buried in his stripper's cleavage. Perhaps she has a scratch and sniff sticker placed there. I don't know if my dad or Dice picked girls, but our table now has one for each of us.

If you've read my blog before, you probably know that I don't like small talk. I like it even less when it's with a stripper who is paid to engage in small talk with me. I don't pay the stripper directly. Instead, i buy her beer. A beer for me costs 50 pesos, about one dollar, US. A beer for her costs 250 pesos, about five dollars. Her beer is not of a better quality than mine. And I can't get a beer for myself and give it to her. The bartender comes to us, asks me "Do you want to get her a beer?" I ask her, "Do you want a beer?" And, surprise, surprise, she always nods, "Yes!" even though I don't think she actually wants a beer. I know this because she drinks her beer with ice to water it down and after the first three beers, she switches to pineapple juice which also costs 250 pesos even though pineapples grow there like poison ivy.

The night is long. There's a language barrier between me and Andrea and it's too loud to hear anyway. I guess most patrons of Chichiquita are not concerned about hearing their strippers' answers to question like, "So, are all of you strippers friends? Do you guys get together for coffee after work?"

I keep drinking and trying to come up with conversation topics like, "Who's the biggest bitch you have to work with here?" She asks me questions like, "Can I hold you?"

"No."

"Do you want to go to the VIP room?"

"No."

At some point, she brings it to my attention that my dad and his stripper are gone. "Your dad is in the VIP room," she says. "Another San Miguel, please," I say. My parents are divorced, so I don't feel like my dad is doing anything wrong. At the same time, you don't want to picture your dad in the VIP room. And he's in there for a long time. I don't have a watch on so I don't know exactly how long, but I'm pretty sure four or five girls danced on stage during the time he was gone. At two crappy pop songs per girl, plus one crappy pop song in between girls, that's probably a solid half hour at least.

Towards the end of the night, my stripper asks me if I would get her three red wines to cover the rest of her quota. Quota? You mean you weren't sitting with me this whole time because you were regaled by my fascinating dinosaur trivia? My heart is broken. But she should be happy she had such an easy night's work with me. She got paid and didn't have to get tested in the morning.

Mercifully, the night comes to an end. We leave. I give Andrea a firm handshake goodbye. My dad probably thinks I'm a queer and wishes Dice was his son instead. I ask no questions and in the car, try to let the buzz wash away all my memories as my dad tells them about his stripper and the VIP room.

a mystery to me

2008-12-22T15:14:00.000-08:00

Can anyone explain to me why the Entenmann's Company persists in making the "Plain Donut?" If you've ever been to a meeting where they have a box of Entenmann's Assorted Donuts laying out, have you ever seen anyone grab the Plain Donut first? My only guess as to why this least liked of all doughnuts still earns a spot next to its far superior contemporaries, "White Powder" and, the apogee of all fried dough treats, "Chocolate Covered Yellow Squishy Cake," is to serve as a form of punishment. If you see someone eating a Plain Donut, you know he got to the meeting late. For that sorry son of a bitch, the flavorless, brown doughnut he's forcing down with coffee is no treat; its a humiliating Scarlet Letter he has to wear to show everyone he's the guy who can never be anywhere on time.

I know someone out there is saying, "Armin, that doughnut is there for the person who doesn't want the calories that are packed in the more delicious doughnuts." But, if you don't want calories, you probably shouldn't be eating anything with the name Entenmann's in the first place. This doughnut has all the ass widening capabilities of the other two without the desired yumminess. Eating this doughnut is like contracting gonorrhea without even getting to have sex with the hooker.

Wow, even I'm surprised by how much invective this stupid doughnut has provoked in me. You'll have to excuse me, someone recently gave me a half eaten box of Entenmann's Variety Pack Donuts and I just ate three Plain donuts which I dunked in my bitter tears of disgust.

successes

2008-11-24T13:17:00.000-08:00

I had two goals I wanted to accomplish when I accepted the job with Northwest Airlines. Neither goal had anything to do with the betterment of customer service or improving myself intellectually, physically, or morally.

The first goal was to fly a lot of places for free. In less than a year, I think I've already accomplished that fairly well. But the second goal, which I kept private, had alluded me for the longest time until this past friday.

While working in baggage service, I was trying to find contact information on an unclaimed bag and instead found a shopping bag full of dildos! It was just like that song by War, "Spill the Wine" because there were "tall ones, short ones, brown ones, black ones, round ones, big ones, crazy ones..." It was like finding Santa's sack of presents if Santa catered to horny middle aged ladies. Maybe this passenger worked for the non profit group, Toys for Twats.

So, there you go, my second professional goal of finding a shopping bag full of dildos in a passenger's suitcase has come to fruition. Excuse me while I go find some Purell to bathe in.

home, sweet home

2008-11-14T23:03:00.000-08:00

A new coworker of mine who tries to flirt with me even though she doesn't realize her body fat versus personality ratio* is too high for me to be attracted to her, asked me where in Portland I lived.
"Up in St. Johns."
"Oh... isn't that the ghetto?" she asked, a bit alarmed.
"I guess."

It's hard to answer this question because it's abrasive for a couple reasons. First of all, people have different qualifiers for ghettos and since I doubt most people who use the word ghetto for a neighborhood have dedicated extensive time into researching that neighborhood's poverty levels or crime statistics, I have to assume their judgment is based on hearsay or having seen graffiti and minorities in the area when they got lost there one time. I remember when I was living in Baltimore, both my parents thought I was living in the ghetto, not because they had gone door to door to discover the median income of the Waverly district was below the national average, but because they saw many more black people on the streets than in Lincoln Park, NJ.

Secondly, the fact that this coworker was shocked that I live in what she believes is a ghetto implies that I don't look "street" enough to handle living in the "ghetto." Understandably, the Northwest Airlines dress code strictly forbids me from wearing all the ice I frequently adorn, not to mention my Glock, but I assumed my "thug life" personality would shine in my every day speech, my way of checking in customers ("window or aisle, bee-atch?"), and my incessant origami folding. Do i have to drop an expletive-laced rap album with hooks featuring Pharrell on your cracker asses to prove I'm street? Believe me, if I have to, I will.

Anyway, I moved into my roommate Ross' condo in St. Johns over the summer and, I have to say, I've seen and lived in worse places. Yes, I know, I have a tendency towards martyrdom and want to always make it seem like I suffer with a stiff upper lip through trials that would kill the average man. If we both order soup at a restaurant, I will make the offhand comment that my soup is colder and less evenly seasoned than yours, but still forge on and eat it without nary a tear, so you can see how tough I am. I know, I'm a tool. So it's perfectly understandable if you think this is a trick and that I'm saying St. Johns is not so bad so that when you come to visit me, you'll be horrified by the gang rape and car fires in the streets and go back to your opulent, Rodeo Drive worlds and tell your tea time coterie that your friend Armin is nonplussed living in the ninth circle of hell.

At the same time though, St. Johns is not the prettiest neighborhood. I joke that the main employer of most residents in St Johns is Oregon Video Lottery. I've broken up a fight between toothless men in the street. In the public library, the vast majority of the patrons are not bibliophiles, but kids and old men checking Facebook for girls and I actually heard this lovely conversation paraphrased in there one day between two guys in stained beaters and large belt buckles:

"Yo, D, did I tell you I got shot?"
(jealous) "Really, where?"
"At Marie's party."
"Who did it?"
"I don't know. We just heard some shots and I got hit in the ass." (limps away)

The first time I rode the bus in my new 'hood, I was amazed by the crowd gathered at the stop. As I saw each possible bus go by, I realized I was the only one at the bus stop with the intention of actually riding a bus. For the rest, this was a club house, sort of a Peach Pit if they were the original cast of 90210, which they did not resemble at all. Two shaggy looking twenty somethings had found an abandoned milk crate of free Little Debbie Blueberry pies left on the street and were gorging themselves, the gobs of purple filling splattering on their beards and worn out cargo pants. Three other joined in the buffet; if nothing else, there's a sense of community in these parts. However, one woman with a droopy right eye was upset with one of the fellas at the feast; she turned to me, but without addressing anyone in particular, lamented, "He ain't sharing his cornbread." It's true, I concurred, hoping the damn bus would just get here already. One guy did indeed have a hunk of cornbread crumbling in his hand and did not offer her any. I guess she's not a fan of abandoned Little Debbie pies.

When I was younger, I fancied myself a bit of a nomad, a bohemian type--fringe, if you will--and these St Johns folks with their seeming lack of aspirations and simple desires, would have seemed cool to me. Maybe i'm getting snobby, or my privileged upbringing is truly showing now, but I'm getting a bit sick of it all, the loitering, the constant toping, the swearing, the smoking and gambling.

But, at the the same time, the rent is great, I have a roommate I don't detest, there's free pool and dollar happy hour PBRs at Slim's, free Wifi at Ladybug Coffee where the owner thinks my name is James and I've been too embarrassed to correct her.**

Sometimes I'll walk the four blocks from my place to the Willamette River to really enjoy my neighborhood. I sit on the docks if it's nice out, under the auspices of the great St. Johns Bridge, which reminds me of a giant green dragon crossing the river. The boats below are like remora feeding on its scraps and its head rests in the middle of downtown, its teeth made up of dive bars and coffee shops, while its tail circles the last pocket of wilderness left. That's a side of St. Johns even an uppity fat chick would love.

*I try to be politically correct with my blog, so I realize this might have ruffled some feathers, specifically, the feathers on fat people. Notice, I said the ratio was too high, not her weight. So for example, if her body fat was very high, but but her personality was like a Tina Fey and Sandra Dee from Grease mashed up, then maybe I'd be interested. Conversely, if her personality was significantly worse, but she had the looks to back it, then flirt away.

**If you don't correct someone the first time they say your name wrong, you never will because every subsequent time they call you that misnomer, you'll have a harder time pretending you just heard them wrong.

******

Letters

(in reference to an entry in which I did not pay a restaurant bill because I didn't have cash)
Adam writes: Has New Jersey figured out ATMs yet?

Yes, I understand I could have found an ATM while my friend was on the phone for twenty minutes. This is often known as the "Bathroom Quandary." You're waiting for something, say a friend picking you up, and you ask, "Do I have enough time to go to the bathroom?" You say, no, better wait. And you wait, and then ten minutes later say, "Dammit, I could definitely have gone to the bathroom already! But now I definitely don't have enough time." So you wait another ten minutes and now you're really pissed and have to go badly, so you pee behind an alley or something and your friend pulls up as you are walking out the alley zipping your fly. And unlike every other time you take a piss, you can't lie and say, "yes, i washed my hands" when you're walking out of an alley.

John Cocktoastin writes: I'm fine if you want to call yourself married to anyone. I just don't see why the government needs to be involved in it.

I have to agree that if marriage is a religious term with religious meaning, then it should have nothing to do with government. Here's a video worth watching:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVUecPhQPqY

Guest Blog: The Civil Book on Knitting

2008-11-13T13:13:00.000-08:00

I'm sure very few of you tune into ATKU for its vigorous political exploration just as few people watch TMZ as a guide for spiritual awakening. But here's a guest blog on a topic that deserves attention and I promise the next blog will be back to your standard low brow fare: "Armin Steps in Dog Poop...Again."

*********

Nov 5, 2008

This is a remarkable time in American politics. This is a remarkable time in California politics. In the span of twelve hours, my sense of pride for the national stage has become tinged with a sense of frustration and embarrassment within my state. At the time of this writing, news organizations have begun to acknowledge the success of Proposition 8, which now will explicitly write bigotry into the state constitution of one of the country's most progressive states.

How did this happen? Who is against a state government legally recognizing the decision of an effort between two human beings to build their lives together?

Unlike other hot button political issues, the opponents of same sex marriage fall under an easily identifiable umbrella. Of the 52% of California voters who supported a ban on same sex marriage, I would wager a lot of Armin's money that the respondents overwhelming cited a religious aspect to their decision.

After numerous discussions with people, here is my personal summary of the arguments against gay marriage:

I. Marriage is a sacred (read: religious) institution and it must be protected at all costs.

II. Semantics. The word marriage is a religious one. God (who likely doesn't exist) told his followers that marriage is defined as between a man and a woman (or between a man and a 17 year old woman, a 16 year old woman, and a 12 year old woman in the Mormon definition).

(As an aside, the Mormon Church has sent tens of millions of tax-free dollars in this election to California to ban same sex marriage.)

III. The slippery-slope. If society legitimizes the act of two men living together (or two women for that matter), where does it stop? (Answer: When a man tries to marry his plasma screen television).

IV. Marriage should be set up to produce children. Gay people can't do that. (oh yes they can!)

Do any of the above hold water? Argument I can be easily deconstructed by one simple task: those who cite this should meet my parents. Heterosexuals have been screwing up the sanctity of marriage for centuries. Why can't we let we let gay people have a shot at doing the same thing? Shouldn't religious groups have an even greater political campaign to stop heterosexuals from getting divorced? "I'm sorry Beth. I know your husband beats you to within an inch of your life at least once a week. However, God looks badly on divorce. The Lord wants you to endure the beatings because he has a special place in heaven for you if you do." (Yeah, the intensive care unit.)

Argument III is simply asinine. Isn't this on the list of reasons for why Rick Santorum was voted out of office?

Arguments IV is extremely weak. No one would suggest infertile heterosexual couples shouldn't be together.

Finally, I would like to address Argument II: Semantics. This is undoubtedly the most common argument I have encountered. Many open-minded religious people (yes, even I know that this term is not an oxymoron) tend to use this approach. However, this argument falls flat, too.

It's true, I am not an accomplished etymologist, nor am I even a garden-variety linguist. Even so, I know this: while the word marriage has its roots in religion, it now has been woven into the secular fabric of society.

This marriage-is-a-religious-word argument is also disingenuous. Why so much attention on the word marriage? Why not other religious words, such as damnation, brimstone or myrrh? Oh wait a second... I have one: bible. We can all agree that the word bible is religious in nature. We can all agree that along with the word marriage, bible has bled into our secular lexicon. A search on Amazon.com produces many book titles that have nothing to do with religion. I haven't heard of any religious groups acting to remove such sacred tomes as The Barbeque! Bible or the Knitter's Bible. How could that be? Don't the same people who insist the word marriage is sacred view the word bible as sacred? Shouldn't they call it something else? The Civil Book on Knitting has a much better ring to it, doesn't it?

Aside from one ambiguous dream I had long, long ago, I am a simple heterosexual man. I do not happen to have any really close gay friends that were directly affected by the success of Proposition 8. Instead, I believe in equal rights and a secular country. The fight against same sex marriage has made me realize the tremendous influence religions still have in American life. People have a right to be religious. Religions do not have a right to be political.

And with this experience firmly rooted in my political perspective, I plan on spending the coming decades donating, volunteering and supporting the fight for same sex marriage in any way I can. I see this as the singular issue with many gains for nonreligious people to make. In 2008, religion should be a vestigial part of our society. It had its place in history. It has nothing more than a minimal place in the future.

Mike Calvert
Berkeley, California
michaelgcalvert@gmail.com

straight talking

2008-10-23T01:50:00.001-07:00

In June a mysterious guest blogger was the first person besides me to ever write a post in All the Knots Undone (see: Friday June 20th, 2008; Guest Blog: A Comment on Sweeping Generalizations). He was very disappointed by the lack of comments. We're such sluts for attention.

First of all, I love the idea of a guest blog. Before the hip hop industry killed it with overuse, I loved when bands had tracks on their albums featuring members of other bands. I was that douchebag that just had to share useless trivia about songs with cameos, "You do know that's Paul McCartney singing back up for Donovan, right?" Also, I love when all the artists of the Sunday comics decide to switch strips and take a crack at their colleagues' stories. It's like wife swapping only less morally objectionable and more sanitary. A guest blog can add a nice, refreshing change of voice.

More pragmatically, a guest blog is good because it adds filler to a blog that I do not update on any regular basis. So I will put the invitation out to people if anyone feels like doing a guest blog, like Cal, who, for anyone who has met him, would assume has plenty to say to fill up his own blog, but would rather scavenge readers off a long rotting blog.

Anyway, if you haven't read his entry, it was about how he's cautious about making broad generalizations at social gatherings for fear he'll offend someone. This coming from a man who at a work dinner raised his glass in a toast and accidentally said "Chink" instead of "Clink" in front of multiple Chinese Americans.

What Cal/Sir Thaddeus McDougal really wants is to eradicate "small talk." He's sick of it as I imagine many of you are, too. Trivial, banal formalities in conversations that we all use and from which we rarely deviate on a first meeting. A friend of mine in Boston had just joined Match.Com and she said her biggest pet peeve is guys who have questions ready. I told her I always have questions prepared and she was flabbergasted, "I don't believe that, Armin, because you don't have any problem talking to people." "Of course I don't have a problem talking to people because I have a bunch of questions ready before I meet them." She's lying to herself if she doesn't believe every adult has questions prepared for social situations because as long you're not agoraphobic or hermetically sealed in a plastic bubble, you should have had enough social encounters to compile a list of default questions for ice breakers, conscious or not. "Where did you go to school?" "Where did you grow up?" "What do you do for a living?"

In Cal's effort to extirpate (i'm studying vocab words for the GRE) meaningless, superficial banter, Cal will often bring up more provocative conversation topics than your typical "So what do you do for a living?" Let me make it clear: he is never trying to be rude or specifically make someone uncomfortable. He just values conversation and thinks he'll learn a lot more about a person and be more engaged if he brings up thought provoking topics.

When he met my friends in Portland, he made a bold statement, something along the lines of "Every guy watches porn, even married men," while in the company of a married couple. He wasn't trying to offend the couple or get the husband in trouble. I don't actually remember why he brought it up. I think he'd just rather talk about porn than the weather.

I've explained my stance on small talk to Cal and others:

I hate small talk. I find it boring and repetitive. At the same time, i think it's an absolutely necessary first step when meeting someone. People are generally not comfortable sharing very personal things about their lives the first ten minutes they meet you. Generally the only people who do that are the ones that smell like cat pee on the bus, oblivious to the fact you are reading a book and avoiding eye contact (yes, I'm now that east coast asshole that gives JerZ a bad name because he isn't friendly and doesn't want to hear about your day in the county jail).

If you ask small talk questions, then you as a listener should be able to pick up on something said that can lead to a slightly more substantial question. Slow, plodding conversations, like the herding of cattle. Tedious, but with an eventual destination. And so, as much as I'm tempted, I do not bring up porn at company parties.

Here's a summary of some of the more common small talk conversations I have over and over in my life. By sharing these with you, I realize I'm revealing myself as a complete and utter sham. Any of you who may have once thought I was clever will now realize it's all a rouse. I'm not clever at all; I have fake conversations in my head all the time predicting all the likely things the people will ask in any given circumstance and come up with cute replies. Nothing too fancy or it will sound rehearsed. Here a simple example. You get a hair cut. You go to work. What small talk statement will your coworkers say?

I'll give you a minute to think about it. Okay, pencils down. Did your answer look something like this?

"OOh, you got a haircut!" or "Nice haircut," or "did you get a haircut?"

If I'm getting a haircut, I picture this conversation in my mind and come up with cute replies, polished and ready for the next day at work:

1) Yeah, i thought it would make me faster at (whatever a common task is at work). You know, make me more aerodynamic." [this one does not work if your job is professional swimmer because then this answer is not cute, just obvious]

2) Yeah, I wanted to look more like (name of bald guy in the office).

3.) No jerk. I'm undergoing chemotherapy. [this is actually a very bad reply]

Pretty simple. Now next time you see me, you can throw me for a loop by asking something i'd never expect you to say like, "Why do you wear pink panties?"
"uhh... no, jerk. I'm undergoing chemotherapy." See? Now that didn't work well at all, did it?

Armin's Common Conversations

1. Conversation with random co worker at work on Monday morning
Random Coworker: "Hey, how was your weekend?"
Armin: "Too short"
Both: Hahaha

2. Conversation i have with pilots when I ask them permission to close the airplane door.
Armin: "Alright Captain, we have everyone on board. Is there anything else you need before I close the door?"
Captain: "How about a million dollars?"
Armin: [Polite laughter] "If I could make a million dollars appear, I wouldn't be here, would I?"

3. Conversation while the song "Don't Stop Believing" is playing.
Average american: "I love this song."
Armin: "I fucking hate Journey."
Average American: "Why? How could you possibly hate Journey?"
Armin: "I don't know why. I just do."

4. Conversation while the song "magic man" by Hart is playing
Armin: "I hate Fleetwood Mac."
Average know it all American: "Actually, this is Hart."
Armin: "I know that [pretending to know that]. I just hate Fleetwood mac and wanted to share that with you."

I'd love to hear your horribly repetitive conversations... chances are, i've been on the other end of a script with you already.

more than meets the eye

2008-10-22T22:52:00.000-07:00

At work, when I check people in for their flights, I ask for their ID so I can address the passengers by name. It's what we call in the customer service field, "good customer service."

One time I was checking in a couple going to Harrisburg, PA. I looked at the gentleman's name. "Thank you, Mr. Prime. Mr. Optimus Prime." While putting a bag tag on his luggage, I added, "By the way, you have the coolest parents to have given you that name."

"actually, I legally changed my name ten years ago," he said and it seems his wife took the last name Prime as well. It could have been worse. He could have been obsessed with some other cartoon and she'd be introduced at her wedding as Mrs. Tasmanian Devil. Or Mrs. Hamburgler.

"You have a pretty neat name, too," he says to me, looking at my name tag. "Arminius. Where is that from."

"I stole it from GoBots."

on being a man

2008-09-23T17:02:00.000-07:00

An Example of how slow my growth is into "Manhood"...

I visited an old boss/friend on the east coast the other week and we had lunch at a little Middle Eastern restaurant in quaint Lambertville, NJ. Since he's three decades older than me and I was always a poor college student through our relationship, he has historically picked up the check whenever we met up.

But now an adult (I was wearing a button down shirt and dress socks, for god's sake) I fully intended to pick up the tab. While he was outside taking a phone call, the waitress, young and attractive enough for me to want to impress her said, "Do you guys need anything else? Or should we not make that decision until the man gets here?" The Man? Meaning that I'm "The Boy?" Or "The Tranny?" What the hell does that mean?

I said, "We're all set. We'll just take the check. By the way, he's not my sugar daddy or anything like that." I broke out my Visa.

"Oh, we only take cash here. I can get you change if you need it." Twelve dollars in my pocket for a $20 bill. I checked and rechecked my wallet as if twenty dollar bills were okapi hiding in the woods, like one would jump out if I was patient enough to keep searching.

Ten minutes later, she returned asking again if I need anything.

"No, just waiting for my sugar daddy to come back and pay the bill." Unbeknownst to me, testicles CAN actually shrivel up and recede back into your torso. Who knew?

*******

All the Knots Undone: Now in Syndication in Spokane, WA!

Heard from a friend, Ross, that his friend, Carey, spread the word about this blog to his coworkers in Spokane and they now check it regularly, too. Thanks for the support, readers I've never met, and this just goes to show you that if you are checking this blog at work, there are people out there with even more boring jobs than mine.

summer

2008-08-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

No season feels as short as summer. It's still how I measure every passing year, understandably enough, since until this move to Portland, my life had always been governed by the school schedule, either as student, teacher, or transient AmeriCorps volunteer on a one year contract.

To compound this feeling of foreboding that comes with the end of summer, I've recently switched to a three day work week. I know your immediate reaction is hot green jealousy, but if you only saw my paychecks, I'm sure some of you would mistake it for your monthly credit card payment. So this week, I've had a four day weekend, a tremendous amount of time off especially when compared to the schedule i kept during the summer (some weeks working 70 hours) and going back to work tomorrow feels like the end of a summer vacation that never existed.

I even have the nervousness of a kid on the eve of the first day of school, except I'm 27 and going to the same job I've been to for the last seven months. Appropriately enough, though, i just developed a large zit on my forehead. Maybe Northwest airlines will even decided to have picture day tomorrow.

Anyway, August always feels like the end of something to me, slightly melancholy because it marks the last chance for any summertime hopes to come true, and the acceptance that, well, maybe it'll have to wait to next year. It's a much more introspective time for me than New Year's and so, let's take a moment to assess this first summer in Portland...

1. Worked like a dog. Didn't know how to say no when people asked me to cover for them. Rationalized it in my head that if I take a day for them, of course they'll return the favor. Turns out, other people know how to say NO much better than I do.
2. Had a summer crush. Brief and innocent; it didn't turn into anything real, but I was happy for what it was and unconcerned by what it could not be. She held my arm when we walked across the street. That might have been the highlight of the entire summer.
3. Ate my first marionberry. They look like big ass blackberries entangled in a mesh of thorny vines. You know how when you're trying to break into a lobster and you tell yourself, don't worry, all this work and the minor cuts will be so worth it? Didn't feel the same about reaching my hands through thorns for a sour marionberry.
4. House-sat for my buddy Laurilyn again. You may remember her as the person whose car I destroyed last time I house-sat for her. Yes, she's a very forgiving person and was willing to give me second chance. No, I didn't destroy anything this time. The worst thing that happened this second time: I mistook rizotto for rice. Stir fried vegetables over Rizotto is not going to make it on any fusion restaurant's menu, at least not the way I made it.

So that's it. Soon we'll be breaking out the hoodies and the sun lamps to help stave of seasonal affect disorder. Soon enough, we'll be facing eight months of perpetually wet socks. Goodbye summer, for now. Let's do it again next year. Here's a song for the summer that, coincidentally, is called "The Summer Song."

AT, phone home

2008-08-21T15:59:00.000-07:00

I have a new cell phone after losing my old one last week. I've lost many a cell phone, but historically, I've always replaced the lost phone with the exact same model of phone for free... free, that is, in exchange for agreeing to another hundred years of T Mobile contracts. But this time, I was smart enough to find out that my contract had already expired, that i was no longer committed to indentured servitude with T Mobile, and could walk out of the store free to find a better deal.

But if there's anything I hate, it's shopping for a better deal. The second most hated thing: being inside of a mall for more than 30 minutes. The third: Journey (but that is neither here nor there). I get very antsy and annoyed in malls or trying to figure out what is a better deal. And phone salesmen are some of the most off putting people in hell. Had Dante been born in 1981, I'm sure he would have added another circle in Inferno just for them. They solicit you, even if you are just walking past their store, aggressively enough to make you think the mall is bangkok and cell phones are underaged Thai girls. They wear that unique texture of sliminess specific to the likes of pimps and guys from New Jersey.

Most of the time, I can just ignore them. but this time, I actually did need a new phone, forcing me to step inside their world.

"Hi. I just want to know the cheapest phone plan you have for the cheapest phone you have."
"C'mon. Really? Don't you need an MP3 player or a camera?" says Mike, the young kid from Sprint, with greased back hair. I don't delve into it, but I'm pretty sure no one needs an MP3 player. I'm pretty sure the MP3 player did not make the cut for Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
"No." I'm curt and don't smile.
"Internet access?"
"No." My patience is waning.
"How about a fullsized keypad?"
Deep breath. "No." The mall is starting to close in on me.

But Mike turned out to be a nice enough guy and, more importantly, his company was the one that had the cheapest deal. The guy at AT&T tried to convince me why I should pay more with his company by explaining the subtle nuances of the cell phone game in simple terms for me, the layman:

"You see, in this industry, you get what you pay for," he says.

I guess that's unique to cell phone companies as opposed to any other industry where the standard practice is espoused by the motto: "You pay and then put your hand in a burlap sack and pull out something, possibly what you thought you were paying for, like cable service, or possibly a large Tootsie roll." When all you want to do is call people on your cell phone (and even that is a rather limited desire), paying an extra $15 dollars a month for better customer service on the help line or less dropped calls when you are in Juneau does not sit well with me.

So now I have a fancy new cell phone and most people think this is an improvement because i guess my old grey nokia was not as state of the art as I thought it was. Is the capability of mankind to speak to his brethren thousands of miles away not enough to impress you anymore? Sure, this new phone probably has tons of new features, but they will be wasted on me because I will never take the time to learn or discover them. Instead, I look at this phone and wish it had the features my old phone had, namely:

1. teddy bear wallpaper
2. a left and right parentheses, two of my most favorite punctuation choices while texting (it seems the new generation of phones, in an attempt to slay grammar, have done away with many very practical punctuation marks including both the colon and semi colon; all texts become run on sentences like The Sound and the Fury or this blog)
3. a luxurious ten minute snooze for my alarm (i know have to ween down to a five minute snooze and am jonesing like a motherfucker)
4. the pre-programmed FREE bowling game i used to play when sitting in public bathrooms. The new phone only has samples of games for free and I can't figure out how to make the buttons silent, so if I were to play in the can, I'd be embarrassed because people can hear all the beeping. I don't know why it bothers me so much that a guy in the next stall knows I'm playing Pac Man while taking a shit, but it does.

Why do these electronic devices have to keep evolving? Isn't the status quo good enough for you? You don't hear people saying, "Thank god those old fashioned, clunky manatees are going extinct! Too slow and dumb to not get chopped up by motorboat rotors. I much prefer blue green algae which are much sleeker and can download Kanye West ring tones."

judgement

2008-07-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

There's a guy at work that my colleagues call "Einstein." That's supposed to be ironic, because--ironically enough--he's not very smart at all. Get it? They call him Einstein, but he's stupid. They'll say things on the walkie talkies like: "Can someone tell Einstein that if you put skis on the belt, they break?" or "Einstein's bringing me Jet blue's bags." And all us educated ticket agents laugh sympathetically at the woes of dealing with inferiority. He doesn't work for northwest, but for a contracted company called Aviation which hires people to take bags from the x-ray machine and bring them to the bag belt so they can be put on the plane. A simple, unglamorous job. I don't think a master's is required.

I'm not standing on a soapbox. Einstein's real name is Gabe and I don't like him any more than my coworkers do. He's a whiny bitch. I just find it funny how my coworkers feel they are in a place to judge. There's this sense that because we're behind the counter, we're somehow better than they guys pushing the bags on the floor. In the same breath, my coworkers then will complain about how the flight attendants think they're so much better than customer service agents. Hypocritical, isn't it?

One of my coworkers once said to me, "I wish the Aviation guys would just stop coming over and talking to us," precisely while I was wishing she would stop coming over and talking to me. Funny how they think they're impervious to the same judgment they cast on others.

I judge everyone. I'm just as guilty of it as my colleagues. I look at your clothes and listen to the way you speak and I have an instant judgment about your childhood and education and intelligence. I just try to keep it to myself. Try to deny that I'm doing it. Try to correct it in my mind. That's a hard thing to change, though. You can change dietary habits and sleeping patterns, but how do you change thinking habits?

That's why I get so low doing this job sometimes. Not because I hate the job itself--it's not particularly worse than any other job I've had, and it's significantly better than a couple I can remember (loading boxes for FedEx and washing dishes at a nursing home stand out as the worst)--but because I feel debased by doing it. Maybe I'm imagining it; because I judge other people, I assume they judge me.

One day a customer was flying to Baltimore. I said to her, "going to charm city?"
"Is that what they call Baltimore?"
"Yeah, I lived there for a year and it was quite charming."
"Where abouts?"
"Near Johns Hopkins."
"Oh, so you went to school there and moved here to work this job? I bet that happens a lot." I laughed along but wanted to bust her in the fucking face. Could have been a completely innocent remark, but i didn't take it that way.

I'll never be happy if I keep worrying about being judged. There's no job that isn't looked down upon by someone else in a better position. Even the Pope might have God snickering to the angels on walkie talkies, "Benedict put his mitre on backwards again. Retard."

*******************

Letters

Shana writes: I've never learned how to drive stick either. and i have this awful fear that one day there will be a horrendous bloody emergency or a desperate woman in labor and only a stick shift will be available for me to save the day.

I guess there's consolation in knowing women gave birth to kids long before stick shifts were invented and even without your help, parturition can occur. On the other hand, the horrendous, bloody emergency? Yeah, that fucker's screwed.

____________

Anelyn writes: damn that croc tooth girl! plenty of other quirky girls in portland!

No big deal, but it's always disappointing when you picture something and it doesn't come true. I already had our celebrity mash up name picked out, a la Brangelina and Bennifer. Narrowed it down to either Crocomin or Armindile.

____________

Kimbell1974 writes: Though you struggled, you didn't give up. Persistence is a good thing even if it's sometimes costly.

You're right, it was costly.

____________

Moun'ain girl writes: I found myself wanting everything to work out with a fairy-tale ending at the beginning of your story - i was charmed by your accounts of crocodile tooth and so excited for your house sitting vacation. But why did i delude myself into thinking it wouldn't be a debacle?

Because you still possess hope which, like trans fats, is just empty calories that amount to nothing in the end.

____________

Nimojo writes: Even though I got to hear each round in real time, I still get a good belly laugh each time I hear/read this story!

Thanks, but I'm sorry for people who live near me because they have to hear live renditions of the blog which are usually even more long-winded, if that's possible.

____________

Joe Kickass writes: I find that Jack Daniels is a very good seamster. Sometimes he even tells me to write.

I remember a time when Jack Daniels told you to piss on a tree regardless of steady traffic.

____________

Michael C writesL There was not a single, sweeping generalization in your post. What gives?

Will blog on sweeping generalizations, pros and cons, sometime in the future. Hope that's general enough for now.

baby, you can drive my car

2008-07-12T07:10:00.001-07:00

"Pretty Boy" Floyd Mayweather, boxing's pound for pound king, who you may know more for his cameos on Dancing with the Stars and WWE Wrestlemania than his boxing prowess, announced his retirement last month, leaving the game at his physical peak with an unblemished record and a wallet brimming with benjamins (he has an affinity for "making it rain" as other young, hip hoppy celebrities seem to enjoy. perhaps, throwing money in a crowded club and causing a melee is their way of giving back). He said he has nothing left to prove.

Bullshit. I'm not questioning his legacy as a hall of fame boxer. But you can't say there's nothing left to prove if in your same weight class, there is another young, undefeated fighter, namely Miguel Cotto, who has the most devastating body attack of any boxer in the game right now.

The general public only knows the names of knock out punchers, those head hunters who could throw one punch sending any opponent on the business side of the glove through the ropes. People who've never seen a boxing match know the name mike tyson just like I know the name Barry Bonds without watching baseball. We're drawn to the spectacular, naturally. But, any boxing fan will tell you, the way to knock out an opponent is not from one haymaker to the head. It's the disciplined, persistent (and perhaps, boring) body attack that saps an opponent's strength, makes him drop his guard, causes him to breath through the mouth making his jaw vulnerable to a chin shot. Body shots weaken the legs and take the snap out of an opponent's punches. Sure, most guys aren't knocked out by a body shot, but the accumulation of them through 12 rounds is what decides a fight. Floyd knows that and he's ducked a fight with Miguel Cotto for fights that may have had more box office draw, but certainly less risk. Floyd's not starving. He doesn't need the money. If he really wanted to prove he was the best, he'd face the pummeling that has crumpled all 32 of the fighters Cotto has dismantled in his career.

Don't worry this blog isn't about boxing (a dead sport, i know, i know). I just plowed through a series of events that felt like a combination of body shots... solar plexus, floating ribs, liver. Nothing enough to knock me out, just enough to make me drop my hands and buckle my knees.

Here's the round by round recap.

Round 1

House sitting is a guilty pleasure of mine along with Gilmore Girls and girly alcoholic drinks. It's like a mini-vacation for me, getting to live in someone's house which is inevitably more luxurious than wherever i'm living (that's just logical, if someone lived in a house that was worse than my place, why would they need a housesitter? to feed the mice?). And my friend Laurilyn needed someone to house sit for her for a weekend while she went to a wedding. Coincidentally, her house has both Gilmore Girls Dvds and girly alcoholic drinks. I was set. Bonus: she was leaving me her car. I got rid of my car in March and since then, I've most noticed the lack of a vehicle during the times when I've wanted to pick up a girl on a date. I'd been out a couple times with a girl I refer to affectionately as Crocodile Tooth because, due to genetics and a lack of orthodontics, she has a tooth visible even when she closes her mouth. One way to differentiate an alligator from a crocodile is that a crocodile has a visible tooth when it closes its mouth, unlike an alligator which can afford braces at an early age. Hence the nickname. It's really a term of endearment because I really do think she's pretty and I love herpetology. But I've taken a lot of shit from people who think that's an offensive nickname, though I doubt anyone would say I'm a jerk if I called her something like Butterfly Girl. That's because we're taught at a young age that butterflies are "pretty" and crocodiles are "ugly." However if I quantified the nickname of Butterfly Girl by saying, "I call her that because she has a segmented body and an exoskeleton," people would probably find that nickname more disturbing that Crocodile Girl. Anyway, I'd been out with this girl a couple times and she always had to drive, which she never complained about, but finally I had the chance to call her and say, "i'll be at your place at 8."

So I was feeling pretty damn good about the whole situation when I got to Laurilyn's on Thursday.

Round 2

"This is the key for the mailbox," Laurilyn said as she showed me around her place, explaining the trash schedule and how to use her toilet, one of those water saving flushes. Puffing my chest, i thought to myself, "Laurilyn, I have a college diploma. I think i can handle your place for four days."

After showing me where the towels were stored and which bottles of alcohol were fair game, it was getting close to the time for her to get to the airport. I told her I'd drive her there in her car.
As she was grabbing her suitcase, I tried to be funny:

"You know I don't have a license, right?"
She laughs, "Haha. But you do know how to drive stick, right?" No, she's not trying to be funny. She's not joking. And though I do have a license and a college diploma, learning how to drive stick weren't prerequisites for either. It was getting close to flight time for her and I didn't think there was time to find a new driver. Had I known then what I know after everything unfolded, I would have suggested we drive to the employee parking lot where I could park her car for free and then I'd get someone to drive it back to her place. No costs, just the inconvenience of getting a friend to drive the car back to her place.

Instead, I said, "I think I can figure it out." I doubt that any of my friends would think of me as someone who is conceited, overly confident, or unrealistic about his abilities. So had I never driven a stick EVER, then i certainly wouldn't have said I can figure it out. But, last summer, my friend Cal taught me how to drive his manual for a half hour when I visited him in san francisco and I thought the basics would come back to me. Five gears, three pedals, two feet. I mean, sixteen year old kids learn how to do this. There's even been stories of six year old kids who somehow drove their parents' manual transmissions to chuck e cheeses or some shit like that, though these recounts seem a bit apocryphal... how the hell could they reach the pedals? Anyway, i wasn't talking out of my ass. I definitely thought this was possible. Obviously, I had neglected the one rule that is consistent in my life: Whatever Armin believes, he's wrong.

Round 3

Laurilyn drove to the airport with me in the passenger's side. She chose not to have me drive her, claiming what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. "It's a brand new clutch, so I don't think you can do too much damage." The drive was about four miles.

I helped her get her bags out, gave her a hug, and waited until she was out of sight. Then, jumping in the driver's seat, I adjusted the mirrors and changed the station to oldies. I wasn't feeling particularly nervous at this point. I assumed I'd hiccup and stall a few times and have a funny story to tell at cocktail parties.

I couldn't even start the damn thing. I forgot I needed to push the clutch in first. I forgot which pedal was the clutch. I hadn't driven any car in months; i was shaky and confused. Still not very nervous though. I rolled down the window and smiled at people trying to unload their bags near me, "I'll be out of your way soon, kind sir. I don't know how to drive stick."

I called Cal for guidance since he had taught me how to drive. No answer. Then I called Nicole, and then Ryan, both of whom drive stick. Neither answered. So I called Ross who did answer, but doesn't drive stick himself. At least he helped me get the car started.

"are you going to be okay?"
"Sure," I said. "It's only four miles. I'm sure I'll be fine."

Round 4

Arm out the window, sputtering along at a 8 mile per hour clip and stalling out every tenth of a mile, I still felt good. Still felt I'd make it home and I could figure it all out. I'd made it out of the unloading area in front of the airport and was approaching the main road, Airport Way, which is not a very fast road. I think the speed limit is 45 mph. But, I couldn't figure out how to shift out of first gear. I remember that when I let up on the clutch, I had to push the gas down, and vice versa. I did not remember that I had to push the clutch ALL THE WAY DOWN to switch gears. I thought I would be able to get back entirely in first gear.

My first moment of true concern came when I had to make a right hand turn over the railroad tracks. Since I had to let up on the gas, I stalled out, just as the green light adjusted to yellow and then red. And even when I pushed the gas down the car would not speed up and I heard the DING DING DING of red railroad barriers dropping their wooden arms, tomahawk style.

It was downhill though and I had enough time and momentum to drift through the tracks unscathed. But I was no longer as calm as I had been. I pulled over and gave Nicole another call. She picked up this time and was somewhat incredulous that I should try to drive a car I don't know how to drive. My decisions only seem ridiculous when I hear sane and reasonable people's first reaction to them. Her advice: 1) Push the clutch all the way down to shift, and 2) You will need more than first gear to get home.

Round 5

Armed with these new tidbits of knowledge, I felt renewed. Like a prisoner who's exhausted himself searching for even the smallest crack in the walls until finally looking up to see there's a hole in the ceiling. I took a deep breath and tried it again. I still stalled. I could shift from first to second, but couldn't get past that. I started climbing a hill about one mile, ten minutes, from the airport where I started this debacle. As i struggled, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw smoke, so much so that I couldn't see the cars behind me. Then I saw smoke in front of me. And the acrid smell of something simple becoming something terribly difficult. I pulled over and called Nicole and Ryan. They picked me up. By then the car had stopped smoking and did not look as horrible. But the smell was still there. Ryan's guessed the smell was burning asbestos from the parking brake (oh, i forgot to mention i was driving with the parking brake on until after the train tracks). Nicole wasn't sure what had happened to the car, but they both seemed to agree that it would be hard to do too much damage in that short of time with a brand new clutch.

Ryan drove the car to Laurilyn's place without much ado. He said it was a little tough shifting into the gears, but maybe he was just saying that to help preserve my already shriveling testicles. They advised me to try starting that car again in a couple days and see if the smell was still there.

Round 6

So I ignored the car and went immersed myself in the joy of living in someone's fully furnished house all by myself. I peed with the door open. I drank liqueurs instead of liquor with fancy Italian names and spell lemon limon. I got back from work at 1am and watched episodes of Man Vs Wild and every time the british guy had to catch lizards and maggots and roast them on sticks, i'd find left over halloween chocolate in her pantry and pretend I was surviving in the Indonesian swamps and Siberian tundra, too. I had a grand old time.

Then it was time to start the car again. Pushed the clutch down, turned the key. No problem. Dropped the emergency brake, put it in reverse. Holy shit! It's working! Put it back into first, bring it a few feet forward. I was ready to try it out again, now armed with the knowledge to make this thing go. I did not want to be defeated by this car.

Now someone who doesn't know me would probably chalk this up to excessive machismo, like I can't admit my limitations, or have to prove I'm a man in some way. But actually, I give up in tons of ways. I don't try to fix computers for myself or when I did have a car, I did very little work on it myself. I rarely try to do things I don't feel comfortable doing, and so this was a rare occasion when i was telling myself to take a chance, try to learn something on your own dammit without running for help. And so i ventured onto the very quite streets around Laurilyn's house and was doing great going into first and second and, my gosh!, even third. So i drove around for a couple minutes without any major issue, except getting stuck at a dead end and having to do a K turn. But all was well. The last think i wanted to do was fill the tank with gas because Laurilyn wouldn't get back into town until late and she had to work early the next morning. So i drove to a gas station but found it closed and didn't want to venture further out on busy roads so I just turned around and headed back to her place.

She lives up a bit of a hill and I found it impossible to move even in first once i stalled out. This was sunday morning and i was dead in front of a church, the Parkrose Deliverance Tabernacle Church, or something like that, and all the parishioners were on their way out the doors to proclaim the good news, i assume. Many of them saw me struggling and had to squeak past me to get to the main road. I asked one man getting in his car to help me out. He was more than pleased to oblige, a professional truck driver as it were. He couldn't get it to move either. Said the clutch wasn't catching at all. He helped me push it into the church's parking lot. I popped the hood, completely unsure of what I was looking for. He poked around and this drew the attention of a couple other guys because an open hood is to modern man what fire once was for the Neanderthal, a phenomenon that brings men together even though none of them can explain what the hell they are looking at.

As Nicole and Ryan surmised, the men at the church felt it was doubtful i could cause that much damage in 15 minutes of driving. Either there must have been some previous damage that went unnoticed until just now or whatever problem that was happening would magically go away after the car got to rest a bit.

I called Laurilyn. She wasn't mad at me at all, or if she was, she hid it well. She gave me the name of her mechanic. I called him and though he wasn't open--it was sunday, after all--he did refer me to a tow company he trusted. So for $60 plus $2 ATM fees (he didn't take credit), i had the hobbled Subaru towed to Ben's Japanese Automotive.

I watched more Man Vs. Wild and drank beer while I watched the British guy drink water from a chopped vine.

Round 7

Monday morning, I biked to Ben's Japanese Automotive. Ben is a Korean man with a kindly face and shy smile. He's the one who replaced Laurilyn's clutch a couple months ago. Any time an older asian man speaks to me, it sounds both succinctly wise and horribly condescending. His diagnosis without taking the car apart yet: "If problem with transmission, not your fault. If problem with clutch, then you not know how to drive stick."

Four more hours later, he confirms the latter. His words: "The clutch is all gone." Like it's a fucking magic trick and I'm david blaine. Watch armin make a clutch (and his savings) disappear! And though the common consensus was that I couldn't destroy a brand new clutch in 15 minutes or two miles of driving, people clearly underestimate my apt for catastophe. Since Laurilyn wa his frequent customer, he quoted me a discounted rate of $450 instead of the usual $650. I was mildly consoled by that.

But he couldn't have the car ready until Tuesday. Laurilyn was getting back monday night and needed the car for work the next day. So, to make sure my idiocy didn't cause her any unneeded inconvenience, I told her I'd get a rent a car for her. She said not to worry about it; she could find someone to car pool with. But, i assured her it wouldn't be difficult. I work at the airport after all where all the rent a car companies are located and i could probably get a discount being a northwest employee. This was when things started getting a bit out of hand for me.

Round 8

A friend of mine, Ryan, visited this past fourth of july and when I recounted this latest tale of Armin's Persistent Idiocy to him, he mentioned how much it sucks to have to spend all that money. True, but, the money didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. Money hasn't come easy since moving to Portland, but I'm not teetering on the edge of eviction, either. So if I could have written out a check for $550 just to make this problem go away, I certainly would have. What bothers me more is how I'm presented with a problem (generally self inflicted), then I picture a series of steps I need to do to extract myself from this mess, and invariably, those steps are much more painstaking and complicated than I could have ever imagined.

So on Monday afternoon, I called some car rental places at the airport. I'd rented a car when my friend Robbie was in town a few months ago, so I had some experience with the process. It cost $30 for one day and all we had to show was his license. It was a smooth, hassle free process, so I didn't imagine any difficulty getting one for Laurilyn. The only issue I could imagine was that I needed to be dressed and clocked in at work by 6:59 PM. I had decided on Enterprise by 2pm and all I had to do was take the light rail to the airport (a 40 min ride), rent the car (15 min?), drive back to Laurilyn's (10 min, tops), put on my uniform and bike to work (25 min). It seemed like plenty of time.

I didn't want to get the car too early because it would have to be returned by the same time the next day to be charged for just one day. So I got to Enterprise around 5:30 pm. Again, all I had to do was pay, drive to Laurilyn's, and bike back. I gave the gentleman at the desk my last name.

"And Mr. Tolentino, do you have a credit card?"
"Sure," I said and handed him my debit card.
"Ummmm... do you have a credit card that isn't attached to a bank?"
"No. Do I need one?"
"It's okay. If I can just see your flight itinerary, I can get you set up."
"I'm not flying anywhere. I live here."
"Oh. Well we can't rent cars to people who live here."
"What?"
"it's a security thing. But you can rent a car from another Enterprise office."
"So I'm allowed to rent a car at other Enterprise offices if I live in Portland, but just not here at the airport."
"That's right."
My composure started slipping. My frustration was audible. Working in customer service, I know all about enforcing rules that make no sense whatsoever. I know it's not this 20 year old kid's fault that I can't get a car but I'm pissed off. "Where's the next nearest Enterprise office?" He showed me a place I could get to from the light rail. But it would be closing by 6 so I had to get there in a half hour. Rather than risk going there and it not working out, I decided to try all the other rent a car centers at the airport to see if they followed the same rules. Yes the rest of them held to the same policy, but Budget said because I had my employee ID that I could still get one. Relief like a warm blanket wrapped my heart. I started chuckling out loud at the close call while the girl began checking me in. She asked for my debit card--yes it was okay for me to use a debit card here--and stopped her typing.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Tolentino. It says Do Not Rent."
"What do you mean?"
"It just says I can't rent to you when I swipe your credit card." Yes, i might have been low on funds at that point, but I'm sure I had at least $150. Enough to rent a car. I couldn't argue the point and went groveling back to Enterprise. They transferred my reservation to the other office and all I had to do was get there before 6pm.

It was 5:40 when I caught the light rail. Of all the annoying little things that happened in this series of unfortunate events, one thing bothers me most. Every time I ride public transportation in Portland, I get a transfer which is good for two hours after my ride. So I can board any bus or train with that two hour span, show them my transfer, and not pay anything. So my pockets are full of these scraps of paper that I have to pull out on laundry day. For some reason that day, when I got out at the airport, I saw a trash can right in front of me and thought, "You know, i never use these transfers and they just clutter my room, so i'm going to throw it out. Why would I need it? I'm renting a car, after all."

And, predictably enough, I did need that transfer to get onto the train again to find an Enterprise that would rent me a car even if I lived in Portland. Thought about riding the train without a ticket, but knew with my luck that i would get caught by transit police and fined. So I sucked it up and bought another $1.75 ticket and rode four stops to the place where the Enterprise guy would pick me up.

He was a nice guy and explained to me that I needed something to prove I lived in portland for him to rent me a car. No, I didn't have an Oregonian license. Back in Baltimore and Boston, cops had asked me on different occasions why I didn't switch my license over to my new residences. They'd always say something demeaning like, "Son, did you know you're supposed to register for a new license once you live in a city for a month? Why haven't you changed yours?" Why? Have you been to the DMV, asshole? Would you voluntarily spend a day in line plus $80 to switch your license over when your old license can still let you get into bars and drive anywhere in the USA? Fuck that.

The Enterprise guy was more understanding than the cops. Since I had no way to prove I lived in Portland, no bills in my name and no license, he needed me to fill out the names of references. So while he drove me to the rental spot, I called Nicole and another friend Luana and told them, "A guy is going to call you in a few minutes and you have to confirm I live in portland. This is not a joke. Please answer him honestly."

So the Enterprise guy called Nicole and Luana and my boss at northwest, Art, who got a real kick out of me being in this mess because he loves cars and thought it was really funny that I didn't know how to drive stick. Then the enterprise guy had to photocopy all my work IDs and was looking for some other form of ID that would show I lived here. Gym membership? Anything? I gave him my library card and frequent customer card from a local coffee shop. "here," I said showing him old bus transfers from previous dates, "I swear I live here." He found it all amusing and cleared me for a car.

But, even though the Enterprise people at the airport said they'd transfer my reservation over to this other site, they didn't. So there was no car for me and I was ready to cry. Never fear, the Enterprise man assured me we could find a car, but we'd have to go back to the airport to get it. It was about 6:15 at this time and getting a little too close to work time for me to be comfortable. So i drove in a van with a bunch of Enterprise employees and they asked me why I needed a rent a car and I told them this entire story I've typed out for you here in this blog. And the common consensus was that I'm a retard.

But I had a car now and drove as fast as I could without getting a ticket and biked to work very quickly and took some good natured raillery from my coworkers for the events of the previous few days. Laurilyn had a car to drive to work. We picked up her car the next day, Ben the mechanic looked at me with his sad deep eyes and again repeated, "the clutch, it's all gone." I got the rent a car back in time without a hitch, though I did have to pay for their insurance because Enterprise knew I didn't have a car and didn't have my own. I wasn't about to argue that I didn't need insurance and i sure wasn't going to mention that I wouldn't even be the one driving the car. So that cost around $70. Think of it like I took a four day vacation at Laurilyn's house that cost me $580.

Round 9

Remember Crocodile Tooth, the girl I had a crush on and wanted to pick up in this borrowed car? As you might guess, I didn't pick her up that weekend. After an ambiguous date after the car problems were behind me, I asked her via text if there was any chance for us to be a couple or if I was wasting my time. She replied "No, let's just be really good friends!" Exclamation point! Precious.

Round 10

I was late for a 5 am shift at work. Had an alarm set for 3:30 am, but it didn't go off and I woke up at 4:15. Takes an hour to bike to work, but with the lack of traffic and my adrenaline, was able to get there in 45 min. Still clocked in late, but not too late and since it was my first infraction, I wasn't too stressed out.

I had to work the next morning at 5 am as well and so, learning my lesson, i decided to just sleep in the airport. It was cold and uncomfortable. I remember waking up around 3am, going into the lost and found to grab a sweatshirt and pillow someone left on the plane, and lying back on a bench to get one more hour of sleep. Can you believe I actually overslept again for work? The second day in a row, after having gone 5.75 months without an issue. And this time I overslept right in the goddamn airport. I woke up when the supervisor called my cell, quickly changed in the lost and found, and started working without even brushing my teeth. The line was snaked all around the dividers when i got there and there were only two people, one of whom was the supervisor who had called me, working. I felt awful.

This doesn't have anything to do with the car debacle, but it happened around the same time and I needed to add another round because boxing matches are never 9 rounds.

Post Fight Interviews

When my boss Art was teasing me about this story, he quoted richie cunningham of Happy Days, something to the effect of "If it hurts this badly, I must be learning something from it." If there's a lesson to be learned, I guess it's this: If you're wondering whether you are burning out the clutch in a car, the smell will tip you off. A burning clutch has the uncanny smell of burning a paycheck.

hiatus

2008-07-09T15:10:00.000-07:00

"have you seen my wife, mr. jones? do you know what it's like on the outside? don't go talking too loud, you'll cause a landslide."
-the bee gees

I'm a coal miner stepping out of a hole in the ground, dusty, wheezing, and completely unsure of whether there is life on the surface anymore.

So for anyone still reading, thanks. It's been a while, i know. And my only explanation for this is that i need too much sleep. Something around 8 hrs minimum to function. It doesn't seem an unreasonable amount, but for all the things i want to get done every day, blogging invariably falls to the bottom of the priority list.

I was telling my friend nicole after a particularly trying week--nothing horrible, but just exhausting and frustrating (more about it in the next blog entry... you can expect that sometime in summer of 2010)--that i just feel life is in constant disrepair and we are each seamstresses (or seamsters for guys?) and our only responsibility is to try and stitch all these rips over and over, knowing it'll always fall apart again.

A hole in a sock for example. This always makes me a bit sad because a hole will only get worse. A hole represents nothingness and you can't make something out of nothing. Once a sock has a hole in it, it will never be the same. You can sew it. You can patch it. It'll never be as strong as it was before the hole and we can pretend the sock will be fine, but it's fucked unless we take the time every day to monitor and maintain it.

"Just throw the sock out, armin. Buy a new one." I get it. It's just an analogy because you can't just throw out your life. It's melodramatic. I'm replacing sisyphus' boulder with thread and needle. But every day we have these little, dull tasks we need to do and I don't even mind doing them. I just hate that they take away from the things I feel I'm really meant to do.

Flossing. That was part of the new armin's daily tasks. The new armin would floss every day and he's been pretty consistent with that. But you can't just do it once. You have to floss every day, this constant upkeep of your teeth. Or stetching. If you want to make sure you don't get old and hobbly too soon, you need to stretch. not just once, though. That does no good. You need to stretch every damn day or else it's all to shit. Exercise is the same and laundry and fixing my bike. There's all these repetitive tasks that can't just be done once a year. You have to do them over and over again, and that doesn't even mean it makes you exceptional. That's just to keep things from falling apart. If you stretch every day, that doesn't mean you'll be this amazing contortionist. It just means you might prevent yourself from severe pain when you try to pick up a spoon you dropped on the kitchen floor.

And so if I want to accomplish bigger things, say writing more, reading more, learning to play the ukulele and mandolin, get better at the guitar, improve my origami repertoire, resume my karate training, apply to grad schools, work enough hours to save money for grad school, along with having enough time to be with friends here and call friends far away... I get exhausted thinking about it because there's this mundane "to do list" that involves flossing, stretching, laundry, bike repair, cleaning the bathroom, etc.

The people in this world I envy most are those people who just don't need as much sleep, so they can go out with friends and write books and earn degrees and teach themselves special relativity along with a thousand other accomplishments all during the time that i'm in bed snoring.

I look at my hands a lot while typing at work or riding my bike. They look old now. Little scars and dark spots. I think of my two year old nephew's hands, each tiny finger pink and segmented like a caterpillar. Mine have the look of old bark instead. Maybe they look old because i felt I'd have more to show for myself at this age than a basket of folded laundry. I told nicole I would celebrate every accomplishment, no matter how small, but it's hard to rationalize cracking open a bottle of champagne every time you vacuum your room.

No matter. Summer has come to portland at last and some days the sun is just right and makes you remember the first time you ate a soft batch chocolate chip cookie.

Guest Blog: A comment on sweeping generalizations

2008-06-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

In our society of political correctness, it has become all too common to err on the side of being polite. Certainly, interpersonal relationships and alcohol-facilitated conversations at parties have benefited from this additional measure of indoctrinated etiquette. Years ago, when newly introduced labels were put in use to describe someone, whether it was an African American who was once called black or a European-ancestry Caucasian who was once referred to simply as white, the new terms were clunky but proved to be somewhat useful.

In addition to this new way of reference, the practice of making sweeping, biased generalizations was already in sharp decline. For good reasons (the need to fight racism, sexism, antisemitism, antidisestablishmentarianism, etc.), these types of narrow-minded statements were increasingly met with disdain.

OK. Fine. That makes sense to me. But, I have a problem and here it is: my brain. My brain seems almost predisposed and uniquely structured to make rash, snap judgments based on sweeping generalizations. It is so ingrained that I believe it to be an inherent, primal quality. Instinctual, even. Heck, there is mounting scientific evidence that rash judgments, based on biases and not proven evidence, have contributed to the survival of our early ancestors.

So... how do I live in a society where my instincts run up against etiquette? Is it better to offer the world a polished, generic front to hide the sweeping generalizations that I make or to communicate them to shine a window on my imperfect humanity? And aside from etiquette, I believe that some sweeping generalizations are effective tools to use in life. Instead of trying to suppress this tendency to generalize, which is currently out of fashion in polite circles of conversation, my biased thoughts are used when I feel it's necessary.

Let me offer an example:

A few years from now, I will be married with children. I will want to get a babysitter so my sexy wife and I can hit the town. To find one, I will post an ad online. I will get a few responses and ultimately narrow the field down to two college students I have never met: a man and a woman. Both of them will be well referenced and will make an equally good impression on me. At this point, it might be hard for some people to make a decision.

But not for me. I will pick the female student.

Why? Because of my brain and this piece of information: in over 95% of people arrested for child sex crimes (pedophilia, child molestation, etc.), men are the perpetrators.

Now, it's true that since I don't really know anything about each of these hypothetical students, it is possible that this particular girl is a child molester. There is no way of knowing. But following the logic of wanting what's best for my children, I will pull in this generalization (that men are more likely to molest children) to make the best judgment I can.

And to anyone who actually endured this guest blog posting, I have this parting question:

Why is it not acceptable to admit or confess the biases and generalization our brains possess?

Yes, most of these thoughts breed intolerance and despicable behaviors. Yet, in our politeness and our measures not to offend, we lose touch with a valuable connection to our imperfect (but honest) humanity.

I think that's something that needs to be considered.

Sir Thaddeus McDougal
(AKA Cal, the college friend of Arminius)

Information derived from:
Vandiver and Walker. Female Sex Offenders: An overview and analysis of 40 case studies. Criminal Justice Review. Vol. 27, Number 2, page 284 (Autumn 2002).

shoot for ignorance

2008-04-30T15:13:00.000-07:00

"Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars." Have you heard this quote or seen it written in bold font on a laminated poster behind the desk of a guidance counselor's office? According to my extensive research--I typed the phrase into Google and believed the first website that came up-- this popular quote is attributed to motivational speaker, Les Brown. Perhaps Les Brown has not heard of Copernicus' heliocentric model of the universe or is a member of the Spanish Inquisition.

I'm not an astronomer, but I've learned this much: The sun is the closest star to the earth and it is much further away than the moon. So if you shoot for the moon and miss, you will not be amongst stars. Instead, you will be floating in a black vacuum and you will die quickly in this lifeless, black vacuum because there will be no air or pressure or Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies to sate your hunger. Maybe that's not inspirational enough to laminate and stick on a wall next to your Ansel Adams print, Les, but at least it's the truth.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/lesbrown383867.html

getting by is just not enough anymore

2008-04-16T13:35:00.000-07:00

A week ago, Nicole and I went to open mic poetry at a hip jazz bar with blue lighting and reformed hippies. A bunch of regulars read their work, lots of explicit sex which is especially uncomfortable to hear coming from a grandma (of course it could be fiction, but the smirk on her face made me feel there was some truth behind it... icky).

Since I've been thinking more and more about applying for programs to earn a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry, I started to question myself... why would I want to voluntarily surround myself amongst people like this? I'm stereotyping, but there is some truth to a brooding, suffering poet. Who else is self centered enough to think his feelings are unique and deserve to be read and beloved by the world? I get along with most people, I think, but whiny bitches are where I draw the line.*

Getting an MFA isn't like going to grad school. You can write poems without the letters MFA suffixing your name. You aren't going to be arrested for writing a book without a degree like you would if conducted surgery without the letters MD. Do i just want to prove to people that I haven't plateaued? That i'm still on course for more than an entry level job that pays a buck and a half more than the absolute bottom the state will allow?

When did we start having to do more than just live? When did surviving become insufficient while all other creatures with whom we share this earth consider survival the greatest form of accomplishment? Without any background in anthropology or history, I'm pretty sure the turning point was precisely when surviving became easy, expected. Once the challenge of gathering food was simplified to a trip to Fred Meyers and the possibility of getting killed by a gila monster or musky, predatory mammal was reduced to nil save for the most unfortunate or the dumbest of the species, our most natural human challenges evaporated. People needed to invent new things to make life more difficult and, ever since we've been seeking achievements, praise, and approval as desperately as our ancestors sought consistent sources of glucose and clean water.

It impresses neither employers nor girls to brag that you've eaten food every day without fail for the last twenty seven years. Nor are guests at cocktail parties particularly wowed when you confide, "I have never suffered from mumps or rubella." My question: is there any way to reverse this inflation that human contentment seems to be suffering? Can I lower the bar and be satisfied with doing less? Maybe no one else wants to regress like me. But, can I personally oppose this trend that demands I do more and be more than I am now? I eat every day of the week. I sleep out of the rain. Homo habilis would be envious of my bike repair abilities. What more do I really need? I'm almost certain that if I were struggling to obtain those basic needs, all the feelings of longing and insufficiency that poison my thoughts would not exist. And if that's true, then it's all a head game: these modern human needs of accomplishment and accolades are invented and not a biological necessity. So that proves they can be controlled, right? And besides having food and shelter, I received the best birthday present possible: Isaiah Thomas has been evicted from both the front office and the coach's bench at Madison Square Garden. That would be enough to make any homo habilis throw his excessively long arms up to heaven in gratitude.

*This is the trait I find most salient in my roommate Marty, which is the reason I dislike her so much. Her own bitching isn't so offensive to me as the fact that she reminds me how I can be a little bitch myself and that's one of the things I hate the most about myself. As the band Down says, "I'm trying to kill what's wrong with me." I wish Marty's last name started with an R. That way she could be MartyR which is how she presents herself, maybe a bit more vocal about her suffering though than say St Stephen, Martin Luther King, or Gandhi. Unfortunately, her last name starts with an S.

everybody plays the fool

2008-04-01T19:39:00.001-07:00

It's april fool's day and so I thought it would be appropriate to list some of the ways I've been a fool in my life. My last relationship lasted slightly over one month. That was a year ago and it's still hurting to this day. Twelve months to get over a one month relationship... that's pretty foolish. If you wanted to extrapolate this data, that would mean if I fell out of a hypothetical two year relationship, it would take nearly my life time, up to this point, to recover. But most of this hurt was my own fault. As I told you in a previous blog, I have a hard time interpreting non verbal cues and often misconstrue people's actions and behaviors to mean they hate me. Well, I also make the same mistake assuming based on actions and behaviors someone might love me, which may not be the case. Nothing to pity here, though. That's what the R &B band the Main Ingredient tried to warn us about prophetically back in the year 1972: "Everybody plays the fool sometimes. There's no exception to the rule."
So, I'm not alone. Everybody plays the fool, including you. But--and I'm trying to be perfectly objective here-- I think I've played the fool more times than any of you have. Based on anecdotes and stories I've heard from other people during cocktail parties and various soirées, I think Rodney Dangerfield and I are in a league of our own. My stories are astronomically more embarrassing than anything I've heard from you. Here are some of the less embarrassing examples--if you can believe that--which many of you may have already heard and gotten a good laugh over already.

1. During one summer vacation from college, I was back in my hometown of Lincoln Park and went to a nearby town's library. There was a group of middle schoolers loitering in the foyer of this library and I intended to walk by them without any acknowledgment or further ado. But one of the boys in the group put out his hand as if to give me a high five, and so, not knowing what else to do, I went to slap his hand, only to have him pull away and say, "Syc!"making a dozen middle schoolers, including girls, laugh at me. The worst part was I still had to face them when I left the library and that punk ass bitch tried it again, but I just kept walking. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but this memory stuck with me for at least three years, and there were plenty of times when I'd call my college friend, Tum Tum, crying about how much I wished I'd just busted that kid's face up for taking my dignity away like that. He ruined what were supposed to be the best days of my life and I'll never forgive him for that.

2. A couple years back while I was teaching in Boston, I was on winter break and decided to do a good thing by de-icing the refrigerator in my apartment. we had never done this in the two years we'd lived there and there was a solid three inches of ice that had accumulated on all sides of the freezer. So i got out a Stanley screwdriver and began chipping away*. Yes, I knew that you are never supposed to use a sharp implement to de-ice a fridge. I just assumed that warning was for imbeciles who had no motor control; the same as the warnings to not use a Q-tip within the ear canal or warning labels on cups of coffee announcing in several languages that the hot coffee is served HOT.
I was doing great, chipping away all those years of frozen accumulation. I even found a ribeye steak that was dated to nine months before we had moved into the apartment. I felt like an archaeologist. I was uncovering layers of ice that may have even preceded the existence of refrigerators.
I had gotten almost all of the ice removed and was standing in a cold puddle that represented my victory over the years of neglect this poor Kenmore had received. There was just one little patch of ice left on the back wall of the freezer. I'd chipped away all of Greenland and Antarctica and all that was left was little, old Nova Scotia. No problem. So i began my delicate technique of tap tap tap, scrape scrape scrape, when suddenly I felt the screwdriver dig too far. Then, horrible smelling freon was splashing on my shirt. Fuck.
I called a refrigerator repair man. Contrary to what I assumed, duct tape would not fix this problem. Once you puncture a hole in a refrigerator, it becomes a Chinese wife who can't produce a male son-- fucking useless**. My options: pay the repair company $500 for a new refrigerator or search Craigslist for a free refrigerator and figure out how to transport it back to my place. There was no question i would go with the latter. This happened the first day of winter break and i had this horrible vision of me spending every day of that vacation answering ads for free refrigerators... and that pretty much came true.
Of course, the obvious challenges to choosing to find my own refrigerator instead of just paying to get it replaced: 1) how are you going to transport it? 2) how are you going to get it up the three winding flights of stairs into your apartment, and 3) is it going to fit in the apartment and the empty, dusty space the now defunct refrigerator used to occupy?
I found a refrigerator on Craigslist for $50. Not free, but significantly cheaper than the alternative. Remember, time was a factor here. i couldn't just wait around until a better deal came. I needed to replace this refrigerator so my roommates and I wouldn't have to pack food in the dirty melting snow outside. So i bit. Fifty dollars is a small price to pay when you fuck up.
As for transporting this refrigerator, I had a plan, surprising as that might be. One of my fellow teachers had a giant fifteen seater company Dodge van parked outside of his classroom. Since I worked for this teacher the year before as an aide, I knew he was lax about company policy and would have no problem loaning me the keys for the van to pick up a refrigerator, especially during winter break when no one was using it anyway. I'd even make sure to fill up the tank before I dropped it back.
This is the fine art of human problem solving. This is what separates us from the worms and other lesser coelomates. I was representing the apex of vertebrate evolution with my evolved and clever mind. So, recruiting my roommate and good friend Adam, we stole the company van and drove to Cambridge where a $50 fridge was waiting for us.
A kindly older lady who worked as a professor at Harvard University (pronounced: Haaaavaaad) had this old fridge sitting in her basement. Worked perfectly well, she said, but she didn't need it anymore. Turns out she taught high school teachers how to better teach their students and she had even done seminars for the organization with which I worked... the same organization from whom I'd stolen the van. So we hit it off right away and I paid her the fifty dollars and the only concern was how to get refrigerator out of her basement. It was humongous. It looked much bigger than the one I had destroyed, but with my tape measurer handy, it met the space requirements for my kitchen. So adam and I removed the hinges of her basement door, forced this ugly brown fridge up the rickety basement stairs, perched the refrigerator onto a dolly and tried to roll it down the stone path from her house to the street. Dollies are meant to work only on flat surfaces; as far as I know, they have not invented all-road dollies yet, and if they had, they were not at our disposal when we needed them. But, regardless, we made it the fifteen feet to the street where the glorious company van was waiting, gutted of its seats to fit this monstrosity.
Then we drove the ten minutes home and began hefting it up the three flights of winding stairs to the apartment. No problem. Adam and I are young, twenty something males. Healthy, strong, at the peak of our virility. How many kegs had the two of us lifted up these very same stairs over the past two years? Just take it one step at a time.
But, by the fourth step of the first floor stairwell, we realized this might actually be impossible. Not only was it very fucking heavy, the refrigerator didn't even seem like it could fit around the turns of the stair case. We were covered in sweat and our hands ached. We couldn't even hold onto the refrigerator after a while, and it would slide down the couple of stairs we managed to get it up. And worst of all, if we couldn't get it up the stairs, we'd have still have to figure how to get it back out of the stairs at least, which also seemed fairly impossible. Out of sheer desperation, we called Mandy, our other roommate and good friend, who weighs in at about 100 lbs and could probably fit inside of the vegetable drawer of the very refrigerator we were recruiting her to help us move. Understandably, we were desperate at this point.
Somehow, by the graces of god and the combined will of all three of us, we were able to push and yank and drag that refrigerator up all those stairs to the doorway of our apartment. With a few more heaves and more damage to the walls of the apartment, the replacement fridge was standing in front of the spot occupied by the old fridge. But, despite all my careful measurements, it was too big to fit in between the cabinet and the wall. Off by centimeters. The thought of tossing this refrigerator after the hour we spent getting it up the stairs was not inviting. We somehow figured how to dig the cabinets deeper into the wall to give us the necessary couple of centimeters to get our behemoth new refrigerator into place. And finally, there it was in place, plugged in, and I couldn't have been happier that day.
And i wish so much that's how this story ended. But, the next day, mandy, with the inquisitive nature of a mature Nancy Drew, concluded that the refrigerator was, in fact, not cold. It was not producing the customary humming or frigid air that you associate with this particular appliance. "Give it another few hours," I explained. "Refrigerators need to warm up before they cool down." But as always, I was wrong. The refrigerator that cost me $50 plus countless future chiropractic visits for me and my roommates was a lemon. A dud. An excessively heavy and ugly cupboard. I sent a very curt email to the harvard professor who sold me this refrigerator: "The fridge does not work." No reply. I swore if I ever had the chance to meet her again I would shove my entire fist down her throat.***
Then it was back to Craigslist and Freecycle and other websites to try and find a free refrigerator. My time was running out. I was sure someone from the landlord company would just stroll into the apartment to do something routine like bug spraying and find a gaping hole where a refrigerator should be and charge me $500 for a new one plus any subsequent penalties for trying to hide my misdeed.
But towards the end of this vacation week, which turned out not to be a great vacation because of this situation, i found another person giving away a refrigerator, a free one this time. So at least if it didn't work, i didn't have to throw away any more money. And just like if you suffer from a lot of flat tires (another subject about which I know more than I care), when you keep trying to move refrigerators, it becomes sort of routine. So i knew the drill: steal the company van, take out seats, pick up fridge, injure lower back, bring fridge home, force roommates to help move fridge even if none of this was their fault, cry when fridge doesn't work, lather, rinse, repeat.
So I drove to the school where the company van was being stored. And this is the part where I start realizing I am more of a fool than any of you. The company van is mysteriously missing. There is no way I can transport a refrigerator in my tiny Ford Escort. I need that fucking van.
I gave a quick call to the main office of my company to inquire about the whereabouts of this particular vehicle which should have been right fucking in front of me.
"oh, paul took it for some maintenance," said Anne, the secretary. Kindly, old Paul. A seventy something year old retiree who, out of the goodness of his heart, helped the organization out by maintaining their fleet of vans. And logically enough, he chose winter break to do maintenance because no one was using them at this time, except for idiots who needed to move refrigerators at low cost. So I thought of alternatives with my advanced mind: 1) Rent a uhaul, 2) rent a pick up truck from Home Depot, or 3) try to call Paul and see if I could get the van from him. Again, fearing that this refrigerator would not work even if I did have a van to pick it up, I opted for the cheapest method.
"Hi, Paul. This is armin. Do you know where van #15 is?"
"Hi Armin. I just took it for an oil change. Do you need it?"
"Yeah, ummm. I just left some papers in the back seat and need them to prepare class for after break."
"Oh, okay. I'll bring it back in 30 minutes."

Phew! No big deal. Just thirty minutes delayed but the whole plan was going smoothly. Soon Paul would come, we'd shoot the shit for a couple minutes, he'd drive off, and I'd joy ride to a New Bedford for a new used fridge. And so I waited, and though it took closer to an hour and a half, he did come with van # 15.
"You know Armin, that (name of teacher in charge of van) doesn't take care of this van at all. I mean, just look at the inside. It looks like shit."
"Oh, I'm sorry about that, Paul."
"No, it's not your fault."
Then Paul drove off and I hopped in ready to commit my crimes when i looked at the console between the driver's seat and the passengers seat. my heart dropped. GODDAMMIT!!!! You stupid old motherfucker! A cute little flip phone Nokia was sitting next to the armrest. Paul's cute little flip phone nokia. And he was already on the road headed home to his wife where she would probably ask him, "dear, where is your cell phone?" And he'd say, "Oh, I must have left it in the van. Silly me. I'll drive back and get it." But then he'd find the van was gone and he'd worry and call up the cops and they'd arrest me in New Bedford with a used refrigerator in the back.
At this point, I was feeling less pride in my problem solving skills and my alleged superiority over other coelomates and creatures that don't even have a spinal column. But my choices were obvious: 1) wait for Paul to realizes he left his phone, comes back to get it, then steal the van, whatever time or day that might be OR 2) somehow get the phone back to him.
"Hello, Mrs... um Paul's wife?"
"Yes? Who is this?"
"Hi, sorry to bother you. My name is Armin. I work with (same company as Paul) and just noticed he left his cell phone in the van here."
"Oh! Thank you so much for calling! I don't know where he is right now."
"well, I'm on my way home now. I can just drop it off at your place."
"Oh! that's so sweet of you!"

So i drive to paul's house and drop off the cell phone with his wife who praises me and tells me what a nice boy I am when really I was just trying to commit unethical deeds and would have just as readily murdered both Paul and his wife if that was the easiest way to get out of this quagmire of shit I'd created for myself.

Then I was driving to New Bedford and the refrigerator was still waiting for me and, much to my delight, looked much smaller and more manageable than the one i had purchased two days earlier. And it seemed a sign that everything was getting better when adam and I were able to lift it up the stairs without mandy's help and when we plugged it in, it made a familiar and comforting "whiirrrrr" and was cold on the inside. Joy of Joys! Beowulf has torn the arms off Grendal! Sir Lance-a-lot has slain the dragon! Armin has procured a refrigerator that works! So after that, Adam and I brought the two busted refrigerators down the stairs that were being stored on our porch at the time, and even though that was probably very tiring, I don't remember because the joy of having a working fridge (and the help of gravity) made it easy to get the two of those out of our lives forever.

And best of all, I did not get into any trouble for stealing the company van. After all the refrigerators were moved to where they belonged, one in the kitchen, two on the curb, i drove the van back to its resting place at the school with no one the wiser. until, of course, I got a call from Paul.
"Armin, I just went back to the school and the van is missing!"
"Oh... yeah. Um... I just took it to get it cleaned because you said it was messy inside."
"oh Armin, that's so sweet of you. You're such a good kid." he may have actually been crying on the other end, so moved was he by my consideration. So then, my dumbass had to take this giant van to the car wash and spend five dollars in quarters vacuuming out the inside so it would actually look like I took it to get it cleaned. The whole rest of the year Paul and his wife thought I was a saint.
But in the end, we had a working refrigerator and our landlords never knew because I still got my security deposit check back. So that means they also never noticed the poor spackling job i did on hole I punched in the hallways wall when I missed a shot in beer pong.

3. There is a third Armin Plays the Fool story to share, one that I'm pretty certain i've told to only one other person in this world. but it will have to wait till the next blog because I didn't realize how long and involved that refrigerator anecdote was. Suffice it to say though, i think I've made my point and if you think you could challenge my foolishness, i'd love to hear it.

* you know what's really not helpful? When you do something stupid and then after it cannot be undone someone tells you what you should have done. "Why didn't you just use a hair dryer to de ice the fridge, Armin?"
"Why don't you just shut your damn mouth?"

**I'm joking. Since it is the father who carries the Y chromosome necessary to produce balls, this joke doesn't even make sense.

***Amazingly enough, I had the opportunity to do just that. The summer of that same year, the organization i worked for asked me to take an enrichment class that discussed effective ways to teach math to high school kids. It took place in Harvard. The overseeing professor of this program: none other than my very own used refrigerator saleswoman.
After the first day, I came up to her and she said, "You look very familiar." It was hard for me not to look familiar back then since i had a mohawk.
"You sold me a refrigerator back in February," I said coldly.
"Oh, yes! How is it?"
"It didn't work."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I should give you a refund."
But for some reason, i broke down and let her off the hook, "Oh no. It's okay. Buyer beware, I guess! Laissez Faire!" And that's yet another reason I'm a douchebag.

Who's driving your bus?

2008-03-26T12:20:00.000-07:00

I've read the book The Stranger by Albert Camus more times than I've read any other book, with the possible exception of Caddie Woodlawn, a coming-of-age-young-woman's tale set in the old frontier which i read annually so I could use it for every book report and English project I had to do from grades third through sixth.

For those of you unfamiliar with The Stranger, it's basically a story about a Frenchy guy that likes to smoke, take long lunch breaks, people watch from his balcony, and ditch work to hang out with his girlfriend on the beach. Then one day, he commits a sudden, senseless crime and finds himself in jail trying to explain to people why he did it and, unfortunately, he really doesn't have an answer. It just happened.

I haven't been asked to write a book report in a very long time, but i still find myself reading The Stranger every other year or so. I've found solace in that book the way people normally find solace in the Book of Psalms or Chicken Soup for the (fill in age bracket and occupation) Soul.

Why do I love this book so much? It tackles the most difficult question anyone can ask you in this world--Why?--and answers it with the most juvenile and unhelpful answer anyone can give--I don't know. This book was the seed for the only philosophy I have in this world, which I will share with you today.

So here goes... Armin's Philosophy of Life:

In answer to the question WHY, I sincerely hope that either 1) everything in this world has a purpose and there is a plan for us OR 2) everything is meaningless and random. These may seem like very different belief systems, but I think the end result is the same. Either way, I'm can't be held accountable for any of my decisions or their consequences.

If you believe in the former, you like to use this tidy, little standby when things get rough: What's meant to be is meant to be. Sweet and convenient. A cloying pull of optimistic taffy to stick between your gritted teeth during the more painful times in your life. On the other hand, the latter viewpoint may seem a bit more depressing at first, I guess because people want desperately to believe there is Purpose in this world, that Someone (God, Allah, L. Ron Hubbard) knows what that Purpose is, and that we are an important and positive part of that Purpose. But, believers of the latter philosophy still get a cute little mantra to chant during the bad times: Que sera, sera (What will be, will be). Notice there is a subtle distinction between the two phrases. It's best illustrated as simple arithmetic problem: WHAT WILL BE, WILL BE is the difference calculated when PURPOSE is subtracted from WHAT IS MEANT TO BE, WILL BE. Personally, I think this is a small difference, but apparently to the rest of the world, it's not. To the rest of the world, it's the difference between Christians and Atheists, optimists and pessimists, Albert Camus and whoever wrote the screen play for When Harry Met Sally.

I'm not a philosopher and didn't do all that hot in the one philosophy class I took sophomore year of college. But here's an analogy to explain my point like Plato's Man in the Cave.

1.) You're riding a bus. You have to get off sometimes and get back on sometimes. If you believe in MEANT TO BE then the bus driver knows the route even though you don't know the route yourself. And this bus driver is a nice fella; even though he never talks to you, for some reason you have faith that he knows where he's going and is making sure you get off at the right stops. Also, you have free will so you get to pull a little yank cord above your head if you want to stop and get out. But the thing is, the bus driver knows better than you so maybe he'll stop when you pull the cord, but maybe he'll just keep going because he knows the next stop will get you closer to where you need to be. There's reason and planning to it all, even if you're not privy to the knowledge the bus driver has.

2.) On the other hand, if you believe in WILL BE, then the bus driver has no idea where he's going. Shit, there may not even be a bus driver, for all you know. Somehow the bus is driving a random, unplanned route and lets you off any old place and picks you up whether you are ready or not. You still have free will. You can pull that yank cord, and just like the passenger on the bus with the benevolent bus driver, sometimes the bus will stop, but sometimes it won't. You sometimes think the driver's a dick and is just ignoring the beeping, automated "Stop Requested" voice every time you yank on that cord. More likely though, the cord is the arm of a slot machine. Sometimes you pull it and the bus stops, sometimes it doesn't and you know it's nothing personal. That's just how the bus is built.

So, is there really a big difference between having a benevolent bus driver who knows where he's going or a self propelled bus that has no predetermined route? On both buses, you're still moving. On both buses, you still get to yank a cord that works only occasionally anyway. On both buses, the ride eventually ends and since you don't know the route on either bus, you won't know when your ride ends.

So I don't have any problem with either of these situations and will vacillate between the two frequently, leaning more towards the WILL BE after reading The Stranger and leaning more towards the MEANT TO BE when i watch romantic comedies. There's only one situation I pray is not true; wouldn't it be horrible if it turns out I'm the bus driver? I have complete control of the wheel and the pedals. I stop when I want, I start when I want, and if I get lost, it's my own damn fault. If I stop the bus and get off well before my destination, there's no one to blame.

Can you imagine waking up one day, realizing your life is fucked up, and having to admit it was all your fault? No thanks. I hate responsibility. I much prefer chili con carne.

glory days

2008-03-18T13:36:00.001-07:00

I heard from a very reliable source that my old college roommate and fellow chemistry major, Scott Whitman, is hooking up with Jackie LePage. I'm going to let that sink in for a minute. Jackie LePage, aka, JLP. Quite arguably the most attractive chem major ever at the College of New Jersey, though to be perfectly objective about it, chemistry rarely recruits the hot girls with the volume that other majors can like business, psychology, or professional beach volleyball. Regardless, this is quite the feat to be seen publicly with a girl that was the punchline for four years of inappropriate chemistry/sex puns such as "bonding between the sheets" and "backside attack."

So how did he pull off this remarkable accomplishment? Hell if i know; he hasn't returned my texts... probably too busy with JLP, which is perfectly understandable. Anyway, fishermen don't give out coordinates for where they catch the big ones, do they?

Last I saw him in December, he didn't look or act any different from what i remember. That's a good thing; he was a great guy in college and it'd be a shame if he changed. But the point is he doesn't seem to dress any better than I remember, hasn't lost or gained any weight, still smokes and loves television, and certainly hasn't undergone any growth spurts. If anything, he's just grown his hair out into a long mess, and if that's the only thing that was preventing them from getting together in college, well I'm sure he would gladly have saved his ten bucks and not gotten a hair cut every couple months.

I guess the moral is that maybe we didn't all peak during our college glory days. Perhaps we do still have a few good years left to accomplish the things we were supposed to achieve by 21. This might be a good time for me to take another stab at Calc 3 with Dr. Conjura and try to redeem myself after earning the unfathomably low score of zero on the second test.

pointing out the obvious

2008-03-14T17:33:00.000-07:00

I checked in a customer at the airport by the name of Tom Jones.

"Tom Jones, huh?"
"yeah, i get that a lot."
"I bet it's not unusual."
Polite laughter.

I wanted to pepper my small talk with more annoying Tom Jones references, but he was running late and I'm sure he wouldn't have taken too kindly to missing his flight because I needed more time to figure out how to slip "Sex Bomb" into the conversation.

a disease of perception

2008-02-28T16:07:00.000-08:00

I went to an AA meeting the other night, not on purpose. I didn't want to go home and had no where else to be. I was sitting in a coffee shop its last open hour, drinking coffee I didn't really want, feeling low, bored, without direction. Didn't bring a book, so I read a self published 'zine on their bookshelf, an autobiography of a 32 year old single mom who got pregnant during a sex/drug backpacking romp through Europe. She lost her backpack on a train which contained the only contact information she had for the father. Despite how horrific this situation sounds to me, the 'zine certainly took a comical look at single, welfared parenthood in Portland. The last couple pages were just an advertisement selling her woven goods, her main source of income.

There were only a handful of us in the coffee shop and the barista was kind enough to let me have free refills. What's the difference at that hour of the night to her? She's not going to make any more money off the dregs at the bottom of the pot. She won't have to brew a new pot. She's ready to go home. But, she was really pleasant, and I read and waited for her to finally kick me out when a few men started coming in, setting up chairs. The barista left on her bike and people, all men, started filling in. They all knew each other, chatting, filling up free cups of coffee. One guy who sat next to me, who seemed to be a real Pollyanna amongst the other guys (handsome forty something, rugged sort of dude who shook hands with everyone using both hands) turned to me, "Are you staying for the meeting?"

"What's the meeting for?" I asked.

"AA."

"Sure, if that's okay."

Within ten minutes the little coffee shop was packed with at least 40 AA members, all guys of all kinds. Balding men in business suits. Young punks with expanded ear holes and tattoos on their neck. Wall to wall recovering alcoholics. A cow bell was used to get everyone's attention. We started with a couple minutes of silent meditation followed by a reciting of the Serenity Prayer (God, grant me the strength to change the things I can change, etc...) which I lipsynced. Then a black gentleman started the meeting by introducing the topic: "How we react to the world differently to the world when we are sober." He talked about how angry he was still. He's still in a rehab center and during morning meetings, if anyone pulls down the blinds he'll "fucking bark at them." I guess he really likes his morning sunshine.

I started getting worried when I realized this guy was the moderator of the meeting and was picking people at random to share their feelings on this topic and was debating if I got picked whether it would be better to admit the truth, "Shit fellas, I'm sorry, I'm not an alcoholic. I was just depressed and didn't want to go home yet." Either they'd lynch me for being a fake and belittling something as serious as alcoholism by hanging out at a meeting for kicks, or they'd ask if I drank alcohol and I'd say yes, and they'd insist i was an alcoholic and just can't admit it. The other option was just pretending along and I rehearsed in my head what Alcoholic Armin would say, 'Hey, my name is armin and I'm an alcoholic. Been sober three years now. I think nowadays, I try to focus on the positive whenever I feel like having a drink. Marvel at how well my windowsill green onions are growing. Make lists of things i need to do, laundry, shopping, and praise myself when I get them all done."

Thankfully, it never came to that. I made it through the hour without being called on and only raised suspicion when i thought the meeting was over and started to get my backpack and head out when I was supposed to stand up and hold hands in a circle to recite the Serenity Prayer again followed by "Keep coming back! It works if you work it!"

Biked home and felt a little better than when i started the evening. I can understand now why the main character in "Fight Club" attends all those support groups. There's something very reassuring about a group of people who all suffer and purge together, sucking the venom out of each other's snake bites.

Not much of what the AA members said was worth recording, mostly that their sober selves thought more before saying things to people and they still got really "fucking angry" but could control themselves more. The one thing that stuck with me: one young man referred to alcoholism as a disease of perception, which is really the perfect moniker for all emotional disorders.

A disease of perception. The baffling inability to interpret facial expressions, intentions, or scenarios with any logic. Everyone looks threatening, everyone hates you. In your distorted mind, you imagine you are the anathema of everyone you know. Worse off, once you begin misconstruing all sensory data, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

Everyone hates me, you say, so you avoid everyone. Then no one calls you up because you never come out anyway. So that proves they hate you, right? They don't call, they must hate you. Horrific... you are actually eating yourself up, causing all the misery you predicted. You look like a goddamn prophet.

I remember having just moved to Boston, none of my roommates were around yet and I still had a few days before I could move into my apartment so I was sleeping out of my car on Commonwealth Ave. It was very hard to sleep since my car was stuffed and I couldn't recline my seat, so I'd occupy myself by taking the train back and forth through Boston, reading a borrowed copy of "The Catcher in the Rye" until I felt tired enough to sleep. Was trying to save money so i wasn't eating much, but broke down and hopped into a cheap chinese restaurant. I remember waiting for my order and looking at a man and woman who were also waiting and I could have sworn they were making fun of me. I thought they were this biker, Harley Davidson couple and were cracking jokes about me. I kept watching them from the top of my book feeling threatened until I realized they were laughing at the restaurant owner's toddler daughter who I assume was doing something amusing. And when I looked more closely, i could clearly see they were not biker couple--not to say they didn't ride motorcycles or attend Sturgis once a year-- they were not dressed as bikers as I originally perceived, but were very neatly dressed, professional looking people and I had just thought they were bikers because the gentleman had a beard and was wearing a black leather coat.

This happens to me a lot, the inability to process sensory input logically. Maybe more AA meetings will help, but drinking to the point of alcoholism just so I can join a support group to help me with depression doesn't seem like the most logical course of action, even to my perception diseased mind.

***********

Q & A

Q: the sad thing about blogging is their inevitable demise. please prove me wrong armin.

A: When Rob Zombie released "The Sinister Urge" my junior year of college, a much hyped second solo album with glitzy pictures and packaging to distract from the completely hollow, rehashed lyrics and unimaginative guitar riffs, I felt much as I imagine Moun'ain Girl feels now... betrayed and, perhaps, a bit gassy. So good for you for calling me out on my half assed attempts to keep this blog up. Yes, the quality AND quantity have diminished in 2008; neither my photography nor my ukulele playing can compensate for crappy blog entries. I had been considering retiring the blog the last few weeks--undoing the last knot if you will--because I don't have much left to say. That's not entirely true: I don't have anything funny and entertaining left to say, and the serious things I have to say... well I don't know how to say them right and that's hard to stomach. But goddamn if I don't respect your opinion, Moun'ain Girl, and for you will give it another try even though I haven't seen any updates to www.platonicandgin.blogspot.com since october.

strumming on the beach

2008-02-18T22:40:00.000-08:00

wanted this to look like one of those laid back Corona commercials. instead it's just me singing badly.

Waikiki? Waiki-not?

2008-02-14T18:22:00.000-08:00

Earlier last week, I had planned on writing a fairly somber piece on the cumulative effects of depression (not caused by Valentine's day, but perhaps exacerbated by it). But having just returned from Honolulu, that would be pretty brazen of me to talk about depression, don't you think? So here's another fluffy entry with pretty pictures and no substance, not unlike People Magazine. Oh, and I already forgot to bring the damned stuff dog with me.

The highlights:
1. Flew first class both ways, drank whiskey, and became teary eyed watching Mr. Maggorium's Wonder Emporium. For those of you who have not seen the movie, it's a beautiful story that teaches you to believe in yourself.
2. Watched Art in Motion, a live performance of a Hawaiian guy spray painting scenes of the beach while dancing and lip syncing along to crappy techno and Christian rock. Waikiki is filled with street performers. There was one guy who had a little karaoke machine and was singing Air Supply... a group of Japanese tourists found his karaoke to be embarrassing, even by their standards. And there was a chick hula hooping with a ring of fire. I did not stay to see the whole show, because after the initial awe of seeing someone hula hooping with fire, it's really just watching someone hula hooping and there's a reason that fad died out. I couldn't watch some apply a snap bracelet with fire for hours either.
3. Have you ever seen products with ridiculous warning labels like Superman costumes that say "Costume does not give wearer power of flight?" Do you ever wonder who is stupid enough to require these warning labels? I'm that person. While wading in the ocean, I kept sticking my hand into rock crevices, trying to catch crabs, assuming that if there was anything dangerous in the Pacific Ocean, they'd put up a sign to warn me. Saw the jaws of an eel in one of the cracks I had just put my hand through. I still have all my fingers thankfully.

4. Drank $1.50 Mai Tais and ate eggs benedict with a side of fried rice at 10 am because a moose with sunglasses told me to go to his restaurant. I'm not one to argue with moose.

5. After drinking several of the aforementioned Mai Tais, I crashed a ukulele lesson of about 30 people, mostly elderly. When the instructor asked if anyone wanted to play a solo, I raised my hand. She said, "who are you?" I said "armin" and began to play a spirited, if not off key, rendition of Buddy Holly's "Oh Boy!" None of the elderly ladies recognized the song. Thankfully, I did not play Marilyn Manson or Avril Lavigne, because if Buddy Holly is too contemporary for them, I doubt they'd have "Sk8er Boi" on their IPOD shuffle.

bigger and easier than wherever you spent Mardi Gras

2008-02-06T15:38:00.002-08:00

This is a squishy toy dog that I haven't named yet. I am open to suggestions. He is my travel companion and I plan on taking him on all my flights. I acquired him at the Krewe of Orpheus Parade in New Orleans, shamelessly jumping in front of old ladies and small children to catch whatever crappy trinkets were thrown from the floats. I snagged enough beads from the outstretched hands of disappointed children that actually wearing them all hurt my neck.

Though my trip to Chicago was thwarted last week, the gods of standby flying could not thwart my indomitable desire to make use of these free flying privileges. Planning ahead, I decided to fly out of Seattle instead of Portland this time and checked the weather forecasts for all the layovers. Had about 12 hrs to kill in the Detroit airport. I tried to sleep on a couch in the Westin attached to the airport since the chairs in the Detroit airport aren't the most ass-friendly, but was woken up by an employee who said, not without a hint of aggravation, "Sir, the Westin has a no sleeping policy because we encourage people to pay for hotel rooms."
"Oh, i understand. I'm sorry," I said shoving a handful of courtesy mints for customers in my pocket before leaving. I'm so low class.

I intermittently read, journaled, slept, watched CNN, made origami owls, until I was called up for the flight to New Orleans and realized, for the first time, I was actually flying somewhere I wanted to go. Not Minneapolis.

My original plan once I got to New Orleans was just to wander the French Quarters all night until morning, munching on andouille sausage and jambalaya and drinking caffeinated beverages to stay awake, then sleep on a park bench once it was daylight. Thankfully though, I was able to find Mike, an old friend from my baltimore days who had a couch that was much comfier and safer than any bench on Bourbon Street. We watched the parade, ate traditional Louisiana chinese food, frequented bars, talked to christians handing tickets out for god (as elton john once said), danced our asses silly, and found our way back to his condo.

While i was sleeping at his place, I woke up horrified to see an ostrich pecking my chest. What I perceived to be an ostrich's beak turned out to be little more than the scissored legs of his cat walking on me, but it was startling at the time. But, if that's the worst that happens to you in New Orleans on mardi gras, then you got off easy. Next day, I had gumbo and gator sausage, repeated questions I had already asked Mike the night before, and flew back to Seattle without any issues whatsoever.

So, is flying standby really more affordable than just getting a plane ticket? Cost of trip aside from food and alcohol (which I'd rather forget):

-$30 for gas to drive to Seattle and back

-$7 for a six pack of beer to give to Mark, another northwest employee who works at the Seattle airport and let me park my car at his place (he also picked me up from the airport when I got back at midnight and cleaned the inside of my car for me while I was gone... a little bizarre for a guy I just met during training)

-$2.00 bus fare to get from the airport to downtown New Orleans, which included, free of charge, the spectacle of a drunk man passing out on the back steps of the bus, the driver cursing out loud as he called for help, and the drunk man sneaking out the back door and wobbling down the street towards downtown

A $39.00 bill for flying round trip to new orleans during mardi gras. Better than Orbitz could get you, I dare say.

no chicago

2008-01-31T17:07:00.001-08:00

For the third week in one month, I find myself at the Mall of America, the corpulent, throbbing, economic heart of Bloomington, MN. This is not where I intended to be tonight. I tried for the first time to take advantage of my free flight privileges with Northwest and fly to Chicago to see a friend's play (sorry, Tim, I tried), but due to snow, O'Hare and Midway are sealed in life-sized snow globes of inclement weather.

But even though I didn't get to my final destination, I wouldn't say today was a total failure. I hopped a plane to Minneapolis this morning as easily as others would catch a bus...easier actually; i didn't have to try and shove crumpled dollar bills through the machine while pissing off the line of passengers behind me. I also got cranberry juice on the plane; a whole can just for me. Had weather not been a factor, I'm confident I'd be eating a Chicago dog right now rather than drinking a coffee I don't want to take advantage of Wi-Fi I don't really need (would it kill me not to check my email for one day?).

The hint of how powerful this flying privilege can be dances in my imagination. Shit, i was excited when i used to get free ice cream at the Museum of Science in Boston. A free flight is like a super waffle cone with sprinkles. The limitations are obvious and at times frustrating: portland, it turns out, only flies directly to three cities right now, Honolulu, Tokyo, and Minneapolis; my future schedule may not even allow me time to travel; and if I get stuck at some airport and can't make it back to Portland for work (as the case may be tomorrow) well, tough shit. I have not proven myself to be an indispensable cog in the Northwest machinery and they will have no trouble replacing me.

But if anyone can take advantage of flights under these restrictions, it's me. First of all, I don't really care where I go, provided it's not the Mall of America again. Secondly, I don't care if I only go for the night... I just want to say I went there, and make all of you with your profitable, dependable 9 to 5's froth with jealousy. Third, I can sleep anywhere, and an airport is a lot more luxurious than a lot of the places I've slept before. I'm determined to take a flight somewhere in the next two weeks while I still have a kick ass schedule. I'm currently working friday, sat, and sunday and have the rest of the week off to fly wherever the FAA allows. I only have this schedule because I'm supposed to be following around a mentor, Roberto, a Filipino who decided it was time to cut my umbilical cord and took the next two weeks off to go to Manila. I told him he was like a father figure to me. He chose not to help me any further that day.

I had planned to post a blog with pictures because how can unillustrated words ever compete in this digital age with your YouTubes and Yahoo! Videos? But, I forgot my camera. Here are some old pics of bathroom graffiti that have nothing to do with this blog posting.

1. "Box of Suck" found in the Men's Bathroom of Reed College. Included in the box of suck: The Bee Gees, Normativity, Hipsters (you know who you are), and lumpy peanut butter.

2. "Avocados are Good for You" found in a gas station bathroom in some western state I can't remember. Possibly written in response to item 3.
3. "White Bride" found next to Avocados are Good for you. Clearly the P of Pride, written by a white supremacist, had been changed into a B by a civil rights activist and I imagine these two gentleman engaged in an open dialogue in front of the urinal until they could agree on one universal truth: that regardless of race, avocados are good for you.

*******************

Q & A

Q: baby brother with libido?! eeewwww!
A: See, now you made my sister upset. Jerks.

Q: did you tell those folks that you biked cross-country? they must think you're some sort of exercise god!
A: I did mention the summer biking trip to some, but regardless of that, it doesn't take a Jack LaLane to be more in shape than the average customer service agent.

Q: Wait...I thought 'Armin' was another name for God.
A: I'm sure I started that rumor at some point and it's probably my constant blaspheming which causes me to be imprisoned in Minneapolis. moses said to pharoah, "let my armin go!"

Q: a seeing-eye, miniature pony? seriously?
A: http://www.guidehorse.com/
Pretty fucking adorable, right?

since last we met

2008-01-17T22:24:00.000-08:00

Obviously, my new years resolution was not to blog more consistently. I'm sorry to anyone who looks forward to reading this blog, and if you were wailing and gnashing your teeth this last couple weeks of bloglessness, let me just say: that's pathetic. go outside. turn off the computer for a change, people.

Anyway, I had every intention to write a blog last week because I just started working for an airline whose name I will not reveal for fear of reprisal from my supervisors.* I wanted to uncover the seedy, horrifying underbelly of the airline industry, like that guy who wrote about the meat packing industry in chicago.

But, i went to minneapolis for training and on the first day, they scared the shit out of me with all this talk of "big brother" and how the company is always watching and anything you say or do reflects back on the company. I have a good friend who lost her job for blogging about work and she worked in a freaking day care. They don't even have planes. Imagine how much more damage a company that owns airplanes can do to my future.

And truth be told, i didn't learn anything that was amazingly eye opening or disturbing during training (no i was not brainwashed). Everyone already knows that airlines overbook flights purposely. You probably already assumed that elite frequent flyers and first class passengers get free hotel rooms if their flights get canceled. I'm sure you read somewhere that pilots and stewardesses are constantly fornicating in your airplane seat minutes before take off and that is usually why delays occur.

Here are a few tidbits that you may not know:

1. On international flights, there is a pilot, a co-pilot, and an engineer and they all receive a different meal. That is because if one of them suffers food poisoning, the other two have to be healthy enough to fly the plane. If they eat in the airport, they have to go to different restaurants. That's why the food court was invented, so that they could all sit together still (i don't know if that's true... i just made that part up).
2. If your flight is overbooked and you volunteer for a later flight, never take the free ticket over the voucher. The free ticket is a scam because it is the cheapest ticket on any plane and they only sell about 2 of those per flight, if any. So once those seats are filled, you can't use your free ticket on the flight. Unless, you know you are flying somewhere six months from now and it is not a popular destination during peak season, it's not worth it. Go for the voucher because it'll take money off any flight you purchase. Oh, and have you ever been sitting in the airport, heard the announcement they need volunteers, but waited until the offer for compensation got more appealing, as if this was a game of Deal or No Deal? Well it doesn't matter what the customer service agent offered when you first volunteered: whatever the final offer is at the end is what you'll receive, so you don't have to feel like a chump if you bit at a $20 meal voucher when the last volunteer gets offered a $300 voucher and a first class ticket on the next flight. Actually, the first person to volunteer is the first person that gets the final deal, so if you have no where to go, might as well take it and sit in the airport bar with lonely business men who will probably pay you to talk to them.
3. There is such a thing as a seeing eye pony for blind people. I kid you not; i saw a pciture. And you can bring it on board like any assist animal. It's freaking adorable. It's only as big as a St. Bernard. I don't think it's a good idea though to make seeing eye ponies; i picture thousands of six year old girls (and effeminate boys) gouging out their own eyes so they finally have an excuse to get their own pony.

So that's pretty much all I remember from my two weeks of training in Minnesota. I had a good time though and met some co-workers who I may or may not get along with. I'll get more into them in my next posting, which at this rate, should come out mid april.

One generalization I can make about them: they are completely opposed to taking the stairs. Even if their room is on the second floor, they insist on waiting for the elevator. This habit is so pervasive that they can't even fathom someone choosing stairs over a machine that transports you vertically twelve feet. The first few times they saw me head for the stairs, they said in barely masked jealousy, "How did you get a room on the first floor?"

Another thing: our hotel was less than a mile away from the Mall of America and most of my coworkers went there every day. The hotel provided a van that would make shuttle runs every hour. It doesn't surprise me that people would opt for the van instead of walking; after all, you don't need your own Doppler to know it's cold in MN in winter. What does surprise me is how unthinkable it is to them that I would rather walk than take a shuttle. They look at me like I need to be put on suicide watch... what is he thinking? This last Thursday, my coworkers were waiting in the shuttle for me and I told the driver I'd just walk. They were all waiting for me in the lobby of the mall.
"Oh my god! How did you get here so fast?"
"It's less than a mile from our hotel."
"The driver told us it was at least a mile and a half and after the first mile, it would get so cold you'd wish you were dead."
"My lips are chapped, but otherwise, I'm doing okay."

While i'm no sloth, i don't think anyone would consider me the pinnacle of good health (drinking DB Hobbs, Gennessee, old style or some equally shit beer at 10 in the morning usually disqualifies you from the Iron Man competitions). But amongst my coworkers, there's all these rumors of me walking 10 miles in giant snow drifts, face blistered from -20 degree wind chills.

So while most of them stayed in the hotel studying or went to the mall, I tried exploring downtown Minneapolis and unintentionally segregated myself from the group because no one likes to walk in the cold.

Last thing: Yesterday in training, i had the opportunity to knock on immortality's door like the 2007 Patriots: I could have been the only person in class to score a 100% on every single test. I guess earlier in the week, our trainer, Tammy, a Minnesota gal with big hair and rounded vowels told everyone while i was in the bathroom that I was the only person in class who scored perfect on all the tests so far. My coworkers kept talking about it (not without a tinge of disgust from some), and I tried to brush it off, but the pressure was becoming unbearable. So on the final test on the final day, which Tammy even allowed us to do together in groups, i got one answer wrong, thus dashing the hopes of a perfect season. I got a lot of shit for that from my coworkers. Tammy had a little present for me, a lanyard for my ID, expecting that I'd complete the perfect season... she gave it to me anyway, but there was disappointment in her eyes. Does anyone know the Heimlich? Our boy just choked. I just can't live up to expectations. Don't expect anything from me and I may just surprise you. But once you set a bar for me to hurdle, no matter how low, I'm bound to let you down.

*that's pretty dumb, don't you think? i already told everyone in the last ten blogs that I'm working for Northwest so why am I being such a prude about it now?

***********

Q and A

Q: Did you know that antihistamines increase a man's libido? Curious if it's true?
A: I did not know that, and because my sister reads this blog, I will not confirm whether this is true or not. let me just say in general, I have never had a need to increase my libido and as a single guy, could probably stand having my libido levels diminished to some extent. I'd be much more productive at least.

Q: Elenore and Marty stories...who gets the next roommate blog, Malex or Claire???
A: I may not have any more roommate blogs if I keep this up because I'm not on the lease and if they read my blog and get upset, i may be living on my own.

i can't breath

2007-12-31T14:03:00.000-08:00

No, I am not choked up because of the coming new year. I have allergies. The number of cats in my mom's house outnumber the number of humans here 3 to 1. The antihistamines in my body are outnumbered by the histamines like the number of mormons would be outnumbered in Panama City for spring break.

At some point when I moved out of Lincoln Park, my mom slowly evolved into the crazy cat lady of the neighborhood. This is partially my fault. In high school one day, the secretary made an announcement that a teacher was giving away hamsters. I don't know why she had hamsters, I didn't care why she was giving them away. I just wanted one, not even because I always wanted hamsters, but because, as many of you who know me already realize, i just like getting things for free, whatever they are. So I hopped on the bus that day with a shoebox and a fuzzy, blonde hamster I named Buckley after the teacher who gave him away, Mrs. Buckley who was a little crazy herself, but that's for another blog.

My mom found out I had a hamster and fell in love with it. She essentially adopted it from me. I didn't put up much of a custody battle. I liked Buckley enough, but no way could I match her love for this animal. He was quite precocious, like the main character in Shawshank Redemption whose name escapes me. He was always trying to escape. I bought him one of those plastic cages with the colorful tubes in which he could run and he chewed his way out. I couldn't fix the hole so I put an extremely thick and heavy book in front of it. One night I was sleeping and woke up to some odd chittering noise. I opened my eyes and found Buckley sitting on my chest, nose twitching. He actually chewed through five to six inches of a book to escape. If that's not impressive enough, I believe the cage was downstairs at the time and my bedroom was upstairs, so he actually climbed a flight of stairs and somehow knew which room was mine, opened the door, and climbed up my bed to sit on my chest. Perhaps the cage was in my room, I don't really remember. But this was a fairly remarkable hamster. And my mom loved him. She even had my uncle build Buckley a mansion of a cage, a split level with a built in exercise wheel and a ladder connecting the stories. No exaggeration, this cage was the size of a cage you'd use for a large dog.

But, even the remarkable in our world are mortal when it comes down to it. Houdini died, not even in some dramatic way as many rumors claim. So to did Buckley go, in winter, flat on his back in a corner of that giant cage. I'll save you the emotional details. My mom was very sad, wouldn't even let me bury him at first, wanted to hold him and asked me how much it would cost to have him stuffed. She relinquished fifteen minutes later and I dug a shallow grave in hard, frozen clay next to my house. My mom put plastic flowers at the site.

This was in January or February I think. So when Mother's Day came around, I thought it'd be a good idea to get her a cat. I thought it would be free, too, because I assumed strays were unwanted and you were actually doing the shelter a favor by taking them of their hands, like orphans. But it turned out to cost some money to get a fat, tuxedo cat named Hattie that my mom picked out. She didn't want one at first, she said. It still hurt too much. But the women at the shelter assured her cats tend to live longer than hamsters which usually peak at about 6 weeks.

So my mom and Hattie hit it off. I went to college, came back one summer and there was a new cat in the house along with Hattie. Bunso was its name meaning "youngest child" in Tagalog if I'm not mistaken. It also has an American name: Patty. According to my mom, it just ran into the house one day and she couldn't get it to leave, so she just adopted it. Maybe the reason Patty/Bunso did not listen to her was because my mom was screaming at her in Tagalog and she didn't understand tagalog. It's more likely though that Patty didn't listen because cats aren't dogs and don't give a shit about what you have to say.

I graduated college and moved to Baltimore, MD. I'd come back every now and then and there'd be a new cat in the house. I moved to Boston, MA, would come back home and there'd be yet more cats. All of them strays. I don't ever remember seeing stray cats in my neighborhood, or my entire town for that matter, growing up. My mom must have spotted one or two in the yard a few years back, put some food out, and of course, they went forth and multiplied and brought their extended and mangy looking family twice a day to my childhood home to take advantage of the hand outs. Leaving food out for strays will attract vermin, of course, so my mom started leaving food out just for the raccoons, too. I don't talk to the neighbors, but I can't imagine they are thrilled about this.

So at last count, there are six cats in the house: Hattie (who does not seem pleased with the rest of the cats), Patty/Bunso, Whitney, Jake, Kitty, and one other whose name escapes me. Not all of them just ran into the house. At least two of them are missing eyeballs and when my mom found them infected and near death as kittens, she couldn't bear to let them die, so she brought them to the vet for expensive operations and adopted them as well. I don't have this same compassion for animals. Actually, I'm suspicious these stray cats have heard how good they could have it inside my house and are purposely gouging out their own eyes so they have an upper hand in getting picked to be cat #7. They're no better than soldiers shooting themselves in the foot to get out of service.

Marty and her jacket

2007-12-22T12:46:00.000-08:00

Let me start off by saying, I might have sounded harsh talking about my roommate, Eleanor, who seemed upset with me the night we played darts. With any retelling of a factual event, some bias is bound to cause inaccuracies or unfounded insinuations, and I'm sure if you were to ask for her account of the event, it would have a different spin.

With that being said, here's a story about another roommate, Marty and her coat. I will try to be as objective as possible in telling it, because unlike my story with Eleanor, I actually transcribed much of the following dialogue verbatim as she was spewing it. A lot of times, I'll be next to a couple of roommates while they are engaged in conversation, but not get involved myself. This is partially because I don't find anything they are saying interesting. But then again, if you're not talking about the Rocky movies or scrapple, I probably won't find anything you say interesting. But moreso, I don't get involved because no one really addressed me. I would answer a question if someone asked me it directly, but a lot of the times, people seem to be jus talking to the air in this house until another roommate responds. I've become the Chief of this Cuckoo's Nest, sans height. I sit and listen and people forget I'm around or that I can even hear them.

So here's a transcription of what happened:

Marty walks into the kitchen. I'm sitting in a little nook attached to the kitchen, trying to write. Claire is cooking in the kitchen. She's probably the sanest and most pleasant roommate of all of us. I'd put myself at second or third... her impressive tolerance and willingness to listen to someone ramble ad nauseum far surpasses my own, so she is very deserving of the "Best Roommate Award" in our house.

"Hi, Marty," says Claire. "How are you?"
"Ahhh! I'm so depressed!"
"What's wrong, Marty?" asks Claire. This is why she deserves the award. I no longer ask Marty questions like this.
"I'm upset over my coat." She looks in my direction as I type crappy sonnets on my computer, "Don't feel guilty," she says to me.
"Don't worry. I don't," I smile.
"What happened to your coat, Marty?"
"I don't want to talk about it."

Marty has a green winter coat she wears all the time with a faux fur lined hood, sort of like the drug dealers wear in movies about the 'hood. It's cute. One day, she was in a rush for work and asked me if I would throw her sheets in the dryer for her. No problem. I put everything that was in the washing machine into the dryer. I saw her coat was in there, but I assumed she also wanted that in the dryer because she did not give me specific directions otherwise. The coat did not shrink and fits her fine, but the faux fur is not quite as puffy anymore. Imagine girls in the 80's with poofed up Aquanet bangs. That's what the fur looked like before. Now imagine the hairdo of a militant lesbian wearing Doc Martens... that's what the fur looks like now. We went to a bar the night her coat was ruined and she shared with me how she doesn't blame me, but is sort of upset because all the charm of the jacket was encapsulated by the fur and now that the fur is ruined, it has lost all its worth. But she assured me she didn't blame me. I assured her I wasn't worried about it at all.

Claire, the conscientious roommate that she is, does not pry. She sprinkles some ground pepper into a pan of sizzling, quartered potatoes. Marty groans loudly. "Oh God! I want my jacket!"
"Nothing can be that big of a deal," says Claire with a cheerful "The sun will come out tomorrow"
smile.
"Yes it is! I want my jacket!"
"What happened to your jacket?" she tries a second time.
"I don't want to talk about it."
Claire looks at me, maybe hoping I will explain what the hell is going on. I smile back, then return my attention to a sonnet, thinking "what words rhyme with syphilis?" It's hard to keep my attention on the poem though because I'm also trying to record everything Marty is saying. Much of it, however, is exasperated gasps, groans, and heavy hearted sighs, which do not translate well to print.
Marty continues: "Where am I going to find a jacket? I'm so upset right now!"
"Ooh, this tea bag has interesting trivia. Did you know that in the United States, 70% of pencils are painted yellow?" says Claire, trying to change the subject.
Eleanor comes out of her room and says hi to everyone and asks marty how she is.
"I had the most disappointing Target experience."
"What happened?"
"They didn't have my jacket."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm so upset right now and it's about my material possessions, the dumbest thing in the world to be upset about*."

She spends the next thirty minutes looking online for a duplicate of this jacket, groaning, and shouting, "I'm so fucking depressed!" I don't think she ever explains to Claire what happened to the jacket in the first place.

Two or three days later, marty came home with a brand new jacket, complete with a hood of luxurious faux fur. She was very happy. I was happy for her. But, as you may have guessed, the elation that came with the new jacket was short lived and, as of this last week, she's currently depressed again. "I'm so fucking depressed! I hate winter!" she's screamed on numerous occasions. I'm not one to doubt the physical and mental impact cold and darkness can have on a person. But since she grew up in Alaska, you'd think she'd have some coping mechanisms by now. And I'm not confident that her attitude will change tremendously when the sun comes out, if that ever happens in Portland.

Another thing she likes to complain about is work. Here's another conversation Claire got caught in. Someone please give Claire a Humanitarian award for her patience.

"Okay, let me just tell you about this bitch at work," she starts. Marty works at a residential home for teenage mothers and their infants. Very stressful work... I have all the respect in the world for anyone who works in that field. She started there about a month ago and was very excited when she took the position because it was exactly the kind of job she wanted. She said she loved all the girls who lived there... they were all so sweet.
"Is this a coworker?"
"No, one of the girls. I had just gotten in and she immediately starts screaming at me that we need to call the doctor for her baby. And she was being so mean to me." I'm in the kitchen cooking, but I rush for a pencil to jot some notes down on this conversation. Marty continues, "Now, granted, his penis was bleeding, but I mean, she didn't have to be such a bitch to me. I mean, he wasn't dying of blood loss."

If you are Claire would you say:
A.) Um, if my son's penis was bleeding, I think i'd be a little frazzled, too.
B.) Marty, you did realize when you accepted this job at a residential home for at-risk teenage mothers and their infants that some of the work might involve at-risk teenage mothers and their infants, right?
C.) Nothing and nod sympathetically.

Correct, St. Claire chose C. I stopped jotting down notes after a while because my asparagus and cashews dish burning. It would have been repetitive if I retold it all to you anyway; the gist is that these residential teen moms who have had horrible upbringings and are completely too immature to raise kids on their own are not being nice to her all the time.

Marty isn't always upset. For every ten times I hear her yell, "I'm so fucking pissed off," I've heard her say, "I'm in a fucking great mood." That's not true, actually. The proportion is closer to something like 50 to 1. But it's good to know her crazy-o-meter can tip to the complete other end of the bipolar scale. I need to stop typing this entry now because she keeps saying more interesting things as I blog that deserve to be recorded as well, but when can I finally stop? Her first words coming into the house five minutes ago were "I'm so pissed with the world right now!"
Then, ten minutes later in a more subdued tone, "This is not a good life. I'm bored."

Marty, as long as you're around and there are jackets, work, or boys to give you something to talk about, I'll never say I'm bored.

* I don't want to give you the impression that Marty is this really shallow person. She realizes feeling this emotional about a jacket is rather silly when you consider there are people being tortured and beaten at this very moment. I never got the impression she was really materialistic. It's just interesting me that even though she can rationalize this, she cannot prevent herself from talking about it over and over to roommates she met on Craigslist. But, I've been this way before, too. Many of you may remember a hat I found on the ground at a gas station. It was a black knit hat many sizes too small for me that said "Hottie" in blazing fire colored print. I loved that damn hat. I wept bitterly many nights since I lost it. So don't think I can't commiserate with marty and her jacket.

radical leftists and a friendly game of darts

2007-12-12T09:18:00.000-08:00

I guess I did so well at Koji Osakaya that they gave me a month long vacation. Or, you could argue, they made this decision after I gave them my two weeks notice because I guess it doesn't make sense to train a new employee for two weeks, then have him tell you he can only commit to working two more weeks... and of course, he'll still need heavy supervision and training during that stretch.

But, it was an amicable split and I told them I would call if I could fit a few hours of teriyakiing into my 2008 schedule. So now, I have ample time to do things like play darts with a roommate on a weekday night.

I don't know if there are internet laws against putting people's real names on public space without their permission, so I'll just call this roommate Eleanor, which is her real name, because I'm not creative enough to come up with a pseudonym.

Let me start off by saying that I get along fine with my roommates. They all seem like pleasant, good hearted people. I have never seen any of them carve swastikas in their foreheads or embezzle millions of share holder dollars. We all say hi to each other, invite each other to activities, and at times, even cook for one another. I don't have any of the freshman college naivete to think we're all the best of friends because we live together. But at the same time, I'm very pleased with my living situation.

And this roommate in particular is funny and friendly and I have nothing against her whatsoever. I just want to share with you this story of last night because it's funny to me how little you know about people you meet on Craigslist and how people slowly start to reveal fascinating personal qualities at odd moments.

Since I'm unemployed and Eleanor gets out of work by four, we decided to go to a local bar that has free tater tots during happy hour. She suggested we play darts and seemed very gung ho about the idea "I want to play darts. I love playing darts!" so we headed to another bar to play. I'm pretty sure she also said she's a big trash talker when she plays. So i was assuming we'd have a fun, but competitive, game of darts. nothing serious, a bit of ribbing perhaps, but all for fun.

Before we started playing, she warned me that I could not scream "FUCKKK!!!" every time I missed because this was her favorite bar and she did not want to be ostracized. About a week prior, we had played a gentleman's game of beer pong, and i guess i was loud and profane every time I did not sink a cup.

Admittedly, sometimes I get a bit animated when i play certain games like darts or beer pong. But that's just because i know what I'm capable of doing and want to duplicate the brief moments when I've attained greatness. I'm sure none of us will forget the night at The Last Drop when i stuck 4 bulls eyes in a row to complete an inspirational come from behind win against the heavily favored Robert O'Campo, henceforth to be known as the "Miracle on Cork."

More than even being disappointed, I just get excited. And sometimes, for me excitement manifests itself as screaming or breaking things.

It took a lot of self control, but I did not scream out while we played. However, I did take to pounding my fists into my palms or punching my forearms if I blew a shot. We played a couple games and it was obvious there was a disparity in skill. I am certainly not a great darts player, but I do TRY to hit a specific target. In other words, I don't just aim for the board as a whole, but try to hit one of the pie slices corresponding to the number i need, which she clearly did not like to do. That's fine if that's how you play... I just personally want to try.

After a second shut out win, I asked Eleanor if she wanted to play doubles together against a very nice couple that was putting in the most awesome songs on the juke box like "Midnight at the Oasis" and "Time Bomb." So i thought it would be a nice opportunity for us to make friends... friends who have awesome taste in music, except for their pick of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing." That's right. I hate that song and anything you say to defend it will just make me hate it more.

So I was surprised when Eleanor said no. Then she explained that I took the game too seriously and that I needed to calm down. And she didn't want to play on a team with someone who would get mad at her for missing a shot.

Now I can commiserate with this feeling. I've played fourth grade kickball and been relegated to far right field and screamed at for missing a pop up fly. I've been chewed out for not grabbing a rebound. I've watched people who I consider super competitive and hate playing games with them. I have never considered myself that far on the spectrum. But i guess, by her standards, I was.
"I never get mad at teammates who miss shots," I tried to explain. "I don't care as long as you try."
"But i'm not going to try."
"Oh, okay. I just thought it would be cool to make friends with these people who also love 'Sailing' by Christopher Cross."
"I just don't understand why you get so mad about something like darts. Sports are not something worth getting upset over*"
"I'm not mad, per se. I'm just disappointed because I know what I should be able to do. I've played enough times to be better than that."
"I'm not good at darts even though I've played 500,000 times. And that talk of how you can get better if you practice is bullshit."
"So you don't think people can get better at sports?"
"Not really."
"Well sometimes, I think if you feel you should be able to do something and have done it in the past, but can't do it the next time, you feel disappointed. What's something that you are naturally good at?"
"Standardized tests."
"So say you did badly on your LSATs. Would you be disappointed in yourself?"
"That would never happen."
"You can't hypothetically picture yourself doing badly on a standardized test?"
"No."
"Really?"
"No, I can't imagine it. But I'm not good at math and I said a multiplication problem out loud and Malex [our other roommate] got the answer before me, but that's okay because I got it a second later**."
"Fair enough." I had many other questions for her, but wanted to end the interrogation because she seemed to be getting upset.
"I just don't understand people who care about sports. I mean, it's fine if people do--I can respect that--as long as they respect that I don't care. My husband won't watch sports."
"So sports have no value in this world?"
"No. People should not be paid millions of dollars to play a game." I was not arguing this point; i was just trying to clarify whether she really thinks sports (not professional sports) are worthless in this world, especially after she had been raving about how much she loves darts. "People should take jobs that help others... not for money."
"So no one should be a writer, artist, or musician?"
"No, those things are important. They make you think."
"But sports do not make you think? Sports don't inspire?"
She admitted she was biased towards art and music.
"So no one should take a job to make money?" I was baffled by this statement so I asked it again to make sure I understood her. I assume she meant sports stars shouldn't be paid millions of dollars to play a game. "Is it wrong to take a job as an accountant or a lawyer to make a living?"
"I'm not going to be a lawyer to make money. I'm going to help the environment and make less than $25, 000.***" I knew she was applying to law school but i did not mean that as a dig. I was just throwing out jobs that people to do, not because it's the most fun thing in the world, but because they need to feed dependents. It just seems impractical to me for everyone to do a job they are passionate about because we really just don't need that many cowboys and ballerinas in this world.
"Well I just spent the last week working with a woman named Gladis who cooks at a japanese restaurant not to help people, but because she needs money to feed her kid. Is there anything wrong with that?"
"Yes, she shouldn't have to work. The whole system is screwed up. That's why I don't like getting into this. I'm very radical****."
"So what will fix our society?"
"Not using corporate merchandise."
"Like computers?" Now that I did mean as a dig because I've definitely seen her use a laptop which I assume is not organic or sold at a farmer's market. She admitted she's at fault, too, because the system has been built in such a way in which we cannot help but contradict ourselves (my words, not hers). Then the conversation spiraled into her apocalyptic rant of how we as a society are doomed, a massive creature swallowing its own head (i don't think she actually said that, but that's the impression I got as she got more and more upset with me).
"That's why I drink and go to bars, because I don't want to think about it." she said at last.

Silence.

"I don't like showing this side of me," she said. No shit, honey.

We played one more game. I was much more subdued so as not to elicit more wrath. It was another rout and she seemed rather unhappy. Thankfully, another of our roommates had just joined us after she got out of work, offered Eleanor a cigarette, and I bid them farewell.

I am certainly not arguing that she has to be passionate about competitive games and sports. Nor am I saying that my self abusive behavior and yelling is within the realm of ordinary or even acceptable. What I am saying is it seems her intense aversion to my passion is masking her own fear of competition.

I am in no place to presume facts about her life since I barely know her, but I just get the impression that she had a lot of pressure to do well in things, so if there's something she's not good at naturally, she'll revert to the "I don't care, I'm not even trying" attitude that perfectionists tend to adopt. How could you say you failed if you never even tried, right?

But then again, this could be a time to break out Ockham's Razor because maybe I'm missing the obvious: I might just be really obnoxious to play darts with.

I'd like to hear other people's opinion on this. Have I misinterpreted everything? Are sports useless? How do they rank in importance amongst literature and art? For anyone who's played a game with me, am I a more competitive person than i think? Am I irrationally competitive? Am i unpleasant to play with? Is there anything wrong with doing a job to make money to buy things such as food and hot water?

*soon after saying this, she lamented "I wish i was playing someone who was at my level, but no one ever is," which makes me feel like she would have liked to win, or at least have been close in the game. If you really felt sports or games were not worth getting upset over, would you care who you played or how badly you got beat? She also said, "I'm playing a fantastic game, but when you hit yourself it makes me feel bad because you're beating me."

**This statement is interesting: she's trying to use this anecdote as an example of a time when she didn't mind doing badly, but she put in the caveat "I'm not good at math" which makes it safe to fail, and also said, "I got the answer one second later" to show she really didn't fail all that badly.

***a quick search on Yahoo! of "environmental lawyer salary" puts her earning somewhere at $60K-90K. The lowest figure I saw was $40,000 for a government job.

****my political viewpoints, while fairly wishwashy and lacking conviction, have been leaning more and more to the left since i graduated college. but being around people like Eleanor make me realize how incredibly middle of the road I am and completely undeserving of the label "liberal."

**********************

Q & A

Q: I don't touch the california roll. Is it really even considered sushi?
A: Since they can charge something like $7.00 for what amounts to a few tablespoons of rice, a strip of carrot and cucumber, and a couple avocado slices with fake fish, I guess you could call it sushi.

domo very much, senor roboto?

2007-11-27T17:28:00.000-08:00

I took the time to think back to all the jobs I've had since I started working at age 17. All in all, counting part time jobs, temporary gigs, anything for which I received payment, I counted 17 different jobs. And since Monday of this week, I can add one more to the list, one for which I'm completely unqualified: Japanese cook.

I was about to write the name of the restaurant for which I was hired, but realized that might be a bad idea because if people know where I work, that might directly result in people NOT going to my restaurant. That's bad for business. But anyway, I was hired for a new branch of a restaurant opening in December, but since I have no experience, I'm spending this week and next week training at an established branch of the franchise.

The biggest challenge of learning the job is that the supervisor, Tori, speaks Japanese, but he does not speak English well. And the woman training me in the kitchen, Gladys, as well as all the rest of the kitchen staff, speaks Spanish, but does not speak English well. And I speak Japanese and Spanish much worse than either of their attempts at English. So, of course, what do I revert to when people do not understand me? American Sign Language, which I also do not know that well, and they most certainly do not understand at all. And really, does it help at all to sign the phrase "I like big sea turtles?" Maybe at the beach, but not at this job. I get many blank stares, and in the case of Tori, a constant look of disgust because he has to babysit me. Sometimes, while I'm struggling for a word to explain what I want to say, I'll accidently use Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines. Pretty much I'll say whatever I want to say in three or four different ways including pantomime and drawing pictures until I think they understand me. Sometimes I accidentally say "Domo" (thank you) to Gladys and "Gracias" to Tori. Sometimes I say "Tamagotchi" (japanese virtual toy pet) instead of "yakoniki" (japanese rib eye steak). Sometimes, when I'm really desperate, I break out the lyrics to "La Bamba" just to get a glint of recognition from someone's eyes. As you could imagine, conversation is limited.

The one phrase I can always understand any of them say to me is "No good," usually in regards to something I've cooked, cut, or otherwise come close enough to somehow ruin. It's a direct translation of what they are thinking without any of the euphemisms one usually hears to make the connotation less stinging such as, "not quite, but good try!" or "you'll get it next time, tiger!"

Despite the language barrier, me gusta el trabajo mucho. I'm getting paid to learn how to cook. I deep fry tempura and grill salmon teriyaki. Today I learned how to prepare the heads of prawn for some unknown dish. Don't know if this is common knowledge, but it was news to me: if you deep fry a giant prawn, you should first squish its eyes because the water inside will explode in the oil and possibly burn you. Tori was trying to explain this to me in broken English; I just copied what he did and squished an eyeball when he squished an eyeball causing a fine mist of black eyeball juice to spray all over his apron. He ignored it, but said soon afterwards, "How long did they say you need to train here?"

Usually, I would hate a job if my boss knew I sucked at it, take for instance Fed Ex. But, I think I'm less discouraged by Tori's completely disregard for me, probably because he is an old Japanese man and I assume, therefore, he is wise and must treat all seekers of truth this way. Everything he says seems like it's slathered with the brilliance of Confucius, "Armin, you did not wash your hands after using the bathroom." Oh, and some guy delivered bags of rice and to say thank you, Tori slapped him on the ass, just as Lao Tzu was known to do many centuries ago*.

I've only been training three days so far, but I think I've already gotten on Gladys' nerves. Mustering all the English she could, she said very clearly, "This is my side of the counter. That is yours." Oh, and when Tori was laughing in contempt when I overcooked the tamago (japanese omelet) because it was burning my fingers too much to flip it over, I heard Gladys say to him, "Temporary," I assume referring to the fact that I'd only be training with them for another week and a half and then i'd be the new restaurant's problem. Then there was the time that I asked her where the chicken was, "De donde esta pollo?" She said, "Wrong one," because it turns out I was talking to Flor, the dishwasher, who other than being short and Mexican, does not look anything like Gladys. I pretended my eyes were burning from onions, "Muchas cebollas!" and hid in the corner for a half hour.

I have only three more days of work at FedEx and I'm going to assume there will be no going away party for me the last day. But, I'm confident I'll often think back to the good friends and everlasting relationships I made in my three weeks there. I'll never forget Bill who liked to drink coffee. Or Brandon who was a Caucasian. Oh, and who could forget that guy who wore the baseball cap on his head. Good times.

* I realize neither Confucius nor Lao Tzu were Japanese. Neither is the California roll... is that going to stop you from eating it?

the ever evolving Armin

2007-11-21T15:50:00.000-08:00

"breaking my back, another day, another dollar"
-biohazard

I did not send that previous resignation letter to FedEx, though I had planned to send a more professional version of it to my boss earlier this week, having been told by Northwest Airlines that I'd start training in the middle of December. But, joy of joys, I found out NWA made an "embarrassing mistake," in the words of a Minneapolis HR lady. When they told me I could start working in December, they really meant Portland Airport cannot hire any new employees until January or even as late as mid-February. On top of that, they cannot absolutely guarantee me employment until that date. So, if I just got fed up and decided to quit work and cruise until 2008, I wouldn't even have the security of knowing a job was waiting for me*.

So, I'm still handling packages (stifle your giggles). And as I work in these trailers, tossing packages with reckless abandon, I try to think how I ended up here because Armin at age 5 probably would not have guessed that the 26 year old version of him would be this gosh darn successful.

In an old blog, I reflected on that ubiquitous, yet clearly misleading, childhood sentiment, "You can be anything you want to be when you grow up!" The big caveat that we NEVER tell kids is that your choices of what you can be diminish every single day that you live. I wouldn't be surprised if people disagree, but it makes sense to me. Also, I've been reading Dianetics, and while I don't agree with any of it so far, I do enjoy L. Ron Hubbard's gall--the utter balls--to make preposterous claims without any evidence. I'm going to start doing that, too.

So here is my "proof" of why EVERY SINGLE DAY THAT PASSES, YOU HAVE LESS AND LESS CHOICES OF "WHAT YOU CAN BE WHEN YOU GROW UP."

Postulate: Your life is finite.

1. If life is finite, then the number of decisions you make is finite. This number may be humongous, but it is not infinite. Scary to think, but before you die, you will have made one last, final decision. I hope it's something like which Playboy bunny should i sleep with tonight instead of which of my kids should i call to untangle my catheter.

2. Every decision you make means there was a choice you did not take.

3. With every choice you make, your life is presented by new decisions that often branch off from some previous choice you made, not unlike a phylogenetic tree, the diagrams they use to explain how organisms have evolved from common ancestors. The more time that passes, the more decisions you make based on previous choices and the harder it becomes to go back and reverse a decision that was made in the past.

Is it impossible? No, just more difficult, unless there is congruent evolution. Bats and birds can both fly, but do not have a recent common ancestor and developed wings independently of each other. Similarly, maybe at one point in your life you had the choice of being a surgeon or a ninja. You chose ninja and many years down the line, you started thinking, well I wish I chose surgeon, in retrospect, because ninjas have horrible retirement plans. But you realize the awesome sword handling abilities you developed translate well to a scalpel and you become a mob doctor. That's congruent evolution.

4. I was going to draw a phylogenetic tree on Paintbrush to illustrate my point, but it's pissing me off that the lines do not look straight. But hopefully, you get the idea already. It could also be likened to a Choose Your Own Adventure. Unless you're a damn cheater, it's not possible to go back and switch choices once you've made a decision.

5. I broke down and made the phylogenetic choice tree after all, but only one branching. Let's say this imaginary girl's name is Armin. And at 8 years old, Armin could have taken gymnastic lessons. Instead, she stayed home, watched TV and overate. Had she taken the lessons, perhaps her choices at age 14 would be whether to do a Wheaties commercial or a Nike commercial after she sweeps the summer olympics. But, statistics show that girls who do not participate in sports are more prone to drug use and early pregnancy. So based on the choice at age 8, maybe we can say Armin has another choice at age 14 between doing homework or having unprotected sex. For fun, let's say she picks the latter. You can imagine all the choices that come about from this series of choices, and had I more patience, you would see that her tree ends with deciding whether or not to bring her fat, fat baby onto Maury Povich's day time special "Help Me, Maury! My 8 month old baby is 113 lbs!"

Could she at age 21 decide, "I want to be an Olympic gymnast when I grow up?" I think even the most rosy eyed of us could agree, perhaps her Olympic ship has sailed off already.

6. Therefore, since life is finite, the number of decisions you make are finite, and the possibility to go back to old decisions and take the "other choice" is inversely proportional to the passage of time, it can be assumed that the choices of what you want to be when you grow up become smaller and smaller each day. QED.

This all comes up because, believe it or not, I did not graduate from college with a B.S. in package handling or FedEx studies. Actually, I studied chemistry and made a conscious decision to not pursue that career path. This is a big concern for my father who thinks I should get back into it, or really, any profitable industry. I, of course, shrugged off his advice as I do advice from most people. In this case, it's not pride that makes me ignore him; I really don't feel like being a chemist and don't feel I need to take a job just to make a good salary.

But, lately, since things have not been going perfectly as planned, I've been starting to doubt all of my decisions more and more. For all my cocky, trendkill** bullshit, acting like I'm so indifferent to the standards society sets for us--I don't walk to the beat of a different drum... I don't even have a drum, motherfucker!--when I have to prove that I can do any job for any shit money and still be happy, i fold like... well, like the "New Armin's" laundry which he folds immediately after it's pulled from the dryer because he's amazingly productive and disciplined nowadays.

I don't regret not being a chemist or not going to grad school after college. But, even if I wanted to get back into the field, I'm pretty far removed from chemistry at this point. Not impossible, but tougher. I'm like a coelacanth at an evolutionary dead end: "But look! I have lobed fins! If you just gave me a shot, I'm sure I could evolve into a land dweller."

With Northwest not working out this week, i took a punch to the gut. Not so much because it was my dream job or that it was the choice that would branch my phylogenetic tree into the perfect evolution of Armin. But, it was just what I imagined for myself at this point, and after I heard it wasn't happening, or at least not yet, I had that horrible feeling of "What now?" What was I qualified to do now? What did I want to do? It felt like all the choices were exhausted, not unlike my body.

These moments are good, though, because they force you to be honest with yourself. The last couple years teaching, I was able to say, "This is a good job, the money is more than adequate, I like it well enough." But really, was that what I dreamed to be? So i have to admit that any decisions I make have to lead towards a career in writing, or at least, enough free time to allow me to write recreationally, because that's all that's ever been interesting to me all my life.

So here's a pic of at least two writers who are not on strike. No, the one on the left is not Hunter S. Thompson, though I know he looks a lot like him with that very Hunter S. Thompson-ish hat. And yes, the one on the right is Matt Damon, your choice for the sexiest man alive.

* I did find out last night I was hired as kitchen staff for a new sushi restaurant in Portland. Jobs are all about the benefits, in my opinion, and while this job does not have the benefit of free flights around the US and select international points, it does have the benefit of not risking suffocation in an avalanche of fallen packages inside of a FedEx 18 wheeler. I still won't quit FedEx until i go to my first training on Monday; after the false promises of NWA, i'm a little dubious of any employment until i actually get a day of work in. God I hope no one asks me prepare Fugu.

** I use this phrase "trendkill" quite a bit. I did not coin this phrase. I got it from Pantera's breakthrough 1996 album "The Great Southern Trendkill," though I don't know if that's the first time the phrase had been used. As you would assume, it refers to the quality of being against trends that exist for the sake of being trendy.

"The trend is over and gone forever/ Waste of time, pantomime, circus doll, at the local mall/ Exterminate, it's all fake"
-"Sandblasted Skin" from Great Southern Trendkill

The problem with being against the trends because they are popular, though, is that being against trends as a principle becomes a trend in itself, doesn't it? If you like to wear Gap, but you refuse to wear it because it's popular and your equally anti-trend friends would make fun of you for wearing it, that's just as stupid. But it's a kickass album and for a sixteen year old kid who hated everything in the world, that's about as cathartic as music gets.

*********

Q & A

Thank you Tum Tum for answering the DTMFA question, thus making the Q & A section of this entry utterly useless. I hope it makes you feel good taking food out of a starving writer's mouth.

letter of resignation

2007-11-18T21:31:00.000-08:00

Dear FedEx:

Please accept this letter of resignation effective 12/4/07. Due to a change in my day schedule (i.e. I have been hired for day time work, as in, work when the sun is up, which is what normal people do) I will no longer be able to work the sunrise, 3-8 AM, shift any longer.

That is not totally honest. I may have day time work with Northwest Airlines (yes, I will be a member of NWA, but no, I do not plan on dying of AIDS like Eazy-E... let us pause and pour a 40 on the curb for our fallen brothers) barring some discovery of a felony I do not remember committing. And since I don't know what my schedule would be for this job I haven't officially gotten yet, I really can't say for certain that I'm busy at 3:00 AM to 8:00 AM... I really just don't like working those hours.

And since we're being honest with each other, FedEx, I have to say that since I've seen my coworkers and myself violate the Purple Promise of which you are so proud, that is, the promise to a customer that a package will arrive on time without having been thrown, smushed, or stepped on as a foot stool in order to shove even more packages at the top of the pile, I have to admit I'm a little suspicious of whether I can trust you anymore. All those times you told me you loved me, did you really mean it? All those times you said you had to stay late at work, you were never able to explain why there was lipstick on your collar. I just can't live with this doubt. I wrote to Dan Savage and, predictably enough, wrote DTMFA!

Beyond all that, FedEx, you really didn't make me feel special. Maybe I'm being unrealistic with my sense of entitlement, but I assumed I would be hot shit come day one. And to realize, hey, I'm really not that good at this job and have to work harder to become better at it, well that's a little much for my fragile ego to take, don't you think? C'mon now, I'm from the freaking suburbs. I'm used to being coddled. The last three years, I worked in organizations where males were the minority (no, it wasn't phone sex). I've been used to being the Golden Boy, the only young male in overwhelmingly female dominated workplaces, untouched by criticism and reprimand although I was constantly fucking things up. Female coworkers would worry if I was eating right. Has anyone at the sunrise shift asked me if I'm eating right? You know the answer is no. And, even though you didn't ask, I've been eating very healthy, vegetarian chili and assorted fruits mostly, so you should be very proud of me and pat me on the back like my old coworkers used to do.

Maybe it didn't have to end this way FedEx. For instance, if the job was more like a choreographed musical and we loaded boxes in sync with the music of Leonard Bernstein, I wouldn't be so rash. But I'm not getting any younger or more handsome and, as I age, I'm certainly not becoming more enamored with lower back pain. So, I think it's best for both of us to make a clean split, but just as with any relationship, if it turns out that I can't meet someone new within a couple weeks, can I come back at 3:00 AM begging for you to take me back?

I will always love you,
Armin

it's a living

2007-11-11T12:49:00.000-08:00

"we've got to move these microwave ovens. Custom kitchen deliveries. We got move these refrigerators. we got to move these color TVs."
-dire straits

This week, I started my new job, a package handler for FedEx. Sunrise shift, 3 AM to 8 AM. Trucks back up into a giant cargo bay. Each handler is responsible for a couple trailers which are connected to chutes down which the packages slide. Our job is to check the labels, make sure they are going to the right zip code, and stack them as tightly as possible into the trailer. Lift with your knees, work fast, work carefully.

It's robotic and uncomplicated. It's a job whose goals are clearly defined and measurable: 100 packages per hour the first week and the productivity rate should increase by 100 packages every week until you're averaging 400/hr... roughly the equivalent of a full trailer per hour. It fills me with all sorts of ambivalence. It's a "for now" job, but I'm hesitant to quit it even if I do get better work. A couple reasons for this:

1. During orientation, the trainer, a chubby fella with a goatee who had the unpleasant habit of picking bean burrito out of his molars with his pinkie told us that "There's a hundred dollar bonus after a month because a lot of people quit the first week. They realize they're too lazy for this type of work." And so if I quit this job, the chubby, goateed, bean burrito tooth picker trainer will look at me like I couldn't hack it, college boy doesn't want to ruin his manicure loading boxes.

I think most people want to think there's something special about the work they do, that you need to possess special qualities, either through hard work or natural talent, to be in their field. Have you ever dared tell a teacher that her job must be so easy because she gets out at 3 PM and has summer's off? I swear she will jump on your ass with stats on how her "free time" is riddled with holes from lesson planning and calling parents. That's natural, right? The intrinsic desire to feel special, skilled, and valuable? To feel as if you suffer more than others and you are invariably tougher than the common ilk... you are woven hemp pants in a world of delicate lace blouses. You wouldn't last a day in my job.

Package handling is a proud industry, honest work completed each night by hard working folk, and they have a right to be proud because it's true that not everyone can hack it. The ones who stay at this job have a work ethic that you can't buy for $30,000 a year in college. I want to believe I do have the heart for this, and that self conscious side of me wants everyone at FedEx to realize that if I quit, it isn't from lack of inner strength.

2. Another reason I'm tentative to quit: this may very well be my dream job. I told a friend once how one of my favorite tasks of all time is envelope stuffing. The repetitive motion, the challenge of going faster and faster, the pure, unadulterated joy one can only attain from folding a piece of paper into perfect thirds without guidelines... it's freaking christmas day for me. She didn't agree and thought of me when she had to stick labels on a thousand pill bottles one day.

This work is similar, except replace the risk of paper cuts with hernia and horrible lower back pain. So therefore, I should probably love this job once I get into a rhythm. And I'm very excited to sing "Daylight come and I want to go home" as I work, but right now I am paired with a more experienced person and she may not like my singing.

3. Isn't there something delightful about working when no one else is? Like you are some fascinating nocturnal animal about which the boring, predictable diurnals have no understanding, lording over a mysterious, black night world, feeding in the dark with specialized eyes? Does no one else think going to happy hour at 8 am sounds kick ass?

Why then am I even thinking of quitting? A few reasons FedEx may not be throwing a retirement party for me in 40 years...

1. As much as I hate admitting it, I do care what other people think. I try to pretend I'm so trendkill, so self assured and unfazed by other's opinions of me, but that's bullshit. It's hard for me to meet new people, tell them what I do, and not throw in an explanation: "I just moved here and am looking for full time work," or "I used to be a teacher, but want to try something new," or "But really, I'm fucking brilliant and interesting and just took this job to show you, perfect stranger, how secure I am in myself." The worst part about this sort of shame in what I do is that no one has actually judged me, as far as I know. I only assume they'd judge me because I'd judge them if they said they were FedEx graveyard package handlers. Not that I'd say it to their faces, but I'd immediately create an impression of them: stupid, dull, unambitious. It's horrible; I hate to admit that's what I think, but probably, deep down, I'm sure part of me is judging.

Not to pass the blame, but part of that probably comes from my parents: the awe they have any time they talk about a friend of the family who's become a doctor or a lawyer, and the disgust they hardly hide when they mention those in the family who dropped out of college and decided to work instead. I guess you're supposed to feel like you're a better person if you work behind a desk instead of with your hands making $10/hr.

2. As much as I'd like to think I can maximize every hour and would be so productive during the day time--writing, exercising, volunteering--past experience has proven I may waste that entire time. It's very likely I will spend the day sleeping, checking email excessively, and making excuses of why I can't be more productive because I have a hard time getting things done before I have to go to work, and if you work at 3 AM, that's a lot of time not getting things done. That's very Un-AmeriCorps of me.
3. The fringe benefits suck. Maybe I get discounts if I want to send packages through FedEx; I haven't checked. But, after watching first-hand how packages are handled, I'm tentative to send anything through my company (note: though I only worked one shift so far, I did not observe anyone treating a package that said "Fragile," "Glass," or "This Side Up," any differently than packages without those labels, and I certainly do not mean that all packages, regardless of labeling, are treated with the utmost care and concern. Also, many employees do not speak English, and so they may not be able to read those warnings on the packages anyway).

I'm interviewing for NorthWest Airlines next Tuesday. Now that's a job with fringe benefits. Free flights. Perhaps free peanuts. If FedEx said I could stow away in an 18 wheeler to see my family for christmas, maybe I'd be more inclined to stay.

Regardless of how long I stay at FedEx, I always think working is better than not working. I'd much rather be a beast of burden, a mule or a camel, unglamorous and smelly, than a prissy house cat sleeping, eating, and stalking moths in the kitchen, dreaming of days when its kind were the fiercest hunters in the jungle.

*********

Q & A

Q: Does the New Armin still sip rum drinks while wearing a straw hat?
A: Any incarnation of Armin will ALWAYS think rum drinks and straw hats go together like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong.

the new armin

2007-11-04T07:35:00.000-08:00

"Sandy,
You must start anew,
Don't you know what you must do
Hold your head high,
Take a deep breath and sigh
Goodbye to Sandra Dee"
-Olivia Newton John

Sunday, Nov 4th has become the official start date for the implementation of an all encompassing program that has been incubating in my mind for the last four months. We are talking about a drastic overhaul of my lifestyle; a gradual, but steady, sloughing of bad habits and development of good habits to create what I like to call "The New Armin." Not unlike wars in which we police the world, I have no real timetable for this plan, but I'm fairly certain I can completely phase out "The Old Armin" by winter of 2009, provided insurgent bad habits don't begin revolting.

It's been said that if a Neanderthal were alive today and scientists gave him a good Mach 3 shave, fitted him for some Armani, and gave him a bus pass, we wouldn't give him a second glance. Similarly, on the surface, the Old Armin looks very much like the New Armin. So here's a handy guide to tell if you are dealing with the Old Armin or the New Armin.

Grocery Shopping

Old Armin: generally, goes through the supermarket looking for foods that are least expensive per pound or grams. Thus, his shopping bag is mostly filled with instant foods that contain flavor packets and no FDA approval. Or large chunks of animal meat he tries to cook in a rotisserie until the dripping fat starts a grease fire.

New Armin: buys foods based on how green and leafy they are. New Armin thumps cantaloupes, mimicking the old lady next to him, to see if they are fresh. He follows thin people wearing athletic wear (i.e. Under Armour, cross trainers) to buy whatever they put in their carts (yes, I do need Platex Gentle Glides, Miss Cashier, so just keep on scanning, bitch).

Dental Hygiene

Old Armin: flosses right before his dental check up because he doesn't want to be judged by the dental hygienist, under the completely erroneous belief that flossing is like cramming for a test

New Armin: flosses every night and pretends he's rocky when he spits blood into the sink.

Laundry

Old Armin: had two closets, one to keep dirty clothes, one to keep clean clothes. When he does do laundry, brings it to school and gives it to his disabled students under the guise of a lesson plan.

New Armin: does laundry EVERY WEEKEND, folds the laundry right afterwards, stores folded clothes on shelves in logical categories--underwear, t-shirts, fuzzy sweaters--completely flouting the law of entropy.

And this is just the beginning. There will be other tell tale signs of the New Armin. For example, New Armin will not use the same sponge to clean plates that he uses to clean the toilet. Sorry to old roommates who had to live with Old Armin. New Armin will consider paying for your hospital stays if you've acquired E. Coli when living with me.

******

Q & A

Q: Do you find that you're surprised when you meet good people?
A: Not necessarily, because I'm friends with many good people. I guess I'm more surprised when I meet good people who are complete strangers but look out for my ass. That's what all west coasters say is different here: people don't ignore each other just because they're strangers. I don't have categoric proof that people are much friendlier out here, but one example: I was driving in Portland on a Saturday morning when i got to a stop light and the car next to me stalled. I pulled over as quickly as I could to help the woman push her car to safety, but as soon as I was able to park and run to her, there were already three other guys helping her, one of whom was a guy in the truck behind her who didn't even think about parking his car first like I did. He realized this was dumb and finally moved his car, but that's sweet of him in a really dumb sort of way.

Q: Stephen wants to know whether you ate all 100 nuggets and if so, what was the next morning like???
A: I ate all 100 nuggets in less than 24 hours. I can't say how the next morning was necessarily because there was no morning on this trip; it was just a series of driving blocks and napping blocks. I can say, I felt like hell some point during the end of the nuggets or perhaps when they were all finished, I think around 4:00 AM. But that's probably a combination of no sleep, lots of mountain dew (to the point where it feels like it's coating your teeth), and 100 chicken nuggets. The problem with buying foods in bulk for me is that I generally eat food until it is gone or I'm close to vomiting. To pace myself, I ate based on how many nuggets it took to finish a sauce packet. My guess, I ate about 10 nuggets every hour for ten hours. But I really didn't count the nuggets before hand and it could have only been 87 nuggets. I know, I'm a pussy.

Q: Stop cheering for the Knicks. Aren't you from Jersey? What, are the Nets not good enough for you?
A: If you remember that Kerry Kittles was the best player on the team, it would make sense that I was not a Nets fan as a kid. As most in our generation, Tim, I was a Bulls fan. Once they disbanded and all us frontrunner fans had to pick some team to whom we could pledge our allegiance, geography ruled as it usually does and I went for the Knicks. Now of course, I should have picked the Nets, but I don't know if they were technically part of the NBA at the time, or if they were playing exhibition games against HS teams. Now I am too loyal to my team to switch, despite sexual harassment claims, horribly immature, selfish players, and ugly ass jerseys. I can't say the same for the city of New York though; when I got out of Port Authority a few weeks ago, I was greeted by a giant billboard of the Nets. Disgraceful.

Q: i hope you get to sleep in a real bed really soon.
Thank you as always for your concern and well wishes. I slept in my very own bed, courtesy of Ross, yesterday and the feeling was indescribable. This must be how the Queen of England feels when she sleeps on a full sized futon using a bundled up hoodie as a pillow.

Q: let's start a movement-social workers at mechanics. it'll be brillaint and so helpful.
A: at the very least, all mechanics should be required to have on-site counselors to deal with the patrons' post traumatic stress disorder after reading the estimate.

Q: clearly you felt so guilty about the bagels because we jews are gods chosen people, and the bagel is our chosen food, making bagels the food that is closest to god. that makes sense right?
A: makes sense, but it wasn't manna from heaven. Let's see if stealing gefilte fish makes me feel the same.

starving writers

2007-11-04T07:12:00.000-08:00

"you want the good life. you break your back. you snap your fingers; you snap your neck."
-prong

This Halloween, I dressed as a starving writer*. If I had it to do again, I'd have picked up the bass at a young age and been a starving musician. Every band's looking for a bassist and you never even have to be all that good. But you still get groupies and free beer from the bar. Even a starving artist probably gets free cheese and wine at those gallery openings, not to mention all the nude models.

But what does a starving writer get? Caffeine shakes and carpal tunnel. Isolation and self loathing. Disappointment and more disappointment.

I have this brand spanky new lap top that has this fun gadget, essentially a Post It pad on my desktop. I guess it's for notes, but all I have written on it is a question I ask myself every day: Where's your heart, fighter? As long as I can still answer that question, I know I'm not done yet.

*Actually, for halloween this year, I dressed as a swimmer getting eaten by a shark. I sewed a stuffed great white to my beater, spread some fake blood on the shirt, then bought some swimmies for my arms which cut off the circulation to my fingers. the problem with Halloween is that it is often cold, at least wherever I've lived, and so your kickass costume is usually covered by a parka. but, i was able to wear swimming trunks and a Hawaiian shirt because I was at a party with a bonfire, so i was plenty warm, but the plastic swimmies did feel like they were melting and the temptation was too great for me not to throw my stuffed shark into the fire.

are you fucking serious? vs. rejoice! rejoice!

2007-10-26T13:56:00.000-07:00

My very good friend Cal is an atheist, at best a lukewarm agnostic, and he tells me he thinks of me as someone who's pretty religious, I guess because he is so absolutely un-religious. Personally, I don't think I'm that spiritual... i don't have stigmata or see dead saints in the swirls of pastry frosting. I don't go to church regularly, I don't associate myself with a religion, i frequently use the Lord's name in vain and always forget to remove the vowels when typing Yaweh...case in point.

But I do have moments when I think very strongly there is some greater force acting in my life, best illustrated by this drive across the country.

It took me two days to drive from NJ to Houston, TX, delayed slightly by a flat tire, which seemed uncanny after a summer of biking across the country and getting substantially more flat tires than either of my co-bikers.

After spending a weekend in TX, I continued north to Portland, stopping at a Ramada Inn first to steal continental breakfast. Now, to begin, I know stealing is wrong...hell, being in the backseat of a cop car in 7th grade for shop lifting is a good reminder that stealing is frowned upon. But I always think of eating continental breakfast without actually staying at the hotel as a victimless crime, not unlike stealing a wireless signal or bombing people in countries that are too far away for you to worry about.

Anyway, this spread was amazing: scrambled eggs, sausage, canadian bacon (known as ham in the US), biscuits with gravy, and home fries, along with the usually breads, pastries, and fruits. And most importantly, there were no employees lording over the food... this is what we in the scavenging circles call a "free for all."

So I loaded my plate with hot food and repeatedly made trips back up to fill my pockets with non-perishable Nature Valley granola bars and bananas. Then, I saw there was a bag of Lender's bagels and I shoved it under my coat. As I ate, I began feeling more and more guilty about the bagels, like it was horribly hypocritical of me to be thanking God for all the good graces He's bestowed, then go and do something so blatantly wrong.

For some reason, I only felt guilty about the bagels. Not the plate of eggs and biscuits (they'll have to throw that out anyway, right? completely ignoring the fact that they have to cook more because of my share), not the granola bars or bananas (normal people would take a couple, or in this case, a dozen Nature Valley Granola bars to go, too).

Well it got to a point where I threw my fork down and started yelling in my head, "Fine! Fucking fine! I'll put the damn bagels back already. Just get off my back!" I only mention this whole bagel thing because I thought by putting them back, I'd made things square with God, but realized I hadn't when I filled up my gas tank in Little America, WY (one of those tourist traps that is advertised via billboard for 100 miles before you get there and then you realize it's just a gigantic souvenir shop, and what do people do with those two foot long pencils anyway? They don't even fit in pencil sharpeners). When I tried to start my car back up, it wouldn't turn over. Mind you, before I left Jersey, I spent $350 to get a check engine light to turn off, so I assumed everything underneath there was back in working order. And usually, I can laugh a lot of shit off, but after the flat tire one driving day earlier, I was pretty fed the fuck up.

A kindly gentleman helped me push the car into a parking spot, and if there was a bright spot, at least my car died in Little America which had its own mechanic. I walked across the expansive parking lot the whole time bitching, "Really, God? You shut off my car for a plate of crappy scrambled eggs and bananas? I even returned the damn bagels!"

Turns out the mechanic shop only worked on big rigs, but they could provide towing to the nearest town, about 35 miles back east, for about $130. I spent the next half hour on the phone with AAA trying to find out if it would be more affordable to join AAA and pay the registration fee to get their member discounts, or just pay the towing fee straight up. But having a new jersey address without planning to live there, planning to live in OR without an address, and being stranded in WY, there was quite a bit of of holding and transferring.

Anyway, it made no sense to sign up with AAA because I'd have to register in NJ, and though they said it would take effect immediately, the AAA of Wyoming said there would be an additional service fee to get it to work that moment. So I broke down and asked Shauna in the repair shop for a tow. Though I had been in there at least three times to discuss options for my car, she had neither the empathetic tone of voice or understanding smile I like to see in service people when you are bleeding money onto their company's floor. Not her problem, I guess. The tow truck wouldn't be ready for three hours, coincidentally, it too needed work and had to be brought to Salt Lake City, which didn't give me much confidence. If I was being towed by a tow truck and it broke down, would I have to pay for the tow truck that comes to tow it away?

So, to bide my time, sat on the hood of my car in the parking lot of this enormous souvenir shop playing my guitar. I thought for a moment that I could put out a hat and maybe raise enough money in coins to pay for the tow and the subsequent repairs, but realized I'd lost my hat a long time ago, and that made me even sadder. So I just sat on the car strumming Beatles songs when a hippie Arkansas couple walked into the souvenir shop and smiled at me. When they came back out, they asked me about my guitar and we started chatting.

"Where you heading?"
"No where, " I said. "My car's dead. I'm just waiting for a tow."
"You got any car repair knowledge?"
"No," I say as my manhood shrinks in shame.
"Pop the hood and i'll give it a look."

So he takes out a ratchet set and pliers and a pocket knife and starts cleaning my battery connections for me, which my dad had warned me about two weeks earlier, but I'd ignored because I didn't want to waste the money on a ratchet set, whereas I've had no qualms spending money in other places, say for 100 chicken nuggets at McDonald's.

As the guy, Milo, was cleaning my connections, his girlfriend, Melissa, I think, asked me a question, but because of her Arkansas twang and my general prejudices towards people who travel across the country to follow jam bands, as they were doing, I thought she said, "Do you want to buy some weed?"

I got all flustered and tried to think back to my 4th grade DARE training and was ready to scream at her, "I'm not a chicken, you're a turkey!" Instead I asked her to repeat herself and it turns out she wanted to sell me BEADS, not WEED. So I bought a bead from her, and though I don't normally wear jewelry, I wear this bead every day because it reminds me there are people looking out for me.

After about fifteen minutes, my car could start again. I didn't know how to repay them and they certainly didn't ask for anything at all. Finally asked if I could buy them lunch, and again, miscommunication occurred when I thought she said, "Well, I would like some E," which actually was, "Well I would like some MEAT."

So this latest car debacle which I expected to cost me $130 for towing plus who knows how much in repairs, parts, labor, ended up actually costing me $5 for a bead and $5.85 for four chicken fingers and a beef and bean burrito. I am eternally grateful to them.

Back on the road after that 2.5 hour delay, I felt refreshed... alive. Felt joyful and apologized to God for assuming He shut down my car just to teach me a lesson about the continental breakfast (though I was too scared to try it again). Clearly this car malfunction wasn't a punishment, but a chance for me to see the goodness in this world.

I was able to laugh about it all at this point, driving through Utah and the late afternoon, even thinking, at least it gives me something to blog about, but as horribly fatiguing as the flat tire and the breakdown were, it just doesn't translate to paper well. It doesn't sound horrible enough. Maybe if I had one more problem... problems look more impressive in threes.

At dusk, in Idaho, my dumbass wish was granted when I felt a familiar thump, thump, thump, thump and pulled over to find another completely shredded tire; this time the front right.

What can you do at that point? What's funny is that any time I try to look on the bright side during these situations, something else always craps on my face. Like with this tire, i started changing it and thought, "Hey, at least it's quick and easy to take off a flat tire on a car than on a bicycle." Then I spent twenty minutes trying to pull off the tire after taking off the nuts, which for some reason was just stuck, cutting my fingers on the exposed steel wiring.

Mandy helped me get the numbers for tire repair shops, but unlike the flat in Louisiana, I was much further away from rescue (about 15 miles), and it was nightfall so places probably wouldn't be open. I spoke to a guy named Chris who told me where his shop was and just let me know it would cost $90 per hour for service because it was after hours. Told him that I would just take it to the shop now and wait till morning to fix it.

Found the place at about 7:00, my donut held up thankfully and planned to just sleep in the parking lot the whole night. I did not look forward to this. I'd been sleeping in my car on the road the whole time, but I'd only sleep for two or three hours at a time because, as you might guess, it's sort of uncomfortable to sleep in cold car that's stuffed with all your belongings so you have to sleep sitting upright. A whole night--the place opened at 7:30--seemed pretty daunting. I thought about breaking out a gift bottle of whiskey i got as a going away present from an old roommate, drink enough to just fall asleep, but worried that I'd have less wiggle room with a cop if he came and found me drunk in a car.

So I just listened to Delilah on the radio and tried to sleep when I saw a pickup truck pull into the driveway. The guy I'd spoken to, Chris, was back to take care of some paperwork, found me sleeping in the parking lot and felt so bad for me, he fixed my tire right then (about 9:00 PM) at this point without charging me the after hours fee, or even a service fee. "I couldn't let you sleep out there all night," he said when I tried to tell him it was okay, I could wait until morning.

See? I was blessed a second time by excessively kind people. I made it to Portland, OR by morning, and though I'm continuing to have car problems this week (seems to be a radiator problem this time), at least I'm not stranded in Wyoming or Idaho. Based on all these car issues, and getting bailed out of them each time, the religious side of me starts getting a little more vocal. Instead of just accepting that maybe I have a shitty car and I bought cheap tires, I have this odd feeling that these are all tests of my will, that something much, much more terrible will happen to me in the future. As if all these incidents were meant to give me a catalog of memories to remind me when this yet-to-be-determined-very-worst moment strikes that bad things have happened before and I've always found a way out of them.

This really isn't a gutsy prediction, as far as prophecies go. Very bad things happen to everyone all the time, what with diseases, frequency of car accidents, and the Knicks perpetually sucking year after year. I can predict that you'd probably be less inclined to read this blog next week if I keep making each posting this long.

going back to Houston

2007-10-20T06:56:00.000-07:00

Moving to Portland, OR... more on that in another blog post. Thursday was the first day of my drive to the Northwest with a short detour to Houston, TX to see an old friend.

On my 12th hour of driving I was somewhere in VA, buzzing on soda, at that weird hyper-energetic moment that precedes complete exhaustion and body collapse. I stopped to use a bathroom at McDonald's. Walked into the bathroom, looked around, and thought it odd that I didn't see any urinals. I dismissed the thought and let myself into a stall where next to the toilet I saw a trash can with a label "For the disposal of tampons and sanitary napkins ONLY!"

Good, I thought. They're making trash cans with universal labels so that people can't complain that the men's bathroom is sexist and unconcerned with women's needs. I unzipped, and began whistling "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins when a nagging voice kept tugging at my brain. Wait a second, Armin! Wait a damn second! Don't start peeing yet! Nothing adds up here. The lack of urinals, the trash can for feminine waste, the pink walls, the lilacs in a vase, the mysterious triangle dress on the usual plain slacked man-symbol on the door... it's all wrong!

I was in the women's bathroom, that's what I'm trying to get at here. I realized my mistake before any of my horrible male urine hit the bowl and found my way to the comfort of the men's room where I could pee in a urinal on a familiar urinal cake which I like to pretend is the polar ice caps and my pee is Global Warming. And I like to pretend the customary dead fly on that urinal cake is an endangered walrus that I am pushing to extinction.

blowout in the bayou

2007-10-20T06:07:00.000-07:00

Been driving the last two days from new jersey to TX. In Louisiana, a few miles west of Baton Rouge and the mighty Mississippi river, I had one of those "what the fuck?" moments when my right front tire mysteriously blew up. I didn't hit anything as far as i can tell, unless an armadillo was hiding in my tire well and got its claws dug into the sidewalls. I'm not talking about a nail sized hole... i mean the tire was literally shredded.

So I pulled over to the cozy shoulder of the busy Route 10 during Friday after-work traffic. Thankfully, I had learned to like country music earlier this summer (which came in handy when i was surfing stations in VA through TX) and not ten minutes before having this blowout, I heard a song called "Jesus, Take the Wheel" by a little lady name Carrie Underwood.

For those of you have not enjoyed this twangy piece of molasses ear candy, the song tells the story of a single mother driving home on a snowy night (Christmas Eve, no less) and she's pissed off probably because she's a single mom, so she's driving too fast, hits a patch of ice, and starts spinning out of control. Now if you grew up with nor'easters and blizzards, you would probably have pumped the brake at that point. But perhaps the single mother in the song, like Carrie herself, is from Oklahoma because her safety instinct at that point (with a baby in the backseat) is to throw her hands up and yell "Jesus, take the wheel!"

So, what the hell, I gave it a try too. I stepped out of the car, waiting for the 18 wheelers to blow by first, threw my hands up in exasperation and yelled, "Jesus, fix this tire!" After about fifteen minutes of humming to myself and waving to passerbys--Don't worry 'bout me! Jesus is on his way!--I realized, maybe Jesus couldn't get my spare tire out of my trunk since I had all of my worldly belongings crammed in there. "Okay, Jesus. How about I just get this started and you can take it from there?"

Carrie underwood will never be singing about my life because no one wants to hear a song about a guy fixing a tire by himself while Jesus was probably busy being copilot for some minivan. But, I am very thankful that I was only about 2 miles from Grosse Tete (like, Disgusting Hooter) and a gas station where a toothless man with big ears fixed my tire.

An isolated tire blowout isn't so strange, but following a summer bicycling across the country and experiencing a significantly higher incidence of flat tires, it just seems I'm cursed. I'm a little worried about walking right now for fear I might blow out an ankle... and there's no donut or patch kit for that.

I changed my mind

2007-10-14T19:18:00.000-07:00

I told my sister I'd update this blog by Sunday. I have fifty solid minutes to meet this deadline, and with the Mountain Dew giving my fingers tremors, I feel like I'm back in college, spending half the time typing, the other half praying for a snow day. Such pressure. Especially because this is the first posting on a blog that doesn't really have any focus or real purpose. Many blogs out there have a theme or specific topic deemed important by the authors. A quick search on Google BlogSearch on the following topics revealed

Dinosaurs-1,143,379 Posts
Sports- about 139,198,727 posts
Dougnuts (Spelled properly) - 261,529 posts
Dougnuts (spelled d-o-n-u-t-s) - 799,657 posts
Satanism - 140,518 posts
Jesus Christ's New Line of Evening Wear - 2362 posts (i'm suspicious these blog searches are not very accurate)
Naughty School girls - more posts than sports yielded, but could not record the actual figure because ads began popping up like the zits on the faces of the young teenagers who are supporting those very sites at this exact moment.

See? All those blogs have a direction. I, on the other hand, am blogging without a road map and one of my front headlights out. I'm just trying to get through this first post so I can relax until I have to think of a topic again next week for the second post.

Anyway, the following is what I came up with for my very first posting on this blog. If I had to do it again, I'd probably add some more pizazz. Give the reader what he wants. More dinos and donuts if you will. Make uneducated and biased predictions on all of next week's football games (Boston College will win next week because they believe in Jesus, and through Jesus, everything is possible). Add cute, yellow emoticons to illustrate feelings that you are supposed to experience in case the words themselves do not convey them properly (insert winky face here).
Oh god, I hope this blog does not get cancelled before that Caveman show does (insert pouty, crying face here).

and without further ado...
Armin's first posting on All the Knots Undone

******

The Austrian philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, was considered a genius for the ideas he put forth in his first book, Tractatus, but later in life recanted, revised, or completely denied most of what he originally believed.*

Similarly, the writer and existentialist, Albert Camus, an unwavering atheist in war-weary France, is said to have professed his faith in God on his death bed.

What's the point? We can all change our minds. I, for example, used to think blogging was the embarrassing, self promoting habit of the attention addict. And, actually, I still think that's about right. But, that doesn't stop me from starting this blog now, which, like millions of other blogs out there, will be self centered and bombastic because its author believes his experiences and thoughts are somehow of universal importance, when to be perfectly honest, there's many people out there who could say it better and have said it better already. But blogging is free and since there are absolutely no prerequisites or qualifications necessary to start one, even the dumbest of us bloggers can have our voices heard.

And fortunately, blogs are free to read as well, so you are free to read this and enjoy it, or piss on it, or promote your own blog through the comments section.

Here's a poem that occasionally rhymes, but otherwise, has no discernable pattern.


GIFTS

For my birthday this year, 
I'd like a jar.
Nothing fancy,
But big, large as my head.  
Big enough to hold 
two pints of formaldehyde
and my brain when
I'm dead.

Now I know what you're going to say
that people only save the brains of the 
REMARKABLE
your Einsteins and Whitmans
so we can scan them with lasers
and stick them with needles
poking for secrets until we can figure
out the mystery: "Why were they more special
than me?"

So I understand if you don't
keep my brain around for more 
than a month 
and use the jar instead to hold
peppermint candies or raspberry jam.
But for now I'll see that jar on the table
and know just how special
you think I am.

Where was I going with this? Oh, yes, all this to say that you have a right to change your mind. So don't feel bad about making the waitress cross out your original order, because it's not your fault that the person with whom you are dining ordered something that sounded so delicious you had to order it too or else you'd spend the whole meal staring at his or her plate, but demurely refusing any time he/she offered you a bite .

*this is actually not a footnote because my research is sketchy and, quite possibly, inaccurate. Facts in this blog are often distorted so as to fit whatever revelation I want them to support.