one tick mark beyond a quarter century

It's possible that my mother still has the scrap of paper on which I vowed, with signature, to abolish in the year I turned twenty-five my habit of twenty-some cigarettes per day. Today, no, yesterday (glancing at the clock in the lower right) I turned twenty-six years of age. The post twenty-fives had been reserved for my older siblings, it seemed, for exactly three and one half years. My sister celebrates a half birthday by reminding me it's her half birthday whenever she needs a privilege to abuse me on this day. I tell her I'll be half as nice to her as I usually am.

An advantage of being born three days after Christmas is that gift-giving relatives are usually still lingering about the house. I'd be hard pressed to recall the genre of gift last given to a sibling for his or her birthday. However, I am given a second showering of gifts, as I politely protest the generosity. It's my mother's tradition to give me free reign over her credit card with a few guidelines. I am to choose one item sold somewhere on the Internet that doesn't exceed a reasonable amount of money. Indecision always sets in.

My first thought was to buy a membership to a popular file-sharing service, but found their service to have mysteriously switched to free status. Perhaps I was looking at a different service when the idea was implanted, but no matter. My desires turned to computer gaming. I'm not much of a gamer at the moment, having sold most of my library on EBay for horrifically small sums. I own Sim City 3000, a car racing game and two Atari classics (Frogger and Centipede) adapted for 3D graphics chipsets. Driving games help me to blow off the most steam of any game, shoot-em's included. Maybe I need a new one; the one I own only has three tracks, and the cars kind of drift around funny.

It was this kind of criteria that kept me searching for the perfect futuristic car racing game on which to spend my mother's money. I'm quite particular about the car racing games I play, which doesn't mean I'm particularly good at playing them. Crusin' USA, World, or Erotica, as seen in many arcades across America, usually leave me dead last; and these are of the easier arcade console driving games in existence. Of course, there's the fact that I'm a purist and select a manual transmission each time. I can't even drive a stick in real life.

A peeve of mine in regards to any racing game is the addition of guns, missiles, mines, the need for armor, or any other battle-related feature. There are few things more poorly conceived than a fireball rising up off the ass of your then slowed car when there was little you could have done to prevent it. In the one demo of a rather beautiful space-themed game, a new annoyance was founded. Power-ups for speed are very Nintendo, so I don't mind seeing them when I'm playing F-Zero for nostalgia. It just doesn't seem like I'm in the grit of trying to push my car ahead when there are floating, rotating hearts above the track every few hundred yards.

Like for any inanimate object, I felt a little sad for the car racing games that I immediately rejected either by name or by nuance. I grew attached to the ones I looked at long enough to criticize the beauty in the backgrounds of the screenshots. A non-futuristic demonstration version I have just tried proved too meaty for this computer's graphics card, and I kept having to put the car in reverse after I gained enough speed--and the frame-rate decayed--and crashed into a ditch, barrier or tree for lack of visibility.

What to do with no more than five thousand pennies? Maybe I'll pick up a new portable CD player. I need that.

My birthday bore no phonecalls, which is meloncholy, which is amplified by the vodka I'm sipping. It's possible to say I ran into an old friend as my sister and I were getting a birthday-half-birthday drink at the local bar. The friend, a thirty-or-so woman, recognized me from a long conversation we had at the same bar this summer. I was fresh out of the hospital and soon to be returned to it. I don't recall the entire conversation that occured that summer, but I remember the tone. It delved into the complexities and implications of being young and having an entire life ahead. This woman is a bit pseudo-inspirational, probably egged on by copious amounts of booze. But she's great, really. I would marry her for her soft, soothing, comforting voice and uplifting inflection.

Stay tuned for more holiday blogging from Bayfield, Wisconsin.

holiday sneer

Admittedly, I'm one of those fools who is capable of feeling sitcom special style holiday ambiance. It strikes as a kind of cerebral jingling. It's the overdone lighting spectacles and the half-inch snowflake showers and the recordings of children's choirs and the warmth that comes from entering a decorated establishment after walking seven blocks in the freezing wind. There is a moment when the tears on my nearly frostbitten eyeballs well up, the scene becomes a Christmastime blur and I nearly have a yuletide seizure. This sounds like it may be disorienting, and it is, but it's not at all unpleasant.

I mentioned that this overwhelming sensation resembles a sitcom's Christmas special's intended mood enhancement. I seldom watch television at this age, but as a child I camped next to a fire, which crackled in a Franklin stove, and in front of a television through most of my vacation from school. A point was made to view as many Christmas specials, particularly animations, in order to saturate myself with this feeling.

Cynicism is a trait of mine, and I justify it well. And however being an atheist, the jadedness hasn't seeped into the celebration of Christmas. The meteorological, the auditory and visual changes in the holiday season are probably more important to my emotional epilepsy toward it than are the honoring of a human god or the tradition of gift exchange. Some folks could make me sick with the amount of preparation and effort they devote to the season, while others sadden me in the way they regard some of the traditions.

I speak of reunion with family and gift giving as traditions that can be debased with one's attitude. To touch lightly on the reuniting: my family is without interpersonal grievances as far as I know. The people I hear talk here and there speak of grudges held against and distaste for seeing certain members. It puzzles me that for some no gathering is without discomfort. At any party one is likely to want to avoid or only feel obligated to talk with another party goer. To me, being home with the bloodline is a solace from my social life, which is sometimes filled with awkwardness and avoidance. My family, however lame it may sound, is a major key to my psychological support.

While I was dining at the Brady Street Pharmacy today, I observed a young woman sit down next to a man shoveling down pancakes at the bar section. She began rambling to him in a mildy upset manner, while he barely acknowledged and never slowed his devouring of the nighttime breakfast. The girl was shaken because she was buying movies for her relatives and didn't know that one she had bought was released last year. She was sure her father had the movie, and didn't like the idea that he would have to exchange it, but he wouldn't be able to get a refund. She brought up a movie she had gotten for the pancake-eating man. He had apparently hated it, but he made no indication either way.

We happened to leave the counter at about the same time, so I followed the conversation all the way to the cash register. She still carried on, in disbelief that she would give movies as gifts that the people she knew either didn't like or already had. "Just get him a fruitcake!" I wanted to offer. The idea of returning gifts is appauling to me. I'd sooner spread the wealth by donating the duplicate movie to the local thrift store and allow someone to score a bargain. If by some large oversight the gift I receieved from someone was absolutely and totally useless to me, there's a good chance I'd say my thank you, make up a terrific story about how I'll use it, and stash it somewhere forever.

A sigh of relief is granted to myself when all the presents I have bought for my kin are exposed to them. Sometimes I think we all should just take a trip to Florida like I've heard others' families do for the holidays. But then, I'm more afraid to fly than disappoint Uncle Larry. (I don't have an Uncle Larry. I just wanted not to offend a particular family member.)

Christmas doesn't turn me on and make me frisky, and I've spoken of Christmas quite enough now. I am beginning to get a distaste for the subject. My true ultimate intolerance for the season is showing through, I guess. If this were a Christmas card, I'd wish you a white Christmas or something. I don't know. How about this for a sendoff in a Christmas greeting card? May all your gifts please you, or at least be returnable.

twenty minutes in an electric chair

So sue me. I have an itch to write about the events of my night.

Perhaps I should start with a synopsis of the night prior. Six kids, friends of a roommate, show up in the foyer. They gift me with cheap whiskey in exchange for a place to get a bit rowdy. They should be back again soon, and they are welcome. In the chaotic drunken exit scene they managed to leave most of the things with which they arrived. Some highly sulfurous-smelling medication, a punk-like journal, an envelope of photographs and, surprisingly enough, a french horn are neatly arranged and awaiting their claiming.

If the reader has ever graced this apartment with his presence, the reader might be startled by the phrase "neatly arranged" when referring to items within the space. Mr. Rapscallion, whose name appears on the lease, is probably the worst detriment to any sort of organization to the apartment. R. Douglas is a painter and generally has a few canvases rolled up here and there, but his main offense is where he leaves his socks. He squats our couch and could be a lot worse. Clutter has come in the form of photographs from Rapscallion's projects at school, a lot of clothing, tapes and CDs, and these notecards that are also probably used for school purposes but sometimes have these really ambiguous phrases on them. I wish I had an example, but I've thrown them all away.

Ah ha. Now it's clear. I have thrown away or retired the notecards to Rapscallion's room. The apartment is sparkling now, and it's only 3 AM. Fueled by a two liter bottle of Coca-Cola left over from last night's wild whiskey binge, I have cleaned the uncleanable. Uncleanable. Brings to mind horrible visions of filth and sin, eh? But now, I'd bring the mayor here for dinner. He'd get mac-n-cheese or a frozen pizza, but he'd be sure to comment on the previously obscured hardwood floors.

So I celebrated. After I was through filling a prescription at the local Walgreens, I would stop by my favorite sub shop for a vegetable special. The wait at Walgreens was twenty minutes, projected. There is a small waiting area beside the pharmacy counter. It appeared as though a new chair had been installed. A sign instructed, "Try a massage. Just press 'Demo.'" I had twenty minutes, and had not been to a masseuse since... Wait a minute, I've never been to a masseuse, I realized. I remembered my sister telling me she was going to one when she finished her last final exam. She, being California folk, would probably scoff at an automated muscle relaxing chair. But I was curious.

The thing didn't even demand a quarter. I hit the "Demo" button as instructed and felt the thing start jabbing my back on either side of the spine. It started at my lower back and slowly cycled upward. About halfway up, it encountered a knot of tension on my left side. It stung, but in a very lovely way. I experimented with the other buttons. There was a "Lower" and an "Upper" button. For any massaging to be accomplished with the "Upper" feature, I had to lean my neck back a bit. Eventally my drugs were bottled and stickered, and I exited Walgreens with a spine tingling with delight.

Before walking into the Walgreens/Massage Parlor, I passed the sandwich shop I was now going to enter. I had seen the resident advisor who had checked me out of my room this last Summer, after I was released from the psychiatric ward the first time. I had, that Summer, asked him in what I now suspect was earshot of the only female resident advisor, "Any hot RAs work here?... No? That's not what I saw." This female resident advisor was to become the center of my manic attention. I called her about 50 times and left messages. I seem to have to retell this story a lot. Anyway, he was at the sandwich shop, munching some cold cuts. I didn't want to see him. I may have skipped the massage and headed for the shop immediately after dropping off my prescription, but I needed to pass time so that he would finish eating and leave.

I have come to the decision that I'd rather know they know what happened, and know they don't care... than not know if they know what happened and not know if they will ridicule me when I see them. I've been seeing these Milwaukee School of Engineering folk around, and I wonder if they recognize me as that crazy guy who called the RA a godzillion times. It makes me vibrate with the same kind of nervousness as if she, the RA, was right there instead.

I passed a defunct Italian sandwich shop on the way home. The sign still said, "TRY OUR FRESH ITALIAN SAUSAGE." It's a sad little spectacle, the long since abandoned storefront. But, I walked into a clean apartment and the depressive thought soon escaped my concentration. I have an undeniable feeling that when Mr. Rapscallion returns he will be joyous at the tidiness of the apartment but will then begin exasperatedly sputtering, "Where'd you put my..." and "You touched my photos!"

wait a minute mistress mail carrier

As breathtaking as is the thought of the United States' infrastructure of roads, highways and expressways; also is the idea that nearly any parcel of merchandise or communication may be transferred anywhere via these passageways. Like a blood vesicle on one's fingertip has a path leading back to one's aorta, a letter in the Ozarks of Florida has a 99% chance of reaching Seattle, Washington if so addressed. Nonetheless, both the transportation routes and the system of communication are taken for granted. Advertisements, collection notices, judicial summons, etc. flock to the P.O. Box without any appendum to the effect of "Isn't this so cool?"

Of course physical mail from friends and relatives has a treasurable value. I think postcards are a pretty neat gesture, especially when my father is the featured photographer or when there is an inside joke referenced by the graphic. This past summer, a friend was working in California. Being in Wisconsin, I made use of my time in psychiatric wards sending her scores of postcards. In a short interval I had proven myself fit for the outside world, I sent her a package containing a mixed compact disc, a bag of Fisher™ pistachios and a printout of an unusually organic-looking fractal. She in turn sent me a pressed maple leaf with all colors of a leaf's life cycle represented, a couple of photos of herself taken at a photobooth, and a letter written on the back of a puzzle (I had to assemble the puzzle in order to read the letter.) This is what the U.S. Postal Service was founded for, I'd like to think.

It's difficult to maintain communication through letter writing. E-mail is the courier of choice, but this is not a composition of comparison of either's usefulness over the other. I contend both are as good as the user. I would imagine that some in the older generation keep contact with pen and paper as frequently as I fire off an electronic epic to my close friend in Chicago. An elderly friend of my mother's was bragging to me that she was in the midst of hand writing seventy-something Christmas cards. Her computer was from the year 1991, as was the operating system.

E-mail is astounding to some. It's instantaneous and worldwide, but I, as a schooled technology guru of sorts, find it all to make a lot of sense. The infrastructure it runs on is microscopic and stringy, but simple software instructions guide the data to where it needs to go. The USPS mail, however, comes from roads that represent a great deal of sweat and blood in their construction. A difference in e-mail and "regular" mail is the absence of stress in the electronic kind. I look forward to checking my e-mail for notes from friends and advertisements of the kind that rarely are sent via the postal service. Also, that exciting letter telling you whether you are scheduled for an interview with a new employer now comes in e-mail. At least it has for me. Perhaps some stress is involved with receiving this type of mailing. But, as a friend quoted someone famous, "The truth may hurt, but the truth is savory."

The stress of USPS mail comes in the form of bills. There is a moment of nervousness as my roommate hands me a stack of envelopes and says, "These came for you." I have an alternative loan out for incomplete education, and the required payments are mysteriously rising with each monthly bill. I usually let my autonomic nervous system take control of my consciousness so that I only have to watch myself open the envelope instead of live through the fearful moment. Also, ever since I was notified of a bench warrent for my arrest in response to my failing to pay a disorderly conduct ticket related to the reasons I was incarcerated in the psychiatric wards mentioned previously, I've been pretty nervous about being handed any envelope.

Curiosities in the mailbox have come in two forms. I'm pretty sure you can get porn in your e-mail's inbox, or at least links to it. It usually comes unsolicited, and people get upset. However, when a big glossy stapled stack of smut arrives unexpectedly at one's doorstep, how can you complain? My roommate did. He's had pranks played on him before. This time a thin, cheap porno mag subscription in his name began showing up. "I paid postage to have it canceled!" he said after trying to stop the flow of skin shots.

The other curiosity is something that's been coming regularly as well, but it's from being on some obscure mailing list. They are small postcards asking urgently "Have You Seen Us?" above a picture of a child and a picture of the last adult seen with the child. I remember that as a child I would stare at the picture on the milk carton or posted on a bullitin board in the mall. I would wonder what it was like to be missing. I usually imagined that the stranger had offered the child candy, had gotten into the stranger's car and was taken to dilapidated shack somewhere in a hilly, forested area. From there I had no idea. Now, with a mind full of police stories from plots of shows I've seen on television for twenty-five years, my conclusions may be no more correct, but at least a bit less naïve. I might think, you know, she might be happy with her sister or cousin or whoever that is with whom she shares a last name. Or, I'll check the date-since-missing and conclude that the poor boy might not have made it with that bearded man with the cold stare of a killer. Mostly, I just wonder if they're even let on by their captors that they are supposed to be somewhere else. Now I conclude that, if they do have the recognition that something is wrong, they should really start sending out postcards.

you get an empty case of whip-its and a girlfriend with a beeper

This is a continuation of the previous post. I am safely home at 3:08 AM as promised to my roommate in the previous blog.

I should be glad to be a pedestrian this thirtieth of November, aught-four. For today I bore witness to two bits of roadside carnage. First, at about noon, I heard a terrible skidding and thumping, even human-sounding noises, for a short moment outside my upstairs apartment. After gathering the stomach for a minute or two, to check out what I suspected was a traffic accident, I peered from the balcony to see a man trapped under the roof of his cheap sports car. The car had actually flipped and skidded just feet from a parked car. The ambulance and cop car bit ensued, and later I saw a man sweeping up glass.

The second and most recent accident viewed and witnessed audibly occured as I was walking from the web café described in the previous post. To put it bluntly, a dude nailed this trash can and made one helluva racket. I heard sirens a bit later in my walk. This all made me wonder if some event of recklessness on the road is the cause of many of the sirens I hear several times a day in this city.

Thanksgiving cannot go without notice. The highlight of my Thanksgiving festivities was, to put it bluntly, busting that monster nitrous hit off the whip cream can in the wee hours of the night. I seem to be doing well with the words tonight, but for two days after the hit was taken a couple of times my inner voice would say completely grammatically correct sentences to me such as, "I don't think I will," and figuring out if they actually were grammatically correct took as much effort as decoding a string of negatives such as, "That isn't not impolite." It just didn't sound like proper English, though it was. For the days that have followed the two day grammar trip I've been muttering little somethings under my breath about nitrous inhalation each time I get a bit confused by something. It's probably worked its way out by now, however.

The big question is, however, what I am doing in Milwaukee. I'm still simply taking up space, without work or plans for education. Granted I'm doing it in style, publishing epic tales dealing with mental illness and only drinking Coke products, but I panic when I'm face to face with a new face, and the face asks, "So what do you do?" It'd be fun to play with the question, pretend it's a proposition for sex or a job offer for a housekeeper. What it comes down to is that regular work would cut into my sleep and alone-with-computer time, and education feels like that thing that was going to relieve me of any worries about money. I've gotten used to poverty, my past career goals seem chumpish when having my love of writing in mind, so what's left? I have a book the size of a dictionary with addresses to which I can send my work. Consider me in pursuit.

that's what you get when there's no time on the meter

Before leaving my apartment to accompany a friend to the dimly lit web café from which I write now, Blogger.com was encountering fatal errors, but I was notified that the engineers were on it. Apparently they make good time. It's a bit steamy in here, and I could only afford one half hour of access time. The music is thumpy, and time is ticking.

This blog is not so much of a dedication to a long time friend I met in the confines of the MSOE dormitories as it is a beacon to him. He'd make brief appearances in the chat windows on my screens toward the end. Most of the messages were of plans to live with a friend in Canada. He and I are taking some time off from school. My plans to return are somewhat more definite than his indefinite plans to travel. He enjoyed my blogs more than anyone I knew for the two years we spent in the cinderblock cubicles. It's my hope that his diagnosed personality disorder hasn't landed him in an institution. If he's reading this, he'll know I'm speaking of him and that it's due time for a contact. Enjoy the show.

My roommate and I are averaging about three disagreements per day, which is nice and healthy except that recently I've made physical threats against him. My actually hurting him is laughable. He could pound the shinola out of my flabby frame, he being a couple inches taller than I and being an athletically avid cyclist. The disagreements are generally nonviolent in content. At this point in the time I've known my roommate it occurs that after a few straight days of being near him I begin to notice nuances in the already dopey comportment of himself. He'll trail off a sentence such as, "And that was really... .... .... ...."--"COOL?!" I want to shout to finish the sentence. There are girl troubles I'd care not to delve into, but include a small amount of regret on my part. To finish this paragraph by describing him in one inflected word, imagine a little girl in a frilly white dress with the sun shining behind her, standing on a grassy hilltop... The cameraman zooms in as she licks her lollipop and simply squeaks the word, "Nice!" No, I can't leave the topic of my dear roomie in such a state of mockery. He really is nice, a little too nice is what I'm getting at. Damn personable, he is. That rings of more stature for the man.

The friend, whom I am seeking through this blog, appreciated, or maybe just took note of, the disjointedness in my blogs. Take note here! My conscious mind has been consuming me of late. Seems I can't take a walk to enjoy the cityscape without dissecting a minute detail at every turn. The details could be a brick pattern in a building or on a sidewalk, or discoloration in anything. I then have no choice but to reduce the detail to something like the plot of a child's comic strip, mnemonically, rhythmically, mechanically broken down and stored in memory. This experience becomes something like déjà vu, or at least it has some of the same aggravating qualities.

Another bothersome past time my mind has been occupying itself with is making decisions by a ghost's standards. Some might argue that these are unconscious decisions one makes for oneself and are based on upbringing, personal taste, fate, and of course genetics. There is a low voice in my head saying things like, "That's not cool," "What would 'I' think of that?" 'I' being the mysterious opinionated ghost in my skull. I believe the ghost is exactly that, a ghost. When I was younger I based much of my activities and purchases on what two or three people I admired might think of the activities and purchases. These people have not died, at least I hope not. But, in the void that remained when their voices left, and I became a more self-defined adult, there lingers an approval-withholding ghoul.

I'm out of time, in fact I'm in the negatives, and my stomach just flipped over thinking about facing the coffee-cracked-out shaky-handed guy at the desk about the $3.00 I owe for the extra time. I wasn't even once seized by the urge to turn around and scream, "Quiet!" in here. It's smoky and loud in here, yet it doesn't slow the flow. To my friend: Contact me. To my roommate: I'll be home around three.

a formal apology to MSOE

No, this is not actually a formal apology to MSOE, the Milwaukee School of Engineering, but it is a composition regarding my relationship with the institution of higher learning as the relationship stands now. Much of what happened during the summer of 2004 concerning myself and the school is documented in the section "the gods` bananas" and explains why I am currently under the status of not being allowed on the school's property. I write this as a sort of therapy session in order to see if I can avoid spending time with an actual therapist rehashing the events which led me to a state of city-region-avoidance as well as the great deal of guilt and fear that creeps up on me from time to time. If I do not successfully avoid formal therapy, at least this will create some mental framework to go on as I deliver the monologue of the epic to the paid professional.

It could have ended the day it began. As is documented in more detail in the rather lengthy literary project in the link above, I had a mental break one day into finals week the year 2004 in the dorms at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. I am bipolar and have been since I was eighteen years of age. These "breaks" (I hate the word "episode".) have been becoming a bit more intense with each occurance, and this time I was in and out of police cars and hospitals for three months. The reason it could have ended the day it began, with the $167.00 disorderly conduct ticket and a horrible relationship with the housing director who came to see me minutes before I was slugging a man in the neck and weaving between cars to my ultimate pepper spraying, was because I didn't have to return to MSOE grounds, nor did I have to do what I did somewhere inbetween hospital stays. I embarrassed myself royally on both occassions.

Just how badly did I disgrace MSOE, the electronics profession, my future as an engineer, and the name of love itself? I'm told again and again that it's not my fault. In retrospect I can clearly see how crazy some of the things I've done were whacked far out of line, but afterall, I came up with the ideas to do these things, and no one could tell me I wasn't in my right mind when I did them. So, I accept much of the blame. It's not as easy to forget about a super-amplified social taboo as it must be to tell someone to do so.

There are two points I am concerned about and that have me hung up with fear. To tell the truth, the first I will tell about made me feel a bit cool for some time, even after I was released from the final hospital. I called a girl. Not any girl. A girl I didn't know. I had had nothing less than an absolutely adoring crush on her for the two years I had attended MSOE. I found out her name; she was a resident advisor, which means she reigned over a floor of the dorms. Between two of the hospital stays, I looked her up on the student directory, found out her phone number, went home, and began calling. I never, to this day, have spoken to her. I must correct myself. I said hello as I was moving out. That was it. In any case, I only got her answering machine, to which I left sweet message after sweet creepy message... on into when I was admitted to the hospital the next time.

This next time is the worst. I went to MSOE at the same time I was calling this girl. It was raining. I needed to get back into the buildings in order to use the Internet and study for an exam. I figured a perk would maybe be seeing my phone victim around. Please keep in mind, I was half-insane. I am not this creepy when I am well, not nearly. In any case, the woman in charge of changing permissions on the identification cards was out for a while. I wasn't allowed on MSOE property so I decided to wait on the corner by the dormitory buildings. Apparently because it was raining, I must have been in need of an emergency detention by a Milwaukee police officer because no one in their right mind stands out in the rain and smokes cigarettes, dropping them in puddles and relighting them almost magically.

Who saw the arrest? Who knows? It was an arrest because I shouted "Mirandize me!" to which they obliged. Now I'll get down to it. I fear MSOE students because of what they may know about me. Many probably saw the scene of running out of the dorms during finals week. I'm sure this stunningly attractive girl I was calling has many friends. And, she exists out there too. (I still live in Milwaukee. More on that soon.) I see them most days I wander out, and I wonder what they know. I wonder if I'll soon be approached. I wonder what I'd do if I met the girl I called walking head on down the sidewalk. I was in such a manic state that I don't recall if I told her I loved her. I pray I didn't and kept it at least somewhat cool.

If I someday soon decide to go back to MSOE, I will have to sit in suspicion in classrooms filled with people who may have seen me, or know something about the happenings. I am tempted to wait a full four years before going back to that school, just to make sure I am not enrolled in a class with the girl I called so many times. I will have to face teachers with an explanation to my absence and to what they might have heard. It is encouraging that the one teacher I contacted about the final she didn't make me take simply said, "I hope you are feeling better." It's ignorance, but it comes across heartfelt in being so.

Perhaps I shouldn't give a shit about the stigma, but I do. I avoid the entire MSOE campus when taking outings downtown. The walk isn't any longer, but it would be nice to have the option of walking through it. I see the campus shuttle van here and there around town and my knuckles turn white. Obviously I have a phobia of anything associated with the place. If I were stronger, I may walk through it and say hello to the people whom I recognize. If I were even stronger still, I might move away to another city and start up my education there. Or is that weakness?

This is where the therapist would come in with lots of talk about "issues." I can't predict what advice one would give me. I am almost curious enough to actively seek one. It would be great if she could say one phrase like, "Just imagine them all wearing Santa caps," and it would all go away. I pray it's not a repetitive stroking of my psyche with, "You've got nothing to be ashamed of." Like hell I don't.

Tell me I'm not a decent writer. Perhaps electronics was a cop-out for getting a real job. When a reference is made to something I learned at school, I get a bit sick. Maybe it's guilt for being in question of continuing, or maybe it's got to do with the perceived stigma toward me at that place. For the time being I ramble on with plenty of time to write, with no plans for the future. I often think, if only I could erase it from everyone's memory. Simply erasing the calling of the girl would help dramatically.

Hopefully the reader can get some entertainment out of my misery. After all, I don't run this blog solely for my health. I am finished, for now. Perhaps this will come out in a nice room with a fish tank and lots of psychology books neatly arranged on shelves, though maybe not. Somehow I will rise above this mess.

for the love of tacos

Sometimes the most obvious weblog material slips my attention. It didn't occur to me until recently that I had since past participated in possibly saving a friend from a great deal of peril. Generally, I write more of experiences that are one-on-one with my environment than one-on-one with another. I have told this story orally several times, and hope little is lost in literary translation.

When I was attending the Milwaukee School of Engineering, I returned late to the dorms one night to find several police officers participating in small talk with a student. The student had just given a report. The three cops were laughing it up and allowing the student to endear himself to them. I asked the security guard at the front desk what he had "spilled" to them, suspecting a misunderstanding or small scuffle. As it turned out, three white males had exited a van and demanded they give up the tacos they had recently purchased. The student who had given the report had refused, and had been pushed to the ground.

Two other students had been present for the taco-mugging. I knew one of them quite well, so I paid an immediate visit to see how he had handled it. He was pacing, talking about how he was going to "hunt" the perpetrators the next day. Understand a few things about this friend. Although he has knife-blade scars in patterns up and down his arms, he is no more tough, big and ugly than any slim Joe Cigarette you might meet. His demeanor is relaxed and slightly shy, and I could only guess by his claims to have plans for a "hunt" that he would like to have the pleasure of not taking any shit from anyone, no how. He had brought to school several knives from home, having grown up in suburbia and without clear expectation of what the city had in store. It was with these knives he planned to "hunt" the taco thieves. He explained, even if he didn't find them, it was the thrill of being armed on the streets of Milwaukee he was after.

I wouldn't stand for this. Visions of more cops, or my friend in a hospital bed came into my mind. I tried talking him out of it, but he stood firm. I frequented the outdoor seating area in front of the dorms every night. We often met there, and I knew I'd catch him on his way out the next day. I did, and did so on the exit for the hunt. I proposed a walk, to which he accepted. We first agreed we both needed to use the bathroom. The closest restaurant was a upscale Mexican joint. We entered to which I said to the host, "Necesitamos usar el baño. Dónde está, por favór?" The host replied gleefully, "Allá, allá!" and pointed to the rear of the restaurant. On the way back to the entrance I asked my friend if he wanted some tacos. He shugged off the joke, and we exited with many smiles and an "Adiós!" or two from the staff.

We had no destination in mind. Perhaps I had it in my conscience to detain him from the "hunting" he had planned for the evening. Finding ourselves near the top of an unfinished bridge with many of the accessories found in a construction zone, we had two options. We could turn back the way we came, or cross the bridge via two-foot by twenty-foot beams spanning over a churning current about two stories below. I turned to him and said, "I'll do it if you go first." Without hesitation, he ran to the other side. I followed, making each step precise. One slip and I'd be in water of an unknown temperature and needing to swim. The other side was not so much the other side, but a platform halfway between where we stood and the other side. Now, we had to run across a similar beam as before in one direction or the other. You might say we were committed to our dare. I ran across first this time, and looking back, my friend lept over the concrete barriers in victory. We had made it.

"Really gets your heart racing, huh?" he said. I disagreed, only the mind for me. Although, admittedly, there was and is a tick in my cheek and eye thinking of what might have become of one of us had we slipped. In any case, I was glad to get his heart racing in placebo for knifing anyone that night. That was the most part of our anti-hunting activities that night. We walked downtown to where many schizophrenics tend to gather, but there were none that night. Sitting on a narrow dock, we had a conversation in which he admitted he felt as though he was the Devil talking to God. Where I had previously explained my theory that I was, in fact, the higher power. The sewer pipes to the river let out a roar every thirty seconds or so, and I let it be my applause as I was delivering a monologue, though not a preachy one, about "hunting" in large cities.

I feel I may have saved my friend a lot of trouble, legal and health-wise. I'd walk the beams again if I had to prove it was more worthwhile than endangering oneself with sharp objects on the street. I'd even do it again if I had slipped.

refrain and exchange

Since moving into the dormitory, it would be interesting to calculate a rough number representing my visits to the front doors for a cigarette. The best method, if one were interested enough, might be to track my identification number for access card swipes during the first term and then extrapolate for the remainder of my time here. Sometime during the second quarter, I became so often seen that the security guards started to simply buzz me in when they saw me put out my cigarette.

First term, I watched the clock to make sure the gaps in my smoking were spacious enough to avoid possible criticism. I didn't find out until third term my roommate, in fact, liked the smell of second-hand smoke. He didn't speak much at first, and I don't pull teeth. He wasn't much of a housewarming gift, and I acclimate to my surroundings with such resistance that when I got here I was pretty sure even the vending machines were capable of biting.

Though now, how I've grown to love the metrosexual clique, to whom I now find myself bumming cigarettes; and the many faces I've met who I can count on for supportive conversational brevity. But someone built an office building between the eyeshot of my favorite conversation piece, and I know it's time to move on.

The conversation piece I write of is Milwaukee's Natural Gas building. It bears great resemblence to the haunted apartment building of Ghostbusters 1. What function the structure serves is unknown to me. However, from its topmost pinnacled bricks rises a glass flame. This flame is a weather beacon. It is lit blue when cold weather is on the way, yellow when the weather is stable, and red when the weather will be warmer. Also, it flashes slowly when precipitation is expected.

As I've mentioned, there is now an office building between the dormitories and the weather beacon. The other day, as some good friends and I were passing time downtown, I explained all of this to them, and also, "You can't see it from the dorms anymore, but there's so much glass in that office building, I'm suprised you can't see right through it."

Tonight, as I paced, smoking, waiting for one of the same friends to whom I had told the story of the beacon, I caught a flash of red in several of the office building's many windows. I looked again and it was gone. A moment later, it was there again. Between the leftmost garbage can and third tree from the street, one could actually see the weather beacon stridently blinking through the glass office building! I must mention, from this vantage point, there is a great deal of overlap of these two buildings.

As summer falls, and I pack my bags of this place, the trees between the special place of viewing and the office building and the weather beacon will grow foliage and most likely hide this phenomenon for the remaining season. I will however, be moving to a street, in a place with a balcony, that looks up at the Natural Gas building. From my new angle, and from in my new friendly neighborhood, I may have conversations with passerby from the balcony, as I've stepped out for a cigarette.

- "Nice day isn't it?"
- "And it looks like we're uh... going to get some rain."

~

A septuple of since Thursday:

• i lost myself... for a minute...
• i slept
• i ate
• i worked on school-related projects
• i blogged
• i talked on the phone
• ...i got better ...i got strong.

a world of gore like none other

Before the nation was turned upside down by terrorism, and we were faced each day with digesting panicked headlines on the street corners, there was a kinder, simpler sort of news. Reports of infidelity in the white house, televised low-speed Bronco chases in L.A., and a vice president taking credit for paving the Information Superhighway.

In the one-notch-down-from-ultimate power position of being Vice President of the United States of America, it is unsurprising that Albert Gore assumed he was due some credit for the birth of the Internet. He read, weighed and John Hancock'd probably hundreds, if not thousands, of documents in his 8 years under El Cigarillo. I speculate that many contained legislation dealing with the military (which is rumored to have laid the infrastructure of the web) and the Federal Communications Commision. This is not, of course to say, I didn't chuckle with the rest of the world when he shot his gun off in public.

Though I didn't even suspect it those 4 years, I'm told by a close friend I was an exceptionally popular young man in high school. During those 4 years, and all the ones to follow, I did, and have done, much, I believe (I'm stuttering), to further the popularity of a rock band from the 1980's who call themselves the Pixies. From brief mentions to reinforcement for unsure consumers to homogeneously-loaded disc-changers to splitting up a 2-disc best-of set to distributing mix-tape anthologies, I believe I had an indirect impact of the young ears of the midwest.

This year, the Pixies, who split in 1992 due to inner quarrelling, have reformed and will be touring through Chicago this November. Believe me, I have a ticket. But, the shows sold out in a matter of minutes, and there was enough demand for tickets for the Pixies' stay to extend for 4 days, which, now, it will. I'm unaware of a similar scenario elsewhere in the States. Putting two and two togther, I can't help but get 5. I ask myself how many of the additional ticket holders know someone who knows someone, and so on, who knows or knew me. In short, I've got a Gore-complex.

We've all met the guy who started wearing thick-framed glasses before Weezer was popular, or the guy who says, 'I got you into that.' as you ooze mustard onto your eggs. I have a few of my own. In describing Sunkist orange soda, I uttered for the first time in my life, "It tastes like none other." I was gawked at for a moment by a fellow of inter-campus popularity in Milwaukee, and he asked me to repeat myself. No more than a week passed and kids on all sides of the tracks were fluffing their conversations with this phrase. Another related example in which I'm ashamed to admit I believe, came to light while I was in a waiting room in my hometown. A young mother chased after her escaping toddler whispering, 'George! George, get back here.' I was known and liked in my town. Who would name their kid George for any other reason?

By this time the reader may be a bit disgusted with me. I realize there is probably a psychological term borrowed from a Mediterranean myth to describe me to a tea. These things are fun to think about, but it's a big country. Trendsetters abound and want to take responsibility for what's hanging on your body, streaming into your ears, and going down your pipes. What's important is not how street folk conceive what's cool, but that all who may enjoy a band like the Pixies are aware, and will camp out at computers waiting for the tickets to go on sale.

To Al: Thank you for "during [your] service in the United States Congress, [You] took the initiative in creating the Internet." A lot of people are picking up where you left off.

milkshakes and vicodin

An aspiring writer is told to write, simply, about what he knows. Browsing the left sidebar of Blogger.com, where a continually updated list of recently updated weblogs is displayed, I've found many in the blogosphere (I thieved this term from a columnist in Punk Planet) are writing about what they know... That is, what they know they did today. Now, I am as guilty as the next subterranean blogoholic of solely documenting the events. And more so of ranting out marathons solely about age, dentistry and math class.

The itch to blog comes burning often, these days, when I am three beers into a Tuesday night with a hitch-free Wednesday to follow. Unable to convince a 19-year old his fake looked realistic enough to convince a bartender in low light, I trodded off to the liquor trough companionless that Tuesday. It may have been for the better that my would-be companion came down with a terrible bout of conscience and didn't attend with me. The bartender ex-amined my card, glanced up at my face, and examined some more for a good 20 seconds before serving me.

I sat between two men and faced an inset mirror. As I sucked the foam from my second Point Special, the man to my left, without hesitation, engulfed his last slice of a full, fully-loaded pizza. The man on my right had been conducting reconciliation with his spouse via cellphone since I had arrived. I relaxed, sipped, and waited for something to happen.

I noticed a sign hung to inform patrons that anyone looking under the age of 25 will be checked for identification. I saw myself in the mirror. I heard the chomping of pizza next to me, I heard the cellphone scuffle to the right. The bartender switched rapidly between radio stations with a convenient remote control in hand. The music blared approximately 20 second bursts of various genres, as the bartender's tastes dictated. I do not recall the song, but I do suspect it was a nineties 'alternative' song I had grown to love so long ago. In a rush of clarity, edged on by the howling vocals and brushing guitar, I could see this very blog in a very different state. Epiphanies popping like the CO₂ bubbles in my drink, I was prepared to stub out my cigarette, leave the remaining beer in my glass (for effect), sprint back to my Internet portal, and write a damn moving essay on coming of age. I compromised with a stub, a chug, a tip, and a walk.

Without much explanation needed, I did not succeed in writing the envisioned essay. I quickly prepared for sleep and went to bed after staring into the 'Post' window without being able to punch out so much as a word. I'm tempted to find my same seat in this bar with notebook in hand another night--or maybe I should mount a mirror behind the computer. In any case this essay has turned, the night after, into one on lost inspiration.

~

Allow me to itemize my day.

• Ran into my academic advisor on campus 3 times. Always a good time.
  
• Ate a fortune cookie with a message that said 'You will soon change your line of work.' Hmm.
  
• Saw a crow eat a baby bird. I will not speak of the details in the same way a veteran of a war will not. Although, I suppose it's nature. Just didn't touch me in the way that oregano bush full of bumblebees did in Bayfield last summer.

teething a set of steel nails behind the permanent pearls

When I was five or six, a milestone was passed with the snap of the last fiber of gum tissue holding an incisor in place. The little chip of enamel was enthralling, and the black notch it left in my face was something of status.

Today, another milestone was passed with my dentist's utterance of the word 'extraction.' He spoke of a tooth, numbered 31, that has gone seriously south. The x-ray scans detailed the mess I'd neglected since first feeling a twinge of unrest nearly a year ago. On the monitor was a conspicuous scene that showed a bulbous cavern of dark gray within a molar and further discoloration below its roots.

My options were limited. On Uncle Sam's insurance plan, I could have paid for the work with the cash I had on me. That is, because I chose to decline any fancy reparations. The decision to let the man go ahead and wrench it out of my head didn't come immediately. This is my mouth's first casualty (except for one wisdom tooth, but really, they're born in limbo), so naturally I underwent a number of coping stages there in the vinyl recliner.

It didn't seem it could be as simple as to 'extract' the hollow beast without some sort of compensation for its absence. This all sounded like preparation for a full set of falsies. I inquired about a bridge. Apparently this is not a complusory operation following tooth removal, but as the price told, it is a luxury.

Then the last stage hit. To reminisce for some background, I was asked several months ago if I felt I woke up one morning and found that I was an adult. I agreed I had at the time, but upon further introspection, it's more like I'm drifting in and out of wakefulness to this fact. To put it metaphorically, it's like I'm fighting to hold on to a dream state on a Sunday morning in which I'm committed to attend my own adolescent perspective's wake service.

This in mind, a dental assistant, near my age, examining the sad state of my teeth was the limo driver tapping the horn a few times outside my bedroom window. As the rotational x-ray machine whirred around my jaws, I nearly sighed at the face staring back from an inset mirror. There were no wrinkles or liver spots, and my face was spared from the death-hickeys of 1995, but a detectable matte gauze of physical maturity lay over the freckles.

Then, looking into the face of the assistant, I saw someone who could have graduated from high school in my same class. Sharpness of facial definition seems a trustworthy clue to one's age. It struck me was that she was my peer, in the workforce and in what is referred to as the real world.

Back when I was 5 or 6, a 25 year-old-looking dental assistant wouldn't have caused the bat of an eye to me. However, to the elderly woman in the next cubicle, much information and assurance was required from the young assistant. The more relative age beyond the client's age, the more perceived competence, usually up to a senior-status threshold. When the principal of an elementary school is under fire for an action, it is from parents who are peers of his or hers. The child may disagree with a school administrator's reprimand, but the authority figure's expertise in the matter is most often assumed. After all, he or she is bigger than you.

One grows and ages, each mistake is perceived as less of a lesson and more as a deliberate action. Adulthood seems to have some dire implications. I will eventually pay dues to my generation of associates, but perhaps never look upon the death of my youth. After this Friday, a permanent gap will be made in my teeth, though how I will try to bridge the one forming in time.

the elves of Red China can hear extremely low frequencies

The friend who aggressively urged me to attend the school I attend was rolling high on Ecstacy (if that is the streets' spelling) at the time of the urging and added, in a burst of sobriety, that it would be extremely hard, but that I would love it. It occured to me that the acronym of the school sounded much like "a mess of E," but I wouldn't doubt his heart, despite the goofballs. Basing it much on this Chi-town encounter and the taste for challenge it put in my mouth, I signed up. I now stand nearing the crest of my time here. Here's my snapse of the bittersweet bleaknesses and promises foreseen in the coming quarter.

Every lecture and lab I need attend this quarter meets in a tiered brick building with three stories. It's essentially a maze that might inadvertently benefit students by forcing them to plot complex three-dimensional routes through it. I've been told it takes spending years as an instructor in the building before it is mastered. I generally end up ten minutes late on a catwalk above some massive machinery on the first day of class, not quite sure of which floor I'm on. With all classes meeting in this labyrinth, it feels more than ever that education is a fulltime occupation, in a centralized job site.

Last night, in my one-hour break between my two-hour classes, I became hungry. With the cafeteria closed, and the Greek place up the street sounding like an expensive habit to begin on my first night on the 'job,' I retired to 'Lee's Lounge' in search of a sandwich of some sort. There is a framed picture of a young bearded man in the lounge, and I assume he is the Lee after which the the nook is named. Given the dedication, I doubt he's alive. Despite his bright smile, his face is a bit ominous when it's the only one in the place.

Seeing no one in the lounge, it became easy to deposit $1.30 in a vending carousel for a smoked polish sausage. Without anybody but good old Lee to witness me eat it, I wasn't locked into purchasing something from the machine with a slightly higher value of health, or less phallic shape. I often refrain from ordering extra mayonaise on sandwiches, or opt for something consisting of white meat and lettuce, if there's a pretty stranger to impress in the line behind me. Tell me no one's ever influenced themself in this way.

In the silence of the empty tables and chairs, Lee's bright stare, and the lights' florescent glare, I chewed into the microwaved polish sausage. Incising the membranous casing revealed the well-marbled meat plasma within. The bun turned to dough where I gripped it. I sipped coffee from an uncovered paper cup. The anti-romantic routine of the next 10 weeks stretched out before me, and it had beauty.

En route to the orientation for an electronic communications course, I realized I had to return to the lounge for my schedule, which I had misplaced there. Other students had taken up positions at the tables. Before spotting the yellow paper atop the microwave, I was going to ask a young lady, who was sitting at the table I had sat, if she had seen it. Upon requesting her attention, I was shot a cold, afraid look. I can only try to dispell to myself that many nights of meloncholic solitude in Lee's lounge has hardened this one.

never even ever ever even ever ever ends

This could be it. I have exactly two hours of classroom-continuum remaining until all of my achievements in this school's technical calculus battery are summed, and I am ranked. The topic of neverending math equations here at /#blog may end (or converge absolutely).

I think back to advanced chemistry my senior year in high school and our introduction to Casio scientific calculators. My lab partner received a great deal of joy by organizing a table of all the sine, cosine and tangent functions of the number 69, then instructing others on the slack-off side of the room to take the inverse function of the decimal values. Sure enough, '69' popped up on the LCD. Switching to hexadecimal mode, letters 'A' through 'F' were accessed, and decimal number 2645 was added to the table with instructions to swap base modes. This yields A55. Still, it bothered him that he had no way to generate the number 311. He was leading the running joke about this number, jesting an intense fascination with the rap-rock forerunners. But inverse trigonometric functions will only return up to 180 degree readings.

Finally, I'm taught something useful by a math teacher. This is, of course, also in jest, but I did learn a function recently that will create a division problem from a repeating decimal. Just as 0.3333, repeating infinitely converges to 1/3, the number 0.69696969... can be attained by dividing 23 by 33. To get 0.311311311311... one need only divide 311 by 999. Or, of course, 140/333 = 0.420420420... It works for any number of obsession and by priciples of infinite series.

It may have been nice to have this knowledge in my fourth year of high school to entertain the imaginations of my chemistry class and myself, but I'm sure it will be nicer to know it, and all else I've absorbed, entering into the advanced electronics classes to come. Although, imagine what I might be capable of in the parlor because of higher mathematical education. On several occasions at a restaurant beknown to many beknown to me, I realized one large soda and one basket of fries tallies up to $3.14. I gripe at the check "I didn't order pi."

s.o.m.e. school in the midwest

In appendage to the previous post, I was learned in the ways of 'squirrel cages' today. They happen to be a main piece of hardware found in induction motors.

transformers are not robots

Being MIA on AIM, the popular realtime Internet correspondence software, I am living a hermitic existence at this University. Education-based conversation is mostly what I initiate in encounters with acquaintances, and I'm becoming more conscious of it than when focusing the topic on myself.

Not minding lack of accompaniment in ventures away from campus, I often forget to poll the other dorms for someone also wanting to breathe sub-freezing air in search of a super-boiling beverage. I speak of a lone three-block jaunt to Starbucks, just a day ago. The franchise of which I'm a patron, and affront by doing my best to avoid learning all their cup-size lingo, is built into a hill in the financial district of the north downtown area, has an ice skating rink that doubles as a patio in the warmer, less hermitic, months, and sports a gas fireplace. Starbucks has been trashed everywhere from in the 'real-life' comic strips to bohemian coffee shop wall-poetry. Although this urban professionals' haunt is a bloated plasticine Norman Rockwell panorama, their cup of hot chocolate is a work of engineering.

Pressure steamed chocolate 'espresso' is whistled into a steel cup and mixed with a room-temperature dairy product that falls out of its pitcher rather than pours by its untouched milkfat percentage. Some fluffy white aerosol foam is added to the brim, and capped with a standard 'sippy' cover. One might debate with oneself over purchasing a pastry from the rack or read the first few sentences of the New York Times cover story until the whirring and gurgling of the drink's production settles down. But, I watched it all come together. Skeptical of the temperature-ratio to constituent-ratio... ratio, I suspected it may have turned out luke-warm. As it actually turned out, the first 4 sips gave the esophagus's inverse of an ice cream headache, and the rest were like swallowing from a bucket of down feathers. There was also a touch of fluff in every pull.

As simple as brown antifreeze on a blustery city night is, the science reminded me on which end of the timeline of progress I stood. The processes in refineries to give a city bus its usual drink as opposed to that of an automobile or passenger jet came to mind. Just as the heating and separation of crude oil is called 'cracking' and microwaving a burger at Hardee's is called 'boosting,' there is little doubt mixing cream with molten chocolate in the setting of a standardized service has a slightly silly nickname of a multi-meaning verb, like 'creaming.'

Since school comes to mind often with society on hold on line 2, I have at my fingertips technical and mathematical terminology synonymous with words more readily grasped in their traditional (or even slang) contexts. Some truly uncanny ones stem from working with electronics, my growing expertise. When describing some devices, they may be self-excited or separately-excited. To stop one of these devices, one may want to implement a method called 'plugging.' Amongst technicians, suggestive references are sometimes assigned intentionally. I was hipped that a power meter that 'clamps on' to a wire is sometimes called a 'strap-on.' "It's a matter of preference," he said.

The communications industry as well as technology in general would be wise to invest in Webster's New World. Words like 'server' and 'domain' if put on flashcards would probably yield different associative words than before the advent. Looking into a computer, hard drives must be configured in a 'master-slave' relationship. This may illustrate the furthest we've come in redefinition.

New ideas are only describable in old terms. Eventually terms may pile on top of one another as waves of technological evolution carry on. The first ever cup of hot chocolate may have been 'lumpy,' but reading in a recent science journal, apparently the universe hasn't always been, nor will continue to become any more 'lumpy.' I've got a laboratory session scheduled tomorrow. I'm sure it will be an unpredictable world of 'banana plugs' and 'alligator clips'