Oh - and, also:

z = 0

Counter = 2

n = 100

prList = []

for testn in range (1, n):

for y in range (1, testn+1):

if testn % y ==0:

z = z+1

if z == 2:

print "%d is prime, %d" % (testn, Counter)

Counter = Counter + 1

prList += [testn]

else:

z = 0

##Counter == 8:

## print "%d is prime, %d" % (testn, Counter)

print prList

print n

import math

y = 0

lnList = []

for y in range (0, len(prList)):

print (math.log10(prList[y]))

lnList += [math.log10(prList[y])]

print lnList

y = 0

for y in range (0, len(prList)):

ratio = prList[y]/lnList[y]

print prList[y], ratio

Take THAT MIT Open Course-ware!!

A Conversation with Self.

Have you ever thought about how far words have come before they press up against the inside of your lips?

Miles. I'm guessing miles. From the kernel of neuronal excitement through spirals of connection and ordering - like a massive train yard building just the right circus line. And then they leave you and float through the air and come back at you a different way - reflected, countered - to spiral through your auditory synapses for parsing and matching and meaning to excite another set of words, from disparate places, calling cars from different corners of the yard. And then they index themselves, register to vote, and become yet another grain of sand on your scale. A communication abstraction of balance. A conversation - easy out, easy in - miles and miles between.

It's amazing - the transition from warmth to touch to sound to feel to sight to words words words... The endless trek towards words and yet nothing is louder than tense, terse silence. As Alanis would say - that's pretty darn ironic.

Welcome back, mindless chatter. Welcome back.

Wool on the Wire

I rediscovered music today. A layer to my life I'd been missing, unwittingly.

Like the thump regulates my heartbeat. A city, a building, an office, a cocoon. A heartbeat, enveloped.

4 minute intervals, 5 sentence blog posts - The world has changed, and as only the Counting Crows could croon:

Start turning the wool across the wire / Roll a new life over...

Big things afoot...

We Live Tomorrow

So here we are...

Plague-less. Vaccinated. Infrastructured.

Our battles are academic, philosophical, elementary fights of faith and status. We fend off first world diseases born of fat and fury. We sue over lead poisoning and asbestos. We immunize. We eat canned goods when we're poor. We worry about stocks and bonds and platforms and mergers and basis points on glowing screens. We worry about snow delays and traffic jams. Who ARE we?

The plague broke out in Algeria in 2003. They have the 8th largest reserve of natural gas in the world. They're playing ahead and looking back at the same time; tripping all over their pubescence. What will it take to drag them out of yesterday?

Connections? Physical, irreversible connections? It's a planet, not a country. It's a humanity, not a society. The plague will get all the way over here from all the way back there if we ignore it for long enough. We're connected by a million particles of rock and water and air. But we're not.

So what does it take to grab boot straps and tug hard enough to bridge a time gap? Worth? Synergy of values? A wiki-page?

Something else to worry about. The accuracy of wiki pages. *sigh. It sure is comfortable in climate controlled offices. Here. In the future.

Snips and Snails, and Monogamy Tales

A friend emailed me today to tell me about her breakfast adventures. She had breakfast with admitted polygamists and was subsequently drowned by a current of confusion over her own stake in that war. (What a hearty breakfast that must have been.) Her email invoked the same sentiments in me - confusion that something consensual could be so controversial - and I got to thinking about why monogamy is considered the flagship of a partnership.

Here's my attempt to de-tangle the delicacies. I started with the concept of 'family'.

Sure, a family unit is the fiscal brick of our society, but just because sex creates children does not mean that sex must, de facto, create families. Who elected Merriam and Webster the mayors of morals and why is fidelity at the epi-center of character? Are the players in an open relationship infidels? If it's consensual, is it unethical? I think monogamy is a way to ensure that neither party will conflate emotional and fiscal availability with physical pleasure. It's a way to be secure in your resources, to know that your partner won't leave you for the next set of grope-able mammary glands that walks by.

But why? Why would a partnership break under the wave of an orgasm? Because if it's agreed upon that the relationship is monogamist (not under ANY circumstances to be confused with monotonous), then the act of infidelity strikes at the core of what's really breaking up the iceberg - trust. The definition of infidelity is lack of faith. It's a breach of contract, not an unethical consortium! Why should infidelity be as heinous as not bringing home those pickles you promised? Because it involves a sentient third party?

Wouldn't it be more NATURAL to copulate with as many people as possible? To ensure the survival of your tribe? To keep workers in the fields, hunters in the woods? More mouths to feed but more might to feed the mouths?

And then there's a society that rests, nay, tax-breaks upon the familial unit. I think THAT charter is the infidel of humanity. Defining family as that which springs out of us rather than those who web around us to create a dome to weather the world - it seems archaic, to say the least, and narrow-minded, to get saucy.

As my friend was breakfasting, I was messing around on my company's payroll website looking for a W-2 to download and file (coincidentally, yes, we're a Fidelity client. ohhhh the undertones of reliability...) and what I think we're all missing is that the 'family' unit, though fiercely guarded by some, is actually, federally, a fairly soft term. Why not band together with your chosen 'family' and elect a head of household, elect some dependents (grad students, for sure), file together and split the rewards. Why not? Why not file your taxes the way you live your life? Why not redefine the family unit? Ascribe some responsibility to each other, devoid of 'genetic family' obligation. The future most certainly lies in family units shaped by reality as, eventually, that square peg will be smoothed by the edges of the hole, right?

And I guess, until then, my response to my friend's email is that my lesbionic stake is with the womanogamists. I don't think it's natural, I don't think it should be the cru(tch)x of society, but I don't want to share this one with the world and for that reason, I have promised to practice the art of keeping my hands in my pockets. A welcome, fair and cozy place for them these blustery days.

A, B, A, B, Up, Down, Up, Down, Select, Start

Everything I learned in life was culled from a solid foundation in video games.

1) Some enemies are destroyed by getting jumped on. Some enemies require precision fire-balling. Enemies that require fire-balling are often immune to jumping. Enemies that require jumping are often immune to fire-balling. There is a subset of enemies that respond to both. Figuring out how to handle hurdles will be painstaking and rife with trial and error. Wear supportive shoes.

2) Don't be afraid break bricks for fun, you never know what friends will pop out of them. Often the most unexpected people come out of the most unexpected places. Like babies.

3) When there are two variables, there are always only three options; speed and control are always up for grabs but grabbing them in the right mix for the right situation is tricky. Not knowing what you need in life is lethal.

4) Some portals take you places where only good things exist and leave you where you started. Some portals take you places you can't return from and test your every move. Some portals go no where at all. Be prepared for anything.

5) Never be afraid to re-do something easy to stock up for something hard. Like gathering flowers for protection before rescuing princesses from castles.

6) With 100 lives you tend not to appreciate the one you're living. Don't be surprised if 100 re-dos isn't enough.

7) If you get hit by the enemy once, you'll probably lose all your money. If you get hit a second time, you'll probably die. Money and turtle shells have shield-like qualities. Know how to procure both.

8) Swimming is slow and frustrating and sometimes you run out of air. Know your outs, avoid puffer fish.

9) Getting to Koopa via the Star World isn't cheating, the end is never as hard or exciting as you think it ought to be and, no, they don't give you a number to call in Japan to report that you've beaten the game and deserve worldwide recognition. Nope, not even if you beat it twice. Someday you'll even accept that no one ANYWHERE cares if you beat the game because...

10) The game will never be over. The princess will never be safe. Hold on to her for all you're worth.

Run

Fair city, footed in the ashes of autumn,

(Breath)

The moon has been beggared of its fearfulness

As the nights stain the afternoons.

A woman paces the newly long shadows -

Afflicted. She has an erosion of capacity.

Don't we all?

Pedestrians to the world watch as she screams

Of anarchy, lies, and broken tea cups,

While students to her disorder torch coffee shops with

The oppressive heat of conjecture. Silly children.

Like fog, their bias spills out and condenses on the cool cement and

An endless motorcade slips them quietly by,

Boasting ten thousand flashes of epileptic mayhem -

A gross of laborers, idling far from their berths,

Grapple with the trafficked fumes of impatience.

The brief day has need of strength -

An erosion of complacency.

A moment of endlessness.

Anything -

Fair city, burning for winter.

5 Year Update. By Demand.

Harvard has asked for yet another skullcap-output. It won't get graded though so I might actually DO this one. It's the first of the last series of essays they'll email, poke, and pester us about in 5 year intervals for the rest of our lives. The collective group I'm referring to is the class of 2005. The lives I'm referring to are the earth-bound spans of time that begin relatively without exception between 1982 and 1984- and which will all end like suicide sprints on a rugby pitch over-laid onto a soccer field, with the ghost of football markings from freshman week when the recruits took over the entire grassy knoll. Fifteen hundred sprint lines to touch and 120 yards to fit them in.

I'm supposed to write an essay. A 5 year essay. What have I done in 5 years that I want to let my classmates (nay, the WORLD!) know about?

up----------back

up-----------------back

up-------------back

up-----------------------------back

up----------------------back

up-------------------------back

up-------------------back

*pant pant pant*

Here's the bare bones of it: After Boston, I spent a few months in DC, moved to the Mission in San Francisco for 1 year of my life almost to the day, and then flew back to New York to sample Midtown, the Upper East Side, Brooklyn and now the West Village.

Adding Muscle (aka, the source of all revelry: money-procurement): I worked in an operating room for my (vacation from life) year in San Francisco. I wore scrubs to work, I washed blood for autologous transfusions, I ran through the halls of the ICU while priming IVs as surgeons performed cardiac massage on post-operative surgical patients and barked orders over their shoulders to me and my cohorts, who were also running. In shoe coverings. Not the easiest thing in the world and a heck of an inner thigh workout. I decided there was no way in hell that I would want to be a doctor. So I took up healthcare consulting at Accenture and spent 1.5 years on the road (really.) before deciding to settle down and look for a job in Manhattan. As these 5 year update emails roll in, I find myself attempting to be a strategy consultant for the pharma industry at a boutique firm (Insight Strategy Advisors) in Manhattan and not only am I a huge fan of this sentence, but I'm going to try and stick with it for a while longer as I figure out what's next in this grid o' procurement...

And the life of the matter: I still have all my moving parts despite a stint on the U-23 National Rugby Team. My family is healthy and stateside after some bouts with the UK, Africa and MRI machines. My friends are thriving and scattered but they seem to rotate through NYC just frequently enough for me to feel like it really IS the epicenter of the universe. My heart is trucking along smoothly and shiny rocks and tiny toes will undoubtedly make an appearance before the next 5 year installment gets jotted down (in a blog. The day after Maine screwed up that gay marriage law). Now if only I was legally allowed to get married... There must be SOMEONE in this class that can fix that!!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------

And that's my update. I think. What else have I done in the last 5 years? Chase girls, drink beer, learn stuff, develop plantar fasciitis, acquire a gorgeous dish set, meet the authors of the xkcd series, invest in a non-profit, own a vespa, discover whiskey, switch careers, check myself into the ER for fluids, relinquish whiskey, switch coasts, run a 10K, get stoned for the dawn of 2009, run up gigantic phone bills, hate girl, love girl, hate girl, love girl, find friends, continue to suck at Beirut, keep friends regardless, sell a vespa, lose a hundred battles, yoyo diet, quit rugby, learn flip cup, win a few key wars, hate girl, looove girl, learn MORE stuff, develop an obnoxious need to cloud compute the inanity of my life via blog... grow up?...

nahhhhh. I still order whiskey on occasion.

for real(sies)

I almost started this blog with, "so what makes something real? Is it tangible? Is it mere atomic weight and the ascription thereof?" And then I realized that despite my best efforts to pretend to be interested in the physical properties of reality and the perception of matter as reflected in light, I have zero interest in delving into the subject of reality outside the bounds of human relationships. And seeing as how this is my blog, I've decided to, once again, pare down through the meat of the matter to what it is I'd really like to whine about.

I spoke to my grandfather last weekend. After a long line of remarkably insightful questions about my job he almost immediately turned around and grilled me about the friends I have. He referenced the expression about real friends and counting them on one hand (versus acquaintances) and he asked if I had real friends in my life, in my city. And that got me thinking about real friends, my city, hands, etc. But also, my grandfather is a mechanical engineer. He's an American dream. He's as car-shop and model-boat-building as they get and here he was starting a conversation about how to work hard and ending it with how to be happy... The least I could do was spend some at-work-hours thinking about it.

So what's real, anyway? Who should we count on our fingers? Is it the banter-er that belittles the best? Is it the introspect-er we don't want to lose? Is it the hi-fiver we don't want to admit to not wanting to lose? Is it a relationship marked by longevity? Is it some mixture of transience and permanence and bananas coupled with atomic weight and measurable volume and an out-of-state ID? Can we lose them in an instant? If we can lose them, was it ever real?

How do we know if someone who we LIKE having around is worth investing in because they'll STAY around; through personal crisis, hell and high(er) water, a relocation to Portland for a lumberjack... you know. How do we know what we should work out and what we should walk out on?

We don't. Right? Is this the part about trusting your heart to know what's real because it clunks around your chest like a pinto at a soap box derby whenever 'real' gets near? Mayyyyyyyybe....

Ultimately, no matter how things present, the perception of permanence and transience can only be measured retrospectively. Right?

So if you're married to your expectations, do you throw your whole heart into it and expect a divorce while working to stay married? Is that the only way to make sure you'll always be right in the end? Do we have to make it through the middle to know what was good at the start?

What about a litmus test? An indicator... Milestones... A frat-boy romantic at a wholesale keg shop drowning in ice (Lots of ice. Because it's beer, by god, BEER!) who knows her real friends won't graduate to whiskey without her...

Or... More applicably, imagine it's the first Monday of winter and your metro card expired, your subway train broke down, you missed a client meeting, your laptop blue-screened, your gay IT guy hit on you - you, a boyish lesbian - (and then lost all your iTunes as he DIDN'T recover your personal files), you got soaked to the bone as it rained during lunch, you sat in a freezing office working on a backup mini-PC for the rest of the afternoon recreating everything you did over the weekend until you finally give up on powerpoint formatting with a flourish that catches the attention of the fire alarm, and when you get home your toilet is still running and your bathroom looks like a water-bug vacation resort.

Who do you call for an emergency intervention - who do you desperately need to walk through that Irish pub's door - who do YOU want to come home to? And when will you believe that that's real?

Rock-a-bye Really?

I've started to wonder what being sentient really means. As a person. As an agnostic. As a Jets fan...

The things that we want in life, are they derived from tapping into an inner well of needs and desires that defy causation? Are we too overwhelmed by the O2 : CO2 exchanging going on that we absorb some or all of these notions of need and desire from common sentiment? Are we being smart - matching what's available with what's missing from the list of our lives and then cramming it all in, regardless of squareness and circularity?

How do we know that we want things? Like babies. Let's talk about babies. Is it a combination of the congenital and the constructed? Because, really, if you think about it, babies suck away resources, destroy environments (both via global warming and disruption of living room feng shui), contribute to anxiety as they grow and stumble and get slapped by the world - like an incessantly inverting umbrella in a tropical storm-turned-hurricane - and in return they coo and, presumably, take care of us in our infirmity. Is that the trade off? Is that the reason we have babies? Because we're not really in race against extinction here, folks...

So if we'll be financially capable of supporting our damn selves in our infirmity, does that negate the need for children? And more pressingly, does it negate the DESIRE for children?

Are we constantly balancing some whisper from our chromosomes that wends synergistically through our loins to get multiplied by convention against some reasonable rationale for not budding off and jeopardizing our painstakingly accumulated resources? Does being sentient mean that we can override the innate, possibly vestigal elements of being human? Would we want to? Could we reason our way in and out of wanting to? Is that allowed?

I guess, in sum, how do we delineate between what's intrinsically human and what's intensely personal? And why do people have BABIES?!!

CraigsList: Missed Connections

I'm not supposed to be blogging about something. I can't remember what it is that I'm not supposed to be blogging about - but I remember that I rebutted with the point that I'd DEFINITELY be blogging about the fact that I'm not supposed to be blogging about something in general. Also, as it stands, with under 20 hits per blog post (on average), no matter what it is I wasn't supposed to be blogging about, blogging about being chastised for an inevitable (though, ironically, a-memorable) blog topic (given the 6 billion denominator...) is sure to be as equally uneventful as blogging about something controversial enough to yield an order to cease and desist.

But, man. It's like 'missed connections' in my brain. What wasn't I supposed to be blogging about?! Like a drill bit without a drill, it's SUPER hard to allude to the forbade'n without remembering what is was that was forbode'n. Talk. About. Frustrating.

So, officially:

Irreverent, bemused blogger seeking off-limits blog topic purely for casual reminiscing and potential future allusions. If interested/applicable, please comment on this blog with aforementioned impermissible subject matter. Gracias.

Sexually Speaking...

I'm sure you've all met them, the person who talks about sex and body parts like they're brought to you by big bird and the color blue - sleeping with the person who turns green when they even think about having to refer to an engorged body part...

So now I want to write about all the reasons for why talking about sex either has to come under the guise of complete nonchalance or it has to be pried out through the teeth like a g-string behind lock-jaw. It hasn't escaped my attention that this could be the mother of interminable blog posts. (Because it's sex.) But who wouldn't appreciate endless drivel about sex? (Said very nonchalantly.)

And this is my question: Why is it such a gamble as to when and where you should and can talk about sex with the very person you're engaging in it with? Haven't your closest friends staked out their irrevocable right the the most proximal part of your heart purely by following up the, "Hey! Long time no see, how have you been?" with the "so are you getting any?"

In an effort to disrobe the enigma and concurrently lubricate the flow, let's remove all the social constructs that revolve around sex. Take away marriage, inheritances, children, exes, trust funds, estate disputes, fetishes, living arrangements, college friends, basic civil rights, and health care concerns... Take it away. Let's focus exclusively on the human psyche. *phew. Way less complicated now, right? heh.

Diving in anyway, WHY is it awkward to talk about sex? WHY is it awkward to sit across from someone and say, "Hey, you know that thing you do with your toes while you're balancing hot wax on your chest and flogging me with a powerpoint printout that's chained to my nipple clamps? Minimal value add. Not so enjoyable."

Why. Why is that so hard?

I know you think I'm just going to ask a question and let it permeate the air while you click helplessly around the screen to find the back arrow as the significance of this conundrum in your own life pressure treats your brain like a veranda off the pearly coast of sex-beach-island. But no. Here's what I think: (shock)

I think the awkwardness around talking about sex has to do with the fact that it feels good and we want it. Emotionally, physically, retroactively, it feels good and we want it. And we're so fucking puritan around here that we don't think we're supposed to engage in activities that feel good. And what if they don't want it as much as we want it?! And then there's the sex contortion that screams "this feels good and I have NO idea what I look like right now but I hope you're so busily engaged elsewhere that you can't see this face I'm making!"

Ok, counter point, what if it's purely aesthetic? What if it's awkward because it's the naked show; a performance on a springy stage in constant un-dress rehearsal that you're hesitant to open up to the critics? I mean, sometimes it's actually just incredibly awkward as you fumble around with pillows and blankets and the occasional kitchen chair... that can definitely be a strike against household mirrors.

However, in the end, it seems like talking about sex is awkward because it's the only way to get through the doorway of the facade. What if it's awkward because we're not just fronting to fuck but because we've invested in the person behind the engorged body part? What if we're trying to get as close as possible to their bellybutton because talking about proximity and being physically close feels very different? What if it's for survival and the closer we get to the sternum, the more the circuitry of our hearts can act in tandem, alleviating the stress of beating individually, resting by sharing the workload, prolonging the lifespan of the cardiac tissue itself? What if *gasp* we're actually really interested in the person we're on top of/beneath/beside/wrapped around a kitchen chair with?! What if we LOVE them?!! OMG. What if TALKING about it makes it REAL?!?!?

Or...

Maybe as you sift through the remains of a broken Ikea kitchen chair, it's just kinda awkward to talk about?

On Cheerleaders and Their Discontents

Two weeks ago I went to the gym for the first time in over a month and I was rewarded with cheerleaders. Jets cheerleaders. Professional Jets cheerleaders. They didn't stand at my machine and erupt into verse, nor did they follow me around clapping in unison, but they were there. Omnipresent. Around every bend, catching streams of water in their mouths at the water fountains, prancing through the locker room like it was the tree fort of fantasies...

So I went back. I went back to the gym 1 week later on the same day (Wednesday) at the same time (wouldn't YOU like to know?) and lo and behold, there they were again. I got there earlier this time and was rewarded by the sight of them 'warming up' on the machines with complete pre-session enthusiasm. I wasn't the only one catching on to their schedule - most of the male trainers at the gym had also blocked off Wednesday night to get their own personal workouts in... Have you ever seen/heard a pull-up competition between 7 guys wearing weight belts and tankinis? Did I mention the pull-up cage is adjacent to studio 2/mecca 'o cheerleaders?

Needless to say, by this third week I was planning my schedule around a Wednesday at the gym. I blocked it off in my calendar, I scheduled a late dinner, I even asked my fellow NYSC-ers if they'd care to join me for a workout.

And they weren't there. The cheerleaders. Absent.

Mildly disappointed at the time, it has since blossomed into an irritation with the entire Jets franchise. But why? Because they robbed me of motivation? What was it that I was so motivated about anyway? Am I really looking to date (sleep with?) a cheerleader? Really? And if I am, did I really think this subset of women would follow the genetically accepted incidence of homosexuality and that at least ONE of the 15 of them would be gay? And did I really think that the one professional gay cheerleader would also be single? (After all, when you have the fortitude to wear a mini skirt in a blizzard while drumming up deafening support from a cold wet (drunk) crowd, you most certainly know how to snag a girlfriend...) All that said, I started to lose track of why I was drawn to a gym full of cheerleaders in the first place. At the end of the day, I'm NOT attracted to these women. I'm not attracted to the bubbles of misogyny replete with matching pom poms. I'm not looking for a magazine centerfold if she aspires to be a magazine centerfold. (I mean... Don't get me wrong... I AM looking for the girl that has everything else and just so happens to have been genetically CURSED with magazine centerfold aesthetics...)

But STILL, I will go back next Wednesday. And if they're not there, I'll go back for another 5 (hundred) Wednesdays. Because what I realized is that it really isn't about the 15 cheerleaders - or the seemingly favorable incidence of homosexuality in the population. It's not about seeing them prance about the locker room (because, trust me, that's more awkward than sexy anyway as I scramble to not look at them). It's not about feeling out-stepped, under-dressed or hypothyroidic every Wednesday.

It's about hope, like following the wake of the titanic through the river Styx. I'm attracted to the idea of proximity to a national monument. I'm attracted to the dichotomy of a dirty gym and the glitz of veneers. I'm attracted to the REASON to workout in the first place. And, honestly, I'm attracted to being in the same room as the entire Jets' cheerleading squad -- for novelty -- because how often does that happen!!??

Procrastination Creationist

What if we all got to be what we thought it was that we really wanted to be and then found out that it isn't desire per se, that led us there, but the fact that we're predisposed to throw our hearts into whatever it is we aren't allowed to do... Like toddlers. With credit cards. And a remarkably spry portfolio given the times...

What if we're only good at the things we do while procrastinating in general? Everything from blogging to chatting to hitting up Starbucks to STAYING HOME SICK is markedly more enjoyable while you're at work and/or supposed to be at work...

I guess that can be extended to all sorts of situations... Food is more tempting when you're on a diet, sex is, well, sexier anytime other than 10pm to 11pm, even a slide rule can be considered a toy if it comes with a whip and a ball gag... So why is it surprising that working is more fun if it's for my NOT job?

The essence of my conundrum: what if I can only focus on writing while there's a deadline for something else pressing up against my paycheck?

It's just that it's harder to write on Saturdays. It's harder to focus after work. It's harder to be invested in a storyline or a concept when there are 10 hours of couch-time staring at me from across the weekend. Maybe I need to NOT be a writer just to get something written down? Always while I'm supposed to be building a powerpoint...

But I guess I have a similar yen to try my hand at carpentry... and to start an NGO... and to play professional soccer... and to be an insanely rich philanthropist... (who wants to live in a world where that isn't redundant?!)

So... Maybe the career I want is to be anything I'm not (supposed to be doing), as long as I can write about it?

Meta-Blog and the Evolution of Habit

As far as I can tell, the blog-worthy sentiments in life are inconsistencies, ironies, fallacies, insights, witticisms, allusions, or even mere coincidences (which will forever be nailed to ironies via the mis-educated lyrical stylings of Alanis Morisette, hence the predilection to include it in this set to avoid having to delineate between the two).

Despite this acknowledgement, I haven't taken to carrying around a little notebook in my back pocket. Nor do I make it a habit to jot things down in my smart phone memo pad. I have yet to utilize the efficiencies of voice notes on the fly and I certainly haven't conscripted a personal assistant to follow me around night and day (though, for the right price...).

My point is that I only infrequently capture the fun ideas (subjectively speaking) in the moment in which they occur to me. My thinking, on the thought, is that if it has occurred to me once, it'll occur to me again. Why stop the train to write something down if the train will swing by there again? I've done some thinking on the origins of this mentality and concluded that this assumption is more than likely derived from a question posed in that infamous core class, Moral Reasoning with Michael Sandel, during which half the freshmen spend their time watching the dark wood of Sander's theater confusedly and the other half dislocate their shoulders trying grasp at the microphone from which they hope to pose the most paralyzing philosophical query ever to be brought to court with aforementioned Sandel. The thought exercise was: if one could return to a moment in their past, having no knowledge of their future or the consequences of their actions, if one could "go back" that is to say, what would one ever be able to change?

The unilateral answer (obviously, because everything philosophical is absolute), after many clarifying questions and the characteristic ping-ponging of inflated vernacular, is: nothing. We predicate every decision on a lifetime of warm-ups. Nothing we do has been untouched by the weight of everything we've done up until the very moment our next decision is solidified. My next sentence will always have followed from my last, no matter how many times I change it, because I will always have been meant to change it up until the very last iteration. In short, no matter how many times we're allowed to go back, without new information - aka, with no knowledge of the future, or of the, presumable, regret or sadness that has prompted a trip to the past in the first place - we are destined to repeat our original actions (decisions). One could even argue, we have no recourse BUT to repeat our original actions.

THAT is the very reason why I always think that no matter what it is that has occurred to me, if it originates organically and is not a response to an idea presented TO me, even if I don't write it down and I forget what it is in the moment, I am bound to eventually be in a similar situation which will prompt a similar neuronal reaction at some point in my future. In sum, if we have, inside of us, all the pieces necessary to create something once, creating it a second time will be easy. Thus, everything blog-worthy is replicable and my resistance to interrupting life to write things down is justified.

Until today. Why? New organically reasoned blog-worthy revelation that indicates I'm a MORON:

The very weighty revelation that has forced a behavioral modification to which everyone is now witness is that even if a blog-able idea is replicable, how fucking blog-worthy will it be if it takes ANOTHER 26 years to fucking occur to me again!?

Integrated Communication Platforms & Napalm

I'd like to wax poetic about life and consequences today - but where to BEGIN?!

This has led to a fairly consuming bemusement about all the ways people communicate these days - and THAT has led to the revelation (late I'm sure) that breaking up is wayyyyyyyyyyy harder to do now than it was 15 or 20 years ago.

If all you had back in yesteryear was a phone number (of a communal phone) and an address, all you had to do was:

1) Forget a 10 digit number (or a seven digit number if you live in Rhode Island). This is easily accomplished via excessive alcohol, a baseball bat smacking of negative reinforcement, and a new 10 digit number to memorize. We only have room for 1, you know. 1 number and 50 million memories - so choose wisely. And

2) Always go out of your way to avoid a certain bar, street, street corner, restaurant, grocery store, school, business, re-bound, movie theater, strip club or section of town.

That seems EASY compared to what it takes to break up in this gilded age of integrated technology and hurried, incessant communication.

For amusement and therapy (mostly amusement, therapy would involve an opinion other than my own...): How do we communicate these days and what kind of measures would one have to go through to STOP communicating (ie, break up)? It's not as easy as it sounds!!!!

Like chatter and silence there is:

1) Gchat and the 'block and burn' (blocking them as a contact and searching your inbox and deleting all to/from emails/gchats).

2) Facebook/myspace/OkCupid/Twitter/Gaming Forums and the ultimate 'de-friending'.

3) Blackberry messenger and the 'remove contact' functionality. (parallel feature for iphone would be... non-existent? What a simple life, you lucky bastards!)

4) Phones in general and deleting whole contact entries. (choke)

5) AIM/Yahoo/GoogleTalk instant messaging and the thwarting thereof.

6) Shared email account/Google-calendar/Pandora de-privilege-ing.

7) Virtual business cards in Outlook and the recycle bin.

8) Family members/spouses/mutual (but really not-so-mutual) friend removal from all aforementioned communication avenues.

9) Pictures you've saved off facebook/myspace/google stalks and, again, the recycle bin.

10) EMPTYING YOUR RECYCLE BIN.

11) No. Really. EMPTY YOUR FUCKING RECYCLING BIN. (Do this via cmd for bonus points.)

12) Blogs/websites and bookmark deleting (or, a more amusing alternative: changing bookmarks to link to sites you loathe - Perez, perhaps? - a negative association trick. You're welcome.)

13) The memory of them and investing in that flashy-light-thingy from Men In Black

14) The memory of them and, realistically, coaxing your best friend venture-capitalist to invest in that flashy-light-thingy from Men In Black.

15) And, finally, THE MEMORY OF THEM and performing an at-your-desk lobotomy for the following reasons:

a) To remove the images of them from the central viewing center of your brain so you don't flash through your own personal slide show every time you try to get some sleep (and fail).

b) To forget the smell of their skin (awwwwwww) and replace it with the smell of burning/cauterized flesh from the lobotomy. (yay!!!!!!)

c) To extract the set of neurons inducing that palpable excitement you get from new emails, new txt messages, new bbms, new instant messages, new gchats, new friend requests, new blog comments, and any/all carrier pigeon scrolls you may receive in the next 288 million seconds.

PHEW.

It seems pretty complicated compared to yesteryear and you have to wonder if we're really any better off with all this communication... Does 17 hundred million ways to communicate make for better relationships? Does it make for faster relationships as we burn through our work day pinging and bbming and txting and gchatting and emailing and *gasp* calling the person we're dating/loving/chasing/marrying? Are we getting to know people that much faster? Are we finding flaws sooner and before we've invested enough 'time' in them to appreciate them despite their flaws? Why do we measure 'time' in gregorian anymore!? Shouldn't "so how long have you been dating?" really be "So how many gigs of communication have you swapped so far?" And "So what's your daily communication frequency/mix look like?"

"Ohhh, wow, simultaneous facebook wall-posting and txt-jesting? The response time on the emails are approaching gchat speed? It must be serious!!"

If it's this hard to DATE/LOVE/CHASE/MARRY someone in this grand old age of FRENETICS, how can it not be exponentially harder to BREAK UP, too?!?!! A number? An ADDRESS? We're getting clocked on words-per-minute and turn around time while maintaining a witticism-quota and depth-despite-a-two-dimensional-screen expectation to boot - JUST TO BREAK UP!?!?! Just to spend HALF THE TIME you WERE pinging making sure you CAN'T PING or get PINGED?!?! WHAT A FUCKING CROCK OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY!!!!!!

(pant pant pant)

And then you remember the flashy-light-thingy. Your grandparents DEFINITELY didn't have the iron clad, hollywood promise of the flashy-light-thingy. Which is probably why you're around to read this blog today. Which, CLEARLY, is a good thing. (Yay!! modern technology!)

Unless, of course, you're NOT supposed to be reading this blog as per communication device disablement rule #12, to which I say... call me? (heart)

An Excerpt from my AMAZING Family

This is from my little sister's college graduation concert. I watch it roughly once a week to remember that there are perfect moments in life.

<3

things i thought about today...

It rained.

When men go in for a handshake, are they settling? Do they really want a hug?

Do I do the obligatory 9/11 post? Is it obligatory? Do I just mention that it rained today?

I'm moving to the west village... at 26... is that too late?

Everyone seemed a bit down today... Is it because of the weather?

Is midtown a grown-up thing?

Is it bad that I want the new Lincoln? Am I just trying to impress my grandparents?

Can't we just agree that it's not about the NY so much as the fact that it's pizza?

My parents are 51. That seems young to me.

Is credit the enemy? Still?

Are alcoholic popsicles really just an excuse to make popsicles? Like watermelon and jello and brownies? Is nothing sacred??!?! Can't fucking wait.

Do we need to know the difference between sustainable and tolerable?

Are free radicals really free?

Honestly. For real. Are there calories in vodka soda?

Is having a 'job' just an excuse to watch TV on the weekends?

How far would a billion dollars worth of health care reform really get me at a strip club?

If the last strip club I was at was unionized, does that make me a feminist?

When you say unionized... How many people would love to be a union organizer right now?

Are unions unionized? Does being a lesbian and objectifying women count against me as a feminist?

Will my 37" flatscreen fit into my west village studio (measuring 108" by 156")?

Pleats? Really???

The entertainment industry seems superfluous... And I want to write a screenplay. Does that make me an underachiever? Or just full of attainable asinine aspiration?

Is it bad that I want to box for a living? And by 'living', I mean, for the chicks...

Where ARE you?

Boxer briefs are not at all momentary. Or short. Or comfortable when wet.

Did I mention it rained today?

6 months......... a fraction of life... Epic. And so so momentary.

Oh my GOD this week was endless.

Who needs a vacation? (hands in the air....... oh, oh, oh - me!) K. How about 2 days off to move to the west village?

Hot roast beef and coleslaw pressed between hot iron plates. Yes. The sandwich.

Spackle.

Let's just agree to agree, ok?

Pleats?!?!?!????

Hoodies cure all ill.

If I had a piano, I wouldn't have a blog, I'd have an empire (as everyone moved out of the apartment complex around me).

What a fucking day.

I love you.

Like. Even in pleats.

What? Yeah. I know. Confusing.

Rock on, rockstar.

A Tribute to American Football...

Cheerleaders.

I hung around work until about 730 last night to avoid the after-work swell at the gym. It's not that I don't enjoy scoping out the eclectic and unpretentious, mostly middle aged midtown NYSC scene, I do. For sure. But I'd rather the sprint in the locker room not be the quickest thing I do in the 52 minutes I spend checking off a workout on my (non-existent) calendar o'will power(lessness). Predictably, when I got there, I had my pick of all the choicest corners (in the locker room) and there was hardly a machine in motion that wasn't next to two lifeless ones. Wiiiiide berths, empty locker room, well played, Case, well played.

Fast forward through a falling out with a treadmill, a blossoming romance with an elliptical, and an awkward embrace with an exercise ball, and I'm heading back to that aforementioned, empty-save-the-chatty-cleaning-lady locker room. But what is this? In the studio tucked in the back of the basement, by the free weights and the cycling room (really? a whole room for that?) there's an explosion. Color, chanting, stomping, flashes of silver... at almost 9pm? I look closer and find a shortage of shirts and an overwhelming ratio of booty shorts to booties in the air and then BAM - circling, chanting, what are those? what are THOSE? POM POMS?!?!

I've been caught staring at the fray right about now so I head back to the locker room to shower. It dawns on me IN THE ACTUAL SHOWER... They were circling up. They were chanting. They had their pom poms in the air, their kicks around their necks and their eyes closed as they strained to out-screech each other -- they were ENDING their 'SESSION'! (oh no, I will never refer to that as practice.)

Fuck.

Then it starts. As I'm turning off the water of my shower I hear the first of the pom poms ruffle into the locker room. The walk back to my corner would not go as I planned - and I definitely didn't plan for this. I planned on skirting around the cleaning lady in boxer briefs. I did not plan on bobbing and weaving through fifteen to twenty JETS cheerleaders all hopped up on team spirit and forced enthusiasm just to slip into a corner where I would stick clothes to my body in what I would HOPE to be the right order just to slink out of the joint like a shoplifter lifting imagery.

Long story short... three things.

1) The Jets are colluding with Hooters to keep the tan stockings + white sneakers + booty shorts combo in fashion. (And I'm pretty sure they're both getting underpaid, can NO ONE afford a shirt these days??)

2) Yes, it's true. Cheerleaders squeal when they shower. Irrefutable evidence. They squeal and they laugh and they skip around locker rooms in nothing but a bottom towel. I'll die happier knowing this.

3) So there I was with the entire Jet's backup cheerleading squad (backup because I overheard them talking about 'making it to the big leagues' and, also, I'm sure the varsity squad trains at Equinox), bobbing and weaving through the gaiety, and as I reached to collect my double D's around an especially tight turn, it hit me...

They aren't called the B-squad fer nuthin'.

...

There are other dreams, lad, there are other dreams... *sniff.

Rosemary colored glasses...

I’m writing this blog on a Friday on a power point slide to avoid detection. I’m not sure how well this will work considering my project manager loves to walk over and exclaim, before he’s even SEEN my screen, “Look at all those words!! The words!! They’re Invading!!” He has figured out, and I'm sure he's not the first, that I’m a big fan of them.

Lately, I’ve become an even bigger fan of words. I crave them. Simple words. Clarifying words. Words that make the world seem a little brighter, a little easier, a little more clear. I love when they pop up on my screen and tell me things I need to see...

Speaking of pop-ups. My ex texted me yesterday. We haven’t spoken in years but eating rosemary pine nut ice cream managed to draw enough nostalgia out of her to prompt a text telling me exactly that. “My heaven is your hell.” After three years. She’s still thinking about all the ways she can hurt me.

At first I couldn't believe her. I’m not invincible. I can’t field a text about ice cream while the bigger picture looms above it all. Is she engaged yet? Is she getting married? Does she love him because he’s not me? Does she want to be married? And then it hit me. Do I really care what she has to say about all this? Years ago, these questions would hang in the air like freshly washed sheets, obscuring everything visual and audible by their opaque flapping, driving me INSANE.

We used to fight. Debate, really. I would debate. She would cry. I didn’t understand how to fight without words. I didn’t understand that sometimes you had to forget about those pesky little things before you could solve anything. At the end of the day she was never motivated by an intention to hurt me. How you avoid hurting a massively insecure, newly graduated (read: drifting), jealous butch lesbian dating someone they know they don’t know how to keep is BEYOND me. I was going to fail. That was the first most difficult relationship of my life. Characterized, as I’ve learned is typical, by questions that evade answers.

PREAMBLE: I don’t know how to keep you. But I know I want you. And it’s hard. I’m tired. You know so much yet you struggle with the things that you don't need to say.

Silence.

INQUISITION: What makes your chest hurt? What makes you cry? What makes you happy?

Silence.

FOLLOW-UP: You make my chest hurt. You make me cry. You make me happy.

Silence.

*insert quitting jobs, moving, getting a 'divorce' here*

Three years, hardly a word between us, and she's still amused by the things I hate. Pretty amazing how indelible the stamp on the soul between human beings. And if you've ever wondered how things end smoothly between lesbians, that's basically a verbatim, distilled, sterile, calm, a-theatric, painless, micro-account of the actual 4 months it took to break up. So multiply that by a billion and add 400 pounds of explosives and you've got the end of my relationship with rosemary ice cream. (thank. GOD.) Maybe I really am invincible?