You Shall Know My Velocity

The therapist was silent. Eyes noticeably puckered. Hand meaningfully covering mouth. A mildly convincing fortuneteller.

The hum of the Dell was punctuated by brief platitudes.

"You see, memories are like pearls. You know about pearls right?"

Pause. He stared deeply at his black loafers. His lingering obsession with his body made me painfully aware of my own. Arm acutely angled into a fist.

He rubbed the edge of the bookshelf - tracing it, perhaps, for signs.

"The oyster keeps returning to the source of irritation. "

Deep Breath. Hands clasped together in his lap. Not once did he look me in the eye.

My unreasonable sense of social obligation kept my expression neutral. I even scheduled another appointment I intended to cancel as soon as I left the office.

Most of my acquaintances found the story of the attack oddly hilarious; a few offered rationales. Durkheim. Freud. All possibilities. All explanations. All to fill the vacuum. I will never know.

I finally reported the incident to the police.

And I buried the shame deep within. I burned it and danced around it.

“Lebanese girls are the new half-Asians”

What’s lame about it:

The frame story. I mean, telling your kids the story of how you and their mother met 25 years ago and having that be the driving force for a sitcom. LAME.

Bob Saget wasted as the narrator. I haven’t heard him say anything offensively dirty in 44 minutes. LAME.

What’s cool about it:

The supporting cast. Sure the two main character (the “I” and the “Your Mother” of the title) are bland and overly dramatic in that safe, TV sort of way. But the supporting cast is incredibly tight. They can even pull laughs from weak “safe TV” dialogue. Doogie Howser alone is worth the price of admission (free last time I checked). Add in Willow from Buffy (more from American Pie I guess) and that guy with the bit part in SLC Punk! COOL.

My lame sense of romanticism. It just fits the type of entertainment I’m looking for. But, seriously, having Neil Patrick Harris says things like “Lebanese girls are the new half-Asians.” COOL.

All in all I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt. And I’m almost ready to recommend How I Met Your Mother.

Also. Logan, you’re officially on notice that last Tuesday’s episode of The Office was one of the best half hours of television ever. I mean, making the sexist and offensive salesman a Texan. Brilliant.

Something like an original

We’d had it planned for a week. It worked best that way, and maybe to give ourselves that much preparation. (For me, that much preparation meant that I was a little dazed by the time it was finally yesterday. Overwhelmed.)

The mystery – which many have heard lately – could have been described as her being hot and cold. But I have refused to describe it like that: hot and cold has an overpoweringly misogynistic connotation.

The answer was that she was torn. Because 1) she’s young and therefore not interested in a progressive relationship right now and 2) she’s never really liked a boy before. But she still likes me.

Of course, to those two things my response must be that I have two years of graduate school left. I’m not going anywhere, anytime soon. There is no hurry.

I seem to like her more than I have anyone I’ve met so far. (That’s an odd, overly personal statement right there. One I’d like to delete.)

We are planning on doing something again next Sunday. I don’t yet have any idea what.

I’m still afraid of an 18 year old blonde.

Four new shows that I'm interested in:

Kitchen Confidential
My Name Is Earl
How I Met Your Mother
& Kolchak

I've watched the pilot episodes of the first two on the list and so far, neither is brilliant but both have potential.

Kitchen Confidential has an interesting setup and one of the best supporting casts on any television shows and possibly of any of the new shows (except maybe How I Met Your Mother). But the show lacks a decisiveness about whether or not it's a comedy first and drama second or vice versa. Once that’s cleared up it could be interesting enough to watch. But I’m wary right now.

My Name Is Earl is much more confident about it’s desire to be a stupid, smart comedy. Sure, the pilot wasn’t great. But some of the characters are (in particular the brother, again a supporting character). And there were enough smart jokes that I think it could be great.

How I Met Your Mother is still on the DVR. I’ll watch it soon. Now even.

Kolchak starts Thursday.

Also, I just read that the season premiere of LOST had 23.4 million viewers. Three million more than last season’s finale.

You, You Have, You Have Asked Me

Dancing Queen. Strained through a megaphone. On repeat.

Hours later I would connect the man in drag with the Scandinavian alarm call I never set.

My stay in Reykjavik overlapped with the annual Pride celebration. Store fronts were littered with rainbow flags and UTSALA displays. Clerks deserted their posts to watch the parade march down Laugavegur.

Much of the pageantry was the same as you would find in the states: gay cowboys, gay sailors, gay construction workers, gay firemen. Even Dykes on Bikes.

I pondered: Had all the iconography sprung from the great Ur-Pride Festival of them all in San Francisco and disseminated its way through the cross-cultural rip-tides?

My thoughts were interrupted by a legion of leather clad gimps gyrating and thrusting to 'Du Hast' while pointing accusingly to the crowd.

Man of Science, Man of Faith

What a spectacularly odd way to start a season. The episode itself was poorly paced and poorly framed, but exciting nevertheless.

Although they really need to stop paying homage to Abrams' pupil dilation shot from the pilot.

It's Official...

New York style pizza is indeed better than its Chicago counterpart.

There Is No Solution

I finally understand something about myself.

A few weeks ago my mother had a grand mal seizure. It was her first seizure, and there’s a 50% chance it will be her only seizure. She has never had any major health problems before.

The seizure happened to my mother when she was at work. Thing is, she doesn’t like the attention. That’s one of the worst parts of the whole “thing”. My mother prefers to live a quiet, anonymous life.

And that’s more or less a family trait.

My problem is that – as the youngest I suppose – I want attention. I want a lot of attention, and praise, and admiration and all those other things.

But I still want to be anonymous. And private. And unaccountable. Inexplicable perhaps.

(Although, side note, I’m getting sick of people telling me I’m an enigma. I’ve had seven different people from three different parts of my life tell me that in the last month.)

This is an old problem I’m just beginning to understand. Any friend I’ve had for more than a few years could tell you I have a tendency to disappear. You may see me every day for a week and then not hear from me for several weeks.

So my theory is that it’s because I want to be known and I want to be unknown.

There is no solution.

"I Was In The L.A. Riots and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt!"

Well Logan, so much for our classic inside joke from 11th grade.

Somebody beat us to it on this one.

Discipline and Plumpish

Bentham/Foucalt had it wrong.

My apartment complex is folded tight like origami. Now, this is no Jimmy Stewart manned Panopticon; instead, each window is within the eye-line of at least a dozen other tenets, who may be - and since they are shut-in graduate students, probably are - watching.

Yet this mutual threat of constant surveillance seems to have merely liberated everyone. They cast aside their superegos as well as their pants.

The same set of bulging love handles greets me every morning as I wake.

Attacked!

Chicago. Under no rational circumstances should I have been addressed as Mr. Wright. Sweat caked body, unintentional bed-head. The housing agent was unreasonably courteous to someone who barely classified as an adult.

Walking to my apartment, sole suitcase in tow, I pass teenage kids. Misplacing traffic warning signs.

Fate, it seems, can only garb itself in obvious semiology.

Certain memories are recalled from the first person. Others, bizarrely, from the third. This one can only be recalled by a muscle memory response to the left. Muscle memory in response to the blow.

Philosophically the brain believes in the separation between mind and body. A physical antagonism to the head comes with a certain sense of disbelief, skepticism. Thus I keep walking. My body unaware of the shame that weighs my consciousness.

Why shame? Do I feel responsible for not crossing the street or turning around and defending myself?

Or do I feel ashamed of humanity? A world assaulted midday by strangers. Who ran off.

Or the shame for living a sheltered life free of disaster?

Chicago. Under no rational circumstances should I have been addressed as Mr. Wright. Bruised. Battered. The porter was unreasonably courteous to someone who barely classified as an adult.

Gertrude Stein Gave Me A Headache

I had about 150 pages of reading to do before class tonight. But only Tender Buttons was obscure and meaningless (?) enough to give me a headache. I can’t imagine pouring over this assortment of words and bizarre sentences trying to find meaning.

I hope I never have to.

Gertrude Stein may or may not have been a genius. But her work reeks of that inaccessibility that makes academics feel they have a purpose.

God I hate that.

Changes...

People have actually asked me about this… so… (it’s not just my ego.)

I changed the way comments work on this blog. Now anyone can post a comment.

But, you will have to do that stupid thing where you retype a funky string of letters to prove you're not a machine.