Ghosts, Thieves, Ninjas: A Compelling and Well-Reasoned Argument in Favor of Sleep Medication

The ghosts are returning.

More specifically, the imaginary intruders are returning. Did you ever do this? In my night-time childhood paranoia, I would lie awake constructing elaborate scenarios to match the odd creaks and pops that propagate through a middle-aged house as it adjusts to sinking ground (ah, western New York) and heavy wind. Thieves, but not just lumbering men in masks with crowbars and burlap sacks. Thieves in my mind always turned out to be Shadow Ninjas: smart, stealthy, agile. When I was terrified enough for forced bravery, I would check the closet ceilings to make sure no ninja-thieves were there suspended. In, out, undetected.

Anyway, I am at home for winter break, and it is windy in Buffalo. 75-mph-gusts-windy. Our houses were not built for this kind of stress, and the duration and intensity of floorboard-creaking gives the impression that other people are walking around in our house while we sit together, with shared expressions of alarm, in the kitchen. A thorough room-by-room check reveals no intruders, or at least no physical manifestations of intrusion. Ghosts I still worry about.

* * *

Lastly, my brother bought a cake today that was, believe it or not, too chocolatey. My brother and I both agreed on this. I couldn't decide if the baker deserved congratulations or censure for the achievement. Censure, I think, for intemperate use of chocolate. Wait, does that even make sense? No. How could I write such a thing. More chocolate is always better. Odds are he or she just used massive amounts of chocolate poorly. Improper use of chocolate. Personal foul. Half the distance to the goal line.

And with that, I remember that I have not yet eaten lunch, and should probably do that before I eat dinner.

I Left My Bart in San Francisco

I am on the road, at AGU. Some quick notes:

(1) Whose idea was this:



Baffling urban hikes. The good bars, restaurants, ceaseless Christmas tunes and highly musical homeless people make up for these.

(2) Yerba Buena Gardens, Geary Street: recommended.

(3) Tide stain remover: "Does not work well on Grease, Blood, Ink"
(In that order.) Staying classy in my stain-removed shirts, schmoozing, acting presentable.

There may be a saga ahead, with respect to travel. Blizzard coming into Boston, and I would be flying through it twice (SF to Phoenix to Boston; Boston to Buffalo). This probably isn't going to go smoothly. Will write if something great happens.

Leaves Fall, Children Stumble; November is Upon Us

It's November, already. Specifically, it is mid-November, already. How do we all feel about this? I feel dazed.

It's been a couple of months since I started grad school. Grad school is wonderful.

The anniversary of the Egging of My Corolla passed without incident. On Nov. 3rd I spent a moment, a loving gaze, a half hour removing leaves, seed-copters, detrital tree matter from the nooks, crannies, trunk, hood of my car. Tree matter gets everywhere.

I love autumn scents, especially right around now. In October, leaves change colors and cling, stubbornly, to their branches. By November, the futile grasp is broken, overcome, gravity prevails, the leaves fall. Tumultuously, dramatically, silently, fall. Here I imagine a few days' period of separation anxiety. Once it is clear that the process is irreversible, the leaves settle and get down to the business of decaying. Herein the source of wonderful autumnal scents, the smell of decaying plant matter. Add some burny smoky smells from wood fires and chimneys, and you have November. (Science! Autumn smells good due to the breakdown of complex hydrocarbons!)

A new thing: I live in an apartment between Fresh Pond and Harvard Square. Nearby are two or three elementary and pre-schools. I had interacted with small children on campus before: for instance, small children existed in Adams House. However, those small children existed in an environment suited for young adults; it was jarring, sometimes, (though always delightful) to see them. Now I see kids in more traditional environments -- in two straight lines, holding hands with their walk-buddies, herded across the street from their school by teachers who are my age, possibly younger. Where were these kids going? I remember myself crossing streets in lines of two, noting interesting leaves, chestnuts, acorns, patterns on the sidewalk. I remember plastic raincoats, and decaying smells. But I do not recall where were going, or if we were going anywhere at all, in particular. Perhaps we were just taking a walk, and I got exactly what was aimed for out of it: leaves, chestnuts, fall detritus. I think this is the point of fall walks.

Motives aside, I observed what I think is my favorite method of child-arrangement while walking across the public park called Cambridge Common. A rope was held on either end by a towering adult; one in front, the other at the end of the line. From this axial rope stemmed symmetric rope-branches, to each of which was tied a single pre-schooler. Sixteen small children were thus arranged in two even lines, and securely attached to the adults responsible for them. As I watched the toddler chain-gang progress across the Common, I thought to myself: Yes. There was something to be admired in this. While restrictive, it was simple and efficient. Similar things could be done with drunkards.

At any rate, I heartily approve of fall walks, toddlers, and also drinking. To follow this line of thought, I will wind down this post and pour myself something strong and smoky. I hope you all are well, and kind regards,

R.

Sometimes you feel like a nut...

I say, what a dry spell on this weblog. I've had plenty to write about, but all this 'plenty' has itself been preventing the writing. Plenty is a wily one, you see.

I've started grad school. That is a loaded statement; that could go in a lot of different directions. I've started grad school, so watch out! The tone on this motherfucker is about to get academic. I've started grad school, ah, shit. I have no time to do anything. I've started grad school, and now I live off processed cheese product. I am an irradiated puff of processed cheese product. Anyway. There is anxiety, excitement, a whole glut of emotions running high over here. It's a beautiful, glorious, mess.

The point of this post is to signal that the blog is alive and well. I'll write more about the summer-fall transition at a later date.

I used to work in Chicago, I used to work in a store...

Aforementioned wrench.

The Thing About Chicago's South Side is: It Has a Great View Northwards

This evening, the sun was dipping low, the lake was touched with silver, and the view from the Point struck me as a prime photographic opportunity. So I hiked up my gym shorts and marched my frightened ass out to the lake shore at 57th street with a camera. The sound of Lake Michigan is insistent, robust; splashy. It is not like Lake Erie; that Lake has patience, a well-worn sense of time and the history that has played out on its shores. (This is distinct from the bland weariness of Lake Ontario--but one does not blame poor Ontario for its exhaustion, post-rapids and cataract. If you'd been through that sort of trauma, I'd let you just lie there, too. A boring Lake. But I digress.)

Lake Michigan twitches with industry. You can feel it when you stand ankle-deep on the shore: the waves insist, they are itching to move you, somewhere, anywhere, westwards, preferably. Ships steam across her and the Lake nods her approval: splash, splash. Go, move, do. Industrious urgency is in its very character, and this befits the lake-mistress of the great American city, Chicago. New York bustles, LA glitters; but Chicago cranks, chugs, whistles and stamps. Chicago needs a lake that can keep up. Ontario would be flat on her back after an hour. Lake Michigan wants more.

That said, I will miss Chicago and its fearsome semi-sexually voracious Lake. I cut my adult teeth on this city, felt its pulse and longed to be part of its workforce. And then I was. Nuts, bolts, rivets! How appropriate that my job here involved rusty hardware. But one year was enough. Now I look homewards, eastwards, to Lake Erie.

There they have grass, and trees, and sunlight. That Lake remembers. When one sits on its shores, one gets the impression that the Lake is remembering. It remembers the settlers, the immigrants, the ships, the clapboard houses that cropped up on its shores. It remembers barges, mills, factories, remembers when it urged young men westwards, when it was the fountainhead of western industry. Now Lake Erie sits back, and collects on the industry it sent west decades ago.

Waters from Chicago make their way eastward to Erie; in the end, all things come home. And so do I.

Lila, Green Child of the (Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center)

For my beloved Lila: someday, for your birthday, we will get you a green screen session. In fact your wedding should just be entirely green-screened. Think of the editing possibilities! There could be a YouTube contest: Lila in Space! The Light Sabre version! Prison Thriller! A Senate hearing on CSPAN-2. I could go on. Anyway here's the video that got me thinking:



It's "Over and Over" by Hot Chip. And of course, we would keep the version where everyone -- everyone -- is wearing a green spandex bodysuit. Are you reading this, Mrs. Fontes?

* * *

And now that I've gone and rewatched the Prison Thriller video, I might as well post this amazing Prison version of Soulja Boy/ Can't Touch This by the same crew of Filipino inmates:



Man, I wish I could dance like that. At a wedding, perhaps.

Today is Tuesday, June 17th 2008

Today I saw a caterpillar. It was thin, brown and patterned with blue. It moseyed on the sidewalk; I am not certain where it aimed to go. I watched it for several seconds.

Another observation: The entrance to the John Crerar Library at the University of Chicago is adorned with an arch made of fossiliferous limestone. It is not the gloriously fossiliferous type that comprises the columns outside Widener Library; in fact, it strongly resembles poured concrete from two feet away. But if you look from really, really close up (less than 1/2 inch), you can distinguish shell fragments, oolites and other fossiliferous objects. I love that word. I really only wrote about this so I could say it out loud a few times. Fossiliferous.

That said, I hate sedimentary rocks and think fossils are boring.

Volcanic rocks are exciting, though. Especially volcanic rocks from paradisiacal ocean islands such as the Cook-Australs, aka Thesis Islands. I have been writing about these islands a lot lately, but not on this page. More on that, later in the summer.

I don't have any good ideas for a title. And so, my title is just a statement of plain fact, regarding today. My brain is tired, what with all the writing about islands, and obvious things are bringing me the simplest pleasures. My toes are small. Tonight I will eat a Hot Pocket. Later I will drink a beer. A Newcastle, obviously.

My humble apologies for a spaced-out post. In the vein I've been following on Facebook and elsewhere, I'll end with a delightful snippet from E.M Forster's A Room with a View:

Conversation was tedious; she wanted something big, and she believed that it would have come to her on the wind-swept platform of an electric tram. This she might not attempt. It was unladylike. Why? Why were most big things unladylike? Charlotte had once explained to her why. It was not that ladies were inferior to men; it was that they were different. Their mission was to inspire others to achievement rather than to achieve themselves. Indirectly, by means of tact and a spotless name, a lady could accomplish much. But if she rushed into the fray herself she would be first censured, then despised, and finally ignored. Poems had been written to illustrate this point.

There is much that is immortal in this medieval lady. The dragons have gone, and so have the knights, but still she lingers in our midst. She reigned in many an early Victorian castle, and was Queen of much early Victorian song. It is sweet to protect her in the intervals of business, sweet to pay her honour when she has cooked our dinner well. But alas! the creature grows degenerate. In her heart also there are springing up strange desires. She too is enamoured of heavy winds, and vast panoramas, and green expanses of the sea. She has marked the kingdom of this world, how full it is of wealth, and beauty, and war--a radiant crust, built around the central fires, spinning towards the receding heavens. Men, declaring that she inspires them to it, move joyfully over the surface, having the most delightful meetings with other men, happy, not because they are masculine, but because they are alive. Before the show breaks up she would like to drop the august title of the Eternal Woman, and go there as her transitory self.

Ah, Forster: witty proponent of egality in Joy, Life. Goodnight,

RP

Things that Resonate

First let me say, Orangina: the Champagne of orange juices.

It's a weird run here, chucks. I've got two weeks left in Chicago. The furniture is gone from the ol' apartment, Casey is in Morocco, it's just me, a camping chair and the cable televizions. I am watching CSI as I type; it is awfully quiet without the TV on.

But the acoustics! Who knew this apartment was so damn echoey. I sneeze; the building rings with the rage of my respiratory reflex. It is as though I have shattered the sanctitude of a temple I did not realize existed, until I broke its stillness with my thoughtless fits of allergic hypersensitivity. It is dusty without the furniture here.

Speaking of resonance, I find myself bursting into song these days. Any place with promising acoustics, I try on for size: quietly, if I must; resounding, if I may. Deeply, richly, robustly, if I am drunk. (It seems to me that I sing well, when I am drunk. This feels like tautology, but it is too late for me to work that out properly.) I digress; location-location-location. Bathrooms, bathtubs, banks; all hold promise, some deliver on it. The public aspect of publicly bursting into song has yet to hit home; there is glorious anonymity in wandering a big city alone. Though I must say: good acoustics make me happy, but other people who notice/enjoy good acoustics make me even happier. (This is an invitation for you all to belt out a tune in my presence, should you wish to do so.)

Another topic: Some of you have noticed that my Facebook page has become a repository for E.M. Forster quotes. Truth. I have confessed to some already, and here I make a general statement: A Room with a View -- a novel, a 176 page comedy of manners and societal mores -- is the fountainhead of a good deal of my personal philosophy. I recommend it.

Let me first say: I do not identify with Mr. Emerson, certainly not with Lucy, nor with anyone else in the novel (though in Freddy Honeychurch, I declare a favorite). Rather, I appreciate the fabric, the environment of this story. Below the romantic current, there rests a riverbed manifesto against repression, restriction, the rubbish that cumbers the world. ("The rubbish that cumbers the world." E. M. Forster. A Room with a View. Hayes Barton Press, 1908. Chapter 13. I quote this book constantly, naturally. I lost the reflex long ago to make "air quotes" with my fingers.) This world-cumbering rubbish seems particularly appropriate food for thought in the present day. Though we speak freely about sex, bodily functions, and the letter "S" (stomachs), confusion, conflict, and willful self-deception abound as strongly today as in any other period of history. Though society as a whole may never move beyond the rubbish, as individuals, we would all do well to see across it.

Alright, that's enough philosophy for tonight ('"I say, what about this bathe?" murmured Freddy, appalled at the mass of philosophy that was approaching him.' Chapter 12. Echoes in my head). Spike has switched from a CSI marathon to a thinly-disguised infomercial for unnatural male enhancement, and I think this is a signal for me to wrap things up. Since I have made heavy use of quotation marks in this post, I will end with a sign we saw on the bus today:

"Do not drill here"
Electrical wires

I leave it to you to puzzle out the rationale there. Farewell, and goodnight,

-RP

Light Skin, Dark Skin, My Asian Persuasion...

Saw this at a club last night and thought, this video is so me:



I'd heard the song before, and noted the amazing lyrical snippet above. But Janet Jackson! Space rocks! Planets! Shiny spider-spacewalk-dancers! Dancing on planets! Also, supertight group dance sequence. Only thing missing: some lasers in space.

Hot.

Missed Connections

You were the angriest baby I'd ever seen. You sat up in your stroller, your hands clenched in tiny fists. You glared at the people who walked through the quad: undergrad drifters looking for lunch, grad students blinking in the daylight. You did not cry. But I thought to myself: man, that baby looks pissed.


* * *

Also, I found a gigantic wrench.

It was buried in a scientific debris pile in the high-pressure mineral physics lab, which has been abandoned / inhabited by vagrants for decades. It's more than two feet long, two inches thick, and weighs something like 25 lbs. You might ask, so what? It's a long wrench. But it's not just a normal wrench that has been stretched out, length-wise. It's a normal wrench that has been blown up, proportionally, into a comical Novelty Wrench made of solid steel. It's Wayne Szalinzki, "Honey I Blew Up the Kid!" except he missed, and hit the tool box.

The funniest thing about this wrench is that it was, I think, actually functional. Somebody (here I envision a brawny, tanned high-pressure mineral physicist) wielded that thing, swung it up and used it to tighten some massive bolts. I wonder if the bolts are lying around somewhere, too.

* * *

This brings me to my last point. Have you ever encountered something so strange and wonderful that you felt a need to broadcast, to shout it from the mountaintops? I did this today with the wrench ("I found a gigantic wrench!"), and all of my conversations (real and electronic) came to a glaring halt. Glorious non sequitur; electronic silence. Well, once you write it, you can't take it back (can you? is there an 'undo send?'). I'll make up for it by being robustly sane for the next few weeks. That ought to take care of it.

Meditation on a Treadmill

There's a certain zen to the feel of sweat running down your face. Remember when you were a kid, tracing raindrops with your finger as they zigzagged their way down a window? It's like that. Except rain is beautiful, and sweat is kind of gross.

Also windowpanes are cold, and my face is very hot.

Crime, Punishment, Assorted Curiosities! Scenes from the daily UChicago grind

Redacted. -- Ed.
Click here for the full post, or email me for access.
* *

Alright chucks.

March and April gone, with nary a post from me. Some of you have noted that I only write when something extraordinary, outrageous, fantastical! happens my way. This is, in general, true; however, it's true by default rather than design. Tonight I steer the blog towards calmer waters: waves may be lower in amplitude but higher in frequency. But why?! you might ask. Well reader, extraordinary is by definition rare, and this is boring, for me and for you. So let's put extraordinary aside, and set our sights on curious.

Things that I have found curious (which have come to my attention within the scope of the past two months, and which I have failed to address in the course of daily conversations, these being sadly limited) are:

(1) Marathons. Not the kind where you run. The kind where you sit on a couch, toss your remote, and submit yourself to the will of a single cable television station, only to find that it has devoted its entire daytime lineup to a [addictive network TV show] -dash- marathon. I love this. I have watched Scrubs-marathons, House-marathons, separate and distinct marathons of CSI, CSI: Miami and CSI: New York, marathons that render entire days useless, marathons that glide seamlessly into nights of untroubled sleep. In the process, I have convinced myself that I have Cushing's syndrome (thanks House), and grow ever more mistrustful of my potentially-homicidal officemates (thanks CSI). Also, thanks Jorja Fox. Nothing specific. Just thanks.

(2) Germans, specifically Emo-Germans, extra-specifically the Emo-German Thomas. Thomas is stuck on a rollercoaster ride of conflicting emotions towards yours truly, aka his personal chauffeur (no joke, this is how he introduced me to his friends in Houston).

(3) Shark Bites!! (fruit snack) How are they so delectable? It seems wrong.

It's Not Delivery; It's DiGiorno! Wheat Futures in Record Territory

Eat pizza, boost economy.


From the Wall Street Journal:

The little-known Minneapolis Grain Exchange is suddenly one of the hottest spots in the global financial markets as the price of its flagship commodity -- the wheat used to make bread and pizza crust -- shatters records, enriching farmers and fueling fears about shortages.

What a photograph. Kudos, Associated Press. What range! What expression, played out across the faces of these honest Minnesotan folk. Monumental triumph, anticipation, earth-shattering restraint! All come crashing out of the great solution of human emotion, drawn down by the prospect of wheat futures.

However! While Bald, Portly Gentleman in Blue brings us a certain joy with his irrespressible personal optimism, Purple Shirt, Yellow Jacket (aka the guy from Ferris Bueller?) does well to exercise caution. Fear runs in rivulets, out there in the trading pits. Unprecedented volatility draws disbelief and worries of market collapse.

Keep an eye on this one.

The Moonstone

LOST: Silver bracelet, set with moonstone jewel.

(If the title of this post got you all hopped up and ready for a riveting discussion of the 1868 Wilkie Collins novel of the same name, apologies. The book happens to be sitting on my desk. As soon as I do finish it, I'll write something up.)

This post is actually about a recent minor catastrophe. I lost my moonstone. Years ago, a Hindu astrologer, having channeled the dictates of various star charts and arcane numerological calculations of unassailable veracity, determined that I should wear a moonstone as my birthstone, and also that I should beware my coworkers, for they are untrustworthy.

Well you take the good with the bad, and there you have it. I have worn a moonstone on my wrist ever since, and in the back of my mind there ever lurks a dim mistrust of officemates.

One's birthstone is a thing of some importance in my family. It is the single object that belongs to one from birth, sort of a spiritual possession. I am particularly fond of moonstone in general: it's a cloudy sort of stone, and holds light in a calm sort of way; a soothing foil to the skittish brilliance of other cut stones. The bracelet I've been wearing every moment for the past 2.5 years was made for me in India--commissioned by my mother from a prominent Calcutta jeweler, its authenticity guaranteed by a threat of professional exposure by her daughter, the Harvard geologist (I loved this -- thanks Mom).

And I lost it. Lost it! Yesterday, between shopping for groceries and walking to the bank. So, for the past two days I have been (a) methodically retracing my every step from Saturday 1pm to 530pm, and (b) struggling to convince myself that my identity has not been lessened or lost, though the stone is beyond my sight.

In my anxiety for bracelet-recovery, I trudged up and down 53rd street, left phone numbers with every store I had entered, then drove to Target Store #3722 and wheeled my way through each and every aisle, scanning the floors for a glimmer or shine. I resigned myself; the bracelet is probably lost.

And yet this afternoon, I realized that I'd been fundamentally going about this the wrong way. Having realized that, I became free to go about this the right way. I have decided that my bracelet, being part of my identity, has been granted a traveling allowance. It is now free to roam, to see the world on my behalf. It may even see in the inside of a pawn shop -- a most interesting locale.

Having settled that, I should address the sole lingering worry. The lasting failure here, in losing this bracelet, revolves around plans I held for the distant future. A notion of posterity, of heirloom, of future's interest in past. I imagined this piece would be passed down in the family collection for at least two generations, and that someone would show my grandchildren the jewel that their grandmother wore at her wrist. Well, that's out. So:

Dear grandchildren,

The bracelet is made of sterling silver chain, with five or six rings and a hook at the ends; it is set with an oval-cut moonstone sized at about half an inch the long way. It was lost in Chicago in 2008. Go find it. Check the local pawn shops.

But I know you won't find it, because I didn't, and I looked all over the place. Ah well. Don't obsess, brush your teeth; eat oatmeal, it does wonders. And if you don't know what a moonstone is, look it up, for shame.

There ends my converse with the future, for now. I have addressed all my major concerns in this affair, and therefore close the document with a heavy sigh, last tribute to lost treasure. From here on out, I look to the next moonstone (there will be a next), and I'll be sure to let you know when I get it.

Goodnight,
RP