Air conditioning is a drug, no doubt.
-Brian Lehrer

Don't say I didn't warn you

"British doomsday mathematician" Gordon Ritchie has revised his date for the upcoming UN Plaza bombing:
. . . So the new date for the first nuclear terrorist bomb at UN Plaza in Midtown Manhattan is Sundown Sunday July 30th - Sundown Tuesday August 1, 2006 . . . We can only apologise once more. It would be a lot more helpful if the Watchtower would communicate with us. Had they done this then perhaps we would be able to save many more lives in NYC if our general interpretation of 1 Kings 18 is correct.

Damned Watchtower.

Zombie Dance party. What's the problem?

So all Americans care about is work...

(from 2000 or possibly 1999)
I left the funeral home at 3am exactly, an hour after I told Alex and Vanessa I'd be seeing them. Not that I really wanted to stay, but talks of electrical theory and the sweet European makeup girl jamming on her Walkman kept me tied up longer than I'd hoped.

And so we left together. She was heading for 9th and B, I think. I'm not sure exactly. I had a hard time understanding her as she asked if I was leaving and which way I was walking. But we eventually agreed to walk together,Probably to 9th and 1st, where I went left and she went straight. And the whole time she's talking and I'm talking -- and lemme get this straight, I don't think it was just bullshitting. There's a certain barrier that comes down when talking to foreigners. Like certain social norms get thrown out the window. Nothing offensive, just certain formalities don't exist for me and I feel like I can really talk about culture and society and get down to what really interests me about people.

So again, the whole time I'm talking and she's talking and we're engaged and all that. Then all I can think is, "now what was her name? Maria? Naria? Dammit, I had her spell it for me even! Why am I so bad?" as if it's important. And while she talked about Americans' obsession with work after I asked her if she had trouble relating to people of a different culture and background on a a personal level, I though about how happy I was that I got a job for the following day and what exactly Billy Joel meant when he said "some people sleep all alone at night instead of taking a lover to bed."

And is it not a good thing that Americans think about work all the time? My intuition tells me so, but I really do like working and I'm happiest when I'm doing a lot of it. Long hours. Days and nights spending three hours of it at home, sleeping two of them.

So we laughed all the way to 9th and 1st and she did that kiss-on-both-cheeks thing when we parted. That's sweet, I thought at the time. Then she said something about Spaniards never asking how old each other were. I didn't think Americans did either. I thought that was my thing. Oh well. I guess I'm more of a typical American than I thought. At least according to ma petite, sweet Mlle de Tocqueville here, the omniscient cultural observer. But that kiss! Oh, my. And she sings along to her Walkman.

So we parted and I thought again how it's been two days since I brushed my teeth and my mouth tastes like garlic and I'm sweating vodka.

Fall 2000

$700 - storefront w/ basement: Broadway and Belle Plaine Ave

Alex: Well at least we'll be loved...

Summer '00...
Alex told me about a mutual friend one day: "She was fuckin' whinin' about some guy she went out with dumping her. They were together for two weeks and he was fucking his ex-girlfriend the whole time and SHE CARES. I can't stand that girl." I can't stand her either, really. But I can't say I don't understand either. You meet someone you like them and they like you. That's worth a lot. It feels good to have someone who's really there with you. And once you have it you don't want to let go...

And reading today ...
People are crazy irrational, emotional beings. It's out of control. Barry Schwartz, The Costs of Living:

We should be mindful that people who do things for some people out of love may well do things to others out of hate. People who give special treatment to those they know and like may deny such treatment--or any treatment--to those they don't know or don't like. And as their feelings for the people they know change--out of envy, spite or resentment-- their treatment of those people will also change. Given the mercurial character of human emotions, and the dynamic character of personal relations, a social world based on these relations would be unstable and unpredictable. If, instead, people calculated their selfish interests in calm, cool, rational fashion, and then relentlessly pursued those interests, social life would become much more stable and predictable.

When love affairs turn sour, lovers rarely become neutral toward one another. Instead there is an impulse to lash out, to be cruel, to hurt, even if doing so is hurtful to oneself. It is better to understand that people will stay connected to others only as long as the cost-benefit calculations they engage in say it is worth their while to do so, better to understand that intimate relations are just an exchange of goods and services than to be deluded into thinking that love will rule over self-interest and lead people to act for the benefit of those they love no matter what the cost. Thinking realistically about love encourages us to develop a social system that protects people against the disappointment, exploitation, abandonment, and heartbreak that dependence on a romantic conception of love so often brings.

Then he goes on to say how that this kind of economic imperialism discredits love and dismisses all its qualities that the market can't provide ("compassion, care, tenderness, intimacy, openness, and vulnerability").

So fine. Alex is an economic imperialist. I'm sure he'd "love" it if you called him that.

I've never broken up with someone or been broken up with and felt so weird that I just treated the person like crap and wrote them off and never wanted to speak to them again. Sure there's some emotional pain. Weeping and feeling like your chest and throat switched places, but so what. You get over it and try to be friends. You liked her before you split. It's not okay to like her after? Not to say that this sentiment was always reciprocated in my past relationships (I once had a pair of underwear returned to me by mail, shredded). A lot of people think it's crazy to be friends with people you've dated. Like it's poison.