Sometimes I think I'm the only person who doesn't know what he wants, which is a silly thing to think. Often, I think that maybe I'm just not picky enough. Less often, I think that I don't think about it enough and so haven't proactively developed a taste for anything. Rarely, I think that I just haven't yet encountered anything resembling something I would want. But I don't really believe that. I've exposed myself to plenty. To plenty in excess of plenty multiplied by wastage of time raised to the power of whatever.
It turns out that I have been thinking and that I know more about what I want than I knew I know now, nearly new as the knowledge is. Call it maturity or inevitability, but maybe the sum of all indifference is truth or even wisdom. Well, I'm eleven years short of forty so let's not get carried away just yet. Instead, let's call it 'about freakin' time.'
Is this about a woman? No, it's about my job. Somehow I've made a decision about which I wasn't aware until I heard myself say it and--oddly--it made so much sense! I talked about what I've been looking for with such confidence and eloquence that the stuttering, indecisive, impassionate person in me put down his spray bottle of bleach, pulled off the rubber gloves, and, for the first time, let some dust settle. I'd been so busy fretting about the order and congruity of everything in my life that I wasn't experiencing my experience, just cataloguing it and shelving it neatly, plenty in excess of plenty multiplied by 29 years. I'm glad that someone was watching the road.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Viva la Revolución Antiséptica!
I've written at length, though never coherently,* about the mockery we make of curbing the spread of nosocomial infections by insisting on wearing ties. Fie upon the tie et cetera.
Anyway, ties are only the beginning of my usually pointless griping. The original idea for my anti-sartorial campaign came in the cliched form of a dream. Actually, it was a nightmare, but it wasn't as scary as it was boring and horribly written and shot. The director was probably asleep during filming. Suffice it to say that the talentless protagonist (through whose eyes this farce was depicted) was being interviewed at a prestigious teaching hospital for a residency position and was not clothed in the complete and traditional interview getup.
Namely, he was missing a tie. But also a jacket, a shirt, and pants. And he was unshaven and crusty-eyed. I mean, he had all of these things with him but he was holding them in his hands as if to say, 'I have no use for these! Ask me your questions, sir, and do not mind the hole in my boxers, for I am confident that you will find me to be nothing less than professional.'
Interpret this however you want, but I take it to mean that something must be done about clothing. Obviously, given the popularity of sculpture, nude photography, and sex and pornography, I am right. Don't argue with me, for I can weave a straightjacket of syllogisms around you faster than you can say 'that doesn't make any sense, you idiot.' And it's true, I am an idiot, I should know.
The point is that in addition to banning the necktie in the hospital we must also ban sleeves, white coats, and pants. Every time a tie, shirtsleeve, or pant leg brushes over some germy metropolis on one person's backside, it takes some of those citizens on a ride to the next person's face and, of course, the physician's lunch and no amount of hand sanitizer or handwashing will address the domino effect of cross-contamination. What we need is leadership on this issue. What we need is a Truman Doctrine--a Marshall Plan if you will--for the containment of microbial evil. While I'm no leader, I will gladly take up my position as behind-the-scenes pragmatist and insidious instigator of antimicrobial attrition and realpolitik. A neurotic germophobic George Kennan if you will (and if you won't).
We must therefore institute funding for an armory consisting of the weapons necessary for this war--for make no mistake, that is what this is comrades and we must not shirk our responsibilities! What this plan amounts to is the distribution of scissors to a contingent of able-fingered guerilla housestaff who will use them to carry out lightning raids, cutting dangling bits of clothing not closely adherent to the bodies of caregivers in the hospital. These soldiers of sanitation will fly by nursing stations snipping off germ-dinghies and bacteria-boats as they swarm, bringing back the sleeveless look from the outskirts of fashion onto the catwalk of the clinically responsible.
We must then fortify our offensive with daring propaganda. This is no time for bashfulness comrades, for the revolution cannot wait. Our message must be clear and strong:
* On a parenthetical lever, I don't want to give you the wrong impression. This post will certainly not be coherent either. Homie don't 'play that' and he's n't about t' start today. D' n't question m' use of the apostrophe. It's ours to dispense with as we each please. I don't come to your house and tell you not to end sentences with a preposition.
Anyway, ties are only the beginning of my usually pointless griping. The original idea for my anti-sartorial campaign came in the cliched form of a dream. Actually, it was a nightmare, but it wasn't as scary as it was boring and horribly written and shot. The director was probably asleep during filming. Suffice it to say that the talentless protagonist (through whose eyes this farce was depicted) was being interviewed at a prestigious teaching hospital for a residency position and was not clothed in the complete and traditional interview getup.
Namely, he was missing a tie. But also a jacket, a shirt, and pants. And he was unshaven and crusty-eyed. I mean, he had all of these things with him but he was holding them in his hands as if to say, 'I have no use for these! Ask me your questions, sir, and do not mind the hole in my boxers, for I am confident that you will find me to be nothing less than professional.'
Interpret this however you want, but I take it to mean that something must be done about clothing. Obviously, given the popularity of sculpture, nude photography, and sex and pornography, I am right. Don't argue with me, for I can weave a straightjacket of syllogisms around you faster than you can say 'that doesn't make any sense, you idiot.' And it's true, I am an idiot, I should know.
The point is that in addition to banning the necktie in the hospital we must also ban sleeves, white coats, and pants. Every time a tie, shirtsleeve, or pant leg brushes over some germy metropolis on one person's backside, it takes some of those citizens on a ride to the next person's face and, of course, the physician's lunch and no amount of hand sanitizer or handwashing will address the domino effect of cross-contamination. What we need is leadership on this issue. What we need is a Truman Doctrine--a Marshall Plan if you will--for the containment of microbial evil. While I'm no leader, I will gladly take up my position as behind-the-scenes pragmatist and insidious instigator of antimicrobial attrition and realpolitik. A neurotic germophobic George Kennan if you will (and if you won't).
We must therefore institute funding for an armory consisting of the weapons necessary for this war--for make no mistake, that is what this is comrades and we must not shirk our responsibilities! What this plan amounts to is the distribution of scissors to a contingent of able-fingered guerilla housestaff who will use them to carry out lightning raids, cutting dangling bits of clothing not closely adherent to the bodies of caregivers in the hospital. These soldiers of sanitation will fly by nursing stations snipping off germ-dinghies and bacteria-boats as they swarm, bringing back the sleeveless look from the outskirts of fashion onto the catwalk of the clinically responsible.
We must then fortify our offensive with daring propaganda. This is no time for bashfulness comrades, for the revolution cannot wait. Our message must be clear and strong:
The noose of the enemy chokes you! Off with your tie!
Cut off support to the enemy of the people! Cut off your sleeves!
Pants are the haven of the antisocialite germ! Remove them from our midst!
May the sounds of steel kisses and flying fabric resonate in the halls of healing! Viva la Revolución Antiséptica!
* On a parenthetical lever, I don't want to give you the wrong impression. This post will certainly not be coherent either. Homie don't 'play that' and he's n't about t' start today. D' n't question m' use of the apostrophe. It's ours to dispense with as we each please. I don't come to your house and tell you not to end sentences with a preposition.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
I want luscious bounce and body in my revolution
The rain splishles in plipples and plooples and all that I can think about is how liberating it would be for me to have hair that bobbles as I walk. Also, it would be spectacular to have a soundtrackle.
I love pseudoalliteration almost as much as I love myself. What is it about vanity that puts people off? I'm not vain, and I go to great lengths to prove it by actively not being vain in front of other people because obviously they're all looking at me and waiting for me to bust a move (for that is indeed what I might do on the bus from time to time). So I constantly shoot other people looks to figure out what percentages of their brains are occupied by me and my dry split ends. Also, I wonder if they can hear my soundtrack. It's really good. Danny Elfman and Michael Nyman are always getting into their shenanigans while Zbigniew Preisner packs his Polish cable runner into a suitcase and ships him to the West, and Eric Serra makes really interesting sounds by hitting John Tesh over the head with a Korg.
It holds me together.
Actually though, this is what everyone else is thinking:
That guy keeps looking at me. Can I see my reflection in the bus window? Alright, I need to do this without anyone noticing that I'm doing it because that would be vain. I know, I'll act like I'm gazing at that homeless guy across the street with a look of pity on my face, and I'll use that to get a good look at my hair and forehead wrinkles. Are my ears really that big? I bet that's what he's looking at. He can't get enough of my huge elephant ears. Look at all these plastic surgery ads. I wonder why they advertise on the bus.
What does this have to do with the issues? How far would granting me gorgeous curl body and volume advance the cause of bettering the human condition? How does this seemingly trivial topic fit in with the by now famous themes of this acclaimed issue-laden blog--namely humanism, virtuosity, righteousness, seriousness, counterterrorism, war, the economy, and evil (it's all there people, check the labels)? I promise you that I will dispense with each of these items one by one and explain, in detail, what it has to do with humans and so on. I can do it while I wait for the hair serum to work.
[Intelligent debate about important things interrupted by the military-industrial complex. No you shut up, we do exist.]
So, to sum up, ending the suffering of all but the most foregone people can be accomplished with little if no effort and won't cost us more than twenty cents over the next three years. And for just fifty-nine cents more we can supersize our order and save those last few poor sods as well.
And that's how deep conditioner saved the world.
I love pseudoalliteration almost as much as I love myself. What is it about vanity that puts people off? I'm not vain, and I go to great lengths to prove it by actively not being vain in front of other people because obviously they're all looking at me and waiting for me to bust a move (for that is indeed what I might do on the bus from time to time). So I constantly shoot other people looks to figure out what percentages of their brains are occupied by me and my dry split ends. Also, I wonder if they can hear my soundtrack. It's really good. Danny Elfman and Michael Nyman are always getting into their shenanigans while Zbigniew Preisner packs his Polish cable runner into a suitcase and ships him to the West, and Eric Serra makes really interesting sounds by hitting John Tesh over the head with a Korg.
It holds me together.
Actually though, this is what everyone else is thinking:
That guy keeps looking at me. Can I see my reflection in the bus window? Alright, I need to do this without anyone noticing that I'm doing it because that would be vain. I know, I'll act like I'm gazing at that homeless guy across the street with a look of pity on my face, and I'll use that to get a good look at my hair and forehead wrinkles. Are my ears really that big? I bet that's what he's looking at. He can't get enough of my huge elephant ears. Look at all these plastic surgery ads. I wonder why they advertise on the bus.
What does this have to do with the issues? How far would granting me gorgeous curl body and volume advance the cause of bettering the human condition? How does this seemingly trivial topic fit in with the by now famous themes of this acclaimed issue-laden blog--namely humanism, virtuosity, righteousness, seriousness, counterterrorism, war, the economy, and evil (it's all there people, check the labels)? I promise you that I will dispense with each of these items one by one and explain, in detail, what it has to do with humans and so on. I can do it while I wait for the hair serum to work.
[Intelligent debate about important things interrupted by the military-industrial complex. No you shut up, we do exist.]
So, to sum up, ending the suffering of all but the most foregone people can be accomplished with little if no effort and won't cost us more than twenty cents over the next three years. And for just fifty-nine cents more we can supersize our order and save those last few poor sods as well.
And that's how deep conditioner saved the world.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Frisbee golf
On Sunday I went out with a couple of friends to play frisbee golf. The game isn't quite as athletic as, say, ultimate frisbee, but it's also not as ridiculously unsporty as real golf.
You get three discs: a 'driver,' a 'putter,' and a medium range disc. The driver is heavy, aerodynamic, and incredibly difficult to control. The putter is the lightest, most precise disc but it has the shortest range. The goal is to get any one of your discs into a 'hole,' which is just a metal basket with chains to slow your disc down and guide it into the basket.
Keeping score is just like in golf. Also as in golf, some holes are farther away and harder to get to than others. Some are just plain ridiculous; because we were playing in the middle of a forested park, most of the 18 holes were right the middle of the trees. In one case, the hole happened to have a tree fall right on top of it, as in this photo.
You get three discs: a 'driver,' a 'putter,' and a medium range disc. The driver is heavy, aerodynamic, and incredibly difficult to control. The putter is the lightest, most precise disc but it has the shortest range. The goal is to get any one of your discs into a 'hole,' which is just a metal basket with chains to slow your disc down and guide it into the basket.Keeping score is just like in golf. Also as in golf, some holes are farther away and harder to get to than others. Some are just plain ridiculous; because we were playing in the middle of a forested park, most of the 18 holes were right the middle of the trees. In one case, the hole happened to have a tree fall right on top of it, as in this photo.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Goethe and the proverbial substance
In its finality, the cul-de-sac of knowledge impresses those who've been disappointed by education as the mode and mark of social evolution. It is where, in order to learn more (that is, to drive through the proverbial living room of the proverbial house at the end of the cul-de-sac and out into the backyard and through the proverbial fence and into the darkness beyond, perhaps into a ditch or ravine of some sort where we might meet an early but satisfying proverbial death), we must peer over our shoulders at what we learned before we turned into the cul-de-sac o'proverbs after we bought 'cigarettes' at the proverbial corner store when the (proverbial) man said something kind of profound but not so much really because he was selling cigarettes at a corner store and of course every once in a while he'll say something that's not completely bereft of substance as he exhales. That sort of thing makes me feel warm inside.
That reminds me of the time when Goethe and I were camping in a totally appropriate male-bonding sort of way, making 'smores and conversation and dispensing wisdom and recyclables (and recyclable wisdom) across arcades of sparks and embers. He was sugar-high and said something like--and I am translating his medieval German--'Yo Cauliflower, monkey library Simon as scallops handbanana cheek absolute yellowcake* sportyshine leaf-faucet National Public Radio fork.' I'm paraphrasing; my medieval German isn't as superbly excellent as my English.
My memory does fail me at times, but this time I am fairly certain that what G-Tonez was trying to tell me was that we must reflect upon our past if we are to avoid living hand to mouth. To me this just sounds like an elitist assault on the decent hard-working hunter-gatherers in society, especially the ones who have amnesia. But even though he probably meant collective and mostly scientific memory--the (proverbial) shoulders upon which we stand before we can advance as a species--social memory is no exception, I think.
The problem is that memory does fail, and social memory is no exception. One might say that, because of the sheer noise involved in the laying down of memories on a social scale, it is impossible to nuance them with those subtle (and essential) features that temper the imagination and tame the reflexes. Indeed some social memories occupy such an inflamed corner in our collective mind that even accessing those memories tends to lead to wildly impulsive, base, even animal responses. Case in point: September 11, 2001. Despite it not being the first nor the worst event of its kind, our self-proclaimed keepers of the social memory (journalists, politicians) have wrapped us so tightly and rigidly in the inflamed axons of its memory that to move one way or another, to reach into our pockets for nuance, becomes impossible at least as part of the mainstream discourse.
Whenever I use words such as 'mainstream' and 'discourse' I know that I've gone too far and need to shut up.
* I would like to stay off the no-fly list, please, because I have places to go from time to time.
That reminds me of the time when Goethe and I were camping in a totally appropriate male-bonding sort of way, making 'smores and conversation and dispensing wisdom and recyclables (and recyclable wisdom) across arcades of sparks and embers. He was sugar-high and said something like--and I am translating his medieval German--'Yo Cauliflower, monkey library Simon as scallops handbanana cheek absolute yellowcake* sportyshine leaf-faucet National Public Radio fork.' I'm paraphrasing; my medieval German isn't as superbly excellent as my English.
My memory does fail me at times, but this time I am fairly certain that what G-Tonez was trying to tell me was that we must reflect upon our past if we are to avoid living hand to mouth. To me this just sounds like an elitist assault on the decent hard-working hunter-gatherers in society, especially the ones who have amnesia. But even though he probably meant collective and mostly scientific memory--the (proverbial) shoulders upon which we stand before we can advance as a species--social memory is no exception, I think.
The problem is that memory does fail, and social memory is no exception. One might say that, because of the sheer noise involved in the laying down of memories on a social scale, it is impossible to nuance them with those subtle (and essential) features that temper the imagination and tame the reflexes. Indeed some social memories occupy such an inflamed corner in our collective mind that even accessing those memories tends to lead to wildly impulsive, base, even animal responses. Case in point: September 11, 2001. Despite it not being the first nor the worst event of its kind, our self-proclaimed keepers of the social memory (journalists, politicians) have wrapped us so tightly and rigidly in the inflamed axons of its memory that to move one way or another, to reach into our pockets for nuance, becomes impossible at least as part of the mainstream discourse.
Whenever I use words such as 'mainstream' and 'discourse' I know that I've gone too far and need to shut up.
* I would like to stay off the no-fly list, please, because I have places to go from time to time.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Writing the hell out of racism
I am one of those people who think that words can change the world, especially words that are made of electricity and that are written by encouragable energy-balls who have over-mastered the use of the gamepad and the exclamation mark.August 6 through 12 is International Blog Against Racism Week. What you need to do is:
- Get yourself a blog.
- Write something in your blog about racism for a week.
- Sit back and watch racism get pwned.
- Smile because you totally did it!!!!!!!! LOLOLOL
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Emotional meteorology
Warning: This post contains brain violence and emotional nudity. Also, it is ridiculous.
Last night, I was taking a mercury bath and had a thought, maybe. I don't remember. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that I wish I knew how to talk good about my feelings. Like, I want to be able to go from feeling a feeling, to noticing that I am feeling it, to figuring out what feeling it is, to deciding whether or not I like feeling the feeling, to being able to make the words with my brain that would stick to the feeling and make it so that when someone asks me what I'm feeling I can say something that makes sense like, 'hungry' or, 'my heart hurts because I missed the Golden Girls on the TV box.'
That was a bad example. I should come up with a point before bringing forth the examples.
See, I wish I knew how to make points. They told me in school that it was like whittling an arrowhead from a piece of obsidian. Not a big clumpy piece like one you would find buried in a river bed but the nice flat smooth pieces you find in cowboy skeletons that were once part of the circle of life on ocean floors 50 hundred million years ago.* Case in point: I was having a conversation on (in?) the subway and a dude came up to me and told me to get to the point. It was none of his business, so I was like, 'why don't you get to the point?' Really. I wasn't talking to him or to anyone in that car so it was none of any of their businesses. I was having a great conversation nevertheless. Mobile phones don't work in (on?) the subway.
So I gave him the old Garrison Keillor, 'No, no, it's a different story, about a pontoon boat.' And then my studio audience laughed. With me, not at me. 'Ha ha' and not 'hee hee,' as it were.
So to get back to what I was talking about before: some people have what those same people like to call 'emotional intelligence.' As far as I can tell, it's like the force, except it is missing some forcey things the most lamentable of which are levitation and deadly (but peace-loving) skill with a hybrid light saber.
Sometimes I wish I were able to identify the things that I know I must be feeling and to describe them in the same way that I can describe other things that I like such as juice. (Oh my gosh have you had it? It's delicious.) People who have this emotional intelligence feature are ever-aware of their own emotional climate--and they can sense the emotional meteorology of others.
Even though it sounds like a load of goat cud, I wanted to raise my 'emotional IQ,' as it were. One of my good friends claims that he is one of these feeling Jedis. Let's call him 'Linda.' I thought that, since I've been calling him by a girl's name, this might have something to do with why he's so good at keeping in touch with himself. (Don't even.)
So for two weeks, he called me 'Janet' at my request. We would go out for sushi, and I'd say, 'Hey Linda, pass the wasabi.' Then he'd say, 'Janet, I think you're being passive aggressive.'
'Can you shut up and grab me that white tuna** from the conveyor belt? You always get the good seat you bastard, where you get to see what's coming upstream while I have to keep asking you to feed me like a fessacchione. Ooh, wait, is that a $4.00 plate? Forget it. By the way, that's active aggression, right? How'm I doing? Good?'
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I wish I had wider shoulders so that I could wear a double-breasted pea coat without people thinking that Manute Bol had an albino midget son with a homeostasis problem.
* Note: this is not true at all.
** My second favorite variety of sushi in the world, after eel kabayaki nigiri.
Last night, I was taking a mercury bath and had a thought, maybe. I don't remember. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that I wish I knew how to talk good about my feelings. Like, I want to be able to go from feeling a feeling, to noticing that I am feeling it, to figuring out what feeling it is, to deciding whether or not I like feeling the feeling, to being able to make the words with my brain that would stick to the feeling and make it so that when someone asks me what I'm feeling I can say something that makes sense like, 'hungry' or, 'my heart hurts because I missed the Golden Girls on the TV box.'
That was a bad example. I should come up with a point before bringing forth the examples.
See, I wish I knew how to make points. They told me in school that it was like whittling an arrowhead from a piece of obsidian. Not a big clumpy piece like one you would find buried in a river bed but the nice flat smooth pieces you find in cowboy skeletons that were once part of the circle of life on ocean floors 50 hundred million years ago.* Case in point: I was having a conversation on (in?) the subway and a dude came up to me and told me to get to the point. It was none of his business, so I was like, 'why don't you get to the point?' Really. I wasn't talking to him or to anyone in that car so it was none of any of their businesses. I was having a great conversation nevertheless. Mobile phones don't work in (on?) the subway.
So I gave him the old Garrison Keillor, 'No, no, it's a different story, about a pontoon boat.' And then my studio audience laughed. With me, not at me. 'Ha ha' and not 'hee hee,' as it were.
So to get back to what I was talking about before: some people have what those same people like to call 'emotional intelligence.' As far as I can tell, it's like the force, except it is missing some forcey things the most lamentable of which are levitation and deadly (but peace-loving) skill with a hybrid light saber.
Sometimes I wish I were able to identify the things that I know I must be feeling and to describe them in the same way that I can describe other things that I like such as juice. (Oh my gosh have you had it? It's delicious.) People who have this emotional intelligence feature are ever-aware of their own emotional climate--and they can sense the emotional meteorology of others.
Even though it sounds like a load of goat cud, I wanted to raise my 'emotional IQ,' as it were. One of my good friends claims that he is one of these feeling Jedis. Let's call him 'Linda.' I thought that, since I've been calling him by a girl's name, this might have something to do with why he's so good at keeping in touch with himself. (Don't even.)
So for two weeks, he called me 'Janet' at my request. We would go out for sushi, and I'd say, 'Hey Linda, pass the wasabi.' Then he'd say, 'Janet, I think you're being passive aggressive.'
'Can you shut up and grab me that white tuna** from the conveyor belt? You always get the good seat you bastard, where you get to see what's coming upstream while I have to keep asking you to feed me like a fessacchione. Ooh, wait, is that a $4.00 plate? Forget it. By the way, that's active aggression, right? How'm I doing? Good?'
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I wish I had wider shoulders so that I could wear a double-breasted pea coat without people thinking that Manute Bol had an albino midget son with a homeostasis problem.
* Note: this is not true at all.
** My second favorite variety of sushi in the world, after eel kabayaki nigiri.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Ireland, Part V
Tuesday, 13 April
I slept for so long last night; I was extremely tired. I woke up, had a small breakfast, and then went across the street with my clothes from the weekend’s hike to get them washed at the laundromat. Including my shoes. A while later, I’d changed into the more comfortable (and now clean and dry) pair and was able to walk around much less painfully. In fact, after an hour or so, the blisters weren’t bothering me in the slightest. I decided to visit Trinity College, since I’d only walked around the edge of it the last time I was in Dublin. Once inside the campus, I was surprised that I was still in the same city. It’s not a huge campus, but one that is pleasantly spacious in that everything’s not crowded together. There were lawns everywhere, rows of trees, flower beds, benches, people kicking a ball around, and the buildings themselves were beautiful. The library, a relatively massive structure with shelves twenty feet high and tracked ladders to match was most impressive. Again, this could just be my reaction to something so starkly different from what I’ve been getting used to living in London, LSE’s campus being a claustrophobic maze of dirt-caked behemoths lining a narrow street that effectively limits the sun’s reach.
Speaking of sunlight, there was plenty of it, and I decided to try and lose myself in the city for a while, thinking of what to do next, both in the short and long terms. I did get lost, but I only noticed when I found myself at the port. I guessed I’d been walking for more than I’d noticed, taking random turns here and there. It was a lot more difficult finding out where I was than I’d thought it would be.
This is mainly because of Dublin’s deliberately confusing street naming and numbering 'convention.' Streets change names every one or two blocks in Dublin, and the numbering goes up along one side, and down along the other. So while I might have thought I’d be on Dame Street, for example, five minutes later, I’d be on College Street. Personally, I can never remember whether or not I’d accidentally turned somewhere, and the fact that the street name just changes on me like that doesn’t help me find my bearings (which are more often than not misplaced). So it was the better part of half an hour that I spent toiling over my map and asking people what this street was called further down that way. Of course, this being perfectly normal for them, people were amused that I was confused by it. But they don’t know that I could get lost sitting on a park bench.
Anyway, I did find my way back from wherever it was I’d ended up. But I got to see a lot of Dublin, and I did notice that I was still south of the Liffey, the river that runs through the city (I’ve been known to cross rivers without noticing). I made a mental note of some buildings and other things I’d be likely to come back and photograph, depending on whether or not I could find my way back here.
I'm sitting at St. Steven’s Green, since I’ve managed to lose sight of my planning for tomorrow, or even tonight for that matter. I think I'll go to Sheep’s Head peninsula. No, maybe Cork? No, I’ll go to the Dingle peninsula and bike around there. No. It’s going to be Sheep’s Head. Oh, it depends on when the bus leaves. No, no. There must be a bus that leaves quite early to each place. Why don’t I go and find out? Tomorrow morning there will be time.
For now, I was able to catch the museum before it closed (oddly enough for a museum of Celtic heritage, they still couldn’t resist including a sizeable Ancient Egyptian exhibit). More interesting was the Natural History museum, with an immense collection of many known (and stuffed) species of fauna running around Ireland. Later, I walked around Temple Bar, went into a café, and sat and read more of The Wasp Factory.
To be continued.
I slept for so long last night; I was extremely tired. I woke up, had a small breakfast, and then went across the street with my clothes from the weekend’s hike to get them washed at the laundromat. Including my shoes. A while later, I’d changed into the more comfortable (and now clean and dry) pair and was able to walk around much less painfully. In fact, after an hour or so, the blisters weren’t bothering me in the slightest. I decided to visit Trinity College, since I’d only walked around the edge of it the last time I was in Dublin. Once inside the campus, I was surprised that I was still in the same city. It’s not a huge campus, but one that is pleasantly spacious in that everything’s not crowded together. There were lawns everywhere, rows of trees, flower beds, benches, people kicking a ball around, and the buildings themselves were beautiful. The library, a relatively massive structure with shelves twenty feet high and tracked ladders to match was most impressive. Again, this could just be my reaction to something so starkly different from what I’ve been getting used to living in London, LSE’s campus being a claustrophobic maze of dirt-caked behemoths lining a narrow street that effectively limits the sun’s reach.
Speaking of sunlight, there was plenty of it, and I decided to try and lose myself in the city for a while, thinking of what to do next, both in the short and long terms. I did get lost, but I only noticed when I found myself at the port. I guessed I’d been walking for more than I’d noticed, taking random turns here and there. It was a lot more difficult finding out where I was than I’d thought it would be.
This is mainly because of Dublin’s deliberately confusing street naming and numbering 'convention.' Streets change names every one or two blocks in Dublin, and the numbering goes up along one side, and down along the other. So while I might have thought I’d be on Dame Street, for example, five minutes later, I’d be on College Street. Personally, I can never remember whether or not I’d accidentally turned somewhere, and the fact that the street name just changes on me like that doesn’t help me find my bearings (which are more often than not misplaced). So it was the better part of half an hour that I spent toiling over my map and asking people what this street was called further down that way. Of course, this being perfectly normal for them, people were amused that I was confused by it. But they don’t know that I could get lost sitting on a park bench.
Anyway, I did find my way back from wherever it was I’d ended up. But I got to see a lot of Dublin, and I did notice that I was still south of the Liffey, the river that runs through the city (I’ve been known to cross rivers without noticing). I made a mental note of some buildings and other things I’d be likely to come back and photograph, depending on whether or not I could find my way back here.
I'm sitting at St. Steven’s Green, since I’ve managed to lose sight of my planning for tomorrow, or even tonight for that matter. I think I'll go to Sheep’s Head peninsula. No, maybe Cork? No, I’ll go to the Dingle peninsula and bike around there. No. It’s going to be Sheep’s Head. Oh, it depends on when the bus leaves. No, no. There must be a bus that leaves quite early to each place. Why don’t I go and find out? Tomorrow morning there will be time.
For now, I was able to catch the museum before it closed (oddly enough for a museum of Celtic heritage, they still couldn’t resist including a sizeable Ancient Egyptian exhibit). More interesting was the Natural History museum, with an immense collection of many known (and stuffed) species of fauna running around Ireland. Later, I walked around Temple Bar, went into a café, and sat and read more of The Wasp Factory.
To be continued.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Ireland, Part IV
Monday, 12 April
(Continued)
No, I’m kidding. We headed north. We joined another little road, left it again for another forest walk, and then joined a road deeper inside the forest. It was still raining and we had little shelter from the rain because there were no trees on the road. Its edges were impassable, going sharply up a hill on one side and down a steep slope on the other. We were now descending the mountain we’d been climbing on its opposite side so far, and it had been five or six hours since we'd left Knockree.
After another look at the map, we found that we were getting quite close to our destination. I think we had crossed the county border by this time, or were about to cross it at the foot of the mountain. But either way, from then on we were walking along rural roads rather than dirt paths and trails. On the way down, we caught some amazing scenery through gaps in the trees; the clouds were so low, we had been walking through one, or a group of them, for most of the mountain, which is why it was raining the whole time, and it served to make the view all that more inspiring by dithering the light. It made everything look so vibrantly alive and fresh through the mist, light playing off of the vapor and shimmering whenever the sun came through the cloud cover. Eventually, we could see Dublin’s outskirts in the distance, and Melissa commented on how from here it looked a little like Fremont, sprawled out, colorful, and lightly built up.
At the bottom, we had definitely crossed the county border because we found a sign that told us were on the edge of Marlay Park, where the Way originates, somewhere within. On the map there was an ancient burial site not far from where we were, and we started looking around for it. A man walking his dog came up to us (extremely friendly, the Irish) and asked us if we were all right, and we asked him if he knew of the burial site. He said, “of course!” and pointed to a place on the edge of the slop upwards where we should begin our climb, and that they were about 50 m in from there. He was so keen on helping us, in fact, that when we reached the slope, he called back to us excitedly, indicating that we were in the right place, and to have a nice day.
It was a refreshing departure from the stark bluntness and sometimes rude interactions one has with the English, but that’s a whole other journal.
We found the site, and actually there were two. Apparently built one thousand years apart (well, I couldn’t tell just by looking at them, there was a plaque). The older one had also been reused when the newer one was built, the old remains and artifacts pushed aside but the lithic provenience was preserved, or so the archeologists thought, because of the difference in design between the two sites. But it was quite difficult to examine the sites well because of the amount of littler around the place. Someone had had a party or something, because there were packages, wrappers, cans, bottles, toilet paper, socks (socks) and shoes, just everywhere. All kinds of stuff. And it was recent, nothing was faded. Shame.
The last stage of the walk was nice, through Marlay Park, which used to be the Marlay family's gardens. In front of Marlay House, we sat on a bench; our hike was over.
We just sat quietly in the sun, leaning on our packs, looking bedraggled and tired. This was it. My feet started to hurt, and I remember smiling to myself -- not a moment too soon. They were probably in pain the whole time, but I’d just started to really notice it then, as I sat, the memory of the walk piling up and finally forcing some of my body’s complaints up to the podium. I looked down at my shoes, in horrible condition, and my jeans, although dry, still had the dirt from yesterday's bog wade and were brown up to the knees.
It was almost five. We barely caught the bus back into Dublin, running after it as it was about to leave. We sat sitting upstairs, still silent. Fifteen minutes later the bus ride came to an end, and we hurried downstairs and jumped out. I slung my pack over my shoulder, she extended her left hand as I extended my right. That didn’t work, so I freed my left hand and we shook hands, said goodbye, and headed in opposite directions, she to Trinity College to meet her friend, and me to Avalon House hostel to spend a few nights' rest.
By now my feet really hurt and my back ached from carrying my pack for two days in difficult conditions. But I felt good, and I would hopefully meet more people. After all, I had another eight days ahead of me.
I checked in and went upstairs to shower, and just lied down in my bunk and fell asleep. I woke up at around 8 pm, by now quite hungry. I went downstairs with the intention of just going out and finding somewhere to eat, but I noticed people in the kitchen, went inside, and was impressed with the facilities. So I was inspired to make my own dinner. All I can really cook is pasta. So I went and bought pasta and some sauce and vegetables, soda bread and spread, and fruit. I had a huge dinner, but I hadn’t eaten anything really substantial for a long time. Then I went for a walk, stopping for a while at a café in Temple Bar opposite the museum of art to write some of this and then slept at around 11.
To be continued.
(Continued)
No, I’m kidding. We headed north. We joined another little road, left it again for another forest walk, and then joined a road deeper inside the forest. It was still raining and we had little shelter from the rain because there were no trees on the road. Its edges were impassable, going sharply up a hill on one side and down a steep slope on the other. We were now descending the mountain we’d been climbing on its opposite side so far, and it had been five or six hours since we'd left Knockree.
After another look at the map, we found that we were getting quite close to our destination. I think we had crossed the county border by this time, or were about to cross it at the foot of the mountain. But either way, from then on we were walking along rural roads rather than dirt paths and trails. On the way down, we caught some amazing scenery through gaps in the trees; the clouds were so low, we had been walking through one, or a group of them, for most of the mountain, which is why it was raining the whole time, and it served to make the view all that more inspiring by dithering the light. It made everything look so vibrantly alive and fresh through the mist, light playing off of the vapor and shimmering whenever the sun came through the cloud cover. Eventually, we could see Dublin’s outskirts in the distance, and Melissa commented on how from here it looked a little like Fremont, sprawled out, colorful, and lightly built up.
At the bottom, we had definitely crossed the county border because we found a sign that told us were on the edge of Marlay Park, where the Way originates, somewhere within. On the map there was an ancient burial site not far from where we were, and we started looking around for it. A man walking his dog came up to us (extremely friendly, the Irish) and asked us if we were all right, and we asked him if he knew of the burial site. He said, “of course!” and pointed to a place on the edge of the slop upwards where we should begin our climb, and that they were about 50 m in from there. He was so keen on helping us, in fact, that when we reached the slope, he called back to us excitedly, indicating that we were in the right place, and to have a nice day.
It was a refreshing departure from the stark bluntness and sometimes rude interactions one has with the English, but that’s a whole other journal.
We found the site, and actually there were two. Apparently built one thousand years apart (well, I couldn’t tell just by looking at them, there was a plaque). The older one had also been reused when the newer one was built, the old remains and artifacts pushed aside but the lithic provenience was preserved, or so the archeologists thought, because of the difference in design between the two sites. But it was quite difficult to examine the sites well because of the amount of littler around the place. Someone had had a party or something, because there were packages, wrappers, cans, bottles, toilet paper, socks (socks) and shoes, just everywhere. All kinds of stuff. And it was recent, nothing was faded. Shame.
The last stage of the walk was nice, through Marlay Park, which used to be the Marlay family's gardens. In front of Marlay House, we sat on a bench; our hike was over.
We just sat quietly in the sun, leaning on our packs, looking bedraggled and tired. This was it. My feet started to hurt, and I remember smiling to myself -- not a moment too soon. They were probably in pain the whole time, but I’d just started to really notice it then, as I sat, the memory of the walk piling up and finally forcing some of my body’s complaints up to the podium. I looked down at my shoes, in horrible condition, and my jeans, although dry, still had the dirt from yesterday's bog wade and were brown up to the knees.
It was almost five. We barely caught the bus back into Dublin, running after it as it was about to leave. We sat sitting upstairs, still silent. Fifteen minutes later the bus ride came to an end, and we hurried downstairs and jumped out. I slung my pack over my shoulder, she extended her left hand as I extended my right. That didn’t work, so I freed my left hand and we shook hands, said goodbye, and headed in opposite directions, she to Trinity College to meet her friend, and me to Avalon House hostel to spend a few nights' rest.
By now my feet really hurt and my back ached from carrying my pack for two days in difficult conditions. But I felt good, and I would hopefully meet more people. After all, I had another eight days ahead of me.
I checked in and went upstairs to shower, and just lied down in my bunk and fell asleep. I woke up at around 8 pm, by now quite hungry. I went downstairs with the intention of just going out and finding somewhere to eat, but I noticed people in the kitchen, went inside, and was impressed with the facilities. So I was inspired to make my own dinner. All I can really cook is pasta. So I went and bought pasta and some sauce and vegetables, soda bread and spread, and fruit. I had a huge dinner, but I hadn’t eaten anything really substantial for a long time. Then I went for a walk, stopping for a while at a café in Temple Bar opposite the museum of art to write some of this and then slept at around 11.
To be continued.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Ireland, Part III
The Wicklow Way, day 2.
Monday, 12 April
It's still raining this morning, although the wind, which I heard whistling all night, has calmed down. The sun comes out in between patches of cloud and it makes the windows glimmer.
We had a small breakfast of some more steamed nutella mixes and cookies, using up a lot of milk from the grab pile that you often see in hostel kitchens and refrigerators. We poured over the map book tracing the day’s upcoming trek, my feet aching as my finger followed the path across contour lines that were getting ever closer together. It was 9 am.
My shoes haven't dried, but I think that if I wear them and the sun spends a little more time out from behind the clouds, they will dry as I walk. We thanked the hostel owners and set out, trying to find the path we’d left amid rain and gloom the evening before. The wind had twisted the signpost so that the signs for both Knockree and Enniskerry were pointing the same way: over the cliff, more like a windvane than something we'd follow. But soon with the help of the earth’s magnetism we were going the right way, and no thanks to gravity we were going up. Over the hill, which I hesitate to call either a hill or a mountain -- it was somewhere between the two -- we descended into another valley with sheep bleating and bouncing away when we came too near. Sheep look amazingly silly, like they’re heavier than they look, and they have thin legs that perfectly enhance the comedic effect. The rain had slowed to a light drizzle and the sun still came out minutes at a time. We stopped for lunch some hours later and I nursed some of my blisters (the rain wasn’t helping). But anyway, we trudged onwards.
The Way parted with the road, as we’d come to expect it to do, and into some dense forest. There was no obvious path this time, no trail of trampled foliage or dirt, and we had to resort to the compass to show us the way out. We also began to see, strangely enough, more and more litter, and our trash bag, which we’d been filling with litter we were picking up along the way since yesterday, was filling up. It was really getting to me that people would just throw away their wrappers and cans and bottles here. Melissa, a hiking veteran, was telling me that she and the friends she hikes with are always picking up after other hikers. Either way, I never thought hiking could be this rewarding.
Well, anyway. We came out of the forest on its north side, and still saw no little yellow man. Ahead of us was a vast moor, sloping slightly up at about 5 degrees maybe. To the left and right (west and east respectively) the forest’s edge went on as far as we could see, since it curved southwards on the eastern side, and northwards in the west. We settled on heading east to what looked like an old fencepost about 500 m away, crookedly set in the mud. I had my doubts, but as always, we didn’t see that we were in any hurry and if we happened to walk for long then it didn’t really matter because we’d see more. But she was right, and behind the fencepost, in a little dip in the ground, was what we were looking for. He pointed north, so we headed south.
To be continued.
Monday, 12 April
It's still raining this morning, although the wind, which I heard whistling all night, has calmed down. The sun comes out in between patches of cloud and it makes the windows glimmer.
We had a small breakfast of some more steamed nutella mixes and cookies, using up a lot of milk from the grab pile that you often see in hostel kitchens and refrigerators. We poured over the map book tracing the day’s upcoming trek, my feet aching as my finger followed the path across contour lines that were getting ever closer together. It was 9 am.
My shoes haven't dried, but I think that if I wear them and the sun spends a little more time out from behind the clouds, they will dry as I walk. We thanked the hostel owners and set out, trying to find the path we’d left amid rain and gloom the evening before. The wind had twisted the signpost so that the signs for both Knockree and Enniskerry were pointing the same way: over the cliff, more like a windvane than something we'd follow. But soon with the help of the earth’s magnetism we were going the right way, and no thanks to gravity we were going up. Over the hill, which I hesitate to call either a hill or a mountain -- it was somewhere between the two -- we descended into another valley with sheep bleating and bouncing away when we came too near. Sheep look amazingly silly, like they’re heavier than they look, and they have thin legs that perfectly enhance the comedic effect. The rain had slowed to a light drizzle and the sun still came out minutes at a time. We stopped for lunch some hours later and I nursed some of my blisters (the rain wasn’t helping). But anyway, we trudged onwards.
The Way parted with the road, as we’d come to expect it to do, and into some dense forest. There was no obvious path this time, no trail of trampled foliage or dirt, and we had to resort to the compass to show us the way out. We also began to see, strangely enough, more and more litter, and our trash bag, which we’d been filling with litter we were picking up along the way since yesterday, was filling up. It was really getting to me that people would just throw away their wrappers and cans and bottles here. Melissa, a hiking veteran, was telling me that she and the friends she hikes with are always picking up after other hikers. Either way, I never thought hiking could be this rewarding.
Well, anyway. We came out of the forest on its north side, and still saw no little yellow man. Ahead of us was a vast moor, sloping slightly up at about 5 degrees maybe. To the left and right (west and east respectively) the forest’s edge went on as far as we could see, since it curved southwards on the eastern side, and northwards in the west. We settled on heading east to what looked like an old fencepost about 500 m away, crookedly set in the mud. I had my doubts, but as always, we didn’t see that we were in any hurry and if we happened to walk for long then it didn’t really matter because we’d see more. But she was right, and behind the fencepost, in a little dip in the ground, was what we were looking for. He pointed north, so we headed south.
To be continued.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Ireland, Part II
The Wicklow Way
Sunday, 11 April
8 am, taking our leave of Jim and the hostel staff, we set out in the wrong direction. After about a mile, we looked at the map and compass and realized what we’d done and headed back. Ok, so now we've figured out how to use this very detailed large scale map (it was very confusing at first, as the compass points on the map change with every page so that the Wicklow Way is always going up and down the length of the page). But we got the hang of it soon enough. On the right path, we became acquainted with a little yellow figure on a wooden post with an arrow. We liked him.
Anyway, by 9:00 we were well oriented and going the right way. After an hour, we got lost when, instead of going down the other side of a large hill, we went along it and mingled with some cows and bulls along the way. When we couldn’t find anymore little yellow hikers at what we thought was a fork (but really there wasn’t even a path), we took another peek at the map and started posing suggestions as to where we actually were. We decided to go down the hill flanked by a pine forest and landed in some pretty heavy bog, which looks perfectly dry ten meters away, but is very perfectly wet up close. Anyway, we had figured out somewhat where we were, since the map had contour lines and forested areas marked, and we speculated that we’d missed the trail that went down the hill earlier, before the pines and cattle. So, we tried to navigate the bog without getting wet, but that would be of no use since it went on for about 1.5 km. I was knee deep in muddy water very quickly, trying to keep on top of the floating bushes. There was no way around it. It’s like floating ground. You step somewhere, and the ground nearby bobs up and down with the ripples.
Thoroughly soaked to the knees, we reached the road after having been barked at by a dog on a farmer’s land which we could not avoid stumbling through. We climbed over a fence, which seemed to satisfy the dog, and walked along the road. As we’d expected, we ran into our yellow friend again and were relieved to say the least. We sat down for a lunch of corned beef and cheddar sandwiches, some slices of jelly rolls, and Nutella, which we’d happily discovered we both really liked and so had bought a supply before we set out. I changed into a dry but very uncomfortable pair of shoes which I've worn for a good part of the way now.
The Way joined a public road for a while, and then we overshot the Way which was supposed to curve off to the north. We continued east on the road, thinking we would find the right way, until we came to a fork we weren’t supposed to hit. Sitting down, we had an apple each and tried to figure out where we were. We finally decided that we weren’t that used to the scale on the map and that instead of 1.5 km on the road, we went about 5. If we followed the northward fork, we’d hit the Way again, and we did.
We reached a lookout point along the way part of the way up a steep slope. Our trail parted with the road and we were soon going up the rest of the slope through dense forest while the road wound down the other way towards Lough Dan. We reached the summit of White Hill, a 650 m peak -- not very high, but we could see the valley far below nevertheless, and Lake Tay (Lough Té) at its floor. There is a memorial to J. B. Malone up there. We continued along the path towards Djouce, the next peak, at 730 m. We went down the side of White Hill, then started up Djouce.
The wind started up and eventually became the strongest wind I’ve ever encountered. We could, with our packs, lean into it completely, as if falling down, and it would blow us back the other way. It kept blowing us off the path as we trudged uphill. The Way swerved out and around Djouce, but we wanted to go up to the top, so we left the path and went up the rest of the way, about another 1 km up. At one point, the map book flew out of my hands and I practically glided after it down the slope and landed on it in the weeds, my pack still on my back. Almost to the top, the wind got even stronger. We ditched our packs in a little hole we found, and continued up, running the rest of the way and getting blown around almost like paper. The wind, coming in from the side, helped us get up the mountain while we ran.
At the top, the wind was the strongest, and we had trouble staying in the same place. We looked out from the summit, though, and realized why it was so windy: we were looking out over the Irish Sea, towards the Welsh Mountains on the opposite shore.
We sat in a little alcove we found in the rock to avoid the wind and rest a while. Then we headed down again, hoping we were going the right way. We found our packs and continued down the mountain, the wind still blowing, now with a little bit of drizzle. We joined the path and were eventually completely over Djouce and into the valley on its eastern side.
The rain came down in quick periodic torrents, and the wind kept up, as we continued for about two more hours. By 7 pm, the rain hadn’t stopped, and we had rejoined a road and arrived afterwards in Knockree. It was completely deserted except for the couple who ran a hostel in their converted farm buildings; they were hospitable in that way I’d come to expect from the Irish by this time, and the place was very well kept with surprisingly good facilities for a self-catering hostel, even before considering where we were -- on the side of a mountain in a tiny town, which was just a collection of two or three small farms. We changed and hung our soaked clothes, since it hadn’t stopped raining since our descent from Djouce.
There was a steamer in the kitchen, something we were very happy to see, so we started to make all sorts of bizarre hot beverage cocktails using any combination of nutella, strawberry jam, milk, rice crispies, cookies, and jam rolls. We also had a can of soup and some ramen noodles, and some bread and cheese (not for the drinks). Although it may sound unappetizing now, for some reason it was perfect. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that anything tastes good when you're hungry and tired and when there's a fire nearby. It certainly felt like we were camping as we ate and drank at a huge table in the dim stone-walled sitting room filled with smoke from two log fires at either end.
We finished our small dinner while reading the remaining bits of a days-old newpaper that had been used as kindling for the fires. Tired and aching, we slept, hoping the morning would bring better weather (and I was hoping my shoes would dry).
To be continued.
Sunday, 11 April
8 am, taking our leave of Jim and the hostel staff, we set out in the wrong direction. After about a mile, we looked at the map and compass and realized what we’d done and headed back. Ok, so now we've figured out how to use this very detailed large scale map (it was very confusing at first, as the compass points on the map change with every page so that the Wicklow Way is always going up and down the length of the page). But we got the hang of it soon enough. On the right path, we became acquainted with a little yellow figure on a wooden post with an arrow. We liked him.
Anyway, by 9:00 we were well oriented and going the right way. After an hour, we got lost when, instead of going down the other side of a large hill, we went along it and mingled with some cows and bulls along the way. When we couldn’t find anymore little yellow hikers at what we thought was a fork (but really there wasn’t even a path), we took another peek at the map and started posing suggestions as to where we actually were. We decided to go down the hill flanked by a pine forest and landed in some pretty heavy bog, which looks perfectly dry ten meters away, but is very perfectly wet up close. Anyway, we had figured out somewhat where we were, since the map had contour lines and forested areas marked, and we speculated that we’d missed the trail that went down the hill earlier, before the pines and cattle. So, we tried to navigate the bog without getting wet, but that would be of no use since it went on for about 1.5 km. I was knee deep in muddy water very quickly, trying to keep on top of the floating bushes. There was no way around it. It’s like floating ground. You step somewhere, and the ground nearby bobs up and down with the ripples.
Thoroughly soaked to the knees, we reached the road after having been barked at by a dog on a farmer’s land which we could not avoid stumbling through. We climbed over a fence, which seemed to satisfy the dog, and walked along the road. As we’d expected, we ran into our yellow friend again and were relieved to say the least. We sat down for a lunch of corned beef and cheddar sandwiches, some slices of jelly rolls, and Nutella, which we’d happily discovered we both really liked and so had bought a supply before we set out. I changed into a dry but very uncomfortable pair of shoes which I've worn for a good part of the way now.
The Way joined a public road for a while, and then we overshot the Way which was supposed to curve off to the north. We continued east on the road, thinking we would find the right way, until we came to a fork we weren’t supposed to hit. Sitting down, we had an apple each and tried to figure out where we were. We finally decided that we weren’t that used to the scale on the map and that instead of 1.5 km on the road, we went about 5. If we followed the northward fork, we’d hit the Way again, and we did.
We reached a lookout point along the way part of the way up a steep slope. Our trail parted with the road and we were soon going up the rest of the slope through dense forest while the road wound down the other way towards Lough Dan. We reached the summit of White Hill, a 650 m peak -- not very high, but we could see the valley far below nevertheless, and Lake Tay (Lough Té) at its floor. There is a memorial to J. B. Malone up there. We continued along the path towards Djouce, the next peak, at 730 m. We went down the side of White Hill, then started up Djouce.
The wind started up and eventually became the strongest wind I’ve ever encountered. We could, with our packs, lean into it completely, as if falling down, and it would blow us back the other way. It kept blowing us off the path as we trudged uphill. The Way swerved out and around Djouce, but we wanted to go up to the top, so we left the path and went up the rest of the way, about another 1 km up. At one point, the map book flew out of my hands and I practically glided after it down the slope and landed on it in the weeds, my pack still on my back. Almost to the top, the wind got even stronger. We ditched our packs in a little hole we found, and continued up, running the rest of the way and getting blown around almost like paper. The wind, coming in from the side, helped us get up the mountain while we ran.
At the top, the wind was the strongest, and we had trouble staying in the same place. We looked out from the summit, though, and realized why it was so windy: we were looking out over the Irish Sea, towards the Welsh Mountains on the opposite shore.
We sat in a little alcove we found in the rock to avoid the wind and rest a while. Then we headed down again, hoping we were going the right way. We found our packs and continued down the mountain, the wind still blowing, now with a little bit of drizzle. We joined the path and were eventually completely over Djouce and into the valley on its eastern side.
The rain came down in quick periodic torrents, and the wind kept up, as we continued for about two more hours. By 7 pm, the rain hadn’t stopped, and we had rejoined a road and arrived afterwards in Knockree. It was completely deserted except for the couple who ran a hostel in their converted farm buildings; they were hospitable in that way I’d come to expect from the Irish by this time, and the place was very well kept with surprisingly good facilities for a self-catering hostel, even before considering where we were -- on the side of a mountain in a tiny town, which was just a collection of two or three small farms. We changed and hung our soaked clothes, since it hadn’t stopped raining since our descent from Djouce.
There was a steamer in the kitchen, something we were very happy to see, so we started to make all sorts of bizarre hot beverage cocktails using any combination of nutella, strawberry jam, milk, rice crispies, cookies, and jam rolls. We also had a can of soup and some ramen noodles, and some bread and cheese (not for the drinks). Although it may sound unappetizing now, for some reason it was perfect. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that anything tastes good when you're hungry and tired and when there's a fire nearby. It certainly felt like we were camping as we ate and drank at a huge table in the dim stone-walled sitting room filled with smoke from two log fires at either end.
We finished our small dinner while reading the remaining bits of a days-old newpaper that had been used as kindling for the fires. Tired and aching, we slept, hoping the morning would bring better weather (and I was hoping my shoes would dry).
To be continued.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Ireland, Part I
In April 1999, I took a two-week trip to Ireland. I was living in London at the time. I came across the journal I kept from that trip while I was rummaging around in my old stuff recently. It's one of only two journals I've ever kept and now I'm wishing I'd kept more journals.
I started flipping through it and couldn't help but read it all the way through because it evoked so many vivid memories that even photographs couldn't match. I had such fun reliving the brief trip that I wondered if it could be at all interesting to a stranger reading it as well. Anyway, I'm posting it here in a series, exactly as I wrote it (so pardon the youthful nonsense).
I may post some pictures I also found, which I'll have to scan when I'm done studying for boards.
Friday, April 9
I arrived here in Dublin at 3 pm and checked into a hostel called Avalon House not far from St. Steven’s Green, both the hostel and park very nice indeed. Anyway, at a loss for what to do exactly, I walked all around Dublin and got to know the central area pretty well, with my map and Lonely Planet. I walked all around the Temple Bar area and saw some of Trinity College, but of course in one day I couldn’t see everything I’d wanted to. I was tired and went back to the hostel for the night.
Saturday, 10 April
I got up at 7 am intending to go to Newgrange. But I’d asked the night before and the hostel was full, so I thought I should secure some accomodation elsewhere first. Failing this, after three hours, I ended up at a less than helpful (but very hospitable and cheerful, mind you) student travel office (USIT: Union of Student Irish Travellers or something similar). I did learn that to get a day tour to Newgrange I would have to wait until Thursday. So that was out. I went to the bus station and asked there. No luck with Newgrange, but an idea hit me: I could just go to Glendalough! It’s in County Wicklow, and almost in the middle of nowhere so people don’t usually stay there overnight, and that meant that I might find accommodation. So, I found out where the bus left from and hurried there. I caught it by five minutes at 11:25 am (the next bus would’ve left at 6 pm).
At Glendalough (Gleann dé Loch; glen of the two lakes), there’s a monastic site, one of the best preserved in Ireland, founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century AD. It was very nice, but I still had the nagging thought of where I would sleep that night. I went to the Glendalough hostel and they were full. The lady there was really pleasant and told me that the hostel in the nearby village of Laragh was not full. She showed me the way and I was off for the 3 km walk up the road (there being no other transport) with my pack, after calling and booking a place just in case...
The Wicklow Way Hostel is a delightful little self-catering place, right next to the convenience store (and that’s about all there is in Laragh, aside from this one house that doubles as a tea and scones shop). A while after I had begun to settle in I left again for Glendalough for a better look with an eased mind. It was breathtaking as I walked past Lower Lake and sat down for some lunch on the bank of Upper Lake. The two were joined once. I had by this time figured out the what the deal was with the rain, essentially that the clouds move quickly overhead, raining on what they pass over, but keep moving. So, walking against the wind, in this case up the path away from the monastery towards the valley, I was able to avoid getting rained on for long, while everyone else was walking back, the cloud following them and raining on them the whole way. I tried to tell a few people but they seemed to distrust my theory and kept going, the cloud on their heels.
I was having lunch while it started to get a little bit cold as the day wore on. I headed back towards the road after a last look at the valley and mountains at either side. Back to Laragh. The distance walked on today was about 14 km (a little over 8 miles, maybe 9). At the hostel I met a newly arrived old Irish man (this hostel had no age restriction) named Jim. He’d walked all the way down from Enniskerry, a distance of 20 miles, that day, along the Wicklow Way, a path opened in 1982 by J. B. Malone, and was Ireland’s first long distance trail. It is about 130 km in total, and goes straight down the county, north to south, beginning and ending in the adjacent counties on either side, the northern one being Dublin. Anyway, another person had arrived in the hostel, a girl who was asking people about hiking along the Wicklow Way. Jim and others in the dorm offered to help out with her planning (which she really needed, since she’d only just heard about it), and a short while later they had pulled me into the conversation, lurking though I was on my upper-bunk bed in the corner reading. After going down to the pub for a meal, and a very jolly one to say the least (Jim really likes his alcohol), we went back up to get ready for bed. Jim went back down for a night cap (whiskey, double), and Melissa and I decided it would be best if neither one of us hiked alone, so we planned to head out together northward towards Dublin the next morning. I had been thinking about doing this, earlier in the day, while she had been thinking about going south to Glenmallure. But we couldn’t find any accommodation there. So we thought we’d go north and stop for the night at Knockcree, where there’s a hostel right off the Wicklow Way. We talked for a while longer, and I discovered that she’s from Fremont, goes to UCSD, and is spending a year abroad in Toulouse studying various world cultures.
To be continued.
I started flipping through it and couldn't help but read it all the way through because it evoked so many vivid memories that even photographs couldn't match. I had such fun reliving the brief trip that I wondered if it could be at all interesting to a stranger reading it as well. Anyway, I'm posting it here in a series, exactly as I wrote it (so pardon the youthful nonsense).
I may post some pictures I also found, which I'll have to scan when I'm done studying for boards.
Friday, April 9
I arrived here in Dublin at 3 pm and checked into a hostel called Avalon House not far from St. Steven’s Green, both the hostel and park very nice indeed. Anyway, at a loss for what to do exactly, I walked all around Dublin and got to know the central area pretty well, with my map and Lonely Planet. I walked all around the Temple Bar area and saw some of Trinity College, but of course in one day I couldn’t see everything I’d wanted to. I was tired and went back to the hostel for the night.
Saturday, 10 April
I got up at 7 am intending to go to Newgrange. But I’d asked the night before and the hostel was full, so I thought I should secure some accomodation elsewhere first. Failing this, after three hours, I ended up at a less than helpful (but very hospitable and cheerful, mind you) student travel office (USIT: Union of Student Irish Travellers or something similar). I did learn that to get a day tour to Newgrange I would have to wait until Thursday. So that was out. I went to the bus station and asked there. No luck with Newgrange, but an idea hit me: I could just go to Glendalough! It’s in County Wicklow, and almost in the middle of nowhere so people don’t usually stay there overnight, and that meant that I might find accommodation. So, I found out where the bus left from and hurried there. I caught it by five minutes at 11:25 am (the next bus would’ve left at 6 pm).
At Glendalough (Gleann dé Loch; glen of the two lakes), there’s a monastic site, one of the best preserved in Ireland, founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century AD. It was very nice, but I still had the nagging thought of where I would sleep that night. I went to the Glendalough hostel and they were full. The lady there was really pleasant and told me that the hostel in the nearby village of Laragh was not full. She showed me the way and I was off for the 3 km walk up the road (there being no other transport) with my pack, after calling and booking a place just in case...
The Wicklow Way Hostel is a delightful little self-catering place, right next to the convenience store (and that’s about all there is in Laragh, aside from this one house that doubles as a tea and scones shop). A while after I had begun to settle in I left again for Glendalough for a better look with an eased mind. It was breathtaking as I walked past Lower Lake and sat down for some lunch on the bank of Upper Lake. The two were joined once. I had by this time figured out the what the deal was with the rain, essentially that the clouds move quickly overhead, raining on what they pass over, but keep moving. So, walking against the wind, in this case up the path away from the monastery towards the valley, I was able to avoid getting rained on for long, while everyone else was walking back, the cloud following them and raining on them the whole way. I tried to tell a few people but they seemed to distrust my theory and kept going, the cloud on their heels.
I was having lunch while it started to get a little bit cold as the day wore on. I headed back towards the road after a last look at the valley and mountains at either side. Back to Laragh. The distance walked on today was about 14 km (a little over 8 miles, maybe 9). At the hostel I met a newly arrived old Irish man (this hostel had no age restriction) named Jim. He’d walked all the way down from Enniskerry, a distance of 20 miles, that day, along the Wicklow Way, a path opened in 1982 by J. B. Malone, and was Ireland’s first long distance trail. It is about 130 km in total, and goes straight down the county, north to south, beginning and ending in the adjacent counties on either side, the northern one being Dublin. Anyway, another person had arrived in the hostel, a girl who was asking people about hiking along the Wicklow Way. Jim and others in the dorm offered to help out with her planning (which she really needed, since she’d only just heard about it), and a short while later they had pulled me into the conversation, lurking though I was on my upper-bunk bed in the corner reading. After going down to the pub for a meal, and a very jolly one to say the least (Jim really likes his alcohol), we went back up to get ready for bed. Jim went back down for a night cap (whiskey, double), and Melissa and I decided it would be best if neither one of us hiked alone, so we planned to head out together northward towards Dublin the next morning. I had been thinking about doing this, earlier in the day, while she had been thinking about going south to Glenmallure. But we couldn’t find any accommodation there. So we thought we’d go north and stop for the night at Knockcree, where there’s a hostel right off the Wicklow Way. We talked for a while longer, and I discovered that she’s from Fremont, goes to UCSD, and is spending a year abroad in Toulouse studying various world cultures.
To be continued.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Insurance
If you like dishonesty, frustration, and emotional turmoil, then you need to call a car insurance company now.
This week, a nice caveman at GEICO spent an hour shaping rocks into arrowheads and collecting sticks and acorns around my slightly injured 9-year-old car before telling me to sod off with my evil fire-wagon from the future (and to pay a salvage fee for re-excavating it). When I insisted that it was in fact simple human technology and that the damage should not really warrant a total loss, he said, 'Grrr, Uuk mad!' and chiseled me an obsidian check for the cost of turning my car into a usable hearth pit (minus deductible).
Before leaving him to his fecal sculpting and cave mural, I asked how badly this would impact my premiums. He said, 'Grrr, Uuk not sure about that but--how futureman say in twenty-first century--drop loincloth and bend over?'
This week, a nice caveman at GEICO spent an hour shaping rocks into arrowheads and collecting sticks and acorns around my slightly injured 9-year-old car before telling me to sod off with my evil fire-wagon from the future (and to pay a salvage fee for re-excavating it). When I insisted that it was in fact simple human technology and that the damage should not really warrant a total loss, he said, 'Grrr, Uuk mad!' and chiseled me an obsidian check for the cost of turning my car into a usable hearth pit (minus deductible).
Before leaving him to his fecal sculpting and cave mural, I asked how badly this would impact my premiums. He said, 'Grrr, Uuk not sure about that but--how futureman say in twenty-first century--drop loincloth and bend over?'
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Locomotivation
A train leaving New York Penn Station at 8:50 am and traveling north at 120 miles per hour, stopping in Poughkeepsie, Albany, and St. Lambert will arrive in Montreal 18.5 hours later because:
- The train is operated by Amtrak and will leave 4 hours late 'for your safety'.
- The train schedule was assembled by 2 liars and 1 asshole all of whom work for Amtrak.
- While the train is capable of traveling at 120 miles per hour--in theory--no Amtrak engineer in their right mind would ever attempt this to avoid speed-related damage to the space-time continuum of upstate New York. This is all based upon research conducted by Amtrak in 1998 when a test animal was strapped to the chassis of an unmanned locomotive traveling at speeds in excess of 40 mph. The train vanished (but was then found later that afternoon at the bottom of a gorge in Ithaca). Amtrak responsibly believes that it is safer to travel at the more reasonable speed of between 0 and 35 mph with frequent lengthy stops for no reason at all.
- Canadian customs officials speak very slowly and use 35% more words than the average speaker of English. And we all know what that word is, eh?
- The train did not qualify for the carpool tracks.
I have been studying for the second in a series of three standardized exams for medical licensure. It is not going well. Over the past three weeks, I have attended two weddings; helped Nurin study; helped Nurin move to Detroit; got my car fixed; hit my car and got it fixed again; watched all the episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Robot Chicken I could find on YouTube; finished the entire game of System Shock for the fifth time; played hours of Worms; Lemmings, and Prince of Persia; and spent a total of 49.5 hours in transit.
I think my problem is largely one of motivation, but I don't know how to prove it. I think I should watch more TV just to be sure.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Frustraturbation
I had begun writing a list of trivial things that annoy me (for no good reason) because that is the sort of person I am.
- Parsley.
- Asymmetry.
- Mustaches.
- Red hair.
- Loose collars.
- Loose ties.
- Loose morals.
- Loose faucets.
I was still calm. I wanted to dissect a little deeper into my shallowness. I started a new list.
- Surgeons.
- 'Sontimeter.'
- Starting sentences with 'basically.'
- 'Aks.'
- Uninformed use of vernacular.
A little twitch started in my right little finger. This normally happens when I get worked up, drink coffee, or play a video game that I don't like just to reassert my juvenile masculinity and check that my testosterone still works.
I wanted more than just a twitch. I wanted sweat, palpitations, heartburn, and aching tension in my shoulders and lower back. I wanted neurological mayhem, tsunamis of dopamine ravaging my basal nuclei, inappropriately frantic and useless messages telling my brain to do inappropriately frantic and useless things with my muscles. And pain.
And so there came into being a new list. A terrible list. A list to end all lists, to line up the other lists against a wall and shoot them in the head.
- Irresponsibly executed linguistic maneuvers--these include poor syntax, inappropriate idioms, and incorrect use of plural forms when the singular is intended and vice versa.
What started out as item #1, 'irresponsibly executed linguistic maneuvers,' quickly ballooned into a worryingly elitist tirade against the marginally educated masses who take language for granted:
As untrained as novice swordsmen, they brandish diction clumsily and with disregard for its sharp edges, its elegance, and the potential power it affords when executed with even just moderate skill.
These are the people who stir immiscible metaphors together like drunken chefs. They stagger around their prose like saturated winoes, trying to bring one end of an idiom towards the other and missing their mark completely. Instead of respecting the gravity of language and treading lightly but purposefully, they bumptiously bang words together like cavemen trying to make fire by trial and mostly error.
You might be one of these people. Do you know the difference between 'He only cuts wood' and 'He cuts only wood'? Do you say 'criteria' when you mean to say 'criterion'? How about 'phenomena'--have you any idea how to properly use this word without hurting yourself? Sometimes there is one 'auditorium,' but there may also be two 'auditoria.' I'm not even going to mention 'data' and 'media,' but I just did because I am annoyed and feeling so good right now.
Do you say 'comprises of,' 'myriad of,' or 'bored of'? Do you mistake 'advise' for 'advice' (and vice versa)? Do you eat 'brussel sprouts'? Do you wait 'as time progresses'? Do you 'take a different tact'? Do you not know how to spell 'ad nauseam'? Do you do things 'as best as' you can? Do you post 'quotes'?
You might as well be dipping your quill in poop and scribbling your silly letters directly onto your underpants.
Why am I so worked up about this? It's for absolutely no reason at all, which is far more reason than I need. Frustration is at the heart of ecstasy. The doubtful anticipation of climax is the heightening of the sensorium, the hypnotic progressive blurring of whatever once distinguished bliss from pain. As emotions flurry--love, hate, anger, pleasure--they all become shadows of each other as we speed down (or up) the oily asymptotic ramp that promises everything but delivers nothing, faster and faster, slower and slower.
I'm so frustrated that I don't know what I'm talking about anymore. Oh, yes!
Oh, by the way, all of this was in an English accent.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Haatem's special sauce
Take these things:
- Two or more 1.5-inch thick sirloin slabs (assuming you have friends or a partner of some sort, otherwise you can just have one for your lonely sad self if you like being lonely and sad and by yourself, I mean that's ok too, but you might find it more efficient to just nuke some gruel and stir in some tears)
- One handful of peppercorns
- One gentle peppercorn-caressing-to-death device
- One red pepper hull and one green pepper hull (having been tucked into an olive oil and garlic bath for at least one night)
- Haatem's special sauce (pi tablespoons of olive oil, pi-1 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, a dwarf's fistful of cracked black pepper, one tablespoon of minced garlic, one pseudopinch of cayenne pepper--more if you're not afraid--1/2 chopped onion, the same amount of sugar you can hold within the diamond-shaped compartment formed by bringing four fingers together at the tips, then another two of those, the finely chopped olive oil-soaked peppers mentioned above, two tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, one half teaspoon of dry mustard, as many drops of Wright's Liquid Smoke as the number of times you've set your hair on fire and enjoyed it--or two works also)
- Grilling apparatus (flammables, inflammables, and nonflammables)
- Other comestibles and accoutrements
- Libations (I'm a fan of Virgil's)
- A t-shirt that reads, 'Nobody likes a vegetarian'
- Other people
And do this:
- Log out and go outside.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Favorite words
#1. Juice.
Say it. Juice. Say it. Say it. Is there a better word? I submit that there is not. Juice. It's practical. Who doesn't like juice? Unloved-middle-child-immoral-sociopath-backstabbing-blasphemous-no-heart-having-hater-being-limited-wit-dry-mouthed-type people, that's who.
Juice is sensual. Bathe it with some saliva and caress each letter with your tongue. Jjj. Ooo. Oh. Oooooooossssss. Cradle it. Let it tickle your lips. Taste it.
Besides the viscous-warm tenderness I feel dripping down my hair, face, and neck, teasing things that I like to get teased every time I say 'juice,' juice also happens to be the fluid of life. It is by the wisdom of God that there is some kind of juice inside every living thing and also in some inanimate things. That we happened to give the divine solution a name that electrifies my spine is pure serendipity. It is, therefore, my number one favorite word of all time. Ever. For now.
If you don't like juice, you are disrespecting the Lord.
Say it. Juice. Say it. Say it. Is there a better word? I submit that there is not. Juice. It's practical. Who doesn't like juice? Unloved-middle-child-immoral-sociopath-backstabbing-blasphemous-no-heart-having-hater-being-limited-wit-dry-mouthed-type people, that's who.
Juice is sensual. Bathe it with some saliva and caress each letter with your tongue. Jjj. Ooo. Oh. Oooooooossssss. Cradle it. Let it tickle your lips. Taste it.
Besides the viscous-warm tenderness I feel dripping down my hair, face, and neck, teasing things that I like to get teased every time I say 'juice,' juice also happens to be the fluid of life. It is by the wisdom of God that there is some kind of juice inside every living thing and also in some inanimate things. That we happened to give the divine solution a name that electrifies my spine is pure serendipity. It is, therefore, my number one favorite word of all time. Ever. For now.
If you don't like juice, you are disrespecting the Lord.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Sometimes a phallus is just a phallus
Psychiatry is a field that makes sense in the sense that if you have any sense (in the sense that you are sensible) you will find it difficult to make any sense of it. My feeling is that there is a nearly invisible boundary between effectively mapping out the currents deep in the id and prancing about at the shallow end of the ego, unless you can't swim.
Where do you look for meaning in relationships with people? Can a label that one uses to define a relationship be simply a preemptive defense of that relationship? I mean, saying 'we're married' is clear and in any case more an apology to one's tamed and beaten demons than anything else. But what about relationships that can be approached in an accusatory way? So-called platonic relationships, for example. If you have to specifically preface a friendship with 'platonic,' then is it really platonic? Psychoanalysts make phallic balloon animals out of unsuspecting platonists. True, sometimes an apple is just an apple, but that's so uninteresting. (Even a granny smith is mildly tantalizing at best, compared to a shiny green boob with a stem that grows on trees and tastes so sourly delicious.)
Enough psychobabble. I like the stuff and appreciate it, but I'm not creative enough to whip up a la carte syllogisms around a patient and still be composed enough to fill out the invoice with a straight face. Another feature of the inpatient psychiatric experience that has struck me is the staggering degree of impairment with which some psychotic patients have to live. I don't know what I would do without reality. Well, reality is reality, and what we experience is what we experience, and it is nothing if it does not depend on the sartrean cogito's automatic comprehension of existence--the human-reality at once creating and created by the juxtaposition of l'etre and le neant.
Saying that kind of crap without smoking a cigarette just looks and sounds stupid and I have the most delicate pink little lungs. Whether or not experience and reality are the same shouldn't make any difference to us, social interactions notwithstanding. If this is a blue ball, but I see a pair of orange galloshes, it's still my experience and its accuracy is irrelevant even though I am laughed at by my peers for stumbling around in the rain trying to balance myself on a blue ball like a clowning sad kierkegaardian lunatic full of anguish and pneumonia. So I suppose reality is not as important to me as I thought. Who's to say that I experience reality anyway except me? You can say I'm crazy but then I can say I know you are but what am I times infinity times infinity plus one squared to the power of you're stupid! In fact, I renounce reality. A bas la realite!
Alright enough of that nonsense.
Paranoia, on the other hand, is truly debilitating. Voices, hallucinations, the government melting your ice cream on purpose via satellite. So maybe reality is a good thing after all. But if my brain were forced to choose between a reality that really bites on the one hand and a Statler and Waldorf commentary trained with deadly aim on my inadequacies on the other, maybe I'd take the two grumpy old beans rather than the haldol. Of course, if I'm up in the balcony with them and they're telling me to jump off in that endearingly funny gruff heckling tone of theirs, I hope I'd reconsider or call for Dr. Bunsen's help. Yes I know he's a PhD, but who else am I going to call, the green frog? That's crazy.
Speaking of haldol, my tic has been out of control over the past few days and my neck, shoulder, and wrist are quite sore. Antipsychotics are good for mental psychosis as well as somatic psychosis but oh so bad for your liver.
Paradoxically, however, this is a sentence for which the word 'paradoxically' was completely unnecessary. But what discussion of psychiatry--no matter how half-baked--is complete without 'paradoxically'? In my next post, my judgement may improve but I will always lack insight.
Where do you look for meaning in relationships with people? Can a label that one uses to define a relationship be simply a preemptive defense of that relationship? I mean, saying 'we're married' is clear and in any case more an apology to one's tamed and beaten demons than anything else. But what about relationships that can be approached in an accusatory way? So-called platonic relationships, for example. If you have to specifically preface a friendship with 'platonic,' then is it really platonic? Psychoanalysts make phallic balloon animals out of unsuspecting platonists. True, sometimes an apple is just an apple, but that's so uninteresting. (Even a granny smith is mildly tantalizing at best, compared to a shiny green boob with a stem that grows on trees and tastes so sourly delicious.)
Enough psychobabble. I like the stuff and appreciate it, but I'm not creative enough to whip up a la carte syllogisms around a patient and still be composed enough to fill out the invoice with a straight face. Another feature of the inpatient psychiatric experience that has struck me is the staggering degree of impairment with which some psychotic patients have to live. I don't know what I would do without reality. Well, reality is reality, and what we experience is what we experience, and it is nothing if it does not depend on the sartrean cogito's automatic comprehension of existence--the human-reality at once creating and created by the juxtaposition of l'etre and le neant.
Saying that kind of crap without smoking a cigarette just looks and sounds stupid and I have the most delicate pink little lungs. Whether or not experience and reality are the same shouldn't make any difference to us, social interactions notwithstanding. If this is a blue ball, but I see a pair of orange galloshes, it's still my experience and its accuracy is irrelevant even though I am laughed at by my peers for stumbling around in the rain trying to balance myself on a blue ball like a clowning sad kierkegaardian lunatic full of anguish and pneumonia. So I suppose reality is not as important to me as I thought. Who's to say that I experience reality anyway except me? You can say I'm crazy but then I can say I know you are but what am I times infinity times infinity plus one squared to the power of you're stupid! In fact, I renounce reality. A bas la realite!
Alright enough of that nonsense.
Paranoia, on the other hand, is truly debilitating. Voices, hallucinations, the government melting your ice cream on purpose via satellite. So maybe reality is a good thing after all. But if my brain were forced to choose between a reality that really bites on the one hand and a Statler and Waldorf commentary trained with deadly aim on my inadequacies on the other, maybe I'd take the two grumpy old beans rather than the haldol. Of course, if I'm up in the balcony with them and they're telling me to jump off in that endearingly funny gruff heckling tone of theirs, I hope I'd reconsider or call for Dr. Bunsen's help. Yes I know he's a PhD, but who else am I going to call, the green frog? That's crazy.
Speaking of haldol, my tic has been out of control over the past few days and my neck, shoulder, and wrist are quite sore. Antipsychotics are good for mental psychosis as well as somatic psychosis but oh so bad for your liver.
Paradoxically, however, this is a sentence for which the word 'paradoxically' was completely unnecessary. But what discussion of psychiatry--no matter how half-baked--is complete without 'paradoxically'? In my next post, my judgement may improve but I will always lack insight.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Domo arigato Mr. Moschino
I've got a secret I've been hiding under my coat. I starve my brain for blood every morning using a 100% silk Versace noose that is home to a delicate menagerie of biological opportunistic bastards (of the highest caliber) that I've collected during my travels through other people's nasty bits. My dilemma is this: how do I look presentable, and yet demand more of this season's catalog by not killing people who touch me?
I have considered the collarless shirt. Elegant, simple, no WMDs, and quite frankly, sexy. And I'm nothing if I'm not a sexy son of a blastula. But my neck is half a meter long and a size 14 1/2, so the collarless shirt makes me look like a closed tufted umbrella with an Adam's apple. Still sexy, but come on, add 1 crucifix and stir and I'm Father Late-for-Baptism. (Yes, of course the shirt will be black. That's how I roll.)
The bowtie. A timeless accoutrement that is as infused with suave lightness as it is heavy with brainiosity. Each bowtie comes with a spray bottle of 10 extra IQ points applied straight up the nose where you can smell the ideas.
No, the bowtie is not really timeless, rather wherever it goes it drapes everything within 2 meters of its frilly ends with a thin dusty coat of 1925 and a nice lacquer of pre-depression art-deco Gatsbitude (you're not going to get this stuff anywhere else, I speak a quaint dialect of northern arse, 3, 2, 1, never mind).
The bowtie offers the dull shirt an opportunity to charleston its way into the limelight. That might make the shirt yellow and accentuate my sweat stains (which are almost as sexy as my remarkably toneless ass) but every day wearing a bowtie is a day of greatness and respect.
Certainly the bowtie is more difficult to weaponize.
There is a simpler option. If Yossarian can get a medal pinned to his naked chest in wartime, I could certainly get used to the feel of stethoscope rubber around my bare neck and pens tegadermed to my chest hair.
You know what else is timeless? Styx.
The problem's plain to see/
Too much technology/
Machines to save our lives/
Machines dehumanize.
This of course makes so much more sense if you take out all these words and add different words that are more relevant. Actually I just like this song because I'm old skool and I kick it like hitops in 1983.
And I found a Moschino bowtie that matches my chest hair. Domo arigato, Mr. Moschino.
I have considered the collarless shirt. Elegant, simple, no WMDs, and quite frankly, sexy. And I'm nothing if I'm not a sexy son of a blastula. But my neck is half a meter long and a size 14 1/2, so the collarless shirt makes me look like a closed tufted umbrella with an Adam's apple. Still sexy, but come on, add 1 crucifix and stir and I'm Father Late-for-Baptism. (Yes, of course the shirt will be black. That's how I roll.)
The bowtie. A timeless accoutrement that is as infused with suave lightness as it is heavy with brainiosity. Each bowtie comes with a spray bottle of 10 extra IQ points applied straight up the nose where you can smell the ideas.
No, the bowtie is not really timeless, rather wherever it goes it drapes everything within 2 meters of its frilly ends with a thin dusty coat of 1925 and a nice lacquer of pre-depression art-deco Gatsbitude (you're not going to get this stuff anywhere else, I speak a quaint dialect of northern arse, 3, 2, 1, never mind).
The bowtie offers the dull shirt an opportunity to charleston its way into the limelight. That might make the shirt yellow and accentuate my sweat stains (which are almost as sexy as my remarkably toneless ass) but every day wearing a bowtie is a day of greatness and respect.
Certainly the bowtie is more difficult to weaponize.
There is a simpler option. If Yossarian can get a medal pinned to his naked chest in wartime, I could certainly get used to the feel of stethoscope rubber around my bare neck and pens tegadermed to my chest hair.
You know what else is timeless? Styx.
The problem's plain to see/
Too much technology/
Machines to save our lives/
Machines dehumanize.
This of course makes so much more sense if you take out all these words and add different words that are more relevant. Actually I just like this song because I'm old skool and I kick it like hitops in 1983.
And I found a Moschino bowtie that matches my chest hair. Domo arigato, Mr. Moschino.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
The happy place
The morgue under our hospital looks just like a morgue.
The long hallway smells of wet dog like it's supposed to. A quorum of aproned antisocial types with knives stand around like chefs. Jars and plastic buckets full of pieces of humans neatly line the walls like barrels in a candy store. In the corner, a table with a camera rig and lights is set up for photographing specimens against an ugly blue background like on a porno set. Dull metal autopsy tables with cutting boards straight out of Martha Stewart's kitchen take up most of the space, separated by stretches of nasty green tile like in grandma's bathroom. A light box for radiology films hangs on one wall with an old stereo from 1986 on top of it (dual tape deck, one with auto-reverse, the other not so lucky) with an actual tape inside, also like in grandma's bathroom. And in the corner, also like in grandma's bathroom, a toilet.
I know, for that is what I also thought. But nay. It was a toilet.
This was not your grandma's toilet. I walked over to it for a closer look and no, it wasn't a sink or a basin, it was just a toilet. But something didn't look right. I looked at it for a while and went down the list of essential criteria for toiletness. There was a toilet plunger. There was a toilet flush lever thing. The piping looked appropriate to me. At its heart was a bowl with toilet water. The rim was there, though I wouldn't want to touch it. In the bottom of the bowl was the sine qua non of toiletude: the drain of oblivion.
Still, something was off. So I imagined myself going through the motions of using this toilet to discover what was missing and promptly ended the imagination when I got totally wet and cold and grossed out. This toilet was way too big for humans.
My colleague was standing next to me and noticed that I was staring at the toilet busy with my calculations. She leaned over and whispered, 'This looks like a good place to shoot Saw 4.' That's grim.
On the other hand, the morgue is actually the least grim place in the hospital since nobody actually dies here. In the tape deck: 'Bhangra mix 94.' Who cares what the toilet is for? Party in the basement, yar.
The long hallway smells of wet dog like it's supposed to. A quorum of aproned antisocial types with knives stand around like chefs. Jars and plastic buckets full of pieces of humans neatly line the walls like barrels in a candy store. In the corner, a table with a camera rig and lights is set up for photographing specimens against an ugly blue background like on a porno set. Dull metal autopsy tables with cutting boards straight out of Martha Stewart's kitchen take up most of the space, separated by stretches of nasty green tile like in grandma's bathroom. A light box for radiology films hangs on one wall with an old stereo from 1986 on top of it (dual tape deck, one with auto-reverse, the other not so lucky) with an actual tape inside, also like in grandma's bathroom. And in the corner, also like in grandma's bathroom, a toilet.
I know, for that is what I also thought. But nay. It was a toilet.
This was not your grandma's toilet. I walked over to it for a closer look and no, it wasn't a sink or a basin, it was just a toilet. But something didn't look right. I looked at it for a while and went down the list of essential criteria for toiletness. There was a toilet plunger. There was a toilet flush lever thing. The piping looked appropriate to me. At its heart was a bowl with toilet water. The rim was there, though I wouldn't want to touch it. In the bottom of the bowl was the sine qua non of toiletude: the drain of oblivion.
Still, something was off. So I imagined myself going through the motions of using this toilet to discover what was missing and promptly ended the imagination when I got totally wet and cold and grossed out. This toilet was way too big for humans.
My colleague was standing next to me and noticed that I was staring at the toilet busy with my calculations. She leaned over and whispered, 'This looks like a good place to shoot Saw 4.' That's grim.
On the other hand, the morgue is actually the least grim place in the hospital since nobody actually dies here. In the tape deck: 'Bhangra mix 94.' Who cares what the toilet is for? Party in the basement, yar.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
The pouch of Reda
A word about the title of this blog. This is the story of Reda's pouch. It is an anatomical pouch that I claimed one day while dissecting a cadaver. It is not a pleasant pouch, but it carried a generic and quite replaceable nomenclature and I could not resist but to strip it of its genericity and apply my own eponym to infuse it with life and especially vanity.
Specifically, Reda's pouch (also known as the pouch of Reda) is the compartment created by the interface between the uterus and the urinary bladder. An unfortunate location, but I was disappointed to find that the narrow communication between the third and fourth ventricles (that I had coveted so much since my youth) had already been snatched up and out of my reach forever by that half-wit Sylvius a few hundred years ago. Clearly, I far surpass this moldy ignoramus in medical knowledge at this point yet he still gets to keep his stupid aqueduct. His name contaminates several miscellaneous desirable sites in the human body (all highly lucrative real estate and some so elegant and ethereal that his audacity--and begrudgingly, deftness--in even trying to get his name to stick shocks me to no end). A fissure. My fissure.
Standing over me sprinkling salt on my wounds was Magendie, who filched my foramen while Treitz and Oddi ganged up on me and wrenched the duodenum from my fists and spat on my ligament and sphincter with their gross acidy eighteenth century spit to claim them for themselves.
No. I am left with a pouch that can be found in less than half of the population, and even so, is absolutely useless. It is there by accident, an anatomical default, the unavoidable and purposeless outcome of space and tissue. A dank, reeking swamp, a sewer for the female inards, a tripe basket!
That is what I, bloodied and defeated, was able to wrestle away from those entitled buffoons. And even so my claim is still disputed. The best I can get is 'the vesicouterine pouch' and then in pen and in my own handwriting: 'of Reda.'
Specifically, Reda's pouch (also known as the pouch of Reda) is the compartment created by the interface between the uterus and the urinary bladder. An unfortunate location, but I was disappointed to find that the narrow communication between the third and fourth ventricles (that I had coveted so much since my youth) had already been snatched up and out of my reach forever by that half-wit Sylvius a few hundred years ago. Clearly, I far surpass this moldy ignoramus in medical knowledge at this point yet he still gets to keep his stupid aqueduct. His name contaminates several miscellaneous desirable sites in the human body (all highly lucrative real estate and some so elegant and ethereal that his audacity--and begrudgingly, deftness--in even trying to get his name to stick shocks me to no end). A fissure. My fissure.
Standing over me sprinkling salt on my wounds was Magendie, who filched my foramen while Treitz and Oddi ganged up on me and wrenched the duodenum from my fists and spat on my ligament and sphincter with their gross acidy eighteenth century spit to claim them for themselves.
No. I am left with a pouch that can be found in less than half of the population, and even so, is absolutely useless. It is there by accident, an anatomical default, the unavoidable and purposeless outcome of space and tissue. A dank, reeking swamp, a sewer for the female inards, a tripe basket!
That is what I, bloodied and defeated, was able to wrestle away from those entitled buffoons. And even so my claim is still disputed. The best I can get is 'the vesicouterine pouch' and then in pen and in my own handwriting: 'of Reda.'
Saturday, March 10, 2007
I have so much to say
Not really. Uselessness notwithstanding, this blog will be a place for me to spew my inane (or ane in the wrong sense) ideas and comments on things about which my comments have (at best) questionable utility.
I will start small, dispensing with trivial things such as world politics, health care, religion, folklore, and maybe mortality if I can be bothered to make something up about it. From there, I hope to work my way up to the big issues like my favorite ice cream and why you should not trim your nose hairs in a hurry.
I would like to point out that while your comments are welcome, I will generally not read them personally. It's not that I don't appreciate the wisdom of others, it's just that I don't really like it. So just sit back and enjoy getting frustrated with my aggravatingly prolix, unnecessarily dense, and seriously redundant prose.
I will start small, dispensing with trivial things such as world politics, health care, religion, folklore, and maybe mortality if I can be bothered to make something up about it. From there, I hope to work my way up to the big issues like my favorite ice cream and why you should not trim your nose hairs in a hurry.
I would like to point out that while your comments are welcome, I will generally not read them personally. It's not that I don't appreciate the wisdom of others, it's just that I don't really like it. So just sit back and enjoy getting frustrated with my aggravatingly prolix, unnecessarily dense, and seriously redundant prose.
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