There are times when I find a song which takes over my life, which I play constantly because I become drunk on the emotion it provokes. The last song which did this to me was Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends." My new obsession is "The Art Teacher," a song from Rufus Wainwright's latest album, Want Two. I referenced it in an earlier post. Of course, feelings of regret, lost opportunities, unattainable love, and the transformative power of art will always resonate with me. And I love when men sing from the perspective of women (which Morrissey did as well). I myself frequently write stories from male points of view. Anyway, here are the lyrics (although you've really got to hear it sung with Rufus' velvety tenor to get the chills):

The Art Teacher

There I was in uniform
Looking at the art teacher
I was just a girl then;
Never have I loved since then

He was not that much older than I was
He had taken our class to the Metropolitan Museum
He asked us what our favorite work of art was,
But never could I tell it was him
Oh, I wish I could tell him --
Oh, I wish I could have told him

I looked at the Rubens and Rembrandts
I liked the John Singer Sargents
He told me he liked Turner
Never have I turned since then
No, never have I turned to any other man

All this having been said,
I married an executive company head
All this having been done, a Turner - I own one
Here I am in this uniformish, pant-suit sort of thing,
Thinking of the art teacher
I was just a girl then;
Never have I loved since then
No, never have I loved any other man

Two great quizzes: What Dog are You? and Who are your dead celebrity soulmates?

A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a Radical Faerie drumming circle with Joe. My roommate's friend wanted to join us, so I invited her too. First I met Joe for sushi, and we finally got to talk about his exciting new job, which involves counseling and support for HIV+ deaf persons. I'm ridiculously thrilled for him. If I end up matching in NYC, we may even end up working in the same hospital! How crazy would that be?

Anyway, the drumming circle. I could hear the pounding of the drums outside the apartment, and I felt a flutter of excitement in my belly as we ascended the stairs. The apartment was enormous, and quite beautiful. The walls of the kitchen were completely covered with collages of magazine and art cut-outs, many of pop culture icons and fashion images--plenty of divas and muscular men. I was introduced to a few radical faeries, including a guy who wore an orange cap with a green stem, who called himself "Pumpkin." We moved to the den, where there were enormous, dramatic, mysterious paintings and a multitude of plants. A circle of men were pounding on their drums, some intensely, some merrily, some ecstatically. Joe started to do a sort of stomping tribal dance, and entreated me to join him, but I was too shy. I'm fond of dancing, but I prefer to do it with darkness and lots of other bodies to obscure me. I walked inside the circle to a basket of different musical objects--bells, rain sticks, maracas, and so on. I picked up a bell and began to hit it with a stick, in time with the music. Eventually I built up the courage to take a drum, and tentatively found a rhythm. After a few minutes, I really got into it, and lost myself. My hands began to hurt, but I didn't care...I needed to make noise, I needed to make my rhythm known, I needed to contribute to this community of sound. In a weird way, I felt connected to my drumming Korean ancestors, and I regretted not being a part of the Korean drum group in college. It was lovely. There were men dancing around us, reminiscent of a pagan ritual--some old, some young, some thin, some fat, and many scantily clad (Pumpkin, for example, was shirtless, and his too-loose pants kept drifting down to reveal the top of his asscrack and a bit of pubic hair). An older man performed acrobatic leaps and twirled around poles, and also grinded against a few of the other guys. The guy drumming next to me said, "It's such an amazing, transporting experience, isn't it? As good as drugs." As someone who's never done drugs, I couldn't say...but I did have a bitchin' time.

When we took a break from drumming, we went around the room and said our names. Some guys had nature-inspired names such as Waterfall, Moonbeam, and so on. I was just Elizabeth. An older gentleman commented that I had "wonderful energy" in my drumming, which was a nice compliment. I wish there were more drumming opportunities out there...I remember going to the huge drumming event which takes place every Sunday in the big park in Montreal. There were lots of competing drumming circles, as well as musicians who brought other instruments--trumpets, flutes, saxophones, and so on. It's so inspiring to see spontaneous communities form for the sole purpose of creating art and music.

Saturday: I met with an old friend whom I hadn't seen in almost a year. Although he has been through a lot, with a breakup and all, he was as crude and exuberant as ever. He has a kind of light about him, which I really enjoy. His friend mistook us for siblings. I'm not sure if it's because we look alike, or because we feed off of each other's energy.

Today: I wore a nametag inadvertently placed a little too low on my breast, and an older woman commented to me, "I like what you did with your tag." She was apparently not being sarcastic. The hell? Was she hitting on me? I am clueless when it comes to this sort of thing.

I have a fear of commitment to medicine, like many people have a fear of commitment in a relationship. I struggled so much with the decision to continue because I believed that all other possibilities, all other dreams, would disappear. If nothing else, my last relationship opened my eyes as to what life as an artist is really like, not how I idealized it to be. As far as I can tell, it involves a lot of compromise, a lot of self-doubt, and most likely, working a shitty day job to pay the bills. After working shitty day jobs, I've realized that I can't do this for much longer, and want to do work that I find meaningful again. After "playing the field" work-wise, I'm finally ready to commit to medicine. I think. Although I still intend to write, to draw, and to express myself creatively whenever I can. I'll go insane if I don't.

As for relationships, I still feel very young, and have no desire to be involved seriously with anyone. I feel like a bit of an anomaly, since so many of my friends are in serious relationships, or are looking to settle down. Eventually I wish to meet someone who satisfies me physically, emotionally, and intellectually...the best I've done so far is 2 of 3. But for now, I just want to figure out what to do with myself, create something meaningful, and be free for adventure.

My father had a dream a couple of nights ago. He was walking on a sandy beach, and viewed a figure in the water. He approached, and saw that it was me. I was wielding three fishing nets (one in each hand, and one attached to my waist) in a complicated maneuver, yet he noticed a very serene expression on my face. As he watched, he saw that I had reaped an abundance of live, wiggling, shiny fish in my nets.

I've never had any sort of dream which was a premonition, but maybe my father is able to tap into something that I can't. I can only hope this means good things for me.

This is dorky, but I'm a little excited that I was quoted in someone else's personal blog (talking about Creed Angelique Encens and Comme des Garcons Ourzazate, which are both amazing incense fragrances, by the way). I need to start writing other stuff too. Like that languishing novel/screenplay/comic book that just needs to get the fuck off the ground already...

And...this was the next email I sent to the very same guy. We really did have a nice exchange of letters for awhile. This one was also sometime around late 2002/early 2003. Hopefully I've matured since then, in some ways at least. I did actually buy a pair of Banana Republic khakis after writing it (for shame!)

Dear _____,
However I try to relate to the dull and conformist masses, I have no desire to become one of them, and keep the distinction clear. Despite others’ claims of my elitism and snobbery, I refuse to see trashy Hollywood movies that I know that I’ll despise, to pretend that I’m not a feminist, to use language that simply repeats what others mindlessly express with no hint of individuality or creativity, or to be happy about corporate America as long as I get my Starbucks coffee and Banana Republic khakis. In a review of a movie called “Ghost World,” the writer described one of the main characters as a “maladjusted searcher for authenticity,” and that’s sometimes how I see myself (when I’m feeling especially pretentious). So, in kind of a fucked up way, I try to seek out authenticity in others, to get them to reveal to me what others do not accept: the ugly, the shameful, the disgusting, the misunderstood beauty that is not deemed acceptable by our current social standards. I apologize if I’m repeating myself…this is a song that I sing quite often, and I suspect that I may have already tired your ear with it.

Anyway, at the moment, I feel like the conflict is not so much whether to have bland friends or not, but whether to push my bland friends to talk about what interests me, rather than babble about gossip or about the weather or about celebrities. I tend to be somewhat passive in conversation, especially conversation in large groups…if I were to take more of an initiative, to push people to speak about topics that actually occupy my mind rather than make noise for the sake of forgetting how lonely we are…then maybe I’d find my friendships more fulfilling. Then again, I have tried pushing friends to talk about meaningful topics from time to time, with less than satisfying results. So maybe I’m fooling myself…maybe I would do better to turn to Camus after all…(I’m actually looking to read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason first, in addition to all the other books that I have to finish, but Camus was an old favorite of mine back when I was taking French classes…his style is the complete opposite of mine, pithy but profound with brilliantly developed images, which both thrills and irritates me because I know that right now I can’t produce anything with such power.)

Your description of your love for travel and your desire to become a “wandering scholar” made me smile, at least partly due to recognition. I spent some of this past summer wandering around the south of France, and it felt like my mind cleared and I gained so much interest into my surroundings, so much insight into myself and the world around me. I became fascinated with every detail I encountered; each movement, each person was a revelation. I completely understand how the world becomes simpler and more beautiful, and the people become less threatening and more fascinating, as you described. How incredible it is to lose yourself in observation…life as art, really. I felt the return of my inner voice…after being quiet for so long, sublimated as I tried not to think too deeply during this past year, it reemerged with a vengeance, refusing to shut up and to stop its gushing stream of ideas and images and dreams. My mind was so fertile, writhing excitedly with newfound activity, after its too-long hibernation. My existence weaved in and out of the existences of others, as I made transitory connections with other people, whether it was shared appreciation for a painting, or flirtation over mysterious alcoholic concoctions under strings of lights, or sex in someone’s cluttered, smoky apartment. And rather than feeling alienated and alone, I felt myself melt into my surroundings, and felt more comfortable and free than I had in ages.

During my last day in France, I went to the Maeght Foundation museum in a tiny medieval town close to Nice. The museum itself was founded and designed by Chagall, Braque, and Miro, among others. Right by the museum there was the Saint Bernard Chapel, a tiny wooden construction with a room filled with a wooden carved crucified Christ, originally Spanish in origin, from the XV century. Above this sculpture there was a stained glass window designed by the Cubist artist Georges Braque, of a dove flying amidst a translucent purple landscape. I was never particularly struck by carved Christ faces that I have seen before, but something about this Spanish Christ pricked my eyes with tears. The most eloquent expression sorrow I had ever seen was somehow encompassed into that face, and I felt it in my bones. I sketched it in my journal (rather decently, too). Later that evening, after I had returned to Nice, I decided to go to the Cimiez monastery, where one can supposedly see a beautiful flower garden that overlooks the Baie des Anges. I discovered upon getting off the bus that a jazz festival was taking place in the monastery that evening, and decided to go, on a whim. An excerpt from my frantic journal writings during the event: “As I lay down against the trunk of the olive tree in the Cimiez jardin, my plastic bag filled with all the things I deemed necessary for the day serving as a pillow, I listened peacefully to the jazz music played onstage. There were men playing brass horns and guitars with simultaneous precision and indulgent abandon. It was by far the most expert and soaring jazz of the night, and after I had wandered up close to the stage to get a sense of what was visually happening, I felt free to just lie down and look up at the sky, the silver green leaves twirling and fluttering in the gentle evening wind. My eyes were half-lidded as I looked occasionally at the faces before me who were watching the concert; I was experiencing the music by watching their faces. Their expressions and their movements gave me enough information as to what was happening on stage. And then I noticed one particular face – it was the Christ face on the cross in the Saint Bernard Chapel earlier today. His face was so handsome and arresting that I had to fight from gulping him whole with my eyes, instead taking discrete little sips, so he wouldn’t notice how taken I was with him. He was so utterly and completely transfixed by the music – his body was possessed, wiggling his arms and legs, sometimes fluttering his fingers, like he was a dangling marionette. There’s little more beautiful to me than a person dancing without inhibitions, and he was radiantly beautiful at that moment. In contrast to his Jesus face, he had a ’70’s hairdo, flipped out by the cheekbones and curly to the shoulders, and was wearing a blue tank top with horizontal stripes, and odd red pants that poofed a tiny bit and stopped below his knees. I got the sense that he was gay from the way that he looked and was looked at by men who bumped into him or walked closely by him. My homoerotic ecstatically dancing Jesus. I felt like I could die right then, in the shelter of that olive tree with the silvery green ribbons floating above me, the mournfully faced yet radiant gay Jesus dancing frenetically before me, sweet intricate jazz sliding into my ears, smooth as butter. I felt warm and utterly at peace, my eyelids heavily obscuring my vision, the colors melting into each other but swirling graceful lines still distinguishable, and my mouth in a blissful half-smile, which may have been enigmatic to anyone who chose to look as (s)he stepped over my limbs strewn about the tree’s base.”

Shit. You really suckerpunched me with your description of your relationship with the girl who had such a predilection for asshole boyfriends. You started off with some bitterly sharp humor which made me laugh despite myself, and then you swerved into such gorgeous poetry that my breath was taken away. I imagine that you’ll continue to vacillate back and forth between the two extremes you described, of needing and exchanging vs. withdrawing and observing, before you settle on one or the other. It seems that when you (or I, or anyone) begin with one extreme, it seems so perfect and lovely and dandy, but then gets tiresome as you start to think more and more about the other extreme, which becomes more and more attractive…and eventually you switch over to the other extreme, and start all over again. Ideally, you could merge these two extremes which right now seem so diametrically opposed, but if there’s a way to do it, I sure as fuck haven’t found it yet. Still, let’s save the cynicism for when we’ve amassed more wrinkles and creaky joints, and continue to search for that elusive balance…or some other alternative that works better and leaves us fulfilled and satisfied. Or maybe this sort of pendulum is necessary for growth, for change, for movement…who would want to be so fulfilled and satisfied that life becomes static? (I remember as a five year old girl lying in my bed at night, unable to sleep, thinking about death, I was horrified at the thought of heaven and eternal life…because there would be no change. Heaven would be always perfect, for all eternity. Every day would be exactly, blissfully, the same, and there would be no end. For whatever reason, this terrified me more than the idea that our lives would end with death and our bodies would rot away). But then again, who cares if life is static, if you’re fulfilled and satisfied? Gah. Experience, as you say, may lead to more answers, or at least more questions which may flesh out the dilemma.

There’s something about Belle and Sebastian that works well with traveling through England…I listened to them constantly when I was wandering around Edinburgh, and their songs perfectly complemented the green rolling hills and densely situated gray Victorian (or so I’ve been told) buildings soaked with rain. My signature song is “Judy and the Dream of Horses” from the “If you’re feeling sinister” album…I constantly sing it out loud in the car, or walking in hospital hallways as I go from patient to patient, pretending that I have a star and a parrot on my shoulders. You may also want to check out the Reindeer Section, which is a hodgepodge band filled with members of Belle and Sebastian, Snow Patrol, and others. I think that “If Everything Fell Quiet” is one of the most beautiful yet simple love songs that I’ve ever heard.

I hope that you haven’t completely abandoned your admittedly idealistic vision of how architecture may better the world. I imagine that through your studies you’ll continue to develop your philosophy and hone your ideas regarding what you want to accomplish with architecture, and how you can use your skills to improve quality of life (such a popular catchphrase in the medical community, ugh). And how architecture can perhaps truly revolutionize the way we interact with our environment and with each other in the confines of our shared environment. I won’t write too much more about this since you mentioned wanting to take a break from thinking about it, but you’ve certainly impressed upon me the tremendous power that architects have to shape our lives. Although there is the risk of catastrophe you mentioned, I perhaps naively feel like risks need to be taken in order to improve the shitty states of existence here in the States in this day and age, whether in rundown urban wastelands or cookie cutter suburban hell…perhaps some are complacent with their current conditions, but how could they know any better when their souls and their free-thinking minds have been sucked out of them? I am assuming that I know better than the majority of this country’s population, but, well…look at the approval ratings of our current president. And the top five movies at the box office. Alas, my snobbery and elitism make themselves known once again.

--Me

Okay. I've started 2 or 3 posts, but still haven't finished them. So I'm going to cheat a little, and start posting my old e-mails, which are pretty much like my blog entries now--random thoughts and anecdotes. Anyway, here's the first, from around October/November 2002. It was written to an architect, with whom I'm no longer in contact.

Dear ___,

OK. Language. Well, for a long time I struggled with being forced to use a language that was not my own. Sure, as a teenager desperately trying to forge an identity—and who chose her identity to be “I-will-challenge-all-of-your-expectations-of-what-I-should-do-or-say feminist”—I attempted to alter some of the more sexist aspects of the English language. E.g. I would write “wommon” rather than “woman” and use “she” as the impersonal pronoun rather than “he.” I no longer view “woman” as a sexist spelling, but continue to use “wommon” anyway (and “womyn” for the plural) because I think it’s good to use at least a couple of words differently from the established spelling or pronunciation (to remind myself, and others who can somehow understand, that strict adherence to rules without some questioning should be avoided). I was distressed to realize, however, that altering a few words didn’t disguise the fact that I was using a language, and usually following the rules, established by dead white men centuries before I was born. And language is far from objective—the words that you use are imperfect approximations of what they describe, and you’re forced to acknowledge that subjectivity every time you use those words that were created or chosen by someone else: some languages have twenty words for rice, some have only the present tense of verbs, some tend to have more abstract words, etc. As a staunch individualist (is there such a word? I think you get my meaning), I didn’t want to use a language that wasn’t completely my own…I dreamed of creating an entirely new language for myself. (My friend David dreamed with me…although he insisted that we keep the word “episode” from the normal English language, since he found it so beautiful.) But of course, if you create a completely personal and self-created language, then no one else can understand you, and you lose the ability to communicate with others. At this time I placed very little importance upon language and used it sparingly, instead focusing on art, which I felt was a kind of personal language through image. Until I realized that I could make these written and spoken words my own through the use of metaphor. No longer would the words’ meanings be solely determined by Webster’s—they could mean anything that I wanted, as long as I subverted their classical meanings by creating new meanings of my own. Like taking a square of paper and folding it, origami style, into any crane or fish or dinosaur that I wished. So the dilemma wasn’t completely solved, but I did re-embrace language as a means of artistic expression. There’s more of course, but I won’t burden you with it

I’m listening to my latest purchase, Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” which strangely seems like an appropriate aural backdrop for this long overdue letter. I’m also all aglow from checking out the Wilco documentary, “I am trying to break your heart,” about the making of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which I listened to over and over and over and over again this past summer. God, I had forgotten how much music can make me feel, and how much it can heal. Same goes for art…when I was fucking drowning in despair after losing a kid last Wednesday (one that I was caring for during my current Pediatrics rotation…she was only thirteen), I was able to escape from the pain and somehow exist on this alternate plane which was pure light, pure motion, no thought, no body. My existence was narrowed down to a precise point of concentrated power. This is what happens when I draw or paint.

So to begin, I’m going to comment on the e-mail that you wrote months ago describing your thoughts about architecture and what it means. I must guiltily admit that in the past I was of the group who barely paid any attention to the buildings around her, and when I thought consciously thought about architecture, I thought about the Guggenheim or other showy buildings that deviate greatly from more generic-looking ones. Ugh, how awful it is to see that I’m just like rest of the ignorant masses in this regard! I think I’m slowly gaining a greater appreciation for architecture though…I decided to work on a silkscreen project for a friend of mine, and have chosen as my subject some areas in downtown Durham. Although the buildings are aging and peeling and clothed in faded pastel hues, I’m quite enamored of the tension between the decay and the spic-and-spam prim ’50’s sensibility. I say this with very little authority, since I am totally ignorant about what exactly ’50’s architecture is…but, well, I guess the buildings in downtown Durham remind me of the desolate buildings in Edward Hopper paintings. They’re starkly simple and beautiful, especially after all the frilly excess of French buildings that my eyes tired of seeing during this past summer.

Okay. So to go back to your e-mail (how quickly I get distracted!) I was struck by how your description of the divide between the phenomenologists and political architects seemed to echo what I was reading earlier today about the divide between the Romantic poets Keats and Shelley; the writer described Keats as a poet who yearned for a life of pure sensation, while Shelley wished to put poetry at the center of politics, to reshape a more just and egalitarian world. I don’t agree wholly with the writer’s supposed opposition between the two poets, but it was fun to wrap my mind around a dichotomy that echoed the one that I explored months ago when reading your words. It seems that the phenomenologists were about simply feeling and experiencing…that the person who is experiencing the architectural object is a partner in its creation. While the political architects seem to be like designers of a pipe system, or of a dairy farm: making sure that the flow of moving things is as untroubled and logical as possible, with much less allowance for the individual experience and more interest in directing large groups of people. While I do have such an affection for the Romantics, I must admit that there is much value in the logical construction of a building or city. There was many a time while lost in the crazy spiderweb of streets in Paris when I wished I was back in the easy-to-follow grid of streets in Manhattan. But then…in Manhattan you don’t come across lots of hidden secret gardens and other surprise spots in the same way that you while wandering in Paris. When walking through a city that is not so logically designed, you become so much more aware of your surroundings. Whereas in a city that is logically designed, your surroundings fade away, unnoticed, as you head toward your destination, conscious of how many right angle turns you’ll need to make before getting there. Form vs. function I suppose. Like reading a novel for the languages and images vs. for the plot.

I had not realized how the personal visions of the architects Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright led to the unfortunate byproducts of dilapidated urban ghettos and mind-numbingly conformist suburbia. It’s quite disenchanting to see how these lovely ideas meant to make our living situations more humane get completely fucked up in their execution and their unchecked overabundance.

So what do you see as the purpose of architecture? What is your own philosophy about the meaning of what you do? Or do you simply do it, without bogging yourself down with too much philosophy about the purpose of it all? (Somehow I don’t see that from you.) I imagine, from your description of how you work, that you incorporate aspects of both the phenomenologists and the political architects…what other considerations do you make about the effect the building will have on its inhabitants, and how the inhabitants will respond to the building?

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been having a rough time with the death of one of my patients, especially since I feel partially (although irrationally, as the residents have told me repeatedly) responsible. She had a genetic disorder that made her unable to metabolize protein, and would have episodes of greatly increased blood levels of ammonia, which is toxic to the body (especially the brain). She was admitted because she was suffering the effects of too much ammonia: confusion, dizziness, somnolence, and weakness. She was put on medication to bring her ammonia back down, which worked, but somehow, without warning, she suddenly shut down. Her brain scans revealed that her brain was swollen with fluid, and she was clinically brain dead. Her family is just devastated, of course, and I’m overcome with sadness for them, as well as guilt…I keep thinking that if I had been more thorough, if I had looked carefully enough, I could have seen something that perhaps could have tipped the odds in her favor. I suspect that it comes from trying to combat helplessness and lack of control…by thinking that I could have changed the outcome, I can fool myself into thinking that I had some power, some effect on this kid’s survival. I don’t know. When I spoke with her mom before the event leading to her brain death happened, she had been so hopeful that her daughter would get better. She described her daughter’s flourishing interest in reading and writing, her daughter’s constant fighting with her brother (“although he feels guilty as anything when she ends up in the hospital”…God, what he must be going through right now), her daughter’s pride in her hair which she had grown all the way down to her waist. I’m constantly haunted by images of her comatose body in the Intensive Care Unit, her forehead stained brown for a reason that is unknown to me, her family crowded around her bed, in vigil. Her parents wiping tears from their eyes, their faces immeasurably weighed by grief. Her grandmother’s mouth drawn down and her eyes empty of hope, the way she shook her head when I, in my ignorance of the full extent of what happened, asked if the girl would be OK.

Well, it’s 2:20 a.m., and I still have to write my H&P, and have to wake up to be at the hospital by 6:00 a.m….so unfortunately I’ll wait until the next e-mail to write about chaos and about the art exhibits that I saw in France (which you saw, too…at least in my mind) and my gay ecstatically dancing Jesus in a blue tank top and red clam digger pants and a seventies David Cassidy hairdo. I hope that all is well with you.

--Me

P.s. To just start the bit on my thoughts about Chaos, I was struck by how those who came up with it were able to disregard classically defined limits imposed by conventional physics and mathematics to understand this beautiful concept that had been hidden all this time as scientists disregarded “experimental error.” It reminds me of a quote from a David Mack comic book (paraphrased): “The rational conform to the rules of the world, while the irrational make the world conform to their rules. Therefore, all important breakthroughs are made by irrational people.” Now, I take some issue with his use of the words “rational” and “irrational”; I don’t think the dichotomy is really correct with those words as the opposing poles. But I think that the sense of his statement is still so important. That pioneers of any kind, whether in physics or art or medicine, must break free of the limitations imposed by previous interpretations of their fields in order for new discoveries to be made. This was certainly the case with the Cubist artists, the modernist writers, and those who created the theory of Chaos. And, well, any link that I can draw between science and art makes me happy, especially a virtue of art that I believe in so passionately: destroying perceived limits and expanding the possibilities of thought and experience and understanding, opening our eyes to previously unseen aspects of existence.

Okay, remember when I went on and on about how much I hate the label "exotic?" And how I'm offended when people view me as exotic, for no reason (as far as I can tell) other than my looks? Well...weirdly enough, I realized that I'm largely attracted to those I find exotic. Granted, I still consider my attraction to exoticism more sophisticated, since it's less about physical appearance, and more about upbringing and culture. From a dirt poor playa Dominican Republican, to a dirt poor struggling musician/filmmaker, to a dirt poor composer, to a dirt poor motorcycle driving scientist, to a dirt poor Republican artist who has just a high school education...there's a common theme here, obviously. I'm drawn to guys who are self-made, who struggled in poverty. I'm not sure why this is. Perhaps I'm ashamed of my own upper-middle-class upbringing, of how easy my life has been in every way, of how little I've had to struggle--which contributed to weaknesses in my character (particularly a maddeningly passive approach to my life's path). And even though I live in financial comfort (thanks largely to parents), and succumb to retail therapy occasionally (never particularly extravagant, since I like to delude myself into thinking that I'm not a spoiled brat), I still don't have much interest in material things. During this year, I've been slowly trying to cobble together some sort of spirituality, so that I'm better able to deal with crises which will inevitably rise in the future. I've frequently been distracted, and have abandoned this quest several times. But whenever I start thinking about it again, I realize how unimportant my possessions are--toys, clothes, and so on. They're a superficial balm for what truly ails me, and when I'm on my deathbed (however many, or few, years from now), they will offer little comfort. More than anything, I want to be productive, I want to contribute, I want to give instead of take, I want to share instead of hoard, and I want to explore instead of hide, I want to experience instead of think. More and more, medicine seems like the answer after all (even though I've been questioning it all this time).

To go back to my original point, I'm attracted to people who can teach me something, who can broaden my horizons, who can shatter my world so that I'm forced to piece it back together again, instead of continuing to chug along without editing or altering it. On the other hand, most of my closest friends grew up in similar situations to mine, and have much easier time understanding my idiosyncrasies than those who date me. My friends and I exert much less effort clarifying miscommunications, which seem to plague all my relationships. Then again, maybe my idea of a romantic relationship is inextricably tied to wrestling opposites, given the model of my parents' relationship--different ethnicities, different countries of origin, different political beliefs, different interests, different approaches to money, and so on. Whenever I encounter someone who is remarkably similar to me, I immediately think of that person as a friend. Then again, I have much more trust in friends than in lovers. Relationships, as far as I can tell, don't last with me. And I'm not sure I want them to last. I still feel far too young, too green, too caught up in figuring out my own issues, to decide on a life partner. Although of course I miss the physical aspects of relationships...except sharing a bed at night. That sucked. (Intimacy, shmintimacy.)

The Oscars...meh. I actually don't think that Chris Rock was all that bad--he made me laugh a few times, at least, which is more than Billy Crystal was ever able to accomplish--but the ceremony certainly seemed soulless. As everyone and her mother has already stated, it's fucking ridiculous that the AV kids were forced to accept their awards in the aisle, or do the pageant wait on stage, while the movie stars got to sit comfortably in their seats until the winners were granted the right to go onstage and bask in the glow of the audience's adoration. I'm especially disappointed by the boycott of my most anticipated eye-candy, Gael Garcia Bernal. By the way, I'm a little perturbed that he was on Paris Hilton's phone list (which was leaked a week ago). Why was he on that list exactly? I'm also perturbed that I found his number several days too late...because I might have been tempted to call him and turn into a squealing fangirl a la Hard Day's Night.

Highlights: the dry humor of Charlie Kaufman's speech (hooray for his win!), the dry humor of Jeremy Irons as he introduced an award, and the Best Animated Short award to an extraordinary Canadian film called Ryan.

My favorite dresses were those worn by Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Julie Delpy, Cate Blanchett, and some chick named Natalia Vodianova.

I started my period today. As someone who spends most of the time in her head, barely aware of her body, it's jarring to constantly be reminded of your own physiology like this, in such a horrifying way. Another ovulation for naught. For some reason it makes me think of a pinball machine...a ball is launched, but since you had no interest in lifting those flippy things to keep it alive (aka unprotected sex), the ball falls into a hole and dies. Thus no flashing lights or whirring toys or extra points. And out gushes the blood. You'd think after having to deal with blood gushing out of my vagina every month, I wouldn't bat an eye during a typical slash film. But...no.

Yay! My favorite designer, Jay, won the big prize on Project Runway. The theme of his show was "Stereotypes," and each outfit was supposed to evoke a different kind of music. He doesn't explicitly say what each girl listens to, but these are my guesses:
#1: Aspen girl, a ritzy girl with money who likes to ski. Listens to soft, laid-back jazz, Eva Cassidy, Norah Jones, Sting.
#2: Cross-cultural girl. She likes world music, particularly East Asian, South Asian, Native American, and African music. For some reason she also strikes me as someone who likes futuristic techno. She's more about rhythms and beats than about vocals and words.
#3: Hippie Girl. Listens to folk music, loves Woody Guthrie, old Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin.
#4: Definitely Indie Rock girl with punk tendencies. She likes Sleater-Kinney, Interpol, The Fiery Furnaces, Wilco, Stereolab.
#5: Ethereal girl, she's very fragile and likes sensitive lyrics. Likes Belle & Sebastien, Nick Drake, Tori Amos.
#6: Ghetto-fabulous girl. She likes OutKast, Blackalicious, Kanye West, 50 Cent.
#7: Urban nerd girl. Likes quirky, brainy stuff like They Might Be Giants, Elvis Costello, Death Cab for Cutie. Alternatively, she could be that ironic, detached, too-cool-for-school girl who's into techno/house.
#8: OK, this one stumps me. A raver, perhaps? Or an elegant goth into Joy Division?
#9: Urban hipster girl. She's into industrial rock and Bjork.
#10: Hmm, stumped again. I think this is the snowbunny that Jay mentioned, but I have idea what snowbunny music is like. She looks more like insane asylum girl (with fashionable lavender straightjacket) to me, who listens to the crazy voices in her head.
#11: I think this is the hooker that Jay mentioned. Erm, Madonna, L'il Kim, and Nine Inch Nails? I don't know what constitutes hooker music.
#12: Funky glamour girl. Definitely glam rock and new wave. David Bowie, Duran Duran, Erasure. Alternatively, a bubble gum pop princess.

Finally picked up Rufus Wainwright's Want Two album. The first song gave me chills from its beauty. Then again, I'm a whore for self-indulgent swoopy vocals (e.g. Morrissey). I'm in the midst of the 2nd song right now, which is more reminiscent of his older stuff. Loving it so far though...

After a long break, I've returned to Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy. I decided to skip around instead of trudging through chronologically (I was thoroughly bored with Aristotle and still haven't finished his sections). Last night I read the highly entertaining Nietzsche chapter (which was my first encounter with Nietzsche's ideas in any way, embarrassingly enough, other than vague references to nihilism when I studied Faulkner in high school). Russell makes no attempt to hide his contempt for Nietzsche's misogynism and elitism, and finishes the chapter with a hilarious hypothetical argument between Nietzsche and Buddha, who are trying to convince God about the kind of world He should create. Nietzsche, of course, argues against sympathy and love, and promotes the sacrifice of most for the glory of a select few. Buddha argues for salvation in the form of universal love, offered to everybody. Russell, unsurprisingly, agrees with Buddha. As do I, after reading Russell's highly biased account of the argument...but in order to give Nietzsche a fair chance, I'll have to read his actual words, instead of just adopting Russell's opinions as my own.

Russell points out that Nietzsche "condemns Christian love because he thinks it is an outcome of fear," yet his superman's "lust for power...is itself an outcome of fear. Those who do not fear their neighbours see no necessity to tyrannize over them." He then goes on to say that a certain breed of Christians justifies Nietzsche's criticism (Pascal and Dostoevsky are Russell's examples); these are "saints by fear" who only behave like good Christians in order to avoid punishment (hell) and to reap reward (heaven). However, according to Russell, there are also "saints by nature" who have "a spontaneous love of mankind; [they do] good because to do so gives [them] happiness." Nietzsche is not able to conceive of "saints by nature" because "he is so full of fear and hatred that spontaneous love of mankind seems to him impossible. He has never conceived of the man who, with all the fearlessness and stubborn pride of the superman, nevertheless does not inflict pain because he has no wish to do so."

I like this argument, and it articulates a problem I always had with Christianity. I never liked the idea of following a religion simply to avoid punishment (hell), or to be rewarded (heaven). I don't have all that much admiration for people who are Christians in talk, and perhaps in action, but not at heart. They're hypocrites, who are only behaving that way because they're afraid of going to hell, or because they're afraid of what others may think of them. I believe one should follow a religion because it coincides with how one genuinely views the world and wishes to behave, regardless of what punishment or reward might result from it. Of course, this is highly idealized...religions should appeal to the better parts of our nature, not the baser parts. If one had antisocial instincts, I don't believe it would be admirable to follow a religion which promoted those instincts. But what bugs me the most is when Christians vociferously proclaim their own greatness, and their own imminent rewards, while condemning others. For example, when evangelists try to recruit others to the religion through fear, with those "fire and brimstone" speeches. And Mr.Bush is, of course, the textbook example of the kind of Christian I loathe. I'm much more impressed by those Christians who simply live and act according to the teachings of Christ, and inspire others to follow them--not because of what may happen after death, but because of the spiritual awards they reap during life. In other words, a true community of love, support, acceptance, and charity. This may seem strange, but I don't think it matters much whether or not heaven exists. Sometimes I think that the idea of heaven is most useful as a balm to the living, particularly those grieving a loved one, or those facing death themselves. Sometimes I think that the idea of heaven is more important than the truth of its existence.

It's so strange, that in the past, I was so obsessed with truth, as I defined it. Cold, hard facts--no matter how scary, no matter how hurtful, no matter how dangerous--would be sought and proclaimed by fearless me. Ha! I was so self-righteous. While I don't dismiss the importance of facts, and of expanding knowledge, I no longer seek an objective truth in religion. I'm more interested in a way of life that can offer me solace when life becomes nigh unbearable, that encourages the better aspects of my nature -- generosity, kindness, sympathy, love. Religion as more of a life philosophy, I mean.

Oh lordy...Rufus is now singing about The Metropolitan Museum--and paintings by Rubens, Rembrandt, Turner. Stop it, boy! Don't tempt me to make out with my CD player.

Okay, I've moved on from Rate My Boner, onto this Aicha video. So help me, a girl's gotta laugh sometimes. And as much as I love Alan Cumming, this is going to give me nightmares tonight. Still...I'm curious to smell it. After all, the scent of a condom is part of its composition.

Well, you know that you've become kind of pathetic when you spend your evenings cruising through Rate My Boner. *sigh* Poor guy.

Other current obsessions:
1) Bravo's Project Runway TV show. Thank God I get Bravo in New York. My favorite designer is, by far, the hilarious, edgy, and talented Jay McCarroll. His Fashion Week finale runway show was insanely gorgeous. Tim Gunn (Chair of the Parsons Department of Fashion Design) offers terrifically snarky commentary on all the episodes, which makes following the series even more of a treat.

2) Perfumes. I tend to go through phases when it comes to girly shit--for awhile I was obsessed with makeup (when I decided, thanks to Nan Goldin, that I wanted to be a drag queen, even though I'm female). Last year it was mostly clothes (particularly miniskirts and shoes, for some reason). Now it's perfumes. I've acquired samples and decants of dozens, but my favorite is Guerlain's Vol de Nuit -- a perfume from the 1930's, created in honor of Antoine St. Exupery, the French aviator and author of The Little Prince. It was Katherine Hepburn's favorite, and had an amazing bottle. Other current favorites are Patricia de Nicolai's Juste un Reve, Keiko Mecheri's Damascena, and the wacky Comme des Garcons series (which remind me of Bjork for some reason). I'm also intrigued by the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, an e-tailer with a Gothic bent. It has fragrances inspired by demons, Tarot cards, love spells, and literary characters (including many from Shakespeare, Alice in Wonderland, and so on). Unfortunately their shipping time is insanely slow, and it will likely be awhile before I find out what Tennyson's Lady of Shallott smells like. I won't go into much more detail since I've become almost as much of a fragrance geek as my Dad is a wine geek, but this is a great perfume blog.

3) Mochi

Although I was disheartened to read in a recent TimeOut NY article that Loretta Lynn campaigned for Bush I, and strongly supports Bush II, I've been very much digging her Van Lear Rose album. I've been slowly trying to educate myself more about country music, and I knew nothing of her work before, but yes...good stuff. I missed most of the Grammy's, but was happy to hear that she picked up a couple of awards. Weirdly enough, hearing Jack White on that album has now piqued my interest in The White Stripes, although they've been "the next big thing" for years.

I'm glad that Valentine's Day has come and gone. I've never had a significant other on Valentine's Day; it seems that relationships for me always end just before, start right after, or take a convenient break during V-day. Curiously enough, in Japan and Korea, the recently developed Valentine's Day custom dictates that womyn buy chocolates and gifts for men (and this is not reciprocated). When womyn's salaries are about 1/2 of men's, why the hell would you put the burden of buying chocolates on the womyn? And how is that romantic, exactly? Bleh. I remember reading an essay in a college Japanese Studies class which argued that working womyn actually used the chocolate-buying custom to enact a subtle psychological power, by expressing approval or disapproval according to the number of chocolates they bought for their coworkers/bosses. I don't buy it, personally. A momentary humiliation due to receiving a measly number of chocolates from female subordinates doesn't exactly rival the power exerted by the men in the Japanese workforce.

My last trip to Korea was enlightening in so many ways. It is very much an alien culture to me, despite my ancestry and my familiarity with the food. For one thing, people do not say "Excuse me" when they bump into you. They just shove you aside. I kept glaring at people for their rudeness, only to find out that they did not realize that they were "rude according to my cultural standards." Also, it's considered improper for a single wommon to live alone in an apartment, which is why my 30-year-old cousin has to live with her parents and commute across the city to get to work, about 1.5 hours each way. It's also quite strange to be stared at on the subway. Unlike the subway in New York, the subway in Korea (as well as in Japan) has a racially homogenous population, so any non-Asian person is treated like an abnormal curiosity, such as a dwarf or a person with missing limbs. There's also a strange push-pull that occurs inside of me...half of me shares an ancestry, a history, a culture with these people, but they see me as completely alien and unlike them. I kind of want to be recognized as part of their group, as someone who belongs, even though I clearly am not and don't (culturally in addition to ethnically).

I was surprised to find out that Koreans in Korea were as fanatically religious as Koreans in the U.S. I had incorrectly assumed that Koreans in Korea were not nearly as susceptible to Christianity, since they were not dependent on the church to find a community with other Koreans in a foreign country. On one of the amazing business dinners I attended with my father, I asked one of the Korean lawyers why Koreans were so religious. He pointed out that the Japanese tended to be happy-go-lucky and were not religious at all. Koreans, on the other hand, had experienced such suffering and devastation that they needed religion to lift their spirits, to keep their will to live. Certainly, Koreans seem to highly identify with, and celebrate, suffering. Almost all of their soap operas, songs, and stories feature a primary admirable character who suffers greatly (such as the famous Chunhyang). Which explains why Koreans are so drawn to the story of Christ, who suffered for the sins of the world. Curiously enough, I also learned that Koreans are considered "the Latins" of the Asian world--for example, Koreans are considered to be more passionate, more emotional, and less refined than the Japanese. Since Asians as a whole are so much more reserved than European (and most American) people, these nuances between different Asian groups were lost on me before.

With the huge success of Korean dramas, the Koreans' extremely passionate love for music (karaoke is huge, and Koreans are constantly singing), their strong religious faith, and their history of occupation, rape, and slaughter, I think that Koreans are, in some ways, like blacks in the United States. Koreans have similarly been able to transcend a tragic history to produce popular art that is enthusiastically consumed by the rest of Asia. It's a shame that many Koreans are racist against blacks, because I find much in common between both communities.

So, what really led to the death of Matthew Shepard? Maybe he wasn't brutally beaten up and left for dead because he was gay...maybe it's the fault of those evil, evil methamphetamines!

I am completely disgusted with ABC News right now. The program 20/20 apparently wants to investigate whether Matthew Shepard's killing was a drug-fueled mugging-gone-wrong rather than a hate crime. The killers will be interviewed, and they are apparently changing their story (even though they admitted in the trial that they were infuriated by Matthew coming on to them, which prompted the murder).

A great PlanetOut article talks about the scant coverage of gay hate crimes in the media since Shepard's death, and discusses the 20/20 news segment further.

ABC, prepare for a very, very pissed off e-mail.

If I have to numb my misery over the election results, at least I can do it in Hawaii. Good lord but it's absolutely gorgeous here. The water is the most exquisite aquamarine color...the air is fragrant with tropical flowers...and the men are impossibly muscular, tan, and nearly naked at all times. Maybe I should consider moving here to practice after all...

I'm about ten pages away from finishing Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being and...eh. I expected much better, since so many people cite this book as one of their favorites, and because I have much love for another book of his, Immortality. There are parts of the book that are really excellent and fun and thought-provoking and familiar (mostly his bits concerning history, philosophy, linguistics, and theology), but for some reason I can't get into the characters. Kundera himself admits that they are fanciful creations who are created in order to explore philosophical conflicts; he writes them so that they are stilted abstractions more than living, breathing characters. For some reason I always found immediate distaste for characters who were written primarily as symbols, rather than as real people. Of course I think Kundera tried to do both simultaneously, but in the end, they're no more than symbols to me. He writes women especially poorly...his men seem somewhat authentic, but his women are not convincing in the least. They're like a collection of physical attributes and gestures and anecdotes dressed in drag. For some reason I feel offended when I read Kundera's attempts to get into the minds of women...but then, maybe he just illuminates something he sees in women which I personally don't want to see. Just because he sees it, and I don't, doesn't mean that it's not there.

I saw Green Day in East Rutherford, NJ last night and it was fucking amazing. Easily the best concert I've seen in years. Now, I'm not a big Green Day fan at all...I liked their hits in the early 90's, such as "Longview" and "Basket Case," but I found them to be a bit too derivative of 70's punk to be very interesting. They didn't seem all that innovative or original. Now, one of their more recent songs, "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" seemed a bit more introspective, and touched me, but I still felt no need to buy any of their albums. My cousin had an extra ticket and invited me to go to the concert with her last night, and because I needed to get my ass out of the house, and had no real distaste for Green Day, I agreed. Holy shit, was I not prepared for what happened. Their new material is truly, truly brilliant. The band is electrifying live. I never got the sex appeal of the lead singer, Billy Joe, but now I do...he simulated masturbation on stage (actually unbuckling his belt, slipping his hand down his pants, while moaning and gasping aloud), wiggled those teeny hips, charmed the crowd until we worshipped him as our king, and was sexy as all get-out. He was hilarious, sweet, charismatic, bitchy, rowdy, vulnerable, and openly political (about needing to get Bush the fuck out of the White House). The band was obviously having a blast, and so were we. I didn't even mind that my cousin, her friends, and I were much older than the teenage kids clad in pseudo-punk gear surrounding us, who pumped their little fists to each song. I felt my heart swell when they began to play the song "Wake Me Up When September Ends" off of their new album, and fell in love with it (I bought American Idiot and have listened to this song at least ten times today, without tiring). I danced like a maniac to "Longview" and shouted at the top of my lungs, "when masturbation's lost its fun you're fucking moving!" For one of their songs, they asked for a drummer, a bass player, and a lead guitarist from the crowd to take their places on stage...and it was so fucking incredible. I can't even imagine what it must have been like for those kids to get on stage and see an enormous crowd of people cheering for them. They looked scared shitless and orgasmically euphoric at the same time...and they actually did a pretty good job! Particularly the bass player. I had never seen a band do something like that before for their fans...it was very, very special. And when they ended with "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)"...yeah, I admit it. Tears pricked my eyes. I'm still pretty emotional over what happened last week, so of course those words would have an effect on me.

Some things which happened before the concert:

1) My cousin asked a gentleman (obviously a parent of one of the teenage kids) to take our picture with her camera. He reminded me a bit of Peter Falk with his slightly overgrown gray hair, easy going smile, and seen-it-all expression. Between sets, there was 80's music blasting from the speakers (perhaps to make things a little easier on us old folks), and when Devo's "Whip It" started to play, this gentlemen wiggled his hips suggestively to the opening chords. I was vaguely horrified.

2) We laughed until we cried at the TV ads for "Disney on Ice--Finding Nemo!" Who the hell designed those costumes so that the enormous white eye globes are placed in front of the skaters' breasts? They looked obscene.

3) There were a couple of young boys (dressed in all black, with their hair dyed black) to my right who acted like they were in a mosh pit, bouncing around and crashing into my side multiple times during the course of the evening. I had gotten some glow sticks from the guy at the Mobil gas station (for the kids to see in the dark on Halloween, he explained), and gave a stick to one of the boys. He looked pretty grateful, maybe because earlier when he tried to slap me five, I stared at him stonily and didn't lift my arm. My cousin whispered to me, "He's only fourteen at the most...You probably gave that boy his first glowstick." Which sounded a little dirty in a Mary Kay LeTourneau sort of way, but of course I was just trying to get rid of an extra stick...nothing more, nothing less.

OK, if you're looking for a last minute Halloween costume, these might do the trick. Heh. I think my favorite is Jenna Bush's liver.

Oh, and this is supposedly what Howard Dean looked like as a young'un. Hot damn!

Ah. Breakups. Well, as far as breakups go, it was as good as it could have possibly been. Well, no...I suppose a painless breakup would have been preferable. But for a breakup with someone I loved, it felt right and I got the answers I needed in order to move on. For this I am grateful. And I'm also lucky to have stumbled into a movie which helped me keep everything in perspective.

The movie is called The Motorcycle Diaries. It's a film about Che (then Ernesto) Guevara and his buddy Alberto Granado in their youth, when they took a massive roadtrip throughout South America. Since I am woefully ignorant of South American history and politics, I knew nothing of Che Guevara other than the fact that he was a Communist revolutionary who supported Castro and was killed. I didn't know that Guevara had been a medical student, and felt a pang of recognition when in the movie, he expressed boredom and lack of fulfillment with medical school and medical exams, and yearned to explore and travel and see what else the world could teach him. The movie wasn't particularly fantastic...Salles is a competent and enthusiastic, if not brilliant, director. The two lead actors did very subtle and moving work, but the structure and the pacing were a bit irritating (particularly in the beginning), and much of the humor failed. The black and white snapshot motif felt a little too cheezy for me, and took me out of the movie whenever it occurred. The first third of the film felt like an inferior retread of another movie (one of my favorites), Y Tu Mama Tambien. However, once the subject matter got more serious, and Ernesto and Alberto learn about the plight of their poor and powerless countrymen and countrywomyn, the movie became much more interesting. The scenes at the leper colony, where Ernesto and Alberto ignore the rules established by the nuns (forbidding any of the healthy workers to touch the lepers with their bare hands), were particularly moving.

When I saw DR at about 6 pm and asked him if we could meet after he finished work at 8 pm, and to my surprise he had filled his evening with a rugby practice and couldn't see me until 11 pm, I had to figure out how to spend those five hours without going insane with anxiety over the likely impending breakup. So I drove to an adjacent town to get some ice cream (which is my usual drug of choice for anxiety) and try to study at my favorite cafe. I happened to see that The Motorcycle Diaries was playing at the movie theater, scheduled to start right when I arrived, and I hopped into the building to watch it. I expected it to be a total escape--how much could I identify with two randy boys on a road trip through South America back in the 1950's? And apart from Ernesto's dissatisfaction with medical school and his desire to break free of expectations, I didn't find much there. But then there was a brief scene where he visits his girlfriend at her house, and they have a lovely time together. She begs him to stay with her; he regretfully is unable to grant her request. She tells him that she would wait for him, but not forever. She gives him $15 (in U.S. dollars) to buy her a bikini if the boys ever made it to the U.S. on their trip. After Ernesto and Alberto leave, no matter how many scrapes they get into, no matter how broke they are, he refuses to spend those $15, despite Alberto's begging and pleading. Then, at one of their stops, Ernesto receives a letter from his girlfriend. We never find out exactly what it says, but from his anguished reaction, we know that this girl is no longer his. Ernesto spends the day staring at the ocean and touching the letter, grieving his loss, as his buddy Alberto tries desperately but fails to cheer him up. And then Ernesto leaves the letter behind, gives his buddy a grin, and they move on. Afterwards, Ernesto finds something so much more important and meaningful than this silly girlfriend--a connection to the native peoples of South America, a sympathy with their plight, and a determination to do what he can in order to make their lives better. He gives those $15 to a destitute Communist couple who are desperate for work and risk their lives to work in the mines.

And so, after viewing this movie, I felt a strange peace, and kept it as I drove to his house for the inevitable confrontation. The breakup was excruciatingly painful; I sobbed, my chest shuddering violently, snot mingling with tears on my face, while he sat on his couch and stared at me helplessly, making sure not to touch me. But I knew that while it hurt, and while I lost something lovely and valuable, there was so much more in the world to worry about, to think about. Since I can no longer love him, I can redirect whatever love, whatever passion I have, into something more productive and more appreciated. Guevara found this to be true, and while I suspect that I will not become a Communist revolutionary, I think I can find this truth as well. In the large scheme of things, what is a romance anyway? Sure, it's the centerpiece of so many books and movies and television shows and songs, and it can be all-consuming for those who are involved in it...but in the end I don't think that romance alone would give my life meaning, would make me feel whole. Since the romance part of my life is obviously shot at the moment, I need to work on the rest of my life. To find some sort of life path, like Guevara himself found. Funny...I had been hard at work at figuring that stuff out until I met DR; then most of my energy went to my relationship with him, and I largely neglected the task of understanding what the hell I should do with my life, and how to cobble together a spiritual construct.

Somewhat inspired by the film, I agreed to go to Pennsylvania to go Kerry canvassing with a friend of mine. Pennsylvania is considered a swing state for this current election, and people from all over the East Coast have been driving to Pennsylvania in order to talk to voters there. My friend (MF) and I went door to door with people who were targeted as likely Democrats through previous surveys. We asked them about their thoughts on voting, and whether they wanted more information about particular issues in order to aid their decision, and whether they knew where the local polling place was located. The neighborhood we roamed through was located in inner city Harrisburg; it was run down with many abandoned and crumbling buildings. Most of the people we met were black or Hispanic. It was fun to see the strong Kerry support in the neighborhood; passersby were excited to see us and quickly divested us of Kerry signs and bumper stickers, lightening our load considerably. MF and I got lost and asked an elderly gentleman where we could find "Reh-jeen-a" (Regina) Street; he quickly corrected us and said that it was "Reh-jeye-na" Street and directed us to it. As MF and I left him, I joked that he was a dirty old man and changed the pronunciation of every possible word to resemble "vagina." So angina would be pronounced "an-jeye-na" and so on.

We encountered one gentleman who stared at us silently through his open doorway as we cheerfully announced that we were part of the Kerry/Edwards campaign. He then shouted that he was not voting for anyone, because "Both of them are liars!" We asked him to explain this, and he said that both Bush and Kerry were one-sided in their support of Israelis over the Palestinians. He urged us to enter his house, and although at first we weakly protested, citing the need to see many more houses that day, we ultimately complied. I saw green arabic letters streaming down his computer in columns, like the numbers on computer screens in The Matrix. He had an enormous television which showcased the Al Jazeera station. MF stayed standing while the man insisted that I sit on his couch, which I did. I was a little nervous because there was a beautiful white crocheted covering on his couch, and I suspected that my unpredictable period might be imminent and was using no barrier. The man said that he was a Lebanese Christian, and that if the Palestinians and the Israelis each had their own state, then there would be no more war. MF admitted that he was Jewish, and then the man said that he was in the food industry, and Jewish people came into his store all the time, and he still spoke his opinion to them. MF bristled when the man shouted that Israelis thrived on the conflict between themselves and the Palestinians, and that if there was peace, then Israel would no longer have any purpose. The man insisted that the middle Eastern Muslims and Arabs will never stop fighting until the Palestinians had their own state, and agreed that things had gotten worse under Bush. MF said something about the civil war in Lebanon, and the man laughed and said that Henry Kissinger had told the Palestinians to take over Lebanon (which had a 3.5 million population, about 1 million of which was Palestinian) since they would never have a land of their own otherwise, and thus sparked the civil war. Eventually we made our graceful exit, and the man profusely thanked us, shaking our hands and calling us "son" and "daughter." He was an odd mix of warm hospitality and aggressive tirades. MF and I wondered afterwards whether he had been waiting all day for someone to come into his house, so that he could talk about his opinions with them. He seemed energized by the debate.

We met a heavyset black man who was sitting on the steps in front of his house while his three young sons rode on their bikes on the sidewalk in front of him. He said that he wasn't going to vote for Bush or Kerry, but would instead vote for a third party candidate, possibly Nader. We asked him why he disliked Kerry, and he admitted that he didn't think that Kerry would do anything to help him. His main concern was day care for single parents; after losing his job a year ago which paid $20 an hour, he hadn't been able to find a job which paid more than $7-8/hour. On that salary he was unable to afford day care for his kids, so he was stuck. He decided to start his own business and has been scraping by, but was utterly pessimistic about the possibility that either presidential candidate would improve his situation. As we started spouting our rhetoric, he told us that he had read plenty of information on the internet, and was indeed well-informed as he expertly described Bush's failures as president, particularly concerning the dubiously conceived war in Iraq, as well as Kerry's weaknesses. He felt that Bush would steal the election with all of the tools at his disposal, and that Kerry would not have a chance. MF and I remained resolutely optimistic about Kerry. In any case, we didn't change his mind regarding his vote, but we wished him the best.

So, while my experiences are not nearly as profound as Guevara's on his roadtrip, I did feel (perhaps misguidedly) that I did something good to help out the Kerry campaign, and in the process got a glimpse into the lives of people I would have never encountered otherwise. While several of the people we met, particularly the two I just mentioned, were cynical about U.S. politics and the potential for improvement, I still have enough naive optimism to think that people can make the world better.

One nice side effect of the breakup is how I've found solace in nature. While I was in the relationship, so much of my attention was focused on him and myself that I lost much interest in the world around me. But autumn imagery, although it's usually considered sad and mournful (as a metaphor for the end of life), has soothed me greatly. I find myself sighing with pleasure at the fluttering yellow leaves of the Japanese maple tree outside my window, the multicolored patches of fallen leaves on the rocks in the Eno River, the smudges of orange and red and green ahd brown and yellow which fly by as MF and I drove along the Washington-Baltimore Parkway, the brisk cool air which lends a solemnity to the pastel-streaked skies during sunset. It's even better than ice cream. Seriously.

It's so nice to be back home. I'm sure I'll find it stifling as time goes on, but for now, it's been just lovely. The rustle of the brightly colored leaves, the brisk wind and restrained sunlight, the familiar buildings which contain the ghosts of many childhood memories...God but I miss New Jersey autumns.

Today I was studying for the Step 1 exam at a local library (well, actually finishing up a book which Republican Artist Dave gave to me when I told him I was looking for spiritual answers...it's The Search for the Ageless, Volume One by Edmond Bordeauz Szekely and it's about the Essene Way of Biogenic Living), when four middle-aged men walked before me in single file. There seemed to be something a bit off about several of them...I scrutinized their faces and saw that one apparently had Down's syndrome, and the two others also appeared to be retarded by the way they jerked and made spontaneous incomprehensible sounds, and in general acted more like children than like men in their 30's/40's. The fourth man, sporting impressive dreadlocks and wearing a green football jersey, appeared to be in charge of the group, and said some words about the library and what they planned to do for the day. They settled at the table adjacent to mine, and I tried to concentrate on my biochemistry textbook instead of staring at them. Green football jersey guy took one of the other guys to a computer and appeared to be helping him use it to view pictures. The remaining two men occasionally yelped and slammed their hands repeatedly on the table. Several people at nearby tables moved their things or glared at them disapprovingly; I just put on my headphones and stuck my nose deeper into my book. I couldn't shake the feeling, though, that one of the two men at the table was looking at me. I looked up from my book in an unfocused way, but with my peripheral vision I confirmed that indeed the guy in the baseball cap, with grizzled stubble and a long bony nose, was staring at me. I couldn't move to a different table because I didn't want to be rude or hurtful, so I just soldiered on with my biochemistry text. Eventually, though, half an hour had passed with little progress on my part, and I decided to just leave the library and go to a local Starbucks (I haven't yet discovered the non-Starbucks cafes in the area, if they exist). I put all my books into my knapsack, still feeling the eyes of the baseball cap guy, but not confronting his gaze. I pulled the zipper shut--not completely, but enough to securely contain my books. The baseball cap guy then got up from his seat, lumbered over to my knapsack, and then pulled the zipper completely shut. I wasn't sure what to do, but I knew he should not be punished in any way for his kind intentions (although I did feel like my personal space was slightly invaded). I lifted my head and looked him straight in the eye with a smile and said thanks, and then threw my knapsack onto my shoulder and walked away. I nodded at him again with a smile as I left the library.

There was a slight fear there, I guess because I haven't interacted with people like him before. I didn't know what exactly his intentions were, but I definitely did not want to be rude or hurt his feelings. I was a bit saddened by the exchange though--I'm sure he wishes he could reach out and connect with people, and just be treated like any other guy. I tried to treat him like any other guy, but I'm not sure I succeeded. Hopefully though I didn't hurt his feelings. Then again maybe I was too cautious. Le sigh.

Bush looks like an idiot for the millionth time by misreading a speech.