If Cheerios Were a Woman...

If Cheerios were a woman, she would be your first girlfriend from elementary school. The girl you first held hands with, and maybe, just maybe, kissed on the cheek.

Cheerios are the wholesome cereal. Cheerios were the first cereal before the other floozy cereals came and prostituted themselves with their sugars and their fancy marshmallows and fancy foldout boxes. Cheerios were the sweet girlfriend before the sex and relationships of fancier cereals.

But Cheerios are also fun and tasty. Infants often get fed this cereal in their high chairs, licking their hands and having the delightful O's stick to their palms since their motor skills aren't developed yet. Just like the first girlfriend: good for you but still fun. Cheerios aren't like the older women who nag you to lose weight or find a better job; those would be the Grape Nut women: flavorless and annoying.

Yes, the Cheerios are the innocent young girl you fell in love with when you were also young. The girl who was both sweet and good for you. The girl who first made you feel charming. The girl who first made you romantic. And, unlike any other cereal, she did it without tainting you to your upcoming life.

Just like your elementary school girlfriend with whom you did not break-up, your Cheerios relationship ended on good terms. You didn't have to have a huge fight to end things—you just said a sweet goodbye as you graduated from 6th grade. That's Cheerios.

Cheerios understand that you will always be drawn to the flash and glamor of the other cereals, but she's always willing to welcome you back with open arms if you take the time to buy her yellow box—because she's good for you like that, she's understanding like that, and she's sweet like that.

Perceived Time

The cable guy was going to show up at Grandma's house from 9-12 or 1-4. What kind of window is that? That window of time is as useful as saying, "I'm going to come on Saturday."

So I spent the day at Grandma's to help when the cable guy showed up. And it was a good thing I went. Even I, who is fairly well-versed in the audio/visual domain, was confused by the worker's broken English, heavy accent, and liberal use of cable-company jargon. But overall, the cable appointment went well.

I remember asking Grandpa Diff (my father's father) what it was like to be retired. He responded by asking me, "What did you do today?" I replied, "I woke up. Had breakfast. Watched tv. Read a little..." He quickly interrupted me, "That's what's it's like to be retired: do those things, just do them slower, and that's the whole day."

Diff's words seemed very applicable today. At Grandma's, I walked around the backyard. I pulled a few weeds from the garden. I looked at the beets that were starting to sprout from my Mother's Day efforts. I helped her with her insanely monochromatic 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. I read some of my novel. I ate a dinner of white rice and boiled hot dogs. I watched the second half of the basketball game. And before I knew it, it was 830 at night. I don't really know where the day went.











The simplicity of the day made me feel content. It was a very calming day especially amid my current tempests. But returning home, stepping out of the tranquility and back into my busy, real world, I felt a sad for my grandma.

Stepping into her life is simple and relaxing, yes, but it is only simple and relaxing because so many of her milestones in life have already passed. She's had kids. She's retired. She's become widowed. She's paid off the house. If she came to my life, she would caught in the midst of looking for a second job to make rent, writing overdue theses, applying to university programs.

When I visit her life, I perceive the simplicity as a mini-vacation, but for her, the simplicity is the frost that accompanies the winter of her life.

And it's sad to think of it like that. But it's even more sad that there is nothing to be done except keep doing the puzzles, keep eating the hot dogs, keep pulling the weeds until "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow."

Funeral

Even the harbinger of death cannot outrun it.

I've seen this crow for four days because it died on my routine running trail. After four days of passing the bird, after four days of watching its feathers become less shiny and more frizzled, and after twenty days of still having the shovel from my Mother's Day gardening adventure in my car, I decided to give this bird a funeral.

But as simple a task as it sounds, there were many obstacles.

First, the bird died in an industrial office area with no soft dirt for a grave. I was going to dig a grave in the nearby, sparsely used flower gardens, but there were frequent security patrols of the area. So I had to put the bird in my trunk and drive it about half a mile to an area near my apartment.










Second, the bird died in a cell phone waiting area for the SJ airport. So as I as scooping up the dead bird, whose wing fell off in the process, the couple in the car behind me was very confused as to why an Asian was picking up a dead bird and putting in his trunk.











Third, when I plopped the bird into the garbage bag in my trunk, a loaf of maggots fell out of the beak and the eyes sockets and the chest cavity.

Fourth, the stench from a multi-day decaying bird filmed my car in a matter of minutes. The stench wasn't bad by itself; it smelled like really bad body odor. But it was the overall experience—the flies, the exposed flesh, the stench, the empty eye sockets—that made the smell so haunting.

But after I finished burying the bird, and after I scooped out maggots from my trunk, and after I used a whole bottle of Febreze, I realized I would do it again if I had to.

I don't know why I did it. Maybe I did it because I wanted the selfish euphoria of doing a "good deed." Maybe I did it because I was bored. Maybe I should have simply put the bird in a dumpster and been done with it.

But I think the real reason I did it is because the bird and I had a bond. I saw a piece of myself in the bird. With all the changes of life, with all the disappointments, rejections, and sadness, I don't want to be a bird kicked to the side of a busy road, feathers and beak and flesh disintegrating from neglect. I would not want to have my feathers plucked by the careless gales of passing cars. I would want to decompose in the earth; I would want to be absorbed into the soil with purpose—like life was worth honoring.

And thus I could give nothing less to the bird. I lifted it off the sterile concrete and buried it in the welcoming ground. I could have called the appropriate, faceless city agency, but the bird deserved a funeral from a friend.

How Cute is This‽

How cute is this first aid kit? It was slightly expensive at about $15 dollars, but seriously, part of the functionality of a first aid kit is placebo element. "Stop crying little child. This kit will make things all better." And this kit has a major placebo appeal.

There were other colors and themes. There was a neon green one and a pirate one, but come on now! a cute-as-hell cartoon bear with a band-aid? That trumps all.

This I'm OK! Set made me want to have kids just so I could knock them over and bust this thing out of the medicine cabinet.

Athletic Death

This is not fun for me. I don't like being up here for the Hall of Fame because at that time your basketball career is completely over. I was hoping this day was 20 more years [away] or actually go in [the Hall of Fame] when I'm dead and gone...When you get into the Hall of Fame, what else is there to do? You know, so this is a love hate thing for me...for me, I always want to be able to have you thinking that I can always go back and play the game of basketball...As long as you have that thought, you never know what can happen. You never know what my abilities can do. But am I [going back to basketball]? No. But I like for you to think that way.

~Michael Jordan on being inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame~

I feel bad for athletes when their successful careers end.

I still remember Kristi Yamaguchi winning the gold medal. She was an icon not only as an athlete, but as a Japanese-American woman visible to the American public. She was elegant and well-spoken, and I don't think she'd mind me saying I had a tiny crush on her.

But the gold medal was the pinnacle of her career. She was on Dancing with the Stars last year, but really, that was an activity for fun rather than for perpetuating her legend. And now, where do I see my role model? In weekly magazines and on the boxes for second-rate crackers.




















Michael Jordan said it well. "As long as you have that thought, [as long as you believe in the legend,] you never know what can happen." I don't want Kristi, or any athlete, to live a life of unsatisfying hermitage. But on that note, once the zenith of their careers is reached, it is sad to see heroes reduced to petty advertising as the sole means of being in the public eye.

Some people, including the athletes themselves, might argue that endorsements are good money, that we should not pity their lives after their ultimate successes, and that we should not define their entire lives by one brief period. And I agree it is unfair to view our athletes as immutable heroes. But I bet inside, somewhere and to some degree, all athletes share Michael Jordan's sentiment that the end of an athletic career is a death—a death of their own unlimited potential and a death of their attainable dreams.

Its allright, is'nt it?

I like collecting pictures of spelling/punctuation mistakes; these are just a few from my treasure trove. Now, one might view this act as elitist mockery of a third party, but I will be the first to say that I commit typos and grammar infractions all the time. Just last week, I was reviewing some of my previous posts, and I found agreement errors and homophone misuses. Everyone is allowed mistakes.

I think my frustration arises when the errors are not corrected when the respective party is aware of the crime. I'm not going to carp on every error, just the ones that have longevity.

For each of their respective purposes, these signs and posting have been/were up for very long periods of time. I mean the "comming soon" sign was up for months! The "classey lady" is a permanent storefront marquee in the Great Mall—granted the patrons of this mall aren't Santana Row people, but they still deserve correct spelling. And the "availabel" flier has been haunting my mail room for a few weeks. I find it highly unlikely that in weeks or months, the appropriate parties would not have discovered their typos. I can hear them apathetically say, "It's too late to change it now." And that apathy is fury inspiring.

Let's fix our errors when we see them. And let's help our fellow writers by constructively pointing out these errors. These mistakes hurt our credibility, and, in turn, detrimentally affect our communication.

Although I'm not really sure how to help these people. Even if I were cordial, I imagine the bag boy at Zanotto's punching me in the brain when I approach him and say, "Excuse me, but the word 'maximum' has three M's."

Hereditary Syntax

My father saw the post I made about Bert last week, and as a type of birthday present to me, he sent me a copy of an essay he wrote over 18 years ago.

I read his essay for the first time yesterday, and it is too good not to post. I found myself captivated by his prose style. After reading his essay, I found myself hoping syntax is hereditary. And so, I bring a guest writer for today.


Welcome Back, Bert (1991)

It wasn't America's Most Wanted, but it could have been.

We were ripping my car apart, my boys and me, looking for that elusive fugitive from G.'s backpack, Bert.

Bert (the Stan Laurel of Sesame Street) was given to G. by my other son D. when G. was first born. And as a son bonds to a father, Bert bonded to G. After many years, Bert has become, well, extremely loved. Faded, dirty, ripped, with no discernible facial features, save a formerly orange nose, and a straight line for a mouth, twisted slightly at the corners. Funny what love can do to you.

Everyone used to have something like Bert. The old blanket, the old pillow, the old rabbit or the old doll. For me, a blue blanket with blue satin binding. And as it was for each of our treasures, Bert has become totally indispensable.

Bert has been lost many times—in fact, many times a day. He was once saved after being thrown in a trash can in Japantown. He spent the night at a Taco Bell. He was given a special ride to the airport by my sister when we rushed off to catch a plane without him. But always, always, he returned.

In the two years I have been separated from my boys, I have not had to locate Bert as often as I used to. But even on part-time duty, I had built the reputation of being able to locate Bert in any setting, under any conditions, within two minutes. My secret, I would tell G., quelling tears with bravado, was to think like Bert, and figure out where he was hiding. And however that happened, it would happen.

It was my fatherly power, a gift, duty and responsibility. It also made me a little indispensable as well. After all, a divorced, absentee dad needs every edge he can maintain. Among all the things I could no longer give G., this was still a shining star skill.

But today, it was different. He was nowhere. Not in the house. Not in the car. And the gnawing possibility of an outside abduction became stronger and stronger. So I made the obligatory calls to each of the five places we stopped earlier this afternoon, looking for any trace of the errant Bert. No luck.

At first, G. seemed brave, and a little angry. At me, for failing to think enough like Bert today, and at himself, for having lost him. The search began with an air of sport and adventure. But toward 8:30, having searched a park in the dark in vain, adventure had turned into calamity, and the mischievous grin transformed into tears.

I and my ex-wife J. have been trying to wean G. from Bert for the last two years. A lot for maturity reasons. A lot for self-preservation. After all, how many trash cans in parking lots do you want to commit yourself to examining? We returned to J.'s house, two vanquished warriors. G. may have lost Bert, but it was on my watch. And we were all faced with the harsh reality was that G. would have to go solo tonight.

G. and I went through the obligatory lessons, about responsibilities, about losses, about new bondings and new beginnings, about growing up. I tried to convince him of the temporary comfort of one of his other friends, his chipmunk with the T-shirt, the birthday bear, the bee hiding in his own winged cocoon. He wasn't buying this temporary idea too well. Not here tonight might as well have meant not here forever. This might be the time that Bert would not come back. G. was grasping at the reality of a separation forever, even if I couldn't.

As he lay down on a dinosaur pillow, bee under his arm, he told me he missed Bert. So did I. I wasn't any more ready for this than he. The sixth sense a father should always have was gone. No magic, just the comfort I could give with words and a hug.

As I left their house for mine, I thought about how much I always hated losing all my valuable little things, wishing they would magically come back. For me, it was always pens, and key chains. I knew that there was, somewhere in the world, a pile of things that I had dropped, lost, misplaced, or left behind. Someday, always someday, there would be a large homecoming for me. But I refused to believe that the things wouldn't somehow show up.

Then, as today, there was a lesson about coming to grips with losses, about growing up. It was always a tough one.

Today, it was G.'s. And I felt peculiarly responsible for the whole thing. We were both too young for this. He failed as a son, me as a father.

After returning home, my friend R. presented me with the unexpected—the prodigal Bert. While straightening the bed, she had pulled down the sheets, only to find Bert staring back at her. Magically returned to us, exactly where G. had forgotten him, precisely where I couldn't find him.

Bert went right back under G.'s arm the next day. I breathed the sigh that only guilty fathers sigh. And I rued the day that Bert would be lost again, when even R. won't find him.
Oh well, we can grow up some other day.

Happy Birthday

May 24, 2005
Dear R.,
It's my birthday today. Why do I think of you now? It is strange, how deeply I loved you, how hard I touched your face to memorize it, to now, a time when all I can remember is a scent of when we kissed. It has been two years since I last talked to you. I remember it well. We had a fight so heated, I yelled so loudly, blood vessels in my face and neck burst rendering me a victim to 24-hour smallpox.

May 24, 2006
It has been so long since I have written. Why have I moved away from writing as a means to find myself? The day is young. I am waiting around. I showered at the gym after getting my hair cut.

May 24, 2007
Microsoft Word just autofinished the date today: my birthday. Only once a year can I say such a thing. While true for all dates, today carries extra weight because attention turns in my direction.

Younger, my birthdays were events. Mom would give me special breakfasts...Now, on my birthday...I woke up at 7:45 to eat generic brand Apple Jacks, got dressed in my conformity company polo (stolen from a pile of leftovers at work), and roller bladed 7 minutes to the office.

Futures are uncertain. I wonder what I will be doing and how my life will be when I read this again in the future.

May 24, 2008
On to a new year. I’m ** now. One more year and I’ll be **. Scary. I wonder what my life will look like the next time I write in this file. Whether or not it is my birthday is irrelevant. Life changes so fast, something could be new tomorrow.

May 24, 2009
Today is my birthday, dear reader. Yes, yes, thank you for the birthday wishes. I didn't really have anything profound or amazing to write. I've been dreading this day, at least from a composition standpoint, for about a week.

Even with a week of preparation and soul searching, I've come up only with this: a post of excerpts from past journal entries that existed before this blog. Although it means very little to you, reader, I personally found it special and rewarding that I was able to dig up four years' worth of writing. Inelegant and trite, the writing from my past is like a stop-motion video of myself, aging in time.

I performed a type of personal research for these excerpts. I needed to boot up my old undergrad laptop. I needed to leaf through old notebooks. I needed to scour through dozens of Word files. But I found them—little time capsules dating back years from this exact day, my birthday.

And that seems to be a common theme among my birthday writings. I am either too rooted in the past or too puzzled by the future. Rarely do I seem present in the present. I should learn to live more in the now: to eat my birthday cake, to savor the spongy texture, and not to worry about getting fat or how many eggs were broken to make the cake.

But of all the days to be overly reflective, today provides the Siren-like temptation to live in the past and be eternally young.

I apologize for making you, reader, wade through old journal posts originally meant only for me, but consider this your present to me: allowing me to travel back in time and fondly reminisce about this day years ago. Allowing me to take past versions of myself and consolidate them into a temporal birthday celebration. I should be more in the present, but it's my birthday, and I'll be anachronistic if I want to.

Glue Trap

I don't get these mice. Obviously this glue trap is a dangerous area. Why would this second mouse come over and step onto the same area that another mouse corpse was rotting away on. They don't have any sense. Man, if I saw a dead body, I would be damn sure to go the other way. Stupid mice.

She didn't come home for two days. So he went to look for her. He checked the hallway, the kitchen, and the closet, and he finally found her in the garage behind the freezer. Her back left foot and the right side of her face were stuck in a glue trap.

Around her ankle, there were bite marks from her own teeth. But as she gnawed on her own flesh to free herself, her face also became stuck in the glue.

She must have struggled. The glue had torn the fur from her cheek. She might have wiggled free except her open eyeball was also stuck to the trap. When she tried to pull her head away, her eye stayed behind. He looked at her right eye, dislocated from the socket, and he lamented not being there to help her.

He slowly stepped into the glue, like he was stepping into a hot bath. He rested on his belly and faced her. He felt the glue take hold of his paws, his fur, his tail, and his lower jaw.

The female, made a wild, panic-stricken, despairing fight that soon exhausted her, and all the time the male had stayed with her...Then, while the old man was clearing the lines and preparing the harpoon, the male fish jumped high into the air beside the boat to see where the female was and then went down deep...That was the saddest thing I ever saw...and we begged her pardon and butchered her promptly. (Hemingway 49-50)

Works Cited:
Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. 1952. New York: Scribner, 2003.

Out Damn'd Spots of Time

I got in a car accident today. I'm okay. My passengers are unharmed. And except for some minor damage, the car is fine.




I was in Berkeley going down Bancroft (a one way street) and a driver from the middle lane made a very hasty, but I guess understandable, headfirst dive across my lane to get a good parking spot near campus. Parking in that area is very challenging, so the driver got overly excited and dove across my lane without looking.









When I saw him make the move, I hit my breaks and my horn. Kept on the horn even after the contact, mostly from shock, but also a bit for spite (at least I'm honest about it!). Then I noticed the driver of the other car slink his head over in guilt and embarrassment. I felt bad for blasting him maliciously with my horn. I felt even worse when I realized the driver was about 60 years old.

I was going about 30 mph, and the other driver made his move so quickly, there really wasn't anything I could do. Or so my passengers say.

I keep playing the incident over in my mind. I hit the brakes pretty hard, but could I have smashed on them harder? If I had swerved just a few more inches, would we have avoided contact altogether? Was I driving in his blind spot for a prolonged period of time? What if I was a more defensive driver? All these scenarios replay in my head as wishful thinking that might have saved myself a deductible and certainly some hassle.

This kind of cyclical thinking reminds me of the Romantic principle of "spots of time."

Robert Barth lucidly explains that there are "two dimensions of time: [the poet's] own personal linear time and the quasi-eternal moments represented by the spots of time" (53). The linear time is time flowing in the normal, chronological fashion. The spots of time or the "quasi-eternal moments" are the moments that we constantly replay over and over in our minds—like confessing your feelings to a woman, failing a test, or crashing a car.

Barth continues to say that spots of time are "recurring experiences of natural time" and they "are crucial to [the poet] because they can offer him what his own mere chronology cannot: a sense of recurring to a locus of stable values...even in the chaos" (53). For Barth, we humans repeat these moments in our minds as a method of dealing with chaos; from a chaotic moment, the spots of time allow us to apply some stable silence to the overwhelming cacophony.

While this analysis might work for Wordsworth, in a non-Prelude setting, I find my life paralyzed by my car-accident spot of time. I've been so consumed with the cycling of the event in my mind, that my entire Friday has passed me by. I've lost the last 12 hours to "woulda, coulda, shoulda."

My dad told me to "let it go," but it's not that easy. I've grown accustomed to living in my own eternal reality, not unlike solipsism. I don't mean to be selfish and individualistic, but in moments like these, I find a masochistic comfort in reliving the harmful event. With that in mind though, I'm not sure I want to live forever in that type of negative moment. Maybe I should be more optimistic and "let it go."

Good advice, father. I guess this post will be my final exorcism. 12+ hours is long enough. After I hit "publish post": no more words about this incident.

I should be thankful that no one was hurt and that both cars are still functional. With a bit of cosmetics, I should be able to buff out this spot of time and get back to the mortal, chronological world.

It's more simple and straightforward to write that, reader, I'm upset I got in a car accident.


Works Cited:
Barth, Robert J. Romanticism and Transcendence: Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the Religious Imagination. Columbia, MO: U of Missouri P, 2003.

The Death of a Bad Habit

When people say "bad habits" it will always signify my first habit: thumb sucking. Now reader, I'm confessing something huge here, so no malicious comments about how strange I am. I sucked my thumb up until I was a freshman in high school. And I'm not talking about a pucker now and then; I'm talking about full on, I couldn't fall asleep with out my thumb in my mouth, my right thumb is now misshapen, thumb sucking.

My bad habit was not a solo crime. I had an accomplice. A yellow, soft, and lovable accomplice. My first best friend Bert was with me every step of the way. Like all of my habits, I can't pinpoint a time when it began. And like all addictions, the act of sucking my thumb became more important than the reason I was sucking my thumb. I loved Bert so much that I needed replacement Berts as the older ones became too decrepit for the frantic life of a toddler, or preteen, or teenager.




















Some of our adventures I remember first hand. Others need to be related to me through my family. That's the funny thing about Bert: he was a family event. A type of family member.

I remember my brother and I accidentally split him in half on a camping trip. My dad had to sew him back together. To this day, years later, I don't think I've seen my dad sew again. I remember seeing a Taco Bell employee pull Bert out of the time-lock safe because I had left him behind the night before. My mother often reminds me that she had to ask a janitor at a street fair to help her look for Bert because he fell out of my stroller. I remember summer days where I would put Bert in the freezer so he would come out stiff and cool.

I don't remember the exact time when I broke my Bert habit, but I do know that Bert and I were together for over 10 years. Saving maybe my brother, my friendship with Bert is the longest friendship I've had with a male companion. I don't keep in touch with any of my elementary or middle school friends. And the few high school friends I still know have only been in my life for about 8 years.

It seems strange to refer to my first best friend as a "bad habit." I gloss over his identity with two pejorative words. Now, I say his name more as a joke than as a term of endearment. Strange how I've demoted him to be a faint memory like the kid who lived next door or my elementary school crush. He gave me his life, and I've repaid him with this worthless blog post.

But maybe that is the life cycle of bad habits. Perhaps they need to die in order for us to move on. Perhaps they must be demoted in order for us to sleep with our arms at our sides rather than with our hands in our mouths.

I put my thumb in my mouth today, in his honor. It didn't fit in my mouth very well. It tasted salty. I thought about all the disease-ridden hands I shook today. It felt foreign to have a digit in my mouth. It felt like trying to remember the sound of my grandpa's voice or what my first cat smelled like. Such is the death of Bert.

How to Love Like Pongo

I wouldn't put 101 Dalmatians in my top 5 Disney movies, but the opening scene with Pongo is among my top 5 scenes.

Pongo lazily looks out the window for a mate, but his job is exponentially harder because he is also looking for a match for Roger. As if finding your soul mate wasn't hard enough, Pongo nobly quests for Roger's soul mate as well.

This is the image and accompanying line that I remember so well:





It was almost too good to be true. I'd never find another pair like that, not if I looked for a hundred years.
~Pongo~







Pongo's love, at first, is very superficial, but at least he takes control of his destiny. That kind of confidence and control inspires me. He fights for love. He changes the clock and hunts down Perdita and Anita in the park. His plan is not perfect. It results in the rather inelegant stumble into a lake. But regardless, his persistence overcomes the shortcomings of his plan. Even though Pongo may have looked like the bumbling fool, in the end, "Pongo and Perdita" means more to me than "Romeo and Juliet."

There is something admirable about Pongo's drive and resourcefulness. So often it seems that modern courtship is stunted by social mores or emotional complications. I wish I could be like Pongo: be the master of my own destiny. If I were Pongo, I would splash into a lake and soak my beloved. Dripping from stagnant, algae-infested water, I would ask her, "What are you doing for the rest of your life?"

But I'm just a human. I'm a human as unaware and un-chic as Roger himself—only I'm not animated. My dog is not Pongo; he's not even a Dalmatian. I don't have a window overlooking a park. I just have my popcorn, my Disney movie, and 2 hours to fade into a didactic story I often fail to emulate in the real world. And I'm okay with that.

Disney movies are my favorite movies because they are my animated, colorful handbooks on how to fight for love.

Flowers Need the Sun

Daylength, or photoperiod, is perceived as a seasonal signal for the control of flowering of many plants. The measurement of daylength is thought to be mediated through the interaction of phototransduction pathways with a circadian rhythm, so that flowering is induced...
~Laura C. Roden~

Your guiding shine—eclipsed by the shade of night—
is blinding dark, and I know not which way
to face my growing petals. Every night,
I fear you won't return to me the way
I need—the way that, as you crest over
the eastern range, ensnares my life away
from chilling frost and fear that freezes over
my wilting leaves. Amid the darkest night,
crest! Rise and guide away the charcoal night.

The human plucks us for love every day,
and I was told to die a tool for love.
But I'm no symbol. I feel you, the day,
the sun, as brightly as the human loves.
I may not beat with blood. I may not pulse
with cardiac muscle, but I can still love
because my heart exists for you: a pulse,
a tempo set to dawn and dusk, night and day.
You cross the sky in rhythm with my day.


Works Cited:
Roden, Laura C. et al. "Floral Responses to Photoperiod Are Correlated with the Timing of Rhythmic Expression Relative to Dawn and Dusk in Arabidopsis." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 99.20 (2002): 13313-13318.

Welcome Home, Elmo

I was walking my dog earlier today, when I saw this playful, fluffy dog wandering around my apartment building. Because there were so many other people around, I assumed this cloud-like dog was one of those well-trained, off-leash dogs. But the crowd of people passed, and the dog remained. After retrieving a spare leash, I hooked the dog and examined his tags. His name was Elmo.















There was no address on the tag, so I called the number. A man picked up, and I explained the situation. He told me his address, which was about six blocks away, and said his wife would meet me there.

Walking a stranger's dog is very different from walking your own dog. It's like trying on another person's underwear—you know how to do it, but it still feels unusual. Elmo pulled me every which way. He kept tangling me in the leash. He was one of those poor dogs who kept strangling himself on his own collar. Both of us being so poorly trained, me as a pack leader and Elmo as a pack follower, I felt bad our experience was more hardship than pleasure.

Once I arrived at the house, I knocked on the door, but there was no answer. I'd arrived before the wife. So I sat on curb and waited. I noticed the front window to the house was ajar. Elmo must have pushed his way out the window. Silly dog.















It wasn't particularly hot, not like this last weekend that spiked above triple digits, but the small of my back was getting a bit moist. After about 20 minutes, I began to get a bit impatient. Every car that rolled down the street was potentially Elmo's owner, but at least 15 cars passed with no respite for my caregiving.

I thought about putting Elmo back through the window, but I figured he would just escape again without the window being locked from inside. Elmo was jumping on me. Licking my face. When it's your own dog, you don't mind the kisses, but when it's a stranger's dog, excessive licking just feels a bit more unhygienic. Despite him being overly amorous though, he was a good dog.

The wife finally pulled up. She had what I assume was her daughter in pick-up truck as well. Elmo went berserk. He ran around so fast and so erratically that the daughter accidentally hit him in the head when she went to close the truck's door. Elmo was not phased. He was so happy to be home, but the wife grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him inside. I felt a bit sad for Elmo. No wonder he was bad on a leash: Elmo's owner's answer to the leash is grabbing and shoving.

The wife curtly said "thank you" and that was it. I gave up about an hour of my day to bring her dog back, and all I got was a "thank you." Reader, let me clarify that I am not a glory hog. I did not return the dog for a monetary or even emotional reward, but I was expecting something more than a "thank you" and a cold shoulder as she walked into her house. I expected the interaction to be more emotional for the wife. I thought that wife would be ecstatic, but instead, she was matter of fact.

I would have turned down money. I would have turned down an invitation into her home for a drink. I actually don't really know what I was looking for in terms of "reward." Maybe I just wanted more closure. Maybe I just wanted a stronger emotional reaction from Elmo's owners that would prove he was missed while on his journey. Despite Elmo being a stranger's dog, after an hour together, I felt attached to him in a small way—I felt not unlike Jiminy to his Pinocchio. Maybe I wanted proof that the wife loved Elmo as much as I love my dog. Maybe I just wanted proof that I returned Elmo to a loving home. But I didn't get that closure. I guess life doesn't conform to my wishes.

Maybe it's not my place to judge other dog owners, but when I donate an hour of my day to help another family, I feel I gain some right to critique and muse about a situation. If I had to do it over again, I would do it the exact same, thankless way. I did it to help Elmo; I didn't do it for the wife or for her gratitude.

The Great Equalizer

At Fry's Electronics, I saw this older man purposefully wandering the Adult DVD section. It's one thing to see people sheepishly poking their heads into the aisle, but this man confidently took his time.











At the train station last week, I saw this CD binder left behind. I opened it checking to see if there was any contact information, and like all nosy people, I examined the contents. Most of the CDs were typical, but at the end of the binder, I found this Adult DVD, "Hit it Hardcore 4."

Thinking about these two separate incidents, I wondered why the issue of pornography is sometimes so funny but other times so dangerous. I believe the inherent humor and danger surrounding pornography stems from the idea of personal vulnerability.

There is something vulnerable about revealing one's sexual desires.

Most humor regarding pornography should be rooted in the commonality of sexual desire. Because every person, regardless of degree, feels sexual urges, it is sometimes appropriate to make light of a situation involving pornography. And because desire is a universal feeling—much more so than many other types of basic (and less taboo) emotions—people can harness that commonality and participate in laughter built on the equality of our sexual desires.

But this is not the case. Often times, people feel too vulnerable revealing their innermost sexual desires. Sexual urges, closely associated with being naked, is understandably a psychologically vulnerable emotion. From that physical and psychological vulnerability, people often maliciously mock others in an effort to hide their own desires from view. I recently read a novel that explained it very well:

"No one admitted to liking [porn mags]...But you remember how it was. If [a porn mag] turned up in a room, everyone pretended to find it dead boring. Then you came back half an hour later and it would always be gone" (Ishiguro 133).

The danger in pornography, like its humor, resides in the audience's vulnerability. Despite many arguments to the contrary, pornography is objectification of sexual desire. Whether it is women, men, or the act of intercourse itself, there is a clear aesthetic boundary between audience and art, and that is objectification. But I believe the debates of pornography should not revolve around objectification versus non-objectification; the true debate lies in the healthful versus unhealthful use of pornography.

There is nothing innately wrong with having some personal fantasies. Each person has the right to explore themselves and their sexual desires. But often times, this right to self-exploration turns into an obsession that can harm one's interpretation of the real world.

Women in the porn mags are not the same women we meet every day. While this may seem obvious, I find that many people have fallen onto the dangerous side of this idea and taken their porn attitudes with them into the real world. Not all women love anal sex. Not all women love semen on their faces.

Applying stereotypes from the porn world to the real word—there lies the danger.

The human mind is vulnerable to influence. And while porn is not inherently bad, the intense visual, audio, and tactile stimulation can attack human vulnerability and create powerful, negative sexism.

Because pornography deals to one of humanity's most basic instincts, it is the great equalizer. Everyone feels these urges, and everyone expresses these urges. I feel no shame to admit I have sexual desires, and I find it hypocritical to deny these natural feelings. Granted, I do not know the intentions of the Fry's-Adult-DVD consumer or the "Hit-it-Hardcore-4" owner, but, if they are in the correct mindset, I applaud their efforts to be self-aware and have some fun in the process.


Works Cited:
Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. New York: Vintage, 2005.

Supple

As the farmer held the shears, he told the sheep,
"Be good." He ran the blades against the wool,
and curly clouds were set adrift to sleep

upon the gentle blades of grass below.
He scooped the tufts into a sack, returned
inside his cottage, and began to weave.

He softly took the strands and made a sweater.
He sent it to her. But she returned the gift.
"I'm sorry. I cannot," read the letter

pinned to the breast. Depressed, the wool lost its bliss.
With butcher knife in hand, the farmer sought
and found the sheep. The wool-less sheep lifted

its head and whispered to the man, "Be good."
He slit its throat. "I'm sorry. I cannot."

Neon Sprinkles

Going to an ice cream parlor is a one-of-a-kind experience. There is something empowering about the process of choosing one of seemingly infinite permutations of ice creams or frozen yogurts with toppings. A person makes several choices, and the person must consume those choices even if they taste bad.

There are many other times in modern life when a person is forced to make numerous choices, but the choices do not grant the same sense of empowerment as ice cream parlors. Coffee shops come to mind. To get a simple cup of coffee, there are numerous choices. For how ever many individuals there are, there are seemingly the same number of options for coffee or coffee-related drinks. But ordering a coffee drink does not empower a person in the same was as ice cream. Coffee is often functional—whether it be for a pick-me-up or a caffeine addiction. Coffee doesn't make one obese. The obesity factor is very important in the sense of empowerment.

Ice cream can cause obesity. Consciously going to an ice cream parlor is different than having a pint of B&J's behind the ice box. Going to the parlor is a conscious choice to flout the conscience and eat sugar and cream regardless of the extremely adverse health effects. A person asserts their independence over their inner voice, and the feelings of empowerment, however fleeting, ensue. And not only does a person eat the fattening ice cream, but the person confidently adds sugary accouterments.















Don't get me wrong: I love going to ice cream parlors. I love feeling empowered. And today, these neon sprinkles pictured above were the physical representation of my devotion to the ice cream parlor. I knew neon sprinkles existed; I have often seen them at Michael's and other stores, but I have never seen these shades of purple and pink at the parlor itself. I often see the rainbow sprinkles, brown sprinkles, and, occasionally, white sprinkles. But these electrifying colors were like discovering a new poem by your favorite poet: innocence with experience.

By having these unique colors at the parlor itself, the establishment seemed to acknowledge my excitement. The parlor seemed to say, "I understand you are making a sacrifice being here, and I will reward you with the most outlandish and wonderful toppings you can imagine." I have to admit I felt a bit like Charlie in the Factory.

With all the other complexities in my life, it was simple and charming to see these sprinkles. I often guiltily exercise after I eat ice cream, but today, the neon purple and pink gave me a lasting high that still has yet to send me crashing down to my running shoes.

Brother

Astute followers of this blog know that my brother has been in town for the last few days, but his vacation came to a close today when I dropped him off at the airport.

Being honest, this wasn't the best trip ever. We fought both physically and mentally several times. I think my exhaustion from work, late nights, and frequent trips to Oakland wore me down. It would be simple to take naps, but I always feel that taking a nap when my brother is in town is wasting time we could be spending together. It wasn't the best trip, but returning from my Thursday-night activity, I felt the same regardless if we fought or not. I felt empty.

He might not be the funniest person, but I never laugh harder than when he and I are together. He might not be the smartest person, but he pushes me to be articulate and thoughtful. Saving some moments of friction that are bound to occur between brothers, I feel like a better version of myself when he's in town.




















We took this picture a few days ago. This picture was taken after I said, "It'd be weird if we started holding hands right now." And this moment encapsulates our relationship fairly well—I say something strange, and he accommodates my strangeness. I'm the wild one, he's the level-headed one. But neither of us are too extreme for the other; I have a waves of level-headedness, and he has moments of wildness. And these differences make for very interesting scenes. We work together so well that we apparently synced our steps for this picture without knowing it. We apparently have similar pulses of life. We compliment each other well.

I feel sad that he is gone. Even though the majority of time is spent apart from my brother, these last four days felt more familiar than the last four months. Without his vibrant personality, my life seems much more flat and gray.

I wish there was a more elegant or powerful way to say it, but I just miss my brother.

Downtown Flute

I'm not sure why I like this gentleman so much. I see him at least two times a week at various locations around Downtown San Jose. He's always blowing into his flute, making soft whimsical music while I wait for my trains. Every time I see him—playing the flute. He's become a personal icon, of sorts. In fact, I don't think I would recognize this gentleman without his flute. To me, his flute is very much a part of who he is.

The fact that this man plays the flute is sad. The flute is not a drum nor a guitar. The flute is not easily accessible. This man did not pick up the flute on a whim in order to make money. The fact that this man plays the flute is a reminder that one time, in the past, this man had a life before his transience. Maybe his parents paid for private flute lessons. Maybe he was a concert flautist. Whatever his previous life, unfortunate circumstances have left him to the streets. And in the face of that adversity, this man continues to love his instrument.

I sometimes give some money to the homeless, or, if I only have 20s, I'll give them a piece of gum or something. But I'm no philanthropist.

Oddly enough though, I've never given anything to this flautist. I've selfishly stolen his musical notes and given nothing in return. But maybe there is something deeper at work. Maybe I've been subconsciously avoiding donating to this man. Maybe I don't donate to this musician because he represents a larger concept for me.

Regardless of how one phrases or justifies it, giving money to the homeless establishes a power hierarchy—one person is in a position of power over another. While it might not always be an oppressive power relationship, it is a hierarchy none the less. And perhaps I am unwilling or unable to put myself in a position of power over my flautist icon. This man represents a dignity and chivalry in my life, I do not wish to dethrone that image by patronizing him.

I will never ask him his name. I will never ask him where he's from. Right now, he is the most textured two-dimensional person in my life. He is my archetype of human potential. He is the elegance that can be found in the lowest of forms. I acknowledge it is selfish to hold his unrealistic image in my mind, but that's all I have. All I have are my facades to shield me from my own cynicism.

But doesn't my solipsism and unrealistic image of this man create a power hierarchy even more dangerous than the patronizing power hierarchy? Am I not enslaving this man to be my involuntary emissary of grandeur? Am I not creating an invisible barrier between us every time I listen to him but not thank him for bettering my day?

Is there no solution? Donating money makes him a slave in the physical world. Watching him from afar makes him a slave in my mind. I know, in truth, my life is better with my flautist, but part of me, the nihilist part of me, wishes he or I would disappear, so this seemingly benign confusion would fade away.

Boys at the Mall

I was checking the scene at Yahoo Answers, and I came across this question:

What day are there a lot of boys at the mall?

just wondering because i want to go to the mall on a day with the most teenage boys? either friday saturday or sunday? please help me which day are there more boys at the mall?


I can imagine a young girl trying to meet a cute steady. She's probably never had a boyfriend before, and she simply wants someone who will hold her hand and give her love notes. Someone who will tell her how pretty she is and who will listen to her dreams. So shy and so timid. She assumes her soul mate will be strolling the mall with all the other teenage boys when he breaks away from the herd of pubescent males, walks up to her, and tells her, "I have feelings for you. I think you are pretty. I would like to take you to dinner." She blushes, takes his hand, and walks slowly to the food court to share a slice of Sbarro.

I wish this modern yet quaint romance were true. But this question is more likely from a predatory 37-year-old man trying to find a "Hotdog on a Stick."

Going All the Way

Every time I see one of these vintage cars on the freeway, I always worry I'm going to accidentally smash into it. I mean, it's one thing to jack someone's Civic, but it's another thing to bust up a car that has been restored. It's akin to the feeling of parking next to a Ferrari—one is always extra careful pulling in and out of the spot. But the vintage cars are worse. Ferrari's are expensive; vintage cars are priceless. For all I know, this person built the car from the frame up.



Don't worry, reader. I had my brother take this photo while I was driving.





If I built a car myself, I don't think I would take it on the freeway. There are too many crazy bad drivers out there who could bash into me. Yes. I imagine I would treat my vintage car like I treat my testicles: that is to say, gently and not on the freeway.

But I must say: I admire the person who is willing to invest both emotion and money into an object and not let the potential destruction outweigh their enjoyment of said object. This car and this person driving the car are a physical enactment of the overused but ultimately true adage, "no guts, no glory."

This driver has guts. She's going all the way with her vintage car—she doesn't give a damn about bad drivers or the potential loss of her charming vehicle. And I admire that kind of dedication and bravery. This driver does not shy away from ephemerality by hiding her car in a garage; she meets ephemerality head on with style and elegance while wearing her leather driving cap.

Mother's Day Garden

With my grandma's health problems, this Mother's Day was focused on her. My mom, my brother, and I fixed up her vegetable garden as a Mother's Day gift. The task was simple enough in theory, but once we got started, things were much more difficult than I expected.

Grandma and Grandpa used to grow vegetables in their backyard. I remember eating very small, misshapen peas, green beans, and carrots. That's the price you pay for growing your own vegetables in Oakland soil: unusually small and deformed produce. I never really thought about it back then, but it was fun to use the term "Grandma's backyard beans."

But when my grandpa got really sick with cancer, both my grandparents stopped working the garden. The garden has been barren ever since Grandpa got sick. It would be both literal and metaphorical to say that when Grandpa died, the backyard died.

I took Grandpa's death pretty badly, and part of my coping with the loss was taking care of Grandma. I remember driving in from Davis every weekend and spending Friday nights with Grandma. I remember writing my term papers in the back room while Grandma would bring me ridiculously strange food items she bought using coupons from the Sunday paper.

It was a very sad time, and I alleviated some of that sadness by working in the backyard. It started with small projects like raking pine needs and weeding, but I eventually moved to larger projects like rebuilding the walkway.















Grandpa originally built the walkway using scrap wood he found around town. But over time, the wood began to dry rot, and it was dangerous for Grandma. So I rebuilt the path the fall after I graduated from college. My family said that I was channeling the spirit of my grandpa, but that's not true. I built the walkway selfishly as a way of making myself feel better. It was a way I could make a physical difference at a time when I felt emotionally lost. And like when I was writing my term papers, Grandma always had food for me.

I really wasn't channeling my grandpa's spirit. Where he used patience to find scrap wood, I bought pressure-treated wood from Home Depot. While he added and removed spacing boards as the walkway swelled and shrank with the seasons, I simply nailed the boards down. I may have copied his original blueprints, but our spirits operated in very different ways.

And today, I rolled up my sleeves and returned to the backyard.




I didn't get a true "before picture" of the weeds that were up to my waist, but this is the garden before my brother and I planted tomatoes and beans and beets.






Here are some "after pictures." It doesn't look like much difference, but it was hard.




I'm sure Grandma thought it was a nice gift. But for an ailing woman who has trouble walking, I'm not sure how useful a vegetable garden is. Maybe my mom and brother were just a few years behind me; maybe they were just trying to find their own way of relating to the backyard that for so long represented my grandparents. It was nostalgic working in the garden, and like the walkway project a few years ago, it was more difficult than I expected.

This was a both a wonderful and lonely Mother's Day.

Molly

My brother told me that the lost dog now has a home. The original owner could not be located, so my brother's friend R. adopted the dog. My brother wrote to me in an email that "Out of all of [my friends], R. worked the hardest to find the previous owner. Signs, calling shelters, checking for chips." At first I felt a little sad that the dog would never go home again, but I realize now that the dog is lucky because she went "from being homeless to being spoiled by R.—she loves that dog like crazy now," as my brother phrased it.

I find it incredibly telling that R. would work the hardest to find the previous owner even though she wanted to keep the dog herself. R. put the feelings of a stray dog and a stranger above her own. That is generosity. And that is love.

R. might not be the first owner of the dog, but with her storied selflessness and affection, I find her to be a perfect owner of the dog. Perhaps I misspoke in my previous post about this dog in relation to Aristophanes' three genders: the lost dog wasn't looking for her previous owner—apparently she was looking for R.

R. named the dog Molly.







R., I look forward to meeting you and your newest family member one day.

Claire's

Dear reader, please don't ask me why I was in Claire's for 20 minutes today. Claire's is that horrid store in the mall with a storefront splattered with pictures of 12-year-old girls and signs that read, "FREE EAR PIERCING."

I don't usually find myself in the market for cheap jewelery or adolescent-girl products, but I have to admit, there was some interesting, albeit strange, stuff in this store.
















What is up with chapstick? These flavors are very strange. They're strange because they're too specific. I mean I have Orange Dream Machine Jamba lip balm, but I still consider that to be generic "orange" lip balm, not as specific as cereal-flavored lip balm.

All joking aside, I can hop on board with the Nestle, Apple Jacks, and Pillsbury lip balm, but Cheez-It? Cheez-Its are for male camaraderie and obesity—Cheez-Its should not be associated with anything sexual. I wouldn't want to kiss a girl who tasted like Cheez-Its; that would be like kissing my brother while he watches basketball on Sunday afternoons. Cheez-Its are fairly gross even in their purest food form. I can't imagine the Cheez-It making a successful transition to the cosmetic genre.




















So sue me. I tried on some of the jewelry. It started with a ring. I swear I just wanted to see how tight a ring designed for a teenage girl would be on my stubby fingers. But once I had the ring, I had to try on some other stuff. I never get to wear necklaces, so I had to pick the most ostentatious one I could find. Considering this store isn't really selling "bling," I had to go with the gold heart. I needed the bracelets to complete the look.

While I was looking for my accessories, the employee in the store kept looking at me like I was going to steal something. Yes, I admit it: I chose my jewelery with discretion. I'm not about to grab any old piece of crap off the shelves in secret. I confidently walked around the store and looked for particular items. I have pride (sort of), and I needed my accessories to fit my attire.





















Yeah. This mask was pretty funny. I think it's the eyes of a Corgi. I don't know about the other men out there, but if I rolled over and saw my sleeping companion wearing this mask in the moonlight, I would freak out. There is nothing more scary than seeing open eyes in the middle of the night—especially dog eyes on a human.

After writing and reflecting, I think it pretty obvious that I had too much fun in Clarie's today.

Kiss

A Conversation Overheard at Denny's
Of all the stupid things to do. I kissed
her. She's my only girl friend, and I fucked
it up. Now she knows. She knows about this.
We were friends. Now it's weird. We can't go back.

Dude, Jake, you haven't even talked to her.
Relax. She mighta dug the kiss. That's not
the point. The point is that she knows for sure.
She knows I dream of her, and that cannot

be wiped away. So what? You two are great
together. Everyone else thinks so too.
But she didn't get accepted to Yale.
I think the world of her, and can I move

away and leave the love of my life here?
I wonder what all this means for next year.


Dear Diary,
Jacob kissed me today. It happened just outside the photography room after fourth period. It wasn't like I imagined it would be. After dreaming of him for two years, after fabricating a meeting between us, after all my failed plans—he finally kisses me in the most unromantic manner.

We were laughing about how crazy Mr. Williams looked in class today, and before I knew it, Jacob leaned in so fast that our front teeth hit each other. It might have been more romantic if we had the chance to sink into the kiss, but as fast as he kissed me, he pulled away. It was the same length of kiss that I give my dad on the cheek. Just a peck. It wasn't at all like I imagined it. His spit was all around my mouth. It felt like I had just eaten ribs. I guess a hasty kiss is hard to aim correctly.

It wasn't slow or sensitive. He didn't run his hands through my hair. He just plowed into my face and pulled away. I think he was more shocked than me. After the kiss he said, "Sorry," and scampered away. I haven't seen him since.

I don't know why he was so embarrassed. Even though it wasn't perfect, I'm glad it happened. After so long a time, I had resigned myself to being his "friend."

But I wonder what all this means for next year.

The Most Intimate Part of a Woman

I believe that smelling a woman's morning breath signifies the pinnacle of intimacy between a man and a woman. The actual odor is not appealing, but a woman revealing herself in such a manner uncovers a new side of herself, a side that she hides from most people.

One might argue that her vagina or breasts or lips are the purest sign of intimacy—that making love to a woman is the most intimate act there is. But there is a certain selfishness to sexual acts. The pleasure, even if physical and emotional, is still two-sided. The man gains some form of gratification from the the sexual act.

Sex can be an intimate act, for sure, but it is not the pinnacle of intimacy. The powerful, physical pleasure of sex is often the motivating factor, not intimacy. In the light of the morning, after the physical ecstasy and mystery have faded, if a woman still desires the truest form of intimacy, she can choose to whisper pungently, "Good morning." And if the man, too, desires this truest form of intimacy, he can choose to inhale.

Smelling a woman's morning breath means that she awoke to the man's presence. Whether or not they slept together, figuratively or literally, is irrelevant. For a woman to rise from her slumber and speak to a man without fear of being judged or mocked—that is vulnerability. And from that blooms true intimacy: an intimacy not rooted in pleasure but rooted in vulnerability and protection of that vulnerability.

Nakedness can be stolen by a voyeur. A kiss can be faked by a whore. But morning breath is the truth an Aphrodite hides from so many. To wake and smile and smell her say "Good morning," ah, that would be heaven.

I have seen the perfect woman in my dreams. She has no face. No body. She is just a mouth exhaling a humid feeling of contentment over my sleeping body. She whispers to me, "I am ready for you to see beyond the pasteboard mask." And, in my dreams, I listen to her scent.

Boys' Day/Cinco de Mayo

I guess it was my fate to be happy today—it's Boys' Day. Honestly, that didn't really affect the development of my Tuesday. No one gave me gifts. No one gave me an unexpected hug. Even my Japanese friends whom I spent time with today didn't acknowledge this national holiday. I pulled out my 1-foot, blue carp out of the closet and waved it around for a bit. That made me feel happy. Not happy like I passed a test or won the lottery, but happy that I could, even for the briefest of moments, lose myself in very private contemplation. I guess that's all that really matters. It was my own tiny festival in my mind.

The bigger news here in America is that today is Cinco de Mayo. I never really understood this holiday. If one researches the historical context, it seems strange to celebrate one battle in an overall losing effort. But maybe I'm just being short sighted. If someone can explain to me the true pulse of the holiday, please do so. I want to learn. Too bad my Spanish class is on Mondays and Wednesdays. If I had class today, I probably would have asked my professor about Cinco de Mayo. I could always ask tomorrow when I see him, but by that time, I will have lost my interest in becoming more worldly and knowledgeable.

Holidays are strange. One national holiday had me sitting in my closet on a pile of dirty clothes. The other made me realize that I'm ignorant.

CBEST

I found out I passed the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) today. I wasn't really worried, but with a test like the CBEST, you have everything to lose. By this I mean that with a test as easy as the CBEST, you lose more by failing than you gain by passing.

Well, that's not actually true, but I would certainly have been embarrassed if I had to tell my engineering friend and doctor brother that I failed.

I was excited and slightly relieved, but, much like last week, the pleasure and celebrations were short lived. By the time I closed the congratulatory email, the feeling was gone.

The experience today and my experience from last week got me thinking about why my successes feel so much more flat than my failures. I remembered Edmund Burke had something to say about the terrifying pain of sublimity:

I say the strongest emotion [sublimity], because I am satisfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure. Without all doubt, the torments which we may be made to suffer, are much greater in their effect on the body and mind, than any pleasures which the most learned voluptuary could suggest, or than the liveliest imagination, and the most sound and exquisitely sensible body could enjoy. (549-50)

Perhaps humans are hard-wired, in a biological sense, to gravitate and fester on their failures. Perhaps stewing over our failures is an evolutionary trait designed to keep the race constantly learning from our mistakes. A person's successes are more easily thrown asunder because it is less important to concentrate on something done well. From an evolutionary standpoint, it seems unwise to waste energy celebrating when there are so many other survival skills to develop.

And one of the worst aspects of this seeming truth is that failures and successes do not relate to each other in a quantifiable manner. The current sting of one failure in my life has obliterated the happiness of, not one, but several successes. Failures seem to be sink holes, voids satiated not by successes but by time.

Maybe I'm just incapable of being happy, as my high school girlfriend used to say. I hate to think she was right—she was such a jerk. Maybe I'll be happy tomorrow just to prove her wrong; I'm sure that's emotionally healthy.


Works Cited:
Burke, Edmund. "Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch, et al. New York: Norton, 2001. 536-51.