I found this site that I dont really understand, but for some reason am intrigued by. Its Letters I Never Sent and its basically exactly what it says – people can submit letters, thoughts, poems, etc. that were never actually given to the intended recipient. Check it out if you get the chance. I think the site is so intriguing because it satisfies the natural voyeuristic tendencies of the human nature- we like to snoop through other peoples stuff, especially their love lives. i mean really – thats why afternoon soaps are still on television – we just cant help ourselves. So, todays word of the day is in honor of the “love letter”:

abrophrenia (AB-roh-FREEneeuh) n: The graceful expression of thoughts and feelings about love or sex

Last week, Chris and I went to dinner at the second restaurant on our Baltimore food tour, an Ethiopian place in Mount Vernon called Dukem. It’s a small place, right near Univeristy of Baltimore, and easily missed if you aren’t paying attention. The name might sound familiar if you are from DC as there is a Dukem in DC as well.

May 25, 2003:
its 4am in baltimore. there is a clock on the table beside my bed which counts the minutes off, one by one. the room is silent except for the sound of softly falling rain. maybe the rain falls harder at times, or maybe it has stopped altogether and a cricket, perched on a small, pink flower petal in the garden below, has begun to chirp.

this is it. this is what i have wanted. tabula rasa – a clean slate. thousands of miles and an ocean seperates me from everything i have always known. i have no address here. no cell phone. i do not speak the language and i do not know any of my fellow travelers. i am completely alone, but i have never felt so wonderful as i do at this moment. i am….free. totally free.

**

3 years later and i am sitting in a little cubicle in a windowless office in baltimore wondering why i ever came home. maybe its because summer is right around the corner, maybe its because ive been feeling so dissatisfied with…well everything recently, or maybe its just that i was born with a restless spirit. whatever the reason, i definitely feel the need to uproot. drop everything and just…..go.

freedom.

....this whole adulthood thing blows.

OH, and sidenote, bonus points to anyone who can name the band and/or song that the title of this post comes from…

it has come to my attention that my blogroll has been seriously outdated for some time now, and that is a huge problem, because there are a ton of great blogs out there that i read everyday….while pretending to work. and really, i recommend that everyone else do the same (both read the blogs and pretend to work, because real productivity is 10% actual work and 90% looking busy). so i have rectified the situation by updating the blogroll at last!

if i missed any blogs that you are absolutely positive that i read every day (possibly you are stalking my IP?) or if you have any blogs you feel i should be reading every day, feel free to blogpimp

because i went to a religious high school, i was required to attend an all-school worship service from 10am to 11am every wednesday. so, every wednesday for four years (minus the 2.5 month “summer break”), i sat miserably for an hour on uncomfortable bleachers and listened to painfully awful worship music, a shallow and often redundant sermon, and the recitation of some worn out bible verses (some of which i still have memorized, depsite all efforts to delete them and clear up that brain-drive space for more useful information). the two results of this are pardoxical:

1. i have a strong dislike for organized religious services and no longer attend anything even closely resembling them and


2. i feel a strange compulsion to go to church and feel guilty because i dont – specifically, this guilt hits me on wednesdays around 10am.

this is not coincidental. they purposefully instill this guilt in you by creating a tension between desire and habit. human beings are naturally selfish and self-gratifying – seeking their own happiness above anything else, but they are also creatures of habit, and habit creates a feeling of comfort, and comfort mimics happiness. ay! theres the rub!

well…. old habits die hard, so, happy wednesday everyone—todays words are religiously centered:

hamartiologist (huh-MAHR-tee-AHL-uh-jist) n : an expert on the subject of sin.

oh oh! thats me! i mean…er…wait…maybe they mean it another way….

jnana (juh-NAH-nuh) n : in Hinduism, spiritual knowledge obtained through meditation and study.

kinda sounds like an ingredient in an energy drink doesn’t it? NEW! Red Bull Enlightenment – now with more jnana!

ecclesioclastic (e-KLEE-zee-oh-KLAS-tik) adj : disruptive or destructive to the church.

oh oh! thats me too!

i kept a livejournal for a number of years before i started this blog. the quality of the writing i put in there was sometimes often better than the quality of the papers i was turning in during the same period in my life. some of my best journal writing is done in a sleep-deprived state at 4 in the morning when i have a hundred and fifty things on my mind and a 15 page paper that i havent started yet due in 6 hours. unfortunately, i dont write papers anymore and i rarely see 4am, so its difficult for me to really recapture the creative momentum that that particular situation drives. i do still have all those old posts though, and so i thought it might be kinda cool to (revise and) re-post some of those entries. who knows, maybe it will even get some of my creativity neurons firing again…

**
Red light. Green Light. Go.
Originally Posted Friday, 24 September, 2004

can you see me? in the darkness i am sitting on the cement stairs in front of the house talking on my cell phone. its late in the night and late in the summer. i keep my voice low in an effort to falsely present myself as calm and in control and, as far as i can tell, it’s working. it’s a power struggle. it always has been. am i winning?

five years earlier and im watching the late afternoon sunlight dancing through the trees as the car speeds down seminary avenue. my head rests against the window and every now and then the car will hit a bump and the side of my head will smack into the glass. my mother glances at me.
“youre going to give yourself a concussion if you keep that up.”
“no, i wont. i cant even feel it.”
im somewhere off in the distance, watching the world whiz by in a blur of greens and yellows and im wondering what speed we are traveling at and if i open the door right now and jump out what are the chances id survive. i wouldnt want to survive. is it worth the risk? just to feel the pain, just to feel something.

regressing even further i am sitting in a classroom surrounded by white cinderblock walls decorated with world maps and brightly colored construction paper cut-outs. the teacher is a plain looking woman with a plain sounding voice. shes talking about the world trade situation but im not listening. im thinking about how to get out of this place. i can feel my hands shaking—i am alone and i am scared and no one here knows me and no one here wants to and the room is closing in and i need to get out and why is she staring at me and….then i realize she has called on me. i was somewhere else. anywhere else. and i cant respond and i dont know what to say and now theyre all laughing at me.

back into the almost-present. for the last three years i have had the same college roommate. our room is good for a laugh. our wall decorations coordinate and our furniture is set up the same so that one side of the room almost mirrors the other. but theres a clear line down the middle of the room. her side is disorganized and crazy—she seems to live best with it like that, its her style. i keep mine organized and clean, i used to make the bed every morning when i had the time. i like to keep my living space orderly, its one thing in my life i have complete control over. when the world around me starts to look confusing, i remember that it really is.

you cant see me. youre three hours away and in a different world. your world is black and white and full of clean edges and discernible boundaries. mine is a blur a million shades of grey and miles and miles of oceans so deep and so dark that even if you spent a lifetime in them you could never discover all their secrets. we are having and argument, and its nothing more than an error in communication but, youre blaming me. it is my fault, it is my error. im getting frustrated with you; i want to make you understand what it is im trying to say but while im talking you are talking over me and telling me that im wrong and that im not listening and then youre raising your voice and im getting confused and even my thoughts are becoming muffled by my own inconsistencies and i can hear children laughing at me because i cant seem to figure out what it is im supposed to be saying and i can feel the potholes beneath us and my head bumping into the glass of a car window and suddenly im looking for a way out, an escape of some sort—a way to feel anything but what im feeling right now…

its a snapping noise. you can hear it if you listen hard enough. its the same sound that a glow-stick makes when you crack it to start the chemical reaction that causes it to glow late at night on a beach in your childhood with your brother running at your side and your dad watching from behind with a smile on his face. in one instant there is a distinct change and once the reaction is started you cant reverse it. i heard the snap. and then i heard the click of my cell phone as i flipped it closed, ending the conversation abruptly. you cant change your past and you cant heal the inevitable scars it has left you with. but you can control where you let it take you in the future.

this is not a power struggle. this is my life.

a little latin lesson today….

impecunious (adj): lacking money; penniless; poor.

from the latin pecunia – money or wealth.

see picture of steph at far right for synonym.

quaestuary (adj): profit seeking; studious of profit. (n): a profit seeker. (alternate spelling is questuary)

from the latin quaestus – gain or profit.

see picture of steph at far right for image of an unsuccessful quaestuary.

now i have to admit that i dont know very much about the senate voting process or how they decide what bills will be introduced/voted on etc. on what date, but im sure that there is someone there who makes the schedule and im also sure that that someone gets paid a lot more than me and probably does a hell of a lot less (and is probably taller and better looking as well, but thats not the point).

with that said, might i now add that i am personally offended by whoever the asshole was who decided that the vote for the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage should be done on 06/06/06. ha. ha. ha. 666. yeah – i get it. ive read revelation.

all this does is fuel the fire for the right-wing religious wack jobs who insist that gay marriage will be the destruction of humanity and the beginning of the reign of the devil and all that.

really people, they dont need any help coming up with this crap.

and by the way, new scripture translations and examinations are beginning to show that 666 is a misinterpretation. its actually 616.

so….whats everyone doing on june 1st?

growing up, i was always very close with my cousin chris. i have always considered him more a brother than anything else. but as the time and distance between us has grown (as time and distance are always apt to do), we really dont get to see each other all that often anymore. but occasionally life throws us little opportunities here and there to recapture the days of our youth together and hang out just like old times. only now we are older and can drink …which is nice too.

so my cousin chris and i, having both found ourselves recently thrust into singlehood and therefore possessing more free time than normal, have decided to embark upon a new journey together.

food.

thats right. we have decided that now is the perfect time in our lives for us to become foodies and to explore all the wonderful restaurants that baltimore has to offer. there will be eating and drinking and merriment! and we will probably grow fat and poor, but what the hell right?

to help keep track of all our wanderings and to encourage others to follow, i have decided to write a review for each of the restaraunts we try. its been quite a few years since ive written any sort of public review, but i have never falsely represented any of my posts as good writing..

SO….without any more delay….my review of our first restaurant, Red Fish, which Chris, Andy (my brother) and I visited recently….

erudition (n):

1. Deep, extensive learning.


2. profound scholarly knowledge