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my not-so-temporary blog, i guess

saturday, september 29

nothing to do with anything

Just a note to myself, really. Jen S's little brother Andy talks just like Wes. Maybe a teensy bit deeper, but, stylistically, almost the same. It is uncanny.

.: 1:34 AM .:

remind me...

...to write, when I get the chance, about my afternoon dropping by my future workplace, especially after I've been able to parse out my thoughts verbally with someone like Andy.

.: 1:23 AM .:

friday, september 28

ohmygod

I have to have to have to try out for this. Except, goddamit, all my books are packed away. So I'll have to draft everything off books from bookstores. I know where I'm gonna be spending the next week.

.: 7:38 PM .:

tension dissipated

Apartment achieved. Ah.

.: 7:33 PM .:

the awfulness of being in between jobs...

...is that you start to forget that other people have them, and therefore have real schedules. I am in DC, and my friends are too busy to hang out. One has to do all this stuff before he leaves his current job. Another (the one who does legislative drafting for Congress) was like "uh, I've been at work late every night this week. You know, all those new bills they've been sponsoring and stuff, someone's had to do the writing." Me: "Oh yeah..."

.: 12:28 AM .:

apartment hunting

It sucks, do not do it. Find a sugar momma or daddy to treat you to a nice place, with a doggie.

Apartment hunting. It causes stress between friends, other friends, and friends' parents. What's more, it is tiring. Ugh.

I know, these are the whines of the privileged. Give me my time. I will get over it.

.: 12:01 AM .:

thursday, september 27

another article i kinda like

This one, on the airline bailout.

.: 11:59 PM .:

wednesday, september 26

to answer some questions i've gotten

My section of the environment division of the Justice Department will have very little to do with the attacks, or with our government's response to those attacks, as far as I can tell. People in Ilana's section, I'm told, did have to do some quick condemnation work (the forfeiting property kind, not the censure and reproof kind) so that various federal agencies could get relocated. But that's it, I think.

Wait till there's an attack on a nuclear plant. Then I might have something to do.

.: 12:11 PM .:

apartment stress, and other stuff

Ugh, the responsibility of finding a place for me and Ilana, without any ability for me to actually contact Ilana, is gonna kill me.

Casey sent me a funny Modern Humorist column about irony, though.

Oh, and I hafta say, I like Sherry Colb on Writ/Findlaw (not the least because she looks kind of like this girl I should've hung out more with in law school, but was too fucked up by other stuff to deal with at the time.) This particular column of hers is rather fluffy (compared to her other columns), but good.

.: 12:05 PM .:

betelnuts

When I said that the betelnuts tasted resinous, I meant rosinous, like the rosin (which is a pine resin) used on violin strings. Or what I'd imagine rosin would taste like, anyway. Dunno why I forgot to clarify this at the time.

.: 12:32 AM .:

tuesday, september 25

the end of the end of irony, hopefully

Getting tired of the "here comes the end of irony" pieces? Check out this piece, on Salon.

Sorry, no deep remarks today. Am in the middle of apartment hunting, and it's getting me freaked out. Waiting for the 3:00 update on the Washington City Paper housing page.

.: 3:03 PM .:

monday, september 24

freezing the assets

So we're freezing the assets of various terrorist organizations and may freeze the assets of foreign banks that do not cooperate with such efforts. It's actually what I'd always suggested would be a reasonable response to terrorism in the first place. Nice to feel vindicated.

.: 6:42 PM .:

learning japanese

I have discovered that I'm much more interested in learning grammar than in learning vocabulary. How sentences are formed and constructed, it totally fascinates me. Does it change how we think, whether we divide tenses up into smaller compartmentalized time-bits, or larger, more amorphous lumpy bits? Does it change how we think, having plurality be a matter of context, rather than an explicit form? All these ponderings.

One thing interesting, though, is seeing what came from Chinese into Japanese. The numbering system, for instance. A history of subjugation and detante, all embedded in a language. Neat.

.: 3:42 PM .:

realization

I don't think I expressly realized this until I was talking to Grant M (not G) last week -- this is the first time I've really truly enjoyed relaxing since that thing that happened to me four years ago. The last time I had a break like this, I completely freaked out. What a change. This is good.

On a note about that thing, though, an editorial from The New Republic, written with respect to the World Trade Center attacks, seems applicable:
---
We must not grief-counsel our fury away. The promptings of American psychology must not interfere with the promptings of American security. For our sorrow is not the only challenge that we face. This mourning is not like other mourning. In the aftermath of natural death or natural disaster, it is wise to teach the stricken the lesson of acceptance, to instruct them tenderly that this is the way of the world. Against natural death and natural disaster, it is foolish and hurtful to rebel. But the atrocity of September 11 can never be accepted as the way of the world. Against such loss it is foolish and hurtful not to rebel.
---
(Italics added.) I'm just commenting on the editorial's general remarks about the feeling of anger, fury, and rebellion, and not about their applicability to the WTC attacks, btw. I left him because he did not feel anger, fury, or rebellion at what she did. He treated it all as a natural disaster, as something to be accepted. It was not a natural disaster. It was an deliberate act of awfulness. A smaller act of awfulness compared to recent events -- more personal, more limited -- but an act of awfulness nevertheless. I left him because he did not feel what I needed him to feel.

.: 11:44 AM .:

sunday, september 23

irony is alive

The Boston Phoenix has some article this week on how the World Trade Center / Pentagon attacks has ended unbridled irony. Yeah, sure it has. The Coolidge Corner showed Cannibal Holocaust, a movie which featured the WTC, and which the young, goth audience laughed at. And just last week, Andy and I rented Dr. Strangelove. It's not even like we're detached individuals -- Andy's a Middle East studies buff, and me, I'm weirdly fascinated with national security issues. No, it's just that irony is still alive. Irony is how we deal.

.: 10:25 PM .:

a dream

A not-so-odd dream last night, really rather predictable, given the way I've been feeling these days. I have to give kudos to my subconsciousness -- it was pretty realistic. The reactions, the physical sensations, even the occasional surprising behavioral bits. Everything was within a realistic scope of surprisingness. The dream was all about attempting to make out with someone, but getting interrupted by an aunt. The aunt part was random. I feel like this could be turned into a story somehow, with more aunts floating around, but I'm not sure.

.: 12:42 PM .: