Some Hummus (The "I Made It Myself" Kind)

I wrote of a recent Whole Foods excursion recently, when I found myself buying only snacks. Really expensive snacks. Delicious but exorbitant snacks.

I love snacking. It's the best part about the "don't eat big meals, just graze all day" kind of diet. But I don't love spending ridiculous amounts of money on snacks.

When I went back to Whole Foods two days ago, I thought to myself, "What's a good snack that I can make myself?" I had already done homemade salsa and homemade tortilla chips earlier in October (with fresh, self-picked tomatoes). What else could I... hummus!

Hummus. What could be easier? Chickpeas, tahini, blend, serve. I bought the ingredients plus garlic and prepared for greatness.

Some Hummus

1 15-ounce can of chickpeas/garbanzo beans
some raw tahini
some apple cider vinegar
some lemon juice
some garlic (8 cloves)
some ground cumin
some olive oil

(I used a blender. You people with food processors, I hope you know how lucky you are.)

1. Drain can of liquid, saving the liquid in a cup.
2. Put about half the can of chickpeas into the blender.
3. Pour a little of that bean juice from the can into the blender.
   
4. Glug some apple cider vinegar into the blender.
5. Put 2-3 spoonfuls of well-stirred tahini in blender.
6. Cover top of stuff in blender with a dusting of cumin.
7. Mash garlic cloves, or dice up into little pieces. Add half to blender.
8. Blend.
9. Add the olive oil that you forgot. Blend more.
10. It's probably too thick to blend properly. Dump it into a bowl.
11. Do the same thing over again, but this time add lemon juice instead of the vinegar, since you just found it in the back of the fridge. Add a little more bean juice, too, to make it blendable.
12. Aww yeah, it's blending now.
13. Spoon the thick first batch into the second batch and blend on high.
14. Add more cumin because you don't know if it's too bland or not.
15. (That was a little too much cumin, but you'll find that out later.)
16. Blend again. Aww, fudge, it's not blending any more.
    
17. Oh well, it's done anyway.
    
18. Spatula it out into a bowl.
    
19. Make a little hole in the center of the hummus and pour a little olive oil in. Serve.

Some parts were wayyyy too cumin-y. But on the whole, this turned out really well. And I now have a ton of hummus. Well, actually, about the amount of 4 Trader Joe's hummus containers. I will make again.

What Kind Of A Blog Post Comes Out When You Have About 15 Minutes...

Just went for a run on the Custis Trail. I don't like the feeling when you're running and it's cold out and the back of your throat burns from inhaling such frigidity.

I have yet to get into any sort of meditative state while running. I also don't have any experience with the "runner's high." Aak's Dad is a marathoner and I think once said that if you've run over six miles many times and haven't gotten it, then something's weird. Well, six is about my upper limit. I think I'm a natural runner, and I think I could do pretty well if I were to train myself to go higher mileages, but I just don't enjoy it enough. I like it a lot more that I have a running partner these days, marathoner girlfriend, but that's pretty much the only reason. I used to row in college, and that was a lot of running. I hated it every time.

We're going hiking this weekend in the Shenandoahs, at Matthew's Arm. (Btw, Aak should totally bike that trail I'm linking to here).

I caught David Letterman last night for the first time in ages. It's good to know that the show hasn't really changed over time. He seemed more bored with it than I remember, but I only saw the early part of the show. He was always bored with the monologue, like something he needed to get through. Last night he had a sketch where they had a camera set up across the street from a Lens Crafters and they wanted to see how many people dressed like Sarah Palin they could fit into it. So, one would walk in and stand behind the glass door and...well, it was funny. Gotta go.

Sometimes at the end of posts I fight the urge to sign off like it's an e-mail.

Phone Screening

I was just screened over the phone.

A girl from Match.com emailed me, I emailed her back, and in her next email she asked for my "#." I thought that was pretty fast, but I gave her my digits anyway.

She called me just now, from a "Private" number, and said she wanted to make sure that I wasn't crazy. I guess that she's had experiences with crazy people before?

She started asking me about stuff, and when she found out that I had an OKCupid account, too, she looked it up on the phone with me. Which led to her asking me how many girls I'd slept with... and she was shocked at the answer...

After I hung up the phone, I looked up her OKCupid profile. She was a lot more racy on OKCupid than she was on Match. And her answer for "What I'm Really Good At"... well, I'll leave that to your imagination.

Hypersocial

I'm going to have to wean myself off caffeine now. I'm perfectly happy drinking a ton of coffee throughout the day. I drink 2 in the morning, and extra couple while at work, and a whole pot while at home studying. It's great and I think it has minimal effect on me except maybe in waking up in the morning. I may now need the boost to feel normal. But I now feel like I'm so in the habit that it's just so natural.

I held off from coffee drinkerdom for a long while because I figured it was an inevitable thing to become hooked eventually. Yes, I know this is wrong, but it seemed that every adult alive is completely hooked. My Mom gets headaches when she doesn't have hers. So, I figured I was merely delaying and waited for the time to come. That time came with the introduction of coffeemate.

I too feel sometimes like a High-kick-a-you-kick after a day of studying solo. The other day I spent a whole day reading out of a damn textbook in my apartment. By the end I felt physically restless and cabin-fevery. It's those times when I most realize the value of social contact. I think that this habit of a solitary pursuit is making me more social. I go for broke more around people after being away from them for a while. I strike up more convos, tell more jokes, listen more, tell more stories, ask more questions, etc. And it's genuine. It helps with the sales mindset that waiting tables relies on. That night gf and I had our weekly tango lessons and I think it was the single best class we've had.

About tango (if our massive readership has any experience), I find the close embrace far easier than the open embrace. Open E felt more mechanical and technical and made it way harder to simply feel the music and improvise. It's possible that it was simply harder for the first classes where we were getting the basics down and now it's just clicking, but it seems more than that. When we go back to doing open E it still seems technical, though it's easier having done closed E for a couple classes now. I feel like open will be a lot of flashy fun later when we know what we're doing. Right now, though, I loooove feeling the rhythm of the music and dancing accordingly. My lower back starts to hurt because I'm in the habit of bending down to my partners (I'm 6'1"), and I need to rectify this tendency, but it's a blast.

Religulous. Again.

Aak, girlfriend, and I went to see Religulous the other night. I enjoyed it immensely. Of course, he picked some pretty weak proponents of religion to argue with, so it was easy to make them look ridiculous. When I invited roommate and her mate to see it they turned it down because they didn't want to see Bill Maher talk down to idiots for two hours, and that's exactly what it was. But you gotta hand it to him. Or at least I do. It was funny. He interspersed discussions with clips that usually mocked the person he was talking to. There was one particular clip of some TV show called Hell Town that had me laughing long after it had passed. You know, one of those laughters where everyone else has moved on and you're still there trying to stifle for about ten minutes because you don't want to piss them off.

The thing I like was how ballsy the movie was. It's true that once you come to matters of faith you're supposed to stop asking once someone throws it out there. I wonder what sort of mortal danger Bill Maher is from whackballs right now. I also liked in the end how he took a stand. It wasn't just two hours of debunking and mockery. He gets on his soapbox and talks about how we need the hocus pocus of religion out of the world's decision making processes. I didn't expect that.

As I'm sure has happened with other people, post movie consisted of a pretty fun and lengthy conversation between us. I don't believe in any religion, but I am curious about whether or not it has had a net benefit on mankind historically. Probably yes, I say. Pissy anti-religious people like Bill Maher always point out wars, terrorist events, and other killings such as the crusades, 9/11 and other suicide bombings, the inquisition, and other easy to cite very very bad things as reasons why religion is devastating to mankind. Fair enough. But how much has human kind survived and thrived based on the stabilizing force that religion creates for all of us? I mentioned this to Aak, and he mentioned how he was doing research for his anthropology class on Muslims. I don't remember the details, but he talked about a bunch of rituals that some people at some event were doing. (I think it was an open-air market?) He'll have to comment on the specifics if he cares enough, but it made my point pretty well.

I just wonder if it's possible for people to have such a stabilizing force that will spread moral behavior without cooking up what I believe to be utter fictions. I don't need to believe that some white bearded guy in the sky sent his son/self to "save" me by getting whipped with a cat of nine tails. I can simply accept that it's wrong for me to steal my neighbor's possessions. Why? Because if I can steal his, he can steal mine. Plus life is so much more enjoyable if you get along with and take care of one another. No resurrections necessary to teach me that.

Back to the movie. I was bummed that Bill Maher didn't spend more time with people who seemed level headed and faithful. There was an astronomer priest who I wanted to hear more from. There were others I can't think of at the moment. He certainly could've found some more. But I would have loved to see someone challenge him.

All in all, a well spent 10.75.

Ha! Sometimes I need to read more before I post. In looking for the above link, I found the post that Aak has already written about this movie. Oh yeah, I forgot about the Japanese Animism.

Well, now I've spent a bunch of time on this and it's going up anyway.

Hikkikomori no Anime

A "hikkikomori" in Japanese is one who secludes him/herself from society, staying in an apartment or a single room all day and night. This is a growing phenomenon in Japan. Sometimes it's in a family house, sometimes in an apartment. They usually don't have jobs, relying on parental allowance.

I'm in the middle of a series called "Welcome to the NHK." "NHK" is the name of the big channel in Japan, like our NBC. The main character of the anime comes to believe that "NHK" stands for Nihon Hikkikomori Kyokai (Japan Hikkikomori Association), and that they are the creators of a conspiracy to keep him isolated and alone. This being an anime, there's a sweet girl who takes an interest in him and tries to get him to change his behavior.

Watching this anime, alone, in my room, after a weekend of studying alone, in my room, made me feel very hikkikomori-like. Even when the character's lifestyle inspired revulsion, as in his madcap flipouts in the outside world, or as in his obsessions with erotic dating games or, later, a WoW-based online game, it felt like I was the target audience of this strange program. Then I began to think it was all a conspiracy. The makers of this anime knew what kind of people were in their audience and geared it exactly to them.

This is part of a movement I have noticed. Otaku things have become anti-otaku. My only other example is a Nintendo DS game I picked up, called "The World Ends with You."

The World Ends with You's protagonist is someone who distrusts everyone, has no friends, and walks around with headphones on so he doesn't have to interact with anyone. The game forces you, through the character, to interact with other players. A prominent feature of the game is working together with your partner, simultaneously controlling both the main character and the secondary. Working together is the only way to survive and beat the enemies. Another feature of the game is looking into other people's minds and reading their thoughts. This "gets you into other people's heads." The gameplay incentivizes putting the game down; you earn points by only playing a certain amount any day. Finally, an interesting feature is that, when you are near someone else with a DS, there is an incentive to interact with that other person: you ask them to turn on their wireless signal, you turn on your game and sense the incoming signal, and you get points/items that you otherwise would never have gotten.

So the game is designed to wean you off of the game world and inject you into the real world.

Hikkikomoris are a growing problem in Japan, and these kinds of anime and games are interesting ways to address the problem. Too bad they do not speak to the source of the problem at all. Japan is in many ways a terrible place to live; societal pressures are just too much for some people. Change the society, and fewer hikkikomoris will appear. Simple as that.

Mr. Hatandcoat Fears Lexical Change

Or, rather, my mostly-absent co-blogger is annoyed by it.

Just ask him about the word "ignorant." For years, he's been very bothered by the use of "ignorant" to mean belligerent. You know:

A: "Did I tell you what Marvin did?"
B: "No, what'd he do?"
A: "After I told him to be careful about taking long smoke breaks, he rolled his eyes, said 'whatever', and slammed my office door so hard my picture of Princess came off the wall. He is so ignorant."

This sets H&C into a prescriptivist fury. He has asked a woman who he frequently heard misuse "ignorant" what she thought it meant. She said, "I don't know, belligerent?" He looked it up on m-w.com and proved her wrong.

Luckily for H&C, the word "ignorant" has not changed its meaning (until now) from the time it was incorporated into English. Unfortunately for H&C, he's been spelling it wrong his whole life. "Ignorant" was originally spelled ignoraunt and probably sounded a lot more French.

The trouble with being prescriptive about language is that language has no standard. Language is not static. The rules change, meanings warp, fade, or are completely opposite of what they used to mean.

The word "nice," for example, entered English meaning "foolish, stupid." Here's a list of its transformations through the ages (taken from etymonline.com):

1. foolish, stupid, senseless (1290)
   
2. timid (before 1300)
3. fussy, fastidious (1380)
4. dainty, delicate (1405)
5. precise, careful (1500s)
6. agreeable, delightful (1769)
7. kind, thoughtful (1830)
   

(If you want to go back before English, "nice" came from Old French where it meant "silly, foolish." It came from Latin nescius, which meant ignorant.)

Whether or not there is a standard, I suppose you could argue either way. It's clear that language is always changing, though. Since it's always changing, how can there be a standard?

The main point of this post is to tell H&C that another of his annoyances is now in the dictionary. H&C told me last night that he hates it when people say "people of the female persuasion." He says that "persuasion" there makes no sense. Unfortunately...

1. The act of persuading or the state of being persuaded: “The persuasion of a democracy to big changes is at best a slow process” (Harold J. Laski).
2. The ability or power to persuade: “Three foremost aids to persuasion which occur to me are humility, concentration, and gusto” (Marianne Moore).
3. A strongly held opinion; a conviction. See synonyms at opinion.
4. 1. A body of religious beliefs; a religion: worshipers of various persuasions.
   2. A party, faction, or group holding to a particular set of ideas or beliefs.
5. Informal. Kind; sort: “the place where … rockers of any gender or persuasion can become megastars” (Christopher John Farley). (answers.com def)
   

Not Cool

On the plus side, H&C now has more posts in total than districted. But at the expense of political contamination...uh.

I haven't read Aak's recent posts yet. I saw the intro to one and retched. Immediately, I said, I must submit. This must stop.

I'm sitting in the waiting room, feeling zen-like, waiting for my turn to come for my first professional massage ever, when I get a text from Aak. He says I seriously need to blog soon. I put down the interesting magazine and rush to the laptop. And there we have it.

Yuck.

Annoying (and I bring this up at risk of sullying my zennish state): all these absentee voting registration people at every metro station. I don't feel the least bit bad about completely ignoring the well-intentioned 21 year old like he's a homeless guy. Those people ruined my mood the other day. I don't know what it is about being interrupted on my daily commute that upsets me so. I have a friend of a friend who I was told goes into a bit of a rage when he is approached by store salesmen. I think I'm the same way, although recently on trips to home depot and the like I needed their help. Those people make me sooooooooo mad. I want to walk in peace. I want to take the fifty paces from the curb in front of the station to the top of the escalator without hearing "excuse me, sir, are you registered to vote in Virginia?" But that's not gonna happen. Then they tag-team me with people at the bottom of the damn stairs. Then there are more when I get out! They ruin my mood. I want them gone. They're like the greenpeace people on steroids. At least those f***ers get a little intimidated and give up when you don't give them any eye contact.

Now I'm going to get naked in front of a stranger. Oh, there'll be a cloth...right? Awkwaaaaaard.

Silent No More: an Abortion Post

That's right, Hatandcoat, I went there: an abortion post. I'm gonna leave this one up here on top for you to replace.

I was on campus the other day, and I saw an ad for Silent No More, an event where women "who regret their abortions will be speaking out to the public about their experiences." I thought, okay, whatever. Then I got a Facebook invite to it from a girl I know through class. I don't really know her, though. At all. It was a little strange to get the invite, but I guess people who are active on campuses just invite all their Facebook friends.

So I thought more about it.

On the one hand, I think it's fine to speak about such things. Maybe I'd even say "good." I don't really want to hear about them, but that's because I have to go to school with the girls who would be talking, and I don't really want to think about dead fetuses whenever I see them.

On the other hand... the event is sponsored by a group called "Students for Life." I checked their website, and yeah, it's about what you'd expect. They're anti-choice. So the event "Silent No More" is not about coming together to talk about traumatic events from a choice that these women made; it's about encouraging people to vote to take away that choice altogether.

So the regretful women wish that they had not even had the choice to begin with. If they hadn't had that choice, they wouldn't regret it now.

Don't you think this is strange?

There's a lack of responsibility that just stuns me. It wasn't the doctor's decision; it wasn't the lawmakers' decision; it wasn't the Supreme Court's decision. It was yours. And many of you would have made the same choice were it illegal, and then you'd be regretting it even more than you are now.

It's the same attitude that stuns me when I hear of women treating abortion like any other form of birth control. The same lack of responsibility.

It's fine to regret your abortion. And if your "Silent No More" event is just about telling people about the possible pain of having an abortion, fine. I'm happy to support that. But if your organization is for tearing down Roe v. Wade, and you're only telling your story to do so, then I can't support that. It was your bad choice, so take responsibility for it, and don't place it on the government.

What the Kids Are Saying about the Election

"I don't like either of them. Neither of them are going to change anything."

I've heard this from three people aged between 19 and 24. My shock was apparent on my face, as my jaw unhinged and my eyes popped out.

Oh. My. God. Neither of them is going to change anything? Huh? Obama's very existence changes everything. In case the youth of America is colorblind, let me spell it out for you: Obama is black. (He's also white, but, since this is America, that doesn't matter.*) He is also a DEMOCRAT, the election of which would mean a systemic regime change. He is also going to change the way this country interacts with other countries.

But I know, Obama isn't Change That College Students Can Believe In. Why not? Well, college students want real change. Like, awesome change. Like Presidents skateboarding out of crashing helicopters. Like Ron Paul wearing a cape and destroying governmental institutions. Like Dennis Kucinich... being smart?

The point is, the youth of America want radical change so much (and yet, don't really know what they want to change, or how much, or if it's even a good idea) that they're unwilling to see that Obama IS change. It might not be awesome change, or radical change, but it's change enough for me.

"I hate both of them."

But Barack Obama is your new bicycle! And McCain's... daughter is hot?

To the "hate both of them" problem I say this: figure out who you hate more, and vote for the other one. That's what I'm doing. I'd hate another presidency that refuses to acknowledge that the liberals in this country are as American as the conservatives. I'd hate to put the guy who chose Sarah Palin as a running mate in charge of bigger decisions. I'd hate to have an obstinate, bulldoggish Prez who won't talk to other countries.

I feel that this technique may have gotten another Obama vote already.

"I hate both of them equally."

Okay, then you just haven't been paying attention. You probably said you hate them both because you want to seem like you're intelligent enough to disdain both candidates for legitimate reasons. You don't want to look like an apathetic doosh. I can't blame you for trying; if I was an apathetic doosh, I'm sure I'd want to cover it up.

When faced with this comment, I sort of sputter out things about McCain's campaign and terrorist links and racism and Bush and polarization, but I don't have much hope that anything will sink in.


*I am being sarcastic and bitter, in case you're colorblind literalists with no sense of the tongue-in-cheek.

Palin's Presidency

No, not this.

I'm talking about the Saturday Night Live opening sketch with Palin. This is the epitome of what we could expect of Sarah Palin, as she is now, as President:

See what I mean?

Almost-effortless delivery of lines written for her. No interaction with the press. No interaction with liberals. No giving in. No attempts to bridge the gap between liberals and conservatives in this country. But smooth chair-dancing moves.

I watched those clips and thought, wow, she took time out of the campaign just to stand around SNL and look disapproving for a couple of skits. Was it too much to ask for a little life? A little interaction with Fey? Sure, the rap was over the top, but couldn't she have tried to do something else? Even this little Obama cameo from a year ago seems like an improvement:

(Keep in mind that SNL was just as hostile towards Obama as they are now to Palin. Hillary was SNL's favorite horse... ooh, bad metaphor... oh well.)

Where is Hatandcoat?

There has not been a post of substance by my coblogger on this blog since 13 days ago. I was without home Internet for 3.5 days, but I expected that, in that time, Mr. Hatandcoat would blog about something or other.

Nothing.

Thus, I will entice him to come back to us. I will not use the micturition-trope of times past. Instead, I'm gonna get political on yo' @$$, right here, not on Districted. And I'm gonna lay out multiple posts in a row, so H&C must step in ganz schnell.

You're welcome, readership.

Quick post to see if I can get the google ads to put up something good

DC Argentine Tango.

Stickypaws Returns

Last weekend, I saw something creep quickly towards my flip-flop-shod feet in my kitchen. I jumped. My roommate laughed. I said I thought it was a cockroach at first, but when it ran back to the stove, I saw it was a mouse.

I asked Roommate L if we had mouse traps. She said yes, glue traps. Those sounded nice, non-lethal, humane. I set a few down. Shortly thereafter, we caught one.

Then I realized the problem: it's stuck there. It was frozen and looking up at us while we discussed our options:

1. leave him outside in the cold to starve or chew his legs off
2. crush him
3. pull him out of the glue and release him
   

Roommate T decided she would don gloves to pry the little guy out. She did, but unfortunately it was only ten feet from the house, and he escaped the tupperware I was holding him in when we poured in some canola oil (to help with the glue). But he ran off in the opposite direction of our house, so that was that.

Mouse #2 was later that same night. I believe it was a second mouse, because he acted differently. He writhed in the glue, getting it all over himself. We took him to the end of the driveway and let him go off to another house.

Mouse #3 was this morning. We think it was really Mouse #1 returning. Roommate T pried him out and dumped him in a tupperware with a teaspoon of canola oil. She turned to me and said, "Can you let him go somewhere along Sligo Creek?" I said yes. I put the tupperware in my saddlebag, got on my bike, and rode to the Trail.

I found a nice, dewy meadow, and I got out the tupperware. The mouse was slick with oil, but no glue to be seen. I carried him to a soft patch of weeds and thistle. I dumped him out.

He hung on to some leaves and looked at me. Not moving, just looked at me.

It was like he was thinking, "Wow. What a morning. What is this demon going to do to me next?" Or maybe just, "Where the hell did you take me? This isn't even Silver Spring any more!"

I took a stick and went to poke at him but he was gone.

'Rent Rage

Remember when H&C revealed that he doesn't understand road rage? Well, tonight I found something I don't understand: getting upset at your parents impinging on your life, post-college.

Today, a twentysomething friend of mine got a call from her mom....(content deleted)

While my friend complained, I was supportive. I thought it was kind of absurd of her mom to ask such a thing and get upset about the two-hour lag. But whenever I get into discussions like this, I'm always half bewildered. "Why get so involved?" I think.

My mom definitely needs lots of help around her house, so I should probably go visit more often. My dad doesn't need that much help, but I'm sure he'd like it if I visited more often. But I don't visit or help out much; I don't have a car, I have a very busy life of my own, and I don't ask much from them, either. If my mom wants help around the house each week, I'd be happy to pitch in for a neighborhood handyman to do it rather than spend time, money, and gas going all the way out there.

My friend lives close to home. She gets the benefits of living at home and living on her own (food is available at her mom's, privacy available at her place), but she reaps the disadvantages of both (life is impinged upon, rent must be paid). Therefore, while she continues to avail herself of the good things about living close to home, she must take the bad things, too. If she doesn't like the bad stuff, don't take the good stuff.

Maybe she likes the good stuff a lot more than she dislikes the bad stuff. Maybe she likes being close with her mom. Maybe the closer relationship is worth the occasional headache. I'm sure it is. It doesn't make it any easier, knowing that, for me to relate to the situation.

Quitting

I quit my job on Friday. My friend there (the singular form is intentional) poked a little fun at me for leaving steady pay just when the market was tanking. Then we poked a little fun back at him for his opening an e-trade account that day, too. Who knows if that's a smart play by him. I guess people stand to make a little money, if/when the market recovers, by buying low now.

I was at my office for about 12 hours, wrapping things up. I got a little free food, sad corporate fare such as chicken breasts for lunch, chicken wings for dinner. They weren't parties for me, just firm-wide parties. I left on Paralegal Appreciation Week!

With two boxes and three bags worth of stuff to take home, I hailed a taxi just south of Dupont Circle. I put my stuff in the back seat before I told the guy where I was going. I told him, "Silver Spring," and I could tell I'd done the right thing; the guy would've rejected me if he'd known I was going out of the District.

So the driver starts driving south. I say, "Which way are you going?" He says "The parkway to 16th." I say, "That's not the fastest way." Then he says "If you want me to drive on 16th, through the lights, I make more money." I say, "You're right, sorry, I don't drive." I'm still a little skeptical, though.

We pulled in to the house and the fare was at least $4.00 cheaper than my previous taxi ride. I apologize to the guy and give him the amount I had expected to pay, to make up for the hard time I gave him.

I got in and went to sleep, hoping to dream the former career away.

What the @*&$ are You Doing

I love stupid people. Or at least I hear everyone else maligning them so wantonly and I think I should show them some support.

I should say that I hate people with short fuses who reflexively declare others to be idiots. I had a friend in college who would see someone else do anything, no matter how minor, and fly off into a rant about how asinine they obviously are. I blogged before about road ragers who suck and make me unhappy. I find it a very lame and irritating reflex when you instinctively denounce someone because they do something mindless or silly. Maybe I'm sensitive to it because I do silly things all the time, like walk into a room and forget what I was supposed to do there. Sure, maybe that's a bad habit, but it takes me a second to regroup and the world's no worse off for the experience.

Now, on the road rage thing, I'm back to driving occasionally because girlfriend has taught me how to drive stick and I drive her car sometimes (side note: I loooooove driving stick and will do it every chance I get, even if I do things like stall in the middle of a 6-way intersection). I hate to admit that my post was from the cozy position of a nondriver. Now that I'm back behind the wheel I find myself getting irritated from time to time with others. And you know what, sometimes I indulge it just to see what it does to me. I want to know what others feel when they denounce people. It actually feels good. I feel a little better about myself for a second. Maybe that's where such behaviors stem from. Maybe sometimes the ragists don't feel all that mad so much as the raging makes them feel good. Maybe I should say hooray for them for the positive experience they're having.

Maybe such people are external and socially oriented and it is just an outgrowth of that. Some people are very conscious of their fellow man and some aren't. Some people out of that consciousness also pick up quickly on the errors of others and think that they are helping them out with an insult or a suggestion or an insulting suggestion.

Whatever the reason, I simply hate that part of human behavior. Sometimes I'm tempted to be as mindless as possible just to piss them off, like the guy on a narrow road who slows down to 20 mph just irritate the tailgater behind him.

Word Playa Hata

I'm going to start a twitter. I don't keep a journal, but I've always thought it would be cool over time to keep tabs on your life that you can look back on later. Journaling would be too tedious. Twitter seems a cool way to do it quickly and regularly. I've never done it before. I imagine you could send updates from your cell phone.

Aak's twitter seems a receptacle for his obsession with words. Today it's psithurism. Yesterday it was hypergelast: one who laughs excessively. This last one has the distinction of being the first Aak entry to entertain me. Well, maybe there was another one...nope, nothing I can think of.

When I was an English major in college, I always felt like I was missing out on something that I couldn't put my finger on. Some people are just junkies for language, such as my online partner. There's something about words that seems to access the pleasure centers in their brains. They talk about things like the rhythm of language. I have a distinct memory of being in a poetry class where we were studying Wordsworth and one of the students mentioned how the language sounded like "da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-da-DA" in his head while he was reading it. I have never had that experience. I never hear or feel or in any extracurricular way sense the words that I'm reading. Luckily, it's very possible to semi-fart your way through a liberal arts college education. I love books, and get excited when I can be exposed to new ideas and imaginary adventures, but there's just some sort of pleasure they get that I don't.

I grew up under parents who valued reading highly. My Mom read to me a LOT, but I was one of those difficult to corral energetic types who wasn't too keen on sitting still for some blasted words. I was much more the type to take a device apart and see how it works. I could do that for hours. I did well in math when younger, but lost track somewhere in high school. Sophomore year Geometry, actually, which I later learned was where liberal arts minded people excel. Too bad I didn't know it at the time, because I could've comforted myself in that thought at 15. At the time it was just a math class which I didn't do well at, and therefore I must no longer be good at math. I think the subject clicked with like a couple weeks to go in the year, but by then it was only enough to pull out a decent grade.

The point of all this is that I find it very interesting that most people seem to have it hard wired in their brains to like certain types of endeavors and not others. Right now in school I'm reconnecting with my desire to solve problems after years of trying to make other avenues work. It's funny how at home I feel while doing problems again. I'm still early in this process, and it takes a lot of work, but I'm having a ball. But if you were to put another type of person in this pursuit they would hate it. (Whenever I sit down to do some homework, people have no qualms saying "oh, I HATE math." Imagine if I were to say that sort of thing indiscriminately to people that I meet.) People like Aak get off on hearing some sort of linguistic construction or rhyme or rhythm or whatever, and I would rather be tarred and feathered.

Aerodynamic H&C

I bic-ed my head today. I haven't done this in a while. The weirdest part about it is that I get wafts of cold air on random parts of my dome that I never otherwise feel. I also had a good laugh in the shower when the water splashed off the top of my head and went everywhere in every direction.

I'll tell you what's liberating: breaking the habit of tv being your default activity. I don't really turn it on anymore. And when I do I find that I don't see the standard sitcoms and such as all that interesting. Those things used to suck me in like quicksand. I find now that I go right to the stations that are more interesting: history channel, discovery channel, comedy central (love colbert), I catch the news and political punditry sometimes, and of course, channels that run fighting. The political punditry thing is brand spanking new.

Having this personal blog has given me some curiosity about blogging in general. I did some surfing throughout the blogosphere the other day and enjoyed myself. I was mostly blown away by all the friggin' personal development stuff out there. There are so many sites that have lists for this or that way to improve your life. 10 ways to be more efficient with your time, 7 ways to be happier, 12 simple steps to simplify, etc... There also seems to be an army of 19 year olds in this world who think that they can impart good life lessons to general humanity. More power to them, and I hope they all lead full and enriching lives, but it seems kinda ridiculous to me.

Maybe they're all future serial entrepeneurs starting small with what they know, which is all theory at this point. When I was about 22 I had an idea in my head of starting a theater company, with Aak actually. I got all excited about it, talked about it a lot, and started scheming some things in my head. I never followed through and nothing happened. If we would have done it it would have failed, but I realize now: what's a failed venture when you're frickin' 22? Sounds like a damn awesome learning experience to me. But these little business minded punks have the cajones to put themselves out there, even in a perhaps lame, overcrowded, hackneyed area. It's pretty cool. Rock on with your bad selves. I just won't waste my time on their product. 'Scool. They'll learn from it and learn to have better products later.

Jobless But Not Unemployed

So I'm no longer at a crossroads. I quit my job at the law firm.

But don't think that means I'm leading a life of relaxation. No. I'm too busy to work. With classes, becoming fluent in Japanese, and a budding photography career, I'm surprised I still have a social life, minimal as it is.

I guess you could say that quitting was a choice to be able to sleep every night and go out once or twice a week.

Yeah, I'm pretty freaked out by everybody saying the economy is going down the toilet. I quit the job that I hated, but it was stable and a good source of money. Now I don't have a stable job lined up, and it's going to get hard for companies to hire people soon. Or that's what they say. So, shut up, everybody! Stop freaking me out!

At least I'm not unemployed. A girl I dated long ago said that the definition of an unemployed person is one who is looking for a job but can't find one. I'm not looking. So nyah. I'm just jobless.

Shall We Dance?

Some hobbies do live on. Girlfriend and I take Argentine Tango lessons on Monday nights. We did an intro class for one month, and that has expired. Our appetites are whetted for more. We found another one entitled "Argentine Tango 102."

I have no idea what the difference is between Argentine Tango vs regular ol' Tango vs any other specific variety. Perhaps slip 'n' slide tango?

It's hard so far. We were talking with an old guy who mentioned that his generation grew up learning how to dance with the opposite gender. It's more natural and not awkward for them. Not ours. My version of dancing consists of an extremely loose and floppy improvisational jive. That's a pretty apt description. (There's a pic hanging in my friend's house of us dancing as part of a circle at his wedding. I'm doing some sort of neo Michael Jackson kick and he's twirling his hands above his head and staring at them like they're magical glow sticks.) It's a TON of fun, but I have yet to get into any sort of groove with another human. Gf and I now have some basics down and technically can perform a lot of moves, but have yet to flow with the music. A lot of that is on me since I have to be the leader. It's a totally different thing trying take responsibility for the motions for both people. I have to become aware of where she is, where her weight is balanced, where her momentum is, if her feet are crossed, etc. Right now it's all very analytical for both of us and we have yet to let loose and feel it.

I'm in the learning stage where I have a couple of basic motions understood, but I don't know where they fit into any sort of a whole. While performing them they feel a little stifling because I want to be able to let loose, but we stick to what we know because we know that we have to get a good understanding before we can branch out. I was watching some videos of real tango-ers on Youtube - our soon to be teachers, actually - and I was having a horrendous time trying to pick out the basic motions that we've been taught.

I'd say that I'm 100% psyched about our next lesson, but I'm only about 98% right now. This last lesson was very frustrating for me because I couldn't get a couple of things. It can be annoying. Ultimately, though, I can't wait to start up the new class and tear up the dance floor.

Where I Am All Day

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am working at a restaurant while in school/stop gap employment. It's pretty exhausting, but in many ways I'm happy I'm doing it.

Upside: I'm experiencing a little liberation from the mindset of a wage slave (I don't actually have the cynicism that that term implies, btw). It's an interesting experience going into a shift and not knowing how much you're going to get. Of course as a waiter you don't drum up the business but are dependent on the reputation of your restaurant to determine how many patrons you serve, but how you handle that traffic depends on you. If you want to improve your income, you have to learn from better and more experienced servers, learn the menu better, improve your system for getting everything done, etc. It makes it hard but it feels kinda, well, empowering. I'm learning the value of a dollar.

I like the population that I work with. Among my coworkers there are entrepeneurs doing it for temporary cash flow, bartenders with multiple Master's degress, MBA students, other general students, a journalist, a financial planner, pre-med and pre-law students, and on and on. It's great to pick their brains sometimes. It's also a lively, young population, so it's all very playful and it's easy to feel a part of something fun. The social aspects of it all are great.

Downsides: This blog suffers. A minor downside, but it's representative of less hobby/free time. I'm at work a lot, and until late, and I don't have the opportunity to hop online and bang out a post during slow times.

As a function of the time thing, and this is easily the biggest downside, I also don't see girlfriend as much as I'd like to. :(

I'm seeing some shifty sales tactics among my co-workers. It's a little disturbing.

It's a damn hard way to support yourself. I worked a 14-hour day yesterday - on my feet the whole time. But in a way that's an upside. It's pretty satisfying going to bed at night that tired.

It's also mentally exhausting to have to be cheerful and deferential to strangers all day and all night. I'm not a natural salesperson, so it takes a lot out of me. But I manage.

All in all, I'm happy I did this. Sure, it's not my dream situation, but it's kinda cool. Life takes on a cool tone when instead of direct deposit, your bank account grows by way of cash wad that you hand over to a teller. It's satisfying.

Aak, how's school going? Any updates on your work life that you'd like to share with the class?