not my cup of tea

a relationship is like a cup of tea. left out in the open too long and it just grows cold. i'm pensive about how it fell apart - was there something that i didn't do? was it something we could reconcile? when was the turning point? how can it be salvaged? but nothing comes to mind. well, not nothing. correction, a lot of things. so many things that they bump and cancel one another out to become nothing.

passion dissipates like evaporating steam off the wide orifice of a teacup. it's gradual, barely visible, until ultimately, it becomes cold and you're left with nothing but a soggy tea bag, half a cup of amber liquid that stains the glass, and the somber recollection of the warmth that once soothed the soul. now, the longer it sits, the more permanent the stain.

i'd say we were like oil and vinegar. a delightful mix, but never really homogenous. never really coalescing. maybe we needed a shaking. things needed a stir. but we were left sitting on the counter, powerless to stir ourselves, gradually separating into adjacent layers until we were completely distinct. the thin layer of our relationship was the only thing that bound us.

my thoughts are befuddled. too much thinking. i've had the sudden realization of the certain clarity in not thinking. the feeling of not feeling. it may be a bore, but apathy is a great panacea.

i was still waiting for a response when she started gathering her things. i guess that's when she made the conscious decision. she got dressed, put on her coat and went outside. i followed and she gave me one last glance. sheepishly, i asked her if this was it. she nodded, said a quiet yes, got in her car, then left. and as i walked back to an empty house, all that remained was her unfinished tea, now cold, left sitting on the table.

the vestiges of what once was.

we can only live for what the hope of tomorrow brings.

bums bums bums

today, as i stared out the window of my car, i saw two homeless men embracing each other on the streets of downtown san jose. i was touched. they might've been without a home, but they were certainly not without affection. i'm in need of some affection. nothing salacious, maybe just a hug or a punch in the arm saying, "it's gonna be okay."

Abercrombie and Fitch bias case is settled

Rob: What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?

i vote because...

quite frankly, i can. never mind civic participation, voting for a candidate i truly believe in, or even an overwhelming sense of civic duty. i vote to taunt the oppressed populace of tyrant nations.

with that mindset, i'm a winner with every lever i pull. it doesn't matter who wins.

looks like we're in for 4 more years of more of the same. at least we can enjoy hefty tax cuts and a government that spends like m.c. hammer during his heyday. politics will remain as entertaining as the daily comics section. and i honestly can't wait to see what country we'll skirmish with next! is it gonna be the north koreans? the iranians? or an obscure african country? or maybe it's time we make cuba the next puerto rico. or maybe we can start betting on the winner of the nucular (read: nuclear) arms race at our local bookies! woohoo!

so what can we learn from this? never, never underestimate the power of born-again farmers living on huge tracts of land in middle america. massing your firepower isn't as effective as an overall spread. so, boys, it's time to grab your shotguns (and your now legal assault weapons) and get ready for war!

on a different note, those koalas/kangaroos have never looked cuter. yay for masupials!

I need some R&R. And a skateboard. Could somebody give me a skateboard please? And a big hill to skate down on. Anybody know how to be 7 years old again? Let's hang out, I've been looking for someone like you.

The older I get, the simpler my pleasures become. These days, a game of catch is all I need. You know that moment right before you catch the ball, when it's going so fast you can hear it whistle through the air, and you're 99% sure you're gonna catch it but there's still that thrilling 1% where you can't possibly know what'll happen? I live for moments like those. For the thrill. For possibility. For that 1%.

Ever wish someone would break your heart, just so you could write about the heartbreak and the melancholy, and write lines like "I'd rather be happy than right" and "Don't be gone when I get home" on the inside of your baseball glove?

Truth be told, I've written and pulled the plug on like 4 different entries already that you won't ever see. Dunno what it is, I just don't feel inspired. Though untrue, I feel like I have better things to do with my free time than writing here in my blog. Like sitting back and listening to songs about rejection and vindication and wishing I were somewhere else.

I'm often tempted to just post up song lyrics or bitch and moan about stupid shit. But I don't want this blog to turn into that kind of thing. Until I find some real inspiration, this is dan signing out.
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elliot smith's new cd comes out Oct. 19th. i encourage you all to checkout.buy.download his music-- you might recognize his sounds from the good will hunting soundtrack. too tired from school.work.research.etc to write anything, so here's a rehashed entry from about a year ago. i know i been lagging on the updates. no worries, my blog is going to undergo a change of sorts. by that, i mean it's going to stop sucking and it's gonna start kicking ass once again.

rip elliott smith

have you ever noticed how some of the most tremendous works of art are created by the most tormented souls? sylvia plath, van gogh, kurt cobain, to name a few... what is it about misery and depression that provides so much fodder for creative inspiration? i s'pose it stems from the fact that misery loves company and we, as social beings, love when we're brought together by a medium in which we can identify. not everyone knows what it feels like to be truly happy, but everyone has felt sadness and depression at some point in their lives. besides, i'd much rather kick the guy who sings about the happiness in his life in the head than hear him belt a ballad about it.

we live in a masochistic society where we enjoy hearing songs about heartbreak. it is in these moments that describe our worst that we can feel our best. these moments where we can say, "yeah, i'm glad i'm not that guy. my life ain't so bad at all."

depression is a strange phenomenon. known by many, but only understood by a troubled few. it's an unsubstantiated emotion. people who don't understand it often quip, "what's there to be depressed about?" they fail to understand that the very fact that there isn't any reason for this depression intensifies the state of depression and confusion - why do i feel this way? if we knew why we felt this way or why we were depressed, we'd be able to remedy the situation. instead, it's like getting stuck at the bottom of a bottomless pit, without any view of the opening at the top or of a way to get out. as a result, the only way to travel is down - down to a place where desolation and despair ultimately consume you because all of your efforts to climb out are inefficacious.

in any case, it makes for great inspiration - transforming our lack of motivation for life into a creative drive to create something that captures and epitomizes the emotions we feel. it is a desperate attempt at finding solace in some kind of reason for our state of mind - a reason that results in a great work of art. it's about finding beauty in the midst of so much pain.

we all say that suicide is a very bad thing. sometimes i feel like we say it out of utilitarian need - if everyone started to choose the way they made an exit in this life, the human race would be in serious peril. but, there is something intriguing about suicide. something sexy about choosing the way you make your exit in this life. we accuse those who chose to take their own lives as cowards. we accuse the act as an act of selfishness. but maybe those who do it simply don't want to overstay their welcome. there are an awful lot of people in this world that have long overstayed their welcome that i'd like to see gone. if depression is an illness, maybe suicide is its form of euthanasia. but let me make a disclaimer and state that i am in no way encouraging suicide or trivializing the severity of its implications. i'm just trying to look at it from another point of view.

of course, there's that whole idea that we are not our own keeper and that our bodies are a testament and temple of God. thus, desecrating our bodies through suicide would be a blatant act of sacrilege.

in any case, for those of you who don't know of elliott smith, the genius behind the Good Will Hunting soundtrack, he was truly an inspiration for artists and songwriters alike. he was the epitome of the american folk singer. on october 21st, he unsuccessfully tried to rid his heart of the internal demons that plagued it by stabbing himself with a knife. while he wasn't able to overcome his own torment, let's hope that his work and music will survive to provide solace to the many who feel the same way.

Unhappiness and frustration dogs the heels of many of us in this world. I remember when I used to be that unhappy. angry, even. It's impossible to console or even commiserate. People love to think that their situation is unique. That their problems are unique. Why else do things just seem so insurmountable if that's not it? I don't like seeing people around me in a funk. Honestly, it just seems like everyone is. Shit, buck up. Worse things have happened. to other people. grow up and suck it up.

Typical Weekday Evening in the Life of Dan

i come home from the lab, hungry, tired, and weary, too tired to cook myself something to eat, too weary even to take a shower.

with what remaining strength i have in me, i procure an ice cold can of coors light (i'm watching my waist here) from the fridge, a frosted glass from the freezer, and i plop myself down on my sofa, in front of a TV that's playing something i'm too tired to watch.

i look at my can of beer and notice that the top of it is slightly misshapen, most likely due to blunt traumatic injury, contorted in such a way that when i pull the tab and try to open the can, only a slit of an opening forms. a tiny, tiny slit, tinier than the tiniest of mongolian palpebral fissures from which my precious golden shower would spill. a challenge, yes, but one that I would rise to the occasion for. did you like how I just ended my paragraph with a transition. snap.

so i'm trying to pour the beer into my frosted glass but it's taking forever for the beer to come out. only a few dribbles are trickling out and i'm sitting there thinking C'MON YOU FUCKER, GET IN MY CUP when out of the blue i come up with the best, most well thought-out idea I've had all week... the type of plan only the tiredest of the tireds (or geniusest of the geniuses) could concoct. i spy my swiss army knife, pull out the blade, and skewer the bottom of the can, creating a shotgun effect. The thing is, it was right about then that everything started happening waaaaaaay too fast for my brain to digest and the beer was about the spill over the edge of my stein and i'm thinking No way am I letting this shit hit the ground rage rage against the dying of the light so i put the can to my mouth and shotgun the motherfucker down. one, two, three, four seconds... and then there were none.

not since the earliest days of my adolesence have i had so much goodness fill me with such rapidity. yeeeah poindexter. you know how i do.

ps: remember how I said "frosted glass from my freezer"? i meant to say "disposable paper daisy cup."

pps: did you like my agatha christie reference. booya.

come to think of it, this is my typical weekend evening too.

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i'm doing great! i'm doing. great.

punctuation. what a world of difference it makes. silly squiggles, dots, and lines - changing the meaning of the world one. word. at. a. time. i have a fascination with the mundane. things so insignificant, yet potently effective. you never think to pay attention. until you do; then it's profound. once upon a time i was a linguist. once. syntax and semantics. it all amuses me. ha, ha. ha!

when it rains, it pours.

finally got back to my workout routine this week after a brief hiatus. brief being around sixty days. sixty.

been going to the gym at 6am everyday this week, except today. i was too damn tired to get out of my bed at 5:20. out of shape? hardly. it's more like shapeless. i bask in my blissfully soft rotundity. being happy makes you soft. literally. i rub my belly for good luck.

i'm on a new fix for discipline. i should've punished myself today for skippin out, but the boiling hot thermal controller i use in lab got around to doing it first. note to self: touching a metal plate that is at 95 degrees centigrade causes tremendous amounts of pain. tremendous.

my pinky felt like someone slammed it in a storm door. i would've screamed explicatives had the pain not consumed me. you wouldn't believe that a two inch by two inch piece of metal could cause so much pain. immense pain that makes you want to kick in the heads of little kids. why? because misery loves company. luckily, there weren't any kids nearby. some of my friends have kids. i'm glad i don't have kids. i would've kicked them in the head for laughing when daddy cried. might as well marry a social worker.

started writing. need to keep writing. maybe i'll start bloging more frequently. i'm fumbling with words that bumble.

you just can't escape.

my life is like watching a train wreck - only i'm on it.

i miss the 80s. those were the days... days when i wore pants so tapered, they could be mistaken as french cuffed. you say fashion, i say faux pas. a few years and it'll all be relative. and none of it will matter.

lately, i've been getting high on pot every night before i sleep. the "pot" being my belly. and "getting high" meaning my rolling over onto it whilst in bed. you know it's sad when you have to lie in a hammock to comfortably sleep on your belly.

i worry that come november, we'll be having 4 more years. i see kerry trying, but it just ain't cutting it. he might have my vote, but he doesn't have me convinced - i'm only voting because he's not bush.

seems like everyone i'm talking to is voting for bush - conservatives, of course. i don't get it. i'm all for conservative values, but how can you justify the escalation of violence? he may be pro-life, but he sure isn't anti-violence. i don't care if he leads this administration with prayer, i can't take this senseless violence anymore. haven't read the good book in a while, but i don't recall preemption being a "christian" value. whatever happened to turning the other cheek? sure it might seem weak, but don't the meek inherit the earth?