Shawna found a wikipedia a blurb about an internet meme wherein if you were to Google image search or Flickr search the following numbers: 241543903
you will see countless pictures of heads in freezers. Try it out!
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
the max
I got on the max today and the train car smelled like sweaty asshole so I kept walking down the aisle to escape the scent, but soon realized it was a useless effort and so I sat down. At that moment a group of 5 or 6 ratty street kids got on and sat all around me, enveloping me in a stench even worse than that of sweaty asshole. I thought, if I look at them too long I will get harassed for putting on a front and if I were to avoid looking at them I would get harassed for being a "clean-shirt" so I sort of looked at them and didn't at the same time. One of them was particularly tripped out on some drugs and being comforted by his friend in the seat across the small aisle from me. "Listen to me... listen to me, you are a hardcore motherfucker, and that is why you can take a hit to the face and.." the one was saying to the other whose reality was all sorts of distorted. The kid suddenly stood up and a pool of coffee-and-cream colored liquid formed in the seat. At first I thought the kid pissed himself, but it was soon revealed to me by the friends' dialogue that it was some alcoholic concoction that had spilled out of a Pepsi bottle. Before I knew it, the drugged-up kid was bending over, his chapped and rashy ass-crack practically 6 inches from my face, and he was drinking from the pool of liquid that had collected in the seat. He was slurping it up like wildlife from a pond and I couldn't help but cough out a laugh and step toward the exit doors because luckily for me, my stop had arrived.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
"father and son"
the below is something i wrote last week. part of it is inspired by a small visitor-made shrine at the anatomical museum in a hospital campus in bangkok. also referenced is the prevalence of foreign tourists in bangkok who cash in on the prostitutes. the underlying themes should be apparent...
father and son
The tourist snapped a photo capturing the monstrosity of a still-born child encased in a display box filled with yellow-tinted fluid. The boy’s eyes were shut tightly with an expression of anguish, a line of stitches running from the navel to sternum like the seam of a teddy bear. The photo appeared on the screen with a bright spot so the man pressed a button to turn off the flash. He re-framed the shot and took it, successfully confirmed by the artificial click of his digital camera. He withdrew from his pocket the wrapper of a strange condom that had a label with writing that was so foreign to him it could have come from another planet. He had used it to lay a whore in Soi 7 the previous night. Originally having it in mind to keep the wrapper as a souvenir of his travels, he decided it was worth this sight. The tourist placed the wrapper carefully on top of the glass case alongside mounds of countless candies and colorful little toys that had accumulated by donation as a makeshift shrine for this fatherless thing.
Monday, September 14, 2009
my day at the office
Generally it is hard for me to wake up in the morning. I've never been much of a morning person, though there are a few exceptions. I shower, dress, put together a sparse breakfast and pack a lunch, and brush my teeth and put on a tie depending on whether or not it is a business casual day.
I leave and lock the door even though Shawna is at home, but she is asleep. I usually make it half-way across the street and stand there awkwardly as cars blaze by, and wait to cross successfully to the other side. There is a usual crowd of commuters who take the same bus as me, sometimes that group is more fluid and there can be new faces. On the bus, I read a book and don't pay attention to anyone around me so I have no idea whether they are passing through their mornings feeling awful, blank, or cheerful. If I am tired, I try to catch some catch eye, either way my stop downtown always seems to come too soon. I walk the 6 or so blocks to work along the same route everyday, and everyday pass the same homeless people who don't beg for money like every other person in Portland seems to do. The only difference is how light and how cold it is at that time, which obviously changes with the season.
I brush my wallet (within which is my entrance badge) against a small black box and then I am allowed to open a door of the One World Trade Center, press the buttons 1-2 for the elevator so that it will program the 12th floor in its route up. The elevator door opens and a variable number of people step inside. The first stop is on the 2nd floor, and usually some person bashfully steps out there, when they could have simply taken an escalator to get there.
I reach the 12th floor and step out into it like I'm an exclusive member of an elite organization. I see a fellow colleague who I have nothing to say to so I say: "Hey, how was your weekend?" if it is a Monday, and if it is any other day I say: "Good morning, how are you?" with a big smile. They answer something equally as calculated, probably relieved they didn't have to make more conversation as I open the main door to our office which is made of glass and embedded in a glass wall. I was told 4 times on my first day that they don't want us to touch the glass and to make sure to use the handle. So I open the door by the handle, drop my stuff of in the closet if I plan on going to the gym after work and go over to where my computer is, and say good morning to the people who work around me. I start up the computer and walk over and pour some coffee or tea for myself and then return to my desk. The smell of coffee makes me feel good about life.
I check my e-mail and start working on a "project" which consists of data entry in some form or another, the difficulty and tediousness of which is unique for every client. Difficulty at my job is not like organic chemistry. Difficulty for me at work is needing to stay busy constantly and get into a dead-zone of no thought and only repetitive, mechanical movements so that I don't think about how boring and meaningless to me what I do actually is.
I usually forget where I am for a couple hours and then come out of it and do nothing for a brief moment to rest. I usually overhear the woman who is down the hall talking on the phone as though she were right next to me, so sharp and distinct her voice is made by the office's acoustics. If she is talking to a friend, I think, why do I need to hear this and if she is talking to a client I think, how phony does she sound?
Lunch restores me quite a bit. I'm usually very hungry by the time lunch rolls around and I try to take the elevator when no one else is going down for lunch to avoid awkward elevator conversation and just because in general I don't like talking to people sometimes. If someone is standing waiting for the elevator as I am about to leave as well, I either bite the bullet and pull off a charming Eliot, or I duck into the men's room which is right next to the elevators. When I come out just a moment later, like magic that person has miraculously disappeared, swallowed up by the elevator. And then I go down alone because I like the quiet.
Coming back from lunch, I do the whole elevator routine again, the door thing again, perhaps the coffee/other beverage run again, and finally the copy-paste thing again. And again and again...
After a while, 5 o clock rolls around. I gather my belongings, say good evening to whoever happens to be around. I repeat the same procedure regarding the elevator ride down, flipping a mental coin as to whether I'll allow some arbitrary task to "distract me" from catching the same elevator as another one of my coworkers. I step outside into Portland downtown and sigh, relieved. A good friend of mine once said that everyday when he leaves work he feels like a piece of him dies. Another friend of mine once said, 'at the end of the day, it's what you want [..and I'm cold, so I'm going home]' That last one has stuck with me all these years.
As long as this isn't what 22 years leads to, I cannot complain.
I leave and lock the door even though Shawna is at home, but she is asleep. I usually make it half-way across the street and stand there awkwardly as cars blaze by, and wait to cross successfully to the other side. There is a usual crowd of commuters who take the same bus as me, sometimes that group is more fluid and there can be new faces. On the bus, I read a book and don't pay attention to anyone around me so I have no idea whether they are passing through their mornings feeling awful, blank, or cheerful. If I am tired, I try to catch some catch eye, either way my stop downtown always seems to come too soon. I walk the 6 or so blocks to work along the same route everyday, and everyday pass the same homeless people who don't beg for money like every other person in Portland seems to do. The only difference is how light and how cold it is at that time, which obviously changes with the season.
I brush my wallet (within which is my entrance badge) against a small black box and then I am allowed to open a door of the One World Trade Center, press the buttons 1-2 for the elevator so that it will program the 12th floor in its route up. The elevator door opens and a variable number of people step inside. The first stop is on the 2nd floor, and usually some person bashfully steps out there, when they could have simply taken an escalator to get there.
I reach the 12th floor and step out into it like I'm an exclusive member of an elite organization. I see a fellow colleague who I have nothing to say to so I say: "Hey, how was your weekend?" if it is a Monday, and if it is any other day I say: "Good morning, how are you?" with a big smile. They answer something equally as calculated, probably relieved they didn't have to make more conversation as I open the main door to our office which is made of glass and embedded in a glass wall. I was told 4 times on my first day that they don't want us to touch the glass and to make sure to use the handle. So I open the door by the handle, drop my stuff of in the closet if I plan on going to the gym after work and go over to where my computer is, and say good morning to the people who work around me. I start up the computer and walk over and pour some coffee or tea for myself and then return to my desk. The smell of coffee makes me feel good about life.
I check my e-mail and start working on a "project" which consists of data entry in some form or another, the difficulty and tediousness of which is unique for every client. Difficulty at my job is not like organic chemistry. Difficulty for me at work is needing to stay busy constantly and get into a dead-zone of no thought and only repetitive, mechanical movements so that I don't think about how boring and meaningless to me what I do actually is.
I usually forget where I am for a couple hours and then come out of it and do nothing for a brief moment to rest. I usually overhear the woman who is down the hall talking on the phone as though she were right next to me, so sharp and distinct her voice is made by the office's acoustics. If she is talking to a friend, I think, why do I need to hear this and if she is talking to a client I think, how phony does she sound?
Lunch restores me quite a bit. I'm usually very hungry by the time lunch rolls around and I try to take the elevator when no one else is going down for lunch to avoid awkward elevator conversation and just because in general I don't like talking to people sometimes. If someone is standing waiting for the elevator as I am about to leave as well, I either bite the bullet and pull off a charming Eliot, or I duck into the men's room which is right next to the elevators. When I come out just a moment later, like magic that person has miraculously disappeared, swallowed up by the elevator. And then I go down alone because I like the quiet.
Coming back from lunch, I do the whole elevator routine again, the door thing again, perhaps the coffee/other beverage run again, and finally the copy-paste thing again. And again and again...
After a while, 5 o clock rolls around. I gather my belongings, say good evening to whoever happens to be around. I repeat the same procedure regarding the elevator ride down, flipping a mental coin as to whether I'll allow some arbitrary task to "distract me" from catching the same elevator as another one of my coworkers. I step outside into Portland downtown and sigh, relieved. A good friend of mine once said that everyday when he leaves work he feels like a piece of him dies. Another friend of mine once said, 'at the end of the day, it's what you want [..and I'm cold, so I'm going home]' That last one has stuck with me all these years.
As long as this isn't what 22 years leads to, I cannot complain.
Monday, September 7, 2009
labor day weekend
Summer is gone and that is becoming more apparent as the weather changes to rain, some fall color is beginning to peak out of the American sweetgum leaves around town. Mornings are darker and colder and evenings vanish into night faster than they did all summer.
Seasons do fascinating things to our lives. They seem to account for quite a bit of the change we feel in ourselves. At least it seems to work that way for me. Autumn in Nanjing defined my life a year ago; autumn in Portland defines the setting for my life's story this year.
A whiff of Halloween in the air has got me a little excited. Last year I missed out on it completely. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my company will let us dress up in costumes to go to work the day before Halloween.
This year I would like to uphold a lot of the Halloween traditions I practiced in my youth, such as pumpkin carving, pumpkin seed toasting, going to haunted houses, watching horror movies, dressing up in a costume, etc.
What was the weekend? Just like every labor day in my memory: lazy. Stayed up until 2:30 last night with Shawna and a friend named Kevin watching "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" episodes on Youtube. That's an old show that used to play on Nickelodeon; Alexei and I watched it at either Grandmother's house in Waterloo or at Kathleen's house in Naperville. We often watched while playing a game we created called "Miagi with Ice Cream" which was a mercy game. We would sit against either end of the sofa and take turns extending our legs while the other was squished against the other sofa arm until they couldn't take it anymore and said "Miagi with Ice Cream".
Seasons do fascinating things to our lives. They seem to account for quite a bit of the change we feel in ourselves. At least it seems to work that way for me. Autumn in Nanjing defined my life a year ago; autumn in Portland defines the setting for my life's story this year.
A whiff of Halloween in the air has got me a little excited. Last year I missed out on it completely. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my company will let us dress up in costumes to go to work the day before Halloween.
This year I would like to uphold a lot of the Halloween traditions I practiced in my youth, such as pumpkin carving, pumpkin seed toasting, going to haunted houses, watching horror movies, dressing up in a costume, etc.
What was the weekend? Just like every labor day in my memory: lazy. Stayed up until 2:30 last night with Shawna and a friend named Kevin watching "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" episodes on Youtube. That's an old show that used to play on Nickelodeon; Alexei and I watched it at either Grandmother's house in Waterloo or at Kathleen's house in Naperville. We often watched while playing a game we created called "Miagi with Ice Cream" which was a mercy game. We would sit against either end of the sofa and take turns extending our legs while the other was squished against the other sofa arm until they couldn't take it anymore and said "Miagi with Ice Cream".
Saturday, September 5, 2009
the imaginary zoo
the following was something i wrote based on something russ and i observed while sitting in front of the river in downtown portland:
On a bench in front of the river, okay view and I feel tired, jittery and I don’t like the clouds overhead. Next bench over sits an older man who is balding and carrying a clipboard holding important-looking documents. Young couple passes by, alternative/hippie-types, and man on next bench over disturbs them, “Sign a petition to keep unicorns in zoos?” Initial shock wears off, couple never stops walking but man turns slightly and in slightly disappointed voice squints, says, “No… I think unicorns should be kept free.” Nods as he speaks. Older man has no shift in facial expression, must understand the quip with which he was returned bore no injury to the curiosity that had escaped him long ago like an exhaustive sigh so indicative of an age at which the world is all but beaten down.
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