Tabula Rasa

I've now reached a pretty scary place in the history of this blog, and it may or may not bear some parallels to the place I'm at in my life right now. I have nothing to write about. Find the Alex of two weeks ago and he would tell you the exact same stories, fears, updates. College is supposed to be a time of growth, a time when your mind opens like a daylilly for the sun. You're supposed to transform, change, invert, shift, reconsider, and explore your life. Yet here I sit after an entire weekend doing nothing but watching two full seasons of "The Sopranos" and just waiting for Monday. And it's not that I don't try! I get spam from every "let's mix it up!", "get involved!", "build your resume!" group on campus. NOTHING seems worth it, though. Tonight, for instance, the Honors College was hosting a Halloween Movie Night, but I'd seen all the movies they were going to show, and I didn't enjoy them the first time anyways. That's not the point, right? It's just an excuse to be social. However, I haven't met anyone here that's interesting enough to waste 90 minutes with while a shitty movie drones on and on in the backround. Besides, it's all the more difficult to get any real conversation going being a loner and all. I mean, you just can't escape the lapses into inside jokes that marginalize the stranger to the snack table. It's just human nature, nothing blameworthy; people want to talk to their friends about what's familiar to them. So, needless to say, I skipped that shit. Am I overly critical? Or worse, just making excuses to hide my shyness or nervousness? More and more, I'm starting to think not. I speak the truth above. I just don't find anything going on interesting at all. As proof, I DO go to some things. I just don't meet any people there.

Nick has been a real shit lately. I'm starting to think he's pissed at me for something. He only responds to direct questions now and only with yes or no. Even his incessant complaining has ceased (I guess they'll need some winter coats in Hell!). OR, maybe he's just quietly, gradually settling into his true self, a self devoid of superficial talkativeness and perfunctory kindness. Now, we're bystanders to eachother's lives- flies on the wall, transparent ghosts in the room. We stroll around in our boxers, scratch our balls, and pick our noses now. I wouldn't say it's comfort really that's allowing this new level of intimacy but rather a new ability to ignore eachother. It's like we're now stage coach horses with blinders on.

I guess I like poetry. I read a lot tonight for class tomorrow. It was all obscure modern poetry, postively loaded with ambiguity. I am a little jealous of the poet in each case. He, at least, never has to hunt for or debate the meanings of his poems. He doesn't have to sift through the socio-economic, historical, biographical, zeitgeist of his time, and it's almost a little rude for him to make us do so. It's like they sat around all day writing new, pointless languages for everyone to learn, just expecting us to throw immense amounts of time and confusion into their projects so they could smile with a knowing, pitying smile, like a kid witholding the name of their crush from an inquistive friend. Then again, that is part of the fun. It's challenging, subjective, and intense. I just get really fucking angry when the asshole who puts the pieces together before I do thinks he's suddenly Shakespeare.

I bought an 84 dollar razor from the mall on Saturday. Excited, I opened as soon as I got to my dorm and sheared myself. I heard somewhere that "you can tell how depressed someone is by how long their beard is and how much of a douche bag someone is by how thin their goatee is." Haha, right on, eh?

Well, I have to be getting to bed soon. I'm going to start thinking about what to write about a little ahead of time since this blog is sort of becoming stagnant. Updates without insight are just about worthless. Maybe I'll adopt a theme for each one? Or just a huge question?

Doth my eyes Deceive?

I had a good weekend. What it lacked in excitement it made up for in reading time and long walks. I've been trying to take an hour long walk every day. I even have a route. Yesterday, I was behind Holmes Hall, the gates of Hell itself, in the Sanford Wilderness Area. I used to go there a lot to follow the river and let my mind wander. I still do, in fact, even if it is sort of far from me now. Anyway, I was walking through it yesterday after the football game when I spotted a hoodie on the other side of the river. Damn, nice hoodie, I thought. Then I noticed that it was standing straight up from the ground! That's pretty weird, I mused. Then, I saw a mortified expression peeking out of the hood. Someone was squatting next to the river and taking a shit. I can't really remember a more awkward exchange of glances. Like, what the hell was I supposed to do? Yell, "Hey, want me to toss ya a roll?" ? So I just kept walking, laughing to myself.

Met a kid I like. The kid is exactly like me, and it's really starting to freak me the fuck out. Same music, movies, books, cities, sports teams-the works. The guy is even HUNGARIAN! I thought I was the last Magyar on this orb. I've only met one other Hungarian person in my LIFE. I watched a Dream Theater Live DVD in his room, which was amazing. Dream Theater is the best.

Walking out of Shaw the other day, I almost bumped into a rather shifty guy talking to two tense college kids about "the lord Jesus Christ" and his infinite acts of mercy and all that. Looking behind me, I saw the kids pull out some money. I've always been divided on things like this. There's a lot of inner turmoil to face when people ask you for a handout. For starters, you wonder if your money will go to anything else besides rum. For guys calling for donations on behalf of a church like the one outside Shaw, you wonder if they're legit. Do they really represent the church? Normally, I might have turned around and gave the guy a five, but my qualms won out and led me past his benedictions and blessings to sit on the dorm's back porch. Thanking the kids, he started walking in my direction, so I lifted my book to cover my face. NO one would pull a guy's book out of the way to ask for money. Three seconds later, "The Wizard and Glass" is wedged between my legs, and I'm face to face with moral, religious, social, philosophical conflict. Well, he was convincing, and that whole business of heaping praises on me just for sitting on my fat ass and hearing him out made me feel terribly guilty, of what I don't know (that's why he was good!). So, I dug in my pocket for some spare change. "This is all I could dig up. I guess I could have searched for more but here...," I said as I handed him 2.50. "Well," the man started, "I wish you WOULD search for more. But God bless." Haha. Was I a bastard for the lousy contribution, or was he an ungrateful jerk? Ah, I can't tell. The blame probably rests mostly on my shoulders. My wallet was submerged in my pocket, and the 2.50 was right at the tips of my fingers; The 2.50 was just an impulse, I guess, since it was so close and ready, but I could have given him more.

I was watching T.V. in the bathroom yesterday when a Charmin commercial came on, you know, the one where the bear poops and then uses the magical toilet paper to floss its ass cheeks. What the hell were those ad guys thinking? There is NOTHING cute about bear shit. A realistic ad would have freaking squirrel femurs and camper genitals pumping out of the bear's ass hole and falling into a knee-high grave yard, not stars and sprinkles. Why not get something else, like a gerbil, to endorse their shit? Their poop is so wonderful, they'll eat those little pellets again and again and again, even over pet food.

I saw Anne-Sophie Mutter at the Wharton Center a couple weeks ago. It was incredible. I don't want to come off as some sort of sophisticated wannabe or anything, but I just have to say that there's nothing like a good violin.

Nick caught me jamming in my underwear today, "Risky Business" style. Instead of surprise, or amusement, or confusion, horror was on his face. I mean, it was like he caught me chanting around a fire, boiling over with frog legs and newt tails. In the words of Ferris Bueller, "if you shoved a lump of coal up his ass, it would come out a diamond." I haven't seen this kid sing, dance, jump, or run. He hasn't high-fived anyone, hugged anyone, called anyone, or ANYTHING. Jokes, sarcasm, exaggeration- these things go over his head like a 747. He does laugh, from time to time and at God knows what, but I'd say that 99% of the things he says start with "this fucking asshole is making us do ____" or "McCain is a fuck." Politics and school -those are the two files that you can store just about everything and anything that passes through my roommate's eyes or ears. Christ, when this election is over, 100% of his vocalizations will be devoted to complaining. I'll be putting these Bose noise-cancelling headphones to the test soon.

Surprisingly, I want to fill out one of those dopey questionnaires that kids used to stick in their live journals. If boring, they are good exercises, at least. Writing about yourself is so useful. After all, what or who do you know better? Also, when looking at yourself from the perspective of objective questions, like what's your favorite band or what are you doing right now, you DO gain a certain knowledge of yourself. It's like when people say that there's things Americans can only learn about their country from foreigners, or Satre's "The Look". If I find a good one, I'm putting it in here.

My mind is pretty placid today, these last three or four days, really. Again, I can't really think of any deeply personal thoughts or feelings to relate to the blog, but I'll keep writing until they come! Something is guaranteed to piss me off soon.

Status Report

Well, I don't really know why I'm writing right now at this very moment. I guess it's because I have about 40 minutes to kill before I go to bed, and I'm actually (HOLY SHIT!) sick of Halo 3 and my book. The fourth book in the Dark Tower series has lost some major steam, and it's going to take some tremendous will power to get to the back cover. I bought the fifth, sixth, and seventh books this weekend. Of course, like all epic stories in installments, each book just gets longer and longer. It's like a constant test for the faithful; only the true believers have the dedication to get to the final page. I feel like the labors ahead of me are as formidable as Roland's as we both approach the Dark Tower. Finding time to read all this shit is getting tougher. Anyways, the last two days have sucked. Monday was hot and muggy. You could fucking smell the malaria in the air. Seriously though, we have a mosquito problem here, which is really the only downside to having a beautiful river running through the heart of campus. I never thought I'd say this, especially being such a fall hater, but I wish it would get a little bit colder. I think my legs can make it the frost, so if it just gets a little colder, I should get about a month and half of mosquito-free, shorts weather. That's all I want in the world right now.

My logic test was this morning at 8:30, and for once, I really can't say how I did. I study incredibly hard, and I have to admit it, I'm a good student. PHL 130 never seemed too difficult. I breezed through the classes, assignments, practice quizzes, blah blah blah, but I might have slipped up on the test. Ever have a class where creativity is your worst enemy? If I ever have, it would be PHL 130. Just like a calc class, the class demands ONE correct answer. However, I think an argument can be interpreted a number of ways, unlike a calc. answer that usually, when explained, justifies its singularity. Logic seems to be horribly trapped, kind of stuck in the worst of both worlds: it's test questions ask for one answer, AND it hardly ever seems like one answer is possible. But this is just me, and, since I'm kind of an irrational person, this argument could really be thinly disguised disappointment and fear. I drank a damn energy drink for that exam. Last night, after following a super muggy, steamy day, turned out to be equally muggy and steamy, and sleeping was about as easy as building an igloo on the sun. My sheets are soaked, EVERYTHING I touched, rolled over, or kicked smells like BO. It's just gross. Added to the shitty conditions were the thoughts of my upcoming exam, which would normally be enough to cut a couple hours off my slumber by themself. So that's why I only got four hours.

I submitted "Our Rivers" yesterday. I really, really, really hope I get published in their periodical. The money I could care less about. I want, I NEED to say I did something this semester. I think that's why dropping that story off felt so good. I DID something. If chosen as a winner, there will be a record of this! Also, I'll get some street cred. PERFECT scenario: they like my story so much, they ask me to contribute again, and again, and again until someone who wants to give me money asks me to contribute, finally concluding in a jay-oe-bee. Is writing it? Don't know. Undecided. ALWAYS undecided, I guess, but I can say this for myself: I would NEVER turn down a job writing right now at this point in my life. I don't think I want to be middle-aged and still writing shit for the East Lansing Herald or whatever the hell they have here, yet that wouldn't be bad for right now.

As you can see, nothing deep or personal to bury in the Landfill tonight. I just wanted to keep the juices flowing (I don't count my last entry as a real entry). This was a great idea. I'm getting a lot better at thinking on the keyboard. I used to have to write everything-everything that required some thought, that is- in a notebook and than transcribe it into Microsoft Word.

Submission for the Red Cedar Review

Damn is it hard to write something 1000 words or less! Well, here's my rough draft. I don't know how much I'm going to mend. I think it's pretty good so far.



Our Rivers

“That’s it!” the boy cried.
“What’s it?” his father asked, suddenly appearing at the back of the boat beside his son.
“The ocean! That’s what I’m seeing!”
“Shouldn’t you be up there at the front with the rest of your class? You know how much I love rivers and how much I’d love to stand here starting at it with you, but as your chaperone, I have to make sure you guys are helping the crew with their readings.”
“All right,” the boy said huffily, but he still couldn’t stop thinking about the river, its secret language, its churning mysteries. The river was just one step on an inscrutable journey to the sea, and it was already bearing the boy’s reflection to the infinite ocean.



“Here you have it, sirs. Ole’ Ernest Hemmingway’s favorite river, the Big Two-Hearted River. Now do you two want da two-hour scenic route or da much longer five-hour route?” the yooper asked.
“We should take the long one, dad,” the boy said, eyes wide.
“You sure?” said the boy’s father.
“Yes! We only have two days left up here!”
“Well, all right.”
The yooper drove the father and his boy another two miles before he braked. He helped the man and boy pull out their kayaks and lower them to the bank, where the two of them promptly plopped themselves into their vessels like the inveterate paddlers they were.
“Now, before I push you two off, do you have any questions for me?”
The duo had already been briefed on the river and its negligible perils, but there was one concern that still weighed in on the boy’s mind.
“What happens when we get to the end where it opens up into Lake Superior? Can we keep paddling out into the lake?”
“Afraid not,” the yooper said, noticing the boy’s frown. “You see, da kayaks just weren’t meant to sail on those big, open waters. Your trip has to end at da mouth.”



“I remember you two from awhile back!” the yooper exclaimed when the pair returned after many years. “Let me ask you two, short or long?”
The young man beheld his father. The virile, Byronic, river junkie was still there, but somewhat smothered by wrinkles, creaking joints, and white-gray hair. His father looked almost artificially old, and both of them knew it. His condition had really set in over the last five years or so.
Never taking his eyes off his father, the young man answered, “We’ll take the scenic route.” His father smiled.
This time they shared a canoe, an old-fashioned birch bark one that his father had been working on since he was forced to slow down. The canoe was a masterpiece -slender and light, yet strong and durable.
The scenic route really was worth it. The young man had never seen such chiascuro riverbanks, regal sand dunes, or beautiful, beautiful, beautiful water. It was clear, cold, brown, and glowing with a deep honey-amber that seemed to emanate from the soul of the world. Both reared their heads at the same time to lose their faces in the shadow of an eagle. Words had been sparse throughout most of the journey. At this point, anything new to add couldn’t possibly compare to letting the wind, water and birds do the talking, the young man thought; there is a lot to be said for silence, he decided.
With the river mouth in sight, his father let an emotional tone slip into his voice, “Doctors are saying six months now.”
The young man had relieved his father of the paddling half way through the trip, leaving him to sit at the prow, legs folded up against his body like a child does when it doesn’t want to leave a friend’s house, yet he seemed perfectly serene.
“Aw dad, don’t listen to them. They don’t know anything,” the young man said, but his cracked words betrayed his calm.
“I’m glad we took the scenic route,” the young man’s father said.
“Me too…me too,” came the answer.





The service was long, and, throughout it, the young man thought he had never known such deep, pure, sublime sadness. Back at school, he felt like an orphan to the world. Everything seemed so alien. Everything reminded him of his father, especially the Red Cedar River that flowed behind his dorm. Often, he’d go there and stare at its middle until the glare hurt his entire body. Today he was doing that very thing.
He took his notebook with him, hoping to get some of his writing homework done, but everything he tried seemed futile and predictable- totally pointless. His paper, he thought, would drift upon a barren wasteland ocean of other papers, his endings and plots would be chosen from among the platitudes and clichés that circled in its calm, lifeless whirlpools. Whether what he did sank or swam, it would still lose its meaning in the vast, ultimate end for which he and all things were designed.
Tears streaming, anger rising, soul burning, he stood up, raised his notebook, and prepared to throw it into the water. He wanted to drown, to drown everything- himself, the notebook, the world- and get it all over with.

But then he started thinking about his notebook in the river. It would float down the tranquil Red Cedar for another couple of miles and then it would join another river. Maybe the notebook would merge into a very large river some day, one that might move fast at times, slow at others. Its waters may swell, only to fall beyond the next turn. There would undoubtedly be rocks in the notebook’s way. Sometimes, the river may seem to stop all together and leave the notebook motionless before countless separate streams. Changed, the young man sat down at his place along the river and opened his notebook. He had a long time before his reflection would reach the sea, and he now had a lot to write about.

Ataraxia

It's been my favorite word for awhile now. It appeals to me in a couple ways. It's old, Greek, and pleasing to the ear, and thoughtful. Ataraxia- state of peaceful detachment and harmony. Also, it was prized by the Stoics, who were hands down the biggest bad asses of the Roman Republic.

A black barber shop has started in our community bathroom. For awhile, it was something of a conspiracy. It was clear that someone was cutting hair, but our worry had to do with WHAT kind of hair it was. To us, short, course, black hairs meant only one thing: fucking pubes. So we kept our eyes open, manning our little see-holes in our doors, keeping an eye out for anyone with a pair of scissors. Days passed, and yet more and more pubes clogged the drain on the floor of the bathroom. But before we made bushes mandatory throughout the building, I walked into the bathroom and happened to catch a black guy with what I thought was a nifty razor applying it to his friend's head. Case closed. I'm thinking about asking him to get rid of my wicked side-burns, but I'm a little scared. There's only a handful of barbers and lumberjacks who can deal with my mop. I have broken razors before. The memory is a little dim, but I remember the sound of hair clogging the razor, kind of like the sound you hear when you're racing down a hill on your bike and your pant leg gets caught in the chain, and the smell of smoke. I felt like fucking Samson. SEND ALL YOUR RAZORS!!!!!

It's been awhile since my last post. School got a little tough over the last seven days. I had a lot of tests and due dates, but I made it out okay, and I'm glad I can do this again. I'm thinking about entering a campus literature contest. Problem is, all submissions have to be under 1000 words. Shit, these posts average about 1500 words! I guess that's the challege of art, though. That's what makes it prize worthy. It has to be fine tuned, hand crafted, revised-every word chosen carefully and for the full effect.

Being a writer, I think, must either be really easy or really hard. To find out, I went to a reading at our main library. I think I was the only person there without either a grand kid or a suit. Normally, I would have felt a little sheepish, but the reading sucked, so I see my comfort as a consolation prize. I mean, really, who ARE the people that review and publish books? I don't think I'm a completely stupid human being, but some books out there are just TERRIBLE. The guy was going for some kind of experimental cred. He wrote an epistolary novel in a unique style and form. The thing was a bunch of like four sentence letters, most from his childhood self, to people on the most inane, boring, maudlin, bleak, crap. I know that meaning and story telling are very subtle, nuanced, and indirect in good literature, and I know how writing is all about breaking conventions, deconstructivism, post-modernism and all that perplexing junk now, but I just can't see how four sentences about a bag of used condoms, an apartment, and sheets over windows is good story telling. Am I supposed to be shocked by the condoms? Is that edgy? Most of the people in the room thought so, judging by their reactions to the author's words. There seems to almost be an elephant in the room with this kind of stuff. Maybe I should ease up. Perhaps the rest of the novel turned it around. Still, 50 minutes of crap?

I've thought about becoming a writer before. I think you have to be kind of arrogant, though. Surely, no one thinks that anyone gives two shits about what they think at age 19!? That must come later. The ego needs to take root first, I bet.

Nick asked me what I'd do if I had 100 billion dollars, and I couldn't answer him. If I could do ANYTHING I want, I really have no idea what it would be. So I passed and let him answer. If I remember correctly, he would drop half of it on Italian clothes and the other on Starbucks stock, just so he could own it and get it free of charge. I guess I'd give a couple million or so to each of my friends and family members so that they never had to worry about money again. As for the rest, I guess I'd throw it at one or several causes. First among them would have to be a wildlife fund like WWF or NWF or even a forest conservation group. I'd probably save some to buy food for starving people, but I think, by fixing one ecological crisis, you begin to fix others. I'm sure the WWF or NWF would use my money to pay farmers subsidies and supply them with the latest technology so that they could produce enough food and leave forests alone. After all the big spending, I'd save just enough to disappear. I'm thinking a Greek island, U.P. cottage, or spacious penthouse, maybe all three. What I do know, privacy would be key. I'd buy all the books, mags, movies, and music I wanted, and probably spend my time browsing through that stuff.

Geez, I wish I had more to write about, yet you can only squeeze a sponge so much until it needs to be replenished, and MSU is Death Valley. I'd do an extra hour of homework every night for an extra story per week or an extra person to talk to. Even I can't stand my rambling musings on life and shit for too long. Maybe when I get a little more arrogant, I'll be able to.