Zzzzzzzeeeeeeeeooooooooooommmmmm!!!!!!!!!

I've been too involved in other shit the last few days to post...and I don't really have the time to do anything great tonight.

Quick recap: Hung out with Laura Saturday, with plenty of drama. Rode up to the winter bike clinic at Performance in Lincoln Park on Sunday, then dinner and studying at Iguana Cafe on Sunday. Yesterday I just was exhausted, but had to study for my craniofacial anomalies exam this morning. So I was up way early today, nailed my exam (I think) and then finally got a chance to nap this afternoon, before instituting my studies for Thursday's exams.

I think I'm going to cut my hair and shower now before crashing once again.

She didn't seem like such a poser, though.

At the Slackers show on Sunday, while I was working Chuck's table and talking with Trish, I saw the girl I met at the Deal's Gone Bad show several weeks ago across the room, alone. While I really had no intention of ever dating this girl, I really never called her since I just got busy and forgot. Now I feel like a dick for not calling. I was kind of relieved that working Chuck's table was a decent excuse to not walk to the other side of the room and talk with her.

There was also a girl there who looked uncannily like Marta, only taller and without glasses. But same retrognathic appearance, even. Like I said, uncanny. She didn't seem like such a poser, though. Of course, I never talked to her, so who knows? I fell for Marta's crap, so who am I to judge?

I've been so fucking exhausted this week. Only one patient tomorrow, and a presentation at lunch, then to do something...educational? I don't know.

We were making the kind of plans that didn't mean anything

Right now I'm listening to Rainer Maria, "CT Catholic."

It was the hottest summer ever and the traffic was a monster. You were sitting right beside me with your hand in my hand and we were making the kind of plans that didn't mean anything.

Those lyrics first impinged on my consciousness three and a half years ago, when in a fit of despair over a certain relationship with a certain girl I drove up to Wisconsin and then back to Oak Park on surface streets in the middle of the night, until I was too tired to cry any more.

On a totally unrelated note, the last few days I've been hibernating, effectively, just sitting in and overdosing on the West Wing DVDs I borrowed from John. Just a few episodes left...of the 4th season.

I also made it out to the Slackers show on Sunday night; Chuck needed someone to sell CDs while he was spinning, so he hooked me up with a bunch of CDs in exchange for working his table for him. I would've done it for free, but I won't turn down the free music. The Slackers were great - it's been years since I've heard them play "Run Away" or "Wasted Days." Liv even came down from Madison even though she had class the next day. So did Les, Ryan and Trish too.

Yesterday, after putting in some revisions on my thesis, I spent an hour in Myopic browsing for books. Many things did catch my eye. Hmmm...

Tonight I hope to bang out most of my presentation for Friday. Blech.

All we've gotten so far was a rain of little fucking ice pellets that sting when they hit you

Dana asked me out to the Hideout tonight to see her friend's band play, which was OK. Put it this way: I want to listen to Piebald's 4th record again. Plus I got a beer out of it, even if it was FreeBR.

After that, I rode up to Delilah's for ska night, and I ended up talking with Chuck for almost two hours. I was so hungry then, that I went around the corner to 3 Panchos and got myself a burrito before riding home.

We were supposed to have a ton of snow tonight. All we've gotten so far was a rain of little fucking ice pellets that sting when they hit you, and accumulate into slush rather than snow. Fuck that. It's sometimes annoying to bike through - probably since my shoes and socks got soaked - but it was fun nonetheless.

I got home after 1am. and now I'm just starting to get sleepy.

I'm spinning ska night at Delilah's Christmas week. Come out and keep me company; I'll play some songs for you.

Happy in that everything-in-the-world-is-fucking-awesome kind of way

I rode up to the Hacienda today. Dropped over $25 on a margarita and Mexican food, and some good conversation, some good laughs. Got a little chilly on bits of the ride, but it was only two miles from here and I warmed up pretty quick. I thankfully managed to avoid riding at any of the really rainy times and didn't really get wet.

It's supposed to snow either tomorrow or Friday - I can't wait to ride out in it. It's like floating on clouds. Fucking awesome. Assuming any of it sticks, that is.

I was getting smarmy with a friend of mine earlier - probably too smarmy - and I then told her that I want her to be more than content; I want her to be happy in that everything-in-the-world-is-fucking-awesome kind of way.

I just thought it was a good line.

Damn straight, I'm emo!

I just posted the following as a comment on Nakakagulo, which you should go read right now. Not only is it a story that will draw you in, but it will give some context to what's below, although it does stand on its own:

When I was 16, my friend Jeff introduced me to the two girls who lived on either side of his house after school one day. He told me the next day that they thought I was cute and invited me to hang out with them that weekend.

I went over, and we all hung out for a while (and some other people, too). We ended up heading over to the house next door where this girl Laura lived. Eventually everyone left but us, and she lit her fireplace. We were sitting there, and then we turned to each other, and this sight I remember clearly:

She closed her eyes, and leaned towards me, her mouth slightly open. It seemed I instinctively knew what to do, even though I'd never kissed a girl.

It was wonderful.

Before I left her house that night, she did tell me one thing: her friend Erica (Jeff's other neighbor) was the one who really seemed to like me and the one I was supposed to end up with. The funny thing is, when I first met Laura and Erica, Erica is the one I thought more attractive.

That night, though, Laura and I clicked, and I felt a little guilty when I found out the situation with Erica.

When I was 19, I met a girl named Anne. Anne had a boyfriend who was going to school about 3 hours from where we lived.

From the night we met, we talked and talked. And talked. It didn't hurt that she was gorgeous, and cute, and liked the same kind of punk rock and ska music that I did.

We would sit up on my bed all night and just share our hearts. A little cuddling went on, too.

One night, we were laying side-by-side on my twin dorm room bed, and she propped herself up on her elbow and leaned over, putting her lips on mine.

I laid there like stone. After a minute she moved away. I said I wanted to kiss her. Badly. But it wouldn't be fair to her boyfriend. I told her to make sure it was what she wanted.

The next day I remember walking around town with my heart about to crack through my sternum and drag me home to call her. When I finally did talk to her later that night, she told me she wanted to stay with her boyfriend. As much as that kind of sucked for me, I agreed with her decision.

A month or two later, she pretty quickly and deftly distanced herself from me, without giving me warning or reason.

I didn't really understand until three years later, when a good (female) friend of mine told me she thought my girlfriend was jealous of our friendship and that we should distance ourselves. I was hurt some by this, but agreed.

It was two years after that when I found out that, at the time, my friend had been secretly wanting me to break up with that girl to date her instead.

I am fucking tired.

It was 60 degrees out again today, and I had a 7am lecture. For our 8:30 seminar, we ended up watching half of The Smartest Guys In the Room, a documentary about the Enron collapse. Interesting. Isaac started telling me that trickle-down economics works. Um, no. Econ 101: those with less "disposable" income are more likely to spend what they got rather than invest it. Expenditures drive economic growth and job creation, not investments. Yes, investments and expenditures are both necessary, and yes, increasing investment will potentially result in growth, but it's not as robust or cost-effective as increasing spending. There is the little worry of inflation, though, as well.

Anyway, I was tired out after my day, and the temperature is supposed to drop 30 degrees tomorrow, so I went out and rode 15 miles in shorts and a t-shirt. I stopped for dinner at the Fireside Lounge up in Andersonville; it was pretty good.

I had a headwind all the way back, and I just got out of the shower and I'm sitting here in my bathrobe typing this.

How are there so many beautiful girls everywhere that are either dating someone or (probably) too young or smoke (or have nothing in common with me)?

Like I said, I am fucking tired.

"...And he wasn't wearing any pants."

Today has been a decent day so far. As usual, I was tired on a Monday and didn't get much work done outside of direct patient care. There was a fire drill at 3:30 so I left early. Any work I do will be done on the laptop at home tonight, although it's more likely I'll spend the night cleaning instead. I'm not sure if I have my 7am lecture tomorrow; I'll have to call John. Either way, I'm determined tonight will be productive...and I'll be whittling down the pile of CDs I borrow from WNUR to see what's worth copying at the same time.

I might need to go to the grocery store, too. I drank my last beer during Critical Mass on Friday and that is what is driving me to go. Not the fact that I've been out of fruit and vegetables for two months - no, never that. Tonight I think I'll break open that bottle of Framboise that's been sitting on my counter for three months or more. I still feel like my two bottles of fruity lambic beer need to be shared and appreciated properly.

After school I rode up to Lincoln Park and dropped $44 on a Santa Suit for the Santa Cycle Rampage. 9 miles on the bike today, in short sleeves and rolled up pants since it was over 60 degrees, and I get home soaked through, plus I had the whole Santa Suit strapped to my back on my bag, which was a pretty big bundle all together. Crossing the Kennedy on Chicago, I got hit with a big whif of chocolate-flavored particulate air pollution. All in all, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Er....yeah.

I sat on the stoop and cooled off and went through my (mostly junk) mail. Now it's time to get something done today.

I failed at self-inspiration this weekend

The holiday weekend is coming to a close. I feel like I wasted most of it. I've watched four or five movies, read some, and did a little apartment cleaning. If I felt like I'd done a complete cleaning I might feel a little better about it. I did get to sleep a fair amount, though. Tomorrow starts four full weeks of school until the winter break. What do you think my chances are of getting my IRB proposal submitted? Tomorrow I start beating my thesis into the proper format.

I called Dani last night, expecting to get her machine and leave another message, but she was actually home, and we talked for a while until it was time for me to go into WNUR. She's going to be coming to town next weekend to take care of her brother for two weeks, so hopefully we can get together while she's here. Dani was asking about music since she doesn't get much exposure out on the res, so I plan to burn some CDs for her.

I want sushi this week. I need to get a Santa suit for the Santa Rampage in three weeks, which will probably run me close to sixty bucks. And I need to replace the lights on my bike, and get a good mirror too.

I'm home and delirious and slightly intoxicated from a close to 40-mile bike ride

I drove up to Wilmette again today to see Stranger Than Fiction with my family. It was really good. I want to see it again. Will Farrel in a non-comedic role was nice to see. The movie was a bit too glossy though; I think it would've done better with a little bit more of an unfinished touch to it.

Plus, Maggie Gyllenhaal's character was so perfectly and vulnerably strong and attractive that it made me lonely sitting between my parents on one side and my brother and his girlfriend on the other.

After I got back to city, I met up with Danny downtown for Critical Mass. We went up to the Gold Coast, and back down to the Magnificent Mile and down State St. to Roosevelt, then west about 3-4 miles, and further south, then back north and so forth. After three hours, Danny and I peeled off (the mass was down to a few hundred people by then, if that) and headed up north to Babak's for a little get-together.

6-7 beers later (including the pint of Young's I put back during the ride) I'm home and delirious and slightly intoxicated from a close to 40-mile bike ride, ready to sleep. And sleep I shall.

But first, a question to ponder: what kind of conversation do you think an endodontist, orthodontist, general dentist, and lab tech have over beer late on a Friday night?

Feast and pretend the myth has nothing to do with our celebration

The Broadways song lyrics I posted earlier is my traditional Thanksgiving song. It doesn't hurt that the song kicks ass on its own, either.

Tonight was the first Thanksgiving in seven years that my parents had in Illinois (and the first in four years I've spent with them) and there were 26 people at dinner - 27 counting the baby. And fuck was there a lot of food, and fuck did it get eaten (and drunk).

The few of us who spoke no Farsi ended up sitting at one table, which was dubbed the "Anti-Farsi League." And there was some good conversation. I can always rely on my family's Persian friends for insightful political and economic discussion. Hell, last night I was waiting for my parents at Mirani's and within 30 seconds Kaveh and I had started arguing about the feasibility of a U.S. military strike on Iran. Granted, he brought it up because of the No War button on my jacket, but still...

To round out your Thanksgiving, read this article from last year. When I have the means, perhaps I'll head out to Mass. each year rather than feast and pretend the myth has nothing to do with our celebration.

UPDATE: A little more to waste your time to.

Everything I Ever Wanted to Know About Genocide I Learned In the Third Grade

Third graders holding hands
Indians and pilgrims celebrating new found lands
They tried to teach me that at school
Make the white race look superior, it's always been their rule
Now I can't believe we celebrate Thanksgiving as a holiday of unity and peace
If i had my way, we'd all dress in black
And daddy would serve up the white meat
'Cuz genocide is nothing to celebrate, extinction doesn't deserve a parade
And we perpetuate these lies with the turkeys that we buy
I tried explaining to my mom but she's too afraid
To admit to herself
That her race is a killing machine
Take a good look around your town and who do you see?
The Native American is surprisingly absent in his own indigenous land
Do you want to know why?
It's cuz we killed them all
It's not that hard to understand, yeah
So i go to college and you know what I learned?
That 80 million people were killed
By my grandpa, your grandpa and all of their friends
They bleached out our continent but that's not the end
The last full-blooded aborigine died a century ago
If it's possible there's a place in the southern hemisphere
With a history even worse than our home
No one finds it peculiar
That a tropical island is full of people just like you and me
But Australia's a piece of shit floating in the Pacific
Buoyed by the blood of the aborigine

I am fucktastically tired right now

14-hour day, 7am lecture, worked through lunch. I am fucktastically tired right now. I'm going to read the Onion and go to bed. Tomorrow is free lunch, then dinner with the family for Kevin's birthday, then gorge-on-food-Thursday.

I spent almost three hours tonight just putting corrections into my thesis and changing the format around. I swear, it's got so many headings now that an 13-year-old could read it. The goddamn thesis manual is longer than my thesis will be. Whatever, just git 'er done.

No deep thoughts; all the food I have is frozen gyoza and I don't feel like eating those another night. Shit.

Extensive amounts of food and drink distract and satiate me

I just got back from Rosa's wedding, and her new husband is a pretty nice guy. Not what I expected from her descriptions, but that's just my mind playing tricks on me. It was good to catch up with June, Jeff, Pauline and My as well, and meet the guy Pauline's dating and My's husband as well.

The silly emo boy in me likes weddings. The lonely emo boy in me gets a little sad at weddings. Fortunately the extensive amounts of food and drink distract and satiate me, albeit temporarily. Regardless, I'm home now.

This weekend has pretty much been spent in mental relaxation. I mostly listened to a shitload of music and read news stories and The Selfish Gene. I think I cooked food for myself for the first time in probably close to two months. I did go out and run some errands yesterday, by car since I was feeling a bit under the weather and felt I should avoid physical exertion. Traffic sucks. I was thinking, Wow, I don't remember it this bad in the 'burbs, but then I think about how bad it was on the weekends in the 'burbs and admit that it's bad everywhere. Our society is way overdependent on cars. And to tie in with car culture, at Rob's birthday party last night, all the young dentists were discussing the new cars they bought, all either SUVs or Turbo something-or-others. Shee-it.

My highlight of the night was cracking the math behind a card trick some woman was doing at the bar. Here's how: take a deck of 52 cards. Shuffle. Place the top card face up, count from that number up to ten, placing a card down at each count. Repeat until all cards are down in piles. If any pile couldn't reach ten, pick it back up. If any card at the bottom of a pile is a face card, pick it back up and put it at the bottom. Have someone pick three of the piles you've laid down. Pick up the rest of the cards, so the entire deck minus the three piles is in your hand. Flip the three piles over so they're face down. Count off 19 cards from the remaind of the deck in your hand, set them aside. The number of cards in your hand now will equal the sum of the top cards of the three piles down.

Let x, y, z be the value of the cards placed at the bottom of the three piles when they were created, and made the top cards when the piles are flipped over. The number of cards in each pile will be (11-x), (11-y), (11-z). The total number of cards in those piles will be 33-(x+y+z). The number of cards in your hand will be 52-[33-(x+y+z)], or 19+x+y+z. Remove 19 cards and the number of cards remaining in your hand will be x+y+z. Go amaze your friends and get girls.

I got my New Year's Eve Alkaline Trio/Smoking Popes ticket. And some ice cider for Thanksgiving. People better appreciate that shit, man. It's expensive.

I don't know how to kick some effort into the radio kids. I'm the only one who consistently shows up in time to pull some music before the show, and they all depend on me to be early so they can show up late. I'm going to read them the riot act after Turkey Day.

After six months of trying to reach Dani by phone, I finally emailed her. I really should've done so much sooner.

Shit, I didn't think I'd have anything to write.

Bring your bored, bring your broken-hearted

I saw Heavens tonight; it was a pretty good show. Dana and her boyfriend Chris came out too, and seemed to enjoy it. We went to Pick Me Up after, where I put away about $20 worth of food. Dammit!

Alkaline Trio/Smoking Popes show at Metro on New Year's Eve. Fuck right I'm going. Tix are $66, though, so I gotta grab some cash and get up there and get a ticket tomorrow. I was telling Dana that I'd pay $33 to see either band for New Year's Eve show, and this is just double the pleasure. Better than last year, which I spent in my parents' living room in Oakland.

I'm done with my lit review, or at least what literature I've found so far, and pretty much with my protocol. I need to sit down with BeGole and set up the statistical model, then get approval from my committee and IRB. Then find research subjects. One thing at a time.

I started (re)reading Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene since Sadowsky and Schneider and I were talking about mitochondrial DNA and the genetic basis of evolution earlier this week. I read sections of it in college, but I remember it being informative. Anyway, this is from the first chapter:

Curiously, peace-time appeals for individuals to make some small sacrifice in the rate at which they increase their standard of living seem to be less effective than war-time appeals for individuals to lay down their lives.

My pop culture seclusion is actually increasing the quality of what does impinge upon my consciousness.

I saw Borat! with Trish tonight. Pretty good. Not as funny as Jackass Number Two but still pretty damn funny. The few movies I see are definitely worth seeing. My pop culture seclusion is actually increasing the quality of what does impinge upon my consciousness.

The course today was stupid. I learned nothing, did nothing with it. I did get another page or two done on my thesis, though. Woo.

My department head is gone tomorrow, and the course isn't scheduled to start until ten, so I'm going to benadryl it to sleep tonight. I already drank half a bottle of Chimay.

I completely spaced on getting in contact with the practice Derek sent me. Tomorrow, hopefully, I can send the email and at least get a look in. Timbuk2 sent my bag already, and I need to get a big map of Chicago somewhere to start setting up practice searches.

Tomorrow I'm going to see Heavens with Dana, which should be pretty cool. Saturday I'll need to find a wedding gift for Rosa and a birthday gift for my brother. I have no idea what to get for either.

This post is useless.

I'm tired. I've been staying up too late exercising my mind the last few nights. Tomorrow I've got an all-day boring-ass mechanics course. And Friday, too. I won't be able to obviously work on much stuff that I have to get done, so I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to kill the time. Maybe I can do some easy labwork? I'll probably just end up talking and shooting some shit with people.

After I format it, I've got at least 27 pages done on my thesis. And I'm not even done with the lit review yet. I really should get ahold of the style guide to make sure I'm formatting it right.

This post is useless. I'm going to bed.

My name is Darren Obviate, and I have a purple mohawk and black nail polish.

Last night I decided to check out Second Life. It wasn't that great. It had its moments, but mostly, unless you feel like investing as much time in your avatar's life as your own dreams might need, you walk - or fly - around and try to meet people. It's like a big chat room, only you have to be geographically near someone to chat with them (although you can also IM). Big deal. I just don't see it worth the time. I'd rather have real friends. That said, it might be fun to visit once in a while. The people who actually spend money on there to build virtual homes for their virtual people and buy them virtual shit are just full of ostentation. Is consumerism really bringing people to materialism in an immaterial realm?

I guess if you like online RPGs, you might get a kick out of it. I don't, really.

If anyone joins, or is there already, let me know. We can be friends! (puke!) My name is Darren Obviate, and I have a purple mohawk and black nail polish.

In other news, today I wished I had my computer with me since all the computers were in use and I wanted to work on my thesis. (I got access later) I decided that I really need a bag capable of transporting my portable desktop better than my current messenger bag. Don't get me wrong, it's a great bag that I'm going to keep using; it's just that my computer is too big to be carried comfortably in it. I'd been thinking about it for a while, so I went ahead and ordered a large messenger bag from Timbuk2. $115 with shipping. I can't wait.

Other than that, I feel like I did accomplish something today. As well as have some good conversations with Sadowsky & Schneider, or Stadtler & Waldorf as they've come to be known.

Derek sent me a lead on a practice in Lincoln Park that the owner is looking to sell next year...although he's probably in his early 70s, so he did not plan this well...the area looks promising, although it'd be a lot of single adults, I think. I need to check stuff out more before I commit, but it's definitely an option to keep open.

I can resume forgetting the things I've lost

I was looking through the hard drive on my old desktop to find a place to save the album I'd copied from vinyl, and I found a folder with a photo of Marta and me from three years ago. Apparently, I missed a few things when I sanitized everything of her last summer. Wow, was that a younger me. Longer hair, and not anywhere near as much gray, and I think a little less chubby about the cheeks. Sad that that is the first thing I focused on.

Anyway, I vaguely remembered the night it was taken...obviously a school night since I was wearing scrubs. It was some gathering of Marta's friends that she'd asked me to come to, and I think food was involved so I readily agreed. Just kidding, I'd have gone anyway.

Someone said later how she and I made out the whole time, but really, I don't think we did anything I'd consider making out at all. Yeah, we did kiss, but rather chastely, and not constantly by any means. But hell, I lived 45 minutes away from my girlfriend and didn't get to spend nearly enough time with her, in my opinion. So I made no apologies for that.

It's weird, really. That fall I had a few high-stress things going on. I was going through the final stages of my residency application process, as well as studying my ass off for part II of my national boards, and Marta was getting irritated with me for always being busy with that. The way she looks in that picture is not exactly how I remember her, although to be fair we did have another year or more after that before things fell apart.

There's definitely a part of me that wants to go back to that time, which my faded memory tells me was simpler and happier. It's probably a good thing that the photo's now been deleted for good, and I can resume forgetting the things I've lost.

Just about every muscle is sore in some way, this being a good thing...

The sun has just set. As I sit writing in the rapidly waning daylight, the weekend is fading. The feeling I have right now is strongly reminding me of dental school...

There was a good period of time in dental school where my Saturdays would be spent vegging out in bed until the early afternoon, then watching the taped TV I'd recorded all week. Now, you can imaging that by the time I mustered something to eat and showered to rejoin the living, it would be night already. Combined with the radio show, my sloth just about killed my Saturdays, and then Sunday would be spent sleeping in again and maybe some more of the same, without the excessive TV watching. Although I did watch a fuckload of TV in those days. After Sara moved to Lakeview, there was a period of time where we'd sit in her studio apartment with no views and bask in the artificial lighting and glow of cable TV for practically all of Sunday.

Today I didn't wake up until after noon. I just put on some music and laid in bed, reading the rest of the Transmetropolitan that Laura lent me. It was after 4pm that I finally rolled out and into the shower. I didn't really notice it before, but just about every muscle is sore in some way, this being a good thing as it's a strong indicator of my enjoyment and participation in the Lawrence Arms show last night. (Kate said she was watching me as much as the band)

I've gotten so many ska records in the last week that I was able to do the whole Ska Sound System off them. Crazy. It also made me realize that I need to listen to them and get to know them. Yess.... Right now, I've got Ngobo Ngobo's Daily Talk on the turntable, and while I'm listening to it I'm also recording it to the hard drive for CD conversion. Exciting, right?

I was at my parents' yesterday afternoon, and they asked if I wanted any of my old textbooks. I think they were surprised I took so many - two paper shopping bags full. I mean, they've paid probably close to $150,000 or more for my formal education, and I can't remember half of it...so I figure having the reference books around is a good thing.

I'm debating whether to go out to see Iraq For Sale tonight. I'm leaning strongly towards NO, partially due to inertia and partially because I don't feel like sitting through a documentary that's going to tell me things I already know. Maybe a few statistics, but I just can't handle that tonight.

Right now it's dark outside and I haven't eaten in nearly 24 hours. I have a hankering for fried calamari, but really would like to avoid both paying for it and going out to get it. Maybe for lunch tomorrow.

Maybe tonight will be spent cleaning and listening to music. I'll at least feel like I've accomplished something. But first:

What have I got in the fridge.....?