Ask me no more questions...

Here's an excerpt of an email I received from a friend a few weeks ago. (And yes, I do keep emails in my inbox for several weeks at a time: one never knows when one will actually take the time to respond.)

How did the gym go? Is your little ass worked off now? I hope not! I happen to adore your ass! (In a friendly way of course! I'm a Democrat, so I adore all asses....) Actually, have I ever told you that you have the coolest walk of anyone I know? Seriously you do.... It's like molten metal moving, like a Richard Serra being made right before your very eyes, and yet it's also graceful, but not so graceful that it doesn't suggest just a bit of "don't fuck with me." ...It's the best, really....

Of course, everything she wrote is absolutely true. In fact, Richard (as in Richard Serra) often designs his sculpture after watching hours of video of me just walking. It's true! I have an inspirational ass! An ass full of inspiration ... and a few other things as well: deflated soccer balls, lost Frisbees, an old box of Girl Scout cookies....

Now, of course, is the time for me to spend several more hours on my ass as I write and write and write all the necessary final projects for my classes as well as grade all those essays, quizzes, and exams. Thankfully I've been hitting the gym fairly faithfully for the past couple of weeks, just to give myself a much needed and deserved break from continual warfare (aka "my jobs"). And so my ass won't embiggen itself from all the sitting.

Note to self: buy a decent chair as soon as the semester ends. It's starting to kill my ass!

Anger (Under New) Management

I could login here almost daily and list a dozen or more complaints about bothersome conditions that invade my otherwise placid world, but I’m tired of bitching. Tired of being a bitch.

Yeah, that’s right: you read it here first. Being a grumpy, middle-aged, overworked adult—despite all justifications—just isn’t who I ever thought I’d be. Primarily because I’ve been saving that up for when I’m 80.

So in an effort to conserve, to preserve, to reserve all that is good about who I am, I hereby list the conditions of my life for which I have every cause to be thankful. Enjoy.

• Two beautiful and delightful cats.
• A partner who still adores me after almost 17 years of washing my clothes.
• A handful of intelligent and beautiful friends spread over the globe who refuse to acknowledge my many flaws (or at least hold them against me).
• My passport as well as my ticket to Istanbul.
• Esteemed colleagues and mentors who challenge my intellect even when we’re drinking and laughing our asses off.
• Enough money to pay the bills and then some.
• A lifetime of experiences, loves, passions, and thrills both behind as well as ahead of me.
• The good sense to know what I need to do not to lose my mind.
• Stable (and relatively healthy) relationships with (what’s left of) my family.
• Good manners and a sensible diet. Remarkable hygiene. Straight teeth. A wicked sense of humor.

Bolesław Leaf
March 19, 1994 - March 16, 2008

Rest in peace, my little orange baby.

I can't believe it's not Tuesday...

My calendar tells me it's spring break this week, despite the fact that spring doesn't begin for a another week and that over my "break" I have to write a midterm exam for my students, re-evaluate the grades for a handful of not my students, organize and type reading notes over several books and articles, begin research on my next essay due in two weeks, read a text for my Reading Group, and try to find time to begin reading another text that I put down a month ago and should've finished by now. Fuck spring break!

Tonight some friends and I are heading to Denton to hear some bands play at Rubber Gloves: WHY?, Cryptacize, Sunburned Hand of the Man, and Astronautalis. The band I'm most interested in is WHY?, meaning it's going to be way past my bedtime before they take the stage. (Please remember that I have at least three diagnosed sleeping disorders before you judge me an old, useless man. Which reminds me: I should try to take a little nap before going out.)

Last Thursday we had two inches of snow, and today the temperature is above 70. The forecast for the next few days should see us in the 80s. I try not to dread the summer coming on, but it's really what I do best. How did I manage to live in Texas for as long as I have?

A game I play with people who look ridiculous and sad: "What bad decisions led you to this?" The game consists in seeing someone ridiculous, sad, disgusting, ugly, unlovable, etc., and asking under my breath the question: "What bad decisions led you to this?" If I were to play this game with myself, I'm not sure even I could win. And I'm the one that invented the rule.

Now it's time to go back to my sweaty spring break (that is no break at all) and try to take a nap so I won't be entirely useless when my band comes on sometime around tomorrow morning.

Broken Wing

There are few things more tragic than a suffering animal, whether that animal be human or not. Watching the demise. Witness to the dissipation. All you want to do, all you feel you can do, is hold on to something no longer there. If it ever was. Knowing full well that nothing you do can effect any change in the situation of our own mortal vastness.

I’ve studied enough Hinduism to know that it’s all illusion: the pain, the suffering, even the conception of life itself. But the illusion is all we have. All we can know of life.

The post-structuralists are accused of nihilism, but only by those who don’t understand them. They gesture toward the im/possibility of death. It is always already outside of our phenomenological experience of life. It’s a death that lives on (sur-vivre as survival), that dissolves ontology, absent both the ontic as well as the logos. Something singular yet universal, embracing all horizons.

And yet it’s not death that concerns us, as the Cynics would agree. It’s dying. It’s the slippage from being to nonbeing. The erasure of all but the trace. The omnipresent absence neither here nor there. The unbearable void that muffles the word, the name, the universe.

But everyone—even the so-called Christians—agree: it is only through dying that one becomes immortal. Too bad none of us will be around when it happens.

Please keep Bolesław in your thoughts.

Pitstop on the Way to Mensa

My popularity has soared over the past several months, while my faith in such things as popularity has plummeted.

When I was in high school, I always thought it strange that I wasn’t invited into the honor society until the end of my sophomore year. I had been earning the highest grades of my class since my family moved into the district when I was in third grade. And of course I was destined to be the valedictorian of 1986.

Even though I knew I was “the smartest hillbilly in Hillbilly Town,” I really received an education with the politics of popularity because one, after all, had to be invited into the honors club; one could not merely join based on one’s merits, or grades, or intelligence, or aptitude, or IQ, or any other factor. One had to earn it, ostensibly by being noticed by those already accepted.

But I too was destined to obscurity, especially among my peers. I think eventually enough of my teachers or perhaps the honor society’s advisor probably felt awkward enough to convince the popular kids to invite me in, even though my gpa had always been and would continue to be several points higher than theirs. It would’ve been scandalous, no doubt, not to have the soon-to-be valedictorian as a member.

I did join. And I also briefly toyed with the idea of not joining just to prove an already over-proved point. By “accepting their invitation,” I also proved that I could play nice even when the cards were stacked against me. That lesson, I’m certain, was lost on my smart (in a popular sense) classmates.

I’ve always felt clumsy and shy when people noticed my intelligence anyway. Just in the past couple of weeks several of my friends, colleagues, and professors at the university have made very flattering comments about how I stand out on campus as “the smart one.”

I’m even more flattered by the fact that I really value the opinion of those people whom I respect as some of the smartest people I’ve ever known. It’s like an ungainly feedback loop of smarts and flattery falling back upon itself as if upon a black hole. But lessons learned at sixteen temper too much egoism.

That said, I’ve always been jealous of Stephen’s graduate school cadre of geniuses who would spend hours sitting in coffee shops having fabulous and articulate conversations for hours at a time. I’m not sure if it was the number of people in the group (popularity) or the quality of their conversations (intelligence) I was most envious of. But now it seems I have some of that for myself. Finally. After how many freaking years in school! I’m really looking forward to the next couple of years working with these people.

To quote an email I sent just last week: “P.S. Do you think Andy likes me?” And no, I'll never join Mensa.

California Dreamin'

Just a week after returning to the States from Europe I had already had enough of Dallas and crap at the university.... Or at least I knew I was going to have already had enough, so Stephen organized a blissful weekend away to San Francisco (while I was still in Germany) since he and Kris were going to be there for work. And Jola is there.... So many wonderful people I care so deeply about in a wonderful city by the ocean. I read chapters in the U.S. history textbook for the class I TA for on the flight, so technically it was a working vacation.... Anyway, here are some of the photos of that most relaxing getaway (where gallons of coffee were drunk at Bazaar Cafe, we sat through an hour-long reflexology session, did qigong (as well as napped) in the sand on the beach, and ate incredibly delicious meals at ethnic restaurants throughout the city. I guess gluttony is yet another form of relaxation....).

Tiempo libre

I became a free man again as of 1:33 yesterday afternoon when I submitted my grades and went through the official (and ever-so-asinine) “check-out” procedure at the college.

It’s a bit hard to enjoy the sweet relief that should be flowing my way after two nights of disrupted sleep, though. But yesterday when I got out of bed around 4:00 (after waking at 3:00), I spent the time fairly productively: I began working on a creative writing project I’ve been thinking about for a few months now.

And there are so many other projects that need to be started: cleaning (and possibly moving), planning my spring courses at the college (especially the online version), covering some ground in my reading assignments for the next term, and taking care of myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I’ve neglected those things for far too long; although I have made it to the YMCA three times already this week.

Last night when I woke up at 3:00, I was too tired to even get out of bed and try to do something. I have an appointment with my neurologist Monday. We’ll see what pills she tries to throw my way this time as I adamantly insist I’m not taking anything she prescribes.

Wednesday afternoon I met Shellie and Blake for lunch at the Polish deli/café in Plano. We shared plates of pierogi (blueberry and potato-cheese) and naleśniki. It is really nice to finally feel like I’m part of a cohort (of sorts) at the university. It’s been years since I felt like I was part of a group of like-minded people who enjoy each other’s company.

Since submitting my last term paper (the one the professor called “brilliant”), I’ve spent far too much time on MySpace, that horrible online (anti)social network. If anyone wants to add me as their “friend,” please feel free, but you’ll have to use “soleo” as my last name. I try to ensure that my students will (at the very least) have a difficult time finding me anywhere online. And if there are any bloggers out there who want me to add their site to my links, send me the URL.

Ah, so much housecleaning … and most of it metaphorical.

I am the walrus.

There's nothing quite as funny as the number of drugs I've taken over the past few months (years) to help me sleep. But the week of Thanksgiving, I stepped down from the Amitriptyline pony I've been riding since September. Now I've reverted to constantly waking up throughout the night and then waking up for good around 4:00 AM every morning. What's funny is that I don't seem to mind too much: with the meds, I was groggy even with eight hours of sleep, and now without them I'm considerably more awake. Even when I'm tired. The next step: get off this shit Rozerem that never did do anything it was supposed to do. According to several friends, it only makes me angry and bitter. I certainly have felt very on edge since I started on it in May. At first I thought it was just all the coffee I was drinking in Europe and all the shitty administrative annoyances I had to endure in Marburg. But it wasn't. Well, at least not just that. Even without the strong Euro-kava, I've been one angry fucker all term.

And yesterday I grew even angrier after spending almost three hours at the dentist office. One must suffer if one wants to be beautiful. And yes, my teeth are indeed beautiful. For the first time in my life. Too bad it took throwing almost $700 at them before they took on the glamor sheen of celebrity. But I'm only now enjoying my first coffee since yesterday morning. And I'm sipping it through a straw. And I must go brush my teeth immediately after I'm done. But even with the unbearable pain, the expense, and the inability to eat or drink for most of the past 24 hours, it really is worth it.

Once, on an osobowy (oh-so-slowly) train from Warsaw to Szczecin during the summer of 1991, my compatriots/companions decided to sing songs by the Smiths to help me sleep. (And to support my growing dependency on angst and ennui.) I need those friends now to sing me to sleep....

• Asleep
• Unlovable
• This Night Has Opened My Eyes
• Back To The Old House
• Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
• William, It Was Really Nothing
• Girl Afraid
• Half A Person
• There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
• Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
• Reel Around The Fountain
• That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
• The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
• Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
• Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others

Tu boda en mi boca Thursday

"A mixed tape for un-mixed people." AKA La música para coger.... I mean, let's just cut to the chase. I'm not getting any younger!

Well, kids: you witnessed the proposal as well as the acceptance here first. Now it's time to pick the wedding music. Here are some of the tunes that have come to mean various things to me over the years, including love, lust, sex, and other (useless) emotions. (By some of the titles, you'll see my idea of love is complex, to say the least. I mean, "Rotary Club"?!?!) My one wish: Miguel accepts my music collection as he has accepted me--unconditionally.

• Bloodsport by Sneaker Pimps
  
• Ein Abend im Rotary Club by Tocotronic
• Fireroad (For Two) by Chris Whitley
• Hit That by M.I.A.
• The Hollows by WHY?
• I Can't Get Enough by DJ Mistrz feat. China Hamilton
• Jelly Baby / Fish by Isolée
• Lado Animal by Moenia
• Let Love by Res
• Love Potion Number 9 by BoA
• Make It High (Sex Schon Remix) by Scratch Massive
• Non Me Lo Puedo Explicar by Tiziano Ferro
• One Night Stand by Vibralux
• Secretly by Skunk Anansie
• Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat
• Stripped by Depeche Mode
• Sweet Jane (With Affection) by Two Nice Girls
• T.Time by Smolik
• The Way You Want It by Lisa Stansfield
• Within You by ThouShaltNot

Thanksgiving Thursday

A random selection of music to be thankful for:

• "Beaten Thursdays" by Prefuse 73
• "The Columbia" by Lackthereof
• "Elvis Cadillac" by Rickie Lee Jones
• "Four Three All India Radio" by Echo Other
• "In a State" by Mojib
• "Kitten Who Did Not Want To Give Up" by BrainStorm
• "Masca" by The Duke Spirit
• "North American Scum (Radio Edit)" by LCD Soundsystem
• "NYC" by Interpol
• "When Under Ether" by P.J. Harvey

Just thinking about the multitude of ghosts that haunt every Thanksgiving and the network of friends around the globe who have made this a special holiday: 44 years ago President Kennedy was killed just a couple of minutes drive from my home; 10 years ago Michael Hutchence was found dead; Sonia in Kumamoto and the apato I painted green with the windows closed--I don't think my brain cells have really fully recovered; Tak & family in Osaka with my first bottle of beaujolais; Jola & the girls in Warsaw with several other bottles...; Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade way back in 1986 and the crappy meal in the basement of the Empire State Bldg.; "In this fateful hour..." over and over; and now me alone with a stack of books and one painting by Redon to keep me company.

Bullet-Point Friday

• Thumb drive? Check. I do, after all, need to record the grades of the precious students enrolled in the US history course I TA for.
• Stack of history quizzes? Check. I finished grading them over breakfast this morning, but I told my professor I wanted to re-evaluate a couple of them just to ensure I’m being fair (and consistent), so I’ll return them Monday. I’m still a bit perplexed by one student’s response: “Truthfully, I have no idea of what I should write because I haven’t read the book just yet. Fortunately [sic], there isn’t a way for me to pass this class having failed two of the last tests.” It continues for a couple of pages. I don’t like this conflicting sympathy-annoyance I suffer from: I really am too sensitive at times to be a professor, but I also work ridiculously hard for my courses, even the ones that only annoy me and waste my time. (After my last presentation, there was a hush before the professor exclaimed, “That was a damned good protocol!” I felt like crying, relieved after putting myself under that much pressure for a two-page paper.) But, of course, I’m not a freshman too lazy to read the assignment. (If I skip a required text, I have some deep-seated reason … usually. And I always make sure it’s one I won’t be tested over.)
• Sophie’s World? Check. I read it originally back in the fall of ’97 in Japan. When I moved into my apato, it was one of the few books left by a prior occupant. Because it was in English, I read it. I was annoyed because of its overly contrived narrative. I cringe when I feel like someone is trying to trick me into being educated. Now it’s a required text for my introduction to philosophy course I teach at the community college downtown. I had/have no say in the matter. But after drinks Tuesday evening with my brighter-than-average colleagues, I just may finally stop hating this book. Both of them swore that it was a more-than-suitable text for an introductory course. I’ll trust them (since they are so painfully freaking intelligent). Lesson learnt: stop fighting the flow and see what there is to learn instead of overly complicating things.
• Knitted skullcap? Check. In the mornings here, the temperature has been quite a bit more tolerable: in the mid-40s. It’s almost as if things are starting to cool down like they’re supposed to this time of year. In Poland I would’ve already had several days of snow by now.
• Crappy Apple laptop? Check. Thankfully it isn’t a problem connecting to the wireless here at this college campus (where I spend my “free days” writing, working, and doing research). I wonder how many other people here aren’t really supposed to be here? I spend more time at this school than I do at either the campus where I teach or the campus where I’m a student. But no one’s ever asked to see my identification or to justify my presence. At least I finally started bringing my own computer instead of using the one’s in the library.
• Internal (and upcoming) deadlines? Check. One paper due Wednesday. Another portfolio/project due on the 30th. And a final paper/presentation on December 3rd. Final exams in history to grade; five-page essays and final exams in philosophy to grade; eternal and continual paperwork to endure for classes taught as well as taken. Yes, I’m almost done with this term. But now I have to buckle down in order to check these things off. One by one.
  

Bullet-Point Friday

• It’s like, you know, flamenco piano: when you hear the first measures of just such a beast you recognize the form (flamenco) but don’t recognize the medium (piano) because your ears are not trained to interpret that form through that medium. After a few moments, a new synapse fires, and you are better prepared to hear flamenco piano again: a new possibility has been created in your world.
• It’s like, you know, when human beings rely too heavily on infrastructure designed to keep them safe (i.e., guardrails, stop signs, traffic lights) that they behave irresponsibly because someone else is policing their reckless behavior; they have a false sense of security because they’ve relinquished responsibility for their own actions. (It’s also like, you know, when parents expect legislation to supplement their demonstrably poor parenting skills: they want society to be policed instead of being responsible for the raising of their own children. I mean, think of the children!) Remove the guardrails and pedestrian accidents fall 60% because pedestrian and driver behave more responsibly when they must think for themselves. If I choose to jaywalk, then I’ll be sure to look both ways—twice, even—before jumping out in traffic.
• It’s like, you know, trying to get through a lecture on Berkeley’s immaterialist idealism when your students would much rather hypothesize about “crazy people” or “people on LSD” or “the blind”: if someone falls in the woods and no one is around to perceive it, did the person really exist in the first place? (Thankfully, for Berkeley, God is omniscient and omnipresent: He’s always watching/perceiving! And even if you don’t believe in God, He still believes in you.) I sometimes wish my students would stop invading my sensory world so their drug-induced craziness would simply stop existing, even if only for me.
• It’s like, you know, hotdog!
• It’s like, you know, accepting the alternate relationship with truth that wanders to supplement one’s acceptance of truth that remains coordinated on a grid. To start walking with the right foot (techne, the logos of techne, the word: “technology”) is quite alright as long as the next step is with the left foot (organic, systemic (uncoordinatable) episteme, the organicity of the epistemic); otherwise, you spin around in circles going nowhere. And no guardrail is going to protect you from doing that!
  
• It’s like, you know, attempting to speak language as such without using any of the words from the language of humankind. Or perhaps like, you know, speaking a word to(ward) an other all the while speaking a word as (an)other. This too shall not pass.
• It’s like, you know, Liberace’s famous question: “Would you rather have roses on your piano or tulips on your organ?” Vote now!

Das ist der Deal

Rarely does a day go by since I first heard this song in Germany that I don't stop to listen to it or sit down to watch this video. Yes, yes: come marry me! (And that's only a message to my secret love..... Miguel, I hope you don't mind finding out this way!)

Bullet-Point Friday

• I had my first setback in about a month or so after beginning my new insomnia medications: I couldn't get to sleep Tuesday 'evening' until about 2:00 am (Wednesday morning). Now I'm still recovering from that episode. The only thing I can figure out that was in the least bit different was that I drank a Dr. Pepper at 3:30 that afternoon. It was the first soda I've had in two months, and the only reason I drank it was because I 'won' it by filling out a survey about alcohol use on campus. From now on, I will only drink water (and alcohol) on campus. Perhaps I need to 'update' my responses on the survey.
• I skipped working yesterday afternoon and instead spent about 90 minutes at the YMCA. I felt I needed a break from the multitude of assignments and projects after working almost nonstop Wednesday afternoon/evening until about 9:00 pm. Yea: endorphins are my friends! (Unlike Dr. Pepper.)
• I'm taking another 'break' this afternoon: we're going to the Texas State Fair. I know I'm going to spend all weekend working, so I might as well try to have a little bit of fun while I can. Besides, I spent my morning office hours grading exams.
• I'm excited about my books from Amazon being shipped: Gadamer, Jabes, and Plato. God, am I a dork or what? I used to be one of the cool kids (at least as an undergraduate), but now I'm quite the stuffy old graduate student surrounded by books ... and very few friends. (Even Dr. Pepper is not to be trusted.)
• Perhaps Tiny Tim (or is it Tiny Tina these days?) can bring a little joy back to my life.
  

Bullet-Point Friday

• I'm enjoying my trek through Daniel Weissbort's From Russian with Love, a book about his friendship(s) and (professional) relationship(s) with Joseph Brodsky, translation theory, Russian, literature, and death. It is everything that John Felstiner falls short of. Throughout Felstiner's work (specifically Translating Neruda and Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew), he steers the reader toward this totalizing conception of identity and poetry: he reads Neruda and Celan as if their names were always in capital letters, as if they were homogenized, monolithic, unified Cartesian subjects, as if his biographical/literary/psychological/physiological uncoverings and excavations had the final say on what their poetry was all about. Weissbort, on the other hand, speaks toward an actual and real person he met, befriended, and knew, and yet who escapes any insincere attempt toward totalization: was 'Joseph' a Jew, how much of a Jew was he, how does his translation of his own poetry speak the same as their Russian versions. 'Joseph' is always moving away, eliding Weissbort’s efforts to read him, his words, him through his words, his words in his (own) voice, his words in his Russian (or Russified English). Felstiner reminds me of why I stopped reading literature and poetry all those years ago; Weissbort makes me want to read everything Brodsky ever wrote (as well as everything Weissbort ever wrote).
• I have approximately 50 pounds of books about Mark Rothko I need to work through this weekend as I prepare for an in-class presentation on the Rothko Chapel next week.
• Tonight is First Friday at the Ft. Worth Modern. I thought I would take myself out for the evening to enjoy the new exhibit and then maybe a nice vegan meal at Spiral Diner. (I can’t wait for the Spiral Diner to open up in my neighborhood!)
• Tomorrow is already “full up to the neck”: German class from 10:00-12:00, a visit (during the Texas-OU game) to the Dallas Museum of Art to come up with a subject for my term paper, and then Lauren’s party in the evening celebrating the release of Superficial Flesh. Perhaps one of these days I’ll actually have some down time and do some pleasure reading or spend an afternoon just brushing my cats. Maybe December.

Scivias

I remain
Together:t(w)o-gathered
A union w/o unity
Identity w/ difference
Singable yet always (yet) unsung remainder
Twinned coils twining through
Here & (t)here & no(w)here:now/here
Wo ist der Mensch?
W(h)er(e) ist der Mensch?
Here- her- he- ach
And a thou-
Sand hands to hold at night
And an eye
T(w)o-ward
Hath an ear
Near- 'ear 'ea- æ
Farawaywayawaywayaway
Let be--this subjunctive that terrorizes time
I'm set ... for now
Know- now- no-

Il y a / n'est plus

A hundred years of his undying death articulating as if the singular unsaid, unsaying, unsayable, in its fully exteriorized impossibility against the homogenized totalization of a text, an other. He always already (yet) exceeds his own excessive supplementarity. I hereby sign and countersign your centenary as we both recede in our mutually singular oblivions.

Bullet-Point Friday

• Insomnia - Since returning from Germany two weeks ago I haven't been able to sleep past 4:30 AM. Most days I'm awake before then. (I'm usually in bed by 10:00 PM every night.) I'm just about at the breaking point physically as well as mentally, especially when I have as much work to get done during my typical day-to-day as I do. I fear my philosophy course--the one I'm teaching downtown--is suffering because by the time 11:00 rolls around I'm yawning and ready for a nap. I have an appointment with my neurologists (sleep doctors) Tuesday morning. Hopefully they'll put me on some better medication.
• Next Friday I fly to San Francisco to hang out for a couple of days with the ever-lovely Pani J. I'm looking forward to the escape from Dallas--yes, even though I've only been here for two weeks! Even more, though, I'm excited about spending time with one of my absolute most favorite people in the world. Jola and I were neighbors in Warsaw for almost a year, and I know I wouldn't have been able to last that long in such a miserable city without her continual friendship, insight, and hilarity. Can't wait for those long chats over good coffee while staring out over the Bay.
• Tomorrow I begin the German language course at the Goethe Center. Am I ready to focus yet again on that language in an attempt to develop some sort of fluency and literacy after such a crappy experience this summer? Stay tuned to find out.
• Exercise - Will I ever return to my pre-Europe schedule of hitting the gym 4-5 times a week? I'm afraid that all the weight I lost while in Germany was just muscle mass. I miss the sweat. I miss the endorphins. Ah, sweet endorphins! Perhaps before the German class tomorrow I can make it to the Y for a quick 30-minute workout.
  

Voices

Nothing abides. Nothing remains.

Today I found out that Ray Williams died. (We raise our voices.) He was the chair of the fine arts division at the community college I attended. (We learn to speak.) He listened, especially when I had something (important) to say. (We speak our minds.) He spoke to me as if I had something important to say. (He taught speech. And humanities.) Although we certainly were not close, he had a deep impact on my life. (I teach.) He was sensitive, and intelligent, and passionate. (I am still learning to listen when my students speak.) Rest in peace, Ray. (Your voice will be missed.)

Euro-Franz Say Auf Wiedersehen

Euro-Franz isn't one to cherish or even approve of long goodbyes. Perhaps he's said goodbye too many times. When he lived in Japan all those years ago, he was even known to pop in and out of town without a word. Somehow he was always able to book tickets for flights either too early or too late for others to care about showing up at the airport. Or to even know. He's left too many countries to name without so much as an acknowledgment that he was on his way out. Perhaps the best goodbyes are the ones unspoken that leave no residual emotional messiness. No remains for those who after all remain where one has left.

Which is why yesterday's orgazmo of farewells was particularly unwelcome. I didn't mind saying goodbye to my professors, but when I was forced to interrupt classes to announce to people I barely knew that I was leaving, a line had been crossed. It's nothing personal because I don't even know them. They certainly do not know me. We passed each other a few times in hallways; I perhaps noticed them in required gatherings. But there was never any real chance of a connection. We are far too different, and I am considerably more different than they, than Thou. Making such announcements made me want to cover my head and duck into a dark corner, abandon my bags and jump on the next train pulling away from the station, stick out my thumb and accept the next stranger's offer of a ride. Life is far too short to attempt or move toward something lasting. Like breath: you aren't doing it correctly if you only inhale. At least one half of the process is letting it all go. Escape. Release. Goodbye.

Pieces of Me

If it’s not the hunger and lack of interest in any of the food I find on the streets here—I mean there’s only so many cheese pizzas, cheese sandwiches, tomato salads, falafel pitas, and gummy, cheesy pasta dishes with limp vegetables I can stomach—that will kill me, then it will be the utter inexplicability of my inability to sleep throughout the night. Last night I went to bed at a reasonable hour (11:30), but I was wide awake (again) by 12:45, and I couldn’t get back to sleep until almost 3:00. In the meantime—and I mean this in its meanest and most unreasonable sense—I began reading another life-changing essay by Derrida about Gadamer and the poetics of Paul Celan. And then I took out my iPod and listened to some tracks from my Lazy Sunday Afternoon playlist, just allowing my mind to drift and reflect in a letting-be (perhaps—as if—a move toward Gelassenheit). Perhaps it will be the anticipation of the arriving/letting-go that will finally do me in.

“There are pieces of me you’ve never seen. Maybe she’s just pieces of me you’ve never seen.” These lyrics by Tori Amos continually float through my head. Knowing that people—and ultimately all things, including the great to be (it)self—are ultimately unknowable, I know that I don’t even really know myself. So, how can anyone else know this me that I don’t even know, this no-ing, unknowable I that reverts to a me when faced with the face of the radically alter in its (own/un-owning/un-(kn)ownness) radical alterity? A good question to reflect upon and face at two-fucking-thirty AM. Kids: don’t try this at home without adult supervision. I am a trained professional, and it still hurts when I do it.

I like the subtle subversion of irreplaceability these lyrics hint at: as if to say, you don’t need to replace me with her because we are the same. Do you not see that which draws you to her is also present here in me? Do you not see that the continual/continuing race toward the (metaphysics of the) new is just as questionable as the issue of knowledge of self and other (it)self? We are ultimately reflections of one another, each other: “The killer in you is the killer in me.” (Lyrics by Smashing Pumpkins. Maybe I should just stop listening to music altogether.)

I like how da in German can mean both there as well as here. I like how nach can mean both to(ward) as well as after. This is a great language in which to lose oneself, especially when the first person-pronoun is never capitalized (except, of course, as the first word of a sentence) and the second-person polite Sie is always capital(ized). But true Gesprach takes place only between (ein(e)) ich und (ein(e)) du....

Speak my language.

Unfit for Life

Learning German is making me even more unfit as a human being. As if having studied Spanish, Russian, Polish, Czech, Japanese, Ukrainian, and Latin have made me either marketable or more lovable! But German is becoming a special case: I’m not learning to communicate (i.e., how to buy falafel from the Turks) but rather to sit in a dark room alone with several dictionaries in order to decode, decipher, un-encrypt—to translate, carry over—semantic meaning from the Devil’s tongue to the language of angels. And I’m learning this “skill” from an angry Romanian woman whose smell I’ve grown accustomed to already.

So, I won’t be making friends in German. That’s involves a specialized vocabulary that my skill set can not at the present time manage. My morning language course, too, can attest to the fact that in German I will be (in the most absolute sense) all by myself: I’m not only alone in my endeavor to take the advanced reading/translation course alone but I’m also enduring, surviving the more remedial—actually the most remedial—course in the program. I’m surprised each morning when the short bus does not appear outside my dorm to carry me off to class with the (other) retards. (But at least I actually brung myself a real wordbook from Amerika to helps me with the studying.)

Yesterday afternoon I spent about four hours translating selections of Kandinsky’s aesthetic theory, and now I have a few pages of Walter Benjamin to tackle, conquer, capitulate to by my next class Monday. Benjamin and Celan are the main reasons I’m here in the first place learning the unlearnable with the unlearned, but I guess I’m not the first to blame my misery on G-d’s chosen.

Now I have five days all to myself. The others—those people—are heading off to the great Benelux conundrum, but I, because of UNRESOLVED ISSUES stemming from the GREAT UNPLEASANTNESS cannot fathom venturing near that part of the planet at this time. Instead, I’ll be visiting some of the cities nearby, exploring the offerings of Dokumenta in Kassel, the sculpture exhibit in Münster, and the great Civilized City of Köln. To further prove just how useless my German is, I will be tackling each new city purely in my native tongue. Halleluja! Hosanna hosanna! Pray that the train union strikes do not keep me in Marburg….

Euro-Franz gets a new handy

One of the many (mis)adventures yesterday was signing up for a new cell phone. I can now be reached at +49.1520.647-9009 while in Deutschland, Euroland (AKA the United States of Europe). To receive SMS is always free, so let your thumbs do the walking! (For those of you in (Fortress) Amerika, be sure to use the international dialing code 011 first.)

I am especially interested in receiving well wishes for 16 years of moderately good behavior. Perhaps I really did deserve the muffin I had with my afternoon coffee. And now that I (finally) have access to wireless, I should be in contact/touch more frequently despite the fact that this language program is kicking me in the head. (But I'll save the bitchy blog posts for later.) For now, bis bald.

Arrival/Departure

We arrived yesterday morning in Germany without too many travel scars despite the simply lovely family that not only tried to take over our seats before we settled on the plane for the next 8 1/2 hours but also proceeded to talk throughout the entire flight. And by talk I mean whine incessantly, slap one another (mostly a mother-daughter ritual), and--as we from the hills say--holler up a storm. When I logged on to the Internet today I saw a headline about some mother arrested for beating her child on a flight in the US. I followed the link just to see if it was Indira Slapsalotta travelling on to the Gulf States (as in Persian and not "of Mexico"). I felt like hollering myself, "If you don't fuggin behave, I'll turn this plane around. So help me, Allah!" But then I'm not too sure if I'd be able to blog from Guantanamo.

Wiesbaden is even more wonderful and relaxing than it was in December. After a painfully short nap, Stephen and I walked the pedestrian mall, eating a hefty sandwhich at Perfect Day. I also stopped at a couple of bookstores just to see what kinds of gift purchases I could make for my professors who made it possible for me to be here for the next six weeks (by writing letters and suggesting I apply to this program). When Chris and Mary returned from work, we walked back into town for Italian. Last night I slept from 11:00pm until about 5:45am. It was a recent record!

Today we plan more cups of coffee, more casual strolling, perhaps some sweets, and maybe a short visit to one of the old thermal baths--a mainstay of Wiesbaden. (The "bad" in Wiesbaden means bath; it was known as a Roman spa town a couple of thousand years ago.) Tonight we head to Barcelona, where our all-too-short vacation goes to a whole 'nother level.

Personal Daemons

I respectfully ask those of you who know me--or at least think you know me--to take the short quiz below to determine if my daemon is an accurate representation of my real self.

We have twelve days before my daemon is set in stone. Thank you for your help.

Memory of Loss

The dead will always outnumber the living.