I'll teach you to be happy!

I am back on the Internet

2009-10-22T13:42:18Z

After two and a half months, I finally, finally, FINALLY have Internet access at my apartment in Japan. So now I get to tell you about my life here! New job, new friends, new city/country/hemisphere, new tiny car, new food, new ways to dry clothing and clean sinks and flush toilets. And you will hear about it all!

Starting tomorrow.

For I am very tired.

Wait not tomorrow, I have plans.

Well soon, anyway.

Insomniac travel

2009-08-02T21:10:40Z

The best part about having a stupid messed-up sleep schedule is that when you travel to Japan, jet lag adjusts for a normal, human sleep pattern. Same as last time, going to bed at 9-10 pm and waking up at 5-6. MORE JET LAG PLZ

Computers!

2009-06-07T17:46:43Z

So I'm looking at new laptops. I'm going between two right now. One is a gaming laptop by Digital Storm - 17" monitor, 6 gig of RAM, Geforce 9800M GS graphics card. The other is an HP, 18.4" monitor with 4 gig of ram and a geforce 9600M GT graphics card, and is a couple hundred cheaper. They both have core 2 quad processors, blu-ray drives, etc. So basically I'm split between a smaller enthusiast/boutique company with better performance or a company that's guaranteed to be around in 3 years with a cheaper product (and a bigger, probably nicer screen). The HP's weaker card should be fine for the gaming I'd be doing since I won't be playing Crysis or anything, but the stronger card would also last longer as far as playing future games goes. Also, being overseas, tech support on the Digital Storm will be harder (i.e. impossible) although I don't know how much better HP's would be. I... I don't know what to do! SOMEONE MAKE MY HARD DECISIONS FOR ME

more like lolitics am I right?

2008-09-27T04:12:17Z

So - anyone watch the debate? What'd you think?

House update

2008-01-26T07:54:47Z

Some pictures of our house, post-fire. Click on the picture to go to the album.

Annnnnd we're back.

2008-01-15T23:38:34Z

Note: Just in case you missed it, my house burnt down the day after Christmas.

So the Internet is finally connected in the rental house, and life is back to normal. Relatively.

Turns out the house renovation is going to be pretty comprehensive. The entire upstairs is getting gutted and remodeled, and the kitchen is getting redone, new carpet and paint in the whole house, some new furniture... it's gonna be like a whole new house by the time we get back into it. But it might take longer than 4 months. Ah well?

I haven't been working, between the fire and vacation, and it's about time to find a new job because with the banquet season ending I definitely need more hours.

Been reading and working out a lot. Gotta keep it up even with the Internet here, now that it presents an obstacle. More or less. About time to recognize that it's not an excuse anymore and I gotta get back into my procedure. Insofar as I ever had one, I mean. Actually I've been back into schedule for a while now, come to think of it. :P

That's it!

paul_le_fou @ 2008-01-03T19:03:00

2008-01-04T00:06:14Z

New Christmas entry over at paulscheible. It's about religion and the miracle of Christmas - even after Jesus brought us a terrible house fire (see last two entries) for Christmas. Joy!

My house burned down part 2: Electric(alfire) Boogaloo

2007-12-29T19:13:50Z

If you missed this, check out my last entry. My house burned down the day after Christmas.

So we're set up in a hotel across town. It's one of those suite hotels with rooms and a kitchen and multiple bathrooms and such so it's not so bad, but I still have to sleep on the fucking sofa bed in the main room. We did get to bring our dog though! Even though he goes a little crazy in the sort of cramped space. We'll only be here for another week, though, before we move into the rental house we picked out back in Strongsville. Which will be good, because I miss sleeping in a room where I can close and lock the door, or you know, a room at all. Thanks to our family dynamics (two sisters, parents, and me) I'm ALWAYS the one on the fucking sofa bed. D:

Been going around getting a bunch of new stuff to replace our old stuff. Picked out a new coat, hat, gloves, shoes, and so on. Instead of looking like an unwashed hobo in dirty clothes and a borrowed oversized coat, I sort of look better than I actually am what with my new garments. Though still generally unwashed, due to my current wardrobe of one pair jeans, two shirts. It's an odd transformation to undergo in so short a time, perhaps. Hooray for insurance!

Which, yes, is covering all the replacements and remodeling and so on. We're lucky actually, our homeowner's insurance actually got canceled by State Farm a while ago due to the city's shitty plumbing making our basement flood a couple times over, so we switched to Nationwide, and they've been really good about stuff. They had contractors and such over within a few hours of the fire to start clearing and cleaning and such, and have been working on pack-and-clean ever since the fire.

So anyway, we're doing all right, all things considered. I've got even more time to read and play DS games now, at least? And since it's the holidays, at least I've got a bunch of friends here at home so I'm not going insane from boredom and get to see some of my favorite people to keep my mind off of things.

So in short, merry fucking christmas 2007. Judging by the way my christmas seasons have been going for the past couple years, I'm likely to be stabbed to death over Christmas 2008. Woo!

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-26T23:46:55Z

So, let's see what we did for Christmas.

Christmas Eve we went out to the Pomeroy House, a restaurant my mom loved, and had a really good dinner.

Christmas, I worked. For like ten hours. My back is killing me, and my knee, and I'm not sure I made as much money as I really would have liked. But family was at home when I got back, and I made myself a massive gin and tonic and had some nice dinner, and PECAN PIE. Score!

I got two Wii games - Metroid Prime 3 and Twilight Princess. Now I just have to get a Wii. EASIER SAID THAN DONE D:

The next morning, this morning, my house burnt down.

Seriously.

I wake up at 6 AM to pounding on my door and a shout. I go back to sleep because that's what I do. Another pound and I hear "FIRE" or something and I grab my robe and go. Smoke all up in our family room and all. We dash out the back (me in nothing but my bathrobe and no shoes. It was FUCKING COLD) with the dog. Coming around the back of the house, we can hear the roar, hear the awful popping, cracking sounds (imagine the popping of a firelog in your fireplace. That is a cap gun. Now imagine standing a block away from a MOAB detonating. The scale of the sound and the horror it instills are adequately analagous). We can see the orange light flickering awfully against the neighbor's house and against the sky itself.

Pounding on the neighbor's door, we watch it burn. The van is engulfed in flame. Any window it can reach, it already has, and fire reaches out from the portals as from Hell itself. Check out that simile. That's fucking original right there. We get inside as the police and fire arrive, and are there just long enough to sit down before we have to move again - both adjacent houses are being evacuated, as the car is an explosion risk. We go to the next house down, now numbering seven and two dogs, and there we wait.

The car does not explode, and the fire is put out. The garage is completely destroyed, along with everything in it. This includes dad's van, which is van-ish slag metal that looks as it belongs roadside in Iraq. The other three cars were in the driveway, and other than some trivial body trim melting on one (frightening in its implications of the heat and its power and reach more than in the effect), they are unharmed. The contents of our garage also including our rabbit's hutch. He is no more, and we can only hope that he was unconscious from the smoke long before any fire was able to harm him.

The front doors and their glass sides, the front bushes, and the windows in the garage, as well as a few on the front of the house, are destroyed. There is terrible burning in the laundry room(which is off the garage), and we are lucky that the fire was stopped there, because if it had reached into the family room just beyond that last door, all bets would indeed have been off.

The siding above the garage, exterior my sisters' rooms, are melted and stripped clean off. Their windows shattered. The heat in the upper floor cause all of the ceiling to collapse.

However, in all of this, we are extremely lucky. Myself in particular. My room shares a wall with the garage. If that firewall had not held up astonishingly well, I may well be dead. They say the fire may have been burning for as many as two hours judging by the warping, but it held. My room is actually one of the most intact in the entire house, the basement being the only one better off. There is smoke damage all throughout, not to mention ashes and cinders everywhere. But besides my room, the bathroom adjacent, the family room, living room, kitchen and dining room are remarkably well preserved. Smoke damage and aforementioned ash and cinder notwithstanding, they are in working order. Upstairs, very little of the fire made its way inside, if any at all. Besides the collapsed ceiling, and the exterior damage, those rooms too (especially the master bedroom at the back of the house) are in good shape. All things considered.

If we had not woken up sooner (my sister is awoken by "a smell" moments before the alarms go off, we could have been much worse off. If the fire had burned any longer, it stands a very good chance of having reached the interior of the house, and as I said before, we would be in a very different situation. The dog was not closed in the laundry room for the night; were he, he may have died. We all escaped safely, barring the rabbit; even the bird is unmolested by flame and smoke alike. We lost a lot, but it was all Stuff. Just Stuff. Replaceable. And we lost far less than we could have, including our selves. All told, we were extremely lucky in a number of ways.

The house is extremely unlivable. We are in a hotel for a night or two, and then will live in a rental in town for the four or more months that it will take to repair the house. I am using a friend's computer, and after this, I will not have reliable access to the Internet for some time.

I am all right. We are all right. Tired, fatigued, exhausted; downtrodden. It's been a fucking hell of a year. Merry Christmas.

Second new blog entry!

2007-12-13T23:55:44Z

http://paulscheible.livejournal.com/

Second new blog entry. This one's about SCIENCE!

Post an Entry

2007-12-13T22:19:40Z

http://paulscheible.livejournal.com/

I have a new entry up over at my "serious" journal. This one is about Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, a beautiful and distinctly aesthetically Japanese comic that merges a contemporary medium, a futuristic setting, and classical aesthetics.

I may follow up with a different entry on the other end of the spectrum by the end of the day, as well.

No update in a while, eh? Let's see-

~I have a job. I'm doing banquet bartending at the 100th Bomb Group, a restaurant/banquet hall up by the airport. The money's not bad but I'm working like 2 days a week. I have realized that I'm going to need to find something else.

~I saw No Country for Old Men and read the book immediately thereafter. Now that I know for sure that Cormac McCarthy is pretty awesome, I picked up All the Pretty Horses from the library and am going through that right now.

~I also tore through Richard Dawkins(on whom I have a shameless man-crush)'s The God Delusion. Overall it was pretty good. There were a number of arguments or sections that didn't seem to gel very well, didn't make their cases as strongly as he seemed to think they did, but there was a lot more there that worked very well.

~Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of my mom's passing, with her birthday 6 days previous. But I don't really feel like talking about it right now, in part because I don't really feel like I have much to say about it.

~My external hard drive is having some problems, which worries me greatly. I think I may have left it on too long or something. It chokes on itself just trying to open folders and the like, when it doesn't crash right out. Speaking of crashing, I hope I can get that new computer soon, because this one is trudging along, being a real trooper, but I really don't know how long it can hold out.

~I brought home the beer we made a couple of weeks ago (we've already gone through a fourth of it, partially because of Thanksgiving). It's even better now than it was when we first got it though, having aged rather nicely in the bottle. I thought they were decent when we first got them, but now I'm actually quite pleased at how they've turned out with a little time. Much more robust, more flavor. The dark one has a ridiculous head, though, so you've got to be careful.

that's all ta-ta

paul_le_fou @ 2007-11-17T15:56:00

2007-11-17T20:56:54Z

I think one of the top items on my list of things to do before I die is go to the far north and see the Aurora.

New Journal/Blog

2007-11-12T22:06:34Z

I have started a new journal. This one will remain active, as it more or less already is, but the new journal is where I'm going to post, well, serious stuff - talking about religion, philosophy, art, media, and serious discussions thereof. Furthermore, I intend to post about serious stuff more often, though that may range from philosophy and religion and the like to in-depth analysis about anime. I mean, I personally recommend it all, anyway, but that's me, y'know.

Also, the journal itself will be sort of a single repository for stuff I'm keeping in a couple of different other blogs. Those will be topic-specific, so you may be more interested in one or a couple of those.

Also, there will be a couple entries all at once and the organization will be a little wonky as I update it with some of my older stuff to start out some content, so there may be sort of a lot to peruse at first. Not all of it will be new to all of you.

Anyway, you can find it at: http://paulscheible.livejournal.com/

paul_le_fou @ 2007-10-24T19:37:00

2007-10-24T23:37:25Z

Tonight I made Scallops in a lemon butter sauce. They were really tasty. I won't stop to think about the nutritional value of a dish whose sauce is basically a stick of molten butter with some lemon juice and spices. It was tasty.

culinary school?

Went out applying to a few places today, gonna go into the city and do a few more tomorrow. Turns out the job placement at the school isn't as good as they led me to believe. Most of the online listings are pretty old and aren't actually still looking for people, and the school certainly doesn't do anything on their end to help out - the "Job Placement Director" didn't even return a simple cursory email I sent in. The place is definitely overpriced for the "service" they offer.

Been playing the Hellgate: London beta. It's basically the spiritual successor to Diablo 2. It's not bad, but I'm really just unimpressed. I doubt I'll actually get the game, which is fine because in the next three months there are a fucking ton of other games coming out that I'm interested in. Need... job... badly...

Yeah, that's it. Ta-ta!

paul_le_fou @ 2007-10-17T17:18:00

2007-10-17T21:18:30Z

Hey what cities should I aim for in my JET application? Don't say Tokyo or Osaka. I already know about Tokyo and Osaka.

I made a foods

2007-09-17T00:29:27Z

So I had this idea on my mind and ingredients on hand and decided to make it happen.

First, I roasted a red pepper. Drop it under the broiler (or over open flame if you've a gas stove or a grill), turning frequently, until the skin is black. Cover and let it sit for a few minutes. Peel off the skin - this will be very easy, the skin should be practically falling away already. Slice the pepper into strips, and put it back in the oven (400) with a little oil for 25 minutes. This alone ended up being worth the effort of cooking, and probably the best part of the meal.

After that I cut up a large onion and 2 medium-sized potatoes and threw them in a big pan with some hot oil. As those cooked, I added a bunch of curry powder at increments. I added a can of chickpeas, the roasted red pepper (one pepper was not enough for the size of the meal I made, I'd have preferred two), and some thai peanut sauce. I covered that and let it go for a while, and served over rice.

It turned out pretty tasty, although the potatoes could probably use a little more time, so I may let it cook some more before I serve/eat the next round. Also, I think they should have been cut a little smaller, thinner.

This seems to be turning into Paul's cooking blog. I suppose I actually have something else to talk about now though, come to think of it.

I'm starting bartending classes on Tuesday, and once those are done in two weeks I will hopefully start working (as a bartender) forthwith. The school has really good placement, more places looking for bartenders than they have students to offer, and some interesting-looking places on that long list, like Boulevard Blue, a classy-looking place we went once with some fancy food and such.

Stay, uh, tuned for, I dunno, just in case something interesting happens to me, I guess. And/or some essays and stories I may or may not have brewing.

Food!

2007-09-11T01:13:35Z

So I experimented with something a while ago that I'd been meaning to, and made burgers. What I did was finely dice onions, green and red peppers, and fresh garlic and mix it into ground beef with some ground black pepper. These I formed into patties and pan-fried. They turned out all right, but something was amiss, but it might have just been an unusual combination of flavors.

There was some left over because I'd chopped too many vegetables and the burgers were already huge, so I chopped up more red pepper and more onions, threw in an egg, some bbq sauce and some oats, and made meatloaf. The burgers were iffy, but my sister and dad agreed that the meatloaf was a success.

I've had a couple of nights of extremely vivid and narratively linear dreams. Narratively linear as far as (my) dreams go, anyway. I think a couple of them will become short stories soon.

Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day

2007-09-05T16:21:00Z

Lifted shamelessly from Dresden Codak. Original thread Here.

Guys, it's time for

Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day!

You must spend the entire day in costume and character. The only rule is that you cannot actually tell anyone that you are a time traveler. Other than that, anything's game.

There are three possible options:

1) Utopian/cliché Future - "If the Future did a documentary of the last fifty years, this is how badly the reenactors would dress." Think Star Trek: TNG or the Time Travelers from Hob. Ever see how the society in Futurama sees the 20th century? Run with it. Your job is to dress with moderately anachronistic clothing and speak in slang from varying decades. Here are some good starters:

- Greet people by referring to things that don't yet exist or haven't existed for a long time. Example: "Have you penetrated the atmosphere lately?" "What spectrum will today's broadcast be in?" and "Your king must be a kindly soul!"

- Show extreme ignorance in operating regular technology. Pay phones should be a complete mystery (try placing the receiver in odd places). Chuckle knowingly at cell phones.

2) Dystopian Future - This one offers a little more flexibility. It can be any kind of future from Terminator to Freejack. The important thing to remember is dress like a crazy person with armor. Black spray painted football pads, high tech visors, torn up trenchcoats and maybe even some dirt here or there. Remember, dystopian future travelers are very startled that they've gone back in time. Some starters:

- If you go the "prisoner who's escaped the future" try shaving your head and putting a barcode on the back of your neck. Then stagger around and stare at the sky, as if you've never seen it before.

- Walk up to random people and say "WHAT YEAR IS THIS?" and when they tell you, get quiet and then say "Then there's still time!" and run off.

- Stand in front of a statue (any statue, really), fall to your knees, and yell "NOOOOOOOOO"

- Stare at newspaper headlines and look astonished.

- Take some trinket with you (it can be anything really), hand it to some stranger, along with a phone number and say "In thirty years dial this number. You'll know what to do after that." Then slip away.

3) The Past - This one is more for beginners. Basically dress in period clothing (preferably Victorian era) and stagger around amazed at everything. Since the culture's set in place already, you have more of a template to work off of. Some pointers:

- Airplanes are terrifying. Also, carry on conversations with televisions for a while.

- Discover and become obsessed with one trivial aspect of technology, like automatic grocery doors. Stay there for hours playing with it.

- Be generally terrified of people who are dressed immodestly compared to your era. Tattoos and shorts on women are especially scary.

And that's it. Remember, the only real rule is staying in character and try to fit in. Never directly admit you're a time traveler, and make really, really bad attempts at keeping a low profile. Naturally, the dystopian future has a little more leeway. And for the record, I've already tried out all of these in real life, in costume. It is so much fun you want to pee yourself.

I've set the tentative date for December 8th. Who's in?

This is Paul now - really, who's in?

Middle Eastern Fried Rice

2007-08-02T22:02:22Z

Today, I utilized some leftovers to create a pretty tasty middle eastern fried rice dish. Yesterday, we ate at Maha's, a really good takeout Filafel place. I had the lamb kabob platter, but there was a lot of tabouli and rice leftover. I mixed them together, had a few bites, then got a better idea.

The middle eastern rice was rice prepared with, as far as I can tell, vermicelli and almond slivers. Tabouli, of course, is a mix of chopped parsley, cracked wheat, tomatoes, onions, lemon juice, and some other stuff. Mixing these all together, I started by putting some olive oil and garlic in a pan (which is how I start about 90% of my limited array of cooking) and fried up the mixture. Surprisingly, it was actually pretty good, if not perhaps a little too "busy" with its flavors.

That's really all to report in my life recently. Toodles!

A little something I whipped up.

2007-07-17T15:40:24Z

For three whole months, I didn’t sleep. It was summer, and I had no job, no girlfriend, and plenty of minor diversions that didn’t matter. It’s inaccurate to say I didn’t sleep, I suppose, but not unfair. The sun would go down, and I would dutifully undress, lie down in bed, and keep my eyes closed until they would pop open of their own accord, entirely free from the malaise of fatigue. I would slug through my day, bereft of energy, my body crying out for rest – and when I would offer just that, suddenly, it was the last thing I needed. And so, I gave up. When I felt like I was supposed to sleep, I would give myself twenty minutes – no more – and if I were still awake, so be it. Days stretched on well past the agreed-upon twenty-four hours. I would pass a sleepless night and crash hard partway through the next day, sleep for a disgusting stretch of time, wake up exhausted, and fall asleep again some thirty hours later. I lived in a home left me by dead parents, which was too big, but was rent-free and cheaper to maintain than an apartment was to rent, though a proper housekeeper would hang their head in abject shame were they made witness to my clumsy attempts at upkeep. For an entire summer, I rolled around my cavernous house, trying to sleep in every different room in case I was simply in a pocket of bad house energy, taking my books to every different room because the light was bad in all of them, and watching the world spin on at a regular schedule all around me.

I kept a dog, not specifically for companionship, although in our mutual boredom we would often comfort each other by whiling away the time, I by petting him, and he by being pet, giving an actual motion to my going through the motions. In all the time I spent doing nothing, which was often, that summer, perhaps a third of it was spent petting my dog, sometimes while watching television, but more often simply plopping down on the floor next to where he lay stretched, occupied in his own nothing, and giving him a good scratch behind the ears. The main reason I kept the dog was to give me an excuse to take walks. I would never walk myself, but if the dog needs walking, well, I suppose I really should.

And the dog does need walking, of course. Or, if he doesn’t need it, he wants it badly enough, anyway. The very word walk, or leash, or eventually just the phrase “do you want to,” would send him into a frenzy. He would lean into the leash in my hands, dying to wear it, and would go, for lack of a better phrase, absolutely fucking bazonkers trying to get it off as soon as it clicked shut. He hated that leash, but he loved walking. We all make sacrifices.

I would walk him at different times of the day, mostly by default because I would be bored at different times in the day, but only, of course, because I was awake at different times in the day. We’d go at dawn, when the rabbits expect the world to themselves, and when my dog would, every time, forget he was on that leash and bolt at the poor critters, only to give himself a nasty yank. We’d go in the late morning, when the sky was bright but the air was still cool, when everyone had gone to work and the neighborhood was quiet. We’d go in the afternoon, the evening, dusk, midnight, dawn. He loved them all, but night was his favorite time, from one to five in the morning, the dead hours, when the world is in its deepest sleep. The way he pulled at his leash, zigzagging from tree to bush, his excitement was palpable. Night, I could see, smelled so much better to him.

Dogs don’t mind routine. Every time we go on a walk, though I try to change up our routes, it’s the same. A little peeing here, maybe a friendly (or unfriendly, usually) dog butt to sniff, but it’s usually the smells. Every now and then he would simply stop walking, root himself to a spot, his nose dug into the ground, and breathe deeply the odors of the Earth. I always wonder what it is he smells in those places. I’ve tried, my curiosity peaked, the total lack of opportunity cost convincing me, and they just smell like grass to me. But to him, a story. Every time, I can’t help but think of my mother and her Newsweek, her eyes glued to it as I tried to yank on her leash and get her to keep walking while I ate my cereal. The book fair is today, could I have a few dollars? We’re making mosaics today in art class. A moment of silence, and she would blink up from the magazine, Okay. What? I’m sorry. What? I give the dog a count of three to let him smell the spot where, probably, some other dog took a crap a few days ago, and yank him along. Wait, I wasn’t done. I wonder what happened to that Lhasa Apso after that.

It’s all about smells, to dogs. Some people, science people—people-science people—say that humans lost their sense of smell because they kept dogs as hunting companions, who would smell for them. Because of that, smell was no longer an evolutionary selector for humans, and so it dwindled away, allowing our brains to develop other things, like how to swear at each other for cutting each other off in traffic. Which explains why I can’t smell what’s so damn interesting about this patch of grass and not that one. Because that patch is telling a story I can’t read, singing a song I can’t hear. I mean, it’s poop, but still, I can’t help but feel that I’m missing out.

But then again, the dogs are missing out, too. Such powerful senses of smell, but it’s such a narrow range of smells that interest them. Primary among them, or in the top five anyway, is food. Especially meat. They love their meat. Canines, which is a science people word for dogs, are named so after their teeth, which are especially good at tearing into things like other dead animals. Humans have canines too, but we also have molars, which are monkey-teeth that are good at mashing up dead plants, and so we can choose to wear fur coats or splash paint on them. But what the dog likes to smell most on his walks are other dogs. He stops to smell a spot, it’s probably a spot of urine, or the remains of a long-gone poop from some other dog, but to him, that’s so awesome. Hold on, I smell a dog. Hang on, a dog peed here. I’m gonna pee here. In a few hours, some other dog walks by, and Hang on, some dog peed here. His master let him have bacon! You never let me have bacon. And the dog is yanked away, but he’s already looking for the next pee-spot, the next story to read. There’s always more to read.

Dogs’ hunger for knowledge is insatiable. Mine, he always wants to go, go faster, find more to smell. To run after that bunny, to sniff and pee all over the place, and mostly, I think, to run. He gets loose now and then, slips his collar or bolts out the door when I’m off guard, and when he does, he goes crazy, running like you’ve never seen a dog run. He wants to run fast and hard, and even when I’m strolling along with him on his leash at my admirably brisk pace, if I do say so myself, it’s not enough for him. Sometimes I want to just drop his leash and see what he’d do, to run along behind him and follow him. I want to know exactly what it is a dog would do if he could get rid of that leash. How often would he stop to smell the ground? Would he hunt down rabbits routinely, or just when they cross his path? And then I wonder, what would I do if I were standing right here and set free? Would I look around for all the neat smells and stories, or find some prey smaller than me to chase after? And then I wonder, what kind of leash am I wearing? It seems pretty secure, maybe one of those invisible-fence shock collars. Who’s holding it? What if it’s me?

The thing about dogs is, they really only care about other dogs. Maybe it’s because they’re primitive animals, but all of their means of externalizing are pretty much to reaffirm their own and each others’ existences. I am convinced that a bark means nothing more than Hey! I’m a dog! Hey! I’m a dog too! Hey! You are a dog! I’m a dog too! Hey! They go out for walks, and the main attraction is to smell other dogs’ stories. Sniff, hey, a dog was here! Hey, I’m a dog, I was here! Hey, there was a dog here – not long ago! I suppose I am unfair, because dogs are also very interested in other forms of critters. Rabbits, groundhogs, deer, squirrels, chipmunks, cats. Birds, I suppose, but not my dog. He loves critters. He would want nothing more than to chase critters all day, but usually only to kill it. So a dog’s interests are: other dogs, for smelling; and non-dogs, for killing.

But, I suppose my favorite part of taking a walk is seeing another person, especially one I know. And, there are plenty of people who are fascinated, even obsessed with people that are different from them, but usually only for killing them.

Even so, a dog is missing out too. If I could smell like a dog can, I would want to smell so much more than other dogs, especially since it’s usually their poop. I’m more interested in the smell of the sidewalk, and how it smells different where the sidewalk is cracked and little plants and really little critters, too little for a dog to want to kill, grow. I would want to smell the grass, not where it was pooped on, but where it was green and lush, because people poured water from lots of miles away on it, and where it was yellowy-brown and crackly and dead, because there wasn’t any water from lots of miles away to pour on it. The smell of a new, large house with lots of brick and glass, and the smell of an old house, which is probably brown. The smell of this or that car, although I’ve been to Los Angeles and have had enough of the smell of cars in general. The smell of dusk, when the rabbits are out; the smell of the dead hours of night, when the world is asleep. The smell of a place which, without people, would wither and decay and die, and the smell of a place which, without people, would bloom and grow and prosper. Some people, science people—but not people-science people, regular-science people—say that some birds can see light that people can’t see. Ultraviolet light. Some people can see infrared light, with science. But what about ultradog, and infragrass smells? What can a dog smell that I can’t? What can’t the dog smell, and who can smell it? All the smells, the lights, the sounds that I can’t smell, or see, or hear – who hears them?

You see, when I don’t sleep, I don’t do much else. I pet the dog, or I take it for a walk, and sometimes when I do that, I think, and then I write. I don’t do nothing all day, though. I do have friends, even during that summer, and we would do things, whatever there was to do. Which wasn’t much, so we would do things too often, because then we’d not only be bored, but bored of each other, and that would be the worst doom. So every few days we would go to get a sandwich, or a gyro, which is like a sandwich but exotic, and is not pronounced like it’s spelled because even the word is exotic and usually once a week we would go to bars and drink beer, and maybe something else if we were feeling really crazy. But you can only spend so many hours with friends, when you’ve all got no jobs, and so those hours were mere oases in the sandseas of summer.

And then, my friends started to get jobs. We would still do things, but a little less frequently, and with a little less joy, and in my case but not theirs, with a little less money each time. Like all things American, it would eventually be money that put an end to my summer, but I had enough to keep on doing nothing for a while. But before that, my friends got jobs, and they moved away, or just worked all the time, and they slept on a popularly agreed-upon cycle of twenty-four hours, when the sun was in parts of the sky they couldn’t see, and worked when it was in the parts they could see. And I slept less and less, although I would sleep, but you know what I mean, as I’ve mentioned this before. It’s always the ones left behind you hear from. The ones who don’t work when everyone else is, or who are so disillusioned with the work they are doing. The ones who don’t sleep for entire summers. Why? I think it’s because they’re busy working, and we’re spending lots of hours walking our dogs and thinking, because we’re writers and that’s what we do.

Sometimes, after my friends had jobs but before I had to get one, I would go to bars like we used to, but instead of going to spend time with companions, I would be trying to find some. I would make sure to wear a nice shirt, so I could look presentable, and even smell nice as far as human-smells go, to try and tell the most favorable story I could to womens at the bars. Every now and then, there would be a woman with glasses, which meant she was intelligent, and every now and then she actually would be, and we’d talk. Usually, I’d end up telling her I was a writer.

Oh yeah? What do you write?
I mostly write about myself, I’d say. This would take them aback.
Oh, they’d say. Like memoirs?
Something like that, except I don’t have a lot to remember. More than memories, I think about things that haven’t happened yet.
So, do you write about the human condition, or anything?
Don’t we all?
But… why don’t you write about something?
Ouch.
No, I mean, you know, not that you’re not, you know. Like, war, or injustice.
I’ve never been to war, and to be quite frank, I haven’t experienced any grave injustices in my life. Certainly nothing to write about.
So you write about yourself?
What else do I know enough to write about?
What about all the other writers who write about other things?
Let me tell you a secret about us writers, which I learned at writer school, I say and lean in just a little closer. We’re all writing about ourselves. Some of us just lie about it better than others.
And some of you have more interesting selves to write about than others.
Ouch. But yes, I can’t argue that.

Truth be told, I say to you, not the girl at the bar, we’re done there for now, most of the things I want to write aren’t memories, like I said, or even things that haven’t happened yet, like I said. Most of the things I want to write are things that can’t be. Worlds that don’t exist, or futures that won’t exist. Science-fiction, which science-people like, and fantasy, which science-people also like. Swords and brain-computers and magic and romance and drama, and love, and hate. And so, I would either write about myself with only a little bit of lying, or write about myself with a whole lot of lying, playing a little game to see who can spot the difference.

I’m a journalist, the girl at the bar says. I’m a writer, but I don’t write about myself.
Don’t you?
Most of the pieces I cover are about wars in other countries, she says. And like you, I haven’t fought in a war, in this or any country.
O-K, I’ll bite, I say. So what do you write about? Other people?
I suppose.
So you write about them, and I write about me. But who writes about you?
Whoever writes in the second person, I guess.
And who writes in the second person? I ask. I’m not leading her on, or trying to prove a point; I don’t know. I was sort of hoping she would know.
I don’t know, she says.
Neither do I, I say.
Do you?

And so I spent my summer. I didn’t sleep, although I actually did; and I did nothing, which includes walking my dog, petting my dog, and writing, as well as reading, and watching movies, and playing video games, and drinking beer, sometimes at home, sometimes at bars, and drinking other things, mostly at bars, with or without friends, to any of the above except writing. Writing isn’t a very social endeavor. Maybe that’s why it’s all in the first person. Not all, my journalist friend reminds me; most of it, though, I insist. And the summer wore on, and nothing wore on, until finally I hadn’t quite run out of money, but I had used enough to no longer comfortably get away with doing nothing, and so when the factory opened in the city, I got up, and went out into the world and got a job, and then, I slept.

paul_le_fou @ 2007-06-23T23:02:00

2007-06-24T03:17:20Z

I'm going insane at the moment, but not in a bitter I-hate-things way. It's a good sort of insane. At the moment, I'm going insane over a number of things in Independent Comics. I just plowed through all three volumes of Scott Pilgrim, and have determined it to be Awesome. And over the past couple of weeks, I went through the three extant volumes of Flight, and found them to be Wonderful. And I'm feeling more and more like writing, and I'm especially feeling like writing a comic, but there be two problems:

1. I can't draw, and I can't learn. Not now, anyway.
2. I don't know how to write a comic without drawing.

I tried for about a minute a while back, but was at a complete loss. One friend said just write a screenplay and go from there when I find an artist. Anyone else have any suggestions, educated or otherwise?

On an unrelated note, I wonder if I should pay more attention to the number six. Besides it being my favorite number in grade school, I was born in the month of June, and not only have all the credit cards I've ever had expired in June, so have my drivers' licenses. Beer comes in sixes (real beer) or multiples thereof (crap beer). So do Hot Dogs, brats, sausages, and other links of meat. I have 6 volumes of this one manga on my desk, 6 was the best Final Fantasy game, and the second-best Star Wars (but I thought it was the best when I was younger). There is a six in my old credit card number, 2 in my new one, and 2 in my social security number. Immediately preceding Seven, the number of perfection, Six is often taken to symbolize imperfection, incompleteness, being but one step from perfection, and the compounding of that is often taken to represent evil, as we see in the Sign of the Beast 666. But really, is it so evil to be imperfect, incomplete? We all are, in the end. That may be a thing for Christianity, that we're all tainted by evil and incomplete, but as a Humanist I have a hard time buying that. The latin word for six is Sex. That's also sort of cool. And I started this post 6 minutes ago oh my god

EDIT: I need to see a movie that kicks my fucking ass again. The last I can remember was Millennium Actress, which was a movie so good to me I got that feeling during the credits and had nothing to say but "Holy goddamn jesus fucking christ". Something with amazing visuals and an extremely touching story, bordering on or boldly embracing sappy if necessary. Big Fish did it to me. Um... Wide-eyed devastation or astonishment are also acceptable. I just need to see a real, good, movie.

Any books to recommend along that line are also entirely welcome.

Music player programs

2007-06-14T20:37:18Z

Sound off - what program do you use to play/listen to your music?

I've been using iTunes for years, and while I really like the levels of organization it affords me, it seems to slow down my computer more and more every update I get - my computer will freeze up for 5 seconds every time it changes a song, for instance. Also, I've been reorganizing my hard drives and am going to have to re-do my playlists and data, so I figure if there's another program to use, now's the time to check it out.

Suggestions, comments, snide remarks, go go.

Sex and Violence

2007-05-17T04:20:52Z

When people talk about censorship, they usually talk about the two great offenders: Sex and Violence. The phrase you've heard a million times to describe everything that's wrong with, for instance, television these days or Hollywood! Too much sex and too much violence. But why are people so quick to suppress these things? Why do people struggle so hard to conceal extremely basic facts that every human understands by the very nature of their being? Why is it that humans fear so strongly their very existence?

Yes, their very existence. Sex and Violence are human life. No human - nor animal of any sort - has ever spontaneously generated in the absence of sex (except for some sheep or something? I heard it on the news once). For every living creature, from the most high-minded of animals, Man, to the grass you walk on, is driven to reproduce through a system of sexuality. Consciously pursued or no, it is sex whence life is sprung. But why do we - and by "we" I mean "existence" - feel so driven to reproduce, to create new life? Only as replacements.

Death, in short. Sex is the necessary battle we fight against the death that exists by its nature.

A story, from the hallowed depths of Western Civilization: the Greeks and their mythology. Pandora's box. We all know the story. Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create Pandora ("All Gifted"), the first woman, as part of mankind's punishment for recieving fire from Prometheus. Every Olympian gave her their most prized gifts (beauty, cunning, charm, healing, music, et al) and she was sent to earth with a large Jar. Not a box, but a jar, a pithos, a very common earthenware storage unit, with instructions that it must never be opened. However, Pandora's curiosity (a gift given her by Zeus, not accidentally) drove her to open the jar, whence all the misfortunes and sorrows of mankind came. The gods had filled the jar with their worst gifts, as terrible as the ones Pandora recieved were wonderful, and they came swarming out all at once - suffering, hatred, jealousy, greed, and so on - things which, as Hesiod says, bring on old age and death. This marked the end of the Golden Age. In this time, there were no such ills upon Man. Free from worries, from old age and death, they had suddenly been exposed to all the negatives, and their age of Paradise came to an end. Aging, death, sadness, misery, suffering upon the human race. And in the jar, there at the bottom, their only means to combat it - hope.

A curiosity is that the pithos, the jar which Pandora opened, was often used - when flipped upside-down - as a representation of the uterus. Which is, of course, the female reproductive system. See where this is going? To make a somewhat crude joke, perhaps "Box" is not such a mistranslation after all. (I'm talking about the jar being a metaphor for her vagina, or as I'll explain, sexual reproduction. Note well: even as I write about sex as the basis for human life and death, my natural inclination which I caught then preserved was to talk about it in euphemisms, to address it as indirectly as possible, or with humor to make light of it.)

In summary, Mankind existed in a state of paradise, until a woman was introduced. Suddenly, gender existed. And with it, mortality. When Pandora opened her box, when the other half of the sexual binary was introduced, man became mortal. And yet, within the selfsame jar that brought them a race's worth of malady was hope, the very means to combat the new plague. While the introduction of women to humanity had brought death, it also brought a new kind of life.

Let's go back to high school biology. Kinds of reproduction: Mitosis and Meiosis. Meiosis is the process of cell division that lies at the heart of sexual reproduction. Mitosis is the process by which a cell reproduces. The first forms of life reproduced by mitosis, by making copies of themselves. Now to combine the amateur science with amateur philosophy. If a being reproduces by simply creating copies of itself - does it die? If we take Bob, then make him into two Bobs, then one dies, we've still got Bob. By transplanting the issue to humanity we run into all sorts of conflicts like "what is the self" or consciousness or whatnot, but on a strictly biological level, asexual reproduction is akin to mortality. If an entity preserves itself by duplicating itself, then it in essence is always alive until it fails to copy itself.

But with sexual reproduction, the whole system goes for a loop. Since life is brought about by the combination of two distinct entities, the final product is not a copy of the original, but a new being. Thus, when Bob dies, there's no more Bob - just half of Bob in his daughter, Katie, along with half of her mother Sonya.

I'm not saying that in the golden age, dudes were walking around undergoing asexual reproduction all the time. But, through this life-creation myth we can see the Greeks trying to address the core of life and death. Beings strive to reproduce as a way to stave off death. While it's not so clear as it was for the prokaryotes back in the day, to reproduce is to live. Preserving your genetic information is how we mediate the inevitability of death. With complex things like consciousness thrown into the mix the issue becomes muddled, but when you get down to the nuts and bolts of existence, that's what it comes down to. Sex is the fight against death - sex is life.

Please note the life-creation myth of Adam and Eve (which was ripped off from the nearly identical Zoroastrian life-creation myth). Adam and Eve live in paradise (note that here, too, man came first) until they eat from the tree of knowledge and become aware that they're naked and become ashamed of the fact. (By the way, the big deal with being naked is that your sex-parts are visible. If you actually require evidence of this, please hang out at a beach for ten seconds. That Adam and Eve became ashamed of being naked means they became aware of the sexual differences they had, which are of course at the core of sexual reproduction.) God proceeds to boot their asses out. Once again, an age of paradise brought to a screeching halt by the introduction of sexuality into the mix.

And what is love? A drive to mate, really. Sorry romantics. It's the drive when your head takes over and says "For the love of God, LIVE!" which will, if everything goes all right, eventually lead to some whoopie. When we got crazy shit like sentience, will, consciousness, etc., this too was complicated, because not everyone in love always wants to have sex, and not everyone who has sex wants to have babies, and so on. But there it is, at its base. Love is the brain's reaction to making the body want to have sex so that it will live. It's programmed into us, deep down. So, really, it could be said that love is sex (or vice versa), and therefore through the transitive property, love is life.

So, sex is our animal mediation between life and death. It is at the core of so many of our instincts because it's the gate to our own existence. And as such, it's become one of the most focal points of humanity. Having developed consciousness, we need something to think about, and since life -> reproduction -> sex -> love is so vitally important (pun intended), we go around thinking about it a whole hell of a lot.

Let me come back to this. I mentioned violence as well. This one I don't have nearly so many fancy words or recognized sources to back up, but bear with me here. To get this out in the open from the start (yes, I'm presenting a thesis. yes, you're reading an essay. no, I didn't write it for any class. I just wanted to. Academia imminent?), Sex and Violence are both parts of the same coin - the mediation of life and death. Violence in the classical sense of the word usually takes place in someone physically attacking each other, and in the senses that it is most reviled, results in death. So violence is, in a sense, the end of life - a degree of murder that does not always end in death.

But violence is also life. Again taking us back to a pre-civilized animal state, violence is the key to survival. The act of killing is utterly inescapable in living. From hunting another animal to kill and eat it, to eating a plant (which also exists in a cycle of life and death and reproduction, much like our own, just very different so we don't feel nearly as bad), the end of life begets further life. Part of a tree dies that a giraffe may live long enough to reproduce, several times ideally. Many plants have worked out ways to work this in their advantage (bees spreading pollen, seeds in animal droppings, etc. - ways they may be killed but live at the same time - too bad a human hand can't be used to fertilize future humans. Ew). But specifically from a human standpoint, something has to die that we may live. Even the vegetables we grow, we work together with - we don't spread them through waste, but we do plant a shitload of them, so biologically they're getting a really good deal, being eaten.

Violence is also life in its survival. The fear of death is ubiquitous in animal existence, and we shy from violence for that same reason. The flinch reaction that insecure high-schoolers so love to invoke in their peers is an example of this. We see something that may be construed as having violent intent, it's programmed into us to get the hell away (so that we do not die -> so that we can live -> so that we can reproduce). And when push comes to shove, many animals are bred to fight back. Someone protecting themselves so they can live - the only thing someone would protect more strongly is their children, the already-present incarnation (literally) of their drive for survival. Also their loved ones, but we know what I've said about love fitting into all this.

Sex and Violence are also rather similar as actions and effects. A rush of blood to your head, altered perceptions and an associated "high", faces turning red, short of breath, panting hard, adrenaline pumping, muscle contracting, a great expenditure of physical energy... is there any wonder that, on the more extreme ends of sexuality, we see it merge with violence? Even in completely "normal" sex, the introduction of violence - not in the sense of striking, but in increasing the intensity of the experience to nearly that point - is not so commonplace. Fuck me harder, someone moans. More violently.

Sex and violence also represent together the peaks of human interaction. Having sex with someone is the obvious here, as the ultimate end of love and the endgame of human reproduction and life. Violence, however, is similarly primal. The engagement with someone else in an act of violence is triggering all sorts of primal responses for survival, to combat a threat and protect yourself and your progeny, preserving your life. Both sex and violence (can) also create rather intense emotional bonds between participants. The bond of two lovers is heightened by sex, having taken a "step" on that path that (like any other act, to be fair) you can never un-act. Even if a relationship ends, there's always that bond between two people who have taken such steps. The bond between fighters may be one of hatred, but even so the mere presence of the other can trigger as volatile an emotional reaction as the presence of a lover. And how often these wires cross - an ex-lover that one comes to hate, or the classic romantic comedy archetype of two people who cannot stand each other falling in love. Or how about this one - becoming close friends with someone you fight? It's far rarer, but there are occasions where friction builds and builds until the two just have it out and fight - and after that they're cool, they become friends, and laugh about it. (This was more common in the past, I'm fairly certain). I am sorry to report that, having been in but one fight in my life (and never having seen my opponent since) I must go on hearsay for this part, but go I will nonetheless.

Regardless, violence and sex differently trigger almost identical/opposite emotional, physical, physiological and psychological reactions, and construe opposite ends of emotional spectrums in interpersonal relations. This is because, of course, we're instinctually linked to sex and violence as means of sheer survival, and so we're driven to react to them more strongly than anything else.

So, Violence and Sex are both part of the singular cycle that is Life and Death, working together and opposing each other. So, I return to the original question... what's the big idea? Why does human society attempt to shy away from the very facts of their existence? Consciousness is to blame, here, of course, but that goes without saying.

Perhaps it's an attempt to distance ourselves from animalism. As I mentioned, all of this rests on the biological, instinctual, primal urges of humanity. Very little violence exists in our lives compared to that of prehistoric man/animals. And really, sex is also much more limited while simultaneously being far freer - people have a few kids and call it quits, usually, whereas many animals mate regularly - yearly or more - partially because the utter lack of technology leads to high mortality rates and partially because there's not a whole lot else to do (zing). Of course, having kids isn't the end of sex, no matter what smarmy comedians would have you believe. The development of technologies and societies that we have absolutely nothing outside ourselves to to compare against (and hence no good guide by which to truly study them) have made humans into a unique entity in our world, and perhaps the consciousness that sets us apart wants us to be more and more different. We don't have to abide by these basic, animalistic urges (note the negative connotations)! We're humans, we can go farther than the apes whence we came! This also leads into Transhumanistic urges, to altogether succeed ourselves as humans and become something greater.

Perhaps it's a straight-up fear of death. The acknowledgement of the cycle of life and death, even in its life phase, is a recognition - acceptance, even - that death, too, will come to us eventually. This borders on my Japanese aesthetics ramblings, mono no aware and whatnot, about life and death and transience and beauty. But in that case it's not fear, but a somber acceptance thereof, and a celebration of the beauty of the interim.

Perhaps it's a way to socially control people - after all, the hangups on sex, violence, life and death tend to spring directly from religion. Even atheists' views of sexual morality are influenced by the religions around them. It was varying religions over time, after all, that equated sex with the fall of man, the expulsion from paradise, the end of the golden ages... Christianity carries with it the concept of Original Sin. What's that sin? Adam (and Eve)'s sin! What was Adam's sin? They figured out sex! St. Augustine even stated in no uncertain terms that original sin is transmitted sexually generation to generation. Let's re-illustrate this: In classical Christian doctrine (to be fair, extremely classical, like way way long ago), the very act of human procreation was the continuation of a sin that was transmitted to the child-product of that act, to be cleansed only through Jesus and the Church. Jesus Christ. Coming along with American puritanical values and good old-fashioned down-home American insanity, this may go a long way towards explaining the situation in American culture. It is repeatedly noted that we are particularly conservative about these things. People mention Islam, but they fail to realize that much of Mohammed's inception of Islam came from the fact that Mecca (I think) at the time was a hotbed of utter sin and depravity - concieved as a panacea to moral collapse and corruption of the time, it makes sense that Islam was and continues to be very socially conservative about such things. But then, all of religion is a culturally subconscious way to control people, in the end. Marriage, for instance, is a way for religion to control human sexuality by limiting it to a setting that is moderated/conferred/granted by the Church. You've tied the knot, Jesus says you can have sex now. Of course, religion is also a distinct creation of humanity, a separation from the animals, and a TON of religion focuses on the fear of death - what do you think the afterlife was made up for?

I guess what I'm saying is that, while I have my suspicions, I'm not convinced of anything yet. Are you? I'd like to hear from you, if so.

Being necessarily the central problem of life and death, and therefore lying at the heart of our very existence, this is sort of a big topic to cover, and especially once we factor in history, sociology, art, psychology... it's monstrous. If you're asking why I just wrote a 3,000 word essay (6 pages double-spaced) for no reason beyond having felt like it, I don't rightly know. It's just something that's been rolling around my head for a while, and I read a work today that stirred it back up something fierce. It's food for thought, it's something to incite discussion, it's my venting and writing such that a long-time buildup finally vomited forth in a single sitting. No, I don't know how my urges to write relate to sex, violence, life or death, but I'm sure someone can come up with something.

I needs computar help!

2007-03-11T12:32:50Z

So, my external hard drive seems to be having problems. My computer won't recognize it, or let me access or browse it by any conventional means. It goes "boo-DOOP" when I plug it in, the "Hey you just plugged something in" sound, and it shows up under the generic "USB Mass Storage Device" for the Safely Remove Hardware option, so the computer is definitely picking up SOMETHING... but I can't get into my drive.

Is this a problem with my computer or the drive? Hardware or software? What can I try to do to fix it?

懐かしい

2007-02-21T19:37:15Z

The word above reads "Natsukashii". It's an adjective, an expression that details a specific kind of feeling of fond remembrance. Walking past a playground and remembering the days you played there as a child, walking into a store and smelling the air conditioning and remembering your freshman year dorm, a song that played on the radio on the bus to and from school in 7th grade. Takes you back, doesn't it? That's Natsukashii.

The most commonly suggested English translation is "nostalgic" but it doesn't quite capture the same feeling. The root of nostalgia comes from the Greek nostos (to return home) and algos (pain) - it was a psychological disorder which basically encompassed intense homesickness, pain from being seperated from your homeland. In modern parlance it's used far more fondly than that, but depending on the circles you converse in, it may still encompass a negative energy. Nostalgia indicates a kind of dissatisfaction with the present condition, which is what gives the remembrance its fond light; this feeling, in theory, is not part of Natsukashii.

But here's the rub. Natsukashii, I propose, contains just as much pain and longing in its fond remembrance as nostalgia - but that's why the remembrance is so fond. As a Japanese version of nostalgia, I believe it is processed and received differently, and acts as a core feeling that ties directly into mono no aware, the pathos of things, the bittersweet, heartbreaking beauty found in the ephemerality of life and the world.

For more on mono no aware, Let's go back to the oldest, most rehashed example in the book - the sakura, or cherry blossom. Every Spring, Japan turns bright pink as cherry trees blossom all across the country. And within a week, the blossoms fall, scatter and die. 花見, hanami, flower-viewing, going with a picnic basket to watch the flowers and watch them fall, is probably among most tenacious traditions in Japan, at least among holidays. The flowers themselves, while beautiful, aren't particularly moreso than other flowers. It's their brevity that makes them beautiful, that something so beautiful lasts for so little time. The flowers are beautiful, but the most beautiful part about them is their act of falling.

Seasons, weather, nature are ever-changing and so are the most frequently cited examples, but Japan has many cases of ephemerality within its history. Prone as it is to earthquakes, typhoons, tsunami and more, Japan has historically been in a constant state of flux, of destruction and rebuilding, as nature and man alike seem determined to destroy the island somehow or other. When the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 destroyed Tokyo entirely, it was rebuilt, only to be bombed back into oblivion in 1945. Not to mention the times it has been torn down and rebuilt on purpose - the entire city went through a massive renovation for the 1960 Olympics. Many Japanese shrines and historical sites are actually reconstructions rather than preservations - and often not forced due to circumstance, but acted on consciously.

And so, to someone from Japan, it may seem that the world in is a constant state of change. What's here today can be, will be gone tomorrow. Though the country is largely non-religious (or more accurately, religiously apathetic), the presence of philosophies like Buddhism reminds us that we are mortal, that life is just a cycle that ends in death, that as all things are created, so too shall they be destroyed. This is, of course, not unique to Buddhism, as it's pretty much the core problem in any and all religion. But this is an important tenet in the Japanese aesthetics.

The Tale of Genji is THE work of Japanese Literature, their Oddysey. Not surprisingly, it more or less encompasses the idea of mono no aware as its theme. A brief moment of heartbreaking beauty as a crisp moon shines over a quiet pond and a frog croaks twice in the distance. In Genji, people are (repeatedly) moved to weep by the beauty of some instant, usually tragic. The entire book is tragedy, and portrayal of that tragedy as beautiful. A striking reminder of mortality.

The entire core of the beauty in mono no aware, I think, stems from the feeling of Natsukashii. It's a remembrance of things past, and a fond recollection of them. Instead of remembering how things were better (nostalgia), it recalls how they were - which is also how they can never be again. When the flowers fall, you know they can never again be back on their tree - and that's why their beautiful. When you remember how you were once young, you are necessarily reminded of the fact that you have aged, and will continue to. Remembering the past is remembering the future. The recognition of the passage of your life heretofore includes the recognition of passage forthwith and your ultimate, inevitable conclusion.

But the embrace of death and dying is not necessarily an embrace of sadness. It's not necessarily a philosophy or an aesthetic of sadness. As I said, "Natsukashii" doesn't involve the negative energy of nostalgia. But it evokes the same pain; however, the pain is manifest in different ways. In the West, it is merely that, but in Japan, the pain becomes manifest as a kind of beauty to be treasured. Life is short and ultimately ends, but to feel that is beautiful because that is life. Natsukashii encompasses all the pain of nostalgia, but twists it into beauty as part of the mono no aware aesthetic.

My favorite quote actually heralds from an anime, but it encompasses the philosophy as best as I've seen it. "Ten billion years' time is so fleeting, so ephemeral, it arouses such a bittersweet, almost heartbreaking fondness." That feeling is the feeling of mono no aware as best as I've found it explained. And even a span of ten billion years is exactly as guaranteed to end as any one of us, or our bookcases or dogs or flowers or the guys we buy our beer from.

Heartbreaking fondness - the reaction to pain is not to hurt, but to embrace it. It's an extremely keen, sharp feeling, a precide needlepoint in the brain. For me, it is accompanied by a welling of emotion, a vast longing, the desire to reach out and feel. Feel more, feel fully, submerge in emotion. To embrace the entire world with all its infinite and infinitesimal moments of humanity and otherwise, and feel it all, experience it in its entirety. To basically hug and be hugged by the whole of existence and say, there there, it's all right, for you see, I'm dying too.

When my mother was passing, there were moments where we'd sit around and cry. And usually, crying ended with smiling. It was utterly heart- and gut-wrenching, but to feel communally, whatever that feeling is, is innately pleasing. Misery loves company - it's true, as do all emotions, because to feel anything alongside another, to connect to a human being, amplifies emotion, and to emote in synchronicity is the highest amplification possible. My entire family hurt, but we were able to hurt together, and that's the small happiness that makes the hurt more bearable.

You remark to your coworker or friend, "hey, this is that song. I heard this on the bus every day in seventh grade." And they perk their ears, and you watch them recognize it too, and you realize you have that shared experience, that common history, and you feel that Natsukashimi all the more.

Natsukashii is a remembrance of the past, which is necessarily a remembrance of reality's state of eternal flux, constantly changing, birth and death and birth and death. The candle will burn out, but its life will be so bright and warm. Let it burn twice as bright, or fifty times as bright, even if it winks out in an instant, because in another instant we'll wink out ourselves. The more intense the flame, the more beautiful; that it will soon be gone only makes it all the more beautiful again. If it burned forever, it'd be nice, but it would grow boring in its unchanging, eternal state. Seperation makes the heart grow fonder - your memory of your childhood home is as fond as it is exactly because you're not there anymore, and if you were you wouldn't be nearly so fond of it. Our memories make us happy because we've changed.

To embrace the changes you've experience and those you will, to recognize the tragic beauty in the inevitable doom of existence, to allow the feeling of the inherent sadness of the world playing at your heart to make you happy, fill you with emotion. Don't ignore your doom, acknowledge it and continue on, because the end result is the same.