The Desk

Four weeks later, the “Happy Birthday” Mylar balloon survives, defying gravity as it levitates beside his bed. When he wakes, he usually startles, peering into the darkness and waiting for IT to attack in his clownish terror. But the boy does not lay in his bed, but instead hunches over the desk writing on index cards, his arms, the walls, and his mind– any sort of memorization trick he can think of.

Periodically, he reaches for his laptop, opens up Facebook, wastes fifteen minutes reading a bland twitter feed. When he looks up to see the books and papers and notebooks stacked around him like a fortress, he closes the laptop and returns to work.

The boy is me, naturally, too lazy to use first person because after studying this much, can you even be sure that you inhabit your own body anymore? You’re a robot, a clone, that strange alien double agent sent into a high school to infect the student body as well as the teacher, but there are a few resistant students who team up and fight against you. Either that, or everyone’s losing their minds.

Studying might not be the right word, though. More like boarding up a house in Florida before hurricane season or gathering your army for war. Washington, I have crossed the Delaware. I have faced the enemy, and he is no Fuhrer or vaguely-racist-depiction of Communism, but final exams.

As much as I would like to say that these exams are why I haven’t blogged in so long, I can’t say that. After all, the Mylar balloon has been there the whole time, egging me. Write, write write, and no doubt, I have been writing. Perhaps a little more than a week from now, when the waiting and preparing ends, I can write more. Also, I will be putting up videos of poetry performances in the next few days, so look out for those.

Resume For A Job You Don’t Want

Education

2005                        B.A. in Art History, Phoenix University

2006                         A Week of Yoga Classes

Perfected the “breathing position”

Job Experience

June 2005- August 2005                              Entrepreneur

Operated and financed a local-run Lemonade Stand

• Manufactured lemonade
• Sold lemonade
• Hand-painted signs

November 2010-February 2011                   Beer Brewer

Operated homemade brewery

• Manufactured Eagle Tears Brew beer, an All-American corporation
• Financed beer brewery from parents’ basement
• Did I mention it’s made of Eagle Tears?

March 2011-Present                                            Couch Model

Volunteers at local Rent-a-Room modeling furniture

• Displays how one might look laying, sitting, sleeping, standing, or dancing on couches
• Acts out daily functions of potential couch users
• Test-runs furniture to insure safety about damage, bullet holes, wine spills, etc.

Related Experience

September 2005-October 2010                       Sociological Research

Lived as “homeless” and “impoverished” as well as “unemployed” for sake of personal sociological research

• Life experience
• Educated in the “University of Harde Knocks”
• Can carve weapons from nearly any piece of trash
• Expert scavenger

March 1997                                                                 Grew Beard

First person in Freshman class of high school to grow facial hair

Talents

Burps ABC’s

• Once performed for Mrs. Harris’ first grade class during recess

Can Beat Mario World 3 in Less than a Day

• For reference, call Tommy Hulligan. He didn’t think I could do it.

In Light of the Recent Elections…

In light of recent elections, I have heard chaos and turmoil. When the results were announced, the earth opened, lava pouring across the land destroying America values, destroying the homes of all hard-working, straight Americans. The flags burned symbolically and Barack Obama removed his clever prosthetic concealing his demonic horns.

Well, I mean, that happened metaphorically, right?

I mean, the Earth shuddered with sudden change.

Didn’t you feel that?

Time to honest: I wasn’t too worried about the election. Why?

Because it was a choice between moderates. I knew that it did not matter who won, not much would change. Now that Obama is president again, while I suspect his views to shift more liberally, I know that it’s not going to change the world. And not that I would mind America changing.

Whatever, I can adapt.

And if Romney won and I lost federal aid for college, I mean, that would be a change, but I could deal with it. It’s almost as if the election did not truly decide the moral and grandiose fate of the United States. And I’m not sure why anyone would want to move to Canada after this point? I mean, Canada is terrible. If you really wanted to get away from liberal policies, I don’t know– Are there any more conservative countries than us? I’m not sure.

Like waking from a strange and lurid dream, the election was over. No one mentioned the economy or “the media” as if it existed, an amalgam of demonic spirits. Over night, elderly couples had extracted the signs from their lawns, and my curse was lifted. The curse, I believed, meant I was nearly mad—or in comparison to others, sane. I became struck with an odd, creeping feeling, a horrific notion that perhaps everyone else had descended into insanity, jabbering gibberish and talking too loudly about subjects which did not seem to matter.

For months, they screamed in a language of “politics,” citing sources that didn’t exist to support arguments wholly metaphysical or hypothetical.

“What if,” the brain-washed inquired, “Barack Obama won and then aliens attacked? What would he do? Why hasn’t he addressed that problem?”  Any attempt to swerve the conversation back to tangible and pressing issues proved ineffective against the hot-headed pollsters, the opinionated elite, who had “educated themselves.”

“Oh,” they would chide, “you should really get educated. Maybe do a little research into the truth about the elections.”

“What?” I implored them to tell me their secrets, if there was truly some conspiracy brewing. If Obama planned to murder children or if Romney plotted to destroy the university system from the inside, I wanted to be in the fold. I wanted to be the ringleader of resistance movements, ninja-leaping through the lawn of the White House to stop the Antichrist from initiating the Apocalypse. I wanted to put out buckets in my home to stop the leaking of lava through my singed roof.

But no matter I how fervently I tried to froth my mouth and gnash my teeth and cry in the midst of a tribal dance around a sacrificial fire, I could not feel as religiously as they for anything so trite. Instead, I kept in constant consciousness that the dance was an illusion, that we were not performing rituals to save the world (because this election would determine the future of human morality), but instead crass acts, calling it “politics.”

The worst shock was what people said—it’s certainly not quiet now. But those swearing in adoration or disgust are both marked as certified “crazies.” Anyone who still pursues, after this point, the cult of politics is considered a lunatic. But before, we were all lunatics, all these cloudy-eyed zombies repeating rhetoric we heard on the evening news.

What makes an election so volatile and consuming that we fall into such a trance, biting our fingernails at the drama as the ballots roll in. Today, however, the storm has settled into glass, the shudders quieting into rumbles and loud coughing and little sneezes, then finger snaps, then true and solid silence.

Perhaps the world has gone un-mad.

“The Beard” As a Symbol

Besides being a fashionable asset to any face, “The Beard” is a statement, usually that “I am a man and can grow a beard, so deal with my stubbly insubordinate nature.” In some cases, growing facial hair has become the calling card for indie band members, Canadian lumberjacks, and brutally masculine movie stars (see: Sean Connery, Jeff Bridges, Mr. T). But can beards symbolize something other than masculinity and what implications can growing a beard have on a person’s psychology?

Those are both very intriguing questions that I doubt anyone could answer without first delving into weeks of research in an academic library. Because I’m rather short on time, I’ll rely on my flimsy conjectures and access to Wikipedia.

Well-known theologian of the second century Clement of Alexandria wrote extensively about the importance of facial hair. A Christian philosopher, he deemed beards man’s “natural and noble adornment.” In fact, an inactive user on a Puritan forum I found on the vast internet shared similar sentiments with the quotes he posted (thanks to anonymous Puritan guys researching ancient texts):

“How womanly it is for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, and to arrange his hair at the mirror, shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them!…For God wished women to be smooth and to rejoice in their locks alone growing spontaneously, as a horse in his mane. But He adorned man like the lions, with a beard, and endowed him as an attribute of manhood, with a hairy chest–a sign of strength and rule.” 2.275

Not growing out your beard, Clement asserts, is womanly, which may come as quite an insult for bearded women.

“This, then, is the mark of the man, the beard. By this, he is seen to be a man. It is older than Eve. It is the token of the superior nature….It is therefore unholy to desecrate the symbol of manhood, hairiness.” 2.276

These quotes reflect that to shave one’s beard rebels against God himself, yet in today’s society not-shaving, not not-shaving, signifies an aptitude for rebellion. We view beards as belonging to badass transgressors and terrorist anarchists. Sometimes, then, beards can be seen as a sign of obedience and sometimes as a sign of rebellion. It’s strange that tufts of facial hair could signify two such disparate ideologies. Naturally, we associate not shaving with Amish identity as well as the religious identities of other factions (Jewish and Islamist faiths being two prime examples).

That is the epitome of manliness

Then what is a beard by any other name other than nothing more than what it is?

Hair. On your face.

A beard can symbolize whatever you want it to symbolize. A beard, like many other universal symbols, can be used to instruct unconsciously in a myriad of ways and therefore are meaningless as well as full of meaning. Then, when you grow your beards, you get to choose what it means. Sort of like a tattoo. Perhaps you want to seem manly, or want to seem rebellious, or like my friend Andy can’t not grow a beard because your manliness refuses to hide itself.

The reason I’m contemplating beards: November is Testicular Cancer Awareness Month. And to support awareness of a possibly awkward topic, men grow out their beards. Next time you shave, think about what you’re saying or not saying about yourself.

Htein Lin: Survival Art

{Last night, I had the good fortune of hearing distinguished artist Htein Lin speak about his work, life, and inspirations. Because I found it so profoundly moving, his story so incredibly interesting, I wrote up a brief summation of his lecture. If so inspired by future lectures, perhaps I will do the same to pass on some of the knowledge I have been learning at university. This post probably does no justice to the beauty this man espouses, but I have tried, in the plainest terms, to convey it.}

Source: http://www.soros.org/multimedia/even-though-i-m-free-i-am-not

Born in Burma under a military regime, Htein Lin spent his life struggling as an artist suppressed by Burma’s government. He works in the mediums of painting, performance, and video, practicing what he calls “Survival Art,” which is to take the negative out of life and turn it into something positive. As Htein Lin put it, “making misery into art.”

He began his artistic career as a comedian while he studied law at the university. During this time, he joined an art organization that cultivated his artistic sensibilities but in the most conservative way possible. During his school term, he became involved in many protests which made him unpopular among the local regime. Because no social media existed in 1988, no Facebook or Twitter, the uprising that followed garnered little press coverage.

To fight for democracy, he needed to work outside of Burma, moving to India to work as an illustrator for a magazine. Soon after, he moved toward the border of China to join the “iunale.” These were peaceful rebels for democracy, carrying no guns, starting no conflict. The presence of guns would make them vulnerable to attack—they were safer without weapons, seeming to pose no real threat.

During his exile, he suffered many horrors, the least of which was nature. Each night, he taped his eyes shut in fear leeches would suckle his eyeballs just as they often latched onto his feet, arms, and back. After staying for a little while, the group split, one half accusing the other of being spies, including Htein Lin. They tortured the accused with freezing temperatures, by burning their skin, and by making incisions in their fingers.

15 of the accused escaped into China, only to be arrested again. This quickly blew over, though.

Htein Lin’s life as a captive truly began in 1998 when his name appeared on a circulating list of possible rebels. For this, he was sentenced to seven years in jail. According to Htein Lin, American and British prisons seemed like “a Bed and Breakfast.” He survived on a metal-mesh bed barely large enough to accommodate him while sitting cross-legged.

He continued, however, to work on his art. He used old prison uniforms on which to paint upon, paying off guards to smuggle in paints. For a brush, he used once a roller from a lighter, another time the tip of a hospital syringe. He became what he described as the “resident artist of the prison.” Despite being confined, his creativity bloomed.

After prison, he “fell in love with art,” marrying a British artist and moving to Britain.

He lived his life, transforming pain into beauty. When he broke his elbow in a car wreck, he used the plaster to create a sculpture. When

Source: http://saladtv.kr/?document_srl=104683
Depicted here is a Burmese prisoner who has cut off his fingers to avoid being sent to a labor camps.

tested for a deadly disease, he allowed the doctors to use a special micro-camera to snap pictures of his digestion system, swallowing the pill-like device. He used the images to create a video for Youtube, a living art piece.

Htein Lin’s art focuses on sampling simple things from his life to create sculptures or paintings or useful tools. He transformed his fears, his regrets into something others could learn from, something we could wonder at.

I encourage you to check out his artwork as well as research individually his remarkable biography (I have only given small details). Best of luck.

7 Reasons to Do Something for the First Time

1. The first and only time I ever painted my chest was for a Volleyball game, the state game at the White Knoll high school gymnasium. The year before, our team won the championship, and this year, we would fall barely short. During halftime, we stood in the bitter wind smearing white paint onto our stomachs and chest.

The way the paint mixed with my hair, I could only think of how terrible it would be to wipe off. Then we wrote letters on us; I’m not sure, but I believe I was the exclamation point.

We still lost, but I don’t foresee any game I will ever feel strongly enough about again to spend three hours scraping paint from my wind-scarred nipples.

2. Because the first time I ever kissed a girl, it was a dare at a Valentine’s Dance. I’m not sure that’s how first kisses should happen.

3. Because the first time I tried to ride down the huge hill in our neighborhood without once applying the breaks, I veered into the grass and crashed into a tree.

I had been selling Joe Corbi’s Pizza door-to-door for a school fundraiser in the second grade. I was bored. Perched at the top of the hill, I allowed myself to roll down, picking up momentum until I could no longer control the bike, careening toward a short tree. The trunk halted the bike, but not me; I flipped over the handlebars, busting my head open on someone’s driveway. It was very cool that my forehead squirted blood like a water pistol until I nearly passed out.

Not two days ago, biking down Calhoun to visit the library, I experienced this unique event again. A car braked suddenly. My bicycle’s brakes work only when you pedal backwards, and to do so quickly requires me to stand up. I did this to avoid ramming the car’s bumper, but the sudden stop forced me to again tumble over the handlebars, which this time turned downwards, my body flailing, smashing against the road.

Fortunately, the vehicle behind me did not crush my head and allowed me to push my pathetic bike out of the rode. Once I made sure my head had not again become a gory fountain, I rode all the way to the library, scraped, bruised, bleeding. The only real causality was the button of my favorite red shorts, which had popped off quite violently upon force of impact.

4. Because the first time I ever tried to write a novel, my fifth grade teacher read it to my class, even the parts that seemed a little gory. Even the entire chapter about the main characters being taken in by this couple that resembled Mr. and Mrs. Claus– they are executed at the end of the chapter, tied to a wooden stake and burned alive.

Despite all of the strangely disturbing events in the book I wrote (it was only about 50,000 words long), she read it. Other kids seemed to like it. It was the first time I felt like people might one day read books I could write.

5. Because the first time I read the short story “Guts” by Chuck Palahniuk, I was riding a train. An hour-long ride to Stuttgart from Heilbronn, just the right amount of time needed to read short stories. I nearly passed out or threw up or a combination of the two. Instead, I sweated and worried about the words.

This was maybe the first time a book affected me in a physical sense as much as it did in a mental, philosophical sense.

6. The first time I ever went to a concert, the ticket cost me only $17. I arrived five hours early in Asheville and stood for three hours in front of the venue to watch The Tallest Man on Earth. But I got to stand on the front row, basically feeling his spit rain down on me as he sang.

Some people have never stood at the front row of a concert before.

7. When I opened my eyes for the first time today, I thought about the beauty of doing things for the first time. Listening to new songs. Listening to your stupid friends and trying stupid things with them. Reading recently published books. Going to places you’ve never been before, just to try their offerings of the grilled cheese sandwich.

There is a sprawling, grand adventure awaiting us all, and each day, we embark upon it anew.

 

The Solution to All of Our (Math) Problems

Find the derivative of an elephant flying at a terminal velocity toward the sun revolving at 2,000,000 miles per minute around an axis that tilts at 40 degrees if x=the numeral that is less than a phoenix.

Now, as a prophet of the typewriter, I am not particularly fond of math. In fact, a calculus quiz awaits me tomorrow morning. What I’m going to do is suck it up and try my best. But what I’d like to do, well…

I think I’ve realized the only true way to rid ourselves of this intellectual blight called “math,” that strange other-world language that makes rules for no discernible reasons, on an infinite quest to find elusive variables. We gather together, man and woman, adult and child, and we take with us a math exam. Perhaps a geometry assessment we failed in ninth grade. A quiz on addition we took when we were seven, streaked with evil red marks.

And maybe we can all join hands like we’re part of a sentimental Kumbaya circle, and we can build a huge fire in the center of us and each drop in the horrid math that did us in, whether it be elementary or astr0physical. At some point, we all find ourselves bent over a desk, pencil in hand, problem on the page, frozen. Unable to stroke out even the first step of what promises to be a complex, multi-faceted ordeal. In that moment, we will simultaneously let go of a piece of ourselves in such symbolism that the world will shake off its fetters, the constraints scholars call “math.”

We will rejoice. We will hold parades in the streets as if each one of us has just saved a baby from a terrorist. Each of us is a hero, complacent in striking down evil.

Throughout history, man has shown a capacity to burn what does not please him, whatever he cannot understand or he refuses to understand. Because I understand math and I don’t appreciate it, and if I don’t, then it should all burn, right? Then we can go on celebrating. Or maybe not.

Maybe I just don’t appreciate math because I’m terrible at it. Perhaps there are some lucky, math-minded people who subscribe to its infallible tendencies. That follow its unyielding tenets because routine is just that, a familiar way to live. I understand why someone might love math, though I do not. Of course, math has all the answers. They never change. Every time you do the problem, the answer is invariably the same, and there’s comfort in what is constant, what feels right and solid and always ready to be accessed. In terms of reliability  math far surpasses human behavior or literary meaning.

It’s true: I sometimes get a sneaking suspicion math could be enjoyable given the right mind for solving mysteries. Math is a maze, a problem to work through, a Rubix cube waiting to be made coordinating. I still don’t like it, and if I were to have it my way, I would light the math quizzes on fire. All of them.

But it’s not, and that’s not how life works. People disagree. We are passionate for different things. Some of us love books; some of us love calculators. And no matter what factions we divide ourselves into, we must never strive to burn away what the others take pleasure in.

Therefore, I salute you, math nerds. You have learned to love something repulsive to me, but I shall not judge you for your love. You love what you need to. It’s okay. I may not be attracted to math as you are; I may cringe at the idea of it. But what you do at night at your desk with a calculator, paper, and pencil, well, that’s your business.

Because beyond just numbers, math is something someone, I am sure, loves. And when someone loves something, you try not to burn it.

Progress Burning Into Blooms

Today, I’m getting things done. I mean, done in the sense Larry the Cable Guy would do them.

10:30, and an end to my work looms in the near future. Of course, I have still have two classes to labor through, but I’ve already completed the homework for both, and then what?

I have been editing “In Lickskillet” recently, and I have been reading a lot of novels (and comic books) recently. I have been tearing through text books and calculating mathematical things on my calculator. There is nothing more freeing and sigh-worthy than the rush of completing projects, from finishing what needs to be finished, doing what needs to be done.

The human mind aspires to a perfection it may never reach, but in reaching, we achieve so much. What I’m interested in is the burning. The burning of the mind, as if we’ve stored fat up there and we’re replacing it with tireless muscle. There are those that survive to flick fluff from their ears and cram in knowledge, and I’m obsessed with the flames, the burning of progress that spins its wheels into the future.

Everything we do becomes a mystery we’re solving, not just the stars and the galaxies and the inner-lives of the janitors that scrub our toilets, but everything. From calculus limits to ominously long German verbs to the mechanisms of political campaigns. Whether we’re consuming knowledge of the Kreb’s cycle or the mechanical workings of a motorcycle, we’re burning. We’re lighting scrolls on fire in our own minds, collecting the smoke at the top of our skulls and exhaling it into the world.

I suppose what I mean to say is, the beauty and joy of life is in the striving, the struggle, the progress. Once we’ve finished growing the flowers in our tiny dirt plot, we can admire how they bloom so colorful, but until then we must relish the dirt beneath our nails, the sweat on our lips as we shovel and till and plant.

So, apart from homework and studying, I’ve been editing this novel I have a lot of faith in. Not just faith, but belief– passionate conviction. Right now, I’m still snipping the rotten buds, pricking my fingers on all the thorns I accidentally cultivated, spilling blood onto pages to bring something strange and colorful to life.

And hopefully soon, while I wash the dirt from my raw hands, you can view the blooms that may come.

Summer Siesta: Napping is Healthy For You

Is it okay for adults to nap in the middle of the day? In muggy Charleston, encased in the humid month of August (a month’s equivalent of rubbing your face in hot, sweaty, Satan balls), this practice is completely acceptable. Like the cats I famously dislike, college students find themselves prone to dozing off at 3 in the afternoon. In fact, when surrounded by the miasma of teenage hormones, I find my Circadian cycle quite discombobulated. I sleep from 3 until 6, then stay up until 4 in the morning only to sleep until 10. Breakfast lasts until noon, and the rest of the day is already dinner, the notion of “lunch” lost somewhere in between.

What ever happened to my very adult schedule, my non-childish tendencies? When I would go to bed at 10 to wake up by 6, to put on a tie and loafers so I could work and pretend to be mature? Perhaps all of these mid-day dreams have spun me off my rhythm. One moment, I’m fighting dragons and naked with Ellen Page (Weird celebrity crush, I know, but you get the picture), then the next minute I’m bent over like some skeletal scholar taking notes on the integral of globalization and its effects on the Wirtschaft. (Wait, I’m not in German!)

But even without an exhausting haul of work, summer offers a time for sleep, for naps, for visits to Nod, to voyages across the Elysium. These naps take place on benches outside in the parks, in our dorms sprawled across the floor, in sunny and inviting grass, in the showers, or most commonly, in the last row of the class room.

Man needs sleep, doesn’t he? To replenish? To revive his soul for the next hard-nosed undertaking? Surely, naps are not only acceptable, but encouraged. For the college students, regular napping can even be essential for decreasing stress and increasing brain function. According to naturalnews.com, 70% of adult Americans suffer from sleep deprivation. Naturally, sleepiness leads to sloppiness and bad habits, so the more we avoid it, the better our brains function. In fact, napping directly after learning something new helps the brain retain the information.

And if you care to, you can read this quote from their article “Daytime naps improve performance.”

Daytime napping is an especially useful tool for recovering from sleep debt. Most experts agree that the optimal time period for a nap is between 10 and 30 minutes. Studies have not shown much improvement in smaller naps ranging around 5 minutes while longer napping periods can interfere with nighttime sleep.

So next time it’s only 12, you have a three hour break, and don’t feel like doing homework quite yet, why not catch up on your winks?

Reacting to the Critical Feedback

A day after arriving in Charleston (Yes, I’m in college now. I may not write about it too much at first, and yes, I finally solved the Roommate Mystery), I met up with the valedictorian from my old high school. Blog readers might know him best as the guy who wrote the treatise on the Chick-fil-A affair. We met in Marion Square a block from campus where they held a lovely Farmer’s Market.

Perhaps the word “lovely” serves too quaintly for what I saw downtown. In Aiken, we have a Farmer’s Market which consists of five tables filled with tomatoes, maybe heads of lettuce and watermelon when they’re in season. In Charleston, this same name is given to a row of booths stretched thousands of yards, scents from each tent intermingling to create a scent-solid fist that punches you in the taste buds. You wander over and must delight in the endless options, whether Vietnamese or French. I had a fine cappuccino and a Nutella crepe (Wait, am I in Germany again?)

With these delectable munchies, I sat down to talk with Will Victor who recently finished reading my novel “In Lickskillet.” If I am to learn anything about how to improve, I have to ask really smart people their honest opinions. Then apply those opinions to the work as a whole to understand how to better the story, the writing, the presentation.

But getting back feedback, even from friends, can be nerve-wracking. After all, you have placed a delicate porcelain doll in their hands, a doll so valuable to you that you’ve kept it under wraps for months, painting the face with care, and now this person has consummate permission to shatter the doll’s head against the ground. Writing opens you up in ways much grosser than emotions; rather, your skin gets split in dissection, your ribs pried apart in the same gruesome manner you once used on rats during biology class. You place your guts on display. You crack open your cranium to display all the dreams hiding within.

Because writing is personal, both personal and public. That’s one strange contradiction that words can flow from some inner fount only to be flaunted to the masses. You the poet writing poetry, sincere and true, but you do so in some coffeehouse where any stranger could peek over your shoulder. Writing a novel, it may not be specifically about you, but every story is a memoir and contains flecks of truth that could shock or amaze. You spend months creating something with so many parts of yourself that by the end, you find yourself missing organs.

Then you place this strange literary effigy in the town square for scrutiny.

And there’s your novel, your book, your story, your words. Like a middle school girl on her first day, applying make up for the first time, smudging the eyeliner on her forehead. You become a pinata braced for the beating, a flimsy piece of paper, shouting “Go ahead. Poke holes in me.”

Because feedback isn’t just feedback. It’s personal. Fortunately, Will had a lot of great things to say about the book. The small things he disliked, I understand why he disliked them. Actually, I was astonished at the scenes that he liked the most.

If you would like to form your own opinion and maybe even share that opinion with me, check out the super-short excerpt I posted yesterday on Word Salad!