Summer Reading

Read (or at least start):

• Fresh Air Fiend by Paul Theroux
• Ulysses by James Joyce (22 CDs of audiobook, aborted)
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (in progress)
• The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sachs
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin
• Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle by Moritz Thomsen

Online book club, anyone?

Drafts

• Date: 6/3/10
  Title: Going Solo
  Premise: Reflect on the experience of leading a volunteer group. Draw parallels to working for the Park Service, except now you're a leader instead of a follower. Explain the exhilarating pride of moving up the ladder.
  Quote: "I stood in front of the semi-circle of high school kids."
• Date: 4/19/10
  Title: Day 109
  Premise: Describe the sex noises coming from upstairs. Compare it to a leaky roof, but for sounds instead of water. Use humor and a third-person narrative to reassure yourself that you're not a whiner. But really, you hate (and possibly envy) these fucking people.
  Quote: "His apartment had a leaky ceiling. Every now and again, drama seeped through the floorboards from above."
• Date: 3/15/10
  Title: Day 74
  Premise: Use first person. Reflect upon the recent experience of rejection. Use writing as a way of catching your breath.
  Quote: "I'm not going to publish this post. This isn't that kind of a blog."
• Date: 12/7/09
  Title: Billie
  Premise: Recount the conversation you had with the schizophrenic performance artist who hangs around campus.
  Quote: "deserted marines in 1967"
• Date: 11/6/09
  Title: Brothers
  Premise: Reflect on how you wished for brothers as a child. Compare that with your current living situation: two other dudes in a one-bedroom apartment.
  Quote: "He expected it to be something like summer camp, except every day."
• Date: 10/27/09
  Title: The Joy of Economics
  Premise: Explain your former philosophical/moral code that was based upon Economics. Critique its internal logic and self-justification.
  Quote: "The truth is that there is a lot of suffering in the world. The joy of economics comes from the reassurance that it's okay that I did nothing."
• Date: 10/21/09
  Title: Games
  Premise: Explain your general lack of competitive spirit, with specific regards to board games. Perhaps explore the dark, perverted nature of your love/hate for competition.
  Quote: "He liked to win."
• Date: 9/26/09
  Title: Current Pretensions
  Premise: Explain how you're a pretentious sonofabitch.
  Quote: "Igor Stravinsky and correspondence chess."
• Date: 9/21/09
  Title: (Untitled)
  Premise: Describe the guy you saw earlier today.
  Quote: "He walked down the street, false confidence in his stride. He held a bundle of flowers in front of him, gripped in his right hand like he was ready for battle."

Day 120

Pooping on campus can be something of an ordeal for the uninitiated, but follow these helpful hints, and you'll be on your way to mid-day gastro-intestinal relief in no time!

Step 1: Find the right building. Ideal buildings are new or have been recently renovated. It helps to think which departments get funding for those sorts of things. For me, that would mean going to the engineering/business/biological sciences buildings. I tried using the bathroom in the Anthropology/Art building (Kroeber) once, but there was a hobo taking a nap in one of the stalls. Like, a real hobo, with a bindle and everything. Traffic is also an important factor to take into consideration. Always choose graduate student/professor bathrooms over undergraduate bathrooms.

Step 2: Find the bathroom. Some floorplans are less intuitive than others. A rule of thumb I like to use is to follow the plumbing. If I can spot a water fountain, that usually means that I'm pretty hot.

Step 3: Check cleanliness. A visual check of the toilet seat is pretty important. My general criterion is for moisture/liquids. I like to avoid public toilet seats with foreign moisture/liquids on them. When this happens, I go to the next stall over. If I exhaust all the stalls in a given bathroom, I go to a harder to reach, less accessible (and by extension, cleaner) bathroom. This usually means climbing some stairs to a spot directly overhead the bathroom on the lower level.

Step 4: Poop!

Day 118

Things I wish I could do but can't:

• throat sing
• use an abacus
• circular breath (and by extension, play the didgeridoo)
• enjoy grapefruit

Day 102

I'm not a vegetarian by any stretch of the imagination; I'm definitely someone who sees the coagulated sausage grease in the frying pan as an opportunity to enhance my tofu-eggplant stirfry. But I've cut back my meat consumption considerably in the past week. A lot of it has to do with how I shop. Ironically, the bell peppers at Berkeley Bowl (my local purveyor of self-righteous fodder) are more expensive than the chicken at Safeway on a per-pound basis. On a per-calorie basis, veggies are definitely more expensive. It sounds a bit absurd, but I need to find a source of fat in my diet.

Anyway, here's a quick rundown of the relative pros/cons of reduced meat consumption that I've experienced.

Pros:

• sustainability
• freshness
• all the entertaining people at Berkeley Bowl
• the taste of self-righteousness
• greater appreciation for meat when I do have it
• bowel movements that could win the Indie 500

Cons:

• constant hunger
• more frequent shopping

As far as cons go, I think the two that I've listed are interlinked. I just haven't gotten a feel yet for the sheer volume of food that I have to consume. As such, I can make a pile of cucumbers and tomatoes disappear for a midnight snack and still feel oddly unsatiated. I think I'm still adjusting to what foods I need to buy in place of meats. I'm burning through bags of bulk dried fruit with alarming rapidity. I probably should have gotten more nuts. Aw nuts!

I have to admit though, that the spicy tofu-eggplant that I whipped up for lunch today was pretty bitchin'. I put in cilantro and lime juice, which were nice touches, though it was the diced jalapeno that really made the dish. It brought so many delicious tears of pain to my eyes. Definitely something I'll try to recreate in the days to come.

Meta-List

Shopping

• ox-tail (for stew)
• used pants
• return textbooks
• a donut
  

To do (today)

• go to bank (deposit birthday check)
• go to post office (mail thank you card to Auntie Norma)
• go running
  

To do (this week)

• pack things for moving out
• move into Berkeley apartment
  
• negotiate work hours with employers
• celebrate 19th birthday
• hang out with Kyle
  
• withdraw from summer school

To do (this month)

• take Karyn somewhere nice for dinner
• get dad a birthday gift
  

Reading

• The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
  
• Why We are Hungry, Dave Eggers
• Fresh Air Fiend, Paul Theroux
• For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
• Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
  

Ways that I am like my dad

We both:
1. like old war movies like Bridge on the River Kwai.
2. drink black coffee.
3. enjoy cracking our necks.
4. eat sardines with crackers.
5. read books like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
6. are skeptical of anything that sounds too good.
7. like to backpack in the Sierra Nevada.
8. tan easily in the sun.
9. dislike driving.