Car alarms. I hate them.
Just now, looking down from my apartment, I watched a pedestrian accidentally bump a car while walking between two cars to the sidewalk. The car alarm went off. And the noise of that alarm set off another car alarm.
I know -- it's an insurance thing. People install car alarms to get lower premiums. But those fuckers go off all the time. It's incredibly irritating at 4-5am.
Truth is -- if someone was breaking into a car, was successful, and the car alarm started going off, I'd ignore it. .I'm so used to hearing them, I'm going to ignore it just as I've learned to ignore every other car alarm in the city.
In fact, as long as the thieves promise to drive that loud, irritating alarm away from me, I'll be totally happy to have it gone.
Just now, looking down from my apartment, I watched a pedestrian accidentally bump a car while walking between two cars to the sidewalk. The car alarm went off. And the noise of that alarm set off another car alarm.
I know -- it's an insurance thing. People install car alarms to get lower premiums. But those fuckers go off all the time. It's incredibly irritating at 4-5am.
Truth is -- if someone was breaking into a car, was successful, and the car alarm started going off, I'd ignore it. .I'm so used to hearing them, I'm going to ignore it just as I've learned to ignore every other car alarm in the city.
In fact, as long as the thieves promise to drive that loud, irritating alarm away from me, I'll be totally happy to have it gone.
Right now, I ought to be struggling along, furthering my academic career. I'm not. I'm just pretending. I've got the stacks of academic papers, funny-looking formulas, and various scribbles piled all around, but they've just been idle, like me, for an hour now.
It's already oppressively hot this morning. This makes for desperate refugees who lurk in cafes, who outwear our welcomes, and who gulp down more free internet than caffeine. I don't really need either, but the change of scene and A/C are better than staring at my own walls while supposedly working on this supposed project.
And of course, I'm *still* recovering from an unlikely bicycle fiasco of weeks ago, so any ambitions to see the world are out, too. There'll be no backpacks, passports, or distant attractions anytime soon; my most exciting trip right now is climbing the stairs to my apartment, preferably without the involuntary groans or the bizarre sensation of my bones actually scraping together. As minor as my injuries are, I've also learned they imply the following: no swimming, no long bike rides, no jogging, no walking home from the grocery store with large bags of produce, no digging through dumpsters for large curiosities, no acrobatic sexual fun, no playing catch with dogs, no extended naps on the couch, no lying in the grass, and well -- no damn fun at all.
So here I am, too mentally exhausted to work, too physically defeated to do anything else. My best diversion is to ramble incoherently into a blog post, and maybe stir up my Untimely persona with color and intrigue.
Look at all the students here. So intent. Clearly more serious than I am. There's a diversity of topics too; I can see Biology books, french books, some books on business accounting, and there's one person with two scientific calculators and several pencils. It's something to appreciate. Right here is where the learning is really happening, people are struggling to master the hard-earned knowledge of their fields, and they're possibly going to do something with it. Well, maybe.
Also, I can't help but notice the percentage of girls here -- okay, I don't mean I'm noticing them that way
, -- I mean, almost all of these students are girls. Maybe there's some phenomena that more women prefer to study in cafes, (or maybe just this cafe), I don't know, but maybe it's also reflection of the statistic that women, these days, are both outnumbering and outperforming men at almost every level of education.
Maybe such statistics mean that our education system is becoming more fair and open than it once was. And if so, I'd like to think it will continue. May all our best minds have equal access to knowledge and the opportunities to contribute. Indeed, maybe I should be happy about this observation, and I should leave this blog entry on a positive, hopeful note that things are getting better for the world? Maybe I should be glad that society has finally woken up to the potential of all its members? Maybe I should look forward to a brighter future for all of us?
Nope. Instead, I think I'll grab the dagger of resentment and twist it around a bit:
Let this be a fucking lesson to us. How many years has this taken? And in those years, how many people have been denied the chance to learn, to research, and to contribute to our society because of different forms of foolish discrimination? This isn't just about making things fair to everyone, this is also about all of society benefiting from the contributions of people who might have really given us something useful. How many brilliant, inquisitive, creative scientists have been kept out of college, or out of research fields, or out of other realms of achievement which would benefit all of us?
We'll never know how many brilliant minds were kept from advancement for reasons other than merit. And therefore, we'll never know how many great ideas have been lost forever. We'll never know how many truly gifted scientists might have already given us cures for cancer. We'll never know how many people might have developed surgical techniques or identified helpful drugs or discovered chemical compounds which could have prevented suffering of all kinds. We'll never hear the ideas about economics, or public policy, or mathematics, or psychiatry which those people could have given us.
I'm not just spouting rhetoric. I'm also concerned for my own selfish sake, right now, today. One of those brilliant minds could very well have been an orthopedic surgeon, and right now, today, I could be benefiting from the orthopedic advances which right now, today obviously doesn't exist. And right now, today, I'm still suffering.
So, fuck you, discrimination. Fuck you, ignorant bigots of the past. Fuck you for subverting the brilliance which could have provided the miracle cure to keep me from sitting here, miserable, all summer.
Sure, I was the one that fell on my ass like an idiot, but somehow, I still blame you, you glass ceilling on the ivory towers of yesteryear. I know that my nonexistent wonder cure is a victim of the idea that some people would be better off tending the home instead of the laboratory. I just know that one of those denied scientists could have made my life better.
And I know it, because I fucking feel it in my bones.
It's already oppressively hot this morning. This makes for desperate refugees who lurk in cafes, who outwear our welcomes, and who gulp down more free internet than caffeine. I don't really need either, but the change of scene and A/C are better than staring at my own walls while supposedly working on this supposed project.
And of course, I'm *still* recovering from an unlikely bicycle fiasco of weeks ago, so any ambitions to see the world are out, too. There'll be no backpacks, passports, or distant attractions anytime soon; my most exciting trip right now is climbing the stairs to my apartment, preferably without the involuntary groans or the bizarre sensation of my bones actually scraping together. As minor as my injuries are, I've also learned they imply the following: no swimming, no long bike rides, no jogging, no walking home from the grocery store with large bags of produce, no digging through dumpsters for large curiosities, no acrobatic sexual fun, no playing catch with dogs, no extended naps on the couch, no lying in the grass, and well -- no damn fun at all.
So here I am, too mentally exhausted to work, too physically defeated to do anything else. My best diversion is to ramble incoherently into a blog post, and maybe stir up my Untimely persona with color and intrigue.
Look at all the students here. So intent. Clearly more serious than I am. There's a diversity of topics too; I can see Biology books, french books, some books on business accounting, and there's one person with two scientific calculators and several pencils. It's something to appreciate. Right here is where the learning is really happening, people are struggling to master the hard-earned knowledge of their fields, and they're possibly going to do something with it. Well, maybe.
Also, I can't help but notice the percentage of girls here -- okay, I don't mean I'm noticing them that way
, -- I mean, almost all of these students are girls. Maybe there's some phenomena that more women prefer to study in cafes, (or maybe just this cafe), I don't know, but maybe it's also reflection of the statistic that women, these days, are both outnumbering and outperforming men at almost every level of education. Maybe such statistics mean that our education system is becoming more fair and open than it once was. And if so, I'd like to think it will continue. May all our best minds have equal access to knowledge and the opportunities to contribute. Indeed, maybe I should be happy about this observation, and I should leave this blog entry on a positive, hopeful note that things are getting better for the world? Maybe I should be glad that society has finally woken up to the potential of all its members? Maybe I should look forward to a brighter future for all of us?
Nope. Instead, I think I'll grab the dagger of resentment and twist it around a bit:
Let this be a fucking lesson to us. How many years has this taken? And in those years, how many people have been denied the chance to learn, to research, and to contribute to our society because of different forms of foolish discrimination? This isn't just about making things fair to everyone, this is also about all of society benefiting from the contributions of people who might have really given us something useful. How many brilliant, inquisitive, creative scientists have been kept out of college, or out of research fields, or out of other realms of achievement which would benefit all of us?
We'll never know how many brilliant minds were kept from advancement for reasons other than merit. And therefore, we'll never know how many great ideas have been lost forever. We'll never know how many truly gifted scientists might have already given us cures for cancer. We'll never know how many people might have developed surgical techniques or identified helpful drugs or discovered chemical compounds which could have prevented suffering of all kinds. We'll never hear the ideas about economics, or public policy, or mathematics, or psychiatry which those people could have given us.
I'm not just spouting rhetoric. I'm also concerned for my own selfish sake, right now, today. One of those brilliant minds could very well have been an orthopedic surgeon, and right now, today, I could be benefiting from the orthopedic advances which right now, today obviously doesn't exist. And right now, today, I'm still suffering.
So, fuck you, discrimination. Fuck you, ignorant bigots of the past. Fuck you for subverting the brilliance which could have provided the miracle cure to keep me from sitting here, miserable, all summer.
Sure, I was the one that fell on my ass like an idiot, but somehow, I still blame you, you glass ceilling on the ivory towers of yesteryear. I know that my nonexistent wonder cure is a victim of the idea that some people would be better off tending the home instead of the laboratory. I just know that one of those denied scientists could have made my life better.
And I know it, because I fucking feel it in my bones.
If I post a blog, then my life here will be official.
Now that the initiation whippings and various unspeakable hazings are finally over, I've resigned myself to haphazardly filling up these little boxes with words.
Long ago, a therapist once suggested I keep a journal.
She didn't specify whether or not it should involve naked women. But I'm willing to try anything.
So far, it seems the biggest difference between writing a blog and drunkenly posting to groups, (which is my main accomplishment so far), is that I can create context for any of the SG emoticons, such as:
, with little or no relevance to anything which has been said before.
For example, if I wanted to conjure up some romantic comedy between
and 
, I could create an entire screenplay around it, and nobody will complain about how I hijacked the ongoing flamewar regarding anal sex ( 
) , drinking ( 
) or Britney Spears ( 
).
Anyway, Ahoy mates!
If you've followed along this far, I should tell you this important thing:
Now that the initiation whippings and various unspeakable hazings are finally over, I've resigned myself to haphazardly filling up these little boxes with words.
Long ago, a therapist once suggested I keep a journal.
She didn't specify whether or not it should involve naked women. But I'm willing to try anything.
So far, it seems the biggest difference between writing a blog and drunkenly posting to groups, (which is my main accomplishment so far), is that I can create context for any of the SG emoticons, such as:
, with little or no relevance to anything which has been said before.For example, if I wanted to conjure up some romantic comedy between
and , I could create an entire screenplay around it, and nobody will complain about how I hijacked the ongoing flamewar regarding anal sex ( ) , drinking ( ) or Britney Spears ( ).Anyway, Ahoy mates!
If you've followed along this far, I should tell you this important thing:
FEBRUARY 2009
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NOVEMBER 2008