You know those crazy people you meet on the bus?

Oh Toni, the crazy Asiaphile, you're the best.

[unfinished]

Reminder to self to post Black Militants.

Reminder to self to post Black Militants.

I was at McNally Robinson, waiting for Cat and...

Anonymous Lawyer: A Novel
Jeremy Blachman

I found this. Oh snap. I know what I'm reading next.

An excerpt:

I see you. I see you walking by my office, trying to look like you have a reason to be there. But you don't. I see the guilty look on your face. You try not to make eye contact. You try to rush past me as if you're going to the bathroom. But the bathroom is at the other end of the hall. You think I'm naïve, but I know what you're doing. Everyone knows. But she's my secretary, not yours, and her candy belongs to me, not you. And if I have a say in whether or not you ever become a partner at this firm—and trust me, I do—I'm not going to forget this. My secretary. My candy. Go back to your office and finish reading the addendum to the lease agreement. I don't want to see you in the hall for at least another sixteen hours. AND STOP STEALING MY CANDY.

And stop stealing my stapler, too. I shouldn't have to go wandering the halls looking for a stapler. I'm a partner at a half-billion-dollar law firm. Staplers should be lining up at my desk, begging for me to use them. So should the young lawyers who think I know their names. The Short One, The Dumb One, The One With The Limp, The One Who's Never Getting Married, The One Who Missed Her Kid's Funeral—I don't know who these people really are. You in the blue shirt—no, the other blue shirt—I need you to count the number of commas in this three-foot-tall stack of paper. Pronto. The case is going to trial seven years from now, so I'll need this done by the time I leave the office today. Remember: I can make or break you. I hold your future in my hands. I decide whether you get a view of the ocean or a view of the dumpster. This isn't a game. Get back to work. My secretary. My stapler. MY CANDY.

Amazon

oh, coffee.

listening to murmurs of Haskayne library
drinking Starbucks House, venti + black
procrastinating from studying for astronomy

coffe, oh coffee.

you are my worst enemy and best friend.

especially my good pal Starbucks. I don't <3 you for your 'prestige', I <3 you for your taste and caffeine power. I do <3 Starbucks from the business side of my brain though-- I <3 the brilliance of the Starbucks niche/aesthetic/you know what I mean, selling Ray Charles albums and stuff like that.

On best friends

Not too long ago, a friend (who is a close, great, spectacular friend) told me that I was one of their best friends.

Is it odd that it seems that I am many people's best friend, yet I don't consider myself to have a best friend? As much as I treasure the friendships of those I hold close, I cannot bring myself to apply the label of best friend to anyone.

There has to be a word for people like me. I'm thinking there's at least a bunch of us out there-- hey, maybe we should start a club. And you get kicked out if you get too close to any of your fellow members.

This has been a part of my life for a while now. On the other side of it, I can recall my "best friends" in chronological sequence. Christine, Homing, Kevin, Lisa.

Maybe that last one explains it, why I haven't had a best friend since.

Not sure how to merge two blogs, so...

I'm going to repost my old archives, even if they're pretty sparse.

And leave them unedited, for ...posterity.

A vagabond sitting next to an empty coffee, an open Nalgene, and closed books that should be opened

The taste of coffee reminds me of riding the transit downtown in the morning. Blinding sun, chill air, and the whir and hum of the transit coalesce into an urban ambience. A few shadows find niches in the light. Their starkness is matched by the starkness of the bare glances of tightly suited men and women as they step over the homeless dregs of the city core.

It is a typical Calgary morning.

I find my own age incomprehensible as I ride the train to the university. Twenty. Not so old, I know. If an older person somehow stumbles upon this blog as they are finding all and any alternatives to unfulfilling work, it would not surprise me if they laughed at my immaturity. Twenty is young. I know this-- not "only deep inside"-- it is obvious. Yet it stuns me nonetheless that in another lifetime as so far I have experienced --in another twenty years-- I will be dead, or forty years old. No, it's not that I am enough of a drama king to think that to be dead would be preferable. I just find it difficult to grasp; the concept of being forty, when I scarcely am able to contemplate the fact that I am twenty. Perhaps it's because despite all my lunging and leaping, I feel so unaccomplished, so unfulfilled. Words I spoke to a friend seem also personally relevant; I don't want to close any doors-- I don't want to miss any opportunities. So I haven't. But at what point do you have to leap through a door-- and when you make that leap, isn't it inevitable that you close a few along the way?

For many reasons, Social Psychology is probably my most favoritest class ever. For one, it was so personally relevant. I can still remember reading about integrative complexity for the first time. Integrative complexity refers to "the degree to which thinking and reasoning involve the recognition and integration of multiple perspectives and possibilities and their interrelated contingencies.refers to the degree to which thinking and reasoning involve the recognition and integration of multiple perspectives and possibilities and their interrelated contingencies." And integrative complexity is "a specific cognitive style that concerns the differentiation and integration of dimensions. Differentiation refers to the degree to which persons use different dimensions to discuss an issue. For instance, if a person uses a single dimension (e.g., good-bad) to discuss the issue, there would be no differentiation. Assuming that there is differentiation, the second aspect of integrative complexity concerns the degree to which two or more dimensions are related or connected. There can be no integration, some integration, or complex integration. The greater the degree of integration, the greater the integrative complexity. A person exhibiting the lowest level of integrative complexity recognizes only one perspective to a problem or an issue. Persons with higher levels of complexity recognize the existence of alternative perspectives, but see them as independent and unrelated. At the highest level of integrative complexity, there is recognition of the trade-offs among perspectives and solutions. Stolen from here.

According to the textbook we had in the class, a high level of integrative complexity apparently implied high intelligence and leadership skills.

I'm inclined to disagree. I myself am notoriously indecisive about what it is I want. I think that it has to do with a ridiculously high level of integrative complexity. Everything to me is multifaceted. Newton's laws apply to physics (well, most physics) but the artificial/organic mechanisms of... ugh, "life" are not physics. For every reaction, it is not that there is a lone equal action that was its cause; instead, these causing actions are countless, and each of them had some contribution to the reaction.

I feel that I should be satisfied. I take a look back, try to be objective. I compare myself to the situations of others, especially those who are --I would not say doomed- ...bound, then-- to a life of poverty simply by who and/or where they were born. It is not that I do not understand my own fortune. That whatever notions of material quantity or quality that I perceive I lack compared the economic elite that seem to, at the very least, pervade my faculty, are stupid, ridiculous, selfish and what have you. And in fact, I don't believe it to be for any material reason that I feel so unsatisfied. I understand very well, I think, that I have already won the lottery by being born on this side of the world. And that winning that birth lottery is like winning any lottery; it was purely by chance and was not through any virtue, talent or work of my own.

So what, then? Some say that it is enough that I understand this, appreciate it, and work all that much harder as a result-- and give back. I understand this reasoning. I feel that for the most part, I do all of those things.

But the feeling of unfulfillment persists.

In the past I have thought that this unfulfillment is --watch the integrative complexity (and doubtlessly cockiness) here-- at least partially caused by the fact that I am fairly sure I can succeed in whatever it is I want, at least academically. A teacher in Grade Nine told me that the world was my oyster. I have succeeded in everything in school that I have put my mind to; the only class I have ever done truly bad in was calculus; but I really do believe that that was more out of disinterest and lack of appreciation than any lack of ability. Yes, this is a cocky perspective. I know that. But it seems to be true. And as long as I perceive it to be true, it will be a thorn (a good thorn, I am aware) to understand that many doors are open. That most any door I would find appealing short of Super Bowl-winning NFL quarterback or NBA MVP point guard is open.

Maybe that is the true problem, then. Any door that I would "find appealing". Maybe I've stuck too much to the things I am good at (and so my cockiness has expanded, my friends [and especially brother] would tell you) and so then as a person, I have not grown as I should.

I really do think that this is a good point. I cannot dance. I am pretty sure I interview poorly. I lack story-telling ability. I can't play any instrument short of very amateurish recorder. Oh, and I can't wear hats, because of my huge and malformed skull.

This makes me feel better somehow.

Man, I'm weird.

You know what's even weirder? I can hear the integrative complexityish devil's advocacy-esque skeptical-ness coming on right now. "Fuck, you're not weird. You just want to think you're special."

And on, and on and on and on and on.