Discussting

Discussting
Where I reveal myself to you in terrible ways

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

I had great hopes for the new James Frey book after reading a book review in the The New York Times. The review entitled "James Frey's terrible new book" in today's LA Times quashed that.

posted by Michael | 9:15 AM

Monday, April 28, 2008

When I wrote the email to that guy asking about clothing, I also asked him about a couple of women in his section. I asked if they were in relationships because they're both kind of cute.

When I was thinking about this earlier this morning, it made me think about my teeth. It made me think about my teeth because one of my front teeth is discolored and has been for about ten years or more. In the past two years I have considered getting it fixed but the idea makes me nervous. In the shower this morning, I came up with two reasons why.

1. I am thinking of getting a cap. I have had two caps before and neither has turned out well. One fell off and I didn't get it fixed in time and now that tooth is gone. The other turns out to have a cyst under it that is eating away my jawbone. So it turns out that caps and me don't have a very good history. So what happens if I get a cap on this tooth? What happens when it goes wrong? At the moment the tooth is discolored but it's whole and it's mine. Putting a cap on it creates a large window of opportunity for damage and the loss of that tooth.

2. Without the tooth to hide behind, who am I? If I cannot hide behind excuses, I will be more easily revealed as a fraud. I believe that I am a fraud anyway, no matter how many people believe in me or like me. (A friend was just saying this the other day about a couple she knows: "But K & K like you!" She was inviting me to a party of people she knows and I don't. "Knowing that is true and feeling differently about myself are two different things," I responded.)

So if the tooth is no longer a gate to somehow weed people out (they have to get to know me and like me for me, not "just for my looks" [God that's funny]), what will people find out about me? They will soon find out that I talk a lot and do not act, which is more disgusting to human nature than being physically ugly. (Or at least I believe this to be so and whip myself with it.)

I will admit that I have a dream sequence wherein I smile and people notice that I look exponentially better - it's like those Viagra ads except I am smiling shyly, rather than walking around ramrod straight (no pun intended) with confidence. Having a cute, "normal" smile would be a huge leap in the looks and "less shame" department.

But then I would have to contend with living up to my word; doing what I say I'm going to do; being who I claim I am. This is much harder because of the muddled self-loathing that shouts me down anytime I try to get excited about something. "You're a dreamer! You're a fucking loser! No one will listen to you! They're going to laugh at you, you fucking pathetic twit! And you're fat as well." That's the inaudible internal soundtrack that plays whenever I want to do something constructive. It's kind of hard to get rid of and I have this problem where I believe it completely.

Anyway (I just took a break to write to my siblings about that feeling, asking them if it happens to them), the note that I wrote to myself about this was "hunchback." I imagined that I was like a hunchback; that people always shunned me for my physicality but by the same token it gave me a certain place and a certain distance from everyone, a way to be apart. Without it, I would suddenly be vulnerable in a way I never was before and uncertain about how to get along in the world that everyone else is already in.

posted by Michael | 3:28 PM

I have beautiful hair.

No, really! It's very pretty hair. It's very fine and has a good light-brown color and it falls in a nice way.

The problem is, I'm losing it.

It's very obvious. I'm balding in the front and in the back and not in "cool" or "macho" ways but rather the sad, pathetic way. You can see through it in the front and there is a growing "hole in the ozone layer" in the back. The sad(der) part is that I haven't gotten it cut in a while so it's halfway to long, which is a terrible combination. I originally got it cut because I was starting to bald and balding men with long hair are so, so lame.

But the other day when a few strands fell down in my face, all I could do was reflect on how truly lovely the hair was and play with it and wish that I was a sexy person to go with my sexy hair.

And of course I never appreciated my hair when I had it. I grew it out for years but never really did anything with it (or took it anywhere). <-- Which is to say, I never went out. I never took advantage of my excellent hair by showing it off at clubs or malls or what have you. I stayed home and read on the couch and napped. Of course, at the time I would have told you that I looked like a shlub and it would have been pointless to go out anyway. Well now I look even more like a shlub, so I know that shlub wasn't that bad.

Oh well.

posted by Michael | 3:15 PM

I dress like a journalist. That is to say, sloppy. Today I'm wearing brown pants (not polyester; more like jeans or, uh, "dungarees" I would say), a cheap light-blue shirt and a red tie. I'm wearing the tie because I have on casual pants on a Monday and because the shirt is so cheap and old and seems threadbare. I actually sent an email to a guy in my department asking him how often he buys his suits because I never buy clothes and don't know how much is "enough" and how often to buy new pants or whatever. I say I dress like a journalist because I went by a mirror at some point and that's the glimpse that I got. I type people - including myself - and while usually I get the "programmer/possible child molester," when you add the tie it turns out I look somewhat academic. Still like I have a sedentary occupation (writer) but with a bit more cache.

posted by Michael | 3:09 PM

Sunday, April 27, 2008

David Rockefeller just gave $100 million to Harvard University. Why not give it to another school or give 5 $20m gifts to five schools to spread the opportunity around? Harvard already has tons of money and their enrollment isn't going to increase. But if he had given the money to a number of schools, he could have created a much wider constituency of people going abroad and maybe created a whole different result. Oh, well.

Labels: endowments, Harvard, Rockefeller, study abroad

posted by Michael | 5:00 PM

You know what would be a good idea for pot growers? To buy solar panels so they can take themselves off the power grid and they can't be tracked that way. Of course, that won't help with aerial infared scans of houses for excess heat. Still, it would be a good way to lower costs and possibility of capture.

posted by Michael | 2:51 PM

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

I don't want to read. I don't want to watch TV. I'm not interested in going to the movies. I don't even really want to eat, for God's sake.

I think this is about money. I need to borrow some.

The only people in my family who are good with their money are my oldest brother and my younger sister. My younger sister is in California and can't get money to me easily. Plus, she wouldn't want to and would scold me and she's had money problems of her own recently.

My brother, on the other hand, is right here in town. And I've borrowed money from him before. Years ago, I used to do it all the time - $200 here, $400 there. He, I'm sure, hoped that time was over.

But paying my taxes dropped me down to a dangerously low level of money and I don't have enough to pay my tax bill (which is for taxes 5 years old, because I didn't file them for about three or four years), nor my other automatic bills (some of which I could cancel but right now it's just not practical).

So yesterday I emailed him to ask him for money - $400 - until the first. I didn't want to do it. I really didn't. The main emotion that I projected onto him in doing this was disappointment. Disappointment is devastating. There would also be annoyance at me, for not having solved this problem, for not having cleaned up my finances. But this combination of annoyance and frustration (that, admittedly, I am projecting) makes me sick to my stomach, makes me want to ask anyone else but him. But there is no one else. I don't talk to anyone else; it would be awkward to ask anyone else. I sent an email to a good friend of mine a week ago asking for $300 but she wasn't reading her emails and I wasn't going to bring it up again. I've considered asking her wife, who should/might have just gotten paid for a contract job she did but that would be really awkward and I don't want to.

So the option that's in my mind now is to go to a payday loan place. I am exactly the type of person those places are for and exactly the type of person that shouldn't be going to them. I had a credit card once? I defaulted on it and had to pay $2500 to not go to court. Dad helped me out of that one. Guess what? Dad's dead now; no one to help me out.

The disappointment that I mentioned earlier is something I associate with dad. I never asked dad for money if I could help it because I couldn't give him anything in return and I couldn't promise it would never happen again. Two or three years ago was the last time I borrowed money from him. I used to have to take these hiatuses from my job for legal reasons and in those short spaces (3 months) I was never very good at making money. So each year (or every other) I probably asked him for $500 or $700. (I think this last time it was $800.) But to ask for the money is shameful; it makes me feel like a junkie - yes, it's me again; yes, I screwed up in the same way as before; yes, I need you to bail me out again. The shame makes you sick inside and there's really no one you can turn to or no way to get out of it. The only advantage of going to a payday loan place is that no one would have to know. (I would probably tell everyone, but that's a different story.)

Labels: depression, sickness

posted by Michael | 6:56 AM

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

My life is completely empty. I'm only staying alive because that's what you're supposed to do. And I'm afraid of death. Other than that, I have no idea what to do with my life because I don't expect it will work out. So I'm in living stasis. Which is essentially hell.

posted by Michael | 2:50 PM

The difference between knowing about life and applying it to yourself is vast. For instance, I know that I like kids and I believe in volunteering. I haven't volunteered (consistently) in four or more years. Last year or the year before I looked up Children's Hospital here in Washington because there's a bus near my house that goes directly there. They had a one day training and you have to commit for six months.

I think it was the six months that got me. I don't like to commit to anything. Because I live my life by someone else's rules, I am always waiting for the wind to blow and take me where it will. Because of this, I rarely will commit to anything because I want to be ready to be taken away by the supernatural force that I have imagined is going to change my life.

If I were more realistic, I would make myself the "supernatural" force in my life and build something on my own. Instead I wait for someone (or something) greater than myself to lift me out of my life and create me anew.

This attitude is probably what has made me most unhappy.

This past weekend I watched the movie "Waking Life." I saw it in the theatre when it came out and was intrigued. When I saw it on Amazon some years ago for $9, I bought it on impulse.

Watching the movie, the message pulsing at me from the screen was: choice. I was having a miserable weekend because I couldn't make myself do the things I needed to do and as a result I was doing nothing and having a miserable time. If I had chosen to act rather than be passive, I probably would have felt better. (Just going to work would have given me the opportunity to watch some TV shows on my computer, which would have been a vast improvement over sitting at home with snowy reception for sports [which I'm not a big fan of anyway].)

Today I was reading someone's website where they talked about their list of regrets, which was categorized by those things not done rather than those things done. My life tends to be a wasteland of time because I choose "not" rather than "do" in many instances. I have more time than money but I'm more willing to give money to a cause than to go out of my way to volunteer my time. I can't get myself excited enough about the experience and I see it as a chance to fail rather than a chance to shine.

Labels: life

posted by Michael | 12:22 PM

Monday, April 21, 2008

Legitimate Jobs That Guy From the "Jumper" Movie Could Have Had

Transplant organ transporter
EMT
Internet Fraud cop (he could "jump" to the location the second the purchase showed up)

posted by Michael | 2:34 PM

I wonder if a middle- or upper-class Chinese person would feel like I do when reading this story and watching this video; if - like in America - they might start some kind of volunteer movement to reach out to and help another segment of society. For instance, the video mentions how the parents are illiterate; I can imagine an enterprising American starting a volunteer organization to go into the migrant towns and teach literacy to the adults, to help them improve their lot in life. (Here such things have blossomed into full, government-supported programs; I know in south central PA, where I am from, there are whole programs aimed at helping the migrant worker community. A friend of mine from high school used to work for one.)

Labels: China, literacy, migrants

posted by Michael | 10:57 AM

There was an article in the WSJ on April 12 about Chinese migrant families and how many of them are forced to separate as the parents leave the children behind to go into the city to make money to support the families.

My solution, of course, is to create some kind of huge social/volunteer program to help those families, namely by sending people out into those country areas to support the children and create some kind "family" for them.

Originally, I was thinking of Americans - kids in college or just out of college that want to see the world and experience something difficult. I think 3, 6, or 12 months in the Chinese countryside would be a challenging experience. They could go to learn Chinese and be teachers of English and de facto guardians (house parents, let's say) for some of the children.

It occurs to me now that this idea would never fly with the Chinese government (or people, probably) and would be portrayed as a kind of "cultural invasion" (just as the right-wing portrays the immigrant flows into this country from Mexico). So it should probably be done intra-country (not that that would ever work); sending middle-class kids into the countryside for six months to experience more of China and to understand the challenges facing the country as a whole as it grows. It would be halfway cultural revolution, halfway generic patriotism/nationalism to send half the country to help the other half out. On the "cultural revolution" side, it would be a call for the middle-class and elites to learn about the "peasant" class and understand the problems of the less-well-off in their country; on the patriotism side it would be the country helping itself out, the national will of the people healing a wound in the country.

Something the article also made me curious about was the availability of air travel in China. There was talk about the huge train problems over the holidays this winter and it made me wonder if there is much plane travel inside the mainland between cities. Of course now, as fuel prices are skyrocketing, is not exactly the time to start an intra-China airline but it might alleviate some of those rail problems. (Of course, so would good infrastructure and pride of service.)

Labels: children, China, migrants, transportation

posted by Michael | 10:37 AM

Thursday, April 17, 2008

I know I've done this before but I was thinking about it again today:

I think Brad Pitt should have some kind of nation-wide contest to do something with recycling or foreign aid (microloans?). He should offer himself as the prize, in these ways:

Grand Prize: Attend a movie premiere with Brad and two friends.*
1st Prize: Brad comes to your school and gives a speech.
2nd Prize: Video conference with Brad (20mins to half hour).
3rd Prize: Phone call from Brad (conference or one recipient?).
4th Prize: ?? (hand written letter?)
5th Prize: Autographed photo

(Maybe fourth prize could be a letter of recommendation for college. Oh, did I mention this contest was supposed to be for high school students? Maybe I left that out.)

*Doesn't have to be a movie Brad's in. I'm sure he can get invites to other movies.

Maybe the photo can be one he took himself or one Angelina took of him. I was going to say maybe he could give away one of his kid's drawings but that's going over the line. So maybe he could do a series of drawings or something and sign them and give those away. Or a piece of film with him on it (outtake from a movie he was in - unless they threw them all away).

Labels: Brad Pitt, contest, prizes

posted by Michael | 12:48 PM

Why is it that even with my roommate, who I know accepts me and maybe even thinks I'm funny, I still have a hard time telling a joke? The other night I was trying to make some humorous comment or make a joke and I felt the tears well up in my eyes, ready to pour out if he made any kind of slighting remark. What is that? Why am I always expecting someone to rip my heart out?

posted by Michael | 12:46 PM