Tonight we went to an open mic night at the church. I heard a girl sing a beautiful rendition of "His Eye is On the Sparrow".

Whenever I hear people sing beautifully I invariably think the same thing:

One day she will be dead, and no one will remember how she sang so beautifully.

I read that about scientists, sometimes.

"He was a prolific scientist, and an accomplished banjo player."

"But now he's dead," I always think, "so all of the time he spent learning to play the banjo was wasted."

Maybe his banjo playing was what everybody loved about him, then, and nobody in his life could care less about his scientific writing. Now it is the opposite.

Ainsi tout passe sur la terre
Esprit, Beaut�, Gr�ce, Talent
Telle est une fleur �ph�m�re
Que renverse le moindre vent.

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To celebrate my new-found free time, I am learning to play the bodhr�n. I bought the bodhr�n at the end of my thesis, but I only got as far as some pretty inconsistent triplets before I had to move to France. Now, thanks to my parents carting a giant drum with them when they visited, I get to start playing it again.

It is going pretty well so far. No word yet from the neighbors.


I'm going to beat you like a drum.

Tonight, sushi with the girls.

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Be it extremely emotional, controversial, messed up, or whatever, this entry has been password protected.

If you know it, enter it; or, ask me for it.

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Be it extremely emotional, controversial, messed up, or whatever, this entry has been password protected.

If you know it, enter it; or, ask me for it.

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No, not that kind of WASP, di-di, insect wasps.

I woke up around 9 as usual. The three wasp stings on my left arm, which had yesterday swollen my bicep by several inches, had morphed into an arm-full of tiny little itchy red dots. Now I'm not sure if I'm allergic to the wasp sting or the cream that I put on to soothe the wasp sting. As of this writing the spots have doubled in density and spread down my arm. Another bite of some kind appeared on my eyelid, which, as usual, swelled my eyelid to quasi-modo status. It didn't itch all day, but it itches now... LIKE A BITCH. The secretary wanted me to go to the doctor, but, hilariously, all of these things have happened before and they worked themselves out after a couple of days, so nbd.

In addition to the above, I came down with a terrible cold (in the SUMMER) so I've been coughing up a storm. This morning I coughed so hard that I pulled a muscle deep in my chest/back somewhere, and I couldn't pick up anything with my right hand for most of the day.

To top it all off, I got a gigantic zit right on the end of my nose. I put some Clearasil 4 hour cream on it, and it did the opposite of advertised-- that is, instead of making my zit visibly reduced in size and redness, it doubled it in size and make it bright red and white. Cool.

I went home at lunchtime in defeat. I worked from my apartment and swilled Perrier like a mofo to beat the heat. I'm addicted to Perrier. All the bubbles and fullness of a soda, with zero of the toothaches and calories. With all of my bubbly water I was feeling a bit too European, so I stopped by Mickey-D's for some cheeseburgers. I killed three wasps, including one that seemed like a queen of sorts. Or, from my research, maybe just a female FULL OF WASP EGGS. FUCKING WASPS. They should all die this summer because they are parasitic and I killed all of their hosts, but that isn't really soon enough anymore. I want to fumigate the whole place again but I have a GUEST coming next week and I don't really have time to air it out before then. I warned her that she might be stung by tiny wasps but she was unfazed. Seriously, though, my arm has the texture of a basketball.

After working I went to a movie by myself. It was a chick movie, you see, and I don't know any chicks who speak French who are not on vacation. It was called "Paris � Tout Prix" and it's about a fashion designer in Paris with Moroccan roots who gets deported because she forgot to renew her carte de s�jour. Who among us hasn't been there, amirite? Anyway, you can see where this is going... she has to go back to her family's house and to become reacquainted with all of the roots that she had been trying to forget about while she was in Paris being fashionable and stuff. Enter hot Moroccan guy, a contest to design the perfect dress for the fashion show in three weeks... I pretty much knew what was going to happen after I saw the trailer, but that's why I went to see it.

Spoiler Alert:
She ends up reconciling with her family, making the perfect dress (inspired by Morocco, and with the help of her grandmother-who-taught-her-how-to-sew-originally), which wins her a coveted full-time job. Hot Moroccan guy falls in love with her and MOVES TO PARIS to be with her, they vacation all the time in Morocco, she gets everything she wants. I kinda doubt that if I went home to Denver and met a hot American boy that he would agree to move to Paris with me so that I could further my [atmospheric] modeling career. In all the American movies the girl has to go back to the countryside and live wherever the country boy wants to live. How is that fair? Anyway, one theme is that she doesn't want to give up her life in Paris because she busted her ass for ten years to get where she's gotten and if she moved back to Morocco it would have been just as good for her never to have left or busted her ass at all. I guess I can relate to that.

Reminds me of this song I used to listen to all the time in college:



Maybe Bon Jovi has some advice on this matter:

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I liked to imagine the soul as an infinitesimal point which acted as a gateway into the infinite beyond. Through this gateway came all things that were good, all new things, all new thoughts that had never been thought and ideas that had never been imagined. The more room you left for this source, the stronger the flux would become. The traditional analogy is that between the soul and a pinprick of light.

There were always those certain, special people, those people who were brilliant, who lit up the whole room, shining from the inside out like Jesus rising to Heaven.

There were also those whose source was blocked. Perhaps a tiny trickle of light might sneak through, visible only in the absence of other light. These people were the grays of the world, rearrangers, reformatters, editors, who could occasionally see old things in new ways but could never add anything truly new.

Carolyn was a sink. Carolyn took the burbling, effervescent beauty of everyone around her and batted it down into ashes.

Her husband, once a shimmering beacon emitting a strange and wonderful light, had died down to a faint ember. Each time he tried to shine he was tamped down, covered up, suffocated. I dreaded the day that I knew was coming, the day when, with a tired and unremarkable silence,

the ember would go out.

---

This is a fragment that I wrote down on a random piece of paper. Now I can finally throw the piece of paper out.

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There are some planets

around other stars

which have one side that always faces

their Sun.

On these planets

one side is always day

and the other side

is always night.


Water

if there is any

slowly evaporates

from the day side

and condenses into ice

on the night side

Until there is no water left.


A cold wind blows

continuously

from Night

to Day.


If you lived on such a planet

you would have to travel

across thousands of miles

and into the countries of darkness

to collect water to drink.


Plants could only be grown

in dawn countries

and dusk countries

using complicated systems of irrigation

and water

purchased

from the Night Countries

in exchange for food.

Perhaps poor people who live in the Night

harvesting ice

have never seen the daylight

Cannot imagine the daylight.

Noon

is a desert

not a time of day

Its inhabitants

Cannot imagine

the night.


http://arxiv.org/pdf/1304.6472v2.pdf

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Chinese 1: Are there big differences between American and French men?
Me: Eh, well... American men are usually a bit bigger.
Chinese 1: Bigger than FRENCH men?? But French men are so big!
Me: Really?
Chinese 1: Well, think about me and [Chinese 2]. [They are about my height, 5'4"] In China we are a normal size for men. In France we are so small... we cannot see in a crowd! If you tried to look for me, I would be lost! You couldn't find me!
Me: What do you think are the big differences between Chinese men and French men?
Chinese 1: Well, Chinese men are much smaller. They are [he makes some body language to represent "meekness"]... they are kind of like women, if you compare them. It seems like Chinese women want a Western man because he is big, can protect them maybe.
Me: And are the Chinese guys like, "Heyyyy!"
Chinese 1: Yeah.
Me: But at least Chinese guys are very polite.
Chinese 1: Maybe......

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