Weaving A Tangled Web

jay_rubes @ 2007-05-20T21:39:00

2007-05-21T05:01:35Z

I've been packing up my apartment tonight, putting books in boxes and clothes in suitcases while I listened to the Yankees try to salvage the rubber game of a three-game set at Shea. I've been sick as a dog the past few days, and the landlord didn't pay the electric bill so they cut the power from Thursday to Saturday. In that time I could barely form a coherent sentence and fortunately drank orange juice so fast that it didn't matter that the fridge didn't work.

But I can breathe and think again, and everything's almost all put away, and some kid 18 months my junior struck out six Mets in six innings. Promise is the word of the day.

jay_rubes @ 2007-05-06T20:00:00

2007-05-07T03:31:30Z

I am due back in California on Thursday. I've been absent four weeks now, and I realize that all I really miss is a bedroom that doesn't smell of industrial-strength disinfectant.

Someday in this space I will write my history of California; what it was and what it wasn't, what it was meant to be, and what it might have been. In the end, I feel like I fled to California with the idea that I would have a certain set of experiences and learn a certain set of lessons; utterly different ones actually materialized. The gap between the expected and the realized is part of the story, and in some cases it is the story, but that's for another time.

For now, I must come to terms with my mistake. I have to find a way to reconcile my feeling of homelessness with the inherent benefit that comes with an odyssey of self-discovery and self-appraisal. The results of our choices don't make them important, the act of making them does. I chose California because I wanted to push myself to do something greater than that which I had been doing. I will get there someday, but on a different path and in a different place.

That, I think, is just as good. Perhaps better.

Political Thoughts, For Once

2007-04-24T05:28:33Z

I have long taken a distinctly hostile position towards the idea that "everything happens for a reason". I just find it impossible to believe that there's a master plan, an overriding logic that drives every decision and event that comes into our lives. I'm much more of a determinist; I think things happen because there's no other way they could have happened. Times make men, men make times, and in the end, the outcome was the way it was because people are the way they are and situations are fundamentally unique.

But that doesn't mean that life isn't fraught with irony and, in a strange way, a certain sense of propriety. And so, in a way, it's fitting that David Halberstam, he who I admired in my youth and who grew into a hero once I could appreciate the magnitude of his accomplishments, died today.

Even before reading the story on the AP wire, Saigon had come frequently in my thoughts these days. It was where all the best minds of a generation went to prove themselves, a universal marker on the resume of every journalist, diplomat, and politico for decades to come. For the young ones, the ones with the most open minds and the least to lose who were too idealistic to know any better, it was also a chance to devote themselves, body and soul, to speaking the truth. What a heady feeling, a sense of purpose, a singular pleasure to get up in the morning it must have been. I envy my mother for the chance to have lived it.

Of course, Halberstam was their idol, their king. He was the one who first wrote the New York Times dispatches in 1962 and 1963 that would win the Pulitzer Prize and get the paper in a tub of hot water. But he was right. He was right before just about anyone else, and he was right in a way so profound that it forever changed the way we look at the things those in power tell us.

Mired in the unforgiving desert this time, instead of southeast Asian bogs, the great Silent Majority gradually stirs, becoming less and less quiet each day. The light at the end of the tunnel keeps getting brighter. I am more optimistic than ever that a very dark period in our history will soon come to a close.

But the question remains, who will be the titanic figures that my children's generation looks upon as the ones who helped put a stop to this madness? Who will be my son's Halberstam? I certainly don't know. But in light of recent events, I'm somewhat inclined to say that he himself did know.

And if he did, I get the sense that he thought, "You don't need me anymore".

jay_rubes @ 2007-04-16T18:37:00

2007-04-17T01:52:32Z

Sturm und drang comes to a close; I sent in a sizeable check to Vanderbilt University on Saturday. I guess that makes me a Commodore-to-be.

I had an attack of nostalgia for Boston during the past week. But ultimately, I realized that Boston would always be there and that I was too young to let one bad year scare me off of adventure forever. And so, now it's off to the former Confederacy.

The picture gets a little clearer.

jay_rubes @ 2007-04-11T21:05:00

2007-04-12T05:13:11Z

I've been flitting about the country visiting old friends and law schools these last few weeks. I've piled up sleep debt and worn myself just about down to the nub. Thinking on airplanes never used to be hard, but now, only sleep will come. And so, engines whining and drink carts clunking down the aisles, I struggle to ponder where I'm going to take the rest of my life.

I'm closer; I suppose that's something. It comes down now to Nasvhille or Boston. Somewhere, in the dark recesses, I had a feeling that would happen. But the real choice is between adventure and comfort. My ill-fated adventure in California has made me a little wary of the new, the untested, the bold maneuver, all the things that drove me to move across the country three times in five years. If the 2001, 2005, or 2006 versions of my brain mulled this decision, I know exactly where I'd be going. But I'm wary of the impulse that got me where I am today, and the people I'd go back to in Boston are incomparable. Should I worry that I'm that easily scared? Should I even be starting these questions with "should"?

Kurt Vonnegut died tonight; he lived through the firebombing of Dresden because he was making vitamin supplements in a basement so that Wehrmacht and SS soldiers could kill a few more Communists before the end. It makes us remember that being in central Wisconsin choosing from one of three degrees to be set for life with shouldn't move anyone to tears. But aside from the obvious count-your-blessings message, there's a lesson for today's topic: lives change on things like that, and less.

Chaos abounds, and nothing is written. I've lived almost 24 years and in two days I'll change whatever time I have left, for better or worse. But part of me, an ever growing part, and probably the part that's right, keeps telling me to quite whining and just write someone a check.

jay_rubes @ 2007-03-20T22:11:00

2007-03-21T05:12:38Z

I went to Nashville and I liked what I saw, much more than I expected to, I think. More than likely it leads the pack at this point. More visits to come, so who knows what will happen between now and mid-April when I’ll have to send someone a $200 check. But those are the early thoughts for now.

I’ve also been in the process of negotiating the financial aid morass the last couple of weeks. It strikes me that the system in place to help law students cough up this exorbitant tuition isn’t really accustomed to dealing with the full-time employed. Because, you know, I have time to transcribe my tax returns online for FAFSA in between conference calls. That’s to say nothing of having time to go bother my parents and ask them things like the current value of their real estate and the make, model, and year of the car they own. Having two retired parents also isn’t something the powers that be built the system to address.

But, as one of my employers is fond of saying, these are high-class problems.

On another note, I went down to LA to see my brother a couple of weeks ago. At the point, this whole business with the US Attorneys was just coming to light. I told him about it and that I thought it would turn into something. He disagreed pretty vehemently. Long story short, I like being right.

jay_rubes @ 2007-02-05T21:43:00

2007-02-06T05:44:22Z

3 years in Boston? Or three years in the mid-South? 3 years in the desert also a possibility.

Not all the options are in, of course. But as the pollsters say, "if the election were held today, ..."

Thoughts are welcome.

jay_rubes @ 2007-01-17T10:12:00

2007-01-17T18:20:13Z

I need to go back to a place with winter. I forgot how cheerfully, exceptionally gorgeous clear, cold winter days are. They cleanse - heart, soul, mind, and body.

In other news, Chicago's still there, and fun, and full of people I love and miss. It's good to know that, above all else, things like that do not change.

By way of other updates, I've finally gone on a real vacation, which is energizing, and I've gotten into law school, which lets me see the future. Oddly enough, I've gotten into two law schools so far, each one within 5 miles of one of my parents. The fates are not without their sense of irony.

I think much upheaval may be due in the next 6 months, which would top off a solid 2-3 years of the same. But upheaval can be a good thing. At my age, I think it necessary. But necessary does nothing to make it easier, so we shall see what develops.

I'll keep you all posted. Wish me luck.

jay_rubes @ 2006-12-28T12:17:00

2006-12-28T19:17:23Z

It's amazing how fast a great holiday can go downhill...

I hope the rest of my life isn't like this...

jay_rubes @ 2006-11-08T01:02:00

2006-11-08T08:02:41Z

For the first time since Al D'Amato reigned the Senate Banking Committee, I've watched a night of election returns without need for drink or tears.

I recall that awful, awful night almost two years ago. There were tears among my cohort then. I stood in the kitchen with a recently emptied shot glass, its contents burning their way towards my stomach and dulling my mind. I looked up to see an old friend holding his own empty glass. We looked at each other and nodded. Ohio was coming in the wrong way, and we were crushed. If only the UAW had been a slightly bigger shell of its former self, if only inner-city Cleveland could have squeezed out a few more votes, if only, if only.

"Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming," I said.

"We're finally on our own." He finished.

Well, we're still on our own. But the way forward is not as dark, and perhaps our boat is a little sturdier. Optimism reigns tonight.

I have a thing to say:

2006-10-29T07:10:04Z

"I believe we are lost here in America, but I believe we shall be found. And this belief, which mounts now to the catharsis of knowledge and conviction, is for me - and I think for all of us - not only our own hope, but America's everlasting, living dream. I think the life we have fashioned in America, and which has fashioned us - the forms we made, the cells that grew, the honeycomb that was created - was self-destructive in its nature, and must be destroyed. I think these forms are dying, and must die, just as I know that America and the people in it are deathless, undiscovered, and immortal, and must live.

"I think the true discovery of America is before us. I think the true fulfillment of our spirit, of our people, of our mighty and and immortal land, is yet to come. I think the true discovery is still before us. And I think that all these things are certain as the morning, as inevitable as noon. I think I speak for most men living when I say that our America is Here, is Now, and beckons on before us, and that this glorious assurance is not only our living hope, but our dream to be accomplished.

"I think the enemy is here before us, too. But I think we know the forms and faces of the enemy, and in the knowledge that we know him, and shall meet him, and eventually must conquer him is also our living hope. I think the enemy is here before us with a thousand faces, but I think we know that all his faces wear one mask. I think the enemy is single selfishness and compulsive greed. I think the enemy is blind, but has the brutal power of his blind grab. I do not think the enemy was born yesterday, or that he grew to manhood forty years ago, or that he suffered sickness and collapse in 1929, or that we began without the enemy, and that our vision faltered, that we lost the way, and suddenly were in his camp. I think the enemy is old as Time, and evil as Hell, and that he has been here with us from the beginning. I think he stole our earth from us, destroyed our wealth, and ravaged and despoiled our land. I think he took our people and enslaved them, that he polluted the fountains of our life, took unto himself the rarest treasures of our own possession, took our bread and left us with a crust, and, not content, for the nature of the enemy is insatiate - tried finally to take from us the crust.

"I think the enemy comes to us with the face of innocence and says to us:

"'I am your friend.'

"I think the enemy deceives us with false words and lying phrases, saying:

"'See, I am one of you - I am one of your children, your son, your brother, and your friend. Behold how sleek and fat I have become - and all because I am just one of you, and your friend. Behold how rich and powerful I am - and all because I am one of you - shaped in your way of life, of thinking, of accomplishment. What I am, I am because I am one of you, your humble brother and your friend. Behold,' cries enemy, 'the man I am, the man I have become, the thing I have accomplished - and reflect. Will you destroy this thing? I assure you that it is the most precious thing you have. It is yourselves, the projection of each of you, the triumph of your individual lives, the thing that is rooted in your blood, and native to your stock, and inherent in the traditions of America. It is the thing that all of you may hope to be,' says Enemy, 'for -' humbly - 'am I not just one of you? Am I not just your brother and your son? Am I not the living image of what each of your may hope to be, would wish to be, would desire for his own son? Would you destroy this glorious incarnation of your own heroic self? If you do, then,' says Enemy, 'you destroy yourselves - you kill the thing that is most gloriously American, and in so killing, kill yourselves.'

"He lies! And now we know he lies! He is not gloriously, or in any other way, ourselves. He is not our friend, our son, our brother. And he is not American! For, although he has a thousand familiar and convenient faces, his own true face is old as Hell.

"Look about you and see what he has done."

-Thomas Wolfe

jay_rubes @ 2006-10-16T22:46:00

2006-10-17T05:53:51Z

I will have more to update soon. But I just wanted to share a few things.

1. I have, of late, been having profound "Is this all there is?" feelings. Maybe I was just meant to be a DA. Comments welcome on this topic.

2. You know what's really funny in retrospect? The fact that Rafael Palmeiro endorsed Viagra. I had a good ten minute unprompted laugh about that when I remembered a few minutes ago.

3. The Tigers are going to mop the floor with the Mets. Good for them. Michiganders need something to distract them from despairing economic sinkhole that is their state. No bitterness here, by the way.

4. Good God, the 49ers are terrible.

That's all for now. More soon.

jay_rubes @ 2006-08-10T19:35:00

2006-08-11T02:37:02Z

Did everyone hear that the terror alert level is red! Red! RED!

OH NO, RED ALERT EVERYONE! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

jay_rubes @ 2006-08-05T16:51:00

2006-08-05T23:55:57Z

I am now licensed to drive in California. That makes 4 different states in less than 7 years. Interesting. I continued the tradition of awful pictures though. In this one I look orange and kind of like I have a lazy eye. It looks like it's my mug shot right before I light up a breathalyzer...

Alas, this one expires while I am still in my third decade, as opposed to my seventh, like the Arizona one did. Oh well, you can't win them all.

Gauntlet coming next week, not particularly looking forward to it. Definitely looking forward to weekend trips starting in a few weeks - one weekend in Tucson, one weekend in New York, and two weekends in Boston.

I feel like doing some heavy thinking tonight.

jay_rubes @ 2006-07-23T23:02:00

2006-07-24T06:03:44Z

I had an interesting realization this afternoon. Another one on a barstool with an old friend. Perhaps that’s a time most conducive to thinking, perhaps it just makes a good story. Whatever the reason, I sat there in the darkened pub with the late afternoon sun on the San Francisco skyline in the distance and I came to a realization. A depressing one, at that, so don’t read too much farther if you’d prefer to steer clear of such things.

At this moment in our civilzation’s history, the sum total of all of our efforts, the inner compass of our collective will, and the loftiest goal that we can think of…is to make sure that everything we see around us keeps expanding at 4% per year. We will, quite literally, beg, borrow, steal, or kill for it. Sometimes all four. And it’s probably not going to be possible for that much longer. Yet we do it.

To quote a man much more learned than I, “’Now you’re supposed to be an educated man…Puzzle me the right answer to that one.”

But my God was it a beautiful night tonight…

jay_rubes @ 2006-07-19T00:21:00

2006-07-19T07:21:58Z

You know it's not the best of evenings when you have to keep saying to yourself in your head, "At least I'm not getting shelled by the Israelis, at least I'm not getting shelled by the Israelis..."

jay_rubes @ 2006-07-11T20:49:00

2006-07-12T03:50:28Z

And, down goes the National League.

jay_rubes @ 2006-07-09T22:42:00

2006-07-10T05:44:33Z

You know, all in all, this was a rather good week - for a variety of reasons, not just because I entered my 24th year.

Now all I have to do is not get fired this week or next, and things will be OK...

jay_rubes @ 2006-07-04T22:00:00

2006-07-05T05:08:52Z

So on this day, this momentous day, this anniversary of our independence, this day which signifies not just the birth of a nation but the conviction that those words in philosophers' works and in the pamphlets of coffeehouses in London and Boston were more than intellectual fancy but rather something that men could build if they tried hard enough, on this day...

On this day, not a single one of the hundreds of channels that Comcast pumps into my living room television for $80/month is showing "1776".

Instead, I got to watch "Air Force One", starring Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, and Glenn Close. "Get off my plane!"

jay_rubes @ 2006-06-29T16:15:00

2006-06-29T23:16:32Z

Approximate transcript from the three girls in row 37 of a Northwest Airlines Flight from San Francisco (SFO) to Detroit (DTW), on June 28, 2006.

Girl #1: Oh my God, where are we going again?
Girl #2: We’re going to Detroit
Girl #1: Where’s Detroit?
Girl #3: Michigan
Girl #1: No, it’s not. Is it really?
Girl #3: I’m pretty sure it is.
Girl #1: No, isn’t Detroit in New York?
Girl #2: No, I don’t think so
Girl #1: Well then what’s the big city in New York?
Girls #2&3: You mean New York City?
Girl #1: No, the other one, Manhattan or whatever it is.
Girl #3: Oh, you mean Boston!
Girl #1: Yeah! That’s it, Boston, New York.
Girl #2: Boston isn’t in New York, it’s in that other one…ummm…
Girl #3: Well if it’s not in New York, where is it?
Girl #2: Massachusetts! That’s it, Boston, Massachusetts.
Girls #1&3: Boston, Massachusetts (giggles).

Girl #2: Is Detroit Gangster?
(Note: For some reason, the pronunciation of “gangsta” was with a distinct emphasis on a nonexistent “r”)
Girl #3: No, Atlanta’s the one that’s Gangster.
(Notice the pronunciation continues to be the same)
Girl #1: I’m pretty sure Detroit’s Gangster too.

Ugh.

jay_rubes @ 2006-06-19T22:42:00

2006-06-20T06:01:40Z

I'm starting to remember why I wish I'd written more over the past 2, 3, even 4 years - when you have something down, something in words, you can always go back to it, you can sit there and see the way you put the sentence together and remember exactly why it was that word and why the comma was there, what feeling you were trying to express without resorting to the awkward windmill gesture that so often accompanies conversation. And so much has happened since then, things I will wish I could always remember and things I'd rather forget. But writing makes it real, and writing makes it permanent.

There was a time when I knew as much, when I knew that I wanted to make sure I never lost track of who I was then. The result is that I have a much clearer picture of myself at 17 than I do at 20 or 21.

I have of late been thinking a lot about heavy things, about meanings and purpose. Which is incredibly hard in this city where everything's gorgeous all of the time and it's easy to believe you've landed in paradise. I've thought both about the world changing around me and me changing in it - that both must have happened along the way. Yet I don't quite feel it. In a startling, mind-boggling way, I still feel like a middle schooler, and this is still the San Francisco of 1995 or 1996. Perhaps that is my greatest failing, being so obtuse that I can't see the world around me for what it is. Or maybe it's my strength, being able to adapt to whatever comes without blinking.

I will have to learn to write more. Again.

PS - I had the idea earlier tonight that I should write a novel...

jay_rubes @ 2006-06-19T08:54:00

2006-06-19T15:55:44Z

Someday soon I will update this thing with all of the goings on of the past 4 months. All of my contemplations and introspections and all of the half-finished pieces sitting on my hard drive.

But right now I am so frustrated I could scream.

No subject--subjects are overrated

2005-07-02T04:19:32Z

So here I am in Williamsburg, it's midnight, and I'm waiting for American Airlines to deliver my lost bag. Really, standing in the Norfolk Airport just past midnight on the first day of July and watching the baggage claim carousel slowly grind to a halt while your bag of clean underwear is NOT on it is kind of disheartening. Oh well, I'm taking it in stride. Though I won't stay that way if the damn thing doesn't get here tomorrow. I leave at dawn on Sunday morning. Then it's two days of assembling furniture and taking care of crap in Boston, followed by my first day of work.

Wow.

I should update some on the post-graduation events. First off, graduation looked to be unbearably stressful, especially since my mother seemed to be going berserk right before hand. But it all came off without a hitch. Plus there are some really great Senior Week stories. Including the following exchange:

Me: Dude, you're really drunk, drink some water.
Anonymous Drunk Friend: I don't want any fucking water!
Me: OK, fine, drink this vodka tonic then.
ADF: OK.
(pause)
ADF: This is really shitty vodka!
Me: Shut up [ADF]! Do you want to see boobies?!?
ADF: (nods)
Me: OK, then drink the fucking vodka tonic!
ADF: OK.

And something about Albert Pujols being the best shortstop in the National League. And Chris crawling into my bed at 9:30 in the morning minutes after responding to the question, "Are you still drunk?" with the answer, "Nooooooooooooooooo" and some violent head-shaking.

Drove all the way from Chicago to Rye in one day with Katie and Ian, and saw some of the old High School crew. Moved into my new place in Somerville (which is SWEET, by the way), another round of hanging out with the old high school crew, some drinking with Ian, Seamus, & co. in Cambridge, a visit to Boston historical sights and baseball venues with Chris, and on and on.

It's been quite the whirlwind these past few weeks. I intended to post something longer about my feelings about the whole thing, but it's late, and I'm tired, and I have to call AA and find out why the hell my bag isn't here, and I want to talk to Katie too. I guess the longer one will have to wait. Till then.

jay_rubes @ 2005-06-11T00:39:00

2005-06-11T05:35:04Z

I think one of the most insidious things that Hollywood does to people is that it makes it look like anything meaningful has a definitive ending. You know what I mean--the camera fades out, the orchestra or the sappy down-tempo pop song come in gradually, and the credits roll. To some extent, I think I'm expecting that to happen sometime soon.

But it won't. Nothing's that clean or neatly packaged. But wouldn't it be great anyway?

jay_rubes @ 2005-06-06T13:58:00

2005-06-06T19:02:30Z

I'm going through my room, packing stuff up a little bit, but mostly throwing things away. I'm finding all these papers from summers past--letters, cards, pictures, ticket stubs, the like--and I'm struck with another of my feelings of melancholy and sadness. It feels so wrenching to be leaving. Not so much because I will miss the people I've met here, although I will. But you can always call up old friends, and for just a little while you can imagine that life is still the same as it was.

No, the problem I'm having looking at all these papers is that they can only remind me of the person I was and am no longer. A birthday card from Ann Medine, and now I realize I won't ever get another from her. A series of postcards and letters from Nora addressed to Chris' apartment on Ingleside when I lived in it that summer, that summer when I don't think I could have been further from the real world if I'd tried.

There is a part of me that wishes I could be that person again, and part of me that wants to live it all over again. I can only wish that Thomas Wolfe hadn't been so bloody right. You can't go home again, after all.